Muslims complain they're frivolous bills meant to spread fears and sow suspicion of their religion in a nation divided.

But supporters of state proposals, including one in Montana, to prevent Islamic code from being used in American courts argue they aren't overtly anti-Muslim and are needed to safeguard constitutional rights for average Americans.

The bills, variations of which have been around for years, don't specifically seek to ban Islamic law, known as Sharia, even though some lawmakers concede that's their intent.

Instead, the proposals broadly call for banning the application of any foreign law, legal code or legal system that doesn't grant the same rights and privileges as the state or U.S. constitutions.

"I believe very strongly in the values of America to allow for religious freedom," said Connecticut state Rep. Robert Sampson, a Republican sponsor of a bill. "I just don't want our court system to start using what is religious law from other countries to make decisions. I'd like to preserve our way of life."

Muslim leaders say the bills are among a range of proposals and decisions at all levels of government that they're gearing up to fight this year, from President Donald Trump's travel ban to local planning and zoning rulings against mosque projects.

"These are thinly veiled attempts to alienate Muslims in America," said Hazem Bata, of The Islamic Society of North America, based in Indiana, where once such "anti-Sharia" bill has been introduced.

The bills have been introduced in at least 13 states, a number that will likely grow as the legislative year progresses, said Jonathan Griffin, of the National Conference of State Legislatures, who has been tracking the proposals. Anywhere from 15 to 30 states see the proposal introduced in a given year, he said. Ten states already have some version of them on the books since they started cropping up around 2010.

While many of this year's bills likely won't become law, they're gaining traction early in Montana and Arkansas, where the legislatures are poised to approve bills and send them to the governors this month.

Supporters point to a 2014 report by the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think tank whose critics deride as anti-Muslim, that cites nearly 150 cases in which it says Sharia played a role.

The cases, some of which date to the late 1970s, mostly involve divorce, child custody and other family law proceedings where either the plaintiff or defendants invoked Islamic laws and customs to make their case.

"Sharia should be very concerning to all of us," said state Rep. Heidi Sampson, a Maine Republican who has proposed legislation. "It is a way of life and a legal code which is designed to impinge on culture, family life, marriage, equality of the sexes  a whole host of areas."

Sampson and other lawmakers say a 2010 New Jersey case highlighted prominently in the report is particularly troubling.

A Muslim woman accused her husband of sexual abuse and sought a restraining order in 2009, but the judge denied the request after the husband argued, in part, that a wife must comply with her husband's sexual demands in Islamic custom. An appeals court ultimately overturned the ruling.

But Will Smiley, an editor at the Harvard Law School's SHARIAsource, an online collection of academic writings on Islamic law, is skeptical the bills proposed by lawmakers would have made a difference in the initial ruling.

"These new laws don't provide any new safeguards," Smiley said. "Courts can still make mistakes, like most observers agree that New Jersey court did."

Many of the other cases cited in the center's report don't appear to show evidence that U.S. courts based decisions on Sharia or other foreign codes, said Jay Wexler, a professor at Boston University's School of Law who specializes in separation of church and state issues.

"The facts of a case might require a court to consider in some way a foreign custom or law," he said. "But that does not mean that the court is applying foreign law."

Opponents maintain the bills as proposed don't serve any practical purpose.

"The U.S. legal code already states that American courts can only adhere to American laws," said John Robbins, executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "It's a stupid solution to a nonexistent problem."

Supporters stress the proposals would impact all religious codes and foreign laws equally.

If parts of Jewish, Christian or other laws ran counter to fundamental constitutional rights, they too would not be applicable in U.S. courts, said Montana state Sen. Keith Regier, a Republican.

"They're saying it's hateful, and I have no idea where they're getting that from," he said of opponents. "Read the bill and tell me what is hateful or distasteful in there."
At 8.40am on Tuesday, just minutes after Julie Bishop had publicly backed a China extradition treaty and walked into a meeting of the leadership group, Bill Shorten rang Malcolm Turnbull.

The opposition would not back ratification of the treaty; China would not be added as "an extradition country" under the Extradition Act.

Ten minutes later, Mr Turnbull called Mr Shorten back. Without Labor, the treaty could not be ratified. Instead, he would pull it from Parliament.

Two phone calls and 10 minutes decided it.
Nikki Haley marched in on her first day as Donald Trump's ambassador to the United Nations with a blunt warning to the world: "For those who don't have our backs, we're taking names."

Australia has now gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure its name stays off Trump's naughty list.

With negotiations for a new treaty to outlaw nuclear weapons kicking off on Monday (New York time), Haley called an extraordinary press conference outside the UN to declare the US opposition to the talks.

And there, at her heels, was Australia.
London: An unrepentant Daily Mail is standing by its front-page focused on the legs of two of Britain's two most powerful women, Prime Minister Theresa May and Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, saying critics, including the "po-faced BBC" need to "get a life."

The British tabloid's Tuesday front page was widely condemned as an example of sexism that prominent women in public life face. It's first edition featured a photo of Mrs May and Ms Sturgeon meeting in Glasgow on Monday while both wearing skirts, with the headline "Never mind Brexit, who won Legs-it?"

The later edition featured an additional line "Sarah Vine's light-hearted verdict on the big showdown."

Vine wrote in her column, that the suits worn by both women shows that "there is no doubt that both women consider their pins to be the finest weapon in their physical arsenal."
Was this Inauguration dance proof their marriage is on the rocks? Of course! Credit:Bloomberg "Melania Trump is as ugly on the inside as she is pretty on the outside" was how Dan Savage, the sex columnist and gay activist, put it in a recent podcast. He flayed "folks on the left" who "view her as some sort of sympathetic figure - the pretty princess in the tower locked up by the orange ogre with the bad comb-over." The hashtag #FreeMelania is now a pillar of Twitter-speak, while questions about the Trumps' marriage inspire headlines such as "Melania's Struggle," an Us Weekly yarn that claimed the first lady is "secretly miserable." The article included an interview with a "family friend" who later acknowledged that his insights may be compromised by not having spoken to her in several years. Melania Trump on the cover of February's Vanity Fair Mexico. Credit:Vanity Fair Mexico Her handful of appearances have yielded few clues, her smile fixed whether attending her husband's address to Congress, greeting the Netanyahus at the White House, or popping up at a Republican fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend while the president remained in Washington.

Only her couture appears to change - a black Ralph Lauren dress one day, a red Givenchy on another. Among the rare moments the first lady has spoken publicly was while reading Dr. Seuss's Oh the Places You'll Go! this month to children at a Manhattan hospital, her Slovenian accent as obvious as her large diamond ring and sky-high stilettos. "You'll be as famous as famous can be, with the whole world watching you win on TV," she recited from the book. She smiled and seemed receptive when Tara McKelvey, a BBC reporter, approached with a question. "But the aides came in and swooped her away and had her pose for a picture," McKelvey said. "She wanted to answer. She was trying to answer." A few days later, Melania hosted a White House luncheon to celebrate International Women's Day, at the start of which guests stood and applauded after someone with an appropriately hushed voice announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, the first lady of the United States."

Melania Trump entered the room, strode to the rostrum, smiled and said, "Your excellencies, esteemed represent - " Whatever she said next was unknown beyond the dining room because White House aides ordered the media pool to exit. Karen LeFrak, a friend who attended the White House event, wrote in an email that Melania Trump "didn't do the lunch for publicity" and she "does not seek attention." Describing her friend's adjustment, LeFrak said she is "carving out an important role to support women and children" and "redecorating their residence in the White House," where she will move after Barron completes the school year. "Mrs. Trump is enjoying her life and new role," wrote LeFrak, the wife of developer Richard LeFrak, a longtime friend of the president. As for the Trumps' marriage, LeFrak wrote that "they are very happy! Their relationship is great." "All these rabid rumours about her and their relationship are laughable and fictional," she wrote.

The first lady has yet to hire her own spokesman. Deputy White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Saturday that the first lady anticipates "a very busy upcoming week in D.C.," and "will be joining the president soon." She remains "focused on Barron as he finishes the school year," Grisham noted. Louise Sunshine, a former Trump Organisation executive, has spoken with the first lady a half-dozen times since the election. She described her as "circumspect" and "very composed and very reserved" as she absorbs her new duties and learns to deal with the president and his advisers, a circle Sunshine compared to a "den of wolves". "There are a lot of forces there competing for attention," Sunshine said. "She's trying to assess the best way and the best place for her as the first lady and as the wife of a very impulsive, compulsive, erratic president. Let's say erratic, accomplished president." "She doesn't gossip, she doesn't tell anyone her innermost thoughts, she's not that trusting," Sunshine said. "She does things with a great deal of forethought. She's totally different than Donald, which is the good news. She thinks things over and says things in a thoughtful manner." Her task is all the more complex, she said, because the president is the perpetual star of his own one-man show.

"He dances alone," Sunshine said. "He's not into the tango." An exception to that rule occurred a month after the inauguration, when the president and the first lady shared a stage. She introduced her husband at a Florida rally, removing her sunglasses as she stepped to the microphone and, apropos of nothing, defended herself against unspecified attacks. "I will always stay true to myself and be truthful to you," the first lady promised, "no matter what the opposition is saying about me." It was eight days before she emerged again, hosting a black-tie dinner at the White House for the nation's governors, an event she said she hoped would be a respite from "political labels and partisan interests." Her husband had others ideas, tweeting before salad was served: "Big dinner with Governors tonight at White House. Much to be discussed, including healthcare."

On a Monday, Barron Trump's Secret Service detail picked him up from school on the Upper West Side and delivered him to the Fifth Avenue tower his father made famous. Ivanka Trump's jewellery line is on display in the lobby. Visitors can find books, coffee mugs and after-shave lotion bearing the name and visage of the 45th president. The first lady is invisible. Neither her face nor her name appear on any T-shirt, shampoo bottle or refrigerator magnet. Nor can she be found at the Trump Bar or the Trump Grill, an absence that's fine by Georgianne Crager and Cherryl Nance, two pals in fur coats visiting from Mississippi. "You don't see her skinning and grinning for photo ops because she's a mother first," said Crager, 61, a nurse. "An amazing woman! I don't understand why the liberals pick on her." Her friend nodded.

"Have you heard the saying, 'The dog that caught the car?' Looks to me like she got run over," Crager said. "I feel sorry that she lost her freedom. But I admire that she said, 'I'm staying right here.'" Hillary Clinton did not remain in Arkansas with Chelsea, then 12, when her husband decamped for Washington. Instead, she settled into a West Wing office, immersed herself in health-care restructuring, and inspired the American Bar Association to host a debate about whether she held too much power. After her husband became president, Michelle Obama, while caring for their two young daughters, spent her first weeks awash in plaudits as she toured federal agencies, read to schoolchildren and landed on the cover of Vogue. Melania Trump has made a far different impression. Soon after the election, she announced that she would remain in New York until June, a decision that prompted questions about her fondness for her thrice-married husband, whose profane, sexist banter had roiled his campaign. Although Melania has popped up here and there, her absences have unsettled purists who cite Jacqueline Kennedy and Nancy Reagan as beacons of stand-by-your-president rectitude.

"This is an important tradition and part of the pomp and parade that is this country," said Robert Watson, a Lynn University professor who has studied first families. "This is bigger than Melania and Barron and bigger than The Donald." Yet Melania Trump's approach may be an opportunity to "retire an anachronistic role," said Katherine Jellison, an Ohio University history professor. "It's about being the wife of a high-profile man, and inadvertently she may be disassembling the role. "The signal I'm getting is she doesn't want to be first lady," Jellison said. "This is not just low-profile, but no profile." --- Before she became Mrs. Trump, Melania Knauss was a model whose high cheekbones and piercing blue eyes hijacked stylist Phillip Bloch's attention when she walked into a Manhattan fashion show.

"I remember thinking, wow, she's beautiful, she'll be a star," he recalled. She also exuded aloofness, and her visibility on New York's fashion circuit - never great - grew more infrequent after Barron's birth. Over the years, Melania Trump's Facebook posts have suggested solitude. Her photos are often devoid of people and shot through glass, either a car window or from her apartment, as if her perspective is from inside a luxurious fishbowl. "Summer rain in NYC," she captioned a photo of a water-pocked window overlooking Central Park. "Driving between skyscrapers" was her title for a photo from beneath soaring glass towers and billowing clouds. "Bye! I'm off to my #summer residence," she announced in a rare selfie from a bathroom. Unsmiling, her eyes are concealed behind oversized black sunglasses. A gold-tinted mirror behind her reflects a toilet.

Anthony Senecal, the Trumps' former butler at Mar-a-Lago, occasionally drove Melania on West Palm Beach, Florida, shopping trips to boutiques and the Whole Foods supermarket. He said she could be personable in ways the public rarely sees. Once, when she was alone at Mar-a-Lago, he said, she urged him to take time off to visit his dying sister. "She said, 'Tony, there isn't anything I can't get here - people will bring anything I ask for, you go be with your sister,'" he recalled. "She said, 'From now on, when I'm here, consider me taken care of.'" But she added: "When Donald's here, you'll have to stay." Melania's warmth, he said, is often masked by a restrained veneer. "She just adapts, period," he said. "You don't know if she likes it or doesn't like it. 'This is his job and this is my job to support my husband.' " Twelve days after President Trump's inauguration, after she had returned to New York, Jae Donnelly, a freelance photographer, snapped a picture of the first lady and Barron entering a dentist's office near Trump Tower.

Donnelly wouldn't reveal how he knew her destination, but within hours the photo was on the Daily Mail's website and circulating on the internet, with a headline about her running "errands". Donnelly no longer pursues her. "The opportunities are so few," he said, "and you could be waiting for days upon days." Downtown, as they hunted for celebrities in Soho in mid-March, Miles Diggs and his partner, Cesar Pena, tallied up a day's work: They shot Malia Obama as she walked into a Tribeca office building, Robert DeNiro as he left a restaurant, and the actor Michael Colteras he bought odor-eaters at a Duane Reed drugstore. They stopped trying to get the first lady last fall after striking out at Barron's school. But, in their self-interested view, they think that she could help endear herself to the public with an unscripted foray every now and then. "A photo of her coming out of Barneys with a bunch of shopping bags," Diggs said, envisaging the headline: "First Lady Shops Till She Drops."

"Can you imagine how that would sell?" he asked. Yet it's uncertain whether Melania Trump wants anyone to see beyond her practiced smile. On the night before the swearing in, she joined her husband at the Lincoln Memorial for a concert. In a backstage tent beforehand, the president-elect bantered for 20 minutes with his advisers, a campaign volunteer who had travelled to Washington for the festivities, and a reporter. Loading All the while, the first lady sat in a folding chair alongside her husband, as still and silent as a mannequin, as if oblivious to the chatter around her.
A stroke charity accused of frightening people into having potentially unnecessary scans of their arteries is being investigated by the Commonwealth's Chief Medical Officer.

After Fairfax Media revealed concerns that Strokecheck was targeting people without symptoms of disease and billing Medicare for controversial tests, Health Minister Greg Hunt said he had asked Professor Brendan Murphy to look into doctors' fears about the group.

Strokecheck has been approaching retirement villages with its controversial scans. Credit:Peter Braig

Mr Hunt said if "something's unnecessary, or something's not up to standard, then we'll take real action and do it urgently".

Professor Murphy said the health department does not support ultrasound screening of patients without symptoms of narrowed arteries, a condition that puts people at risk of stroke.
Australia's decision to ban the use of nicotine in electronic cigarettes has been condemned as "flawed and unethical" by a group of doctors and health experts.

Last Friday the Therapeutic Goods Administration made its final decision to uphold the ban, citing evidence that e-cigarette use caused nicotine addiction and could lead to teenagers becoming hooked on tobacco.

The TGA has upheld its decision to ban the use of nicotine in electronic cigarettes.

A group of 16 doctors, academics and public health advocates had tried to reverse the decision, campaigning on grounds that e-cigarettes were a useful tool to help smokers quit.

"It is unethical and unscientific to exempt nicotine in tobacco products and to deny smokers access to a much safer alternative," the group wrote in a submission to the TGA last February.
A year of investigation by a human rights advocate and a Brisbane journalist may lead to the freedom of a man who has spent over a quarter of a century behind bars.

A podcast titled Curtain, by Martin Hodgson and Rockhampton-born journalist Amy McQuire, has shed new light on a case of a man whose innocence has become part of Rockhampton folklore in the years since his incarceration.

Kevin Henry, then 21, is led away by guards during his 1992 murder trial. Credit:Curtain the Podcast

Woorabinda man Kevin Allen Henry was handed a life sentence for the murder of a 36-year-old woman named Linda (last name omitted for cultural reasons) at the Fitzroy River in 1991, despite three women also being charged with the same offence under different circumstances.

Mr Hodgson has uncovered new evidence, including a witness statement found in the files of the Aboriginal Legal Service, he says shows Henry could not have committed the crime and is pushing for an official pardon from the Queensland Governor.
Sydney homeowners face average annual bills as high as $471 under a new system for funding the state's fire and emergency services, an analysis suggests.

The figure, based on an analysis by the NSW fire fighters' union, is 2 times the $185 average touted by the state government when it unveiled the reform earlier this month.

The analysis reveals homeowners in North Sydney, Mosman and the northern beaches face paying the higher average levy as they prepare to vote in the North Shore and Manly by-elections on April 8.

Treasurer Dominic Perrottet has introduced legislation to Parliament that shifts the bulk of the funding of the $950 million annual fire and emergency services budget from a tax on insurance contracts to a levy on all NSW land from July 1.
An 82-year-old farmer who was convicted of murdering a NSW environment officer during a dispute over illegal land clearing has died in custody in Sydney.

Ian Turnbull, who had been serving a maximum 35-year jail term at Long Bay Correctional Complex for the shooting murder of 51-year-old Glen Turner, died in Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick on Monday.

A Corrective Services spokeswoman confirmed the inmate died after being taken to hospital by ambulance on March 20. He was suffering a terminal illness, the spokeswoman said.

He is also understood to have suffered a heart attack while in custody.
Fire crews brought a blaze under control on Tuesday afternoon at Brisbane's iconic XXXX brewery at Milton.

A Queensland Fire and Emergency Services statement was issued later stating the fire had been contained and all people accounted for.

Fire crews have been called to Milton's XXXX Brewery. Credit:Gabi Harris

A spokesman said 10 crews - more than 40 firefighters - had attended shortly after 5.05pm, with reports of thick black smoke billowing from the building.

Roads remained closed for some time around the area while crews worked on the fire.
1. Cyclone Debbie appeal already up and running Cyclone Debbie is heading for Bowen. Here's how you can help this morning. Juliette Wright's GIVIT, which also happens to be managed by my wife Nikki, is partnering with the state government to manage all offers of donated goods and services. You can donate cash now or check the GIVIT website in coming days to see what is needed. The key message from Juliette yesterday was don't send unsolicited items. You might feel good about putting clothes and care packages on a truck but it's better to donate cash that can be spent locally. It supports the local economy and prevents the warehousing of unwanted donations.

2. Queensland mum dies after 27 vodkas

In other news this morning, a Queensland woman holidaying in Bali has died after consuming 27 glasses of vodka. The Courier-Mail quotes a family friend who says the 28-year-old mother of five was not a heavy drinker. It's believed she was on a "girls' holiday" with her sister and a friend.



3. Hanson backflips on penalty rates

Pauline Hanson has taken to Facebook to announce she's changed her mind on weekend penalty rates. She says One Nation will no longer support the Fair Work Commission's ruling to slash weekend rates for hospitality and retail workers. The Australian reports Senator Hanson reversed her position after experiencing a backlash from supporters.



4. MPs debating whether $180k per year makes you rich

Are you rich if you're on $180,000 a year? Back in 2014, the federal government applied a temporary 2 per cent tax on anyone earning over $180,000. It's meant to disappear on July 1 but Labor says removing the so-called "deficit levy" is green-lighting a tax cut for millionaires . To put it in perspective, the average income in Australia is $80,000 but the median (less skewed by a small number of very high earners) is $50,000.

5. Study finds we prefer the left side of our face

A study has found we prefer to show our left side in selfies. I'm a right-hand selfie-taker myself. As someone who's right-hand-dominant, I can't see why you would stretch out your weak arm just to take a photo on the left. But this article suggests it's quite deliberate and that there's a long history of putting the left cheek forward, going back to da Vinci's Mona Lisa . Go on, open the camera app. You know you want to.

Also catching my eye ...

How was your commute this morning? Not so flash if you were coming in on the Warrego Highway through Dinmore, where a crash caused significant delays. Generally speaking, do you think you'd be happier if you were able to move faster in the traffic? You would assume that to be the case, but a study in the United States has found it's the complete opposite. Apparently cities with slower traffic have happier drivers.



Back to Cyclone Debbie for a moment. John Birmingham has likened those coastal residents who refuse to evacuate, insisting on staring down the category 4 system, to climate-change deniers. He says "we love these idiots" and we "urge them on from the cheap seats". But, says Birmo, we are "even bigger morons" if we let every doomed gesture of defiance go viral.
The small town of Collinsville is bracing for their first category 2 cyclone having been told there is no time to move as the storm tracks right for them.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told ABC News she was concerned about the 1500 residents living in Collinsville.

Her comments about the town came as she slammed the actions of individuals who has been spotted driving and surfing in some areas during the cyclone.

"I cannot believe this sort of behaviour," Ms Palaszczuk said.
A Liberal National Party official has claimed he would have been a member of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party if he lived in the 1930s.

Kurt Tucker, the president of the University of Queensland's Liberal National Club, and an undergraduate representative on the university's academic board, said he would have joined the party, which oversaw the genocide of 6 million Jews.

UQ Liberal National Club president Kurt Tucker said he would have been a member of the Nazi party in the 1930s. He has since apologised. Credit:Danielle Cronin

"I openly accept I would be a Nazi Party member if this was 30's Germany, despite obviously opposing a lot of their core ideology," Mr Tucker wrote on a UQ students Facebook page.

"I'm political, and to succeed in politics, public service, military, or even industry you had to be a NSDAP [National Socialist German Workers' Party] member.
Australian broadcasters can't even rely on the Baby Boomers to prop up the numbers as traditional television continues to bleed viewers.

The television remains by far the most-watched screen in our homes and we're watching an average of 2 hours and 39 minutes of broadcast television each day, according to the latest Australian Multi-Screen Report for Q4 2016. This still dwarfs the amount of time we spend watching alternatives like Netflix, but when you scratch beneath the surface the report paints a grim picture for the future of Australia's traditional broadcasters.

Australian families are no longer fighting it out for a spot on the couch, as we look for entertainment elsewhere.

Back in October, I crunched the Q2 2016 numbers and found that while average broadcast viewing hours per month had only declined by 2.9% over the previous 12 months, it was only the 50+ demographic which was stopping viewing figures plunging into total free fall.

When you looked at people under 35, the next generation of seniors, viewing figures had dropped around 10 percent in only 12 months  which didn't bode well for the future. You can't assume that a generation which has grown up with Netflix will suddenly flock back to traditional broadcasting when they hit retirement age.
When Andrew ran away from his Camberwell home on Monday, he left a long note on the kitchen table, grabbed his myki and backpack, and headed to the train station.

His parents were beside themselves. "He's very upset with himself, and that's why he's taken off. We just want him to know it's OK, he's not in any trouble, just to come home," his mother, Cindy, said at a press conference that afternoon.

Andrew talks to Protective Services Officers at Melbourne Central station. Credit:Rebecca Ainslie

The family said the 11-year-old was feeling ashamed after being caught handing his friends treats while he was on duty at his school canteen.

Andrew left home about 8.30am Monday, and was found by Protective Services Officers outside McDonald's at Melbourne Central train station less than 12 hours later, at 7.30pm.
An image showing the proposed height and scale, created by the Stop Sorrento High Rise group. The community acknowledged a need for redevelopment but rejected the bulk and scale of the plan, and in response the City of Joondalup council recommended the WAPC limit the developments to four storeys, a modest increase over the height limits its own planners decided on just a year ago. The developers, through a spokeswoman of ABN Group-owned Parcel Property, issued a statement "urging" the WAPC to approve its plan because "the development was not viable at less than six storeys" due to high costs, and threatening that if the WAPC sided with the council the owners would not redevelop the site at all. Hot on the heels of this in Meltham, a group of developers including Pindan have engaged consultants to prepare a draft Meltham Station Precinct Structure Plan, allowing developments in the area of three to six storeys. Why has your state government allowed a property developer to take over the town planning for your community? City of Bayswater resident Greg Smith

The plan attracted immediate controversy. One resident's group welcomed it, while another attacked it on grounds common to many planning battles  local identity, traffic and parking, building heights, a lack of public open space and tree loss. A protest vehicle seen frequently in the area in recent weeks bears a sign saying "Yes! To progress and increased density. No! To six-storey cliff face apartments," while an online petition has circulated against the plan. Outspoken local resident Greg Smith is a town planner by trade who campaigned unsuccessfully for the seat of Maylands in the recent election on a platform against state planning bodies including the WAPC, which he collectively referred to as a "machine that favours development over amenity". He wrote a blog post condemning the plan, urging locals to ask, "why has your state government allowed a property developer to take over the town planning for your community?" In response to the intense public interest, Bayswater council asked the WAPC to extend community consultation time by one month, but the WAPC refused.

After a letter to the Director of the WAPC the council got an extension, albeit for only two weeks, prompting Cr Bull to ask in his own blog post, "What is the rush?" Residents have shown intense interest, with one even creating a 3D model of the implications for the area to allow neighbours to gain perspective. Credit:Brandon Hendroff Already a vocal critic of the Development Assessment Panel system, another mechanism that has stripped planning responsibility from councils, Cr Bull said the power granted developers beyond the boundaries of their own land took the community by surprise. He said the councils' role in this process rendered it less of a planning agency for its own area and more a part of state government bureaucracy with its job being restricted only to analysing public submissions. He questioned whether companies that were not subject to democratic process should be able to shape the amenity of Perth neighbourhoods.

"A company must act in the best interests of its shareholders; a council for its local residents. I don't begrudge a developer for trying to deliver for its shareholders ... but I don't necessarily think that results in good outcomes for a local community," he said. He said the WAPC "effectively ignored" the City's recent recommendation regarding a buffer zone for a development near the local 'Carter's Wetland', and so he had little confidence in the power of a council resolution to sway the Commission. "I don't know what the council's resolution on this structure plan will be, but it is vitally important that the WAPC gives due consideration to the outcome of that decision," he said. Protest signs at a Meltham shopfront. He did not think that a developer's threat about project viability, as happened in the case of Sorrento, should sway the WAPC's decisions.

"That is asking the WAPC to make a decision based on economic grounds, based on the likely return to a shareholder. That's not a valid planning concern," he said. The comments place this reform alongside other aspects of the planning process given bad press by the local government sector in recent years. These include the 2011 Development Assessment Panel reform, which removed council planning power over larger developments and gave the balance of power to development industry representatives. They also include the system allowing developers, but not councils, to appeal planning decisions through the State Administrative Tribunal. The level of anger in the sector and the community led Labor to indicate it would announce a position on the DAP issue before the election, but no announcement was made during the campaign.

"The whole regime of state planning needs review and reform," Cr Bull said. "The number of resident groups to emerge in the past few years as a consequence of the current regime means any government, whatever side of politics they are from, needs to revisit this. "I can understand the state wanted to create a situation where the landscape becomes easier for developers to achieve outcomes they want. There have been logjams in the past. "There comes a point where additional planning expertise is needed. But the pendulum has swung too far and needs to be recalibrated." WAPC Chairman Eric Lumsden said the body considered applications on their individual planning merits in accordance with the law.
Cape Town: Veteran South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, who was sentenced to life imprisonment alongside Nelson Mandela and went on to be an open critic of President Jacob Zuma, died on Tuesday aged 87.

Affectionately known as "Uncle Kathy", the liberation struggle stalwart who spent 26-years in prison under the apartheid government, was hospitalised in Johannesburg this month after surgery to relieve blood clotting on the brain.

Ahmed Kathrada speaking during the funeral service for the former South African president Nelson Mandela in 2015. Credit:AP

Mr Kathrada's foundation said his condition had deteriorated rapidly with pneumonia affecting both lungs. It announced his death at 6am local time.

President Jacob Zuma said Mr Kathrada would be honoured at an official state funeral and flags at government offices would fly at half-mast until then.
The 5300-year-old mummy known as Otzi the Iceman. There are a few mummies in the world as old as Otzi, but none so well preserved. Most were ritually prepared, which usually meant removal of internal organs, preservation with chemicals or exposure to destructive desert conditions. The glacier not only froze Otzi where he had died, but the high humidity of the ice also kept his organs and skin largely intact. "Imagine, we know the stomach contents of a person 5000 years ago," Horn said. "In a lot of cases we are not able to do that even now." Those contents, as it turned out, were critical in determining with surprising precision what happened to Otzi and even helped shed light on the possible motive of his killer.

The more scientists learn, the more recognisable the Iceman becomes. He was 167 centimetres tall (about average height for his time), weighed 50 kilograms, had brown eyes and shoulder-length, dark brown hair, and a size 7 foot. He was about 45, give or take six years, respectably old for the late Neolithic age - but still in his prime. Otzi had the physique of a man who did a lot of strenuous walking but little upper-body work; there was hardly any fat on his body. He had all of his teeth, and between his two upper front teeth was a three-millimetre gap, an inherited condition known as diastema, which Madonna and Elton John also have. When viewed through the window of the museum's freezer, where he is kept now, his hands not only appear unusually small, but they also show little sign of hard use, suggesting that Otzi was no manual labourer. Every modern murder investigation relies heavily on forensic science, but in Otzi's case, the techniques have been particularly high tech, involving exotic specialties such as archaeobotany and paleometallurgy. From examining traces of pollen in his digestive tract, scientists were able to place the date of Otzi's death at sometime in late spring or early summer. In his last two days, he consumed three distinct meals and walked from an elevation of about 1900 metres, down to the valley floor and then up into the mountains again, where he was found at the crime site, 3200 metres up.

On his body was one prominent wound, other than the one from the arrowhead: a deep cut in his right hand between the thumb and forefinger, down to the bone and potentially disabling. By the degree of healing seen on the wound, it was one to two days old. From this, Horn surmises that Otzi may have come down to his village and become embroiled in a violent altercation. "It was a very active defensive wound, and interesting in the context that no other injuries are found on the body, no major bruises or stab wounds, so probably he was the winner of that fight, even possibly he killed the person who tried to attack him," he said. Then he left, fully provisioned with food, the embers of a fire preserved in maple leaf wrappings inside a birch-bark cylinder and quite a lot of other equipment, most of it probably carried in a backpack with a wooden frame. For weapons he had only a flint dagger so small it seemed to be the Copper Age equivalent of a derringer, a 1.8-metre-long stave for a bow that had not yet been completed and a beautifully crafted deerskin quiver with a dozen arrows, only two of them with arrowheads attached.

Horn reckons Otzi was in no hurry. At 13200 metres, he made what appeared to be a camp in a protected gully on the mountain saddle, spreading his belongings around and sitting down to his last meal. "Roughly half an hour before his death he was having a proper meal, even a heavy meal," Horn said. The Copper Age menu was well balanced, consisting of ibex meat, smoked or raw; einkorn wheat (an early domesticated variety), possibly in the form of bread; some sort of fat, which might have been from bacon or cheese; and bracken, a common fern. There is even evidence that some of his food was recently cooked. "If you're in a rush and the first thing is to get away from someone trying to kill you, that's not what you do," he said.

Otzi's longbow was only half a day's work from completion, he added, but there was no sign that he was working on it at the time. Half an hour after Otzi dined, the killer came along and shot him in the back from a distance of almost 30 metres. The arrow went under his left armpit and ripped through a roughly half-inch section of his subclavian artery, a wound that would have been quickly fatal and probably not treatable even in modern times, especially where it happened. By the angle of the wound, he was either shot from below and behind, or he had been bent forward when he was hit from above and behind. "The aim of the offender was to kill him, and he decides to take a long-distance shot - could be a learning effect from what happened one or two days before," Horn said. "Which is pretty much what you see all the time nowadays. Most homicides are personal, and follow violence and an escalation of violence. I want to follow him, find him and kill him. All the emotions we have in homicide, these things have not died out in all these years." Robbery can certainly be ruled out, he said. Otzi had a copper axe, a valuable artefact seen only rarely in burials of the period. His clothing and kit were a match for the harsh alpine climate, and were probably valuable, made from the leather and fur of at least 10 animals of six species.

"This was not a robbery gone bad or something," Horn said. Clearly, the killer was trying to cover up his act. "You go back to your village with this unusual axe, it would be pretty obvious what had happened." Otzi's cold case continues to yield surprises to scientists in many disciplines who still are studying his remains. Last year, for example, they discovered that he was infected with an unusual strain of H. pylori, the bacteria believed responsible for ulcers today. There is one thing they are unlikely to discover, as Horn noted with a chuckle.
British tabloid The Daily Mail is under fire for a front page which emphasises the legs of female politicians over any substantive news.

The front page won't be on newsstands until later today in Australia but has been shared online already.

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May, right, and Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon Credit:AP

"Never mind Brexit, who won Legs-it!" the paper asked.

"It wasn't quite stilettos at dawn, but there was a distinctively frosty atmosphere when Theresa May met Nicola Sturgeon yesterday," the paper wrote.
Tokyo: Seven teenagers and a teacher from a high school mountaineering club died in an avalanche on Monday in an area of northeastern Japan that had been blanketed by unusually heavy spring snows, authorities said.

The students were training about 160km north of Tokyo, in an area where the weather bureau had issued an avalanche warning urging caution a day earlier. Dozens of other students and teachers were injured.

"Suddenly everything turned white," a male student who was caught by the cascade of snow said in a telephone interview with NHK, the Japanese national broadcaster.

"The teacher at the front yelled, 'Get down,' so we dropped down and got covered in snow," said the student, who was not identified by name. "Then those of us who could move helped dig out people who were buried."
Beijing: Nine leaders of Hong Kong's pro-democracy Umbrella Movement have turned themselves in to police following the territory's selection of a conservative, pro-Beijing politician as its next leader.

The arrests of the nine, who led months of protests in 2014, sent shock waves through the city, which has generally tolerated a level of dissent that would be unthinkable in mainland China.

From right, former student leaders Eason Chung, Tommy Cheung, activist Raphael Wong, lawmakers, Tanya Chan, Shiu Ka-chun, former legislator Lee Wing-tat, founders of the Occupy Central civil disobedience movement, Benny Tai, Chan Kin-man and Chu Yiu-ming pose for a picture before walking toward a police station in Hong Kong on Monday. Credit:AP

Earlier on Monday, police had called the activists - students, lawmakers, professors and a minister- and notified them that they would be charged with causing a "public nuisance", which carries a maximum seven-year sentence. In the evening, all nine surrendered.

"Early this morning, nobody expected the government would do this," said Chan Kinman, a sociology professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who helped organise the 2014 protests and was among those charged. "It's sending a very strong message to society that the government is not going to resolve the conflicts in the community."
Kuala Lumpur: The body of Kim Jong-nam, who was murdered in Malaysia last month, is still in Kuala Lumpur, Health Minister Subramaniam Sathasivam said, amid reports the remains of the estranged half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will soon leave the country.

What Malaysia eventually does with the body, and how far it pursues three North Koreans wanted for questioning, and believed to be hiding in the North Korean embassy, are central to negotiations to resolve a diplomatic row between the two formerly friendly governments, sources aware of the talks said.

Malaysia is trying to secure the release of nine nationals who have been stranded in Pyongyang after North Korea, angered by the suspicion cast by the police investigation, imposed a travel ban on Malaysians leaving its borders.

In response, Malaysia imposed a tit-for-tat travel ban, and called on North Korea to immediately release all its citizens.
London: British police said that they have found no evidence that London attacker Khalid Masood was linked to the Islamic State, despite a claim by the militant group that he was its "soldier".

The 52-year-old "clearly had an interest in jihad," Neil Basu, deputy assistant commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police, told the BBC. But, Basu said, there was "no evidence or information" that he discussed with others his plans to carry out the attack outside Parliament last Wednesday.

Four people were killed and dozens were wounded when Masood drove a rental car through a throng of civilians on Westminster Bridge and then killed a police officer with a knife at the gates of Parliament. Masood's vehicle hit speeds of more than 100 kpm as he drove along the bridge's sidewalk, and the entire incident lasted just 82 seconds.

Masood was shot dead by security forces after he fatally stabbed the officer, Keith Palmer.
Rashid, Egypt: An Egyptian court has sentenced 56 people to up to 14 years over the capsizing of a boat that killed more than 200 people, one of the deadliest disasters in the dangerous Mediterranean crossings of migrants to Europe.

The boat capsized off the Egyptian coast on September 21. Rescue workers and fishermen rescued at least 169 people, but at least 202 died.

A sunken rubber boat in the Mediterranean Sea off the Libyan coast, during a search and rescue operation by Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms last week. Credit:AP

Fifty-seven people faced charges on Sunday including causing the accidental death of 202 passengers, not using sufficient rescue equipment, endangering lives, receiving money from the victims, hiding suspects from authorities and using a vessel without a licence. One woman was acquitted.

The boat sank in the Mediterranean off Burg Rashid, a village in Egypt's northern Beheira province where the sea and the Nile meet. It had been carrying Egyptian, Sudanese, Eritrean and Somali migrants and was believed to be heading for Italy.
HAVANA:--- Minister Jacobs along with the St. Maarten delegation comprised of the SG of MECYS, Policy Advisor Fabiana Vanterpool-Arnell, Head of the Department of Education Ruth Linger, traveled to Cuba on March 26th to attend the Kingdom Higher Education mission. The Minister will be met by the Ministers of Education from the Netherlands, Aruba, and Curacao. The visit will incorporate group discussions centered around topics such as education, youth, culture, UNESCO, and sports. The delegation will also visit a university in Santa Clara, Cuba, with the hope of creating a cooperation between the countries.
PHILIPSBURG  It was with mixed emotions that the St. Maarten LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgendered) organization SAFE (St. Maarten/St. Martin Alliance For Equality) learned about a call to action circulated throughout the region, requesting pastors and ministers to sign an entreaty to US President Donald Trump to stop spreading the notion of LGBT rights in the Caribbean. On the one hand, the organization applauds any call to action to the United States and other neighbors to resolve social woes and issues indirectly or directly caused by their activity. On the other hand, the organization wondered at the logic and true intention of this particular call to action, as it was a direct attack on the safety, social standing and long-term security of LGBT persons in the region. Shocking still was the fact that 19 pastors, apostles, and ministers from St. Maarten, albeit from smaller churches put their names and signatures to this letter.

Many members of our LGBT community were shocked and distressed upon learning that pastors from our island had signed this letter. There are so many social ills on our island that these church leaders could have chosen to address, that choosing to focus on this issue seems almost hypocritical on their parts. For persons in the community who also understand that same-sex desires and behaviors are not something they choose it reinforces the idea that many church leaders really do not understand the reality for LGBT persons. The tone of the letter, in general, indicated no understanding and also no willingness to engage with LGBT persons or organizations in order to gain new or further insights. We were deeply dismayed by this, SAFE President, Lysanne Charles-Arrindell said.

SAFE, as the islands LGBT and human rights organization, laments the fact that these establishments have chosen LGBT rights (including civil and marriage rights) as their focus for this appeal to the US government. The organization wonders why these churches did not opt to focus on, for example, the estimated 2 million enslaved men, women and children throughout the Americas; a geographic area that includes St. Maarten and her neighbors (St. Kitts, Dominican Republic, Antigua, etc.). These people, particularly the women and children, usually fall under the purview of the church, as they are to be cherished and protected. Right here on our paradise island, we have the dubious honor of hosting dozens of the over 4 million people traded into sexual slavery every year (UN statistics) at several establishments. Requesting that President Trump assists with the investigation and persecution of purveyors of the sexual slavery of women and children might be a better use of resources and time.

A second suggestion is to possibly request US assistance on legislation, from draft to enforcement, to combat the molestation of children within the Caribbean region, a horror that happens here on St. Maarten/St. Martin at varying degrees, from young children being targeted by relatives, close friends, school and yes, even fellow church-goers, to young girls being preyed upon by older persons; this is the activity that SAFE fiercely condemns and contends that it has no place in our growing society. These 19 pastors could also request advice on drafting internal policies to ensure that such criminal behavior does not originate from within their own walls or tents. These 19 pastors and others of a similar mindset might do well to focus their energies on protesting and combatting the prevalence of domestic and sexual violence on the very island they claim to care so deeply about, particularly those instances perpetrated by members of their own congregations.

However, while these are all viable suggestions and priority issues for St. Maarten and the region, SAFE doubts that these churches, and those from other islands that signed this letter, are concerned with the continued sexual, physical and emotional abuse of Caribbean people, particularly women. They have, after all, requested assistance from a man who has been accused by no less than 24 women of serious sexual misconduct and assault. SAFE strongly urges them to reconsider aligning themselves with such a person; Do not be deceived; bad company ruins good morals. (1 Corinthians 15:33)

SAFE looks forward to continuing its work of educating the community about human rights, advocating for the protection of vulnerable and at-risk people, and promoting equality, security and prosperity for all. It welcomes any organization from the community that shares these values to join them and looks forward to a fully equal and open St. Maarten/St. Martin. SAFE will also continue to be open to dialogue with all persons, organizations, and entities who would like to learn more about the reality of lived experiences for LGBT people on the island, including any of the 19 church leaders.

For SAFE community conversations have always been important. People need to understand that LGBT people are people, period. Who deserve to be safe within their families, homes, schools, communities, workplaces, etc. Who deserve to have their lives protected. Who deserve to live. For many LGBT people, this is not the case, especially for LGBT youth, even on St. Maarten/St. Martin. SAFE will continue to do the work of educating the LGBT community on the island as well as the wider community because change must come, Charles  Arrindell said.
Island States and Island Territories: Sharing Stories of Island Life, Governance, and Global Engagement

The First International Conference on Small Island States and Sub-National Island Jurisdictions, March 11-14, 2018 will be hosted by the University of St. Martin (USM). The theme of the conference is: Island States and Island Territories: Sharing Stories of Island Life, Governance, and Global Engagement. The main focus of the conference is on the differences and similarities between those islands that are fully independent Small Island Developing States (SIDs) and those that maintain some type of link with the former colonial power, the so-called Sub-National Island Jurisdictions or SNIJs. One of the primary aims of the conference is to discuss the life, governance and global engagement on, for and with SIDS and SNIJs. One facet of the University of St. Martins 2017-year plan is to advance a trajectory for educational tourism. In so doing, USM continues to position itself, not only as an institution of higher learning but also as a sought-after conference destination in the Caribbean region. In keeping with this vision, USM has partnered with the UNESCO Chair in Island Studies and Sustainability, the University of Prince Edward Island and the University of Malta to co-organize and host the conference.

The International Steering Committee of the conference is co-chaired by Professor Godfrey Baldacchino and Dr. Jim Randall. It comprises scholars from academic institutions including the University of the West Indies, University of Amsterdam, Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies and Sheffield University. USMs Dean of Academics, Mrs. Geneve Phillip-Durham described the opportunity to co-host the conference as monumental, especially since the bi-national island of St. Martin is in fact home to two different sub-national island jurisdictions and is in close proximity to other SNIJs like Anguilla and the USVI, as well as SIDs such as St. Kitts and Dominica. The conference would allow persons who live these realities, a forum to participate and contribute to conversations which have direct implications for them, so it is imperative that stakeholders in academia, government, private sector and civil society groups participate.

Mrs. Phillip-Durham and Mr. Arjen Alberts have been appointed as co-chairs of the local organizing committee and are supported by the following committee members: Mr. Erwin Wolthuis, Ms. Jose Sommers, Ms. Khalilah Peters and Ms. Marcellia Henry. The committee held their inaugural meeting last Thursday at USM and was keen on the opportunity to contribute to the execution of the Conference. According to Mr. Alberts, these committee members were appointed because of their respective expertise and competencies in the field of governance, culture, education and event organization.

The call for papers is now in circulation and paper submissions which engage critically with multiple levels of island living can be submitted for consideration to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Further details can also be found on the conference website http://projects.upei.ca/unescochair/call-for-papers/ or by contacting the co-chairs of the local organizing committee at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Celebrate at Dozens of Eco-Friendly Winery Events

Eco-conscious consumers have many ways to celebrate with sustainably produced wines during California's 6th Annual Down to Earth Month in April.

California wineries will be offering dozens of sustainability-focused events and activities throughout the month from Earth Day wine festivals, farm-to-glass tours and walks with the winemaker to vineyard hikes, VIP eco-tours and more.

Created by Wine Institute - the association of nearly 1,000 California wineries and affiliated businesses - Down to Earth Month raises awareness about the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance (CSWA) Sustainable Winegrowing Program, one of the most comprehensive and widely adopted in the world, involving vineyards that grow 70 percent of winegrapes and wineries that produce 80 percent of all California wine. California is the world's fourth-largest wine producer and the scale and comprehensiveness of the program covering vineyards, wineries and communities is a remarkable accomplishment.

"Consumers care about how their wines are grown and made, and our Down to Earth Month celebration is a way for people to learn about California's world leadership in sustainable winegrowing," said Bobby Koch, President and CEO of Wine Institute. "In a recent survey, members of the wine trade said that they anticipate consumer demand for wines produced with sustainable practices to grow substantially over the next decade."

The sustainability commitment of California's vintners and grapegrowers has been recognized by the California Legislature which has introduced a joint resolution proclaiming April 2017 as "Down to Earth Month" in California.

April's events are happening throughout California with new ones being added daily. View events by region here.

North Coast

On April 22, visit Napa Valley wineries and restaurants and stop by the Earth Day Festival in downtown Napa's Oxbow Commons. Enjoy local wines and foods, local bands and kids' activities. Napa Valley Vintners, an event sponsor, has committed to having all Napa County wineries 100 percent certified Napa Green by 2020.

Sonoma County Winegrowers are committed to the county's wines being 100 percent sustainable by 2019. A great way to explore Sonoma wines and green practices is at the Dry Creek Valley Passport Weekend April 28-30. More than 45 wineries are offering themed parties with food and wine pairings, regional chefs and vintners, and vineyard tours that offer a look at their winegrowing practices.

In Sonoma County's Russian River Valley, the Celebrate Earth Day in Green Valley festival April 23 offers wine tasting from 10 local wineries pouring at Iron Horse Vineyards. California Secretary of Agriculture Karen Ross will discuss the future of food, while Chef Traci Des Jardins will showcase the "Impossible Burger" made entirely of plants. Enjoy a National Geographic food photography exhibit. Proceeds benefit Sustainable Conservation.

Inland Valleys

About 90 miles northeast of San Francisco is Lodi, Wine Enthusiast's 2015 Wine Region of the Year. The 2nd Annual Lodi Wine & Food Festival on April 1 provides wine tasting from more than 30 wineries, many of which use sustainable practices. Food from local restaurants and caterers, wine pairings, blind wine tastings, olive oil tasting and live music are all part of the day.

Sierra Foothills

The Sierra Foothills wine region offers some of California's highest elevation vineyards. El Dorado Wine Association's 26th Annual Passport Event is April 22-23 and April 29-30 and is a chance to explore 20 of the region's wineries, including participants in sustainable winegrowing efforts. Sample local wines, buy gifts made by regional artisans and enjoy delicious food tastings.

Central Coast & Santa Cruz Mountains

In the Santa Cruz Mountains wine region, more than 50 wineries will offer special tastings during Passport Day on April 15, one of four times a year when wineries of this region come together to offer their wines.

The Santa Barbara Vintners Festival Grand Tasting on Earth Day April 22 is the largest tasting of Santa Barbara County wines of the year. Visitors can celebrate with 100-plus wineries and winemakers, 30 food purveyors and chefs, regional artists and more.

Southern California

San Diego offers the VinDiego Wine and Food Festival, a fun experience with 70 wineries, including many certified sustainable, on April 8. As the largest wine tasting in San Diego, the event offers tastings among hundreds of California's award-winning wines. Enjoy gourmet bites and live music at NTC Liberty Station arts district.

California Sustainable Winegrowing

Wine Institute's Down to Earth Month in April offers eco-focused winery events throughout California.

California is a world leader in sustainable winegrowing practices. The California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance (CSWA), established by Wine Institute and the California Association of Winegrape Growers 15 years ago, received the governor's top environmental award three times for increasing adoption of sustainable winegrowing practices in California. More than 2,000 wineries and vineyards in California participate in the CSWA program.

Many wineries and vineyards around the state have also earned CSWA's Certified California Sustainable Winegrowing status with verification by a third-party auditor. Certified wineries will soon be able to include a "CERTIFIED SUSTAINABLE" logo on their bottle labels beginning with the 2017 harvest.

Certified California Sustainable Winegrowing and other statewide and regional programs such as Bay Area Green Business Program, Fish Friendly Farming, Lodi Rules, Napa Green and Sustainability in Practice (SIP) play vital roles in the California wine community's efforts to produce high quality wine that is environmentally sound, economically feasible and socially responsible.

To learn more, visit: http://www.discovercaliforniawines.com/sustainable-winegrowing.
Researchers are most interested in persistent contrails

Using biofuels to help power jet engines reduces particle emissions in their exhaust by as much as 50 to 70 percent, in a new study conclusion that bodes well for airline economics and Earth's environment.

The findings are the result of a cooperative international research program led by NASA and involving agencies from Germany and Canada, and are detailed in a study published in the journal Nature.

During flight tests in 2013 and 2014 near NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, data was collected on the effects of alternative fuels on engine performance, emissions and aircraft-generated contrails at altitudes flown by commercial airliners. The test series were part of the Alternative Fuel Effects on Contrails and Cruise Emissions Study, or ACCESS.

Contrails are produced by hot aircraft engine exhaust mixing with the cold air that is typical at cruise altitudes several miles above Earth's surface, and are composed primarily of water in the form of ice crystals.

Researchers are most interested in persistent contrails because they create long-lasting, and sometimes extensive, clouds that would not normally form in the atmosphere, and are believed to be a factor in influencing Earth's environment.

"Soot emissions also are a major driver of contrail properties and their formation," said Bruce Anderson, ACCESS project scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. "As a result, the observed particle reductions we've measured during ACCESS should directly translate into reduced ice crystal concentrations in contrails, which in turn should help minimize their impact on Earth's environment."

That's important because contrails, and the cirrus clouds that evolve from them, have a larger impact on Earth's atmosphere than all the aviation-related carbon dioxide emissions since the first powered flight by the Wright brothers.

The tests involved flying NASA's workhorse DC-8 as high as 40,000 feet while its four engines burned a 50-50 blend of aviation fuel and a renewable alternative fuel of hydro processed esters and fatty acids produced from camelina plant oil. A trio of research aircraft took turns flying behind the DC-8 at distances ranging from 300 feet to more than 20 miles to take measurements on emissions and study contrail formation as the different fuels were burned.

"This was the first time we have quantified the amount of soot particles emitted by jet engines while burning a 50-50 blend of biofuel in flight," said Rich Moore, lead author of the Nature report.

The trailing aircraft included NASA's HU-25C Guardian jet based at Langley, a Falcon 20-E5 jet owned by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and a CT-133 jet provided by the National Research Council of Canada.

"Measurements in the wake of aircraft require highly experienced crew members and proven measuring equipment, which DLR has built up over many years," said report co-author Hans Schlager of the DLR Institute of Atmospheric Physics. "Since 2000, the DLR Falcon has been used in numerous measurement campaigns to investigate the emissions and contrails of commercial airliners."

Researchers plan on continuing these studies to understand and demonstrate the potential benefits of replacing current fuels in aircraft with biofuels. It's NASA's goal to demonstrate biofuels on their proposed supersonic X-plane.

For more information about NASA's aeronautics research, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/aero
2nd Watch Honored by CRN with Placement on 2017 Tech Elite 250 List

Posted by Publisher Hardware

SEATTLE, WA  (Marketwired)  03/28/17  has been named to the CRN 2017 Tech Elite 250 list, which honors an exclusive group of North American IT solution providers that have earned the highest number of advanced technical certifications from leading technology vendors, scaled to their company size. Coverage of the Tech Elite 250 will be featured in the April issue of CRN, and online at .

This is the second CRN recognition this year for 2nd Watch, an original AWS Premier Consulting Partner, and the fifth since the start of last year. In January 2017, CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, included 2nd Watch on its 2017 MSP500 list. 2nd Watch has earned AWS Competences in Financial Services, Migration, DevOps, Big Data, Marketing and Commerce, Life Sciences and SharePoint.

2nd Watch also recently achieved AWS Service Delivery Partner status for four AWS service offerings, including Amazon Aurora, Amazon Redshift, AWS CloudFront and AWS Database Migration Service. In 2015, 2nd Watch became the first cloud-native managed service provider to earn SOC2 compliance. The firm, which plans to open an East Coast Managed Cloud Services Center in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2017, has helped some of the worlds biggest brands use AWS, including Crate & Barrel, Conde Nast, Coca-Cola North America, Lenovo, Motorola and Yamaha.

To compile its annual list, The Channel Companys research group and CRN editors work together to identify the most customer-beneficial technical certifications in the North American IT channel. Solution providers that have obtained these elite designations  which enable them to deliver premium products, services and customer support  are then selected for inclusion on the list.

We are once again grateful to have been recognized by CRN and The Channel Company, says Jeff Aden, EVP of Marketing & Strategic Business Development & Co-Founder at 2nd Watch. Its due to our expertise in public cloud and AWS specifically that weve been able to achieve these honors. We look forward to continued success helping companies adopt these technologies in order to scale their businesses while reducing costs.

This exclusive, ambitious group of solution providers boasts some of the most advanced IT certifications available from top technology suppliers, says Robert Faletra, CEO, The Channel Company. They have adapted impressively to major changes in the IT channel, especially the shift to a more services-driven market, by expanding their skill sets and sharpening both their technical and customer service expertise. Congratulations to our 2017 list, whose robust investment in their organizations has earned them yet another elite designation  the CRN Tech Elite 250.

2nd Watch is an AWS Premier Partner providing managed cloud to enterprises. The companys subject matter experts, software-enabled services and cutting-edge solutions provide companies with tested, proven, and trusted solutions, allowing them to fully leverage the power of the public cloud. 2nd Watch solutions are high performing, robust, increase operational excellence, decrease time to market, accelerate growth and lower risk. Its patent-pending, proprietary tools automate everyday workload management processes for big data analytics, digital marketing, line-of-business and cloud native workloads. 2nd Watch is a new breed of partner which helps enterprises design, deploy and manage cloud solutions and monitors business critical workloads 247. 2nd Watch has more than 400 enterprise workloads under its management and more than 200,000 instances in its managed public cloud. The venture-backed company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. To learn more about 2nd Watch, visit or call 888-317-7920.

The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers and end users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequaled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. .

Kevin Wolf

TGPR for 2nd Watch

(650) 327-1641

Melanie Turpin

The Channel Company

(508) 416-1195
Cora Systems Puts Spotlight on Project Management Trends

ARLINGTON, VA  (Marketwired)  03/28/17  A series of white papers authored by Dr. Justin Kelleher, a noted Project Management (PMO) consultant, examines project management trends that impact the implementation of complex programs and projects. Released by , a leading global provider of enterprise portfolio, program and project management (EPPM) solutions, these papers explore various facets of project management and examine ways to promote successful outcomes.

Dr. Kelleher has an established track record of managing IT organizations, managing off-shore operations, delivering large IT customer solutions, product management, change transformation and driving thought leadership. His academic research has addressed Project Management methodologies, in particular, agile practices, process design patterns and corporate behavioral change theories.

 is the first of the new papers. It provides a comprehensive review of how technology is driving changes in approaches to new product development in the medical device and pharmaceutical industries.

Its clear that new technologies are driving the development of everything from health monitoring devices, miniaturization of implantable devices, robotic surgeries and big data efforts for population health management. However, not a lot is said about how to develop these technologies and the underlying methodologies and supporting project management practices that make these technologies a reality, said Dr. Kelleher.

The paper explores how remote teams are becoming the new normal and the value they can bring to the development process. It also describes the importance of bringing investors into the process early on. Organizations with solid project, program and portfolio management practices encourage initial investment and set the foundation for continuing investment by providing measurable results.

 is the second of the new papers and takes a look at some of the traditional misconceptions about agile as a product development strategy. Dr. Kelleher concedes there still remains conjecture and debate about Agile, however product development failure can generally be attributed to lack of experience with agile methods, lack of management support and organizational resistance to change  not an agile strategy.

Change management, report customization, project management in the cloud and mobile collaboration are other important topics discussed by Dr. Kelleher. No matter how many technological advances are made, there will always be unknowns, said Dr. Kelleher. Change is constant and agile approaches help manage these changes and will continue to grow as the biggest underlying approach in the short to mid-term.

The series of white papers can be accessed by visiting:

Cora Systems provides EPPM solutions and services to government agencies and large-scale global organizations, including life sciences, healthcare, and engineering & construction. Every day, thousands of project managers across the world use the Cora platform to manage their portfolio of projects, totaling over $3 billion in value, across multiple locations, dozens of countries and thousands of users. Headquartered in Ireland and with regional offices in Washington, DC and London (UK), Coras client roster includes Allergan, Boston Scientific and Eli Lilly. For more information, visit: .

Richard Fitzpatrick

Marketing Manager

Cora Systems:

+353 71 962 2078

Dawn Fontaine

Ripple Effect Communications

617-536-8887
efabless, X-FAB Announce Results of First Analog-on-Demand Design Challenge

SAN JOSE, CA  (Marketwired)  03/28/17  The top three winning entries in the first open analog Design Challenge for an ultra-low power voltage reference were announced today by sponsors , an open-innovation, semiconductor creation platform, and , the leading analog/mixed-signal and MEMS foundry group.

Winning designs met a given set of conditions across the full range of parameters and were judged by the lowest power dissipation. First place was awarded to Rishi Raghav, whose design had the lowest power consumption. The second place entry was designed by Arsalan Jawed. Ibrahim Muhammed submitted the third-place entry. They were awarded cash prizes of $7,000, $5,000 and $3,000, respectively, and will earn licensing revenues from the use of their intellectual property (IP) through efabless online marketplace and X-FABs IP Portal.

Designers of all experience levels worldwide were challenged by efabless and X-FAB to deliver a block of intellectual property (IP) developed in X-FABs 350 nanometer (nm) mixed-signal process technology. Entrants used the efabless online platform for everything needed to design, verify and deliver the IP, including process technology information, design software, a foundry process design kit (PDK) and a variety of technical guides and webinars.

Just as X-FAB seeks innovative process solutions for our customers, enhancing mature silicon technologies with new functions and features, also referred to as More than Moore approach, efabless rethinks the creation of IP development, states Ulrich Bretthauer, X-FABs manager of Industrial & Medical Solutions. We are excited to see how the cooperation of our two companies on this Design Challenge is bringing to life the creativity of an impressive number of designers in the efabless community.

We are pleased by the breadth of enthusiasm from our community members to be engaged in such a novel approach to deliver engineering solutions, says Mike Wishart, chief executive officer of efabless. Eighty-eight engineers from 26 countries accepted the challenge, and multiple designs were completed on time in conformance with the X-FAB spec. The Design Challenge demonstrates the value of the efabless on-demand IP offering where IC designers will use our platform to get the IP they want when they want it.

Our strength sparks from the experience and creativity of our community, affirms Mohamed Kassem, chief technology officer of efabless. Through our platform, individual designers and design teams can connect with customers and offer engineering solutions in a game-changing way. Design Challenge participants submitted a range of solutions for the same IP, each with distinct architectural approaches and offering different value propositions. This creativity is a key benefit of our solution and the value of this will only grow as our community completes IP and IC designs of increasing complexity.

efabless corporation is an open innovation, hardware creation platform for smart products. Its community delivers customized integrated electronics required for IC companies and hardware system innovators to turn their ideas into marketable products. Specializing in the design of analog/mixed-signal IP and ICs, MEMS and agile ASICs, efabless gives designers the means to define, develop and monetize their work. Its community spans approximately 700 members from 30 countries around the world. For information visit:

X-FAB is the leading analog/mixed-signal and MEMS foundry group manufacturing silicon wafers for automotive, industrial, consumer, medical and other applications. Its customers worldwide benefit from the highest quality standards, manufacturing excellence and innovative solutions by using X-FABs modular CMOS processes in geometries ranging from 1.0 to 0.13 m, and its special BCD, SOI and MEMS long-lifetime processes. X-FABs analog-digital integrated circuits (mixed-signal ICs), sensors and micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) are manufactured at six production facilities in Germany, France, Malaysia and the U.S. X-FAB employs approximately 3,800 people worldwide. For more information, please visit

Nanette Collins

Public Relations for efabless

(617) 437-1822

Thomas Hartung

VP Sales & Corporate Marketing

X-FAB Silicon Foundries

+49-361-427-6160
Big Switch Networks Named to JMP Securities Super 60 List

SANTA CLARA, CA  (Marketwired)  03/28/17  , The Next-Generation Data Center Networking Company, announced that it has been named to JMP Securities annual Super 60 list (previously Fast 50) for the third consecutive year. This list recognizes the most strategically positioned private companies within the Internet security, communications infrastructure and storage industries.

JMP Securities included companies in its list that it believes have demonstrated agility to iterate new products and respond to changing technology dynamics, which position companies, like Big Switch, well to take share from market incumbents in the long-term. According to JMP, network requirements are continually evolving, driven by several IT trends, including the migration toward cloud and the need for IT to increase agility and responsiveness to business requirements. JMP Securities believes networks are shifting toward more open and programmable solutions with a broader trend toward subscription pricing models and new architectures, like those offered by Big Switch Networks, that simplify deployment and operations.

Additionally, JMP Securities believes companies included in this years list possess a strong operational foundation and sustainable technological differentiation and it believes the Super 60 are disrupting the technology titans that dominate the traditional landscape, but lack the vision, agility or perseverance to adapt to market trends, resulting in the Super 60 companies being better positioned than ever to dominate global markets in the long-term.

We are honored to be included in JMP Securities Super 60 list for the third consecutive year, particularly as JMP has recognized the demand by end-users for subscription pricing models and new architectures to simplify operations, said Douglas Murray, CEO, Big Switch Networks. Im incredibly proud of our team, who continue to execute on our promise of innovation velocity to disrupt the status quo of networking.

Organizations around the world continue to select Big Switch for data center modernization, evidenced by a customer count that more than doubled in 2016 and a rapidly expanding geographical footprint. In Q4 2016 Big Switch established a dedicated presence in EMEA region and in Q3 2016 into China and ANZ regions. In the latest quarter, the company saw more than 100 transactions across 50 of its customers and has more than 10 customers who have purchased $1M+ in recurring software licenses. Customers are located in more than 25 countries, industry verticals include technology, financial services, government, media, telecom and higher education. Big Switch has raised $94M in funding from investors who include: Index Ventures, Silver Lake Waterman, Khosla Ventures, Morgenthaler Ventures, Intel Capital, Greylock Partners, Redpoint, TriplePoint Ventures and more.

Big Switch Networks is the Next-Generation Data Center Networking Company. We disrupt the status quo of networking by designing intelligent, automated and flexible networks for our customers around the world. We do so by leveraging the principles of software-defined networking (SDN), coupled with a choice of industry-standard hardware. Big Switch Networks has two solutions: Big Monitoring Fabric, a Next-Generation Network Packet Broker, which enables pervasive security and monitoring of data center and cloud traffic for inline or out-of-band deployments and Big Cloud Fabric, the industrys first Next-Generation switching fabric that allows for choice of switching hardware for OpenStack, VMware, Container and Big Data use cases. Big Switch Networks is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, with offices located in Tokyo, Sydney, London and Istanbul. For additional information, email , follow , or visit .

Big Switch Networks, Big Cloud Fabric, Big Monitoring Fabric, BigSecure, Big Chain, Switch Light OS, and Switch Light VX are trademarks or registered trademarks of Big Switch Networks, Inc. All other trademarks, service marks, registered marks, or registered service marks are the property of their respective owners.

Kate Lehman
Square and TouchBistro Extend Collaboration to Australia to Streamline Payments and Restaurant Operations

NEW YORK, NEW YORK and TORONTO, ONTARIO  (Marketwired)  03/28/17  TouchBistro, the leading iPad Point-of-sale (POS) solution for restaurants in 37 countries, today announced that its integration with Square, the global leader in mobile payment processing, has been expanded to Australia.

We are now offering restaurants in Australia, our third largest customer base, seamless integration with Squares best in class hardware and processing to help improve their operations and deliver exceptional customer service, said Alex Barrotti, CEO and founder of TouchBistro. In North America, where the integration was launched last year, weve seen TouchBistro and Square deliver a great solution for hospitality venues of every size.

The integration of TouchBistro and Square empowers Australian restaurants to run and grow their businesses with the tools they need, said Ben Pfisterer, Australian Country Manager at Square. TouchBistro users in Australia will now have greater access to payment services that are optimized for their unique business operations.

TouchBistro is an affordable and easy-to-use iPad Point of Sale system designed specifically for restaurants. Topping the Apple App Store in more than 37 countries, TouchBistro helps restaurateurs increase sales, improve service, and make informed decisions on how to grow their businesses.

TouchBistro fully integrates with Squares Contactless and Chip Card Reader to provide the full range of payment acceptance.

Square and TouchBistro teamed up with to make a unique mobile carrying case. By making the point of sale mobile, TouchBistro has revolutionized restaurant operations. Waiters can enter orders into an iPad right at table-side and send them to the kitchen for preparation without running back and forth. Secure, integrated payments can also be taken at the table.

With TouchBistros award winning, patented design, even complex actions like bill splitting or combining orders from different seats takes only a tap, dip or swipe with Square Reader. Forced modifiers tell serving staff what to upsell and list food preparation variations, so there are no missed opportunities or guessing.

The TouchBistro POS app features a full suite of cloud reporting tools that address all the information restaurateurs need to manage the business, from seating, inventory, and sales analysis to scheduling and payroll.

For more information, visit .

About TouchBistro

With offices in New York and Toronto, is a leader in iPad point-of-sale technology for restaurants, cafes, bars, food trucks, and other food and drink venues. The TouchBistro app has been ranked as the number one top-grossing food and beverage app in 37 countries on the Apple App Store(SM). TouchBistro was named for the third consecutive year by Business News Daily in its annual review of dozens of point-of-sale (POS) systems. TouchBistro offers a 30-day free trial that can be converted to a no-contract subscription. Additional information is available at .

Contacts:

Boulevard PR (for TouchBistro)

Kari Wise

+1 818.588.8074
AguaClara recently installed its Enclosed Stacked Rapid Sand Filters (EStaRS) in Ranchi, Jharkhand. The filters are part of its first pilot project in India, in the Gufu Village. Provided



AguaClara LLC came to Pipeline H2O not to produce and sell proprietary water technology, but to develop a sustainable business model so it can provide clean water to isolated communities.

We are a certified B corporation so profit is not our main goal, says Maysoon Sharif, AguaClara's managing director. Our bottom line is creating a real impact building sustainable water treatment plants.

AguaClara grew out of a Cornell University project led by Dr. Monroe Weber-Shirk. After spending time in Honduras, he collaborated with local NGO Agua Para el Pueblo to devise a system using local materials and local labor to build water treatment plants that were simple to operate and required no electricity to run.

I joined AguaClara as a student at Cornell and was asked to stay on after I finished my engineering degree, Sharif says. We were getting requests from other organizations working in other countries to develop new designs for their communities.

The LLC company formed in 2012 to work in the field to get water treatment systems constructed and deployed for communities. AguaClara consultants train on-site partners how to install, maintain and operate the systems.

We create the water treatment system designs in collaboration with community partners, Sharif says. We provide the required hydraulic design. But the system needs to be built according to local construction processes.

AguaClara currently operates in Honduras and India but is evaluating expansion into other countries, as well as applications domestically.

Small systems dont always meet EPA water quality standards, so were looking into what we need to do to pilot our technologies here and demonstrate that AguaClara offers a feasible alternative, Sharif says. Pipeline is trying to get us in front of customers and start to explore the U.S. market and where we can be helpful.

The Pipeline network has provided AguaClara with an outside perspective on its business model, as well as guidance and mentorship in developing a financially sustainable company.

It has been challenging, but thats a good thing, Sharif says. Pipeline is forcing us to focus on what we need to do to grow the company, which is something we really needed. Its easy to retreat into the design work and forget about business development and building our internal capacity. The program is providing a sanity check on our work, recognizing our strengths and picking out glaring faults. Thats exactly what I want.

The Pipeline cohort just completed its second on-site week at The Hamilton Mill, which included pitching their ideas at the Regional Smart Cities Initiative roundtable on March 15. In between their time in Hamilton, participants are busy running their companies and working on program homework. The inaugural Pipeline class will graduate at a demo day in May.



Read profiles of other Pipeline members Searen, ANDalyze, kW Hydroelectric, WaterStep International, PowerTech Water and WEL Enterprise.


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DECATUR  Two teenage males were arrested and each charged in Macon County Circuit Court with two felony burglary counts after a homeowner who was renovating a house captured evidence of the break-in on a video camera.

Macon County sheriff's deputies were sent to a house in the 7900 block of East Washington Street Road, Argenta, on March 2, after the homeowner complained that the house he had been remodeling was burglarized and vandalized.

The victim reported that a small refrigerator, which contained beer, had been taken from the house.

There was significant damage to the drywall in the living room and bathroom, which he had just installed, said a probable cause affidavit by sheriff's detective Roger Pope. Three new living room windows had also been broken.

The damage to the house was estimated at $1,400, not including labor costs. The value of the refrigerator and contents was valued at about $150.

The homeowner had installed a surveillance camera because of previous vandalism to the house.

The trail camera shows a vehicle arrive at the residence the night of the burglary, Pope wrote in his statement. A Ford vehicle arrives on the driveway, with a large #18 on its rear window. The license plate is also clearly seen on the video footage.

Three days later, sheriff's deputies spotted the suspect vehicle in Forsyth and conducted a traffic stop.

They found 18-year-old Callen Mears, 19-year-old Hunter Jolley, and a juvenile from Clinton inside the vehicle. After a K-9 unit detected the odor of narcotics in the vehicle, a search turned up several hammers, which apparently had drywall dust on their heads.

Under questioning at sheriff's headquarters, Jolley and Mears admitted that the three occupants of the vehicle and another juvenile, who resided in Maroa, had forced entry into the house.

Jolley admitted that he kicked the door open and damaged drywall inside of the residence. Mears denied damaging the drywall, but admitted he was present when Jolley and the others caused the damage.

Jolley and Mears both said the Maroa juvenile stole the refrigerator.

They were both arrested and booked into the jail. The juveniles were questioned and directed to appear in juvenile court.

Mears, who was arraigned March 14, is being held in jail on $5,000 bond, pending his preliminary hearing April 12. Jolley, who posted bond, is due in court April 7 for his arraignment.
DECATUR  U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, said Monday during a tele-town hall meeting that he supported President Donald Trump's executive order that aims to reverse many of the measures in the Clean Power Plan.

While Davis didn't dismiss climate change, as Trump has in the past, he said he preferred a commonsense approach to the problem. There are several coal mines and power plants in Davis' district, which includes Decatur, Champaign, Springfield, Bloomington, Taylorville and Carlinville.

"I'm for reducing our footprint on the environment overall," Davis said. "But coal and nuclear power have a vital role. You can have wind, solar and hydro power, but those alone can't power everyone's homes and manufacturing sectors in places like Decatur.

"I didn't support (former president Barack) Obama's plan  there were huge overreaches of the (Environmental Protection Agency's) power. Springfield has some of the best emission standards and the power plants in my district provide access to cost effective power for those who need to be able to afford their power bills.

"And those facilities, which offer some of the best paying jobs in the community, have worked to reduce their emissions substantially in the last 30 years."

Davis said the U.S. doesn't get enough praise for its work to protect the environment.

"When you look at Cuba, there are no emission controls," Davis said. "We need to look at helping places like Cuba with emission controls instead of shutting down businesses in the U.S. that have state of the art emission controls. America deserves credit for what we've done to protect the environment  I don't think it gets enough credit for that."
Justin Omans of Roseville said he was devastated to learn his mothers' body was discovered in the covered bed of a truck.
Namely News: Volunteers scare up Halloween fun

On Loop Court in Grangers, neighbors build a Halloween maze for all. At IU South Bend, students organize Boo to You for area children.
DECATUR  A plan to legalize marijuana is not exactly high on the to-do list for local lawmakers and law enforcement, but their constituents may be more ready to roll with the idea.

A plan is being floated that would make Illinois the ninth state in the country to legalize marijuana for recreational use.

The proposal would allow residents 21 and older to possess, grow or buy up to 1 ounce (28 grams) of marijuana and license businesses to sell marijuana products subject to regulation.

Supporters say it would help fill Illinois' multibillion-dollar budget hole with $350 million to $700 million in new tax revenue, while detractors worry about social costs.

Mixed public opinion

If you look at Colorado and the other places, its worked, said Katie Witry, a 22-year-old Millikin Student from Aurora. And our state is really bad off money-wise, so its a win-win for everyone.

Kye Ramos, a 19-year-old Millikin student from Chicago, said he has seen first-hand the benefits of marijuana. Along with doing a class research project on the subject, Ramos said his father, a disabled veteran, has used marijuana to treat his post traumatic stress disorder.

Its helped him out a lot, and I know its helped out a lot of other people, too, he said.

But the societal cost is not lost on Christl Smalley.

The 55-year-old Decatur resident said shes OK with medical marijuana, but worries about the effects legalization could have with those already battling problems with alcohol or other drugs. In addition, Smalley was not trusting of the state to make good use of the potential revenue.

I dont think it would help the state financially, the state would find a way to waste that money, too, she said.

Statewide, residents seem to have joined the rest of the nation in becoming more accepting of legal marijuana.

A poll released Monday by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale showed 66 percent of Illinois residents support or strongly support legalization of recreational marijuana if it is taxed and regulated like alcohol. Of those in support, 45 percent said they strongly support legalization.

Only 31 percent of voters oppose or strongly oppose and 3 percent answered otherwise.

Support drops outside the Chicago and collar county area, as 54 percent of downstate voters supported or strongly supported legalization. 43 percent of downstate voters either oppose or strongly oppose legalization, while 3 percent either did not know or refused to answer.

The poll was conducted from March 4 to 11 with 1,000 randomly selected registered voters and a margin for error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Law enforcement wary

The idea of medical marijuana for the chronically ill is appealing for Macon County Sheriff Thomas Schneider and Decatur Police Chief Jim Getz.

It's less so for legal recreational use.

Schneider was frank in his opposition to legalization, saying he has heard of problems from law enforcement colleagues in Colorado. Specifically, his concern is with possible illegal growing operations and an increase in impaired driving arrests.

We've seen a trend where in some months we have more drug-impaired drivers than alcohol-impaired driver Schneider said. It's problematic to public safety when people drive on marijuana thinking it's harmless but they are seriously impaired.

Getz was less forceful than Schneider when asked about legalization, saying he hopes state lawmakers do their research on the issue and not make any rushed decisions.

I think they really need to do their homework before they pass the legislation, Getz said. This is not something they should take lightly. This is something that needs to be investigated.

The points are similar to those made by the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, which also opposes the measure. Its associate director, Ed Wojcicki, told The Associated Press that legalization would be "an enforcement nightmare."

Colorado law enforcement have publicly said they have struggled at times to keep up with enforcing the laws of the state, which has the highest rate of youth marijuana use in the nation, according to the most recent data available from a federal drug-use survey.

The numbers are not all dour for Colorado though, as the states Department of Public Safety report showed a 6 percent decrease in the violent crime rate statewide from 2009 to 2014. In addition, Denver experienced a 2.2 percent decrease in violent crime rates and an 8.9 percent reduction in property crime offenses, according to research from the Drug Policy Alliance.

Lawmakers reluctant

Local lawmakers asked about the proposal showed little enthusiasm for going forward with legalization.

State Rep. Bill Mitchell, R-Forsyth, described himself as "old-fashioned" with his opposition to legalization, feeling it acts as a gateway drug to harder, illegal substances.

I think it raises more problems than it could possibly answer, he said. With legalization, I dont agree with it at all.

However, Mitchell did say he would be open to some decriminalization in relation to marijuana.

State Sen. Dale Righter, R-Mattoon, expressed similar sentiments about marijuana being a gateway drug, saying that legalization would increase the rate of homelessness and poverty as well as put a financial strain on social services who help people with addiction.

Youre going to have ill effects with legalization, especially if Illinois is the only Midwestern state to do this, Righter said.

State Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, said in an unrelated conference call Monday morning that he has not yet taken a stance on the matter, focusing most of his attention on school funding and a "grand bargain" budget bill.

He did say he hopes the proposed plan starts a dialogue among lawmakers about legalization and that more information comes out in the coming months during hearings.

I think were in the initial stages here, and Im not going to reject or accept any proposal at this time, Manar said. What I want to do is what I also do, I want to hear the pros and cons of both sides of the issue, and I want to make an educated decision.

State Rep. Sue Scherer, D-Decatur, was unavailable for comment Monday due to a death in the family, according to a spokeswoman from her office.

State Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, could not be reached for comment.

The plan has been sponsored by state Rep. Kelly Cassidy and state Sen. Heather Steans, both Democrats from Chicago.

Cassidy said with Illinois own budget woes, as well as the economic boost and increased tax revenue seen in other states that have legalized marijuana, it was at least worth having the discussion.

But both agreed pitch could be a tough sell. They plan to have conversations with lawmakers, interest groups and the public this spring but won't move legislation forward in the current session.

For Righter, the conversation about legalization has to be about more than just revenue.

Is it in the best interest of the people, especially young people, for government to say, Hey, this is OK as long as you got the money to pay the tax? said Righter. I dont think thats the right message to send.

All lawmakers contacted said they have heard little from constituents on the matter, though Righter said he has generally heard concerns about the impact of legalization on younger residents.

Even if the plan does get through the General Assembly, the outlook that Gov. Bruce Rauner would sign it into law is murky at best.

During an appearance last week on a Chicago radio station, Rauner said his friends have told him stories about addiction problems in Colorado, adding he was skeptical on legalizing without more "thoughtful" analysis.

I'm not a believer that legalizing more drugs will help our society, so Im not philosophically enthusiastic about it, but Im also open to what actually works to make life better to people, he said.

The state may not have much wiggle room with the federal government, anyway.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in February that his department is reviewing an Obama administration memo that gave states flexibility in passing marijuana laws.
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View of Earth from inside the moon temple. (Earth is upside-down because the moon temple would be located at the lunar south pole.)

European Space Agency (ESA) artist-in-residence Jorge Manes Rubio has drawn up plans for a "moon temple" that would help meet the spiritual, social and psychological needs of lunar settlers.

Those needs will likely be considerable, given that the pioneers will be isolated from the rest of humanity on a world hostile to life as we know it, Rubio said.

European Space Agency artist-in-residence Jorge Manes Rubio. (Image credit: Bret Hartman)

His vision involves building a dome on the edge of Shackleton Crater, which is 13 miles (21 kilometers) wide and 2.6 miles (4.2 km) deep. Shackleton is a prime candidate for a future lunar outpost, experts have said; the crater lies at the moon's south pole, and its permanently shadowed depths are thought to harbor large amounts of water ice. [Visit the Moon Temple: Jorge Manes Rubio's Lunar Art in Pictures]

But the peaks along its rim enjoy nearly constant sunlight  a fact that explains the title of Rubio's project (which will be available next month as a free app): "Peak of Eternal Light."

The temple's interior would feature a large communal area akin to the agora of ancient Greek city-states, where settlers could chat, put on plays and perform other activities. At the center of this space would sit not an altar but a highly capable telescope (ideally employing an advanced mirror of liquid metal that could be brought to the temple in a bottle), Rubio said.

So the structure would be a multipurpose building, a temple more in the "primitive" sense than the modern one, he said. Indeed, Rubio said he drew inspiration from many archeological sites, especially El Caracol, part of the Chichen Itza pre-Columbian Mayan complex in Mexico.

"It was a temple but also an observatory," Rubio told Space.com. "I really like that idea, so I think I wanted to kind of reinterpret, or reimagine, what El Caracol could be on the moon."

There is great value in making, or strengthening, such a link, he said.

"Early civilizations had a deeper connection with the cosmos, and they had a deeper connection with nature. Somewhere along the way, we lost that connection," he said. "I really hope that we can get it back. And when I look at the moon, that's what I feel: There are no borders, there are no nations there, there's nothing to divide us  religion, whatever. The moon is a mythological symbol of unity for all mankind."

Shackleton Crater, with the moon temple visible as a small bright dot on the left of the image. (Image credit: Jorge Manes Rubio/DITISHOE)

The lunar temple would also feature an "oculus" through which people could observe the Earth. The planet would be visible every two weeks from Shackleton's rim. (Earth is in sight 24/7 from some other locations near the lunar south pole, but such constant visual contact would probably not be in the best interests of an outpost striving for permanence and self-sufficiency, Rubio said.)

"Peak of Eternal Light" is an art project, not an ESA engineering plan. But Rubio said he would love to see the temple make its way to the moon, if not as a functioning piece of an active lunar colony, then perhaps as a sort of monument to human ingenuity, curiosity and unity.

"Definitely, I would like to create something there," he said.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
An illustration of ESA's AIM spacecraft, accompanied by two cubesats, observing the collision of NAS's DART spacecraft with a near Earth asteroid.

THE WOODLANDS, Texas  Plans to continue a NASA mission to intercept a small asteroid will depend on a decision due by the end of April on NASA's 2017 budget, an agency official said March 20.

In an interview after a town hall meeting at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference here, Jim Green, director of NASA's planetary science division, said a decision about whether to proceed with the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission will depend on funding by and direction from Congress.

"We're waiting for a new budget and the guidance to go forward," he said. NASA is currently operating under a continuing resolution (CR) that funds the agency at 2016 levels through April 28. Congress must then either pass a full-fledged appropriations bill for the agency or extend the CR, likely through the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30.

DART recently completed its Phase A of initial development work and is now in a "bridge" period until funding is available to begin Phase B work, project officials said during a meeting at the conference earlier the same day. Moving into Phase B "will not happen until the uncertainty in the NASA budget in '17 and '18 is resolved," said Cheryl Reed, DART project manager at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, at the meeting.

DART is scheduled to launch in early 2021 and travel to the near Earth asteroid Didymos, colliding with a small moon orbiting the asteroid in late 2022. Observations of the change in the moon's orbit will allow scientists to study the effectiveness of so-called kinetic impactors that could be used to change the orbit of a potentially hazardous asteroid.

DART is NASA's contribution to an international effort known as the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA), which is also intended to include a European spacecraft, the Asteroid Impact Mission (AIM). However, at a December ministerial meeting, European Space Agency members elected not to fund AIM, putting that mission in jeopardy.

Reed said the AIM team was working to significantly reduce the size and cost of AIM by eliminating some components, like a small lander and several cubesats. "The Europeans are reconfiguring AIM so that it will be much more affordable," she said. The scaled-down AIM would still arrive ahead of DART and study Didymos and its moon prior to DART's impact, and then characterize changes in the moon's orbit after impact.

However, she said it's possible to fly DART without AIM. "There are many different scenarios of when we could go, how we could go," she said. That includes relying on ground-based observations to measure the change in the moon's orbit after the impact, or delaying the mission two years.

It's also possible, she said, that AIM could fly after the DART mission. "In the worst case, they could go after us anytime, and still examine the impact site," she said. "We would love for them to be there pre, during and post [impact], but the most valuable piece of information for us would be actually be post."

Green, though, was skeptical that DART made sense without AIM. "It's hard to do DART without AIM," he said. "If we're going to move ahead with DART, we're also going to have to figure what the best approach is." Ground-based observations, he added, were "okay" to support DART, but were not as good as having a spacecraft like AIM present.

"In terms of a planetary defense activity, it's a great idea. Sometime we're going to have to do it," Green said of DART. "We're as far along as we can be before the budget decisions come in."

This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.
An artist's depiction of NASA's LCRD spacecraft using lasers to relay data from Mars to Earth. NASA officials say this type of technology could transmit data up to 100 times faster than current radio-frequency (RF) communications systems can.

NASA is making strides toward launching its laser-based space communications system, which officials say could become the "high-speed internet of the sky."

The system, called the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD), will use a beam of light to send data to Earth from space and back up to 100 times faster than current radio-frequency (RF) communications systems can. This technology is also much smaller, meaning future spacecraft communications systems could possibly weigh less and require less power  critical factors in planning long-duration space flights to Mars and beyond, NASA officials said in a statement.

"LCRD is the next step in implementing NASA's vision of using optical communications (laser communications) for both near-Earth and deep-space missions," Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, which leads the LCRD project, said in the statement. "This technology has the potential to revolutionize space communications, and we are excited to partner with the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate's Space Communications and Navigation program office, MIT Lincoln Labs and the U.S. Air Force on this effort." [Laser Communications Could Be 100X Faster (Video)]

See more

LCRD builds on the successful Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration (LLCD) experiment performed by NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft in 2013. At the time, the LLCD was the first of its kind to show the feasibility of high-speed laser-based communications systems beyond low Earth orbit. The LCRD will expand on that work to demonstrate the technology's operational durability and performance in varying weather conditions as well as its longevity, as the spacecraft is designed to operate for two to five years, according to the statement.

An engineer works on an optical module for NASA's LCRD spacecraft. (Image credit: Sandra Vilevac/NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

Now, engineers are testing whether each component can withstand launch conditions. The LCRD mission is scheduled to launch into space in summer 2019, when it will navigate to an orbit that matches Earth's rotation, also called a geosynchronous orbit, and will begin to communicate with laser modems at two ground-based terminals in California and Hawaii.

The LCRD is equipped with a space switching unit (similar to a data router) which connects to two identical optical terminals and a radio-frequency downlink, allowing the spacecraft to convert digital data into a laser light that can, in turn, beam the data to Earth. The LCRD is also armed with actuators that will help to stabilize the spacecraft, ensuring that it's perfectly in position in the sky and able to communicate with the ground-based terminals in California and Hawaii.

The optical module assemblies on NASA's LCRD spacecraft are tested for pointing accuracy. (Image credit: Sandra Vilevac/NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

NASA is also planning to launch a laser terminal for the International Space Station in 2021, which will use the same laser-based technology to relay data from the orbiting lab to Earth at "gigabit-per-second data rates," NASA officials said in the statement.

If all goes well, in the future, "many other Earth-orbiting NASA missions will also fly copies of it to relay their data through LCRD to the ground," NASA officials added.

Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.  Eyeing a projected boom in demand for microsatellites, startup Vector Space Systems on Saturday (March 25) unveiled plans to fly its small launch vehicle from a Florida-owned launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

"We need precisely what that one has," Vector co-founder and chief executive Jim Cantrell told Space.com.

Which, in terms of infrastructure, is not much. In the late 1990s, Space Florida, a state-backed economic development agency, took over Launch Complex 46 (LC 46) from the Air Force with plans to turn it into a multiuser pad for small launch vehicles. [Images: Vector Space's Microsatellite-Launching Rocket]

Orbital ATK has a mission booked at LC 46 for later this year for its Minotaur IV rocket. In 1998 and 1999, Lockheed Martin flew two Athena boosters from the pad. The U.S. Navy originally used the pad in the 1980s to test Trident II missiles.

With its mobile launcher system, Vector Space aims to use LC 46 beginning in 2018 for its small-satellite rockets, known as Vector-R (Rapide) and Vector-H (Heavy).

The 45-foot-tall (14 meters), two-stage Vector-R is designed to carry payloads of up to about 140 lbs. (64 kilograms) into low-Earth orbit at a cost of about $1.5 million. That's less than half the price of Rocket Lab's larger Electron rocket, which is being prepared for its debut test flight from New Zealand in the next few weeks.

An optional third-stage electric motor on a Vector-R can deliver a satellite up to 500 miles (800 kilometers) above Earth for an additional $500,000. The larger Vector-H version sells for about $3 million.

The rockets are simple, with no pumps and far fewer components than current boosters have. The Vector's first stage, for example, has just 15 parts, Cantrell said.

A Vector Space Systems rocket at Launch Complex 46 of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. (Image credit: Vector Space Systems)

For propellants, the rockets use propylene and liquid oxygen. The propylene is compressed to a liquid and chilled to make it about as dense as kerosene. "You have a small rocket with a lot more energy," Cantrell said, adding that the burning propylene creates a distinctive, bright-orange flame.

Suborbital test flights are scheduled to begin next month from the Friends of Amateur Rocketry's (FAR) launch site near California's Mojave Desert.

So far, Vector Space, based in Tucson, Arizona, has contracts for 105 flights. Customers include Finlands Iceye, which is developing a satellite constellation to provide near-real-time global radar imagery; Denver-based small-satellite manufacturer York Space Systems; and Bethesda, Maryland-based PlanetiQ, which is developing a commercial weather-satellite network.

Vector Space also has an agreement to fly from Alaskas Kodiak Island and other locations, including outside the United States.

The company has raised about $4 million in seed funds and won DARPA and NASA contracts for about another $4.5 million. It is in the process of a Series A investment round, with the aim of raising $15 million, Cantrell said.

Vector Space, founded and run by veterans from SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and other aerospace companies, has an ultimate goal of opening space access to anyone  no satellite required. Instead of buying and operating satellites, the company envisions customers using software applications to get what they want via a cloud of satellites. The project is known as Galactic Sky.

"To me, this is the PC of space," Cantrell said. "It is going to upend the industry in a way people just don't understand."

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
An artist's rendition of an asteroid impacting the Earth. New researcher examines how quickly life recovered following an asteroid impact on Earth about 66 million years ago.

THE WOODLANDS, Texas  Life came back surprisingly quickly to the site of the impact that killed the dinosaurs, new research found.

When a 6-mile (10 kilometers) asteroid slammed into the Gulf of Mexico 66 million years ago, causing the demise of the dinosaurs as part of the largest mass extinction event in the last 100 million years, it took life on the planet at least 30,000 years to bounce back. The space rock also melted the crust and mantle at the point of impact, making modern scientists suspect that life would have had a particularly challenging time recovering at that location.

Yet a core sample from the crater rim has revealed that, even at ground zero, life managed to bounce back rapidly, closely matching the resurgence of life around the globe. [Wipe Out: History's Most Mysterious Extinctions]

"Life returned to the crater very quickly," Christopher Lowery, a researcher at the University of Texas-Austin, said during a news conference at the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference (LPSC) here in Houston on Tuesday, March 21. Microfossils found in the core sample show that life at the crater reappeared after about 30,000 years, roughly when it reappeared in other locations, according to Lowery.

"You see [that resurgence] across the globe," Lowery said.

Bouncing back from extinction

Beneath the tropical Gulf of Mexico, near the Yucatan Peninsula, lurks the crater known as Chicxulub. This indent in the Earth is the tombstone of the rock most famous for killing off the dinosaurs. The asteroid impact also triggered acid rain and forest fires around the globe, and blasted sulfur and other rock into the air in quantities large enough to block the sun.

The collision vaporized the kamikaze asteroid and put a significant dent in the number of species alive on Earth. It also scattered the dust around the world to create what scientists call the K-T boundary, a layer that includes bits of the asteroid itself sandwiched between the rock layers that formed before and after. However, these traces of the asteroid alone weren't convincing enough to attribute the extinction to the space rock's collision with Earth. Then, in the late 1970s, geophysicists searching for petroleum found the 110-mile-wide (180 km) crater beneath the ocean. It took more than a decade to find a substantial link between that crater and the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs.

In 2016, a team of scientists headed to the gulf to take a core sample from the crater rim. Drilling into the ocean floor from a ship on the surface, they excavated a half-mile-long (800 meters), pillar-like core that revealed the geologic history of the region. The task required specialized drilling equpiment, but the challenge paid off: The underwater location managed to preserve the crater far more than happens with land-based craters. Its subsurface placement makes Chicxulub "the most well-preserved crater" known to date, said David Kring, an impact petrologist on the excavation team who has studied the crater for decades.

The extinction event at the end of the Mesozoic era caused by the asteroid is the only such event to have occurred suddenly, thanks to its external origin. According to Lowery, other massive extinctions occurred gradually, caused by volcanic events and climate change. Under those circumstances, other life-forms filled the niches cleared by their doomed neighbors.

But when the asteroid slammed into the Earth, it almost immediately created a 150-km-wide (90 miles) sterile region where no life could survive. Measurements of the seafloor taken in the 1970s revealed this dead zone, Lowery said, though its source was then unknown.

"Life was totally obliterated by the impact," he said.

Because of the different processes involved in the sudden impact extinction event compared to other, more gradual extinctions, scientists were unable to make strong estimates on how quickly life would re-emerge at the impact site, Lowery said.

But the layered core could reveal when microfossils first began to reappear. After the core was retrieved, Lowery began the painstaking search for two kinds of microfossils. The first, planktonic Foraminifera ("forams" for short), are tiny, sand-grain-size life-forms; they are the primary focus of Lowery's research. The second, much smaller, calcareous nannoplankton photosynthesizes and can shut down completely for extended periods under adverse conditions.

After examining the core, Lowery concluded that the nannoplankton in the region spent 5 million years after the impact in what he called "disaster mode," blooming again once conditions were favorable. The forams recovered much faster, rapidly spreading after the cataclysm, Lowery said, bringing life back to the crater.

"There's life on the seafloor within 30,000 years of the impact," Lowery said during a presentation at the LPSC meeting.

Where that life came from is still unknown, however, he said. It could have crawled back from the newly formed hydrothermal vents created by the impact, or it could have washed in from another part of the ocean, Lowery said.

Why the nannoplankton took longer to re-emerge than the forams remains an open question, and one the team hopes to answer with further analysis of the core, Lowery said.

Follow Nola Taylor Redd on Twitter @NolaTRedd,Facebookor Google+. Follow us at @Spacedotcom, Facebookor Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
Government meddling in the election is inevitable, but not decisive

By Hratch Tchilingirian (Oxford)

The election process of a new Armenian Patriarch in Turkey faces the customary state-imposed restrictions, administrative hurdles and arbitrary treatment of the Armenian community. In recent weeks, the situation has been exacerbated by personality clashes and ambitions of the high- ranking clergymen at the Patriarchate, who have turned a problem into a divisive major crisis.

The 556-year old Patriarchate is one of the four Hierarchical Sees of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

The problem facing the Armenian community started in July 2008 when the 52-year-old serving Patriarch Mesrob Mutafyan was officially diagnosed with an incurable illness. By then he had been in a vegetative state for some time at the Surp Pirgic Hospital and remains so ever since.

In 2010 Archbishop Aram Ateshian was appointed Patriarchal Vicar with the consent of the Turkish government. This temporary arrangement until the election of a new patriarch turned into an indefinite status quo. The continued uncertainty without a clear sight of elections caused controversies and division within the community.

Under pressure and protests, in order to clear the path of organizing new elections, in October 2016 Patriarch Mesrob was officially declared retired by the Patriarchates Religious Council.

Archbishop Aram, who was supposed to head the election process, by seeking the governments permission as a first step, continued to drag on the uncertain situation, which had left the community without a functioning patriarch for almost nine years.

In February of this year, the tensions and internal disagreements, both among the clergy and the laity, reached to a boiling point. Bishop Sahak Mashalian, the chairman of the Patriarchates Religious Council, resigned by publishing a fiery letter. He blamed Archbishop Ateshian and certain lay leaders of the Armenian community for the deepening stagnation of the Patriarchate and the community in general.

The highly explosive situation created by Mashalians resignation was defused through the mediation of the Catholicos of All Armenians who invited the three bishops of the Patriarchate to Etchmiadzin for consultations and to jointly seek solution to the crisis.

Within days after their return from Etchmiadzin, on 15 March, Archbishop Karekin Bekdjian  the most senior bishop of the Patriarchate and the serving Primate of the Armenian Church in Germany  was elected Locum Tenens (deghabah) by 2/3 votes of the Religious Council. According to the agreement reached in Etchmiadzin and in accordance to the rules and traditions of the Armenian Church, Archbishop Ateshian was to step down as Patriarchal Vicar immediately after Bekdjians election.

However, within minutes of the election of the Locum Tenens, Ateshian produced a letter from the Istanbul Governors Office which declared that the election was not legally possible and Ateshian remains to be recognized as the official Patriarchal Vicar by the government.

Many in the community, including two Armenian MPs in the Turkish parliament, consider the Istanbul Governors Office letter crude meddling and lacking any legal and procedural basis. Archbishop Ateshian and his small circle of supports insist that without the governments consent no election is valid. This has created a stalemate and tensions are high on all sides.

The Turkish governments meddling in the process of election of the 85th Patriarch of Istanbul and All Turkey is inevitable, as in the past, but not decisive. The community has the ultimate say as it did nearly 20 years ago.

The last four patriarchal elections in 1950, 1961, 1990 and 1998 were carried out by official directives issued by successive Turkish governments. Since 1923, the government has used state discretion rather than church bylaws as the basis of patriarchal election. All four elections were fraught with government interference, procedural burdens imposed on the community and torturous recognition.

In 1998, the Turkish state refused to approve an election date for some five months, depriving the Armenian community the freedom and inherit right to vote for a new church leader.

Government interference in the election is not only about setting procedures.

During the last election almost 20 years ago, the Armenian community was informed through informal channels that between the two eligible candidates the Turkish state preferred the 72-year-old Archbishop Shahan Sivajian over the charismatic and US-educated Archbishop Mesrob Mutafyan, who was 42 years old at the time.

After the death of Patriarch Karekin Kazanjian (1990-1998), 45 representatives from 38 districts in Turkey had met at the Armenian Patriarchate in March 1998 and elected a 21-member Electoral Committee responsible for organizing the elections. One of the main tasks of such a committee is to negotiate with the Istanbul Governor's Office for the state required permission to hold church elections.

On 28 April 1998, the Istanbul Governor's Office ordered a halt to the plans without explanations until further notice. Nevertheless, the community went ahead with the election of a Locum Tenens (deghabah).

An old script is being staged with new actors today.

Similar to the scenario played out on 15 March, in August 1998 Archbishop Mesrob Mutafyan was duly elected Locum Tenens, but the government refused to recognize him, arguing that under Turkish law the eldest and most senior cleric  Archbishop Sivajian at the time  must fill the interim post until a successor is elected.

Media outlets were used to put pressure on the community. The rightwing Turkish media launched a slander campaign against Mutafyan, accusing him of anti-Turkish activities. In one case, Mutafyan filed and won a lawsuit for libel against "Turkiye" newspaper.

The Patriarchate protested the state's orders to no avail. On the contrary, the government responded with two more memos declaring Sivajian the only recognized interim leader and warning that any resistance to this decision would be prosecuted under the law.

After months of state interference and delays, the Governor of Istanbul -- having received the mandatory approval of the Council of Ministers  permitted the 60,000-strong Armenian community in Turkey to proceed with the election on 14 October 1997.

The General Assembly of the Armenian Church Community  made of 10 clergymen and 79 lay delegates representing 15,811 church members  elected Archbishop Mesrob Mutafyan as the 84th Patriarch of Istanbul and All of Turkey. The other candidate, Archbishop Sivajian, whose candidacy was supported by Turkish authorities, received 15 votes.

It is not a secret that the government maintains strict restrictions on the Armenian Church's activities, as it does on all Christian churches in Turkey. After the coup in 1960, the government dismantled the Armenian Community Central Council, the highest lay body in Turkey, which worked for the interests of the community alongside the Patriarchate. In December 1997, the government ordered the Patriarchate to disband its council of lay advisors and forbade lay delegates from participating in the election for a new Catholicos in Etchmiadzin in 1995. The list of restrictions is long and far reaching. In 1971, the state ordered the closure of the Holy Cross Armenian Seminary, which deprived the Patriarchate of training future priests and church workers.

For 94 years since the founding of the Turkish Republic, the state has persistently curtailed, tightly controlled and closely monitored all the significant rights of the Armenian community that are essential to the viability of their collective life. More than any other area, elections and administration of churches and charities have been most torturous and energy-sapping for the declining Armenian community in Turkey.

The election of the 85th Patriarch of Armenians in Turkey will, no doubt, be held true to precedents established by the state. But, in the end, as in previous elections, the Armenian community shall have the final word as to who will lead the historic See of the Patriarchate of Constantinople  or per Turkish states sanctioned title, the Patriarchate of Istanbul and All Turkey.

For a deeper study of Armenians in Turkey, see Hratch Tchilingirians The Other Citizens.
Artist's illustration of the newfound brown dwarf SDSS J0104+1535, which is 90 times more massive than Jupiter. The object is the most massive and purest "failed star" known, researchers said.

An ancient brown dwarf is the most massive and purest such "failed star" ever discovered, a new study suggests.

Researchers studied an object called SDSS J0104+1535, which lies about 750 light-years from Earth in the Milky Way's "halo," a population of extremely old stars above the galaxy's familiar spiral disk.

SDSS J0104+1535 is a brown dwarf  a bizarre, gaseous body larger than a planet but too small to sustain the nuclear fusion reactions that power stars. New observations by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile provide new details about this object, which astronomers think is 10 billion years old. [The Strangest Things in Space]

For example, study team members said, SDSS J0104+1535 is about 90 times more massive than Jupiter, making it the heaviest known brown dwarf. (For perspective: The sun is 1,050 times more massive than Jupiter. And Jupiter is 318 times more massive than Earth.)

In addition, just 0.01 percent of SDSS J0104+1535 consists of elements other than hydrogen and helium  meaning that the body is 250 times purer than the sun, and the purest brown dwarf ever observed.

"Pure" in this sense refers to the stuff originally present just after the Big Bang that created the universe 13.82 billion years ago  mostly hydrogen and helium, along with small amounts of lithium. All the naturally occurring elements heavier than these three were created inside stars over the eons.

"We really didn't expect to see brown dwarfs that are this pure," study lead author ZengHua Zhang, of the Institute of Astrophysics in the Canary Islands, said in a statement. "Having found one, though, often suggests a much larger hitherto undiscovered population. I'd be very surprised if there aren't many more similar objects out there waiting to be found."

The new study has been accepted for publication in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. You can read it for free at the online preprint site arXiv.org.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
A 20-acre utopia smack dab in the middle of Hillmomba, where Hillbilly Mom posts her cold-hearted opinions, petty grievances, and self-proclaimed wisdom in spite of being a technology simpleton.
SXSW . . . as in South by Southwest . . . is all about making a big impression.

The first thing we saw upon arrival in Austin, Texas, for the interactive media festival was a throng of naked people mingling in the street. Well, almost naked. They were branded with fake tattoos, promoting an upcoming television series on Bravo.

We were there to make an impression, too. Thankfully, we didnt need any publicity stunts to do so.

Our presence alone got peoples attention.

Youre a dairy farmer? That was the most common question I fielded.

What are you doing at a technology conference?

I was at SXSW with nine other dairy farmers to help bring attention to our lifes passion and generate conversations about dairy farming.

The main conversation starter at SXSW was a panel discussion hosted by the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, We Love Technology . . . Why Not When it Comes to Food? The panel, which included Indiana dairy farmer Sue McCloskey, addressed the relationship between food, technology, and consumer trust.

Other events included the Food + Tech Reception and the Spredfast extreme milkshake bar. Both events gave us a chance to interact with attendees and answer questions about dairy farming.

SXSW made a big impression on me. Before SXSW, the idea of promoting dairy at a technology festival seemed a little radical.

After SXSW, its now very clear that dairy needs to move beyond the conservative conversations were accustomed to and look for new places to share dairy.

Everyone is connected to food. We all eat. When we proactively give people an opportunity to connect to farmers, really cool conversations take place.

Ultimately, food and farming are a lot more captivating than a new TV series. We dont need publicity stunts to capture peoples attention; we just need to show up.

The author is a dairy farmer and writer from central Minnesota. She farms with her husband, Glen, and their three children. Sadie grew up on a dairy farm in northern Minnesota and graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in agricultural communications and marketing. She also blogs at Dairy Good Life.
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SPIEGEL: The EU is increasingly developing towards a two-speed -- or even multiple-speed -- Europe. Where do you see Poland in this regard?

Waszczykowski: We are calling for unity in Europe; we don't want any further divisions. Two, or even several, speeds: Those are recipes that will destroy Europe. We have arrived at a decisive point: Are we going to stay together or is everyone going to go their own way? That is something you have to ask in some Western capitals. The result of different speeds would be the establishment of a leadership group that rules over the other members.

SPIEGEL: Your government is demanding that the EU be reformed. What kind of reforms would you like to see?

Waszczykowski: We could imagine a great deal more cooperation when it comes to border protection and defense. But we believe that more thought must be put into the competencies of the European institutions. The European Council, for example, consists of representatives of elected governments, meaning it has a high degree of democratic legitimacy. As such, it should have the most power. The Commission, by contrast, is made up of deputies sent by the member states. They are bureaucrats. As such, the Commission shouldn't have the right to monitor member states , as happened to us with the Rule of Law Framework. The Commission should only be able to carry out directives from the Council and should not have its own political ambitions.

SPIEGEL: You are demanding a Europe in which nation states have more influence. Is that also a function of your problematic relationship with Poland's most important partner, Germany? You branded the election of Donald Tusk as a German conspiracy.

Waszczykowski: Just a few hours before the summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in German parliament that she was pleased that Donald Tusk was going to be re-elected as European Council president.

SPIEGEL: So what? It was clear where the majority stood.

Waszczykowski: We think that Angela Merkel' comment was a political directive to the other member states: I want Tusk to win.

SPIEGEL: And you think that the other 26 members would accept such a thing?

Waszczykowski: That's what it looks like to us, yes. Regarding our relationship with Germany: We have differences on energy policy and we also aren't of the opinion that Germany should be allowed to dictate to other EU countries how many refugees they must accept. We do, however, see commonalities in defense policy. Of course the Germans are an important partner for us. Annual trade volume between our two countries is over 100 billion euros; that is much more than between Germany and Russia. That is why I always tell my German colleagues: Think carefully about who you solicit -- the Russians or those with whom your economy is deeply entwined. There are a number of issues that unite us, but at the same time, we openly admit that there are also issues that still must be clarified.

SPIEGEL: That sounds like the old Polish accusation that Berlin is too indulgent with Moscow. Shouldn't you be more concerned about U.S. President Donald Trump establishing a pact with Russia?

Waszczykowski: Trump said a lot of peculiar things during the campaign, to put it mildly. But we believe he will fulfill his NATO obligations. American soldiers are stationed in Poland. We will have to wait and see how Trump behaves regarding Russia. We are, of course, in favor of dialogue with Moscow, but we are unfortunately pessimistic that anything would come out of it. Under Putin, the country will remain backward, imperialist and corrupt.

SPIEGEL: Your Law and Justice party is often mentioned alongside other right-wing populist parties like the Alternative for Germany (AfD). Does that bother you?

Waszczykowski: I'm not interested in the AfD. We see ourselves as a conservative-patriotic party that focuses on social needs and defending Christian values and historical traditions. We can't be classified as right or left. We are definitely democrats and reject chauvinistic ideas.
Madrid, March 28, 2017 (SPS) - The plenary session of the Balearic Parliament (Spain) has approved on Tuesday by the approbation of all groups an institutional declaration calling for "compliance with the judgment of the European Court of Justice on the Western Sahara, dated December 21, 2016.

According to this judgment "no trade agreement between the EU and Morocco is applicable in Western Sahara and no commercial activity or export of natural resources in Western Sahara can be established without the consent of the Saharawi people."

The institutional statement approved in the Balearic Chamber stresses that, since this sentence is obligatory by the European and state authorities, "it is their duty to respect it, to make it known to the citizens for its correct application."

Similarly, the Balearic Chamber "expresses its concern about the exploitation of natural resources in Western Sahara by European companies, which contradicts European international law." "In view of this, it is our duty to insist and recall the illegality of any commercial activity in the territory of Western Sahara without the consent of the Saharawi people," states SPS

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STAMFORD  Jury selection began Tuesday in what could be the longest murder trial at the citys courthouse in several years.

Judge John Blawie told prospective jurors that the case against Stamford resident Shota Mekoshvili, who is accused of stabbing to death and robbing taxicab driver Mahomed Kamal, could last up to a month. Testimony in the case is scheduled to begin April 26.

Due to the expected length of the trial, it could take until the end of next week to choose the 12 jurors and four alternates.

Defense attorney Norm Pattis and senior Assistant States Attorney James Bernardi, who is prosecuting the case, exhausted one panel of jurors with only one selected on Tuesday morning. Another panel of 18 was scheduled for the afternoon session.

Mekoshvili has been jailed since his arrest for the August 2014 murder of Kamal, 47, who police said was stabbed nearly two dozen times with a three-inch knife. Mekoshvili is being held at the Northern Correctional Institution since his arrest less than a day after the murder. Hes been unable to post a $1.1 million court appearance bond.

On Tuesday, he sat quietly in a sports jacket and collared shirt between Pattis and co-counsel Kevin Smith at the defense table.

Known throughout the state as a fierce defense attorney, Pattis recently represented Tony Moreno for killing his seven-month-old son by throwing the baby off a bridge into the Connecticut River. A jury found Moreno guilty of murder in February.

Mekoshvili faces up to 60 years in prison if convicted of Kamals murder on the Doolittle Road cul-de-sac early in the morning of Aug. 27, 2014.

Pattis and Smith will not present an alibi or mental disease or defect defense in the case. Pattis said he would present a self-defense case to the jury. He declined to comment further.

Bernardi also declined to comment on the case.

Police believe robbery was the motive for the murder since a witness said Kamal had as much as $500 on him the morning he was killed, Mekoshvilis arrest affidavit said.

Kamal, who was married and had a 3-year-old son, is believed to have driven Mekoshvili to Doolittle Road about 3:30 a.m. Aug. 27, 2014. The two apparently knew each other and Kamal had previously given rides to Mekoshvili, the affidavit said.

A tipster alerted authorities that Mekoshvili said he stabbed someone to death because the man kept screaming while he was robbing him, police said. The tipster also saw bloody money inside Mekoshvili's apartment that morning, the affidavit said.

About 13 hours after Kamal's body was found, police said they needed to use a Taser to arrest Mekoshvili, who led officers on a foot chase in downtown Stamford.

Police said he had a gash on his nose and cuts on his forehead and right temple, believed to have been caused by a metal flashlight that Kamal wielded to protect himself during the robbery.

Over the past two weeks, Pattis has filed a motion to suppress much of the states evidence against his client.

Pattis argues in the motion police arrested his client without probable cause and Mekoshvilis phone was illegally used to location him, and therefore, statements and evidence collected should be inadmissible.

No date has been set for a hearing on the motion.

jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com;
One in three people are infected with the Mycobacterium Tuberculosis, and 10 percent of those infected will become sick with Tuberculosis sometime in their lives. The rest have latent TB, and do not develop the disease. However, the disease can become active when the persons immune system is compromised. That we currently have an epidemic of diabetes for instance, leaves us at risk for spiking a TB epidemic here in the United States. The year 2015 saw a 17 percent increase in Connecticut cases the first increase in 23 years. In the United States, TB treatment averages $17,000 per case, while treatment of multi-drug resistant TB (MDRTB) averages $282,000  (XDR extensively drug resistant) $482,000.

If you include productivity losses that number increase to $621,000. Clearly our state budgets would be overwhelmed by having to treat MDR TB here. It costs an average of $5,000. to treat MDRTB overseas, and $100-200 to treat drug-sensitive TB. It is imperative that we contain and overcome the plague abroad. There is no vaccine for TB, although there are some in the pipeline, it requires funding. Public health nurses are at extreme risk for contracting the disease, and most states have cut their budgets for staffing public health nurses, e.g. Massachusetts used to have six public health nurses who could treat TB, it now only has one.

Do not feel bad if you are one of many Americans whove been brainwashed to believe 10-25 percent of our budget goes to foreign aid, the fact is foreign aid is less than 1 percent of our budget. Do not feel bad if youve thought of foreign aid as charity or altruistic sacrifice, when indeed it is an important part of our defense, commerce, and keeping deadly pandemics off our shores. Thus, military leaders and secretaries of state often advocate for the foreign aid budget because greater health, primary education, and overcoming dire poverty, makes the recipient countries stronger allies. The U.S. Commerce department has historically written letters of support, as the development in these countries now has them make up 50 percent of our export trade. However, It is imperative that we awake from the myth, and understand the nature of foreign aid and the bipartisan strategy it has been to keep America strong, as the proposed 30 percent (!) cuts create an immediate risk of triggering an epidemic of tuberculosis in our country that we do not have the resources to handle.

About 4,900 people die from TB every day, and 25,000 people a day are sickened with it. Treatment for drug-responsive TB is a course of injections with the patient suffering nausea and pain. MDRTB can take one and a half to over two years of treatment and that kind of agonizing symptoms of the disease and the treatment, many patients are left with nerve damage.

Trump may be ignorant of the risk, but USAID and world leaders are not. TB has now surpassed AIDS as the leading infectious killer. Under U.S. leadership The United States has implemented the National Action Plan for Combatting Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis, and the global community has committed to end the TB epidemic by 2030. Three major innovations promise to turn the tide.

1. The first new antibiotic in 40 years has been introduced. Bedaquiline (aka BDQ) increases a persons chance of survival from 50-80 percent.

2. A molecular diagnostic machine has been developed, called Expert that can accurately determine from a sample of sputum whether it is TB or multi-drug resistant TB, including in those who have HIV/AIDS, and have the results within two hours, as opposed to the slow process of diagnosis that has historically sent people home to wait for results, having them spread the disease, and often the very poor dont have means of returning for the results or treatment. People tested can be started on treatment immediately, reducing the spread of the disease to others, and increasing the chances of survival for the patient. This is a huge advance and USAID is helping countries buy the machine.

3. A smarter version of treatment now reduces the average course of treatment from two years to nine months.

The Plan cannot move forward without funding. Vaccines in the pipeline cannot get developed without funding. The United States will lose a fortune in monies, Americans will suffer and die, our health care costs will increase astronomically, our commerce will suffer, and we will weaken our allies, bringing the plague here, at a time we are already experiencing increases in the incidence of TB here. A cut is supposed to save us money, this is one that will overwhelm our resources.

We need to call our members of Congress, and ask them to fight any cuts to our foreign aid budget. Specifically, regarding TB, we need to ask our representatives to submit a formal appropriations request form for the USAID TB account to Representatives Mike Rogers and Nita Lowey, and Senators Lindsey Graham and Patrick Leahy, as chairs and ranking members of the respective State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee of Appropriations for $450 million for FY 2018 for our bilateral TB efforts, and a request for $1.475 billion for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria, and TB. These amounts are in keeping with work that has been going on for decades, that is succeeding in our seeing results such as an end to death by AIDS and an end to in utero transmission of AIDS, and that are part of a strategy to rid the world of the TB pandemic by 2030.

Sandra Eagle is a member of Results (results.org) an anti-poverty movement.
T ourists have not been put off coming to London since the Westminster attack last week, the boss of online firm Hostelworld said on Tuesday.

Feargal Mooney said: Londoners are determined to not let it impact their way of life. Tourists have seen that and still want to visit.

Mooney said the hostels firm had not seen any particular impact on trading since Khalid Masoods attack last Wednesday, which killed four people.

But the firm admitted the spate of global terror attacks had hit trading last year.

Overall bookings dipped 1% last year because of softer demand in European destinations as a result of geopolitical events, including the Brussels attacks last March. That caused sales to drop to 80.5 million (69.5 million) from 83.5 million.

But the firm praised performance at its flagship Hostelworld brand, which is being advertised by actor Charlie Sheen. It represented 87% of total group bookings, up from 73%.

Pre-tax profit increased by 65% to 133,000 at the firm which has around 200 London hostels on its books.

Shares rose 5% to 255p. They floated at 185p in October 2015.

Numis analyst Tim Barrett said: Disrupted travel made for a challenging 2016 but, in our view, management negotiated a tricky period well.
A n MP on the Treasury Select Committee is writing to HBOS to express anger over the banks handling of a redress scheme for customers affected by a loan scam.

George Kerevan says it is unfair that the bank is in control of the compensation scheme.

In February HBOS bankers in Reading were sent to jail over a scam that saw small business clients lose their firms. Parent Lloyds Banking Group says it is looking into compensation claims.

George Kerevan, SNP MP for East Lothian, writes: While meeting with affected clients, the bank has proceeded on its own accord to appoint an independent adjudicator in advance of any consensus on a redress scheme 

There is very strong feeling that a bank-appointed independent third party is not acceptable to the victims, and certainly not one appointed by the bank without consultation.

Lloyds last week appointed Scottish professor Russel Griggs to oversee the review into HBOS Reading.
T esco boss Dave Lewis on Tuesday claimed were different now as the retailer was fined 129 million over its accounting scandal.

Britains biggest retailers bill for misstating its profits forecast exceeds 200 million as it also includes 85 million compensation to investors who bought Tesco shares and bonds between August 29 and September 19, 2014 and the Serious Fraud Offices costs.

Lewis appeared hopeful that todays deal and the compensation scheme might head off outstanding litigation: The FCA is very clear that no one at Tesco Plc knew or should have known what was in the misleading statement, and that will be significant in the litigation, he said.

Its not for me to guess what the civil litigators will do, but they were not aware until this point of the compensation scheme. Well have to wait to see what those parties want to do, but well be very committed in our defence.

Lewis on Booker Tesco is fighting a second front after major investors warned that its 3.7 billion bid for wholesaler Booker was too generous  but Lewis today defended the deal. Ive met tens of [Tescos biggest] shareholders [since the acquisition was announced] and Im pleased with the response we got, he said. Schroders and Artisan Partners said the Booker offer should be withdrawn but Lewis countered: I spoke to both several times. We spent six hours walking it through with one of them, the other declined to come. Veteran fund manager Richard Buxton of Old Mutual Global Investors today backed the acquisition.

Lewis, who took the top job at Tesco shortly before the accounting scandal erupted, claimed paying up does bring this matter to a close as far as the company is concerned.

Were recognising the situation, were paying the fine, were paying the compensation, and that allows the Plc to move on, he said.

The Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the SFO means Tesco Stores will escape prosecution for the 326 million black hole it discovered in its accounts after booking income from suppliers early.

The settlement relates to shops arm Tesco Stores, not the wider group and it is not an admission of criminal liability. It needs to be approved by Lord Justice Leveson next month.

But questions linger over the fate of its former bosses and a 100 million civil claim.

Todays settlement does not affect the cases pending against the three individuals  UK managing director Chris Bush, UK finance director Carl Rogberg and food commercial director John Scouler  who have been charged by the SFO. They deny all wrongdoing.

Tesco also faces civil litigation, including an 100 million High Court lawsuit brought by more than 125 institutional funds over alleged breaches of the Financial Services and Markets Act.
W ere all going on a summer holiday  well, 10% of us more than last year  but this time Thomas Cook, rather than Cliff Richard, is singing the song.

Brits are trying to ignore the fact that a Brexit-fuelled plunge in the pound has made a foreign break pricier.

And holidaymakers from across Europe are flocking to Turkeys and Egypts sunbeds once more, despite terror concerns and a violent attempted coup by the Turkish army.

Cooks summer bookings are up 10% on last years, according to chief executive Peter Fankhauser, although he pointed out that sales last year were stymied by terror attacks, in particular a Russian passenger jet which was blown up on its way to St Petersburg from Sharm el-Sheikh.

Other popular destinations include Greece  where Cook boosted its range of breaks this year  Cyprus, Bulgaria, Croatia and Portugal.

In the UK, bookings for summer breaks are the same as last year, but average prices are 3% higher.

Fankhauser added: Customers appetite to go abroad on holiday this summer is good across all our markets despite continued political and economic uncertainty.

"Were seeing early signs that customers are beginning to go back to Turkey and Egypt. Competition is particularly intense in the airline sector, putting downward pressure on pricing.

Shares, which rose in the run up to the results, slid 1.7p, or 2%, to 87.7p.
T he Mayors visit to Brussels, and his joint appearance with the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, is a useful signal that if Britain is open for business, London is even more so. Tomorrow, the Prime Minister triggers Article 50; today Sadiq Khan issues what his aides are describing as a love letter to the EU. He says in a speech to EU leaders that a bad Brexit deal for Britain would be bad for the EU and appeals to them to avoid a punitive approach  there is no need ... for the EU to send a message, or to instil fear, by punishing the UK. Because a proud, optimistic and confident institution does not secure its future by fear. Fortunately, Mr Khans approach appears to be shared on the EU side; Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker declared this weekend that it had no wish to punish Britain. The talks will be hard-headed but that is not the same as hostile.

The Mayors visit is useful; we must deploy every means we have to make clear that in leaving the EU, Britain is not leaving Europe, and our relationship with the EU will be as positive as we can make it. The City of Londons special representative to the EU, Jeremy Browne, regularly makes the same point: that a positive relationship benefits both sides. Indeed, he insists that the City should be a resource for the whole of the EU, not just the UK. He has a point; if the City is diminished by Brexit, it wont be Paris that benefits so much as New York.

The Mayors appearance with the Mayor of Paris is a useful indication that great cities often have more in common than the countries of which they are capitals. They are launching a joint initiative to attract tourism and investment to the two cities, building on considerable mutual investment between London and Parisian institutions. This approach makes sense: Chinese visitors to Europe for instance are quite willing to combine visits to London and Paris  the two capitals can co-operate sensibly on drumming up tourism. More bleakly, Paris and London  and Brussels and Berlin  share a common threat from Islamist extremism. It is inconceivable that Brexit should diminish cross-border information sharing.

Today, the PM made a speech about Global Britain. Shes right, of course, but a global Britain need not be at the expense of European Britain. Were one and the other.

Building tall

Following Westminster councils shift in policy towards giving planning permission for more tall buildings, City Hall has set out the Mayors stance: Tall buildings have a role to play in London but they should only be built in suitable areas, contribute positively to the skyline and their locality and, if residential, help ease the capitals housing crisis. These are admirable objectives but every developer will maintain that his proposal will enhance the skyline. And while tall buildings do have the potential to provide more housing, medium-rise buildings such as mansion blocks also make for high density. This is an issue with huge implications for our environment; what we decide now will affect future generations. Decisions should be preceded by wide-ranging public debate, and we should be having it now.

Remember the victims

Kurt Cochran was on his first trip outside the US when he was murdered on Westminster Bridge last week. His wife was badly injured. Remarkably, his family say they will not bear ill feelings towards the killer but will focus instead on the positive memories of Kurts life. This is a reminder to us all to keep in mind the victims of last weeks attack, rather than concentrating only on its perpetrator.
N ews that Westminster City Council is to abandon the planning policy of its late leader, Sir Simon Milton, is devastating. The council intends to inflict on the finest low-rise city in Europe  that is Westminster, not London  the same rash of random towers now being inflicted on the City of London, Southwark and Lambeth. The anti-planning contagion initiated by Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson has become a raging capitulation to the great god greed.

An early sign came this month when Londons philistine mayor, Sadiq Khan, and now the planning minister, Sajid Javid, both refused to call in the Paddington cube for review. This was despite its crushing under tons of glass the whole concept of a London conservation area, in which it will sit.

Javid is permitting, without so much as a public inquiry, the dream of the late property speculator, Irvine Sellar, to build something very big looming over glorious Paddington Station. A protected neighbourhood of Victorian alleys and warehouses is to be wrecked to grant a dead mans whim. Westminster clearly has no intention of enforcing its own policies. Every Westminster conservation area must be considered up for grabs, with Government approval.

Let us clear away one thing for a start. These towers have nothing to do with density or with Londons housing needs. The box is a replacement for Sellars previous 72-storey pole, which was for luxury flats. But it delivered fewer flats than alternative local proposals for high-density low-rise streets on the site. Like the majority of such luxury towers in todays London, they are intended to sit empty in the balance sheets of oriental savers. The pole was about personal vanity not housing.

Now the luxury flat market has collapsed, the box is to be for offices. London does not need more offices. More to the point, the jobs it does need are better suited to the informal spaces of a conservation area than the old-fashioned corporate high-rises that often stand empty for years. From Soho to Shoreditch to Camden Town, older buildings supply lettable, adaptable workspaces. When the good times pass, as they always do, it is Londons conservation areas that will offer the jobs, not frigid office towers.

Sellar apparently wowed Westminsters impressionable former planning boss, Robert Davis, with a signature building towering over Maida Vale by the Italian architect of the Shard, Renzo Piano. Since the pole was howled down last November, Piano conceded that I am not going to insist, with that starchitect disdain that assumes the decision is his, not ours.

Sellar and Piano then played the old speculators gambit of proposing a lower building but with twice the floor area. This is supposed to induce gratitude and relief among naive planners. It worked a dream. I cannot believe even Piano thinks this is his finest work, it looks like it was run up on a laptop in an afternoon. But then unlike residents of Paddington and Bayswater, he lives in Paris and will not have to see it every day. The sole virtue of this 19-storey lump is that it is not a 72-storey pole. Is that really the best modern Westminster can do?

Javid, who carries the ironic title of minister for communities, has justified non-intervention on the grounds that he is committed to allowing councils and communities to make their own decisions. Tell that to the community of Paddington. Tell it to the hundreds of local communities whose plans Javid overrules almost to aid the volume-housing speculators.

The point of having ministers who can intervene is to uphold the spirit of the law when a council has failed in its duty. Westminster has flagrantly failed. It was for this reason that Javids predecessor, Eric Pickles, intervened two years ago to protect Smithfield Market from the grasping City of London Corporation. Instead of another office block London will get an exciting new Museum of London.

Another case in point is currently on show at the Royal Institute of British Architects. In 1985 Lord Palumbo sought to demolish the Victorian district west of the Bank of England in the City, replacing it with an off-the-shelf glass tower by Mies van der Rohe. It was rejected by the then minister, Patrick Jenkin. The grounds were that it was a bold and imaginative endeavour to achieve a development of real distinction but would dominate the area around it to a wholly unacceptable extent.

In the event, Palumbo turned to the postmodern architect Sir James Stirling, whose building, No 1 Poultry, admirably complements its setting in the conservation area of the Bank and Mansion House. Valued buildings were lost but the consensus was that the conservation area was enhanced. That is how London should renew itself, not by Westminsters lurch back to the dark ages.

The justification given by Westminster for Sellars box is not that it is beautiful but that he offered to build a new entrance to the Bakerloo line platforms next door. That is Transport for Londons job. Public benefit is not ground for destroying public benefit. It is like letting the Grosvenor Estate build a tower block in Belgrave Square if it repairs the sewer. Is that Westminsters next scheme?

Irvine Sellar died before the approval of his block by Khan and Javid. I can think of no better memorial to him than for his firm to imitate Palumbo and return to the drawing board. Send Piano back to his vanity projects and put forward a mixed-use development, such as that proposed by the think tank Create Streets for the Paddington community. There is no good reason to refuse. The development would still make a fortune. It could be called Sellarstown and stand to the old mans credit.
A meditation class in the depths of Tower Bridge is just one of the events being staged for the capitals second art night.

Artists including the Chapman Brothers, who are transforming an empty docklands warehouse with a new video installation, will turn the East End in an after hours art gallery.

After dark art lovers will be able to spend the night strolling the streets which will be filled with sculptures, video installations and performers.

The event, inspired by the Nuit Blanche movement in Paris, launched last year in central London transforming office blocks, flats, public spaces and Tube platforms.

Locations this year include the disused building on London Dock that will be home to the Chapman Brothers show and Exchange Square in Broadgate will be the scene for a mass public dance led by artist Melanie Manchot.

Other venues include a Grade II listed Masonic temple, inside the Andaz Hotel near Liverpool Street station, which will be transformed with a video installation by artist Lindsay Seers and the Bascule Chamber inside Tower Bridge which will host artist Ian Whittlesea who will lead his audience in a meditation session.

Iwona Blazwick, Director of Whitechapel Gallery which helped plan the event, said : As an institution which prides itself as bringing great art to the people of East London for over a century, we are delighted to be working with Art Night, a festival which brings art and heritage to life for one special summer night. It is a project that enables us to engage even further with our diverse audiences and local heritage, and to offer artists the opportunity to create engaging works of art outside of the confines of the gallery walls. We are excited to invite everyone on a journey to rediscover the city out of hours and through art.

Guides will be on hand at each site to answer questions and help audiences move through the city to the next event.

Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor of Culture and Creative Industries, said the event was a fantastic way to experience the city after hours.

She said: Art Night will bring major international artists to Londons East End, opening up incredible spaces to the public, and see them create new work inspired by the history of the area and its changing identity.
S ummer music festivals have a long history of being breeding grounds for eccentric fashion trends to bloom.

From the tie-dyed trends of Glastonbury to today's obsession with cutoff denim, face jewels and elaborate, flowery headbands, over-the-top looks are youth culture's stamp on the festival phenomenon.

A new trend, however, is taking festival fashion one step further: glitter for your derriere.

For a look guaranteed to sparkle this festival season, artist Mia Kennington recommends adding some dazzle to your posterior.

Kennington is part of a UK-based team of glitter aficionados called the Gypsy Shrine, which not only sells glitter kits on its website, but also hosts events, pop-up shops and even hen parties to "glitterfy" and body paint customers. The team's usual offerings include body art, face paint and hair braiding. But after a trip to Beyond Sahara festival in Morocco, "glitter butt" has become a customer favourite.

The trend comes after Gypsy Shrine's last glittery endeavour, the "glitter boob", became quite popular on social media. The look is supposed to create the illusion of a decorative bra achieved by thick layers of glitter.

Kennington formed the look to achieve the feeling of sitting on the beach, standing up from the sand, and finding your bottom covered.

If this is a trend you can get behind, make sure to do it right. The Gypsy Shrine recommends that you first paint your bum with either coloured paint or hair gel to make sure the glitter sticks. After you apply the sparkles, spray your bum with hairspray or makeup setter to ensure the glitter sticks.
C rystal-clear waters, vast mountain ranges and infinity swimming pools that appear to go on for miles - holiday staples or Instagram like traps?

A recent survey shows that two in five millennials choose their holiday spots based on how Instagrammable the destination is, valuing the photo ops over alcohol, cuisine and even sightseeing.

One thousand adults across the UK were asked what they valued most about a travel experience, and 40.1 percent of them said they take "Instagrammability" into consideration. Far behind at just 24 percent was the cost or availability of alcohol, with personal development not far off at 22.6 percent.

Only 9.4 percent responded that they value the chance to taste local food, and a bare 3.9 percent said they value the opportunity to go sightseeing.

So what does this mean? For 40 percent of millennials, getting the perfect snap is worth twice as much as eating or drinking.

For Leeds native Kay Brown, Instagram helps her decide between travel locations as opposed to fumbling through blogs and articles. She said she uses Instagram when looking at places to travel within the UK as well as across Europe.

I tend to start looking at what images have been geotagged in the location or vicinity so I can get an idea of how popular, nice or photogenic the place is and discover places that might not otherwise be written about, Brown told the Standard. I then move onto location-specific hashtags which tend to be populated by tourists rather than residents, so I can see how other visitors have spent their time in the place.

A millennial from Cambridge shared Browns sentiment. To Lucy Stevens, Instagram provides the opportunity for her to get a better perspective of a destination before she books a trip.

I'd be lying if I said it didn't play a part, Stevens said. If an Instagram novice can make a place look amazing, then I am sold and probably want to go myself too!

Others, however, see Instagrammability as an afterthought when planning travel. Alex Blakoe, a recent graduate from London, said although he takes pictures whilst on holiday, the Instagram pictures are just an added bonus.

17 bucket list hotels - in pictures 1 /22 17 bucket list hotels - in pictures Fogo Island Inn, Canada Fogo Island Inn Tri, Sri Lanka Hotel Tri Keemala, Thailand Keemala Alila, Oman Nihiwatu, Indonesia Nihiwatu Qualia, Australia Qualia, Australia Hamilton Island Soneva Jani, Maldives Soneva Jani has a near mystical silhouette of pitched roofs and wide terraces Soneva Jani Azulik, Tulum Tatiana Chausovsky Grand Hotel Tremezzo, Lake Como, Italy Grand Hotel Tremezzo Awasi, Patagonia Awasi Golden Eye, Jamaica Royale trip: Ian Fleming's GoldenEye estate Peter Brown Jade Mountain, St Lucia Classy choice: Jade Mountain, with its views of the Pitons Jade Mountain Villa Honegg, Switzerland Hotel Villa Honegg, Timo Schwach Six Senses, Crete Six Senses spa with seaside view Porto Elounda Borgo Egnazia, Puglia Press Le Sirenuse, Positano The pool at Le Sirenuse Le Sirenuse Song Saa, Cambodia Le Song Saa Resort Thailand Le Song Saa Resort Thailand

Some friends, I feel, do take it too far. I'm not sure it goes as far as to determine their destination but it can certainly seems like it's spoiling their holiday a bit when they're out there, Blakoe told the Standard. They spend their time counting the likes they get instead of having a bit of a digital detox and enjoying the place.

Whether you mean to embrace it or not, Instagram's effect on the way millennials travel is just some (potentially photogenic) food for thought.

Perhaps next time you instinctively reach for your phone, you'll make a conscious effort to try to see the sights without the help of your screen.
A murder inquiry has been launched after a man was stabbed to death in a street in south London on Tuesday.

The victim, who is in his 20s, was attacked in Surrey Lane, Battersea at around 1.10am.

He was found collapsed in the street with stab injuries.

Paramedics gave emergency treatment but he was pronounced dead at the scene at 1.55am.

Detectives have launched a murder hunt today and appealed for witnesses.

There have been no arrests, Scotland Yard said.
A 17-year-old boy was slashed in the face during an unprovoked attack just off a busy road in east London.

Police and paramedics raced to the scene of the incident in Dagenham where they found the boy had been attacked with a knife.

He was rushed to hospital for treatment and has since been discharged to recover at home, police said.

The attack happened in Sheppey Road, near to Gale Street, at about 4.30pm on Friday, March 10.

DC Sam Carey, the officer in the case for the CID at the East Area BCU, said: "This occurred at a busy time of day and I am appealing to anyone who was in or around the area, who may have seen anything they now think is suspicious, to contact me.

Their information could mean the difference in identifying this suspect."

The suspect is a black male, aged in his 20s, around 6ft 4ins tall. He fled the scene along Sheppey Road.

Any witnesses, or anyone with information, is urged to contact DC Carey on 020 8345 1626 or email him at Samuel.Carey@met.police.uk.

To give information anonymously contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or visit crimestoppers-uk.
C ounter-terrorism barriers have been installed at Windsor Castle to protect the Changing of the Guard following last weeks horrific terror attack in Westminster.

Last Wednesday terrorist Khalid Masood killed three people and injured at least 50 others when he mowed down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before stabbing police officer Keith Palmer in front of the Houses of Parliament.

Thames Valley Police has now installed new concrete barriers to try to prevent a similar attack outside the Queen's Berkshire residence.

Assistant Chief Constable Dave Hardcastle said the security upgrade was made even though there was nothing to indicate a specific threat at Windsor.

London Terror Attack Floral Tributes at Westminster - 27 March 2017 1 /16 London Terror Attack Floral Tributes at Westminster - 27 March 2017 Hero MP Tobias Ellwood looks over the flowers left in tribute to the victims of the attack in Westminster Jeremy Selwyn He paused at the solemn scene in Parliament Square this morning Jeremy Selwyn Flowers from Prime Minister Theresa May amongst tributes to the victims of the Westminster terrorist attack outside the Palace of Westminster Jeremy Selwyn Two school children look at the floral tributes Jeremy Selwyn A woman observes the flowers pinned to the Carriage Gates where the attack took place Jeremy Selwyn Outpouring of support: flowers at the scene of the attack in Westminster Jeremy Selwyn Three police officers stand in front of the floral tributes Jeremy Selwyn A female police officer pays her respects at the scene Jeremy Selwyn A woman in jogging attire stops to remember the victims of the attack Jeremy Selwyn A man looks at floral tributes to the victims of the Westminster terrorist attack outside the Palace of Westminster Lauren Hurley/PA Police officers stand in front of the floral tributes Jeremy Selwyn Labour MP Hilary Benn passes floral tributes to the victims of the Westminster terrorist attack outside the Palace of Westminster Lauren Hurley/PA

ACC Hardcastle, Thames Valley's head of operations, said: The force believes that it is proportionate and necessary to put in place extra security measures to further protect and support the public and the Guard Change.

"This is consistent with security deployments in London.

Preventative measures such as these have been put in place across the UK over the past 10 years at various events.

The national threat level remains severe, which it has been since 2014, and I would urge the public to be alert to the threat of terror attacks but not alarmed, and to remain vigilant.

Westminster attack: Londoners share messages of unity

The new barriers are in addition to the existing road closures and ACC Hardcastle hoped they would offer extra protection for soldiers along the Guard Change route.

Ch Insp Sarah Grahame, deputy commander for Windsor and Maidenhead, said: I hope that people in Windsor will understand the reasons that these barriers are being introduced, and will see why they are necessary.

Cllr Simon Dudley, leader of the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead, added: We support the good work of Thames Valley Police and the Metropolitan Police in their work to make Windsor a safer place for those who live, work and visit the town.

These measures will increase security at the changing of the guard ceremony and the council is offering its help where necessary to ensure that this valued and popular tradition can continue.
A young man was repeatedly stabbed in a frenzied broad daylight attack on a quiet road in south London.

Emergency services rushed to the scene of the incident, in Battenberg Walk, Gipsy Hill, shortly after midday on Monday.

A 20-year-old man, who was suffering from multiple stab wounds, was taken to a south London hospital by paramedics, Scotland Yard said.

Police believe he was attacked by two men.

Detective Constable Richard Mosford from Lambeth CID said: "This was a frenzied attack that has left the victim with serious injuries.

As a result, there will be an increased police presence in the local area for reassurance.

"We would appeal for any witnesses or anyone who has information about the attack to contact Lambeth CID so we can bring those responsible to justice."

The man's injuries are not believed to be life threatening.

Anyone with information is asked to call Lambeth CID on 07785 774 447.

Information can also be reported anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or online at www.crimestoppers-uk.org.
A woman who impersonated five London learner drivers on their tests because of her "desire to help others" has been jailed for seven months.

Regine Tezangi, 52, was paid hundreds of pounds to sit the DVLA practical tests for the women between June 2014 and February 2016 at centres in Sidcup and Hither Green.

She pleaded guilty to six counts of fraud at an earlier hearing and was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court to seven months in jail on Tuesday afternoon.

One one occasion, Tezangi, from Hackney, failed the first test for Ruphine Impiri on January 22 2016, and had to re-sit it two weeks later.

In exchange, she received 500 from Impiri, who had become "frustrated by the number of lessons" that she had taken, the court heard.

Judge Deborah Taylor said the actions had created a "risk of serious injury which could have been catastrophic".

She said that some of the women paid for the licences that they were provided with by Tezangi's actions, which have now been revoked.

Judge Taylor described the offences as "serious", adding that they exposed other drivers to risks and the crime "totally undermined the driving licence system".

Tezangi, who is studying for a BSc in Tourism and Business, was said to have acted after hearing "stories of desperation".

Caroline Jackson, defending, said she committed her crimes because she had a "desire to help others in need".

But Judge Taylor said that, while Tezangi's actions may not have been for financial gain, "there was some commercial benefit".

The five women who were impersonated by Tezangi were also sentenced at the court after pleading guilty previously.

Esther Ehigbor, 53, Galech Barry, 30, and Impiri, 44, were sentenced to three months in prison suspended for 12 months and ordered to complete 200 hours' unpaid work.

Sylvie Omango, 37, was handed a three-month sentence suspended for 12 months and a curfew for three months.

Riskiet Olawuyi, 46, was also given a three-month suspended sentence with a 20-day rehabilitation activity requirement.

Additional reporting by the Press Association.
A kung-fu champion who stabbed a brother and sister in a racist attack after bursting into their home in the middle of the night said afterwards: I do what I like because I am God, a court heard.

Walter Pantellaro, 27, carried out the frenzied knife attack during a bout of insanity, kicking his way into the Vauxhall flat while armed with a knife, it is said.

The Italian first attacked the sister, 22, as she lay naked in bed, stabbing her repeatedly while she screamed for help and tried to fend off the attack, Inner London Crown Court heard.

Pantellaro then allegedly turned on her 15-year-old brother as he bravely intervened during the incident on May 1 last year.

Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay told jurors they will be asked to reach a special verdict, finding Pantellaro not guilty of the charges by reason of insanity so that he can be held securely for mental health treatment.

Pantellaro stabbed a woman as she lay naked in bed before stabbing her brother as he rushed to help

The court heard the Italian-born martial arts specialist admitted to police that he had carried out the attacks, saying he did it because I am racist.

While being held at HMP Belmarsh, guards found letters penned by Pantellaro signed off as W. Lucifer J., the court heard, and one of his notebooks found near the scene of the attack contained a drawing of a swastika.

The defendant admitted carrying out the attacks, he said he did that because he was racist, said Mr Polnay.

They are undeniably shocking acts, and when you hear what he did and his account why he did it, you may think there is no other description but insanity for what took place.

Witnesses saw the Italian trying to get into the block of flats in Vauxhall at around 3am, and after two failed attempts he managed to kick his way into one of the homes.

Walter Pantellaro, 27, near the houses of Parliament

Mr Polnay said the female victim, who was on the cusp of taking her university final exams, woke up just after 3.30am to see Pantellaros silhouette in her bedroom doorway.

He came towards her and started to hit her - she didnt realise she was being stabbed at first, but being stabbed she was, he said.

Near the end of the attack, her brother shouted what are you doing to my sister? And very bravely he threw a punch at the man, but then this defendant lunged at the boy and stabbed him repeatedly.

The wounded teenage boy then grabbed a chair from his mothers bedroom and hit Pantellaro with it, forcing him to flee the flat, it is said.

The court heard a short time later, Pantellaro was spotted loitering outside the Ashtar club on the Thames embankment, and was caught on camera launching a ferocious attack on bouncer Raymond Osoba.

Pantellaro, whose clothes were blood-stained from the earlier knife attack, was eventually pinned down by club staff and arrested.

At the police station, Pantellaro claimed he had taken ten grams of cocaine which made him furious...like a tiger, but tests revealed he only had cannabis in his system.

Pantellaro said he stabbed the woman because he wanted to killed her, and also told detectives he wanted to take possession of the flat so that he could sleep there.

He claimed he had come to the UK ten days earlier for a holiday, the court heard, he said he had been prescribed medication by a doctor in a white coat in Italy but had not taken it, and when quizzed over his symptoms of schizophrenia, Pantellaro replied: I do what I like because I am God.

He confirmed he had attempted to kill the female in the flat, stabbed the male in the flat, and attacked the male outside the nightclub - he said his behaviour was motivated by racism, added Mr Polnay.

Pantellaro, wearing glasses and a brown anorak, sat in the dock at Inner London crown court accompanied by two medical professionals and followed proceedings with the help of an Italian interpreter.

At the start of the trial, Judge Jeremy Donne QC told the jury that Pantellaro is sadly very mentally unwell.

He is improving and able to take part in proceedings, but because of his ill health he is accompanied by psychiatric nurses, he said.

Theres going to be no dispute that Mr Pantellaro did all the things the prosecution allege he did, but he was so unwell at the time that he didnt know what he was doing.

Pantellaro, of no fixed address and originally from the Italian City of Acireale in Sicily, denies attempted murder, wounding with intent, and racially aggravated assault by beating, by virtue of insanity.

The trial continues.
A man suffered a disgraceful and prolonged sexual assault on a packed Tube train during the morning rush hour, police said.

The 38-year-old, who was on his way to work, had boarded a busy Victoria line train from Finsbury Park when another passenger pressed himself against him.

Police say the attacker then began touching the man inappropriately and did not stop until his shocked victim left the train at Kings Cross.

Detectives are now hunting the pervert, who is described as white, slender and around 5ft 7in tall.

He had blue eyes, blonde hair which was curly on top and is thought be in his mid-20s.

During the attack he was clad in a camouflage jacket with black jeans and trainers. He also had bright rucksack and a black earring in his left ear.

Police are now appealing for information over the March 22 assault, which took place at around 7.30am.

Investigating officer, Detective Constable Suleman Yazdani, said: This was a disgraceful and prolonged assault committed on a busy commuter tube service.

As you can imagine this was a frightening experience for him as he quite rightly did not expect or want this man to touch him.

If you know someone who matches the description then please get in touch as your information could be vitally important.

Anyone with information should contact British Transport Police by texting 61016 or calling 0800 40 50 quoting reference 113 of 23/03/2017. Alternatively, call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
R oyal Marine Alexander Blackman will walk free within weeks after judges sentenced him to seven years in prison for shooting dead an injured Taliban fighter in Afghanistan.

The 42-year-old was jailed for life with a minimum of eight years in 2013 after being convicted of murdering the insurgent in the notorious Helmand province.

He was caught on camera shooting the man in the chest at close range with a 9mm pistol before commenting: "Shuffle off this mortal coil, you c***".

Blackman then added: "Obviously this doesn't go anywhere, fellas. I just broke the Geneva Convention".

However Blackman, who was originally known simply as Marine A, successfully had the murder conviction quashed and replaced with manslaughter by diminished responsibility.

At the High Court on Wednesday, a panel of five top judges sitting as a Court Martial Appeal Court re-sentenced Blackman to seven years in prison.

He has already served three-and-a-years in prison and will now be freed because he has served half his sentence.

Lord Thomas, the Lord Chief Justice, said Blackman had damaged the reputation of the armed forces but added he has an "outstanding service record".

Jubilation: Veterans celebrate the reduced sentence for Alexander Blackman / Dominic Lipinski/PA

A crowd of army veterans, family and friends packed out the public gallery, broke in applause and raucous cheers of "He's free" when the sentence was passed, chanting "hip hip hooray" as Blackman smiled over the video link.

However the judges also ruled Blackman is dismissed from the Royal Marines, although no longer in disgrace.

The killing happened when Blackman and colleagues from Plymouth's 42 Commando came across the wounded Taliban fighter, who was carrying an AK47, ammunition and a grenade, after he had been shot by an Apache helicopter.

Blackman fired a shot and then told the dead man: "There you are. Shuffle off this mortal coil, you c***. It's nothing you wouldn't do to us."

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At his appeal, judges agreed that rather than a "cold-blooded execution", Blackman, from Taunton, had been suffering from an "abnormality of mental functioning" at the time.

His barrister, Jonathan Goldberg QC, told the court last week that Blackman, a 15-year-old veteran, "would give his right arm" to continue as a Marine.

Footage shows the moments before 'Marine A' shot Afghan insurgent

Blackman appeared via videolink from HMP Erlestoke for today's hearing, and his wife Claire, 45, was sat in the packed courtroom.

She told the court last week: "He's an incredibly kind, thoughtful, and generous person, the first to help anybody in need."

She said as supporters celebrated outside the Royal Courts of Justice that she was overjoyed at the reduced sentence.

Overjoyed: Claire Blackman (Dominic Lipinski/PA ) / Dominic Lipinski/PA

Mrs Blackman added: ""This is the moment we've all been fighting hard for... it's hard to believe this day is finally here."

Commenting on the case, Blackman has said: "I made a split second-mistake. I had been sent to a brutal battlefield to fight for my country in an unpopular war.

"And yet at the end of my trial, the Establishment lined up to portray me as an evil scumbag because it suited them to do so at the time."
M urder detectives have made a fresh appeal for information after a teenager was shot at close range in a ruthless north London killing.

Abdifatah Sheikhey, known to friends as Abdi, was blasted with a handgun as he sat in the passenger seat of a black Mercedes saloon in Woodlands Road, Ilford.

Police believe the gunman attacked the 19-year-old after pulling up alongside his car in a white BMW X4 just before 10.10pm on March 21.

The vehicle containing Mr Sheikhey was driven a short distance to Bedford Road where paramedics battled in vain to save his life.

Shooting: The victim was found in Bedford Road / @twiterboy12/PA

A post-mortem examination at East Ham Mortuary gave the Redbridge College students cause of death as a gunshot wound to the heart.

Police say the BMW was found abandoned on March 22 in Express Drive, Goodmayes. There have been no arrests so far.

Detective Chief Inspector Chris Jones from the Mets Homicide and Major Crime Command, said: "We urgently need the assistance of the public to find those responsible for this ruthless killing of a young man.

"We are appealing for witnesses to the shooting and also anyone who saw this distinctive BMW being used or abandoned. Abdi's family are inconsolable and your information could help bring to justice those responsible for this heinous crime."

Anyone with information should contact police on 020 8345 3734, 101, or via Twitter using @MetCC. Alternatively, call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111
S afety campaigners today called for a major overhaul of Londons roads including a ban on digital adverts, the use of average speed cameras on Thames bridges and the removal of central white lines to slow traffic.

A new alliance, formed by London Living Streets, 20s Plenty for Us and Living Streets, is also calling for more segregated cycle lanes, the removal of gyratory systems and a default, London-wide 20mph speed limit.

The group claims the proposals will be steps towards the ultimate goal of preventing fatalities and serious injuries on the capitals roads.

It is urging Mayor Sadiq Khan to champion the ideas which include narrowing streets and introducing 24/7 capital-wide road-pricing.

Other measures being called for by the alliance, which has produced a report Delivering Vision Zero in London, include improvements to lorry design to make them more pedestrian and cyclist-friendly, and assurances that autonomous vehicles will be compliant with speed limits.

It says London needs to carry out more work on street design, especially with crossings which should never force pedestrians to wait for more than 30 seconds to cross a road.

Crossings should also have longer guaranteed minimum crossing times to help the disabled.

The alliance wants more enforcement against motorists to stamp out mobile phone use, speeding, uninsured driving and intimidation by drivers of other road users.

It is calling for stricter control of parking contraventions, including double parking, blocking cycle lanes and pavements, following practice in San Francisco.

Some of these policies have been considered before but it has been very piecemeal, said group spokesman Jeremy Leach. We have already seen support for this from the new Mayors administration and Transport for London but we want them all pulled together under an effective Vision Zero policy. We know from looking at other cities that these measures work. It would be daft not to try them.

Ben Plowden, TfLs director of surface strategy and planning, said: Any death or serious injury on our roads is a tragedy and that is why the Mayor has asked us to develop a Vision Zero approach to reducing road danger as part of his forthcoming transport strategy. This means vigorously enforcing traffic law, putting safety at the core of road engineering and working to discourage dangerous behaviour.
N ew anti-terror barriers have been installed to stop cars ploughing into people outside Buckingham Palace in a Westminster-style horror attack.

The bright yellow security arches have appeared around the busy central London tourist spot in the wake of last Wednesdays attack outside Parliament which left four people dead.

The strong metal barriers are designed to protect against vehicle-ramming attacks, which have been carried out by IS terrorists in recent years across Europe including in Berlin and Nice.

The barriers were due to be installed in time for the Changing of the Guard ceremony in May but it was brought forward by six weeks following Khalid Masoods brutal attack last week.

Counter-terrror: Police brought forward the date the barriers were to be installed by six weeks. / Lucy Young

Concrete barriers have also appeared around Windsor Castle ahead of the Guard Change, Thames Valley Police said on Tuesday.

David Videcette, who was in the Mets counter-terror unit for six years until 2010, told the Standard: They are designed to stop a vehicle getting through the gates.

Protection: The barriers have appeared outside Buckingham Palace. / Lucy Young

And I know after whats happened in Westminster, that is the danger that everyone is thinking about.

We have had the large black secure posts for many years, thats been there to stop car bombs and lorry bombs but it was never designed to protect pedestrians.

New security barriers installed at Windsor Castle. / Andrew Matthews/PA

The Met Police said the barriers are called hostile vehicle mitigation measures and they were now in place of the Guard Change.

This deployment was planned for the 2017 ceremonial season, (from May 8th to June 18th) but following the incident in Westminster has now being brought forward as a precautionary measure in support of the existing road closures currently in place.

Wembley pays tribute to victims of Westminster attack

Alongside the road closures the additional measures are in place to maintain security for the guard movements and the public to enjoy the event.

Police added the barriers had not been installed "in response to any specific threat.

Last Wednesday afternoon terrorist Khalid Masood killed three people and injured at least 50 others when he mowed down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before stabbing PC Keith Palmer to death.

Westminster attack probe : Resident describes police seizing van and cars after Birmingham raid

Police have since revealed they do not believe Kent-born Masood was directed by IS or al-Qaeda but he had an interest in jihad.

Similar terrorist attacks using vehicles as weapons have been carried out, including in December last year when a truck was driven into crowds of people in a Christmas market in Berlin.
A Knightsbridge restaurant has won a legal fight with a brand of dog food which shares its name over fears that diners would be turned off its five-star food.

Modern Japanese dining room Zuma clashed with entrepreneur Zoe Vanderbilt when she established her luxury brand of pet food in 2014.

Chef and co-founder of the restaurant, Ranier Becker, complained that Ms Vanderbilts product, Zumas Choice Pet Products Ltd, could confuse his customers, particularly as she was using the website name dineinwithzuma.com.

Ms Vanderbilt argued she had named her company after her beloved pet, Zuma, a Japanese Akita/German shepherd cross.

But Judge Melissa Clarke agreed with restaurant owners Azumi Ltd, ruling that Ms Vanderbilt can keep the dog food name but must stop using the website and Zuma brand.

Pet food brand Dine in with Zuma

Zuma the restaurant has attracted celebrity diners including Beyonce, Tony Blair, Sienna Miller and Lady Gaga since it opened in in 2002, and is regularly rated as offering Londons best Japanese food.

At the High Court, Mr Becker complained that his top-class meals were being viewed alongside dog food that is quite unpleasant to eat for many people.

Sometimes it smells, sometimes it is just unpleasant and people many times associate dog food with bad food, he said.

Zuma co-founder Ranier Becker / Krestine Havemann

I know people would associate that food for the animals with my food served in my restaurant.

Simon Malynicz QC, for Azumi Ltd, said the dineinwithzuma.com website refers to dogs dining, telling the court: Dogs eat, they do not dine.

Judge Clarke was shown press clippings praising Zuma for its spectacular decor and buzzing atmosphere, bringing a turnover of 14 million in 2015, and apparently becoming a favourite late-night spot for Hollywood star Kevin Spacey.

In contrast, Kingston-based Zumas Choice Pet Products has not yet had any sales, although Ms Vanderbilt told the court she hopes to build a high-quality brand stocked by high-end supermarkets like Waitrose.

Zuma attracts celebrity diners including Sienna Miller / Dave Benett

In May 2015, she offered to sell to Mr Becker the business and internet domain name for 500,000, believing the company is set to take a share of the 2 billion-a-year UK pet food market.

She argued that her products, with flavours including slow-braised pork, cheesy mash and chicken and lentils, were very high quality, fresh dog food made from human-grade food.

But the judge ruled: I am satisfied that there is... an inherent tension between dog food and human food of any type and an even greater tension between dog food and food served to humans in high quality restaurants such as Zuma.

The association with dog food would adversely affect, or tarnish, the image or reputation that the restaurant had built up over many years. The judge also dismissed Ms Vanderbilts own name defence because Zuma the dog is not a party to the proceedings, nor is it a natural person or company.

The judge added that negotiations between Ms Vanderbilt and the restaurant had been perfectly proper, polite and professional, and commended both parties for their evidence.

Speaking at her home in Kingston today, Ms Vanderbilt said: I am very disappointed with the courts decision and am considering all my options.
T hick fog caused misery for people travelling to and from London this morning.

Dozens of flights have been delayed out of the capital's airports and there is a yellow weather warning in place for London and the south east of England due to poor visibility.

Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton airports all warned of possible disruption because of the fog.

Almost 60 flights from London airports have already been delayed.

The Woolwich Ferry was not running and Thames Clippers started at North Greenwich because of fog at Royal Arsenal Woolwich.

The Met Office said the fog is expected to lift later this morning.

The weather later on Tuesday is expected to be warm with sunny spells and highs of 18C.
H enry Moore's bronze 'Old Flo' sculpture is to return to Tower Hamlets in the culmination of a four-year saga, it was confirmed today.

The 20 million statue, officially called Draped Seated Woman, was nearly sold off by the east London borough in 2012 in a bid to raise council funds.

Leading figures from the art world vehemently opposed the move and later Bromley Council intervened, claiming it owned the 1.6-tonne bronze figure. The borough's argument was later rejected by the High Court.

And today Tower Hamlets council announced the contentious sculpture is to be moved to Cabot Square in Canary Wharf.

The sculpture will be housed in Canary Wharf (Jason Hawkes ) / Jason Hawkes

The sculpture will return to east London from it's "temporary" 20-year Yorkshire home this autumn.

The Canary Wharf Group won the bid to house the valuable figure, which will need a high level of security to stop thieves.

It was one of three organisations who pitched for the chance to provide a home and was selected by Henry Moore experts.

Bronze: The 1.6 tonnes sculpture was expected to fetch 20 million at auction. / PA Archive/PA Images

For the last 20 years the figure has been on loan to Yorkshire Sculpture Park. It had previously been housed in Stifford Estate in Stepney after being acquired by London County Council in 1962.

But Old Flo was nearly lost to the east London borough in an auction by Christies when disgraced former mayor Lutfur Rahman decided to sell the 2.5 metre-high figure in 2012.

But after the borough's current mayor, John Biggs, was elected in June 2015, the decision was to save the bronze woman and bring her home.

Mayor John Biggs said he was delighted the sculpture was coming back to the capital.

Old Flo is an important part of the boroughs cultural heritage, thats why we took the decision to cancel the previous Mayors sell off and are returning her to her rightful place in the borough," he said.

John Biggs, the Mayor of Tower Hamlets. / Hannah McKay/PA

Whilst I would have loved to see Old Flo returned to her old home in Stepney her considerable value means weve had to find her a safe and secure home for her for the next five years.

My hope is after that she can move even closer into our community, possibly at the new Civic Centre in Whitechapel when it is complete.

In the meantime Canary Wharf will be a great and accessible home for Old Flo allowing her to once again add to Tower Hamlets already enviable reputation as a creative and cultural borough.

Godfrey Worsdale, director of the Henry Moore Foundation, said the process was careful and rigorous to house the new sculpture.

He said: Like Henry Moore himself, the Foundation is committed to the artists work being seen and enjoyed by as many people as possible, and we hope that this new home will introduce Moores work to new and diverse audiences.

The sculpture will be moved to Canary Wharf in October and will be there for five years before the contract is reviewed.

It was created by Henry Moore in 1957-58 and inspired by figures he saw huddled in air raid shelters during the war.
A rch rivals London and Paris will join forces to attract tourists and investment to the two capitals for the first time.

Sadiq Khan and his Parisian counterpart Anne Hidalgo today unveiled a Tale of Two Cities package of collaboration to lure visitors and entrepreneurs.

The move  on the eve of Theresa May triggering Article 50 and starting the formal process of withdrawal from the EU  is one of series of initiatives taken to strengthen Londons links with Europe.

Under the terms of the cooperation deal the tourism bodies of London and Paris will jointly promote the cities to overseas visitors from next year. T

ravellers to London and Paris spend more than 30 billion a year and support an estimated 1.2 million jobs. A combined business welcome programme will also help small businesses based in one of the capitals invest and set up in the other.

Announcing the agreement during a trade mission to the French capital, Mayor Mr Khan said: Our great friends in Paris and across the continent are well aware that working closely together remains to our mutual benefit.

Ms Hidalgo said: We are developing new exchanges and new projects. All these initiatives will create employment, activity and economic growth.

It is a very positive dynamic that the Brexit will not change.

The announcement makes it possible for start-up companies to have joint legal homes in both cities, to ensure entrepreneurs are able to develop businesses.
T he Duchess of Cambridge has hailed the "amazing" art at the National Portrait Gallery during a glittering reception.

Kate viewed the latest exhibitions and met guests at the 2017 Portrait Gala, before having dinner at the London attraction.

The Duchess, who has been patron of the gallery since 2012, dazzled in a full length, lace green gown by Temperley.

She wore her hair loose and carried a gold sparkly clutch, finishing off her look with glittering drop earrings.

PA

Among those she met as she made her way through the gallery were fashion designer Erdem and fashionista Alexa Chung who is chair of the 2017 gala committee.

She viewed two exhibitions - Howard Hodgkin: Absent Friends, and Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun: Behind The Mask, Another Mask.

To help raise funds, a range of artwork has been especially created, including 10 masks by the likes of Dame Vivienne Westwood and Philip Treacy, and 100 postcard-sized works of art for a mystery portrait postcard sale.

Celeb bash: Alexa Chung at the portrait gala / Dave Benett

Kate had the chance to view both of these collections during the evening and said of the postcards: "Well, they're all amazing."

This is the second gala Kate has attended and, as in previous years, the funds raised will support the National Portrait Gallery's work in delivering exhibitions and displays, offering learning opportunities and undertaking research.

Portrait gala: Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Richard Jones / Dave Benett

The 2017 gala is fundraising for Coming Home, a project that will make it possible for portraits of people to return to places that are special to them for a loan period of over three years.

Coming Home will enable sitters such as Sir Walter Raleigh to return to Dorset, the Bronte sisters to Yorkshire and David Beckham to Essex.

Earlier, it was announced Kate will visit Luxembourg to attend commemorations marking the 150th anniversary of a treaty that confirmed the country's independence and neutrality.

She will travel to the country on May 11 to attend events celebrating the 1867 Treaty of London, at the request of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
T housands of Metropolitan Police officers are set to join hands and march across Westminster Bridge exactly one week after four people were killed in a horror attack on London.

Terrorist Khalid Masood ploughed a 4X4 into crowds on the bridge before crashing into the gates of the Palace of Westminster and stabbing PC Keith Palmer to death at 2.40pm last Wednesday.

Masood was shot by police.

In a show of defiance and solidarity, officers from across London will join hands and walk the length of the bridge in a bid to show terrorists they will not achieve anything by attacking the capital.

Tributes: murdered policeman Keith Palmer pictured with his wife Michelle

As many as 3,000 officers are expected to join the march, organised by Westminster Police.

Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, told the Standard: This is a show of solidarity.

We want to show terrorists that they can attack us and they can attack our city but they wont achieve anything.

Tragic: The photo shows PC Keith Palmer stationed in front of the Houses of Parliament with Will, left, and Tyler, right. / Will Robins/Tyler Chatterley-Russell

People will pull together.

The march, held at the exact time PC Palmer was fatally knifed, is planned to coincide with a similar tribute which will see around 500 faith leaders from across the country flock to the scene of the worst attack on the capital since 7/7.

Paying tribute to Pc Palmer, colleague Pc James Aitkenhead, said in a statement: "Keith was a genuinely nice person; nobody had a bad word to say about him.

Touching tributes: Labour MP Hilary Benn passes floral tributes to the victims of the Westminster terrorist attack (Lauren Hurley/PA ) / Lauren Hurley/PA

When I heard what had happened I knew it would be him because that's just the sort of guy he was, to step straight in when others might step back.

"We will miss him so much."

Spanish teacher Aysha Farde, 43, was also killed in the attack after being hit by Masoods car.

London Terror Attack Floral Tributes at Westminster - 27 March 2017 1 /16 London Terror Attack Floral Tributes at Westminster - 27 March 2017 Hero MP Tobias Ellwood looks over the flowers left in tribute to the victims of the attack in Westminster Jeremy Selwyn He paused at the solemn scene in Parliament Square this morning Jeremy Selwyn Flowers from Prime Minister Theresa May amongst tributes to the victims of the Westminster terrorist attack outside the Palace of Westminster Jeremy Selwyn Two school children look at the floral tributes Jeremy Selwyn A woman observes the flowers pinned to the Carriage Gates where the attack took place Jeremy Selwyn Outpouring of support: flowers at the scene of the attack in Westminster Jeremy Selwyn Three police officers stand in front of the floral tributes Jeremy Selwyn A female police officer pays her respects at the scene Jeremy Selwyn A woman in jogging attire stops to remember the victims of the attack Jeremy Selwyn A man looks at floral tributes to the victims of the Westminster terrorist attack outside the Palace of Westminster Lauren Hurley/PA Police officers stand in front of the floral tributes Jeremy Selwyn Labour MP Hilary Benn passes floral tributes to the victims of the Westminster terrorist attack outside the Palace of Westminster Lauren Hurley/PA

The mother-of-two had been crossing the bridge to pick her two daughters, aged eight and 11, up from school.

Mrs Frade, described by friends as beautiful and lovely, grew up in Notting Hill and worked DLD London College.

Kurt Cochran, 54, also died after being hit by the car.

Aysha Frade, 43, was killed in Wednesday's terrorist attack in London / Facebook

The American national had been visiting London as part of his 25th wedding anniversary celebrations with wife Melissa.

In a touching statement, Mr Cochrans family described him as an amazing individual.

They said: He was an amazing individual who loved everyone and tried to make the world a better place.

Kurt Cochran, of Utah, was killed in the Westminster terror attack, pictured with his wife Melissa.

"He left a legacy of generosity and service that continues to inspire us.

We are deeply saddened to lose him but are grateful that the world is coming to know him and be inspired by him.

Kind and gentle window cleaner Leslie Rhodes, 75, was the fourth victim of the attack.

Mr Rhodes, from south London, formerly cleaned Winston Churchills windows during a career spanning 50 years.

London attack: Trafalgar Square vigil 1 /21 London attack: Trafalgar Square vigil Trafalgar Square vigil People light candles at a vigil in Trafalgar Square the day after an attack Stefan Wermuth/Reuters Trafalgar Square vigil Londoners light candles as they gather for a vigil in Trafalgar Square Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA Trafalgar Square vigil A woman holds up a sign at a vigil for the victims of Wednesday's attack Matt Dunham/AP Trafalgar Square vigil A tribute at a vigil in Trafalgar Square for the victims of Wednesday's attack Lucy Young Trafalgar Square vigil People attend a vigil for the victims of Wednesday's attack at Trafalgar Square Matt Dunham/AP Trafalgar Square vigil People light candles at a vigil for the victims of Wednesday's attack Matt Dunham/AP Trafalgar Square vigil People hold up signs at a vigil for the victims of Wednesday's attack Matt Dunham/AP Trafalgar Square vigil People attend a vigil in Trafalgar Square the day after an attack Darren Staples/Reuters Trafalgar Square vigil Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Craig Mackey at the candlelight vigil in Trafalgar Square Yui Mok/PA Trafalgar Square vigil Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Craig Mackey at the candlelight vigil in Trafalgar Square Yui Mok/PA Trafalgar Square vigil Londoners gather for a vigil in Trafalgar Square Andy Rain/EPA Trafalgar Square vigil Crowds gathered in Trafalgar Square Amy Ashenden Trafalgar Square vigil A few people were left paying their respects late in the evening after the crowds had dispersed from Trafalgar Square following a vigil Lucy Young Floral tributes are seen in Westminster the day after an attack in London REUTERS Candles burn on Westminster Bridge the day after an attack in London Darren Staples/Reuters Trafalgar Square vigil A woman reacts at a vigil in Trafalgar Square the day after an attack Hannah McKay/Reuters

Client and friend Janine Roebuck told MailOnline: Les was my much loved window cleaner for 20 years.

You couldn't wish to meet a kinder, gentler man. He cleaned the windows of Chartwell - Winston Churchill's home - for many years.

It was something he was so proud of.

Officers will gather from 2.15pm on Wednesday to walk from the south to the north side of the bridge.

Tribute: Members of the 'Women's March' rally on Westminster Bridge / EPA

A minute's silence will be held in memory of the victims at 2.40pm.

A statement posted on the Met Police Federations website reads: An event is planned on Westminster Bridge to mark a week since the terrorist attack in which our colleague PC Keith Palmer died.

The intention is to link hands across Westminster Bridge from the south to the north at the exact moment the attack began.

The organisers say the event will show "we will not be divided. Linking all nations, faiths, orientation and sexes."

They are asking for as many Met colleagues who attended the scene that day to come to pay their respects, as well as victims, witnesses and anyone else.

The tribute comes just days after a group of women joined hands along the bridge on Sunday.

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Westminster Bridge will be closed to traffic during the event.
T he wife of Westminster killer Khalid Masood has said she is saddened and shocked by his murderous rampage which left four dead.

Rohey Hydara, who is understood to have lived with Masood, said: I totally condemn his actions.

"I express my condolences to the families of the victims that have died and wish a speedy recovery to all the injured."

"I would like to request privacy for our family, especially the children, at this difficult time."

Ms Hydara, who is from Gambia but lives in a rented flat in east London, had told friends that she thought Ajao was travelling to Saudi Arabia, according to the Telegraph.

It comes soon after his mother also branded his actions as an atrocity.

Khalid Masood, in the back row, in his days as a schoolboy when he used the name Adrian Ajao

Janet Ajao, 69, gave a statement through police in which she spoke of her distress at discovering her son had been the maniac who ploughed through pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before stabbing a police officer to death.

Killer: Khalid Masood / Daily Mail

I am so deeply shocked, saddened and numbed by the actions my son has taken that have killed and injured innocent people in Westminster, she said.

Since discovering that it was my son that was responsible I have shed many tears for the people caught up in this horrendous incident.

I wish to make it absolutely clear, so there can be no doubt, I do not condone his actions nor support the beliefs he held that led to him committing this atrocity.

On Monday police investigating Wednesday's attack said they do not believe Masood - previously known as Adrian Ajao - was directed by Islamic State or al-Qaeda.

Attack at Parliament, March 22, 2017 1 /48 Attack at Parliament, March 22, 2017 A policeman points a gun at a man on the floor as emergency services attend the scene outside the Palace of Westminster, London Stefan Rousseau/PA Emergency services at the scene outside the Palace of Westminste PA The scene of the incident @Lukesteele4 The scene at Westminster bridge this morning, the day after a terrorist attack Jeremy Selwyn The scene at Westminster bridge this morning, the day after a terrorist attack Jeremy Selwyn The scene at Westminster bridge this morning, the day after a terrorist attack Jeremy Selwyn The flag above the Houses of Parliament in London flies at half mast the day after a terrorist attack Jeremy Selwyn A forensics tent on Westminster Bridge seen from Victoria Embankment in London the day after a terrorist attack Jonathan Brady/PA Police officers walk accross Westminster Bridge the morning after an attack by a man driving a car and weilding a knife Darren Staples/Reuters Emergency services at the scene outside the Palace of Westminster Stefan Rousseau/PA A knife on the cobbles at the scene outside the Palace of Westminster, London Stefan Rousseau/PA Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood (centre) helps emergency services attend to a police officer outside the Palace of Westminster, London Stefan Rousseau/PA A man lies injured after a shooting incident on Westminster Bridge in London Toby Melville/Reuters Injured people are assisted after an incident on Westminster Bridge Toby Melville/Reuters Police secure the area on the south side of Westminster Bridge close to the Houses of Parliament in London Matt Dunham/AP An armed police officer runs accross the road during an incident on Westminster Bridge in London Toby Melville/Reuters A member of the public is treated by emergency services near Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament Carl Court/Getty Images A member of the public is treated by emergency services near Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament Carl Court/Getty Images The scene outside the Houses of Parliament The area around Westminster was put on immediate lockdown BBC Police outside the Palace of Westminster, London Victoria Jones/PA Westminster Bridge Theresa May during Prime Minister's Questions before the incident PA A police officer stops traffic as the Jagaur car of British Prime Minister Theresa May is driven away Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images A image of armed police inside Parliament @BarryGardiner Emergency services close to the Palace of Westminster, London Yui Mok/PA Police close to the Palace of Westminster, London Victoria Jones/PA Wire Police close to the Palace of Westminster, London Yui Mok/PA An Air Ambulance outside the Palace of Westminster Victoria Jones/PA Emergency personnel close to the Palace of Westminster Yui Mok/PA Police forensic officers on Westminster Bridge, close to the Palace of Westminster Dominic Lipinski/PA People remain in pods on the London Eye after it was stopped Jonathan Brady/PA Mark Rowley, Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations in the Metropolitan Police, speaking outside Scotland Yard in London Victoria Jones/PA Westminster Bridge BBC Emergency services make their way down the river Jack Taylor/Getty Images Members of the public wait at locked doors outside St Thomas' hospital Carl Court/Getty Images

They said it is not thought Masood discussed the planned attack with anyone before he carried it out.

Westminster attack probe : Resident describes police seizing van and cars after Birmingham raid

Masood was shot dead by a police officer moments after fatally stabbing PC Keith Palmer, 48, outside Parliament, after injuring at least 50 other people.

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The three others he killed were Streatham resident Leslie Rhodes, 75, US tourist Kurt Cochrane, 54, and Spanish mother-of-two Aysha Frade, 43.

Wembley pays tribute to victims of Westminster attack

Reports have claimed Masood's phone connected with encrypted messaging service WhatsApp just before the atrocity, sparking debate over authorities' capacity to intercept suspects' communications.

WhatsApp has said it is "co-operating with law enforcement as they continue their investigations".

The inquests for the victims will open and adjourn at Westminster's Coroner Court on Wednesday at 2pm, Scotland Yard said.

Masood's inquest will open and adjourn at the same court on Thursday at 2pm.
S adiq Khan today threw down the gauntlet to EU leaders, warning them not to "punish" Britain for Brexit.

The Mayor told Brussels chiefs they would be making a major mistake if they pushed the UK into a hard departure.

He insisted that a bad deal  or no deal at all - would be a lose-lose which would hurt jobs, growth and living standards across Europe.

In a major speech in the heart of the EU, the Mayor also issued a final plea to Theresa May as she prepares to formally trigger Article 50 tomorrow.

He urged the Prime Minister not to use EU nationals living in Britain as a bargaining chip, but give them a cast-iron guarantee they could stay when she invoked Article 50.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan on the train to Brussels / PA

He said: My city is not only the beating heart of Britains economy, but the single most important organ for growth across Europe.

I say this with friendship and all due respect - but a bad Brexit deal that hurts London would hurt the European Union too.

He added: Now is the time to be confident in the European Union, and to act with confidence. There is no need - as some have suggested - for the EU to send a message, or to instil fear, by punishing the UK.

Because, a proud, optimistic, and confident institution does not secure its future by fear.

In a final plea to both sides ahead of the historical day, he urged them to put aside their animosity, differences and anger and be audacious and bold in the negotiations ahead.

Mr Khans speech came at the start of a day of high-level meetings including with chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt and EU Commission president Jean-Claude Junker, who denied last week the EUs 50 billion Brexit bill was a punishment.

His address, described by aides as a love letter to the EU, was intended to put the emotional case for a fair deal between the EU and the UK.

The Mayor carried a message of optimism and hope during gloomy times that the capital, which voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU, would remain outward-looking and open.

Describing himself as a proud European and a friend of the EU, he told his audience of MEPs and Brussels insiders at Politico that Europe was facing a turning point.

But he added: Im confident  and you should be too - that the European Union will survive long after Brexit and the tests we now face.

Mr Verhofstadt was asked by the Standard whether Britain would be punished for leaving the EU. Not at all, he responded, smiling weakly.
T heresa May has signed the letter which will trigger Article 50 and begin Britains process of leaving the EU.

The PM has been photographed in the governments cabinet office as she signs the official letter to the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk.

The letter will be delivered to the EU leader on Wednesday, nine months after Britains Brexit vote in June last year.

Mrs May will urge the country to "come together", calling for both Leave and Remain supporters to put the referendum behind them and make a success of Brexit as the country embarks on a "momentous journey".

Article 50 triggered: What happens now?

She will chair a meeting of the Cabinet on Wednesday morning as the letter is dispatched to Brussels.

PM Theresa May in the cabinet office signs the official letter to European Council President Donald Tusk. / REUTERS

Over the next two years, the terms of the settlement will be thrashed out between Britain and its 27 counterparts.

The PM will tell MPs she will represent "every person in the UK", including EU nationals, when she takes to the negotiating table.

Theresa May in the cabinet office sitting below a painting of Britain's first PM Robert Walpole. / REUTERS

"It is my fierce determination to get the right deal for every single person in this country," she will say.

"For, as we face the opportunities ahead of us on this momentous journey, our shared values, interests and ambitions can, and must, bring us together.

"We all want to see a Britain that is stronger than it is today.

Leave wins EU referendum - in pictures 1 /30 Leave wins EU referendum - in pictures David Cameron announces his resignation outside Number 10 Downing Street Stefan Wermuth/Reuters David and Samantha Cameron outside Downing Street as the PM announces his decision to stand down Stefan Wermuth/Reuters Boris Johnson leaves home following the stunning EU referendum result Lucy Young A triumphant Nigel Farage near the Houses of Parliament Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty Images Jeremy Corbyn MP, leader of the Labour Party, is followed by journalists as he walks towards the Houses of Parliament Rob Stothard/Getty Images London Mayor Sadiq Khan speaks to the media after Britain voted for Brexit Matt Writle Leave supporters cheer results at a Leave.eu party after polling stations closed in the Referendum on the European Union in London Toby Melville/Reuters Supporters of the Stronger In campaign react after hearing results in the EU referendum at London's Royal Festival Hall Rob Stothard/PA Vote LEAVE supporter Christine Forrester celebrates with others outside Vote Leave HQ Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images Supporters of the Stronger In campaign look dejected as results come in Rob Stothard/AFP/Getty Images The Houses of Parliament as dawn breaks on London after the vote Rob Stothard/Getty Images Stronger in campaigners look dejected after the result Leave supporters celebrate opposite the Houses of Parliament in London Anthony Devlin/PA Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn leaves his home this morning Rob Stothard/Getty Images A man reacts to a vote count results screen at an 'Leave.EU Referendum Party' in London Supporters of the Stronger In campaign react after hearing results in the EU referendum at the Royal Festival Hall Rob Stothard/PA UKIP Leader Nigel Farage at the Leave.EU party in London as he claimed victory Stefan Rousseau/PA A London taxi driver holds a Union flag, as he celebrates following the result of the EU referendum Toby Melville Traders react to the fast moving Euro results at ETX Capital in the City of London this morning Chris Gorman/Evening Standard People gathered in The Churchill Tavern, a British themed bar, react as the BBC predicts Briatin will leave the European Union, in the Manhattan borough of New York Andrew Kelly/Reuters Traders monitor computer screens with the day's exchange rate at a foreign exchange brokerage at a securities firm in Tokyo Eugene Hoshiko/AP Conservative MP Nigel Evans (left) and UKIP's Paul Nuttall, members of the Vote Leave campaign, celebrate at Manchester Town Hall where the national result in the UK referendum will be declared later Peter Byrne/PA Traders react to the fast moving Euro results at ETX Capital in the City of London this morning Chris Gorman/Evening Standard

"We all want a country that is fairer so that everyone has the chance to succeed.

"We all want a nation that is safe and secure for our children and grandchildren.

"We all want to live in a truly global Britain that gets out and builds relationships with old friends and new allies around the world.

"These are the ambitions of this Government's plan for Britain.

"Ambitions that unite us, so that we are no longer defined by the vote we cast, but by our determination to make a success of the result.

"We are one great union of people and nations with a proud history and a bright future.

"And, now that the decision has been made to leave the EU, it is time to come together."

Signed personally by Mrs May, a so-called "wet signature" in Civil Service jargon, the exit letter will be delivered to European Council president Donald Tusk by the British ambassador to the EU, Sir Tim Barrow, at around 12.30pm UK time.

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At roughly the same time, the Prime Minister will rise in the House of Commons to make the statement confirming the two-year countdown to Britain's departure from the EU is finally under way.
T he high-flying civil servant picked to mastermind vital new trade deals for Britain after Brexit is commuting between London and New York.

Antonia Romeo, permanent secretary at the Department for International Trade, has secured a deal that will divide her time between Whitehall and her family home for the next three months.

As well as running the new ministry, she will continue in her role as Britains consul-general in New York until July, when her two sons and daughter finish their school year.

Officials say she is uniquely well-placed to chase a free trade agreement with the US, but taxpayers will pick up the bill for weekly transatlantic flights and accommodation in London for three months. Antonias flights and accommodation will be in line with civil service travel policy, said an official.

Mrs Romeo, 42, said she was thrilled to be taking charge of DIT, which was created by Theresa May to open up markets outside the EU. Its a hugely interesting time to start at the department as we make Britain the strongest advocate for free trade across the world, while we forge a new relationship with Europe, she said.

She has already come up with a 100-day plan and yesterday interviewed candidates for the roles of chief negotiator and chief operating officer. This week, she aims to meet most of her team, including holding video conferences with DIT staff around the world. International Trade Secretary Liam Fox was keen for his star signing to get her feet under the table , rather than appoint a stand-in until Mrs Romeos family relocate to London in July.

Her appointment brings to a record 10 the number of women in the top civil service grade of permanent secretary and equivalent. Mrs Romeo has soared up the ranks since joining Whitehall in 2000 as an economist after leaving international management consultants Oliver Wyman where she met her Italian husband John.

As the first woman consul-general, she made a huge impact by smashing the stuffy image of trade envoys. Tweeting four times a day on average, she promoted British companies and innovations and also shared photographs of herself at parties, business receptions and even on the ski slopes.

A Whitehall source said: Antonia is incredibly able, clever and a 24/7 workaholic. She is exactly the positive and optimistic leader that the civil service needs post-Brexit.

A job specification posted with headhunting firm Russell Reynolds suggested Mrs Romeo would be earning a salary of around 160,000.

Under EU rules, the UK is not allowed to negotiate with non-EU countries until Brexit is completed, although ministers and officials can hold informal talks.
Much to the delight of President Donald Trump, Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) said on Tuesday that it will invest $1.2 billion in three of its facilities in Michigan.

Big announcement by Ford today. Major investment to be made in three Michigan plants. Car companies coming back to U.S. JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2017

The investments will help Ford prepare to produce several new products, including the Ranger pickup and Bronco SUV, and will also support its ongoing move into new technology-enabled "mobility" businesses.

What Ford said: Spending on new products and big data

Ford said that it's committing $1.2 billion to three sets of investments:

$850 million will be spent to retool Ford's Michigan Assembly Plant, located just west of Detroit in the city of Wayne. Michigan Assembly currently builds the compact Focus and C-Max hybrid; the investment will retool the facility to enable it to begin building the midsize Ranger pickup in late 2018 and the all-new Ranger-based Bronco SUV in 2020.

$150 million will be spent at Ford's Romeo Engine facility to expand production of engine components for several vehicles, including the Ranger and Bronco. The plant currently builds several different V-8 engines for a number of Ford products. The move will "create or retain" 130 jobs, Ford said.

$200 million in a new, advanced data center to be located somewhere in Michigan. The data center, one of two that Ford has planned, will support what Ford expects to be a dramatic increase in its data storage and usage needs as it expands into new mobility businesses, ramps up the connectivity in its vehicles, and prepares to launch self-driving products.

These investments follow a $700 million commitment, announced earlier this year, to add production tooling for upcoming Ford electric and autonomous vehicles at Ford's Flat Rock Assembly plant. Ford said on Tuesday that it will build the second new data center at the Flat Rock facility.

Together with the Flat Rock investments announced in January, Ford has committed to spend $1.9 billion on its Michigan facilities so far in 2017.

What it means for Ford investors

Despite the president's happy tweet, there's not much new in this news, and the total number of "new and retained" jobs announced on Tuesday isn't huge. (The Flat Rock commitment announced in January will lead to 700 new jobs, Ford said at the time.) For Ford investors, there's not much in the way of surprises here, good or bad.

We knew Ford was planning to retool Michigan Assembly to build the Ranger and Bronco, and we knew it was planning to build new data centers (though we didn't know where). But in the current political environment, it makes sense for Ford to play up these kinds of announcements.

Most of these investments were outlined in Ford's 2015 contract with the United Auto Workers and have been hinted at in news releases since then. But it's worth noting that the spending announced on Tuesday is $350 million more than Ford had committed to spend in that UAW agreement. It's spending $150 million more than expected at Michigan Assembly, and the data center at Flat Rock wasn't outlined in the UAW deal.

What's next for Ford

Ford will report its first-quarter earnings result on April 27. The Blue Oval's first-quarter profit is expected to be down significantly from a year ago, in line with the guidance given by CFO Bob Shanks to investors last week.

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T he Government should be wary of kneejerk reactions against tech firms like WhatsApp in the wake of the Westminster terror attacks, said Sadiq Khan.

The Mayor insisted it was important to make sure terror suspects had nowhere to hide but warned against rushing into a crackdown.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd has called on big tech firms to introduce back doors on encrypted apps like WhatsApp, with one billion global users, so security services can access them.

Westminster attacker Khalid Masood reportedly used WhatsApp three minutes before Wednesdays slaughter.

WhatsApp has said it is co-operating with law enforcement as they continue their investigations.

The tech companies have warned letting in counter-terror experts would also make the apps vulnerable to attack by criminals, and that protecting users privacy was one of its core beliefs.

Ms Rudd has summoned WhatsApp, Facebook, Google and other online firms to showdown talks at the Home Office on Thursday, where she says she will call time on extremists using social media as their platform.

But Mr Khan warned against kneejerk responses to the attack, saying it was crucial to talk to big internet firms.

Its important to look into what more we can do to prevent terrorist attacks in our city, in our country, in Europe and across the world, he said.

Weve got to recognise one of the things the terrorists hate is our way of life, our civil liberties, our human rights, our open democracy, the fact politicians are held to account, the fact we have a free press. So weve got to be careful about rushing to responses that in the weeks and days to come that we may regret.

The Mayor was speaking after a meeting in Brussels with the EUs security commissioner, Sir Julian King, who said the atrocity in London showed that Europe needed to work together.
D avid Davis has refused to commit to a cap on EU citizens coming to the UK after Brexit, admitting immigration levels may need to rise "from time to time".

The Brexit Secretary gave the clearest indication yet that quitting the EU may not result in the dramatic fall in net migration many Leave voters desired.

Mr Davis said industries and public services dependent on migrant labour would need to be able to continue to recruit workers from overseas.

On a BBC One Question Time special ahead of Theresa May triggering Article 50 on Wednesday, starting the two-year countdown to Brexit, Mr Davis was asked if there would be a cap on "the number of EU nationals allowed in the UK".

He replied: "No, you see, what the first issue here is to bring this back under the control of the UK Government, the UK Parliament, to bring migration under control.

"I don't think most people oppose migration, I think most people are in favour of migration so long as it's managed. The point is, it will need to be managed."

Article 50: What will happen after it's triggered?

It would be for Home Secretary Amber Rudd to decide how migration would be managed, but Mr Davis added: "I cannot imagine that the policy will be anything other than that which is in the national interest. Which means that from time to time we will need more, from time to time we will need less.

"That is how it will no doubt work and that will be in everybody's interests - the migrants and the citizens of the UK."

Asked whether that would mean more migration than current levels, he said: "What it will be is whatever the Government judges to be sustainable."

Pressed on whether the Tory target of reducing net migration to below 100,000 still applied, he said: "I think we will get there, but the simple truth is that we have to manage this properly. You have got industries dependent on migrants, you have got social welfare, the NHS, you have to make sure they can do the work."

Fellow Question Time panellist Alex Salmond, the SNP's international affairs spokesman, said: "Nurse registrations from Europe have dropped 75 per cent since Brexit. In a full year that will mean there will be 7,000 less qualified nurses from elsewhere in the EU working in our NHS."

Immigration was one of the major issues in the EU referendum, with Leave campaigners claiming the "open door" to the other 27 nations was putting the country's security at risk, driving down wages and putting pressure on the health service.
T heresa May today called for a new, deep and special partnership with the European Union, just 24 hours before she was due to fire the starting gun for Brexit.

Her call to keep close bonds with Europe while seeking opportunities around the world came amid rising tensions between London and Brussels.

A top Cabinet minister dismissed Brussels demand for 50 billion in a so-called divorce bill.

Speaking on a BBC TV Question Time special, Brexit Secretary David Davis said the UK would meet reasonable obligations, but scorned the huge sum that European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker has portrayed as a take-it-or-leave-it demand.

I dont think we are going to be seeing that sort of money change hands, said Mr Davis, who said the Government had drawn up contingency plans in case it fails to secure a trade deal.

Mrs May will trigger the exit talks tomorrow at around 12.30pm, when Sir Tim Barrow, Britains permanent representative in Brussels, will hand-deliver a letter to Donald Tusk, President of the European Council.

Her letter invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty will start the clock on two years of detailed negotiations, and is said to run to five to eight pages, setting out opening demands.

Tomorrow, we begin the negotiations to secure a new, deep and special partnership with the European Union, said Mrs May in a speech to a trade and investment conference with VIPs from Qatar.

As we do so, I am determined that we should also seize this historic opportunity to get out into the world and to shape an even bigger role for a global Britain. This means not just building new alliances, but going even further in working with old friends who have stood alongside us for centuries.

Mr Davis said Britain was not afraid to walk away from the negotiating table, but said that a comprehensive agreement remained the goal.

He rejected claims by the EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier that the UK could find itself unable to import nuclear fuel. We have got a huge contingency plan exercised across all of these issues, every department of government, said Mr Davis.

He risked dismaying pro-Brexit campaigners by rejecting a cap on immigration, saying that from time to time the numbers of people coming to Britain may be allowed to increase if that served the national interest.

Former foreign secretary Lord Hague said it was important to show no fear because indicators of weakness could lead Brussels to try to impose harsher trade terms. He warned Mrs May not to underestimate the determination of Germany to protect EU unity, even at the expense of exporting its cars, and of France to seize any chance to dismember the City of London.

A pessimistic note was struck by Sir Simon Fraser, a former head of the diplomatic service, who said there was no way that the UKs exit terms, including a new EU trade deal, could be negotiated within two years. He told BBC Twos Newsnight there was a risk that this breaks down or that we get to an unsatisfactory outcome, and there is political ill will and turbulence.

Today, Nicola Sturgeon, Scotlands First Minister, asked the Scottish parliament to approve her plans for a second independence referendum by spring 2019  a timescale already rejected by Mrs May.
A podcast looking at some of the UKs most notorious crimes has gained a huge worldwide audience.

Casefile: True Crime gives the background to the most infamous cases and has featured the Yorkshire Ripper and Moors Murders.

The Australian-made show, which launched in January last year, has regularly featured in the UKs top 10 podcasts on iTunes in recent months. It also regularly reaches the top 50 in the US chart, rising as high as fourth last July.

It follows in the wake of Serial, the true crime series credited with repopularising the podcast format after its launch in October 2014.

Its mini-series on Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe received 5.8 million downloads  the most for a single case since the launch. Its most popular single episode was on British tourist Peter Falconio, who disappeared, presumed murdered, in the Australian outback in July 2001 while travelling with his girlfriend Joanne Lees. It has more than 4.2 million downloads.

A series covering the Moors Murders, carried out by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, is set to take the podcast to new heights. The first episode of three on the Manchester killings had more than a million downloads in four days.

Researcher: Anna Priestland

Featuring its anonymous Australian host who started the show in his spare room, Casefile is also high in the charts in Australia and Canada.

While it mainly features Australian crime and some from the US, British-linked cases have proved most popular. Researcher and co-writer Anna Priestland said: I think its the history of British crime which makes it so popular. The fascination started with Jack the Ripper and has continued from there.

Ms Priestland, 38, an Australian fashion designer turned crime researcher, visited the national archives at Kew this month to look at police files on Hindley. She worked in London for more than a decade until 2011, studying part of a criminology degree at City University, before moving to Melbourne with her British husband. She hopes to return to the UK this year for research into serial killers Fred and Rosemary West.

Listen to the podcasts at casefilepodcast.com
A sexism row erupted today after Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon were pictured on a newspaper front page sitting down next to the headline Never mind Brexit, who won Legs-it!

MPs condemned the Daily Mail's portrayal of the two political leaders, meeting in Scotland, as the Prime Minister prepares to trigger Article 50 tomorrow to start the two-year process of Britain quitting the EU.

Sarah Vine, the wife of former Cabinet minister Michael Gove, wrote the controversial remarks in her column today.

She said what stood out in the official picture of the meeting between Mrs May and Ms Sturgeon yesterday were their legs and the vast expanse on show.

Controversy: The front page of the Daily Mail

She added: There is no doubt that both women consider their pins to be the finest weapon in their physical arsenal. Consequently, both have been unsheathed.

A later edition of the paper describing the Sarah Vine column as 'light hearted'

She continued: Mays famously long extremities are demurely arranged in her customary finishing-school stance  knees tightly together, calves at a flattering diagonal, feet neatly aligned.

"Its a studied pose that reminds us that for all her confidence, she is ever the vicars daughter, always respectful and anxious not to put a foot wrong.

Sturgeons shorter but undeniably more shapely shanks are altogether more flirty, tantalisingly crossed, with the dominant leg pointing towards her audience.

Its a direct attempt at seduction: her stiletto is not quite dangling off her foot, but it could be. Come, succumb to my revolutionary allure, she seems to be saying. You know you want to.

Senior MPs condemned the headlined portrayal of the Prime Minister and Scottish First Minister in The Daily Mail.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tweeted: Its 2017. This sexism must be consigned to history.

Former Education Secretary Nicky Morgan stressed the importance of Britains future, adding: Thats what should be focused on, not obviously a picture of their legs.

Sadiq Khan described the Daily Mail front page as "astonishing", saying it "beggars belief" that two such senior politicians were being diminished by talking about their appearance.

"What sort of message does that send girls, young women, thinking about starting a career in politics, if we're talking about their legs rather than their views on important matters?" he asked.

"The meeting between Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May was to discuss really important issues and it frankly beggars belief."

The row also spread onto social media, with people tweeting pictures of mens and spiders legs.

The Prime Ministers spokesman said; We have a clear position that we do not tell newspapers what to put in their pages.
T he Duchess of Cambridge is to make another solo official foreign visit on behalf of the Government.

She will visit Luxembourg on 11 May to attend the commemoration of the 1867 Treaty of London.

The treaty confirmed Luxembourgs independence and neutrality.

The visit marks a significant development in Kate's royal career. Her first solo visit was to Holland in October last year.

Her visit to Luxembourg is at the request of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and will be seen as another example of the royals being used by the Government to improve relationships with European countries post-Brexit.

The Duchess and Prince William recently returned from an acclaimed overnight visit to a Paris.

And Prince Charles embarks of a whistle stop tour of Europe - Romania, Italy, The Papal See and Austria - along with the Duchess of Cornwall as Article 50 is triggered.

The Royals have always been used as super envoys - touring the world promoting British culture and trade links.

But the Foreign Office is understood to be keen to use their brand to bolster British interests and secure good relations with key European countries once Brexit is triggered.
T he Daily Mail told "po-faced" critics to get a life as it defended a controversial front page image of Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon which sparked a sexism row.

Tuesdays paper showed Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon sitting down to discuss Scotland's future, with a headline saying: Never mind Brexit, who won Legs-it!

It referred to an article by journalist Sarah Vine, the wife of Michael Gove, in which she wrote: There is no doubt that both women consider their pins to be the finest weapon in their physical arsenal.

Consequently, both have been unsheathed.

Controversy: The front page of the Daily Mail

The treatment of the two women leaders prompted a fierce online backlash, with many MPs condemning the treatment.

But, in a response today, the Daily Mail suggested critics were being po-faced and had lost their sense of humour.

A spokesman for the paper said: For goodness sake, get a life!

Sarah Vines piece, which was flagged as light-hearted, was a side-bar alongside a serious political story.

It appeared in an 84-page paper packed with important news and analysis, a front page exclusive on cost-cutting in the NHS and a health supplement devoted to womens health issues.

The spokesman went on: For the record, the Mail was the paper which, more than any other, backed Theresa May for the top job.

Again for the record, we often comment on the appearance of male politicians including Camerons waistline, Osbornes hair, Corbyns clothes  and even Boriss legs.

Is there a rule that says political coverage must be dull or has a po-faced BBC and left-wing commentariat, so obsessed by the Daily Mail, lost all sense of humour... and proportion?

Among those who hit out at the coverage was Yvette Cooper, who tweeted: "It's 2017.

"Two women's decisions will determine if United Kingdom continues to exist. And front page news is their lower limbs. Obviously.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn fumed: It's 2017. This sexism must be consigned to history.

"Shame on the Daily Mail.

Khan comments on Daily Mail newspaper headline about Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa Mays legs

In a more light-hearted response, Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson shared a photo of her own legs.

But Tory ex-Education Minister Nicky Morgan accused the paper of being deliberately provocative and deliberately demeaning".

The 1950s called and asked for their headline back, Ed Miliband tweeted.

And Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: "What sort of message does that send girls, young women, thinking about starting a career in politics, if we're talking about their legs rather than their views on important matters?

"The meeting between Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May was to discuss really important issues and it frankly beggars belief."
T he Scottish Parliament has voted in favour of holding a second UK independence referendum.

MSPs voted 69 to 59 to back First Minister Nicola Surgeon to seek permission from the UK Government for a ballot to be held between autumn next year and spring 2019.

Ms Sturgeon's minority Scottish Government won the vote following an extended debate thanks to support from the Scottish Greens.

Prime Minister Theresa May has already said she will block another referendum while the Brexit process takes place, stating "now is not the time".

Holyroods vote means Ms Sturgeon now has a mandate to seek permission from Westminster to prepare for a referendum.

Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May met for a chat on Monday ahead of Tuesday's vote. / Russell Cheyne/PA

The last vote to leave or stay in the UK was in 2014 when Scotland chose to stay as part of the union.

But Ms Sturgeon says the circumstances of staying in the UK have since changed because of Brexit. Scotland voted strongly to remain in the bloc.

Ms Sturgeon said: "It is now the will of Scotland's democratically-elected national Parliament that discussions should begin with the UK Government to enable an independence referendum to be held.

"Today's vote must now be respected. The mandate for a referendum is beyond question, and it would be democratically indefensible - and utterly unsustainable - to attempt to stand in the way of it.

"We will now act on the mandate given to us by Parliament by making a formal approach to the UK Government within the next few days, after Article 50 has been triggered.

First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon said the mandate for a referendum is now "beyond question". / REUTERS

"This is, first and foremost, about giving the people of Scotland a choice on this country's future.

"The Prime Minister says that now is not the time for a referendum. I agree with that, which is why I have indicated a timescale no earlier than 18 months from now, when the terms of Brexit are clear - something the PM has now indicated she agrees with."



A UK Government spokeswoman said: "The Prime Minister has been clear that now is not the time for an independence referendum, and we will not be entering into negotiations on the Scottish Government's proposal.

"At this point, all our focus should be on our negotiations with the European Union, making sure we get the right deal for the whole of the UK.

"It would be unfair to the people of Scotland to ask them to make a crucial decision without the necessary information about our future relationship with Europe, or what an independent Scotland would look like.

"We have been joined together as one country for more than 300 years. We've worked together, we've prospered together, we've fought wars together, and we have a bright future. At this crucial time we should be working together, not pulling apart."


T he new 12-sided 1 coin sparked a gold rush when it went into circulation on the streets of London today.

The coin, which has a gold-coloured outer ring and a silver-coloured inner ring, has been described as the most secure in the world and boasts high-tech features including a hologram.

It might take a few days or weeks for people to start seeing the new coins in their change as they gradually filter into general use.

But banks and building societies in London which were given early supplies today quickly found themselves inundated with coin hunters

New 12-sided one pound coin - In pictures 1 /14 New 12-sided one pound coin - In pictures New 12-sided one pound coins fall from a 'tote' into a metal crate as they are minted at the Royal Mint in Llantrisant, Wales Ben Birchall/PA The new 12-sided one pound Martin Keene/PA James Padolsey with one of the new coins Alex Lentati A worker grabs a handful of new 12-sided one pound coins Ben Birchall/PA Royal Mint Circulating Coin Press Setter Byron West inspects a 12-sided one pound coin Ben Birchall/PA Press Setter Hywel Price inspects the tooling and mechanics of a press at the Royal Mint Ben Birchall/PA Press Setter Byron West inspects one of the new coins Ben Birchall/PA New 12-sided one pound coins fall into a metal crate at the mint Ben Birchall/PA A forklift truck moves a metal crate filled with the new 12-sided one pound coins Ben Birchall/PA The new 12-sided coins are harder to forge Ben Birchall/PA The new 1 coins go into circulation today Peter Byrne/PA

A branch of Santander in Triton Square, Camden, opened at 8.30am with 500 worth of new coins - but ran out within minutes.

James Padolsey, 26, from Highgate, north London, who bought 20 in 1 coins, said: I read an article saying the coins would be in this branch so I headed down on my way to work.

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Ill probably keep a couple, but spend most of them because I like the novelty of it.

The new 1 is quite a good-looking coin, and its quite light so I think it will get confused for the euro by some people.

Joshua Best, 25, a producer from Hendon, north west London, said: I saw the way the 5 notes got sold on eBay before so I thought lets get this 1 coin and see what happens.

Ill show it to my friends and maybe give it to a family member, maybe it will be an heirloom.

The old coin and the new coin will co-exist until the round pound ceases to be legal tender on October 15.

The new version is based on the design of the old 12-sided threepenny bit, which went out of circulation in 1971.

Consumers have been warned they may face difficulties when they attempt to pay at vending and ticket machines, as some will not immediately accept the new coin.

The Automatic Vending Association (AVA) says around 85 per cent of vending machines can accept the new 1 coin and all will still accept the old coin.

But when the Standard tried one this morning to pay for parking in Camden, the machine failed to recognise it.

New 1 coin: Five interesting facts

The AVA estimates that all vending machines will be fully upgraded by the end of the transition period on October 15.

Tesco trolleys across many of its stores have unlocked as the supermarket giant performs upgrades so that they can accept the new coin.

The new coins have been made at the Royal Mint in Llantrisant, South Wales, at a rate of three million per day.

One pound coins were first launched on April 21 1983 to replace 1 notes. The Royal Mint has produced more than two billion round pound coins since that time.

The production of the new coins follows concerns about round pounds being vulnerable to sophisticated counterfeiters.

Around one in every 30 1 coins in peoples change in recent years has been fake.
P olice have launched an investigation after human waste was apparently found in cans at a Coca Cola factory in Northern Ireland.

The global firm is probing the incident after its Lisburn factory was disrupted by a delivery of cans which reportedly clogged up machines.

Workers inspected the cans and discovered what they thought was human waste, the Belfast Telegraph reported.

Coca Cola insisted it was an isolated incident and no contaminated products had reached the market.

"Detectives are investigating an incident at commercial premises in the Lisburn area following reports that a consignment of containers delivered to the premises had been contaminated," said a spokesman for the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

The cans arrive at the factory without tops, before they are filled with drink, sealed and sold across Northern Ireland.

A Coca Cola spokesman told the BBC: "We are treating this matter extremely seriously and are conducting a thorough investigation in cooperation with the PSNI."

"The problem was identified immediately through our robust quality procedures and all of the product from the affected batch was immediately impounded and will not be sold.

"This is an isolated incident and does not affect any products currently on sale."
T esco today moved to draw a line under the worst scandal in its history by agreeing to pay out 235 million in fines and compensation after the investigation of a black hole in its books.

Chief executive Dave Lewis said Britains biggest supermarket chain had reached a deal in principle with the Serious Fraud Office.

The retailers UK subsidiary, Tesco Stores Ltd, will pay a 129 million penalty but escape prosecution. The deferred prosecution agreement is not an admission by Tesco that it or its staff committed a criminal offence.

Nor does it affect the case of three former senior Tesco executives who face a fraud trial in September. They have denied the charges.

The retailer also faces legal costs, and it has set aside 85 million to compensate investors who bought Tesco shares and bonds soon after a misleading statement to the City in August 2014. The next month it emerged that profits had been overstated by 263 million, later upgraded to 326 million.

Mr Lewis said: We have fully cooperated with this investigation. We are committed to doing everything we can to restore trust in our business.
T ropical Cyclone Debbie tore through Australias northeast today damaging homes, wrecking jetties and cutting power to thousands of people.

Gusts stronger than 160mph were recorded at tourist resorts along the world-famous Great Barrier Reef as the powerful storm made landfall as a category four, one rung below the most dangerous wind speed level.

It was later downgraded to a category three storm. Forecasters said high winds could persist for as long as 10 hours, although it would then weaken rapidly.

Police said one man was badly hurt when a wall collapsed at Proserpine, about 560 miles northwest of the Queensland capital, Brisbane, and was taken to hospital.

However, the weather was still too bad to assess damage fully or mount an emergency response.

Cyclone Debbie - In pictures 1 /8 Cyclone Debbie - In pictures Satellite image of Tropical Cyclone Debbie as its eye approaches the coast of eastern Queensland, Australia EPA Strong winds and rain lash Airlie Beach, Australia Dan Peled/EPA Outdoor furniture floats in a pool, placed for safety, at a motel at Airlie Beach, Queensland, Australia Dan Peled/EPA A family relaxes in a temporary cyclone shelter in the town of Ayr in far north Queensland as Cyclone Debbie approaches Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images A fallen palm tree lies next to a building at Airlie Beach, Queensland, Australia Dan Peled/EPA Storm clouds gather in the town of Ayr in far north Queensland as Cyclone Debbie approaches Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images

We will also receive more reports of injuries, if not deaths. We need to be prepared for that, Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart told reporters in Brisbane.

Cyclone Debbie made landfall at Airlie Beach, north of Proserpine, shortly after midday local time (0200 GMT), knocking out telephone services.

Its very noisy: Screaming, howling wind ... sounds like a freight train, Jan Clifford told Reuters by text from Airlie Beach as the cyclone made landfall.

Still blowing like crazy, she said four hours later.

Authorities had urged thousands of people in low-lying areas to flee their homes yesterday, in what would have been the biggest evacuation seen in Australia since Cyclone Tracy devastated the northern city of Darwin on Christmas Day, 1974.

Explainer: What is the difference between hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones

Torrential rain flooded streets and wind smashed windows, uprooted trees and tossed debris through streets, while jetties at Airlie Beach marina were wrecked, Nine Network television pictures showed.

Power was cut for 48,000 people in a wide area between the towns of Bowen and Mackay, north and south of Airlie Beach.

Ports at Abbot Point, Mackay and Hay Point were shut, and Townsville airport was closed. Airlines Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin Australia suspended all flights to and from the region and said planes could also be grounded tomorrow.
P resident Donald Trump has signed an executive order scrapping some of Barack Obamas policies aimed at cutting global warming.

The US leader, who in the past has called climate change a hoax, had repeatedly criticised the former presidents efforts as an attack on workers and the countrys struggling coal industry.

President Trump signed the Energy Independence Executive Order which he said was the start of a new era in energy production.

The order suspends more than half-a-dozen of Obamas policies including the Clean Power Plan which restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants.

Environmental activists including former Vice President Al Gore denounced the plan and other groups are promising to fight the agenda.

But President Trump said: "That is what this is all about: bringing back our jobs, bringing back our dreams and making America wealthy again.

According to figures released by the Energy Department in January, the coal mining industry employs 75,000 people whereas renewable energy accounts for 650,000 US jobs.
S carlett Johansson has confessed she has a secret crush  on Gordon Ramsay.

The Hollywood actress, 32, left, was asked to name her hottest guy and picked the 50-year-old celebrity chef, right. Honestly, Im like somebody who likes Gordon Ramsay, she said, after saying shed been turned down by men in the past.

Johansson, who recently filed for divorce from her second husband, French journalist Romain Dauriac, clearly has a taste for cooks.

Her second celebrity crush was another TV chef, Anthony Bourdain, 60. Theres a running theme, she said.

NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

The Ghost In The Shell actress, who was previously married to actor Ryan Reynolds, was being quizzed by US shock jock Howard Stern on his Sirius FM radio show.

Who wouldnt want to be with you? he asked. I mean, theres an ass for every seat, she replied, before admitting to her crushes.

Ramsay has been married to Tana since 1996.

Johansson recently went into the food business opening a gourmet popcorn shop in Paris with Dauriac, with whom she has a two-year-old daughter, Rose.

Scarlett Johansson - In pictures 1 /73 Scarlett Johansson - In pictures Scarlett Johansson walks the red carpet ahead of the "Marriage Story" screening during during the 76th Venice Film Festival Getty Images Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost Getty Images Scarlett Johansson stars in The Prestige (2006) Warner Bros Scarlett Johansson in the 2012 film Avengers Assemble Disney Marriage Story (2019) Netflix In an emotional scene from the 1998 movie 'The Horse Whisperer', Scarlett Johansson, is helped into the saddle by actor Robert Redford after being traumatized in a horseback riding accident AFP/Getty Images Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation (2003) Scarlett Johansson attends the 'Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the 18th Century' Costume Institute benefit gala at the Metropolitan Museum in 2004 Getty Images Scarlett Johansson attends the Stuff Magazine/Armani Exchange 'Beachdance' party in 2003 Getty Images Scarlett Johansson arrives at the screening of the new Sofia Coppola film Lost In Translation at the 60th Venice Film Festival2003 Getty Images Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Rhys Meyers in Match Point (2005) Ewan MacGregor and Scarlett Johansson in The Island (2005) Warner Bros Scarlett Johansson arrives at the opening ceremony and 'The Black Dahlia' premiere on the first day of the 63rd Venice Film Festival 2006 Getty Images Scarlett Johansson arrives to the 63rd Annual Golden Globe Awards 2006 Getty Images The Other Boleyn Girls starring Natalie Portman as Anne and Scarlett Johansson as Mary Boleyn (2008) Columbia Pictures Scarlett Johansson in a fashion campaign for Mango in 2009 Mango Scarlett Johansson in 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' (2008) also starring Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem and Rebecca Hall. Scarlett Johansson in 'Iron Man 2' (2010) Marvel The Avengers (2012) with Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Captain America (Chris Evans) & Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) Marvel Scarlett Johansson is honoured with a star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012 Getty Images Scarlett Johansson playing Janet Leigh recreates the famous shower scene from Psycho in Hitchcock (2012) Fox Searchlight Pictures Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock and Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh in Hitchcock (2012) Scarlett Johansson in Under The Skin (2013) Scarlett Johansson poses for a photograph on the red carpet at the gala for the new movie " Under The Skin " during the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto on 9 September 2013 AP Scarlett Johansson arrives on the red carpet for the screening of her film Under The Skin in which she plays an alien AP Front Cover of the November 2013 issue of Esquire Magazine, featuring actress, model and singer Scarlett Johansson Esquire Magazine Scarlett Johansson visits 'Late Night With Jimmy Fallon' at Rockefeller Center in 2013 Getty Images Scarlett Johansson arrives on the red carpet at the New York premiere of Don Jon in 2013 Splash News Scarlett Johansson in Lucy (2014) Europacorp Scarlett Johansson arrives on the red carpet for the UK premiere of Captain America: The Winter Soldier in 2014 Getty Images Scarlett Johansson arrives on the red carpet for the UK premiere of Captain America: The Winter Soldier in 2014 EPA Scarlett Johansson signs autographs at the UK Film Premiere of Captain America: The Winter Soldier at Westfield London in 2014 Dave Benett Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) AP Scarlett Johansson arrives at the World Premiere of Captain America: The Winter Soldier" at the El Capitan Theatre, Los Angeles in 2014 Invision/AP John Travolta kisses Scarlett Johansson as they arrive for the 87th annual Academy Awards ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California in 2015. EPA Scarlett Johansson attends the premiere of Marvel's "Avengers: Age Of Ultron" at Dolby Theatre, Hollywood in 2015 Getty Images Scarlett Johansson attends The 2015 MTV Movie Awards at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live in Los Angeles Getty Images Scarlett Johansson attends the European premiere of "The Avengers: Age Of Ultron" at Westfield London in 2015 Dave Benett Madame Tussauds New York unveils first-ever wax figure of actress Scarlett Johansson in 2015 Getty Images Scarlett Johansson arrives at the premiere of Sing during the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto on 11 September 2016 The Canadian Press via AP Scarlett Johansson attends the Rough Night premeire in 2017 Getty Images Scarlett Johansson attends The American Museum Of Natural History 2018 Gala Getty Images Scarlett Johansson, Female Movie Star of 2018, poses in the press room during the People's Choice Awards Getty Images Scarlett Johansson attends the 70th Emmy Awards 2018 Getty Images Colin Jost and Scarlett Johansson attend the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & The Catholic Imagination Costume Institute Gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2018 Getty Images Scarlett Johansson attends the Met Gala 2018 Getty Images Scarlett Johansson attends the premiere of Disney and Marvel's 'Avengers: Infinity War' in 2018 Getty Images Scarlett Johansson arrives for the screening of the film "Marriage Story" during the 76th Venice Film Festival 2019 AFP via Getty Images Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson and Roman Griffin Davis in the film Jojo Rabbit Scarlett Johansson of Marvel Studios' 'Black Widow' at the San Diego Comic-Con International 2019 Getty Images Scarlett Johansson arrives to attend the 11th Annual Governors Awards gala 2019 hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood AFP via Getty Images Laura Dern, Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson attend "Marriage Story" photocall during the 76th Venice Film Festival at Sala Grande WireImage Scarlett Johansson arrives at the 77th annual Golden Globe Awards 2020 Invision/AP Scarlett Johansson in Black Widow (2020) Marvel Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

The Ghost In The Shell is set for UK cinema release on March 30.
J ust when you thought the world didnt need another Spider-Man reboot, the new trailer for Spider-Man: Homecoming is here to prove you wrong.

The legendary web-slinging superhero is making his way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe after his debut in Captain America: Civil War last year.

While he managed to stand out in that epic super-hero brawl, this time hes taking centre stage in a film that takes Peter Parker right back to his high school years.

After striking up a friendship with Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, in Civil War, Parker is teaming up with Marvel's figurehead hero once again to prove his mettle in Homecoming.

Marvel/Sony

The new clip for the film shows Stark giving Spidey his latest hi-tech suit  but when the teen hero comes under a devastating attack from the villainous Vulture, its up to Parker to prove hes ready to be an Avenger after all.

Michael Keaton is portraying the classic comic book baddie in his second super-powered bird-based character after his Golden Globe-winning turn in Birdman.

Almost stealing the show in the trailer is Parkers best friend Ned, who learns early on that his buddy is the Spider-Man  from YouTube!, and even gets to try the suit on.

There also seems to be some epic action, with a major set-piece on a ship being torn apart, and Vulture flinging Spidey into a plane engine. Ouch.

Marvel/Sony

Best of all, the title characters return to Marvel Studios (in conjunction with Sony) means that the tone of the heros flippant quips is bang-on.

While weve had plenty of underwhelming Spider-Man movies in recent years, Homecoming looks like it could be an extremely fitting title after all.

Spider-Man: Homecoming arrives in UK cinemas on July 7
A licia Vikander can be seen wearing Lara Crofts iconic tank top and cargo pants in the first look pictures of her as the famous Tomb Raider character.

Vikander has taken over the reins from Angelina Jolie who immortalised the adventurer in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider  The Cradle of Life (2003).

Vikander can be seen covered in dust in one shot, standing in a forest, and in action on a beach in another.

The Oscar winning actress said Croft is a model for young women and said she took on the role because Croft is uniquely different to other characters she has played.

First look: Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft

When I was asked to take on this role I got really excitedLara Croft is a truly iconic character, Vikander told Vanity Fair.

I think people can identify with her for lots of different reasons, but for me I very much see her as a model for many young women. Shes trying to carve out her place in the world and connect her future with her past. She also has a fantastic mix of traitstough, smart, vulnerable, plus shes kick a**!

In action: Alicia Vikander is seen searching for her father

She is also uniquely different to other characters I have taken on previously. It's a lot of fun trying to get into Laras head and the challenge of getting to grips with such a physical role is an element of this project that I find an absolute thrill.

Croft originated in the Tomb Raider video game franchise launched in 1996.

The new film, directed by Roar Uthaug, will follow Croft as she becomes inspired to investigate the disappearance of her father (Dominic West) seven years after he first went missing. The investigation takes her to his last-known location  a tomb on an island off the coast of Japan.

Daniel Wu and Walton Goggins also star.

Tomb Raider is set for UK cinema release in March 2018.
T OWIE star James Lock said he was supporting prisoners retraining in the restaurant business after seeing how difficult it was for friends leaving jail to rebuild their lives.

The reality star, who runs health food venue Lockies Kitchen in Romford, took over The Clink restaurant in HMP Brixton for a day to raise more than 2,000 to help set up the charitys next training project.

The Clink runs restaurants in four jails where inmates cook for and serve the public. Prisoners train towards catering NVQ qualifications to help them find jobs as waiters and chefs after their sentences end. The charitys training projects have a 41 per cent success rate in reducing reoffending.

The Clink at Brixton is currently fourth out of 17,932 London restaurants on TripAdvisor. Lock said: I had a really good upbringing but I could so easily have taken a wrong turn and ended up in trouble. I saw some close mates get into crime when I was growing up and one or two ended up in prison.

Doing lunchtime: James Lock

Ive visited them and I can see what a tough time they have, especially when it comes to starting again once theyre out. This is why I have started working with The Clink. I want to raise the profile of a charity that helps prisoners come out to a better life and not reoffend.

Lock, whose girlfriend is The Only Way Is Essex co-star Yazmin Oukhellou, held the Lunch With Lockie event this month with a sell-out 120 covers. Writer Rob McGibbon interviewed him in front of diners.

Lock said: It was an incredible experience. The inmates are a great bunch of lads to work with, dedicated and hardworking, and they served up a delicious meal. Theyre true pros.

Since launching the first Clink Restaurant at HMP High Down, in Sutton, in 2009, more than 800 prisoners have graduated from its training projects.
G et ready to dig your telescopes out again  Stargazing Live is back on the BBC.

Dara O Briain once again finds himself in scientist mode as he reunites with Brian Cox to look up at the night sky and show us the wonders of the solar system.

There is a difference for the new series though  the duo are in Australia this time.

While it might sound like a good excuse for a trip to the other side of the world, there is another reason why this years show is in Oz.

The view of space down under is totally different from what we might see up in the UK, so we'll get a different perspective on those twinkling lights.

Of course, the time difference also means that dawn will be on the cusp by the time the show broadcasts. However, O Briain and Cox (and, more likely, their team of astronomers) will have been watching the skies all night to bring us some interesting analysis by the time they go on air.

There will also be pre-recorded segments about the cultural impact in Australia of astronomy, with the first episode looking at the importance of the Milky May on indigenous communities.

For those who cant get enough of the space-chat, Stargazing is airing across Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 8pm.

BBC Two
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Gering Police are investigating three small fires in boys restrooms at an elementary school.

Two fires were set on Friday and one fire was set on Monday morning, School Resource Officer Shawn West said. He said unknown students ignited toilet paper. West described the fires as being a slow smolder, resulting in damage to toilet paper dispensers on Friday. On Monday, the fire was caught shortly after it was lit and no damage was caused.

West said that school officials implemented procedures that required students to sign out before going to the restroom on Monday so a short list of students has been compiled who may have been involved. As of Monday afternoon, a suspect had not been developed so the incidents remain under investigation.

No one was injured in the fires, West said. Gering Fire Chief Jay Templar did respond to the Fridays fires at the school.
Gov. Pete Ricketts signed a religious freedom bill into law Monday evening at Northeast Community College in Norfolk.

LB62, introduced by Speaker Jim Scheer, repeals a law prohibiting public school teachers from wearing religious garments at school. Previously, school boards were required to suspend for one year any teacher in violation of the laws and termination of employment was required after a second violation.

Ricketts said the location for the bill signing was unusual, but that he wanted to acknowledge the great work Scheer put in carrying it through the legislature this session.

The Speaker (Scheer) has long been a defender of religious freedom here in our state, Ricketts said.

LB 62 is a reversal of a 1919 law promoted by the Klu Klux Klan. Ricketts said the Klan had backed the law to prevent Catholic nuns from teaching in Nebraska public schools.

The bill passed the legislature 39-5.

There were those concerned about separation of church and state, Scheer said. We arent discriminating against any religion here, we are trying to make sure those who have a religious background arent discriminated against.

Scheer said that when he served on local school boards, he noticed that some teachers wore crosses on necklaces.

If I had noticed that as a school board member, I was supposed to call the police, he said. I didnt know (that law) existed. It was hidden that well in the statutes.

This brings back a lot of freedom to those who are teaching and most of them didnt know they were breaking the law. It was just a question of removing an impediment from the statutes.
Over more than a decade, the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs transferred $55 million away from its largest veterans nursing home as it delayed facilities improvements, including failing to replace soiled carpeting for more than seven years, according to an audit of the home's finances released Friday.
Lex Larsen, the Applied Agriculture instructor at Western Nebraska Community College, has been involved in managing an agriculture operation for the past 15 years.

This has given him the experience needed to teach the new applied agriculture certificate program at WNCC.

I think I can share a lot of things that Ive learned first-hand, Larsen said, its different to have it taught it you by someone who has actually done it as opposed to someone who learned in a book.

He grew up in the valley and graduated from Mitchell High School. Larsen has received three degrees related to agriculture from University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He has degrees in agribusiness, agriculture economics, and farm and ranch management.

He has been involved in cattle and agriculture production work which was done with his familys operation, Larsen Feeding Corporation.

Larsen said a lot of what he will be teaching has been picked up from practice after he was out of college.

The classes will consist of intro to applied agriculture, agriculture relations, agriculture machinery, water systems management, and pest and weed control. There will also be CDL training and if students are old enough, they can get their CDL right after the training. The students are also able to get their pesticide applicator license. The applied agriculture program is a one-year program or 30-31 credit hours.

Larsen said that students also need to understand the theories and reasons behind the processes in agriculture.

Were going to try to do as much hands-on as possible. Have some real actual experience with it, Larsen said.

Larsen said people can learn about the different topics in a book but until someone is in a big rig, they are not actually going to be getting the experience that they need.

My goal for the students upon completion of the program is to have a broad base of agricultural skills and exposure so they would be a desirable employee as a new hire, Larsen said.

He said students wont have to receive years of training, but go to work right away after the program.

Go right into the workforce and not have to have as much training, Larsen said.

One of the ways he is planning on giving students that experience is through different simulators.

There will be a front-end loader simulator, hydraulic system simulator and CDL truck driving simulator. Larsen said they will try and have a drone in the class so people can have experience with that and agricultural imaging.

Right now, the curriculum is being built as the program will kickstart in the fall.

There was a strong advisory board that helped set the program up. Larsen said the college is doing some recruiting and getting the word out to students.

He is also helping with welding instruction with juniors at Scottsbluff High School.

Larsen said the class is not restricted to young males or people who have been out of college for a number of years.

If there are some non-traditional students wanting to add some skills, well try and help with that, Larsen said.

Larsen said the program is much needed and theres definitely a deficit of agricultural workforce.

Theres so much in the community that is centered around agriculture, Larsen said, We want to help provide valuable employees with the certificate program.
Businesses and individuals are encouraged to participate in Severe Weather Awareness activities, including drills, March 27-31.

Nebraska Severe Awareness Week is designed to remind residents that severe weather season is beginning and residents all need to take steps to be ready, by making a safety plan and reviewing proper safety precautions for protecting their lives.

A statewide tornado drill is scheduled as part of the week on March 29. A Mock tornado warning will be issued at approximately 9:30 a.m.

In Scottsbluff, all alert systems will be tested. It is a time that most schools, health care facilities and businesses can test their tornado procedures. It is also recommended that families also practice their family shelter plan at this time as well.

The Chadron Police Department will be participating in the test tornado drill on Wednesday, March 29, at 9:30 a.m. The drill will begin with a tornado watch to be issued at 9 a.m. A tornado warning will then be issued by the National Weather Service at 9:30 a.m..

At that time the Chadron 911 Center will activate warning sirens in the communities of Chadron, Crawford and Harrison. The sirens will sound a three- inute steady tone.

The National Weather Service Office in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in cooperation with Region 22 Emergency Management is observing the Severe Weather Awareness Week, and will be distributing safety messages on different aspects of severe weather throughout the week.
Last week the Nebraska Legislature ended public hearings on bills. Starting on Tuesday the Senators will spend the whole day engaged in floor debates. Due to the shortness of the session, almost all of the bills which will get debated on the floor will be priority bills. Those bills without a priority status and which get voted out of committee will likely become carry-over bills for next years legislative session.

One of the last bills to get a public hearing this year was Sen. Friesens bill, LB 389. This bill would modernize Nebraskas telecommunications laws, allowing for greater investments and more improvements by wireless telecommunications providers. The bill would allow newer technologies to move into the State, especially the kind known as small cells, which would expand coverage to the level of fifth generation (5G) wireless capabilities. LB 389 also ensures that local governments would maintain control over the permitting process, giving them authority to approve or deny an application and to be adequately compensated through application fees and other cost-based fees for small wireless facility attachments.

Although LB 389 received a late hearing, the bill stands a good chance of getting voted out of

the Transportation & Telecommunications Committee and advancing through floor debate. Because Speaker Scheer has included LB 389 as one of his 25 Speaker priority bills, the bill stands a good chance of becoming a law. I support LB 389 because I believe it will provide better wireless services for our families, it will enable our schools to better educate our students in an age of technology, and it will help our local businesses to better compete in the global marketplace.

Finally, Sen. Brewers bill, LB 502, received its public hearing last Thursday, the last day for public hearings. This bill is meant to restore the constitutional rights of Nebraskans to be able to carry a firearm, concealed or open, without being forced to take a State-mandated test and pay a fee. This bill keeps Nebraskas current concealed carry permit system, thus retaining the option of issuing permits that would allow state residents to carry while traveling to other parts of the country that honor Nebraskas current concealed carry permit. This bill does not change the law concerning people currently prohibited from carrying a handgun.

The right to bear arms carries with it a great deal of responsibility. Besides the Constitution, the next best protectorate of gun ownership rights is self-discipline. Discipline is a virtue which every gun owner ought to possess in abundance and exhibit often. As President George Washington said in his first State of the Union Address on January 8, 1790, A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined. May we never forget that lesson our first President taught us.
Update 04.11.2017: Digital Photography Review (dpreview) has published their full review of the GH5: If youre serious about video, its hard to go wrong. Final score: 85% and a Gold Star.

Safe to say, its one of the most hyped, anticipated and talked about camera releases that I can ever recall in covering the scene for the last 10 years or so.

That would be the new Panasonic Lumix GH5.

Though it hasnt reached the States (end of March 2017), the lucky folks over in Europe and parts of Asia have already got their hands on it.

Early word: amazing. Or phenomenal. Or outstanding. Insert your superlative of choice.

Yes, the hyperbole is strong with this one. And coming off the success of its successor, the GH4, expectations were, not surprisingly, high.

The GH5 looks like a game-changer

Along with a never-ending stream of test videos (code for cat videos), several reviews from trusted and highly respected sources are beginning to hit the web. Heres a round-up of some of those early Lumix GH5 reviews.

Panasonic Lumix GH5: Reviews

TechRadar (4.5 out of 5): While the last couple of GH-series cameras have felt a little like video cameras masquerading as stills camera, the Panasonic Lumix GH5 is a much more rounded piece of kit. Its certainly one of the best 4K camera solutions out there, if not the best, before you start considering dedicated professional video cameras, and that video capability is backed up by a great set of features for the stills photographer. (full review on TechRadar) Digital Photography Review First Impressions Review: Current GH4 users, as well as anyone looking to get into serious video, will probably want to consider the GH5. In fact, for GH4 users, this isnt just a camera that does everything your current camera can do, plus a bunch of other things. This is a camera that does everything your current camera can do, but better plus a bunch of other things. Kudos to Panasonic for pushing the market forward. (first impressions review on DPReview) Cameralabs (Highly Recommended): Note: fantastic review by Gordon Laing and probably most thorough one out there yet. Panasonics Lumix GH5 is a worthy flagship body, greatly extending the quality and capabilities of the earlier GH4. A more detailed viewfinder, twin SD slots which both support the full speed of UHS-II, effective continuous AF at 9fps, and built-in stabilisation all make it a powerful stills shooter and the improved sensor and image processing delivers the best-looking images from a Lumix body to date  The GH5 is a no-brainer for video pros but also becomes a highly compelling stills camera too  Highly Recommended. (full review on Cameralabs) Stuff (5 out of 5 stars): The GH5s only weakness (and its a fairly minor one) is its middling performance in low light situations. In all other respects  build quality, control layout, autofocus, usability and image quality  its a fantastic camera, and enthusiasts who prize creative control and flexibility will adore it  Its certainly not cheap, but cutting edge cameras rarely are  and this is most definitely a cutting edge camera. (read full review on Stuff)

Like I said, choose your most amazing adjective of choice. Then say it in the same sentence as GH5 and youll have pretty much summed up what Panasonic has done here.

In case youre unaware of the GH5, heres the quick specs below.

Panasonic Lumix GH5: Specs

20.3MP Digital Live MOS Sensor

Venus Engine Image Processor

4K Video with No Crop

Internal 4:2:2 10-Bit 4K Video at 24/30p

5-Axis Sensor Stabilization; Dual I.S. 2

0.76x 3.68m-Dot OLED Viewfinder

3.2 1.62m-Dot Free-Angle Touchscreen

Advanced DFD AF System; 6K & 4K PHOTO

ISO 25600 and 12 fps Continuous Shooting

Dual UHS-II SD Slots; Wi-Fi & Bluetooth

The body sells for $1,998 (USD), available via Amazon or B&H Photo Video. There are a few well thought out accessories too. The MODEL, for example, provides XLR connectors which should be a bonus for doc style shooters.

10-bit video recording (4:2:2 color space) seems to be the marquee GH5 feature that is garnering the most attention. Simply, for those that dont feed on tech soup every day, that means more colors are captured by the sensor. That in turns (should) mean richer images. The sky is a great example. If you notice a video that has something called banding in the sky  the obvious changes in the color blue from lighter to darker  then youre likely seeing a weaker 8-bit recording. With 10-bit the gradient, or changes in the color, should be smoother, and less apparent. In other words, the GH5 should produce a more natural and pleasing look for the viewer.

Panasonic Lumix GH5 vs Canon EOS 80D: Which is the better buy?

Im still awaiting my GH5 pre-order (for a video guy, its pretty much a must-buy). When it arrives later this week Ill be eager to see how it compares to my trusty Canon EOS 80D.

Those who have followed our videography over the years here on Stark Insider and our YouTube channel probably know that Im a Canon guy. Through and through. Its a generational thing I suppose. My grandfather (TL). Then my father (AE-1). And, so it goes, to me a third generation Stark (Rebel T2i, EOS 60D, 70D, 80D).

Ive used Canons to shoot just about everything here in the San Francisco Bay Area: backstage at Cirque du Soleil, interview with actors, directors and musicians, experimental videos, and travel pieces. Amazingly Ive never experienced a single failure. And with the 70D and now 80D, Canon has given us incredible auto-focus technology called Dual Pixel Auto Focus (DPAF). Touch a subject on the LCD, and let the camera do the rest  automatically keeping moving objects in focus across the frame.

But the camera world is moving faster. Perhaps faster than Canon (and Nikon).

Mirrorless technology, available predominantly from the likes of Olympus and Panasonic is coming on strong.

So, finally, after all these years Im going to give it a go.

Im more interested in the result  and these cameras are just a means, not and end.

Right off the bat I suspect Ill appreciate that with the GH5, Panasonic has treated us videographers seriously. So, youll find things that are mysteriously absent on the 80D: histograms, focus peaking, high frame rates (for slow motion), 6K photo mode, and so many other well-conceived features. Based on what Im hearing so far, I suspect my 80D may soon be on eBay. Ill still use my Canon C100 II (and keep hoping for an updated C100 III or C200 later this year) for most of our run-and-gun and doc work, but for lightweight, discrete work, the GH5 looks like a game-changer.

Shot on Canon EOS 70D:

Wrongs What I Do Best at the San Francisco Art Institute

Video by Clinton Stark. With Loni Stark. Canon EOS 70D. Sigma 18-35mm. Canon 18-135mm kit lens. Zoom H1 with lavaliers, Sennheiser MKE 600.

In the end, these are all just tools.

I wont worship the GH5 or any other camera, be it the RED Scarlet-W or Blackmagic or even my iPhone 7 Plus.

Recently, I took a Sony Alpha a6500 for shoots in Paris and Iceland. I expected it to be a superb performer. It was for stills. But for video it was weak: too much rolling shutter, stabilization yielded lots of jelly, overheating (in Iceland!) and the image was just too video-like for my taste. So I reverted back to the my trusty 80D (and, occasionally, the impressive-for-the-price Blackmagic Micro Cinema Camera).

Again, tools.

Im more interested in the result  and these cameras are just a means, not and end.

Specs are often over-rated. Just the way a camera feels in your hands, or the ergonomics can alter how well youre able to use it to capture footage. Everything else is more important than the actual camera body: composition, lighting and sound, acting, camera movement. And above all else, the story! We can have beautiful images, but if we dont have compelling story or narrative or something that draws attention then what do we have? Beautiful, lifeless images.

Also, Im brand agnostic; been a long-standing Canon DSLR shooter, yes, but nothing is forever.

Dont be surprised if you see more Stark Insider content about the GH5 in the coming weeks and months and years ahead (because the internet needs more GH5 content).

Something tells me Panasonic has created a mirrorless camera that every videographer, semi-pro shooter was every hoping for. Im looking forward to this next chapter.

Reasearch/Buy cameras mentioned in this article:
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A detachment of the Royal Air Force of the UK from the Coningsby air base will be deployed to Romania at Mihail Kogalniceanu military base, from May 1 to August 31, to perform air police missions together with the Romanian Air Forces, informs the Ministry of National Defence (MApN).

According to the source, the British detachment will consist of four Eurofighter aircraft and about 150 soldiers - pilots and technical staff.

"Distributing RAF aircraft in Romania is part of the implementation of the Plan of action to ensure the operational capacity of NATO's eastern flank of the Alliance both in the north and in the South. Thus, air police missions have been conducted to date simultaneously or by rotation in order to secure the air space of the Baltic countries, Benelux, Iceland and Bulgaria. Air police missions jointly carried out will contribute to the development of the reaction and deterrence capacity and to the interoperability reinforcement between Romanian and the British air forces," specifies MApN.

agerpres.
The Prince of Wales will start, on Wednesday, his official visit to Romania, the Romanian National News Agency Agerpres being the sole media partner of the event. The British Ambassador in Bucharest, Paul Brummell, stated last week in an interview granted to AGERPRES that the visit of Prince Charles, a great friend and admirer of Romania, represents the celebration of the strength of the ties between the two countries. "This is His Royal Highness' second official visit here to Romania, but he is no stranger to Romania. He visits very frequently on a private basis. He is a huge friend and admirer of Romania, he has a foundation here in Romania, supporting the preservation of traditional architecture and development of traditional crafts, for example," the British diplomat stated.

He emphasized that the visit of Prince Charles represents "celebrating and underlining the strength of our bilateral ties". Paul Brummell showed that Prince Charles will have meetings with President Klaus Iohannis and Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu, but also organizations working in various domains, but which "have a common denominator of involving collaboration in one way or another between the United Kingdom and Romania". "I think that is really the underpinning message of his visit is that it will be a celebration of the amazingly diverse ways in which British and Romanian people and organizations are working together to do really good things," Brummell said.

The Presidential Administration has announced that President Klaus Iohannis will welcome, on Wednesday, Prince Charles at the Cotroceni Palace and that the topics of discussion will target the development and deepening the Strategic Partnership relation between Romania and the United Kingdom, including the security domain, the evolution of relations between the two countries in view of the Brexit, with emphasis on the situation of the Romanian community in the UK, as well as the ample charitable activity of the Prince of Wales in Romania.

The head of state will confer upon Prince Charles the Grand Cross of the Star of Romania, as a token of high esteem for his activity in Romania and for his promotion of Romania's image abroad. Prince Charles's official visit to Romania will conclude on Friday. The British Embassy in Bucharest and the Romanian National News Agency AGERPRES have concluded a partnership for the media coverage of the official visit to Romania of the Prince of Wales.

According to a release of the Embassy of the United Kingdom to Romania, all information regarding the event will be communicated in a media pool system. AGERPRES, as sole media partner of the event, will make available for the other news broadcasters of Romania, freely, video and photo materials, as well as text materials from the public meetings that will take place during the Prince of Wales's visit.
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Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers looks on as Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau tech ed students work on a truck in 2016.
Benson Hill Biosystems, a crop technology company with offices in Creve Coeur and North Carolina, has raised $25 million in venture capital.

The company's series B round was led by Lewis & Clark Ventures, a Clayton firm that launched a $20 million fund last year for agricultural investments, and Prelude Ventures of San Francisco.

Fall Line Capital of San Mateo, Calif., and S2G Ventures of Chicago also made first-time investments in Benson Hill. Several previous investors also participated, including Cultivation Capital and iSelect Fund of St. Louis, Prolog Ventures of Clayton and the state-funded Missouri Technology Corp.

Benson Hill, founded in 2012, raised a $7.3 million Series A round in 2015. It said the new money would be used to enhance CropOS, its computational "cloud biology" platform, which helps seed companies improve crop genetics for a fraction of the time and cost of conventional methods.

David Russell, a Lewis & Clark partner, said in a statement that Benson Hill "delivers not just better products but also a whole new approach to genomic innovation that stands to greatly benefit the worlds agricultural food supply.
The Affordable Care Act has its issues but is not, despite President Donald Trumps dramatic language, either imploding or exploding.

Its future may include a few fender benders that will hurt insurance companies, consumers and the federal budget, but not a fiery crash that would cost millions of Americans their health coverage.

To understand why Obamacare is not about to blow up, lets review what the 2010 law did. It expanded Medicaid, set up a system of exchanges and subsidies and required individuals and businesses to buy policies. It also levied new taxes and rewrote many of the rules of health insurance.

Those rules are working. Some of them  insurers cant deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions, and children can stay on a parents policy until age 26  are so popular that they were part of Republicans failed repeal-and-replace bill.

The Medicaid expansion, which covers 11 million people who werent eligible before, isnt about to explode either. The mandates will work if the Trump administration enforces them.

The exchanges do have problems. Big insurers UnitedHealth, Aetna and Humana have pulled out or scaled back their participation. In many rural areas, including 96 of Missouris 114 counties, only one company offers insurance on the exchange.

The Congressional Budget Office says the exchanges will probably remain stable. The lack of competition may boost prices, but the vast majority of enrollees receive subsidies. Uncle Sam, not the individual, will bear the higher cost.

The taxpayer will pay the difference, and that cost is going to go up dramatically, says Joseph Antos, a health care expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

What if that sole insurer pulls out? Thats a real danger in Tennessee, where Humana, the only choice on exchanges in 16 counties, is leaving the market next year.

Individuals in those places could buy off-exchange policies, but those arent eligible for federal subsidies.

Its a very local crisis, says Cynthia Cox, associate director of health reform and private insurance at the Kaiser Family Foundation. If that happens on a broader scale next year, it could lead to more political discussion on either repeal-and-replace or fixing Obamacare.

Other insurers still might fill the gap. Centene, a managed-care company that got its start serving Medicaid patients, wants to expand its exchange business. Because there are federal dollars in there, and 8 or 9 million people, there will be insurers that are willing to take the money, Antos predicts.

The Trump administration could do some small things to help the insurance companies. Already, in February, it proposed to tighten enrollment rules, making it harder for people to game the system and buy insurance only when they get sick.

Such tweaks aside, insurers and consumers appear to be stuck with the 2010 law. The worst fears about it, however, have proven unfounded.

Employers, we were told, might drop coverage and let Obamacare cover their employees. Or the workforce might shrink, because people no longer needed a job to have affordable health care. Neither of those things has happened to any great degree.

On the whole, the ACA is working smoothly, Cox said, but the exchange markets, where 5 percent of the population gets insurance, have gotten 95 percent of the media attention.

Even there, the biggest danger is rising premiums and a few gaps in coverage. That qualifies as a problem, but hardly an explosion.
LONDON  A story by Reuters about Brevan Howard Asset Management would breach the British hedge fund manager's right to confidentiality and is not of sufficient public interest to justify it being published, a British court has ruled.

Brevan Howard was granted an injunction last week to stop Reuters publishing a story that it said was based on confidential and "highly sensitive" information that had been sent out to 36 potential investors.

The full judgment released on Tuesday found that while the story might have undermined Brevan Howard's reputation, it lacked "weightier public interest" such as exposing hypocrisy or incompetence.

"Publication would not be for the purposes of demonstrating any behavior which is even arguably behavior deserving of moral censure," judge Andrew Popplewell said in a redacted copy of his ruling.

The judge said there was a public interest to protect sensitive commercial material that is given to potential investors.

"If a financial institution could not provide such information with adequate protection of its confidentiality, it would be forced to be less candid with investors who would be less well informed in making their investments," he wrote.

Reuters argued that hedge fund managers, such as Brevan Howard, invested on behalf of institutional investors including public pension funds, which affect the finances of millions of people globally.

A Reuters spokeswoman said: "Our objective is to publish news and information which is in the public interest, which we believe outweighs the confidentiality concerns put forward in this matter.

"We are therefore deeply disappointed by this ruling and are reviewing the court's decision."

A spokesman for Brevan Howard, one of Europe's biggest hedge fund managers, said that the firm "welcomes the decision of the court that supports the importance of its ability to communicate with its investors in a candid and responsible manner."

Reuters news agency is part of the Thomson Reuters media and information group.
Cargill Inc.'s efforts to supply food companies with non-genetically modified ingredients have come under attack from the other side of its business: farmers.

In common with several other large agribusinesses, Cargill is adapting to a shift in consumer taste toward more products labeled non-GMO. And just like those companies, it too has agreed to allow the Non-GMO Project, a U.S. nonprofit group, to verify some of its supplies to ensure they're free of ingredients such as modified soy and corn.

But in recent days, Cargill, the country's largest private company, has found itself on the defensive against criticism on social media over the relationship. The source of the controversy is the Non-GMO Project's position that there's no scientific consensus on the safety of GMOs. That's contradicted by reports from National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and the American Medical Association, who say GMO crops pose no more risk to human health than any other crops.

Some farmers are unhappy that Cargill is endorsing a group so clearly opposed to GMO crops, which account for the vast majority of soybeans, corn and canola grown in North America.

"It's a slap in the face," said Chris Allam, a farmer who grows 6,000 acres of canola near Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. "I have a problem with Cargill dealing with someone who is staunchly against it."

Cargill announced its partnership with the Non-GMO Project in October, and said earlier this month it got verification for several additional ingredients, including Stevia sweeteners and soybean oil. The company is far from alone in working with the Bellingham, Wash.-based group. Bunge Ltd., another large U.S. agricultural trader and processor, has had the group verify some milled corn ingredients and oils. In Canada, the group verifies canola oils produced by Viterra Inc., Glencore Plc's agricultural unit.

Still, it's Cargill's arrangement that has stirred up a lively debate. Robb Fraley, chief technology officer at Monsanto, the world's largest supplier of GMO seeds, weighed in last week on Twitter, saying he understands Cargill's intent to support farmers and consumer choice, but also asking why the company is working with an "anti-science" group.

"I can understand why this feels threatening," Megan Westgate, executive director of the Non-GMO Project, said in an interview. "There's a big paradigm shift happening. The largest food companies in the world are looking for non-GMO ingredients and that's really changing the supply chain."

Consumer demand for non-GMO food has risen exponentially and the Non-GMO Project's mission is to make sure people have choices and options, she said. The group offers the only established, third-party non-GMO certification in North America and currently has 43,623 products verified to its standards.

"Some of the farmers' concerns are well-founded, in that the Non-GMO Project is not an unbiased, non-aligned, independent lab," said Peter Golbitz, founder of Estero, Fla.-based Agromeris, a consulting firm for specialty agriculture products and ingredients. "Their true intent is to discredit GMO technology and to drive fear into consumers and the supply chain."

Cargill says modified crops and non-GMO ingredients can co-exist, and that GMO technology is safe and plays a critical role in feeding a growing population. The company doesn't share the non-GMO project's position on GMOs, said Randy Giroux, vice president of food safety, quality and regulatory.

"There's no bigger supporter of farmers and GMO technology than Cargill," Giroux said in a statement. "Like many other companies, Cargill's affiliation with the Non-GMO Project is strictly limited to its rigorous verification process. Since there is no Federal standard for non-GMO products in the U.S., companies like ours use private standards that the market recognizes."

Ingredion Inc., a U.S. producer of ingredients such as starches and sweeteners, says it had few alternatives to working with the Non-GMO Project. The group has verified 57 ingredients for the company, according to an Ingredion statement.

"We are not making a statement that one or the other is bad," Igor Playner, the company's vice president of innovation for North America, said in a telephone interview on Monday, referring to the debate over GMOs and non-GMOs. "There is demand for everything."

Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., a U.S. agricultural trader and processor, handles both modified and unmodified crops, but hasn't sought certification from the Non-GMO Project, company spokeswoman Jackie Anderson said in an email.

While there's no issue with providing the consumer with more information from a third party, growers are upset Cargill is working with a "politically charged" activist group with an anti-GMO view that's not based on logic or science, said Allam, the farmer in Alberta. GMO crops help boost yields and allow growers to better control grasses and other weeds with less chemicals and tillage, he said.

"I'm quite disappointed in Cargill's position," said D'Arcy Hilgartner, a farmer who grows canola on his family farm near Camrose, Alberta. "It's like using Cargill money to fight against the good work growers are doing."

Bloomberg's Jack Kaskey contributed.
MOUNT PLEASANT  A new complaint has been filed against a Mount Pleasant group home after a second homeowner came forward to reveal that she, too, had been victimized by a 20-year-old resident with a mental disability living next door.

Kaitlyn Shawhan, 24, who lives near the residential family home, or group home, in the 2100 block of Sutton Drive, said she filed a complaint Monday with the state Department of Health Services detailing how a man charged through her unlocked front door at 10 a.m. March 10, one day before her neighbor Shanda Hess experienced a similar incident.

I heard someone run through my house, Shawhan said.

I started screaming, hello? hello! He paid no attention to my screaming. He grabbed a soda out of my fridge and started chugging it and it went all over the place, Shawhan said.

Shawhan said the group homes caregiver soon ran into her house, also unannounced, and grabbed the man and pulled him back to the group home.

Im glad my dogs were not there because he would have been bitten and thats the last thing I want, Shawhan said.

What makes it worse. Its not even the same caregiver as my neighbor encountered. Multiple people arent taking care of them, Shawhan said.

Allegations denied

Alpha Homes attorney Mike Bannon said the company, which operates 26 group homes in the Racine and Kenosha area, launched an investigation into the new allegation Monday and the staff at the Sutton Drive location deny anything has occurred.

No one has contacted the office connected to Ms. Shawhan, Bannon said. We have confidence that the incident did not occur. We interviewed the whole staff and we have no reason to believe they are lying to us.

Bannon pointed out police have not had contact with Shawhan over the incident. Shawhan said she did call the police nonemergency number and will be filing out a report with an officer, however she did not call police at the time of the incident due to sympathy over the mans disabilities.

I didnt want to press charges against him. Its not his fault, Shawhan said. But now in retrospect I should have pressed charges against the caregiver. We dont know who else didnt call and didnt press charges. Theyre not doing their job.

Bannon said while Alpha Homes admits the incident with Hess on March 11 occurred and the caregiver in question has been disciplined because he failed to follow certain policies which allowed this to occur, however, Shawhans allegations, are in fact, opportunistic.

Clearly there is a biased toward not having disabled people living next door. Its clear in some of the comments made by (her) neighbor. I dont know if this is an opportunistic attempt to affect that, Bannon said.

Bannon invited the Journal Times and the Mount Pleasant Police Chief Tim Zarzecki to tour the facility in question.

New Investigation

Kristin Kerschensteiner, an attorney for Disability Rights Wisconsin, the states designated protection and advocacy agency for people with disabilities, said theyve launched their own investigation for the sake of the young man.

There is sufficient concern about the adequacy and quality of this individuals services to open an investigation here at DRW, Kerschensteiner said. We are authorized to look into situations when we believe there is potential for abuse or neglect of an individual with a disability.

The group is concerned that an inadequate service plan or insufficient supports might result in this young man losing his community placement and being institutionalized.

Our goal would be to engage with the long-term care service system at both the state and local level to ensure that a proper service plan is in place to prevent this from happening, if at all possible. An appropriate plan would benefit both this young man and his local community. Kerschensteiner said.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1999 that people with disabilities have the right to live in the least restrictive setting possible. Known as the Olmstead decision, the ruling also stated that unnecessary institutionalization violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Call on village board

The original complaint brought last week from Shawhans neighbor Shanda Hess, which detailed the young man entering her house and alleges the caregiver was asleep at the time, has sparked an inspection of the Sutton Drive group home by surveyors of the state Department of Health Services, in documents acquired by the Journal Times. Mount Pleasant Police and the Racine County Adult Protective Services are also investigating the incident.

Hess said shes talked to her neighbors and alleges the group home resident has done it at least five times and is now calling on the Mount Pleasant village board for help.

The caregivers at Alpha Homes let (the young man) out of their supervision a total of five times in the past 10 months. Five times he actually succeeded in invasions, Hess wrote in an email to board members Monday.

How many times has (he) tried and not been successful? Do you see a dangerous pattern here? Hes terrorizing my house, my neighbors house, the neighborhood. All due to the fact they are letting him get out of their supervision, Hess said.

The move may be more symbolic as the state has jurisdiction over the regulation of group homes. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Division of Quality Assurance, maintains copies of investigative reports and surveys for public inspection on group homes, also known as adult family homes. The results of the new survey after Hesss incident may not be available until April, according to DHS procedures.

The Sutton Drive location of Alpha Homes of Wisconsin had not been inspected in three years.
Updated at 10:10 a.m.

DETROIT  Ford Motor Co. is investing $1.2 billion in three Michigan facilities, including an engine plant where it plans to add 130 jobs.

President Donald Trump, who has pressured automakers to invest more and create jobs in the U.S., applauded the move Tuesday in an early morning tweet.

"Big announcement by Ford today. Major investment to be made in three Michigan plants. Car companies coming back to U.S. JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!," Trump tweeted hours ahead of the announcement.

The investments were in the works well before Trump took office, however. Ford announced plans to upgrade some of its Michigan plants in November 2015 as part of a new contract with the United Auto Workers union.

Ford Americas President Joe Hinrichs said the company told the White House about the investments Tuesday morning. Hinrichs said it's not unusual for the company to reach out to state and national political leaders before such an announcement.

Hinrichs said Tuesday's announcement was timed to a state meeting where officials were expected to approve tax incentives for Ford. The automaker expects to receive $30 million in tax abatements and other incentives over 15 years.

Ford will spend $850 million to upgrade the Michigan Assembly Plant next year to build the Ford Ranger midsize pickup and Ford Bronco SUV. Ford plans to build the Ranger starting at the end of 2018 and the Bronco starting in 2020.

The suburban Detroit plant currently makes small cars, which are moving to a plant in Mexico. Trump has needled Ford and other automakers in the past about plans to move small car production to Mexico. Amid slowing sales of smaller vehicles, Ford did scrap plans for a brand new plant in Mexico, but will continue to build small cars at an existing facility there.

Hinrichs said the Michigan Assembly Plant will operate on two shifts unless demand dictates that a third shift be added. The plant used to operate on three shifts, but it cut a shift and 673 factory workers in 2015 because of slumping sales of small cars.

Ford will spend $150 million to upgrade its Romeo Engine Plant outside Detroit. The company says it will create or retain 130 jobs at that plant, which will make components for a new engine.

Ford also is spending $200 million on a data center that will store information collected from self-driving and connected cars. The data center will be located at an assembly plant in the Detroit suburb of Flat Rock. Ford announced in January that the Flat Rock plant would get $700 million in upgrades and 700 new jobs to make electric and self-driving cars.
International offshore driller Ocean RIG UDW Inc. filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection in a U.S. court late Monday, hit by cancellations as major oil producing customers withdrew from deep water projects amid falling oil prices.

The Cayman Islands holding company, which spent heavily on new drill ships earlier in the decade, said lower oil prices will continue to weigh on client demand during 2017. More than half of its drilling units are currently inactive.

In a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York, Ocean Rig UDW President Antonios Kandylidis said the company had reached an agreement with a group of lenders to convert $3.7 billion of debt into new equity.

Kandylidis said the Chapter 15 filing aims to protect the restructuring deal from distressed debt investors who had hoped to make money after buying the company's bonds during a steep oil price decline last year. He called the "vulture investors" move "a bad bet."

Chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code enables a foreign company to obtain protection from creditors looking to seize its assets in the country.

As the price of crude has slumped more than 50 percent since 2014, oil companies have cut back on rig hires, leaving many vessels idle and prompting owners to restructure operations to preserve cash.

Global oil prices have rallied recently, prompting oil and gas producers to ramp up spending. But some companies have lagged as surplus offshore rigs built during the boom are now lying idle, while debt repayments must still be honored.

Bigger rival Seadrill, saddled with $14 billion in debt and liabilities, said last month it may have to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection if it fails to reach a restructuring agreement with lenders. Last year, Hercules Offshore Inc filed for bankruptcy protection, six months after emerging from its first bankruptcy.

Shares of Ocean Rig, which reached a high of $19.87 in June 2014, plunged 61 percent to 27 cents in midday trading on Tuesday.
NEW DELHI  Tens of millions of dollars were within reach for M. Prabhakara Rao as he prepared in April 2015 to take his Indian cotton seed company public.

The Indian businessman already had $54 million in initial funding from an American private equity investor. Rao had also locked in a long-term licensing agreement with Monsanto Co., the world's largest seed company, for the technology used in genetically modified cotton seeds that made up the majority of his annual sales.

Two months after publishing his initial public offering plan, Rao gambled. He sent one of his executives to negotiate a 10 percent cut in royalties with Monsanto. The multinational said no.

The outcome of that meeting ignited a corporate battle that has left Rao's IPO plans in tatters and drawn in the Indian and U.S. governments. More ominously, the fight has disrupted India's $1.8 billion-a-year seed industry, with Monsanto saying it may abandon the market.

Monsanto's Indian joint venture last July withdrew its application to introduce a new generation of cotton seed technology to India. The existing version, in India for a decade, is losing effectiveness against bollworms, which can wipe out crops. If another company doesn't step into the breach, agricultural economists warn the dispute could damage India's cotton-growing sector  which recently surpassed China's as the world's biggest and last year accounted for more than a quarter of global output, with a value of over $8.5 billion.

To an outsider, Rao's decision to take on Monsanto in a David-and-Goliath battle may seem hard to fathom. But the rules of doing business in India have changed. With the rise to power of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014 on a groundswell of Hindu nationalism, newly assertive right-wing groups, suspicious of foreign influence and particularly outspoken against large multinationals like Monsanto, now hold sway in the government.

The leaders of these groups operate under the umbrella of the powerful Hindu nationalist group known as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, Hindi for "national volunteer organization." They speak of returning India to an ancient, Hindu glory that was ravaged by foreign imperial powers. More pragmatically, they're amassing power.

Modi himself first attended RSS meetings at the age of 8 and was propelled to power with the group's help. A series of crucial ministries, including agriculture, are now run by ministers who are members of the RSS and its affiliates. Members of these Hindu nationalist groups also form a network of influential mandarins who seldom surface in public. They have the ear of the prime minister and those around him.

Anti-Monsanto measures

A lean, mustachioed man, Rao denies seeking the support of the RSS or working in tandem with the group, which wants indigenous varieties of cotton seed to replace Monsanto's products. But RSS powerbrokers  including the agriculture minister himself  told Reuters that Rao approached them for help in his battle with Monsanto. And they say they were happy to weigh in.

The agriculture minister, longtime RSS member Radha Mohan Singh, says his decision to intervene in the dispute was driven by the need to serve the interests of all Indian farmers, not just Rao.

The timing of Singh's actions, though, was telling. In the months after the meeting between Monsanto and Rao's man in Mumbai, the agriculture ministry first challenged and then slashed the royalties Monsanto is able to charge in India. The ministry called for an antitrust investigation into alleged monopolistic practices by the company. It also floated the idea of a compulsory licensing regime that would all but force Monsanto and other firms to hand over their proprietary technology to major Indian seed companies that applied for licenses.

Prime Minister Modi hasn't publicly commented on the matter. After the U.S. ambassador intervened last year, according to two people familiar with the dispute, the Indian government suspended the compulsory licensing proposal. The other measures remain in place.

After years of seeking more leverage with Monsanto, Rao found in the rise of Modi and the RSS an opportunity to challenge the company's domination of the Indian market. It was against this backdrop that he dispatched senior company executive P. Sateesh Kumar, a Ph.D. in agricultural genetics, to Monsanto's Mumbai headquarters in 2015.

At the time, Rao's company, Nuziveedu Seeds Ltd., was behind on royalty payments to Monsanto and on its way to racking up, by Monsanto's calculations, more than $20 million in debt. And its American investor, Blackstone Group LP, was waiting for the IPO to go through. Nonetheless, Kumar sat down in a corner conference room on the fifth floor and conveyed Rao's demand for a reduction in royalties. Monsanto delivered its answer there and then: That wasn't going to happen.

Before Kumar left the meeting on that hot June day, he paused. He told the executives from Monsanto and its Indian joint venture that there would be "consequences" for refusing Rao a discount, according to a letter Monsanto sent to the government and which was reviewed by Reuters. Kumar says he did not use such language.

'Fighting a battle'

In an interview in which he let loose peals of laughter, Rao pointed out that the first item under "Risk Factors" in the IPO prospectus for his company, of which he controls more than 80 percent of shares, was the possibility of his contract with Monsanto being disrupted. Still, he said, Monsanto made a mistake in thinking it had the upper hand.

Monsanto declined to answer questions on the role of the RSS in Rao's campaign. "We conduct our business in an honest, transparent and respectful manner and continue to engage with stakeholders across the spectrum," the company said.

Monsanto is backed in the dispute by chemical giant Bayer AG, which is in the process of buying the seed company for $66 billion. It also has the support of the local units of other seed heavyweights, including Dow Chemical Co. and Syngenta AG. In August, these multinationals held a news conference in which they called for transparency in government regulation and licensing. Failure to do so, they warned, would endanger future investment in India.

An RSS spokesman referred queries about Rao and Monsanto to the RSS farmers' union, the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh. Its vice president, a man named Prabhakar Kelkar, said the union was working with Rao, who had approached it to complain about Monsanto's seed pricing.

"It is important for all of us to unite to wage a war against Monsanto. No one can do it alone, be it Rao or the" farmers' union, Kelkar told Reuters. "We are cooperating with him because he is fighting a battle that is meant for greater good."

Monsanto and Rao are now locked in a series of government complaints, litigation and arbitration.

Citing an Indian law that excludes seeds from being patented, Rao says Monsanto should never have been allowed to collect royalties after an initial payment to use its technology. Or, at the very least, he adds, prices should have been set by the government.

The technology currently licensed out by Monsanto is known as Bollgard II. The company received a patent in 2009 in India for Bollgard II's ability to modify cotton seeds to include a microbe called Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which fortifies cotton plants against bollworms.

Monsanto says Rao and a small group of other seed companies demanding a reduction in royalties are simply trying to renege on contracts and money owed. Dhiraj Pant, who oversees tech development for Monsanto across Asia, said it would have been preferable if the Indian seed companies had not pushed for the government to step in. "It is unfortunate that these disputing companies sought policy interventions to address a bilateral matter," said Pant.

Hindu nationalist vision

The RSS, which has its own farmer and labor unions, was formed in 1925 to campaign against British colonial rule. It seeks to instill a nationalist vision of India as a Hindu nation, despite large minority populations that include Muslims and Christians.

The group nurtured Modi's rise  in his early days in the RSS he cleaned floors at a local chapter office. And the RSS helped form the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

But Modi and his RSS backers have differing views about the role of foreign multinationals. In his 13 years as chief minister of the western state of Gujarat, Modi was an early supporter of genetically modified cotton. His administration there allowed farmers to plant Monsanto-modified seeds, known as Bt cotton, before the technology received official approval in New Delhi.

His approach contradicted the RSS stance against multinationals operating in the agricultural sector, particularly when it comes to genetically modified crops.

The tension simmered for years. After Modi's election in 2014, the RSS began its push.

A senior leader in the RSS farmers' union, a man named Mohini Mohan Mishra, began holding study sessions with leaders in the ruling party and the Modi administration to argue against genetically modified crops. One of Mishra's presentation slides pointed to the rise in popularity of organic food in the West.

Another slide said of Monsanto: "It created seed monopoly, a threat to seed sovereignty."

Monsanto's mistake was that it did not approach the RSS to plead its case, said Mishra in an interview at his office in central Delhi, which has peeling paint, dirty rugs and, in summer months, mosquitoes buzzing inside.

"It was the overconfidence of Monsanto that has destroyed their chances to do business in India," said Mishra. "They failed to study and understand the RSS."

'Not good for India'

Rao, meanwhile, was lobbying Modi's government. Sometime in 2015, he met with Singh, the agriculture minister and RSS member.

The powerbrokers and officials of the Congress party that ruled India for most of its independent history tended to espouse secular ideology in clipped English accents that hinted at elite schooling at home and abroad. The RSS leadership speaks of rural roots and the virtues of the homegrown.

Singh is cut from that cloth. At the beginning of one interview he paused to fold a small wad of snuff in his left cheek as an attendant brought a metal spittoon.

He was not hard to convince that Monsanto was in the wrong, said Rao.

"The truth is that Monsanto was dominating the market, and that is not good for Indias farming practices," said Singh. "We should have our own seeds to compete with them."

After Monsanto declared Rao's company in breach of payment obligations and terminated its contract in November 2015, Singh's agriculture ministry moved swiftly.

The next month, the ministry established a panel to fix the price of genetically modified cotton seeds and the royalties Monsanto was allowed to collect.

Less than two weeks later, a junior minister under Singh's command told parliament that the ministry had asked India's antitrust regulator to consider investigating whether Monsanto abused its dominance in the marketplace. He said the National Seed Association of India, of which Rao is the president, had asked his ministry to intervene in the dispute. An antitrust investigation was formally launched in February last year.

On March 4, 2016, Monsanto's chief executive for India put out a statement threatening to leave the country. Four days later, Singh's ministry slashed the royalty paid by local firms to sellers of genetically modified cotton seed technology, a market dominated by Monsanto, by about 70 percent.

Two months later, the agriculture ministry proposed compulsory licensing for Monsanto's technology. It was this move that prompted the U.S. ambassador to India at the time, Richard Verma, to approach Modi's office. People familiar with the matter said Verma wrote to Modi's principal secretary, Nripendra Misra, after the agriculture ministry did not respond to two previous letters. After the ambassador and Misra met, the government suspended the licensing measure.

A common agenda

During a visit to India last year, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker said she had raised the Monsanto dispute with the government. "Companies will look to see how this is resolved because it sends a message about the seriousness of the current government to protect intellectual property," said Pritzker, who stepped down this January.

An aide close to Modi declined to discuss whether the prime minister had personally intervened in the licensing dispute. He said the issue would "remain open" for the foreseeable future. "Sometimes the best decision is not to take a decision," the aide said. The prime minister's office did not answer questions from Reuters.

Asked about Rao and his fight with Monsanto, Singh denied granting the businessman any favors.

Kelkar, from the RSS farmers' union, said the RSS had pushed for Singh to act against Monsanto. "In the previous regime we had to stand on the streets to launch anti-Monsanto protests," Kelkar said. "But with this government we can sit and talk in a room  it's because we all believe in the same agenda."

The impact of the dispute on Monsanto's bottom line became clear late last year when the company released its results: Sales of seeds and genetic traits for cotton dropped 16 percent, or $83 million, in the fiscal year ending August. That was "primarily due to lower average net selling price in India as a result of new government pricing policies," the report said.

The dispute's fallout could have grave implications, says Ashok Gulati, an agricultural economist who has advised the government on crop support prices in the past.

"The whole fiasco will dissuade global seed or technology companies from investing in India," Gulati said. In the short term, he said, India might get by with a local alternative to genetically modified cotton. "But in the long-term, say beyond five years or so, we need a technology that can propel India's cotton output. But then, political masters don't look beyond immediate gains."

Rao says that Monsanto and others deserve a return on their investment. But he wants royalty rates to be determined by government rules. In an interview, he pointed to the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act, which gives the regulator the power to fix royalty rates. The government fails, however, to exercise that authority, enabling Monsanto to dictate terms, says Rao.

In October, the government announced a change in the board that oversees the plant varieties act. A new member had been added: M. Prabhakara Rao.

Additional reporting by Douglas Busvine in New Delhi.
The owners of the acclaimed Delmar Loop Thai restaurant Fork & Stix plan to open a new establishment in the MX building downtown.

Twitter user @STLrainbow scooped the news Monday. Owner Phatcharin Wanna confirms the second restaurant to Off the Menu.

It won't be called Fork & Stix, Wanna says. This one will have a little bit of everything from the different regions of Thailand.

While the menu at Fork & Stix, a 3-time member of the STL 100, does include some broadly familiar Thai dishes (pad thai, red and green curry), its focus is the cuisine of Thailand's north, including its signature dish, khao soi (curry noodle soup).

Wanna says the new restaurant will feature food from Thailand's northeast, central and south as well as north.

"We haven't quite decided on a name," Wanna says. As for an opening date, she says, We are hoping for July.
Special Request is written by Town and Country resident Alanna Kellogg, author of the online recipe column KitchenParade.com and veggie evangelist at the food blog about vegetables, A Veggie Venture.

To request a recipe  Would you like to request a recipe from a restaurant that is still open in the St. Louis area? Send your request along with your full name and the city you live in to reciperequest@ post-dispatch.com.
ST. LOUIS  Former St. Peters mayor Shawn Brown pleaded guilty to a federal mail fraud charge here Tuesday and admitted bilking an employer out of $65,000.

Brown, 45, was general manager of a St. Peters environmental services company at the time of the fraud, Assistant U.S. Attorney Dianna Collins said in court. Beginning in April of 2011, Brown began using company money to make personal purchases, including a $100 money order that he sent to the Missouri Department of Corrections, Collins said.

In all, Brown stole $65,054 of company money, she said.

Brown's scheme was uncovered in 2014, when he suffered a stroke and someone took over his duties, Collins said.

Collins said Brown could receive probation at his sentencing hearing, now scheduled for June 29, if he commits no other crimes or violations while out on bond.

He will also have to repay the money.

Brown was mayor from 2004 to 2006, when he was indicted and later pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge. Prosecutors say he solicited and accepted a $2,750 bribe from the company that installed red-light cameras in St. Peters.

Brown was sentenced to 18 months in prison in January of 2007.

His family was struck with tragedy in January. His daughter, Ali R. Brown, 20, and two others were fatally shot in a Kansas City apartment. Her 2-year-old son, Karson, was also injured.
ST. LOUIS COUNTY  Raises for police officers. More two-man cars. In-car and body cameras. More training. And more police accountability.

Those are among the benefits supporters say a half-cent sales tax increase will bring to police departments throughout St. Louis County should voters approve Proposition P on the April 4 ballot.

Of the estimated $80 million it would generate annually, about $46 million would go to St. Louis County  the police, the prosecutor and the corrections department. The remainder would be distributed among the countys 90 municipalities, based on population.

Opponents are not sold. They argue that Proposition P would mean economic hardship. No accountability. Bigger government. Reinforcement of bad policing. And manipulation.

They say county leaders should find money elsewhere, or approach voters with a better-developed request. Two top county officials  County Executive Steve Stenger and Police Chief Jon Belmar  have led the charge for Prop P.

If you look at any poll over the last five years, the No. 1 issue is public safety, Stenger said. People want to know, Are our children going to be safe?

Belmar said the measure would allow him to add about 110 officers to his roster of about 890, which he said could be transformational. County police patrol areas with about a third of the countys population. About $14 million of the $80 million would come from sales tax receipts in unincorporated portions of the county.

The St. Louis County prosecuting attorneys office is projected to receive about $2 million, and about $1 million will be given to the countys corrections department, Stenger said. Corrections would use the money for more staff, wages and better equipment, Stenger said.

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch didnt respond to requests for comment.

The St. Louis County Police Association estimates that it will cost $11 million for the first year of raises it wants to see for officers. The group has endorsed Prop P, but the unions president, Joe Patterson, declined to comment.

Former county police chief Ron Battelle is the treasurer for STL Citizens for Safety, which is promoting Proposition P. Elizabeth Snyder, the widow of slain St. Louis County police Officer Blake Snyder, is another supporter, saying on social media that better training and equipment will improve police accountability. In the long run, it would save lives and the one-half of 1 percent is worth it, she said.

But opponents question whether politicians can be trusted with the money.

Assurances sought

The St. Louis County Republican Central Committee voted unanimously in February to oppose the proposition, with one abstention  former St. Louis County police chief Tim Fitch, said Ken Newhouse, committeeman for Wild Horse Township.

Fitch now works for Emerson and declined to comment, citing company policy.

Newhouse said the former chief told the committee he would support the proposition only if Stenger publicly promised that he would never reduce the police departments existing budget and replace existing money with the new sales tax money to cover the countys budget woes. There is no language in the ballot proposal or enabling legislation that prevents leaders from reducing existing budgets and replacing spending with the new tax money, Newhouse said.

Stenger said voters will hold him and other elected officials accountable. He also said the public will be able to monitor the money online.

I view myself as a steward of the publics money and Im going to spend the dedicated sales tax on police and public safety, he said. Theres no history of that going on with any other dedicated funds in St. Louis County, and no games have been played with the budget  and there will be none in the future.

Similar accountability concerns have risen in St. Clair County, where voters will be asked whether to boost sales taxes to fund public safety improvements. There, the County Board approved a resolution from the union within the sheriffs department to ensure any new money will be added to the existing budget.

Newhouse also is the founder of an anti-sales tax group called NoMO Sales Tax, which considers property taxes to be more equitable, a premise with which Stenger disagrees. He said a property tax would be too much of a burden on the lower class, and noted that not only residents but out-of-towners would pay a sales tax.

The $34 million projected to go to municipalities ranges from the most populous city, Florissant, getting $2.6 million, to tiny Champ  population 13  getting just $650. The Municipal League is letting its member cities decide independently whether to support Proposition P, said Steve Ables, the groups assistant director.

Newhouse said theres a concern smaller municipalities with problem police departments could misuse the money.

Stenger said many of the problem police departments are within small communities that wont receive much money.

Proposition Bigger Government

Chesterfield stands to take in $2.3 million, while shoppers in Chesterfield would pay out $7.4 million through the new sales tax. Mayor Bob Nation is opposed to Proposition P  a position Stenger decries as parochialism when leaders need to think regionally and realize all the services, such as crime labs and homicide investigations, the county provides.

Nation argues that everyone who owns property in St. Louis County already pays real estate and personal property taxes that support the countys general fund.

About 88 percent of the countys $106 million police budget comes from the countys general revenue fund, Belmar said.

Nation said that Proposition P would drive residents to places with a lower cost of living.

This should be called Proposition BG for Proposition Bigger Government, Nation said.

On average, sales tax runs between 7 percent and 8 percent in most of unincorporated St. Louis County, as well as some municipalities, Stenger said, so the idea that a higher tax would discourage development is a stretch.

The Chesterfield police union endorsed Proposition P, but Nation argues that cities such as his pay for their own police departments and dont need the money.

Opposing the proposition does not make Nation or others anti-police, he said.

Theyre trying to play on the sympathy and empathy people have for law enforcement to get this passed, Nation said. But mathematically, politics aside, what theyre asking for is just outrageous. Its about a 40 percent increase in their police budget.

They need to find these resources elsewhere.

Previous efforts to raise money for public safety have failed.

In 2015, money for law enforcement was part of a proposal in the Missouri Legislature to restructure how St. Louis County sales tax is collected and distributed. Then, Belmar voiced support for the measure, which would have brought in $16 million to the county police. But, it never made it onto the ballot.

Last year, the Municipal League proposed legislation that would have asked voters for a quarter-cent sales tax countywide, which would have brought about $25 million to St. Louis County, but the proposal never made it out of committee.

And in 2012, Fitch floated the idea of a special taxing district that would raise personal and property taxes in the unincorporated areas to pay for officers raises. It also went nowhere.
WASHINGTON  After a tempest over a St. Louis students art, the U.S. House of Representatives is making a change in entry rules by requiring sponsor House members to write letters affirming that the winning art from their congressional districts complies with the rules of competition.

Those rules essentially prohibit exhibits depicting subjects of contemporary political controversy or a sensationalistic or gruesome nature.

It was that citation that critics of former Cardinal Ritter Prep student David Pulphuss art used in justifying the removal of Pulphuss painting from a large congressional student art competition exhibit.

Pulphuss art, entitled Untitled #1, depicts police as pigs as part of a painting that Pulphus has described as his response to the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson.

Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, has sued in federal court here on 1st Amendment grounds to have the painting returned to the display in a tunnel between the Capitol and the Cannon House Office Building. The first court hearing on that lawsuit was held earlier this month.

A dear colleague letter was sent Monday to all 435 House members by Reps. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, and Mike Kelly, R-Pa., co-chairs of the congressional art competition. It said there will be specific guidelines laid out in briefings later this week.

In a packet accompanying the letter also includes this new requirement: "Each member of Congress will be required to submit a Letter of Support for their winning artwork. This letter is to ensure that the Member has seen the artwork before it is submitted, has taken full responsibility for its content and has certified that the artwork, in the Members opinion, adheres to the longstanding Suitability Guidelines of the House Office Building Commission.

While it is not the intent to censor any artwork, we do wish to avoid artwork that is potentially inappropriate for display in this highly traveled area leading to the Capitol. For that reason, we ask that Members carefully review the artwork for adherence to the Commission policy.

At least one member of the St. Louis-area congressional delegation has already picked a winner, and several other regional members have put out press releases inviting competitors to submit soon-arriving deadlines. The winners this year, which are scheduled to be hung in a public space in the Capitol complex sometime in June, are likely to get more than passing interest, thanks to Clays lawsuit.

The art competition has been going on since 1982, and has awarded more than 10,000 congressional district winners. Pulphuss piece hung for nearly six months before conservative bloggers and a FOX TV commentator called for its removal, saying it was demeaning to cops and gave a false narrative of what happened at Ferguson.

Clay said it was an honest expression of a young African American artist who had seen news accounts of black males who died in encounters with police.

Clay, D-St. Louis, has set a May 3 deadline for entries in his competition. His spokesman, Steve Engelhardt, said Monday he could not comment on the lawsuit or on what would happen if the verdict in the case comes down after a new winner is chosen.

After the controversy over Untitled #1 lit up social media, at least three Republican congressmen removed Pulphuss painting from a wall in a Capitol tunnel that depicted all of the winners of congressional art around the country, and Clay returned it to the wall at least once. The Architect of the Capitol later had it permanently removed.

Clays lawsuit has set up a First Amendment showdown on the right of free expression vs. the rules of the competition. Untitled #1 was not only taken off the wall, it is no longer shown on the official web site of the annual art competition. The other seven Missouri winners, all of whom still adorn the tunnel wall, show everything from a returning soldier to an elderly woman to a pair of old shoes.

Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, has already announced his districts winner, Isabelle Isoms A Childs Dream. She is a student at Belleville Township High School East.

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-St. Elizabeth, announced an April 7 deadline for his competition. Rep. John Shimkus, D-Collinsville, set his deadline for April 28.

All members use independent judges, often art teachers, to judge their competition.

Pulphus is in college now and no longer eligible to enter the contest.

By the numbers:

400-plus  Number of congressional art contest winners whose paintings/illustrations are shown on the wall of the tunnel between the Capitol and Cannon House Office building.

1982  First year of such competition for the annual awards by individual members of Congress.

On the web:

http://www.house.gov/content/educate/art_competition/state/MO - The other seven winners of the 2016 congressional art competition from Missouri.

They said it: It is amazing to see the high level of skill that is submitted from high school students across the district, and I am looking forward to seeing all the entries for this year.  Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-St. Elizabeth, on his 2017 high school art competition.

When the controversy over David Pulphss art first flared up in January, Luetkemeyer had said: If artwork is going to be displayed in the U.S. Capitol, it shouldnt be divisive or offensive to large swaths of Americans. Period.
JEFFERSON CITY  The implosion of a Republican plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act in Washington on Friday did little to change Gov. Eric Greitens mind on expanding Medicaid in Missouri.

At a news conference Tuesday after Greitens signed legislation tightening courtroom standards for expert witnesses, the governor said he stood by his position expressed in a letter to Congress last week urging the plans passage.

Were not going to expand Obamacare here in Missouri, he said, and the fact is that we still need to repeal and replace Obamacare.

The 2009 federal law, former President Barack Obamas signature domestic achievement, would have covered all of Missouris costs to expand Medicaid to people with incomes up to 138 percent of the poverty level  about $16,642 for an individual and $33,948 for family of four  from 2014 to 2016.

The state would have to chip in some money this year, but its contribution would go no higher than 10 percent in 2020 and beyond.

State officials estimated about 300,000 Missourians would have become eligible for subsidized coverage.

But Missouri, along with 18 other states, refused the offer. Republican lawmakers balked at perceived federal overreach and warned the expansion would cost far more than the Obama administration let on.

Medicaid expansion in conservative states, like Indiana under former Gov. Mike Pence and Ohio under Gov. John Kasich, did little to shift the Legislatures opposition to the idea.

Greitens said that was because Ohios program has cost billions more than expected and Indianas move came with a special waiver allowing the state to do things such as require small contributions to health savings accounts each month and revoke coverage for those who fall behind.

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryans withdrawal of his proposal to repeal the Affordable Care Act Friday has nevertheless given new life to Medicaid expansion efforts in Kansas, North Carolina, Virginia and Maine.

Greitens comments came about an hour after the Republican-controlled Kansas Senate sent legislation to its governors desk that would expand Medicaid coverage to 150,000.

Greitens also addressed the Missouri Legislatures impasse on REAL ID compliance.

The Department of Homeland Security last year said current Missouri drivers licenses will no longer be enough to board planes after Jan. 22, 2018, prompting state lawmakers to push for compliance with the much-maligned federal law despite long-standing privacy concerns.

Greitens said he would make sure every Missourian could get an ID to fly and access federal facilities. But after talking to people in the Trump administration over the weekend, he said Missouri needs to wait and see if the federal government will change its tune before taking any action.

They actually may be considering a change, he said. If that change happens, then the IDs that we have today will actually be functional for people to fly.

Greitens also voiced support for a proposal to ban lobbyist gifts to individual legislators. Its an effort he championed on the campaign trail but recently complicated by creating a nonprofit allowing him to skirt new caps on campaign contributions and conceal his donors identities.

After watching Greitens promise to clean up a corrupt, do-nothing embarrassment in Jefferson City during last years campaign, some lawmakers have smelled hypocrisy.

Democratic senators threatened to kill any gift ban bill that doesnt require Greitens to disclose his donors, and Republicans have wondered aloud why theyve been singled out for scrutiny.

Greitens didnt commit to disclosing anything but said he would consider any language thats going to make sure we get a lobbyist gift ban bill passed.
JEFFERSON CITY  Republicans Tuesday turned back another Democratic attempt to put more money into Missouris new voter photo identification law.

In a hearing to discuss the state budget, Democratic state Rep. Peter Merideth of St. Louis sought to amend the latest spending blueprint to take $3 million out of the state lotterys $16 million advertising budget to help finance the implementation of the new voter ID law.

I think $13 million would be sufficient to advertise lottery in Missouri, Merideth said.

The $3 million in lottery money would be added to the current earmark for voter ID of $1.4 million, which would be used to educate voters about the new requirement, as well as help voters without photo ID to attain the documents needed.

Republicans on the House Budget Committee, however, rejected the attempt, arguing that lottery money is supposed to either support the lottery or go to education.

I think the amendment runs contrary to the Constitution, said Rep. Scott Fitzpatrick, R-Shell Knob, who chairs the panel.

In addition, Steele Shippy, deputy chief of staff for Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, said the $1.4 million currently set aside for photo ID adequately covers what the law is calling for.

We are meeting all requirements of the law, Shippy said.

The law, pushed by Republican legislators and approved by 63 percent of the voters last year, requires Missourians to show a photo ID before voting or sign a legal document swearing they are who they say they are.

Gov. Eric Greitens offered $300,000 for implementation in his budget plan, but lawmakers have boosted that amount in their version of the budget.

Democrats contend more money is needed to ensure people dont lose their right to vote. Before leaving office, former Secretary of State Jason Kander, a Democrat, said roughly $5.2 million would be needed to implement the law.

The focus on voter ID laws came as the House moved closer to endorsing a $27 billion spending plan that will fund state government in the fiscal year beginning July 1. The committee was on track Tuesday to move the plan to the full House as early as this week.

Faced with rising health care costs for seniors, the poor and disabled at a time when revenues arent growing as quickly as predicted, lawmakers and Greitens are trying to find cuts to keep the budget in the black.

The House Republican budget plan, for example, would eliminate a tax credit that benefits an estimated 100,000 elderly and disabled people who rent their homes. The maneuver is an alternative to what Greitens had proposed, which included cuts worth about $52 million affecting more than 20,000 seniors and disabled residents.

The blueprint also reduces the contribution to state employee pensions by $31 million.

The Missouri State Employees Retirement System, which covers roughly 113,000 current and past state employees, had requested a $45 million increase.

Instead, that figure was reduced with the money going to plug budget holes elsewhere.

The budget plan also restores $36 million in cuts Greitens had sought for school transportation costs.

For higher education, the plan reduces the 10 percent spending cut for every university and community college statewide to 6.6 percent.

Other aspects of the budget include:

 A reduction in the cost of maintaining the states airplane fleet by $37,000 due to Greitens decision to sell one of the states airplanes.

 $2 million for the state public defender to reduce caseloads.

 A $100,000 increase for Lt. Gov. Mike Parsons office budget to pay for an additional worker and for travel costs.

 A $2 million reduction in funding Greitens had sought for cybersecurity.
JEFFERSON CITY  The Missouri House moved Tuesday to jettison the states prevailing wage law as part of an ongoing, Republican-led push to repeal union-backed labor laws.

Under legislation that won initial approval on a 93-60 vote, bidders on public works projects like schools, roads and county jails would no longer have to pay a set wage to workers. The measure needs a final vote in the chamber before moving to the Senate for further debate.

GOP supporters say the change will allow local governments and school districts to save money when they build facilities, ultimately benefiting local taxpayers.

"This is money that doesn't grow on trees," said Rep. Warren Love, R-Osceola, who sponsored the legislation.

With former Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon no longer blocking anti-union legislation, the GOP supermajorities in the House and Senate are sending Gov. Eric Greitens a series of pro-business initiatives, including a right-to-work law signed earlier by the governor.

Opponents said the elimination of prevailing wage laws would hurt the working class by driving down wages and benefits.

The pay to workers will go down, said Rep. Doug Beck, D-Affton.

Rep. Kevin Engler, R-Farmington, said the change will allow out of state companies who pay their employees lower wages to undercut Missouri contractors.

They are going to leave with that money, added Beck. This is just another attack on workers. Its a shame were on this path.

Love rejected the concerns.

Its not the end of the world. There are 21 states in the United States that do not have prevailing wage, Love said.

Prevailing wage rates vary by county. In St. Louis County, for example, a carpenter receives $36.98 an hour, while in Boone County in mid-Missouri, the same job would pay $25.16 an hour.

Rep. Toalson Reisch, a Boone County Republican, argued the change will result in lower prices for public works projects.

We could do a lot more roads if we did away with prevailing wage, Reisch said. This will save the taxpayers money.

Rep. Joe Don McGaugh, R-Carrollton, called the law an albatross that forces poor communities to spend more money on local projects than they would without the provision.

It could be a real economic development tool for our rural communities, McGaugh said.

The legislation is House Bill 104.
Saudi Arabia has shared intelligence with American officials that suggests Iran could be preparing for an imminent attack on the kingdom. That's according to three U.S. officials who spoke Tuesday on the condition of anonymity. The heightened concerns about a potential attack on Saudi Arabia come as the Biden administration is criticizing Tehran for its ongoing crackdown on protests and condemning it for sending hundreds of drones to Russia for use in its war in Ukraine. One of the officials who confirmed the intelligence sharing describes it as a credible threat of an attack soon or within 48 hours. The Pentagon press secretary says U.S. military officials are concerned about the threat situation in the region.
What has happened to our powers of discernment and our ability to see these people for what they are, which is that they care nothing for us?
A South Side grocery store is getting an upgrade and a name change, but the future of another Roundys-owned food store on the West Side remains unclear.

Work is underway to remodel and convert the Copps at 1312 S. Park St. into a Pickn Save store, which follows similar conversions throughout the state after Kroger purchased Milwaukee-based Roundys in 2016. However, the company has made no announcement on the future plans for the Copps store at 620 S. Whitney Way that is located across the street from a Hy-Vee store.

We are doing a mini-remodel at the South Park Street store, Roundys spokesman Jim Hyland wrote in an e-mail this week. After the South Park Street store conversion there will be eight Copps stores remaining in Wisconsin. We have not publicly commented on when or if they would be converted to the Pick n Save banner.

Five Madison-area Copps and others around the state were converted to Pickn Saves last summer after Kroger purchased Roundys for an estimated $800 million. Roundys has 120 Copps and Pickn Save stores. After the South Park Street stores is converted, the company will have 13 Pickn Save stores in Dane County and a Metro Market at 6010 Cottage Grove Road. Statewide, Roundys will be left with Copps stores in Madison, Antigo, Manitowoc, Phillips, Plover, Stevens Point, Wautoma and Wisconsin Rapids.

Roundy's, founded in 1872 in Milwaukee, has nearly $4 billion in sales and employs more than 22,000 people. The Copps label Roundy's purchased in 2001 ultimately became one of the main grocery brands in the Madison market as several Kohls grocery stores were converted to Copps stores.

But over the last 10 years the Madison-area grocery market has evolved into one of the most competitive in the Midwest with the arrival of Hy-Vee, Festival, Fresh Madison Market, a second Metcalfes Market, Trader Joe's and the addition of large grocery sections to Wal-Mart and Target stores. Woodmans also added a store in Sun Prairie, and Willy Street Co-op opened stores in Middleton and on Madisons North Side.

The hyper-competitiveness of the market left many wondering about the future of the dated Copps store on South Park Street, which still retains its arching exterior architecture that was a signature of Kohls stores. The remodeling will include new exterior and interior signage and a much-needed interior makeover, Hyland said.

The four- to six-week project will include an update to the product mix that will add 1,000 new items including more natural foods, a doubling of the size of the liquor department, and a cosmetic refresh.

"Our objective in renaming these Copps stores under the Pick 'n Save banner is to simplify our business," Hyland said last summer when the first rounds of improvements were announced. "We are unifying these banners under the Pick 'n Save brand to improve efficiency, value and consistency for the benefit of our customers in the Madison market."
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

Six years after taking full control of the legislative and executive branches of state government, Republicans have hit upon a labor-related reform that comes close to something you dont often see in policymaking: an unmitigated good.

Buy-in from the laborers it affects, though, is hard to come by, given that Republicans have spent those six years poisoning the well with labor-related laws that are more about attacking their political opponents.

Sen. Duey Stroebel and Rep. Tyler August would expand from three to five the number of highest-earning years used in calculating monthly pension benefits for retired public-sector workers, and raise the minimum retirement ages from 50 to 52 for public safety workers such as cops and firefighters and from 55 to 60 for everyone else. The changes would apply only to future public-sector hires.

The well-run Wisconsin Retirement System is not in any danger of running out of money, so lowering pensioners benefits by taking into account two more years worth of earnings is mostly just a slap at workers and unions.

But raising the retirement ages could be smart for a couple of reasons.

The state law that set retirement ages for WRS pensioners took effect in 1982, when life expectancy was 71 for American males and 78 for American females. For 2015, those numbers are 76 and 81.

Some retirees take other jobs, but for those who dont, 20 years without a full-time gig probably isnt good for either the economy or any adult.

Wisconsin is also an aging state  meaning fewer people are having children who can grow up and replenish the workforce. And its a net out-migration state  meaning more people are moving out of it than into it.

Gains in worker productivity and a growing tech sector could help mitigate these factors, but some high-skill industries already complain they cant find enough workers. Having a large group of skilled people out of the labor force  in WRS retirees  might not be such a good thing.

Sue Conard, president of Wisconsin retirees chapter 32 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, rejects any attempt to raise the WRS retirement age.

With pay in the public sector often lower than in the private sector, there have to be other ways to attract and retain new workers, she said, like a good pension system.

And shes suspicious about what August and Stroebels bill could mean for the future of WRS.

This is a foot in the door, she said. Whats next?

In 2011, the Republican-passed Act 10 allowed public-sector employers to stop paying and promoting people based on poorly predictive factors such as seniority and degree-attainment. But it also gutted unions by making them harder to maintain and restricting collective bargaining.

The 2015 Republican-passed right-to-work law was sold as a boon to the states economy. Given that theres little evidence right-to-work has such impact, it was mostly a way to weaken unions by allowing workers to access union benefits without having to pay for them.

Workers can be forgiven for thinking that no matter what Republicans propose, history tends to repeat itself.
Ambassador Aizaz Chaudhry says this is our message for India to work for revival of relations.

Pakistan's Ambassador to United States Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry has reiterated that Pakistan wants peaceful relations with India on the basis of mutual respect.

Talking to a news channel, he said this is our message for India to work for revival of relations for creating peaceful environment in the region.

Aizaz Chaudhry said whenever Pakistan and India wanted to do something in terms of relations, some terrorist activity halted the process, adding that terrorists get encouragement when India stops the process.
David Walters, a former lieutenant with the Department of Veterans Affairs Police Department in Madison, was sentenced Tuesday to two years probation for possession of a controlled substance.

Walters, 37 of Madison, who pleaded guilty to the change on Jan. 5, was sentenced by U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Crocker.

While employed as with the Department of Veterans Affairs Police Department, Walters served as an evidence custodian, which included access to areas where unwanted medications were disposed.

Between January 2016 and May 2016, Walters accessed the medical collection receptacle and removed controlled substances, including OxyContin and hydrocodone, for his own personal use. Prosecutors said Walters also took four OxyContin pills from the VA police departments evidence room and replaced them with similar looking pills.
Federal Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique on Monday said that the PPP-led government in Sindh has left the province in dire straits, adding that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz will give people a better alternative in terms of leadership.

The federal minister was addressing a gathering in Hyderabad, where he said that those who take votes from people should also deliver.

He said that his party when assuming charge had promised to change the country. Today, terrorists are fleeing from the country, security forces are driving them away, the countrys coffers are filling up and terrorism is coming to an end.

Rafique said that the countrys condition is changing but the people of Sindh are in the same state.

People of the province, first endured the authoritarian rule of Musharraf, then for 10 years Zardaris ruled them, they dont even have a system for public transport, he said.

Saad Rafique said that his party will form a government in Sindh with the help of the votes of Sindhis in the next elections.

PPP cannot win this time playing the victim card, he said, taking aim at the political rival party.

PPP leader Mola Bakhsh Chandio said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs announcements are based on 'dishonesty' and they hold no substance.

Also Read:Premier Nawaz announces health card scheme, varsity for Hyderabad

The provincial minister was talking to media in Hyderabad, where he said that the centre should fulfill the demands of Sindh.

Now the elections are near, they have remembered Sindh all of a sudden, he said, adding they now see the garbage, where they have been since four years?.
Iraqi forces have launched a renewed attack against Daesh terrorists in Mosul's Old City, with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi predicting that the Daesh will be defeated within weeks.

One of the targets of the new push is Faruq Street, which runs near the Great Mosque of al-Nuri where Daesh chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his only known public appearance after the terrorists seized Mosul in 2014.

Iraqi forces have been operating in the Old City area for several weeks, but they have faced tough resistance and progress has been slow.

Government troops and volunteer Hashd al-Shaabi forces drove Daesh militants from the eastern part of Mosul, Iraqs second-largest city, early this year. The fight has now moved to Mosuls densely populated western neighborhoods.

Read more: Iraqi forces gain more ground against Daesh terrorists in Mosul

On Monday, the commander of the federal police Lieutenant General Raed Shakir Jawdat said his troops and Rapid Response Division units began to advance on the southwestern axis of the Old City.

The government launched the operation to retake Mosul in October. Daesh overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces have since retaken much of the territory they lost.

Prime Minister al-Abadi told Fox News Sunday that Iraq is defeating Daesh "militarily" but that the terror group would continue to exist until it is eradicated in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.

As a terrorist organization, they will try. So that's where we need the efforts of others. Flush them out of Syria and other places, he said.

The United Nations says 400,000 people are "trapped" in central Mosul under siege-like conditions as Iraqi forces battle Daesh for the city's west.

The city is reeling from US aerial attacks on March 17 which reportedly killed more than 200 people.

On Saturday, the US acknowledged that it had carried out a strike on a location in west Mosul where civilians were reportedly killed but Iraqi officials referred to more than one day of strikes.

Also read: Iraqi troops within 600m from Mosuls Great Mosque: Federal police

The United Nations has said it was stunned by the horrendous loss of life in the attacks. Irans top security official has called the airstrikes a war crime which should be urgently addressed in a court of justice.

The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday that since the campaign against western Mosul began on Feb. 19, nearly 700 civilians have been killed in airstrikes which are mainly carried out by the US.

In one incident, nearly 40 people were killed in a US airstrike in western al-Jawsaq neighborhood after Daesh militants used the residents as human shields, the group said.
Russia has built a hypersonic missile capable of destroying an aircraft carrier with a single impact, it has been reported.

Kremlin chiefs claim to have constructed a Zircon cruise missile which travels between 3,800mph and 4,600mph - five to six times the speed of sound.

Experts warn the 'unstoppable' projectiles could spell disaster for the Navy's new 6.2billion aircraft carriers, the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.

Current Navy anti-missile defenses are only equipped to shoot down projectiles traveling 2,300mph, meaning they would be useless against the Zicron.

This would force aircraft carriers to anchor outside of their estimated 500 mile range

That would make it impossible for the carrier's jets and helicopters to reach their target, carry out their mission, and return without running out of fuel - effectively rendering them useless.

Pete Sandeman, a naval expert, told the Sunday People: 'Defence against hypersonic missiles presents a huge challenge to surface ships.

'There is so little time to react that even if detected, existing defences may be entirely inadequate.

'Even if the missile is broken up or detonated by close-in weapons, the debris has so much kinetic energy that the ship may still be badly damaged.'

The weapon entered testing earlier this year, and could be fitted to nuclear-powered cruiser Pyotr Velikiy as soon as 2018, Russian state media reports.

It can be fired from land, sea and submarines carrying payloads ranging from high explosive to nuclear.

The Zicron uses Scramjet technology which mixes fuel with air and allows it to burn at hypersonic speeds.

That means the projectile can travel at astonishing speeds - covering 155 miles in 2.5 minutes, which is faster than a sniper's bullet.

The setback is just the latest in a long line of problems with the Royal Navy's new carriers after a report earlier this month found they were beset with technical issues, facing delays and could go over-budget.
Police are studying surveillance video from a camera outside a boys bathroom at Oregon High School after a student said he was sexually assaulted by another student inside the restroom, according to a search warrant.

According to the search warrant, filed in Dane County Circuit Court:

Oregon police were alerted on the day of the alleged assault by the girlfriend of the 15-year-old victim.

She told police her boyfriend was not acting like himself after they left school that day and that she spotted a bruise on his face and he was holding his stomach. She also told police she had received a text from the boy seeking her help, which she said he told her he sent just prior to the assault and which she said she didnt see until after they left school.

The boys girlfriend told police the victim told her the same boy had sexually assaulted him two years earlier at the victims house.

When police interviewed the boy at his home, he said he didnt want to talk with his parents present but wrote he was sexually assaulted after he was involved in a fight.

The boy was examined at a local hospital.
MINERAL POINT  When financial concerns threatened to derail an alternative school that draws students from several school districts in southwest Wisconsin, the Mineral Point School District took the program under its own wing.

It was a leap of faith that some viewed as a risky move, said Joelle Doye, spokeswoman for the district. But the program is now run by the school district, which receives fees from other school districts that send students there. The Mineral Point Alternative Program, formerly called the Renaissance School, was run for 10 years by Cooperative Educational Service Agency District 3, which received the fees. The program was and continues to be housed at the old Mineral Point high school building.

From all accounts, the new endeavor is booming, and we are even outgrowing our current facility from the positive word spreading to districts about the great opportunities being offered for students not fitting into a traditional school setting, Doye said.

The program is designed for students who are not finding optimal success in a traditional classroom, partly through greater flexibility to meet student needs. Students can earn credits in a variety of ways, including community-based learning and work experience.

Under the direction of teacher/coordinator Amanda Heisner, core classes are mostly taken online. With personalized educational plans, students can earn diplomas from their home high schools under their respective districts graduation requirements. This year the students come from the Mineral Point, Dodgeville, Pecatonica, Shullsburg, River Ridge and Riverdale districts.

Its a lot to keep track of, Heisner said about the personalized education for students in multiple districts.

Several students, including seniors Brittney Knapp and Bree Kieler, mentioned that they liked being able to work at their own pace. Knapp also said there is less bullying.

The opportunity to graduate early is really nice, said junior Jared Boies. Its fun.

A local case manager, Heather Ringberg, teaches employment skills, which lean heavily on character development, in a class thats supported by the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.

It helps a lot if you dont know how to change. Or if you have certain behaviors (it gets you to) think before you act, senior Patrick Hoesly said about what he has learned.

Jeffrey Cone, who works in the Foster Grandparent program based in Dodgeville, also spends 15 hours each week helping students with their coursework and teaching life lessons. He particularly provides support to the two seventh-graders who are part of the program this year, although the school is typically geared to high schoolers.
For the second time this month, a committee at UW-Madison has voted to expel a student charged with sexual assault.

Campus officials said Monday that a misconduct committee found Alec Shiva, a 19-year-old from Verona who authorities say sexually assaulted a woman in his dorm room last fall, was responsible for a crime of violence following a private hearing.

A UW-Madison committee also voted earlier this month to expel student Alec Cook, who has been charged with a series of sexual assaults. Cooks attorneys have appealed the committees decision.

Prosecutors say Shiva was high on LSD in November when he attacked and sexually assaulted an 18-year-old woman inside his room in Sellery Hall. Shiva has been charged with second-degree sexual assault, among other felony and misdemeanor offenses; he has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The campus misconduct committees decision is separate from the criminal case against Shiva, and he has until April 7 to appeal the expulsion to Chancellor Rebecca Blank.
If youre a young Coromandel local who lives on the east coast of the peninsula and is after a challenging, hands-on learning experience, then read on.

Thames-Coromandel District Council is inviting youngsters, aged 16-20, living in an area stretching from Whangamata through to Whitianga to apply for its Youth in Emergency Services programme.

Taking place in Whangamata from May 11 to June 18, nominations for the 2017 YES programme close Thursday, April 13.

The district council runs YES in collaboration with the volunteer Fire Services, St John, Land Search and Rescue Thames Valley Civil Defence, Coastguard NZ and Surf Life Saving NZ, explains a TCDC spokesperson.

YES is designed to strengthen and encourage young peoples connection to their community by encouraging them to engage with a range of volunteer emergency services by way of a hands-on introduction to the work of these services.

The YES programme is delivered in two parts  theory and practical work  and each week the emergency service partners participating in YES take it in turns to deliver both components.

Each emergency service will deliver a two hour knowledge and skills sessions teaching participants what that service does and the equipment they use every Thursday night.

Then on the following Sunday, that service will run a four hour practical session which allows participants to use the skills and equipment they learned in the theory sessions.

While the final Sunday of the programme will be a combined exercise with a real life emergency scenario, followed by a graduation ceremony.

Participants will also be expected to volunteer for a minimum of 20 hours at an emergency service organisation of their choice at the conclusion of the programme.

By taking part in YES, young people become more connected with the local emergency services, and ultimately, increase their connection with the community.

Applications for the Thames-Coromandel District Councils Youth in Emergency Services Programme close 4pm on Thursday, April 13. To download nomination forms, visit www.tcdc.govt.nz/yes

Successful nominees and their nominators will be notified by Monday, May 1.

If you have any questions about the application process or to submit nomination forms email Julie Dennis at: Julie.dennis@tcdc.govt.nz

WHAT IS YES?

The YES programme was initially developed through a collaborative partnership between the Ministry of Youth Development and the Rotorua based Rural Fire Force. MYD is continuing to work through local volunteer New Zealand Fire Services to deliver the programme.
Dane County Sup. Dave de Felice announced Monday that he was retiring from the board effective immediately.

In a statement, de Felice said he had back surgery in November, but health issues remain a consideration.

Its best for me and my constituents to make this decision now, de Felice said.

De Felice was elected to the board in 2004 and represented the 16th District on the Far East Side of Madison and the town of Blooming Grove.

His term on the board was set to expire next year.

A special election will be held to fill the vacant seat at an upcoming date to be determined, Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell said.

De Felice helped form a neighborhood association and spearheaded the HomE Loan Program, (HELP), which provides low-interest reverse mortgage loans to qualified applicants.

A self-described liberal who hates taxes, de Felice was a vocal critic of what he saw as unnecessary government spending.

Yet, de Felice staunchly supported spending on social programs and services, including funding for mental health and efforts to help the homeless.

After losing his wife, Gay, to suicide in 2006, de Felice became a voice on behalf of suicide prevention.

De Felice led a fight against what he saw as excessive fees the county charged inmates to make phone calls from the county jail. He also advocated for collective bargaining rights, animal rights and environmental causes.

During my 13 years in office, my top priority has been maintaining the unique quality of life in Dane County, de Felice said.

Those who live here are fortunate to have many dedicated elected officials and employees in local government. It has been my privilege to serve among them, he said.
A new Community Business Hub, led by the Tauranga Energy Consumer Trust, has reached a significant milestone.

A dawn karakia marking the beginning of site preparation for the new community business hub building at the Historic Village, has been followed by the start of the enabling works.

Led by Ngai Tamarawaho elders, the karakia focused on acknowledging CBC Construction Ltd and those who will be working on the site.

TECT bought the land within the Historic Village grounds from the Tauranga City Council to build the Hub, and partly develop some adjoining green space for communal Village use.

CBC Construction is confirmed as the main contractor for the development with construction work expected to commence mid-year.

The community hub, named The Kollective, will be managed by SociaLink - a separate trust providing support for the social sector.

The co-working facility will provide support to community organisations within Tauranga and the Western Bay.

The goal is to create an environment increasing the capability and effectiveness of these organisations through better collaboration, communication and sharing of best practice.

The Kollective will be the largest of its kind in New Zealand, and is a result of extensive engagement with community organisations to understand key areas of support required to enable delivery of effective outcomes to the community

TECT General Manager Wayne Werder says TECT has been working on the concept of a community hub for some time.

We have had strong feedback from community groups that they would see value in a shared working space, so it is exciting to reach such a significant milestone in the project.

The Kollective will provide flexible working spaces, wrap-around services such as business advice and marketing, as well as opportunities for community organisations to collaborate with others.
A womans body that is also a cello, with soft swirling fabric evoking the music flowing from within, or a boy flying a kite indoors with no ceiling above.

These are some of the dreamlike unexpected juxtapositions that are so captivating about Natalya Doudells canvases. Another piece with a woman playing a cello brings you back into a more accustomed reality.

On display at the Macandmor Gallery in the Goddards Shopping Centre in Tauranga, there are painted and drawn pieces that dare us to merge our logical minds with the illogical. This is surrealism, but with a softness and glow that seems to express the essence of a painter who has felt the intensity of life with all its range of emotions. Whether this is a conscious or unconscious expression, the voice that speaks has liberated and woven the artists and the viewers imagination, allowing both to free themselves from an expected notion and explore the relationship between distant realities. Its poetic and powerful.

Natalya Doudell grew up in Uzbekistan, arriving in New Zealand about 14 years ago. She has found her voice in surrealism, after travelling to London and visiting Salvador Dalis exhibition in 2004. Her paintings express her life journey geographically as well as the new experiences that have shaped her perspective.

Standing in front of her work, one is first confronted, then absorbed by the soft subtlety and deeper meaning and feeling that starts to flow between the mind of the painter and the beholder.

The exhibition runs until March 30 at the Macandmor Art Gallery, Goddards Shopping Centre.
UPDATED 9.42AM: A low over Bay of Plenty and Waikato is forecast to weaken and move southwards, bringing rain to parts of the North Island.

Auckland, Coromandel Peninsula, Waikato and Bay of Plenty will see some heavy and possibly thundery falls, says the MetService.

In contrast, further heavy rain looks less likely to affect Gisborne, Hawkes Bay and Wairarapa, and the Watch for those areas is now lifted.

A watch is in place for the likelihood of heavy rain meeting warning criteria in the following areas...

AUCKLAND and COROMANDEL PENINSULA:

Although rain may ease for a time this morning, further localised heavy falls are possible, especially with any thunderstorms that form this afternoon. Rain should ease this evening.

WAIKATO, BAY OF PLENTY and ROTORUA:

Localised heavy rain is possible, especially with any thunderstorms that form this afternoon. Rain should ease this evening.

EARLIER:

Its the same old tune, but a different day, as another severe weather watch is issued for the Bay of Plenty.

The new watch is similar to the one from the weekend where heavy rain is expected to fall in the region today.

A watch is also in place for Auckland, Coromandel, Bay of Plenty and Rotorua, Gisborne, Hawkes Bay and Wairarapa.

The MetService is predicting bursts of heavy rain through the majority of today.

A complex area of low pressure northeast of the North Island is moving southwestwards, bringing rain to parts of the North Island stretching from Auckland to East Cape and Wairarapa during Wednesday.

There is still some uncertainty as to the depth and track of the low, but it now looks possible that Auckland, Coromandel Peninsula and Bay of Plenty will see some heavy and possibly thundery falls, and these areas have been added to this watch, says a statement from the weather organisation.

This watch is for the likelihood of heavy rain meeting warning criteria in the following areas...

AUCKLAND, especially the Hunua Range and southern parts, and COROMANDEL PENINSULA: till Wednesday afternoon.

BAY OF PLENTY and ROTORUA: Wednesday morning.

GISBORNE: from late this evening till Wednesday morning.

HAWKES BAY: Wednesday morning.

WAIRARAPA: late Wednesday morning and early afternoon.

People are advised to stay up to date with the latest forecasts and warnings.

This Watch will be reviewed by 10am.
Deputy Health and Disability Commissioner Rose Wall has found a private hospital and two registered nurses in breach of the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers Rights for the treatment provided to a man receiving palliative care.

A 74-year-old man with terminal prostate cancer and bowel cancer was admitted to a private hospital for pain management and palliative care.

He remained there for 23 days.

His medications at admission included the controlled drugs OxyContin, methadone and haloperidol.

During the mans admission there were a number of errors made regarding his medication, including a failure to administer methadone for six days in accordance with his prescription, and the administration of oral haloperidol for five days despite the prescription having been discontinued.

On multiple occasions staff also failed to record the administration of his medications correctly.

The man was not informed about the medication errors, and there was a 10-day delay in notifying his family of the haloperidol errors. In addition, there were numerous delays in the man being provided with appropriate pain medication.

Rose considers this to be an example of poor end-of-life care and believes the hospital failed woefully in its duty of care to the man and his family at a critical time in his life.

She says consumers in such circumstances require holistic care, including, but not confined to, the provision of adequate pain relief. Furthermore, staff need to be trained appropriately in palliative care, and to be alert to the changing requirements of consumers.

She found staff consistently failed to adhere to relevant policies, and to manage the mans pain and medication adequately. As a result, staff made multiple errors in relation to the ordering, storage and administration of the mans medication.

Despite the man experiencing high levels of pain, there were multiple occasions on which his pain assessment and management were suboptimal.

Furthermore, once the medication errors were identified, staff failed to respond appropriately in documenting and notifying the man of the errors.

Rose also found the clinical manager (also a registered nurse) failed to ensure staff complied with relevant policies and procedures, particularly regarding pain and medication management.

The clinical manager did not act promptly when administering pain relief to the man. In addition, the clinical manager did not follow up to ensure that corrective actions had been carried out following identification of the medication errors and failed to inform the mans family of the errors in a timely manner.

The commissioner recommended the hospital management provide ongoing training to all registered nurses with regard to its policies and procedures, communication with residents and their families, medication management, and professional standards regarding documentation; conduct an audit with regard to the corrective action plan; and disseminate the learnings from this case to all its facilities nationwide.

The hospital has provided a written apology to the mans family.
Two men who went to dislodge a stuck contiki needed to be rescued when they took an unscheduled dip in the Firth of Thames.

A water rescue operation was launched when a park ranger spotted the two men in trouble near Kaiaua around 1pm yesterday.

The Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter was called to assist with the operation.

A spokesperson for the chopper says the crews was tasked by Police Maritime when they received calls to the two men in the water.

They had taken a dinghy out to dislodge a contiki which had got stuck. In the process of dislodging it, the dinghy overturned. Unfortunately they were not wearing life jackets.

The men began waving the red flag attached to the contiki and were spotted by the National Park Ranger who proceeded to call 111.

A medic swimming to the boat.

In the meantime, a kayaker paddled out to them and stayed with them, waiting for the chopper to arrive.

Our crew left base at 1.04pm and were overhead at 1.21pm.

Intensive Care Paramedic, Stefan Gabor, prepared for a winch rescue of both men.

After jumping in the water and swimming towards the patients, a small boat arrived on the scene.

The winch was then cancelled and the patients and the medic were transported back to shore in the boat, with the crew landing to offer assistance. The men were not transported to hospital, as they were not injured.

The upturned dinghy.

Following the boat back to shore.

The helicopter landing back on shore.
The bulk carrier DL Marigold, which was ordered out of the Port of Tauranga on March 6 because of too much weed on its hull, has returned to complete its discharge of a cargo of palm kernel.

After being ordered to put to sea the DL Marigold steamed towards Fiji where the hull was cleaned by divers. The ship returned to Tauranga yesterday, says a Ministry of Primary Industries statement.

"We checked photos taken after the cleaning operation, says MPIs border clearance services capability manager, Sharon Tohovaka.

These were provided to MPI prior to the vessels arrival. We are now satisfied the ship is very clean and meets New Zealands biosecurity requirements.

"The move to ban the vessel until it could be cleaned shows New Zealands strict biosecurity system in action. MPI wont hesitate to take a hard line on vessels with severe biofouling in the lead-up to the introduction of new biosecurity rules in May 2018.

"The new rules will require all international vessels to arrive in New Zealand with a clean hull. Most vessels can achieve this by following International Maritime Organisation biofouling guidelines."

On March 6, the DL Marigold was found a dense fouling of barnacles and tube worms on the hull and other underwater surfaces.

The DL Marigold is expected to put to sea at 6.30pm Thursday.
Two candidates are vying for the Area 1 seat representing the village of Arena on the River Valley School Board on April 4. The terms are for three years. (I) indicates incumbent.

Kathy Jennings (I)

Age: 47

Address: 302 Christina St., Arena

Family: Married, three children

Job: Civil engineer

Political experience: River Valley School Board for three years, School Board president since last spring.

Other public service: Several Arena village committees, including Plan Commission and Community Development Authority.

Education: Bachelor of science, civil engineering, UW-Platteville

Email or website: jennings.rvsb@rvschools.org

Sierra Gilbertson Stafford

Age: 34

Address: 133 Reimann Road, Arena

Family: Married

Job: Human services field

Political experience: None

Other public service: Arena Community Elementary School Parent-Teacher Organization member.

Education: Bachelors degree in sociology, with minor in human services.

Q&A

What is the main challenge facing the district and how would you address it?

Jennings: The River Valley School District is in the process of consolidating its elementary schools. There was a referendum in November (it failed) which would have provided funds to keep the schools open. However, with declining enrollment (which is directly linked to school funding) and a failed referendum, the School Board made the decision to consolidate rather than make deep cuts into programs currently offered in the district.

Gilbertson Stafford: The main challenge facing the River Valley School District is the financial deficit we are currently facing. Its an issue that has been projected for 10 years and the current administrative plan requires the closure of two community elementary schools. If elected, I intend to maintain the community elementary schools and embrace multi-aged classrooms.

In what ways can the school district improve, and how would you do that?

Jennings: The school can be improved by realizing an efficiency in consolidation. It is so important that the School Board continue to make fiscally responsible decisions for all the students in the district. The School Board and administration have made, and will continue to make, difficult decisions in order to maintain the quality of education the district currently provides its students. I support the consolidation of the elementary schools.

Gilbertson Stafford: If elected, I intend to bring a high level of critical thinking to the table that will challenge the administration. Secondly, we need to invest in a business analysis to highlight efficiencies the School Board needs to make to be fiscally responsible. Currently, these efficiencies are difficult to see due to administration connections with the board members. We need to elect board members who will openly meet in communities to discuss challenges facing the district and obtain community input.

Please rate the district administrators performance and list any additional performance criteria youd like to see.

Jennings: The district administrator for River Valley (Tom Wermuth) has been a very passionate leader in our district. He has assembled a top-tier leadership team. He uses goal setting effectively in the district and has increased the use of data to drive decisions. Tom Wermuth has excellent communication skills with both students and families, and continues to move our district forward.
Republicans and Democrats on the Legislatures budget committee tore into Gov. Scott Walkers $76 billion budget proposal Tuesday, raising questions about his plans for self-insuring state workers, increasing education funding and paying for roads.

Over three days the committee is hearing from agency secretaries across state government, but for the first nearly four hours the committee grilled Department of Administration Secretary Scott Neitzel and budget director Waylon Hurlburt.

The questions offered insight into where lawmakers are likely to press for changes to Walkers plan.

Walkers 2017-19 budget proposal includes $650 million more for K-12 schools  some of which is tied to projected savings from self-insuring state employees  $42.5 million for the University of Wisconsin System tied to new performance metrics, $600 million in tax and fee reductions, and $500 million in new borrowing to plug a transportation funding shortfall.

The common sense reforms implemented and the tough decisions made by Governor Walker and the Legislature have paid huge dividends and the state of our finances is positive, Neitzel said. That is the reform dividend.

Joint Finance Committee co-chair Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, said one of his bigger concerns is the self-insurance plan, which Walker expects will save $40 million a year, though studies have also projected that it could end up costing the state money. Nygren pressed Neitzel on whether it was possible the state could lose those savings in future years.

The chances of us over time eating up those savings is low, Neitzel said.

If I brought up states that saw losses would you say its possible? Nygren replied.

I would say it is possible, Neitzel said.

Rep. Mary Felzkowski, R-Irma, questioned linking increases in K-12 funding to potential savings from self-insurance. Studies have been mixed on the option, suggesting the state could end up spending more, though Neitzel emphasized that the states projection of saving $40 million a year is based on information from the states providers. It feels like youre backing us into a corner, Felzkowski said.

Neitzel argued almost half of the states are fully self-insured and others partially self-insure, while 94 percent of employers with more than 5,000 employees self-insure.

Democrats pressed Neitzel on whether state employees would be able to keep their doctor if they liked their doctor  mimicking a line that former President Barack Obama used to sell the Affordable Care Act, and was later criticized for when it turned out to be false.

The disruption will be minimal, Neitzel said, but avoided giving a definitive yes or no to the question.

Rep. Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, honed in on the percentage of roads rated in good condition falling from 53 percent to 41 percent, an FBI investigation of alleged child abuse at the Lincoln Hills youth prison and reports of poor quality at the state-run veterans home in King.

Im seeing very little reform and almost no dividend to taxpayers, Hintz said.

Transportation at issue

Nygren asked Neitzel whether the governors transportation budget fully meets the maintenance needs of the state, using a metaphor of how delaying the replacement of his roof only leads to more costly repairs in the future. Walkers budget delays certain projects, including an Interstate 94 project in southeast Wisconsin and the I-39/90-Beltline interchange in Dane County.

We are taking care of the most urgent needs in the state of Wisconsin, Neitzel said.

We arent taking care of the needs, responded Nygren, who has clashed with Walker over raising the states gas tax. Walker opposes such a move, while Nygren and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, have argued more borrowing and delays are fiscally irresponsible.

Praising education funding

Sen. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, said in all the years hes been on the budget committee he has never wanted a hearing in his district because he was never really thrilled with the governors proposal. This year, he said that changed thanks to Walkers proposed increase for K-12 schools.

However, Olsen questioned how the administration would tie new K-12 funding to a districts compliance with Act 10, the 2011 law that required most public employees to contribute to pension and health insurance premiums.

A handful of school districts, including Madison, still dont require employees to contribute 12 percent of the cost of health care, but Olsen questioned whether the state should continue to cram (Act 10) down their throats when they may have found other ways to cut costs.

Theyre responsible to their employees, Olsen said. Are we sort of getting our nose in their business in how they manage their staff when they have used the tools that we gave them?

Neitzel said the intent of the proposal is for employees to cover 12 percent of health care costs, which could include deductibles and co-pays in addition to premiums.

Republicans also questioned a proposal to consolidate human resources and information technology employees throughout state government under the Department of Administration.

Sen. Leah Vukmir, R-Brookfield, asked why the consolidation of HR and IT employees wasnt resulting in a net reduction of state employees.

You have to aggregate these resources and pool them before you can take advantage of those efficiencies and wring out those efficiencies moving forward, Neitzel said. We do anticipate there will be reductions going forward.

Sen. Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, asked why the state needs to rank University of Wisconsin System campuses. The governors proposal would create various metrics the UW campuses would track and base performance funding on how they rank.

Hurlburt responded the governor would be happy to discuss improving the model, but added we rank many things in life to try to get folks at the bottom to improve.

Litscher defends youth prison

Also Tuesday, state Department of Corrections secretary Jon Litscher defended his budget proposal, which did not include finding a way to move the states juvenile prison closer to where most of the inmates are from: Milwaukee.

We can debate this but my point is I think its an effective institution for dealing with the needs of those youth, Litscher said.

The states juvenile corrections program uses a trauma-informed care approach, which includes a less punitive approach and involves increased family involvement, according to advocacy organizations.

Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee, said the strategy wont work if inmates are four hours away from their parents.

Litscher also said since he took over the agency in 2016, courts have started to send juvenile offenders to the prison again after a state and federal investigation into alleged abuse of inmates began. The prison population has increased about 19 percent since August.
A safety tool that also generates income for the county is expected to be halted for more than three months following a board of supervisors vote Thursday.

Sheriff Chip Shuler had approached the board of supervisors Budget Committee asking for $60,000 to be added to the budget line item for salaries to cover overtime expenses. He asked for the money to come from the Police Activity Fund, sometimes dubbed the radar fund because its generated by the fines from traffic tickets deputies write on Interstate 81. The committee recommended approving the request but then delayed action to seek more information.

The sheriff addressed the full board Thursday night, explaining that the budget addition was needed to pay the overtime necessary for his deputies to work selective enforcement on I-81. Shuler called the program a very effective safety tool that has helped decrease the number of crashes and fatalities on the interstate. The program, he said, also allows more deputies to be on duty at one time. That extra manpower, he said, can be vital. He noted that Thursday afternoon his office was called to investigate a potential crisis at Northwood High School. Because of the selective enforcement program, the sheriff said, four extra deputies were available to assist.

The sheriffs office also uses the fund to cover the costs of transports, especially taking individuals to mental health institutions around the state.

During budget development last year, Shuler said he asked for more money in the salaries fund for this purpose. Its not uncommon for funds to run low. He noted that a shortfall has occurred for the last three years, often in the neighborhood of $100,000. Theres never previously been a problem getting money from the radar fund, he said.

When the budget request wasnt fully funded, Supervisor Phil Stevenson asked if the sheriffs office implemented any cost-savings measures.

Shuler responded that its hard to predict how many transports will be required in any given period of time.

Friday morning, he noted that deputies have had to make three trips to Petersburg with mental health patients this week. Two deputies are required on each trip. As well, the sheriff noted that deputies have to stay with the individuals during their medical screenings at the local hospital prior to transporting them to a different facility. Its very time consuming to say the least, Shuler said.

According to mapquest.com, the drive from Marion to Petersburg, which is south of Richmond, covers 269 miles and takes four hours and 36 minutes one way.

Without the additional $60,000, Shuler said he would have to stop selective enforcement until the beginning of the fiscal year on July 1. Halting the program, he said, would result in a loss of revenue at least three times the amount requested.

Not continuing selective enforcement would also impact the take-home pay of the deputies who work the interstate. Shuler said the deputies who work the program are usually on the lower end of the salary scale and the overtime supplements their pay. After the meeting, Shuler said he couldnt offer an estimate of the impact because it varies with each deputys wages. However, he added, it would be in the thousands of dollars.

Supervisor Roscoe Call recognized the sheriffs office for assisting the Saltville Police Department during a recent murder investigation. Call said he could understand the need for overtime.

The sheriff said about $1.2 million should be available in the Police Activity Fund, which is split 80-20 with the county with 80 percent allocated to the sheriffs office.

When it came time for the supervisors to vote, the Budget Committee recommendation to approve the transfer failed with five supervisors opposing the move. Supervisors Charlie Atkins and Call voted to approve the request.

Friday, Supervisor Blake Frazier explained his opposition, saying that the sheriffs office has to live within its budget as other agencies do. He particularly cited the school system, which, he said, is struggling to get by.

County Administrator Michael Carter explained that the Police Activity Fund remains in the countys General Fund so it requires approval and appropriation from the board of supervisors on a monthly basis.

He said the Treasurers Accountability Report dated Feb. 28 reported $1,234,093.08 in the Police Activity Fund.
477651388

Today marks the start of Common Core testing in schools in New York state.

(ceazars)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Today marks the start of Common Core testing in schools in New York state.

The English Language Arts tests run today through Thursday; the math tests are held in May.

In 2016, more than 265,000 students in grades three through eight refused to take part in Common Core assessments, which is an increase from 2015's opt out of 240,000 students, according to NYS Allies for Public Education.

The district with the highest number of opt out students* in the state in 2016 was Dolgeville in Herkimer where 89 percent opted out the ELA and 90 percent opted out of the math test.

The district with the highest percentage of students opting out in Central New York in 2016 was New York Mills in Oneida County with 67 percent of students opting out of the English tests and 70 percent of students opting out of the math tests.

* Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported Kiryas Joel in Orange County had 100 percent of its students opt out of both tests. The district is a special district established to serve disabled students of that community. The students didn't opt out; the students take alternative exams.

Look up any district in the state using the database below:

Number of students who opted out of NYS tests, 2016

The New York state Education Department collected statistics on how many students refused to take the English Language Arts and math tests last April. The data was released in August.

to load this Caspio

by Caspio
State schools Superintendent Tony Evers raised 2 times as much money as challenger Lowell Holtz in the final reporting period before the April 4 election, even though Holtz received donations from deep-pocketed conservatives and Republican Party chapters across Wisconsin.

The race is officially nonpartisan, but Holtz has embraced conservatives while Evers has won the backing of Democrats, teachers unions and other liberal-leaning interests. The winner will run the Department of Public Instruction, which oversees education policy and administers the law to all 424 public school districts.

Evers campaign said Monday that he had raised nearly $218,000 from Feb. 7 through March 20, compared with $87,000 for Holtz.

Evers also had more than twice as much cash on hand with nearly $75,000 to Holtzs $30,000.

Evers financial advantage has allowed him to run television ads in the waning days of the race, while Holtz has yet to run a single TV ad.

Holtz filed his report on Sunday, while Evers campaign released top numbers Monday but had yet to file his full report showing who donated and how much.

Evers has previously reported donations from county Democratic Party chapters across Wisconsin, the American Federation of Teachers, the Wisconsin Education Association Council and former Democratic U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, who gave $5,000.

Holtzs latest report shows he has received $25,000 combined this year from mega GOP donors Richard and Liz Uihlein, who founded Uline Corp. in Pleasant Prairie in 1980.

Holtz also got donations from 14 county Republican Party chapters as well as a $1,000 donation from the campaign committee of former Republican state Senate President Mary Lazich. Those donations totaled just over $13,000.

Holtz also received $2,500 from Terrence Wall, a Madison real estate developer and Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2010. The campaign returned the donation less than three weeks later.

Neither Wall nor Holtz campaign spokesman Chuck Sanger immediately responded to messages asking why the money was returned.

Evers and Holtz will meet for a prime-time debate Friday night to be broadcast statewide by Wisconsin Public Television. They are also slated to appear together Tuesday at Marquette University and Wednesday at a meeting of the Madison Rotary Club.
Vivint Sky and Wink Hub owners who want to use voice commands to control their lighting, thermostats, and other subsystems will soon no longer be limited to deploying Amazon Echosboth companies announced today that their systems will soon be compatible with Google Assistant, too.

Both companies already work with Amazons voice assistant, Alexa, but neither wants to be limited to a single platform. Obviously theres more than one option for homeowners who want to have voice services in the house, said Vivint Smart Home Chief Technology Office Jeremy Warren. We want to make sure were providing a great user experience for our customers regardless of which platform they adopt. Google announced 11 other new partnerships as well, ranging from Logitech Harmony, to August smart locks, to the Anova sous-vide cooker.

As for Wink, founder and Chief Technology Officer Nathan Smith wrote in a blog post today Were big fans of voice control. Wink was the first smart home platform to work with voice assistants because we recognized how perfectly voice complements other interfaces, like wearables and mobile phones, when it comes to controlling your connected devices.

Of the two companies, Vivint Smart Home is taking the more ambitious approach to embracing Google Home. Subscribers will be able to control any component in the Vivint Smart Home ecosystem, including lighting, door locks, thermostats, and even home security cameras. Saying OK Google to a Google Home device or the Vivint Smart Home app on a smartphone, followed by Tell Vivint Im hot, for example, will result in your smart thermostat being turned down. Youll also be able to do things like arm your security system, close your garage door, turn lights on and off, and lock your doors, provided you have the appropriate smart infrastructure installed.

Google provided us with this list of new Google Home partnerships:

Anova (sous-vide cookers)

August (smart entry locks)

Best Buy Insignia (various consumer electronics)

Electrolux Frigidaire (home appliances)

First Alert (smoke detectors)

Geeni (Wi-Fi light bulbs)

LIFX (Wi-Fi light bulbs)

Logitech Harmony (remote controls)

Neato (robotic vacuum cleaners)

Rachio (smart irrigation)

TP-Link (Wi-Fi light bulbs)

Vivint (smart home/home security systems)

Wink (smart home systems)

Vivint Smart Home With Vivint Smart Homes system, you can use either Google Assistant or Amazons Alexa to control every component. Price of admission: $49.95 per month plus the cost of the components.

Vivint is also working on its own proactive AI, which will make its system even more automatic. Instead of depending on the user to tell the system to turn on the lights or lock the doors at night, Vivint Sky will aggregate data from door/window sensors, your phones GPS, and your daily routinewhen you turn lights on and off, when you lock the doors and arm/disarm the security system, and so onand use machine learning to do these things for you automatically (dont worry, it will ask for your permission, first).

Wink Hub and Google Home users will soon be able to control Wink-enabled Nest thermostats and any Wink-compatible lighting products with voice commands, but they wont be able to lock their smart locks. Thats something you can do with a Wink Hub and Alexa, so presumably that feature will eventually come to Google Home as well.

And heres a bit of good news for anyone whos invested in one digital assistant and decided to switch to the other: Both Vivint and Wink will let you use both devices simultaneously, so you dont necessarily need to toss any hardware aside if you switch. You will, on the other hand, need to remember which device is in the best range of your voice so you can utter the correct wake word. In the real world, I think the vast majority of people will settle on one device or the other and very few will mix the two.

Wink Wink has you covered if you prefer the DIY approach, but the companys offering is currently stronger with Amazons Alexa than Google Home.

From my experience with both Alexa and Google Home, I think Google has the better product. But Amazon has the clear lead and a great deal of momentum. The company has also made two moves that Google would be wise to copy: First, it introduced a very inexpensive version of the Echo, the Echo Dot. Its not a very good speaker, but its low price tag makes it easy to put Alexa in every room of your home. Being able to control your devices without needing to yell is essential to a good smart home experience.

Second, Amazon is enabling third-party manufacturers to integrate its version of voice control into their own products. Youll soon be able to summon Alexa with everything from your kitchen appliances to the smartphone holder in your car. Its a shrewd strategy designed to make Amazon Voice Service ubiquitous.

Nonetheless, these announcements show that its much too early to count Google out of the race.

Anova

August

Best Buy Insignia

Electrolux Frigidaire

First Alert

Geena

LIFX

Logitech Harmony

Neato

Rachio

TP-Link

Vivint

Wink
Autonomous delivery robots will be able to travel on sidewalks, crosswalks and shared-use paths throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia this summer.

Gov. Terry McAullife recently signed a law permitting the use of Starship Technologies Personal Delivery Devices, or PDDs. The six-wheeled robots, which resemble coolers, are designed to deliver parcels, groceries and food within a two-mile radius in 15-30 minutes.

The PDDs weigh about 40 pounds and can carry a workload of up to 20 pounds. They travel at 4 mph.

They must obey all traffic and pedestrian control devices and signs. They must display a plate or marker identifying their owners name and contact information, as well as a unique identifier number. Transport of hazardous materials, substances or waste is not permitted under the new law.

The PDDs, which run on rechargeable Li-Ion batteries, must have brakes. They cant weigh more than 50 pounds, or travel faster than 10 mph.

While the PDDs can travel autonomously, Virginia requires that a human operator actively control or monitor their navigation and operation. Starships PDDs are controlled remotely through a fleet management app.

Virginias law is the first in the United States to govern autonomous delivery robots.

Most states have laws prohibiting moving vehicles on sidewalks, but they didnt take into account slow-moving autonomous mobile robots when they were written, noted Philip Solis, a research director at ABI Research.

Therefore, new laws are required, he told TechNewsWorld.

Bills along similar lines reportedly have been proposed in Florida and Idaho.

Delivery Robots: The Next Necessity?

Its not a question of if [delivery robots are] coming, its a question of how soon, said Jim McGregor, a principal analyst at Tirias Research.

Delivering goods is one of those applications where its often difficult to hire people  and sometimes impractical as the minimum wage increases, he told TechNewsWorld. Eventually itll just be cheaper and more reliable to use drones for tasks like this.

Starship claims its robots have covered 10,000 miles in tests or in making actual deliveries in 56 cities in 16 countries worldwide. Companies testing the robots include Just Eat, Europes largest food delivery company; Swiss Post, Switzerlands national postal service; Hermes Parcel Delivery and retailer Metro Group in Germany; and the food delivery startup Pronto, based in London.

Starship robots are being tested in the United States in Redwood City, California, by DoorDash; in San Francisco by Dispatch; and in Washington, D.C., by Postmates.

Dominos last year began a trial of an autonomous pizza delivery robot in New Zealand.

The battery-powered four-wheeled Dominos Robotic Unit, or DRU, reportedly has a range of 12 miles and is about one meter high. It has different compartments to keep beverages cool and pizzas hot, and can carry up to 10 pizzas.

On-board sensors help the robot navigate obstacles.

Privacy Infringement and Other Concerns

Starship PDDs use of high-definition video cameras for location triangulation and tracking might raise fears of an invasion of privacy, or of their being used for surveillance by law enforcement or government agencies.

The use of such information should be no different than using the information from traffic or security cameras used in public locations if the robots dont infringe on peoples legal rights, such as by entering their homes, McGregor said. However, there will always be some areas of ambiguity.

Theres also the fear that robots could be used for terrorism-related activities, but whatever we can imagine possible with these robots is also likely with humans, McGregor pointed out, adding that its better to address the problem rather than the outcome.
Qualcomm on Wednesday announced a collaboration with Microsoft to accelerate next-generation cloud services on the 10nm Qualcomm Centriq 2400 ARM-based platform.

The collaboration will span multiple future generations of hardware, software and systems.

The companies have been working for several years on ARM-based server enablement. They have been optimizing a version of Windows Server for ARM running on the Centriq 2400, which Microsoft will use in its data center.

Possible Synergies

Qualcomm made the announcement at the Open Compute Project Summit in Santa Clara, California, where it conducted the first public demonstration of Windows Server on the Centriq 2400.

Qualcomm also submitted a server spec  the Qualcomm Centriq 2400 Open Compute Motherboard  to the OCP.

The spec, based on the latest version of Microsofts Project Olympus, pairs the Centriq 2400 with the most advanced interfaces for memory, network and peripherals, and lets devs design ARM-based servers for the most common cloud compute workloads.

The motherboard fits into a standard 1U rack server system. It can be paired with compute accelerators, multihost network interface controllers, and leading-edge storage technologies to optimize it for specific workloads.

Microsofts looking for more efficient compute architecture for Azure, and Qualcomm wants a slice of the [Infrastructure as a Service] business, said Holger Mueller, a principal analyst at Constellation Research.

When two vendors see synergies, good things can happen, but its too early to tell how well this spec will do, he told TechNewsWorld.

Why the ARM Move?

Microsoft has been running evaluations of ARM servers side by side with its Intel-based production workloads, noted Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Leendert van Doom.

ARMs high Instruction Per Cycle counts, high core and thread counts, the connectivity options, and the integration that we see across the ARM ecosystem [are] very exciting.

Intel has about 98 percent of the server market today, and this is a choke hold on innovation, remarked Kevin Krewell, a principal analyst at Tirias Research.

The industry needs competition, or Intel will use the industry as its piggy bank to fund other projects, he told TechNewsWorld.

Cavium, which collaborated with server supplier Inventec, also developed an OCP-based motherboard compatible with Project Olympus and presented a demo with Windows Server for ARM on its server processor SoCs at OPC.

All About the Cloud

Microsoft is looking for the cheapest solution for the cloud, suggested Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, and its working to make sure all its eggs arent in one basket.

The companys Azure cloud business is going gangbusters, based on its Q2 results.

Microsoft considered where ARM servers would be applicable and provide the most value, van Doorn pointed out. Those areas include search and indexing, storage, databases, big data and machine learning.

Cloud systems have to be able to scale from the very large to very small almost instantly, so they need dense, high-core technology which is very similar to what AMD and ARM have been working on, Enderle told TechNewsWorld.

Microsoft has been looking at optimization of servers, and this goes to its cloud first strategy, because it wants to have the best cloud on the planet, he added.

In addition to Qualcomm, Microsoft is working with AMD, Intel, Cavium, Nvidia and others on the Olympus project.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Patience Roggensack told lawmakers Tuesday that putting the states judicial watchdog panel under the control of the high court would create conflicts of interest.

Roggensack said the court opposes Gov. Scott Walkers 2017-19 state budget proposal to place the states Judicial Commission, which has brought ethics complaints against three members of the state Supreme Courts conservative majority, under the courts budgetary and administrative control.

And it does not save money, Roggensack added during her testimony to the Joint Finance Committee.

Walker has said he made the proposal in an effort to make the commission more efficient in carrying out its responsibilities of investigating complaints against state judges, including Supreme Court justices.

The nine-member commission that includes five members appointed by Walker also has opposed the proposal, saying the change would create both the appearance of impropriety and real conflicts of interest both for commission members and the court.

The commission was created by the Legislature nearly 40 years ago as an independent body to conduct unbiased investigations of judges. Its roughly $300,000 budget and authority for two employees come directly from the Legislature.

Roggensack also asked lawmakers to approve Walkers proposed 2 percent increase in pay for judges in 2018 and another 2 percent increase in 2019. The chief justice also has proposed increasing judicial pay by 16 percent.

I really need your help to raise Wisconsin salaries out of the basement among the 50 states, Roggensack said, pointing out pay for Wisconsin judges ranks 43rd in the nation.
Red Hat on Monday announced a new Application Platform Partner Initiative at its North America Partner Conference in Las Vegas. The goal is to provide a more robust ecosystem for companies engaging in digital transformation.

The company has started conducting tests in a pilot program with a small number of solutions-oriented consulting partners in North America.

We are planning to engage with a small group of partners during the pilot phase  aiming for approximately one to two dozen partners, said Red Hat spokesperson Daniel Thompson.

There isnt a set timeframe for the pilot phase, he told LinuxInsider. The objective is to work closely with these partners to get the program up and running and then scale it globally from there.

Consulting Play

The consulting partners  Exadel, OSI Consulting, Vizuri, Levell and others  are working with Red Hat to provide a range of sales, marketing and delivery services around several of the companys technologies, including Red Hat JBoss Middleware, Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat Mobile Application Platform.

Red Hat is providing training and certification, technical support and customer service. Red Hat Consulting services also are available to partners in the program when they are working with Red Hat installed base accounts.

Customers are using a wider array of applications and need a more cost-effective integration platform, said Glenn Gesell, president of OSI Consulting.

Red Hats open source solutions offer new options for building integrations and container-based business applications, he added.

The new program will help accelerate the adoption of cloud, container and mobile technologies, said John Dickman, senior vice president of Vizuri. The availability of a network of partners with greater expertise will inspire confidence in those undergoing transformation, he said, noting that Vizuri has been collaborating with Red Hat on open source solutions for the past 10 years.

Small and Medium-Sized Businesses

By trying to figure out how digital transformation impacts small and medium-sized businesses, Red Hats program appears to be aiming squarely at Microsoft, noted Paul Teich, principal analyst at Tirias Research.

Red Hat has large-enterprise brand recognition and reach, he told LinuxInsider. However, moving digital transformation into the mainstream for mid-sized and smaller customers requires a broader set of go-to-market partners. This is a good SMB channel partners play for Red Hat.

Red Hat recognizes that in order to expand its ecosystem, it must enhance and adjust its partner programs continually as its product portfolio evolves, and customer needs change, said Jeffrey Kaplan, managing director at ThinkStrategies.

The limited rollout of the latest partner program indicates that the company is still testing their market fit and operational effectiveness, he told LinuxInsider, before programs are offered to a broader array of partners across most geographies.

As it has grown in recent years, Red Hat has bullt out a more robust engineering team and taken on more of a leadership role with its customers, noted Peter Christy, research director at 451 Research.

The leadership at the company have come to realize that they have to operate more at the platform level, he told LinuxInsider, and help customers understand the open source model more broadly.

We believe open source is at the heart of digital transformation, said John Bluer, vice president for global alliances at Red Hat, and we are passionate about enabling our customers to succeed in their transformation efforts with open source.
UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd on Sunday called for greater government access to encrypted content on mobile apps.

Apps with end-to-end encryption, like Facebooks WhatsApp, should not be allowed to conceal terrorists communications from law enforcement, Rudd said in an appearance on The Andrew Marr Show, a BBC broadcast.

There should be no place for terrorists to hide, she said. We need to make sure that organizations like WhatsApp  and there are plenty of others like that  dont provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other.

Khalid Masood, who killed four people outside the UKs parliament building last week before being shot dead, reportedly used WhatsApp a few minutes before going on his murder spree.

On this situation, we need to make sure that our intelligence services have the ability to get into situations like encrypted WhatsApp, Rudd maintained.

Backdoor Law in Place?

Even though she supported end-to-end encryption as a cybersecurity measure, Rudd later said in an interview on Sky News, it was absurd to have terrorists talking on a formal platform and not have access to those conversations.

We are horrified at the attack carried out in London and are cooperating with law enforcement as they continue their investigations, WhatsApp spokesperson Anne Yeh said in a statement provided to TechNewsWorld.

During her appearance on Marrs show, Rudd disclosed that she would be meeting with Facebook and other technology companies on Thursday to discuss ways to meet the information needs of security officers. She did not rule out new legislation to regulate encrypted messaging if the government and the tech companies were unable to reach an accord.

However, that law may already exist. The UK last year adopted the Investigatory Powers Act, which compels tech companies to provide a technical capability to remove electronic protection within their products. That law has been interpreted in some quarters to mean that tech companies can be compelled to install backdoors into their products in order to decrypt data when necessary.

A backdoor would not have helped prevent Masoods attack, however.

To use a backdoor, you have to identify somebody as a target and hack them, explained Matthew Green, a computer science professor specializing in cryptography at Johns Hopkins University.

With this terrorist, they identified this person and decided he wasnt a threat and stopped monitoring him, he told TechNewsWorld. Nothing is going to help once you look at a guy then look away.

No Door Secure Enough

Backdoors have been criticized as a means to meet the information needs of law enforcement because they undermine the purpose of encryption.

Many technologists and even many in law enforcement have acknowledged theres no secure backdoor, said Chris Calabrese, vice president for policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology.

You simply cannot build a door that only the good guys can walk through, he told TechNewsWorld. If you start building backdoors, they will be exploited by hackers; they will be exploited by terrorists.

Tech companies have been skeptical of creating backdoors to break the encryption used by their products and then turning over the keys to law enforcement.

Another idea floated is that the companies should create the backdoors but retain control of the keys to prevent abuse.

That wont work. The systems are too complicated and the backdoors too difficult to keep secure, Calabrese said.

Companies dont want to have to worry about their employees misusing these keys, and they dont want to have to secure them, said Johns Hopkins Green.

Application Hopping

Even if backdoors were installed in applications like WhatsApp, they most likely would miss their mark  assuming that mark is to prevent terrorists from communicating securely.

If the bad guys feel that this application has been compromised by government officials and backdoors become available, this leads to a simple response by the bad guys  use a different application, explained Paul Calatayud, CTO at FireMon.

WhatsApp is a third-party application on a mobile device, he told TechNewsWorld. Nothing prevents the bad guys from moving to a lesser known third-party application.

While WhatsApp cant crack the encrypted contents on the parliament killers phone, it still can provide authorities with information about the terrorists phone activity  such as the time a message was sent, who it was sent to, and the physical location of the sender and recipient.

It doesnt matter what this guy said before he did this thing, said Bruce Schneier, CTO of IBM Resilient. What matters is who it was, and WhatsApp doesnt protect that.

Investigators can access all kinds of information without recourse to backdoors, he told TechNewsWorld, but that would require a real conversation about the problem, which you dont get from these people who grandstand after tragedies.
Faraday Future has scrapped plans to open a manufacturing facility and showroom in Vallejo, California, instead electing to finish an earlier construction project in Nevada.

In a statement issued to TechCrunch, the hopeful Tesla rival said its new strategy will see it focus efforts on completing its first production vehicle facility in the desert.

Faraday Future broke ground on a 3 million-square-foot, $1 billion manufacturing plant in North Las Vegas last April. Financing dried up near the end of the year, however, forcing lead contractor AECOM to halt construction indefinitely.

The company reportedly went back to the drawing board and scaled down the operation to a more modest 650,000-square-feet. Construction should resume soon with plans to complete the project this fall barring any additional funding hiccups.

Shortly after its big CES presentation in early January, Faraday Future revealed it had taken more than 64,000 reservations for its first consumer vehicle, the FF 91. Sources claimed that only 60 people had submitted a deposit alongside their reservation.

Faraday Future isn't giving up on Vallejo entirely. In its statement, the electric automaker thanked the city for its generosity and professionalism throughout the process, adding that it looks forward to exploring future opportunities in the city.
NASA has chosen an airborne observatory led by the University of Arizona (UA) over eight other proposed missions vying for NASA's Explorer category.

GUSTO Mission

With a target launch date of Dec. 15, 2021, the Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory (GUSTO) mission with its airborne observatory will fly across Antarctica at an elevation around 110,000 and 120,000 feet, or 17 miles above a typical commercial flight's cruising altitude.

Basically, the Ultralong-Duration Balloon (ULDB) has a telescope with carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen emission line detectors mounted to a gondola. With a science payload of almost 2 tons, GUSTO will run on about 1 kilowatt of electrical power produced by solar panels.

"NASA has a great history of launching observatories in the Astrophysics Explorers Program with new and unique observational capabilities. GUSTO continues that tradition," Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director in the Science Mission Directorate in Washington, stated.

After launching from McMurdo, Antarctica, GUSTO is expected to stay up in the air up 170 days, depending on weather conditions.

The total project cost is approximately $40 million dollars, including expenses for the balloon launch, post-launch operations, and data analysis.

Our latest mission will help scientists study of all phases of the stellar life cycle, from star birth & evolution: https://t.co/6fHSO2dcSc pic.twitter.com/giZE16rXug  NASA (@NASA) March 25, 2017

What Is Interstellar Medium

GUSTO will measure emissions from interstellar mediums, helping scientists get a clearer picture of the life cycle of interstellar gas in the Milky Way galaxy and the birth and death of star-forming clouds.

According to experts, the interstellar medium is the material "from which most of the observable universe is made: stars, planets, rocks, oceans, and all living creatures."

According to principal investigator Christopher Walker, a professor of astronomy at the UA's Steward Observatory, understanding the interstellar medium is key to understanding where we came from, "because 4.6 billion years ago, we were interstellar medium."

Milky Way And Earlier Galaxies

Aside from the Milky Way, GUSTO will also map the Large Magellanic Cloud, which according to Walker, is a hallmark of a galaxy more commonly found in the early universe.

Walker and his team will use cutting-edge superconducting detectors and other instruments that will enable them to listen in at very high frequencies.

Walker said that with the measurements from the GUSTO mission, experts can have enough data to develop a model for earlier galaxies and our home galaxy, the Milky Way, which are the two "bookends" of evolution through cosmic time.

As a prelude to the GUSTO mission, Walker's team triumphantly launched a balloon with a smaller telescope  the Stratospheric Terahertz Observatory, or STO  above South Pole back in December 2016.

Johns Hopkins University is reportedly in charge for the GUSTO balloon's gondola. Other participating organizations in the GUSTO mission include NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Arizona State University, and the SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research.

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Khalid Masood, the British man behind the London attack last week that killed four people and left many more injured, was said to have checked his WhatsApp account just minutes before he mowed down pedestrians with his SUV on the Westminster Bridge, crashed the vehicle into the gates of Parliament, and rushed into the grounds to fatally stab a policeman who was on guard duty.

There has so far been no evidence that Masood used the Facebook-owned WhatsApp for communications regarding the terrorist attack. However, that has not stopped the government of the United Kingdom from pushing WhatsApp to do more in the fight against terrorism, in relation to the encryption that it applies to all messages sent through the service.

WhatsApp, Other Communication Tools As 'Secret Place For Terrorists'

In appearances on BBC and Sky News, Amber Rudd, the United Kingdom Home Secretary, urged WhatsApp and other encrypted communication services to open up their platforms to police and intelligence teams for surveillance.

Rudd claims that there is a need to ensure that WhatsApp and other services do not become "a secret place for terrorists," as their communications on encrypted platforms are protected from government surveillance.

"It is completely unacceptable, there should be no place for terrorists to hide," Rudd said, adding that governments should be able to legally access the contents of encrypted messages on certain situations.

One such situation, Rudd believes, is if Masood used WhatsApp to send or receive a message related to the Westminster attack. However, as authorities are still trying to determine Masood's motive and if he had any accomplices, the case would need all the clues it can acquire, one of which would be why Masood accessed his WhatsApp account shortly before launching the attack.

It was reported that Masood had been on the sights of the intelligence community ever since he returned to the United Kingdom after teaching English in Saudi Arabia in 2010. The Islamic State has claimed that Masood was one of its soldiers who was carrying out its wishes of launching attacks in Western nations.

Government Intelligence vs. User Privacy

The call made by Rudd for companies to allow intelligence agencies access to encrypted communications will likely be met with resistance by technology companies. The situations are similar to the refusal of Apple to unlock the iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino attack of 2015, claiming that the act would be in violation of the constitution. The FBI was eventually able to unlock the smartphone, not with Apple's help but with a tool created by an undisclosed third-party.

Rudd revealed that she had asked executives from different tech companies to join her for a meeting within the week, with the encryption issue to be the primary focus of discussions. It remains to be seen how the meeting will proceed, but it is very likely that the invited tech companies will not cede their stand on maintaining encryption to protect the privacy of its users, as unwanted government surveillance is one of the major current concerns of consumers.

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Owners of Google's pair of flagships, the Pixel and Pixel XL, have been experiencing a number of issues ranging from distorted-sounding speakers to flaring camera lenses. In addition the users reported issues with maintaining stable Bluetooth connectivity, including dropped connections at random intervals while engaged in Bluetooth-related functions.

Google Fixes Pixel Bluetooth Issues

The issue apparently began occurring back in February, after that month's security patch, but has persisted throughout this month's update.

However, Google has patched up the issue as per an official thread on the Pixel User Community. A little history: Back on Feb. 23, Google announced that it had identified a fix, and would provide it in an upcoming update. By March 14, the release schedule was specified as "soon."

As of today Google posted that the issue has been fixed, thanks to recent "server-side changes."

"I just got word that Google has just finished putting a fix in place for this issue on our end  no downloads or updates to your devices or apps are needed," write Orrin, a Pixel Community manager.

It's still unknown what might have caused the errors in the first place. However, it's still good news that Google has patched it up, especially given that both Pixel phones have so far been mired by a number of product issues, including camera freezing problems and microphone glitches.

This news, however, still won't do it for some Pixel owners, who are displeased about their unit's faulty microphone. Some of them are still waiting for Google to hand out functioning replacement units. As of March 9 the company formally took responsibility for the hardware problem, which started as far back as December 2016. It agreed to provide customers under warranty with a free replacement unit.

There is no guarantee that the replacement units will not have a faulty microphone. There's a chance some of the units might be a dud, and users would need to initiate another return to receive a second new replacement unit.

How To Check If Your Pixel's Bluetooth Issues Have Been Fixed

To check whether Bluetooth connectivity is functioning again on your Pixel or Pixel XL device, here are some connectivity functions to test: first try pairing the phone with Bluetooth accessories, such as headphones. If the pair of cans manages to work with nary a connection drop in its entire span of use, then you don't have to worry, as your device is now fixed.

You may also try streaming music to an external speaker, which fosters the same Bluetooth connectivity. Again, if the connection goes smoothly, then that means there are no more problems.

To reiterate, you don't need to do anything for your Bluetooth issues to be fixed. These sort of updates happens seamlessly in the background. It's worth noting, however, that updates to Google Play Services may take a while before it reaches everybody.

Is your Pixel still experiencing Bluetooth connectivity issues? Feel free to share your experiences down in the comments section!

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Livestock grazing could affect the sage grouse population across 11 states in the western region of the United States and two Canadian provinces in western North America, according to a study.

Its effect, either positive or negative, is determined by the amount of grazing and when it occurs.

The study said some grazing could still be beneficial to chicken-like grouse if grazing occurred during the later part of the growing season, a team of scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, Colorado State University, and Utah State University, said.

The researchers said grazing, particularly after the peak plant productivity, could also stimulate the growth of grasses that greater sage grouse eat and nest in.

Sage-Grouse Diet, Habitat

The greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) live on large expanses of grasslands feeding on wildflowers, insects, and forage crops. During winter, they depend mainly on sagebrush as the only available food source.

They have been known as the ambassador for the less known but critically important Sagebrush Sea from which many fish and wildlife species depend on for survival. The chicken-sized sage-grouse's declining population is distributed in Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. A remnant population is also spotted in Washington, California, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. It is locally extinct in Nebraska and Arizona.

Understanding When And How Much To Graze

From a peak population of 16 million, there are around 200,000 to 500,000 sage-grouse species in the United States at present.

Biologists often blamed grazing and a host of other factors, such as diseases and oil and gas drilling among others, had contributed to the bird's population decline.

The study does not refute what the biologist had claimed.

It was observed that there was a decline in the sage grouse population when extensive grazing occurs during the early part of growing season while the same level of grazing after the growing season was associated with the increase of their population.

The authors said this finding may indicate that there are grasses that are sensitive when grazed upon during the early growing season. Conversely, there is a probability for additional plant growth if dead grasses are removed when grazed in the later part of the growing season.

"Increasing our understanding of how the amount of grazing and season of livestock use affect vegetation could help inform the short-term modifications to livestock management to benefit the sage-grouse populations and help sustain western ranching operations," Cameron Aldridge, a professor of CSU, USGS collaborator, and study co-author, said.

Study Is No One-Size-Fits-All

Study's lead author Adrian Monroe at CSU said the research could be a tool for land managers for them to help assess the impact of grazing at the local level.

"Managing the level of grazing and the timing of that grazing to reduce or avoid impacts to grasses and forbs could possibly affect the sage-grouse population levels through increased food resources and nesting cover that will support the reproduction and recruitment of another generation of birds," Monroe explained.

The study was the first to connect the conditions and trends of the grouse populations to livestock management, he added.

He admitted the findings were not meant to provide "one-size fits all" solution to the problem. The study is considered more applicable to Wyoming.

In conducting the study, the researchers had focused on more than 700 breeding sites for grouse in Wyoming. The site is one of the last remaining strongholds for sage grouse.

The study was published in the journal Ecological Applications on March 23.

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There is a new focus at NASA on small satellite missions as forerunners for larger missions of the Solar System.

The NASA program, Planetary Science Deep Space SmallSat Studies gives a window for projects with small satellites to study Solar System's celestial bodies.

In the latest step, NASA has awarded $3.6 million to ten projects for concept planning awaiting their roll out after a few months. Generally, small satellites weigh less than 400 pounds.

Among the 10 projects selected, two are Venus centric with a focus on noble gasses and isotopes. One CubeSat project will be looking at ultraviolet absorption and atmosphere's nightglow emissions.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center will be sending a 12-unit CubeSat to investigate the hydrogen cycle of the moon.

The small satellite from Johns Hopkins University will target an asteroid with a seismometer to examine its surface and interiors. Another CubeSat from Purdue University will image Phobos and Deimos  the Martian moons.

NASA Ames will deploy a CubeSat to Mars focusing on climate studies. The probe of Hampton University will be on Uranus and its atmosphere. The magnetosphere of Jupiter will be the core area of investigation for the project of Southwest Research Institute.

Utility of SmallSats For Larger Missions

Basically, SmallSats handle the delivery of preliminary data for upcoming bigger projects. The cost of launching SmallSats is also nominal.

"These small but mighty satellites have the potential to enable transformational science. They guide NASA's development of small spacecraft technologies for deep space science investigation," noted Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters.

NASA Convinced About SmallSat Utility

Green added that the agency is investing in SmallSats after being convinced of their utility for cutting edge scientific investigations.

A range of merits justify SmallSats such as deployment from bigger spacecraft to target-specific investigations to back main missions. The Mars mission of NASA will use this approach by despatching two small satellites for advanced data. NASA is also buoyed by the 2016 report by the US National Academies that said SmallSats technology has come of age to provide high-value science.

Cost Saving From SmallSats

There are many cost benefits from the use of SmallSats. They also offer the flexibility to operate in constellations.

"What we're seeing is a capability that we haven't really seen before in terms of small satellites that can do pretty good science at a much-reduced cost compared to the big missions," said Steve Mackwell from the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) in Maryland.

Mackwell said miniaturization helps in deploying SmallSats where larger missions had been thought about. It is an unprecedented opportunity in using them to explore inner Solar System bodies like the Venus and Moon.

Green noted that miniature satellites had posed challenges in the past with problems like difficulties around power and communication. Mackwell, however, points that there a change and critical advances have been made in their functioning.

An example is compact propulsion systems to reach places where they can ride and maneuver to the ultimate destination. Also, innovations have come up to incorporate solar panels into SmallSats to boost capabilities.

More progress is being made on the technology front. An example is engineers at Nasa's Glenn Research Center demonstrating printed electronics suitable for operating in the harsh conditions at Venus.

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Turkish and Gulf airlines have started promoting free Wi-Fi and improved in-flight connectivity for passengers smartphones following a recent laptop ban in planes flying to the United States.

Last. March 21, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security revealed that the said restrictions would apply to flights from 10 airports in eight Muslim-majority nations. The United Kingdom afterward issued a similar ban on all flights coming from airports in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Turkey.

Mitigating The Effects Of Laptop Ban

The newly announced restrictions are expected to affect growing Gulf airlines who have a good volume of business-class flyers who stop over in Dubai or Doha for long-distance journeys, and Turkish Airlines with its high numbers of transit passengers, Reuters reported.

At Istanbuls Ataturk Airport, for instance, Turkish Airlines staff has taken flyers electronic devices larger than cell phones at the boarding gate, storing them in special containers. Passengers are also asked to leave laptops and tablets for storage in the baggage hold.

"The electronic devices will be received by an airline officer during the last check-in before boarding the aircraft and will be placed in a special shatterproof luggage after being wrapped in foam covers," Bilal Eksi, the airlines CEO, told Anadolu Agency.

To help mitigate the potential risks of the ban, airlines are eyeing a system where they can allow passengers to make use of 3G data roaming on their phone for in-flight connectivity. A Turkish Airlines official revealed, too, that they are planning to make Wi-Fi freely available on select aircraft starting next month.

The official relayed to Reuters that they are speeding up infrastructure work in light of the recent restrictions, and that their Boeing 777 and Airbus 330 aircraft could enjoy free Wi-Fi services beginning April.

Other Carriers Act Amid Recent Laptop Ban

Emirates said it is introducing a laptop as well as tablet handling service for flights bound for the United States, letting flyers use their devices until it is time to board the plane. The devices, they said, would be packed carefully in boxes and returned once passengers have arrived in the country.

The airline provides free but limited Wi-Fi access, or a passenger can opt to pay $1 for 500 MB connection.

Etihad, on the other hand, urged its flyers to pack their affected electronics in check-in luggage. They assured, however, that they would allow the handing over of devices during boarding.

Royal Jordanian took a different approach, promoting on its Twitter account 12 things that one can do while on a 12-hour flight  without the use of any tablet or laptop.

It was earlier reported that the restrictions were already planned many weeks ago, since the government received a security threat. Media agencies linked the electronics ban to several bombing attempts from the Al Qaeda camp on U.S.-bound airlines in the last few weeks.

The White House, however, refused to comment on the issue or any potential security precautions, maintaining that they will release an official statement when necessary.

In 2014, the government also increased security in terms of electronic gadget use. They required phones and other gadgets to be turned on at airports checking kiosks before boarding.

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The recent report on Arctic sea ice levels underlines the grave impact of global warming on marine creatures that depend on the polar ice cap for survival. Rising temperatures in the far north give way to a rapidly reducing ice cover, and when the sea ice is threatened, so is the phytoplankton it sustains.

Shrinking sea ice means the microscopic algae have less and less room to grow, and the inevitable plankton shortage takes its toll on the rest of the ecosystem, affecting animal species that thrive on sea ice algae.

The dramatic loss of arctic ice floes, which are no longer forming as abundantly over the winter, limits the surface on which algae can grow and, without sea ice or phytoplankton, marine wildlife faces a food deficit and the restriction of both hunting and birthing grounds.

Whole Arctic Food Web Disrupted

Studies show sea ice algae sustain the entire arctic ecosystem. When the base of a food chain is affected, all the other species that depend on it (and on each other) soon follow.

Normally, this time of the year marks the beginning of arctic spring, which typically sets the conditions for algae to bloom. Phytoplankton feeds zooplankton, microscopic animals that make up the primary food source for fish, which in turn are a common prey for seals.

Months later, when temperatures get warmer and sea ice starts to melt, phytoplankton subsides to the sea floor, where it is consumed by worms and other small creatures. These are then eaten by benthic fish - species living on the bottom of the sea - that support the beluga whale population.

Researchers have already noticed the dwindling phytoplankton is causing a decline in zooplankton species, with dire consequences on surface fish that usually hunt them. The Greenland halibut, one of the benthic fish species whales feed on, is also receding, probably because of lack of food.

This fragile ecosystem depends entirely on phytoplankton, which owes its existence to the arctic sea ice. Found at a new record low by this year's measurements, the ice coverage could potentially disappear during summer, seeing its last bastions in Greenland fjords or the Svalbard archipelago. The snowball effect on arctic wildlife is conceivably catastrophic.

How Does This Impact Beluga Whales?

Beluga whales are already under monitoring by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, giving the species' high risk of endangerment. Apart from whaling and contaminated water, climate change adds to the list of threatening factors, altering the whale's hunting patterns and lifestyle.

"These creatures are in the frontline of change in the Arctic and it is clear they are having to make considerable changes in behavior to survive," says Thomas Brown of the Scottish Association for Marine Science.

After studying beluga whales for a number a years, Brown discovered belugas have been forced into new hunting territories, venturing farther into the open to catch prey.

Since the whales normally rely on Greenland halibut populations, the decreasing number of fish - which no longer find the same amounts of zooplankton and phytoplankton at their disposal - has pushed belugas into open waters, signaling "a clear shift in the food web and ecosystem in this part of the Arctic Ocean."

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Apple is frequently entangled in legal battles, some of which are quite bizarre such as the lawsuit from China-based Shenzhen Baili Marketing Services Co. This company alleged in 2016 that Apple stole the design of the former's 100C handset for its iPhone 6.

The patent troll sued Apple and its distribution partner Zhongfu Telecom for violation. As a consequence, the Beijing Intellectual Property Office decreed that the iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 6 smartphones not be sold in stores in Beijing. However, Apple did not cease selling the two smartphones and appealed against the directive.

Apple Wins Legal Tussle: iPhone 6 Did Not Infringe Design Patent

Much water has flown under the bridge since the lawsuit and now, a court in China has ruled in Apple's favor, overturning the decision by the Beijing Intellectual Property Office.

On Friday, March 24, the Intellectual Property Court in China overturned the older ruling, which makes Apple free from the legal hassle.

"A Beijing court has overturned a ruling that Apple's iPhone 6 violated a Chinese manufacturer's patent which saw the US tech giant ordered to cease selling the smartphone in Beijing," notes a report from South China Morning Post.

The court also decreed that Apple did not violate any design patent, as claimed by the defunct Shenzhen Baili.

Apple's Never-Ending Woes

This is not the first controversy Apple has been embroiled in. China-based Xintong Tiandi Technology also sued Apple in May 2016. The case saw the smartphone maker losing its rights to the trademark "iPhone" in the country.

This ensured that Tiandi, a leather goods dealer, could retail its products under the brand name "IPHONE." Apple had to contend with the ruling as even though it filed for the term "iPhone" in China in October 2002 under the "computer hardware and software" category, the patent was granted in 2013. Tiandi, on the other hand, filed for the patent in the "leather goods" category in 2007.

Coincidentally, Apple increased the price of its iPhone 7 in China, when it was launched in 2016. The company explained that this was because of Chinese currency depreciating in the prior 12 months.

At the time, many Chinese phone manufacturers thought that Apple was copying their phone designs. This was primarily to do with the fact that features such as dual camera, as well as handsets without headphone jacks, were first embraced by Chinese smartphones.

Apple's China Plans

Apple intends to open a second R&D center in the tech hub of Shenzhen, the first is in Beijing as shared by CEO Tim Cook in August 2016. This move is in a bid to tackle competition from OEMs such as ZTE and Huawei.

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A new invention by NASA scientists acts like a sensory skin, picking up signs of damage to spacecraft exterior in real time.

If it proves successful, the technology could be applied to satellites, aircraft, and even otherworldly habitats  such as a human-built structure on the lunar or Martian surface  in the future.

Damage Detector At Work

Orbital debris as well as micrometeoroids hurtle toward spacecraft at speeds of 17,5000 miles per hour just in low-Earth orbit, or more than 24,000 miles per hour for lunar and deep space trips. This could pose threats to the physical structure and integrity of spacecraft.

Remember the space junk debris that hit the cupola of the International Space Station last year and caused a tiny window crack? An image showed a 7-millimeter (0.28-inch) circular chip with potentially a paint flake or tiny metal fragment, with the eerie blackness of space serving as the cracks background.

The recent NASA innovation seeks to address issues like this and worse others. It uses a series of several technologies to form circuits printed on thin layers and that can be integrated in the spacecraft structure.

"It's a sensory system that tells us where we are damaged and the level of intensity, shared Martha Williams, who leads the development team of the technology dubbed the Flexible Damage Detection System currently being developed at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Once something pierces a space vehicles hull, composed of the first layer or two, current capabilities offer passenger-astronauts limited ways to detect damage. These methods at present require a camera check or an astronauts spacewalk in order to see and analyze the damage, unless a leak occurs and sets off alarms as an impact penetrates all the way through the spacecraft.

This new sensory skin, as Williams called it, boasts various systems ranging from low-voltage electrical circuits printed on Kapton thermal insulation film to damage-tracking software.

Potential For Commercial Production And Related Uses

The scientists are seeking to make the Flexible Damage Detection System's manufacturing so efficient that the technology can be replicated for commercial production and use.

On the ground, scientists as well as engineers demonstrate a 6-by-6-inch sensory panel connected to wires and a monitoring computer system. They seek to tile the square pieces together - like in a quilt - to form a solid sensor network, which could also be foldable and functional in expandable or inflatable spacecraft.

A tailorable technology, the detector can also cover the spacecraft entirely outside or just a certain critical part. It can be programmed to identify small or large damages and review the scope of damage.

In the future, the system also appears promising for calculating damage to the exteriors of airplanes or planned Martian habitats.

Recently, two ISS astronauts took a 6.5-hour spacewalk to prepare the space laboratory for upgrades. Two more spacewalks are scheduled, on April 2 and 4, and will each feature two astronauts from Expedition 50.

NASA undertakes these efforts to keep its existing programs in top condition amid a financial battle with the Trump administration, which has almost officially canceled or allotted lower funding to platforms such as earth sciences and the Office of Education.

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As the UK government seeks access to WhatsApp data, a whole new controversy around privacy, security and encryption has risen.

Privacy advocates are vehemently opposing UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd's call for security services to have access to encrypted messaging services such as WhatsApp so that terrorists have no place to hide.

UK Government Wants Access To WhatsApp

News of the attack in London last week traveled worldwide and Khalid Masood, the British man behind it, is believed to have used WhatsApp right before the murders. Four people lost their lives and Rudd said that terrorists like Masood must have nowhere to hide.

Authorities believe that Masood used WhatsApp just two minutes before the attack, so they want to know what the perpetrator communicated. Rudd said that police need to ensure that WhatsApp and other such messaging apps don't serve as a secret venue for terrorists to communicate with each other and plan their attacks.

WhatsApp End-To-End Encryption

WhatsApp has more than 1 billion users worldwide and it ensures that users' conversations remain secure and private through end-to-end encryption. This essentially means that not even WhatsApp itself has access to users' conversations, only the participants do.

The purpose of end-to-end encryption is to protect users against hackers, cybercriminals, oppressive regimes, and any other parties that might want to snoop where they shouldn't be snooping. With end-to-end encryption, even if WhatsApp wanted to show authorities what Masood did on the platform, it can't.

Authorities know what end-to-end encryption entails, so they want a backdoor baked into the service to give them access to the conversations of perpetrators such as Masood.

The Dangers Of Backdoors And Security Loopholes

On the other hand, privacy advocates argue that creating a backdoor for authorities would also mean that hackers and cybercriminals would be able to gain access to users' private conversations, thus severely damaging security.

The same questions and issues arose back in 2015, when the U.S. government tried to force Apple to decrypt iPhones for authorities or create a backdoor to help in investigations.

Both in Apple's case and now with WhatsApp, privacy advocates argued that it would be a terrible idea to create security loopholes that would allow authorities to bypass encrypted services. Once a security loophole is created, even if it's meant only for authorities and intelligence agencies, security is breached. Hackers and other parties could exploit the same loophole to gain access and everything could be compromised.

While WhatsApp and other technology companies want to help authorities and intelligence agencies with investigations into terrorist activity or other crimes, they don't want to compromise users' privacy and security and creating backdoors would mean just that.

Encryption doesn't just protect private conversations, but also ensures that people can handle their banking and shopping online safely and securely. Compromising encryption would threaten far more than just a few messages exchanged on a platform such as WhatsApp.

Several other messaging services protect users' privacy through encryption, including Signal, Telegram, Wickr, and others.

"These terrorists want to destroy our freedoms and undermine our democratic society," points out Brian Paddick, the spokesman for the Liberal Democrat home affairs. "By implementing draconian laws that limit our civil liberties, we would be playing into their hands."

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Oral contraceptive pills do not just prevent unplanned pregnancies in women. A new study suggests that it can also provide protection against some forms of cancer for as long as 30 years.

Protected From Three Forms Of Cancer

In the new study, researchers from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland looked at more than 46,000 women who were part of the Oral Contraception Study of the Royal College of General Practitioners in the year 1968 to see the long-term health effects of using oral contraceptives.

The researchers followed the participants for up to 44 years, making the study the world's longest-running research to investigate the effects of birth control pills.

By looking at the risk of all known types of cancer in the subjects who took the pill, researchers found that those who took the pill during their reproductive years had no signs of new cancer risk appearing later in life when more cancers tend to occur.

The research showed that those who took oral contraceptive pill had lower likelihood of developing colorectal cancer, ovarian cancer, and endometrial cancer compared with women who never used the pill. Women appeared to be protected from these cancers for at least 30 years from the time they stopped using the pills.

Safety Of Taking Oral Contraceptive Pills

Hundreds of millions of women worldwide take oral contraceptive pills, and long-term cancer risks linked to its use has been an important concern for doctors and users.

"Most women who choose to use oral contraceptives do not expose themselves to long-term cancer harms; instead, with some cancers, many women benefit from important reductions of risk that persist for many years after stopping," the researchers wrote in their study, which was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

The results also strengthen a 2016 study that found deaths from ovarian cancer significantly dropped in Western countries between the years 2002 and 2012 due to the popularity of contraceptive pill. Researchers of this study, who described ovarian cancer as a silent killer because it is commonly diagnosed too late, predicted that cases of ovarian cancer would continue to drop because of widespread use of birth control pill. Another study published in 2015 also found that long-term use of the pill provides protection against endometrial cancer that affects the womb.

Unfortunately, other studies do not have reassuring results. In a 2014 study, for instance, researchers found that women who took contraceptive pills within the previous year had 50 percent increased risk of getting breast cancer compared with women who did not take the pills. The findings of this research showed that oral contraceptives with high-dose estrogen increases breast cancer risk by 2.7 times.

A 2015 study similarly raised concern over the safety of oral contraceptive use after it found that women who overuse birth control pills may experience excessive blood coagulation, which could be dangerous when it causes blockage in the artery and prevents blood flow.

Another study also warned that use of the pill is associated with increased likelihood of seizures in women who have epilepsy.

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Elon Musk is a man who wants to do a myriad of things: he wants autonomous electric cars cruising down streets in the near future, he wants to send people to Mars and our Moon, and he wants to build a substitute to trains that travels blazingly fast. Now, he has another item in his to-do list: to link up your human brain with artificial intelligence.

How? With the help of a new company Musk is founding, of course, called Neuralink. The new venture will search for ways in which AI can be integrated into our brains by virtue of tiny, implanted electrodes.

Elon Musk Creates Neuralink, A Company That Will Link Brains With AI

The company is still in its very early stages and has not, unsurprisingly, accrued any significant media coverage or public presence whatsoever until now. The aim is to create devices that can be embedded inside actual human brains, as The Verge reports, with the eventual upshot of aiding human beings to fuse with software and maintain parallel status with advancements in AI. These advances reportedly could improve human memory or allow for less middlemen when interacting with computer interfaces.

Elon Musk And His Neural Lace

Neuralink is no stranger to most, as Musk did hint at its existence a few times over the last six months or so. Speaking during a summit in Dubai last month, Musk told the audience that "over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence." He also stated that the connection itself is mostly about the bandwidth and the speed between the human brain and digital version of which. Also, Musk is not laconic to inquiries over twitter about his "neural lace," which is fancy talk for a brain-to-computer interface humans can leverage to amp themselves.

Max Hodak, a company insider at Neuralink, confirmed the news to The Wall Street Journal on March 27, saying that "embryonic" best describes the current state of the startup.

Musk has also previously spoke publicly about the idea of linking AI into our own brains lest robots fully outpunch humans in aspects such as labor, manpower, and more, especially given the fact that automation is slowly penetrating industries at large. Without a way for humans to be merged with emerging AI technology, humans could run the risk of playing second fiddle to AI.

Top Professionals Hired By Neuralink

Musk's Neuralink is registered in California as a medical research company and has reportedly brought top-rank academics in the field of neuroscience, including Dr. Vanessa Tolosa, a flexible electrodes and nano technology expert; Philip Sabes, a University of California, San Francisco professor; and Timothy Gardner, a professor from Boston University whose expertise falls on the neural pathways in the brains of songbirds.

Like Musk's other companies, such as Tesla and SpaceX, Neuralink plans to come up with a working prototype to illustrate that such an undertaking is viable and safe before moving on to more pressing and challenging matters at hand: actually figuring out how to link human brains with AI.

If Musk and the team at Neuralink see any success in its efforts, the line between reality and science fiction will blur again.

Thoughts about Musk's Neuralink? What do you think about upgrading human brains with AI? Feel free to sound off in the comments section below!

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It was believed that mice and humans started to live together when the latter learned to farm. Fossil evidence, however, suggests that the rodents may be living with humans far longer before the dawn of agriculture.

Mice Have Been Living With Humans 3,000 Years Before Advent Of Agriculture

Researchers found that the relationship humans have with mice actually started as soon as our species began to stay put and build houses.

In the new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers reported that the rodents may have been living with humans for 15,000 years, which means that our ties with the animal could be more ancient than previously thought.

For the research, Thomas Cucchi of National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, France, and colleagues examined the rise of the house mouse in the Levant, which now comprises parts of Lebanon, Israel, and Syria in the Middle East. Researchers earlier found archeological sites here that were left by the Natufians, an ancient society of hunter-gatherers, which flourished between 12,500 to 9,500 BCE.

The House Mouse And The Short-Tailed Mouse

House mouse fossils that were discovered in the archeological sites revealed that the Mus musculus domesticus, or the house mouse species, first lived with humans 3,000 years before the advent of agriculture.

Fossil teeth unearthed at these sites also revealed that the house mice had intertwined relationship with a closely related mouse species called Mus macedonicus, or the short-tailed mouse, which is known to be more wild and less tolerant of humans

Researchers found that as the hunter-gatherers began to become more sedentary due to favorable climate, there was an increase in the amount of house molars in and around the settlements. The researchers said that the rodents were probably attracted to small caches containing wild grains that the humans stored for food without having to constantly move from place to place.

While there was boon in house mice species during prolonged human habitation, researchers noticed that the molars of the short-tailed mice disappeared.

Once the region became cold and dry again, though, the Natufians returned to their original way of life, staying only in one place, provided that the resources that were available in the area could support them. At this time, researchers found that the more independent short-tailed mice again rose in number.

"Changing mice molar shapes in a 200,000-y-long sequence from the Levant reveal that mice first colonized settlements of relatively settled hunter-gatherers 15,000 y ago," the researchers wrote in their study. "The first long-term hunter-gatherer settlements transformed ecological interactions and food webs, allowing commensal house mice to outcompete wild mice and establish durable populations that expanded with human societies."

Jeremy Searle of Cornell University, who is not part of the research, said that the study offered a fascinating insight into the pre-agriculture relationship of humans and house mice before agriculture.

"The important thing is a settled existence with storage of seeds," Searle said. "It doesn't have to be cultivated grain; it can be wild foodstuffs collected by hunter-gatherers."

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After a car crash involving one of Uber's self-driving Volvo vehicles occurred in Tempe, Arizona, the company temporarily halted self-driving tests in Pittsburgh and Arizona in light of an ensuing investigation. It didn't take long for Uber, however, to resume operations, as it's now restarting its autonomous ride-hailing tests just three days after the incident occurred.

Uber Resumes Self-Driving Program

Uber has apparently wrapped up the investigation and decided to clear its autonomous cars to once again brave the streets of three cities where it's piloting a self-driving program  Tempe, San Francisco, and Pittsburgh.

That's according to an Uber spokeswoman who refused to be name-dropped, as Reuters reports. On Friday, March 24, Uber suspended the program in all its pilot cities following the crash, in which a human-driven car "failed to yield" to Uber's self-driving vehicle when turning, according to a spokeswoman from the Tempe police department. At the time of the crash, the Uber vehicle was in autonomous mode. There were zero reports of major injuries from the incident.

Uber Car Crash In Arizona

The vehicle was manned by an Uber driver and engineer, a staple requirement of Uber's tests. No passengers were in the backseat, as Reuters reports. A detailed police report of the incident is expected this week, according to the Tempe police department, adding that Uber's vehicle wasn't at fault. Fresco News first uploaded the photo on Twitter, which showed the aftermath  a car flipped on its side, with a visibly damaged car close to it, clearly indicating a collision. Uber confirmed that the scenes depicted in the images took place in Tempe.

BREAKING: Self-driving Uber vehicle on its side after a collision in Tempe, AZ. Photos by @fresconews user Mark Beach pic.twitter.com/5NCF2KG0rW  Fresco News (@fresconews) March 25, 2017

Self-driving technology experts say that such incidents will happen, although as the technology of autonomous vehicles improve overtime, so will road safety. By contrast, there are no reported crash incidents tied to Uber's self-driving vehicles in Pittsburgh.

Uber hasn't explained why it's resuming self-driving operations so rapidly after the incident, although it's safe to presume that the company might be confident that the crash didn't stem from any underlying problems with its autonomous testing, thus warranting resumption.

Even so, the crash comes at a generally troubling time for Uber, who has met a trove of controversies over the past few months. Issues circling around its bleak picture of workplace culture, supposed bad business decisions, a lawsuit, and CEO Travis Kalanick's personality have all contributed to Uber's string of tense press coverage.

There have already been many issues beforehand, but a significant one, in which Uber users kicked a #DeleteUber campaign into high gear, was the starting point of its seemingly continued endless strain of woes. This, of course, refers to Uber's alleged exploitation of Trump's now-blocked immigration ban, in which it turned off surge pricing for Uber drivers driving around a location where cab drivers were holding a protest.

The campaign to delete Uber calmed a bit but not for long. It was reared into effect once again, when Susan J. Fowler, a former Uber engineer, published a scathing tell-all detailing the company's horrifying treatment of sexual abuse and harassment in the workplace, the reports of which primarily went ignored, downplayed, and even used against the individual who was reporting such instances.

It didn't end there. Alongside the flurry of similar sexual abuse reports compelled by the publication of Fowler's blog post, Kalanick was also caught on video arguing heatedly with an Uber driver. The driver, one of the company's original drivers, was lamenting at Uber's bad business practices and was accusing Kalanick of not caring about the financial welfare of drivers like him. Suffice it to say that the argument did not end well.

The troubles spurred Kalanick to admit that he needed leadership. As of this moment, Uber is looking for a chief operating officer to do exactly that.

Uber's self-driving efforts, however, are being challenged by Google's self-driving unit Waymo, which alleges that Otto, a company Uber acquired, stole plans and blueprints detailing Google's proprietary driverless technology.

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Right on track to make history this week, SpaceX has test-fired its Falcon 9 rocket whose first stage blasted the Dragon capsule toward the International Space Station (ISS) in April 2016.

The two-stage booster will lift the SES-10 communications satellite on March 30, Thursday, in the first orbital mission to employ a used rocket and demonstrate founder Elon Musks promise of reusable rocket technology and lower launch costs. The historic event is poised to happen from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Setting The Stage For Thursday Launch

Static fire test complete, company representatives wrote on Twitter, also marking Thursday as the launch day of SES-10.

SpaceX briefly fired the nine Merlin 1D engines of the previously flown Falcon 9 in the pre-flight test at 2 p.m. EDT, which shut down around three seconds later. A thick white cloud conquered the afternoon skies of pad 39A, rapidly dissipating afterward.

The move, also known as a hot-fire test, is a routine pre-flight practice for the company to assist engineers in gauging the rockets readiness for launch. Once the test yields good results, SpaceX should be good to go with its Thursday launch at 6 p.m., the start of a 2.5-hour window.

According to forecasters, one can expect 70 percent chance of acceptable weather on launch day.

Airbus Defense and Spaces SES-10 satellite is poised to provide direct-to-home (DTH) television and high-speed data services in Latin America and the Caribbean. Luxembourg-based SES was SpaceXs earliest commercial customer and the first to sign up as a passenger on its booster.

We believe reusable rockets will open up a new era of spaceflight, and make access to space more efficient in terms of cost and manifest management, said SES CTO Martin Halliwell in a statement, looking back at their first launch with the rocket builder in 2013.

The Buzz Around Reusable Rockets

The Thursday launch will mark the private spaceflight firms fourth launch so far this year, following the blasting of 10 Iridium NEXT satellites to space in January, an ISS resupply mission in February, and an EchoStar satellites launch last March 16.

SpaceX has always touted its development of reusable rockets, and since its founding in 2002 has landed the first stages of Falcon 9 in eight orbital missions. Thursday will be historic in that it will be the first time that the company will ever re-fly one of the landed boosters.

"In order for us to really open up access to space, we've got to achieve full and rapid reusability, Musk said back in April. And being able to do that for the primary rocket booster is going to be a huge impact on cost.

Each Falcon 9 rocket is priced at $54 million, and fuel for every mission costs roughly about $200,000. The latest count puts SpaceXs recovered rockets at eight: five by sea and three by land.

Some Falcon 9 first stages landed near launch sites, but rockets carrying payloads to distant orbits typically do not contain enough fuel to go all the way back to terra firma, hence landing on autonomous drone ships at sea.

The first-ever recovered rocket  proudly displayed at SpaceXs California headquarters  was also the first to fare well in a drone ship landing. It was the second to successfully land in general, the first returning at Cape Canaveral in December 2015.

SpaceX seeks to not just pilot reusable rockets in the spaceflight industry, but also introduce Universal Internet to establish high-speed internet with Mars from Earth.

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A Tesla Model X vehicle on Autopilot was involved in a minor collision with a Phoenix police motorcycle last week, but nothing serious happened.

The Tesla Autopilot technology has previously stirred a great deal of controversy last year, when the first fatal Tesla car crash occurred, but this time things were not nearly as severe.

Tesla Autopilot Accident In Phoenix, Arizona

According to local publication The Arizona Republic, Phoenix police confirmed on Monday that a slight accident occurred when a Tesla Model X and a police officer on duty exited the Black Canyon Freeway heading to Utopia Road last week, on March 21.

The police officer was reportedly riding his motorcycle in front of the Tesla and stopped at a stoplight. The Tesla vehicle reportedly stopped only briefly, then started moving forward. The police officer jumped off the motorcycle and moved away, so the Tesla Model X only struck the fallen bike. Neither vehicle suffered any damage, or at least none was reported.

The police officer said the Tesla vehicle was moving at roughly 3 miles per hour. The driver behind the wheel of the Tesla Model X said the car was operating in Autopilot mode at the time of the accident, but investigators could not confirm this, said Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Alan Pfohl.

The collision went under the radar until now because it was so minor, and it doesn't even warrant any further investigation. No vehicle was damaged, no driver was harmed and no citations were issued.

Pfohl said it was basically just a "tap," and it wouldn't have even been considered an accident under other circumstances.

"It wasn't even a reportable collision. If it wasn't involving an officer, we would not have even investigated it," he explained.

The police report has not been released yet, as it's still pending approval. Authorities have not disclosed the name of the Tesla driver or the police officer involved in the minor collision.

Tesla Autopilot Mode

Tesla's Autopilot mode is not designed as a fully automated driving technology, but more of an assistive one. It requires a human driver to be behind the wheel and remain engaged at all times. Tesla also notes that drivers should be in command of the cars after exiting highways, not rely on Autopilot.

So far, Tesla has been adding a number of advanced Autopilot features such as automatic braking, forward collision warning, auto steering and more, but no Tesla vehicle is fully self-driving.

Fully autonomous driving technology still has a way to go before it's ready and safe to hit the roads, but it's not there yet.

Just a few days ago, concerns regarding the safety of autonomous vehicles intensified again after a self-driving Uber car got into an accident in Tempe, Arizona. Uber suspended its autonomous driving testing program following the crash. The car was in self-driving mode at the time of the accident, with a human driver behind the wheel and another person in the passenger seat. No one was injured in that accident either, albeit the Uber self-driving car flipped onto its side.

Arizona does not require special permits or licensing for autonomous driving vehicles, which is why it's a go-to venue for testing self-driving technology for companies such as Tesla, Uber and others.

Until the technology gets more advanced, however, accidents are bound to happen during testing. On the bright side, these were minor collisions with no injuries.

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Australian scientists are recruiting budding or amateur stargazers in the search for the elusive ninth planet believed to orbit the solar system.

Astronomers from the Australian National University recently released thousands of images for the public to help pinpoint the location of Planet Nine, which is speculated to be located beyond Neptune and Pluto.

Planet Discoverers

The thousands of images were captured by the SkyMapper telescope at the universitys observatory in New South Wales. The robotic telescope has been producing a digital map of the southern sky, prompting researchers to share the output to anyone interested in discovering the theorized planet.

[B]ecause it's produced hundreds of thousands of images we're inviting the public, everyone, to access our images and try and find this planet," said ANU astronomer Dr. Brad Tucker in an ABC News report.

Planet Nine is merely a working title, and stargazers have been promised a chance to naming it if they spot it on the website showcasing the digital images. Rules set by the International Astronomical Union, however, will guide the naming.

A similar public search dubbed Backyard Worlds, a search of the northern sky, was launched by NASA last month.

How The Search Works

"If this planet exists, it's already in one of our thousands and thousands of images," Tucker told the BBC, explaining that using the website is much like spot the difference.

After clicking a certain object on the images, the site will provide calculations and determine if it lies on an orbit fitting the planets proposed position and characteristics. The site will then transmit the information to the scientists, who will track the answers with their telescopes from around the world.

The team is expecting the project will last a few months.

But the bulk of it we hope to plough through really quick, Tucker added.

Elusive Ninth Planet

Calculations from January 2016 suggest Planet Nine may be orbiting the sun, despite the fact that it is yet to be eyeballed by scientists. It has been projected to be about 10 times the size of Earth and 800 times more distant from the sun.

According to Tucker, experts concluded that the planet existed after a study of Plutos orbit, which could have been affected by another planets gravity. Neptune was predicted the actual same way, he revealed.

Recent findings from New Mexico State University researchers showed that Planet Nine could actually be a rogue planet, a free-moving object not bound to a specific star in the past, and eventually got snatched into our solar system by the gravitational pull of the sun.

The solar system currently has eight recognized planets, after Pluto was demoted in 2006. But science is still all agog with the prospect of finding so many more, with a group proposing a new way to classify planets and potentially bringing the count to over 100.

Johns Hopkins Universitys Kirby Runyon and colleagues, defining a planet as "a sub-stellar mass body that has never undergone nuclear fusion, proposed that factors defining a celestial objects planetary qualifications should depend on the body itself, not just things such as location.

And based on this proposed definition, Jupiter moon Europa and our own moon would be classifiable as planets.

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By turning in his badge years earlier than expected, Col. Mike Edmonson walked away from tens of thousands of dollars in retirement benefits he could have earned had he remained State Police superintendent through Gov. John Bel Edwards' administration.

But he still will pocket an annual pension of $128,559, according to figures released Monday by the Louisiana State Police Retirement System. The system's board will consider Edmonson's benefits at its meeting next month but is expected to approve them.

Edmonson, 58, Louisiana's longest-serving State Police superintendent, retired last week following a tumultuous month in which his leadership increasingly was called into question.

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Among other controversies, he struggled to explain an embarrassing "side trip" that several high-ranking troopers took to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas last year as they drove to a law enforcement conference in San Diego, driving hundreds of miles out of their way and charging taxpayers for overtime and pricey hotel rooms.

That excursion prompted a series of state investigations into State Police travel and is expected to result in disciplinary action against the troopers involved.

Edmonson's pension benefited from a hefty $43,000 raise he received in August, a 32 percent pay boost that hiked his salary to $177,436. But because he stepped down on Friday, less than a year after receiving the raise, his so-called final average compensation remained significantly below its potential. That figure is based upon a state employee's highest-paid three years of service.

"This wasn't the perfect time" to retire, Edmonson acknowledged Monday, "but it was the right time."

Edmonson initially planned to remain on leave for a couple of weeks following his departure, having accumulated hundreds of hours of compensatory time over his 37-year career. But he said in an interview Monday that state regulations prohibit the "double encumbering" of the superintendent position, meaning he could not remain on the payroll for any length of time following Edwards' appointment last week of Maj. Kevin Reeves as interim superintendent.

Reeves, a veteran trooper from north Louisiana, formally took the reins of the agency on Saturday and is expected to remain at the helm until June, when Edwards names Edmonson's permanent successor.

Edmonson said he intends to donate his more than 200 hours of comp time to a fund "for troopers who need it during an emergency."

"I'll lose those hours I could have taken off, but I can donate them to somebody that may need them," he said. "I'm about helping people."

Still, Edmonson said he expects to receive a payout for up to 300 hours of unused sick and annual leave. He said it's unclear when he will receive that supplemental benefit.

Edmonson's retirement benefits are unusually complex to calculate because of a decision he made to participate in the state's now-defunct Deferred Retirement Option Program, known as the old DROP. He entered the program as a captain and, at the time, was looking at a far lower pension because troopers' benefits were frozen at their average three years of highest compensation prior to entering DROP, even if they continued to work.

Lawmakers altered the DROP program in 2009, allowing troopers, and many other retirees, to enter what's known as "back DROP" and to calculate their pension benefits based on the highest 36 months of pay from the date of their actual retirement.

In an effort to boost Edmonson's benefits  and those of one other similarly situated trooper  state Sen. Neil Riser, R-Columbia, added an amendment to an unrelated bill that passed on the final day of the 2014 legislative session. The legislation, which would have ensured Edmonson's pension was based on his higher salary as a colonel, generated a maelstrom of controversy and a lawsuit.

The so-called "Edmonson amendment" would have allowed Edmonson to calculate his retirement as if he had never entered DROP. Had it stayed in place, he would be taking home $15,079 more a year in retirement income than the amount he ultimately had to settle for.

Edmonson ultimately said he would not accept the enhanced benefits, and the State Police retirement board also rejected the changes.

In the interview Monday, Edmonson described the transition to civilian life as "extremely different" and a change that will take time.

"I've been used to a very high-paced work style, lots of moving parts and different things going on," he said. "I need some time to kind of reconnect with the world outside of State Police."

He said he will stay in touch with Reeves in the coming weeks and will remain the "biggest cheerleader" of the State Police.

"My intention is still to be part of the community of Baton Rouge and the entire state," he said. "I'm a trooper for life."

WWL-TV reporter Katie Moore contributed to this report.
After years of winning elections by vowing to banish President Barack Obama's landmark Affordable Care Act to history, some of the law's critics seemed surprised after the first Trump-era attempt died in the House last week that the country didn't have the appetite to do so after all.

They wouldn't have been if they were paying close attention to what's happening in states and communities around the country. Even conservative states, where running against "Obamacare" has been a winning political strategy. Even Louisiana.

It's true that, in the years leading up to last week's epic failure of the American Health Care Act, which both President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan lobbied their fellow Republicans like crazy to pass, voters sent many an anti-ACA politician to Washington.

In the 2014 Senate election, Republican Bill Cassidy built an entire winning campaign on his allegation that Democratic incumbent Mary Landrieu had sided with the locally unpopular president over Louisianans, with her vote for the health care bill as Exhibit A. In 2016, John Kennedy won an open seat after simply proclaiming, over and over again, that "Obamacare sucks." When I moderated a Senate forum during the primary last year and asked whether candidates would vote to fix the bill's problems, or only support legislation to repeal, all three Republicans on the dais said repeal only. The answer was entirely predictable, given that it was still a matter of GOP orthodoxy that the law couldnt be salvaged and simply had to go.

At the same time, though, a different sentiment was quietly taking hold below the level of national political rhetoric.

During the 2015 gubernatorial election, Democratic and Republican candidates alike, supported by health care industry and business leaders, said they'd reverse outgoing Gov. Bobby's Jindal's ideologically driven rejection of a Medicaid expansion that would come mostly at federal expense. After he was elected, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards quickly enacted the expansion, which now covers more than 400,000 Louisianans, and has faced almost no blowback among his GOP-leaning politicians or voters.

And in home after home, people were coming to rely on the knowledge that they would be able to get health care even if they have pre-existing conditions, could keep their young adult children on their plans, could count on maternity and mental health coverage and wouldn't face lifetime coverage caps should something catastrophic happen. Polls showed that while the overall idea of "Obamacare" was unpopular, many of its provisions weren't. And when people complained, it was often because the law did not do enough to keep premium and deductible levels down, not that it did too much.

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So with both Congress and the White House in Republican hands and the possibility of repealing the law suddenly realistic, the politics of repeal shifted. Republican governors and senators started talking about the upside of Medicaid expansion in their states, and of guaranteed coverage for things like substance abuse. Thousands of citizens stormed town hall meetings to tell stories of how the ACA had helped them, and just as noteworthy, few bothered to show up to demand its repeal.

The arch-conservative Freedom Caucus dealt the death knell in the House, after earning concessions from President Donald Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan. But it was more moderate House members and senators who cringed over the reality of what repeal would cost their constituents, both under the original proposal and under the even more austere Freedom Caucus-negotiated version, which removed guaranteed coverage for key benefits but still didnt go far enough to win members' votes.

Even Cassidy, a former Charity system doctor, started singing a different tune.

While House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Metairie, a key member of Ryan's leadership team, sought to undermine the Congressional Budget Office's projection that the GOP plan would cause 24 million Americans to lose coverage, Cassidy conceded that the prospect was "awful." He joined with his moderate colleague Susan Collins of Maine in introducing a separate proposal that would allow states to stay with the Affordable Care Act if they chose. He also wrote a fact-based column in a Washington newspaper challenging three widely-embraced conservative "myths."

If there is a future attempt to fix what's still wrong with the ACA, this is much closer to the tone it will take. And after all these years of political rhetoric that turned out to be stunningly empty, it's about time.
Jim McCrery, who retired from Congress in 2009 and now works as a lobbyist, could be called Louisiana's original Republican health care wonk. He's the guy who once hired a summer intern named Bobby Jindal, asked him to research ways to reform the Medicare system, and well, we all know the rest of that story.

But while Jindal, who quickly rose through the ranks as a state and federal health care bureaucrat, has done nothing but trash President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, McCrery weighed in this week on MSNBC with a very different take.

Following last week's implosion  or are we supposed to say explosion now?  of the repeal/replace bill pushed by President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan, McCrery said that Republicans basically have two options, and that keeping Obamacare is the more conservative of the two.

"You have to have something like Obamacare if you want a health care system that gets as many people covered as possible that's not single payer," McCrery said. "That's what Republicans have to realize sooner or later. That's their choice."

Those are fighting words in today's Republican Party. But, as McCrery explained, the law Obama signed after winning only Democratic votes actually has its roots in conservatism.

In fact, it sounds remarkably close to a plan he once backed. McCrery supported an individual mandate to ensure widespread participation and spreading of risk, a minimum benefit package, subsidies for low-income customers, measures to prevent high-cost patients from having to pay more, and a reinsurance fund to bolster insurers that wind up with too many expensive patients.

"A private health insurance system, which I believe can manage the provision of health care better (and) more efficiently than government, needs to have a large pool of insureds in order to succeed," McCrery said. "Anything less leads to coverage gaps in the population that will eventually become politically untenable, leading to a government-run single-payer system."

He also argued in favor of a fix to the current system aimed at luring insurers back into markets they've abandoned. That would reverse an initiative barring such a move by Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, who ran against Trump (and briefly, Jindal) in the 2016 GOP primaries.

None of this would have sounded at all radical to Republicans two decades ago; that it does now says a whole lot about how much the party has changed. And so does the fact that it takes someone who no longer has to worry about party politics to say it out loud.
U.S. Sen. John Kennedy on Monday took a shot at Gov. John Bel Edwards and his aides for what he called a "Three Stooges-like performance" overseeing the state's $1.6 billion recovery program for flood victims.

An Edwards spokesman responded that Kennedy was spreading "false information" and trying to score political points at the expense of the good of the state.

State officials have been preparing to award a lucrative contract to a management firm to oversee the rebuilding program for victims of the state's 2016 floods. After reviewing five proposals, state officials decided to award a $250 million contract to North Carolina-based IEM.

However, the award was tossed out after the attorney for the state Licensing Board for Contractors said that IEM and the second-place bidder, PDRM, didn't have the proper contracting licenses at the time they submitted their proposals. IEM has since filed a lawsuit challenging that decision.

Larry Bankston was the attorney who issued the opinion, and his son, Ben, is a regional manager for a company that is owned by the firm that ranked third among the five bidders for the contract and was in line to get the award after the top two were disqualified.

In his statement, Kennedy said that "anyone who knows a law book from a Sears and Roebuck catalog can see that Sen. Larry Bankston has a conflict."

"The Division of Administration and the committee Gov. Edwards put in charge of the recovery have once again turned in a Three Stooges-like performance," Kennedy said in a statement. "The legal opinion they relied on, done by an attorney (and former state senator) whose son worked for one of the contract bidders, has now resulted in even further delay in getting money that the U.S. Congress appropriated seven months ago in the hands of our people."

He added that the appearance of impropriety would make it more difficult to persuade Congress to appropriate more money to victims of the catastrophic August floods.

"Members of Congress and their staff read newspapers too," he said. "And the stench they have been reading about hurts our cause mightily."

Richard Carbo, a spokesman for Edwards, said the state has not caused any "delay in getting assistance to homeowners but, rather, is working within the guidelines of the federal approval process."

"Sen. Kennedy is purposefully choosing to mislead the public and spread false information to homeowners who are still recovering from last year's historic floods," he said. "It would be to Sen. Kennedy's advantage to educate himself on this process since he is our state's voice on the Appropriations Committee.

"At a time when Louisiana is seeking an additional $2 billion to help families and businesses who lost everything in the floods, we should be speaking with one voice for the people of our state, but as is always the case, Sen. Kennedy is looking out for himself," Carbo said.

The original request for proposals was canceled last week and reopened for a fresh round of solicitations. Officials with Edwards' administration said it was canceled because of confusion about which licenses were required and because the original bids were more expensive than projected. Responses to the new solicitation are due April 7, with the winning bidder to be chosen by April 13.

Last week, when The Advocate first reported about Ben Bankston's relationship to the third-place applicant, SLSCO, Larry Bankston said he had been unaware of the potential conflict at the time he issued his opinion.

Billy Sullivan, a co-owner of SLSCO, said the company Ben Bankston works for would not have been involved in the contract work and would not have benefited financially from the award.

The Edwards administration officials said they were unaware of the conflict even at the time they decided to restart the bid process. They also noted that Larry Bankston was hired directly by the licensing board at a time when Edwards had no appointees serving on the board.

Carbo noted that the funds appropriated by Congress have not yet been released to the state.

"Sen. Kennedy's time would be best spent improving efficiencies within the federal government to expedite assistance to homeowners, as the governor has requested, but he has not made a single attempt to do that," Carbo said.
Relatives of La. soldier missing from Korean War still hope for identification of his remains

Relatives of La. soldier missing from Korean War still hope for identification of his remains
The Australian National University has called on the public to help scour through images of the southern sky taken by the ANU SkyMapper telescope at Siding Spring to assist in the search for a new planet in our solar system, the so-called Planet 9.

ANU astrophysicist Dr Tucker is leading the project which is being launched by Professor Brian Cox during a BBC Stargazing Live broadcast from the ANU Siding Spring Observatory.

Planet 9 is predicted to be a super Earth, about 10 times the mass and up to four times the size of our planet. Credit:ANU

Dr Tucker said astronomers had long discussed the likelihood of a ninth planet on the outer edges of the solar system, but nothing had been found yet.

"We have the potential to find a new planet in our solar system that no human has ever seen in our two-million-year history," he said.
Canberra woman Judy Bamberger dared Israeli authorities to arrest her when she arrived in the country last week and they didn't.

Ms Bamberger defied a new law that forbids entry to foreign nationals who call for economic, cultural or academic boycotts of either Israel or the settlements.

Judy Bamberger pictured in August 2015. Credit:Jamila Toderas

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade notified Australians of the new law in its travel advice for Israel.

"Israeli authorities have advised that travellers who arrive with the intention of protesting Israeli policies [including as part of flotillas] may be refused entry to Israel and returned to their country of embarkation on the next available flight," the Smart Traveller website says.
The ACT government is in the market to give inmates at the Alexander Maconochie Centre a wardrobe overhaul.

On the government's shopping list are 800 pairs of black track pants, 1000 pairs of black thongs and 1500 pairs of men's and women's black underwear.

Inmates at the Alexander Maconochie Centre are due for a wardrobe overhaul. Credit:Clare Sibthorpe

The requirements are set in a request for tender document released by the Justice and Community Safety Directorate earlier this week.

As many as 440 inmates are housed at the AMC, a minimum-to-maximum security facility with both male and female detainees.
Telstra is the latest Australian company to join the global advertiser boycott of YouTube over fears its brand was being associated with bigoted or extremist content.

The telecommunications giant said on Tuesday it was working with YouTube owner Google to ensure its strict advertising guidelines were upheld, but in the meantime was suspending ads from the video platform.

Telstra, worth around 3 per cent of the ASX200, was easily the biggest drag on the market, falling 7.5 per cent. Credit:Craig Sillitoe

"We have made the decision to pause our advertising on YouTube until we are satisfied there is an appropriate level of protection for our brand," a Telstra spokesman said.

Telstra had been made aware that a pre-roll video advertisement and a side banner were running on a video published by a "men's rights activist" that attacked writer and Fairfax Media columnist Clementine Ford.
Australians could be able to buy everything from takeaway and groceries to electronics and clothing from Amazon's greatly expanded online offering by the end of next year.

Amazon might be fully operational in Australia by the end of 2018.

This means Amazon might offer a vast array of products from its flagship website, plus launch an Australian version of its Prime Now program, which provides fast shipping to members on a huge range of products, from groceries to hot meals.

It is also expected to offer Amazon Fresh, its online grocery delivery service.
The environmental and economic case against single-use plastic bags is so compelling that it beggars belief Australia's lawmakers continue to fail to react adequately.

These bags pollute land and sea, waste scarce resources, contaminate the food chain and choke and poison many creatures. Plastic bags are used for a matter of minutes, but can linger as pollution and landfill for many years.

It's in our hands. Credit:John Veage

More and more countries are eradicating the problem, primarily through levies or outright bans.

But Australia  one of the wealthiest nations and therefore one with a population less sensitive to waste and the cost of dealing with garbage  is yet to come up with a national strategy.
In her strongest remarks yet on Donald Trump, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the US President was "driving an economic nationalist agenda", indicating his policies are considered an economic threat to Australia.

Addressing Australia's ambassadors who have been called together for the first time to brainstorm ways to weather global turbulence, Ms Bishop said on Tuesday morning a retreat towards nationalism is reversing a trend that has underpinned Australia's success.

Ms Bishop pointedly noted that post-World War II economic integration has been "historically supported by United States leadership" and later deepened by China's opening up  all to the benefit of Australia.

But she then added that "in the last year, a counter trend has gathered steam".
Time for me to call it a day. What happened?

company bosses are in town to do a bit of (very) last minute lobbying on company tax cuts ;

are in town to do a bit of (very) last minute lobbying on ; compare this with new unions boss Sally McManus saying the very rich have too much power ;

saying the ; there is only one sitting day left before the six week pre-budget break and the tax cuts are the government's highest priority ;

and the ; question time - again - descended into a debate about character ;

- again - descended into a ; both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader would like to head into the break having scored some points; and

and would like to head into the break having scored some points; and former speaker Peter Slipper was in town to unveil an official portrait of himself.

My thanks to Andrew Meares and Alex Ellinghausen for their super work and to you for reading and commenting.

You can follow me on Facebook.

Alex, Andrew and I will be back in the morning. Until then, good night.
Nobody cares about your smooth, glitch-and-accident-free holiday stories. They're boring. Bring on the disasters and schadenfreude kicks to produce a fascinated audience. So this is an unhappy travel story about how you can lose thousands of dollars by trying to save tens.

It is a story of a double shafting, first by a dodgy online travel agency, then by an expensive, "reputable" travel insurance company. Yes, yet another case of the full insurance premium not resulting in full coverage, but first it's a warning not to trust third-rate foreign online travel agencies masquerading as Australian operations.

You don't want to be under-insured when travelling as you can get caught with new expenses when things go wrong. Credit:Rodrigo Abd

The "com.au" at the end of an URL doesn't mean a thing when you're really giving your money to and placing your trust in an entity registered in The Netherlands (ie. a tax haven) and operating out of a call centre in India, an entity such as BudgetAir.com.au or any of its many online variations. The following traveller's tale is fully documented and comes from a reliable source I'll call Gulliver to spare embarrassment.

To save a few dollars, Gulliver Googled and Kayaked and Skyscannered to find the cheapest route for an August holiday that finished with flying to Sydney from Havana. A wiser traveller might have wondered when the computer said BudgetAir.com.au for Air China CA880 from Havana to Montreal on Monday, August 22, connecting with Air Canada to LA for the Qantas flight home that night, but Gully booked and paid for it on May 17.
Cyclone Debbie: Queensland cleans up as storm moves inland

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Uber employs a relative dearth of women and racial minorities, particularly in technical roles, the company said Tuesday  another example of the lack of diversity that persists across the technology industry.

The ride-hailing company, which made public its data on employee diversity for the first time, said that women make up 36.1 per cent of Uber's global workforce and 32.9 per cent of its employees in the United States and Canada, but they hold just 15.4 per cent of technical positions.

Women make up 36.1 per cent of Uber's global workforce. Credit:Getty Images

In the United States, the numbers are starker for racial minorities, the data shows. Uber employees identifying as Asian make up 30.9 per cent of the ride-hailing company's US workforce and hold 47.9 per cent of technical roles. Meanwhile, black employees make up 8.8 per cent of the U.S. workforce and just 1 per cent of technical roles. For Hispanics, the breakdown was 5.6 per cent and 2.1 per cent, respectively.

According to the data, nearly 50 per cent of the company's US workforce and 46.2 per cent of employees in technical roles identify as white.
A man has been arrested after a six-hour siege in Bendigo which saw scores of police descend on a residential area, plunging local families into chaos.

The man was taken into custody about 6.30pm after heavily armed critical incident response police stormed the Howard Street home he was holed up in.

A woman believed to be the man's mother was taken beyond police roadblocks before 5pm as the siege with the person, who was believed to be armed, dragged on.

The siege lasted six hours on Monday as police try to negotiate with the man barricaded inside a property in the suburb of Jackass Flat.
A Victorian school has axed an assignment that asked students to create "attractive" packaging for an illegal drug.

Rosehill Secondary College principal Peter Rouse said the project was scrapped after a parent raised concerns.

Police charged 45 people with drug-related offences.

"I can see how, out of context, it doesn't look all that good," Mr Rouse said.
Beijing: Chinese authorities have revealed how police in Guangdong uncovered a drug ring operating between China and Australia in a five-month long investigation that led to the seizure of a $100 million ice haul.

As the Turnbull government argues that the failure to ratify a controversial extradition treaty with China may jeopardise future cooperation on drug smuggling, Chinese media reported the extent of the Chinese investigations that led to the three arrests in Australia announced on Monday.

China and Australia cooperated on the operation that led to the ice bust this week.

It appears the announcement by Australian police of the drug bust came after Chinese police were successful in arresting the two alleged ringleaders in Dongguan, a city in southern Guangdong province.

The director of drug enforcement at Guangdong's Public Security Bureau, Deng Jianwei, said Guangdong police noticed in November that the gang, led by a Hong Kong man, was trying to move the drugs from mainland China to Australia.
London: The wife of Khalid Masood says she is "saddened and shocked" by his attack on Westminster and "totally" condemns his actions.

In a statement released via the Press Association, Rohey Hydara expressed her condolences for Masood's four victims and the 50 more people who were injured last Wednesday during his attack. Masood used a rented vehicle to mow down pedestrians on the Westminster Bridge before stabbing a police officer outside the Houses of Parliament, where he was himself shot dead.

Ms Hydara also called for privacy for her and her children.

"I am saddened and shocked by what Khalid has done. I totally condemn his actions," she said. "I express my condolences to the families of the victims that have died, and wish a speedy recovery to all the injured.
Scottish lawmakers have voted in Edinburgh to pursue a second independence referendum, setting up what may be a lengthy and acrimonious showdown within the UK in the midst of Brexit negotiations.

The Scottish parliament voted 69 to 59 on Tuesday to allow First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to request the legal means from the UK authorities to hold the plebiscite by spring 2019. The result was expected after the Greens said they would support Sturgeon's Scottish National Party, ensuring a majority in the legislature.

The vote, which was postponed from last week because of the terrorist attack outside the UK Parliament in London, comes a day before the UK triggers two years of talks on withdrawing from the European Union, something that Scotland opposes.

Prime Minister Theresa May, who met Ms Sturgeon in Glasgow on Monday as she tries to muster nationwide support for Brexit, has repeatedly rebuffed the plan for another Scottish referendum.
Gently Down the Stream, starring Harvey Fierstein and Gabriel Ebert, has received a three-week extension at the Public Theater and will now play through May 14. The new play from scribe Martin Sherman is directed by Sean Mathias and officially opens April 5. Check out photos from the production in the gallery below.

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Fierstein plays Beau, an American expat living in London, who meets Rufus (Ebert), an eccentric young lawyer, at the dawn of the internet dating revolution. After a life spent recovering from the disappointment and hurt of loving men in a world that refused to allow it, Beau is determined to keep his expectations low with Rufus. But Rufus comes from a new generation of gay men who believe happiness is as much their right as anyone else's, and what Beau assumed would be just another fling grows into one of the most surprising and defining relationships of his life.

Tony winners Fierstein and Ebert are joined by Christopher Sears, who completes the cast. The production features scenic design by Derek McLane, costume design by Michael Krass, lighting design by Peter Kaczorowski, and sound design by Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen.

For tickets and more information, click here.
Emmy and Obie Award winner John Leguizamo's newest solo show, Latin History for Morons opened last night, Monday, March 27, at the Public Theater. Tony Taccone directs, as part of a coproduction with Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Performances are scheduled through April 9. Check out photos from the opening-night celebration in the gallery below.

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Inspired by the near total absence of Latinos in his son's American history class, Latin History for Morons is Leguizamo's frenzied search to find a Latin hero for his son's school project. From a mad recap of the Aztec empire to stories of unknown Latin patriots of the Revolutionary War and beyond, Leguizamo breaks down the 3,000 years between the Mayans and Ricky Ricardo into an irreverant and concise history lesson.

The creative team includes Rachel Hauck (scenic design), Alexander V. Nichols (lighting design), and Bray Poor (original music and sound design).

For tickets and more information, click here.
Nissan GT-R Track Edition Set For U.S. Debut at 2017 New York Auto Show

NASHVILLE, Tenn.  Among Nissan GT-R enthusiasts, 2017 is turning out to be a milestone year. The model year started with a major makeover for both the GT-R Premium and GT-R NISMO  and caps off with the North American debut of the limited production GT-R Track Edition at the New York International Auto Show. The show runs April 14 - 23 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center.

As the third model in the GT-R lineup, the Track Edition occupies a unique position between the T (touring) and R (racing) sides of the GT-R equation. Designed to deliver a higher level of performance than the GT-R Premium, the Track Edition features elements of the flagship GT-R NISMO, though retaining the GT-R Premium models 565-horsepower engine rating (versus the GT-R NISMOs 600-horsepower version). The new GT-R Track Edition has a starting MSRP1 of $127,990 and will be available late summer 2017 by order only at GT-R certified Nissan dealers nationwide.

The new GT-R Track Edition gives buyers a specialized model, one true to GT-R heritage and available only by special order, said Michael Bunce, vice president, Product Planning, Nissan North America, Inc. Building on the major upgrade to every GT-R for 2017, the Track Edition is an amazing package inside, outside and under the skin.

The new GT-R Track Editions performance-oriented features start with the bodys additional adhesive bonding (in addition to spot welding), which helps increase body shell rigidity versus the GT-R Premium model. Next, the advanced 4-wheel independent suspension receives unique NISMO tuning, with reduced weight and additional roll stiffness (versus GT-R Premium), as well as NISMO-spec tires.

Other standard equipment includes GT-R NISMO front fenders, 20-inch NISMO forged aluminum-alloy wheels and a special dry carbon-fiber rear spoiler2. Inside, the Track Edition interior includes a unique red and black color treatment with high-grip, motorsports-inspired Recaro seats.

About the 2017 Nissan GT-R Track Edition

The 2017 Nissan GT-R Track Editions dynamic styling is both attractive and functional. The aggressive front end is dominated by the large Nissan signature V-motion grille, which provides enhanced engine cooling (versus the previous GT-R design) and features a matte chrome finish and an updated mesh pattern. The reinforced hood helps enhance stability during high speed driving. The use of adhesive bonding (in addition to spot welding) helps increase body shell rigidity for mounting of the NISMO-tuned suspension.

The GT-R Track Editions sporty red and black interior features standard leather-appointed Recaro front bucket seats. The simplified switch layout includes just 11 switches, along with an 8-inch capacitive touch panel monitor. The standard steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters allow drivers to make mid-turn gear changes without taking their hands off the wheel.

The GT-R Track Edition also includes standard NissanConnectSM with Navigation, Mobile Apps and Services, which allows users to use a smartphone to remotely lock or unlock the car doors, activate the alarm, summon emergency services or track the car if it is stolen (SiriusXM subscription required, sold separately). Also standard is a RearView Monitor.

Like the 2017 GT-R Premium, the GT-R Track Edition offers a 565 horsepower hand-assembled twin-turbo VR38DETT 3.8-liter V6 engine. Torque is rated at 467 lb-ft. A Titanium exhaust system is standard. All GT-R engines are hand-assembled from beginning to end in a special clean room by specially trained technicians known as Takumi, a process similar to racing powerplant construction. An aluminum plate is added to the front of each engine showing the name of the Takumi engine craftsman.

The standard Bose audio sound system includes Active Noise Cancellation and Active Sound Enhancement technologies to filter out unwanted noise and retain excitement during spirited driving. Acoustic glass and targeted sound dampening help reduce the intrusion of wind and road noise into the GT-R Track Edition cabin.

The 2017 GT-R Track Editions refined powerplant is backed by an advanced paddle-shifted sequential 6-speed dual clutch transmission, which can be driver selected to shift at race car-like speeds. High performance differential oil, used in GT-R motorsports competition, is standard.

All 2017 Nissan GT-Rs are built on an exclusive Premium Midship platform, which enables the use of the unique independent rear transaxle ATTESA E-TS all-wheel drive system. This system places the transmission, transfer case and final drive at the rear of the vehicle, optimizing weight distribution and maximizing handling capability.
AeroVironment and eMotorWerks Team Up to Offer Smart Advanced Electric Vehicle Charging Solutions for EV Customers and Utilities

LEARN MORE: Electric Vehicles Solution Or Diversion?

MONROVIA, Calif. & SAN CARLOS, Calif.Both customers and electric utilities across the US are set to gain more options and control over electric vehicle charging through the collaboration of AeroVironment, Inc. , a leader in electric vehicle (EV) charging and the preferred electric vehicle charging solution supplier for eight global automakers, and eMotorWerks, a leading provider of intelligent and cloud-connected smart-grid charging solutions. By integrating eMotorWerks JuiceNet smart-grid EV charging platform into AeroVironments line of consumer and OEM EV charging solutions, both companies aim to provide increased charging capabilities to customers and electric demand load aggregation for utilities.

Our goal is to help our customers succeed by providing them with valuable capabilities, and our new relationship with eMotorWerks helps us achieve that goal, said Ken Karklin, vice president and general manager, Efficient Energy Systems for AeroVironment. Like AeroVironment, eMotorWerks is an innovative company, and working together we look forward to helping EV drivers and utilities proceed with certainty.

AeroVironment charging solutions with integrated eMotorWerks JuiceNet will enable EV drivers to gain benefits that include smartphone, web and Amazon Alexa voice control over charging, real time and historic energy usage for cars, notifications of charging status, load balancing two or more EVSEs on the same electrical circuit to share the load while avoiding tripping breakers, and setting charging schedules that correspond to lower utility rates, saving customers money on charging.

For electric utilities, the JuiceNet integration, via open APIs and industry standards such as OpenADR, makes it possible to aggregate fleets of charging EVs. Such a high level of control over EV charging load allows utilities to modulate energy demand on the grid, and to shift and spread out EV charging loads to times when renewable resources are more abundant or energy rates are lower.

AeroVironment is a recognized industry pioneer and leader in EV charging solutions, said Valery Miftakhov, founder and CEO of eMotorWerks. Drivers and car manufacturers will get the best of both worlds through integrating our cloud solutions with AeroVironments broad range of safe, proven, EV charging solutions. Together we will offer the best products to our customers to power the continued adoption of EVs.

The integration of eMotorWerks market-leading solutions for smart-grid charging enables EV drivers to control their charging via smartphone applications, and in certain geographies, earn frequent charging rewards through eMotorWerks exclusive platform and utility partnerships. Drivers can also optimize the mix of renewable energy used when charging their vehicles. JuiceNet has the capability to increase the relative percentage of renewable energy used to charge a drivers EV by setting the Green Charging feature. Charge times are automatically optimized to match the periods of highest renewable energy generation on the grid. In certain California geographies customers can earn rewards dollars for using this feature, which will be expanding in the future to locations outside of California.

More information about AeroVironments EV charging solutions is available at www.evsolutions.com.

About AeroVironment

AeroVironment provides customers with more actionable intelligence so they can proceed with certainty. Based in California, AeroVironment is a global leader in electric vehicle charging and test systems, and unmanned aircraft systems, and serves businesses, consumers, and government agencies. For more information visit www.avinc.com.

About eMotorWerks

Founded in 2010, and based in the San Francisco Bay Area, eMotorWerks is revolutionizing the electric vehicle (EV) charging market with its JuiceNet-enabled smart grid EV charging solutions. JuiceNet enabled devices, such as the companys connected, high-power JuiceBox charging stations, maximize charging efficiency and speed while providing EV owners intuitive control and visibility. By shifting when and how much electricity JuiceNet-enabled stations draw from the grid, eMotorWerks helps utilities and grid operators reduce electricity costs, ease grid congestion, and maximize the use of solar and wind power. eMotorWerks contracts with grid operators for those services and shares back a portion of proceeds to EV drivers via upfront purchase discounts and ongoing rewards for smart-grid charging. For more information on eMotorWerks, visit www.emotorwerks.com.
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Why did President Donald Trump tell his millions of Twitter followers to tune into Judge Jeanine Pirros Fox News show the same night she opened by calling for Paul Ryan to step down as House speaker? Reince Priebus claimed it was coincidental but The Daily Shows Trevor Noah isnt so sure.

I dont know Judge Jeanine, but if the president is telling me to watch her show, Ive got to watch, Noah said Monday night. I mean, Im on a green card, Im not trying to break the law.

Paul Ryan needs to step down as Speaker of the House, Pirro told viewers Saturday night after the Republican health care bill was scrapped. You come in, with all your swagger and experience, and you sell him a bill of goods which ends up a complete and total failure.

Wow, that Fox News shit was insane, Noah said. In fact, it sounded just like North Koreas propaganda news, he added, before playing a clip of a similarly angry-sounding anchor.

Not only did Pirro blame Ryan, the host explained, but she also heavily defended Trump, in a way that somehow also insulted him.

I want to be clear: this is not on President Trump, Pirro said near the end of her rant. No one expected a businessman to completely understand the nuances, the complicated ins and outs of Washington and its legislative process.

Wait, what? Noah asked in response. No one expected the president to be a president? He said Pirro sounded like a mom whos blaming other kids for something her stupid son did willingly.

Hes the president! Noah exclaimed, before imitating Pirro. Shes like, Paul Ryan, you should know better. You know my son doesnt know anything about health care. Donny trusted you. Hes a slow boy, look at him!
The House Intelligence Committees bipartisan investigation into Russias influence on Americas politics imploded Monday evening.

The probe simply could not withstand the pressure put on it following Republican chairman Devin Nuness strange behavior over the past weekincluding briefing the president before his own committee, and a nighttime dash to the White House grounds to review secret documents.

The committees scheduled meetings for the week have been reportedly canceled.

Given Nuness close ties to the Trump team, and his decision to brief the president on his investigation into the surveillance matter before even informing his own committee, Democratsand a handful of leading Republicansare publicly doubting his ability to oversee the probe.

"I think you put his objectivity in question at the very least," Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told the Today Show Tuesday. Hes gone off on a sort of Inspector Clouseau investigation by himself.

Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee, said in a statement Monday: After much consideration, and in light of the Chairmans admission that he met with his source of information at the White House, I believe that the Chairman should recuse himself from any further involvement in the Russia investigation, as well as any involvement in oversight of matters pertaining to any incidental collection of the Trump transition, as he was also a key member of the transition team.

Two of Schiffs fellow Democrats on the committee, Reps. Jackie Speier and Eric Swalwell, have also called for Nuness recusal. And as the Senate resumed its business Monday afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer went even further, calling for Nunes to be replaced as the committees chairman.

Schiff was more of a hold-out though, saying he hoped Nunes could regain the trust necessary for an independent committee. As recently as Sunday, he was dedicated to keeping the investigation alive. The intelligence committees in Congress have a decades-long tradition of bipartisanship and quiet cooperation. And Schiff has a reputation of being anything but a partisan bomb-thrower.

I am going to do everything I can to get this back on track. And I implore our chairman and the speaker to rededicate themselves to a serious and bipartisan investigation, Schiff said Sunday morning on CBS Face the Nation.

Just one day later, Schiff lost faith in Nunes.

In the interests of a fair and impartial investigation whose results will be respected by the public, the Chairmans recusal is more than warranted, Schiff said Monday. 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.

The collapse of the House Intelligence Committees bipartisan probe shifts the spotlight to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has continued to hold the faith of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The Senate panel will hold its first open hearings later this week.

Nunes drew scrutiny last week for an unexpected bombshell: He held a sudden press conference to allege some members of the Trump transition team might have been picked up through incidental collection during the surveillance of foreign intelligence targets. He then, in a breach of congressional protocol, rushed to the White House to brief the president, even before briefing the committee whose investigation he was leading. He pledged to share that information with his fellow committee members, but as of Monday that still has not occurred.

Odd circumstances began to emerge about what happened the evening before Nuness impromptu press conference. Committee sources told The Daily Beast that Nunes was riding in an Uber with a senior committee staff member Tuesday evening when he received a phone message and abruptly left. Even his senior aides were left in the dark about what Nunes was doing and where he was going.

CNN then later reported that Nunes had visited the White House grounds that night, before his press conference. In an interview Monday evening, Nunes told the network he was on White House grounds because he needed a secure room to view the documents, and Congress did not have access to those files.

I had been working this for a long time with many different sources and needed a place that I could actually finally go, because I knew what I was looking for and I could actually get access to what I needed to see, Nunes said.

After promising not to reveal who gave him this information, Nunes later said it was an intelligence source. He also insisted nothing strange had occurred, and that there was nothing mysterious about his visit to the White House.

If I really wanted to, I could have snuck onto the grounds late at night and probably nobody would have seen me. But I wasnt trying to hide, Nunes told CNN. In fact, I stopped to talk to several people there, just along the way, including, like I said, many foreigners.

Nunes' story has shifted: he said the president's communications were incidentally collected, then later walked it back to say it was merely possible; then later Nunes said he didn't know if the Trump transition team was surveilled or merely mentioned in intelligence reports. Nunes has denied that his actions were orchestrated by the White House, but then admitted Monday that he had visited the White House grounds, which if not sinister at least gave the appearance of impropriety. The changing story lines add a cloud over Nunes' investigation.
Washington, D.C. might be a mess right now, but thats going to end soon, according to Stephen Colbert, because President Donald Trumps son-in-law and leader of the preppy camp across the lake Jared Kushner has been tapped to lead the newly-created White House Office of American Innovation and overhaul the federal government to work more like a business.

And the government desperately needs overhaul, the Late Show host said Monday night. Somebody keeps putting totally unqualified people in charge of really important stuff. Colbert called the new departments title vague, but still better than the original title: The Bureau of Obvious Nepotism.

Kushners job will be to lead a team to fix government with business ideas, Colbert continued. And you know hes got great business ideas, like being born into a wealthy real estate family, or marrying into a wealthy real estate family. Why hasnt the government tried that?

In a statement, Kushner said he believes the government should be run like a great American company.

And if they cant do that, run it like a Trump company, Colbert shot back.
With his multimillion-dollar book deal in hand, Barack Obama has found his ultimate hideaway to pen his White House memoir: Tetiaroa, a private island in the South Pacific once owned by Marlon Brando.

While Tahiti, Bora Bora, and the other islands in the archipelagocollectively known as the Society Islandsare imposing volcanic towers cloaked in a heavy armor of lush tropical canopy, Tetiaroa is low-slung and sandy, a small necklace of coral islets strung together around a quiet lagoon.

A short 20-minute flight on a puddle-jumper links Papeetes international airport (on Tahiti) to Tetiaroas private runway, where miles of navy blue waves suddenly give way to the islands palm-studded halo and minty green shallows.

Something funny happens as you begin your descentyou giggle, marveling at natures ability to create the most idyllic island enclave from an unimaginably vibrant swatch book of colors.

Marlon Brando surely giggled when he first laid eyes on the place while scouting locations to shoot Mutiny on the Bounty. Seven years later he purchased the island for around $200,000, which had long been considered a sacred site for localsin fact, the ruling family in Tahiti often used Tetiaroa for holiday retreats.

Barack Obama first visited in March of this year and presumably giggled too. Its easy to understand why such an intense spell is cast on all who visit, especially since the island swapped its Crusoe vibe for an ultra-luxe retreat (the eponymously named The Brando in 2014).

The Brandos three-dozen standalone villas are generously spaced out directly along two swooshing strands of sand.

Theres a French hospitality credo at the resortthe staff is never in your face, but discreetly paying attention to your needs when they arise. The food, too, is French-inspired: dinnertime has Michelin aspirations, mixing local catches with the international desires of the guests. (The food toes the line between offering local catches, but also catering to the demanding millionaire by serving up chateaubriand.)

Obama will undoubtedly take advantage of the resorts spa to massage away the eight years of White House stress. The facility is itself an architectural marvel, fashioned like spherical, human-sized bird nests hidden between jungle fronds around the islands interior pond.

The best part of the resort, of course, is the natural surrounds: a pristine lagoon setting, with ocean water so clear you can spot sea turtles and sting rays swimming by from your beach chairs.

Days are whiled away snorkeling and paddling your private outrigger, andwithout a single obstruction along the horizonthe islands sunsets are so infinite and fiery, they deserve to be toasted with a glass of champagne every single night that youre on island.

The best activity is the complimentary speedboat ride through the lagoon to other islets in the Tetiaroa belt that are completely pristine and filled with island birds. The water is clear and piercing, almost like neon milk. It is mesmerizing.

Of all the possible destinations to shack up for a month-long stint of memoir writingfrom an Italian palazzo to an Argentinian estanciaits not surprising that Obama has selected Tetiaroa.

He seems to have a thing for private islands, especially after being spotted on Richard Bransons private escape, Necker Island, earlier this year. And, true to form, Obamas getaway style is very much on trend in the realm of luxury jetsetter-dom.

As infrastructure continues to develop and grow in the most remote corners of the globe, so do the opportunities to access exclusive experiences.

Private islands are no longer solely reserved for movie stars and ex-presidents, and theyre no longer isolated to classic getaway destinations like the Caribbean and the Maldives.

Mozambique, for example, has had a boomlet of luxury private island stays buoyed by famed African operator and beyond. Even Madagascars very first private island getaway, Time and Tides Miavana is set to reorient the luxury compass come June, when it officially opens its doors.

While The Brandos price tag (or any of the aforementioned properties) isnt accessible for the average Joe, Obamas temporary island digs are competitively priced when stacked against its nearby competitors in the luxury market: the famously honeymoon-prone resorts of Bora Bora.

At 3000 euros a night, The Brando includes all meals, some alcohol, one massage per day, all non-motorized sports, and one guided activity per day (like a worthwhile visit to the nearby bird sanctuary). During the quieter months (or for longer staying guests like Obama) the property also absorbs the cost of the inter-island flight from Papeete.

And although those Bora Bora bungalows glued to every brides Pinterest board have a rack rate at around half the price, none of them operate under an all-inclusive scheme like The Brando, so those $80 Cobb salads really start to add up fast.

Theres good news for Obama should he decide to turn his private island hopping into a lifestyle instead of a vacation. Pacific Beachcomber, the same developers of The Brando, are starting to sell off pieces of Tetiaroa as private residences.

The first villa, a three-bedroom Polynesia palace, is reportedly worth 6 million euros. Luckily for the Obamas, they could buy one for Sasha, Malia, and each member of the Biden clan with the earnings of their recent $60-million book deal.
The hosts of Fox & Friends asked their colleague Bill OReilly to watch a video of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) speaking on the floor of the House. But he was apparently too distracted by her hair to pay attention to the words she was saying.

We stand up for America oftentimes when others who think they are more patriotic, who say they are more patriotic, do not, Waters said as the split-screen showed OReilly sarcastically nodding along, at point raising his first and mouthing right on into the camera. When we fight against this president, and we point out how dangerous he is for this society and for this country, were fighting for the democracy. Were fighting for America.

I didnt hear a word she said. I was looking at the James Brown wig, OReilly replied, as male hosts Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocy laughed. If we have a picture of James Brown, its the same one.

And [Brown] is not using it anymore. They justthey finally buried him, Kilmeade added.

I have to defend her on that. You cant go after a womans looks, Ainsley Earnhardt said, once she could get a word in over their cackles. I think shes very attractive.

I didn't say she wasnt attractive, OReilly said in response. I love James Brown! But its the same hair that James Brown, the godfather of soul, had. Whatever it is, I just couldnt get past it.

Before the segment ended, OReilly turned on a dime to say to the camera, I love you, Maxine, I want to see you on the Factor, and when hell freezes over Im sure that will happen.

No, the Democratic congresswoman is unlikely to appear on The OReilly Factor after those equally sexist and racist remarks were thrown her way by the host. But who wouldnt tune in just to see if he would dare repeat them to her face?

UPDATE: In a statement following the backlash to his comment, O'Reilly apologized to Waters, saying he "respects" her for "being sincere in his beliefs" and expressing regret for his "jest about her hair which was dumb."
Perhaps Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer should remember the old adage not to discuss politics or religion at mealtimes.

And especially not in fancy restaurants.

For Schumer, who has been vocal in Washington about his problems with President Trump, has reportedly been taking his beef with Trump out of the strictly political arena.

Schumer allegedly caused a scene at smart Upper East Side Manhattan restaurant Sette Mezzo when, according to Page Six, he began yelling at a connected Trump supporter that the president is a liar.

Witnesses said that prior to losing his cool, Schumer was dining quietly with friends.

But then he encountered Joseph A. Califano Jr.the former U.S. secretary of health, education and welfare under President Jimmy Carterand his wife, Hilary.

Page Six says Schumer was apparently incensed that Hilary had voted for Trump, even though her husband is a well-known Democrat.

A witness told Page Six: They are a highly respected couple, and Schumer made a scene, yelling, She voted for Trump! The Califanos left the restaurant, but Schumer followed them outside.

The column claims Schumer continued berating the couple on the sidewalk, saying: How could you vote for Trump? Hes a liar!

Hilary appeared to confirm the confrontation, telling Page Six, Sen. Schumer was really rude... Hes our senator, and I dont really like him. Yes, I voted for Trump. Schumer joined us outside and he told me Trump was a liar. I should have told him that Hillary Clinton was a liar, but I was so surprised I didnt say anything.

However, Page Six also quotes a spokesman for Schumer who attempted to play down the encounter, remarking, [He] and his wife ate at the cafe on Sunday, engaging in unremarkable conversation with patrons who approached their table. There were no heated exchanges with anyone.
Cornell Holden was arrested in May 2014 after leaving a mens bathroom in the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Afterwards, he heard Port Authority cops refer to the officer who arrested him as the gay whisperer, a new class action lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that Port Authority Police Department officers engage in a pattern and practice of targeting and wrongly arresting men [who use the Bus Terminal restrooms] that such officers perceive as gay and/or gender non-conforming, on baseless charges including public lewdness and exposure, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by The Daily Beast.

The lawsuit is being brought by the Legal Aid Society, a nonprofit legal organization serving low-income New Yorkers, and the international law firm Winston & Strawn, which is serving as a pro bono partner on the case.

We will decline comment, a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spokesperson told The Daily Beast, adding that the PAPD also has no comment on the litigation.

The two plaintiffs at the center of the class action lawsuitHolden and another man named Miguel Mejiaboth allege that they were wrongfully targeted while using urinals in mens rooms at the Bus Terminal in Manhattan.

According to the complaint, Holden saw a man watching him from an adjacent urinal who looked around the privacy wall between the urinals in an apparent effort to see [his] hands and genitals and then left. When Holden exited the restroom himself, he learned that the man was a PAPD officer dressed in plainclothes who Holden believes targeted him because of his clothing, hairstyle, and jewelry, and later accused him in an affidavit of masturbating, the complaint alleges.

In his holding cell later that day, Holden allegedly overheard the gay whisperer comment, which he understood as a reference to that particular officers presumed pattern and practice of arresting men that he perceived as gay or gender non-conforming. The public lewdness and exposure charges against Holden were later dismissed and the court record sealed, according to the complaint.

Miguel Mejias story followed a similar pattern. He claims that he was watched by a plainclothes officer at the urinal in a Bus Terminal mens room, then arrested outside of the bathroom in plain view of numerous [Bus Terminal] patrons, and charged with public lewdness. The case ended in an acquittal, according the complaint.

The lawsuit alleges that these shocking and appalling arrests are part of a pattern of targeting gay and gender non-conforming men in order to increase quality-of-life arrest statistics.

The plaintiffs further allege that these charges were doled out with the assumption that the majority of the targeted men would ultimately be effectively forced to plead guilty to lesser charges to avoid public embarrassment, jail time and fines, and potential reputational and professional harm.

The complaint calls for a trial by jury and for the awarding of compensatory damages for economic harm, pain and suffering, and emotional and mental distress to Holden, Mejia, and the class of other men who have allegedly been targeted for the same reason.

The lawsuit itself has been three years in the making. In October 2014, a New York Times report found that PAPD officers had arrested over 60 people in the bus terminal that year on public lewdness charges, which amounted to a sevenfold increase over the same period last year.

Both of the named plaintiffs stories in the current lawsuit were described in further detail in that New York Times report. Holden told the Times that what the officer interpreted as a movement consistent with masturbation at the urinal was actually him shaking off after peeing.

And Mejia said that the officer who apprehended him was smiling at him in the mens room and kept repeating you know what you did afterward when Mejia asked why he was under arrest.

(Mejia was identified only as Miguel in the Times report but the Legal Aid Society confirmed to The Daily Beast that Miguel Mejia is indeed the client in question.)

Both men speculated that the way they were dressed while using the restroomHolden in a leather jacket [and] fitted clothes and Mejia in Mejia in shorts [and a] tank topcontributed to their arrests.

But the lawsuit also cites an incident as far back as the year 2000, when a man named Alejandro Martinez was arrested outside of a PATH station mens room.

Martinez told the New York LGBT newspaper Gay City News in 2004 that a plainclothes officer inside the restroom looked at [him] and gave [him] a smile before following him outside and arresting him.

Martinez later testified that while he was in custody with other men who had been arrested, officers laughed at them calling them faggot and queer, a 2005 court order shows. The case drew outrage from LGBT rights groups.

As the 2014 New York Times report noted, a federal jury ruled in Martinezs favor in a 2005 court decision, finding that officers made arrests for the crime of public lewdness, without regard to probable cause. He received over $400,000 in damages.

The Port Authority Police Department was found liable for this exact behavior in 2005 and theyve made absolutely zero effort to correct their practices or even hold the officers accountable who committed these acts of unrepentant discrimination, said Kim Fortes, the supervising attorney of the LGBT Law and Policy Initiative at the Legal Aid Society, in a press release. Let this lawsuit and our client testimonials again prove that PAPD is overzealously profiling and arresting innocent men in these situations solely based on their appearance.
ROMEWhen two men working on their boat in the Adriatic port town of Rimini on Saturday morning noticed a blue suitcase floating in the bay, they thought nothing of itat first. After all, it is not altogether uncommon for luggage and other debris to wash up on Italian shores along the busy cruise ship and ferry route that runs from Greece to Venice.

But when the bulky case started banging against their craft as they tried to lower it into the water, one of the men got fed up and fished it out of the sea. It was oddly heavy, even for a waterlogged canvas bag, so he and his friend opened it to take a peek inside. There, wrapped in a black garbage bag, was the emaciated nude body of a woman who was clearly Asian. They quickly zipped the bag back up and called police.

Authorities were sure that somehow the Asian woman whose remains were folded up inside the luggage were those of Ireland-based Yinglei Li, a 36-year-old Chinese woman whose German husband, Daniel Belling, was sitting in a Rome prison suspected of her murder after she disappeared from a Mediterranean cruise last month.

But aside from finding a dead Asian woman in a suitcase, the story didnt make a lot of sense. The cruise that Yinglei and Belling were on with their young children, aged 6 and 4, had docked in Civitavecchia, on the other side of Italy. The cruise did stop at a Greek port, but if Belling had, as authorities hypothesize, stuffed his wife into a suitcase and thrown her overboard, that suitcase would have traveled nearly 750 miles in winter seas and quite frankly, it didnt show those signs of wear and tear.

Plus, witnesses say the luggage Belling and his family had on the cruise was not the drab blue color of that which held the corpse, but multi-colored and part of a matching set.

Belling, who has not been officially charged with his missing wifes murder for lack of her body (and can be legally held in Italy for up to a year on suspicion alone), was arrested in mid-February at Romes Ciampino airport as he and his children were boarding a Ryanair flight back to Dublin. Belling had disembarked from the cruise without telling a soul that his wifethe mother of his childrenwas missing.

Cruise security measures had detected that one fewer passenger had passed through the ships turnstile on the way out than had embarked 10 days earlier, and within a few hours, they determined it was someone from the Belling party. Officials stopped Belling and his children in the airports departure hall just moments before he was set to board. The children have since been collected by their paternal grandparents and are in Germany while the investigation continues.

Belling told authorities he last saw his wife after the ship stopped at a Greek port, where he took his children for an excursion while she waited on board. He told investigators that she had been complaining that she was unhappy and ready to quit the cruise. He said she had disappeared from previous family vacations, so he assumed she was hiding out in the ship somewhere and would either meet them when they arrived back in Italy, or had run away for good. He told police that when she failed to show up in Civitavecchia, he assumed she had escaped their marriage and gone back to Chinaas she often threatened she would do.

Ship crew members tell a very different story. They say no one had seen Yinglei after the second day of the cruise, when she and her children came to its gift shop. According to the clerk, Belling stormed into the store with a rucksack from which he pulled out a pair of sneakers for his wife, berating her for wearing the garish sandals she apparently had on her feet.

After the encounter, witnesses said Yinglei looked shaken. No one ever saw her again, according to police interviews with the cruise staff, and Belling and his children ate their meals alone for the rest of the trip.

At one point during the journey, Belling apparently told the housekeeping staff they no longer had to make up the cabins foldout bed since the family was all sleeping together in one bed. Belling never raised the alarm that his wife was gone, and he packed up her clothes and luggage to take back with him to Dublin.

Bellings lawyer has asked that his client be held on house arrest while the investigation ensues, but so far authorities have not granted him that request. In early March, Yingleis mother visited her son-in-law at the prison, though there are no reports on whether or not she thinks he killed her daughter. She was interviewed by police as well, telling them that her daughter had not returned to China.

Back in Rimini, just a day after the mysterious corpse was found, authorities were quite certain that the woman in the suitcase wasnt Yinglei after all. After removing her from the luggage, they discovered that she had much longer hair and was about five inches taller and far thinner than Yinglei. On Monday morning, an autopsy confirmed that the corpse they found did not match the DNA they had for Yinglei.

They also discovered that the woman in the suitcase had not died of asphyxiation or drowning, but likely of starvation. The coroner who performed the autopsy said that she was alive when she was put in the untied plastic bag and suitcase, where she was bent at the waist but showed no signs of violence or bruising. It is impossible to tell when the suitcase was thrown into the sea or from where, though the coroner estimates it had been in the water for at least 10 days.

It is not the first time the body of an Asian woman has turned up in the Adriatic under peculiar circumstances. In 2013, a headless, one-legged torso wearing a stiletto-heeled boot of a Chinese woman thought to be around 25 years old was found in the Venice lagoon. That death remains a mystery, but authorities believe she may have been a victim of human trafficking.

Several thousand undocumented Chinese migrants are thought to be living in Italy, working illegally in Chinese factories in the garment district in Prato near Florence. Those who have managed to leave have reported extreme conditions, suggesting that when workers die, their bodies simply disappear.

If and when the body in the blue suitcase is identified, that mystery will be solved. But it may take much longer to find out what really happened to Yinglei Li.
Not every bank lists a convicted spy serving 30 months in an Ohio prison as its active deputy representative in New York. But then, not every bank is headed by a former spy, much less one found to have spent time with Jared Kushner during a roadshow last year, when Donald Trumps son-in-law was then just a top campaign advisor and not a likely witness about to testify before a Senate committee on Russias meddling in U.S. democracy.

In those charmed days before the director of the FBI raised in an open session of Congress the very real possibility that some of the presidents men might be working on behalf of a hostile foreign power, there was the curious case of a Wall Street analyst who was handcuffed in his Bronx neighborhood in late Jan. 2015 after going out for groceries. His crime wasnt peddling junk sub-primes to trusting pensioners but working for Moscow Center.

Evgeny Buryakov, a former tax inspector turned officer of the Sluzhba vneshney razvedki, or SVR, Russias foreign intelligence service, had arrived in the U.S. just weeks after the feds executed Operation Ghost Stories and brought down ten out of an 11-person spy ring of Russian illegals, without whom Anna Chapmans clothing line and The Americans would now be impossible.

A member of the SVRs Directorate ER, the division tasked with gathering economic intelligence, Buryakov was paid $200,000 to pump his fellow Wall Streeters on information ultimately beneficial to Russias GDP, or at least harmful to the nations marketplace competitors. His biggest coup, evidently, was helping Rostek, the state-owned defense manufacturer, nearly come away with a handsome contract with Bombardier, the Canadian aerospace firm.

Buryakovs day job was as the second most senior executive in New York for Vnesheconobank, or VEB, the Russian state-owned development bank, and therefore a convenient cover for calling in sick to cultivate agents in Manhattan. Not that the bank was terribly concerned about its quarterly P&L.

VEB has was sanctioned by both the U.S. Treasury Department and the European Union in 2014 for its role in underwriting the ongoing war in Ukraine, a penalty the bank has said would have no effect on its operations. This was months after the debut of its biggest investment, lending the majority of the $50 billion that went into hosting the Sochi Olympics, an event described by Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov as a winter sporting event in the sub-tropics.

The former deputy prime minister, who was fatally shot in the back within steps of the Kremlin in 2015, found that Putins long hoped-for games in the seaside resort city was an elaborate racket, with VEB forced to assume a Lehman-laughable liability it could never hope to recoup.

The lions share of the construction is being done either at the expense of the state budget, through state corporations, or through shareholder associations which are either state property or under state control, Nemtsov and his cowriter Leonid Martynyuk observed. The rule operating with regard to private investments has been that 70% of the investments are covered by loans from the Vneshekonombank (a state corporation!) and 30% by private contributions. However, by the end of 2012, the government admitted that practically all the Olympic buildings, without exception, were running at a loss and would never pay for themselves. VEB then increased its loans for Sochi to a staggering 90%.

Perhaps sensing that the veil had already slipped, Vladimir Putin appointed one of his own, a former spook with a law degree, to the chairmanship of VEB in Feb. 2016.

Sergei Gorkov had graduated from the FSB Academy, the finishing school for domestic operatives, in 1994 before heading the personnel department of Yukos, the oil company then owned by Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. (Full disclosure: I formerly worked for the Institute of Modern Russia, which was headed by Khodorkovskys son.) It was by no means uncommon in the Yeltsin era of privatization for suddenly under- or unemployed Chekists to get hired by billionaire industrialists in need of those with a skill set best defined by the expression, rabota s lyudmi: working with people, roughly translated as HR for KGB.

By most accounts, Gorkov seemed well-liked and capable at his job at Yukos. One former colleague described him as being a good-calm manager without excessive FSBness. He was also inscrutable. Asked what stood about his tenure at Yukos, a lawyer for Khodorkovsky replied: Nothing interesting other than what is in his Wikipedia.

Gorkov emerged untainted from the subsequent arrest and imprisonment of Khodorkovsky and the Kremlins takeover of Yukos and the redistribution of its assets into Rosneft, the powerful state-owned oil company, by going to work for Sberbank, a powerful state-owned bank, in 2008. (Both Rosneft and Sberbank have also been sanctioned because of the invasion of Ukraine.)

Tatyana Stanovaya of the Carnegie Moscow Center writes that Gorkov performed valiant service at the state-owned Sberbank, where he served as one of 11 deputies to CEO German Gref, one of Putins closest friends and advisors from their days in the St. Petersburg city government in the 1990s.

Gorkov was first assigned to optimizing personnel policy during Grefs reforms at bank, which were mainly geared toward international business. He was tasked with removing 30,000 people in his first two years, then another 240,000 by late 2010, and hiring the top managers.

In October 2010, Gorkov was made a member of the board as deputy head and in charge of international operations. He started acquiring foreign banks such as Volksbank International AG in Austria and DenizBank in Turkey. (Volksbank which had branches throughout Eastern Europe and the Balkans as well as Ukraine turned out to have a worse loan portfolio than realized when it was purchased: the unreserved sum was 80 million euros.)

In December 2015 Putin in his annual speech to the Federation Council, Russias Senate, had said a clean-up was necessary in institutions of development. Many of these had turned into a garbage pit for bad debts, he said. At that time VEB was being threatened with being put under the control of the Bank of Russia, the nations central bank, as a commercial institution. It needed some $22.8 billion by 2020 to cover defaults on foreign debts.

According to an anonymous source at VEB interviewed by Russian news outlet RBC, Putin had wanted someone with a law-enforcement background to head up VEB. Gorkov was the only man under Gref with that resume. VEB, unsurprisingly, received the $22.8 billion.

Now Gorkov finds himself in the national spotlight for having kibitzed with Kushner last year at undisclosed locations, either before or after Kushner also sat with Russias ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak  but hey, who hasnt in Trumpland? All we know about these encounters were that they were perfectly innocent marriages of true minds between two captains of industry. VEB met "with a number of representatives of the largest banks and business establishments of the United States, including Jared Kushner, the head of Kushner Companies, the bank told Reuters in a written statement.

Kushner didnt respond to Reuters, but the White House explained his offer to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee to CNN as follows: Throughout the campaign and transition, Jared Kushner served as the official primary point of contact with foreign governments and officials.

A good opening question would be: Did he realize that by meeting with this chairman of VEB, he was meeting with two different kinds of foreign government officials at once?
A young man charged with brutally slaying a Washington state ranch hand and dumping his corpse in the river has been bailed out of jail.

Jeremy Leininger, 20, is back in the comfort of his parents home after posting a $2.5 million bond in the gruesome death of 53-year-old Clark Calquhoun last December.

The high bail amount set in Leiningers first-degree murder case at first pleased the victims family members.

According to Michael Calquhoun, Clarks eldest son, when he and family members crammed into a Thurston County Superior courtroom minutes before Leiningers preliminary hearing back on Feb. 13, the prosecutor told them they would ask the judge for no bail. If that didnt work they would seek a $1 million bail amount.

The judge, Calquhoun said, decided $1 million was too low.

He came back after a couple minutes and said, Based on the nature of this crime Im going to set bail at $2.5 million, Calquhoun, a 32-year-old youth pastor at Gladstone First Baptist Church in Portland, Oregon, recounted. We were just in tears. It was phenomenal.

On March 12, Joel Leininger and Karen Cain secured their sons release from jail to serve time on house arrest until his July 24 trial date.

In a sworn declaration, the Leiningers wrote: We both have a tremendous respect for the judicial system and, despite our love for our son, would do nothing either to subvert that system or put Jeremy or ourselves in any jeopardy due to violation any of these conditions.

The terms of the release dictate Leininger reside under his parents roof in the logging town of Kelso, Washington, and be tagged with an electronic GPS monitoring device. Leininger must forfeit his passport and can only travel to court, his lawyers office or verified doctors appointments, according to documents detailing the release conditions.

The bail documents show that the parents of the 20-year-old sold two pistols to a local gun shop and transferred five rifles and one shotgun to the Leiningers uncles farm in Yelm.

A Leininger family member told The Daily Beast that there is no shortage of solidarity.

The boy can learn from this, the relative said. Hes got a good future ahead of him, so this is an unfortunate event that happened. Very unfortunate.

And what brought it out who knows?

***

Now that Leininger is back home until his July 24 first-degree murder trial date those initial tears of triumph back in court have become winces.

I just wonder why do they give the opportunity to get out, Michael Calquhoun said. I understand [hes] innocent until proven guilty but theres so much evidence already and I want to know why.

It seems no bail amount would be high enough to repay the Calquhoun familys suffering after the person they believe killed their father wasnt kept in jail.

To me, it sounds like money can buy your freedom and that just seems so wrong, Calquhoun lamented.

Sylvia Ramos, who has been bailing out defendants for 21 years for a Seattle-based company, said that in Washington state theres a non-refundable premium paid to the bail agent that usually amounts to 10 percent of the bond, unless there was a discount applied, or a payment arrangement was agreed upon.

Indeed, a prisoner being freed with a $2.5 million bail sticker tag doesnt happen everyday.

Its not rare if the family or friends have the means, Ramos said. But its rare that most people have the means.

Leiningers attorney Robert Perez said he doesnt discuss pending cases with the press but confirmed he was retained.

Yes, he made bail and yes, he paid my breathtaking fee. Im on the case, I represent him.

***

Last New Years Eve marked three days without any sign of Clark Calquhoun.

His live-in girlfriend filed a missing persons report with local sheriffs, a criminal complaint filed in Thurston County Superior Court last month by the deputy prosecuting attorney Joseph Wheeler. The last time Calquhoun was seen alive was at around 4:30 p.m. on Dec. 28 when she, another friend, and his close pal Randy Delivuk left together to get some bud, Delivuk told The Daily Beast.

Leininger rolled up to them in his blue Dodge Ram pickup truck loaded with two bales of hay, Delivuk said. Calquhoun worked for Leiningers uncle Gerald as a ranch hand since May 2016, splitting duties with Delivuk and Leininger, according to Delivuk who added Leininger owned property adjacent to his uncles.

On the day Calquhoun vanished, according to Delivuk (who says hes been interviewed by both detectives and prosecutors) he remembered Leininger asking, I need somebody to unload this.

Clark says to him, OK Ill help you, Delivuk said.

Delivuk said when they returned, Calquhouns girlfriend entered their ranch trailer but her boyfriend was gone; his eyeglasses, wallet, and keys were left behind.

Everything was here, Delivuk said.

The girlfriend approached Leininger two days later, according to the complaint, and Leininger claimed Calquhoun walked a mile to the front gate to meet someone after they finished tending to the livestock.

Thats bullshit, Delivuk said. Clark was waiting for me to come back.

It was also out of character for Calquhoun to slog on foot so far, largely due to physical issues limiting his gait to short distances, the complaint suggests.

Investigators pinpoint two possible motives in the prosecutors criminal complaint where Leininger is suspected of exacting payback for his suspicion that Calquhoun swiped cash and smokes from his pickup and also for supposedly insulting his uncle.

But Delivuk argues the insults didnt happen and the tally of cash that Leininger claimed stolen kept changing.

It started out as $50 bucks, $100 bucks, and then $80 bucks, said Delivuk.

In the criminal complaint, Leininger and a friend are mentioned allegedly discussing with Delivuk how easy it would be to get rid of a somebody where they would never be found.

We were talking about shit and all of a sudden this stuff comes up, Delivuk said. They want to know how to get rid of a body. And if they did, would anybody report it missing? All this bullshit.

Delivuk called it a night.

When that conversation came up it scared me, he said. I said, Guys this is getting weird. Im going to get on and go home.

Then, according to the complaint, two unidentified witnesses separately told Cowlitz County detectives that Leininger allegedly crowed about a guy, referring to Clark, who lives on his uncles farm had made threats against his uncle.

They informed them, the complaint states, that Leininger actually confessed to cold-blooded murder.

[Leininger] told them he lured the man away into the woods surrounding the farm and shot him with a gun, the complaint states. He then used the truck to drag the body to move it.

His pals, the complaint goes on, also say Leininger allegedly told them he disassembled [the gun] and gotten rid of it.

On Jan. 4days after Calquhoun went missingdetectives scoured the acreage of Leiningers uncles farm with negative results, according to the complaint.

The following day they had a crack at questioning Leininger.

But he allegedly denied any knowledge of Calquhouns whereabouts and, according to the complaint, echoed the same tale: The last time he saw him was going to meet someone at the front gate.

However, the complaint adds, when authorities asked about the theft of his property in the pickup, Leininger allegedly backtracked telling them he may have lost them himself but denied ever accusing anyone of the theft.

Detectives were leery of Leiningers demeanor.

He seemed very nervous and displayed physical manifestations that caused the detective to doubt his truthfulness, the complaint states.

Calquhouns corpse turned up on Jan. 29 in the Coweeman River.

Despite the body being left in the water for a long period of time investigators were able to confirm it was their missing man.

An autopsy determined that Calquhoun died painfully.

He maybe had been stabbed, suffered a severed spine, and had been shot at least two times with one .45 caliber bullet still lodged in his body, according to the complaint.

Investigators would descend on Leiningers parents home on Feb. 1 and asked about his fathers .45 caliber pistol that Leiningers mother informed them she reported missing back in September.

Then authorities retroactively tracked Leiningers movements between Dec. 28 and 29 by monitoring his cellular phone to his uncles farm and the complaint states he drives out [to] Rose Valley Road, where he ultimately loses cellular service.

The phone records, the complaint suggests, placed Leininger within three miles of where Calquhouns body was located in the river.

***

Before he was killed, Clark Calquhoun was a skilled laborer and father of four children.

He moved to Washington from Southern California and traveled to Alaska and later Oregon and Utah as a master craftsman in wood work and painting, while also serving as a dedicated volunteer firefighter.

His son Michael Calquhoun said his father abandoned his family when he was not even 11-years-old, but that he remained a faithful Christian.

Calquhoun also battled alcohol and hard drugs.

He was trying to get back on his feet, Calquhouns son said.

In fact, it was Leiningers uncle and aunt who gave Calquhoun a chance to work their land as a ranch hand.

They saw something in him that had value and that they felt he could change and be a hard worker, Calquhouns son said.

Delivuk admitted he was shorthanded to tend to the 38 head of cattle and almost 20 horses.

As ranch hand I could walk away right now and Clark could take over, he said.

Before Calquhouns death, his son learned that his father was still in the nightmare of addiction.

We found some evidence in the trailer of needles and marijuana, he said, after visiting his fathers home. And he was still drinking. There were a lot of empty beer cans.

His son said his father had taken off before. But he usually kept tabs with somebody.

This time was different because no one in the family had any clue where he was, he said.

Then it was determined that his father wasnt missing but had been brutally murdered. His son pondered how anybody could kill allegedly over some cash and cigarettes.

Theres a lot of anger there to lead someone to want to take somebodys life for that, he said.

The loss hit Delivuk hard.

Clark, he was just the best person ever, he said through tears of the man he considered his best friend. He didnt deserve that. Hell no, he did not deserve that.

After learning Leininger made bail, Delivuk said it was a slap in the face to the man whohad a heart of gold.

A close childhood friend of Leiningers claims hes not a killer but an eccentric and at his core a good person.

Even if he did do this I would still trust him with my life, the 20-year-old friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said.

As a man of faith Colquhouns son says he can forgive Leininger.

I sure hope this doesnt destroy this young mans entire life, he said. Theres no sense of money, no sense of jail that would honestly do it justice.

He takes a beat.

I think life would be the closest thing to justice, he said. But Id not think even that would satisfy whats been taken away.
You dont seem so happy, April Ryan remarked after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer called on her during Tuesdays briefing. She had no idea how right she was.

With so many investigations underway regarding Russia , alleged wiretapping, and other issues, the D.C. bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks wanted to know the administration might try to revamp its image in the coming weeks.

No, we don't have that, Spicer said, becoming immediately defensive. I get it, but I've said it from the day that I got here until whatever, that there is no connection. You've got Russia. If the president puts Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that's a Russian connection.

I appreciate your agenda here, but the reality is  hold on, Spicer continued, as Ryan tried to get a word in. At some point, report the facts, he said, arguing that everyone has come away with the conclusion that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia  while in reality investigations are ongoing.

I'm sorry that disgusts you. You're shaking your head, he said.

When Ryan pivoted to ask about Condoleezza Rices meeting with the president this week, Spicer responded by saying, It.'s interesting that you ask those two questions back to back. On the one hand, you say, what are we doing to improve our image and here he is meeting somebody that hasn't been a big supporter. He added, It seems like you're hell bent on trying to make sure whatever image you want to tell about this White House stays.

As she protested, Spicer said, Im sorry, please stop shaking your head again.

Moments later, Ryan offered up her one word reaction on Twitter:

I've been here for 20 years, since 1997, the second term of Bill Clinton, Ryan told MSNBCs Katy Tur afterwards. We've never seen anything like this before. And my question was simple. How do you change the perception problem basically? I don't know verbatim what I said, but that was the impetus and the crux of my question. And it went off into this Russian dressing, no shaking my head or whatever.

I understand what Sean is doing, Ryan said, Sean is being the White House press secretary talking about and trying to make this administration look better than what it does right now. Unfortunately, I was roadkill today.

The Trump administration has been clashing with Ryan for weeks, beginning with what she described as a physically intimidating confrontation with White House communications official Omarosa Manigault outside Spicers office last month.

Days later, during his first press conference as president, Donald Trump asked Ryan if she could set up a meeting for him with the Congressional Black Caucus.

Do you want to set up the meeting? Are they friends of yours? the president asked her.
A Florida man is accused of stabbing his roommate to death after she said goodbye to him on Saturday morning before she was set to leave town.

Cops charged 24-year-old Randy Herman Jr. with first-degree murder in connection to the slaying of Brooke Preston, 21, at a West Palm Beach residence.

Preston planned to return to their native Pennsylvania, the Palm Beach Post reported. But before she did, she gave Herman a hug, and he handed her a memorial T-shirt commemorating a mutual friend who passed away, police said.

Moments later, Herman allegedly stabbed Preston a dozen times with a hunting knife, piercing her back, throat and abdomen. The young woman, who was not romantically linked to her alleged killer, also had defensive wounds to her left hand.

According to an arrest report reviewed by The Daily Beast, Herman then drove Prestons car to a park about one-fourth of a mile away and dialed 911.

Someones been murdered, Herman allegedly warned the dispatcher at 9:04 a.m.

When pressed for more information, he allegedly added, Im at Haverhill Park. Just send the police. It was me. Im sorry, before hanging up.

Herman isnt the only one in his family to face murder charges.

In February 2015, his father, Randy Allen Herman Sr., was accused of fatally shooting his girlfriend, Gail Monahan. Pennsylvania state police obtained an arrest warrant for the 53-year-old and charged him with criminal homicide.

Cops conducting a welfare check at the couples home found the 50-year-old Monahan, who died of a single gunshot wound to the head. The day before she was discovered, Herman Sr. used her bank card at an Athens, Alabama motel, authorities said.

Two months later, Herman Sr. was found dead inside his Ford pickup truck, which was parked in a wooded area near Guntersville Lakeabout 88 miles east of Athens. ATV riders spotted Hermans vehicle, state police said.

Still, it appears Herman Jr. didnt go on the lam like his father did. Instead, Herman allegedly called cops and confessed.

Herman sent text messages to his mother telling her that he loved her, as he waited for deputies to arrive to Haverhill Park, police say.

Cops would find Herman standing near a pavilion. He was allegedly covered in blood and had a cut between his left thumb and pointer fingeran injury police said was consistent with his hand slipping on a wet knife and cutting himself, according to the report.

The alleged killer urged cops to head to 813 Sarazen Drive because someone was hurt really bad, a detective wrote in the document.

Deputies peered inside Prestons Honda Civic and saw blood on the steering wheel and a pillow in the front seat, the report states.

Back at the Sarazen Drive residence, cops found droplets of blood leading inside, as well as a large amount of blood on the walls and floor. Preston, who was declared dead at the scene, was found under a blanket.

Meanwhile, cops also say they discovered a hunting-style knife, along with bloody footprints, in the bathroom.

Herman was brought to the Palm Beach County Sheriffs Office, where he agreed to speak after being read his Miranda rights, the arrest report states.

According to police, Herman was upset and crying. He told me several times that he was sorry, a detective wrote in the report.

During the interview with cops, Herman said Preston used to be his roommate but had recently moved out. He said he was drinking beer with her the night before but that she left to sleep at a mutual friends home.

The next morning, Herman allegedly texted Preston and learned she was having breakfast with the mutual friend, the report says.

The suspect told police that he was in his bedroom sleeping when Preston returned that day to get the rest of her belongings. Preston entered his room, hugged him and said goodbye, the police report states.

Herman told me that all he could remember after giving Preston the T-shirt was seeing blood, a detective wrote in the report.

Herman said he must have done it, the detective added, because Herman and Preston were the only people in the residence.

The friend whom Preston stayed with that night approached detectives on scene. He told them he once dated Prestons older sister, who also resided in the home.

Preston allegedly told the friend that Herman was acting weird and was drunk and that she felt uncomfortable staying in the house alone with him. She asked to stay at the friends residence, according to the police report.

They returned at 7:30 a.m to retrieve Prestons belongings, but the friend stayed in the car. Then they went to breakfast.

The friend told police that Preston dropped him off at home after breakfast.

But around 12 p.m., the pal received a call from Prestons older sister, who said she was unable to get a hold of Preston or Herman.

The sibling was worried about Prestons well-being after she received a phone call from Hermans mother, who had received texts from Herman that were out of character and concerning, the arrest report alleges.

Friends told WNEP that Preston and Herman went to high school together in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania.

According to Prestons obituary, she was a spitfire who brought joy into everyones life that she touched. She lived life in the moment, grabbed every opportunity that came her way and made the most of it.

She graduated Wyalusing Valley High School in 2013 and obtained an associates degree in business management from the State College of Florida.

Preston was prepared to move to Buffalo, N.Y., where she planned to start a job as a radiographer and live with her boyfriend, the obituary said.

Friends set up a GoFundMe page to help Prestons family with funeral expenses.

They also took to Facebook to mourn their friend, who also went by the moniker Cookie.

Cookie was a shining star in all of our lives, one classmate wrote. I will never be able to understand how such a terrible thing could happen to such an amazing person.

One of Herman's friends told The Daily Beast he was in "disbelief" over the murder charge.

Corbin Burger, 20, of Oklahoma, said Herman "was very unselfish ... everything was about everybody else." He met the suspect on the job: they both worked for a West Palm Beach marketing company.

Burger said Herman helped to pay for a plane ticket to attend his grandfather's funeral in Oklahoma, before Burger moved back home for good. "Randy is one of the most caring human beings I have ever met in my whole life," Burger told The Daily Beast.

He said Herman and Preston grew up in the same small town and were "best friends." And that Herman, Preston and Preston's sister relocated to Florida at the same time.

While Herman never said so, Burger got the impression he had feelings for Preston. "He would just talk about her with the biggest smile, like he was crushing on her," Burger said.

Burger said his office would hold a "crew night," where coworkers wold go out to a bowling alley or country bar and bring their families. Herman brought Preston and her sister one evening, Burger said.

"He's not a monster. He's not a bad guy at all," Burger told The Daily Beast. "He loved [Preston and her sister] so much."

Burger said Herman was very close to his mother. He knew Herman's father died, but they never discussed what happened to Herman Sr.

"Randy's not like that," Burger said, referring to his father's murder manhunt. "I didn't like how they [news media] tried to compare him to his father.

"Randy was not that type of guy at all."
Tad Cummins was suspended by his school for an inappropriate relationship with a female student two weeks before police say the teacher kidnapped her, according to documents.

Cummins, 50, worked at Culleoka Unit School in Maury County, Tennessee, where Mary Catherine Elizabeth Thomas, 15, was enrolled. Izzy, as she was known to friends and family, disappeared from a local restaurant on March 13. The Maury County district attorney has charged Cummins with sexual exploitation of a minor and aggravated kidnapping. Cumminss whereabouts are also unknown.

The last credible sighting of the two was in Decatur, Alabama, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. It implored rural homeowners to check their grounds for Cumminss car, and for campers to remain on alert.

Some reports suggest Elizabeth feared Cummins and tried to avoid at her workplace. She reportedly asked a coworker to cover for her and pretend that she wasnt there when Cummins visited her workplace. Elizabeth hid in the bathroom during the exchange, according to her father, the familys attorney told a local news station.

Prosecutors say Cummins preyed on a vulnerable girl.

The teenager had been homeschooled until she started at Culleoka high school as a freshman this year. She is one of ten children living with her father, and is suspected of being a victim of domestic abuse.

Elizabeths mother, Kimberly Thomas, was arrested last year on five counts of child abuse and neglect, according to an indictment reviewed by The Daily Beast. Kimberly Thomas allegedly made the kids get naked in front of adults, and banged Elizabeths head against a washing machine. She denied the allegations to a local TV station. The case is pending and her attorney did not return a request for comment.

"I don't believe she feels she's being hurt okay, but she's 15," Kimberly Thomas told the station. "She doesn't know any better and she is being hurt and damaged.

The teens social media shows that she struggled with self esteem. One recent Instagram post featured a cartoon girl labeled as broken, while others lamented how ugly Elizabeth always felt. More recently, however, posts talked about being in love.

I want to spend all 9 lives with you, read one image of a cat.

Elizabeths family background made her more susceptible to predatory approaches from teachers, Maury County District Attorney Brent Cooper told WHNT19.

"Most educators would sympathize with that child and probably even try to get them some help however they could," Cooper told WHNT19. "But that's not what Mr. Cummins did. He decided to act his own desires apparently.

Among the troubling allegations levied against Cummins is the claim that he was caught kissing Elizabeth in school. And he apparently planned ahead for what was to come.

Ongoing investigative efforts continue to reveal a troubling pattern of behavior by Cummins prior to their disappearance, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said in a statement. For example, investigative efforts have determined that on March 10th, Cummins did online research about his Nissan Rogue, in an effort to determine if certain features could be tracked by law enforcement. Investigators also determined that five days earlier, on March 5th, Cummins did similar online research on the topic of teen marriage.

Letters from Cummins's personnel file, posted online by a local news station, show the school trying to stop contact between Cummins and the girl. School officials instructed him not to have her in his roomand told Elizabeth to avoid him. He was censured for disobeying these instructions on February 3.

On January 31, 2017, you were instructed by Principal Penny Love not to allow Mary Catherine Thomas in your classroom, the letter said. That same day, Elizabeth was instructed by Principal Penny Love not to be in your classroom, and to seek counseling from CUS High School Guidance Counselor, Alison Reischman, if needed.

That didnt stick.

On February 3, 2017, Mary Catherine Thomas was in your classroom from 12:11 p.m. -12:44 p.m. This was a violation of my directive to you on January 31, 2017, Love told him.

Days later, he was suspended.

Mr. Cummins has conducted himself in an unprofessional manner, the letter stated as an explanation. The evidence obtained by the District supports a conclusion that Mr. Cummins has engaged in and/or created the appearance of engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a student.

And he showed a willful disregard of instructions from his superiors and the district, it added, a far cry from the rosy picture Cummins portrayed when he first applied.

I have often thought that I would love to be a teacher, and just might excel at it, but it never seemed to be my destiny, Cummins wrote on his teaching application. When this opportunity presented itself I recalled that one of my favorite teachers came to teaching as a second career. That helped me believe that I can, too."

Prior to joining the school district in 2011, Cummins worked as a respiratory therapist for two decades.

His references for the school job were co-workers from medical supply companies where hed previously worked.

If you were personally responsible, would you recommend the employment of this applicant? the questionnaire asked.

The Daily Beast reached out to his references, including one who have him a five-star rating throughout. One reference said Cummins didnt reach deep for his references.

Honestly, I briefly knew him, Jeff Walker said. I was in sales, and he was a respiratory therapist. And it was a very brief, brief acquaintance, if you would call it that.

The company worked with adults, so there was never an opportunity to be around young people, Walker said. He put me as a reference, and if anyone had called, I wouldve been like, who?
In response to an alleged harassment scandal that has plagued the company this year, Uber released a report on Tuesday detailing the makeup of its workforce and in turn creating terms like Jewbers and UberHUE.

According to the report, the company is comprised of 63.9 percent men and 36.1 percent womennumbers that are slightly more gender-diverse than a recent report from Google about its workforce.

In terms of race and ethnicity, Uber is made up of a workforce that is about 49.8 percent white, 30.9 percent Asian, 8.8 percent African-American and 5.6 percent Hispanic.

The report then features a section called See who moves Uber in which there is a list of employee resource groups, which is drawing criticism on social media.

Among the titles of these sub-groups is one called UberHUE, which is intended to provide a channel that promotes Black diversity, culture, and inclusion for all employees at Uber. Additionally there is Los Ubers intended for Hispanic employees and UberPRIDE for LGBTQ employees.

One particular group called Shalom has some inventive lingo for the employees intended to fall under that bracket.

Our goal is to make the world a little smaller, by connecting Uberettos and Jewbers from all backgrounds, encouraging collaboration and closeness from all corners of the globe, the report reads.

Uber claims the resource groups are run by employees themselves.

Other companies have faced similar challenges in trying to implement diversity initiatives. McDonalds, for instance, used a website called 365black.com in a campaign targeted toward African-Americans. And Google may have even inspired the new terms Uber employees are using as they have coined "Gayglers" and "Jewglers" in the past.

Uber, however, has been under increased scrutiny since a slew of negative stories, including sexual harassment claims from previous employees and the revelation that the app used a tool to circumvent authorities in areas where Uber was resisted or banned. The company also recently hired former attorney general Eric Holder to help lead an internal investigation into its workplace practices.

In response to an emailed question, a company source at Uber told The Daily Beast that the term "Uberetto" is used to refer to Uber employees in general because the suffix "er" doesn't work as well as it does for Google and Facebook employees.
The properties of sound are different in Svalbard, Norway.

Each step in the snow is a deafening crunch, like clenching a bolt of velvet fabric. And the jangle of metal bullets in your pocketnecessary protection from roving polar bearsecho off the mountains, breaking the great arctic silence. Distances, too, are warped; impossible to measure with the naked eye due to the seemingly endless expanse of treeless terrain.

The stark severity of the Arctic gives way to the small city of Longyearbyenthe worlds most northerly settlement of over 1000 peoplealong a broad interior fjord just above the 78th parallel.

Named for John Munro Longyear, an American prospector who purchased local coal mining rights at the turn of the twentieth century, the town has since grown into a strange utopian outpost some 1300 miles due north of Oslo.

Although Svalbard is recognized as a territory of Norway, an agreement struck in 1920 known as the Spitsbergen Treaty dictates that the archipelago is a largely demilitarized zone open for visa-free residency to all citizens of the world.

45 nations have signed the pact since its creation (interestingly, North Korea was the most recent signee in 2016) and the local tourism board reports that almost 50 nationalities currently call Longyearbyen home.

Summers are long and joyous with months upon months of ceaseless daylight, but winters are lonely and brutal, with temperatures dipping well below freezing, and roughly three full months of total darkness bookended by several weeks of a faint twilight glow.

Each year, on March 8th, the sun finally makes its return and practically every citizen of Longyearbyen gathers for a manic midday celebration known as Solfest, or Sun Fest.

This years festivities could not come at a better timeonly two weeks prior an avalanche tore through a residential complex, and while thankfully no one was injured, the event was a haunting reminder of the perilous nature of high Arctic living, permanently displacing a handful of residents.

The skies too had been particularly colorless as of late, but on the morning of March 8th, the glimmers of light pushing through the clouds looked particularly promising.

Preparations for Solfest start several weeks beforehand in the local elementary school. A competition takes place to draw the annual sun mascot and students start learning special folk music dedicated to the suns return.

When the big day arrives the elementary school students are the first to leave the warm confines of their classroom and start the snowy trek to Solfests celebratory site.

During the time of Longyear, the suns return was feted on the stairs of the local hospitalthe first square foot of the settlement to receive the suns direct rays. Today, with the old hospital long gone and replaced by a modern facility further down in the valley, the rickety wooden stairs of the old clinic remain, floating in the snow without a building attached.

Around 11.30am, with painted faces and sun-related paraphernalia, the worlds northernmost citizens begin to gather at the orphaned staircase. Custom-printed buttons are handed out featuring the winning mascot design from the local school contest as everyone finds a comfortable east-facing position in the bitter cold.

By noon the portable sound system is revved up and lyrics are handed out on bits of paper to eager chorus members. Two songs are sung in Norwegian with alacrity.

The first is an upbeat tune that sounds somewhat like a Christmas carol (clearly the composer of Santa Baby attended Solfest at some point and ripped the song off) and the second song has a fun twangy rhythm, like Chicagos All That Jazz (minus the fosse hands, unfortunately.)

Riotous, pagan-like chanting ricochets off the snow-capped mountains just past 12.30pm as the locals yell for the arctic sun to reveal itself. And at 12.48pm, when the sun finally makes its first appearance since late October, the chants quickly turn to overjoyed cheers.

One final song, the aptly selected Here Comes the Sun, wafts over the sound system, sung by the haunting singular voice of a gifted 15-year-old girl. Eighteen glorious minutes later, the sun gently extinguishes its fan of warm rays, tucking itself behind a neighboring peak.

The darkness begins to set in anew as special pastries are handed out to Longyearbyens children, and everyone makes their way to the nearby church to find warmth and platefuls of thin, waffle-combed pancakes.

From March 8th onwards, the sun begins its aggressive processional towards absolute daylight, adding a shocking 20 minutes of light with each passing day until mid-April when the midnight sun reigns unabated over the settlement of brightly colored houses.

How to get there

Considering its extreme northern positioning, Svalbard is surprisingly accessible via a direct three-hour flight from Oslo on Norwegian. Connections to and from the island are available three times a week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Return flights can seamlessly connect with US-bound routes.

Where to stay

Longyearbyens newest hotel is by far its best; Svalbard Hotell puts a sleek Scandinavian design twist on the traditional cabin aesthetic.

A long couch wraps around a crackling fire place in the lobby, which doubles as an adventure base where guests can book any number of activities like snowmobiling, dogsledding and hiking with reputable operators. Thanks to the submarine cabling laid by scientists, the wifi connection (at the hotel, and all around town) is ironically stronger here than they are in the northern part of continental Norway.

Where to eat

Huset, the worlds most northernly gourmet restaurant, is an inspiring ode to the flavors of the arctic. With nary a Minke whale in sight (a very unfortunate item on most of the other menus in Longyearbyen) the so-called Svalbard prix fixe (around US$140) includes haute reindeer sausage, bearded seal (served carpaccio-style), arctic cod, roe and a warm homemade bread bun served like an egg on a nest of twigs.
Diageo launches Captain Morgan LocoNut

Diageo rum brand Captain Morgan has released a summer coconut rum shot, Captain Morgan LocoNut, which is made with Caribbean rum, coconut liqueur, spices and natural flavours.

The move follows the release of Captain Morgan Cannon Blast into the shots category in late 2015, and Jack-O'Blast for Halloween 2016.

Captain Morgan LocoNut is packaged to look like a coconut in a round bottle, similar to its predecessor Cannon Blast, and features a scratch and sniff logo that gives off a sweet aroma of coconut.

The brand suggests that LocoNut is served as either a chilled shot or as part of a cocktail. LocoNut is also gluten-free.

LocoNut (40 proof, 20% ABV) has an RRP of $14.99 for a 750ml bottle, and will be available in the USA from specialist stores.

28 March 2017 - Sam Coyne The Drinks Report, news editor
Hyderabad, March 27 :Telangan Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao Monday clarified that the proposal to hike quota for Muslims is not based on religion but on their socio-economic backwardness.



He told the state assembly that the Backward Classes Commission was looking into socio-economic conditions of Muslims and after the receipt of its report, a bill will be tabled to enhance the quota by "five to six percent".



He said the assembly would be adjourned sine die but not prorogued. "Another session will be convened in four to five days to discuss and pass the bills for increasing the quota for backward classes among minorities and the Scheduled Tribes," he said.



The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) had promised in 2014 elections that the quota for Muslims in jobs and education will be increased from current 4 percent to 12 percent. It has also promised to hike the quota for tribals from 7.5 percent to 12 percent.



KCR, as the chief minister is popularly known, said the backwards among minorities were already classified as Backward Classes (E) and were availing the quota.



A committee headed by a former IAS officer last year conducted a survey of Muslims in the state and submitted a report to the government, recommending an increase in quota. The government asked the Backward Classes Commission to conduct another study.



However, the government's move is facing opposition from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which argued that there is no provision in the Constitution for providing quota on the basis of religion.



As the two bills will take the overall reservation in the state to beyond the upper limit of 50 percent, Chandrasekhar Rao said the government will approach both the Centre and the Supreme Court to allow the state to provide more than 50 percent reservation as was done for Tamil Nadu, where the overall quota was 69 percent.



"The social composition of newly created Telangana state is such that 90 percent of the population is weaker sections. We can't have a reservation limit of 50 percent," he said.



KCR agreed that there was a need to increase quota for backward classes and said the commission would be asked to conduct a comprehensive survey of socio-economic conditions of various BC communities and submit a report.
By Rabbi MARA S. NATHAN and the Rev. VALDA JEAN COMBS

Texas lawmakers in the current legislative session have filed at least 25 bills that promote or even require discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. This is wrong.

These divisive, mean-spirited bills betray a teaching common to many faiths, which we find first in the book of Leviticus 19:18 and repeated in Mark 12:31: "Love your neighbor as yourself." The first century Jewish Sage Rabbi Hillel expanded this idea when he taught: "That which is hateful unto you do not do to your neighbor." This aspiration, commonly known as the Golden Rule, is simple: We should treat others as we want to be treated.

But of all the hateful legislation that has been filed, the most disturbing bills are 17 that -- taken in total -- would allow government officials, private individuals and businesses to use religion as justification to discriminate against LGBT people in virtually every aspect of their lives.

These bills authorize unequal treatment under the law, whether it's a gay student seeking counseling services or a job, a same-sex couple seeking to marry or to provide a loving home to a foster child, or a transgender person needing basic medical care or trying to rent an apartment.

Religious freedom is one of our most fundamental rights as Americans. But we as faith leaders are troubled when we see politicians trying to redefine that freedom to mean the right to hurt people who are different.

Religious liberty never has meant the right to impose our beliefs on others. Nor does it give us the right to refuse to obey laws on so called "religious principle." And it certainly does not mean the right to hurt people because we dislike them or are offended by who they are or whom they love. That is discrimination, not religious freedom.

We know all too well how some have used religion to justify discrimination against Jews, African Americans and others in our country's history. In some small Texas towns, we still can see the telltale "colored" signs on the sides of historical buildings. Those signs remind us of our troubled past, when African Americans were singled out -- marginalized and hated -- because the law sanctioned "separate but equal."

When Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched, he did not march alone. Clergy and laity from Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities joined him. They came to stand as one against discrimination, marching forward together. Now some in the Legislature would drag us backward by declaring that yet another class of people should be singled out for discrimination. Have we not yet learned that when one group's liberties are constrained, we all suffer the consequences?

What is to stop government officials or businesses from using religious objections to subject others to their personal moral agenda? If any of these bills become law, people would have license to wield their religious beliefs as a weapon and impose their own form of moral punishment on anyone who doesn't share their beliefs and practices.

This is fundamentally wrong and antithetical to our values as Americans and as people of faith. Those in government who profess a deep religious faith would be wise to go back to their Bible and internalize the truths that have been the core of our beliefs for thousands of years. We are obligated to protect the weak and vulnerable in our midst, and we are called upon to treat each person we meet with the recognition that they too are created in the image of God.

The great African-American poet and writer Audre Lorde has written, "I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own." Perhaps it is time for those who would shackle LGBT folks to remember that the God they claim to serve privileges love above all things and sets captives free.

 Rabbi Mara S. Nathan, senior rabbi at Temple Beth-El in San Antonio, and the Rev. Valda Jean Combs, who has served as a pastor and chaplain in Waco, Fort Worth and Dallas, are part of Texas Believes -- a coalition of faith leaders who support equality for LGBT Texans (TexasBelieves.org).
We all will hurt before we get the federal budget under control

After reading letters from Jan Hughes and Peter Witt and many similar letters over the past few months, I have to voice my opinion.

The United States government is charged with keeping us safe, printing money, and a few more important duties. Over the past generations, the American people have demanded more and more "freebies" from an accommodating government. These aren't actually "freebies" since the money for them has to come from taxpayers' pockets. Our government resorted to "borrowing" to pay for these demands when the taxes collected didn't cover the money needed.

Other countries demanded that the powerful United States also help them monetarily. So our government spread our tax dollars around the world.

Our United States is overburdened, both domestically and worldwide. "Freebies" and world aid have to be cut back -- or out. Enter Donald Trump -- the one elected to get it all under control.

People squeal. Organizations squeal. Suck it up. We brought it on ourselves. We all will hurt before it gets better.

GLADYS WALLACE

Bryan

President Donald Trump should let his Cabinet help him out

Where are the members of President Donald Trump's Cabinet? One seldom hears about them unless it is about another tweet.

Our government is being led by a businessman, not a politician. Too bad! Our president does not seem capable of running a country. There is so much of which he appears to be ignorant.

He insults our allies while tweeting untruths, I guess to get attention. When he revises a statement we do not know what is truth and what is fiction.

Our secretary of State has his work cut out for him. Why should our allies believe anything that Trump says, as he has provoked and confused so many by statements that are untrue -- dare I say lies?

The president should stop running off his mouth and let his Cabinet help him to run the country. One person cannot run the entire United States.

TYRONE D. GORMLEY

Bryan
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 ...
What issue do Iowa voters most often say is critical? You might be surprised
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RIDGEFIELD  Former Fire Chief Kevin Tappe appeared to have been drinking heavily when he arrived at the scene of a fire in December, an incident that led to his retirement, according to a report released by the town in response to a Freedom of Information request from The News-Times.

Tappes lawyer, reached Tuesday, disputed the towns written account.

In a report dated Dec. 18, Fire Captain David McDevitt wrote that Tappe fell headfirst into a snowbank and smelled strongly of alcohol when he arrived at a chimney fire in the Fox Hill Condominium complex on Dec. 17.

McDevitt got to the fire before Tappe, who responded about a half hour after the department was called, according to the report.

Upon his approach, I turned to greet Chief Tappe and witnessed him fall forward into an adjacent snow bank, McDevitt wrote. It appeared that he had trouble stepping over a hose line that was on the sidewalk. Chief Tappe was unable to get to the standing position under his own power.

McDevitt said he and another fire official helped Tappe out of the snow bank. Tappe told McDevitt he was not injured and had fallen asleep about an hour before, so he was not fully awake, McDevitt said.

Ward Mazzucco, Tappes attorney, said the chief was not drinking that night.

Chief Tappe vigorously denies being intoxicated on the night in question, Mazzucco said in an email. The weather was cold, and water at the scene made the ground icy, so he did fall. He had trouble getting up solely as a result of persistent back problems. Chief Tappe took great pride in serving the town for many years and wishes the department well.

As he updated the chief on the fire, McDevitt said, he smelled alcohol on Tappe. McDevitt said Tappe asked the same question about the fire three times and that his speech was slurred.

McDevitt told Tappe he would continue to have command over the fire.

Other fire officials told McDevitt they also thought Tappe might have been drinking and the group decided to ask his wife to bring the chief home, the report said.

McDevitt said Tappe denied drinking and initially resisted being sent home until McDevitt suggested calling the police department to determine whether the chief could safely drive.

Tappe had served as the fire departments assistant chief for more than seven years before becoming chief in June 2014.

The Fire Commission placed Tappe on administrative leave on Dec. 22 as the town investigated an an unspecified policy violation. The Board of Selectmen accepted his retirement papers on Jan. 4.

Mazzucco said Tappe chose to retire, not resign, during the investigation.

The towns investigation was never completed, as town officials had yet to contact certain relevant witnesses," Mazzucco said.

Reached by phone on Tuesday, Tappe declined comment, saying he hadnt seen McDevitts report.

Ridgefield officials have declined to discuss the details of the incident or of the subsequent investigation by the town personnel director as to why Tappe resigned. On Tuesday, Town First Selectman Rudy Marconi declined to comment.

Kevin Cooney, president of the Connecticut Fire Chiefs Association, emphasized he does not know the details of the incident and that he did not want to support or condemn Tappe.

But, he said, in general, fire chiefs should not respond to calls if they have been drinking. Normally, Cooney said, chiefs would have subordinates who could respond.

Youre certainly not going to be any help on the scene, he said.

Cooney said incidents like this are very rare, but that they hurt the perception of fire officials nationwide.

We are held to a higher level and the expectation of us to not do those kind of things is there, Cooney said. If we violate that, we jeopardize not only our own abilities and credentials, as well as the entire fire service.
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NORWALK  The first time Ed Hynes learned of the American Revolutionary War, he was just a kid growing up in Wilton.

I was told when I was a tiny kid, maybe 5 years old, that the British marched in front of my home and partially burned our house. And I didnt learn another thing for 50 years. But then my wife and I became very interested in military history.

Now, Hynes is working with the Westport Historical Society, the city of Norwalk and the state of Connecticut to recognize the 240th anniversary of the Danbury Raid by designating the month of April American Revolution Month.

Norwalk Mayor Harry Rilling issued a proclamation declaring the months significance Tuesday at City Hall. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi and Westport First Selectman James Marpe are expected to issue similar proclamations in the coming weeks.

Were doing this because we need to remember our history to know where we come from, Hynes said. Its critical to pass this knowledge on to our young people.

The Danbury Raid and the Battle of Ridgefield occurred in the spring of 1777 when British troops landed at what is now Compo Beach in Westport and marched to Danbury, where they chased off a small garrison of Continental Army troops in hopes of seizing supplies. Upon encountering more patriots than intended, the troops abandoned their plan and instead burnt the supplies before marching to Ridgefield where a battle took place April 27. Historians agree that while the expedition was ultimately a tactical success for the British, their actions galvanized patriot support in Connecticut.

At the time, Fairfield and Norwalk met at the Saugutuck River. Now Westport, the towns historical society will open a new exhibit Saturday detailing the raid and battle. The exhibit will run through May 29.

More Information Upcoming Events April 1-May 29: Exhibit at Westport Historical Society April 6: The Making of a Nation: Revolutionary-era Art from Connecticut Museums - 7 p.m., Westport Historical Society, $10 donation April 18: Westport's Uncivil Revolution: A Family Divided by Politics, Smugglers, Snitches and Tory Raiders, a talk by author John Walker - 7 p.m., Westport Historical Society, $10 donation April 20: Lunch and Learn: Monument Madness Minute Man Monument - 12 p.m., Westport Historical Society, $10 donation April 23: Music George Washington Would Have Heard - 5 p.m., Greens Farms Congregational Church, $10 donation April 26: Lecture on the Danbury Raid by Ed Hynes - 7 p.m., Westport Historical Society, $10 donation April 28-30: Battle of Ridgefield reenactments, lectures and parade - for a full schedule of events and times, visit battleofridgefield.org May 7: Bus Tour of the Danbury Raid, starting at Compo Beach - 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., reservation required Throughout April: Participating restaurants in the Westport area will be serving revolutionary dishes for $17.77. Children's 1777 cooking classes will also be offered through the historical society. Build a Diorama of the Battle of Ridgefield every Thursday in April at the Westport Library. See More Collapse

Most people dont know about the raid because Benedict Arnold was involved, Hynes said. And after he defected a lot of people stopped talking about events he was involved in.

In addition to the exhibit, the Westport Historical Society is partnering with the towns involved to host a number of events throughout the month of April. Exhibits, lectures and a bus tour are all planned to commemorate the events. A reenactment is planned for April 28 in Ridgefield, with the opposing sides camping at either end of town. Cemetery tours and memorials will be held the following day.

As for which side Hynes would have chosen, had he been alive at the time, he said it would have been a tough choice to make.

It would have been hard to decide, Hynes said. There were a lot of factors  whether you were wealthy, which church you belonged to, that impacted who was a loyalist.

For a complete schedule of events visit westporthistory.org and battleofridgefield.org.

kkrasselt@scni.com; 203-354-1021; @kaitlynkrasselt
NORWALK  A 29-year-old New York man who police say was responsible for a multi-car crash on Westport Avenue was arrested on a warrant Monday night and charged with driving under the influence.

Matthew Brooks of South Salem, N.Y. was charged with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence and reckless driving.

Multiple rescue units and emergency personnel responded to a four-car accident with injuries on Westport Avenue shortly before 10 a.m. on Feb. 16, 2016.

Witnesses told police that prior to the crash a black Mustang driven by Brooks had been passing vehicles while traveling at speeds of more than 100 mph on Strawberry Hill Avenue.

Police said the accident, which occurred near the intersection of Strawberry Hill Avenue, resulted in multiple injuries. One man was found laying in the roadway with injuries, but conscious and alert.

At 9:43 a.m., police say that Brooks was traveling eastbound on Westport Avenue when his car rear-ended another vehicle, causing the second car to cross the double yellow lines into oncoming traffic.

That vehicle crashed into a third vehicle. Brooks then rear-ended another car. Three of the cars had to be towed from the scene.

Two people, along with Brooks, were transported to Norwalk Hospital.

Police obtained a warrant for Brooks medical records from the hospital.

Brooks blood test results came back positive for the presence of cocaine and marijuana, as well as showing recent use of narcotics. and his blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit at .24, according to police.

Brooks was taken into custody Monday night by Glastonbury police, who held him on the Norwalk warrant. He was picked up there by Norwalk police and transported to headquarters, where he was charged.

His bond was set at $10,000 and he was given a court date of April 5.

llake@hearstmediact.com
Social media lit up with confusion, derision and concern during the weekend over United Airlines barring two teenage girls from their Minneapolis-bound flight for wearing leggings.

1) A @united gate agent isn't letting girls in leggings get on flight from Denver to Minneapolis because spandex is not allowed?

The passengers this morning were United pass riders who were not in compliance with our dress code policy for company benefit travel.  United (@united) March 26, 2017

Jonathan Guerin, spokesman for the airline, told The New York Times that the young passengers did not meet the dress code requirements for a program that allows airline employees and their families to fly for free.

Its not that we want our standby travelers to come in wearing a suit and tie or that sort of thing," Guerin told The Times. "We want people to be comfortable when they travel as long as its neat and in good taste for that environment.

The pass travelers, since they are designated as representatives of the company, are not allowed to wear things such as flip flops, torn jeans, midriff-baring shirts -- basically any clothing that reveals undergarments -- and the clothing item in question, spandex leggings.

Related: JetBlue Defends Decision to Ask Passenger to Replace Booty Shorts Before Boarding Flight. Will the Incident Affect Its Brand?

While its understandable that United Airlines wants employees to put their best foot forward and the dress code was intended to help safeguard its reputation, it appears that the takeaway for people watching the incident unfold was inconvenience and an outdated rule that seemed to unduly target womens clothing choices.

So what can other companies learn from Uniteds messaging faux pas?

Denise Lee Yohn, the author of What Great Brands Do, told Entrepreneur that while consistency is admirable in a brand, in this case, the company would have done well to tell aggrieved customers that it was planning to review its rules around the dress code.

United Airlines has taken the high road by enforcing, and then sticking to, an established policy," she says. "Companies establish rules like this to maintain their desired brand image -- United shouldnt be faulted for that. But this is the kind of fodder that fuels social media, and so its taken a hit. The company should have stated that it supports its employees for following procedure but it would be reexamining its policy.

Jim Joseph, worldwide president at Cohn & Wolfe, agreed, noting that clarity is the only way to mitigate against a social media blowup.

Social media moves quickly, so its imperative to respond to issues with quick, full and transparent communications, as early -- and as often -- as possible, Joseph told Entrepreneur. If initial tweets from the brand had better explained that these travelers were part of an employee benefit program that has a dress code, perhaps some of the backlash could have been avoided. If the dress code is revisited, then United should also let that be known publicly."

Related:

Biggest Social Media Fails of 2017

Why Annual Social Media Policy Reviews Are Necessary

United Airlines Barred 2 Teens From Flying Over Their Leggings. Here's What You Can Learn.



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
A Bit of History: John Copp

Another grave in the East Norwalk Historical Cemetery is that of John Copp (June 9, 1673  May 16, 1751)  a member of the House of Representatives of the Colony of Connecticut, from Norwalk, in office during 1706, serving with Samuel Keeler, preceded by Thomas Betts and Samuel Hanford. He further served in 1716, 17, 18 and 1719. Copp served as Town Clerk of the Town of Norwalk,17081740.

Copp was a teacher, deacon, surveyor and a doctor. He served in the Queen Annes War.

He was one of the purchasers of the land for the present town of Ridgefield from the Ramapoo Indians. As a surveyor, he laid out the lots and roads of the present town of Bedford, New York.

Copp was born in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony, the son of David Copp and Obedience Topliff. His father was a cordwainer and a sealer of leather.

In a 1701 town meeting in Norwalk, Copp was hired as a schoolteacher. In 1705, the selectmen of Norwalk recommended that Copp apply for a medical license. He was subsequently granted a license. On July 24, 1711, at a meeting in New Haven, the Governors Council of Assistants voted to dispatch Copp as a surgeon with a Connecticut regiment which was assigned to attack the French in Port Royal.

Copps Island, Copps Hill Road, and Copps Hill Shopping Plaza were named in his honor.

April Fools Day: why, how and other trivia

Sometimes called All Fools Day, April Fools Day, April 1, is anyones guess as to how it really originated. Often its seen as a celebration of the new season, or derives its beginning from the adoption of a new calendar since ancient cultures, the Romans and Hindus among others, celebrated New Years Day on or around April 1, which closely follows the vernal equinox (March 20th or March 21st). In feudal times, most of Europe celebrated March 25, the Feast of Annunciation, as the beginning of the new year.

The Gregorian Calendar ordered by Pope Gregory XIII in 1585 required a new calendar to replace the old Julian Calendar. This calendar had New Years Day celebrated on January 1. France also adopted the reformed calendar. One explanation of April Fools Day was that many people either refused to accept the new calendar, or did not learn about it, and continued to celebrate New Years Day on April 1. Others, so it is said, began to make fun of the conformists, sending them on fools errands or trying to trick them into believing something false. Eventually, the practice spread throughout Europe.

Another explanation was offered by Joseph Boskin, a Boston University history professor. He suggests that the practice began during the reign of Constantine, when a group of court jesters and fools told the Roman emperor that they could do a better job of running the empire. Constantine, amused, allowed a jester named Kugel to be king for one day. Kugel passed an edict calling for absurdity on that day, and the custom became an annual event.

An Associated Press article on the subject was published by many newspapers in 1983. However, Boskin had made the whole thing up. It took a while for the AP to realize that theyd been victims of an April Fools joke themselves.

April Fools Day appears to be celebrated throughout the Western world. Customs include sending someone on a fools errand, looking for things that dont exist; playing pranks, and trying to get people to believe ridiculous things.

The French call April 1 Poisson dAvril, or April Fish. French children sometimes tape a picture of a fish on the back of their schoolmates, crying Poisson dAvril when the prank is discovered.

Please understand that all, within this column, is real and not intended as an April Fools joke.

Spotlight on Business: Bad Fish Tattoo Studio

Located at 197 Liberty Square in East Norwalk, Bad Fish Tattoo Studio is an independent tattoo studio looking beyond the minimalism of flash designs, striving to make every tattoo customized yet upholding the design each client desires. With a passion for the art and years of experience they use individual expertise to create each design, translated properly to a tattoo and to properly fit each clients choice of location and individual anatomy. Artists are always available to answer any questions or concerns each client may have.

As to the artists: George Reyes has been tattooing for more than six years  tattooing, besides being an art form, is more of a passion for George who excels in creating tattoos in gray tones with great detail. When the client is happy, thats when George is happy.

Pieter Spijkers  whose work you can check out on Instagram  whether color or black and gray, Pieter is expert in both styles. Whether something custom and realistic Pieter can help find what the perfect Tat, having been tattooing since 2010 and has been drawing since he first picked up a pencil. He specializes in black and gray designs filled with lots of detail.

Anthony Neave  tattooing since 2005, he is expert in virtually every form and style. His expertise is to work in color and always involves his clients ideas while putting his own artistic flare on their design to make it one of a kind.

At Bad Fish Tattooing cleanliness is their top priority with a studio that has been completely renovated and includes personal booths that allow privacy as necessary. The Bad Fish Tattoo artists are individually licensed and trained. Safety and health are important at Bad Fish Tattoo.

For more information, call 203-838-4868 or email: badfishtattoo@yahoo.com.

East Norwalk street names

Marvin School, the Marvin, Gregory Boulevard, Ludlow Manor: familiar places and streets in East Norwalk, but why so-named?

Ever heard of Matthew Marvin? John Gregory?  probably not. Roger Ludlow?  probably yes.

Way back when  in 1640  Roger Ludlow, a colonial soldier during the Pequot wars (1637-1638) bought land  between the Saugatuck River and the middle of the Norwalk River (approximately 15,777 acres)  from the Indians. Colonists, referred to as The Planters, bought the land from Ludlow in 1650 and laid out the town.

Mathew Marvin  born in Great Bently, Essex, England on Sept. 15, 1622 (died in Norwalk in 1712)  and John Gregory  born about 1585 in Nottingham, England and died in Norwalk  were two of The Planters who helped first settle what is now known as the City of Norwalk. Marvin owned the land now known as Taylor Farm, including much of the shoreline and a cow pasture now known as Calf Pasture Beach.

John Gregory was the owner of the property running from East Avenue, starting at the East Norwalk Historical Cemetery and ending at Gregorys point  the Shore and Country Club location.

So, now you know!

But, what about the others? Van Zant Street, for example. In an early map of East Norwalk, the street that runs from Fort Point Street to East Avenue at Cemetery Street clearly shows that it was then called Van Zandt (with a d) Street. When did it change? Who was Van Zandt (or Van Zant)? Anybody know?

And what about the East Norwalk street you call home. Why is it named so? Any idea? Let us know and well share your information.

If theres some East Norwalk happening or other East Norwalk news or features you would like to share with the readers, email: stansiegel@ienlife.com or call 203-249-6293
More than 800 area fourth-graders converged on Fonner Park on Tuesday for the Grand Island Area Chamber of Commerce Agricultural Committees Ag Day.

The committee has hosted Ag Day in conjunction with Fonner Park and area agricultural producers each spring for 18 years.

The event provides students the opportunity to observe and interact with several different aspects of agriculture, said Annette Schimmer, Ag Day chairwoman.

Schimmer said the biggest goal of Ag Day is educating the students about where their food comes from.

"Agriculture is all around us," she said. "There are so many different areas of agriculture and how we use it in our daily lives."

Schimmer said so many everyday items come from raw materials produced by Nebraska farmers and ranchers.

"The things that these kids use every day may have come from an agricultural animal," she said.

Some of the students believe their food comes from the local supermarket, Schimmer said.

"Our hope and intent are to make them (students) realize that eggs come from a chicken and not from a carton or milk doesnt come from a bottle but from a dairy cow," she said.

Schimmer said its important to remind students that Nebraskas roots are in agriculture.

"We have become a more urban state, and a lot of our kids did not grow up on a farm," she said. "Those generations are diminishing, so their mom or dad or grandparents may not have been on a farm. They dont learn about these things and schools dont have time to teach things, so this is a good chance for them to have a one-stop shop and learn about all the different areas of ag."

More than 30 FFA members from Northwest High School served as role models to the younger children and helped make the event a success.

Fourth-graders attended Ag Day from 43 classrooms in 19 schools in the Grand Island area.

Cedar Hollow fourth-grade teacher Ashley Dvorak led her students through the stations.

"I really think it is important to bring my students here because they are able to learn a lot about the agricultural industry, which is really important to Nebraska," Dvorak said.

She said she plans to reinforce that message in the classroom.

"We will talk about some of the things that they have learned, and they will do some writing about it," Dvorak said. "We will also talk about some of the more important things that they remember."

She said this is her fourth year of bringing her students to Ag Day.

"The students are becoming more educated about where their food comes from," Dvorak said.

One of her students attending the event was Emma Harb, who is 10 years old.

"It is really fun, and you can learn new things about the world, like animals," Emma said.

Ag Day included presentations by the Nebraska Cattle Women, Aurora Cooperative, Nebraska Corn Board, Central Platte Natural Resources District, Raising Nebraska, Northwest High School FFA, Hall County 4-H/UNL Extension, Prairie Fibers Guild, Midwest Dairy Association and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln entomology department. The students got hands-on experience at booths and saw animals brought in by area farmers.

Helping explain Nebraskas pork industry was Courtney Schaaret of the Nebraska Farm Bureau Foundation.

"We are telling the fourth-graders about pork and how farmers and ranchers take care of their pigs in Nebraska," Schaaret said.

"Many of these kids are three to four generations removed from the family farm," she said. "We need to be out front of these kids and share how farmers and ranchers are taking care of their animals and get them the real story of whats happening."
Justine Cockerham, who lives just east of the Grand Island Transfer Station, finds a lot of garbage in her yard. Usually it winds up there because people bring uncovered loads to the transfer station.

Sometimes, though, people throw garbage out of their vehicles deliberately. In those cases, people dont make it to the transfer station before it closes at 4 p.m. and dont want to haul their load back home.

Last week, Cockerham found a bag of Pepsi cans broken open on her property, which is at 4905 W. Old Potash Highway.

Sometimes, she and her neighbors find grass clippings, leaves and tree branches in their yards. One time, they even found a discarded couch.

Cockerham doesnt blame the transfer station staff for the mess. Sometimes, employees come pick up the garbage on their own, she said.

Solid Waste Superintendent Jeff Wattier points out that the transfer station, which is at 5050 W. Old Potash Highway, has a covered load policy. Customers who show up with a load thats not covered are assessed a $10 fee.

People hauling in big furniture dont have to cover their load as long as its strapped down, he said. But the policy does apply to people hauling construction debris, items that have been demolished or regular household trash.

In return for the $10 fee, drivers are given a tarp, which they may keep. That proactive policy has been in effect since 2005, Wattier said.

The transfer station will reopen its yard waste site to the public next Monday. The entrance to the site is located on Monitor Road, which borders the transfer station property to the east.

Grass, leaves, tree limbs and tree branches will be accepted at no charge to homeowners and renters. The free service is for homeowners and renters, not contractors for hire. It is free only for Grand Island residents, Wattier noted.

Even with the covered load policy, transfer station customers inevitably lose items along the roadway, he said. As a result, once in the spring and once in the fall, contract laborers are hired to pick up trash in the ditches.

But Wattier realizes that people sometimes dispose of trash along Old Potash deliberately. After getting a phone call, Hall County Roads Department employees go pick that trash up. The transfer station accepts those items for free.

During the last fiscal year, running between Oct. 1, 2015, and Sept. 30, 2016, the transfer station assessed the uncovered load fee 381 times. That brought in $3,810.

But the operation doesnt come out much ahead. Hiring the contract laborers during that fiscal year totaled $996. The tarps handed out to customers cost $2,480.

Basically, the fees that we assess for the uncovered load just cover the cost of the tarps and the cost of the litter pickers, Wattier said.

Cockerham has lived on Old Potash Highway for two years. She thinks the trash problem has been worse this year than the year before. She believes a Hall County deputy patrolling the area used to make a difference.

Cockerham would also like to see more drivers cover their loads.

She notices more refuse on her yard in the spring and in the fall. In the spring, people do cleaning and get ready for garage sales. In the fall, loads that wind up on her lawn are usually leaves.

Cockerham and Wattier point out that items dont always stay where they land. Nebraska wind can make a big difference.

Wattier noted that trash can be spotted all over town. Outside large grocery stores and shopping centers you can really see a disaster after a windy day, he said.

At the yard waste site, yard waste to be disposed of must be clean of waste and debris and emptied from garbage bags at the time of disposal. Customers delivering yard waste must ensure loads are properly secured to prevent littering along the roadways.

The transfer station closes at 4 p.m. year-round. But the yard waste site will be open to the public Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. starting next week.

For more information about the yard waste site, residents may call the transfer station at (308) 385-5433, the Public Works Department at (308) 385-5455, or visit www.grand-island.com/yardwastesite.

Information about the Public Works Department may also be found at www.facebook.com/GI.PublicWorks and www.twitter.com/GIPublicWorks.
Election Day 2022: The stakes are high with all eyes on Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania voters on Election Day will make decisions that could reshape the future of both the commonwealth and nation.
Question: I hired a lawn service to work on my yard, and they wound up killing everything. They were sorry, but I didn't care if they were sorry. They would not pay for a decent company to handle my lawn right. So, I sued them. The President of the corporation kept appearing in court until the judge finally explained that he could not represent the corporation because he is not a lawyer. I have tried calling, but can only leave a voicemail. The President never showed up for the hearing, and neither did any lawyer. So, I won my lawsuit for just over $1,000.00, because they failed to appear. Since then, I have heard nothing. What can I do next? I do not want to wind up paying a lawyer half of the money that I get in order to collect the money. I recall the judge saying something about a post judgment proceeding, but I have no idea what this means. I cannot afford to spend money to collect the money I am entitled to. Any advice you could give me would be appreciated?

I appreciate your question very much, and the position in which you find yourself.

To begin, I cannot tell you exactly what it is you need to do, or how you should do it. The reason is that this article is, like most advice articles, designed for informational purposes only. If I told you what you need to do and how to do it, I would be giving you legal advice, which I cannot do unless you are a client of mine. I apologize that this is the position we find ourselves in, but, believe me, I am sure you do not want to receive legal advice via an informational column  just as I have no desire to give it via the same method.

For those readers who do not know, when a person gets a judgment after a party fails to appear in court, then it is commonly referred to as a default judgment. The default judgment is a valid judgment against the person or business entity, like the incorporated lawn company that you sued, and it is enforceable, provided that it is not overturned for some reason. (A default judgment can be overturned for several reasons. For instance, if the person or entity against whom a default judgment was entered is successful in seeking to reopen the case or vacate the judgment that was entered.)

It might also be of interest for readers to note that the judge probably told the President of the corporation you were suing that he had to be represented by an attorney for a good reason. A person who is not licensed to practice law is allowed to represent himself or herself in court. However, a person who is not licensed to practice law cannot represent another person in court, and cannot represent a business entity, like a corporation, in court, even if that person is an important corporate officer with that corporation. In other words, a local guy and his friends might start a lawn care business, then seek to incorporate it in order to limit their personal liability in case that lawn care business is ever sued  because anyone suing would have to or is likely to seek to sue only the corporation. Even though these people who started the business are the ones that know the in's and out's of it, they have no legal authority to represent the business in a court of law. If the company you sued had not incorporated, and you sued the President personally, then the President could represent himself.

The short answer to your question is that you can seek to enforce the judgment. Any person who is owed a debt can seek that a judgment be entered by a judge. You obviously did that. And although it seems you got lucky, because no one appeared, and, therefore, a default judgment was entered, you can seek to enforce it. Enforcement of judgments can be a difficult thing, and there are any number of rules and statutes that govern the enforcement of judgments.

To seek to enforce the judgment you got against the corporation, I highly suggest hiring an attorney. I agree that it seems unfair. It seems unfair for a very good reason: because it is unfair. Once someone or something like a corporation has a judgment entered against them, it should be satisfied without the person who obtained the judgment having to jump through the hoops of going back to court again. The good news for you is that you might very well have the option of seeking further compensation for having to enforce the judgment you obtained.

Have questions for Brendan Bukalski? E-mail him at askthelawyer@gmail.com, or write him, c/o The Edwardsville Intelligencer, 117 N. 2nd St., Edwardsville, IL 62025.

Editor's note  the answers provided in this column are general in nature, and should not be relied upon as legal advice or interpreted as creating an attorney-client relationship. As a general rule, all specific legal problems should be handled by an individual's personal attorney. Any submissions to the author are subject to being published and to being modified prior to publication.
As expected, the Edwardsville District 7 Board of Education approved the resolution to issue tax anticipation warrants on Monday to cover the education fund and the transportation fund in order to finish the 2016-17 school year. Rather than the $5 million in warrants for the education fund that the board had discussed at the last finance meeting, the resolution was approved for tax anticipation warrants of up to $7 million due to the state's continuing lag in making payments owed to District 7.

Dave Courtney, Assistant Superintendent of Business Operations, provided these details in another financial update during the finance meeting that took place prior to the general board meeting Monday night. He reiterated that at the beginning of the current (2016-17) school year that the district had estimated ending the current school year with a negative $6.7 million deficit in the education fund. This estimate assumed that the state would eventually pay all outstanding and mandated categorical and grant payments due through June 30, 2017, he said.

But Courtney pointed out that as of Monday, the state had not paid any mandated categorical payments this school year for special education or transportation and had paid only five of the nine early childhood payments due for this school year. If no state payments are received by April 1, the state will have paid only five of 10 payments owed to District 7. The amount due from the state will increase from $2.7 million to a little over $4 million by the end of March if no additional categorical or grant payments are made to District 7, he noted.

The Illinois State Board of Education had informed the district last week that it should expect to receive only one of the four mandated categorical payments owed to it for the current school year. In addition Courtney thought the state's ability to pay all of the early childhood grant payments due for this school year was now seriously in doubt.

Due to these latest insights from the state, the board increased the tax anticipation warrants for the education fund to up to $7 million. This would provide the needed cash flow for the district until it begins receiving property tax payments in June and July, Courtney explained.

If the state does not make any categorical payments for special education or any additional early childhood grant payments, it is possible that the district will need to borrow tax anticipation warrants for the education fund to finish the month of April 2017, but no later than May.

The board also approved tax anticipation warrants of $1 million for the transportation fund. The state currently owes District 7 approximately $1.1 million in transportation funding which will increase to over $1.6 million by the end of March if no payments are made. The district currently owes First Student, the district's transportation provider, approximately $900,000 for the months of January and February. Issuing tax anticipation warrants for the transportation fund will allow the district to pay its bills to First Student.

Both anticipation warrants will be issued with TheBANK of Edwardsville.

In talking about the state not paying the money it owes District 7, Courtney noted that residents had asked what the district would do with the money if the state went back and paid the district for years of pro-rated payments. The revenue that this district has lost in the last nine years, which is over $56 million from the state, is money that is lost. The state is not in a position where they will go back and make payments to the school district. They can't even pay what they promised for this year. So, they are not going to go back and make up the difference, he stressed.

In fact, Courtney emphasized, there had been several bills introduced in Springfield to push to revamp the General State Aid formula, which is the funding formula that determines state payments to District 7. I want to emphasize that those bills that have been presented through the house and senate are bills that will not help District 7, he said. Those bills are aimed at addressing what they consider low adequacy funded districts. Those are districts that have low EAV, low property taxes and low income which is the exact opposite of District 7. Any of those formulas being presented would only make our situation worse.

Courtney also reviewed the preliminary 2016 EAV for the 2017-18 school year. Due to the assessment of township multipliers, the district's EAV growth rate estimated at 1.9 percent in December has now increased to over six percent, he said.

This EAV change could result in an additional $700,000 in revenue for the 2017-18 school year and will cause the estimated tax rate to drop from $4.22 to somewhere between $4.10 and $4.14.

He also reiterated that under the current GSA funding formula in Illinois, when a district's EAV increases in one year, the district will see a corresponding decrease in GSA the next year. So the increase in the EAV isn't something you can count on  on a year to year basis - because the state considers that local resources and reduces the funding they provide to the school district the next year, Courtney said. You can't count on the money as sustainable with the way the formula is right now.

Talking about the EAV and property taxes, Courtney also reiterated how the district's tax rate is applied at a rate per $100 of assessed valuation of residents' homes. The assessed value for tax purposes is one-third of the fair market value of your home, Courtney noted. For example, a house with a fair market value of $150,000, which is near the average fair market value for all homes with in the District 7 community, is assessed at $50,000 for tax purposes.

The calculation of the current district tax rate for a home with a fair market value of $150,000 is as follows: ($150,000  3)  100) x $4.22 = $2,110.00.

In summary, it is important to remember that the district projected a $3 to $3.5 million budget deficit next year even with an EAV growth rate of 3 percent, Courtney added.

Board Member Dorothy Hummel expressed extreme frustration with the state and asked Courtney if he could recall the state payments being delayed longer than they are currently. This is the longest since 2009 when this whole cycle started. Today is the worst it's ever been. They've been behind six months before but they've never been behind nine months for schools. This is the furthest they've ever been behind, he said.

We lost over $56 million in revenue from the state of Illinois and when people come to me and say, well the state should take care of budget problems, we don't foresee that happening, Board Member Terri Dalla Riva noted. I think that's why as a board we have directed Proposition E to be on the ballot so that we can actually support our own community...Right now we're looking at borrowing money to just run our budget and I think that's wrong. I think we should as a community support paying for our education outright and I think Proposition E supports that as well.
The blueprints for Edwardsville Frozen Foods, at 246 N. Main St., were first drawn up in 1947 and now  70 years later  that blueprint will be updated with the sale of the business to new owners, Bob Keyser and Jeff Merkel, both of whom are from Edwardsville.

Longtime residents, they grew up going to the Wildey Theatre and the butcher shop next door with the iconic "Herbie the Hereford" cow on its roof. Initial plans entail keeping the existing core business of aged beef, pork, chicken, and wild game processing, but eventually adding a "farm-to-table" concept that will complement the longtime butcher trade by creating a hub that people can come to and pick up ultra-fresh local produce, dairy, cheeses, fruit and even wild-caught seafood.

Longtime employee, Bruce Krome, also born and raised in Edwardsville, will manage the butcher business, which will be rebranded as the Goshen Butcher Shop. He will be assisted by Russ Martin, a 20-year employee journeyman meat cutter responsible for butchery operations, deer processing as well as summer sausage, bratwurst, and recipes for seasonings.

A new endeavor to create fresh carry-out meals and private catering will also be added through the hire of noted St. Louis chef, Ben McArthur, formerly with J. McArthur's and Balaban's restaurants, among others, to work with Krome in managing the carry-out and catering business. However, the signature staple of service and quality that the business was built upon will continue to be the company's hallmark.

Owners Ed Hall and Fred Schulte bought the business in 1980 from Carl Brueggeman, after working there since they were both 15, starting part-time as "clean-up boys," and working full-time through a three-year apprenticeship learning the trade. They mortgaged their houses and "whatever they had to" for the down payment, paying off those mortgages two years later. Hall and Schulte only made a few changes under their ownership, one of which was the creation of Bratwurst in the mid to late '80s.

"We gave away more than we sold that first year," recalls Hall, "but now we're known for that Bratwurst!" That and changing the formula for their summer sausage to all beef and making beef sticks, which are another big seller, "especially to send overseas to the troops in Iraq," noted Krome, who is known to many in the area as "the Meat Man."

He has worked at the business since 1972, starting his apprenticeship in 1974 under Ernie Jackson and Roy Spitze, the same men who taught Hall and Shulte.

Little else has changed over the last 50 years, though  even the original locker keys and office furniture that Brueggeman used is still in the same place.

Both owners say it's time for someone else to take over the reins and "do the heavy lifting" so they can retire, and they're happy that the business is going to local men who care about its history and have ties in the community. Hall and Schulte, who has also been the Edwardsville Township Clerk for almost 16 years, will stay on as consultants for the first year and are excited to see the new owners update the business, which they have always operated without a computer or point-of-sale system. "We want it to succeed and go to the next level," Schulte said.

Krome concurs, noting "I'm just a meat cutter, but change is an improvement and I'm excited that Jeff and Bob are going to make some additions while keeping the main business the same. I want our customers to be happy and I think they will be once we get things going. If not, they need to let me know!"

Keyser, who now lives in Boca Raton, Fla., and Merkel, of Edwardsville, Ill., are passionate about maintaining the integrity of the business and adhering to the longtime culture of quality and customer service. An update and revamp of the interior space will take place over the next several months, with no plans to close or shut down for construction purposes other than normal operating hours. Those revisions will include restoring the historic look of the building, featuring new storefront windows similar to the originals, to better fit into the look and feel of the Edwardsville Downtown Historic District.

Merkel is also in the process of creating partnerships with various local Land of Goshen Community Market farmers and other local partners to cross-market products, thus increasing the depth of the company's culinary retail offerings for the foodie haven that Edwardsville has become. "Ultra-fresh, ultra-local and ultra-clean are the main pillars of the new concept, which we plan to grow into a full-scale farm-to-table market," he noted. "That, combined with our commitment to continue the core business and maintain the service and quality they are known for, is what we want to bring to the community."
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Linkedin Keshie Hernitaningtyas (The Jakarta Post) London, United Kingdom  Tue, March 28, 2017 09:25 2050 a291276806121264c0bd211cde6863e0 1 Art & Culture Indonesian-culture,London,London-attack,Matah-Ati,Atilah-Suryadjaya Free

A gala dinner hosted by Indonesia that was supposed to take place at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the United Kingdom, on Saturday, has been canceled following the recent act of terrorism that struck the city.

Prominent Indonesian artists, designers and musicians were expected to showcase their work at the dinner, part of a business-to-business program titled Indonesia Regal Heritage.

The program seeks to promote the archipelagos vast richness in craftsmanship, textiles, fashion, art, music, dance and cuisine.

Around 250 high-profile guests were said to have been invited to the event.

Among the scheduled entertainers were fashion designer Ghea Panggabean, theater producer Atilah Soeryadjaya, Iwan Tirta Private Collection creative director Era Soekamto, craftsman Benny Adrianto, musician Otti Jamalus, chef and food consultant Petty Elliott and Rumah Pesona Kain, a non-profit organization that works to protect Indonesia's textile heritage.

Fourteen-year-old Faye Simanjuntak who founded Rumah Faye, a foundation that focuses on helping child trafficking victims, was also supposed to give a speech at the dinner.

Read also: Gado-gado, soto Betawi recognized as 'intangible cultural heritage'

In light of the recent terror attack in London, [event organizer] Gapura Ltd and Indonesia Regal Heritage team believes it is best to prioritize safety. After careful consideration and a collective decision, we regretfully have to cancel the event, read an official statement received by The Jakarta Post in London on Monday.

The programs two other events, an art seminar at Oxford Universitys Corpus Christi College in Oxford and a business forum at the Hilton on Park Lane in London, went ahead as planned on Friday and Monday, respectively.

At Oxford, the Indonesian delegation shared knowledge about the countrys heritage through a presentation as well as fashion shows and live performances.

Atilah and her dance drama team were the last to perform at the university and were particularly spellbinding. They received a standing ovation from the audience.

Atilah told the Post in London that she considered events such as gala dinners a good way to promote Indonesia's art and culture. She said she plans to hold one herself in London.

"Hopefully we can do it within the year," she added. (asw)
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Linkedin David Rising (Associated Press) Berlin  Tue, March 28, 2017

Thieves broke into the German capital's Bode Museum before dawn Monday and made off with a massive 100-kilogram (221-pound) gold coin worth millions of dollars, police said.

Police spokesman Stefen Petersen said thieves apparently entered through a window about 3:30 a.m. Monday, broke into a cabinet where the "Big Maple Leaf" coin was kept, and escaped with it before police arrived.

A ladder was found by nearby railway tracks.

The three-centimeter (1.18-inch) thick coin, with a diameter of 53 centimeters (20.9 inches), has a face value of 1 million Canadian dollars ($750,000). By weight alone, however, it would be worth almost $4.5 million at market prices.

Read also: London gala dinner hosted by Indonesia canceled due to security concerns

Petersen would not comment on whether authorities had surveillance video of the crime, but said police assume more than one person was involved because of the weight of the coin.

The museum says the coin is in the Guinness Book of Records for its purity of 999.99/1000 gold. It has a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on one side and maple leaves on the other.

It was produced in limited quantities by the Royal Canadian Mint to promote a new line of its Gold Maple Leaf bullion coins in 2007. It has been on display at the Bode Museum, on Berlin's Museum Island, since December 2010.

Berlin museums spokesman Markus Farr said the coin is on loan from a private collection, but would not elaborated.

Detectives specialized in crimes involving art are investigating.
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Linkedin Edith M. Lederer (Associated Press)  Tue, March 28, 2017

The U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution Friday condemning the unlawful destruction of cultural heritage and warning the Islamic State extremist group, al-Qaida and other combatants that such attacks may constitute war crimes.

The resolution approved by the U.N.'s most powerful body expands previous measures which were limited to the illicit trafficking in looted cultural items to fund terrorism, and focused on Iraq and Syria where Islamic State extremists have destroyed ancient sites including Palmyra.

The newly adopted measure targets not only IS, al-Qaida and its affiliates but all parties to conflicts.

Read also: Iraq hopes to reclaim heritage lost to Islamic State group

It condemns and urges prosecution of those responsible for attacks against historic monuments and sites and buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes as well as those who carry out illegal excavations, loot and traffic in stolen goods.

Irina Bokova, head of the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO, called the resolution "historic" saying it "reflects new recognition of the importance of cultural heritage for peace and security."

"Heritage is identity  it is belonging," she told the council after the vote. "The deliberate destruction of heritage is a war crime  it has become a tactic of war, in a global strategy of cultural cleansing."

Bokova said that's why defending cultural heritage "is a security imperative, inseparable from that of defending human lives."

Read also: Indonesian artist brings home to Rotterdam

U.N. political chief Jeffrey Feltman said the resolution "aims to strengthen international cooperation to deprive terrorists of funding, but also to protect cultural heritage as a symbol of understanding and respect for all religions, beliefs and civilizations."

The resolution calls for international cooperation in investigations, prosecutions, confiscations and the return of looted and trafficked cultural property. It also calls on member states to carry out measures including introducing or improving cultural inventory lists and adopting import and export regulations that require certification of the provenance of cultural items.

Yuri Fedotov, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, called the destruction of landmarks such as the giant Buddhas in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, the Roman monuments in Palmyra and shrines and mosques in the Iraqi cities of Tikrit and Mosul "reprehensible attempts to erase history."

"But the destruction and looting are also generating profits for terrorists through trafficking, carried out in collusion with organized crime groups," he said. "Those profits fund further acts of terrorism, and enable yet more destruction and looting of cultural sites and archaeological treasures."

Fedotov said his office is working with UNESCO, INTERPOL and others to strengthen national, regional and international responses.

"We have the treaties, tools, guidelines and training materials," he said. "But we need to operationalize commitments more effectively, and we need member states to provide more resources in the spirit of shared responsibility."

World donors pledged more than $75 million Monday to a UNESCO-backed alliance to protect cultural heritage sites at a conference in Paris' Louvre Museum. French President Francois Hollande passionately called on more countries to contribute to the newly-created heritage alliance and help push it past its "ambitious" $100 million goal.
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Linkedin Winny Tang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, March 27 2017

The government has invited more Taiwanese to explore Indonesia beyond top tourist spot Bali Island, by promoting the less popular Morotai Island in North Maluku and Singkawang, West Kalimantan instead.

Four times the size of Singapore, the 245,000-hectare Morotai lies between Asia and Australia. Inhabited by around 72,000 people, it offers great potential for tourism, fisheries and manufacturing industries.

I would like to invite Taiwanese investors to invest in Morotai due to its proximity to Taiwan, only a three-hour flight, and historical ties between Morotai and Taiwan, Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said in his remarks during the 2017 Taiwan Tourism Workshop, recently.

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Linkedin Sebastian Partogi (The Jakarta Post)  Mon, March 27 2017

If I had one wish, love would feel like this

(Forbidden Love, Madonna)

Just recently, I watched a 2012 Canadian romantic drama called Laurence Anyways written and directed by Xavier Dolan at the Kinosaurus cinema cafe. I did something I hadnt done for quite a while: I wept silently while I sat there in the darkness and watched the motion pictures moving right before my eyes, like a train.

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Linkedin Viriya P. Singgih (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 28, 2017 19:18 2050 a291276806121264c0bd211cde69a8c7 1 Business Vale-Indonesia-INCO,nickel-smelter Free

A Chinese investor has expressed interest in partnering with publicly listed nickel mine operator PT Vale Indonesia to build a ferronickel plant in Bahodopi, Central Sulawesi.

A Chinese investor has conducted a pre-feasibility study for the Bahodopi smelter. The study is expected to be completed in September, Vale Indonesia president director Nico Kanter said after an annual general meeting of shareholders on Monday.

The Bahodopi smelter adds to the list of smelter projects that Vale Indonesia is working on at the moment.

The company, part of Brazilian mining giant Vale, is planning to build a US$2 billion ferronickel smelter in Pomalaa, Southeast Sulawesi. The construction of the new facility is initially slated to begin in 2018, while it is expected to start operating in 2023.

However, it is still waiting for the issuance of forest area utilization permits (IPPKH) and is in the process of revising the environmental impact analysis (Amdal) for the project.

(Read also: Vale Indonesia to spend US$90 million for smelter rejuvenation, expansion)

It has teamed up with Japanese miner Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. Ltd. to develop high pressure acid leaching (HPAL) technology for the Pomalaa processing plant and is looking for another partner to help produce the ferronickel in the facility.

Vale Indonesia is looking to upgrade its nickel smelter in Sorowako, South Sulawesi, as well, so that it can increase its production capacity to 90,000 tons of nickel in matte a year by 2019, compared to the current 80,000 tons of nickel in matte a year. (tas)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 28, 2017 15:12 2050 a291276806121264c0bd211cde691d0b 4 City reclamation-trial,jakarta,Jakarta-administration,Sumarsono Free

The city administration is preparing to file an appeal on the court ruling that annulled the construction permits of islets F, I and K of the Jakarta reclamation project.

The Jakarta State Administrative Court ruled in favor of a coalition of fishermen and environmentalists on March 16, revoking the disputed permits of three islets of the project. The three islets are among 17 man-made islets of the controversial project.

We are preparing the required documents for the appeal and will file the appeal no later than March 30, said acting Jakarta governor Sumarsono on Monday as quoted by kompas.com.

(Read also: More than 100,000 people evicted for land reclamation: Report)

According to earlier reports, the court has set March 30 as the deadline for filing an appeal.

Sumarsono claimed that he is not required to report to non-active Jakarta governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama about the appeal.

I think Ahok understands the legal mechanism. I believe Ahok would agree with the appeal plan, Sumarsono said. (kkk/dmr)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 28, 2017 14:36 2050 a291276806121264c0bd211cde690b65 1 National death-penalty,CapitalPunishment,JudicialSystem,Franz-Magnis-Suseno,death-row Free

A discussion on the dilemma of the death penalty at the Islamic College Sadra on Monday saw another heated debate surrounding the inclusion of capital punishment in Indonesia's legal system with a number of academics and experts offering different opinions.

Franz Magnis Suseno from the philosophy college of STF Driyakarya said that the death penalty had failed to reduce the crime rate in the country.

"The death penalty does not have a deterrent effect, since we can see that the number of crimes such as drug trafficking is still very high," he said.

Franz added that human beings "do not have the right" to end someone's life, adding that punishment should not be understood as an act of revenge.

(Read also: UN support sought to end death penalty in Indonesia)

Ammar Fauzi from the Islamic College Sadra, however, argued that the death penalty was about "upholding justice."

However, according to him, the most important thing for the government was to create a fair justice system.

Hertasning Ichlas from Universalia Legal Aid (YLBHU) also questioned the implementation of the death penalty, saying it was still "discriminatory." He said that most of the convicts on death row were not "the big fish" or key actors in their criminal networks.

He suggested that it was better for all stakeholders to focus on fixing problems and reforming the country's justice system than to prolong debates over the death penalty. (rdi/bbs)
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Linkedin Terrance Harris (Associated Press) Orlando  Tue, March 28, 2017

The fight over whether Florida's governor can take away an officer-killing case from a prosecutor because she no longer will seek the death penalty in any cases is returning to a courtroom in Orlando.

A hearing will take place Tuesday in the case of Markeith Loyd, who is charged with murdering an Orlando police lieutenant and Loyd's pregnant ex-girlfriend.

Gov. Rick Scott took the case away from State Attorney Aramis Ayala in Orlando earlier this month after she announced she wouldn't seek the death penalty in Loyd's case or any future cases. Ayala, who is the first elected African-American state attorney in Florida, said during her announcement that there is no evidence that shows the death penalty improves public safety for citizens or law enforcement, and it's costly and drags on for years for the victims' families.

The governor reassigned the case to State Attorney Brad King who works in a neighboring district.

Ayala argued that the governor doesn't have the authority to remove her. She said in a court motion that Scott's actions are unprecedented and his interference in the decision-making by state attorneys could undermine Florida's judicial system.

King said he is the authorized prosecutor for the case. He said Ayala had no authority to represent the state of Florida when she filed a motion to temporarily halt Loyd's case so that Circuit Judge Frederick Lauten could hear arguments about which prosecutor should handle the case.

Loyd is charged with first-degree murder in the killings of his ex-girlfriend, Sade Dixon, and Orlando Police Lt. Debra Clayton.
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Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 28, 2017 13:00 2050 a291276806121264c0bd211cde6955d0 1 Business textile,Indonesia,exports Free

The Indonesia Textile Association (API) projects that garment exports will stagnate this year after declining by 3.2 percent to US$11.9 billion last year.

Its good if its stagnant. Last year it declined because there are several problems that still persist in the country, though there have been some improvements in facilities from the government to boost the sector, API chairman Ade Sudrajat told The Jakarta Post recently.

Problems include contradictory policies between central and local administrations, complicated tax procedures, inadequate infrastructure that leads to high logistics costs and electricity and gas prices that are higher than neighboring countries.

(Read also: Indonesia aims to be the biggest military uniform exporter)

Besides internal challenges, Ade said the Indonesian textile business also faced tough competition in trying to expand its share of the international market. He called on the government to expand trade agreements with big buyers.

Indonesia can lobby the United States to expand its GSP [Generalized System of Preferences] for more Indonesian garment items so more of our product can enter the country with lower tariffs, he added.

The US is Indonesias biggest garment importer.

Despite the challenges, the association acknowledged some improvements in logistics, such as the establishment of dozens of bonded warehouses.

The association also acknowledged that the activation of more cargo lines from Gedebage Station in West Java  known as a center for garment production  to Tanjung Priok Port in Jakarta had boosted exports. (bbn)

Topics : textile Indonesia exports
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Linkedin Syamsul Huda M. Suhari (The Jakarta Post) Gorontalo  Tue, March 28, 2017 15:20 2050 a291276806121264c0bd211cde692861 1 National Gorontalo,child-abuse,sexual-abuse,police,recidivist Free

Abdul Rahman Husain, the social rehabilitation unit head at the Gorontalo Provinces Social Affairs Agency, has said he was still in shock to learn that the suspect of alleged multiple sexual abuses at the Al Hijrah orphanage in Dungingi district was the 42-year-old man who ran the facility.

Abdul said the suspect, identified only by the initials IS, was the chairman of the Gorontalo forum for Childrens Wellbeing and Orphanages.

I am shocked and deeply saddened because IS is known as a nice person. He is also known as a childrens activist, he said.

At least 79 young people were sheltered at Al Hijrah, which is known to be a special shelter for children experiencing legal difficulties or those from poor families. The orphanage reportedly witnessed the sexual abuse of at least six girls, Gorontalo Police spokesman Adj. Sr. Comr. Ary Donny said.

(Read also: Police urged to reveal faces of suspected pedophiles to public)

The police investigation has revealed that IS, who has been detained since last Thursday, was convicted of a similar crime more than 20 years ago.

It was in Central Sulawesi around 1995. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, Ary said.

IS has been charged under the 2014 Law on Child Protection, which carries a maximum 15 years imprisonment. However, Ary said judges could impose a heavier sentence because IS had allegedly committed a crime he had previously been convicted of.

The issue came to light when the parents of the girl who ran away from the orphanage told local police about the alleged abuse on Thursday. (bbs)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 28, 2017 13:15 2050 a291276806121264c0bd211cde68c5cc 1 Business government,mining,company,lawsuit,permits Free

The government is facing a rampant number of lawsuits from miners, whose mining permits were revoked by the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry for, among other reasons, failing to pay taxes based on a study made by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

They have filed lawsuits against us. It is their right. We will face them, said the ministrys coal and mineral mining directorate general Bambang Gatot Ariyono as reported by kontan.co.id on Monday

According to a KPK study conducted in 2011, many mining companies have failed to pay taxes. Based on the study and Law No 23/20014 on regional administrations, regional administrations were asked to collect data about the ninety companies that had not fulfilled their obligations. The government marked those miners with non-clean and clear permit status.

According to the ministry, there are 3,203 out of 9,433 mining permits with the status of non-clean and clear up to January. The government has revoked 200 permits so far.

Because of the lawsuits, the government delayed announcing the mining permits that had received clean and clear status, said Bambang.

(Read also: COMMENTARY: Freeport's threat of arbitration simply a ploy to block mining reform)

Indonesian Coal Companies Association (APBI) Deputy Executive Director Hendra Sinadia said the companies had filed lawsuits against the government because they believed that they were in the right as the permits were issued by the government.

Meanwhile, Centre for Indonesian Resources Strategic Studies (Cirrus) director Budi Santoso said the government was in a weak position by revoking the mining permits. He also said that clean and clear status permits were not a guarantee that the companies had already fulfilled their obligations. (bbn)

Topics : government mining company lawsuit permits
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 28, 2017 11:39 2050 a291276806121264c0bd211cde688ad2 1 City Jessica-Kumala-Wongso,murder-case,detainment Free

A lawyer of murder convict Jessica Kumala Wongso visited Pondok Bambu Women's Penitentiary in East Jakarta on Monday to demand the release of the convict of the controversial case of Wayan Mirna Salihin's murder.

Defense attorney Otto Hasibuan said that her detainment was illegal given that the convict of the controversial murder case of Wayan Mirna Salihin was currently filing a cassation at the Supreme Court.

"Jessica's detainment ordered by the district court was only until Mar. 26, meaning she was supposed to be released last night," said Otto as quoted by kompas.com.

"Now, if she has to stay behind bars, such an instruction should be from the Supreme Court."

Jessica was sentenced to a 20-year prison term for the premeditated murder of her friend Mirna, through poisoning the latter's coffee, last October.

Through her legal team, Jessica filed an appeal but it was rejected by the Jakarta High Court. The team is now filling a cassation with the Supreme Court.

Otto said that during the ongoing cassation process, any order to detain Jessica must be issued by the Supreme Court.

(Read also: Q&A: Looking into Jessica's harrowing hours - is she guilty?)

Pondok Bambu penitentiary's head Ika Yusanti said that Jessicas current detainment was under the instruction of the Jakarta High Court.

Ika said that a ruling from the high court, which stated that Jessica's appeal had been rejected, included a statement saying that she had to stay in jail. (agn)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 28, 2017 12:02 2050 a291276806121264c0bd211cde68976b 1 Business housing,Sri-Mulyani,affordability Free

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said on Monday that only 40 percent of Indonesian families could afford to buy houses due to increasing property prices, while another 40 percent of people could only buy houses with government subsidies.

The remaining 20 percent could not afford to buy houses without significant assistance from the government. These are the facts of housing affordability for Indonesian people, said Sri Mulyani as reported by tempo.co when making a keynote speech at an investor gathering in Jakarta on Monday.

Indonesia needs between 800,000 and 1 million houses per year, said Sri Mulyani, adding that private developers contributed 40 percent to meeting that demand and the government around 20 percent.

Meanwhile, the remaining 40 percent were constructed individually by people, she added.

(Read also: EDITORIAL: Nowhere to live in Jakarta)

Sri Mulyani said she had not given serious attention to the housing issue, during her nearly eight months in office, saying that she had to pay more serious attention to making the 2016 state budget sustainable.

My attention is still focused on the state budget after nearly eight months in office so that it will become an effective instrument, said Sri, who was appointed as a finance minister by President Joko Jokowi Widodo when she was still executive director of the World Bank.

With the state budget as an effective fiscal instrument, we hope we can support housing development, she added. (bbn)
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Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 28, 2017 14:24 2050 a291276806121264c0bd211cde69032a 1 Business palm-oil,palm-oil-association,Gapki,revision,production,stock Free

The Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association (GAPKI) has revised the 2016 palm oil production and stock figures. According to the revised figures, production stood at 35.57 million tons and stock at 3.57 million tons, from 34.5 million tons and 1.07 million tons, respectively, as reported previously.

The 35.57 million tons of production consists of 32.52 million tons of crude palm oil (CPO) and 3.05 million crude palm kernel oil (CPKO).

The revision is based on data collection and field surveys with various related associations, said GAPKI executive director Fadhil Hasan in a recent press statement.

(Read also: Indonesia sees jump in export value of palm oil products in 2016)

Stock as of January, meanwhile, decreased to 2.85 million tons amid an increase in exports and decline in production.

Total exports in January increased by 2 percent to 2.84 million tons from 2.78 million tons in December 2016, while production declined by 9 percent to 2.86 million tons from 3.15 million tons in the corresponding period.

Exports to India and Africa increased significantly on a monthly basis by 30 percent and 88 percent to 676,170 tons and 207,980 tons, respectively, in January. Exports to Europe, Bangladesh and Pakistan also increased by 15 percent, 8 percent and 6 percent.

Exports to China, in contrast, dropped by 48 percent month on month (mom) to 316,750 tons amid increasing use of soybean oil. Exports to the Middle East and United States dropped by 29 percent and 21 percent, respectively.

GAPKI predicts that the CPO price will hover around US$720 to $750 per ton in this month end after reaching $722.5 to $765 per ton during the first two weeks of this month. (bbn)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 28, 2017 12:33 2050 a291276806121264c0bd211cde68a1c0 1 City prostitution,online-prostitution,jakarta Free

The South Jakarta Police have arrested a woman, identified only by the initials RW, for allegedly using social media to peddle the services of sex workers, some of them underage.

The South Jakarta police general crimes division head, Reza Mahendra, said that RW had used her Facebook account to offer dozens of women, who were recruited through mobile communication, to her customers.

"The suspect uploaded photos of the victim on to her Facebook account with the username 'Lorenza Afecto' where she also gave her mobile phone number," Reza said as quoted by Kompas.com on Monday.

Reportedly, RW charged customers Rp 1,500,000, of which Rp 750,000 would go into her pocket for her services as the pimp.

After the deal was made, RW would reportedly bring her victims to the hotels reserved by her customers.

The police finally arrested RW after one police officer posed as a customer and set up an appointment in one hotel in South Jakarta.

RW was arrested at 10.30 p.m.

The police then secured two victims, identified only as SV, 21, and SL, 17, who came along with RW.

Reza said that the police had requested that the Communications and Information Ministry close the Facebook account.

The police are now investigating whether RW was a part of bigger prostitution ring.

Reza added that RW would be charged under Article 2 and Article 6 of the Trafficking Law. (Cal/dmr)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 28, 2017 11:13 2050 a291276806121264c0bd211cde688374 1 Politics KPU,election-bill,house-of-representatives Free

A recent proposal from lawmakers to hand the chairmanship of the General Elections Commission (KPU) to a political party member attracted criticism on Monday.

This is a setback for Indonesian democracy, said Raja Juli Antoni, the secretary-general of the newly-established Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI), as quoted by kompas.com.

Antoni argued that the discourse is against the Constitution, which mandates the KPU's independence from political parties.

"As an arbitrator, [a KPU member] has to maintain integrity and impartiality, thats why the requirement is that the commissioner should not be from political parties contesting elections, Antoni said.

(Read also: KPU Jakarta head denies accusations)

The idea to recruit the KPU head commissioner from political parties was initiated by House of Representatives' special committee for election bill deliberation. The committee members came up with the proposal after learning about election commissions in Germany and Mexico from March 11 to 16.

The committee hopes that a similar arrangement to those in the aforementioned two countries can be implemented in Indonesia, despite the failure of such a system ahead of the 1999 elections.

At that time, Indonesia still allowed political party members to be part of the KPU, leading to many deadlocks ahead of the elections as each member tried to fight for his own party.

Antoni regretted the proposal and expressed hope that the House would focus on discussing more important articles in the election bill as its deliberation should be completed by April to avoid disrupting concurrent regional elections in 2018 and general elections in 2019. (hol/wit)
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Linkedin News Desk (Associated Press) London  Tue, March 28, 2017

The wife of the man who killed four people outside Britain's Parliament last week condemned the attack Tuesday, saying she is "saddened and shocked."

"I express my condolences to the families of the victims that have died, and wish a speedy recovery to all the injured," Rohey Hydara said in statement released through London police.

Khalid Masood's widow added: "I would like to request privacy for our family, especially the children, at this difficult time."

Police believe Masood  a 52-year-old Briton with convictions for violent crimes who had spent two years in Saudi Arabia  acted alone in last Wednesday's knife and car attack. But they are trying to determine whether others helped inspire or direct his actions.

The so-called Islamic State group has claimed he was a "soldier" responding to its repeated calls for attacks on western nations. Police say they have found "no evidence" of any links to Islamic State or al-Qaida.

Masood was killed by police after fatally stabbing an officer and running down pedestrians with his rented SUV. It was the deadliest extremist attack in Britain in 12 years.

Police say there is no intelligence suggesting further attacks are planned, but police presence has been increased at some London sites and also outside Windsor Castle, one of Queen Elizabeth II's favored residences.

Thames Valley Police said Monday night that extra security barriers are being placed around the castle before the next 'Changing the Guard' ceremony planned for Wednesday.

"While there is no intelligence to indicate a specific threat to Windsor, recent events in Westminster clearly highlight the need for extra security measures to be introduced," said assistant chief Dave Hardcastle.
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Linkedin Viriya P. Singgih (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 28, 2017 18:23 2050 a291276806121264c0bd211cde698b19 1 Business nickel,capital-expenditure,smelter,upgrades,cashflow Free

Publicly listed nickel miner PT Vale Indonesia (INCO), a local subsidiary of Brazilian mining giant Vale SA, has allocated nearly US$90 million in capital expenditure to finance its operation this year, including to upgrade its nickel smelter.

Vale chief financial officer Febriany Eddy said that the firm saw the urgency to rejuvenate its smelter in Sorowako, South Sulawesi, as it had been in operation for nearly 40 years.

The funds will be sourced from our own cash flow. So, lets hope that the nickel price will climb this year, he said after the annual shareholders meeting in Jakarta on Monday.

Vales profit plunged by 96.2 percent to only $1.9 million in 2016 from a year earlier as the global nickel price dropped by 22 percent last year.

Meanwhile, its revenue plummeted by 26 percent on an annual basis to $584.14 million despite its ability to cut its cost of revenue by 18 percent to $550 million.

The firm plans to maintain various internal efficiency measures this year to anticipate nickel price volatility, including a coal conversion project to replace high sulfur fuel oil (HSFO) with pulverized coal in its dryers.

(Read also: Vales profits plunge amid low nickel price)

HSFO has been primarily used to feed the companys processing plant, accounting for 63 percent of its fuel costs last year.

The coal conversion project in one of its five kilns cut Vales HSFO consumption by 180,000 barrels to 1.6 million barrels last year. It plans to carry out such conversion in another kiln this year. (lnd)
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Linkedin N. Adri (The Jakarta Post) Balikpapan  Wed, March 29 2017

Oil and gas companies Chevron Indonesia and state-owned PT Pertamina, together with the people of Tanjung Tengah in North Penajam Paser regency, East Kalimantan, managed to clean up spilled oil along the Tanjung Jumlai beach regardless of the companies refusals to accept responsibility for the incident.

The effort was aimed at mitigating the impact to natural resources in the area after a finless porpoise was found dead on the shore two weeks ago, allegedly due to the oil spill.

Since March 17, six days after the spill was first reported by residents, dozens of workers from both companies had been deployed to work with locals to clean up the oil spill stretching some 5 kilometers along the coast.

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Linkedin Ramesh Thakur (The Jakarta Post) Canberra  Wed, March 29 2017

On March 27, more than 100 countries gathered at the United Nations in New York to commence negotiations on a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination. They will hope to conclude talks and sign a treaty after a second session on June 15 to July 7.

The conferences are based on Resolution L.41 adopted on Oct. 27, 2016 by the First Committee of the UN General Assembly by a landslide 123-38 vote, followed by a vote in the full General Assembly on Dec. 23 passed by an equally solid 113-35 majority.

The resulting treaty will partly fulfil the 127-nation humanitarian pledge to stigmatize, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons. The US and allies that shelter under its nuclear umbrella  Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, etc.  voted against and most have chosen to boycott the talks, putting themselves on the wrong side of humanity, history and geography as almost all Asia-Pacific countries support a ban.

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Linkedin Hans David Tampubolon (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, March 29 2017

Indonesias comedy scene is in mourning once again. Veteran comedian Eko Koeswoyo, popularly known as Eko DJ, passed away on Monday night at the age of 65 following a year-long battle with kidney failure, according to his daughter Dewi Sari Krisnandaru.

Maybe now is the time for him to finally rest in peace. This is all Gods will, Dewi said as quoted by tribunnews.com.

She said that in his final days, Eko refused to go to hospital to undergo his dialysis procedure, which he regularly did on Tuesday and Friday every week.

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Linkedin Viriya P. Singgih (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, March 29 2017

For nickel mine operator PT Vale Indonesia (INCO), drastic times call for drastic measures.

The publicly listed firm has been forced to keep tightening its belt following the reopening of the export tap for low-grade nickel amid uncertainties in global nickel prices.

Vale Indonesia, which is the countrys largest nickel producer and part of Brazilian mining giant Vale, saw its profits plunge 96.2 percent year-on-year to only US$1.9 million in 2016 as a result of a 22 percent drop in global nickel prices.

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A student asked me about the 'yes, no, not given' question below.

Question statement:

Thirty per cent of deaths in the United States are caused by smoking-related diseases.

Relevant part of the passage:

Smoking, it is believed, is responsible for 30 per cent of all deaths from cancer and clearly represents the most important preventable cause of cancer in countries like the United States today.

(Click here to see the full passage and exercise)

The official correct answer to this question is 'no'. However, the student who asked me about this question believes that we should answer 'not given'. His reason for this is that we have no information about deaths that aren't caused by cancer. Maybe smoking does cause 30% of all deaths.

What do you think? Is this student 'overthinking'? How can we explain why 'no' is the correct answer?
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Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, March 29 2017

French President Francoise Hollande is visiting Jakarta on Wednesday to boost weakening bilateral economic ties by bringing with him investment agreements worth US$2.6 billion.

President Joko Jokowi Widodo will welcome Hollande at the State Palace at noon when they are to witness the signing of 10 agreements involving various strategic sectors, on top of numerous other documents connected to the private sector.

The agreements set to be signed include letters of intent on defense, maritime and fishery affairs, sustainable urban development, researcher exchange programs, research, innovation and higher education and administrative arrangements concerning tourism.

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Linkedin Safrin La Batu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, March 29 2017

A 90-day amnesty enacted by Saudi Arabia starting Wednesday will allow illegal workers, including thousands from Indonesia, to be exempted from any legal sanctions and enable them to return to the kingdom to gain new employment.

Following the announcement, the Indonesian embassy in Riyadh said it was ready to give assistance to Indonesians seeking to participate in the program, including by opening three hotlines in Jakarta, Riyadh and

Jeddah.

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A local traffic stop uncovered an international lottery scam, police said today.

On May 18, 2016 Howell Patrolman David Levine #636 conducted a motor vehicle stop that would precipitate the discovery of an international lottery scam in which an unknowing elderly woman from Idaho was defrauded of approximately $50,000. The investigation by the Howell Police Department, with assistance from the FBI, led to the womans identification. $3,000 seized during the stop is being returned to the victim.

Ptl. Levine stopped a suspicious vehicle in the area of Route 9/Estelle Ln. for having tinted front windows. During the motor vehicle stop, Ptl. Levine found the operator to be deceptive with his answers, had improper credentials for the vehicle and appeared to be under the influence of drugs. Ptl. Levine summoned the assistance of K9 Officer Nicholas Bondarew #610 and his partner Jago, who gave a positive indication as to the presence of controlled dangerous substance(s) in the vehicle. This led to a search of the vehicle and the discovery of $2,071 cash and a MoneyGram order in the amount of $1,000 made out, hand-written, to the operator of the vehicle and came from Costa Rica. The operator gave conflicting stories regarding the money order and cash but eventually admitted both were winnings from an online gambling website. The MoneyGram and cash was seized pending the investigation. The operator was released at the scene.

The subsequent thorough, months-long investigation by Ptl. Levine and Detective Anthony Romano #605 led to the discovery that the MoneyGram, which is one of a batch of ten, originated in a Wal-Mart store located in Hayden, Idaho for a total of $9,800. Det. Romano and Ptl. Levine were able to retrieve surveillance footage from the Idaho Wal-Mart depicting an elderly woman, later discovered to be a 71 year-old fraud victim from Coeur DAlene, Idaho purchasing the MoneyGrams. Through Wal-Mart surveillance footage from Idaho, Det. Romano and Ptl. Levine identified the womans vehicle make and model. Det. Romano sought the assistance of FBI Special Agent Edward Jacobson from the FBI office in Coeur DAlene Idaho. SA Jacobson was able to identify the vehicle and its operator/victim.

SA Jacobson interviewed the victim who stated that she was called by a person identifying himself as Special Agent Frank Anderson of the Department of Homeland Security who advised her that she won a drawing in England and had to pre-pay the taxes on her winnings before receiving it. The woman complied, purchasing approximately $50,000 in MoneyGrams over time and sending them where directed, sometimes Costa Rica. It was learned that the gambling website is using illegally obtained MoneyGrams (by defrauding unsuspecting victims) to pay the winners on their site.

The Howell Police Department sought forfeiture on the cash and MoneyGram seized by Ptl. Levine at the stop, totaling $3,071, through the Monmouth County Prosecutors Office. That money is being returned to the elderly victim in Idaho who until this investigation was unaware she was being victimized.

The operator of the vehicle was not arrested or charged, therefore, his name is being withheld. To protect the identity of the victim, her name is also being withheld.

We remind the public that the calls, emails, or any form of communication such as this are scams. Always be cautious and do not send money or payments anywhere before verifying its validity. Oftentimes, a quick internet search will identify scams unsuspecting people are being targeted with.
Stay in the right lane, and do not ride across middle line on the road into opposite travel lane

Yield to emergency vehicles.

Leave left lane open for other riders to pass safely. Pass on the left.

No Headphones! While riding a bicycle it is illegal to wear a headset, headphone or other listening device, other than a hearing aid or instrument for the improvement of defective human hearing.

Safety Lights: Front & rear lights are required by law in the State of Florida.

Kids under 16 years of age must wear helmets.

Do not ride on the sidewalk.

Passing: A passing cyclist is responsible for the safety of the cyclist that is being passed. When passing ring a bell and/or say "on your left".

Yield to pedestrians and buses.

No consumption of alcoholic beverages or illegal activity during ride.

Do not filter forward past stopped cars at a red light.

Skateboarders, inline skaters and recumbent bikes are welcomed, exercise caution.

Do not litter or vandalize any property.

Stopping: If you must stop to check your bike, phone, gear etc please move over to the sidewalk when it's clear. Do not stop abruptly in the middle of the street with the mass behind you. You will more than likely cause a cyclist to hit you and/or swerve and hit someone else.

Always perform an "ABC Quick" Bike Check to ensure that your bike is in safe working order.

*Road Construction*

Cyclists ride at their own risk and assume responsibility for their own safety!

Friday, March 31, 20176:30pm (ride starts at 7:15pm)Government CenterDowntown MiamiThe ride will be going through Historic Overtown, Wynwood, Little Haiti, Upper East Side, North Bay Village, North Beach, Miami Beach, Venetian Islands, and Downtown. Total distance is approximatelyMake sure you come prepared and do an "ABC Quick" Bike Check to ensure that your bike is in safe working order before the ride. If you need air in your tires, stop by The Miami Bike Shop on Biscayne Blvd and 18th St, they have a bike pump out front for FREE air."Join hundreds of local cyclists for the 2017 Florida Bike Month grand finale event on March 31st. Let's celebrate bike month with a special Critical Mass after party at the new Omni Park (located less than 1 mile from Government Center). Enjoy food, drinks, music, skate demos, and more. Admission is FREE The Magic City Bicycle Collective will have a tent and repair stand set up at Omni Park, they will demonstrate simple bike care and do minor bike repairs and maintenance. Come to them if you need air in your tires. Buy them a beer, purchase aor make a donation! Our friends at The Miami Bike Shop will also be there with bike lights, u-locks, bells, and small items you may need to purchase.Live performance by Afrobeta Sounds by Poplife classics: Aramis Lorie, Ray Milian, + Chris MoraPlease Note:Bring your bike lock! The park is not responsible for lost or stolen items. Don't lose your bike by being careless. Do not leave your bike unattended if you do not have a good lock."Rent a bike from CitiBike or The Miami Bike Shop Start at Government Center 7:15pmRIGHT - NW 2nd AveLEFT - NW 11th StreetRIGHT - NW 3rd AveLEFT - NW 22nd StreetRIGHT - NW 5th AveRIGHT - NW 36th StreetLEFT - NW 3rd AveRIGHT - NW 54th StreetLEFT - Biscayne BlvdRIGHT - NE 79th StreetRIGHT - Indian Creek DrRIGHT - 23rd StreetLEFT - Dade BlvdMerge to Venetian CausewayCross Biscayne Blvd on NE 15th StreetLEFT - N Miami AveRight - NW 13th STEnd at Omni Park (less than 1 mile from Government Center)
As Theresa May gets ready to trigger Article 50 and formally notify the European Union of Britains intention to leave, some will be wondering whether theres even a small chance that, one day, the UK will rejoin.

And while politically its difficult to see such a move happening any time soon, technically theres nothing to stop it.

Fiona de Londras, professor of Global Legal Studies at the University of Birmingham, said: The UK would have to satisfy the criteria for joining the EU, although given its previous membership this is unlikely to be particularly problematic.

In sum, these require a state to have a free market economy, a strong democracy, the rule of law, and a willingness to accept all EU laws for negotiations for accession to start.

What would be the legal process involved for getting back into the EU?

(Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA)

Just like any other country seeking membership, Britain would have to apply to join the EU.

A subject-by-subject negotiation on bringing national laws and systems into line with those of the EU would begin, de Londras says.

Usually this accession process is a very long one during which the state receives the financial, logistical and technical support it needs to adopt the enormous volume of applicable EU laws.

However, de Londras believes that, having previously been a member of the EU, the process shouldnt take as much time.

This is why people talk of the UK receiving a fast track back into the European Union, although the euro would probably be a real sticking point, she adds.

Ah, the euro. So what would it mean for the pound?

(Yui Mok/PA)

It is very unlikely that the UK would be able to secure the same terms it currently has, including the large number of opt-outs it enjoys in relation to EU law and policy, de Londras says.

Usually when a state joins the EU it must accept all EU legislation, and is expected to adopt the euro.

The UK could attempt to negotiate an opt-out to the single currency, but it is unclear why the Union would treat the UK any differently to other newly-joining states in relation to these basic expectations of membership.

What about travel?

Britain would probably be required to join the Schengen (common travel) area and, de Londras adds, possibly be expected to commit to an ever closer Union  a goal to which many of the member states are firmly committed.

Would the UK be able to secure a better deal if it were to rejoin?

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In this scenario, de Londras believes the UK would find itself having to accept a lot of things it currently opts out of.

Many of these opt-outs were secured for the UK because, as a member of the EU, it had a veto on major treaty changes, de Londras says.

That is how it secured its opt-out from the euro (when the Maastricht Treaty was being negotiated) and from Schengen.

Things would also be different as an outsider seeking admission.

As the UK (like all other member states) had the power to disrupt the desired changes of the other member states, it could use that power to secure concessions of this kind to its own policy agenda, she adds.

The same power would not be available and the UKs negotiating position would be considerably weaker compared to the EU bloc and the individual member states  all of whom could veto the UKs application to rejoin.

Given the political and other costs of Brexit for the Union, it is reasonable to expect that the EU27 would approach an application for readmission to the EU with caution.

Taking all that into account, a better deal than the UKs current membership  or even the same deal  seems highly unlikely.
Dr Lisa McKenzie, a research fellow at the London School of Economics, was arrested on Wednesday 15th of March on suspicion of common assault during a protest.

A group of cleaners from the university conducted a strike to protest their pay and working conditions, during which Dr McKenzie was arrested. She has since been released on bail until May 6th.

The cleaners are outsourced from another company and they are protesting not having the same sick pay, maternity pay and pensions as members of staff who are employed by the university.

A group called Justice for LSE Cleaners, consisting of staff and students supporting the campaign, staged a protest where they occupied a university meeting room. Several of the university's academics spoke at this protest.

The protest was brought to an end by the university's security team sawing through the door of the occupied room. A video of this was uploaded to the Justice for LSE Cleaner's Facebook page where they stated that the security staff showed intimidating behaviour and that they decided to leave after this.

Dr McKenzie was arrested in 2015 and wrongly charged for three offences. Protesters have said that they witnessed no violence on her behalf at this protest and that they believe the arrest was politically motivated. Her research covers the British working class and class inequality.

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Prime Minister Theresa May held talks with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in a hotel in Glasgow yesterday on the topic of Brexit.

But the way the Daily Mail chose to cover the meeting has left people feeling pretty annoyed.

The newspaper coined a new term, Leg-sit in reference to the leaders legs which were in shot of the photograph used on the front page alongside the headline.

People have not taken kindly to the cover, to say the least.

This is why we still have so far to go to achieve #gender equality in the workplace. 'Newspaper of the year?' I think not. #legsit pic.twitter.com/SkSd30i7lz  Jo Morfee (@JoMorfee) March 28, 2017

Just seen the front of the #DailyMail How are women supposed to tackle #everydaysexism in workplace when a national paper can print that?  Rachel Extance (@RachelExtance) March 27, 2017

Men: why do women keep insisting on the need for feminism? Women: #legsit pic.twitter.com/VskfQEXa22  Gemma Sykes (@sykesgemma5) March 28, 2017

I really wish the Daily Fail would #legsit out of here to some far away distant place where it cannot harm anyone.  I was a JSA claimant (@imajsaclaimant) March 28, 2017

Some have also taken issue with the use of the English language.

Once we've called out The Daily Mail for sexism, can we also spend 5 mins talking bout how bad that pun is? #legsit  James Wilson-Taylor (@mrjaytee) March 27, 2017

Several politicians have hit out at the cover, too.

It's 2017. Two women's decisions will determine if United Kingdom continues to exist. And front page news is their lower limbs. Obviously pic.twitter.com/AMp0YvtISa  Yvette Cooper (@YvetteCooperMP) March 27, 2017

It's 2017. This sexism must be consigned to history. Shame on the Daily Mail. pic.twitter.com/V3RpFSgfnO  Jeremy Corbyn MP (@jeremycorbyn) March 27, 2017

What do women politicians have to do to be taken seriously? #EverydaySexism pic.twitter.com/aPwlfnuKN1  LeanneWood (@LeanneWood) March 28, 2017

#everydaysexism really doesn't go far enough as a label. If you were thinking of buying this "newspaper" tomorrow you might think again https://t.co/To1f29iU68  Natalie Bennett (@natalieben) March 27, 2017

Though as some have pointed out, this extent of this outrage seems to be working in the Mails favour.

And the #DailyMail has 3/10 top UK trends. They will be absolutely loving all this free PR #legsit The nation has been trolled. Again  Martin Daubney (@MartinDaubney) March 28, 2017
Evelyn Waughs debut novel, Decline and Fall , has been a solid addition to the satirical canon since its publication in 1928.

Now, for the first time, it will hit screens as the BBC launch the first televisual adaptation of the classic.

The plot follows the trials and tribulations of Paul Pennyfeather (Jack Whitehall) as he is dismissed from Oxford University for indecent exposure, after becoming the victim of a prank by the Bullingdon Club. At a loose end, he finds himself off to a rainy corner of Wales to teach at a run-down public boarding school. He joins forces with two hapless teachers, and falls in love with Mrs Beste-Chetwynde (Eva Longoria). He agrees to tutor her son over the summer holidays, and adventure and even more misfortune follows.

Each episode sees Paul in a different scenario. The first follows him at the public school - he gets to grips with teaching boys a few years his junior without any teaching experience, and helps run a pretty diabolical sports day, all whilst slowly becoming friends with two of the countrys worst teachers, Captain Grimes and Mr Pendergast.

Its the dynamic of this trio that really pulls the programme together. Whitehall joins forces with Douglas Hodge and Vincent Franklin to create a group of unlikely, ineffective Masters operating in a useless school run by Poirot s David Suchet. Together, theyre hilarious. In some ways, you cant help but feel that their dynamic matches that of their characters.

Franklin is great as the pessimistic, toupee-wearing Prendy, and the contrast between this and the brusque and domineering nature of Grimes is brilliant. The chemistry between the two is electric. Theyre both fantastic actors - the range of Hodge (he has previously played King Lear and Willy Wonka) makes itself clear in this comic performance.

As Fagan, the bumbling Principal who thinks of his school in very grand terms, Suchet is brilliant. His work with Whitehall is strong, as the two and their characters are polar opposites, exaggerating the humour of their interactions. Stephen Graham as a slightly criminal butler provides some comic tension to the group, and for fans of Game of Thrones - watch out for Yara (otherwise known as Gemma Whelan).

More than anything else, Decline and Fall is just pure entertainment. Its hilarious - thanks in large part to the talent of writer, James Wood and his scripting. Its no easy feat to condense Waugh into episodes, and theres certainly pressure when working with something as well loved as Decline and Fall . Hes definitely risen to the challenge. The script is updated and brilliant, featuring some great contemporary references, including The Bullingdons tribute to David Cameron.

Decline and Fall has the ability to embed you in the world of Waugh. Costumes and locations work seamlessly together, making the programme feel strangely like a period drama. Period comedies are a rarer breed at the moment, so this is welcome.

Its a long overdue adaptation, but the first episode is slightly let down by a slight stagnancy that plagues it. Theres no real push forward, no drive, and around 40 minutes in I found myself checking my watch and growing slightly restless. It picked up the pace not long after, but the action of the last few minutes felt rushed after a much slower 20 minutes.

Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to future episodes.

Decline and Fall

will debut on BBC One, at 9pm on Friday 31st March.
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Rollover results in passenger being injured after being enjected

The highway patrol and Watertown Fire Rescue responded to a rollover accident on Saturday. Passenger was thrown from the vehicle, sustaining injuries.
Chinese Defence Minister General Chang Wanquan has pledged a grant assistance of Nepalese rupees 3.04 billion ($28 million) to strengthen the Nepal Army (NA) in disaster management and equip it for the United Nations peacekeeping mission.

During his meeting with Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Thursday, Chang said the Chinese government was ready to support the NA with the equipment equal to the pledged amount.

The commitment from Chang is part of the pledge made by Chinese President Xi Jinping to PM Dahal during their meeting in September last year during the BRICS Outreach Summit in Goa.

Chang arrived in Kathmandu for a three-day visit on Thursday, the first by a Chinese defence minister in 15 years. Defence Minister Bal Krishna Khand said the Chinese side would provide the equipment support based on the demand from NA.

The two sides will finalise the support after the NA provides the list of military support it needs, Khand told the Post. The NA which wants to double its presence in the UN peacekeeping mission from around 5,000 at present is struggling to manage equipment. The doubling effort is expected to cost around Rupees 7 billion as the NA has to prepare the troops to deploy them in war-hit countries.

The Rupees 3.04 billion military assistance from the northern neighbour on Thursday comes weeks after Chinas pledge during an investment summit early this month to plough $8.3 billion (approximately Rupees 860 billion), equivalent to nearly 40 percent of Nepals GDP, into Nepal for infrastructure development.

Khand and Chang, who is leading a 19-member delegation to Nepal, also held discussions on holding military exercises, the first ever by the armies of Nepal and China.

The dates are yet to be announced, but the first of the joint exercises is likely to take place in the third week of April, NA officials said, adding that the drills to be held for two weeks would focus on disaster management.

Chang is scheduled to hold a meeting with Chief of Army Staff Rajendra Chhetri on Friday.

(The Kathmandu Post)
Even as they grapple with serious political differences over a host of issues, India and China are leaving no stone unturned to strengthen trade and economic links.

The Consulate General of India in Shanghai along with Zhenjiang Municipal Peoples Government jointly organised an India-China Business and Investment Forum at Zhenjiang in Chinas Jiangsu Province earlier this month.

The objective of the forum was to introduce investment opportunities available to Chinese companies in India in sectors like renewable energy, smart cities, power sector, urban transportation and infrastructure, as part of the Make in India initiative.

A delegation of 30-plus Indian companies comprising CEOs of Larsen & Toubro, TCS, Reliance, Adani Group, CII, Sterlite, Jet Airways, Tech Mahindra, along with legal consulting and business advisory firms like HSA Legal, Link Legal Law Firms and banks like UBI, Canara and Axis made presentations on sectors like infrastructure, banking, IT, urban transportation and legal guidelines for setting up businesses in India.

Indian officials said both India and China are committed to strengthening economic partnership in line with the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, notwithstanding the differences that have surfaced between the two countries over the China Pakistan Economic Corridor and Beijings continued blocking of Indias bid to become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) or get JeM chief Masood Azhar declared as a global terrorist.

China is Indias largest trading partner with trade balance heavily tilted in Beijings favour. India has been asking China to correct the trade imbalance by allowing Indian IT, pharmaceutical and agro companies to enter the Chinese market.

India has also often impressed upon Pakistan in the past to follow the India-China model of bilateral relationship by putting contentious political issues on the backburner and concentrating on enhancing economic cooperation.

At the Zhenjiang business forum, Consul General of India in Shanghai Prakash Gupta gave an overview of the investment climate in India and called on Chinese companies to make full use of the opportunities available to them in India.

During the meeting, a new websiteCHINDIA360 (www.chindia360.com)- was also jointly unveiled by the two sides to provide all necessary information to potential Chinese investors, who are looking for investment opportunities in Indias growing market.

As a follow up to the business forum, Zhenjiang city leadership is likely to lead an investors delegation to visit India in April/May to explore tangible investment opportunities in upcoming Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in India.
State-run Indian Oil Corp (IOC) on Monday signed an agreement to supply over 1 million tonnes (MT) of petroleum products annually to Nepal for the next five years, Chairman B Ashok said.

"The supply agreement signed today is for the period April 2017 to March 2022 and will meet the full requirements, demand and quantities of all the major oil products, including petrol, diesel, kerosene, aviation turbine fuel and LPG," Ashok told reporters here.

IOC will supply Euro-IV grade petrol and diesel to Nepal from next month.

While presently the fuel is sent by trucks, a pipeline will be laid from Patna-Motihari-Amlekganj for supply of fuel in future. According to IOC officials, the pipeline will get fuel from IOC's Barauni refinery in Bihar as well as Haldia refinery in West Bengal.

"Every 5 years, we renew fuel supply agreement with Nepal. Today (Monday), IOC and Nepal Oil Corporation signed agreement for supplying fuels for the next 5 years," Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said at the MoU signing event.

The new MoU, he said, is "much better" than the previous ones as "it keeps the interests of both the nations".

He however did not elaborate.

"We feel it is the responsibility of India to help Nepal meet its energy requirements, especially after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Nepal in 2014 where in his address to Nepal parliament took responsibility of the Raxaul-Amlekhganj petroleum product pipeline," he said.

Pradhan said work on the pipeline should begin in 2017-18.

"Nepal wants to take that pipeline little forward to near Kathmandu which is about 70 kms more and has sought technical help from IOC, though the expenses will be incurred by Nepal," he said.

Pradhan said a high level official committee has been formed to look into preparing feasibility of the pipeline as well as another LPG pipeline from Motihari to Nepal's Amlekhganj.

India has been a traditional supplier of fuel to Nepal, which receives its entire demand of about 200,000 kilolitres of fuel every month by road from IOC.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday assured states and other petitioners that it would hear tomorrow their plea seeking modification of its December 2016 order banning liquor vends within 500 metres of state and national highways across the country from 1 April.

The assurance came from the bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar when Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said over 100 lawyers kept waiting yesterday for an hour with the hope that the bench, comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud and L Nageswara Rao, would assemble to hear their pleas. Rohatgi sought urgent hearing of the pleas tomorrow saying that the judgment, ordering closure of liquor vends alongside highways, will come into effect from 1 April.

"We are very sorry," the Chief Justice told Rohatgi when he submitted that despite assurance the special bench did not assemble yesterday to hear pleas seeking modification of an order banning liquor vends along highways.

The bench headed by the CJI had yesterday assured Rohatgi, who had mentioned matters relating to the ban for urgent hearing, that the special bench comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud and L Nageswara Rao would assemble at court number 9 at 3 p m to hear the batch of pleas.

"We kept waiting. A 100 lawyers were there. The bench did not assemble. We were not informed either," Rohatgi said. "We are very sorry for yesterday. The matters will be heard tomorrow at 3 PM," the CJI said.

When some other lawyers also complained about the same issue, the CJI then said, "I have already apologised. Do you want me to apologise again? I will apologise again."

The CJI then said 84-year-old jurist T R Andhyarujina died today and that Justice Chandrachud has gone to Mumbai to take part in the last rites.

"If Justice Chandrachud is here tomorrow then these matters will be heard at 3 p m. If Justice Chandrachud is not available tomorrow, then I will constitute a separate bench," Justice Khehar said.

A bench comprising then Chief Justice T S Thakur (now retired) and Justices D Y Chandrachud and L Nageswara Rao had on 15 December 2016, ordered a ban on all liquor shops along national as well as state highways across the country and had made it clear that licences of existing shops will not be renewed after 31 March next year.

The special bench of Justices Chandrachud and Rao was to hear pleas of states yesterday against the verdict. The bench did not assemble yesterday as Justice Chandrachud sat in the court with the CJI till 4 p m.

Besides some liquor vendors' association, states like Kerala, Punjab and Telangana have approached the apex court seeking modification of the 15 December 2016, judgment.

The apex court had ordered a ban on all liquor shops on national as well as state highways across the country and had made clear that licences of existing shops will not be renewed after 31 March next year.

The verdict had come on a PIL alleging that nearly 1.42 lakh people died per year in road mishaps and that the drunken driving is a major contributor. It had also directed that all signs indicating the presence of liquor vends will be prohibited along national and state highways.

On 23 March, the Tamil Nadu government had also moved the top court to extend the time for relocation of retail liquor shops along the highways till the expiry of their licence period up to 28 November, 2017.

On 18 January, the All Assam Indian Made Foreign Liquors Retailers' Association had approached the apex court seeking modification of the judgment, saying it virtually banned liquor shops in the state as the definition of state highways in the local statute included all roads.
Mizoram Tourism Minister John Rotluangliana informed the state assembly on Tuesday that 770 tourists from abroad visited Mizoram in nine months from April, 2016 to January 2017.

In a written reply to a question from Mizo National Front (MNF) member K Beichhua, Rotluangliana said that efforts were being made to concentrate on eco tourism, adventure tourism and rural tourism to attract more tourists, both domestic and foreign.

He said Integrated Development of New Eco-Tourism under Swadesh Darshan  North East Circuit was being undertaken at Thenzawl and South Zote villages in Serchhip district and Reiek village in Mamit district.

Implementation of Rural Home Stay Scheme was being taken up in six villages in Champai district on Myanmar border with fund from the New Economic Development Policy (NEDP) of the state government, he added.
Accusing the previous Parkash Singh Badal government of leaving behind a "financial mess", the Punjab government on Tuesday said it will bring out a white paper on the financial position of the state.

Addressing the first session of the 15th Assembly, Governor V P Singh Badnore said that the government is committed to restore the financial position of the state and once again put it on a high-growth trajectory despite the revenue deficit of Rs.13,484 crore and the fiscal deficit of Rs.26,801 crore.

Badnore, in his 34-minute speech said that the state failed to achieve the state excise and VAT revenue targets during the last five years (2012-2017). "During the last 10 years, the total debt of the state had increased from Rs.48,344 crore to Rs.1,82,537 crore at the end of 2016-2017.

The state government, during the years 2015-16 and 2016-17, borrowed Rs.15,632 Crore on behalf of the Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd (PSPCL) alone. In order to settle the gap in Cash Credit Limit (CCL) for food, the government had agreed to a term loan of Rs.31,000 crore which further burdened the state," he said.

The governor said that even the Atta Dal scheme (which provides highly subsidised foodgrains for the poor) and the Urban and Rural Missions were undertaken by borrowing huge amounts of money from commercial banks, mortgaging a large number of properties of the state.

"This mismanagement has saddled the government with huge liabilities in terms of non-payment of arrears of dearness allowances, salaries and non-payment of old age and other pensions and non-payment of power subsidy to the PSPCL," Badnore said. He further said that the government will take up the issue of term loan of Rs.31,000 crore with the Union government to help the state.

To prevent suicides by debt-ridden farmers, the government will enact a legislation to prohibit auction and sale of farmers lands by lending agencies.

Spelling strict action against drug dealers, the government will pass the Confiscation of Drug Dealers Property Act besides setting up a special task force which will report directly to the chief minister for daily monitoring, Badnore said.

The government will ensure 30 per cent reservation for SCs in allotment of houses, and residential and commercial plots. The government will also provide 30 per cent reservation to women in government jobs.
The BJP on Tuesday hit out at the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi for inviting lawyer and historian AG Noorani to the Shaheedi Diwas function, held on the Legislative Assembly premises, and accused it of "siding" with "anti-national" forces.

Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta, who attended the function on March 23, dubbed Noorani as a "pro-Pakistan" person who "is in favour" of a plebiscite in Kashmir.

"Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia shared the dais with Noorani who had questioned the people's mandate in favour of the BJP in the Uttar Pradesh polls and also indulged in bashing Prime Minister Narendra Modi," he told a press conference.

Noorani, at the function, had criticised the BJP for choosing Yogi Adityanath as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and called on the people to "respond" to it.

Referring to Modi, he had said that "power goes to the head" of anyone who gets an absolute majority in elections and accused the prime minister of indulging in "communal" politics.

Referring to the results of the Punjab Assembly polls, where the AAP fared poorly in spite of high expectations, Gupta said, "Kejriwal was taught a lesson by the people of the state for being seen with pro-Khalistan people."

The BJP leader also alleged that when he questioned Noorani at the Shaheedi Diwas function, he was "derided".

"It took me time to research about Noorani, so that I can talk about him convincingly," Gupta said while explaining the delay in raising the issue five days after the event.
Expressing concern over the recent happenings in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said a government has to work for all and the slogan 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas' in real terms should be implemented in letter and spirit.

"We are concerned about recent happenings in UP. People are afraid & many are scared about differences over caste, creed & religion. We are all one. 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas' sirf bolna nahi hain, karna hain. We have to do it, to make it meaningful. A govt has to be for all. We need to safeguard our Constitution and allow it to guide," Banerjee said in a statement.

Banerjee's comment comes in the backdrop of the indefinite strike by meat sellers, especially mutton vendors, since yesterday in protest against the statewide crackdown on illegal and mechanised slaughter houses.
Air India on Tuesday cancelled Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwads ticket for the second time after he was barred by the airline for allegedly assaulting their staffer.

Gaikwad's Mumbai-Delhi ticket was cancelled for hitting AI staffer R Sukumar several times with his slippers over seating issue.

The tussle broke out after he was denied business class on a Pune-New Delhi on March 23.

The Sena leader was banned by AI and other top airlines with immediate effect on March 24 and he boarded a train to Mumbai later in the evening.

Defiant Gaikwad refused to offer any apologies to the victim.

Kaahe ka pashchaataap (what is there to repent)? I will not apologise. He (Sukumar) should come and apologise. Then we will see. A 60-year-old man should know how to behave, Gaikwad had said.
We have advised all African students living in Delhi and the National Capital Region to remain confined to their houses, do not move, said Samuel Jack, president of African Students Association, amid the recent attacks against members of the African community living in India in the past 48 hours,

Four Nigerian Students were allegedly attacked yesterday by residents of Greater Noida, who had taken out a candlelight march for the death of a 17-year-old boy allegedly due to drug overdose.

The students from the Association called for a media briefing here today. They condemned the attacks on Africans alleging they were racial in nature. The representatives of the Association also blamed the state authorities for not acting swiftly every time they are targeted.

"We cannot take this anymore, if this continues to happen we will ask African students to boycott India, we have a two-sided relationship. If Africans come to India, Indians also live in Africa. There are a lot of people living in Africa peacefully. Nigeria alone has around 2 lakh Indians living there. We give them the best of treatment and hospitality. And when we come here we expect the same," said Presido Okungi, a member of the association.

Talking about the fear prevalent among the African students living in the country, Rodriek from the Democratic Republic Of Congo said, We all are definitely living in fear, this is not just one incident, several incidents like this have been reported in the last 48 yours.

" I see this violence as an act of pure racism. We are attacked here based on the assumption that black people are cannibals. We are looked at by residents of this country in our everyday life because of our skin colour; it is assumed that every African living in India is a drug addict. This generalisation is very dangerous," added Rodreik.

Attacks against Africans have been reported at regular intervals in the last couple of years. Eze Ugo Lawrence said,  When we came here, we had a very good impression of this country but it seems things have changed a lot in the last couple of years, there is tremendous rise in hatred against black people. "

Last year, a student from Africa, was beaten to death in Delhi and a Tanzanian student was badly beaten up and stripped in Bangalore.
In the wake of the attack on Nigerians in Greater Noida, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Tuesday said that the government is committed to ensuring safety of foreigners in India.

"Greater Noida incident where people of African origin were injured is deplorable. Government is committed to ensuring safety of foreigners in India," the MEA said in a statement.

"Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar spoke to Acting High Commissioner of Nigeria and apprised him of the steps being taken by local authorities for safety of Nigerian nationals," the statement added.

Earlier in the day, Nigerian High Commissioner had met the MEA officials following the attack in Greater Noida and raised concerns over the security of Nigerian nationals in the country.

Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath regarding the attack after the Nigerian national and tweeted, saying living in the area was becoming a life threatening issue.

Three Nigerians were injured during a fight that broke out on Monday night when local residents were holding a candlelight march against the death of a class 12 student, They attacked the African students shopping in the area, alleging that the student, Manish Khari, was drugged by the Nigerians living nearby.
Interpol has given a major reprieve to graft tainted former Indian Premier League (IPL) Chairman Lalit Modi denying a Red Notice against him.

"I just got off from a flight from Barcelona through which I sat completely numb. Just as I was boarding the flight I got the news that the Interpol had finally investigated and concluded and reached a verdict in my favour with a detailed letter of rejection of India's request for issuing of a Red Notice," Modi wrote on his Instagram account.

He also posted Interpol documents, which were not for public dissemination, at his Instagram and Twitter accounts.

"The sword that was hanging over my head has suddenly gone," Modi said.

The Interpol document dated March 24 said: "Lalit Kumar Modi is not subject to an Interpol Red Notice or diffusion and not known in the Interpol's database."

The organisation however clarified that "in the past the individual (Lalit Modi) was subject of data record in Interpol's database, yet the data was later cancelled".

Lalit Modi had fled India in 2010, after facing charges of financial irregularity in IPL. He is currently living in Britain. His extradition process is still pending.

The authenticity of the documents could not be verified as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said they had no such information yet.

CBI spokesperson RK Gaur said: "The agency is authenticating the Interpol documents."
Security forces on Tuesday on gunned down a terrorist and an Army jawan suffered injuries as the encounter in Budgam district of Jammu and Kashmir ended.

Earlier, two people were killed and 17 others were injured after an encounter broke out between terrorists and security forces in Budgam district of Jammu & Kashmir's on Tuesday morning.

Security forces cordoned off the Durbugh village following information about the presence of the militants in a house.

"The search operation turned into a gun-battle after militants opened fire on security forces," a police official was quoted as saying by a news agency.

The casualty happened when stone-pelting protesters gathered at the site of the encounter and tried to disrupt the Army operation.

Reports suggested that two Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists were killed on Sunday, when they tried to ambush a police convoy on the border of Awantipura and Pulwama districts in south Kashmir.

Meanwhile, reacting to the ongoing gun-battle, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday said that nothing will be achieved through violence, only peace and talks can offer a solution.

Protesters pelted stones on state minister Abdul Rehman Veeri's car in Bijbehara area.
The Uttar Pradesh Police on Tuesday arrested five people allegedly involved in the attack on Nigerian students in Greater Noida.

Police have arrested five persons. FIR registered and action will be taken accordingly, Daljit Chaudhary, ADG Law and Order said to a news agency.

The fight broke out on Monday when local residents were holding a candlelight march against the death of a class 12 student who died of drug overdose allegedly given by some Africans. Few of the local residents attacked the African students shopping in the area, alleging that the student, Manish Khari, was drugged by the Nigerians living nearby.

Manish died on Saturday after having a cardiac arrest due to suspected drug overdose.

Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj spoke to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday regarding the attack after a Nigerian national tweeted, saying living in the area was becoming a life threatening issue.

"I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath ji Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh about the attack on African students in Greater Noida. He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident (sic)," Sushma said in a series of tweets.

As an international student in Noida, you need to act fast as living for us in Noida is becoming a life threatening issue, Sadiq Bello tweeted on Tuesday morning.

Three Nigerians were injured in the attack and was admitted to a nearby hospital.

We don't know why we were assaulted, the mob hit us with rods, bricks and knives: Nigerian national who was attacked, said one of the Nigerian victim.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict on a bunch of pleas, filed by NGO Common Cause, seeking appointment of Lokpal.

Central government told the top court that in the current scenario, the appointment of Lokpal is impossible.

Meanwhile, Advocate General told the top court that the Lokpal can't be appointed since amendments pertaining to the definition of the Leader of Opposition is pending in the Parliament.

The apex court had on November 23, 2016, pulled up the Centre over the pending appointment of the Lokpal. The top court told the government that it must not allow the institution of Lokpal to become a 'dead letter'.

The top court questioned the Centre as to why the appointment has been pending since 2014 and asked Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi as to why the government dragged its feet when it comes to passing of the amendment which would have speeded up the process of appointment.
Concerned over increasing terrorist threats and the possibility of their using remote airports, the government on Tuesday told the Lok Sabha that it was carrying out security audit of these airports.

Replying to queries during Question Hour, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said the Home Ministry was carrying out audit of such installations to ensure security of such airports.

Since 2000, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) has taken over security of 59 airports. The Leh and Srinagar airports in Jammu and Kashmir are under the control of the CRPF.

The Home Ministry and the Civil Aviation Ministry are in talks to see whether the CISF can get a common command structure over security of all the airports, he said.

On whether India needed a special transport safety service on the lines of the United States, Rijiju said while railway safety was taken care of by the RPF, the CISF is constantly evolving new training methods to protect airports and similar installations.

The CISF at present provides security cover to 329 installations like airports, industrial units, national monuments and government buildings.

While several members supported a suggestion that checking of valid tickets at airport gates should be carried out by airlines staff and not the CISF, the minister chose not to reply to it.
Three youth indulging in stone pelting were on Tuesday killed in the action of security forces during an encounter at Chadoora in the Budgam district in Kashmir. A terrorist was also killed in the encounter. Seventeen others injured were rushed to Srinagar for treatment.

A spokesman of the Northern Command of the army said that one terrorist has been killed in the encounter and an AK rifle and ammunition recovered. An army personnel also sustained injuries.

The three civilians reportedly were among dozens of youth who started pelting stones at the security forces in a bid to divert their attention so as to facilitate escape of the holed up terrorist.

The encounter broke out in the morning when the a joint team of security forces, including the army, CRPF and special operation group (SOG) of the state police, on the basis of specific information about the terrorists cordoned the area and launched a search.

The killed youth have been identified as Zahid Rashid (22), Saqib Ahmad and Ishaq Ahmad Wani. Zahid received bullet injury on his neck and succumbed to the injuries while on way to the hospital.

The police tried to chase away the stone pelters by bursting teargas shells but when this failed to get the desired results there was no option but to open fire, said a police officer.

The doctor at the sub-district health centre in Chadoora said on the social media that two youth were brought dead and 17 others were injured.

The army had last month warned the civilians not to indulge in stone pelting on security forces at the encounter places as such mischief provides opportunity to terrorists to escape. The state government had also announced that curfew restrictions will automatically come into force around the encounter site where people were prohibited to assemble.

Following reports that militants were planning to attack tourists and the Amarnath pilgrims in the coming season, the security forces have stepped up operations against terrorists in the valley and on Sunday killed two ultras of Hizbul Mujahideen who ambushed a police party in Pulwama district.

Expressing grief over the incident, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said It is highly painful to see the young boys losing their lives, she said.

We know there are issues that need to be addressed and resolved but no one will be able to do anything at a point when violence becomes a norm. There is a need for restrain from all sides so that a conducive atmosphere is created and dissent is expressed in peaceful way," she added that solution to problems can be found only through political means and not through violence.

Meanwhile, the separatist leaders have called complete shutdown tomorrow against the killing of the civilians. Asking people to observe complete shutdown tomorrow and protests after Friday prayers on March 31, Syed Alishah Geelani, Mirwaiz Omer Farooq and Yasin Malik expressed grief over killing of two youth near the encounter site.

On the other hand, the firstever incident of snatching a service weapon from a policeman by suspected ultras in Jammu was being viewed seriously by top police officers. The incident that was reported three days ago has come shortly before the holy Navratras when hundreds of people from within the state and elsewhere in the country visit the Vaishnodevi shrine. Security has been tightened at the shrine and other places.
A universal identity card, to be accepted by central and state governments, will be issued to all disabled to help them avail various welfare schemes and quota, Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thaawarchand Gehlot said on Tuesday.

As per 2011 census there were 2.68 crore disabled in the country, but so far there is no proper identity document for them, he said in Lok Sabha.

"We are planning to distribute the universal identity card to all disabled persons in the country. The card will help the persons with disabilities to avail all government schemes and reservation. These cards will be recognisable by all the states," Gehlot said during Question Hour.

The card will be linked with the Aadhar card and the data will be available online to ensure transparency, he said.

Under the Deendayal Disabled Rehabilitation Scheme, 371 special schools across the country were provided financial assistance to the tune of Rs.31.31 crore.
Iraqs Prime Minister, Haider-al-Abadi, had once vowed to recapture Mosul, the countrys second largest city of Iraq, from the control of ISIS by the end of 2016. American military commanders, assisting the Iraqi troops, were also quite optimistic, and hoped that the victory would be swift. But this has not actually happened. It bears recall that ISIS had captured Mosul in June 2014 when Iraqi troops literally broke up and fled. There was a nightmarish fear that ISIS troops would march ahead and storm the capital, Baghdad. Now after two-and-a-half years, the tide has turned and the Caliphate is on the retreat. The Iraqi security forces are in control of Qyaarah airport, some forty miles south of Mosul. It has now been refurbished and has become the logistical base and the collecting point for the Iraqi forces gathering for the attack. At least 600 American advisors and special forces are training and guiding the Iraqis in their operations.

It now seems that the ability of the jihadists to hold on and cause indiscriminate damage was overlooked by the security forces. They underestimated the capability of the militants to cause damage and carnage. The jihadists have successfully used booby traps, improvised landmines and hundreds of suicide bombers to hold back the advance of the Iraqi forces. Elaborate tunnel networks in west Mosul have enabled the militants to launch surprise attacks on the Iraqi forces in areas supposedly cleared and then escape. In the ongoing Mosul operations, the Iraqi forces have suffered heavy casualties and the Government so far has not released the casualty figures.

According to Michael Knight of the Washington Institute, an American think-tank, about 25,000 Iraqi army and special forces, are taking part in this operation. Another 6,000-strong Sunni tribal force has been recruited from the neighbouring areas, and is involved in this operation. Kurdish Peshmerga forces, as well as Shia Peoples Liberation Force, are also ready to operate. They have not been involved so far in the operation for the recapture of Mosul, fearing an impact on the areas Sunni population.

The Iraqi forces have already occupied the eastern part of the city, which is split in half by the Tigris river and the battle for occupation of the western part is raging. The battle is getting tougher as the old citys narrow lanes and by-lanes, enabled the suicide bombers and the snipers to prey on the Iraqi troops. Heavy fighting is also taking its toll on the civilian population. The Iraqi government has dropped leaflets urging the residents numbering about 7,50,000 not to leave their homes. But given the siege-like condition, many will be forced to flee.

The Caliphate, however, is steadily losing ground and staring at inevitable defeat. With the intensification of air strikes, many bureaucrats are seeing the writing on the wall and have started to flee. The fall of Mosul will deal a severe blow to ISIS. It was from here that Al-Bagdadi, its leader, declared his Caliphate. It still has some strength left. It has a fanatical core of about 5000 battle-hardened jihadis in west Mosul alone. They will give a tough fight, as they had earlier done in east Mosul. There are also a number of foreign fighters who know that they cannot blend into the native population and escape to Raqqa, the capital of the Caliphate across the border in Syria. They are prepared to fight to die. With the Kurdish-led ground forces advancing towards Raqqa, the fall of the capital is also a question of time. American commanders believe that the fall of Mosul and Raqqa will take place within six months.

ISIS is also in financial straits. Their collection of money through taxes, sale of oil and ransom has declined from $ 1.9 bn in 2014 to about $ 870 million in 2016, according to a study by Kings College, London. There are clear indications that the Caliphates short and brutal life is coming to an end.

In western Mosul, the Iraqi army has captured the airport, government complexes and all the roads in and out of the city. But even after the recapture of Mosul, there will be huge problems. Many of the citizens had collaborated with the occupiers and there is bound to be a settling of scores. Though the Shia-dominated Iraqi army has liberated the city, the Sunnis will demand a fair share of the power in the city and the neighbouring province of Nineveh. The Kurds will also claim their share of the recompense for breaking the back of ISIS. Again, rebuilding and reconstruction of Mosul will be a big task.

No battlefield victory against the jihadis will be complete and no diplomatic solution will be enduring unless the serious dispossession of the Sunnis is dealt with. Prime Minster Al-Abadi has tried to reach out to the Sunnis and heal the sectarian wounds. Power has to be shared with the sect equitably. This may not happen overnight, but the process must start.

There is a fragile detente among the anti-ISIS forces and the problem will intensify with the collapse of the Caliphate. Iraqi government and Iraqi Kurds are very likely to break apart. Kurds took advantage of the situation in 2014 to grab extensive lands disputed between themselves and the Arabs. With the collapse of the Caliphate, the Iraqi government may want to take back the territories.

There remains the baffling problem of holding on to a war-ravaged hostile territory after the ISIS is overthrown. Further, breaking up of the Caliphate will not snuff out the appeal of the ISIS and its malevolent ideology. It will continue to fester in many collapsed and failed states stretching from Algeria to Pakistan. Lone wolf supporters of ISIS will continue to attack western targets. Recent attacks, such as the one on Westminster last week, have been claimed by ISIS as acts of reprisal against western countries.

The writer is Senior Fellow, Institute of Social Sciences; former Director General, National Human Rights Commission; former Director, National Police Academy.
TV actress Kamya Punjabi has announced that she would release the last film of late actress Pratyusha Banerjee, who commited suicide, on her first death anniversary.

Last year around this time, Indian television lost one of its most popular and finest actresses Pratyusha Banerjee, who was found hanging in her Mumbai residence on April 1, 2016.

Actress Kamya Punjabi, who is also a close friend of Pratyusha Banerjee had accused her then boyfriend Rahul Raj Singh for Pratyushas suicide.

Some days ago she (Pratyusha) called me and said Rahul is cheating on her. Three-four days ago, when I got a call in Delhi, I told her Ill come and sort out everything. She said she cant live like this anymore and wanted to get out of this relationship. She said she needed help, the actress was quoted as saying.

Rahul Raj Singh is currently facing a case for suicide abetment.

Kamya took to twitter to share the teaser of the film where Pratyusha is seen playing an intense role. The teaser bears an uncanny resemblance with Pratyushas real life, where she is seen emotionally drained out after having a spat with her boyfriend.

Kamya Punjabi signs off the video saying, Ashk, kuch beh gaye, aur kuch reh gaye.

The short film will be released on April 1, on Pratyusha's first death anniversary.
At least four Afghan soldiers were killed and five injured in an overnight attack by Taliban militants on an Army base in Kandahar province, an official said on Tuesday.

"Militants stormed an army camp in Khakrez district late on Monday. The clash lasted for hours," Xinhua news agency quoted an official as saying.

According to him, several militants were also killed and wounded during the gun battle.

Kandhar province, about 450 km south of Kabul, has been the scene of clashes between Taliban and security forces over the past years.
Indian and Israeli cultures share "many similarities" and people of both the countries believe in professionalism and rarely "back down from a fight", US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has said.

Highlighting her Indian connection, 45-year-old Haley said while there were many "good things" about the people of the two countries, they were also "aggressive" and "stubborn".

"I am the daughter of Indian parents, who reminded my brothers, my sister and me everyday how blessed we were to live in this country. The truth is, I have seen so many similarities between the Israeli culture and the Indian culture," Haley said in her address to Americans Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference on Monday.

"We're very close knit. We love our families. We have a strong work ethic. We believe in professionalism and philanthropy, and giving back. So that's all the good things.

We're aggressive. We're stubborn. And we don't back down from a fight," Haley said in response to a question.

She also rued that the Iranian deal had only empowered the Iranians.

"It's concerning. And the reason it's concerning is because when the Iran deal took place, all it did was empower Iran, and it empowered Russia. And it emboldened Iran to feel like they could get away with more," she said.

"It is  you can put sanctions on a country. To take sanctions away, it's very hard to go back and put sanctions back on. So what we have said is, we're going to watch them like a hawk. We're going to make sure that every single thing they do is watched, processed and dealt with," she said.

Noting that there are a lot of threats to peace and security, Haley said the US will not take its number one democratic friend in the Middle East and beat up on them.

"I think what you're seeing is they're all backing up a little bit. The Israel-bashing is not as loud. They didn't know exactly what I meant outside of giving the speech, so we showed them. So when they decided to try and put a Palestinian in one of the highest positions that had ever been given at the UN, we said no and we had him booted out," she said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that he is committed to working with US President Donald Trump to achieve peace with the Palestinians and all of the Jewish state's neighbours.

"Israel's hand and my hand is extended to all of our neighbours in peace," EFE news quoted Netanyahu as saying in a videoconference address to the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the main pro-Israeli pressure group in the US, in Washington.

"I believe that the common dangers faced by Israel and many of our Arab neighbours now offer a rare opportunity to build bridges towards a better future  a future more prosperous, more secure, more peaceful," he said.

Netanyahu urged the Palestinian National Authority to "stop teaching hatred to its children. It must stop paying terrorists. It must stop denying our legitimacy and our history. It must above all, once and for all, recognise the Jewish state."

The Israeli leader said that "Israel has no greater friend than America and America has no greater friend than Israel", and he added that he was certain that the alliance between the two nations will grow even closer in the coming years.

He also referred to Iran as the greatest threat to Israel and appealed to the Trump administration to prevent "Iran from ever  developing nuclear weapons. That  will always be our policy."

The premier said that "our partnership (with the US) means also confronting Iran's aggression in the region and its terrorism around the world" and he added that "it means utterly vanquishing ISIS" and "building alliances with  those moderates who seek to build a better future and embrace modernity and peace."

"In this battle between modernity and medievalism, more and more countries in the region and outside the region, around the world, realise that Israel is on their side," the premier said.

Netanyahu delivered his speech after US Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday spoke on the first day of the conference, reaffirming Trump's commitment to achieving "lasting" peace in the Middle East.

Trump welcomed the Israeli premier to the White House in February.




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But the tribe has a long way to go
The stage is set in Gujarat for a grand welcome of BJP national president Amit Shah, who is coming to his home state for the first time after the party's landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and an impressive performance in other states in the recently-held assembly elections.

Shah will reach Ahmedabad on Wednesday afternoon and straight away go to Sabarmati Riverfront where he would address the Vijay Vishwas Sammelan.

A large dome1200 feet longthat can accommodate 50,000 people has been set up on the riverfront. The dome has white and saffron lining and is decorated with saffron balloons. Air conditioners and coolers have also been put up as Ahmedabad has been experiencing temperatures of 40 degrees celsius plus for last few days.

On March 30, the second day of his state visit, Shah will attend the ongoing budget session of the Gujarat Assembly. He represents Naranpura constituency. Later, he will address party leaders at BJP's state headquarters at Shree Kamalam in Gandhingar. Shah is expected to give guidelines for the assembly election that is due by the year end.

At night, he would attend dinner to be hosted by party state president Jitubhai Vaghani. BJP MLAs and MPs will also attend the dinner.

Shah's family resides in Ahmedabad.
Senior PDP legislator and former cabinet minister Javid Mustafa has blamed party colleague and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti for the ''targeted killing'' of the three civilians by the security forces during an encounter with a militant at Chadoora in Budgam.

Chadoora is part of Mustafa's assembly constituency which he has consistently won since the advent of the PDP in 2002.

The killings have sparked off a political outrage as it came 11 days ahead of the by- polls for Srinagar Parliament constituency that includes the district of Srinagar, Budgam, and Ganderbal.

Mustafa, who is considered a heavyweight in the party, said the forces deliberately targeted the youth Zahid Rashid, Saqib Ahmed, and Afaq Ahmed.

They could have aimed at lower parts of the body,'' he said. '' But one was hit in the neck, another in the chest and the third one in the heart.''

It is a case of targeted killings and Mehbooba is responsible for it as home minister of the state. She got the three youth killed,'' a seemingly angry PDP leader said.

The three youths, who were shot at during the encounter, was rushed to the hospital where they succumbed to their injuries.

The encounter began in the morning and ended around 6 pm after forces blasted the hideout with IEDs.

The Srinagar constituency is considered relatively safe for National Conference candidate Farooq Abdullah. The NC is contesting the election in alliance with the Congress. The PDP, which is banking on the Shia votes, has fielded Nazir Ahmed against Farooq.

The separatists have called for a Kashmir bandh on Wednesday against the killing of three youth by the army.

Late in the evening, there were reports of stone pelting from various parts of Kashmir, especially Kulgam, the hometown of the militant killed in the encounter.
The Pentagon, facing accusations that a coalition air strike may have killed scores of civilians in the Iraqi city of Mosul, said on Monday it was not loosening its rules of engagement in the fight against Islamic State but that resources to investigate claims were limited.

Eyewitnesses from Mosul and Iraqi officials have said last week's strike on Islamic State targets may have collapsed homes where rescue officials say as many as 200 people were buried in the rubble.

The US military does not intend to change the way it carries out strikes, even as the fighting in Mosul enters more densely populated areas, Colonel John Thomas, a spokesman for US Central Command, told reporters.

"General Votel is not looking into changing the way we operate other than to say our processes are good and we want to make sure we live by those processes," Thomas said.

General Joseph Votel heads Central Command.

"There (are) only so many people dedicated to this who really have the expertise to get us where we need to be," Thomas added.

The Mosul strike, if confirmed, would be one of the deadliest single incidents for civilians in recent memory in any major conflict involving the US military, which prides itself on efforts to limit civilian fallout.

Thomas said the assessment is looking at 700 videos from the area over a 10-day period.

"We didn't have any reports internally where we thought we had killed any civilians. We saw the reports come out just like, I think, like everybody else," Thomas said.

Rescue workers are still searching the site of the March 17 explosion in Western Mosul, where one health official said 160 bodies had been recovered. Iraq's military says 61 bodies have been pulled out so far.

The civilian death toll has increased in the more densely populated west of Mosul as militants have used homes for cover.

"The absolute default in every building should be that there are going to be civilians present," said Jay Morse, a senior military adviser at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, a US-based advocacy and research group.

Iraqi forces have discussed new tactics, which a US military official said might include opening a second front and trying to isolate the Old City.

Earlier on Monday, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis appeared to back the way the United States carries out strikes.

"There is no military force in the world that has proven more sensitive to civilian casualties," Mattis said before a meeting with his counterpart from Qatar.

"We go out of our way to always do everything humanly possible to reduce the loss of life or injury among innocent people. The same cannot be said for our adversaries," he said.

The coalition has said investigating the allegations in Mosul is a priority and it is assessing the credibility of conflicting reports.

The military has also opened an investigation into a strike in northern Syria this month believed to have killed nearly 50 people and is probing allegations that another strike hit a school near Raqqa.
Reiterating her pro-Israel stance, Indian-American Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, has asserted that the United States will continue to support Israel.



Haley, during her speech at the 2017 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference on Monday, said: "For anyone who says you can't get anything done at the UN, they need to know there is a new sheriff in town."



Haley also said that she would not allow a repeat of an anti-Israel resolution passing at the UNSC, which happened last December when the US, under the Barack Obama administration, chose not to utilise its veto power, the Washington Examiner magazine reported.



"The days of Israel-bashing are over. You're not going to take our number one democratic friend in the Middle East and beat up on them. And I think what you're seeing is, they're all backing up a little bit. The Israel-bashing is not as loud," she said.



The former South Carolina governor said she is taken aback by the "bizarre" level of vitriol she has witnessed levelled against Israel in UN bodies, according to the report.



She spoke of having prevented the appointment of a Palestinian official, former Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad, to a senior UN position, and noted that he may well be a nice man.



But "until the Palestinians come to the table" to negotiate peace with Israel, "there are no freebies for the Palestinian Authority any more," she said.



When asked how the US can help change the culture at the UN, Haley said: "The US tells them what we're not going to put up with."



"We start to change the culture to what we should be talking about and then we actually act on what we say."



"I wear heels. It's not for a fashion statement. It's because if I see something wrong, we're going to kick them every single time," Haley added.



US House Speaker Paul Ryan praised Haley for her tough stance, and took his own swipe at the UN as well for "obsessing" over the Jewish state.



He accused the Obama administration of "damaging trust" with Israel and promised a new day under US President Donald Trumpa line which earned him applause from the crowd.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was sentenced to 15 days behind bars and fined for staging the biggest anti-corruption protests in years, an act branded as a "provocation" by the Kremlin.

The United States and the European Union have voiced deep concern after Navalny and more than 1,000 others were detained in the Moscow protest on Sunday, with the State Department describing the arrests as as an "affront to democracy".

A Moscow district court ordered Navalny to serve 15 days in jail after having found him guilty of disobeying police orders. He was fined 20,000 rubles for having organised an unsanctioned protest.

The lawyer turned activist, 40, who has announced plans to run for president next year, called the protests after publishing a report accusing Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of controlling a property empire through a shadowy network of non-profit organisations.

"The authorities are being accused of multi-million theft, but they remain silent," a haggard-looking Navalny said in court, insisting the protests were legal.

"More than 1,000 people were arrested yesterday but it is impossible to arrest millions," the 40-year-old lawyer said.

About 7,000 to 8,000 people demonstrated in Moscow, according to police figures, making it one of the biggest unauthorised rallies in President Vladimir Putin's 17 years in power.

The Kremlin called the protest "a provocation and a lie", and claimed minors had been promised "financial rewards" to participate.

Demonstrations were held not just in Moscow and Russia's second city Saint Petersburg but also in a number of provincial cities where protests are rarely seen.

They attracted a significant number of minors born since Putin came to power.

"I am very happy that a generation that wants to be citizens, that isn't afraid, was born in the country," Navalny said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russians' "civic stance" would be respected if expressed legally but, without mentioning Navalny by name, suggested "some people will continue using (politically) active people... to their own ends, calling them to illegal and unauthorised actions".

Navalny was arrested as he was walking to the Moscow protest and another 1,030 people were detained, according OVD-Info, a website that monitors detentions of activists.

The vast majority were fined and released overnight, while about 120 remained in custody today, OVD-Info said.

One policeman was hospitalised after suffering a head injury, the interior ministry said.

The European Union urged Russia to release the demonstrators "without delay" and expressed concern that police action had "prevented the exercise of basic freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly".

"We call on the Russian authorities to abide fully by the international commitments it has made, including in the Council of Europe... to uphold these rights and to release without delay the peaceful demonstrators that have been detained."

US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the detention of "peaceful protesters, human rights observers, and journalists is an affront to core democratic values".
A Russian bank under Western economic sanctions over Russia's incursion into Ukraine disclosed on Monday its executives had met Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a top White House adviser, in December.

A US Senate committee investigating suspected Russian interference in the election wants to interview Trump associates, including Kushner, 36, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and has agreed to testify.

Kushner previously acknowledged meeting the Russian ambassador to Washington last December and only on Monday did it emerge that executives of Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) had talks with Kushner during a bank roadshow last year.

The bank said in an emailed statement that as part of its preparing a new strategy, its executives met representatives of financial institutes in Europe, Asia and America.

It said roadshow meetings took place "with a number of representatives of the largest banks and business establishments of the United States, including Jared Kushner, the head of Kushner Companies." VEB declined to say where the meetings took place or the dates.

There was no immediate comment from Kushner.

Allegations by US intelligence agencies that Russian actors were behind hacking of senior Democratic Party operatives and spreading disinformation linger over Trump's young presidency. Democrats charge the Russians wanted to tilt the election toward the Republican, a claim dismissed by Trump. Russia denies the allegations.

But there has been no doubt that the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, developed contacts among the Trump team. Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign on February 13 after revelations that he had discussed US sanctions on Russia with Kislyak and misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations.

US officials said after meeting with Russian Kislyak at Trump Tower last December, a meeting also attended by Flynn, Kushner met later in December with Sergei Gorkov, chairman of Vnesheconombank.

White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks confirmed the meetings, saying nothing of consequence was discussed.

Gorkov was appointed head of VEB in early 2016 by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He graduated from the Federal Security Service, or FSB, Russias internal security agency. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Merit for Services to the Fatherland, according to the bank's website.

According to two congressional staffers, some Senate investigators want to question Kushner and Flynn about whether they discussed with Gorkov or other Russian officials or financial executives the possibility of investing in 666 Fifth Avenue in New York or other Kushner Co or Trump properties if the new administration lifted the sanctions.

VEB, aside from being under sanctions, has been grappling with bad debt after financing politically expedient projects such as construction for the Sochi Winter Olympics.

It received 150 billion roubles ($2.6 billion) in support from the Russian budget in 2016, when its senior management was sacked and replaced by a team of executives from Russia's biggest lender Sberbank.

In an article posted on December 18, Forbes estimated that Jared Kushner, his brother Josh and his parents, Charles and Seryl, have a fortune of at least $1.8 billion, more than half of which Forbes estimates is held in real estate.

Forbes did not provide a specific estimate for Jared Kushners net worth on his own.
Some people have already billed him as the next Modi. An ironclad disciplinarian, chronic bachelor, hindutva hardliner, fiery orator, mass magnet, strict vegetarian, yoga exponent... and now chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. Yogi Adityanath has arrived.

The five-time saffron-clad MP from Gorakhpur has little administrative experience, other than heading the Gorakhnath temple. Yet, the BJP chose him to lead Uttar Pradesh, clearly with eyes on the 2019 general elections.

Yogi, whose real name is Ajay Singh Bisht, was born in Uttarakhand on June 5, 1972. He has represented Gorakhpur since 1998, when he became the youngest member of the 12th Lok Sabha, at 26.

Like Modi, Adityanaths day starts early. He wakes up at 3am and practises yoga before his morning rituals. He is a nature lover, who adores animals. His pets include a dog, a cat, deer and monkeys. His darling, however, is the dog, Kallu, with whom he spends his leisure breaks. The cow shelter near the temple has about 500 cows, and Adityanath has his breakfast only after feeding them and the fish in the pond on the temple premises.

Adityanath, described by some people as a green saint, is also credited with raising a green lung around the temple. He has planted and cared for numerous trees and medicinal plants in the area.

Known for simple living, Adityanath has frugal food such as rotis, boiled pulses and vegetables, papaya and butter milk. Every morning, he spends two hours sorting out problems of people in the regiona practice he has maintained for two decades.

The big question is which path Adityanath would take as chief ministersoft or hard? He has already tried to shake off the image of a divisive leader by singing Modis line of inclusive developmentSabka saath, sabka vikasand promising to work without bias. The induction of a Muslim, Mohsin Raza, into his cabinet is also seen as sign of maturing and mellowing.

Political analysts say Adityanath has been rewarded for his hard work, especially in the recent assembly polls, in which he played a vital role in polarising votes.

However, in the process of galvanising the Hindu community, Adityanath often stirred up controversies and irked the BJP brass. But he always enjoyed the blessings of the RSS.

Adityanath first hogged the limelight when he led a mass conversion of 5,000 Christians to Hinduism in 2005. Two years later, he was jailed for breaking curfew and disrupting peace. His subsequent inflammatory speeches have received bouquets and brickbats in equal measure. More recently, he invited flak for comparing Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan to Pakistani terrorist Hafiz Saeed.

Brick by brick: A caretaker stands besides bricks meant for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya | Pawan Kumar

Now, however, the sangh parivar seems to have carefully crafted a gameplan based on inclusivity. Adityanath, an upper caste Thakur, has given ample representation to backward castes and dalits. Also, the inclusion of Raza in his cabinet has somewhat allayed the anxieties of the minority community, with many Islamic leaders hailing the move.

Why Raza? One, he is the son-in-law of BJP veteran and Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla. Two, he belongs to the Shia community, which is considered close to the BJP.

For the first time in history, the state will have two deputy chief ministersDinesh Sharma, a Brhamin, and the BJPs state president Keshav Prasad Maurya, an OBC.

Adityanath has picked 15 ministers from backward castes, 15 from upper castes, four dalits and the remaining from other sub-castes.

The BJP had fielded 48 turncoats, ignoring dissent from its cadre. Of these, 44 won, and Adityanath has accommodated nine of them, including former state Congress president Rita Bahuguna Joshi, in his ministry.

Adityanath has done his best to maintain regional balance, too15 ministers from eastern UP, 16 from central UP and 14 from western UP, and 2 from the Bundelkhand region, which had been ignored by the previous government.

A big talking point was the absence of a minister from Ayodhya, even as MLAs from the holy abodes of Kashi and Mathura got cabinet berths.

That brings us to the hot issue of building a Ram temple in Ayodhya, a longtime promise of the BJP. It was one of the highlights of the BJPs poll manifesto.

We will fulfil all promises made in our sanklap patra (manifesto), and will eradicate maladies such as corruption, crime and nepotism, said Adityanath, avoiding the Ram temple issue.

The clamour for the temple has gone up, especially with the Supreme Court suggesting that the dispute be settled outside court. Senior RSS ideologue M.G. Vaidya claimed that Uttar Pradesh has given the BJP a massive mandate to build the Ram temple.

During the election campaign, though Modi avoided the issue, many BJP leaders had reiterated their promise of building a Ram temple in Ayodhya. With power in Uttar Pradesh and stronger clout in the Rajya Sabha, the BJP will have to bite the holy bullet.

The formation of the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, following the victory at the Centre in 2014, means that the atmosphere is conducive to building the temple, says Mahant Suresh Das, a member of the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas, a trust formed to oversee the temples construction. The BJP got such a huge majority because it had mentioned the temple in its manifesto.

Former MP Ram Vilas Vedanti, who has been associated with the temple movement, says: When the BJP formed government at the Centre, people wondered when the temples construction would begin. Now, the BJP has wrested power in Uttar Pradesh, too. We hope the prime minister would find some way to build the temple.

On the economic front, a huge challenge for Adityanath will be keeping the mega promise of waiving agricultural loans. Let us see if the BJP government waives farmers loans in its first cabinet meeting, challenged outgoing chief minister Akhilesh Yadav.

The state has 2.33 crore farmers, of whom 92 per cent are small and marginal farmers. And the quantum of agricultural loans is Rs 1,26,889 crore.

Another priority for Adityanath would be ensuring na goonda raj, na bhrastachar (no mafia rule, no corruption), a promise he reiterated in his farewell speech in Parliament, too. Cleansing the embedded muck in the system and reining in about 50 mafias that rule the underworld would be a quite a challenge.

Adityanath will also have to keep fringe groups within the sangh parivar, such as the Bajrang Dal, on a tight leash to ensure communal harmony.

If he crosses all these hurdles and proves his mettle, Adityanath could well indeed emerge as the next Modi.
Kolkata, March 28 (IBNS): Impact of Goods and Services Tax (GST) on the gem and jewellery sector, charges applied on credit or debit card purchases and demonetisation effects were some of the key issues discussed at the Preferred Manufacturer of India (PMI) programme recently held in Kolkata.

Organised by the All India Gem and Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF), the fifth PMI regional networking meet held at the JW Marriott hotel, was the first after the demonetisation scheme was declared in November last as well as the first under the new Committee of Administration (COA).

Present at the meet were members of GJF, including Director Sanjay Jain, Chairman Nitin Khandelwal, Immediate Past Chairman GV Sreedhar, and former Chariman Bachhraj Bamalwa.

The PMI program brought under one roof leading Indian manufacturers of gold, diamond, and studded jewellery and a large number of retailers so that participants can discuss how they can support industry-wide business efforts.

According to the organisers, the regional meet is expected to benefit local jewellers and craftsmen, especially those expert in creating handmade jewellery designs.

West Bengal has the largest number of goldsmiths and craftsmen in India, whose work is recognised across the world and their jewellery sell very fast, the organisers said.

Nitish Khandelwal, chairman, GFI, said that it is not possible to put a figure to the business conducted. "The main thing is to have a good and long-term relationship which will be good for future business, he said.

G.V Sreedhar, Immediate Past Chairman, said, This networking business is a new age mantra for successful enterprises and PMI offers manufacturers a dedicated platform that facilitates better relationship building with the countrys most prominent jewellery retailers. We are uplifting the skills of karigars of the entire country.

The dream of our Prime Minister Narendra Modis Make in India project that the employment of more and more karigars, many people are taking part in this industry,: said Sreedhar.

Sankar Sen, Zonal Chairman - Eastern Region said, The platform provides an opportunity to interact directly with the manufacturers who have thorough knowledge, which enhances the exchange of ideas, and learn about trends, innovation and best practices.

(Reporting by Camellia Chatterjee)
Last week, a special delegation from Christians United for Israel (CUFI) visited the headquarters of United Hatzalah (UH) in Jerusalem to learn about Hatzalahs all-volunteer, emergency medical services (EMS) model, and to see firsthand how the Hatzalah model is uniting the peoples of Israel in the joint cause of saving lives.

Randy Neal, the Western Regional Coordinator for CUFI, spoke about why this visit was important to the group. We have a number of pastors here from different states and different denominations. A lot of them are not familiar with Israel and most of them have never been to Israel before. I have had the occasion and privilege to learn about United Hatzalah and I believe that the organization encapsulates the heart of Israel. I really believe that that the nobility and purity of the mission that allows life to trump all of the other things that go on here, it transcends races, cultures, religions, bringing Jews, Muslims, and Christians together for something that is a common denominator. Whether that is saving ones kid or grandmother or spouse, it brings everyone together. As much as I love the organization, it is important for these pastors to get a glimpse of the real spirit of Israel. It is important for them to see what really makes the top of the priority list of the people and the nation, and I think that United Hatzalah embodies that.

During the visit, the delegation of some 30 pastors representing communities from across the Northwestern United States, including 3 leaders from the Crow Nation, had the opportunity to tour United Hatzalahs command center and look at the advanced technology which allows the organization to form a country-wide network of coverage. The group also got to meet volunteers from across the spectrum of the Israeli population. Among the volunteers that met with the pastors were a religious Muslim Arab, a religious Jewish female paramedic who lives in Judea, a secular Jewish EMT, and an EMT who immigrated from North America.

In addition to hearing the first-hand rescue stories of the volunteers and learning how they work together  regardless of differences. The delegation also spent time with Eli Beer, the Founder and President of Hatzalah. Beer explained the history of the organization and how the model is being adopted by communities outside of Israel today.

Neal added that in particular, the leaders of the Crow Nation were looking forward to learning about the activities of the organization. When the Crow Leaders learned about the organization they were very intrigued and looked forward to coming here and learning more about it because they have a nation of 14,000 people over a vast area and the emergency response time for emergencies in their area is very problematic and dangerous. They were looking forward to learning about this and exploring the application of such a model in their own communities.

Neal added that he is looking forward to continued cooperation between United Hatzalah and CUFI.

After the visit, Beer said, We are excited to work with CUFI and to share our life-saving model with people from different communities all over the world. Our model has already been implemented in 10 countries around the globe. I believe that what we have developed here is not only meant to save lives in Israel but can and should be used to save the lives of others all over the world. Following the model of pre-ambulatory response and treatment that we have developed here, and have applied to serve people of all faiths and backgrounds, the same model can be used by people of different faiths and religions all over the world.

No matter who you are, or what you believe, we all believe in the same principle that life is precious and worth saving. We are happy to teach and train others as to how we go about saving people here in Israel in the hopes that they will take what they have learned and apply it in their own communities.

Christians United for Israel is a national grassroots movement of 3.4 million Christians focused on the support of Israel. United Hatzalah is a community-based, volunteer, EMS organization that provide free medical treatment to all residents of Israel.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Berlin police say thieves broke into the German capitals Bode Museum and made off with a massive 100-kilogram (221-pound) gold coin worth millions.

Spokesman Stefen Petersen said thieves apparently entered through a window about 3:30 a.m. Monday, broke into a cabinet where the Big Maple Leaf coin was kept, and escaped with it before police arrived.

A ladder was found by nearby railway tracks.

The three-centimeter (1.18-inch) thick coin, with a diameter of 53 centimeters (20.9 inches), has a face value of $1 million. By weight alone, however, it would be worth almost $4.5 million at market prices.

The museum says the coin is in the Guinness Book of Records for its purity of 999.99/1000 gold. It has a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on one side and maple leaves on the other.

(AP)
Yesh Atid party leader MK Yair Lapid met with dati leumi rabbonim accompanied by party colleague MK Elazar Stern, a former IDF major-general and head of Human Resources in the IDF. They met with some of the rabbonim who signed the letter addressing mixed gender units in the military. Lapid explained that with all due respect, IDF policy would be set by commanders and not rabbonim.

The rabbonim explained the difficulties with the mixed units to Lapid, adding following their meeting last week with IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-General Gadi Eizenkott, they are conducting meaningful talks with IDF representatives.

Among the rabbonim present were Rabbi David Stav (Tzohar), Rabbi Rafi Feuerstein (Tzohar), Rabbi Ohad Tahar Lev (Midreshet Lindenbaum), and Rabbi Amichai Gordon (from Yeshivat Har Etzion).

Rabbi Stav made a point in highlighting there is a major difference in the position they represent and the words spoken by Rabbi Yigal Levinstein of Bnei David. Rabbi Stav explained they do not oppose women serving in the IDF, citing their position is representative of 90% of the country. He explained that the rabbonim are opposed to direct orders compelling male and female soldiers to serve together in a combat situation.

Lapid stressed that commander and not rabbonim will decide how the IDF operations, but welcomes the dialogue between them and the IDF, which he feels can be most productive. He feels any and all religious girls wishing to enter the IDF must be permitted to do so, and that the tzibur realizes the entire dati leumi community are not like MK Betzalel Smotrich and Rabbi Yigal Levinstein.

It was stressed that the overwhelming majority of the dati leumi community objects to attacks against the values of the nation and the IDF.

MK Stern added You rabbonim have an important role, to show to the Israeli public there are different streams of dati leumi and you represent the majority and must units between the factions. There is no group that is better than this group of rabbonim which instill hope for united Judaism and I am happy to be a part of this meeting. This type of meeting is the way of Yesh Atid as a party, which connects different factions of the people and stresses that which unites rather than that which divides.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
As an frequent spokesperson against those who attack chareidi IDF soldiers, Chardakim, MK (Shas) Yaakov Margi was targeted in a protest by extremists who oppose chareidim serving in the IDF.

Margi, who serves as chairman of the Knesset Education Committee, speaks out regularly against those frum Yidden who feel they can or must attack frum soldiers. This has led to a protest outside his southern Israel home.

This protest took place last week as a minibus carrying extremists arrived outside his home to protest. Police were quick to respond with a Yassam commando force.

Margi is pushing to amend the law so that anyone attack chareidi soldiers will face a stiffer penalty under the law.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who has famously declared himself not a big media press access person, isnt alone in President Donald Trumps Cabinet. But its too early to call him a trendsetter, either.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Transportation Secretary Elaine Cho, both with extensive private sector backgrounds, have similarly been press-averse at the beginning of their tenures. Others seem to be following the leads of predecessors. In some cases, its just too early to tell.

Tillersons decision not to make room for reporters on the plane for his first major overseas trip earlier this month drew scrutiny because his job is generally considered the most important in the Cabinet and theres a rich tradition of secretaries of state keeping the public informed of foreign policy objectives. Hes had little visibility so far and the plane decision is more than symbolic; many of his predecessors and their staffs used that time to answer reporters questions.

In an interview with the one journalist allowed on the trip, from the right-leaning web site Independent Journal Review, Tillerson said he personally doesnt need media attention.

I understand its important to get the message of what were doing out, the former Exxon Mobil CEO said, but I also think theres only a purpose in getting the message out when theres something to be done.

With attention paid to Trumps declaration of some media organizations as enemies of the American people, and reporters jousting with White House press secretary Sean Spicer a near-daily television event, access to Cabinet-level officials can be overlooked.

Precisely because they dont get as much attention, its important for journalists to understand and explain the work being done, said Nikki Usher, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University.

These offices have tremendous power and most people dont know what goes on in there, she said.

Cabinet secretaries with a private sector background need to understand that they now work on behalf of the people, who have a right to know what these officials are doing in their names, she said.

Corporate folks are used to not having to account for any kind of public conversations or talk to reporters with the exception of crisis communications or quarterly earnings calls with assessments of the health of their corporations, Usher said. Theyre used to being insulated.

The billionaire philanthropist DeVos background is more private sector than public. She was the chairman of Michigans Republican Party and her husband is the co-founder of Amway. Her lack of education background and support of school choice made her the most controversial Cabinet pick, and she needed the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Mike Pence to be confirmed.

Perhaps as a result, shes not been shy about avoiding the media.

The department did not announce it when she visited her first school as education secretary. Reporters showed up anyway, tipped by advocacy organizations, but were not allowed in the school. DeVos does not take reporters questions after speeches and her few interviews were with conservative news outlets. Her public schedule is often not released ahead of time.

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has both a public and private sector background, as a banker, former Labor Secretary, director of the Peace Corps and CEO of United Way. She hasnt held a meeting or news conference with reporters since her Jan. 31 Senate confirmation, and hasnt spoken to reporters following public appearances.

Ray LaHood and Anthony Foxx, the two transportation secretaries under former President Barack Obama, met frequently with reporters.

How the Trump appointees interpret their boss attacks on the press will be watched closely. The press is not the enemy, said Peter Cook, a former reporter and spokesman for the Department of Defense during the Obama administration.

Its also common for top executives in many fields, for reasons of ego or message control, to keep a tight rein on underlings. Requests to speak to agency heads in the administration of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, have to go through the governors office.

Heres how some of the other Cabinet offices have been working:

 Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other senior defense and military leaders continue to take media contingents with them overseas. Mattis and the others hold media availabilities on the trips, although Mattis has not yet gone to the Pentagon briefing room.

Trumps Homeland Security Department has operated the way others have in the early stages. Its Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch uses Twitter to defend enforcement actions; under Obama, the feed was largely confined to news releases.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs manager, took reporters on his plane to the Group of 20 meeting with finance officials in Germany earlier this month. Hes done interviews with business news networks, the Wall Street Journal and the news site Axios.

 The Justice Department under Jeff Sessions, a U.S. senator before his appointment, has handled media interactions much like prior administrations. Sessions public events are disclosed ahead of time to reporters, and he usually takes questions afterward. He appeared before reporters on the most significant day of his tenure, when he recused himself from any investigation into Russias influence on the presidential election.

 Former presidential candidates Rick Perry, the new energy secretary, and Ben Carson, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, also are accustomed to dealing with the media. It remains to be seen how being used to  or needing  media attention will play into their new roles.

Trump imposed a media blackout on the Environmental Protection Agency after taking office that has since been lifted. Top administrator Scott Pruitt has generally tightened media access, although he made news in a CNBC interview this month when he questioned the scientific consensus that human activity is the primary driver of climate change.

(AP)
Israeli leaders hoping President Donald Trump would be a rubber stamp for the Jewish state are hearing plenty of reassuring rhetoric at this weeks annual gathering for the unbreakable alliance. Missing from the agenda: Concrete steps advancing the Israeli governments top priorities.

The Iran nuclear deal, so despised by Israel, is solidly in place. The U.S. Embassy is no closer to moving to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus government wants. As it has under past presidents, Washington is still telling Israel to slow settlement construction.

It is making for an unusual American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference, one relieved of the strains that marked the last years of President Barack Obamas tenure but also filled with significant uncertainty.

Netanyahu on Monday called the U.S.-Israeli relationship stronger than ever.

His ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer, said a day earlier that for the first time in years or even decades, there is no daylight between our two governments.

Vice President Mike Pence said he and Trump stand without apology for Israel and we always will.

But its too early to tell whether Trump will ultimately fulfill Israels wishes. And there are indications hes reconsidering several stances adopted during the campaign.

As a candidate, Trump repeatedly vowed to be the president to finally relocate the embassy to Jerusalem, which Israel considers its capital. As Pence said Sunday, that unequivocal promise has morphed into Trump now giving serious consideration to moving the American embassy.

While candidate Trump said hed renegotiate or dismantle the Iran nuclear deal, which Israel fiercely opposes, President Trumps administration is continuing to implement the accord while examining whether it should stand. On Irans missile program, however, Trump has expanded U.S. sanctions.

Netanyahu has taken some reassurance from the fact that Trumps budget proposal safeguards every penny of Israels $3.1 billion in U.S. assistance, even as it seeks to slash foreign aid overall. And while the Obama administration stung Israel by allowing a U.N. resolution critical of Israel to pass in Obamas final weeks, new U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has pledged not to let that happen again.

The biggest question mark may be Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

On that matter, Obama and Netanyahu struggled to speak with a unified voice. Trump has shown significant flexibility  stunning many last month when he broke with decades of U.S. policy by saying the U.S. could live with a one-state solution, rather than a two-state solution involving Palestinian statehood, if both Israelis and Palestinians agreed.

Now Trump and the Israeli leader are both speaking vaguely of a broader Middle East package. Israels Arab neighbors, who traditionally opposed Israel but have realigned because of common concerns about Iran  would serve as guarantors.

The common dangers faced by Israel and many of our Arab neighbors now offer a rare opportunity to build bridges towards a better future, Netanyahu said.

Trumps diplomacy in the region appears to be gaining speed. As Netanyahu spoke to the AIPAC conference by video from Jerusalem, White House envoy Jason Greenblatt was headed to Jordan to attend an Arab summit, according to a U.S. official who wasnt authorized to discuss the trip publicly and requested anonymity.

Greenblatt, Trumps longtime business attorney, will be an observer at the summit, but plans to use his visit to discuss the type of regional approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Netanyahu and Trump have floated. While in Amman, Greenblatt plans to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan and Algeria, the U.S. official said.

Another issue central to the conflict  settlements  remains a work in progress for Israel and Trump. The presidents softer campaign tone about Israels construction of Jewish homes in east Jerusalem and the West Bank has been replaced by Trumps suggesting in his first White House meeting with Netanyahu to hold back on settlements for a bit.

At that meeting, Trump and Netanyahu voiced confidence they could work out an understanding, while providing few hints how.

A visit by Israeli officials last week ended with a public statement saying Israel would take Trumps concerns into consideration and pledges by both countries to keep talking.

(AP)
The Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee met on the White House grounds with the source of the claim that communications involving President Donald Trumps associates were caught up in incidental surveillance, the congressmans spokesman said Monday.

The meeting occurred before Rep. Devin Nunes disclosed at a news conference last Wednesday that U.S. spy agencies may have inadvertently captured Trump and his associates in routine targeting of foreigners communications.

Chairman Nunes met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source, Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said.

Previously, Nunes, R-Calif., would not say where he met his secret source. He has still not revealed who it might be.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Monday said he doesnt know anything about this secret meeting beyond what Nunes has said publicly about it.

Im not going to get into who he met with or why he met with them, Spicer said. He added later, I dont know what he found.

Nunes connection to the White House has raised concerns that his committees investigation is not a bipartisan, independent probe. He was a member of Trumps presidential transition team, as well.

The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, said Nunes meeting with his source appeared to have been a dead-of-night excursion.

On Sunday, Schiff said on CBS Face the Nation, I think the chairman has to make a decision whether to act as a surrogate of the White House  as he did during the campaign and the transition  or to lead an independent and credible investigation.

Nunes office did not immediately say what time the chairman met his source. Many White House staffers can sign off on someone coming to the grounds.

The disclosure about the intelligence reports brought criticism from Democrats, especially those who sit on Nunes committee and are working with him on an investigation into Russias interference in the 2016 election. That investigation is also looking into possible ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin. Nunes said the intelligence reports were not related to Russia.

The Senate intelligence committee, too, is conducting an investigation into Russias interference in the election and any possible ties with the Trump campaign.

On Monday, the White House confirmed that Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has volunteered to be interviewed by the Senate committee about arranging meetings with the Russian ambassador and other officials. Kushner is the fourth Trump associate to offer to be interviewed by the congressional committees looking into the murky Russia ties. Trumps former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, Trump adviser Carter Page and Trump associate Roger Stone last week volunteered to speak as well.

Manafort, Page and Stones announcements last week that they would be interviewed came amid Nunes disclosures about the new intelligence he had seen.

The White House was asked repeatedly last week about whether it was the source of Nunes information. On Thursday, spokesman Spicer mocked the idea.

I dont know why he was coming up to brief the president on something that we gave him, Spicer told reporters, adding: It doesnt really seem to make a ton of sense.

Nunes office said the information provided to the chairman came from executive branch documents that have not been provided to Congress.

The House intelligence committee has a facility where classified information can be viewed and discussed, but Nunes spokesman said the circumstances required that Nunes go to the White House grounds.

Because of classification rules, the source could not simply put the documents in a backpack and walk them over to the House Intelligence Committee space, Langer said. The White House grounds was the best location to safeguard the proper chain of custody and classification of these documents, so the chairman could view them in a legal way.

The chairman is extremely concerned by the possible improper unmasking of names of U.S. citizens, and he began looking into this issue even before President Trump tweeted his assertion that Trump Tower had been wiretapped, Langer said.

Nunes, Schiff and FBI Director James Comey all have said there is no evidence that Trump Tower was wiretapped by President Barack Obama, as Trump has asserted.

(AP)
Seattle, Mar 28 (IBNS): Amazon on Tuesday announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire SOUQ.com, an e-commerce leader in the Middle East.

Joining the Amazon family will enable SOUQ.com to continue growing while working with Amazon to bring even more products and offerings to customers worldwide.

"Amazon and SOUQ.com share the same DNA  were both driven by customers, invention, and long-term thinking, said Russ Grandinetti, Amazon Senior Vice President, International Consumer.

"SOUQ.com pioneered e-commerce in the Middle East, creating a great shopping experience for their customers. We're looking forward to both learning from and supporting them with Amazon technology and global resources. And together, well work hard to provide the best possible service for millions of customers in the Middle East."

"We are guided by many of the same principles as Amazon, and this acquisition is a critical next step in growing our e-commerce presence on behalf of customers across the region," said SOUQ.com CEO and Co-Founder Ronaldo Mouchawar. "By becoming part of the Amazon family, we'll be able to vastly expand our delivery capabilities and customer selection much faster, as well as continue Amazon's great track record of empowering sellers."

Subject to closing conditions, the acquisition is expected to close in 2017.
A land claim made by Arabs from al-Khadar has been dismissed by the court, giving the green light to move ahead with the project of constructing fifty new homes.

According to Galei Tzahal (Army Radio), the land claim halted progress on the project for a year or so, now dismissed and clearing the way to begin building. A military court however rejected the land claim, clearing the way to move forward.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
President Reuven Rivlin announced he is rejecting a request for early release by former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert was hoping the president would accept his request for immediate release from prison.

In his response, President Rivlin mentions the difficulties of one who was atop of the pyramid and has now fallen to his present status. He also acknowledges the significant contribution made by Olmert to Israeli society during a long career. However, explains the president, he is compelled to consider the conviction handed down by the court and the sentence handed down against the former prime minister.

The power of pardon of the President of the State is not an appeal to the court, and therefore, as stated, there is no room to grant an amnesty request by way of immediate release from prison writes the president in his response.

Mr. Rivlin reminds the former prime minister that he will have his chance before a parole board where he may ask to remove one-third of his term after paying his debt to society.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Durham, Mar 28 (IBNS): Open Invention Network (OIN), a patent non-aggression community in history with well over 2000 members, on Tuesday announced that Infosys has joined OIN as a community member.

As a leading IT services provider, and one of the most admired companies in India, Infosys believes that open source software (OSS) is a necessary enabler as enterprises worldwide use the Internet to build new consumer-centric and connected applications.



We are pleased to have a premier global IT services firm, like Infosys, join the OIN community, said Keith Bergelt, CEO of Open Invention Network.

We appreciate Infosyss leadership in joining OIN, and believe that those that look to the company for inspiration, both in and outside of India, will see the wisdom it has demonstrated by supporting patent non-aggression in Linux and adjacent open source technologies, he said.



Open source software has become the primary engine of innovation, and should now be viewed as the key building block of all modern enterprise architectures. Innovation in areas like cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, DevOps and modern web frameworks are all happening in the open source ecosystem, and the adoption of these technologies in enterprises is benefiting from the foundation of Linux that enterprise IT departments have already invested in. Infosys is actively taking open source, and open source based products, to all our enterprise customers, and so we are extremely excited to become part of OIN, and we encourage others to join OIN as well to support this very important initiative, said Navin Budhiraja, SVP - Head  Architecture & Technology, Infosys.



OINs community practices patent non-aggression in core Linux and adjacent open source technologies by cross-licensing Linux System patents to one another on a royalty-free basis.

Patents owned by Open Invention Network are similarly licensed royalty-free to any organization that agrees not to assert its patents against the Linux System.
Germany's Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, has agreed to introduce a road toll for foreign registered cars driving in the country.

The plan would mean that Britons heading into the country in UK vehicles could have to pay up to 112 (130 euros) to gain access to the road network.

If enforced, the German government said it expected the toll to generate around 430 million (500 million euros) per year in revenue from foreign drivers.

Toll for foreign drivers: German parliament has agreed to introduce a controversial road toll for private cars in the country, though only foreign drivers will have to pay

The decision received backing in Berlin on Friday.

It follows previous plans approved in 2015 that would have seen the introduction of a road-charging system that hit foreign motorists the hardest - a scheme that was vetoed by the European Commission on discriminatory ground that went against EU rules.

The Commission, however, cleared the way for the draft law after some changes were made that would benefit foreigners on short journeys and those driving more environmentally-friendly cars, according to Reuters reports.

Under the existing proposals, the amount paid by drivers would vary depending on the emissions levels of the vehicle they're piloting.

That means greener cars would not have to pay the full amount, which is capped at 130 euros for a year's pass to drive on German tarmac.

German drivers would also need to pay, but will receive a rebate on their vehicle taxes in exchange.

The plans are yet to be set in stone; they will have to progress through the German legislative process before the toll is implemented, and are likely to receive some opposition from within the country.

Potentially leading the objection would be Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt, who has previously refused to accommodate requests from the Bundesrat - the states' chamber - to make exceptions to the toll for border areas.

The German government said the toll system would generate up to 430million a year from foreign drivers

While the law does not need to be approved by the Bundesrat, the western border states Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate have already said they will contact a mediation committee set up to liaise between the two parliamentary chambers, causing a stumbling block for the plans go-ahead.

A potential hold-up could mean the toll is not implemented before the next federal election in September, which could ultimately scupper the plans altogether.

Until now, Germany has been one of the few European countries that doesn't charge cars to use its motorways, though it does have a toll system for trucks.

Neighbouring nations, including France, Austria and Switzerland all have tolls for private cars, but unlike the controversial German plans do not distinguish between foreigners and nationals.

Many driving enthusiasts are attracted to the country in their own vehicles to experience the delimited sections of motorway, which make up 65 per cent of the entire Autobahn network.

RAC European breakdown spokesman Simon Williams said: 'While the so-called foreigner toll on autobahns still has to be approved by Germanys upper house of parliament it is a major change any motorist planning a visit needs to be aware of.

'Many countries in Europe make charges for motorway use but this one will link engine size and emissions to toll levels.

'Although the scheme will operate via an annual fee for residents, tourists visiting Germany will be able to buy 10-day tolls from 2.50 to 25, depending on the size and environmental-friendliness of their vehicle, or a two-month toll of between 7 and 50, determined by the same criteria.'
Who's buying? Sales of craft beers are booming

Ale drinkers were once ridiculed for wearing sandals and drinking warm, lifeless beers.

But not anymore.

Sales of craft beers are booming  and not just among men in their 20s and 30s and hipsters, but women and pub regulars too.

Now the big buys are trying to muscle in on the act, although whether you can actually call their efforts craft beer is another matter.

For example, Greene King, one of Britain's biggest breweries, has even set up a craft beer academy where young apprentices can create ales with distinctive tastes and colourful labels.

Yet, if you adopt the definition that craft beer needs to be made by smaller brewers then Greene King doesn't count.

What is clear is that beer made in the craft style - whether by a small or large brewer - is very much on trend.

What is craft beer?

Craft beer is now so popular that 130 breweries are launched each year to meet demand. There are currently 1,540 in Britain, or one for every 40,000 of us  more per head than in any other country.

Craft beer - typically beer made in a traditional or non-mechanised way by a small brewery - accounts for around five per cent of sales in our pubs and restaurants. And experts say the figure will top 13 per cent within three years.

Most popular among younger drinkers tend to be smaller breweries such as BrewDog, based in Ellon, Scotland, and Camden Town Brewery, in London.

But now larger brewers are getting in on the act to boost their profits  and that's where investors can cash in, as true craft or not, you may decide that these brews could boost their sales

Hip hops: Craft beer accounts for around five per cent of sales in our pubs and restaurants. And experts say the figure will top 13 per cent within three years

Greene King's Craft Academy was created to expand the company's range beyond its well-known IPA and Old Speckled Hen ales.

One of the FTSE 250-listed brewer's newest beers is the limited edition Jungle Punch, a double IPA created by two academy apprentices.

It went down a storm at London's Craft Beer Rising festival last month. The brewer, whose share price has risen by more than a third in five years, says craft beers helped to boost its share of the ale market to 10.5 per cent last year.

On top of this it achieved a record turnover of 196.9 million last year.

Funds to invest in the craft beer trend

For prospective investors, Darius McDermott, of Chelsea Financial Services, tips Unicorn Outstanding British Companies.

The fund invests 3.30 of every 100 in the Suffolk-based brewer.

Chris Hutchinson, the fund's manager, says: 'I grew up in Greene King country and admire its commitment to quality.

'When I buy a pint of IPA, I know it'll be reliable, familiar and good to drink.

'It's a business that's fiercely proud of its heritage and one that has benefited from the shift away from fizzy, tasteless, mass-produced lagers to beers brewed using more traditional methods.'

Mr Hutchinson has turned 10,000 into 16,820 over the past five years.

Most popular among younger drinkers tend to be smaller breweries such as BrewDog, based in Ellon, Scotland (pictured)

Marston's is one of Britain's largest pub chains, running 1,559 sites across the country.

However, the Wolverhampton-based firm also brews around 4.3 million pints of beer a week at five breweries.

This includes its own brand brewery, which makes the popular amber ale Pedigree.

Marston's also owns craft breweries Ringwood and Wychwood, which brew Razorback and Hobgoblin  favourites among ale lovers.

The pubs also have exclusive UK rights to Shipyard, one of the most popular craft beer imports from the United States.

The firm's sales of craft beers have jumped by a quarter over the past two years to more than 213,000. Over the past five years its share price has risen by 31 pc.

Laith Khalaf, of stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown, tips Marlborough Multi Cap Income, which invests 2.11 in every 100 in Marston's. The fund has turned 10,000 into 18,660 in five years.

Ben Yearsley, of adviser Wealth Club, says Threadneedle UK Equity Income is another fund backing the craft beer boom. It turned 10,000 into 17,390 in the past five years.

The fund invests in J D Wetherspoon, the FTSE 250 pub chain with more than 900 premises, whose share price has risen by more than 130 per cent over the past five years.

The firm has built its reputation offering cut-price food and booze to punters  but it's also leading the way in Britain's craft beer boom.

It started stocking craft ales four years ago after sending a small group of staff members to the U.S. to observe the craft beer revolution unfolding there.

Now the Watford-based pub chain stocks beers from as far away as Maine and Virginia, to local beers such as Green Devil IPA, made by award-wining Peterborough-based brewery Oakham Ales.

One of its pubs, The Counting House in Glasgow, stocks more than 100 types of craft beer in bottles, cans and on tap.

Roll out the barrel: Craft beer is typically beer made in a traditional or non-mechanised way by a small brewery such as the Hackney Brewery in east London

Guinness, owned by FTSE 100 drinks giant Diageo, and famous worldwide for its creamy, dark Irish stout, has also hopped on the back of the craft beer craze.

In 2014, Guinness launched The Brewers Project, a series of new beers based on 200-year-old recipes from the diaries of former brewers at its premises in St James's Gate, Dublin.

The first of these were the smooth Dublin Porter, the hoppy West Indies Porter, Guinness Golden Ale, and craft lager Hop House 13.

Guinness's sales grew 2 per cent in the UK last year. Diageo puts this down to the success of Hop House 13.

Jason Hollands, of fund broker Tilney, tips Evenlode Income, which invests a hefty 7.36 in every 100 in Diageo. It has turned 10,000 into 19,500 in the past five years.

p.thomas@dailymail.co.uk
Old Mutual has struck a deal with Chinese financial services firm HNA Capital to offload a 24.95 per cent stake in it US-based funds business Old Mutual Asset Management for $446 million.

Shares in Old Mutual are down 2.2 per cent today at 217.6p in response.

The deal is part of an ongoing break-up of the company into four smaller, more focused businesses. The four parts will be Old Mutual Emerging Markets, Nedbank, Old Mutual Wealth and OMAM.

Old Mutual, which sponsors England's rugby team through its wealth management arm, is selling off is US asset management business as part of a demerger of the group.

OMAM has approximately $240 billion of assets under management as at 31 December 2016.

Old Mutual's holding in the business will drop to 25.9 per cent from 50.8 per cent as a result of the deal, meaning it will no longer own a majority of the business.

The deal is being done in two parts; a sale of a 9.95 per cent tranche of OMAM shares held by Old Mutual at $15.30 per share, and a further 15 per cent at a price of $15.75 per share.

The completion of the first tranche is subject to antitrust clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act in the US and is expected to take place in approximately 30 days.

Completion of the second tranche is subject to some other regulatory approvals in various jurisdictions and is expected to take place in the second half of 2017.

Old Mutual said intends to continue selling off its shares in OMAM 'in an orderly manner.'

It is expected that one HNA Capital US-nominated director will join the OMAM board on the completion of the first tranche and a second on the completion of the second tranche, replacing the existing nominees.

Old Mutual's holding in OMAM will drop to 25.9 per cent 50.8 per cent as a result.

Old Mutual chief executive Bruce Hemphill said: 'We are very pleased to announce this transaction which brings forward further realisation of value for Old Mutual. It represents another step in delivering our managed separation strategy and secures a strategic long-term investor for OMAM'.

Chairman of OMAM James Ritchie added: 'We are pleased to welcome HNA Capital US as a new, supportive investor in OMAM. We remain focused on executing our growth strategy, which includes working collaboratively with our high quality affiliates to diversify their businesses and expand their global distribution opportunities, as well as acquiring new affiliates, to generate strong, long-term value for all of our shareholders.'
Priceless antiquities in war-torn Syria will be protected from being looted to fund ISIS atrocities thanks to a special invisible liquid invented by two British brothers.

Millions of pounds worth of coins, pottery, statues and other objects have been plundered from sites in Syria in recent years, including from the world-famous Roman ruins at Palmyra.

A large chunk of the proceeds has gone to ISIS, which has been heavily involved in dealings in blood antiques as a way of financing its monstrous campaign of terror.

SmartWater is applied to part of a hoard of objects recovered from the archaeological site of Apamea

Now that tainted trade is being thwarted as items are being painted with SmartWater, an anti-theft solution developed by Liverpudlians Phil Cleary, 63, and his brother Mike, 69.

It is a clear, odourless liquid, primed with special chemicals, that can be painted on to an object, or sprayed onto a person. Invisible to the naked eye, it shows up vividly under UV light.

This means that antique dealers in the west will no longer be able to claim ignorance about the provenance of objects from Syria, as the invisible ink will clearly reveal their origins.

The special secret ingredients are designed to give each bottle of SmartWater a signature that reveals when and where items were marked with it.

Two brothers: Phil Cleary, (left) 63, and Mike, (right) 69

Phil and Mikes firm, which like their product is called SmartWater, already protects valuables in the UK, including in 440,000 homes in London through a contract with the Metropolitan Police signed in 2015.

The pair have now adapted the recipe of their water so it does not damage potentially priceless artefacts and are supplying it to a team of Syrians determined to protect their countrys cultural heritage.

The Syrian team is made up mainly of archeologists and is led by Dr Amr Al-Azm, a Syrian-born academic who was educated in Britain at University College London.

He is currently professor of Middle East history at the University of Shawnee State, Ohio, in the US and in 2014 set up an organization to protect Syrias cultural heritage called The Day After  Heritage Protection Initiative.

Dr Al-Azms team, some of whom are his former colleagues and students, take small vials of liquid and daub it on to artefacts such as Roman coins, mosaics, cuneiform tablets and glassware with a brush or a spray.

A historic mosaic from the UNESCO World Heritage designated site of the Dead Cities is now protected by SmartWater

The first shipments of SmartWater started going into Syria earlier this year and are currently being used in opposition-held territory controlled by opponents of President Assad, though the plan is to start using it also in ISIS-held areas. That will be much more difficult and dangerous, says Dr Al Azm.

He believes that some of the artefacts being tagged with SmartWater in museums in Syria now were looted from ISIS-held areas.

Many objects stolen from Syria have already found their way into Western markets, including in London. As many antiquities could in theory have come from anywhere across the vast former Roman empire, dealers have been able to claim they did not know where the artefacts came from.

If they have been marked with SmartWater, however, simply shining a UV light will reveal whether the object came from Syria and how recently it left the country.

Part of a Burial Tomb recovered from the UNESCO World Heritage designated of the Dead Cities, now protected by SmartWater

Once they are marked, if they ever show up on the market I can prove that this piece of stone or pottery came from Syria and when it was taken, says Dr Al Azm.

His team are working openly in museums in opposition-held territory. They also meet looters and attend auctions of stolen goods where they surreptitiously mark objects with the potion.

ISIS was at one point the worlds richest terror group but experts believe its finances are dwindling as it cannot raise so much in taxes from conquered regions because it is losing ground.

It is clear that the Islamic States business model is failing, said Peter Neumann of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at London University.

In a recent report with accountancy firm EY, the ICSR found that ISISs revenues have fallen by about 50 per cent over the past two years to just under 700m in 2016. Looting was 52 per cent of revenue in 2014 but had fallen to 20 per cent a year later.

Archeological sites were being ransacked before ISIS, mainly by locals desperate to feed their families.

However, ISIS built a bureaucracy around the ad-hoc thievery. Jihadis set up a department of antiquities that issued licences to looters, punishing people who went rifling for antiques without a permit. The warlords also imposed a 20 percent tax on any item sold.

One prominent antiquarian scholar, Khalid Al-Asaad, 82, was publicly beheaded for refusing to disclose the location of the hidden treasures of Palmyra, and at one stage, the revenues from the antiquities trade certainly appeared significant.

Investigations suggested it was generating millions of pounds, with some artefacts even allegedly being sold on eBay.

It is not clear how much money from the illicit trade went into ISIS coffers, and experts believe selling antiquities has diminished as a source of revenue.

Nobody knows how much ISIS were making out of antiquities, says Dr Al-Azm. What I can tell you is that there are a lot of goods and some are extremely valuable, in the tens of thousands of dollars.

For ISIS, our priceless cultural heritage is an exploitable resource. Their view is: loot what you can sell and destroy for propaganda what you cannot.

Until the Syrian project, SmartWater Technologies has concentrated on more conventional crime-busting. The firm was set up in 1993 by Phil, a former police officer.

He says the genius behind the firm is his brother Mike, who is now retired. He is a chartered chemist and he did the development of the water in his garage at home. I was just a police officer, a bog standard detective, frustrated at the number of burglaries and the fences who handle stolen goods.

A hoard of objects recovered from the archaeological site of Apamea and other historic sites at risk from theft

In this country, SmartWater is being used in police stings, such as the case of a green-handed thief in 2015, who tried to break into a vehicle in North London that had been booby-trapped by the police.

The car had been fitted with a device that sprayed him with a mist of the invisible ink, turning his face a vivid green under UV light.

The liquid is also being used to try to track the spread of malaria. Mosquitos are fed a mix of sugar and SmartWater, then, says Phil: Scientists follow trails of mosquito poo with UV light to see where they are going.

Back in Syria, saving antiquities might not seem the highest priority set against the brutality of ISIS and the loss of life in the war-ravaged country.

But, as Dr Al-Azm says: Syria is a country that is ruptured in every possible way. One day this war will end and when it does, people will have to look for the common links that hold them together.

I hope Syrians will be able to rally round their rich history and heritage. It could be all that remains of the glue that once bound a society together. This is not just about the saving the past but about saving the future too.
Kolkata, Mar 28 (IBNS): PATH Welfare Society with support from aITC Mission SunehraKala organized a Childrenas Meet- a gathering of over 400 children & Child Cabinet members from 24 government schools in Kolkata.

The event aims at providing these children a platform to show case their learnings and share their experiences in terms of promoting health & hygiene in their schools & how they ensured operation & maintenance of water & sanitation facilities that have been provided to their schools by ITC MSK.

The newly elected child cabinet Shri SaraswatiVidyalaya took their oath during this event along with the inauguration of the new Water, Sanitation & Solar Panels that have been provided to this school by ITC MSK, implemented by PATH Welfare Society.

To ensure that the schools maintain these facilities - several initiatives have been made to strengthen Child Cabinets; School Management Committees and Parent Teacher Associations. WATSAN (Water & Sanitation) groups have also been formed to ensure promote & create awareness on the importance of personal & environmental health & hygiene

ITC, Mission SunehraKal has been supporting PATH Welfare Society for the School WASH Programme, which has improved access to child friendly water & sanitation facilities to several government schools across West Bengal.

Through these initiatives 15 child friendly schools have been developed including BALA (Building as Learning Aid) painting; provision of safe drinking water facilities; child friendly height appropriate hand washing stations; separate toilets for girls and boys; changing rooms & incinerators for adolescent girls among other activities like running of supplementary learning Centre for improving quality learning for weaker students and helping them to enhance their

learning outcomes.

This programme has also trainedschoolteachers in creative and joyful learning focusing on formative assessment for continuous comprehensive evaluation.
MBABANE  It gets worse for the children of the late bus owner, Peter Mashaba, whose children have accused one of their siblings of allegedly sidelining them from their fathers businesses.



The late businessman owned and operated Peters Transport among other businesses.

One of his sons, Solomon Mashaba, alleged that upon their fathers death, their brother, Jacob, took over all the businesses and sidelined the other children.



Solomon alleged that he approached Dlamini-Kunene Associated for legal assistance in March 2016.

He submitted that due to a lack of finances allegedly resulting from being kept out of the business operations, he entered into an oral agreement with Lawyer Khumbulani Msibi, who represented Dlamini-Kunene Associated in Manzini, that he would appear on his behalf on a contingency basis.



This meant that the law firm would pursue the matter and the legal fees would be deducted from the siblings E4 million claim after conclusion of the matter.



Solomon alleged that the court proceedings were constituted under Case No. 732/16 and the matter is still pending.

Solomon said he was not pleased with the progress of the matter and he approached Msibi with a view to terminate instructions to him and the law firm.



However, Solomon alleged that his request was rejected and they allegedly maintained that they would represent him in the matter. He intends to appoint Mkhwanazi Attorneys now.




PONGOLA, SOUTH AFRICA  Bundles of local E100 notes were recovered from three robbers who were killed during a shoot-out with South African police officers.



Apart from the undisclosed amount of cash which was both in local and South African currency, a bakkie together with a firearm that was loaded with live rounds of ammunition were seized from the thugs.

Police believe the vehicle was stolen from another crime scene, prior to the shoot-out.



Witnesses said the recovery of the items followed a fierce gun battle that ensued after the police were tipped off about a group of armed men who were planning to rob a Supermarket in Pongola, which is situated in the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa but closer to the Nsalitje Border Gate, in the Shiselweni region.



Reports are that when the police received information about the planned robbery, they set up an observation camp close to the targeted retail outlet.

Moments later, as indicated in the warning, the robbers arrived in a suspected stolen vehicle and when the police confronted them they opened fire.

The three suspects were badly wounded during the heavy exchange of fire, and later declared dead.



The incident found an echo in the KZN acting Provincial Commissioner Major General Bheki Langa, who commended the affected officers and expressed gratitude that none of them got injured during the shoot-out.

Authorities in South Africa suspect the thugs may have committed another crime in the kingdom before crossing the border into the neighbouring country.
MBABANE  It is sad to board a bus with a man who once held the position of prime minister (PM) and perhaps government needs to consider building a complex for such individuals, similar to the one for judges.



This is an assertion that was made during a Senate sitting, which took place yesterday where senators passed the budget for the financial year 2017/2018 with amendments.



According to senators, while they supported the suspension of the E5.5 million allocation to build a house for the current PM Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini, there was a need to review the circular which provides for the welfare of the countrys current and previous premiers.

The senators said the review was going to make everything clear on the benefits of a prime minister and further assist those who held the same post before.



The motion to suspend the allocation for the construction of the current PMs house was moved by MPs during the debate of the budget for the coming financial year.

Senator Princess Phumelele said the issue of caring for the welfare of the current and previous premiers was long overdue.



Before the new one is appointed, there is a need to ensure that the previous one is well taken care of. Right now the circular is not clear on what happens to the previous ones. It would make sense to build them a complex just like the judges so that all of them could be housed in a proper surrounding so that they could be closer whenever they were needed, she said.



The senator said it was not fair that government seemed to have money to spend E5.5 million for the current PM when it was not clear how the previous ones were living.
MANZINI  One of the patients who escaped from the National Psychiatric Hospital in Manzini recently has been reported missing by his family.



Lungelo Mbuli (20) of Elulakeni near Lavumisa, is said to have been part of those who escaped at the hospital early this year and a missing persons report has been filed with the police.



His family revealed to the police that he was taken to the government facility after he had suffered from depression.

Information gathered from the police is that the patient was taking depression medication when he allegedly escaped from the hospital. Three months later, he has not been found or has not returned home.



His grandmother, Zanele Mnisi last night said the family was devastated by Mbulis disappearance, especially because the hospital administration had informed them that other patients who had escaped together with him were later found and brought back to the hospital.

He suffered from depression. This was after he had returned from Nelspruit, South Africa where he was schooling. Upon his return, he always preferred being alone and started behaving strangely. We then decided to take him to the hospital for treatment where he was admitted. Before he allegedly escaped with the other patients, he had been at the hospital for five weeks and had already recovered, Mnisi said.



She added that while admitted in the hospital, Mbuli wanted the family to take him home.

However, due to doctors orders, who informed the family that the time had not come for him to be discharged, he continued being admitted to the hospital.



We also fear that he will relapse, start smoking again and further get depressed while out in the streets. We plead with anyone with information leading to his whereabouts to contact me at 7614 0638 or the Manzini police at 2505 2221/999 Mnisi said.

Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Khulani Mamba confirmed that the Mbuli family reported their son missing after he had been admitted to the psychiatric hospital.
Washington/New Delhi, Mar 28 (IBNS): US President Donald Trump on Monday called Prime Minister Narendra Modi and congratulated the latter on his recent poll success.

The BJP, under the leadership of Modi, has registered an impressive performance in the recently concluded polls.

While it captured Uttar Pradesh with a landslide win and registered another comfortable win in Uttarakhand, the party managed to turn Manipur saffron, as N Biren Singh was sworn-in as the first saffron Chief Minister of the state.

BJP also managed to retain Goa, though they did not fare well in Punjab, which now belongs to arch rival Congress.

Trump spoke to Modi over the phone, a White House statement said.

On the other hand, PMO India tweeted: "US President HE Mr. @realDonaldTrump called PM @narendramodi to convey his felicitations on the electoral results. @POTUS."
MBABANE  A place of worship turned into a scene of crime at Macetjeni when an alleged serial rapist was arrested during a church service.



The suspect, Sibusiso Wonder Gina (32), is facing six counts of rape and three of robberies.



The police allegedly found him in high spirit worshipping with other congregants when they pounced on him. This was after they had received information from a community police member that Gina was among the congregants on that day.

He is alleged to have raped six pupils in different places around the country. Gina, who now wants out of prison, disclosed this in his application for bail which is, however, being vigorously opposed by the Crown.



He claimed that the fact that he was arrested during a church service was evidence enough that he was not a flight risk.

It is not true that I am a flight risk, as proof, I was arrested during a church service in my community in Macetjeni. I never evaded arrest, contended Gina.



In his opposing affidavit, the investigator of the matter, Detective Nkululeko Nkambule from Big Bend Police Station, insisted that the accused was a flight risk. He also informed the court that the community of Big Bend was outraged because of Ginas actions and they were threatening that should he be released they would kill him.



The law enforcer further pointed out that when the accused allegedly committed the offences, he would threaten the survivors that should they report the matter, and that should he be arrested, he would kill them upon his release.
Srinagar, Mar 28 (IBNS): A fierce gunfight erupted between security forces and militants in central Kashmiras Budgam district, police said on Tuesday.

According to an official, on specific inputs about presence of some militants hiding in Durbugh village, the army and a Special Operation Group of Jammu and Kashmir Police cordoned off area from 6 am this morning.

Militants, who were holed-up in a house, were fired at, triggering the gunfight.

"Initial reports said one or two militants were hiding," the police added, there are no reports of fatalities or injuries as of now.

Meanwhile, some armed militants barged into the residence of an assistant sub-inspector of police and a constable in Kashmirs Shopian

district and ransacked their houses on Monday night.

The militants fired gunshots into the air before fleeing from the spot.

(Reporting by Saleem Iqbal Qadri)
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By Patrick Donachie

The citys Department of Environmental Protection will be required to consistently update communities in southeast Queens on the progress of improvements to reduce the frequent flooding in the area, according to legislation sponsored by Councilman Donovan Richards (D-Arverne) and signed by Mayor Bill de Blasio last Tuesday.

The call for transparency and accountability comes after de Blasio allocated approximately $1.5 billion in 2015 for a 10-year plan to help build out adequate sewer infrastructure in the area, a problem that community members and elected officials said had persisted unabated for decades despite pleas for assistance.

For decades residents of southeast Queens have lived with the fact that a slight rain could end in their home being flooded, Richards said. This bill will ensure that the plan is implemented in a timely fashion and the community can be updated on the progress on a regular basis.

At a meeting of the Councils Committee on Environmental Protection Jan. 23, DEP Deputy Commissioner Eric Landau described how residential development throughout southeastern Queens had come to outpace the sewer storm system, including catch basins and storm sewers, which has led to chronic instances of roadway flooding and ponding during storms.

Landau said more than $900 million of the funding would go towards constructing sewer spines along 150th Street, as well as Guy Brewer, Farmers and Springfield boulevards. The work will take place in 18 separate projects, installing more than 16 miles of storm sewers, five lines of combined sewers, seven miles of sanitary sewers and 21 miles of water mains.

Southeastern Queens resident Rhonda Lee testified during the committee hearing that her home was flooded six times with sewer water in the period between 2001 and August 2008 alone. The issues affect more than 400,000 city residents, according to the citys OneNYC plan released in 2015, and the area has more 311 flooding and confirmed sewer backup complaints than any other spot in the city.

The mayor included the $1.5 billion investment as a part of his 2015 executive budget. Elected officials, including Committee Chairman Costa Constantindes (D-Astoria) asked Landau to ensure that this funding allocation would not be diminished, saying constituents had waited many years with little relief.

William Scarsborough, a representative for the Addison Park Civic Association and a former state assemblyman representing much of southeastern Queens, said the allocation was the largest funding the city had ever committed to flood mitigation in the area that he could recall, but he attributed the flooding to two factors.

One is the street flooding that is being addressed by this new infrastructure and the second is the high water table that exists underground, he said during the hearing. This simply means that the standing water level is so close to the surface that water is constantly seeping into basements and lower level offices through floors and walls whether it is raining or not.
Thiruvanthapuram, Mar 28l (IBNS) : Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee acting president M M Hassan has reportedly said that women should not enter any place of worship during menstruation, CNN-News 18 reported.

Haasan made the comments on Monday while speaking at a media camp organized by the youth welfare board. The participants of the camp were media students.

He said women are "impure" during that period.

However, objecting to his observation, students asked him what he thought impure? Blood or the organ it came from?

They further said that if Hassan thought both are impure then he also consider himself as impure as the came from the same organ and blood.




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By Patrick Donachie

Jamaica residents railed against Department of Transportation representatives at a public meeting Monday evening, saying community members had offered city officials input on how to improve transit conditions in downtown Jamaica for years to no avail.

There have been meetings after meetings, Community Board 12 District Manager Yvonne Reddick said during the session, held at the Harvest Room at 90-40 160th St. You have studied us to death, and nothing has happened.

The event was the second scheduled public meeting for the Downtown Jamaica Transportation Study, a process that began in November of 2015. The studys goal is to improve traffic conditions in the downtown area, as well as enhancing safety and quality-of-life for residents and pedestrians.

Michael Griffith, a deputy director for traffic analysis, said the DOT wanted to check with the community to ensure the results for the areas current conditions matched the experiences of residents.

Attendees like southeast Queens resident Vanessa Sparks said they were frustrated with the monotony of meetings that rarely seemed to offer results. Sparks said she was frustrated with a part of the DOT presentation that labeled 4:45 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. as the peak hour for commuting, saying those times were not realistic for people like her with long commutes..

What my concern is, Im worried about the people on 114-33, 114-35, 114-36, who pay taxes, she said, referring to several residential blocks in southeastern Queens. I dont see where for me, as a resident, its going to be beneficial.

Griffith stressed the study included data for 24 hours, not merely the peak hour cited in the presentation. The studys primary study area stretched from Hillside Avenue to Liberty Avenue and from the Van Wyck Expressway to 183rd Street, and the data the DOT collected included pedestrian and bus usage, congestion patterns and the speed of cars in the downtown center. The DOT suggested several preliminary recommendations, including turning 150th Street between Jamaica and Hillside avenues from a one-way to two-way street to increase traffic flow.

Criticisms from attendees also included the preponderance of trucks in use by Royal Waste Services, located at 173rd Street and Liberty Avenue. Community Board 12 Chairwoman Adrienne Adams said she was frustrated by the MTAs continued absence from public discussions with the community, despite the fact that much of the congestion in the downtown area was due to the number of buses.

Weve been having sessions for year after year, she said. We need something that will change our minds and make us have confidence in what the city agencies are planning.

Councilman I. Daneek Miller (D-Jamaica) joined the meeting halfway through and urged audience members to keep making their voices heard despite the frustration, saying the city needed to understand and properly invest in the transportation needs of southeastern Queens. Despite the constant setbacks and lethargic process, Miller said he was starting to see progress.

Theyre spending $3 billion on trolley cars for emerging communities that dont exist yet and theyre spending another billion dollars on ferries and infrastructure, he said. And our transportation alternatives are dollar vans. Its unacceptable, and were getting there.
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By Mark Hallum

Auburndale homeowners were robbed at gunpoint around 9 a.m. Monday by four to five unidentified black males who later fled the scene in a black Honda, according to police.

None of the residents were injured in the incident, NYPD said, and about three police cruisers from the 111th Precinct could be seen in front of the house near 194th Street and 42nd Avenue.

There are currently no arrests in the robbery and the investigation is still ongoing, police said.
Beaver County identifies mail-in voters with undated ballots

Anyone on the list should visit the Beaver County elections office by 8 p.m. Tuesday to make the necessary corrections.
Srinagar, Mar 28 (IBNS) : One civilian was killed and seven others were injured as security forces opened fire on stone-pelting protesters, who gathered near the encounter site at Chadoora area of central Kashmir's Budgam district, reports said.

According to reports, 22-year-old Zahid Rashid Ganaie was critically injured after being hit by a bullet near the site of a gunfight in Durbugh village of Chadoora.

The encounter is still going on.

The youth was rushed to SMHS hospital, Srinagar where he was declared dead.

"we could not save the youth, he was dead on arrival," Medical Superintendent SMHS Hospital Nazir Ahmad Choudhary told IBNS.

Another youth is stated to be in a critical condition in hospital.

According to reports, all the injured received inflicted by either pellet or tears gas shells.



(Reporting by Saleem Iqbal Qadri)
ROTTERDAM -- The attempted abducted of a 15-year-old girl Sunday evening did not happen, town police said.

Detectives investigating the report determined it was "a fabrication," Rotterdam police spokesman Lt. Michael Brown said Tuesday.

The teenager allegedly told police that she was walking down Duanesburg Road at 8 p.m. when a car pulled up beside her and the male driver grabbed her wrist, police said in a Monday release.

"The facts surrounding this case are still being evaluated and charges of falsely reporting an incident are being considered at this time," Brown said.
ROTTERDAM -- Detectives believe a middle-aged man tried to kidnap a 15-year-old girl on Duanesburg Road Sunday evening, town police said.

The teen was walking east, near the intersection of Risoli Lane, when a car pulled up beside her at about 8 p.m., police said. The girl told officers that the driver got out of the car, yelled "Hey!" and grabbed her by the wrist.

The victim wrestled her arm from the man's grasp and ran back to her friend's house, a short distance away, police said. She was not injured.

The suspect is described as a white man in his fifties wearing glasses, a white t-shirt and a black hooded sweatshirt. His car is described as a red four-door Honda, which fled in an unknown direction.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Rotterdam detectives at (518) 355-7397.
Brussels

The European Union approved the proposed merger of Dow Chemical and DuPont on Monday, declaring itself satisfied with commitments the companies have made to divest businesses.

Both plan to join in a $62 billion deal and then break apart into three separate, publicly traded companies. Those companies would focus on agriculture, material science, and the production and sale of specialty products.

EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said the bloc's conditional approval ensures that the merger "does not reduce price competition for existing pesticides or innovation for safer and better products in the future."

The 28-nation bloc had raised concerns over the merger in the form originally proposed, but the EU's executive Commission said that "the commitments submitted by Dow and DuPont address these concerns in full."

Dow and DuPont said in February they were willing to divest more businesses to address regulators' concerns.

The companies will sell the DuPont pesticide businesses and "almost the entirety of DuPont's global R&D organization," the Commission said. Part of Dow's petrochemical business also will be sold  manufacturing facilities in Spain for acid copolymers and a contract through which it sources ionomers.

Dow is based in Midland, Mich. DuPont has its headquarters in Wilmington, Del.

U.S. authorities are still examining the proposed merger.

The companies said in a statement that they "continue to work constructively with regulators in the remaining relevant jurisdictions to obtain clearance for the merger, which they are confident will be achieved."

They said that they believe the outcome of the EU review "is pro-competitive and maintains the strategic logic and value creation potential of the transaction."
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New York has seemingly tried every which way to jump-start its upstate economy.

Governor after governor proposed what they considered the answer to upstate's economic woes, but program after program came up short.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo was determined to change that when he took office in 2011. Cuomo has increased state subsidies, launched several bold initiatives and crisscrossed the state to announce state-funded projects he frequently described as "game-changers."

"The past four years we have focused on upstate New York and economic development like never before," the governor said in his 2015 state address.

The upstate economy remains sluggish, however.

Job growth for the state as a whole wasn't too far off the national average, 9.6 percent for New York compared with 11 percent nationwide, between December 2010, the month before Cuomo took office, and December 2016. But most of that job growth occurred downstate.

The number of jobs upstate has increased by only 2.7 percent during the Cuomo years.

What's more, 88 percent of the net jobs added upstate have been in low-wage sectors, led by restaurants and bars, employment data shows.

"The policies Cuomo says are focused on upstate and he claims have improved upstate were not the right policies and have not worked," said E.J. McMahon, research director of the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative watchdog group.

Dig Into Our Data ProPublica, working with Investigative Post and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, has built a searchable database of nearly 16,000 economic development deals statewide. See for yourself how state and local officials are dishing out subsidies. Explore the data 

Investigative Post, ProPublica, and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism teamed up to assess the state's economic development efforts since Cuomo took office in 2011. The work included developing a database to track nearly 16,000 subsidy deals involving 12 of the state's largest economic development programs and local industrial development agencies.

An analysis of employment data, interviews with dozens of public officials and others, and a review of reports and audits of subsidy programs conducted by the state comptroller and watchdog organizations indicate the state's substantial investment in the upstate economy has not generated many jobs. The research also found that economic development programs suffer from a lack of transparency and objective analysis to determine their effectiveness.

Indeed, the state does an arguably poor job of vetting subsidy recipients to determine their history of compliance with federal and state regulators. Some companies have also used their influence to tap into a variety of subsidy programs, or placed executives on decision-making bodies that help determine how tax breaks and other forms of assistance are awarded.

The upstate economy has long suffered from a loss of both population and the manufacturing jobs that were once its bedrock.

Experts note that economic development deals can only go so far in counteracting those forces. That hasn't stopped elected officials from trying.

Both state and local economic development agencies have ramped up spending on subsidy programs since Cuomo took office. In the last fiscal year the total subsidies hit a record $8.6 billion, according to a calculation by the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan group that tracks state spending.

The governor has also introduced a handful of bold economic development programs, several of which failed spectacularly.

His decision to empower former SUNY Polytechnic president Alain Kaloyeros to manage several upstate, big-ticket projects built at taxpayer expense has mired Cuomo's administration in scandal, culminating in criminal charges against developers and state officials, including Kaloyeros. It's also left many planned developments in limbo.

The Start-Up New York program, which Cuomo said would "supercharge" the upstate economy by creating tax-free zones for businesses locating near college campuses, has been widely criticized for meager job creation despite heavy state spending to advertise it.

Furthermore, the investigation found that New York under Cuomo continues to pursue costly trophy projects. In fact, no state in the nation has helped finance more of these megadeals.

Empire State Development, the state's primary economic development agency, declined requests for an interview with ESD President and CEO Howard Zemsky or another senior official.

Growth in subsidies

While Cuomo has worked to slow the pace of state spending since taking office, the cost of state and local subsidy programs has grown. The value of subsidies awarded at the state and local level rose from $7.9 billion for fiscal year 2011 to $8.6 billion for the most recent fiscal year that concluded last March.

The state's share of that grew from $3.7 billion to $4 billion during that period. Cuomo's proposed state budget for the upcoming fiscal year calls for $644 million in additional economic development spending and $1.5 billion in tax credits. The sheer number of subsidy programs helps explain New York's largesse.

There are property and sales tax abatements. Discounted power programs. Cash grants. State budget allocations to build and equip facilities for companies. And a growing number of state tax credits.

The Tax Reform and Fairness Commission empaneled by Cuomo reported that the number of state tax credit programs had grown from nine in 1994 to 50 in 2013, the year it issued its report.

Relatively few companies reap most of the benefits from these programs.

"A small number of taxpayers account for the vast majority of tax credits claimed," the commission reported.

A report issued about the same time by ALIGN, an economic justice research and advocacy organization, found that only 4 percent of businesses receive subsidies, many of them large, out-of-state corporations such as Target and Walmart.

The state's penchant for costly projects also contributes to New York's high spending on subsidies.

A database maintained by Good Jobs First, a national subsidy research organization, indicates that of 306 projects that received at least $50 million in public subsidies since 2000 no state has earmarked more for these so-called "megadeals" than New York.

The Empire State committed $11.8 billion for 24 megadeals, followed by Michigan ($9.9 billion) and Louisiana ($9.6 billion). No other state spent more than $4.1 billion.

Only a half-dozen of New York's megadeals took place downstate. The six costliest deals benefited businesses located upstate and include Alcoa in Massena, GlobalFoundries near Albany, and SolarCity in Buffalo.

Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, said megadeals are "guaranteed losers for taxpayers." The government can never hope to recoup its investment through increased tax revenues, he said, shifting the tax burden for public services to other taxpayers.

So why do megadeals remain popular?

"They're catnip for politicians," LeRoy said.

Major effort's woes

Cuomo's boldest initiative attempted to turn the state's traditional approach to economic development on its head by going even harder after megadeals. To that end, Cuomo sought to replicate a model used by Kaloyeros to develop a nanotechnology sector in the Albany region.

It's an unusual approach that involves taxpayers shouldering the cost of building and equipping advanced manufacturing facilities for a company recruited in exchange for job guarantees.

The task of exporting the Albany model across Upstate was entrusted to Kaloyeros and two state-affiliated nonprofit corporations he controlled.

Problems soon ensued.

The two development corporations, citing their nonprofit status, contended they were exempt from the state's Open Meetings and Freedom of Information laws. The development corporations also maintained they were not required to follow state procurement policies.

The outcome? Developers who were major Cuomo campaign contributors were awarded lucrative contracts with hardly any competition. Last September, then-U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed criminal charges of bribery and bid-rigging against Kaloyeros, top former Cuomo aide Joseph Percoco, and private developers in Buffalo, Syracuse and Albany.

Cuomo stripped Kaloyeros of his economic development portfolio after he was charged and Kaloyeros resigned a month later as president of the SUNY Polytechnic Institute. By then, the wheels had fallen off several other deals he brokered across upstate.

Projects in Rochester, Utica and Dunkirk have been delayed, scaled back or shelved altogether.

Meanwhile, a $15 million facility built outside Syracuse to serve as a filmmaking hub stands all but unused.

Mixed results

Start-Up New York, another of the governor's marquee initiatives, has also floundered.

State officials said the program, which allows companies to operate tax-free for 10 years by locating near university campuses, would lure businesses to upstate. The governor said it would "give New York an edge like never before" in attracting companies. But Start-Up New York created just 408 jobs in its first two years of operation, despite the state spending more than $53 million dollars to advertise it.

In the coming budget year, the governor proposes rebranding the program, reducing the number of jobs companies must promise to create and revising the eligibility criteria to focus more on genuine startups. State officials still say the program will create around 4,000 new jobs over the next few years.

Another of Cuomo's new initiatives, a system of 10 regional economic development councils that compete for state funding, has played to mixed reviews. A 2015 report by the Citizens Budget Commission found that inadequate reporting made it almost impossible to tell how well projects were doing.

Of the fraction of projects for which employment figures were available, none created as many jobs as promised, the report found.

Another report in 2016 found that although all 10 regions prioritized manufacturing in their development plans, six still lost manufacturing jobs between 2010 and 2015.

"The results suggest it may be time for REDCs to rethink their strategies," the report concluded.

Brian McMahon, executive director of the New York State Economic Development Council, disagrees.

"Overall, I think the REDCs have been effective," he said. "They have worked because they brought together opinion leaders to talk and develop strategies around economic development."

LeRoy, of Good Jobs First, said the combination of high spending and modest job growth, warrants New York an overall grade of "D minus."

"Just because you throw money at the problem doesn't mean you solve the problem. The question is, are you spending the money the right way?"

Jim Heaney is the founder, editor and executive director of Investigative Post (www.investigativepost.org), a nonprofit investigative reporting center based in Buffalo. Charlotte Keith is a reporter for Investigative Post
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Akoustis, the North Carolina tech company that is buying a SUNY Polytechnic Institute manufacturing facility outside of Rochester at a steep discount, is also being offered $8 million in state tax credits as part of the deal.

Akoustis did not mention the tax breaks in a press release it issued Friday or in documents that it filed the same day with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that touted the purchase of the SUNY Poly facility, which is located in Canandaigua and its known as the Smart Systems Technology Center.
When it comes to injustice in New York's criminal justice system, Kalief Browder's short life could be Exhibit A.

Mr. Browder was arrested at 16 for allegedly stealing a backpack. He spent three years locked up, without trial, in the notorious Rikers Island jail, two of those years in solitary confinement  including one stretch of 17 months. He consistently maintained his innocence and refused a plea deal. Finally, the charges were dropped for lack of evidence.

Two years later, struggling with depression, the young man teachers once describes as "very smart" and "a fun guy" killed himself. He was 22.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state lawmakers can't bring this young man back, but they can take steps in the budget that is due Saturday to try to prevent countless other lives from being destroyed.

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They can start by improving the public defense system for people who cannot afford an attorney, an area where courts have found the state falls short in its constitutional obligation. Mr. Cuomo has proposed more dollars to improve the assigned counsel programs that are mostly funded county-by-county, in order to help them meet new standards for caseloads and performance. It's not the full state takeover of the program counties prefer, but it is a step forward, one that should be taken with the understanding that the state eventually must assume the full cost of the program.

The governor and legislators also can raise the age of criminal responsibility so that 16- and 17-year-olds aren't automatically treated as adults. New York needs to acknowledge what every other state except North Carolina has concluded  that people in those pivotal teen years are still developing physically, mentally and emotionally, and should not be routinely thrown into a criminal justice system designed for adults.

They can ensure that defendants' right to a speedy trial is protected. Overburdened, underfunded courts and prosecutors are no excuse for letting people languish in jail.

And they can mandate  and provide funding for  videotaped interrogations. While this was not an issue in Mr. Browder's case, it was in the case of former Troy resident Adrian Thomas, who was charged in 2008 with second degree murder for his son's death. His 2009 conviction was set aside five years later after a review of the videotape showed police used improper tactics to coerce his "confession."

There are other issues, too, that Mr. Cuomo and legislative leaders must act upon as a new fiscal year begins:

Ethics

In the aftermath of criminal convictions of leaders in both houses of the Legislature and the recent federal indictments alleging pay-to-play and bid-rigging in upstate redevelopment projects and SUNY Poly, we clearly need more than incremental ethics reforms. Besides transparency in state contracting, the state must limit the influence of money in politics by lowering New York's high limits on campaign contributions; closing loopholes rich donors use to get around those limits; and reining in the use of political party "housekeeping accounts" as pass-throughs for large donations.

And in a state plagued by low turnout, democracy must be strengthened by encouraging the fundamental act of citizenship: voting. New York should have early voting, automatic voter registration on turning 18, no-excuse absentee ballots and Election Day registration.

Make college more accessible

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter.

Mr. Cuomo offered a commendable vision with his "Excelsior Scholarships," which would make tuition at SUNY and CUNY schools free for state residents with family income up to $125,000. Critics warn, however, that the plan could hurt the state's many private, non-profit colleges. A smarter solution would be to better fund the Tuition Assistance Program, to give students more options.

As for SUNY, one way to help make it more affordable would be to look at its administration-heavy structure. No New Yorker lives more than 30 miles from a SUNY campus. Does every campus need its own administrative staff, and highly-paid president? Can't services be better shared?

Ride hailing

That we're still awaiting Uber and Lyft after two years of talk is absurd. Resolve the insurance and labor issues, stop letting taxi and limo companies sabotage this, and give New Yorkers more ways to get a safe, affordable ride. Nearly every other state has it, so New York doesn't have to reinvent the wheel.

Paying for it all

New York needs a more progressive income tax, not a flatter one. The state should at the very least renew the expiring 8.82 percent tax on income over $1.1 million ($2.1 million for married couples), and give serious consideration to an Assembly plan to raise it for incomes over $5 million, with a top rate of 10.32 percent for people making more than $100 million. A state that better funds its schools and public services will be a much more attractive place for people of all incomes to live and do business.
New Delhi, Mar 28 (IBNS): Union Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj, on Tuesday, inquired into the alleged abduction of a Canadian national in Odisha's Koraput district, according to media reports.

Koraput, near the Odisha-Chhattisgarh border is said to be a Naxal-hit zone.

Swaraj spoke to Odisha's Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and has sought a report on the matter.

She tweeted, "I have spoken to Shri Naveen Patnaik, Chief Minister reg the reported abduction of a Canadian national in Koraput district of Odisha.".

Reportedly, the Canadian national has been missing since Monday evening.

According Telangana Today, the foreign national, John, went on a bike ride into the forests, but did not come back.

It also reported that authorities suspect he may have been kidnapped by Naxalites.

Security forces from Odisha and Chattisgarh have launched search operations in the area, media reports said.
Vive la France et sa culture was order of the day on March 24th last when Cashel Community School held its annual Journee de la Francophonie or French day.

The aim of the day is to promote French and French culture within the school through the provision of fun activities for both students and staff to enjoy. Junior cycle students participated in a French themed art competition with an overall winner being chosen from each year group. They were First Year Sarah Quinn, Second Year Julianne Bongcaras and Third year Abigail Keating. The overall winner for this years French art competition was Emily Coleman a first year student. Felicitations! First year students followed French clues throughout the school in order to find le tresor (treasure). Lunchtime activities involved a whole school approach with a table quiz, a film in French and French music for all to enjoy. The table quiz saw a huge turnout with Eve Moloney, Anneka Maxwell, Eleanor Tobin and Clodagh Quinn facing down stiff competition in a double tie- break situation on the day. La journee de la Francophonie would not have been complete without the sale of French food with crepes available at lunch time. The final task for sixth years was to interview students and teachers in French throughout lunchtime with the best interviewers Maria Magner and Tom Davern both receiving a prize. TY and 5th year students were essential to the running of the day and Rachel O Carroll was recognised for her efforts in helping out on the day and for speaking en Francais .

Cest en forgeant quon devient forgeron or in English Practice makes perfect
Tipperary TD Alan Kelly has accused his fellow deputies of showing no interest in health matters in the constituency after they failed to attend two briefings with healthcare agencies in the past week.



UL Hospitals Group held a briefing on acute hospitals in the Mid West last Friday, at which, Deputy Kelly said, he was the only Tipperary TD in attendance.



The meeting was to update TDs on the UL Hospital Group 2017 Operational Plan and plans for the opening of the new Emergency Department in University Hospital Limerick. The informal session was hosted by Colette Cowan, chief executive officer, UL Hospitals Group along with members of her management team.



That was followed up with a HSE Mid West meeting in Limerick on non-acute services on Monday, and again, he said, he was the only Tipp TD to attend. That meeting was with Bernard Gloster, chief officer HSE Mid West Community Healthcare, and dealt with the 2017 Operational Plan for the Mid West, covering all community healthcare services.



There was a huge amount of information given out at these meetings. It is laughable that the other TDs did not bother to attend, Deputy Kelly told the Tipperary Star.



However, Deputy Michael Lowry hit back at his constituency colleague by claiming he had already been briefed about Friday's meeting and felt there was no need to attend.



Deputy Kelly is trying to portray himself as being the best boy in the class, he said. I am in regular contact with the Department and the HSE and if you were doing your job effectively you would know what was happening.



In relation to missing Monday's meeting, Deputy Lowry said that he had a prior commitment and had asked the HSE to reschedule the meeting.



I, like other TDs, I'm sure, asked for the meeting to be held in the afternoon, but that did not suit the officials. They have forwarded all the briefing documents to me, he said.



Deputy McGrath said he had not received an invite to Friday's meeting and described such briefings as self-serving, time wasting excercises.

He said they were useless and fruitless and he couldn't believe anything that was said at them.



Deputy McGrath wondered if Deputy Kelly was asking about their absence because he was lonely and feeling isolated. I think he is suffering from withdrawal symptoms and still thinks he is a Minister. Did he want us to go along to hold his hand?"

Deputy Cahill said in a statement: "Unfortunately, due to previous commitments in the constituency last Friday and Monday, I was unable to attend the briefing at University Hospital Limerick last Friday. I have received copies of the briefings received, and have already begun to raise a number of issues with the Minister. I have been working on the issues in the Mid-West area since being elected and attended a similar briefing at the hospital last autumn where I was actually the only Tipperary TD present."



There was no response from deputies Seamus Healy to a query from the Tipperary Star as to why he had not attended either meeting.
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The parish of Holycross Ballycahill has been rocked by the sad news of the passing of father of two Simon Mills.

The untimely death of Mr Simon Mills, Glenreigh, Holycross, Co. Tipperary and formerly of Preston, Lancashire, England and Thurles, Co. Tipperary has been announced.

In his late 30's, Mr Mills, a former employee of Lisheen Mine and Irish Rail, passed away following a short illness, while in the loving care of the medical staff of Beaumount Hospital and Clonmel Regional Hospital.

The father of two was very popular in the parish of Holycross and with his many former colleagues in Lisheen Mine. Although not living in the parish for very long, he, along with his wife Paula and their children, made an instant impression and were embraced warmly into the community which they grew to love and cherish - just last Christmas he participated in the annual St Stephen's Day swim in aid of the local National School where his children attend junior infants and third class. He was also a keen runner, as is his wife Paula who runs with Thurles Crokes AC.

Prayers were offered for the heartbroken family and for the repose of the soul of the deceased in St Michael's National School when news of his passing became known. The school has also postponed a fundraising Fashion Show scheduled for Thursday evening in the Anner Hotel, Thurles, as a mark of respect.

Mr Mills will repose at Hugh Ryans Funeral Home, Slievenamon Road, Thurles on Thursday from 5.30pm to 7.30pm, to arrive at Holycross Abbey, on the following day, Friday, 31st March, at 11.00am. Requiem Mass will be held on Friday at 11.30am, followed by cremation in the Island Crematorium, Rocky Island, Ringaskiddy, Co. Cork at 3.00pm.

Simon is deeply regretted by his heartbroken wife Paula (nee Fitzpatrick); daughter Emily; son Christopher; parents Colin and Sheila; brother Andrew; uncle Dave; cousins Nick and Sally; brothers-in-law; sisters-in-law; nephews; nieces; extended relatives; colleagues at the former Lisheen Mine and Irish Rail, together with many good friends.
[March 27, 2017] Zentera Systems CEO Named CIE's 2017 Silicon Valley Entrepreneur of the Year

Zentera Founder Jaushin Lee Recognized by Prestigious Engineering Society for Achievements in Innovation and Technology SAN JOSE, California, March 28, 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/USA -- especially 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 encouage 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. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/273759/Zentera_Systems_Logo.jpg

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[March 27, 2017] IMPORTANT SHAREHOLDER ALERT: Khang & Khang LLP Announces Securities Class Action Lawsuit against USANA Health Sciences, Inc. and Encourages Investors with Losses to Contact the Firm

Khang & Khang LLP (the "Firm") announces a class action lawsuit against USANA Health Sciences, Inc. ("USANA" or the "Company") (NYSE: USNA). Investors who purchased or otherwise acquired shares between March 14, 2014 and February 7, 2017 inclusive (the "Class Period"), are encouraged to contact the Firm in advance of the April 14, 2017 lead plaintiff motion deadline. If you purchased shares of USANA during the Class Period, please contact Joon M. Khang, Esquire, of Khang & Khang, 18101 Von Karman Avenue, 3rd Floor, Irvine, CA (News - Alert) 92612, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or via e-mail at [email protected]. There has been no class certification in this case. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may choose to take no action and remain a passive class member. The complaint alleges that during te Class Period, USANA made materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: the Company's BabyCare Ltd. subsidiary engaged in improper reimbursement practices in China; that these practices constituted violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; that the Company's China revenues were in part the product of unlawful conduct and unlikely to be sustainable; that the foregoing conduct was likely to subject the Company to significant regulatory scrutiny; and that as a result of the above, USANA's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. On February 7, 2017, USANA announced that "[t]he Company is voluntarily conducting an internal investigation of its China operations, BabyCare Ltd. The investigation focuses on compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...and certain conduct and policies at BabyCare, including BabyCare's expense reimbursement policies." When this news was announced to the public, shares of USANA declined in value.



If you wish to learn more about this lawsuit, or if you have questions concerning this notice or your rights, please contact Joon M. Khang, a prominent litigator for almost two decades, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or via e-mail at [email protected]. This press release may constitute Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170327006301/en/

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[March 27, 2017] Scandinavian Health Limited Selects NetDimensions Learning for Regulatory Compliance Training

HONG KONG, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- NetDimensions announced today that Scandinavian Health Limited (SHL) has selected NetDimensions Learning to replace paper-based processes and enhance training plan management for consistent implementation of standards and regulatory requirements across SHL companies worldwide. "We are very pleased to partner with the SHL Group to help improve and streamline their training and employee development programs, which are critical to the company's branding initiatives and employee retention," noted Jay Shaw, Managing Director and CEO at NetDimensions. To keep pace with the speed of growth of its business and employee numbers, as well as to improve efficiency and quality of administrative processes and management of training records, SHL Group needed a robust, centralized solution for training and employee development. SHL selected NetDimensions Learning because of its proven usability, availability of data exchange interfaces requiring no customization, scalability and ease of integration with existing IT solutions, as well as competent support and consultancy by the NetDimensions team. Lillian Yao, HR Director at SHL Taiwan said: "The NetDimensions consulting team provided great support during the system requirements gathering process, as well as works proactively and digs into various possible solution scenarios to support all operational and organizational needs of SHL's learning management. We are looking forward to further fruitful and successful cooperation." About Scandinavian Health Limted



SHL Group (SHL) is the world's largest privately-owned designer, developer and manufacturer of advanced drug delivery devices such as auto injectors and pen injectors. The company has over 3,000 staff globally, with primary design centers located in the USA and Sweden and manufacturing centers located in Asia. SHL supplies auto injectors, pen injectors and inhaler systems to global pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Significant investment in R&D has enhanced the Group's broad pipeline of "next generation" drug delivery systems. These innovative devices include a range of disposable and reusable injectors with fixed or variable dosing, enhanced precision and the ability to accommodate high viscosities. The SHL Group organization consists of several distinct group companies:

SHL Medical Designs, develops and manufactures advanced drug delivery devices for leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies SHL Healthcare Develops and manufactures equipment solutions for home, hospital and long term care use SHL Technologies Provides contract manufacturing and engineering services for the production of complex medtech and industrial products SHL Pharma Provides final assembly, labeling and packaging services of drug delivery devices to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries For additional information visit www.shl-group.com About NetDimensions Established in 1999, NetDimensions (AIM: NETD; OTCQX: NETDY) is a global provider of learning, knowledge and performance management solutions to highly regulated industries. NetDimensions provides companies, government agencies and other organizations with talent management solutions to personalize learning, share knowledge, enhance performance, and manage compliance programs for employees, customers, partners, and suppliers. NetDimensions' solutions also include custom content and learning portal development services, as well as off-the-shelf course libraries and regulatory compliance courseware developed by NetDimensions' subject matter experts and content partners. NetDimensions' award-winning solutions have been chosen by leading organizations worldwide including ING, Cathay Pacific, Chicago Police Department, Geely Automotive, Norton Healthcare, and Fresenius Medical Care. NetDimensions is ISO 9001 certified and NetDimensions' Secure SaaS practices are ISO 27001 certified. NetDimensions is part of Learning Technologies Group plc (LTG). For more information, visit www.NetDimensions.com or follow @netdimensions on Twitter. Media Contact Robert Torio

Senior Corporate Communications Manager

+852 2122 4500

[email protected]

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[March 27, 2017] DHL eCommerce Enables Singapore e-Commerce Retailers to Reach Out to the U.S. Market

Singapore businesses ranging from pure online retailers, 'brick and mortar' retailers, manufacturers or e-commerce giants to benefit from new international shipping product to the U.S.

Product offers simple and affordable delivery with end-to-end tracking and competitive delivery time of 4-6 business days SINGAPORE, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- DHL eCommerce, a division of the world's leading logistics company Deutsche Post DHL Group, has launched a new commercial international shipping product facilitating Singapore-based e-tailers, online merchants, manufacturers, and traditional 'brick and mortar' retailers to ship their products to consumers in the U.S. using the reliable DHL network in a simple and cost-effective manner. Parcel International Direct U.S. is geared towards the burgeoning e-commerce market and seeks to respond to the growing appetite for cross-border e-commerce in the Americas region, allowing businesses to ship products up to 6.5 kg to their customers across the U.S. With 71% of retailers and 76% of manufacturers expecting the share of cross-border revenue to grow in the future[1], Parcel International Direct U.S. aims to enable Singaporean retailers to grow their business in the U.S. market with ease. The cross-border market is the newest blue chip of the digital retail industry and shows great promise, projected to grow at a rate of 25% annually between 2015 and 2020. This growth will bring the value of the market from USD300 Billion in 2015 to 900 billion in 2020 -- almost triple in a matter of half a decade.[2] The product offers simple and cost-effective international shipping option with end-to-end tracking and a competitive transit time of 4-6 business days. Through IT integration, the DHL eCommerce Web Portal enables e-tailers to seamlessly integrate their orders into the DHL network by preparing orders for shipping individually or in bulk, track and generate reports all from a single portal. This product follows the company's launch of Parcel International Direct Australia in October 2016. "DHL eCommerce aims to provide best-in-class e-commerce logistics for both merchants and end consumers through high quality, cost-efficient logistics solutions as well as a positive delivery experience. We want to enable local businesses to reach their international consumers with ease and allow them to fully leverage the massive potential that e-commerce brings," said Sham Alexandra, Managing Director, DHL eCommerce Singapore. "Through Parcel International Direct U.S., we enable retailers in Singapore to expand beyond borders and reach out to the huge consumer market potential in the U.S." To find out more about DHL Parcel Direct International U.S., please contact us.







[1] DHL Express Report: The 21st century Spice Trade (Jan 2017) [2] Ibid.

-- End -- Media Contact: DHL eCommerce

Media Relations

Cheryl Han / Monica Ng

Phone: +65-6879-8012 / +65-6879-8011

Email: [email protected] / [email protected]

http://www.dhl.com/en/press.html Follow us at: www.twitter.com/dhlecommerce DHL -- The logistics company for the world DHL is the leading global brand in the logistics industry. Our DHL family of divisions offer an unrivalled portfolio of logistics services ranging from national and international parcel delivery, e-commerce shipping and fulfillment solutions, international express, road, air and ocean transport to industrial supply chain management. With about 350,000 employees in more than 220 countries and territories worldwide, DHL connects people and businesses securely and reliably, enabling global trade flows. With specialized solutions for growth markets and industries including technology, life sciences and healthcare, energy, automotive and retail, a proven commitment to corporate responsibility and an unrivalled presence in developing markets, DHL is decisively positioned as "The logistics company for the world". DHL is part of Deutsche Post DHL Group. The Group generated revenues of more than 57 billion euros in 2016. Logo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20150811/8521505246LOGO

Photo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20170327/8521701619



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Kolkata, Mar 28 (IBNS): A speeding private car reportedly rammed into pedestrians and collided head-on with a public bus in the Hudco More area under Ultadanga Police Station in Kolkata on Tuesday morning, leaving at least four persons injured.

According to reports, around 11 am, a speeding hatchback car, travelling from the direction of Salt Lake to Ultadanga, suddenly lost control near Hudco More and hit at least three pedestrians.

The driver of the car was also hurt when the vehicle jumped lane and crashed into a bus thereafter.

The four injured people were rushed to a nearby hospital.

After primary probe, police alleged that reckless driving may have caused the mishap.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)
[March 28, 2017] Thinkfree DocsConverter Brings Office Document Conversion Services to AWS Marketplace

Easily publish Microsoft Office and other files for universal viewing via a browser - One-click server deployment via AWS - Easy integration with web apps via API - Outputs Microsoft Office files as PDF, HTML, text, and image files SEOUL, South Korea, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Thinkfree, a Hancom company, announced today the availability of Thinkfree DocsConverter on AWS Marketplace. Built to meet the needs of a wide range of organizations - including cloud service providers and web-based solution providers - DocsConverter quickly converts Microsoft Office documents to formats suitable for viewing on the web - including PDF, HTML, TXT, JPG, and PNG formats. Thinkfree DocsConverter has simple APIs that can be easily called from existing web and mobile applications to enable instantly-viewable documents. The popularity of solutions built on AWS is expanding, and web service developers and SaaS providers need easy way to implement document conversion from proprietary formats - such as .docx, .xlsx, or pptx - to formats that anyone could view instantly in a web browser. Custom document conversion systems could be built using commercial or open-source desktop applications, but such systems are neither designed nor optimized to run in a server environment with stability and scalability. Thinkfree DocsConverter provides AWS customers with the ability to implement document conversion capabilities - with full control over scalability and secuity - into their services and workplaces with single click.



"The availability of Thinkfree DocsConverter on AWS Marketplace is a big step towards the idea of universal access to information," says Bruno Lowagie, Chief Strategy Officer of Thinkfree. "Information that mobile ISVs and service providers want to share - both internally and externally - but that until now has been locked up in proprietary document formats can now be published quickly and easily for universal consumption." "Thinkfree DocsConverter makes it easy for our customers and partners to incorporate Office document conversion functionality into their infrastructures and solutions," says Steve Koliha, AWS Marketplace and Catalog Services, Amazon Web Services, Inc. "The Thinkfree DocsConverter server is available for immediate purchase and deployment in Marketplace."

Adds Bruno, "With Thinkfree DocsConverter on AWS, all the headaches previously associated with custom conversion systems are gone. Click. Deploy. Publish. It's that easy." Product Availability and Pricing Thinkfree DocsConverter is available today through the AWS Marketplace. Pricing varies by subscription terms and the underlying AWS instance types one selects. Visit the Thinkfree DocsConverter page on AWS Marketplace for information about server configurations and pricing. Thinkfree customers who have already licensed DocsConverter but who would like to apply that license within AWS can take advantage of a customizable "bring your own license" option. Visit the Thinkfree DocsConverter (BYOL) page for information on customized licensing and pricing. For more information on Thinkfree, visit www.thinkfree.com. About Thinkfree Thinkfree, a global brand of Hancom, has its headquarter in Seongnam, South Korea. Thinkfree has global offices in the US, Belgium and Australia. With investment of Hancom, Inc., South Korea's leading productivity software provider, Thinkfree is continuously growing and developing its technologies. Thinkfree and Thinkfree Office are registered trademarks of Hancom, Inc. All other trademarks and/or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Media Contact: Edward S. Coloma

Thinkfree, Inc.

(408) 313-7583

Email Contact: [email protected]

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[March 28, 2017] Resolve Digital Health Raises $5 million to Debut the First Standardized Patient Experience for Medical Cannabis

TORONTO, March 28, 2017 /CNW/ - Resolve Digital Health is set to change the way cannabis is prescribed by physicians and experienced by patients with $5 million raised in a Series A round led by Aphria Inc (TSX:APH)(OTCQB:APHQF) and brokered by Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. This marks the next phase in the company's development with an upcoming California launch of their debut medical device system, Breeze. The technology behind the product has been in development since 2015, following an initial seed investment with CannaRoyalty Corp. (CSE: CRZ) (OTCQB: CNNRF). Unlike existing cannabis products, Breeze provides a more accurate, metered, treatment solution with pre-packaged, single use Smartpod filled with the highest quality cannabis buds or oil. The cannabis Smartpod is inserted into the Company's proprietary patent pending vaporizer. The patient experience is tracked through a mobile application with all data securely stored for sharing with doctors, pharmacists and other caregivers. "Patients have specific needs and clear expectations around how prescribed solutions should address their pain," Rob Adelson, Founder and CEO of Resolve Digital Health. "The last couple of years have been focused on listening, researching, exploring, testing and ultimately ensuring that our solution is more than just another product option - Breeze represents significant advancements in the consistency, reliability and positive results within the patient experience." In recent years, growing awareness of the medical benefits of cannabis has spurred a rapid increase in the number of medicinal users. In Canada, the number of registered medical cannabis patients has increased five-fold in the last eighteen months, and by more than 2.5x in 2016 with a 76% increase in medical patients by March 2016 when compared to the same time just a year prior. By September 2016, there was a 26% increase in registered patients from the previous quarter alone.1 However, despite a dramatic increase in market awareness and acceptance, there remain numerous barriers to widespread adoption of cannabis as a credible, legitimate replacement or complement to pharmaceutical care. With limited clinical research to validate the respective efficacy of the over 750 strains available, combined with inconsistent physician knowledge of dosing requirements, creates a volatile environment where standardization is needed most. Resolve's standardized pre-packaged solution is a marked departure from the current unmetered solutions using unknown strains via uncontrolled delivery methods with no process or system to track or monitor dosage and usage. "The need to standardize and systematize the patient experience is part of an industry evolution that is ready to 'grow up' and get serious," said Vic Neufeld, President & CEO of Aphria. "We know that patients are seeing the benefits of cannabis. We know they are eager to see solutions appear that are truly medical - with more than just superior strains, but superior technology delivering patient relief." In Q4 2015, CannaRoyalty entered into an agreement with Resolve and acquired a 35% ownership position, thereby providing substantial seed capital and resources to support the research and development of Breeze. Over the past seventeen months, the partnership behind such a transformative technology continues to create significant mutual shareholder value between Resolve and CannaRoyalty. Following the completion of the Series A financing with Aphria, CannaRoyalty will maintain 27.2% of the existing Resolve shares on a non-diluted basis. "2016 was a landmark year for cannabis and we're just getting started," said Marc Lustig, CEO of CannaRoyalty. "Seeing the revolutionary strides made by the Resolve team over the last seventeen months has been remarkable to say the least - now we're ready and thrilled about this next phase as Breeze officially enters the market." With an initial product launch planned with exclusive dispensary partners in California, Resolve is committed to building a repertoire of patient success stories before rapidly expanding into additional key markets across the United States and Canada throughout 2017 and into 2018.







____________________________ 1 Market Data: Marijuana For Medical Purposes, Health Canada



About Resolve Digital Health

Resolve Digital Health is the leading provider of standardized medical cannabis for patients suffering from cancer, arthritis, migraine headaches, chronic pain and other diseases. The company's proprietary technology and cloud-based health information platform found in Resolve's debut product Breeze addresses the numerous issues with currently available methods of cannabis delivery - establishing a standard of care and rigorous medical approach previously missing from the medical cannabis industry. With over two years of research and development, the complete product ecosystem will be initially available Spring 2017 in select dispensaries in the United States. For more information, visit www.resolvedigitalhealth.com. About Aphria

Aphria Inc., one of Canada's lowest cost producers, produces, supplies and sells medical cannabis. Located in Leamington, Ontario, the greenhouse capital of Canada. Aphria is truly powered by sunlight, allowing for the most natural growing conditions available. We are committed to providing pharma-grade medical cannabis, superior patient care while balancing patient economics and returns to shareholders. We are the first public licensed producer to report positive cash flow from operations and the first to report positive earnings in consecutive quarters. For more information, visit www.Aphria.com. About CannaRoyalty

CannaRoyalty is a fully integrated, active investor and operator in the legal cannabis sector. Our focus is to build and support a diversified portfolio of growth-ready assets in high-value segments of the cannabis sector, including research, consumer brands, devices and intellectual property. Our management team combines a hands-on understanding of the cannabis industry with seasoned financial know-how, assembling a platform of holdings via royalty agreements, equity interests, secured convertible debt and licensing agreements. For more information, visit www.cannaroyalty.com.

SOURCE Resolve Digital Health

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[March 28, 2017] The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Names Innovative Architects a Winner of the Atlanta Metro Area 2017 Top Workplaces Award

ATLANTA, March 28, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Innovative Architects (https://www.innovativearchitects.com/) has been awarded a 2017 Top Workplaces honor by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The Top Workplaces lists are based solely on the results of an employee feedback survey administered by WorkplaceDynamics, LLC, a leading research firm that specializes in organizational health and workplace improvement. Several aspects of workplace culture were measured, including Alignment, Execution and Connection, just to name a few. Microsoft Gold Certified IT consulting firm Innovative Architects is awarded the 2017 Top Workplaces honor by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for their fourth year in a row.



A phoo accompanying this announcement is available at





//www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d8c5db62-e503-4256-b0eb-acc90654a4e6 The Top Workplaces award is not a popularity contest. And oftentimes, people assume its all about fancy perks and benefits, says Doug Claffey, CEO of WorkplaceDynamics. But to be a Top Workplace, organizations must meet our strict standards for organizational health. And who better to ask about work life than the people who live the culture every daythe employees. Time and time again, our research has proven that whats most important to them is a strong belief in where the organization is headed, how its going to get there, and the feeling that everyone is in it together.

Claffey adds, Without this sense of connection, an organization doesnt have a shot at being named a Top Workplace. The Top Workplace designation is a significant achievement for our company because it reflects the voice of our employees, says Laurie Walmsley, VP of Client Experience. Walmsley adds, The survey provides a unique perspective as it relates to employee satisfaction with our leadership, our culture, benefits and work/life balance. We are excited and proud to receive this prestigious designation for the fourth year in a row! This year we achieved our highest rank ever, number 6 in small businesses. About Innovative Architects

Innovative Architects has been serving industries to help solve business and technology challenges since 2005. As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, the company leverages Microsoft's technologies to build cost-efficient, scalable and secure solutions that address clients' specific business objectives and provide customers quick, positive returns on IT investments. Innovative Architects has received numerous industry awards  including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Top Workplace for four years running, a 2016 Great Place to Work in Technology award by Fortune magazine, a Great Place to Work for Camaraderie award, also by Fortune magazine, and several Microsoft partnership awards. IA has three offices to serve clients: Duluth, GA, Alexandria, VA and West Palm Beach, FL. CONTACT INFORMATION

Innovative Architects

Laurie Walmsley

VP of Client Experience

(770) 623-5734

Contact Laurie Walmsley

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[March 28, 2017] Comodo Offers Zero-cost Web Security with Comodo Dome Shield

CLIFTON, N.J., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Comodo, a global innovator and developer of cybersecurity solutions and the worldwide leader in digital certificates, today announced that it is making Comodo Dome Shield, its DNS- and cloud-based web security offering, available free of charge. Dome Shield avoids the need for on-premise web gateway hardware and serves as a first line of defense to protect enterprises, small businesses and individuals from web-borne threats. Malicious websites provide a well-known haven for malware and other threats to lurk. Unsuspecting users may inadvertently visit these sites after receiving an email containing a link. These sites are at their most dangerous when they contain unknown or zero-day threats. Such files can bypass conventional signature-based approaches because no malware signature is available. Comodo Dome Shield provides a baseline level of web security by blocking access to sites where malware resides. It offers a first layer of protection that prevents users from accessing known malware sites. If users cannot access the site where a malware threat is housed, they avoid downloading the malicious fileeven if it is a zero-day threat. Organizations that want to take advantage of the Comodo offer simply point their DNS settings to the Comodo IP address to activate the DNS-based security provided by Comodo Dome Shield. The service also provides web domain filtering and advanced reporting and analytics. "We are pleased to extend this offer of an unlimited user license for Comodo Dome Shield at no charge. A layered defense is essential for maximum security, and our cloud-based web security provides an easy way to roll out a first line of defense against web threats while providing upgrades t more robust security features," said Melih Abdulhayoglu, CEO and chief security architect at Comodo.



Dome Shield is the base-level tier of the Comodo Dome Security as a Service product family. The company provides paid offerings with additional security for customers that want to expand their protection beyond this base level. Customers can opt for full secure web gateway functionality with portable file containment, an antispam gateway, firewall, VPN, intrusion prevention, data loss prevention and other features. Citizens Bank of Kansas uses Comodo Dome in conjunction with Comodo Advanced Endpoint Protection.

"Just knowing that we're controlling security firstinstead of looking at it secondarilyis important to us," said Brian Gentry, the bank's chief technology officer. "We're definitely in a better position to avoid a malware-induced breach. There's a huge comfort level knowing that Comodo is doing its job, as well as understanding the depths at which it looks at files." Comodo Dome Shield is available immediately at https://www.comodo.com/cdomeshield/freelicense/. Interested IT security professionals can also learn more about the offering at the same link. About Comodo

The Comodo organization is a global innovator of cybersecurity solutions, protecting critical information across the digital landscape. Building on its unique position as the world's largest certificate authority, Comodo authenticates, validates and secures networks and infrastructures from individuals to mid-sized companies to the world's largest enterprises. Comodo provides complete end-to-end security solutions across the boundary, internal network and endpoint with innovative technologies solving the most advanced malware threats, both known and unknown. With global headquarters in Clifton, New Jersey and branch offices in Silicon Valley, Comodo has international offices in China, India, the Philippines, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit comodo.com. Comodo and the Comodo brand are trademarks of the Comodo Group Inc. or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. The current list of Comodo trademarks and patents is available at comodo.com/repository. Keep up to date with the latest Comodo News from the Comodo blog at https://blog.comodo.com/ and on Twitter @ComodoNews. Connect with Comodo on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/comodo. For more information, media and analysts may contact: Deb Montner

Montner Tech PR

[email protected]

203-226-9290 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/comodo-offers-zero-cost-web-security-with-comodo-dome-shield-300429757.html SOURCE Comodo

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[March 28, 2017] Cvent Unveils 2017 Lists of Top Meeting Hotels in the U.S., EMEA, and Asia Pacific

Cvent, Inc. a leading cloud-based enterprise event management company, today released its annual list of top hotels for meetings and events in United States. The list was compiled by analyzing meeting and event booking activity through its Cvent Supplier Network, which sourced more than $11 billion in meetings and events in 2016. The company also announced it has expanded its European rankings, announcing its Top 50 Meeting Hotels in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Cvent (News - Alert) also produced the inaugural Top 50 Meetings Hotels in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.







Top 10 U.S. Hotel Properties Top 10 EMEA Hotel Properties Top 10 APAC Hotel Properties Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center Hilton Diagonal Mar Barcelona Marina Bay Sands Singapore The Venetian and Palazzo Resort, Hotel & Casinos Hilton Prague Grand Hyatt Singapore ARIA Resort & Casino Hotel Arts Barcelona Shangri-la Hotel, Sydney JW Marriott Austin Melia Castilla Hotel & Convention Center Madrid Hilton Singapore Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center W Barcelona Conrad Centennial Singapore Omni Nashville Hotel Hilton London Metropole Fairmont Singapore The Westin Kierland Resort & Spa Moevenpick Hotel Amsterdam City Centre ijVENUES Hilton Sydney Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego Sheraton Frankfurt Airport Hotel & Conference Center InterContinental Sydney Hyatt Regency Orlando Hilton Vienna Pan Pacific Singapore Mandalay Bay Resort Rome Marriott Park Hotel InterContinental Singapore

"Hotels have become increasingly focused on developing more meeting and event business, and as such, have become more sophisticated in competing for the most lucrative opportunities for their respective venues," said Kevin Fliess, vice president of marketing for Cvent's Hospitality Cloud. "Hotels continue to advance and expand their group marketing efforts and are increasingly embracing a data-driven approach to more effectively pursue the optimal meetings and events for their venue. This coupled with another year of notable investment in renovation and other upgrades have led to shifts in the rankings as competition remains fierce even in a robust market." "We are proud to be a major player in continuing to make Nashville a top meeting destination," said John Adams, general manager, Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center. "This recognition is a testament to our incredibly dedicated, passionate team and their focus on providing the most memorable experience possible." U.S. List Highlights: The Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center is this year's Top Meeting Hotel, climbing from second place last year .

Four new properties have broken into the Top 10: JW Marriott Austin (Ranked 4 th ) The Westin Kierland Resort & Spa (Ranked 7 th ) Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego (Ranked 8 th ) Mandalay Bay Resort (Ranked 10 th )

Newcomers to the top 100 list include Loews Chicago O'Hare Hotel, the Renaissance Washington, D.C. Downtown Hotel, and Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel & Marina, to name a few.

Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt are the top 3 Hotel Chains which have the most properties on the Top 100 list. View the full 2017 list of Top 100 Meeting Hotels in the U.S. EMEA List Highlights: The Hilton Diagonal Mar Barcelona is this year's Top Meeting Hotel, climbing from third place last year.

The JW Marriott Marquis Hotel Dubai (Ranked 45 th ) is the first property from the Middle East to make the newly expanded list.

) is the first property from the Middle East to make the newly expanded list. Four new properties have broken into the Top 10: Melia Castilla Hotel & Convention Center Madrid (Ranked 4 th ) Moevenpick Hotel Amsterdam City Centre ijVENUES (Ranked 7 th ) Hilton Vienna (Ranked 9 th ) Rome Marriott Park Hotel (Ranked 10 th )

Hilton, Marriott and Intercontinental (in that order) are the top 3 Hotel Chains which have the most properties on the Top 50 list. View the full 2017 list of Top 50 Meeting Hotels in Europe. APAC List Highlights: Marina Bay Sands Singapore is this year's Top Meeting Hotel from APAC.

Hilton, Hyatt and Intercontinental (in that order) are the top three Hotel Chains which have the most properties on the Top 50 list.

Seven out of the Top 10 Meeting Hotels from APAC are from Singapore and the rest 3 are from Sydney, New South Wales. View the full 2017 list of Top 50 Meeting Hotels in APAC. Cvent evaluated hotel properties that generated business through the Cvent Supplier Network from January 2016 through December 2016. The properties were ranked according to various criteria, including total requests for proposals (RFPs), awarded RFPs, total room nights, awarded room nights, major metropolitan area (MMA) market share, conversion rate, and the hotel's unique profile visits in the Cvent Supplier Network. The criteria are designed to provide the most accurate reflection of the top meeting hotels in the U.S., EMEA and APAC regions. Featuring more than 245,000 hotels, resorts and special event venues, the Cvent Supplier Network is one the world's largest and most accurate databases of detailed venue information. Cvent sourced more than $11 billion in meetings and events through its marketplace in 2016. The CSN contains listings of hotels and other venues in more than 175 countries that can be searched and filtered based on approximately 200 meetings and events attributes. The Network is part of the Cvent Hospitality Cloud, which provides hotels, CVBs and other event venue owners, solutions to effectively generate qualified demand for meetings and events, manage that demand more efficiently, and measure group business performance. For more information regarding the Cvent Supplier Network, visit www.cvent.com/rfp/hotels. About Cvent, Inc. Cvent, Inc. is a leading cloud-based enterprise event management company, with tens of thousands of customers and more than 2,500 employees worldwide. Cvent offers software solutions to event planners for online event registration, venue selection, event management, mobile apps for events, email marketing, and web surveys. Cvent provides hoteliers with an integrated platform, enabling properties to increase group business demand through targeted advertising and improve conversion through proprietary demand management and business intelligence solutions. Cvent solutions optimize the entire event management value chain and have enabled clients around the world to manage hundreds of thousands of meetings and events. For more information, please visit Cvent.com, or connect with us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170328005701/en/

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[March 28, 2017] 'Enabling Technology' Category Added to the Altair Enlighten Award for 2017

TROY, Mich., March 28, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Altair has introduced a third category to the 2017 Altair Enlighten Award, the award program aimed specifically at highlighting achievements in vehicle lightweighting. The new Enabling Technology category is specific to products that make innovation in full vehicles, automotive modules, systems and components possible, such as fasteners, adhesives, materials, processes, etc.

The Alcoa Micromill was an enabling technology that was the 2016 runner-up in the module category.



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at //www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/2ecee016-becf-4806-988b-3514749fba97 Enabling tehnologies are the fundamental building blocks of todays great automobiles, in many cases directly contributing to the feasibility of the lightweight innovations developed by OEMs and suppliers, said Richard Yen, Senior Vice President, Automotive and Global Markets Team at Altair. By opening a third category for these technologies, we are providing the companies that are creating them the platform they deserve to share their work and be recognized as leaders in lightweight design.



The Altair Enlighten Award is presented in partnership with the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) and is proud to work with media partners SAE International and Automobil Industrie. The award honors companies for innovative examples of lightweighting in full vehicles, modules and now in enabling technology categories. The winners will be announced during the CAR Management Briefing Seminars in Traverse City, MI on July 31st, 2017. The award is held in collaboration with CAR, media partners SAE International and media sponsor Automobil Industrie. Without the assistance of enabling technologies, many of the benefits of mixed-material solutions would be limited, according to Jay Baron, President and CEO at CAR. Expanding the award categories to recognize the significant contribution of these technologies was a natural next step allowing many more suppliers to demonstrate their solutions.

Manufacturers and suppliers interested in submitting a nomination for the Enlighten Award are able to access additional information about the process, or submit an entry, at www.altairenlighten.com/award. Nominations are being accepted now through May 26, 2017. To allow sharing of innovation while respecting the business and technical confidentiality of all applications, designs submitted must be implemented on a production vehicle produced between August 2014 and August 2017, with no geographical restrictions. About Altair ProductDesign Altair ProductDesign is a global, multi-disciplinary product development consultancy of more than 700 designers, engineers, scientists, and creative thinkers. As a wholly owned subsidiary of Altair Engineering Inc., this organization is best known for its market leadership in combining its engineering expertise with computer aided engineering (CAE) technology to deliver innovation and automate processes. Altair ProductDesign firmly advocates a user-centered, team-based design approach, and utilizes proprietary simulation and optimization technologies (such as Altair HyperWorks) to help clients bring innovative, profitable products to market on a tighter, more efficient time-scale. About Altair Founded in 1985, Altair is focused on the development and application of simulation technology to synthesize and optimize designs, processes and decisions for improved business performance. Privately held with more than 2,600 employees, Altair is headquartered in Troy, Michigan, USA with more than 50 offices throughout 22 countries, and serves more than 5,000 corporate clients across broad industry segments. To learn more, please visit www.altair.com. Media Contacts: Altair Corporate, Americas and Asia Pacific Biba A. Bedi +1.757.224.0548 x 406 [email protected] Altair Europe, the Middle East and Africa Evelyn Gebhardt +49 6421 9684351 [email protected]

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[March 28, 2017] Ontario Systems Partners with Pronto Computing to Provide Customers with Automated Self-Pay Discovery

Ontario Systems (News - Alert), a leading software provider to the healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM), accounts receivable management (ARM) and government (GOV) markets, has announced a new partnership with Pronto Computing to provide automated self-pay discovery scrubs to its healthcare customers. Driven by the Artiva HCx solution from Ontario Systems, the new partnership will help medical providers give patients a single comprehensive financial experience, while fulfilling missions with increased revenue, reduced cost to collect, and improved patient satisfaction. By integrating key partners like Pronto Computing, the Ontario Systems HCx solution will enable those providers to benefit from missing insurance identification, with increases in reimbursement and efficiency along with reduced bad debt expense. "By embedding self-pay discovery into the process with the Artiva HCx solution, providers see a 3% average identification rate of insurance on previously self-pay identified accounts," says Shawn Yates, Ontario Systems Director of Healthcare Product Management. "These accounts typically move to bad debt creating poor patient relations and inflated bad debt expense. By identifying these accounts in an automated revenue cycle process, providers realize big labor savings, freeing up their account representatives' time to focus on more strategic revenue cycle opportunities. By partnering with Pronto Computing, our customers can focus their business office staffs' efforts on the most important accounts that need attention instead of working accounts that already have available insurance to file." Pronto Computing focuses on automating the healthcare revenue cycle process by empowering clients with an innovative and robust payer connection portfolio, used to scrub self-pay accounts for missing nsurance. This streamlines workflow and creates unprecedented efficiencies through automation, using a combination of proprietary sources, 270/271 HIPAA transactions and web scraping to identify found Medicaid, Medicare, and commercial coverage, and eliminate manual intervention.



"We are excited to partner with Ontario Systems and bring Pronto's eligibility services to customers using the Artiva HCx solution," says Robert Nolan, Pronto Computing Co-Founder. "We are impressed with how thoughtfully Ontario Systems integrated our product within Artiva HCx technology. Pronto's eligibility services together with the Artiva HCx solution will enable providers to find the right insurance for patients, resulting in increased net revenue, decreased costs associated with manual insurance processing, as well as decreased write offs to bad debt." "Our customers excel at deploying innovative solutions to healthcare's biggest and most common financial challenges," says Ontario Systems Senior Director of Business Development, Steve Scibetta. "That's why we continue to partner with market leaders like Pronto who enable us to enhance our technology in a way that brings new fuel to healthcare provider missions across the country."

About Pronto Computing Pronto is more than just a technology services firm; they are process re-engineering partners. Our revenue cycle consulting experience provides a holistic view of the revenue cycle, including the importance of workflow efficiency, productivity measurement and key performance reporting. Pronto aligns with you throughout the implementation process and provides consulting services, ensuring that the organization's outcomes are measurable and objectives are achieved. Pronto is currently working with several providers across the country in varied health care segments. Additionally, third party outsourcing vendors are utilizing our technology to improve the financial performance of their clients. Pronto is focused on delivering a combination of low-cost technology, increased quality, and utmost efficiency to its clients. About Ontario Systems Ontario Systems, LLC is a leading provider of revenue recovery software and solutions to the revenue cycle management (RCM), accounts receivable management (ARM (News - Alert)), and government markets. Established in 1980 and headquartered in Muncie, Ind., Ontario Systems also has a location in Vancouver, Wash., and employees in 27 states. Ontario Systems offers a full portfolio of software, services and business process expertise, including product brands such as Artiva RM, Artiva HCx, Contact Savvy, and RevQ. Ontario Systems customers include five of the 15 largest hospital networks who actively manage over $40 billion in receivables collectively, as well as eight of the 10 largest ARM companies and more than one hundred state and municipal governments in the U.S. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170328005921/en/

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[March 28, 2017] Former Google Risk Manager Joins G2 Insurance Services

Kelly Crowder joined G2 (News - Alert) Insurance Services as the company's Senior Risk Management Consultant. Kelly will serve alongside other members of G2's Risk Management team to provide valuable insight for a wide range of complex property, casualty and cyber risk issues. "We are so pleased to welcome Kelly to the G2 team," said Matthew Goldman, Principal of G2 Insurance Services. "Her background as an underwriter, client advisor and risk manager will provide insight and perspective for our clients with complex risk programs. She will be very instrumental in developing bespoke risk management solutions that incorporate high-touch service, strategic thinking and technology solutions." Prior to joining G2 Insurance Services, Kelly was Risk Manager at Google (News - Alert) where she developed domestic and international insurance programs, including a construction rolling wrap program, merger and acquisition procedures and captive formation. Prior to joining Google, Kelly was a Vice President in Marsh's FINPRO (financial products) practice where she manged complex mergers and acquisitions as well as Directors and Officers coverage for large companies, including related to IPOs. Kelly earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree with a focus in Risk & Insurance and Finance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She also earned her Associate in Risk Management (ARM (News - Alert)) and Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) designations.



"I was interested in G2 because of their innovative approach. Their management and staff understand a broader, more long-term view of risk that I feel is so important to clients," said Kelly. "Their risk management philosophy, reputation for proactive service, ability to implement specific programs based on clients' needs, and commitment to the holistic success of each client are all reasons why I chose to be part of this exciting, growing company." Kelly is located in G2 Insurance Services' San Francisco office. She can be reached at 415-426-6646 and [email protected].

About G2 Insurance Services Founded in 2012 and located in San Francisco, G2 Insurance Services is an independent, full-service insurance brokerage firm focused on the risk management needs of for-profit companies, non-profit organizations and high-net-worth individuals. More information can be found at G2insurance.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170328005405/en/

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[March 28, 2017] FANUC America Marks 35-Year Milestone of Manufacturing Robots in the U.S.

FANUC America marks the 35th anniversary of manufacturing its line of painting robots at the company's Rochester Hills, Mich., headquarters, a major milestone in the U.S. robotics industry. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170328006326/en/ For 35 years, FANUC America has manufactured all paint robots and door openers in Rochester Hills, Michigan. (Photo: Business Wire) Company President, Mike Cicco remarked: "We have dedicated ourselves to 35 years of product innovation and manufacturing efficiencies to provide our customers with the highest quality paint robots that we design, assemble, and integrate here in the U.S. and export to customers around the world. Throughout 2017, we will be taking a look at where we started, what we have achieved, and what our plans are for the future." In 1982, FANUC America produced its first NC Painter, a hydraulic paint robot using key components from parent company FANUC CORPORATION in Japan. Now, 35 years later, FANUC America remains globally responsible for all paint robots and door openers of the FANUC robot lineup, which are sold to a diverse range of industries including automotive, aerospace, agricultural products, recreational vehicles and boats, furniture, appliance, and medical devices. In fact, FANUC America has supplied its U.S.-made paint robots to all of the top 15 global automakers ranked by the International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers (OICA). FANUC America's U.S.-based product development team designs and implements a wide range of mechanical, electrical, process and software products, including Zero Down Time (ZDT), a cloud-based application that analyzes data collected from FANUC robots, alerting customers of potential issues that need to be addressed before unexpected downtime occurs. "Our local product development team is the industry's lagest with hundreds of years of accumulated engineering experience located here in Michigan," added Cicco.



All of FANUC America's new paint robots are ZDT-ready, which means they can monitor a variety of functions including paint canisters, spray applicators, drive health and paint process regulators. In addition, ZDT provides maintenance reminders to notify customers to inspect or replace worn items. Currently, there are over 800 paint robots now using ZDT analytics with additional robots connected to the cloud each month. "Having an extensive group of local experts to provide software, product design, assembly and integration of our paint robots allows us to react quickly to customer needs," said Jon Karr, FANUC America's Vice President of Paint Shop Automation.

FANUC America's paint robots are ideal for automating applications that are ergonomically challenging, hazardous and labor intensive. "We're seeing a significant increase in paint robot sales to non-automotive customers both domestically and abroad," added Karr. "These customers want to improve quality and throughput while minimizing their assembly workers' exposure to hazardous environments, similar to what automakers looked to do back in 1982." FANUC America recently introduced its latest paint robot, the P-350iA/45, which will demonstrate sanding, washing and drying an aircraft fuselage at the 2017 Automate Show in Chicago, booth #1625. The new P-350iA/45 robot is designed for a variety of applications including painting, coating, sanding, and washing, it offers a flexible six-axis design and is Class 1, Division 1 approved for operation in hazardous environments. About FANUC America Corporation FANUC America Corporation is a subsidiary of FANUC CORPORATION in Japan, and provides industry-leading robotics, CNC systems, and factory automation. FANUC's innovative technologies and proven expertise help manufacturers in the Americas maximize efficiency, reliability and profitability. FANUC embraces a culture of "Service First" which means that customer service is our highest priority. That commitment includes lifetime maintenance for all FANUC products for as long as our customers use them in production. FANUC America is headquartered at 3900 W. Hamlin Road, Rochester Hills, MI 48309, and has facilities in: Atlanta; Boston; Charlotte; Chicago; Cincinnati; Cleveland; Houston; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; Montreal; Pine Brook, NJ; Pontiac, MI; San Francisco; Seattle; Toronto; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Sao Paulo, and Manaus, Brazil; and Aguascalientes, Monterrey, and Queretaro, Mexico. For more information, please call: 888-FANUC-US (888-326-8287) or visit our website: www.fanucamerica.com. Also, connect with us on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170328006326/en/

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[March 28, 2017] JEMTEC Awarded Ontario MCSCS Contract

JEMTEC INC.

TSX-V: JTC VANCOUVER, March 28, 2017 /CNW/ - JEMTEC Inc. (TSX-V: JTC) ("JEMTEC" or the "Company") a provider of integrated technology systems for community based corrections in Canada, has been selected to provide Electronic Supervision Program Technology to the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services (MCSCS). This contract award follows a structured competitive procurement process involving detailed technical and pricing considerations. The Contract will include a Radio Frequency solution with Canada hosting as well as Technical Services. The initial contract has a four (4) year term with an option for two (2) additional extensions of up to one (1) year each selectable by MCSCS for a possible six (6) year term. Jemtec has provided similar technology and services for MCSCS in the past. Eric Caton, President and CEO said "we are pleased to have been chosen to provide the Electronic Supervision of Offender technology for he Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services. Further Jemtec has provided a full spectrum of monitoring technologies and services to provincial and federal correctional as well as border services across Canada since 1987 and in doing so has built a reputation for offering the best technological solutions and support for use in this very demanding environment."



Established in 1981, JEMTEC holds rights for a variety of electronic monitoring technologies including reporting systems, voice verification, alcohol monitoring, radio-frequency and GPS tracking systems. The common shares of JEMTEC trade through the facilities of the TSX-Venture Exchange under the symbol JTC. For additional information, please visit www.jemtec.ca FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This news release contains forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect Jemtec management's current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect Jemtec management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Investors are cautioned that these forward looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and, except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE Jemtec Inc.

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Srinagar, March 28 (IBNS): According to reports on Tuesday, a teenager was killed in a police firing in Jammu and Kashmir.

Saqib Ahmad, was killed in a firing when protesters tried to barge into a house where militants are holding up.

An earlier report on Tuesday said one civilian was killed and seven others injured as security forces opened fire on stone-pelting protesters, who gathered near the encounter site at Chadoora area of central Kashmir's Budgam district, reports said.

Reporting by Saleem Iqbal Qadri
[March 28, 2017] Toyota Prius Claims Top Honours as AJAC's 2017 Canadian Green Car of the Year

What is a Green Vehicle?

It is a vehicle which, for its size and purpose, provides the Canadian consumer with environmentally-friendly returns that compare favourably with other vehicles in its class. 2017 Canadian Green Car of the Year and 2017 Canadian Green Utility Vehicle of the Year VANCOUVER, March 28, 2017 /CNW/ - In a press conference at the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver International Auto Show, the 2017 Toyota Prius claimed top honours from the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) as the 2017 Canadian Green Car of the Year (CGCOTY). The annual award was presented by Regina Chan, automotive journalist and AJAC member. The Toyota Prius was chosen from among three finalists, winning over the 2017 Kia Optima HEV and 2017 Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid. The finalists were earlier announced and recognized at the Canadian International Auto Show (CIAS) in February, and "crowned" with special green car toppers for the duration of the show. "Toyota is committed to maintaining its leadership position in designing, engineering and building environmentally-advanced vehicles that meet the many demands of today's drivers  which is wy the 2017 Prius sets new standards for efficiency and emissions even as it provides owners with more style and driving fun," said Cyril Dimitris, Vice-President, Toyota Canada Inc. "We're delighted that members of AJAC agree, and thank them for this important award."



Entries to the CGCOTY and CGUVOTY must meet the standard requirements for initial entry into the Canadian Car of the Year (CCOTY) awards program, and additional criteria for fuel efficiency based on the entry's size, powertrain and purpose. This references the ideology that today's market sees Green cars come in many shapes, sizes, price-points and vehicle categories. All entries are tested during a week-long event each fall, with back-to-back testing by Canada's top auto journalists. The CGCOTY and CGUVOTY entries are first scored under AJAC's standard Canadian Car of the Year program protocol, which considers subjective and objective data for scoring. They are then further evaluated based on a specific set of "green" criteria in addition to their other scores.

"Our panel of 60-plus voting journalists sequentially drives every vehicle in a testing category, and their scoring is combined with objective data like cargo space, braking test figures and emissions. Scores are weighted for relevance to the vehicle category in question," says CCOTY Co-Chair Justin Pritchard. "Our Canadian Green Car of the Year and Canadian Green Utility Vehicle of the Year entries are selected from amongst standard entries that meet specific fuel efficiency criteria. Our voting panel casts a separate ballot for these models, focusing on Green characteristics including range, recharge/refuel time and price. That's combined with the overall CCOTY scorethat ishow the vehicle stacks up to its competition. Today, Green cars come in many shapes and sizes, and this testing process ensures we take that into consideration". PRESS ROOM FOR MEDIA: You didn't have to be at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park for the Canadian Car of the Year Awards program in order to produce media coverage of the event. AJAC has set up a virtual press room online where you may peruse and download the following: PHOTOS: the process of evaluating 150 vehicles back-to-back at TestFest is captured in photographs. VIDEO: B-roll of the 5 day event as well as short 90-second videos, ideal for YouTube AERIAL VIEW: Drone footage of the event from the sky. QUOTES & TESTIMONIALS: Comments from our journalists on the cars, trucks, and SUVs driven at TestFest. FACT SHEET: Including recent press releases. Link is: http://ajac.ca/web/ccoty/pressroom.asp SOURCE Automobile Journalists Association of Canada

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Kolkata, Mar 28 (IBNS): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday expressed her concerns over the recent happenings in Uttar Pradesh.

Uttar Pradesh witnessed a political change recently when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the Assembly polls in the state, removing the Samajwadi Party-led government which ruled the north Indian state for five years under the leadership of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.

Commenting on Uttar Pradesh, the West Bengal Chief Minister tweeted: "We are concerned about recent happenings in UP. People are afraid & many are scared about differences over caste, creed & religion 1/3."

She said :"We are all one. 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas' sirf bolna nahi hain, karna hain. We have to do it, to make it meaningful 2/3."

Banerjee said :"A govt has to be for all. We need to safeguard our Constitution and allow it to guide us 3/3."

The UP government has taken several steps since the BJP came to power.

One of the major steps were ban on illegal slaughterhouses in the state.

A delegation of meat processors is expected to meet Uttar Pradesh Health Minister Siddharth Nath Singh on Tuesday to discuss the Government crackdown on illegal slaughter houses and police "harassment" of those in the business.

According to the Indian Express, while Singh has not promised any revision of the Government agenda on the issue, he said that whatever is written in the meat processors' memorandum will be looked into.

This meeting comes in the backdrop of indefinite strike by meat sellers especially mutton vendors over the clampdown on illegalslaughterhouses in Uttar Pradesh.

According to the Indian Express, President of Uttar Pradesh Meat-Murga Vyapari Kalyan Samiti, Iqbal Qureshi said that the strike will continue and also that they are preparing the memorandum to be presented to the government.

He also added, We will continue our strike, as the actions which have been taken are arbitrary. We will try to meet the chief minister if we do not get time, we will meet senior officers or the minister for urban development.

The Lucknow Bakra Gosht Vypar Mandal have also threatened that they are not planning to call off the strike anytime soon and that the strike will go on indefinitely.
New Delhi, Mar 28 (IBNS): Protesting against Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad, national carrier Air India has once again cancelled his ticket for the Mumbai-Delhi flight.

The flight was scheduled for Wednesday morning.

The move was made after the MP had recently allegedly assaulted one of the Air India staffer.

Our stand remains the same. We have cancelled his ticket for the flight scheduled for departure at 8 a.m. from the Mumbai airport, Air India spokesperson was quoted as saying by The Hindu.

Last week, Gaikwad allegedly thrashed an Air India staffer with his slipper after he was upset over being forced to travel in economy class from Pune to Delhi.

The MP refused to disembark the plane even after it landed Delhi airport and demanded that the Air India CMD meet him to explain the point.

When a senior AI staffer, who was trying to persuade him, got involved in altercation with Gaikwad, the MP took off his slipper and to his own admission, "hit him 25 times."

The incident triggered a furore prompting Air India and six private airliners imposing a ban on Gaikwad.
A program which monitors waste water for drug use has shown a regional area in Tasmania as having the highest usage of MDMA anywhere in Australia.

According to the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, this could be due to a dance music festival coinciding with the sample period in which results for the ominious-only-if-you-think-about-it National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program Report were gathered.

As you can see, the spike is a dramatic one.

The area is being kept a secret due to fear of the region being demonised, being referred to only as Site 18 in the report  as if that Roswell-style code name wont pique our interest even more.

Ive spoken to the scientists personally about this, theyve noticed on weekends you may have a much higher consumption of ecstasy because you might have a music festival or some other event, ACIC chief executive Chris Dawson told ABC Radio Hobart.

It may show in August last year when we tested for seven consecutive days, there may have been an event, there may have been a shipment come in which might have been the reason why it has presented so high as opposed to some capital city.

Despite calls to make the secret area known to the public, Dawson wont be revealing where the spike occurred.

We are sharing this with the authorities directly so that they know. We must, in the first instance, try and prevent the growth and the demand for drugs. If the demand is there, suppliers will come from all over the world.
Srinagar, Mar 28 (IBNS): Another civilian was allegedly killed during clashes with security forces in Durbugh village of Chadoora in central Kashmiras Budgam area, taking the toll of civilian deaths to three.

According to sources, a youth, who was identified as Ashfaq from Rangreth, was injured during clashes at the encounter site in

Chadoora. He died while he was taken to Srinagar SMHS Hospital for treatment.

With this death, the death toll in the ongoing encounter touched four.

Three civilians and a militant have been killed so far.

Earlier, one civilian was killed and seven others were injured as security forces opened fire on stone-pelting protesters, who gathered near the encounter site at Chadoora area of central Kashmir's Budgam district, reports said.

According to reports, 22-year-old Zahid Rashid Ganaie was critically injured after being hit by a bullet near the site of a gunfight in Durbugh village of Chadoora.

The youth was rushed to SMHS hospital, Srinagar where he was declared dead.

"We could not save the youth, he was dead on arrival," Medical Superintendent SMHS Hospital Nazir Ahmad Choudhary told IBNS.

(Reporting by Saleem Iqbal Qadri)


"The home was boarded and supposed to be vacant."

THE RISING COUNT OF HOBOS LIVING IN SO MANY KANSAS CITY VACANT HOUSES CREATES A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER TO URBAN CORE NEIGHBORHOODS!!!

The rising count of homeless on local streets amid ongoing neglect from City Hall ignites fear among inner-city residents.Take a look:Not so fun fact . . .Reality check because newsies have done nice work reporting but are unable and far too politically correct to just come out and say it . . .These folks have to keep warm somehow and the threat of a fire isn't just real, but likely . . . Meanwhile, promises from KCMO about fighting neighborhood blight are nothing more than a bad joke and remain mostly unfulfilled year after year.The end result . . . Neighborhood leaders and residents call out this danger while KCMO does nothing but ask for more property taxes.Developing . . .
Kansas City's Food Desert Insanity Kansas City has started to demolish the vacant grocery store at Linwood Blvd. and Prospect Ave. and will subsidize the construction and operation of a Sun Fresh grocery store at the same location to address what urban fabulists have dubbed a "food desert." We've written about this issue here and here.

An important missive amid the construction of a controversial grocery store that's already losing money . . . And because nobody questions the logic of a City Hall plan that started as political payback. Read more:
Sheriff Scott Munsterman says it is concerning to him that they Johnson County, Mo., is being accused of having operational issues.





"This type of public statement implies that something was done incorrectly by Johnson County Personnel or that the policies or procedure in place are inadequate. The entire incident was initiated by the Jackson County inmates and not the Johnson County personnel," Munsterman said.





He said if it was not for the swift action and response of Johnson County employees there could have been a totally different outcome last week.

Law enforcement fighting continues after a ruckus among inmates earlier in the week . . .Deets:You decide . . .
A Kansas City man has been found guilty in connection with the shooting death of two men back in December 2015. A Jackson County jury found Jimmie Verge, 22, guilty of eight felony counts: two counts of Murder in the 2nd Degree, Robbery in the 1st Degree, Assault in the 1st degree and four counts of Armed Criminal Action.
Trump's plans to eliminate carbon rule receives mixed support in Missouri President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order today that would relieve coal-dependent states such as Missouri from having to comply with strict carbon emissions limits. The plan to eliminate the Clean Power Plan was announced earlier this week by Environmental Protection Agency Chief Scott Pruitt.

A look at opposition not only from environmentalists but also politicos who fear the impact on local air quality. Checkit:
Under a civil forfeiture loophole, Missouri law enforcement agencies have diverted millions of dollars in seized assets away from a fund for public schools, instead retaining those funds for their own use. A new report by the Missouri State Auditor found that police had seized over $6.2 million worth of property in 2016.
KC Election Board: "Municipal elections in KC (like the one coming up on April 4th) typically have the lowest turnout. YOU have the power to change this!"

AFTER ONLY FOUR MONTHS FOLLOWING THE ELECTION OF PREZ TRUMP, THE ZEAL OF PROTESTERS TO PARTICIPATE IN DEMOCRACY HAS ALL BUT EVAPORATED AND LOCAL CORPORATE CONSULTANTS ARE COUNTING ON LOW TURNOUT TO PUSH FORWARD HIGHER PROPERTY TAXES ON PO'FOLK!!!

Amid so many local post-election demonstrations against Prez Trump garnering thousands of protesters and hours of mainstream media coverage, the reality is that only a small fraction of those angry Kansas City residents will be voting in the upcoming election on April 4th.Turnout numbers in Missouri and KC proper suggest thatwill bother to cast their ballot a week from today.Before news of this low number was put on blast to campaigners, locals offered this encouraging word that hints at the desperate situation for local Democracy . . .To wit . . .Meanwhile, some really nice causes like the new doggie shelter or less stringent marijuana laws are in jeopardy of defeat despite grassroots support and simply because so many protesters show no indication of getting involved in politics at the city level.Legendary former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill once said thatand while this axiom has proven correct time and time again . . . It doesn't bode well for the promises of protesters to oppose the status quo which elected the widely unpopular but still reigning Prez Trump.You decide . . .
Butt dials, or pocket dials, are a fairly common occurrence in contemporary society. Youve probably done it yourself, and probably have received one. Most of the time these calls are harmless, and at most, its annoying. However, it doesnt always go that way. Some people have made butt dials that caused serious problems.

10. David Grimsby and Robert Bourne

In December 2016, the Danville, Kentucky 911 dispatch got a phone call. When they asked what type of help the caller needed, no one responded. Instead, the dispatcher heard two men going over the logistics of robbing a local barbecue restaurant.

The dispatcher let an officer know and he told the chief of police, who was dining in the BBQ restaurant when the butt dial came in. They were able to triangulate the position of the car and found David Grimsby and Robert Bourne in a car in the parking lot of the restaurant. They were arrested, and luckily for them, they were released after being charged with only public intoxication.

9. Papa Johns Employee

In May 2013, an unnamed Papa Johns delivery driver in Sanford, Florida, delivered a pizza totaling $15.26, which included a delivery charge. The African-American customer gave the driver a 21 percent tip, which is pretty generous to give a guy who just drove a few miles and walked a pizza to a door.

After dropping off the pizza and returning to work, the delivery drivers phone dialed the last number called, which happened to be the customer. The call went to voicemail, and when the customer listened to the voicemail, he was justifiably appalled.

On the voicemail, you can hear a coworker asking if the driver got a tip, and there are a few ways he could have gone with this. For example, he could have just been honest and said yes, or he could have just told his coworker to mind his own business. Instead, the driver chose to use the customers generosity as a way to be incredibly racist. On the voicemail, in a mocking tone, he says, I guess thats one of the requirements of being a n***** in Sanford. They gave me five bucks. Theyre fine, outstanding gentlemen of the African-American community.

After needlessly insulting the customer  for giving a generous tip, we might add  the driver then goes on to keep using the N-word multiple times and even sings two songs that only used the N-word and swear words, while his coworker laughs.

The customer posted the video on YouTube and WorldStarHipHop, leading to the driver being fired. The CEO of Papa Johns even heard about the incident and responded to it, saying the behavior and the language was unacceptable.

8. Donna Knope, Jason Knope, and Thomas Stallings

If youve seen Breaking Bad, you know that where you set up your methamphetamine laboratory is really important. Secondly, you have to do everything possible to avoid drawing attention to it, and definitely do not do anything to lead the police there.

Three people who didnt follow those simple, basic rules were Donna Knope, 55; her son, Jason Knope, 32; and Thomas Stallings, 41, all of Orlando, Florida. One of these wannabe-Heisenbergs somehow managed to pocket dial 911, and over the next half hour, while the dispatcher listened to the call and traced it, the trio talked about cooking and selling meth. The dispatcher could also hear bubbling in the background.

When the police went to the location of the call, they found the trio in a shed behind the Knopes house cooking meth, and all three were arrested on drug charges. Amateurs. Walter White had two cell phones and a DEA agent in his contact list and this was never a problem for him!

7. John Elias Taylor III

In June 2016, an unidentified woman dropped off her son at the home of 27-year-old John Elias Taylor III in DIberville, Mississippi so that Taylor could babysit the boy. A short time later, the mother received a horrifying call from Taylors cell phone. It was a pocket dial, but the mother could hear her son begging not to be whipped any more. The mother called the police, who went to the house and discovered bruising on the child that shouldnt have been there. Taylor was arrested and charged with felony child abuse.

So, let that be a lesson: if youre going to beat children, dont keep your cell phone on you. Just kidding, please dont beat any children.

6. Unidentified Teacher in Winnetka, Illinois

Winnetka is a small, upscale village thats located 16 miles north of downtown Chicago. Its one of the richest towns in the United States, notable for being home to the house in Home Alone. Needless to say, its a place where crime is pretty rare (unless the Wet Bandits are on the loose again), but the town got quite a scare in January 2011, when the wife of a middle school teacher got a phone call from her husbands cell phone. He was supposed to be on his way home, and she heard what sounded like a struggle and a man threatening him, so she called 911.

Thirty police officers went to the school and surrounded it for the next three hours. While local residents watched on, the officers swept the school looking for the teacher and the man that was threatening him.

As you probably gathered, the teacher was not in any danger. Fortunately, it was just a butt dial. The threatening voice she heard was simply some hip hop music that the teacher was listening to while he drove home. Damn that insufferable noise they call music!

There were no charges, because there was no intent to deceive the police. In fact, the police said they were thankful they got some training in the field.

5. Jamie Sniffen, Allen Slavin, and Larry Graff

One night in February 2013, 39-year-old Jamie Sniffen of Cortland, New York, left the home she shared with her live-in boyfriend, Allen Slavin, while he was asleep. She was headed to meet up with her lover, Larry Graff. After taking the taxi over to Graffs house, Sniffen sat on her phone and accidentally called her sleeping boyfriend.

Oops!

He was awoken by the call and according to Sniffen, Slavin heard everything. Slavin figured out that Sniffen was at Graffs house. Graff and Slavin were friends, and he took a taxi over.

Once there, Sniffen let her boyfriend into her lovers house and admitted to the affair. However, Graff kept denying it, and this only got Slavin angry, so the two men argued. The fighting riled up Graffs pit bull, so Slavin grabbed a knife and a pellet gun to defend himself. Sniffen put the dog in a bedroom, while Slavin and Graff continued to argue.

Things got violent when Graff picked up a 3-foot speaker and hit Slavin with it. This caused Slavin to accidentally cut his wrist with a knife, so he whacked Graff several times with the pellet gun.

After the melee, Sniffen and Slavin left the house and went back home. However, several hours later Graff called 911 and was taken to the hospital, where he underwent surgery for a punctured liver. The police arrested Sniffen for hitting Graff, and Slavin was arrested for misdemeanor hindering prosecution for cleaning up the blood from the cut wrist. Sniffen was amazed that Graff was hurt that bad, saying of her rotund lover, I dont understand how that could happen because Larry is huge. Hes like 600 pounds.

4. Larry Barnett

In 2013, Jonesboro, Arkansas used car lot owner Larry Barnett was being investigated by the police and the Secret Service for defrauding a bank out of $80,000.

In May of that year, a former employee of Barnetts came into the police station because of a disturbing butt dial he had received. The call was from Barnett, and he was talking to a hitman he had hired to kill the employee that he was calling. Barnett said he wanted the death to look like an accident and said, I dont care if you have to burn his house to the ground with him in it.

After the man filed the report with the police, he went home and he found evidence of a break in. Someone had tampered with his gas stove, so apparently this particular hitman was open to Barnetts ideas. Barnett was arrested for conspiracy to commit murder and two felony counts of forgery.

3. Scott Simon, Michael Depre and Ronel Desinor

In the early morning hours of May 5, 2013, 27-year-old Scott Simon and 33-year-old Nicholas Walker got into an argument at a Waffle House in Orlando, Florida. May 5 was a Sunday, and since it was early morning, well let you guess what the men had been doing before they got to the Waffle House.

The argument between the two men escalated, and Simon grabbed a fire extinguisher while Walker grabbed a wet floor sign. During the confrontation, Simons girlfriend dialed 911 and it connected, but she hung up because neither men threw a punch. However, when she put the phone in her purse, it reconnected to 911. The operator listened to the open line and recorded Simon talking about how he was going to kill Walker, saying Im about that s***.

Minutes after leaving the Waffle House, Simons friend, Michael Depre arrived with Ronel Desinor in the passenger seat. They followed Walker as he drove away from the Waffle House. When they pulled up beside his car, they opened fire, and Walker was killed. So apparently, Simon really was about that s***.

The 911 purse dial led back to the three men. They were arrested, convicted, and each were given life sentences.

2. Li Xiangnan

Li Xiangnan met a young woman named Shao Tong in 2011, when they were both taking a preparatory class for Test of English as a Foreign Language in Beijing. Xiangnan was already at the Rochester Institute of Technology, but when Tong got accepted to Iowa State University, Xiangnan transferred to the University of Iowa, which was about 140 miles away in Iowa City.

In summer of 2013, Xiangnan moved into Tongs dorm room, but by the end of the summer things were getting rocky. On September 3, Tong accidentally pocket dialed Xiangnan and while Xiangnan listened in, Tong bad mouthed him to another guy without realizing he could hear the entire conversation.

Obviously, Xiangnan was upset by this. Who wouldnt be? But instead of eating ice cream and listening to The Cure over and over again, like a normal heartbroken person, Xiangnan strangled the 20-year-old woman and stuffed her body in the trunk of her car. After killing her, Xiangnan bought a one way ticket to China and flew home. Tongs body wouldnt be found until several weeks later.

Back in China, Xiangnan was arrested and tried for the murder, making it a very rare cooperation between Chinese and American law enforcement agencies. He pleaded guilty and he was sentenced to life in prison, which could be reduced to 13 years.

1. Jason Bohn

On June 26, 2012, the battered dead body of 27-year-old Danielle Thomas was found in a bathtub full of ice in her apartment in Astoria, New York. She had died of blunt force trauma and strangulation. At the scene, there was a note from her boyfriend, 34-year-old Jason Bohn. He said that he came home drunk, they got into a fight, and he didnt remember what happened after that.

He turned himself in after a few days on the run, and when he talked to the police, he said that the murder was an accident. When he went to trial, his lawyers argued that since Thomas death was an accident, Bohn should only be guilty of manslaughter and not first degree murder. Except, there was one problem with his story: one of their cell phones (the police didnt say if it belonged to Bohn or Thomas) pocket dialed, leaving one of their friends a voicemail recording of the murder.

On the voicemail, Bohn demands to know why Thomas called a certain area code. When she gives him an answer that he doesnt like, he attacks her, and you can hear her getting punched and choked. When Bohn tells her to answer the question, he says this is your life. And Thomas responds, I know. Thomas begs for her life, but Bohn strangled her and said, Danielle, you dont have a lot of time.

The haunting voicemail was played in court and clearly showed that Thomas death was not an accident. Bohn was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole.

Robert Grimminck is a Canadian freelance writer. You can friend him on Facebook, follow him on Twitter, follow him on Pinterest or visit his website, or his true crime YouTube channel.

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The former editor in chief of the English version of Turkish Zaman newspaper, Abdullah Bozkurt posted a tweet on his account warning of increased clandestine operations of Turkish intelligence agents in Greece. The journalist, who was accused by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of having close ties with exiled religious leader Fetullah Gulen who was blamed for the failed 2016 military coup, cited sources in his tweet that the number of operatives in Greece had escalated while wondering whether something was being plotted by the Turkish government against Greece.

Meanwhile, Athens correspondent for British Guardian, Helena Smith reported that tensions between Ankara and Athens were on the rise in the wake of the Turkish referendum. The animus  reinforced last week when the leader said he would continue labelling European politicians Nazis if they continued calling him a dictator  has also animated tensions between Greece and Turkey, and Erdogans comments came hours after the Greek defence minister said armed forces were ready to respond in the event of the countrys sovereignty and territorial integrity being threatened.

The Greek armed forces are ready to answer any provocation, Panos Kammenos declared at a military parade marking the 196th anniversary of Greeces war of liberation against Ottoman Turkish rule. We are ready because that is how we defend peace, reported the British journalist. The report continued by recounting the stages that have led to the steady escalations in relations between the two countries and the possibility of a military accident in the Aegean Sea.

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Greeces corruption prosecutors on Monday sent the case file on their investigation into allegations of wrongdoing in the sale of the Henry Dunant Hospital Centre to Parliament, asking MPs to decide whether former ministers in the New Democracy-PASOK coalition governments should be charged in connection with the case.

The prosecutors launched their investigation in response to claims by the hospitals former director Andreas Martinis that there had been orchestrated business-political actions that led to the hospitals sale at an excessively low price.

Martinis made the allegations last November to the prosecutors in Korydallos prison, while himself jailed on remand on charges of financial wrongdoing at the hospitals expense. The prison prosecutors then alerted the prosecuting authorities for corruption cases.

According to Martinis, former ministers Adonis Georgiadis, Costis Hatzidakis, Panagiotis Mitarakis, Andreas Lykourentzos and Mavroudis Voridis all contributed so that the hospital was sold for a song in a 2014 auction, to a company belonging to the Piraeus Bank group. He also named the current head of the Piraeus Bank group and the late businessman Andreas Vgenopoulos as being involved in arranging the sale.

The investigation was launched by the chief prosecutor for corruption cases Eleni Raikou, who resigned over the weekend, and was assigned to the prosecutor Antonis Eleftherianos. Investigation bystopped, however, since the allegations involve possible criminal actions by former ministers and these must be judged by Parliament, under current legislation.

The case file was forwarded to Parliament on Monday by Justice Minister Stavros Kontonis.

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New Delhi, Mar 28 (IBNS): In the presence of Sumitra Mahajan, Speaker, Lok Sabha and Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, Extension of Train No 19653 / 19654 Ajmer Ratlam Express up to Indore via newly constructed Broad Gauge Q-Track was flagged off through Video Conferencing from Rail Bhavan, New Delhi on Tuesday.

Speaking on the occasion Speaker, Loksabha Sumitra Mahajan, said that, Todays train extension shall be beneficial to everyone in Madhya Pradesh area. Under the leadership of Shri Suresh Prabhu most of the demands regarding Rail connectivity in Indore region have already been fulfilled and the area does not have any more demands. Indore Dahod track work is in progress. Railway connectivity with the Industrial township of Pithampur has been accomplished and container services has also started. Mhow station development is ensured. Army has given land for it. Madhya Pradesh won't lag behind in the process of growth. I appreciate the leadership of Shri Suresh Prabhu ji under which the difficult work of making tunnel in Jammu Kashmir area was completed."

Speaking on the occasion Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu said that It is evident that people want Railway connectivity in their areas. Today, on the occasion of Hindu New Year and Gudi Padwa, it is a favorable beginning for the people of Indore and Madhya Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh is an important State for us. People of Madhya Pradesh have always given representation for better Rail Connectivity. Allocation to Madhya Pradesh has been raised to Rs. 2871 Crore in the last 2 years from Rs. 632 Crore in the previous year which is increase of 354%. In 2017-18 Rail Budget allocation, it is further raised to 750% more. Funds are no more impediment in the process of Growth. Gauge conversion, doubling and tripling projects have gathered pace in Madhya Pradesh. Projects of 56,547 Crores are being implemented. 7 new surveys are conducted and have been sanctioned. Gauge conversion from Chittorgarh, Ratlam, Indore work has been completed. Indian Railways and Madhya Pradesh Government will soon form Joint Venture Company. State Government has given assent. Next Year on Gudi Padwa, it shall be done.
Two guns, a hunting rifle and thirty cartridges were discovered by police inside a village mosque in Xanthi, northeastern Greece, on Tuesday, after a tip-off received by authorities. The mosques imam was arrested for possession of weapons and is being interrogated about the case.

Police raided the mosque located in the village of Iliopetra accompanied by a prosecutor and found a .22 pistol, a .38 pistol with a silencer, a Flobert hunting rifle and the ammunition. All the findings were sent to the Forensic Services laboratories in Athens.

According to reliable sources, the Turkish general consul in Komitini and the unofficial religious authority in Xanthi to which the imam belongs to agreed to leak to the controlled Turkish-language press of the region that this is a conspiracy involving Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulens organization FETO.

The same sources said the media make an explicit reference to companies owned by Gulen in Thrace which shows an attempt to export a Turkish problem to Greece, firstly because of the Turkish referendum and secondly because the findings put them at an extremely unfavorable position.

Greek officials have repeatedly stated they Turkey will not be allowed to export its domestic problems to Greece.

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The recent investments by COSCO in Piraeus and the importance of the port in the marine Silk Route will lead to a new round of investments

Chinese companies that have invested in Greece had the opportunity to present their activities, their plans for the future and ask specific questions concerning their current and future activities during a meeting between their representatives and the Deputy Economy Minister Stergios Pitsiorlas on Monday.

Pitsiorlas said the recent investments by COSCO in Piraeus and the importance of the port in the marine Silk Route will lead to a new round of investments in the economy, cruise, light manufacturing, ship repairing, international distribution and transport and tourism.

He also said the ministry aims to create a permanent communication platform to connect Greek authorities with the Chinese companies already active in the country to facilitate their operation and support new investment initiatives.

The Chinese companies that participated through their representatives at the meeting were China New Era Group, PCT, Air China, Huawei, ZTE, China Development Bank, China Three Gorges Corporation, Cosco Shipping, China Shipbuilding and Offshore International Co. Greece, CCS Greece, Avic Ship Greece  Rongfeng Holding Group.

It was organized jointly by the ministry of economy, Enterprise Greece, the Trade Office of the Chinese embassy in Greece and the Chinese Union of Businesses in Greece. Chinas Ambassador to Greece Zou Xiaoli participated in the meeting.

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Among the many theories about which civilization first sailed to the Americas and discovered them, there is also the theory that the ancient Phoenicians were the first.

This theory became popular in the 18th century and is closely connected with the petroglyphs on Dighton Rock which are still of unknown origin. This theory is not quite as popular as the one that says that the Norse made the discovery first, but still, it is worth mentioning.

Back in the 18th century, a lot of scholars started to offer ideas about the true origin of the inscriptions on the rock. Ezra Stiles, a theologian, author, and also the seventh President of Yale College, claimed that the inscriptions are in Hebrew. Antoine Court de Gebelin, who is mainly known for the popularization of the Tarot, had his own idea about the rock. He believed that the inscription was made by Carthaginian sailors who commemorated their journey to the shores of Massachusetts.

In the 19th century, the theory that a group of Israelite people visited the New World was widely adopted in the Mormon community.

Later, Ross T. Christensen, an American archeologist, speculated that the Mulekites, who are mentioned in the Book of Mormon, were probably of Phoenician ethnic origin.

Stone tablet with inscription

The Phoenician theory is also supported in a book written in 1871, by John Denison Baldwin, an American anthropologist. In Ancient America, Baldwin wrote,

The known enterprise of the Phoenician race, and this ancient knowledge of America, so variously expressed, strongly encourage the hypothesis that the people called Phoenicians came to this continent, established colonies in the region where ruined cities are found, and filled it with civilized life. It is argued that they made voyages on the great exterior ocean, and that such navigators must have crossed the Atlantic; and it is added that symbolic devices similar to those of the Phoenicians are found in the American ruins, and that an old tradition of the native Mexicans and Central Americans described the first civilizers as bearded white men, who came from the East in ships.

A stone tablet with an inscription that was supposed to be of Phoenician origin appeared in Brazil in the 1870s. The tablet was given to Ladislau de Souza Mello Netto, who was the director of the National Museum of Brazil at that time, and he immediately acknowledged the artifact as genuine. The inscription allegedly told the story of some Sidonian Canaanites who visited the shore of Brazil. It was later discovered that the symbols that appear on the tablet were variations of letters that appeared in different periods over a span of 800 years. It was impossible for all the letters to appear on the same tablet at the same time, so the artifact and the inscription were dismissed as fake.

In the 20th century, a few new artifacts appeared that again spiked the theory of Phoenician or Semitic discovery. One of these artifacts was the Bat Creek inscription. Cyrus Herzl Gordon, Near Eastern cultures and ancient languages expert, believed that the inscription of this tablet was in Paleo-Hebrew. Gordon thought that this was proof that Semitic people visited the continent prior to Columbus. Later, the Bat Creek inscription, together with another artifact called the Las Lunas Decalogue Stone, were proven to be forgeries and Gordons claim was dismissed.

Phoenician sailors visited the Americas

In 1996, Mark McMenamin, an American paleontologist, speculated that Phoenician sailors visited the Americas around 350 BC. He based his theory on some gold stater coins that were allegedly made by the state of Carthage. On the back of the coins was a map of the Mediterranean and another land on the west, across the Atlantic. McMenamin interpreted that land as the Americas but later discovered that those coins were actually a modern forgery.

Another form of written evidence that slightly goes in favor of the arrival of Phoenicians in the Americas can be found in Ptolemys Geography. Lucio Russo, an Italian physicist, mathematician, and historian of science, analyzed Ptolemys book and noticed that he gives the coordinates of the Fortunate Isles.

The fortunate Islands were a group of legendary islands mentioned by various ancient Greek writers. Russo also noticed that the size of the world in Ptolemys Geography is smaller than what Eratosthenes measured. After he gave the same coordinates of the Fortunate Islands to the Antilles, the map irregularities in Ptolemys descriptions disappeared. According to Russo, Ptolemy could have known about the Antilles from his source, Hipparcos, who lived in Rhodes. It is possible that Hipparcos heard about the Antilles from Phoenicians sailors who controlled the western Mediterranean in those days. This is a far-fetched idea, but still, an interesting one.

Modern-day scholars

Most of the modern-day scholars deny the idea that Phoenicians, Canaanites, or Carthaginians discovered the Americas first.

Ronald H. Fritze, an American historian, says that although it was technically possible for those people to reach the Americas, it probably never happened:

No archaeological evidence has yet been discovered to prove the contentions of Irwin, Gordon, Bailey, Fell and others. Since even the fleeting Norse presence in Vinland left definite archaeological remains at LAnse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, it seems logical that the allegedly more extensive Phoenician and Carthaginian presence would have left similar evidence. The absence of such remains is strong circumstantial evidence that the Phoenicians and Carthaginians never reached the Americas.

Until some concrete evidence appears, this theory will remain only a fantasy.

Source:thevintagenews.com

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Pakistan has announced plans to secure their nation from terrorist attacks by building border fences in some high threat zones. The fence will go along parts of the Afghan border where terrorists have incited cross-border attacks (the high threat zones), according to the Associated Press.

As with the majority of border-securing decisions, there exists controversy. Afghanistan refuses to allow the creation of the border fence, as the country has never recognized that particular border although it is internationally recognized, as a product of British colonialism in the 19th century, the AP reported. This section of the border permeates the Pashtun heartland, and the Pashtuns make up Afghanistans largest ethnic group.

According to an AFP report, the deputy spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, Najib Danish, denounced the border fence saying that, We have not seen any signs of building fences along the border. But it is not going to solve the terrorism problem. It is only going to divide the people and we will not allow it.

There is also tension with this subject as both Pakistan and Afghanistan accuse each other of housing terrorists.

The border fence construction announcement follows a string of recent terrorist attacks that have killed over 100 people in Pakistan  which the country declared was due to militants relocating into its vicinity, according to Time. And on the other side, Afghanistan has continuously condemned Pakistan for harboring Afghan Taliban fugitives and some of their allied Haqqani network  and the U.S. agrees with Afghanistan, Time explained.

Source:townhall.com

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Major players from some of the world's leading real estate destinations such as Portugal, Cyprus, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, US, UAE and China will be showcasing their projects at the upcoming International Property Show in Dubai.



A focused B2B and B2C platform with a global reach that explores new real estate destinations with investment opportunities, International Property Show will be held from April 2 to 4 at the Dubai World Trade Centre.



According to The Wealth Report, an annual publication by leading real estate expert Knight Frank, the chief Chinese city of Shanghai had experienced the biggest annual price hike for prime residential real estate.



Prices for prime properties in Shanghai jumped 27.4 per cent in 2016, solidifying its position as one of the top cities in the world, it stated.

Beijing saw the second-biggest increase, with price growth of 26.8 per cent, followed by Guangzhou, which experienced a 26.6 per cent gain, the report added.



China's real estate market has strengthened over the past year due to the growing economy and increased demand for housing. In addition, international investments are driving more money into the countrys real estate, remarked Dawood Al Shezawi, CEO, Strategic Marketing & Exhibitions, the event organiser.



The Los Angeles also ranked No.1 in North America in a survey of global real estate investors who have a combined total of $1.7 trillion to spend on property in 2017. Top choice cities for realty investment in other regions were London and Australia.



Dubai, he stated, has also proved to be an investor magnet ever since it opened its real estate sector to non-Gulf international investors.



"The emirate has not looked back from that point onwards and has maintained a commanding march in relation to business activity in its property market. Throughout 2016, investors belonging to India, UK and Pakistan topped the list of the biggest non-Gulf international investors in Dubais realty sector," he added.



With some of the worlds best realty destinations taking part in the International Property Show, it is an excellent opportunity for exhibitors to promote their existing and reveal their future projects, and for potential buyers to explore the best in properties, stated Shezawi.



Dubai yet remains the top favourite realty destination for investors across the globe. Its stable political conditions and steady economic growth has supported the property market encouraging investors to diversify their investments and distribute their capital into the flourishing market, he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Dubai-based Rental Solutions & Services (RSS), which provides power for construction sites and large infrastructure developments, has bought more than 300 JCB generators in a deal worth more than $11 million.



Generator manufacturer JCB Power Products said the order is the biggest yet for its newly-launched range of RS generators specifically designed and manufactured in the UK for the global rental sector.



The first five units have already been pressed into service in Oman supported by JCB dealer Muscat Overseas Group. They are being used by a global oil and gas company which needed urgent standby power to support their operations.



RSS operations director Garry McMahon said: "We have a choice of generator suppliers in the Middle East, but we chose JCB Power Products as its range is the best rental selection we have seen."



"The brand presence of JCB in our region also ensures that our customers know we are working with quality equipment and providing the best possible back-up," he stated.



JCB Power Products MD Jonathan Garnham expressed delight at winning its biggest export order of the year from one of the Middle Easts biggest providers of standby power.



"JCB Power Products launched its RS rental range just a year ago and it is proving extremely successful in a very competitive global market where JCB provides unrivalled service and support," he noted.



McMahon said RSS offers rental generators across the Middle East, providing power for construction sites, large infrastructure developments, and petrochemical facilities.



The company was established in 2007 as a global provider of rental power, temporary cooling and mobile water solutions.



According to him, the British-built generators will span from the smaller 60 kVA outputs to the maximum 500kVA  enough to power 15,000 homes.



They all feature JCBs market-leading LiveLink for Power telematics system, allowing customers to actively manage fleet utilisation, service scheduling and remotely diagnose faults and installation issues, stated McMahon.



The generators will be used across the Middle East including Oman, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar. They will be supported by JCBs extensive network of dealers in the Middle East.



JCB Power Products employs more than 200 people and has its headquarters in Stafford, UK as well as a production facility in Newtown, Wales and New Delhi (India).-TradeArabia News Service
Representatives of Rosatom, the atomic energy corporation in Russia, and Russian universities visited major universities of Egypt recently and discussed opportunities for cooperation and development of educational programmes.



The visit aimed at developing cooperation between Russian and Egyptian educational institutions, said a statement.



During its four-day trip, the Russian delegation visited Alexandria University, the Arab Academy of Science, Technology and Marine Transport, Cairo University, Ain Shams University, and Egyptian Russian University, it said.



The Russian delegation included representatives of National Research Nuclear University (MEPhi), Ural Federal University, National Research Moscow State Construction University (NRU MGRS), Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) and Pushkin State Russian Language Institute, it added.



Russian delegates held meetings with management and professors of Egyptian universities, learned about key educational programmes, visited laboratories and other university research facilities, and discussed future areas of the Egyptian-Russian cooperation.



The Russian delegation made a number of presentations in the Russian Centre for Culture and Science in Cairo.



The delegates spoke about approaches to human resources planning and development Rosatom offers to its partners, and opportunities Russian educational institutions can provide for future cooperation.



During the visit, Alexandria University and MEPhi signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) which open doors for future mutual nuclear research and development programmes.



The document also enables both universities to share infrastructure capabilities and R&D results and methodologies while promoting students exchange programmes.



The Russian delegation was led by Valery Karesin, director of educational programmes and international relations of Rosatom State Corporation, said: Our visit mainly aims at discussing opportunities for Egyptian engineering students to receive relevant education and training based on joint Egyptian-Russian programmes so that the graduates could seek employment with El-Dabaa NPP in the future.  TradeArabia News Service
Acwa Power has signed a power purchase agreement with National Electric Power Company (Nepco) for the development, funding, construction, ownership and operation of a new 61.3 MWp photovoltaic plant in the Risha province of Jordan.



With the Risha PV IPP, Acwa Powers portfolio in Jordan now expands to eight assets with an aggregate capacity of 1,665 MW representing almost 40 per cent of the total installed capacity of electricity in the kingdom, and also reinforcing Acwa Powers position as the country's largest IPP operator.



As per the agreement, Acwa Power will sell electricity to Nepco for a record-low tariff of JD42 fils per kWh, the lowest tariff for solar energy ever presented for a Jordan-based project, 3.3 per cent lower than the previous lowest tariff provided to Jordan with the Mafraq PV project (also developed by Acwa Power under the Round II of Proposals for Renewable Energy in Jordan).



The deal was signed as part of the official visit by King Salman to Jordan, during which the Saudi and Jordanian governments signed a number of agreements, Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) and joint investment deals.



This landmark project in Risha is a significant step forward in achieving Jordans renewable energy targets and providing stable and economical electricity supply in Jordan. Once completed in 2019, the plant will save 79.000 metric tons of CO2, demonstrating Jordans commitment to renewable energy, remarked Abdel Fattah Al Daradkeh, the managing director of Nepco.



Acwa Power chairman Mohammad Abunayyan said the kingdom has long recognised that renewable energy can offer safe, reliable power to the public.



"Together with our consortium, Acwa Power has facilitated the kingdoms latest investment by applying our cost leadership and renewables expertise to the Risha facility. Once complete, the project will deliver solar energy at the lowest possible cost to 12,000 households," he noted.



Thamer Al Sharhan, the chairman of Cegco, said: "Access to energy is a bedrock of sustainable economic development, and we are proud to partner with Jordan on its journey to, not only 1,000 MW of renewable energy, but to the kind of risk reductions, job creation, and improved trade balances that can accompany greater energy deployment."



"The new photovoltaic facility is part of the kingdoms determined effort to meet those needs head-on. Demand for electricity in Jordan is climbing at 7 per cent per year, due to the countrys population booms and mounting industrial needs," he noted.



Acwa Power will be developing the new clean energy plant besides the existing Cegco asset of the Risha 150 MW Gas Turbine Plant utilizing synergies from the existing plant to enhance efficiencies.-TradeArabia News Service
Kanoo Consulting Services (KCS), a Gold Partner of Oracle and a recipient of the Oracle Excellence Award, recently conducted a seminar on How Enterprises Can Monitor Database Activities, Block Threats, and Audit Efficiently.

The event at the Four Seasons Bahrain Bay Hotel was held in association with Oracle Corporation.



Cyber threats, privacy laws and regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) have resulted in information protection becoming a major issue for enterprises. Studies and surveys conducted by government and academic institutions have concluded that a sizeable percentage of data breaches have been perpetrated using SQL injections, stolen credentials or by insiders who have authorised access to a system and its data. Securing data on servers requires an in-depth defensive approach involving both technical and administrative functions that span preventive, detective, and administrative controls, the company said.



Oracle Audit Vault and Database Firewall provide a first line of defence for databases and consolidate audit data from databases, operating systems, and directories. Database activity data from the network is combined with detailed audit data for easy compliance reporting and alerting. With Oracle Audit Vault and Database Firewall, auditing and monitoring controls can be easily tailored to meet enterprise security requirements, it said.



Oracle Audit Vault and Database Firewall transparently detect and block SQL injection attacks, privilege escalation, and other threats against Oracle, Microsoft SQL servers, IBM DB2, SAP Sybase, and MySQL databases. They also automatically detect unauthorised database activities that violate security policies, and thwart perpetrators from covering their tracks. They allow users to easily analyse audit and event data, and take action in a timely manner.



To address the requirement of owners and senior management teams for crisp reporting, KCS showcased its Business Intelligence solution built on the Oracle Data Visualisation platform covering supply chain, manufacturing, finance, human resources and CRM verticals.



KCS director Jawed Akhtar said: With the evolution of enterprise resource planning (ERP), there is an impending need to collate and report information at a macro level with an option to drill into micro details.



KCS provides niche and unmatched excellence in helping enterprises create and deliver engaging user experiences on secure platforms, for any application or device, and around any data or systems.  TradeArabia News Service


Bahrain-based Batelco, a major player in the regional telecommunications industry, recently completed an initiative aimed at enhancing its presence in Saudi Arabia.

The enhancement project includes the deployment of four new Point of Presence (PoPs) in Saudi Arabia with each PoP connected through a different cable system to Batelcos diverse global network, thus ensuring maximum diversity and resiliency for customers.

Batelco Bahrain CEO Eng Muna Al Hashemi said Batelcos expansion projects are designed to support the growth of the companys global business while ensuring network diversity, avoiding single points of failure, providing better country resilience and efficient use of international capacities.

The Saudi Arabian market is among the fastest growing in the region and our new setup will ensure that enterprise customers in Saudi and international carriers will benefit from a reliable end-to-end service offering, she said.

Batelco chief global business officer Adel Al Daylami explained that Batelco today has more than 26 PoPs deployed around the globe with a focus on the Mena region and with Saudi Arabia being the heart of the region it requires unique attention, as it is such a vital part of the overall network.

Batelcos PoPs are distributed around the globe and connected through different cable systems to the network to avoid a single point of failure. Additionally, our core PoPs are distributed over redundant geographical zones in the region, so even if a whole country is down, our network continues to provide the service to our clients, Al Daylami said.

Furthermore, with this enhancement, we are pleased to announce that our Global Ethernet services are positioned in a much better way considering the robust topology deployed in Saudi Arabia, hence passing the value of such initiatives to our end customers, Al Daylami added.



Our global expansion projects allow us to offer a superior customer experience to more businesses in Saudi Arabia and around the world thanks to our high quality resilient global network. Our delivery is further enhanced through our strengths in project management, continuous service monitoring through our advanced tools and after-sales support, Al Daylami concluded.  TradeArabia News Service
Kolkata, Mar 28 (IBNS): Leader of West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and former cabinet minister Madan Mitra was injured in an elevator crash in north Kolkata on Tuesday evening, reports said.

According to reports, Madan Mitra went to Kolkata Metro Railway's office at Shyambazar area and when he was getting down from the building, his elevator had started malfunctioning.

Minutes later, the elevator, carrying Madan Mitra, went to a free-fall and plummeted to the ground floor.

Following the incident, Kolkata Metro officers, police force and fire and emergency services officials rushed to the spot and Mitra was rescued from the crashed elevator nearly after an hour.

He was taken to Sagar Dutta Hospital nearby, where he is being treated in a stable condition, according to medical reports.

Describing the incident, Madan Mitra told IBNS, "I went to Metro's office at Shyambazar to hold campaign for Kolkata Metro's workers' organization election and when I was coming down from the building's fifth floor, elevator had started malfunctioning and it crashed to the ground floor."

"Nobody is responsible for this incident and I want to thank god that I've survived the major elevator collapse. I've got an injury in my waist due to the accident and I'm currently under treatment at Sagar Dutta Hospital," Mitra added.

However, after preliminary inquiry, police officials said that cables of the lift suddenly detached due to technical error which might have led to the elevator free-fall.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)


Accenture, the global professional services company, has successfully completed the core system replacement of the retail banking operations at Saudi Arabia's National Commercial Bank (NCB).



The highly complex project, which took approximately two years to complete, was part of NCBs NextGen programme, which was also undertaken with Accenture, said a statement.



The implementation of the project marks significant successes and achievements across various fields within the business. The improved platform provides clients with a distinct banking experience, enriched with additional features and a 50 per cent reduction in turnaround time for key processes, it said.



The platform, which will be deployed across NCBs network of 374 branches throughout the country, plays a pivotal role in the core banking systems data-driven transformation. The Accenture team, which supported NCB from the outset, was responsible for strategic program management, core system transformation and change enablement. Commencing with a team of five, the project later expanded in scope to include 25 members from 18 countries at its peak.



NCBs in-house team ensured that the implementation, training, and maneuvering of the new systems were in line with their unique requirements. The key success factors included direct top management involvement, quick strategic decision-making processes, setup of a dedicated transformation team, and a significant time commitment from the business and IT teams.



Speaking on the importance of digital transformation for the banks commitment to enhancing customer service excellence, Firas Al Turki, head of Shared Services Group at NCB, said: Launching this project will further enhance the digital development of our financial and banking operations and help expand NCBs base in Saudi Arabia to become the leading digital bank with outstanding customer service. It also reinforces the banks efforts to develop its digital infrastructure by providing the best banking standards that reflect positively on the customers experience.



Omar Boulos, regional managing director of Accenture in the Middle East and North Africa, said: Working closely with NCB, we were able to achieve several key milestones and replace the core banking system in a relatively quick timeframe. We are proud to see our efforts culminate in a grand-scale transformation and are pleased that NCB will capitalize on this success to speed up processes and increase efficiencies.



Amr El Saadani, managing director and financial services lead at Accenture in the Middle East and North Africa, said: We are delighted to see the results of our joint work and are keen to continue our partnership with NCB. This project will set a benchmark for similar programs in the region, and we look forward to wider collaborations of this nature across sectors. - TradeArabia News Service
This year, Riyadh Travel Fair - the largest travel and tourism exhibition in Saudi Arabia - will be highlighting youth travel options as it eyes the growing millennial traveller population.



Exhibitors at the event, which runs from Aptil 7-10 at the Al Faisaliah Hotel in Riyadh, will be presenting digital innovations such as Virtual Reality (VR) goggles, information on new youth travel destinations, events and festivals.



More than 50 per cent of the population in the Middle East is between 18 and 34 years of age and surrounded by hi-tech gadgets. For 40 per cent of GCC travellers of all ages, social media is their inspiration when planning a trip and travel queries from the Mena region have grown 33 per cent in the last year. According to YouTube, there are over 310 million video views each day in the region and travel queries on YouTube had grown 22 per cent year on year by December 2014. In Saudi Arabia, 81 per cent of leisure travellers report having watched an online video to decide on a destination.



Capturing the millennial market has been on destinations and hoteliers agenda for a while now, and lifestyle-branded properties are springing up on every corner of the world.



Ferghal Purcell, COO, HMH  Hospitality Management Holding, said: As young affluent travellers are migrating to new channels for travel planning, hoteliers too are making an effort to step up their game by being visible on multiple channels including meta-search for improved online bookings. At HMH we are geared in terms of technology with mobile optimised website and dynamic marketing and pricing strategy.



Also commenting, Edwin Fuller, president and CEO  Orange County Visitors Association, said: We see an increase of young middle class visitors from the Middle East. They are spending time exploring destinations not previously visited such as Southern California. The visitors are seeking opportunities to explore and enjoy the destinations of their choice they enjoy becoming part of their community enjoying the facilities, attractions, environment and weather. We are seeing an increase of multiple visits during a year and not just the summer. Orange County California is the most single visited destination in California and the West Coast with over 4 million international guests in 2015.



Due to rapid increase of social media usage, these hashtaggers value authenticity, international standards, the most seamless technological connectivity, combined with a personal touch while choosing brands that can stand them out from the crowd.



Sheikh Imran Hafeez, director of Sales and Marketing, said: We understand that young travellers, the never-ending explorers, eager for knowledge, prefers to travel to have unique experiences and to interact with local culture. Riyadh Travel Fair 2017 will showcase the potential of young traveller tourism along with its plethora of activities and experience offerings from various destinations from around the world.



This year the Riyadh Travel Fair (RTF) will open its doors for ninth consecutive year. The four day event will become the focus of business networking opportunities, insightful seminar sessions, ministerial discussions and recognition of twelve months of the tourism industrys achievements.



Riyadh Travel Fair is organized by ASAS Exhibition and Conference Organizing Company and is supported by the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority as a Strategic Partner. - TradeArabia News Service
The Middle East is the fastest growing inbound market for Germany in the world with numbers forecast to grow by more than 200 per cent by 2030, increasing to 3.6 million visitors annually.

Since 1993, the number of overnight foreign visitors to Germany has increased by 45 million and in 2015, of the 78.1 million visitors to the country, 19.1 million arrived from outside of Europe. The volume of total overnight stays between 2006 and 2015 increased 229 per cent, with a growth of 17.7 per cent specifically between 2014 and 2015. It is forecast 3.6 million overnight stays could be recorded annually by visitors from the GCC by 2030.



Munich is the preferred German destination for travellers from the GCC, with over 591,000 overnight stays recorded in 2015 and an average length of stay of 12 days.



The historic Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich is to spend over 12 million ($13 million) on a renovation project aimed at attracting more GCC visitors.



The multi award-winning hotel, which marks its 178th anniversary this year, has been conducting roadshows in the UAE, in conjunction with officials from Munich Airport, meeting with UAE government officials and preferred travel trade partners.



Innegrit Volkhardt, owner and general manager, said: As we approach a new era in Munichs reputation as an outstanding destination for international luxury leisure and business travellers, we look forward to working with our GCC trade partners to share the exciting developments we are undertaking here at Bayerischer Hof.



The UAE alone generates as much as 5 per cent of our total room bookings and with projections for a steep increase in the number of luxury leisure and business travellers arriving in Germany from the GCC, the hotel is now preparing to capitalise further still on our popularity, added Volkhardt.



Already a favourite with celebrities, heads of state, business leaders and luxury tourists, the renovation and modernisation project includes the construction of the Vervoordt Wing, designed by Belgian art dealer Axel Vervoordt, and the addition of a state-of-the-art penthouse suite, which will occupy the whole of the additional eighth floor, encompassing its very own spa.



In addition to our 340 rooms, including 65 suites, with the GCC guest in mind we also offer Arabic-speaking guest relations, a prayer room, the Royal Palais Suite and an Arabic chef. We will create a natural balance that blends style and luxury with history and heritage, something we know from experience that GCC visitors admire, Volkhardt said.



Although a top global destination for business travellers, Germanys inbound GCC tourism market is dominated by young travellers and leisure guests. According to statistics from the German National Tourist Office, 47 per cent of GCC visitors to Germany are aged 15 to 34 and 50 per cent aged 35 to 54 with 69 per cent of Gulf arrivals in 2014 leisure travellers and 24 per cent visiting on business, spending an average of 367 ($398) per day.



Corinna Born, director international media relations, Munich Airport, which celebrates its 25th anniversary on May 17 this year, revealed Dubai is the airports busiest intercontinental route with over 740,000 passengers flying between the two cities in 2016. She said: Our new summer timetable offers 250,000 flights to 238 destinations in 68 countries, while Munich Airport welcomes 78 weekly flights from major Middle East cities, with Emirates alone flying three times a day between Dubai and Munich.



The involvement of Germanys most opulent and unique hotels, such as Bayerischer Hof, provides a further attraction for Middle East visitors and we are delighted to be working together to raise the profile of the hotel to our partners in the GCC, she added.



Munich Airport is the only five-star airport in Europe and was awarded the title of Best Airport in Europe 2017 for the tenth time in 12 years by London-based Skytrax Institute. Within Europe, the airport serves 173 cities, more destinations than any other European airport.



Born added: Being honoured as the only five-star airport in Europe is a thrilling accolade for our service and high-quality passenger service we provide.



Owned and operated by the Volkhardt family since 1897, Bayerischer Hof is part of Munichs history and is an important landmark in the city. It is located on the Promenadeplatz in a stunning building  which was once the largest hotel in Europe designed by architect Friedrich von Gartner, under commission from King Ludwig I. - TradeArabia News Service
Qatar Airways is looking to accelerate its push into India and also expand its destination network in the UK as the airline plans to order 100 new jetliners before the end of this year, said a report.



The move comes following a new aviation policy mapped out by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi which will permit 100 per cent foreign ownership of a domestic airline, Bloomberg reported.



The Gulf carrier is currently in talks with lawyers in India to formally establish a new airline in the subcontinent, and will release tenders for the aircraft soon.



Looking at the UK, the carrier plans to add two new routes. The carrier already offers 72 weekly services to the UK, where it serves Londons Heathrow hub as well as Manchester and Birmingham in England and Edinburgh in Scotland.
Oman Air today commenced its service to Nairobi, with a four times weekly flight from Muscat to the Kenyan capital.



Saeed Bin Hamdoon Al Harthy, undersecretary at the Ministry of Transport and Communication for Ports and Maritime Affairs joined the Deputy CEO and Chief Commercial Officer of Oman Air, Abdulrahman Al Busaidy and other dignitaries in a cake cutting ceremony at Muscat International Airport, to celebrate the inaugural flight.



The five-hour flight operated by a Boeing 737-800 departs Muscat at 1450 and arrives in Nairobi at 1855, leaving on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. From Nairobi, the flights will depart on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, leaving at 0045 and arriving in Muscat at 0650.



The new Oman Air route to the Kenyan capital Nairobi is a significant development for both countries. Trade between Kenya and Oman has been growing steadily over the years and the new flight will facilitate the increase in bilateral trade and investment opportunities.



Oman Airs recent expansion has included the delivery of new aircraft and the introduction of a range of exciting new destinations, new products and services which contribute to a seamless passenger experience. The airline continues to be recognised for its award winning on board experience; winning a raft of industry awards in 2016 to add to its growing collection.



The introduction of the new route to Nairobi consolidates Oman Airs position in 2017 as the airline continues its progress to becoming a successful, sustainable company. - TradeArabia News Service


Bahraini nationals traveling to Turkey in 2016 reached 41,505 tourists, according to new figures released by the Turkish Consulate General Cultural and Information Office in Dubai.



The figures show a 27 per cent increase in tourists travelling to Turkey from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries over the 2014-2016 time period.



This growth shows the Turkey is culturally and economically interesting for GCC travelers, said Salih Ozer, Attache of Culture and Information, Turkey to the UAE. Over the past year, we have conducted many workshops and seminars for our GCC travel agents to get them better acquainted with what Turkey has to offer the GCC traveller.



Turkey has strengthened its position as a top holiday destination for GCC nationals and residents. From January to December 2016 a total of 822,849 holiday makers from the GCC visited Turkeys many destinations.



We attach a great level of importance to these deepening relations between Turkey and the Gulf countries, continued Ozer. The Bahrain, in particular, continues to contribute heavily to Turkeys tourist numbers, and we have taken many steps to simplify GCC tourist access to Turkey by facilitating visas for them in a quicker fashion.



Turkey is one of the top tourism destinations in the world based on the number of tourists and revenues. Whether its nature and the outdoors, history and archeology or beaches and relaxation, travellers from everywhere in the GCC can find their unique experience in Turkey. From Istanbul to Pamukkale, Cappadocia and Bursa in the west, Trabzon and Ayder on the shores of the Black Sea, to Antalya, Bodrum and Maramis to the south the country, Turkeys unique offerings are unparalleled in the region.



The Turkish Culture and Tourism Office in Dubai, through its participation at the upcoming edition of the Arabian Travel Market, will highlight the nations tourism industry and will discuss in depth Turkeys response to the changing tourism and travel trends. - TradeArabia News Service
New Delhi, Mar 28 (IBNS): Noidaas Sector 63 witnessed protests on Tuesday after a Chinese national, who works for smartphone manufacturer Oppo, allegedly tore an Indian flag and threw it in a dustbin, media reports said.

A case has been registered by the police against the person.

The matter is being investigated by the police.

Senior superintendent of police, Gautam Budh Nagar, Dharmendra Singh was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times, A case of disrespecting the national flag has been filed on the basis of a complaint filed by the company employees. We have not arrested anyone in this connection and investigations are in progress. Action has to be taken after a thorough probe and we are in touch with company employees.

Oppo employees and Vishva Hindu Parishad members protested outside the office of the smartphone maker, reports said.

According to reports, police was deployed in the area to bring the situation under control.

Image: Wikimedia Commons
IRCTCOnline.in

Kolkata, Mar 28 (IBNS): Alleging that they were served rotten and unhealthy food for dinner last night, passengers of New Delhi to Sealdah bound Rajdhani Express (12314) demonstrated at Asansol station in Burdwan district of West Bengal and Sealdah station in Kolkata on Tuesday, reports said.



According to reports, staffers of the premier train's pantry car served dinner to its passengers at around 7:30 pm. on Monday, nearly one hour prior to the scheduled time.

Passengers of the train claimed that jeera rice and chicken curry, which was served for dinner by Rajdhani's catering unit, was completely rotten and bad smell was coming from it.

Few passengers of the elite train somehow tried to have the meal and they fell sick thereafter.

When the train reached Asansol station on Tuesday morning, passengers staged protest there and after arriving at Sealdah, they held demonstration in front of station manager's office.

Station manager of Sealdah, Ananda Bardhan, told IBNS that they are looking into the matter and appropriate action will be taken against the catering agency, if the allegation is proved to be true.

Meanwhile, Union Minister Babul Supriyo asserted that he would discuss the matter with Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on Tuesday evening.

"This allegation is not false. I faced the same thing while traveling in Rajdhani Express," Babul Supriyo told IBNS.

"I will surely discuss the matter with Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu and I want to say thanks to the agitators as their protest will help me in getting step from the Ministry of Railways," Supriyo added.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)
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Kolkata, Mar 28 (IBNS): Bharatiya Janata Party state President received a notice issued by Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee, for linking latter to a controversial businessman, K D Singh, on Tuesday.

At a press conference, Ghosh alleged that TMC MP from Rajya Sabha K D Singh, who runs a business organisation named Alchemist marred with various charges, has a family relation with Abhishek.

Abhishek, who is also a nephew of TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, issued a notice to BJP state President asking him to apologise within 72 hours or else he would file a case against him.

Ghosh however is reluctant to apologise and said that he is ready for any case against him.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, in an interview to a Bengali news channel, said that K D Singh may have a link to BJP.

Mamata even added that she has sent Singh to become a MP in RS from her party, since she thought him to be a clean imaged person after seeing some still pictures with former CM of WB Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 28

Two snatching incidents were reported in the city within half an hour this evening.

According to sources, two pedestrians fled after snatching a cellphone from Sonu, a resident of Burail. An investigation has been initiated at the Sector 34 police station.In another incident, two Activa-borne miscreants sped away after snatching the purse from a woman at Modern Housing Complex, Mani Majra. The police have initiated a probe.
Akash Ghai

Tribune News Service

Mohali, March 28

Lets talk to the people of Nagaland (where several tribal people eat dogs) and supply dogs to them; Lets go to Delhi and hold a dharna in front of Parliament, these were some of the reckless suggestions made by some councillors in todays MC House meeting, which was mainly held for passing the Budget, but was hijacked by the stray dog menace, here.

In the meeting, which was held to pass the Mohali Municipal Corporation (MMC) Budget at the MC Bhawan in Sector 69, here, the dog issue virtually hijacked the main agenda. While it took just a few minutes to pass

Rs 21 crore deficit Budget in the meeting, most of the time was consumed in discussing ways to tackle the dog issue.

The issue was being termed as the national problem following which a Congress councillor suggested that a dharna be held in front of Parliament in New Delhi.

When another councillor said Nagaland people should be contacted, visibly irritated Mayor Kulwant Singh asked him to talk to them (Nagaland people) himself. tusi khud hi gal kar lo, main nhi kar sakda (You talked to them yourself, I cant do this), said the Mohali Mayor.

However, the Mayor suggested that people should be motivated to adopt dogs and feed them. They bite when they are hungry. If we feed them, they will stop biting people, said the Mayor while asking the councillors to motivate people in their wards for the same.

Evidently, there was no taker for the Mayors suggestion. Finally, the long discussion ended in no result.

Advertisement display boards to be decreased

To maintain the beauty of the town, the number of advertisement display boards will be decreased, said Mayor Kulwant Singh. Like the current financial year, the targeted income through advertisement tax is set at Rs 10 crore. Advertisement tax can be increased this time, added Kulwant Singh.

Targeted income from city bus service

While the city bus service is being run on papers only till date, the MC authorities have already set Rs one crore as its targeted income from the new source in the next Budget. The MMC has made provision of Rs 7.50 crore in its proposed Budget to run the City bus service in the town for which it will take a bank loan of Rs six crore.
Official Facebook page of Mamata Banerjee

Jalpaiguri, Mar 28 (IBNS): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at an administrative meeting in North Bengal, asked its government officials to act firmly to counter the child trafficking racket that has raised the storm in the state's politics of late, according to media reports on Tuesday.

CM has asked Block Development Officer (BDO), police as well as social welfare department of the government to monitor the situation and the complaints that are coming up.

Ensuring justice to each complain received, Mamata said: "No one should be spared in the case of child trafficking."

Earlier, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Juhi Chowdhury was arrested over the charge of child trafficking who was later removed from the party.

The child trafficking case has also hit Rajya Sabha once as Congress MP Rajni Patil alleged an involvement of BJP MP Roopa Ganguly into the case without taking the latter's name.


Rajindar Sachar

The suggestion of the Chief Justice of India to act as a mediator in the pending Babri Masjid demolition case, showed his concern but was a little odd considering that it has come at the instance of an inter meddler, and without parties involved being before the Court. That is why it caused a certain concern amongst the parties.

In my view, the Babri Masjid demolition case is not a matter for compromise. This case raises the deep constitutional concern regarding our Constitution which clearly says India is a Secular Republic.

I was in Geneva attending the meeting of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, when I received the horrific news that came on television that the Babri Masjid had been demolished and saw the gory spectacle of BJP hoodlums climbing atop the Masjid and breaking it down. The Chief Minister of the BJP government in the state, Kalyan Singh, had given an assurance to the Supreme Court that he would take full steps to prevent it. His assurance was belied. The Supreme Court by a majority just accepted his apology instead of sending him to jail for contempt of Court.

However, this was nothing compared to the ominous conspiracy of the Congress Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, who suddenly became inaccessible to senior journalists, his home secretary and even his colleagues.

I am also ashamed to admit the unworthy role of complicity of the judiciary. In spite of having given the injunction since 1949 against the entry of the public into the area, the judiciary did not proceed against the public. Even the higher judiciary did not intervene but rather turned a blind eye. This was the time when the magnitude of danger should have been appreciated by all parties but was not. The battle for secularism should have been combined with a singular determination of nipping the cancer of communalism. But nothing was done then.

I had then made a public statement that; "Immediately, the Government should have announced December 6, as a 'National Repentance Day' when people would fast and pray for the unity and welfare of all the communities". But the non-BJP parties analysed the situation as merely one pertaining merely to law and order and thus acquiesced in this dastardly Act.

Whatever the past history, all the parties let the matter go to the Allahabad High Court to give a decision. The High Court has given a decision with which both parties are aggrieved. The BJP is still insisting that it would build a temple at the site where the Masjid undoubtedly stood for over 500 years. Muslims cannot obviously agree to a shameful compromise on the sanctity of the Masjid. The matter is already before the Supreme Court - it cannot run away from giving a decision which may not make everyone happy. Then it is their constitutional duty and it has no other alternative. I cannot foretell the Supreme Court decision. If past precedents are to prevail, then the case in favour of Muslims is invincible.

I say this on the precedence of the Shahidganj Masjid case (Lahore now in Pakistan) decided by the Privy Council in 1940. The Supreme Court need not decide on merits whether Babri Masjid had been in existence where Ram Temple existed or not because that is of no consequence as it is not relevant to the decision of case. This is because even if was, there is no denying that Babri Masjid has been in existence since 500 years.

Now it is obvious to the meanest intelligence that it is impossible to prove that the birthplace of Lord Ram was under the masjid - it may be a matter of faith, genuine or contrived or otherwise, but that is no proof, nor can it ever be put forward as a legal ground to take away the land from the mosque.

If the finding is that the masjid was not built on the birthplace of Ram, then the Muslims get the land back and will be free to use it in any way, including the building of the mosque. Alternatively, even if it is held that there was a temple on the land of the Babri Masjid, even with this finding the suit by the VHP/RSS has to be dismissed. Admittedly, Babri Masjid has been in existence for over 500 years until it was demolished by goons of the VHP/RSS in 1992. Legally speaking, even then the Sangh Parivar would have no right even if a temple had been demolished to build the Babri Masjid. I say this in view of the precedent of the case of Masjid Shahid Ganj in Lahore decided by the Privy Council in 1940. In that case there was admittedly a mosque existing since 1722 AD. But by 1762, the building came under Sikh rule and was used as a gurdwara. It was only in 1935 that a suit was filed claiming the building was a mosque and should be returned to the Muslims.

The Privy Council, while observing that "their Lordship have every sympathy with a religious sentiment which would ascribe sanctity and inviolability to a place of worship, they cannot under the Limitation Act accept the contentions that such a building cannot be possessed adversely", went on to hold "The property now in question having been possessed by Sikhs adversely to the waqf and to all interests there under for more than 12 years, the right of the mutawali (caretaker) to possession for the purposes of the waqf came to an end under the Limitation Act". On the same parity of reasoning, even if a temple existed prior to the building of the masjid 500 years ago, the suit by the Hindu outfits like Nirmal Akhara VHP / BJP, etc. has to fail.

There is another reason why in such a situation, the suit will fail because in common law, even a rightful heir, if he kills his ancestor, forfeits his right of inheritance. In the masjid case too there was a "murder most foul." Hence, the murderer cannot be allowed to take the benefit of his own dastardly deeds, whatever the factual position may be. Of course, it is the privilege of the Chief Justice of India to constitute the bench. However, one may respectfully submit that it may be more reassuring if a bench of seven judges or nine judges was to hear the appeal.

The writer is a former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court.
Power engineers are set to lose the post of CMD of PSPCL to the IAS lobby. When the Punjab State Electricity Board was split, they were agitated over the unbundling but were pacified with the assurance that the top posts in the new utilities would stay with them. No matter how competent, engineers can hardly match IAS officers with life-time experience and expertise of being on the right side of politicians. Henceforth, the CMD post, it is reported, will remain with the IAS. Technical qualifications of an IAS officer cannot equal a technocrat having long hands-on field experience.

There is much that is wrong in Punjabs power sector but the Amarinder Singh government has taken on priority the task of replacing the previous Akali Dal-BJP government favourite at the helm of PSPCL with an officer of personal choice. For that the rules are being rewritten. In this respect not much seems to have changed. The Badal regime had gone out of the way to keep KD Chaudhri on the job. Merit does not matter when loyalty is involved. With an IAS officer as CMD and a retired IAS hand as the regulator it would be business as usual on the power front. None would question frequent tariff hikes to cover up inefficiency or pilferage, the growing mountain of debt on PSPCL, non-recovery of dues from government departments, delays in subsidy payments or slow implementation of the Centres UDAY scheme. The IAS biradari is most comfortable in the maintenance of the status quo  unless the political class sends out signals to the contrary.

Politicians rewarding loyalists is a countrywide phenomenon but in Punjab it extends to the creation of unnecessary posts that carry ministerial status and burden the depleted treasury. Rules are being tweaked to accommodate candidates of choice. The proposal to revive posts of Chief Parliamentary Secretary mocks the high court ruling on the issue. It is amusing to see former CM Badal and present CM Amarinder Singh quibbling over who has created more posts. Both have experience in buying loyalty and keeping political peace at the state expense.
Sumedha Sharma

Tribune News Service

Gurugram, March 28

A stalker shot dead an 18-year-old girl in the busy Sector 21 market last night, leaving the millennium city shocked. What made the girls death more tragic is that she had complained to the police against the stalker three months ago but to no avail. He continued to chase and harass her before killing her.

The victim, identified as Gunjan, hailed from Uttar Pradesh. She was living with her family in the Shankar Vihar colony here for past many years. She was pursuing graduation through distance education from Delhi University and working at a Patanjali store in the Sector 21 HUDA market. Her father, Chander Bhan, works in a private company.

As she stepped out of the store to go home around 9:30 pm yesterday, the accused reached there and shot her twice and fled. The incident was captured on a CCTV camera installed in a nearby shop. Though the shooter couldnt be identified in the camera footage, the family named Jhajjar resident Pawan Kumar as the killer, who had been stalking Gunjan for months.

Pawan had been stalking and harassing my daughter for months. She had lodged a police complaint at the Bajghera chowki three months ago but no action was taken against the stalker. The police inaction emboldened the culprit and he kept harassing her. She kept resisting his advances. We could never expect that he would kill her. Had the police acted in time against the stalker, the life of my daughter could have been saved. If stalking is too small a crime to merit police attention, why do they ask women to report it, said wailing Chander Bhan.

Police Commissioner Sandeep Khirwar said, The laxity in addressing the girls complaint was not brought to my notice. I am now looking into it and any official found guilty of negligence of duty will be taken to task. We have formed special teams to nab the accused soon.

Meanwhile, the police have booked Pawan under sections 302 (murder) and 25-54-59 of the IPC at Palam Vihar police station. Sources claim that there was another person involved in shooting and the police have detained him though there was no official confirmation.

The CCTV camera footage is the key evidence that shows the girl stepping out of the shop and the accused wearing a black shirt and riding a motorcycle approaching her and firing at her twice. Customers and passersby panicked but none intervened and approached the girl only when the accused fled.
Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, March 28

The BJP chose to walk out of the Vidhan Sabha saying the reply of Health Minister Kaul Singh Thakur on demand for grants was not satisfactory. The party accused him of skipping major issues.

Though Kaul Singhs replied in detail, Suresh Bhardwaj, chief whip of the BJP, took a dig at him saying the health services in the state were not up to the mark and instead of taking up the query, the minister chose not to speak on the issue.

Yesterday too, the BJP had walked out of the House after getting annoyed with the ruling party MLAs who were allowed to speak on cut motions. Immediately after the walkout by the BJP, the House passed the demand for grants without discussion in the absence of the Opposition and the Speaker adjourned the House.

Kaul Singh Thakur said Himachal was the second state after Delhi to have allocated 1.43 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) for health and that health indicators of the state were best in the country.The infant mortality rate which was 36 in 2012 had come down to 28 in 2015-16 and a target had been fixed to further reduce it to 20 by 2022. The per capita expenditure on health was Rs 26,000, still 30 lakh people were not covered under any healthcare scheme and the government had launched the Universal Health Care Scheme to cover these people and provide free health services, he said, adding that Himachal was the first state in the country to link every citizen with some healthcare scheme.

Kaul Singh said 56 medicines would be supplied to government health institutions for free. Ten life-saving drugs were also being added to the list. Refuting the allegations of the BJP that the funds under the National Health Mission (NHP) had not been spent, the minister asserted that Himachal was the only state in the country where not even a penny had remained unspent.The Cancer Centre at the IGMC, Nursing School and Government Dental college would be shifted to Malyana while the Trauma Centre at the IGMC, being set up at a cost of Rs 20 crore, would be ready within six months, the minister said. A super-speciality hospital would be set at Malyana at a cost of Rs 150 crore, he added.

As many as 8.5 lakh persons in the state had benefitted from the National Ambulance Service (108 emergency ambulance scheme) so far, while 1.9 lakh expectant mothers have been extended the facility of 102 drop back ambulance service, Kaul Singh said.
Amit Khajuria

Tribune News Service

Chenani, March 28

The travellers on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway will soon heave a big sigh of relief as the longest tunnel of the country is all set to be dedicated to the nation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday.

The 9.2-km-long Chenani-Nashri tunnel, which will bypass three major stations  Kud, Patnitop and Batote  on the highway, is ready to be opened to the public. Modi will visit Chenani on Sunday to inaugurate the tunnel.

The Prime Minister will arrive at the technical airport, Jammu, from there he will take off in a chopper for Chenani. After inaugurating the tunnel at 3 pm, Modi will drive inside the tunnel and inspect the control room. Later, he will address a rally at Udhampur.

Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister of State in PMO and MP Jugal Kishore will accompany the PM.

Completed at a cost of Rs 2,519 crore, Indias longest tunnel will reduce the distance by 31 km. The tunnel will also result in saving fuel worth Rs 27 lakh per day, said an agency.

The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has constructed the 9.2-km-long main tunnel, 9.2-km-long escape tunnel and one kilometre (in total) cross-passages inside the mountainous range of lower Shivalik. The approach road to the tunnel from the old highway from the Chenani side is 1,340-m long and from the Nashri side it is 563-m in length.

The main tunnel has the carriageway of 9.35 m with a vertical clearance of 5 m and walkway of 1.30 m on either side.

The parallel escape tunnel has 5 m carriageway and 2.50 m vertical clearance. A total of 29 cross-passages are 7 m wide and 35 m long with 2.5 m vertical clearance.

IL&FS, which has completed the tunnel, has been given the contract of maintenance for 15 years.

Ashutosh Chandwar, Regional Manager, IL&FS, said, The tunnel has been constructed in a record time, as 19 km of tunnelling has never been done within four years.

The work was started on May 28, 2011, and it was expected to be completed in May 2016. The tunnelling was completed on July 13, 2015, after which other equipment and other technical constructions were made.

The NHAI has taken care of security inside the tunnel. With 124 CCTV cameras installed for surveillance inside the tunnel, a team in the control room will monitor activities of the travellers. In case of any violation, the control room will inform the Traffic Police posted outside the tunnel about the vehicle number and violation. Traffic cops will fine the vehicle-owners on the spot.
Majid Jahangir

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, March 28

Three youths were today killed and more than 24 injured when the security forces opened fire on protesters in Budgam district.

Even as an encounter was underway, a large number of youths from surrounding areas marched towards the encounter site to help a Hizbul militant holed up inside a three-storey house in Durbugh Chadoora. They attacked the security personnel with stones, triggering violent clashes.

Nazir Choudhary, Medical Superintendent of Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital (SMHS), said three youths were brought dead. One of them, Zahid Rashid (23), was the sole bread-earner of the family. He had a bullet in the neck. Qaiser Ahmed Ganai (23) of Wathoora was hit in the abdomen. The third victim was identified as Ishfaq Rashid of Rangreth.

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We showed maximum restraint as crowds tried to come close to the encounter site. Our 40 men and 20 policemen were injured in the clashes, said Inspector General (CRPF) Ravideep Singh Sahi.

The killings, about two weeks ahead of the byelections to the Srinagar-Budgam and Anantnag parliamentary constituencies, have triggered fresh tension in the Valley with the separatists calling for a shutdown on Wednesday.

A gunbattle erupted in Durbugh Chadoora, 20 km from Srinagar, this morning when acting on a tip-off, the police, Army and CRPF launched a joint search operation. They were fired upon by a Hizbul militant hiding inside a house. The forces used explosives and fired rockets to raze the house.

In the gunfight, the militant was killed and a weapon was recovered from the encounter site, Srinagar-based defence spokesman Col Rajesh Kalia said. He said the operation, that lasted nine hours, had ended.

Sources said an Army jawan had been injured in the gunfight.

The slain militant, Tausuef Ahmed of South Kashmirs Kulgam district, had been active in the area since October last. He was an associate of senior Hizbul commander Yaseen Yatoo.
Majid Jahangir

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, March 28

A militant and three civilians were killed while several people injured in a gunfight and clashes that sparked in central Kashmirs Budgam on Tuesday.

The anti militancy operation began at Durbugh Chadoora, 20 km from here this morning when joint teams of police, Army and CRPF launched an operation after a tip-off about the presence of a militant.

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The nine-hour-long gunfight ended with the killing of a local Hizbul Mujahideen militant. A weapon was also recovered from the slain militant.

Sources said as the gunfight erupted, a large number of protesters tried to march towards the gunfight site to help the holed-up militant to escape. Intense clashes erupted at multiple places near the gunfight site between the youth and the forces.

During clashes three youths were critically wounded, who later succumbed to injuries, they said.

The slain all in their twenties were identified as Zahid Rashid of Chadoora, Qaiser Ahmed Ganai, 23, of Wathoora and Ishfaq Rashid of Rangreth.

It was first time that such protests broke out in central Kashmirs Budgam district during a gunfight.

Kashmiri separatists have called for a strike on Wednesday against the civilian killing in Budgam.

J&K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said violence will fetch nothing and dialogue was the way forward.
Suhail A Shah

Anantnag, March 28

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today said the people of Kashmir would have to understand that violence was not an answer to anything and dialogue was the way forward.

Mehbooba said this in response to a question asked by mediapersons regarding the civilian killings during an encounter in the Chadoora area of central Kashmirs Budgam district today. The Chief Minister was speaking to the media on the sidelines of a workers convention of the Peoples Democratic Party in the Kokernag area of Anantnag district today.

Three civilians were shot dead amid clashes between the security forces and local youth, who were trying to give an escape route to the militants near the encounter site in Budgam district today.

The common people will have to think about this, Mehbooba said. Militancy has been going on in Kashmir for many years and thousands of people, including civilians, militants and security personnel, have been killed. But the killings have fetched us nothing at all, she said.

Mehbooba maintained that there was nothing positive in violence, and, if at all anything could be achieved, it would be through dialogue and peace.

The PDP convention was also attended by Mehboobas brother and PDP candidate for the Anantnag Lok Sabha bypoll Tassaduq Mufti.

Mehbooba also welcomed Home Minister Rajnath Singhs recent statement in which he said that the time was right to talk to everybody in Kashmir. We welcome the Home Ministers statement wholeheartedly. During the unrest last year as well, a team was sent by New Delhi to talk to separatists. I also wrote to the separatists, urging them to talk but, unfortunately, they did not, Mehbooba said.

She hoped that the separatists would come forward this time around and avail themselves of this opportunity.
Simran Sodhi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 28

The spotlights were turned inwards today as African students protested the racial attacks on them in Greater Noida. The government was quick to get into damage-control mode with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj reaching out to UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who assured an impartial investigation.

Five persons have reportedly been arrested.

An African student, Sadiq Bello, tweeted to Swaraj that living in Noida has become a life-threatening issue after a mob, protesting the death of a local student, attacked Nigerian students last night. Swaraj quickly promised immediate action. The Ministry of External Affairs described the incident in which several Africans were injured as deplorable. Minister of State MJ Akbar assured the Acting High Commissioner of Nigeria of steps for the safety and security of Nigerian nationals.

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The police said hundreds of locals were marching protesting the death of a Class XII student when some of them suddenly turned violent. They attacked Nigerian students shopping in the area and two persons in a car. The mob suspected them of having supplied the student with drugs, who died of an overdose.
Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 28

The NDA government on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that it wasnt possible to go ahead with the appointment of Lokpal at present because of legal complications that made it difficult to institute the countrys first anti-corruption ombudsman.

During hearing on petitions seeking direction to the government to appoint Lokpal, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the top court that Lokpal cannot be appointed in the current scenario as amendments regarding definition of the Leader of Opposition in the Lokpal Act were pending in Parliament. The Judiciary cant dictate the Legislature on this issue, he said.

Unless the proposed amendment making leader of the largest Opposition party as the Leader of Opposition is passed by Parliament, the Lokpal cant be appointed, Rohatgi said.

On behalf of Common Cause, one of the petitioners, senior advocate Shanti Bhushan accused the government of deliberately not appointing Lokpal despite the law having come into effect. He pointed out that the Act mandated expeditious appointment of Lokpal.

After hearing both the sides, a Bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi reserved its verdict on the issue.

Enacted in December 2013, the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act aims at creating a system of anti-corruption watchdog in India.

The law came into force from January 16, 2014, but appointment process got stalled as search panel members, including jurist Fali Nariman, quit.

It requires Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha to be member of the selection panel but there is no designated leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha as the Congress does not have the required numbers.

The government introduced an amendment to the law to address the issue but the amendment Bill also proposed many other changes on which there has been no political consensus.

In December last year, the top court had indicated that if the legal problem took too long to get solved, it would order inclusion of the leader of the largest Opposition party in the Lok Sabha in the selection panel.
In his address to the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM) cadres at Camp Hebron on March 21, 2017, the group's 'headquarters', on the outfit's 38th 'Republic Day', 'general secretary' Thuingaleng Muivah declared, "NSCN had consultative meetings with the people on talks consecutively for eight times. The historic Framework Agreement recognizes the unique history, identity, sovereignty and territories of the Nagas. It also recognizes the legitimate right of the Nagas to integration of all Naga territories." The Framework Agreement was signed on August 3, 2015.

However, on February 23, 2017, central government's interlocutor for Naga Talks and Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) Chairman R.N. Ravi observed, '"The framework agreement is less-than-one-page document; it tells about broad parameters within which the final settlement will be worked out. So it's the principles within which we will work out the settlement. It does not mention anything about Manipur or any State; it does not compromise the territorial integrity of Manipur." On the question of secrecy, he added, "A framework agreement is not the final agreement and you do not serve half-cooked meal. We believe it is not in the larger interest to release the details now. But I have explained it to all the stakeholders by and large by going and meeting with them on what it contains. An incomplete agreement can create issues".

Despite these continuing ambiguities and different interpretations of the 'historic accord', there was a further consolidation of peace in Nagaland through 2016. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), the State accounted for a total of six insurgency-linked fatalities, including four civilians [none of which could be clearly linked to any specific militant formation] and two militants, through 2016, as against 46 fatalities, including 14 civilians, nine Security Force (SF) personnel and 23 militants, in 2015, reflecting a drop of 87 per cent in total fatalities.

In terms of civilian fatalities, year 2016 was the most peaceful since 2010, when the State had not recorded a single fatality in this category. Before that, it was way back in 2003 fewer civilian fatalities (three) than in 2016 were recorded.

Significantly, there was no fatality among SFs through 2016, thus reestablishing the trend of zero fatalities in this category secured since 2009, with an aberrant 2015, when nine SF personnel were killed, the highest recorded in the State since 1998, when there were 14 SF fatalities. The number of militant fatalities also dropped considerably from 23 in 2015 to just two in 2016. The spike recoded in SF and militant fatalities in 2015 was primarily due to the unilateral abrogation of the cease-fire arrangement by the Khaplang faction of the NSCN (NSCN-K) on March 27, 2015. The ceasefire agreement with NSCN-K had been signed on April 28, 2001. NSCN-K was linked to 33 out of the total of 46 insurgency-related fatalities in Nagaland in 2015.

There has also been a considerable improvement in terms of the geographic dispersal of violence. In 2016, fatalities were recorded in only three Districts - Dimapur (3), Tuensang (2) and Wokha (1). In 2015, killings had been reported from eight Districts - Tuensang (14), Mon (11), Dimapur (7), Zunheboto (5), Phek (4), Kohima (2), Mokokchung (2) and Wokha (1). Nagaland has a total of 11 Districts.

Only two incidents of explosion, resulting in injuries to six persons, were recorded in 2016; as against six such incidents registered in 2015, which had resulted in one fatality and 10 persons injured.

Even internecine clashes between Naga outfits have registered a decline, both within and beyond the territorial limits of the State. According to SATP data, no fratricidal killing involving Naga groups was recorded inside Nagaland in 2016, as against six such incidents in 2015 resulting in four deaths and one person injured. Further, in 2016, two incidents of Naga group clashes, resulting in one death and one injury, were recorded outside the State, as against nine such incidents resulting in 11 deaths and six persons injured in 2015.

The state recorded six incidents of abduction in which six persons were abducted through 2016, as against 11 such incidents in which 15 persons were abducted in 2015. On October 2, 2016, a driver of a Manipur bound truck was abducted and was kept at an unspecified place near the New Secretariat area of Kohima. The abductors later demanded a ransom of INR 1 million for his safe release. On receipt of the information, Police launched a search and rescue operation and secured the release of the victim. During the operation police arrested one of the three abductors, 'lieutenant' Kewepe Wetsah (30), of the 'Federal Government of Nagaland' (FGN), while the other two managed to escape

However, reported incidents of extortion increased from 24 in 2015 to 31 in 2016 (both abduction and extortion tend to be under-reported, so the actual incidence may be higher). Worried by the rising incidents of extortion, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) registered a case titled "Extortion and unlawful collection by NSCN-K from individuals and organizations" on September 18, 2016, with a summary allegation: "Large scale extortion and unlawful tax collection on behalf of the banned organisation NSCN-K from the individual and organisations etc , by the cadres of NSCN-K in Dimapur and Kohima areas with the directions from self-styled brigadier Isac Sumi of NSCN-K and other leaders. The cadre namely - S. Khetoshe Sumi arrested on 31-07-2016, along with many unlawful documents related to extortion, tax collection and war like stores and drugs etc."

Though the level of extortion prevalent in the state remains worrisome there is significant improvement in the overall security situation after the reversal of the trend witnessed in 2015. This has been possible principally due to the pressure created by SFs against NSCN-K in its strongholds, both within and beyond the State. News reports indicate that Special Forces from the Indian Army were involved in operations against NSCN-K militants along the Indo-Myanmar border. In one such incident, SFs launched an operation on August 19, 2016, targeting a NSCN-K camp located close to the International border (border pillar 151) in the vicinity of Chen Moho village in the Mon District of Nagaland. "The raid was part of many operations intended to maintain pressure on the NSCN-K," an unnamed senior Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) official disclosed, adding, "These operations have been ongoing, and will continue."

SFs also arrested 142 militants in 86 incidents through 2016 in addition to 171 such arrests in 92 incidents through 2015. Those arrested in 2016 included 32 militants of NSCN-K; 25 cadres of the Kitovi-Neokpao faction [earlier known as Khole-Kitovi] of NSCN (NSCN-KN); 19 from NSCN-IM; 16 from the Reformation faction of NSCN (NSCN-R); 11 from the Non-Accordist faction of the Naga National Council (NNC-NA); five each from the Federal Government of Nagaland (FGN) and the People's Revolutionary Army of Kangleipak (PREPAK); two from the Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP); and one militant each from the 'Government of the People's Republic of Nagaland (GPRN/NSCN), Naga National Council (NNC), Dima Halam Daogah-Dilip Nunisa faction (DHD-N), Kuki Revolutionary Army (KRA), Tiwa Liberation Army (TLA)-1, I.K. Songbijit faction of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB-IKS) and Liberation of Achik Elite Force (LAEF). The Group identity of 20 militants remained unspecified. Top arrests made during 2016 included 'finance secretary' of the NSCN-K, identified as Max Asukomi, and the 'defense secretary' of NSCN-K, identified as Kughato Chishi.

A lasting peace continues to evade Nagaland primarily due to the failure of the Governments, both at the Central and the State level, to reach to a final understanding, principally as a result of the proliferation of competent Naga armed factions and the issue of the 'integration' of Naga areas across State boundaries. While the Framework Agreement holds out the promise of a settlement with the most powerful of these factions, NSCN-IM, it has exacerbated difficulties with the others. Crucially, imminent changes in the NSCN-IM leadership - Isak Chisi Swu, the other signatory to the Framework Agreement died on June 28, 2016, and Muivah, at 83, is also in poor health - may alter, if not disrupt, the talks process. The gains in Nagaland have, no doubt, been dramatic; but they remain fragile.
Simran Sodhi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 27

Punjabi-origin Bardish Chagger, Canadas Minister of Small Business and Tourism and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, will visit India from March 28 to 31. Chagger is one of the four Sikhs who have been inducted into the Canadian Cabinet by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Chagger, 36, is also the first woman and the first person from a minority to hold the prestigious post of Leader of the Government in the House of Commons. Chaggers family hails from Ludhiana.

In Delhi, Chagger will meet Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of State (Independent Charge) Commerce & Industry, along with other ministers. She will also meet with representatives of the tourism industry and representatives of Indian and Canadian start-ups and small businesses, women entrepreneurs, and Indian business leaders.

During the Mumbai leg of her visit, Chagger will join Canadian Solar to visit their new solar array at the National Centre for the Performing Arts. A business reception will highlight growing Canada-India linkages, including a planned direct flight between Toronto and Mumbai from July 1.

This trip is very important to me, said Chagger today ahead of her visit here. I am proud to be one of four Canadian Cabinet ministers of Indian heritage, and to be one of the 19 MPs of Indian heritage in Parliament. SMEs are the backbone of our two economies and I am looking forward to encouraging greater interaction between them as that is how we will achieve greater growth. The Canada-India relationship is very important for Canada and we will continue to build on our significant economic and people-to-people ties.
R Sedhuraman

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, March 28

The Delhi High Court today ruled that the National Commission for Women (NCW) did not have any adjudicatory or advisory powers. The commission also had no power to grant any relief to the complainants claiming to be victims.

We are clear in our mind that it has never been the legislative intent to empower NCW to arrive at any final conclusion on any complaint received by it or to grant any relief which a court is empowered to do, Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal held.

The High Court delivered the verdict while dismissing the petitions of NCW and a woman on whose complaint the commission had issued an advisory to the Indian High Commission in Singapore. The woman had approached NCW in mid-2013 to prevent her husband from getting any foreign posting as this would enable him to abandon her and their child born earlier that year.

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She had also alleged that her husband was abusing her mentally and physically since their marriage in February 2008. Though posted in India, the husband was working for a Singapore-based company, which prompted NCW to write to the Indian mission. The woman had pleaded with the NCW to ensure that her husband was not posted outside India until the matrimonial dispute was resolved.

The company, however, sacked the husband following NCWs advisory to the mission, prompting him to approach the High Court. A single judge Bench had partly allowed his plea and held that NCW had no power to issue advisories. The NCW and the woman preferred intra-court appeals against the ruling.

The division Bench affirmed the findings of the single judge that no provision of Section 10 of the NCW Act empowers NCW to send the advisory. The role of NCW as a coordinating agency at the national level to receive and process the complaints related to Indian women deserted by their overseas Indian husbands is only to ensure that the women in distress are guided to appropriate agencies or authorities empowered and constituted to take action on their complaints and that the orders/directions issued by such agencies are in turn implemented by other agencies/authorities empowered/constituted/required to implement the same.

All that NCW on receipt of complaint from the respondent no. 2 (wife) could have done is to advise her to approach the police/court empowered to compel the presence of the petitioner and to ensure that the police consider the application/representation of the respondent no. 2 in accordance with the law, the Bench ruled.
New Delhi/Greater Noida, March 28

Five people were arrested in connection with attacks on African students in Greater Noida on Tuesday, sparking concern over their safety and prompting intervention by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj who has promised immediate action.

While Swaraj spoke to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath after being approached by an African student who pleaded for action describing the situation as "life threatening", her ministry termed these attacks as "deplorable".

Four Nigerian students were attacked by a group of Greater Noida residents who took out a candle-light march on Monday after a 17-year-old boy Manish died last week in the NSG Black Cats Enclave due to suspected drug overdose.

The protest march was taken out after the police released some Nigerians detained for questioning in connection with death of Manish, a class 12 student, due to "lack of evidence".

Following the incident, Nigerian High Commission officials went to meet the injured nationals and said they felt "unsafe". A senior high commission official said the mission was in touch with the External Affairs Ministry on the issue.

MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay said the government is committed to ensuring safety and security of all foreigners in India and people from Africa, including students, remain "our valued" partners.

Noting that law enforcement authorities of the district have made arrests and are investigating the matter, he said: "They are also taking necessary steps to keep the situation under control".

Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar spoke to the acting high commissioner of Nigeria here to discuss the steps being taken by the local authorities for safety and security of Nigerian nationals, Baglay said.

Earlier, in a series of tweets, Swaraj said: "I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath ji Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh about attack on African students in Greater Noida. He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident (sic)".

She was responding to a tweet from a student who requested her to "act fast as living for us in Noida is becoming a life threatening issue".

Noting that the protesters became violent during the protest march and started beating up the Africans they saw on the road, Sujata Singh, Superintendent of Police, Greater Noida said, "They also went to Ansal Mall and caused havoc and beat up Africans there.

"The police then rescued them and moved them to a safe place," she said.

"The police had to use force to dissuade people from attacking and arrested five people from the spot. Many of them who were there trying to play mischief have been identified as the entire event had been videographed," Daljit Chaudhary, ADG Law and Order, told reporters in Greater Noida.

He said an FIR has been registered against nine people who have been named besides others, and action will be taken accordingly.  PTI

@SushmaSwaraj as an international student in noida, you need to act fast as living for us in Noida is becoming a life threatening issue  Sadiq Bello (@Sadiq8800) March 28, 2017

I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath ji Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh about attack on African students in Greater Noida. /1  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

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New Delhi, March 28

Interpol has given a major reprieve to graft-tainted former Indian Premier League (IPL) chairman Lalit Modi, denying a red notice against him. I just got off from a flight from Barcelona through which I sat completely numb. Just as I was boarding the flight I got the news that the Interpol had finally investigated and concluded and reached a verdict in my favour with a detailed letter of rejection of Indias request for issuing of a red notice, Modi wrote on his Instagram account.

He also posted Interpol documents, which were not for public dissemination, at his Instagram and Twitter accounts. The sword that was hanging over my head has suddenly gone, Modi said.

The Interpol document dated March 24 said: Lalit Kumar Modi... is not subject to an Interpol red notice or diffusion and not known in the Interpols database.

The organisation however clarified that in the past, the individual (Lalit Modi) was subject of data record in Interpols database, yet the data was later cancelled.

Lalit Modi had fled India in 2010, after facing charges of financial irregularity in IPL. He is currently living in Britain. His extradition process is still pending.

The authenticity of the documents could not be verified as the CBI said they had no such information yet. CBI spokesperson RK Gaur said: The agency is authenticating the Interpol documents.  IANS
Washington, March 27

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday called up Prime Minister Narendra Modi and congratulated him on his recent electoral success, the White House said.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump congratulated Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on their electoral victories.

The White House said the leaders spoke by phone.

"The president spoke with German Chancellor Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Modi earlier today to congratulate them on their parties' success in recent elections," Spicer said.

Following the elections held in five states that begun on February 4 and ended on March 9 after polling was rescheduled in some constituencies, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party formed the government in four states: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

It, however, lost Punjab to main rival Congress in the results announced on March 11.

Anchored mainly by Modi and his aide Amit Shah, the BJP juggernaut rolled on in Uttar Pradesh and in the neighbouring state of Uttarakhand, bagging three-fourth majority.

The BJP returned to power in the politically-crucial state of UP after a gap of 15 years during which regional parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party held sway.

Goa and Manipur had hung assemblies after the polls, but the BJP managed to form the government with support from other regional parties.

The elections in the five states had turned into a virtual referendum on Modi's popularity following his much-debated decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.

Previously, Modi and Trump talked by phone on January 24, when they had resolved to stand "shoulder-to-shoulder" in the global fight against terrorism and for defence and security.

According to a White House statement then, Trump had "emphasised that the US considers India a true friend and partner in addressing challenges around the world."

The two leaders had exchanged invitations for visits.

"President Trump looked forward to hosting Prime Minister Modi in the US later this year," the statement had said.

Prime Minister Modi was the fifth foreign leader Trump had spoken to on phone after he was sworn-in as the US president on January 20. He had by then spoken to British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canada's Justin Trudeau, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

After his surprise victory in the November 8 elections in the US, Modi was among the first world leaders to congratulate Trump. And during the gruelling election campaign, India and Israel were the two prominent countries Trump spoke of strengthening ties if he were to become the president. PTI
Washington, March 28

A day after US President Donald Trump spoke by phone to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the White House on Tuesday said Trump is looking forward to playing host to a visit by Modi to Washington later this year. Trump also expressed support for Modis economic reform agenda.

This is the third telephonic conversation between the two leaders after Trumps electoral victory in November last year. President Donald J Trump spoke with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India to congratulate him on the outcome of Indias recent state-level elections, the White House said in a statement.

President Trump expressed support for the Prime Ministers economic reform agenda and emphasised his great respect for the people of India, it said.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

President Trump also said he looks forward to hosting Prime Minister Modi in Washington later this year, said the statement.  Agencies
Sangrur, March 28

Even as the government has promised to come to the aid of debt-ridden farmers, reports of farmer suicide continue to pour in from across the state.

At least 13 farmers have so far ended their life since January in Sangrur district, which witnessed a total of 274 suicides during 2013-16.

Balvir Singh, panchayat member of Nagra village, said: Forty-five-year-old Dara Singh committed suicide in the village last week. His son and daughter are engaged, but the farmer did not have money for their wedding. He was already under a debt of Rs 4 lakh. He had lost all hope and hanged himself with a tree.

Families of deceased farmers from Nagra, Gharacho, Chhajli and other villages alleged that the matter of farm debt was raised only during the elections.

My 55-year-old uncle Labh Singh had just two acres of land and due to repeated crop failures, he committed suicide on January 13 last year. He had a debt of Rs 10 lakh. We raised the matter at various levels, but got no relief, said Gurpreet Singh from Gharachon village.

Sources in Agriculture Department said during 2013-16, the authorities received information about 274 farmer suicides in the district. While families of 26 farmers got financial aid, the cases of 23 have been approved and those of 75 families have been rejected.

During 2016, the authorities got information about 150 suicides, of which only eight cases have been approved for financial aid, while 12 cases were rejected and the inspection in 131 cases is on. We have a special committee to analyse suicide cases. We have strict directions from the government to dispose off all cases on a priority, said APS Virk, Deputy Commissioner, Sangrur.

Joginder Singh Ugrahan, president, BKU Ekta Ugraha, alleged only a few families of the deceased farmers had got compensation. The government must take steps immediately to pay relief to affected families, he demanded.

 Parvesh Sharma
Parvesh Sharma

Tribune News Service

Sangrur, March 28

Even as the Congress government has set up an expert group to accelerate the process of farm debt waiver, several banks continue to issue auction notices to farmers who defaulted on the repayment of loans.

Several organisations have asked the Punjab Government to issue directions to the banks against the auction of farmers properties to prevent any clash between them and government officers.

Banks are still harassing farmers and threatening to auction their land to recover debt. We request the government to issue a notification to waive all farm loans at the earliest. Thousands of farmers have already committed suicides in the state. The government must act immediately to prevent the situation from deteriorating further, said Bikramjit Singh, district president, Bhartiya Kisan Union, Ekta, (Sidhupur).

Some bank officials told The Tribune that they had not been told to stop the recovery of debt from the farmers.

During the election campaign, the Congress had got forms filled by the farmers under its campaign Karza kurki khatam, fasal di poori rakam. Recently, members of the BKU Ekta (Ugraha) prevented the auction of land of a farmer, Balwant Singh of Kheri village in the district.
Sanjeev Singh Bariana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 28

Showing Punjab a financially-collapsed economy with an abysmally-high revenue deficit of Rs 13,484 crore and the fiscal deficit of Rs 26,801 crore, Governor VP Singh Badnore on Tuesday said the government is committed to restoring the financial position of the state and to once again put it on a high-growth trajectory.

He was addressing the first session of the 15th Vidhan Sabha here.

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Badnore, in his 35-minute speech, said, Punjabs financial health has been under stress for some time on account of ballooning salaries and wage bills of employees, mounting debt burden, slow growth of revenue receipts as compared to revenue expenditure and loss-making public sector units (PSUs).

While the SAD MLAs arrived a little before the start of the session at 11 am and exchanged pleasantries with the Congress legislators, the AAP MLAs, along with Bains brothers of the Lok Insaaf Party, arrived last.

The major opposition had walked out of the House on Monday in protest against the Speaker not allowing debate on the Governors address.

Badnore said, During the last five years (2012-2017) the projections/targets of the state excise and VAT revenue were never achieved. During the last 10 years, the total debt of the state had increased from Rs 48,344 crore to Rs 1,82,537 crore at the end of 2016-2017. The government had borrowed Rs 15,632 crore on behalf of the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited alone. In order to settle the gap in Cash Credit Limit (CCL) for foodgrains, the government agreed to term loan which further burdened the state. Even the atta dal scheme and urban and rural missions were taking credit from banks.

At the moment the government is trying to come to grips with the financial mess it inherited; implementation of poll promises will be visible in the coming budget (2017-2018), he said.

As a step towards easing debt of farmers who are forced to commit suicide, the government will enact a legislation to prohibit kurki and sale of farmers lands by lending agencies. The government will continue to provide free power to farmers. It will establish an Agriculture Board (APB) responsible for contract farming in the state. The state will take all administrative and legal measures to defend the water rights of the state.

Spelling strict action against drug dealers, the government will pass the Confiscation of Drug Dealers Property Act besides setting up a special task force which will report directly to the Chief Minister for daily monitoring.

Taking a dig at the earlier SAD-BJP government, Badnore said the state witnessed deterioration in the quality of governance with increased political governance through halqa incharges in forcible occupation of government and private businesses, both in transport and mining. The government is committed to simplifying the processes to deliver services through a new Governance Reforms and Ethics Commission (GREC).

The Governor said all MLAs and MPs would be required to declare details of their immovable properties on January 1 each year. For the current financial year they will be required to provide the details by July 1. Fresh surveys will be carried out for providing the government endeavour of providing ghar ghar mein naukri.

The Governor also underlined a complete revamp of the police and change in attitude of law-enforcing agencies. Territorial jurisdiction of police stations will be rationalised and police will follow a schedule of fixed duty hours except in case of emergencies.

Badnore said the government would make all efforts to commission the Shahpur Kandi hydel project and Mukerian II hydel project to increase the generation capacity of the state from the current 13,960 MWs. The government proposes to assign increased role to the private sector in providing transport facilities to citizens. Clearly hinting at the ministers in the last government, he said all illegal and ineligible permits will be cancelled.

The government will ensure 30 per cent reservation for SCs in allotment of houses, and residential and commercial plots. The government will also provide 30 per cent reservation to women in government jobs.

The Governor forgot to say the House is adjourned before walking out of the House after the national anthem when his speech concluded. The AAP leaders sat for five more minutes before leaving the House.
Tribune News Service

Sangrur, March 28

Seven protesting farmers organisations opened locked gates of the district administrative complex today after a meeting with Sangrur SSP and other senior officers of the police.

They, however, announced to continue their protest till the arrest of all those who had attacked Gurdev Kaur in Jhaloor village and Joginder Singh Ugrahan in Kohriya.

Last evening, when senior civil and police officers failed to give a convincing assurance to protesters, the latter intensified their agitation. They kept all three gates blocked till today morning.

Fearing serious problems as protesters refused to allow entry of government employees in their offices this morning, Sangrur SSP Inderbir Singh called protesters for another meeting at the Police Lines in Sangrur.

Senior police officers have assured us that they will arrest all accused in 10 days. They had asked us to end our protest and open the gates of administrative complex. We have opened the gates but our protest will continue till the promise is fulfilled, said Mukesh Malaud, district president of Zameen Prapati Sangharash Committee (ZPSC).

Dalits and upper caste persons of Jhaloor village had clashed in village over the the possession of reserved land for Dalits in village common land. Gurdev Kaur, who was assaulted, breathed her last on November 11 in PGIMER, Chandigarh. The protesters alleged that the Sangrur police were helping the accused. The organisations that are protesting are BKU Ekta Ugraha, ZPSC, Punjab Khet Mazdoor union, Kirti Kisan Union, Krantikari Mazdoor Union, BKU Krantikari and Pendu Mazdoor Union.

When contacted, Sangrur SP (D) Sewa Singh Malhi said, We will arrest all accused in 10 days. We have formed special teams to conduct raids.
Washington, Mar 28 (IBNS): Rubbishing media reports of his alleged Russian link, US President Donald Trump has slammed it as a hoax and has urged the House Intelligence Committee to look into the 'Bill & Hillary deal'.

The US President took to Twitter to address the issue.

In a two part tweet, Trump accused the former First Lady of the State and said that a secret deal with Russia helped the country import big Uranium from America.

"Why isn't the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech....," his tweet read.

"...money to Bill, the Hillary Russian "reset," praise of Russia by Hillary, or Podesta Russian Company. Trump Russia story is a hoax. #MAGA!," a subsequent tweet read.


Rajmeet Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 27

The Punjab Cabinet today fixed the retirement age for the post of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) Chairman-cum-MD at 60, paving the way for the immediate removal of KD Chaudhri, the incumbent chairman, who turned 65 on February 8. The earlier Parkash Singh Badal government, extending the retirement age to 67, had given Chaudhri three extensions.

After the Cabinet meeting today, Power Minister Rana Gurjeet Singh said it had been decided to appoint A Venu Prasad, Principal Secretary, Power, as CMD, PSPCL. Sources said henceforth, the post would remain with an IAS officer, preferably one who had worked in the power sector before.

This, however, could lead to heartburn among technocrats, who have for years been demanding that they be appointed to posts requiring technical expertise.

The Cabinet included the streams of civil engineering, electronics and communication engineering, instrumentation engineering and information technology in the basic qualifications required for the post. Also, experience with the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) would be counted.

The Cabinet also agreed to enact a law on appointing law officers in the office of the Advocate General. The purpose is to streamline the appointment of Senior Additional AG, Additional AG, Senior Deputy AG, Deputy AG and Assistant AG and to bring transparency in the functioning of the office.

The Punjab Law Officers (Engagement) Act, 2017 Bill will be tabled in the current session of the Vidhan Sabha to put in place a mechanism for engaging law officers in the Advocate Generals office purely on merit, as per the directions of the Supreme Court and the High Court.

So far, it has been the CMs discretion to appoint law officers. Mostly relatives of politicians, bureaucrats and other influential persons would occupy such posts.
Sonakshi Sinha is all set to enthral the audiences with her performance in the upcoming movie Noor. Directed by Sunhil Sippy, Noor is based on Pakistani author Saba Imtiazs novel Karachi, Youre Killing Me! The film follows journalist Noors misadventures and love life as she navigates her way through Mumbai. The Dabangg girl of Bollywood, in the trailer as you see, wants to get into hard journalism but is being forced to cover a Sunny Leone story, which disappoints her. Noor is shown as the girl next door sulking about her weight issues, work stress and no love life.

We exclusively had a chat with AsliSona, as she calls herself on Instagram, and spoke to her about all thingsNoor and how she is currently happy and comfortable with her fit and fab body!

How different/similar are Noor and Sonakshi?

I think the difference is only that we are in different professions. Noor is a journalist and I am an actor. The similarities are uncanny, just the way she talks, she walks, her equation with her friends, not just me, actually every girl will relate to Noor. In terms of preparation, I am a directors actor, I love to hear the directors vision of the character and Sunhil explained Noor to me so well, that I could immediately pick up the nuances.

How was it working with the cast?

It was wonderful. Genuinely a real and lovely experience. I was adamant to have Kanan on board. Because when the film was narrated to me, I could only imagine someone like him and they had three choices for that role. But finally Kanan was in, because he fits the character to the T. The casting of this film is bang on! Even Shibani, for that matter, fits the role perfectly, that of a super confident woman, sexy DJ. When you will watch the film, I can assure you will see the characters, not actors!

You often mention that Dabangg was an idea that changed your life. Do you miss being a part of super glamorous roles?

I dont follow a strategy, to be honest. I am instinctive when it comes to choosing films. Even the films I have done in the past are because when I was reading the scripts, I could see the audience falling in love with the characters. Even when Sunhil narrated Noor to me, he was in my house for dinner on the 9th floor, by the time we got done and he reached the ground floor, I called and told him that I am doing this film!

One director you have been longing to work with?

I want to work with Vikramaditya Motwane again and Sunhil has now joined my wish list. I would love to work with these two again.

What would you like to say about the buzz around your love life?

Well, I am super busy and loving the phase of being busy promoting Noor. Rumours and all that will always be there in the media, I cannot do much about it.
Tribune News Service

Haridwar, March 28

City Mayor Manoj Garg today inspected various Ganga ghats, temples and markets to assess the sanitation and cleanliness standards.

At the ancient temple of Maya Devi, Mayapur, Birla Ganga ghat, Upper Road and nearby points, Garg took stock of the working of Municipal Corporation sanitation and health employees.

Expressing displeasure over garbage, filth and unhygienic conditions in most of the places, he directed the workers concerned to ensure proper cleaning on the premises of temples, Ganga ghats and markets. He also warned roadside vendors and other traders of imposing fine on them in case they didnt give up the practice of throwing polybags and garbage at Ganga ghats. He said garbage bins should be used.

Haridwar is worldwide known for its spiritual-religious significance where millions of people arrive on annual basis. Littered markets, temples and Ganga ghats give the city a bad look, he told traders.

The Mayor gave directions to MC officials, sanitation in charge and contractual workers to ensure regular disposal of garbage and cleanliness at temples, Ganga ghats and markets near Har-ki-Pauri. Any laxity would entail strict action, he said.

Garg also cited directives of the National Green Tribunal regarding cleanliness at Har-ki-Pauri Ganga ghats. The civic body is trying to implement these, but cooperation of local residents, devotees, pilgrims, tourists and the trader fraternity is imperative, he added.

Meanwhile, sanitation workers said pilgrims threw plastic sheets, polybags, water bottles and other waste hither and thither at Ganga ghats. The Mayor said there was a need to carry out a mass awareness drive before penalising the offenders.
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, March 28

BJP MLA from Almora Raghunath Singh Chauhan was unanimously elected as the Deputy Speaker of the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly today.

However, as soon as the Speaker announced Chauhans election as the Deputy Speaker, Leader of the Opposition Indira Hridayesh pressed for call attention motion, saying, Before you make the announcement, I want to make a suggestion that the post of Deputy Speaker be given to somebody from the Opposition.

However, the plea was rejected by Speaker Prem Chand Aggarwal, who said the Opposition should have opted for nominations. The nomination was over on March 27. Nobody from the Opposition filed their nomination papers, he said.

Congress MLA Qazi Mohammed Nizzamuddin said the treasury benches could follow the example of Parliament where the post of the Deputy Speaker is with the Opposition, however, this was rejected by the Speaker.
Johannesburg, March 28

Ahmed Kathrada, the veteran Indian-origin South African activist who was sentenced to life along with Nelson Mandela during the apartheid era, died today at a hospital here after complications following a brain surgery. He was 87.

Kathrada was one of the longest serving political prisoners in the country. President Jacob Zuma condoled the death, praising him for serving selflessly throughout his adult life. He declared a special official funeral for him.

The President instructed that the national flag fly at half-mast throughout the country from today until the evening of the official memorial service. The family has requested a private funeral ceremony.

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Kathrada, who frequently referred to Mandela as his elder brother, was among the three political prisoners who were sentenced to life imprisonment together with the South African anti-apartheid icon after the infamous Rivonia Trial of 1964. The other two were Andrew Mlangeni and Denis Goldberg.

They played major roles in shaping the countrys policies after Mandelas election as the first democratic President of South Africa in 1994.

Kathrada was born on August 21, 1929 in Schweizer-Reneke, a town in the North-West Province of South Africa, and introduced to politics as a young boy when he joined a non-racial youth club run by the Young Communist League.

He was among 2,000 people who were arrested and imprisoned for defying a law that discriminated against South African Indians. Kathrada spent 26 years and three months in prison. Kathrada also received the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award in 2005 from the President of India.  PTI
Moscow, March 28

Russian President Vladimir Putin today was hosting his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani for talks that are being closely watched for signs of their next moves in Syria.

Rouhanis first official visit to Russia comes as the two backers of the Syrian regime push for ways to end the six-year conflict in the country, having done much to marginalise US influence in peace talks.

At the start of their meeting, Putin told Rouhani that Moscow and Tehran work very effectively, practically on all fronts, in international action and the resolution of major and very grave international problems, state television showed.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said ahead of Rouhanis trip that the leaders would discuss regional issues especially the Syrian crisis, solutions to end it quickly, as well as ways to counter terrorism and extremism.

The visit also comes as splits emerge between the countries, the primary allies of Syria, over the role to be played by Turkey, which is backing opponents of the regime.

Moscow has formed an unlikely alliance with Ankara since 2016, envisioning Turkey as part of a solution to the Syrian conflict.

But Iran has been more wary about Turkeys involvement in efforts to end hostilities, with tensions mounting after Moscow and Ankara left Tehran out of a truce they brokered in December.

Rouhani is expected to sign a slew of economic cooperation agreements with Russia, according to Iranian state media.  AFP
Washington, March 28

US President Donald Trump today described as a hoax the allegations about his campaign's connection to Russia and said that the intelligence panel should probe Bill and Hillary Clinton's ties to the country instead of his campaign advisers' links.

"Why isn't the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech...money to Bill, the Hillary Russian 'reset', praise of Russia by Hillary, or Podesta Russian Company," Trump told his supporters over twitter.

Trump in his tweet claimed Clinton, who was his rival in the presidential race, allowed uranium to go to Russia while she was secretary of state. His allegations derive from Russia's nuclear power agency buying a controlling interest in a Toronto-based company, which has mines and mills in the US.

"Trump Russia story is a hoax. #MAGA!" he wrote.

The opposition Democratic leadership in the Congress seeking the resignation of the House Intelligence Committee David Nunes alleging that he briefed Trump on classified intelligence matters without sharing the information with other members of the committee.

Trump and his White House team have spent weeks fending off allegations of inappropriate connections between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence officials.

Critics have maintained that Trump or his top advisers colluded with Russian officials to steal and leak emails from the in-boxes of high-ranking Democrats in the Clinton campaign and on the Democratic National Committee. No evidence has emerged to support those allegations.

The White House said it has asked both the House and Senate intelligence committees to review the information and the allegations.

"What I can tell you through his public comments is that he has said that he had multiple sources that he came to a conclusion on. So to the degree to which any of those sources weighed on the ultimate outcome of what he came to a decision on, I don't know. And that's something that, frankly, I don't even know that he discussed with the President," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters. PTI
Dear friends,

If you have been following my blog, you will notice that I always try to feed stray animals. It saddens me very deeply to see starving dogs/cats wandering on the streets, suffering from hunger and vulnerable to abuse and harm.

Recently, the Sultan of Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah and the Tengku Permaisuri of Selangor Tengku Permaisuri Norashikin have launched the Stray Free Selangor campaign. Im so glad to hear this for a number of reasons. Firstly, fewer strays on the streets means fewer hungry, starving animals. It also means that less animals will be killed through the catch and kill campaigns that were previously conducted. Furthermore, with public education on humane and compassionate methods of dealing with strays, it is my hope that their suffering will be lessened and that the number of animal abuse cases will further reduce.

The stray animals of Malaysia need progressive campaigns such as this one very much and the Sultan of Selangor has set a great example by supporting and launching the campaign. Its wonderful to know that our society is moving in this direction and I hope that many other states will adopt similar campaigns in the near future.

Tsem Rinpoche

Treat Stray Animals Compassionately  Selangor Sultan, Tengku Permaisuri Launch Campaign

SHAH ALAM: The Sultan of Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah and the Tengku Permaisuri of Selangor Tengku Permaisuri Norashikin on Thursday launched the Stray Free Selangor (SFS)  The Humane and Compassionate Way campaign.

Joining them in launching the campaign was the Raja Muda of Selangor Tengku Amir Shah. Also present was Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali.

Tengku Permaisuri Norashikin is the royal patron of the campaign, which is organised by the Selangor Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA).

The SFS campaign focuses on educating the public on humane and compassionate ways of treating stray animals, as well as to encourage all quarters to work together to spay or neuter stray animals and provide shelter for them.

Selangor SPCA patron Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye said the campaign, the first to be organised by a non-governmental organisation in the country, aimed to control the stray population.

I have discussed with the Menteri Besar and he agreed to arrange a meeting with all local government authorities in Selangor to provide explanation on this programme and the importance of complying with the Animal Welfare Act 2015, he told reporters here yesterday.

Meanwhile, Selangor SPCA chairman Christine Chin said the campaign was organised to work towards a radical change for the creation of a society that loves stray animals.

The campaign seeks to replace the ineffective, inhumane, unethical and expensive catch and kill approach of dealing with stray animals, she added.  Bernama



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EMSAs governing board on Monday rebuffed claims by a prosecutor that a contract with an ambulance provider amounted to a $20 million kickback scheme, while at the same time distancing itself from allegations aimed at its executive director.

The Emergency Medical Services Authority board asked a judge to dismiss a federal lawsuit filed in January by a Texas federal prosecutor, citing several legal grounds.

EMSA Executive Director Stephen Williamson, a former ambulance provider and its parent company also filed separate dismissal requests.

In requesting dismissal from the civil lawsuit, the EMSA board says it cant be held liable for actions that were deliberately concealed from the board by its executive director and because Oklahoma law prohibits employers in its situation from being held liable for fraud.

Federal prosecutors in the eastern district of Texas sued EMSA, Williamson, Paramedics Plus Inc. and East Texas Medical Center Regional Healthcare Services Inc., alleging they participated in a kickback scheme regarding the ambulance contract.

Federal officials are seeking unspecified damages and penalties for each false claim submitted or caused to be submitted by EMSA under provisions of the False Claims Act.

Prosecutors allege that the defendants created a slush fund controlled by East Texas Medical Center Regional Healthcare Services and Paramedics Plus that was used to pay over $20 million in kickbacks, including at least $50,000 for Williamsons personal benefit, as well as to pay political contributions, marketing expenses and direct payments to EMSAs contractors.

The state of Oklahoma joined the lawsuit in February, seeking to recoup millions in Medicaid claims paid through its SoonerCare program.

EMSA is a public trust serving over 1.1 million residents, including those in Tulsa and Oklahoma City.

EMSA, in its request for dismissal, maintained that while it cannot be held liable for allegations it was unaware were occurring, it still defended a key component of the federal kickback allegations, described as triggered by a secret profit cap.

The agreement initially called for Paramedics Plus to pay EMSA any excess profits over 12 percent of gross revenues, according to the federal complaint. The profit cap was later reduced to 10.5 percent.

Both EMSA, Paramedics Plus, the hospital and Williamson defended the use of the profit cap, even though, as prosecutors alleged, the phrase is absent from EMSAs request for contract proposals, ETMCs bid and the EMSA contract itself.

The profit cap encourages competition and ensures that Oklahoma taxpayers enjoy the benefits from the efficiencies achieved by EMSA and its public utility model, EMSA states in its request for dismissal. The profit cap was merely a cost-savings agreement that limited the total amount of money that EMSA owed to Paramedics Plus based upon Paramedics Pluss revenue and profit.

Paramedics Plus contracted with EMSA to provide the ambulance service from 1998 to 2013.

Paramedics Plus, in its dismissal request, rejected the governments claims that the profit-cap agreement was a secret.

Williamson, in a dismissal request filed on his behalf, said the government has failed to prove that a profit cap pricing mechanism violated anti-kickback statutes.

The use of a profit cap is a standard in the ambulance industry, thus making it reasonable to conclude that it is a legal pricing mechanism under anti-kickback laws, Williamson argues.

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BBC First has now confirmed its Australian premiere date for SS-GB, the 5 part thriller based on the premise that the Germans won the Battle of Britain.

Starring Sam Riley (Control, Maleficent) as Detective Douglas Archer, and Kate Bosworth (Still Alice, Superman Returns) as US journalist Barbara Barga, it begins Sunday, May 7 at 8.30pm.

The series has been likened to The Man in the High Castle for its hypothetical premise. It premiered in the UK last month.

Screenwriter Robert Wade says: It constantly makes you think: What would I have done? This example of alternate history is particularly interesting because its so close to what might have happened.

Screenwriter Neal Purvis adds: It has a compelling moral dilemma at its heart. To what extent is our hero collaborating with the Nazis as he is helping to run the occupied country? Since the SS run Scotland Yard, is Archer in fact working for the SS? Is he fooling himself? These questions are really gripping.

SS-GB has been adapted from Len Deightons intriguing, alternate history novel of the same name by one of the UKs most successful writing partnerships  BAFTA Award winners Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (SPECTRE, Skyfall and Casino Royale).

Featuring a host of acting talent, the series rapidly merges crime drama with an intriguing spy tale, a compelling love story and a conspiracy thriller with global implications.

BAFTA-nominee Riley plays Detective Douglas Archer, caught between his brutal new SS bosses and a ruthless British resistance movement as he investigates what looks like a black market-related murder.

Starring alongside him, Bosworth plays American journalist Barbara Barga, who becomes inextricably linked with the murder case that Archer is investigating.

The cast also includes Australian actress Maeve Dermody (Vera, Marcella, And Then There Were None). Sydney-born Dermody stars as the mysterious Sylvia Manning, who works for the Metropolitian Police and is romantically involved with Archer.

James Cosmo, known for his appearances in Trainspotting and sequel T2 Trainspotting, as well as his recent portrayal of Jeor Mormont in Game of Thrones, plays Harry Woods, Archers partner at Scotland Yard.

Jason Flemyng (The Missing, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels), Aneurin Barnard (War and Peace, Cilla, Thirteen), Rainer Borck (Inglorious Basterds, War Horse) and Lars Eidinger (Personal Shopper) also star in the drama.

Sunday May 7 at 8.30pm on BBC First.
The latest Multiscreen Report from Regional TAM, OzTAM and Nielsen indicates the TV is increasingly used for more than just Free to Air and Subscription TV.

Australians are spending an average of 30:56hrs a month using TVs for Other use such as SVOD (Netflix, Stan, etc.), Gaming, DVDs, Internet and Timeshifted beyond 28 days. In 2015 it was 28:42hrs.

But Free to Air and Subscription TV consumption still dominate, if losing ground with each passing year.

Five years ago we watched an average of 113:38hrs of Broadcast TV (FTA and STV) per viewer per month (94:24hrs per person).

Now that figure is 81:18hrs per person within a 28 day period. Of that, 72:51hrs (89.6%) is Live, down from 93% in 2013.

Five years ago we averaged 12hrs per month of playback (recorded TV) through the TV set. The figure is now calculated separately, not as a total, at 6:51hrs (8.4%) within 7 days and another 1:35hrs (1.9%) within 28 days. 48 minutes of that is viewed in prime time.

Five years ago Australians also spent an average of 3:27hrs per month watching online videos on their PCs. Now that figure is 12:07hrs. Add to that another 2:46hrs on smartphones and 2:34hrs on tablets.

Today 37% of homes have internet-capable TVs, up from 32% a year ago. Our homes now have an average of 6.4 screens each, the majority of which are internet capable.

OzTAM CEO Doug Peiffer said: This fifth anniversary Multi-Screen Report shows the viewing landscape continues to evolve. Many of the content, device and platform options that today allow viewers to access video anytime, anywhere were in their infancy when the report was first published. Amid unprecedented choice, the TV set remains the primary screen for most: Australians still spend a remarkable 2 hours and 39 minutes each on average per day watching live or playing back broadcast TV channel content on in-home sets  just half an hour less than they did six years ago.

Regional TAM Chairman and General Manager, Prime Television, Tony Hogarth said: The Multi-Screen Report once again highlights the strength of broadcast television. Regional television continues to consistently deliver time spent viewing results that are higher than the national average. Our regional audiences are spending just over 95 hours on average during a month watching broadcast television.

Craig Johnson, Managing Director, Media, Nielsen, said: Since the reports inception five years ago, many things have changed, but overall Australians are consuming more media content that ever.

However, digging beneath the bonnet reveals that fragmentation of channels and devices is growing the long tail, meaning Australian audiences are increasingly taking control of their TV viewing, watching video content wherever and whenever they want, and on the device or screen of their choice.

Multiscreen Report October  December 2016:

Taking an in-depth look at how Australians view on various screens1:  Time spent viewing broadcast TV on in-home sets only:

o Across the population 89.6 per cent [72 hours and 51 minutes (72:51)] of broadcast TV (free-to-air and subscription channels) is watched live-to-air each month.

o 8.4 per cent (6:51) is played back through the TV set within seven days.

o 1.9 per cent (1:35) is time-shifted between eight and 28 days of the original broadcast.

 Across all screens, devices and types of video among the population as a whole:

o 86.6 per cent of viewing (81:18) is broadcast TV content watched on in-home sets within 28 days of original transmission.

o 7.8 per cent of viewing is on PC/laptops. o 2.9 per cent is on smartphones.

o 2.7 per cent is on tablets.

Those figures are an average across the entire population in TV metered markets, and the online universe, and include everyone: heavy, light and non-viewers/users alike.

 Narrowing the focus to only those people who view TV or any kind of video on an in- home television set, PC/ laptop, smartphone or tablet:

While the number of people who watch any video on a tablet or smartphone is relatively small, among those who do, many are heavy viewers.

As the universes (population bases) are dramatically different it is not possible to apportion share of time spent viewing across devices using the viewer metric.

o Penetration levels for various device types are levelling off even as the number of screens in homes continues to grow. This is because people often upgrade a tablet or mobile phone and retain the older one for secondary use.

o 59% of homes have PVRs; 18% have two or more (Q4 2015: 58%; 17%).

o 37% of homes have internet-capable TVs, whether connected or not (Q4 2015: 32%)2. o 50% of homes have tablets (49% in Q4 2015).

o 84% of Australians aged 14+ own a smartphone (80% in Q4 2015)3.

o 100% of Australian television homes can access digital terrestrial television (DTT) channels. o 97% can do so on every household TV set.

o 96% can receive high definition (HD) DTT broadcasts on all TV sets in the home.

o Household internet penetration is stable at 80%.

o Active online Australians spend on average 69:15 per month online4.

O 13.742 million Australians watch some video on the internet each month (incl broadcast TV and non-broadcast content): on average 12:07 per viewer per month. Such viewing is highest among 25-34s (19:19 per month)

Updated.
Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for the opportunity to address you on the critical issue of child protection in emergencies today. The impact of conflict and violence around the world is perhaps most profoundly felt by children and youth, as I have witnessed so many times both here in the Middle East and elsewhere when interacting with Syrians who have been displaced. I have just returned from Mexico where I also had the chance to talk with children fleeing violence in the Northern Triangle of Central America. Their accounts resonated deeply with me, and I admired their incredible strength, resilience, and maturity  developed no doubt as a result of experiences that most adults never have to face.

More than half of the worlds refugees are children. In the process of displacement, whether in their host countries or on the move, children and youth face many risks. The abuses they face are often interlinked with the loss of parents or close family members, severe poverty, food insecurity, or lack of livelihoods. Many are born into or live in situations of exile  often with minimal access to education and necessary support. They may be orphaned or separated from family members as a consequence of violence or flight. Many are compelled to forego school and work in the informal sector to help support their families. Without access to proper documentation, some may become stateless and consequently more vulnerable to displacement and at heightened risk of such harms.

Given their often precarious circumstances, some children and youth move onward to other countries in the hopes of joining their family members, finding safety, or having a future. In many instances, it is a question of their survival, including their families, and indeed is a vital coping strategy. In the process, they may fall prey to smugglers and traffickers or be recruited into gangs or armed groups. They can be subjected to sexual and gender-based violence or other forms of abuse. They may be exploited or forced into early marriage. They may even be subjected to police harassment or detained in often inhumane conditions, which can have a severe impact on their psychological, emotional, and physical development.[1] In environments where xenophobia and racism persist, finding meaningful protection can be elusive.

These heightened risks pose a formidable challenge to those responsible for their protection. However, such problems are not insurmountable. With concerted and joined-up efforts, guided by the recognition of fundamental child protection principles, it is possible to address and mitigate against these risks. In recognitions of this, last years High Commissioners Dialogue on Protection Challenges was dedicated to this issue, focusing on ways to narrow the gaps between the obligations and commitments made by States to child protection and the daily realities of children who are displaced within and across international borders. It is essential that children are placed at the centre of our efforts, and I would like to share with you today some thoughts on what this means for us in practice.

First, we need to approach children with a deep ethic of responsibility and care. Regardless of the reasons why they are on the move, all children share two basic characteristics: They are children, and should always be treated as such. And  as children, they are entitled to special protection and assistance under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Their best interests are a primary consideration in any decision affecting their lives. Laws, policies, services, and all decisions taken in relation to children, whether displaced or not, must be guided by these principles.

Specifically, for refugee children, this requires that we move away from an immigration enforcement approach to ensure that children can be better protected over the longer-term. Enforcement must not undermine the imperative to protect children as children first and foremost. In particular, States need to end the harmful practice of detention of children for migration purposes. Children should not be detained for immigration-related reasons, irrespective of their legal/migratory status or that of their parents. Detention can never be in their best interests in this context. Seeking asylum is a right  it is not an unlawful act. Asylum-seekers, including asylum-seeking and refugee children and children in families, should never be penalised for exercising this right. There are workable alternatives to detention, such as foster care arrangements or early family reunion, which also meet the important personal safety concerns of children.

Second, we need to strengthen child protection systems both within host countries, but also regionally and across borders, to ensure children continue to be protected wherever they are located. There has been a proliferation of international, regional, and national child protection standards and guidance. Within UNHCR, the Framework for the Protection of Children is underpinned by our global strategies on education, ending detention of children for migration-related purposes, preventing and responding to sexual and gender-based violence, and ending statelessness.[2] This Framework aims to ensure that children are safe where they live, learn, and play; and that children are properly consulted and can participate in matters that affect them. However, many children on the move have not benefitted from the implementation of such standards and guidance.

It is key for States to establish child protection systems in accordance with their international obligations, notably the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which incidentally refers to refugee children specifically in Article 22. In supporting States to carry out these responsibilities, we have seen time and again that refugee children are best served when they have access to national child protection systems, education, and other basic services without discrimination. All children need to have access to these systems, regardless of their nationality  this is also what the Sustainable Development Agenda envisages.

At the same time, services need to be adapted to refugee childrens specific needs. They need to be resourced adequately, and policies and procedures put in place to achieve this. Unaccompanied children, for example  particularly those moving across multiple international boundaries  have unique needs that require urgent attention. They require appropriate care arrangements that take into account their needs and wishes in accordance with their age, gender, and experience. This is an area where partners can also play a significant role in addressing barriers faced by refugee children in accessing such services.

Part of an effective child protection system for displaced children also includes an asylum system adapted to their needs. UNHCR and its Executive Committee have called on States to develop asylum procedures that are adapted to children, including, for example, through appropriate evidentiary requirements and an age and gender-sensitive application of the 1951 Convention. Children on the move need to be able to exercise their right to express their views freely in all matters affecting them and to have their views taken into account in accordance with their age and maturity. Most importantly, they need to be protected from forced return to situations where they are at risk of harm.

Children who are unaccompanied or separated, in particular, should be prioritised for asylum processing, provided with free legal or other representation, and appointed with qualified guardians. As they may not always apply for asylum out of fear of detention or deportation, it is also crucial to develop systems to identify them and their specific needs apart from the asylum system. In this regard, good practices include protection-sensitive entry systems based upon close cooperation between law enforcement personnel at the borders  who are often the first to encounter children at risk  and child protection actors. This cooperation can ensure prompt identification, registration, and documentation of children, which are the first steps to ensuring their protection.

Long experience has taught us that families and community networks also play a critical protective role for children. Most children displaced internally or externally in this region are moving with their families  whether with their parents or extended family members. When adult family members are not able to access legal documentation and renew their residency, they can face restrictions in movement and limitations on their livelihoods. Such restrictions have serious implications for the safety of children. They can lead some families to rely upon financial support that can be provided through their children  for example through child labour or early marriage. Supporting families access to residency or other documentation through available, accessible, and affordable procedures is therefore crucial to effective child protection. Likewise, supporting family members access to decent work is essential in protecting children from exploitation and abuse.

When children become separated from their families during or after displacement, we also need to find ways to trace family members and reunite them, including with close family members who may be located across borders in other countries. We further need to bolster support for the generous communities and individuals who step in where family members may be separated or missing to support unaccompanied or separated children living in their midst.

The effective protection of refugee children also requires providing pathways for them to access solutions in a timely manner, which ensure they can acquire, or reacquire, the full protection of a State. Many of todays refugee parents were once refugee children. Parents end up passing their refugee status on to their children because the kinds of solutions that would offer them other options for status are simply not available. This is not the legacy any parent wishes to pass to the next generation. Nor is it the goal that any State has for the children under its protection.

In this respect, childhood statelessness is a common phenomenon. It can be both a cause and a consequence of displacement. The denial of nationality can have a severe impact on the ability of children to enjoy their basic rights, including access to education and healthcare. The Global Action Plan of the #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness articulates a number of key actions that States can take, with the support of UNHCR and other actors, to ensure that childhood statelessness becomes history once and for all.[3] Most notably, UNHCR encourages governments to prioritise the provision of birth registration to children, irrespective of immigration status. Registration not only helps to prevent statelessness, but also serves as a foundation for a childs right to family unity and reunification and ability to return should conditions allow.

Realising solutions for displaced children can be achieved through efforts to support them in a safe and empowered transition to adulthood. Education, in particular, is not only protective in childhood, but also core to facilitating solutions in adulthood. Education is a basic human right, enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 1951 Refugee Convention. Educational opportunities contribute to decreasing risks for refugee children and youth and can provide protective networks of peers and mentors. Quality education also plays transformative role, and can bring hope to children, youth, and their families in displacement. It contributes to solutions  providing children and youth with portable knowledge and skills to pursue productive lives and help rebuild their communities. It can provide the competencies required to participate fully in society.

However, less than half of refugee children around the world attend primary school, less than one-fourth attend secondary school, and less than one per cent go on to university. Many have had their education interrupted by displacement and go for many years without access to school. They report difficulties in continuing education in their host countries when their educational credentials from their home countries are not recognised or when they encounter language barriers, prohibitive costs, or threats to their safety. In light of such urgent needs  particularly in the case of Syrian children in this region  your continued support for education initiatives such as No Lost Generation is vital. Children in displacement need to have access to quality education within a few months of their arrival.

Supporting children in the transition to becoming adults also requires the thoughtful targeting of assistance as young adults progressively achieve self-reliance. Reaching the age of majority at 18 years of age should not mean that targeted assistance for children in displacement ceases from one day to the next. Youth often tell us of the challenges associated with the abrupt transition that takes place when they turn 18 [or age out]. At age 18, they are often no longer entitled to the range of specific protections accorded to them as children, such as certain social, economic, and educational rights, official representation/guardians, and other services that they may still require on their way to being able to support themselves.

Third, achieving protection and solutions requires a joined-up approach. The recent adoption of the New York Declaration on Refugees and Migrants provides a critical opportunity for us to forge new ways of working together to ensure child protection in situations of displacement.[4] We can build upon current good practices and develop new strategies for addressing gaps in child protection through comprehensive refugee responses in specific situations, as set out in the New York Declaration. We can also secure commitments to implement best practices as part of the envisaged Global Compact on Refugees in 2018.

As recognised by States in the New York Declaration, as well as in previous UNHCR Executive Committee Conclusions,[5] finding ways to tackle collectively the challenge of protecting refugee children needs to be based on strong data and sound analysis. Improved data is essential for informing better policy development and more effective and comprehensive responses. Better coordinated approaches require a solid evidence base from which to craft child protection policy and interventions. Good data also helps to promote accountability to children on the move. In this regard, UNHCR, States, and other actors need to improve the quality of data available on children on the move. There is an urgent need for better comparative age and sex-disaggregated data, including on the characteristics, capacities, and needs of children on the move as well as on their success in securing durable solutions.

States need strengthened cross-border coordination and cooperation, including with civil society organisations, international organisations, the private sector, and other stakeholders. This cooperation would focus on providing immediate and longer-term protection and support to refugee and displaced children and addressing the serious risks that arise or are exacerbated during displacement. This requires sustained, multi-year financial commitments to strengthen the capacity of State and non-governmental actors to protect and provide services for children in displacement. As most refugee and displaced children remain within the region from where they originate, particularly girls and younger children, support for child protection efforts in countries within the region need to be prioritised.

This is critical to ensure that services are complementary, aligned, and in line with childrens best interests, especially in the case of large-scale movements where national capacities need additional support. When countries of transit or destination engage in contingency planning, and are supported by sufficient international assistance, they are often better prepared to ensure protection of children arriving as part of a mass influx. A first step towards preparedness would be mapping child protection systems for both national and non-national children in advance to identify and address areas for further action.

The New York Declaration also encourages solutions through resettlement, humanitarian admission, or other pathways to third countries from the outset of an emergency. These can be viable alternatives to taking dangerous journeys at the mercy of smugglers. For the vast majority of children and their families who remain in their first countries of asylum, access to the labour market is key to adult refugees achieving self-reliance and being able to support their families, so that their children do not have to sacrifice school for work. Access to the labour market enables refugees to become productive members of society and to contribute to economies and communities that host them. Also, community-based protection programmes and strengthened national service provision systems that can benefit refugees and host community alike are critical  not only to saving costs, but also to building more cohesive and inclusive societies.

In conclusion, it is possible to create a world where we are better prepared to protect children  both in emergencies and in protracted displacement. The New York Declaration provides an important impetus for more comprehensive action in this direction. The achievement of protection and solutions depends in large measure on resolute and sustained international cooperation and support  with children, adolescents, and young people at the centre of our endeavours to secure a better future for all. If we do not act together for refugee, displaced, and stateless children now, we will have failed not only this generation but also the next. It is the duty of us all to ensure that children and youth can live in safety, security, and with a sense of opportunity. True intergenerational justice demands nothing less.

[1] UNHCR, Beyond Detention. A Global Strategy to support governments to end the detention of asylum-seekers and refugees 2014  2019, 2014, p. 5; Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, Juan E. Mendez, A/HRC/28/68, 5 March 2015, paras. 16 and 59  62.

[2] UNHCR, A Framework for the Protection of Children, 26 June 2012; UNHCR, Action against Sexual and Gender-Based Violence: An Updated Strategy, June 2011; UNHCR, Education Strategy, 2012-2016, 28 February 2012; UNHCR, Beyond Detention: A Global Strategy to support governments to end the detention of asylum-seekers and refugees 2014  2019, 2014; Global Action Plan to End Statelessness, 4 November 2014.

[3] See http://www.unhcr.org/ibelong-campaign-to-end-statelessness.html; and

http://www.unhcr.org/protection/statelessness/54621bf49/global-action-plan-end-statelessness-2014-2024.html.

[4] New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, UN Doc. A/71/L.1.

[5] UNHCR Executive Committee Conclusion 107 (LVIII) 2007; 113 (LXVII) 2016.
South Sudanese refugees queue for food at a reception centre in Arua, in northern Uganda.  HCR/David Azia

The Government of Uganda and UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi today jointly appealed to the international community for urgent and massive support for the thousands of South Sudan refugees who continue to arrive to Uganda every day, fleeing brutal conflict, compounded by the limited availability of food.

Uganda currently hosts more than 800,000 South Sudanese refugees. Among them are some 572,000 new arrivals who have poured into Uganda in desperate need of safety and help since 8 July 2016. With present rates of arrival, that figure will surpass a million before mid- 2017. This year alone, more than 172,000 South Sudanese refugees have fled to Uganda, with new arrivals in March averaging more than 2,800 daily.

Uganda has continued to maintain open borders, said Rt. Hon. Ruhakana Rugunda, Prime Minister of Uganda. But this unprecedented mass influx is placing enormous strain on our public services and local infrastructure. We continue to welcome our neighbours in their time of need but we urgently need the international community to assist as the situation is becoming increasingly critical.

We are at breaking point. Uganda cannot handle Africas largest refugee crisis alone, said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. The lack of international attention to the suffering of the South Sudanese people is failing some of the most vulnerable people in the world when they most desperately need our help.

Chronic and severe underfunding has reached a point where critical life-saving help risks becoming dangerously compromised. Transit and reception facilities are rapidly becoming overwhelmed. Significant challenges are being faced in providing refugees with adequate food rations, health and educational services, and sufficient clean water; a dire situation further compounded by the onset of heavy rains. Currently, UNHCR urgently needs more than a quarter of a billion US dollars to support South Sudanese refugees in Uganda in 2017.

Ugandas approach to dealing with refugees has long been among the most progressive anywhere on the African continent. Upon receiving refugee status, refugees are provided with small areas of land in settlements integrated within the local host community; a pioneering approach that enhances social cohesion and allows both refugees and host communities to live together peacefully. In Ugandas Mid and South-West, land for these settlements is provided by Government. In northern Uganda, where the vast majority of South Sudanese refugees are being hosted, the land has been donated by the local host community, an outstanding display of generosity towards people fleeing war and conflict.

As a result Uganda was chosen as a role model for pioneering a comprehensive approach to refugee protection that complements humanitarian responses with targeted development action, benefiting both refugees and the communities hosting them. This was adopted as part of the New York Declaration on Refugees and Migrants at the UN General Assembly last year, and is now also being rolled out in other displacement crises - offering hope to millions of refugees worldwide. However, in the face of severe underfunding and the fastest-growing refugee emergency in the world, Ugandas ability to realise a model that allows refugees to thrive now risks being jeopardized  and the future of the new comprehensive refugee response framework thrown into question.

Media Contacts:
Children pose for a portrait inside the Kara Tepe accommodation facility.  UNHCR/Achilleas Zavallis

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, said today that joint efforts and strengthened cooperation are crucial to improving the situation for asylum-seekers and refugees in Greece and issued eight recommendations* to help ensure a sustainable refugee response in the country.

UNHCR is fully engaged in finding lasting solutions in Greece together with the responsible authorities and the European Union. I very much hope that the coming months will pave the way for further improvement, said Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The situation in Greece can be managed. It requires moving from the current emergency response to a sustainable system, where asylum-seekers and refugees access the adequate care, support and solution they need, he added. But to achieve this, firm commitment is needed on all sides.

Improving reception conditions is a priority. This would require as agreed with the Greek Government providing more accommodation opportunities in urban areas such as additional apartments, the upgrade of some government-run refugee sites, and ensuring that all unsuitable sites are quickly closed.

Progress in reception conditions will also help prevent and fight sexual and gender-based violence, to which many vulnerable asylum-seekers, including women and children, are exposed in the sites. UNHCR continues to support the establishment of proper identification, referral and support systems for victims, including legal, medical and psychosocial care and safe houses.

Over the past months, UNHCR has supported the Greek government in finding alternatives for a number of sites that were unsuitable. UNHCR stands ready to build on its accommodation scheme in particular with municipalities, which has so far benefitted over 27,000 asylum-seekers, helping to restore normalcy to their lives and paving the way for the social integration of those refugees who will remain in Greece.

UNHCR also calls for more attention to the specific needs of unaccompanied and separated children. Additional capacity is needed to ensure they receive specialized support and care, with their best interest at the centre of any decision. Only two thirds of the 2,100 unaccompanied and separated children officially registered in Greece are hosted in shelters or spaces adapted to their needs, with UNHCR providing more than half of the existing places. UNHCR also strongly hopes that the draft law on guardianship can be adopted and implemented as soon as possible.

The registration and processing of asylum claims is critical both on the islands and on the mainland. UNHCR recommends in particular to the Greek Asylum Service, in cooperation with the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), to work out a plan of the necessary capacity for the registration and processing of asylum claims, both on the islands and on the mainland, in a reasonable timeframe.

More attention is needed to the length and quality of the asylum procedures and reception conditions on the islands, said the High Commissioner. This will allow for more and faster transfers to the mainland and prevent sites on the islands from falling back into the dire conditions and the overcrowding we have witnessed in the past months, he added, noting that UNHCR supported some 7,000 of the more than 10,000 transfers organized since June 2016.

Lets be clear: Greece alone cannot solve the situation on the islands. UNHCR will continue to assist but strong support from EU Member States will also be crucial, said Grandi, who also renewed his call to the Greek government for clear coordination structures, with well-defined roles and responsibilities for all actors.

UNHCR also insisted on the need to return people found not to be in need of international protection in dignity to their countries of origin. This is a critical part of any effective asylum system, as well as being essential to its credibility.

Accelerating the pace and number of people relocated from Greece to other European countries or reunited with their families is also key to move the situation forward. More solidarity and responsibility sharing among across Europe is needed, said the High Commissioner. As of 20 March, only 10,000 asylum-seekers had left Greece for other European countries.

UNHCR also called for more opportunities to facilitate refugee integration. The time has come to invest in the self-reliance of asylum-seekers and local integration of refugees in Greece, so that they can better contribute to their host society, said Grandi.

The increased use of cash-based assistance, with eligible families being given a debit card charged with a fixed amount of money every month, to be used to cover their basic needs, such as complementary food or clothes, will be a useful tool in this regard, he noted. More refugee children should get a chance to attend regular schools, and all refugees should get better access to social welfare services, language and orientation courses, vocational training and job placement programmes.

*Access UNHCRs key recommendations to improve the refugee situation in Greece

Media contacts:
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visits with children at Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan.  UN/Sahem Rababah

ZAATARI REFUGEE CAMP, Jordan  United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday urged the international community to increase its support for Syrian refugees and the countries hosting them, warning that failure to do so risked undermining global security.

Guterres, who served for a decade as UN High Commissioner for Refugees from 2005 to 2015, was speaking during a visit to Zaatari refugee camp in northern Jordan. The camp is the largest in the region and currently host to around 80,000 Syrian refugees.

You can imagine my feelings and my emotions, after having been for 10 years High Commissioner for Refugees, how sad it is, how terrible it is that today we still have Zaatari camp full with Syrian refugees, and that the tragedy of Syria is going on and on and on, he told reporters at the camp.

Guterres said the prolonged crisis had helped to fuel global terrorism, and that it was therefore in donor countries own best interests to increase levels of humanitarian support while seeking a political solution to the tragedy of the conflict.

This is the moment to say that if the world fails to support refugees, the world is only helping those [extremist groups] that use these arguments in order to be able to recruit more people to put at risk our global security, he said. Solidarity with Syrian refugees is  not only an act of generosity, its an act of enlightened self-interest.

Solidarity with Syrian refugees is  not only an act of generosity, its an act of enlightened self-interest.

In reality, however, the options available for Syrians to escape the violence and rebuild their lives in safety were becoming fewer and fewer, he warned, fueling the sense of despair.

My appeal to the international community: increase humanitarian aid to the refugees, increase solidarity to countries like Jordan or Lebanon or others receiving Syrian refugees, and make sure that more opportunities are given to these refugees, he said. This is not the moment to reduce solidarity, this is the moment to increase solidarity.

He praised the role of Jordan in welcoming more than 650,000 registered Syrian refugees, and said not enough had been done to help Jordan and other countries in the region bear the burden of hosting so many refugees.

Syrias regional neighbours, who also include Turkey, Iraq and Egypt, are currently host to more than 4.9 million refugees from the six-year conflict, making it the worlds largest refugee crisis. A further 6.3 million people have been displaced inside Syria, and more than 13 million people there are in need of humanitarian assistance.

UNHCRs Representative in Jordan, Stefano Severe, said that global political developments meant that the international response to the crisis had reached a critical point.

Sustained and significant support for the Syria crisis is more crucial now than ever before, especially with the options for refugee resettlement likely to shrink, he said. This will result in an increased need for support to the most vulnerable refugees in the region to prevent them falling even deeper into poverty.
The Perezs made a modest, comfortable living as produce and bread vendors in a tough suburb of El Salvadors capital. All of their children studied into secondary school  and some even into university  as the matriarch, 71-year-old Maria Luz Perez watched her family legacy stretch on.

All of my family  my parents, my grandparents, my great grandparents  were born and died in El Salvador, she says, and then shakes her head. But that all ended over a US$5,000 extortion.

It all began in mid-2015, when one of Maria Luzs sons-in-law received a demand for a cash payment, the so-called war tax imposed by El Salvadors brutal street gangs. He could not pay, so they murdered him.

We were living like animals, locked in the house, only ever opening the door to run out and get food."

The next threat fell on her daughter, 42-year-old Sandra Felicitas Perez. The price to keep her family and business safe: US$5,000, an impossible sum. Sandra, her husband and her three teenage children were terrified.

We were living like animals, locked in the house, only ever opening the door to run out and get food, she says.

After a few weeks living in siege-like conditions, her 19-year-old daughter, Maria Luz  namesake of her grandmother  braved it out to the familys shop. She was in her first year of college but still insisted on helping the family business. The gang was waiting, and as soon as she stepped out, they coldly shot the pretty, young girl inside the store.

Mexico: A fresh start after fleeing El Salvador's gangs (Cinthya Chavez, camera/ Herminia Fernandez, producer)

When I heard, it destroyed my life, says Sandra, pulling up a picture on her mobile phone of Maria Luz with her two brothers, all wearing goofy smiles. Two days later, we buried her and then fled. I knew if we didnt leave they would kill us all.

In July 2015, with just a few pieces of clothing and as much cash as they could get together, they headed north for Mexico with Sandras younger sister, Carla, and her two teenage daughters.

"Two days later, we buried her and then fled. I knew if we didnt leave they would kill us all.

By this time, the extortions and threats had rippled out through the Perez family. Sandras nephew and his family of four had fled weeks earlier and were already applying for asylum in Mexico. And still the killings mounted.

At just 14, Maria Luzs favourite grandson, Rodolfo Antonio, was gunned down by a gang member who wanted his Puma sneakers. Three months later, the eighth graders mother, Sara del Carmen, was shot by the same gang.

Now, the 17 surviving members of the Perez family all live on the same block in a small town in southern Mexico. Thanks in part to financial support from UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, each branch of the family is able to afford its own little house.

Maria holds a photo of her daughter Sara, who was killed by a gang at age 27.  UNHCR/Daniele Volpe

The young grandson of Ana Ruth Perez.  UNHCR/Daniele Volpe

Ana accompanies her grandsons to school.  UNHCR/Daniele Volpe

Ana sits with her teenage niece and two granddaughters.  UNHCR/Daniele Volpe

Maria looks at family photos in her room in southern Mexico. The dress hanging on the wall belonged to her great-granddaughter, Maria Luz, who was killed by a gang member in El Salvador.  UNHCR/Daniele Volpe

Ana's husband, Pablo, 58, works in a repair shop.  UNHCR/Daniele Volpe

The Perezs are among a growing number of people from Central America seeking refuge in Mexico from the street gangs or maras, transnational criminal organizations whose rackets range from drug dealing, extortion and robbery to rape and murder.

UNHCR expects asylum applications in Mexico to more than double in 2017 to over 20,000. And many, like the Perez family, are increasingly leaving in large family groups.

Were seeing more and more large families requesting asylum in Mexico, says Mark Manly, UNHCRs representative in Mexico. Were working to make sure these family units can stay together and support each other through the traumatizing dislocations from their homes.

The transition to Mexico has been painful for Maria Luz. She suffers from an array of health problems: she can barely see, her knees are swollen to the size of small melons, and she has high blood pressure and heart problems.

Were working to make sure these family units can stay together and support each other."

But she is surviving  what remains of the Perez family is  because they are together.

I take care of my mother because all of her conditions make life very difficult, says Ana Ruth, another of Maria Luzs daughters. I also care for the kids and grandkids when others in the family go out to work.

They help each other out and make what money they can to survive. Maria Luzs daughter Carla works 12-hour shifts at a tortilla shop, where she earns just US$5 per day. Sandra runs a small shop out of her house and daily profits fluctuate around the same level. Ana Ruths husband, Pablo, makes US$10 per day working for a local mechanic. He was able to get his two sons-in-law and his nephew jobs at the repair shop too.

You feel safer being with your family, says Sandra. She reaches out to grab her son Jose, her only living child. He is working at the repair shop and hopes to one day to attend university in Mexico.

I want others to know us as people who tried hard, who gave it our all, he says. He bursts into tears. Thats how we can honour our family who died.
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Mar 28 (PTI) The NIA has registered 19 cases related to ISIS activities in the country, the government today informed Parliament.

The central probe agency has filed charge sheets in eleven of these cases, Minister of State for Home Hansraj G Ahir told the Lok Sabha in a written reply.

"The NIA has registered 19 cases related to ISIS/IS and out of these, charge sheets have been filed in 11 cases.

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"Two of these cases relate to missing of 22 persons from Kerala and their subsequent travel to ISIS controlled territory in Afghanistan," he said.

Replying to a related query, the Minister said Shahjeer Mangalassery, son of Abdulla, is an "accused in a case registered by the National Investigation Agency regarding the ISIS/IS inspired activities of some youths from Kerala and Tamil Nadu."

"During investigation, it has been revealed that he had gone from UAE to IS controlled territory in Afghanistan in June, 2016. A non-bailable warrant against him has been obtained from the special NIA court at Ernakulam," he said.

Ahir added that the central and state agencies are "monitoring the cyber space which is being used to radicalise and recruit persons by ISIS and the law enforcement agencies take action as per law." PTI NES RT

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Lois and Charlie O'Brien were octogenarian entomologists who travelled the world collecting insects. They have collected over a million of insects where they placed in over 1,000 glass drawers in their home.

The couple started their bug collection in the late 1950s and expanded their trover for over 60 years. They met in the University of Arizona. Now they have decided to donate their gigantic collection of insects to Arizona State University.

Arizona State University said in a statement that the couple's donation is worth $12 million. It included rare specimens and will double the school's existing collection. The collection composed of two main themese, weevils and planthoppers.

Charlie O'Brien, 83, is an internationally recognized expert in the beetle. His research has helped weevils fight off invasive weed that can decimate ecosystems. His documentation of over a million weevils will truly help future researchers.

Lois, 89, also works with weevils but is more of a planthopper collector. She has about 250,000 planthoppers in collection. She has written more than 50 papers on planthoppers.

According to The Smithsonian Mag, the preserved insects last for hundreds of years. There are still a huge number of undescribed insects and the collection can help researchers better understand the features of insects and how they interact with their environment. ASU estimated that only a tenth of the world's 10 million insect species have been identified or named.

The rest of their lives were spent collecting, examining, labeling and storing their massive collection of insects. They had a mix of exhausting field work and exhaustive categorizing at home.

The octogenarian couple's fascination for insects has brought them together. They went on trips to over 70 nations and all seven continents. According to WAMU the couple also donated $2 million to endow professorships dedicated to identifying new species.
School children in Jackson, Tennessee get to experience what it feels like to be in college and learn what college is all about through a local program called Mentor U. The thought of going to college is daunting to 6th and 7th graders but thanks to this program, they get to be exposed to college life.

According to WBBJ7 News, Mentor U is a program created by colleges and universities that aim to help 6thand 7th graders from North Parkway Middle School to get a taste of college life. These school children were given a chance to tour the Jackson State campus to have a feel of what it's like to be in college.

One 7th grader Kashenna McCullough said that the experience was awesome. She said that she experienced working with college students which helped her learn and get more opportunities.

The students toured the Physics, Biology and nursing labs, which somehow have influenced some kids' decision on the career path they would be taking when they grow up.

Nell Senter, the JSCC Dean of Social Sciences said that the experience was both beneficial to students and mentor, and that the curriculum help foster character traits that will help them when they get through life. One of the volunteers from Jackson state shared that college is tough and not easy, but is definitely worth it.

It was in 2015 when five colleges and universities partnered together to start Mentor U, and according to The Jackson Sun, these schools are Union University, Lane College, Jackson State, the University of Memphis at Lambuth and the Tennessee College of Applied Technology.

The mentorship and the college visits of the middle school students to the area colleges are helpful in discovering their passion and interest, it gives them exposure to more life opportunities which makes them think about their future in a positive direction.
A new study has found evidence that greenhouse gases from fossil fuel burning are altering the climate. They found that it can lead to life-threatening extreme weather. Lead author, Michael Mann, will appear before Congress on Wednesday to testify on global warming before the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, led by Texas Republican Lamar Smith.

The new study was published on Monday under the journal Scientific Reports. It examined temperature data of jet stream and winds that flow around the Northern Hemisphere. The Rossby wave's pattern measures winds from west to east that loop from north to south between the tropics and the Arctic.

The Pennsylvania State University climate scientist said he and his colleagues at research institutes in the United States, Germany and the Netherlands extensive climate data and discovered that a particular type of jet stream pattern is associated with many of the extreme events in recent years. With increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, the persistent weather events may become more prominent over time according to The Inside Climate News.

It showed that the greenhouse gas buildup slows down the Earth's atmospheric waves and results in regional summer climate extremes. Mann said that it included a deadly 2003 European heat wave, extensive wildfires in Siberia and severe flooding in Pakistan in 2010. In the course of 100 years the pattern has become more frequent said co-author Stefan Rahmstorf, scientist from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

The Rossby waves shape day-to-day and seasonal weather and it has lingered longer over particular regions where greenhouse gases have increased. The Arctic warms up faster than the equator, which is evident with Siberia's summer heat wave and simultaneous widespread flooding in Pakistan as an example of a stuck pattern.

Mann said the study suggests that climate change is leading to a changing pattern of atmospheric flow. Major implications for the weather are felt by a massive swath of the global population according to ADN.

It has sparked half a decade of criticism and congress this week is expected to debate about the severity of climate change.
North Hunterdon Regional High School's assistant principal, Greg Cottrell, became the first student at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania to defend a dissertation for the university's new doctoral program. The Board of Governors in Pennsylvania's State System of Higher Education gave approval in April 2016.

On Wednesday afternoon Cottrell moved one step closer to graduation that he was even given a nickname, "Number One." Cottrell will become a doctor of education in Educational Leadership and Administration. It is the first doctorate program in 124 years.

Cottrell said that he was ready to defend his dissertation and hopes for 24 more students from East Stroudsburg will follow his footsteps. He successfully explained and defended his research project in front of the faculty that have helped him for the last five years.

William Bajor, director of graduate and extended learning at ESU said that Cottrell's success is an enormous personal achievement. He defended his dissertation on March 22.

In his research, Cottrell studied data about how student internet activity can influence the instructional design choices that teachers make to meet the needs of digital learners. He found that his hypothesis about educational benefits associated with providing teachers access to comprehensive learning analytics reports were associated with their students.

Cottrell was able to balance full-time employment, home and his research said Douglas Lare, ESU doctoral program coordinator. He managed to successfully defend his research involving young people and online behavior and at the same time work as assistant principal according to PA Homepage.

According to NJ.com, the university has offered their doctoral program since 2000 in collaboration with Indiana University in Pennsylvania. It was the only approved State System university to offer doctoral degrees. It was only until the 2012 passage of Pennsylvania's Higher Education Modernization Act that allowed all State System universities to propose and offer professional doctoral degrees.
By Press Trust of India: Srinagar, Mar 28 (PTI) An alleged drug peddler was today arrested and 25 kg of poppy straw was seized from his possession in Anantnag district of south Kashmir, police said.

He was arrested during vehicle checking in Achabal, 60 km from here, a police spokesman said.

The accused was driving a private car, the search of which led to the seizure of 25 kg of poppy straw, he said.

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A case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act was registered against the arrested peddler, the spokesman added. PTI MIJ TA AQS

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Google could face a loss of up to $750 million due to a number of companies suspending their advertisement on Youtube. This is because they fear Google's lack of ability to prevent these companies marketing materials from appearing on videos with offensive content.

The boycott started when a number of companies reported seeing their ads placed on videos that show racist, sexist, an offensive content, which may tarnish their reputation. Companies like Johnsons & Johnsons, PepsiCo, AT&T, Volkswagen, McDonald's have officially suspended their advertisements on YouTube. As reported by The Guardian, Starbucks and even Walmart have also joined in with the boycott bandwagon shortly after the issue was put into public attention.

The issue first spilled over the media when The Times led an investigation which revealed that advertisement ads are automatically placed on YouTube videos that show extremist ideologies. Google was summoned to court in the United Kingdom to give light on this issue. Google uses highly sophisticated automation to handle the task of placing ads on YouTube videos. Because of the massive influx of videos on the said site, the task can't be done manually.

However, because of this issue, Philipp Schindler, Chief Business Office in Google publicly apologizes, through a blogpost, for the fiasco and said that they will put in place changes that will give advertisers where they can place their ads. Schindler also added that Google will also hired more people to do this task and they hope that it will resolve this problem as quickly as possible.

Though many Youtube content creators are weary of the revamp Google will make as it might be the start of demonetization of many videos because of a blanket categorization of content, which Youtube may arbitrarily label as offensive. Youtube's revenue last year totaled $10.2 billion, and at the moment the issue broke, it has fallen 7.5%. If the issue Is not resolved fast, Youtube might be on the verge of dismantling.
The American University of Afghanistan has reopened seven months after it suffered a terror attack. The deadly raid by the Taliban killed at least 16 people.The attack led to concerns that the university would never recover. It destroyed the institution's image of being an island of liberalism and learning in a nation afflicted by militant violence.

Speaking to Reuters, Kabul political science student Rahmatullah Amiri admitted that the only thing he can do to show terrorists that what they did was wrong was to go back to school. Amiri was shot three times in the Taliban attack last August and witnessed the death of a friend.

Several international organizations have removed their staff out of Afghanistan in the middle of the security crisis. University officials have also acknowledged that faculty turnover since the attack has become 20 to 30 percent higher than usual.

On a positive note, student enrollment has slightly increased compared to last year. Students arrived this week for new orientation sessions and construction work on new classrooms and a cafeteria continued.

There was excitement over the new school year but apprehension about what will happen in the coming months as well. Security has been increased in campus and the orientation classes focused on safety training.

Guard towers and checkpoints are staffed by heavily armed foreign guards employed by a Canadian private security firm. The foreign company had to get the approval of Afghan President Ghani since such businesses have been banned in the country years ago.

The American University of Afghanistan has moved all faculty and some students into in-campus housing. This is part of the school's efforts to reduce risks like kidnapping.

David Sedney, Acting President of the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) told VOA News that the university campus is now safer because of the new security measures taken after the terror attack last year. The school has about 1,700 students and is considered as one of Afghanistan's finest higher education institutions.
Julian Rubinfien, a junior student at Stuyvesant High School, studied a way to measure genes in space to better understand human aging brining closer to the discovery of the fountain of youth. Soon, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will send his intellectual property to the International Space Station (ISS) for further tests.

Apparently, the blast-off was scheduled on Monday but a problem occurred with one of the rocket's boosters. Nevertheless, the project is still a go and will be rescheduled as soon as possible. It is set to happen at the famous Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Rubinfien, 16, competed in the national "Genes in Space" contest held last June. According to the New York Daily News, his study ranked second against 300 other submissions. The first place went to a Bedford student, whose research brought zebrafish DNA to space for gene replication.

Jessica Quenzer, Rubinfien's biology teacher, assisted him from conceptualization up until the presentation of the project. She will also accompany her student on the launching date. Quenzer acknowledged Rubinfien's curiosity and ambition that led him to this success.

To be specific, NASA will bring DNA strands to the ISS, where they will be mutated and then returned to Earth. This move will help scientists understand the premature aging experienced by astronauts when traveling to space. Contest organizer Sebastian Kraves noted that aging is one of the things they worry about when going out to orbit. A decreased bone mass, slower cardiovascular functioning, and weaker immune system are just a few of the symptoms.

Earlier this year, NASA launched a study featuring Keller identical twins, Scott the astronaut and Mark the earth dweller. Per Outer Places, Dr. Susan Bailey's findings reveal that Scott's telomeres grew in space but shortened again when he returned to the planet. Simply put, there is a possibility that humans could move to a space station and have a longer life.

Telomeres are found at the end of chromosomes. Its length can deter the rate of aging as well as the development of fatal diseases. People with short telomeres are more susceptible to weight gain, heart attack, and cancer. At the end of the day, living in space can still pose serious health risks like myocardial dysfunction, muscle atrophy, and osteopenia.
The first ever commercial flight to view the spectacular Southern Lights in mid-air landed in New Zealand last Friday. It carried a total of 134 passengers, who eventually posted their amazing journeys on various social media sites.

Also known as the Aurora Australis, the Air New Zealand flight NZ1980 flew to a latitude of 62 degrees south, a guaranteed view of the natural light show. Classified as a Boeing 767-319(ER) aircraft, it took off from the South Island on Thursday (9:23 p.m.) for almost an eight-hour flight towards the heart of the Aurora.

According to The Guardian, the organizers are planning to make a second one next year. The source added that the majority of the passengers loved the rare "adventure". In fact, TVNZ reporter Mark Hathaway, who joined the travel, stated that the passengers spent around 4 hours of the flight viewing the Southern Lights.

For the record, the Aurora Australis and the Aurora Borealis (northern counterpart) occur when the Earth's magnetic field interacts with charged particles from the sun. The privileged passengers shared their photos with the hashtag #flightothelights. Some added the #nofilterneeded caption on Instagram.

Meanwhile, Astronomer Ian Griffin spearheaded the trip, which was announced in October 2016. Griffin is the director of the Otago Museum in Dunedin. Per Live Science, the tickets were sold in pairs, a window and adjacent seats to be specific. The economy price was NZ$3,950 (New Zealand dollars), or around $2,770 USD.

In the business class, the round-trip tickets were sold at a whopping NZ$8,500, or roughly $5,972 USD. Well, the slots were immediately out in just five days. For his part, Griffin said he had the idea to start a commercial flight to the Aurora Australis after he had a glimpse of it on board the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA).

SOFIA is a powerful NASA telescope attached to a Boeing 747.Griffin described the New Zealand flight as "absolutely brilliant." He ended that the trip felt like people were looking at a "green, streaky river" floating in the air.
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By India Today Web Desk: Khan family was on a vacation to an undisclosed location recently. And last night, Aamir Khan and his family returned to Mumbai. But more than anything, it was Ira's bonding with Kiran that caught the eye of the paparazzi.

Ira, who accompanied dad Aamir, Kiran and Azad Rao for the vacation, was seen happily posing for the shutterbugs with Kiran.

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Clad in denim shorts and orange t-shirt, Ira held hands with Kiran as they made their way out of the airport.

Despite Aamir's second marriage, Ira shares a warm bond with Kiran, and the photos of them going together for a vacation are a proof of it.

On the work front, Aamir will soon begin shooting for Thugs of Hindostan along with Amitabh Bachchan.

(Photos: Yogen Shah)

ALSO READ: Aamir Khan off to vacation with kids Ira and Azad

ALSO READ: Aamir Khan and wife Kiran Rao are on a vacation in Arunachal Pradesh

ALSO WATCH: Aamir Khan and Ranveer Singh discuss their acting journey

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With Dr. Seuss books tucked firmly in hand, Soldiers from the 88th Regional Support Command joined students from the Lawrence-Lawson Elementary School in commemorating Seuss birthday and Read Across America Day, March 2. Three Soldiers, Sgt. 1st Class Arianna Joe, Staff Sgt. Nicholas Gimson and Sgt. Robert Clark along with Hayley Strand, a command specialist with the 88th RSC, visited four classrooms at the Sparta, Wisconsin, elementary school to share their love of reading and to challenge the students in a bit of Army physical training. Specifically, a push up contest.

March 2, 2017 - Sergeant 1st Class Arianna Joe, center, a chaplain's assistant with the 88th Regional Support Command, introduces Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham before reading it to a group of Kindergarten students at Lawrence-Lawson Elementary School in Sparta, Wisconsin, as part of Read Across America. Staff Sgt. Nicholas Gimson, left, and Sgt. Robert Clark, both with the 88th Regional Support Command, also read to other students at the elementary school. (U.S. Army photo by Zachary Mott) For Clark, who is a chaplains assistant with the 88th RSC and a father of four children, reading with the elementary school students was a chance for him to flex his pirate reading voice. Having four children of my own, I see the joy that washes over their faces when stories are read to them especially when you're able to throw a bit of silliness into the mix, he said. Clark read Seuss One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish to a group of first graders using his best pirate voice. Read Across America Day is a national initiative, Strand said, that Army Reserve Child and Youth Services takes part in to encourage literacy in youth throughout the United States. This event allows the Soldiers a chance to interact with children in the local schools and share some of their experiences with them as well. This is a great way to increase visibility of the military in this area and create bonds between the post and the local community, Strand said. After each reading session, the Soldiers answered a variety of questions from the Kindergarten through third graders. Once the Soldiers exhausted the childrens curiosity it was time to exhaust them physically with a push up contest. Those kids were amazing to be around. The amount of excitement and energy they demonstrated throughout the entire process was truly motivating, Clark said. This is at least the third year that Soldiers from the 88th RSC participated in reading to students at Lawrence-Lawson Elementary. Its something Strand and the Soldiers hope continues as well. This was my first experience with this event, but I had an absolute blast and look forward to helping next year, Clark said. By U.S. Army Zachary Mott

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Published: March 28, 2017

UT Partners With Abu Dhabi University to Offer Dual Global Business Degrees

The University of Tampa and Abu Dhabi University have partnered to offer a dual degree MBA/M.S. in global business program for students who live in the United Arab Emirates.

Students in the program will attend classes in the UAE and in The University of Tampas Sykes College of Business and will earn both an executive master's in business administration through Abu Dhabi University (ADU) and a Master of Science in global business from The University of Tampa (UT).

The program will take 18 months to complete. Two of the eight courses will be taught in Tampa, during which time the students will study and work on projects in the Lowth Entrepreneurship Center and learn about U.S. business practices by visiting local companies.

The program, which is currently only open for students at ADU, is set to launch this fall.

Amy Beekman, UT associate professor of management and director of graduate business programs, said the program is a great opportunity for UT to further develop a global presence.

UT has a very diverse international student population in Tampa, but this is the first program we have launched outside the U.S., Beekman said.

An agreement of cooperation between ADU and UT was signed in 2014 after UT administrators, including President Ronald Vaughn, visited Dubai in 2013 during a Global Access Partnership trip.

The program was approved by both the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Education. Both institutions are accredited by AACSB International, and ADU is also accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC).

Questions about the program may be addressed to Beekman at abeekman@ut.edu.
Reacting to this campaign to wipe out the legacy of the Samajwadi Party by the Yogi Adityanath government, SP city president Raisuddin said the way the government officials were removing all stationery and other publicity material containing images of Akhilesh was highly objectionable.

By Siraj Qureshi: Following the takeover of Uttar Pradesh, the BJP-led state government has issued instructions for all pictures and memorabilia containing photographs of Samajwadi Party mentor Mulayam Singh Yadav and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav to be removed from government offices, failing which the officials concerned could face disciplinary action.

The first instance of this action was seen at the Taj Mahotsav being organised in Agra where the District Magistrate Gaurav Dayal issued a warning letter to the deputy director of tourism Dinesh Kumar for running a documentary in the Mahotsav which featured pictures of the former CM. The DM immediately ordered the documentary to be stopped and warned the tourism department not to repeat such a mistake again.

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With the district administration becoming strict on this issue, several calendars and publicity material containing images of Akhilesh can now be seen dumped in dustbins of government offices including the office of the district magistrate, where a calendar outlining Akhilesh Yadav government's developmental works was thrown in the dustbin.

IS IT FAIR?

Reacting to this campaign to wipe out the legacy of the Samajwadi Party by the Yogi Adityanath government, SP city president Raisuddin said the way the government officials were removing all stationery and other publicity material containing images of Akhilesh was highly objectionable. They should be honourably disposed off instead of just throwing in the dustbin.

Notably, the Adityanath government has already ordered 4 crore ration cards that had Akhilesh's image printed on the front page to be scrapped and reissued and recently the Muslim Waqf and Haj MoS Mohsin Raza had scolded his staff for not removing the picture of SP leader Azam Khan from the office.

Political pundits claimed that removing pictures of the previous governments is nothing new in a democracy, although the way it was being done could be questioned. They claimed that the Akhilesh Yadav government had used several public welfare schemes to the Samajwadi Party's benefit by either printing pictures of SP leaders on the publicity material or by naming the welfare schemes as 'Samajwadi'.

MAMMOTH TASK

Now when the Adityanath government has decided to remove Akhilesh's pictures from all government publicity materials it is proving to be a monumental task as these pictures had been printed indiscriminately everywhere.

A senior citizen said that while Prime Minister Narendra Modi treated SP mentor Mulayam Singh Yadav and former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav with dignity by inviting them to the oath-taking ceremony of Yogi Adityanath government, what the Yogi government is doing to the memorabilia of the past government is not in the same spirit and projects a harsh attitude of the new government towards the previous one.

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India Today Expose: How Uttar Pradesh's money-for-marks mafia works

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India Today special: How Gorakhpur welcomed Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath

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New UW Health Clinic Opening April 5 in Laramie

Dr. Katy Hartman examines patient Mykel Owens, a University of Wyoming double major in communications and psychology, from Newcastle, in an exam room of the new Albany Community Health Clinic in Laramie. (UW Photo)

A health clinic operated by the University of Wyoming that will offer comprehensive patient care services to the Laramie community will open early next month.

Late last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded a grant to the UW Health Sciences Educational Health Center of Wyoming (EHCW) to open the new Albany Community Health Clinic in Laramie. The new EHCW health center will focus on the delivery of comprehensive patient care services.

The clinic, located at 920 E. Sheridan St., Suite A, will open Wednesday, April 5. Clinic hours will be 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays; and from 10 a.m.-7 p.m. each Tuesday.

The funding, in the form of a New Access Point (NAP) grant, will allow the EHCW to open the only Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in Laramie. The new EHCW clinic will provide comprehensive health care services to Albany County residents, regardless of ability to pay. The EHCW is among 75 NAP award recipients in the nation.

This clinic is to serve all -- uninsured as well as insured -- and will be a primary health care clinic, says Richelle Keinath, the clinics manager.

The clinic will be staffed by UW employees, which includes medical Director Dr. Katy Hartman; Keinath; a nurse practitioner; and front office help.

During the grants three-year project period, the EHCW will receive more than $2.1 million to cover operational expenses such as provider salaries, medical equipment and supplies, and the cost of ancillary staff at the new clinic. The EHCW will receive $812,500 in the first year; in the second and third years, it will receive up to $650,000 per year.

UWs new Albany Community Health Clinic will be operated by medical Director Dr. Katy Hartman and Richelle Keinath, the clinics manager. The health center will focus on the delivery of comprehensive patient care services. (UW Photo)

In addition to direct federal funding, the FQHC designation will provide enhanced Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements.

Keinath says the clinic will operate on a sliding fee scale for those between 100 and 200 percent of poverty, and a proof of income component will be included.

We will see clients from children to the older population, and are very excited about how this clinic can supplement the health care that exists already in our community, she adds.

The new clinic will join two other EHCW health centers in Cheyenne and Casper. The UW Family Medicine Residency Programs serve as the largest safety net in the state and deliver full-spectrum family medicine to more than 12,000 people each year.

For more information about who qualifies for assistance or what the eligibility structure looks like, email Keinath at rkeinath@uwyo.edu.
UW Researchers Discover Dust Plays Prominent Role in Nutrients of Mountain Forest Ecosystems

Researchers install passive dust collectors at the San Joaquin Experimental Range site in the southeastern Sierra Nevada. (Sarah Aciego Photo)

For decades, scientists have known that tropical places like Hawaii, with lush landscapes and vegetation, nutritionally benefit from the dust that blows from Asia. However, results of a new study -- headed by University of Wyoming researchers -- demonstrate that dust also can drive the evolution of nutrient budgets in mountainous forest ecosystems.

The study shows that dust also may be crucial in mountainous forest ecosystems, dominating nutrient budgets despite continuous replacement of depleted soils with fresh bedrock via erosion. Directly quantifying the importance of dust, which is sensitive to changes in climate and land use, is particularly crucial for predicting how ecosystems will respond to global warming and land-use intensification.

Before this study, no one appreciated the importance of dust in mountains such as the Sierra Nevada, says Cliff Riebe, a UW associate professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics. The Sierra Nevada is not unlike Wyomings Wind River Range, a landscape where erosion is rapid, but dust still is an important factor. Dust has plant-essential nutrients, like phosphorus, in it.

It was only recently that weve come to understand the importance of dust in tropical ecosystems with high rainfall or chemically depleted soils, says Sarah Aciego, a UW adjunct faculty member in geology and geophysics, as well as an adjunct assistant professor in the University of Michigans Earth and Environmental Sciences Division. That airborne dust also fertilizes mountainous continental landscapes with moderate rainfall is surprising, and has important implications for ecosystem evolution.

A paper, titled Dust Outpaces Bedrock in Nutrient Supply for Montane Forest Ecosystems, appears in the March 28 issue of Nature Communications. Nature Communications is an open access journal that publishes high-quality research in biology, chemistry, Earth science, physics and all related areas.

Aciego is lead author of the paper, while Riebe is the second author. Ken Sims, a UW professor of geology and geophysics; as well as researchers from the University of California-Riverside and the University of California-Merced contributed to the paper.

Before the Sierra Nevada study commenced, Riebe says he was fully expecting -- based on his experience in the Wind River and Snowy ranges -- to learn that nutrients in bedrock were more important than nutrients in the dust.

Bedrock is being dwarfed by the dust in terms of providing nutrients to the ecosystem, Riebe says of the Sierra Nevada. Although we knew this occurred in tropical landscapes, this is completely new to mountainous, semiarid climates. Its surprising.

Our measurements indicate that the amount of the nutrient phosphorus in this dust is equal to, or larger than, the amount that comes from bedrock, the assumed source of soil nutrients, Aciego says. This is a game changer for our understanding of how ecosystems develop and are sustained.

The study took place over the last two and a half years. To gather samples, Aciego, Riebe and others put out passive dust collectors at various points in the mountain range and in the nearby Central Valley.

This NASA image shows transoceanic dust transport from Asia to western North America. (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Photo)

Strontium and neodymium isotopes in modern dust show that Asian sources contribute 18 percent to 45 percent of dust deposits across the Sierra Nevada California study sites, according to the study. Riebe says the Asian dust was found to have settled in the mountains. The remaining dust originates regionally from the nearby Central Valley.

Riebe says the group also sampled the dust across time. After rains, the percentage of Asian dust found was higher. During the dry season, the percentage of Central Valley dust found was higher.

Aciego agrees, saying the study shows that Californias Central Valley produces more dust than people had thought and that this dust makes it to high elevations. This finding is important because it is well known that valleys become dustier during droughts, but no one has previously shown that valley dust travels very far, she says.

Once that dust gets to these mountain ecosystems, it acts just like a lawn fertilizer, causing some plants to thrive and potentially inhibiting others, Aciego says. We can infer that climate change -- which is expected to increase the frequency of periodic, extreme droughts -- will change the diversity and health of mountain ecosystems.

Riebe concurs these findings can assist with predicting effects of climate change.

Dust contributes a large amount of phosphorus to the soil. Thats a surprise, Riebe says. This is a paradigm shift. It means we have to worry about this. If deserts expand, as they are predicted to do, well have more dust in the atmosphere. This will help us better predict effects of climate change. With more dust, we can predict more phosphorus coming in.
By India Today Web Desk: Alia Bhatt has often said that her bond with filmmaker Karan Johar goes beyond professional committments. And their camaraderie cannot be ignored at every given point of time. So much so, Alia became one of the first people to meet Karan's twins.

According to a report in Mumbai Mirror, the 24-year-old actor recently paid a visit to Roohi and Yash at a Mumbai hospital. The news of KJo becoming a dad to twins via surrogacy made headlines during the beginning of March.

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Due to their premature birth, the twins are still in NICU at the hospital. While daddy KJo is a regular visitor at the hospital, this time Alia too decided to meet the twins.

After meeting the twins, Alia and Karan headed to a high-end eatery in Bandra for dinner.

Karan recently penned a moving note sharing his experience of knowing his kids were premature. The twins, named after Karan's parents Yash and Roohi, were born two months premature, and they have been in the NICU ever since. He wrote that he was terrified to know that there were complication during the birth of his twins and his heart sank.

On the work front, Alia, who is currently basking in the success of her last release Badrinath Ki Dulhania, will soon begin shooting for her next with Ayan Mukerji.

(Photos: Yogen Shah)

ALSO READ: I was terrified, my heart sank, says Karan Johar on kids Yash-Roohi being premature

ALSO READ: I'm the mother of my children, says Karan Johar

ALSO WATCH: Karan Johar gives it back to trolls like a boss

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The American Civil Liberties Union have now filed a suit against the state saying that the government has no business telling parents what they can and cannot name their children.

By India Today Web Desk: An American couple is fighting against the US state of Georgia after the authorities barred them from including the word "Allah" in the surname of their daughter.

State officials have refused to issue birth certificate in the name of 'ZalyKha Graceful Lorraina Allah' for the 22-month-old daughter of Elizabeth Handy and Bilal Walk.

The parents say the included Allah in her name because it was "noble" and had nothing to do with religion.

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A report in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper said state officials at the Department of Public Health have said that the name does not fit the naming conventions set up by state law.

They say that the child's last name should either be Handy, Walk or a combination of the two. In a letter to the family, state officials have also suggested that once an official birth record is created, a surname can be changed through a petition to a superior court.

The American Civil Liberties Union have now filed a suit against the state saying that the government has no business telling parents what they can and cannot name their children.

For parents a delay in getting birth certificate means they will have trouble sending her to school or get her admitted to a healthcare centre besides a lack of access to social security system.

They fear that their daughter's identity as a US citizen will be questioned without any valid documents.

ACLU's Executive Director Andrea Young said in a statement that Elizabeth and Bilal jumped through every bureaucratic hoop that's required to obtain a birth certificate for their daughter, but officials at the Department of Public Health refused to record the birth certificate with the name of their choice.

"The department's actions interfere with the couple's right to raise their child and are a clear violation of the right to freedom of speech and the right to equal protection under the law. The department has also caused real harm, preventing this couple and their child from receiving the benefits they need and deserve," he said.

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America is united in condemning hate crime: Trump at first address to US Congress

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Now open at Caesars Palace, Stripside Cafe & Bar welcomes guests with world-famous Las Vegas Strip views coupled with an incredible deal of any combo meal, at any time, for just $19.66.

Bringing fresh, casual cuisine for breakfast, lunch and dinner, Stripside Cafe & Bars menu offers guests an array of homemade favorites as well as twists on the classics. To honor the opening of Caesars Palace in 1966 all combos are priced at $19.66 and include an entree, choice of side and coffee, fountain drink or iced tea.

Menu highlights include, the savory Huevos Rancheros Burrito filled with scrambled eggs, home fries, black beans, chipotle salsa and Monterey jack cheese, served with pico de gallo, chipotle salsa and fresh tortilla chips on the side. Taste buds are tempted, when taking a bite into the Brioche French Toast, topped with whipped butter, maple syrup, cinnamon, powdered sugar and served with a side of fresh fruit. Stripside Cafe & Bar famously offers all-day breakfast. Food lovers dreams come true with shaved prime rib, sauteed green peppers, onions and melted provolone cheese inside of the Stripside Cheesesteak. The full-flavored classic Stripside Chicken Parm includes hand-breaded chicken topped with mozzarella cheese, bathed in a house-made marinara, angel hair pasta and a side of garlic toast. The Steakhouse Burger will leave guests wanting more with Applewood smoked bacon, mushrooms, caramelized onions, melted Swiss cheese atop a patty served inside a brioche bun.

Also available are mouthwatering appetizers like the popular Texas-style fries and fried calamari, as well as signature cocktails and fresh-baked desserts. For those who are low on time, Stripside Cafe & Bar offers a Grab & Go counter where guests can get their favorite entrees on-the-run.

Guests can relax and revel in the scenery while being immersed in a retro Vegas vibe at Stripside Cafe & Bar. The expanded strip facing patio features a full bar complete with counter seating and several high definition televisions, providing guests a front-row view of the lively Las Vegas Strip and iconic Caesars Palace fountains.
By: Loan Quach

Da Nang, Quang Ninh, and Dong Thap were recently awarded as the top three most competitive provinces in Vietnam, according to the twelfth Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) of 2016, recently published by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI). Compiled in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development, PCI 2016 surveys private enterprises and measures economic governance of 63 provinces and municipalities in order to help promote Vietnams private sector development. In more conventional terms, the report assesses the regulatory environment within each province and relays this data to businesses through rankings and comprehensive information pertaining to the sentiment of established business leaders. Foreign investors can then refer to this data to make a decision regarding whereabouts to relocate or expand their businesses in Vietnam.

Overall, PCI 2016 looks at the following factors when evaluating provincial competitiveness:

entry costs;

proactivity and creativity of provincial leadership;

quality of labor training; and

business support services

Trends in provincial competitiveness

The survey highlights several positive trends. Compared to 2014 and 2015, the median PCI 2016 score remains stable. However, due to massive efforts by provinces in the lower half of the PCI ranking to improve their business environment, the score gap between provinces is narrowed to 17, two points lower than last year. That being said, provinces in the upper half also have faced greater challenges in introducing breakthroughs in governance innovation.

In addition to general trends in scoring, sixty-five percent of respondents reported earning profits and 48 percent expected to expand their business over the next two years. Foreign-invested enterprises demonstrated more optimism in the prospect of growth as more than half of the respondents reported expecting increased operation size.

Furthermore, the ease to register a business has improved. In 2006, registering a business took 20 days. In 2016, the number decreased to seven. The survey reports forty-four percent of respondents perceived provincial government has a positive attitude toward the private sector and 71 percent said provincial government becomes more flexible. It also illustrates an increase in the level of satisfaction with the quality of labor training.

Finally, having environmental concerns, seventy-five percent of foreign firms and 73 percent of domestic enterprises firms have developed green policy as well as other self-regulation mechanisms to combat pollution and enhance environmental protection. They are reportedly willing to pay a reasonable operational cost to alleviate conditions at their business. Many of these firms are also reportedly willing to comply with higher provincial environmental strictures.

Provinces to watch in 2017

Da Nang

Da Nang again championed the PCI ranking, making 2016 their fourth consecutive year, and seventh since PCIs inaugural survey, leading Vietnamese provinces and cities in terms of favorable business environment. The central seaport is also the first to achieve 70 points, and good governance also helps the city to attract 65 percent of potential investors.

Despite the success, Da Nang is aiming higher. Da Nang Communist Party Secretary Nguyen Xuan Anh shared in Vietnamese: We are not satisfied with the results we have achieved in recent years and we want to do better. The results havent met our expectation. Leading doesnt necessarily mean the best. He continued to emphasize Da Nangs ambition to become the most worth-living city in Vietnam depends on success in the private sector.

Bing Duong

Meanwhile, Binh Duong made a remarkable return to the PCI Excellent performance tier list. Having been in the Mid-High performance tier in recent years, Binh Duong climbed 21 places up the ranking after reforming and sustaining services. Tran Ngoc Liem, vice director of VCCI Ho Chi Minh City, commented in Vietnamese the rise is inevitable because Binh Duong has implemented innovative governance and has improved its infrastructures to create favorable conditions for businesses, including assisting them with saving costs with a center for public finance. The city has also become friendlier and more proactive to private businesses. In addition, Binh Duong also encourages public-private dialogues through multiple channels to address the needs of businesses and strengthen the role of business associations in the province.

Ho Chi Minh City

Even though Ho Chi Minh City earned a slightly higher PCI score compared to 2015, it had to yield to the rise of other provinces and cities like Binh Duong, which made greater improvements and landed at eighth place. At the same time, while enterprises applauded the move to slash the number of days to register business to three days, they reported less confident in legal and dispute resolution procedures as only 26 percent of businesses agreed The legal system always has a mechanism to help enterprises to denounce acts of corruption of public officials. Twenty-nine percent of investors to the city said good city governance was the reason they choose to relocate or expand to the city. Nonetheless, most enterprises still consider Ho Chi Minh City as an investment destination due to the citys vibrant development scene and ample business opportunities.

Hanoi

Hanoi is racing to the top. Landing at high performance tier, the capital city climbed up 10 places in what it calls the spirit of Five Clear principle, which steers its handling of administrative procedures for businesses with clarity in personnel, tasks, processes, responsibilities, and effectiveness. Moreover, Hanoi introduced a policy of one task, one focal point to reduce time costs and informal charges by delegating tasks of resolving administrative issues to one single office. Forty-nine percent of businesses reported Government officials are friendly in resolving administrative procedures, compared to 36 percent in 2015.

Why invest in Vietnam?

Localities across Vietnam are competing to attract private investments, especially foreign direct investments. As PCI 2016 assesses Vietnamese regulatory environments, it provides comprehensive data for investors to have better overview of provincial governance and make decisions regarding their business relocation or expansion in Vietnam, where foreign direct investments are considered key in the countrys external economic affairs.



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 vietnam@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 Vietnam 2017

An Introduction to Doing Business in Vietnam 2017 will provide readers with an overview of the fundamentals of investing and conducting business in Vietnam. Compiled by Dezan Shira & Associates, a specialist foreign direct investment practice, this guide explains the basics of company establishment, annual compliance, taxation, human resources, payroll, and social insurance in this dynamic country.



Managing Contracts and Severance in Vietnam

In this issue of Vietnam Briefing, we discuss the prevailing state of labor pools in Vietnam and outline key considerations for those seeking to staff and retain workers in the country. We highlight the increasing demand for skilled labor, provide in depth coverage of existing contract options, and showcase severance liabilities that may arise if workers or employers choose to terminate their contracts.
The US$1 million coin is the "Big Maple Leaf", a commemorative piece issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007. (Photo: AFP)

According to German media, the stolen coin is the "Big Maple Leaf", a commemorative piece issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007.

The coin, 53 centimetres across and three centimetres thick, features the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II.

Bode Museum gave the face value of the coin at US$1 million, although the market price of 100 kilograms of gold is around US$4 million.

German police said on Twitter that the robbers likely used a ladder found at a nearby rail track to break into the museum at around 3:30 am (9.30am Singapore time).

Suburban rail traffic was interrupted as investigators combed the area for clues.

The Bode Museum, located on the German capital's UNESCO-listed Museum Island, houses one of the world's biggest coin collections.

The holding includes 102,000 coins from ancient Greece and about 50,000 Roman coins
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Mar 28 (PTI) The assault on four Nigerian students in Greater Noida follows a string of attacks on African nationals in the country in the last two years, despite the governments attempt to prevent such incidents.

India is home to many African nationals including from Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria and Congo, and some of these attacks had taken place in Delhi and Bengaluru, sparking outrage among the African community in India.

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On May 20 last, Congolese national Masunda Kitada Oliver was killed in a brutal attack in south Delhis Vasant Kunj area, triggering outrage by envoys of African countries, even as India had assured them of safety of African nationals.

A few Africans, comprising men from Nigeria and Cameroon and women from Uganda, Cameroon and South Africa were allegedly attacked in May last year in what was dubbed as racial crime, in Delhis Mehraulis area, even though the city police had claimed the incidents were fallout of arguments over loud music and drinking in public.

Four African nationals were allegedly attacked by a mob at Byrathi in Bengaluru in March 2015, after locals were reportedly "annoyed" with them for creating "nuisance" in the area.

Ratcheting up efforts to contain the damage over attacks on African nationals, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had on May 31 last announced a slew of steps including a country-wide sensitisation campaign while asserting that the killing of the Congolese youth was not a "racial crime".

Delhi Police had also appointed a Joint Commissioner-rank official as the nodal officer for attending to issues concerning people from African nations living in the city and launched an exclusive helpline for them.

Vice President Hamid Ansari, en route to his two-nation African tour in February, had said these assaults on African nationals were "sporadic" in nature, while underlining that the issue was raised at diplomatic level by some of the countries but Indias response was "comprehensive".

The string of attacks in the national capital had prompted the Delhi High Court in June last year to observe: "Now Delhi is becoming racist".

It had also expressed anguish over the attacks on them.

There were reports appearing regularly about alleged racist remarks and attacks on African nationals. However, the government had maintained that all such incidents cannot be termed as "racist".

Five people have been arrested in connection with attacks in Greater Noida, and prompted intervention by Swaraj, who has promised immediate action.

She spoke to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath after being approached by an African student who pleaded for action, describing the situation as "life threatening", even as her ministry termed these attacks as "deplorable".

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MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay said the government is committed to ensuring safety and security of all foreigners in India and people from Africa, including students. PTI KND IKA SK IKA

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Meat products are seen in a cold storage room at a supermarket in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AFP/Yasuyoshi Chiba)

"I expect that (the Brazilian authorities) will understand that it's up to them to act as soon as possible to restore trust in the official control system," said commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis as he began a visit to Rio de Janeiro.

"I expect good cooperation and mutual understanding. I expect effective solutions," he told AFP.

Andriukaitis, whose visit was already planned before the scandal broke on Mar 17, will meet Brazilian Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi on Tuesday.

Brazil, the world's top beef and poultry exporter, has been rocked by investigators' accusations that 21 meat processing companies used chemicals to hide the smell of rotting meat and bribed health inspectors to pass off their products as safe.

Brazil's average daily meat exports plunged 19 per cent in a week, or US$11.7 million, according to the trade ministry.

Several countries have slapped restrictions or suspensions on Brazilian imports, though key markets including China have already reopened their doors, blocking only meat from the plants under investigation. The EU has also barred imports from the plants in question.

"This kind of crisis always affects people's trust," Andriukaitis said. "The EU has the highest safety standards. We will follow our agenda and our own standards. We have proposed to Brazil to introduce measures that would help to restore trust."

Brazilian Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi said the EU commissioner's visit was an important chance for Brazil to offer "clarifications."

"Our image was very heavily attacked in recent days. The comments overseas were very bad," he said. "Our competitors ... are taking advantage of this moment of fragility to win clients and market attention."
Grab will bring its ISO-certified best practices to Myanmar and support the governments vision of making Yangons transportation system more efficient. Passengers can look forward to using the Grab mobile app to book taxis on-demand, and enjoy an easy-to-use and reliable travel experience. Existing taxi drivers can use the Grab app to get more passenger bookings and improve their livelihoods.

Cheryl Goh, group vice president of marketing at Grab, said that Grab is a trusted transport brand across Southeast Asia because we stay true to our values of helping to solve the local transportation challenges in each city that we operate in.

As a start, Grab will focus on improving driver service and safety standards for taxis in Yangon. Grab has deep experience in using data analytics to better match taxi drivers to passengers and has robust driver screening and training processes to ensure safety and quality service.

Goh added that, Ride-hailing and using smartphones to book taxis is still a relatively new concept in Yangon. We are committed to work with the taxi industry and other transport stakeholders during our GrabTaxi beta trial, and work together to test and improve our taxi services to both drivers and passengers. Grab is privileged to be part of the countrys journey to reform the public transportation network. As we work towards expanding in Myanmar, we invite taxi drivers to join Grab in this new journey to create the best commuting experience.

Grab is also offering a beta trial for users in the city to experience the convenience of taxi bookings. Users can sign up for the Grab beta trial starting from today by downloading the Grab app for free from Google Play and the App Store.

All taxi rides booked with the Grab app will offer an upfront, fixed fare, with no booking fee. Grabs taxi driver partners will also be trained to provide the best service, including training on using the Grab app and online maps to choose the fastest travel route, and random taxi inspections to ensure that taxis are comfortable and well-maintained.

Grab is currently working with a small group of taxi drivers. The beta trial will scale up gradually to allow Grab to test and improve the GrabTaxi service in Yangon, based on driver and passenger feedback.
H-shaped steel is used to make support beams at construction projects, girders for containers and trucks, steel decks and chassis.

Under the Decree No 957/2017/Q-BTC, the anti-dumping duties imposed range from 21.18 percent to 36.33 percent and will be in effect between April 5 and August 2, 2017.

H-shaped steel is used to make support beams at construction projects, girders for containers and trucks, steel decks and chassis.

Earlier too, on October 5, 2016, the MoIT had conducted anti-dumping investigations into H-shaped steel products imported from China (including Hong Kong). Accordingly, the steel products coded HS 7216.33.00, 7228.70.10 and 7228.70.90 were under investigation.

The decision came after the MoITs Vietnam Competition Authority (VCA) received a petition from Posco SS Vina Company Limited saying that H-shaped steel products imported from China and Hong Kong have severely hit domestic steel producers.

The dumping and damage periods that will be under investigation are from April 1, 2015, to March 31, 2016.

There are five companies in Vietnam that produce shaped steel products, but Posco SS Vina is the only producer of H-shaped steel, with an annual capacity of 700,000 tonnes. This makes the company eligible to represent all local H-shaped steel firms and file a lawsuit against imported products of the same type.
"This peaceful tropical paradise is Viet Nam's largest island, which has rapidly morphed from a sleepy island to a must-visit destination. It's still largely undeveloped as there is plenty of room for exploration. Dive the reefs, kayak in the bays or relax by lounging on the beach, indulging in a massage and dining on fresh seafood. It really is a perfect escape from reality and everyday life."

The other islands on the list include Gili in Indonesia, Boracay in the Philippines, Havelock in India, and Koh Lipe in Thailand.

Dubbed the Pearl island in the southern sea, the island has a 150-kilometre long coastline and beautiful beaches.

The number of tourists visiting Phu Quoc island has increased by 12% annually over the last seven years, reaching more than 600,000 last year.
PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc (fifth from left, standing), ministers and heads of various departments witnessing the agreement being signed by representatives from Exxon Mobil (left, sitting), Quang Nam province (middle, sitting) and PetroVietnam (right, sitting). - Photo PVN

The Blue Whale well is the largest natural gas project to date in Viet Nam, with an approximated on site reserve of about 150 billion cubic metres.

Exxon Mobil is set to invest in a well head platform for offshore water separation and two underground mining groups, each with four extraction wells and an 88 kilometre-long pipe connecting to the Chu Lai coast.

On land, PetroVietnam will invest in a gas processing factory and a power plant with two generators at 600 to 700 megawatts capacity each.

The Quang Nam province project is expected to become operational in 2023.

Another power plant will be built in neighbouring Quang Ngai province on a similar scale and estimated completion date.

The goal for annual gas production is approximately nine to ten billion cubic metre, in which one billion cubic metre is provided to the Dung Quat refinery for downstream activities.

The Blue Whale project can generate an annual amount of natural gas enough for four to five power plant with over 3,000 megawatts capacity.

It is expected to ensure national energy security, in line with both the PMs plan for natural gas and electricity and the economic development for Quang Nam province.

The deal between the two oil companies was made as part of a conference on promoting investment in Quang Nam province on March 26th, 2017.
President Donald Trump. (Photo: AFP/JIM WATSON)

"Health care is a very, very complicated issue. In a way (taxes are) a lot simpler," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday (Mar 24).

And Vice President Mike Pence said Saturday that lawmakers should be shown details soon.

Several days before the collapse of Republican efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration's signature health care law, President Donald Trump even promised to advance "the biggest tax cut since Ronald Reagan," saying it would be "fun."

But reshaping the entire tax code, something not done since 1986, is no mean feat. Several presidents, Republican and Democrat, have failed, foundering on procedural hurdles and the delicate compromises needed to succeed.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Monday the timing of changes will depend on reaching a grand bargain.

"I think part of this is going to be dependent on the degree to which we can come to consensus on a lot of big issues," he told reporters.

"DON'T HOLD ME TO IT"

Major US stock markets have also been jittery since the Obamacare repeal started to head south, despite rallying to multiple records since Trump was elected.

"Failure to pass health care reform has markets questioning the viability of US President Trump's ambitious fiscal stimulus plans," wrote Christopher Vecchio, a currency strategist at foreign exchange trading site DailyFX.

Part of the problem is policymakers had expected revenue savings from the Obamacare repeal would partly offset planned tax cuts. Indeed, Republican leaders insist that fiscal reforms be "revenue neutral," that is, that they not expand the federal budget deficit.

Paul Ryan, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, conceded that the failure on health care "does make tax reform more difficult, but it does not make it impossible."

The Trump administration first expects to cut corporate taxes in order to boost economic activity and encourage multinational companies to return to the United States and stimulate hiring.

During his campaign, Trump had promised to slash the corporate tax rate from 35 per cent to 15 per cent, but Mnuchin did not specifically reaffirm that commitment on Friday, mentioning only a much lower corporate tax rate.

To make up for the revenue loss from a corporate tax cut, Ryan is supporting a border adjustment tax. Generating an estimated US$1 trillion, the measure would impose a 20 per cent tax on some imports while supposedly reducing the trade deficit and encouraging companies to produce goods in the United States.

But the proposal is hotly contested, in particular by major retailers and Republican lawmakers who fear consumers will be stuck with rising prices. The Republican party has also historically favored free trade.

As for income, the White House favors cutting middle class taxes and reducing the number of tax brackets from seven to three (10 per cent, 20 per cent and 25 per cent).

The Treasury Secretary, who had so far promised that there would be no tax cuts for the wealthiest - with any tax cut for the top earners offset by eliminating deductions - seemed less certain during a live interview with the Axios news site.

"Don't hold me to it at the penny but that is the direction we are heading," Mnuchin said.

Senator Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, said regressive tax cuts were a no-go.

If tax cuts favor "the middle class and the poor... we could work with them," Schumer said. "I don't think they are headed in that direction."

One of the ideas underpinning the Trump plan, known as "dynamic scoring," rests on the belief that tax cuts will pay for themselves by stimulating consumer spending and growth.

The Trump administration expects the economy to grow at three percent, if not 3.5 per cent, next year instead of the softer two percent recorded since 2010.
Breastfeeding still best for babies, even if it doesnt make them smarter (though it might)
Coastal areas in northeast Australia were battered by high winds and heavy rainfall on Tuesday as a powerful cyclone it island resorts along the world-famous Great Barrier Reef.

By Reuters: Coastal areas in northeast Australia were battered by high winds and heavy rainfall on Tuesday as a powerful cyclone, which prompted authorities to urge some 30,000 people to evacuate, hit island resorts along the world-famous Great Barrier Reef.

Cyclone Debbie was upgraded overnight to a category four storm, just one rung below the most dangerous wind speed level. Authorities warned it could reach level five by the time it makes landfall around 2 p.m. local time (0300 GMT).

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Wind gusts of more than 220 km per hour (135 mph) lashed resorts in the Whitsunday Islands, where tourists waited out the storm in hotel rooms.

"We're getting some reports already of roofs starting to lift, including at some of our own facilities in the Whitsundays," Queensland Police Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski told Australian Broadcasting Corporation television.

Authorities stockpiled food and fuel, and the army was on standby to deal with the aftermath. However, as winds cut power to about 23,000 people, emergency response crews were also hunkered down until the storm blew over.

It was expected more would lose power as the storm moved slowly across populated areas.

Although the storm was moving slower than first predicted, it is still the most powerful to hit the tropical state of Queensland since Cyclone Yasi destroyed homes and crops and devastated island resorts in 2011.

"The eye itself is probably 50 km (30 miles) across," said senior forecaster Adam Blazak.

RISK OF TIDAL SURGES, WINDS OF 300 KM/H

Authorities urged thousands of people in low-lying areas at risk from tidal surges and winds of up to 300 kph (185 mph) to flee their homes on Monday, in what would be the biggest evacuation seen in Australia since Cyclone Tracy devastated the northern city of Darwin in 1974.

However, police told Reuters they were not sure how many people had heeded that advice. Only about 400 people came to cyclone shelters as the winds gathered strength and made venturing outside dangerous.

Police blamed the wild weather associated with the storm for a traffic accident on Monday in which a 31-year-old female tourist was killed.

Ports at Abbot Point, Mackay and Hay Point were shut, Townsville airport was closed and airlines Qantas, Jetstar, Rex and Virgin Australia cancelled several flights to and from the region.

BHP Billiton and Glencore halted work at their coal mines in the storm's path.

Jan Clifford, who plans to ride out the storm at her home in Airlie Beach, said the power was out, her fence had blown away and huge trees had been uprooted.

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"Our houses are built to take this stuff, it's just what you do," she told Reuters by telephone. "It's where you live and it is what it is."

ALSO READ | Cyclone Vardah: 4 dead, winds and rains might intensify, warns NDMA

Watch: Cyclone Vardah topples 960 kg car in Chennai

ALSO WATCH | Cyclone Vardah: 10 most dramatic mobile videos after the storm struck

--- ENDS ---
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif, speaks with reporters March 22 outside the White House in Washington after a meeting with President Donald Trump.
Bharatiya Janata Party's rise has apparently sent shockwaves in Odisha, and the party has been accused by some of trying to divide the ruling Biju Janta Dal.

By Kumar Shakti Shekhar: The surge of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Odisha has triggered cracks in the ruling Biju Janata Dal in the state. The war of wards has escalated in the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD, posing a risk to his government in the state.

Two senior BJD Lok Sabha MPs - Tathagata Satpathy and Baijayant Jay Panda - have traded charges over the condition of the party and the growing strength of BJP.

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The tussle between the two comes barely a fortnight ahead of BJP's two-day national executive meeting scheduled to be held in Bhubaneshwar on April 15 and 16. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah will attend the crucial meeting.

The BJP's national executive meeting is being held against the backdrop of the party's historic success in the Odisha panchayat elections, held in February, and the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the results of which were announced earlier this month.

Of the total 853 seats, BJP bagged 306 seats - an increase of 8.5 times as compared with its tally of just 36 seats in 2012. It added 270 seats to its previous tally. On the other hand, ruling BJD won 460 seats as against its victory on 651 seats in 2012, losing 191. Congress bagged just 66 seats against the 126 in the previous elections, losing 60.

BJP's rise has apparently sent shockwaves in Odisha. BJD MP from Dhenkanal Tathagata Satpathy has alleged that BJP is trying to divide and take away his party's name and symbol. He has also accused the BJP of trying to influence a BJD MP.

Tathagat's oblique reference was to Panda, his fellow party MP from Kendrapara. In a series of tweets on March 27, Satpathy claimed the BJP was trying an AIADMK-style split within his party. He said the attempt at split within the BJD is aimed at an early election in Odisha, originally scheduled in 2019.

Writing in The Samaja, one of Odisha's oldest daily, Panda said in an article titled 'BJD: Time For Introspection', "If we honestly introspect, we must acknowledge that all the above-listed allegations about the political environment in 1997, including widespread corruption and sheltering of powerful people committing criminal acts, are again being alleged about Odisha of the past three years..."

"Other parties are gaining ground because of their dynamic leadership, and unless the BJD's founder urgently deals with the issues outlined above, the party will struggle to face these challenges," Panda added.

Here's the English version of my Odia OpEd (also incl here) in The Samaja, Odisha's oldest/most-respctd paper, "BJD: Time For Introspection" pic.twitter.com/IuLWE2Ac2H- Baijayant Jay Panda (@PandaJay) March 28, 2017

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This piece along with Panda's previous articles in national English dailies has been viewed as an indication of his growing proximity to the BJP and as an indirect attack on Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

Responding to a tweet which asked him whether he was ready for the "consequences", Panda said he had done exactly what the party's founder president, Naveen Patnaik, had publicly said they should do. "Can anyone point to anything inaccurate?" he asked.

With churning taking place in BJD, rival BJP is leaving no stone unturned to make inroads in Odisha which goes to polls in 2019 along with the Lok Sabha elections. Of the 21 Lok Sabha seats, while BJD has 20, BJP has just one. Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram had won the reserved constituency of Sundargarh in the lower house.

Of the total 147 Assembly seats, the BJD had won 116 in the 2014 state elections while BJP bagged just 10. Congress came second by winning on 16 seats.

However, buoyed by the impressive performance in the panchayat polls, BJP feels it has bright chances of both - capturing power in the next Assembly elections as well as significantly improving its tally in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The national executive meet is a pointer to that.

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Going by the current trend, as BJP intensifies its struggle to wrest power from BJD in Odisha, the ruling party is likely to witness intensified inner wrangling.

ALSO READ | Odisha panchayat polls: BJP's gains sound warning bells for Naveen Patnaik's BJD

ALSO WATCH | BJP MLA tries to snatch Speaker's mic in Odisha Assembly over disagreement

--- ENDS ---
Controversial amendments to Cambodias law governing political parties has caused concern among opposition supporters in the United States, who fear that they could be barred from funding the Cambodia National Rescue Party under the new rules.

At a gathering on Sunday, CNRP lawmaker Ho Vann met supporters in Washington, DC, attendees said they were now being more cautious about using such events to bring in money ahead of local elections in June.

Whatever ways they can find to help the people there [in Cambodia] its up to them, said Ken Kiv, an organizer of the event.

Under the new rules, passed by Cambodias parliament earlier this month, all forms of financial contributions from overseas institutions and foreign-funded groups are banned from donating to political parties in Cambodia.

Rithy Ung, the head of an independent CNRP supporters group in the U.S., said while the law should not apply to Cambodian-Americans, he was concerned about how it may be interpreted.

As members and supporters here at the party branch we have a right to support our party, he said. The Cambodian Peoples Party supporters overseas help their party, too, he said of the ruling party.

Sok Eysan, a CPP spokesman, dismissed the concerns, saying Prime MInister Hun Sens ruling party would not be upset.

They are free to contribute to any party they like. Theres no problem, he said, adding that the law only prohibited non-Cambodians from funding political parties.

Twelve parties are set to contest seats in the June commune elections, but only the CPP and CNRP have registered candidates in all 1,646 constituencies.

Ngim Nheng, CNRP lawmaker for Pursat province, said local supporters, including those overseas, felt like they have ownership of the party, as it was so reliant on grassroots support to fund its activities.

In fact, the opposition in Cambodia has never received financial support from the government. Weve relied on Cambodians overseas.

Every election, the ruling party spends lots of money and we dont know how much they spend. There is no balance of their spending with ours, he said.

Kiv, the events organizer, said attendees planned to support candidates in Mondulkiri province, because its less developed than other provinces... its very far from the capital and lacks hospitals.
White House senior aide Jared Kushner has agreed to speak to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about meetings he had with Russians during last year's presidential campaign and transition period. In the meantime, President Donald Trump is assigning an additional task to his young son-in-law's bulging portfolio. VOA White House Bureau Chief Correspondent Steve Herman has details.
American Airlines says it will purchase a minority stake in China Southern Airlines, a deal that will give the carrier greater access to the world's two largest travel markets.

American Airlines, the world's largest by scheduled passengers carried, will buy $200 million in China Southern stock, the largest airline in China.

The deal gives American a 2.68 percent stake in China Southern and gives the two carriers the green light to move forward with a strategic cooperation.

The agreement, subject to regulatory approvals, is the second such deal between major airlines in the United States and China. Delta Airlines bought 3.55 percent of China Eastern Airlines for $450 million in 2015.

Code sharing, which allows two airlines to more efficiently schedule passengers on each other's flights, will begin later this year. This will give American Airlines access to more than 70 Chinese destinations while China Southern will get a share of more than 80 destinations and North and South America.

China is the world's most populous country. Greater demand for air travel among China's growing middle class is expected to see it surpass the United States as the world's biggest travel market in coming years.
Thirty-eight years ago today  March 28, 1979  disaster struck at 4 a.m. at the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant in central Pennsylvania after its cooling system failed.

It remains the worst nuclear accident in American history.

A simple plumbing failure prevented the main feedwater pumps from sending water to generators that remove heat from the plant's core reactor.

During those pre-dawn hours, the temperature of the reactor rose steadily even as staffers were unaware that a valve in the emergency cooling system had become stuck in place, allowing cool water to flow through the valve  not reaching the reactor.

Instruments in the control room misled operators, who thought the cooling system was working normally.

As coolant flowed from the primary system through the valve, other instruments available to reactor operators provided inadequate information. There was no instrument that showed how much water covered the core. As a result, plant staff assumed that as long as the pressurizer water level was high, the core was properly covered with water.

As alarms rang and warning lights flashed, the operators did not realize that the plant was experiencing a loss-of-coolant accident  or, rather, the beginnings of a nuclear meltdown. And just after 6:00 am, data indicated the core reactor had overheated so much that radiation was detected inside the control room.

Half the core was later found to have melted.

By the evening of March 28, the core appeared to be adequately cooled and the reactor appeared to be stable.

But new concerns arose by the morning of March 30.

A significant release of radiation from the plant's auxiliary building, performed by operators to relieve pressure on the primary system and avoid curtailing the flow of coolant to the core, sparked public concerns and consternation among politicians.

In an atmosphere of growing uncertainty and concern, then-Governor Dick Thornburgh, consulted with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) about evacuating the population near the plant.

Eventually, he and NRC Chairman Joseph Hendrie agreed that it would be prudent for those members of society most vulnerable to radiation to evacuate the area.

Thornburgh announced that he was advising pregnant women and pre-school-age children within a five-mile (8 km) radius of the plant to leave the area.

The national and international media had given the accident at Three Mile Island front page attention for days. Then-President Jimmy Carter decided a frightened nation needed his presence. On April 1, Carter went to inspect the damaged plant.

In the months following the accident, questions were raised about possible adverse effects from radiation on human, animal and plant life around the nuclear power plant, although none could be directly correlated to the accident.

Thousands of environmental samples of air, water, milk, vegetation, soil and foodstuffs were collected by various government agencies monitoring the area.

In 1997, researchers from Environmental Health Perspectives, the journal of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Science concluded increases in lung cancer and leukemia near the Pennsylvania plant suggested a much greater release of radiation during the 1979 accident than had been believed.

The accident sparked sweeping safety regulations. The damaged reactor, on the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg, was never restarted. No new commercial nuclear power plant was licensed by the federal government until 2012.

But an article written by Michael Grunwald published in Time magazine in 2009 summed up Three Mile Island this way:

"The TMI fiasco was a scary cultural momentBut there was nothing particularly tragic about it. It didn't kill people. It didn't kill nuclear power.
A recent spike in civilian casualties in Mosul suggests the U.S.-led coalition is not taking adequate precautions to prevent civilian deaths as it battles the Islamic State militants alongside Iraqi ground forces, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.



The human rights group's report follows acknowledgement from the coalition that the U.S. military was behind a March 17 strike in a western Mosul neighborhood that residents have said killed more than a hundred civilians.



U.S. officials did not confirm there were civilian casualties but opened an investigation.



Amnesty's report also cites a second strike on Saturday that it said killed "up to 150 people.'' The U.S.-led coalition said in a statement that it was investigating multiple strikes in western Mosul that allegedly resulted in civilian deaths.



Evidence gathered on the ground in Mosul "points to an alarming pattern of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes which have destroyed whole houses with entire families inside,'' the report stated.



It said any failure to take precautions to prevent civilian casualties would be "in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.''



In Baghdad, visiting U.S. army chief of staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, said on Monday that what caused the explosion was still unknown and added that "some degree of certainty will be known in the coming days following the investigation."



"It is very possible that Daesh blew up that building to blame it on the collation in order to cause a delay in the offensive into Mosul and cause a delay in the use of collation airstrikes, that is very possible," Milley told reporters after meetings at the Iraqi Defense Ministry.



Daesh is an Arabic language acronym for the Islamic State group.



"And it is possible the collation airstrike did it," he added.



Iraqi forces began the assault on IS-held Mosul in October, after months of preparation and buildup. In January, Iraq declared the eastern half of Mosul - the Tigris River divides the city into an eastern and western sector - "fully liberated."

Iraqi government forces are now battling to retake the city's western half.



Civilians, humanitarian groups and monitoring officials have repeatedly warned of the possibility of increased civilian casualties in western Mosul due to the higher density of the population there and the increased reliance on airstrikes and artillery. Faced with their toughest fight against IS yet, Iraqi and coalition forces have increasingly turned to airstrikes and artillery to clear and hold territory in Mosul's west.



Unlike its previous battles against IS in urban settings in Iraq, the government made the decision to instruct Mosul civilians to remain in their homes. In the battles for Fallujah and Ramadi, those cities were entirely emptied of their civilian population while Iraqi forces fought to push out IS. In Mosul, the Iraqi government said it asked civilians to remain in place to prevent large-scale displacement.



When the operation to retake Mosul was launched, more than a million people were estimated to still be living in the city, Iraq's second-largest. Today, the United Nations estimates about 400,000 people remain trapped in IS-held neighborhoods in western Mosul.



Amnesty International's report quoted survivors and eyewitnesses of airstrikes that have killed civilians as saying that "they did not try to flee as the battle got underway because they received repeated instructions from the Iraqi authorities to remain in their homes.''
Divided Arab leaders arriving in Jordan for a summit on Wednesday are seeking common ground to reaffirm their commitment to a Palestinian state, a long-standing goal that U.S. President Donald Trump last month put into doubt.

The Dead Sea meeting is expected to have a bigger turnout than those of recent Arab summits, Jordanian officials say, and security forces cast a high profile in the capital, Amman, with armored vehicles standing at traffic junctions as leaders flew in.

While they are highly unlikely to bridge rifts over the regional role of Iran or intractable wars in Syria and Yemen, Arab leaders remain united in supporting a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We are concerned that there should be an Arab consensus on the Palestinian file so that this reflects clearly in the discussions of Arab states and their leaders with the new American administration," Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told Reuters.

Before taking office in January, Trump promised to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem  something adamantly opposed by Arabs as tantamount, in their view, to recognizing Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem.

The Palestinians want Arab East Jerusalem  which Israel captured in a 1967 war and later annexed in a move not recognized internationally  as the capital of a future state encompassing the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been frozen since 2014.

One-state solution

During a White House news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month, Trump also he indicated he was open to a one-state solution to the conflict.

That would be deeply problematic for both sides, as it would mean either two systems for two peoples  something Palestinians would see as apartheid and endless occupation  or equal rights for all, which would compromise Israel's Jewish character.

The Arab monarchs and presidents attending Wednesday's summit will meet at the Dead Sea, only a few kilometers from the West Bank and with Israeli settlements visible to the naked eye.

The United States is sending a representative to the summit, Maliki said. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Jordan's King Abdullah are both scheduled to meet Trump soon.

A draft resolution on Jerusalem, seen by Reuters, would require all Arab states to respond to any move by any country to move its embassy there, without specifying the United States.

"The Palestinian issue is the central issue. It is the root cause of conflict in the region and its resolution is the key to peace and stability. We hope we will be able to again relaunch efforts that would get serious negotiations restarted again," said Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.

The biggest disagreement among Arab countries is over the regional role of Iran, an ally of Syria and Iraq and the Shi'ite Hezbollah movement that dominates Lebanon, but regarded by Saudi Arabia and some other Sunni Muslim states as a bitter adversary.

Shi'ite Iran and Saudi Arabia support opposing sides in the civil wars in Syria and Yemen, which have caused humanitarian catastrophes, and in political and factional disputes simmering for years in Bahrain and Lebanon.

Sunni-Shi'ite tensions

The Middle East's political feuds have stoked sectarian tensions between Islam's main Sunni and Shi'ite branches in recent years, contributing to increased militant violence.

"We meet in a difficult Arab era dominated by crisis and conflicts that deprive our region of the security and stability they need to attain our people's rights," Safadi said in a meeting with fellow foreign ministers before the summit.

A Jordanian official told Reuters that the final statement from the summit was expected to include a condemnation of Iran for what it called meddling in internal Arab affairs, and a call to Tehran to refrain from using force or threats. Iran denies any such interference.

A summit of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation included a similar line in its final statement last year.

Friction also smolders between Saudi Arabia, the richest Arab state, and Egypt, the most populous one  close allies for decades before the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings  over approaches to Syria's war and the demarcation of their marine border.

The kingdom's oil giant Saudi Aramco resumed petroleum shipments to Egypt this month, suggesting relations may be improving, and Egypt's Sissi is hoping for a bilateral meeting with King Salman in Amman this week.

"There could actually be a product of the Arab summit: a unified attitude towards Washington's policy in Palestine. They might disagree on all other issues, but I think this is the unifying one," said Mustafa Alani, an Iraqi security expert with close ties to the Saudi Interior Ministry.
Australia canceled a vote on Tuesday to finally ratify an extradition treaty with China, 10 years after it was signed, with the government set for an embarrassing defeat on the vote.

The planned parliamentary vote was to occur two days after China Premier Li Keqiang left Australia where trade deals underpinned fast improving Sino-Australia relations.

But a spokesman for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the vote had been cancelled, after opposition politicians who control the upper house Senate made it clear they would not support the treaty.

"It has been in our national interest to have this agreement with China. We will speak with our Chinese friends in more detail and decide what to do," Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told a news conference.

Political opposition to the treaty in Australia stems from concerns over China's humanitarian record, with human rights groups regularly accusing Beijing of obtaining confessions through torture.

Australia's inability to ratify the extradition treaty is a blow to China's overseas hunt for corrupt officials and business executives who have fled abroad with their assets, dubbed Operation Fox Hunt.

It also comes as three Australian employees of casino operator Crown Resorts Ltd. remain in Chinese custody following their arrest in November 2016 for alleged gambling offenses.
There is more turmoil in the education field in Cameroon. Teachers in the countrys eight French-speaking regions have joined their colleagues on strike in its two English-speaking regions. Francophone teachers say they are owed salaries from as far back as seven years.

No pay, no school were among the signs some of the hundreds of teachers from Cameroon's secondary and high schools were holding Tuesday at their rally outside the Ministry of Finance in Yaounde.

Among them was 27-year-old Rogers Kiven who traveled to the capital from Mokollo, on Cameroon's border with Nigeria. He said he began teaching four years ago, but has not yet been paid.

"We discovered that two years, three years, four years after that we still have not [received] a franc. We communicated [with] our minister and he communicated with his colleague from finance. From those communications, we were able to deduce that our moneys were with the minister of finance. Inasmuch as we are not paid, we are not going to leave this place," Kiven said.

Officials met with teacher representatives late Monday. The teachers refused a request to stop their strike while the government examines the issue.

Ministry of Secondary Education human resources director Moussa Djafarou, who spoke during that meeting, said case files have been compiled.

Djafarou said the Ministry of Secondary Education has forwarded to the Ministry of Finance more than 11,000 authenticated files from teachers who have to be paid. He said he understands that it may be difficult to raise the money and pay them at once, but stressed that there should be transparency, traceability and rationality in what is done.

About 20,000 teachers affected

An official at the Ministry of Finance did not respond to a request from VOA for an interview.

Cameroon has around 80,000 secondary school and high school teachers. Those claiming salary arrears are primarily recent graduates, about 20,000 of them, according to the association that organized the strike.

Each year in Cameroon, the state recruits about 2,000 teacher training graduates, but they say their monthly wages come late or not at all.

Thirty-year-old teacher Zudom Calvin from eastern Cameroon blames administrative bottlenecks.

"They ask us to compile documents and even when we compile those documents, sometimes they get lost. So we do not want that system to go on like that. He [the finance minister] must pay us," Calvin said.

The teachers say they are in debt and struggling to take care of their families.

This new strike leaves many classrooms empty at schools around the country. Schools remain closed in Cameroon's two English-speaking regions, the northwest and the southwest, as a separate teacher strike enters its fifth month.
Leaders from Central Europe said Tuesday they reject a European Union policy that calls for all member states to take in refugees, protesting suggestions that the level of their compliance could be linked to the availability of EU funds to them.

A meeting in Warsaw of the so-called Visegrad Group brought together Poland's Prime Minister Beata Szydlo and her counterparts from Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Their talks included the EU's migrant policies and its 2015 plan of sharing some 160,000 refugees among member states to ease the pressure on Greece and Italy.

The EU recently warned of financial consequences to those who do not comply.

Central European leaders said they reject the relocation plan and will not yield under the financial pressure, which they called an attempt at blackmail. Poland's government is citing security concerns among the reasons behind its refusal to take in people.

Szydlo said at a joint news conference that EU's migration policy should result from a true compromise among member states that would take into account especially sensitive issues.

"The Visegrad Group, including Poland, will never agree to blackmail and will never agree to conditions being dictated to them," Szydlo said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said his country was further sealing its borders and tightening regulations to block access to any more migrants, saying that serves the security of all of Europe.

The Visegrad Group aspires to have a greater role in EU policies while at the same time makes a point of criticizing the bloc's decisions.
By India Today Web Desk: Bigg Boss season 1 contestant Bobby Darling aka Pakhi Sharma, who got married to a Bhopal-based businessman, Ramneek Sharma, in a private ceremony last year might be seen shaking a leg with her husband in Nach Baliye 8.

Bobby was approached by the channel to enter the show as wild card jodi but nothing has been confirmed yet.

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Also read: From gender reassignment surgery to her marriage, Bobby Darling opened up about her life in a recent interview.

When India-forums.com contacted her, she said, "Yes, we have been approached. But we have quoted an amount to the makers. If we get it then we will take up the show."

There was also reports of Yuvraj Singh and Hazel Keech being a part of the show but they have denied the rumours. The first episode has already been shot and jodis are all geared up to rock the Nach Baliye stage.

--- ENDS ---
Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has criticized Russia's alleged interference in the U.S. presidential election, calling it a hostile act.



Cheney said Russian President Vladimir Putin had made a serious attempt to interfere in the 2016 election and other democratic processes in America.



In a speech at a speaker's conference in New Delhi, Cheney said, "In some quarters, that would be considered an act of war."



Cheney's accusation comes at a time when both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives intelligence committees are investigating possible Russian interference in the election that brought President Donald Trump to power.
A civil rights group is suing the Trump administration for details on what happens when U.S. immigration officers search travelers' cellphones, computers and similar devices.

Specifically, the Knight First Amendment Institute in New York wants to know how such data found on these devices is kept or shared.

"People today store their most intimate information on their electronic devices, reflecting their thoughts, explorations, activities and associations," the lawsuit states. "Subjecting that information to unfettered government scrutiny invades the core of individual privacy and threatens free inquiry and expression."

The Knight Institute filed its lawsuit after the government failed to respond in a timely manner to a Freedom of Information Act request to address its concern.

Under Homeland Security Department guidelines, customs and border patrol officers do not always need a warrant or suspicion before searching an electronic device.

Homeland Security and Trump administration officials have not commented on the lawsuit.
New efforts by U.S. lawmakers to tighten sanctions against Iran's ballistic-missile program have earned praise from three former senior U.S. officials who support an exiled Iranian opposition group.

Former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph, Obama administration State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley and former Marine Corps Commandant U.S. General James Conway welcomed last Thursday's announcements of new Iran sanctions legislation as they attended a Washington reception on Friday.

Iranian dissident group National Council of Resistance of Iran organized the event in honor of Nowruz, the Persian New Year. NCRI seeks to oust Iran's Islamist rulers and replace them with a democratic system of government.

Ballistic-missile program

The House and Senate legislation sponsored by bipartisan groups of lawmakers would sanction individuals and entities involved in Iran's ballistic-missile program, a program that Washington believes is part of Iranian efforts to produce nuclear weapons.

Iran denies the charge, saying its nuclear activities are peaceful and the ballistic missiles are meant for defense.

"There needs to be a signal sent [to Iran]," General Conway told VOA Persian on the sidelines of the Nowruz reception, when asked about the House and Senate bills. "Their previous behavior of launching [ballistic] missiles, and doing some other things contrary to the [nuclear] agreement needs to be recognized, so that you don't reward bad behavior by doing nothing."

Iran agreed to curb activities that could produce nuclear weapons as part of a 2015 deal with six world powers, who promised to scrap certain sanctions against Tehran in return.

A U.N. resolution that endorsed the nuclear deal also calls upon Iran not to engage in nuclear related activities such as ballistic-missile tests, but that resolution imposes no obligation on Tehran, unlike an earlier resolution.

"Iran's actions are a clear violation of the spirit and the letter of those resolutions," said Joseph, in separate remarks to VOA Persian at the event. "[Imposing] sanctions in response is a very important part of an overall strategy that we need to pursue to ultimately change the regime in Tehran."

Joseph, who served as a U.S. undersecretary of state from 2005 to 2007 with responsibility for nuclear non-proliferation issues, also disputed Iran's contention that its ballistic missiles are unrelated to nuclear weapons.

"Iran has an active intercontinental ballistic missile program that will provide the ability to deliver a nuclear payload to intercontinental range," he said. "The only purpose for an ICBM is to deliver a nuclear weapon."

New congressional bills

The new Iran sanctions bills were introduced just before the start of pro-Israel group AIPAC's annual Washington conference, a three-day event that ends Tuesday. The conference draws thousands of pro-Israel activists who typically use it as an opportunity to lobby members of Congress to take a tougher line against Iran, a longtime foe of the Jewish state.

The Senate bill goes beyond calling for more missile related sanctions by also seeking to designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite military force, as a terrorist organization for alleged involvement in terrorist attacks around the world. The House bill does not contain such a provision.

Also speaking to VOA Persian at the Friday gathering, former State Department spokesman Crowley said the U.S. should carefully consider the implications of a terrorism label for the IRGC.

"On the surface, there is plenty of evidence and grounds to do that," he said. "By the same token, you're going to shut down the outside world's access to the Iranian economy so it is a delicate balance." In addition to its military role, the IRGC operates an influential industrial empire in Iran.

An Iranian American organization that supports the 2015 nuclear deal, the National Iranian American Council, is calling on U.S. lawmakers not to adopt the Senate bill. In a statement, it said sanctioning the IRGC as a terrorist group also "could have serious consequences for U.S. personnel on the ground in Iraq, subjecting them to retaliation from Iran-backed militia groups."

Reconciliation process

The Senate and House bills would have to be reconciled before they could go to President Donald Trump for his approval. The White House has not yet commented on the legislation, but it has put Iran "on notice" for tougher U.S. action against its ballistic missile program after Tehran's last test launch on January 29.

The Trump administration has responded to that test with one round of Treasury Department sanctions in February and a second round of State Department sanctions on March 21.

Iran has not commented on the U.S. sanctions legislation. But in a Sunday report by state news agency IRNA, Tehran announced sanctions on 15 U.S. companies for alleged human rights violations and cooperating with Israel. It was not clear whether any of the U.S. companies have dealings with Iran.
Australians woke up Wednesday to the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie as destructive winds and flooding rains continued to slam Queensland.

Thousands of people took shelter as resorts along the world-famous Great Barrier Reef and mainland coastal areas were belted Tuesday with wind gusts stronger than 260 kilometers per hour. By early Wednesday, however, the Bureau of Meterology downgraded the storm to a tropical low, with wind gusts of 85 kph.

There were early reports of significant structural damage to homes and public infrastructure. Two people were injured, one with serious head injuries after being hit by a falling wall, police said. More than 51,000 homes were without power.

Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said people needed to prepare for more reports of damage, as well as injuries and possibly deaths from the storm.

Shortly before the eye of the storm reached the mainland, wind gusts of 262 kph were reported nearby at Hamilton Island, where tourists were sheltering in hotels. Tens of thousands of people along the coast were evacuated to higher ground.

Queensland State Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that all roads around the affected towns of Bowen, Airlie Beach and Proserpine were cut. She urged residents to stay indoors so that emergency personnel could begin work on restoring roads and infrastructure.
The bodies of two missing United Nations investigators and their interpreter have been found in the central part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

DRC government spokesman Lambert Mende said Tuesday that the remains of Michael Sharp, Zaida Catalan and Betu Tshintela have been found at a site next to the Moyo River in Kasai province.

Mende, speaking to VOA's French to Africa Service, said Catalan's body was beheaded.

Sharp, a U.S. citizen, and Catalan, a Swedish national, were sent by the U.N. to investigate reported human rights abuses near the village of Bunkonde, south of the provincial capital, Kananga.

They disappeared March 12 along with Tshintela, their Congolese interpreter, and three other Congolese nationals, including their driver, Isaac Kabuayi, and two unidentified motorbike drivers.

The U.N. mission in Congo, MONUSCO, launched a search for the group the day they vanished.

There has been no claim of responsibility for the apparent killings, and authorities have yet to locate Kabuayi and the other two missing people.

Kasai province has been the scene of unrest and violence in recent months. Members of a militia beheaded about 40 police officers in Kasai on Friday, according to government officials.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk is announcing a new venture called Neuralink focused on linking brains to computers.

The company plans to develop brain implants that can treat neural disorders  and that may one day be powerful enough to put humanity on a more even footing with possible future superintelligent computers, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing unnamed sources.

Musk, a founder of both the electric-car company Tesla Motors and the private space-exploration firm SpaceX, has become an outspoken doomsayer about the threat artificial intelligence might one day pose to the human race.

Continued growth in AI cognitive capabilities, he and like-minded critics suggest, could lead to machines that can outthink and outmaneuver humans with whom they might have little in common.

In a tweet Tuesday, Musk gave few details beyond confirming Neuralink's name and tersely noting the "existential risk" of failing to pursue direct brain-interface work.

Stimulating the brain

Some neuroscientists and futurists, however, caution against making overly broad claims for neural interfaces.

Hooking a brain up directly to electronics is itself not new. Doctors implant electrodes in brains to deliver stimulation for treating such conditions as Parkinson's disease, epilepsy and chronic pain. In experiments, implanted sensors have let paralyzed people use brain signals to operate computers and move robotic arms. Last year , researchers reported that a man regained some movement in his own hand with a brain implant.

Musk's proposal goes beyond this. Although nothing is developed yet, the company wants to build on those existing medical treatments as well as one day work on surgeries that could improve cognitive functioning, according to the Journal article.

Neuralink is not the only company working on artificial intelligence for the brain. Entrepreneur Bryan Johnson, who sold his previous payments startup Braintree to PayPal for $800 million, last year started Kernel, a company working on "advanced neural interfaces" to treat disease and extend cognition.

Risk of overhype

Neuroscientists posit that the technology that Neuralink and Kernel are working on may indeed come to pass, though it's likely to take much longer than the four or five years Musk has predicted. Brain surgery remains a risky endeavor; implants can shift in place, limiting their useful lifetime; and patients with implanted electrodes face a steep learning curve being trained how to use them.

"It's a few decades down the road," said Blake Richards, a neuroscientist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto. "Certainly within the 21st century, assuming society doesn't implode, that is completely possible."

Amy Webb, CEO of Future Today Institute, pointed out that the Neuralink announcement is part of a much larger field of human-machine interface research, dating back over a decade, performed at the University of Washington, Duke University and elsewhere.

Too much hype from one "buzzy" announcement like Neuralink, she said, could lead to another "AI Winter." That's a reference to the overhype of AI during the Cold War, which was followed by a backlash and reduced research funding when its big promises didn't materialize.

"The challenge is, it's good to talk about potential," Webb said. "But the problem is if we fail to achieve that potential and don't start seeing all these cool devices and medical applications we've been talking about then investors start losing their enthusiasm, taking funding out and putting it elsewhere."
Refugees in Greek camps are faced with many challenges, but those encountered by disabled refugees make an already difficult life even tougher.

Nujeen Mustafa is an 18-year-old refugee in a wheelchair who lived in the Syrian city of Aleppo.

I thought maybe my family cannot evacuate if something happens because of me. We didnt have a lift and we lived on the fifth floor. It makes you feel like youre a barrier between your family and safety, said Mustafa.

She and her family managed to flee Aleppo and made it to Greece by 2015. The journey by road and sea was more difficult for her because of her physical disability.

Mustafa, who has since made her way to Germany where she now attends school, spoke at the European Parliament to share her story with politicians, urging them to improve conditions for disabled refugees.

"I consider myself one of the lucky ones to what Ive got in my life now. But being here and sitting in this room, its kind of sad fact that in the 21st century, toilets and basic services are considered a luxury for some people," she said. "... all of us, and especially people with disabilities, deserve much better."

The difficult terrain and precarious living conditions in the reception centers and camps can make simple things, such as using a toilet when disabled, close to impossible.

European Union Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides met with Mustafa at the Parliament, and said that funding rental accommodations outside the camps is a priority for him.

"To see more disabled people to move from camps to rental accommodation. For me, its a very important objective to reduce the number of disabled people living in camps," he said. "Because definitely the rental accommodation can give more dignity to the refugees and in particular for the disabled people, and at the same time make our aid more efficient."

'Overlooked and underserved'

Human Rights Watch reported in January that refugees and asylum seekers with disabilities are overlooked and underserved in Greek reception centers. The report underscores that because there are no targeted programs for those with disabilities, they do not have equal access to basic services.

Helga Stevens, a member of the European Parliament, who is deaf, is co-chair of the parliaments Disability Intergroup. She said she believes access to information and communication for the disabled are crucial.

"Agency staff must be trained and their awareness raised to the very specific issues that persons with disabilities face," said Stevens. "I notice there is a willingness, however, there [are] issues with lack of resources. Thats a serious problem, we need to be able to provide them with more training and more opportunities. So that they can learn about the need and rights of people with disabilities."

Gunta Anca, with the European Disability Forum, said the situation for the disabled can be improved only if data is collected. According to Anca, camps and reception centers do not register how many disabled refugees there are.

"In those situations when it's invisible disabilities, you cannot see anything and there is no question asked to the people, Do you need anything? It also means there is no information on how many people there are with such kinds of disabilities," said Anca. "So you cannot find out how much and what kind of support they need. And its very difficult to plan and provide in those cases, if you dont know what to provide and to whom to provide."

The Syrian war marked its sixth anniversary on March 15, and estimates put the number of Syrians who have fled to other nations at more than five million, and more than six million are believed to be displaced within the country.
The European Union peacekeeping force (EUFOR) in Bosnia warned its political leaders Tuesday that it was prepared to intervene at short notice should violence resume two decades after the end of its ethnic war that killed 100,000 people.

Concerns are rising about increasing instability in the historically volatile Balkans, including secessionist pressures in Bosnia, a parliamentary boycott in Montenegro, and renewed tensions between Serbia and its former province of Kosovo.

"A lot has been achieved but a lot can be lost again," Major General Anton Waldner said at a ceremony in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, marking his takeover of the command of EUFOR, which has 800 troops deployed in Bosnia.

"There is still an executive mandate which allows significant reinforcement at short notice of [EUFOR]. I will not hesitate to call [on] these reserve forces if needed," said Waldner, an Austrian. "You, political leaders, have the most powerful key in your hands."

EUFOR's new operations chief, General James Everard, said there were "external influences at play in the wider Western Balkans region, and in Bosnia, [that] have the potential to challenge progress."

Western leaders have accused Russia of seeking to exploit diminishing EU leverage in the Balkans by manipulating political events in the region. Russia, which denies such allegations, is a historical ally of the Serbs.

"In the face of such challenges it is essential that we persevere together," added Everard, a Briton.

Last year, Montenegro's authorities accused a group of Serb and Russian nationalists of planning a coup during elections to get an opposition alliance into power.

Russia strongly opposes the former Yugoslav republic's bid to join NATO, but it rejected the accusations.

EUFOR first deployed in Bosnia in 2004, replacing the 60,000-strong NATO Stabilization Force.

For its part, NATO had said that in case of any violent flare-up in Bosnia, it could quickly deploy military assets, mainly from Italy and Germany.

Fears of fresh conflict in Bosnia have risen amid calls from Serbs for the secession of their postwar autonomous entity from Bosnia and their overwhelming vote to keep a national holiday that Bosnia's central top court has ruled unconstitutional.

Postwar Bosnia's two highly autonomous regions, the Serb Republic and the Bosniak-Croat Federation, largely eclipse a weak central cabinet in Sarajevo. This has meant that economic reforms and development often become hostage to ethnic politicking and conflicting visions of the nation's future.
Across much of Iraq and parts of Syria, the Islamic State terror group is in retreat. Yet, Iraqi and U.S. officials tell VOA they have a creeping fear that the larger war is still very much undecided.

To be clear, few worry IS will again be able to make the kind of sudden, massive land grab it did in 2013 and 2014 when, bolstered by tens of thousands of foreign fighters, it captured one Iraqi city after another.

Rather, they fear something more subtle: that the resilient terror group has played the long game well enough that even as its self-declared caliphate teeters on the verge of collapse, it will be a force to reckon with for some time to come.

"They have sleeper cells. They have networks," Najmaldin Karim, the governor of Iraq's Kirkuk province, said during a recent visit to Washington. "They exist everywhere."

The extent to which IS has permeated Iraqi society, despite losing its grip on upward of 65 percent of the territory it once controlled, is difficult to estimate. But Iraqi and U.S. officials caution that IS has found ways to slip past even the most watchful eyes.

Teenage fighters

Perhaps the terror group's most successful and insidious tactic is its use of teenagers, young enough to avoid suspicion but old enough to be highly effective. U.S. and Iraqi officials describe them as the first wave of brainwashed youth truly capable of serving IS's cause.

"Those who were 14 or 15 years old when ISIS came, now they are very active," Karim said, describing them as hardened veterans.

"They are not included in databases," he added. "They can easily mix with the IDPs [internally displaced persons], come into camps and enter cities without anybody knowing. They think they are just kids."

U.S. officials have been reluctant to estimate how many teenagers IS is using or has tried to use to establish sleeper cells in IDP camps or in other areas where it has ceded control.

But some aid groups say the extent to which IS has sought to use children may be like nothing anyone has seen before.

"The challenges created by the systematic use of children by armed groups in Iraq are unprecedented in scope and scale," the U.N. child relief agency (UNICEF) told VOA in a statement, adding the problem remains "difficult to address in Iraq's complex environment."

And it's not just teenagers. Older IS fighters are also trying to sneak through the screening process or simply embed themselves in predominantly Sunni areas.

Finding sleepers

U.S. defense officials have said even relatively recently liberated areas, like Manbij, Syria, where the U.S. has maintained a small military presence, are not immune to sleeper cells.

"They are hiding amongst the civilian population all over Iraq and Syria," Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, commander of Combined Joint Task Force  Operation Inherent Resolve, told reporters this month. "We're focused on chasing them out in a sort of sequential campaign.

"It's our intent with our partners to go root them out of the other population centers first and then chase them into the valleys and river valleys and palm groves and the rural areas."

But with Iraqi and other coalition-backed forces still focused on Mosul and Raqqa, any comprehensive rooting out has yet to begin. And there are areas in Iraq and Syria, along both the border and in the Euphrates River Valley, where IS still has considerable freedom of movement and influence.

There is also evidence of IS fighters trying to regroup in Hawija, in Iraq's Kirkuk province, where according to the provincial governor, about 1,000 militants are keeping the population at bay.

"They [IS forces] still possess large numbers of basic arms, ammunition and explosive material," said a U.S. defense official.

"I think they still believe that they can function and are still making plans to function as a pseudostate," the official added.

Gauging IS force

And despite U.S. data, which suggest as many as 60,000 IS fighters have been killed in airstrikes alone, the terror group still possesses a significant fighting force.

U.S. military officials put the number at 12,000 to 15,000 militants, roughly split between Iraq and Syria, and they estimate that almost a third are willing to die for the cause.

"Having watched ISIL now for its two-plus years of existence, I don't expect ISIL to suddenly collapse from a lack of morale," Townsend said this month, using another acronym for the terror group.

"The foreign fighter percentage, those hard-case guys, are probably only about 10 percent of the enemy's ranks," he said. "There's probably another 10 or 20 percent that are very hardened local fighters and regional fighters."

As for the average IS fighter, "he's probably willing to follow the orders of his leadership," Townsend said.

U.S. and Iraqi officials see indications that those orders are increasingly focused not on preserving the remnants of the group's caliphate but on sowing terror and division across Iraq's ethnic and sectarian lines.

"The caliphate will come to an end in Iraq; they will no longer be able to hold territory," said Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the Kurdistan Regional Government's representative to the U.S. "But we believe the terrorism will continue."

Going local

Intelligence officials believe IS has been slowly but surely adapting its strategy for nearly a year, pointing to the last audio message from former spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani.

"Will we be defeated and you victorious if you took Mosul or Sirte or Raqqa or all the cities  and we returned as we were in the beginning?" Adnani asked last May. "No, defeat is losing the will and the desire to fight."

IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi further laid the groundwork for the shift in November, saying in an audio message distributed online that "this total war and the great jihad only increased our firm belief, God willing, and our conviction that this is all a prelude to victory."

"It's ISIS morphing into an al-Qaida model where they don't plant flags, they don't say they own this neighborhood, they don't say they own this town, but they're able to conduct terrorist operations out of them  car bombs, assassinations, start recruiting, start intimidating the reconciliation process," Michael Pregent, a former intelligence officer now with the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank, warned during a panel discussion last month.

The KRG's Rahman believes with trust among Iraq's various communities already at a low point, every terror attack IS is able to pull off allows the group to sink its roots even deeper.

"It's a local entity," she said. "Ultimately, ISIS grew out as an offshoot of al-Qaida in Iraq and then a sort of pulling together of Baathists who still hanker to come back to power and also the Sunni public  not necessarily the Baathists or the extremists, but the Sunni public who felt totally marginalized."

Libya threat

As an example of how things could play out in Iraq, some U.S. officials point to Libya, where IS has held on despite a series of major losses, including its coastal stronghold of Sirte.

"Anywhere you have a weak or unstable or no government, that's a breeding ground for ISIS," U.S. Africa Command's General Thomas Waldhauser told Pentagon reporters last week. "Consequently, with the situation in Libya as it is, ISIS has not left."

Some analysts argue the ability of IS to maintain some semblance of command and control in Libya, where its core force was whittled from thousands of fighters to just a few hundred, may not bode well for Iraq, where a greater number of fighters have local ties.

"Grievances are being created. There's no sign even halfway competent governance is going to fill the void," said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a terrorism research group.

"That should be of deep concern," he said. "It's possible to win this battle against ISIS and yet in terms of the broader war against Islamic militancy to have either ISIS make a comeback or al-Qaida to fill in the void or some other group."
"Migration Blues", a new album from veteran bluesman Eric Bibb, uses the sounds of the American South to tell the tale of everyone from 1920s farmers fleeing the Dust Bowl for California to refugees crossing the Mediterranean to Europe in the 2010s.

Along the way are Mexicans seeking a future in the United States, families moving from land the government has just seized for corporate expansion, and a Cajun jig reminding listeners of the expulsion of French Canadians south down the Mississippi.

"We are all linked by one migration or another. We are all connected to migrants," Bibb told Reuters ahead of the album's release on March 31.

"The hysterical reaction against migrants is really hard to understand. Have we really forgotten our history?"

The album's most contemporary subject is to be found in "Prayin' For Shore", a blues about the plight of millions of Syrians and others who have fled civil wars in the Middle East on sometimes fatal journeys to Europe across the Mediterranean.

"In an old leaky boat, somewhere on the sea/trying to get away from the war/Welcome or not, got to land soon/Oh lord, prayin' for shore," run the lyrics.

The song, Bibb writes in an accompanying booklet, is about remembering the drowned.

But the fleeing migrants of today are nothing new.

For Bibb, an African American, another key moment in history was "The Great Migration" of millions of southern blacks away from America's segregated South.

By some estimates, more than 6 million left the rural areas for industrial places like Detroit, New York and Chicago between 1910 and 1970.

"(They were) not just looking for jobs but fleeing racial terror," Bibb said.

Such a point is made in his mellifluous rendition of "Delta Getaway" about a man fleeing a lynch mob to Chicago.

"Saw a man hanging from a cypress tree/I seen the ones who done it/now they coming after me".

The album is being released as anti-immigrant politics is on the rise across much of the world, including the United States where U.S. President Donald Trump wants to build a wall on the Mexican border to keep out immigrants.

Bibb said it was all laid down and finished before Trump's election, but that he was nonetheless "astounded by the synchronicity of it".

Most of the songs on the album are Bibb's, although he offers covers of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land", originally an angry riposte from the dispossessed, and Bob Dylan's "Masters of War", about the merchants of destruction.

Bibb said that apart from "Prayin' For Shore", his favorite composition on "Migration Blues" is "Brotherly Love".

He said it reflected his personal belief.

It offers more hope for the future, one in which people can live in peace.
The main convict of Burdawan Blast, Musa was killed in Bangladesh on Monday.

By Sahidul Hasan Khokon: The mastermind behind the Burdawan blast of Khagragarh, militant Musa has been killed in ibabari's Atia Mahal den in Sylhet of Bangladesh yesterday. The paramilitary commandos have been been carrying out an operation over the last 5 days at the militant den Atia Mahal in Sylhet.

Yesterday, chief of operations Brig Gen Fakhrul Ahsan confirmed that four militants including a woman have been killed at Shibbari's Atia Mahal.

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Today, police officials confirmed that one of the killed militants is Musa. The confirmation of the identity was done with the help of a picture submitted by Musa at the time of renting an accommodation.

Musa, who was accused of Burdawan bomb blast on October 2nd, 2014 in West Bengal was a major target of the Indian National Detective Branch ever since.

Sources from Bangladesh Police confirmed that Musa was killed at the Atai Mahal den at Shibbari area in Shylet and his original name was Mainul Islam who joined JMB (Jamatul Mujahedul Bangladesh) in 2004. Musa then formed Neo JMB after being associated with another militant leader Major Jahid.

Later he fled from Bangladesh after being declared wanted by Bangladesh police.

ALSO READ:

Bangladesh: 4 militants, including a woman, killed in Sylhet operation

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Germany will not tolerate foreign espionage on its territory, the interior minister said on Tuesday, in a robust response to media reports that Turkish secret services were spying on supporters of the Gulen movement in Germany.

Fethullah Gulen, a U.S-based Muslim cleric with a large following in Turkey, is accused by Ankara of orchestrating a failed military coup last July. Ankara has purged state institutions, schools and universities and the media of tens of thousands of suspected supporters of the cleric.

The media reports of Turkish espionage in Germany have deepened a rift between the NATO allies in the run-up to a referendum next month in Turkey that proposes to significantly expand the powers of President Tayyip Erdogan.

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and two broadcasters reported that Turkey's National Intelligence Agency had given Germany's foreign intelligence service a list of names of hundreds of supposed Gulen supporters living in Germany.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, speaking in Passau in southern Germany, said he was not surprised by the report and added that the lists would be looked at individually.

"We have told Turkey several times that such [activity] is not acceptable," he said. "Regardless of what you think of the Gulen movement, German law applies here and citizens who live here won't be spied on by foreign states," he said.

The reports said the list included the names of more than 300 people and more than 200 associations, schools and other institutions and a German investigation indicated some of the photos may have been taken secretly.

Warning

The northern state of Lower Saxony even said it was warning suspected Gulen movement supporters about possible reprisals if they traveled to their homeland.

"I think that is a justified and necessary measure to be able to warn people," said state interior minister Boris Pistorius. "The intensity and ruthlessness being [used] on people living on foreign soil is remarkable."

Concerns about Turkish spying are not confined to Germany.

Swedish public service radio broadcaster SR reported that Turkey's ruling AK Party was putting pressure, via the Union of European Turkish Democrats, on Swedish Gulen supporters to supply information about fellow Gulen supporters in the country.

Germany is already investigating possible spying by Turkish imams in Germany. A spokesman for the chief federal prosecutor's office said that probe continued.

German politicians, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, are angry about Erdogan's repeated comparisons of their country to Nazi Germany in response to cancellations of planned campaign events targeting the Turkish diaspora in Germany. Germany says the cancellations were prompted by security concerns.

The speaker of the Bundestag lower house of parliament said in a speech late on Monday that Turkey was turning into an authoritarian system and that its president was effectively staging a coup against his own country.

Norbert Lammert, a member of Merkel's conservatives, said the referendum was about "transforming an undoubtedly fragile but democratic system into an authoritarian system  and this second coup attempt may well be successful".
The House Intelligence Committee has canceled all meetings this week as its chairman, Devin Nunes, rejects Democratic calls to recuse himself from the committee's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

"Why would I do that?" Nunes told reporters Tuesday a day after his colleague, ranking Democrat committee member Rep. Adam Schiff released a statement calling for Nunes to step down.

"This is not a recommendation I make lightly, as the Chairman and I have worked together well for several years, Schiff wrote Monday. He added it would be difficult for the public to maintain faith in the investigation if it could not be objectively investigated or overseen by the Chairman.

On White House grounds



Nunes met a source on White House grounds before making his disclosure last week that President Donald Trump was caught up in "incidental" surveillance, according to his spokesman Jack Langer. Langer said Monday that Nunes wanted "to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source."

Previously, Nunes would not say where he met his source, and has still not revealed the identity of the source.

Nunes spoke with reporters and the president about the material last week without informing any of the other 21 members of the House Intelligence Committee, angering Democrats on the committee who questioned Nunes' credibility. Nunes later apologized to the committee for not first telling them about the information.

"We're trying to get those documents as rapidly as possible," Nunes told VOA Tuesday on efforts to brief other committee members.

Former AG Yates

Meanwhile, Schiff on Tuesday questioned if the White House had sought to cancel a previously scheduled open committee hearing this week during which former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was due to testify "about the events leading up" to former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's firing, "including his attempts to cover up his secret conversations with the Russian Ambassador."

"Whether the White House's desire to avoid a public claim of executive privilege to keep her from providing the full truth on what happened contributed to the decision to cancel today's hearing, we do not know. But we would urge that the open hearing be rescheduled without further delay," Schiff said in a statement.

A Washington Post report said the Trump administration tried to block Yates from testifying.

The White House said the story is "entirely false" and denied taking action to prevent Yates from testifying. In a statement, the White House said "the Department of Justice specifically told her that it would not stop her and to suggest otherwise is completely irresponsible."



Congressional reaction

Nunes has maintained that his relationship with other members of his committee is "good" and that its Russia probe is moving forward.

He did the exact right thing from beginning to end and there really is a concerted effort out to undermine him, Rep. Peter King, a Republican from New York, told VOA of Nunes actions. Hes really on to something  thats why.





Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is calling on House Speaker Paul Ryan to replace Nunes as head of the intelligence committee, while House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi says the speaker should at least insist Nunes is not involved in the Russia investigation.

"He has not been operating like someone who is interested in getting to the unvarnished truth," Schumer said. "His actions look like those of someone who is interested in protecting the president and his party."

But King said members of the committee stand by Nunes.

Obviously, the president had nothing to do with it  the information is totally controlled, and it did not leak out at all, King said.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Monday he does not know where Nunes got his information, but said Nunes has said he did not meet with anyone from the White House staff. He said Nunes also has made clear that he had multiple sources for his allegations.



When asked if the meeting creates a perception problem between Nunes and the White House, Spicer said Nunes was doing his job to investigate allegations of surveillance and was being up front with journalists about his activities.

Trump, who earlier this month tweeted unsubstantiated allegations that former President Barack Obama had wiretapped his campaign while he ran for office, has said he was "somewhat vindicated" by Nunes' statement about the surveillance.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey has said that there is no information to support Trump's allegation that Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump Tower in New York. Trump has asked Congress to investigate.
Iran's president met Russia's prime minister on Monday in a bid to develop a warming relationship that has been greatly strengthened by both sides' involvement on the same side of the war in Syria.

Beginning a visit to Moscow, President Hassan Rouhani told Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev: "I hope that a new turning-point in the development of our relations will be reached."

Iranian arms purchases and Russian investment in the Iranian energy sector are likely talking points for Rouhani, less than two months before Iran's May 19 presidential election.

Iranian media say he will discuss several economic agreements - potentially valuable prizes for the moderate leader, who is keen to show his people that Iran is benefiting from its 2015 deal with world powers to rein back its nuclear program in returning for an easing of international sanctions.

"Rouhani desperately wants to finalize at least one deal based on new petroleum contracts before the election," said Reza Mostafavi Tabatabaei, an energy analyst and president of London-based ENEXD, a firm involved in the oil and gas equipment business in the Middle East.

"Western companies like [France's] Total are waiting for U.S. approval before any investment in Iran, so Rouhani's only chance is Russian companies that might sign a deal before the election."

As key allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia and Iran have played decisive roles in the past 18 months to turn the tide of the Syrian conflict in his favor.

When Russian jets used an airbase in Iran to launch attacks against militant targets in Syria last summer it was the first time Moscow had made a military deployment there since it was an occupying force in the 1940s.

Economic ties have developed in parallel: bilateral trade nearly doubled between January 2016 and January 2017, according to a statement by the Russian Ministry of Economic Development cited by the Sputnik news agency.

"The political and military relations right now between the Islamic Republic and Russia are the strongest that we've seen ever," said Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Worry for Washington

The rapprochement is a concern for both Saudi Arabia, Tehran's main rival for dominance in the Middle East, and for U.S. President Donald Trump, who has expressed an interest in working more closely with Russia but has issued a number of harsh statements about Iran.

After Iran carried out a ballistic missile test in late January, Trump tweeted that the Islamic Republic has been put "on notice" and moved quickly to issue new sanctions.

Of greatest probable concern to Washington is the sale of military hardware to the Islamic Republic. Last year, Russia provided Iran with its S-300 missile defense system, which had been purchased in 2007 but was stalled for years because of sanctions.

Senior Iranian defense officials have expressed interest in purchasing SU-30 fighter aircraft and T-90 tanks from Russia.

On the energy front, Russia played a key role last autumn in helping break a deadlock over OPEC output levels, where agreement had long been hampered by tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, OPEC and non-OPEC sources told Reuters at the time.

President Vladimir Putin personally intervened with both Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman and Rouhani, leading to a landmark deal where Iran was allowed to boost oil production while Saudi Arabia agreed to a cut.

"Russia's political, economic and military alliance with Tehran made it a unique mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia, to lead them to a point that is beneficial to both, and also to Russia," Tabatabaei said.

Rouhani's economic team is expected to sign approximately a dozen memorandums of understanding during the visit, which will also include talks with Putin on Tuesday.
The commander of American forces in Iraq says the U.S. military likely played a role in an airstrike in Mosul, an attack March 17 that witnesses said killed about 100 civilians.

"Because we struck in that area, I think there is a fair chance that we did it," Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the commander leading the counter-Islamic State fight in Iraq and Syria, told reporters in a conference call Tuesday from Baghdad.

Townsend said Iraqi military leaders "firmly believe" that civilians were gathered by Islamic State ahead of the strike, either to lure the coalition into a trap that would kill civilians or possibly for the extremists' use as human shields.

"We know that ISIS were fighting from that position, from that building, and there were people [whom] you really can't account for in any other way on why they would be there, unless they were forced there," Townsend said, using an acronym for Islamic State group.

Further questions of U.S. involvement have been raised based on the amount of damage in the area where civilian casualties were reported. According to Townsend, the munitions used during the U.S. airstrike should not have collapsed an entire building. Since the building did collapse, that "actually contradicts" the conclusion that the U.S. military was responsible, he said.

Another U.S. official who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity said: "For example, and just as an example without getting into specifics, but a 50-pound [23-kilogram] precision munition isn't going to bring down a four-story building."

Air Force Brigadier General Matthew Isler, an experienced strike pilot, has been appointed to lead the civilian casualty credibility assessment of the March 17 attack. Townsend said U.S. personnel have inspected the site to conduct tests and gather information.

As U.S. forces continue targeting Islamic State militants to help Iraqi forces retake Mosul, the U.N. human rights chief is calling on Iraq's military and the U.S.-led coalition to review their tactics in the battle.

"The conduct of airstrikes on ISIL locations in such an environment, particularly given the clear indications that ISIL is using large numbers of civilians as human shields at such locations, may potentially have a lethal and disproportionate impact on civilians," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a statement Tuesday, using another acronym for Islamic State.

The U.N. says at least 307 people were killed and 273 others wounded between February 17 and March 22 in western Mosul. It attributed the casualties to all sides involved in the fight for western Mosul: Iraqi and coalition airstrikes, Islamic State shellfire, and improvised explosive devices detonated by the militants.

The Islamic State strategy "of using children, men and women to shield themselves from attack is cowardly and disgraceful," Zeid said. "It breaches the most basic standards of human dignity and morality."

WATCH: Iraq continues Mosul offensive

He welcomed pledges by the U.S.-led coalition and Iraqi military that the most serious incidents involving civilian casualties would be thoroughly investigated.

"I'm not targeting civilians; ISIS is," Townsend said Tuesday. "The best way, though, to put an end to this human suffering is to win in Mosul and to win in Raqqa [Islamic States headquarters in Syria], and to do it fast."

The U.S. military has said it is looking at more than 700 separate video feeds covering 10 days of airstrikes in its attempts to determine the credibility of reports that coalition strikes killed as many as 100 civilians in Mosul. The Pentagon has called such a civilian death toll a terrible tragedy.

Nate Rabkin, managing editor of the website Inside Iraqi Politics, said the building in question was the home of a wealthy man who had invited refugees to stay there.

"Fighters from ISIS set up on the roof of this building, and so when the building was targeted with an airstrike, it ended up killing a lot of the people sheltering inside," Rabkin told VOA.

More than a half-million civilians are still believed to remain in Islamic State-held areas of Mosul, with many of them used by Islamic State extremists as human shields as Iraqi forces advance.

Civilians, humanitarian aid groups and monitoring officials have warned about the possibility of increased civilian casualties because of a growing demand for airstrikes and artillery.
The Kremlin says it was unaware of what it called "routine business" activity between U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and officials from state-owned Russian development bank Vneshekonombank.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, made the comment in a regular telephone briefing with journalists on March 28.

It came a day after the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee said that Kushner will testify in a probe of alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The New York Times reported on March 27 that Kushner met once with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak after Trump won the November 8 election, and that Kisylak asked for another meeting to which Kushner sent an aide in his place.

Kushner later met with Vneshekonombank chief Sergei Gorkov.

Peskov said that "tens of meetings were held and one of these meetings was with Kushner's company and with him. It is routine business."

Peskov said such meetings are not coordinated with the Kremlin and are the "exclusive prerogative" of the bank's management.

White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks said the meetings were "inconsequential."

Kushner, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka, was in charge of foreign contacts for the president-elect in the interim period before his January 20 inauguration.

Based on reporting by The New York Times, Reuters, and TASS
Several U.S. lawmakers spoke Tuesday about the importance of cooperation between the United States and Israel, on the final day of the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Senator Chuck Schumer said many younger Americans grew up knowing Israel as a strong and secure country, not witnessing the extreme violence present there during the 1970s and '80s.

"The younger generations are blessed to know an Israel entirely capable of protecting itself," he said.

WATCH: Trump officials well-received at AIPAC

Schumer said Israel has "come a long way since its early days," and he attributed a great deal of that progress to strong ties formed with the United States.

One of the most important points of cooperation between the two countries, Senator Mitch McConnell said, is in the fight against Islamic militants in the Middle East.

Military presence

McConnell called for the rebuilding of military capabilities in the region and said President Donald Trump has taken the first step to make that happen with a recent budget proposal that included a $54-billion increase in defense spending.

"The best way to enhance security in the region is to enhance America's influence in the region," he said.

McConnell reiterated his opposition to the deal struck by the U.S. and five other nations under former President Barack Obama's administration to curb the Iranian nuclear program. He said the deal gave Iran billions of dollars to funnel to terrorist groups and ignored "other aspects of Iran's aggressive behavior."

"Our enemies learned not to fear us, our friends learned not to trust us, and countries like Israel felt abandoned," he said.

Schumer called Israel the "Silicon Valley of the Middle East," and said American technology firms are increasingly traveling to Israel to learn how to protect themselves.

One issue still threatening the world's Jews, Schumer said, is "cloaked" anti-semitism that comes in the form of holding Israel to a different standard than other countries.

Rising anti-semitism

Schumer slammed a United Nations standing agenda item that requires the Human Rights Council to debate Israeli human rights abuses against Palestinians and asked rhetorically of "social justice crusaders" about their lack of outrage against Iran.

"Where are your boycotts against the Arab nations where journalists are routinely jailed?" he said.

In more overt shows of anti-Semitism, Schumer said neo-nazi gangs are more active in the streets of Europe and mentioned a recent wave of bomb threats that, "regardless of the suspect's race and nationality," have struck fear in Jews across the country.

"Fear mongering, intolerance and intimidation will not be condoned," he said.

Police in Israel arrested a Jewish man last week in connection with more than 100 bomb threats called into U.S. Jewish community centers in recent months.

Senators Kamala Harris and Robert Menendez, along with House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi also addressed the conference Tuesday.

A day earlier, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the two countries must stand together to ensure "light triumphs over darkness and hope triumphs over despair."

Natanyahu's message

Netanyahu called on the United States to "vanquish" the Islamic State group and build alliances with moderate Muslims to make sure IS does not return.

"We must ensure that the forces of militant Islam are defeated," Netanyahu said, adding that jihadists can't be allowed to "drag humanity away from the promise of a bright future to the misery of a dark past."

Netanyahu called on Palestinian leaders to recognize the Israeli state and work on a peace deal. He said common dangers faced by Israel and its Arab neighbors offer a "rare opportunity" to work toward a safer and more prosperous future.

"We teach peace to our children and it's time for the Palestinian authorities to do the same. It must stop teaching hatred, it must stop paying terrorists, it must stop denying our legitimacy and our history," he said.

On Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence told the conference the U.S. commitment to Israel is "non-negotiable," and that President Trump is committed to finding a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Maldives speaker of parliament survived an impeachment vote on Monday amid chaos after a dozen opposition legislators were sent out from the chamber for unruly behavior.

The motion against Speaker Abdulla Maseeh Mohamed, a close ally of President Abdulla Yameen, was defeated by 48 votes against none in an 85-member parliament after all opposition lawmakers walked out in protest at their colleagues' expulsion.

Opposition legislators said Yameen's coalition suddenly changed the usual electronic voting system just before the impeachment so it would not show how members voted.

An opposition coalition including the parties of exiled ex-leader Mohamed Nasheed and former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom had said some government legislators were expected to vote for impeachment.

Maldives Independent, an online news website, showed videos of opposition legislators being physically forced out of the chamber before the vote. The public, media, and non-government organizations were also barred from parliament during the vote.

Ruling party member Abdullah Khaleel said on Twitter the public was not admitted "to avoid planned disruption by the opposition."

Nasheed's party said in a statement that 13 opposition law makers were forcibly removed by military officers after being manhandled, dragged and subject to disproportionate force.

Government officials were not available for comment immediately despite repeated calls.

The opposition submitted the impeachment motion, saying the speaker has been deliberately ignoring requests from opposition law makers to summon government officials for questioning on matters of public importance and national development.

The Indian Ocean island nation has been mired in political unrest since Nasheed, its first democratically elected leader, was ousted in 2012. He was later sentenced to 13 years in jail on terrorism charges after a widely denounced trial.

Nasheed now lives in exile.

Yameen's administration has arrested most opponents who might challenge him in 2018. The opposition alleges the administration is trying to cover up corruption including money laundering. The government has denied the accusations.

The largely Muslim island chain with a population of 400,000 has other looming problems that tarnish its reputation as a tourist paradise. Significant numbers of radicalized Maldives youths have enlisted to fight for Islamic State militants in the Middle East.
Montenegro is one step closer to becoming NATO's 29th member.

Ratification of the treaty on Montenegro's admission into the alliance cleared a procedural hurdle in the U.S. Senate Monday, setting the stage for a final vote later this week. Approving the treaty requires a two-thirds' vote in the Senate, after which the president can ratify it.

Ninety-seven senators supported the measure.

[Approval] will enhance our security. It will strengthen the alliance and it will send a strong message of resolve to Russia as it invades its neighbors and the international order, Sen. Ben Cardin, D-MD, said. No country outside the alliance gets a veto over who gets to join, especially Russia. So we must send a strong signal.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., praised the small Balkan nation's effort to fulfill membership standards while actively supporting NATO-led combat and military training operations in Afghanistan.

"It's important to note that Montenegro has taken these steps despite Russia's best efforts to undermine their progress every step of the way," Corker said.

A final vote is expected as early as Tuesday.

Tillerson supports addition to NATO

Earlier this month, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent a letter to the Senate pressing lawmakers to approve the treaty ahead of a summit scheduled for May that will include NATO heads of state and government.

Montenegro's participation in the May NATO summit as a full member, not an observer, will send a strong signal of transatlantic unity, and that no third parties have veto power over NATO decisions, Tillerson wrote in the letter. He said Montenegro's membership would give NATO a contiguous border along the Adriatic coast.

Montenegro is in the middle of a clash between the West and Russia over influence in the Balkans. The outcome could determine the way the region is heading: toward NATO and the European Union, or back to Russia's sphere of influence.

Two senators against expansion

All 28 of NATO's members must ratify Montenegro's accession before it can formally join the alliance. Only three members have not finalized their approval. The vote in the U.S. Senate was blocked for months by two Republican senators, Rand Paul and Mike Lee, who oppose expanding the military alliance.

Paul spoke on the floor against ratification of Montenegro's membership and NATO expansion.

Admitting Montenegro to NATO will do nothing to advance our national security, and will do everything to simply add another small country to the welfare wagon of NATO. Advocates for expanding NATO believe that unless the whole world joins NATO, Russia will conquer the world. but the truth is more nuanced, he said. The same cheerleaders for Montenegro being in NATO want Ukraine in NATO. They want Georgia in NATO. If both Ukraine and Georgia were in NATO today, we would be involved in a world war with Russia.
The Myanmar nationalist monk Wirathu has long used vile language to make a point.

In January 2015, he called Yanghee Lee, the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, a "whore." In an interview with 60 Minutes that aired in October the same year, he said that Muslims, who make up less than 5 percent of the population here, were defecating on the country.

Government attitude changes

Under the previous military-backed administration of President Thein Sein, Wirathu received little pushback for his remarks, often delivered in public sermons or broadcast on his popular Facebook page.

After Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy came to power almost a year ago, however, this hands off approach changed.

In July 2016, the country's Buddhist leadership distanced itself from the nationalist entity affiliated with Wirathu, the Committee to Protect Race and Religion, after a senior NLD official said the group was not necessary.

Earlier this month, religious officials banned Wirathu from preaching for one year after he took to Facebook to thank the suspects accused of murdering government adviser Ko Ni in January and, in a later incendiary speech, told women it was better to marry dogs than Muslims.

But while he may be silent for now, his legacy of hatred and political Buddhism remains.

"Normally when the Buddhist monks give sermons, it was not about politics, but about religion for the personal liberation, to attain Nirvana, to attain enlightenment, and how to live a proper religious life," said Soe Myint Aung, an analyst with The Tagaung Institute of Political Studies in Yangon.

'Framed the discourse'

But Wirathu and other political monks "framed the discourse" around the protection of Buddhism and the need to be afraid of others, Soe Myint Aung said, adding that silencing him won't erase his influence.

"It is a delicate situation, because now that he has got many followers, there are certainly people and organizations that idolized him, that respected him. So removing his discourse and his personality will not be that easy," Soe Myint Aung added.

Wirathu's career predates Myanmar's transition to democracy in 2011, when the army put forward a quasi-civilian government with former military men at the helm. He was jailed in 2003 for incitement and may well have remained an obscure figure had he not been released in an amnesty in 2012.

With the help of an expanding telecommunications network, he contributed to fueling the rise of Buddhist nationalist groups, such as the 969 movement and the Committee to Protect Race and Religion, both of which spawned a network of smaller organizations inspired by messages of intolerance and Islamophobia.

Using his monastery in Mandalay as a sort of war room, he amassed supporters and admirers while becoming the go-to person for journalists hoping to understand Myanmar's radical Buddhists.

Rohingya Muslims a special target

He stirred up hatred against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State, helping push the narrative that they are not citizens of Myanmar but immigrants from Bangladesh. The Rohingya have lived in internal displacement camps since inter-communal violence broke out in Rakhine in 2012, killing hundreds.

Many believe Wirathu's speeches and comments fanned the flames of conflict between Buddhists and Muslims. Today, hate speech against Muslims is common online.

In 2015, Wirathu backed a series of "race and religion" laws that rights groups criticized for being discriminatory against Muslims. While barely enforced, they are still on the books.

He waded into the 2015 election, backing Thein Sein, who's party lost to Aung San Suu Kyi's in a landslide. But critics say the influence of nationalist groups pressured the NLD into not fielding Muslim candidates for parliament, pushing them further from political life.

David Mathieson, an independent analyst based in Yangon, said Wirathu punctured the impression the international community had of Buddhism in Myanmar, exposing darker sides that were not so evident during the celebrated Saffron Revolution in 2007, when monks faced off against the military.

But Mathieson emphasized it was important not to overstate Wirathu's influence. He didn't create Buddhist nationalism, he simply tapped into it to elevate his own position.

"I think domestically his legacy is going to be that he was a selfish opportunist," he said. "He was a man of his time. There were increased tensions over the ways the transition was going, it was after 2012, and like the opportunist he is, he took advantage of it."

Wirathu did not return several phone calls seeking comment. An official from the Ministry of Religious Affairs also declined to comment, while others in the ministry could not be reached.

But a senior member of the Committee to Protect Race and Religion, which goes by the acronym Ma Ba Tha, said that while the ban on Wirathu was due to his penchant for hate speech, it would not affect support for the nationalist movement.

"No matter who will get banned, this will be the same," Maung Maung, a member of Ma Ba Tha's Central Executive Committee, said. "It is obvious in the history that people already have this idea."

And it doesn't look like Wirathu has plans to disappear entirely. After the order was issued, he posted a video of himself with tape over his mouth while a recorded sermon played in the background.

The country's Buddhist leadership has said he could face legal action if he continues topost the taped sermons, but the stunt shows that he won't be going quietly.
A lingering illness has led President Muhammadu Buhari to reduce his working day to a few hours since he returned from medical leave, slowing down the pace of economic reforms advanced in his absence, diplomats and government sources said.

The Nigerian leader is spending between one and four hours a day in his office to conserve his energy levels, three diplomats and presidency sources said, deepening concerns he is too unwell to orchestrate reforms to the recession-hit OPEC economy.

Buhari has long been criticized by households and investors for his slow response to low global oil prices, which sent the naira currency tumbling and the broader economy into a tailspin.

When he traveled for treatment, his deputy embarked on initial steps to turn around Africa's largest economy before handing back the reins upon Buhari's return seven weeks later.

"Things are slowing down, particularly on the economic front, which is a concern," said one Western diplomat.

One official inside the president's office said the 74-year-old was due to return to Britain for further treatment in April. The presidency has not revealed the nature of Buhari's illness.

Buhari's two spokesmen declined comment on his medical needs or reduced working hours.

A post on the Twitter feed of spokesman Garba Shehu said Buhari had been working from home, even after most civil servants had left their offices.

Buhari's health will be in focus this week, when the International Monetary Fund is due to urge swift reforms  a verdict that risks derailing Abuja's hopes of securing $1.4 billion in international loans.

However, even some government insiders appear to be in the dark over the president's health and his reform plans.

"Everyone is trying to read Buhari's body language now he is back," said an adviser to the government, who did not want to be named.

Real reform?

Buhari was in London between late January and early March for treatment.

Business leaders and diplomats have said that during his absence, the presidency acted with an energy rarely seen in the two years since his election. Civil servants said they were working longer hours and handling heftier workloads.

The central bank devalued the naira for retail customers, a move seen as testing the waters for a wider devaluation that Buhari has so far resisted.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo also oversaw the release of an economic reform plan required for a World Bank loan to help plug a forecast record deficit this year and finance infrastructure projects.

Even so, political observers and economists at the time questioned whether he was acting with Buhari's consent and had the authority to enact long-term reforms.

John Ashbourne, Africa economist at Capital Economics in London, said Buhari's return had opened up "the possibility for important decisions to be made."

"It was never likely that Osinbajo was going to really change directions during his time at the helm," said Ashbourne.

Two diplomats said, however, that Osinbajo has now been authorized by Buhari to hold talks with leaders in the restive Niger Delta region to quell unrest that has choked crude production, in a sign some newfound momentum may be retained.

The coming weeks may help signal how confident creditors are that Nigeria can haul its economy out of recession. Finance ministry officials are preparing for further talks with the World Bank over a loan of at least $1 billion, and with the African Development Bank (AfDB) for a $400 million package.
The customer was slapped by the female employee of CCD outlet at Hawa Mahal, Jaipur for allegedly shooting a video of bugs in food.

By Dev Ankur Wadhawan: The CCD outlet located inside Hawa Mahal in Jaipur was at the center of a controversy after a female worker slapped a customer, Arpan Verma, who was trying to shoot cockroaches present inside the food outlet. He mentioned that the female worker was shouting at him. After the slap, a voice can be heard questioning the customer why did he click the picture. The entire incident was shared by Nikhil Anand Singh on Twitter.

Female employee who slapped the customer.

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The incident so goes that Arpan found bugs and cockroaches crawling in food inside a refrigerator at CCD and shot a video on his mobile phone. He also pointed towards the employee of the CCD outlet when the female employee walked up to him and slapped him for shooting the video and the video abruptly ended.

This just did not end over the slap, the complainant in his tweet clearly mentioned that the employee after slapping him accused him of harassment and started shouting at him in front of the other customers present there.

Twitter post of Nikhil Anand Singh

The premises of this outlet has now been locked. The staff of the outlet have taken away the entire belongings and moved base from there.

When India Today team visited the Hawa Mahal premises, it was told that the outlet was closed two days back, after the controversy broke out. An employee of Hawa Mahal, Rajesh, mentioned the CCD employees had moved away two days ago as it was operating there temporarily.

When contacted, the coffee chain said 'This incident has been brought to our notice and is currently under thorough investigation. The lady team member referred here hails from rural Orissa and is part of the programme run by NGO Gram Tarang to uplift weaker sections of society and girl child specially. She underwent rigorous training on joining us to become a team member and was posted in Jaipur. As per lady team member, she had objected to her video being taken by the customer and her repeated requests were also not heard, thus invading her privacy. Till the time thorough investigation is being done, lady team member has been kept off duty.'

We are also engaging with Mr. Arpan Verma on the same says the CCD official.

The incident did not happen in a regular caf, it took place in a limited period makeshift temporary setup running for tourist season.

--- ENDS ---
Pakistans former army chief, Raheel Sharif, is set to become the first commander of a new Saudi-led counterterrorism coalition of mostly Sunni Islamic states, a move frustrating neighboring Shi'ite Iran in addition to prevailing domestic opposition and criticism.

Sharif is likely to travel to Saudi Arabia as early as next month to take charge of what commentators increasingly refer to as the Muslim NATO, according to Pakistani officials and close aides.

They said that putting in place the military structure of the proposed 39-nation Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism (IMAFT), which will be headquartered in Riyadh, is among Sharifs initial tasks.

The general, who retired last November, is credited for undertaking an effective military crackdown against Pakistani Taliban and other militants in Pakistan during his three-year tenure as the chief of the powerful military. The counterterrorism operations led to a significant decline in militant violence in the country.

An arrangement" between the two governments has resulted in Sharifs appointment and granting permission for him to become the first commander-in-chief of the alliance, said Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif while defending the decision.

After having received a written request from them [Saudi Arabia], we conveyed our consent to them in writing, Asif told local Geo TV.

But leaders of the minority Shi'ite community, political parties and observers in Pakistan have criticized the government, as well as Sharif for accepting the assignment, fearing it would fuel domestic sectarian rivalries and undermine the credibility as well as national goodwill he earned.

Iran opposition



Saudi officials announced the IMAFT in late 2015 with a mission to fight terrorism, particularly to counter the threat of Islamic State. But rival Iran has opposed the coalition from the outset and has been lobbying against it, believing it is aimed at increasing Saudi influence in the region.

Irans ambassador to Pakistan, Mehdi Hunar Dost, said this week his government has repeatedly conveyed its concerns to Pakistani leaders over their decision to participate in the Saudi-led military coalition. He cautioned the move could hurt bilateral relations, which are already shaky over allegations anti-Iran Sunni militants use Pakistani soil for attacks on the Iranian side.

Iran and Pakistan share a nearly 1,000-kilometer border.

We are concerned about some consequences of this issue, Dost, told the local WAQT television station late Monday when asked why Tehran is opposed to General Sharifs appointment. He did not elaborate.

Islamabad, instead, should try to use its influence and play the role of a mediator to help bridge gaps between Islamic countries, said the ambassador, referring to Islamabads close ties to Tehran and Riyadh.

We are not so optimistic that this action [Pakistans participation in IMAFT] can solve [the problem] and can fill these gaps," Dost asserted.

Pakistani Defense Minister Asif, however, said the government will "take care" of Iranian concerns, without explaining further.

Pakistan has always walked a tightrope while trying to maintain a balance between Iran, a possible source of energy in the immediate neighborhood, and Saudi Arabia, hosting tens of thousands of Pakistani expatriates.

Riyadh has also occasionally provided oil to Islamabad on deferred payments and sent cash grants to help the struggling Pakistani economy.

Critics blame Iran and Saudi Arabia for fueling a sectarian rivalry between Shi'ite and Sunni extremists in Pakistan, which has claimed thousands of lives over the years.

The Pakistan government, under extreme domestic pressure, had refused to join Saudi-led military operations against Iran-backed Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen in 2015. The parliament barred Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from joining the operation, saying Pakistan's involvement in a foreign conflict would exacerbate sectarian tensions at home and upset its friends in the Muslim world.
China is calling on France to protect its citizens in Paris after a police killing of a Chinese father of four children sparked violent protests.

China's foreign ministry says it filed an official complaint over the events and urged France to "guarantee the safety and legal rights and interests of Chinese citizens in France."

The ministry said Tuesday the father was killed by a plainclothes policeman.

French authorities said the officer shot the man in self defense during a raid because the victim allegedly wounded an officer with a "bladed weapon."

Authorities said thirty-five people were arrested after demonstrators from the Asian community gathered Monday outside a northeastern Paris police station. Scores of protestors hurled projectiles and set cars ablaze during clashes with police that lasted several hours.

Amid rising tension between the two countries, China's foreign ministry urged French officials "to get to the bottom of the incident as soon as possible."

France has Europe's largest population of ethnic Chinese. About two million people of Chinese origin currently live in France, according to University of Paris VIII Chinese expert Pierre Picquart.

The ethnic Chinese community regularly accuses police of not doing more to protect them against racism. Last September 15,000 people rallied in Paris to urge an end to violence against the Asian community after the fatal beating of Chinese tailor.

The victim's lawyer claims the attack was ethnically motivated and added that the area's Chinese immigrant community said it is routinely targeted with violence.
Israel's politics are darkening: the governing coalition, in power for barely two years, is in tumult and regional tensions are rising.

Looking only at the economy, things seem bright. U.S. chip giant Intel recently bought local start-up Mobileye for $15 billion, growth is robust and the currency is at record highs.

But beyond the boom, speculation of early elections is rife, friction with Gaza's Hamas rulers is intensifying and Israeli air strikes on Hezbollah fighters in Syria have provoked anti-aircraft missiles in response from Damascus government forces.

To an extent, Israel is always juggling economics and politics. In the past it has sustained growth and foreign investment despite electoral uncertainty and bouts of conflict, whether with Hamas or with Hezbollah on the Shi'ite movement's Lebanese home turf.

The difference now is how rapidly the picture has changed and how close it may be getting to shifting out of control, even if neither Israel nor Hamas nor Hezbollah seeks war.

A month ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition appeared solid. Despite being a suspect in two criminal investigations, "Bibi" was set to eclipse David Ben-Gurion's record to become Israel's longest-serving leader.

But in the past few weeks Netanyahu has picked a fight with his finance minister - they disagree over the creation of a new public broadcaster - exposing wider discontent in the coalition and prompting active talk that he might seek an election two years ahead of schedule.

At the same time, tension with Hamas has surged, especially after the assassination of one of its high-profile militants last week, a death blamed on Israel. The air strikes targeting Hezbollah forces fighting in support of the Syrian government prompted Damascus to fire Russian-supplied surface-to-air missiles at Israeli jets, ratcheting up regional anxiety.

Chagai Tzuriel, director general of Israel's ministry of intelligence, said economic hardship in Gaza was fueling social and political problems and making the situation unpredictable.

"Hamas is the greatest non-state threat in terms of volatility," he said, while describing Hezbollah's military capability - it is estimated to have 100,000 rockets that can target Israel - as more worrying overall.

War in Lebanon?

While the chatter about early elections may be overdone - none of Netanyahu's coalition partners wants new polls and he may be exploiting that concern to keep potential disruptors in line - the regional risks are harder to control.

Hamas appointed a new leader in Gaza last month, Yehya Sinwar, who spent 20 years in an Israeli jail and is close to the movement's military wing. Since then, analysts have worried about the risk of another war after three major conflicts in the territory since Hamas seized power in 2007.

Those fears deepened last Friday when Mazen Fuqaha, a militant released by Israel in a 2011 prisoner swap and exiled to Gaza, was shot and killed, apparently by killers using silencers.

Hamas immediately blamed Israel, despite questions about how it would have carried out the killing and why. An Israeli army spokeswoman declined to comment.

Before Fuqaha's death, Hamas kept tensions in check, making sure its militants tested rockets by firing them into the sea, and tracking down rival groups that fire into Israel. Israel too largely kept to script, retaliating to rockets with air strikes that usually targeted empty Hamas buildings.

That may change, depending on the fallout from Fuqaha.

"If war begins, battles will be tougher with Sinwar at the top," said Gaza political analyst Akram Attalah. "The situation is on the edge of collapse. Hamas and Israel are in a dilemma over how things can proceed."

If Gaza is unpredictable, Hezbollah may be more so.

In 2006, when Israel and Hezbollah last fought a war, the conflict began after shelling over the country's border with Lebanon and an ambush in which Hezbollah militants killed three Israeli soldiers and seized two others. The month-long conflict

killed 1,400 people and caused a mass upheaval of populations.

A decade on, with the war in Syria allowing Hezbollah freer rein to encroach towards Israeli-occupied territory on the Golan Heights, the risk of an unforeseen escalation is constant.

Israel has carried out air strikes on Hezbollah units in the area, saying it wants to prevent advanced weaponry from reaching the group, which is backed by Iran. From its side, Hezbollah denounces Israel's actions with strong rhetoric.

Naftali Bennett, a right-wing member of Netanyahu's coalition and a potential challenger, sees another war with Hezbollah as a rising risk, one he hopes can be kept in check by warning Lebanon as a nation to beware.

"The Lebanese institutions, its infrastructure, airport, power stations, traffic junctions, Lebanese army bases  they should all be legitimate targets if a war breaks out," he told Haaretz newspaper this month.

"If we declare and market this message aggressively enough now, we might be able to prevent the next war. After all, we have no intention of attacking Lebanon."
Since his father died in 2011, Moeez Assadullah has been looking after his family's farm alone.

The 21-year-old tends the 3 hectares (7 acres) of land without the help of his two brothers, who lost interest in farming when they realized that more erratic weather was making agriculture an unreliable source of income.

They now work at a brick kiln in the nearby town of Larkana.

But Assadullah has taken a risk, and come up with his own plan to adapt to shifting weather patterns.

Labor-intensive crop

Three years ago he stopped growing rice on the farm in Bakrani, a village a few miles from Larkana, in southern Pakistan's Sindh province. The crop was too labor-intensive, and took too long to get to harvest, he said.

Now he squeezes out a living for his family cultivating vegetables that grow more quickly and require less water.

"In view of the rapidly changing weather and upheaval in it, growing a six-month rice crop that requires huge irrigation and care was not a viable option compared to growing vegetables," he said.

Many of Pakistan's farmers are trying to adapt to changing climate conditions -- a process that can prove difficult for those with little in the way of education or savings to help them make the required switches.

Land, money, education

Richer farmers, with more land, money and education, meanwhile, are finding the switch easier. That reality suggests Pakistan may face a future where an uncertain climate forces the poor - who cultivate over 80 percent of the country's agricultural land - out of farming unless they get help, experts say.

Failing small farms could undermine government efforts to achieve sustainable agriculture and food security, and to eradicate poverty, hunger and malnutrition, experts warn.

"Providing the poor farmers with required technical, financial and institutional support ... is key," said Khuda Bakhsh, an agriculture scientist at the COMSATS Institute of Information Technology in Vehari, in Punjab province.

In Bakrani, Assadullah, after abandoning rice, is growing traditional varieties of cauliflower, spinach, green chilli, cabbage, tomatoes and onion. He says that in his village many farmers with larger plots of land are adopting water conservation technologies, such as drip irrigation.

He would like to join them, but the installation costs "up to $700 per hectare" are too high, he says.

But 80 kilometers (50 miles) east, in Khairpur, 38-year-old Nawaz Somroo is using lasers to grow more cotton on his father's more than 80 hectares of land.

Agricultural studies

Unlike the self-trained Assadullah, Somroo is a graduate in agricultural science from Faisalabad Agriculture University, one of the Pakistan's top agricultural schools.

With his education and access to more money, Somroo has been able to adopt improved cotton varieties with higher yields. He uses the latest laser technology to make his fields level, which helps him reduce water consumption by nearly 60 percent.

Somroo said that until 2012 his father cultivated a traditional cotton variety. But at the university, Somroo learned about a seed variety bio-engineered to be pest resistant and introduced it on the family farm. Yields jumped by about a third.

Now, he says, other farmers consult him about ways to achieve similar improvements.

Akhter Ali, an agro-ecologist and food security expert at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center's (CIMMYT) office in Islamabad, said Pakistani farmers who want to adopt climate-smart agriculture are hindered by a lack of technical know-how and financial resources.

But resource-poor farmers could be encouraged to stay in farming through things like on-farm demonstrations, help diversifying crops and adjusting the timing of cultivation, and better access to new crop varieties and water management techniques, he said.

Credit schemes for small-scale farmers and subsidised access to technology could also help, he noted.

He said a recent CIMMYT study showed that farmers who adapted to changing weather had achieved 8-13 percent better food security than those who did not, and poverty was 3-6 percent lower.

Programs to help

Pakistani provincial agriculture departments have launched a few programs to boost farmers' ability to cope with climate change.

Starting this year, a three-year World Bank-funded effort is underway to help 16,000 small-scale farmers in Sindh province adapt their livestock and vegetable farming, said Sohail Anwar Siyal, the Sindh provincial agriculture minister.

The $88 million scheme aims to improve the productivity and market access of small- and medium-scale farmers by improving their knowledge and access to technology.

Late last year, Punjab's chief minister also launched programs to help farmers with everything from new financial support to a distribution of more than 5 million smartphones.

Apart from making up-to-date weather forecasts accessible, the phones will be used to send information about the latest cultivation technologies, farming methods, potential disease outbreaks due to abrupt weather changes, and measures to protect against extreme weather, he said.

The province will also make 1 million interest-free loans available to small-scale farmers and give free farmland to graduates of agriculture universities.

Initiative

In 2016, the Gilgit-Baltistan provincial government similarly launched a seven-year, $120-million initiative for economic transformation through climate-resilient mountain farming, in collaboration with the U.N.'s International Fund for Agriculture Development.

The effort has focused on everything from organizing farmers into producers' groups to introducing high-value climate-resilient cash crops, said Rai Manzoor, Gilgit-Baltistan's food secretary.

Such measures are seen as key in Pakistan as summer monsoon rains, which have traditionally come in late June or early July and ended in September, have for several years arrived only in mid or late August and lasted into October.

"Focusing on young smallholder poor farmers and imparting to them new knowledge about coping with climate change impacts" - as well as helping with subsidized technology and small loans - is "critical for achieving household food security and poverty alleviation," said Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan, Pakistan's minister for national food security.
The Trump administration is issuing a fresh threat to withhold or revoke law enforcement grant money from communities that refuse to cooperate with federal efforts to find and deport immigrants in the country illegally.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions' announcement Monday combined two issues at the fore of the promised crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities. He said the Justice Department would deny money to cities that violate a federal law dealing with information-sharing among local police and federal authorities. He also condemned cities that refuse to honor immigration detainer requests, which is not a requirement of the law Sessions cited.

Sessions offered few details about how the Justice Department will determine which cities are out of compliance and what steps it will take to strip them of funds.

A look at the issue and what could happen next:

Question: Is this new?

Answer: Yes and no. Sessions did not announce a new policy, but acknowledged he was clarifying one issued in the final months of the Obama administration. That policy said municipalities would miss out on federal grant money for lack of compliance with a federal law that says state and local governments may not prohibit workers from sharing information about a person's immigration status with federal immigration officials.

Under the Obama-era policy, cities found to be out of compliance would be given a "reasonable amount of time" to fix the problem before becoming ineligible for funds. The policy was issued after the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General in May 2016 found that some cities appeared to have violated the law. Yet Obama's Justice Department does not appear to have ever withheld funds.

The Justice Department on Tuesday declined to comment further.

The Obama directive, however, does not mention the possibility of clawing back grant money that has already been awarded, as Sessions threatened Monday. And Sessions indicated the Justice Department could begin to impose stricter requirements on grant money.

"We believe grants in the future could be issued that have additional requirements," he said.

Question: What's at stake?

Answer: Cities could miss out on grants that pay for an array of policing programs, including crime lab technology, crime prevention efforts, equipment and other services. In fiscal year 2016, the Office of Justice Programs made nearly 3,000 grants totaling $3.9 billion to cities, counties, states and other local governments.

The majority of money went to state offices for victim services. But other grants went to smaller, specific programs  nearly $1 million for body cameras for sheriff's deputies in Broward County, Florida; $1.2 million in Charlotte, North Carolina, to help cut the backlog of rape kit testing; $12,966 to cover police involvement in the city of Lawndale, California's Youth Day parade and at the Fourth of July fireworks celebration.

Philadelphia, which has designated itself as a "sanctuary city," received $57.5 million in OJP grants in fiscal year 2016  mostly to cover police expenses for the Democratic National Convention held there. But beyond the roughly $50 million for that expense, the city also received funding to improve its technology and crime reporting, to reduce its backlog of DNA testing cases and to help pay for a child advocacy center program.

The threats to funding come as the Trump administration unrolls a new office within the Homeland Security Department focusing on American victims of immigrant crime.

Question: What is an immigration detainer?

Answer: A detainer is a request by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to a law enforcement agency to keep a suspected deportable immigrant in its custody long enough for immigration authorities to arrest the person. The requests ask federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies to give them at least 48 hours' notice before a suspected immigrant is released from a jail or to hold the person for up to 48 hours after they would normally be released.

ICE recently changed its paperwork for those requests, eliminating a version that included the words "request" and "voluntary." At is issue is just that: Are the notices voluntary?

The federal government says no. But city and state officials around the country disagree, and jurisdictions around the country have passed local laws spelling out if or when jail officials can comply with those requests, with some allowing a suspected immigrant to be held only in the most serious criminal cases. Multiple federal courts have also found that the detainers are not sufficient for a local jail to hold an immigrant beyond their sentence or after bail has been posted.

Question: Is Sessions right about violence connected to detainers?

Answer: There certainly have been a handful of high-profile and tragic cases in recent years involving immigrants in the country illegally who were released by local jails, despite the federal government's efforts to detain them for civil immigration violations. But there is no evidence to support his claims that "countless Americans would be alive today" if every local jail cooperated with immigration detainers.

Question: Are detainers new to the trump administration?

Answer: No. In fact, immigration detainers have been used by federal immigration authorities for many years by both Republican and Democratic administrations.

During the latter half of President George W. Bush's administration, the use of detainers expanded as more and more local jails shared fingerprint information from inmates with the FBI, which in turned shared the information with ICE. Bush's ICE used that information to identify immigrants who could face deportation as part of the then-fledgling Secure Communities program. Under President Barack Obama, that program expanded to include every state and eventually helped ICE deport a record of more than 409,000 immigrants during the 2012 budget year.

Secure Communities was later scrapped amid legal challenges and widespread complaints that it swept up immigrants who either hadn't been convicted of a crime or immigrants who faced only minor traffic violations.
Two RFE/RL correspondents have been beaten and robbed by masked assailants in southern Russia.

Several assailants attacked RFE/RL Russian Service reporter Sergei Khazov-Cassia and cameraman Andrei Kostyanov on the morning of March 28 as they were leaving their hotel in Kropotkin, a town in Krasnodar Krai. They were there to cover a planned protest by farmers.

RFE/RL President Thomas Kent called the attack "unacceptable" and demanded a thorough investigation, with a focus on the actions of local police, saying that crimes against journalists must not be "met with impunity.

Khazov-Cassia said that at least 10 attackers, who wielded cans of pepper spray, knocked the journalists down and repeatedly kicked them. The assailants seized personal belongings and equipment -- some of which was later returned -- and fled the site in a white minibus.

WATCH: Sergei Khazov-Cassia Recalls Attack

Kostyanov was hospitalized with a broken rib.

Khazov-Cassia said that the police had visited the two journalists twice before the attack, which occurred in the morning.

"First they came yesterday [March 27] to ascertain who was staying in the hotel room, and then they visited us this morning, about one hour before we left the hotel and were attacked," he said. He also said that police later told him that no records were available from the closed-circuit TV cameras around the hotel.

This thuggish attack on our reporters, who were acting in their professional capacity and covering an event, is unacceptable," said Kent, the RFE/RL president. "We demand a full investigation, with a focus on the role of local police in the incident, to ensure that this is not another crime against journalists in Russia that is met with impunity."

Khazov-Cassia said he provided police, who came hours after being called following the attack, with the license-plate number of the minibus used by the attackers. However, he said the vehicle had not yet been located.

On Facebook, Khazov-Cassia said that when a police officer learned that he worked for RFE/RL, the officer said, "'Well, I have lost the desire to help you.' After I urged him to perform his professional duties and assist me, he said. 'Okay, okay.'"

The Krasnodar Krai police department told RFE/RL that the attack was being investigated. They said that police in Kropotkin were "performing all necessary measures to identify and locate the individuals involved in inflicting bodily harm on the radio station's representatives and in stealing their equipment," the police said.

When the journalists returned to the hotel with police, they found that some of the stolen items had been returned to their room, including the laptop and a camera, Khazov-Cassia said. But a backpack with personal belongings was still missing.

Khazov-Cassia and Kostyanov had planned to report on a "Tractors' March" protest by farmers on March 28, but it did not take place.

Several farmers driving tractors were stopped and detained in the Krasnodar Krai town of Tikhoretsk on their way to Kropotkin, according to OVD-Info, a website that monitors arrests and other police activity in Russia.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Russian Service and OVD-Info
A court in Russia sentenced opposition leader and anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny on Monday to 15 days in jail for resisting police, and fined him 20,000 roubles, about $350, for organizing what authorities said was an illegal, mass protest in Moscow.



Navalny rejected official claims that the demonstration Sunday afternoon, part of the biggest unsanctioned anti-government protests in years, was illegal.

"In accordance with a decision made by the Russian Constitutional Court, in the event of denial or if no alternative locations were proposed three days prior, we were supposed to go to the initial place. The legal requirements were observed 100 percent," the state news agency TASS quoted Navalny as telling the court.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday said Moscow authorities offered two alternative sites to the organizers, according to the Interfax news agency.

"Those sites were rejected. In actual fact, people were deliberately dragged to unauthorized locations. Of course, one cannot agree with that," Peskov said.

He called the protesters provocateurs looking to incite violence and accused organizers of exploiting children, claiming many were paid to attend but citing no evidence.

Navalny's lawyer said they would appeal the sentence.

Massive protests

Organizers said the demonstrations Sunday against corruption took place in more than 80 cities across Russia.

They were the largest unsanctioned anti-government protests in Russia since 2011-2012 rallies over voter fraud and President Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency.

The demonstrations took place on the 17th anniversary of the first time Putin was elected president.

Hundreds of peaceful protesters were detained in Moscow, some brutally dragged to the ground just for holding signs criticizing authorities and corruption.

Navalny was detained as he arrived at the protest on central Moscow's Tverskaya Street near Pushkin Square. Some observers and journalists were also reportedly detained.

Washington has "strongly condemned" the detention of protesters, including Navalny.

"Detaining peaceful protesters, human rights observers, and journalists is an affront to core democratic values," acting U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement.

He said the U.S. is "troubled" by the arrest of Navalny, who has announced plans to run for president in the 2018 election.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the Russian people deserve a government that supports an "open marketplace of ideas, transparent and accountable governance, equal treatment under the law and the ability to exercise their rights without fear of retribution."

Turning point?

Sunday's event "may be a turning point for Russia's political situation because it shows that the mood in Russian society is changing and people are ready to protest," said Boris Kagarlitsky, director of the Institute for Globalization Studies and Social Movements. "It also shows that a new generation of protesters emerged that did not participate in the protests of 2011-2012 which does not identify itself with any Russia's political or dominant ideologies."

A large number of the protesters were younger Russians of university age.

Some analysts say this could indicate the Kremlin and political elite are losing touch with the younger generation.

"The events will motivate authorities to be more attentive to young people, particularly to teenagers and their communication in the Internet," said Mikhail Chernysh, deputy director of the Institute of Sociology.

"At the same time, I guess that the authorities base their judgment on the fact that young people are not very important for the electoral process because of their sheer number," Chernysh said. "They are much smaller than other age groups. Older people are more numerous and more active as an electoral agent. Unlike young people, they provide for the turnout and thereby make more impact."

The demonstrations were sparked by Navalny's investigation of alleged corruption by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Navalny's Fund to Fight Corruption released a YouTube video investigation into property allegedly owned by Medvedev that went viral and has been viewed over 11 million times.

In court Monday, Navalny demanded Medvedev be brought in for questioning. Medvedev has yet to comment on the allegations.

"Another interesting change is that the protests started in provincial cities earlier than the ones in Moscow and the number of people (protesting) in the provincial cities was unprecedented," said Kagarlitsky, of the Institute for Globalization Studies and Social Movements. "These events show that the people are really tired not only of corruption but also of a broader spectrum of economic and social problems."

Navalny defiantly told reporters at the courthouse Monday he would call people to the streets again, saying authorities could detain thousands but not tens of thousands or millions.

WATCH: Russians protest corruption
South Korean officials say salvage crews have found a body that may be one of the missing victims of a 2014 ferry disaster that killed more than 300 people.

The maritime ministry said the remains were found in the area where crews raised the ship's wreckage last week.

The ferry capsized in April 2014 with 476 people on board, many of them high school students, as the ship was traveling from Incheon to the holiday resort of Jeju Island. A total of 304 people died in what is one of the country's worst maritime disasters.

Rescue workers recovered the bodies of all but nine of the dead before the government called off underwater searches in November 2014.

The disaster quickly highlighted the government's inadequate emergency protocol, but it also exposed deep-seated issues of corruption and failed regulations, sparking public outrage that in part fueled the recent ouster of President Park Geun-hye.

The ferry's captain, Lee Joon-seok, who abandoned ship, was convicted of gross negligence and sentenced to life in prison, while 14 other crew members were sentenced to up to 12 years in prison for abandonment and violating maritime law.
At the beginning of this year, Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi sat down with one of her advisers to go through priorities for the coming months.

She began with an apology for the slow pace of economic reform.

"You must be very disappointed," she said. "You know, my plan had been that we would get the peace process done and then I would be able to bring my attention - personally - to the economy."

The remark, recounted to Reuters by the adviser speaking on condition of anonymity, offers a rare insight into Suu Kyi's thinking on what some critics say are the defining issues of her first year in power: continued fighting with ethnic armed groups in the north, sluggish progress on retooling an economy stunted by decades of military rule, and a reluctance to delegate power to others.

Suu Kyi - who had been globally celebrated as a heroine of democracy - took over last April, forming Myanmar's first civilian government in half a century amid soaring hopes among both her backers in Western governments and ordinary voters at home.

A year on things look very different.

Last week, the United Nations Human Rights Council moved to probe allegations of crimes against humanity committed against Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar soldiers on the watch of the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Suu Kyi's support for the security operation in northwestern Rakhine State, during which about 75,000 members of the stateless Rohingya minority have fled to Bangladesh, has strained relations with the West. U.N. officials have told Reuters more than 1,000 people may have been killed.

Meanwhile, the government's domestic performance has struggled to match the optimism that swept her National League for Democracy (NLD) to a landslide election win.

"Many voters feel frustrated," said NLD lawmaker Myo Zaw Aung, citing pervasive low-level corruption as one source of disaffection among a population who also face ramshackle public services and wages among the lowest in Southeast Asia.

"People had sky-high expectations for NLD, but actually the change can't be that dramatic - they are not seeing an obvious change at the grassroots level."

Suu Kyi's spokesman, Zaw Htay, did not respond to Reuters' questions about the government's first year in office. Requests for an interview with Suu Kyi have gone unanswered or have been rejected over the past year. She has given only two interviews, both to broadcasters overseas, in that time.

'Fighting never goes away'

When she came to power, Suu Kyi said her number one priority was ending the myriad ethnic conflicts involving more than 20 rebel groups that have kept Myanmar in a state of near-perpetual civil war since independence in 1948.

That goal remains as elusive as ever, and some critics say that, mired in complex, on-off peace talks, Suu Kyi has taken her eye off the economy.

Growth, albeit still relatively strong, has slowed since she took power, while foreign direct investment has fallen sharply.

"She had the whole world and everyone at home on her side. And look what happened: she has alienated the ethnics, she has lost the battle over Rakhine ... and has not delivered on the economy," said a recent former senior Western diplomat to the country.

Suu Kyi's defenders say she is hamstrung by a constitution written by the military that - along with disqualifying her from the presidency - left the army in control of key security ministries and much of the apparatus of the state.

Some say they believe she has supported the military because her ultimate goal is to coax the generals into accepting a re-writing of the constitution - over which they wield a veto thanks to the bloc of seats reserved for the army in parliament.

"It might be part of her strategy to change the military's mindset and to lead them into the democratic change," said Myat Thu, chair of the Yangon School of Political Science. "But after one year, many people want to see concrete results."

When she took charge of the peace process Suu Kyi dismantled a peace center - set up by the previous semi-civilian government - that was leading talks with ethnic armed groups.

Some observers say that was a mistake, because experienced negotiators who had built up trust with ethnic minority representatives were removed.

"Ethnic leaders describe their meetings with her as like a headmistress and her students," said one former negotiator, who was briefed on the talks and whose account was broadly backed up by other observers. "She's always up high, and treats them like they are below her."

Several conflicts have reignited since Suu Kyi took power, displacing an estimated 160,000 more people, according to U.N. data.

Most recently, fighting with Kokang rebels in the hills along the Chinese border sent about 20,000 refugees fleeing to China's Yunnan province.

"This fighting never goes away," said one of those who fled, 75-year-old Tao Xiaoshun, still looking for her son lost amid the chaos. "The Myanmar government is too far away. They don't take care of us."

Spoiled children

A criticism of the NLD in power has been the extent to which decision-making is concentrated with Suu Kyi, who rules through the specially created position of "State Counsellor".

"She doesn't have a process in place to tackle several issues at the same time," said the former Western diplomat. "She gets easily distracted and she micro-manages. There's no one driving the smart thinking, no one manages the in-tray."

There are few signs of a new generation of leaders emerging from within the NLD, which has always been run by a narrow group close to the charismatic Suu Kyi. Most are fellow former political prisoners, shut out from government for decades and with little executive or lawmaking experience.

Some advisers said the problem was not with Suu Kyi but with senior civil servants in the capital Naypyitaw who she mostly retained, despite many being former army officers or having close military ties.

"In every sector the bureaucrats are still using the same old tactics ... denying every accusation, stonewalling everything," said Han Tha Myint, one of NLD's leaders, adding that the administration had been trying to foster a more open attitude.

Suu Kyi wanted to run the government "like a mother," he said, bringing everyone on board in the spirit of national reconciliation and treating officials "like her children", but that the loyalties of some remained with the country's former military rulers.

"This style is very dangerous. The children are already spoiled and need more strict measures," said Han Tha Myint. "I think mainly it's a cultural problem, but there are elements of sabotage."

'Moment, not momentum'

Suu Kyi made a brief push on the economy in September, courting investors during a visit to the United States where she oversaw the cancellation of Washington's economic sanctions on the country, while moving to finalize a long-awaited investment law.

But rather than generating momentum, another advisor to the government said, the push turned out to merely be a "moment."

Suu Kyi took months to install members to a panel that approves investments. A new Companies Act, to replace an early 20th century law and ease rules on foreign ownership, has floundered in the parliament.

This has meant approvals for projects from overseas in the 11 months to February stood at just $6 billion, compared with almost $9.5 billion in the full fiscal year to March 2016, government data show.

The World Bank says gross domestic product growth will fall to 6.5 percent in the current fiscal year from 7.3 percent a year earlier and 8 percent in 2014-15.

Washington D.C.-based Anthony Nelson, a director at consultancy Albright Stonebridge Group who has accompanied U.S. business delegations to Myanmar, says there was a general understanding that rural development and infrastructure were vital to the country's economic growth.

"But it's important for [the government] to spell that out and lay out what they are going to prioritize," he said. "What's the number one goal here? What's the best way we can do things? It's not as clear as it could be."

Suu Kyi's supporters point to positives - state banks are being restructured, loss-making enterprises shuttered, and the first NLD budget is fiscally stable, with larger allocations for healthcare and education, for years underfunded in favor of military expenditure.

But more needs to be done, said Win Than, a senior member of a parliamentary commission dealing with high-priority reforms.

Like many Suu Kyi allies, he argued that economic improvements would aid reconciliation.

"Daw Suu will be getting it wrong until she prioritizes business," said Win Than, using a Burmese honorific title. "If the business isn't strong, it will push people to find problems."
As Wanjiku, a Kenyan land rights activist, stepped out of the minibus and into the night, two other passengers pushed her into a nearby car.

She had made a mistake: not taking seriously death threats over her campaign to stop logging around Mount Kenya, a UNESCO World Heritage site that is an important source of water for the East African nation and home to endangered elephants.

"They told me: 'We have to be at the mugumo tree at midnight'," said the 48-year-old human rights lawyer and single mother, who declined to give her real name out of fear.

The mugumo tree is sacred to her Chuka community, which is fighting to win back a 12 km (7.5 miles) stretch of forest that British colonialists made a national reserve in 1934.

Wanjiku led 400 protesters to pray at the ancient tree in a disputed section of forest after they lost a court case to end logging and construction on the land.

The 3,000-plus campaigners that Wanjiku represents - the Atiriri Bururi ma Chuka (ABC) Trust - are among half a dozen forest communities in Kenya seeking the right to manage what they regard as their ancestral lands.

Their battle illustrates global tension between indigenous peoples and conservation policies excluding them from protected forests, with land an explosive political issue in Kenya and disputes often turning violent during election periods.

At midnight, Wanjiku and her captors reached the mugumo tree where a dozen shadowy figures made her vow to abandon her work.

"Whatever they asked me, I responded the way they wanted because all I wanted was my safety," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, her voice cracking.

"Honestly, I wasn't sure I would survive another day."

She was bundled back into the car and taken to a second location where she again renounced her campaign.

At dawn, after a 33-hour ordeal without food or water, she was dumped back at the bus stop near her home.

"It eats me up every time I narrate it," she said tearfully. "I thought I was a small god. Now I know I am not."

She did not report the incident to the police. More than a year later, she is still receiving counseling.

Rising tensions

Wanjiku started receiving threats - and offers of bribes - after she began agitating in 2013 for the Chuka community to own and manage the forest, rather than Kenya Forest Service (KFS).

Commercial logging is forbidden in the Mount Kenya reserve but KFS licenses millers to harvest exotic species, like cypress, pine and blue gum, to sell as timber and then replant.

But Wanjiku accused the government body of allowing loggers to illegally fell indigenous species - charges it denies.

"We don't allow harvesting in the natural forests," Ben Kinyili, KFS's ecosystem conservator, said in a phone interview.

"It is only on the plantation, which has been established for the purpose of timber."

KFS data shows that Kenya has been hard hit by illegal logging, settlement and charcoal production in indigenous forests, reducing forest cover to seven percent of land mass.

Campaigners say corruption is rife in Kenya's forestry sector with tension between communities evicted from the land and others who profit, legally or illegally, from it.

Indigenous people, by law, have to register as an association if they wish to graze, collect herbs or carry out traditional rites in the forest.

"The communities that live next to the forest actually complain that they are not the ones responsible for deforestation," said Suzanne Chivusia, a commissioner at the state-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.

"Influential people ... manipulate the system in their favor."

The ABC Trust filed a court case in 2014 asking the government to recognize the Chuka's historic land rights and to bar five licensed milling companies from cutting down 40 acres of forest.

They also sought to stop a 450 km electric fence being built around Mount Kenya by the charity Rhino Ark.

They lost both cases.

Rhino Ark said the fence, which is under construction, aims to reduce conflict between wild animals and local people.

"The fence is a management tool and not a boundary marker," Adam Mwangi, Rhino Ark's fence and community manager in Kenya, said in emailed comments.

The charity has won community consent for what will be the world's longest conservation fence, with some locals working voluntarily to help build it, he said.

KFS then arrested 19 protesters who camped illegally at the mugumo tree for three weeks in 2015, in a case that is ongoing.

"These are misplaced and misguided people who claim their homesteads were inside (the forest). It's not true," said Kinyili.

As the Chuka has not been living on the land since the 1930s, it will be harder for them to win recognition than others who have remained in the forest, like the Ogiek, Chivusia said.

Communities have become more vocal about historical land claims since 2010 when a new constitution recognized the right of traditional hunter-gatherer groups to their ancestral lands.

It also set up a commission to investigate historical land injustices dating back to the colonial era when European farmers ousted Kenyans from the White Highlands.

"People have seen a window of opportunity," said Chivusia.
By Press Trust of India: (Eds: Adding details of CBI case against Jagan)

New Delhi, Mar 28 (PTI) The CBI has sought cancellation of bail of YSR Congress chief Jagan Mohan Reddy for allegedly trying to influence a crucial witness in a corruption case registered against him six years ago.

The agency has moved an application in this regard at a Special Court in Hyderabad.

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The court was informed on Friday that Reddy was trying to influence a key prosecution witness in the case, CBI sources said.

It was alleged in the case registered in 2011 that Reddy had influenced his father, the then Chief Minister, to favour some private companies, the sources said.

CBI had alleged in the FIR that investors had put in money in the companies owned by Reddy at a premium which was allegedly a bribe in return for favours doled out to companies by his father YSR Reddy who was Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.

Reddy was given bail in 2013 with a warning from the court not to tamper with evidence or influence witnesses.

The agency moved the trial court on Friday with bail cancellation plea.

Reddy had split from Congress after his fathers death forming his own party YSR Congress.

CBI had registered a case against Reddy on the instructions of Andhra Pradesh High Court for alleged cheating, criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust and corruption.

Acting on separate petitions filed by then minister P Shankar Rao and TDP leader Yerran Naidu, the Andhra Pradesh High Court had ordered CBI to probe the alleged illegal assets that the then Kadapa MP had amassed during his fathers tenure as Chief Minister. PTI ABS KUN

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China appears to have largely completed major construction of military infrastructure on artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea and can now deploy combat planes and other military hardware there at any time, a U.S. think tank said on Monday.

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), part of Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the work on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reefs in the Spratly Islands included naval, air, radar and defensive facilities.

China denies charges

The think tank cited satellite images taken this month, which its director, Greg Poling, said showed new radar antennas on Fiery Cross and Subi.

So look for deployments in the near future, he said.

China has denied U.S. charges that it is militarizing the South China Sea, although last week Premier Li Keqiang said defense equipment had been placed on islands in the disputed waterway to maintain freedom of navigation.

A Pentagon spokesman, Commander Gary Ross, declined to comment on the specifics of the AMTI report, saying it was not the Defense Department's practice to comment on intelligence.

But he said that "China's continued construction in the South China Sea is part of a growing body of evidence that they continue to take unilateral actions which are increasing tensions in the region and are counterproductive to the peaceful

resolution of disputes."

AMTI said China's three air bases in the Spratlys and another on Woody Island in the Paracel chain further north would allow its military aircraft to operate over nearly the entire South China Sea, a key global trade route that Beijing claims most of.

Several neighboring states have competing claims in the sea, which is widely seen as a potential regional flashpoint.

Missiles spotted on Woody Island

The think tank said advanced surveillance and early-warning radar facilities at Fiery Cross, Subi, and Cuarteron Reefs, as well as Woody Island, and smaller facilities elsewhere gave it similar radar coverage.

It said China had installed HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles at Woody Island more than a year ago and had deployed anti-ship cruise missiles there on at least one occasion.

It had also constructed hardened shelters with retractable roofs for mobile missile launchers at Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief and enough hangars at Fiery Cross for 24 combat aircraft and three larger planes, including bombers.

U.S. officials told Reuters last month that China had finished building almost two dozen structures on Subi, Mischief and Fiery Cross that appeared designed to house long-range surface-to-air missiles.

Tillerson softens language

In his Senate confirmation hearing in January, new U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson angered China by saying it should be denied access to islands it had built up in the South China Sea.

He subsequently softened his language, saying that in the event of an unspecified contingency, the United States and its allies must be capable of limiting China's access to and use of those islands to pose a threat.

In recent years, the United States has conducted a series of what it calls freedom-of-navigation operations in the South China Sea, raising tensions with Beijing.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will not meet members of Turkish opposition groups during a one-day visit to Ankara this week where talks with President Tayyip Erdogan will focus on the war in Syria, senior U.S. officials said on Monday.

Thursday's visit comes at a politically sensitive time in Turkey as the country prepares for a referendum on April 16 that proposes to change the constitution to give Erdogan new powers.

A senior State Department official said Tillerson will meet with Erdogan and government ministers involved in the fight against Islamic State in Syria.

"It is certainly something we are very acutely aware of and the secretary will be mindful of while he is there," one State Department official told a conference call with reporters, referring to political sensitivities ahead of the referendum.

American officials expect Erdogan and others to raise the case of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom the government accuses of orchestrating a failed coup last July.

The focus of the Ankara talks is the U.S.-led offensive to retake Raqqa from Islamic State and to stabilize areas in which militants have been forced out, allowing refugees to return home, officials said.

A major sticking point between the United States and Turkey is U.S. backing for the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Turkey considers part of the Kurdistan Workers' Party that has been fighting an insurgency for three decades in Turkey.

But the United States has long viewed Kurdish fighters as key to retaking Raqqa alongside Arab fighters in the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

"We are very mindful of Turkey's concerns and it is something that will continue to be a topic of conversation," a second U.S. official said.

Turkey, Russia and Iran have held Syrian peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, on a ceasefire in Syria. The United States has proposed "areas of stability" where Islamic State has been pushed out and refugees can be returned.

Six years since the start of the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, he is winning on the battlefield although the war is far from over. The once stable country is broken into fiefdoms ruled by rebels and warlords.

"We're looking forward to discussing with Turkey how we can reinforce ceasefire negotiations through the Astana process," the second U.S. official said.
The executive order signed by President Trump shelves the Clean Power Plan, the signature Obama-era policy designed to combat climate change.

But it also is a sweeping rollback of decades of U.S. policy regarding not only climate change but environmental protection, energy production and emissions.

Pro-growth, pro-environment

Trump repeatedly promised to overturn the plan during the campaign. At one point, he referred to climate change as a "hoax," but more generally the president has claimed that restrictive and punitive environmental regulations hurt the energy industry's ability to turn a profit, and that they cost jobs.

Today's executive order lays out a White House strategy to get rid of any regulations that "impede" energy production.

White House officials such as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt have telegraphed this strategy for weeks, saying, "This is about making sure that we have a pro-growth and pro-environment approach to how we do regulation in this country."

The Clean Power Plan already is on hold due to legal challenges, but if it had been implemented it would have forced U.S. power plants to significantly cut their emissions of planet warming greenhouse gases like carbon and methane.

Here is a quick rundown of the main points of today's executive order.

 Initiate a review of the Clean Power Plan:

Its goal was to lower U.S. carbon emissions from power plants by 32 percent over 2005 levels by 2030. The EPA estimates that would have kept 870 million tons of carbon pollution out of the atmosphere.

The plan was the backbone of the U.S. contribution to the Paris Accords, which was a worldwide, non-binding agreement among 195 nations to keep the planet from warming more than an average of 2 degrees Celsius.

 Initiate a 180-day review among all U.S. agencies:

The goal is to identify all regulations and rules that impede energy production.

 Lift the moratorium on federal coal leasing:

In 2016, the Obama administration put a 3-year moratorium on new leases of federal land for coal mining. At the time, the administration said the program needed to be modernized to ensure U.S. taxpayers were getting a solid return on the money developers were paying for the land, and also to take into account the impact mining has on climate change.

 Rescind restrictions on hydraulic fracking:

Current restrictions require drillers to use tanks instead of pits to store fracking wastewater, and to disclose the chemicals that are pumped into fracking wells to draw out the natural gas.

 Roll back federal regulations forcing energy companies to limit methane emissions from wells and pipes.

 New guidance on the National Environmental Policy Act:

The NEPA is a law passed by Congress in 1970 and signed into law by a Republican president, Richard Nixon. NEPA required that federal agencies prepare environmental assessments and environmental impact statements on any new development. These reports state the potential environmental effects of proposed federal agency actions. The Obama administration included greenhouse gases on the list of things that could have a negative environmental impact. The executive order takes them back out.

We'll see you in court

Environmental groups already have vowed to challenge any backsliding on the part of the White House in regard to climate policy.

They point to the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled three times that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and qualifies as a threat to human health. That gives the EPA not only the legal authority, but the responsibility, to regulate the emission of CO2.

When VOA spoke with Tomas Carbonnel, the lead counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, he said it is ready to challenge any rollback in court.

"Once the administration undertakes this process," he said, "it will experience significant challenges in the courts and in public opinion if it attempts to roll back progress in that, that had been made."

It is unclear how the Supreme Court might rule if Neil Gorsuch, Trump's pick to sit on the court, is approved by the Senate, but the fate of the executive order, may very well be decided in court.
U.S. President Donald Trump is putting his son-in-law in charge of an effort to make the federal government run more like an efficient business.

Jared Kushner, a second-generation real estate investor who is married to Trump's daughter, Ivanka, is to lead the new White House Office of American Innovation.

At Monday's daily White House briefing, the press secretary brushed off questions about whether the 36-year-old Kushner, a newcomer to government, is qualified to lead the transformation.

Middle East

Other weighty matters already are assigned to Kushner, including the Middle East peace process and being his father-in-law's lead advisor on countries such as China and Mexico.

Sean Spicer said this, too, is important.

"If you've ever really dealt with the government and recognized how outdated and unmodernized some of this is, it is not serving the American people. It is not serving the constituents that many departments have," Spicer told reporters. "And I think looking at how we can procure different things, and how we procure technology in particular is important."

The office is to be staffed with former business executives operating out of the West Wing, according to White House officials.

Two White House senior aides are set to be the office's key personnel -- a former Microsoft and General Motors executive, Chris Liddell, and real estate developer Reed Cordish, whose family is close to the Trumps.

Others on team

Also on the team are National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, who is a former Goldman Sachs executive, and Dina Habib Powell, recently named as deputy national security advisor. She is also a senior counselor to the president.

The challenges are dramatic, professor Stephen Goldsmith, of Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, said.

"You have bureaucratic issues and congressional issues and complexity issues, but having an innovation effort driven at the highest level of government, which this obviously is, I think provides some hope that they can actually make a difference," Goldsmith, a former mayor of Indianapolis, told VOA.

The Obama White House launched a similar, but more narrowly focused, initiative in 2008.

The Trump administration says its crack at the problem will also take a "SWAT-team approach," a reference to the special police squads trained to quickly respond to violent or potentially dangerous situations.

This attention-getting terminology to try to solve government problems has been instituted for decades by both Republican and Democratic party administrations, but critics have expressed skepticism of its effectiveness.

'Symptom of management problems'

At his congressional confirmation hearing in 1993 to become director of the Office of Management and Budget, Leon Panetta termed the SWAT team approach "a symptom of management problems, not a way in itself to ensure good management."

Kushner, already a White House senior adviser, also found himself in the spotlight on Monday for another reason: the Select Senate Intelligence Committee (SSCI) wants to question him about his ties to Russia.

Kushner has voluntarily agreed to be interviewed as part of the committee's investigation into the Russian activities surrounding the 2016 election, the two top senators on SSCI confirmed Monday.

"Mr. Kushner will certainly not be the last person the committee calls to give testimony, but we expect him to be able to provide answers to key questions that have arisen in our inquiry," said Senator Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the SSCI, and Senator Mark Warner, its Democratic vice chairman, in a joint statement.

The timing of Kushner's testimony is still being determined, they said, "but will only come after the committee determines that it has received any documents or information necessary to ensure that the meeting is productive for all sides."

Kushner would become the closest person to President Trump to be questioned in the investigations underway on Capitol Hill looking into contacts between the campaign team last year and Russians.

Russian interference

Intelligence officials and other have stated there was Russian interference in last year's presidential election intended to boost Trump, the Republican Party candidate, and undermine former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party's nominee.

WATCH: Spicer describes Kushner's transition role

The White House says Kushner's contacts, as part of his role as a liaison with foreign officials during the campaign and the transition, were innocuous.

There is no indication Kushner is the target of any probe into wrongdoing. However, there is heightened scrutiny into any contacts which occurred between Trump team members and people linked to the Kremlin.

Both the White House and the Vnesheconombank (VEB) on Monday acknowledged that a meeting took place in December during the transition between Kushner and the head of a Russian state-owned bank.

That meeting was also attended by Michael Flynn, who would briefly serve as Trump's national security advisor before being fired for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about conversation he had with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.

Kushner's presence at the meeting with VEB chief executive officer Sergey Gorkov was among other meetings that took place the same month that had been arranged by Ambassador Kislyak involving other transition team members, as well.

VEB is considered the Russian government's primary institution for financing of its most important projects, according to analysts.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from any involvement in Russian inquiries at the Justice Department after he failed to disclose during his Senate confirmation hearing that he had met the ambassador during the presidential campaign.
The United Nations began negotiations Monday on an international nuclear weapons ban, which is opposed by countries that already possess nuclear weapons.

Proponents of the ban see nuclear arms as a threat to global security and warn that the weapons can have catastrophic effects if used. More than 120 nations voted last year in favor of launching the treaty talks.

U.N. High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Kim Won-soo said nuclear weapons pose an "existential threat to humanity" and that the need for disarmament has never been so urgent.

"The endless pursuit of nuclear and non-nuclear strategic weapons will not create security, rather it has the potential to provoke new and destabilizing arms races and to exacerbate regional and global tensions," he said.

The United States, Britain, France and about 20 other nations stood together Monday in opposition to the ban. Russia and China are also against the proposed treaty and are not taking part in the talks.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said Monday it is the job of officials to keep their people safe.

"As a mom, as a daughter, there is nothing I want more for my family than a world with no nuclear weapons, but we have to be realistic," Haley said. "Is there anyone that believes that North Korea would agree to a ban on nuclear weapons?"

Japan's representative, Nobushige Takamizawa, also cited North Korea, saying the country's recent nuclear and ballistic missile threats are an "imminent security threat" to the region and the world.

One North Korean test in early March sent missiles into the Sea of Japan, 200 kilometers off Japan's northwest coast.

Japan is also the only nation to ever be be hit by a nuclear weapon, with the U.S. dropping two such bombs on Japanese cities during World War Two.

Brad Glosserman, executive director of the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum security think tank, told VOA that countries already armed with nuclear weapons would be wary to unilaterally give them up.

"The North Koreans have said quite clearly that they would like to move towards a world without nuclear weapons, but they will only do it when other nuclear weapons states move with them," Glosserman said. "But that's the same position quite frankly as the Chinese and the Russians and even the Americans."

Speaking alongside Haley on Monday, France's U.N. Ambassador Alexis Lamek said that in the current context "our countries continue to rely on nuclear deterrence for security and stability."

British U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft added that a nuclear weapons ban will not singularly improve international security and transparency among those countries with nuclear weapons, and that it will not address the technical challenges of verifying that governments are complying.

If U.N. members do agree to a nuclear ban treaty, it would only be binding on those countries that ratify it.

But Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said Monday a ban would still be important.

"The treaty will have an impact, even on countries which fail to participate, by settling international norms of behavior and removing the political prestige associated with nuclear weapons," Fihn said.
As the Organization of American States weighs how to address a political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, the United States on Tuesday said it was seeking the South American country's cooperation rather than its "immediate suspension" from the hemispheric group.

Representatives of the OAS Permanent Council gathered at the organization's Washington headquarters, near the White House, to consider how to deal with Venezuela. Its socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, has jailed political opponents, ignored the results of regional elections and commandeered the judiciary branch as the country has spiraled into poverty and chaos.

OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro released a report this month detailing the violations and urging Venezuela's suspension from OAS unless its government acted quickly to improve conditions there.

In a news briefing Tuesday, a senior official said the U.S. State Department shared Almagro's "concern about the state of democracy in Venezuela." But, the official continued, "we urge Venezuela to participate in a productive discussion on how to resolve the economic and humanitarian crisis in that country. Our objective in this session is not an immediate suspension."

Call for elections

The official said Maduro's administration should respect the Venezuelan constitution, "allow the democratically elected National Assembly to perform its constitutional functions, and must call for elections as soon as possible."

The official also called for "the immediate release of political prisoners in Venezuela," including one of Maduro's chief opponents, Leopoldo Lopez.

The Permanent Council's most extreme corrective measure would be to suspend Venezuela's OAS membership, requiring a two-thirds vote, meaning support of 22 of the body's 34 member states. The measure would trigger monitoring by observers from around the region.

Anticipating a possible OAS vote, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio on Monday said Haiti, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador should be prepared to cast ballots for suspension to protect Venezuela's democracy  and their own U.S. aid.

"We have a very difficult situation in Washington, where massive cuts in foreign aid are under consideration," the Florida Republican said in an interview with the Miami-based El Nuevo Herald. "And it will be very difficult for us to justify assistance to those countries if they, at the end of the day, are countries that do not cooperate in the defense of democracy in the region."

Surprised by positions

The senator told the newspaper he had been surprised that the three countries  dependent on U.S. foreign aid but also benefiting from discounted oil from Venezuela  were undecided about how they might vote. In the interview, Rubio said he thought the U.S. government would support Almagro's proposal.

Last week, 14 OAS member states  including the United States and Brazil  signed a declaration demanding that Venezuela promptly schedule elections, release political prisoners and recognize its constitution's separation of powers, among other measures.

The United States already has imposed sanctions against Venezuela. In 2015, the Obama administration ordered sanctions against seven officials on the ground that they threatened U.S. national security. Last month, the Trump administration imposed sanctions against Venezuela's new vice president, Tareck El Aissami, accusing him of involvement in sending large drug shipments to the United States while serving as Venezuela's interior minister.

Almagro proposed possible suspension for Venezuela in mid-March, accusing its government of violating the standards of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, to which it is a signatory.

Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the liberal, Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, sees the OAS leader's mediating strategy as purely political.

"Both the USA and Almagro are playing a very destructive role, because they seek the overthrow of the government rather than dialogue and negotiation, which is really the only way out of this crisis," Weisbrot told VOA. He was speaking early in the day, before the State Department's recommendation for Venezuela to engage in talks with OAS to improve conditions there.

U.S. Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, a Republican from Florida, indicated he would encourage suspending Venezuela from the OAS.

"We are talking about a regime that has close contacts with terrorist groups throughout the world, and whose top officials are among the world's largest drug traffickers and, therefore, a danger to the world, to U.S. national security," Diaz-Balart told VOA.

In December, the South American regional economic bloc Mercosur suspended Venezuela for failing to address human rights and trade standards.
Three Iraqi refugees living in Virginia face charges of immigration fraud after federal prosecutors alleged they hid their family relationship to an accused kidnapper in Iraq, the U.S. Justice Department announced Tuesday.

Yousif Al Mashhadani, Adil Hasan and Enas Ibrahim are legal U.S. residents who arrived as refugees in 2008. Ibrahim and Hasan are married. The three had applied in 2013 to become U.S. citizens.

In an affidavit made public Tuesday morning, an FBI investigator alleged that Al Mashhadani, 35, and Hasan, 38, did not disclose the name of their brother, Majid Al Mashhadani, during the application process to obtain refugee designation, first by UNHCR in Jordan, and then in U.S. immigration paperwork and interviews.

Majid Al Mashhadani was linked to the kidnapping of a U.S. citizen in Iraq in 2004 and, according to the affidavit, admitted to the crime in an interview with FBI agents in Iraq in November 2005.

One of the brothers explained to a federal agent that they did not include Majid's name as required throughout the process because they worried it would jeopardize their refugee application, an FBI agent wrote.

Additionally, Hasan admitted to the agent he "embellished" an account of being held by a militia in Iraq in connection with his work as an anti-corruption investigator, according to the affidavit.

Al Mashhadani, Hasan and Ibrahim face up to 10 years in prison if convicted. They are scheduled for a hearing in Virginia on Tuesday afternoon.
U.S. General Attorney Jeff Sessions on Monday warned cities and states protecting immigrant felons from deportation could face cuts in federal grants, and called on citizens to abide by U.S. immigration laws.

But there is widespread resistance to tough immigrant measures, which many Americans consider inhumane. Sporadic demonstrations against deporting immigrants have taken place nationwide.Some politicians have publicly voiced their disapproval.

Texas state Representative Raphael Anchia, a Democrat, said, "It makes our community scared... both the immigrant community and the non-immigrant community alike. And it makes us feel like we're under attack. You've got to realize this comes on the heels of the commander in chief [Donald Trump] calling Mexicans rapists and criminals."

Schools, churches and entire cities have been among those that decided to offer sanctuary to undocumented immigrants.

"We will open our doors. We will provide housing and food and facilities so that they can feel safe and at peace," the Rev. Justo Gonzalez, of Pilgrim St. Luke's United Church of Christ in Buffalo, N.Y., said.

But Sessions reminded Americans Monday that failure to deport aliens when they are convicted and detained for certain crimes will bear consequences.

"Moreover, the Department of Justice will require jurisdictions seeking or applying for Department of Justice grants to certify compliance with ((U.S. Code)) 1373 as a condition for receiving those awards," he said.

The possibility of losing federal funds has prompted some cities to abandon their sanctuary status.

"It is important for us not to be in it because we don't want to put any of our federal funding at risk - the money that we receive now and the money that we could receive in the future," Mayor Carlos Gimenez, of Miami-Dade County, Florida, said.

But the reaction is not universal. Maryland, which borders the nation's capital, is considering a bill that would make the entire state a sanctuary for immigrants.

Sessions said that would be a grave mistake.

"I would plead with the people of Maryland to understand that this makes the state of Maryland more at risk for violence and crime.It is not good policy," he said.

President Donald Trump told Congress last month his administration is responding to the pleas of the American people for immigration law enforcement and border security.

"By finally enforcing our immigration laws, we will raise wages, help the unemployed, save billions and billions of dollars and make our communities safer for everyone," he said.

The U.S. attorney general said jurisdictions that seek to protect perpetrators of assault, burglaries, drug crimes, rapes and murders put whole communities at risk, including immigrant communities.
The U.S. Senate has ratified Montenegro's admission into the NATO alliance, an event many lawmakers view through the lens of a deepening struggle between Western nations and Russia.

Senators approved the ratification by a vote of 97-2. Only Kentucky Republican Rand Paul and Utah Republican Mike Lee voted no. Paul argued that, as a NATO member, Montenegro would fall under America's security blanket while providing little in return.

Defenders of NATO expansion countered that Montenegro already has done much in support of the United States and the broader alliance.

"Montenegro actively supported the NATO-led operation in Afghanistan," said the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Bob Corker of Tennessee. "Montenegro has taken these steps despite Russia's best efforts to undermine their progress [as a democracy] every step of the way."

Said Republican John McCain of Arizona, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee: "This is more than the accession or non-accession of a small, 650,000-person nation. It is a test in this contest we are now engaged in with [Russian President] Vladimir Putin."

"Montenegro is trying to do everything that Putin hates. Alliances of democracy are his worst nightmare," said South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham. "This is great day for freedom, Montenegro and NATO, and a bad day for Russia."

Ben Cardin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said this of the vote: "[Montenegro joining NATO] will enhance our security, it will strengthen the alliance, and it will send a strong message of resolve to Russia."

The United States was one of three NATO members yet to formally approve the Balkan nation as the newest member of the alliance, originally formed in 1949 to provide common defense against the Soviet Union.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged the Senate to act without delay. In a letter to the chamber's Republican and Democratic leaders, Tillerson wrote: "Montenegro's participation in the May NATO summit as a full member, not an observer, will send a strong signal of transatlantic unity and that no third parties have veto power over NATO decisions."

Added Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida: "The stakes here are extraordinarily high for the United States, for our European allies. We are watching as many Russians have turned out in cities in the thousands. They've turned out to protest the rampant corruption that fuels the Putin regime. And the Putin regime, as all totalitarian regimes do, has cracked down."

All 28 of NATO's members must ratify Montenegro's accession before it can formally join the alliance. Only three members have not finalized their approval. The vote in the U.S. Senate was blocked for months by two Republican senators, Rand Paul and Mike Lee, who oppose expanding the military alliance.
Venezuela called on Monday for the suspension of an Organization of American States meeting intended to air regional concerns over the OPEC nation's economic crisis and democratic standards.

The Washington-based OAS is due to debate Venezuela on Tuesday after its secretary-general, Luis Almagro, said the country should be suspended from the regional bloc if it does not hold elections.

Last week, 14 nations urged elections and freedom of jailed opponents of President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government, turning up the pressure after authorities thwarted a referendum on him last year and postponed local polls.

Proposed meeting should be called off

Maduro, the 54-year-old successor to Hugo Chavez, says the OAS is a pawn of hostile U.S. policy. His government said in a statement that Tuesday's proposed meeting broke the bloc's rules and should be cancelled.

If this illegal, unilateral, deviant and biased behavior in favor of violent extremists in Venezuela continues, we will proceed with severity and firmness, the statement read.

Venezuela's suspension from the OAS would not have any major financial implications for the crisis-hit nation, but would be a symbolic defeat the ruling Socialist Party is keen to avoid.

Almagro turns to tweets

Visiting the OAS on the eve of the debate, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez lashed out at Almagro and accused him of a campaign to destroy Venezuela.

He lacks independence when he voluntarily bows to the wishes of the most powerful nation of this organization and becomes its spokesman, she told the OAS permanent council, saying Almagro was obsessed with denigrating Venezuela. Almagro has used 21 percent of his tweets  one in every five  for his campaign against Venezuela.

Even though regional disquiet is growing, diplomats believe Almagro lacks the two-thirds of votes necessary to trigger a suspension of Venezuela, given staunch support from some leftist governments and sympathies among Caribbean nations that have long received subsidized oil from Caracas.

Many blame Maduro

Opponents say Maduro has turned Venezuela into a dictatorship and wrecked the economy by fanning corruption and persisting with failed socialist policies. He accuses foes of an economic war" intended to presage a coup against him.

Maikel Moreno, the Venezuela Supreme Court chief whose rulings have been crucial to overriding the opposition-led National Assembly and preserving Maduro's power, asked the government to push for Almagro's removal as OAS boss.

Socialist Party officials announced an anti-imperialist march for Tuesday to coincide with the OAS session.
Three youngsters were killed in clashes with security forces after an encounter in which one militant was gunned down. 40 CRPF and 20 police men were also injured in the clashes with locals.

House was burnt down by forces where the militant was holed up. Photo: ANI

By Shuja-ul-Haq , Ashraf Wani: Separatist leaders in Kashmir Valley, including Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik have called for a complete shutdown on Wednesday against the Chadoora civilian killings.

The leaders while condemning the action of security force in Chadoora village, in which three youths were killed during clashes, also appealed the people to hold protests after Friday prayers against the killings.

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In view of the prevailing mood in the Valley, railway services will remain suspended tomorrow, news agency ANI reported late night.

Three youths were killed in Zuin village of Chadoora in Budgam district after clashes erupted in the area during an encounter between security forces and protesters. 40 CRPF and 20 Jammu and Kashmir Police personnel were also injured in the clashes.

In, the initial firing one youth Zahid Rashid Ganie, the only brother of five sisters, succumbed to injuries. The second death took place soon after with Saqib Ahmad of Wathoora being fatally shot in the forces' firing. He was declared dead as soon as he was attended by the doctors at SDH Chadoora.

Another youth Ishfaq Ahmad, a resident of Rangreth, later succumbed to his injuries at the SMHS hospital taking the death toll to three, the highest civilian causality near any encounter site this year.

One militant was killed and one jawan was hurt in the encounter. At least 17 more civilians sustained injuries during the clashes. The house where the militant was holed up was burnt down by the forces. The forces also recovered arms from the militant.

An encounter broke out on Tuesday morning between militants and the security forces in Chadoora in Kashmir's Budgam district. This comes just days after two Hizb-ul-Mujahideen militants were killed in an encounter in south Kashmir's Pulwama district.

CM MEHBOOBA MUFTI ANGUISHED OVER DEATH OF CIVILIANS

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has expressed deep anguish and grief over the death of youth at Chadoora today. "It is highly painful to see the young boys losing their lives," she said.

Terming these killings as highly unfortunate, Mufti said that the people in Kashmir continue to suffer massive collateral damage due to violence of the past three decades or so. "Violence has given people of the state innumerable miseries and it is high time that peaceful means are given a chance for the resolution of the issues," she said.

"We know there are issues that need to be addressed and resolved but no one will be able to do anything at a point when violence becomes a norm. There is a need for restrain from all sides so that conducive atmosphere is created and dissent is expressed in peaceful way," Mufti said and added that the solution to problems can be found only through political means and not through violence.

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Also read: Two killed, 17 injured in clashes between security forces and protesters near encounter site in Kashmir

Also read: Jammu and Kashmir doesn't top list of maximum injuries to police during mob attacks

Watch video: 3 civilians, 1 militant killed in Budgam encounter

--- ENDS ---
To blow up the rules or not?

Senate Republicans and Democrats appear to be on collision course over President Donald Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court and whether to changes Senate rules to get him confirmed.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has announced that he will vote no on the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch and lead a filibuster of the selection. More than a dozen Democrats also have announced their opposition and will try to thwart GOP efforts to press ahead on the choice. Such a step would require 60 votes in the 100-seat Senate, but Republicans only hold a 52-48 majority.



The pressure is on Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to change the parliamentary rules for Supreme Court nominees, lowering the threshold to a simple majority. Or, as Trump once put it, go nuclear.

What is the nuclear option?

Under that option, nominations could be approved with a simple majority in the 100-member Senate. Now, it takes 60 votes to clear parliamentary hurdles and set up an up-or-down vote on the nominee.

Its happened before

This procedural maneuver has recent precedent. In 2013, Democrats were in the majority under the leadership of Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada and upset about the blockage of President Barack Obama's nominees to a powerful appellate court. The Democrats pushed through a rules change lowering the vote threshold on all nominees except for the Supreme Court from 60 to a simple majority.



The Supreme Court was exempted at the time as part of a deal bringing along Democrats reluctant to change the rules.



At the time, McConnell warned Democrats the strategy would backfire: I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, you will regret this, and you may regret it a lot sooner than you think.

Before 1975, it was even tougher for presidents to get their nominations through because two-thirds of the senators present and voting had to agree to move forward.

Why it would be explosive

Such a rules change on Supreme Court nominees would be a momentous change for the Senate, which traditionally operates via bipartisanship and consent from all senators. Some believe it could begin to unravel Senate traditions at a hyper-partisan moment in politics and perhaps end up in the complete elimination of the filibuster even for legislation, which would mean an entirely different Senate from the one that's existed for decades.

Senate experts note that the filibuster is not enshrined in the Constitution and filibustering nominees is a relatively recent phenomenon. Cloture  the procedural motion to end a filibuster  was attempted for the first time on a nominee in 1968 after President Lyndon Johnson tapped Abe Fortas as chief justice of the U.S., according to the Congressional Research Service.

The cloture attempt failed and the nomination was withdrawn.

McConnell is an institutionalist who has made clear he does not favor invoking the nuclear option, but he has not ruled it out for Gorsuch.
Anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, who served more than 26-years in prison for defying the government, has died at age 87. Kathrada was at Robben Island the same time as former South African President, Nelson Mandela. The video captures him during a recent visit to his prison cell. (AP)
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Twenty-nine year-old Zimbabwean, Herbert Knight Ganje, is a millionaire, who dropped out of school at 17. I found school boring, and I was never really good at school, explained Ganje, who now sits at the helm of a multimillion dollar advertising company in Botswana, called H & G Advertising.
South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, who spent 18 years imprisoned alongside former President Nelson Mandela for their opposition to the racist regime, has died, his charitable foundation said Tuesday.

Neeshan Balton, executive director of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, described his death in a Johannesburg hospital as "a great loss to the [ruling African National Congress party], the broader liberation movement and South Africa as a whole."

The 87-year-old dedicated most of his life to fighting for equality in his native South Africa. He died early Tuesday after surgery for a blood clot in his brain.



As a boy of 12, he joined the nations Young Communist League, which opposed the racist apartheid regime. At 17, he was arrested for his resistance to laws that discriminated against South Africans of Indian origin.

In 1964, he and six others stood in the dock alongside anti-apartheid icons Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu as a judge handed the group a life sentence for their efforts to disrupt white minority rule. Kathrada would spend the next 26 years in prison, 18 of them alongside Mandela, who became South Africas first black president in 1994 and was widely regarded as the father of the nation.

At Mandelas 2013 funeral, Kathrada tearfully remembered their relationship.

When Walter died, I lost a father, he said during the service in Qunu, Mandelas rural hometown. And now, I have lost a brother. My life is in a void, and I do not know who to turn to.

Kathradas death also feels like a family affair in South Africa.

''The struggle denied Ahmed Kathrada the opportunity to have children of his own, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said in a statement. "He was first imprisoned at the age of 17. But many South Africans looked up to him as a favorite grandparent."

Shortly after his death was announced Tuesday, President Jacob Zuma called for an official funeral and instructed flags to fly at half-staff across the nation for the man he called Uncle Kathy.

Sello Hatang, head of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said Kathrada was more than just a friend to Mandela, who Hatang referred to by his clan name, Madiba.

Madiba said he surrounded himself with friends who could tell him when he was going wrong. And he considered Mr. K one of those friends, who could tell him as he was going wrong.

Mandela kept Kathrada close during his presidency, making him a top political advisor. In his later years, Kathrada started a charitable foundation.

Comrade Kathy was a gentle, humane and humble soul, said Kathrada Foundation Chairperson and tourism minister Derek Hanekom. He was a determined revolutionary who gave his entire life to the liberation struggle in our country, he added.

In later years, he continued to be a voice of moral authority, and he directed some of his ire at Zuma, who has weathered a number of corruption scandals.

Last year in an open letter, he called on Zuma to resign, saying, "Dear Comrade President, dont you think your continued stay as president will only serve to deepen the crisis of confidence in the government of the country?"

Hatang also urged South Africans to celebrate Kathradas life and to try to live up to his principles.

In his honor, may we continue to build a world that is more equal, not just in South Africa but globally, he said. "That the vulnerable in our society are then included more and they are taken care of.

Kathrada will be buried Wednesday in Johannesburg in accordance with Muslim rites.
Twenty-nine year-old Zimbabwean, Herbert Knight Ganje, is a millionaire, who dropped out of school when he was doing Form One.

I found school boring, and I was never really good at school, explained Ganje, who now sits at the helm of a multi-million dollar advertising company in Botswana, called H & G Advertising.

The school dropout said he managed to convince his mother to allow him to take a one year break and travel, and then continue with school at a later stage.

It was during this break that Ganjes road to success started.

My friend then invited me to Botswana, Ganje reflected, on what turned out to be a rough experience, where he survived on odd jobs, and was basically homeless.

When I came to Botswana I stayed in a tuck shop where there was just a mattress and blanket, that is how I survived, lamented Ganje. But all the time I was focused on my goal which was to set up a company.

Equipped with just an idea and passion, it wasnt long after being in Botswana, that Ganje realized his goal of starting his own company, almost unexpectedly.

I got my first client even before I registered the company, said Ganje. I just did a small presentation and the client was impressed, thats how the company started.

That company, the initials of his first and last name, is now a $50 million empire headquartered in Botswana, with operations in 13-African countries, serving such clients as Coca Cola, Unilever and Samsung.

As a result of his success at such a young age, Ganje made the list of Forbes Africa Magazines 30-Most Promising Young Entrepreneurs for 2017, a recognition he said he was both surprised and humbled by.

Of his company, Ganje explained that we have a group of companies within the agency of agencies, which are client specific. We cover digital marketing, below and above the line marketing, media buying.

Raised in the suburbs of Waterfalls, in Zimbabwes capital, Harare, Ganje, said he now wants to turn H & G Advertising into the biggest advertising agency in Africa, and compete globally.

At the office they call me bill, short cut for billionaire, quipped Ganje. But its no longer about money. We want to grow our business and grow our team. We want to make sure that we become the biggest advertising agency in Africa.

Despite his limited education, Ganje, who attended Frank Johnson Primary School before proceeding to Lord Malvern High School in Harare, for his secondary education, argues he is sufficiently equipped to handle the business of H & G Advertising.

I am a keen reader, even though I did not complete school, I know a lot about the business. I can hold any position in the business. I can be the accountant, Ganje said confidently.

Ganje urges the youth to follow their passion, and says he will start, through his Facebook page, mentoring upcoming entrepreneurs.

Though now living in Botswana, Ganje still visits his birth country of Zimbabwe, and says he is keen to give back to his Waterfalls community someday.
The 1995 Ghost in the Shell anime. Photo: Kodansha

The Scarlett Johansson version of Ghost in the Shell is being released this Friday, whether we want it or not. Its been notoriously tricky for Hollywood to successfully adapt anime and manga titles, even if they later get a critical reappraisal (see: Speed Racer, Edge of Tomorrow). But in the case of a classic franchise like Ghost in the Shell, which most American viewers know from the 1995 Mamoru Oshii film, theres more of a known quantity to live up to  this is one of the most influential franchises in anime history.



Still, most American moviegoers have only seen Oshiis film, if that, and Ghost in the Shell, like many anime franchises, exists over multiple films, TV series, and manga that were still going strong as recently as 2015. And the cyborg heroine Major Motoko Kusanagi has been reincarnated in multiple ages, temperaments, and bodies (or lack thereof). In other words, if ScarJos take flops, she wont be the first Major that fans have accused of ruining the series.

The silver lining, of course, is that its an excellent excuse to dig into the heady world of Ghost in the Shell. Heres a quick guide to the essentials to get you started.

Photo: Masamune Shirow

The Ghost in the Shell (1989), by Masamune Shirow

The manga that kicked off the franchise may surprise first-time readers already familiar with the anime, due to its lighter tone and depiction of the Major. The manga, after all, debuted in the late 80s, before Japan fell into an extended recession, when the tech boom was still a source of gee-whiz inspiration for sci-fi comic authors and animators. Shirows first series follows the episodic adventures of the special-ops security force Section 9, headed by Major Motoko Kusanagi, a tomboyish tough-girl who happens to be 97 percent cyborg.

Shirow is responsible for the technical concepts of cyberbrains, prostheses, and ghost hacking, as well as the Puppeteer plot that would serve as the basis for the 1995 film. He writes copious idiosyncratic notes in the margins, fleshing out various ideas more thoroughly for whomever cares, and cracking jokes. Hes also a bit of a lech, and never saw a female character whose crotch he wouldnt draw in loving close-up. It can be distracting in what is otherwise a densely conceived and entertaining sci-fi procedural. Still, cute Motoko, with her silly faces and easygoing fraternal relationship with her colleagues, is a fun variation on her more well-known anime counterpart, swilling beer with abandon, not yet affected by post-bubble ennui. Shirow followed the original series up with Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface in 1997.

Ghost in the Shell (1995), directed by Mamoru Oshii

Arguably the high point of the franchise, and certainly the most internationally known, Mamoru Oshiis feature film adaptation took a subplot from Shirows manga and turned it into a meditation on consciousness and the philosophy of the self. Its a bold direction to take with the source material, placing the Major on the brink of an existential crisis, and flipping the mangas fetishization of her body on its head (but not getting rid of it, heavens, no).

The films brilliantly creative action sequences inspired Western filmmakers from the Wachowskis to Steven Spielberg to take note. But Oshii does a lot with character  making a more sensitive figure out of the Majors cyborg partner Batou, and letting mostly biological Togusa act as a wide-eyed audience surrogate. The real supporting star, however, is the iconic, haunting score by Kenji Kawai, whose main theme elevates the virtuosic opening sequence and halfway-point montage of the city, which is plot-free and dialogue-free but vividly evokes Motokos alienation  from the society she lives, and even her own body. This is Ghost in the Shell at its moodiest, and perhaps incidentally, its most successful.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (20022005), directed by Kenji Kamiyama

The Major and the crew at Section 9 returned for this alternate-timeline anime series headed by Kenji Kamiyama, who had previously worked on the Patlabor series with Oshii, among others. The series, which spans 52 episodes in total, is a procedural-serial hybrid. Some episodes, labeled Stand Alone in the first season, are just that  sci-fi one shots about various scenarios in the cybernetic world of Newport City. The rest are Complex episodes, part of an overarching plot  the first season focuses on the Laughing Man hacker and his many imitators, the second on a refugee uprising.

For many fans this is the definitive iteration of the franchise, fusing Shirows roving, speculative storytelling with Oshiis more impressionistic, philosophical approach. The animation is a peak example of how to meld CGI and traditional animation  its deployed just enough to make those car chases more thrilling and those Fuchikomas more lifelike. The Major herself is not quite the sassy pinup of the manga, nor the haunted soul of the film, but a tough operator who can crack a joke now and then  and whose past is fleshed out in much more detail over multiple episodes. She exists as part of a colorful ensemble, with Togusa and Batou in particular getting more depth and story lines of their own. (Theres also a 2006 Stand Alone Complex movie, Solid State Society, also directed by Kamiyama.)

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004), directed by Mamoru Oshii

Oshii returned to the franchise nearly a decade after the first film to explore another thread in Shirows manga, this one about illegally manufactured sex androids who start murdering their owners. Oshii, master of not giving the people what they want, sets this after the events of the first film, after the Major has (spoiler) fused herself to the Puppet Master and exists more or less full-time in the network. Batou takes the lead  which is great, because Batou is great  but Motokos absence is felt sharply, most of all by him.

The animation is a more ambitious CGI hybrid than Stand Alone Complex, and unfortunately, much of it has not aged well. (The CGI is mostly reserved for scenery and vehicles, while the characters remain hand-drawn, giving it a weird video-game feeling at times.) But it also lends itself to some of the films more unsettling moments  this is a scarier film than the first Ghost in the Shell, and a sadder one, too. When the Major does make her long-awaited entrance, Oshii intentionally makes it a sadly empty encounter.

Continued viewing: Arise, Sleepless Eye, Patlabor

The most recent iteration of the franchise is the 2015 prequel series Arise, which depicts a younger, post-adolescent Motoko meeting the team that would become Section 9 for the first time. Its more or less based on the 2013 manga series Arise Sleepless Eye, and fan reaction has been mixed at best.

If, however, after an initial tour of the films and the manga, you sense that youre more of an Oshii fan than a Shirow or Kamiyama fan, then I would recommend checking out the two Patlabor films that Oshii directed prior to his first foray into this franchise. His Ghost in the Shell is such an iconic post-bubble 90s work, and its fascinating to see where his mind was with regard to Japans relationship to technology before the recession. Patlabor deals with many of the same themes of artificial intelligence, and has a deeply wonky fascination with infrastructure and politics, but its also a brighter, sunnier production with equally impressive animation and action sequences. Fans of Oshiis Ghost in the Shell will find a lot to love here, including a very familiar and very atmospheric tour through another dilapidated shantytown in another hypermodern vision of urban Japan. Its ghosts all the way down.
Commence the tomfoolery. Photo: NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

No disrespect intended to Ya Heard? With Perd! or The Johnny Karate Super Awesome Musical Explosion Show, but we may have found the next best thing on non-regional television. Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson  er, sorry, Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman  will be hosting a new crafting competition series on NBC called The Handmade Project, which, per Deadline, celebrates artisanship and the makers who can create amazing things with their hands and tools. Six episodes have been ordered, with each episode following a format of eight contestants tackling different crafty themes and disciplines in the hopes of impressing their celebrity judges; it also promises the Zen-like and cheeky competitive tone most recently exhibited by The Great British Bake Off. Much like his Swansonian character, Offerman is quite the accomplished craftsman and owns a woodshop in L.A. Poehler is, however, more of an ethusiastic novice. Im looking forward to finally conquering my fear of papier-mache, Poehler said in a statement, with Offerman adding, Amy and I have a strong tradition of tomfoolery so lets see if we dont have some good fun. Challenge No. 1: A tasteful patchwork pillow bearing the face of Lil Sebastian.


On Monday night, Late Shows host Stephen Colbert took a break from covering the failed American Health Care Act to look at another story coming out of the White House: President Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushners new gig in the Bureau of Obvious Nepotism, also known as the Office of American Innovation. In the position, Kushner plans to look at how the government can work more like a successful business. Kushner, as Colbert explains, is full of great business ideas, including being born into a wealthy real-estate family or marrying into a wealthy real-estate family. Unfortunately, The New York Times is reporting that the Senate Intelligence Committee is planning to question Jared Kushner on his meetings with Russian officials, which might lead to murky waters as he attempts to drain the swamp in his new position.
Martin Luther King Jr. Photo: Francis Miller/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

The Age of Spin, the first of Dave Chappelles two at-times brilliant new Netflix specials, builds to a closer about Bill Cosby and how he has a valuable legacy along with his history of alleged sexual abuses. Chappelle lists many things Cosby did for black Americans, all leading to the kicker: Heres the fact that I heard, but havent confirmed: I heard when Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and said he had a dream, he was speaking into a PA system that Bill Cosby paid for. That would be incredible if it were true. Its not.

Considering where Cosby was in his career at the time, the claim seems extremely unlikely. On August 28, 1963, when the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was held  we couldnt find any record of Cosby attending the March  Cosby was still a New York City nightclub act. A few weeks earlier, he had just made his first appearance on The Tonight Show (though Allan Sherman was guest-hosting, as Johnny Carson was out that night), and hadnt yet released his debut record. This would be like if a comedian who was just about to tape their first Comedy Central special paid for the PA system at the Womens March.

Somewhat ironically, Mark Whitaker, in his Cosby biography, Cosby: His Life and Times, suggests that it was Kings speech that helped make Cosby a star:

How significant was it that Bill Cosbys emergence as a national celebrity took place in the autumn of 1963, in the months after Kings I Have a Dream speech? Or that 1963 happened to be the year when a series of brutal setbacks for the civil rights movement rattled Americans conscience  Cosby never mentioned these events in his performances, and neither did the white TV hosts who competed to book him on their shows. But as the civil rights battle raged on, there was no question that a charming Negro comedian who got laughs without any reference to the race problem was a comforting figure to Americans who wanted to show that they were capable of judging a man not by the color of his skin but the content of his comedy.

But the strongest evidence against Chappelles claim is that the fact of who paid for the Marchs PA system is actually surprisingly well-documented. (This is partly because before the event, the system was sabotaged and the organizers called upon Attorney General Robert Kennedy to fix it. But thats a story for a different day.) A few pages of Charles Euchners book about the March, Nobody Turn Me Around: A Peoples History of the 1963 March on Washington, is dedicated to the fact. See, the quality of the PA system was a sticking point for Bayard Rustin, one of the events main organizers. The Lincoln Memorial is here, the Washington Monument is there, Rustin told the engineers. I want one square mile where anyone can hear. His explanation, We cannot maintain order where people cannot hear. It was part of his plan to transform a crowd into an audience. According to Euchner, most big events at the time would rent systems for around $1,000 to $2,000, but Rustin wanted to rent something much more expensive.

Heres an excerpt of the next passage from the book:

Rustin called Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers and David Dubinsky of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. We expect you fellows to raise the money for a sound system  $20,000, he remembers telling them. Then he called Jack Conway of the AFL-CIO and told him to make sure Reuther and Dubinsky delivered.

Over the years after the March, Cosby mightve attended an event at which King spoke, but there is no proof of such, and no evidence of any direct relationship between the two. Cosby was very close with Harry Belafonte, who was very close with King. As Cosby started making money following his breakthrough role on I Spy and his comedy albums, though, its possible he donated money to Kings causes through their mutual friend. Belafonte was also the first person Cosby called when he heard that King had been shot. Also, it was with Belafonte, at Kings funeral, that Cosby helped comfort Kings children. (Heres a photo.) Bill Cosby spent a lot of time with the children, as opposed to going to comfort my mother, Martin Luther King III told Rolling Stone. He said he wanted to spend his time trying to help us deal with the crisis. And he did. I remember Bill telling us a formula to deal with the death. He made up three or four words, like a magic expression, and had us repeat it over and over.

In June of that year, Cosby entertained protesters at the Poor Peoples March on Washington, an event first conceived by Martin Luther King before his assassination, and carried out by Ralph Abernathy and Coretta Scott King. Also, that summer Cosby worked with Belafonte to organize a benefit at the Hollywood Bowl for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (the organization of which MLK was the president before his passing).

Vulture reached out to Netflix and Dave Chappelle for comment, but they havent responded. That said, we understand that in comedy, facts are flexible  that when a comedian says something happened to him or her last week, they mean a week after whenever they wrote the joke. Chappelle, in particular, likes to test the limits of his audiences belief. When he says in his second Netflix special, Deep in the Heart of Texas, that he received a VHS tape of him having sex in the mail, and then a week later he received a second tape of him masturbating to the first one, the audience gives him the benefit of the doubt, even though, on second thought, thats obviously a joke. Like any fudging of details in comedy, Chappelle made this up because it captured his true feelings better than the truth. If Cosby had paid for the sound system through which MLK delivered his I Had a Dream speech, that would inspire a feeling comparable to how Chappelle felt about Cosby before the abuse allegations came out, considering Chappelle is a person who became a comedian after reading about Cosby in a magazine. So Chappelle said it.
By Press Trust of India: From Anisur Rahman

Dhaka, Mar 28 (PTI) The chief of the terror group blamed for Bangladeshs worst terror attack at a Dhaka cafe was among the four Islamist militants killed in one of the countrys longest anti-terror operations in Sylhet, police said today.

"Our intelligence suggest one of the four is top neo-JMB (neo-Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh) leader Musa," Polices Assistant Inspector General M Moniruzzaman told PTI.

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He, however, said forensic investigation was ordered to further confirm his identity as his face was mutilated in the fierce encounter.

Officials earlier identified the man only as Musa, saying he took the charge of the outfit as a massive anti-militancy operations killed several top neo-JMB leaders after the July 1 attack on Holey Artisan cafe.

The July 1 attack on Gulshans Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhakas posh diplomatic area killed 23 people, including an Indian girl.

Musa was among four Islamist terrorists killed during Operation Twilight, one of the countrys longest anti-terror operations launched after a suicide bomber on Friday night blew himself up at the international airport in Dhaka in an attack claimed by the ISIS. It came a week after an identical attack on a Rapid Action Battalion camp in Dhaka.

The four militants, including a woman, were holed up in a building that saw powerful blasts claimed by the Islamic State that killed six people in northeastern Sylhet city.

Bangladeshs army today cleared the booby-trapped militant den in Sylhet and carried out controlled explosions of bombs in the building.

Several powerful blasts rocked the area as armys bomb disposal experts engaged in defusing the explosives planted at different corners of the building by the militants before their deaths.

"The armys explosive experts are working inside to defuse the devices apparently through controlled explosions," a source said.

An army spokesman said their assaults inside the militant hideout killed all Islamists but the Operation Twilight is still underway secure the site.

"They (troops) are using drones to get a clearer picture before stepping inside different corners of the building to evade booby traps," an official said.

Sylhet-based 17 Infantry Divisions Major General Anwarul Momen is leading the operation, assisted by polices SWAT and counter-terrorism units.

Armys Brigadier General Fakhrul Ahsan told the media briefing powerful "improvised explosive devices" laid by "much trained militants" at its different corners exposed the building to vulnerability requiring the military to exhaust a process ahead of wrapping up the operation.

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"The militants had kept a bucket filled with explosives at the collapsible gate at entrance of the building. When we detonated them from distance, the collapsible gate was blown out so vigorously, walls of another building several yards away were severely damaged," Ahsan said.

He earlier also described the militants as "well trained" referring to an example when they hurled back a live grenade thrown by the commandos as the assault was underway.

Authorities called out commandos on Saturday morning, two days after a security siege to the building.

On Saturday evening, two powerful bombs ripped through a crowd near the building, killing six people, two being police officers and injuring about 50, including two army officers.

RAB Intelligence Wing chief Lt Col Abul Kalam was seriously wounded in blasts and flown to Dhaka for treatment. He was later flown to Singapore.

The attacks were carried out by the extremists from outside who were mixed up with onlookers, police said.

Hours later the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack through its propaganda news agency Amaq.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, however, rejected the ISIS claim, saying that there was no presence of any foreign terrorist group in the country.

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The encounter continued into Sunday, when army commandos shot dead two militants at the building.

The commandos located the militants wearing suicide vests on the ground floor of the building and shot them dead.

The militants were equipped with small arms, explosives and grenades and laid out booby traps at different corners of the building, slowing down the military operation.

The commandos earlier evacuated 78 residents, including children from the building.

A militant couple lived for the past three months as tenants.

Residents who lived in the house as tenants said they were virtually taken to hostage with militants warning them of bombs implanted on their way out while the commandos brought them out from the top of the building making their way there from the rooftop of an adjacent structure.

Bangladesh has been witnessing a spate of attacks on secular activists, foreigners and religious minorities since 2013. The country launched a massive crackdown on militants specially after the Dhaka cafe attack. PTI AR UZM AKJ UZM

--- ENDS ---
Jungletown debuts March 28. Photo: Viceland

In the first episode of Jungletown, Jimmy Stice describes Kalu Yala, the sustainable town hes attempting to build in the jungles of Panama, as a new global village thats researching how we can live beautifully.

These are nice words to describe whats happening as Stices staffers and interns focus on designing a fully functioning eco-conscious community, from the muddy ground up. But as this ten-episode Viceland docuseries progresses, it quickly becomes obvious that this endeavor is far less organized and much messier than that pleasant summary suggests. As is the case in pretty much every reality-based work of television, its the messes that make this show interesting.

At first, Jungletown, which debuts tonight at 10 on Viceland, seems like its going to be an uplifting Nat Geostyle documentary about idealistic young people coming together to prove that they can change the world for the better. We see men and women from all over the globe  St. Louis, Winnipeg, Glasgow, Buenos Aires  eagerly heading to this almost paradise to engage in Earth-friendly world building from multiple angles. Mostly in their 20s and predominantly white, they talk excitedly about idea orgasms and how they want to go out and be what they want to be instead of just buying stuff. But after a few days in Kalu Yala  where the staff is paid, but the interns pony up $5,000 for the privilege of learning and working for ten weeks while sleeping on inflatable mattresses under tin roofs  reality starts to assert itself.

Some start to wonder whether the community is truly following sustainable practices. (You cant talk about sustainability all day and eat Jif, says one intern after jars of peanut butter are brought in to help feed the hungry masses.) Questions are raised about how the place is run and where the money is going. Some people wind up leaving because of depression, severe food allergies, or simply an inability to deal with living in such remote, primitive conditions. As someone whose most outdoorsy act involved walking by, without actually entering, an REI, I empathize with these individuals. All the departures also give the series a bit of a Survivor feel; in each episode, theres a chance that someone will be eliminated, usually by personal choice.

With so many personalities in the mix, Jungletown doesnt necessarily foster strong attachments to particular characters. The most fascinating figure in it is Stice, a floppy-haired, Trey Parker look-alike whose family has long been in the real-estate business. His investment in the Kalu Yala property seems to come from a sincere place, but his delegation of both the managerial and manual labor to others, along with his corporate but totally casual Friday vibe, make him seem shifty, too. The second episode, in which a mistrust of Stice is expressed by multiple interns, does a particularly savage job of cutting from the compound, where Kalu Yalans are licking every last morsel of farm-to-table food from their bowls, to footage of Stice, whos traveled to Big Sky, Montana, for a conference and is stocking up on processed junk food and bottles of Cabernet.

Even if youre a villain in the conversation, that helps catalyze the conversation, a woman tells Stice in a subsequent episode, while hes still in Montana. He may not quite be the villain of the piece, but his motives are certainly the most complicated.

Of course, not all of Jungletown is about conflict. There are moments that depict the members of this community happily connecting with each other and, everyone being young, partying together, too. (Alcohol is provided by the sustainable distiller who resides on-site, of course.)

There may be a tendency to view this series as a docu-jab at millennials who have all kinds of lofty ideals but lack the fortitude and commitment required to see them to fruition. I see it as a reality check on what it takes to lives off the land, a prospect that resonates with many people who, like one Kalu Yala staffer, believe the worlds kinda going to shit and might hit the fan pretty soon. But building a town and, really, a society is incredibly difficult, even if youre a young, hearty optimist with tons of energy.

Its wonderful to strive to live sustainably and beautifully in a global village. But Jungletown makes sure to remind us that, while youre trying to do that, life can still be a real bitch.
Unlike King Joffreys less-than-stellar reaction to Sigur Ross rendition of The Rains of Castamere on Game of Thrones, the audience at the Las Vegas leg of the Game of Thrones Concert Tour were pleasantly surprised when the Nationals front man Matt Berninger came to the stage to sing his version of the Lannister anthem. The Nationals recording of the song was also used in the series to remind viewers, in case they somehow had doubts after all the bloodshed, that the Lannisters arent really all that fun and lighthearted, even if Tyrion makes some good jokes. The 28-stop Game of Thrones live concert tour is helmed by the shows composer Ramin Djawadi, and includes multiple stages, a full orchestra, a choir, and large LED screens that use footage from the series and video inspired by its medieval dragon-filled world.
Photo: JC Olivera/Stringer

For what is The Simpsons, if not a Norman Lear sitcom with an added dash of casual strangling and non-lethal nuclear meltdowns? This fall, the father of Americas most beloved TV families Norman Lear will stop by the nations most obscurely located little town to meet the countrys other favorite domestic unit. According to EW, the creator of All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Good Times, and One Day at a Time, recently rebooted by Netflix, will appear as himself during the shows 29th season this fall in a scene that involves the theme song from one of his shows. Good thing you already know all the lyrics to the 704 Hauser intro, so you can just kick back and enjoy.


Photo: Kevork Djansezian/Stringer

Pharrell Williams might have been nominated by the Academy for Hidden Figures this year, but his new project seems like a combo of two other Oscar contenders. Take the musical romance of La La Land and the bittersweet, beachfront longing of Moonlight and youve got Atlantis, Williamss upcoming musical based on his life. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film is inspired by Williamss childhood in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and features a Romeo and Juliet-style story. So maybe thats not exactly a perfect MoonlightLa La Land fusion, but with Williams in charge and Tony-winning Spring Awakening director Michael Mayer at the helm, you will cry just as much as if it were.
Game of Thrones creators recently described the show as a 73-hour movie. Photo: HBO

At the Los Angeles PaleyFest on Saturday, Jonathan Nolan described writing the second season of Westworld as a ten-hour movie. Just a few weeks ago, the showrunners for Game of Thrones noted that they considered their entire series a 73-hour movie. Its a claim thats become increasingly common in the past several years, and its linked to a whole host of related terms about what we should be valuing in TV, and how we define prestige. The 10- or 13- or 73-hour-movie idea rises out of the same impulse as novelistic TV, or television that treats its episodes as chapters, or even from the urge to reframe an entire first season as a pilot. While the connotations of those terms may differ slightly, the underlying message is the same  one episode of TV is not enough. To really appreciate what this series is doing, and to really tell a serious, worthwhile, complex, and important story, you cant judge a single episode. You need lots. Ideally, you cant fully judge it, cant weigh its success or value, until youve seen all of it.

There are countless ways this is frustrating, many of which have been addressed in the several waves of this particular idea about prestige TV that have cropped up in the past 20 years, and the several matching waves of criticism about them. Many of those critiques focus, correctly, on how frustrating it is that, for some reason, TV cant stand on its own as a prestige narrative. For TV, prestige means getting reframed as something else and basking in the reflected glow of another art forms cultural currency. This, from Philip Maciak, is one of my favorites: Why do we need to constantly repackage our broad-scale critiques of art in the form of cage-match battles to the death? Cant art forms co-exist?

Even if we set aside the cultural baggage and acclaim that come with terms like novelistic, cinematic, or x-hour movie, even if we can look beyond the novelistic = not-trashy part of the puzzle, were still left with the underlying understanding of what serious, important stories look like  theyre long. Theyre complicated, and they require you to pay attention and to hold your judgment. They are not interested in your current pleasure, because good, worthwhile narratives are about delayed gratification. Thats why it doesnt matter that Westworlds first season was deliberately, gleefully impossible to parse until you saw the final episode. Nor is it a problem that, as Todd VanDerWerff recently posited on Twitter, Legions and True Detectives first seasons both follow a structure where you have to sit through cinematic showcase with only minor bearing on the plot episodes and breather episodes before you get to the one where everythings explained. Because this, according to the novelistic, ten-hour-movie theory of TV storytelling, is how you achieve depth and prestige. This is what serious looks like.

There are two pieces to why this is such an irritating and frequently troubling way to think about what constitutes important, worthwhile, serious television. The first is that in emphasizing length and hyperserialized complexity over episodic structure, TV can so easily be bad. Alan Sepinwall has made the case for the episode more than once, writing first in 2015 that series without a strong emphasis on the episode as a worthwhile narrative unit can easily suffer in quality: those formless units intended as episodes become a real drag: necessary viewing to understand the overall plot, but not interesting viewing in the meantime. And then again, after the GOT writers described the show as a 73-hour movie, Sepinwall produced a list of questions for TV storytellers, including Is there a way to structure this episode so that it feels distinct and memorable? and Even if someone is going to watch six episodes in one sitting, how can I make this one stand out?

Sepinwalls primary point here is a vital one. An episode can either be treated as an artificial barrier that stops one piece of storytelling from flowing smoothly into the next, or it can be greeted as an opportunity, a regular and reliably renewing chance to tell a story, to sketch a theme, or to experiment with form and structure on a self-contained canvas. And if given the opportunity, why wouldnt you want each episode of your story to be gratifying and meaningful and purposeful in some way, rather just a glorified bookmark? Its also useful to remember that the best TV of the last decade has proven that the two opposing poles of TV narrative, with serialized on one end and episodic on the other, are actually an entirely false binary. Its no mistake that Mad Men, one of the most slow-burn shows imaginable in terms of plot and character development, was also gloriously, reliably, joyfully episodic in how it treated theme and premise. Neither is it a mistake that one of the best shows of the last year, The Good Place, is built on rock-solid episodic footing, and also pulled off a wallop of a twist at the end of its first season. The big-picture narrative and the episode-length structure are frames that support one another, not diverging tasks. Its not means to an end versus end in and of itself  it can be both.

So this is the first, more concrete reason why the ten-hour movie, novelistic TV idea is so insanely frustrating. It almost always sacrifices good storytelling now for the perceived benefit of good storytelling later, and too often results in neither coming true. The second reason goes more to the point of why were so insistent that episodic TV is less serious, less worthwhile fluff, while our endless slogs through featureless, indistinct stories are the stuff of prestige narrative. It also probably says more about ourselves as viewers than about the TV were trying to describe.

Embedded in our assumptions about what prestige looks like  assumptions that also tend to include visual darkness, humorlessness, and incomprehensibility  is the implicit suggestion that things that are serious must also be hard. I mean hard in several senses of the word; serious stories are difficult to grasp, they require time and attention, and they tend to be violent and merciless and unflinching. They are about cold-eyed glances and hard truths; they are not about hugs or hope. And so serious stories are also the ones that do not please you right away. They withhold and obfuscate, preferring to dismiss the value of any aesthetic appreciation of the episode right in front of you for some promised payoff down the road. And if youre impatient or frustrated that a show is taking too long to get to the goods, youre the problem. You judged it too soon! You cant say its bad because this one episode wasnt good  you shouldnt judge it like TV! Its a novel!

Never mind, of course, that this too often leads to a narrative Ponzi scheme, where the real payoff is always just one more episode or one more season away. Never mind, also, that this is not really how novels or movies work, either. When you read a long novel that takes forever to get to anything gripping or appealing, you dont retroactively forgive the filler up front. You think, Huh, that really needed more editing.

But especially when it comes to TV, were trained to believe that the stories that please us immediately are trash or guilty pleasures, and so were also happy to extend credit to a show thats constantly kicking the narrative can down the road. A show like One Day at a Time, which deals with identity and immigration and family and posttraumatic stress, and which tells those stories inside immediately accessible, funny, episode-centric pieces, is great, familiar and fresh, although a little sitcom trope-y. At the same time, the new season of American Crime, which deals with many of the same questions but which only allows its plot to become clear slowly, and lets details filter out slowly, scene by scene, person by person, is brilliant, powerful, and, by the way, novelistic.

Its admittedly dumb to put American Crime and One Day at a Time into the same box and have them fight it out for which one is truly serious  it reduces all the nuance and distinction of their respective projects, washing away their individual features in an attempt to point out some underlying truth. And nuance, specificity, and complexity are the stuff of serious arguments (and serious television). But theres no rule that says that brevity, episodic structure, or narrative pleasure is inherently inimical to nuance. Nor is there any reason why a show that makes you slog through an undifferentiated middle is accomplishing anything more powerful or complex than one with tightly edited episodic arcs and a thoughtful serial structure.

Were sure that long stories, and longform TV, are prestige. They challenge us, and reward our intelligence, and require our trust. But this understanding of prestige can easily shift into something not so different from a bad boyfriend, one whos very serious and mysterious and emotionally withholding, and ultimately a little careless of your feelings. He doesnt bring you flowers on Valentines Day because thats what unserious, cliched boyfriends would do, and thats not what he is. Hes important. Hes complex. Hes prestige. You cant judge him by this one event; you have to wait until you can really get all of him. This date may seem terrible at first, but hang in there. Its really a ten-hour movie.
Any weakness can be exploited. A tender spot can be poked, a past failing can be dredged up. Personality quirks arent cute if youre a special agent. Theyre dangerous. This week on Quantico, every character is evaluated. Alex is the hero who always has to be the hero. Ryan is a good soldier until his personal life intervenes. Shelby needs everyone to like her, and Nimah isnt a real member of the team.

On the heels of one of the shows best episodes, the writers continue a rebranding effort to strip Quantico of its notoriously confusing reputation. What was once a show with dozens of unresolved story lines all flying past each other is quickly turning into a show that carries as much emotional weight as its characters do. The rebranding effort is working, and Mockingbird develops the plotlines set up in last weeks episode without trying too hard to overshadow them.

Our (now smaller) team of special agents is still working as a covert task force trying to bring down a terrorist organization made up of eight different people, all of whom they need to identify. This week, the mission has a particularly relevant theme: fake news. In the past year, fake news has become a defining aspect of political rhetoric from both sides of the aisle, as well as a newfound journalistic problem. The mission for our team in Mockingbird is to find the meaning behind the fakest of fake news.

A chemical plant in Brookwell, Virginia, has exploded. Residents are being evacuated, the cloud of smoke is broadcast over and over on the news, social media is blowing up with takes and fears. Terrorists are accused. Initially, the team thinks this will be their mission: to find out who blew up the plant and poisoned the water in this town. But what they find is that it is all a ruse. Its fake news as a cover for something else.

A story like this is the handiwork of a vast and organized web brigade, otherwise known as trolls, Owen tells the team, and they quickly begin an online quest to find the people behind it. Shelby traces several of the fake news sites to the same warehouse in Virginia. Dayana traces hundreds of Twitter accounts to the same IP address, and Ryan discovers a fake video backdrop. Together, they realize that the trolls are part of a larger troll farm  and that this farm is only a branch office of a larger group of Russian trolls. All of this is particularly relevant to the current political atmosphere, and Mockingbird is not exactly subtle about it.

To infiltrate the trolls, the team needs Harry Doyles help since he has a connection with them. Alex and Harry walk right into this farm and just start asking questions. This is pretty unbelievable. Alex Parrish is presumably one of the most recognizable cultural figures in America! Although their cover somehow isnt blown and they get the information they need, its all quite a stretch.

The team ultimately realizes that the explosion was a ploy to evacuate the town, and the enemy team is looking for something in the houses. Nimah, doing research at home, realizes that their enemy isnt looking for an object, but a person. That savvy research earns Nimah a place on the team she wasnt really ever a part of. With that knowledge, Alex and Ryan go undercover as EPA officers and find Mallory Haines, a former Hill staffer, who created stories that werent always based in facts. One of those stories (about a bakery that was unsupportive of veteran homecomings) led to 11 civilian deaths, and so Mallorys senator is trying to get rid of her before the fake news events are traced back to him.

This is where Mockingbird gets its most political. With Mallory in custody and the fight still on to figure out who is responsible for the plot to kill her, the team is angry. As special agents used to getting things done immediately, they want justice. The most explosive comment of the night comes from Ryan: The press may call this fake news, but its disinformation, he says. Theyre turning the public against each other and fostering whatever hate is inside of them. The episode ends with another face on the board: the speaker of the House, who funded the campaign to find and kill Mallory.

Of course, theres much more going on in this episode. Last week, while on a mission at a party, Ryan interacted with an arts reporter who smelled a story and is now on his tail. Sasha Baranoff finds Ryans number and contacts him, promising to publish photos of him and his friends at the party if he doesnt tell her what hes up to. She follows him on his mission to the exploded plant. After some very lucky shoe-leather reporting, she spots him dressed as EPA in the front seat of a van. This is enough blackmail to get Ryan to hand over another story unrelated to the mission on background. Its a relationship certainly unsanctioned by the leadership of the team, and one that near the close of the episode seems like it might become romantic as well.

The last ten minutes of the episode  with the mission solved and Harry Doyle added to the team  consists almost entirely of one-on-one heart-to-hearts between various members of the cast. This is a break from Quanticos normal obsession with group scenes and three-way dialogue, and it gives the characters a little more room to open up about whats going on with them. In these scenes, we learn that Nimahs sister still hasnt spoken to her, that Clayton finally asks Owen for his help, that Harry wants to join the team, that Shelby is starting to get along with Clayton, and that Ryan and Alex are finally putting their relationship behind them. Its an emphasis on relationships over explosions thats helping Quantico root itself in emotion instead of shock, and its a much better show in that space.

The episode ends just like the last one, with an open-ended shock. We see Leons wrist hanging out of his tub, covered in blood, while two people leaving a faked suicide scene as Shelbys call goes straight to voice-mail. Its a little tangential from the episodes main thrust, but its a good hook to keep viewers interested. For the first time in a while, Quantico is a show Im anxious to keep watching.
Producer Brian Reed, in Woodstock, Alabama. Photo: stownpodcast/Instagram

The podcast S-Town, which was released in its seven-episode entirety this morning, isnt a true-crime audio documentary. At least, not in the way many fans expected when details of the latest project by Serials creators were first circulated. It was easy to make that assumption given the legacy of Serial, whose phenomenal first season remains the apotheosis of the prestige true-crime genre, as well as the various genre elements hinted at in S-Towns original press release. (Murder! Mystery! Secrets!)

Theres death in the podcast, sure. And there are crimes, more than a few. And most of the stories told are true. But having genre elements isnt the same thing as fitting into a genre, and in that vein, S-Town is less a true-crime whodunit than a kaleidoscopic nonfiction novel in the shape of a true crimetinged podcast, one whose narrative preoccupations are more tied to the spirit and myriad complexities of a place (in this case, the tiny rural town of Woodstock, Alabama) than the combustible tension of a mystery to be solved  though, there is a murder mystery involved, too.

Discussing S-Town without giving away what its really about  a revelation elegantly dispensed through a sublime left turn in the closing moments of the second episode  is a tricky proposition, and in hindsight, its more understandable why the Serial team kept public details at a minimum and inadvertently allowed true-crime speculation to germinate. The basics are that Brian Reed, a senior producer at This American Life, is compelled to investigate the story of a murder in Woodstock after being contacted by John, an eccentric Woodstock native who harbors an intriguing antagonistic relationship with the town. As the story goes, the son of a wealthy family is said to have committed a murder, and is purportedly going around town bragging about the deed. Its a classic setup, but not long after Reed starts chasing down the lead, someone else ends up dead, and the story folds inward into something completely different.

That description makes the show sound more conventional and suspenseful than it really is. What we end up with is something far less conventional, far more soulful, and, based on the four review episodes released ahead of this mornings launch, far more rewarding. S-Town turns out to be a meditative and ornate family drama, one that eschews the propulsive momentum of a potboiler plot engine in favor of the softer, darker currency of gothic Americana. The podcast unfurls its story amid a complicated backdrop of extreme poverty, sprawling histories, and the psychosocial fallout of carrying out a life in a place lost in time.



Some listeners might be tempted to draw connections between the pictures drawn by S-Town and the public neuroses about the socioeconomics that led to Trumps America, as we seem wont to do with just about everything else these days. And there would be some validity to that. There are elements of suffering and resentment in rural American towns long forgotten by the march of progress. The show contains gestures toward the tension between the pains of the liberal intelligentsia and the pains of farmland country. But as much as the many layers of S-Towns milieu lend themselves to sweeping societal think pieces, the show itself keeps its eye intently focused on the personal and the idiosyncratic: At the end of the day, S-Town features a vivid portrait of a man, his complex relationship with his home, and the legacy of that dynamic. Woodstock might be a shit town (hence the title), but its someones shit town, and the podcast functions best as an exploration of that nexus.

The show isnt without its problems. It possesses a meandering quality thatll be appealing to some, but not so much to others. Its true to sprawling social webs to a fault. And there are instances when the writing stretches a little too far for an inspired metaphorical connection; a motif of clocks recurs throughout the podcast, which wouldve been a more elegant device were the association not so literal. (John, who emerges as the central character of the piece, is among other things a horologist, an expert in clockworks.) But despite these stylistic shortcomings, much credit should be given to the overall strength of Reeds narration, which hums with sensitivity, yet crackles with a veteran journalists wry skepticism and wit.

Reed is a fascinating steward, both for how he tells this story and the way he relates to the world built out in his reporting. As the events of S-Town unfold, the core relationship between Reed and John steadily grows to be the most animating element of the story, a seemingly bottomless well of narrative power. Its prominence will undoubtedly recall the complexity of the Sarah KoenigAdnan Syed relationship at the heart of Serials first season (with some key differences), but the dynamic seems more naturally integrated into the perspective and texture of the show this go-around. In returning to that compositional gambit, S-Town emerges as the latest iteration of what is shaping up to be the Serial teams broad principal legacy: how it carries to podcasting the torch of New Journalism, that blend of reportage and literary technique that remains honest to how the personal experience of the journalist is intermingled in the production of a story.

But S-Towns specific legacy will be its existence as an unnaturally sophisticated creation for the medium, an inventive and emotionally rich step forward that reconfigures the value of its immediate peer group. Indeed, its a little hard to spend several hours with the first few episodes and then immediately dive back into the iTunes podcast charts, so littered with popular yet shallower potential equivalents. It renders hollow shows like Case File and Serial Killers, or rote genre exercises like Stranglers and the CBCs Someone Knows Something. It further reframes the high jinks of Missing Richard Simmons into something less thoughtful and more accidentally malevolent.



Its additionally curious to hold S-Town up against what could superficially be considered its closest cousin: Crimetown, Gimlet Medias foray into true crime in collaboration with The Jinxs Marc Smerling and Zac Stuart-Pontier. That show, too, exhibits a strong dedication to its setting: the colorful city of Providence, Rhode Island, where organized crime is deeply entrenched in its history, and where that history is the focus of the shows yarn. But while Crimetown feels almost gleefully animated by its grimy subject matter, S-Towns tale is more driven by a profound sense of sorrow. And where Crimetown seems boyish in its fascination with the dark underbelly of the world, S-Town seems to shoulder Woodstocks pains as responsibility.



This isnt to slight Crimetown; that podcast is a pulpy delight. But I bring up the comparison mostly to assert just how dramatically mature (and rare) the sheer sense of empathy exhibited by S-Town is within podcast-land, and perhaps just about everywhere else. It remains to be seen whether those qualities will find S-Town embraced by the constituency that turned its progenitor into an international phenomenon, but theres no questioning that it deserves such a response. Its one of the most sincerely human things Ive ever listened to, a pleasure multiplied by its grand scope of ambition.
The Mindy Project is hitting its stride with this season (and possibly series) finale. The throwaway lines are as on point as ever, starting with Jeremy scolding the staff not to answer the office phone with, You have 30 seconds, wow me. The romantic story lines are at a boil, starting with the very first scene, in which a mens choir invades the morning staff meeting singing Dixieland so Colette can propose to Karen while wearing a sweet pink suit and pearls.

Of course Karen says yes, and of course this plays into the bigger story line that has been afoot: Ben was planning to propose to Mindy before Mindy gave him a maybe true, maybe defensive speech about how she doesnt want to get married. In this episode, as Morgan tells Ben about Colettes proposal, Ben decides to confide in Morgan about his own scuttled proposal plans. He explains that he even bought a princess-cut blood diamond, her favorite.

There is yet a third romantic plotline heating up: Jeremy asks Anna to join him for the Squares Exhibit at the Museum of Geometrys opening night. But her soon-to-be-ex, Tim, has also been texting her asking for a second chance. Jeremy advises her, Go with your gut. Its usually right. Except for that year I thought I could pull off one dangly earring. Anna decides not to text Tim back, though its not clear whether this has anything to do with Jeremys poor jewelry decisions of the past.

All three of these love plots naturally come to a head at the party Jody is planning to celebrate Colettes engagement. The theme is Fried Green Tomatoes, which should be the theme of all parties from now on.

Morgan is worried that he inadvertently talked Mindy out of marriage, so he brings her a stack of bridal magazines. He also asks if shes worried about relating to Bens Jewish family. Just dont talk to them about your theories on Israel, he advises. Mindy: I dont know what it is. Is it a place? Is it an idea? Morgan, for once, offers sage words: I would just leave the whole area alone.

Jody and Mindy, on the other hand, are making trouble for Colettes engagement, albeit unwittingly. They pontificate a little too much in the lunchroom about their own views of marriage (or in Mindys case, alleged views on marriage). When you stay single long enough, marriage starts to become less like a bond and more like one of those little plastic cubes where they imprison superheroes to deprive them of their superpowers, quoth Jody. My life is so fulfilling that the idea of having to share it with someone 50-50 forever  I mean, can you imagine? Barf, opines Mindy. Colette looks stricken.

But dont worry that anyone is about to get any work done in the office, because soon enough Tim shows up to talk Anna into coming back home. Your Japanese toilet misses you, your panic room misses you, and I miss you, he says, delivering a message that 100 percent deserves its own Hallmark card. Anna reminds him that he cheated on her  and with her closet organizer, no less. That said, Anna hasnt been sleeping well in her Airbnb with a poorly executed nautical theme. (Apparently that dream of Anna living with Mindy while wearing matching pajamas full-time is not to be.) She agrees to think about coming by the apartment for a drink. Jeremy catches this near-reconciliation, and I am loving the love triangle here. Its the first time Ive been fully invested in Jeremys love life, which he deserves.

When Mindy has Bens daughter Lindsay over for a girls night that evening, she asks her to babysit Leo for the engagement party the next day, prompting Lindsay to accidentally reveal to Mindy that Ben was planning to propose. He even sold his comic book with the first appearance of something called Golden Age Green Lantern? Apparently this is a big deal, even if when I first heard it I thought they were saying golden-H Green Lantern. Mindy confronts Ben about his planned proposal, but knowingly fibs about why she said she didnt want to get married: Its just one of those institutions I dont support, like the FDA or libraries. Of course, in truth, Mindy has always wanted to get married. Shes clearly just confused by her ambivalence now in the wake of her other scuttled engagements.

Colettes engagement anxiety increases when she and Karen ask Morgan to move out of the apartment. Karen explains to Colette that marriage means less time with your friends. When Colette complains that she likes her friends, Karen replies, Not as much as youre gonna like sitting in our apartment talking about our relationship! Uh-oh.

At the party later, Jody adds one final blow: You must be so happy knowing who youre going to be lying next to for eternity. The blows just keep coming for all of our lovebirds. When Ben calmly notes to Mindys friends that Mindys just not the marriage type, they guffaw, then pile on the contrary evidence. Vera Wang has a restraining order against Mindy. Mindys wedding Pinterest once shut down an entire server. Then Mr. Ziev shows up with our fair Dr. Ziev, much to Jeremys chagrin.

I am here for all of this. Karen steps up to make a speech (a.k.a. sing a song) about her relationship with Colette, and Colette ends up sneaking out the window and shimmying down the outside of the building to escape. Mr. Ziev excuses himself from Anna (I see someone I fired once. Im going to go make him uncomfortable), allowing Jeremy to swoop in. When he questions why shes with her ex, she explains that she went to the apartment to get her food dehydrator, and they fell into a classic Tim and Anna fun day. For the record, that entails: He screamed on a conference call and I checked our tap waters pH. When Jeremy convinces her that she can do just fine without Tim, Tim punches Jeremy. And in the aftermath of the party, Morgan agrees to break up with Karen for Colette.

Oh! One more thing! Mindy, Lindsay, and Leo propose to Ben! Mindy wants to be a family! I dont need to get married anymore, she says. I want to get married. She gives him back his valuable comic book, and Im crying partly for Mindy and partly because Beyonces All Night is playing and it always chokes me up.

Of course, in the final moment, Mindy does have a funny look on her face  like not entirely happy  but for now Ill chalk that up to keeping the door open for season six. Just in case this is it for The Mindy Project, I want to say that its been such a pleasure watching Mindy Kaling in full creative bloom for these five seasons, and watching Mindy Lahiri in all her messy, terrifying wonderfulness.
There is nothing more boring than other peoples weddings. Sure, we know all of these people from the teevee, but its not like I know them IRLz. I look around and see Katies hot brother Rocky and Toms triplet brothers and Im like, I dont know any of you or why I should care about you. I want to be like Scheana Shays husband, Shay Shay, standing somewhere on the edge of the dance floor with my shirt untucked and the sweaty effort of not having a drink or popping a painkiller drenching my brow. I dont want to be involved in this. I dont even want to watch it.

I got a little bit choked-up during the last episode, when I saw Katie and Tom finally at the altar in the middle of the woods, but once they get there, it is a bit of a snooze. The only thing amusing about their vows, which Tom has to read off a piece of paper because he cant be tasked with remembering his emotions, is when Tom Sandoval cries so hard he has to wipe his face on Butter, the couples dog that he is holding.

The toasts at the wedding are also a bit disappointing, especially Tom Sandovals said nobody ever bullshit about how much he loves Tom and Katie. I did appreciate that we got speeches from two out of three Schwartz triplets, which is when I noticed an easy way to tell them apart: Billy is the one with the beard who gave two speeches, Brandon is the one with the bad goatee, and Burt is the one who is clean-shaven. Do you think they did this on purpose? Do you think that they have a separate gig as facial hair models for some sort of poster where its like the same face in all of these different configurations?

Anyway, most of this wedding is totally blah. Like when your new boss basically forces you go to his wedding and you dont even know the person he is marrying or their family or his family for that matter and you sit by yourself ordering free drinks and waiting for the cake to be cut so that you can go home.

There are some great moments, however, like when we are introduced to a Danish wedding tradition: When a groom leaves his bride alone, any other man can kiss her. This lead to a Katie Kissing Bukkake as everyone lines up to smother her cheeks in bacteria, Scotch breath, and cream sauce from the fish. Speaking of fish, I love that Lisa forces Stassi to deliver her dinner like shes a waitress again. She doesnt even tell Stassi to do it. She makes Peter tell Stassi, just like they are all working at SUR. And Stassi delivers it because, even if she doesnt work at the restaurant anymore, she is Lisas employee once and forever. That is the strange nature of her fame: No matter how high her star goes, she is basically Lisas bitch until Lisa says she isnt anymore.

Lisa is certainly trying to rope Toms Sandoval and Schwartz even further into her web. She offered to make Tom Sandoval a partner in her newest establishment because hes been such a good and dutiful bartender for all of these years. She also wants to bring Schwartz along as the face of the establishment, which she is going to call Tom Tom. Im basically moving to Los Angeles so that I can make this my home.

Of course, Schwartz is drunk at his wedding and reflexively says no to the offer. I think that Tom Schwartz has no idea what success looks like and doesnt realize when someone basically offers him a really great gig for doing absolutely nothing. (Well, maybe not entirely. He is on this show, which is a great gig where he gets to do nothing.) If I were Katie, I would be pissed. Here she is, slinging Pumptinis for the better part of a decade and Lisa gives her husband a stake in a bar because hes pretty. Please.

Lisa made mention of this plan a few episodes ago, but I didnt think much of it, that it was just a ploy for the show. I think even less of it now. You know in an action movie where Iron Man or Batman or whatever man has vanquished his foe and he walks off into the hazy 3-D sunset, but from the rubble you see the villains hand pop out and clutch into a fist? That is basically what Lisa is doing by giving these two a bar. Its the setup for a sequel. Shes just doling out story lines for next season before Vanderpump Rules has even been renewed.

Lisa is also like the Judd Apatow movie of this show, making sure that every couple will get married and have children because the only real happiness at the end of the third reel has to be the heterosexist ideal of a monogamous relationship. Its odd because the draw of this show as about messy 20-somethings getting wasted and hooking up and having all of these different relationships. Now, five years later, theyre all coupled up and stable  or relatively stable, at least for practitioners of the reality television arts and sciences.

It is nice that every couple gets their moment. Jax pretends like he is going to break up with Brittany in a cruel joke that doesnt really play that well and reminds everyone why they just really hate Jax. Then he tells her that theyre going to get married, but hes not asking her yet. He might as well just ask her, right? Thats like telling someone that there is ice cream in the freezer, but they have to wait for permission to eat it.

Just like Jax, Tom Sandoval sits down Ariana and kind of proposes to her without proposing to her. She is like, Uh, thanks, I guess. I would have proposed to Ariana, too, because she is the best thing to happen to tuxedos since Ryan Goslings abs and Jon Hamms package. I have never seen anyone look so hot in a suit. Damn, if I were a girl, I would want to be Ariana. She even tells Jax that she needs extra dick room in her tuxedo just like him because, well, after all of those years of supplements, Im sure that Jaxs manhood has shrunk down to the same size as Arianas.

Its Arianas supreme awesomeness that wants Stassi to love her so bad. Stassi, much like Dorit on The Real Botox Beasts of Thousand Oaks Dermatological Care Center, is so narcissistic that she cant imagine a world where anyone doesnt like her. I dont think that Stassi even cares if she and Ariana are friends. Its just that she cant have someone be not friends with her. At least they bond over their mutual desire to murder the other.

Now we have to talk about Scheana Shay and the inevitable dissolution of her marriage. We jump ahead three months, because Bravo knows that we all know that Scheana Shay and Shay Shay are getting divorced so we have to capture some of it for the cameras. Scheana talking to Lisa while they both pretend like the other party has no idea whats happening is a total sham and a hoax and it made me want to throw Scheana in the swan pond in front of Villa Rosa. As Lisa said, if he doesnt show up for six days, they have to have a serious conversation about it, especially since he took all the money.

When she finally sits down with Shay, he says that hes not on drugs (which, come on) and that he only went away to get Scheanas attention. Yeah, maybe do that for a day and then call and tell her youre not dead. Thats what someone who wants to stay in a relationship does.

However, they are both completely incapable of having a relationship. Scheana seems far too emotionally immature and Shay is still in the throes of a serious drug addiction, which he hasnt really seen the other side of. These two need to step away and work on themselves for a bit. Also, maybe Scheana should think about getting a manicure that is not so obviously threatening to everyone who sees her. Still, when Scheana says, Nothing is supposed to last forever, and Shay responds, This is, my heart broke for both of them. Adding insult to injury, the only thing thats nearby for Shay to lump his piles of soiled clothes into is one of Scheanas bright-purple suitcases.

As Shay was walking to his car with all of his belongings, things were looking up across town for Toms Schwartz and Sandoval. They finally got the keys to Tom Tom and walked around the empty shell of the restaulounge, thinking about what they were going to do with the place. It was covered in sawdust and construction equipment was stowed in the corners, as if it didnt want people to know a transformation was about to occur. Well, Tom Sandoval said, maybe we should pick up some hammers and start banging.

Schwartz smoothed his hand down his partners muscled back and, for just a moment, his wedding ring caught in the folds of the fabric. I cant wait to nail with you, he said. He kissed Sandoval and they stumbled together across the room, their faces connected like they were both a part of the same dream. When they hit a wall, Sandoval lowered Schwartz onto a banquette that wrapped around the wall of the empty joint. It was stripped to its base and Schwartz could feel the rasping of the unfinished wood through his clothing. Reflexively, he bent his legs and raised them up in the air as Sandoval lowered his body onto Schwartzs. They had finally made it, they had finally realized their dream to be together and make something great other than love, other than this fruitful union. Sandoval sat up and rubbed the growing hammer in Schwartzs pants. It works just fine, he thought to himself as a smile spread across his face smoothly and completely, like mayonnaise on a piece of rye, and the specks of sawdust tickled both of their noses, daring one of them to sneeze first.
Based on its new trailer, What Happens at the Abbey, a new reality show about the famous Los Angeles gay bar, looks exactly like an LGBTQ Vanderpump Rules. It undoubtedly is an LGBTQ Vanderpump Rules, which is why that artificial-insemination story line comes out of nowhere. Hookups, towel-snatching, and an emotional conversation with your grave-faced father about how hes going to have grandchildren after all, now that youre having a baby with your best friend? Maybe its a good thing that whatever happens at the Abbey clearly does not stay at the Abbey. The show premieres May 14 on E!.


By Press Trust of India: ready: report

Beijing, Mar 28 (PTI) China is almost ready to operationalise dozens of aircraft hangars and high-end radar facilities on artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea, which experts say could help Beijing establish a controversial Air Defense Identification Zone in the area.

According to new satellite imagery released by a US-based think tank show nearly completed defense infrastructure on Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi reefs, three of Chinas largest artificial islands in the disputed Spratly chain.

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Each of the islands has new aircraft hangers, capable of holding 24 military aircraft, as well as several larger hangars that can hold bombers or surveillance planes, according to the images released by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, AMTI.

The new facilities will further establish Chinas military dominance over the highly contested region, experts told CNN, and could help China establish a controversial Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the area.

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying said today she was not aware of the reports details but reiterated the Spratly Islands were Chinese territory.

"Whether we decide to deploy or not deploy relevant military equipment, it is within our scope of sovereignty. Its our right to self-defense and self-preservation as recognised by international law," Hua said.

Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi reefs are the largest of seven artificial islands built by China in the Spratlys. China claims the majority of the South China Sea as its territory, despite overlapping claims by a number of other Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines and Vietnam.

Four bigger hangars have already been completed on Subi Reef, as well as another four on Fiery Cross Reef, the AMTI said, citing imagery taken this month.

Hangars to accommodate five larger planes, such as bombers, were in the final stages of construction on Mischief Reef.

"Chinas three military bases in the Spratlys and another on Woody Island in the Paracels will allow Chinese military aircraft to operate over nearly the entire South China Sea," AMTI said in a statement.

In addition to the hangars, new radar domes are in various stages of construction on each artificial island, about three arrays on each reef. Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief reefs now all also have shelters for mobile missiles launchers, according to AMTI.

The establishment of an Air Defense Identification Zone, dubbed ADIZ, in the South China Sea has long been considered a possibility by analysts, especially in the wake of Julys international court decision against Chinas maritime claims.

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China declared its East China Sea ADIZ in November 2013, antagonising Japan and the United States, who both said they did not recognise it.

A similar zone in the South China Sea could rapidly increase tensions in the region, CNN quoted experts as saying.

"The worry has to be that if China bases its military aircraft (in the South China Sea), they could fly up and challenge anyones military aircraft or civilian aircraft if they wanted to," said Carl Thayer, regional security analyst and emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales.

China had very rarely enforced its previous ADIZ, and any new zone in the south sea would start out as mostly "symbolic," Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Yusof Ishak Institute, said.

"And the US will ignore it as it did with the East China Sea ADIZ," he said. "The interesting question is really how the Southeast Asian states will respond."

Though the infrastructure is almost ready, no military aircraft has been deployed to the islands yet, Storey said.

Chinas next step would be to very slowly deploy planes to the artificial islands to gauge the local and US response, Thayer said. PTI AKJ AKJ

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By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Mar 28 (PTI) Congress leader Anand Sharma today condoled the demise of Ahmed Kathrada, South Africas Indian-origin anti-apartheid activist, stating that India has lost a true friend.

"In his death, South Africa has lost a leader and conscience keeper. India has lost a true friend who commanded universal admiration and respect," he said.

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The deputy leader of Congress in Rajya Sabha said Kathrada, known as Kathy, spent over 26 years in prison, and was resolute in fighting for freedom and justice for the oppressed people of South Africa. He said at the Robben Island prison, Kathrada meticulously documented the history of African National Congresss (NAC) struggle against apartheid, and continued his academic and literary pursuits obtaining four University degrees.

Sharma described him as a man of "remarkable courage, intellect and integrity, who was a modest and unassuming leader and who endeared himself to people by his humility, charm and a steadfast belief in human dignity." He said Kathy was an inspiration to people of South Africa and a hero to freedom loving people throughout the world. "We deeply mourn the death of one of the greatest freedom fighters of the 20th century and a prisoner of conscience," he said. Kathrada, 87, died at the Donald Gordon Hospital at Johannesburg after complications following a brain surgery today, his foundation said. PTI SKC SRY

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Bajwa discussed with Modi the proposal of setting up a second line of defence in the border villages falling in six revenue districts of Punjab by recruiting able body youngsters.

By Supriya Bhardwaj: Congress MP Pratap Singh Bajwa met PM Narendra Modi in the Parliament today and proposed setting up a second line of defence in the border villages of Punjab

He made the proposal in order to check the incidents of espionage and to strengthen the line of defence along the international border in Punjab.

Bajwa told India Today that he discussed the proposal of setting up a second line of defence in the border villages falling in six revenue districts of Punjab by recruiting able body youngsters aged between 18-40 years.

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"This will help in providing employment to these youngsters and also act as an extra layer of security, which will help the Army as well as the Border Security Force (BSF). It will also help in checking cross border infiltration," said Bajwa.

He added that under this proposal, the BSF and the Army can train youngsters and they can later be employed on honorarium payment basis.

"Youngsters should be trained and armed by the BSF so that they can check infiltration and smuggling. Also, Pakistan uses these youngsters as informants, hence this will give them a job and deter them from being used by the enemy," the Congress Rajya Sabha MP stated.

Bajwa added that Modi was very warm and receptive to the idea and told him that they can work upon the suggestion.

ALSO READ | BSF guns down Pakistani intruder in Gurdaspur, search operations on

ALSO READ | Army foils infiltration bid on LOC, kills two terrorists

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The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has topped the chart of maximum injuries to its soldiers as a result of mob violence and rioting.

By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has topped the chart of maximum injuries to its soldiers as a result of mob violence and rioting.

The three year three month data Ministry of Home Affairs shared with parliamentarians shows a spike of 2500 per cent in number of soldiers retired hurt. Amongst Central Armed Police Force (CAPF), CRPF had maximum injuries at 3335, followed only by SSB deployed at Indo Nepal border with 100 injuries. BSF deployed at crucial Western and Eastern border had only 27 soldiers reporting injuries.

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The past four years have been bad for CRPF deployed to handle law and order in various states, with maximum soldiers being injured in Jammu and Kashmir where the force is facing hostile crowds in the past few years. Data as shared by MHA says

271 CRPF men were injured in 2014, 208 men were injured in 2015 and 2744 men were injured in 2016. Maximum injuries were reported by the force after the death of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani. The first three months of 2017 have also seen violence being reported with nearly 100 soldiers being hurt in mob violence.

After a spate of violent attacks on its force, the CRPF invested Rs 54 crore for procurement of anti riot equipment and full body protectors.

These facts were stated by MoS Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir to a starred question by Om Birla.

The minister said that under the scheme of Modernization of Police Force (MPF), paramilitary has been equipped with tear gas guns, multi shell launchers, water cannons, chill grenades and pava shells to handle the protests effectively.

Further protective gear like full body protectors, helmets with visors, lathis and shields, BR jackets and BR helmets were also provided as per operational requirement.

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By Priyanka Sharma: The knife wounds on her neck were leaking blood and had started to rot when 27-year-old Hitesh Devi was brought to the emergency room at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital. But the Aligarh resident could not narrate the trauma she had undergone. She had lost her voice and was breathing with difficulty.

Hitesh was stabbed multiple times on her neck with a sharp object - allegedly by a jilted lover - and had suffered severe cuts in the thyroid cartilage while the vocal chords had been damaged, which could have turned fatal or left her mute for life.

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Medically, this type of injury is called penetrating neck trauma. Time was running out fast and it took 12 hours for her to get to Delhi, diminishing chances of survival. She had earlier been taken to a hospital in Uttar Pradesh.

"Without delaying it any further a thorough assessment reperfusion (reoxygenation) and resuscitation was done. We anticipated huge blood loss; therefore blood was arranged for transfusion and the patient was taken to operation theatre," Dr Abhay Kumar Singh, senior ENT surgeon at Safdarjung Hospital, told MAIL TODAY.

Doctors here say the government tertiary care hospital in Aligarh had put an airway tube in the patient's windpipe without even identifying the damaged neck vessels and because of lack of expertise and severity of condition, the woman was referred to Safdarjung Hospital.

'I THOUGHT I WAS DEAD, BUT TODAY I CAN EVEN SPEAK'

"Somebody had stabbed me multiple times over the neck from behind," Hitesh told MAIL TODAY. "I was unconscious when I reached Safdarjung Hospital. I thought I was dead, but today I can even speak."

A five-hour-long challenging surgical intervention by ENT experts finally bore fruit. "The main crux was to repair the cut thyroid cartilage without further damaging the vocal cords," said Dr Singh, terming it a penetrating zone II neck trauma.

"It took at least 5 hours where a thorough step by step, layer by layer repair of identified structure was done, all the bleeding vessels were successfully ligated (tied up) and further blood loss prevented, base of tongue mucosa carefully stitched up."

The patient was kept under close observation following the surgery. "Her stitches were removed after a week and a video visualistaion of vocal cords and downward windpipe revealed absolutely moving cords and a patent lumen (channel)," said Dr Namrata, another ENT surgeon at Safadarjung Hospital.

"The patient's tracheostomy (a procedure used to create an opening in the neck to bypass an obstructed airway to more easily deliver oxygen to the lungs) was removed and she restored the normal breathing mechanism. Now she is able to eat, breathe and speak without difficulty," he added.

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ALSO READ | Crime against women: A worrying rise

ALSO WATCH | India Today Woman Summit 2017: I am not a victim but a survivor, says Laxmi Saa

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East Terrace Historic Home Committee will host its annual Games Day Luncheon from 11:30 to 3 p.m. April 4 at the McLennan Community College Community Service Center, 4601 N. 19th St.

The event will include lunch, a raffle and the chance to play favorite table and card games.

Cost is $35. Reservations are due by Wednesday.

For reservations or more information, call Yvonne Clemmer at 848-2674.

Library story times

The Waco-McLennan County Library story time program, for ages 3 to 6, will feature a Fancy Hats theme this week:

10:30 a.m. Tuesday at the East Waco Library, 901 Elm Ave.

10:30 a.m. Wednesday at the West Waco Library, 5301 Bosque Blvd.

10:30 a.m. Thursday at the Central Library, 1717 Austin Ave.

10:30 a.m. Friday at the South Waco Library, 2737 S. 18th St.

For more information, call 750-5942 or visit www.calendar.wacolibrary.org.

Teacher certification

McLennan Community College will have an information session about its Alternative Teacher Certification program from 6 to 7 p.m. Tuesday in Room 139 of MCCs Michaelis Academic Center, 1400 College Drive.

The program is for people with bachelors degrees who would like to be certified as teachers.

Upon completion of the program and state-mandated certification exams, graduates are certified to teach in Texas schools.

For more information, call Fay Gutierrez at 299-8067 or email fgutierrez@mclennan.edu.

Why We Sing concert

The Baylor University A Cappella Choir will present a free concert, Why We Sing, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Jones Concert Hall in Baylors Glennis McCrary Music Building.

For more information, visit www.baylor.edu/music or call 710-3991.

Civic club garage sale

The China Spring Civic Club will have a garage sale fundraiser from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, and from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, at the China Spring Tabernacle, 127 Ford St.

To donate items for the sale, call Betty Manchego at 836-1905.

Button society show

Texas State Button Society is sponsoring a Button Society Spring Show from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday at the Hilton Waco, 113 S. University Parks Drive.

The event, hosted by the Brazos Button Club, is open to the public

For more information, email thebrazosbuttonclub@gmail.com.
A 25-year-old man was arrested Monday, accused of raping a woman in an East Waco home late last year, authorities said.

Woody Lacharles Brewer, of Waco, was arrested on a second-degree felony charge of sexual assault after a woman reported Brewer raped her while she was sleeping, Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said.

Brewer and the woman were at an East Waco home in late November, and the woman said she laid down in bed and fell asleep, Swanton said.

According to an arrest affidavit, the woman told police she woke up, and Brewer asked her, "Why are you making a scene? You know this is what you wanted."

Brewer began to put on his clothing before the woman grabbed a wooden board and struck him in the head several times, the arrest affidavit states.

The woman told police she never gave Brewer consent to have sex with her. She was taken to a local hospital for medical evaluation before police issued an arrest warrant for Brewer, the arrest affidavit states.

Brewer was arrested Monday and taken to McLennan County Jail. He remained in custody Tuesday with bond listed at $20,000.
FORT WORTH  Gov. Greg Abbott raised eyebrows last week when he threw his support behind a broad-based law that pre-empts local regulations, a remark that did anything but calm already contentious local control battles at the Texas Capitol.

On Monday, Abbott did not back away from the idea, saying that the country is not called the United States of Municipalities. But he offered a little more detail about what exactly he meant.

It would be far simpler and frankly easier for those of you who have to run your lives and businesses on a daily basis if the state of Texas adopted an overriding policy, and that is to create certain standards that must be met before which local municipalities or counties can establish new regulations, Abbott said at a lunch event, characterizing the proposal as a broad-based ban on regulations at the local level unless and until certain standards are met.

The goal here is to make it far easier for businesses to conduct operations in the state of Texas that deal with cross-city and cross-county lines, Abbott said.

Abbott pointed to ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft, which have chosen not to operate in some Texas cities  including Austin  due to disagreements over local regulations. Abbott asked his audience Monday to imagine all the local jurisdictions an Uber driver may have to navigate through in North Texas after picking up a passenger at Meacham International Airport in Fort Worth.

Which city is going to govern the hail-riding car that youre in? Abbott asked. Is it going to change every time you cross city lines? Is it going to be where you start, you end and every place in between? The answer is: Who knows? The answer is it gets very complicated for a company doing businesses to know which rules and regulations they have to comply with.

Abbotts remarks Monday came at a luncheon for the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute, the same Austin-based think tank that hosted Abbott on Tuesday in Corpus Christi when he first broached the subject of such a law.

Since then, House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, has weighed in on the idea, saying that he does not think a blanket policy on exerting power from Austin over locals is a particularly attractive idea.

On Monday, Abbott held firm in his belief that the U.S. Constitution is the predominant doctrine when it comes to local control, citing the 10th Amendments delegation of power that is not given to the federal government to the states and the people  not the cities, the governor noted.

When people say, Well, gosh, Abbott, you were for, quote, local control when you were suing the federal government and sued the Obama administration 31 times,  Abbott said, invoking his claim to fame as Texas former attorney general. Thats not true. I sued the Obama administration 31 times because I thought they were violating the United States Constitution. It wasnt because of local control.
Weldon Dean Kettler, 85 of Brazoria, passed away on March 23, 2017 in Lake Jackson, Texas. Funeral Services will be held 2 p.m., Wednesday, March 29, at St. Timothy's Episcopal Church, 200 Oyster Creek Drive, in Lake Jackson, Texas with Mark Crawford officiating. The family will receive visitors at 12 p.m., Friday, March 31, at St. John United Church of Christ, 100 South Robinson Drive, in Robinson, Texas with a graveside service and burial to follow at 2 p.m. at Robinson Cemetery with Pastor Scott Pence officiating.
A few days before the House Freedom Caucus brought down the American Health Care Act, Rep. Mark Meadows laid out the stakes for his group: This is a defining moment for our nation, but its also a defining moment for the Freedom Caucus.

The North Carolina Republican was right. The vote was indeed a defining moment  a test in which the Freedom Caucus had to decide: Would it remain a minoritarian opposition bloc whose only role was to defend truth without compromise? Or could it become something bigger, transforming itself into a majoritarian governing force that could lead Congress toward achievable conservative victories and have a lasting impact on the direction of our country?

The Freedom Caucus failed the test.

For weeks, as President Donald Trump courted the group, members of the caucus used their leverage to make the bill better. They asked for language capping the maximum income to receive the tax credit  and got it. They asked to allow states to choose between a traditional block grant and a per capita block grant  and got it. They asked to allow states to impose work requirements on able-bodied Medicaid recipients  and got it. They asked for language preventing non-Medicaid-expansion states from becoming expansion states  and got it. They asked for flexibility for states to change essential health benefits  and got it.

But each time they got a concession and were asked to support the bill, they instead came up with new sets of demands that made the legislation increasingly unpassable. Eventually it became clear to Trump that the Freedom Caucus would never take yes for an answer. So he cut them off, sending former Freedom Caucus member Mick Mulvaney, his budget director, to deliver a message: The president was done negotiating.

That was the moment the Freedom Caucus made its choice. Caucus members could have pocketed their wins, declared victory and voted to move the legislation forward  vowing to keep working to improve the bill. But unable or unwilling to accept success, they chose instead to deliver Trump a major defeat on the first legislative effort of his presidency.

The result, one senior GOP official told me, will likely be that the White House will no longer negotiate with them in future debates and will go to moderate members and Democrats to get things done. The House Freedom Caucus has made itself irrelevant.

Indeed, Trump is already writing them off. He blasted the group on Twitter, declaring, Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of Club For Growth and Heritage, have saved Planned Parenthood & Ocare! And in an interview with The Posts Bob Costa, Trump said his strategy going forward will be to let Obamacare fail and then work with Democrats to fix it: Well end up with a better health-care plan. A great plan, he said, adding, And you wouldnt need the Freedom Caucus.

Thats the lesson Trump took from all this: Democrats whose motto is Resist! would be more reasonable partners to work with than the Freedom Caucus.

Democrats have so far shown no interest in working with Trump. Perhaps, one day, Obamacare will deteriorate to the point where theyre willing to put aside their feelings and cut a deal. If they do, it will be a far more left-leaning, big-government approach to health care than anything the Freedom Caucus opposed in this legislation.

Will the Freedom Caucus learn from its mistake? The group has already lost one member, Rep. Ted Poe of Texas, who quit over the health-care bill debacle, declaring, Saying no is easy, leading is hard, but that is what we were elected to do. Leaving this caucus will allow me to be a more effective member of Congress and advocate for the people of Texas. It is time to lead.

Poe is right. Freedom Caucus members need to understand they are not in the opposition anymore. In the opposition, you can vote to repeal Obamacare 60 times without giving much thought to what comes next. But governing is different. Governing is messy. You have to make compromises and concessions. The goal is not to support the most conservative legislation; it is  to paraphrase William F. Buckleys famous rule  to support the most conservative yet viable legislation that can win.
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Mar 28 (PTI) Congress leader Digvijay Singh today committed yet another blooper on social media by tweeting about former MP Ratna Singh, describing her as daughter of a minister in "Rahul Gandhis Cabinet".

He later deleted the tweet and tried to correct it replacing "Rahul Gandhi" with "Rajeev Gandhi", but was again trolled for his faux pas and evoked the ire of the Twitterati for misspelling the former PMs name.

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Digvijays earlier tweet read, "Rajkumari Ratna Singh ex MP is the daughter of Raja Dinesh Singh ji who was a Cabinet Minister in Indira Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi Cabinet."

His corrected tweet that received a number of replies from users said, "Rajkumari Ratna Singh ex MP is the daughter of Raja Dinesh Singh ji who was a Cabinet Minister in Indira Gandhi and Rajeev Gandhi Cabinet".

While receiving some harsh words and brickbats, one of the responses read, "Rahuls Cabinet tweet was much better, You would have received many RTs and replies along with news articles".

This is not the first time the Congress general secretary has goofed up on Twitter. He had earlier referred to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as "Osamaji" and LeT chief Hafiz Saeed as "saheb". PTI SKC KUN

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WAVERLY  Elijah Engel, son of Locke Engel and Rebecca Nelms of Waverly, is the second Nebraska NEST Birthday Baby and will receive a $529 contribution to a Nebraska Educational Savings Trust (NEST) college savings account, Nebraska State Treasurer Don Stenberg said today.

Elijah, who was born February 21, is the second baby to be chosen in the State Treasurers Nebraska NEST Birthday Babies drawing, a yearlong sweepstakes honoring Nebraskas 150th birthday celebration. Nebraska NEST Birthday Babies has been designated a Legacy program by the Nebraska 150 Commission.

Each month of 2017to celebrate Nebraskas 150th birthdayNEST will select a parent or legal guardian of a Nebraska newborn to receive a $529 contribution to a NEST college savings account. The family will be chosen through a random drawing of entries submitted online to the NEST website or by mail. In all, 12 newborns and their parents or guardians will be recog-nized throughout the year.

The first NEST Birthday Baby was Carolyn Hotch-kiss, daughter of Christina and Scott Hotchkiss of Omaha. She was born Janu-ary 13.

Meeting our Nebraska NEST Birthday Babies and their families is becoming a highlight for me, said Treasurer Stenberg, Trustee of NEST. I look forward to congratulating these young families and encouraging them to start saving for college when their children are young. I appreciate the opportunity to introduce them to NEST, Nebraskas excellent state-sponsored college savings program that offers significant tax benefits for Nebraskans.

Planning for the future is very important to us, said Locke Engel, a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who had a Nebraska state-sponsored college savings account when he was young. We want to do as much as we can for Elijah and Elijahs sister, Lillian, so they can go to college and be whatever they want to be.

Elijahs NEST savings account will give the family a jumpstart on those college savings goals, Engel said.

This is a really good start, a good building block for us, said Elijahs mother, Rebecca Nelms.

Investing in NEST when children are very young benefits families in many ways, Stenberg said. Investing early gives families more years to plan and save for college, encourages families to develop regular savings habits, enables families to save more because of compound interest, and results in substantial tax savings, Stenberg said.

Parents and legal guardi-ans may enter Nebraska NEST Birthday Babies atwww.NEST529.com/NewbornDrawing. Entries will be accepted until January 10, 2018, for babies born in calendar year 2017. To allow time for babies born in late December to be entered, the final drawing will take place in early 2018. If a familys name isnt drawn in the month the family enters, the name will stay in the drawing throughout the year, giving families plenty of opportunities to be chosen.

NEST is Nebraskas state-sponsored, tax-advantaged 529 college savings program. State-sponsored 529 college savings programs take their name from Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code, which provides tax advantages for owners of these college savings accounts. First National Bank of Omaha is Program Manager of NEST. Investments are approved by the Nebraska Investment Council.
Stockton, CA  The Stockton Field Aviation Museum will once again host their Annual Bomber Camp this year, with support from the Collings Foundation. This year, there is an exciting new twist on the event, a Battle of the Bombers! Perhaps we may see, once and for all, which WWII Heavy-Bomber truly reigns supreme? In past years we have used either the B-24 or the B-17. This time BOTH bombers will go head to head in competition to see which Bomber and Crew can put their bombs ON TARGET, states the museums event page. You will experience the sights, sounds and smells of 1944 in this immersive condensed training program. You will step back in time and train as the Air Crews trained during WWII.

Thats correct, this is your chance to experience what it may have been like (sans BF-109 intercepts and flak) to serve on a bomber crew in World War II. This unique experience will occur beginning @ 09:00hrs Tuesday, May 30th until 21:00hrs Thursday, June 1st. To enlist, the cost is $4000 per cadet, which includes barrack accomodations (M-TH), food, materials, ammunition and support supplies. Those who enlist must arrange their own transportation to Stockton, however shuttle to/from the point of arrival/departure will be arranged. Those 16 yrs. to 18yrs. old have to be accompanied by legal adult guardian.

Both the Stockton Field Aviation Museum and Collings Foundation are 501c3 non-profits, so your enlistment fee is tax-deductible. Additionally, those interested may serve aboard a torpedo bombing run, courtesy the Lockheed PV2D Harpoon. The cost for this experience is $1,500, and will include a flight over the San Francisco Naval Yards (and possibly a tour of Moffett Field.) For $500, one can fly in the co-pilot seat of the Harpoon. Once in the seat, you will receive 20 minutes of log-able flight training from the main pilot/flight instructor.

For more information on the Battle of the Bombers, and PV2D Harpoon flights, visit the event page, click HERE.
Disha Patani had a scary experience in Delhi when a male fan followed her around the city.

By India Today Web Desk: Two-film-old Disha Patani is finally getting to know the scary side of being in showbiz. The actor was stalked by a male fan when she was in Delhi for a brand shoot recently, Mid-Day reports.

Reportedly, the man reached Disha's hotel on two consecutive days to meet her. It does not end there. He relentlessly followed her, be it to her set, a shopping mall or a movie theatre. In fact, he even had a scuffle with the hotel staff because he was not allowed to meet her, and was promptly removed from the premises.

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Disha told the publication, "I am relieved that the episode is over. I am deeply overwhelmed by the love of fans. When I got to know about it, I was in for a shock. It was an unpleasant experience."

While the actor did not register a complaint, she has decided to have a bodyguard with her at all times as a safety measure.

ALSO WATCH: Disha Patani's hot, sensual moves to Ed Sheeran's Shape Of You

PHOTO: Disha Patani chilling in a bikini is too hot to handle

ALSO WATCH: Tiger Shroff opens up on kissing Shraddha Kapoor, his stunts and being a rebel

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The operator of the nation's energy markets has warned that Australia's electricity market is out of date and needs to be overhauled as it faces another summer at the end of 2017 that brings with it the threat of power supply shortages as hot weather causes a spike in energy demand and overwhelms available supplies.

The newly installed chief of the energy markets, New Yorker Audrey Zibelman, made it clear her focus since she took on the job just over a week ago was to get through the summer ahead, in the light of the threats to the national energy supplies, which emerged last summer when there were successive warnings of low supplies in NSW and Victoria along with widespread blackouts in South Australia.

"We don't have a lot of time to act," she said Tuesday at a luncheon in Adelaide. "We need [market] rules based on experience, not economic theory."

She was speaking ahead of the closure at the end of the week of the Hazelwood power station in Victoria's La Trobe Valley, which has sent wholesale electricity prices sharply higher. Her comments also came in the wake of the release of the latest detailed report by the Australian Energy Markets Operator into the South Australian blackout, which occurred last September. Severe winds knocked out a number of wind farms in the state before collapsing transmission towers cut power supplies throughout the state, which took several weeks to rectify.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Premier Li Keqiang of China at Parliament House on Friday. Credit:Andrew Meares In this line of thinking, where Australia should shut up and live in fear of China, we were surely in line to receive not just a kicking but a triple kicking. Because Australia last week signed a letter, together with 10 other nations including Canada, Japan, Germany and Britain, asking China to stop torturing human rights lawyers. And, at the same time, the Turnbull government had rejected a Chinese overture to join its signature infrastructure plan. The Beijing government wanted Australia's northern development plans to come under the rubric of its ambitious "One Belt, One Road" initiative, but was rebuffed. But, in the event, there was no kicking. Quite the contrary.

Even as the China's Foreign Affairs Ministry was going through the rhetorical motions, other arms of the Chinese government were preparing valuable concessions to Australia. In the days before Li's arrival, China's Commerce Ministry announced the indefinite delay of tough new regulations on some e-commerce imports. The share prices of Australian beneficiaries surged. Dairy exporter a2 Milk was up by 5 per cent, supplement firm Blackmores by 13 per cent and infant formula producer Bellamy's by 16 per cent. Next, Li announced a change to access for Australian beef exports worth about $400 million a year. This concession was not made to any other beef supplying country. And, in a decision that could have far bigger implications, Li agreed to bring forward a review of access to services markets under the China-Australia free trade agreement (Chafta).

This is where we have some key advantages in health, finance, aged care, design. Already, Australia generates from China a third of its $20 billion annual exports of education. The two governments had not been scheduled to even explore the possibility of talking about expanding services trade till the end of this year. That's now accelerated dramatically. Why bouquets, not brickbats, for Australia? Two simple reasons. One, China has been accelerating every aspect of its engagement with Australia for years now because Australia is useful to its long-term needs. Two, China sees an historic opportunity to hasten the end of US military and strategic domination of the Asia-Pacific. This opportunity is a gift straight from Donald Trump.

Central to breaking US dominance is the breaking of the US alliance system. Australia is a vital part of that system. China is charming Australia in the hope of luring it out of America's sphere. Does this mean China will never try to kick Australia? It does not. Look at South Korea. Even now, when China is playing nice to pull other countries into its orbit, it is giving South Korea a painful kicking. First, China waged a charm offensive on Seoul. But after a few years the South Koreans saw though it. China had no intention of restraining its rogue ally, North Korea. Even as Pyongyang barrels towards building nuclear missiles. So South Korea turned to its ally, the US, for help.

South Korea, with American help, is today installing a defensive system to intercept incoming missiles, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system. China claims that this system will also allow South Korea a glimpse into their territory. Why do they care? Because it would blunt China's power to threaten South Korea in future So Beijing has turned off the charm and turned on the anger. It has imposed undeclared economic sanctions on Seoul. The targets so far? So-called K-culture  South Korea's burgeoning exports of music, TV and film  and tourism. Services trade, in other words. The pain is spreading across South Korea. A survey by the Korea International Trade Association last week found that 57 per cent of companies polled were suffering. This is the possible future for any country doing business with China. And Australia needs to be prepared for it.

An exceptionally useful new book braces Australia for its Chinese future. China Matters is written by two China experts who've adopted Australia as home, Linda Jakobson, originally a Finn, and Bates Gill, an American. This brisk book is a realistic introduction to China today, neither romantic nor rabid. Australia's economic relationship with China has flourished, they observe, "but this flourishing relationship also gives ... China the increased ability to threaten and use economic coercion in its relations with Australia. "Australian political leaders and the broader public need to be aware of the pronounced intertwining of security and economic interests with China [and] the ways in which Chinese can exercise economic hard power." In short, today's profitable concessions from China are tomorrow's painful points of coercion.
Rushing to judgment is usually not a great idea. Sometimes it's forced upon you by circumstances. Usually, they are not the most attractive circumstances. It's a crisis of some sort that requires an immediate response.

It leads one to wonder why, when something terrible happens, some, who are not charged with any responsibility, rush to judgment. They are not pushed by any deadline, they're under no pressure and yet they rush out to be some small part of the action. They're a bit like the ambulance chasers of yesteryear. They're often the bottom feeders of the world.

Illustration: Andrew Dyson

The recent terrorist attack in London is an example. The twittersphere was alight with a photograph of an apparently Muslim woman walking past an injured person while checking her phone. No thought was given to the possibility that she was communicating to loved ones that she was OK. No mention of what we were taught as children, namely, if there's an accident or emergency and you're not involved or needed, keep your head down and get out of the way of those who are the specialists.

It took some time for a photo of an apparently non-Muslim man coming the other way behaving in the same fashion to reach the Twitter world. Things quietened down a bit then. Some people had simply rushed to judgment because they wanted to. Here was a chance to use, or rather misuse, an image, to verbal it into being what you wanted it to be and in the process promote your own opinion.
A Turnbull government plan to quietly ratify the China-Australia extradition treaty has collapsed, with mounting opposition from the Coalition backbench and Labor's decision to oppose the treaty causing the government to withdraw it from Parliament.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten rang Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Tuesday morning at 8.40am to inform him Labor's shadow cabinet had decided on Monday night it would not support ratification of the extradition treaty.

At 8.50am, Mr Turnbull rang Mr Shorten and told him he would pull the treaty, a humiliating backdown for the Prime Minister that comes just days after Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited Australia.

The decision has forced the Turnbull government into damage control, with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop confirming the government had pulled the treaty for now and that she would pursue an agreement from the ALP over the deal in the future.
NSW and Victoria risk falling behind a soaring tourism market, new government figures show, after the east coast states experienced only a quarter of the growth in tourism numbers of the Northern Territory and half that of Western Australia over the past three years.

The statistics, to be released by Tourism Research Australia on Wednesday, show spending in Australia's total tourism market has cracked the $100 billion mark for the first time, with the majority coming from domestic tourists.

But overseas travellers are also consuming more, now making up to 40 per cent of the market up from 31 per cent in 2014 on the back of campaigns targeting tourism dollars from China, Britain, the US and New Zealand, and emerging opportunities in Singapore, Malaysia and Korea.

At the same time, while accounting for the largest number of tourists overall, NSW has seen its growth lag to 14 per cent, compared to 20 per cent in Victoria, 21 per cent in the ACT, 47 per cent in WA and 69 per cent in the NT.
Maintaining that China had always been a "friendly neighbour" the separatist outfit pointed out that the relationship between that country and Assam was "truly very deep, linguistically and culturally".

By Press Trust of India: The United Liberation Front of Assam (Independent) has advised the Dalai Lama to desist from using "Assam's soil" to "propagate India's views on China" during the Buddhist leader's upcoming visit to the state.

ULFA(I) chairman Abhizeet Asom, in an email addressed to the Dalai Lama, said, "If your Holiness indeed decides to come to Assam...nothing against China will be uttered by you in private or public. We won't tolerate India's view to be propagated from Assam's soil".

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The e-mail was sent to various media organisations.

Maintaining that China had always been a "friendly neighbour" the separatist outfit pointed out that the relationship between that country and Assam was "truly very deep, linguistically and culturally".

The Buddhist leader is scheduled to attend the Namami Brahmaputra festival in Assam from April 1, on his way to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.

Also read:

Tawang a part of China, Dalai Lama's visit would hurt ties, says Beijing think tank

India dragging ties into hostility by using Dalai Lama: Chinese media

India backs Dalai Lama visit to Arunachal, downplays China's objections

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The trouble with populism is that it invites more of the same. Sober leadership becomes unfashionable, even dangerous. Principles are sent on vacation. Courage is deported.

A good example played out on Tuesday morning with bewildering speed.

One minute, the government was moving swiftly towards the final "ratification" stage of a criminal extradition treaty signed with Beijing under John Howard a decade ago, and the next, it had been mothballed.

Cory Bernardi was cock-a-hoop, having leaned into the issue rather vigorously in the preceding hours to note inter alia the suspiciously high 99-plus per cent conviction rate of Chinese courts.
"The whole point is not to have politicians making rules," Senator Ryan says.

It's getting a bit tricky to work out whether, for example, taking a trip to a party fundraiser is okay.

Senator Ryan says he personally wouldn't do it but maybe there would be circumstances where that was okay.

The new authority can investigate someone after the fact, but an MP does not have to check if the purpose of their trip is legit.
Despite accolades, including opening Mercedes-Benz Australia Fashion Week's first ever resortwear showings and winning best new designer at L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival, he is refreshingly grounded, which has helped his survival in the industry. "It's easy to get overwhelmed and nasty," Toni says. "It's easy to become complacent. It's easy to be swayed by opinions and easy to believe the hype. I take all these things with a large pinch of salt. I remember to smile, and remember that kindness is more powerful than being an asshole." TONI ON: Australian style  I have so many international clients, and buyers say that Australians are so glamorous. They love to dress up and they present themselves in the best way possible. If that's Australian style then I back it! I think if anything there is a relaxed sense of glamour  an ease and seductive comfort. Favourite shopping  I love online shopping. It's private and I can spend as much or as little time as I want. Favourite designers  I do love Juun J. But I buy pieces based on the style, not necessarily the brand.

Favourite wardrobe item  A jacket I made for myself a few years back. I love putting it on, I feel long and tall  sinister and yet approachable. It's a long, dark-ink coat with splits up the side and back, with zipper arm details and bands that hang and are almost harnessed around me. Personal style  I am drawn to darker colours more than I used to be  navy/ink/black/charcoal. In the past you would see me in all white/cream/pink/camel. Ultimate style icon  They're all dead now. No one does anything without a contract these days. I prefer my customer. THE DESIGNER/ CREATIVE

Pip Edwards, the founder of P.E Nation. Credit:Georgie Gavaghan It's hard to believe that Pip Edwards, P.E Nation co-founder and Australian style icon, began in risk management and corporate restructuring. Denim loving Pip, the master of street cool, working in a conservative environment doesn't add up. Luckily for the fashion world, Pip couldn't ignore her true calling. "While working corporately, I always had one foot in the fashion industry," she says. "All my friends were budding designers and I was around them all the time. I would attend all their shows." Pip worked in retail throughout university, and became the muse for Baby Doll, the diffusion line from the late Mark Keighery, founder of Marcs. She started to learn the practicalities of fit and fabrication during this time, which put her in good stead for stints at Ksubi, sass & bide and General Pants, where she worked in design and PR.

In 2015, Pip created the athleisure label P.E Nation. "I just knew the time was right for me to carry out my own vision," she says. "Timing is everything, and I was confident I had learnt enough along the way to roll out something of my own with confidence." Partnering with designer Claire Tregoning, Pip set about building her label, which came with its demands. She emphasises that business nous, particularly getting on top of things such as structure and cash flow, are paramount to any start-up. "The months of negotiations and learning about business set-up was challenging. But learning to trust your gut and what you know from experience are key." P.E Nation's graphic prints and slogan tees are inspired by Pip's style, which she says is very Australian. "I see it as laid-back, casually cool, casually street, and all about the beach lifestyle. We do the high/low dressing really well." Pip has also worked as a stylist with many of Australia's top labels and lists Dion Lee, Romance Was Born, Di$count Universe and Ellery as some of her favourites. "Just being herself" is ingrained in everything Pip does. "I believe that if you do what you love, love what you do, you will always do it well," she says. "The key is to be authentic and make sure there is always integrity underlying everything you do. Your audience will naturally resonate with that." PIP ON:

The future of Australian fashion  We really are on the global radar and have incredible brands and concepts taking flight on the global fashion scene. The power of social media  My accounts speak volumes about what I do and who I am. It's not about doing things that will gain the most followers, it's about being real. Top style tip  I prefer to dress down rather than up. What fashion means  Fashion is about how it makes you feel and how you can discover yourself. If I can leave my mark and impact people through my work in fashion, then I've succeeded. THE MODEL/BLOGGER

Candice Lake is a triple threat. Credit:Candice Lake Triple-threat Candice Lake is certainly no slouch. The former law student has featured in Ralph Lauren and Versace campaigns, been photographed by industry icons Steven Meisel and Bruce Weber, and walked the runway for Louis Vuitton, Fendi and Chanel. She is a global ambassador for TRESemme, has her own label, Candidate, and has got behind the lens to photograph editorials for Vogue and Glamour. She worked with designer Alberta Ferretti to create her dreamy wedding dress and is the contributing style editor at Vogue Australia. And did we mention she is also mum to young son Arden? Like we said, no slouch. Candice, an ethereal, 183cm-tall beauty with flawless alabaster skin and a megawatt smile, was discovered at 19 while studying law. She relocated to New York soon after, where she worked on a campaign with Steven Meisel. Little did she know that this job would lead to a passion for photography. "I remember calling my agent, distraught, telling him I'd been dropped from the shoot because Steven only shot five frames of me. A few months later, I saw this amazing image of myself on a billboard. That's when I began to understand the genius of the people behind the industry and decided I wanted to study photography." While she still models, Candice's skills behind the camera have seen her work with brands including Jimmy Choo, Tiffany & Co and Louis Vuitton. She has also become one of the world's top street-style photographers, travelling the world capturing fashion-week looks for big-hitting publications

This gives her great insight into how Australian style measures up against some of the most fashionable cities in the world. "Everyone is so polished and cool in New York. They effortlessly pull out bold colours and bang-on-trend looks. London is where I shoot all my favourite girls  a lot of the cool, experimental girls are in London. "In Paris, my favourites are dressing in a feminine versus masculine aesthetic and everyone is impossibly chic! And Australian girls are amazing at mixing luxury fashion and high street, and putting it together with a sense of ease that nowhere else can match." CANDICE ON: Tips for success  Listen to your gut instinct, take risks, don't take no for an answer and work your ass off doing something you love. Style icons  Charlotte Rampling, Lauren Bacall and Catherine Deneuve are some of my old-world influences.
Washington: Defeating the Islamic State was candidate Donald Trump's top national-security priority, one of the few policy issues on which he was consistent.

While his claim to have a secret plan - and that keeping it secret was good strategy - was risible to national security experts, his policy goals were and are consistent. American effort should focus on fighting the Islamic State.

Regime change to push Syrian President Bashar al-Assad out of power was not only a lesser objective, but counter-productive to a stable end-state for Syria that prevents terrorism and too costly given Russia and Iran's support for the regime. Stability is to be prioritised over humanitarian relief or democracy promotion. Russia is to be palliated, their interests supported.

Trump proclaimed that "we are going to convey my top generals and give them a simple instruction. They will have 30 days to submit to the Oval Office a plan for soundly and quickly defeating ISIS".
Bangkok: Myanmar's military chief has warned against United Nations intervention in his country, declaring more than one million Rohingya Muslims in western Rakhine state as "Bengali" interlopers, despite them having lived there for generations.

Min Aung Hlaing also signalled his armed forces will shun a fact-finding mission into atrocities on Rohingya, following a motion co-sponsored by Australia at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last Friday, saying it would threaten Myanmar's sovereignty.

"We have already let the world know that we don't have Rohingya in our country," Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing told an Armed Forces Day parade in the capital Naypyidaw.

"The Bengalis in Rakhine state are not Myanmar citizens and they are just people who came to stay in our country," he said, using a derogatory term for Rohingya.
March 29: Theresa May will inform the European Council of Britain's intention to leave the EU. Within the following 48 hours, the European Commission is expected to issue "draft negotiation guidelines", which will be sent to the 27 remaining states. European Union Council President Donald Tusk. Credit:AP March 30: A white paper will be produced on the Great Repeal Bill - the legislation that will turn more than 40 years of EU regulations into domestic laws. April 29: An extraordinary European Council summit of the remaining 27 states will be held to agree a mandate for chief negotiator Michel Barnier and clear the way for talks to begin in earnest in May. British Prime Minister Theresa May meets with Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on March 27. Credit:WPA Pool

May 4: Local government elections in England, Wales and Scotland will give voters a first opportunity to pass judgment on Mrs May's handling of Brexit negotiations. May 7: A new president will be elected in France. Victory for the National Front's Marine le Pen could throw the European side into disarray by raising the prospect that France too will quit the EU. A win for Emmanuel Macron or Francois Fillon may also affect the EU27's negotiating stance. September 24: German federal elections could see Angela Merkel replaced as Chancellor by former European Parliament president and staunch federalist Martin Schulz, who once called for the creation of a "genuine European Government". 2018 May: English local government elections.

October: This is the target date Mr Barnier has set for concluding withdrawal negotiations, in order to allow time for them to be ratified before the end of the two-year Article 50 deadline. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said she wants a second referendum on Scottish independence after the terms of the deal are known and before Brexit takes effect in the spring of 2019. Winter 2018/19: Once a deal is concluded between the Commission and the UK, it will go back to the member states of the EU for approval by the remaining states. 2019 March 29: Two years after the invocation of Article 50, the UK ceases to be a member of the EU and is no longer subject to its treaties, whether or not a withdrawal agreement has been reached.

This date can be extended for further negotiations by agreement between all member states. May: European Parliament elections will take place without the UK. 2020 May 7: Scheduled date for the first UK general election following Brexit. Key questions about Brexit

The formal process to leave the European Union starts when Theresa May triggers Article 50. Here are some of the key questions about that first step towards Brexit. What is Article 50? It is the legal mechanism for a country to leave the EU. So the UK is still in the EU?

Yes. There is still a lot of work to be done on a "divorce agreement" unpicking decades of co-operation between the UK and the EU. Article 50 states that the treaties relating to EU membership will remain in force until a withdrawal agreement is signed or, failing that, two years from the notification of intent to withdraw. The UK voted for Brexit in June 2016, why is the Prime Minister only starting the process now? Mrs May set the end of March 2017 as her preferred deadline, allowing the Government time to make preparations for talks. But her hands were tied after the Government lost a legal battle that ruled she had to wait until Parliament gave her permission to start the Brexit process. Can the UK change its mind? Loading
Donald Trump has called climate change a "hoax" and has threatened to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement that took effect last year.

On Sunday, US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said the executive order will undo the Clean Power Plan.

By Indo-Asian News Service: US President Donald Trump will sign an executive order today, aimed at reversing his predecessor's efforts to address climate change, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Monday.

"Tomorrow, the President will sign an executive order to strengthen the nation's energy security by reducing unnecessary regulatory obstacles that restrict the responsible use of domestic energy resources," Xinhua news agency quoted Spicer as saying at his White House press briefing.

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"This order will help keep energy and electricity affordable, reliable and clean, in order to boot economic growth and job creation."

IT'S A HOAX: TRUMP

On Sunday, US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said the executive order will undo the Clean Power Plan, a major initiative of the Obama administration to deal with climate change by reducing carbon pollution from power plants.

Trump has called climate change a "hoax" and has threatened to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement that took effect last year.

Trump's first federal budget, released a week ago, also reiterated his intention to end former President Barack Obama's climate change policies, including eliminating funding for the Clean Power Plan.

Also read: US at war with Russia? Democrats feel so

Also read: United Airlines barred girls from flying for wearing leggings. Social media slams act

Also read: Indian-Americans in Houston raise USD 100,000 for Kansas survivor Ian Grillot

Watch the video here

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Donald Trump has signed an executive order that he says will revive the coal industry and create jobs.

By AP: Declaring "the start of a new era" in energy production, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that he said would revive the coal industry and create jobs.

The move makes good on his campaign pledge to unravel former President Barack Obama's plan to curb global warming. The order seeks to suspend, rescind or flag for review more than a half-dozen measures in an effort to boost domestic energy production in the form of fossil fuels.

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Environmental activists, including former Vice President Al Gore, denounced the plan. But Trump said the effort would allow workers to "succeed on a level playing field for the first time in a long time."

"That is what this is all about: bringing back our jobs, bringing back our dreams and making America wealthy again," Trump said, during a ceremony at the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters, attended by a number of coal miners.

REVIEW OF CLEAN POWER PLAN

The order initiates a review of the Clean Power Plan, which restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants. The regulation, which was the former president's signature effort to curb carbon emissions, has been the subject of long-running legal challenges by Republican-led states and those who profit from burning oil, coal and gas.

But just as Obama's climate efforts were often stymied by legal challenges, environmental groups are promising to fight Trump's pro-fossil fuel agenda in court.

Trump has called global warming a "hoax" invented by the Chinese, and has repeatedly criticized the power-plant rule as an attack on American workers and the struggling U.S. coal industry.

In addition to pulling back from the Clean Power Plan, the administration will also lift a 14-month-old moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands.

The Obama administration had imposed a three-year moratorium on new federal coal leases in January 2016, arguing that the $1 billion-a-year program must be modernized to ensure a fair financial return to taxpayers and address climate change.

Trump accused his predecessor of waging a "war on coal" and boasted in a speech to Congress that he has made "a historic effort to massively reduce job-crushing regulations," including some that threaten "the future and livelihoods of our great coal miners."

The order will also chip away at other regulations, including scrapping language on the "social cost" of greenhouse gases. It will initiate a review of efforts to reduce the emission of methane in oil and natural gas production as well as a Bureau of Land Management hydraulic fracturing rule, to determine whether those reflect the president's policy priorities.

It will also rescind Obama-era executive orders and memoranda, including one that addressed climate change and national security and one that sought to prepare the country for the impacts of climate change.

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TRUMP ADMINISTRATION DISCUSSING WHETHER IT INTENDS TO WITHDRAW FROM PARIS AGREEMENT

The administration is still in discussion about whether it intends to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Trump's order could make it more difficult, though not impossible, for the U.S. to achieve its carbon reduction goals. The president's promises to boost coal jobs run counter to market forces, such as U.S. utilities converting coal-fired power plants to cheaper, cleaner-burning natural gas.

Trump's Environmental Protection Agency chief, Scott Pruitt, alarmed environmental groups and scientists earlier this month when he said he does not believe carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming. The statement is at odds with mainstream scientific consensus and Pruitt's own agency.

The overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed studies and climate scientists agree the planet is warming, mostly due to man-made sources, including carbon dioxide, methane, halocarbons and nitrogen oxide.

Opponents say Obama's effort would have killed coal-mining jobs and driven up electricity costs. The Obama administration, some Democratic-led states and environmental groups counter that it would spur thousands of clean-energy jobs and help the U.S. meet ambitious goals to reduce carbon pollution set by the international agreement signed in Paris.

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Trump's order on coal-fired power plants follows an executive order he signed last month mandating a review of an Obama-era rule aimed at protecting small streams and wetlands from development and pollution. The order instructs the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers to review a rule that redefined "waters of the United States" protected under the Clean Water Act to include smaller creeks and wetlands.

While Republicans have blamed Obama-era environmental regulations for the loss of coal jobs, federal data shows that U.S. mines have been shedding jobs for decades under presidents from both parties as a result of increasing automation and competition from natural gas, which has become more abundant through hydraulic fracturing. Another factor is the plummeting cost of solar panels and wind turbines, which now can produce emissions-free electricity cheaper than burning coal.

According to an Energy Department analysis released in January, coal mining now accounts for fewer than 75,000 U.S. jobs. By contrast, renewable energy - including wind, solar and biofuels - now accounts for more than 650,000 U.S. jobs.

BUSINESS GROUPS PRAISE ORDER, ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS CONDEMN IT

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The Trump administration's plans drew praise from business groups and condemnation from environmental groups.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J. Donohue praised the president for taking "bold steps to make regulatory relief and energy security a top priority."

"These executive actions are a welcome departure from the previous administration's strategy of making energy more expensive through costly, job-killing regulations that choked our economy," he said.

Former Vice President Al Gore blasted the order as "a misguided step away from a sustainable, carbon-free future for ourselves and generations to come."

"It is essential, not only to our planet, but also to our economic future, that the United States continues to serve as a global leader in solving the climate crisis by transitioning to clean energy, a transition that will continue to gain speed due to the increasing competiveness of solar and wind," he said in a statement.

FROM THE MAGAZINE | How to deal with Trump

ALSO READ | Donald Trump invites PM Narendra Modi to visit Washington later this year

ALSO WATCH | Donald Trump's bid to do away with Obamacare fails

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Trump made the invite when he called Modi to congratulate him on the BJP's recent wins in Assembly elections.

PM Narendra Modi to visit US later this year

By India Today Web Desk: The White House today released details of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump's telephonic conversation from this week.

Trump had called Modi to wish him on the Bharatiya Janata Party's recent electoral successes in the five-state Assembly polls.

The BJP won massively in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The party also went on to form the governments in Manipur and Goa despite coming in second to Congress. The wins are being seen as a referendum on PM Modi's leadership abilities.

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The White House said that Trump expressed support for Modi's economic reform agenda and that he would host the Indian prime minister later this year in Washington.

"President Trump also said he looks forward to hosting Prime Minister Modi in Washington later this year," the White House said in a statement. No date for the visit was mentioned.

This was Trump and Modi's third telephonic conversation since the former took office as the president of the US.

The two leaders are also expected to meet on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Germany in July.

Modi and Trump previously spoke on January 24, when they resolved to stand "shoulder-to-shoulder" in the global fight against terrorism and for defence and security.

The White House had then said that Trump had "emphasised that the US considers India a true friend and partner in addressing challenges around the world."

PM Modi was the fifth foreign leader Trump spoke to on phone after being sworn in as the US President on January 20.

After Trump's surprise victory in the November 8 elections, Modi was among the first world leaders to congratulate him.

(With inputs from agencies)

FROM THE MAGAZINE | How to deal with Trump

ALSO WATCH | Modi and Trump speak for first time, decide both countries will combat terrorism together

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By Press Trust of India: New York, Mar 28 (PTI) Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has launched an ambitious privately-funded start-up which aims to develop technology that connects the human brains to computers, a technique that could be used to improve memory.

A report from the Wall Street Journal, later confirmed in a tweet by Musk, said the company, Neuralink, was in its very early stages and registered as a "medical research" firm.

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The company will develop so-called "neural lace" technology which would implant tiny electrodes into the brain. The technique could be used to improve memory or give humans added artificial intelligence.

According to the Journal, leading academics in the field have been signed up to work at the company which is being funded privately by Musk, whose name is also tied to ambitious projects in space and electric cars.

Specialists in the field envision a time when humans may be able to upload and download thoughts.

In a tweet, Musk confirmed the existence of the company and said more details about the firm would be made public next week.

As well as heading electric car-maker Tesla, Musk is involved with running space exploration company Space X, a project to reinvent transport called Hyperloop and, most recently, a firm investigating the feasibility of boring tunnels underneath Los Angeles - and a new project to power Australia.

Tweeting about Neuralink, Musk conceded it would be "difficult to dedicate the time, but existential risk is too high not to". PTI AKJ AKJ

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The Enforcement Directorate investigated the case under PMLA and prosecution complaint was filed in 2015 before the Special Court at Kolkata.

By Shivendra Srivastava: A special CBI court in Kolkata has awarded the highest sentence under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in a drug case. Allauddin Sk was convicted for the offence of money laundering under Section 4 of PMLA. He has been sentenced to 8 years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 2 lakh.

NCB had seized 3.95 kg of opium from his possession and had also seized 25.45 kg of opium and 550 kg of poppy husk from his residence and he was booked for commission of offence under Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. Investigation done by NCB revealed that he was a habitual offender and he had traded in opium on regular basis. A Ld. Special Court under NDPS Act at Barasat held him guilty.

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The Enforcement Directorate investigated the case under PMLA and prosecution complaint was filed in 2015 before the Special Court at Kolkata. Cognisance was taken by the court and charges were framed. Meanwhile during the course of investigation the Enforcement Directorate succeeded in tracing two immovable properties, having area of 152 decimals valued at Rs 3 lakh. These properties were attached and a supplementary complaint dated 22.9.2016 was filed before the Ld. Special Court under PMLA.

The trial in the court of Special Judge, CBI, was concluded in seven months during which seven prosecution witnesses and four defence witnesses were examined. Following trial the court held Allauddin guilty of the offence under section 3 of PMLA. His properties under attachment are confiscated and he has been sentenced to 8 years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 2 lakh or 6 months of extended RI in case he fails to pay the fine.

This is the second case in India where conviction has been secured under PMLA and also the first such case under NDPS. Further, this is the highest sentence awarded under PMLA till date.

Also read:

Enforcement Directorate sends notice to Kolkata Knight Riders' owners

ED issues summons to 'middlemen' before nailing politicians in Rs 1500cr diamond remittance scam

Zakir Naik's properties worth Rs 100 crore under ED's scanner, attachment begins

--- ENDS ---
Local food pantries are coming together to figure out how to better serve those who are hungry in their local communities.

Feed My People Food Bank welcomed representatives from West Central Wisconsin Hunger-Relief programs at Trinity Lutheran Church Tuesday. The semi-annual gathering provides workshops for the representatives and opportunities for them to network to reach a hunger-free Wisconsin.

One organizer says hunger and food security is a problem in all of our communities.

"Unfortunately this is a continuing problem, right? So how we are able to build capacity in local communities to be able to source and attribute more food is going to be a testament to how we are able to reach a healthy and hunger-free Wisconsin, said David Lee, executive director of Feeding Wisconsin.

Around 80 representatives attended the event.
By Press Trust of India: (ADDING WORD IN PARA 1)

New Delhi, Mar 28 (PTI) Airlines executives today held detailed discussions with Civil Aviation Ministers and senior ministry officials about the regional connectivity scheme and issues pertaining to terminals for carriers at the Delhi airport.

Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju and his junior Jayant Sinha as well as Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey and other officials were part of the meeting.

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Air India CMD Ashwani Lohani, SpiceJet CMD Ajay Singh, GoAir Managing Director and CEO Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, IndiGo President and Whole Time Director Aditya Ghosh as well as representative from Jet Airways were among those in attendance.

Choubey said RCS (regional connectivity scheme) and issues related to terminal 2 of the Delhi airport were discussed during the meeting with the airline officials.

Earlier this year, Delhi airport operator had asked no- frills carriers -- IndiGo, SpiceJet and GoAir -- were asked to shift some of their operations to terminal 2 from terminal 1D.

However, differences have been persisting over the matter between the airlines and the airport operator.

About the issues pertaining to terminal 2, Choubey said several rounds of discussions have happened.

"We are taking the process forward... Today, there was one more round of discussions," he said without providing specific details.

Before taking a decision, the requirements of the airlines, airport and the passengers have to be kept in mind and those requirements have to be matched, Choubey noted.

After the meeting, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said, "we have to find a way to use the two terminals at the Delhi airport.... We are trying our best on how to find a pathway taking into account the Delhi airports master plan".

Meanwhile, to provide connectivity to unserved and under-served airports as well as make flying more affordable, the government has unveiled the ambitious regional connectivity scheme (UDAN) -- Ude Desh Ka Aam Naagrik.

In order to provide viability gap funding under the scheme, a levy of up to Rs 8,500 is being levied for every flight on major routes. However, airlines had raised concerns about the levy and have also challenged it.

The government is expected to soon announce the routes and the operators selected under UDAN scheme.

Prior to the meeting with the ministers, Choubey had little over an hour-long meeting with officials of airlines and airport operators. PTI RAM BAL BAL

--- ENDS ---
WSU Presents Regions Premier Climbing Festival

March 27, 2017

OGDEN, Utah  The Ogden Climbing Festival presented by Black Diamond (OCFX) is returning to Weber State University for the 10th year. The two-day event, April 7-8, will feature keynote speeches from world-renowned climbers, clinics for all skill levels, equipment demonstrations and service opportunities.

The Ogden Climbing Festival presented by Black Diamond has been running for a decade, bringing the climbing community together and introducing new climbers to our passion, said Daniel Turner, WSUs Outdoor Program coordinator. The festival boasts something for everyone, from youth to the professional.

OCFX is sponsored by WSUs Outdoor Program, the Front Climbing Club and Gear:30. This years festival will include keynote presentations from climbers Alex Honnold and Cedar Wright.

Honnold is celebrated for completing the first and only free-solo climbs of the Moonlight Buttress in Zion National Park and the Northwest Face of Half Dome in Yosemite, California. In 2012, he was also the first person to climb the Yosemite National Parks three largest faces  Mt. Watkins, Half Dome and El Capitan  alone, in succession and within 24 hours. His bold climbs without the aid of rope have made him one of the most followed climbers in the world.

Wrights climbs have taken him all over the world. As a writer and cinematographer, he documents many of his experiences. He is a National Geographic explorer, a contributing editor at Climbing Magazine and a member of The North Face Team. His films have won multiple awards, including his popular Sufferfest films, one of which follows him and Honnold climbing 45 rock towers and biking 700 miles in the American Southwest.

The Ogden Climbing Festival is the largest climbing festival in Utah. Novice and experienced climbers of all ages and abilities are invited to learn new skills in the festivals welcoming environment.

From the free gear demonstrations, a crag clean up and trail restoration projects to the educational climbing clinics and keynote presentation with Alex Honnold and Cedar Wright, the Ogden Climbing Festival wants to continue to perpetuate the rich climbing history in Ogden, Utah, Turner said.

Schedule of events:

April 7, 6-9 p.m.  Equipment demonstrations from the climbing industrys leading brands, The Front Climbing Club (225 20th St., Ogden).

April 8, 8 a.m.-1 p.m.  Service opportunity to improve the trails and prevent erosion in the Ogden Boulder Field and Schoolroom Climbing area. Free lunch for participants will follow, Saint Joseph High School Parking Lot (1790 Lake St., Ogden).

April 8, 1-5 p.m.  Educational climbing clinics at the Lower Ogden Boulder Field. Park and check in at Saint Joseph High School (1790 Lake St., Ogden).

April 8, 7-9 p.m.  Keynote presentation with Alex Honnold and Cedar Wright, Union Station (2501 Wall Ave., Ogden). Seating is limited.

Tickets for the keynote speakers must be purchased at weber.edu/ogdenclimbingfestival. Admission is $15 for general seating, $25 for VIP seating or $20 at the door on the night of the event.

Visit weber.edu/wsutoday for more news about Weber State University.
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The following is a news release from the Federal Emergency Management Agency:

DENTON, Texas -- Residents and business owners in the Lower Sabine Watershed in Vernon Parish, Louisiana, have new, preliminary flood maps to review. The revised maps affect the city of Leesville, the towns of Hornbeck and New Llano, the village of Anacoco and the unincorporated areas of Vernon Parish. These maps were produced by a team of local, state and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials.

Residents and business owners are encouraged to view the maps for a better understanding of their flood risks. The public is invited to participate in an appeal period about the maps. Anyone who wishes to file an appeal has until June 7, 2017, for submission.

Heres the definition an appeal:

Appeals are formal objections to proposed base flood elevations or flood depths. They can also be submitted for Special Flood Hazard Areas boundaries and zones, or floodways. Appeals must be based on technical data showing proposed maps to be scientifically incorrect. Anyone making an appeal must include the method, data and analysis used to support the claim.

By learning their flood risk, individuals and community leaders can make informed decisions about building and development. They can also make informed decisions about purchasing a policy from the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

Reviewing the maps can be accomplished by visiting the parish or community floodplain administrators office, or:

Viewing the preliminary flood map at: http://maps.riskmap6.com/LA/Vernon/

Using a live chat service about flood maps at go.usa.gov/r6C, just click on the Live Chat icon; Contacting a FEMA Map Specialist at 1-877-FEMA MAP (1-877-336-2627) or FEMAMapSpecialist@riskmapcds.com.

The next step will be the resolution of all appeals. When complete, FEMA will notify communities of the effective date of the final maps.

When a flood risk is identified, the next step is to consider purchasing a flood policy. They are available from the National Flood Insurance Program. Contacting a local insurance agent is the first step to gather information about insurance. For information about the NFIP, call 1-800- 621-3362, select option 2 for assistance.
LEESVILLE -- The Vernon Parish Police Jury will meet in special session at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 28. Here's the agenda:

VERNON PARISH POLICE JURY

PARISH GOVERNMENT COMPLEX BUILDING

300 S. 3RD STREET, 2ND FLOOR

LEESVILLE, LOUISIANA

TUESDAY, MARCH 28, 2017

4:30 p.m.

1. Call to Order

2. Invocation

3. Pledge of Allegiance

4. Roll Call

5. Visitors

6. Public Comment

7. Motion to adopt a resolution authorizing the jury to retain legal counsel and to request approval from the Attorney Generals Office to retain the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP to represent the Vernon Parish Police Jury in the case of Red River Waste Solutions, LP vs. United States of America. (ROLL CALL)

8. Motion to adjourn.

In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, if you need special assistance, please contact Belinda S. Diehl, Parish Secretary, at 337-238-0324, describing the assistance necessary.
Calvert City to help get letters to Santa
A mob attacked four Nigerian students at a mall in Greater Noida following the news of death of a teenager. Locals claimed that the 19-year-old died of drug overdose and was last seen with a group of Nigerians.

Four Nigerian students were injured when a mob attacked them at a Greater Noida mall. (ANI Photo)

By Anand Patel: The Greater Noida police has booked over 1000 people and arrested five in connection with some Nigerian nationals being thrashed by locals in the city following the death of a teenager. Locals claimed that Manish Khari, 19, died due to drug overdose and held a few Nigerians responsible for the incident.

An FIR has been lodged against nine people and around 300 have been booked for culpable homicide. While 5 have been arrested, 54 accused have been identified from video clips of the incident.

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Four Nigerians were beaten up by a mob on Monday at a mall in Greater Noida following the news of Khari's death. Locals claimed to have seen him last with a group of Nigerians.

Local residents allege Khari was kidnapped and forcibly given drugs by some Nigerian nationals.

Meanwhile, Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar has spoken to Acting High Commissioner of Nigeria and apprised him of steps being taken by the local authorities for safety of Nigerian nationals.

NIGERIAN STUDENTS ASKED TO STAY INDOORS

Banners asking district authorities to free Greater Noida of Nigerians have come up at important places across the city, even as the Nigerian students are forced to stay indoors following Monday's incident.

The district administration has deployed PAC (Armed Police) at localities inhabited by the Nigerian students after the incident.

Several Nigerian students, who study in colleges, universities spread across Greater Noida skipped their classes today.

India Today caught up with two of them. Aliyu, a final year MSc Chemistry student at Noida International University, said that a friend who called him and warned from venturing out was beaten up by a mob.

"We have been asked to stay indoors. We can't even go to the balcony...we are scared to step out. Police have told us not to go out for next couple of days," Aliyu told India Today.

"I have been facing 'immoral' behaviour ever since I came here. People pointing fingers, laughing at us...what happened yesterday is unfortunate...why generalise everyone.We have lot of Indians back in Nigeria...if they see we are being attacked..there may be reactions,"he added.

Abdul, a BSc student told India Today," I am too scared to go out of my house. I came here in September last year. I think I should return back to my country. I am planning my tickets. I don't want to stay here anymore."

'NO HATE CRIME'

The district administration has refused to describe the incident as hate crime. "It happened in the spur of the moment, it was not pre-planned," Nagendra Prasad Singh, District Magistrate of Greater Noida said.

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He said that the administration is holding a meeting of local RWAs, colleges and Nigerian students' representatives to maintain peace in the area.

SUSHMA SWARAJ SPEAKS TO UP CM ADITYANATH

Earlier, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj spoke to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath over the incident and said the UP chief minister has assured her of "fair and impartial" probe.

"I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath ji Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh about attack on African students in Greater Noida. He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident," Swaraj said in her tweets.

WATCH: Nigerians attacked: 5 held, Sushma Swaraj seeks report from UP CM Adityanath

ALSO READ:

Caught on camera: Mob attacks African students at mall in Greater Noida, CM promises impartial probe

Nigerians attacked near Delhi: Sushma Swaraj speaks to UP CM Adityanath, asks for report

--- ENDS ---
By West Kentucky Star Staff Mar. 27, 2017 | 05:02 PM | PADUCAH, KY

The Paducah Symphony Childrens Chorus will present a free concert at noon Wednesday, March 29, in the Larry Barton Atrium. It is open to the public.

Dr. Bradley Almquist directs the group of about 40 students, ages 8 to 13, from Paducah and the surrounding area.

As part of the hospitals season sponsorship agreement, the symphony provides regular instrumental and choral performances at Baptist Health for the hospitals "Arts in Healing series.

We believe exposure to the arts enhances the healing atmosphere for our patients, their families and caregivers, said hospital president William A. Brown. Hearing or seeing something beautiful soothes and lifts the spirits, an important part of our overall mission to improve the health of those we are privileged to serve.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff Mar. 28, 2017 | 04:54 AM | MARSHALL COUNTY, KY

An arrest has been made in Monday night's three armed robberies in Marshall County.

According to the Marshall County Sheriff's Office, the robberies happened at Aurora One Stop, Brewers Grocery and Brewers Liquors. Deputies said shots were fired at two of the locations but no one was injured.

Deputies arrested 20-year-old Thomas Odell Bell III of Benton. He's charged with three counts of robbery, three counts of wanton endangerment, fleeing or evading police, assaulting a police officer, escape, criminal mischief, disorderly conduct and DUI.

Deputies said after the robberies, police found Bell's vehicle in Hardin and conducted a traffic stop. Bell led police to an address on Charlie Miller Road, where they recovered some evidence and other items.

At one point, police said Bell broke away and ran. He struck a deputy, resulting in the additional charges. Two deputies suffered minor injuries from the incident.

Bell was lodged in the Marshall County Detention Center.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Mar. 27, 2017 | SPRINGFIELD, IL

By West Kentucky Star Staff Mar. 27, 2017 | 06:08 PM | SPRINGFIELD, IL

Illinois State Police announced Monday that ISP districts throughout the state will enforce road safety with a special enforcement memorial operation dedicated to fallen Trooper James Sauter, who was killed in the line of duty on March 28, 2013 when his squad car was struck by a semi.



This is the fourth consecutive year of this safety operation honoring Trooper Sauter's memory. ISP Troopers throughout the state will be aggressively working the Operation Sauter detail for 24 consecutive hours March 28-29.



According to a press release, the focus of the operation will be commercial motor vehicle enforcement. ISP Troopers will be checking CMV drivers' logbooks to ensure compliance. CMV long-haul drivers are currently restricted to 70 hours of driving per week and are required by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to maintain a logbook documenting the number of hours they have driven. Within the last four years, two ISP Troopers were struck and killed by commercial motor vehicles and another was seriously injured.



Troopers will also be strictly enforcing the ISP's Fatal Four mission: Speeding, Seatbelts, DUI, and Distracted Driving, to ensure the safety of the motoring public in preparation for the busy spring travel season.



"The ISP wants to remind the motoring public and commercial motor vehicle operators that safe driving saves lives," said ISP Director Leo P. Schmitz. "It has been four years since the tragic loss of Trooper James Sauter, but we will continue to honor his legacy by enforcing road safety laws and keeping the highways of this state safe for all who travel on them."



The Illinois State Police urge drivers to plan ahead, follow the rules of the road, and take the necessary safety precautions during this spring's driving season. In addition, they say drivers are required by law to reduce speed and change lanes when approaching a stationary emergency vehicle.
By The Associated Press Mar. 28, 2017 | 11:26 AM | FRANKFORT, KY

Republican Gov. Matt Bevin has vetoed three bills and a portion of a fourth bill passed by the new GOP-controlled legislature.

Records show Bevin issued his vetoes on Monday. Lawmakers could override those vetoes when they reconvene on Wednesday for the final two days of the legislative session.

Bevin vetoed Senate Bill 91, which would let judges order people with mental illnesses to undergo outpatient treatment in certain circumstances. He vetoed House Bill 540, which made it a felony to fly drones in a restricted area. He vetoed Senate Joint Resolution 57, which named various roads throughout the state. And he partially vetoed House Bill 471 to remove language that would only let the state legislature spend money from the Volkswagen Mitigation Trust Agreement.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday (March 27) introduced in the Lok Sabha four GST bills that provide for a maximum tax rate of 40 per cent, an anti-profiteering body and arrests for evading taxes in a bid to overhaul India's fragmented indirect tax system.

With this, rollout of GST entered the last lap and its passage by Parliament will pave the way replacing the current patchwork of national, state and local levies with a single, unified value added tax system and integrating India as one market.

From providing single registration to manufacturers and suppliers of goods and services to self-assessment of tax, the new tax regime provides easier administration and some degree of self policing - a buyer can only claim a refund if the seller issues an invoice.

Besides creating an anti-profiteering authority that will see the benefit of lower taxes is passed on to consumers, the new legislations provide for setting up a Consumer Welfare Fund.

Jaitley introduced the Central Goods and Service Tax or CGST bill which will amalgamate all the indirect central government levies like sales tax, service tax, excise duty, additional customs duty (Countervailing Duty), special additional duty of customs, surcharges and cesses.

CGST provides for a maximum tax of 20 per cent. A similar tax will be levied by states through a separate State-GST law which is not part of the legislations introduced in the Lok Sabha today but would have to be brought by all states in their assemblies.

Actual rates would, however, be a four-tier tax structure of 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent as approved by the GST Council. The peak rate of 40 per cent is only an enabling provision for financial emergencies.

A bill on Integrated-GST - to be levied and collected by the Centre on inter-state supply of goods and services - was also introduced in the Lok Sabha.

The IGST law provides for a maximum tax of 40 per cent. Jaitley also introduced a fourth legislation called GST (Compensation to States) Bill, 2017 that provides for a mechanism for making good any loss of revenue of states from introduction of GST in first five years of rollout.
Rita Redmond was a true lady who felt that every pupil had something to gift to the world
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What a difference a decade makes. Titas Halder's second play flashes back and forward across ten years. Three flatmates toasting the end of their student years grow into anxious adults in a world gone wrong. Their student digs look the same as ever. Nothing else is as it was  or, indeed, as it was meant to be.

Coming only a month after his debut Run the Beast Down, Escape the Scaffold is almost Frankensteinian in form. It's as if two plays have been stitched together: a domestic drama wakes up to find it's become a dystopian thriller. It's a witty formal disruption  a mark of the way the world refuses to run in neat narrative arcs  that encapsulates a decade gone altogether awry. Imagine The Walking Dead were a sequel to This Life and, rather than running his own legal team, Egg found himself fighting off zombies.

Ten years after graduating, Grace (Rosie Sheehy) and Marcus (Charles Reston) have bought out their old student flat  a move sodden with nostalgia that speaks volumes about their relationship and the world outside. It's a retreat and a regression. It's still stained glass and original floorboards, only now it's in a gated community  student stock become prime real estate  and, rather ominously, the cellar's flooded. The door's locked. The world is different. Meat comes off the black market, most of it rancid. Helicopters circle overhead.

Halder flashes back to happier times  to student Sunday roasts with cheap red wine. Optimism rules. Marcus has cooked his first chicken and, inevitably, forgotten the gravy. He's also bought a ring. And a lot of tequila. Grace, unawares, giggles and giggles. Her eyes dart across the table to Aaron (Trieve Blackwood-Cambridge).

Escape the Scaffold hones in on the potential of that moment. Essentially, Grace faces a choice: stability with Marcus, steadfast old Etonian prat, all grad schemes and getting ahead, or something less predictable, more passionate with artistic Aaron. His return, on the run ten years later, throws up a lot of old feelings and resentments. Halder drops more than a passing nod to Harold Pinter's Old Times.

Anyone who graduated ahead of the credit crunch will recognise their lot in that. The hopes of those halcyon days, when Tony 'Education' Blair told us anything was possible, have been ground down into despair and, as Brexit looms, disaster. The realists have gotten away with it, especially if, like Marcus, they once called Eton home. Dreamers and radicals like Grace and Aaron haven't. Beneath the dry humour and the lick of spoof in Halder's play, there's a palpable sense of anger.

In truth, his student dinner is far sharper than his spy drama, and he catches the buoyancy and freedom of undergraduate life beautifully. There's a sense that anything is possible in these three. Sheehy, in particular, displays a gorgeous ease that all but evaporates as she ages. Reston's bluster loses its charm. His silver spoon charm twists into a sneer.

Nonetheless, the play overstretches itself and Hannah Price's production strains for credibility. It's possible to illustrate establishment thinking without setting a government spy against Britain's most wanted  both of whom happen to have shared student digs as rivals in love. Restraint would have saved a brilliant idea, but Halder's writing gets stuck in fast-forward trying to cram everything in and, by the point Grace and Aaron really round on Marcus, a mark of a white, male elite in crisis, it's clear the scheme is leading the story.

Escape the Scaffold runs at Theatre503 until 15 April, then transfers to the Other Room in Cardiff, 19 April to 6 May.
Calling GST a revolutionary step, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said that one tax will benefit the country and the consumer.

By Brijesh Pandey: GST (Good and Services Tax) was the dominant theme at the BJP's Parliamentary Party meet today.

Calling it a revolutionary step for India, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said that one tax will benefit the country and the consumer.

At the Parliamentary Party meeting Finance Minister Arun Jaitley explained the four GST bills to BJP MPs in great detail. Jaitley had tabled a batch of supplementary GST legislations--C-GST, I-GST, UT-GST and the compensation law--in Lok Sabha on Monday.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked all the MPs to study about the GST in detail and then visit their constituencies and explain people the historic bill and how it will change the tax regime in the country.

The discussion on the GST bill will take place in Lok Sabha on Wednesday. Seven hours have been allotted for the discussion on the subject. The GST bill, once passed by Lok Sabha, will go to Rajya Sabha for consideration.

WHAT ELSE WAS DISCUSSED AT PARLIAMENTARY PARTY MEET

Besides the GST bill, induction of S M Krishna and M V Rajasekharan was also discussed at the meet in Parliament.

Perturbed by low attendance in both Houses, MPs were once again reminded by the senior leaders to be present in Parliament.

Attendance of BJP MPs in the House has been a nagging concern for the top leadership. In the last Parliamentary Party meet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked MPs to make sure that they were present in both Houses when Parliament was in session.

The Prime Minister had said that he can call any MP anytime to check if he or she was present in the House.

ALSO READ:

GST: 17-year-journey of missed deadlines and shifting political goalposts

Hoping to implement GST from July 1, says Arun Jaitley

GST: Modi govt can't levy taxes if Parliament doesn't pass 4 Bills till Sept 15

ALSO WATCH

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: From Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, Mar 28 (PTI) India today pledged support to Nepal for holding the contentious local elections, a day after China promised USD 1 million to the Himalayan nation for the May 14 polls.

Indias support was pledged during Indian envoy to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puris meeting with Nepals Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Bimalendra Nidhi at the Ministry of Home Affairs in Singhdurbar Secretariat here.

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The meeting comes after Puri presented his credentials to President Bidya Devi Bhandari on Sunday.

The two held discussions on aspects of the bilateral relationship and the latest political situation in the country, sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs here said.

Nidhi told the Indian diplomat about the logistics support Nepal expects from India for the local level elections, the sources said.

In response, Puri said India was ready to provide necessary support to Nepal.

The assurance by India came a day after Chinese President Xi Jinping committed 9 million yuan to Nepal for the local polls.

He made the commitment during a meeting in Beijing with Nepalese Prime Minister Prachanda, who is visiting China for high-level talks.

The May 14 local elections are being opposed by Madhesis, mostly of Indian-origin, who say the polls should be conducted only after their demands regarding the re-demarcation of provincial boundaries and other issues are addressed by an amendment to the new Constitution. PTI SBP ASK AKJ ASK

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: From Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, Mar 28 (PTI) Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat arrived here today on a four-day official visit to Nepal during which he will be conferred the honorary rank of general of the Nepal Army and hold talks with the top leadership.

Chief of Staff of Nepal Army Purna Chandra Thapa received Rawat in Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu today.

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As a tradition between the two national defence forces, Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari will confer the honorary General of Nepal Army to Rawat at a special programme at her official residence Sheetal Niwas tomorrow.

During the visit, the Indian army chief will call on Prime Minister Prachanda, Defence Minister Balkrishna Khand and will meet his Nepalese counterpart Rajendra Chhetri, according to a statement issued by the Nepal Army.

According to Nepal Army Spokesperson Brigadier General Bal Jhankar Bahadur Kadayat, Gen Chhetri will be hosting dinner for his counterpart at his residence this evening.

Gen Rawat will also visit famous tourist spots and pilgrim sites in Nepal besides inspecting the high altitude training centre of Nepal Army and visiting the Indian Ex-Army pension paying camp situated in Pokhara.

Then, he will go to Manag and visit Muktinath temple.

Rawat, who became the chief of the Indian Army on December 31, is also scheduled to visit Pashupati Nath temple.

Such high-level exchange of visits between Nepal Army and the Indian Army will help deepening and expanding bilateral relations between the two armies, the statement added.

Rawats trip to Nepal comes days after Chinese Defence Minister Chang Wanquan visited the country. PTI SBP/KJ NSA zh AKJ ZH

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: (Eds: Updating with more inputs, President Zumas quotes)

From Fakir Hassen

Johannesburg, Mar 28 (PTI) Ahmed Kathrada, veteran Indian- origin South African activist who was sentenced to life along with Nelson Mandela during the apartheid era, died today at a hospital here after complications following a brain surgery.

Kathrada, 87, died at the Donald Gordon Hospital, his foundation said.

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Kathrada, one of the longest serving political prisoners in the country, was admitted to the hospital on March 4 initially for dehydration but doctors later picked up a clot on his brain? which was subsequently removed.

After the operation, he had "experienced several health- related setbacks", the foundation said.

"This is great loss to the ANC (African National Congress), the broader liberation movement and South Africa as a whole. Internationally, he was staunch in his support for the Palestinian struggle," Neeshan Balton, Executive Director of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, said.

"Kathy was an inspiration to millions in different parts of the world," said Balton.

President Jacob Zuma condoled the death of Kathrada, praising him for serving "selflessly throughout his adult life".

He declared a special official funeral for him.

The President instructed that the national flag fly at half-mast throughout the country from today until the evening of the official memorial service.

The family has requested a private funeral ceremony, the President said.

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa will lead the send-off of the much-loved stalwart within government, Zuma said.

Kathrada, who frequently referred to Mandela as his elder brother, was among three political prisoners who were sentenced to life imprisonment together with the South African anti-apartheid icon after the infamous Rivonia Trial of 1964.

The two others were Andrew Mlangeni and Denis Goldberg.

They played major roles in shaping the countrys policies after Mandelas election as the first democratic President of South Africa in 1994.

"We are deeply saddened to learn this morning of the passing on of our dear friend and founding trustee, Ahmed Kathrada," said the Nelson Mandela foundation on Twitter.

Kathrada was born on August 21, 1929 in Schweizer-Reneke, a town in the North West Province of South Africa, and introduced to politics as a young boy when he joined a non-racial youth club run by the Young Communist League.

At the tender age of 17, Kathrada participated in the 1946 Passive Resistance Campaign led by the South African Indian Congress.

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He was among 2,000 people who were arrested and imprisoned for defying a law that discriminated against South African Indians.

In July 1963, the police swooped on Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, a Johannesburg suburb where Kathrada and other banned persons had been meeting secretly. This led to the famous Rivonia Trial in which eight accused were sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour on Robben Island.

Kathrada spent 26 years and 3 months in prison, including 18 years on Robben Island.

While in prison, he obtained four university degrees.

Kathrada also received the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award, Indias highest honour for foreign nationals of Indian- origin, in 2005 from the President of India.

The African National Congress (ANC) had bestowed its highest honour, Isithwalandwe/Seaparankoe on Kathrada in 1992 for his selfless dedication to the struggle for a free democratic non-racial and non-sexist South Africa.

Despite having left the political arena, Kathrada has maintained a hectic schedule of local and international travel for the past few years in pursuit of the objectives of a non-racial society espoused by the Foundation that bears his name.

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A prolific writer, Kathrada penned six books himself or with co-authors. He is survived by his wife Barbara Hogan, also an ANC stalwart and veteran.

Kathrada will be buried according to Muslim religious rites. PTI FH NSA AKJ NSA

--- ENDS ---
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 27/03/2017 (2051 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Computer software developer iQmetrix is nearly doubling the size of its Winnipeg office and adding more than 100 new employees over the next year or so as it continues to expand its product line.

The Vancouver-based firm, which also has offices in Regina, Charlotte, N.C., Denver, Col., the Philippines and Australia, is in the process of adding another 8,274 square feet to the 10,000 square feet it was already leasing in the Centrepoint office/retail building at 311 Portage Ave.

The extra space will enable the Winnipeg office to add another 108 employees to its current staff of 95, Krystal Ho, the firms director of corporate relations, said..

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The Vancouver-based firm iQmetrix is adding more than 8,000 square feet of space to its location in the Centrepoint building at 311 Portage Ave.

Ho said the new workers will be added over the course of the next year or so, and will include product managers, product architects, software developers, software designers, quality-assurance analysts and business analysts.

She said iQmetrix anticipated it eventually would need more space when it leased its original 10,000-square feet on the second floor of the building. So it also negotiated the right of first refusal on the rest of the space on the floor, and thats what it is now expanding into.

Construction work is already underway, and Ho said the firm hopes to have the new space ready for occupancy April 1.

iQmetrix is best known for its wireless retail point-of-sale software, but Ho said many of the new hires will be working on other retail software products the company is developing.

Were expanding our product line into different markets. We were always known as the wireless guys, but now were branching into other retail verticals like clothing and electronics, she explained.

The new space will also include a new testing lab where customers can try out the new products.

Right now it (testing) is just kind of (done) everywhere, she said. So were building a new dedicated space for it.

IQMetrix is one of four tenants in the five-storey, 100,000-square-foot Centrepoint building. Anchor tenant Stantec leases the top three floors, while the Merchant Bar and Kitchen and a new 2,400-square-foot Tim Hortons Cafe & Bake Shop both occupy spaces on the main floor.

The other main-floor tenant is a new 7,000-square-foot Browns Socialhouse restaurant which is expected to open sometime next month.

Brad King, an office sales and leasing specialist with the Winnipeg office of Cushman & Wakefield, said the Tim Hortons Cafe & Bake Shop concept is new to the Winnipeg market, although not the first in Canada.

Once the Browns Socialhouse restaurant opens, the building will be fully occupied. King noted it often takes a while for a new building to become fully leased. In Centrepoints case, it took about two years.

Ho said iQmetrixs Winnipeg employees were among 377 company employees who recently attended a six-day camping and team-building retreat in Hawaii. This is the ninth year the company has taken its employees on a winter getaway. Last year they went to Cuba, and the year before to Nicaragua.

Ho said the theme of this years retreat was mind, body and soul, and included a combination of leisure activities, such as surfing, horseback riding and paddle boarding, and self-improvement classes.

At the end of the retreat, all of the tents and camping gear used by the employees was donated to disaster relief organizations in Hawaii, and unopened food was donated to local food banks, she added.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 27/03/2017 (2051 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A fire at a residence near the University of Manitoba has inflamed concerns about illegal rooming houses and unsafe rental homes near campus.

Councilor Janice Lukes and the Fort Richmond-University Heights Neighbourhood Association met Saturday morning to discuss progress in combatting problem residences and possible next steps. Hours later, an accidental cooking fire rendered a home neighbours suspect housed an unsafe number of students unlivable.

Were going to have an all-out war on landlords, said Lukes (South Winnipeg-St. Norbert).

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Coun. Janice Lukes (South Winnipeg-St. Norbert) outside 669 Pasadena Avenue where there was a fire Saturday.

Lukes has helped lead the charge in recent years, as neighbours have become increasingly concerned about homes being bought up by landlords, jammed with students, and then largely ignored. The concerns vary in severity from trash left everywhere to a lack of smoke detectors and other fire hazards. The Neighbourhood Association was formed to combat such issues.

On Pasadena Avenue, Arthur Prystenski blames the landlords, not the students.

Ive met some of the students, he said. Theyre basically just looking for inexpensive housing they would like better conditions but thats whats offered to them so they accept it.

The University of Manitoba ranks fairly low compared to other universities across Canada when it comes to student housing, according to a January report by University of Manitoba planning students. It offers housing to just under five per cent of the total student population and has a waitlist of more than 350 people.

But the report also points to studies showing why students offered on-campus housing might still look elsewhere. The average bill for on-campus housing is $823 per month, while off campus  on streets within walking distance like Pasadena  its $672.

Jeremy Cole didnt see any flames on Saturday, just smoke. Cole has lived his entire life just a few doors east of the rental home.

Its only really become a problem in the last five years, he said. On occasion its been rented to a family or two, he said, but most of the time it houses individuals. Cole isnt sure how many exactly, although hes seen eight or nine people come and go.

In August 2014, a listing on MapLiv.com advertised two rooms in the basement of the home, one for $460 and the other for $500. The residence was described as having nine bedrooms. According to the City of Winnipegs Assessment and Taxation Department website, the one-story home has only seven rooms.

A current listing for the property on rental site houseme.ca instructs interested people to call David. David did not return requests for comment, but is, per his voicemail, an agent with Cornerstone Real Estate Inc. A person who answered the phone declined to speak about the property, saying that any questions would have to go through David.

On Monday, contractors who wouldnt comment came and went, boarding up some of the basement windows and starting work on repairs. Three young women arrived at the home mid-afternoon, one with a large suitcase. When asked if they lived there, one said, yes and then, not anymore. All three declined to speak further.

Their neighbours are grateful they werent hurt  or worse.

Its just a matter of time before one of these unlicensed places causes a real problem, Prystenski said.

Manitoba doesnt require landlords to register properties with the Residential Tenancies Branch and housing guidelines are left to the purview of cities. In Winnipeg, more than 800 converted homes were licensed for rental purposes as of March 27. The citys fire prevention branch only recently began conducting annual inspections of such properties at the direction of council. A spokeswoman for the city wouldnt speculate as to how many are operating unlicensed. Councilor Lukes suspects that in the area around the university the answer is quite a few.

At Saturdays meeting, Lukes said the neighbourhood association agreed to get more aggressive in fighting for more affordable accommodation for students and cracking down on landlords who arent following the rules.

The association will be pushing for the universitys 30-year Fort Garry campus makeover to include at least 10 per cent guaranteed affordable housing on the Southwood Lands. It will also be declare all-out war against landlords: reporting them to the Canadian Revenue Agency and finding ways to increase fines and fire inspections. Street Captains responsible for monitoring their own block for possible illegal rooming houses will also start conducting more patrols.

Lukes said she is also looking more closely at a possible pilot program requiring all residential residences renting out rooms near post-secondary institutions to have a license. Similar programs are already in place in a number of communities in Ontario, including Oshawa.

Its such a complex problem, Lukes said, and the community is trying to work together to find a solution.

jane.gerster@freepress.mb.ca
Between 2013 and 2015, countrywide figures suggest that the injuries to police personnel during mob attacks have reduced, albeit marginally.

By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: Jammu and Kashmir has regularly grabbed headlines for alleged mob attacks on security forces. However, as per the data shared by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), it is Kerala and not Jammu and Kashmir which reported maximum number of injuries to its police personnel during mob attacks in 2015.

In 2015, Kerala reported 284 injuries to its police force against 200 reported by Jammu and Kashmir.

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The previous year, Jammu and Kashmir reported 330 policemen sustaining injuries as against 202 in Kerala. In 2013, it was Kerala again which reported maximum injuries to its police personnel. Against 615 injuries reported by police in Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir's figure stood at 585.

The data shared by MHA did not include the 2016 figures when Jammu and Kashmir saw a rise in civilian protest and incidents of stone-pelting.

OTHER STATES IN TOP FIVE

Maharashtra and West Bengal too figure prominently in the list of policemen sustaining injuries during civilian attacks.

Maharashtra reported 294 injuries to police personnel in 2013, 90 in 2014, and 163 in 2015. It is closely followed by West Bengal which saw 119 policemen sustaining injuries during civilian protest in 2013, 197 in 2014 and 151 in 2015.

The other state in the top five is Uttar Pradesh which reported 29 injuries to its police in 2013, 138 in 2014 and 137 in 2015. Law and order has been one of the biggest issues in the country's most populous state. The BJP fought the election on the law and order issue and promised things would change once it is voted to power.

NO SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT

Among union territories, Delhi has reported the maximum number of injuries to its police force--24 in 2013, 72 in 2014, and 60 in 2015.

Countrywide figures suggest that the injuries to police personnel during mob attacks have reduced, albeit marginally. Against 1,930 reported injuries to policemen in 2013, the numbers came down to 1,349 injuries in 2014 and 1,501 injuries in 2015.

The data was shared by MoS Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir to a starred question by Lok Sabha MP Om Birla. The figures shared by MHA are from National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB).

ALSO READ:

Jammu and Kashmir: Security forces worried as stone-pelting incidents rise in rural areas

Jammu and Kashmir security forces want defined 'red lines' to deal with stone pelting flash mobs

Jat quota agitation: DSP injured in stone pelting in Fatehabad of Haryana

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ALSO WATCH

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Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 28/03/2017 (2050 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Free Press is going to the dogs  and I mean that literally.

The newspaper is experimenting with a month-long project were calling Newsroom Dogs, wherein editorial department employees are allowed to bring their canine companions to the office.

As a crusading columnist and responsible dog owner, Ill be chronicling the results of this experiment weekly as we explore a trend in which a growing number of companies are waking up to the benefits of allowing dogs at work.

TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Oliver, a dog owned by graphic artist Leesa Dahl, at the Free Press office.

I just thought of this as a cool, original idea that would be interesting for our readers, Free Press editor Paul Samyn told me as he unveiled the idea. I hope this pet project will not only lead to content readers appreciate, but also gives our growing audience a look at our newsroom that allows them to have a better sense of our personality, via our pets.

For the record, we are not turning the newspaper into a doggy daycare. So far, about 15 employees in the editorial department have signed up on a schedule designed to ensure there is only one dog  at most two  scampering around the newsroom on a given day.

The idea is to find out for ourselves whether  as a number of recent scientific studies have already shown  dogs have a positive impact on the work environment, reducing stress and improving productivity.

Think were barking mad? The truth is, the Free Press is far from the first large-scale organization to test the value of going to the dogs.

Last week, U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced the start of Doggy Days at Interior, a program that will allow employees at his agencys Washington headquarters to bring their dogs to the office on two Fridays in May and September.

Not only will the new policy make Interior the first U.S. federal agency to go dog-friendly, it will mark Zinke as the Trump administrations most visible animal fan. In contrast, President Donald Trump is currently the first U.S. president in 150 years without a companion animal in the White House.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Dahls dog Oliver joins Winnipeg Free Press editor Paul Samyn (left) with city editor Shane Minkin (centre) and night editor Chad Scarsbrook during a handover meeting.

In a survey conducted last year by Banfield Pet Hospital, the largest chain of veterinary clinics in the U.S., the vast majority of employees and human-resources managers at pet-friendly firms said office dogs improve morale, lower stress and decrease guilt about leaving pets at home.

A pack of scientific studies has howled about the benefits of canine colleagues in the workplace. A study at Central Michigan University, for instance, found team members of groups with dogs rated each other more highly on measures of intimacy, team cohesion and trust than members of groups without dogs.

First, dogs lower stress, heart rate and blood pressure, and make individuals who work alone feel less lonely, Stephen Colarelli, a psychologist at Central Michigan, told the British newspaper the Guardian. Second, people are perceived as more friendly and approachable when a dog is present in the office. Finally, its likely to increase co-operation and other positive behaviours among members of work groups.

The rules for dipping Free Press paws into the newsroom are simple: Employees are responsible for the safety and behaviour of their own pets, and have to bring along all the necessary supplies to make their animals comfortable  everything from dog beds, leashes, chew toys, water dishes and treats to cleaning supplies for wiping up spills.

Our office-canine experiment began March 20, the first day of spring, when I arrived at the paper with my emergency backup dog, Bogey  whom I frequently identify in my columns as Mr. X  in tow. For the record, Bogey is a little white dog with a large Napoleonic complex.

The drive to the office had been moderately stressful as I was worried about potential pet-related disasters, and Bogey clearly thought he was being taken to the vet.

Our first task was to set up Bogeys base, which I achieved by tucking my best buddys little bed under my desk, the top of which was soon covered with a container of wet wipes, a roll of super-absorbent paper towels, and a large box of tissues.

Bogeys first foray into journalism involved attending the morning meeting of the editorial board, where he was introduced to another rookie canine employee, 11-year-old Norman, another white dog barely the size of a loaf of bread that belongs to Free Press perspectives and politics editor Shannon Sampert.

The meeting went off with only a minor hitch  as I held Bogey in my arms, I apparently touched a sensitive area, which caused him to yelp at the volume of a heavy metal drummer, causing me to plop him down on the floor.

Im a little stressed because Im worried Norman will do something that he shouldnt, Shannon confessed later as Bogey and Norman explored the boundaries of our newsroom.

Its very weird to have your dog in the middle of a big editorial board meeting, she said. But I think it will reduce stress. Its hard to take yourself too seriously when you have a dog begging you for food.

Its a nice chance to show that side of yourself that you normally show to your dogs. Its just a nice feeling.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Winnipeg Free Press humour columnist Doug Speirs with Bogey in the newsroom. The Free Press is starting an experiment, allowing employees to bring their dogs into work.

There is a certain amount of stress involved when you are the one bringing your dog to work. Working at home, I can just open the back door to let the dogs out to do their business, whereas its a bit more complicated in the office.

Then theres the fact Bogey has two main hobbies: 1) Barking at things; and 2) Peeing on things. I was convinced it was only a matter of time before my pint-sized pet  a Maltichon, a cross between a Maltese and a Bichon Frise  would lift his leg and unleash a stream that would fry our computer system.

Thankfully, that didnt happen. Wherever I went, Bogey trotted along at my side, sporting a huge doggy smile and glancing adoringly up at me every few seconds. When I worked at my desk, Bogey plopped down in his bed, patiently awaiting visits from co-workers, who dropped by in a steady stream.

While Bogey stuck closely by my side, Shannons dog, Norman, acted as if he was auditioning for the role of Adventure Dog, boldly strutting around the office and, with no warning, leaping onto the laps of writers and editors as they gazed thoughtfully into their computer screens.

Having a dog in your lap is wonderful, laughed my buddy and fellow columnist, Gordon Sinclair Jr., as Norman scrambled up for an impromptu cuddle. It might be because I just ate bacon. I cant recall the last time someone crawled on my lap.

The real highlight came when Bogey and Norman paid a surprise visit to the office of our publisher, Bob Cox, who also happens to be my closest buddy and one of Bogeys all-time favourite human beings.

As is his way, Bob jokingly scowled when the two white balls of fluff barged into his office. When are we going to get some REAL dogs? he jokingly growled.

Later, over lunch, Bob faced a trickle of employees from other departments, who, having heard of the canine companions on our floor, were champing at the bit to bring their dogs to work, too. I cant see why not, Bob sighed.

Traditionally, most companies dont allow dogs at work and there are a host of reasons why, including employees with allergies, workers who fear dogs, insurance issues and the fact barking dogs can be distracting and disruptive.

But it was impossible to find anyone with a negative word to say about the first week of the Newsroom Dogs project. Even some of our veteran editors, who are famously crusty, were spotted getting down on all fours to crawl under desks in search of a little face time with a slobbery mutt.

I personally ducked under the desk of Wendy Sawatzky, our associate editor of digital news, in hopes of getting my face washed by her brand-new puppy, Walter, whose mysterious lineage she is hoping to determine by sending away for DNA testing.

At the centre of the newsroom, amid the daily chaos of putting together a newspaper, sits Mike Aporius, the Free Presss dog-loving photo editor who typically juggles three high-pressure technical tasks at any given moment.

Its nice to take a break from the stress and seek out a dog for a quick cuddle, Mike chuckled, beaming as he watched one of our canine colleagues waddle by the photo desk. It takes the edge off, definitely. I wasnt expecting them to be this well behaved. Theres been very little barking and theyre not disruptive at all.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Free Press perspectives and politics editor Shannon Sampert at her desk with Norman.

Among the first dogs to (potentially) help boost our productivity was Spirit, a nine-year-old Karelian bear dog owned by longtime reporter Alexandra Paul.

Spirit loved her visit to the newsroom, marking the territory within minutes of her arrival right in front of the papers editor (Paul Samyn), much to my embarrassment, Alex confided in an email.

Finally, on his way out, my city editor came by my desk, not to see me, but to see Spirit, by then content on her makeshift bed. He got down and gave her a hug. Thats so endearing, and so unexpected, I cant help but smile.

Later, as I pounded out a column, Alex strolled over to my cubicle and wrapped me up in a heart-felt hug. Thanks for letting us bring our dogs into the newsroom, Doug! she gushed with obvious delight.

Which is when I graciously informed her the real mastermind behind our Newsroom Dogs project is graphic artist Leesa Dahl, whose adorable and amazingly fuzzy five-month-old Lhasa Apso puppy, Oliver, was snoring contentedly at her feet at the end of the first week.

Armed with steely determination and a passion for pets, Leesa persuaded the Free Presss powers that be that allowing dogs in the newsroom would be a shot in the arm for morale.

I didnt propose it as a story idea, the graphic artist explained as I gave Oliver a belly rub, which normally we cant administer to fellow employees. I proposed it as a way to make people happy, to make people laugh. I think its already made people happy.

I wasnt thinking about this being a story or that we would write about it. That wasnt my plan. My plan was just to have a dog in the newsroom to give us something to smile about. Our dogs arent greeting customers; theyre just there for us.

With Week 1 of Newsroom Dogs under our belts, Leesa is hoping the project will become permanent. Im hoping this goes beyond a month, she confided. Once we have the month behind us and we can prove it was successful, then maybe we can move forward.

Its hard to say whether that will become a bone of contention, but its definitely a question the newspaper will have to chew on in the dog days to come.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 28/03/2017 (2050 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If you need cataract surgery in Manitoba, youre going to wait longer than anywhere else in Canada.

Manitoba has the longest waiting list for cataract surgery in the country; only 34 per cent of patients diagnosed with the age-related deterioration to eyesight can expect to have surgery within 16 weeks, the national benchmark for the procedure.

Manitobans are also better off breaking a hip than wearing it out when it comes to the length of time they wait for surgery, just like last year.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES

Break a hip and a patient will typically roll into surgery within 48 hours. Wear it out and six out of every 10 Manitobans who need it will get hip replacement within six months.

By another measure, if you need radiation to treat a cancer diagnosis, you cant beat this province. No one waits longer than four weeks for treatment.

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If that sounds like a mixed result, a new report card on the state of Canadas health care system says the way provinces prioritize selected surgeries determines whether wait times are long or short. Called Wait Times for Priority Procedures in Canada, 2017, the national report card was issued Tuesday by the Canadian Institutes on Health Information.

"Manitobas always been always been a leader in the country for prompt access to care for broken hips (and) access to radiation for cancer patients," Kathleen Morris, vice-president of research and analysis for CIHI, said in a statement to compare this province against the national average.

And gradually, this province is whittling back the waits for those hip and knee replacements, Morris added.

"A growing number of patients are getting hip and knee replacements within the recommended six months," she said. The report notes 66 per cent of patients waiting for hip replacements get them on time. Thats at least five per cent better than 2012. Waits for knees, not so much. Only 58 per cent get done in time, a drop of five per cent over the last four years.

"Waits are still longer than the national average (86 per cent of Canadians) with less than 2/3 of patients in Manitoba having surgery in the targeted time frame," Morris said.

The report is issued annually and it measures provinces against specific time frames called benchmarks that are set nationally for cataract surgery, hip fractures, hip and knee replacement, radiation therapy for cancer and diagnostic imaging.

This years report draws on adult patients aged 18 and older in hospitals across the country that was collected between 2012 and 2016.

The doctor who supervises surgery slates in Winnipeg said he saw no surprises in CIHIs latest report but he eyed how Manitoba measured up this year on cataracts and dug up his own statistics to show the provinces progression downward.

"This is confirmation were not keeping up with the demand for cataracts. We certainly seem to falling behind the demand for cataract surgery relative to our aging population," said Dr. Jack McPherson, the medical director for surgical programming with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and head of surgery for the University of Manitobas medical faculty.

The length of time to get a cataract done in this province is measured with the first and the second eye  79 per cent of patients have their second eye done within 16 weeks, said McPherson.

But only 34 per cent get the first eye done in that time frame, according to CIHI data, which is the lowest number in four years, McPherson said.

Prior to 2015, Manitoba averaged out the waits of both the first and second eye. After that, the numbers dropped sharply when the province started reporting the wait for the first eye instead of the two together, consistent with CIHI standards.

The change had the effect of highlighting the long waits in Manitoba. From 2012 to 2014, 60 per cent of Manitobans could expect to get both eyes done within 16 weeks of each other.

By changing it to the first eye, the numbers showed just how long it took to get into the system, a wait thats reflected in the nose-dive the numbers took, from 63 per cent in 2014 to 41 per cent in 2015.

Then the numbers dropped again last year to 34 per cent, underscoring the problem McPherson drew attention to.

CIHI figures released Tuesday show 50 per cent of cataract patients wait 148 days to get in for the first eye, and nearly twice as long for the rest of patients. Ninety per cent of patients wait 289 days for the first eye.

Once a person is in, though, the process speeds up: nearly 80 per cent of patients only wait 16 weeks for the second surgery.

In December, the Pallister government appointed four doctors, including McPherson, to lead a task force targeting worsening wait times for diagnostic imaging, hip, knee and cataract surgery and emergency room care.

"The provincial government has created a wait times reduction task force which is going to be reporting over the next several months on recommendations to improve wait times for Manitoba in areas where were below the Canadian average which would obviously include cataracts," McPherson said.

CIHI sources its data directly from hospitals across the country, based on adult patients 18 and older. This report draws on data collected April to September 2016.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 28/03/2017 (2050 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Today, I want you to meet a class act.

No, I mean a real class act.

Susan Pereles is a teacher at Brock Corydon School. Actually, some of you may remember her from a column that dates back three years when I first wrote about her and the project she creates each year that helps her Grade 5 and 6 students research something many people both here and particularly elsewhere in Canada still havent learned:

Gordon Sinclair Jr. / Winnipeg Free Press Brock Corydons Abigail Hanhams chose her father, Canadian Armed Forces construction engineer Terrence Hanhams, as her Winnipeg Game Changer. Here, she holds a letter she wrote to him thats been turned into a gift plaque. Behind and to the right is Camila Rodriguez, also 11, who wrote her letter to Dr. Nafisa Dharamsi, the girls physician at Childrens Hospital.

How to appreciate Winnipeg.

Were so good at putting ourselves down, Pereles told me back in 2014, in Year 4 of her class in civic self-awareness. But we have to learn how to put ourselves up. And we have to understand how much we have, what we take for granted.

Mind you, its not as if Pereles is outfitting her students in rose-coloured glasses. She also has them doing personal projects about the city and this year, one of her 10-year-old students has chosen to explore racism in Winnipeg.

Still, accentuating the positive is the central ongoing mission. Over the years, her classes have focused on our citys multiculturalism, architecture and even a kind of music cultural archeological dig that unearthed not only our rock n roll legends but evidence that Neil Young had a local guitar teacher.

Anyway, last week I returned to Brock Corydon to find that this years project is about Winnipeg Game Changers, meaning someone or something that makes this a better place to live.

That assignment involved each of the 23 students in Room 5 to choose one person or place and hand-print a letter explaining the project, why they were chosen and inviting the person or a representative from the place to visit their classroom.

So, out of 23, Pereles said when I arrived, we have 11 responses.

Only 11?

We were actually hoping for three to five to respond, she said.

I thought everyone would be thrilled to be on the list and have a chance to meet the kids who put them there.

Are they all alive? I wondered out loud.

Funny, I should ask.

Actually, one of them, Izzy Asper  chosen as the creator of the Canadian Museum of Human Rights  died in 2003, before any of the students were born. But heres good news: his youngest son Leonard, who lives in Toronto, has agreed to drop by the school.

Not everyone on the kids list was famous, and there were a few surprises. Earl Barish and wife Cheryl, who rescued and restored Salisbury House as an iconic Winnipeg restaurant chain, was a favourite of one of the kids because she had her birthday at Sals. One of the boys watches the CTV news with his dad, so anchor Gord Leclerc and his charity work got him an invitation. He promised to be there as soon as the ratings season was over. Radio man and beloved charity emcee Ace Burpee was a natural, as was Tom Ethans of Take Pride Winnipeg and River Heights councillor John Orlikow. Then there was David Robertson, a former student at Brock Corydon, who creates graphic novels with local themes. As for organizations that accepted the students invitation, there was the Canadian Diabetes Association. There were a few others on the list that responded that brought out heartwarming and even funny back-stories.

There was 10-year-old Luke Jordan, who boldly mailed a letter to Fred Penners office.

Lukes father, Todd Jordan, is the children entertainers agent. Fred has already been by Room 5 to sing The Cat Came Back and Sandwiches and drop off some CDs. Not everyone the kids chose is famous, though, as 11-year-old Camila Rodriguez demonstrated in her touching tribute to Dr. Nafisa Dharamsi, the girls physician at Childrens Hospital.

I chose you as my personal game-changer, Camila wrote, because you save lives so there are more healthy children in Winnipeg to be game changers in the future.

And then there was Abigail Hanhams, also 11, who chose her father, Terrence, whos a Canadian Armed Forces construction engineer, because he affects my life and he helps a lot of people

Her dad was shocked when he received the letter and the invitation, unexpectedly, at work, where Abigail had mailed it.

He said his heart was so touched that I chose him.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, not everyone responded to the letters  maybe because they had the wrong address or went astray. The invitation to the Bear Clan, for example, was simply addressed to the Bear Clan. And who knows if Burton Cummings  who hasnt responded, either  opens his own fan mail or even if he received the request at all? But in case he and others still havent got the message, here are the honoured others who are yet to be heard from: the Blue Bombers local star Andrew Harris; Olympians Cindy Klassen and Clara Hughes; social activist Angela Taylor; former police chief-turned-childrens book author, Devon Clunis; Bobby Hull; and Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff. Oh, yes, and the class was hoping for a visit from a representative of Winnipeg Harvest.

As for the feeling theyve missed if they havent received their invitation in the mail, graphic novelist David Robertson may have summed it up best in his response to the student who chose him.

Even when youre having a bad day, Robertson wrote, it cant really be that bad when you get a letter like this. Thanks, Sam, Ill see you soon.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 28/03/2017 (2050 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On March 20, Minister of Justice Heather Stefanson introduced an amendment to the Elections Act that would establish a permanent voter registry for future provincial elections and changes to individual contributions and spending for third-party communications. The amendment allows for the requirement of a voters list based on the 2016 election. The provincial government chose also to amend eligible voter identification (ID) that would require citizens to present a type of ID that is not easily accessible for some Manitobans and potentially skew the slate of candidates to favour those who can inject the most money into their campaign.

Currently, if someone is not on the voters list and does not have government-issued photo ID, they are permitted to prove identity via two documents such as a health card, Status Indian card and/or mail addressed to their current address such as a utility bill.

The move to a voter registry was approved by all-party consensus at the committee level and this requires an amendment to the Act. However, introducing a registry does not require changes to the current Acts acceptance of alternate forms of ID.

JOHN WOODS / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES A constituent casts his vote in 2011. Lack of access to ID is a widespread problem for those who live in poverty, which could affect their ability to vote.

Why is this provincial government introducing a change to voter ID requirements by requiring photo ID? The chief electoral officer at Elections Manitoba has stated voter fraud is not a concern.

Oftentimes governments consult before making changes to key legislation. If the government had consulted, it would have learned of the struggles of those without up-to-date, government-issued photo ID who will be disenfranchised if the voter ID requirements change. Instead, Stefanson stated that proposed changes would simply bring Manitoba in line with, for example, Winnipeg. However, Winnipeg does not require photo ID in its elections.

It is important that the provincial government take into account the systemic barriers, historical context and demographics of Manitoba when considering changes to legislation and policies. This is particularly important when dealing with provisions for fair voting, a cornerstone of democracy.

Lack of access to ID is a widespread problem affecting those who are overly represented in the ranks of people who live in poverty  the working poor, the elderly, those living with a disability, people without a fixed address (including students) and indigenous people. Real barriers for low-income earners include the inability to pay for proper ID, a living situation wherein loss and theft of ID is common, or frequent moves that prohibit paying costly fees to maintain a formal ID with a current address.

The indigenous community is additionally burdened by the ID problems experienced by Sixties Scoop survivors. As a result of that program, in which federal and provincial agents took indigenous children from their families and placed them with non-indigenous families in Canada, the United States and Europe, survivors of the Scoop era can face formidable barriers to obtaining a birth certificate. Applicants must recall and provide information about their birth and parental lineage as it is stated on their birth registration. Many indigenous communities have been disconnected from their family lineage through physical displacement and changed family names.

In the 2014 Winnipeg election, local leaders started Indigenous Rock the Vote to encourage indigenous people to participate in the election. This group ran ID clinics to help people access ID because the issue that came up most often during the Winnipeg election was access to proper voting ID. In addition, indigenous people are far more likely to not have a fixed address due to movement between reserves and rural communities to stay at the homes of relatives and friends in urban areas while they work, go to school or access health services.

The amendments also potentially affect the diversity of candidates by increasing allowable individual contributions to political parties and third-party communications spending substantially. This opens the door to those who can afford to participate in electoral politics to contribute more. Money would have more influence in elections than previously.

This approach has seen a pushback in the United States, where the main goal of the peoples Occupy Movement was to get money out of politics and take back democracy. The Manitoba Elections Amendment Act would increase individual election contributions 60 per cent, from $3,000 to $5,000. The third-party advertising increases election limits five times from $5,000 to $25,000 during an election and then 20 times to $100,000 during the 90 days before the writ is dropped. These changes would restrict who can participate in and influence democratic process in Manitoba.

Changes to Manitobas voter eligibility requirements will prohibit many Manitobans from exercising their democratic right to vote. This change, along with increased allowable political contributions and third-party communications are unjust and will undermine democracy in our province.

Lisa Forbes is a volunteer voting educator with Winnipeg Indigenous Rock the Vote and Molly McCracken is the director at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives  Manitoba. Background research by Ellen Smirl.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 28/03/2017 (2050 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Canadas trade deal with the United States and Mexico, which was looking like a dead duck two months ago, looks a whole lot stronger and healthier today. U.S. President Donald Trump and the ruling Republicans in Congress proved last week they were unable to repeal and replace the health insurance system enacted by former president Barack Obama. Their prospects of tearing apart the North American Free Trade Agreement are probably no better.

Mr. Trump threw his weight behind a health insurance bill prepared by House Speaker Paul Ryan and campaigned hard to persuade the Republican majority in the House to pass it. The low-tax, small-government wing of the party refused. Mr. Trump and Mr. Ryan on Friday called off the scheduled vote on the bill and turned to other things. As a result, Mr. Obamas Affordable Care Act, the repeal of which Republicans have been promising for years, remains in force.

Part of the problem is Republicans seemed united in opposition to Obamacare but they were never united around something to put in its place. Another part of the problem is Mr. Trump, who craves and courts applause from angry people who feel ignored by the power structure, pays little attention to the details and the mechanics of government. He bellows against Muslims but he cannot draft a travel ban that stands up in court. He bellows against Obamacare but he could not craft a replacement plan that Congress would approve.

EVAN VUCCI / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS U.S. President Donald Trump

It is possible he will learn the art of government as the failures accumulate. It is not unusual for presidents to suffer setbacks in the courts and in Congress. But in order to learn leadership, Mr. Trump would have to decide he needs to learn. There was no sign of that in his early reactions to the health insurance debacle. He said he had learned something about loyalty, meaning that congressional Republicans had betrayed him. He also blamed Democrats. He cast blame far and wide. The one person who bore no blame for the shipwreck was the captain. Its hard to learn from your mistakes if you never made any.

The next big item on Mr. Trumps agenda is tax reform. It is widely agreed in the United States federal tax law is absurdly complex, riddled with inconsistencies and special tax breaks written to benefit special interests. Almost everyone can find something in U.S. tax law that they find unjust. But what looks like an outrageous loophole to one person looks like fundamental fairness to another. As soon as you propose a specific measure, the apparent support for tax reform falls apart  as with health insurance.

Further down Mr. Trumps list comes doing something about NAFTA. He won applause during the election campaign by complaining free trade with Mexico had destroyed American jobs or moved them out of the country. He seemed to want to abrogate the treaty or make large changes to it  he never said what. He would have to figure out changes Canada and Mexico would accept and would do more good than harm in the U.S. economy. He would also have to win congressional support. With the smell of failure and impotency that now surrounds his administration, his chances dont look good. NAFTA, the former dead duck, is flying high.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 28/03/2017 (2050 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Last Thursdays deadly attack in London was a shocking act of violence resulting in five deaths and 50 innocent bystanders being injured. It took place along the famous Westminster Bridge and on the grounds of the British Parliament buildings. It was also immediately deemed an act of terrorism and the Western world sent messages of solidarity to Britain in our common fight against radical Islam.

The weapons employed by Khalid Masood were nothing more than a rental van, a knife and his own fanatical beliefs. Masood drove through a crowd of pedestrians on the famous bridge and was in the process of stabbing a policeman to death when he was fatally shot by Metropolitan Police.

In the hours following the tragedy, Islamic State group evildoers announced that Masood was acting upon their recent call for radicalized Muslims to rise up in Western countries. There is no evidence that Masood was an actual IS foot soldier or that he ever had direct contact with that group, but ISs claim of responsibility for the attack was good enough for the media to grant them what they sought: to spread the unfounded myth that IS is everywhere and able to strike us on home soil at any time.

MATT DUNHAM / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Police officers and members of the public look at floral tributes to the victims of the Westminster attack placed outside the Palace of Westminster, London, on Monday.

For the record, Khalid Masood was born in Britain in 1964 and the name on his birth certificate is Adrian Russell Ajao. At the age of 19 he embarked upon a lifetime of violent crime and it was while in prison that he converted to Islam. He is the quintessential homegrown nut job who just proved to us once again that no matter what security measures we take against terrorism, there is no possible defence against suicidal attackers using such common items as a car and a knife to kill unsuspecting civilians.

Since Masood ended up being gunned down in front of the Parliament buildings, Canadians naturally drew a parallel to the Oct. 22, 2014 attack in Ottawa by homegrown terrorist Michael Zehaf-Bibeau. Zehaf-Bibeau was a lifetime criminal and drug addict who shot and killed Corp. Nathan Cirillo at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier memorial before launching his solo charge into the Parliament buildings. Like Masood, Zehaf-Bibeau was gunned down by security guards. There was no evidence that Zehaf-Bibeau had ever been in direct contact with IS and even those evildoers claimed only that their movement had inspired the suicidal rampage of violence in Ottawa.

That incident was nonetheless rightfully declared an act of terrorism, as was the deliberate vehicular manslaughter of a Canadian soldier, Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., two days prior to Zehaf-Bibeaus attack.

That particular attack was also perpetrated by a homegrown nut job, Martin Couture-Rouleau, who had tried to head to the Middle East to join IS but who was instead stopped by Canadian authorities. After killing Vincent and injuring another soldier with his car, Couture-Rouleau was involved in a high-speed chase with Quebec police. After losing control of his vehicle and rolling into a ditch, Couture-Rouleau was shot seven times as he exited the damaged car.

The standard line in labelling those two incidents as acts of terror was that Cpl. Cirillo and Warrant Officer Vincent were targeted because of the uniform they wore and, in turn, what that uniform symbolizes.

Conversely, this year we had a mass shooting at a mosque in Quebec City on the evening of Jan. 29. In that attack, six people were killed and another 19 wounded by lone gunman Alexandre Bissonnette. Following his arrest, Bissonnette was charged with six counts of first-degree murder, but not an act of terrorism. Legal experts opined it would be difficult for Crown attorneys to prove this case met the criteria for a terrorist act under the Criminal Code of Canada.

How is that possible? These people were gunned down in their place of worship, while observing their religious faith. What could be more symbolic than that?

To be fair, both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard did label the mosque shooting as an act of terror, but those words are hollow when our courts do not apply the law evenly.

Im sure the victims who were in the mosque that night were just as terrified as the innocent bystanders on the Westminster Bridge last Thursday. Terrorists come in all colours.

Scott Taylor is the founder and publisher of Esprit de Corps Magazine. He is also a bestselling author and award-winning documentary filmmaker.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 27/03/2017 (2051 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Its been a turbulent couple days on social media for United Airlines.

On Sunday, a passenger named Shannon Watts tweeted about an incident. A @united gate agent isnt letting girls in leggings get on flight from Denver to Minneapolis because spandex is not allowed? followed by Shes forcing them to change or put dresses on over leggings or they cant board. Since when does @united police womens clothing?

On its face, that sounds bad  and so, predictably, outrage flared up across social media. Even celebrities such as Chrissy Teigen tweeted about leggingsgate. I have flown united before with literally no pants on. Just a top as a dress. Next time I will wear only jeans and a scarf.

But those angrily tweeting were missing some key information. The girls were flying on company passes, United later confirmed. Most major airlines have programs that allow family members and friends to fly at a discount. And company passes come with strict company dress codes.

I know all about this because, as an Air Canada brat, I had to dress up when I flew on my dads passes. Even as a little girl. Dresses, stockings, patent shoes, the whole thing.

This rule occasionally created some low-level panic in our house  WHERE ARE YOUR AIRPLANE SHOES? WE HAVE A PLANE TO CATCH!  but, when I was small, dressing up to go on the airplane made me feel special, because going on an airplane was special. It was an incredible privilege to fly, especially at such a reduced rate.

That said, adherence to the company dress code ceased roughly around the same time my mom stopped dressing me. I started rebelling in small ways. A black skinny jean here. A tunic over leggings there. Only once, in Montreal en route to Paris, was I tsked and told to change by an agent for wearing black leggings. I dont think theyre going to let you on the plane wearing those, he sniffed, as though I had rolled up to the gate straight from a long day of shovelling manure. It was humiliating, just as it was likely humiliating for the girls in Denver.

Air Canadas rules have relaxed, somewhat, over the years. Jeans are OK now, but only if they are basic. They must not be ripped, dyed, embellished, autographed (?), studded, neon-coloured, crumpled (?), ill-fitting, etc. You cant wear shorts. Yoga pants and leggings are definitely still a hard no. It doesnt matter if your yoga pants are $100 yoga pants. Air Canada doesnt care.

The criticism of United, and most other airlines that have similar policies in place, isnt entirely unfounded. Dress codes tend to skew sexist. They often unfairly target girls and women, since what is considered inappropriate almost always has to do with sexualized body parts.

It is often girls and womens bodies that are labelled distracting.

But unlike, say, a school dress code that is lopsidedly enforced, airline policies seem more concerned with class than gender.

It shouldnt come as a surprise that airlines would insist that its employees and whoever else is flying with their passes maintain a company image. This is an industry that literally divides its passengers up into classes. No wonder, then, that the subtext is this: if you didnt pay full price for your ticket, you should at least look like you did.

I agree that policies outlawing sportswear are outdated in an era in which no one dresses up for anything and atheleisure continues to be a dominant fashion trend. I agree no one should be humiliated by a gate agent, especially young girls.

And I agree that getting dressed up to sit and breathe recycled air at 35,000 feet seems counterintuitive, especially since the golden days of air travel are long behind us. I mean, why should I wear real pants if you people wont even feed me dinner?

But Id also suggest weve overcorrected a bit. Many people dont think of an airplane as a public space.

Ive seen more women in threadbare pajama pants and flip flops on airplanes than I can count. I once saw a grown man on a Chicago to Toronto flight wearing a T-shirt bearing what looked like the Mastercard logo. A closer inspection revealed that it actually said Masterbate. Cool.

Thats more offensive than a pair of leggings, but then, he paid for his ticket. I guess wearing an inane T-shirt on an airplane is like enjoying warm cookies, extra leg room and real cutlery: you pay for the privilege.

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @JenZoratti
Proposed new Fountain City ordinance regulations having to do with lawn and weed maintenance, alternate side parking for clearing snow and permit fees for temporary placement of commercial waste dumpsters on public streets were tabled for now.

Opposition to regulations was raised by many townspeople as well as city council members at recent meetings in city hall.

A preliminary draft ordinance regulating parking would have called for alternate side parking for up to 72-hours after snowfalls of 4 inches or more.

Alderperson Barb Schmidtknecht of the 2nd Ward said she did not know of anyone in favor of the snow parking proposal. Im inclined to just let (the proposal) die. Im not in favor of it, she said at a recent council meeting.

Gwen Katula, a 2nd Ward alderperson, said alternate side parking would punish business in the community. She said the obvious consensus was that people do not want alternate side parking.

The city council agreed to continue posting temporary no-parking signs in advance along streets where city crews plan to clear snow curb-to-curb.

Signs would be updated to list times as well as days when vehicles should be moved for snow removal.

Alderperson Bobbi Farrand asked that apartment owners make their tenants aware of parking issues and signing after snowfalls.

Residents were urged to comply with posted snow parking signs and move vehicles when crews are trying to clear away snow.

Public works supervisor Keith Slocum said vehicles might be towed in chronic cases where people do not comply with no-parking signs.

No action was taken on an ordinance proposal to require permits for temporary siting of waste dumpsters in parking areas along public streets.

Mayor Kevin Hutter said he favored doing something to regulate dumpsters on public property so that the community had recourse in the event of safety or health hazards.

Farrand said she favored some type of limitations on dumpsters and 1st Ward alderperson Judith Ganger said large dumpsters along streets were not very pretty and took up parking spaces.

But the council agreed that dumpsters were not a major issue. Bill Katula, a 2nd Ward resident, told the city council it did not make sense to force regulations on everyone in town because of a couple of problems that arose in recent times.

A dumpster ordinance, Katula said, would force people to jump over hurdles and obstacles and discourage them from upkeep and improvement of houses and buildings.

Hutter advised letting the dumpster issue simmer for now. He said the council could take another look at the issue in a few months.

A city zoning committee recently agreed to table more restrictive regulations on cutting weeds and lawns.

Katula said there was plenty of dissent expressed by the public. I dont think its a necessary ordinance. Im not for it, she said.

The city council is primarily interested in keeping property frontages and sidewalks free of weeds and long grasses.

Farrand recommended that city maintenance employees play a helping role in helping keep public property and sidewalks clear of vegetation.

Katula and Farrand said the community could advocate clean-up days to spruce up the town and recruit volunteers at a grassroots level.

Efforts could be made to compel owners of messy looking properties to voluntarily take responsibility for cleaning-up eyesores, the committee discussed.

The committee advised tabling the ordinance for now and taking a look at it again in July to see if property owners are making an effort to control weeds and grasses.
Out in the countryside, healthcare costs vie with the price of corn in keeping farmers worried and awake nights.

Winona area farmers, county workers and others gathered Monday afternoon at the Blue Heron Coffee House to share concerns at a listening session held by the Minnesota Farmers Union  one of about 15 the farmers organization is holding around the state.

Bruce Miller, outreach director for the Farmers Union, said theycan best represent the concerns of a wide swath of rural Minnesota a by meeting in the communities.

Healthcare costs, buffer laws, crop prices, renewable energy, local control and regulation all popped up in the wide-ranging conversation, which was attended by about 20 people.

Healthcare became the dominant issue of the day, with accounts of costs rising anywhere from 50 to 150 percent over the past several years.

Jennifer Rupprecht, of Earth-Be-Glad Farm, raises livestock, corn, hay and soybeans on 275 certified organic acres near Lewiston.

Rupprecht said theyve seen cost increases over 70 percent, which rapidly becomes impossible to raise enough for.

That, to me, is no healthcare, Rupprecht said.

One of the reoccurring themes of the meeting was how the issues rapidly run together.

The cost of healthcare, for example, would be slightly more bearable if the prices of corn, soybeans and milk werent also at record lows.

Miller compared this to the inflated costs of healthcare for individuals, like farmers, and what would happen if they increased the prices of their products by up to 100 percent without warning.

You cant continue to farm if you farm for nothing, Miller said.

Even immigration worked its way into the conversation.

Several mentioned the cheaper migrant laborers, depended on in many dairies and some crop farms, have become scarcer due to concerns about immigration crackdowns, further raising costs.

Miller said those have all been concerns, some for longer than others, that they bring to the legislature.

Im not hearing any big surprises, but Im hearing an articulation, Miller said. We have to make sure were a strong conduit for that voice.

The Farmers Union takes a number of stances on issues that they then lobby and testify for at the state level.

That includes a strong support for making a public healthcare option available for Minnesotans, particularly those facing large increases, and passing legislation to provide property tax relief for agricultural properties.

They also support a number of initiatives, like local control of projects like wind, feedlots and gravel pits and continuing state support for the good food access fund to bring fresh foods to parts of MN that lack access.

Minnesota Farmers Union representatives are continuing their tour of the state, likely with representatives from state departments including Agriculture, Commerce and others.

The next rural issues discussions will be held March 29 in the communities of Norwood Young America, Mankato and Windom.
A journalist with The Quint has been booked under sections of the Official Secrets Act and Indian Penal Code for criminal trespass and abetment to suicide in the alleged suicide of Lance Naik Roy Mathew.

By India Today Web Desk: Nashik police on Monday booked a journalist with The Quint under sections of the Official Secrets Act and the Indian Penal Code for criminal trespass and abetment to suicide in the alleged suicide of Lance Naik Roy Mathew.

Poonam Agarwal, the reporter who shot the sting in which Mathew was seen speaking on Indian Army's 'sahayak system', was booked after Nashik Police registered a case against her based on a complaint submitted by the Army.

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In its application, the Army has accused Aggarwal of:

1. Illegally entering a prohibited area

2. Posing 'leading questions' to Mathew while carrying out the sting

"They (Indian Army) have given an application expressing concern over the journalist entering a prohibited area with a spy camera and filming an Army premises which is not allowed. After studying the application, a case has been registered," a Maharashtra Police officer told the Indian Express.

Police have booked Aggarwal "under Sections 3 and 7 of the Official Secrets Act and sections of the Indian Penal Code for criminal trespass and abetment to suicide."

Lance Naik Roy Mathew was found hanging from a ceiling in an abandoned Army barrack on March 2, after a Quint story featuring him in a sting operation on the 'sahayak system' went viral. Mathew had criticised the system in the video and feared a court-martial.

His fears were written in an alleged suicide note written in Malayalam, recovered from a diary at the barrack where his body was found. A forensic investigation is underway to prove the veracity of the note.

'Read: Jawan suicide case: Army blames 'guilt' factor, but family says he was harassed

Watch: Army jawan who criticised buddy system found dead

--- ENDS ---
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Jim Turk says drum circles arent limited to hippies and music festivals.

The multiple sclerosis advocate from Madison hopes to introduce the therapeutic benefits of group drum sessions to people in all walks of life, and on April 7, hell be at the Village Booksmith with an arsenal of percussion instruments to do just that.

For the past few months, the longtime drummer and former research officer for the University of Wisconsin-Madison has led community drum circles across the state. Turk said the jam sessions are intended to promote inclusiveness and creativity, along with mental and physical well being.

Turk said his own battle with MS provided inspiration for the drum circles.

After symptoms forced him to step down from his position at UW-Madison last spring, Turk began studying alternative methods for dealing with the disease.

I started seeing a lot of papers citing the benefits of group drumming for people of all abilities and disabilities, he said. Theres significant proof of improvement in people who have PTSD, autism, Parkinsons or just stressed out people.

The research prompted Turk to sell off some of his more expensive drumming equipment in exchange for a diverse array of handheld percussion instruments so he could lead his own drum circles.

From bongos to maracas, Turk has instruments for people off all musical abilities. Hes also customized a few for people with physical limitations as well.

Its about community and getting everybody participating with whatever they can do, Turk said. Ill walk people through that and come up with ways for them to encounter rhythm in their everyday lives and apply that to drumming.

Turk said the social aspect of drum circles has proven effective in treating several mental health issues, including anxiety and depression.

Everybodys working as a team to create something beautiful together, he said. It changes your attitude because youre part of this bigger group.

Christin Harding, an MS advocate in Baraboo, has been to several Village Booksmith drum circles in the past, and said the drumming creates a shared pulse between the members of the circle.

Its a unifying event, she said. It doesnt matter whos there, but theres an immediate connection with everyone else in the circle.

Turk said creating music within the group tends to make people feel good, and the positive feelings provide a starting point for recovering from many physical and mental ailments.

I always say to people, If you feel good, you feel good for a reason, he said. Youre putting your body in the best possible position for recuperation, rejuvenation, healing  all that kind of stuff.
State Representative Ed Brooks (R-Reedsburg) kicked off a series of listening sessions to discuss several legislative topics March 24 at the town hall in Lyndon.

Since beginning his fifth term in January, Brooks has been busy, working on several wide-ranging bills in Madison. Brooks represents all of Juneau County, as well as Richland Center and Reedsburg. The assemblyman also discussed items in Gov. Scott Walkers proposed 2017-19 state budget.

We had the budget address, which is starting to get some traction, Brooks said. The governor gave his opinion on it and now the joint finance committee will have some agencies come in and testify (this week). After that, were going to have six state-wide hearings on the proposed budget.

Brooks said the two closest public hearings will be at Berlin High School and UW-Platteville next week. In the next few weeks, Brooks and fellow legislators will be working on getting bills prepared to vote on during upcoming floor sessions.

Walker has been touring Wisconsin touting his budget. The governor made a stop in Reedsburg early last week.

He is good on his feet, no question about that, Brooks said. He talked about his agenda and proposals and the good things hes doing for education funding.

During his visit to Reedsburg, Walker was asked what he thought about President Donald Trumps crackdown on illegal immigration. Several large farms in Brooks district depend on migrant workers for every day chores.

(Walker) said that he and three other governors talked to the head of Homeland Security and their intent is not to have a sweep come in (to remove immigrants), Brooks said. If youve committed a felony, youre going to go through the process and you might go to prison and leave the country. But if youre just out there raising a family, sending your kids to school and sending money back to your family in Mexico, you should not be affected.

A contentious topic facing state lawmakers is the purpose of high-capacity wells. Brooks said there was a joint meeting between the Senate and Assembly committees on agriculture to address high-cap wells.

We started at 9 a.m. and went until 6 at night and everybody who wanted to speak on the topic did so, Brooks said. This is a basic bill; its not a new bill on high-capacity wells. Its to repair or replace existing wells and to allow the transfer to a high-cap well.

The bill has been somewhat controversial, especially in the central sands area north east of Juneau County and in the northeastern parts of the county. Some residents wonder if these high-pumping wells, often used by large farm operations, are diminishing the areas natural water supply.

There are natural cycles where lakes do dry up, Brooks said. So we want to put science to it. Was there a drought year, in addition to the pumping or was it just the pumping that lowered the water tables? If you have a private well that goes dry its a major issue to you. Those are the main components to the bill.

Brooks is also working on the Rural Wisconsin Initiative, a proposal he unveiled with the support of fellow legislators last year. A large piece of the bill looks at expanding broadband internet service and Brooks said areas in rural northern Wisconsin are already seeing broadband expansion.

Transportation and infrastructure continue to be a hot issue in Wisconsin. Walker is standing firm on not raising taxes for road repairs, and Brooks does not agree with the governors stance. Brooks said he would like to explore several options to fund road work, including raising the states fuel tax by a small percentage.

I expect the governor to sign my bills, so I dont want to irritate him too much, but we can respectfully disagree, Brooks said. He has essentially said no new fees and tax increases, recently. But we feel with the new budget there is an opportunity to cut some taxes so we can raise revenue for the transportation issue.

Brooks has additional listening sessions coming up in Wonewoc and Elroy (March 30), along with Camp Douglas and New Lisbon (March 31).
Wonewoc-Center student Kody Pagel received some exciting news recently when he was awarded the Herb Kohl Foundation Initiative Scholarship.

Pagel, a senior at Wonewoc-Center High School, found out in January he will receive $5,000 from the Herb Kohl Foundation. Pagel will receive the scholarship at a reception at Eau Claire North High School on Sunday, April 30.

Pagel was the only Juneau County student to receive the award and one of five students selected in CESA 4, which includes schools in north-central and northwest Wisconsin.

I was pretty excited when I found out, Pagel said. There was some confusion because I didnt receive a letter or anything. A teacher pulled me out of study hall and told me I had received it.

Kohl, a Milwaukee native, was a long-time U.S. Senator for Wisconsin and a former owner of the Milwaukee Bucks.

He established the scholarship and fellowship program in 1990. For almost three decades, the foundation has awarded $11.5 million to state educators, principals, students and schools.

Students who receive the initiative scholarships are chosen by their schools and have shown outstanding initiative in the classroom, along with showing strong promise for success in college and beyond.

In a press release, Michael Lancaster, president of the Wisconsin Council of Religious and Independent Schools said I think it is significant that Wisconsins students, teachers, principals, and schools are recognized for their devotion to education and learning.

To receive the scholarship, Pagel submitted an essay to the foundation. He received help from W-C English teacher Dawn Ertel in fine-tuning the submission.

After graduation, Pagel plans to attend Mid-State Technical College to study renewable energy.

In the future, Pagel would like to move to Arizona to help construct solar panels, wind turbines and geo-thermal projects for houses and fields.

My big plans are to move to Arizona where they have the big fields and solar farms, Pagel said. Thats where I would love to be.

Mid-State is offering a trip to Germany next year for renewable energy students to study wind-powered turbines. Pagel has never been out of the country and cant wait for the trip.

I really like to travel so Im looking forward to that, Pagel said. Especially since its work related. I think thats fun.

Pagel credits his grandfather, Larry Hamburg, for peaking his interest in alternative energy. Hamburg serves as the master electrician at Reedsburg Area Medical Center. Pagel was hoping to follow his grandfathers footsteps and join the Air Force, but suffered a collapsed lung last October.

It was like the week after I sent my essay in that it happened, Pagel said. But I got some good news at the beginning of the year when I found out I won the scholarship.

Pagel praised his parents, Brandon Pagel and Amanda Schmidt, for support, along with several educators at W-C. He said his teachers inspired him to strive for success in many subjects.

I try to be as open minded about things to be well-rounded, Pagel said.
After leading police on a high-speed chase March 22, a La Crosse man faces five charges, including three felonies.

Christopher H. Poehling, 42, was charged with second degree recklessly endangering safety, threat to law enforcement officer, attempting to flee or elude a traffic officer, obstructing an officer, and disorderly conduct. The first charge carries a possible $25,000 fine or imprisonment of no more than 10 years, or both, while for the second charge, Poehling could face a $10,000 fine or six years in prison, or both. The third charge carries a possible $10,000 fine or three years in prison, or both. The obstructing charge could cost Poehling $10,000 or a prison term of nine months, or both, while the count of disorderly conduct charge carries a possible $1,000 fine or 90 days in jail, or both.

According to the criminal complaint, Poehlings attempt to flee officers began around noon March 22. Poehling, wanted for retail theft and fleeing officers, left La Crosse, going east on Interstate 90. Several officers from the Wisconsin State Patrol were near Poehlings vehicle, but were advised to end their pursuit near mile marker 11.

A trooper working in Juneau County received a radio transmission that Poehlings vehicle, a silver Cadillac, was traveling more than 100 miles per hour near mile marker 46. Two troopers spotted Poehling outside his car at a gas station in Oakdale. When the troopers approached, Poehling gave one of them a blank stare and placed his hand in his pocket. One of the troopers left his patrol car, pulled out a gun and ordered Poehling to show him his hands. Poehling didnt comply. Instead he returned to the car, revved up the engine and quickly backed up, nearly striking an officer.

As the car dashed forward, the trooper had his gun on Poehling, ordering him to stop the car, but Poehling accelerated toward the officer who barely avoided being struck. Poehling hit a parked truck and went over a curb/sidewalk to get around the troopers vehicles. Back on the interstate, Poehlings vehicle allegedly exceeded 100 miles per hour and he passed vehicles on the right and left shoulders to continue the pursuit.

According to the report, he passed several semis, nearly losing control multiple times. Officers in Juneau County attempted to set up spike strips near Mauston and, once Poehling approached New Lisbon, police from that city began helping in the chase.

Near mile marker 65, Poehlings vehicle began fishtailing on the gravel shoulder after passing a semi. The car lost control and struck a semi, bouncing off the truck and finally stopping when it struck a tree in the median.

After he had crashed, Poehling continued the chase on foot. An officer from the Mauston Police Department pursued Poehling into a field near Meyer Road. The officer drew his firearm and told Poehling it was the police and he should stop. Poehling disobeyed the order, pulled out a shiny metal object and pointed it toward the officer.

The officer told Poehling to stop several times, but he kept running, tossing the metal object away from him. As the officer continued to close in on him, Poehling finally stopped and raised his hands. Held at gun point, Poehling was ordered to the ground and handcuffed.

After other officers arrived, they began searching Poehling. During the search Poehling began to twitch by kicking his legs. He was ordered to stop moving but told police he didnt feel right after taking 60 Xanax pills. The Mauston Area Ambulance was dispatched to the scene. The trooper who tried to apprehend Poehling in Oakdale asked Poehling why he attempted to hit him. Poehling replied that he was sorry for doing this to all of them, but he didnt expect to live today.

Poehling was transported to Mile Bluff Medical Center. Upon being released, he was booked inside the Juneau County Jail. Poehling is scheduled to have an initial appearance on April 5 at 9 a.m. at the Juneau County Justice Center.
Public school advocates warned Monday that a multimillion-dollar spending increase for schools proposed by Gov. Scott Walker over the next two years could be in jeopardy.

The message comes as lawmakers launch their review of Walkers 2017-19 state budget plan this week and in the wake of the governor visiting communities across the state to promote his plan.

A divide among lawmakers about how to deal with Gov. Scott Walkers proposed budget bill threatens to significantly reduce or even potentially eliminate the increased state aid the governor has proposed for schools, an organization representing public school boards told its members on Monday.

The proposed $649 million increase in funding for public schools is under threat, public school advocates say, because of a plan some lawmakers on the budget-writing committee are considering to build the next state spending plan from current funding levels instead of using Walkers proposals as a starting point.

At stake are the substantial increases Gov. Walker has proposed for public schools, including increases in per pupil aid, aid targeted specifically to rural schools and funding from school-based mental health services, to name a few, Wisconsin Association of School Boards (WASB) lobbyist Dan Rossmiller wrote in a blog post aimed at school board members. Working from the base budget rather than Gov. Walkers proposal would erase the proposed funding increases for public schools as a starting point for budget discussions. This would put public schools back to square one in the budget debate.

Kim Kaukl, executive director of the Wisconsin Rural Schools Alliance, said Monday that his organization has asked its members to contact members of the budget committee and their areas lawmakers to support Walkers proposals and oppose writing the budget from current funding levels.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, earlier this month expressed support for crafting a budget based on current funding levels, but Senate Education Committee chairman and Joint Finance Committee member Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, said Monday that Senate Republicans support working from the governors proposals.

I honestly think its a slap in the face to say to the governor, Were not going to work from your budget,  Olsen said.

Rossmiller said its unclear if some lawmakers are deciding whether to build the entire budget from current funding levels or build funding plans for specific agencies.

If lawmakers dont write a budget from Walkers proposals, public school advocates say they worry schools will likely see a smaller increase as lawmakers choose where to spend the states money at a time when the states transportation budget faces a $939 million shortfall in its highway program.

Walker spokesman Tom Evenson said Monday the governor appreciates the overwhelming support his budget is receiving from public school leaders across the state and that he is confident that a majority of the members of the Legislature share his commitment to student success and building a strong workforce.

Vos raises issue

Vos told a WASB audience this month that writing a budget based on current funding levels would give lawmakers more control of the process and that smaller and steadier increases are more resistant to fluctuations in the national and state economies, according to a WASB recap of the discussion.

Assembly Education Committee chairman Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt, R-Fond du Lac, said Monday that discussions about which approach to take are still being held.

He said he is not privy to details but understands there are concerns over whether previous estimates on the amount of money lawmakers have to work with will end up being accurate.

There has been some concerns as we start to put the budget together that those projections might not be held, Thiesfeldt said. If thats the case, its not just going to be education (that would be affected). Its just a cautious approach, is what it is.

The states nonpartisan fiscal bureau released figures last week showing Walkers proposal for the states next budget creates a larger structural deficit than previously thought, nearly $1.1 billion, in the ensuing budget cycle beginning in 2019.

Rossmiller on Monday asked his organizations members to call legislators and ask them not to start from current funding levels in an effort to preserve the funding increase for schools Walker has proposed.

Thiesfeldt said he hasnt decided whats the best approach.

I think we need to give more money to schools, Thiesfeldt said. I was surprised at the amount the governor invested, but I think that the public, by and large, believes education is a good place to spend their money.

People know that number

Republican lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, have said the amount of money for K-12 schools in Walkers budget may not be feasible given other areas of the budget that need increases, like money for roads.

Working from Walkers budget proposal also puts lawmakers in the position of having the public perceive their work as taking away from schools if the budget ultimately does not include the full $649 million increase Walker has proposed.

People know that number, Olsen said. Hes spent a lot of time making sure people know that number. To me, anything less than that would be perceived as a cut.

Requests for comment from JFC co-chairs Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, and Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, were not immediately returned.

JFC hearings on each agencys budgets begin Tuesday.
Republicans and Democrats on the Legislatures budget committee tore into Gov. Scott Walkers $76 billion budget proposal Tuesday, raising questions about his plans for self-insuring state workers, increasing education funding and paying for roads.

Over three days the committee is hearing from agency secretaries across state government, but for the first nearly four hours the committee grilled Department of Administration Secretary Scott Neitzel and budget director Waylon Hurlburt.

The questions offered insight into where lawmakers are likely to press for changes to Walkers plan.

Walkers 2017-19 budget proposal includes $650 million more for K-12 schools  some of which is tied to projected savings from self-insuring state employees  $42.5 million for the University of Wisconsin System tied to new performance metrics, $600 million in tax and fee reductions, and $500 million in new borrowing to plug a transportation funding shortfall.

The common sense reforms implemented and the tough decisions made by Governor Walker and the Legislature have paid huge dividends and the state of our finances is positive, Neitzel said. That is the reform dividend.

Joint Finance Committee co-chair Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, said one of his bigger concerns is the self-insurance plan, which Walker expects will save $40 million a year, though studies have also projected that it could end up costing the state money. Nygren pressed Neitzel on whether it was possible the state could lose those savings in future years.

The chances of us over time eating up those savings is low, Neitzel said.

If I brought up states that saw losses would you say its possible? Nygren replied.

I would say it is possible, Neitzel said.

Rep. Mary Felzkowski, R-Irma, questioned linking increases in K-12 funding to potential savings from self-insurance. Studies have been mixed on the option, suggesting the state could end up spending more, though Neitzel emphasized that the states projection of saving $40 million a year is based on information from the states providers. It feels like youre backing us into a corner, Felzkowski said.

Neitzel argued almost half of the states are fully self-insured and others partially self-insure, while 94 percent of employers with more than 5,000 employees self-insure.

Democrats pressed Neitzel on whether state employees would be able to keep their doctor if they liked their doctor  mimicking a line that former President Barack Obama used to sell the Affordable Care Act, and was later criticized for when it turned out to be false.

The disruption will be minimal, Neitzel said, but avoided giving a definitive yes or no to the question.

Rep. Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, honed in on the percentage of roads rated in good condition falling from 53 percent to 41 percent, an FBI investigation of alleged child abuse at the Lincoln Hills youth prison and reports of poor quality at the state-run veterans home in King.

Im seeing very little reform and almost no dividend to taxpayers, Hintz said.

Transportation at issue

Nygren asked Neitzel whether the governors transportation budget fully meets the maintenance needs of the state, using a metaphor of how delaying the replacement of his roof only leads to more costly repairs in the future. Walkers budget delays certain projects, including an Interstate 94 project in southeast Wisconsin and the I-39/90-Beltline interchange in Dane County.

We are taking care of the most urgent needs in the state of Wisconsin, Neitzel said.

We arent taking care of the needs, responded Nygren, who has clashed with Walker over raising the states gas tax. Walker opposes such a move, while Nygren and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, have argued more borrowing and delays are fiscally irresponsible.

Praising education funding

Sen. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, said in all the years hes been on the budget committee he has never wanted a hearing in his district because he was never really thrilled with the governors proposal. This year, he said that changed thanks to Walkers proposed increase for K-12 schools.

However, Olsen questioned how the administration would tie new K-12 funding to a districts compliance with Act 10, the 2011 law that required most public employees to contribute to pension and health insurance premiums.

A handful of school districts, including Madison, still dont require employees to contribute 12 percent of the cost of health care, but Olsen questioned whether the state should continue to cram (Act 10) down their throats when they may have found other ways to cut costs.

Theyre responsible to their employees, Olsen said. Are we sort of getting our nose in their business in how they manage their staff when they have used the tools that we gave them?

Neitzel said the intent of the proposal is for employees to cover 12 percent of health care costs, which could include deductibles and co-pays in addition to premiums.

Republicans also questioned a proposal to consolidate human resources and information technology employees throughout state government under the Department of Administration.

Sen. Leah Vukmir, R-Brookfield, asked why the consolidation of HR and IT employees wasnt resulting in a net reduction of state employees.

You have to aggregate these resources and pool them before you can take advantage of those efficiencies and wring out those efficiencies moving forward, Neitzel said. We do anticipate there will be reductions going forward.

Sen. Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, asked why the state needs to rank University of Wisconsin System campuses. The governors proposal would create various metrics the UW campuses would track and base performance funding on how they rank.

Hurlburt responded the governor would be happy to discuss improving the model, but added we rank many things in life to try to get folks at the bottom to improve.

Litscher defends youth prison

Also Tuesday, state Department of Corrections secretary Jon Litscher defended his budget proposal, which did not include finding a way to move the states juvenile prison closer to where most of the inmates are from: Milwaukee.

We can debate this but my point is I think its an effective institution for dealing with the needs of those youth, Litscher said.

The states juvenile corrections program uses a trauma-informed care approach, which includes a less punitive approach and involves increased family involvement, according to advocacy organizations.

Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee, said the strategy wont work if inmates are four hours away from their parents.

Litscher also said since he took over the agency in 2016, courts have started to send juvenile offenders to the prison again after a state and federal investigation into alleged abuse of inmates began. The prison population has increased about 19 percent since August.

State Journal reporter Molly Beck contributed to this report.
PARDEEVILLE  The second battle of the Bobs may be more intense than the one that happened two years ago.

But its hard to fathom how it could possibly be any closer.

In 2015, Bob Becker won a fourth term as Pardeeville village president, beating Trustee Bob Abrath by just five votes  a total confirmed by a recount.

Now, Becker is seeking his fifth two-year term, and hes doing it with tools that hes never had to use before, including a Facebook page and door-to-door canvassing.

Abrath, meanwhile, is being equally aggressive in seeking votes, as yard signs have cropped up all over Pardeeville  some of them paid for, he said, by his fellow trustee, Brian Hepler.

April 4 is Election Day in Wisconsins spring nonpartisan elections, which are dominated by town, village and city posts up for grabs all over the state.

Pardeevilles election for village president is one of the few in Columbia County that is contested  and the candidates would agree that contested is an understatement.

People want change, Abrath said.

Furthermore, he said, the biggest change that would happen, should he relinquish his trustees seat for that of the village president, would be that he would set the Village Boards agenda.

That agenda should entail more accountability on the part of village officials and employees, said Abrath, who was first elected to the Village Board in 2010. That includes follow-through on projects like street improvements.

Becker said he brings experience to the post of village president, as well as a focus on whats best for the village.

The village president is just one vote on the Village Board, which includes the president and six trustees.

There have been times, Becker said, when hes cast a vote that ran counter to his own opinion, because he concluded that the opinions of other village residents carried greater weight.

In February 2012, the Village Hall was packed for public hearings on a proposed water quality improvement project for Park Lake, which entailed drawing down the lakes level.

Becker said he had thought that the drawdown would be good not only for the lakes overall quality, but also for the village  in that it would provide an opportunity to replace worn-out water and sewer lines that run under the lakes surface.

But when trustees voted 4-3 against the water quality improvement plan, Becker was in the majority, because he said village residents communicated their strong objections to the drawdown. (Abrath also voted against the plan.)

Becker said at the time that he believed he had been elected to decide on issues based on what the people want, not necessarily on his own opinions.

He said much the same in a phone conversation Monday.

I just step back, he said, and look at the big picture.

Becker also said the Village Board, on his watch, has held the line on property taxes, while still providing services such as police protection (contracted with the Columbia County Sheriffs Office) and ambulances (as one of the municipalities participating in the Pardeeville District Ambulance Service).

Both Abrath and Becker are campaigning knowing that the margin of victory in 2015 was razor-thin.

The initial count showed that Becker got 200 votes and Abrath got 195.

That count held up in a two-hour recount that entailed reading aloud the names of all village voters who cast a ballot, and examining each ballot by hand.

On two things, Becker and Abrath agree strongly: Village residents need to vote in the April 4 election, and they need to be aware and involved in the Village Boards activities year-round.

Abrath he would like to see Village Board meetings be live-streamed someday, so that people can monitor them without going to 114 Lake St. at 7 p.m. on the third Tuesday of every month.

Becker said peoples voices need to be heard.

I just hope people get out and vote, he said. After all, its a democracy.
Nearly 50 students are part of a spring art contest in Reedsburg.

Drawings, pottery and three-dimensional works make up this years Focus on Art, a show organized and sponsored by the Reedsburg Area Womens Club. Middle-school students at local public and parochial schools participate for the chance to receive ribbons and small cash prizes.

The exhibit is on display at the Reedsburg Public Library through April 13. First- and second-place entries will later be displayed at Reedsburg Office Supplies April 14-28.

Visitors can vote for their favorite piece if they visit the library exhibit. The Peoples Choice Award is a new feature this year, said Cindi Morgan, event chair and Womens Club member.

Contest entries are judged by volunteers, many who are former art instructors. Everything is anonymous, so theres no risk of one student or school being favored over another, she said.

Submissions were all completed this school year, Morgan added. School art teachers choose which items to send to the contest, and most select one piece per student. Its rare to see multiple entries from one child, she said.

Morgan said the national level of the club has conducted a contest since the 1800s to showcase local talent while inspiring creativity. Art is a lifelong skill that can be enjoyed regardless of age. Even if youths dont pursue it as a career, they can still make art for fun or support arts in their communities.

Its important to give young people that little extra encouragement, she said.

Winners

Here are the winning entries, according to information from the Reedsburg Area Womens Club.

Erica Lovegreen, first place-2D category, 7th Grade, Webb Middle School.

Taylor Olson, first-place-3D category, 7th Grade, Weston Middle School.

Haley Shanks, second-place-2D, 7th Grade, Webb Middle School.

Alyshia Towne, second-place-3D, 7th Grade, Weston Middle School.

Joshua Thomas, third place-2D, 7th Grade, St. Peters Lutheran School.

Summer Thompson, third place-3D, 7th Grade, St. Peters Lutheran School.

Chase Connors, honorable mention-2D, 7th Grade, Weston Middle School.

Lourdis John, honorable mention-3D, 7th Grade, Webb Middle School.

Lucas Bauer, first place-2D, 8th Grade, Webb Middle School.

Lylianna Decorah, second place-2D, 8th Grade, Weston Middle School.

Danielle Hatfield, third place-2D, 8th Grade, Weston Middle School.

Tessa Bell, honorable mention, 8th Grade, Weston Middle School.

Ribbons were not awarded in the three-dimensional category for 8th Grade due to an insufficient number of submissions.
MLA NA Haris categorically denied wanting to bring in a ban on women employees working on night shifts but believes prevention is always better than cure.

By Nolan Pinto: The joint house committee of the state legislature on women and child welfare recommended that women working in Information Technology (IT) and Bio-Technology (BT) companies not be assigned night shifts in the interests of their safety. The recommendation was made in the committee's 32nd report on Monday.

The committee, headed by NA Haris, had interacted with the employees and management of Infosys and Biocon during their visit to the organisations in 2016 followed by which it made the recommendation.

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MLA NA Haris categorically denied wanting to bring in a ban on women employees working on night shifts but believes prevention is always better than cure. He cited the example of Amazon which has already shifted women working in the US night shift to the UK shift.

FOR A SAFER ENVIRONMENT: MLA NA HARIS

"We have to understand that women working on night shifts have children and families to take care of. They also have a bigger moral responsibility of grooming the future generation," he said adding, "Men too have a greater responsibility - to protect women at large."

Stating that the government wants a safe society for people to live and work in, Haris is of the view that in many places women are forced to work on night shifts, which must be avoided. "Whenever possible assigning women on night shifts but where there is no chance, they can go ahead," Haris told India Today.

This recommendation might also go against the state government's historic decision to remove restrictions on allowing women to work on night shifts in all sectors. This was done to provide equal opportunities to women. The government had amended the Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1961 and the Factories Act 1948 to make the changes in the work schedule.

GOVERNMENT FAILING IN ITS DUTY TO PROTECT WOMEN?

But this recommendation has not gone down too well with many, especially in the IT sector. Mohandas Pai, chairman of Manipal Global Education and a former member of the board of directors of Infosys, has lambasted the government for even thinking on these lines. "This is a ridiculous assertion in the 21st century and shows a medieval attitude in the minds of the committee members as well as its chairman," Pai said.

He added that this recommendation is clearly an admission that the government is failing to protect its citizens, which is its constitutional obligation. "This is not acceptable. The government should not meddle with people's personal lives. If people want to work at night, they should work. There are health and safety standards which they must comply with. It is in no way the government's business," Pai told India Today.

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According to him, this will also portray our nation in a bad light since Bengaluru is India's global city today. "What will the world think of us when we have people saying women cannot work at night and women cannot travel at night? The city should be shut down early? But, what are we paying taxes for then?," he said questioning the government. He claims the reason for this is the misuse of the police force by politicians.

Pai said that it is the duty of the government to protect us all since we pay taxes and that citizens must have an uncompromising attitude on such issues. "If this does not end now, tomorrow they might say women should stop working," he said.

"I am disappointed that Haris has chaired a committee which has made such suggestions," he added.

RECOMMENDATIONS WILL NOT SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY

Pai is confident that this recommendation will not pass through as he believes that there will be no supporter for it. "I don't think sensible people will accept this. I don't think even the CM and the women of the city will accept this," he said adding, "instead of recommending on how to protect women and improve policing, they are focusing on such ridiculous issues."

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ALSO READ | Bengaluru nightmare: On New Year's Eve, women molested in police presence; no cases filed yet

--- ENDS ---
Fellow officers, family and community members honored Officer Jed Seidl on Monday as he retired from the Wisconsin Dells Police Department after 29 years of service.

The Police Department held an open house for Seidl offering him a chance to be honored as an officer one last time before retiring.

Seidl was born and raised in Milwaukee. After high school he went into the military for six years before moving to Wisconsin Dells, where he had spent his summers as a youth at his familys summer cottage. His wife, Kristi, is a detective at the Lake Delton Police Department. The Seidls have three children, sons Mikel and Zakrie and daughter Kylie.

Seidl said he considers his fellow officers to be a second family.

Today has been an amazing day for me, he said. I have had so many visits from family and friends. I will miss the people who work here and for the city; they are some of the most phenomenal people I know. It is surreal that 29 years have passed. As an officer every day was different, it was always so different. I think it was so impacting to see the process of being able to help someone take effect so instantly. There were many nights that I went home to hug my wife and knew that by Gods grace alone, was the only reason I am sitting here today. Wisconsin Dells has lots of nice families and it is a good community.

Seidl said hes looking forward in retirement to having more time for woodworking and camping and enjoying the everyday moments, more family moments.

It is a major relief that he is safely retired after 29 years, said Kristi Seidl. I started in law enforcement and learned more from him than any other officer in my career. Jed is intelligent, loving and compassionate.

Community businesses shared in celebrating Seidls legacy as an officer with signs and photographs of him displayed across town commemorating his retirement and service to the area.

Jed gave his all to every case, he was excellent at being empathetic, said Lt. Perry Mayer. Certainly, Jed is an excellent role model for the other officers; he is so appreciated. He has a wonderful sense of humor  rated for all audiences. Jed has been fantastic with kids, the elderly and everyone in-between. Jed was so thorough in everything and an ambassador of humor and the lighter side of things. Jed has earned every bit of comfort that retirement brings. I wish him a healthy, fun, enjoyable time during retirement and I hope it lasts a long, long time.
Hamba Kahle Uncle Kathy

Statement: Ahmed Kathradas legacy will continue to inspire us and future generations.

The University of the Witwatersrand extends its condolences to the family and friends of struggle veteran Comrade Ahmed Kathrada who passed away at the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre this morning.

Comrade Kathrada was a globally renowned political figure, a strong advocate for deepening the practice and understanding of non-racialism, and a humble human being who always had a moment to engage with students, academics, and members of the Wits community.

Fondly known as Uncle Kathy, he selflessly dedicated his life to fighting for freedom, justice, non-racialism and democracy, for the benefit of others.

He spent three months at Wits in 1950, studying towards a Bachelor of Arts degree, when his studies were interrupted by the politics of the time and he left the country.

Wits conferred an Honorary Doctorate of Literature on Comrade Kathrada, which he accepted on 11 December 2012. Read the full citation. He used his address at this gathering to talk about South Africas strong judiciary and legal stalwarts, and encouraged citizens to protect the Constitution. He also made an appeal for the legacy of the founding fathers of South Africas democracy to be respected, and not to be trampled upon in any way.

We commiserate with the family and friends of Comrade Kathrada, and those who knew him well. It is an extremely difficult loss for our country, but we take comfort knowing that his legacy will continue to flourish in the wake of his passing, that his contribution to South Africa and the world will inspire future generations, and that his commitment to non-racialism will never be forgotten.

Hamba Kahle Uncle Kathy  rest in peace.
An encounter broke out Tuesday morning between militants and the security forces in Chadoora in Kashmir's Budgam district. One militant was shot dead and the houses he was holed up in was burnt down by forces. The encounter came just two days after two Hizb-ul-Mujahideen members were gunned down by forces in south Kashmir's Pulwama district.

Soon after the encounter began, locals started protesting at the site, even pelting stones at the security personnel present on the spot. Three youngsters - Zahid Rashid Ganie, Saqib Ahmad, Ishfaq Ahmad - later succumbed to injuries sustained in retaliatory firing from the CRPF and Jammu and Kashmir Police jawans.

Speaking to news agency ANI, CRPF Deputy Inspector General Dr Sanjay Kumar called today's encounter and the subsequent clashes a "really difficult" situation, saying the forces were fighting on two fronts. "One was against the militants and other was the local people. Out of them, few people really made our day difficult," he said, adding that there was a "lot of commotion, stone pelting (and) abusing."

A total of 63 security personnel were injured in the stone pelting, Kumar said. 43 CRPF jawans were injured and 20 policemen were hurt in the violence, which ANI sources said Pakistan had a role to play in.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti expressed deep anguish over the civilian deaths, saying, "It is highly painful to see the young boys losing their lives. "We know there are issues that need to be addressed and resolved but no one will be able to do anything at a point when violence becomes a norm," she added.

CRPF DIG also issued an appeal, asking locals to let security forces carry out their operations unhindered. "I believe that the people of Kashmir should let law take its own course and not obstruct the operation as the operations are against militants. They should let us do our duty," he told ANI.

Meanwhile, separatist leaders in the Valley, including Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik, have called for a complete shutdown on Wednesday. They leaders condemned the deaths the of three youngsters in Chadoora and also urged people to hold protests after prayers on Friday.

Meanwhile, railway services will remain suspended in the Valley on Wednesday, considering the grim law and order situation.

Reacting to today's violence, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah said the incident reflects the "alarming situation" in the valley . Abdullah, who is contesting the upcoming by-polls from Srinagar Lok Sabha seat, said, "The unfortunate tragedy in Chadoora today and all such incidents indicate how alarming the situation has become."
Listen carefully to those who disagree with you

Professor Harvey Dale from New York University receives an honorary doctorate from Wits University.

Have the courage to hear  indeed, to listen carefully  to the views of those who disagree with you.

This is the message that Harvey Dale, a Professor at law at New York University for more than 40 years, offered the graduands of the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management at the University of Witwatersrand at their graduation ceremony on Tuesday, 28 March.

Harvey, who received an honorary doctorate in law from the University, told graduands that they must escape from the cocoon of avoiding the views of those who disagree with them.

In my youth, information often came from newspapers and magazines, many of which were exemplary in providing balanced and curated information, he said. Today, information is readily available from a multitude of sources on the internet and through social media, and it is tempting to select sources that agree with your pre-existing beliefs and biases.

Have the courage to hear  indeed, to listen carefully  the views of those who disagree with you, even those whose views or voices are disturbing you. So, you must have the courage to escape that cocoon, to search out and ponder ideas that may seem discordant, to be ready always to have your beliefs challenged and tested.

The 80-year-old Dale, Dale is a recognised expert and leader in the field of nonprofit law and has advised groups in Australia, China, Mexico, Russia, the United Kingdom, and South Africa regarding legal issues affecting nonprofit organizations and the formulation of laws governing these organizations. Prof Dale holds a BA from Cornell University and a JD Cum Laude from Harvard Law School, and is a member of the American Academic of Arts and Sciences.

It is Professor Dales role in the founding and development of Atlantic Philanthropies that has had a particular impact on South Africa and the University of the Witwatersrand.

Atlantic became involved in South Africa largely on the initiative of Professor Dale who was particularly interested in how Atlantic could promote black lawyers, of which there were very few in the early 1990s, to advance the far-reaching rights of the newly-approved Constitution. To this end Atlantic funded the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at Wits University on projects relating to black lawyers, as well as training of judges on human rights issues.

Between 19912013, Atlantic invested $355.5 million to seek justice, promote better health care and greater health equity, and deliver services that support transformative social change, foster human rights and dignity in South Africa

Dale encouraged graduands to strive to respond to orthodoxy with gentle skepticism.

You must struggle to avoid the great sin of intellectual certitude, he said.
The world's problems are because of a lack of appropriate leaders

Former Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, receives an honorary doctorate from Wits.

Former Public Protector, Advocate Thuli Madonsela, said a lot of the challenges that we face today is not so much because of the lack of leadership, but in the lack of appropriate leaders.

Addressing graduands at the Graduation Ceremony for the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management at the University of the Witwatersrand on Tuesday, Madonsela  who received an honorary doctorate in law from the University  said that in order for our democracy to remain functional and sustainable, the rule of law must be the default position.

I also believe that for the rule of law and democracy to survive, we need appropriate leaders, she said.

Appropriate leaders understand that the burden of leadership involves an awareness that the burden of leadership includes an understanding that both what you do and say matter, and what you do not do or say matter regarding influencing others in believing and achieving something.

Appropriate leaders know that it is not just their commands or directives that determine where others go, but also their actions. Above all, appropriate leaders influence and inspire people to do what will take them to the future that they aspire to. They dont pronounce one future but do something else.

Madonsela praised late struggle stalwart, Ahmed Kathrada, who passed away on Tuesday, saying that he was an appropriate leader. We lost such a leader this morning. Before democracy, he was one of the leaders who was imprisoned for asking for an inclusive South Africa, where the colour of a person was no justification for privileges or disadvantage, she said.

After that, he has persistently called for a South Africa that is inclusive. He has fought against racism, fought against corruption and fought against maladministration. Why I regard him as an appropriate leader, is that he is somebody that has walked the talk. When he has spoken about selfless leadership, he didnt take the lions share of our limited resources for his own comfort.

This was Madonselas fifth honorary doctorate, but, she said, one that holds a special place, as Wits was one of her forming grounds as a lawyer. We do our work because we must. We give everything we do our best shot out of love, she said.

Read the Thuli Madonsela citation

Read the Thuli Madonsela Speech

Madonsela is one of six recipients of honorary doctorate degrees in Wits first graduation cluster for 2017, which runs from 23 March to 31 March. The other recipients of honorary doctorate degrees are business leaders Patrice Motsepe and Adrian Gore, Professor Dale Harvey, Patricia Horn and Professor Eddie Webster. More than 5 000 students will be capped during this period.

Madonsela received her BA in Law at the University of Swaziland in 1987, after which she completed an LLB at Wits in 1990. She joined the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at Wits University as a Ford Foundation intern in 1992 ad then joined its Gender Research Project from 1993 to 1995. Madonsela was particularly involved in labour law issues and in working with women in trade unions, as well as constitutional issues. She was so involved with South African constitutional issues, that she had to forfeit a Harvard scholarship to remain engaged on these issues in the country.

In 2007, Madonsela was appointed as the full-time member of the South African Law Reform Commission, by President Thabo Mbeki. She served on the SALRC until 2009 when she was appointed as Public Protector of South Africa by President Jacob Zuma for a non-renewable seven-year term (commencing 19 October 2009). She was unanimously supported for this position by the multi-party National Assembly. At the announcement of her appointment, Zuma said that Madonsela will need to ensure that this office continues to be accessible to ordinary citizens and undertakes its work without fear or favour.

She likens her role as Public Protector to the Venda chief's paternal aunt, known as the makhadzi  a non-political figure who gives the people a voice while giving the traditional leader a conscience. In particular, it has been her willingness to speak truth to power, to defend the integrity of her Office and to hold even the most senior government officials to account that has won her the lasting respect and affection of the nation.
Fetal Medicine Specialist to head Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology

Adjunct Professor Hendrik Lombaard has been appointed Academic Head for the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the School of Clinical Medicine.

Adjunct Professor Hendrik Lombaard has been appointed Academic Head for the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the School of Clinical Medicine effective from 01 March 2017. Prof. Lombaard takes on the leadership role in addition to continuing as Head of Department: Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital, where he was appointed Adjunct Professor University of Witwatersrand in 2015.

In his time at the Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital, with the department delivering 13000 babies a month, Lombaard made significant strides in improving maternal care. He established an accredited Maternal and Fetal Medicine training unit, initiated invasive fetal medicine, established a second genetic counselling clinic and developed a close working relationship with the Department of Human Genetics of the NHLS.

I am honoured to take up a leadership role in the School and hope to play a significant role in building the competency and collaboration of the Obstetrics and Gynecology staff across all three hospitals. Refining the quality of care delivered to the patients and improving the experience of patients when they have contact with the hospitals is the primary concern and opportunity. I plan to focus on staff development to improve outcomes for mothers, says Prof. Lombaard.

In addition, he sees a great need for research in Obstetrics and Gynecology to be strengthened, particularly as the clinical setting is a context and data rich environment for research in a range of diverse topics from maternal death to the microbiome. Prof. Lombaard is also geared towards establishing and extending research collaboration with Leuven and the Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam and the University of Pretoria.

The son of a GP, Prof. Lombaard, chose to study in the health professions and graduated with his MBCHB from the University of Pretoria in 1997. He completed his internship at Jubilee Hospital in the Norwest and his community Service in Kgapane Hospital in Limpopo. In 2003 he completed his MMed from the University of Pretoria and became a Fellow of the South African College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in the same year. After which he was appointed as Consultant at the Kalafong Hospital and Lecturer in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Pretoria. During this time he had the opportunity to attend a presentation by the esteemed Prof. Peter Soothill from the University of Bristol, who discussed the future of fetal medicine. This presentation was the spark to his passion for fetal medicine.

In 2005 he was awarded a University of Bristol (UK) three months fellowship for training in fetal medicine and studied in the maternal and fetal unit at the St Michaels Hospital fetal medicine under Prof Soothill. Returning to South Africa to again work at the Kalafong Hospital he was promoted to Senior Specialist and Senior Lecturer.

In 2007 he joined the Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria as a senior specialist and senior lecturer at the University of Pretoria. He began private practice as a Fetal Medicine Specialist in tandem in 2008. In 2011 he was invited by Katholieke Universiteit van Leuven in Belgium for a fellowship in training for advanced fetal interventions. On return, he took up the leadership of the Obstetrics Clinical Unit at the Steve Biko Academic Hospital and Senior Lecturer with the University Pretoria until 2015. He was appointed Adjunct Professor at the University of Pretoria in January 2015

Towards the end of 2015, Prof. Lombaard joined Wits as Head of Department for Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital and was appointed Adjunct Professor at the University.

One of the interesting projects he has worked on with Wits School of Public Health on is a research project to better understand the experience of patients in the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Rahima Moosa. With several media reports over the past few months on this issue of ill-treatment of patients, he is part of a group of concerned academics who would like to better understand the problem and implement appropriate strategies to improve this.

He has also been instrumental in piloting the extension of the academic teaching platform and has been involved with the initial GEMP 3 students going to Leratong Hospital during their Obstetrics rotation.

Prof. Lombaard has been registered with the HPCSA as a maternal and Fetal Medicine Specialist since 2007. He has several local society memberships and is a member of the International Society of Obstetric Medicine as well as the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Recently he has been invited to take up the editorship of Clinical Obstetrics a South African perspective
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They tried to scare his family members by firing two to three rounds in air. No one was however injured.

By Shuja-ul-Haq : Two militants ransacked the house of an SP in Kulgam this evening. The militants barged into the house of Mohd Ayub Mattoo, father of SP (Operations), Bandipora, Dawood Mattoo, under Khudwani area in Kulgam.

They tried to scare his family members by firing two to three rounds in air. No one was however injured.

This report comes after a militant was shot dead at Chadoora in Budgam district during an encounter. After the incident stone pelters clashed with police and three civilians were killed.

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This comes just days after two Hizb-ul-Mujahideen militants were killed in an encounter in south Kashmir's Pulwama district.

Also read:

Kashmir: 3 civilians killed, 63 jawans hurt in clashes after Budgam encounter - what you need to know

Kashmir: Railway services to be suspended amid calls for state bandh over civilians killed in clashes

Jammu Kashmir: Militants attack minister Farooq Andrabi's home, snatch weapons from policemen

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Under Professor Darryl Cunningham's supervision, LL.M. students adjust to the practice of law in a new culture. Photo by David F. Morrill

From theory to practice: Under Professor Darryl Cunningham's supervision, LL.M. students adjust to the practice of law in a new culture. Photo by David F. Morrill

Clinics and internships play a key role in helping law students put their newly acquired legal knowledge and skills into practice. But for many LL.M. students, the transition from student to lawyer also requires mastering a new language and a new culture.

Since 2009, Professor Darryl Cunningham has helped approximately a dozen LL.M. students face these challenges head on. He has worked with them at his Family Law clinic and at the Williamsburg office of the Legal Aid Society of Eastern Virginia, where he is a senior attorney.

Professor Cunningham has been very generous with his time and energy to give our LL.M. students these opportunities, said Professor Jennifer Stevenson, the Associate Director of the LL.M. program. Practical skills really gel when working with legal aid or in the clinics, and this gives them an opportunity to be on an even ground with J.D. students.

Agata Przekop, a Class of 2016 LL.M. graduate from Poland, discovered this while working in Cunninghams Family Law clinic during the spring semester of 2016.

I think that working in a clinic is the best way to learn law, she said. You can study entire code sections and procedural aspects, but before you can apply it in real life, it is just theory.

Przekop said that she enjoyed her experience so much that she asked Cunningham if she could volunteer full-time at the Legal Aid Society during the summer. He agreed.

I have only good things to say about Professor Cunningham, she said. He is not only a very good attorney, but also a very good teacher.

Przekop said that Cunningham involved her in virtually all aspects of cases, from interviewing clients to drafting legal documents. She also appreciated that his hands-off approach as a supervisor was motivated by a desire to help students figure things out by themselves.

If there are general tasks, like dealing with a client, you have to suggest what steps to take, she said. When I was assigned to a case, he would give me a file, and the initial job was read through the file and figure out what to do next.

However, he would regularly sit down with students and give them a lot of helpful feedback about their work. Przekop recalled having daily conversations with Cunningham and regularly approaching him with questions about her work.

We could always knock on his door and come in and talk, she said. He was very open.

Cunningham said that one of the biggest challenges with LL.M. students has to do with language. Although every student is fluent in English, many are not used to writing in formal legalese.

He said that he edits each drafted document and discusses them with each student. Although initial documents often require a considerable amount of editing, he said that students get used to the legal writing required in the clinic by the end of the semester.

This process was very helpful for Przekop, who is not a native English speaker.

In addition to adjusting to a new language, many LL.M. students are also adjusting to the practice of law in a new culture. LL.M. students have previously studied the law, and many have practiced law in their home countries.

This gives them a different perspective, said Stevenson. Our norms on marriage, divorce, and family law are so culturally embedded that someone who grew up in the U.S. may see things one way, while others may see things differently.

But far from being a barrier to success, the linguistic and cultural diversity of LL.M. students often comes with benefits, particularly when working with clients who are themselves from abroad. Cunningham recounted working with a client who was a Chinese woman seeking a divorce.

It just happened that a Chinese LL.M. student in our Family Law Clinic was the next in line for that client, he said, adding that it enabled her to speak in their clients native language. That made things very smooth, and it was nice for her to be comfortable.

Cunningham said that he has enjoyed working with LL.M. students and plans to continue working with them.

Their work product and work ethic has always been very good, Cunningham said. They work very hard and are very interested in learning more.

Ultimately, the experience was very helpful for Przekop. She recently graduated from the LL.M. program and is currently seeking admission to the Law Schools J.D. program.

He really likes what he is doing and he cares deeply about every client, she said of Cunningham. Because of his approach, you want to work with him, and it creates an atmosphere where you know you are doing something good.
Taking a drive to Venus? W&M physicist does the math

Planet Venus Global radar view of Venus (without the clouds) taken by the Magellan satellite between 1990 and 1994. Photo courtesy of NASA

Size comparison An illustration depicts the size of planets Earth and Venus. Illustration courtesy of Walter Myers Photo - of - Hide Caption

In November of 2005, the satellite Venus Express at a speed of about 18,000 miles per hour made the trip to the second planet from the sun in about 155 days.

In the spirit of learning more about the complexities of space exploration, W&M News recently sat down with Eugeniy E. Mikhailov, an assistant professor of physics, to pose a question. Just how long it would take to drive a car  not a vehicle capable of achieving speeds of nearly 20,000 miles per hour like the Express  to travel to Venus?

Mikhailov, whose research focuses on quantum enhanced measurements stated that if everything went according to plan, that is, if the weight of the vehicle including passengers, fuel-consumption and the distance to Venus was just right, a car could make it to one of Earths closest stellar neighbors in about half a century.

First, youre going to need a rocket with enough fuel that can produce enough force to lift you and your payload of passengers and equipment needed for the trip off Earths surface, he said. In addition, fuel needed for the rest of the journey to control and perpetuate motion through space is very important. Oxygen, food and water must be available too. So, youre going to have to pack your belongings properly.

{{youtube:medium|0IIDwGui6Uc, Eugeniy E. Mikhailov, an assistant professor of physics at William & Mary discusses the difficulties that would be expected if humans were to ever travel to the planet of Venus}}

According to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at California Institute of Technology, it takes about three days to travel the nearly 240,000 miles to get to the moon from Earth using the optimal speeds of space-craft like Apollo 11. However, the specific distance can change depending on the trajectory taken, the JPL says.

But if you wish to move past that distance and head to Venus, plan on bringing a few books because Venus is about 100 times farther than the distance from the moon is to the Earth. And depending on the actual date, the distance between Earth and Venus increases, so you will have to time your trip to well in advance, according to Mikhailov.

If you were to use the face of a clock as an example to denote our placement in the solar system it would look something like this, he said. The Earth will signify the hour-hand, Venus will represent the minute-hand and the center of the clock is our sun. And just like a clock, there will be a point when those hands have moved apart so much that they are totally opposite of each other. Every couple of years or so, this same pattern applies to Earth and Venus. Venus distance from Earth increases as the years on our planet passes. This will happen to the point that Venus orbit will place it on the opposite side of the Sun while our planets position remains on the side. Therefore, at its furthest, Venus distance can be about 160,000,000 miles away or about 1.7 astronomical units so youre going to have to time your departure from Earth before our two planets come within their closest distance.

The speed of the vessel traveling to Venus is also extremely critical to a successful voyage, Mikhailov said. An automobile moving through space while maintaining a speed of 60 miles per hour to help conserve fuel would take about 50 years, said Mikhailov.

{{youtube:medium|9YiNz0crP2o, Eugeniy E. Mikhailov, an assistant professor of physics at William & Mary calculates the time and distance it would take to travel to the planet of Venus.}}

Believe it or not, thats kind of a reasonable estimate, he said. However, I wouldnt wish anyone to be stuck in a car with anyone else for that long of a time. You and your best friend may not be best friends after that trip.

According to Mikhailov, once on Venus, the travelers would have to consider the inhospitableness of the planets atmosphere. The planets temperature is a serious concern to human life and the equipment used to facilitate a working environment would be destroyed by the intense heat. Therefore, Marswith its extremely cold temperatureswould probably be a better choice for humans to colonize even though it is farther away than Venus, said Mikhailov.

Just think about how hot your oven gets when youre baking cookies at an average temperature of about 400 degrees Fahrenheit, he said. Well, double that number on the planet of Venus. The planets overall [surface] pressure is dangerous to human physiology as well. Our computers which we will need to operate on Venus are designed to operate within the Earths normal temperature. Maybe a little below the point of freezing and maybe up to the point of boiling water. So, our equipment would be damaged or destroyed almost immediately and that will make living there very difficult.

However, there are a few things a human would appreciate living on the surface of Venus, Mikhailov said.

We would feel slightly lighter [in weight], he said. The gravitational pull on that planets surface is about 90 percent that of Earths. So, that means we could possibly jump a little higher and walk a little easier.

{{youtube:medium|SGpNFQWyC6k, Eugeniy E. Mikhailov, an assistant professor of physics at William & Mary discusses the logistical aspects of space flight to the planet Venus.}}

Currently, Mikhailov is working on several quantum optics projects. In particular he is researching the imaging of the squeezed (below standard quantum limit) quantum states. He and his team hope to have preliminary results within the coming year.
The YouTube vlogger is going to perform for a very special private audience during her world tour.

By India Today Web Desk: You know how we got a teeny-tiny bit jealous of Lilly Singh when she played games with former First Lady Michelle Obama?

Yeah, now that jealousy is going to grow manifold, because Lilly Singh is going to be performing for a very private audience in Mumbai next month. Who might this private audience be, you ask? Oh nobody, just Shah Rukh Khan and family.

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The YouTube sensation, Superwoman Lily Singh, has been on her How To Be A Bawse world tour of late, and she plans to visit India next month as part of it.

Lilly is coming to India (Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad) after travelling across New York and Toronto, and is heading to Vancouver after.

In the past, Shah Rukh Khan has admitted to being a fan of hers. That's actually evident in him inviting her to perform for him and his kids at Mannat.

But this isn't the first time Lilly Singh will be performing at Mannat. During one of her earlier trips to India, SRK had invited Lilly for a private session for his kids.

Lilly is also expected to launch her book by the same name, How To Be A Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life, marking the start of her tour today, March 28.

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The worlds of psychology and science fiction collide

William McIntosh: To date, he has published six novels and 50 short stories and has been nominated for 13 awards. Photo by Stephen Salpukas Photo - of - Hide Caption

William McIntosh is living a dream as a science-fiction author, spending his days writing, revising and brainstorming new ideas for stories  some of which may soon be on television.

The William & Mary adjunct lecturer of psychologys transformation from full-time professor to full-time author, however, is a story in itself.

After receiving his doctorate in social psychology at the University of Georgia in 1990, he immediately went to work as a professor at Georgia Southern University. He would go on to spend 22 years at GSU in a tenured position and began writing only as a hobby.

I had an interesting dream, a science fictiony kind of dream, and decided, Im going to write that as a story, he said. So, it kind of became a hobby, and the hobby grew. But I really didnt have any intention of changing careers.

According to McIntosh, from an outside perspective, it appears that he left the security of his tenured position to pursue his dream. However, he says it happened differently than one would expect.

After the birth of his twins, McIntosh and his wife realized that rural south Georgia was not the place that they wanted to begin their family. Several factors inspired the move from south Georgia to Williamsburg, Virginia.

I was seeing enough success [in my writing]; I had just gotten a two-book contract to write two science fiction books, McIntosh said. So we kind of looked and said, Now is as good a time as any.

After his wife, Associate Professor of Kinesiology Alison Scott, secured a position at W&M, he submitted his resignation to GSU and gave up the tenured position for writing, an act that, according to McIntosh, was nerve-wracking. But they decided that they wanted to call Williamsburg home.

The move allowed him the opportunity to devote the majority of his time to writing.

It was really a quality of life move, and it just so happened that my hobby was something that I could transform into full-time work, he said.

To date, McIntosh has published six novels and 50 short stories and has been nominated for 13 awards.

Two years before making the move to Williamsburg in 2012, McIntosh was awarded the Hugo Award for Best Short Story and was nominated for a Nebula after the publication of Bridesicle in 2009.

According to McIntosh, having received both reader- and writer-nominated awards, there is no award that he desired more than the Hugo. After being told by fellow authors that his chances of winning were slim-to-none, he surprised even himself when he won it at the World Science Fiction Convention in Sydney in 2010.

I was stunned, he said. But, what it really said is that the people voting just read the stories and voted for the ones they liked best. It wasnt a popularity contest. So, that was really gratifying.

Where it all began

From a young age, McIntosh was drawn to books and movies about science fiction.

I was about four, and my grandfather had me for the day, McIntosh said. We were doing errands around his neighborhood in Manhattan. We went into a little store with a little black and white TV that was on, and it was showing the original King Kong,

And I looked at it and I thought, What is that? I must see this. Its my first memory of this very intense fascination with things that are science-fiction.

And it was one of these original cool, science fiction dreams that he had later in life that would eventually become his labor of love, Faller, McIntoshs most recent novel released in October 2016.

Basically, its about a guy who wakes up with no memory, and hes on a chip of Manhattan thats floating in a blue sky, McIntosh said. He goes to the edge where pipes are torn out and the road just crumbles, and theres nothing as far as you can see in every direction, including down, but blue sky. And everyone whos with him has no memory of what has happened.

Eventually, he figures out how to make a parachute and he jumps off of it and falls for three days and lands on another little chip of North America and starts to drop to try to learn what happened.

Faller is told from the view of a brilliant physicist, a scientific area with which McIntosh is unfamiliar. But with the help of W&M Physics Professor Marc Sher, McIntosh was able to craft a reasonably accurate story based on physics and science.

He sat down with me and really helped, McIntosh said. I mean, he really had to do a lot of work with me to get it to where this guy sounded like a physicist and the stuff that happened, as much as it could, make sense from a physics point-of-view.

Combining two worlds into one

McIntoshs writing differs from typical science-fiction, which is characterized by discussions of technology, physics, genetics and other out-of-this-world sciences, he said. Instead, he mostly bases his tales on psychological and social sciences  topics he knows best.

Currently, he has two books set to be released this year: Watchdog, a middle-grade book, in October and his second young adult book in June.

In years past, Defenders and Love Minus Eighty were optioned to become movies. Unfortunately, at the end of the options, which last only 18 months, producers decided not to pursue either film due to perceived high budgets and other reasons, McIntosh said.

However, Watchdog, which has not even been released yet, and Love Minus Eighty have both been optioned to become potential television series, with Watchdog being actively developed as a possible Netflix series.

For McIntosh, Love Minus Eighty, based on the Hugo-award-winning short story, Bridesicle, is still the story that he holds closest to his heart due to the overlap of his beloved psychology and science-fiction worlds.

It wasnt my idea to turn it into a book, McIntosh said. It was actually the publishers  What they said was, Expand it by exploring love and courtship in the future. And I thought, Thats awesome! I love that idea. I was doing research on internet dating, and I thought, Okay, I can sink my teeth into this.

Love Minus Eighty was chosen by National Public Radio as one of the Best Books of 2013 and was voted best science fiction book of the year by the American Library Association in 2013.

McIntosh currently spends his days trying to come up with an idea for a book series. For aspiring authors, he has just a few pieces of practical advice.

Write a lot and get feedback, he said. And the other advice I would give, its not necessarily positive advice, but have a fallback plan.
After returning to Karjat on March 11, the girl filed a complaint with the Karjat police but they did not register it and instead assaulted her.

By Divyesh Singh: A woman was arrested for abducting a 15-year-old girl and selling her to traffickers almost six months after she was sold as sex slave to different men. The incident came to light after the minor girl, who was kidnapped last year and sold thrice, finally escaped from the clutches of the accused and returned to her hometown in Karjat.

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After returning on March 11, the girl even filed a complaint with the Karjat police but they did not register it and instead assaulted her. After days of inaction in the matter, the Shiv Sena members today gheraoed the Karjat police station in protest. The Karjat police is now investigating the case after interference from the Child Welfare Commission.

The girl was kidnapped on September 9, 2016 when she had left home after an altercation with her mother over her marriage as a minor. A woman from the neighbourhood approached her and took her home in Raigarh district. She then tried getting the girl raped but after the minor resisted, she was sold to a woman trafficker in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

GIRL PARADED IN FRONT OF BUYERS

The trafficker tortured the girl, starved her and kept her blindfolded in a dark room. She was also paraded in front of several buyers who wanted to buy her as a sex slave. A 35-year-old man then bought her from the woman trafficker and took her to an undisclosed location in the outskirts of Ahmedabad.

The girl was forced to have sex but when she resisted she was burnt, tortured using electric current and starved after which she gave in to his demands. She was returned to the agent after a month who then sold the girl to another man. He repeated the episode until the minor gave in to his demands.

When she was served food, sedatives were added to her meals. But one night earlier this month, she did not eat the food served and managed to remain awake. Making the most of the opportunity, she screamed for help and neighbours came to her rescue.

She reached Karjat on March 11 but did not find her family at their residence. She then approached the police and recorded her statement. The cops listened to her ordeal but did not register a case claiming she was lying.

According to officials from the district Women and Child Development department, no investigation was done even after the minor complained about her neighbour. The girl then recited her ordeal to counsellors from Child Welfare Committee (CWC) following which child protection department and Women and Child Development were informed.

CHILDLINE, CWC INTERFERE AFTER INACTION

Officials from Childline recorded the girl's statement with district Child Protection officer and District Women and Child Development officer, which ordered the police to register an offence under POCSO and Child Trafficking Act.

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CWC officials have written to Karjat police asking them to register a case against the accused involved in the sex racket under relevant sections of IPC, POCSO and Juvenile Justice Act.

"The victim was sent to the women shelter where counsellors from the Childline met her. She was sold thrice as sex slave. Despite the victim revealing details of her ordeal, the police did not register a case and in turn, assaulted her and sent her to the women shelter. The police initially didn't register the case despite our orders to follow the procedure according to the rules under the juvenile justice act," Mahendra Gaikwad, Woman Child Development Officer, Raigad district said.

"The victim's statement reveals that a sex racket involving minors is being run from Karjat and spreads across various states. Sex slaves wihin the age bracket 14-16 year old are being sold, which is a serious situation. We demand that the case be transferred from Karjat to some other jurisdiction where senior officers take immediate action against the accused involved," district Childline coordinator Raigad district, Ashok Jangle said.

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"The girl came back on March 11 and recited her ordeal. We have started the investigation," Vijay Chawre, assistant police inspector posted at Karjat police station, said.

When asked if the victim was assaulted by the police as claimed by CWC officials and the victim, Chawre said, "This is false. We are already investigating the case under sections of POCSO Act and will add other relevant sections. We have also arrested the girl's neighbour who had abducted her and sold her to another woman involved in women trafficking in Gujarat with two of her accomplices.

ALSO READ | Riyadh : Indian sex slave's rescue reveals widening web of human traffickers in India

ALSO READ | Five minor girls, sold by parents, rescued from Kerala's Kannur

ALSO READ | Bikaner gangrape case: Minor girl recalls the horror

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A group of women participants at the seminar had protested the remark, terming it as "anti-women".

By Press Trust of India: Interim Congress president in Kerala M M Hassan has courted a controversy with remarks that menstruation made women impure and they should not enter temples during that period.

"Women become impure during menstruation. Women cannot enter temples during this period," he told a seminar on 'Media and Politics' yesterday.

Having drawn flak for his comments, Hassan today sought to clarify that it was not his personal opinion and that he had only stated the prevailing "social situation".

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A group of women participants at the seminar had protested the remark, terming it as "anti-women".

"My remark about impurity is not my opinion..I only said (about) the prevailing social condition," he told reporters.

Hassan was recently appointed interim president of KPCC following the resignation of V M Sudheeran.

"Muslim and Hindu women during their menstruation period, on their own, used to keep away from places of worship. This is the social situation that exists. I had only explained this when a participant asked a question in this regard at the seminar," he added.

MEDIA TO BE BLAMED?

Hassan also claimed his statement had been distorted by a section of the media.

"Whether I am supporting it or not is not the point. It is the social situation," Hassan said, adding "political parties cannot change the customs and traditions of religions."

When asked about his opinion on the ban on entry of girls and women in the age group of 10 to 50 into the famous Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala, he said political parties were not religious reformers.

"We (political parties) respect the customs and traditions of religions," he said.

Also read:

Sabarimala temple opens to pilgrims but it is still a long wait for women

Twinkle Khanna: Why be ashamed of menstruation? It's a biological function This woman used period blood of nine months to paint an unborn child

Also watch:

India Today Woman Summit 2017: These women are bringing the change we want to see

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ETCHED IN STONE: Stonecutter has left his mark when it comes to memorials in Rhode Island
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Global nuclear safety meeting under way

28 March 2017

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Significant progress has been made in strengthening nuclear safety across the world, and the need to maintain a robust nuclear safety culture is now universally recognised, delegates to the Seventh Review Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS) were told yesterday. The meeting is taking place at the Vienna headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Yukiya Amano and Ramzi Jammal, in the centre of the picture, at the opening of the review meeting (Image: D Calma/IAEA)



The CNS guides participating states operating nuclear power plants to maintain a high level of safety by setting international benchmarks in nuclear installation siting, design, construction and operation, financial and human resources, safety assessment and verification, quality assurance and emergency preparedness. The convention entered into force in October 1996, and has 80 contracting parties. They are required to report on implementation of their obligations under the convention at review meetings held every three years.

Opening the meeting, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano reviewed safety initiatives implemented in recent years including the IAEA Action Plan on Nuclear Safety, adopted after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident, and the 2015 Vienna Declaration on Nuclear Safety.

"After the Fukushima Daiichi accident, countries with nuclear power programs took vigorous steps to reassess all aspects of safety and some countries reformed their regulatory systems. IAEA activities related to the Action Plan are now being implemented through the agency's regular work," he said.

Amano said the IAEA would continue to focus on regulatory effectiveness, safety culture and capacity-building, and that it would give increased attention to issues such as the safety of radioactive sources used in industry, health care and other non-power applications. He said every country using nuclear technology had a responsibility to create a robust framework for safety and security. "This is a national responsibility that cannot be outsourced. But effective international cooperation is also essential," he said.

The president of the review meeting, Ramzi Jammal, who is Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission executive vice-president, said increased participation and transparency were his primary objectives for the meeting. For the first time, all national reports will be posted on the CNS public website 90 days after the review meeting, unless specifically requested otherwise. "Our commitment to transparency can be demonstrated by each contracting party proactively posting their national report, as well as their questions and answers report, on the public CNS website," he said.

He said the meeting would provide contracting parties with a first opportunity to discuss plans and actions following the release of the IAEA Director General's Report on the Fukushima Daiichi Accident in 2015.

"The next two weeks offer us the opportunity to renew and refocus our collective commitment to global nuclear safety," Jammal said. "Focusing on continuous improvement and learning from each other is essential to avoiding complacency."

The Seventh Review Meeting runs until 7 April.

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by World Nuclear News

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High court lifts Takahama injunction

28 March 2017

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The Osaka High Court in Japan has lifted an injunction that has kept units 3 and 4 of Kansai Electric Power Company's Takahama nuclear power plant offline for the past year. The court agreed with the utility that the units, which are in Fukui prefecture, are safe to operate.

Takahama 1 and 2 to the right, with units 3 and 4 to the left (Image: NRA)

In late January 2015, 29 residents of Shiga prefecture - part of which lies within 30 kilometres of the Takahama plant - filed a petition with the Otsu District Court for a temporary injunction against operation of Takahama 3 and 4. Four hearings were subsequently held. The court's presiding judge Yoshihiko Yamamoto ruled on 9 March that the safety of the units cannot be guaranteed - despite Japan's nuclear regulator saying they meet revised safety standards - and issued an injunction against their operation.

Unit 3 of the Takahama plant had resumed operation on 29 January, 2016. Takahama 4 was restarted on 26 February, but was taken offline on 29 February following an automatic shutdown of the reactor due to a "main transformer/generator internal failure". The injunction has since kept both Takahama 3 and 4 offline. Last August, Kansai removed the fuel from both Takahama units 3 and 4 and placed it in the units' storage pools.

Kansai appealed to the court to temporarily remove the injunction. However, the court ruled last June the injunction would remain in place.

The utility filed an appeal with the Osaka High Court on 14 July pointing out the decision of the Otsu District Court was not rational.

The company today welcomed the Osaka High Court's decision to lift the injunction, which it said "is the result of the court's understanding the safety of Takahama Power Station 3 and 4 is secure".

"We will prepare for the re-operation of Takahama units 3 and 4 while giving top priority to safety, with the understanding of everyone in the area, including Fukui Prefecture," Kansai said.

Five Japanese nuclear power reactors have already cleared inspections confirming they meet the new regulatory safety standards and have resumed operation. Another 19 have applied to restart. However, of Japan's 42 operable reactors, only Kyushu Electric's Sendai unit 1 and Shikoku Electric's Ikata unit 3 are currently online.

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by World Nuclear News

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Hinkley Point C gets go-ahead for construction

28 March 2017

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The UK's Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has granted its first consent for the start of construction of a nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point C. The consent covers the placement of the structural concrete for the first nuclear safety-related structure at the site. It does not give consent for all elements of construction.

Under a deal agreed in October 2015, China General Nuclear (CGN) will take a 33.5% stake in EDF Energy's 18 billion ($28 billion) project to construct Hinkley Point C, in Somerset, England. Consisting of two Areva-designed European Pressurised Reactors, it will be the first new nuclear power station to be built in the UK in almost 20 years and will provide about 7% of the country's electricity. The first unit is expected to be commissioned in 2025-2026.

Following the ONR's first consent announced today, site licensee EDF NNB Generation Company will now start the placement of the first structural concrete for the 'technical galleries' of the plant. These are a series of underground reinforced concrete structures to be located beneath the site and some above-ground structures, connecting services such as cooling water and electricity, the ONR noted.

"Our consent for the first nuclear safety concrete at Hinkley Point C is a key regulatory milestone marking start of construction of the first nuclear power station since Sizewell B in Suffolk," Mike Finnerty, deputy chief nuclear inspector and director of ONR's New Reactors Program, said. However, the start of construction of a nuclear power plant is usually taken from the date of pouring the concrete of the reactor basemat, which for Hinkley Point C 1 is scheduled for 2019. "We have carried out extensive assessment of EDF's safety case and preparedness for this important step at Hinkley Point C. However, this does not give consent for all elements of construction. We will continue to regulate NNB GenCos activities and have implemented a number of hold-points to ensure we have full regulatory control over the various construction and commissioning stages through to start of operation," Finnerty added.

The final agreements enabling construction of two EPRs at Hinkley Point C to proceed were signed on 29 September last year by the UK government, EDF and China General Nuclear. Their signing followed a long-awaited and positive final investment decision from the EDF board on 28 July.

The UK EPR design became the first reactor design to complete the country's Generic Design Assessment (GDA) process and receive a Design Acceptance Confirmation (DAC) from the ONR and a Statement of Design Acceptability from the Environment Agency, in December 2012.

EDF Energy and CGN also plan to develop projects to build new plants at Sizewell in Suffolk and Bradwell in Essex, the latter using Chinese reactor technology - the HPR1000. General Nuclear Systems (GNS) is a joint venture between CGN and EDF, developed to deliver the Bradwell project.

The regulators received a request from the government to commence a GDA of the UK HPR1000 reactor technology on 10 January. This followed their work with GNS, the requesting party, on the pre-requisites for GDA.

The ONR said last week the GDA process for the UK HPR1000 had formally started on 19 January and that its completion was expected in 2021.

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US energy secretary visits Yucca Mountain

28 March 2017

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US Energy Secretary Rick Perry yesterday visited the site of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and discussed the status of the project with Nevada governor Brian Sandoval. Perry said the meeting was the first step in the process of talking to stakeholders following a presidential budget request to restart licensing proceedings for the repository. Sandoval, who opposes the project, said the meeting was not the start of negotiations.

Rick Perry (in the foreground) visits the Yucca Mountain site (Image: @SecretaryPerry)



"Governor Sandoval and I had a frank and productive conversation, where he expressed his appreciation for my visit and reiterated his opposition to the proposed project," Perry said in a statement issued by the Department of Energy (DOE). "I thanked him for the long and storied history the state of Nevada has had in our nuclear and defence industries. I stressed the need for Nevada to maintain its key role as we seek sensible, stable, and long-term solutions to fulfilling our responsibility to safely manage [used] nuclear fuel."

"The President has requested $120 million in his FY18 budget to restart the licensing proceedings for Yucca Mountain. Today's meeting with Governor Sandoval was the first step in a process that will involve talking with many federal, state, local, and commercial stakeholders," Perry said.

Sandoval said the meeting, requested by Perry and held in Las Vegas following the energy secretary's visit to the Yucca Mountain site, was not "the beginning of a negotiation" regarding the project. "I reaffirmed my unwavering opposition to any potential progress toward developing the site as a potential destination for high-level nuclear waste," he said in a statement. "[T]he storage of high-level waste at Yucca Mountain is not something I am willing to consider."

Yucca Mountain has since 1987 been named in the US Nuclear Waste Policy Act as the sole initial repository for disposal of the country's used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive wastes. The DOE submitted a construction licence application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2008, but the US Administration subsequently decided to abort the project, appointing a high-level Blue Ribbon Commission to come up with alternative strategies.

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Former Union Minister MV Rajasekharan said Rahul Gandhi needs to work on the grass root level if he wants the Congress to win back the trust of people.

Rahul has to work on the grass root level to win back trust of people, says MV Rajasekharan. (File Photo: PTI)

By India Today Web Desk: Veteran Congress leader and former Union Minister MV Rajasekharan has an advice for his party's vice president Rahul Gandhi, who is facing criticism from all quarters following Congress's deplorable show in the just concluded Assembly elections in five states.

"He needs good feedback. You have to project local leaders, one cannot sit in Delhi and do the things," MV Rajasekharan said while advising Rahul Gandhi to work on the grass root level if he wants the Congress to win back people's trust.

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The Congress lost four out of the five Assembly elections. The only solace for the grand old party was its win in Punjab where it returned to power after 10 years. The party suffered a humiliating loss in Uttar Pradesh despite entering into a pre-poll alliance with the Samajwadi Party. Congress managed to win just seven out of 105 seats it contested in Uttar Pradesh. Even smaller parties like Apna Dal grabbed more seats (nine) than the national party.

PRAISE FOR PM NARENDRA MODI

Showering praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rajasekharan said the PM has managed to win the support of the younger generation.

In a letter to Modi, Rajasekharan eulogised him for establishing a "direct rapport" with the electorate and for getting support from the poor and women cutting across religion and caste.

Rajasekharan, son-in-law of former Karnataka Chief Minister S Nijalingappa, also drew parallels between the 'Garibi Hatao'(abolish poverty) slogan of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and Modi's assertion of making the middle class equal partners in the development process.

In 1971, Gandhi had given the call for removing poverty when the opposition parties called for 'Indira Hatao' (remove Indira).

In his letter, Rajashekaran said, "I would like to take this opportunity to convey my heartiest congratulations on the tremendous success of the BJP in the recent Assembly elections in the five northern states, specially on getting two-thirds majority in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand."

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--- ENDS ---
What Are Cloves?

Cloves, an important spice, are aromatic flower buds of the Syzygium aromaticum tree. A native of Indonesias Maluku Islands, the clove tree is currently also grown and harvested in some countries of the Indian subcontinent and Africa.

Cloves were used as early as 1721 BC as is evident from cloves found in a ceramic vessel in Syria dating back to this time. According to accounts, a Chinese leader of the Han dynasty had ordered those who addressed him to chew cloves to freshen their breath. During the Middle Ages, cloves were an important trade item in the flourishing Indian Ocean trade. Ibn Batuta also mentions the clove trade in his accounts.

Botany Of Cloves

The clove tree is an evergreen tree that grows about 8 to 12 meters tall and has large leaves and sanguine flowers. The flower buds gradually change color from a pale hue to green to bright red at the time of harvest. The buds (which is the harvested clove) have a long calyx which ends in four sepals that are spread out, and four petals that are unopened forming a tiny ball at the center. The cloves are harvested when 1.5 to 2.0 cm long.

Production Of Cloves

Today, Indonesia, the place of origin of the clove tree, still leads the world in clove production. In 2013, Indonesia produced 109,600 tons of clove. Several African countries also produce cloves and rank high in clove production. The tropical climate of these countries favor clove production. Madagascar ranks second in the production of this spice, producing 10,986 tons of clove in 2013. Tanzania, Comoros, and Kenya are the other leading clove producers in Africa. India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka in South Asia are also important clove producers.

Uses Of Cloves

Asian, African, and Middle Eastern cuisines use cloves to a prepare a great variety of delectable dishes. Cloves are used to flavor curries, marinades, and meat. Cloves are also used to give aromatic qualities and flavor to hot beverages like tea or coffee. Cloves are also popularly used in Mexican and Peruvian cuisine.

Clove has also several non-culinary uses. It is used in kretek, a type of Indonesian cigarette. The bioactive chemicals in clove are utilized to prepare ant repellents. Cloves also find a significant place in traditional medicine in India and China. Cloves are said to help relieve toothaches and are associated with improved digestive health. Cloves are used as a carminative, and as an anodyne. The spice is also believed to be naturally anthelmintic.
Finland is a sovereign country located in Northern Europe. It is a Nordic country located in the Fennoscandia which also includes its neighboring Scandinavian countries. Finland has a population of about 6 million people, with the majority of the population living in the southern part of the country. The country is a parliamentary republic where the central government is headquartered in Helsinki. The local government consists of 317 municipalities. The Constitution of Finland is the basis for the political system in the country. The politics take place under the parliamentary representative democratic republic. Finland is a multi-party state with the president as the head of state. The Parliament, the President of the Republic, and the Government are the highest elected bodies.

The Government Of Finland

Finland is governed by its status as a republic with representative democracy. The public administration is composed of the highest elected bodies, state administration, local government, and the judiciary. The highest elected body is made up of the parliament, the president, and the government. The Parliament of Finland exercises the legislative powers while the executive power is exercised by the cabinet supervised by the premier who heads the government of Finland. The president heads the state and has powers to make a decision concerning some matters such as personal appointments and pardons.

The Central Government Of Finland

The prime minister together with eleven ministers makes up the Council of State in Finland. The cabinet directs the Finnish Government. The prime minister is appointed from the party in plurality. In practice, the premier is usually the leader of the party with the majority after the election. The premier is normally called a negotiator before he forms the government. Once elected by the parliament, the prime minister nominates the ministers in charge of the various ministries. The president officially appoints the premier together with other ministers. A minister must be a Finnish citizen, honest, and competent. The ministries implement government decisions within their mandates and represent the various administrative sectors in domestic and foreign cooperation. The ministries also draft laws which are reviewed by the government and parliament before enactment. The Council of State is made up of more ministers than ministries as more than one minister heads some of the ministries. On paper, there are only 12 ministries including interior, defense, foreign affairs, justice, education, agriculture, and environment among other ministries.

Regional And Local Government Of Finland

There are six Regional State Administrative Agencies in Finland. The administrative agencies are responsible for the provision of public services and legal permits including rescue services and environmental permits. The local government in Finland is made up of 317 municipalities. The municipalities are the basic units for organizing governments at the Regional State Administrative Agencies. The indirect public administration supports the local government in the management of the welfare society. The organizations carry out tasks or execute public powers such as conducting inspections and hunting licenses.

The Legislative And The Judicial Branch Of The Government Of Finland

Finnish parliament is unicameral made up of 200 members who exercise the supreme legislative authority including dismissing the cabinet and altering the constitution. The parliament is elected for a four-year term using the DHondt method and can be resolved by the recommendation of the prime minister and endorsed by the president. The courts in Finland operate independent of other administration under the principle of separation of power. The judiciary bases its decision on the law. There are 27 district courts, six courts of appeal, and six regional administrative courts
Nepals government became a federal democratic republic following the abolition of the monarchy in 2008 and the passing of a new constitution in 2015. The South Asian country of Nepal borders China and India. For most of its history, Nepal embraced a unitary form of government. Federalism came up as a potential solution to the nations regional imbalance in regards to development, unemployment, and poverty.

The President Of Nepal

The President of Nepal serves as the nations head of state. The institution of the presidency in Nepal was created with the declaration of the country as a Republic in 2008. Ram Baran Yadav was elected as the states first president. The task to elect Nepals president rests with an electoral college constituting the countrys parliament and members of the provincial legislatures. If either of the candidates fails to garner the majority of the delegates votes, a runoff pits the top two candidates until one of them gets the majority. The President of Nepal mainly executes ceremonial duties. Its executive, judicial and legislative functions are carried out on the advice of the Council of Ministers. The current president of the nation is Bidhya Devi Bhandari who was elected in 2015.

The Executive Branch Of The Government Of Nepal

Executive duties in Nepal are carried out by the Council of Ministers. The council is comprised of the prime minister, two deputy prime ministers, 24 ministers, and 14 state ministers. The prime minister is indirectly elected by parliament by political consent. The prime minister can either appoint members of the council from members of parliament or out of parliament. The executive appoints and transfers relevant officials in the countrys civil and military departments. It supervises government agencies to ensure they are running efficiently. The executive is mandated to maintain the countrys law and order and protect the nation from foreign invasion. The institution tables the budget in parliament for approval, and imposes taxes. Other duties of the executive include tabling bills in parliament, summoning and adjourning sessions of parliament, and signing foreign treaties.

The Legislative Branch Of The Government Of Nepal

The countrys 2015 constitution created two chambers of parliament. 275 members representing constituencies will sit in the House of Representatives while the National Assembly will have 59 members elected for six-year terms. The 2nd Nepalese Constituent Assembly currently executes legislative duties in the country. The Parliament successfully promulgated the new Constitution on September 20, 2015. The Nepalese government made history on October 16, 2015, by electing its first woman speaker, Onsari Gharti Magar. Womens representation has notably increased in the assembly, a situation lauded by the global community. The assembly approves bills and represents the interest of the citizens. It also keeps the executive arm of the government accountable.

The Judicial Branch Of The Government Of Nepal

The government of Nepal has an independent judicial arm. The judicial hierarchy is headed by the Supreme Court which inspects and supervises the actions of lower courts and other judicial institutions. A network of appellate and district courts serves the countrys citizens. Special courts or tribunals are created to solve special matters. The prime minister appoints an individual to occupy the office of the Chief Justice upon advice from the Constitutional Council. The judges responsible for the Supreme Court, appellate and district courts are appointed upon advice from the Judicial Council.
The Kingdom of Thailand is located at the center of the Indochinese peninsula in Southeast Asia. The country has a population of over 65 million people and covers an area of 198,000 square miles. Vehicular traffic in Thailand drives on the left. The country is a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy. The government of Thailand is a unitary government with the country emerging as a modern state after the the founding of the Chakri Dynasty in 1782. The constitutional monarchy replaced the absolute monarchy after the Revolution of 1932. Thailand has been ruled by a succession of military leaders after a coup detat. The country has been ruled by a military junta since 2014 and has had 17 constitutions in its history. However, the basic government structure has remained the same with the government composed of executive, legislature, and the judiciary.

The Monarchy Of Thailand

Although the sovereignty of Thailand is vested in the people, the king exercises sovereignty through the three branches of government. The constitution limits the powers of the king, but he remains a key figure in Thailand. He is the head of state and has plays some roles in the functions of the government. He is the head of the Thai forces and defender of all faith despite being required to be a Buddhist. He is also the head of the House of Chakri, Thailands ruling house. The official home of the monarch is known as the Grand Palace. The succession to the throne is guided by the 1924 Palace Law of Succession which allows only the males are allowed to ascend the throne while crown is passed from father to son only.

The Executive Branch Of The Government Of Thailand

The government of Thailand is headed by the prime minister. The premier is the head of the major party in the House of Representatives. He or she is selected by election in the lower house of parliament and approved by the king. The premier heads the executive branch and also heads the Cabinet of Thailand. The prime minister has the powers to appoint and dismiss ministers and is the main spokesperson for the government. He or she represents the country abroad and also formulates the countrys foreign policies. The Thais Cabinet is composed of 35 ministers and deputy ministers who are in charge of cabinet ministries. The Cabinet formulates and executes government policies. Most of the cabinet ministers are members of the lower house although this is not a mandatory requirement.

The Legislative Branch Of The Government Of Thailand

The Parliament of Thailand is bicameral, composing of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The national assembly consists of 630 members. The Senate is made of 76 elected members from the 76 provinces and 74 selected members by the Senate Selection Commission. The Senate plays an almost insignificant role in legislation but retains a lot of powers on appointments of the members of the judiciary and other government agencies. The House of Representative is the legislative house. It is composed of 500 members of whom 375 are elected from the constituencies around the country while the 125 are selected from the party list. The house is led by the Speaker while the leader of the largest party is likely to become the prime minister.

The Judicial Branch Of The Government Of Thailand

Thailands judiciary is made up of four separate systems. The court of justice is the main court system forming the most number of courts in the country and is composed of three tiers, the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, and the First Instance Court. The administrative court settles disputes between the states and state organs. Other court systems include the military courts and the constitutional court.
Ukraine is a sovereign country in Eastern Europe with a population of about 43 million people. The country is a unitary republic under a semi-presidential system. The country exercises separation of power with three levels of government: legislative, executive, and judiciary. Ukraine operates under a multi-party system. The president and the government hold the executive power while the legislature is vested in the parliament. The politics of the country has been categorized as over-centralized and associated to the legacy of the Soviet Union and caused by the fear of separatism.

The Executive Branch Of The Government Of Ukraine

The highest body of Ukraine's executive power, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine was formed on April 18, 1991, by the Law of Ukrainian SSR No.980-XII. The cabinet is made up of five individuals and several ministers representing the various ministries. The vice prime ministers head some of the ministries. The president appoints the premier who must be confirmed by the parliament. The prime minister in consultation with the president nominates members to the cabinet who are also approved by the parliament. The Presidium of Cabinet is composed of the prime minister, first vice prime minister, and other vice prime ministers. The premier presides over the Cabinet. The Cabinet is answerable to the president and is held accountable by the parliament.

The duties and functions of the Cabinet are described in Article 116 of the Ukrainian Constitution. The members of the cabinet are exempted from judgments against them and are not allowed to combine their official activities and personal work. The cabinet issues orders that are mandatory for execution and also participates in parliamentary discussions. The cabinet must be dismissed if the prime minister resigns. The parliament can also dismiss a cabinet minister through a vote during a parliamentary session. The state agencies with a particular status under the direct coordination with the cabinet ministers also exercise the executive power in Ukraine. These agencies include Anti-Monopoly Committee of Ukraine, State Property Fund of Ukraine, and the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption.

The Legislative Branch Of The Government Of Ukraine

The legislature in Ukraine is administered by the Parliament of Ukraine known as Verkhovna Rada. The parliament consists of 450 deputies elected by equal and universal suffrage. Each of the deputies is allowed to have up to 31 assistants with four of them allowed to be admitted into the secretariat of the parliament. The deputies enjoy parliamentary immunity and enjoy free housing, free transportation, and free medical services. They are required to take oath in parliament before discharging their duties. The deputies elect from the members the Chairman (Speaker), First Deputy Chairman, and Deputy Chairman. The Verkhovna Rada keeps the executive under check and approves executive appointments. The parliament also formulates policies and debate bills concerning the country.

The Judicial Branch Of The Government Of Ukraine

The judiciary in Ukraine is independent in principle. However, in practice, there is no separation between the political power and the judiciary. The judiciary consists of four levels of courts of general jurisdiction including local courts, the Court of Appeal, high courts, Supreme Court, and constitutional court. The president appoints the judges upon the nomination by the Supreme Council of Justice. The Congress of Judges is the highest judicial body and is responsible for the enforcement of the decision by the Congress

The Local Government Of Ukraine

Ukraine has 24 administrative divisions (Oblasts) which are further divided into subdivisions known as the raions. The Cabinet of Ministers nominates the heads of local government who are then appointed by the president. The heads of governments serve as representative to the central government. The local government is charged with the responsibility of planning and budgeting, managing of municipal property, promoting social welfare, and managing social amenities at the local level.
Where Is The Atlantic Forest?

The Atlantic Forest in South America stretches along the Atlantic coast of the country from the state of Rio Grande do Norte to the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The forests also stretch inland into Argentinas Misiones Province and Paraguay. The forests here feature a high diversity of species and high levels of endemism. Currently, the Atlantic Forest has experienced large-scale deforestation. Many species of plants and animals living in the Atlantic Forest biome might soon become extinct.

Biodiversity Of The Atlantic Forest

Despite large areas of the Atlantic Forest being degraded and lost, a lush biodiversity and a rich collection of endemic species are still the main features of the remaining forest area. About 40% of the vascular plants and 60% of the vertebrate species living here are endemic to the region. 92% of the amphibians of the Atlantic Forest are found nowhere else in the world. 140 species featuring in Brazils list of threatened species are residents of the Atlantic Forest. In Argentinas Atlantic Forest region, 22 species are listed as threatened while in Paraguays part of the forest, 35 species are listed as threatened.

Sadly, in the past 400 years, nearly 250 species in the region have ceased to exist due to human activities in the region. The biodiversity is so rich that in certain locations within the biome, a one-hectare patch of land hosts almost 450 species of trees. New species are also being continuously discovered here. Between 1990 and 2006, nearly a 1,000 new species of flowering plants were discovered here.

The Impact Of Human Activities On The Atlantic Forest

The Atlantic Forest was the first native environment encountered by the first Europeans who arrived in Brazil. At the time of this contact, the forests were estimated to occupy an area of 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 square km. Now, only 15% of this area remains forested.

The growth of modern human settlements and their exploitation of forest resources for economic gains has led to the destruction of vast tracts of pristine forested land. Human-modified landscapes now occupy 85% of the original forest habitat. This includes cities, towns, pastures and croplands. Coffee, tea, tobacco, biofuel crops, and sugar-cane are the main crops cultivated here. The worst loss of forest land has been due to animal agriculture where forests have been cleared to allow livestock land for grazing.

The wildlife of the region has also been extensively hunted for various purposes. 10 to 80% of the canopy cover of the forest is removed due to logging activities. Fire due to irresponsible human activity is also quite common in the region.

Ongoing Conservation Efforts To Save The Species Of The Atlantic Forest

Several nongovernmental organizations are currently dedicated to working in Brazil to solve the crisis facing the Atlantic Forest region of the country. Local organizations and individuals working to save the forests are being provided support and professional assistance by international organizations like BirdLife International, WWF, and others. Wildlife Corridors are being built in the region to maintain the biodiversity of the Atlantic Forest. A $44 million USD has been granted by World Bank to establish the Central Biodiversity Corridor. Similar projects are being planned and executed in the region.
Severe land degradation has affected over 168 countries around the world. The number indicates a significant increase in the number of affected countries from 110 states in the 1990's. The cost of land degradation has also increased significantly to a whopping $490 billion USD per year. The degradation is also wiping out areas three times the size of Switzerland annually. Desertification is impeding development, especially agriculture in most of these countries leading to widespread famine and malnutrition. These countries have to rely on donations from other countries as their land is rendered useless for any meaningful production. Desertification has also played a major part in shaping the human history. Several empires such as Greece and the Roman Empire collapsed because of desertification

What Is Desertification?

Considerable controversies exist over the definition of the term desertification with over 100 formal definitions existing today. However, the widely acceptable definition is given by the UNCCD is "degradation of land in arid and dry sub-humid region caused by several factors including climate change and human activities". Desertification is, therefore, a type of land degradation whereby a dry area becomes arid and loses its water bodies, vegetation cover, and wildlife. A desert is either human-made or natural depending on the process of its formation. Most of the worlds known deserts are formed through a natural process which interacts over an extended period of time independent of human activities.

What Factors Are Responsible For Triggering Desertification?

There are several causes of land degradation with most of the causes related to drought, climate change, poor agricultural practices, and poor water management. Loss of vegetation cover is an immediate cause of land degradation. The loss of vegetation is driven by intensive agriculture, deforestation, and overgrazing which exposes the soil to erosion and surface runoff. Unprotected soil can also be carried away by wind leaving the infertile lower soil layer exposed to the sun. The exposed soil becomes an unproductive hardpan and develops desert-like features. The landscape may go through different stages and transform in appearance as the process of desertification takes place. Desertification may create large empty spaces over a wide range of land, a situation known as Brousse tigress. Climate change is a major contributing factor to desertification in areas with minimal human activities. Climate change contributes to change in the pattern of vegetation growth which may lead to the loss of vital plant species that are important soil cover. Climate change also alters the climate of an area which may lead to the formation of dry sub-humid climate which sustains the process of desertification.

What Are The Ill-Effects Of Desertification?

Dry areas cover about 40% of the Earth's surface and are home to billions of people. About 10-20% of the dry land is already degraded with 2.3 million to 4.6 million square miles affected by desertification affecting over 120 million people living in dry areas. A further one billion people around the world are under the threat of desertification according to the UNCCD. Land degradation and drought are slowing the rate of development in about 200 countries. An estimated 4 to 12% of the agricultural GDP is lost annually due to the poor environmental conditions resulting in widespread severe hunger and strife in most continents. The food crisis is acute in many African countries including Somali, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti where the weak government and inadequate annual rains attributed to global warming are facilitating desertification. In China, about 500 million people are affected by land degradation leading to an annual economic loss estimated at $10 billion.

Areas Most Affected By Desertification

Severe land degradation leading to desertification is now affecting over 168 countries around the world. Africa and Asia are the most affected areas in the world by desertification. The impact of climate change and human activities are present in these areas with high levels of desertification compared to other areas in the world. Africa has lost over 250,000 square miles of its productive agricultural land over the last 50 years. Sahara desert covers the largest area with the desert climate in Africa. Sudan is suffering from the effect of desertification which has been brought about by the effects of climate change. The amount of rainfall is lowest in the northern part of the country where land degradation is severe. The area receives about 24 mm of rainfall annually which is not sufficient for the sustenance of agriculture and livelihood in the area.

Tunisia is one of the North African countries worst hit by the effects of desertification. The country has one of the worst overall soil conditions while the Sahara Desert covers much of the country. Poor farming methods such as overgrazing, deforestation, and limited natural resources such as water are also contributing to desertification. Tunisia has fallen short of the global 10% of its land under protection with the country protecting less than 3%. 17 mammal species and two reptiles are threatened while one mammal species and 792 plant species are extinct due to the effect of desertification in Tunisia. Tunisias desert conditions and effects are similar to other North African countries including Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, and Libya.

Desertification and land degradation in China are both natural and human-induced. More than 27% of the country comprises of a desert. China population is fed by only 7% of the country. The areas affected by desertification in the country are marginal. Desertification is distributed in arid and semi-arid areas of the western part of the North East China. The areas are characterized by three types of desertification: soil salinization, sandy desertification, and land degradation as a result of water erosion. Desertification in China has caused diverse impact in the country including reduced farmland, falling incomes, and out-migration within the country.

Countermeasures And Prevention

Measures exist for mitigating and reversing the effects of land degradation. However, there are many obstacles to implementing some of the measures which have been put forward. Lack of political will and the cost of such measures is slowing the rate of their implementation. Reforestation is being encouraged by environmental organizations. The local population is focusing on educating the local community on the dangers of deforestation and the need for reforestation. The Food and Agricultural Organization has launched the Drylands Restoration Initiative to draw together knowledge and experiences on dryland restoration. Environmentalists are also promoting sustainable agriculture that focuses on soil conservation. However, the cost of adopting a sustainable agriculture may exceed the benefit to an individual farmer.
By Press Trust of India: (Eds: Updating with end of armys Operations Twilight)

From Anisur Rahman

Dhaka, Mar 28 (PTI) The chief of the terror group blamed for Bangladeshs worst terror attack at a Dhaka cafe was among the four Islamist militants killed in one of the countrys longest anti-terror operations in Sylhet, police said today.

"Our intelligence suggests one of the four is top neo-JMB (neo-Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh) leader Musa," Polices Assistant Inspector General M Moniruzzaman told PTI.

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The army said they have wrapped up their assaults on the militant den by late evening.

"Accomplishing all (our army) actions, the building has been handed over to the police administration as a crime scene this afternoon with announcement of the end of Operations Twilight," army spokesman Brigadier General Fakhrul Ahsan told a news briefing at Sylhets Jalalabad Cantonment.

The commandos main assault had ended yesterday with the killing of all four militants inside the five-storey building.

Military took one more day to accomplish the required procedures including further security searches and disposal of devices left by the slain extremists, he said.

"The entire operation was carried out in line with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas specific directives," Ahsan said.

The July 1 attack on Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhakas posh diplomatic area killed 23 people, including an Indian girl.

Meanwhile, Forensic investigation was ordered to further confirm Musas identity as his face was mutilated in the fierce encounter. Officials earlier identified the man only as Musa, saying he took the charge of the outfit as a massive anti-militancy operations killed several top neo-JMB leaders after the July 1 attack on Holey Artisan cafe.

Musa was among four terrorists killed during Operation Twilight, one of the countrys longest anti-terror operations launched after a suicide bomber on Friday night blew himself up at the international airport in Dhaka in an attack claimed by the ISIS. It came a week after an identical attack on a Rapid Action Battalion camp in Dhaka.

The four militants, including a woman, were holed up in a building that saw powerful blasts claimed by the Islamic State that killed six people in northeastern Sylhet city.

Bangladeshs army today cleared the booby-trapped militant den in Sylhet and carried out controlled explosions of bombs in the building.

Several powerful blasts rocked the area as armys bomb disposal experts engaged in defusing the explosives planted at different corners of the building by the militants.

"They (troops) are using drones to get a clearer picture before stepping inside different corners of the building to evade booby traps," an official said.

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Sylhet-based 17 Infantry Divisions Major General Anwarul Momen was leading the operation, assisted by polices SWAT and counter-terrorism units.

"The militants had kept a bucket filled with explosives at the collapsible gate at entrance of the building. When we detonated them from distance, the collapsible gate was blown out so vigorously, walls of another building several yards away were severely damaged," Ahsan said.

He earlier described the militants as "well trained" referring to an example when they hurled back a live grenade thrown by the commandos as the assault was underway.

Authorities called out commandos on Saturday morning, two days after a security siege to the building.

On Saturday evening, two powerful bombs ripped through a crowd near the building, killing six people, two being police officers and injuring about 50, including two army officers.

RAB Intelligence Wing chief Lt Col Abul Kalam was seriously wounded in blasts and flown to Dhaka for treatment. He was later flown to Singapore.

Hours later the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack through its propaganda news agency Amaq.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, however, rejected the ISIS claim, saying that there was no presence of any foreign terrorist group in the country.

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The encounter continued into Sunday, when army commandos shot dead two militants at the building. The militants were equipped with small arms, explosives and grenades.

Residents who lived in the house as tenants said they were virtually taken to hostage with militants warning them of bombs implanted on their way out while the commandos brought them out from the top of the building making their way there from the rooftop of an adjacent structure.

Bangladesh has been witnessing a spate of attacks on secular activists, foreigners and religious minorities since 2013. The country launched a massive crackdown on militants specially after the Dhaka cafe attack. PTI AR UZM CPS ZH AKJ CPS

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ATTOM Data Solutions has just released itswhich ranks the best U.S. markets for buying single-family rental properties in 2017.According to their study, the average annual gross rental yield (annualized gross rent income divided by median purchase price of single family homes) among the 375 counties was 9.0 percent for 2017, down from an average of 9.1 percent in 2016."While good returns on single family rentals are hard to come by in high-priced coastal markets and in some other housing hot spots such as Denver and parts of Dallas, Austin and Nashville, solid returns on single family rentals will continue to be available in many parts of the Southeast, Rust Belt and Midwest for investors purchasing in 2017," said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at ATTOM Data Solutions. "And single family rentals should continue to yield strong returns in many parts of the country going forward given the market undercurrents of low rent-ready housing inventory and low homeownership rates. Average fair market rents increased in 2017 in 86 percent of the markets we analyzed even while average wage growth outpaced rent growth in 67 percent of markets -- a recipe for sustainable growth in the rental market."Counties with the highest annual gross rental yields were Clayton County, Georgia, in the Atlanta metro area (23.7 percent); Baltimore City, Maryland (23.6 percent); Bibb County, Georgia, in the Macon metro area (23.5 percent); Monroe County, Pennsylvania, in the East Stroudsburg metro area (20.6 percent); and Saginaw County, Michigan (18.8 percent).Among 40 counties with a population of at least 1 million people, those with the highest gross rental yields were Wayne County, Michigan, in the Detroit metro area (17.3 percent); Cuyahoga County, Ohio in the Cleveland metro area (13.2 percent); Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, in the Pittsburgh metro area (10.6 percent); Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (10.1 percent); and Franklin County, Ohio in the Columbus metro area (9.9 percent).Counties with the lowest annual gross rental yields were Arlington County, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C., metro area (3.4 percent); Williamson County, Tennessee, in the Nashville metro area (3.9 percent); Santa Cruz County, California (4.1 percent); Norfolk County, Massachusetts, in the Boston metro area (4.2 percent); and Santa Clara County, California, in the San Jose metro area (4.2 percent).Along with Santa Clara County, the lowest gross annual rental yields for counties with a population of at least 1 million were in Kings County (Brooklyn), New York (4.4 percent); Orange County, California, south of Los Angeles (4.6 percent); Fairfax County, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C., metro area (4.6 percent); and Queens County, New York (4.7 percent).Median sales prices for single family homes rose faster than average fair market rents in 213 of the 375 counties (57 percent), resulting in declining gross annual rental yields in the same percentage of counties.Counties with the declining gross annual rental yields included Los Angeles County, California; Cook County, Illinois, in the Chicago metro area; Maricopa County, Arizona in the Phoenix metro area; Miami-Dade County, Florida; and Queens County, New York."Unlike their apartment counterparts, single-family home rental rates in the greater Seattle area have leveled off significantly," said Matthew Gardner, chief economist at Windermere Real Estate, covering the Seattle market, where in King County the annual gross rental yield in 2017 is down from 2016 thanks to median home prices increasing 5 percent compared to a 1 percent increase in average fair market rents. "While home prices in this area continue to see steep increases, rents have not followed suit. I believe this is because the incomes of those who rent single-family homes are not keeping pace with rising home prices, so rents have had to adjust to the realities of the market."Single-family home rental rates will likely continue to see very modest increases, as many of these renters are converting to buyers," Gardner continued. "In fact, 'Boomerang Buyers', who were forced to become renters when they lost their homes to foreclosure, are now in a position to qualify for a mortgage again. This process could lead to declining demand for single-family rentals, forcing landlords to adjust their rents accordingly in order to keep their properties occupied."The report identified and ranked 25 counties with the best potential for future growth in returns on single-family rentals. In all 25 counties, average weekly wages increased at least 5 percent annually and outpaced growth in fair market rents. All 25 counties also had gross annual yields of 9.5 percent or higher.The top five counties for single family rental growth were Trumbull County, Ohio, in the Youngstown metro area (17.2 percent); Saint Lawrence County, New York, in the Ogdensburg-Massena metro area (17.1 percent gross annual rental yield); Richmond County, Georgia, in the Augusta metro area (16.6 percent); Broome County, New York, in the Binghamton metro area (16.4 percent); and Lucas County, Ohio, in the Toledo metro area (14.5 percent).The report also identified and ranked the 10 best counties for renting single-family homes to millennials. In all 10 counties, the millennial share of the population increased at least 5 percent between 2014 and 2015 -- the most recent data available from the Census Bureau -- and millennials accounted for at least 20 percent of the total population in 2015. All 10 counties also posted annual wage growth. For purposes of the report, millennials were defined as anyone born between 1979 and 1994, limiting it to millennials at least 20 years old in 2014 and likely to be potential homebuyers.Sorted by annual gross rental yield, the top five millennial single family rental markets were Saint Clair County, Michigan, in the Detroit metro area (14.5 percent gross annual rental yield); Jackson County, Michigan (13.4 percent); Saint Louis County, Minnesota, in the Duluth metro area (11.8 percent); Jackson County, Missouri, in the Kansas City metro area (11.2 percent); and Cleveland County, Oklahoma, in the Oklahoma City metro area (9.7 percent).The top five zip codes with the highest potential single family rental returns for 2017 were 43605 in Toledo, Ohio (119.4 percent); 63115 in St. Louis (90.4 percent); 21223 in Baltimore (87.2 percent); 08104 in Camden, New Jersey (86.3 percent); and 35208 in Birmingham, Alabama (78.4 percent).The five zip codes with the lowest potential single family rental returns for 2017 were 33480 in Palm Beach, Florida (0.7 percent); 90210 in Beverly Hills, California (0.8 percent); 90402 in Santa Monica, California (0.8 percent); 90049 in Los Angeles, California (1.1 percent); and 90272 in Pacific Palisades, California (1.2 percent).
Young girl (illustration)

By: Emily Lewis WorldWideWeirdNews.com

A priest who was accused of raping a young girl, shamelessly told a court that he could not rape the child due to the size of his manhood, according to court documents in Zimbabwe.

Bulawayo police said that they have arrested 26-year-old Clayton Nkala, after being accused of raping the 8-year-old girl who attends his church.

Nkala has been charged with one count of rape. Following a trial, Nkala was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The last five years of the sentence has been suspended.

According to the police investigation, Nkala, who is married, watched the 8-year-old girl collecting cans in the street. He then dragged her to an abandoned house, where he raped her.

The following day, the girlas mother noticed blood on the childs panties. When the mother asked the girl to explain, she said that she was raped.

A week later, the girl told a church elder that Nkala raped her.

The church elder called the police, and the priest was arrested.

In court, Nkala claimed that the girl framed him. He also told the court that his manhood is very large and would not fit in such a small girl.

Bulawayo Regional Magistrate Mr Chrispen Mberewere convicted the priest due to the overwhelming evidence in the case.
NHAI has commissioned one side of the Honda Chowk flyover for motorists.

By Ajay Kumar: Construction of transportation infrastructure is gaining momentum in Gurugram, with the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) commissioning one side of the Hero Honda Chowk flyover for motorists.

The Hero Honda Chowk, on the Delhi-Gurugram expressway, is one of the most congested portions of the expressway, and had hit the headlines last monsoon when traffic was stuck for 25 hours on the stretch.

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The NHAI has thrown open the Jaipur-Delhi side of the 1.4-km flyover for motorists and claimed to have completed almost 80% work of the other side too.

The area around the Chowk is low lying and hence, prone to water logging every year. Due to 'faulty construction' by the earlier concessionaire, the NHAI suggested a flyover at the place.

"We rectified the fault by proposing a flyover and underpass to ease traffic. We have set a deadline to complete the entire project by May 24 and we are moving in the right direction," said an NHAI official.

PROJECT GIVEN TO VALECHA ENGINEERING

The NHAI awarded the flyover project to Valecha Engineering in October 2014 with a completion time of 30 months.

The Authority has already started widening the existing eight-laned Delhi-Gurugram expressway to 16 lanes at certain sections like Shankar Chowk to IFFCO Chowk, IFFCO Chowk to Signature Tower Chowk and further till Rajiv Chowk apart from three underpasses on the stretch.

The NHAI is also responsible for construction of a 3-km elevated corridor to decongest the Gurugram-Sohna Road till Badshahpur.

ALSO READ | Gurugram: Hero Honda chowk to not choke anymore as Delhi-Jaipur flyover set to open soon

ALSO WATCH | Traffic jam in Gurgaon after rains wreak havoc in Delhi-NCR region

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The DM also told the students to also try understanding Indian culture and ask those who break the law to mend their ways.

By Ilma Hasan: A day after violence broke out against Nigerian students in Greater Noida, District Magistrate NP Singh held a meeting with the members of resident welfare associations and representatives of Nigerian Students Association.

Singh addressed the issue of discrimination and prejudice against African nationals, calling them unacceptable. Singh said, "They have come here to study, the rumours that are spreading need to stop. We should try understanding each other's culture".

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He also called the rumours of cannibalism that have spread ridiculous. Singh said, "We've been hearing that RWAs are not letting Africans stay, or evicting them we urge you not to do that".

The DM also told the students to also try understanding Indian culture and ask those who break the law to mend their ways.

The representatives of African students raised the point that there is a communication gap and perception problem. Godwill, a student, said, "I have spent 4 years of my life in India. But they never try to understand our culture. I am Christian, my god knows my truth. How can they say we eat other humans? God can never allow that".

Another student said, "We are trying to make things normal again. Even though we've been told not to, yet me and my friends will go to class tomorrow".

Meanwhile, the police have filed three FIRs in which nine people have been named and 300 unknown. Five people are arrested while another five are on the run.

Also read:

Attack on Nigerian students in Greater Noida: Hundreds booked, 5 arrested

Caught on camera: Mob attacks African students at mall in Greater Noida, CM promises impartial probe

Nigerians attacked near Delhi: Sushma Swaraj speaks to UP CM Adityanath, asks for report

Also watch:

Nigerians attacked: 5 held, Sushma Swaraj seeks report from UP CM Adityanath

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The WSWS Autoworker Newsletter is holding a call-in conference meeting, "The UAW's betrayal at Caterpillar: The case for rank-and-file committees" on Wednesday, March 29 at 7:00 pm, Central Time (8:00 pm EDT). To participte, call 213-416-1560 in the US or 438-800-2937 in Canada and enter PIN 581991086#.

After an unexplained delay of 16-17 hours, the UAW announced late Monday afternoon that Caterpillar workers in Illinois and Pennsylvania had approved a new six-year labor contract with the giant mining and earth-moving equipment corporation. The alleged passage of the deal, which was announced in a perfunctory press release that included no vote details, has provoked anger and suspicion from Caterpillar workers.

The contract proposal faced strong opposition from rank-and-file workers, many of whom have gone without a wage increase for a decade. The agreement, which was unanimously backed by the UAW bargaining committees, maintains the two-tier wage system first imposed by the UAW in 2005, increases out-of-pocket health care expenses and sanctions the closure of the Aurora, Illinois plant, wiping out 800 jobs. To add insult to injury, the UAW tried to ram the vote through Sunday, only days after releasing its self-serving highlights of the deal.

At ratification meetings in the Illinois cities of Peoria, Decatur and Aurora, workers angrily confronted local UAW officials trying to sell the deal. Many wore Vote No buttons and T-shirts expressing determination to recoup lost wages and benefits from the corporation, which has made record profits over the last decade and has richly rewarded its top executives and shareholders. The company is currently the target of an FBI investigation for stashing away billions in offshore tax shelters, although it is expected to greatly benefit from Trumps corporate tax and infrastructure proposals.

The UAW initially announced that it would release the results hours after voting by an estimated 5,000 workers concluded on Sunday night. However, in an unprecedented move it abruptly reversed itself and announced that a tally would not be made public until some time Monday.

Theres always suspicion about the UAW, Renee, a veteran Caterpillar worker in Peoria, told the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter. Is it not suspicious that they give you only the highlights three days before you vote? And the highlights didnt say diddly either.

There was lots of hostility yesterday at the ratification votes, Renee continued, the most Ive ever seen. The workers are just as ticked at the UAW as they are at CAT. The union is in bed with the company, just like politicians.

Caterpillar talks about their shareholders and how much they make per quarter, but its always at the cost of the employees. Over at the Morton parts plant, they have dwindled us down to where you literally have to cut corners to get the job done. Safety is just out the window. They dont care about the people. Were just numbers; we can be moved around and replaced.

There was a lot of tension at work today due to not releasing the totals, said Steve, a worker at the Decatur plant. The longer we waited, the worse the conspiracy was getting in our minds. Its not hard to count 5,000 votes if everybody voted.

Our election was very strange. You used to present your name and ID and go to a booth where they would check you off. This time there were four tables where they crossed you off. If you wanted, you could go to each table and get a ballot.

We also only voted on the central agreement, not our local agreement. Ive never seen it that way. I questioned them at the meeting, and they said the local language had been settled. It was odd to me, but everything in this contract has been odd.

Its horrible the way the UAW has played first-tier and second-tier workers against each other. Some second-tier workers were saying the first didnt deserve a raise even though we havent had one in years. All the UAW wants is dues money, and to keep as many members as they can no matter how little they make. Thats how the fat cats keep their jobs. The UAW is just as bad as CAT, but were paying them to take care of us and theyre not. It was clear from the letter from [UAW Vice President] Norwood Jewell, who said things are tough on CAT and we cant expect a lot this contract cycle. Hes just a PR man for the company.

Theres a lot of orders coming in now, and theyre hiring people. I think the contract allows up to 20 percent of the workforce to be supplemental employees, or temps, and they have a wave of them coming in next Monday, making $12 or $13 an hour. Damn, they are talking about a $15 minimum wage at McDonalds, and these guys are getting less for building giant mining trucks.

The Facebook page of the Decatur local had posts from several workers raising concerns over the delay, with one worker commenting, They are figuring out how to get the outcome they want.

The UAW press release, issued at 3:51 p.m. Eastern Time, read: UAW members at Caterpillar voted on Sunday, March 26th, to ratify their tentative Central Agreement. All local agreements have been ratified except UAW Local 974 Peoria. UAW Local 974 has rescheduled their supplemental local agreement vote for April 1, 2017. UAW members should check for the location and time with their local union.

A call from the World Socialist Web Site to UAW Communications Director Brian Rothenbergs office seeking an explanation for the delay and more details on the vote was not returned.

The Peoria Journal Star reported Monday afternoon that 55 percent of those local members who voted opposed the contract, while 45 percent were in favor, according to a letter with the figures issued by UAW Local 974.

UAW Local 751 in Decatur reported that the deal passed by a 60-40 margin, with some 500 out of the more than 700 workers voting. On the locals Facebook page, the local said the ratification bonuses of Decatur workers hinged on the passage of the local contract by Peoria workers, members of UAW 974, this Sunday. Workers responded angrily to this blackmail, saying the UAW highlights brochure said the $3,000 ratification bonus went into effect if the entire bargaining committee backed the deal, which they did.

Company officials predictably hailed the agreement. Overall, we are happy with todays vote to ratify a new six-year labor agreement, which provides competitive wages and benefits for our employees and their families, said Jon Ginzel, Caterpillar Director of Labor Relations.

Workers at Ford and farm equipment maker John Deere also spoke to the Autoworker Newsletter. During contract battles at these companies in 2015, there were widespread accusations that the UAW committed vote fraud to ram through rotten agreements against the will of workers.

Brian, a John Deere worker from Iowa, said, During the time of the 2015 Deere contract vote, every person I spoke to said they voted the contract down, and yet it still went through. Theres so much corruption. The unions are in deep with the government and the corporations. I mean, just listen to the way the higher-ups talk. You dont want to strike, we did it 30 years ago!

Well look at where we are now. Were still on the two-tier wages. There is something clearly wrong here. Companies like Deere and Caterpillar are making plenty of money, even with Caterpillars finance troubles with the government. Theyll be fine. Especially with Trump in office, theyre going to let them do whatever they want.

Deere management always tries to convince us that Caterpillar is our competition, but that has nothing to do with us. Caterpillar workers are not my competitors. Whos profiting the most? Stockholders and executives, not the workers.

Frank, a Ford worker at the Dearborn Assembly Plant outside Detroit, said, This certainly sounds familiar. Everybody should stand up and say we want a recount and a third-party observer. They need to show the membership check-off lists that they used to hand out and collect the ballots to make sure the two numbers are the same.

Its crazy that the UAW announced that it passed without putting out any of the numbers. The fact that this has happened at Ford, Deere and now Caterpillar shows the disconnect between the agenda of the UAW International and the membership.
The Trump administration is exploiting the growing confrontation with North Korea to significantly boost pressure on China. Trump himself has scathingly referred to Beijings failure to use its economic muscle to assist the US in forcing Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear and missile programs.

During his visit to Asia this month, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned that all options were on the table, including military strikes against North Korea, heightening the dilemma confronting the Chinese regime.

On the one hand, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) apparatus has been hostile to North Koreas nuclear tests and missile launches as they provide a convenient pretext for the US military build-up in Asia in preparation for war with China. They also fuel moves towards a nuclear arms race in North East Asia, with Trump suggesting during last years US presidential election, that Japan and South Korea could develop their own nuclear weapons.

At the same time, Beijing has resisted demands that it cut-off key exports to Pyongyang such as oil, fearful that it would rapidly lead to an acute economic and political crisis that could be exploited by the US and its allies. China has always regarded North Korea as a useful strategic buffer and does not want a unified Korea aligned with the US on its northern border. Beijing has pushed for a restart of stalled six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia as a means of defusing the stand-off. Tillerson bluntly rejected talks.

The US threat of war on the neighboring Korean Peninsula has further fueled the debate in Beijing over its policy towards Pyongyang, with a vocal minority suggesting that China abandon its longstanding ally. Nanjing University professor Zhu Feng told the New Yorker last month: Beijings patience is running out. The Kim [Jong-un] regime has done absolutely nothing that is good for Chinas national interest.

Deng Yuwenformer editor of the Study Times, the prestigious journal of the CCPs Central Party Schoolwrote in a recent blog that North Korea had long overdrawn on the friendship formed in blood during the Korean War of 1950-53. He stated that it was time for Beijing to abandon its appeasement attitude towards Pyongyang, saying, The North Korean issue is no longer its domestic affair; being a great threat to China and East Asia, it has become an international affair.

Deng was removed as Study Times editor after writing a comment in 2013 for the British-based Financial Times entitled China should abandon North Korea. He argued that Beijing should give up on Pyongyang and press for the reunification of the Korean peninsula in order to undermine the strategic alliance between Washington, Tokyo and Seoul and ease the geopolitical pressure on China.

More recently, others such as Professor Zhang Liangui, also of the Central Party School, have called into question Beijings relationship with the North as well. Professor Zhu told the New Yorker, There is no other issue that divides Chinas foreign-policy community more than the DPRK [North Korea]. The fact that the debate is public points to an intense discussion underway behind closed doors in the Chinese bureaucracy.

Chinas relations with North Korea have already deteriorated markedly as Beijing has supported punitive UN sanctions and imposed them. In February, the Chinese regime suspended coal imports from North Korea, provoking a rare public criticism of Beijing as dancing to the tune of the US. After coming to power in 2011, Kim Jong-un sought to consolidate his grip through a series of purges, including the execution of his uncle, Jang Song-taek, who had close ties with Beijing and sought to implement pro-market restructuring.

Since assuming office in 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping has not met with Kim Jung-un. Nevertheless, there is no indication that Beijing is ready to abandon Pyongyang. A March 10 Op-ed piece in the state-owned Global Times placed much of the blame for the current situation at Washingtons feet. In the eyes of the Chinese people, the North Korean nuclear issue was not created by Pyongyang alone. The country's insistence on developing a nuclear program is without doubt a wrong path, yet Washington and Seoul are the main forces that have pushed North Korea to this path, it stated.

Xia Yanmei, an analyst at the China-based research company Gavekal, told the Australian: [T]he reality is that Beijing is far more suspicious of Washington and its allies in Japan and South Korea than it is of North Korea Its determination to help the Kim regime survive remains intact despite North Koreas provocations.

The Trump administrations decision to begin the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery in South Korea has only added more fuel to the debate in Beijing, which fears that the anti-ballistic missile system and its radar will be used to peer deep inside Chinese territory.

Those advocating that Beijing abandon North Korea argue that THAAD demonstrates the failure of the CCPs current policy. The U.S. decision to deploy THAAD in South Korea is a disaster for China and it is time China changes its mindset, political commentator Zhao Lingmin wrote in a recent Chinese-language article for the Financial Times .

Further increasing the pressure on Beijing, the Trump administration announced new sanctions on 30 companies and individuals including several in China, claiming that they were involved in transferring ballistic missile technology to Iran and violating existing bans on exporting goods to North Korea. The US Congress is expected to pass a bill banning oil exports to North Korea, except for humanitarian purposes, and barring overseas companies from hiring North Korean workers. The bill would also re-designate Pyongyang as a state sponsor of terrorism.

If the US did launch military strikes on North Korea, China would not necessarily support Pyongyang, despite their security treaty signed 55 years ago. The treaty was a relic of the Cold War which made no mention of specific circumstances under which China would provide military aid, Professor Shen Jiru from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told the South China Morning Post last April.

An article in the Diplomat on March 25 entitled Chinas North Korea debate stated that there was a third camp in the Chinese apparatus that was arguing for more pro-active measuresnot simply to abandon North Korea but to eliminate it. The article does not make clear what its proponents propose, but it can only have one meaningfor China to pre-empt the US and its allies by carrying out its own regime-change operation in Pyongyang.

The debate going on in Beijing is an indication not only of the sharp tensions with Pyongyang but also the developing sense of crisis in China, which only heightens the danger of a minor incident triggering a catastrophic conflict engulfing the region and the world. While North Korea, South Korea, China and Japan are all contributing to the dangerous situation on the Korean Peninsula, the primary responsibility rests with the US, which under the Trump administration is considering the most reckless and provocative actions.
The following statement has been distributed by members of the IYSSE at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti as part of a campaign for elections to student government. The elections are being held on March 29 and 30.

As a member of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), I am running in the student elections at Eastern Michigan University to build a movement against militarism and war, the growth of social inequality and the danger of dictatorship.

The great problems confronting students at EMU cannot be resolved within the confines of the university. At the same time, the IYSSE is fighting to develop at EMU a new political culture, connecting the problems of students with the broader conditions of the entire working classin Ypsilanti, the Detroit region, throughout the country and internationally.

My opponents, largely members and supporters of College Democrats, focus their campaigns on secondary and insignificant matters, ignoring the great questions and problems facing students at EMU. At the same time, they speak on behalf of a political organization, the Democratic Party, which is no less responsible than the Republicans for the crisis that workers and young people face.

The election of Trump as US president marks a historic turning point and a grave danger. However, his cabinet of billionaires, generals and fascists did not fall out of the sky. For decades the Democrats and Republicans have overseen a vast expansion of war, growing social inequality and unprecedented attacks on the democratic and social rights of the working class.

Many students at EMU and throughout the country are outraged over the attacks on immigrants and refugees, including the threat of deportation of international students here at EMU. There is growing opposition to militarism and the squandering of trillions of dollars on plunder and destruction. EMU has a large education program, and aspiring teachers face the consequences of the destruction of public education. All students face the challenge of rising tuition, indebtedness and the absence of good-paying jobs.

To fight for their interests, I call on students to join the socialist movement and reach out to all sections of workers and youth. The IYSSE demands:

No to imperialist war! For a new anti-war movement!

The trillions of dollars spent on criminal wars abroad must instead be used to meet pressing social needs, like repairing the water pipelines and social infrastructure, both domestically in places like Flint and in countries that have been devastated by US wars. The IYSSE will work to organize demonstrations and teach-ins at EMU to expose and educate students on the causes and consequences of unending war.

Public education is a social right!

Quality public education, from kindergarten to graduate studies, should be freely available to everyone as a basic social right. Teachers and other education workers should receive a high wage and not be forced to pay for basic necessities for their students. Lecturers, bus drivers, student teachers, janitors and service workers on campus who have lost their jobs should have them fully restored.

The resources to finance public education and other social rightslike health care, pensions and a good job for everyone who can workmust be obtained by seizing the wealth of the parasitic financial elite. In Southeast Michigan, a handful of billionaires are restructuring Detroit even as tens of thousands face poverty, utility shutoffs, power outages and other consequences of social inequality.

Unite the working class!

The fight against the attacks on immigrants and refugees must be linked to the broader social crisis facing billions of people around the globe. Auto workers, health care workers, teachers, service workers, the unemployed and young people must unite in a common struggle against capitalism and the profit system.

The IYSSE opposes all forms of nationalism and racism. We also oppose the identity politics of the Democratic Party, promoted by the current student government and campus administration, which insists that the basic division in society is not class, but race and gender. The IYSSE fights to unify students and workers of every race, gender and ethnicity to ensure that everyone has the right to a quality education, a decent job and a world free of war and poverty.

Break with the Democrats and Republicans!

Both Democrats and Republicans represent the interests of the corporations and the banks. Students and workers need their own independent political party to fight for their own independent class interests. The IYSSE and the SEP are building this political movement.

The IYSSE insists that none of the great issues facing students can be addressed outside of a fight against the capitalist systema system in which just eight billionaires own as much wealth as the bottom half of the worlds population, a system in which the interests of workers and young people are sacrificed to the profit demands of the corporate and financial aristocracy.

As a member of the student government, I will work to develop on campus forms through which students can express their opposition, reach out to young people and workers throughout the region and fight back.

No to the attack on immigrants and refugees! No to war! No to dictatorship!

For social equa lity and the rights of the working class!

Vote Mitch Abrams for EMU student government!

Get in contact with the IYSSE at EMU. Learn more about the club and the campaign.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/iysse.emu/

Twitter: twitter.com/IYSSE_EMU/
Written and directed by Jordan Peele

The horror film Get Out has been popular with both audiences and critics. It is the directorial debut of Jordan Peele, best known for his work as one half of the comedy duo Key & Peele. With Get Out, Peele has said he wanted to make a film to combat the lie that America had become post-racial. The monster at the heart of this horror film is racism itself.

Get Out tells the story of African-American photographer, Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), and his white girlfriend, Rose (Allison Williams). The couple is planning to visit Roses parents for the first time. But when Chris discovers Rose hasnt told her parents that he is black, he worries the visit wont go well. Rose reassures him that her parents are anything but racist, and the trip goes ahead as planned.

Roses father (Bradley Whitford) turns out to be a wealthy surgeon. Her mother (Catherine Keener) is a psychiatrist specializing in hypnosis therapy. They go out of their way to make Chris feel at home. Roses father makes awkward gestures to Chris, at one point telling him that he would have voted for Obama a third time given the chance. What seem at first like well meaning but misguided attempts to relate to Chris and put him at ease soon turn into something else. There is something even darker than such micro aggressions lurking beneath this white liberal family.

Most troubling to Chris are the African-American servants the family employs. They appear brainwashed, too satisfied with the family and their duties. They dont behave as real people would. When the family later throws a party and the white guests appear to be sizing him up for something, it puts him further on edge.

Despite all the warning signs, Chris hesitates, hoping for the best until it is almost too late. The family intends to capture him and force him into a kind of servitude, though not quite the kind he was expecting. His failure to act sooner nearly gets him killed. This complacency in the face of racism is one of the main themes of the film.

Get Out accepts a number of conventions about race relations and begins from there. Racism, for Peele, simply existsin the same way that evil does, or original sin. Everyone is infected by it. Its historical origins and the social forces which nourish and promote it are beside the point. Accepting this, the film is left to offer pseudo-psychological explanations for the beliefs and activities of its antagonists. This leads it into rather disturbing territory. At one point the film seems to suggest that the white family terrorizing Chris is jealous of the genetically endowed superior physical abilities of its African-American victims. Given Roses involvement in the conspiracy, one could even be forgiven for interpreting the film as a warning against interracial relationships. Like all such works based on racialist conceptions, one doesnt have to follow the logic very far before one arrives at positions virtually identical to those of the extreme right.

Since its release, Peeles film has generated a great deal of media attention, including its share of hype and controversy. In recent weeks, Peele has been celebrated in the media as the first African-American writer-director to have earned more than $100 million with his debut film. He has cracked a key financial threshold and his success as an artist is thus confirmed for certain layers. There is a lot of talk about what it means for black filmmakers in Hollywood. Opportunity is on the horizon.

But does Get Out tell the truth about the world? Several interviews make clear Peeles own outlook.

In an interview with the New York Times, Peele affirmed his intention to target the liberal elite with the film. The liberal elite, said Peele, who communicates that were not racist in any way is as much of the problem as anything else. This movie is about the lack of acknowledgement that racism exists. In the Trump era, its way more obvious extreme racism exists. But there are still a lot of people who think: We dont have a racist bone in our bodies. We have to face the racism in ourselves.

In another interview with GQ magazine, Peele seeks to explain why there havent been more horror films dealing with race:

Black creators have not been given a platform, and the African-American experience can only be dealt with by an African-American. That might be problematic to say. And now that I think about it, [The Stepford Wives author] Ira Levin is a man, and he and Roman Polanski wrote Rosemarys Baby. Lets say it would be scary for a white writer and director to do something that includes the victimization of black people in this way. Of course, we have this trope where the black guy is the first to die in every horror moviethats a way for [white filmmakers] to have their cake and eat it, too.

The division of the world along such racial lines has the most reactionary implications. Indeed, we saw only last week how scary it could be when a white artist, Dana Schutz, dared to depict the victimization of a black person, Emmett Till, in her work.

Interestingly, the reactionary notion that only an African-American can deal with the so-called African-American experience (a racialist term that throws class and history out the window) has also been used to attack Peeles film. In a recent radio interview, actor Samuel L. Jackson complained that the films star, Daniel Kaluuya, was British, saying that an African American actor would have been better suited to the role. He went on to lament the prevalence of black British actors currently employed in Hollywood. Theyre cheaper than us, he said. In these bitter, career-motivated comments, Jackson united racialism with its perfect complement, nationalism.
Workers in the port and industrial areas of Colombo, Sri Lankas capital city, expressed enthusiastic support for the global campaign initiated by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) to free the framed-up Maruti Suzuki workers in the northern Indian state of Haryana.

In a case concocted by the Japanese-owned car-company Maruti Suzuki in collaboration with the state government, its police and the courts, 13 workers were sentenced to life imprisonment on false murder charges this month. Another 18 were given three- to five-year prison terms on lesser charges.

The workers were framed-up in retribution for a series of militant struggles including strikes, factory occupations and protests in 2011-12 against harrowing workplace conditions.

The ICFI has launched an online petition and is calling upon workers and youth worldwide to fight for the immediate release of the Maruti Suzuki workers.

A campaign team of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) spoke with Colombo port and industrial workers in recent days and visited a working-class neighbourhood in the city. They distributed the ICFI statement Free the framed-up Maruti Suzuki workers in Sinhalese and Tamil.

Colombo port workers expressed support for their class brothers in India. Sri Lankan workers have themselves been targeted by a privatization campaign launched by the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government.

A number of workers drew parallels between the frame-up of the Maruti Suzuki workers and the brutal police crackdown against Sri Lankan workers protesting against the privatization of the Colombo and Hambantota ports early this year.

Devika, who works in the Information Services section of Colombo port, said: Its important that you campaign against such injustice. The same thing can happen to us in the near future. Just think of the way the government responded to port workers demands.

She commented on the drive to replace permanent workers at the port with contract labour, noting, Most contract workers are paid much less than the permanent workers. They have no benefits. Even female workers are hired for hard labour jobs.

Devika expressed appreciation for the ICFIs campaign. Unions limit the worker to see just the immediate issues, and discourage them from discussing broader political problems. I studied political science as a student. I think as workers we should start studying these things more systematically. Im a reader of the World Socialist Web Site and will support your international petition, she said.

Kalum, a worker in the boat house of Colombo, said that the Maruti Suzuki case demonstrates how the right to protest is being stripped from workers. Isnt it the same in Sri Lanka? he asked. The government seeks court injunctions to block even the most peaceful protests. If the injunctions are violated, the organizers are persecuted. Now the government is going to assign designated places and times of the week for protests.

He added, Its not a question of whether this is happening in India, Sri Lanka or America. Incidents like these make clear that the unity of workers on a global scale is imperative to face the attacks of the ruling class.

Shahen, an auto worker, said: I condemn the frame up against those workers because capitalist governments in other countries like Sri Lanka will also take this as an example to suppress workers rights.

The workers need standard working conditions and it is their right to fight for that, Shahen said. He stressed the importance of defending workers rights through the international unity of the working class.

This is the first time I encountered an international campaign of this nature. So I greatly appreciate your campaign and will definitely sign the online petition.

Two female janitorial workers attached to a private company sympathized with the victimized Maruti workers. One of them said: We also work under extremely difficult conditions. Normally, our shifts are 11 or 12 hours a day and we work 30 days in most months, to earn about 28,000 rupees [$US185] per month.

She continued: How can we understand these political issues? We had no opportunity for formal education, and now we are stuck with an impossible workload. We feel we are in the dark forever.

SEP campaigners explained that the task of the revolutionary party is to develop the political consciousness of the working class. Yes what you are doing is very important, she responded. I will give this leaflet to my children. With all the difficulties, we have given them a better education than what we had.

SEP campaigners visited an area around the Panagoda Templeburg industrial zone in Homagama, south of Colombo, where 44 small and medium factories operate. The estates workers, who are mostly from far away villages, live in tiny rented rooms in abysmal conditions.

Kanthi, a woman living with her son in a small room, expressed anger over the frame-up of the Indian workers. These workers are our brothers, she said. We all face the same pathetic work and living conditions, but are unable to demand anything.

Pointing out that her average salary of 600-800 rupees a day is nowhere near what is required to cope with the growing cost of living, she added: Like the Maruti Suzuki workers we want to uplift ourselves from these terrible conditions. But we dont have organizations to fight. I think we will have the strength to fight if workers unite internationally.

A group of young male workers also spoke out. The suffering of these 13 workers is our suffering too, one commented. He noted that like the Maruti Suzuki workers, they are not allowed to form new unions and that the existing unions have betrayed them. The courts always protect the power of the powerful, he said. Everything is channelled to maximize the profits of the companies.

Another worker, Karunapala interjected: Maruti workers have been punished as per the wish of the Indian government and the factory owners. Now the Sri Lankan rulers will also take an example of this and say, If it happens in India, why not in Sri Lanka?

He added: When something happens to the poor and oppressed, who else can fight against it other than the workers? Your campaign builds connections among workers worldwide. We will go a step further with this.

SEP campaigners visited a residential area near Katunayake Free Trade Zone (FTZ), some 30 km from Colombo, which employs more than 40,000 workers. They are subjected to slave labour conditions. The majority are young females from rural areas living in small rooms of 3.5 x 2.5 meters.

Companies are increasingly hiring contract workers from labour companies to cut production costs by paying lower wages and denying even the meagre benefits of permanent workers.

Geetha, a female worker, said: Workers in every country should fight to release the framed-up workers in India. The workers have only workers support. They face the same conditions in every country. The capitalist governments and their judiciary work for the companies. In fact, tomorrow Sri Lankan workers will face what the Maruti Suzuki workers have faced today. I appreciate your campaign.

Referring to her own experience, she said that her husband went to work at the OCS garment factory in Jordan hoping to receive a better salary. Although he worked there for more than a year, the factory was closed early this year, Geetha said. He was not given any compensation or paid the salary promised by the agency.

Pointing to the increasing use of contract labour in the Free Trade Zone, she said: When coming to office, this government promised to abolish contract labour and to increase our salaries by 2,500 rupees. But they have proven to be false promises. There is no organization or media outlet that explains those issues. If they are explained like this, we can understand a lot of issues.

Another female worker at the Jeep Way Lanka factory said: Some women workers in the FTZ have become infertile due to the chemicals used in their factories. Workers have been forced to work under such difficult conditions. Of course, what should be done is mobilize the strength of the working class internationally against injustice like this.
Within the space of a few hours Sunday and Monday, the media headlines regarding the perpetrator of last weeks Westminster terrorist attacks, Khalid Masood, were turned on their head.

Last Wednesday, Masood drove a car at high speed into a number of individuals walking on Westminster Bridge, before crashing it into railings at the nearby Houses of Parliament. He then stabbed a police officer to death in the grounds of Parliament, after going through open gates of the perimeter fence. As well as the police officer, Masood killed three people during his attack, and injured around 50 others, some critically. Fifteen people are still being treated in hospital.

Masood was shot dead by an armed close protection police officer following his stabbing of the police officer.

According to a statement from Prime Minister Theresa May the following day, the British-born Masood was known to the domestic intelligence agency, MI5, although only as a peripheral figure, and he was not part of the current intelligence picture. She added, There was no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack.

On Saturday evening, Londons Metropolitan Police deputy assistant police commissioner, Neil Basu, said, We must all accept that there is a possibility we will never understand why he [Masood] did this. That understanding may have died with him.

But just a few hours later the fiction that Masood was now a closed book was refuted by new revelations. The Guardian confirmed that Masood was known to the intelligence agencies as far back as six years ago. It reported that Masood first came to the attention of MI5 six years ago after returning to the UK from Saudi Arabia where he had been teaching English.  but he dropped off the radar of intelligence officials some time before the fatal attack in London ...

It continued, The Sunday Times reported the banned al-Muhajiroun group, led by the jailed hate preacher Anjem Choudary, was active in the area at the timeand that Masood was regarded as a subject of interest because he was loosely connected to people under investigation by MI5.

The Telegraph substantiated this information Monday morning, reporting that Masood was investigated by MI5 as part of a plot to blow up an Army base using a remote-controlled car 

The Telegraph reported that Masood was investigated by MI5, the domestic intelligence body, six years ago over alleged connections to four al-Qaeda-inspired terrorists. It added, Zahid Iqbal, Mohammed Sharfaraz Ahmed, Syed Hussain and Umar Arshad, were jailed for a total of 44 years in 2013 after admitting plotting to launch an audacious bomb attack on a Territorial Army base in their hometown of Luton.

The Telegraph continued, Ajao [an alias Masood used] had moved to the town [Luton] in 2009 following two stints in Saudi Arabia, and lived just a few hundreds [sic] yards from one of the ringleaders.

It said Masood, [M]ay have also come into contact with members of the gang when they started preparing for jihad by attending a local gym.

Of the fate of the investigation, the newspaper abruptly reports, However after carrying out a risk assessment and looking into his background, it was decided he did not pose a terror threat.

On top of this investigation, Masood, who had a string of criminal convictions, was well known to the police. Between 1983when he was aged 19to 2003, Masood was arrested and jailed on a number of occasions, serving time in Lewes jail, East Sussex, Wayland prison in Norfolk, and Ford open prison, West Sussex.

The latest terrorist atrocity in London took place less than a week ago, yet it is now well established that the perpetrator was well known to British intelligence and the subject of an investigation by them as recently as 2011.

However, yet more innocent people have now been slain, despite the massive and growing surveillance of the populationwhich is enforced in the UK in the name of fighting the war on terror and preventing terrorist attacks. These powers were augmented in January with the passage of the Investigatory Powers Billwidely known as the Snoopers Chartergiving the police and intelligence services what have been described as the most sweeping surveillance powers in the western world 

In each terrorist attack in the UK since the advent of the war of terror in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks in the US, it has been soon established that the perpetrators were known to the British state beforehand. These include those responsible for the bombings in London in July 2005 and the killers of soldier Lee Rigby outside Londons Woolwich barracks in May 2013. One of Rigbys killers had been known to British intelligence for a decade prior to the attack.

No one should accept at face value the repeated explanation by the British state that terrorist incidents involving such individuals are merely the product of security lapses or incompetence.

The intelligence apparatus in Britain is now so all-encompassing that the Internet and phone communications of the entire population are being monitored at all times. Within this, according to a number of reports, an estimated 3,000 Britonsmainly Islamists who are regarded as capable of terrorismare under watch 24/7. This is backed up by the largest CCTV coverage per capita of population of any country in the world. Every car driven on the UKs roads is regularly recorded by a vast camera network, with each vehicle and driver captured in the Automatic Number Plate Recognition database around six times every week.

The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the war on terror is being utilised in order to further build up the repressive apparatus of a police state. Since 2001, an enormous raft of legislationeach piece more draconian than the lasthas been introduced by successive Labour and Conservative governments, tearing up long-established civil liberties and democratic norms.

The Westminster attacks are now being utilised for this purpose. According to media reports Masood communicated via WhatsApp just prior to launching his attack. WhatsApps messages are sent via end-to-end encryption, keeping conversations hidden from electronic surveillance.

The May government is demanding that the government and intelligence service be given full access to spy on WhatsApp users and anyone using other encrypted services.

Speaking to the BBCs Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, Home Secretary Amber Rudd said, It is completely unacceptable for the state to be prevented from accessing encrypted services. In this situation we need to make sure that our intelligence services have the ability to get into situations like encrypted WhatsApp.

The Daily Express reported Monday that following the Westminster attacks, a detachment of the Special Air Service (SAS)part of the UKs Special Forces troopswill be placed on standby permanently at a secret location in the centre of the capital for at least one year. It added, Other new security measures  in London include a new ring of steel around certain key London landmarks such as Buckingham Palace. The newspaper reported, The new tactics will also include plain-clothes armed police officers protecting major London landmarks.

It added, Cabinet ministers will also get SAS training, all police guarding iconic sites will be armed and MI5 is increasing its recruitment drive so they can monitor potential lone-wolf terrorists.

What is taking place is part of an international phenomenon, with the terrorist attacks and their aftermath following the same pattern as similar events in Germany, France and Belgium. Following terrorist attacks in France, a semi-permanent state of emergencybacked up with vast numbers of armed police on the streetshas now been in place since November 2015.
Over the weekend, the New York University Student Activities Board (SAB) rejected the International Youth and Students for Social Equalitys appeal for club status. On Monday, IYSSE members campaigned on campus and talked to students about the political issues raised by the universitys attack on democratic rights.

As part of the IYSSEs spring application, the group met or exceeded all stated requirements for club applications, including gathering over 400 signatures from NYU students, holding meetings, and received numerous statements of support from NYU faculty.

The application was denied early in March, and this past weekend the SAB sent a perfunctory email denying the IYSSEs appeal of this decision. SAB Vice Chair of Development Julie Corbett reiterated the claim that the IYSSE would not be sustainable and that NYUwhich is the wealthiest landowner in New York Citylacked resources to accept most club applicants.

Corbett had earlier refused to supply the IYSSE with evidence that the SABs members, many of whom have campaigned for Democratic Party politicians, were not biased against the IYSSE.

The IYSSE spoke to students about the club application process, the corporatization of New York University and the broader political issues facing workers and young people in the US and internationally.

Fabi, a student at NYU Tisch School of Arts, said, I dont think its just NYU, but all universities in this country are for profit. They are putting forward a liberal, and I really mean neoliberal, ideology. Every freedom in the US is curtailed, and it is not acceptable to have a viewpoint even a little bit to the left.

After some discussion with an IYSSE member about SAB members connections to the Democratic Party, Fabi added, There is a conflict of interest here, and they [the SAB] do not want to show it. The Democrats dont do anything for democracy in this country. The problem is throughout this country, but this is its reflection here.

Taylor, an art history student, said about the SABs decision to block the IYSSE, It is ridiculous. They didnt provide any reasoning except that the school lacks funding, and that is laughable.

I dont think any group should be censored.

Caroline, who majors in Irish studies, said, If you submitted 400 signatures then you should be recognized. I know there are clubs with three people in them, and they are fine. It seems there is a bias against you.

Pedro, a public policy major, said, I think the introduction of this club would allow for more viewpoints in the political conversation at NYU. NYU is supposed to have a variety of views, and I thought that was the reason that we are an international university. We are supposed to be a melting pot of ideas.

Asked his thoughts about the SABs claim that the IYSSE is not sustainable, he responded, If you submitted 400 signatures with the application then they are just ignorant to the facts.

Amy Jung, who is majoring in global public health, said, There are so many things here that are reasons why they [the SAB] should accept you. It is like no matter what point you make, they will have an excuse to reject you.

J.D., a music student, when told that the SAB rejects of 90 percent of the clubs that apply, said, As long as its not directly marginalizing a certain group of people, there should be no reason to reject a club. Especially during tense political times, a university should be a place for free speech. The voice of the people paying for their education at NYU is silenced.

Ryan, a masters student in media culture and communications, said, There seems to be a trend toward censorship in higher education. I heard about something similar happening at Fordham with Students for Justice in Palestine [they were denied club status in February].

When asked about the SABs claim that they are limited by financial resources, Ryan said, Thats a lie. NYU is a giant institution run like a corporation.

Lewis, an international relations student from France, said about the SAB denying the IYSSE club status, Its surprising. We pay to go to school here. Im sure they have plenty of money. We paid, and we should have the right to hold meetings about whatever we want.

After some broader political discussion, he added, Im worried about the French elections. If [National Front presidential candidate Marine] Le Pen is elected, Im sure this will happen at French universities.

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New York University Student Activities Board rejects IYSSE appeal on club status: An act of political censorship

[27 March 2017]
At his Monday afternoon press briefing, the first question asked of White House spokesman Sean Spicer was, Is the president serious about working with Democrats going forward after what happened with health care? And Spicer replied, at some length, in the affirmative.

The question and answer concerned the process that is developing behind the scenes in Washington, with top Democrats giving signals that they are prepared to work with Trump in implementing a further attack on health care and handing out a massive tax cut to the rich.

President Trump and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer signaled their openness to bipartisan collaboration within minutes of the decision last Friday by the White House and House Republican leaders to scrap a planned vote to repeal Obamacare. The American Health Care Act, as the repeal bill was titled, was doomed by opposition within the Republican caucus, mainly from those demanding an even more reactionary assault on health care.

Trump responded with typical vituperation, directed at both the ultra-right House Freedom Caucus, and the Democrats, who had pledged to vote unanimously against the repeal of Obamacare. But he soon changed his tune, suggesting that a bipartisan deal on health care was now possible. I think thats going to happen, he said Friday. Id be totally open to it. Schumer responded in kind, saying that Democrats were open to such a deal, provided it unfolded based on fixing Obamacare rather than its outright repeal.

By Sunday, the Trump approach to the Democrats had the look of a coordinated effort, as the Washington Post put it. Trump tweeted out more insults directed at the Freedom Caucus, while Chief of Staff Reince Priebus appeared on Fox News Sunday to offer another olive branch to the nominal opposition party. It would be nice to get the Democrats on board, he said. I think that Democrats can come to the table as well. Priebus cited Trumps declaration that Perhaps its time for us to start talking to some moderate Democrats as well and come up with, you know, a bipartisan solution.

Schumer again responded positively. We have ideas, they have ideas, to try to improve Obamacare, he told ABC News on Sunday. We never said it was perfect. We always said wed work with them to improve it. He warned that Trump would lose again on other policy proposals, such as tax cuts, if he chose a Republicans-only legislative posture. Working with the Democrats, Schumer said, he could have a different presidency.

An even more effusive response came from Senator Bernie Sanders, who cited Trumps campaign demagogy about health care costs as a potential point of agreement. Appearing on CNNs State of the Union program, the erstwhile critic of the billionaire class suggested an alliance with the billionaire president. One of the things he talked about was lowering the cost of prescription drugs, Sanders said. There is wonderful legislation right now in the Senate to do that. President Trump, come on board. Lets work together.

This was the context for Spicers declaration on Monday afternoon.

Any agreement between the congressional Democrats and the Republican White House on Obamacare reform would have nothing to do with guaranteeing access to health care. The starting point would be the fact, as many observers noted, that Obamas ACA and Paul Ryans ACHA have the same structure, preserving the profit-driven, corporate-controlled basis of the health care system, and shifting the cost of health care from employers and the government to working people, while using government subsidies and tax credits to bolster the finances of the insurance companies.

On the next major issue coming before Congress, Trumps plan for a huge tax cut for the wealthy and for US corporations, there is ample room for a bipartisan deal between the two major capitalist parties. The Obama administration repeatedly advanced such a measure. Schumer has the closest ties with Wall Streethe has collected more campaign cash from the financial industry than any other non-presidential candidateand the Democratic Party has a long history of cutting pro-corporate tax deals with Republican presidents, from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush.

The gestures by the Democrats towards conciliation with Trump explode the fiction that there is a fundamental conflict between the Democrats and Republicans on health care, economic policy, or domestic policy as a whole. As soon as the initial shock of Trumps surprise election victory was over, Schumer & Co. were looking for potential points of agreement with the president-elect, citing the potential for a bipartisan deal on infrastructure spending, which would represent no genuine effort to rebuild crumbling cities, schools, roads and utilities, but another tax handout to giant corporations and the wealthy.

The outgoing Democratic president declared the elections no more than an intramural scrimmage involving players on the same teamperhaps the most honest statement Barack Obama made in eight years in office. As Trump assembled his cabinet of billionaires, generals and ultra-right ideologueswith the fascist Steven K. Bannon as top White House adviserthe Democrats laid low, and the US Senate rubber-stamped nearly every cabinet nominee.

There are, of course, obstacles in the path of bipartisan deal-making, particularly the campaign spearheaded by the Democratic Party and the sections of the media, portraying Trumps election as the byproduct of Russian government intervention in the 2016 elections. These attacks express the opposition of the military-intelligence apparatus, acting through its political allies, to any turn away from the policy of escalating military, economic and political pressure on Russia, which poses the danger of a direct military confrontation between the states that possess the bulk of the worlds nuclear weapons.

The Trump White House appears to be seeking to accommodate this pressure for a more intransigent anti-Russian policy. It was notable that Spicer chose to begin his press briefing Monday by citing the official State Department statement denouncing the arrest of anti-government protesters in Russia over the weekend, demanding the release of all those arrested and using language that suggested a change in government, not just a change in policy, was needed in Russia.

Beyond disputes over domestic and foreign policy, there is a more fundamental reason, however, for a turn by Trump and the Democrats towards bipartisan collaboration. The US ruling elite as a whole, and both its parties, sense the growth of popular dissatisfaction and anger, directed against the political establishment as a whole. The latest Gallup poll showed Trump at his lowest public standing since taking office, with only 36 percent approval, and 57 percent disapproving. His health care legislation had only 17 percent support.

Congressional town hall meetings over the past two months have been frequently tense affairs, with anger directed not only at Republican representatives supporting Trump, but against Democratic representatives who have done nothing to oppose him. And among the broader masses who would never be seen at a congressional town hall meeting, the hatred of the ruling elite is even deeper.

As time-tested defenders of capitalism and the financial aristocracy, the Democratic Party senses the growing popular discontent and the potential for social upheaval, particularly in the event of new economic shocks, or new military disasters in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The struggle against the Trump administration and its program of militarism and social reaction must be carried out in complete opposition to the Democratic Party. The right-wing policies of the Democratic Party paved the way for Trump, the Democrats are perfectly willing to collaborate with Trump, and if they were returned to power the Democrats would expand war abroad and the assault on the working class and democratic rights at home.

The working class must build an independent political party of its own, based on a socialist and antiwar program, and opposed to both the parties of American big business.
Dozens of local residents in Greater Noida took to streets after the death of Manish Khari, 19. Locals allege that the boy died of drug overdose. Five Nigerians were held in connection with the case.

Local alllege that Manish Khari, 19, drug overdose and accused some Nigerians being involved in the crime. (Photo: ANI)

By India Today Web Desk: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath after several African students were attacked in Greater Noida following the death of a Class 12 boy. The UP chief minister has assured of "fair and impartial" probe into the incident, Sushma Swaraj said.

"I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath ji Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh about attack on African students in Greater Noida. He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident," Swaraj said in her tweets.

I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath ji Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh about attack on African students in Greater Noida. /1- Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident. /2- Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

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Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar will be meeting the injured Nigerian nationals at a Greater Noida hospital later today.

Dozens of local residents in Greater Noida took to streets after the death of Manish Khari, 19. Locals allege that the boy died of drug overdose. Five Nigerians were held in connection with the case.

On Monday (March 27), four Nigerians were injured when they were attacked by a mob near Pari Chowk in Greater Noida.

Locals claimed to have seen Khari last with a group of Nigerians.

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Border Patrol officers arrested an extended family of mixed citizenship status Thursday, March 23 in Geneseo, New York. The family was on their way to church when a Geneseo Police Department (GPD) officer pulled them over for a traffic violation on the campus of the State University of New York at Geneseo (SUNY Geneseo). Much of the evenings proceedings were captured on video .

The family consists of two women from Guatemala, one of their brothers, and five children, all of whom are US citizens by virtue of their birth in the United States. During the arrest, the extended family requested that the US citizen children be released to the care of a family friend, but Border Patrol took the entire family to be processed in Rochester anyway.

The US-born children, one a two-month-old infant, were released late Thursday night after an hours-long traumatizing experience. One of the women was already in the immigration system, and the other woman and her 12-year-old brother were released after being processed by immigration officials in Buffalo. Any deportation would tear the family apart and their long-term fate is yet uncertain.

This photo essay depicts the arrests, which took about three hours in Geneseo, and protests in Geneseo and Rochester.

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The forced resignation of New York police officer, Richard Haste, this week over the killing of an unarmed teenager in 2012, and the conviction of Marksville, Louisiana deputy marshal, Derrick Stafford, charged with manslaughter in a shooting that killed a 6-year-old autistic boy, have prompted many news headlines to cite a significant rise in police killing convictions in the recent period. This misleading claim has no practical basis in reality.

On-duty officers shoot and kill more than a thousand people each year. Of those incidents fewer than two officers a year on average are charged with a crime, with an even smaller number resulting in convictions. Since 2005, 69 officers have been charged in on-duty shootings: 23 have been convicted, 26 were not convicted and 20 cases are pending, according to research by Philip Stinton, a Bowling Green State University criminologist. Of those who were convicted, the vast majority faced lesser charges of manslaughter, and the average jail sentence was just over three years.

The year following the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, which led to massive protests throughout the country, 18 officers were charged in state courts with murder or manslaughter in fatal on-duty shootingsthe most in any year going back to 2005. This statistical jump was hailed at the time as proof of a virtuous justice system in action. Yet, in 2015, as in 2014, not a single officer was convicted.

This precedent of immunity has been upheld despite, and partly in spite of, the massive public outrage against police brutality expressed through years of nationwide protests. The routine of exoneration has been applied to the officers responsible for the murder of Michael Brown in 2014, of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland in 2015, and all six officers involved in the 2015 murder of Freddie Gray in Baltimore Maryland.

The handful of convictions and lesser forms of disciplinary action recently brought against the already miniscule number of police officers who are charged for crimes of police brutality do not mark a departure from the prevailing policy of near complete immunity for killer cops. Rather, the details of the two cases cited, as well as recent data on indictments and convictions, further expose the true nature of the police force which operates as a tool of the state to maintain a system of class oppression.

The first instance of police convictions cited is the case of New York City officer, Richard Haste, who quit on Sunday after being found guilty of using poor tactical judgment in a Police Department disciplinary review on Friday. The case in question involved the shooting of 18-year-old Ramarley Graham in February 2012. Haste is white and Graham was African American.

Officer Haste chased Graham from a nearby bodega into his apartment in the Bronx based on the belief that the youth had a gun. After forcibly entering his home, the officer cornered Graham in his bathroom where he then fatally shot the youth in front of his grandmother and 6-year-old brother. In the end, no gun was found.

This guilty verdict came from the New York Police Departments (NYPD) disciplinary review board; Haste had neither been charged nor convicted of a crime. In 2012, both a judge, and later a grand jury, dismissed manslaughter charges for the murder of Graham. The most extreme disciplinary action possible in the NYPD hearing would have been his removal from the police force, a punishment which Haste avoided by resigning.

The officer in the second cited case, Derrick Stafford, was convicted on Friday on a lesser charge of manslaughter in a shooting that left a 6-year-old autistic boy, Jeremy Mardis, dead, and his father, Christopher Few, critically injured. Stafford and another deputy city marshal, whose court date is set for later this year, opened fire on Fews car after a two-mile chase in Marksville, Louisiana on November 3, 2015.

The video of the incident, caught ontape by another officers body camera, shows Few with hands raised inside his vehicle while the two deputies collectively fire 18 shots into the car. The first grader, who was buckled into the front seat, was hit with five bullets and died within minutes.

The gruesome video shows Few bleeding profusely from two gunshot wounds as his body slumps out of the car window. He eventually exits the car and collapses onto the ground. None of the present officers appears to provide medical attention. Few would not fully regain consciousness again for six days, waking up the day of his sons funeral.

Few was not armed, and as the video clearly shows he was not using the vehicle as a weapon at the time of the shooting as the officers initially claimed. Both officers involved in the shooting are African American. Jeremy was white, as is his father.

Practitioners of identity politics continue to insist that the rampant police murders, including the two incidents cited above, are entirely the result of racism. In fact, while black men are disproportionately killed by the police, the largest numbers of those killed by police in a given year are white.

The two youth who were killed in these incidents are primarily the victims of the massive police state apparatus forged through the intensification of imperialist wars abroad and social counterrevolution at home in defense of the capitalist system, not from a country brimming with racism.

The underlying aim of insisting on a racialist narrative to explain police violence is to obscure the fundamental class issues involved and promote dangerous divisions among the working class along arbitrary racial lines.

Police officers of every race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation patrol the streets in service of the ruling class, with ever more blatant ruthlessness, harassing and killing the poor and working class members of society with near full immunity on a daily basis.

With the Trump administration pandering to all institutions of state repression from local police forces to military generals and the intelligence community, it is safe to say that the new administration will not be marked by an increase in police killing convictions. The vast expansion of an already deadly state apparatus being prepared by the Trump administration is expressed most acutely in the current attack on immigrants.
Sundays state election in Saarland was expected to be a political litmus test following the recent takeover of the leadership of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) by Martin Schulz and a systematic campaign for cooperation with the Left Party and the Greens.

Many media outlets wrote of a political sea change in the Saar in recent weeks. The Schulz effect had enabled the SPD to recover ground in the state after trailing in polls 12 points behind the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at the beginning of the year. The SPD and the CDU, which had previously led the state government in a grand coalition, were said to be on equal footing.

The result of the election, however, told a very different tale. Electoral participation rose significantly by 8 percent, from 62 to almost 70 percent, but the increased number of votes did not benefit the SPD, the Left Party or the Greens, but rather the CDU.

The Martin Schulz effect did not manifest itself, was the comment in SpiegelOnline. The CDU gained over 5 percentage points and won over 40 percent of the vote. The SPD lost nearly 1 percent and fell below 30 percent. The Greens also lost 1 percent and failed to reach the necessary 5 percent to remain in the state parliament.

The most striking loss was suffered by the Left Party and its leading candidate in the state, Oskar Lafontaine. The Left Party, which had firmly committed itself to a government alliance with the SPD, lost over 3 percent compared to the last state election and received only 13 percent. In the summer of 2009, when it ran for the first time as the Left Party in the state, it won 21.3 percent.

The Left Party was also unable to profit from the complete collapse of the Pirate Party. The Pirate protest party had won a surprising 7.4 percent of the votes four years ago, mainly by appealing to young voters on the basis of opposing political corruption, while promoting greater transparency and civil rights. On Sunday the party won less than 1 percent of the vote.

For its part, the xenophobic Alternative for Germany (AfD) was able to enter the state parliament with over six percent. However, this figure was far behind its predicted result of 10 percent or more. The far-right party is now represented in 11 out of 16 state parliaments.

Most of the media accredited the vote for the CDU as a vote of confidence in the partys leading candidate and state premier, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. However, such a conclusion is entirely superficial. There was nothing progressive in Saar government policy that could explain such result.

The small state with its population of just under 1 million is highly indebted and has been implementing drastic austerity measures for years.

The vote was less a signal of support for the CDU administration and much more a clear rejection of the SPD, Left Party and Greens. All of the parliamentary parties maintain close links and agree on all important political issues. They work together in various coalitions at a state and local level and impose the same reactionary, anti-social policies up and down the country.

The Left Party and Oskar Lafontaine are well known for their policies in the Saarland. During his 13 years as state premier (1985-1998), he worked closely with the trade unions to ensure the rundown of the states coal and steel industry. In the coalmines, where 60,000 miners once worked, none remain. Lafontaine combines his anti-social policies with nationalist tirades and appeals for trade warfare. In the election campaign, for example, he demanded that the steel industry in the Saarland be protected by tariffs comparable to those of the US. At the same time, he agitates against refugees and calls for a faster and more consistent deportation policy.

The electorate in Saarland have made clear they do not expect any improvement in their situation from a government alliance of the SPD, Left Party and Greens. The election result confirms the warning of the WSWS: The broadly propagated renewal of the SPD following the change of party leadership from Sigmar Gabriel to Martin Schulz does not reflect growing popular support for the SPD. The electorate recognises the SPD for what it is: the party of Hartz IV and Agenda 2010, which has dramatically worsened working and living conditions.

The media hype surrounding Schulz is a deliberate campaign launched by influential circles of the ruling class. They are of the opinion that the Merkel government is too weak and discredited and the conservative union parties too divided to respond to the challenges of the Trump government in the US, growing transatlantic conflicts and the break-up of the EU.

The Saarland election was aimed at shifting the balance of power towards a red-red, or red-red-green coalition at a state and federal level. The plan has failed. On Sunday evening, a visibly surprised and perplexed SPD leader Schulz stood in front of cameras and announced that he would continue his campaign in the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia in May as preparation for this autumns federal election.
Beginning on March 15, Saudi Arabias King Salman initiated a month-long visit to China, Japan, Malaysia, and Indonesia by a massive 1,000-strong entourage of Saudi business executives.

His aim is to strengthen the Saudi monarchys relations with East Asia and counter the rise of Iran, Saudi Arabias main regional rival.

Salman is seeking to promote investment in the kingdom, including the sale of a 5 percent stake in the giant state oil firm Saudi Aramco, and to increase revenue from exports and non-petrol incomefollowing the fall in oil prices that has led to acute political, economic and social tensions within Saudi Arabia, threatening the kingdoms stability.

His visit to Beijing unfolded amid worsening relations between Washington and the kingdom that hassince 1945constituted an essential prop of US imperialism in the region and a bulwark of reaction and repression in the Arab world. The US-led interventions in Iraq and Syria to assert Washingtons hegemony over the Middle Easts vast energy resources have destabilised the entire Middle East, threatening Saudi Arabia.

Chinas President Xi Jinping, who is anxious to boost Chinas profile in the Middle East, on which it depends for its energy supplies, visited Saudi Arabia last year in the first state visit by a Chinese leader in seven years. Last year, Beijing hosted talks over Syria in an apparent effort to mediate the conflict.

Xi said, For a long time, China and Islamic countries have respected each other and had win-win cooperation, and have created a model of the peaceful coexistence of different cultures.

Salman told Xi he hoped China could play an even greater role in Middle East affairs, saying, Saudi Arabia is willing to work hard with China to promote global and regional peace, security and prosperity.

Xi is also promoting Chinas One Belt, One Road policy, designed to increase trade and transport links between China and Europe via Central Asia and the Middle East, based loosely on the ancient Silk Road trading network.

Saudi ambassador Turki Bin Mohamed Al-Mady, in an interview with Xinhua, Chinas state-owned news agency, stressed Saudi Arabias potential role in the One Belt, One Road project. He said, In terms of strategic location, Saudi Arabia serves as the central hub connecting three continentsAsia, Africa and Europeand has been an important part of the initiative.

On the first day of his visit to Beijing, Salman presided over the signing of deals worth $65 billion, including a memorandum of understanding between Saudi Aramco and China North Industries Group Corp (Norinco), to examine building refining and chemical plants in China.

The most ominous of these deals was revealed on Monday: Saudi Arabia has agreed to import hunter-killer drones from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), which will set up production lines in Saudi Arabia for provision of the weapons to the kingdom and other nearby monarchical regimes. IHS Janes, which reported the deal Monday, said that the unmanned aerial vehicles are capable of carrying AR-1 laser-guided missiles and FT-9 guided bombs.

Saudi Aramco has hired HSBC to help raise a $2 billion bond sale as the first part of a $10 billion bond package ahead of an IPO in 2018 to be placed in Hong Kong, New York or London. Later, the Chinese 3D printed housing company WinSun announced a deal worth $1.5 billion with Saudi construction company Al Mobty to build 1.5 million affordable new homes in the kingdom.

In the last 25 years, Saudi Arabia has diversified its trade away from the US and towards Asia. In 2009, for the first time, Saudi Arabia exported more to China than the US. Its exports to five Asian countriesChina, Japan, South Korea, India and Singaporeare more than three times the total to Europe and North America combined. By 2030, it is estimated that Chinas demand for oil will exceed 16 million barrels per day, while US demand falls and its oil imports dwindle because of fracking.

Speaking a few years ago about Chinas oil needs, Saudi Aramcos CEO said that the writing is on the wall and that China is the future growth market for Saudi petroleum, although Russia has supplanted it as Chinas main supplier, and Iran is an important competitor after the lifting of sanctions.

Saudi Arabias pivot to China positions it alongside other major Muslim powers in Asia and AfricaEgypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan and Turkeythat have also deepened their economic ties over the last decade.

Salmans visit to Japan is the first ever visit by a Saudi king. Japan is another vital market for Saudi oil, which again now faces stiff competition from Iran.

Salmans visit to Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, important Muslim countries, is aimed at securing their support for its Islamic military alliance, created in 2015 and directed against Iran, although publicly promoted as fighting terrorism. This is crucial since nuclear-armed Pakistan, which for decades has provided military support for Riyadh and recently took part in a military parade with Chinese and Saudi forces, has refused to join the anti-Iranian alliance or support the kingdoms costly and disastrous war in Yemen.

In another major shift, Salman recently sent his foreign minister, Adel al Jubeir, to Baghdad, the first visit by a senior Saudi official to Iraq since 1990, when the then-Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, sought to mediate the growing tensions between Baghdad and Washington in the spring of 1990.

For years, Riyadh refused to open an embassy in Baghdad to avoid giving the Iraqi government any legitimacy. Last year, Iraq demanded Riyadh recall its ambassador, the first after 25 years, just months after the ambassador had presented his credentials, for criticising its Shia militias fighting ISIS and other Sunni opposition forces in Iraq.

The Saudis now appear to be trying to engage with the government of Haidar al-Abadi in Baghdad in a bid to weaken his ties with Iran.

Riyadhs relations with Washington became strained following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, which served to strengthen Tehrans influence in Iraq by removing Saddam Husseins largely Sunni-based regime and installing the Shiite majority in power.

Riyadh was furious over Washingtons support for the pro-Iranian governments in Iraq and Lebanon, and sought to undermine them through direct or covert military interventions, the use of Islamist fighters as proxies, and economic aid. Relations deteriorated further following the USs failure to sustain its support for Hosni Mubarak against the Egyptian masses in 2011. Relations soured following the Obama administrations subsequent pragmatic manoeuvrings, including the retreat on its promise to intervene decisively in the war to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria in 2013allowing Russia to intervene to shore up the regimeand its deal with Iran in 2015.

While Riyadh hopes that relations will improve under President Donald Trump, who has said that Iran poses a security threat to the region, it is taking no chances. It has noted with some concern the Islamaphobic rhetoric of some of Trumps inner circle and the call for Saudi Arabia to be included in Trumps travel ban, since 15 of the 19 hijackers in the 9/11 terror attacks were from the kingdom. In addition, 800 families of 9/11 victims and 1,500 first responders, along with others who suffered as a result of the attacks, have filed a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia over its alleged complicity in the 2001 terror attacks.

On the domestic front, the House of Saud faces mounting social and economic tensions as the fall in oil prices, upon which the government depends for 70 percent of its revenue, has led to a drastic cut back in public expenditure and the imposition of a value-added tax.

This month, the government tightened restrictions on foreign workers who constitute about 12 million of the countrys 33 million population in a bid to reduce unemployment among Saudi nationals. While unemployment is officially 12.1 percent, a senior Aramco official has said the unemployment rate was closer to 27-29 percent, rising to 33 percent among young people between 20 and 24 years of age and 38 percent for 24- to 29-year-olds, in a country where two thirds of the population are under 30.
Confronted by mounting popular opposition to its plans to slash welfare and other social programs, the Liberal-National Coalition government last week abandoned its omnibus bill unveiled in February to try to impose more than $13 billion in zombie cuts that have remained deadlocked in the Senate since its 2014 budget.

This represents an intensification of the crisis of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbulls government. The corporate and media establishment is increasingly frustrated with the Coalitions failure to push through deep cuts in social spending and lower company taxes. Media opinion polls show it would be defeated in a landslide if an election were held now.

With opposition and crossbench senators terrified of a public backlash if they voted for the omnibus bill, the government last week de-coupled the bill from childcare measures that deliver about $2.4 billion in budget cuts over two years. This is less than a fifth of the value of the planned inroads into unemployment benefits, pensions, family tax benefits and other entitlements stalled since 2014.

In a bid to prove to the ruling class it could ram some cuts through parliament, the government worked with right-wing populists in the Senate, particularly Senator Pauline Hansons anti-immigrant One Nation Party and Senator Nick Xenophons South Australian-based protectionist Nick Xenophon Team, to stage two late-night sittings last week to pass the childcare package.

Turnbull was installed more than 18 months agoin September 2015to replace Tony Abbott as Liberal Party leader and prime minister claiming that he would be able to provide effective economic management. But he has proved no more capable than his predecessor of gutting welfare benefits and inflicting the other measures demanded by the financial elite to slash the budget deficit.

Turnbulls bid to break through the parliamentary impasse by calling a double dissolution election last July backfired, leaving the government with a one-seat majority seat in the lower house and a minority of only 30 seats in the 76-member Senate (reduced this year to 29 by the defection of Cory Bernardi to form the Australian Conservatives). Since then, the government has relied on the votes of the Hanson and Xenophon groups, which falsely postured as anti-establishment parties, to get most of its legislation passed.

Last weeks childcare manoeuvre underscored both the political crisis and the reactionary character of all the budget measures, which seek to make the working class pay for the deteriorating situation facing Australian capitalism. The government struck deals with Hanson, Xenophon and two other right-wing senators, Liberal Democratic David Leyonhjelm and independent Derryn Hinch, to get the numbers for a package of two bills.

The first bill will cut the incomes of about 1.5 million households by freezing the rate of the family tax benefit for two years. This will hurt working families, already struggling with soaring utility and housing costs, falling wages and losses of full-time jobs or part-time working hours.

The second bill will marginally increase childcare fee subsidies for some families where both parents are working but will drastically cut the number of hours of childcare available for some of the poorest households, hit by rising unemployment and under-employment. The number of subsidised hours will be halved from 24 to 12 per week for families earning $65,710 or less per year, unless both parents pass an activity test.

The test requires them to be working, training, studying or undertaking a recognised activity for at least four hours a weekbarring parents who are out of work or unable to secure four hours work a week. An estimated 100,000 families will be affected. Education Minister Simon Birmingham arrogantly declared that unemployed parents could meet the test by volunteering for activities that can be as simple as coming and reading to children at your pre-school.

Aware of the widespread discontent, the government attempted to present the package as a fairness measure by raising the maximum childcare subsidy to 85 percent for households on $65,710 or less, who meet the activity test, up from their current rate of 72 percent. The maximum rate will taper down from 85 percent to 20 percent for households on between $65,710 and $350,000, then cut out altogether.

For all the fairness rhetoric, many wealthier households will benefit. For families earning more than $185,000 a yearamong the top 10 percent of income recipientsthe subsidy cap will be lifted from $7,500 per child, per financial year to $10,000.

Turnbull last week visited a childcare centre to promote the bill as the biggest reform in childcare for many years. This package backs hardworking Australian familiesthose with the greatest need and working the most hours get the most support, he said.

In reality, the package seeks to push more working class parents into low-paid work, while appearing to address the concerns of millions of families where both parents are forced to work to make ends meet, leaving their children in day care centres for up to 50 hours a week. Another aim is to fatten childcare profits.

With parents paying up to $190 a day for childcare places, and fees rising by almost 7 percent a year, childcare is big business. Profit-making operators and their landlords are now making more than $1 billion in profits annually, with childcare workers among the lowest paid in the country.

Eight years after the collapse of ABC Learning, once the biggest childcare provider in the world, corporate interests are expanding in the sector. Research analysts rate childcare an investment-grade asset. About half of all childcare services (including out of school hours care and family daycare) are provided by for-profit businesses, according to the Productivity Commission. In long day care, where 660,000 infants are, nearly two-thirds is delivered on a for-profit basis.

At the end of last week, under growing criticism from big business, Turnbull affirmed his governments intention to try to push sweeping company tax cuts through parliament this week, which is the final session before the federal budget, due on May 9. However, there is speculation that the government will do another fairness deal in the Senate and initially only legislate the tax cut for businesses turning over up to $10 million a year.

Corporate chiefs are complaining that since the Coalition took office in 2013, following the heavy defeat of the previous Labor government, the budget deficit has blown out to nearly $40 billion a year and the net government debt has more than doubled from $152 billion to $317.2 billion. Large areas of the country, including former mining-dependent regions, are in recession, reducing tax revenues.

Mondays editorial in the Australian sounded another demand for the government, and the entire political establishment, to impose harsher austerity measures. Politicians on all sides must accept that current government spending is unsustainable, it declared. Ahead of the May budget, that reality needs to be central to the national political conversation if expectations of what governments can provide are to be reduced.

If Turnbull cannot satisfy these demands, the future of his government is highly uncertain.
The Pentagon has formally asked the Trump White House to lift limited restrictions imposed by the Obama administration on US military aid to the Saudi Arabian monarchys near genocidal war against the impoverished people of Yemen.

The Washington Post reported Monday that Defense Secretary James Mad Dog Mattis, a recently-retired US Marine general, had submitted a memo earlier this month to Trumps national security adviser H.R. McMaster, an active duty US Army lieutenant general, for the approval of stepped-up support for military operations being conducted in Yemen by both the Saudi regime and its principal Arab ally, the United Arab Emirates.

The memo, according to the Post, stressed that such US military aid would help to combat a common threat.

This supposed threat is posed by Iran, US imperialisms principal regional rival for hegemony over the oil-rich Middle East. Both the Saudi monarchy and the Trump administration have repeatedly charged, without providing any significant supporting evidence, that Iran has armed, trained and directed the Houthi rebels who seized control of the Yemeni capital and much of the country, toppling the US-Saudi puppet regime of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi in 2014.

A major escalation of the US intervention in Yemen will be directed principally at provoking a military confrontation with Tehran, with the aim of weakening Iranian influence throughout the region. Trump himself campaigned in the 2016 election denouncing the Obama administration for being too soft on Iran and for joining the other major powers in negotiating what he characterized as a disastrous nuclear agreement with Tehran. His advisers, including his ousted first national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn, and Defense Secretary Mattis, have all voiced bellicose hostility to Iran.

The immediate impetus for the call for increased US aid to the Saudi-led war is reportedly a proposed Emirati operation to seize control of the key Red Sea port of Hodeida. The effect of such an offensive would be to cut off the large portion of the country and its population under Houthi control from any lifeline to the outside world. Fully 70 percent of the countrys imports now come through the port. Even before the war, Yemen was dependent upon imports for 90 percent of its food. Aid agencies have warned that a military offensive on the port could tip the country into mass starvation.

The proposed US escalation in Yemen coincides with the second anniversary of the Saudi war on the country, launched on March 26, 2015 in the form of an unending bombing campaign directed largely against civilian targets, along with a halting offensive on the ground.

The anniversary was marked in the capital of Sanaa and other Yemeni cities by demonstrations of hundreds of thousands denouncing the murderous Saudi military campaign. The Houthis have won support that extends far beyond their base in the countrys Zaidi-Shia minority because of popular hatred for the Saudi monarchy and its crimes.

As the war enters its third year, Yemen is teetering on the brink of mass starvation, confronting one of the worst humanitarian crises anywhere on the planet. This war, waged by the obscenely wealthy royal families of the gulf oil sheikdoms against what was already the poorest nation in the Arab world, has killed some 12,000 Yemenis, the overwhelming majority of them civilians, and wounded at least 40,000 more.

Saudi airstrikes have targeted hospitals, schools, factories, food warehouses, fields and even livestock. Coupled with a de facto naval blockade, the aim of this total war against Yemens civilian population is to starve the Yemenis into submission. A US-backed campaign to seize the port of Hodeida would serve to tighten this deadly stranglehold.

In a statement issued Monday marking the beginning of the wars third year, the United Nations emergency relief agency reported that nearly 19 million Yemenisover two-thirds of the populationneed humanitarian assistance. Seven million Yemenis are facing starvation.

UNICEF, the UNs childrens agency, reported that roughly half a million children are suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen, while 1,546 have been killed and 2,450 have been disabled by the fighting. The agency said that the rate of child deaths had increased by 70 percent over the past year, while the rate of acute malnutrition had increased by 200 percent since 2014.

The deliberate Saudi bombing of hospitals and clinics has left 15 million people without any access to health care, while the destruction of water and sanitation facilities has led to epidemics of cholera and diarrhea. It is estimated that as many as 10,000 children have lost their lives due to the lack of clean water and medical services since 2015.

Washington, under both the Obama and the Trump administrations, has been fully complicit in the war crimes being carried out by the Saudi regime and its allies against the Yemeni people. Washington poured a staggering $115 billion worth of arms into the Saudi kingdom under the Obama administration, resupplying bombs and missiles dropped on Yemeni homes, hospitals and schools. It set up a joint US-Saudi logistical and intelligence center to guide the war and provided aerial refueling by US planes to assure that the bombing could continue round the clock.

While a part of this decisive military aid was curtailed for public relations purposes following the horrific October 2016 Saudi bombing of a funeral ceremony in Sanaa that killed over 150 people, the US Navy entered directly into the conflict that same month, firing Tomahawk missiles at Houthi targets based on unsubstantiated charges that missiles had been fired at US ships.

Nonetheless, the request by Mattis would mark a qualitative escalation of the US intervention. While the Post reported that an Emirati request for US Special Operations troops to participate directly in the siege of the port of Hodeida was not part of Mattiss proposal, it went on to warn that the Gulf sheikdoms military may not be capable of such a large operation, including holding and stabilizing any reclaimed area, without sucking in US forces. Indeed, the Emirati army is in large measure a mercenary force, having recruited former members of the Colombian, Salvadoran and Chilean military to do the ruling royal familys dirty work.

The Post goes on to report: A plan developed by the U.S. Central Command to assist the operation includes other elements that are not part of Mattiss request, officials said. While Marine Corps ships have been off the coast of Yemen for about a year, it was not clear what support role they might play.

As numerous reports have indicated, the Trump White House has essentially given free rein to Mattis and the US military commanders to conduct armed operations as they see fit. The result has been the more than doubling of the number of US troops on the ground in Syria along with an escalation of the US intervention in Iraq, as well as a request for another 5,000 troops to be deployed in Afghanistan.

In Yemen, they are preparing to drag the American people into another criminal war against one of the worlds most vulnerable populations, threatening to hasten the deaths of millions of starving people. The strategic aims underlying this vast war crime are the imposition of US imperialist hegemony over the Middle East through a military confrontation with Iran and the preparation for a global conflict with Washingtons principal rivals, Russia and China.
By Press Trust of India: From Sajjad Hussain

Islamabad, Mar 28 (PTI) Pakistans Senate today passed a constitutional amendment bill to revive the controversial special military courts for a period of two years amidst a surge in terror attacks across the country.

Law minister Zahid Hamid presented the 28th Constitutional Amendment Bill in the Senate last week but it could not be voted as the required number of lawmakers were not present in the House.

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The Senators from the both sides of the aisle discussed the bill in detail before voting.

Finally, the House passed the bill with 78 Senators supporting it while only three opposed the amendment in the House of 104. The amendment was thus adopted by the required two-thirds majority.

The bill has already been passed by the National Assembly and will become a law after President Mamnoon Hussain gives his assent.

The bill was opposed by three Senators of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party.

The military courts were first set up in January 2015 for a two year term after a constitutional amendment following a terror attack on an army-run school in Peshawar in December 2014 that killed over 150 people, mostly students.

Since their expiry in January, government has been trying to bring the political parties around the idea of another tenure for military courts.

The military courts awarded death sentence to 161 militants and so far only 21 have been executed.

Army had demanded to revive the courts for another two years to try more militants and punish them.

The military courts work in secrecy due to fear of backlash by militants. Rights group have slammed the military courts.

The courts were given 275 cases during two years and they sentenced 161 terrorists to death, whereas another 116 were given varying jail terms, mostly life sentences.

Pakistan this year witnessed a surge in terror attacks.

Over 80 people were killed after an Islamic State (IS) suicide bomber blew himself up at the Lal Shahbaz Qalander dargah in Sehwan on February 18. A suicide bomber attacked a protest rally outside the Punjab assembly in Lahore on February 13, killing 14 people and injuring dozens. PTI SH ASK AKJ ASK

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TALLAHASSEE, FL -- The Florida State University chapter of Autism Speaks is holding their annual walk on campus.

In an effort to change the future for all who struggle with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, the Florida State chapter of Autism Speaks is hosting their 2nd annual walk. The event will have booths, activities, food vendors, music, and more! We will also have life-sized knocker balls and a bounce house to play with on the other side of the field.

It all kicks off on Sunday, April 2 from 12 p.m. until 3 p.m. at Langford Green.

The event is free!
(WWSB)  Help a local charity by eating a sub from Jersey Mikes Subs for its 7th Annual Month of Giving fundraising campaign with its Day of Giving initiative to support neighborhood needs.

On Wednesday, March 29, all proceeds  every single dollar  from the more than 120 locations in Florida will go directly to 14 local charities.

The fundraising event lasts all day.

100 percent of the funds from the four Jersey Mike's locations in the Tallahassee area will be donated to Boys Town North Florida.
By Press Trust of India: Chandigarh, Mar 28 (PTI) 485 drugs peddlers and traders have been arrested, 387 cases registered under the NDPS Act, 3.945 kg of heroin and 622.555 kg of poppy husk recovered in Punjab since March 16, when the Amarinder Singh led government assumed office.

Drug menace was a major issue in the Punjab elections and immediately after taking over, the Amarinder led Congress government has ordered a multi-agency crack-down.

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SHO level teams, backed by Anti-Narcotics Cell units, have been formed in every district to wipe out drugs from the state in four weeks, a spokesperson of the Chief Minister?s Office said here today. "As many as 485 drugs traders and peddlers have been arrested and 387 cases registered under the NDPS Act..," he said. State Special Operations (SSOP) cells have also joined the drive, which has led to major drugs seizures across the state, said the spokesperson adding that the civil administration was also extending its full support to the anti-drugs campaign. The Chief Minister has directed the state agencies to coordinate with central agencies like the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and the Customs Department to check the supply and smuggling of drugs. A Special Task Force (STF) has already been set up to steer the special and focused drive launched against drugs, especially chitta (heroin, synthetic/ pharmaceutical drugs), the spokesperson said.

Giving more details, he said that in the period between March 16 and March 27, a total of 3.945 kgs of heroin was recovered during raids. This includes 1 kg of Heroin seized by the BSF, he said. Other drugs seizures made during this period include poppy husk (622.555 kgs), smack (0.528 kgs), charas (2.22 kgs), opium (24.39 kgs), bhang (1.879 kgs) and ganja (65.6 kgs). The special teams have also recovered 133 bottles of syrup, 1075 injections and 90,993 capsules or pills packed with drugs, besides 11.224 kg of Intoxicant Powder during the period, he said. "The maximum of 63 cases have been registered in Jalandhar Rural district, from where the maximum recovery of 7.25 kgs of opium, besides 1 kg recovery of heroin by BSF, has also been reported," he said.

The Congress had before the elections promised to wipe out the scourge within four weeks of forming the government. (MORE) PTI SUN ADS

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Convener of the meeting, Viduthalai Ciruthaigal Katchi leader Thirumavalavan stated, he didn't want Rajinikanth to visit Sri Lanka, as it would overshadow the people's protest.

"They are still fighting to regain their lands and they want the report from the government about the people who had gone missing after surrendering to the army. His visit now will definitely divert the issue," he said.

The Sri Lankan Tamils also voiced concerns on 29,000 missing Tamilians.

On the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR) meet, he mentioned that if Rajinikanth shares the dais with Sirisena and TNA MPs, it would look like the situation has simmered.

Reacting to Namal Rajapaksa's tweet, Thirumavalavan remarked,"He doesn't know anything about Tamil Nadu politics or Sri Lankan politics. I strongly condemn the statement of Mahinda Rajapakse's son".

"We don't oppose Rajinikanth or Lyca, we are only worried about Sri Lankan politics. The Indian government and Sri Lankan government want to show that welfare schemes are being initiated for the victimised people- which is not true", he stated.

Thirumavalavan alleges that army has not been removed from the Tamil province and claimed that Sammandhan, a Tamil northern province leader has joined hands with Sirisena.

He reiterated that they have no problem in Rajinikanth visiting the island nation after these issues get resolved.

Rajinikanth had reasoned that he wanted to visit Lanka to see the places where Tamils lived. He also mentioned that he wanted to meet Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, to find a solution for the pertaining fishermen problem.
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Centre has said the vacancies will be filled in due course of time

By Supriya Bhardwaj: A united Opposition led by Congress upped the ante against central government on the issue of non appointments of chairmen and members in various commission. And this issue will continue to rock the Upper House in the coming days too.

Stormy scenes were witnessed in the Rajya Sabha when Opposition raised the issue of non appointment of chairmen, vice chairmen and other members of statutory bodies like the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, National Commission for Backward Classes and National Commission for Minorities.

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The opposition leaders claimed that this has left people seeking relief for their difficulties from these commissions high and dry. The opposition alleged that thousands of cases and applications are pending in these commissions and in absence of such important vacancies deliberately created by the government, hapless people are facing immense difficulties.

"Institutions of accountability, aimed at enforcing transparency and protecting rights of ordinary citizens have been made non-functional or toothless by this government. One is forced to ask the question if institutional safeguards are being systematically stymied, denigrated and diluted so that government remains unaccountable and rule of law is brought down on its knees," said Congress spokesperson Gaurav Gogoi.

Meanwhile, the central government represented by union minister Venkaiah Naidu said these vacancies will be filled in due course.

Also read:

BJP set to increase its numbers in Rajya Sabha following big wins in Assembly elections

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I pity the foreign diplomats serving in Israel. Their governments expect them to send a long, highly confidential telegram every few days with an in-depth description of the political situation in this country. The governments are thirsty for simple, clear answers: Is there a crisis or not, are there going to be elections or not, is there an investigation or not, who will lead Israel a year from now and what kind of coalition will there bea right-wing one or a centrist-rightist one?

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They diligently read translations of reports and articles published in the Israeli media, and occasionally meet with a Foreign Ministry employee, with a Knesset member or with a commentator. The Israeli talks at length; the diplomat nods but doesnt understand a thing. He knows the telegram he will write later on will do nothing to promote his faltering career at home.

Netanyahu at Sundays cabinet meeting. Calling this dispute a crisis is quite embarrassing (Photo: Marc Israel Sellem)

The telegram he wont write will say, more or less, the following: Israel is an interesting country. In most of the democratic countries I know, elections are called for three reasons: One, the time stated in the law has arrived; two, there is a serious political crisis, the kind that dissolves governments; three, the prime minister has identified an opportunity for a major victory which could increase his power. In Israel, a fourth reason has been invented: You go to elections in order to avoid making decisions. The elections are a sort of escapism.

Let me try to explain. In his previous term, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu led a centrist-rightist government. He dissolved it after two years. The reasons he provided for the disbandment were sentimental: He was fed up with his coalition partners attempts to undermine him. The last straw was a private bill on a marginal issue, which gained a temporary, unbinding majority in the Knesset. He imposed elections, after which he established a completely right-wing government.

The government he created is submissive and obedient. All its ministers speak with one voice. Occasionally, someone says something critical, but there is no one threatening him and no one undermining him. Nevertheless, after two years, he has once again announced that he is fed up. The disputed issue is so marginal, that I would rather not bore you with its details. Calling this dispute a crisis is quite embarrassing. But he is fed up, and he may drag Israel to elections.

Youre interested in the diplomatic side. Fortunately, there is a diplomatic side. A new president has been elected in the United States. His name is Donald Trump. The forces that make up this government pinned a lot of hopes on him. Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett referred to him as a messiah: His election has removed all the restrictions imposed on Israel by previous presidents. Israel will be able to annex, settle and enact whichever laws as it wants.

And then Trump opened his mouth and said, Reach whatever deal you want. He didnt say, do whatever you want, settle wherever you want. He said, strike a deal. His envoy, a lawyer who specializes in real estate contracts in the Trump Organization, came here to prepare the papers for the signing. He was very surprised to hear that there is no deal. There are constraints. Trump only recognizes his own constraints.

Indeed, there were reports about a deala new Amona in exchange for a settlement construction freeze. Netanyahu rushed to deny it: He wont let Bennett steal right-wing votes from him, not while were headed towards elections.

The diplomatic issue is just an example. You asked about the investigations against the prime minister. Dont believe the reports: During an election campaign, its very difficult to move forward with an investigation, and its impossible to file indictments or conduct a trial. The atmosphere is too charged. Imagine what will happen if the police ask to question someone abroad. No foreign government will be in hurry to approve such an investigation, for fear of being accused of plotting against Israel. The election campaign will dissolve the investigations; a victory will bury them.

There is one more advantage, a significant one, in an election period: The leader is allowed to lose his mind. The voters like it; the world understands. You must remember what Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said about Trump after he announced that he would deport all Muslims from America. During an election campaign, its acceptable. Netanyahu wants to go crazy too.

Israelis dont want early elections. They have had enough of politics. Even those who want a change dont believe it will come now. Netanyahu knows how to overcome this problem. Its harder for him to drag his own party and his coalition partners to elections. Netanyahu created their dream government, and now hes paying the price.
A Palestinian terrorist tried to stab a soldier at a bus stop near the Samaria Territorial Brigade's base in the Nablus area on Monday morning.

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IDF troops were able to overpower the attacker without opening fire. No one was hurt in the incident.

Vehicle-ramming attack thwarted

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The Palestinian arrived at the bus stop, pulled out a screwdriver and tried to stab a soldier on patrol.

Soldiers overpowering the attacker

The attacker was being questioned on the scene.

In the past two years, IDF fighters in the various sectors have experienced hundreds of attempted attacks, and in all events, the fighters were forced to make a momentary, fateful decision without any advance intelligence.

"I reported there was a suspect here with a sharp object in his hand, and I cocked my rifle even before he lifted the screwdriver in the air, and we acted very swiftly and I feel satisfied to be defending the sector, said Sgt. P.

"I did not feel especially threatened, but if the terrorist had advanced or done anything more, I would have fired if I had to," said Sgt. Yonatan, who arrived to the sector a mere two weeks ago with his regiment. "We acted according to the instructions and I understand the logic behind them. We used reasonable force and this option was preferable."

Sergeant P. added: "We acted well, because if the terrorist is not really threatening and can be neutralized without firing then it is preferable. We will behave in the same manner next time as well. The two soldiers were backed up and praised by their commanders in Golani, for they made the decisions on their own, while exercising their discretion, while their commander was on the far side of the compound, in his position, as part of the security deployment.
Following the assassination of Hamas commander Mazan Fukha, leader Khaled Mashal threatened on Monday that his organization was in "an open war against the criminal enemy."

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"The enemy has uprooted a hero from our heroes in Gaza," Mashal said during a memorial ceremony for Fukha in a speech broadcast to Al-Qubaisa Square in Gaza City from Qatar, where he resides.

Mazan Fukha's funeral in Gaza

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"It settled the score with one of our freed prisoners. The conflict is still ongoing and we, the leaders of the organization, accept the challenge. If the enemy changes the equation, we accept it and bear the responsibility to protect our sons and daughters. We adhere to the struggle to free our prisoners, to liberate Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa. Our willpower is stronger than their weapons, and in the end, we will triumph."

Fukha's son on the shoulders of Yahya Sinwar, who stands next to Ismail Haniyeh (Photo: Reuters)

"Fukha was a resistance man even before prison; he went through prison and ended his career as a martyr," Mashal continued. "I tell my brothers from the Hamas and from the military wing, and to all the Palestinian people, that we must continue to live in this way in order to fight the occupation. The struggle is our natural state. The Hamas leadership has responsibility and knows what to do. It will continue on its way and continue to bear responsibility.

Hamas's top Gaza leadership with Fukha's son at the memorial ceremony (Photo: Reuters)

A billboard in Gaza displaying Fukha (Photo: AFP)

In conclusion, the Hamas leader said that there was no difference between the West Bank and Gaza. "We are all one people. Gaza and is strong and welcomes all of the heroic liberated prisoners. We are committed to our people and our prisoners," he declared.
DENVER - Investigators in Colorado arrested on Monday a man suspected of throwing a 'biblical text' inside a mosque after smashing windows and a glass door of the Islamic center and overturning furniture inside, police said.

Joseph Giaquinto, 35, was taken into custody and accused of criminal mischief, trespassing and a bias-motivated crime at the Fort Collins Islamic Center on Sunday, the Fort Collins Police Department said in a statement.

Police Chief John Hutto said the incident had a "very real impact" on the city's Muslim community.

"We will not tolerate acts of hatred in our community, and I hope this arrest sends that message loud and clear," Hutto said in a statement. "While the building can be repaired, this incident caused deeper hurt that won't just go away."
Hundreds of women and children were killed in west Mosul last week. The Americans bombed the area, as part of their cooperation with the Iraqi army against the Islamic State. The tragedy did not make the headlines. Claims of war crimes were nowhere to be found either. Neither was something more moderate like claims of a disproportional response. There were no protests whatsoever. The hostile sentiments, like the condemnatory headlines, are reserved for only one country in the worldIsrael.

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The United Nations issued condemnationsnot against those who bombed the area, but against the use of civilians as a human shield. The New York Times, which constantly condemned Israel during Operation Protective Edge, argued mostly with Trump: Taken together, the surge of reported civilian deaths raised questions about whether once-strict rules of engagement meant to minimize civilian casualties were being relaxed under the Trump administration.

One might have assumed that since 2003, or maybe only from 2008, the strict rules of engagement had led to minimum civilian casualties. Well, the figures show that 268,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq since the war began there in 2003. There is no proof that former President Barack Obama reduced the number of casualties. The use of drones, for example, was 10 times higher during the Obama era than during the George W. Bush era.

Destruction in Mosul after US-led airstrikes. No condemnations, no protests (Photo: AP)

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey has admitted in the past that in an effort to reduce the number of civilian casualties, he sends his officers to Israel, which went to extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties in Gaza. That did nothing to lower the level of hostility towards Israel. Neither did the guidelines issued for Hamas militants, ordering them to operate from within a civilian population in order to increase the number of innocent casualties, so as to increase the pressure on Israel.

Its clear that from a comparative perspective, the number of civilian deaths caused by Israel is much lower. Hamas spokespeople, even more than ISIS fighters, have repeatedly boasted that they use civiliansmainly women and childrenas a human shield. ISIS learned from Hamas, hoping that the same international pressure exerted on Israel would be exerted on the coalition forces as well. The organizations fighters were stationed on the roofs of bombed buildings. The mission was accomplished. Hundreds of civilians were killed.

I am writing this because we are already hearing the sounds of the drums of war in the background: there has been a rise in the number of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, Hamas has elected a militant leader, Yahya Sanwar, and like all jihad organizations, it is investing in the industry of deathin tunnels and rockets rather than in the strips reconstruction. As soon as the conflict begins, the global response will be the exact same response as in the previous rounds. The protests will be against Israel, not against Hamas.

That doesnt mean that there is nothing we can do. There is. Israel should initiate a dramatic, far-reaching proposal to end the blockade on the strip. The formula should be reconstruction in exchange for demilitarization. If Hamas says yes, Israel will benefit. If Hamas says no, Israel will gain important diplomatic leverage.

Israel is neither the US nor NATO. Israel is not treated like the rest of the Western states. As soon as the first reports about civilian casualties emerge, international pressure will begin, including demonstrations, protests and condemnation articles. Forgiveness and restrain in such situations are reserved for every other army, but not for Israel. And we should admit that the international protest, which turns Israel into a criminal, affects tactical and strategic decisions during the fighting.

An Israeli initiative wont eliminate the anti-Israel hypocrisy, but it will help Israel deal with the traps prepared by Hamas in order to increase the number of civilian casualties. Israel is preparing for the next conflict. The preparations should focus on diplomacy too.
US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, already a White House senior adviser, will take on the additional task of overseeing an effort to overhaul the federal government, the White House said on Monday.

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Kushner, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump, will lead a White House Office of American Innovation to leverage business ideas and potentially privatize some government functions as the White House pushes to shrink government, cut federal employees and eliminate regulations.

"This office will bring together the best ideas from government, the private sector, and other thought leaders to ensure that America is ready to solve today's most intractable problems," Trump said in a memorandum creating the office that includes about a dozen White House officials.

Kushner, right, with his father-in-law Trump (Photo: AP)

Trump, who campaigned on a pledge to "drain the swamp," has enacted a hiring freeze for most civilian federal jobs and proposed massive cuts in US domestic agencies that could shrink the size of government by thousands of workers

The Republican president has also proposed sweeping cuts in government regulations and plans to sign an order on Tuesday rolling back some energy regulations.

"We have a lot more coming," he said on Monday at a ceremony signing bills to repeal four regulations, vowing to eliminate every "job-killing regulation that we can find."

Trump, his daughter Ivanka, and son-in-law Kushner (Photo: AFP)

A number of recent presidents including Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama had mixed success with their own initiatives to reinvent or streamline government using suggestions from the private sector.

Kushner has been a regular presence at his father-in-law's side and was earlier cleared by the Justice Department to serve as a White House senior adviser even as Democrats raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest.

He has been given a wide range of domestic and foreign policy responsibilities, including working on a Middle East peace deal. He will continue to serve in the other roles even as he takes up the new duties, the White House said.

Last week, Ivanka Trump received her own office in the White House along with access to classified information and a government-issued phone. Aides had said earlier she would not take on a role in her father's White House.

Kushner with wife Ivanka Trump (Photo: MCT)

The Washington Post quoted aides as saying she would collaborate with Kushner's innovation office but would not have an official role.

Kushner to testify on Trump's Russian ties

Kushner is also expected to testify in front of a US Senate Intelligence Committee investigating suspected Russian interference in the election after a Russian bank under Western economic sanctions disclosed on Monday that its executives had met with him in December.

Kushner, who agreed to testify, previously acknowledged meeting the Russian ambassador to Washington last December and only on Monday did it emerge that executives of Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) had talks with Kushner during a bank roadshow last year.

Kushner and Trump (Photo: MCT)

The bank said in an emailed statement that as part of its preparing a new strategy, its executives met representatives of financial institutes in Europe, Asia and America.

It said roadshow meetings took place "with a number of representatives of the largest banks and business establishments of the United States, including Jared Kushner, the head of Kushner Companies." VEB declined to say where the meetings took place or the dates.

There was no immediate comment from Kushner.

Allegations by US intelligence agencies that Russian actors were behind hacking of senior Democratic Party operatives and spreading disinformation linger over Trump's young presidency. Democrats charge the Russians wanted to tilt the election toward the Republican, a claim dismissed by Trump. Russia denies the allegations.

Photo: MCT

But there has been no doubt that the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, developed contacts among the Trump team. Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign on Feb. 13 after revelations that he had discussed US sanctions on Russia with Kislyak and misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations.

US officials said that after meeting with Russian Kislyak at Trump Tower last December, a meeting also attended by Flynn, Kushner met later in December with Sergei Gorkov, chairman of Vnesheconombank.

White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks confirmed the meetings, saying nothing of consequence was discussed.

According to two congressional staffers, some Senate investigators want to question Kushner and Flynn about whether they discussed with Gorkov or other Russian officials or financial executives the possibility of investing in 666 Fifth Avenue in New York or other Kushner Co or Trump properties if the new administration lifted the sanctions.

"Throughout the campaign and the transition, Jared served as the official primary point of contact with foreign governments and officials ... and so, given this role, he volunteered to speak with Chairman Burr's committee," White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters at his daily briefing on Monday.
A new video has come to light from the Umm al-Hiran shooting , which ended with the death of policeman Erez Amadi Levi, 34, and the civilian Yaqub Abu al-Qiyan, 47.

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In the video, a man is heard screaming dont shoot followed by another shout, calling out to charge, and then a burst of gunfire.

New video of the incident in Umm al-Hiran

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The al-Qiyan family released a segment from the video, which was captured by Miriam Abu al-Qiyan.

"You see the police vehicle that was hit by heavy fire from the police. You hear the policemen who say dont shoot, dont shoot,'" said Miriam's husband, Raed Abu al-Qiyan.

Umm al-Hiran (Photo: Roi Idan)

Earlier this month, investigators from the Israel Police's Internal Affairs Unit arrived at Umm al-Hiran to reenact the events that took place about two months ago during clashes between police forces and the village's residents.

The rioting had broken out following the demolition of illegal structures in the Bedouin Negev community. At first, the police claimed the incident was a vehicle-ramming terror attack, only to be retracted later when questions arose.

The investigators brought a vehicle similar to the vehicle used by al-Qiyan in an attempt to understand the sequence of events as part of the ongoing investigation. The reenactment was carried out with the vehicles headlights on, even though the polices initial version of the events was that the cars lights had been off.

In addition, Internal Affairs is still awaiting the results of the ballistics tests that are supposed to shed additional light on the incident.

Raed Abu al-Qiyan, a relative of the driver who was killed in the incident, said: "The reenactment was late in coming, but it is better late than never. We pressured Internal Affairs to carry out the reenactment, both the residents and our lawyers. We hope that the truth will come out and that all those culpable will be punished. Minister Uri Ariel and Minister Gilad Erdan could have also prevented this. Two people paid with their lives for politicians' mistakes. We do not want Internal Affairs to single out one soldier or one officer. The responsibility lies with the police commissioner, the minister and the officers who had a hand in this."

(Translated and edited by N. Elias)
A Royal Bengal tiger skin and over 200 pieces of skeletal bones were seized while being smuggled across the vulnerable Assam-Arunachal border.

By Baishali Adak: In an ominous sign for big cat protection efforts, a gigantic Royal Bengal tiger skin and over 200 pieces of skeletal bones were seized while being smuggled across the vulnerable Assam-Arunachal border on Saturday.

The Guwahati (Assam) unit of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) made a surprise raid at a checkpoint in Banderdewa, 30.7 km from the capital city Itanagar, around 5 pm, and hauled up a Santro. Two poachers/traders, who are yet to be identified, fled while the driver, Dipak Powdel Chetry, was arrested with the booty.

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Later, it was uncovered to be the skin of a fully-grown up Royal Bengal tiger, about 15 years of age and complete with the head, paws, nails and tail. It measured a whopping 10 feet and 11 inches in length. Plus, a bag was recovered with over 200 pieces of bones - in all, an estimated Rs 1.2 crore in the international black market, police said.

STRING OF TIGER POACHING CASES

Notably, this is only one in a string of cases of tiger poaching which has come to the notice of law enforcement agencies in the East.

Thomas Basu, deputy director, DRI (Guwahati), told MAIL TODAY, "We produced Chetry in North Lakhimpur court and he is in judicial custody. An investigation is on to find his accomplices. He has told us that the product was destined for south-east Asian countries from Bhutan, Tibet, Myanmar - the point to which poachers have to safely deliver the consignment."

"Once it's across the border, the material can be sent further easily," he said. Vasanthan B, divisional forest officer (DFO) of Lakhimpur (north Assam), who assisted in the operation, said, "As per Wildlife Institute of India (WII) guidelines, the hide is being sent to an FSL for further analysis. Our digital records and expertise on tiger stripes will determine which sanctuary, forest or area he came from."

"The Royal Bengal tigers are spread across Assam, Arunachal and West Bengal. They are found in the mangroves of Sunderbans, Manas National Park, Kaziranga Tiger Reserve, Orang National Park, Pakke Tiger Reserve, Nameri and Laokhowa Wildlife sanctuary," he added.

LARGEST AMONG THE BIG CATS

The Royal Bengal tiger (Panthera Tigris Tigris) is known to be the largest and most powerful sub-species of the cat family.

They are known to inhabit a variety of weathers and topologies ranging from scrub and deciduous forests to Himalayan snow mountains and mangroves. Overall,

India has a tiger census of 2,226 as per the 2014 WII census, but poaching has also gone up significantly.

Even in December 2016, a gang of three poachers was arrested in West Bengal's Hasimara in Alipurduar near Subhasani tea estate on NH 31, with three tiger skins and bones.

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Sources said they were heading towards the Indo-Bhutan border through Jaigaon.

Earlier, four members of a gang who were hunting in Dooars had been arrested with an AK-47 rifle, and during interrogation, they had mentioned the names of these accused.

ALSO READ | Government marks World Wildlife Day, organises mass burning of poached wildlife products

Khokon Saha, big fish of turtle trade, in West Bengal police net

ALSO WATCH | Meet the Snake Lady of Maharashtra who saved over 50,000 reptiles

--- ENDS ---
Two Israelis were killed and three others were injured early Tuesday morning in a traffic accident at the entrance to Bucharest, the capital city of Romania.

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The Foreign Ministry confirmed the death of Muhammad al-Jabrin from Lod and Dhamshah Ahmad from Kafr Qana. Both were students. The Ministry, via the Israeli Embassy in Bucharest, and the Department for Israelis Abroad, will be assisting in the return of the body to Israel as well as the other hospitalized Israelis.

Five Israelis injured in car accident

The car crashed into another car coming from the opposite direction. Romanian media provided conflicting reports on the condition of the injured, but Israel's Foreign Ministry said they knew of lightly injured being treated in the hospital.

One of the country's media outlets reported that three of the injured were resuscitated, followed by improvement in their condition.

The two Israelis killed in the accident

Romanian police reported that the driver of the car in which the Israelis were traveling did not give right of way to the opposite vehicle and crashed into it.

The Israelis' car

As a result of the collision, the Israeli car careened into Lake Dambovita. Two of the injured had reportedly dragged themselves out of the water on their own and were rushed to hospitals in Bucharest along with their friends.

(Translated and edited by N. Elias)
After the negotiations have reached an impasse, Haifa Chemicals employees are intensifying the struggle. Hundreds of workers are blocking the main thoroughfare in Tel Aviv. The demonstrators are calling on the prime minister to intervene in the crisis and salvage them.
Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, the head of the Bnei David pre-army preparatory yeshiva in Eli, sent a somewhat apologetic letter to students and graduates of the yeshiva on Monday evening, following the public uproar over his disparaging remarks about women serving in the IDF.

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He dismissed accusations that his remarks were laced with sexual innuendo against women, claiming that his words were taken out of context. He noted that when he said that women who served in the IDF were "not hot," he actually meant they had no religious affiliation. For that same reason, he said that upon discharge from the army they would no longer be Jewish. Thus, they would find it difficult to marry yeshiva graduates.

That said, the rabbi apologized for the manner in which the things were said, and admitted that it was not right to belittle the IDF soldiers.

Rabbi Levinstein, Avigdor Lieberman (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

Levinstein spoke harshly against theh LGBT community and against the recruitment of women into the army, which led to harsh criticism from Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who called on him to resign. Levinstein also recently attacked the Supreme Court and former chief justice Aharon Barak.

"Perhaps some of you are angry, or even ashamed at having studied in Eli with the ignorant rabbi, wrote Levinstein in the letter. "I have an obligation to you, and therefore, I believe it would be right to express my opinion on matters pertaining to the issues that arose."

According to him, as head of an institution that trains and prepares graduates of religious education for military service, he must inform the youth of the "new situation" in the matter of men and women serving together in the army. He espoused that it is his responsibility to warn them accordingly and maintain the religiosity of those who enlist even after they are discharged from service. This task is becoming very difficult these days," he wrote.

In the letter, Levinstein explained that "For me, the woman is the best start-up from the Creator of the universe. It is the greatest gift that the Creator had ever bestowed upon the world. Claiming my words to be disrespectful or derogatory to women couldnt be further from the truth. I think they are wrong and what is being done to them is horrible, but it isnt right to belittle them, and in that, I was mistaken Women were taken prisoner by the feminist movement. In my cry, I am trying to save the girls from feminist captivity and fight for their honor as women according to Judaism."

At a conference held by rabbis against the "impact of the reform on the identity of the State of Israel" in July, Levinstein argued with regard to the LGBT community: "There is a crazy movement of people who simply lost the normality of life, and this group has been driving an entire country crazy. It has infiltrated the army with all its might and no one dares speak against them." He called members of the gay community perverts" and accused the IDF of allowing them to implement their worldview into the military system.

At the beginning of the month, in a lecture he gave to pre-draft students, the head of the preparatory academy mocked the combat female soldiers, saying they were "not hot" and wondering who would agree to marry them.

He did not spare criticism from the IDF, claiming: "In Bamahane, which is the army's newspaper, for 10 years there have only been pictures of girls. I asked: are there any male soldiers in the IDF? I havent seen any pictures of men, and if there are, they are surrounded by girls, all of whom are wearing camouflage colors Someone said to me: Dont worry, theyre practicing for marriage, (but) I dont know who would marry them."

(Translated and edited by N. Elias)
Hundreds of Haifa Chemicals employees blocked a major intersection in Tel Aviv on Tuesday morning in protest of the threats made by the company management to lay them off in an effort to prevent the closure of the ammonia facility in the northern city.

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The employees blocked off the intersection at Menachem Begin Road and Givat HaTahmoshet Street, near the Azrielly center in central Tel Aviv. As a result, the HaShalom Interchange on- and off-ramps leading to Ayalon Highway were also blocked.

The court ordered Haifa Chemicals' ammonia facility to be closed and emptied out by April 1 . The company is due in court on Wednesday to submit plans to empty out the facility.

Photo: Omer Goren

Negotiations regarding the fate of the facility's employees have reached a standstill, which led them to escalate their struggle.

In ads published on Tuesday morning's newspapers, the workers urged: "Mr. Prime Minister, help us. The closure of the Haifa Chemicals facilities, both in the north and in the south, puts us1,500 familieson the streets ahead of Passover. You hold the key to the solution. Only you can stop this nightmare and save us."

Photo: Sivan Izrailov

The Histadrut Labor Federation added its support to the Haifa Chemicals employees' struggle on Monday, with Histadrut leader Avi Nissenkorn declaring a work dispute in the industry and among employers in southern Israel.

In a statement, Nissenkorn called on "all sides to reach a real solution that would prevent the loss of thousands of jobs on the eve of Passover in an area stricken with unemployment."
Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel has claimed that the chairman of Bayit Yehudi, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, wants to break off the partnership between his faction and Ariel's National Union (HaIchud HaLeumi-Tkuma) in the next elections.

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The National Union, which has historically been partnering with other parties in Knesset elections, fears that Bennett wants to end their partnership in light of his desire to appeal to other potential voters.

Uri Ariel, Naftali Bennett (Photo: Amit Shaabi, Ido Erez)

"Bennett doesnt want to run with us because we are too religious and too right-wing," Ariel said Monday. "There is genuine desire among the public for us to proceed as a united list in the next elections, but unfortunately, the response we are getting from the chairman is that he does not want to run with the National Union. Therefore, we must prepare to go to elections by ourselves."

National Union sources said Bennett has conveyed messages that he intends to give the party a "facelift," including a reduction in the number of religious-right members and the inclusion of liberal women.
Ten years after he fled the country over suspicions he spied for Hezbollah during the 2006 Second Lebanon War, former MK and Balad party chairman Azmi Bishara said he had met with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah several times after leaving Israel.

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"I met with Hassan Nasrallah a few times after I left (Israel) in 2007. With that, I emphasize that the conversations (with Nasrallah) were not security related like Israel accuses, they were about political issues. I believe that any discussion in the matter is not going to help (elevate the suspicions)," Bishara, who now lives in Qatar's capital of Doha, told Qatari newspaper Al Arab in an interview.

"But you are a public figure and so is he," they interviewer pressed. Bishara responded that he was a public figure before, but not anymore, denying any conflict of interest.

Former MK Azmi Bishara, Qatar

Bishara told Al Arab that when he was under investigation in Israel ten years ago, he realized he was going to be accused of collaborating with the enemy, Hezbollah. "This is the gravest criminal charge in Israel. It is the only offense punishable by death, aside for genocide," said Bishara, clarifying that "since Israel doesn't practice the death penalty, it is converted to life imprisonment."

The former MK then told the interviewer that he didn't have a problem leaving the country, since the authorities didn't file a stay of exit order against him. That would require stripping his immunity as an MK, which didn't happen because investigators were reluctant to reveal information on the suspicions against him.

"They trusted I would return since I didn't know much about the investigation," said Bishara. "I flew out and took only two shirts with me, like I'm planning on coming back. At the time, I didn't fully decide yet on what to do, but after I left, Israeli news networks started reporting on the investigation. Information then reached me about their (the investigators') plans, and so I stayed abroad."

When asked how he got the information, Bishara said that it was mostly from MKs who got the information from other MKs, and from reporters who heard it first-hand from policemen who bragged about it to them.

The former MK claimed that even his family was not aware of his decision. He said that when the story broke out, he was with his family in Jordan's capital of Amman. They later returned to Israel, and he flew to Qatar for an interview with Al Jazeera.

He remembered that when he arrived there he met with the former Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who has since been replaced by his son. "I told him that I may decide to stay here, and I explained what happened. We had a friendly relationship from a few years back." Bishara claimed that the Emir told him that "this country is your country."

He said that he was also welcomed in Syria and Jordan, and when he met Lebanon's former president Emile Lahoud, the president told him "stay with us."

Bishara accused Israel of wanting to get rid of him even before the suspicions arose against him, claiming that "some would say that I was one of the most successful MKs, as far as parliamentary work is concerned, but when they started talking about me like some kind of security risk, it was clear that they wanted to get rid of me."

Addressing the allegations he spied for Hezbollah, Bishara said that "my position was, as far as I saw it, for the resistance. I liked the model presented by the Lebanese resistancethey strived for accomplishments. They now call it 'a divine victory,' but as a logical non-religious person, I think that they wanted to accomplish something, and not just fight. They wanted to liberate Lebanon."

Bishara then added that "maybe they wanted more, as we later saw, to gain a position and status in Lebanon as a state. But for me, as a Palestinian who lived within the Green Line, I knew that Israel would not keep hold of South Lebanon like they do with the West Bank, and so understood that retreat is a viable option and that pressure (against Israel) helps. I believed their tactic was right."

However, he insisted, "I don't know secrets and I dont share secrets with people. I was aware of my position as a member of the Knesset and a public representative and so I didn't discuss any security issues of any kind."

After that, Bishara said that his opinion changed. "The resistance was exploited for ethnic and religious gains. At the time, I believed that it was right to support the resistance, but my assessment changed. Today I'm against Hezbollah's presence in Lebanon and Syria. I took part in instilling the idea of resistance in the Arab culture and I believe that my decision to stand at Hezbollah's side while Arab countries were inciting against them was historic."

Bishara said that Hezbollah greatly appreciated his support of them. "At times, a man like me does as he pleases. When a man is driven by a political and national agenda that he ideologically believes in, his last consideration is of himself and his family," he said, clarifying that he does not advocate anyone to act like he did, but that he still believes that his support of Hezbollah produced more positive results than negative.

Today, Bishara serves as the General Director of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.

(Translated & edited by Lior Mor)
After immigrating to Israel as lone soldiers and serving together in Caracal Battalion, Laura, Kayla, and Rebecca decided to go to war together on behalf of Israeli informational campaign on campuses across the United States.

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The three recently immigrated trio have joined the project, run by the Reservists on the Front organization, which works against the anti-Israel boycott BDS movement. As part of the organization's informational campaigns, the three female reserve soldiers flew to the US on Monday to present the Israeli angle and expose the lies of the boycott movement.

Laura, Kayla, and Rebecca (Photo: Shaul Golan)

Laura Prince, 25, made aliyah (immigrated) from New Jersey to Herzliya five years ago and served as a squad leader in the Caracal Battalion. "I came to Israel to join the army," said Laura.

She feels that she already knows how to explain Israel's point of view. "I'll explain the situation through my personal experiences," she said, adding: "The media has a tendency to go against Israel and that's what the students are learning. In order to teach them the truth, you have to speak to them face-to-face.

Rebecca Greger, 27, who immigrated from North Carolina to Herzliya seven years ago, joined the informational campaign as well. "I felt obligated to give of myself and serve the State of Israel," she said.

"The BDSs claims are wrong. The fact that people believe them only shows how much they dont know about Israel," she emphasized. The Americans have the privilege of conducting their battles in distant places and not on their borders. Therefore, they are not exposed to feelings of distress, war and existential threats."

"I hope to share my experience with other people so that they understand that the reality in Israel is very different from what they see on television and on the news," she added.

Staff Sgt. Kayla Dulin, 26, immigrated to Tel Aviv from New York four years ago and served as a sergeant in the Caracal Battalion.

"I'm a proud Jew. I'm a Zionist. I love the country. I am the daughter of parents who fled from the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and my late grandfather was a Holocaust survivor. These are the stories I grew up on. They are an integral part of my identity," said Kayla.

"I feel like I have fulfilled a dream that is not only mine, but of generations in my family I think the IDF is the most ethical body to deal with many challenges and in the end, is responsible for Israel's security. It's not black and white. We are not perfect, but were close," she said.

"There is no room for the new anti-Semitism disguised as pro-Palestinianism," she concluded.

"There is tremendous power in having former lone soldiers who are now living in Israel undertaking these informational campaigns, said Amit Dari, CEO of Reservists on the Front. "Along with an Israeli mentality, an IDF service and various experiences from Israel, they also have a deep understanding of the American mentality and complete mastery of the language. Our representatives have family and friends living in the US, and especially on campuses. The US is important to them; the poison and anti-Semitism spread by hateful organizations and the BDS are harming America no less than theyre harming Israel."

(Translated and edited by N. Elias)
Israel's pious ultra-Orthodox Jewish community has long chafed at public displays of women, whether the images are of female public figures or ordinary women.

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Now even animated characters appear to be a no-go.

The smurfs sans smurfette

The PR company promoting Smurfs: The Lost Village movie, which opens Thursday in Israel, says it has removed the images of Smurfettethe only female among the Smurf charactersfrom promo posters in the central Israeli city of Bnei Brak.

The Mirka'im-Hutzot Zahav company said it did so as not to offend the city's ultra-Orthodox residents.

The original poster shows Smurfette alongside friends Brainy, Clumsy and Hefty. But in Bnei Brak, she's nowhere to be found.

The ultra-Orthodox press in Israel has previously avoided publishing pictures of Hillary Clinton during last year's American presidential race.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke today at the Presidents and Prime Ministers memorial ceremony, beginning with speaking about Israel's beloved and recently deceased former president Shimon Peres.

He continued by expressing gratitude for Israel's improved relations with countries around the world, saying that "we are blessed today with great relations with over 160 countries, and that number is growing. Next week another country is going to announce the start of diplomatic relations with Israel."

Netanyahu then added that "almost every day envoys come to Israel asking to improve relations with us even further, inspired by our power. Currently, we are strengthening our relations with the moderate authorities in the area, not only to curb the extremists but to open the path to peace."
Some ten thousand ultra-Orthodox protestors rallied on Tuesday in Jerusalem in opposition to the mandatory IDF draft.

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"We lived through the Pharaoh, we lived through the Spanish Inquisition, we lived through Hitler, we'll outlive you," chanted the 10,000-strong protestors. "We'll fill the prisons the way we filled the Diaspora."

The Haredi protest (Photo: Ofer Meir)

Tuesday's protest was one of several following the recent detention of a rabbi's son who refused to report to a draft office, among several young men belonging to the ultra-Orthodox Yerushalmi Sector, led by Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach.

Photo: Haredi protest

Those who avoid the draft are considered defectors by the IDF and are hunted down accordingly. The Yerushalmi Sector arranged bus rides for thousands of protestors to the capital.

Photo: Haredi protest

During the rally, protestors also passed around a petition with a power of attorney, as they plan to take it to the Hague, claiming the draft to be a human rights violation.

Ultra-Orthodox leaders said they serve Israel through religious study and prayer and fear integration in the army threatens their insular, pious lifestyle.

Rabbi Auerbach spoke at the protest, in what was his first public appearance during the current wave of clash between the sector and the IDF.

"This is the uprooting of all that is sacred and holy," said Auerbach in his speech. "Our job is to stand guard and not be swayed by any compromises or offers of facilitation." Mentioning that the IDF has begun to recruit young men from the yeshivas themselves, he added, "We cannot make peace with this reality."

Protestors arrived at the rally with signs that read "Joining the killing armyUnder no circumstances" and "Yes to prisonNo to the army." Others took a slightly different take, showing the picture of Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman next to the pictures of such world dictators as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Joseph Stalin and Kim Jong-un. A speaker at the rally stated that the Israeli Army "abuses" its Haredi soldiers and makes them go through "the seven circles of hell," before adding that "these are forced labor camps, extermination camps!"

Referring to mainstream Haredim who do adhere to the mandatory draft, the speaker continued by saying "Shame on you, foul collaborators. Even hell has no place for you!" He added that "The IDF is the only army in the world that works to change its soldiers' ideology. There is nothing as deplorable in the whole world. The army's goal is to burn down the legacy and purity of the Israeli people."

Auerbach, for his part, has recently intensified his opposition to the draft. Last week, he called on his people to fight "until the last drop of blood," and during Tuesday's rally he joined anti-Zionist entities from within the Haredi community that refuse to recognize the State of Israel.

Draft privileges go back to when Israel's founders granted exemptions to a few hundred gifted students to help rebuild the schools of Jewish learning destroyed in the Holocaust. But numbers have ballooned dramatically since then.

Exemptions have bred resentment among Israel's secular majority, whose children mostly serve after high school.
In a rare show of force, protestors across 100 Russian cities and town gathered in crowds despite the Kremlin declaring the protests unauthorised and "illegal".

By Sanjana Agnihotri: Russia has been witnessing a series of anti- government protests during which hundreds of demonstrators were arrested.

In a rare show of force, protestors across 100 Russian cities and town gathered in crowds despite the Kremlin declaring the protests unauthorised and "illegal".

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was also sentenced to 15 days in prison by a Russian court. The court said that he had disobeyed a police officer during an anti-government protest in Moscow.

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"Today we are discussing (and condemning) corruption, not the detentions. Well, I was detained. So what. It OK. There are things in life that are worth being detained for," Navalny tweeted.

Photo: AP

This is not the first time that Navalny has been credited with instigating such protests, he has previously called on Russians to go out and protest voter fraud in the parliamentary elections which ended up with a victory and another term for current President Vladimir Putin.

Navalny's plans to run for president next year but a Russian court found him guilty of embezzlement in a case he claims is politically charged to disqualify him.

He was also fined 20,000 rubles (22,782 Rs) for organising the protest which was deemed illegal. Apart from Navalny, 17 employees of Anti-Corruption Foundation were arrested.

Why are Russians protesting?

The protest came in response to an investigation that Navalny and his Anti-Corruption Foundation posted on YouTube. The report claims that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has a "a corruption empire" of luxury properties, yachts and vineyards. He allegedly owns a duck house built in the middle of a pond in one of Medvedev's estates.

Photo: AP

The video which garnered 13 million views is said to have stirred the mass protest wherein thousands demanded PM Medvedev's resignation. Reportedly, 8,000 people protested in Moscow itself and according to a Russian human rights group OVD-Info more than 1,000 were detained.

The liberal radio station Echo of Moscow estimated that 60,000 turned out across the country and most of the protestors were either in their teens or in their early 20s, reported NBC news .

This large-scale dissent is being labelled as the biggest show of defiance since the 2011-2012 wave of demonstrations which led to implementation of new harsh laws aiming suppression of dissent.

Photo: AP

Protestors were seen carrying rubber ducks suggesting their belief in the allegation that the Prime Minister has a duck house built inside a pond. The old sneakers hanging over trees were a reference to another accusation which highlighted Medvedev's expensive taste in sneakers.

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To show solidarity with Navalny, on whom unidentified attackers threw green antiseptic, many protestors painted their faces green.

Kremlin's stance

"It is pointless to comment on the propagandist outbursts of a convicted opposition figure, who has already announced he is running some kind of election campaign and fighting against the authorities", said Medvedev's spokeswoman, Natalya Timakova as reported by CNN .

Calling the protests "a provocation", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the authorities are concerned about the opposition activists encouraging people to break the law again in future. He even denied restricting coverage even though the state media had implemented a blackout to ignore the ongoing protest.

Photo: AP

"We don't create the editorial policies of TV channels. TV channels show what they think is important, there are just so many ways to get information, so it's not right to say that the information is restricted in any way," Peskov said.

The Kremlin spokesman said that large number of young people were involved in the demonstration because they had been offered financial incentives to be there. "We cannot respect people who knowingly mislead the underage kids, in fact, asking them, while promising some sort of rewards, to participate in an illegal event".

Photo: AP

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International condemnation

The US State Department has denounced the crackdown in Moscow and demanded the release of the peaceful protesters. However, the Kremlin has rejected calls by the United States and European Union to release the protesters.

--- ENDS ---
On Tuesday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu teased the impending renewal of diplomatic relations with another country, which Ynet has learned to be Nicaragua.

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Netanyahu was speaking at an official memorial ceremony for deceased former heads of Israeli government and state in Jerusalem. He commented, Today, we are blessed with excellent relations with more than 160 countries. That number is growing. Next week, another country will announce the establishment of relations with the State of Israel.

In this July 3, 2016, file photo Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega and first lady Rosario Murillo, wave to supporters during an event commemorating the 36th anniversary of the Sandinista National Liberation Front withdrawal to Masaya, in Managua, Nicaragua. (Photo: AP)

Nicaragua suspended diplomatic ties with Israel in 2010 in protest of the Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara , a Turkish ship that was attempting to break the naval blockade on the Gaza Strip. In the incident, nine persons were killed.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortegas decision to sever ties was announced by his wife and government communications chief, Rosario Murillo, who is now the countrys vice president. Murillo announced then that her government underscored the illegal nature of the attack on a humanitarian mission in clear violation of international and humanitarian law.

(Translated and edited by J. Herzog)
Some 15 members the European Parliament, along with 150 guests, attended the inaugural ceremony for the Friends of Judea and Samaria in the European Parliament intergroup in Brussels on Tuesday, where they listened to 13-year-old terror victim Ayala Shapira tell her story.

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Shapira, who lives in the Samaria region, was wounded at age 11 when terrorists threw a firebomb at the car she was traveling in.

Ayla Shapira shares her experiences (:  )

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She explained that her family was attacked by a 16-year-old Palestinian who wanted his family to get benefits from the Palestinian Authority while he was imprisoned for his attack. Shapira asked the parliamentarians to consider that fact when they send aid money to the Palestinians, which they think is used for peaceful purposes.

Yossi Dagan and Petr Mach present the declaration. (Photo: Benjamin Pataki)

The intergroup was established on the initiative of the foreign relations group of the Samaria Regional Council, the head of which, Yossi Dagan, was present and spoke at the ceremony.

"It has been a long time now that people talk about us, but not with us," said Dagan. "We came here to change the situation and to promote the rights of the Israeli residents of the West Bank who take nothing for granted anymore; from the right to build and grow crops and have proper emergency healthcare."

West Bank representatives signed a joint declaration with the MEPs promising to cooperate to stop the funding of terrorism and reduce trade barriers facing Jewish pioneers in the West Bank. During the event, the participants toasted with wine produced in the West Bank.

(Photo: Benjamin Pataki)

The co-founder of the Group of Friends of Judea and Samaria in the European Parliament, Petr Mach, said "we decided to establish this new group in the European Parliament since we want to inform the public and the members of the parliament of the use of the European taxpayers money to support terrorism in Israel, and to let them know that while Palestinian goods that enter Europe are not taxed, Israeli goods are.

"We want to inform the public and the members of the parliament of this lack of fairness and to work together to remove the taxation of Jewish import and to put an end to funding that support terrorism in Israel and the West Bank, whether directly or indirectly."

In addition, Nati Rom, the founder of Lev HaOlam (a West Bank organization that helped to organize the event), spoke about the organizations efforts in the fight against the boycott movement by distributing products from the West Bank around the world. He emphasized that the forces driving terror are the same ones that call for boycotting Israel. Communities must work together against this discrimination of Jewish products and preserve the free market.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he's waiting to hear from the US on the extent to which Israel is willing to curb settlement construction. Abbas spoke to reporters Tuesday, after meeting with President Donald Trump's envoy, Jason Greenblatt, on the sidelines of an Arab summit.

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been deadlocked for years over Israel's settlement building on lands sought for a Palestinian state. Abbas says he can't negotiate while settlements grow.

Greenblatt has talked to Israel's leader about construction curbs. Abbas, who is to meet Trump in coming weeks, says there are "lots of questions from the American side at this stage, and we answered all of their questions."
The spotlight will be on Nebraskas number one industry this week as Nebraskans across the state celebrate National Ag Week.

Ill be joining Nebraskans from Scottsbluff to Omaha at 11 events over three days to highlight how our states number one industry continues to grow Nebraska. While commodity prices in many markets are lagging, there are many reasons to be optimistic about agricultures future in Nebraska.

Some may think growing agriculture only matters to our farm and ranch families, however, this $23 billion industry has a big economic impact on every part of our state. According to the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, one in four jobs in Nebraska are agriculture-related. In addition to our states 48,700 farms, ag-related industries employ Nebraskans who manufacture irrigation equipment in Hastings, process food in Omaha, and conduct research at the University in Lincoln among many other occupations.

Nebraskas commodity production leads nationally in numerous categories. In 2016, Nebraska ranked number one among all states for red meat production, cattle on feed, and Great Northern beans. We rank second for our total number of cattle and calves, ethanol production, and pinto beans. We are third in the nation for corn for grain production and corn exports.

These successes did not happen by accident  they happened because Nebraskans worked together to grow agriculture. There are several successes over the past year well be celebrating this week. In 2016, six more counties received Livestock Friendly County designations, sending the message they are open to new livestock operations. We cut red tape for ag producers with a new vehicle designation allowing them to move equipment without additional licensing.

In 2015, the Legislature and I put in place a new Livestock Siting Matrix to streamline the siting process for new projects. Just in the last few months, Dodge County became the first county to adopt this matrix. The county recently welcomed a new $1 billion investment from Costco, which is locating a new chicken processing plant in Fremont. This investment alone is equivalent to approximately one percent of our states GDP!

Trade has been key to growing agriculture in Nebraska. Over the past two years, we have led successful trade missions to the European Union, Japan, and China, and signed a new $400 million trade agreement with Taiwan. This last week, I hosted my annual Governors Ag Conference where trade was front and center in the discussion. Many ag producers are concerned about President Trumps desire to renegotiate trade deals, which have helped open up markets for Nebraskas commodities around the world. In the opening days of the Trump Administration, I have urged the President to protect Nebraska agriculture, and to move quickly to negotiate trade deals favorable to Nebraska.

Nebraskas ag producers have received good news from Washington recently. Before President Trump took office, Nebraska was suing the federal government over burdensome regulations placed on our ag producers. Shortly after President Trump was sworn in, he took swift action to roll back the Waters of the U.S., an onerous rule that threatened to hurt Nebraskas farm and ranch families. Rolling back this rule means Nebraskas ag producers will retain more control over their ability to farm and ranch without interference from federal regulators. The President has pledged to cut more red tape, and I am hopeful he will continue to do away with unnecessary regulations.

Tax reform will also help grow agriculture. Over the last couple of years, the Legislature and I have worked to deliver meaningful property tax relief for Nebraskas farmers and ranchers. We have delivered over $400 million in direct property tax relief with an additional $40 million for our ag producers over the next two years. I am currently working with senators to change the way we value ag land for taxation purposes. Today, we value ag land based on market sales. With the Agricultural Valuation Fairness Act, we would move to an income potential valuation system, which will help taxes track more closely with land values.

Throughout National Ag Week, I will be visiting with Nebraskans about how we can work together to grow agriculture. We must continue to grow agriculture to grow Nebraska, so the Good Life continues to provide the great opportunities the next generation is seeking. If you have any thoughts you would like to share on the state of agriculture in Nebraska, I hope you will contact my office by emailing pete.ricketts@nebraska.gov or by calling 402-471-2244. We look forward to hearing from you!
POTTER  A lush carpet of short green sprouts covers Rick Larsons wheat fields in the Nebraska Panhandle near Potter.

The plants look good, Larson said, although the mild winter caused it to break dormancy early this year putting it in danger of being damaged by a hard early spring frost.

Wheat farmers financial books, however, dont look quite so good.

Were not breaking even at all, the third-generation wheat farmer said.

That dismal financial outlook has accelerated the decline of wheat acres being planted in Nebraska, where it has long been a staple of dryland rotations.

The states farmers will grow fewer acres this year than ever before, the Lincoln Journal Star reported. They planted 1.09 million acres of hard red winter wheat last fall to harvest in 2017, 20 percent less than the year prior and about half what got planted a decade ago for harvest in 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Agricultures National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Right now, the cost of wheat production is higher than the price per bushel, Caroline Brauer of the Nebraska Wheat Board said in a recent interview.

Farmers in some areas of Nebraska, Brauer added, would lose a dollar a bushel if they planted wheat this year.

From a business standpoint, its just not sustainable to plant that. Its not a viable option, she said. Farmers had to make a decision in some instances that led to saying its not economically viable to plant a wheat crop on some acres this year.

In the Nebraska Panhandle, the going price for a bushel of wheat and corn is about the same, around $3.50, Larson said. While corn produces bigger yields, its not as reliable a crop on dryland that sees only 15 inches of precipitation on average a year, he said.

About half the wheat grown in the United States gets exported. World supplies of the grain, which saw a bin-busting harvest last year, are abundant and a strong U.S. dollar has made wheat grown here more expensive on the world market. U.S. wheat stocks were 2.07 billion bushels as of Dec. 1, up 19 percent from the year prior, according to the USDA.

Farmers have been sowing fewer wheat seeds nationally as well. The USDA estimated 36.6 million acres of winter wheat got planted last fall, down 7 percent from the year prior.

The decrease in wheat planted in Nebraska has been happening for much longer than can be blamed on current financial woes.

Corn and soybeans, generally the better yield-price combination, have been encroaching on wheat acres for decades; current finances simply hastened the process.

Advances in science, genetics and breeding have made corn and soybean suited to growing in a wide range of regions, made them more pest resistant and led to explosive growth of yields, which means more kernels or beans per acre.

Areas that used to be only wheat now can support newer varieties of dryland corn or soybean and yield where they wouldnt have before, Brauer said.

Wheat research hasnt kept pace. While wheat yields have trended up, they have not increased anywhere near as dramatically as corn yields. Nebraska wheat fields yielded an average of 42 bushels an acre in 1971 and 54 bushels in 2016, an exceptionally good year. Meanwhile, dryland corn fields went from an average of 60.6 bushels an acre in 1971 to 147.2 bushels in 2016.

Mark Knobel, who works fields north of Fairbury, is one of the farmers still working wheat into his crop rotation.

You analyze your situation every year, but I dont want to mess up my rotation. Wheat does positive things overall for your ground from a conservation standpoint, and soil tilth and soil health. I have some highly erodible ground and it fits my rotation quite nicely, Knobel said.

Wheat typically ripens by the end of June, ahead of hot, dry conditions; and gets used as ground cover to prevent runoff from gully-washers, as well as helps control pests and plant diseases when used in rotation.

Knobel, who grows wheat to sell for seed, said he generally plants a rotation of corn and soybeans followed by wheat and sunflowers in a single year, made possible by the early wheat harvest.

The double cropping makes it a little more palatable, he said. You have to maintain profitability to stay in business.

Despite its benefits, wheats unlikely to see resurgence in Nebraska without a major turnaround in price or the development with better yields, said Paul Hay, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln extension educator based in Beatrice.

We really need these crops to stand on their own merit. If were going to raise wheat, we either need to find a way to produce more per acre or get the price up to where we it can be competitive against other crops, he said.

Often, he said, the decision of whether to plant wheat hinged on whether the producer owned land outright or had to pay loans or rent, which adds more red ink in the costs column of the ledger.
YORK  Louis A. Sanna, 26, of Geneva, was supposed to be sentenced Monday for driving under the influence and causing serious bodily injury.

The sentencing was postponed, however, in order for a restitution hearing to be held.

This case started with a very serious accident south of McCool Junction on Highway 81 shortly after midnight on Saturday, July 9, 2016.

According to information from the sheriffs department and court documents, the collision occurred 1  miles south of McCool Junction.

The sheriffs department said Sanna was driving a 2008 Volkswagen JWE four-door sedan.

Meanwhile, a 2004 Chrysler PTE was being driven by Brittany C. Walburn, 24, of Lincoln.

Both vehicles were northbound.

Investigators said the Sanna vehicle rear-ended the Walburn vehicle at a high rate of speed.

The impact caused the Sanna vehicle to go into a spin, rotating approximately three times. It traveled several hundred feet before stopping on the east shoulder facing west.

After impact, the Walburn vehicle began to spin out, before traveling sideways into the median. The vehicle then exited the median, at which time it began to roll several times, ejecting the rear seat passenger. The Walburn vehicle came to rest several hundred feet away, in the west ditch, facing south.

The rear passenger of the Walburn vehicle sustained life threatening injuries and was in critical condition.

Another passenger was injured as well.

Sanna pleaded no contest to the charge last February.

On Monday, York County Attorney Candace Bottorf said restitution would be sought to cover the medical expenses of the victims, totaling approximately $350,000 for one and $70,000 for the other.

When asked by Judge James Stecker if the defendant was agreeing to restitution, his attorney Christopher Johnson said the ability to pay would be an issue. He also noted that neither he nor his client had seen the itemized restitution figures.

Judge Stecker indicated a restitution hearing would need to be held and he scheduled it for April 11.

Meanwhile, Sannas bond is continued as he remains out of custody.
LINCOLN  An unusual number of migrating white pelicans apparently like what they found in Lincoln as they migrate north: a well-stocked lake.

Hundreds of the birds have been resting at Capitol Beach Lake, a private 300-acre lake and community west of downtown Lincoln. The pelicans travel north from the Gulf Coast to North Dakota and beyond.

Weve seen pelicans in the past, but only a few dozen or so, said Sandy Scofield, whos lived in a house overlooking the lakes east shore since 2004.

Harvey Schwartz, vice president of the Capitol Beach communitys board of directors, said he also hasnt seen that many pelicans in the 20 years hes lived at the lake.

Capitol Beach was drained and deepened several years ago, and the lake was restocked with a variety of fish in order to find a species that could thrive there, Schwartz said. But it wasnt until recently that varying species of catfish were introduced with some success.

That seems to be the formula, and theyre even reproducing, Schwartz said about the new catfish.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln bird expert Paul Johnsgard told the Lincoln Journal Star (http://bit.ly/2nmVhK3 ) that its not uncommon to see that many pelicans congregating at food spots in late March, although thats not been the case at Capitol Beach Lake. Pelicans like shallow wetlands and tend to gather where fish are, he said.

Schwartz thinks the abundance of catfish is whats attracted the winged visitors.

Theyre amazing birds, but theyre voracious eaters, he said.
U.S. Air Force Airmen and 12 F-16C Fighting Falcons from the 482nd Fighter Wing, Homestead Air Reserve Base, Florida, began Exercise Iniohos 17, here, which will last until April 6.

Iniohos 17 is a Hellenic Air Force-led, large force, flying exercise between NATO Allies and partner nations.This exercise gives us the chance to strengthen our bonds with other [NATO] countries [like Italy, Israel, Greece], our allies, with a different type of air superiority, said Capt. Paul Deveaux, 482nd Maintenance Operations Group maintenance operations officer.This year marks the third consecutive year the exercise has been held. Last year twelve F-15E Strike Eagles from the 48th Fighter Wing, RAF Lakenheath participated.An exercise of this magnitude allows Air Force Reservists the ability to quickly deploy and redeploy.This experience gives us the feel for a deployment, said Staff Sgt. Jordan Anthony, 482nd Maintenance Squadron crewchief. It gives us a chance to improve flexibility with things we may or may not have and the opportunity to work in an environment were not used to.This multinational exercise enhances the interoperability capabilities and skills amongst allied air forces in the accomplishment of joint operations and air defenses to maintain joint readiness and reassure our regional allies.We can deploy to a mission like this, almost like a bare base, and execute effective missions day-in and day-out, said Deveaux. After it is all done we can redeploy home with the same effectiveness it took to get us here.The exercise Iniohos dates back to the late 1980s, when it was established as a small scale air warfare exercise with only aircraft of the Hellenic Air Force.
Cadets at the prestigious United States Air Force Academy are known as Falcons and in three months a 482nd Fighter Wing Maintainer will go from working on the F-16 Fighting Falcon, to being an Academy Falcon.

Airman 1st Class Joel Bernal, 22, has been selected as one of approximately 1,000 candidates in the nation to be offered a position in USAFAs 2021 graduating class.

Bernal, an F-16 crew chief with the 482nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, said he considers his admission the biggest achievement of my life thus far.

Originally from Cutler Bay, Florida, Bernal had no plans to join the military after high school and enrolled at Miami Dade College and worked part time for two years.

His father, a retired Homestead Air Reserve Base civil engineering noncommissioned officer, noticed his son was not reaching his goals and advised him, Do you want to challenge yourself? You should join the Air Force," said Bernal.

He did exactly as his father said. As Bernal began to look at enlisting in the Air Force Reserve, he said he realized the military was more and more inspiring and knew it was for him.

Basic training was great according to Bernal, who was a basic military training honor graduate. It was there that he first heard of the academy from his squadron commander, Lt. Col. Larson, who was a USAFA graduate.

Larson spoke to all the Airmen of his experience at USAFA and it lit the spark of interest in Bernal.

During technical school, a 22-year-old academy graduate came to brief the budding maintainers on a pilots perspective and also spoke of his experience at USAFAthat was when Bernal did the research and realized he was eligible.

He made contact with the Academy Liaison Officers in South Florida and began the arduous application process.

The United States Air Force Academy, established in 1954, has extremely competitive admission requirements where they look at GPA and test scores in addition to looking at the whole-person concept to determine a candidates potential to be an effective officer.

Bernal completed his package in January of 2017 and two months later was studying at his college library when he received a text to call Maj. William McLeod, his commander.

When your commander calls . . . well, I was not expecting anything good, said Bernal, who believed his application was still being routed.

Instead, he hears, Good morning Airman BernalI just wanted to be the first to congratulate you on your acceptance to the United States Air Force Academy!

Bernal was surprised, I knew I had a chance, but was still blown away! said Bernal, who immediately went to his car and called his father and mother.

His father, now working as a government employee at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado, said he could not be prouder. Hes my number one supporter, said Bernal, and with him at Schriever, we wont be too far apart for the next four years.

Bernal expects this summer to be tough, but looks forward to the challenges and camaraderie he will experience with his classmates.

I expect it to be exciting, said Bernal, BMT was tough, but not boring, and I expect the same if not more from the academy.

Considered in the Top 5 percent of universities in the nation per Forbes Magazines Americas Best Colleges, USAFA will offer Bernal a rigorous military training regimen alongside strenuous academic courses, thorough character development, and a world-class leadership curriculum.

Bernal, who hopes to major in mechanical engineering, anticipates receiving a pilots slot from USAFA and attending undergraduate pilot training after commissioning. What does he hope to fly? Fighter jets, of course!

His advice to Airmen who might be interested in the enlisted USAFA admissions program?

Aim High! Go for it and stay positive! said Bernal, I love the thought of being an officer, but this is not why I want to do this. The positive people I know want to give back to the Air Forcetheyre the ones that succeed.
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Mar 28 (PTI) The Supreme Court today assured states and other petitioners that it would hear tomorrow their plea seeking modification of its December 2016 order banning liquor vends within 500 metres of state and national highways across the country from April 1.

The assurance came from the bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar when Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said that over 100 lawyers kept waiting yesterday for an hour with the hope that the bench, comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud and L Nageswara Rao, would assemble to hear their pleas.

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Rohatgi sought urgent hearing of the pleas tomorrow saying that the judgement, ordering closure of liquor vends alongside highways, will come into effect from April 1.

The CJI then said 84-year-old jurist T R Andhyarujina died today and said Justice Chandrachud has gone to Mumbai to take part in the last rites.

"If Justice Chandrachud is here tomorrow, then these matters will be heard at 3 PM. If Justice Chandrachud is not available tomorrow, then I will constitute a separate bench," Justice Khehar said.

Besides some liquor vendors association, states like Kerala, Punjab and Telangana have approached the apex court seeking modification of the December 15, 2016 judgement.

The apex court had ordered a ban on all liquor shops on national as well as state highways across the country and had made clear that licences of existing shops will not be renewed after March 31 next year.

The verdict had come on a PIL alleging that nearly 1.42 lakh people died per year in road mishaps and that the drunken driving is a major contributor.

It had also directed that all signages indicating the presence of liquor vends will be prohibited along national and state highways.

On March 23, the Tamil Nadu government had also moved the top court to extend the time for relocation of retail liquor shops along the highways till the expiry of their licence period i.e upto November 28, 2017.

On January 18, the All Assam Indian Made Foreign Liquors Retailers Association had approached the apex court seeking modification of the judgement, saying it virtually banned liquor shops in the state as the definition of state highways in the local statute included all roads.

The Attorney General, whose opinion has been sought by Kerala on the judgement, had opined that the order banning liquor vends on state and national highways does not apply to bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.

The state governments had strongly opposed the ban citing huge loss of revenue. PTI SJK MNL ABA RKS SC

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MPs from various political parties flocked together with Shiv Sena on the issue and described the ban on MP an arbitrary move.

Parliamentarians stood in support with Gaikwad, raising concerns over the 'bullying attitude of airlines' in session on Monday.

By Anindya Banerjee: If sources are to be believed, Shiv Sena 'slipper wielding' MP Ravindra Gaikwad may soon be allowed to resume air travel, with pressure mounting on the civil aviation ministry day-by-day.

Speaker of Lok Sabha Sumitra Mahajan on Monday said, "MPs need to attend Parliament and they cannot always travel by train. I feel this issue (blanket ban) should be resolved amicably through talks."

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Parliamentarians stood in support with Gaikwad, raising concerns over the 'bullying attitude of airlines' in session on Monday.

MPs from various political parties flocked together with Shiv Sena on the issue and described the ban on MP an arbitrary move.

IS IT THE RIGHT TIME, PONDERS MINISTRY

Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Aggrawal in supporting argument in Rajya Sabha had termed the air travel ban as 'unwarranted'.

Mahajan also further added, "As of now, everybody is angry. It is time to calm down and resolve the issue."

A source in the Ministry of Civil Aviation said, "There's a lot of pressure on us. We realise this ban has to go. But is it the right time? I am afraid it's not. We have to wait till tempers soothe".

The Osmanabad MP assaulted a 62-year-old duty manager of Air India, R Sukumar on a Pune-Delhi flight after it landed in Delhi over not being able to fly business class.

Following this assault, the Federation of Indian Airlines disqualified him from flying any member airlines that was later supported by non-member airlines as well.

Also read: Government considers amending Civil Aviation Requirements, based on which airlines banned MP Ravindra Gaikwad

Also read: MPs flock together, say flying ban on Ravindra Gaikwad a violation of his privilege

Also read: Even TV star Kapil Sharma misbehaved on flight, why ban Ravindra Gaikwad only: Shiv Sena MP in Parliament

Also watch: Unapologetic Shiv Sena MP Gaikwad's letter says he was victimised by Air India

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Dhaka: At least four people died and several remain missing after a ferry carrying about 80 passengers capsized on Tuesday in Bangladesh`s Panguchi River, police said.

Rescuers recovered the bodies of four female passengers from the river in Bagerhat, 370 kilometers (230 miles) southwest from Dhaka, police said.

Rashedul Alam, a police official from Morelganj in Bagerhat, said a combination of strong currents and overloading caused the ferry to sink.

He added that most of the passengers could swim to safety but at least 18, mainly women and children, are still missing.

A rescue operation involving emergency services and nearby residents saved two women and a child.

Low-lying Bangladesh, with extensive inland waterways and slack safety standards, has a terrible track record of ferry accidents and casualties sometimes run into the hundreds.

Overcrowding is a common factor but little is done to improve safety despite government promises to toughen regulations.
Beijing: Faw-Volkswagen (FAW-VW) will recall more than 572,000 vehicles to address a potential problem caused by panoramic sunroofs, China`s quality supervisor said on Tuesday.



The recall from May 15 will include 556,196 Audi Q5s manufactured in China between October 9, 2010, and August 11, 2016, and 16,226 imported Audi Q5/SQ5 vehicles produced between June 22, 2010, and July 26, 2016, Xinhua news agency cited China`s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) as saying in a statement.



AQSIQ said the recall was due to potential leaks in the panoramic sunroof, which could cause airbag safety issues in extreme cases.



FAW-VW, a joint venture formed in 1991 by Chinese automaker FAW Group and Germany-based Volkswagen Group, will inspect the recalled vehicles and either fix or replace the part.
Patna: After eight long years, a couple of BJP leaders attended a dinner hosted by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday, triggering speculations of bonhomie between the two erstwhile partners of the NDA.

The event also exposed differences within the BJP with some party leaders including Sushil Kumar Modi attending the dinner, even as others like Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Prem Kumar and Nand Kishore Yadav giving it a miss.

Leaders of all parties were extended invitation for the feast hosted at the 1, Anne Marg residence of the CM after budget session of the two Houses of the state Legislature came to an end.

Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Prasad Yadav, his Health Minister brother Tej Pratap Yadav and mother Rabri Devi were in attendance from RJD, Congress state top brass including Ashok Choudhary and others were present on the occasion.

The event, however, gained prominence due to presence of BJP leaders at CMs dinner even as some others boycotted it.

Modi told reporters that the invitation was for every legislator and was not on party line.

Party whip cannot be issued for such event. Its the choice of an individual to accept the invitation or not, Modi, who served as Deputy Chief Minister to Kumar during NDA rule, said.

However, his party colleague Prem Kumar said, The state government rained lathis on agitating teachers, home guards and citizens protesting against huge hike in electricity rates and others.

In such a situation my conscience did not allow me to break bread with people subjecting common man to suppression, he told PTI.

On Modi attending the feast, Kumar said the invitation was sent personally to all legislators and not at party level.

Former Opposition leader Nand Kishore Yadav said since he had to go to Muzaffarpur due to some programme, he could not make it to the dinner.

He, however, added that was an individual choice to accept dinner invitation or not do so.

In January, JD(U) had invited BJP at Dahi-Chura feast on the occasion of Makarsankranti, amidst speculation that the two parties are getting closer after Nitish Kumars support of demonetisation.

With PTI inputs
Amulya Ganguli/IANS

Few people will believe that the former External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna`s exit from the Congress and entrance to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be a great loss for the former and a considerable gain for the latter



Like the similar floor-crossing of Rita Bahuguna-Joshi in Uttar Pradesh, who has now become a minister in Yogi Adityanath`s government, Krishna`s perambulations in Karnataka will be no more than a footnote in recent political history.



The only recent transition from the Congress to the BJP which has been of some importance is that of Himanta Biswa Sarma in Assam -- if only because the 48-year-old MLA is seen as an influential political figure in the state unlike the two others, who are no longer at the peak of their careers.



But what these exploratory treks from the formerly Grand Old Party, which is surrendering its earlier prominent position to the BJP, show is that the Congress` members at various levels no longer deem it worthwhile to remain loyal to it because they see the party to be on a downhill slide.



It may be unfair to compare these deserters as the denizens of a sinking ship because politics, after all, is not a charitable business and those involved in the profession of "serving the people" are justified in seeing it as a means of advancing their own prospects even as an octogenarian like Krishna.



But the Congress has reasons to be concerned that it is no longer recognised as an attractive home or destination. In recent weeks, only Navjot Singh Sidhu has joined it, but not before he first tried his luck with the Aam Admi Party after quitting the BJP.



A Congress spokesman, Rajeev Gowda, has said that Krishna could have waited for the Karnataka assembly election results next year before leaving because, according to Gowda, the party may fare as well in Karnataka as it has done in Punjab. He has also said that a process of restructuring and strengthening is on in the Congress.



If so, Krishna, a former Chief Minister, who is an insider, did not see it. Instead, what he saw was that the party was being led by a part-timer, as he said. It is criticism of Rahul Gandhi, which has been made by Rita Bahuguna-Joshi as well, who said that the crown prince is "unwilling to listen to people in the party".



Sarma, too, famously said that Rahul Gandhi was playing with his dog when he took his complaints about the condition of the Congress in Assam to him.



Although it is now widely believed, at least outside the party, that the Congress` problems lie at the top, and the BJP openly says that Rahul is its best "asset", the Congress is unwilling to concede the point.



What is more, as a recent article by former External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid argued, the Congress` successes in Punjab, Goa and Manipur -- it became the first party in the last two states -- show that there is nothing basically wrong with the party; its reverses are due to the BJP`s superior electoral strategy.



The former minister is also unwilling to accept that India is changing in the sense that a more aspirational generation is demanding faster economic growth. According to him, the so-called attitudinal change is not reflected in Punjab, Goa and Manipur.



The implication of such an outlook is that the Congress intends to continue on its present path with the Nehru-Gandhi family at the top and a preference for welfare programmes since it apparently believes that Narendra Modi`s emphasis on development is essentially flawed.



Considering that this is also the view of economists like Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze -- focus first on health and education and then on economic growth -- and of the Left-leaning members of the currently dissolved National Advisory Council which was led by Sonia Gandhi, it can be concluded that the Congress will remain committed to the populism of Nehruvian socialism.



It does not seem to recognise the fact that none of the Manmohan Singh government`s extravaganzas like the rural employment scheme and "right to food" was of much help for the Congress in the last general election.



On the other hand, it is evidently interpreting its successes in Punjab, Goa and Manipur not as a result of the anti-incumbency factor undermining the former ruling parties, but as a vindication of the dynasty and of "socialism".



From this standpoint, favourable outcomes of this nature can become a millstone round the party`s neck, preventing it from recognising that the paternalistic concept of a "mai-baap ki sarkar" has outlived its utility at a time when the common man wants opportunities rather than doles.



Notwithstanding the Congress`s moribund organisational structure and flawed economic policies, it still manages to draw some sustenance from its history of consolidating democracy and adherence to pluralism. But it is a diminishing legacy largely because of the part-timers in leadership roles and a concerted attempt by the resurgent right-wing forces to take the country in a majoritarian direction.



Unless the Congress realises that politics is serious business, as Krishna has said, and that socialism has had its day, its future looks bleak.
A new poster from Spider-Man: Homecoming featuring Tom Holland gives a different dimension to the most-loved character.

By India Today Web Desk: For any '90s kid, Spider-Man is close to heart. Thanks to Tobey Maguire stellar performance as the eponymous character. The franchise left a void among the followers after its last film Spider-Man 3.

However, the franchise returned in style with The Amazing Spider-Man starring Andrew Garfield, who gave a whole new dimension to the most-loved character. But after the film tanked, the makers made alterations to the script and reintroduced Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War last year.

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Be it his scenes with Iron Man (Robert Downey) or his quirky mannerisms, Tom Holland's portrayal of the character was widely appreciated by fans across the world. With some of the critics hailing it as the best, the second reboot of Spider-Man made the character more relatable and unapologetically funny.

Now, the makers of the Spider-Man Homecoming have released the teaser poster from the film, which has gone viral on the internet. Unlike other films, Spider-Man in this one doesn't seem to have a larger-than-life image.

In association with Marvel Studios, the film is produced by Columbia Pictures. Directed by Jon Watts, the film also stars Michael Keaton, Zendaya, Donald Glover and Jacob Batalon in pivotal roles, while Robert Downey Jr will play a cameo in the film.

Spider-Man Homecoming is slated to release on July 7.

WATCH: Justice League trailer

ALSO READ: Arnold Schwarzenegger terminates Facebook troll who insulted Special Olympics

WATCH: Baywatch trailer 3- Priyanka Chopra threatens Dwayne Johnson and how!

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New Delhi: The first day of Chaitra (March-April) month happens to be celebrated across Jammu and Kashmir as Navreh or Kashmiri New Year. The auspicious day is widely celebrated by the Kashmiri Pandit community where people greet everyone they meet with a warm 'Navreh Mubarak' (Happy New Year)!

Navreh is derived from the Sanskrit word 'Nava-Varsha', meaning New Year. There is a customary practice of preparing a plate full of unhusked rice with a bread, a small bowl of yogurt, salt, sugar candy, a few walnuts or almonds, silver coin and Rs 10 note would also do, a pen, a mirror, some flowers (rose, marigold, crocus, or jasmine) and the new panchanga or almanac. Also, one has to keep Kashmiri Jantri (a panchang book which has an account of all the important dates as per Kashmiri tradition).

Interestingly, all of this is prepared during the night itself as the first thing in the morning is to look at this plate, and then start your day. Kashmiri Pandits observe the same ritual of preparing the plate and looking at it in the morning on Sonth or the Kashmiri spring festival.

As per Kashmiri Hindu calendar, the Saptarshi Era is believed to have started on the same day, about 5079 years ago.

The legend has it that the celebrated Saptarishis flocked together on the Sharika Parvat also known as Hari Parbat in Kashmirrevered as the divinely abode of the goddess Sharika, at the auspicious moment when the first ray of the sun fell on the Chakreshvara on this day and paid tribute to her.

On Navreh, Kashmiri Pandits visited the Hari Parbhat shrine to seek goddess Sharika's blessings. Also, kids wear new clothes to mark the New Year and so do the elders!
Delhi: Rampant closing down of slaughterhouses and a strike by traders in Uttar Pradesh have cut the supply of meat in Delhi by half and sent prices skyrocketing in many parts of the national capital.

The city's only slaughterhouse in Ghazipur has not been receiving the required amount of cattle from the neighboring state and as a result, buffalo and goat meat are costing at least 25 percent more.

Around 6,000 goats and 900 buffaloes were sold every day but in the last three days, not more than 2,500 goats and 400 buffaloes have been sold, a trader told HT at Ghazipur, which borders Uttar Pradesh.

Ghazipur gets the bulk of buffalo supply from UP, which is the countrys biggest meat producer.

Prices of buffalo meat have shot up from Rs 120 to Rs 175 while the price of mutton has gone from around Rs 380 to nearly Rs 500 in some places.

The traders in UP started an indefinite strike after newly-elected UP CM Yogi Adityanath ordered the closing of all illegal slaughterhouses and butcher shops in UP.

However, the impact may not be apparent instantly as Navratras begin and the demand for meat is expected to drop during the nine-day period.

According to an estimate, Delhi consumes around 40,000 kg of buffalo meat and 80,000 kg of mutton a day.

Following the reports of closure of abattoirs, traders are not ready to send stock. They are scared of attacks on vehicles ferrying animals, Asim Faraz, a commission agent in Ghazipur, told HT.
New Delhi: The note ban decision has not affected the prices of 22 essential commodities, including foodgrains, the Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said changes in prices of the 22 items including pulses, onion and tomato vis-a-vis on the day of demonetisation are being monitored on a daily basis.

Around 3.89 lakh tonne of wheat, 184.45 lakh tonne of rice and 10.45 lakh tonne of pulses have been procured from farmers since demonetisation, he said responding to supplementaries during the Question Hour.

Between November 2016 and February, authorities in states have carried out 17,506 raids under the Essential Commodities Act, arrested 1524 people, prosecuted 837 and detained 46 black marketeers. Of these, 163 were convicted.

Goods worth over Rs 4 crore were confiscated during these raids, the minister said.
Chennai: The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM) and the Indian Army have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to identify the critical technological areas that can be enhanced in the armed forces, the institute said on Tuesday.

IITM Director Bhaskar Ramamurthi and Deputy Chief of Army Staff (P&S) Lt. Gen. Subrata Saha signed the MoU in this regard, a statement issued here said.

"The objective was to facilitate prestigious institutions such as the IITs to achieve a better understanding of the critical technology requirements of the Indian Army through seamless interaction between the IITM faculty and the Army officers," the statement said.

"The IITM faculty will work closely with the Indian Army to identify areas where the institute can contribute positively to enhancing the capabilities," Ramamurthi was quoted as saying in the statement.

As per the MoU, the Army will sponsor four officers for doctoral programmes besides a five-day Technology Development Programme for 15 officers on a biannual basis.
New Delhi: US President Donald Trump is expected to roll back a slew of environmental protections enacted by his predecessor Barack Obama on Tuesday, a move aimed at bolstering domestic energy production and keeping American jobs above addressing climate change.

In a maiden trip to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Trump will sign an 'Energy Independence Executive Order' a White House official said.

The order represents a clear difference between how Trump and Obama view the role the US plays in combating climate change, and dramatically alters the government's approach to rising sea levels and temperatures - two impacts of climate change, CNN reported.

A White House official said that Trump administration believes the government can both "serve the environment and increase energy independence at the same time" by urging the EPA for focus on what the administration believes is its core mission: Clean air and clean water.

The official said that protecting American job is. more important than regulating climate change.

"It is an issue that deserves attention," CNN quoted the official as saying.

Tuesday's order will initiate a review of the Clean Power Plant initiative, rescind the moratorium on coal mining on US federal lands and urge federal agencies to "identify all regulations, all rules, all policies that serve as obstacles and impediments to American energy independence," he added.

The order will rescind at least six Obama-era executive orders aimed at curbing climate change and regulating carbon emissions, including the former President's November 2013 executive order instructing the federal government to prepare for the impact of climate change and the September 2016 presidential memorandum that outlined the "growing threat to national security" that climate change poses.

"The previous administration devalued workers by their policies," the official said.

"We are saying we can do both we can protect the environment and provide people with work" he added.

The White House official added that the best way to protect the environment is to have a strong economy, noting that countries like India and China do less to protect the environment.

The executive order also represents the greatest fears environmentalists had when Trump was elected in November 2016.

Trump had earlier called climate change a 'Chinese hoax', stating that the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.

(With IANS inputs)
Kigali: The pregnant wife of an exiled Rwandan opposition official, held incommunicado for a fortnight before being charged with treasonous acts, is to be released, her lawyer said on Tuesday.

A court ordered that Violette Uwamahoro, a Rwandan-British woman, be "provisionally released" on Monday, in a blow to state attempts to prosecute her for allegedly seeking to start an armed insurgency, said lawyer Antoinette Mukamusoni.

A human rights observer in the court said the judge had found contradictions in the prosecution`s evidence. However, Uwamahoro remained in custody on Tuesday as police had not yet received a copy of the judgement, Mukamusoni said.

Once free Uwamahoro will not be permitted to leave Rwandan territory.

State prosecutors have five days to appeal the provisional release order and 30 days to decide whether to continue the prosecution or close the case, after which Uwamahoro would be unconditionally released.

The prosecution has given no indication of whether it plans to push ahead with the case.

Uwamahoro, who took British citizenship after moving to the UK in 2004 where she lives with her husband and two children, is accused alongside a cousin, Jean-Pierre Shumbusho.

Shumbusho has confessed to charges of revealing "information about state security" and planning "to form an armed group to attack Rwanda" but Uwamahoro denies the allegations.

She is married to Faustin Rukundo, an official with the exiled Rwandan National Congress (RNC) which was formed by former allies of President Paul Kagame. Kigali says the RNC is a terrorist organisation.

Uwamahoro travelled to Rwanda to attend her father`s funeral but disappeared on February 14. Rwandan police only admitted they were holding her more than two weeks later, saying she was suspected of a "serious crime".

Pressure group Amnesty International said police were "illegally" holding Uwamahoro, while observers see the case as another example of government efforts to squash dissent.

Kagame is seeking re-election in August after the country`s constitution was changed in 2015, allowing him to seek a third seven-year term.

He has been a main player in the small east African country since 1994 when his forces stopped a Hutu genocide against his Tutsi minority which left some 800,000 dead.

While Kagame is regularly praised for the stability and economic performance of his small nation, rights group often criticise him for lack of political freedoms and freedom of expression.
New Delhi: The NIA has registered 19 cases related to ISIS activities in the country, the government on Tuesday informed Parliament.

The central probe agency has filed charge sheets in eleven of these cases, minister of state for home Hansraj G Ahir told the Lok Sabha in a written reply.

"The NIA has registered 19 cases related to ISIS/IS and out of these, charge sheets have been filed in 11 cases.

"Two of these cases relate to missing of 22 persons from Kerala and their subsequent travel to ISIS controlled territory in Afghanistan," he said.

Replying to a related query, the minister said Shahjeer Mangalassery, son of Abdulla, is an "accused in a case registered by the National Investigation Agency regarding the ISIS/IS inspired activities of some youths from Kerala and Tamil Nadu."

"During investigation, it has been revealed that he had gone from UAE to IS controlled territory in Afghanistan in June, 2016. A non-bailable warrant against him has been obtained from the special NIA court at Ernakulam," he said.

Ahir added that the central and state agencies are "monitoring the cyber space which is being used to radicalise and recruit persons by ISIS and the law enforcement agencies take action as per law."
New Delhi: Claiming that the Greater Noida incident was a "hate crime", an association of African students on Tuesday demanded that they be provided adequate security in the country.

"In Greater Noida, they (locals) say that Africans 'we don't want you to be here anymore'. These are actually hate crimes towards African community. Africans are not secure in this country," Association of African Students President Samuel Jack said.

He said Africans may not come to India for studies due to safety concerns in the wake of such incidents.

"I urge them (Africans), wherever they are, to stop making India their destination of study until and unless there is proper security," he added.

Jack claimed that the alleged attack on African students last night was mobilised by local youths and police have arrested six of them while two others were absconding.

Four Nigerian students were allegedly attacked by residents who took out a candle-light march for a 17-year-old boy who had died last week due to suspected drug overdose.

The boy's parents had alleged that the foreigners had kidnapped him and given him drugs which led to his death.

One of the injured Nigerians alleged that he was assaulted for no reason.

"I don't go to club in this country. I don't drink. They assaulted me for no reason. I don't know what to say. They do not want us to be in this country," he claimed.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said the central government was taking immediate action and that she had spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who had assured her of a fair and impartial investigation into this "unfortunate" incident.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court, Tuesday, reserved its order on a PIL seeking appointment of Lokpal after the Centre told the court that the appointment is not possible in the current scenario.

Filed by NGO Common Cause, the petition has sought the appointment under the provision of the 2013 Lokpal Act. Noted lawyer Prashant Bhushan is appearing for the NGO in the case.

During previous hearings in the case, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi had informed the Supreme Court that a proposed amendment in Lokpal Bill is pending before Parliament and is likely to be taken up in March.

Appearing for the NGO, Bhushan said the Lokpal law has been passed after a long struggle and the government is doing nothing to make it functional. Here is a law which was enacted three years ago after a long battle. It is the duty of the government and the court to ensure that the law is enforced, Bhushan said.

Last December, the apex court had asked the government to place before it a copy of the report of a Parliamentary Standing Committee suggesting amendments to the Lokpal law and wanted to know about the changes required to make the anti-graft ombudsman functional.

Rohatgi had then told the bench that views of the apex court had been conveyed to the highest authority that it cannot go on like this and assured the bench that the process would be expedited.

He had said besides substituting LoP with the leader of the largest opposition party in Lok Sabha in the law, there was a need to bring in more changes.

As per the provision, the largest opposition party has to have 10 per cent of total number of MPs in Lok Sabha to claim the post of LoP and the amendment to this effect has been pending with Parliament, Rohatgi had said.

Earlier, the court had pulled up the government over delay in appointment of Lokpal, saying it should not allow the law to become a dead letter.

The appointment of the anti-corruption ombudsman has been hanging fire since the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013, which received Presidential assent on January 1, 2014 because the legislation provided for the LoP to be on the selection committee.

But in the present Lok Sabha, the largest opposition party Congress does not have the required number of MPs for its leader to be designated as the Leader of Opposition.

Earlier, the court had said the requirement of LoP on the panel was dispensable and could be substituted with the leader of the largest opposition party.

In Lok Sabha, the largest opposition party Congress has only 44 members and lacks the requisite 10 per cent of total 545 seats, giving rise to the need to amend the Lokpal Act.

The law provides for selection of chairperson and members of Lokpal by a committee consisting of the Prime Minister, Lok Sabha Speaker, LoP in Lok Sabha, Chief Justice of India or a sitting SC judge nominated by the him, and an eminent jurist to be nominated by President of India on the basis of recommendations of first four members of selection panel.

The bench is hearing a petition filed by NGO Common Cause which has sought a direction to the Centre to make the appointment of chairperson and members of Lokpal as per the amended rules framed under Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013.

The NGO in its plea has also sought a direction to the Centre to ensure that the procedure for selecting the chairperson and members of Lokpal must be transparent as envisaged under the Act.

With PTI inputs
Noida: A massive protest took place at Gautam Budh District's Noida in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday after a Chinese national allegedly tore apart an Indian flag and threw it in a dustbin outside the office of a mobile phone company here.

The Chinese national is said to be employed as a production manager at the mobile phone manufactuing unit where the incident took place.

While the details of the case remains unclear, a media report said that people from nearby areas thronged the site and protested against the company for disrespecting the national flag.

Noida: People protest against a Chinese company after an employee of the company allegedly tore the National Flag and dumped it. pic.twitter.com/3VuaH3043s  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 28, 2017

The mob was seen shouting slogans and carrying Indian flag.

Meanwhile, the Phase-3 police have registered a case against the Chinese national on a complaint filed by three employees of the same company. The case is being investigated.

Senior superintendent of police, Gautam Budh Nagar, Dharmendra Singh was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times, "A case of disrespecting the national flag has been filed on the basis of a complaint filed by the company employees. We have not arrested anyone in this connection and investigations are in progress. Action has to be taken after a thorough probe and we are in touch with company employees."

Hundreds of people, including employees of Oppo and members of Vishva Hindu Parishad protested outside the office.

The sector remained inaccessible for four hours due to a large crowd gathering.
By Press Trust of India: Hyderabad, Mar 27 (PTI) Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao today said a special session of the state Legislative Assembly would be convened soon to take up the issue of increasing reservation for tribals and minorities.

Rao made the announcement in the state Legislative Assembly, which was later adjourned sine die after passing the Appropriation Bills.

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He said his government is keen on increasing quota for tribals and Muslims as promised by his party- TRS- in the 2014 Legislative Assembly elections.

Referring to BJPs opposition to the governments efforts to enhance reservation for Muslims, Rao said the quota is proposed not on the basis of religion, but on the basis of backwardness.

"Laxmans party (MLA and BJP state unit president) may have some objections on giving (reservation) to other social groups. We are not proposing religious reservations. We said in our election manifesto that we will make some increase in what are already being implemented in the state.

"The (backward classes) commission reports are under preparation. If you (Speaker) convene Assembly in another four-five days, we will discuss for a whole day and definitely increase reservation to those we promised," he said in the Assembly.

Rao said the state government would increase reservation in Telangana as per the model adopted in Tamil Nadu (in view of the cap on quotas at 50 per cent).

Sixty nine per cent reservation is being provided in Tamil Nadu by getting it included in the 9th Schedule of Constitution.

Rao added that the state government would approach the Centre and also the Supreme Court for the implementation of increased quota (after passing a bill in Assembly for the purpose) as done in the case of Tamil Nadu.

Besides STs, backward sections among Muslims presently have quota in the state.

BJP has been organising protests against the TRS governments proposal to increase the quota for Muslims, saying it is an unconstitutional move. PTI SJR RS NP

--- ENDS ---
Washington: US President Donald Trump on Monday called up Prime Minister Narendra Modi and congratulated him on the Bharatiya Janata Party's victory in recently-held Assembly Elections.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump dialled German Chancellor Angela Merkel too and congratulated her.

"The President spoke with German Chancellor Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Modi earlier today to congratulate them on their parties' success in recent elections," Spicer said.

In the recent Assembly Elections in five states, the BJP formed government in four  Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Manipur, and Uttarakhand.

The party, however, lost Punjab to main rival Congress in the results announced on March 11.

Anchored mainly by Modi and his aide Amit Shah, the BJP juggernaut rolled on in Uttar Pradesh and in the neighbouring state of Uttarakhand, bagging three-fourth majority.

The BJP returned to power in the politically-crucial state of UP after a gap of 15 years during which regional parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party held sway.

Goa and Manipur had hung assemblies after the polls, but the BJP managed to form the government with support from other regional parties.

The elections in the five states had turned into a virtual referendum on Modi's popularity following his much-debated decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.

Previously, Modi and Trump talked by phone on January 24, when they had resolved to stand "shoulder-to-shoulder" in the global fight against terrorism and for defence and security.

According to a White House statement then, Trump had "emphasised that the US considers India a true friend and partner in addressing challenges around the world."

The two leaders had exchanged invitations for visits.

"President Trump looked forward to hosting Prime Minister Modi in the US later this year," the statement had said.

Prime Minister Modi was the fifth foreign leader Trump had spoken to on phone after he was sworn-in as the US president on January 20. He had by then spoken to British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canada's Justin Trudeau, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

After his surprise victory in the November 8 elections in the US, Modi was among the first world leaders to congratulate Trump. And during the gruelling election campaign, India and Israel were the two prominent countries Trump spoke of strengthening ties if he were to become the president.

(With PTI inputs)
New Delhi: Well known Indologist, journalist, and historian Francois Gautier has translated famous 16th-century French astrologer Nostradamus' predictions about India and the rise of Narendra Modi.

In a blog post on TOI, Gautier describes in vivid detail the predictions that were originally written in old French and Latin.

As per Gautier, Nostradamus had predicted that the 'supreme leader' of India will be born in the state of Gujarat to a tea-seller and his first name will be Narendus (Narendra).

Narendus (Narendra) will lead the state of Gujarat for three terms and during that period business will be at its best and honesty will reign.

Gautier goes on to quote Nostradamus foreseeing the growth of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)  described in the texts as the 'political group of Hindus'.

Nostradamus predicted that the Party of the Indian people (BJP) will dominate India in the 21st century, Gautier claimed.

On Modi's rise as the Prime Minister of India, the blog post, quoting Nostradamus, says that Hindus will reign from 2014 onwards. They will rule heaven and earth. Nobody will resist them in Asia

Interestingly, Nostradamus even appears to have foretold some of Modi's key ideological commitments like the abolition of Article 370, construction of Ram Temple, Uniform Civil Code and preservation of Kashmir.

The French astrologer even had an argument on why Hindu power is good for India.

As per Gautier's translation, Hindus are best suited for a country like India because they have a universal doctrine that makes it possible to accept all types and forms of God and also because they have compassion for all.

In between, Nostradamus  as per Gautier's blog  also talked about a white woman who will rule supreme in India before the Narendra era.

A white woman will rule supreme on India. Dishonesty will spread for ten years. However Narendra will fight her.

PM Narendra Modi favourite to win 2019 Lok Sabha elections: US Experts on India

Importantly, Nostradamus cautioned about the chances of Modi losing power. He predicts that Modi will lose power if he betrays his ideals and that of Hindus.

The curse of Hindus is betrayal. Thus Narendra should not betray his ideals. And the Hindus Or he will lose power.

And what if Modi holds on to his ideals?

The French seer predicts: The knowledge of the Hindus will spread to the world and save humanity from apocalypse
Washington: A day after Donald Trump called PM Narendra Modi, the White House said on Tuesday the US President was looking forward to hosting the Indian Prime Minister later this year.

Trump had spoken to PM Modi yesterday and congratulated him on the outcome of recent state Assembly elections and had also expressed his support to the "Indian leader's economic reform agenda".

"President Donald J Trump spoke with PM Modi of India to congratulate him on the outcome of India's recent state-level elections," the White House said in a readout of the call.

"President Trump expressed support for the Prime Minister's economic reform agenda and emphasised his great respect for the people of India," it said.

"President Trump also said he looks forward to hosting PM Modi in Washington later this year," said the statement issued by the White House today, as per PTI.

No date for the visit was mentioned.

Previously, PM Modi and Trump had talked by phone on January 24, when they had resolved to stand "shoulder-to-shoulder" in the global fight against terrorism and for defence and security.

According to a White House statement then, Trump had "emphasised that the US considers India a true friend and partner in addressing challenges around the world."

PM Modi was the fifth foreign leader Trump had spoken to on phone after he was sworn-in as the US President on January 20.

After Trump's victory in the November 8 elections, PM Modi was among the first world leaders to congratulate him.

(With PTI inputs)
New Delhi: Delay in filling up of vacancies in statutory commissions for SCs, STs, Backward Classes and Minorities rocked proceedings of Rajya Sabha for the second day today, with the proceedings being adjourned thrice before lunch.

Congress, SP, BSP and JD-U members repeatedly trooped into the Well of the House shouting slogans against the government for "misleading" by telling "lies" on the issue.

I&B Minister M Venkaiah Naidu tried to counter them, saying all the commissions were functioning and the process of filling up the vacancies was on.

Deputy Chairman P J Kurien tried to restore order in the House saying the minister has promised that vacancies will be filled up "immediately", but Naidu countered him saying the vacancies will be filled up in "due course" of time.

Kurien first adjourned the proceedings for 10 minutes and then till noon and opposition members were unrelenting. When the House assembled for Question Hour at noon, Chairman Hamid Ansari adjourned the proceedings for 30 minutes as the noisy scenes continued.

When the House assembled for the day, opposition members were up on their feet stating that multiple notices have been given under rule 267 seeking suspension of business to take up the issue.

Ramgopal Yadav (SP) said the posts of chairmen, vice chairmen and members were lying vacant in National Commission for Scheduled Castes, National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, National Commission for Backward Classes and National Commission for Minorities.

This has left people seeking relief for their difficulties from these commissions high-and-dry, he said, adding that the commission for backward classes was being renamed to take a fresh look at castes which should be categorised as OBCs.

He alleged that there was a conspiracy to remove certain castes from OBC category. He went on to question the vacancies against the reserved categories in government departments.

Mayawati (BSP) asked why the BJP government had left several posts at these constitutional commissions vacant for a long time and when these posts will be filled up.

Naidu rose to respond but the opposition wanted leaders from other parties to speak first before the minister had his say.

But Kurien said the minister has a right to respond and allowed Naidu to speak.

Anguished over this, opposition members trooped into the Well of the House shouting anti-government slogans.

Amid the din, Naidu said the backward class commission

chairman has welcomed the changes made and it was a political strategy of the opposition to convey a "wrong impression" to the people. "All commissions are functioning. Process of filling up vacancies is on. They will be filled up," he said.

With the opposition members continuing to shout slogans from the Well, Kurien adjourned the proceedings of the House for 10 minutes.

When it reassembled, opposition members were up on their feet again but Kurien said an important matter was raised and he knew that other members too wanted to speak but had allowed the minister to clarify after two members had spoken.

"I know the rules. I did not prevent (anyone from speaking). After the Minister's explanation some of your apprehensions will get over," he said. "Hon'ble minister has said all vacancies will be immediately filled up."

At this Naidu said, "vacancies will be filled up in due couse of time." He said the allegations against the government questioning its intention will not be allowed.

Kurien then allowed Sharad Yadav (JD-U), who too had given a rule 267 notice, to speak but this time, the BJP members from the treasury benches started raising slogans.

This prompted the opposition members to troop into the Well again.

Just as they entered the Well, a visiting Namibian parliamentary delegation took seat in the special gallery.

Kurien stopped the slogan-shouting members and then read out a statement welcoming the delegation, even as the opposition members remained in the Well.

As he finished the statement, slogan-shouting began again, forcing him to adjourn the House till noon.
Mumbai: In a surprise move, BJP ally Shiv Sena had on Monday proposed Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat's name for the post of President, triggering a debate on who should be considered for the country's highest constitutional job.

The Maharashtra-based party, which is known for its pro-Hindutva stand, had urged Narendra Modi-led government to consider Bhagwat's name for President's job.

Shiv Sena MP and the Executive Editor of party's mouthpiece 'Saamana' Sanjay Raut yesterday said that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance should think of the RSS Sarsanghchalak if it wanted to fulfil its dream of achieving a "Hindu Rashtra".

Stressing on Bhagwat's name, Raut said, ''It is the highest post in the country. Somebody with a clean image should occupy it. We have heard Mohan Bhagwat's name is being discussed for President. He is good choice for the post.''

Bhagwat's elevation as President will help BJP-led NDA realise its dream of making India a 'Hindu Rashtra', he added.

However, Raut cautioned that the decision (to support his candidature) will be taken by Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray.

"This has been discussed in our party. Even Sena President Uddhav Thackeray is of the opinion that for making India a `Hindu Rashtra`, Bhagwat should be made the President," Raut told mediapersons.

He said a staunch Hindu nationalist like Modi is the Prime Minister and another Hindutva proponent, Yogi Adityanath, had become Chief Minister of India`s most populous state Uttar Pradesh.

"He (Bhagwat) is a strong leader, staunch nationalist, has a deep knowledge of the Constitution. So if the BJP wants to make India a `Hindu Rashtra`, his name must be considered. He is the most suitable candidate," Raut said.

Born in Chandrapur in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, Bhagwat, 66, has headed the RSS since March 2009.

The presidential election is due in July.

When asked if he will attend the dinner hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Raut said that the Shiv Sena has not received any invitation so far.

The Presidential elections will be held in July when President Pranab Mukherjee will complete his term.

According to reports, names of Sushma Swaraj, Sumitra Mahajan and LK Advani are also being considered by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the President's job.
New York: The boycott of video-hosting platform YouTube by advertisers could cost its parent company Google $750 million in revenue, a media report said.

Over the past few weeks, major consumer brands, including Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo and McDonald`s have pulled out their ads from the platform as they are protesting the placement of their ads which were appearing next to offensive content, including videos posted by terrorism-affiliated groups.

Although Google promised that it was taking steps to deal with the problem, the controversy still continues, and has led at least one firm to downgrade the search giant`s share price, Fortune reported on Monday.

According to analysts at brokerage firm Nomura Instinet, even if Google addresses the issue quickly, the boycott could cost its video service dearly.

The firm said that YouTube could see its annual revenues -- which are estimated to be $10.2 billion for this year -- a cut by as much as 7.5 per cent due to the controversy. This is combined with the costs of fixing the problem.

"Ad buyers are likely to demand greater direct control over ad placement, which could take time and resources to implement," Nomura was quoted as saying.

The controversy first arose in Britain, where a number of brands and the government itself withdrew their advertising after it was discovered that many ads appeared along with the videos from terrorist organisations and other offensive content.

Google was even summoned to address the parliament about what it planned to do about the problem.
Srinagar: The encounter going on between security forces and terrorists in Budgam in Jammu and Kashmir came to an end on Tuesday evening.

One terrorist was gunned down and two civilians were killed in the gunfire while an army jawan suffered injuries in the process.

Two civilians and one rebel were killed and at least 14 people injured Tuesday in clashes between protesters and troops and police in Indian-administered Kashmir, police said.

Earlier, 17 others were injured amid the clashes between security forces and protesters near an encounter site in Budgam.

The clashes started when soldiers cordoned off a house in a village in central Kashmir in which at least one armed militant -- who was killed later in the day -- was hiding, said Inspector General of Police, Javid Gillani.

Hundreds of villagers, in a show of support for the rebels, pelted stones on security forces who were engaged in an encounter with terrorists holed up inside a house in Chandoora area. According to reports, the two civilians were killed during the firing as locals tried to hamper the encounter.

Two people were killed in the ensuing clashes in which government forces fired tear gas and ammunition to disperse the protesting crowds.

"Doctors said one man died of bullet injuries and another died after he was hit by a tear gas shell," said Gillani.

"Six civilian protesters and eight police and paramilitary personnel were also injured," Gillani told AFP.

One militant was killed in the operation and one weapon was recovered from the scene, said army spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia.

Armed encounters between rebels fighting to end Indian rule over Kashmir and government forces have become more frequent since widescale unrest last year, sparked by the killing in July of Hizbul militant Bubrhan Bani.

That unrest left more than 90 civilians dead and thousands injured.

On Sunday two militants were killed when police ambushed their car in the southern Kashmir valley.
New Delhi: In the wake of the civilian casualties and injuries during the stone pelting that occurred on the sidelines of the Budgam encounter in Jammu and Kashmir today, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has made a fervent appeal to the locals of the Valley to not pose as an obstruction in the path of security forces while they are combating terrorists.

"I believe that the people of Kashmir should let law take its own course and not obstruct the operation as the operations are against militants. They should let us do our duty. We appeal to the people of Kashmir to stay away from the area of operations," CRPF Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Dr. Sanjay Kumar told ANI.

Further briefing about the Budgam encounter, Kumar said that the obstruction by the locals made their operation even more difficult, as they were forced to divert their attention from the militants.

"The operation was really difficult because, we had to fight it on two different platforms. One was against the militants and other was the local people. Out of them, few people really made our day difficult. Lot of commotions, stone pelting, abusing and injuring our people, this made the operation really difficult," Kumar said.

Informing that 43 CRPF jawans were injured and police reported that 20 of their men were injured in the stone pelting today, the DIG called on the locals of the Valley to steer clear of their operations and not pose as an obstruction.

Meanwhile, sources have said that Pakistan was responsible for the violence in Budgam today, which witnessed an encounter as well as a major incident of stone-pelting in which three civilians were killed and 60 security personnel sustained injuries. Pakistan is to be blamed for the recent spree of encounters that are happening in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Kashmiri locals are being tormented and brain washed by the separatist leaders of Pakistan and Kashmir and it is the Army and the Paramilitary Force that are protecting and safeguarding the people there, while the Centre and state government are monitoring the situation, sources added.

Earlier in the day, three stone pelters were killed in retaliatory firing by security forces near the site of the Budgam encounter in Jammu and Kashmir. The stone pelters could be seen attacking the forces while a gunbattle was underway with terrorists, during which they were killed.

At least 17 stone pelters have been injured in the firing by forces.The security forces had launched a search operation following a tipoff about the presence of terrorists, which then became an encounter.
Srinagar: A fierce encounter is underway between security forces and militants in Chadoora area in Jammu and Kashmir's Budgam district.

As soon as the security forces cordoned off Durbugh village following information about the presence of the militants holed-up in a house, they were fired at, triggering the fighting.

"Initial reports said one or two militants were hiding," the police added.

No casualties have been reported so far.
Hint: The reported new-addition to The Kapil Sharma Show recently appeared on the show along with two other veteran comedians.

By India Today Web Desk: Now that Sunil Grover has made up his mind to move on from TKSS, Kapil's hunt for a suitable replacement for the ace comedian has begun. And if reports are to be believed, he seems to have zeroed down on none other than his old friend Raju Srivastava, who appeared on his show, after Kapil made an SOS call to him.

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The Laughter Challenge comedian has confirmed being approached by Kapil.

"Talks are on, but things are yet to be finalised I don't want to rush into it, but it's a great opportunity. Sharing the stage with Kapil is always fun," he told DNA.

Also read: It is complicated: The future looks blurry for The Kapil Sharma Show

Kapil is in news over assaulting Sunil Grover in a flight, while returning from Melbourne, and abusing Chandan Prabhakar, Ali Asgar and Kiku Sharda. Kapil reportedly not only hurled abuses at his fellow comedians, but also a shoe at them, as they ate before him.

He has been getting a severe backlash from all quarters post the incident and is said to have broken down several times on the sets of his show. While Sunil, Chandan, Ali, Sugandha have boycotted him, Sumona and Kiku are still on his side.

Also read: Without Sunil Grover, The Kapil Sharma Show turns into a sad version of Laughter Challenge

Meanwhile, the triumvirate of the Laughter Challenge fame--Sunil Pal, Raju Srivastava and Ahsaan Qureshi saved his day by shooting for an episode that aired on Sunday.

--- ENDS ---
New Delhi: Pellet guns "may be" used by the security forces in Kashmir valley to disperse the rioters if their alternatives fail, the government said on Tuesday.

In a written reply in Lok Sabha, Union Minister of State for Home Hansraj G Ahir said that the government had constituted an expert committee on July 26, 2016 to explore other possible alternatives to pellet guns as non-lethal weapons.

"The committee has submitted its report and the recommendations have been taken into account by the government for appropriate implementation.

"Accordingly, the government has decided that the security forces will resort to various measures such as using PAVA- chilli (shells and grenades), Stun Lac (shells and grenades) and tear smoke shells to disperse the rioters," he said.

The Minister added: "However, if these measures prove to be ineffective in dispersing of rioters, use of pellet guns may be resorted to."

He was replying to question whether the government is planning to take a re-look at the non-lethal weapons used by the security forces as scores of people have lost their vision due to shots fired from pellet guns in the Kashmir valley.
Trivandrum: Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee's acting president MM Hassan stoked a controversy on Monday after he made remarks on

menstruation.

Hassan had said that 'women are impure during menstruation and should not enter a place of worship during this period'.



He made these remarks while speaking at a media camp organised by the youth welfare board in Trivandrum.

"Menstruation is impure and during this period, women should not enter temples. There is a scientific reason behind the instruction that woman

should not enter temples during this period. It should not be given other interpretations. During this period, Muslim women do not observe fast. My opinion

when theiris that women should not go to temples, mosques when their body is impure," he said.

A number of students criticised his view. However, Hassan was adamant on his views.

MM Hassan was appointed the interim president of Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee after VM Sudheeran quit the post earlier this month.


Mumbai: After Air India cancelled two tickets booked by Ravindra Gaikwad on Delhi-bound flights, Shiv Sena MP on Tuesday evening boarded the Rajdhani Express for the national capital.

He was booked this afternoon on a second AC sleeper compartment. The train left Mumbai Central at 5 pm and will reach Delhi around 8.30 am on Wednesday.



As per an official, it was not clear whether the MP was travelling alone or with some aides and security personnel, IANS reported.

Earlier today, Air India cancelled two tickets booked by Gaikwad on a seat on flight AI 806 from Mumbai to Delhi for tomorrow.

This was followed by another attempt to book a seat on AI 551 from Hyderabad to Delhi, again for tomorrow, which was cancelled, too.

Both these bookings were made on open tickets which were issued to Gaikwad, who has been declared persona non grata by domestic airlines, before the ban was imposed on him, a AI source said, as per PTI.

The airline is now ascertaining how many open tickets and frequent flyer tickets have been issued to the MP from Osmanabad in Maharashtra so that those could be cancelled, the source said.

On March 23, Gaikwad had abused and repeatedly assaulted with a slipper and even attempted to throw out 62-year-old Duty Manager R Sukumar in on a Pune-Delhi flight after it landed in Delhi.

The MP was angry at not being given a business class seat though he had boarded an all-economy flight.



Air India lodged two FIRs against him with Delhi Police. Subsequently, all Indian airlines blacklisted him from air travel following his unruly behaviour.

Unrepentent, Gaikwad brazened it out and was seen on national TV for two days boasting about the way he assaulted the Air India employee.

A day after the incident, the national carrier had cancelled the return ticket of the MP and private airliner IndiGo followed suit, forcing him to take a train to Maharashtra

The issue also figured in Parliament, with Shiv Sena MPs creating an uproar, contending it violated the Constitution and the law and demanding lifting the ban.

However, Civil Aviation Minister P Ashok Gajapati Raju criticised the conduct of Gaikwad, saying, "I never in my wildest dreams thought that an MP will get caught in such an incident".

He added that violence of any kind on an aircraft can be "disastrous".



(With Agency inputs)
Mumbai: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Mangal Prabhat Lodha has called for the demolition of Jinnah House, the residence of Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah in south Mumbai.

Speaking in the Legislative Assembly on the budgetary demands of the Public Works Department (PWD), the MLA on March 25 said, "The Jinnah residence in south Mumbai was the place from where the conspiracy of partition was hatched."

"Jinnah House is a symbol of the partition. The structure should be demolished," he said.

Jinnah House is built on 2.5 acres of land estimated to be worth about USD 400 million.

The BJP leader noted that after Parliament passed the Enemy Property Act, Jinnah House was the property of the Indian government.

"Demolishing the property is the only option," he said.

"The PWD is responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the building and lakhs of rupees is spend over this," Lodha added.

The legislator said that after the passage of the Enemy Property Act, Jinnah's heirs cannot stake claim to the Jinnah house.

"The structure should be demolished and a cultural centre highlighting Maharashtra's culture and pride should be built. The cultural centre should also exhibit the glorious history of India," Lodha said.

The grand house built by Jinnah is located in Malabar Hill area in south Mumbai.

The Enemy Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2016, which amends the Enemy Property Act, 1968, was passed by voice vote in the Lok Sabha on March 14, incorporating the amendments made by the Rajya Sabha earlier.

As per the Act, successors of those who migrated to Pakistan and China during partition will have no claim over the properties left behind in India.
New Delhi: Newly-elected Chief Minister of Manipur N Biren Singh on Tuesday met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju and apprised them about the prevailing security situation in the northeastern state.

During the 20-minute meeting, the Chief Minister briefed the Union Home Minister on law and order situation there and steps taken by the new BJP-led government to improve the security situation, official sources said.

The Home Minister assured the Chief Minister of all central help in ensuring peace in Manipur, they said.

This was the first meeting Biren Singh had with the Union Home Minister after he got elected as the Chief Minister of Manipur.

The Chief Minister also had a 30-minute meeting with Rijiju and discussed with him various issues concerning Manipur, sources said.

Singh is heading a BJP-led coalition government in Manipur. This is the first BJP-led government in the northeastern state.
Raipur: A Canadian citizen has been abducted in Chhattisgarh, police said on Tuesday.

John Schlazak is said to have disappeared from Singamdagu village in Sukma district, a Maoist den, Sukma Assistant Superintendent of Police Jitendra Shukla said.

Schlazak had left Mumbai on a bike on March 14. He reached Bastar two days ago and was last seen in Singamdagu village in Sukma district, the officer said.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, however, said Schlazak was kidnapped from Koraput district in Odisha and she sought a report from the state government.

Sushma Swaraj tweeted that she had spoken to Odisha Chief Minister Navin Patnaik.

Police officials in Chhattisgarh said that they were trying to find out when Schlazak reached Bastar and who all he was in touch with.
New Delhi: The much-talked about 'The Kapil Sharma Show' controversy is only getting murkier with time. First, public confrontations. And, now, potshots by other celebrities are only making the fight between ace comedians Kapil Sharma and Sunil Grover more intense. Kiku Sharda, a mutual friend of the duo, recently broke his silence and reportedly stated that he has decided to stay away from the whole issue.

It was also being said that Kiku is likely to leave the show soon. But, apparently, all such talks were mere rumours. I am very much a part of the show, as I am under contract with channel and production house. I am just doing my work by being a part of the show and I will continue to do that, HT quoted him as saying.

Phew! That must be a huge sigh of relief for Kapil.

The whole topic began when Sunil was reportedly abused verbally and physically by Kapil, who was then in an inebriated state. Sharma and his team were returning from Australia when the incident took place on the flight. Soon after the issue made headlines, the 'Kis Kisko Pyaar Karoon' actor took to Twitter to apologise to Sunil.

However, Sunil replied by posting a message online urging Kapil to 'start respecting human beings also apart from animals'.
New Delhi: The Thane Police on Tuesday issued a non-bailable warrant against actress Mamta Kulkarni and drug lord Vicky Goswami in connection with a drugs haul case.

The name of the duo surfaced in the connection based on which a charge sheet was filed.

But the duo was declared absconding since their names surfaced in the case.Goswami is in U.S. custody. In January, Goswami, Ibrahim and Baktash Akasha, as well as Gulam Hussein, were extradited from Kenya to the U.S.

All of them were arrested in November 2014 in a sting operation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) who was posing as Colombian drug dealers. As per reports, Goswami shipped at least 98 kg of high-grade heroin and methamphetamine to the US.
Dubai: An Indian man from Punjab has saved 10 other Indians from death sentence in UAE.

Ten Indian youths in the UAE will escape the noose for murdering a Pakistani man in 2015 after the victim's family accepted bloodmoney amounting to 200,000 dirhams and agreed to pardon the convicts.

But, who paid this blood money and why?

An NRI businessman for whom philanthropy is a way of life paid this bloodmoney of Dhs 200,000 to victim's family.

SPS Oberoi is the Chairman of Sarbat Da Bhala Charitable Trust. This Trust donated blood money for the accused men.

According to SPS Oberoi, it was a tough task to obtain pardon from the Pakistani family.

SPS Oberoi is a Dubai-based businessman.

Also, Oxford University had bestowed an honorary doctorate on him for his philanthropic activities.

He is a native of Punjab.

Oberoi said Riaz had been invited from Pakistan three days ago, with all arrangements, including a visa and accommodation being made by his trust.

"We somehow made him agree...and as per the Sharia law, have submitted Dhs 200,000 as blood money in the court," Oberoi said.

He said his Pakistani manager traveled to Peshawar and talked to the family and their relatives to secure the pardon.

Mohammad Riaz, the father of Mohammad Farhan, appeared in the Al Ain appeals court on March 22 and submitted a letter of consent to pardon the accused Indians.

"It was unfortunate that I lost my son. I appeal the young generation not to indulge in such fights. I have forgiven these 10 individuals. In fact, Allah has saved their lives. Lives of at least 10 people, including a wife and children, hinge [financially] on one person [who comes to work in the UAE]," Riaz said.

On behalf of the accused, an Indian charity organisation deposited the blood money in the court and the case has been adjourned for further hearing on April 12, said Dinesh Kumar, Counsellor, Community Affairs at the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi.

Murder case

On December 8, 2016, the murder allegedly occurred during a brawl over bootlegging in Al Ain in December 2015.

Eleven men from Punjab were convicted in the case but one was spared the death sentence.

Convicted men

All the convicted young Indian men are from poor families and worked in Al Ain as plumbers, electricians, carpenters and masons.

Most of them in their twenties had paid huge sums to recruitment agents in India to secure a visa to reach the UAE.
By Press Trust of India: (Incorporates reactions)

Srinagar, Mar 28 (PTI) Three youth were today killed and 18 others were injured as security forces clashed with stone- pelters trying to disrupt an anti-militancy operation which ended with the killing of a militant in Budgam district of Kashmir. The killing of the civilians was described as "highly painful" by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti who urged restraint from all sides while opposition National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah said the incident reflects the "alarming situation" in the valley. Separatists in Kashmir called for a general strike tomorrow against the killing of three civilians and sought an impartial inquiry into the incident.

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This morning, security forces launched a cordon-and- search operation in Durbugh area of Chadoora village following information about the presence of militants in the area, a police official said.

He said the search operation turned into a gunbattle after the hiding militant fired at the security forces.

As the gunbattle was underway, scores of people gathered at the site and resorted to stone-pelting, leading to clashes with the security forces. The day-long clashes left three civilians -- all young men in their 20s -- dead while 18 others were injured, the police official said.

The slain civilians were identified as Zahid Dar, Saqib Ahmad and Ishfaq Ahmad Wani. All of them had firearm injuries, the official said. Clashes between protestors and security forces were going on till reports last came in, he added.

Meanwhile, the encounter continued and the lone militant was gunned down by the evening.

"One militant has been killed and a weapon has been recovered from the scene of the encounter," an army official said.

A police official said one para trooper also sustained injuries in the encounter. Commenting on the deaths, Mehbooba said, "It is highly painful to see the young boys losing their lives."

She termed the killings as highly unfortunate and said the people in Kashmir continue to suffer massive collateral damage due to violence of past three decades or so.

Violence has given people of the state innumerable miseries, she said, adding that it is high time that peaceful means are given a chance for the resolution of issues. Abdullah, who is contesting the upcoming bypolls from Srinagar Lok Sabha seat, said, "The unfortunate tragedy in Chadoora today and all such incidents indicate how alarming the situation has become."

The trend of civilians assembling near the encounter sites and engaging security forces in clashes emerged last year.

It has continued even after Army Chief Bipin Rawat warned the youth against interfering in anti-militancy operations and the state administration imposing Section 144 within three kilometre radius of the encounter site. PTI MIJ ADS AKK AKK

--- ENDS ---

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New Delhi: NASA's Juno spacecraft whizzed by Jupiter on Monday, March 27, 2017, in its fifth close encounter with the gas giant, successfully completing its fourth science orbit.

According to NASA, all of Juno's science instruments and the spacecraft's JunoCam were on during the flyby, collecting data that is now being returned to Earth.

Juno made its closest approach at 4:52 a.m. EDT (0852 GMT), skimming 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers) above Jupiter's cloud tops while traveling about 129,000 mph (208,000 km/h) relative to the planet, NASA officials said.

Peer-reviewed papers with more in-depth science results from Juno's first flybys are expected to be published within the next few months.

Juno launched on August 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, arrived in orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016.

During its mission of exploration, Juno soars low over the planet's cloud tops - as close as about 2,600 miles (4,100 kilometers).

Junos next close flyby of Jupiter will occur on May 19, 2017.
Mumbai: Television star Nia Sharma says viewers do not easily accept actors from the small screen in bold roles as they are used to watching them in the characters of 'bahu' or 'beti'.

The actress says the digital space gives more space to an artiste to experiment with roles as compared to TV.

"People find it difficult to fit actors in any role as they (actors) have done certain kind of parts on television and that is very degrading, demeaning and regressive. TV isn't a wide medium when it comes to boldness on the small screen because of the audience.

"It reaches out to the audience but keeping the traditions intact. The only medium where people are truly exploring themselves and going out to experiment is the digital space," Nia told PTI.

Nia rose to fame with the shows like "Ek Hazaaron Mein Meri Behna Hai" and "Jamaai Raja". She is now a part of a web series by Vikram Bhatt, called "Twisted".

The actress says she was a little apprehensive doing bold scenes in the web series due to the kinds of roles she has done in the small screen.

"People have played roles like these before and done bold scenes on-screen but just because my background is television, people will blow it out of proportion.

"Everything I am doing is normal, but just because I've played a role of 'bahu' and 'beti', people will not take it easily."

'Twisted' goes on air on March 30.
New Delhi: Ace comedian Raju Srivastava, who was recently seen spilling humour on 'The Kapil Sharma Show', is now likely to replace Sunil Grover on the popular television program. The 53-year-old comedian reportedly confirmed that he is in talks with the showmakers regarding the same.

Talks are on, but things are yet to be finalised. I don't want to rush into it, but it's a great opportunity. Sharing the stage with Kapil is always fun, Mid-Day quoted Raju as saying.

Oh boy, this pretty much tells that Kapil is trying their best to make the show entertaining again. However, no official confirmation has been made yet. But, keeping in mind the heartfelt note which Sunil posted online on Tuesday, speculation are rife that he won't be making a comeback on the TV program.

The whole controversy began when Sunil was reportedly abused verbally and physically by Kapil, who was then in an inebriated state. Sharma and his team were returning from Australia when the incident took place on flight. Soon after the issue made headlines, the 'Kis Kisko Pyaar Karoon' actor took to Twitter to apologise to Sunil.

However, Sunil replied by posting a message online urging Kapil to 'start respecting human beings also apart from animals'.
Navratri is around the clock and the devotees look forward to visit the Sherawali Mata- 'Vaishno Devi' which is a holy shrine nestled in Trikuta Mountains in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

So get drenched in the feeling of 'Chalo bulawa aya hai, Mata ne bulaya hai'!

Hail along with the thousands of pilgrims- ''Bol Jai Kara Shera wali da... Bol Sache darbaar di Jai''!

Train:

Take that route by train which will go till Katra and from there one can start their journey for the Holy Shrine.

Even the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had flagged off 'Shri Shakti Express' a superfast train which runs between New Delhi to Katra for the devotees.

Simply enjoy the train journey by singing 'Tune Muje Bulaya Sherawaliye... Me aya me aya Jyotanwaliye'!

By Air:

For the elderly people who can't travel much and still want to fulfill the desire to pay a visit to the holy shrine, simply take a flight from your city till Jammu airport. From Jammu board a private cab or a taxi to Katra and there you are.

Then simply go in the bhakti of 'Nange nange pau chale agaya re Maa, ek tera pujari'!

By Bus:

If you are those lucky people staying near by Jammu or even the young blood can travel in buses as it's hard to get reservations in trains or flights during festive times. So reach out this Navratri to take blessings of Mata Rani by boarding those comfortable air conditioned and non-ac buses.

Even the state of Jammu and Kashmir provides with State Road Transport Corporation buses that travel to and fro Jammu to Katra.

By Road:

Don't wait for any invitation or depend on anybody to visit the Holy shrine, rather make your own trip by your transport and travel through the National Highway no.1A that passes through Jammu towards Srinagar. The city of Jammu is well connected through roads with the rest of India.

Don't forget ''Mata jinko yaad kare vo log nirale hote hai... Mata jinka naam pukare vo kismat wale hote hain''. So if you have got the invitation, then surely make it to thhe Vaishno Mata by one of these ways and hail 'Jai Mata Di'!
Lucknow: Ever since taking charge as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, saint-politician Yogi Adityanath has been working tirelessly to bring about a change in the countrys most populous state, and, that too, even without holding a single meeting of his Cabinet.

Another interesting aspect of the decisions  most of them have created ripples in the political community and society at large  taken by the Yogi Adtiyanath government is that no single penny has been spent so far.

From his first day in office till this week, the firebrand BJP leader, who now heads a 47-member Cabinet, has touched almost all sectors be it law and order, safety of women, austerity drive, ban on cow slaughter etc.

While Yogi Adityanath government's crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses created ripples across the state, steps aimed at making the bureaucracy more responsive towards people and bringing transparency in the governance have been lauded.

Here are some of the best known decisions of the Yogi Adityanath government:-

-Timely implementation of the promises made in the BJPs vision document - Sankalp Patra - for the 2017 state assembly elections.

-Improving the law and order situation in the state.

-Action against cow vigilantes and moral policing brigade.

-Direction to ministers to disclose their incomes within the next 15 days and submit the details to the CM secretariat and the BJP office.

-Gag on ministers making irresponsible statements.

-Directions for ministers not to take Govt files home.

-Crackdown on the VIP culture in the state. The CM ordered that no minister in the state will be allowed to use the red beacons atop vehicles.

-Setting up of 'anti-Romeo squads' aimed at preventing harassment of women in public places.

-Shutting down of illegal slaughterhouses to keep in check the unhygienic conditions in the overcrowded marketplaces.

-Banning of pan masala and polyethene in government buildings

-Announcing Metro Rail project in Allahabad, Meerut, Agra, Gorakhpur

-Making all state roads pothole-free by June.

-Increasing the grant for Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh.

-Directions for the construction of Mansarovar Bhavan near New Delhi for pilgrims.

-Compulsory presence of female, male police officials at the reception of each police station.

-Uninterrupted supply of electricity to devotees during Navaratara and Ram Navmi.

-Reviewing of security arrangements given to political leaders

-Installation of CCTV cameras at government offices

-Proper drinking facilities at every police station.

-Effective monitoring of the social media for timely police intervention in incidents that could disrupt communal harmony in the state.

-Disbanding the services of all advisers, vice-chairmen and chairmen appointed by the previous SP government in different departments and corporations.

-Allotment of land for the construction of a huge Ramayana Museum in Ayodhya.

-Teachers can't wear T-shirts in schools.

-Restriction on teachers for using mobile phones unnecessarily in schools.

-Making all cooperative societies functional.

-Citizen's charter for quick disposal of people's problems.

With Agency inputs
Mathura: With mass cheating incidents in the Uttar Pradesh Board Examinations being reported from two centres in Mathura, the English paper exam was postponed on Tuesday.

The UP Board is yet to announce the next schedule of the English paper.

The administration has released a WhatsApp number 9454457241 for registering cheating related complaints in order to check incidents of cheating in UP Board Exams.

Earlier this month, students were seen copying and taking help from outside at several centres in Mathura during Uttar Pradesh Board Examinations for Classes X and XII, following which over 70 students and teachers were been booked.

Pictures and videos showed friends and relatives of the students scaling walls and passing chits through windows at the exam centre.

Last year, scores of students were expelled after being caught cheating during the Intermediate Examination in Vaishali in Bihar.
Lucknow: A Samajwadi Party leader shot a teen dead for raising `Yogi Zindabad` slogan, a report said on Tuesday.

The incident took place in Madhan village under Asmoli police station area on Sunday night, a week after Yogi Adityanath was sworn-in as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.

Viniket, alias Nanhe (17) was shot dead by his neighbour Shishupal Singh, reports News18 quoting news agency IANS.

The report says that BJP leader Monu Singh's younger brother Nanhe was raising `Yogi Zindabad` slogan on Sunday night.

Samajwadi Party leader Shishupal Singh, the husband of Usha Rani, who is a Zila Panchayat member, was passing by when he heard Nanhe and shot him dead.

Later, stones were also hurled at the victim's house injuring three people.

According to the FIR filed by the deceased's brother, the accused had come to kill Nanhe's elder brother Monu.

Nanhe's body has been sent for post-mortem.

The UP Police said it seems poll-related enmity, not sloganeering, led to the incident.

A probe is on and the accused will be held soon, said police.
Lucknow: Following reports of rampant cheating during the Uttar Pradesh Board Examinations, the Uttar Pradesh government led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday issued helpline numbers to help people register complaint of any wrong doing in any of the Centres where exams are scheduled.

The administration has released a WhatsApp number 9454457241 and a landline number 0522-2236760 for registering cheating related complaints in order to check incidents of cheating in UP Board Exams.

The administration has assured that the identity of the complainant will not be revealed.

Earlier this month, students were seen copying and taking help from outside at several centres in Mathura during Uttar Pradesh Board Examinations for Classes X and XII, following which over 70 students and teachers were been booked.

Pictures and videos showed friends and relatives of the students scaling walls and passing chits through windows at the exam centre.

While campaigning for the recently concluded UP Elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had alleged that tenders were floated to encourage adoption of wrong practices in examinations, like mass copying. "In Gonda, even theft is carried out as a trade...tenders are floated for allotting examination centres...this is not good for anyone and this should be stopped...this auction of examination centres should be stopped," he had said.

"Crime attached with education will spoil the coming generations," Modi had said.
Lucknow: A crude bomb exploded near a railway track at the Sant Kabir Nagar in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday.

One person, said to be a resident of Nepal, was reportedly injured in the blast.

Three crude bombs have also been recovered from the spot, said news agency ANI.

Police are investigating the matter.

The injured have been rushed to a nearby hospital.

A forensic team is also at the spot.
By Press Trust of India: From Lalit K Jha

Washington, Mar 28 (PTI) US President Donald Trump has called Prime Minister Narendra Modi to congratulate him on his partys recent electoral success in state elections, the third telephonic conversation between the two leaders since the new administration took over in Washington.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump congratulated Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday on their electoral victories.

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"The president spoke with German Chancellor Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Modi earlier today to congratulate them on their parties success in recent elections," Spicer said.

The two leaders are expected to meet on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Germany in July.

Following the elections, Modis Bharatiya Janata Party formed the government in four states: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.

It, however, lost Punjab to main rival Congress.

Merkels Christian Democrat party easily won an election in the Saarland state on Sunday, dealing an early blow to centre-left hopes of ending her more than decade-long reign.

Previously, Modi and Trump talked by phone on January 24, when they had resolved to stand "shoulder-to-shoulder" in the global fight against terrorism and for defence and security.

According to a White House statement then, Trump had "emphasised that the US considers India a true friend and partner in addressing challenges around the world."

The two leaders had also exchanged invitations for visits.

Prime Minister Modi was the fifth foreign leader Trump had spoken to on phone after he was sworn-in as the US President on January 20.

He had by then spoken to British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canadas Justin Trudeau, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

After Trumps surprise victory in the November 8 elections, Modi was among the first world leaders to congratulate him. PTI LKJ NSA AKJ NSA

--- ENDS ---
New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday said she has spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath about the attack on four Nigerian students in Greater Noida and he has assured fair and impartial probe into the matter.

"I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath ji Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh about an attack on African students in Greater Noida. He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident," Swaraj tweeted.

Swaraj yesterday sought a report from the Uttar Pradesh Government over the attack on four Nigerian students, who sustained severe injuries after being assaulted by a group of local residents in Greater Noida`s Pari Chowk area.

"I have asked for a report from Government of Uttar Pradesh about the reported attack on African students in Noida," tweeted Swaraj.

The incident comes as locals protested following the death of a Class 12 student in Greater Noida`s NSG Black Cats Enclave due to suspected drug overdose and five Nigerian students living in the neighbourhood were booked - and later detained - in connection with the case.

The students were later released for lack of evidence.

Over 100 locals held a protest at the busy junction demanding that all Africans living in residential colonies in Greater Noida be asked to vacate their rented houses immediately.
Jalpaiguri: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday expressed concern over alleged child trafficking rackets running in Jalpaiguri district and elsewhere.

Banerjee said that each and every shelter for children in the state must be brought under the scanner.

A district child protection officer and a child welfare committee member were arrested earlier this month for alleged involvement in the Jalpaiguri racket in which a BJP leader was also arrested along with three others.

The case is being investigated by the state's Criminal Investigation Department.

During today's administrative meeting in Jalpaiguri district, the chief minister directed senior administrative officials to keep a strict vigil on homes from where babies are sold to customers through questionable adoption deals.

In the meeting she announced construction of four new overbridges to improve connectivity to a under-construction tourist facility at Gajoldoba.

The chief minister said that the four overbridges would be located at Udlabari, Lataguri, Mainaguri and Jalpaiguri.

The Jalpaiguri Sadar Hospital would be upgraded to a medical college and the number of beds would be increased to 1,200 from existing 550, she also announced.

Banerjee also directed authorities of private hospitals and nursing homes in the district to be more "sensitive and humane" while dealing with patients.
Kathmandu: Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat arrived in Kathmandu on Tuesday on a four-day official visit.

Rawat will be conferred the honorary rank of General of the Nepal Army by Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari on Wednesday, defence officials said here.

It is a custom and tradition between the Indian and Nepali armies to confer this honour on each other`s chiefs to signify close and special military-to-military ties.

General Rawat will also discuss bilateral military ties and other aspects of cooperation during his meeting with Nepali Army chief General Rajendra Chhetri.

Rawat is also scheduled to meet Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Defence Minister Bal Krishna Khand and will visit Pokhara, where India`s biggest pension camp is located, and travel to Muktinath where Nepal Army runs a high-altitude military warfare training centre.

Other highlights of his visit will be issues related to purchasing military hardware and software for the Nepal Army.

Nepal makes almost all military and defence purchases from India, including helicopters
Tehran: Iran rejected as "delusional" on Tuesday Bahraini claims that it was behind a "terrorist" cell accused of planning attacks on senior figures and security personnel in the Gulf kingdom.

"It is a surprise that Bahraini authorities still insist on repeating baseless and fruitless claims and accusing the Islamic republic of Iran," the state-run Iran Daily quoted foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi as saying.

The Bahraini interior ministry said on Sunday that security forces had dismantled a 14-member "terrorist" cell that had received training from Iran`s Revolutionary Guards and an Iran-backed Shiite militia in Iraq.

It said two Bahrainis suspected of financing and supervising the group had fled to Iran.

Shiite-majority Bahrain has been gripped by persistent unrest since its Sunni rulers crushed Shiite-led protests for a consitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister in 2011.

They have since dissolved the main Shiite opposition movement and sentenced many of its leaders to long jail terms, some on "terror" charges.

Ghasemi said Bahrain`s "delusional" government should focus on ending "the crackdown and arrest of religious leaders, and grant freedom of speech" to its people.

The crackdown has drawn criticism from Western governments as well as human rights groups, but Bahrain`s strategic position across the Gulf from Iran makes it a key ally and the kingdom is home base to the US Fifth Fleet.
Tabqa Dam: Clashes raged around a key northern Syrian town on Tuesday after the Islamic State group launched a counter-attack to fend off a US-backed advance near the jihadists` stronghold Raqa.

Backed by air power from the international coalition bombing IS, the Syrian Democratic Forces are laying the groundwork for an assault on the heart of the jihadists` so-called "caliphate".

A key part of the campaign is the battle for the IS-held town of Tabqa on the Euphrates River, as well as the adjacent dam and military airport.

The SDF seized the Tabqa airbase late Sunday and began moving north towards the town itself, but IS fighters began pushing back on Tuesday, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"The fighting is a result of IS launching a counter-offensive to exhaust the Syrian Democratic Forces around the Tabqa military airport," said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Observatory.

The SDF was working to "consolidate its positions" near the airport ahead of a final push for the town, he said.

IS launched the attack with a car bomb targeting SDF forces stationed near the airport, the alliance`s media arm said.

Fierce clashes broke out but the SDF held back the attack and managed to seize some ammunition and rocket stores from IS, according to pictures published by the SDF.

SDF fighters are also bearing down on the Tabqa dam after capturing its northern entrance on Friday from IS fighters.

The fight around the structure has been backed by forces from the US-led coalition, with American-made armoured vehicles bearing the markings of the US Marine Corps seen moving along a nearby road.

An AFP correspondent at the dam on Tuesday said it was generally quiet around the dam itself, despite the occasional IS-fired mortar that landed in SDF-controlled parts of the riverbank.

Planes could be heard above as SDF forces patrolled the northern entrance of the structure.On Tuesday, coalition forces could be seen standing near military vehicles less than two kilometres (one mile) from the dam, their mortar rounds casually stacked nearby.

After a brief pause in fighting on Monday to allow technicians to enter the dam complex, SDF fighters resumed their operations around the structure, said spokeswoman Jihan Sheikh Ahmed.

"IS amassed its fighters and attacked our forces in the area, which forced us to respond and resume the operations to liberate the dam," she said.

Earlier this year, the United Nations raised concern about the prospect of damage to the dam in fighting, warning that water levels -- which put pressure on the structure -- were already high.

On Tuesday, technicians accompanied by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent could be seen examining the dam to assess whether water levels had risen in recent days.

"The explosions and the clashes are threatening the dam, and we ask for all sides to distance themselves from it," said Ismail Jassem, an engineer from the SDF-controlled Tishreen Dam in neighbouring Aleppo province.

"The water levels are acceptable now. We came to open up one of the gates to relieve the pressure," he told AFP.

IS has accused the US-led coalition of bringing the dam to near-collapse with its air strikes, and on Tuesday it said an American air raid killed top technicians at the dam.

"An American strike yesterday targeted the technical team at the Euphrates Dam, which killed the dam director, a technician, and an electrical engineer," the group said on its Amaq propaganda channel.

The SDF launched its offensive for Raqa city in November, seizing around two thirds of the surrounding province, according to the Britain-based Observatory.

At their closest point, the forces are just eight kilometres (five miles) from Raqa city, to the northeast. But they are mostly further away, between 18 and 29 kilometres (between 11 and 18 miles) from Raqa.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources on the ground in Syria, said IS had deployed around 900 fighters from Raqa city to various fronts in the wider province.

"Fighting is raging on every front around the city of Raqa, accompanied by non-stop air strikes," Abdel Rahman said.

Syria`s conflict began with protests against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011 but has turned into a brutal war pitting government forces, jihadists, rebels, and Kurds against each other.

UN-mediated talks between government and rebel representatives continued Tuesday in Geneva, aimed at bringing an end to the war that has killed 320,000 people.

The lead negotiator for the main opposition High Negotiations Committee, Mohamad Sabra, said in an interview late Monday that there could be "no real and viable political solution without the presence of the Americans."
Beirut: The Islamic State group launched a counter-attack on Tuesday against US-backed fighters closing in on a key jihadist-held town in northern Syria, a monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said clashes were raging around Tabqa, a town on the southern bank of the Euphrates River.

"The fighting is a result of IS launching a counter-offensive to exhaust the Syrian Democratic Forces around the Tabqa military airport," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

The battle for Tabqa is a major part of the SDF`s flagship campaign for the city of Raqa, the Syrian heart of IS`s so-called "caliphate".

Backed by the US-led coalition bombing IS, the SDF seized the Tabqa airbase late Sunday and began pushing north.

Abdel Rahman said the SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab forces, was working to "consolidate its positions" near the airport ahead of a final push for the town.

SDF fighters are also bearing down on the Tabqa dam after capturing its northern entrance on Friday from IS fighters.

After a brief pause in fighting on Monday to allow technicians to enter the dam complex, SDF fighters resumed their operations around the structure, spokeswoman Jihan Sheikh Ahmed said.

"IS amassed its fighters and attacked our forces in the area, which forced us to respond and resume the operations to liberate the dam," she said.

Earlier this year, the United Nations raised concern about the prospect of damage to the dam in fighting, warning that water levels -- which put pressure on the structure -- were already high.

At their closest point, the SDF are just eight kilometres (five miles) from Raqa city, to the northeast. But they are mostly further away, between 18 and 29 kilometres (between 11 and 18 miles) from Raqa.

The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources on the ground across the country, said IS had deployed around 900 fighters from Raqa city to various fronts in the wider province.

"Fighting is raging on every front around the city of Raqa, accompanied by non-stop air strikes," Abdel Rahman said.
Kabul: Hundreds of students returned today to the elite American University in Kabul seven months after militants stormed the campus, including those wounded in the bloody assault that killed 16 people.

Security has been increased at the campus in the Afghan capital after the attack last August, in which students trapped during the nearly 10-hour raid sent anguished pleas for help on social media.

"I don't think anything un-Islamic or against any group is taught here," said Rahmatullah, a returning student who was one of those wounded in the attack.

"It is just a centre to promote knowledge and that is going to succeed," he said.

The attack was one of the first major militant assaults on a prominent university in Afghanistan.

The university, which opened in 2006 and has more than 1,700 students, was long seen as a high-profile target for militants, partly because it attracts foreign faculty members.

The attack has cast a pall over the education sector, seen as a rare symbol of hope for the young at a time of rising insecurity.

"All our classes will resume today. We have worked on boosting the security of the university for the past seven months," Zubaida Akbar, the university's director of communication, told AFP.

President Ashraf Ghani has given special permission for a private foreign security company to fortify the campus with more concrete blast walls and bulletproof gates.

Private security companies were banned from operating independently in Afghanistan in 2010 in an attempt to control illegal weapons in the war-torn country, and must register with the government.

The raid began with a suicide bombing at the campus gates which paved the way for two gunmen to enter to compound at dusk, when it is usually packed with students.

No group claimed responsibility, but it occurred during a Taliban summer offensive against the Western-backed government.

About two weeks before the attack, two foreign professors of the university were seized from their vehicle and hauled them away at gunpoint.

Their whereabouts are still unknown and no group so far has publicly claimed responsibility for the abductions, the latest in a series of kidnappings of foreigners.
Kuala Lumpur: The body of Kim Jong Nam, who was murdered in Malaysia last month, is still in Kuala Lumpur, health minister Health Minister Subramaniam Sathasivam said on Tuesday, amid reports the remains of the estranged half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will soon leave the country.

What Malaysia eventually does with the body, and how far it pursues three North Koreans wanted for questioning in the case, and believed to be hiding in the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, are central to negotiations to resolve a diplomatic row between the two formerly friendly governments, sources aware of the discussions have told Reuters.

Malaysia is trying to secure the release of nine nationals who have been stranded in Pyongyang after North Korea, angered by the suspicion cast by the police investigation, imposed a travel ban on Malaysians leaving its borders.

In response, Malaysia imposed a tit-for-tat travel ban, and called on North Korea to immediately release all its citizens.

There was speculation that some deal had been worked out on Monday, sparking media reports that the body was moved out of the hospital to a funeral parlour, and later was being prepared to be taken on a flight to Beijing.

Malaysia`s New Straits Times newspaper reported on Tuesday that the body was expected to go from Beijing to North Korea, without disclosing its source for the information.

But the health minister said the situation was unchanged.

"We have to check with the forensics department if there was any requirement to bring the body out, but as far as we are concerned there is no change in status quo," Subramaniam told reporters.

Subramaniam said the ministry cannot do anything with the body until they are given instructions by "those responsible for the body."

"But the next of kin have not come forward to provide assistance on how the body is to be treated," he said.

Subramaniam said the negotiations were being held by the ministry of foreign affairs and the Prime Minister's department, but the government has otherwise declined to comment.

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`s body has since been at a morgue in Kuala Lumpur, with Malaysia saying it will only hand it over to the next-of-kin.

U.S. and South Korean officials say the North Korean regime was behind the murder of Kim Jong Nam, who had been living in exile in Macau and had criticised his family`s dynastic rule of North Korea in the past.

Two women, an Indonesian and a Vietnamese, were charged for the murder. Both have claimed they were unwitting pawns in an assassination that U.S. officials and South Korean intelligence have said was organised by North Korean agents.
Kuala Lumpur: Six weeks after the airport assassination of Kim Jong-Nam, Malaysia on Tuesday said it was still waiting for family to claim the body, denying rumours it had been sent back to Pyongyang.

The half-brother of North Korea`s leader Kim Jong-Un was poisoned with the lethal nerve agent VX in a brazen Cold War-style assassination on February 13 in Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

"There have been a lot of rumours that the body was cremated but we would not do this without the responsible parties giving us directives or agreement," Health Minister S. Subramaniam told reporters.

In recent days, there has been some speculation that Kuala Lumpur had done a deal with Pyongyang to send the body to North Korea, in exchange for the return of nine Malaysians being prevented from leaving by Kim Jong-Un`s regime.

Other reports had suggested the corpse would be transported to Macau, where Kim had been living with his family.

"The body is still in the morgue at Hospital Kuala Lumpur," Subramaniam said, adding it would remain there until the government had decided what to do.

Kuala Lumpur has been waiting for the next of kin to come forward and claim the body, but as this has not happened, they are now seeking other solutions.

Kim`s wife and children, who were living in exile in the Chinese territory of Macau, staged a vanishing act after the murder. There are fears his 21-year-old son, Kim Han-Sol, could be targeted next and the family is thought to be in hiding.

The killing has triggered a bitter row between Malaysia and North Korea, which have expelled each other`s ambassadors and barred their citizens from leaving.

Two women -- one Vietnamese and one Indonesian -- have been arrested and charged with the murder. Airport CCTV footage shows them approaching the 45-year-old victim and apparently smearing his face with a piece of cloth.

Investigators are seeking seven North Korean suspects, four of whom left Malaysia on the day of the murder.

The police chief has said he believes they fled to Pyongyang while the other three are hiding in North Korea`s embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

Seoul has blamed Pyongyang for his death, but the North denies this, refusing to confirm the identity of the victim, who was carrying a passport bearing the name of Kim Chol when he was attacked.

Malaysia has officially confirmed his identity using DNA evidence.
Washington: North Korea has conducted another ballistic missile engine test, US defence officials told CNN.

The officials on Monday said the latest engine trial is the third such test using similar technology.

The initial assessment indicates that the engine technology could possibly be used in an eventual intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

However, it was not clear whether the engine would require some adjustment to be used in an ICBM, if it can indeed be used that way at all.

Possession of an ICBM could allow North Korea to threaten the continental US, the officials said.

Meanwhile, Washington announced on Monday that the US Marines have deployed F-35Bs to South Korea for the first time as part of an exercise that began on March 24.

"This is the first time we have operated the F-35B in South Korea," CNN quoted Pentagon spokesman US Navy Captain Jeff Davis as saying.

The new short takeoff and vertical landing capable stealth strike fighter was only first declared operational in July of 2015.

The deployment is part of a training exercise with the South Korean military, an exercise Davis called "defensive in nature".
By Press Trust of India: (Eds: Updates with White House statement)

From Lalit K Jha

Washington, Mar 28 (PTI) US President Donald Trump has congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the outcome of recent state elections and expressed his support to the Indian leaders economic reform agenda, the White House said today.

A day after Trump called Modi, the third telephonic conversation after his electoral victory in November last year, the White House said the US President looks forward to hosting the Prime Minister later this year.

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"President Donald J Trump spoke with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India to congratulate him on the outcome of Indias recent state-level elections," the White House said in a readout of the call which took place yesterday.

"President Trump expressed support for the Prime Ministers economic reform agenda and emphasized his great respect for the people of India," it said.

"President Trump also said he looks forward to hosting Prime Minister Modi in Washington later this year," said the statement issued by the White House.

Earlier, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump congratulated Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday on their electoral victories.

"The president spoke with German Chancellor Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Modi earlier today to congratulate them on their parties success in recent elections," Spicer said.

The two leaders are expected to meet on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Germany in July.

Following the elections, Modis Bharatiya Janata Party formed the government in four states: Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Uttarakhand and Goa. It, however, lost Punjab to main rival Congress.

Merkels Christian Democrat party easily won an election in the Saarland state on Sunday, dealing an early blow to centre-left hopes of ending her more than decade-long reign.

"The two leaders also used the occasion to reflect on the Chancellors March 17 visit to the White House. The President said he looked forward to visiting Hamburg, Germany for the G-20 Summit on July 7th and 8th," the White House said.

Previously, Modi and Trump talked by phone on January 24, when they had resolved to stand "shoulder-to-shoulder" in the global fight against terrorism and for defence and security.

According to a White House statement then, Trump had "emphasised that the US considers India a true friend and partner in addressing challenges around the world."

Prime Minister Modi was the fifth foreign leader Trump had spoken to on phone after he was sworn-in as the US President on January 20.

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He had by then spoken to British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canadas Justin Trudeau, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

After Trumps surprise victory in the November 8 elections, Modi was among the first world leaders to congratulate him. PTI LKJ NSA ZH AKJ ZH

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Pyongyang: North Korea on Tuesday accused the US of trying to form an Asian version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) through a US-Japan-South Korea military alliance.

The official daily Rodong Sinmun (Labor News) said the US-Japan-South Korea triangular military alliance had "reached the phase of full-scale activation", Xinhua news agency reported.

"The US aggressor forces, the `Self-Defense Forces` of Japan and the South Korean puppet army recently conducted a large-scale drill for intercepting missiles from the DPRK," it said.

"The US is claiming the drill and the naval joint drill with Japan are independent of Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military drills. But this is no more than a lame excuse," it said.

The daily claimed that the missile intercepting drill is directly related to the drill being staged under the simulated conditions of executing "Operation 4D" and deploying Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD), "the key phase of Key Resolve and Foal Eagle."

"The same can be said of the joint drill conducted by a US nuclear aircraft carrier task force and warships of the Japan Self Defence Forces," it said.

The US and South Korea have been conducting a large scale joint military exercise "Foal Eagle", which was condemned by Pyongyang as aimed at staging precision strikes against targets in North Korea.
Amman: Jordan's state media say public and private sector officials from Saudi Arabia and Jordan have signed 15 economic agreements, including establishing a joint fund that will launch an estimated USD 3 billion worth of investments in Jordan.

The Petra news agency says the agreements were signed after a meeting late yesterday between Saudi King Salman and Jordan's King Abdullah II.

Planned projects include reconstruction and rehabilitation of a north-south highway in Jordan and setting up a power plant on Jordan's eastern border.

Saudi Arabia has been one of Jordan's main financial backers. Jordan has faced an economic downturn, with sluggish growth, rising public debt and high unemployment.
Edinburgh/London: The Scottish parliament on Tuesday backed a bid to hold a new independence referendum in 2018 or 2019, but the British government immediately rejected the proposal.

The stand-off further complicates the United Kingdom`s political situation just as years of daunting negotiations on the terms of its exit from the European Union are about to begin.

The Brexit issue has strained ties between the UK`s four constituent parts because England and Wales voted to leave the EU while Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain.

British Prime Minister Theresa May is due to trigger Article 50 of the bloc`s Lisbon Treaty on Wednesday, a formal step that will start two years of talks on withdrawal terms and future trade relations.

The Scottish legislature in Edinburgh voted by a majority of 69 to 59 to give First Minister Nicola Sturgeon a mandate to formally seek permission from the British parliament in London to prepare for a referendum in late 2018 or early 2019.

"The people of Scotland should have the right to choose between Brexit, possibly a very hard Brexit, or becoming an independent country able to chart our own course," Sturgeon said earlier in the chamber.

But the British government swiftly responded that it would refuse to enter into negotiations on Sturgeon`s proposal.

"It would be unfair to the people of Scotland to ask them to make a crucial decision without the necessary information about our future relationship with Europe, or what an independent Scotland would look like," it said in a statement.

"NOW IS NOT THE TIME"

Sturgeon has said the shape of the future deal should become clear between the autumn of 2018 and the spring of 2019, and the Scottish executive would also put forward a detailed plan by then for what independence would entail.

Scots voted against independence by 55 to 45 percent in 2014 but Sturgeon argues the Brexit vote changed circumstances and they should not be dragged out of the EU against their will.

"When the nature of the change that is made inevitable by Brexit becomes clear, that change should not be imposed upon us," she said.

May has said "now is not the time" for a new vote on Scottish independence and insisted her focus was on getting a good Brexit deal that would work for every part of the UK.

Having won the vote in the Scottish assembly, Sturgeon said she would not seek discussions with London until after Article 50 was triggered because she recognised Wednesday was a momentous day and May should not be distracted.

She told the chamber that if London sought to block her plan, she would return before the Edinburgh legislature after Easter to say how she would handle the situation. She gave no further details.

Sturgeon was strongly criticised during the debate by lawmakers from the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat opposition parties who said most Scots were tired of the independence debate and did not wish to go through the argument again so soon.
Juba: South Sudanese rebels said they had taken control of a town on the Ugandan border and killed 14 soldiers in the fighting, an account dismissed on Tuesday as "ridiculous and unfounded" by the government.

The SPLM-IO insurgents loyal to former vice president Riek Machar said they freed prisoners from the jail in Kajo-Keji early on Monday around 100km (60 miles) south of the capital Juba.

The government said the rebels had raided the prison, freed a number of people it described as prisoners-of-war, then left.

"It is lies created by the rebels that they have killed and captured people," government army spokesman Santo Domic Chol said.

The United Nations says at least a quarter of South Sudan's population has been displaced in a three-year civil war triggered by President Salva Kiir's decision to sack Machar in 2013.

Many people in and around Kajo-Keji have fled to Uganda to escape the fighting.
Washington: Two Indian-Americans in the US have been sentenced to over a year of imprisonment for a massive international credit card fraud involving more than USD 200 million.

Vijay Verma, 49, and Tarsem Lal, 78, both of whom are owner of a jewelry store in New Jersey, have been sentenced to 14 months in prison and 12 months of home confinement, respectively, the Acting US Attorney William E Fitzpatrick said.

Both had earlier pleaded guilty to the charges. Verma and Lal were indicted in October 2013 as part of a scheme to fabricate more than 7,000 false identities to obtain tens of thousands of credit cards.

According to court documents, participants in the scheme doctored credit reports to pump up the spending and borrowing power associated with the cards.

They then borrowed or spend as much as they could, based on the phony credit history, but did not repay the debts, causing more than USD 200 million in confirmed losses to businesses and financial institutions, federal prosecutors alleged.

These debts were incurred at Verma's jewelry store, among many other locations, where Verma would allow fraudulently obtain credit cards to be swiped in phony transactions, court papers said.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Verma and Lal each admitted allowing others who came to their Jersey City, New Jersey, store to swipe cards they knew did not legitimately belong to them.

Verma and Lal would then split the proceeds of the phony transactions with these other conspirators.

In addition to the prison terms, Judge Thompson sentenced Verma to three years of supervised release and Lal to three years of probation.

Each of them have been fined USD 5,000 and ordered to pay forfeiture of USD
Cape Town: Veteran South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, who was sentenced to life imprisonment with Nelson Mandela for treason, died on Tuesday after complications following surgery, his foundation said on Twitter.



"Ahmed Kathrada has passed on. Details to follow," the Kathrada Foundation said just before 6 am local time (0400GMT).



Affectionately known as "Uncle Kathy", the 87-year-old liberation struggle stalwart was hospitalised in Johannesburg earlier in March after surgery to relieve blood clotting on the brain.



On Monday, the Foundation said his condition had deteriorated rapidly and was "serious" with pneumonia affecting both lungs.



Kathrada, who dedicated his life to fighting the racial injustice of white-minority rule, was also one of the most senior African National Congress (ANC) leaders to criticise President Jacob Zuma`s presidency as allegations of government corruption and maladministration mounted.



Last year, Kathrada wrote an open letter calling on Zuma to resign as a series of scandals, from using taxpayers money to upgrade his rural Nkandla home to summarily firing former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene in 2015, rocked Africa`s most industrialised economy.



"I am not a political analyst, but I am now driven to ask: Dear Comrade President, dont you think your continued stay as President will only serve to deepen the crisis of confidence in the government of the country?," Kathrada said then.



Born to immigrant Indian parents in the small town of Schweizer-Reneke in the North West province just before the Great Depression in 1929, Kathrada became involved in politics at the age of 12 when he distributed leaflets for the Young Communist League of South Africa.



Following decades of activism, Kathrada was sentenced to life imprisonment and hard labour in 1964, together with seven other ANC luminaries such as Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki, after a guilty verdict during the Rivonia treason trail.



Jailed at the age of 34, Kathrada spent the next 18 years at the maximum security section on apartheid`s most notorious prison, Robben Island, a few miles offshore Cape Town city.



He was moved to Pollsmoor prison in 1982 and was released from jail on 15 October 1989 at the age of 60, having spent just over 26 years in jail for his anti-apartheid activities.
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. The Traffic Department of Georgias Ministry of Infrastructures and Territorial Development told Armenias Ministry of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies, that on March 28, as of 11:00, the Stepantsminda-Lars highway is open for all types of vehicles in case of using snow chains, the Ministry told Armenpress.
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. Public opinion polls of the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) over Armenias upcoming parliamentary election showed that the ratings of two leading forces, the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) and Tsarukyan alliance are equal in practice, reports Armenpress.

Valery Fedorov, VCIOM General Director, said 22% of survey respondents are going to vote in favor of Tsarukyan alliance, and 21% for the RPA. The Republican Party of Armenia has significantly increased awareness about it, he said.

He said most of the voters in the upcoming election will be guided by the candidates personality. The majority of voters see a perfect candidate the person who has rich experience and ability to holds talks, he said.

According to the survey results, the potential of Tsarukyan alliance before the election is based on Gagik Tsarukyan, with 87%. Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan brings greater support to the RPA, 84%. Karen Karapetyans rating is high among voters. 72% of the respondents positively assessed his activity. 59% of survey participants support Nikol Pashinyan, Valery Fedorov said, adding that 85% of the respondents is dissatisfied with the current situation in the country, whereas 26% think Armenia moves on the right path.

The survey was conducted by VCIOM in Armenia from March 17 to 24, 2017 by the order of Shant TV. 1600 people took part in the survey. It was conducted face to face. According to the results of another VCIOM survey conducted on February 22-26, 26% of the respondents said they will vote in favor of Tsarukyan alliance, and 19% in favor of the RPA.
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. A 65 year old man, identified as Samvel Aghlamazyan, died after being hit by a vehicle in Yerevans Artashisyan Street.

The Yerevan Police Department told ARMENPRESS the man was immediately hospitalized after the accident, but failed to regain consciousness and died.

Law enforcement agencies were able to identify the driver, who had left the scene.

Police arrested 42 year old Vahe H. in suspicion of the deadly hit and run.

An investigation is underway.
Jared Kushner previously acknowledged meeting the Russian ambassador to Washington last December and only on Monday did it emerge that executives of Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) had talks with Kushner during a bank roadshow last year.

By Reuters: A Russian bank under Western economic sanctions over Russia's incursion into Ukraine disclosed on Monday that its executives had met Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a top White House adviser, in December.

A US Senate committee investigating suspected Russian interference in the election wants to interview Trump associates, including Kushner, 36, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and has agreed to testify.

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Kushner previously acknowledged meeting the Russian ambassador to Washington last December and only on Monday did it emerge that executives of Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) had talks with Kushner during a bank roadshow last year.

The bank said in an emailed statement that as part of its preparing a new strategy, its executives met representatives of financial institutes in Europe, Asia and America.

It said roadshow meetings took place "with a number of representatives of the largest banks and business establishments of the United States, including Jared Kushner, the head of Kushner Companies." VEB declined to say where the meetings took place or the dates.

There was no immediate comment from Kushner.

Russian Actors Behind Hacking

Allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russian actors were behind hacking of senior Democratic Party operatives and spreading disinformation linger over Trump's young presidency. Democrats charge the Russians wanted to tilt the election toward the Republican, a claim dismissed by Trump. Russia denies the allegations.

But there has been no doubt that the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, developed contacts among the Trump team. Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign on Feb. 13 after revelations that he had discussed US sanctions on Russia with Kislyak and misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations.

US officials said that after meeting with Russian Kislyak at Trump Tower last December, a meeting also attended by Flynn, Kushner met later in December with Sergei Gorkov, chairman of Vnesheconombank.

White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks confirmed the meetings, saying nothing of consequence was discussed.

Gorkov was appointed head of VEB in early 2016 by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He graduated from the Federal Security Service, or FSB, Russia's internal security agency. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Merit for Services to the Fatherland, according to the bank's website.

According to two congressional staffers, some Senate investigators want to question Kushner and Flynn about whether they discussed with Gorkov or other Russian officials or financial executives the possibility of investing in 666 Fifth Avenue in New York or other Kushner Co or Trump properties if the new administration lifted the sanctions.

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VEB, aside from being under sanctions, has been grappling with bad debt after financing politically expedient projects such as construction for the Sochi Winter Olympics.

It received 150 billion roubles ($2.6 billion) in support from the Russian budget in 2016, when its senior management was sacked and replaced by a team of executives from Russia's biggest lender Sberbank.

In an article posted on Dec. 18, Forbes estimated that Jared Kushner, his brother Josh and his parents, Charles and Seryl, have a fortune of at least $1.8 billion, more than half of which Forbes estimates is held in real estate.

Forbes did not provide a specific estimate for Jared Kushner's net worth on his own.

FOREIGN CONTACTS

On Monday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters that Kushner is willing to testify to the Senate Intelligence Committee chaired by US Senator Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican.

"Throughout the campaign and the transition, Jared served as the official primary point of contact with foreign governments and officials ... and so, given this role, he volunteered to speak with Chairman Burr's committee," Spicer told reporters at his daily briefing.

The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate panel also said Kushner had agreed to be interviewed but no date had yet been scheduled.

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Simply meeting with representatives of a US-sanctioned entity is not a violation of sanctions or against the law.

Evgeny Buryakov, 41, a Russian citizen who worked at Vnesheconombank and whom US authorities accused of posing as a banker while participating in a New York spy ring, pleaded guilty to a criminal conspiracy charge in March 2016. Buryakov admitted in federal court in Manhattan to acting as an agent for the Russian government without notifying U.S. authorities.

He was prosecuted by the office of the US attorney in Manhattan under Preet Bharara, who was among several chief prosecutors fired or asked to resign earlier this month by the new administration.

CLASSIFIED INFORMATION

Also on Monday, a mystery rooted in Trump's claim that he was wiretapped by then President Barack Obama during the election campaign deepened with the disclosure that a top congressional Republican reviewed classified information on the White House grounds about potential surveillance of some Trump campaign associates.

US Representative Devin Nunes, chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, visited the White House the night before he announced on Wednesday that he had information that indicated some Trump associates may have been subjected to some level of intelligence activity before Trump took office on Jan. 20.

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Democrats have said Nunes, who was a member of Trump's transition team, can no longer run a credible investigation of Russian hacking, the US election and any potential involvement by Trump associates.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, have urged Nunes to recuse himself from the Russia probe.

Nunes told CNN on Monday that he went to the White House grounds because the intelligence information was not available to Congress. He said he did not meet with Trump or his aides at that time and did not coordinate the release of information with the Trump administration.

Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said in a statement that Nunes "met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source."

White House spokesman Spicer did not shed any light on who at the White House helped Nunes gain access to a secure location.

It was the latest twist in a saga that began on March 4 when Trump said on Twitter without providing evidence that he "just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory."

FBI Director James Comey told Congress last Monday he had seen no evidence to support the claim.

ALSO READ| Trump's son-in-law Kushner to become senior White House adviser

ALSO READ| Donald Trump aide: President-elect acknowledges Russia's role in US election hacking

WATCH| Donald Trump takes oath as US President, thanks Obama for smooth transition of power

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YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. While on an official visit in Turkmenistan, Armenias Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan had a meeting with the Cabinet members led by deputy head of the cabinet of ministers Dadebay Amangeldiyev in Ashgabat, press service of the Government told Armenpress.

The sides expressed confidence that the proposals made by the Armenian side have great prospect and can contribute to further developing and strengthening of the bilateral economic ties. They emphasized that the constructive cooperation, as well as the activity of the inter-governmental commission will give new impetus to further deepening of relations. The officials attached importance to implementation of joint programs in energy, transportation, IT, agricultural, jewelry, air communication, tourism fields, intense work on implementing the agreements with the participation of representatives of respective spheres.

The Turkmen side expressed interest to actively cooperate over the supply of various Armenian products, organization of flights, use of Yerevan airport as a transit zone, construction of CNG compressor stations and etc.

PM Karapetyan reaffirmed that constructive and productive talks were held with the President of Turkmenistan and expressed hope the results will give a new boost and quality to further relations. We have discussed various issues interested for both sides. I must state that the effective utilization of existing potential in our relations has great development prospects, Karen Karapetyan said.
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan has arrived in Turkmenistan on an official visit.

Karapetyan was received by President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow in the Presidential Palace.

The President of Turkmenistan welcomed the Armenian governmental delegation in Ashgabat and mentioned that during the recent years the Armenian-Turkmen mutual relations are distinguished with progress and added that such official mutual visits contribute to the development of relations in different directions.

Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow underscored that Turkmenistan is interested in and highlights the further development of cooperation with Armenia aimed at realization of mutually beneficial projects and programs in various fields.

Our peoples have historically warm relations and ties. I am sure your official visit can best contribute to the further development of our brotherly relations in various sectors of the economy  energy, transportation, agriculture, mechanical engineering, industry. We have great potential for partnership and we are ready to discuss your proposals and ideas, the President of Turkmenistan said.

The President asked to convey his warm greetings to Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan.

PM Karapetyan thanked the President of Turkmenistan for the warm reception and in his turn conveyed the greetings of President Sargsyan.

Karapetyan praised the level of Armenian-Turkmen bilateral relations and mentioned that it doesnt comply with the cooperation in the economy sphere.

The purpose of the visit is to comprehensively discuss various issues and projects of economic cooperation, which will enable to boost economic partnership, increase volumes of trade turnover by using the existing potential, the Armenian Prime Minister said, expressing conviction that the friendship of the two peoples is a good foundation for further development of Armenia-Turkmenistan cooperation.

The sides discussed various economic issues.

Karapetyan and Berdimuhamedow expressed conviction that economic cooperation can boost the growth in bilateral trade turnover.

The President of Turkmenistan expressed his support for the realization of mutually beneficial projects which are discussed between the two countries.

The sides agreed to continue the discussions in April in Yerevan, on a level of working groups.
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. Over 800 Georgian citizens departed for European countries on the first day the visa-free regime came into force, Sputnik News reports.

Nearly 300 people from Tbilisi departed for Athens, Warsaw and Munich, and about 500 people departed for Budapest, Thessaloniki and Larnaca from Kutaisi International Airport.

Students, scholars and Georgias government members led by Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili departed with the first fight from Tbilisi to Europe. They are already in Athens, and then will depart for Brussels.

Georgian citizens are able to travel to almost all EU countries without a visa for 90 days every half a year starting March 28. The countries excluded from the visa-free travel regime are Ireland and Great Britain.

The Georgian foreign ministry issued the latest clarification for its citizens on March 27.

The ministry namely said citizens will have to answer the questions of border guards in both Georgian and European checkpoints, regarding purpose of travel, presence of two-way tickets, booked hotels, insurance certificate, and possession of a daily 50 Euros.

Violators of the regime will not only be deported, but will also be fined 3 thousand Euros.

The ministry said residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia will also be able to travel under the regime in case of having Georgian passports.
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. There is an unprecedented international interest towards Armenias upcoming parliamentary election. There is also an international support for the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), Armen Ashotyan, RPA Vice-President, told reporters on March 28, Armenpress reported.

Political gestures language is very important in international policy. I would suggest to remember the one from political gestures which happened within the frames of President Sargsyans visits to Brussels, Moscow, Paris. We can record the agreement initialed with the EU. There is a trust, confidence by the international partners towards the RPA, considering it as a stable partner not only in Armenia, but also in the region. The evidence of this is the message of the EPP President, Armen Ashotyan said.

Asked what will be the status of President Sargsyan after 2018, Ashotyan said it will right to speak about the present.

During the election campaign the RPA attached importance to the security factor. We have covered all issues, including social issues, corruption, migration, however, all these cannot be solved if the country is not secure. I would suggest considering the security factor in the campaign, political platforms. I will urge our voters to understand during the voting that we vote in favor of the force which must take responsibility for the countrys security, must present a Prime Minister who will be the Commander-in-Chief during the military operations, the person who will be the Defense Minister. We must understand this factor which is strictly important for our statehood, RPA Vice-President said.

Commenting on the question where he will be after the election, Ashotyan said he will continue his activity in the political field.

Armenias parliamentary election will be held on April 2.

Ahead of the parliamentary election, the President of the European Peoples Party Joseph Daul has released a footage in support of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia. In his message Daul particularly wished the voters to continue to trust the responsible forces like the Republican Party of Armenia and to avoid from any populist divergences.
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Foreign Minister Robert Harutyunyan on March 28 received Secretary General of the Intergovernmental Commission TRACECA (Transport Corridor Europe Caucasus Asia) Mircea Ciopraga, press service of the MFA told Armenpress.

At the meeting the Deputy FM attached importance to the necessity to further boost multilateral economic cooperation within the frames of TRACECA. He presented the ongoing infrastructure developments in Armenias transportation sector, mainly the reconstruction of North-South highway, by attaching importance to its regional significance.

In his turn Mircea Ciopraga informed in-detail about the talks over the process of ongoing reforms within the frames of the corridor, as well as attached importance to the tendency of certain member states to join the Agreement on Development of Multimodal Transport TRACECA.

The sides also discussed a number of legal, financial and organizational issues related to Armenias upcoming chairmanship at TRACECA.

The Deputy FM emphasized Armenias readiness to continue practical engagement in TRACECA projects, putting an emphasis on expanding the economic cooperation component.
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. The United States is interested in a quick settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a letter addressed to Azerbaijan on the 25th anniversary of establishing diplomatic ties between the countries, Trend reported.

On March 3 Armenias foreign minister Edward Nalbandian had a phone conversation with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Nalbandian and Tillerson exchanged ideas over the actions aimed at advancing the process of peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Nalbandian briefed Tillerson on the latest developments in the conflict zone. In this context the necessity of realizing the Vienna and St. Petersburg agreements were emphasized. Tillerson reassured that the United States will continue active support for the settlement of the conflict.
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko announced Minsk doesnt intend to argue neither with Azerbaijan nor Armenia, including over the extradition of blogger Alexander Lapshin.

We [Belarus and Armenia] are close nations, and we will remain so. Armenias attitude towards Azerbaijan is different, but it is also a close nation for usWhy should we argue or quarrel with Azerbaijan or Armenia? Perhaps sometime we will be needed for Azerbaijan and Armenia, Lukashenko said during a meeting with the Armenian Ambassador Armen Khachatryan on March 28 in Minsk. The President was quoted by his press service.

Along with this, as reported by RIA Novosti, Lukashenko commented on the extradition of Alexander Lapshin to Azerbaijan,

Lapshin was wanted by Azerbaijan. But why was he arrested here? We could have gone anywhere he wanted. But he was arrested. Interpol was aware. We notified properly, law abidingly. Who should we had extradited him to? To the side who issued the arrest warrant, Lukashenko said, adding that No one wanted to take Lapshin. Its after this that they started to play this card. He is a citizen of three countries, none of these wanted him. But no, they try to present the issue upside down and thats it, Lukashenko said.

Therefore in any issue there are some subtexts, and this issue will be talked about in a way thats beneficial for some, he said.
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. Although in 2016 a decrease of total GDP was recorded within the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), GDP growth was registered in separate states, mainly in Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, Member of the Board - Minister in charge of Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), Tatyana Valovaya told reporters on March 28, reports Armenpress.

We have always said honestly that in 2015 the launch of EAEU complied with unfavorable economic reality in global terms which was reflected on the economy of our states. Nevertheless, our analysis for 2015-2016 clearly shows that without EAEU the figures of our countries would be much worse. We are convinced that it is possible to overcome the negative trends due to integration development and reach a positive dynamics, and we can state that the 2016 figures speak about the truthfulness of our predictions made in 2015, the EEC Minister said.

Tatyana Valovaya stated that the GDP within the EAEU decreased by 0.1%, which was not so significant than that of 2015 when the decrease was 2.3%.

This is already an encouraging trend. In Armenia the GDP increased by 0.2%, but in 2015 it rose by 3.0%. Coming to Kazakhstan, GDP rose by 1.0%, whereas in 2015 it comprised 1.2%, and in Kyrgyzstan it was 3.8%, however, in 2015 the GDP increased by 3.9%, she said.
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian people and the government highly assess the friendly partnership with the USA, Armenpress reports Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandian announced at a photo exhibition at the MFA Armenia dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Armenia and the USA.

The assistance provided by the USA to Armenia for the reinforcement of democratic institutions, electoral processes and civil society is of great importance. High level mutual visits have given new impetus to the development of inter-state relations, Armenian top diplomat said.

Minister Nalbandian stressed the activities of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues, which has consistently supported the strengthening of cooperation between the two states and raised issues of key importance for Armenia and Armenian people at the legislative body of the USA.

Speaking about the quarter century history of Armenian-American relations, the Armenian Foreign Minister mentioned with gratitude the contribution of American-Armenians and American-Armenian organizations to those relations. The nature of our relations would be incomplete without the thousands of bridges by which our compatriots linked the two states, Nalbandian emphasized.

Referring to the important developments in Armenian-US relations, Edward Nalbandian pointed out the opening of Armenian Embassy in Washington and Consulate General in Los Angeles, the establishment of the American University in Armenia, signing of important inter-state agreements, the steps done in trade and economic sphere, particularly the creation of Armenian-American inter-governmental commission and the creation of Trade and Investment Council, visa facilitation, the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and the right of the people of Artsakh to self-determination by a number of States, US support in strengthening Armenias peacekeeping capacities, and a number of other important developments.

Nalbandian also talked about the first years of the establishment of diplomatic relations and recalled the opening of the US Embassy in Yerevan, which heralded the entry of the first foreign diplomatic representation to Armenia after 70 years of hiatus. The opening of the Embassy was immediately followed by the visit of the Secretary of State James Baker which significantly fostered the development of relations between the two states. Recently in Houston I had another opportunity to talk with Mr. Baker about his historical visit to Armenia. Referring to the first years of our relations I cannot bypass the large-scale humanitarian aid provided to Armenia by the US Government and people, which was of particular importance during the years following the proclamation of independence, the Armenian Foreign Minister stated, adding that the humanitarian aid gradually transformed into implementation of different development programs.
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. Defense Army serviceman Artak Rafayelyan, 1997, received fatal injury as a result of Azerbaijani shooting on March 28 at about 13:00 in the positions of a regiment deployed in the eastern direction of the contact line.

As Armenpress was informed from the press service of the MoD of the Republic of Artsakh, investigation is underway to clarify details.

The Defense Ministry of the Republic of Artsakh shares the grief of the loss and extends condolences to the family members, relatives and co-servicemen of the killed soldier, reads the statement of the Ministry.




With no victims coming forward, the Mumbai Police is set to close the case against Kumar.

By Saurabh Vaktania: Ten days after it began in inquiry into allegations of molestation against The Viral Fever CEO Arunabh Kumar, the Mumabi Police is likely to close the case, sources tell India Today.

An advocate Rizwan Siddhiqui, had written to the force three times, urging it to file an FIR against Kumar, charging him with molestation.

However, Mumbai Police sources tell India Today that the probe will be closed by this week without an FIR being filed as no victims have come forward.

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The cops are now wondering whether the original victim, who posted a blog on the web portal Medium, even exists. The sources added that no other girls who made similar allegations on social media have come forward.

A top Mumbai Police officer said that Kumar will not be called to the police station to record a statement. The cops said that there is no need to call him as he is not official an accused.

All the allegations have been made on social media, and the Mumbai Police does not consider these to be reliable. The advocate Siddhiqui too has failed to bring any victim forward.

The Mumbai Police will soon reply to the advocate's letters, informing him that that the case does not stand and that the inquiry is being closed.

The sources, however, maintain that if a victim comes forward even at this stage, an FIR will be filed immediately.

ALSO READ:

Woman accuses TVF CEO Arunabh Kumar of molestation, other women back the claim; start-up rubbishes allegations

ALSO WATCH:

Sources: TVF CEO Arunabh Kumar accused of sexual harassment to get a clean chit

--- ENDS ---
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. Armenia has applied to Belarus on different levels over blogger Lapshins case, press secretary of MFA Armenia Tigran Balayan told Armenpress.

We have applied to the Belarusian side over that case on different levels. Balayan said.

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko has announced during the farewell meeting with Armenian Ambassador to Belarus Armen Khachatryan that Armenia has never applied to him over Lapshins case.

Armenia has never told me anything about Lapshin. Only one country, Azerbaijan, put him on the wanted list. When he was apprehended here I though why it happened right here. He could have gone anywhere else. Belarus would not have been involved in it. But he was caught. Interpol knew about it. We had to report and we did it as law-abiding people. What did we have to do with him? We had to extradite him to the country which had put him on the wanted list. Moreover, I will say it in public for the first time: no one wanted to take him back. They started to play this card later. He is the citizen of three countries, and neither of them needed him. They just wanted to get rid of this problem, Lukashenko said.

Alexander Lapshin, the Russian-Israeli blogger who was extradited from Belarus to Azerbaijan on February 7, has been placed in the isolation cell in Azerbaijans state security service.

Lapshin was flown to Baku from Minsk on a special flight, escorted by state security agents. A group of reporters were waiting for Lapshin in Bakus airport, but Lapshin didnt give any comment to them.

The Belarus Supreme Court denied Lapshins appeal on the extradition verdict issued by the General Prosecutor of Belarus.
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. US Agency for International Development (USAID) has an important contribution to Armenian-American cooperation, Armenpress reports Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the USA to Armenia Richard Mills announced at a photo exhibition at the MFA Armenia dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Armenia and the USA.

Since 1992 nearly 1.1billion USD has been allocated by the USAID for the improvement of social conditions of the citizens of Armenia. Projects of the USAID have brought real changes in many spheres, above all the IT sector. The projects of the agency also target water resources management, tourism development, unti-corruption and civil society development, the Ambassador said.

According to Mills, Armenian-American economic relations have transformed from aid giving to trade, since significant developments have taken place in the Armenian economy. American investors are more and more interested in investment opportunities of Armenia. In the last two years we have been able to ensure 500 million USD investments in energy and mining spheres. We plan to expand our investments in renewable energy, agribusiness, and IT sectors, the US Ambassador said.

Mills also emphasized that the Armenian Foreign Minister also raises the issue of investments during each meeting.
Meat products are seen in a cold storage room at a supermarket in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The European Union's health commissioner said Monday that Brazil will have to "restore trust" in its meat exports after being hit by a scandal over expired meat being passed off as fresh.

"I expect that (the Brazilian authorities) will understand that it's up to them to act as soon as possible to restore trust in the official control system," said health and food safety commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis as he began a visit to Rio de Janeiro.

"I expect good cooperation and mutual understanding. I expect effective solutions," he told AFP.

Andriukaitis, whose visit was already planned before the scandal broke on March 17, will meet with the Brazilian agriculture minister on Tuesday.

Brazil, the world's top beef and poultry exporter, has been rocked by investigators' accusations that 21 meat processing companies used chemicals to hide the smell of rotting meat and bribed health inspectors to pass off their products as safe.

Brazil's average daily meat exports plunged 19 percent in a week, or $11.7 million, according to the trade ministry.

Several countries have slapped restrictions or suspensions on Brazilian imports, though key markets including China have already reopened their doors, blocking only meat from the plants under investigation.

The EU has also barred imports from the plants in question.

"This kind of crisis always affects people's trust," Andriukaitis said.

"The EU has the highest safety standards. We will follow our agenda and our own standards. We have proposed to Brazil to introduce measures that would help to restore trust."

Brazilian Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi said the EU commissioner's visit was an important chance for Brazil to offer "clarifications."

"Our image was very heavily attacked in recent days. The comments overseas were very bad," he said.

"Our competitors... are taking advantage of this moment of fragility to win clients and market attention."
The Kremlin on Tuesday said that meetings between senior state bank officials and Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and his company were "normal business."

Kushner, 36, one of Trump's top aides, was his intermediary with foreign governments during the 2016 presidential campaign and is set to appear before a Senate panel investigating possible collusion with Moscow.

"There were dozens of meetings, among them with Mr Kushner's company and with Mr Kushner himself," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.

"It's normal business," he said, adding that the Kremlin was not aware of these meetings at the time as they were "routine work" of the bank.

Russia's state Vneshekonombank (VEB) on Tuesday confirmed that Kushner met its executives in 2016, after The New York Times reported that Kushner met VEB chief Sergei Gorkov.

The bank said in an emailed statement to AFP that its management met on several occasions in 2016 with representatives of the world's leading financial institutions "including with the chief of Kushner Companies, Jared Kushner."

The meetings were "in a 'roadshow' format" regarding the bank's "development strategy until 2021," the statement said.
Britain's biggest retailer Tesco is the world's third-biggest supermarket group after France's Carrefour and global leader and US giant Wal-Mart

Supermarket Tesco has agreed to a fine and compensation costs totalling 214 million ($268 million, 247 million euros) after an accounting scandal at Britain's biggest retailer, the Serious Fraud Office said Tuesday.

Under a SFO deal that draws a line under the scandal stretching back three years, Tesco will not face prosecution.

However, charges have previously been brought against three former Tesco executives, who will face trial over alleged fraud and false accounting.

"Tesco... has in principle reached a deferred prosecution agreement with the UK Serious Fraud Office regarding historic accounting practice," the supermarket giant said in a statement.

This "is a voluntary agreement under which Tesco Stores Limited will not be prosecuted provided the business fulfils certain requirements, including paying a financial penalty of 129 million".

In addition, Tesco will compensate shareholders by around 85 million in total.

Tesco had been accused of overstating profits by 326 million between February and September 2014.

Following the incident, the company appointed outsider and former Unilever executive Dave Lewis in July 2014 to replace long-standing chief executive Philip Clarke and oversee a drastic restructuring of the group.

- 'Sincere regret' -

"Over the last two and a half years, we have fully co-operated with this investigation into historic accounting practices, while at the same time fundamentally transforming our business," Lewis said in the statement.

"We sincerely regret the issues which occurred in 2014 and we are committed to doing everything we can to continue to restore trust in our business and brand."

In recent years, Tesco has suffered in the face of fierce competition in its domestic market from German-owned discount retailers Aldi and Lidl -- and also from Sainsbury's, Morrison and Wal-Mart unit Asda.

Tuesday's announcement comes amid growing investor opposition to Tesco's proposed 3.7-billion takeover of British wholesaling giant Booker.

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Major Tesco shareholders Schroder Investment Management and Artisan Partners have demanded the board scrap the deal over the high price -- and branded it an unwelcome distraction from the supermarket's ongoing turnaround plans.

"The supermarket can now put the whole sorry saga of mis-stating its profits back in 2014 behind it," said ETX Capital analyst Neil Wilson.

"But it now has another fire to fight in the shape of a shareholder revolt over its proposed 3.7-billion buy-out of Booker."

Booker meanwhile is Britain's biggest cash-and-carry operator and sells goods to more than 503,000 customers -- including grocers, pubs and restaurants.

It also owns convenience store chains Budgens, Londis and Premier, as well as wholesalers Makro and Booker Wholesale.

In Tuesday deals, Tesco shares finished 0.66 percent lower at 191.20 pence on London's FTSE 100 index, which gained almost 0.7 percent to close at 7,343.42 points.

- 'Baptism of fire' -

Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown, said that investors took heart at news of the compensation.

"This kind of accounting error is exceptionally rare in the UK stock market, nonetheless shareholders in all companies will be heartened to learn that in instances where false information is provided to the market, the regulator will see to it that investors are duly compensated," Khalaf said.

"Dave Lewis underwent a baptism of fire when he took over as CEO in 2014, just as the accounting scandal struck.

"He and the supermarket will now be hoping to draw a line under the matter, and concentrate on nurturing Tesco's nascent recovery."

Tesco is the world's third-biggest supermarket group after France's Carrefour and global leader and US giant Wal-Mart.
Restrictions on emissions from coal-fired power plans would rolled back under President Donald Trump's "Energy Independence Executive Order"

US President Donald Trump is poised to roll back a slew of environmental protections enacted by Barack Obama, in a move designed to untether the fossil fuel industry but which calls America's commitment to global climate accords into question.

In a maiden trip to the Environmental Protection Agency, Trump will sign a wide-ranging "Energy Independence Executive Order" to rollback Obama-era legislation, a White House official told AFP.

The new president will unveil a series of measures to review regulation curbing oil, gas and coal production and limiting carbon emissions.

The centerpiece is an effort to slow walk -- but not repeal -- Obama's Clean Power Plan, which restricts emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The package will "help keep energy and electricity affordable, reliable, and clean in order to boost economic growth and job creation," the White House said.

Some experts and environmental groups warned this could mean the United States missing its internationally agreed targets under the Paris Climate Accord.

Curbing emissions from coal-fired power plants was a pillar of America's commitment to cut carbon emissions by 26-28 percent by 2025.

"It will make it virtually impossible" for the US to meet its target said Bob Ward, a climate specialist at the London School of Economics.

But economists and even some former Obama administration officials say the move will do little to stop the coal industry's decline.

Natural gas, automation, and cheap renewable energy, have all made the sooty fuel an expensive prospect.

The Trump administration has not said whether it will pull out of the Paris deal.

"Whether we stay in or not is still under discussion," a senior administration official told AFP.

The United States is the world's second largest polluter. Around 37 percent of domestic carbon dioxide emissions come from electricity generation.

- Politics at play -

Trump could face a cool reception at the agency's imposing Washington headquarters.

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Trump has repeatedly questioned humans' role in warming the planet, prompting critics to charge the fox is guarding the hen house.

Trump has done little to assuage those fears, vowing to slash EPA funding by a third, appointing anti-climate litigator Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA and Exxon's CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State.

But Trump's climate skepticism has struck a chord with many Republican voters.

Some 68 percent of Americans believe climate change is caused by humans, but just 40 percent of Republicans say they worry about it, according to Gallup.

During the 2016 election campaign Trump donned a hardhat and embraced miners from Kentucky to West Virginia, promising to return jobs to long-ravaged communities.

He won both states by a landslide.

Since coming to office he has coupled his pro-miner rhetoric with support for the fossil fuel industry.

- 'War on coal' -

Some experts warn the economic payoff from abandoning the clean power plan will be limited.

"In my view, it will have virtually no impact," said professor James Van Nostrand of West Virginia University, who said the decline of coal had more to do with higher mining costs and cheaper natural gas and renewables.

"Defunding or dismantling the EPA and repealing its regulations is not going to bring the coal industry back."

"The constant narrative about the 'war on coal' and the alleged devastating impact of EPA's regulations on West Virginia?s coal industry will now be exposed for its inherent speciousness," he predicted.

Referring to the plan, the senior administration official told AFP: "It's going to take some time."

In 2008 there were 88,000 coal miners in the United States, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Today, the number of coal miners has fallen around 25 percent. More people work in Whole Foods, an upscale supermarket chain.
Khalid Masood, who killed four people in an attack on Britain's parliament last week, didn't have any association with the Islamic State or Al Qaeda but was clearly interested in jihad, said the police.

Floral tributes were seen outside New Scotland Yard following the attack in Westminster, in London, Britain (Picture:Reuters)

By Indo-Asian News Service: Police investigating the Westminster attack said on Monday that they have found no evidence that killer Khalid Masood had any links with radical Islamist groups such as ISIS or Al Qaeda.

In a briefing at New Scotland Yard, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, Senior National Coordinator for UK Counter Terrorism Policing, said there was also no evidence that Masood had been radicalised while serving a jail term in a British prison, Xinhua news agency reported.

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Basu said there has been much speculation about who Masood was in contact with prior to the attack last week which left four people, including a London police officer dead, and dozens more injured. Masood was shot dead by police at the Houses of Parliament.

Basu added: "Masood's communications that day are a main line of enquiry. If you heard from him on March 22, please come forward now, the information you have may prove important to establishing his state of mind.

"His attack method appears to be based on low sophistication, low tech, low cost techniques copied from other attacks, and echo the rhetoric of IS leaders in terms of methodology and attacking police and civilians, but at this stage I have no evidence he discussed this with others.

"There is no evidence that Masood was radicalised in prison in 2003, as has been suggested; this is pure speculation at this time. Whilst I have found no evidence of an association with IS (the Islamic State) or AQ (Al Qaeda), there is clearly an interest in jihad."

Basu repeated the request to the public for their help, specifically to those who knew or talked to Masood in the months, weeks and days leading up to the attack.

"We are tracing these people, but I would ask you all to voluntarily come forward and help our investigation," said Basu.

Police said the attacker changed his name to Khalid Masood in 2005.

"His last criminal offence was 2003 and he was not a current subject of interest or part of the current domestic or international threat picture for either the security service or Counter Terrorism Policing.

"I know when, where and how Masood committed his atrocities, but now I need to know why. Most importantly, so do the victims and families," added Basu.

On last Wednesday, Khalid Masood, 52, drove a car through crowds of pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, killing three: Aysha Frade, a 43-year-old British national of Spanish origin, Kurt Cochran, an American tourist whose wife was injured in the attack, and Leslie Rhodes.

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A police officer was also fatally stabbed by Masood, who was later shot dead by police.

Also Read: UK Parliament attack: India stands with Britain in the fight against terror, says PM Modi

One more suspect arrested in London attack investigation

Also Watch: London in limbo as terror grips Westminster; 5 dead, 40 injured

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SALT LAKE CITYFor the past year or so, we've been seeing emails from Vauna Davis, who appears to be the head of (or at least a member of) the Advisory Council for the Utah Coalition Against Pornography (UCAP). The group has held a couple of conferences in Utah about the dangers of porn, and of course, she was right there when Gov. Gary Herbert signed that resolution early last year declaring porn viewing to be a "public health crisis"language that was adopted by the Republican National Committee heading into its national convention last summer.

But apparently, there's money to be made in fighting porn (who knew, right?), and UCAP is now looking to hire an Executive Director and an Events Directorand since the adult industry appears not to be shooting as much content as it did a few years ago, perhaps this is just the right time for a couople of adult industry members to expand their horizons and earn some of the big bucks available in the Fight Against Pornography!

"Do you want to get involved making a difference on the issue of pornography?" the solicitation email asks. "Join us and use your skills to help an important cause!"

"The Executive Director is the key administrative leader of Utah Coalition Against Pornography," the job description begins. "The Executive Director is responsible for the organizations achievement of its mission. The executive director will oversee all operations, functions and activities. The position reports directly to the Board of Directors. The Executive Director will be expected to develop a deep knowledge of the anti-pornography and sexual exploitation movement"something a lot of free speech activists are likely already aware of, we're guessing.

The Executive Director will be expected to "work with the board to fulfill the organizations mission," give regular reports to the UCAP Board and provide info that will help them make "informed decisions." She or he will also have to do the grunt work of running the organization, be its spokesperson and organize its records, send out press releases and the like, manage the website and write grants to convince the government and other grant institutions to give some cash to UCAP.

One stumbling block for some (but hardly all) adult industry members in applying for the job is that they're looking for someone with at least a Bachelor's degree and "significant experience" running a non-profit or other business. The person also needs to be well-organized, "self-directed," and have good tech and communication skills. Also, "Knowledge of the issue is a plus." (Industry applicants probably have that one covered.) The person will work from home, but will have to be able to attend UCAP Board meetings in Salt Lake City once a month and other meetings as necessary.

The Event Director position is a bit easier. All that person will have to do is to "arrange all audio-visual needs" for UCAP's conferences and other events; put together a photography and video team to cover the events; contract with venues to host the events; get insurance to cover the events; book the speakers, make sure they turn in their contracts signed, get photos and bios on them, and arrange for their travel; coordinate volunteers; create pretty much all the printed materials for the event and get them distributed; manage the publicity for the events; manage the exhibitors and work with the sponsors; and create and manage a budget for the whole damned thing.

Oh, yeah: And submit an "evaluation report" to the Board after it's all done.

The qualifications for the job are pretty much the same as with the Executive Director position, though "solid financial management skills" are a must.

So anyway, if you'd like to take a stab (not literally) at helping to suppress free sexual speech, while earning the enmity of free-thinking Americans everywhere, just send an email with a cover letter and resume, with the subject line stating what job you're looking to fill, to Vauna Davis at [email protected]and you'd better do it by April 3, 'cause that's the application deadline.

Good luck!


For a generation, Americas anti-trust enforcers have walked away from their duties, gripped by an ideology that says that bigger companies mean more profits (which benefit the rich) and lower prices (which benefit everyone else).



But the reality is that monopolism has concentrated power in just a few hands, and those hands are overwhelmingly white. What's more, big business defends itself, punishing employees who agitate for a fairer society with more broadly shared prosperity. One of the first casualties of this concentration of ideological and business power is the civil rights movement, whose activists rely on sympathetic (historically: black) employers to support their activities.

In this era, support for the civil rights movement and opposition to monopoly were political stands often advocated by the same person. For instance, Justice Felix Frankfurter, who made anti-monopoly policy one of the causes of his life, served on the NAACP's National Legal Committee while also being the first member of the Supreme Court to hire a black law clerk. New York Representative Emanuel Celler sponsored the Celler-Kefauver Act of 1950, a major anti-monopoly law, and also introduced the Civil Rights Act in the House. Sargent Shriver, the architect of Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty program, said at a dinner reception describing his vision for anti-discrimination laws and programs like Head Start, VISTA, and Job Corps, "The day may well come when Congress enacts a new Sherman Act for the social fieldan antitrust law to ensure that . . . monopoly power is not used to expand and perpetuate itself."

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Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy similarly drew a link between civil rights and anti-monopoly policy. "The principles of free enterprise which the antitrust laws are designed to protect and vindicate," he said in 1961, "are economic ideals that underlie the whole structure of a free society." Two years later, King, in his sermon "On Being a Good Neighbor," echoed Kennedy's vision when he said, "Our unswerving devotion to monopoly capitalism makes us concerned about the economic security of the captains of industry, and not the laboring men whose sweat and skills keep the wheels of industry rolling." Black Americans employed by whites, including professionals like teachers, often faced dismissal if they joined the civil rights movement, whereas those who owned their own independent business had much greater freedom to resist.A seminal moment in the history of the civil rights movement came on a bloody Sunday in 1965 when Alabama state troopers attacked John Lewis and hundreds of others marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in support of voting rights. Here, too, the important link between black-owned independent businesses and civil rights was operating behind the scenes. Civil rights leader Amelia Boynton and her husband, Sam, for example, dedicated half the office space of their real estate and insurance company in Selma to host organizers from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

The Decline of Black Business

[Brian S. Feldman/Washington Monthly]





(via Naked Capitalism)
retail_shopping_carts-16-9

The doom and gloom of brick-and-mortar retail has caused retail real estate investment trusts (REITs) to dip and underperform recently. Since last summer, shares of RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust (TSX:REI.UN), Smart REIT (TSX:SRU.UN), and Plaza Retail REIT (TSX:PLZ.UN) have declined more than 13%, 15%, and 6%, respectively.

They?re now more attractive for juicy income, as they yield higher than 5% after the pullback. Which should you consider for income and growth?

Here?s an overview of the companies.

RioCan REIT yields 5.5%

RioCan is Canada?s largest REIT with an enterprise value of about $14.6 billion. Its portfolio consists of 300 Canadian retail and mixed-use properties, including 15 that are under development.

RioCan?s portfolio is diversified across more than 6,200 tenants with a focus on Canada?s six biggest markets. Moreover, RioCan has about 86% of its revenue generated from national or anchor tenants.

At a high level, the REIT earns about 65.7% of its annualized rental revenue from Ontario, 14.6% from Alberta, 8.7% from Quebec, and 8.5% from British Columbia. By major markets, it earns about 40.4% of its annualized rental revenue from Toronto, 11.8% from Ottawa, 8.1% from Calgary, 5.3% from Montreal, 5.2% from Vancouver, and 4.7% from Edmonton.

RioCan?s top 10 tenants contribute about 32.8% of its annualized rental revenue with weighted average remaining lease terms of five to 11 years. None contribute more than 5% of its revenue. Its tenants include well-known names such as Loblaw, Canadian Tire, Wal-Mart, Cineplex, Metro, Lowe?s, and Dollarama.

Since 1996, RioCan has maintained a strong occupancy of at least 94%. It also maintains a conservative balance sheet with modest leverage.

Furthermore, the REIT has a number of sites in high-growth markets such as Toronto, Ottawa, and Vancouver, in which it can potentially generate higher yields (on land that it already owns) via residential development near transit lines.

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shopping mall, retail

Smart REIT yields 5.2%

Smart REIT has 142 shopping centres, one office property, and one mixed-use property in Canada.

It has 82% of its portfolio (by square feet) in Ontario (84 properties), Quebec (21), and British Columbia (13). Nearly all of its sites have both a food store or pharmacy, either in a Wal-Mart or independently.

Smart REIT?s quality is implied by its ability to maintain an average occupancy of 99% since 2005. Its distribution is supported by stable occupancies. Its average lease term is 6.2 years with lease maturities spread out through 2026. Additionally, the average remaining lease term for Wal-Mart, its largest tenant, is 7.8 years with various renewal options of up to 80 years.

Smart REIT?s top 10 tenants contribute about 49.3% of its gross rental revenues with an average remaining lease term of 6.7 years. Wal-Mart contributes 26.3% of its gross rental revenues with others such as Canadian Tire, Lowe?s, Loblaws, and Dollarama contributing 1.6-4.4% of its gross rental revenues.

Smart REIT has identified more than 30 sites that can potentially expand into seniors? housing, residential, and self-storage opportunities.

Plaza Retail REIT yields 5.6%

Plaza Retail focuses in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, and Ontario. It has interests in 298 properties and maintains a high committed occupancy of about 96%.

Plaza Retail develops in-house for higher cap rates than if it purchases from third-party developers. It also stands out as a REIT that has increased its distribution every year since 2003. It last hiked its distribution by 3.8% in Q1.

National and regional tenants represent 94.7% of its in-place tenant base.

Plaza Retail?s top 10 tenants contribute about 57.9% of its current monthly base rents in place. Investors should note that its top tenant, Shoppers Drug Mart (which belongs to Loblaw), contributes 25.4%, and KFC franchisees contribute 9%.

Investor takeaway

All three REITs offer sustainable yields north of 5%. RioCan has the biggest scale and is the most diversified with no tenant contributing more than 5% of its rental revenue.

Smart REIT?s largest tenant is Wal-Mart, and Plaza Retail?s largest tenant is Shoppers Drug Mart.

The larger the company, the harder it is to grow. So, investors can expect Plaza Retail to grow at the fastest pace of the three. One analyst believes Plaza Retail can grow its funds from operations per unit by about 7% per year for the next three to five years. Of the three, it is also the best valued (although the other two are within fair-valuation ranges).

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DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's decision to cut tax paid by national oil giant Saudi Aramco has increased its value by $1 trillion, an analyst estimated on Tuesday ahead of Aramco's initial public offer of shares, expected to be the world's largest.

The government said on Monday it was cutting the tax rate for Aramco to 50 percent from 85 percent as part of preparations for next year's IPO, which would sell as much as 5 percent of the company.

"By drastically reducing the tax rate, more cash will go to the potential owners of Saudi Aramco compared to the government," said Espen Erlingsen, vice-president for analysis at Rystad Energy, an oil and gas consulting service based in Oslo and New York.

"Assuming long-term oil prices averaging $75 per barrel, the valuation of the company increases from $0.4 trillion to $1.4 trillion," he said in a report.

That is good news for the Saudi government, which hopes to raise money to cover a $79 billion budget deficit and invest in new industries as it tries to diversify the economy in an era of low oil prices.

Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who leads economic reforms, has said the IPO will value Aramco at a minimum of $2 trillion. A number much smaller than that could jeopardize the offer and damage his own political position.

Erlingsen calculated Aramco's value based on discounted free cash flow for each oil field. Under the new tax rate, much of the company's payments to the government are expected to be in the form of dividends, not tax.

"The total value of Saudi Aramco's revenue after costs is around $3.4 trillion. With the old tax system, around 88 percent of the value went to the government through taxes and royalties, while with the new system around 60 percent of the profit goes to the government," Erlingsen said.

He predicted oil prices would reach $75 by the time of the IPO, which would be near the long-term price needed to justify the share prices of other large global oil companies.

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Global consultants Sanford C. Bernstein & Co said in a report that since Aramco had not released detailed financial information, it was impossible to make a reliable estimate of its value.

But they said the size of Saudi oil reserves, larger than those of other oil companies, suggested Aramco could look cheap even at $2 trillion - although that figure excluded factors such as political risks.

Using a different valuation method, enterprise value per flowing barrel, suggests a figure in the range of $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion, though the expected long life of Aramco's reserves compared with other companies means Aramco could command a premium to those numbers, Bernstein said.

Investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co estimated a valuation of $1.1 trillion for Aramco, assuming free cash flow of $55 billion a year from its upstream operations.

(Reporting by Ron Bousso and Rania El Gamal; Writing by Andrew Torchia; Editing by Louise Heavens)
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia canceled a vote on Tuesday to finally ratify an extradition treaty with China, 10 years after it was signed, with the government set for an embarrassing defeat on the vote. Australia's inability to ratify the treaty is a setback in China's overseas hunt for corrupt officials and business executives who have fled abroad with their assets, dubbed Operation Fox Hunt. Political opposition to the treaty in Australia stems from concerns over China's humanitarian record, with human rights groups regularly accusing Beijing of obtaining confessions through torture or under duress. The planned parliamentary vote was to be held two days after China Premier Li Keqiang left Australia, where trade deals underpinned fast improving Sino-Australia relations. But a spokesman for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the vote had been canceled, after opposition politicians who control the upper house Senate made clear they would not support the treaty. "It has been in our national interest to have this agreement with China," Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told a news conference. "We will speak with our Chinese friends in more detail and decide what to do." If Australia had ratified the pact, it would have become one of the few Western countries besides France and Spain to enter into an extradition treaty with China. In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the treaty would allow both countries to go after cross-border criminals and was in their joint interests. "We hope that Australia keeps in mind the broader picture of bilateral relations and continues to promote the relevant domestic process so the treaty can go into enforcement as soon as possible," Hua told a daily news briefing. In an article published on the eve of Li's visit, China's ambassador to Australia, Cheng Jingye, highlighted his country's hopes for the extradition treaty to enter into force soon. "The visit seems to have been very successful on the economic merits, but this inability to ratify the extradition treaty will inevitably lead to a sense of deflation," said Euan Graham, director of the national security program at Australian think-tank Lowy Institute. It is also a blow for Turnbull, who revived the long-dormant process of ratification a year ago, with Australia seeking closer cooperation with Chinese law enforcement to stem a rising tide of synthetic drugs trafficked from southern China. Three Australian employees of casino operator Crown Resorts Ltd remain in Chinese custody following their arrest in November 2016 for alleged gambling offences. (Reporting by Colin Packham in Sydney; Additional reporting by Philip Wen and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Barrick gold_mine_16-9

The March 3, 2017, export ban of metallic mineral concentrates by Tanzania has indeed caused turmoil on the stock price of London-listed Acacia Mining Plc, Tanzania?s biggest gold producer and a subsidiary of Barrick Gold Corp. (TSX:ABX)(NYSE:ABX).

The Tanzanian government, like many other African countries, is insisting on local mineral value addition to improve local employment creation, value creation, technology, and skills transfer into the host country. The East-African nation wants more of the economic pie.

How is the ensuing economic battle likely to evolve, and how concerned should Barrick investors be?

Barrick has a 63.9% stake in Acacia Mining. Acacia is losing about US$1 million a day due to the impasse. About 30% of Acacia?s revenues are at risk, and engagement with the government hasn?t yielded anything yet.

However, Barrick emphasizes that the production affected only represents 2-3% of its total 2016 revenues.

The ban has brought about an opportunity cost to Barrick that is not yet clearly measurable. Barrick was going through negotiations with Endeavour Mining Corp. with the intent to offload its majority stake in Acacia Mining and become a minority shareholder in the Tanzanian mining giant.

The government ban has already scuttled the talks.

What?s likely to happen next?

The mineral concentrate ban is on the instigation of Tanzania?s president John Magufuli, who has been calling for the construction of more gold smelters in the African country. The man is a tough character, nicknamed ?The Bulldozer.? He will likely not easily budge.

Acacia already knows this and has offered to partner with the government in a new study to assess the economic potential of constructing a smelter in Tanzania that?s capable of processing the concentrates.

There was a feasibility study on the potential of building such a smelter in Tanzania conducted by the government in 2011; the study concluded that it was not economically viable to go that route. The report cited many critical issues, including lack of required minimum concentrate supply capacity and high energy costs which would make the exercise noncompetitive to Chinese and Japanese facilities currently offering the service.

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Tanzania could therefore be forcing a commitment from Acacia towards some meaningful local value addition, and Acacia will end up constructing at least a partial processing plant in Tanzania.

Set-up costs for a concentrate-processing facility were estimated in the range of US$500-800 million in 2011. Most new copper concentrate smelters in the world are heavily supported by local governments directly or indirectly through tariffs and tax credits.

I foresee an eventual partnership between Acacia and the Tanzanian government on a joint smelter project.

However, Tanzania currently lacks the power-generating capacity to meet the smelter?s high power demand. Building a new power plant and all other modalities will take a lot of time.

Will the government continue suppressing Acacia exports for all those years, especially considering that Acacia production is about 2% of Tanzania gross domestic product?

That?s not so likely.

Acacia may be allowed a window to resume concentrates exports while working on a partial processing facility. The company hasn?t stopped stock-piling the concentrates yet, so the impact on 2017 revenues may end up being minimal.

For Barrick, the impact is significantly diluted for now.

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First Brexit... then Trump... Now, it's time for Pro...

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Update: On Tuesday afternoon, the House approved the bill to stop the FCC from enforcing its internet privacy rules. The bill now goes to President Donald Trump for approval.

The House was expected to vote Tuesday on a bill that would stop the Federal Communications Commission from enforcing rules that would stop your internet service provider from tracking your browsing behavior and selling that information to advertisers. The Republicans backing this measure would like you to think that its a pro-competition move that will only improve your internet experience.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai.

But a closer look at this issue should leave you skeptical of that sales pitch.

Yes, your ISP might want to snoop on you

The text of S.J. 34, a resolution that passed the Senate by a 50-48 vote last week, is stunningly concise by legislative standards: Congress disapproves the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services (81 Fed. Reg. 87274 (December 2, 2016)), and such rule shall have no force or effect.

The FCC passed those rules in the final weeks of President Obamas term after establishing a legal footing for them with the net-neutrality rules that prevent internet providers from slowing or blocking legal sites or charging them for priority delivery of their data.

Those open-internet rules put internet access services in the same common carriers legal category as phone companies and therefore subject to the same longstanding privacy principles. That, in turn, led to the process of writing these rulesalthough they have not yet gone into effect.

Not hypothetical

It also followed two notable examples of ISPs selling data about their users. Verizon (VZ) attached a supercookie tracking bit to the unencrypted data of wireless subscribers, then took months to offer an opt-out. AT&T (T), in turn, required subscribers to its gigabit fiber-optic service to opt out of an Internet preferences tracking scheme  although that tracking at least yielded a big discount.

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This is not a hypothetical threat, much as the net-neutrality rules followed years of bluster by Big Telecom to charge sites for the privilege of using their pipes.

Trade groups like the wireless association CTIA and the cable group NCTA say they will do no such thing, declaring their commitment to protecting customers personal information.

Those organizations and others released a list of privacy principles in January that include getting customer permission to use sensitive data (the Federal Trade Commissions term for details you could use to steal somebodys money or identity) and giving customers a chance to opt out of the marketing use of non-sensitive information.

The companies listed on it include AT&T, Charter (CHTR), Comcast (CMCSA), Optimum owner Altice USA, T-Mobile (TMUS) and Verizon  but not Frontier Communications (FTR), Sprint (S) and U.S. Cellular (USM), among others.

Google and Facebook arent the same as your ISP

Telecom companies like to complain that web companies dont operate under the same regulations. That is true. Ad-driven firms like Google (GOOG, GOOGL), Facebook (FB) and Yahoo Finances corporate parent Yahoo (YHOO), benefit from a more lenient environment.

The concern is really one of making sure that consumers have a consistent online framework, said NCTA executive vice president James Assey on a conference call with reporters Tuesday.

But those web firms also occupy a different position relative to customers. You dont have to use Facebook or Google, nor do you have to use them all the time. When most Americans are limited to the cable company for the fastest connection, leaving that firm is a lot harder.

If the House approves the bill, it will go to President Trump, who will sign it into law. (image: AP Images)

The increasing use of encryption by websites does help secure their link with your browser and limit your ISPs ability to spy on you. But the ISP will still see the domain names of sites you visit  which, if they correspond with political parties, pharmaceutical firms or advocacy groups, can still reveal a good deal about you. Dodging that scrutiny would require you to use a virtual private network service to encrypt your entire connection.

Facebook and Google also let you see, edit, delete and export most of the data they have on you. They were also documenting government requests for consumer data in transparency reports long before telecom firms picked up the habit.

Congress could fix real problems instead

The rush to undo the privacy rules looks especially unseemly given that FCC chair Ajit Pai has already led a vote to stay implementation of a subset of them requiring ISPs to disclose data breaches promptly. And as participants on that media call emphasized, the FCC will retain its underlying authority even if the impending set of rules gets cast aside.

Meanwhile, lets look at the actual tech-policy problems Congress has failed to solve. It still hasnt reformed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, a 1980s relic that says cops dont need a warrant to peek at email stored online for more than 180 days (fortunately, major webmail firms insist on one). A Dig Once bill could make expanding broadband infrastructure part of federally-funded transportation projects, but Congress continues to dawdle on that too.

I agree that it would be nice to have some federal standards for privacy that would apply to both ISPs and web firms. But the idea that this Congress will pass a comprehensive privacy bill is laughable.

Passing big tech-policy bills just doesnt seem to be Congresss thing anymore  the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the last major one, is now old enough to drink, and it seems in zero danger of being replaced.

So if the House does vote to shut down the FCC rules, the realistic alternative isnt some sweeping privacy law like the European Unions forthcoming General Data Protection Regulation. Its hoping that publicly shaming companies will curb the worst abuses.

(Disclosure: Verizon is currently expected to purchase Yahoo Finances parent company Yahoo.)

More from Rob:

Email Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com; follow him on Twitter at @robpegoraro.
David Einhorn, president of Greenlight Capital speaks at the Sohn Investment Conference in New York City, U.S. May 4, 2016. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File photo

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Nick Carey

(Reuters) - General Motors Co (NYSE:GM - News) on Tuesday rejected a proposal by billionaire investor David Einhorn to split its common stock into two classes to help boost its share price.

In a regulatory filing, the country's largest automaker said that the proposal "would not help GM sell more cars, drive higher profitability, or generate greater cash flow."

Einhorn, who runs hedge fund Greenlight Capital, wants management to split its common stock into two classes: one that would receive the current dividends and one that would participate in all earnings and future growth of the company.

The move would lower the company's cost of capital, improve its financial flexibility and boost its market capitalization by as much as $38 billion, Einhorn said.

To add more pressure on the company, Einhorn has said he wants to nominate directors but would not identify them.

Moody's and S&P both declared shortly after Einhorn's advances became public that such a structure could negatively impact the automaker's credit rating.

"Moody's believes that the Greenlight proposal would reduce financial flexibility and increase credit risk," Moody's Investors Service wrote in a note. "The creation of a perpetual, cumulative dividend in excess of $2.2 billion would saddle GM with a sizable and largely inflexible cash outflow burden."

GM considered the plan too risky after mulling Einhorn's ideas for some seven months, while it was also negotiating the sale of German Opel brand and Britains Vauxhall to France's PSA Group (Paris:UG.PA - News). It has hired two banks to help fight the plan, a person familiar with the matter said.

Warren Buffett, one of GM's biggest shareholders, has not weighed in on the plan and was not immediately available for comment.

Einhorn said GM's stock price has languished for years since emerging from the government-backed bankruptcy and is currently trading at the lowest valuation in the S&P 500 stock index. But its dividend yield ranks among the top 25 in the index.

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Under Chief Executive Mary Barra, GM has been overhauling and pruning operations outside the United States and China, shrinking sales volume while pushing to improve return on invested capital and profitability.

The company has shuttered or scaled back operations in Russia, Australia, Indonesia and Thailand. In February the company sold its East African unit to Isuzu Motors Ltd (:7202.T). Barra has promised investors returns of 20 percent or more.

GM announced earlier this month it would sell its European operations  consisting of Opel and Vauxhall - to PSA Group.

But GM stock has performed poorly versus its peers. Ford Motor Co's (NYSE:F - News) stock, for instance, is trading at nearly 10 times earnings, while GM is at just under 5.8 times. GM stock has also lagged the broader S&P 500 since its November 2010 IPO.

Because of its poor share performance, GM could face continued pressure to return more cash to shareholders rather than holding it as insurance against a potential industry downturn.

Its stock was last up 2.7 percent at $35.64.

PROXY FIGHT

For GM, this marks the second proxy fight in two years. In 2015, the company announced a $5-billion share buyback to end a proxy contest where investor Harry Wilson, who led the government's bailout of the automaker, was pushing for a board seat on behalf of investors.

Einhorn's hedge fund owns a 0.9-percent stake in GM, making it the 17th-biggest owner. The firm has been involved with GM for some time, buying the stock in 2011, selling it when the company faced problems with an ignition switch recall, and then buying back in about a year later.

GM is a cash-rich target for any activist investor. Once its Opel sale is complete, the company will target a cash balance of $18 billion, a large sum for a company with a market capitalization of just over $50 billion.

"Without the dividend, the (other class of) shares would be significantly less expensive to short, potentially pressuring shares further," Joseph Amaturo of the Buckingham Research Group wrote in a client note. He added that GM's response was "well-reasoned, and as such, (we) believe the likelihood of Greenlight's proposal receiving board approval is relatively low."

Einhorn has a history of pushing unique capital plans at big U.S. companies and in 2013 urged Apple Inc (NasdaqGS:AAPL - News) to issue preferred stock with a perpetual 4-percent dividend.

On Tuesday, as he launched his public campaign for change at GM, he also held some things back, refusing to say who may be on his slate of directors. "We have sent them a notice of nomination for the directors," Einhorn said on CNBC. "We have not yet determined how many or which directors we will run ... Were going to wait a little while for GM to file their proxy and so forth."

Einhorn said he supports GM management, including CEO Mary Barra, regardless of what the company decides.

To be successful, Greenlight's plan will have to get the support of some large institutional shareholders, including Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N), which owns 3.34 percent of GM.

Some analysts say it would be a sensible move.

There is nothing radical about Einhorn's proposal. It is essentially a call for the creation of a preferred stock that will have a priority for dividends. Investors will benefit from having a choice, said Anthony Sabino, a professor at St. Johns Universitys Peter J. Tobin College of Business.

GM has hired Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to push back against Einhorn's proposal, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter. The banks declined to comment.

GM said it expects to return about $7 billion in cash to shareholders in 2017, bringing total cash returns to about $25 billion since 2012.

(This version of the story fixes formatting in paragraph 8 to remove bullet point)

(Reporting by Arunima Banerjee, Dan Burns, Jennifer Ablan, David Shepardson and Mike Flaherty; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
FILE PHOTO: The company logo of Rosneft is seen outside a service station in Moscow, Russia, November 12, 2013. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo

By Julia Fioretti

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - Europe's top court on Tuesday upheld European Union sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine conflict, including on its largest oil group Rosneft (ROSN.MM), in a ruling that asserts the court's jurisdiction over the bloc's foreign policy.

The EU slapped sanctions on Russia after it annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and stepped them up as Moscow went on to support a separatist rebellion in Ukraine's industrial east.

Rosneft's head, Igor Sechin, is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) said "restrictive measures ... in response to the crisis in Ukraine against certain Russian undertakings, including Rosneft, are valid."

With the ruling, the ECJ established its jurisdiction to rule on matters of the EU's common foreign and security policy, an area of fierce contention between Brussels and national governments seeking to maintain sovereignty.

A lawyer for Rosneft told reporters he was disappointed with the outcome.

"I would also say it is a setback for judicial protection in the EU in the area of sanctions because the court accepts (...) the fact that a company is partially state-owned is sufficient for it to be a target of sanctions," Lode van den Hende said.

The court said it believed encroaching on Rosneft's right to do business was in proportion with the severity of sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukraine crisis.

"The Court holds that the importance of the objectives pursued by the contested acts is such as to justify certain operators being adversely affected," it said in its judgment.

Rosneft called the decision "illegal, baseless and politicized."

"The ruling shows that the rule of law in Europe is being replaced by the rule of political situation," it said in a statement.

"Rosneft continues to insist that it has not committed any illegal actions in any jurisdictions where it conducts its business, including Ukraine, and has nothing to do with the Ukrainian crisis."

(Additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow; Writing by Robert-Jan Bartunek; Editing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Mark Potter)
Haryana Cow Protection and Enrichment Unit (HCPEU) president Bhani Ram Mangla said the group would request CM Manohar Lal Khattar to stop providing commercial licenses for slaughter houses.

By Ajay Kumar: After the crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana is in no mood to miss being featured in headlines related to "gauraksha" movement. One of the cow protection group leaders has declared to intensify efforts in all districts, including the minority-dominant Mewat district, to take the movement across the state.

The state government has decided not to issue licenses to slaughterhouses anymore. Haryana Cow Protection and Enrichment Unit (HCPEU) president Bhani Ram Mangla said its will put cruelty angle that emerge in slaughterhouses before chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar. It will also intensify the movement from the last week of April or the first week of May to stop smuggling of cattle in the state.

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"One of the major reasons behind banning illegal slaughterhouses in U.P. is the cruelty factor. We will put this point before the chief minister and request him of ending the procedures of providing commercial licenses for slaughter houses," Mangla said.

He also pointed out that there are two existing slaughterhouses in Mewat district and that he will make sure that no more facility of this sort opens in Haryana.

TEST ON BEEF BIRIYANI

Haryana is among those states where BJP had successfully experimented the agenda of Hindutva in 2016 and HCPEU had played a major role in implementing the strategy in Muslim-dominated Mewat. Nine samples of beef biryani were collected from Ferojpur Jhirka, and Nuh for test.

HCPEU dragged in Punjab and Haryana high courts over collecting the samples of beef biryani and its members are hopeful that the final hearing will emerge in their favour. Districts in Haryana, such as Yamunanagar, Panchkkula, Ambala, Kaithal, Kurukshetra, Panipat and Sonipat have their borders touching western U.P.'s Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Bagpat districts, while Mewat and Palwal in southern Haryana and Mathura district of Uttar Pradesh are connected.

Major highways like GT road, Maneser Palwal Expressway, NH 2, NH 8 and few areas bordering Rajasthan are used by cattle smugglers for transportation. Dried cattle are either bought from farmers or stolen.

The Haryana Police have already constituted Special Task Force in 21 districts of the state, with 34 personnel especially deployed in Mewat district.

ALSO READ | Yogi Adityanath's crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses: Meat trade bleeds in Uttar Pradesh

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Only police, administration can act against illegal slaughterhouses, says UP DGP

ALSO WATCH | Slaughterhouses easy meat? Lucknow's famous Tunday Kababi shut due to meat shortage

--- ENDS ---
By Anshuman Daga

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C - News) will seek bids from global insurers keen to sell general insurance products across the U.S. bank's Asia-Pacific markets, in a deal that could be worth at least $500 million, a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Citi's move underscores how banks are leveraging their network of branches and customer base to generate assured revenue over many years, as demand for insurance grows in the region, the source said.

The multi-year, bancassurance deal for products such as motor, property and travel insurance, will be one of the largest of its kind in the region, and give insurers access to 15 million customers of Citibank in 12 markets including Singapore, Hong Kong, China, India and Australia.

Citi will kick off the process for the 15-year deal in a few days, and expects to choose a partner in a few months, said the person who declined to be identified as the information was not public.

The deal is expected to be pitched to a number of insurers including AIG (NYSE:AIG - News) and Allianz (XETRA:ALV.DE - News), two sources said.

The exact value of the non-life insurance deal will depend on various issues including how bidders structure upfront payments and calculate net present value of future commissions and deferred payments, the first source said.

A spokesman at Citi declined to comment. AIG and Allianz also declined to comment.

Citi's plan to seek partners follows the bank's move to allow insurer AIA (HKSE:1299.HK - News) in 2013 to sell life insurance through its Asia network in a multi-year deal.

"The bank has invested a lot to grow its technology platform and digital engagement over several years. The idea now is to complement the life insurance partnership with another one for general insurance," said the source.

Global insurers are increasingly relying on bank distribution tie-ups to help generate billions of dollars in revenue in Asia, where rising personal incomes are enabling individuals and families to afford insurance.

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"You are bound to see participation across-the-board, from Japanese insurers to Europeans and others for this kind of a deal," said the second person, who has dealt with bank distribution transactions, referring to the Citi deal.

"More and more banks are monetizing their distribution networks as this doesn't cost them much and the fees goes straight to the bottom line," he said.

The first source said Citi has an initial preference for one partner for all markets but is open to considering more than one, given the range and scale of the bank's retail platform.

Asia has seen a spate of bank distribution deals for life insurance in the last five years and transactions for non-life insurance are also heating up.

In January, Standard Chartered (LSE:STAN.L - News) and Allianz announced a 15-year deal that enabled the German insurer to sell its general insurance products to StanChart's customers in five Asia markets.

(Reporting by Anshuman Daga; Additional reporting by Carolyn Cohn in LONDON and Suzanne Barlyn in NEW YORK; Editing by Randy Fabi and David Evans)
electric power transmission

Utilities are such fascinating companies. On one hand, they?re incredibly boring companies because they don?t really have much opportunity to grow. On the other hand, their revenue is predictable, which puts them in a great place to pay lucrative yields to investors. However, there?s one company that turns the whole boring stereotype on its head.

Fortis Inc. (TSX:FTS)(NYSE:FTS) is one of the 15 largest utilities in North America with assets in Canada, the United States, and the Caribbean. It has grown into this behemoth thanks to a series of very smart acquisitions.

One thing that?s important to understand is, while the company is not boring thanks to the acquisitions, it is a regulated utility, which means that its earnings are stable and predictable.

To understand how aggressive its acquisitions have been, consider this: when Fortis formed in 1987, it had $390 million in assets, which was significant even in 1987. Now, 30 years later, it now has $48 billion in assets.

It first started expanding in 2003 into western Canada. It gained 415,000 Albertan customers by 2005, which was a big boost for the company. It made a series of other acquisitions throughout Canada and the Caribbean, expanding its customer base.

Fortis got really bullish when it expanded into the United States. It first tried to buy the Central Vermont Public Service for US$700 million in May 2011; however, it was outbid. In the beginning of 2012, Fortis announced that it was acquiring CH Energy Group for US$1.5 billion. By the summer, that deal had closed, and Fortis had a foothold in the United States. At the time, this gave it 300,000 electric customers and 75,000 natural gas customers.

In 2013, it acquired UNS Energy, a large Arizona utility company. This US$4.3 billion deal gave it 152,000 natural gas customers and 511,000 electricity customers. This deal also gave Fortis increased exposure to renewable sources.

The big acquisition just closed in October 2016. Fortis and a private investment group acquired ITC Holdings Corp. for US$11.3 billion, which was, at the time, the largest independent electric transmission company in the United States. This gave Fortis exposure to the American Midwest.

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Now, Fortis has over three million customers, which has made it possible for Fortis to be incredibly shareholder friendly.

For more than 40 consecutive years, Fortis has increased its dividend. On average, the company has increased it by more than 5% each year for the past decade. In Q4 2016, alone, Fortis increased the dividend by 6.7%. Management predicts that it will be able to hike the dividend at an annual rate of 6% between now and 2021.

The only problem with Fortis is that it is expensive, which makes perfect sense because of its predictability. Although it?d be better to buy this stock when the yield was a little higher, as Warren Buffett says, ?it is far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.? I agree.

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 Gillies 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 Jacob Donnelly has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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 Gillies 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 Jacob Donnelly has no position in any stocks mentioned.
On Friday, President Donald Trump told reporters that he is moving on after the Republican health care bill was pulled from a floor vote in the House of Representatives.

As market and political analysts work to understand what the bills failure means for the future of tax reform, one outspoken advocate for tax cuts expressed concern.

Grover Norquist, president and founder of Americans for Tax Reform, a politically conservative organization that opposes all tax increases, said health care reform is an essential first step to achieving significant tax reform.

It has to go first in order to have a significant tax cut as part of tax reform, he said, referencing the changes outlined in the original GOP proposal.

[Health care reform] really is the most important piece of legislation to Trumps presidency, Norquist added. Congressmen and senators are going to try to extort the best deal they can out of it.

The initial failure of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) calls into question the ability of Trump and the Republican-led Congress to pass other major legislation, analysts argue.

Congressional Republicans on Monday, March 27, 2017, pointed fingers and assigned blame after their epic failure on health care and a weekend digesting the outcome. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded that the Republican Health Plan will increase the number of uninsured by 24 million in 10 years but reduce taxes by about $1 trillion, coming from items like taxes on medical devices to taxes on health savings accounts.

If you do the $1 trillion cut in Obamacare taxes first, then when you do tax reform, you can raise $1 trillion less and be within the reconciliation package, Norquist explained.

In other words, the starting point for the tax reform discussion is already disadvantaged, according to Norquist.

Nonetheless, Norquist said hes not worried about Trump as a dealmaker.

This is his first effort, Norquist said. Hes not buying a building. Hes trying to negotiate with several hundred people on a piece of legislation. So, its a completely different kettle of fish.

Nicole Sinclair is markets correspondent for Yahoo Finance.



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By Allison Lampert

QUEBEC CITY (Reuters) - Quebec's government on Tuesday said it would cut taxes and extend a prior debt-fighting commitment, while balancing the Canadian province's books in 2017-18 for the third straight year.

Finance Minister Carlos Leitao pledged C$1 billion in Quebec's C$106 billion budget to lower taxes and said his government would invest C$2.5 billion into a fund aimed at reducing the debt.

The budget, while "prudent," will increase program spending by about 4 percent at a time of comparatively low unemployment and strong growth in Canada's second-largest province, he said.

Elected in 2014, Quebec's Liberals promised balanced budgets from 2015 through 2020 after six years of deficits. On Tuesday, Leitao pledged balanced budgets for the next five years.

"Public service on credit is not a sustainable policy," he told reporters.

Quebec has one of the highest public debt loads of any province, and nearly C$10 billion was dedicated to a fund for debt servicing in the C$102.5 billion budget in 2016-17.

"It's the second year that the debt burden is declining," said Sebastien Lavoie, chief economist at Laurentian Bank Securities. "It's not every jurisdiction where that's happening."

Quebec expects its debt-fighting Generations fund, with an expected book value of C$13 billion in 2017-18, to grow to almost C$27 billion in 2021.

Infrastructure spending will grow from C$8.9 billion in 2016-17 to C$9.6 billion in 2017-18, enabling the extension of the Montreal metro.

Quebec also announced a C$1.3 billion equity investment in a C$6 billion Montreal light rail project planned by the province's largest pension fund for 2020.

Quebec said it would lower taxes by almost C$6 billion over six years, including C$1 billion in 2017-18, both by eliminating a health charge and modifying the income tax structure.

The cuts would help "maintain the faster-than-usual growth of the Quebec economy," Lavoie said.

In 2016, Quebec's economy grew at 1.7 percent, compared with growth of 1.4 percent for Canada as a whole and 1.6 percent for the United States. GDP growth for Quebec is projected to be 1.7 percent in 2017 and 1.6 percent in 2018, Leitao said.

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The Liberal government aims to reduce the province's debt from 52.7 percent of gross domestic product in 2017 to a previously announced goal of 45 percent of GDP by 2026.

Following the budget announcement, the difference in yield between Quebec and Canada's 10-year bonds was little changed at 76.5 basis points.

Canada's 2017-2018 fiscal year begins on April 1.

(Reporting by Allison Lampert; Editing by Bill Trott and Jonathan Oatis)
The Jeep logo is seen on the wheel of a Jeep Grand Cherokee on the showroom at the Massey-Yardley Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram automobile dealership in Plantation, Florida October 8, 2013. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo

(Reuters) - Russian standards agency Rosstandart said on Tuesday that FCA Rus, a Russian unit of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, had informed it of a recall of 1,159 Jeep Grand Cherokee and Liberty automobiles due to possible technical problems.

Cars sold between May 2003 and April 2005 might be subject to the recall, the agency said.

(Reporting by Polina Devitt; Writing by Kevin O'Flynn; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
The Trump administration forcefully denied it tried to bar former acting Attorney General Sally Yates from testifying at a House Intelligence Committee hearing on its Russia investigation, after reports suggested it may have tried to do so.



The Washington Post first reported that the White House aimed to block Yates from testifying, and NBC News later obtained the letters that formed the basis of the newspaper's story. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer called the report "100 percent false." He said the White House never took action to stop her from testifying.

"I hope she testifies. I look forward to it," Spicer told reporters during his daily briefing.

The development has increased partisan tension over the neutrality of the House panel's Russia investigation amid concerns about Republican chairman Rep. Devin Nunes' independence from the White House. In a statement Tuesday, the committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, urged "that the open hearing be rescheduled without further delay and that Ms. Yates be permitted to testify freely and openly."

In a letter to White House counsel dated Friday, Yates' lawyer said she intended to testify at the hearing despite Trump administration concerns that the information she shared could be covered by executive privilege. The lawyer, David O'Neil, wrote that there may not be a reason for Yates to withhold information related to former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's contacts with Russia because top Trump administration officials have already discussed the situation publicly.

In a separate letter to O'Neil dated the same day, Associate Deputy Attorney General Scott Schools wrote that Yates' testimony is "likely covered by the presidential communications privilege and possibly the deliberative process privilege." He added, though, that Yates did not need the Justice Department 's consent to testify, only the consent of the White House.

O'Neil's letter to the White House said Yates would still plan to testify if he did not hear from the White House by Monday morning that it was asserting executive privilege. Spicer said the White House never told Yates or her lawyer that it was invoking executive privilege.

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Nunes, the California congressman, canceled the Russia hearing on Friday. It was originally set for Tuesday. Both Nunes and Spicer denied that the White House had any influence on the decision to cancel.





Yates in January warned the White House that Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail after he made incorrect statements about his contacts with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States. Flynn resigned in February, which the White House said was due to the contradictory statements he made to Vice President Mike Pence.

President Donald Trump fired Yates after she told Justice Department lawyers not to defend Trump's first executive order restricting travel from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Democrats have criticized the neutrality of the House committee's investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible ties between the Trump campaign and Moscow due to Nunes' recent actions.

Schiff of California called on Monday for Nunes to recuse himself from "any investigation" into Trump's campaign and transition team. Nunes admitted that he met with an unidentified source on the White House grounds to review intelligence reports ahead of his claim that Trump transition members' communications were "incidentally" swept up by U.S. intelligence officials.

He faces criticism for not telling Schiff about the White House visit.

On Friday, Nunes' spokesman told MSNBC that the White House "had no input" in his decision to cancel the hearing with Yates.

Congress is looking into Trump's unsubstantiated claim that the Obama administration wiretapped him as part of its Russia probe.





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File photo: A driver leans out the cabin window while waiting in a queue for border customs control to cross into U.S. at the World Trade Bridge in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, November 2, 2016. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Trump administration trade officials want a revamped North American Free Trade Agreement to improve access for U.S. farm products, manufactured goods and services in Canada and Mexico, said lawmakers who met with them on Tuesday.

Members of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee met with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and acting U.S. Trade Representative Stephen Vaughn to discuss the administration's plans for renegotiating the 23-year-old trade deal.

Representative Bill Pascrell, a New Jersey Democrat, said Ross told lawmakers in the closed-door session that the administration was still aiming to complete NAFTA renegotiations by the end of 2017.

That time frame is viewed by some members as "ambitious," especially because it is not clear when the administration will formally notify Congress of its intention to launch NAFTA renegotiations, Pascrell said.

The notification will trigger a 90-day consultation period before substantial talks can begin. Tuesday's meeting was a legal requirement to prepare the notification and preserve the "fast track" authority for approving a renegotiated deal with only an up-or-down vote in Congress.

President Donald Trump has long vilified NAFTA as draining millions of manufacturing jobs to Mexico, and he has vowed to quit the trade pact unless it can be renegotiated to shrink U.S. trade deficits.

Lawmakers said Ross and Vaughn discussed broad negotiating objectives, but did not get into specific issues such as U.S. access to Canada's dairy sector or rules of origin for parts used on North American-assembled vehicles.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady told reporters that market access, modernizing NAFTA and "holding trading partners accountable" were key objectives articulated by Ross and Vaughn

"They were very clear, they want to open access in ag, manufacturing and services as well, so they want this to be a 21st century agreement," Brady said.

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Spokesmen for the Commerce Department and USTR were not immediately available for comment on the meeting.

Lawmakers said the administration has not settled on the form of the negotiations, whether NAFTA will remain a tri-lateral agreement or whether it would be split into two bilateral trade deals.

"My sense is that they are not prejudging the form, they are focused on the substance of the agreement itself with Mexico and Canada," Brady said.

Some lawmakers expressed frustration that the Trump officials were short on specific answers.

"I wouldn't exactly call this meeting as moving the ball forward very much," said Representative Ron Kind, a Wisconsin Democrat.

(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Leslie Adler)
By Press Trust of India: Washington, Mar 28 (PTI) A senior American diplomat for religious minorities would travel to Pakistan later this week, amidst reports of increased human rights violation of religious minorities in the country.

During his week-long trip beginning March 29, Knox Thames, Special Advisor for Religious Minorities in Near East and South and Central Asia, will also travel to Oman and Turkmenistan, the State Department said.

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"In Pakistan, Special Advisor Thames will meet with government officials, civil society, and members of religious communities to discuss issues facing religious minorities," the State Department said in a statement.

In Oman, Thames will meet with officials from the Ministry for Endowments and Religious Affairs as well as civil society and religious community representatives.

In Turkmenistan, Thames will meet with government officials and religious groups to discuss religious freedom. PTI LKJ ZH

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Bank towers are shown from Bay Street in Torontos financial district on Wednesday, June 16, 2010. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrien Veczan)

The federal watchdog charged with overseeing financial services says it experienced a significant increase in complaints and inquiries in the week after allegations of high-pressure sales tactics at Canadas Big Five banks emerged.

According to the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, it received 431 calls and emails in the wake of a CBC News story that came out on March 15, which saw employees detail the aggressive sales environment under which they were allegedly encouraged to upsell, lie and trick customers to reach sales targets.

That figure from March 13 to 19, represented a 146 per cent jump from the week prior. The agency also received 168 complaints and inquiries during the same period the year prior.

A spokesperson for the FCAC told Yahoo Canada Finance that most of the calls and emails appear to be complaints, and attributed the spike to coverage of the issue in the media.

Some of them are complaints  Some of them are also employees calling, Brigitte Goulard, the deputy commissioner of the FCAC, told the Financial Post.

The most common concerns were related to express consent, sales practices and the agencys role. The FCAC said further analysis is required to confirm if they fall under legislation covering consumer protection provisions.

The watchdog announced earlier this month that it planned to move up a review of the financial industry to April in response to the reports about Canadas major banks.

We will examine financial institutions business practices in relation to express consent and disclosure, including the identification of any factors that may be contributing to non-compliance, Lucie Tedesco, commissioner of the FCAC, said in a press release put out at the time.

We will investigate and enforce any incidence of non-compliance.

The FCAC said it is always concerned by any potential breach of consumer protection provisions and it will take appropriate enforcement action if a financial institution has done so.

The watchdog is also urging consumers who have experienced what they believe was a misleading business practice to file a complaint with the FCAC and their bank.
VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria will seek an exemption from having to accept more asylum-seekers under an EU relocation system, it said on Tuesday, arguing that it has already taken in its fair share during Europe's migration crisis. The move is a new blow to the system that would cover only a fraction of migrant arrivals to the European Union and that has barely been implemented because of opposition led by Eastern European countries including Poland and Hungary. It also coincides with a tightening of security and immigration rules by the centrist coalition government in Austria, where a wave of arrivals that began in 2015 helped fuel a rise in support for the far-right Freedom Party, which still leads in opinion polls. "We believe an exception is necessary for Austria for having already fulfilled its obligation. We will discuss that with the European Commission," Chancellor Christian Kern told reporters after a weekly cabinet meeting. "We will send a letter as quickly as possible and then begin discussions." Fewer than 14,500 asylum-seekers have been relocated from Greece and Italy, the first EU countries that many refugees and migrants from the Middle East and Africa set foot in, under the two-year EU plan that was supposed to cover 160,000 people and which expires in September. "We are of the opinion ... that the people in question here already sought an asylum application or arrived in Italy or Greece," Kern said. "We must check whether we have already fulfilled our quota and discharged our obligation." Austria took in roughly 90,000 asylum seekers in 2015, more than 1 percent of its population. More than a million migrants arrived in Germany that year, most of them having passed through Austria after crossing the Balkans from Greece. Austria has repeatedly called on other EU countries to take their fair share, and has even backed the idea of financial penalties for those that do not. The Commission granted Austria a temporary exception because of the large number of people it had taken in, but that has since expired. "Austria is now expected to fulfill its legal obligation ... to start relocating," Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said. The government has been seeking to erode support for the Freedom Party with a series of law-and-order measures and stricter immigration rules. An "integration bill" agreed in cabinet on Tuesday would ban face-veils in public places and oblige unemployed refugees to perform jobs "of public utility" for no pay beyond their normal benefit payments. (Reporting by Francois Murphy; additional reporting by Waverly Colville in Brussels; Editing by Catherine Evans and Robin Pomeroy)
A young woman is making money from her Tinder matches. Photo from Getty Images.

Call it clever or cruel, but one 20-year-old college student has turned her online dating profile into a way to make a quick buck at the expense of gullible men.

Maggie Archer is a student at Missouri Western State University and she recently revealed on Twitter that shes been making money by simply using her Tinder bio. Basically, any guy who matches with her on the dating app is encouraged to send her $5 on PayPal to see what happens. Its an offer that more than one guy has taken her up on.

For those who are curious enough to see what $5 will buy them, theyre in for an unpleasant surprise. After the funds go through, Archer immediately unmatches with them on Tinder.

The money making scheme reportedly started as a joke. Archers friend apparently told her to use the $5 line in her Tinder bio. When it worked and she started making some money, Archer decided to stick with it.

Speaking to Buzzfeed News, Archer explained that its really a foolproof plan because Im not actually promising anything. I just say see what happens.'

She also revealed that on average about one in five men who ask her about the $5 offer actually send the money, with more than 20 sending money in the span of the week.

Screenshots on Archers Twitter account show her conversations on Tinder, as well as numerous deposits to her PayPal account.

The best possible use for tinder pic.twitter.com/bYs49yEds6  Maggie Archer (@maggiearch3r) March 22, 2017

A surprising amount of men take the bait, she explained.

And the scam has gained plenty of attention after going viral online, with some praising Archers ingenuity and others complaining that it comes off a bit mean-spirited.

Some people are definitely upset about what Im doing, Archer told Buzzfeed. Mostly men.

But to be fair, its a little hard to feel bad for anyone naive enough to send $5 after reading a Tinder bio.

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As the old saying goes, a fool and his money are soon parted.

Tinder gets involved

Now it appears Archer will have to find another way to fill her bank account after Tinder caught wind of whats been going on.

Bite Global, a communications agency that represents Tinder, contacted Yahoo Canada News to provide further clarification on the companys stance regarding this matter. They emailed the following statement, attributable to a Tinder spokesperson:

Requesting money from other Tinder users violates our terms of service. As a result, these users have been removed from Tinder.
Artificial Intelligence

Rochester Institute of Tech Launches Series on Artificial Intelligence

Today, the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is kicking off a new seminar series focused on connecting the campuss growing artificial intelligence (AI) community.

The series has evolved out of a long tradition of AI research at the institution. There are 43 AI-focused courses and approximately 40 faculty-researchers in 27 lab groups across RIT involved in using AI and related areas, RIT News reported. This past February, RIT hosted the Move78 retreat, which brought together individuals from the Kate Gleason College of Engineering, B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences, Saunders College of Business, the College of Science and the College of Liberal Art. More than 200 faculty, students and staff members teaching or researching AI had a chance to learn more about the field, as well as the direction that RIT might take to expand its capabilities.

The retreat is to determine three things: What will RITs role be in this arena and what role will we have in new AI discoveries, Provost Jeremy Haefner told RIT News. From the education point of view, how should RIT prepare its students for the inevitable future where some of the skills they learn today may be done by a machine in the future? And what can RIT do to augment technology on campus to better fulfill its mission?

Haefner named the retreat Move78, a reference to a game of Go between Googles computer system AlphaGo and Lee Sedol, a top Go player, in which the computer bested Sedol by learning and anticipating moves. The encounter raised questions about the potential of AI and how humans will rise to the challenge. It also raised questions about RITs role in these challenges, according to RIT News.

Building off the success of the retreat, the seminar series will delve deeper into machine learning, neuromorphic computing, computer vision and other topics. It begins Monday, March 27 and runs successive Mondays through the remainder of the academic year. It is open to faculty and staff retreat participants.

To learn more, visit the RIT News site.
Online Learning

Excelsior College to Expand Online Writing Lab

Thanks to a two-year, $300,000 grant from The Kresge Foundation, Excelsior College is expanding the reach of its Online Writing Lab (OWL), a publicly available interactive website designed to help students improve their writing skills. The college plans to focus on promotion and growth for OWL, including presenting the resource at national conferences, conducting industry webinars on writing topics, and helping other institutions integrate OWL into their curriculum.

"This grant will fund a systematic outreach plan and, ultimately, help more low income and underserved populations improve their writing skills and grades as they pursue a degree," explained Francesco Crocco, director of the OWL, in a statement.

In fall 2013, the Evaluation Consortium at the State University of New York at Albany conducted an independent pilot study evaluating the impact of OWL at six higher ed institutions across the country: Excelsior, Valencia College, Howard Community College, Broome Community College, Union County College and San Diego Mesa College. The researchers found that students using OWL increased their final grades by 6.5 points compared to a control group; students showed the greatest improvement in the areas of genre and disciplinary conventions, control of syntax and mechanics, and sources and evidence.

OWL is currently in use on more than 20 college and university campuses, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Walden University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Purdue University and Thunderbird School of Global Management.
Ved Parkash, the AAP MLA from Bawama, has joined the BJP ahead of the Delhi civic polls.

By Mail Today Bureau: BJP's landslide victories in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and AAP's own poll debacle in Goa have put the latter on the backfoot.

Its first wicket went down on Monday with prominent leader and MLA from Bawana Ved Parkash joining BJP and even holding a press conference at the Pandit Pant Marg BJP headquarters in the morning.

AAP is said to have been shocked by the decision with Parkash alleging foul play in ticket distribution.

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Ved Parkash was an important backward caste leader of AAP as well.

He alleged that SC/ST funds are lying unutilised for two years.

MLAs BEING SUPPRESSED BY AAP LEADERSHIP, SAYS VED PARKASH

Ved Parkash, who represented Bawana in the assembly, alleged that the MLAs who talk of development are suppressed by the party's top leadership.

He joined the BJP at its Delhi unit office in the presence of Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari and state party incharge Shyam Jaju.

Later, accompanied by leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta, he submitted his resignation at the Assembly Speaker's office. Ved Parkash claimed there are 30-35 AAP MLAs who are not happy with the party's leadership, indicating that an unrest has been brewing within the Aam Aadmi Party.

He said chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is not concerned about what is happening at ground level and instead, he only focuses on how to defame Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He said that the AAP government is being run through laptop. "I had joined the AAP with a hope that there will be some change, but I am disillusioned... I have neither quit under duress nor will I take any post in the BJP and will abide by the decisions taken by the party leadership. I have been influenced by the BJP's recent decision to make a priest (Adityanath Yogi) the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. Modiji is a saint and with this hope, I have joined the BJP," he said.

Ved Parkash's resignation has brought down the AAP's tally to 65 in the 70-member Assembly.

There are also four rebel MLAs-Devinder Sehrawat, Pankaj Pushkar and former ministers Sandeep Kumar and Asim Ahmed Khan.

Reacting to the resignation, a senior AAP leader said, "The party ticket for the MCD polls were given after consulting Ved Parkash. There could be a disagreement over one seat, but we did not expect him to quit."

ALSO READ | Delhi: BJP eyes hat-trick in MCD elections

ALSO READ | No residential house tax if AAP wins Delhi civic polls, says Kejriwal

WATCH VIDEO | 'Want to be part of the change' AAP MLA Ved Parkash Satish joins BJP ahead of MCD polls

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--- ENDS ---
Data Analytics

Indiana U Selects Splunk to Deliver Operational Intelligence Across IT and Security Departments

Indiana University (IU) recently launched a connected campus initiative to tear down silos and better analyze, scale and leverage its machine data. To this end, IU has implemented two solutions from Splunk that give campus leadership a consolidated view of IT and security infrastructure for the universitys eight campuses, in real time.

IU selected the Splunk platform to centralize and monitor its growing IT infrastructure (upwards of 5,250 servers and 100 departments) while staying on budget. The Splunk Enterprise solution monitors and analyzes machine data from any source to deliver operational intelligence to IT teams, while Splunk Enterprise Security, a security information and event management (SIEM) solution, enables security teams to quickly respond to internal and external attacks.

In addition, IUs University Information Technology Services (UITS) team customized the Splunk dashboard  improving the log aggregation and authentication process. As a result, UITS has automated much of its data ingestion process.

Like every public university IT or security team in the country, Indiana is being asked to manage an ever-increasing volume of data on a tight budget. Splunk has helped us do more with less by delivering a return on investment in ways we did not imagine possible, said Allen Tucker, director of IT, HELPnet Technology Services at IU, in a news release. While we first brought on Splunk to help drive university policy and compliance alignment, we immediately saw value in security applications as well. Fast forward a few months and Splunk has already helped our entire IT team automate tasks that would traditionally require significant headcount. Creating this kind of automation and scale has saved time, decreased costs and increased compliance.
MONDAY, March 27, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Giving more intravenous (IV) fluids to women during childbirth seems to reduce the risk of cesarean section and shortens labor, researchers report.

"The results are compelling and strongly argue for a change in practice," said study author Dr. Vincenzo Berghella, director of maternal fetal medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

"We have already begun changing practice at Jefferson to give women more fluids in labor, to allow them to have the best chance of delivering vaginally," he added in a university news release.

"We've known that it's important for women to stay well-hydrated during pregnancy and labor. This study suggests that IV fluids could help women maintain hydration at appropriate levels, reduce the likelihood of C-section, and decrease length of labor," Berghella said.

In the study, his team reviewed seven small clinical trials that included more than 1,200 women who received IV fluids at a rate of either 250 milliliters or 125 milliliters an hour during labor.

General practice in the United States is to administer IV fluids at 125 milliliters per hour during labor, the study authors said.

Compared to women who received that rate, those who received more IV fluids were less likely to have a C-section, were in labor for an average of 64 minutes less, and spent an average of nearly 3 fewer minutes in the pushing phase.

However, the study did not prove that more IV fluids caused labor to be safer and shorter.

The findings were published online recently in the journal Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica.

"Recently, we also showed that letting women eat more liberally in labor, especially in early labor, has benefits including shorter labor, and no identifiable risks," Berghella added.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has more on labor.
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New York, March 28, 2017Belarusian authorities should immediately release all journalists jailed covering protests and should cease obstructing reporters in an effort to keep news of the protests out of media reports, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

According to the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), security forces have detained, beaten, or otherwise harassed more than 100 journalists since nationwide protests began in February. On March 23, CPJ reported on the obstruction of at least 32 journalists. The weekend of March 25-26 alone, media reported nearly 60 additional incidents of attacks on the press around the country. Courts in Belarus capital, Minsk, and in the northeastern city of Vitebsk sentenced eight journalists to prison, according to BAJ, which keeps a detailed record of attacks on the press.

Locking journalists in jail will not make the discontent in Belarus disappear, CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. We call on Belarusian authorities to take the first step in reversing its long record of repression and censorship by immediately and unconditionally releasing all journalists in prison for covering protests.

On March 27, Minsks Moskovsky District Court sentenced Aleksandr Borozenko, a cameraman for the independent online television station Belsat, to 15 days in prison on charges of hooliganism, according to media reports. He announced he would go on hunger strike to protest the verdict, according to media reports. Minsks Sovetsky District Court sentenced freelance journalist Marina Kastilyanchenko to 15 days in prison on charges of disobeying police, according to the human rights organization Vesna. Courts in Minsk also sentenced Sergei Kiyko, a freelance journalist, to 12 days in prison on charges of participating in an unsanctioned protest; Roman Protasevich, a blogger and contributor to the Russian daily newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, to 10 days in prison on charges of hooliganism; and Denis Ivashin, editor of the news website InformNapalm, to five days in jail on charges of participating in an unsanctioned protest, according to BAJ.

In the northeastern city of Vitebsk, courts jailed freelance journalists Leonid Svetik and Konstantin Mordvintsev for 15 days each on charges of participating in an unsanctioned protest. A court sentenced Radio Racyja journalist Artyom Sizintsev to 10 days in prison on the same charge, according media reports.

Police beat Belsat TVs Katerina Bakhvalava, Olga Davydova and Igor Ilyash while they covered protests in Minsk, according to BAJ. British freelance photographer Filip Warwick and French freelance reporter Olga Morva were also beaten, Warwick told CPJ. Police subsequently held the photographer for more than six hours before releasing him without charge, he said.

According to media reports and human rights organizations, more than 700 people were detained during the March 25-26 rallies, and dozens of journalists were briefly detained or otherwise obstructed in Minsk, Vitebsk, Brest, Grodno, and Gomel.

Protests erupted in February after the imposition of a new tax on Belarusians who have been unemployed for more than six months without seeking work at a government job center, but have since developed into broader protests against the 23-year rule of President Aleksandr Lukashenko. March 25 is the day Belarus marks the creation of the Belarusian Peoples Republic in 1918, known locally as Freedom Day.
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Bangkok, March 27, 2017Thai media regulators should immediately reverse their suspension of the operating license of Voice TV and should allow the media to broadcast and publish freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Media regulators today suspended the channels operating license for seven days.

The state National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission ordered Voice TV, a satellite channel which is aligned with the elected government ousted in a 2014 military coup, to cease broadcasting for a week, saying the station had shown bias and had made unjustified criticisms in several of its news programs, according to news reports.

Lt. Gen. Phirapong Manakit, an NBTC member, was quoted in news reports as saying that the station had been warned several times but had continued to make the same mistakes. He said the station had violated both the NBTC Act, a media regulation law, and orders from the military government that broadly restrict media criticism, including of military rule. Phirapong did not indicate in the news reports which specific reports had motivated the suspension.

Thailands military government has consistently said it is preparing to restore democracy but it continues to censor the media in a crude, authoritarian fashion, said Shawn Crispin, CPJs senior Southeast Asia representative. We call on regulators to reverse the week-long suspension of Voice TV and to stop censoring and harassing the media.

The news website Khaosod English reported that the ban was in response to the stations reporting on the killing of an ethnic Lahu activist by a soldier at a military checkpoint last week in the northern province of Chiang Mai. The report also cited Voice TVs coverage of the governments seizure last week of an arms cache authorities claimed was owned by a fugitive activist aligned with the former government ousted in the 2014 military coup.

The reason we were suspended was due to the NBTCs claim that we have repeatedly committed violations that affect national security and have presented one-sided reports, of which we beg to differ, Prateep Kongsib, the stations director of content and news, was quoted as saying by Khaosod English. This is because we believe opinion is not a threat to national security as long as it is factual.

Voice TV said they would challenge the ban and would continue broadcasting online during the suspension period, news reports said. The station was not immediately available for comment.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ochas military-backed government, known as the National Council for Peace and Order, has imposed measures that give it broad authority to muzzle the media. Military orders 97/2557 and 103/2557 respectively ban news reporting that could create confusion, instigate unrest, or deepen divisions among people, or could be considered malicious or misleading about the NCPO.

Executive order No. 41/2559, passed in July 2016, empowered the NBTC to shutter media outlets for reasons of national security, without the right of appeal, and to block the broadcast of any news or information it deems detrimental to the political system, or [that] may destabilize national stability or damage the moral values of the people.

The regime has singled out Voice TV for harassment, including a month-long ban in the direct aftermath of the May 2014 coup. In August 2016, Voice TV political program hosts Nattakorn Devakula and Atukkit Sawangsuk were suspended for 10 days for their critical coverage and analysis of a referendum on a military-backed constitution that was passed amid restrictions on free expression.

Nattakorns news programs have been suspended at least four times since the military takeover, most recently last month, according to news reports and interviews with CPJ.

CPJ sent an open letter to Prayuth on February 3 calling on him to repeal all military orders that restrict media freedoms and to scrap pending draft legislation that aims to institutionalize government controls on private media, including a proposed new licensing regime for journalists.
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In Kyrgyzstan, once Central Asias most liberal country, President Almazbek Atambayev is tightening his grip on critical voices, including independent journalists and foreign media.

In recent weeks, Atambayev has verbally assaulted the media and charges have been brought against critical journalists and outlets, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Authorities also ignored a U.N. order last year to release imprisoned journalist Azimjon Askarov, who is serving a life sentence, and changed the countrys constitution to prevent citizens making further appeals to international bodies. The crackdown comes amid protests over the jailing of Omurbek Tekebayev, the leader of the opposition Ata Meken party, who is widely seen as a strong contender in Novembers elections when Atambayev is due to stand down as president.

In one of his most recent outbursts, during a March 15 meeting with foreign ambassadors, Atambayev accused the media of defamation and called journalists immoral morons. In the speech, he singled out Daniil Kislov, chief editor of Moscow-based regional news agency Fergana, and its Kyrgyz correspondent Ulugbek Babakulov; Naryn Idinov, co-founder of independent online news agency Zanoza and Dina Maslova, Zanozas editor; and Zamira Sydykova, chief editor of the countrys oldest independent newspaper Res Publica. Atambayev alleged that the Kyrgyz journalists had Western citizenship and were therefore critical of Kyrgyzstan. He also suggested that Kislov should focus on covering events in Russia.

Separately, in a March 11 statement distributed by his press service, Atambayev accused journalists of pouring dirt on him, and on March 6, the president said that RFE/RL spreads gossip about him to keep its U.S. government funders happy, the broadcaster reported. The outlets vice-president denied the allegation and said RFE/RL maintains the highest standards of objectivity.

Alongside verbal assaults, several outlets and journalists face legal action. Hours after Atambayevs March 6 speech, the prosecutor generals office charged RFE/RLs Kyrgyz Service, known locally as Azattyk, and Zanozas founder ProMedia Foundation with insulting the president. On March 13, the prosecutor general filed another suit against Azattyk and ProMedia, and a separate suit against ProMedia and Idinov, also on insult charges. Prosecutors are seeking 29 million som (nearly US$422,000) in total from Azattyk, ProMedia and Idinov, according to media reports. On March 14, the courts ordered bank accounts for Azattyk and Zanoza to be frozen and on March 15 a lien was put on Idinovs Bishkek apartment. The journalist is accused of slander over a 2015 Zanoza article that alleged Atambayev is involved in corruption.

The other charges relate to reports in Azattyk and Zanoza about allegations opposition leader Tekebayev made that the president is corrupt, according to a copy of the prosecutors file viewed by CPJ.

Authorities arrested Tekebayev, the leader of the Ata-Meken party, upon his arrival at Bishkek airport on February 25, 2017, and charged him with fraud and corruption. His party says the charges are politically motivated and that he will continue to run for office from custody. Two lawyers representing Tekebayev were charged with insulting the president after holding a press conference about their clients arrest and claims, according to reports.

In his March 15 speech, Atambayev said that the news outlets should not complain about fines because RFE/RL has a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars and Zanoza receives generous grants from their foreign patrons. During a March 24 media briefing in Bishkek the president said he is prepared to take his case against RFE/RL to international courts, and said he would complain about the broadcaster to President Donald Trump when he visits the U.S. in September.

In response, RFE/RL reported that its 2016 budget for all operations was $108.4 million. The Kyrgyz service is one of its 26 language services.

Also this month, authorities expelled Grigory Mikhailov, the Bishek-based correspondent for the Russian news agency Regnum, from Kyrgyzstan for visa violations, regional and local media reported. According to his employer, police stopped Mikhailov on March 10 and questioned him about his political views, before transporting him to neighboring Kazakhstan, 25km from Bishkek. He was then denied reentry. Regnum reported that expired visas are usually punishable with a fine. The news agency has widely reported on corruption allegations and Atambayevs crackdown on media.

In another move to silence dissent, Kyrgyzstan changed its constitution in December to prevent citizens taking cases to international bodies such as the U.N. Atambayev started pushing for a referendum on constitutional amendments shortly after the U.N. Human Rights Council ordered Kyrgyzstan to release and compensate Askarov, a jailed ethnic Uzbek journalist from Kyrgyzstan whom CPJ honored with its 2012 International Press Freedom Award.

Askarov sought redress with the U.N. to appeal a life sentence handed down in 2010. Atambayev ignored the Human Rights Council ruling in April last year and called for a re-trial. The court ruled in January to uphold Askarovs life sentence.

Following the U.N. decision, Atambayevs adviser Busurmankul Tabaldiyev called the constitution article that gives citizens the right to appeal to international bodies, a national security threat. Tekebayev, an author of the previous constitution that included a provision that prohibits amendments until 2020, criticized Atambayevs proposal.

Independent analysts believe Atambayev is trying to silence critical voices because he intends to stay in power when his presidential term ends in November. The 2017 election, if peaceful, will be the first constitutional handover of power.

Since gaining independence from the Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan has seen two ousters of presidentsin 2005 and 2010. In both instances, Azattyk was instrumental in reporting the events and giving a platform to opposition leaders as well as government officials. Azattyk enjoyed favorable working environments, unprecedented for a region known for its harsh and often brutal treatment of independent journalists. When I reported from Kyrgyzstan in 2005 for RFE/RLs English-language Central Newsroom, Azattyks bureau in downtown Bishkek was frequented by government officials and opposition leaders alike. Many correspondents, including myself, had phone numbers of political figures, including Roza Otunbayeva, who subsequently became head of the transitional government in 2010, and Kubatbek Baibolov, then-parliament speaker, on speed-dial. Following the 2005 revolution, Otunbayeva brought a cake to the bureau to celebrate.

But journalists working in Bishkek ahead of this years election say space for independent reporting is shrinking.

Kislov, whose news agency Fergana has provided unbiased reporting on Kyrgyzstan in general, and Askarovs case, in particular, says Atambayevs purge of the media space targets the best media outlets and journalists who covered the corruption allegations extensively.

Atambayev wants to be immune to prosecution after his presidential term ends by ensuring the political status quo. For that, he wants to either become a prime minister or will have [his ally] become president and guarantee [Atambayevs] immunity, said Kislov, who spoke with CPJ from Moscow.

During a February 28 joint press conference with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Bishkek, Atambayev said that he would remain in politics, albeit not as president. According to reports, constitutional amendments passed last year transfer presidential powers to the prime ministers office after Atambayevs term as president ends.

[EDITORS NOTE: This blog post has been updated to clarify that Askarov is an ethnic Uzbek journalist from Kyrgyzstan.]
Marcel Williams

Marcel Williams has spent the last 2 decades on death row, and his execution is set to take place next month. But his lawyers argue he never received a fair trial in the first place.





Marcel Williams is scheduled to die on April 24th, 2017. Williams was convicted in 1997 for the rape and murder of Stacy Errickson, a 22-year-old woman who was found in a shallow grave near Little Rock 3 years earlier. The jury deliberated Williams' sentence for just 30 minutes.





Williams is 1 of 8 men to be executed through lethal injection in Arkansas over just 4 days in April as part of the state's effort to use up its supply of midazolam before the drug expires.





But Williams' attorneys say his initial trial lawyers failed to present mitigating evidence about his traumatic upbringing to the jury in 1997. That evidence, they argue, would likely have resulted in a life sentence for Williams. Since that initial trial, a procedural technicality has prevented the legal system from righting this wrong. Now, Williams is asking the Arkansas Parole Board for clemency.





The United States Supreme Court has long recognized that the circumstances of an individual's life can influence culpability and thus sentencing. For this very reason, the Court struck down North Carolina's mandatory death sentences for 1st-degree murders in the 1976 case Woodson v. North Carolina.





"A process that accords no significance to relevant facets of the character and record of the individual offender or the circumstances of the particular offense excludes from consideration in fixing the ultimate punishment of death the possibility of compassionate or mitigating factors stemming from the diverse frailties of humankind," the Court ruled in Woodson v. North Carolina.





In Williams' case, that mitigating evidence was his violent and turbulent childhood. In written testimony to the parole board, David Lisak, a professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts, wrote that Williams, who suffered a childhood marked by neglect, violent beatings, and sexual abuse, was "exposed to pretty much every category of traumatic experience that is generally used to describe childhood trauma." While a child, Williams' mother prostituted him out to older women in exchange for food stamps or money for bills. Lisak characterized the violence Williams endured as "unrelenting" and "savage."





Williams' trial attorneys now claim, according to Williams' petition to the clemency board, that, at that time, Williams' defense team "didn't really understand what the true meaning of what mitigation was," which runs counter to the standards for capital defense attorneys that were already standard practice in the 1990s.





"Certainly by the mid-'80s it was understood that childhood trauma, abuse, parental neglect, extreme physical abuse would be powerful evidence for a jury," says Cassandra Stubbs, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Capital Punishment Project. "That was some of the heart of the evidence that capital defense lawyers should be looking for and investigating in their cases."





The lawyer responsible for Williams' appeal also failed to present this evidence at the proceedings requesting a new trial in 2000 - despite the fact that the request was based on the argument that his trial attorneys did not provide adequate counsel when they failed to present mitigating evidence to the jury.





A new crop of attorneys took over Williams' case in 2006 and filed a petition in a federal district court to present evidence about Williams' troubled childhood. And they succeeded in overturning Williams' death sentence, at least temporarily. "[I]t is reasonably probable that but for the errors and omissions of his lawyers the jury would have returned a verdict to impose a sentence of life imprisonment without parole rather than a sentence of death," Chief Justice Leon Holmes found in 2007. Judge Holmes ordered the state to grant Williams a new sentencing hearing or change his sentence from death to life without parole. But the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his decision on the grounds that the federal court could not consider evidence that was never presented in state courts. In other words, despite the validity of the evidence, Williams no longer had the right to present it, due to his lawyers' errors.





"It's kind of astonishing to me that the court is basically saying, 'there's evidence out there, we know its out there, there's no problems with it, except a procedural problem, but let's go ahead and approve the death sentence,'" Stubbs says.





"A lot of times what the courts will say is they are protecting the law, and they have to follow the rule of the law or its not any good, and to a degree that's true," says Jason Kearney, one of the attorneys who took up Williams' case in 2006. "But ... when someone's life is on the line I think there's an exception to any rule that ought to come into play."





The Williams' parole board hearing on Monday will be the last chance for this evidence to make a difference in his sentence, but the board rarely grants clemency in capital cases, Kearney says. A negative outcome for Williams would also set a troubling precedent for anyone else who has a similar path to clemency.





"For all of this compelling mitigation information to just go unconsidered and to have never been put in front of a jury, the legal system really fails when this happens," Kearney says. "If the clemency board doesn't recognize that, then they're really not serving their purpose."

Victim says death row inmate should not be executed

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) -- Attorneys for the eight inmates scheduled for lethal injections next month filed a motion Monday asking a federal judge to block their clients executions.





This comes the same day the Arkansas Parole Board announced it would not recommend clemency for death row inmates, Stacey Johnson and Ledell Lee, who both claimed innocence and asked for a sentence reduction Friday.





Monday, Marcel Williams asked for clemency. Though, he didn't try to claim innocence, he instead begged for forgiveness and the chance to make a positive impact by reducing his sentence to life without parole.





This man has turned his life around, and hes found God," said Dina Windle, who claims she was abducted, raped, and tied up by Marcel Williams 22 years ago. She managed to escape and is now asking the parole board to give Williams another chance at life.





So he can help others who can see that example he has set and to say thats the wrong path, said Windle.





Williams asked for forgiveness from his victims during the hearing, saying, To those Ive hurt, Im sorry is not enough.





An emotional Williams reflected on his past actions and on his childhood. He was abused and neglected. Now, he claims to be a changed man and wants clemency.





"Being in this situation has forced me to look at myself, and sometimes you dont like the person you see looking back at you. So, you do what you can to change that, and Ive tried," said Williams.





Williams is on death row for killing 22 year old Stacy Errickson in 1994. He was found guilty of abducting her from a gas station, raping, and suffocating the young mother of two. Her body was found in a shallow grave weeks later.





Stacy wasnt raised by a daddy. She didnt have one, and her twin brother Tracy didnt have one," said Carolyn Moore, Erricksons mother who wants Williams executed. Neither one of those were in jail, so thats no excuse for these convicts."





"I still think of her every day and always will," said Trista Wussick who was babysitting Erickson's kids at the time of her disappearance. Marcel Williams is my boogie man. He doesnt deserve any mercy."





The Arkansas Parole board has not announced whether they recommend clemency for Williams yet. Another clemency hearing is scheduled for Friday for two more men.

 | 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: Pacific Standard Magazine, March 27, 2017Source: KTHV-TV, March 27, 2017
Florida's death chamber

The Foreign Secretary has refused to support the last appeal of a 78-year-old Briton, who has spent 3 decades in a US prison for a crime he did not commit.





British businessman Kris Maharaj was arrested in Florida in 1986 and sentenced to death for murder, despite compelling evidence of his innocence.





Since Mr Maharajs conviction, human rights organization Reprieve has established - through six people affiliated with a Colombian drug cartel - that the cartels committed the crime.



Mr Maharaj has filed a final appeal against his original conviction in the US federal courts, asking the court to consider the new evidence of his innocence. Clive Stafford Smith, founder of Reprieve and Mr Maharajs lawyer, has asked Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to submit an amicus (friend of the court) brief from the British Government.

However, in a recent letter to Reprieve, Mr Johnson confirmed that the Government would not submit such a briefing. His letter said that the Government's position "still stands" - referring to previous correspondence in which ministers said it would not be "appropriate to support Mr Maharaj's case.

Mr Johnsons predecessors have previously intervened with amicus briefs for British prisoners and businesses. Three years ago, the Foreign Office commissioned four lawyers from an international law firm to intervene on behalf of BP in litigation surrounding the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, saying the case implicates the rights of one of the United Kingdoms largest companies.



The Foreign Secretarys refusal to intervene in the case comes amid fresh concerns for Mr Maharajs wellbeing. Already confined to a wheelchair, Mr Maharaj was recently hospitalised after contracting a potentially fatal flesh-eating bacteria, due to unsanitary prison conditions.

Speaking to BBC Five Live in an interview broadcast this morning, Kris wife Marita said the couple had received "very little help" from ministers. She urged Mr Johnson to "do something" to support him, saying: We are nearly 80 years old. Time is passing - we have the hope that everything is going to be okay, but we had that hope so many times. It's a horrible feeling. We've been disappointed so many times." She added that she believed the authorities in Florida "know he is innocent."

Senior Conservative MP Sir Peter Bottomley has supported Mr Maharajs request for a fresh hearing.

Commenting, Clive Stafford Smith  Mr Maharajs lawyer at Reprieve  said: Its deeply disappointing that, while the UK Government will intervene in a case involving a British firm, Boris Johnson wont support an elderly, innocent Brit who has been through a 30-year ordeal in prison. Kris Maharaj doesnt have much time left  all he and his family want is one last chance to reverse decades of injustice. Mr Johnson must meaningfully support Kris final bid for freedom.

 The Foreign Office's letter to Reprieve is available on request.
Arkansas' death chamber

(Reuters) - Eight Arkansas death row inmates who are scheduled to die over a 10-day period in April filed a lawsuit in federal court on Monday to halt their executions, saying the state's rush to the death chamber was reckless and unconstitutional.





Governor Asa Hutchinson has approved back-to-back executions for April 17, 20, 24 and 27 to make sure a difficult-to-acquire lethal injection chemicals do not expire before the state can implement the punishments.





Arkansas' last execution was in 2005, and it has faced numerous legal challenges since then about its protocols and drug procurement secrecy.





Most U.S. death penalty states abandoned multiple executions on the same day about two decades ago because of factors including the additional strain put on the families of victims, inmates and prison staff, who needed time to review procedures and decompress.





"There is no justifiable rationale to hold multiple executions on the same day. Nor is there a justifiable rationale to hold eight executions within 10 days," according to the lawsuit, filed in Little Rock, Arkansas.





The lawsuit said the state is planning its first execution in dozen years with a new prison systems head, new protocols and a new set of lethal injection drugs, including midazolam, a sedative that has been dropped by states after it was a part of a few troubled executions.





"Just one mistake at any point can have disastrous consequences," the lawsuit said.





Hutchinson has said it would be irresponsible to tell the victims' families that Arkansas had the lethal injection drugs and did not carry out the executions.





Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, double and triple executions on the same day have occurred 10 times, all between 1994 and 2000, according to the non-profit Death Penalty Information Center, which monitors U.S. capital punishment.





No state has executed eight prisoners in 10 days, and only one, Texas, has executed eight prisoners in a calendar month, it said.





"This is unprecedented and it is reckless," said Robert Dunham, the center's executive director.





Oklahoma was the last state to schedule a double execution, in April 2014. Its lethal injection protocol failed on the first execution, however, and the state postponed the second one.





Stop Executions in Arkansas - support Death Penalty Action!

Eight executions have been scheduled in the span of ten days (two a day for four days in April) starting the day after Easter  all because the lethal injection drugs are expiring. DeathPenaltyAction.org is on the ground in Arkansas working with the Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty to assist in stopping the executions. You can help!





Death Penalty Action launched on March 15, 2017, with its very first project being to assist the Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty with its work to stop four double executions in 10 days. Arkansas has not had an execution since 2005. Now it wants to restart a process known to be racist, arbitrary, expensive and prone to error. If Arkansas carries out all 8 executions, it will be at a rate unmatched by any state since the United States resumed executions in 1977.





You can help stop the executions by supporting Death Penalty Action.





Death Penalty Action joins a broad network of organizations making up the movement to abolish the death penalty, some of whom are also helping in Arkansas. Death Penalty Action's focus is on filling needs which are not otherwise being met, and lifting up the visibility of this issue so that more people know about it and are driven to act.









Your support today for Death Penalty Action builds our capacity to lend our experience and expertise to the work of our allies on the ground in Arkansas and elsewhere. It will pay the basic costs any start-up has, from salaries and office equipment to the expenses of the direct services we offer. Most immediately, that includes travel and related expenses in Arkansas.





Please invest generously for the greatest impact! Thank you.

 | 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: Reuters, Jon Herskovitz, March 27, 2017Source: DeathPenaltyAction.org - A start-up to STOP EXECUTIONS!, March 2017
Iranian courts have sentenced three individuals, including a woman, to death for the expression of their opinion.





Iran Human Rights (MAR 27 2017): Three prisoners by the names of Sina Dehghan, Mohammad Nouri and Marjan Davari have reportedly been sentenced to death by Iranian courts based solely on opinions or beliefs they expressed.





"Verdicts like the ones issued to Sina Dehghan, Mohammad Nouri and Marjan Davari are reminiscent of the ones issued in the medieval times. The international community must speak out about their death sentences. We call for global condemnation," says Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson for Iran Human Rights.





According to close sources, Sina Dehghan, a resident of Tehran, was arrested on October 21, 2015 by Ministry of Intelligence agents from the city of Arak. At the time of his arrest, Mr. Dehghan was reportedly just finishing up his mandatory military service at a base in Tehran operated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Close sources say that prior to his arrest, Sina Dehghan along with Mohammad Nouri, Sahar Elyasi, and an individual under the age of 18 used the messenger app "Line" to share content that the judicial and security authorities in Iran consider offensive to Islam.





Branch 1 of the criminal court in the Markazi province, presided by Judge Mohamad Reza Rahmati, reportedly sentenced Sina Dehghan and Mohammad Nouri to death and Sahar Elyasi to seven years in prison. The individual under the age of 18 has reportedly not received a sentence yet and was released on bail.





In February 2017, Iran's Supreme Court confirmed the death sentences for Sina Dehghan and Mohammad Nouri and reduced Sahar Elyasi's sentence to three years in prison. Additionally, these three individuals were sentenced by a Revolution Court to 16 months in prison on the charge of insulting the Supreme Leadership.





Sina Dehghan was reportedly physically beaten at the time of his arrest. And when he was held in Arak's Ministry of Intelligence detention centre, he was reportedly mistreated and subjected to torture and pressured to give forced confessions.





"Sina Dehghan, who is 21 years old, is currently held in a ward with prisoners charged with dangerous crimes, and he is experiencing many challenges there," a source close to Mr. Dehghan tells Iran Human Rights.





Marjan Davari





Marjan Davari was reportedly arrested on September 24, 2015 in Karaj by Ministry of Intelligence agents for holding a class and translating a book about "Eckankar". She was sentenced to death by branch 15 of Tehran's Revolution Court, presided by Judge Salavati, on the charge of "Spreading corruption on earth".





"In order to issue the Corruption on earth charge, the court cited the topics that Ms. Davari translated and the lecture she gave - in addition to using the following accusations against her: apostasy, illegitimate relationships, gathering and colluding against the state, and membership in Eckankar," a close source tells Iran Human Rights.





Marjan Davari was detained in Ward 209 of Evin Prison where she was not allowed any contact with her family or lawyer for four months. She is currently held in Gharchak Varamin Prison located in the city of Rey (Tehran province). In February 2017, she was transferred to this prison from Evin's women's ward.

Iranian Teen Tricked Onto Death Row After Confessing to Blasphemy

Sina Dehghan

An Iranian facing the death penalty for insulting Islam was allegedly tricked into signing his own death warrant.





Sina Dehghan was 19 when he was arrested by the Iranian revolutionary guard for insulting the national religion via an instant messaging app.





According to human rights activists, he was fooled into signing a confession in the belief that prosecutors would be released without punishment.





But, having signed the confession document, Iranian authorities allegedly went back on their promise  and Dehghan is now stuck on death row with little hope.





According to a press release by the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), his death penalty  punishment for insulting the prophet was confirmed in January.





He was also reportedly found guilty of the lesser charge of insulting the supreme leader  which carries a 16-month prison sentence.





Almost all Iranian executions are carried out by hanging.





A source close to Dehghan told the CHRI: During his interrogation, Sina was told that if he signed a confession and repented, he would be pardoned and let go.





Unfortunately, he made a childish decision and accepted the charges. Then they sentenced him to death. Later he admitted that he signed the confession hoping to get freed.





Dehghan has reportedly been in Arak Prison since his arrest in October 2015.





Iran is one of the most prolific state executioners in the world.





In recent years, the nation has been accused of executing children  although officials have denied the claims.





Blasphemy is punishable by death in much of the Islamic world. Other nations which share the penalty include Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen and Nigeria.

 | 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: Iran Human Rights , March 27, 2017Source: HEATSTREET , Kieran Corcoran, March 28, 2017
The White House's North Lawn has been evacuated.

White House placed on lockdown after discovery of suspicious package (Photo: Twitter/Secret Service)

By India Today Web Desk: White House, the US President Donald Trump's official residence, was placed on lockdown earlier today after the Secret Service discovered a suspicious package near the White House's grounds.

The Secret Service said the package has been cleared and that one man has been arrested in connection with the incident.

President Trump along and Vice President Mike Pence were both inside the White House when the package was found. They, however, continued with their daily routine.

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A group of media persons, present inside the press briefing room, were asked not to leave the room.

Earlier, the White House's North Lawn was evacuated after the service came across the package.

Roads around the White House were also shut and a security perimeter was established.

USSS is investigating suspicious package; security perimeter established & members of the public & media are being moved to safe a distance- U.S. Secret Service (@SecretService) March 28, 2017

ALSO READ | Donald Trump not safe in White House, says former Secret Service agent

--- ENDS ---
Gallows trap door, Tokyo Detention Center

TOKYO  Gen Sekine, a former pet breeder on death row for killing four people in Saitama Prefecture in 1993, died Monday while in detention, a person familiar with his condition said.





The 75-year-old inmatewho was convicted of conspiring with his former wife Hiroko Kazama to kill three people in a financial dispute stemming from his dog breeding businessis believed to have died of an illness, according to the source. Kazama, 60, is also on death row.





Sekine, who was also convicted of a separate killing the same year, died at the Tokyo Detention House on Monday morning. He had collapsed there in November last year, according to the source.





In 1993, he murdered a 39-year-old company employee, a senior member of a crime syndicate and the mans driver by making them swallow poison capsules. He then dismembered their bodies before incinerating and abandoning the remains, according to a court ruling.





In the separate case, Sekine murdered a 54-year-old woman after selling dogs of foreign origin to her in a scam.





Sekine and Kazama were initially arrested in January 1995. In March 2001, a district court in Saitama Prefecture sentenced them to death for committing, in the words of its presiding judge, cruelly ruthless and extremely heinous crimes.





The Tokyo High Court rejected the pairs appeal in July 2005, and the Supreme Court upheld the decision in June 2009.

Murder suspect extradited from Argentina

TOKYO  A 44-year-old Japanese man who has been on the international wanted list in connection with the murder of a Chinese woman in Japan in 2010 has been arrested after he was extradited from Argentina, police said.





The suspect, Tomoyasu Takiya, was arrested upon his arrival at Tokyos Haneda airport late Friday night, Fuji TV reported.





Police said he has initially been charged with stealing a cash card belonging to the Chinese woman, Shi Jieying, who was found strangled to death in her apartment in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, in August of 2010.





Police said convenience store surveillance camera footage showed Takiya, who has admitted he knew the victim, using her cash card to withdraw 10,000 yen from the stores ATM.





He left Japan before the victims body was discovered and his whereabouts remained a mystery until he was seen in Buenos Aires earlier this month.





Police said they expect to upgrade the charge to murder after interrogating Takiya.

 | 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: Japan Today , March 28, 2017Source: Japan Today , March 26, 2017
The brouhaha surrounding Dino Melayes certificate is showing no signs of slowing down as the video he released mocking his enemies has been turned into a viral meme by comedian Emmaohmagod.

Dino Melaye showing off his project amidst his certificate scandal

When news broke that popular Senator Dino Melaye allegedly did not graduate from university, many were shocked. This is because the good senator claims to have seven degrees from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (ABU).

READ ALSO: Cute new photos of TY Bello's twin sons

After the vice chancellor of ABU confirmed that indeed he graduated with a third class from the school, Dino released a video of himself dancing and mocking his enemies. Well, that video has been turned into a viral meme by comedian Emmaohmagod and Dino released a video of himself dancing and mocking his enemies and Dino released a video of himself dancing and mocking his enemies and Legit.ng thinks it is very hilarious.

Watch Emmas version below:

READ ALSO: Bally, TBoss, Marvis and Debie Rise nominated for eviction

Legit.ng recently asked Nigerians about their thoughts on the performance of Lagos State governor Akinwumi Ambode. Watch their answers below:

Source: Legit.ng
The 12-digit unique identity number can soon be mandatory for availing of a gamut of services.

By India Today Web Desk: The Supreme Court on Monday said that the government cannot be stopped from making Aadhaar mandatory for "non-benefit" purposes such as filing of Income Tax returns or opening of bank accounts.

The BJP, which had attacked the Aadhaar when it was in Opposition, has now its government working on a war-footing to make Aadhaar, or the unique identification number, mandatory for a host of services.

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WHAT IS AADHAAR?

Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique identity number issued to citizens based on biometric and demographic data. It is not a proof of citizenship.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UADAI), which is the nodal authority that issues Aadhaar cards, lists the objectives of the unique identification number as eliminating duplicate and fake identities; verifying and authenticating identity in an easy and cost-effective way.

CAN AADHAAR REPLACE PAN CARD?

During the ongoing Budget session, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that Aadhaar can soon become the only card required for identification, replacing Voter ID card and PAN. "A stage may come when unique identity card (Aadhaar) may become the sole card. There are many countries where such a situation exists. There is a social security number in America and in India it (Aadhaar) could be the counterpart," the finance minister said.

The Narendra Modi government has made Aadhaar number mandatory for filing I-T returns as well as for applying for PAN (Permanent Account Number) card. Existing PAN card holders too will have to disclose their Aadhaar number within a stipulated time or their card will be invalid.

These amendments, which were proposed in the Finance Bill, were passed in Lok Sabha by voice vote. Since it is a money bill, government does not need Rajya Sabha's approval for the same. The government argued that linking of Aadhaar to Income Tax filing will check tax evasion by those who have multiple PAN cards.

CAN YOU DO WITHOUT AADHAAR?

Besides Income Tax filing and PAN cards, Aadhaar will soon be mandatory for a range of services--from getting a new mobile number to booking a Railway ticket.

#Driving License

Now Aadhaar number is mandatory to apply for a driving license. According to reports, the new rule will come into effect from October. The move is expected to curb issuance of multiple licenses. The existing system involves manual cross-checking of an applicant's details, and Aadhaar's biometrics are expected to make the verification process easier.

#Mobile Number

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has written to telecom operators regarding re-verifying phone numbers using Aadhaar number. In the next few months, all mobile phone numbers, be it pre-paid or post-paid, will be linked to Aadhaar. Any number not linked to Aadhaar will be illegal after February 6, 2018.

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#University Degree

The University Grants Commission (UGC) in a March 21 has notice asked universities to include Aadhaar number on the degree issued to a student. According to UGC, this will help check the menace of fake degrees.

#Railway Ticket Booking

Aadhaar may soon become mandatory for online train ticket booking. The Railways is planning to introduce Aadhaar-based ticketing system to prevent touts from booking tickets in bulk. Aadhaar verification is mandatory for senior citizens to avail of concessions in train tickets.

#EPF Pension

Employees Provident Fund Organistion (EPFO) has made it mandatory for its members to provide Aadhaar number to remain a beneficiary of the pension scheme. The Labour Ministry had issued a notification to this regard in January.

ALSO READ:

Aadhaar card can't be made mandatory by government for welfare schemes: Supreme Court

Aadhaar has privacy loopholes, but pros outweigh it

After PAN, mobile numbers, Aadhaar now to be mandatory for driving licenses: Report

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In future, only Aadhaar may be required for identification: FM

ALSO WATCH

--- ENDS ---
Trump Signs Executive Order Rescinding Obama Climate Policies

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order intended to roll back most of former President Barack Obamas climate-change legacy. Trump said the move will promote energy independence and restore thousands of lost coal industry jobs.

In Washington on Tuesday afternoon, the president signed a short document titled the, Energy Independence executive order that directs the Environmental Protection Agency to start the legal process of withdrawing and rewriting the Clean Power Plan.

The order will also lift a short-term ban on new coal mining on public lands.

President Trump has advertised the executive order as a way to decrease the nations dependence on imported fuels and revive the flailing coal industry, but energy economists say the order falls short in both categories, in part because the United States already largely relies on domestic sources for the coal and natural gas that fires most of the nations power plants.

We dont import coal, said Robert N. Stavins, an energy economist at Harvard University. So in terms of the Clean Power Plan, this has nothing to do with so-called energy independence whatsoever.

Scott Pruitt, the E.P.A. administrator, said that the order will help the United States be both pro-jobs and pro-environment.

It could potentially take years for the Trump administration to unwind the Clean Power Plan, which has not yet been carried out because it has been temporarily frozen by a Supreme Court order. The regulations outlined in the plan sought to cut planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution from coal-fired power plants. If enacted, they would have shut down hundreds of those plants, frozen construction of future plants and replaced them with wind and solar farms and other renewable energy sources.
As Africa gears up for a tripling of electricity demand by 2030, a new Berkeley study maps out a viable strategy for developing wind and solar power while simultaneously reducing the continent's reliance on fossil fuels and lowering power plant construction costs.

Using resource mapping tools, a University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory team assessed the potential for large solar and wind farms in 21 countries in the southern and eastern African power pools, which includes more than half of Africa's population, stretching from Libya and Egypt in the north and along the eastern coast to South Africa.

They concluded that with the right strategy for placing solar and wind farms, and with international sharing of power, most African nations could lower the number of conventional power plants - fossil fuel and hydroelectric - they need to build, thereby reducing their infrastructure costs by perhaps billions of dollars.

"The big surprising find is that the wind and solar resources in Africa are absolutely gigantic, and something you could tap into for relatively low cost," said senior author Duncan Callaway, a UC Berkeley associate professor of energy and resources and a faculty scientist at Bekeley Lab. "But we need to be thinking now about strategies for fostering international collaboration to tap into the resource in a way that is going to maximize its potential while minimizing its impact."

The main issue, Callaway says, is that energy-generating resources are not spread equally thoughout Africa. Hydroelectric power is the main power source for one-third of African nations, but it is not available in all countries, and climate change makes it an uncertain resource because of more frequent droughts. The best areas for wind and solar are not equitably distributed either, and many argue that wind and solar are too erratic and undependable.

Based on the team's analysis, however, choosing wind sites to match the timing of wind generation with electricity demand is less costly overall than choosing sites with the greatest wind energy production. Assuming adequate transmission lines, strategies that take into account the timing of wind generation result in a more even distribution of wind capacity across countries than those that maximize energy production.

Importantly, the researchers say, both energy trade and siting to match generation with demand reduces the system costs of developing wind sites that are low impact, that is, closer to existing transmission lines, closer to areas where electricity would be consumed and in areas with preexisting human activity as opposed to pristine areas.

"If you take the strategy of siting all of these systems such that their total production correlates well with electricity demand, then you save hundreds of millions to billions of dollars per year versus the cost of electricity infrastructure dominated by coal-fired plants or hydro," Callaway said. "You also get a more equitable distribution of generation sources across these countries."

"Together, international energy trade and strategic siting can enable African countries to pursue 'no-regrets' wind and solar potential that can compete with conventional generation technologies like coal and hydropower," emphasized UC Berkeley graduate student Grace Wu, who conducted the study with fellow graduate student Ranjit Deshmukh. Wu and Deshmukh are the lead authors of the study.

The study will appear online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Charting Africa's energy future

The team set out to tackle a key question for electricity planners in Africa and the international development community, which helps fund such projects: How should these countries allocate their precious and limited investment dollars to most effectively address electricity and climate challenges in the coming decades? The fear, Callaway said, is that reliance on traditional hydro and fossil fuel - mostly coal - power plants will push out more environmentally friendly renewable sources in the future.

Wu and Deshmukh gathered previously unavailable information on the annual solar and wind resources in 21 countries in eastern and southern Africa, and hourly estimates of wind speeds for nine countries south of the Sahara Desert.

They developed an energy resource mapping framework, which they call Multi-criteria Analysis for Planning Renewable Energy, or MapRE, to identify and characterize potential wind and solar projects. They then modeled various scenarios for siting wind power and examined additional system costs from hydro and fossil fuels.

The team concluded that even after excluding solar and wind farms from areas that are too remote or too close to sensitive environmental or cultural sites -- what they term "no-regret" sites - there is more than enough land in this part of Africa to produce renewable power to meet the rising demand, if fossil fuel and/or hydroelectric power are in the mix to even out the load. Nevertheless, choosing only the most productive sites for development - the windiest and sunniest - would leave some countries with little low-cost local renewable energy generation.

If, however, countries can agree to share power and build the transmission lines to make that happen, all countries could develop sites that are low-cost and accessible, and have low environmental impact, while reducing the number of new hydro or fossil fuel plants that need to be built.

Callaway says that a few countries already share power, such as South Africa with Mozambique and Zimbabwe, but that more countries will need to broker the agreements and build the transmission lines to allow this. International transmission lines are being planned, but primarily to share hydropower resources located in a handful of countries. These transmission plans need to incorporate sharing of wind and solar in order to help them be competitive generation technologies in Africa, he said.

###

Other co-authors are Daniel Kammen, a UC Berkeley professor of energy and resources, Jessica Reilly-Moman and Amol Phadke of the International Energy Studies Group at Berkeley Lab, Kudakwashe Ndhlukula of the Southern Africa Development Community Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency at the Namibia University of Science and Technology in Windhoek, and Tijana Radojicic of the International Renewable Energy Agency in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

The International Renewable Energy Agency supported much of the initial research. The National Science Foundation and the Link Foundation supported the expanded analysis on wind siting scenarios.
By Elena Fabrichnaya, Steve Holland and Patricia Zengerle MOSCOW/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Russian bank under Western economic sanctions over Russia's incursion into Ukraine disclosed on Monday that its executives had met Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a top White House adviser, in December. A U.S. Senate committee investigating suspected Russian interference in the election wants to interview Trump associates, including Kushner, 36, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and has agreed to testify. Kushner previously acknowledged meeting the Russian ambassador to Washington last December and only on Monday did it emerge that executives of Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) had talks with Kushner during a bank roadshow last year. The bank said in an emailed statement that as part of its preparing a new strategy, its executives met representatives of financial institutes in Europe, Asia and America. It said roadshow meetings took place "with a number of representatives of the largest banks and business establishments of the United States, including Jared Kushner, the head of Kushner Companies." VEB declined to say where the meetings took place or the dates. There was no immediate comment from Kushner. Allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russian actors were behind hacking of senior Democratic Party operatives and spreading disinformation linger over Trump's young presidency. Democrats charge the Russians wanted to tilt the election toward the Republican, a claim dismissed by Trump. Russia denies the allegations. But there has been no doubt that the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, developed contacts among the Trump team. Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign on Feb. 13 after revelations that he had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with Kislyak and misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations. U.S. officials said that after meeting with Russian Kislyak at Trump Tower last December, a meeting also attended by Flynn, Kushner met later in December with Sergei Gorkov, chairman of Vnesheconombank. White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks confirmed the meetings, saying nothing of consequence was discussed. Gorkov was appointed head of VEB in early 2016 by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He graduated from the Federal Security Service, or FSB, Russias internal security agency. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Merit for Services to the Fatherland, according to the bank's website. According to two congressional staffers, some Senate investigators want to question Kushner and Flynn about whether they discussed with Gorkov or other Russian officials or financial executives the possibility of investing in 666 Fifth Avenue in New York or other Kushner Co or Trump properties if the new administration lifted the sanctions. VEB, aside from being under sanctions, has been grappling with bad debt after financing politically expedient projects such as construction for the Sochi Winter Olympics. It received 150 billion roubles ($2.6 billion) in support from the Russian budget in 2016, when its senior management was sacked and replaced by a team of executives from Russia's biggest lender Sberbank. In an article posted on Dec. 18, Forbes estimated that Jared Kushner, his brother Josh and his parents, Charles and Seryl, have a fortune of at least $1.8 billion, more than half of which Forbes estimates is held in real estate. Forbes did not provide a specific estimate for Jared Kushners net worth on his own. FOREIGN CONTACTS On Monday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters that Kushner is willing to testify to the Senate Intelligence Committee chaired by U.S. Senator Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican. Throughout the campaign and the transition, Jared served as the official primary point of contact with foreign governments and officials ... and so, given this role, he volunteered to speak with Chairman Burr's committee," Spicer told reporters at his daily briefing. The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate panel also said Kushner had agreed to be interviewed but no date had yet been scheduled. Simply meeting with representatives of a U.S.-sanctioned entity is not a violation of sanctions or against the law. Evgeny Buryakov, 41, a Russian citizen who worked at Vnesheconombank and whom U.S. authorities accused of posing as a banker while participating in a New York spy ring, pleaded guilty to a criminal conspiracy charge in March 2016. Buryakov admitted in federal court in Manhattan to acting as an agent for the Russian government without notifying U.S. authorities. He was prosecuted by the office of the U.S. attorney in Manhattan under Preet Bharara, who was among several chief prosecutors fired or asked to resign earlier this month by the new administration. CLASSIFIED INFORMATION Also on Monday, a mystery rooted in Trump's claim that he was wiretapped by then President Barack Obama during the election campaign deepened with the disclosure that a top congressional Republican reviewed classified information on the White House grounds about potential surveillance of some Trump campaign associates. U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, visited the White House the night before he announced on Wednesday that he had information that indicated some Trump associates may have been subjected to some level of intelligence activity before Trump took office on Jan. 20. Democrats have said Nunes, who was a member of Trump's transition team, can no longer run a credible investigation of Russian hacking, the U.S. election and any potential involvement by Trump associates. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, have urged Nunes to recuse himself from the Russia probe. Nunes told CNN on Monday that he went to the White House grounds because the intelligence information was not available to Congress. He said he did not meet with Trump or his aides at that time and did not coordinate the release of information with the Trump administration. Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said in a statement that Nunes "met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source." White House spokesman Spicer did not shed any light on who at the White House helped Nunes gain access to a secure location. It was the latest twist in a saga that began on March 4 when Trump said on Twitter without providing evidence that he "just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory." FBI Director James Comey told Congress last Monday he had seen no evidence to support the claim. (The story corrects paragraph 1 to show that meeting was in December, not during 2016 presidential campaign. Paragraph 22 is also corrected to show Buryakov pleaded guilty in March 2016, not Friday.) (Reporting by Elena Fabrichnaya and Polina Devitt in Moscow and Patricia Zengerle, Steve Holland, Mark Hosenball, John Walcott, Arshad Mohammed, Eric Beech and Warren Strobel in Washington; editing by Yara Bayoumy and Grant McCool)
BREA, Calif., March 28, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As part of its commitment to clean energy, 85C Bakery Cafe installed photovoltaic (PV) panels from Mitsubishi Electric US, Inc. to power its central kitchen in Brea, California. 85C Bakery Cafe installed a 325 kW system including 1,226 Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Premium solar modules and 7 inverters from Yaskawa - Solectria Solar. The system is projected to produce 527,702kWh of power annually, which is equal to saving 41,730 gallons of gasoline in one year.



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/5a8c6d6f-db31-43a4-a87b-645d41995182



To honor the bakerys commitment to clean energy and the environment, Mitsubishi Electric US, Inc. held a ribbon cutting ceremony at the Brea headquarters on Monday, March 27. Guests including Mitsubishi Electric US Inc. president and CEO Kent Hora, 85C Bakery Cafe CEO Henry Cheng, and City of Brea Mayor Cecilia Hupp mingled at the central kitchen, which is responsible for mixing the wet and dry ingredients for all 27 locations in the U.S.

85C Bakery Cafe is pleased to announce our first solar powered facility worldwide. The environment and sustainability has always been a priority for our company, said Cheng, who is also a master chef at 85C Bakery Cafe. Mr. Cheng has won several competitive bakers awards, including a gold medal in the World Skill Pastry Competition. Founded in 2004, 85C Bakery Cafe has seen rapid growth and popularity and is planning to open its 1,000th location worldwide this 2017 year.

Mitsubishi Electric is honored to be selected to supply PV modules for 85C Bakery Cafes first solar installation, said Hora. We appreciate the bakerys commitment to going green and its environmental leadership in the community.

The system was installed by Irwindale, CA-based installer SunGreen Systems whose CEO John Hoffman worked closely with 85C Bakery Cafe to meet the bakerys energy needs. In addition to greatly reducing carbon emissions, this system will pay for itself within 5 years, said Hoffman. After its payback, 85C Bakery Cafe will enjoy free energy for the next 25 to 30 years.

About 85C Bakery Cafe

85C Bakery Cafe has more than 900 locations worldwide. In 2008, the first U.S. store opened in Irvine, CA. The location quickly became an overnight sensation, with more than 5,000 Yelp reviews and lines out the door. Featured on TIME, CNN, NPR, and Travel Channel, 85C Bakery Cafe has become a culinary phenomenon and a new cafe experience for all.

About Mitsubishi Electric US, Inc.s Photovoltaic Division

Mitsubishi Electric US, Inc. sells high quality solar panels to deliver clean, reliable energy to its customers throughout the world. With more than 90 years of electronics manufacturing expertise and 40 years experience developing solar power technology in its corporate group, Mitsubishi Electric is one of the most established solar providers in the industry. Residential, commercial, and government customers can count on the 25-year solar module limited warranty offered by Mitsubishi Electric US, Inc. to enhance their return on investment. Additional information is available at www.MitsubishiElectricSolar.com or by calling 714.220.2500.

In addition to solar modules, Mitsubishi Electric US group companies principal businesses include semiconductor devices, automotive electrical components, elevators and escalators, factory automation products and services, heating and cooling products, electric utility products, and large-scale video displays for stadiums and arenas. Mitsubishi Electric US group companies have roughly 31 locations throughout North America with approximately 4,000 employees.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that she is concerned about the recent happenings in Uttar Pradesh.

By India Today Web Desk: Mamata Banerjee has once again hit out at the Narendra Modi government, questioning the veracity of its 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas' development model.

The West Bengal chief minister said, "We are all one. Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas sirf bolna nahi hai, karna hain. We have to do it, to make it meaningful".

Mamata Banerjee took to Twitter to say that she is concerned about the recent happenings in Uttar Pradesh. The Trinamool Congress leader said, "People are afraid and many are scared about differences over caste, creed and religion".

We are concerned about recent happenings in UP. People are afraid & many are scared about differences over caste, creed & religion 1/3- Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) March 28, 2017

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She said, "A government has to be for all. We need to safeguard our Constitution and allow it to guide us".

Following the BJP's spectacular victory in Uttar Pradesh, the party chose firebrand Hindutva leader Yogi Adityanath to lead the state. Since assuming power, Yogi Adityanath has ordered a crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses, a move that has prompted meat sellers in the state to go on an indefinite strike.

ALSO READ:

Vegetarian days ahead for Yogi Adityanath's UP: Meat vendors plan state-wide indefinite strike from today

Ground report on Yogi Adityanath: What Aligarh Muslim University campus thinks about UP chief minister

ALSO WATCH:

Uttar Pradesh meat sellers, butchers go on indefinite strike against Yogi's diktat

--- ENDS ---
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 28, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Canuc Resources Corporation (Canuc or the Company) (TSX-V:CDA) is pleased to provide summary information, previously compiled, pertaining to work done by Santa Rosa Silver Mining Corporation (Santa Rosa) on the San Javier Silver/Gold project.



Prior to the merger between Canuc and Santa Rosa, Santa Rosa performed an extensive channel sampling program of the vein(s) mined intermittently since the 1950s. The channel sampling program was carried out in 2012 under the guidance of Seymour Sears, P.Geo, whose NI 43-101 report on the San Javier project can be viewed on SEDAR.

The Santa Rosa mine consists of five levels, plus connecting sub-levels, spanning a strike length of 490 m and 135 m down dip (~100 m vertically below surface). The vein ranges from 0.3 m to 5.0 m in width and is open along strike in both directions, and also down dip. A total of 341 samples of vein material were collected; the weighted average grade was:

388 g/t (11.3 oz/t) Ag, 2.02 g/t (0.06 oz/t) Au, 1.58% Pb & 1.28% Zn over 1.45 m.* avg. width.

Figure 1 Long Section Santa Rosa Mine

http://canucresources.ca/project/san-javier-project/santa-rosa-long-section-1/

Two sub-parallel veins, El Capulin and Las Norias, occur in the footwall rocks below the Santa Rosa vein; the width between these three veins is about 115 m. These veins are similar in appearance to the Santa Rosa vein and are virtually unexplored. The host rocks to the veins are sedimentary, dominated by sandstone, but shale and coal are known to occur as interbeds. The wall rocks next to the veins are highly fractured and altered, providing the potential to find lower grade, high tonnage mineralization.

A drilling program, planned for the second quarter this year, will test this concept in conjunction with detailed drilling of the Santa Rosa vein.

A control and soil sampling grid, initiated in June 2016, will be completed this yearinitial soil samples are in the laboratory at this time.

Figure 2 San Javier Plan Map

http://canucresources.ca/project/san-javier-project/san-javier-plan-map-1-1/

* The reader is cautioned that the results of the underground sampling, reported above, do not represent a resource nor do they reflect what a potentially mineable resource may ultimately average in grade and/or width.

About Canuc

Canuc is a junior resources company engaged in the exploration and development of mineral properties in North America. In addition, the company is active in the development of a natural gas field in Central West Texas where it has an interest in seven producing gas wells. These wells generate a sustainable cash-flow with the potential to increase income by the drilling and completion of additional wells.

John Nebocat, BSc (Geological Engineering), P.Eng, Vice President Exploration for Canuc, is the Qualified Person for the Company, as defined by NI 43-101, and has reviewed and approved the contents of this press release.

For more information on the content of this release or about Canuc, please contact:

Christopher J. Berlet, CFA

CEO

416 525  6869

cberlet@canucresources.ca

Disclaimer and Forward-Looking Statements

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements: This news release contains forward-looking statements that include risks and uncertainties. When used in this news release, the words estimate, project, anticipate, expect, intend, believe, hope, may and similar expressions, as well as will, shall and other indications of future tense, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and apply only as of the date on which they were made. The factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in such forward-looking statements include changes in the prevailing price of gold, the prevailing price of natural gas, the Canadian-United States exchange rate, amount of gas produced that could affect revenues and production costs. Other factors such as uncertainties regarding government regulations could also affect the results. Other risks may be set out in the Companys annual financial statements and MD&A.
Latvian English

Riga, Latvia, 2017-03-28 15:17 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- JSC Rietumu Banka (hereinafter  the Bank) is involved in the investigation initiated against the company France Offshore regarding the evasion of the payment of taxes in France.

The Bank does not agree to the accusations of supporting France Offshore and the 90 million euro penalty demanded by the prosecutor. We turn your attention to the fact that it is only the position of the prosecutor and not the decision of the court.The legal process is now in the court of first instance and the Bank defends its position. The Bank underlines that it acted correctly in accordance with the law. If the decision of a court of first instance will be negative, the Bank will appeal against the decision in accordance with the procedure prescribed by law.
WAYNE, Pa., March 28, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Judge Group, a leading global professional services firm, has been named recipient of the 2017 Commercial Office Award by the King of Prussia District (KOP-BID). The Judge Group President, Brian Anderson, was presented with the award during the King of Prussia Districts annual Report to the Community and Awards luncheon on March 23, 2017.



The Judge Group has experienced considerable growth over the past 5 plus years and was looking at a variety of options for a new office space. After a thorough and lengthy search, The Judge Group decided that the 151 South Warner Road building, and King of Prussia (KOP) area, would be an ideal location for the new corporate headquarters. The Greater Philadelphia area has always served as the companys headquarters, and for the first time, Judge now has a dedicated building that has been newly renovated to meet the unique needs of the organization and its culture. In October of 2016, Judge relocated over 250 employees to the new location.

We are excited to receive this award and to be recognized for our commitment to the King of Prussia area, said Judge President, Brian Anderson. We are very proud of our new Corporate Headquarters. It is the culmination of years of planning and months of construction. A lot went into finding the right location for the new office, including where our employees lived, the amenities near the building, and ease of access to major means of transportation. King of Prussia, and the new building, checked all of the boxes on our list, and we are excited to work and grow our company in the region.

The Judge Group received our Commercial Office Award for their investment and confidence in King of Prussia, said Eric Goldstein, King of Prussia District Executive Director. We are excited to have this dynamic and growing company in King of Prussia.

KOP-BID award recipients were chosen by a selection committee representing: Upper Merion Township; Montgomery County; Main Line Chamber of Commerce; and KOP-BID.

About The Judge Group:

Working at the crossroads of people and transformative technologies, The Judge Group delivers innovative business solutions  powered by top talent  to help organizations reach their strategic goals and realize opportunities now and in the future.

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taufans wrote:





Here are some comparisons I've compiled regarding the two programs:

- Location : Durham > Ithaca and NYC; better weather and cheaper living cost

- Internship : MEM > Tech MBA; Cornell Tech MBA does not have an internship component, which I think would be a very valuable experience esp for international student like me

- Curriculum : Tech MBA > MEM; Cornell Tech MBA has a more intensive curriculum with a total of 58.5 credits while MEM has only 30 credits including an internship. However, the MEM program enables student to extend the study to three semesters thus allowing more courses

- Flexibility : MEM > Tech MBA; Duke MEM program allows students to take courses from many other departments, including Fuqua courses, which I think is a good opportunity to tap into the Fuqua network and experience albeit not the same (obviously) as an MBA student

- Prestige : Johnson Cornell > Pratt Duke; While they're not exactly comparable given that Johnson is a business school and Pratt is an engineering one, Cornell having the 'Ivy League' tag makes it has the slight advantage here

- Degree Awarded : MBA > MEM; I think an MBA degree is more well-known than MEM

- Program History : MEM > Tech MBA; Duke's MEM program was founded in 1997 while Cornell Tech MBA was just recently founded in 2012



I might be wrong with the comparisons and I would greatly appreciate any feedback/suggestion as it would help my final decision Hello everyone, my name is Taufan from Indonesia. I am an aspiring product manager with interest in data science/business analytics. I have recently been admitted to Duke Master of Engineering Management (MEM) and deferred it for 2018 as I would like to secure a scholarship to fund my study. However, I came across Cornell Tech MBA and it is quite compelling. I'm currently considering whether it is worth it to apply for the Tech MBA or just stick with the MEM program.Here are some comparisons I've compiled regarding the two programs:: Durham > Ithaca and NYC; better weather and cheaper living cost: MEM > Tech MBA; Cornell Tech MBA does not have an internship component, which I think would be a very valuable experience esp for international student like me: Tech MBA > MEM; Cornell Tech MBA has a more intensive curriculum with a total of 58.5 credits while MEM has only 30 credits including an internship. However, the MEM program enables student to extend the study to three semesters thus allowing more courses: MEM > Tech MBA; Duke MEM program allows students to take courses from many other departments, including Fuqua courses, which I think is a good opportunity to tap into the Fuqua network and experience albeit not the same (obviously) as an MBA student: Johnson Cornell > Pratt Duke; While they're not exactly comparable given that Johnson is a business school and Pratt is an engineering one, Cornell having the 'Ivy League' tag makes it has the slight advantage here: MBA > MEM; I think an MBA degree is more well-known than MEM: MEM > Tech MBA; Duke's MEM program was founded in 1997 while Cornell Tech MBA was just recently founded in 2012I might be wrong with the comparisons and I would greatly appreciate any feedback/suggestion as it would help my final decision

Hi Taufan,I did an Engineering Management kinda degree from NUS, Singapore and now I'm going for an MBA, hence I believe I'm sufficiently knowledgeable to comment on this.My question to you is, do you plan to work in US after graduation? If Yes, then are any of these (or both) degrees come under STEM category? If you do a STEM masters from US you'll be able to explore much more career options in US since your OPT period will be 36 months hence your H1B is almost a surety. So,If only one of them is STEM categorized, choose the STEM one.If none are STEM categorized, choose the MBA or the one with lower overall cost (play safe)If both are STEM categorized, choose the MBA.If you don't plan to stay back in US, choose a degree that gels up better with your existing work profile. It may be difficult to switch careers with either of these hence look for a program that will best boost/enhance your career in your present industry/function.Still confused? Toss a coin
PTK wrote:

In a shock to those who still lived under the impression that investments are closely monitored, a financial security group recently discovered a loophole for enabling a scammer to gain access to transactions made by a leading investment bank so that this person will be aware of any major deals that a corporation had made before these deals are announced to the public





(A) who still lived under the impression that investments are closely monitored, a financial security group recently discovered a loophole for enabling a scammer to gain access to transactions made by a leading investment bank so that this person will be aware of any major deals that a corporation had made



(B) who had still been living under the impression that investments are closely monitored, a financial security group recently discovered a loophole for enabling a scammer to gain access to transactions made by a leading investment bank so that this person was aware of any major deals that a corporation might have made



(C) who still were living under the impression that investments are closely monitored, a financial security group recently discovered a loophole enabling a scammer to gain access to transactions made by a leading investment bank so that this person will be aware of any major deals that a corporation had made



(D) still living under the impression that investments are closely monitored, a financial security group recently discovered a loophole that enables a scammer to gain access to transactions made by leading investment banks so that this person is aware of any major deals that a corporation might make



(E) still living under the impression that investments had been closely monitored, a financial security group recently discovered a loophole that will enable a scammer to gain access to transactions made by leading investment banks so that this person was aware of any major deals that a corporation might make

A suffers from some errors:(1)for enabling..using in order to would better fit but still, meaning or purpose issue (2)after so that we should use present simple in stead of future..so, will should be omitted (3)past perfect..always we should use past perfect cautiously..here does not fit at allB suffers from..(1)past perfect continuous? while with still (2)for enabling (3) was aware (4)might have madeC suffers from..(1)who still were living (2)after so that we should omit will (3)had madeD suffers from...not any since usage of recently here contains no split. Moreover, recently can be used with past simple( His uncle recently died),but such usage is rarely encouraged.E suffers from ..(1)had been closely monitored (2)will enable (3) was awareSo my answer is D unless there is an option F that fixes the issue of recently.
mikemcgarry wrote:

In the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778, the rearguard of the Frankish army, under the command of Roland, was obliterated due to an ambush by the Basque army, an event made famous in La Chanson de Roland .



(A) In the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778, the rearguard of the Frankish army, under the command of Roland, was obliterated due to an ambush by the Basque army, an event made famous in La Chanson de Roland



(B) In the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778, the Basque army ambushed the Frankish army, the rearguard of the Frankish army, under the command of Roland, was obliterated, and the event was made famous in La Chanson de Roland



(C) La Chanson de Roland made famous the obliteration, due to an ambush by the Basque army, of the rearguard of the Frankish army, under the command of Roland, at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778



(D) In La Chanson de Roland , the Basque army ambushed the rearguard of the Frankish army, under the command of Roland, and obliterated them, and this event was famous at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778



(E) In the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778, the rearguard of the Frankish army, under the command of Roland, ambushed and obliterated by the Basque army, an event made famous in La Chanson de Roland



This question discusses the legendary La Chanson de Roland



This question, among other things, explores the " due to " structure. When is this structure correct or incorrect? You can see a full discussion of this point, as well as the OE for this difficult question, at this blog:

GMAT Sentence Correction: the Due To Mistake



Mike This question discusses the legendary Battle of Roncevaux Pass , one of the only defeats of Charlemagne 's long career, and it mentions that gorgeously beautiful medieval French poem,This question, among other things, explores the "" structure. When is this structure correct or incorrect? You can see a full discussion of this point, as well as the OE for this difficult question, at this blog:Mike

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:

La Chanson de Roland

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Modifiers + Grammatical Construction + Verb Forms + Idioms

A:

ambush

La Chanson de Roland

obliteration

La Chanson de Roland

B:

C:

Correct.

La Chanson de Roland

happened at

was made famous

La Chanson de Roland

D:

within the poem

La Chanson de Roland

when

happened at

was made famous

La Chanson de Roland

E:

Hence, C is the best answer choice.

Dear Friends,Here is a detailed explanation to this question-Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of this sentence is that at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778, the rearguard of the Frankish army, which was under the command of Roland, was obliterated due to an ambush by the Basque army, and this obliteration was later made famous in In a noun + comma + phrase construction, the phrase must correctly modify the noun; this is one of the most frequently tested concepts on GMAT sentence correction. Semicolons and the comma + conjunction construction are used to link two independent clauses; commas are used to link an independent clause with a dependent one; comma cannot be used to join two independent clauses. Collective nouns are always singular.This answer choice incorrectly uses "due to" to refer to the verb "was obliterated"; remember, "due to" is used to modify nouns, and "because of" is used to modify verbs and clauses. Further, Option A incorrectly modifies "an ambush by the Basque army" with "an event made famous in La Chanson de Roland", incorrectly implying that thewas made famous by; the intended meaning is that thewas made famous by; remember, in a noun + comma + phrase construction, the phrase must correctly modify the noun.This answer choice incorrectly uses a comma to join the independent clauses "the Basque army ambushed the Frankish army" and "the rearguard of the Frankish army...was obliterated"; remember, semicolons and the comma + conjunction construction are used to link two independent clauses; commas are used to link an independent clause with a dependent one; comma cannot be used to join two independent clauses.This answer choice acts upon the subject noun "" with the active verb "made famous" to produce a complete thought, leading to a complete sentence. Further, Option C uses the phrase "made famous the obliteration...at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778", conveying the intended meaning - that the obliteration of the rearguard of the Frankish armythe Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778, and this obliterationby the poem[/b][/i]. Moreover, Option C avoids the modifier error seen in Option A, as it does not use the noun + comma + phrase construction. Additionally, Option C avoids the pronoun error seen in Option D, as it uses no pronouns. Besides, Option C avoids the grammatical construction error seen in Option B, as it includes only one independent clause. Option C also correctly uses "due to" to refer to the noun "obliteration.This answer choice incorrectly refers to the singular noun phrase "rearguard of the Frankish army" with the plural pronoun "them"; remember, collective nouns are always singular. Further, Option D alters the meaning of the sentence through the clause "this event was famous at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778"; the construction of this phrase illogically implies thatthe obliteration of the rearguard of the Frankish army was famousat the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778 occurred; the intended meaning is that the obliteration of the rearguard of the Frankish armythe Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778, and this obliterationby the poem [/i]This answer choice fails to form a complete sentence; as "ambushed", "obliterated", and "made famous" are all past participles acting as modifiers, there is no active verb to act upon the subject noun "the rearguard of the Frankish army".To understand the concept of "Phrase Comma Subject" and "Subject Comma Phrase" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):To understand the concept of "Comma Splices and Run Ons" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~5 minutes):All the best!Team_________________
Don't know if this is a "horror" story but...I asked the Chaplain I had in Iraq to be a "wild card" 3rd recommender for HBS and Stanford. He was in a unique position to write about the work I did in Iraq that wasn't part of my job duties or responsibilities, but specifically did to raise the morale of my Marines. It was a "wild card" because i knew the risks involved. A) Since he's a "chaplain", the adcoms could assume that he would write the nicest thing because as a spiritual adviser, he may be reluctant to write something negative about me. B) I've seen some of the sermons he's given, and while sometimes they're pretty articulate and somewhat inspirational, some of them are downright basic and elementary. I wouldn't know which Chaplain personality would be sitting behind the computer when he writes the recommendation.The upside, of course, would be huge. I feel that the story he would be able to tell, from his unique perspective, if told effectively, would be extremely compelling.So....A few days ago, around 11am, I check my Rec status. He hasn't started. "That's fine" I thought. "He's got plenty of time."At around 1pm, I get a gmail notification saying that he's submitted the HBS rec! "Crap!" I think. " Within the last 2 hours, he opened up the HBS rec link, wrote down what he thought, and he submitted. He didn't even call me to clarify anything, or ask any questions or anything! Did he even take the time to really think things through? Did he choose his words carefully, knowing the immensity of what this recommendation is to my career?"at around 1:20...I get ANOTHER gmail alert. The chaplain just submitted the Stanford rec!!! 20 mins!Now I'm freaking out. Writing a thoughtful and compelling rec should take more than 20 mins, shouldn't it?I sent him an email, thanking him for his time and support, but with a slightly probing question. In the recommendation packet I gave him, I added a Stanford adcom podcast transcript that gives advice to recommenders in how/what to write. (if you want it, i've posted it here http://gmatclub.com/forum/calling-all-us-military-fall-2010-applicants-83186.html ) So in the email, I ask him, "Hey Sir, I hope the Stanford transcript wasn't too much information. Was it helpful to you, Sir?" In essence, asking if he even read it, to assuage my fears that he wouldn't even know what a good rec would look or sound like.He replied "No problem at all. The information was helpful."So I'm hoping he read it, and I'm hoping it helped. But jeez louise. 20mins to write a rec? am I freakin out for no reason?
A Ghanaian lady has said that a policeman forcibly kissed her on the lips after she was stopped at a police checkpoint at Dworwulu in Accra on Sunday.

Writing on Twitter, with the handle @JunkieonMars, she said she was heading home after a night out when the incident occurred.

READ ALSO: Man found drinking in a bar after his family assumed he was dead

The lady said that the police officer asked her to park and came round to the passenger side.

He then asked her a series of questions before ordering her to come out of the car.

She said she did and the officer continued with his questioning. She said suddenly, the policeman kissed her on the mouth.

She said another police officer asked the policeman why he kissed her and he replied that he did not know why.

READ ALSO: Jonathan denies involvement in certificate scandal

The lady said she was badly shaken after the episode and so entered into her car and drove off.

She has since been trying to build a case against the policeman at several police stations but had failed, according to her Twitter posts.

The lady said she reported the case at the Achimota police station but the officers there laughed at her when she shared the story.

She said at the Kotobabi police station, a policeman asked her to simply forgive the police official who forcibly kissed her.

Read her tweets below:

She concluded that although she expected to feel better after sharing the unpleasant experience, that was not the case.

Na wa oo! What would you do if this happened to you?

Watch our interview with Nigerian women during march against violence below:

Source: Legit.ng
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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 ...
Over the past few years smartphone makers have opted for bigger, higher-resolution displays, faster processors, more memory and storage, and bigger batteries as ways to set their phones apart. But now most phones have those features, so were starting to see new differentiators such as cameras with optical zoom, ultra-wide displays, and physical keyboards.

Now it looks like HTC is thinking even further outside the box or at least outside the touchscreen.

Reporting for VentureBeat, Evan Blass says HTCs next high-end phone will support Edge Sense, a feature that lets you control the phone by interacting with sensors built into the metal frame that covers the sides of the phone.

The phone is said to be code-named HTC Ocean, and its expected to be sold as the HTC U when it hits the streets.

It features a 5.5 inch, 2560 x 1440 pixel display, a Qualcomm Snpapdragon 835 processor, up to 128GB of storage, a microSD card, and a 12MP rear camera and 16MP front camera.

But the most interesting thing is the Edge Sense feature that lets you squeeze, swipe, or tap the phones edges to launch apps, adjust volume, place phone calls, select content, or start a search, among other things.

While HTC hasnt officially launched the phone yet, Blass has a better track record with smartphone leaks than just about anyone else and over the past few months hes posted two leaked promotional videos that look pretty legit.

Blass says HTC will likely make an official announcement sometime in mid-to-late April, with the HTC U smartphone hitting the streets in early May.

More cool HTC stuff here (including the tablet that launched @evleaks): https://t.co/S3WaZkeog9

Check it out before it gets pulled! pic.twitter.com/YJwmZb0Sje  Evan Blass (@evleaks) September 20, 2016
After more than five months of political impasse, the negotiations for the formation of a new governing coalition in Morocco made a breakthrough and a new cabinet lineup will be unveiled very soon.

Head of Government designate Saad Eddine El Othmani of the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) has announced over the weekend that he reached an agreement with five other parties to set up a coalition government.

El Othmani was picked up for the task by Moroccos King Mohammed VI on March 17, after PJD leader Abdelilah Benkirane failed to form a new government.

The government, to be led by El Othmani, will be composed of ministers representing six parties: PJD (moderate Islamist party), the National Rally of Independents (RNI, Liberals), the Popular Movement (MP), the Constitutional Union (UC), the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) and the Party of Progress and Socialism (PPS, communist). The RNI, the MP and the PPS were part of the outgoing PJD-led government.

Following the October elections, the PJD succeeded in convincing two other parties, the PPS and the Istiqlal Party to join a coalition, and needed only one other party to achieve a majority and form a government. But Aziz Akhanouch, the new head of RNI has put conditions on joining the coalition. He insisted on the inclusion of three parties: the UC, the MP and the USFP, which gained modest votes in latest parliamentary elections.

Benkirane utterly refused the USFP participation in the cabinet, saying he already made concessions when he relinquished the presidency of the Lower House to the USFP. He also accepted, as requested by the RNI, to exclude the Istiqlal Party. But this still did not break the deadlock. But El Othmani accepted the presence of the USFP in the future coalition, which seems a deal breaker.

According to some press reports, the new government team could be announced before King Mohammed VI heads to Amman (Jordan) to attend the Arab League summit by months end.
A sample containing the compound in the Allsopp laboratory. Credit: Amanda Shell, University of Hawaii

The University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine ("JABSOM") and Cardax, Inc. ("Cardax") (OTCQB:CDXI), a Honolulu based life sciences company, have jointly announced the results of an animal study evaluating the effectiveness of a compound that holds promise in anti-aging therapy.

The Astaxanthin compound CDX-085 (developed by Cardax) showed the ability to significantly increase the expression of the FOXO3 gene, which plays a proven role in longevity.

"All of us have the FOXO3 gene, which protects against aging in humans," said Dr. Bradley Willcox, MD, Professor and Director of Research at the Department of Geriatric Medicine, JABSOM, and Principal Investigator of the National Institutes of Health-funded Kuakini Hawaii Lifespan and Healthspan Studies. "But about one in three persons carry a version of the FOXO3 gene that is associated with longevity. By activating the FOXO3 gene common in all humans, we can make it act like the "longevity" version. Through this research, we have shown that Astaxanthin "activates" the FOXO3 gene," said Willcox.

"This preliminary study was the first of its kind to test the potential of Astaxanthin to activate the FOXO3 gene in mammals," said Dr. Richard Allsopp, PhD, Associate Professor, and researcher with the JABSOM Institute of Biogenesis Research.

In the study, mice were fed either normal food or food containing a low or high dose of the Astaxanthin compound CDX-085 provided by Cardax. The animals that were fed the higher amount of the Astaxanthin compound experienced a significant increase in the activation of the FOXO3 gene in their heart tissue.

"We found a nearly 90% increase in the activation of the FOXO3 "Longevity Gene" in the mice fed the higher dose of the Astaxanthin compound CDX-085," said Dr. Allsopp.

Dr. Richard Allsopp, University of Hawaii. Credit: Amanda Shell, University of Hawaii.

"This groundbreaking University of Hawaii research further supports the critical role of Astaxanthin in health and why the healthcare community is embracing its use," said David G. Watumull, Cardax CEO. "We look forward to further confirmation in human clinical trials of Astaxanthin's role in aging."

"We are extremely proud of our collaborative efforts with Cardax on this very promising research that may help mitigate the effects of aging in humans," said Vassilis L. Syrmos, Vice President of Research at the University of Hawaii. "This is a great example of what the Hawaii Innovation Initiative is all aboutwhen the private sector and government join forces to build a thriving innovation, research, education and job training enterprise to help diversify the state's economy."

Provided by University of Hawaii Cancer Center
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Rehabilitation is important for people with dementia as it is for people with physical disabilities, according to a leading dementia expert.

Linda Clare, Professor of Clinical Psychology of Aging and Dementia at the University of Exeter, said people with dementia have a right to cognitive rehabilitationand it is as relevant for them as physical rehabilitation for people with physical impairments.

Writing in the journal PLOS Medicine, Professor Clare said both share a goal to enable people to participate in everyday life, and in their families and communities, in a way that is meaningful to them.

Professor Clare said: "We tend to think of rehabilitation in terms of people with physical impairment following an injury, but it is equally important in people with cognitive impairment. As a society, we now have a much greater recognition that people with physical disabilities have the right to access services and opportunities, but there it still a long way to go for people with "hidden" disabilities such as dementia, in a landscape where the numbers of people with dementia are expected to rise from 44 mill in 2015 to 117 million by 2050.

Professor Clare oversees the GREAT trial, which is assessing the success of cognitive rehabilitation in more than 500 people across eight sites in the UK. It focuses on tailor-made approaches to the specific, individual problems people encounter at different stages of dementia. Examples may include people wanting to use email to stay in contact with family and friends, gain confidence to go outside, or manage daily tasks better. For people in the more advanced stages of dementia, approaches may focus on being able to dress independently or engage in pleasurable activities.

Professor Clare believes the positive rehabilitation approach may be partially funded through redeploying some of the spend on dementia, through preventing physical difficulties, limiting the costs of managing distressing symptoms, and delaying institutionalisation. She stressed the need to develop service systems that train staff and involve families.

More information: Linda Clare, Rehabilitation for people living with dementia: A practical framework of positive support, PLOS Medicine (2017). Journal information: PLoS Medicine Linda Clare, Rehabilitation for people living with dementia: A practical framework of positive support,(2017). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1002245
There may be a connection between tau proteins, which are linked to Alzheimers, and insulin resistance. Credit: MAP2-tau in neurons by GerryShaw is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

People with lifestyle-related diabetes are at an increased risk of developing dementia and, with both conditions on the rise, scientists are scrambling to understand their connection in the hope of finding new treatments.

There are 54 million people in Europe living with lifestyle-related  or Type 2  diabetes and the numbers are soaring, fuelled by the obesity epidemic. Alzheimer's, the most common form of dementia, affects around 10.5 million Europeans and this number is forecast to hit 18.7 million by 2050 as a result of population ageing.

People with Type 2 diabetes have higher levels of sugar in their blood because their cells have become resistant to insulin which normally regulates blood sugars. Insulin resistance in the brain has been linked to dementia in large, long-term studies but the exact mechanism behind the phenomenon is still being teased out.

"There is growing evidence from epidemiological studies suggesting that Type 2 diabetes is a risk factor for dementia, particularly Alzheimer's disease," said Dr Shreyasi Chatterjee at the University of Southampton, UK. "Therefore, we want to know more about the relationship between insulin resistance seen in diabetes and the protein build-up associated with Alzheimer's."

Protein tangles

Key to solving these puzzles are two proteins associated with memory loss in Alzheimer's  amyloid-beta, which accumulates in plaques that trigger brain cell death, and tau proteins, which cause tangles in the brain.

"Insulin resistance in the brain can make it difficult for Alzheimer's patients to process the sugar which is needed to fuel brain cells," said Dr Chatterjee. "It disrupts normal signalling pathways in the brain and can also hamper the brain's natural mechanism for clearing misfolded proteins that trigger memory loss."

As part of the EU-funded AlzDiabetes project, Dr Chatterjee is focusing on the role of tau proteins in fruit flies that have been genetically programmed to mimic the kind of neurodegeneration seen in Alzheimer's disease.

Fruits flies are often used in genetic research as they have around 75 % of the genes that cause human disease and they are easy to work with thanks to their short breeding times. Dr Chatterjee worked with a population of fruit flies bred to have excessive tau proteins, and experimented with adding insulin receptor substrate (IRS)  a key player in processing insulin.

She found that adding IRS gave the fruit flies better memories and longer lifespans, whereas knocking out the gene that produces it increased the level of tau proteins. This new observation is the most direct evidence to date of a direct connection between insulin resistance seen in diabetes and the tau tangles seen in Alzheimer's disease.

Her team also observed that when the flies were insulin resistant their brains were unable to clear away the toxic tau proteins, providing an explanation of why people with Type 2 diabetes might develop Alzheimer's.

Curbing dementia risk

As scientists learn more about how insulin resistance affects the brain, researchers hope that controlling blood sugar in diabetic patients will curb their dementia risk.

"We already know that treating Alzheimer's disease with inhaled insulin (a diabetes medication) reduces cognitive impairment," said Dr Chatterjee. "Other diabetes drugs are now in clinical trials to test whether they could slow the progression of dementia."

In addition to having a higher risk of Alzheimer's, diabetes patients are also more likely than the average person to develop Parkinson's disease. Professor Yifat Miller at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel has explored the relationship between diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's as part of the EU-funded AbetaAlphasynTau project.

Her team used computer simulations to model the interactions at the molecular level between the amyloid-beta protein, which is associated with Alzheimer's, alpha-synuclein, which builds up in the brains of Parkinson's patients, and amylin, a hormone produced by the pancreas. The project pinpointed crucial fragments of these proteins that make them stickier when they interact.

"We are now developing molecules that would inhibit these interactions," Prof. Miller said. "The new molecules will prevent the interactions between these proteins so that they will not clump together. Consequently, we could reduce the likelihood that people with Type 2 diabetes will develop Alzheimer's and Parkinson's later in life."

Using their detailed molecular knowledge of these brain diseases, Prof. Miller's team is designing molecules that could break the link between these three diseases. However, this is still in the early stages of drug design and several new medicines may be needed.

"The inhibitor we are working on is not a single molecule but a cocktail of molecules," she said. "It's very challenging but we are excited about laying the foundation for understanding how these diseases are connected."

Horizon brings you the latest news and features about thought-provoking science and innovative research projects funded by the EU. Our articles are written by independent science journalists and are designed to appeal to both scientists and non-scientists alike.
Credit: Shutterstock

Domestic violence is a violation of human rights with damaging social, economic and health consequences. It is any incident of controlling, coercive, threatening behaviour, violence or abuse. That abuse can be psychological, emotional, physical, sexual and financial.

The "domestic" element refers to abuse between people aged 16 or over who are, or have been, intimate partners or family members, regardless of gender or sexuality. Men, women or transgender people in straight, gay or lesbian relationships can perpetrate or experience it. So does this mean domestic violence is gender neutral? Is gender irrelevant to prevention efforts and to responding to survivors' needs? We do not think so.

Globally, direct experience of being subjected to domestic violence is greater among women then among men. In the UK, 27% of women and 13% of men have experienced some form of domestic abuse in their lifetime. The difference is most striking for sexual violence. Women are five times as likely as men to experience sexual assault.

Women also suffer more repeated and systematic violence, severe assault, severe injuries and hospitalisations then men. In the year ending March 2015 in England and Wales, 44% of female murder victims, compared with 6% of male murder victims, died at the hands of their partner or former partner. These statistics are based on population surveys, not reported crime or people accessing support services, which are more prone to bias (men are less likely than women to report violence perpetrated against them, for example).

There is a gender difference in prevalence and impact of domestic violence. But many men do experience domestic violence and, like women, may suffer long term damage to their mental health. In a study we carried out of 1,368 men attending GP surgeries in south-west England, the 23% who had experienced domestic abuse were between two and three times more likely to experience symptoms of anxiety and depression.

But an understanding of gender in domestic violence does not rest solely on the differences in prevalence and impact. It extends to how men perceive the abuse that they experience and their willingness to disclose that abuse and seek help.

In our study only a third of men who had experienced domestic abuse thought they had been in an abusive relationship. This is a much lower proportion than women. Understanding this type of gender difference is crucial in training health care and other professionals to enquire and respond appropriately to the domestic violence experienced by men.

Interviews with male survivors reveal recurrent disbelief and dismissive responses to the men who disclose the abuse they have been subjected to. In the male survivor advisory group that advises our research programme, we have heard chilling accounts of the joking response given by some GPs.

REPROVIDE, our current domestic violence research programme, aims to improve support and referral programmes for general practices. We are now including the needs of men and children exposed to domestic violence, working with survivors to help primary care services to respond compassionately and effectively.

Survivors of both sexes

Recognition of the gendered nature of domestic violence is not a justification to ignore the needs of male survivors. Instead, it needs to inform how we design programmes to support these men (and their children), with the understanding that some of their experiences and needs may be similar to women survivors, but others may be different.

We need to challenge cultural stereotypes which still assume that the perpetrators of domestic violence are men and the victims are women. However, at the same time, we must recognise that the majority of perpetrators are men. We still live in a patriarchal society where men have more power, more sense of entitlement, and (on average) more income then women.

Yet male survivors of domestic violence are largely invisible, as indeed female survivors were, until the feminist movement forced society to take notice. Men who experience domestic violence, whether in heterosexual or gay relationships, have until relatively recently been largely ignored. Work on improving society's response to domestic violence against women has not been matched by responses to male survivors.

The concept of gender refers to the socially constructed differences between women and men. Domestic violence in a relationship, and how we respond to it, is intrinsically related to how society views and behave as women and men. Gender roles vary from society to society, as does the prevalence and nature of domestic violence. To ignore the impact of gender on domestic violence does a disservice to people of any gender. Instead, the aim must be to strive for gender-informed prevention and responses to domestic violence.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Drs. Roni J. Bollag (from left), Sharad A/ Ghamande and Edward J. Kruse. Credit: Phil Jones

The Georgia Cancer Center at Augusta University is one of a dozen sites across the nation helping build a molecular profile of six cancers that often strike early and disparately.

Cancers of the breast, prostate, colorectal system, liver and kidney as well as multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells that make antibodies to fight viruses and bacteria, strike earlier, deadlier and more often in some racial and ethnic groups, the National Cancer Institute has shown.

Now patients and scientists at cancer centers like Augusta's are helping build a databank of information about the cancers that will ultimately help identify better prevention, diagnosis and treatment to address the disparities, said Dr. Sharad A Ghamande, chief of the Section of Gynecologic Oncology at the Medical College of Georgia and associate director for clinical research at the Georgia Cancer Center.

"This offers great potential to be a part of something that makes a big a difference for our patients and for all patients with cancer," said Ghamande, a principal investigator on the NCI minority Community Oncology Research Program, or NCORP, grant at the Georgia Cancer Center and MCG.

It's the NCORPs, which work to ensure underserved patients have access to cancer treatment, including enrollment in innovative treatment trials, which comprise the national network for this new NCI effort, the Early Onset Malignancies Initiative. The Georgia Cancer Center has been awarded $132,000 from the NCI for the new effort.

The NCI estimates it will take about two years to collect sufficient data and material on 2,400 patients across the nation with early onset of the six cancers who are black, Hispanic, American Indian, Alaska Native or white.

With the patient's consent, blood and tissue samples along with demographic information and clinical updates at six months and one year, will be provided to the national databank. The material will enable researchers across the nation to do detailed genomic and other studies that can help parse more about how and why these cancers occur differently in various racial and ethnic groups.

Like pervasive hypertension, some cancers, such as prostate and breast, tend to occur earlier and be more aggressive in blacks than whites, said Dr. Edward J. Kruse, chief of surgical oncology at MCG and the Georgia Cancer Center. And, like hypertension, we mostly don't know why, said Kruse.

Answers typically are not evident from usual examinations of biopsy tissues and blood samples, said Dr. Roni J. Bollag, MCG pathologist and director of the Biorepository at the Georgia Cancer Center. "We are trying to get to the molecular part of it." Bollag notes this initiative is a continuation of the NCI's Center for Cancer Genomics, which supports genomic analysis of large cancer samples to better understand underlying disease mechanisms.

"Is it a genetic mutation that will be passed down to the family? Is it something that is just unique to that individual? We really do not know that now," Ghamande said.

But the realities of disparities can be stark and deadly. Prostate cancer, for example, which is commonly diagnosed at age 66, according to the American Cancer Society, tends to be a cancer most men live with rather than die from, Kruse said, unless it occurs early. Before age 55, the cancer tends to be found at a later stage and require more aggressive treatment. Black men overall are more likely to have prostate cancer and nearly 2.5 times more likely to die from it than white males, according to the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

American Indians and Alaska Natives have 1.6 times higher rates of kidney cancer and 1.9 times higher rates of death than whites from this cancer that most often affects the lining of the tubules that filter and clean the blood, according to the NCI. The incidence of liver cancer is nearly twice the incidence in Hispanics age 20 to 59 versus whites in the same age range. And, even though breast cancer rates overall are lower in black women than white women, mortality rates are higher in black women and it tends to be diagnosed at a younger age, according to the Susan G. Komen organization.

Bollag, Distinguished Chair for Oncologic Pathology, is a 2004 graduate of MCG. The decade-old Biorepository at the Georgia Cancer Center also has a wide array of samples from different types of cancer that are used for diagnosis and research purposes. Cancer researchers in Augusta also will have preferential access to the NCI databank being built through the NCI's Early Onset Malignancies Initiative.

The Georgia Cancer Center's partners in the ongoing minority NCORP include Georgia's Morehouse School of Medicine, DeKalb Medical Center, University Cancer and Blood Center LLC, the Georgia Southern University Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health and Phoebe Cancer Center, which all help serve significant minority populations. About 35 percent of the Georgia Cancer Center's patients are minorities, Ghamande said.
Credit: Daniel Prudek/Shutterstock.com

Exposure to low oxygen environments, or hypoxia, can have significant consequences for our brain and body, according to a new study led by researchers from City, University of London and UCL (University College London).

The research, which is published in the journal PLOS ONE, found that although individuals' responses varied when at altitude, cognitive decline was seen in nearly all tasks.

In particular, it was seen that tasks associated with verbal ability/language; learning; and executive functions, which help us plan, organise and focus, were significantly affected. Those looking at memory and coordination were also impacted.

Furthermore, age was also significantly associated with cognitive decline at altitude and with delayed recovery upon return to more normal oxygen levels in Kathmandu, with the greatest decline seen in older adults. This suggests that cognitive recovery from low oxygen may take longer in older people.

As a result the study, which is the largest to investigate the impacts of environmental hypoxia on cognitive ability, could have significant implications for health care, as such hypoxic states are seen following surgery or due to particular health conditions.

To investigate the impact of such conditions, 198 participants were recruited from the general public as part of the Caudwell Extreme Everest Medical Research Expedition between February and June 2007.

Participants received a series of neuropsychological tests assessing memory, language, attention, and executive function using standardised and commonly used tests in clinical and research settings. These were administered at sea level in London, 3,500m at Namche Bazaar in Nepal, and at 5,300m at Everest Base Camp. Tests were also conducted upon return to 1,300m in Kathmandu. This group was compared with a control group.

The researchers found that cognitive declines were evident in the group on all tasks at Everest Base Camp, which was the highest point of ascent, but that it was greatest in executive function, complex attention, and verbal skills. It was also seen that while cognitive performance improved on descent from Everest Base Camp to Kathmandu (1,300m), it remained impaired when compared to pre-trek levels and even to those recorded at greater altitude (Namche at 3,500m) on ascent. As a result, the researchers found that return to lower altitude does not immediately restore the cognitive effects of exposure to hypoxia.

Professor Stanton Newman, Dean of the School of Health Sciences at City, University of London and senior author on the paper, said:

"By taking otherwise healthy individuals to Everest Base Camp our study has provided insight into how low oxygen environments impact on the human brain and body. We found that in particular, such environments lead to significant cognitive decline, with recovery taking longer with age. As hypoxia did not have the same effect on everyone  some were more prone to neurocognitive decline than others  we hope this study will give further insight into how we can respond to hypoxia-related cognitive impairment in clinical settings, particularly in older patients, in order to guide therapy and thereby minimise the magnitude and duration of impairment."

More information: Konstadina Griva et al. Caudwell Xtreme Everest: A prospective study of the effects of environmental hypoxia on cognitive functioning, PLOS ONE (2017). Journal information: PLoS ONE Konstadina Griva et al. Caudwell Xtreme Everest: A prospective study of the effects of environmental hypoxia on cognitive functioning,(2017). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0174277
The World Health Organization warned Tuesday of large measles outbreaks in countries where immunisation has dropped, after more than 500 cases of the highly contagious disease were reported across Europe in January.

"With steady progress towards elimination over the past two years, it is of particular concern that measles cases are climbing in Europe," the agency's regional director for Europe, Zsuzsanna Jakab, said in a statement.

"Today's travel patterns put no person or country beyond the reach of the measles virus," she said.

The respiratory disease, characterised by high fever and small red spots, usually triggers only mild symptoms, but it remains one of the leading causes of death among young children globally.

Severe complications can occur, however, leading to miscarriage in pregnant women, brain swelling or the risk of death by pneumonia.

The virus is spread by coughing and sneezing, and by close contact with infected individuals.

France, Germany, Italy, Romania, Poland, Switzerland and Ukraine were the most affected, accounting for 474 of the 559 cases reported for January.

In these countries, national vaccination levels against the virus are below the 95 percent threshold considered necessary for protecting the entire population.

Preliminary figures for February indicate that the number of new infections is rising sharply, the WHO said.

The figures cover the agency's entire European region, covering 53 countries including Israel, Kazakhstan and Russia.

"I urge all endemic countries to take urgent measures to stop transmission of measles within their borders, and all countries that have already achieved this to keep up their guard and sustain high immunisation coverage," Jakab said.

"Outbreaks will continue in Europe, as elsewhere, until every country reaches the level of immunisation needed to fully protect their populations," she added.

Currently, the largest outbreaks are occurring in Italy and Romania.

The number of measles cases in Italy has tripled this year, largely because parents are not getting children vaccinated because of fears of a link between the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination shot and autism, the health ministry said last week.

Several major studies, however, have shown no evidence of such a link.

In Romania, a measles outbreak has killed 17 children and infected thousands more since September, the result of both poverty and an anti-vaccination movement, local media reported Saturday.

In poor countries, many people do not have access to the $1 vaccine (94 euro cents), but the WHO has pointed out that children in affluent countries have a greater risk of infection because of scepticism about immunisation.

 2017 AFP
Researchers analyzed the effects of ultrasound exposure on baby rabbits and found the rabbits had lower bone density, raising questions about the common use of ultrasounds on pregnant women worldwide. Credit: 123rf/Pavel Losevsky

Young rabbits exposed to ultrasound during fetal development had weaker thighbones than unexposed rabbits, according to a study published in the Pertanika Journal of Science & Technology. While the finding applies to a relatively small group of test subjects, 142 young rabbits, it raises questions about the rising use of prenatal ultrasounds in women worldwide.

Ultrasounds use high-frequency sound waves to produce images of internal body structures, including developing fetuses. The ultrasound image is produced by the reflection of sound waves bouncing off the structures they hit. Ultrasound imaging has been used for over 20 years and is considered relatively safe.

However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cautions against using ultrasound for non-essential purposes. The concern is that ultrasound waves carry energy that heats tissues and can sometimes produces small gas bubbles in body fluids or tissues. The long-term effects are unknown.

With the use of neonatal ultrasounds increasingly popular and commonplacemany women have multiple ultrasounds throughout their pregnancya team from Universiti Teknologi MARA in Malaysia wanted to study potential side effects.

They studied 22 pregnant rabbits, who gave birth to 142 young. Four mother rabbits received no ultrasounds, while the others were exposed to ultrasound for 30 minutes, 60 minutes or 90 minutes once during pregnancy. Each rabbit received only one ultrasound, but the timing was varied throughout the three trimesters of pregnancy to see if there were different effects. The researchers analysed the baby bunnies' thighbones at once and five months.

Overall, bunnies exposed to ultrasound in the womb had significantly weaker bones than those not exposed. Bones can absorb far more energy than other tissues, which is why ultrasounds can have a disproportionate effect on them.

There were some variations between exposure amount and timing. In the first trimester of pregnancy, the bones have not yet ossified, so they were better able to handle the ultrasound heat. But by the second and third trimesters, the bones are thicker, and so there is a greater impact. The bunnies' bodies were unable to repair the damage and their bones had greater porosity and lower density than control subjects.

The researchers note that many times medical professionals encourage ultrasounds to boost business, and pregnant women enjoy getting the images. However, since rabbit bones are similar to human bones, this and other studies suggest it would be safer to restrict ultrasounds to high-risk pregnancies and other necessary situations, the researchers conclude.

More information: One-Time Prolonged Ultrasound Exposure during Early Pregnancy Affects Bone Strength in Young Aged Oryctolagus Cuniculus. One-Time Prolonged Ultrasound Exposure during Early Pregnancy Affects Bone Strength in Young Aged Oryctolagus Cuniculus. www.pertanika.upm.edu.my/Pertanika %20PAPERS/JST%20Vol.%2025%20(1)%20Jan.%202017/30%20JST%20Vol%2025%20(1)%20Jan%20%202017_0075-2016_pg359-370.pdf
Credit: Robert Kraft/public domain

Extremely high levels of lead in New Zealand cities in the 1970s and 1980s appear responsible for a loss of intelligence and occupational standing among today's adults.

The latest research from New Zealand's University of Otago long-running Dunedin Study shows that among more than 500 children who grew up in the era of leaded petrol, those exposed to lead had a lower IQ and social standing by the age of 38, relative to peers who had less exposure.

The research, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, says the effects are "slight but significant", also revealing that the higher the blood-lead level was in childhood, the greater the loss of IQ points and occupational status in adulthood.

New Zealand's lead levels were consistently higher than international standards during the 1970s and 1980s, largely due to motor-vehicle exhaust fumes.

The study's participants are part of the life-long examination of more than 1,000 people born in Dunedin in 1972 and 1973, and carried out by scientists from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit.

Blood-lead tests were conducted for 565 of them at age 11. Participants with more than 10 micrograms of lead per decilitre of blood at age 11 had IQs at age 38 that were, on average, 4.25 points lower than their less lead-exposed peers. They were also found to have lost IQ points relative to their own childhood scores. The study showed that for each five-microgram increase in childhood blood lead, a person lost about 1.5 IQ points by age 38.

The mean blood-lead level of the children at age 11 was 10.99 micrograms per decilitre of blood, slightly higher than the historical "level of concern" for lead exposure in the 1990s.

Ninety-four per cent of the children had blood-lead levels greater than five micrograms per decilitre, the level at which the United States' Center for Disease Control and Prevention now recommends a public-health intervention.

About half of the 11-year-olds had levels in excess of 10 micrograms per decilitre of blood.

The paper's senior author, Dunedin Study Associate Director Professor Terrie Moffitt of Duke University, says the data was from an era when such high lead levels were viewed as normal for children and not dangerous.

In 1984, when the Dunedin children were tested, only a lead level in excess of 35 micrograms per decilitre signalled a need for medical investigation. The study referred 10 children at the time for further testing.

"This research shows how far-sighted New Zealand was when the country banned leaded petrol in 1996.

"Lead exposure is very rare in Kiwi children today. But the findings suggest the importance of keeping up our vigilance against other environmental pollutants."

People screened for blood-lead level at age 11 and IQ-tested in childhood and at age 38, reveal an association between childhood lead exposures and a decline in IQ. Higher doses led to greater losses, including having occupational standing lower than their parents.Source: JAMA, 2017;317(12):1-8 doi:10.1001/jama.2017.1712 Credit: Credit - Duke University from JAMA, 2017;317(12):1-8

Researchers say what makes the New Zealand study an important natural experiment is that, because traffic goes through all neighbourhoods, the exposure to leaded petrol fumes was therefore distributed relatively evenly across all social groups.

That would not be the case with exposure to leaded paint or lead pipes in older structures, which pose more of a threat to poorer families.

The study also compared changes in social standing using the New Zealand Socioeconomic Index, which plots families on a six-point scale.

Children who were over 10 micrograms of lead attained occupations with socioeconomic status levels lower than those of their parents.

"As of the start of this year, the long-term adult cognitive outcomes of children exposed to lead were unknown, due to a lack of research. Our new paper fills that gap.

"In the 1980s, the Dunedin Study, guided by Professor Phil Silva, was influential in making New Zealanders aware that lead might be harmful to children," Professor Moffitt says.

Dunedin Study Director Professor Richie Poulton and Associate Professor Jonathan Broadbent, of Otago University's Faculty of Dentistry, are also co-authors.

Associate Professor Broadbent says today's adults are likely to have been affected by lead exposure as children.

"Most did not have their lead exposures tested as children. However, one way to test this is to test the baby teeth, if they have been kept."

Soil retains lead particles, with soils next to busy roads having the highest lead concentrations from the leaded-petrol era. Children playing outside either inhaled lead-laden dust or swallowed small amounts of leaded soil.

Lead is a powerful neurotoxin that can accumulate in a child's bloodstream, then settles into the bones, teeth and soft tissues and builds up in the body.

Paper co-author Professor Avshalom Caspi, of Duke University, says wherever you start in life, "lead is going to exert a downward pull".

"If everyone takes a hit from environmental pollutants, society as a whole suffers."

Main author Aaron Reuben, a Duke PhD candidate, says the lower occupational status is "partially but significantly explained by the loss of IQ".

"The cognitive deficits associated with lead persisted for decades, and showed in the kinds of occupations people got."
In a statement, the State Department justified its decision by arguing that it is not appropriate for the United States to participate in these hearings while litigation on these matters is ongoing in U.S. court.

That is absurd. For starters, the mere presence of American representatives at the hearings would have had no bearing on legal challenges to the Trump administrations efforts to ban people from Muslim-majority nations from traveling to the United States. In the past, State Department officials have attended hearings on contentious issues that have been the subject of litigation, including the C.I.A.s secret prison network, the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and immigration detention policy.

The failure to send representatives puts the United States in ignominious company. During the commissions most recent session, only the governments of Cuba and Nicaragua chose not to face their critics. The Cuban hearing dealt with human rights concerns of Cubans of African descent. The Nicaraguan hearing was about the countrys dismal record on freedom of expression.

No government enjoys being the subject of a hearing before the commission. But for years, the commissions sessions have served as a crucial forum for critics of government policy to air their grievances in a prominent, neutral forum. The government of Colombia, for instance, recently dispatched a senior representative to respond to concerns about a spate of attacks targeting human rights defenders. The government of El Salvador did the same when the subject was the threats and stigmatization faced by that countrys gay and transgender communities.
Despite updates to the latest version of Android being available for the Samsung Galaxy S7 elsewhere in the world, they have not rolled out in South Africa.

Cell C, MTN, Telkom, and Vodacom told MyBroadband that the decision on whether or not to update devices rests with the manufacturers.

It is not always guaranteed that an update that is made available in Europe will be made available in South Africa, said Telkom spokesperson Jacqui OSullivan.

Should the updates be made available in South Africa, this will probably only be available a month to two months after the European roll-out, as South Africa forms part of the second tier roll-out for the EMEA region.

MTN said it is only responsible for the testing and certification of software updates.

Cell C said the flagship devices from most manufacturers have already started rolling out Android 7 Nougat.

Others will continue to roll out until roughly mid-year, said Cell C.

Devices which have received the update include those from HTC and Motorola, while LGs V20 is launching with Android Nougat installed.

We asked smartphone manufacturers about Android 7 rolling out to their devices, and have detailed their replies below.

HTC

HTC said it started firmware over-the-air updates to Android 7 for the HTC 10 Lifestyle and HTC One A9 on 24 January.

An update for the HTC 10 started on 15 February.

The HTC One M9 received its update to Android 7 in March.

Motorola (Lenovo)

Lenovo told MyBroadband that Moto Z devices being shipped to South Africa come with Android 7.

Moto Z phones shipped to SA prior to the release of Android 7 have an upgrade available.

The Moto Z Play has also received an update to Android 7.

There are currently are no plans to launch Nougat on the Moto G Play, Lenovo A, and B devices, said Lenovo South Africas Patrick Halpin.

Huawei

Huawei said it would roll out Android 7 in South Africa on certain devices.

It added that the update process is more complex than just the manufacturers making them available.

Huawei said the P9, Mate 8, and Nova will receive updates to Android 7 once network approval has been given.

Huawei said the following devices come with Android 7 as standard: Huawei Mate 9, P10, P10 Plus, and P10 Lite.

Samsung

Samsung declined to comment.

However, according to Sammobile, only one of the three firmware variants listed for South Africa has been upgraded to Android 7.

Vodacoms firmware (XFV) is still on Android 6.0.1, along with the unbranded firmware other operators use (XFA). The XFE version of the Galaxy S7 firmware is on Android 7, but this firmware is not used by South African operators.

Update: Sony

Sony Mobile said that it will continue to roll out Android 7.0 to its devices.

It said that the latest version of Googles mobile operating system is already available on the Sony X range (Sony Xperia XZ, X compact, and X).

They have also already rollout out updates to the Z5 Range, including the Z5 Compact and Z5 Premium.

Updates for the Xperia XA and XA Ultra will follow soon.

Now read: Samsung unveils Bixby virtual assistant for Galaxy S8
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Armenian News  NEWS.am presents the election promises of five parties and four blocs which had submitted applications to participate in the parliamentary elections of Armenia.

This time we will present the views of political forces on foreign policy, particularly, Karabakh issue.

Yelk (Way Out) Bloc

The Bloc considers that the first thing to do in order to solve the Karabakh conflict is to restore the military balance between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Concessions on the Artsakh issue are out of the question because of Azerbaijan's aggressive policy.

The condition to discuss any concession with Azerbaijan is to recognize the right for self-determination of the Artsakh people.

In case of victory, Yelk (Way Out) Bloc will start negotiations with the EU to sign Association Agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area Agreement DCFTA). The Bloc considers that Armenias accession to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is wrong, as it will risk independence of Armenia and settlement of Karabakh conflict.

Free Democrats Party (FDP)

In case of victory, this political force will immediately suspend Armenias accession to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), as it will not be beneficial and may eve worsen the indicators of Armenia in all areas.

FDP c believes that Armenia's obligations in the CSTO should be radically reviewed.

According to FDP, European integration is a priority of Armenia's foreign policy, Armenia's membership in the EU is a strategic vision.

Armenia's relations with Russia should be built on mutual benefit on the basis of equality.

Artsakh's international recognition and integration, as well as security is a priority task for Armenia's foreign policy. Peaceful relations with neighboring countries cannot be reached at the cost of refusal of national rights and sovereignty.

FDP will demand that OSCE Minsk Group not to give right its member countries to sell arms to Azerbaijan. The same concerns Armenias allies in the CSTO.

Congress-PPA Bloc

The Bloc's slogan is Peace now. In case of victory, the bloc is going to make efforts to implement the Artsakh conflict settlement plan adopted in 2007, proposed by the OSCE Minsk Group and Armenian authorities, restoring the Karabakh as a full party in the settlement of the conflict.

Congress-PPA is going to normalize relations with Turkey without preconditions, excluding creation of an intergovernmental commission questioning the Armenian Genocide.

The Bloc considers that resolution of these two issues will give an opportunity to lift blockade of Armenian-Azerbaijani and Armenian-Turkish railroad and air routes, to participate in regional economic integration processes and projects.

The Bloc believes that reconciliation with Azerbaijan will ensure the security of Armenia and Artsakh's right to self-determination.

Republican Party of Armenia (RPA)

RPA's goal is that the status of Nagorno-Karabakh is finally determined by the people of Artsakh.

RPA is going to support all the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to promote peaceful negotiations aimed at the fair settlement of the problem. The Ruling Republican Party of Armenia is going to continue working on the involvement of the Republic of Artsakh as a full-fledged party in peace negotiations.

According to RPA Armenias accession to the Eurasian Economic Union has opened particularly broad opportunities for the economic development of this country. At the same time, the Republic of Armenia is going to consistently provide comprehensive support to the political and economic development of Artsakh.

Communist Party of Armenia (CPA)

Armenian communists consider that Armenia should continue negotiations with Azerbaijan within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group, and Karabakh should become a party to negotiations.

Armenian-Turkish relations should be built without preconditions. Western Armenia is the historical homeland of the Armenian people, therefore Armenian-Turkish relations must be built, taking into account the historical realities.

In case of victory, CPA is going to strengthen and develop political ties with Russia and other CIS countries at the same time expanding cooperation with the Eurasian Economic Union, the EU, China and other countries.

Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian (ORO) Bloc

The Bloc believes that Armenia should demonstrate a balanced approach in case of dealing with all geopolitical centers, aiming to raise the level of sovereignty and subjectivity of Armenia.

To achieve durable peace, the Bloc considers it necessary to maintain the balance of forces between Armenia and Azerbaijan and to rule out any unilateral concessions.

The key of the settlement of Karabakh conflict is in Yerevan, Stepanakert and Baku, but the final word belongs to the people of Artsakh. The Bloc believes that self-determination of Artsakh should be the main issue and then only the clarification of the borders of the Republic of Artsakh and Azerbaijan.

Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Dashnaktsutyun Party

ARF considers that the Artsakh issue is an integral part of Armenian Cause. ARF's position on this issue remains unchanged, Artsakh will be reunited with Mother Armenia. Artsakh independence is a temporary solution having strategic importance.

The Party proposes to strengthen the military cooperation between Armenia and Artsakh and to make efforts to involve Karabakh in negotiations as a full party.

The Party is going to make the Armenian Genocide recognition and compensation an integral part of its foreign policy agenda and to cancel protocols contradicting our national interests.

It is notable, that Revival Party and Tsarukyan Bloc had no provisions relating to foreign policy in their election programs.
The White House denied media reports that US President Donald Trump handed a $374-billion invoice to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for the US services rendered to NATO.

White House Senior Assistant Press Secretary Michael Short stated that these reports were absolutely false.

The Times newspaper of Great Britain had earlier reported, citing anonymous sources, that Trump had handed Merkel a bill for money her country owed NATO for defending it.

The bill was described as outrageous by one German minister.

But the chancellor took it calmly and will not respond to such provocations, the minister had said.
YEREVAN.  One of the two persons that are arrested along with Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic/NKR) former Defense Minister and Defense Army Commander Samvel Babayan, and along the lines of the case into the Igla missile system, is his military friend.

Babayans attorney Avetis Kalashyan on Tuesday told the aforesaid to Armenian News-NEWS.am, but he did not give any names.

Kalashyan added that he still is uninformed about the person whom Georgian law enforcement detained Monday, and on suspicion of transferring the aforementioned missile system to Armenia.

Also, the attorney noted that he disagrees with the Office of the Prosecutor General of Armenia statement, according to which during interrogation Babayan had admitted his involvement in the smuggling of the said weapon system and provided respective information.

In his words, Samvel Babayan and the two other arrestees have not yet faced one another, since no one has testified against Babayan.

In addition, the attorney argued that his client does not have sufficient grounds to consider his arrest as a political decision.

Criminal charges were brought against Samvel Babayan. On March 24, a capital city Yerevan court ruled he be placed under arrest for two months. Babayan, however, does not accept the charges against him.

He was detained on March 22, about which the National Security Service of Armenia had issued a statement noting that Samvel Babayan was detained within the framework of the criminal case into the illegal transferring of Igla missile system to Armenia.
YEREVAN.  Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan has arrived in Turkmenistan on an official visit, and he was received by President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov.

The president of Turkmenistan noted that Armenian-Turkmen relations stand out with their progress, and added that such official mutual visits contribute to the development of relations, the press office of the government of Armenia informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

Our peoples have historical warm relations and ties, Berdimuhamedov noted, in particular.

In turn, PM Karapetyan lauded the level of Armenian-Turkmen relations, but stated that these relations do not correspond to the level of present-day cooperation in the economic sector.

The objective of the visit [of ours] is to thoroughly discuss a variety of matters and projects () of economic cooperation, noted the Armenian PM. Also, he expressed confidence that the friendship between the two peoples is a good foundation for the further development of Armenia-Turkmenistan cooperation.

Subsequently, the interlocutors discussed economic issues.
Minsk does not plan on arguing either with Azerbaijan or Armenia, including with respect to the extradition of blogger Alexander Lapshin.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko stated the abovementioned at his talk with Armen Khachatryan, the Ambassador of Armenia to Belarus, BelTA news agency of Belarus reported citing the press service of Lukashenko.

We [i.e. Armenians and Belarusians] have been close peoples; we will remain as such, the Belarusian president stated on Tuesday, in capital city Minsk. Armenia has a different attitude toward Azerbaijan, but they [i.e. Azerbaijanis], too, are our [i.e. Belarusians] close peoples. Why should we [i.e. Belarusians] fight or argue with Azerbaijan or Armenia? Perhaps Azerbaijan and Armenia will need us one day.

Do you remember Lapshin? Listen, what does Armenia have to do with it? And Armenia never said anything about Lapshin. He was wanted by a country: Azerbaijan. When they detained him here [in Belarus], I thought why did they detain him here; let him go where its needed. But they detained him; the Interpol knew [about it]. We informed, according to procedure, as non-breakers of the law. To whom had we hand him over? To whoever had declared him wanted.

But the Belarusian President added that, no one wanted to take him.

And then they began to play this trump card, said Alexander Lukashenko. He is a citizen of three countries; [but] none of these countries made a claim for him.

And thats why there are specific contexts in any matter, and they consider the matter in a way that is convenient to someone.

After his visits to Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) in 2011 and 2012, Israeli Russian blogger and journalist Alexander Lapshin was blacklisted by Azerbaijan.

In June 2016, however, he paid a visit to Azerbaijan--but with a Ukrainian passport--and, subsequently, he published several articles criticizing the Azerbaijani authorities.

Afterward, Azerbaijan issued an international search for this famous blogger. On December 15, 2016, Lapshin was detained in the Belarusian capital city of Minsk, and based on this search.

On January 26 of the current year, the Minsk city court dismissed the blogger's appeal of the Belarusian General Prosecutor's Office decision to extradite him to Azerbaijan.

On February 7, the Supreme Court of Belarus dismissed the appeals that were filed into this case, and upheld the aforesaid decision by the General Prosecutors Office.

And on the evening of the same day, Belarus extradited Alexander Lapshin to the Azerbaijani capital city of Baku, where he was taken into custody.
By Kat Lonsdorf on 23 March 2017 for NPR Radio -

Image above:

Starship Technologies' delivery robots, which can be found traveling the sidewalks of Washington, D.C., get smarter the more they drive. Photo by Meg Kelly. From original article.

New Tech Despotism

By Jeremy Leggtett on 25 March 2017 for JeremyLeggett.net-

Image above: Promo for an Amazon Echo "assistant" Alexa is the artificial intelligence (AI) that will take your order and dispatch a robotic drone to deliver it to your door. A bit of text added by Juan Wilson. From ( https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazon-SK705DI-Echo-Black/dp/B01GAGVIE4 ).

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SUBHEAD: Beware of becoming dependent on robots and artificial intelligence supplying you what you need to survive.Here's a classic big city dilemma (sorry suburban folks): It's late at night, the weather is bad, and you're hungry. Your favorite restaurant is less than a mile away, but you don't want to leave the house, and you don't want to pay a $5 delivery fee  plus tip  for a $10 meal.So, what do you do?Back in the old days, you would have braved the elements  or learned to plan ahead. But those days are coming to an end, at least in Washington, D.C.A fleet of about 20 autonomous, knee-high robots recently has appeared on the sidewalks of the nation's capital, and they're out to revolutionize hyper-local delivery in big cities. Their mission? Bring takeout food from restaurants to hungry customers at home  while keeping the delivery cost to around a dollar.The robots are European, created in Estonia by a company called Starship Technologies . The company is new, but its tech experience runs deep: It was founded by two of the co-founders of Skype, Janus Friis and Ahti Heinla.https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/03/09/food-delivery-robots-postmates-officially-roll-out-in-dc-today/ xxxEach 35-pound bot is essentially a medium-sized cooler on six wheels, and drives at an average speed of about 4 miles per hour. It has lights and a tall, bright orange flag to make it more visible to pedestrians on the sidewalk.A smartphone app unlocks the shiny black lid to access the hollow, insulated holding area, and then automatically locks back into place.Here in Washington, Starship has teamed up with Postmates , the online delivery service, and the robots already are completing deliveries around the city.We wanted to see how they work, so we met up with Nick Handrick, the director of operations for Starship in the District, to go for a walk with one of the little bots."It's pretty small, pretty cute," he says, as we wait for the bot to get a new set of coordinates for the journey. This is just a test drive, but in an actual delivery, those coordinates would come after a consumer had placed a delivery through the Postmates app.Suddenly, the robot begins to move, almost silently. It's electric, so there isn't much sound aside from the quiet hum of the wheels on the pavement.The bot moves like a giant remote-control car, except there's no remote. It's driving entirely on its own, navigating the sidewalk using artificial intelligence technology that draws input from nine cameras all around the rim, GPS, and sensors that can help identify the speed of pedestrians in the immediate area.The bot's cameras recognize a lot  including walk signals and traffic lights, crosswalks and stop signs, Handrick explains. And they get smarter the more they drive, learning more about the sidewalks and traffic patterns of busy streets with every trip they take.And, Handrick says, if a bot finds itself in a situation it doesn't understand  an unfamiliar driveway, for instance, or next to a parked car with flashing lights  there's always a human operator monitoring things, so all the machine has to do is send a call for help. The human on the other side can look through the cameras and figure out the best action to take.SUBHEAD: AI, in its current state, is ripe for abuse by aspiring despots wanting centralized of power.This month evidence of the potential use of AI and robotics for social benefit continued to lag portentous developments. On the one hand, the prospects for improving healthcare systems continue to grow.Google plans a health record tracking system loosely based on the bitcoin concept and using its DeepMind AI, for example. It aims for real-time tracking of data by hospitals, health organisations and patients alike. Beneficiaries will have better treatment prospects. Lives will be saved.On the other hand, a Microsoft researcher warned openly this month that AI, even in its current state, is ripe for abuse by aspiring despots: perfectly suited to the centralizing of power, tracking of populations down to the last individual, the demonizing of outsiders, all while radiating authority via a faux neutrality. This is a fascists dream, said Microsofts Kate Crawford, pulling no punches. Power without accountability.All this before quantum computers have arrived on the scene , which they will within five years, Google is now saying. These machines will be significantly faster and more powerful than current computers.Ordinary mortals outside the campuses of Google, IBM and the like cannot imagine what will be possible with the algorithms that they will be using. Artificial intelligence runs wild while humans dither , read a headline in the Financial Times this month. It was a major understatement.With the integration of AI and robotics, the threats to social coherence compound. Google-owned robotics firm Boston Dynamics unveiled a hybrid robot easily capable of inducing nightmares Though it is designed currently only for manual tasks, it resembles a Terminator riding on a hoverboard. This in a world where robots can be programmed, today, literally to read the minds of humans they interactive with, provided the latter wear electrodes on their heads.Thus connected, the robot can correct simple mistakes in manipulating objects by translating electrical patterns from the human brain into code.Warnings are proliferating of intelligent virtual helpers that would take away human jobs by default , in the near term, especially in customer-facing roles in banks and call centres. Large-scale deployment of such machines would quickly deepen the inequality gap , fuelling the very social divisiveness on which the new despotism feeds.It is not as though practitioners of AI and robotics are blind to the dangers. This month, 40 experts convened at Arizona State University for a workshop to plot Doomsday scenarios , and how to counter them.Teslas Elon Musk and Skypes Jaan Tallinn funded the exercise. Bloombergs account of the meeting suggested that the experts were rather better at dreaming up the Doomsday scenarios than they were the countermeasures.Other initiatives include the creation of AI Now , an online research community researching social impacts of AI, and the idea of a tax on robots, to help finance social adjustments, supported among others by Bill Gates.Speaking of the Microsoft founder, clearly much will depend in this unfolding drama on the character and actions of the tech billionaires whose companies and technologies are located in the heart of the emerging drama. They will be increasingly unaccountable, on recent evidence.This month Snap Inc, the parent of Snapchat, went public in one of the most successful IPOs ever. Its shares soared, valuing the company at $28bn. And incredibly, Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel successfully persuaded a critical mass of shareholders to invest without their being given any voting rights at all.This lack of governance and accountability  and investors willingness to tolerate it  sets a dangerous precendent in capitalism. If Snap rides on its IPO cash proceeds to rival Facebook, Google, and the others in scale, the world had better hope 26 year old Spiegel is a man with a heart and conscience.That question mark will also apply to the founders of new companies that will inevitably try to emulate Snap. Worryingly, experts on a recent conference panel on tech leadership professed that psychopaths are rife in Silicon Valley Studies suggest that whereas the proportion of psychopaths in the general population is around 1%, it is 4-8% in the corporate environment.To see how this can play out in the tech world, consider the recent chronicle of alleged malfeasance and definite gross unpleasantness at Uber . It makes ominous reading for those of us who hope that tech and tech and tech companies can be a transformative force for social progression.And the whole saga is a manifestation of the leaders character and values.Which brings us to the theme of truth. In a world where your tech is drifting almost unopposed towards being perfect infrastructure for despots, wherein a new elite of breathtakingly wealthy leaders might be in danger of enhanced levels of psychopathy, the approach of the populist right to use of propaganda assumes critical importance.And here too the news is bad. New research from Columbia University , analysing 1.3 million articles in the run up to the US election, has shown that the internet itself did not favour the creation and spread of fake news. Rather, it was deliberate use of the technology for this purpose by a Breitbart-led right-wing media ecosystem that created havoc with reporting of true facts.More evidence of how this lie machine works comes out by the week. The Guardian dug deep into the origins of Cambridge Analytica , the controversial company that claims to use personal data to swing elections, and which may indeed have delivered on this claim in the US presidential election and the Brexit referendum.More emerged on how it is funded, with big-data billionaire Robert Mercer , backer of Donald Trump, prominent in the story. The whole narrative raises profound questions about the state, and future, of our democracies Again, tech does not appear to be helping the defenders of democracy, but abetting the aspiring new despots. Accusations that Google has been spreading fake news have intensified. It has been found to be repeatedly sharing falsehoods and conspiracy theories through its featured snippets and search functionality.There have also been major problems with its advertising this month, with organisations including the Guardian newspaper cancelling accounts because their ads had been placed next to extremist material Amid all this chaos, the founder of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee, called this month for tighter regulation of online political advertising . This, among many other responses by society, is clearly going to be needed. Perhaps the British government can lead the way, for the current US government certainly will not.This is not as impossible a prospect as it may sound. The UK government was one of the organisations to pull its ads from Google because of proximity to inappropriate extremist content.
Thanks to the discounts on the Russian railway, it will be easier to transport goods from Armenia beyond Ural.

Deputy General Director of Finance and Economy at South Caucasus Railway CJSC, Ilya Kelperis, told the aforementioned to Armenian News  NEWS.am.

He stressed that the beneficial tariffs on transportation will be used not only for separate routes but from door to door to any point in Russia.

In early February discounts were announced (for customers of Armenian railway) for BFI ferry, which provides services to the line between Georgian Poti and Russian Caucasus ports. For this purpose, South Caucasus Railway CJSC obtained a slot charter on the ferry. South Caucasus Railway undertook all the financial risks associated with the ferry.

In late February and early March, the talks with Georgian Railway and parent company of South Caucasus Railway CJSC, Russian Railways JSC, were successfully completed. The talks at the level of Armenian PM Karen Karapetyan, who was on an official visit to Georgia then, were very useful in reaching agreements with Georgian partners, while Russian Railways offered beneficial conditions in the territory of Russia.

Consequently, the through fare from Armenia to the point of destination in Russia will reduce twice on average, both in case of export and import.

The tariffs will now be definitely competitive with the vehicles, Kelperis added. Now 1st class cargo (including construction stones) will be transported from Yerevan to Moscow for $70 per ton, to St Petersburg for $75, Novosibirks$85, Khbaraovsdk  $110.

For the same $110, it is possible to deliver the cargo on a vehicle only till Moscow, whereas there are still about 9,000 km from there to Khabarovsk, Kelperis said.

Together with this, he stressed that the railway trains and cargo trucks can each work in its own niche. Nevertheless, the export of fruit and other products (which constantly grows) can be transported faster by cars (unless there is force majeure in Upper Lars), while the railway can transport more properly sized and dimensional goods: metal, stones, crops, etc.

I think, the Armenian exporters of tufa and other cover stone will want to interest constructors not only in Rostov or Moscow, but also beyond Ural, Kelperis said.

The ferry can work profitably even in case of incomplete loading, he added. It can sail up 70 percent full, and set out being loaded by only 30 percent. Given the 42 carriage capacity of the ferry and three races per month, this will make up about 12 percent of the commodity turnover between Armenia and Russia, Kelperis noted.

The concession of the Armenian railway (whose operator is the South Caucasus Railway) has been owned by Russian Railways since 2008, while since 2014 it has been the operator of BFI on Poti-Caucasus port line.
President of the Artsakh Republic (Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh) Bako Sahakyan on Tuesday received the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk and officials accompanying them.

At the outset of the meeting, President Sahakyan congratulated newly-appointed French and American co-chairmen Stephane Visconti and Richard Hoagland on taking the responsible positions, wishing them success in their mission, the press-service of the Artsakh Presidents Office informed Armenian News  NEWS.am.

During the meeting issues related to the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict settlement and recent developments were discussed.

Apart from this, President Sahakyan noted that Azerbaijan keeps adhering to its deconstructive stance violating the ceasefire regime and continues to pursue the anti-Armenian policy. He also underscored the need for developing mechanisms aimed at maintaining the ceasefire regime and revealing violations, considering this as one of the key components to the peace process. Furthermore, Bako Sahakyan reconfirmed the commitment of the official Stepanakert to the peaceful settlement of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict within the frameworks of OSCE Minsk Group.
The Armenian-American bilateral security partnership is a source of great pride to us, U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills announced Tuesday at the opening of a photo exhibit hosted by the Armenian MFA in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the U.S.-Armenian diplomatic relations.

Our bilateral security partnership is also a source of great pride to us, he said, adding that the joint work is aimed at developing military and medical capacities and implementation of defense reforms in Armenia. Within the framework of this partnership, the U.S. has provided $48 million technical equipment to Armenia, in particular, medical systems, tactical radios, non-lethal equipment, etc.

210 members of the Armenian military have graduated from the U.S. military courses and schools. And US military has invested more than $4 million in 22 humanitarian assistance programs here in Armenia that have renovated schools, orphanages, fire stations, the diplomat said.

Ambassador Mills also referred to Armenias participation in peacekeeping missions. As I often said, Armenia deserves enormous credit for becoming exporter of security. And U.S. Government applauds Armenias impressive contributions to international peacekeeping operations around the world, he noted.
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STEPANAKERT. - The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group on Tuesday met with President of the Artsakh Republic Bako Sahakyan in Stepanakert.

At the briefing following the meeting, the Russian co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, Igor Popov, noted that the visit was dedicated to the meetings with Azerbaijani President on March 11 and his Armenian counterpart on Monday, Armenian News  NEWS.am correspondent reports.

According to him, a number of topics were discussed at the meeting, one of them being the process of implementing the agreements reached at Vienna and Saint Petersburg summits.

We listened to the position of each side. We will continue this conversation at the meeting of the Minsk Group in Vienna. We also intend to meet with the OSCE leadership. Apart from this, we plan to have a meeting with the High Level Planning Group, Popov said.

Asked whether Stepanakert will soon join the negotiation process, the mediator noted that this topic wasnt discussed at the meeting.

Today we discussed issues related to the expansion of [Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Andrzej] Kasprzyks office. You know that agreement was reached on expanding his office by seven persons. There are also a number of issues related to technical points. Today Andrzej Kasprzyk expressed his vision on how this can be done. I hope this will be one of the topics, which we will discuss in April, Popov said.
STEPANAKERT. - France is ready to host the meeting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents on its territory.

French co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, Stephane Visconti, said the aforementioned at the briefing following the meeting between the co-chairs and Artsakh President Bako Sahakyan in Stepanakert on Tuesday.

Asked whether a high-level meeting is possible, the French diplomat said that as soon as the conditions are created, this will happen. According to him, this may take place in France: The French side has expressed willingness to arrange the meeting on its territory or elsewhere, but, of course, this should be productive, Visconti added.

The mediator underscored the importance of observing the ceasefire regime, noting that they would first of all very much like there to be no ceasefire violations. At the same time, it is necessary to move forward, he said.

Referring to the cooperation with the Minsk Group, Visconti noted that the work is underway although not everyone sees and knows this. He declined to provide details, noting that the talks are confidential, but, according to him, this doesnt mean that nothing is being done.

The co-chair also added that the process is complex, and at the same time the dialogue between the presidents of the co-chairing states is very intense.

Apart from this, the diplomat recalled that the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents earlier visited Paris and discussed the Karabakh issue very deeply and intensively at the meeting with the French President. He expressed hope that Tuesdays meeting will help contribute to the talks.
Allianz SE (AZSEY) shares edged higher in Frankfurt Tuesday after a unit of Europe's biggest insurance group reached an agreement with Bill Gross over his departure from Pacific Investment Management Co. in 2014.

PIMCO, the world's biggest bond fund which is wholly-owned by Allianz, parted ways with Gross two and a half years ago amid accusations of poor leadership skills and dwindling returns at its flagship Total Return Fund, which Gross managed. The 72-year old Gross, who now works for Janus Capital, filed a $200 million lawsuit against PIMCO in 2015, while the fund hit back with accusations of "egregious miscount" and abusive behaviour.

"Although the settlement's terms are confidential, Mr. Gross and PIMCO confirmed that any proceeds from the suit will be donated to charity, as Mr. Gross had promised since the beginning of the suit," PIMCO said in a statement posted on its website. "PIMCO recognizes the enormous contribution to its success made by Mr. Gross and its other founders and leaders, such as James Muzzy, William Podlich, Bill Thompson, Walter Gerken, and Chris Dialynas, the visionaries who created a global investment powerhouse, and an entire industry of fixed-income investments."

"Bill Gross has always been larger-than-life," said PIMCO CIO in a statement. "He has a well-deserved stellar reputation as an investor and a philanthropist. Bill has had an enormous influence on PIMCO and the careers of many who have passed through its halls. He built this business from the ground up and we have great respect and admiration for his talents."

Allianz shares gained around 0.4% in the opening two hours of trading in Frankfurt to change hands at 170.22 each, extending their three-month gain to just over 9.5%.
The OnMilwaukee Summer Festivals Guide is presented by Potawatomi Hotel & Casino. Create your summer story by participating in casino wide promotions with the chance to win big. This summer I will own it! Click here for more details.

After taking a three-year break, Rock the Green is coming back to Milwaukee.

On Sept. 17, Reed Street Yards in Walker's Point will host the environmentally-friendly and focused music festival. The main stage features musical acts like Lord Huron, Robert Delong, Best Coast and more, while the smaller Pedal Power Stage will play host to several local performers.

Of course, music is just a part of Rock the Green's mission, which also focuses on shedding a light on the environment, sharing insight of what can be done to help sustain it and emphasizing zero waste efforts with the result of a feather light eco-footprint.

In order to do this, the festival will have environment educators teaching attendees how to properly dispose of your waste. The festival will also be powered by a combination of 100 percent B20 biodiesel generators and bicycle power, and at night, LED lights will be used to conserve energy. Tickets will be paperless, as well as get you an aluminum water bottle, and all the food vendors will be serving up farm fresh food, so you can enjoy tasty, organic cuisine.

Tickets for Rock the Green are on sale now. General admission tickets are $35, while VIP tickets are $75 using the promo code, GREEN. Don't forget to also make a donation to the organization, so it can continue to educate and promote sustainability.

Lineup

Main Stage

Lord Huron

Robert DeLong

Best Coast

The Heavy

Thao & The Get Down Stay Down

Trapper Schoepp

Pedal Power Stage

Great Lake Drifters

Eagle Trace

Evan Christian

ECO-KIDS STAGE lineup:
This is the idea that RICAS 2020 will be helping to realise: surplus energy generated by wind turbines and solar cells is used to compress air, which is stored in caverns in solid bedrock. When air is compressed, it heats up, so a separate underground heat store stockpiles the heat generated by the compression process. When the energy is needed, the air is released through a gas turbine, which generates electricity. The more hot air that is released through the heat store on its way out, the more electricity will be generated; in other words: the more effective is the energy storage. Credit: Giovanni Perillo, SINTEF. Illustration: Knut Gangasster, SINTEF

Wind and sun, two unpredictable resources, are becoming ever more important as sources of energy in Europe. This means that we face a growing need for energy storage facilities, because if energy cannot be used immediately when it is generated, it needs to be stored until it is needed.

The least expensive method is to use hydropower reservoirs as 'batteries': i.e. generate electricity using the stored water, when power is in short supply, and subsequently pump the water back uphill when surplus renewable energy is available. However, this is a practical solution only in mountainous regions, such as we have in Norway and a few other countries.

What if less fortunate countries and regions could use air instead of water as a way of storing energy? Under the auspices of the European Union, scientists from all over Europe are attempting to turn this concept into a viable prospect, via a research project (RICAS 2020) of which SINTEF is a member. The project participants have in mind all parts of the world where sealed disused caverns could be used as storage sites.

Like a hot bicycle-tyre pump

The general principle, which has already been adopted at a few sites around the world, is essentially a matter of using surplus electric power to compress air, which is then stored in an underground cavern. When power needs to be made available, the air is released through a gas turbine that generates electricity. Existing plants of this type are often used to meet peak demand as a supplement to classical power plants, providing the right amount of electricity needed at different times during the day.

The physics governing storing energy in the form of compressed air is a result of a law of nature familiar to every user of a bicycle pump: the process of compressing air heats it up. Bicycle pumps compress air in order to increase the pressure of the tyres, and in doing so, makes the pump hot.

"The more of the heat of compression that the air has retained when it is released from the store, the more work it can perform as it passes through the gas turbine. And we think that we will be able to conserve more of that heat than current storage technology can, thus increasing the net efficiency of the storage facilities," says Giovanni Perillo, project manager for SINTEF's contribution to RICAS 2020.

Underground caverns as heat storage

The two largest compressed air stores in the world are in Germany and the USA. They are underground chambers created in salt formations. But these plants lose a large proportion of the potential energy of the compressed air, because they do not incorporate a system to store the heat produced during the air compression stage.

The participants in RICAS 2020 have a recipe for reducing these losses in future underground storage caverns. At the core of the recipe is an extra station that they have incorporated in their solution.

On its way down to the underground cavern, the hot compressed air passes through a separate cavern filled with crushed rock.

The hot air heats up the rock, which retains a large proportion of the heat.

The cold air is stored in the main cavern

When the air subsequently returns through the crushed rock on its way to be used to generate electricity, the flow of air is reheated by the stones.

Hot air is then expanded through the turbine generating electricity

Cheaper than batteries

SINTEF's project manager explains that it is estimated that this technology could raise the efficiency of the system to as much as 70-80%. The corresponding figures for most of the existing storage sites are no better than 45 to 55 per cent, which means that the produced energy is only half of what was initially used to compress the air into the cavern.

"The project is based on the belief that our solution will offer better energy storage than batteries can ever provide, thanks to its longer lifetime and lower capital cost per kWh of stored energy. We also expect that it can be employed virtually irrespective of the type of geological formation available," says Perillo.

Disused caverns would be just the thing

According to Perillo, there is only a single requirement as regards the choice of site. Large hollow spaces must already exist, as it would be too expensive to excavate new caverns and make them safe.

The participants in the project are therefore envisaging that existing disused underground spaces could be reopened to house the compressed air.

"We regard disused tunnels and mineshafts as potential storage sites, and Norway has those in plenty," says Perillo.

Membrane to seal the cavern walls

The SINTEF researcher is himself a materials scientist. In this EU project he is responsible for SINTEF's research and development efforts regarding the sealing membrane that will be needed to keep the compressed-air storage sites - literally - airtight.

SINTEF scientists are also contributing their expertise in underground technology, with calculations that will ensure that their solutions, including the sealant materials, will be capable of withstanding the pressure they will be exposed to.

The project will lead to a set of technical specifications and detailed cost analyses. Whether or not a pilot plant is set up will depend on the results of these studies.

"If it turns out that our solution functions well, exciting new possibilities will emerge, not only for energy storage itself, but also for industrial applications of compressed air," says Perillo.

Many previous plans abandoned

In the midst of the Alpine landscape of southern Germany, Dr. Matthias Finkenrath, Professor of Energy Engineering at Kempten University of Applied Science in Bavaria, has been researching the use of compressed air for energy storage for many years.

He explains that poor energy efficiency has reduced interest in the few plants that are already in operation, and that in the course of the past 15 years, a great deal of money has been invested in developing more energy-efficient versions of the compressed-air energy storage concept.

However, according to the professor, the combination of major technological challenges, low energy prices and uncertainties in the energy market has acted as a "showstopper", which has led to all plans for large-scale demonstration plants being postponed or abandoned. Nothing would therefore please the professor more than seeing the EU project meet its goals.

Believes hot energy storage could lead to a breakthrough

"Compressed air stores of the sort that this project is aiming for, could provide significantly lower costs and greatly improve storage capacity compared to for example batteries. If this project leads to storage plants being established under a wide range of geological conditions, that in itself would be an important step forward.

"If the project partners are also successful with their plans for efficient heat storage, the use of compressed air for energy storage could be on the edge of a breakthrough," says Professor Finkenrath.

Provided by SINTEF
El Palenque royal palace. Credit: Elsa M. Redmond and Charles Spencer.

(Phys.org)A pair of archaeologists with the American Museum of Natural History has unearthed a palatial compound in El Palenque's plaza in the Oaxaca Valley in Mexico. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Elsa Redmond and Charles Spencer describe their work, what they have uncovered and how their findings fit with the emergence of organized states in Mesoamerica.

The Oaxaca Valley near the southern tip of Mexico has been offering up clues of past civilizations for several decadesa team has been working at the El Palenque site in particular since 1993. In this new effort, the researchers focused on a dig on the north end of the plazathe site of what the researchers believe was the home and business center for the ruler of an ancient empire.

The palace has been dated to approximately 2,100 to 2,300 years ago, a time before the Aztecs. Most in the field believe that the civilization that existed in Oaxaca was among the earliest states to come into existence in Mesoamerica. Redmond and Spencer suggest that their findings at the palace site back up that theory.

The palace, the pair report, was well preserved and covered approximately 2,790 square meters and had not only living quarters for the ruler and his family, but business offices, a staircase, a dining area and a place to perform sacrifices. The researchers report that construction techniques used by the builders suggest the building was designed ahead of time and that it was likely a single construction effort that would have taken a lot of organization. Also, its large size demonstrated that the ruler had a lot of manpower at his disposal. The researchers also note that personal details are still evident in some parts of the palace, such as the cistern for collecting rainwater in the residential quarters and the drain carved into stone to bring in fresh water and remove waste.

Water shrine, where a stone-lined drain descending from rulers residence supplied rainwater to cistern. Credit: Elsa M. Redmond and Charles Spencer.

Redmond and Spencer suggest that the palace is likely one of the oldest multifunctional palaces in the valley and offers more evidence of the advancement of an organized state in the area.

More information: Elsa M. Redmond et al. Ancient palace complex (300100 BC) discovered in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1701336114 Abstract

Recently completed excavations at the site of El Palenque in Mexico's Valley of Oaxaca have recovered the well-preserved remains of a palace complex dated by associated radiocarbon samples and ceramics to the Late Formative period or Late Monte Alban I phase (300100 BC), the period of archaic state emergence in the region. The El Palenque palace exhibits certain architectural and organizational features similar to the royal palaces of much later Mesoamerican states described by Colonial-period sources. The excavation data document a multifunctional palace complex covering a maximum estimated area of 2,790 m2 on the north side of the site's plaza and consisting of both governmental and residential components. The data indicate that the palace complex was designed and built as a single construction. The palace complex at El Palenque is the oldest multifunctional palace excavated thus far in the Valley of Oaxaca. Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

 2017 Phys.org
What drives bacterial strain diversity in the gut? Although there are a number of possible explanations, a recent opinion piece published in TRENDs in Microbiology by Dr Pauline Scanlan, a Royal Society  Science Foundation Ireland Research Fellow at the APC Microbiome Institute, University College Cork, addresses one potentially important and overlooked aspect of this unresolved question.

The human gut is host to an incredible diversity of microbes collectively known as the gut microbiome. Our gut microbiomes interact with us, their human hosts, to perform a myriad of crucial functions ranging from digestion of food to protection against pathogens. Whilst superficially it may seem that the microbes inhabiting the human gut are stable and broadly similar between individuals, recent advances in sequencing technology that allow for high-level resolution investigations have shown that our gut microbiomes are dynamic, capable of rapid evolution and unique to each individual in terms of bacterial species and strain diversity. This unique inter-individual variation is of crucial importance as we know that differences in bacterial strain diversity within species can have a range of positive or negative consequences for the human host  for example some strains of a given bacteria are harmless whilst another strain of the same bacterial species could kill you. A classic example of this is different strains of the gut bacterium Escherichia coli - E. coli Nissle 1917 is used as a probiotic and E. coli O157:H7 has been responsible for a number of deadly food-borne pathogen outbreaks. Therefore a better understanding of what drives bacterial strain diversity is not just fundamental to our understanding of the ecology and evolution of microbes but is also highly relevant for improvements in human health and disease prevention.

Scanlan researches microbial evolution and ecology in experimental and natural populations. She is particularly interested in investigating the processes underpinning strain variation in the gut and in this opinion piece provides compelling evidence in support of a role for a specific process called antagonistic coevolution between bacteria and bacteriophages (phages) as a key driver of microbial diversity in the human gut.

What is antagonistic coevolution between bacteria and phages and why is it relevant to strain diversity and human health? Phages are viruses that infect bacterial cells by binding to specific receptors on the cell. Upon infecting a bacterial cell, they essentially hijack their bacterial host to make multiple viral progeny which they release into the environment. However, bacteria are highly adaptable and can evolve resistance to phage infection, and this resistance evolution in turn can select for phage novel infectivity and so on. Over time, this continual selection for resistance and infectivity evolution (coevolution) between bacteria and phages has been shown to drive microbial diversity in both experimental and natural microbial communities. Crucially, these changes in microbial diversity may also have a wide range of functional consequences and ultimately impact on host health. For example, evolving resistance to phages may increase or decrease bacterial virulence and change how the bacteria interact with their human host immune system.

"Although research into microbial coevolution in natural populations is very much in its infancy, I hope this opinion piece will provide a different insight and open up new discussions into how fundamental evolutionary processes, such as coevolution, could potentially shape microbial diversity and functionality in the gut and ultimately impact on host health," Scanlan says.

Provided by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)
The demand for employees in STEM careers (science, technology, engineering and math) is particularly high, as corporations compete to attract skilled professionals in the international market. What is known as "curriculum intensification" is often used around the world to attract more university entrants  and particularly more women  to these subjects; that is to say, students have on average more mandatory math courses at a higher level. Scientists from the LEAD Graduate School and Research Network at the University of Tubingen have now studied whether more advanced math lessons at high schools actually encourages women to pursue STEM careers. Their work shows that an increase in advanced math courses during two years before the final school-leaving exams does not automatically create the desired effects. On the contrary: one upper secondary school reform in Germany, where all high school students have to take higher level math courses, has only increased the gender differences regarding their interests in activities related to the STEM fields. The young female students' belief in their own math abilities was lower after the reform than before. The results have now been published in the Journal of Educational Psychology.

In order to guarantee a good knowledge of math, all school students in the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg have to attend four lessons of math per week during the final two years before their leaving exams in the wake of a school reform introduced in 2002. Prior to this, it was possible to choose a math course that only involved three lessons per week. Young women in particular often selected the latter option. However, as a good knowledge of math is linked to the choice of university courses in the STEM fields, experts expected more young women to opt for a STEM course after the reform.

The scientists therefore examined whether the reform had any influence on the selection of university course later, what effects it had on the math performance of young women and young men, how upper secondary students rated their own achievements before and after the reform and, finally, whether their interest in activities related to STEM subjects had changed. To this end, the researchers compared data from approx. 4,700 high school students before the reform to the same number of students after it.

The results showed that the difference in achievements between young men and young women in math had diminished after the reform, even if young men still performed better. However, although the female students' achievement was higher after the reform, their belief in their own math skills was lower than before the reform. "This may be because they'd more often selected courses with less math teaching before the reform and the higher performance level after the reform then led them to underrate their own accomplishments," says Nicolas Hubner, a primary author of the study, suggesting one reason for this. Young men's belief in their own math skills, in contrast, did not change.

Young women hardly showed any greater interest in studying or working in STEM fields either, while young men were even more drawn to technical or academic activities after the reform. "This suggests that interests can also be influenced by school reforms," says Eike Wille, who is also a lead author of the study. "However, this connection has not been adequately investigated and needs more detailed study." The differences in gender in the selection of STEM university courses have not changed as a result of the reform. Significantly more men still choose these study programs than women.

According to the authors, the results are consistent with prior studies showing that educational reforms often have a significantly lower effect than originally expected. They are also associated with unexpected side-effects in many cases. "Reforms in the education system in the past have often been rather like flying blind," says Ulrich Trautwein, Director of the LEAD Graduate School and Research Network, summarizing matters. "The results of our study underline the significance of systematic accompanying research before, during and after the introduction of educational reforms."

More information: Nicolas Hubner et al. Maximizing Gender Equality by Minimizing Course Choice Options? Effects of Obligatory Coursework in Math on Gender Differences in STEM., Journal of Educational Psychology (2017). DOI: 10.1037/edu0000183 Journal information: Journal of Educational Psychology
In this Oct. 12, 2012 file photo, the windmill of windfarmer Jan Marrink is pictured in Nordhorn, Germany. Scientists and officials in Europe say the United States will be damaging its own interests if it rolls back the previous U.S. administration's efforts to curb climate change. President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order Tuesday March 28, 2017 that will rescind, suspend or review Obama-era regulations, including those restricting greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner,file)

Scientists, officials and environmental campaigners in Europe said Tuesday that the United States would be damaging its own interests if it rolls back the previous administration's efforts to curb climate change.

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order Tuesday that would rescind, suspend or review Obama-era regulations, including those restricting greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants.

The regulations are a key part of America's contribution toward meeting global goals agreed at an international climate change summit in Paris two years ago.

Thomas Stocker, a climate scientist at the University of Bern, Switzerland, said Trump's plan to halt decommissioning of old and polluting coal-fired power stations would hurt the United States in the long run.

"If 'America First' means you want to lead, then you can't turn the clock back and rely on a century-old technology. You're missing the train," he said.

Stocker, a former co-chair of the U.N.'s scientific panel on climate change, noted that the Obama administration had been a driving force behind securing the Paris agreement in 2015.

"They are giving up that leadership position and I suspect that it will be taken up by other competitive countries," said Stocker, adding that China was well-placed to do so.

That view was echoed by Myles R. Allen, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford. "If China saw the U.S. as being short-sighted (...) they might even welcome this as a chance to take over climate leadership," he said.

Allen, who co-authored a recent report for the U.S. National Academies of Sciences on measuring how much greenhouse gas emissions cost society, said Trump's plan could undermine a crucial mechanism by which the United States government wanted to mitigate global warming.

In this Nov. 30, 2011 file photo photovoltaic modules and a windmill of a wind farm are pictured at the village of Feldheim near Berlin, Germany. Scientists and officials in Europe say the United States will be damaging its own interests if it rolls back the previous U.S. administration's efforts to curb climate change. President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order Tuesday March 28, 2017 that will rescind, suspend or review Obama-era regulations, including those restricting greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, File)

Under U.S. regulations, authorities calculate the "social cost" of carbon emissions in order to compare it to the cost of complying with regulations aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

Drastically reducing the estimated social cost of carbon, as the Trump administration has indicated, would increase profits from burning oil, coal and gas in the United States.

Allen said that could send a signal to developing countries, such as Indonesia and Bangladesh, that fossil fuels are a viable source of energy in the coming decades.

"It will definitely chuck sand in the wheels of efforts to control global climate change," he said.

Germany, which plans to get most of its energy from renewable sources by 2050, said ambitious policies on climate change are in the United States' very own interests.

Germany's environment minister, Barbara Hendricks, said promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency is already creating large numbers of jobs around the world. "Whoever tries to change into reverse gear is only going to harm themselves when it comes to international competitiveness," she said.

Sweelin Heuss, the chief executive of Greenpeace Germany, said Trump's plan is "bad news, but it's not the end of the Paris agreement."

She urged German Chancellor Angela Merkel to speak out against the plan and emphasize Europe's commitment to combating climate change.

 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
The United States Naval Observatory (USNO) has released a new catalog of over 107 million stars, the 5th USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog (UCAC5). This catalog of about 5.5 gigabytes of binary data is currently available from the German Astrophysical Virtual Observatory (GAVO) Data Center. It will soon be available from the Astronomical Data Center (CDS) in Strasbourg, France and its mirror sites. In addition to very precise positions, this catalog contains the most accurate "proper motions" ever measured for such a large number of stars. A paper by USNO scientists Norbert Zacharias, Charlie Finch, and Julien Frouard describing this research has been published in The Astronomical Journal.

To human eyes, the stars in the night sky seem to be "fixed," their relative positions unchanging over the course of an average lifetime. However, when examined more closely with high magnification, all stars are indeed moving with respect to each other. Most of this apparent motion is caused by the general rotation of our Milky Way Galaxy, which most stars follow. In addition, every star has some individual component of motion on top of the general flow. This includes our Sun, which takes our solar system and Earth along for the ride. As a result, as seen from Earth, most stars in our area of the Milky Way move a tiny distance across the sky each year. These "proper motions" typically amount to about half a degree (the apparent diameter of the Moon) across the sky in about 10,000 to 100,000 years.

Knowing the proper motions of stars is important to predict exactly where in the sky the stars will be at any given instant of time, something the U.S. Navy and Department of Defense in general care about when using stars as points in a reference frame. Knowledge of stellar proper motions are also vital to learning about possible membership of stars in clusters and to understand the dynamics, history, and origin of the Milky Way's components including "dark matter," a currently hot topic in astrophysics.

The European Space Agency's Gaia astrometric survey satellite program began regular sky observations in July 2014 and recently published a first catalog of highly accurate positions of over a billion stars. For a subset of these stars, just over 2 million, an earlier space mission, Hipparcos, provided similarly accurate positions as observed near 1991. The long time baseline of about 25 years between these observations enabled astronomers to derive accurate motions of those stars.

The UCAC data were re-reduced using those 2 million Gaia stars to derive accurate positions of other, fainter stars at the UCAC observing epochs between 1998 and 2004. Combined with the accurate Gaia positions of 2015, the USNO scientists were able to derive proper motions of many millions more stars with accuracies similar to the Gaia + Hipparcos data. The errors on these proper motions are about 1.5 milli-arcseconds per year. This is equivalent to detecting an object moving an inch over the period of a year from a distance of 2,000 miles.
The discovery of a 'storm' layer created when superfluid helium flows across a rough surface has turned a century of understanding about one of the most important discoveries in quantum physics on its head.

Mathematicians from Newcastle University, UK, have shown for the first time that superfluid Helium has a boundary layer that 'sticks' to surfaces in the same way as an ordinary fluid.

However, unlike normal fluids that are pulled back by friction, in superfluid Helium the resistance is caused by the creation of mini tornadoes, which tangle together like spaghetti, slowing the flow.

Published today in the academic journal Physical Review Letters, this first evidence of a 'storm' layer changes all past assumptions about how superfluids move and could be used to better understand their use as coolants and in precision measurement devices such as gyroscopes.

Storm in a teacup

Lead author on the paper Dr George Stagg, from the School of Mathematics & Statistics at Newcastle University, says that to visualise the research findings you only need to think of your morning cuppa.

"Imagine you stir a cup of tea and then remove the spoon," he explains.

"It looks like the whole of the tea is swirling, but actually at the wall of the cup the tea stands still since it gets stuck there. Due to friction, adjacent layers of fluid get held back as they try to swirl around the cup. This "boundary layer" soon causes the flow to grind to a halt.

"But if we were to repeat with a cup of superfluid helium, the fluid would keep swirling forever since there is no friction, and no boundary layer, to hold it back.

"Or at least this is what has always been believed.

"What our research has shown is that this phenomenon is only true for perfectly smooth surfaces. If the surface is 'rough' down to the scale of nanometres, as all surfaces are, then mini tornadoes are created as the superfluid flows past the surface.

"These swirling vortices tangle together like spaghetti and - just like when you drain your spaghetti and leave it for too long in a pan - they stick together, creating a slow-moving boundary layer between the free-moving fluid and the surface.

"So in our teacup, what we would actually see around the edge is a 'storm' - a layer of whirling tornadoes sticking together and bringing the flow of fluid closest to the boundary almost to a halt.

"This means that, contrary to our past understanding, superfluid helium actually behaves in much the same way as an ordinary fluid."

One of the most important discoveries of the 20th century

Helium is one of the few known elements that will never become a solid but remains a liquid even at extremely low temperatures.

In 1908, Dutch physicist Kamerlingh Onnes became the first person to liquefy helium and two years later he discovered the when it was cooled to just a couple of degrees above absolute zero, it would abruptly stop boiling.

It would be several decades later, however, before scientists were able to explain the strange properties of the super-cold helium - its lack of viscosity and its constraint to swirl only through tiny tornadoes of fixed size and strength.

Along with other properties, these became the 'hallmarks of superfluidity'.

"This unimpeded flow was one of the most exciting properties of a superfluid," explains Dr Nick Parker, Senior Lecturer in Applied Mathematics and co-author on the paper.

"It changed everything we thought we knew about the laws of friction. For example, if we stir a cup of tea and create a 'tornado', as soon as we remove the spoon the tornado starts to slow down and eventually stops. But if we stir a superfluid, the tornado will continue forever even once the spoon has been removed.

"This lack of viscosity is one of the key features that defines a superfluid."

Importance of boundary layers

Boundary layers arise when everyday fluids, flowing past surfaces, are slowed down by viscous forces and understanding what is happening at the boundary layer is particularly important in engineering.

"Seeing this close connection between superfluids and classical fluids helps us to piece together the links between these apparently distinct types of fluid, possibly to even form a universal understanding of how fluids flow across surfaces," says Dr Parker.

"Boundary layers are crucial in normal fluids for many applications, such as improving the flow of liquids through pipes or the run-off of rainwater on building materials.

Now, in superfluids, we can use this understanding to improve their applications as coolants and in precision measurement devices such as gyroscopes."

More information: A superfluid boundary layer, arXiv:1603.01165v2 [cond-mat.other] 14 Feb 2017, arxiv.org/abs/1603.01165 Journal information: Physical Review Letters
NASA engineers and technicians perform vibration testing on the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn

At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland the James Webb Space Telescope team completed the acoustic and vibration portions of environmental testing on the telescope. These tests are merely two of the many that spacecraft and instruments endure to ensure they are fit for spaceflight.

For the acoustic test, the telescope was wrapped in a clean tent, and engineers and technicians pushed it through a large pair of insulated steel doors nearly a foot thick into the Acoustic Test Chamber. In the chamber the telescope was exposed to the earsplitting noise and resulting vibration of launch.

A new vibration test system also known as a shaker table, was built specifically for testing the Webb. The Webb was mounted on the shaker table and experienced the simulated forces the telescope will feel during the launch by vibrating it from 5 to 100 times per second. The test ensures a spacecraft like Webb can withstand the vibrations that occur as a result of the ride into space on a rocket.

This spring, after other environmental tests are completed, the Webb telescope will be shipped to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, for end-to-end optical testing in a vacuum at its extremely cold operating temperatures, before it goes to Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems in Redondo Beach, California, for final assembly and testing prior to launch.

By performing these tests, scientists and engineers can ensure that the spacecraft and all of its instruments will endure the launch and maintain functionality when it is launched from French Guiana in 2018.

Vibration Testing of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Inside NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland the James Webb Space Telescope team completed the environmental portion of vibration testing on the telescope. The new vibration test system simulates the forces the telescope will feel during the launch by vibrating it from 5 to 100 times per second. Credit: NASA/Michael P Menzel
Category four Cyclone Debbie brings lashing rain and howling wind as it batters the town of Ayr

A "monster" cyclone smashed into northeast Australia Tuesday, cutting power, damaging buildings and uprooting trees, with coastal towns in lockdown as residents battled lashing rain and howling winds.

Great Barrier Reef islands popular with foreign tourists were battered by the category four storm which hit the coast of Queensland state with destructive wind gusts of up to 270 kph (167 miles) near its broad core.

There were fears the storm's arrival would coincide with early morning high tides and cause severe flooding, but it slowed before crossing the coastline between the towns of Bowen and Airlie Beach in the early afternoon.

The effects of the storm, which was downgraded to a still powerful category three as it moved over land, were felt across a huge swathe of coast that would span the distance between London and Berlin, although not all areas were badly hit.

"It felt like we were underneath a freight train for most of the night, strong bass rumbles as the... wind rattled past and made the buildings shake," Cameron Berkman, who is holidaying on Hayman Island, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Queensland politician Mark Ryan said it was also chaotic at Airlie Beach, the mainland holiday gateway to the Whitsunday islands.

Category four Cyclone Debbie brings lashing rain and howling wind as it batters the town of Ayr

"Trees down in Airlie Beach and reports of windows shattering and some roofs starting to cave in," he tweeted.

Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said there was "certainly structural damage", and at least one person had been badly injured by a collapsing wall.

"I think the public and the community of Queensland need to understand that we are going to get lots of reports of damage and sadly I think we will also receive more reports of injuries, if not deaths," he said.

The Bureau of Meteorology, which forecast up to 50 centimetres (20 inches) of rain, urged people to stay calm and not be complacent as the eye of the storm passes.

"Do not venture outside if you find yourself in the eye of the cyclonevery destructive winds from a different direction could resume at any time," it said.

"People in the path of the very dangerous cyclone should stay calm and remain in a secure shelter."

Cyclone Debbie is expected to cross the Queensland state coast as a category four stormon a scale of fivepacking destructive wind gusts of up to 280 kmh (174 miles) near its wide core

30,000 homes without power

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who called the storm a "monster" that would last for hours, said at least 30,000 homes were without power with communications down in many areas.

Conditions have prevented emergency services getting a better picture of damage and they may not be able to do so until first light Wednesday, with the federal government on standby to provide assistance in the aftermath, including with navy helicopters and planes.

Residents, who sandbagged and boarded up homes, had been told to prepare for the worst weather to pummel the state since Cyclone Yasi in 2011, which ripped houses from their foundations and devastated crops.

Yasi, which struck less populated areas, caused damage estimated at Aus$1.4 billion. Debbie has officially been declared a catastrophe by the Insurance Council of Australia, allowing them to prioritise claims from the disaster.

Some 3,500 people were evacuated between the towns of Home Hill and Proserpine, around 100 kilometres (62 miles) south of Townsville, a tourist hotspot and access point to the Great Barrier Reef.

The town of Ayr in Queensland battens down as category four Cyclone Debbie approaches, March 28, 2017

Another 2,000 people in Bowen also moved, officials said, with cyclone shelters available for those with nowhere else to go. Up to 25,000 more in low-lying parts of Mackay headed to higher ground.

In the small town of Ayr, the main shopping street was deserted with buildings boarded up.

Farmer Anthony Quirk's main concern was for his 150 hectares of mung beans.

"If it comes through here it will be over. It will lay flat on the ground, we won't be harvesting, we will have no crops left," he said.

"It means we start from scratch again. All the money down the drain. That is not good."

 2017 AFP
The UN is debating a total ban on all nuclear weapons. Credit: Wikimedia

These are dangerous times. The Doomsday Clock sits at just two and a half minutes before midnight, which represents global catastrophe.

The Doomsday Clock has been maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1947, and has only ever been closer to midnight back in 1953, when the United States and Soviet Union tested their first hydrogen bombs, and the world was locked in a very dangerous nuclear arms race.

A single hydrogen bomb, thousands of times more powerful than the devices used on Hiroshima or Nagasaki, would be capable of obliterating a whole city.

An all out war, detonating even a fraction of the roughly 14,000 nuclear weapons in existence today, might trigger a mini ice age. Winter would last year-round, agriculture would be destroyed, and civilisation would likely collapse.

The then US president Ronald Reagan put it simply and clearly: "A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought."

Today we face these fears once more. Russia and China are again flexing their military might. The United States is led by President Donald Trump, who has a more hawkish take on international affairs than his predecessors. He has also said that if any country is to have nuclear weapons, then he wants the United States to be at the "top of the pack".

There are many potential flashpoints around the world  including Syria, the Korean peninsular, the South China Sea, Iraq, and Ukraine  and many despots and terrorists looking to cause problems.

There is, however, reason for hope. This week's talks at the United Nations aim to negotiate a total ban on nuclear weapons. These talks are the first of their kind ever to take place at the UN.

The aim is to stigmatise nuclear weapons, as with biological and chemical weapons. The ultimate goal is a world free of these weapons of mass destruction.

In support of these discussions, thousands of scientists from around the world have today released an open letter urging our national governments to achieve this goal of banning nuclear weapons.

The letter is signed by 23 Nobel Laureates, a past US Secretary of Defense, and many well-known scientists such as Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, Martin Rees and Daniel Dennett. I, too, have signed the letter.

As scientists, we bear a special responsibility for having invented these weapons of mass destruction. And as scientists, we are also very aware of the disastrouseffects that they could have on our planet.

Nuclear weapons threaten not merely those who have them, but all people who walk the Earth.

We urge the diplomats meeting in the United Nations today to find a way to rid the world of this evil.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
This visualization is the first global tomographic model constructed based on adjoint tomography, an iterative full-waveform inversion technique. The model is a result of data from 253 earthquakes and 15 conjugate gradient iterations with transverse isotropy confined to the upper mantle. Credit: David Pugmire, ORNL

Because of Earth's layered composition, scientists have often compared the basic arrangement of its interior to that of an onion. There's the familiar thin crust of continents and ocean floors; the thick mantle of hot, semisolid rock; the molten metal outer core; and the solid iron inner core.

But unlike an onion, peeling back Earth's layers to better explore planetary dynamics isn't an option, forcing scientists to make educated guesses about our planet's inner life based on surface-level observations. Clever imaging techniques devised by computational scientists, however, offer the promise of illuminating Earth's subterranean secrets.

Using advanced modeling and simulation, seismic data generated by earthquakes, and one of the world's fastest supercomputers, a team led by Jeroen Tromp of Princeton University is creating a detailed 3-D picture of Earth's interior. Currently, the team is focused on imaging the entire globe from the surface to the core-mantle boundary, a depth of 1,800 miles.

These high-fidelity simulations add context to ongoing debates related to Earth's geologic history and dynamics, bringing prominent features like tectonic plates, magma plumes, and hotspots into view. In 2016, the team released its first-generation global model. Created using data from 253 earthquakes captured by seismograms scattered around the world, the team's model is notable for its global scope and high scalability.

"This is the first global seismic model where no approximationsother than the chosen numerical methodwere used to simulate how seismic waves travel through the Earth and how they sense heterogeneities," said Ebru Bozdag, a coprincipal investigator of the project and an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis. "That's a milestone for the seismology community. For the first time, we showed people the value and feasibility of running these kinds of tools for global seismic imaging."

The project's genesis can be traced to a seismic imaging theory first proposed in the 1980s. To fill in gaps within seismic data maps, the theory posited a method called adjoint tomography, an iterative full-waveform inversion technique. This technique leverages more information than competing methods, using forward waves that travel from the quake's origin to the seismic receiver and adjoint waves, which are mathematically derived waves that travel from the receiver to the quake.

The problem with testing this theory? "You need really big computers to do this," Bozdag said, "because both forward and adjoint wave simulations are performed in 3-D numerically."

In 2012, just such a machine arrived in the form of the Titan supercomputer, a 27-petaflop Cray XK7 managed by the US Department of Energy's (DOE's) Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), a DOE Office of Science User Facility located at DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After trying out its method on smaller machines, Tromp's team gained access to Titan in 2013 through the Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment, or INCITE, program.

Working with OLCF staff, the team continues to push the limits of computational seismology to deeper depths.

Stitching together seismic slices

When an earthquake strikes, the release of energy creates seismic waves that often wreak havoc for life at the surface. Those same waves, however, present an opportunity for scientists to peer into the subsurface by measuring vibrations passing through the Earth.

As seismic waves travel, seismograms can detect variations in their speed. These changes provide clues about the composition, density, and temperature of the medium the wave is passing through. For example, waves move slower when passing through hot magma, such as mantle plumes and hotspots, than they do when passing through colder subduction zones, locations where one tectonic plate slides beneath another.

Each seismogram represents a narrow slice of the planet's interior. By stitching many seismograms together, researchers can produce a 3-D global image, capturing everything from magma plumes feeding the Ring of Fire, to Yellowstone's hotspots, to subducted plates under New Zealand.

This process, called seismic tomography, works in a manner similar to imaging techniques employed in medicine, where 2-D x-ray images taken from many perspectives are combined to create 3-D images of areas inside the body.

In the past, seismic tomography techniques have been limited in the amount of seismic data they can use. Traditional methods forced researchers to make approximations in their wave simulations and restrict observational data to major seismic phases only. Adjoint tomography based on 3-D numerical simulations employed by Tromp's team isn't constrained in this way. "We can use the entire dataanything and everything," Bozdag said.

Running its GPU version of the SPECFEM3D_GLOBE code, Tromp's team used Titan to apply full-waveform inversion at a global scale. The team then compared these "synthetic seismograms" with observed seismic data supplied by the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS), calculating the difference and feeding that information back into the model for further optimization. Each repetition of this process improves global models.

"This is what we call the adjoint tomography workflow, and at a global scale it requires a supercomputer like Titan to be executed in reasonable timeframe," Bozdag said. "For our first-generation model, we completed 15 iterations, which is actually a small number for these kinds of problems. Despite the small number of iterations, our enhanced global model shows the power of our approach. This is just the beginning, however."

Automating to augment

For its initial global model, Tromp's team selected earthquake events that registered between 5.8 and 7 on the Richter scalea standard for measuring earthquake intensity. That range can be extended slightly to include more than 6,000 earthquakes in the IRIS databaseabout 20 times the amount of data used in the original model.

Getting the most out of all the available data requires a robust automated workflow capable of accelerating the team's iterative process. Collaborating with OLCF staff, Tromp's team has made progress toward this goal.

For the team's first-generation model, Bozdag carried out each step of the workflow manually, taking about a month to complete one model update. Team members Matthieu Lefebvre, Wenjie Lei, and Youyi Ruan of Princeton University and the OLCF's Judy Hill developed new automated workflow processes that hold the promise of reducing that cycle to a matter of days.

"Automation will really make it more efficient, and it will also reduce human error, which is pretty easy to introduce," Bozdag said.

Additional support from OLCF staff has contributed to the efficient use and accessibility of project data. Early in the project's life, Tromp's team worked with the OLCF's Norbert Podhorszki to improve data movement and flexibility. The end result, called Adaptable Seismic Data Format (ASDF), leverages the Adaptable I/O System (ADIOS) parallel library and gives Tromp's team a superior file format to record, reproduce, and analyze data on large-scale parallel computing resources.

In addition, the OLCF's David Pugmire helped the team implement in situ visualization tools. These tools enabled team members to check their work more easily from local workstations by allowing visualizations to be produced in conjunction with simulation on Titan, eliminating the need for costly file transfers.

"Sometimes the devil is in the details, so you really need to be careful and know what you're looking at," Bozdag said. "David's visualization tools help us to investigate our models and see what is there and what is not."

With visualization, the magnitude of the team's project comes to light. The billion-year cycle of molten rock rising from the core-mantle boundary and falling from the crustnot unlike the motion of globules in a lava lamptakes form, as do other geologic features of interest.

At this stage, the resolution of the team's global model is becoming advanced enough to inform continental studies, particularly in regions with dense data coverage. Making it useful at the regional level or smaller, such as the mantle activity beneath Southern California or the earthquake-prone crust of Istanbul, will require additional work.

"Most global models in seismology agree at large scales but differ from each other significantly at the smaller scales," Bozdag said. "That's why it's crucial to have a more accurate image of Earth's interior. Creating high-resolution images of the mantle will allow us to contribute to these discussions."

Digging deeper

To improve accuracy and resolution further, Tromp's team is experimenting with model parameters under its most recent INCITE allocation. For example, the team's second-generation model will introduce anisotropic inversions, which are calculations that better capture the differing orientations and movement of rock in the mantle. This new information should give scientists a clearer picture of mantle flow, composition, and crust-mantle interactions.

Additionally, team members Dimitri Komatitsch of Aix-Marseille University in France and Daniel Peter of King Abdullah University in Saudi Arabia are leading efforts to update SPECFEM3D_GLOBE to incorporate capabilities such as the simulation of higher-frequency seismic waves. The frequency of a seismic wave, measured in Hertz, is equivalent to the number of waves passing through a fixed point in one second. For instance, the current minimum frequency used in the team's simulation is about 0.05 hertz (1 wave per 20 seconds), but Bozdag said the team would also like to incorporate seismic waves of up to 1 hertz (1 wave per second). This would allow the team to model finer details in the Earth's mantle and even begin mapping the Earth's core.

To make this leap, Tromp's team is preparing for Summit, the OLCF's next-generation supercomputer. Set to arrive in 2018, Summit will provide at least five times the computing power of Titan. As part of the OLCF's Center for Accelerated Application Readiness, Tromp's team is working with OLCF staff to take advantage of Summit's computing power upon arrival.

"With Summit, we will be able to image the entire globe from crust all the way down to Earth's center, including the core," Bozdag said. "Our methods are expensivewe need a supercomputer to carry them outbut our results show that these expenses are justified, even necessary."

More information: Ebru Bozdag, Daniel Peter, Matthieu Lefebvre, Dimitri Komatitsch, Jeroen Tromp, Judith Hill, Norbert Podhorszki, and David Pugmire, "Global Adjoint Tomography: First-Generation Model." Geophysical Journal International 207, no. 3 (2016): 17391766
Credit: University of Dundee

Dozens of fascinating digital 3-D models are shedding new light on specimens held at the University of Dundee's D'Arcy Thompson Museum while enhancing the learning of anatomy students around the world.

State-of-the-art scanning and design techniques have been deployed to digitise prairie dogs, puffer fish and giant tortoises as well as the skulls of elephants, rhinoceroses and other items from the collection of D'Arcy Thompson, Dundee's celebrated first Professor of Biology.

The resulting 3-D models are hosted online and are available for viewing and downloading worldwide under a creative commons licence. This has led to one of the items, a skull thought to belong to an Indian Elephant, being reclassified as that of an African Forest Elephant following comments posted by an expert. The catalogue of models also includes the sectioned skull a Thylacine, otherwise known as the Tasmanian Wolf, an extinct species of carnivorous marsupial.

So far the models have been viewed over 10,000 times in more than 25 countries with over 1600 downloads having taken place. The digital collection is being used in a variety of learning and teaching initiatives around the world, including at the University of Queensland in Australia.

The project was instigated by Dr Caroline Erolin, MSc Medical Art course coordinator at the University's Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification (CAHID), who uses the museum's collection and facilities as part of her teaching practice.

"Every visit to the D'Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum throws up something else fascinating," she said. "My focus is on the future of medical art and artists, particularly in relation to new and developing technologies, and this gave me the opportunity to explore the collection further while also honing my 3-D scanning and modelling design skills. It's been incredible to see the models come to life, as it were.

Credit: University of Dundee

"I worked on the project throughout 2016 whenever the opportunity arose. Smaller specimens were scanned with a micro CT scanner, while larger specimens (from around 20cm) were captured using hand-held structured light scanners. All the colour had to be added later in the process.

"I would love to scan and digitise every specimen in the museum but with there being thousands of them it just isn't possible. I worked with Matthew Jarron, the museum curator, to identify the most interesting specimens and those most relevant to D'Arcy Thompson's work and legacy."

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of D'Arcy's seminal book, On Growth and Form, which has been hailed as "the greatest work of prose in twentieth century science". Through his iconic transformation diagrams, D'Arcy demonstrated that laws of growth rather than evolution could be used to explain the different forms of related species.

The book inspired scientists, artists and thinkers as diverse as Alan Turing, C. H. Waddington, Claude Levi Strauss, Jackson Pollock and Norman Foster. It pioneered the science of biomathematics, and its influence in art, architecture, anthropology, geography, cybernetics and many other fields continues to this day.

Museum curator Matthew Jarron said, "This is a great way to make parts of D'Arcy Thompson's amazing collection more accessible to audiences around the world, particularly appropriate in this anniversary year when there is huge international interest in D'Arcy's work. We can also use the scans within the museum, by printing the models in 3-D so visitors can handle them."

Dr Erolin's students will now take the project forward by digitising more items from the collection and using a 3-D printer to produce copies of fragile specimens that can be used in teaching in multiple locations worldwide.

More information: The 3D models can be viewed at www.dundee.ac.uk/museum/collec  s/zoology/zoology3d/
In this photo taken Monday, March 27, 2017, the Waze application is displayed on a smartphone in San Francisco. Waze's traffic navigation app already shows ads prodding drivers to swing by fast-food joints like Dunkin' Donuts and Taco Bell. Now it's adding a new item to its menu, the ability to place orders at some shops. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Waze's traffic navigation app already shows ads prodding drivers to swing by fast-food joints like Dunkin' Donuts and Taco Bell. Now it's adding a new item to its menuthe ability to place orders at some shops.

On Tuesday, the Google-owned app will start letting drivers purchase coffee and other items from Dunkin' Donuts for pickup along their way. It's the first time that Waze has offered this kind of "order ahead" option, but unlikely to be the last.

If all goes well with the Dunkin' Donuts test, Waze plans to team up with other merchants so its millions of users can order pizza, reserve parking spaces, fill prescriptions and even buy groceries without having to open another app on their phones.

"It could be almost anything that a driver could order ahead and have ready for pick up," said Jordan Grossman, head of Waze's business partnerships in North America.

DOUGHNUTS TO GO

Waze won't earn a commission on the Dunkin' Donuts sales made in its app. Instead, Dunkin' Donuts has agreed to increase the amount it spends advertising on Waze. Neither Waze nor Dunkin' Donuts would disclose the size of the increase.

Dunkin' Donuts has its own app, which until now was the only way to order ahead at the chain's stores . But working with Waze made sense, said Scott Hudler, chief digital officer for Dunkin' Brands. "Waze involves the ritualistic behavior of driving to work on your daily commute, and we are a brand built on a ritual, too," he said.

Drivers using Waze's "order ahead" option will need the Dunkin' Donuts app as well, although they won't have to open it. They'll also need to be registered with Dunkin' Donuts customer loyalty program.

CHARTING A COURSE INTO COMMERCE

The push into e-commerce is Waze's latest step beyond its original purpose of recommending the fastest way to drive someplace.

Waze also offers a carpooling feature that pays drivers to pick up passengers headed in the same direction. It's currently available in the San Francisco Bay Area; Sacramento, California; and Israel.

Waze will also offer the carpooling option in Brazil later this year. While still in its infancy, that service could siphon passengers away from ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft.

 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Credit: University of Manchester

An international team of researchers, led by The University of Manchester, has used the UK's Diamond Light Source facility (pictured above) to image the precise location and chemistry behind the growth in bone for the first time. Their research has provided fresh insight into how bones grow and develop, and how the traces of metal found in bones play a vital part in this process.

The team analysed how mammal bones grow by studying the skeleton growth of rodents  and how this process links the common man and fictional superhero Logan.

Unlike Wolverine from the X-Men, mammals do not obviously sport metal claws. However, all vertebrates, including mammals rely on tiny concentrations of trace metal in our bones to control their formation, growth and repair.

Wolverine's skeleton is made out of the fictional alloy adamantium, whereas the trace metals found in human bones include copper, calcium, zinc and strontium.

"The reason bone needs to be able to store these metals is that many biological processes rely on the tiniest traces of chemical elements like zinc and strontium," said Dr Jennifer Anne. "A good example of that is what we are seeing in the developing skeleton of our mouse."

The process responsible for the development of most of the bones in the body (endochondral ossification) is layered into distinct areas of activity from the centre of the developing bone to its extremities. These areas can be simplistically placed into three categories: cartilage, replacement and mineralised (ossified) bone.

A seemingly straightforward three-step process, from soft cartilage to mineralised bone, is actually a complex cocktail of growth hormones and proteins that few fully understand. Luckily, these processes get a little help from the periodic table that leaves elemental fingerprints that have now been identified and read by the team.

Lead author Dr Jennifer Anne explains how studying these fingerprints will tell us more about how bones are formed: "We found that the different steps that occur as the skeleton goes from cartilage to bone were highlighted in the corresponding element needed for this processes to occur. You get to see a snapshot of these processes occurring throughout the limb; something that hasn't been imaged before."

Although it is well known that certain metals can aid in bone health, this is the first time that these metal helpers have been imaged spatially as they weave their bony scaffold. Intensely bright X-rays generated by Diamond allowed the team to produce detailed images of where these minute metals were located within the tiny bones of the mouse limb.

Co-author Dr Nicholas Edwards from The University of Manchester said: "We focus on the trace elements rather than the proteins themselves because of the preservation potential of the metals, which means we can image biological processes from the recent to the ancient."

This is not the only time the team has used this X-ray light, which is 10 billion times brighter than that of the Sun, to visualise the chemistry in bone. Their previous work has looked at the beautiful preservation of biochemistry in fossil organisms, in birds, dinosaurs, manatees and plants up to 150 million years old. The results from this work highlight not only the importance of synchrotron-based imaging but hint at the possibilities to come.

Professor Fred Mosselmans, Science Leader on the I18 beamline at Diamond, said: "We're proud to support a wide portfolio of bone research across a number of our beamlines, and this is another good example of how we're supporting interdisciplinary research at Diamond. I18 allows researchers to detect and quantify elements using a tiny beam of X-rays. The technique is incredibly sensitive, so where elements are present in minute concentrations, our beamline is still able to detect them. This is useful in material science, chemistry, environmental science, as well as biology."

The research group will be scanning some new fossil material at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource in California this spring. The research on the mouse will be used to help the team identify ossification and other bone processes such as remodelling and cartilage replacement in the fossil record, from fossil mice to dinosaurs.

More information: Jennifer Anne et al. Visualisation of developmental ossification using trace element mapping, J. Anal. At. Spectrom. (2017). DOI: 10.1039/C7JA00042A
Inventory needs to be managed and managed well, or you are going to get in recurring trouble, and lose your credibility and hard-earned conversions, whether 

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Fast Facts on Brexit

Just a little over nine months since Britains historic vote to leave the European Union, the British government will begin the formal proceedings of leaving the EU by triggering article 50. Heres everything you need to know about Brexit and how security may be complicated by the historic move.

Article 50

Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which forms the constitutional basis of the EU, explains how a member of the EU can voluntarily leave the European Union. The specifics of the article include actions taken by the leaver, such as informing the European Council of its intention, negotiating a deal one its withdrawal and establishing legal grounds for a future relationship with the EU.

The UKs vote to leave the EU was unprecedented, no other country in the union had voted to leave before making the future uncharted territory for the British government. Article 50 explains that one a country has given its notice of leaving the union; it has two years to negotiate new arrangements independently of the deals they had as a member of the EU. An extension can only be granted by unanimous agreement.

Britains Exit

Britains Exit, aptly nicknamed Brexit, will be trigged on Wednesday, March 29. On this day, the British government will deliver a letter to Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council. Theresa May, the British Prime Minister will then address the world.

The next day, Brexit secretary, David Davis, will publish the governments great repeal bill. This will set out an end to the authority of EU law by converting all its provisions in British law once the UK leaves.

From there, the British government will have 2-years to independently negotiate deals with each of the remaining 27 countries in the EU as well as their ally counties. These deals will revolve around immigration, trade and security.

How is security involved?

As part of their removal from the EU, the UK will also be expected to pull out of Europol. Europol was founded in 1998 to combat organized crime, cybercrime and militant groups across borders. Cooperation between Europol and non-EU countries, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine took several years to negotiate and there are limits on what data can be shared. After Brexit, the UK will have to rely on their independent links with each country for dealings in security.

Besides Europol, Britain also has the ability to gather intelligence from the Schengen agreement and to a deal to exchange airline passenger data between EU security forces.

EU diplomats have refused to discuss Britains future defense and security cooperation until London triggers the formal exit proceedings, but senior British diplomat told reporters that the government would likely seek a special relationship.

Britain already has bilateral security agreements with fellow EU members France and Germany, as well as the long standing Five Eyes, an intelligence sharing pact between the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Perhaps one of the largest issues that won over voters was the ability to close the borders around the United Kingdom in an effort to increase security and keep out those who wish to do the country harm. Recent terrorist attacks around Europe helped to fuel the fire under those who believed leaving the EU was the best option, as they would have stronger control over those who came into the country.

On the other side of that coin, it makes it harder for residents inside the country to travel outside of the borders passport or visa free.
CapitaLand will oversee the 269,000 sq ft SingPost Centre mall.

CapitaLand Limited, through its wholly owned shopping mall business CapitaLand Mall Asia, has signed its first third-party mall management contract in Singapore with Singapore Post (SingPost) for its upcoming mall at the new SingPost Centre.

This is the third mall management contract that CapitaLand has inked in slightly over six months, after securing the first two in China. With this contract, CapitaLands network in Singapore will increase to 20 shopping malls with a combined gross floor area (GFA), excluding car park, of about 14.2 million square feet (sq ft).

Managing the mall at SingPost Centre, which is located in the core of the up-and-coming Paya Lebar Central, will augment CapitaLand Groups presence in the eastern part of Singapore, where it currently owns and manages three malls.

They are Tampines Mall in Tampines Regional Centre, Bedok Mall in the recently rejuvenated Bedok Town Centre, and Jewel Changi Airport, which is scheduled to open in Changi Airport in early 2019.

Under the contract, CapitaLand will oversee the pre-opening and retail management for the five-storey SingPost Centre mall, which has 269,000 sq ft of GFA, excluding car park, and a net lettable area of about 175,000 sq ft. The scope of work will include overseeing the pre-opening of the mall, marketing and promotion activities, lease management, and facilities management.







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German prosecutors announced an investigation Tuesday into claims that Turkish agents are spying on alleged followers of exiled preacher Fethullah Gulen in Germany. The probe came as a German state minister accused Turkey of the "unacceptable" espionage against supporters of Gulen, blamed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a failed coup attempt last year. The claims open a new front in the diplomatic row between NATO allies Germany and Turkey, whose relationship has been strained by a series of disputes centred on human rights issues. "It is clear that the Turkish secret service MIT is investigating people living in Germany," said Boris Pistorius, interior minister of the northern German state of Lower Saxony, deploring the "intensity and ruthlessness" of Turkey's pursuit of people living abroad. "It's intolerable and unacceptable," he said at a press conference. Erdogan's government had asked Berlin to help spy on about 300 alleged Gulen supporters, Pistorius said, adding that the list was handed to Germany's BND spy service, which turned it over to state governments. But Pistorius's state decided to inform the more than 10 targets in Lower Saxony, including a school and at least two companies, fearing people could suffer "retaliation" if they travelled to Turkey while unaware they were on a watch list. Turkish authorities were acting with "something close to paranoia," he said, adding that "all Gulen supporters are assumed to be terrorists and enemies of the state even though there is not the tiniest scrap of evidence." "As of today, we have no evidence whatsoever that Gulen supporters have violated any rules in any way." According to German media, Turkish officials handed the target list including names, addresses, telephone numbers and photographs to their German counterparts during the Munich Security Conference in February. Federal prosecutors will now examine how Turkey compiled such detailed information on their targets. "The success of our investigation will depend largely on the information shared with us by German counter-espionage agencies," spokeswoman Frauke Koehler said about the probe into "persons unknown". Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere meanwhile warned Turkey against spying in Germany, saying "espionage activities on German soil is punishable by law and will not be tolerated by us". - Fraying ties - Although Gulen, a 75-year-old cleric living the United States, has denied charges that he was involved in the failed coup last July to overthrow Erdogan, Ankara has cracked down hard on the preacher's followers. More than 41,000 people in Turkey have been arrested over suspected links to Gulen's movement, and 100,000 fired or suspended from their jobs. Many of them are teachers, police, magistrates and journalists. In February, German police raided the homes of four Turkish Muslim preachers suspected of spying on alleged Gulen supporters for Erdogan's government. Erdogan has in turn accused Germany of harbouring Kurdish and other "terrorists", claiming that Berlin is refusing to hand over alleged suspects. Separately, the foreign ministries in Sweden and Denmark have called in Turkey's envoys over claims of Turkish spying on opposition figures living in the Scandinavian countries. Germany's foreign intelligence chief Bruno Kahl drew Ankara's ire last week when he said he did not believe that Gulen was behind the failed coup. Turkey had tried to convince Berlin that Gulen, who lives in a secluded compound in Pennsylvania, was behind the coup, "but they have not succeeded", Kahl told Der Spiegel magazine. Kahl said the putsch was launched by a "part of the military" that expected to be targeted in an ongoing government purge. Berlin has emerged as a strident critic of Ankara's post-coup crackdown, and is also urging Turkey to release a correspondent for the German daily Die Welt who is jailed on terror charges. Ankara has been riled by German authorities' refusal to allow some Turkish ministers to campaign in the country's Turkish communities for a "yes" vote ahead of the April 16 referendum on giving Erdogan the powers of an executive presidency.
British Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday signed the historic letter that will launch Brexit, a photo released by her office showed, as she called for unity even as Scotland voted for a new independence referendum. The British government will on Wednesday deliver the letter to European Union President Donald Tusk, formally notifying him of Britain's intention to leave the bloc after 44 years of membership. Addressing parliament on Wednesday, May will acknowledge that the June vote for Brexit had been divisive, but will express hope "that we are no longer defined by the vote we cast, but by our determination to make a success of the result". "We are one great union of people and nations with a proud history and a bright future. And, now that the decision has been made to leave the EU, it is time to come together," she will say, according to the speech published in advance by Downing Street. Her comments will come just hours after the semi-autonomous Scottish Parliament backed First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's call for a fresh independence vote in protest at Brexit. May has said that "now is not the time" for Scotland to hold a second referendum, but Scottish lawmakers ignored her appeals, supporting the motion by 69 votes to 59. Sturgeon is now expected to make a formal request for a referendum, which she says could take place by spring 2019 --- before Brexit is complete, to allow Scotland to maintain its ties with the EU. She needs approval from the British government, which repeated Tuesday that a vote on this timetable was "not appropriate" -- although it has not ruled out the prospect of a later referendum. "The mandate for a referendum is beyond question, and it would be democratically indefensible -- and utterly unsustainable -- to attempt to stand in the way of it," Sturgeon said. A few hours after the Scottish vote, Downing Street released a photograph of May signing the letter that will trigger Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, which starts the two-year Brexit process. Tim Barrow, Britain's ambassador to the EU, will deliver the letter by hand to Tusk around 1130 GMT on Wednesday -- beginning the countdown to Brexit. Ahead of the letter being delivered, May on Tuesday evening made separate phone calls to Tusk, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "They also agreed on the importance of entering into negotiations in a constructive and positive spirit, and of ensuring a smooth and orderly exit process," Downing Street said. - 'Unstoppable force' - Scotland voted by 55 percent in 2014 to reject independence, but Sturgeon's Scottish National Party (SNP) has said a second referendum is now needed to avoid Scotland being forced out of the EU "against its will". Both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU, but they were outnumbered by voters in England and Wales who backed Brexit. Most recent polls show support for Scottish independence is high -- the annual ScotCen survey put it at a record 46 percent -- but a majority are still opposed. Sturgeon and May met in Scotland on Monday, with the prime minister describing the four nations of the United Kingdom as an "unstoppable force". But in addition to Scotland, her government is trying to prevent the collapse of the devolved government in Northern Ireland. The power-sharing arrangement between the Democratic Unionist Party and Irish nationalists Sinn Fein collapsed in January, prompting a snap election. Three weeks on, both sides are still deadlocked and although the British government extended Monday's deadline for talks, the prospect of a fresh election -- or even the imposition of direct rule from London -- now looms. Ensuring that the province's hard-won peace is not upset by Brexit, and that there is no reintroduction of a hard border with the Republic of Ireland, is a priority for both Britain and the EU. - 'Damaging and uncertain future' - May repeated on Tuesday that she will seek the best deal for all of Britain in her negotiations with Brussels -- including for EU nationals living in her country. But her plan, particularly her intention to leave Europe's single market in order to cut immigration, has failed to convince the SNP. The economic uncertainty of an independent Scotland was a factor in the 2014 referendum, but Sturgeon has warned that Brexit could cost Scotland tens of thousands of jobs. "We know that Brexit threatens a hugely damaging and uncertain future for Scotland," she said Tuesday. Scotland's economic hand was strengthened on Monday when exploration firm Hurricane Energy announced the "largest undeveloped discovery" of oil in British waters, located west of the Scottish Shetland Islands.
World looks to China for growth but it has its own problems at home

BOAO, China  China sought to expand its influence and clout over a four-day conference this week as it promised world and business leaders that it will keep its doors open even as the world's second-largest economy undertakes its own market and financial reform.

"China's door to the world is always open and will become increasingly open with progress," Chinese Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli said at the opening of the Boao Forum on Saturday.

He also stated China's commitment to opening up access to foreign investment and various industries while remaining a force for peace and stability in the world.

People's Bank of China's Governor Zhou Xiaochuan meanwhile said globalization is a reality and not a choice for nations.

Zhang and Zhou's comments come amid concerns about increasing protectionist sentiments among some nations after the U.K.'s Brexit vote and the election of U.S. President Donald Trump.

With China still championing globalization and free trade, leaders around the world are looking toward the East Asian giant for direction, clarity and support, underscoring a shift in global trade and power relations.

This is reflected through its aggressive push in Asia through Europe with its One Belt, One Road project which is presenting new opportunities for countries which may have previously struggled to attract investors and funding.

The landlocked Central Asian country of Kazakhstan is one.

"When the Soviet Union was dissolved in the early 90s, everyone (said) that Kazakhstan would struggle because it does not have access to the ocean, but it turned out that we didn't need to have an ocean because China was going to be the ocean of Kazakhstan," said Eurasian Resources Group CEO Benedikt Sobotka on Thursday.

Other developing nations' leaders from Pakistan to Madagascar also paid homage to China at the event.

Indeed, China made clear its intention to push its influence beyond its familiar sphere.

At the forum's opening, leaders from countries that are usually under-represented on the world stage such as Madagascar, Micronesia and Nepal addressed the floor, championing globalization and partnership.

Story continues

While hopeful nations are eyeing the investment and growth that China is bringing to the table, concerns over its domestic economy dominated panels and discussion, underscoring the many challenges that the major but still emerging economy face.

Key issues include high debt levels and financial regulation, as officials took pains to reassure markets about the country's economy, affirm its commitment to economic and market reforms, while explaining some difficulties it was facing.

On Friday, Vice Finance Minister Liu Wei said China's debt risks are "very much under control" and that the issue is of "great importance" to the authorities.

At a separate panel, former vice president of the China Academy of Social Sciences Li Yang sought to explain the long-drawn process in restructuring debt-laden state-owned enterprises, which also has social responsibility to tens of millions of employees.

Indeed, Chairman of Boston Consulting Group Hans-Paul Burkner told CNBC China's economic reform efforts could lead to hardship and so they require delicate maneuvering.

Despite concerns, there was a consensus at the forum that international exchanges can only continue to flow in an increasingly open world, although those negatively affected by globalization need to be supported.

"In 20, 30, 40 or 50 years, will we (still) see free exchange of ideas, people and goods? I think the answer is yes. But I suspect we will find ways to address the real discontent and dislocation that some trade activities and technologies cause," said Peter Tufano, dean of the Said Business School at the University of Oxford.

 CNBC's Geoff Cutmore and Sophia Yan contributed to this report.

Correction: This article has been altered to accurately reflect what Hans-Paul Burkner, chairman of Boston Consulting Group, told CNBC.
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
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
Trump has launched a blitzkrieg in the wars on science and Earths climate

Posted on 28 March 2017 by dana1981

Today, Trump signed executive orders taking aim at Americas climate policies. On the heels of a report finding that the world needs to halve its carbon pollution every decade to avoid dangerous climate change, Trumps order would instead increase Americas carbon pollution, to the exclusive benefit of the fossil fuel industry.

Trumps anti-climate executive orders

One part of the executive order tells the EPA to review and revise (weaken) its Clean Power Plan and methane regulations. However, revising these regulations isnt so simple. It requires proceeding through the same years-long rulemaking process the EPA used to create the rules in the first place. This involves considering the scientific evidence, crafting draft rules, responding to millions of public comments, and defending the new plan in court. Environmental attorneys are confident this is another deal President Trump wont be able to close.

A second part of the executive order tells the EPA to ignore the governments estimated price on carbon pollution. The Republican Party wants to lower the current estimate, but most evidence indicates the government is dramatically underestimating the cost of carbon pollution. Trump gets around this inconvenient evidence by ordering the EPA to simply deny the existence of those costs.

A third part of the executive order ends a moratorium on new coal leases on public lands before a review is completed to determine if taxpayers are being shortchanged due to the lands being sold too cheaply. Environmental groups are set to immediately challenge this order. Regardless, lifting the moratorium would have little effect on coal production or mining jobs.

EPA administrator Scott Pruitt would undoubtedly be happy to follow Trumps orders. In his previous job as Oklahoma Attorney General and fossil fuel industry puppet, one of Pruitts 14 lawsuits against the EPA was aimed at the Clean Power Plan. However, the Clean Air Act requires the government to cut carbon pollution. Trump and Pruitt may not like it, but the law, scientific evidence, and public opinion fall squarely against them.

Trumps anti-science budget

A few weeks ago, Donald Trump released his first proposed budget, and its also fiercely anti-science and anti-climate.

Bradd Jaffy ? @BraddJaffy Trump budget director on climate change funding: Were not spending money on that anymore. We consider that to be a waste of your money. pic.twitter.com/eTqjL1RcRQ

Among other cuts, it would slash nearly one-third of the EPA budget, hundreds of millions of dollars from the NOAA research budget, and terminate four NASA Earth science missions as part of a $102 million cut to the agencys Earth science program.

The budget even goes as far as to propose eliminating Energy Star  a purely voluntary program that helps companies certify energy efficient products, saving Americans money while cutting carbon pollution in the process  possibly out of pure spite for the climate.

Trump has been consistently anti-science

Trumps anti-science and anti-climate agenda doesnt come as a surprise; before he even took office, there were early signs that Trump would put public health at risk by scrapping climate and other environmental policies. He began by nominating numerous anti-climate, pro-industry individuals to powerful positions in his administration. Those appointees quickly made their influence known, launching an inquisition into Department of Energy staffers who had worked on climate change, trying to gag government scientists, and scrap the EPA climate webpage.

In the face of public outcry, the Trump administration retreated on these fronts. But they regrouped, and over the past several weeks have surged forward with a rejuvenated attack on climate science, environmental protection, and the future of our planet and its inhabitants, to the benefit of big polluters with big wallets. Meanwhile, a Washington Post analysis found that Trump has moved to fill just one out of 46 key government science and technology positions. And for the position of presidential science advisor, he seems to only be considering climate deniers.

What on Earth does EPA stand for?

With its new administrator Scott Pruitt confirmed by Senate Republicans, EPA now seems to stand for Environmental Plunder Agency. In an interview on ABCs This Week on Sunday, Pruitt sounded more interested in trying to bring back coal jobs than in protecting the environment. To that, Americas top coal boss said:

I suggested that he temper his expectations ... He cant bring them back.

In one of his first Tweets after taking the job, Pruitt spoke of the stakeholders whose interests he sought to protect:

Soon thereafter, the EPAs Office of Science and Technology Policy mission statement no longer used the word science. A few days later, Pruitt rejected decades worth of climate science research, giving the following answer when asked on CNBC if carbon dioxide is the primary control knob for the climate:

No, 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 thats a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.

Pruitt was wrong on both points  carbon dioxide is the main climate control knob (NASA scientists even published a 2010 paper with those exact words in the title), and there is a 97% expert consensus on this question. Predictably, Pruitts comments evoked harsh responses, not just from climate scientists but also from business, military, faith, and conservative leaders and elected officials. For example, leading climate scientist Kevin Trenberth said:

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The world was coming to an end at midnight 31 December 1999. We had planned for it for years. It was, as one techno-wag said, a disaster with a deadline.

The Year 2000 rollover was going to be big. Worldwide. No escape. Like Noah and the flood, we knew it was coming. We knew this would be no mere technology challenge to be solved with exceptional American ingenuity. The Year 2000 was problematic with unknown unknowns.

The predictions were dire: The Internet would go down. Cell phones dead. The power grid dark  Armageddon.

In the late 1990s, one-half of the worlds Internet traffic passed through the Commonwealth of Virginia, thanks to America Online  AOL.com. And maybe another Northern Virginia entity in Arlington: the Pentagon.

(I think that was a secret  )

Your business professor had the Y2K responsibility for Health and Human Resources, a $5 billion enterprise in the Virginia government. The boss, Governor Jim Gilmore, a former military intelligence officer, knew what was possible  and not  to combat the Y2K Bug.

There was a lot we couldnt do. And it wasnt all technology.

It was a condition of continued employment that there was to be no interruption or adverse incidents to the citizens of the Commonwealth and the rest of the world.

(We worker bees could not get it wrong. The world ends AND get a bad employee appraisal. A sub-par job performance would not be the simple career-ending, world-ending mistake. It would be going out with a bang, so to say.)

Business literature notes the adrenaline rush of the peak experience. The Office of the Governor of Virginia had this motivation as he had the whole world in his hands.

The Web had to run for the wide world and more: Virginias hospital doors had to remain open; the prison doors closed. Fresh water and waste water valves had to direct flow in the correct and desired directions.

Local first responders had to be able to coordinate communications across jurisdictional silos. Governor Gilmore was among the first to realize the importance of seamless radio traffic between Fed/State/Local law enforcement. (It still wouldnt be fixed years later, as in 9/11 or more recently.)

There were lots of challenges beyond government resources. So, Gilmore hired the biggest IT consulting firms on the planet and bought their solution packages. In my weekly staff meetings I had a dozen of the smartest experts in the business. I was not one of them.

They let me think I was in control at the head of the table. And maybe so. But these consultants wouldnt let me, a mere bureaucrat, make a mistake. I didnt know how to run a very large organization.

Actually, no one really does, but the Governor gave me this advice:

B.lioyPick a small team and run them as a small business. It will be the same except with more zeros. I didnt know if he was talking about the budget or about me. Could go either way.

There were some mistakes the professional tech-gurus could not save me from  I had to learn on my own. I wasted time deep in the weeds doing real work. Instead of managing managers, I wanted to roll-up my sleeves and pound keyboards. I called it, attention-to-detail. The staff called it micromanaging.

Like most small business owners, I had trouble delegating tasks. But I had to adjust fast; I ran out of time. There was an unstoppable countdown and I had to trust the work to the professionals.

Virginia spent $215 million and nothing happened here or in the rest of the world. There were some problems in Nigeria. We now think it was some kind of scam.

Nothing crashed. Except for that super-secret three-letter-agency satellite  and some defibrillators. Not my fault. No one died.

The lesson learned was that the technology was the easy part. The real challenge was in delegation and managing projects  through people  on time and on budget.

See Also: How to Turn Your Customer Complaints into Business Benefits

It always is.
Like every other small business, companies in the food sector want to lower costs. One way to do that is to be smart when spending advertising dollars.

New research by Condiment Marketing, an Aurora, Colorado-based firm, provides detailed information on food marketing costs in 2016.

According to the infographic below, online advertising and local marketing provided maximum opportunities for customer engagement.

Food Advertising Statistics

2016 Food Marketing Costs

The report reveals a full-page print ad in a leading food magazine may cost in the range of $2,055 to $8,379. Web advertising in the same magazines ranges from $2,500 a month to $105 CPM.

As far as local marketing is concerned, the research provides a comparative analysis.

Using Denver, Colorado as an example, it shows businesses spending $1,000 a month on Yelp will be exposed to 10,000 of the review sites users in the area. The Denver Post, on the other hand, will cost a minimum $500 a month for online advertising. Cost for a full-page full-color ad in the Sunday full circulation edition will cost $8,430.

Online Advertising Costs

Social media is of course a channel no small business can afford to ignore today. The report shows Instagram ($5.68 CPM), Facebook ($6.28 CPM) and LinkedIn ($2 CPM) are the most viable means to promote food businesses.

In 2016, food businesses also spent money on Google Adwords. For average cost-per-click (CPC) on the search network, they spent $2.32.

For the study, Condiment Marketing researched media kits published by media sources.

Check out the food advertising statistics in the infographic below for more information.
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...
People should benefit from stronger competition, faster and cheaper payments and higher security.

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In recent years, consumers have been paying bills through the internet under the sole control and management of banks. However, such a rule may no longer apply as of 2018, as the e-payment market is now opening its doors for new entrants.

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EU member states are currently working on national versions of the EU directive on payment services which aims at developing the internal market for e-payments, simplifying payments between countries similarly to the intra-country payment systems, and opening access to clients accounts for companies other than banks. Though experts widely accept new payment methods and ideas to reduce payment fees, questions have arose in the process of execution of the new rules.

So far, nobody has dealt with handling individual connections to clients accounts, nor the question of who will determine safety standards, Peter Gec, senior partner of the payment consulting company Infinity Consulting, told The Slovak Spectator.

While EU authorities adopted the Payment Service Directive (PSD2), which is the official name of the regulation, already in 2015, member countries must embed the package into their legislation by January 13, 2018. The Slovak draft law on payment services should appear in April 2017, the HNonline.sk website reported.

Time for more competition?

PSD2 introduces the possibility of so-called third parties, or new payment service providers, to access the accounts of banking clients. While thousands of registered payment institutions in the EU will have access to client accounts, clients will be able to manage their accounts and credit products from several banks through one internet banking app, said Gec.

Thereby the directive opens the market for technology companies interested in developing complex payment systems. The market will probably accept new big players, such as Google and Amazon, or smaller regional companies which will offer apps for effective management of multiple accounts, according to Maros Ovcarik, executive director of the Financny Kompas website.

The entry of new players will not only reduce costs but also enhance the possibilities for managing accounts effectively, Ovcarik told The Slovak Spectator.

The Slovak Bank Cards Association (ZBK) does not expect fair competition from third parties, as only banks will maintain payment accounts. On the contrary, banks can benefit from the opportunity to provide these services as well, said Zuzana Polakova of ZBK.

The directive allows for more innovative development and increases the protection of clients, in particular in the area of internet payments, Polakova told The Slovak Spectator.

Better speed

Though analysts agree with the chance for banks to use attractive products to gain benefits from PSD2, the main benefits should be felt by consumers. Slovak consumers have gotten used to relatively fast inter-bank transfer of finances which the directive could potentially speed up to real-time transfer, according to Gec.

Gec pointed out that Slovaks abroad usually pay by card and these payments do not fall under new directive.

However, if the entity which will offer acceleration or make payments cheaper was available in Slovakia, Slovak consumers would use its services more than classic bank payments, Gec said.

All new measures should result in the faster rise of cashless payments and compete with cash or conventional credit cards, said Ovcarik.

Safety above all

In addition, consumers will benefit from greater protection based on strong authentication which requires payment verification by using more than two safety elements, according to Polakova.

Internet payments will be safer than in times when people needed only card data for payment, said Polakova.

For better safety, Slovak law should reduce client responsibility for unauthorised payments to 50 instead of the current 100, shorten the time limit for reclaiming payments from 30 to 15 days, and protect consumers against charges of higher amounts to a card than they actually pay, HNonline.sk wrote.

Directive follows its predecessor

The new regulation derives from the original text of the directive PSD1, which became law in 2009. With this amendment, the EC is responding to a growing level of innovation in the payment services field, said Diana Brodnianska, spokeswoman of the Slovak Banking Association (SBA).

The new directive mostly takes over and updates the regulations of the previous directive, while it emphasises strengthening of transparency, competitiveness and security of payments subject to consumer protection, Brodnianska told The Slovak Spectator.

Martina Solcanyiova, spokesperson of the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS), sees possible space for more innovative solutions and adjustment of business activities of new entities in the provision of payment services in future.

Elementary standards

While PSD2 only creates a legal framework for changes in providing payment services, the EC has entrusted the European Banking Authority (EBA) with developing particular technical standards including rules on strong client authentification, secure communication, as well as 10 additional rules and guidelines, said Brodnianska.

A basic premise is that a local security authority grants licences and inspects an entity in terms of safety, said Gec, pointing to the National Security Authority as the likely supervisory authority in Slovakia.

Banks have to adapt

Slovak banks are currently weighing the potential impacts of the directive on their activities. They should be able to open up to third parties entitled to provide information and initiation services, said Polakova.

The vast majority of banks have owners outside of Slovakia who manage them according to their global strategies. Hence, they will wait for the activity of non-banking entities which will require access to the accounts of banking clients, according to Gec. Banks are facing the fact that clients may use electronic communication means other than theirs.

The actual philosophy of internet banking in the entire central Europe came from the fact that no entity other than a bank dispenses with access to a clients electronic account and communication with him, Gec said.
The two film-makers who focused on a less-known saviour of World War II, the recently deceased Nicholas Winton and made films about him, received the award commemorating another war-time hero, Swede Raoul Wallenberg.

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Editor and producer Patrik Pass and director Matej Minac received the Raoul Wallenberg Medal on March 14 at the Swedish Embasy in Prague, from the hands of Jill Parry Blonsky of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, and Swedish Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Viktoria Li. The two were given the award because of their work on projects connected with Sir Nicholas Winton who saved hundreds of prevailinglyJewish children from Czechoslovakia shortly before the start of WWII, the SITA newswire wrote.

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Winton's story spreads the virus of good all over the world, Matej Minac said. This award is not just for me and Patrik Pass; but for all those who helped us capture the message of Nicholas Winton on film. Our great thanks goes to them.

I receive the award with agreat deal of humility and thankfullenss, Patrik Pass added. It belongs to all the people who are inspired by the idea of humaneness and decency in their own activities.

The Prague event was also attended by all the surviving Winton's children from the Czech Republic. At the same place, Pass and Minac organised a meeting in 1998 with Winton and the people whom he saved and who grew up in the meantime. Inspired by the activities of the Englishman who lived in Czechoslovakia before the WWII, the two film-makers studied the historical events which he himself rarely spoke about, found him and the children he saved, and ultimately brought the survivors together with their unwitting saviour in a surprising event. The moving moment was captured by them on screen: three acclaimed movies ensued, All My Loved Ones (Vsichni Moji Blizci) in 1999, The Power of Good: Nicholas Winton (Nicholas G. Winton  Sila ludskosti) in 2002, and Nicky's Family (Nickyho rodina) in 2011.

The medal is rewarded to honour the Swedish diplomat and humanitarian worker Raoul Wallenberg who during World War II saved dozens of thousands of Jews from Hungary.
The current rules for employing non-EU nationals will change in April.

A group of 13 business organisations and chambers of commerce put together 20 recommendations for politicians in Slovakia in mid-November (Source: Sme)

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The number of foreigners coming from countries outside the European Union who have obtained working permission in Slovakia exceeded 4,000 in 2016, one-third more than the year before.

Foreigners belong to one of the solutions companies use to tackle the problem with the lack of qualified workers, the Hospodarske Noviny daily reported.

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One of the reasons why employers do not recruit more non-EU workers is difficult administration, according to Peter Dosedla of recruitment agency Express People. Business people have to prove to authorities that no Slovak worker is interested in the position intended to be given to a foreigner.

The employer has to report a free position for at least 30 days to the labour office, spokesperson for the Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family (UPSVaR) explained to Hospodarske Noviny.

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Read also: Bill to allow foreigners seasonal work without temporary visa Read more

Only after this period expires, the employer can offer the job to third-country nationals, she added.

This however will change as of April as the parliament adopted milder rules for employing non-EU nationals in mid-March. This concerns mostly seasonal employees who will stay in Slovakia for more than 90 days, as well as employees who will arrive in the country as part of inter-corporate transfers, the Interior Ministry explained.

The companies addressed by Hospodarske Noviny claim that the amendment will not result in a mass search for workers in non-EU countries.

Currently, the most workers from countries outside the EU are from Ukraine and Serbia. Half of them have a university education, the daily reported.
The government proposal may be adopted on March 30.

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The Slovak parliament will discuss the government's proposals to scrap the controversial Meciar amnesties in a fast-tracked proceeding. This means that MPs will discuss the amendments in a first reading on March 28, while the second and third readings are scheduled for March 30.

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The proposal was supported by 80 MPs. Besides the coalition deputies, non-affiliated Peter Marcek, Rastislav Holubek, Martina Simkovicova and Alena Basistova also supported it, the SITA newswire reported.

Following the voting, the opposition parties Freedom and Solidarity (SaS), Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OLaNO-NOVA) and We Are Family of Boris Kollar initiated a board meeting.

It is in the public interest to deal with the amnesties granted by former prime minister Vladimir Meciar as soon as possible, said Justice Minister Lucia Zitnanska (Most-Hid). This is the reason why the government proposed that the amendments be discussed in a fast-tracked proceeding, although she personally, is not a fan of such a procedure.

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In society and also on the political scene there is a certain momentum, and though it has taken 20 years, there is a general will to scrap Meciar's amnesties, Zitnanska said, as quoted by SITA.

Since there is a will to scrap the amnesties, it would not be good to wait until September to adopt the proposal, she added.

The opposition, however, criticised the governments intention to discuss the amendments in short-tracked proceedings. Ondrej Dostal of SaS, for example, said the proposal does not meet the conditions to be discussed in this type of proceeding. As a result, it is equates to changing the constitution by tearing up the calendar.

The law has been submitted in a rush, Dostal said, as quoted by SITA, adding there is no need to adopt the scrapping of amnesties in just two weeks. He considers the push to adopt this legislation purposeful.

The coalition came up with a way to scrap the controversial amnesties, granted toward the end of Meciars rule in 1997 when he was acting president, by introducing a new constitutional law that will allow MPs to scrap the amnesties but also introduce the requirement for this action to be approved by the constitutional court. To make the change, the votes of 10 opposition MPs will be needed as well.

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The opposition said it would support the proposal, but has five conditions it wants met.

We will vote for this version if MPs are convinced that it leads to a real, not fictive cancellation of the Meciar amnesties, said Jan Budaj, MP for OLaNO-NOVA, as quoted by the TASR newswire.
The Slovak Chamber of Teachers calls for more activity on the occasion of Teachers Day that falls on March 28.

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Until we gain a position both teachers and schools deserve, the best visions for Slovak education will remain only an unfulfilled dream. The change of the governments attitude towards pedagogic and professional employees in the sector is still among the main goals of the changes, Vladimir Crmoman, head of the Slovak Chamber of Teachers, wrote in an open letter sent to the media on the occasion of Teachers Day, which in Slovakia and the Czech Republic falls on March 28.

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It is necessary to join all forces and all movements to pursue that change.

Nothing new comes without price, which all of us need to pay, Crmoman wrote in the letter, as quoted by the SITA newswire. We need to break free from the influence of those who have been deceiving us for years and throw responsibility on us in an inappropriate way.

He went on to say that attending negotiations with changing ministers that do not bring any results is not enough. It is necessary to follow the movement of the Teachers Forum created after the November 1989 revolution and develop potential together.

Lets think of our children, pupils, students we have raised and prepared for life in this world, Crmoman wrote, as quoted by SITA. Lets not look around for someone else, since someone has to start the path that leads to change. We have started moving things so lets continue. That has always been our mission, our value.
Slovakia has the highest share of young Eurosceptics among the surveyed countries.

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Over three-quarters of young people in central and eastern Europe feel positive about membership in the European Union. They consider peace and freedom the main benefits, and they want their countries to stay in the club.

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This stems from an online survey carried out by Bertelsmann Foundation on 3,000 young people aged 15-24 living in the Visegrad Group (V4) countries, Germany and Austria between January 30 and February 13.

Peace and freedom are inseparably linked with the EU, but they cannot be considered a natural thing, said Aart De Geus, chair of the Bertelsmann Foundation, as quoted by the TASR newswire.

The poll suggests that 77 percent of respondents from all six countries praise EU membership. The highest support is in Germany (87 percent) and Austria (77 percent). Of the V4 countries, the most EU supporters are in Hungary (79 percent), followed by Poland (76 percent), the Czech Republic (73 percent), and Slovakia (70 percent).

Slovakia thus has the highest share of young Eurosceptics: 30 percent, the SITA newswire reported.

Except for peace, the respondents praise the possibility to live and work (66 percent) and study (66 percent) in other EU member states. Young Germans also prefer the European efforts to fight climate change.

Most respondents also want their countries stay in the EU. The highest support is in Germany (77 percent), followed by Austria (71 percent). In the V4, up to 64 percent of young Hungarians want their country to stay in the group, while this possibility is supported by 64 percent of Poles and Slovaks and 60 percent of Czechs.

Young Europeans dont want to be influenced by anti-European rhetoric, De Geus said, as quoted by TASR.

As much as 74 percent of respondents consider Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism the biggest current problem the EU has to face.

In Slovakia, the poll was conducted in cooperation with the non-governmental think tank Institute for Public Affairs.
The bank has not yet confirmed the rumours.

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Italian financial group UniCredit has launched negotiations on selling its Czech and Slovak divisions. In case of successful transaction, UniCredit would gain more than 90 billion Czech crowns (some 3.3 billion), the SITA newswire reported.

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Among the potential bidders are Societe Generale and its Czech subsidiary Komercni Banka and Moneta Money Bank, according to the weekly Euro.

The sale of UniCredits divisions would become the biggest transaction in the history of Czech banking. So far, the biggest acquisition was the privatisation of Komercni Banka in 2001. Societe Generale paid 40.2 billion Czech crows for a 60-percent share.

It is our good habit not to comment on any speculations, said UniCredit spokesperson Andrea Morawski, as quoted by TASR.

Though the Italian group has not launched any sale nor has it recruited a financial and legal advisor, it started initial talks with the potential bidders, TASR reported.

Experts say that the merger of Komercni Banka and UniCredit Bank would make sense as the former cannot grow anymore and the only possibility for growth is to take control over its rival.

The representatives of the bank, however, refused to comment on the information, TASR wrote.
Parliamentary committee for incompatibility of functions scrutinises the trip of President Andrej Kiska to Poland in early March, in response to claims that he took his daughter Natalia and other private individuals with him on a government aircraft.

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Moreover, Kiska allegedly participated in tapping the foundation stone of a future Polish skyscraper that is supposed to be built by the company HB Reavis, for which his daughter Natalia, 26, is currently working, the TASR newswire learnt from the committee chairman Martin Poliacik (opposition Freedom and Solidarity/SaS party) on March 28.

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The parties that have submitted the motion  coalition MPs from Smer and the Slovak National Party (SNS)  consider it to be unacceptable for the Slovak president to use government aircraft for private events and to take his daughter and other private individuals along with him. They view Kiska's actions as the cause of multiple conflicts of interest and the misuse of state money for personal and family purposes and benefit.

The spokesperson for Kiska's office, Roman Krpelan, stressed in response that the president was in Poland at the invitation of Polish President Andrzej Duda. He first attended a working meeting in Warsaw, and the following day the two presidents skied together at Zakopane ski resort in the High Tatra mountains.

Tapping the foundation stone of the largest Slovak investment in Poland  the construction of the tallest building in central Europe  was part of the president's working programme, Krpelan said, as cited by TASR. During his trips abroad, the president often visits subsidiaries of Slovak companies, for example Soitron in Bulgaria and Seak Energetics in Israel, he noted, adding that neither family members, nor private individuals formed part of Kiska's delegation in Poland. None of the president's family members were in Poland during his visit to the country, Krpelan stressed.

On March 29, at 15:00, Interior Minister Robert Kalinak will make information available to MPs about the use of the ministry squadron for 2015 to 2017  Smer MPs have asked for this and MP Martin Nemky filed a motion, based on publicised information about Kiska and his use of state flights. Nemky requires this information to be checked and also the information on the use of the ministry squadorn by other constitutional officals to be elaborated upon, the SITA newswire wrote.
Professor Debbie Senesky, left, works with graduate student Caitlin Chapin on electronics that can resist extreme environments. Credit: L.A. Cicero

Behind its thick swirling clouds, Venus is hiding a hot surface pelted with sulfuric acid rains. At 896 F (480 C) degrees, the planet's atmosphere would fry any of today's electronics, posing a challenge to scientists hoping to study this extreme environment.

Researchers at the Stanford Extreme Environment Microsystems Laboratory, or the XLab, are on a mission to conquer these conditions. By developing heat-, corrosion- and radiation-resistant electronics, they hope to move research into extreme places in the universe  including here on Earth. And it all starts with tiny, nano-scale slices of material.

"I think it's important to understand and gain new insight through probing these unique environments," said Debbie Senesky, assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics and principle investigator at the XLab.

Senesky hopes that by studying Venus we can better understand our own world. While it's hard to imagine that hot and corrosive Venus ever looked like Earth, scientists think that it used to be much cooler. Billions of years ago, a runaway greenhouse effect may have caused the planet to absorb far more heat than it could reflect, creating today's scorching conditions. Understanding how Venus got so hot can help us learn about our atmosphere.

"If we can understand the history of Venus, maybe we can understand and positively impact the future evolution of our own habitat," said Senesky.

What's more, devices that can withstand the rigors of space travel could also monitor equally challenging conditions here on earth, such as in our cars.

Scorching heat

One hurdle to studying extreme environments is the heat. Silicon-based semiconductors, which power our smartphones and laptops, stop working at about 572 F (300 C) degrees. As they heat up, the metal parts begin to melt into neighboring semiconductor and don't move electricity as efficiently.

Ateeq Suria, graduate student in mechanical engineering, is one of the people at the XLab working to overcome this temperature barrier. To do that, he hopped into his bunny suitoverall lab apparel that prevents contaminationand made use of ultra-clean work spaces to create an atoms-thick, heat-resistant layer that can coat devices and allow them to work at up to 1112 F (600 C) degrees in air.

"The diameter of human hair is about 70 micrometers," said Suria. "These coatings are about a hundredth of that width."

Suria and others at the XLab are working to improve these nano-devices, testing materials at temperatures of up to 1652 F (900 C) degrees. For space electronics, it's a key step in understanding how they survive for long periods of time. Although a device might not be exposed to such temperature extremes in space, the test conditions rapidly age materials, indicating how long they could last.

The team at XLab tests materials and nano-devices they create either in-house in high-temperature probe stations or in a Venus simulator at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. That simulator mimics the pressure, chemistry and temperature of Venus. To mirror the effects of space radiation, they also test materials at Los Alamos National Laboratory and at NASA Ames Research Center.

Radiation damage

More than just surviving on Venus, getting there is important, too. Objects in space are pounded by a flurry of gamma and proton radiation that knock atoms around and degrade materials. Preliminary work at the XLab demonstrates that sensors they've developed could survive up to 50 years of radiation bombardment while in Earth's orbit.

Senesky said that if their fabrication process for nano-scale materials proves effective it could get incorporated into technologies being launched into space.

"I'm super excited about the possibility of NASA adopting our technology in the design of their probes and landers," said Senesky.

Hot electronics at home

While space is an exciting frontier, Suria said that interest in understanding car engines initially fueled this research. Inside an engine, temperatures reach up to 1832 F (1000 C) degrees, and the outer surface of a piston is 1112 F (600 C) degrees. Current technology to monitor and optimize engine performance can't handle this heat, introducing error because measuring devices have to be placed far away from the pistons.

Electronics designed to survive the intense conditions of space could be placed next to the engine's pistons to directly monitor performance and improve efficiency.

"You just put the sensor right in the engine and get much better information out," said Suria.

Other fiery, high pressure earth-bound environments that would benefit from these robust electronics include oil and gas wellbores, geothermal vents, aircraft engines, gas turbines and hypersonic structures.
ISTE

Three Change Agents Will Be Keynote Speakers at ISTE

Three change agents who have upended the status quo in their own unique ways will be the keynote speakers at the International Society for Technology in Educations (ISTE) conference and expo in San Antonio, TX, June 25-28.

ISTEs aim is to advance the most important and influential trends in education technology, and ISTE 2017 will continue this tradition by offering more than 1,000 sessions and learning opportunities in a variety of formats to accommodate many different learning styles.

This years keynote speakers each took unconventional paths in their careers, and their brave risk-taking allowed them to blaze new trails for their industries, said ISTE Interim CEO Cheryl Scott Williams in a statement. Their willingness to risk failure in order to drive transformation will resonate with the ISTE 2017 audience.

Through their presentations and personal stories, the keynote speakers will highlight how looking at things in a new way, even if met with skepticism initially, can eventually open new doors of opportunity for learning and understanding.

The speakers are:

Jad Abumrad, host and creator of public radios Radiolab. Abumrad employs his dual backgrounds as a composer and journalist to create whats been called a new aesthetic in broadcast journalism. He orchestrates dialogue, music, interviews and sound effects into compelling documentaries that draw listeners into investigations of otherwise intimidating topics, including the nature of numbers, the evolution of altruism or the legal foundation for the war on terror.

Radiolabs origin dates back to 2002 when Abumrad began tinkering with an idea for a new program that would be an open-ended radio laboratory. Radiolab emerged as the product of that tinkering and has evolved into one of public radios most popular programs, broadcast on 524 stations across the United States and downloaded more than 9 million times per month as a podcast.

Abumrad will be the opening keynote speaker Sunday, June 25, from 5:45-7 p.m.

Jennie Magiera is chief innovation officer at Des Plaines Public Schools in Chicago and the author of Courageous Edventures. Previously the digital learning coordinator for the Academy for Urban School Leadership and a teacher in Chicago Public Schools, Magiera believes that despite the many challenges facing schools today, every classroom can be a place for what she calls edventures.

Magiera is also devoted to reimagining professional development to ensure teachers receive relevant training and support. She has served on the Technical Working Group for the Department of Educations National Educational Technology Plan and co-founded various new conference concepts, including Playdate, a collaborative online space where educators tinker with ed tech tools, programs and apps.

Magiera shares her experiences with taking risks in the classroom and provides hints to help others feel comfortable doing so in her book, Courageous Edventures.

Magiera will speak Tuesday, June 27, from 8:30-9:45 a.m.

Reshma Saujani is the founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, a national nonprofit organization working to close the gender gap in technology. Through its summer immersion programs and clubs, Girls Who Code is leading the movement to inspire, educate and equip young women with the computing skills to pursue 21st century opportunities.

Started in 2012, the organization has grown to reach 40,000 girls in every state, and 90 percent of alumnae have declared or intend to declare a major or minor in computer science, according to a news release.

Saujanis TED talk, Teach Girls Bravery, Not Perfection, has more than 3 million views and has sparked a national conversation about how were raising our girls. She is also the author of the new book, Women Who Dont Wait in Line. Saujani is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Harvards Kennedy School of Government and Yale Law School.

Saujani will be the closing keynote speaker Wednesday, June 28, from 2:45-4 p.m.

For more information on ISTE 2017, visit the ISTE conference website.
child peers through hole in start of european union flag

On Wednesday (March 29) UK prime minister Theresa May is to announce she is triggering Article 50officially starting Brexit, or Britains exit from the European Union. Article 50 is an exit clause found in the Treaty on European Union, and its actually quite shortjust five points. Heres how it came to be:

What is the Treaty on European Union?

The Treaty on European Union is an updated version of the Maastricht Treaty, which formed the EU when it was signed in the Netherlands in 1992. Every member state must sign in order to join. The Treaty on European Union was preceded by another important document, the Treaty of Rome, signed 60 years ago by France, then-West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, to create the European Economic Community. The Treaty of Rome, considered a critical step in the development of the EU, established a common European market and free movement of people.

What is the Treaty of Lisbon?

The Treaty of Lisbon, signed in 2007, amends and updates the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty of Rome. The Treaty of Lisbon was written to reform the functions and decision makers of the EU as it grew. Though Article 50 is part of the text of the Treaty on European Union, the Treaty of Lisbon codified it as a formal exit clause. The idea of withdrawal was controversial before the Lisbon Treaty, and there was no clear mechanism for actually leaving.

Full text of Article 50

1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.

2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218 (3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.

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3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.

4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it. A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

5. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.

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While inflation in western Europe is largely expected to be tamed within a year, there is a growing sense that in central Europe runaway prices will be around for much longer. Central and eastern Europe have for months been at the forefront of the inflation battle, ahead of the curve both in terms of the acceleration of price pressures and the sometimes uneven efforts of its central banks to curb them. Hungarian bread and cheese prices rose by around 70% year-on-year in September while sugar prices in Poland have jumped 50% with some shops running low in the summer on hoarding in anticipation of more price rises.
VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria will seek an exemption from having to accept more asylum-seekers under an EU relocation system, it said on Tuesday, arguing that it has already taken in its fair share during Europe's migration crisis. The move is a new blow to the system that would cover only a fraction of migrant arrivals to the European Union and that has barely been implemented because of opposition led by Eastern European countries including Poland and Hungary. It also coincides with a tightening of security and immigration rules by the centrist coalition government in Austria, where a wave of arrivals that began in 2015 helped fuel a rise in support for the far-right Freedom Party, which still leads in opinion polls. "We believe an exception is necessary for Austria for having already fulfilled its obligation. We will discuss that with the European Commission," Chancellor Christian Kern told reporters after a weekly cabinet meeting. "We will send a letter as quickly as possible and then begin discussions." Fewer than 14,500 asylum-seekers have been relocated from Greece and Italy, the first EU countries that many refugees and migrants from the Middle East and Africa set foot in, under the two-year EU plan that was supposed to cover 160,000 people and which expires in September. "We are of the opinion ... that the people in question here already sought an asylum application or arrived in Italy or Greece," Kern said. "We must check whether we have already fulfilled our quota and discharged our obligation." Austria took in roughly 90,000 asylum seekers in 2015, more than 1 percent of its population. More than a million migrants arrived in Germany that year, most of them having passed through Austria after crossing the Balkans from Greece. Austria has repeatedly called on other EU countries to take their fair share, and has even backed the idea of financial penalties for those that do not. The Commission granted Austria a temporary exception because of the large number of people it had taken in, but that has since expired. "Austria is now expected to fulfil its legal obligation ... to start relocating," Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said. The government has been seeking to erode support for the Freedom Party with a series of law-and-order measures and stricter immigration rules. An "integration bill" agreed in cabinet on Tuesday would ban face-veils in public places and oblige unemployed refugees to perform jobs "of public utility" for no pay beyond their normal benefit payments. (Reporting by Francois Murphy; additional reporting by Waverly Colville in Brussels; Editing by Catherine Evans and Robin Pomeroy)
via shutterstock.com

In a poll of 25 countries by Ipsos MORI published in March 2017, 33% of those interviewed in Britain said immigration was their biggest worry. Although more British people overall were worried about healthcare, only Germans were more worried about immigration.

While discussions about immigration in Britain used to be focused on issues of race, much of the current debate hinges on social class. The problem  particularly of migration of European citizens to the UK  is often portrayed as being the migration of the less well-off. And Eastern European migrants are often discriminated against on the basis of their class because they take low-paid jobs in the UK.

Social class has been reduced to one single aspect: the wealth of these migrants. It is assumed that people who are well-off will also have high levels of cultural and social capital, such as a university degree and good social networks. And vice versa. But this overgeneralises, assuming all migrants from Eastern Europe constitute one single group and that they will all possess the same characteristics and job prospects.

Serbian Londoners

My own ongoing research focusing on Serbian Londoners illustrates how public debates about the social class of immigrants to Britain have been oversimplified. There is no precise or accurate number of Serbs in London, but some estimates put the number at 70,000. Their different histories and personal backgrounds make this group of Serbian Londoners remarkably diverse. They have come to London for a variety of reasons: economic opportunity, a change of lifestyle seeking adventure, or to escape the political situation back home.

esfera via shutterstock.com

One 47-year-old man, who works in marketing, told me that he came to London in 2001. On the one hand, his motive to leave was a better way of life. But his decision to leave came after a decade of living under the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, categorised by corruption, nationalist quarrels, environmental ruin and an impoverished cultural scene. For most Serbs it was impossible to leave the country before Milosevics fall, because borders were closed due to international sanctions.

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There is often inconsistency between the different types of capital of migrants  such as their social, economic or cultural capital. This means that some people may be well-off, but they do not have a university degree and their contacts are mainly limited to people of the same ethnic origin. So they have high economic capital, but low cultural and social capitals. The opposite is also true, and other studies of migration have documented how some migrants are overqualified for the jobs they undertake in Britain.

In my research, Ive spoken to people without a university degree who have managed to start their own business and gain greater economic capital in the UK than they had when they were in Serbia. Yet at the same time, while they are now financially middle class, they have not necessarily gained greater cultural and social capital than they had before migrating. This means their circle of close friends are still limited to a group of people they had known before, and their cultural and social tastes have not have dramatically changed.

Not a homogeneous group

Most of the participants in my research are UK citizens and were eligible to vote in the EU referendum. Some were born in the UK, but the majority have become UK citizens since arriving in London. Given that Serbia is not in the EU, most of the first generation of these migrants had not enjoyed the privileged status of EU citizens until they became UK nationals. But it is still relatively difficult for their relatives to come and visit them because of the very tough UK visa regime.

It was apparent that their views on Brexit were linked more to their system of values, rather than their wealth. Even some relatively well-off Serbs in London with university degrees are not necessarily welcoming of different cultures. One 40-year-old man who runs his own business told me that he voted for Brexit, because, among other things, he did not like influences of other cultures on the British tradition. But another woman, an engineer and designer who was born in the UK of Serbian origin, voted for remain. She told me:

I am afraid that the UK has set an example that other countries might follow. The EU is actually the only salvation for Serbia, if the EU falls apart, Serbia might go backwards a hundred years.

All of this shows that debates on immigration to Britain which treat all Eastern Europeans as being from the lower social class tend to be overly generalised and oversimplified. There is no one single category of Eastern European migrants. People may move into a higher social class once they migrate, or they may be overqualified for jobs they take in a host country: their social class is not set in stone. Debates in Britain that attempt to label all Eastern European migrants into the same category ignore the complexity and richness of the migrant experience.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Sanja Vico has received a grant from Fund for Young Talents, that belongs to Ministry of Youth and Sports, of The Republic of Serbia twice, and has received once Civil Society Scholar Award from the Open Society Foundation.
When nations are hit by disturbing events such as the attack on Westminster on March 22, they trigger a range of emotional responses. They not only seize the attention of the nation (and the world), but also spur people to share their impressions and concerns with others, and motivate them to engage in actions that may be shaped and organised collectively.

In such times, people tend to turn to prominent figures and leaders to speak on their behalf, or to perform what researchers call emotional labour  a term introduced by the sociologist Arlie Hochschild in 1983  to manage their feelings.

When faced with a lethal disaster or attack, political leaders also have to display their mastery of emotional performance. The pressure is especially so for female politicians who are expected to demonstrate care and consideration for others while simultaneously appearing strong and competent  to both voters and other leaders.

As women who have been called upon to combine cool steadfastness and emotional engagement in response to a national crisis, Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May are in a category of their own. And when May was recently called upon to put these emotional skills to the test in a televised statement after the Westminster attack, her performance was arguably more skillful than even one of Thatchers most important.

Tough talk

During the Conservative Party conference in Brighton in 1984, Thatcher and most of the partys leadership were staying in the citys Grand Hotel. In the early hours of October 12, it was hit by a massive IRA bomb that killed five people and would have killed Thatcher herself had she been in a different part of her suite.

Thatchers speech to conference at 9.30am that same day is now arguably the template for the sort of public statement British leaders must deliver after a terrorist attack. In it, she condemned the bombing as first and foremost an inhuman, undiscriminating attempt to massacre innocent, unsuspecting men and women staying in Brighton for our Conservative conference. She immediately followed this with: Our first thoughts must at once be for those who died and for those who are now in hospital recovering from their injuries.

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May echoed Thatchers lines on the depravity of the bombing in her March 22 statement, in which she described the Westminster attack as sick and depraved. But where Thatcher and Mays statements differ is in their tone.

While the content of Mays statement for television was similar to Thatchers conference speech, May also mentioned the family members of victims and signalled a hint of genuine distress, described by some in the media as cracking or shaking at times with emotion. This is a crucial difference from Thatcher: whereas she briefly gave the surface appearance of caring for others but then pressed on with the Tory conference and her speech without displaying much in the way of concern, May actually seemed to be trying to control an underlying distress.

Such indications that vulnerable emotions may break through a veneer of composure, resolve or toughness often indicate integrity and caring to viewers regardless of their political affiliation. This is a core part of a leaders job in these moments.

During times of crisis, people are often hungry for the latest information and measured speeches promoting unity and expressing admiration for emergency services play a dual role: they not only reinforce the humanity of the speaker in praising others and displaying gratitude but also suggest emotional authenticity. This is why, if handled well, such displays during crises can increase popularity  even that of nationally unpopular leaders.

Emotional rituals

There is, of course, much more to the collective impact of such events on a large city than a televised speech reiterating the virtues of unity, restraint and carrying on as normal. As happened after the 2015 Paris attacks, further ceremonies, rituals and gatherings are important for people to spontaneously feel, display and labour with their own mixed feelings of defiance, grief, anger, gratitude and pride.

Television viewers will also feel solidarity with victims and their families despite only seeing televised accounts of others; they can feel genuine distress after such events. Its important not to underestimate these vicarious emotions, which can be shared among people with complex group and individual identities. The vocabulary leaders use in their statements provides a useful script for their citizens; it can be reproduced in workplace emails and messages to friends and family, and in invitations to engage in local performances of national rituals such as scheduled minutes of silence.

When Thatcher told her audience in Brighton 32 years ago that we are gathered here now, shocked but composed and determined, she only appeared to be emotional when she expressed her deep gratitude to emergency services, and the staff of both the hotel and the party: As prime minister and leader of the party, I thank them all and send our heartfelt sympathy to all who have suffered. Her resolve was met with extended applause, driving home the message that the terrorists had failed  but some viewers might have questioned how much she cared about everyone affected.

After Mays Downing Street statement, much was made of her message that Londoners would defy the attack by going about their business. But this is just one dimension of the public experience of such events. Citizens dont simply conform to May and Thatchers business as usual line; perhaps even more so than they did in 1984, they need to take time out to share their reactions with others, to engage in collective expressions and join in rituals of solidarity, and to reaffirm what they have in common.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Gavin Brent Sullivan receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council for research on disasters. He 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.
By Josh Smith KABUL (Reuters) - For Kabul political science student Rahmatullah Amiri, shot three times in a Taliban raid on the American University of Afghanistan last August and still on crutches, restarting classes is the best possible answer to his attackers. "The only thing I can do to tell those terrorists that what they have done is wrong is come back to this university," Amiri, who saw a friend die in front of him in the attack that killed at least 16 people, told Reuters at the campus on Monday. The attack shattered the university's image as an island of liberalism and learning in a country plagued by militant violence, and many feared the institution would not fully recover. Many international organizations have pulled staff out of Afghanistan amid a general deterioration in security, and university officials acknowledged that faculty turnover since the attack has been 20 to 30 percent higher than usual. Student enrollment is slightly up compared to last year, however, and on a sunny day this week students arrived for new orientation sessions and construction crews continued work on new classrooms and a cafeteria. A day before classes were scheduled to begin on Tuesday, the campus was abuzz with the voices of students attending orientation courses and construction workers building new facilities. Students expressed excitement but also trepidation ahead of the restart of classes. "I want to come back to school... to see my friends and acquire knowledge," said Nargis Azaryoun, who managed to escape the attack unharmed. "But Im also worried about if we get hit for the second time." Around the grounds, signs of increased security are everywhere, and orientation classes focussed heavily on safety training. The final slide in a presentation urged students: "If you see something suspicious, report it!" Tall concrete blast barriers now tower more than twice as high as the old stone walls. Guard towers and checkpoints are manned by heavily armed foreign guards employed by a Canadian private security firm. The use of a foreign security company had to be approved by Afghan President Ghani, as such businesses have generally been banned in Afghanistan for years. The government guards tasked with securing the school during last year's attack were "completely ineffective," said acting university president David Sedney, a crisis management expert brought in to oversee efforts to reopen. "Weve made massive improvements and changes in our security over the last seven months since the attack," he said. The university has also moved all of its faculty and some students into housing on the campus, a move aimed at reducing risks, including kidnapping. Just weeks before the August attack, two professors were kidnapped just outside the campus, prompting the university to shut down for several days. The pair is still missing. Amiri said that while he expects there to be some "hard moments" as students remember lost friends, he remains motivated. "In order to be successful, you have to take some risks." (Editing by Hugh Lawson)
A Coca-Cola plant in Northern Ireland has been shut down after workers reportedly found human waste in several cans.

Machines at the factory in Lisburn, close to Belfast, became clogged up by a container of cans during a night shift last week.

When workers checked to see what the issue was, they found what appeared to be human waste in several cans that had been shipped form Germany to be filled with the fizzy drink.

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A source told the Belfast Telegraph: It was absolutely horrible, and the machines had to be turned off for about 15 hours to be cleaned.

It was unusual because normally the cans come from somewhere else in the UK, but this time they apparently came from Germany.

The source said that the rumour is several immigrants made a long journey inside the lorry transporting the cans and used them to go to the toilet.

The human waste was reportedly found in cans at the Coca-Cola factory in Lisburn (Geograph)

They added: Its really shocking  and beyond the shock of finding something pretty disgusting in the cans is the thought there could have been poor people in that situation.

And if they did make that journey, where are they now?

A Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) spokesman said they were investigating the incident.

A spokesperson for Coca-Cola said they were aware of the incident at the Knockmore Hill plant.

They said: We are treating this matter extremely seriously and are conducting a thorough investigation in co-operation with the PSNI.

The problem was identified immediately through our robust quality procedures and all of the product from the affected production was immediately impounded and will not be sold.

This is an isolated incident and does not affect any products currently on sale.

The Food Standards Agency said there was no evidence to suggest any affected products had reached the market.

Top pic: Rex/stock photo
Fergus Wilson and his wife Judith, with whom he runs his business (Rex)

A buy-to-let agent who has owned more than 1,000 properties secretly banned coloured people from renting his homes.

Fergus Wilson, a millionaire often described as Britains biggest landlord, issued the demand in a leaked email to letting agents Evolution.

In a note seen by The Sun, one requirement for potential tenants said: No coloured people because of the curry smell at the end of the tenancy.

An unrepentant Mr Wilson, 70, who mostly owns properties in Kent, refused to apologise after being challenged about his remarks.

To be honest, were getting overloaded with coloured people, he told the tabloid.

It is a problem with certain types of coloured people  those who consume curry  it sticks to the carpet.

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You have to get some chemical thing that takes the smell out. In extreme cases you have to replace the carpet.

When asked if he had told Evolution not to take coloured people, Mr Wilson said: Certainly at one point we have.

Roy Fever, manager at Evolution Properties, said: We dont condone this at all.

We would never implement a policy like that. We put through anyone to the landlord and it is up to the landlord who they take on.

A spokesperson for Hope Not Hate said: You simply cannot treat people like this and deny them a place to live due to their skin colour.

This is the unacceptable face of the housing crisis. There is something broken in the system when such a powerful figure can get away with such an appalling policy. Fergus Wilsons comments would seem laughably offensive, a throwback to the Alf Garnett era, if they werent so serious in their implication.

Mr Wilson should face the full legal implications of his actions. Wed encourage the Equality and Human Rights Commission to investigate further as a matter of urgency.

This is not the first time Wilson, who is believed to have sold much of his property portfolio, has provoked ire.

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In January, he claimed he had banned single mums and victims of domestic abuse from renting his properties.

Speaking to The Telegraph, he said it was because their partners cause damage to the property.

It costs us money and we basically have all the trouble of putting it back together again, he said.

You have the property empty for a couple of months if something like paint has been thrown around. If we dont take battered wives, this doesnt happen.

In January 2014, Wilson sent eviction notices to every tenant that received housing benefit and alerted letting agents that he would no longer accept tenants who require housing benefit. At least 200 people were evicted.
Royal Mint

Although people are becoming increasingly reliant on electronic forms of financial transaction, the introduction of a new coin still feels like an important occasion. The new 1 coin, which enters circulation on March 28, is described by the Royal Mint as the most secure coin in the world. It is likely to be controversial.

The coin it replaces, introduced in 1983, had become prone to counterfeiting, with about 3% of 1 coins estimated to be forgeries. To stymie the counterfeiters, the new coin incorporates a range of security measures, including micro-lettering, a bimetallic design, a hologram-like latent image, and a mysterious hidden feature intended to future-proof the coin against as yet unspecified threats.

It will also have 12 sides, and so harks back to one of the most fondly remembered coins of the 20th century, the dodecagonal threepenny bit. This threepenny coin was first introduced in March 1937 and was withdrawn after decimalisation in 1971.

Yet for all the nostalgia associated with the reintroduction of a 12-sided coin, it should be remembered that the 1937 threepenny was not widely feted when initially introduced. It was the first non-circular coin to be struck in Britain, and was so unusual when it entered circulation that the Nottingham Evening Post wryly observed that we shall know that the British public is past being surprised at anything if nobody jibs at receiving  a strange [polygonal] coin.

The physical feeling of cash encourages us to develop emotional feelings about it. The new 1 coin is thinner, lighter and slightly broader than its predecessor, and it seems likely that the shock of the new will ensure that it generates debate. As was the case with the new five pound note introduced in September 2016, some will welcome it, others abhor it. Opinions will abound. But we shall have to see whether novelties in the British coinage are still capable of inspiring hostile verses, as they were in the 1930s when a disgruntled poet wrote to the Manchester Guardian to insist that:

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I would not fritter breath

Upon that alien, new-fangled, thick

Intractable dodecagon.

Feelings run high because people do not think about cash money in purely economic terms  they judge and relate to coins and banknotes as elements of a material culture. Assessments are made based on individual taste. Personal relationships can also be formed with inanimate monetary tokens, and through them with the economic systems they embody and represent. And like all relationships, they take time to establish.

Give it time

People will, of course, get used to the new coin. It will quickly become an entirely unremarkable part of our daily routine, its specific dimensions and angular edges  at first touch so strange and unusual  will become familiar under peoples finger tips. Of course, they do not need to like a coin for it to remain useful to them, and the new pound will still be worth a pound, even if we hanker after the well-worn and comforting curves of its precursor.

The process of familiarisation takes time. But there are some coins that the public never warms to, or actively rebuffs: the 1887 double florin (worth four shillings) was withdrawn after just four years. And for a while, the 1937 threepenny was at risk of being added to the list of numismatic rejects. Being 12-sided, it was thought to look insufficiently British  polygonal coins were at the time associated with foreign currencies.

Plus, the threepenny was an unusual colour  its nickel-brass composition lent it a distinctive yellow tinge. It also had no history and people didnt know what to call it  newspapers ran competitions asking readers to suggest a suitable nickname, which would bring it into line with popular coins such as the tanner (sixpence) or bob (shilling). In Scotland, many harboured a preference for the smaller, lighter, rounder silver threepenny, which the Mint continued to produce until 1945. The two threepennies had to compete for the publics affections.

Distrust lingered because of the time it took to produce enough dodecagonal threepennies for them to become commonplace. Of the first 30m struck, most quickly vanished from sight, hoarded in personal collections rather than circulating freely. The Mint eventually forced the new coins into wider circulation by asking government departments to include them in the pay packets of state employees. It was only during World War II, with bronze pennies in short supply, that the 12-sided threepenny came to enjoy any real popularity. Its unique shape also made it easy to distinguish by touch in the blackout.

The extensive promotional campaigns run by the Mint ahead of the new 1 coins introduction suggest that lessons have been learned from the past. A concerted effort has been made to prepare the public for the change. And as cash is less important these days, whether or not the public develops any sort of affection for the this coin that seeks to blend the old and the new might not, in the end, matter tuppence.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Richard Farmer 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.
Taxpayers face a 100m bill after the Government agreed a pay-out to two US firms over the botched handling of a nuclear decommissioning contract.

Energy Secretary Greg Clark also ordered an independent inquiry led by former National Grid boss Steve Holliday after a "flawed" tendering process for the 6bn deal.

The 14-year contract with joint venture Cavendish Fluor Partnership to decommission 12 redundant Magnox nuclear power sites will now be scrapped nine years early in 2019.

Mr Clark said: "This was a defective procurement, with significant financial consequences, and I am determined that the reasons for it should be exposed and understood; that those responsible should be properly held to account; and that it should never happen again."

Labour said the Government had shown "dramatic levels of incompetence".

Shares in Britain's Babcock International, which has a 65% stake in the venture that won the contract, fell 4% as it said the termination would blow an 800m hole in its 20bn order book.

The Government's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has agreed out-of-court settlements with two companies that had sued it over the original contract award.

It will pay 85m including costs to Energy Solutions plus 12.5m including costs to Bechtel.

Mr Clark said it was clear that the tender process "was flawed" and that given the "very substantial costs" resulting to taxpayers there needed to be an independent inquiry.

The decommissioning work at the centre of the deal began in 2014.

It covers defunct older nuclear plants at sites including Dungeness, Sizewell, Hinkley Point and Wylfa.

But Mr Clark said, in a written ministerial statement, that it had become clear there was a "significant mismatch" between the work specified in the contract and the work that actually needs to be done.

He said the additional work meant there had been a "material change" in the specification on which bidders were invited to tender in 2012, and the NDA would terminate the deal.

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The decision was no reflection on the performance of the firms in the current deal, he said.

Mr Holliday's investigation into the process from procurement to termination of the contract will make recommendations, including whether disciplinary proceedings should take place.

Shadow energy secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey said: "By cancelling just two years into a 14-year contract, the Government has shown dramatic levels of incompetence in the procurement process of this deal.

"British taxpayers who stand to lose nearly 100m should be asking themselves not just whether they are willing to put up with such ineptitude but also whether the Government actually has a well thought-out and long-term nuclear decommissioning strategy."
yemen houthi sanaa

REUTERS/Khaled Abdullahv

Thousands of Yemenis packed a square in the capital Sanaa on Sunday on the second anniversary of a war that has claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people and pushed the impoverished country to the brink of famine.

It was the biggest gathering since a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states entered the conflict in 2015 to try to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power after he was ousted from Sanaa by the Iran-aligned Houthis.

Witnesses said that a crowd estimated at more than 100,000 people comprising supporters of the Houthis Ansarullah group and former President Ali Abdullah Saleh's General People's Congress (GPC) party pressed into Sabeen Square in central Sanaa.

Many waved the red, white and black national colors and denounced Saudi Arabia and the United States they blame for the war. Some displayed placards that read: Steadfast and End Siege on Yemen.

"This is a message to the world to tell everyone that despite two years of war, the Yemeni people are still victorious, still alive and still love peace," said Essam al-Abed, a GPC leader.

Saleh al-Samad, chairman of a governing ruling council that comprised members of the Iran-aligned Houthis and Saleh's GPC, struck a defiant note when he addressed the crowds.

"The battle is still fierce and the war will not end without a victory for the truth and justice," Samad said to loud cheers.

The former president, who had rarely been seen in public since he was forced to step down following months of protests in 2011 against his 30 years in office, made a brief appearance to cheers from his supporters as the crowd began to disperse.

Blood stains are seen at the site of a Saudi-led air strike which struck a house where mourners had gathered for a funeral north of Yemen's capital Sanaa, February 16, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

Thomson Reuters

The Saudi-led coalition has launched a series of air strikes since the war began but the Houthis remain entrenched in most of northern Yemen, including the capital Sanaa.

The United Nations human rights office said last week that the war has killed at least 4,773 civilians and injured more than 8,000.

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Several rounds of United Nations mediated peace talks in Switzerland and in Kuwait have failed to produce an agreement.

The Houthis and the GPC are demanding an agreement on a new administration comprising all parties to run the country until new elections, while Hadi supporters say that the Houthis must hand over their weapons and quit the cities they have seized since 2014.

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By Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is considering deepening its role in Yemen's conflict by more directly aiding its Gulf allies battling Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, officials say, potentially relaxing a U.S. policy that limited American support. The review of potential new U.S. assistance, which includes intelligence support, would come amid increasing evidence that Iran is sending advanced weapons and military advisers to the Houthi movement, a Shi'ite ally. Any elevation in U.S. support could be seen as a sign that President Donald Trump's administration has made confronting Iran and its allies an early priority. For the moment, however, any increase in direct U.S. assistance may be restricted to non-lethal measures and there was no sign the United States was considering waging strikes on Houthi targets, for example. Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, increasingly sought to limit U.S. ties to the civil war in Yemen and his administration became unnerved by civilian casualties caused by the Saudi-led coalition, which have come under intense international scrutiny. Yemen's conflict has claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people and pushed the impoverished country to the brink of famine. Critics of U.S. participation in the conflict, which has included arms sales to Saudi Arabia and refuelling of Saudi-led coalition jets, say Washington carries some of the blame for the civilian fallout. "The U.S. should not escalate our military involvement in a civil war in Yemen halfway around the world without any explanation by the president of what we are doing there and what is our strategy," said Representative Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California and a longtime advocate in Congress for a suspension of U.S. cooperation with the Saudi-led coalition. MEMO FROM MATTIS Trump's defence secretary, Jim Mattis, wrote a March memo to the White House advocating limited support for operations by Gulf partners, officials told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. One of the officials said the United States was examining offering the United Arab Emirates, for example, U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets and information sharing. The memo was first reported by the Washington Post and comes amid a broader U.S. review into its policy in Yemen, which for years has been seen almost entirely seen through the prism of America's fight against al Qaeda. Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has taken advantage of Yemen's war pitting the Houthis against the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to try to broaden its wealth and power. Iran rejects accusations from Saudi Arabia that it is giving financial and military support to the Houthis in the struggle for Yemen, blaming the deepening crisis on Riyadh. But Iran's role in Yemen has increasingly been the focus of U.S. policymakers since the United States struck Houthi targets with cruise missiles in October in retaliation for failed missile attacks on a U.S. Navy destroyer. U.S. officials say the Houthis have benefited from Iranian-provided know-how and weaponry, including ballistic missiles. The proposed U.S. support could allow America to aid an eventual push on the western port city of Hodeidah, which is under the control of the Houthis. It is near the Bab al-Mandab strait, a strategic waterway through which nearly 4 million barrels of oil are shipped daily. Obama's administration was long wary of operations involving the port, given its strategic importance as a vital gateway for humanitarian supplies, and last year rejected a proposal to assist its Gulf allies in a push for the port. (Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by James Dalgleish)
An UberEATS food delivery courier rides his bike in London, Britain September 7, 2016. Picture taken September 7, 2016. To match FOOD-DELIVERY/

REUTERS/Neil Hall

Uber is expanding its food delivery business, UberEats, to 40 more towns and cities across the UK as it looks to try and catch up with London rival Deliveroo.

The expansion will be complete by the end of 2017, Uber said.

UberEats launched in the UK last year, beginning operations in London, before expanding to Birmingham and Manchester.

Jambu Palaniappan, regional general manager of UberEats EMEA business saidin a statement: "In less than a year over a million people have downloaded the UberEats app in the UK. It's clear from the response we've seen in London, Manchester and Birmingham that there's huge appetite from people to order food at the touch of a button from their favourite local restaurants.

"We're really excited about the future of the business which is why were investing heavily in an ambitious plan to launch the app in at least 40 towns and cities in the UK by the end of the year."

New UK cities that UberEats will be expanding to include Nottingham, Leeds, Edinburgh, and Liverpool, according to The Financial Times. The service is also available in other countries, including Sweden, the Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, and South Africa.

In the UK, UberEats has partnered with over 2,000 restaurants including Chilango, Patty & Bun, Leon, PAUL, Ping Pong, Itsu, and Tossed.

Deliveroo, the biggest rival to UberEats in the UK, has been operating in the country since 2013.

Dan Warne, managing director for UK & Ireland at Deliveroo, told Business Insider last May that Deliveroo was in 38 towns and cities, adding that the company would expand to 30-40 more towns and cities by the end of 2016.

Deliveroo is now in 110 towns and cities across the UK, according to a Deliveroo spokesperson, who added that Deliveroo works with over 8,000 restaurants in the UK.

There's little between UberEats, Deliveroo, and Amazon's food delivery option, Amazon Restaurants. They all allow you to order food from restaurants that don't typically deliver, meaning it's often slightly higher quality than your average takeaway.

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In a bid to build up a loyal user base, Deliveroo launched a premium option earlier this year called Deliveroo Plus. It costs 89 a year and essentially allows people to get food delivered for free.

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The University of North Georgia's (UNG) Cottrell MBA program, offered through the Mike Cottrell College of Business, has been ranked as the fifth-best public, part-time MBA program in Georgia by the U.S. News and World Report 2018 Best Graduate Schools report.

According to Dr. Jeremy Bennett, director of MBA programs at UNG, the Cottrell MBA also has the lowest cost among the top five public, part-time Georgia programs.

"UNG offers relevant and engaging graduate, AACSB-accredited business education to professional students from a multitude of industries including business, healthcare, manufacturing and IT; the university's Cottrell MBA program has been one of the best-kept secrets north of Atlanta for many years," Bennett said. "The program continues to flourish due to the faculty, students and staff who continue to push us farther, and we do all of this as one of the lowest cost MBAs in the state."

According to U.S. News, part-time business programs play a vital role for working professionals who are unable to attend business school full time.

"We are very proud of the efforts and growth in the Cottrell MBA," said Dr. Donna Mayo, dean of the Mike Cottrell College of Business. "We are consistently seeking new opportunities and programming to make our curriculum relevant for business professionals and to strengthen our regional business communities."

Cottrell MBA currently enrolls 56 part-time MBA students and is built for working professionals, with classes offered on a consistent evening schedule on UNG's Cumming and Gainesville campuses. Its part-time status makes the program a convenient option for students seeking to further their careers on a reasonable budget while maintaining full-time employment. Students can also specialize in technology leadership in the program, making them more marketable to prospective employers and adding even greater value to their degree.

"UNG instilled a sense of optimism within me, which enabled me to have the confidence and knowledge to take intelligent risks, drive to find a deeper moral purpose in my work and continually push myself to grow," said Brad Wolf, a 2013 Cottrell MBA alumnus.

The annual U.S. News ranking is formulated based on average peer assessment score, average graduate exam (GMAT and GRE) scores of entering part-time MBA students, average undergraduate grade point average, number of years of work experience, and the percentage of total MBA enrollment that is part time. The part-time MBA ranking list is located here.

For more information about the Cottrell MBA program, visit www.ung.edu/mba.
WASHINGTON  Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday threatened to strip some sanctuary cities of coveted Justice Department grants for state and local law enforcement, saying those places that did not comply with a particular federal law on immigration would not be eligible for money.

I urge our nations states and cities to consider carefully the harm they are doing to their citizens by refusing to enforce our immigration laws, and to rethink these policies, Sessions said from the White House. Such policies make their cities and states less safe, and put them at risk of losing valuable federal dollars.

Sessions announcement follows President Donald Trumps executive order in January that gave the attorney general the authority to sanction any city that doesnt readily hand over undocumented immigrants for deportation.

This effort to punish cities where local leaders refuse to hand over undocumented immigrants for deportation is the latest effort by the Trump administration to crack down on illegal immigration.

Sessions said the Justice Department will take steps to claw back any funds awarded to a jurisdiction that violates federal law. The Justice Department will award more than $4.1 billion in grants to state and local jurisdictions this fiscal year.

Sessions said jurisdictions would not be eligible for grant money if they could not certify compliance with a law against blocking the sharing of information about a persons immigration status with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

It is unclear to which jurisdictions that might apply. Some cities that prevent their employees from disclosing a persons immigration information have exceptions for situations when it is required by law  although it is questionable as to whether those exceptions would satisfy Sessions. And merely refusing to honor a detainer request would not put a sanctuary city in violation of the law, as honoring such requests is not required under the statute cited by Sessions.

The attorney general said the Department of Homeland Security recently issued a report showing that in one week, there were more than 200 instances of jurisdictions that did not honor Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer requests with respect to people charged or convicted of a serious crime.

The charges and convictions against these aliens include drug trafficking, hit and run, rape, sex offenses against a child and even murder, Sessions said. Such policies cannot continue. They make our nation less safe by putting dangerous criminals back on our streets.

Sessions noted that Maryland is considering a law that would make it a sanctuary state.

That would be such a mistake, Sessions said of the proposal, which Gov. Larry Hogan, R, opposes. I would plead with the state of Maryland. It is not good policy.

Across the country Monday, several critics of Trumps sanctuary-city crackdown said they had no plans to reverse their policies and accused Trump of wrongly portraying undocumented immigrants as criminals when studies show their communities tend to be safer.

California State Senate president pro tempore Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, the sponsor of a bill that would make California a sanctuary state, called Sessions crackdown nothing short of blackmail.

Instead of making us safer, the Trump administration is spreading fear and promoting race-based scapegoating, he said in the statement. 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.

The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law said the Trump administrations attacks on sanctuary cities promote unlawful profiling and xenophobia.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions seeks to create a police state in which local and state law enforcement are acting at the behest of the federal government to round up immigrants in communities across the country, said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the committee.

The National Immigration Law Center noted the timing of Sessions announcement, soon after Trumps defeat on health care.

In typical fashion, they are trying to manipulate the news cycle to distract and divert attention elsewhere, Kamal Essaheb, director of policy and advocacy with the National Immigration Law Center, said in a statement.

Some city and county officials complained that the Trump administration is not carefully examining sanctuary policies, which vary.

In Montgomery County, Maryland, for instance, a spokesman said the county cooperates with federal immigration officials and protested when Homeland Security said they did not.

We feel that were in compliance with the laws that we need to be in compliance with, said spokesman Patrick Lacefield.

In Massachusetts, the mayor of Somerville, Joseph Curtatone, said his city turns over those with serious criminal records and people accused of dangerous crimes to immigration officials.

Curtatone said Trumps plans would endanger all residents by withholding public-safety money that in the past has funded programs such as self-defense classes to prevent rape.

Were not harboring any criminals, Curtatone said. Its dangerous when you have those in authority and power who are not fully informed with the facts making such statements.



The Washington Posts Matt Zapotosky and John Wagner contributed to this report.
New Mexicos solar job growth is on fire, with employment up 54 percent last year, according to a new report from the Washington, D.C.-based Solar Foundation.

As of December, 2,929 people worked in either installations, manufacturing, sales and distribution, project development and support positions, said Solar Foundation President and Executive Director Andrea Luecke. Thats up from 1,899 local jobs in 2015, making New Mexico the 23rd fastest-growing state for solar jobs nationwide and the eighth highest for industry employment per capita.

The solar industry grew about 179 times faster than the overall state economy last year, Luecke told the Journal.

The nonprofit publishes its Solar Jobs Census every year based on direct industry surveys. Data collection for this years report was financed largely by the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the DOEs annual Energy and Employment Report, Luecke said.

Overall, 260,000 people worked directly in solar-related jobs nationwide as of December, up 25 percent from 2015. Industry sales reached $62 billion across the country.

Adding indirect impact, the industry supported more than 788,000 U.S. jobs in 2016, generating $154 billion in total economic activity, according to the report.

Installation of residential, commercial and utility-scale photovoltaic systems accounted for about 40 percent of the states solar jobs. Manufacturing followed with 29 percent, and sales and distribution with 14 percent.

Solar jobs are scattered statewide, but about 60 percent are in Albuquerque. Solar employment in the states largest city grew by 78 percent last year, providing 1,767 jobs as of December.

New Mexicos solar workforce is also diverse.

About 45 percent of New Mexicos solar workers are women, which is unusual, Luecke said. Nationally, about 28 percent are women. And ethnic minorities make up about 51 percent of New Mexicos solar workforce.

The jobs census coincides with the latest Solar Energy Industry Association report on growth national growth in solar installations in 2016, released in early March. Last year, the industry installed nearly 14.8 gigawatts of residential, commercial and utility-scale solar capacity nationwide, according to the association. Thats a new industry record by far, doubling the 7.3 GW that was installed in 2015.

New Mexico companies report robust business, and optimism for a lot more growth this year. Albuquerque-based installation and wholesale firm Affordable Solar reached $55 million in revenue last year. It projects about $75 million this year.

We have some large-scale projects slated to start this year, and we project about 60 percent growth in residential and commercial installations, said CEO Ryan Centerwall. We just hired a number of people, and we have 40 more positions open now.
The U.S. military is not considering immediate changes to procedures governing airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, officials said on Monday, as the Pentagon defends the conduct of its air campaign against the Islamic State against a spike in reported civilian deaths.

Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), is not looking into changing the way we operate, other than to say our processes are good and we want to make sure we live by those processes, said Col. John Thomas, a spokesman for the command.

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, Thomas said that CENTCOM, which oversees the campaigns in Iraq and Syria, sought to use existing military guidelines to discriminate appropriately civilian targets from military targets.

The comments come as military officials respond to allegations of increased casualties, deepening questions about how the Trump administration will balance the presidents pledge to accelerate the defeat of the Islamic State with the militarys promise to protect civilian life.

According to Airwars, a British monitoring group, the frequency of civilian deaths alleged to be linked to U.S. strikes in Iraq and Syria has now outpaced those linked to Russia. The scrutiny has been compounded by a string of high-profile reported U.S. attacks in both countries, including assaults on a mosque, a school, and, most recently, a building apparently used as a shelter in the Iraqi city of Mosul.

The U.S. military is investigating those incidents.

Asked Monday about the spike in reported incidents in Mosul, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the United States does more than any nation to protect civilians from errant attacks.

We go out of our way to always do everything humanly possible to reduce the loss of life or injury among innocent people, he said at the Pentagon. The same cannot be said for our adversaries and that is up to you to sort out.

Military officials reject suggestions that the Trump administration, which is taking steps to establish a more aggressive approach to counterterrorism operations, may have relaxed restrictions on airstrikes. They blame militants for concealing themselves among civilians and using residents as human shields.

While Votel is not exploring any near-term shift in rules for the ongoing air war, officials did not rule out future changes. As part of a review of the current strategy against the Islamic State, President Trump asked commanders in a Jan. 28 memorandum to explore loosening restrictions imposed by the Obama administration that were designed to protect civilians. Officials are discussing proposed changes to that overall strategy.

Military officials said that any changes that may occur would not alter the air campaigns compliance with international law and would seek to keep civilian deaths to a minimum.

Despite U.S. denials, the perception of a shift in American tactics has persisted on the ground, including during Iraqi forces battle to retake remaining militant-held areas of Mosul.

Officials in Mosul have called on the U.S.-led coalition to use more caution and less heavy ordinance in the dense urban area. Iraqi police forces are closing in on the Old City, where 400,000 civilians are estimated to be trapped among narrow streets of tightly packed buildings. Iraqi forces on the ground call in airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition as they are advancing.

On Monday, Iraqi civil defense teams were hunting through the rubble in neighborhoods of western Mosul, attempting to retrieve the bodies of hundreds of residents who died as Iraqi forces advanced with the backing of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes.

In the Mosul al-Jadida neighborhood, one of the worst hit areas, the U.S.-led coalition has admitted carrying out an airstrike on March 17 that is alleged to have resulted in mass civilian casualties. It said it was targeting Islamic State fighters and equipment.

Rescue teams on Sunday finished excavating a main building that residents say was hit in that strike  recovering 101 bodies. Residents in a nearby street also accused coalition strikes of wiping out entire families over a period of several days when they described the bombardment as hellish.

Reporters have been banned from the scene since the incident was publicized, and Iraqi authorities have offered their version of events, saying the building was booby-trapped and blown up by Islamic State fighters.

Initial results are opposite from the rumors that have been published, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Monday. No one is more keen to protect civilians than us.

There have also been reports of numerous civilians killed in U.S. strikes in Syria, where American forces are working with local forces ahead of an expected offensive on Raqqa, the Islamic State stronghold there.

The United States has gradually increased the number of troops it has in Syria, including in an area west of Raqqa, where a major dam has been the site of fierce clashes.

Reports that the Tabqa dam, which U.S-backed Syrian forces are seeking to recapture, has also been hit by airstrikes has contributed to a sense of panic in the area.

On Sunday, the Islamic State issued a warning that the dam could burst because maintenance teams were no longer able to reach it.

In the city of Raqqa, downstream from the dam, residents have been terrified by the intensified bombing and of the risk of a dam breach. Hundreds of Raqqa residents fled into the desert Sunday after the Islamic State warned on its Amaq news agency site that the dam could collapse at any moment. The exodus halted after the Islamic State erected checkpoints to prevent people from leaving.

People dont know what to do, said one Syrian living in Turkey who is from Raqqa and is in regular contact with his family and friends there.

The U.S. military says that no major damage has been done to the dam. Thomas said the United States had adjusted its air operations to protect the site.

We are being conscious to use munitions . . . that dont have a significant blast effect to try to very much use the minimum force and explosive force necessary, he said.

  

Morris reported from Irbil. Liz Sly contributed to this report from Beirut.
WASHINGTON  On what seems a regular basis, the United Nations takes a poke at Israel  for its settlements policy, its treatment of Palestinians and, once, in the 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism, merely for existing. Altogether, the U.N. and its agencies have condemned Israel so many times that, on one of those proportional maps, tiny Israel would loom over Saudi Arabia, with its beheadings and ban on women driving. This, in itself, calls for a resolution.

Recently, a report prepared for a U.N. agency returned to the racism theme and called Israel an apartheid regime. It was an insulting choice of words, since apartheid harkens back to white-supremacist rule in South Africa. That government was so obsessed with race that it created its own categories  white; black; colored for mixed-race persons; and one for people of Indian/Asian extraction.

The word apartheid clearly does not apply to Israel. Its founding document, the Declaration of Independence of 1948, is admirably liberal. It ensures complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex. And true to its word, Israel grants its Arab minority the vote, seats its representatives in the Knesset and, years ago, had a female prime minister, the formidable Golda Meir. The U.S., as the November debacle proved, is not yet there.

I am intellectually and emotionally pro-Israel. It is the only miracle about which I am not the least bit cynical  the creation of a nation and a culture where a century or so ago none existed. Even the language is new. In the riveting Netflix series Fauda, Israelis make adulterous love in a language once used mostly for prayer. Theodor Herzl, the creator of secular Zionism, could not have envisioned such a thing. (Anyway, he preferred German.)

But the word apartheid looms like thunderheads on the horizon. Israels continued occupation of the West Bank means the continued oppression of its Palestinian residents. If Israel annexes additional sections of the West Bank, then additional Palestinians will be oppressed. The occupation has not only gnawed at Israels image worldwide, it has weakened Israeli democracy itself. A new law bars entry into Israel of anyone who supports the international boycotts of Israel.

Some of those movements  BDS is the shorthand for boycott, divestment and sanctions  would apply to anything produced anywhere in Israel. But some prominent American Jews support a limited version of BDS. They would boycott only products made in the West Bank settlements unrecognized by international law. One such advocate is Letty Cottin Pogrebin, a staunch Zionist, liberal and feminist  she was a founder of Ms. magazine. She supports a settlement boycott.

If that makes me an enemy of the state, so be it, she wrote in a recent op-ed for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

She also rues the direction Israel is going. Israel has legalized the creation of additional West Bank settlements, built roads that only Jewish Israelis may use and, while recoiling from the word apartheid, has adopted some of its techniques. For many Palestinians, freedom of movement is impossible.

Once upon a time, Zionism was embraced by the left. The British Labor Party nearly a dozen times called for the creation of Israel and, in the U.S., Democrats outdid Republicans in support of Israel. Now, though, the Labor Party is hostile to Israel and the Democratic Party here is drifting that way. Support for Israel has become a right-wing affectation  along with small government, lower taxes and opposition to abortion. Golda Meir, that old Milwaukee socialist, would be appalled.

I leave it to Jared Kushner to come up with a swift solution to the century-old Jewish-Arab struggle. Lives are at stake and positions have hardened. Israel pulled out of Gaza and was thanked with rocket attacks. The Palestinian leadership is split, feckless and often inept. For its part, Israel has drifted to the right, content to let the clock tick.

The United Nations obsession with Israel obscures the far more dangerous erosion of support for the Jewish state in places where it once was fervently embraced. It permits too many Israel supporters to dismiss legitimate criticism as anti-Semitic babbling or to focus on the astounding failings of the Palestinians and not on the rightward drift of Israel in response. A law that stifles dissidence, that bars lovers of Israel from Israel itself, is not only repugnant on the face of it, but additional evidence that occupation of the West Bank is corroding Israeli democracy. Israel may win the West Bank and lose its soul.

E-mail: cohenr@washpost.com. Copyright, Washington Post Writers Group.
Its doubtful state Auditor Tim Keller is the only person whose jaw dropped after learning the husband-wife team who head the GREAT Academy charter school here draw salaries totaling $305,652 a year  an amount stratospherically higher than the $87,000 average other charter school executives in similar positions receive. (Meanwhile, the sixth- through 12th-grade school pays its instructors an average of $38,000 per year  143rd-lowest among 148 school districts statewide.)

In a letter to the president of the schools board of directors last week, Keller said that the compensation paid to executive director Jasper Matthews and his wife, principal Keisha Matthews, commands about 30 percent of the academys annual budget and that they are, by far, the highest-paid charter school executives in the state. (Their closest cohort is the principal at Albuquerques Mission Achievement and Success charter school, who makes $118,112 per year, according to state officials. That school has nearly double the enrollment of the academys roughly 200 students.)

Jasper Matthews annual salary is $163,952, which includes an $11,852 car allowance. He also has a $24,750 special education consulting contract with the academy  forms of compensation Keller characterized as very irregular but perfectly legal.

While the state Public Education Department gives charters wide latitude over employee pay, the compensation being lavished on the Matthews family (their daughter also works there) can reasonably be called exorbitant. No one from the school responded to a Journal reporters request for comment.

To their credit, the school does well academically, receiving an overall grade of B in the latest round by PED. But given that only a few charter leaders earn more than $100K a year, the Matthewses compensation is troubling  to Keller and taxpayers.

Perhaps the schools board of directors  according to the schools website Dr. Penny Edwards, Michael Pitts, Jade Rogers, Ron Shorter and Ronnie Wallace  could explain publicly why the Matthews family receives such remuneration. In lieu of that, a realignment of their compensation to more closely reflect that of their peers should be in order.

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.
Jose Vallecillo spent almost 10 years in prison and was deported to Mexico after he was convicted in 1995 of killing his girlfriend outside their South Valley apartment.

Twenty-three years later  and more than a decade after he completed his sentence  hes facing a new trial in the womans death after a district judge tossed out his conviction in January.

The judge found that his defense attorney had failed to advise Vallecillo, then a legal permanent resident, that his no-contest plea to second-degree murder would result in his removal back to Mexico after his sentence was served.

Having this invalid conviction go away was a huge victory for him, said Vallecillos defense attorney. Scott Davidson. But having the (state) reprosecute it is devastating.

Vallecillo is set to appear in court this morning for a motion hearing.

According to court documents, Vallecillo told Judge Christina Argyres that his family moved to the

United States when he was 3. He has no family in Mexico, he said, and no desire to live there. He went to Valley High School, his mother and his sisters live in the U.S. and he has an adult son here.

He said living in Mexico was frightening. In 2007, he returned to the United States illegally.

I couldnt adapt, he said according to a court transcript. So I came back. I couldnt live over there. I mean, its very hard.

Vallecillo has been arrested and convicted of illegal re-entry three times since his release from prison in 2005, Argyres said, and is currently in federal custody in connection with his latest re-entry.

Vallecillo told Argyres that his attorney in the homicide case encouraged him to take a plea deal and did not inform him that it would come with immigration consequences. It was not until he was incarcerated after taking the plea that Vallecillo learned he would be deported when he completed his sentence.

He told Argyres he definitely would have changed his mind about the plea had he known that it would result in deportation. He said he would have gone to trial and would have presented witnesses who could testify that the death was an accident, according to court documents.

I lived here all my life, he said, according to a transcript. All my family is here. I would have never taken that plea.

In her January order vacating his conviction, Argyres wrote that Vallecillos plea was not knowing or voluntary because it resulted from ineffective assistance of counsel.

Stale memories

Vallecillo and his girlfriend, Deborah Anaya, were eating breakfast with Anayas young sons on Oct. 22, 1994, when the couple started arguing, according to a criminal complaint.

Anayas 6-year-old son told deputies that his mother told Vallecillo that she wouldnt marry him. As the couple moved outside to continue the argument, the boy heard his mother scream and then heard a pop.

When the child glanced outside, he saw his mother lying facedown on the ground.

I saw him shoot my mother, the boy said, identifying Vallecillo as the shooter. They were fighting earlier.

In November 1994, Vallecillo was indicted on charges of first-degree murder and tampering with evidence. He faces those same charges now that a new trial has been ordered in the case.

Prosecutor Lelia Hood said at a hearing in January that Vallecillo had an extensive criminal history that included DWI, battery, aggravated assault and auto burglary convictions.

Although the District Attorneys Office offered little detail on the challenges of prosecuting a 23-year-old case, Davidson said potential problems are already arising. He said dozens of pages of the discovery hes received are illegible. He also wonders how well witnesses will remember events that took place decades ago.

Theres the lingering question of stale memories, he said.

Asked about the difficulties his office is seeing, Michael Patrick, the DAs Office spokesman, said via email that The laws were different in 1994. There are also hurdles in the information-gathering process.

Re-entry sentences

Under the advice of his then-defense attorney, Vallecillo agreed to a plea deal that capped his sentence at 16 years, according to court documents. A judge handed down the maximum sentence. His sentence was reduced by 50 percent for good behavior, and he was released from prison after about 10 years.

But Davidson said he considers that to be just the first sentence Vallecillo had to serve because of an invalid conviction.

In a way, he served this sentence three times, he said.

The second sentence, Davidson said, is the one Vallecillo received for his first re-entry conviction. The third is the sentence hes currently serving: 60 months for a second illegal re-entry conviction.

And Davidson said that the 60 months was based on an enhancement tied to Vallecillos second-degree murder conviction.

Without that enhancement, he likely would have been eligible for just six to 12 months in custody.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

New Mexico leads the nation in the percentage of babies born into Medicaid families  which can be taken as a reflection of the states high poverty rate or an indication that government here takes care of its own.

According to figures from 2015, 72 percent of the births reported in New Mexico were paid for by Medicaid, a jointly funded federal-state health insurance program for low-income, disabled and other people who qualify.

New Mexicos top ranking was from a just-released survey of all 50 states and the District of Columbia conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Arkansas ranked second, with 67 percent, and Louisiana was third, with 65 percent. The state with the smallest percentage of babies born on Medicaid was New Hampshire, with 27 percent.

On average, Medicaid paid for about 47 percent of all births nationwide, the Kaiser survey concluded.

Because roughly 900,000 of New Mexicos 2 million population are on Medicaid, its not surprising that it carries over to a large proportion of Medicaid births, said Brian Sanderoff, president of Research & Polling Inc. First and most obvious is that New Mexico has among the highest poverty rates in the nation.

In fact, according to the most recent Kids Count Data Book, New Mexico is worst in the nation in the percentage of children living in poverty; has among the highest percentage of kids living in families where parents lack full-time, year-round employment; and has among the highest child and teen death rates in the nation from accidents and addictions.

That New Mexico has such a high rate of Medicaid births can be seen as a positive and proactive health care measure, said James Jimenez, executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children, which produces the Kids Count Data Book.

What this indicates, first and foremost, is that New Mexico has shown smart leadership in terms of ensuring healthy births, he said. Its smart because, when prenatal care and healthy births are supported, it saves money in the long run, so its the fiscally responsible thing to do.

On the downside, Jimenez noted, this first-in-the-nation ranking shows that New Mexicos economy is not providing enough good-paying jobs that include benefits like health insurance. Weve been pursuing a failed, trickle-down, tax-cuts-for-jobs economic development plan, yet we have the highest unemployment rate in the nation.

State Human Services Secretary Brent Earnest said, Ensuring newborn children in New Mexico get off to a healthy start is a primary goal of New Mexicos Medicaid program, which is why we provide health care coverage to pregnant women who dont have other health insurance.

HSD administers Medicaid programs in New Mexico.

Earnest added that the commitment to a healthy start is also why we offer coverage for kids at higher eligibility levels than many other states.

Sanderoff said New Mexico health care professionals and institutions  doctors and hospitals  look to third-party providers to foot the medical bills, and theyve done a good job helping financially eligible individuals apply and qualify for third-party payment through Medicaid.

The 72-percent Medicaid birth rate for 2015 is down from 82 percent recorded in a fiscal year 2013 Legislative Finance Committee accountability report. That reduction, Jimenez said, shows that, by mandating maternity coverage on all insurance plans, the Affordable Care Act has made a difference.

The Kaiser Family Foundation gathered its data by surveying state Medicaid directors, who provided the most recent statistics available. About half the states reported numbers for the 2015 fiscal or calendar year. The rest used numbers from 2013 or 2014, and few from 2016.
WASHINGTON  Cities and counties in New Mexico and across the nation that disregard a specific federal immigration law could lose Justice Department funding, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions warned on Monday.

Sessions, following up on the release of last weeks Department of Homeland Security memo identifying jurisdictions that are not in compliance with federal criminal detainment policy, said the Justice Department would issue grants only to jurisdictions that can certify they comply with a law barring local governments from prohibiting employees from sharing a persons immigration status with federal immigration officials.

The attorney general said the Justice Department would even attempt to claw back or recoup grant money already awarded if the local governments cant prove compliance. The Justice Department is expected to issue more than $4 billion in grants to cities, counties and states this year.

I strongly urge the nations states and cities and counties to carefully consider the harm they are doing to their citizens by refusing to enforce our immigration laws, Sessions said at an appearance in the White House briefing room. Public safety and national security are at stake. In 2016, the Justice Department awarded money for 50 projects totaling $31,462,944 in New Mexico.

The DHS report released last week noted that no New Mexico counties currently comply with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement requests to detain in jail those arrested for crimes if they are eligible for deportation. But detainment policy is not included in the federal code Sessions cited Monday. Sessions said he aimed to clarify a similar policy adopted by the Obama White House last year.

I dont believe this will affect Albuquerque, said Mayor Richard Berry. He said Albuquerque gets about $5 million a year in DOJ grants, everything from cops grants to bulletproof vests.

As long as Ive been mayor, weve allowed ICE to have a presence at our prisoner transport center, Berry added. He said the city doesnt have the resources to enforce federal immigration law, but that ICE does have access to prisoner information when someone is arrested in the city of Albuquerque.

Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales, an outspoken critic of the presidents immigration policies, said Santa Fe also is compliant with federal law  it isnt withholding information on anyones immigrations status because the city doesnt ask for it, he said.

First, were not under any obligation by the federal government to administer or enforce any immigration policies that they bring forward, he said. Secondly, our policy is not to ask people for their immigration status or collect information on people. Were compliant because we dont make it a pattern or practice to collect or withhold information. Gonzales said evidence suggests cities that have adopted sanctuary policies are more safe. It doesnt help when the president of the United States demonizes minority groups, Gonzales said. Also Monday, Santa Fe and 34 other cities filed an amicus brief supporting a California lawsuit challenging Trumps executive order against sanctuary cities.

Eric Ruzicka, an immigration specialist at Dorsey & Whitney, a Washington-based international law firm, said Sessions proposal to withhold or recoup grant money is likely to face significant legal challenges. The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that the federal government may not commandeer state government employees or resources to implement federal policy, he said.

Journal staff writers T.S. Last and Martin Salazar contributed to this story.
An education professor who created Running 505  a youth program that promotes health and emotional wellness through the joy of running  says it is now in place at five Albuquerque elementary and middle schools and growing.

The overall goal is to promote long-term wellness for fifth- through eighth-grade students, said Melani Buchanan Farmer, who teaches in the Rio Rancho branch of the School of Education of New Mexico Highlands University.

Middle school is often a time of stormy weather where kids are trying to find the balance between who they are as an individual and also make connections with people in their life, Buchanan Farmer said in a Highlands news release. With Running 505, I wanted to incorporate the social and emotional component along with physical fitness. Running is easy for kids, because they can just step outside and do it.

Those interested in learning more can visit online at www.running505.com.

The program  Running Girls 505 and Running Guys 505  began at Washington Middle School and is now at Bandelier Elementary, Monte Vista Elementary, Jefferson Middle and Mark Twain Elementary.

Interested participants do not need to attend these schools to join the program, just be in the fifth through eighth grades.

Once a week, about 50 students meet after school with adult mentors, starting with a wellness lesson and then heading out for a group run.

We talk abut how running can help us overcome challenges such as stress about schoolwork and developing relationships. The students tell us (it) is a place where they can take a break from the struggles of their lives and just have fun, Buchanan Farmer said.

The Running 505 program also enters the young runners into fun runs in Albuquerque.

A new initiative is involving parents in fitness. Were including parents through a Sunday afternoon session with their children at Cantina Crossfit gym, 12701 Candelaria NE, which opened its doors free of charge, Buchanan Farmer said.

Buchanan Farmer, an Albuquerque native and University of New Mexico graduate, taught in Albuquerque Public Schools from 1999 to 2011 before joining Highlands University faculty in fall semester 2016.

We welcome suggestions for the daily Bright Spot. Send to newsroom@abqjournal.com.
SANTA FE  A legal fight between a lawyer for former New Mexico Secretary of State Mary Herrera and the state Attorney Generals Office over an unfilled public records request is escalating.

Herrera attorney A. Blair Dunn says the AGs Office is just playing games by contending that it never received Dunns request for emails between the AGs staff and two people Herrera fired in 2010 while she was secretary of state. He said Monday that the AGs Office may be ignoring this and other records requests hes made because of political and personal differences. Dunn is a Republican and the son of State Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn. Attorney General Hector Balderas is a Democrat.

James Hallinan, spokesman for the Attorney Generals Office, said last week that Dunn mistyped the email address for requesting public records, by adding apostrophes to the address. The offices IT director has signed an affidavit that Dunns request for documents under the state Inspection of Public Records Act, or IPRA, was never received.

Mr. Dunns claims are not only false, but reckless and unfounded, Hallinan said Monday. Now that we have received Mr. Dunns request for documents, we are handling his request through our routine IPRA process.

Last week, Dunn filed a court complaint for Herrera alleging that the AGs Office  which is responsible for enforcing public records laws  had violated IPRA by missing a deadline for responding to his IPRA request.

Dunn wants any emails or other communications that employees of the AGs Office had from 2009 to 2012 with Manny Vildasol and James Flores, who worked in the Secretary of States Office under Herrera and were fired in 2010. Both have pending whistleblower lawsuits alleging they were fired because they provided information to law enforcement agencies about Herrera. Former Attorney General Gary King investigated allegations that she had required her employees to collect signatures for her re-election campaign and insisted that they solicit scholarships or donations from businesses that contracted with the state. King never charged Herrera.

Dunn on Monday provided computer screen captures that he said will demonstrably prove that his emails were properly addressed. He said the apostrophes at issue were just a computer function that didnt actually change what was otherwise a correct email address. Hallinan said just showing such a screen doesnt mean the emails actually went through.
LAS CRUCES  Tai Chan, the former Santa Fe County sheriffs deputy charged with murder, appeared in state District Court in Las Cruces on Monday for a hearing related to his retrial.

Chan, now 30, appeared in court with his attorneys, John Day, Tom Clark and Monnica Garcia, who entered her appearance in the case earlier this month.

Day and Deputy District Attorney Davis Ruark, of the 3rd Judicial District Attorneys Office, both confirmed that the case would not be resolved in any manner outside of the retrial, which is scheduled to begin May 8 before Judge Fernando R. Macias.

Chan remains charged with first-degree murder in the October 2014 shooting death of 29-year-old Jeremy Martin, a fellow Santa Fe County sheriffs deputy.

Chan and Martin were off-duty when the shooting occurred at Hotel Encanto in Las Cruces, where they had stopped to stay the night after transporting a prisoner to Arizona.

Chans first trial began on May 23, 2016. It spanned more than two weeks and ended in a mistrial after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict.

During Mondays hearing, Ruark said prosecutors expect to call as many as 54 witnesses to testify during the retrial. Nearly 60 witnesses testified for the prosecution during the first trial. Clark said the defense was planning to call 10 to 11 witnesses to testify.

The judge ordered the parties to submit their final witness and exhibit lists on April 12.

Much of the hearing was spent discussing the logistics of special jury questionnaire. The judge indicated that about 250 potential jurors would be summoned to fill out the special questionnaire.

Clark also indicated that the defense would soon file motions about two witnesses for the prosecution, including the Las Cruces police detective who oversaw the investigation and is currently suing the city of Las Cruces over alleged whistleblower violations.

Chans next court hearing is tentatively scheduled for April 28.

He has previously pleaded not guilty to the murder charge and maintained on the witness stand that he shot Martin in self-defense.



2017 the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.)

Visit the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.) at www.lcsun-news.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

_____
In an interview with broadcast journalist Ted Koppel that instantly went viral on Sunday, Fox News host Sean Hannity offered this reply to Koppels claim that opinionated programs such as Hannitys have deepened political polarization:

We have to give some credit to the American people that they are somewhat intelligent and that they know the difference between an opinion show and a news show, Hannity said.

The causes of Americas deepening political divide are many and much disputed, but the differences between an opinion show and a news show might be difficult for people to discern. The reason: Programs such as Hannitys and others on cable news are often a mix of many things  news, commentary, analysis and pure, unadulterated opinion.

For years, cable-news networks have trafficked in this hybrid form. They regularly present panels of people from differing perspectives and different disciplines  a reporter, a commentator, a host, a political surrogate or former politician  to chew over some development. The discussion can jump quickly from news to commentary to partisan bickering, without clear distinctions.

The dangers of such blending were on display this month as two cable analysts seemed to be reporting breaking news. Or was it?

Former judge Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News legal analyst, repeatedly stated on the network that three intelligence sources had told Fox News that President Barack Obama had persuaded British agents to wiretap Trump Tower during the campaign. The claim appeared to validate President Donald Trumps assertions that Obama had done exactly that. (Trump, in turn, referred to Napolitano to support Trumps own assertion.)

But this came as a surprise to Foxs journalists, who never corroborated Napolitanos statements. And after British officials denied the story, Fox anchors Shepard Smith and Bret Baier stepped in to say the network had no information to support it.

On Friday, CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem offered what sounded like another newsworthy development.

It is starting to look like, from my sources and then also from open reporting, that Michael Flynn is the one who may have a deal with the FBI and that is why we havent heard from him, she said on Don Lemons prime-time program. She was referring to Trumps former national security adviser, who resigned last month after failing to disclose contacts with Russian officials and making misleading statements about it to Vice President Mike Pence.

Like Fox, CNN offered no guidance to its viewers about the veracity of Kayyems statement. However, amid an explosive reaction on social media, Kayyem on Saturday clarified her comment that Flynn perhaps was cooperating with the FBI. She wrote on Facebook that her sources were merely increasingly wondering whether Flynn had agreed to speak to the FBI. To be clear, I did not say on this segment that I have any confirmation that he is actually cooperating or that I have talked to anyone who does, she wrote.

A CNN spokeswoman, Barbara Levin, said on Monday that the Fox and CNN episodes arent equivalent, given that Kayyem, unlike Napolitano, had hedged her original claim. Any attempt to equate what Juliette Kayyem said to what Judge Napolitano said on Fox News is laughable and absurd, Levin said.

Hannity, a longtime supporter of Trump, has always asserted that hes a talk-show host, not a journalist, and thus he should be held to a different standard. But his program typically includes journalistic elements, such as news clips and interviews with newsmakers (such as Trump) as well as with Fox reporters about developing stories.

Moreover, Hannity, and similar programs, are rarely labeled as commentary.

The blurring extends to other elements of cable news, too. MSNBC has often paired an opinion host, such as Rachel Maddow, with a news anchor, such as Brian Williams, on its election coverage. Asked if the mixing of news and commentary figures might confuse viewers about MSNBCs approach, network spokesman Errol Cockfield offered a one-word response: No.

Just as on a panel-discussion show, some would argue with that.

It is confusing, said Frank Sesno, a former CNN reporter and anchor who now runs George Washington Universitys School of Media and Public Affairs. One of the dangers is thinking that people know the difference between the editorial page and the front page, between a commentator or pundit commenting on something alongside a reporter whos supposed to be providing facts. In this environment, when you have news, talking points and opinions all colliding, it can be really disorienting to the audience.

The cable networks try to keep the lines clear with identifying graphics, he said, but these labels are often overshadowed and overwhelmed by the speed of debate. Its hard for the casual viewer to keep track of the scoreboard, said Sesno.

The confusion about whos who may fuel public perceptions that news reporters are biased, said Dave Statter, a former TV journalist who is now a blogger and consultant on media issues. Viewers and readers just dont know who is a reporter and who is a partisan commentator, he said.

The modern era of journalists as TV opinion slingers may have started with the pundit-centric McLaughlin Group beginning in 1982. A few years later, CNNs Capital Gang tweaked the format, putting liberal and conservative opinion journalists into a discussion with a public official, said Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute.

Since then, opinion journalism  which Rosenstiel notes is rooted in factual reporting  has given way to outright political activism online and on the air, he said. The fact that someone is publishing something, saying it out loud, doesnt make it journalism, even opinion journalism.

Who can blame viewers for being confused, he adds. It took many hands to create this situation, and a lot of loose thinking on behalf of people in news.
WASHINGTON  D.C. police have arrested a suspect in the killing of an artist who was found tied up and fatally stabbed last week in her Capitol Hill apartment .

The suspect was identified as El Hadji Alpha Madiou Toure, 28, of no fixed address. He was charged with first-degree murder while armed and theft.

At a press conference with Mayor Muriel Bowser, Acting D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said the Toure was wanted in Tennessee on a probation violation.

Corrina Mehiel, 34, who lived in North Carolina and was visiting the District of Columbia for an art exhibit at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, was found dead the afternoon of March 21 inside a home in the 600 block of 14th Street NE. Her missing Toyota Prius was found over the weekend.

A police report said that Mehiel was in her back bedroom and tied with bedding and clothing.

Newsham said Mehiel and Toure did not know each other and there was no evidence at this time that Mehiel had been sexually assaulted. The chief said authorities received numerous tips but one was instrumental in leading to an arrest.

Newsham said he could not speak to the motive. Police would not give details as to where Mehiels car was found.

Mehiel had been here for the past several months working with well-known artist Mel Chin on a Corcoran exhibit called The Fundred Reserve. It consists of hand-drawn $100 bills that visitors create and are used to highlight the dangers of lead poisoning and remind us that every childs future has value.

Police said Mehiel was last seen March 19 at the Corcoran, although Chin said she had dinner with friends at his apartment that evening.

Chin said Monday by email that he does not recognize the person being sought by police. I have been looking at gatherings of people at the Reserve openings and pushing my thoughts to anyone who might resemble the person in the photo, he said, adding, We are still grieving and remain deeply unsettled.



The Washington Posts Dana Hedgpeth contributed to this report.
What exactly is Ivanka Trumps White House role? No one has said for sure  including Ivanka Trump.

Since January, President Trumps eldest daughter has been a highly visible member of her fathers presidency. She has participated in roundtable discussions, flown on Air Force One and met with world leaders. Next month, she will attend an economic summit in Germany on behalf of the Trump administration, at the invitation of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

And perhaps most notably, she recently moved into her own office in the West Wing and gained high-level security clearance  despite not being a government employee and, therefore, not subject to ethics rules. The presidents elder daughter has said that, despite her lack of an official White House job title, she will voluntarily comply with those rules.

I will continue to offer my father my candid advice and counsel, as I have for my entire life, Ivanka Trump told Politico in a statement about the move to the West Wing office. While there is no modern precedent for an adult child of the president, I will voluntarily follow all of the ethics rules placed on government employees.

Amid this ambiguity, Vox reporter Liz Plank unearthed a 2014 campaign promoted on IvankaTrump.com from when Trump still controlled the daily decisions for her clothing and accessories brand. In it, she encourages woman to state their job title  or job titles.

To join the #WomenWhoWork conversation, record yourself giving us your extended job title, followed by your name and actual job title, the website instructs. Post the video to your social channels and tag a few of the women who inspire you to encourage them to follow suit.

The goal of the initiative was to celebrate the modern working woman, starting with proudly acknowledging their roles in the office and at home.

The women I know who are working today are working hard to create and build the lives that they want to live, and theres nothing more compelling and powerful than that, Ivanka said in an accompanying video. Lets show the world what it looks like to be a woman who works.

The irony that Trump wont or cant elaborate on her White House duties, while working at the nations highest office, should not be lost, according to Plank.

Trumps brand emphasizes empowering women at work, and there is nothing feminist about a woman stepping in to do all the work with no credit or pay, Plank wrote. If Trump truly wants to preserve her commitment to the cause she supposedly takes the most pride in, she would disclose what her own work entails.

All the presidents adult children have been under scrutiny since the election, mainly for their roles in the family business and whether they have profited from their fathers position in the White House.

My father will be president, Ivanka told ABCs 20/20 in January. And hopefully, I can be there to support him and to support those causes Ive cared about my whole professional career.

That month, she also announced she would be taking a formal leave of absence from both the Trump Organization and her eponymous fashion line after her father took office. However, she continues to own and receive financial benefits from her brand.

At times, the business and the political roles have collided. In February, President Trump lashed out at Nordstrom on Twitter after the department store said it would no longer carry Ivanka Trump-branded clothing and shoes, though it cited flagging sales, not politics.

Shortly after that, Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway appeared on Fox & Friends and promoted the clothing and jewelry line.

Go buy Ivankas stuff is what I would tell you, Conway said. Im going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody.

The White House later said Conway had been counseled after touting the first daughters brand.

About a week after Trumps Nordstrom tweet, Ivanka Trump published a photo of herself seated at the Oval Office desk, between her father and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

That photo came under scrutiny, reflecting the debate over her specific role in the White House.

Her critics immediately zeroed in on the fact that she had taken a seat at not just any table but at one normally reserved for the president. Others defended it as a photo op, nothing else.

She has denied that she is serving as a de facto first lady and has spoken about her White House jobs only in broad terms.

Her move to a coveted West Wing office spurred critics and government watchdogs to raise more concerns about potential conflicts of interest  and to push for her to clarify her role in the White House. Her husband, Jared Kushner, serves as senior adviser to the president and is a government employee.

This is untenable, Fred Wertheimer, president of the Washington-based watchdog group Democracy 21, told the Associated Press. She can make a decision at any time not to comply, and theres no penalty or sanction whatsoever.



VIDEO:

The presidents daughter will receive classified information and a government-issued communications device, but not a paycheck.

http://wapo.st/2mo2aOb
Before they saw the flames engulfing their building, residents of the three-story Oakland transitional housing complex heard only screaming.

People trapped in the apartments that housed about 100 people hung out of windows and knotted sheets into makeshift ropes to escape the massive blaze, which began ravaging the decrepit building at 5:40 a.m. Monday. Residents knocked on each others doors, yelling out wake up! and fire!

The blaze left three people dead, a fourth person missing, and dozens of residents displaced from their already shoddy living conditions in the building, which many said was not equipped with sprinklers or fire extinguishers.

There were no fire alarms going off at all, one second-floor resident, Gilbert Jones, told the East Bay Times. As I walked out, you heard nothing.

Firefighters rescued at least 15 people who had been trapped in the building while others fled through fire escapes, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Four people, including two children, were hospitalized with smoke inhalation, Battalion Chief Erik Logan of the Oakland Fire Department said, but all were expected to be released. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

The blaze broke out nearly four months after a warehouse called the Ghost Ship exploded in flames about five miles away, killing 36 people who attended a concert there. News of Mondays fire heightened the already intense scrutiny on Oaklands fire department and inspection programs, which were well aware of troubles facing the apartment complex, attorneys told The Washington Post.

The fire, which took place in a crowded complex that housed low-income people, once again underscored the shortage of affordable housing in the San Francisco Bay area. Dozens of squatters were apparently living in the apartment complex, a Red Cross official told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Over the past decade, the city has received 20 complaints about pest infestation, electrical issues, mold, trash, graffiti, floors caving in, urine and feces on the floors and others issues, the Mercury News reported.

The place was disgusting, James Cook, an attorney who has represented tenants of the apartment building where Mondays fire occurred, told The Washington Post. The most deplorable living conditions you could imagine. It was riddled with exposed wire, overflowing toilets, and walls that were falling apart from water damage. Rats, roaches, you name it.

In recent weeks, fire inspectors visited the building on multiple occasions to check on possible code violations, Cook said. Following a Feb. 25 referral for a fire safety inspection at the building by the Fire Department, the Oakland Fire Prevention Bureau said it could not get inside, the Chronicle reported.

Three days before the blaze, fire inspectors found it lacked smoke detectors in each apartment and a working fire sprinkler system, among other violations, according to city documents obtained by the Associated Press.

In some ways, the Monday morning fire was more deplorable than the Ghost Ship blaze, Cook said, because the residents of the home were among the citys most vulnerable  many were battling mental illness, drug addiction and homelessness.

Certainly they had nowhere else to go, said John Burris, an attorney whose firm is representing the families of two of the residents who died in Mondays fire.

Immediately following the Dec. 2 Ghost Ship blaze, Oakland officials cracked down on warehouse spaces, artist collectives and other venues that may not have been up to code.

Landlords everywhere were using Ghost Ship as a reason for eviction, Cook said. One of these landlords was the owner of the building that caught fire Monday.

In the weeks leading up to the fire, dozens of its tenants had been entrenched in a fierce eviction battle with the landlord, Keith Kim. Kim leased the building to Urojas Community Services, a nonprofit that provided transitional housing to tenants on the buildings first and second floors.

On Dec. 11, Kim moved to evict the nonprofit, offering the Ghost Ship fire as its reason. On March 17, he gave Urojas Community Services a 30-day eviction notice, according to a letter attorneys provided to The Post.

Urojas Community Services founder and director the Rev. Jasper Lowery heaped blame on the landlord for the buildings dilapidated condition, and the group fought the eviction. As the lawyers said, the tenants had nowhere else to go.

Kim did not return calls from the Associated Press or the Chronicle.

Of the three people who died in Mondays fire, the coroners office confirmed the identity of one, 64-year-old Edwarn Anderson. The East Bay Times reported that Cassandra Johnson, 50, was identified as deceased by her family members.

Johnsons brother-in-law Tywan Lee said Cassandra had called his mother when the fire broke out.

She had called my mom, screaming talking about the dog is dead and shes trapped, Lee told the East Bay Times.

Mark Doleman, 50, who lived on the second floor, told the East Bay Times he woke up, grabbed his wife and fled down the fire escape.

I could see the flames coming toward me, Doleman said. Right now we have no clothes, no ID or drivers license, nothing.

His wife, Sheila, suffers from a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and had a stationary oxygen machine and two portables in their apartment, he said.

Im just thankful they didnt explode, he said.

One resident, who identified only as Lexy, told the San Francisco Chronicle that she and others had been calling health inspectors for a really long time about the issues in the dilapidated apartment building.

Its sad that something this unfortunate had to happen for the rest of the world to see how weve been living, Lexy said.

People shouldve been helping us, she added. Where have they been at?
Two months does not make a presidency or define a Congress. But unless the current trajectory is reversed, the Trump administration faces a difficult midterm that could undo its agenda and put House gavels and subpoena power in Democratic hands.

It is no exaggeration to say that the 2018 midterm campaign has already begun, with disruptive town hall meetings, party advertising and aggressive fundraising all underway. Democratic candidate-recruiting efforts are in high gear, and two upcoming special House elections in districts President Trump won, in Georgia and Montana, will see millions of dollars spent by both sides in efforts to create the narrative and momentum for next years contests.

The collapse of House Republicans push to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act not only exposes the long-standing fissures in the House GOP caucus, it also emboldens Democrats to avoid any participation in legislative deliberations. It recalls the old adage: If your opponents are committing suicide, dont stand in their way.

Midterm elections are relatively low turnout affairs, and history shows that angry voters tend to dominate that turnout model. That is what happened in 2006 for Democrats and 2010 for Republicans. Right now, Democratic voters feel angry and aggrieved while Republicans are divided and dispirited. Republicans have proved they can be a potent opposition party but have, so far, failed in graduating to a governance party. Moreover, legislative stalemate will give the Democrats the ability to present themselves as the party of change, with a wider appeal to independent voters.

The collapse of the Republican health-care bill was a massive case of legislative malpractice. But playing the blame game and pointing fingers does little to advance the ball. The Republican conference has no Plan B. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) is the only member with the legislative gravitas and fundraising base to lead such a diverse group. The caucus should use this failure as a teachable moment. The American Health Care Act faced united opposition from such disparate groups as the American Medical Association, AARP, the American Hospital Association and the insurance industry, as well as the Koch brothers and the Club for Growth. Republican leaders badly lost the messaging war on a bill few had read and the public didnt understand. The predictable Congressional Budget Office score didnt help matters.

What is ironic about this situation is that the bill was never going to become law. It was merely the first step in a legislative process that may well have yielded a more popular measure. But as a branding exercise for Republicans, it was a disaster. Note that midterm elections now operate more in the parliamentary model, where voters opt for or against the party in power and where individual legislative votes matter less. Case in point: Half of the Democrats who ran in competitive districts in 2010 and had voted against the Affordable Care Act lost their reelections anyway, as their candidacies were viewed by voters as a chance to send a message for or against President Barack Obama.

With Trumps approval numbers in the dangerously low 40 percent range and a restless Republican base, the GOP faces a treacherous path. Leaders must choose their next steps carefully. Tax reform, or even tax cuts, could be even more difficult to accomplish than health care in terms of pitting deficit hawks and special interests against any reform.

Infrastructure plans also require money that could otherwise be used to help finance tax reductions, although this area offers some opportunity for immediate job creation and Democratic support to offset intraparty GOP divisions.

Even such basic moves as passing spending measures to cover the remainder of this fiscal year and lifting the debt ceiling will require Democratic votes  and whatever Democrats agree to is unlikely to be acceptable to large swaths of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

My advice to the House GOP is to get its act together or face losing the majority. There is time to recover from a difficult start. This will entail compromise and, in some cases, working with Democrats to get half a loaf. But your fumbling of health care puts you in a weakened bargaining position and your internecine fighting dispirits the party base. As James Bonds nemesis liked to say, Choose your next move carefully, Mr. Bond, it may be your last.

 Davis, a Republican from Virginia, served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2008 and twice chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of the Republican conference.
KABUL, Afghanistan  From the steps of the old, blue-domed shrine, if you look past the families feeding pigeons on the plaza below and the lines of clogged traffic beyond, you can glimpse the stark, white stone monument two blocks away, rising from a platform next to the street.

If you approach it, following the garbage-strewn banks of the Kabul River on one side and a row of small shops on the other, you feel a prickle of horror. The railings around the monument are hung with posters of womens faces  disfigured, half-blind, burned.

People flow past the site, carrying shopping bags, tugging at children, heading somewhere in the city. Some pause to look at the posters, or read the inscription etched in the stone, although most hurry by. On the riverbank below, drug addicts huddle, lost in another world.

But everyone knows what happened here two years ago, in the shadow of the historic Shah-do Shamshira mosque and the adjacent shrine of an ancient Mogul king.

Everyone knows that a young woman named Farkhunda was attacked outside the shrine after being falsely accused of burning a Koran, then dragged along the river road by a frenzied mob that bludgeoned and stoned her to death, ran her over with a car and set her body on fire. The white obelisk, unveiled on the first anniversary of her killing, marks the spot where she died.

It was a terrible, savage thing, said Naquibullah, a tailor whose workshop is across the street. On the afternoon of March 19, 2015, he was bent over his sewing machine when he heard shouting and commotion and poked his head out the door. I saw them throwing stones. . . . I couldnt bear to watch.

The killing of Farkhunda Malikzada, 27, captured on cellphones and shown repeatedly on TV, horrified the nation and the world. It also embarrassed officials of the Western-backed government, which has attempted to promote womens rights in the conservative, tribal Muslim society, where women and girls are often killed with impunity in the name of protecting family honor.

Nearly 50 men were tried in connection with the attack, including police officers accused of failing to stop the assailants. Four men were sentenced to death, but those sentences were later commuted, and most of the lengthy prison terms given to eight others were reduced. The incident also energized the struggling Afghan womens movement, which staged protests outside the shrine. But over time, the momentum dissipated.

Last week, as Afghans celebrated the Persian spring festival known as Nowruz, families dressed up and visited shrines across the city. Outside Shah-do Shamshira, they bought corn and took pictures of their children feeding the pigeons. Some climbed the steps to the shrine, took off their shoes and went inside to pray or meditate.

The tall white monument stood almost unnoticed. A few women paused briefly to look up. Some wore burqas that hid their eyes; others remained silent while their husbands discussed the case. One woman, a government worker wearing a flowered headscarf, stopped long enough to touch the pedestal and murmur a prayer.

She was a good girl. She did not deserve this, the woman said firmly before she hurried away.

But the most disturbing aspect of Malikzadas murder was how many Afghans  preachers, police officials, young urban men wearing jeans and carrying cellphones  were ready to think that she did.

Her attackers were driven by religious rage, converging on the shrine as word spread that its custodian had accused her of burning a Koran. This was blasphemy  an unpardonable sin and a capital crime in a tribal society steeped in Sunni Islam and deeply conflicted about Western influence.

Even in a busy capital with a veneer of modernity, hundreds of youths rushed to join the vengeful fury. Video footage showed a crowd stomping and pummeling a body on the sidewalk, while others filmed the scene on their phones. There were exultant shouts of Allahu akbar!

Afghans are easily roused to defend their faith, whether they wear long beards or razor haircuts. Thirty years ago, they went to war against the Soviet army in the name of Islam. In the past decade, as Western military and cultural influence spread, so did local resentment and suspicion. In 2012, protests erupted over reports that Korans had been incinerated at a U.S. military base.

There was a startling anti-Western element to Malikzadas murder, too. As they beat and kicked her, some attackers shouted that she was working with foreigners. By the next day, imams and government officials were denouncing her as having colluded with infidels.

A photo that circulated widely on social media, taken during the attack, showed a woman with wild, disheveled black hair, her face streaming blood, gesturing in defiance at her attackers. It was easy to see how she could be viewed as a blasphemous witch.

It later emerged, though, that Malikzada was studying theology and teaching children to recite the Koran. The incident at the shrine started when she confronted its custodian for selling religious charms, which she felt was un-Islamic, and he shouted that she had burned a Koran. After a police investigation found the charge was false and the custodian was arrested, public opinion quickly changed and womens groups and political activists staged protests.

In my village some people said she deserved what happened for desecrating our religion, but later they regretted it, said an engineer named Abdul Aziz, 30, who stopped by the monument Thursday. A visitor from a northern province, he said he had learned about the incident on Facebook. What they did was wrong, whether to a Muslim or a non-Muslim, he concluded.

A little while later an elderly man, hunched over and carrying a sack, stopped in front of the monument and gazed at it for several minutes. An educated man who had seen better times, he spoke with an air of sad wisdom.

It was so shameful, he said. Even if Malikzada had committed blasphemy, he said, she should not have been dragged down the street and burned.

Did we not have a government? Did we not have courts? he demanded. There is no justice in this country, no rule of law. So people take it into their own hands.

As the afternoon sun waned, drug addicts were still crouched on the riverbank beneath the monument. In the plaza down the street, people were still scattering corn to the pigeons. On the shrine steps, a young woman named Zarifa, wearing a fashionable but modest black robe, was talking on a cellphone through her face covering.

She nodded when asked whether she knew what had happened to Malikzada.

Yes, it was totally wrong. It was against our religion and our culture, she said. Then she turned away and went back to her conversation.
AJO, Ariz.  U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested people who had carried 21 bales of marijuana across the U.S.-Mexico border in the Ajo (AH-hoh) area of southern Arizona.

Customs and Border Protection says the 13 Mexican citizens and two Guatemalans had more than 518 pounds (235 kilograms) of marijuana when arrested Saturday.

The agency says agents working with two helicopter crews tracked footprints in the desert to make the arrests.
DETROIT  General Motors has rejected a proposal from investor David Einhorn to split its stock into two classes.

The plan from Einhorns Greenlight Capital hedge fund would create one dividend-paying stock and one capital allocation stock. The New York-based hedge fund intends to submit the non-binding plan at the GM annual shareholders meeting later this year, where it will also nominate four candidates for GMs board.

Einhorn said Tuesday on CNBC that GM is only paying out a quarter of its earnings, which is unusual for a high-yielding stock. Some investors, he said, care only about the dividends, while others care only about the companys earnings. The proposal would give those who buy the stock for the dividend what they want, and let other investors get capital appreciation based on earnings and stock buybacks.

The plan would pay the same money to the same people, giving everyone what they want, he said. It doesnt change anything else about whats going on at the company, he said.

But GM said in a statement Tuesday that the proposal creates unacceptable risks and is not in the best interests of shareholders. Among the risks are the potential loss of GMs investment grade credit rating, unknown market demand for the new securities that could depress prices, and corporate governance challenges that would come from having two classes of stock with competing objectives.

Einhorn, however, said GMs contention that a change would endanger GMs credit rating a red herring, contending that ratings agencies dont normally care about whether there are two classes of stock. Greenlight owns 0.88 percent of gm shares.

GM said its management has spoken with Greenlight numerous times during the past seven months, including a meeting between the hedge fund and GMs board. The Detroit automaker said it consulted with ratings agencies and conducted a review with three investment banks.

Shares of GM rose just under 3 percent to $35.72 in afternoon trading Tuesday.

Two years ago, GM avoided a proxy fight with annual investors by starting its stock buyback program. Since then, GM has increased its earnings  profit reached $9.4 billion last year  and paid out more in dividends and stock repurchases. The company promised to return about $7 billion in cash to shareholders this year, bringing total cash returns in dividends and buybacks to about $25 billion since 2012. GM now pays a dividend of 38 cents per share, with an annual yield of 4.24 percent.

Still, Mondays closing share price of $34.73 was about equal to the price two years ago. Now investors fear that the auto industry is approaching the peak of its earnings cycle as U.S. sales plateau after consecutive record years.

GM said the Greenlight proposal would not help the company sell more cars or drive higher profits, nor would it address the fundamental sector factors affecting GMs stock price.

The company also said that its board unanimously decided against recommending any of Greenlights board candidates.

Einhorn said the proposal would unlock GMs share value, and he accused the company of being closed-minded. They approached the idea with the enthusiasm of a 7-year-old confronted with a plate of raw oysters, he said.
Texas Land & Cattle Co. at Pan American Freeway and Office NE closed its doors on March 20.

Owned by Day Star Restaurant Group of Plano, Texas, it was the only Texas Land & Cattle location in New Mexico.

Day Star did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

The company also owns Lone Star Steakhouse, which closed its only New Mexico location at Cottonwood Corners earlier this year. The company has been closing locations nationwide since last year, when it reported lower-than-expected revenue.

Day Star acquired the two brands in 2012, when there were 105 locations. Now, there are 30.
WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court tried to figure out Tuesday whether immigrants should get a second chance in court when bad legal advice leads to a guilty plea and certain deportation.

The justices seemed divided during an argument about what to do in cases in which the evidence against criminal defendants is strong and the chances of acquittal by a jury are remote.

The court is considering the case of Jae Lee, a South Korean immigrant who was facing drug charges.

Lee pleaded guilty after his lawyer mistakenly assured him a conviction would not lead to deportation.

The Trump administration is arguing the outcome at trial would have been the same. The administration has pledged to increase deportations, with a focus on immigrants who have been convicted of crimes.

John Bursch, Lees lawyer, told the court that his client would have taken his chances at trial or had his lawyer seek a better plea deal that might allow him to remain in the United States.

Justice Elena Kagan, seeming to favor Lee, said she would make the same choice if she were in Lees shoes. Sign me up, Kagan said.

The issue in Lees appeal is whether the lawyers recommendation to take the deal offered by prosecutors was so bad that it amounts to a violation of Lees constitutional right to a lawyer.

Both sides agree that the performance of the lawyer, Larry Fitzgerald, was deficient in representing Lee. The Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that immigrants have a constitutional right to be told by their lawyers whether pleading guilty to a crime could lead to their deportation.

But Lee almost must show that the bad lawyering mattered to the outcome of the criminal case.

The federal appeals court in Cincinnati ruled that the evidence against Lee was overwhelming and that he would have been convicted had he rejected the plea offer and taken his chances at trial. Other appeals courts around the country have sided with immigrants in similar circumstances. The Supreme Court is expected to set a national standard.

Justice Anthony Kennedy said a ruling for Lee could put judges in a tough position. Youre asking us to assess the mindset of a defendant when he makes the plea, Kennedy said.

Alabama is leading 19 other states in backing the administrations argument that the appeals court ruling should be upheld.

The Obama administration Justice Department had previously urged the Supreme Court to turn down the appeal and leave the lower court ruling in place. The new administration announced in February that any immigrant in the country illegally who is charged with or convicted of any offense, or even suspected of a crime, will now be an enforcement priority for deportation. Some 11 million immigrants are living illegally in the U.S.

Immigrant rights groups and the bar association are among those siding with Lee.

A decision in Lee v. U.S., 16-327, is expected by late June.
Its totally premature to have a summit with China early next month. The Trump administration clearly has no China policy and so meeting with Chinas leader, Xi Jinping, at this juncture makes no sense. In fact, it could do more harm than good to Americas relations with China.

Lets review the bumpy road of President Donald Trumps China policy so far. On the campaign trail, Trump promised to slap a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods and, on Day One, declare China a currency manipulator. Before Trump took office, he took a phone call from Taiwans president Tsai Ing-wen, breaking with decades of precedent. He threw U.S. relations with China into potential turmoil by questioning the One China policy, which has been a foundation of the relationship for more than 40 years.

Then, once in the White House, Trump pivoted. The tariff threat evaporated as did the promise to declare China a currency manipulator, deep-sixed by Trumps secretary of the treasury, Steven Mnuchin. Instead, on Day One, Trump did more to bolster Chinas influence in Asia than any previous American president had in years: he withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade grouping of Americas friends and allies in Asia. No matter what you think about the TPPs potential affect on Americas workers, the pacts collapse cedes to China the right to make the trading rules in Asia for years to come.

Then, in a phone call with President Xi, Trump accepted the One China policy that he had questioned a few weeks earlier. He dispatched his secretary of defense, James Mattis, to Asia to assure Americas allies, Japan and South Korea, that Trump would not throw them under a bus. Mattis also reassured China that the United States had no plans for precipitous military action against Chinas island-building in the South China Sea, walking back a threat that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had made during his confirmation hearing.

Then came Tillersons March in-like-a-lion-out-like-a-lamb trip to Asia. Tillerson began the trip in Japan where he threatened a preemptive military strike on North Korea and, during a quick stop in South Korea, declared the U.S. policy of strategic patience with North Korea over. Tillerson flew to Beijing where he doubled down on the very same policy he had just declared dead. Central to that policy was a reliance on China to convince North Korea to end its nuclear program. And in Beijing, Tillerson did just that. Whats more, while in Beijing, Tillerson announced that America was seeking a relationship with China built on non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation. If that sounds wooden its because its a formulation invented by the Chinese. How China got Tillerson to parrot its goals for its relationship with the United States is anybodys guess, but it underscores that while China might know what it wants from America  U.S. respect for a growing list of Chinese core interests, the Trump administration has no idea what it wants from China.

During his trip Tillerson gave an interview to the sole reporter invited to accompany him. For me the operative quote again cuts to the heart of this confused reality. In making the case for an early meeting between Trump and Xi, Tillerson said the two needed to get together to frame this overall relationship and frame the dialogue itself. He said the two leaders needed time to be together so that we have a clear understanding of their priorities and they have a clear understanding of ours.

Dont we need to know what our priorities are first? Nothing in the zigzagging of the past few weeks gives any indication that the Trump administration actually has those priorities, much less a strategic framework within which to accomplish its goals.

In his interview, for example, Tillerson insisted that the United States cares about human rights. Its embedded in everything we do, he said. And yet, last week, Canada led a coalition of 11 Western nations that criticized Chinese authorities for allegedly torturing a group of Chinese lawyers who have been incarcerated because they defended downtrodden Chinese. Im told the United States was asked to sign the letter but the State Department declined.

Nor do we know exactly who is in charge of U.S. relations with China. Is it Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who seems to be the go-to guy for Chinas ambassador Cui Tiankai? Or is it Tillerson, who returned from China and apparently requested that the White House make him the point person on China? If so, it would make it the first time since Secretary of State George Shultz wrested control of the relationship from the Reagan White House that the State Department has taken the lead with Beijing.

America does well when it knows what it wants from China. The Trump administration is not there yet. And its walking into a summit with Chinas president, who knows what he wants. If that doesnt violate the art of the deal, I dont know what does.

  

Pomfret, a former Washington Post bureau chief in Beijing, is the author of The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present.
DEAD SEA, Jordan  Faced with multiple crises and wary of President Donald Trumps approach toward the Middle East, leaders of a divided Arab world hope to forge common positions on the regions most pressing concerns when they meet Wednesday for their annual summit.

In particular, the Arab leaders are widely expected to reiterate support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, sending a strong message to the White House. Trump has indicated willingness to break from long-held U.S. support for a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel, a shift that could damage peace efforts.

The Arab leaders are also expected to stress their opposition to Trumps campaign promise to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The holy city is claimed by both Israelis and Palestinians as their capital, and many fear that relocating the embassy there could trigger violence in Israel and across the Muslim world.

A draft statement, reportedly drawn up by the Palestinian delegation and approved by the foreign ministers of the Arab League, reads that the leagues members reaffirm their commitment to the two-state solution,according to Agence France-Presse.

The memorandum calls all countries to respect U.N. Security Council resolutions that reject Israels annexation of occupied east Jerusalem and not to move their embassies to Jerusalem.

The gathering comes at a time of frustration across the Arab world over the inability of its leaders, fractured by politics, geography and sect, to resolve the Middle Easts bloody conflicts, its wobbly economies and high youth unemployment rates. Arab governments are divided over the way forward in Syria, Libya and Yemen.

It is a very difficult reality that we are living in, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told journalists gathered in this tranquil resort area. There are numerous challenges facing all of us. Challenges of terror, challenges of continuing occupation, crises in Syria, Libya and Yemen, and that has led to an erosion of trust that people have in the regional Arab order.

Still, its unlikely there will be any serious push to end the regions deadliest conflict  the Syrian civil war. Arab leaders remain fractured over the future role of President Bashar Assad and which factions to support, and those divides have permitted Russia, Turkey and Iran to play a greater role in the conflict.

Saudi Arabias King Salman and Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sissi are attending the summit, presenting an opportunity for a rapprochement between their countries. Tensions have been high in recent months, largely over Syria. Riyadh backs the Syrian opposition, but Egypt is pushing for a political deal that could keep Assad in power. Saudi Arabia is also displeased that Egypt has not contributed troops to a Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen. In October, the Saudis cut off oil aid to Egypt, but the shipments resumed this month.

Amid the tumult, a key message the Arab leaders at the summit want to send is one of unity. And the Palestinian cause allows that possibility.

Several leaders at the summit, including Sissi, Jordans King Abdullah and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, will travel next month to Washington to meet Trump. The Jordanian monarch, government officials said, plans to discuss with Trump the perils of religious extremism; terrorism; the fighting in Syria, Libya and Yemen; and, in particular, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

That conflict, for decades the core cause of the Arab world, has been neglected for the past few yearsamid the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 and the wars that followed in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, The summits host, Jordan, is home to about 2 million Palestinian refugees and is seeking to again reposition the Palestinians plight as a central cause for all Arabs.

The Arab leaders are expected to reaffirm a Saudi-led peace plan, known as the Arab Peace Initiative, that was proposed 15 years ago. It calls for Israel to withdraw from lands seized in 1967 in exchange for full diplomatic and economic relations with moderate Arab and Muslim nations. That would allow the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state that included the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

Ghassan Khatib, a professor of political science at Birzeit University in the West Bank town of Ramallah, said the summit is important to counter recent suggestions by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that reaching peace with the Palestinians must begin with a wider regional initiative.

He believes that after having normal relations with the moderate Arab states, it will be easier to achieve peace with the Palestinians, Khatib said

If the Arab states, he added, restated their commitment to the Arab Peace Initiative, it would go against the impression Trump gave in a news conference last month with Netanyahu that he appeared to accept the Israeli leaders proposal for a regional peace process.

If the resolution that comes out of the summit is support for the Saudi initiative, then it will contradict Netanyahu, and we hope it will play a role in shaping the final position of the United States on this issue, Khatib said.

The Arab leaders are being asked to support the Saudi plan in its current form, analysts said. Any negotiations could weaken their position, members of the Palestinian delegation fear.

Efraim Inbar, founding director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv, said the issue is simple  if the Arab League is willing to negotiate over its plan, there is something to talk about.

Until now, the Saudi plan was a take-it-or-leave-it plan, which Israel was not ready for, Inbar said.

Netanyahu is willing to negotiate if the Saudis are ready to come to the table, he added.

Two other areas where the Arab leaders could show unity are Iran and terrorism. The predominantly Sunni Arab leaders, particularly Saudi Arabia, are wary of Tehrans Shiite theocracy. In Yemen, the Iranians are widely thought to be backing Shiite Houthi rebels, the enemies of a Saudi-led coalition waging a campaign on behalf of the beleaguered Yemeni government.

Irans intervention in Arab affairs will occupy a major part of discussions and will certainly be condemned, but Jordan will also seek to send a message to Tehran to opt for diplomacy and normalize relations with the Arab world, wrote Osama al-Sharif , a political commentator, in the regional daily Arab News.

Safadi, the Jordanian foreign minister, said there is a political will among the Arab leaders to follow through on their pronouncements to address the challenges of the region.

He added that they would work more effectively on combating terrorism, which we consider a threat to us Arabs and Muslims first because it has killed more of us than it did any other race and nation.

Well move forward to create a new reality of hope, opportunity, and of peace and stability in the region, Safadi said.
The Associated Press last week landed an exclusive on the timely topic of links between intimates of President Trump and Vladimir Putins Russia. Long before signing on as Trumps 2016 campaign chairman, Paul Manafort proposed to Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska a confidential strategy plan as early as June 2005 that he would influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the United States, Europe and former Soviet republics to benefit President Vladimir Putins government, even as U.S.-Russia relations under Republican President George W. Bush grew worse, reported Jeff Horwitz and Chad Day.

According to the AP, Manafort signed a $10 million contract starting in 2006 and maintained a business relationship with Deripaska until at least 2009. A longtime Republican campaign operative, Manafort confirmed to the AP that he had worked for Deripaska, though he denied his work had been pro-Russian in nature. A Deripaska rep issued this statement: There was an agreement between Mr. Deripaska and Mr. Manafort to provide investment consulting services related to business interests of Mr Deripaska which now is a subject to legal claims.

Such allegations and confirmations couldnt possibly have landed in a more responsive news environment. There are two congressional investigations and an FBI probe into whether Trump campaign officials coordinated in any way with Russian officials interested in influencing the outcome of the 2016 presidential campaign. Thus far, investigators have found no evidence of collusion, as the New York Times has reported.

Perhaps this backdrop explains why Deripaska today took out paid advertisements in the Wall Street Journal and The Post to denounce the APs reporting.

Citing the APs contention that he contracted with Manafort to greatly benefit the Putin government, Deripaska pushes back: I want to resolutely deny this malicious assertion and lie. I have never made any commitments or contracts with the obligation or purpose to covertly promote or advance Putins Government interests anywhere in the world, writes Deripaska. And sounding a bit litigious, Deripaska further states that misleading stories like this one create a defamatory news flow and generate background information based on complete lies.

Then comes the real purpose behind Deripaskas ad: I demand that any and all further dissemination of these allegations, by the AP or any other media outlet, must cease immediately.

Sorry, Mr. Deripaska, but thats not the way it works here. You cannot demand the cessation of media reporting on these allegations, especially on a day when you yourself took out paid advertisements that itself recycle those very allegations.

The gripe here appears to concern precisely what Manafort did for Deripaska, since there is no dispute that there was a paid business relationship. Deripaskas rep insists that the work was narrowly aimed at improving the oligarchs business interests; the AP, based on documents, takes a broader interpretation. AP Exclusive: Before Trump job, Manafort worked to aid Putin, reads the storys headline. To bolster that claim, the AP cites, in part, a memo from Manafort that proposed extending his existing work in eastern Europe to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Georgia, where he pledged to bolster the legitimacy of governments friendly to Putin and undercut anti-Russian figures through political campaigns, nonprofit front groups and media operations.

Should Deripaska wish to get into the finer points of Manaforts undertakings, perhaps he should provide more details on the scope of work. Until then, well just note the rather bulky overlap between the interests of Deripaska and Putin. And one thing: Why cant a bona fide Russian billionaire/oligarch do a bit better than a quarter-page newspaper ad? Was a full-pager really going to break the budget of this aluminum magnate?

For its part, AP spokeswoman Lauren Easton tells the Erik Wemple Blog, We stand by our reporting. There has been no retraction or correction request from Deripaska, says Easton in an email.
WASHINGTON  The Trump administration sought to block former acting attorney general Sally Yates from testifying in the House investigation of possible links between Russian officials and Donald Trumps campaign, according to letters provided to The Washington Post. The effort to keep Yates from testifying has further angered Democrats, who have accused Republicans of trying to damage the inquiry.

According to the letters, the Justice Department notified Yates earlier this month that the administration considers her possible testimony  including on the firing of former national security adviser Michael Flynn for his contacts with the Russian ambassador  to be off-limits in a congressional hearing because the topics are covered by attorney-client privilege or the presidential communication privilege.

The issue of Yates testimony adds to the political controversy surrounding the House Intelligence Committees investigation of Russian meddling in last years election and any possible coordination between Trump associates and Moscow.

David ONeil, an attorney for Yates, met at the Justice Department to discuss the issue with government officials on Thursday. At the meeting, ONeil presented a letter in which he said the Justice Department had advised him that Yates official communications on issues of interest to the House panel are client confidences that cannot be disclosed without written consent. ONeil challenged that interpretation as overbroad in the letter.

The following day, in a letter to ONeil, the Justice Department responded with another objection: that Yatess communications with the White House are probably covered by presidential communications privilege, and referred him to the White House.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.

ONeil then wrote to White House Counsel Donald McGahn, saying that he believed any privilege had been waived as a result of past White House statements and that Yates planned to testify unless he heard back from McGahn.

But that same day, the hearing, which also would have included former CIA director John Brennan and former director of national intelligence James Clapper, was canceled by the House Intelligence Committees chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes , R-Calif., and any White House decision on Yatess testimony became moot.

In his Tuesday briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer said that the White House did not weigh in on whether Yates could testify. To suggest in any way, shape or form that we stood in the way of that is 100 percent false, he said.

Nunes has said he canceled the hearing to first hear from FBI Director James Comey in a classified setting. That session was also canceled.

Democrats charge that Nunes has aligned himself too closely with the White House to conduct an independent probe.

You see the unraveling of this committee happening overnight for no good reason, said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., a committee member. We have a responsibility to do this investigation.

ONeils meeting at the Justice Department and the exchange of letters came to light as the House GOP leadership continued to stand by Nunes. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., rejected demands that Nunes recuse himself. Nunes said Tuesday that he had no plans to step aside.

Yates was the deputy attorney general in the final years of the Obama administration and served as the acting attorney general in the first days of the Trump administration.

Trump fired Yates in January after she ordered Justice Department lawyers not to defend his first immigration order temporarily banning entry to the United States for citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries and refugees from around the world.

As acting attorney general, Yates played a key part in the investigation surrounding Flynn, who was ousted after revelations that he had discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Yates and Brennan had made clear to government officials by Thursday that their testimony to the committee would probably contradict some statements that White House officials had made, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

ONeil and Ken Wainstein, a lawyer for Brennan, declined to comment.

During his press briefing Tuesday, Spicer said of Yates: I hope she testifies. I look forward to it.

Spicer said the White House did not seek to have the House hearing canceled.

Rep. Adam Schiff , Calif., the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said the panel was aware that Yates sought permission to testify from the White House. Whether the White Houses desire to avoid a public claim of executive privilege to keep her from providing the full truth on what happened contributed to the decision to cancel todays hearing, we do not know. But we would urge that the open hearing be rescheduled without delay and that Ms. Yates be permitted to testify freely and openly.

In January, Yates warned McGahn that statements White House officials, including Vice President Pence, had made about Flynns contact with the ambassador were incorrect and could therefore expose the national security adviser to future blackmail by the Russians.

In his March 23 letter  addressed to acting assistant attorney general Samuel Ramer  ONeil noted that Yates was willing to testify and that she would avoid discussing classified information and details that could compromise investigations. The correspondence was later shared with the House Intelligence Committee.

ONeil went on to memorialize the governments position:

The Department of Justice has advised that it believes there are further constraints on the testimony Ms. Yates may provide at the [House Intelligence Committee] hearing. Generally, we understand that the department takes the position that all information Ms. Yates received or actions she took in her capacity as Deputy Attorney General and acting Attorney General are client confidences that she may not disclose absent written consent of the department, he wrote.

ONeil continued: We believe that the departments position in this regard is overbroad, incorrect, and inconsistent with the departments historical approach to the congressional testimony of current and former officials.

In particular, we believe that Ms. Yates should not be obligated to refuse to provide non-classified facts about the departments notification to the White House of concerns about the conduct of a senior official. Requiring Ms. Yates to refuse to provide such information is particularly untenable given that multiple senior administration officials have publicly described the same events.

The following day, Scott Schools, a senior Justice Department lawyer, replied to ONeil, writing that Yates conversations with the White House are likely covered by the presidential communications privilege and possibly the deliberative process privilege. The president owns those privileges. Therefore, to the extent Ms. Yates needs consent to disclose the details of those communications to [the intelligence panel], she needs to consult with the White House. She need not obtain separate consent from the department.

That letter, in essence, marked Justice Department officials backing away from their earlier strictures, saying that although they thought executive privilege probably applied to Yatess discussions, that was a conversation she would have to have with lawyers at the White House.

In response, ONeil sent a letter Friday to McGahn, the White House counsel, saying that any claim of privilege has been waived as a result of the multiple public comments of current senior White House officials describing the January 2017 communications. Nevertheless, I am advising the White House of Ms. Yates intention to provide information.

He closed the letter by saying that if he did not hear back from the White House by 10 a.m. Monday, he would assume that it does not exert executive privilege over these matters with respect to the hearings or other settings.

The cancellation of the hearing made ONeils deadline moot, although Spicer said the lack of a response to the lawyers letter showed the administration had no problem with Yates testifying.



Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.



VIDEO:

The Trump administration sought to stop former acting attorney general Sally Yates from testifying before the House Intelligence Committee about links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. (Video: Jenny Starrs/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

http://wapo.st/2kMh2o8


NEW YORK  Samsungs fire-prone Galaxy Note 7 phone might come back as refurbished or rental phones.

Samsung says its considering bringing the recalled units back to market. The company says it will first consult regulatory authorities and carriers and assess local demand. Its not yet known when and which countries such phones would be sold.

Samsung killed the Note 7 phone after dozens overheated and caught on fire. Samsung recalled one set, but found problems with the replacements as well. The spontaneous fires, many chronicled in videos circulated on YouTube, prompted Samsung to recall millions of phones and take a $5.3 billion hit on its earnings.

Samsung conducted extensive tests since then and has blamed multiple design and manufacturing defects in batteries made by two different companies. That means Samsung could replace phones with safer batteries.

For phones that arent returning to the market, Samsung says it will reuse components and recycle whats left.

Samsung revealed its plans late Monday, just two days before it is schedule to announce a new flagship phone, the Galaxy S8, at an event in New York.
WASHINGTON  The Latest on an investigation into purported ties between Trump associates and Russia (all times local):

1:20 p.m.

The White House says it has no problem with former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates testifying before a House committee investigating Russias interference in the 2016 election.

Spokesman Sean Spicer says the White House did not try to block Yates testimony. He pointed to a March 24 letter from Yates attorney, in which the attorney says that if the White House does not respond by a deadline, Yates will consider that to mean that the White House is not trying to invoke executive privilege, which would limit what she could disclose.

Spicer says the White House did not respond to the letter. He says the White House has no problem with her testifying, plain and simple.

This weeks hearing at which Yates was expected to testify has been canceled.

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11:50 a.m.

A lawyer for former deputy attorney general Sally Yates says in letters last week that the Trump administration had moved to squelch her testimony in a hearing about Russian meddling in the presidential election.

In the letters, attorney David ONeil said he understood the Justice Department was invoking further constraints on testimony she could provide at a House intelligence committee hearing that had been scheduled for Tuesday. He said the departments position was that all actions she took as deputy attorney general were client confidences that could not be disclosed without written approval.

The Washington Post first reported the letters. A person familiar with the situation confirmed them as authentic to The Associated Press.

The White House called the Post story entirely false.

By Eric Tucker

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11:17 a.m.

The top Democrat on the House intelligence committee is asking whether an open congressional hearing on the Russia probe was canceled because the White House did not want former acting Attorney General Sally Yates to testify and assert executive privilege.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California says Yates was poised to testify Tuesday about the events leading up to the firing of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, including his attempts to cover up conversations he had with Russias ambassador to the U.S.

Schiff says Yates had sought permission to testify from the White House. Schiff says he hopes the hearing can be rescheduled without delay.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan also were to testify.

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11:10 a.m.

House Speaker Paul Ryan is expressing confidence in the chairman of the House intelligence committee, saying he should continue to lead the panels probe into Russian contacts with President Donald Trumps associates.

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., is facing increasing pressure from Democrats to step away because hes seen as being too close to the White House, especially after he went to the White House grounds to review secret reports.

Ryan said at a press conference Tuesday that there is no need for Nunes to resign or step aside from probe.

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10:40 a.m.

The chairman of the House intelligence committee investigating Russian activities during the presidential election says hes not going to step down.

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., asked reporters, Why would I? when they asked whether he was stepping down in response to growing calls from some lawmakers. He dismissed those comments as a lot of politics.

Nunes is facing increasing pressure from Democrats to step away because hes seen as being too close to the White House, especially after he went to the White House grounds to review secret reports.

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9:45 a.m.

Sen. John McCain says House intelligence chairman Rep. Devin Nunes must explain why he went to the White House alone to review intelligence critical to a bipartisan congressional investigation on Russia.

McCain tells CBS This Morning: Ive been around for quite a while, and Ive never heard of any such thing.

A spokesman for Nunes has said the congressman went to the White House because the classified documents still belonged to the executive branch and couldnt be moved. Democrats say they should have been invited and briefed on the same specifics.

McCain, an Arizona conservative and critic of President Donald Trump, said Nunes must divulge the identity of the source to rule out political influence. He said: Somethings got to change, otherwise the whole effort in the House of Representatives will lose credibility.

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8:05 a.m.

Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., a member of the House intelligence committee, is calling on Chairman Devin Nunes to step down from the panel.

Speier had already said Nunes should recuse himself from the panels Russia investigation. On Tuesday, she told CNN that Nunes should go farther.

She said: Im asking for him to step down in the interest of our integrity.

Nunes has acknowledged reviewing information on the White House grounds a day before he told reporters that Trump and his associates may have been caught up in incidental federal monitoring of foreign targets.

Speier said that Nunes actions raise questions about whether the House committees investigation can be unbiased and independent.

If you become a White House whisperer, you are not independent, she said.

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7:50 a.m.

A Republican senator says the House intelligence chairman has put his objectivity in question when it comes to investigating Russias alleged meddling in the 2016 election.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina conservative, stopped short of saying whether Rep. Devin Nunes should recuse himself from the probe. But Graham tells the NBC Today Show that most Americans want to know, who did he meet with and what did he see?

Nunes has claimed there is evidence of incidental federal surveillance of Trump associates during the campaign. But he hasnt said where he got the information other to acknowledge he was briefed on the details at the White House, raising questions about politically motivations.

Graham said: I think he put his objectivity in question at the very least.

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7:23 a.m.

NEW DELHI  Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has criticized Russias alleged interference in the U.S. presidential election, calling it a hostile act.

Cheney said Russian President Vladimir Putin had made a serious attempt to interfere in the 2016 election and other democratic processes in America.

In a speech at a speakers conference in New Delhi, Cheney said, In some quarters, that would be considered an act of war.

Cheneys accusation Tuesday came at a time when both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives intelligence committees are investigating possible Russian interference in the election that brought President Donald Trump to power.

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6:55 a.m.

The Kremlin says a meeting between President Donald Trumps senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and representatives from a Russian state-owned bank was a routine encounter.

President Vladimir Putins spokesman Dmitry Peskov tells reporters in Moscow: It was ordinary business. Peskov says the Kremlin was not aware of the meeting with Kushner before it took place.

Vnesheconombank, or VEB, (v-NESH-ay-CON-ohm-bank) said in a statement Monday that it met with Kushner last year as part of a series of discussions with representatives of leading financial institutions in Europe, Asia and the United States.

Kushner has agreed to speak to the U.S. Senate intelligence committee, which is investigating Russias interference in the 2016 election and possible ties between Trump associates and senior Russian officials.

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3:40 a.m.

House intelligence chairman Devin Nunes acknowledges he went to the White House grounds to review intelligence reports and meet the secret source behind his claim that communications involving associates of President Donald Trump were caught up in incidental surveillance.

The Republican congressmans revelation Monday prompted the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, as well as the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, to call on Nunes to recuse himself from the committees Russia probe.

Schiff said Nunes connections to the White House have raised insurmountable public doubts about whether the committee could credibly investigate the presidents campaign associates.
Spring showers have arrived as three weeks of unusually warm weather comes to an end in Albuquerque.

The Albuquerque area broke 143 high-temperature records at 34 weather stations during 15 days this month, according to the National Weather Service. But Tuesday brought the second of three storm systems through the state, scattering rain showers and snowfall in the northern mountains Tuesday and today.

The same goes for Saturday and Sunday, when the third installment of a wave train pattern of storms rides into the state, according to NWS meteorologist Randall Hergert.

The first three weeks of this month, we had very dry, very sunny, very above-normal temperatures across all of New Mexico, the metro area included, Hergert said. Those well-above-normal temperatures is not something we see, especially for that length of time.

The weather service logged between a tenth of an inch and a quarter of an inch of rain around town by Tuesday evening, as well as pea-sized hail in some areas, and more moisture was likely on the way.

Were expecting at least a few more rounds this afternoon, tonight and going into tomorrow, Hergert said Tuesday.

State climatologist Dave DuBois said the spring showers return the state to a more typical weather pattern, with Albuquerque getting some rain between snowstorms in the north and windstorms in the south.

I think we are back to an active pattern, a nice typical spring storm, he said. In the northern mountains, we get snow, and in the southern Chihuahuan Desert we get dust and winds  a typical spring scenario.
TOPEKA, Kan.  Kansas Republican-controlled Legislature approved an expansion Tuesday of state health coverage to thousands of poor adults under former President Barack Obamas health care overhaul, days after the collapse of GOP leaders repeal effort in Washington.

The bill would expand the states Medicaid program for the poor, disabled and elderly so that it would cover up to 180,000 additional adults who arent disabled. It now heads to conservative Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.

The collapse of efforts by President Donald Trump and top Republicans in the U.S. House to repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act buoyed supporters of expanding Medicaid in Kansas. But the moves success in the GOP-leaning state also reflected elections last year that brought more moderates and liberals into the Legislature.

Im ecstatic! I am, and Im high on happiness, said state Sen. Barbara Bollier, a moderate Kansas City-area Republican and retired anesthesiologist. The citizens of this state took a stand in November and said we wanted change, and now youre seeing it.

But lawmakers on both sides of the debate expect Brownback to veto the measure. He has long been a vocal critic of Obamas health care law and endorsed a plan pursued by Trump and GOP congressional leaders. The term-limited governor declared in January that expanding Medicaid under the law would be airlifting onto the Titanic, though he hasnt said whether he would veto this bill.

The failure of Republicans in Washington to quickly repeal Obamas health care law has created speculation that more states will consider Medicaid expansion. Democratic governors are pursuing expansions in North Carolina and Virginia; an initiative is on the ballot in November in Maine.

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said Tuesday that he will give its Republicans another chance at passing a health care overhaul but did not offer a timeline.

I dont think it makes any sense to jump on expanding Medicaid when the rules could change significantly, said Kansas Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, a conservative Kansas City-area Republican.

The bill would not have passed the Kansas Legislature last year. At least eight new state senators replaced Republicans who were likely to have opposed expanding Medicaid. In the House, the same could be said for at least 20 members.

But the 25-14 vote Tuesday in the Senate was two votes shy of the two-thirds majority necessary to override a veto. The House approved the bill last month on an 81-44 vote , three votes short of a two-thirds majority.

Obamas Affordable Care Act encouraged states to increase the number of people eligible for Medicaid by promising to pay most of the costs. Thirty-one states, including some led by GOP governors, have expanded Medicaid.

Kansas critics argued that expanding Medicaid still would be too expensive for the state, which is facing projected budget shortfalls of more than $1 billion through June 2019 following massive personal income tax cuts championed by Brownback.

Kansas Medicaid program covers about 377,000 poor, disabled and elderly residents, but poor adults under 65 who arent disabled and dont have children arent eligible. Brownbacks administration projected the extra costs of expanding the program at $66 million total for the states 2018 and 2019 budgets.

Theres no question in my mind that this would be a huge cost to the state, said Shawn Sullivan, the governors budget director.

But the Kansas Hospital Association projects a net gain for the state, arguing in part that an influx of federal dollars would ripple through the states economy. Hospitals were a crucial part of the lobbying for the bill; supporters believe the expansion would prevent some hospitals from shuttering.

What I saw were people who couldnt afford insurance using emergency rooms, not getting adequate care, said freshman Republican state Sen. Ed Berger, a former central Kansas community college president who led his local hospitals board. Those hospitals were having to absorb a lot of that.

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Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zalidvar in Washington and Allison Kite in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.

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Follow John Hanna on Twitter at https://twitter.com/apjdhanna
Thanks to the dysfunction stemming from his boss, White House press secretary Sean Spicer is getting heavy exposure to the public via televised daily sessions in the briefing room. And the more we see of him, the nastier he appears.

On Tuesday he again showed his manipulative and churlish side in an exchange with April D. Ryan, the longtime White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks. Ryan has been sitting through White House briefings since the second term of President Bill Clinton, and she had a big-picture question for Spicer after some rocky months for the Trump administration. Two and a half months in, youve got this (Sally) Yates story today, youve got other things going on, youve got Russia, youve got wiretapping, said Ryan, until Spicer cut her off.

No, we dont have that, said Spicer.

Ryan cited investigations into the activities of the Trump campaign and Russia.

I get it but  Ive said it from the day I got here until whenever that there is no connection. Youve got Russia. If the president puts Russian dressing on his salad tonight, somehow thats a Russian connection, Spicer said.

After some more pushback from Ryan, Spicer said, I appreciate your agenda here. He said that people briefed on the Russia thing have reached the same conclusion about this matter. And as he unfurled his explanation, he snapped at Ryan: Im sorry that that disgusts you. Youre shaking your head. I appreciate it, he said with sarcasm.

As a matter of fact, Ryan was displaying unimpeachable body language at that moment.

At some point, April, youre going to have to take no for an answer with respect to whether or not there was collusion, Spicer said. On the matter of changing the perception of the White House, Spicer said, Were going to keep doing everything were doing to make sure that what the president told the American people he was going to do  to fulfill those pledges and promises that he made to bring back jobs, to grow the economy, to keep our nation safe.

Then the conversation took a turn. Ryan asked about a meeting with former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, someone who hasnt supported Trump. Spicer responded:Its interesting that you ask those two questions back to back. On the one hand, youre saying what are we doing to improve our image? And then here he is once again meeting somebody that hasnt been a big supporter of his.  It seems like youre hellbent on trying to make sure that whatever image you want to tell about this White House stays.  Im sorry, please stop shaking your head again.

In early days of the Trump administration, Spicer complained from the lectern that coverage of President Donald Trump wasnt quite what he preferred. The default narrative is always negative, Spicer said at a briefing that followed what Trump viewed as unflattering stories on his inauguration. And its demoralizing.

Since then, the objectively, nakedly negative stories have been delivered through a very reliable delivery apparatus: The drama and ouster surrounding former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the stupid and inaccurate tweets from the president himself, the failure to come up with a viable alternative to the Affordable Care Act, and others cited by Ryan.

The record is fact  yet somehow Spicer couldnt handle the weight of the recent past as presented by Ryan. We wont speculate about what motivated his nastiness, other than to point out that theres a record of Spicer nastiness.

Asked whether she felt Spicers treatment was insulting, Ryan confirmed. It was insulting but  people are seeing the treatment of the press and how we are treated, said Ryan in a chat with this writer. We know this, we see this behind the scenes. You got a glimpse of this on camera. I credit Ryan for her calm but kindly dissents: This is sui generis treatment of the press.

Following her face-off with Spicer, Ryan received messages from many friends and colleagues, including Republicans and a former Republican White House press secretary. They were in support of me and they had me laughing, said Ryan.

This is just par for the course, unfortunately. But Ill be back. Ill be back, she says.
PHOENIX  Arizona lawmakers on Tuesday engaged in a heated debate over whether they should approve a bill that would specify aggravated assault against off-duty police officers is a crime equal to assaulting an on-duty officer.

Current law requires lengthier sentences for aggravated assault against on-duty officers. The measure by sponsor Sen. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, would equally apply enhanced sentences for aggravated assault against officers who are off-duty.

On one side of the debate were lawmakers urging the protection of police officers at all times. On the other were legislators calling the measure unnecessary and a mockery of what has been happening across the country with the Black Lives Matter movement.

The bill is labeled the Blue Lives Matter Law. Smith says its necessary because directly assaulting an officer should not be tolerated on any level.

I dont think it matters if youre an officer if youre on or off duty, Smith said last month. If somebody targets you because thats their motivation, because youre an officer, I cant imagine why any of us would allow that.

Senate Bill 1366 notes the crime of aggravated assault against a police officer includes assaulting a peace officer that is not engaged in the execution of official duties. It would call for establishing evidence that the defendant assaulted the person because of their employment as a police officer or because they believe that person is an officer.

The bill mocks a serious issue thats taking place in this country, Rep. Reginald Bolding, D-Laveen, said. It continues to put in place unreasonable circumstances in which individuals may be engaged in conflicts with off-duty peace officers that do not have to announce themselves.

House Majority Leader John Allen, R-Scottsdale, said police officers risk their lives for citizens and the measure will protect them from those trying to do them wrong.

Were just saying your lives matter and we will not let people mistreat you because of the public service in which youve taken up in our name, Allen said.

Legislators approved Smiths proposal on a voice vote and it awaits a formal House vote. The Senate passed the bill on a 24-5 vote in February.
INDIANAPOLIS  An Indiana board has endorsed directing $7 million in state tax breaks and grants for a deal brokered by President Donald Trump toward stemming job losses from a Carrier Corp. factory in Indianapolis to Mexico.

The Indiana Economic Development Board approved the incentive package Tuesday, nearly four months after Trump celebrated the deal at the furnace factory.

Carrier is pledging to keep nearly 1,100 jobs in Indianapolis, including some 800 production jobs it planned to cut with the outsourcing. But about 550 jobs are still being lost. Carrier is also investing $16 million for automation. The companys CEO has said that will ultimately mean fewer jobs at the factory.

Full details of the deal wont be public until after a review by the State Budget Committee.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trumps budget proposal to slash federal research funding and end financial support for the arts could hurt the bottom line of colleges and universities that rely on those government dollars, Moodys Investors Service said Tuesday.

The White House budget, released earlier this month, dials back discretionary funding for agencies that pour billions of dollars into higher education. If Congress passes the budget as proposed, Moodys analysts say it would add financial stress to a number of colleges and universities.

The credit rating agency warns that the proposed $5.8 billion cut in funding to the National Institutes of Health would have the most significant impact on higher education. Roughly 80 percent of NIHs budget supports grants to 300,000 researchers at universities across the country. Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, for instance, was awarded $651 million in NIH funding in 2016, while University of California at San Francisco received $578 million.

Universities with diversified research portfolios, large operating budgets, significant revenue and strong fundraising capabilities, like Johns Hopkins or Yale University, could adjust to the reduction in federal funding over several years, according to Moodys. However, schools without those sorts of resources would struggle.

The more concentrated the research is in the identified areas for cuts, the more vulnerable the institution, said Susan Fitzgerald, associate managing director at Moodys.

Because the White House budget lacks much detail, analysts say its difficult to tell whether an increase in the Department of Defense budget will benefit universities with defense-related research projects. There are also no specifics on funding for the National Science Foundation, an agency with a $7.5 billion budget that funds about a quarter of the federally backed research at colleges and universities.

Moodys analysts are also concerned about the ripple effects of the proposed elimination of funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Many of the schools rated by Moodys receive grants from both entities, though the awards are a small portion of their budgets. Still, those grants often fund programs that are appealing to students and donors, who might lose interest in the school if certain arts programs disappear, Fitzgerald said.

Analysts at Moodys say the budget constraints facing the Education Department might not create much financial strain for colleges and universities. Holding the line on discretionary funding for the Pell Grant program would have no financial impact on universities, they say. Yet the elimination of the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant and reduction in Federal Work Study funding could place minor stress on the budgets of the roughly 550 schools rated by Moodys. The two programs combined are less than 2.5 percent of total operating revenue for those schools, but the elimination would add pressure on already thin operating margins for colleges with budget problems.

The proposed spending cuts come at a time when some state legislatures are calling for a reduction in public higher education funding to close budget deficits.

Were in budget season right now and higher ed funding in many states is coming under pressure. Cuts at both the federal level and the state level would certainly cause pressure for public universities, Fitzgerald said.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.  Part of a coal-fired power plant in northwestern New Mexico is still scheduled for retirement despite President Donald Trumps executive order Tuesday to roll back measures aimed at tackling global warming. And the states largest electric provider has no plans to shift gears when it comes to promoting cleaner energy, a spokesman said.

Trump made good on a campaign promise to unravel the previous administrations efforts to restrict coal use. Several of the mandates could be suspended, rescinded or flagged for review to boost domestic energy production in the form of fossil fuels.

The president argued his order would revive the coal industry and create a level playing field for workers.

It will take time to see how the presidents actions may or may not impact our business going forward, said Pahl Shipley, a spokesman for Public Service Co. of New Mexico.

Pressure to limit regional haze-causing pollution and other emissions from coal-fired power plants resulted in an agreement between the utility and federal and state regulators to close two units at the utilitys San Juan Generating Station by the end of 2017.

The agreement was years in the making, and Shipley said the utility doesnt expect Trumps order to change the planned retirement or the companys efforts to continue to integrate cleaner resources into its portfolio. The utility already has invested nearly $270 million in solar farms across the state in recent years.

The utility is also determining the future of the remaining units at the San Juan plant and whether they will operate beyond 2022. A preliminary analysis showed closing the plant could provide long-term benefits to customers. Affordability and environmental responsibility are among the factors the utility will consider before making a final decision.

Environmentalists have been pushing for years to close the plant, citing pollution concerns.

Many of the groups that have criticized coal-fired power plants in the Four Corners region  where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet  expressed concern about Trumps order.

They say renewable energy and energy efficiency programs have created jobs for New Mexico and that maintaining the effort will help reduce pollution and the states high unemployment rate.

Supporters of the regions coal-fired plants have countered that closing them would leave plant workers and coal miners without jobs. Many are held by members of the Navajo and Hopi tribes.

New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas joined other attorneys general Tuesday to oppose Trumps order. The prosecutors warned that legal action could be an option for keeping the federal pollution mandates in place.

U.S. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich also sent a letter along with several congressional colleagues to the president asking him to rescind the order.

The New Mexico Democrats argued that the order fails to support the solar and wind industry, which according to their estimates account for nearly 144,000 jobs and $83 billion in existing capital investment in Western states.

U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, the sole Republican member of New Mexicos congressional delegation, said former President Barack Obamas initiatives crippled economic opportunity in New Mexico and across the nation and that overturning the regulations will reduce the overreach of the federal government and ensure access to affordable energy.

Pearce also said reinvesting in New Mexicos energy resources will mean more revenue for public schools and other government programs.
SAN TAN VALLEY, Ariz.  Pinal County authorities say a 74-year-old school bus driver has died after a crash into a fence in San Tan Valley.

County Sheriffs officials say the Florence Unified School District bus was just leaving Poston Butte High School to pick up students and there was only a driver and an assistant driver aboard at the time of the crash about 1:45 p.m. Tuesday.

They say Jerzy Adamsyzk was rushed to a hospital with serious injuries to his head and abdominal area and later died there.

However, authorities say its unclear if Adamsyzk died from injuries associated with the crash or suffered some sort of medical episode.

Sheriffs officials say the assistant bus driver was taken to a hospital as a precaution. His name wasnt immediately released.
When Yousif Al Mashhadani came to the United States as a refugee in 2008, he told officials he had been kidnapped in his native Iraq because of his anti-corruption efforts and wanted to come to America for his own safety.

Now, prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia say Al Mashhadani lied about being kidnapped and about his own connection to a vicious kidnapper.

On Tuesday, Al Mashhadani, his brother Adil Hasan, and Hasans wife Enas Ibrahim appeared in court on charges of naturalization fraud.

All three live in Fairfax County, Virginia; they moved here from Iraq in 2008. But when they applied to become lawful permanent U.S. residents, none of them acknowledged a relationship to Majid Al Mashhadani, a convicted kidnapper who is Yousif Al Mashhadani and Hasans brother, an affidavit from FBI agent Sean MacDougal said.

In November 2004, U.S. contractor Roy Hallums was kidnapped in Iraq and kept in an underground bunker with other captives. They were freed in a raid after spending nearly a year bound and blindfolded in cells below the earth. Majid Al Mashhadani was arrested in Iraq in connection with the kidnapping but was released from prison in 2007, according to the court documents.

Federal authorities said one of Yousif Al Mashhadanis fingerprints was found on a document recovered during the raid to free the captive. But they did not elaborate on whether they believe he played a role in the incident.

He and his brother and sister-in-law eventually told FBI agents, prosecutors say, that they left Majid Al Mashhadani off their family trees because they did not want to hurt their chances of being admitted as refugees.

Hasan and his wife allegedly stopped using the last name Al Mashhadani to obscure the connection.

Yousif Al Mashhadani and Hasan also admitted that they made up a story about Hasan being kidnapped because Yousif Al Mashhadani was involved in anti-corruption efforts, and about Hasan being released after Yousif Al Mashhadani dropped his efforts, prosecutors say. They also allegedly made up stories of being threatened and coerced.

The family said Hasan was once detained for five hours by members of a Sunni militia in Taji, Iraq, according to the affidavit, but released when they failed to find a Green Zone access card showing he had worked with coalition forces.

In court on Tuesday, family members cried as the charges were read. All three defendants proclaimed that they had not lied on any government forms.

Their original claims were processed not by U.S. officials but by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Al Mashhadan and Hasan were detained until a hearing Friday. Ibrahim, who has young children with Hasan, was released on a personal recognizance bond. They each face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison if convicted.

Family members and an attorney for the defendants declined to comment.

Their arrests come as President Donald Trump continues to argue that more extreme vetting of travelers and refugees from several predominantly Muslim countries is necessary. His second executive order temporarily banning all travel from those countries has been blocked by courts in Hawaii and Maryland. Unlike his first attempt, that order does not include Iraqis, but it does suspend admittance of all refugees.



VIDEO:

President Trump has called for extreme vetting of refugees seeking to enter the United States. This is the current process that people with refugee status typically go through to get approval into the country. (Claritza Jimenez, Dani Player / The Washington Post)

http://wapo.st/2kYzZmM


WASHINGTON  The email arrived at lunchtime Tuesday from a top aide to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt. Our Big Day Today! read the subject line of the message, which went to thousands of EPA employees.

It detailed how President Donald Trump would be visiting the agency, whose budget he recently proposed cutting by nearly a third, to sign a sweeping executive order aimed at unraveling efforts by President Barack Obamas administration to combat climate change.

This is an important moment for EPA, chief of staff Ryan Jackson wrote. As the Administrator has mentioned many times, we do not have to choose between environmental protection and economic development.

Jackson cautioned that there was limited space to see Trump sign his order in the EPAs wood-paneled Map Room. But there was also limited interest from many of the agencys career employees.

At the EPA, scientists are encountering renewed skepticism of their work, many employees have seen their offices slated for elimination altogether, and regulators are facing the prospect of dismantling environmental rules many of them spent years creating. Trumps visit to headquarters Tuesday was met with frustration, resignation and varying levels of angst.

What an insult, said one longtime employee, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

Needless to say, morale is at rock bottom, said another, who noted that some employees had worn buttons that read scientific integrity in quiet protest.

But elsewhere in the building, the president and members of his Cabinet joined in celebrating a shift in policy direction with representatives from several energy industries that had been on the losing end of the previous administrations policies.

Trump showed up at 2 p.m. as scheduled, surrounded by coal miners and coal executives, as well as Pruitt, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Vice President Mike Pence.

Today, were taking a great step in breaking the restraints that have become burdens, said Perry.

Were not going to allow regulations here at the EPA to pick winners and losers, Pruitt promised.

The president, who devoted much of his remarks to praising coal miners, pipelines and U.S. manufacturing, declared, Were ending the theft of American prosperity and rebuilding our beloved country.

The far-reaching order he unveiled Tuesday instructs federal regulators to rewrite key Obama-era rules curbing U.S. carbon emissions  namely the Clean Power Plan, which was intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the nations electric plants. It also seeks to lift a moratorium on federal coal leasing and remove the requirement that federal officials consider the impact of climate change when making decisions.

In sum, it amounts to a wholesale rebuke of Obamas environmental efforts.

Several of the measures could take years to implement and are unlikely to change broader economic trends that are pushing the nation toward cleaner sources of energy than coal. But the order sent an unmistakable message about the direction in which Trump wants to take the country  toward unfettered oil and gas production, with an apathetic eye to worries over global warming.

Reactions to the new order came swiftly.

The Independent Petroleum Association of Americas president and chief executive, Barry Russell, who was at the event, said in a statement that his group welcomed Trumps bold decision to tackle the growing regulatory state and identify rules that harm the economy and threaten American jobs.

National Rural Electric Cooperative Association chief executive Jim Matheson, who also attended and whose group challenged the Clean Power Plan in federal court, said in an interview that he does not anticipate that many of his members will start building new coal-fired plants. But for those who already have invested heavily in keeping their coal plants operating, he said, It has given them much greater flexibility to maintain more reasonably priced and affordable power for our consumers.

Meanwhile, former Obama administration officials expressed outrage.

President Trumps executive order to roll back vital climate and clean air protections this afternoon is the most brazen and transparent assault on the health of Americans in my lifetime, said Heather Zichal, former deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change.

Lisa Jackson, who headed the EPA during Obamas first term and is now Apples vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, said in a statement that limiting climate protections threatens the certainty businesses need to continue to innovate.

And several governors said that they would press ahead with their own plans to cut carbon emissions.

Gov. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., noted in an interview that he had spent part of Tuesday in Snohomish County, heralding the biggest battery in the world to integrate solar and wind into the grid, whose development was underwritten in part by state taxpayers.

And California Gov. Jerry Brown, D, said in an interview that he, like Inslee, was prepared to take the new administration to court over its regulatory rewrite. Gutting the Clean Power Plan is a colossal mistake and defies science itself, he said. Erasing climate change may take place in Donald Trumps mind, but nowhere else.

Outside the EPA on Tuesday afternoon, protesters shouted and waved signs, biding their time for a larger protest later in the day outside the White House. Inside, some employees watched the presidents remarks on YouTube, while others went for a walk. In the Map Room, Trump sat at a small table and scribbled his signature on the order.

Come on, fellas. Basically, you know what this is? Trump said to the coal miners gathered around him. You know what it says, right? Youre going back to work.
This year, New Mexico Tech distributed $9,000 in scholarships among 10 students, thanks to the success of the universitys Pat Miller Student Investment Club.

Its the first time the club, formed in 2007, has awarded grants based on investment performance, said Peter Anselmo, club adviser and executive director of the universitys Center for Technology Commercialization.

The club was formed with a $100,000 donation from Tech alumnus Pat Miller, who wanted students to learn about investing before they graduate. Miller, a petroleum engineer, lost money in the stock market until he gained more knowledge and experience.

He started dabbling in the stock market and didnt do well until he learned the hard way about value investing, Anselmo said. He endowed this fund for students to invest real money to gain direct experience while still in school.

The students make all decisions about investments.

They tell me what to do, Anselmo said. Theyre in control.

The club has grown the fund to $180,000, allowing it to award scholarships for the first time last fall based on 4.5 percent of the average balance of the fund over six months.

That came to $9,000 for this school year, providing $1,000 scholarships for eight student club members, and $500 each for two club presidents. Assuming investment performance remains strong, the club award more scholarships next year, Anselmo said.
Star World Premiere HD turns up the drama this month with the gripping limited TV series  Shots Fired that will exclusively air on the channel every Saturday, 10 PM starting March 25. Set in a North Carolina town, Shots Fired is not just another police drama series! After decades of turning away from some of Americas most pressing racial problems, world television has finally started looking eye to eye in times of adversity as it takes on the courageous topic of conversation of police violence in America with the upcoming series.

With the Black Lives Matter Vs Blue Lives Matter debate at its very helm and multiple investigations at its heart, the series centers on the shootings of an unarmed white college student on one hand and a young black boy on the other that sparks what will eventually be an uproar.

After a black sheriff's deputy shoots an unarmed white college student, the small, racially and economically divided town of North Carolina city of Gates Station is on edge. This is when ambitious Special Prosecutor Preston Terry (played by Stephan James) and cop-turned-investigator Ashe Akino (played by Sanaa Lathan) are appointed by the Department of Justice to sift through the evidence and prevent any perception of impropriety in the case. Although they receive support from the governor (played by Helen Hunt) and the local sheriff (played by Will Patton) initially, the town reckons a force that will tear North Carolina apart as the case begins to point toward departmental corruption and a largely ignored, police shooting of an unarmed African-American youngster.

Produced by Reggie Rock Bythewood and Gina Prince-Bythewood of Before I Fall fame, the series draws inspiration from a spate of real-life murders of young black men by white cops in several American cities and towns but reverses the roles by posing the most important question  What If It Was You?

Reggie Rock Bythewood, co-producer and the man behind the show shares his thoughts on the kind of content that he wants to deliver to audiences worldwide: Sure, Shots Fired is a very entertaining show with a mystery that we hope the audience leans into, but we aren't shying away from the fact that this is a relevant social subject matter that we feel as artists and as African Americans has to be dealt with,

The series that premiered back in January 2017 at the Sundance Film Festival and received a pool of stellar reviews, stars a powerhouse of talent - actors Sanaa Lathan (The Perfect Guy, Now You See Me 2, Alien vs. Predator, Blade fame) and Stephan James (Race, Across The Line, Selma fame) in lead roles alongside Oscar winners Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws, The Goodbye Girl fame) and Helen Hunt (As Good As It Gets, Mad About You, Cast Away, The Sessions, What Women Want fame) who play powerful figureheads pulled into the controversy.

So, grapple with media attention, public debates and social unrest on Star World Premiere HD as the channel ups its drama ante with the premiere of Shots Fired that will air every Saturday, 10 PM starting March 25, 2017.
TIMES NETWORK, a part of Indias largest media conglomerate, The Times Group, launched the third season of their IP property, the Digital India Summit and Awards. The day-long initiative took place on March 23, 2017, at Hyatt Regency, New Delhi and was attended by some of the most valued dignitaries in India. The special guest of honour was Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Law & Justice and Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India. Through power packed discourses & debates, the Digital India Summit 3.0 aimed at unearthing key challenges, laid emphasis on the headway made on the Digital India Initiative & also planned out a definite roadmap to build an empowered society & knowledge economy. The summit aimed to lay out key imperatives and framework for turning the vision of Digital India into a reality.

The event was split into two parts  Digital India Summit (during the day) and Digital India Awards in the evening. The summit kicked off with the welcome address by Satyan Gajwani, Vice Chairman, Times Internet, followed by a keynote address by Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Law & Justice and Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India.

Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Law & Justice and Electronics and Information Technology, said, I compliment TIMES NETWORK for focusing on the critical issue of Digital India. We want to become a leader in the digital revolution in the world. Today data management and data analysis is the next big thing. Digital payments and new start-ups are a new area of growth in the country and with GST coming very soon there will be more support for start-ups. 1.7 Crore people have downloaded the Bhim app and Indias digital economy will become 1 trillion economy in the coming years. Today, no change can happen without the involvement of people and hence we want more and more participation from the citizens of the country.

The panel discussion was followed by the Digital India Awards award ceremony where 11 organisations were awarded for their digital initiatives in the social and corporate world that are harnessing power of ICT and digital tools to transform business processes, improve delivery of public services and create a positive impact on society.

The event also saw special address from 2 prominent dignitaries Mr. Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Minister of State, Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (Independent Charge), Government of India where he spoke about Skilling India for Digital India and Mr. Jayant Sinha, Minister of State, Civil Aviation before the award ceremony in the evening.

In its third edition, the TIMES NETWORK Digital India Summit received tremendous support and overwhelming response from all the key stakeholders, participants and delegates alike. To augment this endeavor further, the network held their ever Digital awards in 2016. These awards acknowledged and honored the undying spirit and contributions made by individuals and organizations that harnessed the usage of IT for the growth of the nation and helping it towards a digital revolution.

The TIMES NETWORK Digital India Summit was presented by Union Bank of India, Lead Partner GTL, Summit Partner GE, Digital Partner Sify and Associate Partner WNS. The TIMES NETWORK Digital India Awards were presented by Union Bank of India, Lead Partner GTL, Digital Partner Sify and Associate Partner WNS. The initiative is supported by MeiTY, The Better India, Knowledge partner MAIT and Tech4Good partner Nasscom Foundation.

The entire event will be converted into episodes, each to be telecast on TIMES NOW Indias No. 1 English News channel and ET NOW - Indias No.1 Business News channel. The episodes will be aired right through the month of April, 2017

The Digital India Awardees are:
Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research

Bern, 28.03.2017 - On 30 March Federal Councillor Johann N. Schneider-Ammann, the head of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research EAER, will hold talks in Brussels with EU commissioners Andrus Ansip and Cecilia Malmstrom. On 31 March he will meet Liam Fox, the UK Secretary of State for International Trade, and Andrea Leadsom, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in London.

The meeting with Andrus Ansip, the European Commission vice president responsible for the digital single market, will focus on the opportunities and challenges of digitalisation and the EUs and Switzerlands strategies in this area.

At the meeting with Cecilia Malmstrom, EU commissioner for trade, Federal Councillor Johann N. Schneider-Ammann will discuss bilateral trade relations and the implementation of the bilateral agreements. Further topics will include relations of the EU and Switzerland with third countries, the current world trade climate and the challenges facing the World Trade Organization WTO.

Bilateral economic relations with the UK following Brexit

The United Kingdom is expected to formally give notice to the European Council of its intention to leave the European Union on 29 March. Switzerland has close trade relations with the United Kingdom; last year the UK market was the fifth most important for Swiss goods exports (CHF 11.4bn) and the eighth largest market of origin for imports (CHF 6.4bn).

In London the head of the EAER will meet Liam Fox, the Secretary of State for International Trade, for a working meeting on the future shape of bilateral economic relations after Brexit. As part of the Federal Councils Mind the gap strategy the aim is to reach a follow-up arrangement as swiftly as possible, particularly regarding trade with the UK. Mr Schneider-Ammann will also be meeting Andrea Leadsom, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Note for journalists: Press call in Brussels and London

There will be a brief press call for journalists on both days; on Thursday in Brussels towards the end of the afternoon, and on Friday in London around midday. Journalists will receive an invitation directly from the Swiss mission in Brussels and from the embassy in London. A short press release will be distributed after each visit.

Address for enquiries

Noe Blancpain,

Head of Information EAER,

Tel. +41 78 748 61 63,

noe.blancpain@wbf.admin.ch

Publisher

Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research

http://www.wbf.admin.ch




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.
Amazon on Tuesday announced its acquiring SOUQ, a Middle Eastern eCommerce giant offering services in English and Arabic. The Dubai-based company is now set to join Amazon in the near future after both parties agreed to the acquisition in a deal thats reportedly worth approximately $650 million, some industry watchers believe. Financial details of the deal werent officially announced, but previous reports indicated that SOUQ owners were seeking approximately $1 billion for the sale, a figure which the Seattle-based tech giant likely lowered following months of tough negotiations. In any case, Amazon confirmed that the transaction itself should be completed by the end of the year, following mandatory regulatory approvals and other closing conditions of the deal.

The acquisition of SOUQ will allow Amazon to solidify its position in the Middle East where the company is already doing a lot of business. Amazons Senior Vice President Russ Grandinetti described SOUQ as a firm that shares the same DNA with Amazon, referencing the fact that the Dubai-based online retailer is one of the most successful such companies operating in the region. While the deal will allow Amazon to fortify its presence in the Middle East, it will also provide SOUQ with the ability to improve its own services and become ever more competitive, the companys Chief Executive Officer Ronaldo Mouchawar said. Even though Amazons announcement doesnt specify the way in which the firm will integrate SOUQ into its family, its unlikely that the Dubai-based eCommerce giant will be rebranded and will likely continue operating under the same name following the acquisition.

While Amazon already has a reasonably strong presence in the Middle East and some may see this acquisition as unnecessary, the deal itself is in line with the companys long-term strategy of aggressive investing into expansion. Despite the fact that Amazons revenue has been increasing quite rapidly for years now, the Seattle-based company still isnt recording massive profits, mostly due to the fact that its adamant to reinvest all earnings into expanding its operations even further. This approach to doing business led Amazon to where it is today, so its unlikely that the firm will change its philosophy in the immediate future.
British smartphone retailer Carphone Warehouse will be giving away a free Samsung-made wireless speaker to everyone who purchases either the Galaxy S8 or the Galaxy S8 Plus, according to a leaked image of the companys promotional flier that you can see above. The flier doesnt name any particular device but it does note the speaker in question is valued at 99.99, i.e. approximately $124.99. It also features two renders of the upcoming flagship that has already been the subject of numerous leaks, reports, and rumors in recent months. These particular renders have already emerged online as part of a larger set of leaks and dont reveal anything that hasnt already been known about the device. While its unclear whether the images show the Galaxy S8 or the Galaxy S8 Plus, both devices will seemingly feature a rather tall and slim case with an impressive screen-to-body ratio, in addition to lacking a physical Home button and missing Samsungs signature front branding.

As Samsung removed the Home from its upcoming pair of flagships, the company moved the fingerprint scanner of the device to its back, the images suggest. Additionally, both the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus will reportedly sport an improved version of the iris scanner that originally debuted on the discontinued Galaxy Note 7 last year. Regarding the leak seen above, the promotional flier doesnt specify whether the free Samsung wireless speaker will only be offered to people who-preorder the Galaxy S8 or the Galaxy S8 Plus, or whether the offer will be valid as long as supplies last. Seeing how Samsungs upcoming devices are predicted to be huge commercial hits, there might not be any difference between the two scenarios.

Regardless, more information on the matter is bound to be available shortly seeing how the South Korean phone maker is scheduled to officially unveil the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus tomorrow, March 29. The company will detail its handsets at a special event in New York City that will reportedly be hosted by Samsungs mobile chief DJ Koh, and both devices should be available for pre-orders shortly after. While their launch dates are yet to be announced, most industry sources agree that the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus will hit the market in the second half of April.
Google Assistant can already control a vast number of smart home and Internet of Things products, among other electronics, and that list has just grown a little more. As of today, the same Google Assistant that youll find on your phone, Android Wear 2.0 watches, and Google Home, can now link to smart home devices from the likes of Best Buy Insignia, LIFX, TP-Link and Wink. Things like fans, routers, AC systems, appliances, and lights, all fall under these companies purview, along with a huge number of other such products. Integrating with these brands brings the total number of smart home product makers that Google Home can link to well into the double digits.

Nest, Philips Hue, and Samsung SmartThings were among some of the first major IoT product makers to jump on board with Google Assistant thanks to Google Home, and were soon joined by Belkin, Wemo, and Honeywell. Naturally, integration with Tasker and IFTTT has been on board for a while now, meaning that just about any smart home or IoT device can be controlled with enough tinkering. With the select OEMs listed above and a few others, Google has added in complete integration from the ground up, making it easy for customers to get these devices working out of the box. Naturally, these partnerships cover future devices from supported OEMs as well, and the list of supported OEMs is only going to grow over time.

Just about any phone with Google Assistant will feature Home Control options; on a phone, these can be found from the three-dot menu that can be accessed with a tap on the top right of the Google Assistant popup. That menu will allow you to integrate with just about any compatible IoT device thats on the same network as your phone, and from there, you should be able to control said devices through the Home Control menu or by voice with Google Assistant on any compatible device that you sign your Google account into, so long as Google Assistant is present. This integration will run side by side with any shoehorned integration that a user has made in the past, such as through IFTTT or Tasker.
The Google Home and Google WiFi are launching in the United Kingdom on April 6, the Mountain View-based tech giant announced on Tuesday. The connected speaker will be priced at 129, which translates to approximately $160. While the company said the Google WiFi will sport the same price tag, getting two of Googles routers will only set you back 229, i.e. $287. Both Google-made Internet of Things (IoT) devices will be sold by Argos, John Lewis, Dixons, and Maplin, in addition to being available for purchase directly from the Google Store. The company also said the devices will soon be retailed on Amazon, though theres still no word on how soon Google is talking about here. The colored bases for the Google Home that users are able to swap are going to be priced at 18 ($23) or 36 ($45) a piece, depending on whether you opt for a fabric or metal one.

The UK launch of the Google Home will mark the beginning of yet another one of Googles attempts to compete with Amazon in the digital assistant market. The Google Homes price tag in the UK is lower than that of Amazons Echo by 20 ($25), which may be enough to convince some users to opt for the Alphabet-owned companys product instead of the Echo. Naturally, IoT devices like the Echo and Google Home are still mostly aimed at people with at least some disposable income, so a small price difference may not be enough to tip the scales in Googles favor. An update on the market situation will likely be available come summer when consumers in the UK already had some time to decide whether to purchase the Echo or Google Home.

Googles connected speaker hit the market in the United States back in November and has enjoyed a relatively positive reception from both consumers and tech critics. As the Google Assistant keeps evolving, learning more skills, and consequently becoming more useful, the idea of buying Googles Internet-enabled speaker is also becoming more appealing over time. Naturally, Amazon has also been hard at work improving its own Alexa digital assistant and revising its lineup of smart speakers, so it may be a while before consumers decide whos the clear winner in the consumer-ready AI race that is just getting heated.
LG has reportedly announced that it has filed a complaint against BLU over the use of five patents related to LTE systems for use with or in smartphones. The complaints landed in the lap of the International Trade Commission, and in the Delawares US District Court, which would preside over Miami, Florida, the place that BLU calls home. According to LG, who is filing its first ever patent-related suit against an overseas smartphone maker, the company did reach out to BLU to attempt licensing negotiations for the patents in question, but BLU reportedly did not respond, and had even outright refused LGs requests to cease the use of patented technology in the past.

LGs large portfolio of mobile networking is one of the aspects which could prove to be crucial in this dispute. Patent research firm TechIPM was noted stating that LG has the largest volume of patents related to LTE and LTE-Advanced in the United States, an honor that the Korean smartphone giant has reportedly held since 2012. While a number of core technologies essential to LTE operations stand protected under universal patent law, LGs portfolio outside of this space is vast indeed. An exact timeline for the case has not been determined as yet, but speculation points to a preliminary judgment early next year, and a resolution for the case before 2018. If LG does indeed have a legal leg to stand on, BLU will be facing down a far larger foe in court, making a win that much more unlikely.

LG did not name the patents in question, only stating that they were somehow LTE-related. The chief of LGs patent division, Jeong Saeng-gyu, was reported making a firm stand, stating that LG is quite willing to take decisive actions in protecting its intellectual property. BLU is a relatively small target in the grand scheme of things, but have reached a fair amount of prominence as the sixth largest smartphone maker in the United States, with some 5.2 million phones sold over the years. While LG dwarfs BLU by most measures, the fact that this has now reached a court0level status, suggests that LG is willing to go the distance with anyone to protect its intellectual property.
The OnePlus 3T Midnight Black is now officially available for purchase from the OnePlus online store. It is currently available with 128GB of internal storage, and is priced at $479 in the US, 479 in Europe, and 439 in the UK. It should be noted that there is no price difference between the other two color variants which pack 128GB of internal storage, namely Gunmetal and Soft Gold. The Midnight Black variant is currently limited, and may run out of stock soon, so if you are planning to get one, head to the source below and purchase it. As for shipping, the Midnight Black OnePlus 3T will be shipped to customers within 8 days of payment.

The OnePlus 3T Midnight Black was announced by OnePlus a week back, and 250 units were originally put on sale via a pop-up store by Hypebeast. The new color was brought about after many customers asked the Chinese company to produce an all-black OnePlus 3T. Before deciding on the color, OnePlus tested more than 30 other colors on the device. While it may be a new color, the specs of the Midnight Black OnePlus 3T remain identical to the original variant. If you would like a recap of the specs, do read on.

The OnePlus 3T is the latest smartphone from OnePlus, and it has received praise from consumers for being budget-friendly, and also a solid device in most aspects. For specs, the device sports a 5.5-inch display with a fullHD resolution, and 6GB of RAM. The device is powered by a Snapdragon 821 processor and comes with a 3,400mAh non-removable battery which can be charged via a USB Type-C port, with support for Dash Charge. OnePlus version of fast charging allows you to charge the device up to 60 percent, within half an hour. For optics, it packs a 16-megapixel camera on the rear, and the front side of the device also comes with a 16-megapixel shooter. Software wise, it comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box along with OxygenOS, and Android 7.0 Nougat is already available for the handset. A fingerprint scanner has also been embedded into the capacitive home button of the smartphone, and it has proved to be really quick at unlocking the device.
Sony is preparing to out a new phone on the Indian market. The Japanese company has been sending out invites for an event scheduled for April 4th in India, during which it will unveil the new Xperia XZs mid-ranger. The Sony Xperia XZs was launched at MWC 2017 in Barcelona, as a successor of last years Xperia XZ. But interestingly enough, the device retains most of the specs of its predecessor.

The new Sony Xperia XZs will arrive in India with a 5.2-inch IPS LCD display with a 1920 x 1080 resolution and 424ppi, exactly like the previous generation Xperia XZ. The two phones are identical processor-wise too, as both take advantage of last years Snapdragon 820 chipset. At MWC, Sony said the Xperia XZs will be made available in two variants, one with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage and another with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of built-in storage (expandable up to 256GB via microSD card slot), but it remains to be seen whether both versions will land on the Indian market or not. Comparatively, the Xperia XZ only bundled 3GB of RAM but took advantage of similar storage options.

The Xperia XZs comes equipped with Sonys new 19-megapixel Motion Eye camera which is built around a 1/2.3 Exmor RS memory stacked sensor that brings to the table features such as 960 fps slow motion video shooting, 4K video recording, Predictive Capture, Anti-distortion shutter, Triple image sensing technology and 5-axis image stabilization for shake-free videos. The Xperia XZs will also appeal to selfie enthusiasts since it bundles an advanced 13-megapixel front-facing camera with a dedicated camera shutter button, 22mm wide-angle and f/2.0 lens. As for the Sony Xperia XZ, it relied on a 23-megapixel sensor with PDAF (phase detection autofocus) and LED flash and the same 13-megapixel selfie shooter.

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Going back to the new Xperia XZs, the device has an IP65/68 rating for dust and water resistance (IP68 denotes the product is protected from contact with harmful dust and can survive being submerged in water, while IP65 means its also good at handling spraying water), fingerprint scanner and a 2,900 mAh battery (the same as the one inside the Xperia XZ). But unlike its predecessor which launched with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow out of the box, the new Xperia XZs will ship out with Android 7.0 Nougat onboard. Sony announced the new handset will become available in Ice Blue, Warm Silver and Black, but its currently unknown whether all three colors are going to become available in India. Pricing specifications are yet to be unveiled as well.
Uber restarted its self-driving testing program that was recently suspended following a relatively serious traffic accident in Tempe, Arizona involving one of the companys autonomous Volvo XC90 SUVs. The San Francisco-based tech giant revealed that its self-driving fleet in Tempe and Pittsburgh is now returning on public roads and will once again be picking up passengers. The recently relaunched testing program in San Francisco is also being resumed, though the fleet in Ubers hometown still wont be picking up riders for the time being.

The crash prompting the company to suspend its autonomous driving program occurred on Friday and resulted in Ubers vehicle being flipped on its side, while the other involved car suffered moderate damage. Two of the firms engineers were in the car at the time of the accident, but they werent carrying any passengers, Uber previously confirmed. Local authorities revealed on Sunday that all of the blame for the crash falls on the other driver, adding that no one was seriously injured in the accident. Seeing how Ubers vehicle wasnt at fault for the incident, its still unclear why the company opted to suspend its self-driving tests, even though the decision was quickly rolled back.

The Tempe accident isnt the first setback for Ubers self-driving ambitions that started materializing last September when the company initially started testing one of its autonomous fleets in Pittsburgh. Since then, Uber clashed with the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) regarding testing permits it argued are unnecessary and was also hit with a lawsuit filed by Alphabets self-driving unit Waymo that alleges the company stole LiDAR designs and other trade secrets with the goal of catching up to its competitors. The San Francisco-based ride-hailing company is also currently suffering through a number of scandals that led to some high-profile departures including its former Vice President of Mapping Amit Singhal, as well as its President Jeff Jones who will soon be leaving the firm. Ubers board previously stated the position of Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick is safe for the time being despite recent troubles, but noted its looking for a Chief Operating Officer that will help Kalanick lead the company in the future.
YEREVAN, MARCH 27, ARMENPRESS. On March 27 newly appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of New Zealand to Armenia (residence in Moscow) Ian Alexander Hill presented his credentials to President Serzh Sargsyan, press service of the Presidents Office told Armenpress.

The President congratulated the Ambassador on his appointment and wished him success in the development of bilateral relations, stating that Armenia attaches importance to the development of comprehensive relations with New Zealand.

The sides agreed that despite the geographical distance, especially in the current technological circumstances, the existing potential of productive cooperation is much more than the current level of relations between the two states.

Serzh Sargsyan said this year marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Armenia and New Zealand which obliges to revalue the relations and make joint efforts for transferring them to a new qualitative level.

In his turn Ambassador Ian Alexander Hill thanked the President for the reception and said he will do everything possible to contribute to the development of relations between Armenia and New Zealand.

During the meeting the possibilities and prospects on expanding the bilateral mutual partnership at various spheres were discussed.








The B-segment hatchback is at its fifth generation at the moment, but the car will reach the sixth-gen in 2018. If the German brand sticks to its naming scheme, it will have F as its codename, as the ongoing model is dubbed Corsa E The prototype seen in the photo gallery is a five-door hatchback that is powered by a gasoline engine. Its front end will go through a dramatic change, which is not entirely visible at the moment due to an elaborate camouflage scheme.We recognize the side mirrors of the ongoing model, as well as the door handles. The window line has not been dramatically altered, but a few differences are visible even at this stage. The latter means that Opel has decided to modify the shape of the doors and the roof, which leads to a different profile of the next-gen subcompact hatchback from Russelsheim.This set of images also gets us inside the prototype of the upcoming Corsa. In case you are not aware of this fact, these vehicles employ mock-up interiors, which are meant to test essential functions, but are not entirely operational.The driver of the prototype was using his phone for navigation, for example, as the prototypes multimedia unit was probably not in operation at this stage of testing. We can see that the gauge cluster has not been dramatically transformed from the current generation, but some modifications have been executed.The steering wheel is mostly unchanged, but expect it to be replaced with a different model once the development process advances.The seats and interior ornaments are not that different from what you can find in the ongoing design, but that is no cause for concern at this point, as the brand will change the passenger compartment of the Corsa by the time it reaches production.Expect the next-gen subcompact model from Opel and Vauxhall to have improved engines and transmissions, along with an optimized platform that will bring enhanced handling and fuel economy.
Just five percent of Tesla cost the Chinese at Tencent Holdings $1.78 billion. The corporation is known for a mobile app named WeChat, and it has been recently investing in various sectors, which range from gaming to online financing.Tesla was one of the companies that have received money from the Chinese company after it acquired a stock package, Automotive News informs.The sale of shares by the carmaker was made to help it finance the launch of the Model 3. The affordable electric automobile is an essential product from the company, as many things rely on the success of the Model 3.With enough money at hand, the carmaker should have everything ready for the big event, but theres always a risk of the company encountering delays with the launch process.Interestingly, the acquisition has made Tencent one of Teslas biggest shareholders. The founder of the company, Elon Musk, is also the largest owner of a single package of stocks, with a portfolio that contains 21% of the companys shares.Once the Model 3 production and deliveries being, Musks fortune will be even greater, all thanks to the predicted rise in the value of the automakers shares.This month, Palo Alto's electric prodigy will experience a transition of its CFOs, as Jason Wheeler will leave the company to pursue opportunities in public policy. As announced in February, his place will be taken by Deepak Ahuja. Mr. Ahuja was Teslas first CFO, and he stayed with the firm for more than seven years.The new CFO has the role of helping the automaker scale up its operations to ensure the production of the Model 3. Jason Wheeler helped Tesla acquire SolarCity and ensuring the business remained profitable , but his replacement has important work ahead of himself as he comes back to the brand.
The 38-years-old man is said to bring a rare combination of industrial and luxury expertise to Energica Motor, thanks to his over 10 years in the automotive and industrial machinery leadership experience within international companies.Benatti will develop the Energica brand on the United States territory and will work alongside the Italian team to strengthen Energica products in the area. A critical factor in his success has been his attitude on understanding and meeting customer needs, which should continue working for the Italian electric motorcycle brand.Im very happy to join Energica family. Working with the team and experience their energy and expertise is very inspiring for me. This has given me a lot of determination to help grow Energica brand here in the US. Says Benatti.What makes Energica stand out is the true Italian attention to details, youre not going to buy a simple motorcycle, youre going to buy a piece of art, an outstanding innovative product. Were gonna running this bikes to the next American dreams list.The new General Manager will reinforce the presence of the company by promoting the facilities already working in California and will have a key role in the development of new commercial partnerships alongside the sales department.To create the first Italian production electric bikes, Energica brought together the brightest minds in Formula 1 racing, and only highly qualified workers assemble the machines. Each one undergoes countless quality control and performance tests, ensuring that it reaches the new owner as intended.Energica benefits in countless and immeasurable ways from the close relationship and consultation with parent company CRP Group  that keeps Energica at the forefront of state-of-the-art technology and ready for future technology innovation.
The biggest chunk of those green dollar bills is allocated to the Michigan Assembly plant. The Blue Oval will commit $850 million for retooling the complex in preparation for the Ranger and Bronco . The 2019 Ranger is confirmed to begin production at the end of 2018. The Jeep Wrangler-rivaling Bronco, however, will start rolling off the line sometime in 2020.$150 million of those $1.2 billion are spoken for by the Romeo Engine Plant, which plans to create or retain 130 jobs to expand capacity for engine components. Yes, including for the Ranger and Bronco. $200 million will be invested into an advanced data center, which FoMoCo needs to support Fords evolution as an auto and mobility company.The data center is also needed because the Michigan-based company expects data usage to increase 1,000 percent in the coming years. The growth is said to be driven by manufacturing and business needs, plus mobility services such as connected, autonomous, and electrified cars.At Ford, we are investing aggressively in building on our strengths today - including trucks, vans, commercial vehicles, performance vehicles and SUVs  while at the same time growing our leadership in electrification, autonomy and mobility services, said Joe Hinrichs, Ford president of The Americas. As Americas top producer of automobiles, we are proud to be going even further in our commitment to invest in manufacturing here at home.The folks over at UAW-Ford gave the company the thumbs up for these investments, as did federal, state, county and local governments. On an ending note, Ford would like its fans to know that it has invested almost $12 billion in its U.S. plants during the past five years, creating a total of nearly 28,000 U.S. jobs.
The vehicle that is described by the Swiss company is an EV , and it would become the worlds fastest-accelerating automobile if it reaches production. According to its makers, the creation has a motor on each axle and all-wheel-drive, but no name has been mentioned for the future product.Elextra is founded by Robert Palm, an entrepreneur who has created a firm called Classic Factory. The latter is known for reimagining classic cars, but also for his design work. Mr. Palm drew the concept exhibit for Elextra's first product, and we can say that it looks like an impressive creation, but we have our doubts.Do not set your hopes on buying an Elextra, because they company only wants to build about 100 units, and each of them will be hand-build in Stuttgart, Germany. The Swiss firm will use an unnamed contractor to handle the manufacture of the four-door electric supercar.As the Australians at Car Advice have noted, the officials of the Swiss company encourage potential buyers and investors to register their interest. In other words, that means that the business could use a few deposits and even an angel investor on its side.We already know that they will use well-proven existing components for the drive train, which might mean a supply deal with Tesla. After all, the American marque does sell the worlds quickest production car in stock form, so why not improve its time and sell the result as a supercar.Tesla probably has no plans of marketing supercars, and the Palo Alto business could use the money from royalty fees for its technology, along with a supply deal for a small volume product with excellent profit margins.However, do not be sure that Tesla is the real supplier of the electric motors employed here, and wait for the Elextra supercar to reach its first customer before you crown it the worlds quickest.
As Republicans frantically look for a roadmap after Friday's collapse, the White House is talking about moving to a novel, risky strategy: tackling tax reform and infrastructure at the same time (not necessarily in the same bill). Axios' Jonathan Swan broke the story last night:

It's a major strategic shift  infrastructure was likely to be parked until next year.

Trump needs fast victories. I nfrastructure is big, flashy, and potentially bipartisan.

nfrastructure is big, flashy, and potentially bipartisan. Trump feels burned by the conservative House Freedom Caucus and is ready to deal with Dems. Dangling infrastructure spending is an obvious way to buy support of potentially dozens of Dems, meaning he wouldn't be hostage to hardliners.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), who would steer Trump's construction package through the House, tells Swan he's optimistic Trump could get it done this year.

Shuster was an early Trump supporter and has been chatting with the billionaire about roads and airports long before he ran for President.

What we're hearing: A well-wired Republican tells me the party can't risk "looking like a clown car." So leaders are desperate to head off a government shutdown at the end of April, and to put together a plausible path to victory on tax reform.

Top officials at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue tell me they don't see how they can change the House Republican math that killed health reform. The new sequencing being debated is an effort to disrupt a losing calculus  to avoid, as one official told me, "the definition of insanity."

Chaser: David Brooks column, "Can Elephants Learn From Failure?": "Republicans ... are massively underestimating how hard tax reform is going to be. ... Tax reform will probably only pass with bipartisan buy-in, if there are enough potential yes votes that you can afford to lose some off on the extremes."
Today at the EPA President Trump is acting on a pledge to unravel several parts of the Obama-era climate change push. He'll sign an executive order that will:

Begin undoing the EPA Clean Power Plan than mandates cuts in carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Undo several policies that wove climate change into federal decision-making, such as the Obama administration's tally of a metric called the social cost of carbon, and a White House directive that agencies factor climate change into a range of permitting decisions.

End an Interior Department policy that froze issuance of new coal leases on federal lands.

Reconsider EPA and Interior rules that govern oil-and-gas development.

Make several other policy changes, which we describe here.

Where all this matters and where it doesn't: Before today Trump had killed an Interior Department regulation on coal mining waste, approved the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, signaled he'll ease auto mileage rules, and called for faster infrastructure permitting overall. So two months into his presidency, how much impact is he having? Easing environmental protections can affect how industry operates, but not necessarily how much it operates. Fossil fuel production is pretty resilient to policy shifts unless they really mess with the underlying market fundamentals. So let's look at where Trump's actions to date will or won't move the needle . . .

Oil and gas production. These changes are unlikely to have an outsized effect, but could influence drilling and production decisions a little. Easing regulations matters much less than fundamentals. While lots of Washington is paying attention today, a date that matters way more is May 25, when OPEC meets to decide whether to extend production cuts that have helped prices rebound from the dumps of 2015 and 2016 and helped put the U.S. oil boom back in motion.

These changes are unlikely to have an outsized effect, but could influence drilling and production decisions a little. Easing regulations matters much less than fundamentals. While lots of Washington is paying attention today, a date that matters way more is May 25, when OPEC meets to decide whether to extend production cuts that have helped prices rebound from the dumps of 2015 and 2016 and helped put the U.S. oil boom back in motion. Infrastructure. This matters. Industry is more bullish here about a meaningful change from the Obama era  especially if the early moves on Keystone and Dakota Access are replicated more broadly. "Of all those things, the one that might matter the most, just because it might pull (oil) production forward a little quicker, is the whole permitting issue around infrastructure," veteran oil analyst Bobby Tudor said on a podcast released Monday from the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy.

This matters. Industry is more bullish here about a meaningful change from the Obama era  especially if the early moves on Keystone and Dakota Access are replicated more broadly. "Of all those things, the one that might matter the most, just because it might pull (oil) production forward a little quicker, is the whole permitting issue around infrastructure," veteran oil analyst Bobby Tudor said on a podcast released Monday from the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy. Coal. Coal stocks could get a bump from the order, just like they did when Trump won in November. Trump may slightly alter the rate and trajectory of the industry's long-term projected decline in the U.S., where mining and power generation faces headwinds from inexpensive natural gas, earlier air pollution rules, renewables and other factors. But he probably can't really turn things around. Let's turn it over to the consulting firm ClearView Energy Partners: "[W]e see few policy levers available to either Congress or the Trump Administration sufficient to offset organic, power-sector coal displacement by modestly priced natural gas," they said in a recent research note.

Coal stocks could get a bump from the order, just like they did when Trump won in November. Trump may slightly alter the rate and trajectory of the industry's long-term projected decline in the U.S., where mining and power generation faces headwinds from inexpensive natural gas, earlier air pollution rules, renewables and other factors. But he probably can't really turn things around. Let's turn it over to the consulting firm ClearView Energy Partners: "[W]e see few policy levers available to either Congress or the Trump Administration sufficient to offset organic, power-sector coal displacement by modestly priced natural gas," they said in a recent research note. Renewables: Killing the Clean Power Plan (which has already been frozen by the Supreme Court) doesn't help renewables, but probably doesn't hurt much either, at least not for a while, thanks to other forces like tax credits that were extended for five years in late 2015, state green energy mandates, and falling costs. "We expect there to be a relatively, strong continuing build of renewables over the next several years regardless of what happens with the CPP," Ethan Zindler, a senior analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance, tells Axios.

What's next: Bureaucracy, and lawsuits.

Some of the policies that the order targets, such as the White House guidance on factoring climate change into National Environmental Policy Act reviews, can be largely undone pretty fast.

But final regulations like the Clean Power Plan will take a long time, perhaps years, to formally unwind under the detailed requirements of administrative procedure. Look for environmental groups to battle the outcome in court.

What's outstanding: The executive order is the most aggressive move to date, but a lot remains undecided too.




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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Published On Mar 28, 2017 02:27 PM By Jagdev

ACMA's latest solution aims to empower buyers to identify genuine or branded spares in the aftermarket

The Indian automotive spares aftermarket is a difficult place to shop. It comprises of 40 per cent OE (original equipment or manufacturer-branded) spares while the rest is either IAM (independent after market) branded parts or U-parts (parts from unorganised segment). IAM and U-parts are evenly present in the aftermarket.

The IAM parts are manufactured by Tier-I component makers and are closer to genuine parts w.r.t quality, and are therefore safe to use. U-parts can be substandard in quality and are available at very low prices. Spurious or counterfeit parts are usually a replica of OE/IAM parts, and are designed to be difficult to differentiate from genuine parts. These products are the primary cause of worry for the ACMA (Automotive Component Manufacturer's Association) and are the main reason why shopping in the aftermarket is tricky for a layperson.

The ACMA has been trying hard to catch spurious part makers and has managed to reduce the volume of such products in the aftermarket to 5 per cent. The next challenge for the component makers' body is to bring down the volume of substandard parts or U-parts. For this, the ACMA is now in the process of developing a catalogue which will list all the OE/IAM parts available in the aftermarket, along with the coordinates of the distribution channel(s). The catalogue is expected to be up on ACMA's site soon. It will be available for anyone looking for quality spares for his/her vehicle.

At the ACMA Automechanika India, Rama Shankar Pandey (MD, Hella India Lighting Ltd and co-chair, consumer affairs & anti-counterfeit committee, ACMA) told us: This catalogue will allow only standard companies to put their part numbers and listings on it. So that way we organise the market and the sub-standard goes out if the end consumer decides to support this catalogue.

The recently concluded ACMA Automechanika India saw over 550 exhibitors from 17 countries.
Published On Mar 28, 2017 05:36 PM By akas for Mahindra Ssangyong Rexton

South Korean automaker SsangYong has finally shared a couple of images of the next-gen SsangYong Rexton ahead of its first public debut at the Seoul Motor Show on March 30, 2017. SsangYong had earlier teased this SUV, codenamed the Y400, last week by releasing some official sketches. However, now it has been confirmed as the Rexton. Its first concept, named LIV-1, was showcased at the 2013 Seoul Motor Show. The Mahindra-owned automaker also showcased the SUV's final concept, the LIV-2, at the 2016 Paris Motor Show. This is the first time that the images of the production version of the SUV have been revealed.

The new Rexton still has a body-on-frame construction as the first-gen Rexton and besides being longer, wider and taller, it also has a longer wheelbase compared to the first-gen Rexton. In terms of design, the new Rexton looks quite similar to the LIV-2 concept. It features a large, wide grille, projector headlamps with LED DRLs, black body cladding, big wheel arches and a sloping roof line. Also, the SsangYong logo looks more angular compared to other offerings from the automaker. It has a dual-tone black and brown interior and the dashboard has a 9.2-inch touchscreen infotainment system that supports Apple Carplay and Android Auto. Lots of leather and wood has been used in the cabin.

The new SUV is likely to offer the same engine options as the LIV-2 Concept. There's a 2.2-litre diesel and a 2.0-litre turbo petrol engine on offer. Transmission duties are expected to be covered by a six-speed automatic or a six-speed manual unit.

It will go on sale in the Korean market soon and will be introduced in the UK by the end of 2017. As the first-gen Rexton has been discontinued, and Mahindra is not likely to introduce any SsangYong-badged product in the country in near future, the new Rexton might be sold as a Mahindra product in the Indian market. The India-spec Rexton might be introduced in 2018, featuring some design tweaks and will be placed above the XUV500. Once launched, it will compete with the likes of the Toyota Fortuner and the Ford Endeavour. Mahindra is also working on a compact SUV (codenamed S201) for the Indian market which is based on the SsangYong Tivoli.

Stay tuned to CarDekho as all the details of the new Rexton will be unveiled on March 30, 2017.

Also read: Mahindra Eyeing Creta & Duster With A New Tivoli-Based SUV

Read More on : Rexton review
AXIS Capital Holdings Limited, through its subsidiaries, provides various specialty insurance and reinsurance products worldwide. It operates through two segments, Insurance and Reinsurance. The Insurance segment offers property insurance products for commercial buildings, residential premises, construction projects, and onshore energy installations; marine insurance products covering offshore energy, cargo, liability, recreational marine, fine art, specie, and hull war; and terrorism, aviation, credit and political risk, and liability insurance products. It also provides professional insurance products that cover directors' and officers' liability, errors and omissions liability, employment practices liability, fiduciary liability, crime, professional indemnity, cyber and privacy, medical malpractice, and other financial insurance related coverages for commercial enterprises, financial institutions, not-for-profit organizations, and other professional service providers. In addition, this segment offers accidental death, travel, and specialty health products for employer and affinity groups. The Reinsurance segment offers reinsurance products to insurance companies, including catastrophe reinsurance products; property reinsurance products covering property damage and related losses resulting from natural and man-made perils; professional lines; credit and surety; and motor liability products. This segment also provides agriculture reinsurance products; coverages for various types of construction risks and risks related to erection, testing, and commissioning of machinery and plants during the construction stage; marine and aviation reinsurance products; and personal accident, specialty health, accidental death, travel, life and disability reinsurance products. The company was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in Pembroke, Bermuda.
Anti ISIS Mosul campaign leads to hundreds of 'unnecessary' deaths - Amnesty

The Mosul campaign is leading to unnecessary and unwarranted civilian deaths, Amnesty International have claimed, saying the US-led coalition has not taken adequate precautions.

The human-rights group said hundreds of civilians have died this month alone with an 'alarming pattern' of air strikes destroying houses 'with entire families inside'.

More than 280,000 civilians have fled the ISIS stronghold after the Iraqi government forces launched an offensive to recapture it five months ago.

But many more remain following government advice to stay put until their troops arrive.

The military assault is being backed by coalition air strikes aimed at ISIS outposts. But hundreds of civilians have been killed with one of deadliest leaving 150 dead in the Jadida district of western Mosul on 17 March.

The US-led coalition is investigating the incident and US chiefs have insisted they place the 'highest priority' on investigating claims of civilian deaths.

'There is no military force in the world that has proven more sensitive to civilian casualties,' US Secretary of Defense James Mattis said on Monday.

But Amnesty's inquiries have uncovered claims the strikes have hit civilian houses, killing hundreds.

In one case Hind Amir Ahmad, a 23-year-old woman, lost 11 relatives, including her parents, in a reported air strike in the east of the city on 13 December.

'We were sleeping when the house literally collapsed on us,' she told Amnesty, adding: 'We ran to my uncle's house nearby.'

She said later 'that house too was bombed and collapsed on us'.

She added: 'Almost everyone in the house was killed - 11 people. My cousin, two aunts and I were the only ones who survived.'

In another strike on 6 January, 16 were killed as three houses in a row were hit according to Amnesty. Survivors told the investigation they did not know of any ISIS fighters in the area so assumed the strike was from US-led forces.

'Did the government, the coalition think how to protect the civilians in this war? It doesn't seem so,' said Ahmed, a relative of the victims.

Donatella Rovera, who led the field investigations in Mosul, said the exent of deaths suggests coalition forces had 'failed to take adequate precautions'.

She said: 'The fact that Iraqi authorities repeatedly advised civilians to remain at home... indicates that coalition forces should have known that these strikes were likely to result in significant numbers of civilian casualties.

'Disproportionate attacks and indiscriminate attacks violate international humanitarian law and can constitute war crimes,' said Ms Rovera.
Britain is getting out of the EU  here's what Christians must do now

There's a scene in the phenomenal recent comedy-thriller movie Get Out in which the lead character becomes a horrified prisoner in his own body. Without wanting to offer too many spoilers, he finds himself a paralysed spectator to the terrible events going on around him after being placed in a hypnotic trance. He can't move; he can't cry out. All he can do is sink into his chair, his eyes wide and bloodshot with terror.

This week, Britain begins the process of its very own 'Get Out', as Article 50 is triggered, and the UK formally starts to withdraw from the European Union. And one of the 16 million voters who decidedly opposed the move, I can't help but feel a little bit like that character. A situation is unfolding right in front of my eyes  one I continue to believe is wrong and has been arrived at through a flawed process  and yet I can't do anything to stop it; it doesn't feel like any of us can.

I realise I'm in the  slight  minority, and that according to the basic rules of democracy, my side lost fair and square. I know that more people voted to leave than voted to remain. Arguably it's not my place to stop it, or even to try. Even still, there's an uncomfortable strangeness to proceedings which few people are acknowledging.

For a start, there's the way in which a Leave vote was procured from the British population. A regrettably weak effort from the Remain camp was part of the problem of course, but let's not have short memories about the emotive, factually inaccurate campaign to leave. A key promise  that an extra 350 million a week would be saved by leaving, and re-invested directly into the NHS was quickly revealed to be fantasy as soon as the decision was confirmed. Racist adverts featuring lines of immigrants snaking into Britain proved compelling. It's easier to campaign for change than for the status quo anyway, but it's even easier when you cheat.

Add to that the fact that most of the architects of Brexit are now nowhere to be seen. Michael Gove has disappeared to the back-benches; UKIP leader Nigel Farage seems to spend more time in Trump Tower these days than on his beloved Island. Former Prime Minister David Cameron, who made the case to Remain, but ultimately rolled the dice in the first place, has fallen on his sword. So it's left to Teresa May, once a firm opponent of Brexit, to carry out the will of the people with an unswerving commitment to democracy. She has the appearance of a woman carrying on with a procedure to have a healthy organ removed, because she's already paid in advance for the operation.

It's that possibly-misapplied word 'democracy' which has kept so much of the left-dominated Remain crowd in this strange state of paralysis since last June. Most voices on the left, both within and outside the House of Commons, have simply been silenced by their liberal angst; their desire to fight over-ridden by the idea that you shouldn't be a sore loser when it comes to a public vote. It's hard to imagine that the Leave campaign would have been troubled in quite the same way. We'd surely already be deep into calls for a second referendum if things had gone the other way.

So here we are. Article 50 is about to be triggered, and it still feels painful to half of the country. Half of us are still no further from that sense of slow dread that we're sleepwalking into something terrible. We're still enacting an idea that was firmly supported by the Daily Mail and the Express, which was backed by a rogue's gallery of people you wouldn't leave babysitting your kids, let alone trust with the future of your country, and which Donald Trump thinks is a great idea. Considering all of this, the lies told, and the size of the winning majority, it all still feels so uncomfortable. What is a left-leaning Christian Remain voter meant to do with that?

I'm still angry. I still feel like it's totally wrong. I feel like the left has lost its guts, and the person in the street has been duped: the very opposite of democracy. I want to grab the country by the shoulders and shake it out of this hypnotised state. Yet from day one, it has always felt like it was too late. And is too late. If it were ever possible, Brexit cannot, or at least will not, now be stopped. So the question we're left with  and which perhaps isn't being asked as we get bogged down in the minutiae of what we can get, and what we'll have to pay  is what kind of relationship Britain should have with Europe now, on a philosophical and moral level? And I think its vital that this is a question with which people of faith seriously grapple. In the context of a decision that has always been centred on selfish interest, someone has to be talking about the Greater Good.

Christians were as divided on this issue as the rest of the country. There was never a single 'Christian position' on leaving the EU, and I don't doubt that the many Christian Leave-voters had prayed through and thoughtfully considered their decision. What bothers me is that those of us on the side of Remain, who believed that we were stronger working in partnership with other countries, and who believed isolation would only increase racist and nationalistic activity, should have shouted louder. We should have been more vocal before the vote; we should have said more after it. Now then we must not stay silent as Europe and Britain begin the painful process of reshaping. We've got to stand up for collaboration, community, compassion and selfishness, when Brexit might otherwise lead us toward competition, isolation and a lack of care for those who have least.

The church is a declining body of power and influence in British life. We often see that as a bad thing, but I'm not sure that's always the case. Being increasingly on the outside of public life, we have an opportunity to be prophetic to the centre, to speak truth to power. I think that's a large part of our role in 2017.

The powerful have taken control of Britain's relationship with the EU  it was cleverly engineered and will be dutifully delivered by the Powers That Be. In the days that follow, it's up to us whether we allow their actions as Brexit is played out to pass unchallenged. We might feel like that character in Get Out, but in truth we can still make a difference; we can still influence the outcome. And if we feel anger (as I do), we can channel that as a motivator for good. We can lobby for and demand the most Kingdom-minded version of Brexit, we can still hold those who lied to account, and my Lord, we can pray. Not only that, we can step prophetically into the gaps that this decision will create, in every issue from refugee settlement to trading standards. Brexit is settled; the church's response isn't. We're getting out. Let's step up.

Martin Saunders is a Contributing Editor for Christian Today and the Deputy CEO of Youthscape. Follow him on Twitter @martinsaunders.
Youth leaders trained for refugee response as government looks to churches to resettle families

Hundreds of youth leaders were urged to adopt young refugees last Thursday as churches were again told to lead the charge in resettling those fleeing war and famine.

Around 3,000 unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the UK in 2015 and only 22 per cent gained refugee status.

With the government looking to welcome 20,000 Syrian refugees by 2020, more than 200 youth workers were trained in how to deal with young asylum seekers last Thursday.

The 'Engaging Young Refugees' day in Luton was streamed across 10 community centres hoping to spark a wave of enthusiasm for the Home Office' community sponsorship scheme.

Hannah Elwyn, from Refugee Support Network, delivered the training and said: 'Our hope and prayer is that the event's participants will play a central role in understanding, welcoming and serving the unaccompanied asylum children and resettled families who arrive in their communities.'

Tarnia Bright, chief executive of Church Response for Refugees, a charity coordinating the drive, said churches were 'incredibly well-placed to help refugees'.

She said: 'We hope that by attending this training day, youth workers at churches feel called and enabled to reach out to young refugees and asylum seekers, and show them hospitality and the love of Jesus in action.

Several churches have led the charge in welcoming families after the Archbishop of Canterbury became the first, housing a Syrian family in a cottage in the grounds of Lambeth Palace.

Since then the Diocese of Salford and the Salvation Army have both welcomed Syrian refugee families, taking responsibility for their integration into UK life.
The general perception of Texas as reliably conservative is accurate: its rural and suburban areas are overwhelmingly red, and currently ensure a conservative policy direction at the statewide level. But enclaves within the Lone Star State, centered around Texass rapidly growing major cities, and composed of progressive elected officials, the statewide press corps, the higher-education establishment, and the states influential K-12 school districts, represent a liberal movement that, if allowed to thrive, could undermine the Texas Modelthe sound limited-government philosophy that has fueled the states enviable prosperity.

In Austinthe state capitalthe city council recently voted ten-to-one to grant $200,000 in emergency funding to provide legal assistance to illegal immigrants. The one council member who spoke out against the measure, Ellen Troxclair, was accused of racism and admonished by her colleague Sabino Renteria: We opened our arms to the Europeans when they came into Texas and Mexico. The area surrounding Austin, Travis County, is also dominated by liberal officials. For example, despite the objections of Texas governor Greg Abbott, Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez recently announced that she will no longer honor immigration detainers requested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), except in limited circumstances involving capital murder or aggravated sexual assault, effectively making Travis County a sanctuary for illegal immigrants. Not to be outdone, a union representing teachers at the Austin Independent School District distributed a bilingual flier to its 3,000 members entitled What to Do if ICE Comes to Your Door, and the AISD board of trustees unanimously passed a resolution supporting undocumented students.

In December, a nurses aide at a Killeen ISD middle school had to go to court to be allowed to display on her office door a decorative poster based on the animated classic A Charlie Brown Christmas. More recently, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote a measured letter to Frisco ISD in response to published reports that a high school had established a prayer room for the exclusive use of Muslim students; Paxtons letter reminded the school administrator that any such room must be open to students of all faiths. The school superintendent fired back an intemperate reply, accusing the A.G. of engaging in a publicity stunt and using inflammatory rhetoric that might place the community in danger of unnecessary disruption. The press disingenuously reported the incident as an effort by Paxton to bar Muslim students from praying, contrasting his supposed position with his past defense of Christian prayers.

Political correctness abounds at the states leading universities. In March, the University of Texas at Austinthe flagship campus of the state systemadopted a new policy on Hate and Bias Incidents that contains, among other restrictions, broad prohibitions on subjectively offensive speech (euphemistically termed verbal harassment) if it is based on the victims appearance, personal characteristics, or group membership, including but not limited to, race, color, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity or gender expression, age, disability, citizenship, veteran status, sexual orientation, ideology, political views, or political affiliation. The policy defines virtually anything that could offend a students sensibilities as hate speech. The universitys vice president for diversity and community strongly encourages students to report incidents of harassment or discriminationincluding derogatory graffiti or any student group that hosts a party with an objectionable themeto the Campus Climate Response Team for investigation by the universitys diversity officials. The Austin American-Statesman swooned over UTs enlightened approach, which it described as more clearly and forcefully declar[ing] its condemnation and prohibition of certain acts of intolerance, hate or bias.

Later in March, UT-Austin released a sensational rape survey, purporting to concludebased on an anonymous online survey with fewer than 8,000 responses and a paltry 17.1 percent participation rate that 15 percent of all female undergraduates at UT (as well as 5 percent of male undergraduates) had been raped since their enrollment. Buried at the end of the $1.7 million report is the revelation that the term rape was defined in the survey to meanin addition to nonconsensual sex perpetrated by force, threats of harm, or incapacitationsex acts induced by someone telling lies, threatening to end the relationship, threatening to spread rumors about you, making promises you knew were untrue . . . verbally pressuring you . . . showing displeasure, criticizing your sexuality or attractiveness, [and] getting angry after you said you didnt want to. In other words, not rape by any accepted legal definition of the term. The surveys expansive definition of rape helps explain why only 2 percent of the ostensible victims reported their rapes to the police.

The press corpsin Texas and elsewherebreathlessly reported on UTs epidemic of sexual assault, without noting that 87 percent of the incidents occurred off-campus, and that 69 percent of the victims were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time. Unlike the actual rape scandal at Baylor University, the situation at UT is fairly typical of college campuses nationwide: immature young people with a surfeit of time and money partying too much. Students who regret drunken hookups the next day arent rape victims, and conflating the exercise of poor judgment with forcible rape trivializes the heinous crime when it does occuron or off college campuses.

In a recent student government election at Texas A&M, the top vote-getter for student body president was disqualified for failing to report as a campaign expense a few inexpensive glow sticks that briefly appeared as a prop in a campaign video, and the second-place finisheran openly gay juniorwas declared the winner, even though he lost by more than 700 votes out of 14,000 cast. The controversy attracted the attention of former Texas governor Rick Perry, an A&M alumnus, who wrote an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle protesting the election as stolen, and suggesting that the quest for diversity is the real reason the election outcome was overturned. Perry got pilloried in the media for questioning the election of the first openly gay student body president.

These incidents, viewed in isolation, may seem minor, but they dont occur in isolation. They are part of an inexorable process through which Texass conservative statewide majority is being undercut by left-leaning cities and local governments. Governor Greg Abbott has previously warned that untrammeled and piecemeal regulation by Texass Democrat-controlled cities would California-ize the Lone Star State, and he is pushing to maintain state supremacy over local authorities, noting that the country is not called the United States of Municipalities.

If Texass distinctive culture and thriving economy are to endure, the part-time Texas legislature must come to grips with the fact that a progressive vanguard is intent upon undermining the states conservative core. Texas liberalsout of power for several decadesare highly motivated to effect change, with increased taxes, regulation, and spending. Moreover, liberals dominate the major newspapers in Texas, control the University of Texas administration, and exert enormous influence over school districts seeking expanded state funding. Their weapons are identity politics, multiculturalism, and political correctness. Texass conservative leaders must forcefully resist these corrosive factions.

Photo by Ben Sklar/Getty Images
Ofcom has received over 150 individual complaints from members of the public in relation to last Fridays Red Nose Day broadcast.

A spokesman for Ofcom told Civil Society News that the UK communications regulator has received 151 individual complaints from members of the public about the Red Nose Day broadcast, since it was televised last week.

The vast majority of complaints were made about the programme which aired on Friday, 24 of March and mostly relate to the content of the broadcast and not technical issues.

We have received 151 complaints about Comic Relief 2017 on the BBC, said the spokesman. We will assess these complaints before deciding whether or not to investigate.

A number of incidents on the broadcast elicited complaints, including the use of bad language pre-watershed; a game of innuendo bingo, and a sketch by comedic duo Reeves and Mortimer with ITV presenter Susanna Reid.

A spokesman for the BBC, said: "The Red Nose Day 2017 broadcast was a live studio environment enjoyed by a peak audience of 7.6 million which raised over 73m.

"This will go a huge way to help improve the lives of many people both here in the UK and in some of the world's poorest countries."

In Fundraising Magazine

The BBC declined to say how many people, if any, had complained directly to the BBC.

Ofcom would mostly likely offer guidance to BBC, if investigation finds breach

The Ofcom spokesman said, if an investigation was to go ahead, it would likely take 50 working days to complete.

He also said that, should a breach be found in any hypothetical investigation, the regulator would most likely offer guidance to the broadcaster for a standard breach of the Broadcasting Code, as opposed to a fine.

Sanctions and fines are only for very serious rule breaches, said the Ofcom spokesman.
The Charity Commission has said there were serious governance failings at a charity which failed to report an allegation of child sex abuse at its partner charity in India, it said in an inquiry report published today.

The Commission has criticised the trustees of the Grail Trust over an allegation involving a person connected with the charity at a childrens home in India run by its partner GTI, which has since closed.

The charity raised funds for and provided financial support to GTI to run the home, with representatives of the charity periodically visiting the home.

The Commission opened a statutory inquiry, following an initial investigation when it was notified of the allegation in August 2011. The investigation examined how the trustees dealt with the allegation and the charitys procedures and approaches to safeguarding.

The child sex abuse allegation is still being investigated overseas. The Commission had been awaiting the outcome of the criminal case, but given the time that has passed the Commission decided to conclude its own investigation.

The trustees told the inquiry that when the allegation was brought to their attention, they did not believe it was appropriate to report it to the Commission, because they were not aware of any formal charges and the allegation appeared, in their view, to be malicious and unsubstantiated.

The inquiry ruled that the trustees initial handling and response to the allegation was inadequate, and that there were serious governance failures in the charity due to the trustees lack of proper oversight in relation to safeguarding measures and their failure to identify or report the allegation to the police or the Commission as a serious incident.

The Commission said that trustees failed to fully understand that their safeguarding obligations extended to visitors to GTI, and that trustees failed to check that GTI had proper safeguarding systems and controls in place prior to working with them.

Trustees risked public trust and confidence

The Commission also concluded that the trustees initial approach to the allegation, which had been reported in the international press, was not impartial and their handling of it risked public trust and confidence in the charity and the wider charitable sector.

The Commission said that trustees did not discharge their legal duties and responsibilities and there had been misconduct and mismanagement in the administration of the charity.

Michelle Russell, director of investigations, monitoring and enforcement, said: This is very concerning. It is another case where trustees do not take abuse allegations seriously nor ensure there are proper safeguarding protections in place to protect children.

Trustees have a duty to act in the best interests of the charity and this includes having adequate safeguarding policies in place and fully implementing them.

Many charities deliver charitable work through other charities and partners both here in the UK and overseas. Where that work and those organisations are involved with children, its important that the charity ensures the partner is not just capable of delivering that work, but has proper safeguarding measures in place. Trustees should therefore put in place proper monitoring of staff and volunteers and ensure safeguarding policies and procedures are in place at a local level.

Trustees apologise

A statement from Grail Trust trustees said that it accepts the judgement from the Commission, particularly in regard to safeguarding issues and an allegation against our former director, an allegation still unresolved in the Indian law courts.

It continued: We are very sorry indeed, on behalf of the charity that we seek to serve, the welfare of children in Tamil Nadu, that these criticisms have been made of us.

Trustees said that they adopted an action plan, a risk management strategy and new safeguarding policies, also in cooperation with our Indian partner charity, Grail Trust (India), and with the Charity Commission.

They said: We are a very different charity to where we were in 2011 when the allegation, still unproven, was made. We are no longer funding a children`s home but supporting an outreach programme for 100 disadvantaged children, for their maintenance and education. The relief of poverty and the promotion of education are our two objectives, and we continue to fund-raise and work with our Indian partners, Grail Trust (India), to fulfil these objectives.

The Commission said it is now monitoring compliance with the action plan and is satisfied that the current trustees are now better aware of their safeguarding obligations and the need to protect the charitys beneficiaries and its reputation.
A bill giving the state watchdog for corrections more leeway on interviewing staff and inmates advanced to second round Tuesday.

The inspector general position was created in 2015, and Omaha Sen. Bob Krist, who introduced the bill, said it was time to make a few changes to the act. Inspector General Doug Koebernick identified changes that would help him carry out the duties of his office, Krist said.

The bill (LB539)would:

* Allow the inspector general to conduct interviews of people who have been previously interviewed by a law enforcement agency as part of an ongoing investigation, without the consent of the prosecuting attorney.

Without this, said Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, the inspector general could not interview anyone without permission after the violent incidents that have happened at Tecumseh State Correctional Institution, for example.

"That is an unreasonable restriction because it doesn't apply to anybody else," he said.

* No personnel action could be taken against an employee who discloses information to the office that the employee believes evidences wrongdoing, or as a reprisal for submitting an allegation of wrongdoing or for providing information or testimony on an investigation by the office.

* A summarized final report based on an investigation may be publicly released to bring awareness to systemic issues. The report must first be provided to the chairperson and determined with the chairperson that releasing it would be in the best interest of the public.

"It would facilitate quicker, more efficient reporting following incidents at any of our correctional facilities," said Judiciary Chairwoman Laura Ebke.

* Change the definition of serious injury that takes place in the prisons to one used by the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services when it reports data to the Association of State Correctional Administrators.

"One of the barriers we have to getting things done is actually speaking the same language across departments and across agencies in the state using the same definitions. And this goes a long way to helping that effort," Krist said.

Senators advanced the bill on a 34-0 vote.
The big thing for us is two Signature-class ships in Alaska this summer, said Dirk van der Raadt, senior manager deployment and itinerary planning at Holland America Line, in an interview with Cruise Industry News.

Alaska is continuing to be a strong market for the cruise line, which will have seven vessels (up one) in the area this summer. The Eurodam had previously been in the Mediterranean.

Alaska is not a saturated market, even with ships coming in, noted van der Raadt. To accommodate an influx of ships, he is planning smarter. The Eurodam will sail from Seattle while the Nieuw Amsterdam will use Vancouver as a homeport. Glacier Bay may be the most challenging area as traffic is restricted.

In Europe, the 2016-built Koningsdam will sail from Amsterdam, while the Westerdam will highlight the lines Mediterranean program using Civitavecchia, Venice and Barcelona as turn ports.

Like most other cruise lines, Turkey is off the list and Eastern Mediterranean deployment has wound down.

On top of the perceived security issue, the yields went down in the Eastern Mediterranean, van der Raadt said.

Situations do change, however, as the Mexican Riviera fell apart with security issues and is now on the comeback.

We are slowly reintroducing Mexico. There is a huge drive-up market in San Diego and a lot of people there want to cruise, van der Raadt added.

With a fleet of 14 ships, itinerary planning still comes down to making careful choices about where the vessels go.

That is where you make the most yield but can also be the most creative, van der Raadt said.

One thing that sets us apart in the Caribbean is our private island, Half Moon Cay, he said. We also differentiate with longer itineraries visiting the Southern Caribbean.

Our biggest challenge is definitely port congestion, van der Raadt continued. Even Cozumel and Grand Cayman can get too full. We look at other destinations. We have the addition of Amber Cove recently, thats a big one for us, giving us more flexibility.

Ports interested in adding cruise calls or attracting any cruise calls should not be afraid to ask questions, van der Raadt advised.

We look at a few things, starting with the geographic location of the port, he explained. The position is most important, and then we look at the operational situation before we look at the cost. Anchoring and tendering does not necessarily work against you if it is a nice location. We look at shore excursions, in terms of what there is to do around the facility.

Case in point, Takamatsu in Japan, was added as a new port.

We can dock right downtown, where as in most Japanese ports you end up at a clean cargo area.

Excerpt from Cruise Industry News Quarterly Magazine: Spring 2017
The P&O Pacific Partnership is expanding its reach in the South Pacific with two new community programs, after surpassing a milestone of one million dollars in voluntary contributions from passengers and special donations in only four years, according to a statement from P&O Australia.

Building on previous funding of health posts and kindergartens in Vanuatu, the two new projects are aimed at assisting women and young children in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, working in conjunction with Save the Children Australia, the company said.

Both PNG and the Solomons receive regular cruise calls by P&O Cruises ships.

In 2017, 11 P&O cruises will visit Papua New Guinea, with three of those cruises visiting Gizo Island and Honiara in the Solomons.

In PNG, P&O said there is a pressing need to improve health outcomes for mothers and children.

The new Newborn Baby and Birthing Kits Project in PNG encourages mothers to have their babies delivered at health centers by helping to cover health facility medical fees and providing essential supplies such as infant care items and mosquito nets to combat the transmission of malaria to newborn babies.

In the Solomon Islands, P&O Cruises is now supporting the Solomons Early Childhood Development Project, which integrates child protection with community-based early childhood interventions to ensure children grow up in protective environments that enable them to realize their full potential.

Launching two new projects in the P&O Pacific Partnership is testament to the support and engagement of the thousands of guests who sail with us each year. Its thanks to our passengers that were able to assist even more communities that we visit, P&O Cruises President Sture Myrmell said.

The voluntary one dollar contributions made via passengers onboard accounts are relatively modest but when these contributions are combined they become a powerful force to make a big difference where it matters most.

P&O formed its Pacific Partnership with Save the Children in 2013.

Since the partnership began, P&O passengers have helped to construct two new kindergartens and build or rehabilitate six health posts in Vanuatu, significantly improving the educational and health outcomes for many children and their families, said Save the Childrens Vanuatu Country Director Georgia Tacey.

The latest fundraising projects will help to make a huge difference to the lives of pregnant women and provide primary and secondary aged school children with opportunities for a brighter future.

Passengers directly contribute to the work carried out through an automatic $1 donation to their onboard account. This donation is for guests over the age of 18 on all cruises. Guests can choose to opt out of the program if they wish  or donate more, through the onboard donation boxes.

In addition, the Navigational chart from each voyage is auctioned at the end of every cruise with all proceeds also going to Save the Children.
In 2007, Lincoln Sen. DiAnna Schimek introduced a bill that would have changed the name of the Department of Roads to the Department of Transportation.

It would have cost $5,000 to change decals on equipment, road signs, stationery.

The Transportation and Telecommunications Committee, headed then by former Sen. Deb Fischer, killed the bill on a 6-1 vote.

Nebraska was the only state at the time to have a Department of Roads rather than a Department of Transportation. And it still is today.

But maybe not for long.

The Legislature advanced a bill (LB339) Tuesday, introduced by Sen. Curt Friesen of Henderson, that would combine the Department of Roads with the Department of Aeronautics and change the name to the Department of Transportation.

The financial impact is said to be negligible. There's no mention of the cost to change signs and other Department of Roads and Department of Aeronautics supplies.

The bill advanced on a 40-0 vote.

While eight people spoke in favor of LB339 at its hearing, a couple of people opposed it. They represented the Nebraska Pilots and the Fairbury Airport.

With the bill, the director of the division of aeronautics would be appointed by and report to the Department of Transportation director. Funds received by the division of aeronautics for the hourly lease of state aircraft would only be used for the plane's preventative maintenance.

Omaha Sen. Bob Krist had concerns, including whether money meant for aviation purposes would be fused in with the Department of Transportation and used for roads.

Friesen said federal law prohibits diverting aeronautics money for other purposes, and firewalls are built into the bill to prevent any mixing of that money.

There is no fiscal impact, but down the road there may be some efficiencies to be gained from the merger, including the sharing of equipment and supplies.

Krist, who is a longtime pilot, said he also had concerns about the division chief of aeronautics not being confirmed by the Legislature. He has filed an amendment, to be considered on second round, that would require the Legislature to confirm the aeronautics division chief.

Friesen said he didn't see a need, on first blush, for such an amendment.

Krist also noted that 15 years ago, before the administrations of Govs. Dave Heineman and Pete Ricketts, the department was helping out airports across the state that qualified for federal funds with a total of $1.2 million to $2 million. Last year, the department handed out less than $200,000 to help those airports out.

"That's the money that's being used to develop instrument approaches, to keep the airport structures up to code, in terms of what the FAA requires of us," Krist said.

Krist also questioned the state's ownership and management of three airports in Fairmont, Harvard and Scribner.

"I think we need to talk about that as well," he said. "What is the utility of actually owning World War II vintage hand-off airports? And why are we spending millions of dollars maintaining those runways when the structure and the actual utility is for the local use of that airport?" he said.

Essential air travel is part of an economic development plan that needs to go forward in the state, Krist said.

"I think by merging these two, my prediction is we will de-emphasize what we already need to emphasize within the Department of Aeronautics," he said.

The Legislature, he said, should take time to study the merger and what efficiencies could be gained.
Bioscience startups

The Legislature gave 31-2 first-round approval to a bill (LB641) introduced by Sen. Adam Morfeld of Lincoln that would provide funding assistance for bioscience innovation and startups using leftover federal funding available under the business innovation act.

Keeping family members connected

Senators advanced a bill (LB122) on a 33-0 vote that would prohibit a caregiver of an adult from arbitrarily denying family member visits with that adult. The bill was introduced by Lincoln Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks and prioritized by Sen. Roy Baker of Lincoln.

With the bill, a family member being denied visitation could petition a court in the county where the person lives to compel visitation. Visits would not be allowed if the court found that the resident, while having the capacity to evaluate and communicate decisions, had expressed a desire not to visit with the petitioner, or if it was determined the visit was not in the resident's best interest.

Coming Wednesday

Senators will open debate on a bill (LB289) that increases felony classifications for sex trafficking that could result in convicted traffickers being sentenced to at least one year in prison and, for the most egregious offenses, up to life in prison.
BEER-SHEVA, Israel...March 28, 2017 - A typical office scanner can be infiltrated and a company's network compromised using different light sources, according to a new paper by researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Weizmann Institute of Science.

"In the paper, "Oops! I Think I Scanned Malware," we demonstrated how to use a laser or smart bulb to establish a covert channel between an outside attacker and malware installed on a networked computer," says lead author Ben Nassi, a graduate student in the BGU Department of Software and Information Systems Engineering as well as a researcher at the BGU Cyber Security Research Center (CSRC). "A scanner with the lid left open is sensitive to changes in the surrounding light and might be used as a back door into a company's network."

The researchers conducted several demonstrations to transmit a message into computers connected to a flatbed scanner. Using direct laser light sources up to a half-mile (900 meters) away, as well as on a drone outside their office building, the researchers successfully sent a message to trigger malware through the scanner. Watch a video of the drone attack.

In another demonstration, the researchers used a Galaxy 4 Smartphone to hijack a smart lightbulb (using radio signals) in the same room as the scanner. Using a program they wrote, they manipulated the smart bulb to emit pulsating light that delivered the triggering message in only seconds. Watch a video of the smart bulb attack.

To mitigate this vulnerability, the researchers recommend organizations connect a scanner to the network through a proxy server -- a computer that acts as an intermediary -- which would prevent establishing a covert channel. This might be considered an extreme solution, however, since it also limits printing and faxing remotely on all-in-one devices.

"We believe this study will increase the awareness to this threat and result in secured protocols for scanning that will prevent an attacker from establishing such a covert channel through an external light source, smart bulb, TV, or other IoT (Internet of Things) device," Nassi says.

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Prof. Adi Shamir of the Department of Applied Mathematics at the Weizmann Institute conceived of the project to identify new network vulnerabilities by establishing a clandestine channel in a computer network.

Ben Nassi's Ph.D. research advisor is Prof. Yuval Elovici, a member of the BGU Department of Software and Information Systems Engineering and director of the Deutsche Telekom Laboratories@BGU. Prof. Elovici is also director of the CSRC.

About American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (AABGU) plays a vital role in sustaining David Ben-Gurion's vision: creating a world-class institution of education and research in the Israeli desert, nurturing the Negev community and sharing the University's expertise locally and around the globe. As Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) looks ahead to turning 50 in 2020, AABGU imagines a future that goes beyond the walls of academia. It is a future where BGU invents a new world and inspires a vision for a stronger Israel and its next generation of leaders. Together with supporters, AABGU will help the University foster excellence in teaching, research and outreach to the communities of the Negev for the next 50 years and beyond. Visit vision.aabgu.org to learn more.

AABGU, headquartered in Manhattan, has nine regional offices throughout the United States. For more information visit https://aabgu.org/.
A federal jury on Tuesday found the former owners of Lincoln head shops Dirt Cheap and Island Smokes guilty of conspiracy to sell misbranded drugs, commit mail fraud, evade financial reporting and receive illicit profits in a drug conspiracy case.

But the jury also acquitted mom and son -- Sharon Elder and Allen Peithman -- on eight of the 14 counts in the indictment. Those eight included charges of distributing controlled substances and money laundering.

Independently, the jury found Elder guilty of conspiracy to sell drug paraphernalia and found Peithman guilty of violating his supervised release.

The jury deliberated for two days following a three-week trial in U.S. District Court in Lincoln.

After reaching a verdict, jurors considered whether the pair had to forfeit business and personal assets, which included houses, cars, bank accounts, cash and gold. Deliberation on forfeiture began Tuesday afternoon and will continue Wednesday.

For the first time, Peithman testified in an effort to distance his assets from the illicit activities federal prosecutors contended financed them.

"It's right on the edge of illegal," Peithman said of potpourri or what prosecutors referred to as K2.

During his testimony, he said he and his mother tried to stay on the right side of the law.

When his mother switched to a new potpourri supplier in early 2015, Peithman said he investigated the supplier, printed off everything from its website and noted the company stated its product was federally compliant and legal in all 50 states.

"I never knew we would be expected to go beyond that hurdle," he said.

His mother didn't take the stand.

The government described Elder and Peithman as "glorified drug dealers" during the trial, while defense attorneys called the case "a game of gotcha."

In closing arguments last week, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Fullerton said Elder ran Dirt Cheap and later Island Smokes with Peithman always in the background, despite efforts to appear that he wasn't involved.

She said they relied on cash sales of Kool-Aid-size packets of potpourri for $10 to $30 a pop, then pretended to be surprised to find that some of it contained controlled substances under federal law and to find out people were misusing it by smoking it.

Fullerton said they knew perfectly well what buyers were doing. In undercover buys, police bought pipes along with the potpourri.

Defense attorney Korey Reiman argued that it was Elder's business, not Peithman's. He was her landlord and helped his mother from time to time, but it didn't mean he was part of the business or any conspiracy.

And there was nothing hidden about what they were doing at Dirt Cheap and later Island Smokes, he said.

Reiman questioned law enforcement's decision not to simply ask Elder to remove potpourri packets from the shelf after a rash of overdoses in Lincoln sent people to the hospital in April 2015.

Instead, he said, they chose to let the sales continue in an effort to build a case against Elder and Peithman, which ultimately led to a raid and their arrests in August 2015.

When Peithman and Elder were indicted, local law enforcement touted the federal government's more comprehensive drug laws as a new tool that made its synthetic marijuana crackdown possible. Nebraska prosecutors had struggled to enforce narrower state laws as drug manufacturers tinkered with the chemicals they use.

With acquittals on the eight more-punitive counts, Elder and Peithman avoided sentencing on charges that each carried maximum sentences of 20 years imprisonment and a $1 million fine.

Elder, 70, faces up to 46 years in prison at sentencing. Peithman, 38, faces up to 53 years in prison.

Outside the courtroom, Elder's other son, Don Peithman, called the case a scam.

"It's just a travesty how a jury can find them not guilty on all the drug charges and then call paraphernalia 'drug paraphernalia,'" Peithman said, adding other head shops sell the same merchandise.

"You've got two innocent people going down for nothing," he said.

Elder said they plan to appeal.
One of the biggest challenges in studying Down syndrome is finding the right research model. Animals and established cell lines are limited in their ability to mimic human disease, and results don't always translate to patient populations. Stem cells hold enormous potential as research tools that can be collected directly from patients and grown into innumerable cell types. But harvesting stem cells can be tricky and invasive -- a tough sell to institutional review boards when dealing with children or patients with intellectual disability.

Now, researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have developed a breakthrough technique to harvest cells directly from urine, and grow them into durable, clinically relevant stem cells to study Down syndrome. The non-invasive technique, described in the journal STEM CELLS Translational Medicine, helps creates urgently needed research models for Down syndrome, and can also be used to model other neurologic conditions.

"For the first time, we were able to create induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs, of persons with Down syndrome by cells obtained from urine samples," said Alberto Costa, MD, PhD, study lead and professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. "Our methods represent a significant improvement in iPSC technology, and should be an important step toward the development of human cell-based platforms that can be used to test new medications designed to improve the quality of life of people with Down syndrome."

Costa's technique overcomes ethical challenges related to harvesting stem cells that have previously been collected via skin biopsies. According to the paper, "Although only mildly invasive, there have been anecdotal reports that a few IRBs or ethical committees have rejected research proposals for wide-scale use of skin biopsies in individuals with Down syndrome. There has also been anecdotal reports of a significant percentage of persons with Down syndrome or their parents/guardians rejecting the procedure, which has limited the establishment of Down syndrome iPSC banks." The new technique allows researchers to more easily build collections of stem cells for use in future studies.

Stem cells generated from urine also appear to be more stable than those generated via skin biopsies. Since skin cells are exposed to sunlight, they often have DNA damage caused by ultraviolet radiation. The stem cells generated by Costa's team did not involve cells exposed to the sun, and were manipulated using methods designed to limit DNA damage. The resultant iPSCs can be reliably grown into many cell types relevant for Down syndrome research, including neurons and heart cells. The study is the first to successfully generate such cells from urine cultures.

In total, Costa's team generated iPSCs from urine donated by 10 individuals with Down syndrome that can be used by his team and other researchers interested in modeling Down syndrome disease states. The new technique can also be used to generate countless additional cell lines from Down syndrome patients or other vulnerable populations. The new research models offer an ethically sound, clinically relevant, and highly translatable means to study human disease.

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Funding for the study was provided by grants from ALANA USA Foundation (Contracts 124124 and 200381), the Alana CWRU/MIT Collaborative Fund, a grant from the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities, and charitable contributions from the Awakening Angels Foundation. Bruna Zampieri, PhD was supported by a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico, Brazil (CNPq/MCTI, 202237/2014-1).

For more information about Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, please visit: http://case.edu/medicine.
Because of Earth's layered composition, scientists have often compared the basic arrangement of its interior to that of an onion. There's the familiar thin crust of continents and ocean floors; the thick mantle of hot, semisolid rock; the molten metal outer core; and the solid iron inner core.

But unlike an onion, peeling back Earth's layers to better explore planetary dynamics isn't an option, forcing scientists to make educated guesses about our planet's inner life based on surface-level observations. Clever imaging techniques devised by computational scientists, however, offer the promise of illuminating Earth's subterranean secrets.

Using advanced modeling and simulation, seismic data generated by earthquakes, and one of the world's fastest supercomputers, a team led by Jeroen Tromp of Princeton University is creating a detailed 3-D picture of Earth's interior. Currently, the team is focused on imaging the entire globe from the surface to the core-mantle boundary, a depth of 1,800 miles.

These high-fidelity simulations add context to ongoing debates related to Earth's geologic history and dynamics, bringing prominent features like tectonic plates, magma plumes, and hotspots into view. In 2016, the team released its first-generation global model. Created using data from 253 earthquakes captured by seismograms scattered around the world, the team's model is notable for its global scope and high scalability.

"This is the first global seismic model where no approximations--other than the chosen numerical method--were used to simulate how seismic waves travel through the Earth and how they sense heterogeneities," said Ebru Bozdag, a coprincipal investigator of the project and an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis. "That's a milestone for the seismology community. For the first time, we showed people the value and feasibility of running these kinds of tools for global seismic imaging."

The project's genesis can be traced to a seismic imaging theory first proposed in the 1980s. To fill in gaps within seismic data maps, the theory posited a method called adjoint tomography, an iterative full-waveform inversion technique. This technique leverages more information than competing methods, using forward waves that travel from the quake's origin to the seismic receiver and adjoint waves, which are mathematically derived waves that travel from the receiver to the quake.

The problem with testing this theory? "You need really big computers to do this," Bozdag said, "because both forward and adjoint wave simulations are performed in 3-D numerically."

In 2012, just such a machine arrived in the form of the Titan supercomputer, a 27-petaflop Cray XK7 managed by the US Department of Energy's (DOE's) Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), a DOE Office of Science User Facility located at DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After trying out its method on smaller machines, Tromp's team gained access to Titan in 2013 through the Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment, or INCITE, program.

Working with OLCF staff, the team continues to push the limits of computational seismology to deeper depths.

Stitching together seismic slices

When an earthquake strikes, the release of energy creates seismic waves that often wreak havoc for life at the surface. Those same waves, however, present an opportunity for scientists to peer into the subsurface by measuring vibrations passing through the Earth.

As seismic waves travel, seismograms can detect variations in their speed. These changes provide clues about the composition, density, and temperature of the medium the wave is passing through. For example, waves move slower when passing through hot magma, such as mantle plumes and hotspots, than they do when passing through colder subduction zones, locations where one tectonic plate slides beneath another.

Each seismogram represents a narrow slice of the planet's interior. By stitching many seismograms together, researchers can produce a 3-D global image, capturing everything from magma plumes feeding the Ring of Fire, to Yellowstone's hotspots, to subducted plates under New Zealand.

This process, called seismic tomography, works in a manner similar to imaging techniques employed in medicine, where 2-D x-ray images taken from many perspectives are combined to create 3-D images of areas inside the body.

In the past, seismic tomography techniques have been limited in the amount of seismic data they can use. Traditional methods forced researchers to make approximations in their wave simulations and restrict observational data to major seismic phases only. Adjoint tomography based on 3-D numerical simulations employed by Tromp's team isn't constrained in this way. "We can use the entire data--anything and everything," Bozdag said.

Running its GPU version of the SPECFEM3D_GLOBE code, Tromp's team used Titan to apply full-waveform inversion at a global scale. The team then compared these "synthetic seismograms" with observed seismic data supplied by the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS), calculating the difference and feeding that information back into the model for further optimization. Each repetition of this process improves global models.

"This is what we call the adjoint tomography workflow, and at a global scale it requires a supercomputer like Titan to be executed in reasonable timeframe," Bozdag said. "For our first-generation model, we completed 15 iterations, which is actually a small number for these kinds of problems. Despite the small number of iterations, our enhanced global model shows the power of our approach. This is just the beginning, however."

Automating to augment

For its initial global model, Tromp's team selected earthquake events that registered between 5.8 and 7 on the Richter scale--a standard for measuring earthquake intensity. That range can be extended slightly to include more than 6,000 earthquakes in the IRIS database--about 20 times the amount of data used in the original model.

Getting the most out of all the available data requires a robust automated workflow capable of accelerating the team's iterative process. Collaborating with OLCF staff, Tromp's team has made progress toward this goal.

For the team's first-generation model, Bozdag carried out each step of the workflow manually, taking about a month to complete one model update. Team members Matthieu Lefebvre, Wenjie Lei, and Youyi Ruan of Princeton University and the OLCF's Judy Hill developed new automated workflow processes that hold the promise of reducing that cycle to a matter of days.

"Automation will really make it more efficient, and it will also reduce human error, which is pretty easy to introduce," Bozdag said.

Additional support from OLCF staff has contributed to the efficient use and accessibility of project data. Early in the project's life, Tromp's team worked with the OLCF's Norbert Podhorszki to improve data movement and flexibility. The end result, called Adaptable Seismic Data Format (ASDF), leverages the Adaptable I/O System (ADIOS) parallel library and gives Tromp's team a superior file format to record, reproduce, and analyze data on large-scale parallel computing resources.

In addition, the OLCF's David Pugmire helped the team implement in situ visualization tools. These tools enabled team members to check their work more easily from local workstations by allowing visualizations to be produced in conjunction with simulation on Titan, eliminating the need for costly file transfers.

"Sometimes the devil is in the details, so you really need to be careful and know what you're looking at," Bozdag said. "David's visualization tools help us to investigate our models and see what is there and what is not."

With visualization, the magnitude of the team's project comes to light. The billion-year cycle of molten rock rising from the core-mantle boundary and falling from the crust--not unlike the motion of globules in a lava lamp--takes form, as do other geologic features of interest.

At this stage, the resolution of the team's global model is becoming advanced enough to inform continental studies, particularly in regions with dense data coverage. Making it useful at the regional level or smaller, such as the mantle activity beneath Southern California or the earthquake-prone crust of Istanbul, will require additional work.

"Most global models in seismology agree at large scales but differ from each other significantly at the smaller scales," Bozdag said. "That's why it's crucial to have a more accurate image of Earth's interior. Creating high-resolution images of the mantle will allow us to contribute to these discussions."

Digging deeper

To improve accuracy and resolution further, Tromp's team is experimenting with model parameters under its most recent INCITE allocation. For example, the team's second-generation model will introduce anisotropic inversions, which are calculations that better capture the differing orientations and movement of rock in the mantle. This new information should give scientists a clearer picture of mantle flow, composition, and crust-mantle interactions.

Additionally, team members Dimitri Komatitsch of Aix-Marseille University in France and Daniel Peter of King Abdullah University in Saudi Arabia are leading efforts to update SPECFEM3D_GLOBE to incorporate capabilities such as the simulation of higher-frequency seismic waves. The frequency of a seismic wave, measured in Hertz, is equivalent to the number of waves passing through a fixed point in one second. For instance, the current minimum frequency used in the team's simulation is about 0.05 hertz (1 wave per 20 seconds), but Bozdag said the team would also like to incorporate seismic waves of up to 1 hertz (1 wave per second). This would allow the team to model finer details in the Earth's mantle and even begin mapping the Earth's core.

To make this leap, Tromp's team is preparing for Summit, the OLCF's next-generation supercomputer. Set to arrive in 2018, Summit will provide at least five times the computing power of Titan. As part of the OLCF's Center for Accelerated Application Readiness, Tromp's team is working with OLCF staff to take advantage of Summit's computing power upon arrival.

"With Summit, we will be able to image the entire globe from crust all the way down to Earth's center, including the core," Bozdag said. "Our methods are expensive--we need a supercomputer to carry them out--but our results show that these expenses are justified, even necessary."

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Oak Ridge National Laboratory is supported by the US Department of Energy's Office of Science. The single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, the Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.
BREAKTHROUGH University of Copenhagen and the global player Bayer CropScience have successfully developed a new oilseed crop that is much more resistant to heat, drought and diseases than oilseed rape. The breakthrough is so big that it will feature as cover story of the April issue of Nature Biotechnology, the most prestigious journal for biotechnology research.

Should the global warming continue, a golden rape field under the summer sun may soon become but a distant memory. Researchers have now developed a mustard crop with all the good properties of rape, but which, in addition, also is resistant to drought and heat.

A blooming yellow rape field marks the beginning of summer in Northern Europe. However, if global warming continues, the beautiful view of golden fields under a blue summer sky may soon become but a nostalgic memory. However, there is hope within sight in the form of a new robust oilseed crop that looks like rape but can withstand the climate changes.

Climate changes threaten our oilseed crops

Professor Barbara Ann Halkier, Head of DynaMo Center of Excellence, University of Copenhagen, is one of the scientists who has worked on developing a new oilseed crop with better properties. She explains:

"Oilseed rape does not grow very well in warm and dry areas. We are very happy that we have succeeded in using a groundbreaking technology on a mustard plant, which is a close relative to rape. The result is an oilseed crop with improved agronomic traits that is tolerant to global warming. The new crop will enable cultivation in areas that today is not suitable for oilseed crops, such as the Western part of Canada, parts of Eastern Europe, Australia and India".

Bitter defense compounds not suitable as animal feed

The mustard plant is similar to oilseed rape in many ways. It looks like a rape plant and its oil has the same attractive features with high content of mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids e.g. omega-3 and -6 plus antioxidants and vitamins. However, it is also a lot more robust when grown under arid conditions and upon exposure to diseases. Mustard is therefore an obvious candidate to replace oilseed rape.

"Until now it has been an undefeatable challenge that mustard seeds are full of the bitter defense compounds that give mustard its characteristic flavor. Consequently, the protein-rich seed meal that remains after the oil is pressed out of the seeds is useless as animal feed," explains Barbara Ann Halkier.

In close collaboration with Bayer CropScience -- one of the major global players within plant biotechnology and breeding -- she and other scientists from the DynaMo Center have found an original solution to this problem.

From model plant to oilseed crop

The scientists from the DynaMo Center have invented a technology that can keep the bitter defense compounds out of the seeds while maintaining them in the rest of the plant so that the plant can defend itself against herbivores and pathogens.

The Danish scientists have shown that the technology works in a model plant, while scientists from Bayer CropScience have implemented the technology in the fields and performed large field trials with the optimized mustard plants.

Postdoc Svend Roesen Madsen from DynaMo Center and shared first author of the publication in Nature Biotechnology says:

"The field trials have shown that we have come a long way. I guess that we are more than three quarters of the way towards a new robust oilseed crop that will be commercially attractive to the farmers. This is truly an exciting result!"

Long search for novel oilseed crop

Scientists and breeders have searched for many years after an alternative to oilseed rape. Rape is one of our most important sources of vegetable oil, biodiesel and protein for animal feed. However, it is only grown in relatively cool climates e.g. at our latitudes and every year the farmers have substantial yield losses as rape is not very disease tolerant.

"In the 1970's a Polish farmer serendipitously found a rape plant with so low levels of the bitter defense compounds that rape suddenly became an important commercial oilseed crop," says the other first author Associate Professor Hussam H. Nour-Eldin, who is also a member of the DynaMo Center. He continues:

"Since the 70'es, farmers and scientists have attempted to generate a similar variant of the mustard plant. We are proud that we invented a technology with which we can achieve this long-term goal."

In the coming years, the scientists from University of Copenhagen and Bayer CropScience will work towards reducing the content of bitter defense compounds in the mustard seeds even further. They expect to have a mustard plant with mustard-free seeds ready within 2-3 years.

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[Background]

In Japan, due to the changes of lifestyle such as less physical activities than before, more and more people suffer from the lifestyle diseases like metabolic syndromes, type-2 diabetes and hypertension. Regular physical exercise is recommended as 'exercise therapy' since it will lead to prevention and therapy of the diseases mentioned above. However, individual responsiveness to exercise is known to differ markedly. Some people derive little benefit from the health promoting effects of regular exercise, which has been a big problem. The researchers of Kanazawa University reported that selenoprotein P*1, a protein produced in and secreted from the liver, was high in terms of its concentration in the blood in type-2 diabetes patients and that selenoprotein P augmented the insulin resistance to induce elevation of blood glucose level (Cell Metabolism 2010; 12(5), 483). They proposed to call the hormone 'hepatokine*2' that was secreted from the liver, was delivered to various organs and tissues of the body by the blood and would exert diverse effects. However, the effects of selenoprotein P, a hepatokine, on health promotion by physical exercise was unclear.

[Results]

The present research team of Kanazawa University, two universities, a company and a Chinese hospital has demonstrated the followings through investigating the effects of selenoprotein P on the results of physical exercise by the experiments with mice and cultured muscle cells and by clinical studies. Mice were subjected to exercise training on a treadmill for 30 min per day during one month. The team has found that after the one month exercise, the selenoprotein P-deficient mice showed twice higher exercise capacity than the wild type (WT) mice.

After the training, the selenoprotein P-deficient mice also showed larger reduction in the blood glucose level upon insulin injection than the WT mice.

It was shown that with the WT mice administered with selenoprotein P, muscles after the one month training exhibited reduced level of AMPK*3 phosphorylation; AMPK phosphorylation is considered to be related with a variety of favorable training effects. Furthermore, it was shown that the mice deficient of LRP1*4, the receptor of selenoprotein P in muscles, did not incorporate administered selenoprotein P into muscles and that AMPK phosphorylation upon training was not affected.

A total of healthy but sedentary 31 women without obesity or type-2 diabetes underwent aerobic training for 8 weeks, and maximal oxygen consumption was measured as exercise capacity. In general, the maximal oxygen consumption was elevated after the training, whereas some women did not show much elevation. Those women had high level of selenoprotein P in the blood before the training.

These results demonstrate that selenoprotein P causes 'exercise resistance*5' by affecting muscles through the receptor LRP1, hence cancelling the effects of exercise.

[Significance]

It has been reported that the selenoprotein P level in the blood is high in patients with type-2 diabetes or fatty liver and in persons at high age. There is a possibility that because of excess level of selenoprotein P, those patients and persons suffer from exercise resistance and derive limited benefits from the heath-promoting effects of physical exercise.

The results of the present research are expected to lead to discovery of 'drugs to promote exercise effects' through the search for drugs reducing selenoprotein P production in the liver and for others competing with LRP1, the selenoprotein P receptor of muscles.

It is also expected that individual persons could be diagnosed to be exercise-effective or exercise-ineffective by measuring selenoprotein P level in the blood.

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[Glossary]

*1Selenoprotein P

Selenoprotein P is a secretory protein, produced mainly in the liver. Since it contains high level of selenium, a minor but essential element, it was considered to be a selenium-transferring hormone from the liver to other tissues and organs.

However, the researchers of Kanazawa University demonstrated in 2010 that the concentration of selenoprotein P in the blood was elevated in type-2 diabetes patients and that selenoprotein P functioned as a hormone to increase the blood glucose level. Recently, it has been reported that the blood level of selenoprotein P is elevated in patients with fatty liver and in persons at high age.

*2Hepatokine

Generic name of a group of hormones secreted from the liver. Hepatokine exerts diverse effects at various tissues and organs of the body after being conveyed by the blood.

The researchers identified selenoprotein P in 2010, a humoral factor from the liver causing hyperglycemia. Selenoprotein P was found to be elevated in terms of its concentration in the blood in type-2 diabetes. The researchers named such hormone from the liver as hepatokine.

*3AMPK

AMPK, abbreviation of AMP-activated protein kinase, is one of the enzymes in the cell. It is known that exercise causes phosphorylation of AMPK in muscle cells and AMPK activation. It has been reported that the activation of AMPK brings about benefits such as increasing the number of mitochondria in the cell, increasing incorporation of glucose into the cell, increasing insulin sensitivity and so on.

*4LRP1

LRP1, abbreviation of low density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1, is a protein in the cell membrane. It has been reported to play roles in uptake of ligands such as cholesterol and blood coagulation factors as well as in signaling pathways. However, the research team has found, for the first time, that LRP1 is involved in the effects of exercise and in the uptake of selenoprotein P.

*5Exercise resistance

Physical exercise has health-promoting effects in general, but it has also been known that individual responsiveness to exercise differs significantly. The present research has indicated that individuals with high level of selenoprotein P in the blood show low responsiveness to exercise. The research team proposes to refer to this pathology as 'exercise resistance.'
ANN ARBOR, MI - When a child brings home a report card from school, part of their grade comes from how often they made it to class or turned in homework. But the larger part comes from how they did on tests, in class and on take-home assignments. In other words, how much they've learned, or how hard they're trying.

These days, hospitals also get report cards, from several organizations that combine different measurements of how well hospitals serve their patients and keep them safe. Some only use objective patient outcomes, like infection rates, while others allow hospitals to report on their efforts to improve safety.

But a new study finds that a well-known hospital grading system may put too much weight on the wrong things.

The study, published in the journal Medical Care by a University of Michigan team, takes an in-depth look at the Hospital Safety Grade system, run by The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit organization that focuses on patient safety.

The researchers find that most hospitals that participate in Leapfrog's Hospital Survey self-report that they're in perfect compliance with most, if not all, of the "Safe Practices" that the survey asks about. But the researchers show that how a hospital did on these measures had little in common with how that same hospital did on independent measurements of hospital-acquired infections -- or with whether the government had penalized it for high infection or readmission rates.

"The Safe Practices part of the Hospital Safety Grade is based on whether a hospital self-reports that it has adopted certain protocols, and not whether those protocols are actually followed," says Jennifer Meddings, M.D., M.Sc., the study's senior author and an assistant professor of internal medicine at the U-M Medical School.

For example, she says, one Safe Practices measure involves hand hygiene. "It may be news to consumers that this measure involves hospital self reports of having specific hand washing protocols in place, not how often healthcare workers are washing their hands."

She also notes that any one hospital's Safe Practices scores counts toward its overall Hospital Safety Grade based on a comparison with the average Safe Practices measure score reported across all participating hospitals. So, hospitals receive little grade advantage by reporting high scores -- but are at risk of much lower grades if they report less-than-perfect scores. The researchers note that the Leapfrog organization will issue a new grading formula next month -- but not in time to calculate the new grades that will come out soon after.

To self-report or not to self-report?

Hospital Safety Grades combine data from a number of national sources, including public data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- and for hospitals that choose to participate, the voluntary Leapfrog Hospital Survey.

Just over half of hospitals in the study completed the Leapfrog survey, which includes self-reporting of eight National Quality Forum Safe Practices measures. If a hospital reports on them, it accounts for nearly a quarter of the hospital's total grade. Hospitals that do not complete the voluntary Leapfrog Hospital Survey also receive a Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, calculated entirely using publicly-available measures.

The researchers ran simulations to see how these non-participating hospitals' grades might have changed if they had self-reported low, average, or perfect Safe Practices measures, while their infection rates remained the same.

They find that -- even if their actual performance on hospital infections is good -- such hospitals would likely end up with lower Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades if their performance on the self-reported Safe Practices was anything less than perfect.

In other words, hospitals that self-report less-than-perfect Safe Practices scores are likely better off not completing the Leapfrog Hospital Survey.

Shawna Smith, Ph.D., the study's lead author, explains, "Hospitals that have less-than-perfect performance on Leapfrog's list of protocols get a big hit to their grade, but those with most or all protocols in place are rewarded very little. Our simulations show that some hospitals would have had better grades when they didn't report than when they reported imperfect compliance." Smith is a U-M Internal Medicine statistician and Institute for Social Research postdoctoral fellow.

This disincentive also creates a problem for moving hospitals forward on safe practices. "One of the principles of promoting safe practices is to ensure that hospitals are comfortable reporting that they still have work to do," says Meddings, a member of U-M's Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation who also holds a position at the VA Center for Clinical Management Research.

A path forward for a pioneering effort

The authors note that Leapfrog has encouraged public reporting on patient safety by hospitals for 16 years -- dating back to a time when the public had little or no access to information about how safe their hospitals were. Their paper gives a timeline of public reporting by Leapfrog and others.

Now, more than half of hospitals that complete the Leapfrog survey report perfect performance on all of the Safe Practice measures. The researchers say it's time to put more weight on publicly reported safety measures from objective sources rather than self-reporting of protocols.

While the voluntary Leapfrog hospital survey is free, hospitals are encouraged to use their grades to promote their hospitals to patients and potential patients -- but must pay licensing fees to use the grades as a marketing tool showing their grade.

"The Leapfrog approach was really cutting edge when it first came out, and started an important movement," says Meddings. "But Leapfrog relies in part on process measures which can 'top out' as a new process becomes widely adopted. It's time to have a new discussion about how to measure new metrics and use them in innovative ways to evaluate hospitals."

Adds Smith, "Leapfrog has a number of well-regarded experts involved, and their use of the Safe Practices measures does add something different to the universe of metrics out there. But they need to think how they are used in calculating the grade, because the current methodology penalizes hospitals for reporting scores that are anything less than perfect. If we want to encourage hospitals to continually improve safety, we need to incentivize acknowledging they have work to do."

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Disclosure: The University of Michigan's academic medical center, Michigan Medicine, participates in the Leapfrog survey

The research was funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (HS19767, HS018334). Co-authors are Heidi A. Reichert, MA and Jessica M. Ameling, MPH.
Viruses are the most abundant living organisms on the planet, yet we know very little about them, especially in aquatic environments. Michigan State University's Joan Rose is partnering with Shedd Aquarium in Chicago to better understand how viruses affect plants, fish and aquatic mammals in human-built and controlled aquariums.

"With greater understanding we can better protect aquatic life," said Rose, 2016 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate and Homer Nowlin Chair in Water Research in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. "Our goal is to learn how to provide healthier aquatic environments for animals and plants."

Rose said researching in a controlled environment, such as an aquarium, provides the perfect conditions to study not only naturally occurring viruses, but also how humans transmit disease as they interact with wildlife and the water environment.

The research is part of Shedd Aquarium's Microbiome Project, which explores the unique relationships between the fish, animals and plants that share their home with microbes, countless unseen living organisms. This is the world's first comprehensive look at microbiomes in a human-built and controlled aquatic ecosystem and will change the way the world thinks about water quality and how exhibits are managed to provide optimal health for the animals.

Joining Rose in this research is Jean Pierre Nshimyimana, an MSU postdoctoral researcher and a recipient of the 2017 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Microbiology of the Built Environment Postdoctoral Fellowship. During the next two years, Nshimyimana will use samples collected from Shedd's Wild Reef exhibit, Sturgeon Touch in the At Home on the Great Lakes exhibit and the Abbott Oceanarium to study viruses in order to improve the design and construction of aquatic systems.

Rose and Nshimyimana will work with William Van Bonn, Shedd vice president of animal health, and other researchers to conduct studies in the Microbiome Project.

"The Shedd Microbiome Project provides an exciting opportunity to learn more about elusive viruses and apply this knowledge to protect the biohealth of the planet," Rose said.

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Adding to strong recent demonstrations that particles of light perform what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance," in which two separated objects can have a connection that exceeds everyday experience, physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have confirmed that particles of matter can act really spooky too.

The NIST team entangled a pair of beryllium ions (charged atoms) in a trap, thus linking their properties, and then separated the pair and performed one of a set of possible manipulations on each ion's properties before measuring them. Across thousands of runs, the pair's measurement outcomes in certain cases matched, or in other cases differed, more often than everyday experience would predict. These strong correlations are hallmarks of quantum entanglement.

What's more, statistical calculations found the ion pairs displayed a rare high level of spookiness.

"We are confident that the ions are 67 percent spooky," said Ting Rei Tan, lead author of a new Physical Review Letters paper about the experiments.

The experiments were "chained" Bell tests, meaning that they were constructed from a series of possible sets of manipulations on two ions. Unlike earlier experiments, these were enhanced Bell tests in which the number of possible manipulations for each ion was chosen randomly from sets of at least two and as many as 15 choices.

This method produces stronger statistical results than conventional Bell tests. That's because as the number of options grows for manipulating each ion, the chance automatically decreases that the ions are behaving by classical, or non-quantum, rules. According to classical rules, all objects must have definite "local" properties and can only influence each other at the speed of light or slower. Bell tests have been long used to show that through quantum physics, objects can break one or both of these rules, demonstrating spooky action.

Conventional Bell tests produce data that are a mixture of local and spooky action. Perfect chained Bell tests can, in theory, prove there is zero chance of local influence. The NIST results got down to a 33 percent chance of local influence -- lower than conventional Bell tests can achieve, although not the lowest ever reported for a chained test, Tan said.

However, the NIST experiment broke new ground by closing two of three "loopholes" that could undermine the results, the only chained Bell test to do this using three or more options for manipulating material particles. The results are good enough to infer the high quality of the entangled states using minimal assumptions about the experiment--a rare achievement, Tan said.

Last year, a different group of NIST researchers and collaborators closed all three loopholes in conventional Bell tests with particles of light. The new ion experiments confirm again that spooky action is real.

"Actually, I believed in quantum mechanics before this experiment," Tan said with a chuckle. "Our motivation was we were trying to use this experiment to showcase how good our trapped ion quantum computing technology is, and what we can do with it."

The researchers used the same ion trap setup as in previous quantum computing experiments. With this apparatus, researchers use electrodes and lasers to perform all the basic steps needed for quantum computing, including preparing and measuring ions' quantum states; transporting ions between multiple trap zones; and creating stable quantum bits (qubits), qubit rotations, and reliable two-qubit logic operations. All these features were needed to conduct the chained Bell tests. Quantum computers are expected to one day solve problems that are currently intractable such as simulating superconductivity (the flow of electricity without resistance) and breaking today's most popular data encryption codes.

In NIST's chained Bell tests, the number of settings (options for different manipulations before measurement) ranged from two to 15. The manipulations acted on the ions' internal energy states called "spin up" or "spin down." The researchers used lasers to rotate the spins of the ions by specific angles before the final measurements.

Researchers performed several thousand runs for each setting and collected two data sets 6 months apart. The measurements determined the ions' spin states. There were four possible final results: (1) both ions spin up, (2) first ion spin up and second ion spin down, (3) first ion spin down and second ion spin up, or (4) both ions spin down. Researchers measured the states based on how much the ions fluoresced or scattered light--bright was spin up and dark was spin down.

The NIST experiment closed the detection and memory loopholes, which might otherwise allow ordinary classical systems to appear spooky.

The detection loophole is opened if detectors are inefficient and a subset of the data are used to represent the entire data set. The NIST tests closed this loophole because the fluorescence detection was near 100 percent efficient, and the measurement outcomes of every trial in each experiment were recorded and used to calculate results.

The memory loophole is opened if one assumes that the outcomes of the trials are identically distributed or there are no experimental drifts. Previous chained Bell tests have relied on this assumption, but the NIST test was able to drop it. The NIST team closed the memory loophole by performing thousands of extra trials over many hours with the set of six possible settings, using a randomly chosen setting for each trial and developing a more robust statistical analysis technique.

The NIST experiments did not close the locality loophole, which is open if it is possible for the choice of settings to be communicated between the ions. To close this loophole, one would need to separate the ions by such a large distance that communication between them would be impossible, even at light speed. In the NIST experiment, the ions had to be positioned close together (at most, 340 micrometers apart) to be entangled and subsequently measured, Tan explained.

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This work was supported by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) and the Office of Naval Research.

Paper: T.R. Tan, Y. Wan, S. Erickson, P. Bierhorst, D. Kienzler, S. Glancy, E. Knill, D. Leibfried and D.J. Wineland. 2017. Chained Bell Inequality Experiment With High-Efficiency Measurements. Physical Review Letters. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.130403
Collecting dust isn't usually considered a good thing.

But dust from as close as California's Central Valley and as far away as Asia's Gobi Desert provides nutrients, especially phosphorus, to vegetation in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, a team of scientists has found. Their study, published in the journal Nature Communications, highlights the importance of dust and the phosphorus it carries in sustaining plant life.

The researchers examined soil samples from four sites at the National Science Foundation (NSF) Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory (SSCZO) in the Sierra National Forest, at elevations from 1,300 feet to 8,800 feet. The SSCZO is part of a network of nine NSF Critical Zone Observatories across the United States and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.

The critical zone -- Earth's living environment -- is the region between the top of the forest canopy and the base of weathered rock.

The zone consists of multiple interactive processes, including the water cycle, the breakdown of rocks and the formation of soil, the evolution of rivers and valleys, the patterns of vegetation, and the form and function of the Earth. Scientists at all nine CZO sites study this zone and its response to climate and land use changes.

"The CZO network was set up to carry out research that integrates physical, geochemical and biological measurements from the subsurface through the land surface, giving us the ability to improve management of these rapidly changing landscapes," said University of California, Merced scientist Roger Bales, who leads the SSCZO.

The research team -- including geochemists, a geomorphologist, ecosystem ecologists and microbial ecologists from UC Merced, UC Riverside, the University of Michigan and University of Wyoming -- worked to quantify the importance of transoceanic and regional dust as a nutrient source to Sierra Nevada ecosystems. They used household items -- for example, Bundt pans filled with marbles attached to wooden posts -- to capture dust. They also studied microbes hitchhiking on dust particles to pinpoint the dust's origins.

"Dust provides important inputs of phosphorus to Sierra Nevada ecosystems," said UC Merced scientist Stephen Hart, a co-author of the paper. "The dust brings critical nutrients [such as phosphorus] for maintaining plant productivity in these mountain environments. Dust inputs may increase as land use in the Central Valley intensifies and as the climate changes in the future."

The Sierra Nevada Mountains are considered a phosphorus-limited ecosystem; the mountains are geologically young with bedrock that has not yet extensively broken down into nutrient-carrying soil.

The researchers said their findings could hold true for similar geologically young mountain ecosystems developed on bedrock with low phosphorus concentration.

"Dust is an important source of nutrients for landscapes like the island of Kauai, where intensive weathering has depleted the underlying bedrock of life-sustaining elements, including phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium," the researchers wrote.

As bedrock converts to soil, the process releases nutrients vital to plants. To a large degree, nutrients regulate the distribution of life across Earth's surface, so understanding the importance of different nutrient sources -- including bedrock and dust -- is an important question in ecology, biogeochemistry and geobiology. Such research also has implications for predicting forest responses to changes in climate and land use.

"This new research reveals that the transport of dust in the atmosphere is important for the ecological health of many parts of our planet," said Richard Yuretich, program director for NSF's Critical Zone Observatory network. "Complex cycles and feedbacks regulate conditions at the surface of the Earth. This study adds a significant piece to our knowledge of how Earth works, and what we can do to keep it functioning properly."

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More information on the National Science Foundation's Critical Zone Observatories is available online.
At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland the James Webb Space Telescope team completed the acoustic and vibration portions of environmental testing on the telescope. These tests are merely two of the many that spacecraft and instruments endure to ensure they are fit for spaceflight.

For the acoustic test, the telescope was wrapped in a clean tent, and engineers and technicians pushed it through a large pair of insulated steel doors nearly a foot thick into the Acoustic Test Chamber. In the chamber the telescope was exposed to the earsplitting noise and resulting vibration of launch.

A new vibration test system also known as a shaker table, was built specifically for testing the Webb. The Webb was mounted on the shaker table and experienced the simulated forces the telescope will feel during the launch by vibrating it from 5 to 100 times per second. The test ensures a spacecraft like Webb can withstand the vibrations that occur as a result of the ride into space on a rocket.

This spring, after other environmental tests are completed, the Webb telescope will be shipped to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, for end-to-end optical testing in a vacuum at its extremely cold operating temperatures, before it goes to Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems in Redondo Beach, California, for final assembly and testing prior to launch.

By performing these tests, scientists and engineers can ensure that the spacecraft and all of its instruments will endure the launch and maintain functionality when it is launched from French Guiana in 2018.

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The James Webb Space Telescope is the scientific successor to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. It will be the most powerful space telescope ever built. Webb is an international project led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

For more information, please visit: http://www.nasa.gov/webb or http://jwst.nasa.gov/

Related Links:

NASA Gives the Webb Telescope a Shakedown - https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasa-gives-the-webb-telescope-a-shakedown

NASA's Webb Telescope Team Prepares For Earsplitting Acoustic Test - https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasas-webb-telescope-team-prepares-for-earsplitting-acoustic-test
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Forests play a complex role in keeping the planet cool, one that goes far beyond the absorption of carbon dioxide, new research has found.

Trees also impact climate by regulating the exchange of water and energy between the Earth's surface and the atmosphere, an important influence that should be considered as policymakers contemplate efforts to conserve forested land, said the authors of an international study that appears in the journal Nature Climate Change.

"Forests play a more important role in cooling the surface in almost all regions of the Earth than was previously thought," said study co-author Kaiguang Zhao, assistant professor of environment modeling and spatial analysis at The Ohio State University.

"This really affirms the value of forest conservation and protection policies in the fight against climate change," Zhao said.

Until now, scientists have had an incomplete picture of how, where and when ecosystems influence climate locally. By addressing all three questions simultaneously, the researchers were able to offer new insight into how land-use decisions are shaping local climates.

The researchers created a model that combined locally collected meteorological data with data from satellites and other Earth observation systems.

They discovered important differences between heat exchange at the surface in forested areas compared with those areas where farming and grazing fields dominate the landscape. This allowed them to estimate the surface temperature change when switching from one type of vegetation to another, and to study the different mechanisms driving the change.

They found, unsurprisingly, that forests often contribute to an annual cooling in temperate and tropical regions and to warming in northern high-latitude areas of the world.

What was enlightening was the finding that the cooling in the middle- and lower-latitude areas was nearly as strong as previous estimates using only satellite data. Researchers had thought the actual cooling would be significantly less than those estimates because they take into account only clear-sky days -- not those with cloud cover.

Furthermore, the study authors found that mechanisms responsible for regulating the temperature at the surface -- particularly the transfer of water and heat from the land to the atmosphere by convection and evapotranspiration -- were more important than previously thought.

In fact, they appear to be more significant in many cases than factors related to the sun's energy.

Previous work looking at forests and climate change has taken into account the role of albedo -- the scientific term for sunlight that is reflected off the surface of the Earth -- and found mixed messages. For example, dark evergreen forests in sunny areas draw in heat, Zhao said. In some cases, he said, they could increase local warming.

The new study's lead author, Ryan Bright of the Norwegian Institute for Bioeconomy Research, said that while forests often absorb more solar radiation than grasslands or croplands, they also put more moisture into the air and promote more mixing of the air near the surface than those shorter types of vegetation.

"What we are finding is that these mechanisms are often more important, even in some of the higher-latitude regions, where surface light reflection has been given more weight," Bright said. This new research highlights that these mechanisms are more important than previously understood and that they should be considered seriously when policymakers choose how to use land, he and Zhao said.

"In a world facing increasing competition for land resources for food and livestock production, sensible forest protection policies will be especially critical in our efforts to mitigate climate change, particularly local warming," Bright said.

"Our research could help in the identification of regions where forest protection, re-forestation or policies promoting the creation of new forests should be started or ramped up."

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CONTACT: Kaiguang Zhao, 330-263-3722; Zhao.1423@osu.edu
COLUMBUS, Ohio - If a Japanese woman were to compliment a friend on her flattering pale-blue blouse, she'd probably employ a word with no English equivalent.

"Mizu" translates to "water" and has emerged in recent decades as a unique shade in the Japenese lexicon, new research has found.

English speakers have "light blue," sure. But "mizu" is its own color, not merely a shade of another. It's similar to how people in the United States use "magenta," rather than "purplish-red."

Researchers from Japan and The Ohio State University collaborated on the study, which examines the color lexicon in Japan over time and compares the country's modern color terminology to words used in the United States. The study appears in the Journal of Vision.

The researchers asked 57 native Japanese speakers to name the colors on cards placed before them. The study participants used 93 unique color terms. No modifiers such as "light" or "dark" were allowed.

Identification of basic long-standing color terms came as no surprise, but the use of "mizu" by almost everyone in the group is new and strong evidence that it should be included among 12 generally accepted basic Japanese color terms, the researchers concluded.

Furthermore, they found differences between color language in the two modern, diverse societies.

Some unique and commonly described color terms in one language are missing in the other. In Japan, "mizu" is one, as is "kon" (dark blue.) In the U.S., native speakers often use the words "teal," "lavender," "peach" and "magenta," none of which has a commonly used Japanese equivalent.

"Like animal species, language is constantly evolving," said Ohio State's Delwin Lindsey, a professor of psychology who worked on the study with optometry professor Angela Brown and Japanese colleagues from several institutions.

Humans mostly see color in exactly the same way. But how we describe it varies widely and it tells researchers about more than just whether that pretty blouse is "mizu" or "light blue."

"In America, we don't have a single unique word for light blue. The closest thing we have is "sky," but when we ask, we don't elicit that very often," Brown said.

"In Japan, 'mizu' is as different from 'blue' as 'green' is from 'blue.'"

Lindsey and Brown said the study of color language goes beyond how we describe a blouse, car or crayon.

"We're interested in how colors are represented through language and how that gets distributed through society. How is it that we all decide that blue is blue? We do so through interaction," Lindsey said.

Added Brown, "The study of color naming is fundamentally the study of how words come to be associated with things - all things that exist, from teacups to love."

The color lexicon happens to be easier to study than other aspects of language evolution. Colors are easily described, reproduced and displayed.

And there is vast difference in what colors we use from culture to culture and individual to individual.

"The visual system can discern millions of colors," Brown said. "But people only describe a limited number of them and that varies depending on their community and the variety of colors that enter into their daily lives."

There are areas of the world, for instance, where blue and green are lumped together - something color researchers call "grue."

"People around the world have very different color-naming systems and that raises interesting questions about what we're born with and what's strongly contingent upon our culture," said Lindsey, who teaches at Ohio State's Mansfield campus.

"In general, the more basic the color terms, the less technologically and economically advanced the culture," he said.

"But what's really interesting is there are remarkable similarities in color descriptions amongst people who live thousands of miles apart. And there can be differences between next-door neighbors."

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The study was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Research Institute of Electrical Communication at Japan's Tohoku University.

Ryan Lange, now at the University of Chicago, worked on the study as a graduate student in Ohio State's College of Optometry.

CONTACTS: Angela Brown, 614-292-4423; Brown.112@osu.edu. Delwin Lindsey, 419-755-4359; Lindsey.43@osu.edu.

Written by Misti Crane, 614-292-5220; Crane.11@osu.edu
Diversity in schools is important for students' experiences and outcomes in schools and beyond, reducing prejudices and ensuring the likelihood of living and working in integrated environments as adults. Penn State researchers are exploring how school choice is affecting racial composition and segregation in Pennsylvania schools.

According to lead researcher Erica Frankenberg, associate professor of education and Population Research Institute associate at Penn State, this is one of the first studies to explore how charter schools could be affecting the racial composition of public schools.

"It is critical to assess how student movement from charter schools affects school segregation during this time of persisting neighborhood segregation, and to see what choices students and parents make when or if more integrative options exist," said Frankenberg.

Using student data from Pennsylvania, the researchers focused on approximately 8,000 students transferring from public schools to charter schools in ten metropolitan areas where there was more than one potential brick-and-mortar charter school option, to see how access to more racially diverse schools affected school choice.

"Although other studies have used individual data to examine charter school racial composition and segregation," Frankenberg explained, "this project considered student enrollment decisions when presented with schools of differing racial composition,"

They also assessed the racial composition of charter schools that students enrolled in and compared them to the racial composition of public schools from which the students transferred. "We found that black and Latino students tended to move into charter schools that were more racially isolated than the public schools they left," said Frankenberg.

The researchers found that factors such as distance to the chosen school was a factor but was not the determining factor of school choice. In fact, they found that the average distance to a chosen charter school was at least twice as far as the nearest charter school for black and Latino students, regardless of their age group.

While Frankenberg and her team weren't surprised by this discovery, as previous research points to higher segregation in charter schools than traditional public schools, especially among black students, they were surprised by other findings.

"We found that white students in Philadelphia metropolitan areas more often transferred to charter schools that had a higher percentage of white students, while white students in non-Philadelphia metropolitan areas moved to slightly more diverse charter schools than the public schools they left," said Frankenberg.

The findings raise critical questions regarding educational equity, and the effects of educational reform and school-choice policy on fostering racially diverse schools. It is important, said Frankenberg, because research confirms the importance of attending diverse schools for students of all racial groups.

"Minority students in more diverse school settings have higher short-term and long-term academic outcomes than those who attend racially isolated minority schools," she said. "Meanwhile, benefits to white students as well as students of color include reduced prejudice and a higher likelihood of living and working in diverse environments as adults."

This research illuminates the rapidly growing number of students transferring to charters in Pennsylvania who are making choices that are more segregative. "In the future, I would like to research the factors that influence school choice, as well as the impacts of other types of school choice, such as cyber schools, on traditional public school racial composition, and look at other states to see how they differ from Pennsylvania."

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Other researchers on the project were Stephen Kotok, assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies, University of Texas at El Paso; Kai Schafft, associate professor of education, Penn State; and Bryan Mann, assistant professor of educational leadership, policy, and technology studies, University of Alabama.

The research was published in the journal Education Policy Analysis Archives, with initial work supported by a Center for Rural Pennsylvania grant. Technical support was provided by the Population Research Institute, part of the Social Sciences Research Institute.
How to choose an appropriate drought index in drought monitoring, forecasting and research is one of difficulties. Different drought indices could present dissimilar abilities when applied in various regions, because of the different aspects and physics of drought they address, which, of course, raises the problem of regional applicability. A recent study has identified the regional applicability in China of seven drought indices: the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), modified PDSI (PDSI_CN) based on observations in China, self-calibrating PDSI (scPDSI), Surface Wetness Index (SWI), Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), and soil moisture simulations conducted using the community land model driven by observed atmospheric forcing (CLM3.5/ObsFC).

The study titled "Regional applicability of seven meteorological drought indices in China", which was published in Science China Earth Sciences, was done by Dr. Yang Qing et al. in Institute of Atmospheric Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences, and its corresponding author is Prof. Ma Zhuguo. Using terrestrial water storage obtained from the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE), the observed soil moisture and streamflow, the regional applicability of seven drought indices and their ability to represent the long-term trend of dry/wet variations in China have been evaluated systematically.

Previous studies on the regional applicability of drought indices have focused mostly on the global or regions with abundant observations of terrestrial hydrological variations. In addition, variables used to identify the performance of drought indices tend to be precipitation, soil moisture and runoff. In the study, besides those traditional test variables, terrestrial water storage is used to evaluate the regional applicability of drought indices in China. It could provide a more reasonable evaluation of drought indices.

Results showed that the PDSI, PDSI_CN, and scPDSI perform consistently well in drought monitoring in China with respect to the other drought indices, and the performance of the scPDSI is the best. However, the value range of the scPDSI is reduced slightly and therefore, its wet/dry classification should be adjusted. For the PDSI and PDSI_CN, there might be some problems in arid and humid areas because of unsuitable empirical parameters. The SPI and SPEI are both appropriate in humid areas but not in arid and semiarid areas. This is because the ratio of evapotranspiration anomaly (caused by temperature variation) in the surface water balance is relatively large in arid and semiarid regions with respect to humid regions. The SPI neglects the contribution of the temperature anomaly and thus, it tends to induce wetter result in arid and semiarid areas and drier results in humid areas. The SPEI is sensitive to the calculation schemas of potential evapotranspiration. The contribution of the temperature anomaly to drought tends to be overestimated by the SPEI in arid and semiarid areas and consequently, a drier result is obtained when the Thornthwaite method is used to estimate potential evapotranspiration. The CLM3.5/ObsFC is reasonable before 2000 but not after 2000, especially in arid and semiarid areas, and their reason requires further investigation. The SWI presents similar characteristics of dry/wet variation to the other indices on interannual and decadal timescales.

These findings could deepen our understanding to the application of drought indices in China, which will provide a basis for how to choose an appropriate drought index for a given drought research in different regions.

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This research was funded by the National Basic Research Program of China (2012CB956201), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41275085; 41530532; 41305062), the National Key Technology R&D Program of China (2013BAC10B02) and China Special Fund for Meteorological Research in the Public Interest (GYHY201506001-1).

See the article: Yang Q, Li M X, Zheng Z Y, Ma Z G. 2017. Regional applicability of seven meteorological drought indices in China. Science China Earth Sciences, doi:10.1007/s11430-016-5133-5

This article was published online (http://engine.scichina.com/publisher/scp/journal/SCES/doi/10.1007/s11430-016-5133-5?slug=full%20text), in the Science China Earth Sciences.
Among healthy postmenopausal women, supplementation with vitamin D3 and calcium compared with placebo did not result in a significantly lower risk of cancer after four years, according to a study published by JAMA.

About 40 percent of the U.S. population will have a cancer diagnosis at some point during their lives. Evidence suggests that low vitamin D status may increase the risk of cancer, and considerable interest exists in the potential role of vitamin D for prevention of cancer. Joan Lappe, Ph.D., R.N., of the Creighton University Schools of Nursing and Medicine, Omaha, and colleagues randomly assigned 2,303 healthy postmenopausal women 55 years or older (average age, 65 years) to the treatment group (n=1,156; 2,000 IU/d of vitamin D3 and 1,500 mg/d of calcium) or to the placebo group (n=1,147). Duration of treatment was four years. The researchers examined the incidence of all-type cancer (excluding nonmelanoma skin cancers).

A new diagnosis of cancer was confirmed in 109 participants, 45 (3.89 percent) in the vitamin D3 + calcium group and 64 (5.58 percent) in the placebo group (difference, 1.69 percent). Incidence over four years was 0.042 in the treatment group and 0.060 in the placebo group. There was no statistically significant difference between the treatment groups in incidence of breast cancer.

Adverse events potentially related to the study included kidney stones (16 participants in the treatment group and 10 in the placebo group) and elevated serum calcium levels (six in the treatment group and two in the placebo group).

The authors write that one explanation for lack of statistically significant differences between the treatment groups in all-type cancer incidence is that the study group had higher baseline vitamin D (serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D) levels compared with the U.S. population.

"Further research is necessary to assess the possible role of vitamin D in cancer prevention."

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(doi:10.1001/jama.2017.2115; the study is available pre-embargo at the For the Media website)

Editor's Note: Please see the articles for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.

Related material: The editorial, "Vitamin D, Calcium, and Cancer," by JoAnn E. Manson, M.D., Dr.P.H., of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, also is available at the For The Media website.

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.2017.2115
Women with insurance coverage for in vitro fertilization (IVF) were more likely to attempt IVF again and had a higher probability of live birth than women who self-paid for IVF, according to a study published by JAMA.

Because IVF is expensive and often cost-prohibitive, some states mandate IVF insurance coverage. Emily S. Jungheim, M.D., M.S.C.I., of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine, and colleagues examined the cumulative probability of live birth among women with and without IVF insurance coverage at the Fertility and Reproductive Medicine Center at Washington University, a center located near the border between Illinois, which mandates IVF coverage, and Missouri, which does not.

Women initiating IVF from 2001 through 2010 were included and observed through 2014.

Of the 1,572 women in the sample, 56 percent had IVF insurance coverage (40 percent mandated, 60 percent nonmandated) and 44 percent were self-pay. The two groups did not differ medically, but patients with coverage were younger. The researchers found that IVF coverage status was not associated with probability of live birth in individual cycles. However, the proportion returning for a second cycle if unsuccessful in the first cycle was 0.703 among women with coverage compared with 0.516 among self-paying women. The average cumulative live birth probability after four cycles for women with coverage, 0.585, was significantly higher than that for self-paying women, 0.505. The difference in cumulative live birth rates adjusting for patient risk factors between insured and self-pay patients after four cycles narrowed to 0.054, but was still significant.

"These findings demonstrate legislation mandating IVF insurance coverage may improve the delivery and outcomes of fertility treatments," the authors write.

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(doi:10.1001/jama.2017.0727; the study is available pre-embargo at the For the Media website)

Editor's Note: This work was supported by a grant from the Women's Reproductive Health Research Program of the National Institutes of Health. All authors have completed and submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest and none were reported.

To place an electronic embedded link to this study in your story This link will be live at the embargo time: http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/10.1001/jama.2017.0727
Knee replacement surgery for patients with osteoarthritis, as currently used, provides minimal improvements in quality of life and is economically unattractive, according to a study led by Mount Sinai researchers and published today in the BMJ. However, if the procedure was only offered to patients with more severe symptoms, its effectiveness would rise, and its use would become economically more attractive as well, the researchers said.

"Given its limited effectiveness in individuals with less severely affected physical function, performance of total knee replacement in these patients seems to be economically unjustifiable," said Bart Ferket, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Population Health Science and Policy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and lead author on the study. "Considerable cost savings could be made by limiting eligibility to patients with more symptomatic knee osteoarthritis. Our findings emphasize the need for more research comparing total knee replacement with less expensive, more conservative interventions, particularly in patients with less severe symptoms."

About 12 percent of adults in the United States are affected by osteoarthritis of the knee. The annual rate of total knee replacement has doubled since 2000, mainly due to expanding eligibility to patients with less severe physical symptoms. The number of procedures performed each year now exceeds 640,000 at a total annual cost of about $10.2 billion, yet health benefits are higher in those with more severe symptoms before surgery.

A team of researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, set out to evaluate the impact of total knee replacement on quality of life in people with knee osteoarthritis. They also wanted to estimate differences in lifetime costs and quality adjusted life years or QALYs (a measure of years lived and health during these years) according to level of symptoms.

They analyzed data from two U.S. cohort studies: one with 4,498 participants aged 45-79 with or at high risk for knee osteoarthritis from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI), and the other involving 2,907 patients from the Multicenter Osteoarthritis Study (MOST). OAI participants were followed up for nine years and MOST patients were followed up for two years. Quality of life was measured using a recognized score of physical and mental function, known as SF-12, and using some osteoarthritis-specific quality of life scores.

They found that quality of life outcomes generally improved after knee replacement surgery, although the effect was small. The improvements in quality of life outcomes were found higher when patients with lower physical scores before surgery were operated on.

In a cost-effectiveness analysis, current practice was more expensive and in some cases seemed even less effective compared with scenarios in which total knee replacement was performed only in patients with lower physical function.

"Our findings show opportunity for optimizing delivery of total knee replacement in a cost-effective way, finding the patients who will benefit the most, delivering the treatment at the correct point in their disease progression, and optimizing the cost so we can deliver the benefit to all who need it," said Madhu Mazumdar, PhD, Director of the Institute for Healthcare Delivery Science at the Mount Sinai Health System, Professor of Biostatistics, Department of Population Health Science and Policy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and co-author of the study.

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Funding for the cohort studies used in the analysis was provided by the National Institutes of Health, Merck Research Laboratories, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, GlaxoSmithKline, and Pfizer. Dr. Ferket is supported by the American Heart Association. The researchers have no competing interests to disclose.

About the Mount Sinai Health System

The Mount Sinai Health System is an integrated health system committed to providing distinguished care, conducting transformative research, and advancing biomedical education. Structured around seven hospital campuses and a single medical school, the Health System has an extensive ambulatory network and a range of inpatient and outpatient services--from community-based facilities to tertiary and quaternary care.

The System includes approximately 7,100 primary and specialty care physicians; 12 joint-venture ambulatory surgery centers; more than 140 ambulatory practices throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and 31 affiliated community health centers. Physicians are affiliated with the renowned Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, which is ranked among the highest in the nation in National Institutes of Health funding per investigator. The Mount Sinai Hospital is in the "Honor Roll" of best hospitals in America, ranked No. 15 nationally in the 2016-2017 "Best Hospitals" issue of U.S. News & World Report. The Mount Sinai Hospital is also ranked as one of the nation's top 20 hospitals in Geriatrics, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Nephrology, Neurology/Neurosurgery, and Ear, Nose & Throat, and is in the top 50 in four other specialties. New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked No. 10 nationally for Ophthalmology, while Mount Sinai Beth Israel, Mount Sinai St. Luke's, and Mount Sinai West are ranked regionally. Mount Sinai's Kravis Children's Hospital is ranked in seven out of ten pediatric specialties by U.S. News & World Report in "Best Children's Hospitals."

For more information, visit http://www.mountsinai.org/, or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Researchers find that dust from the Gobi Desert is providing more phosphorus than previously thought for plants in the Sierra Nevadas

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Dust from as far away as the Gobi Desert in Asia is providing more nutrients than previously thought for plants, including giant sequoias, in California's Sierra Nevada mountains, a team of scientists, including several from the University of California, Riverside, have found.

The scientists found that dust from the Gobi Desert and the Central Valley of California contributed more phosphorus for plants in the Sierra Nevadas than bedrock weathering, which is breaking down of rock buried beneath the soil. Phosophorus is one of the basic elements that plants need to survive, and the Sierra Nevadas are considered a phosphorus-limited ecosystem.

"In recent years it has been a bit of mystery how all these big trees have been sustained in this ecosystem without a lot of phosphorus in the bedrock," said Emma Aronson, an assistant professor of plant pathology and microbiology at UC Riverside. "This work begins to unravel that mystery and show that dust may be shaping this iconic California ecosystem."

Aronson is a co-author of a just-published paper in the journal Nature Communications about the research. Two other scientists with UC Riverside ties are co-authors: Chelsea Carey, a former post-doctoral researcher in Aronson's lab; and Jon Botthoff, a field technician at the university's Center for Conservation Biology.

The study may help scientists predict the impacts of climate change which is expected to increase drought and create more desert conditions around the world, possibly including California. If that happens, based on these findings, scientists expect a lot more dust moving in the atmosphere, and likely bringing phosphorus and important nutrients to far flung mountainous ecosystems.

Nutrients such as carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus regulate the distribution of life across Earth's surface. Therefore it is important to understand the different sources of nutrients, including underlying bedrock and wind-spread dust. Quantifying the importance of dust, which is sensitive to changes in climate and land use, is crucial for predicting how ecosystems will respond to global warming and greater use of the land.

Little is known about the role of dust in mountainous forest ecosystems, such as the Sierra Nevadas. To change that, the researchers quantified the relative importance of dust and bedrock in ecosystem nutrient supply across four sites of increasing elevation, from about 1,300 to 8,800 feet, in the Sierra Nevadas, just east of Merced.

They then combined dust they collected with existing erosion data at the same location. They captured the dust using homemade dust collectors, which consisted of non-stick bundt pans filled with glass marbles to keep the dust from blowing out. The pans were attached to 6-foot poles to prevent dust kicked up by the researchers from entering the pans.

The researchers studied the isotopic signatures in several elements in the dust to determine the place of origin of the dust. The isotopes act a fingerprint for source of origin.

The percentage of Asian dust ranged from 20 percent on average at the lowest elevation, to 45 percent on average at the highest elevation. The percentages were higher at the higher elevation sites because dust tends to travel high in the air stream and not fall unless it hits an object, such as a mountain.

The researchers found that the amount of dust from Central Valley sources was greater at lower elevations compared to higher elevations. That was expected, but they also found that more Central Valley dust was entering higher elevations later in the dry season than just after the spring rains.

"Considering we took our measurements in 2014, in the middle of the drought, this makes us think that the drought is a factor here." Aronson said.

The researchers believe their findings will hold true for other mountainous ecosystems around the world and have implications for predicting forest response to changes in climate and land use.

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They conducted the field work in one of the nine National Science Foundation Critical Zone Observatories, which are environmental laboratories focused on interconnected chemical, physical and biological processes. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.

The Nature Communications paper is called "Dust outpaces bedrock in nutrient supply to montane forest ecosystems." In addition to Aronson, Carey and Botthoff, the authors are: Sarah Aciego, Molly Blakowski and Sarah Aarons, all of the University of Michigan; Stephen Hart and Nicholas Dove, both of UC Merced; and Cliff Riebe and Kenneth Sim, both of the University of Wyoming.
In terms of behavior and brain activation, the feelings entrepreneurs have for their companies are similar to those that parents have for their children. A recent study shows that love is a major motivator both for parents and entrepreneurs.

A multidisciplinary study, run by researcher Marja-Liisa Halko from the University of Helsinki, asks whether entrepreneurs love their companies like parents love their children. The study used functional MRIs to study the brain activity of fathers and high-growth entrepreneurs. Fathers were shown pictures of their own children as well as other children they knew. Entrepreneurs were shown pictures of their own companies and other companies that they were familiar with.

The results from Finnish fathers were similar to those from previous brain studies primarily conducted on mothers. Looking at images of one's own child in particular deactivates the parts of the brain that are responsible for the theory of mind and social understanding. Similar deactivations were observed among entrepreneurs who self-rated as being very closely attached to their company.

Low confidence can sensitize to risks

Meanwhile, the activation of the brain areas responsible for rewarding and processing emotions seemed to be associated with the confidence of the research subjects among both fathers and especially among entrepreneurs. High confidence is more typical among men than it is among women.

"Our results indicate that less confident fathers and male entrepreneurs may be more sensitive to the dangers and risks of parenting and entrepreneurship," says Marja-Liisa Halko.

On the other hand, the results also suggest that overconfidence and the repression of negative emotions may lead to overestimation of the probability of success and overly optimistic assumptions for the company.

The study, entitled "Entrepreneurial and parental love - are they the same?", was published in the journal Human Brain Mapping and can be accessed online at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hbm.23562/full.

The study tested the hypothesis that the emotional bond an entrepreneur feels for the company is similar to the bond experienced by a parent towards the child. Entrepreneurs are very emotionally involved with their companies, and this involvement supports the long-term efforts of the entrepreneur. This hypothesis had never before been scientifically tested.

This study, conducted by researchers Marja-Liisa Halko, Tom Lahti from Hanken School of Economics, Kaisa Hytonen from Laurea University of Applied Sciences and Iiro Jaaskelainen from Aalto University, sought to establish that the love an entrepreneur feels for the company is very similar to the love a parent feels for the child.

###

Further information:

Marja-Liisa Halko, University of Helsinki, Finland

Tel. +358 029 412 8733

marja-liisa.halko@helsinki.fi
EUGENE, Ore. -- March 28, 2017 -- University of Oregon biologists have figured out how zebrafish perfectly regenerate amputated fins with a precisely organized skeleton.

Adult zebrafish fins, including their complex skeleton, regenerate exactly to their original form within two weeks after an amputation. The process, they found, is driven by clusters of specialized skin cells that migrate over reforming bones, known as rays, and escort bone cells into the right positions to form individual bones of a branched skeleton.

These skin cells produce a protein called Sonic hedgehog, which interacts with bone-building cells called osteoblasts to promote bone patterning during fin regeneration.

"The orderly reconstruction of zebrafish fins is amazing to see," said Kryn Stankunas, a professor in the Department of Biology and member of the Institute of Molecular Biology. "Zebrafish fins, which are akin to our limbs, regenerate perfectly. The zebrafish bony rays re-branch just like the original structure. This would be like losing your arm and watching it progressively regenerate complete with a hand and fingers -- all the bones restored in their original configuration."

The findings will not lead to humans re-growing lost limbs, Stankunas said, but such advances in understanding the fundamental processes of regeneration in related vertebrate organisms will inform innovative and targeted therapeutic strategies to improve the repair of broken bones.

"The mechanism -- how the skin and bone cells dynamically move and interact using the signaling pathway -- is elegant and unexpected, broadening the project's impact on regenerative medicine," Stankunas said.

Hedgehog signaling, he added, is also linked to several human cancers.

"The zebrafish fin provides a tractable and simple model to decipher mechanisms of regenerative skeletal patterning," the researchers wrote in their paper in the March 28 issue of the journal Development, a publication of the non-profit Company of Biologists in the United Kingdom.

Benjamin E. Armstrong, who earned a doctorate in biochemistry in 2016, was the study's lead author. Scott Stewart, a research professor in the Institute of Molecular Biology, co-directed the project.

The research team used genetically modified zebrafish that produces a fluorescent protein that helps identify the subset of skin and bone cells that respond to Hedgehog signals. The fluorescent marker appears green under the microscope until illuminated with ultraviolet light to photo-convert the green protein to red.

This photo-conversion method revealed that repairing skin cells collectively move towards the tip of the regenerating fin. At particular times, Sonic hedgehog is induced in skin cell clusters that then split into two pools. Simultaneously, the skin cells activate a Hedgehog response in adjacent osteoblasts. That drives them to associate with the skin cells and co-migrate into split groups. The now separated bone cells continue to regenerate replacement bone, but now forming two rays instead of one - a branched skeleton.

"We could see that the bone cells responding to the skin-produced Sonic hedgehog become physically attached to the migrating skin cells," Stewart said. "The pathway is quickly turned off but the now split groups of bone cells will then form two separated mature bony rays connected at a branch point."

To define the functions of the Hedgehog signaling pathway, the researchers used a new chemical inhibitor, BMS-833923, to turn off Hedgehog signaling in their experimental fish. With Hedgehog blocked, the skin and bone cells failed to interact, and the fin regenerated with stick-like rays rather than forming a branched skeleton.

The inhibitor used in the study is in clinical trials against some forms of human cancers, but it had not been used in zebrafish. The Hedgehog pathway is most associated with basal cell carcinoma and medulloblastoma, Stankunas said.

"The Hedgehog response is absolutely required for branching and not essential for any other aspect of regeneration," Stankunas said. "Instructions that drive the branching come from the skin cells moving into two groups and likewise dividing the osteoblasts. This is new information. It is the traffic pattern generated by the signaling that regenerates the fin. It is skin and bone working together."

###

Astra Henner, lab manager and research assistant, was the fourth co-author of the paper.

The National Institutes of Health funded the project through a training grant to Armstrong and research grants to Stankunas and Stewart.

Source: Kryn Stankunas, associate professor of biology, 541-346-7416, kryn@uoregon.edu

Note: The UO is equipped with an on-campus television studio with a point-of-origin Vyvx connection, which provides broadcast-quality video to networks worldwide via fiber optic network. There also is video access to satellite uplink and audio access to an ISDN codec for broadcast-quality radio interviews.

Links:

Development Paper: http://dev.biologists.org/content/144/7/1165

About Stankunas: http://molbio.uoregon.edu/stankunas/

About Scott Stewart: http://molbio.uoregon.edu/stewart/

Department of Biology: http://biology.uoregon.edu/

Institute of Molecular Biology: http://molbio.uoregon.edu/
New Zealand children's exposure to lead linked to lower IQ

Extremely high levels of lead in New Zealand cities in the 1970s and 1980s appear responsible for a loss of intelligence and occupational standing among today's adults.

The latest research from New Zealand's University of Otago long-running Dunedin Study shows that among more than 500 children who grew up in the era of leaded petrol, those exposed to lead had a lower IQ and social standing by the age of 38, relative to peers who had less exposure.

The research, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, says the effects are "slight but significant", also revealing that the higher the blood-lead level was in childhood, the greater the loss of IQ points and occupational status in adulthood.

New Zealand's lead levels were consistently higher than international standards during the 1970s and 1980s, largely due to motor-vehicle exhaust fumes.

The study's participants are part of the life-long examination of more than 1,000 people born in Dunedin in 1972 and 1973, and carried out by scientists from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit.

Blood-lead tests were conducted for 565 of them at age 11. Participants with more than 10 micrograms of lead per decilitre of blood at age 11 had IQs at age 38 that were, on average, 4.25 points lower than their less lead-exposed peers. They were also found to have lost IQ points relative to their own childhood scores. The study showed that for each five-microgram increase in childhood blood lead, a person lost about 1.5 IQ points by age 38.

The mean blood-lead level of the children at age 11 was 10.99 micrograms per decilitre of blood, slightly higher than the historical "level of concern" for lead exposure in the 1990s.

Ninety-four per cent of the children had blood-lead levels greater than five micrograms per decilitre, the level at which the United States' Center for Disease Control and Prevention now recommends a public-health intervention.

About half of the 11-year-olds had levels in excess of 10 micrograms per decilitre of blood.

The paper's senior author, Dunedin Study Associate Director Professor Terrie Moffitt of Duke University, says the data was from an era when such high lead levels were viewed as normal for children and not dangerous.

In 1984, when the Dunedin children were tested, only a lead level in excess of 35 micrograms per decilitre signalled a need for medical investigation. The study referred 10 children at the time for further testing.

"This research shows how far-sighted New Zealand was when the country banned leaded petrol in 1996.

"Lead exposure is very rare in Kiwi children today. But the findings suggest the importance of keeping up our vigilance against other environmental pollutants."

Researchers say what makes the New Zealand study an important natural experiment is that, because traffic goes through all neighbourhoods, the exposure to leaded petrol fumes was therefore distributed relatively evenly across all social groups.

That would not be the case with exposure to leaded paint or lead pipes in older structures, which pose more of a threat to poorer families.

The study also compared changes in social standing using the New Zealand Socioeconomic Index, which plots families on a six-point scale.

Children who were over 10 micrograms of lead attained occupations with socioeconomic status levels lower than those of their parents.

"As of the start of this year, the long-term adult cognitive outcomes of children exposed to lead were unknown, due to a lack of research. Our new paper fills that gap.

"In the 1980s, the Dunedin Study, guided by Professor Phil Silva, was influential in making New Zealanders aware that lead might be harmful to children," Professor Moffitt says.

Dunedin Study Director Professor Richie Poulton and Associate Professor Jonathan Broadbent, of Otago University's Faculty of Dentistry, are also co-authors.

Associate Professor Broadbent says today's adults are likely to have been affected by lead exposure as children.

"Most did not have their lead exposures tested as children. However, one way to test this is to test the baby teeth, if they have been kept."

Soil retains lead particles, with soils next to busy roads having the highest lead concentrations from the leaded-petrol era. Children playing outside either inhaled lead-laden dust or swallowed small amounts of leaded soil.

Lead is a powerful neurotoxin that can accumulate in a child's bloodstream, then settles into the bones, teeth and soft tissues and builds up in the body.

Paper co-author Professor Avshalom Caspi, of Duke University, says wherever you start in life, "lead is going to exert a downward pull".

"If everyone takes a hit from environmental pollutants, society as a whole suffers."

Main author Aaron Reuben, a Duke PhD candidate, says the lower occupational status is "partially but significantly explained by the loss of IQ".

"The cognitive deficits associated with lead persisted for decades, and showed in the kinds of occupations people got."

###

The research unit is supported by the New Zealand Health Research Council and New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

This research also received support from US National Institute on Aging, the UK Medical Research, the Economic and Social Research Council and the Jacobs Foundation.

The study will be made available at this site at embargo time: http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/10.1001/jama.2017.1712

For more information, please contact:

Professor Terrie Moffitt

Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit (this month)

Tel: 03 479 8507

Mobile: +1 919 475 2974

Email: terrie.moffitt@duke.edu
Among the enumerated powers of the student body president at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is the authority to veto any legislation approved by the student senate within eight days.

Like the U.S. Constitution, the rules guiding the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska requires a two-thirds majority of all voting senators to override a presidential veto.

But just how broadly the president can wield a veto will be up to the UNL Student Court Tuesday night, when the rarely used judicial branch of student government convenes to interpret the language and intentions of the ASUN constitution.

The case before the seven student justices stems from a veto of a student fee allocation to the Daily Nebraskan, UNLs student newspaper, by student body President Spencer Hartman on March 10.

The student senate approved 19-9 to allocate $135,000 to the Daily Nebraskan for 2017-18, ignoring a recommendation by the Committee on Fee Allocation to strip that amount by $20,000.

In his veto message, Hartman said while he supports the Daily Nebraskan, he had concerns over the level of unspent reserves held by the newspaper, which far exceeded the reserve funds of other student organizations.

Student senators failed to override Hartmans veto on a 21-6 vote, needing 22 senators to keep the funding level for the Daily Nebraskan flat for next year.

Hartman, a senior ag economics major from Imperial, wrote to his fellow student senators on March 13 that his veto did not strike the Daily Nebraskans budget -- only the $20,000 which was amended and added by ASUN on March 8.

But a day after the veto override failed, the newspaper filed a complaint to UNLs Student Court, alleging Hartman went beyond the scope of powers afforded to the executive branch by the student constitution.

(Hartman) overstepped his presidential authority of line item vetoes of appropriation bills by editing and misinterpreting (the appropriations bill), the newspaper wrote in a complaint to the court.

He only has authority to veto the entire appropriation as there are no other line item appropriations, the Daily Nebraskans complaint states.

The Student Court will review the constitutionality of Hartman's veto at a hearing scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Arbor Suites in the East Campus Union.

Its all about interpretation, said Marlene Beyke, who has worked with student government at UNL since 1978. Theyll be interpreting the constitution and the wording within the constitution as well as precedent that has been set over the years.

In addition to interpreting the constitution, the court and its seven justices -- a chief justice who must be enrolled and in good standing at the College of Law, and six associate justices who must be in good standing at UNL but are not required to be law students -- are responsible for hearing trials of impeachment, as well as settling contested elections and disputes among student organizations or individual students.

Tuesdays hearing will be the only issue to go before the Student Court this year. Its term ends Wednesday.

The court last met in 2015 to settle an election dispute after the ASUN Election Commission removed a student from the ballot after she had won election. A grades check completed after the election -- not before -- showed the winner was not eligible to be on the ballot.

As in the U.S. court system, the Student Court will hold a hearing in which both sides are given a chance to offer opening statements, call witnesses, cross-examine and close before the court.

Decisions made by the Student Court can be appealed to the University Appeals Board, a group of students, faculty and staff.

Dan Shattil, the Daily Nebraskans general manager, said if Hartmans veto is allowed to stand, the student newspaper will have to find cuts, further hurting the organization which switched from printing five days a week to two in 2014.

The newspaper's annual budget is about $450,000, with about 30 percent coming from student fees and the rest from advertising revenue and hosting special events.

The Daily Nebraskan's $700,000 reserve highlighted by Hartman and the fees committee as the basis for the cut in its student fee allocation, is used to cover potential libel suits as well as revenue losses.

Theres not much left to cut, Shattil said, explaining a big portion of the newspapers expenses are tied to fixed costs like insurance, software licensing and equipment.

Scaling back the number of reporters, photographers and editors -- positions alumni of the Daily Nebraskan argued at an ASUN meeting have helped launch their careers -- would hurt the quality and quantity of the stories the newspaper can publish, and further decrease its student engagement and make it more difficult to sell advertising.
HOUSTON - (March 28, 2017) - Susan Wootton, M.D., associate professor of pediatric infectious diseases at McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), will lead a project to increase low vaccination rates among pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students in the Houston Independent School District (HISD).

The Texas Medical Center's Health Policy Institute has awarded $232,000 to Wootton for the first year of the project, which will be done in collaboration with UTHealth School of Public Health, UTHealth School of Nursing, Baylor College of Medicine, HISD and the Houston Department of Health and Human Services (HDHHS).

"Vaccinating children saves lives, prevents disability and reduces health care costs. Unfortunately, Texas is now 42th in the United States for childhood vaccinations, with rates below those of Nepal and other developing countries," said Wootton, who is also a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital.

Schools are in charge of enforcing vaccine mandates established by the Texas Education Agency. However, compliance with the vaccine mandates can be a challenge. Nineteen percent of pre-kindergarten students and 17 percent of kindergarten students were delinquent or did not receive at least one state-mandated vaccine, according to the 2016-2017 HISD Annual Vaccination Report.

Wootton says low vaccination rates put entire schools at risk for costly outbreaks, such as the recent mumps outbreak at Cedar Hill High School in Dallas County, where 30 students and staff have been diagnosed with the disease.

During the one-year project, researchers will identify the barriers to vaccination such as lack of access, community demand and organizational policies. They will also conduct on-site vaccination campaigns and parent outreach programs in schools, explore opportunities to improve existing vaccination policies and procedures within HISD and develop a multilevel intervention to reduce vaccine delinquency rates among children attending targeted schools by 75 percent.

"We hope to achieve immunization rates in HISD as high as in any major school system in the U.S, particularly among schools attended by children with limited access to medical care," said Wootton.

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Co-investigators from UTHealth include Maria Fernandez, Ph.D.; Eric Ratliff, Ph.D., M.P.H.; Paula Cuccaro, Ph.D.; Rigoberto Delgado, Ph.D., M.B.A.; Cathy Rozmus, Ph.D., R.N.; Christine Desomeaux, R.N., Ph.D., and Elenir Avritscher, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A.

Chris Greeley, M.D., from Baylor College of Medicine; Omar Salgado from HDHHS; Gwendolyn A. Johnson, R.N., B.S.N., and Lisa Blackmon-Jobes, D.N.P., R.N., from HISD will also serve as co-investigators on the project.
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Scottish dairy farmers are being urged to apply for EU funding to support them implement key on-farm management tools.

In 2016 the EU Commission set aside 350 million to be shared out between each Member State in order to contribute to market stabilisation. The UK was allocated 25m.

The funding is targeted towards the hardest hit dairy farmers by encouraging the widespread uptake of milk recording and production profiling techniques, which provide dairy farmers with the information required to help make informed business decisions.

The highest payment rate, 4,000, will be made available to farmers on Bute, Arran, Mull, and the Kintyre peninsula to protect the supply base for Campbeltown creamery.

Farmers who were paid less than 20p per litre (ppl) during 2016 will receive 3,250, producers who were under 25ppl will get 2,000 each, while those who received 25ppl or more will receive 1,000.

Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing said: It is clear that some farmers suffered more than others during the latest period of market instability, which put severe downward pressure on dairy farm gate prices."

Meanwhile, because of compulsory changes to the Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (LFASS) by the European Commission, it is proposed that hill farmers and crofters in Scotland's most fragile and remote areas will receive a parachute payment in 2018 of 80 per cent of their LFASS rate.
A majority of EU countries voted on Monday (27 March) against allowing two new genetically modified (GM) crops to be grown in Europe.

The new licences, for two new GM maize varieties to be grown in the European Union, means the applications will now be passed to farm ministers.

EU Member States were asked to vote on the future of Pioneer's 1507 and Syngenta's Bt11, which kill insects by producing their own pesticide and are also resistant to a particular herbicide.

The governments were also asked to determine whether to extend authorisation for Monsanto's MON810, an insect-resistant maize that is grown mainly in Spain, but banned in a number of other counties.

Member states voting in an appeals committee in Brussels were overall split on the issue  with 30% of the vote in favour, 47% against and 23% abstaining.

However, the votes against were not decisive in blocking their introduction because the opposition did not represent a "qualified majority" - also including countries that make up at least 65 percent of the EU population.

This means it must now pass to EU farm ministers, which is considered a more senior level. They are due to meet in May this year.

Commission spokesman Enrico Brivio said: "In practice this means that the three GMOs, if and once authorised at EU level, will not in any case be cultivated on the terrorities benefiting from the opt out."

Opposition remains strong

Mute Schimpf, food campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe, said the decision now lies with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

"He can put himself on the side of the majority of countries, citizens and farmers who do not want genetically modified crops, or he can back the mega-corporations behind the industrialisation of our countryside," she said.

MON810 is banned in 17 EU countries and is grown on less than 1 per cent of agricultural land, mainly in Spain and Portugal, according to the green lobby group.

Repeated EU scientific assessments have concluded that GMO crops are as safe for humans and the environment as their conventional counterparts, but consumer opposition to the technology in Europe remains strong.

MON810 is the only GM crop grown in Europe. A potato developed by BASF was granted approval in 2010, but the German company withdrew it in 2012.
The dynamic agritech innovation and incubation hub, Farm491 is delighted to be opening five new practical workspaces at its Harnhill site, Gloucestershire, this April.

Following a soft launch, the official opening will then take place on the 30th June  with a celebrity appearance from rare breeds farmer and TV Presenter Adam Henson.

Farm491 is the ground-breaking incubation hub at the Royal Agricultural University (RAU) that facilitates the growth of agribusinesses.

In its entirety, the hub will comprise of different dynamic spaces where entrepreneurs can trial ideas, establish an office base or utilise Farm491s network of academics, farmers, data, business advisors and industry influencers.

Members at Farm491 are at the heart of innovation  from farm machinery trading platforms, digital land management tools, meat certification to tracking devices; Farm491 is supporting businesses, who through technology, will be vital in securing a sustainable agricultural economy.

Five new workspaces to open April 2017

At the end of April 2017, five cutting-edge workshops, in a renovated farm barn at the Harnhill site, will welcome their first innovators through the doors.

This will provide vital space to research, test and refine ideas for the benefit of the wider agricultural and food production industries  where technology will be vital in feeding a growing global population.

The workshops are designed to give maximum flexibility to those wishing to use them. Full height with pedestrian access on one side and a roller shutter door the other side.

The design, structure and layout of the new workspaces has been instructed by SRA Architects  and Snape Contractors have been employed to carry out the building work. Members who sign up to use the collaborative workshop space at Harnhill will also have use of office space, meeting rooms and access to the adjacent Cotswold farmland owned by the RAU.

The workspaces are also located on a RAU farm allowing entrepreneurs easy access to livestock, crops and the neighboring Rural Innovation Centre.

'Low energy approach'

Project Partner, David Beckett, SRA Architects says: For the Harnhill workspaces we have worked in line with the RAU and Farm491s commitment to sustainability and pledge to reduce CO2 emissions campus wide. The building has been designed with a low energy approach.

Natural daylight is maximized by large areas of glazing on both north and south facades, and lower level windows are operable on ground and first floor to provide natural ventilation. At ground floor, air is drawn through deep open spaces to the south side via exhaust vents, which discharge air through the north facade. The building requires no additional cooling other than assisted natural ventilation. When completed this building will be an excellent addition to the Farm491 initiative.

Angela Simkins, Farm491 Centre Director added: We have some exciting months ahead of us at Farm491  and we are really looking forward to opening the doors to the first workspaces at Harnhill. So far, we already have BASF ready to move into one of the larger workshops (an agronomy company) and Multibox another (an insect farming company).

She concludes: The agritech industry is currently valued at 400 billion globally and 450,000 people are employed by agriculture and agritech in the UK alone. Our members at Farm491 represent a spectrum of innovations, where they are applying technology in unique and interesting ways to significantly shape and sustain the future of British agriculture.

The new practical workspaces at our Harnhill site are a step to supporting, embracing, and encouraging further technology advancement.
Billionaire businessman Sir Richard Branson has said that New Zealand farmers should grow cannabis instead of expanding dairy operations.

Branson was in the country over the weekend to speak at a charity event.

In an interview with New Zealand's Newshub, he predicted cannabis would become more acceptable in the near future.

Branson urged the country to legalise and grow cannabis at the expense of slowing the dairy industry there down.

He said: "I think that would be wonderful because obviously the amount of dairy cows that New Zealand has is damaging the rivers, if you could put some of that land over into growing cannabis would be just as profitable for them, if not more profitable."

'Farmers welcome any opportunity'

Federated Farmers, New Zealand's farming organisation which lobbies on behalf of its members, said they would look at it if it was legal and profitable.

National president William Rolleston told Newshub: "Farmers welcome any opportunity to add another string to their bow, and would look at that option only if it was legal and profitable to do so... But that is a long way down the track," he said.

Agriculture is a big player in the New Zealand economy, and has recently been blamed for the increasing pollution of the country's rivers and waterways.

However, it is reported that New Zealand's dairy farmers have spent billions of dollars in combating river pollution.
Syngenta has today highlighted results for the third year of The Good Growth Plan, which comprises six commitments for 2020 to support the sustainability of agriculture and the development of rural communities.

In 2016, the seed giant projects enhanced biodiversity and soil conservation on a cumulative 9.2 million hectares of land, creating rich, connected wildlife habitats in 34 countries.

Together, these soil and biodiversity programs cover an area close to the size of Portugal.

A key contribution came from the Soja+Verde project in Brazil, where the multinational is working in partnership with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) on the restoration of rainforest in agricultural landscapes.

To assess its progress on crop productivity, Syngenta collected data from 3,700 farms in 42 countries. This shows that the productivity and resource efficiency of those Reference farms which use Syngenta's protocols were nearly 4% higher than the Benchmark farms.

20 million smallholders by 2020

In addition, the company reached over 16.5 million smallholders with those participating in Reference Farms benefiting from an 8 per cent productivity increase.

Syngenta says this demonstrates the potential of technology and agronomic training to not only help small holders to feed themselves and their families but also improve their livelihoods.

It says it remains confident of achieving the target of reaching 20 million smallholders by 2020.

Over the past year, Syngenta has also trained nearly 7 million people in the safe use of its products, bringing the cumulative total to over 17 million farmers since the plan started  70 per cent of which are smallholders in developing countries.

Syngenta Chief Executive Officer, Erik Fyrwald, said: Going forward, we want to evolve the plan further to better understand how farmers can improve the efficiency with which they use water and reduce their carbon emissions. And by continuing to partner with our customers, suppliers and other stakeholders in the food value chain, we will be better able to combine the resources and knowledge required to safely feed the world and take care of our planet.
Bird flu: Poultry in England must now be housed indoors
Fitbit (FIT) isn't giving up on new product rollouts just because sales growth is going the wrong way. The leading player in wearable fitness announced retail availability of Alta HR on Monday.

Fitbit stock was trading as much as 5% higher following Monday's news, but it's hard to believe that the new product is the reason for the market's crisp enthusiasm. For starters, this is old news. Fitbit introduced Alta HR three weeks ago, accepting pre-orders online at the time. It announced that the fitness tracker would be available at retailers worldwide in early April -- so late March -- is a welcome surprise, but outside of possibly propping up Fitbit's first-quarter results at the expense of the second quarter, there isn't a lot to be excited about here.

The former market darling put out several new products last year, and none of them were enough to turn around Fitbit's sluggish stock performance. Alta HR should sell well, but it's not likely to move the needle. It's an existing bracelet's update when a game changer is the innovative prescription to cure what ails the investment.

Taking you by the wrist

Alta HR will be popular, but the advances of the tracker with its slim form factor will be more evolutionary than revolutionary. Improved features include heart-rate tracking and better sleep monitoring. A smaller PurePulse chip is allowing Fitbit to market Alta HR as the world's slimmest band that continuously monitors the wearer's heart rate, but it's not as if folks are dismissing trackers because they're too bulky.

The problem with Fitbit is that the world isn't buying dedicated fitness trackers the way they used to. Revenue declined 19% during the holiday quarter, including an even sharper 28% plunge in U.S. sales. The near-term outlook is bleak. Fitbit's guidance calls for revenue to slide by 22% to 31% for all of 2017.

Smartphones incorporating advanced health-tracking features aren't helping, giving people one less reason to carry an extra gadget around. The popularity of smartwatches and GPS watches may be growing slowly, but there are now a lot of companies vying for one of your two wrists.

Fitbit's making inroads in corporate wellness, with companies springing for fitness trackers for their employees as a way to encourage active lifestyles and lower their health insurance exposure. However, that clearly isn't going to be enough given Fitbit's near-term forecast for double-digit percentage declines through this year.

There could be a product out there that changes everything. Fitbit has been acquiring smartwatch and payment-processing tech companies, and we've yet to see all those pieces come together. However, just updating an existing product isn't likely to be enough to turn the sales slump around.
The stock of mining company Northern Dynasty Minerals (NAK -0.28%) has seen a dramatic change of fortune virtually overnight. As investors are now well aware, the Trump administration's affinity for deregulation has sent shares soaring in recent months as the market bets that the company will have an easier permitting process for its Pebble Project in Alaska -- one of the largest undeveloped deposits of gold and copper in the world. That's especially true considering the U.S. Environmental Protection Administration didn't even allow the permitting process to proceed under the previous administration due to environmental concerns.

While I've previously reviewed how the situation may unfold over the next 10 years, I think there is one stat that investors are overlooking that could sink Northern Dynasty Minerals. Leading gold producer Barrick Gold (GOLD 2.61%) provides a powerful example illustrating the potential risk.

Gold resources vs. gold concentration

Northern Dynasty Minerals offers some pretty impressive potential on paper -- even if investors only include measured resources. That is the mineral resource estimate grade with the highest level of confidence, while indicated and inferred resources offer decreasingly lower levels of confidence for geologists, respectively. Here's the company's most up-to-date resource estimate for the Pebble Project:

Mineral Measured Indicated Inferred Copper 3.83 billion pounds 53.42 billion pounds 24.55 billion pounds Gold 5.93 million ounces 64.62 million ounces 37.25 million ounces Molybdenum 0.21 billion pounds 3.20 billion pounds 2.18 billion pounds Silver 28.13 million ounces 315.5 million ounces 170.5 million ounces

With additional vetting these categories have the potential to be upgraded from resources to proven and/or probably reserves -- the Holy Grail of estimates -- which are usually considered as the measured and indicated resources that can be extracted economically. Because this hasn't yet been determined, Northern Dynasty Minerals is careful to say that's the estimates in the table above "potentially support a modern, long-life mine."

For argument's sake, let's assume that all of the measured and indicated resources become proven and probable reserves. That would give the company a staggering 70 million ounces of gold and considerable other mineral reserves. By comparison, Barrick Gold listed a combined 18.3 million ounces of proven and probable reserves of gold at its two largest American mines, Goldstrike and Cortez, both in Nevada.

But that may just be the problem. Investors are focusing on the total amount of gold (and other resources) underground at Pebble, when the more important number is likely to be the concentration of gold in the raw ore. This metric, measured in grams of gold per metric ton of ore, dictates a project's financial feasibility (and the amount of resources that are ultimately upgraded to reserves).

Northern Dynasty Minerals estimates that the raw ore in measured and indicated resources at Pebble contain average gold concentrations ranging between 0.34 g/MT and 0.51 g/MT. But only 8.3% of the raw ore in those resource grades is estimated to have the highest average concentration of gold.

By contrast, Barrick Gold lists the gold concentrations at Goldstrike and Cortez at 3.55 g/MT and 2.11 g/MT, respectively -- and those are low by international standards! In other words, these mines boast gold concentrations that are between four and seven times higher than those estimated in the best parts of the expansive Pebble Project. When investors consider that these mines achieved 2016 cost of sales of $852 per ounce and $901 per ounce, respectively, it's reasonable to wonder whether or not Northern Dynasty Minerals will ever be able to make a profit from its gold resources.

What does it mean for investors?

There are other important factors that affect the cost of production. For instance, Alaska and Nevada -- the nation's top gold-producing state -- have different geographies and regulations (although Alaska has some of the strictest state regulations in the country). The mines may also leverage different extraction techniques. However, investors need to consider the significant risk posed by Pebble's low gold concentrations -- low by any standard -- regardless of the total estimated resources.
In the current low-interest-rate environment, plenty of investors have been hunting for higher yield from dividend stocks. This hunt has driven the valuation of many blue chip dividend payers to near-nosebleed levels. Not only has this trend watered down the effective yield on those stocks, since they trade at premium prices, but it's also increased the downside risk of short-term losses in a market correction.

So what's an income investor to do? A great place to look for underappreciated income stocks right now is the energy industry. Oil and gas prices remain far below recent highs, and a lot of companies in the sector continue to struggle. But there are still some wonderful companies paying solid dividend yields, with varying levels of risk.

Here are three high-yield investments in the energy industry to consider: midstream stalwart Magellan Midstream Partners, L.P. (MMP -0.43%), overlooked French integrated giant Total SA (ADR) (TTE 0.75%), and the supermajor Royal Dutch Shell plc (ADR) (RDS.A) (RDS.B), which is early in its plans to focus on deepwater and natural gas, making its dividend a little riskier.

Keep reading to learn from our Fool contributors more about these high-yield energy investments and why they may be ideal for your portfolio.

A low-risk high yield

Matt DiLallo (Magellan Midstream Partners): With a current yield of 4.4%, Magellan Midstream Partners definitely offers investors a high yield. However, what I like about the company's generous payout compared to other options is that it comes with a much lower-level risk.

Supporting Magellan Midstream's low-risk payout is the stable cash flow it generates from its asset base. Overall, the company gets about 85% of its gross margin from providing fee-based services to the oil and refined-products markets.

The company typically distributes about 80% of that cash flow back to investors, retaining the rest to help finance growth projects. That's a fairly conservative ratio for an MLP, because many others pay out close to, if not more than, 100% of cash flow. Magellan's conservative approach has paid off during the recent oil market downturn because the company hasn't had to follow its more aggressive peers in slashing its payout. Instead, the company has been able to grow the distribution as it completes high-return expansion projects, recently notching its 59th consecutive quarterly increase.

Another reason there's minimal risk associated with Magellan's payout is that it doesn't use much debt to grow its business. As a rule, the company keeps its leverage to less than four times debt-to-EBITDA, which is well below the comfort level of most other midstream companies. In fact, its leverage ratio has been below 3.5 in recent quarters.

Because of that low leverage, the stability of its cash flow, and its conservative payout ratio, Magellan Midstream Partners has one of the highest credit ratings among MLPs. That provides investors with a high level of confidence in the security of this high yield.

High rates of return

Tyler Crowe (Total SA): It's not shocking that brand recognition can have a big influence on the types of investments we make, so investors in the big oil industry might overlook Total because it doesn't have the retail presence in the U.S. that many of its competitors have. That shouldn't keep you from making an investment in this stock, though, because you would be missing out on what has become the leader in the industry in returns on equity for its investors.

As the oil crash really started to take hold in late 2014 through early 2016, Total was in a unique position because many of its major capital projects were brought on line. This development had two big benefits for the company: It allowed it to wind down capital spending and keep its percentage of unproductive working capital low, and it meant rapid increases in total production that helped to offset the declines from realized prices. This is how Total was able to surpass ExxonMobil for the highest return on equity in the business, even though ExxonMobil has an inherent advantage in this metric because it has bought back loads of shares over the years and kept its equity value low.

What is encouraging, though, is that the company has been taking steps to ensure that these returns aren't just a fluke of the downturn. Over the past couple of years, management has signed multiple concession contracts with national oil companies in the Persian Gulf that represent 50 billion barrels of resources, 300,000 barrels per day of production, and a 15% return on average capital employed at today's prices. These low-cost, long-life, high-return projects will help boost profitability over the long term and will be a pillar to support growth in its other big investments in deepwater and LNG.

For investors, all of this comes with a stock that currently yields 5.3%. If you want a high-yield investment with the potential to grow and last for a long time, Total is worth a look.

Don't ignore the risk of a cut

Jason Hall (Royal Dutch Shell plc): With a 6.7% yield on its B shares and over 7% on its A shares (there are different tax implications for the two share classes), Shell is certainly a high-yield stock. And while that yield can make it attractive, it's worth making sure you understand that there is some risk the company could be forced to cut payouts.

Shell made two significant moves that allowed it to acquire BG Group, but those moves also significantly increased its cash outflows. Since the acquisition closed in early 2016, Shell's share count has increased more than 27%, while management has kept the dividend steady, leading to an increase in total dividends paid. Shell's debt has also ballooned, from $53 billion at the end of 2015 to almost $83 billion at the end of 2016.

Combined, the higher share count and debt added $1.6 billion in higher cash outflows to cover these items versus 2015. And since the BG Group acquisition happened several months into 2016, the full annual incremental expense on these two items is likely to be closer to $2 billion.

In short, Shell's cash inflows and outflows are a bit out of whack right now, and it's going to take some balance-sheet work to address this matter. Management has targeted over $30 billion in assets it plans to sell off, both to pay down its debt and to focus the company on deepwater and natural gas assets.

With $19 billion in cash on hand, there is some margin of safety, and management has stated multiple times that sustaining the dividend is a priority. But make no mistake: The dividend will be unsustainable if cash flows don't improve or debt doesn't come down. I like the odds that management will pull off its plans, but the current dividend is not as safe as are those of the companies my colleagues wrote about above. Invest accordingly.
Recently, the oil markets dropped a whopping 4.5% on the news that the U.S. had an inventory build of 9 million barrels -- despite the fact that the U.S. accounts for only 16% of the market.

In this clip from Industry Focus: Energy, Motley Fool energy analysts Sean O'Reilly and Taylor Muckerman talk about one possible explanation for why the market reacted so strongly to the news, and what an oil build means in the greater context of the sector today.

A full transcript follows the video.

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This podcast was recorded on March 23, 2017.

Sean O'Reilly: The other thing was, I think the day I had him on, there was another inventory build. I think it was just under 9 million barrels, it was unexpected, everyone was freaking out, oil fell 4.5% that day. And Crowe and I chatted about it, and his point was, the United States oil market in terms of consumption and, therefore, very closely tied to Cushing --

Taylor Muckerman: West Texas Intermediate pricing at Cushing, yeah.

O'Reilly: It's 16% of the oil market. That's a lot, cool. But this is not the oil market.

Muckerman: Yeah, OPEC still reigns supreme.

O'Reilly: Well, no, his point was, everybody is worried about oversupply here, and it's being stored here, but his point was, the market fixates on U.S. supply and storage here because this is the only good data we have. For example, China's oil production is down 7%. But do we trust that? We definitely don't trust the Saudi Arabian numbers. They're all checking each other, or whatever, I don't know what that means.

Muckerman: Yeah. I don't know if we have any necessary reason -- just because a U.S. government agency isn't able to validate it, doesn't mean that it's not true.

O'Reilly: Right, but it also doesn't mean --

Muckerman: Maybe they're thinking the same thing about our inventory numbers.

O'Reilly: Fine. It just seems odd to drive the price down of a global commodity, that arguably, our economy needs right now, down by 4.5% in a single day because of the inventory numbers in one market that represents 16% of the global market.

Muckerman: Well, I think it's because of the fact that --

O'Reilly: This has a "Mr. Market" Benjamin Graham feel to it, is the point.

Muckerman: I think maybe prices took a nosedive because they weren't all that high to continue to build inventory. That just means that these companies really don't care if oil is in the $40 range, they're going to continue to produce. It also means that demand isn't soaking up the new production. So, you look at, the IEA came out recently and suggested that oil demand growth -- not oil demand overall, but oil demand growth -- will slow in 2017 versus 2016. So, you had around 1.6 million barrels per day of new demand growth last year. They suggest only 1.4 million barrels of new demand growth this year. Meanwhile, the U.S. is likely going to produce 1 million more barrels per day, which is almost the entire new demand growth. And if OPEC wanted to, they could just reverse the cuts that they have, and that would totally absorb and likely oversupply the market. Goldman Sachs suggests that that's going to happen in 2018 or 2019 or 2020, when the historic spending of the early teens catches up to us because of the megaprojects that were spent on 2011, 2013 --

O'Reilly: So, those aren't on line yet, to your knowledge.

Muckerman: They're coming on line. But the bulk of them will be in full force in the next few years. And these are the projects that have a long life span compared to shale oil.
Formula One racing's new era opened in some style in Australia, serving up a weekend to savour for Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel - and one to remember for all the wrong reasons for home hero Daniel Ricciardo. We take a look at the best of the action from the drivers' perspective...

Ricciardo's home heartbreak

Daniel Ricciardo fans, look away now! After spinning out of Q3 - a rare mistake from a driver who makes very few - Red Bull's home favourite was determined to make amends in the race. But the unlucky Australian didn't even make it to the start after a sensor issue on his freshly replaced gearbox caused his car to stop on its way to the grid. The RB13 was returned to the pits and eventually sent on its way - but by then Ricciardo was two laps down and only destined for more heartbreak

Stroll doesn't hold back on maiden F1 start

You could forgive Lance Stroll for taking a cautious approach at the start of his maiden Grand Prix - but that simply isn't the Canadian's style. Instead the Williams man was one of the last of the late brakers into Turn 1, only narrowly avoiding contact with Marcus Ericsson's Sauber. That brave dive up the inside gained him several places (five in total on the first lap - a further two places picked up when Ericsson and Haas's Kevin Magnussen collided just ahead of him at Turn 3), but the lock-up also caused a flat spot that necessitated an early pit stop. A rookie error? Perhaps. But fortune often favours the brave

Magnussen and Ericsson come together on Lap 1 Play

Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn said it was 'incomprehensible' that Haas's Kevin Magnussen wasn't punished by the stewards for his first-lap clash with Marcus Ericsson. The Swede sustained race-wrecking damage in the Turn 3 coming-together, but when you watch the onboards of the clash (and the view from Lance Stroll's Williams), you get an idea of why no action was taken. By making a late overtaking attempt around the outside on a frantic opening lap, Ericsson was always taking a risk - a risk that backfired when Magnussen got his braking wrong, clattered the inside kerb and slid wide.

Palmer threads the needle

Jolyon Palmer described his Australian Grand Prix experience as 'a weekend where pretty much everything went wrong' - but for a fleeting moment on Lap 1 things were looking up. As you can see in the video, after making a decent enough getaway, the Briton was extremely tentative into Turn 1 - perhaps as a result of the braking problems that would soon put him out of the race, but more likely as a deliberate tactic to avoid potential trouble. Why do we say that? Well, because there was nothing cautious about his approach to the next sequence of bends, as he skilfully edged his Renault through the miniscule gap between Stoffel Vandoorne's McLaren and Antonio Giovinazzi's Sauber. Heart in mouth stuff.

Blunting the Silver Arrows

If it was clear in the first few laps that Mercedes had a fight on their hands, it became apparent the moment Lewis Hamilton pitted first that victory might slip away from the world champions. The crunch moment, of course, would come when Sebastian Vettel pitted - with the key question being whether he would come out in front of Hamilton. Delayed behind Max Verstappen's Red Bull, the Briton could only watch in agony as the Ferrari emerged from the pits with track position, the smallest of margins once again proving the difference between ecstasy and agony...

Ocon prevails in three-way thriller

Fernando Alonso could count himself unlucky to be on the losing end of a thrilling fight for the final point in Australia. The Spaniard had once again dragged every ounce of performance from his McLaren, withstanding Esteban Ocon's efforts to pass for almost the duration of the race - but as Renault's Nico Hulkenberg joined the train, things came to a dramatic climax. Alonso batted away another spirited attack from Ocon's Force India at the penultimate turn, but the pair touched, allowing Hulkenberg to close in - and setting up a dramatic three-way drag to the first corner

Questa e per noi!

It's been a while since Sebastian Vettel has had cause to break out the celebratory Italian, but the wait came to an end in style in Australia - prompting these emotional scenes in the cockpit of the SF70H. It wasn't just the German gripped by the fever of victory, as his Ferrari crew and thousands of the fans around the circuit cheered the emphatic return of Ferrari as a winning force in F1 racing.

Palmer's Renault drops anchor
McDonald defends training center that opponents pan

Speakers line up to ask Sheriff McDonald questions about the law enforcement training center.

Sheriff Charlie McDonald on Monday night faced a crowd of nearly 200 people, most of them opposed to a $20 million training center on the campus of Blue Ridge Community College, and made a case for upgraded training that he says is needed to keep the public and deputies safe.

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Holding signs that said "No paramilitary Taj Mahal," "Taxpayer. Not an ATM" and "Not on BRCC campus," a roomful of county residents raised questions about the facility at BRCC. McDonald did his best to respond, and for the first time publicly distanced himself from the location and the cost.

"No. 1, how many people know that I never came and asked for a $20 million facility on Blue Ridge Community campus?" he said. "Never asked for it."

What he asked for, he said, was an outdoor facility with a shooting range and tactical training space. He recounted the county's two efforts to buy land for a shooting range, first at a former summer camp in the Bob's Creek area and then on top of Pinnacle Mountain "way way way away from everybody, we thought." After opponents filled the commissioners' meeting room twice, commissioners told McDonald to forget an outdoor range, saying: "The public won't support it. You're going to have to look inside."

"I told them to do it indoors would be very expensive," he said.

"I'm not married to where this place has to be," said McDonald, who was appointed sheriff in 2012, elected in 2014 and is already running his 2018 re-election campaign. "I'm not married to spending a whole lot of money. In fact right now, myself and my staff are looking at all kinds of ways to think out of the box and look at what we can to present to the commissioners something at a lower pricetag."

McDonald then read a long piece he had written earlier on the threat to the public and to deputies, negative media coverage of deadly force instances across the country, how military equipment at times has saved deputies' lives and protected the public, and how law officers train in dealing with mentally ill offenders and in conflict de-escalation.

McDonald then read questions and comments he had received and answered them:

"Sheriff needs to train deputies in less violent options. I think you see that we do."

"Plenty of ranges the sheriff could use locally. Actually, there are not."

"Why not expand the Justice Academy? We've looked at that. There's not enough room."

"The sheriff wants to create a police state. Promise you, I'm not interested."

"The sheriff's buying a 50-caliber machine gun for his Bearcat. Never crossed my mind. Got not use for one."

"Lead contamination in the area. A lot of the cost wherever that range is is because of the air scrubbing and the air handling and the lead reclamation. It's very safe for officers inside and it's certainly very very safe for those outside."

"The sheriff is trying to militarize his deputies. Certainly not true."

"And this training is a waste of time and taxpayers' money. I think most of you would agree that money well spent, that's probably not the case."

McDonald had the floor for 20 minutes before taking questions.

More than 20 people queued up to ask questions, most adversarial to the training center. They questioned the cost of the facility, the location next to the new Innovative High School, why the county did not pursue a regional facility and whether the county might find a better use for $20 million. Several current and retired public school teachers said they were alarmed that the county plans to build the facility at BRCC neat the new Innovative High School.

"This has no place at the BRCC campus," a retired teacher said.

McDonald said repeatedly that he did not choose the BRCC campus and didn't care if the facility was built there or somewhere else  a position that would be at odds with the community college administration and governing board, which have endorsed the center because it would benefit the college's Basic Law Enforcement Training program.

"I don't care where it is," McDonald said. "I just need the training facility."

Responding to a question about counties sharing the cost of a facility he said: "Law enforcement in this country is very fragmented. Everybody's kind of territorial."

Eva Ritchey told McDonald he had made a factual and emotional case for the training center but failed to explain why upgraded law enforcement training is not needed everywhere.

"If those facts and that emotion and the need is here then goodness knows it must be in Buncombe County because they've got a far greater number of crimes and racial problems than we do here," she said. "And that problem has got to exist in Haywood County, too... So if this need is really true and we need it then we don't just need it in Henderson County. ... We need it in Buncombe County and we need it in Haywood County and if they're as smart and dedicated and professional as you then we're going to be able to convince them that we need a district facility. I don't think a good case has been made for not having a district facility."

Several speakers also criticized McDonald's use of national crime statistics and references to terror threats without offering local statistics and examples.

Theres a little bit of difference between whats going on in, maybe in New York, and whats going on in Henderson County," one speaker said. "Im not diminishing what our team does here. My point is $20 million over the next five years. Why couldnt we work with the state, with other counties and maybe have a pool? Maybe we need to have four different facilities throughout the state.

"We have deputies injured on a regular basis," McDonald said. "I know people don't see it. It's frustrating to me. They think this is Mayberry. It's not."

Ritchey hit another common refrain  that $20 million would do more good spent on something else.

"Commissioners have told me for 20 years we could not afford nurses, which are so needed in our public schools, but they can afford this," she said.

A few speakers supported McDonald, who in an email had urged campaign supporters to show up at the meeting.

"People in this room have an agenda. They don't want it," said Joe Pirog. "And when you start matching money against security you're asking for a lot, a lot of trouble, beause when it does happen" the public will say, "Charlie, what did you do for us? You let that happen, and you will take the brunt."

A criminal justice student at BRCC said although he agreed with the need for the facility he was unimpressed with "the communication with the school people."

"I went around and asked people about the new facility and no one knew. No one," he said.

Rose Griffin, a U.S. Marine Corps reservist, said the public needs more specifics about the ongoing cost.

"I've been trained to inspect what I expect," she said. "And in this room Henderson County taxpayers are asking the same of you. That's their expectation. I think what could be helpful is if you could publish an itemized scope of work and the requirements of how much it will cost to run the facility, not just for the nest year but for the next five or 10 years, how many more trainers you're going to have to hire, if those trainers have to get other training, hw much is it going to cost to clean and maintain this building and the grounds. I think it could help put some of the worries if you could itemize such an account."

Andrew Walters also asked McDonald the operating budget for the facility. McDonald said he didn't know.

"How can you support a facility that you don't know the cost of operating?" Walters asked.

As for using the WNC Justice Academy for training, McDonald said his deputies don't get all the shooting range time they need because "they're sharing it with a hundred and something other agencies."

Pete Davis spoke in support of McDonald and said if voters have a problem with the project they should blame the county commissioners.

"I don't know if you guys need a civic lesson, but there are five guys that have the checkbook," he said. "If somebody can find a space for Charlie, let's get him a range outside and forget this $20 million inside thing."

"I voted for you," another speaker said. "I appreciate you. I am a little concerned about the overreach here. Our crime rate is low, we don't have lot of racial tension. Yes, ISIS is real but what I'm concerned about is we don't really have high value terrorist targets here in Henderson County."

Many times McDonald returned to his theme that training drives the need for a facility.

"You gotta remember, my training needs didn't change," he said. "What changed was the fact that we had to put those needs inside in an enclosed facility, not outside. That's where the cost came."

McDonald acknowledged later Monday night that felt he had changed few minds in "a crowd that was largely hostile."

"I certainly think we gave them all the information," he said. "Sorry they were disappointed but I'm glad we got it out there."

"f I could go back and do Flintlock today, there's a lot we could do there, for a lot less money," he said. "However, I don't want to imply that I'm ungrateful that the commissioners said that since we're not doing that we're at least going to see that your needs are met. I don't want to put words in their mouth but I suspect they felt like, 'Well, the taxpayers made the decision to spend more money going indoors so that's what we'll do.' I'm the client. They were convinced of the need. These people (on Monday night) were convinced of the need. They just don't like the cost."
Motion says the region is a legal and constitutional part of J&K and Pak is trying to make it its fifth province.

A motion has been tabled in the United Kingdom Parliament condemning Pakistans arbitrary move to declare the strategic Gilgit-Baltistan region, bordering disputed Pakistan occupied Kashmir, as its fifth province.

Bob Blackman, a Conservative Party MP, who regularly speaks out in support of the rights of Kashmiri Hindus in the House of Commons, tabled the Early Day Motion (EDM) titled Annexation of Gilgit-Baltistan as by Pakistan as its fifth frontier on March 23.

EDMs are formal motions tabled in the House of Commons as a means of drawing attention to a particular issue or cause.

The motion said that Gilgit-Baltistan has been illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947 and the country is attempting to annex the already disputed area.

Pak trying to annex disputed area

The EDM reads: That this House condemns the arbitrary announcement by Pakistan declaring Gilgit-Baltistan as its Fifth Frontier, implying its attempt to annex the already disputed area. It noted that Gilgit-Baltistan is a legal and constitutional part of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, India, which is illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947, and where people are denied their fundamental rights including the right of freedom of expression.

It further said that the attempts to change the demography of the region in violation of State Subject Ordinance and forcibly and illegally to build the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which further aggravates and interferes with the disputed territory.

Other British MPs are expected to sign the EDM during the course of this week as a show of support to the motion.

Formal debate soon

A spokesperson for Mr. Blackmans office indicated that a formal debate on the issue is also likely to be proposed in coming weeks.

Pakistans Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination Riaz Hussain Pirzada on March 14 told Pakistani media that a committee headed by Advisor of Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz had proposed giving the status of a province to Gilgit-Baltistan.

He also said that a constitutional amendment would be made to change the status of the region, through which the $46-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) passes.

India has termed entirely unacceptable any possible attempt by Pakistan to declare the region, bordering disputed PoK, as the fifth province.

The External Affairs Ministry said any such step would not be able to hide the illegality of Pakistans occupation of parts of Jammu and Kashmir which it must vacate, forthwith.

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 the four provinces of Pakistan.

Due to Chinas concerns ?

It is believed that Chinas concerns about the unsettled status of Gilgit-Baltistan prompted Pakistan to change its status.

Source : The Hindu
5 Reasons Why Your NGO Should Recruit Millennials

Posted by Barret Selby on Tuesday, 03-28-2017 3:31 am

Currently 5.0/5 Stars.

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It is time you restructure your recruitment process and ease your staffing if you cant find candidates to fill jobs within your price range. You may be setting your organization up for a difficult future if you fail to recruit millennials. These are people who were born between the early 1980s and year 2000. They grew up learning to work with a computer and likely today own a smartphone. Unlike other generations, they generally operate slightly different in the way they choose to spend their time and live their lives. Although its recommended that you be open to all job seekers during the recruitment process regardless of their age, it is also essential to consider recruiting millennials as this will not only help to provide your projects and mission with new energy but will also add new life to your firm. If done correctly, you stand to provide your organization with a younger generation that will remain active through the years. While taking job requirements at a glance, every em...

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R. Brian Dixon is a shareholder at employment and labor law firm Littler Mendelsons San Francisco office. He has particular expertise in all aspects of employee compensation, including minimum wage, prevailing wage, overtime compensation obligations, and incentive compensation plans. We caught up with Brian to get his perspective on the wage and hour legislation trends for 2017, and how businesses can prepare. Please note that the following is his forecast of potential developments, and should not be considered legal advice. Whats the biggest trend to look out for in 2017? R. Brian Dixon: While there may be less activity  and possibly even some retrenching  on the federal level, there will continue to be state and local activity with respect to minimum wages, paid sick leave, and related laws. We will likely see more disputes between state governments and local governments as to when a local government has the authority to regulate wages and working conditions. What can we expect for overtime legislation in 2017, especially in light of the administration change? R. Brian Dixon: The injunction was issued against the immediate implementation of the increased salary pay rule, so theres some delay in dealing with the consequences of that increase. The DOL asked for expedited briefing on the subject because they wanted to articulate their position before the administration change. The case has cer...
We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector
Burma Authorities Urge Repatriation of Karen Refugees

Ei Htu Hta internally displaced persons camp on the Salween River, Karen State, in February 2017 / Saw Yan Naing / The Irrawaddy

Thai authorities and NGOs are registering ethnic Karen refugees in camps on the Thai-Burma border and preparing them for life in Burma, as a Thai military official announced that areas have been prepared for refugees in Karen State.

On March 23, Lt-Gen Vijak Siribansop of the Thai army told the Bangkok Post the Burmese government had prepared an area for about 70,000 refugees from Burma in their native Karen State as current peace talks with ethnic armed organizations looked promising.

The return will focus on [refugees] safety and dignity and ensure there will be no danger to them and they are treated well, Lt-Gen Vijak Siribansop was quoted by the Bangkok Post as saying.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have built contact centers in refugee camps to facilitate arrangements for those who want to return home.

UNHCR will coordinate and fund the refugees return while the Thai government will act as a facilitator, according to the general.

Only a handful of refugee families have contacted the centers to return home, however, according to sources in the camps.

Just three families from Mae Ra Ma Luang returned home this month, according to Saw Tu Tu, an officer at community-based organization Karen Refugee Camp (KRC).

Saw Tu Tu told The Irrawaddy that Thailands Mae Fah Luang Foundation would provide training in agriculture for representatives of all refugee camps in the area.

It is preparation for refugees when they go home one day, said Saw Tu Tu.

Houses for returning refugees and internally displaced person (IDPs) have reportedly been built in Karen National Union (KNU)-controlled areas funded by Japanese charity the Nippon Foundation, according to camp sources.

The Nippon Foundation supports several projects in KNU-controlled areas in Hpa-an Township of Karen State and in Tenasserim Division.

Sources from the refugee camps said Thai authorities are planning to register residents in April and ask them whether they want to return home, resettle in a third country, or remain in the camps.

All refugees who are registered with the UNHCR in the nine refugee camps need to be present during this verification process, sources close to KRC told The Irrawaddy.

Funding of displaced persons in Ei Htu Hta camp on the Karen State border with Thailands Mae Hong Son Province will reportedly be cut by humanitarian agency The Border Consortium (TBC) by August this year.

TBC couldnt provide more assistance to [refugees in Ei Htu Hta] because they will have no more funding, said Saw Tu Tu.

There are nine refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border hosting more than 120,000 refugees from Burma.
Burma Bhamo Sayadaw: U Wirathu Could Be Imprisoned

Chairman of State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee Bhamo Sayadaw Bhaddanta Kumara. / Salai Thant Zin / The Irrawaddy

PATHEIN, Irrawaddy Division  Ultra-nationalist monk U Wirathu may be incarcerated if he continues to deliver sermons in defiance of a ban from the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee, said Bhamo Sayadaw Bhaddanta Kumara, chairman of the state Buddhist authority known by its Burmese acronym Ma Ha Na.

He has preached things as if they were delivered by the Buddha, which were not, said Bhamo Sayadaw Bhaddanta Kumara. He can be imprisoned for this, he can be put behind bars.

Ma Ha Na banned U Wirathu, a high-profile member of the nationalist Buddhist Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, known by Burmese acronym Ma Ba Tha, from delivering sermons across the country for one year starting from March 10, because of his religious hate speech.

Despite the Ma Ha Nas ban, U Wirathu delivered three silent sermons in Irrawaddy Divisions Einme Township, Kachin State capital Myitkyina, and Rangoon Divisions Kawhmu Township.

At the sermons, U Wirathu sat with his mouth covered by two pieces of colored tape while one of his previous sermons played over loudspeakers.

Bhamo Sayadaw Bhaddanta Kumara called U Wirathus silent sermons an act of defiance: If he continues delivering sermons in spite of the ban, it is an act of defiance, and he will be punished for it. There is law. He must obey the order of the Buddha. If he doesnt, he can be arrested and imprisoned.

Last month, the Irrawaddy divisional government banned U Wirathu from delivering a sermon in the state capital of Pathein for security reasons, following the assassination of prominent Muslim lawyer and National League for Democracy legal advisor U Ko Ni in Rangoon.

Despite the order, the monk preached a sermon titled The 969 (movement) and Our Three Main National Causes in Kyunku, the home village of former President U Thein Sein in the divisions Ngapudaw Township, on Feb. 9.

The nationalist 969 movement urges people to boycott Muslim-run businesses, while the three main national causes are rhetoric of the former military regime: non-disintegration of the Union, non-disintegration of national solidarity, and the perpetual existence of sovereigntyas a national duty.

On March 5, the Irrawaddy divisional government released a statement banning U Wirathu from preaching in the division indefinitely. The nationalist monk still spoke at Tar La Baw village in Maubin Township on March 8.

A statement from the March 10 Ma Ha Na meeting warned U Wirathu that any breach of the order would lead to legal action. The ban will be in effect until March 9 next year.

Ma Ha Na said in the March statement that the nationalist monk was repeatedly delivering hate speeches against religions to cause communal strife, hinder rule of law, and that he took sides with political parties to inflame tension.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.
RACINE  A man was taken to the hospital after he was reportedly shot in the leg, police said Monday night.

The report of a man shot came in at about 10:30 p.m. The incident happened in the 400 block of Eighth Street.

The man, who is in his 40s, was taken to Ascension All Saints hospital, police said. The severity of the injuries is unknown, police Sgt. Adam Malacara said Tuesday morning.

Police are still pursuing suspects, he said.

"There is more than one suspect but the exact number is unknown," Malacara said.
Burma Photos of Than Shwes Ex-Generals Gathering Taken Last Year

A photo that went viral online showing retired Snr-Gen Than Shwes meeting with ex-generals. / Aung Kyaw Soe / Facebook

NAYPYIDAW  Photos that went viral on Monday showing retired Snr-Gen Than Shwe meeting former senior military officers on Burmas Armed Forces Day are in fact not this years photos, but are from 2016.

The man with white hair and glasses in the photoseated, second from leftis retired Gen Aung Khin. He reportedly could not attend this years Armed Forces Day commemorations in Naypyidaw because of his failing health. His son, however, shared the old photos on social media in an effort to console him.

I felt sad as my dad could not attend Armed Forces Day because of his health. So, I posted [old photos] so that I could read [my dads] friends wishes in the comments to my dad, and make him happy, U Aung Kyaw Soe, joint secretary of Myanmar Rice Millers Association (Central) told The Irrawaddy.

U Aung Kyaw Soe said that he took those photos on last years Armed Forces Day, and that ex-generals annually gathered on the occasion, which falls on March 27, to reminisce together. He also said that close associates had met U Than Shwe this year.

In the photos are men who were in the same Defense Services Academy batch as the retired senior general, as well as his close aides, and former chiefs of the army, navy and air force. The photos went viral after being posted on the Facebook page of U Aung Paing Min, the leader of philanthropic association Shwe Pyi Taw Tho Sone Hmat.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko
Burma State Counselor Visits IDP Camps in Kachin State

State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi visits Maina IDP camp in Waingmaw Township on March 28, 2017 during her one-day trip to Myitkyina. / Kyaw Oo / Facebook

The plight of internally displaced persons (IDPs) was highlighted during the State Counselors visit to Myitkyina where she met with Kachin leaders and visited IDP camps.

During Daw Aung San Suu Kyis official one-day visit, she met with Kachin public representatives, including religious leaders and civil society groups. She was accompanied by Home Affairs Minister Lt-Gen Kyaw Swe, Border Affairs Minister Lt-Gen Ye Aung, government peace negotiator Dr. Tin Myo Win and Kachin State Chief Minister Khet Aung.

We were able to discuss current issues such as IDPs, the consequences of civil war, drug eradication programs and how to facilitate delivery of humanitarian aid, said Duwa Labang Gam Awng, the secretary of the Kachin National Consultative Assembly (KNCA).

More than 120,000 IDPs are currently taking shelter at temporary camps in Kachin and northern Shan states, following a breakdown of a 17-year ceasefire between the Kachin Independence Army and the Burma Army in June 2011.

Following a three-hour meeting, the State Counselor visited IDP camps in Myitkyina and Waingmaw Township and gave donations to the residents.

The Maina IDP camp in Waingmaw Township has existed for six years, and currently more than 2,000 Kachin, Bamar and Shan people live there.

About 100 IDPs from Waingmaw Township traveled to Maina camp to share their concerns with the State Counselor, according to aid workers.

Mary Tawn, a local relief worker with the Kachin CSOs Joint Strategy Team (JST), said participants shared their recommendations with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, to which she responded that she would do as much as she can within her capacity.

The JST representatives discussed humanitarian aid, civic rights, a security guarantee for those who want to return home, and the right for IDPs to not undergo forced repatriation.

Aid workers raised concerns over continued Burma Army offensives, which directly affect IDPs, and the need for a designated budget to aid those who have been displaced.

Many Kachin shared mixed feelings of optimism and frustration following the State Counselors visit.

I hope her visit benefits IDPs, said Duwa Labang Gam Awng.

One aid worker said this visit was a long time coming, as these camps have existed for six years.

Mary Tawn said that for years, the IDPs have suffered a shortage of humanitarian aid, as well as the added burden of road blockages from military checkpoints and bans on aid transports since last year. She said the State Counselor (who won the Harvard Foundations 2016 Humanitarian of the Year Award) should give IDPs more than 30 minutes of her time.

The public shared their concerns with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi through selected invitees.

Ting Chang Mading, chairman of the Lachid Literature and Culture Association in Myitkyina who was not present at the meeting, said the public wanted to know the governments plan for amending the 2008 Constitution, as per the NLDs campaign promise. He said other concerns were the implementation of a peace process in the spirit of the 1947 Panglong Agreement and any plans between the government and army in regard to peace building.

We reminded the State Counselor not to forget to implement the 1947 Panglong agreement signed by the late Gen Aung San and ethnic leaders, Duwa Labang Gam Awng told The Irrawaddy.

In order to achieve a genuine federal Union, everyone must participate, he said. I believe that if people from all political parties, ethnic armed organizations and the [Burma Army] participated, we would be able to successfully build a federal state, he added.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who is also the head of the National Reconciliation and Peace Center (NRPC), spoke of the importance of all-inclusion in the 21st Century Panglong Conference and the need for all armed groups to sign the nationwide ceasefire agreement.

All residents want peace and long for it, but we know it is the decision and choice of the armed groups to achieve it, said Duwa Labang Gam Awng.
Guest Column Understanding the UWSAs Perspective on the Peace Process

A United Wa State Army (UWSA) in Mongmao, Wa Self-administered District. / Soe Zayar Tun / Reuters

Myanmars peace process, the signature policy of State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, has run into an extremely strong, if not fatal, headwind. The three-day Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) summit ended on Feb. 24 in Pangkham (Panghsang), the headquarters of the 30,000-strong United Wa State Army (UWSA) which is Myanmars largest non-state military group.

Observers have worried about the inherent precariousness of the UWSAs opposition to the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA). In addition to firing a salvo of criticism at the peace process, the UWSA put itself forward to head a political negotiation team that consists of non-signatory EAOs, aiming to hold formal talks about ceasefire and political issues with the central government and the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Armed Forces). This article aims to provide a fresh and practical framework for analyzing the UWSAs position on the peace process and managing recent tensions.

The UWSAs Basic Position on the NCA

In his opening speech for the EAOs summit, UWSA Commander-in-Chief Bao Youxiang criticized the NCA by saying: The ethnic fighting happening today is heavier than ever. Conflicts in Kachin State and northern Shan State along the Myanmar-China border are getting worse day by day. The NCA being discussed between some EAOs and Myanmars government has brought no solution to that. He further pointed out that, EAOs have been divided into three groups: NCA signatories, NCA non-signatories, as well as those sticking to the Three-Level Peace Agreement. We have to adopt better strategies for political dialogue with the government.

On the one hand, the UWSA believes the Myanmar government is pursuing its own political purposes by endorsing the NCA as a replacement of the 1947 Panglong Agreement (a federalism formula signed by Gen. Aung San and ethnic leaders), not just working towards ceasefire in the literal sense. However, the NCA terms neither thoroughly embody the Panglong Spirit nor make clear the definitions of political terms, such as democracy, equality, freedom, self-determination, and federalism. This oversight has allowed successive governments to take advantage of the EAOs.

On the other hand, the UWSA leadership has little faith that Naypyidaw would strictly comply with any agreement with EAOs and strongly demanded the involvement of the UN and China as arbitrators in the peace process. China, for its own sake, does not wish to see a conflict, or even occasional skirmish, between the UWSA and the government.

How Does the UWSA View the Escalation of Conflicts?

The UWSA has viewed recent escalation of conflicts in historical context. Discussions between EAOs and successive governments since the National Convention in 1993 are seen as confusing and unproductive, leading to the view that disputes between the government and the EAOs could not be solved and that civil war could not be stopped, either by the military regimes or the latest civilian government. As a conclusion, the UWSA put the blame squarely on the Tatmadaw, whose non-stop offensives have made ethnic people suffer severely for 70 years.

The Tatmadaws unprecedented military pressure on the other EAOs has aroused the UWSAs deep concerns regarding its own security scenarios. One of the Panghkam summit participants, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), lost five outposts within two months in early 2017, leading to growing fears that its headquarters in Laiza could eventually be taken by the Tatmadaw, which has a huge advantage in both weaponry and manpower.

Rubber Hits the Road

The UWSA usually steers clear of ethnic politics. Since 1989 the Wa have enjoyed unparalleled autonomy from the central government. Presumably, the UWSA is content with the status quo of a de facto ethnic state with successful businesses and institutions, benefiting from the rapid development of China while being part of Myanmar and thus not bound by stringent Chinese laws and regulations.

The improvement in the China-Myanmar relationship after the NLD government took office in April 2016 has pressured the UWSA to take part, reluctantly of course, in the peace process, which inevitably requires political and economic compromises from all sides. In this manner, the UWSAs low-level delegation understandably walked out of the ongoing 21st Century Panglong union peace conference in September 2016, decrying inequality in discussions, while conference organizers admitted mismanagement.

Any forced arrangement would be fragile and unsustainable. Therefore, this article argues for an optimistic attitude towards the UWSAs assertive position from its own initiative. After all, it is not an unusual tactic to demand an exorbitant price in the beginning of a negotiation. The UWSAs position surprised many observers and politicians but actually indicates that its aging leaders, who seem to be Old Guards enveloped by a number of revolutionary ideologies, are prepared to be capable of compromising and changing policies in line with evolving conditions inside and outside Myanmar.

Liu Yun is an independent analyst based in China. He writes on Myanmar regularly for Tea Circle and other outlets.

This article originally appeared in Tea Circle, a forum hosted at Oxford University for emerging research and perspectives on Burma/Myanmar.
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TeleSur |  

According to Yemens Legal Center of Rights and Development, the conflict has thus far killed over 12,040 Yemenis and left more than 20,000 others wounded.

The leader of Yemens Houthi movement, Sayyed Abdul-Malik Badreddin Houthi, said in a speech marking the two-year anniversary of the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing campaign in the country that the aggression they have faced so far has been a failure.

He stressed that while Saudi Arabia has been relentlessly attacking the country, the kingdom has not reached any of its goals. The root of the aggression, he said, is Saudi Arabia serving Israeli interests, as well as U.S. hegemony in the region.

Yemeni people reject U.S. hegemony as they show hostility to the Zionist entity and voice support to the Palestinian cause, Sayyed Houthi said in the televised speech Saturday.

The Ansarullah movement leader also said that the kingdoms almost-daily airstrikes against civilians in Yemen are nothing short of war crimes, seeing as Saudi Arabia is using the most lethal armaments.

Hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets of the capital Sanaa Sunday during events to mark the two-year anniversary of the war and to protest the brutality of the bombing campaign.

The conflict began in March 2015 in efforts to reinstall toppled President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and to suppress the Shia armed militias that oppose the Saudi-backed former leader.

Yemens Legal Center of Rights and Development announced the same day, Saturday, that the conflict has thus far killed over 12,040 Yemenis and left more than 20,000 others wounded.

The center added that the onslaught has also destroyed 757 schools and institutes, 111 university facilities, 271 factories and 1,520 bridges and roads.

The Saudi-led coalition justifies its attacks on Yemen by claiming Houthi rebels are supporting terrorism, allegedly sponsored by Iran.

Houthi rebels, however, claim the Saudis are attacking because of the Shiite movements growing political influence in the region. Saudi Arabia, a country governed by radical Wahhabi Sunnis, has been at odds with Shiites and Iran for decades.

There is a disaster in Yemen and Saudi Arabia will not stop destroying our country, Ahmed Al Moaiad, a London-based Yemeni activist recently told teleSUR.

Thats why the Yemeni people have to resist this invasion.

Via TeleSur



Related video added by Juan Cole:

EuroNews: Drone footage: Over 100,000 Houthi supporters gather at Yemen rally
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By Steve Hewitt | (The Conversation) |  

A middle-aged man with a history of criminal activity and violence, a variety of aliases, multiple jobs and addresses, and several broken relationships launches an attack on parliament and is killed in the process. This individual wasnt Khalid Masood, but a man named Paul Chartier.

Chartier tried to set off a bomb in the chamber of the Canadian House of Commons in Ottawa in 1966. Instead, he managed to blow himself up. He left a manifesto explaining his motivation for the attack, citing anger over economic inequality and political corruption and declaring his desire to kill politicians in response. Although it wasnt labelled as such at the time, Chartiers political agenda made the bombing an act of terrorism.

We still dont know why Masood drove a rental car along the pavement on Westminster Bridge in London, killing four people and injuring many more, before stabbing police officer Keith Palmer to death.

Senior counter-terrorism police officer Neil Basu, has said: We must all accept that there is a possibility we will never understand why he did this.

This police response comes despite the default assumption among politicians, the media, and many academics, including myself, was that this was clearly an act of terrorism. It was horrific violence that resembled previous attacks by supporters of Islamic State (IS) in Nice and Berlin. IS also subsequently claimed credit for the London attack.

But the lack of clear evidence as to what motivated the attack is a problem. Motivation is what separates terrorism from other acts of violence. British law states that terrorism occurs when the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial, or ideological cause. A variety of other definitions of terrorism, which in itself is not a fixed concept, also refer to a political or ideological or religious inspiration for the violence.

This is why not all acts of extreme violence are labelled as terrorism. In Cumbria in 2010, a taxi driver shot and killed 12 people due to personal grievances and the violence was not treated as terrorism. The same point would apply to the unspeakable violence associated with massacres in Hungerford in Berkshire 1987 and Dunblane in Stirling in 1996 in which individual attackers murdered a combined total of 33 people.

Cart before horse

With Masood, a step has been skipped. Instead of establishing that the London attack was an act of terrorism by providing evidence as to the perpetrators motivation, speculation has focused on why he became a terrorist. Mass immigration and multiculturalism was one culprit even though he was born in Kent in 1964.

Perhaps he had been radicalised in prison because he converted to Islam after serving time. Or could it have been the time he spent in Saudi Arabia? Or was it down to residing in what the Daily Mail described as the jihadi capital of Britain, otherwise known as Birmingham? This even though he didnt live in any of the areas in Birmingham where most of those convicted of terrorism over the past 16 years resided.

The British government also appeared to suggest social media was responsible with a promise to crack down on extremist content online, even though no link between the attack and such material has been established.

Certainly, there is circumstantial evidence to suggest Masoods violence was terrorism. MI5 considered him a possible extremist in 2010. He may have had like-minded associates, although at the time of writing only two of the 12 arrested in the aftermath of the attack remain in custody and no one has been charged in connection to the attack.

Masood accessed messaging service WhatsApp just before the attack, and that might eventually provide insight into his thinking or show that he was connected to a wider cause. Conceivably other definitive evidence as to his motivation will emerge. But the police have themselves raised the possibility that it will not.

Despite the lack of clear evidence on his motivation, there was no nuance in classifying Masoods act. It was quickly, and widely accepted as terrorism. His religious faith seems to be the key factor in explaining such a definitive determination. After all, considering repeated examples of the reluctance to label violence by white men as terrorism even when a relevant motivation has been established, you have to wonder if this case would have been labelled differently had a non-Muslim carried out the attack.

But why does any of this matter? Whether or not it was terrorism, Masood murdered four people, injured many others, and left countless others scarred for life. It is important because labelling his violence as terrorism adds a deeper meaning and resonance. It makes it something more than a final act of rage by a man with a history of violence that predated his conversion to Islam.

It also risks sparking a backlash against British Muslims. As well as ruining lives, that in turn can lead to precisely the kind of alienation that pushes recruits towards groups such as Islamic State.

Masoods murderous rampage may well deserve to be called terrorism, but only when the evidence proves it. Before then, assuming to understand his motives is to unnecessarily fuel division and guesswork.

Steve Hewitt, Senior Lecturer in the Department of History, University of Birmingham

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

-

Related video added by Juan Cole:

OFFICIAL NO DIRECT LINK between Westminster London attacker Khalid Masood & ISIS
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

Trumps Executive Order deregulating dangerous gas emissions is being signed today at the Environmental Protection Agency. This is the greatest mean-spirited reversal since the Red Coats, defeated in 1783, returned in 1812 and burned down the White House.

Trump can use the might of the Federal government to increase harmful emissions (thus making Rex Tillerson and his cronies even more fabulously wealthy, at our cost and that of all future generations).

He cannot, however, stop the march of history. And, as usual, some basic economics underlie the march of history. In this case, everything hangs on a simple number. What is the cost per kilowatt hour of generating energy with a newly built power plant?

It is because of that number that planned new coal-fired electricity plants in the world fell by 2/3s last year. Coal is in freefall.

So if you had ten hundred-watt light bulbs, that would be a thousand watts or a kilowatt. And if you burned them for an hour, that would be a kilowatt hour.

h/t Electric Saver

If you went out and built a new coal plant today to generate the electricity to power your light bulbs, how much would it cost you to keep 10 hundred-watt bulbs on for an hour?

Between 8 and 15 cents. So your electricity would cost $0.08 to $0.15 a kilowatt hour. When you get that $200 bill from your electric utility, thats the basis for what theyre charging you. (There are also extra charges, including for maintaining the transmission wires e.g.).

So what if I told you it is possible to cut your electricity bill from $200 a month to $50 or less? That would be like getting a $1800 annual pay raise.

So a huge, real-life energy utility, Xcel, has just announced that it is investing several billion dollars in building 11 wind farms in a seven-state area that includes Colorado. These wind farms will generate enough electricity to power a million households. There are only 124 million households in the US, so this will be 1/124th of them. We just need more wind farms like these 11 and in theory we could power the whole country.

How much will it cost this company to generate that electricity by wind in 2017?

2 cents a kilowatt hour. 2 cents.

A wind farm can be built in 18 months, and the fuel is free. Admittedly, Xcel is here making extra money through a Federal offset for wind farms that will go away over the next 5 years. But at 2 cents a kilowatt hour, the wind farms would be competitive with coal in any case. More than competitive. Like youd have to have your head examined to build a coal plant at these prices.

Utility scale solar plants are another competitor with coal (and with natural gas). The US added 10 gigawatts in large scale solar production last year, enough to power 2 million homes. It will add another 8 gigawatts in 2017, and the amount of electricity from large scale solar will triple over the next five years.

New solar electricity generation in the cloudy Midwest is as low as 6 cents a kilowatt hour. Note that that price is below that of coal, as well. And in sunny states like North Carolina, the price is as little as 4 cents a kilowatt hour. Dubai recently let a large scale solar utility bid for 2.4 cents a kilowatt hour, nearly as inexpensive as the electriticy being generated at Xcels planned wind farms.

Coal, natural gas and petroleum are actually much more expensive than they seem on the surface. Coal should probably be figured at at least 44 cents a kilowatt hour because of the deadly air pollution and climate change effects caused by burning it. Economists typically dont take these externalities into account.

Also, we need a new electric grid in order to send cheap electricity around the country. Xcel has its 7-state wind corridor, but there is almost no wind in the deep South. On the other hand, there is lots of solar in the deep South, though it is not being exploited because so many Southern politicians have been bought and paid for by Big Carbon. In any case, we need to be able to bring the electricity from where it is generated to the cities where it is used.

So, Trump can try all he likes to undo Obamas EPA rules that disadvantage coal plants because carbon dioxide is a damaging emission. Not only will the courts strike him down if he tries to go too far but the market and technological change are already making coal a dinosaur, and gas and oil will soon follow it into the Chicxulub crater.

What we remember about Nero is that he fiddled as Rome burned. But what we remember about Rome is all the other history that happened there when Nero wasnt emperor. Trump will be remembered as a dumpster fire of a president. A green, sustainable United States of America will leave him behind in the dust.



Related video:

ARIRANG NEWS: Trump to sign order to scrap Obamas Clean Power Plan: EPA chief
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By Dina Matar | Al-Shabaka | via Maan News Agency |  

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently claimed in a video posted on his Facebook page that the Palestinian demand to dismantle illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) constitutes an act of ethnic cleansing against Israeli Jewish settlers. The term, which was originally used as a euphemism during the Serbian campaign against Bosnians, soon came to describe extreme violent practices, mass killings, and forced displacement during conflict and war. It has also been used by many scholars as well as in public discourse to refer to Zionist practices against the Palestinian population in the lead-up to and during the Nakba of 1948. These practices include the destruction of more than 500 Palestinian villages and the expulsion of approximately 730,000 Palestinians from their homes.



A young Israeli settler throws stones in the direction of Israeli forces during the evacuation of the illegal settlement outpost of Amona in February 2017. (File)

Netanyahus application of the term to Israeli settlers garnered more than a million views on his Facebook page, and drew millions more via the videos recirculation across social media platforms. It shocked many analysts, created a tense debate in the international media, and brought condemnation from the likes of then-UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who called it unacceptable and outrageous. Yet such rhetoric, albeit more incendiary than usual, is but the latest instance of an Israeli strategy of appropriating a narrative of victimhood in order to shore up public support.

This commentary traces the history of the Israeli claim to this narrative from the early Zionist movement campaigns of the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. It marks the ways in which such a rhetorical strategy has been used to justify the state of Israels actions to the detriment of Palestinians. It concludes with recommendations for how Palestinian leaders, intellectuals, journalists, and activists can counter the Israeli strategy of appropriation to further their quest for Palestinian self-determination and human rights.

Narratives of victimhood in context

In any conflict, actors resort to narratives of victimhood to justify aggression, invasion, and even the killing of civilians. Such rhetoric is intended to establish binary lines of good versus evil, victim versus perpetrator. This mobilizes supporters against the enemy. As we see with Israel and in other conflicts, narratives of victimhood serve to legitimize violent and often pre-emptive acts against the enemy, perpetuating the cycle of violence and victimhood indefinitely.

By contrast, Palestinian narratives of victimhood draw on the injustice enshrined in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 that began to be implemented before and during the British Mandate of 1923 and since the 1947 UN partition plan. These sentiments continue to this day, and are exacerbated by the international communitys, and the Arab worlds, unwillingness to enforce international law and basic human rights. Thus, Palestinians narrative of victimhood cannot be discussed outside of this context and continued Israeli political and military actions against Palestinians in the OPT. The situation includes an unequal power dynamic given that Israel is the mightier power and the occupier; a large number of Palestinian fatalities, including children, as a result of Israeli actions and attacks; and Israeli control of space and territories, as well as resources and movement.

Accordingly, while an analysis of how the history of Jewish persecution and victimhood was  and is  used to justify the actions of the state of Israel should never lose sight of the facts and context of that very real persecution, there is at the same time a need to scrutinize the mobilization of this narrative to understand how one group  Israeli Jews  has been granted victimhood, while another  Palestinians  has not, shoring up a power imbalance in which Jewish Israeli rights are favored at the expense of Palestinian rights.

From victimhood to ethnic cleansing

Jewish persecution in Europe is rooted in anti-Semitism and the many ways in which it impacted Jewish communities in different locations and at different times. As for the narrative of persecution, it can be traced to the late nineteenth century, when Theodore Herzl, a father of Zionism, drew on the history of Jewish persecution in Europe to legitimize the nationalistic project of the Israeli state and its settler colonial practices. After WWII, this history of persecution was again invoked to justify the founding of the Israeli state. Indeed, Israels Declaration of Independence contends that the Holocaustin which millions of Jews in Europe were forced to slaughter again proved beyond doubt the compelling need to solve the problem of Jewish homelessness and dependence by the renewal of the Jewish state in the land of Israel, which would open wide the gates of the homeland to every Jew.

Since the creation of Israel, historical narratives that value Jewish victimhood over Palestinian lives and rights have been used time and again by Israeli politicians. Prime Minister Golda Meir commented, for instance, that Jews have a Masada complex, a pogrom complex, and a Hitler complex, and former Prime Minister Menachem Begin drew parallels between the Palestinians and the Nazis.

Scholarship suggests that Israeli and Zionist leaders manipulated the memory of Jewish persecution, particularly in relation to the Holocaust, as a diplomatic tool in their treatment of the Palestinians. For instance, the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, in his book The Idea of Israel, argues that these leaders constructed a sense of Israelis as victims, a self-image that prevented them from seeing the Palestinian reality. This, he says, has impeded a political solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In recent years, new evidence and studies have begun to question the dominant claims of the Zionist movement. At the same time the global solidarity movement in support of Palestinians has been growing, in part thanks to digital platforms that allow global audiences unmediated access to Palestinian stories and lived reality. This has spurred Israeli leaders, PR managers, spokespeople, and their media to focus on diverse strategies to maintain their hold on Western public opinion.

These include using a discourse  such as Netanyahus use of ethnic cleansing  to refer to Jews and Israeli citizens as victims of continued persecution by the Palestinians, with the knowledge that these terms have specific legal meanings and, according to international law, are considered to be crimes against humanity. But it is the terms associative and emotive meanings, particularly if they are intended to act as reminders of the long history of the persecution of the Jews, that serve to promote Jewish Israeli victimhood at the expense of Palestinian experiences of oppression. The term ethnic cleansing also has yet to be used officially in the West in regard to the Nakba, making it vulnerable to Israeli appropriation.

Around the same time as Netanyahus ethnic cleansing statement, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs reposted a related video on its Facebook page that had originally been released in 2013. The video, titled Welcome to the Home of the Jewish People, was billed as a short history of the Jews. It follows the travails of a Jewish couple, called Jacob and Rachel, when their home (the Land of Israel) is invaded by various groups, including the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Arabs, Crusaders, the British Empire and  finally  the Palestinians. It thus proposes that Jews have survived a series of brutal invasions, with the only remaining invaders the Palestinians. The video provoked a strong reaction from Palestinian activists and those who work for Palestinian rights due to its clear attempt to rewrite the history of the conflict, framing of Israeli Jews as victims rather than the Palestinians, and deployment of racialized and violent language in its depiction of the Palestinians.

Netanyahus ethnic cleansing video is the latest in a series of videos planned and executed by David Keyes, Netanyahus foreign media spokesman, who was appointed in March 2016. Keyes has been a key strategist behind an increase in pro-Israel marketing campaigns on social media. Since his appointment, eight videos with Netanyahu addressing a variety of issues have been posted. All have proved popular among his supporters in Israel and the US.

The arguments in Netanyahus statement draw on those proposed in a 2009 document for the Israel Project, a pro-Israel advocacy group, prepared by Frank Luntz, an American political consultant identified with the US Republican Party. In this dictionary-cum-messaging-manual, Luntz details various tactics and terminology as well as tips for marketing and legitimizing discourses while also highlighting shared values with the West, such as democracy, freedom, and security.

With such a focus on the West, it is thus perhaps no surprise that Netanyahu communicates in English in the ethnic cleansing and other videos, with versions available with subtitles in Hebrew and Arabic.

Countering Israels rhetorical strategy

The history of Jewish persecution is a deeply affecting issue for Israelis and, more widely, for the international community, especially Europeans. However, the Israeli use of such terms as ethnic cleansing  at the hands of the Palestinians  wrongly depicts Israel as a victim and the Palestinians as an aggressor. Such rhetoric can be used in the dangerous practice of seeing any criticism of Israeli actions as anti-Semitic or as antagonistic toward Israel. This helps to stymie efforts on the part of Palestinians and Palestinian solidarity movements to hold Israel to account for its actions, such as extrajudicial killings and the illegal building of settlements in the OPT.

Given the fact that battles over narrative are becoming more prevalent and more visible in the digital age, and given the ways in which particular language may be used to deflect attention from on-the-ground developments, Netanyahus pointed use of the discourse of victimhood cannot be ignored. Attention to this development is all the more crucial at the current juncture, with Israel planning to expand settlements in and possibly annex further occupied territory, and with international determination and ability to resolve the conflict more sluggish than ever. Attention is also particularly necessary  and strategic  in a year marking the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, the five decades since the 1967 war, and the three decades since the First Palestinian Intifada.

The Israeli appropriation of the discourse around victimhood demands a more effective engagement by Palestinian spokespersons, political elites, and activists in the public sphere to expose the reality of Israeli actions and elicit international support for Palestine and the Palestinians. This does not mean taking part in a futile battle over who deserves to be called the real victim in the conflict, but to build a coordinated campaign to refute Israeli claims through evidence.

Such a campaign should contest Israeli narratives by using images and the language of international human rights that appeal to Western publics and leaders. It must always be based on evidence, facts, and context to counter attempts to misinform and disguise actions. The campaign should also train the Palestinian political elite and diplomatic staff in the use of political discourse directed to Palestinians, regionally and internationally, ensuring that the discourse does not legitimize Zionist discourse by, for example, inadvertently using anti-Semitic tropes. Those Palestinians leading the campaign and international solidarity groups must use Twitter and other social media outlets to target the mainstream media with the real-life situation on the ground in the OPT, as well as facing the Palestinian citizens of Israel and the Palestinian refugees and exiles, using the language of rights and international law.

Finally, the campaign should engage media professionals to train Palestinians and advocacy groups on how to counter propagandistic narratives and statements, as well as how to use digital media to reach out to global audiences.

Only with such concerted efforts can Israels strategy of appropriating the Palestinian narrative be contextualized and thus revealed as rhetoric intended to disguise the violence of Israeli settler colonialism.

Al-Shabaka is an independent non-profit organization whose mission is to educate and foster public debate on Palestinian human rights and self-determination within the framework of international law. This brief is by al-Shabaka policy member Dina Matar.

The views expressed in this article are the authors and do not necessarily reflect Maan News Agencys or Informed Comments editorial policy.

Via Maan News Agency


VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 28, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pure Energy Minerals Limited (TSX VENTURE:PE) (FRANKFURT:A111EG) (OTCQB:PEMIF) (the Company or Pure Energy) announces that it intends to undertake a non-brokered private placement (the Private Placement) for total gross proceeds of up to $2,000,000, subject to a 15% over-allotment option. Proceeds of the Private Placement will be used for general working capital and exploration and development activities on the Clayton Valley South and Terra Cotta Projects. The Private Placement will consist of up to 4,000,000 units (excluding any over-allotment) of the Company (each a Unit) at a price of $0.50 per Unit. Each Unit will consist of one common share of the Company (a Share) and one-half Share purchase warrant (each whole such warrant a Warrant).

Each whole Warrant will entitle the holder thereof to acquire one Share at a price of $0.75 for a period of 24 months following closing of the Private Placement (the Expiry Date), subject to acceleration. If at any time between the Expiry Date and the date that is four months and one day from the closing of the Private Placement, the closing price of the Shares on the TSX Venture Exchange (the Exchange) is equal to or greater than $1.25 for 20 consecutive trading days, then the Company may, at its sole option, elect to provide notice (the Acceleration Notice) to the holders of the Warrants by news release that the Warrants will expire at 4:00 p.m. (Vancouver time) on the date that is 30 days from the date of the Acceleration Notice (the Accelerated Expiry Date). In such instance, all Warrants that are not exercised prior to the Accelerated Expiry Date will expire on the Accelerated Expiry Date.

In connection with certain subscriptions under the Private Placement, the Company may pay a cash commission and issue finder warrants pursuant to and in accordance with applicable securities laws and Exchange policy. The Private Placement is subject to the acceptance of the Exchange.

About Pure Energy Minerals Ltd.

Pure Energy is a lithium resource developer that is driven to become a low-cost supplier for the burgeoning lithium battery industry. The Company is currently focused on the development of the CVS Lithium Brine Project and the adjoining Glory Lithium Clay Project in Clayton Valley, Nevada. Pure Energy also recently announced the acquisition of a purchase option on a major new lithium brine project in the Lithium Triangle of South America, the Terra Cotta Project (TCP). The TCP is located on Pocitos Salar in Salta, Argentina, where it enjoys some of the best infrastructure and access of any lithium brine exploration project in the country.

Pure Energy has developed core strengths in innovative development and processing technologies for lithium brines and lithium mineral deposits. The Companys key attributes and activities include:
TORONTO, March 27, 2017 /CNW/ - Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE: AEM, TSX: AEM) ("Agnico Eagle") announced today that it has agreed to issue and sell 5,003,412 common shares of Agnico Eagle (the "Common Shares") directly to an institutional investor in the United States at a price of US$43.97 per Common Share, for total consideration of approximately US$220 million (the "Offering"). The net proceeds of the Offering will be used for general corporate purposes. The Offering is expected to close on or about March 31, 2017, subject to stock exchange approval and the satisfaction of customary conditions.

The Common Shares were offered and are being sold directly by Agnico Eagle without an underwriter or placement agent. Maxit Capital LP and Sprott Capital Partners are acting as financial advisors to Agnico Eagle in connection with the Offering.

"Agnico Eagle is pleased to welcome an important new strategic institutional investor to our share register, and we look forward to continuing to develop this relationship over time," said Sean Boyd, Agnico Eagle's Chief Executive Officer. "The offering also further enhances our financial flexibility as we build out our platform of high quality growth projects," added Mr. Boyd.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy the Common Shares, 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 state or jurisdiction.

About Agnico Eagle

Agnico Eagle is a senior Canadian gold mining company that has produced precious metals since 1957. Its eight mines are located in Canada, Finland and Mexico, with exploration and development activities in each of these countries as well as in the United States and Sweden. Agnico Eagle and its shareholders have full exposure to gold prices due to its long-standing policy of no forward gold sales. Agnico Eagle has declared a cash dividend every year since 1983.

Other Information

The Common Shares were offered by way of a prospectus supplement under Agnico Eagle's shelf prospectus and registration statement on Form F-10 previously filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") under the U.S./Canadian multijurisdictional disclosure system. The prospectus supplement will be filed with the securities commissions or similar regulatory authorities in each of the provinces of Canada and with the SEC.
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - March 28, 2017) - Emerita Resources Corp. (the "Company" or "Emerita") (TSX VENTURE:EMO) has received a written resolution from the Seventh Provincial Court of Seville (the "Court") pursuant to which the Court has ruled against the request by Minorbis SL ("Minorbis"), a competitor bidder in the Aznalcollar project tender process, the Andalucian government panel (the "Panel") responsible for awarding the Aznalcollar project, and the former Director of Mines of the Government of Andalucia (collectively, the "Accused"), to dismiss the ongoing criminal case against them.

The criminal case in connection with the Aznalcollar project tender was re-opened in October 2016 following a successful appeal by Emerita of the lower court's decision that there was not sufficient evidence of a criminal act in such tender process (see the Company's press release issued on October 28, 2016).

In denying the Accused's request to dismiss the case, the Court described the Accused's arguments as unfounded and reiterated that there is sufficient evidence of gross negligence and misconduct by the Accused that it is necessary to continue investigating whether criminal acts were committed by the Accused. The Court, in its resolution, stated: "It is necessary to investigate the case as there are indications of the crime of prevarication thereby we reject all the appeals presented by the accused."

The Court also emphasized that the role of the appellate courts is to review the findings and evidence from the lower courts to determine if the lower court has correctly applied the law. The Court's resolution also strongly criticized the lower court's ruling that there was not sufficient evidence of a potential crime by the Accused. The Court has also ruled that the Accused must pay for the costs associated with the Accused's unfounded appeal to dismiss the ongoing proceedings as well as barring the Accused from bringing similar appeals in respect of this case going forward.

The Aznalcollar project appears to have been awarded to Minera Los Frailes SL ("Los Frailes"), a company that did not participate in the public tender process. The Court has indicated that this result is highly irregular, inconsistent with the laws and regulations governing public tenders in Spain and further investigations need to be made to determine if there were any criminal acts committed in connection therewith. The Court has requested that the Junta de Andalucia (the "Junta") confirm whether it has formally granted the rights to the Aznalcollar project to Los Frailes. This specific request has been made several times by the Court and to date the Junta has not provided the Court with the relevant documentation. The Andalusian Government website indicates that Los Frailes is the company that accepted the Aznalcollar project although documentation supporting such result has not been made public or disclosed to the Court.

The Court has ordered the Spanish federal police to continue investigating the Accused's actions in connection with the Aznalcollar project tender including reviewing the Accused's email correspondence, invoices and payments made and received during the applicable period of time.

Joaquin Merino, CEO of Emerita, commented: "This resolution of the Seventh Provincial Court of Seville is a further positive step in properly resolving the Aznalcollar public tender and brings an end to frivolous appeals that have slowed down the legal process. Emerita's Spanish legal counsel has advised Emerita that under Spanish law, should the commission of a crime occur in the awarding of a public tender, such bid will be disqualified and the tender is required to be awarded to the next qualified bidder. Emerita strongly believes that it is the only qualified bidder in the Aznalcollar tender process. Emerita remains committed to working with the community of Aznalcollar to develop the Aznalcollar project in an environmentally responsible manner to benefit all stakeholders."

About the Aznalcollar Project

The key focus of the Aznalcollar project, if the project is awarded to Emerita, would be the development of the Los Frailes deposit as an underground mining operation. The deposit thickness ranges between 30 and 90 metres. The thickest section of the ore body lies below 150 metres depth from surface. The Los Frailes and the previously mined Aznalcollar deposits are both open for further expansion by drilling at depth, as historical drilling was primarily constrained to depths accessible by open pit mining.

The historical Los Frailes open pit mineral resource, as calculated by the previous operator of the mine, was estimated to be 71 million tonnes grading 3.86% zinc, 2.18% lead, 0.34% copper and 60 ppm silver. A review of the historical drilling data indicates the potential existence of a higher grade portion of the resource that is estimated to contain 20 million tonnes grading 6.65% zinc, 3.87% lead, 0.29% copper and 84 ppm silver. This higher grade resource has been modeled by Emerita and would be the focus for the underground mining operation (see Figure 1).

A qualified person, as defined in National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101"), has not done sufficient work on behalf of Emerita to classify the historical estimate as a current mineral resource and Emerita is not treating the historical estimate as a current mineral resource or mineral reserve. The resource estimate is a historical estimate and should not be relied upon. A summary of the historical resource estimate is available on the Government of Andalucia's web site in a report prepared by the prior operator of the Aznalcollar Project entitled "Proyecto de Explotacion Yacimiento Los Frailes, Memoria Andaluza de Piritas, Boliden- Apirsa, Octubre 1994" (Los Frailes Development project Report, Boliden-Apirsa, October 1994) along with subsequent resource estimate updates, the latest being from 2000.

Figure 1: 3D model showing the Los Frailes (center) and Aznalcollar (right) deposits at depth. Historical drill intercepts indicate potential for a third deposit on the property (left) that would require additional delineation drilling. The historical resources noted above are entirely within the Los Frailes deposit.

Qualified Person

Joaquin Merino is a "qualified person" as such term is defined in NI 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information included in this press release and has approved its dissemination.

About Emerita Resources Corp.

Emerita is a natural resource company engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of mineral properties with a primary focus on exploring in Spain and Brazil. The Company's corporate office and technical team are based in Sevilla, Spain with an administrative office in Toronto, Canada.
VIRGINIA CITY, Nev., March 28, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Comstock Mining Inc. (Comstock or the Company) (NYSE MKT:LODE) announced today, that along with its subsidiary, Comstock Industrial LLC, it received the Nevada Certified Site accreditation from the Northern Nevada Development Authority (NNDA) on its strategically situated, 98-acre industrial property in Silver Springs, Nevada, in immediate proximity of the super-routed USA Parkway and Highway 50 intersection. The site is located in the direct vicinity of the expanding Tahoe Reno Industrial (TRI) Center, the Silver Springs Airport and the USA Parkwaywhich enables the most efficient throughways to Fallon, Yerington, Carson City, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, and beyond. This site is only the second site to achieve this Northern Nevada certification and is the first certified in Lyon County.

The Nevada Certified Site Program is designed to provide critical decision-making information to business owners, developers and site selectors to allow informed, expedited decisions. The Nevada Certified Site designation serves as a pre-qualification for buyers, indicating that a propertys title is clear, appropriately zoned, possesses sufficient utilities, adequate transportation access and other critical infrastructure for industrial and commercial uses. It also includes a confirmation that a positive, Phase One environmental assessment has been completed, among many other criteria. The designation ensures that a companys expansion plans will not be held back by costly delays in permitting and approvals.

NNDA also cited several positive factors for locating a business in Nevada:

Nevada consistently ranks as one of the top ten states to do business based on taxation & regulation, workforce quality, and living environment;

Northern Nevadas centralized location can reach 11 western states within one to two transport days;

Nevadas favorable tax structure does not have a Corporate Income Tax, Personal Income Tax, Inventory Tax, Unitary Tax, Estate Tax, Gift Tax, Franchise Tax, Inheritance Tax or Special Intangible Tax; and

Nevada has one of the lowest costs to incorporate in the U.S.

The commercial and industrial real estate market in the Sierra Region is growing dramatically, said NNDA Executive Director Robert Hooper. Industrial vacancy rates are down and, in many cases, current buildings are not meeting the markets needs. Building a new facility to meet the specialized needs of todays market is ideal but can take too long to get through the due diligence and approval processes. The Nevada Certified Site program solves the problem and helps buyers, sellers and developers accelerate their economic goals by doing and certifying the heavy administrative work up front.

To become certified, the owners of a property must prove that their land meets 35 different requirements and benchmarks designed to speed up the due diligence period most buyers go through. The program is designed to support businesses that are looking to construct their own building, but dont have the time to wait while all of the preliminary assessments are done on the property.

Corrado De Gasperis, President & CEO of Comstock Mining Inc. said, We are pleased to receive this advantageous site certification from NNDA. The NNDA process was incredibly thorough and collaborative, especially working with Lyon County officials and local utilities. The certification required us to meet more than 30 different prerequisites and benchmarks, all designed to expedite the development process most buyers go through. Essentially, this site is shovel ready, saving everyone time and money.

The 98-acre Comstock Industrial site in Silver Springs, Nevada, is also located adjacent to the Silver Springs Airport, multiple, expansive parcels of commercial and industrial properties and immediately within the municipal water and sewer service area, serviceable by electrical power, natural gas, and communications. The Company also owns over 256 acre-feet of the most senior water rights in the basin. NNDA has uploaded the certified site information packet at this link:

http://www.nevadacertifiedsites.com/service/98-acre-commercialindustrial-site/

The property is ideally situated with excellent logistics in immediate proximity to where USA Parkway (State Route 439) connects with US 50 from Interstate 80, through the TRI Center, also known as the largest industrial park in the world. The Company plans to sell certain, non-mining related lands, buildings and water rights, including the Certified Site, for expected net cash proceeds of more than $14 million during the next 12 to 18 months. The Nevada Department of Transportation has an animated flythrough of USA Parkway (SR 439) that can be viewed at this link:

http://www.nevadadot.com/projects-programs/road-projects/usa-parkway

About Comstock Mining Inc.

Comstock Mining Inc. is a Nevada-based, gold and silver mining company with extensive, contiguous property in the Comstock District and is an emerging leader in sustainable, responsible mining. The Company began acquiring properties in the Comstock District in 2003. Since then, the Company has consolidated a significant portion of the Comstock District, amassed the single largest known repository of historical and current geological data on the Comstock region, secured permits, built an infrastructure and commenced production in 2012. The Company continues evaluating and acquiring properties inside and outside the district expanding its footprint and exploring all of our existing and prospective opportunities for further exploration, development and mining. The near term goal of our business plan is to maximize intrinsic stockholder value realized, per share, by continuing to acquire mineralized and potentially mineralized properties, exploring, developing and validating qualified resources and reserves (proven and probable) that enable the commercial development of our operations through extended, long-lived mine plans that are economically feasible and socially responsible.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - March 28, 2017) - Canuc Resources Corporation (TSXV: CDA) ("Canuc" or the "Company") is pleased to provide summary information, previously compiled, pertaining to work done by Santa Rosa Silver Mining Corporation ("Santa Rosa") on the San Javier Silver/Gold project.

Prior to the merger between Canuc and Santa Rosa, Santa Rosa performed an extensive channel sampling program of the vein(s) mined intermittently since the 1950s. The channel sampling program was carried out in 2012 under the guidance of Seymour Sears, P.Geo, whose NI 43-101 report on the San Javier project can be viewed on SEDAR.

The Santa Rosa mine consists of five levels, plus connecting sub-levels, spanning a strike length of 490 m and 135 m down dip (~100 m vertically below surface). The vein ranges from 0.3 m to 5.0 m in width and is open along strike in both directions, and also down dip. A total of 341 samples of vein material were collected; the weighted average grade was:

388 g/t (11.3 oz/t) Ag, 2.02 g/t (0.06 oz/t) Au, 1.58% Pb & 1.28% Zn over 1.45 m.* avg. width.

Figure 1 Long Section Santa Rosa Mine





Two sub-parallel veins, El Capulin and Las Norias, occur in the footwall rocks below the Santa Rosa vein; the width between these three veins is about 115 m. These veins are similar in appearance to the Santa Rosa vein and are virtually unexplored. The host rocks to the veins are sedimentary, dominated by sandstone, but shale and coal are known to occur as interbeds. The wall rocks next to the veins are highly fractured and altered, providing the potential to find lower grade, high tonnage mineralization.

A drilling program, planned for the second quarter this year, will test this concept in conjunction with detailed drilling of the Santa Rosa vein.

A control and soil sampling grid, initiated in June 2016, will be completed this yearinitial soil samples are in the laboratory at this time.

Figure 2 San Javier Plan Map



* The reader is cautioned that the results of the underground sampling, reported above, do not represent a resource nor do they reflect what a potentially mineable resource may ultimately average in grade and/or width.

About Canuc

Canuc is a junior resources company engaged in the exploration and development of mineral properties in North America. In addition, the company is active in the development of a natural gas field in Central West Texas where it has an interest in seven producing gas wells. These wells generate a sustainable cash-flow with the potential to increase income by the drilling and completion of additional wells.

John Nebocat, BSc (Geological Engineering), P.Eng, Vice President Exploration for Canuc, is the Qualified Person for the Company, as defined by NI 43-101, and has reviewed and approved the contents of this press release.
WINNIPEG, MANITOBA--(Marketwired - March 28, 2017) - Winston Gold Mining Corp. ("Winston Gold" or the "Corporation") (CSE:WGC)(CSE:WGC.CN)(OTCQB:WGMCF) is pleased to announce drilling has extended the strike length of the Block 93 vein structure farther to the west. The vein now has been traced over a strike length of about 246 ft. (75 metres), and to a vertical extent of 192 ft. (58.5 metres) on the Company's wholly-owned Winston Gold Property near Helena Montana.

"These new results show that the Block 93 vein has significant vertical and horizontal extent," commented Murray Nye, CEO and Director of Winston Gold Mining. "A number of previously unknown veins were also encountered in both the hanging wall and foot wall of the Block 93 structure. However, it is still too early to speculate if these veins are continuous and/or related to that vein structure."

Previously announced drill results (March 1st, 2017) confirmed the existence of two high grade veins dubbed the Parallel and Block 93 veins. These veins were identified from historic drill data from the 1980's.

A total of six new holes were collared on a drill pad, located about 80 ft. (24.4 metres) southeast from the spot where holes W1727, W1728 and W1729 were collared. These new holes were drilled in a fan configuration and were designed to extend the strike length of the Block 93 vein structure.

The holes tested an additional 198 ft. (60.3 metres) strike length of the Block 93 Vein. Refer to attached drill plan map. Highlights of the Results include:

Hole W65 intersected three veins in the footwall (beneath) the Block 93 vein. The first intersection cut 1 ft. (0.3 metres) averaging 0.121 opt (4.15 g/t) gold and 0.46 opt (15.77 g/t) silver starting 77 ft. (23.5metres) down-hole. No previously known vein is associated with it. The hole also intersected 0.5 ft. (0.15 metre) averaging 0.235 opt (8.06 g/t) gold and 0.23 opt (7.89 g/t) silver 164.5 ft. (50.1 metres) down-hole. This too is still in the footwall of Block 93. Unfortunately there were no significant intercepts in the Block 93 vein. This may be a result of the nugget effect in the vein system.

Hole W66 hit another previously unknown vein in the hanging wall (above) the Block 93 vein. At a depth of 311 ft (94.8 metres) the hole cut a 4 ft. (1.22 metres) interval averaging 0.223 opt (7.65 g/t) gold. This included a 1 ft (0.3 metre) section that averaged 0.773 opt (26.5 g/t) gold and 2.85 opt (97.71 g/t) silver. The actual Block 93 intercept was at a depth of 277.5 ft (84.58 metres) down-hole and averaged 0.368 opt (12.62 g/t) gold and 0.95 opt (32.57 g/t) silver over a 1 ft (0.3 metre) interval.

Hole W67 intersected 2 ft (0.61 metres) averaging 0.116 opt (3.98 g/t gold) and 0.14 opt (4.80 g/t) silver starting 300 ft (91.4 metres) down hole. This is believed to be part of the Block 93 vein.

Hole W68 intersected 3 ft (0.91 metres) averaging 0.164 opt (5.62 g/t) gold starting 91 ft. (27.7 metres) down-hole. This included a 1.3 ft. (0.4 metre) interval averaging 0.312 opt (10.70 g/t) gold and 0.53 opt (18.17 g/t) silver. This is a vein in the footwall of Block 93 and is possibly associated with the intercept in W65. Further down-hole at a depth of 310.5 ft. (94.6 metres) the drill cut a 3.5 ft. (1.07 metre) interval averaging 0.284 opt (9.74 g/t) gold. This included a 1.5 ft (0.46 metre) section that averaged 0.436 opt (14.95 g/t) gold and 0.53 opt (18.17 g/t) silver. This is believed to be the Block 93 vein.

Hole W70 intersected a 1.5 ft (0.46 metre) interval averaging 0.674 opt (23.11 g/t) gold and 0.55 opt (18.86 g/t) silver starting 325.5 ft down-hole. This is believed to be the Block 93 vein. Assays results are still pending in this hole for samples taken on either side of this vein.

Refer to chart below for details of the drill holes discussed in this release. The dips of the veins are currently unknown at this time so true width cannot be accurately determined.

Hole Vein UTM North

(m) UTM East

(m) Elevation

(m) Azimuth Dip From

(ft.) To

(ft.) Interval

(ft.)/(m) Gold (opt)/(g/t) Silver

(opt)/(g/t) W65 Unknown 448,640 5,143,768 1461.2 335 -45 77 78 1 0.3 0.121 4.15 0.46 15.77 Unknown 164.5 165 0.5 0.15 0.235 8.06 0.23 7.89 Unknown 229 230 1 0.30 0.129 4.42 0.27 9.26 W66 Unknown 448,640 5,143,768 1461.2 355 -45 222 223 1 0.30 0.261 8.95 0.40 13.71 Unknown 227 228 1 0.30 0.514 17.62 0.81 27.77 Block 93 277.5 278.5 1 0.30 0.368 12.62 0.95 32.57 Unknown 311 315 4 1.22 0.223 7.65 -- Including 314 315 1 0.30 0.773 26.50 2.85 97.71 W67 Block 93 448,640 5,143,768 1461.2 320 -45 300 302 2 0.61 0.116 3.98 0.14 4.80 W68 Unknown 448,640 5,143,768 1461.2 305 -45 91 94 3 0.91 0.164 5.62 including 91 92.3 1.3 0.40 0.312 10.70 0.65 22.29 Block 93 310.5 314 3.5 1.07 0.284 9.74 including 310.5 312 1.5 0.46 0.436 14.95 0.53 18.17 W69 Unknown 448,640 5,143,768 1461.2 305 -55 61.5 63 1.5 0.46 0.04 1.37 0.06 2.06 Unknown 82.5 83.5 1 0.30 0.041 1.41 0.08 2.74 W70 Unknown 448,640 5,143,768 1461.2 285 -45 108 109 1 0.30 0.113 3.87 0.34 11.66 Block 93* 325.5 327 1.5 0.46 0.674 23.11 0.55 18.86 *Assays still pending for samples taken on either side of the vein structure

The Winston Gold Project is central to a historic precious and base metal mining district in which most of the ore was mined from tightly structurally controlled high angle fissure veins and lode/replacement zones. Reports indicate that more than 100,000 ounces of gold was recovered from these underground mines in the late 19th to early 20th century from about 150,000 tons of ore. (Earle, 1964; Schell, 1963).

Sampling Methodology, Chain of Custody, Quality Control and Quality Assurance

All sampling was conducted under the supervision of the Company's project geologists and the chain of custody from the drill to the on-site sample preparation facility was continuously monitored. The samples are crushed, pulverized and the sample pulps digested and analyzed for gold using fire assay fusion and a 50 gram gravimetric finish. Blank or certified reference materials are inserted randomly. Check Assays are sent to Bureau Veritas Minerals, in Reno Nevada.

Qualified Person

The scientific and technical content and interpretations contained in this news release have been reviewed, verified and approved by Dr. Criss Capps PhD. P.Geol., an independent consultant to Winston Gold Corp. Dr. Capps is a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

About Winston Gold

Winston Gold is a junior mining company focused on advancing high-grade, low cost mining opportunities into production. Towards that end, the Corporation has acquired two under-explored and under-exploited gold/silver mining opportunities, being the Winston Gold project near Helena, Montana, and the Gold Ridge project, near Willcox, Arizona.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - March 28, 2017) - Advantage Lithium Corp. (the "Company" or "Advantage Lithium") (TSX VENTURE:AAL)(OTCQX:AVLIF) is pleased to announce that, further to its news releases of November 23, 2016, December 22, 2016, January 24, 2017, February 8, 2017, February 17, 2017 and March 16, 2017, the Company has completed its acquisition of an initial 50% interest, with a right increase its interest to a total of 75%, in the Cauchari Project and a 100% interest in five other lithium brine properties located in the northern provinces of Jujuy, Salta and Catamarca in Argentina's lithium triangle (the "Argentine Properties") from Orocobre Limited ("Orocobre") - one of Argentina's leading lithium producers. The closing of the acquisition follows the closing of a $20 million financing.

David Sidoo, President and CEO, of Advantage Lithium, commented, "Having closed this acquisition and the $20 million financing, we are in a position to aggressively advance the exploration and development of our advanced Cauchari project with our partner, Orocobre, with drilling expected to commence in April 2017. We will also begin exploring the other 100% owned exploration projects in the heart of Argentina's lithium triangle as we seek to build a premier lithium exploration company in Argentina."

"I would like to welcome our new directors, Richard Seville, Rick Anthon, Miguel Peral and Nick DeMare to the Board," Sidoo added. "I also want to thank Dev Randhawa and Ross McElroy in particular, as well as William Marsh, for their invaluable assistance and guidance with Advantage Lithium."

News Highlights

Acquisition of six Orocobre lithium brine properties, including 50% (with option of 75%) of the Cauchari project in Argentina

Drilling to start at Cauchari in April 2017, focusing and expanding both laterally and at depth on area of the inferred resource estimate as well as drill testing the large exploration target defined with a quantity range of 0.25 to 5.6 mt of LCE and 0.9 mt to 16 mt of potash and target grade range of 260 mg/L Li and 2550 mg/L K and 537 mg/L for Li and 5350 mg/l K for the lower and upper ranges.

Cauchari hosts an inferred resource containing an estimated 230 million cubic metres of brine at ~380 mg/l Li and 3,700 mg/l K. This is equivalent to 470,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate (~88,000 tonnes lithium metal) and 1.62 million tonnes of potash (KCl - equivalent to ~840,000 tonnes of potassium).

The project is adjacent to Lithium America's and SQM's Cauchari project - host to major resources in the proven, probable, measured and indicated categories. Lithium Americas recently proposed a combined equity and debt financing of USD $286M investment by Bangchak Petroleum Public Company Ltd. and GFL International Ltd. to put its project into production.

The same, highly-experienced drilling contractor that successfully drilled and proved up the Lithium America/SQM Cauchari project has been contracted by Advantage Lithium

Orocobre (TSX:ORL)

One of Argentina's leading lithium producers and one of the world's five primary producers.

Currently producing from its Olaroz brine project in Argentina (JV with JEMSE [8.5%] and Toyota Tsusho [25%]).

Olaroz is operating profitably at 17,500tpa capacity, with recently-announced plans to expand to 35,000tpa. Approximately 80% utilization rate and profit margins in excess of USD$6500/t.

Extensive land holdings in Argentina's lithium triangle and strong working relationships with government and local communities

Changes to Board of Directors and Management

Upon the closing of the Company's acquisition of the Argentine Properties, Richard Seville, Rick Anthon, Miguel Peral and Nick DeMare were appointed to the Company's board of directors. Devinder Randhawa, Ross McElroy and William Marsh have resigned from the Company's board of directors. Miguel Peral also takes the position of Exploration Manager in Argentina.

Issuance of Securities and Conversion of Subscription Receipts

In consideration for its acquisition of the interest in the Argentine Properties, the Company issued 46,325,000 and 8,175,000 common shares of the Company, respectively, to Orocobre and Peral, and issued 2,550,000 and 450,000 warrants of the Company, respectively, to Orocobre and Peral, on the terms announced in the Company's March 16, 2017 news release.

The Company has now satisfied all the conditions to the release of the escrowed proceeds of its previously completed $20,000,000 financing (the "Financing") and the conversion of the 26,667,000 subscription receipts issued by the Company in the Financing. The escrow release conditions required, among other things, completion of the acquisition of the Argentine Properties and obtaining from the British Columbia Securities Commission, as principal regulator, a receipt for the Company's final short form prospectus filed in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and New Brunswick qualifying the distribution of the underlying securities issuable pursuant to the conversion of the 26,667,000 subscription receipts. The Company will be providing notice today to Computershare Trust Company of Canada, as subscription receipt agent, that the escrow release conditions have been met. Computershare will then release the net proceeds of the Financing to the Company and the balance of the fees and commissions relating to the Financing to the co-lead agents, Eight Capital and Canaccord Genuity Corp., and to certain finders all as previously announced on February 17, 2017. The subscription receipts issued by the Company in the Financing will be converted into 26,667,000 common shares and 13,333,498 share purchase warrants to purchase 13,333,498 common shares at a price of $1.00 per share for a two year period, on the terms previously announced on February 17, 2017.

In connection with the Financing, the Company issued a total of 1,011,656 compensation warrants to Eight Capital and Canaccord Genuity Corp. and 472,662 compensation warrants to various finders. Such compensation warrants have now been converted into compensation options on the terms announced in the Company's January 24, 2017 news release.

This news release is not an offer of securities for sale in the United States, and securities may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from registration.

The technical information in this news release was reviewed and approved on behalf of the company by Ross McElroy, P.Geol., Technical Advisor for Advantage Lithium Corp., and a "Qualified Person" as defined in NI 43-101.

About Advantage Lithium Corp.

Advantage Lithium Corp. is a resource company specializing in the strategic acquisition, exploration and development of lithium properties and is headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. The common shares of the company are listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX VENTURE:AAL), and the company is also traded on the OTCQX Best Market in the U.S. (OTCQX:AVLIF). The company has acquired a 100% interest in five projects in Argentina and up to a 75% interest in a sixth, called Cauchari. Cauchari is host to a near-surface estimated inferred resource of 230 million cubic metres of brine at 380 mg/l Lithium that equates to 470,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate (LCE), and a large exploration target of 5.6mt to 0.25mt of LCE and 19mt to 0.9 of KCL. Cauchari is located just 20 km south Orocobre's flagship Olaroz Lithium Facility. The Company is also earning an interest from Nevada Sunrise Gold Corp., in a portfolio of five lithium brine projects in the Clayton and Lida Valley regions of Nevada, USA, including 70% in Clayton NE. In addition, the Company has acquired 100% of the Stella Marys lithium brine project, immediately adjacent to Orocobre's Salinas Grandes project that hosts an inferred, near-surface resource, in Argentina's Lithium Triangle.
VANCOUVER, March 28, 2017 /CNW/ - Hannan Metals Limited ("Hannan" or the "Company") (TSX.V: HAN) is pleased to announce the appointment of Ms. Georgina Carnegie as director of the Company and the subsequent resignation of Mr. Harvey Lim.

An economist and experienced corporate director, Ms. Carnegie holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from Monash University, and a Master's Degree in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Ms. Carnegie is the Managing Director of Carnegie Enterprises and has held senior positions in Australian government and management and board positions in the insurance, airline, and resources sectors. She has spent time on secondment to the OECD, has consulted to The World Bank, and authored the first Investment Guide to the Lao PDR. For over a decade Ms Carnegie was Managing Director Market Intelligence (Asia) Pte Ltd. She is a member of the EmNet Advisory Committee at the OECD (the Development Centre's Emerging Markets Network) and serves as a member of the Board of the Australia Korea Foundation and the Executive Board of the Australia Korea Business Council. She is Senior Advisor to Iron Road Limited and Mawson Resources Ltd and serves on the Boards of Kerogen Shale Limited and its wholly owned Jordan based subsidiary Karak International Oil. She has also interviewed presidents and prime ministers, global business leaders, and cultural figures for The Analecta and produced "Visions of Leadership" for The History Channel.

The Company also announces the resignation of Mr. Harvey Lim as director of the Company effective immediately. Mr. Lim had served as director of the Company since July 2013. Mr. Lim will continue to serve as the Company's CFO. Following Mr. Lim's resignation as a director of the Company, Mr. Nick DeMare was appointed as a member of the Company's Audit Committee, joining members Messrs. David Henstridge and Michael Iannacone.

Mr Hudson, CEO and Chairman states, "The Board of Hannan welcomes this high level and strategic appointment. Having worked closely with Georgina over the last few years, I know she will provide a deep, holistic and ongoing assessment of the Company's activities in Ireland and provide a wealth of experience in geo-political assessment and co-investment strategies. Her appointment reflects Hannan's continued commitment to focus on CSR issues during our exploration activities. On behalf of the Board, I would also like to thank Harvey for his role in helping establish Hannan, and I look forward to continuing to work with him in his role as CFO."

About Hannan Metals Limited (TSX.V:HAN)

Hannan Metals Limited has 100% ownership of the County Clare Zn-Pb-Ag-Cu project in Ireland, which consists of 9 prospecting licences for 32,223 hectares. The Kilbricken project, a new high-grade Zn-Pb-Ag-Cu discovery is the Company's flagship project. Better intersections, to date, include DH 46: 20.5m @ 7.5% Zn, 9.9% Pb, 0.07% Cu, 74.6g/t Ag, DH06: 21.3m @ 11% Zn, 4.8% Pb, 0.06% Cu, 94.4g/t Ag. The project is drilled over more than 1.5 kilometres and, importantly, holds large upside with a 40-kilometre trend to test, which includes the Milltown prospect (incl. DH19: 13.3m at 5.8% Pb and 10.5% Zn). The true thickness of the mineralized intervals quoted is interpreted to be approximately 95% of the sampled thickness.

Zinc remains in tight supply amidst rising demand and stagnant supply. Ireland is a leading global jurisdiction for zinc mining and exploration. It has been stated that Irish base metal ore field is ranked first in the world in terms of zinc discovered per square kilometre, and second in the world with respect to lead. In 2015, Ireland was the world's 10th largest zinc producing nation with 230,000 tonnes produced.

Over the last decade, the team behind Hannan has forged a long and successful record of financing and discovering mineral projects in Europe. Additionally, the team holds extensive zinc experience, gained from the world's largest integrated zinc producer of the time, Pasminco Ltd.

Mr. Michael Hudson FAusIMM, Hannan's CEO and Chairman, is a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical disclosure contained in this news release.
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - March 28, 2017) - All amounts expressed in U.S. dollars - Barrick Gold Corporation (NYSE:ABX)(TSX:ABX) ("Barrick") today announced that it has reached an agreement with Goldcorp Inc. ("Goldcorp") to form a new partnership at the Cerro Casale Project in Chile. Under the terms of the agreement, Goldcorp has agreed to purchase a 25 percent interest in Cerro Casale from Barrick. This transaction, coupled with the concurrent purchase by Goldcorp of Kinross Gold Corporation's ("Kinross") 25 percent interest in Cerro Casale, will result in a 50/50 joint venture between Barrick and Goldcorp.

"We are pleased to welcome Goldcorp as our new joint venture partner at Cerro Casale, and look forward to the fresh perspective they can bring to the project, in addition to the potential for synergies in the district," said Kelvin Dushnisky, President of Barrick. "This agreement will allow us to direct capital elsewhere in our portfolio, while ensuring shareholders retain exposure to the optionality associated with one of the largest undeveloped gold and copper deposits in the world."

Details of the Cerro Casale Transaction

As consideration for the 25 percent interest acquired from Barrick, Goldcorp will fund Barrick's first $260 million of expenditures on the project following the formation of the Joint Venture, and will spend an equivalent amount on its own behalf for a total project investment commitment of $520 million.

Payment of the committed expenditures will be made pursuant to budgets approved by the Cerro Casale Joint Venture Board. Under the agreement, Goldcorp must spend a minimum of $60 million in the two-year period following closing, and then $80 million in each successive two-year period. The outstanding funding commitment will accrue interest at an annual rate of 4.75 percent. In the event that Goldcorp does not spend the minimum amount, 50 percent of any shortfall will be paid directly to Barrick in cash. In addition, Goldcorp will pay Barrick $40 million in cash upon a construction decision.

Goldcorp will also fund the Cerro Casale Joint Venture's acquisition of a 100 percent interest in the adjacent Quebrada Seca property from Kinross upon closing. Goldcorp has granted Barrick a 1.25 percent royalty interest on 25 percent of gross revenues derived from metal production from both Cerro Casale and Quebrada Seca.

Under the new 50/50 ownership structure, the project's management team will be subject to oversight and direction by a Joint Venture Board comprised of an equal number of nominees from Barrick and Goldcorp. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2017 and is subject to customary closing conditions.

Goldcorp has entered into a separate agreement for the acquisition of Exeter Resource Corporation, whose sole asset is the Caspiche Project, located approximately 10 kilometers north of Cerro Casale. Following closing of this acquisition, Goldcorp will contribute the Caspiche Project into the Cerro Casale Joint Venture. Fifty percent of the acquisition costs incurred by Goldcorp will be deducted from the $260 million expenditure commitment described above.

Credit Suisse Securities (Canada), Inc. is acting as financial advisor to Barrick. Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP is acting as legal counsel to Barrick.

About Cerro Casale

Cerro Casale is one of the world's largest undeveloped gold and copper deposits, located in the Atacama Region of northern Chile. As of December 31, 2016, Barrick reported proven and probable gold reserves of 17.4 million ounces at Cerro Casale, as well as 2.5 million ounces of measured and indicated gold resources (both on a 75 percent basis).1 Barrick also reported 4.3 billion pounds of contained copper in proven and probable gold reserves, and 794 million pounds of contained copper in measured and indicated gold resources (75 percent basis).1

1 Estimated in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 as required by Canadian securities regulatory authorities. Estimates are as of December 31, 2016. Proven reserves of 172,276 million tonnes grading 0.65 g/t, representing 3.6 million ounces of gold. Probable reserves of 725.9 million tonnes grading 0.59 g/t, representing 13.8 million ounces of gold. Measured resources of 17.2 million tonnes grading 0.30 g/t, representing 167 thousand ounces of gold. Indicated resources of 205.3 million tonnes grading 0.36 g/t, representing 2.4 million ounces of gold. Contained copper figures refer to pounds of copper estimated to be present in the tonnes of ore which would be mined and processed. Mill recovery rates have not been applied in calculating the contained pounds. Grade represents an average, weighted by reference to tonnes of ore type where several recovery processes apply. Proven reserves of 172.3 million tonnes grading 0.19%, representing 721.3 million pounds of contained copper. Probable reserves of 725.9 million tonnes grading 0.23%, representing 3.613 billion pounds of contained copper. Measured resources of 17.2 million tonnes grading 0.13%, representing 50.1 million pounds of contained copper. Indicated resources of 205.3 million tonnes grading 0.16%, representing 743.8 million pounds of contained copper. Complete mineral reserve and mineral resource data for the Cerro Casale Project, including tonnes, grades, and ounces, can be found on pages 28 to 31 of Barrick's Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2016.
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - March 28, 2017) - Kirkland Lake Gold ("KL Gold" or the "Company") (TSX:KL) (OTCQX:KLGDF) is pleased to announce the results of the Company's updated 2016 year-end Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources.

Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources were estimated using a long-term gold price of US$1,200/oz (C$1,500/oz; A$1,500/oz). Canadian Mineral Reserves were last updated December 31, 2014 due to the transition of fiscal year end for Kirkland Lake Gold Inc. and because of the acquisition of St Andrew Goldfields Ltd. which closed January 26, 2016. Australian Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources were last updated December 31, 2015. Mineral Resources are exclusive of Mineral Reserves for Canadian assets and Mineral Resources are inclusive of Mineral Reserves for Australian assets.

Year-End 2016 Mineral Reserves and Resources Highlights

Macassa Mine ("Macassa") Mineral Reserves increased from December 31, 2014 by 37% to 2,010,000 ounces of gold, after two years of depletion totalling 336,000 ounces. Mineral Reserve grade increased by 7% to 20.8 g/t Au from the previous grade of 19.3 g/t Au.

Fosterville Mine ("Fosterville") Mineral Reserves increased from December 31, 2015 by 66% to 643,000 ounces of gold, after depletion of 151,755 ounces. Mineral Reserve grade increased 27% to 9.2 g/t Au from 7.3 g/t Au. Excluding Carbon-In-Leach ("CIL") Residues, after depletion, Fosterville's Mineral Reserves increased over 100% to 490,000 ounces at an average grade of 9.8 g/t Au (1,560,000 tonnes).

Total Canadian Mineral Reserves increased by 20% between 2014 and 2016 to 2,750,000 ounces of gold.

Total Australian Mineral Reserves increased by 24% from December 31, 2015 to 952,000 ounces of gold, mainly attributable to the 66% increase in Proven and Probable Mineral Reserves at Fosterville underpinned by down-plunge extensions of the high-grade, visible gold-bearing Lower Phoenix Gold Zone and the discovery of visible gold-bearing Harrier Zone.

Mr. Tony Makuch, President and Chief Executive Officer, KL Gold commented: "Throughout 2016, investment into our flagship operations, the Macassa and Fosterville Mines, have yielded significant positive results, where we have seen an increase in Mineral Reserves of 37% and 66% respectively. The results provided today have more than offset mining depletion, contributing to both an increase in ounces and average Reserve grade at Macassa by 7% to 20.8 g/t gold and Fosterville by 27% to 9.2 g/t gold."

"Macassa is one of the highest-grade underground gold mines in Canada located in one of the most prolific gold districts in the world. Historically, over 25 million ounces of gold have been mined within the Kirkland Lake District, with the majority of the mining north of the Main Break. South of the Main Break, Macassa currently has a large Reserve base averaging over 20 g/t gold supported by a large Resource base averaging over 16 g/t gold, which at current production rates supports well in excess of a 15 year mine life. Additionally, we have an aggressive multi-rig exploration program ongoing with significant potential to expand Reserves and Resources south of the Main Break and along the Amalgamated Break Corridor to the east."

"At Fosterville, the discovery of the high-grade, visible gold bearing Lower Phoenix and Harrier Gold Zones have resulted in significant positive impacts on the Mineral Reserve grade, production and cost profile. We continue to intersect high-grade visible gold bearing mineralization at Fosterville which reaffirm an increasing grade profile with depth. Not only did the Mineral Reserves increase significantly but the Measured and Indicated Mineral Resource increased 23% to 2.79 million ounces with a 25% increase in grade. With the geological knowledge that we have acquired, we believe there is potential not only to expand these high-grade zones but potentially find new high-grade zones along the 20 km of known gold bearing structures within our mining license and exploration of the surrounding 500 km2 land package."

"With our district-scale exploration portfolio in prolific mining camps, we believe there is great potential to continue to expand on Mineral Reserves and Resources in the future. We remain focused on delivering superior shareholder value by targeting organic growth opportunities, supported by an aggressive 2017 exploration investment of US$45-55 million. Ongoing drilling continues to enhance the geological understanding of our assets, providing confidence in the ability to delineate and expand our Mineral Reserves and Resources. Looking to 2017, KL Gold is well positioned for future growth with an experienced management and operating team, increasing reserves and grade profiles at our flagship operations, and a strong financial position."

CONSOLIDATED CANADIAN AND AUSTRALIAN MINERAL RESERVES, EFFECTIVE DECEMBER 31, 2016

2016 Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Macassa 3,000 20.8 2,010 Taylor 743 5.4 129 Holt 3,950 4.5 570 Holloway 58 5.7 10 Hislop 176 5.8 33 Canadian Operations 7,930 10.8 2,750 2016 Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Fosterville 2,170 9.2 643 Northern Territory ("NT") 2,400 2.3 177 Stawell 2,700 1.5 132 Australian Operations 7,280 4.1 952

See detailed Mineral Reserves and Resources tables at the end of this news release for full disclosure

CONSOLIDATED CANADIAN AND AUSTRALIAN MINERAL RESOURCES, EFFECTIVE DECEMBER 31, 2016

2016 Measured & Indicated Inferred Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Macassa 2,480 16.6 1,320 1,420 20.2 924 Taylor 2,760 5.6 493 1,810 5.4 313 Holt 6,970 4.2 947 8,690 4.7 1,320 Holloway 1,370 5.3 231 2,710 5.2 456 Hislop 1,150 3.6 132 797 3.7 95 Aquarius 22,300 1.3 926 9 0.8 0 Canamax 240 5.1 39 170 4.3 23 Ludgate 522 4.1 68 1,400 3.6 162 Canadian Operations 37,800 3.4 4,160 17,000 6.0 3,300 2016 Measured & Indicated Inferred Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Fosterville 15,300 5.7 2,790 5,400 4.6 792 NT 30,700 2.2 2,180 15,100 2.3 1,110 Stawell 3,710 2.1 246 1,130 2.9 104 Australian Operations 49,700 3.3 5,220 21,700 2.9 2,000

See detailed Mineral Reserves and Resources tables at the end of this news release for full disclosure

CANADIAN ASSETS MINERAL RESERVES AND RESOURCES AT DECEMBER 31, 2016

(Detailed Mineral Reserve and Mineral Resource tables follow at the end of the news release, Mineral Resources are reported exclusive of Mineral Reserves)

Macassa Mine

Mineral Reserves at Macassa increased 37% to 2,010,000 ounces of gold, after depletion of 336,000 ounces since the last Mineral Reserves and Resources update as of December 31, 2014. Macassa's Reserve grade increased by 7% to 20.8 g/t Au (3,000,000 tonnes) from the previous estimate of 1,460,000 ounces of gold (2,350,000 tonnes at an average grade of 19.3 g/t Au). Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources decreased 36% to 1,320,000 ounces of gold at comparable grade of 16.6 g/t Au (2,480,000 tonnes), from the previous estimate of 2,050,000 ounces of gold as a result of the Mineral Resource to Mineral Reserve conversion.

Macassa has a Mineral Resource base that is expected to support future conversion to Mineral Reserves, with potential to further extend the current known Mineral Resource following exploration drilling down-plunge and east of the South Mine Complex ("SMC"). Currently five diamond drill rigs are in operation from surface and two underground. Previously released results intercepted high-grade gold mineralization approximately 1.5 km to the east where the system remains open. The Company is focused on expanding known mineralization South of the '04 and Main Break and will be continuing an aggressive exploration campaign at the South Mine Complex throughout 2017.

Macassa Mine Mineral Reserves and Resources Summary and Comparison, Effective December 31, 2016

2016 2014 % Change Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Mineral Reserves Proven 610 16.9 332 809 15.9 412 7 % -19 % Probable 2,390 21.8 1,680 1550 21.1 1,050 3 % 59 % Proven and Probable 3,000 20.8 2,010 2,350 19.3 1,460 7 % 37 % Mineral Resources Measured 907 16.2 474 1,000 13.7 447 18 % 6 % Indicated 1,570 16.8 849 2,810 17.8 1,600 -6 % -47 % Measured and Indicated 2,480 16.6 1,320 3,810 16.8 2,050 -1 % -36 % Inferred Resources 1,420 20.2 924 1,920 19.2 1,180 5 % -22 %

See detailed Mineral Reserves and Resources tables at the end of this news release for full disclosure

Taylor Mine

Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources increased 40% to 493,000 ounces of gold accompanied by a 17% increase in grade to 5.6 g/t Au (2,760,000 tonnes), from the previous estimate of 353,000 ounces of gold (2,320,000 tonnes at an average grade of 4.7 g/t). Mineral Reserves at Taylor decreased 17% to 129,000 ounces of gold, after depletion of 60,000 ounces and Mineral Reserve grade decreased 14% to 5.4 g/t Au since the last Mineral Reserves and Resources update dated December 31, 2014.

The Mineral Resource at Taylor is expected to provide future additions to Mineral Reserves, with significant potential to further extend the current Mineral Resource following exploration drilling. Currently two diamond drill rigs are in operation from surface and two underground. Previously released drill results intercepted high-grade gold mineralization along strike and down-plunge from the current underground mining operations. The Company is focused on expanded mineralization at Taylor along the prolific Porcupine-Destor Fault ('PDF') and continues diamond drilling to follow up on these previously announced results.

Taylor Mine Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources Summary and Comparison, Effective December 31, 2016

2016 2014 % Change Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Mineral Reserves Proven 0 0.0 0 0 0.0 0 0 % 0 % Probable 743 5.4 129 774 6.3 156 -14 % -17 % Proven and Probable 743 5.4 129 774 6.3 156 -14 % -17 % Mineral Resources Measured 399 6.0 77 0 0 0 0 % 0 % Indicated 2,360 5.5 416 2,320 4.7 353 16 % 18 % Measured and Indicated 2,760 5.6 493 2,320 4.7 353 17 % 40 % Inferred Resources 1,810 5.4 313 1,950 4.1 257 31 % 22 %

See detailed Mineral Reserves and Resources tables at the end of this news release for full disclosure

Holt Mine ("Holt")

Mineral Reserves at Holt decreased by 4% to 570,000 ounces of gold, after depletion of 127,000 ounces since the last Mineral Reserves and Resources update. Holt's Reserve grade decreased by 6% to 4.5 g/t Au (3,950,000 tonnes) from the previous estimate of 591,000 ounces of gold grading 4.8 g/t Au (3,870,000 tonnes). Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources remained steady at 947,000 ounces of gold accompanied by a 7% increase in grade to 4.2 g/t Au (6,970,000 tonnes), from the previous estimate of 958,000 ounces of gold at an average grade of 3.9 g/t Au (7,560,000 tonnes).

At Holt, the Mineral Resources are expected to be converted to Mineral Reserves. There is also potential to further extend the current Mineral Resource following exploration drilling along the Zone 4 west extension. Currently two diamond drill rigs are in operation from surface and three underground. On surface drilling is targeting the westerly strike extensions of the Tousignant and Cascade Deposits, both situated 3 km west of the Holt head frame. Underground drilling is in progress on the 435m level to test for mineralization situated west of Zone 7, and on the 850m level to define mineralization on Zone 4 East.

Holt Mine Mineral Reserves and Resources Summary and Comparison, Effective December 31, 2016

2016 2014 % Change Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Mineral Reserves Proven 1,450 4.2 194 1,450 4.3 199 -2 % -2 % Probable 2,500 4.7 376 2,410 5.0 392 -7 % -4 % Proven and Probable 3,950 4.5 570 3,870 4.8 591 -6 % -4 % Mineral Resources Measured 3,960 4.3 549 3,700 4.0 473 9 % 16 % Indicated 3,020 4.1 398 3,860 3.9 485 5 % -18 % Measured and Indicated 6,970 4.2 947 7,560 3.9 958 7 % -1 % Inferred Resources 8,690 4.7 1,320 7,870 4.7 1,180 1 % 12 %

See detailed Mineral Reserves and Resources tables at the end of this news release for full disclosure

CONSOLIDATED CANADIAN MINERAL RESERVES AND RESOURCES COMPARISON, EFFECTIVE DECEMBER 2016

Canadian Mineral Reserves increased by 20% between 2014 and 2016 to 2,750,000 ounces, driven by the 37% increase in Proven and Probable Mineral Reserves at the Macassa Mine accompanied by an 7% increase in Mineral Reserve grade to 20.8 g/t Au.

Measured and Indicated Resources decreased largely due to a significant conversion of Resources to Reserves at the flagship Macassa Mine to approximately 4,160,000 ounces of gold, with a 9% decrease in average consolidated grade to 3.4 g/t Au. Over the last two years' exploration spending has been limited on the Canadian assets, however the Company has initiated a significant 2017 exploration program aimed at expanding resources at each asset.

2016 2014 % Change Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Mineral Reserves Proven 2,060 8.0 526 2,260 8.4 611 -5 % -14 % Probable 5,870 11.8 2,220 5,250 10.0 1,680 18 % 32 % Proven and Probable 7,930 10.8 2,750 7,510 9.5 2,300 13 % 20 % Mineral Resources Measured 5,420 6.4 1,120 5,020 6.0 967 7 % 16 % Indicated 32,400 2.9 3,040 34,000 3.4 3,750 -14 % -19 % Measured and Indicated 37,800 3.4 4,160 39,000 3.7 4,710 -9 % -12 % Inferred Resources 17,000 6.0 3,300 16,800 6.2 3,330 -3 % -1 %

See detailed Mineral Resource tables at the end of this news release for full disclosure

AUSTRALIAN ASSETS MINERAL RESERVES AND RESOURCES SUMMARY AT DECEMBER 31, 2016

(Detailed Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources tables follow at the end of this news release, Mineral Resources are inclusive of Mineral Reserves)

Fosterville Gold Mine

Total Mineral Reserves at Fosterville grew 66% to 643,000 ounces of gold, after depletion, accompanied by a 27% increase in grade to 9.2 g/t Au (2,170,000 tonnes) from the previous estimate of 388,000 ounces of gold (1,660,000 tonnes at an average grade of 7.3 g/t Au). Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources increased 23% to 2,790,000 ounces of gold accompanied by a 25% increase in grade to 5.7 g/t Au (15,300,000 tonnes), from the previous estimate of 2,270,000 ounces of gold (15,600,000 tonnes at an average grade of 4.5 g/t Au).

Fosterville continues to maintain a large underlying Mineral Resource base that is expected to support future additions to Mineral Reserves, with potential to further extend the current known Mineral Resource following ongoing surface and underground drilling, testing near-mine gold systems up and down-plunge from current Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources. The high-grade Phoenix and Lower Phoenix gold systems, where Fosterville is currently mining, host Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources of 1.08 million ounces of gold grading 10.1 g/t Au (3,310,000 tonnes). The Lower Phoenix gold system has been traced by development and drilling for over 2 km and remains open for further expansion.

Fosterville Gold Mine Mineral Reserves and Resources Summary and Comparison, Effective December 31, 2016

2016 2015 % Change Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Mineral Reserves Proven 896 7.9 229 803 7.1 184 11 % 24 % Probable 1,280 10.1 414 859 7.4 203 37 % 103 % Proven and Probable 2,170 9.2 643 1,660 7.3 388 27 % 66 % Mineral Resources Measured 2,140 4.0 274 2,090 3.2 218 23 % 26 % CIL Residues (Measured) 616 7.7 153 571 7.8 144 -1 % 6 % Indicated 12,600 5.8 2,360 12,900 4.6 1,900 28 % 24 % Measured and Indicated 15,300 5.7 2,790 15,600 4.5 2,270 25 % 23 % Inferred Resources 5,400 4.6 792 5,070 4.1 665 12 % 19 %

See detailed Mineral Reserves and Resources tables at the end of this news release for full disclosure

Cosmo Gold Mine and Northern Territory

The Cosmo Gold Mine reported a 38% decline in year-end Mineral Reserves from 2015 to 63,000 ounces of gold (639,000 tonnes at an average grade of 3.1 g/t Au). During the second half of 2016, step-out exploration drilling focused on down plunge extensions of the Sliver Lode, Red Belly and Taipan zones to increase confidence in the continuation of mineralization at depth. Highlight results included: 8.76 g/t Au over 7.55m (Estimated true width "ETW 6.8m), 4.29 g/t Au over 11.8m (ETW 10.0m) and 6.23 g/t Au over 21.45m (ETW 9.0m) (see News Release dated August 22, 2016). Recently Kirkland Lake Gold also announced the discovery of the new Lantern Deposit as a result of exploration drilling parallel to the Cosmo underground operations, (see News Release dated March 6, 2017). The Maiden Mineral Resource for the Lantern Deposit includes Indicated Mineral Resources of 56,000 ounces of gold and Inferred Mineral Resources of 104,000 ounces of gold. Continued drilling for further up-plunge and down-plunge extensions to the Lantern Deposit will be tested over the next six months in aggressive step-out exploration program including Scoping and Resource Definition drilling programs and construction of underground development to access the Lantern Deposit. The company's other Northern Territory Mineral Reserves at Union Reefs and Pine Creek, outside of the Cosmo area, remain unchanged.

Cosmo Gold Mine and NT Mineral Reserves and Resources Summary and Comparison, Effective December 31, 2016

2016 2015 % Change Cosmo Gold Mine Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Mineral Reserves Proven - Cosmo UG 98 3.0 9 487 3.5 54 -15 % -83 % Probable - Cosmo UG 541 3.1 54 445 3.3 47 -6 % 14 % Proven and Probable 639 3.1 63 932 3.4 101 -10 % -38 % Mineral Resources Measured - Cosmo UG 1,460 3.2 152 1,650 3.6 193 -10 % -21 % Indicated - Cosmo UG 2,860 3.0 275 2,990 3.0 288 0 % -4 % Indicated - Lantern 566 3.1 56 0 Measured and Indicated 4,890 3.1 483 4,640 3.2 480 -5 % 1 % Inferred Resources - Cosmo 911 2.9 84 678 2.8 60 4 % 39 % Inferred - Lantern 1,120 2.9 104 0 Inferred 2,030 2.9 188 678 2.8 60 4 % 212 % NT Excluding Cosmo Mine 2016 2015 % Change Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Mineral Reserves Proven 0 0.0 0 0 0.0 0 0 % 0 % Probable 1,770 2.0 114 1,770 2.0 114 0 % 0 % Proven and Probable 1,770 2.0 114 1,770 2.0 114 0 % 0 % Mineral Resources Measured 1,070 5.6 192 1,070 5.6 192 0 % 0 % Indicated 24,800 1.9 1,510 24,800 1.9 1,510 0 % 0 % Measured and Indicated 25,800 2.0 1,700 25,800 2.0 1,700 0 % 0 % Inferred 13,100 2.2 920 14,700 1.9 908 13 % 1 %

See detailed Mineral Reserves and Resources tables at the end of this news release for full disclosure

CONSOLIDATED AUSTRALIAN MINERAL RESERVES AND RESOURCES COMPARISON, EFFECTIVE DECEMBER 2016

The Australian Mineral Reserves increased 24% year-over-year to 952,000 ounces with a 33% increase in Mineral Reserve grade, supported by the 66% increase in Proven and Probable Mineral Reserve ounces at Fosterville. The main drivers for the increase at Fosterville is the down-plunge extension of high-grade, visible gold-bearing Lower Phoenix gold zones and the discovery of visible gold-bearing Harrier gold zone.

Measured and Indicated Resource ounces grew by 11% year-over-year after mining depletion supported by a 12% increase in grade. Successful growth exploration results achieved across several sites in 2016 resulted in increased Measured and Indicated Resources largely driven by the high-grade expansions and discoveries made at Fosterville.

2016 2015 % Change Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Tonnes (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Gold Grade (g/t) Gold Ounces (000's) Mineral Reserves Proven 994 7.5 238 1,340 5.6 243 32 % -2 % Probable 6,280 3.5 713 6,500 2.5 526 40 % 36 % Proven and Probable 7,280 4.1 952 7,840 3.1 769 33 % 24 % Mineral Resources Measured 5,360 4.5 781 5,430 4.3 751 5 % 4 % Indicated 44,400 3.1 4,440 44,800 2.7 3,940 14 % 13 % Measured and Indicated 49,700 3.3 5,220 50,200 2.9 4,690 12 % 11 % Inferred Resources 21,700 2.9 2,000 21,600 2.5 1,750 14 % 14 %

See detailed Mineral Reserves and Resources tables at the end of this news release for full disclosure

Technical Reports

Updated NI 43-101 Technical Reports were prepared for all properties in support of the Company's 2016 Mineral Reserve and Mineral Resource disclosure. They will be available on SEDAR on March 30, 2017 at www.sedar.com

Qualified Person

Pierre Rocque, P.Eng., Vice President, Technical Services is a "qualified person" as defined in National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved disclosure of the Mineral Reserves technical information and data for all Kirkland Lake Gold assets in this News Release.

Simon Hitchman, FAusIMM (CP), MAIG, Principal Geologist, is a "qualified person" as such term is defined in National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the Mineral Resources technical information and data from the Australian Assets included in this News Release.

Doug Cater, P. Geo Vice President, Exploration, Canada is a "qualified person" as defined in National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved disclosure of the Mineral Resources technical information and data for the Canadian Assets included in this News Release.

About Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd.

Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd. is a mid-tier gold producer targeting approximately 525,000 ounces in Tier 1 mining jurisdictions of Canada and Australia. The production profile of the company is anchored from two high-grade, low-cost operations, including the Macassa Mine located in northeastern Ontario and the Fosterville Mine located in the state of Victoria, Australia. Kirkland Lake Gold's solid base of quality assets is complemented by district scale exploration potential, supported by a strong financial position with extensive management and operational expertise.

For further information on the Company and to receive news releases by email, visit the website www.klgold.com
TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - March 28, 2017) - Kinross Gold Corporation (TSX: K) ( NYSE : KGC) announced today that it has agreed to sell its 25% interest in the Cerro Casale project in Chile, and its 100% interest in the Quebrada Seca exploration project located adjacent to Cerro Casale, to Goldcorp Inc. ("Goldcorp") for the following consideration:

US$260 million in cash, payable at closing (which includes US$20 million for Quebrada Seca);

US$40 million in cash, payable following a construction decision for Cerro Casale;

Assumption by Goldcorp of a US$20 million payment obligation due to Barrick Gold Corporation ("Barrick") under the existing Cerro Casale shareholders agreement, which is payable when commercial production at Cerro Casale commences;

A 1.25% royalty from Goldcorp based on 25% of gross revenues from all metals sold at Cerro Casale and Quebrada Seca, with Kinross foregoing the first US$10 million.

Additionally, on closing Kinross will enter into a water supply agreement with the Cerro Casale joint venture. After certain conditions are met, the agreement will provide Kinross with certain rights to access, up to a fixed amount, water not required by the Cerro Casale joint venture. Kinross expects to use this water for its Chilean assets and would be responsible for the incremental capital costs to accommodate the supply of water to the Company along with its pro rata share of operating and maintenance costs.

Kinross expects to use the proceeds from the sale for its organic development projects and to further strengthen its balance sheet.

The sale is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2017, subject to customary conditions of closing as well as the closing of Goldcorp's acquisition from Barrick of a 25% interest in the Cerro Casale project.

About Kinross Gold Corporation
Often when we go to a city with many well known sights, several of which are considered to be must-sees, we end up missing quite few of them.

And we dont feel guilty about that.

Many do; theres the invisible pressure of expectation and the foreknowledge of rebuke to come. When you get home and are talking about the experience, there is often an aghast exclamation from someone whos been  didnt you visit the Imperial Palace?! (Kyoto) to which Ill happily respond, No, but we spent the most wonderful few hours taking a private cooking class in the home of an elderly Kyoto lady. What about Kiyomizu-dera, surely the most famous of Kyoto temples? No, but we stumbled across a charming shrine with an enormous boulder through which you crawl one way to break the bonds of a poor relationship and the other way to ask for help forging a wonderful one.

We have learned that wed rather enjoy the things we see, chosen according to the vagaries of what we feel like doing. Instead of racing around to tick everything off a list, or working top down from the sight that is most highly rated by the guide books, we choose what appeals the most to us. Often we will linger long in places that others might spend minutes in, but leave very quickly a sight that others dwell in, because it hasnt caught our imaginations or interest.

Theres no deliberate attempt to eschew the most popular attractions  after all they are usually popular for very good reason. Certainly, we do visit many of them, if not on our first visit to a place, then perhaps on the second or third

But weve still not been to the Imperial Palace!

In December 2014 I was invited to visit Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. I much admired the citys beautiful historical architecture and enjoyed browsing the Christmas market in Cathedral Square. Another highlight was the day trip out to nearby Trakai, a popular local holiday destination in a region of several beautiful lakes. We visited Trakai Castle, a 14th century castle that was heavily restored in the late 20th century. Trakai was one of the main centres of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and as such, the castle held significant strategic importance in that era.

More Kavey Eats Travel Quotes.

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By Kim Se-jeong



One of the four nuclear reactors near Busan stopped working early Tuesday due to a steam leak, according to the nuclear reactor operator.



Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) said it halted the Kori 4 reactor's operation at 5:11 a.m. Tuesday, after discovering steam leaking from a valve near a generator.



The steam comes from water used as a coolant to absorb heat generated from the nuclear fission process.The KHNP said the steam is not hazardous to people.



"The steam is radioactive but was leaked only within the reactor," the operator said. The operator plans to halt operations until it fixes the leak.



Korea has 25 nuclear power plants up and running _ many concentrated in the southeastern coast. The troubled Kori 4 reactor has been in operation since 1986, with a capacity of generating 950 megawatts of electricity.



The KHNP said it's not sure how much steam had been leaked. The coolant circulates past the reactor core and absorbs the heat. Not enough coolant can heat up the reactor core, threatening the safety of the facility. Ordinarily, the steam cools down at one point to a liquid and is put in storage tanks within the power plant.



For the Kori reactor, the operator saw the level of liquid in the storage skyrocketing before halting its operation.



Nuclear power is one of the vital sources of energy for Korea, accounting for almost 30 percent of electricity generation. But people are divided over its safety.



The meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011 caused many to urge the Korean government to find alternative sources.



Environmentalists also demand the government shut down nuclear power plants that have outlived their designed lifespan, calling them a potential source of a major disaster. Despite the renewed calls, the government is acting slowly, authorizing power plants past their expiration date to continue working.



The nuclear plants have allegedly caused health side effects in neighboring residents. A group of villagers has filed a compensation suit against the KHNP over a high incidence of thyroid cancer.




















The Racine area's population is not growing, and construction costs are rising. Those factors are guiding how the Racine Unified School District is planning to spend the funding from its 30-year, $1 billion referendum. The district's long-term plans have been somewhat changed in the past two years. Here's where they sit now (and yes, inflation plays a big factor)...
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WINONA, Minn.  Racine Unified Superintendent Lolli Haws will not be leaving the district to go lead Winona School District in Minnesota.

Haws was not selected to be superintendent for the Winona School District in Minnesota. The Winona School Board on Monday instead selected Rich Dahman.

Haws had been one of three finalists for the superintendent vacancy in Winona, Minn., according to media reports.

Dahman, who was selected, is the superintendent of Medford School District.

Haws reportedly interviewed with Winona Area Public Schools last Thursday.

Haws was given a contract extension through the end of the 2017-18 school year in December. The Racine Unified School Board approved the extension in a 6-3 vote following weeks of closed-session deliberations.

In January, the board named Deputy Superintendent Eric Gallien as Haws successor, forgoing a formal superintendent search process.

Last week, Haws said she has begun exploring options for the next phase of her career.

I continue to work with Deputy Superintendent (Eric) Gallien and all the excellent leaders and staff in RUSD, she said. We will continue our work and ensure we sustain the excellent progress and momentum we see our students making.

She could not be immediately reached for comment on Monday night.

Prior to coming to Racine, Haws worked in the Washington, D.C., public school system for three years. She preceded that with stints as an elementary school principal in Virginia and Missouri.

According to its website, the Winona school districts K-12 enrollment is about 3,000 students. The 266-square-mile district has about 680 employees, including about 286 teachers. By contrast Racine Unified, the states fifth- largest school district, has about 19,455 students and 1,757 teachers.
The following companies are subsidiares of PerkinElmer: 2Cure LLC, Analytica of Branford, Applied Biosystems, Arnel Inc., ArtusLabs, Beijing Huaan Magnech Bio-Tech Co. Ltd., Beijing Meizheng Bio-Tech Co. Ltd., Beijing Meizheng Testing Lab Co. Ltd., Beijing OUMENG Biotechnology Co. Ltd., Bio Evolution SAS, BioLegend, BioLegend CNS Inc., BioLegend China Beijing Ltd., BioLegend Europe B.V., BioLegend France SAS, BioLegend GmbH, BioLegend Inc., BioLegend Japan KK, BioLegend Shenzhen Ltd., BioLegend Taiwan Ltd., BioLegend UK Ltd., BioLegend Ventures LLC, Bioo Scientific Corporation, Biosense Technologies Pvt Ltd., Boulder Diagnostics Europe GmbH, Caliper Life Sciences, Caliper Life Sciences Inc., Cambridge Research & Instrumentation Inc., CambridgeSoft, Ceiba Solutions, Chengdu PerkinElmer Medical Laboratory Co. Ltd., Cisbio Asia Pacific Ltd, Cisbio Bioassays SAS, Cisbio China Ltd., Cisbio.com, DIA.Metra S.R.L., DNA Laboratories Sdn. Bhd., Dani Analitica S.r.l., Dexela, Dharmacon Inc., EUROIMMUN AG, EUROIMMUN Brasil Medicina Diagnostica Ltda., EUROIMMUN Diagnostics Espana S.L., EUROIMMUN France SAS, EUROIMMUN Hangzhou Medical Laboratory Diagnostics Co. Ltd., EUROIMMUN Italia Diagnostica Medica S.r.l., EUROIMMUN Japan Co. Ltd., EUROIMMUN Medical Diagnostics Canada Inc., EUROIMMUN Medical Diagnostics China Co. Ltd., EUROIMMUN Medical Laboratory Diagnostics South Africa Pty Ltd., EUROIMMUN Medizinische Labordiagnostika AG, EUROIMMUN Polska Sp. z o.o., EUROIMMUN Portugal Unipessoal Lda., EUROIMMUN Schweiz AG, EUROIMMUN South East Asia Pte Ltd., EUROIMMUN Tianjin Medical Diagnostic Technology Co. Ltd., EUROIMMUN Turkey Tibbi Laboratuar Teshisleri A.S., EUROIMMUN UK Ltd., EUROIMMUN US Inc., EUROIMMUN US Real Estate LLC, Geospiza, Guangzhou EUROIMMUN Medical Diagnostic Products Co. Ltd., Hangzhou EUROIMMUN Medical Diagnostic Products Co. Ltd., Horizon Diagnostics Limited, Horizon Discovery, Horizon Discovery Biosciences Limited, Horizon Discovery Group Ltd., Horizon Discovery Inc., Horizon Discovery KK, Horizon Discovery Limited, Horizon Genomics GmbH, IDS Brasil Diagnosticos Ltda., Immunetics Inc., Immunodiagnostic Systems, Immunodiagnostic Systems Deutschland GmbH, Immunodiagnostic Systems France SAS, Immunodiagnostic Systems Holdings Limited, Immunodiagnostic Systems Inc., Immunodiagnostic Systems Limited, Immunodiagnostic Systems SA, Inochem S.A. de C. V., Integromics S.L., Jiangsu Meizheng Bio-Tech Co. Ltd., LabMetrix Technologies, Labtronics, Nexcelom Bioscience, Nexcelom Bioscience Holdings LLC, Nexcelom Bioscience Instruments Shanghai Co. Ltd., Nexcelom Bioscience LLC, Nexcelom Bioscience Ltd., NovaScreen Biosciences Corporation, OZ Systems International SARL, OZ Systems USA LLC, Omni International Inc., Optimization Zorn Corporation, Opto Technology, Orchid Biomedical Systems Pvt Ltd., Oxford Diagnostic Laboratories UK Limited, Oxford Immunotec, Oxford Immunotec Asia Ltd, Oxford Immunotec Global Limited, Oxford Immunotec Ireland Limited, Oxford Immunotec KK, Oxford Immunotec Limited, Oxford Immunotec Shanghai Medical Device Co. Ltd., Oxford Immunotec USA Inc., Pediatrix Medical Group - Newborn Metabolic Screening Business, Perkin Elmer Chile Ltda., Perkin Elmer Instruments Philippines Corporation, Perkin Elmer Italia SpA, Perkin Elmer Sdn. Bhd., Perkin Elmer Yuhan Hoesa, Perkin-Elmer Argentina S.R.L., Perkin-Elmer de Mexico S.A., PerkinElmer Argentina Holdings LLC, PerkinElmer Automotive Research Inc., PerkinElmer BV, PerkinElmer CV Holdings LLC, PerkinElmer Cellular Technologies Germany GmbH, PerkinElmer Danmark A/S, PerkinElmer Diagnostics Global Holdings S.a r.l., PerkinElmer Diagnostics Holdings Inc., PerkinElmer Espana S.L., PerkinElmer Finance Luxembourg S.a r.l., PerkinElmer Finland Oy, PerkinElmer Genetics Inc., PerkinElmer Genomics Sweden AB, PerkinElmer Germany Diagnostics GmbH, PerkinElmer Global Diagnostics S.C.A., PerkinElmer Global Financing S.a r.l., PerkinElmer Global Holdings S.a r.l., PerkinElmer Health Sciences B.V., PerkinElmer Health Sciences Canada Inc., PerkinElmer Health Sciences FZ-LLC, PerkinElmer Health Sciences Inc., PerkinElmer Health Sciences Puerto Rico LLC, PerkinElmer Health Sciences Pvt Ltd., PerkinElmer Healthcare Diagnostics Shanghai Co. Ltd., PerkinElmer Holding Luxembourg S.a r.l., PerkinElmer Holdings Inc., PerkinElmer Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd., PerkinElmer Hong Kong Ltd., PerkinElmer IVD Pte Ltd., PerkinElmer Inc., PerkinElmer India Pvt Ltd., PerkinElmer Informatics Inc., PerkinElmer Instruments Suzhou Co. Ltd., PerkinElmer International C.V., PerkinElmer Investments Ky, PerkinElmer Ireland Ltd., PerkinElmer Israel Ltd., PerkinElmer Japan Co. Ltd., PerkinElmer LAS Germany GmbH, PerkinElmer LAS UK Ltd., PerkinElmer Life Sciences International Holdings, PerkinElmer Life Sciences Singapore Pte. Ltd., PerkinElmer Limited, PerkinElmer Ltd., PerkinElmer Management Chengdu Co. Ltd., PerkinElmer Management Shanghai Co. Ltd., PerkinElmer Nederland B.V. , PerkinElmer Norge AS, PerkinElmer Oy, PerkinElmer Polska Sp. z o.o., PerkinElmer Pty. Ltd., PerkinElmer SAS, PerkinElmer Saglk ve Cevre Bilimleri Ltd., PerkinElmer Schweiz AG, PerkinElmer Shanghai Equity Investment Fund L.P., PerkinElmer Shanghai Equity Investment Fund Management Co. Ltd., PerkinElmer Shared Services Sp. z o.o., PerkinElmer Singapore Pte Ltd., PerkinElmer South Africa Pty Ltd., PerkinElmer Sverige AB, PerkinElmer Taiwan Corporation, PerkinElmer UK Holdings Ltd., PerkinElmer VertriebsgmbH, PerkinElmer chemagen Technologie GmbH, PerkinElmer do Brasil Ltda., Perten Instruments, Perten Instruments AB, Perten Instruments GmbH, Perten Instruments of Australia Pty Ltd., Qognit Inc., RHS Ltd, RayAl Ltd., SIRION Biotech, SIRION Biotech GmbH, SIRION Biotech International Inc., Sage Labs LLC, Shandong Meizheng Bio-Tech Co. Ltd., Shanghai Haoyuan Biotech Co. Ltd., Shanghai Spectrum Instruments Co. Ltd., Shanghai Spectrum Instruments Co. Ltd., Signature Genomic Laboratories, Singapore Biosciences Pte Ltd., Solus Scientific Solutions Ltd., SonoVol Inc., Suomen Bioanalytiikka Oy, Surendra Genetic Labs, Suzhou PerkinElmer Medical Laboratory Co. Ltd., Suzhou Sym-Bio LifeScience, Suzhou Sym-Bio Lifescience Co. Ltd., Synthetx Limited, Tulip Diagnostics, Tulip Diagnostics Pvt Ltd., Vanadis Diagnostics, Vanadis Diagnostics AB, ViaCell, ViaCord LLC, VisEn Medical, VisEn Medical Inc., Wallac Oy, Wellesley B.V., Xenogen Corporation, ZeLab SAS, and chemagen Biopolymer-Technologie AG.

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The following companies are subsidiares of InterContinental Hotels Group: 2250 Blake Street Hotel LLC, 24th Street Operator Sub LLC, 36th Street IHG Sub LLC, 426 Main Ave LLC, 46 Nevins Street Associates LLC, Allegro Management LLC, Alpha Kimball Hotel LLC, American Commonwealth Assurance Co. Ltd., Asia Pacific Holdings Limited, BHMC Canada Inc., BHR Holdings B.V., BHR Luxembourg SARL, BHR Pacific Holdings Inc., BHTC Canada Inc., BOC Barclay Sub LLC, Barclay Operating Corp., Bristol Oakbrook Tenant Company, Cafe Biarritz, Cambridge Lodging LLC, Capital Lodging LLC, Compania Inter-Continental De Hoteles El Salvador SA, Crowne Plaza Amsterdam (Management) B.V., Crowne Plaza LLC, Cumberland Akers Hotel LLC, Dunwoody Operations Inc., EVEN Real Estate Holding LLC, Edinburgh IC Limited, General Innkeeping Acceptance Corporation, Guangzhou SC Hotels Services Ltd., H.I. (Ireland) Limited, H.I. Soaltee Management Company Ltd, HC International Holdings Inc., HH France Holdings SAS, HH Hotels (EMEA) B.V., HH Hotels (Romania) SRL, HI Sugarloaf LLC, HIM (Aruba) NV, Hale International Ltd., Hoft Properties LLC, Holiday Hospitality Franchising LLC, Holiday Inn Mexicana S.A. de C.V., Holiday Inns (China) Ltd, Holiday Inns (Chongqing) Inc., Holiday Inns (Courtalin) Holdings SAS, Holiday Inns (Courtalin) SAS, Holiday Inns (England) Ltd., Holiday Inns (Germany) LLC, Holiday Inns (Guangzhou) Inc., Holiday Inns (Jamaica) Inc., Holiday Inns (Malaysia) Ltd., Holiday Inns (Middle East) Ltd., Holiday Inns (Philippines) Inc., Holiday Inns (Saudi Arabia) Inc., Holiday Inns (South East Asia) Inc., Holiday Inns (Thailand) Ltd., Holiday Inns (UK) Inc., Holiday Inns Crowne Plaza (Hong Kong) Inc., Holiday Inns Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd, Holiday Inns Inc., Holiday Inns Investment (Nepal) Ltd., Holiday Inns of America (UK) Ltd., Holiday Inns of Belgium N.V., Holiday Pacific Equity Corporation, Holiday Pacific LLC, Holiday Pacific Partners LP, Hotel Inter-Continental London Limited, Hotel InterContinental London (Holdings) Limited, Hoteles Y Turismo HIH SRL, IC Hotelbetriebsfuhrungs GmbH, IC Hotels Management (Portugal) Unipessoal Lda, IC International Hotels Limited Liability Company, IHC (Thailand) Limited, IHC Buckhead LLC, IHC Edinburgh (Holdings), IHC Hopkins (Holdings) Corp., IHC Hotel Limited, IHC Inter-Continental (Holdings) Corp., IHC London (Holdings), IHC M-H (Holdings) Corp., IHC May Fair (Holdings) Limited, IHC May Fair Hotel Limited, IHC Overseas (U.K.) Limited, IHC UK (Holdings) Limited, IHC United States (Holdings) Corp., IHC Willard (Holdings) Corp., IHG (Australasia) Limited, IHG (Marseille) SAS, IHG (Thailand) Limited, IHG ANA Hotels Group Japan LLC, IHG ANA Hotels Holdings Co. Ltd., IHG Bangkok Ltd, IHG Brasil Administracao de Hoteis e Servicos Ltda, IHG Commission Services SRL, IHG Community Development LLC, IHG Cyprus Limited, IHG ECS (Barbados) SRL, IHG Franchising Brasil Ltda, IHG Franchising DR Corporation, IHG Franchising LLC, IHG Hotels (New Zealand) Limited, IHG Hotels Limited, IHG Hotels Management (Australia) Pty Limited, IHG Hotels Nigeria Limited, IHG Hotels South Africa (Pty) Ltd, IHG International Partnership, IHG Istanbul Otel Yonetim Limited Sirketi, IHG Japan (Management) LLC, IHG Japan (Osaka) LLC, IHG Management (Maryland) LLC, IHG Management (Netherlands) B.V., IHG Management MD Barclay Sub LLC, IHG Management SL d.o.o, IHG Management d.o.o. Beograd, IHG Orchard Street Member LLC, IHG PS Nominees Limited, IHG Systems Pty Ltd, IHG Szalloda Budapest Szolgaltato Kft., IHG de Argentina SA, IND East Village SD Holdings LLC, Inter-Continental D.C. Operating Corp., Inter-Continental Florida Investment Corp., Inter-Continental Florida Partner Corp., Inter-Continental Hospitality Corporation, Inter-Continental Hoteleira Limitada, Inter-Continental Hotels (Montreal) Operating Corp., Inter-Continental Hotels (Montreal) Owning Corp., Inter-Continental Hotels (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Inter-Continental Hotels Corporation, Inter-Continental Hotels Corporation de Venezuela C.A., Inter-Continental Hotels of San Francisco Inc., Inter-Continental IOHC (Mauritius) Limited, Inter-Continental Management (Australia) Pty Limited, InterContinental (Branston) 1 Limited, InterContinental (PB) 1, InterContinental (PB) 2, InterContinental (PB) 3 Limited, InterContinental Berlin Service Company GmbH, InterContinental Brasil Administracao de Hoteis Ltda, InterContinental Gestion Hotelera S.L., InterContinental Hotel Berlin GmbH, InterContinental Hotel Dusseldorf GmbH (Germany), InterContinental Hotels (Puerto Rico) Inc., InterContinental Hotels Group (Asia Pacific) Pte Ltd, InterContinental Hotels Group (Australia) Pty Limited, InterContinental Hotels Group (Canada) Inc., InterContinental Hotels Group (Espana) SA, InterContinental Hotels Group (Greater China) Limited, InterContinental Hotels Group (India) Pvt. Ltd, InterContinental Hotels Group (Japan) Inc., InterContinental Hotels Group (New Zealand) Limited, InterContinental Hotels Group (Shanghai) Ltd., InterContinental Hotels Group Customer Services Ltd., InterContinental Hotels Group Healthcare Trustee Limited, InterContinental Hotels Group Operating Corp., InterContinental Hotels Group Resources Inc., InterContinental Hotels Group Services Company, InterContinental Hotels Group do Brasil Limitada, InterContinental Hotels Italia S.r.L., InterContinental Hotels Limited, InterContinental Hotels Management GmbH, InterContinental Hotels Nevada Corporation, InterContinental Management AM LLC, InterContinental Management Bulgaria EOOD, InterContinental Management France SAS, InterContinental Management Poland sp. z.o.o, InterContinental Overseas Holding Corporation, Intercontinental Hotels Corporation Limited, KG Benefits LLC, KG Gift Card Inc., KG Liability LLC, KG Technology LLC, KHP Washington Operator LLC, KHRG 11th Avenue Hotel LLC, KHRG 851 LLC, KHRG Aertson LLC, KHRG Alexandria LLC, KHRG Alexis LLC, KHRG Allegro LLC, KHRG Argyle LLC, KHRG Austin Beverage Company LLC, KHRG Baltimore LLC, KHRG Born LLC, KHRG Boston Hotel LLC, KHRG Canary LLC, KHRG Cayman Employer Ltd., KHRG Cayman LLC, KHRG DC 1731 LLC, KHRG DC 2505 LLC, KHRG Donovan LLC, KHRG Employer LLC, KHRG Goleta LLC, KHRG Gray LLC, KHRG Gray U2 LLC, KHRG Hillcrest LLC, KHRG Huntington Beach LLC, KHRG King Street LLC, KHRG La Peer LLC, KHRG Miami Beach LLC, KHRG Muse LLC, KHRG NPC LLC, KHRG Onyx LLC, KHRG Palladian LLC, KHRG Palomar Phoenix LLC, KHRG Philly Monaco LLC, KHRG Pittsburgh LLC, KHRG Reynolds LLC, KHRG Riverplace LLC, KHRG SFD LLC, KHRG Sacramento LLC, KHRG Savannah LLC, KHRG Schofield LLC, KHRG Sedona LLC, KHRG State Street LLC, KHRG Sutter LLC, KHRG Sutter Union LLC, KHRG Taconic LLC, KHRG Tariff LLC, KHRG Texas Hospitality LLC, KHRG Texas Operations LLC, KHRG Tryon LLC, KHRG VZ Austin LLC, KHRG Vero Beach LLC, KHRG Vintage Park LLC, KHRG WPB LLC, KHRG Wabash LLC, KHRG Westwood LLC, KHRG Wilshire LLC, KHRG Zamora LLC, Kimpton Hollywood Licenses LLC, Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group LLC, Kimpton Phoenix Licenses Holdings LLC, Kimpton Sedona Licenses LLC, Louisiana Acquisitions Corp., MH Lodging LLC, Mercer Fairview Holdings LLC, PML Services LLC, PT SC Hotels & Resorts Indonesia, Pollstrong Limited, Powell Pine Inc., Priscilla Holiday of Texas Inc., RM Lodging LLC, Regent Hotels and Resorts, Resort Services International (Cayo Largo) L.P., SBS Maryland Beverage Company LLC, SC Cellars Limited, SC Hotels International Services Inc., SC Leisure Group Limited, SC NAS 2 Limited, SC Quest Limited, SC Reservations (Philippines) Inc., SCH Insurance Company, SCIH Branston 3, SF MH Acquisition LLC, SPHC Group Pty Ltd., SPHC Management Ltd., Semiramis for training of Hotel Personnel and Hotel Management SAE, Six Continents Corporate Services, Six Continents Holdings Limited, Six Continents Hotels Inc., Six Continents Hotels International Limited, Six Continents Hotels de Colombia SA, Six Continents International Holdings B.V., Six Continents Investments Limited, Six Continents Limited, Six Continents Overseas Holdings Limited, Six Continents Restaurants Limited, SixCo North America Inc., Solamar Lodging LLC, Southern Pacific Hotel Corporation (BVI) Ltd., Southern Pacific Hotels Properties Limited, Universal de Hoteles SA, White Shield Insurance Company Limited, and World Trade Centre Montreal Hotel Corporation.

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Red Hat, Inc. provides open source software solutions to develop and offer operating system, virtualization, management, middleware, cloud, mobile, and storage technologies to various enterprises worldwide. It offers infrastructure-related solutions, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, an operating system platform that runs on hardware for use in hybrid cloud environments; Red Hat Satellite, a system management offering that helps to deploy, scale, and manage in hybrid cloud environments; and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, a software solution that allows customers to utilize and manage a common hardware infrastructure to run multiple operating systems and applications. The company offers application development-related and other technology solutions, such as Red Hat JBoss Middleware, a solution for developing, deploying, and managing applications; integrating applications, data, and devices; and automating business processes in hybrid cloud environments; The company's application development-related and other technology solutions also includes Red Hat cloud offerings, a software solution that enables customers to build and manage various cloud computing environments; Red Hat Mobile, a software development platform that enables customers to develop, integrate, deploy, and manage mobile applications for enterprises; and Red Hat Storage, a software solution that enables customers to manage large, unstructured, or semi-structured data in hybrid cloud environments. It also provides consulting, support, and training services; and realtime operating system, distributed computing, directory services, and user authentication. Red Hat, Inc. has collaboration with Juniper Networks Expand to provide a unified solution for enterprises designed to manage and run applications and services. The company was formerly known as Red Hat Software, Inc. and changed its name to Red Hat, Inc. in June 1999. Red Hat, Inc. was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The Braves have released lefty Paco Rodriguez, Mark Bowman of MLB.com was among those to report on Twitter. He had been competing with Eric OFlaherty and Kevin Chapman for a spot in the Opening Day pen.

Rodriguez, 25, has been working back from a Tommy John procedure he underwent in October of 2015. He did manage to make it into four spring games, but failed to win the organizations confidence after agreeing to a $637,500 arbitration salary earlier in the offseason. Atlanta will owe him about a sixth of that sum.

The Braves had picked up Rodriguez in the three-team, thirteen-player swap the organization struck back at the 2015 trade deadline. That deal has not turned out well for Atlanta thus far; all they have to show for the loss of lefty Alex Wood and MLB-ready prospect Jose Peraza, at this point, are young lefty Joey Wentz (chosen with the competitive-balance pick acquired in that deal) and minor-league righty Zachary Bird. (And thats before getting into the money still effectively owed to Hector Olivera, though his contract was sent to the Padres as part of the salary maneuvering in the deal that brought Matt Kemp to the Braves.)
The Diamondbacks have claimed first baseman/outfielder Christian Walker off waivers from the Reds, as Zach Buchanan of the Cincinnati Enquirer was among those to tweet. The move opens a roster spot for the Reds addition of infielder Scooter Gennett. Arizona has designated reliever Evan Marshall to create roster space, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic tweets.

Its not the first time that Walker has changed hands over the offseason. He bounced previously from the Orioles to the Braves before moving to Cincinnati. Though he hasnt seen much MLB time, Walker has hit fairly well at Triple-A. In what amounts to about two full seasons at the highest level of the minors, he owns a .260/.324/.429 slash with 42 home runs.

The trouble is, Walker hasnt quite hit enough to push out an established big leaguer from a first base job. And he is new to the outfield, leaving it unclear just how hell fit on a National League roster. While Arizona had previously parted with a similarly hard-to-fit player in Peter OBrien, the club now evidently felt there was roster space to spare.

As for Marshall, wholl soon turn 27, the results have just not been there over the past two seasons. He turned in a high-quality 2014 season (2.74 ERA with 9.9 K/9 and 3.1 BB/9) that seemingly made him a long-term piece. But while his velocity has largely stayed consistent, he tumbled to an 8.8% swinging-strike rate in 2016 and was hardly dominant during his time at Triple-A. In his 5 1/3 spring innings, Marshall had permitted only two earned runs, but did allow nine base hits while compiling three strikeouts to go with one free pass.
28.03.2017 LISTEN

Asante The Alpha goes off hard on his H (h333333), freestyle single which marks his fourth release for the year 2017.

For over four minutes, Asante The Alpha drops bars about the lack of competition amongst rappers, the influx of Nigerian songs in Ghana which has caused highlife music to go down and touched on wack rappers.

I had to put on my beast mode; no thoughts, no filter, just display my feelings, spitting bars and metaphors and whats on my mind at the moment, he said.

The beat was produced by JnR.

Watch out for more bangers from Asante The Alpha soon.
The police in Kumasi have arrested five members of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP)-affiliated vigilante group, Delta Force, over the attack on the Ashanti Regional Security Coordinator, George Agyei, last Friday.

The men arrested include, Kwadwo Fosu Bamba (commander of the group), Awal Sadat Abubakar, Abubakar Sadiq Abdul Hameed, Jamil Issah, and Hamza Mohammed.

They form part of over 200 men who stormed the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council last Friday to violently attack Mr Agyei over his appointment.

The group contends the Coordinator did not play any role in the struggle to bring the NPP into power.

A statement by the police Monday said Messrs Sadat Abubakar, Abdul Hameed, Issah and Mohammed "voluntarily reported themselves."

They have been charged for the offences of "conspiracy to assault and assaulting a public officer and causing unlawful damage."

Read the full statement from the police below.



Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
Revelations that the state lost some $490 million last year to the activities of a petroleum cartel has gotten the nation talking and two key industry stakeholders have called for government action.

The Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors (CBOD) and Chamber of Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) say the implications to the industry if the cabal continues to gain ground would be devastating.

The people behind this cabal, unfortunately, seem to be gaining grounds and some have become very powerful politically, said Duncan Amoah, Executive Secretary of COPEC.

At the 4th Annual General Meeting of CBOD held recently, the Chambers CEO, Senyo Hosi, revealed that the state was robbed a staggering GH490 million in 2016 from tax evasion on petroleum products smuggled onto the Ghanaian market.

According to him, the smuggled products sell at 20%-45% below the relevant pump pricing and cause the margins of distributors to fall below economic levels.

He revealed that the criminals evade the taxes through dumping of products intended for exports into the country as well as sourcing products from boats and small ships and supplying them illegally onto the Ghanaian market.

When Mr Hosi appeared on current affairs programme, PM Express, on the Joy News channel on Multi TV, Monday to shed light on the matter, he said there is collusion across the petroleum distribution chain.

Definitely there will be officials in the National Security involved, officials in the NPA [National Petroleum Authority] definitely involved, there definitely officials of the Ghana Revenue Authority involved and definitely there are also operators within the private sector as well as some the parastatals involved. It is a whole chain...as we speak this is still ongoing, he said.

Senyo Hosi

It would seem that state officials would be surprised to learn of Mr Hosis revelations, but that is not the case.

At the CBOD AGM was CEO of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Hassan Tampuli, who noted the revenue accrued from evading taxes has become an incentive that causes recalcitrant Petroleum Service Providers (PSPs) to continue to dump products intended for exports into the country.

He added that some dealers source petroleum products from boats and small ships and supply them onto the Ghanaian market illegally.

Tampuli, however, warned that sanctions such as the permanent revocation of licence of the members of the cabal would be applied sternly.

According to him, the sanctions would include custodial sentences and fines.

Speaking on PM Express, Mr Duncan said the persistence of the problem under different governments points to something sinister.

If the state does not know the traces of these activities that would be a lie. In fact, most of them are known. Unfortunately closing in on them that has been the problem.

Sometimes you are tempted to believe it is state-sponsored. Meanwhile, the state could have done very well with these revenues, he told show host Nana Ansah Kwao IV.

Watch the full one-hour show in the video link below.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | George Nyavor | [email protected]
MOUNT PLEASANT  A new complaint has been filed against a Mount Pleasant group home after a second homeowner came forward to reveal that she, too, had been victimized by a 20-year-old resident with a mental disability living next door.

Kaitlyn Shawhan, 24, who lives near the residential family home, or group home, in the 2100 block of Sutton Drive, said she filed a complaint Monday with the state Department of Health Services detailing how a man charged through her unlocked front door at 10 a.m. March 10, one day before her neighbor Shanda Hess experienced a similar incident.

I heard someone run through my house, Shawhan said.

I started screaming, hello? hello! He paid no attention to my screaming. He grabbed a soda out of my fridge and started chugging it and it went all over the place, Shawhan said.

Shawhan said the group homes caregiver soon ran into her house, also unannounced, and grabbed the man and pulled him back to the group home.

Im glad my dogs were not there because he would have been bitten and thats the last thing I want, Shawhan said.

What makes it worse. Its not even the same caregiver as my neighbor encountered. Multiple people arent taking care of them, Shawhan said.

Allegations denied

Alpha Homes attorney Mike Bannon said the company, which operates 26 group homes in the Racine and Kenosha area, launched an investigation into the new allegation Monday and the staff at the Sutton Drive location deny anything has occurred.

No one has contacted the office connected to Ms. Shawhan, Bannon said. We have confidence that the incident did not occur. We interviewed the whole staff and we have no reason to believe they are lying to us.

Bannon pointed out police have not had contact with Shawhan over the incident. Shawhan said she did call the police nonemergency number and will be filing out a report with an officer, however she did not call police at the time of the incident due to sympathy over the mans disabilities.

I didnt want to press charges against him. Its not his fault, Shawhan said. But now in retrospect I should have pressed charges against the caregiver. We dont know who else didnt call and didnt press charges. Theyre not doing their job.

Bannon said while Alpha Homes admits the incident with Hess on March 11 occurred and the caregiver in question has been disciplined because he failed to follow certain policies which allowed this to occur, however, Shawhans allegations, are in fact, opportunistic.

Clearly there is a biased toward not having disabled people living next door. Its clear in some of the comments made by (her) neighbor. I dont know if this is an opportunistic attempt to affect that, Bannon said.

Bannon invited the Journal Times and the Mount Pleasant Police Chief Tim Zarzecki to tour the facility in question.

New Investigation

Kristin Kerschensteiner, an attorney for Disability Rights Wisconsin, the states designated protection and advocacy agency for people with disabilities, said theyve launched their own investigation for the sake of the young man.

There is sufficient concern about the adequacy and quality of this individuals services to open an investigation here at DRW, Kerschensteiner said. We are authorized to look into situations when we believe there is potential for abuse or neglect of an individual with a disability.

The group is concerned that an inadequate service plan or insufficient supports might result in this young man losing his community placement and being institutionalized.

Our goal would be to engage with the long-term care service system at both the state and local level to ensure that a proper service plan is in place to prevent this from happening, if at all possible. An appropriate plan would benefit both this young man and his local community. Kerschensteiner said.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1999 that people with disabilities have the right to live in the least restrictive setting possible. Known as the Olmstead decision, the ruling also stated that unnecessary institutionalization violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Call on village board

The original complaint brought last week from Shawhans neighbor Shanda Hess, which detailed the young man entering her house and alleges the caregiver was asleep at the time, has sparked an inspection of the Sutton Drive group home by surveyors of the state Department of Health Services, in documents acquired by the Journal Times. Mount Pleasant Police and the Racine County Adult Protective Services are also investigating the incident.

Hess said shes talked to her neighbors and alleges the group home resident has done it at least five times and is now calling on the Mount Pleasant village board for help.

The caregivers at Alpha Homes let (the young man) out of their supervision a total of five times in the past 10 months. Five times he actually succeeded in invasions, Hess wrote in an email to board members Monday.

How many times has (he) tried and not been successful? Do you see a dangerous pattern here? Hes terrorizing my house, my neighbors house, the neighborhood. All due to the fact they are letting him get out of their supervision, Hess said.

The move may be more symbolic as the state has jurisdiction over the regulation of group homes. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Division of Quality Assurance, maintains copies of investigative reports and surveys for public inspection on group homes, also known as adult family homes. The results of the new survey after Hesss incident may not be available until April, according to DHS procedures.
Johannesburg (AFP) - Celebrated South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, a Robben Island prisoner and one of Nelson Mandela's closest colleagues in the struggle against white rule, died early Tuesday aged 87.

Kathrada was among those tried and jailed alongside Mandela in the Rivonia trial in 1964, which drew worldwide attention to the brutalities of the apartheid regime.

He died in hospital in Johannesburg after a short illness following brain surgery, his charity foundation said.

Kathrada spent 26 years and three months in prison, 18 of which were on Robben Island, the notorious jail off the coast of Cape Town.

After the end of apartheid, he served from 1994 to 1999 as parliamentary counsellor to President Mandela in the first African National Congress (ANC) government.

Retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu described Kathrada as "a man of remarkable gentleness, modesty and steadfastness," hailing him a moral leader of the anti-apartheid movement.

"These were people of the highest integrity and moral fibre who, through their humility and humanity, inspired our collective self-worth -- and the world's confidence in us," Tutu said in a statement.

'A great patriot'

Ahmed Kathrada's activism against the white-minority apartheid regime started at the age of 17, when he was one of 2,000 'passive resisters' arrested in 1946 for defying a law that discriminated against Indian South Africans

Kathrada's activism against white-minority apartheid rule started at the age of 17, when he was one of 2,000 "passive resisters" arrested in 1946 for defying laws that discriminated against Indian South Africans.

The ANC party was banned in 1960, and two years later Kathrada was placed under "house arrest".

Soon afterwards, he went underground to continue the struggle as a member of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK).

In July 1963, the police swooped on Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, a Johannesburg suburb, where Kathrada and other senior activists had been meeting in secret.

At the famous Rivonia trial, eight of the accused were sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour on Robben Island.

His fellow prisoners included Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Denis Goldberg.

"The nation has lost a titan, an outstanding leader and a great patriot," the ANC said in a tribute to Kathrada on Tuesday.

"His life is a lesson in humility, tolerance, resilience and a steadfast commitment to principle.

"Uncle Kathy, despite disagreement with the ANC leadership from time to time, never abandoned nor turned his back on the ANC."

The Nelson Mandela Foundation lauded him as "the embodiment of promise" during the apartheid years, saying Kathrada was "a comrade, associate and close friend of Nelson Mandela's through seven decades."

Key negotiator

The Donald Gordon medical centre in Johannesburg where anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada died early on March 28, 2017

Released from prison in 1989, the softly-spoken Kathrada belonged to the golden generation of freedom fighters untainted by later corruption scandals.

In jail, he had been a teacher for fellow prisoners and a strategic thinker who formed part of the ANC delegation in the negotiations that finally ended apartheid.

Derek Hanekom, a fellow veteran activist and now a government minister, said he had lost a "revolutionary mentor and dear friend".

"Comrade Kathy was a gentle, humane and humble soul. He was a determined revolutionary who gave his entire life to the liberation struggle in our country," Hanekom said.

Fellow Robben Island prisoner Laloo "Isu" Chiba said Kathrada was a figurehead to anti-apartheid colleagues.

"He has been my strength in prison, my guide in political life and my pillar of strength in the most difficult moments of my life," Chiba, 89, said in a statement issued by the Ahmad Kathrada Foundation.

Kathrada will be buried according to Muslim religious rights on Wednesday, the foundation said.

He choose not to pursue a political career, but remained an activist and was critical of the current ANC government under President Jacob Zuma.

He was survived by his wife, Barbara Hogan, also an ANC stalwart.

"This is great loss to the ANC, the broader liberation movement and South Africa as a whole," said Neeshan Balton, head of Kathrada Foundation.

"'Kathy' was an inspiration to millions in different parts of the world."
The committee charged to review the AMERI power deal which recommended abrogation of the deal on grounds of fraud, is too partisan to be taken seriously, the former deputy Power Minister, John Jinapor has intimated.

The 17-member committee, which has been working under the auspices of the Energy Minister since February 1, 2017, said Ghana was made to pay $150 million extra in commission to Africa & Middle East Resources Investment (AMERI) Group LLC for the construction of a power plant in the heat of Ghana's power crisis.

Boakye Agyarko, Energy Minister

It is chaired by a lawyer and member of the governing New Patriotic Party, Philip Addison, who contested and lost the Klottey Korle seat in 2016.

Mr. Jinapor expressed concern about Addisons role on Eyewitness News when he commented on the committees findings saying he was not even aware such a committee had been set up to review the AMERI power deal.

I am worried about the Chairman of the committee. He is very political. He is a core NPP politician and even before this committee was set up, the NPP made it a campaign promise to find fault with the AMERI deal. You can't be a complainant and be a judge at the same time.

If you get a politician who is a known NPP man to do a so-called report, certainly it is tainted with politics and that is a fact, Mr. Jinapor added with respect to Mr. Addison.

Dr. Kwabena Donkor

He also questioned why key players in this deal, like himself and the former Power Minister, Dr. Kwabena Donkor, were not engaged by the committee.

The Minister who led this deal, at least just give him a hearing. Listen to him all these things have not been done. I haven't been spoken to. My Minster has not been spoken to. I am also worried about the Chairman so I find this report very political if indeed it is an authentic report from the Minister.

Due diligence was carried out

Another point of contention from the committee was that due diligence was disregarded as there was no legal opinion on the deal from the Attorney General at the time.

But Mr. Jinapor retorted that the deal went through Cabinet and the AG was part of Cabinet. This notwithstanding, opinion from the AGs office was not mandatory, the former Deputy Minister added.

In considering this deal, the whole project was taken to cabinet. Cabinet considered the entire document, deliberated over it, the AG was part of it and they took a firm decision saying the deal was a good one. From Cabinet, it went to Parliament. Parliament considered it and thought it was a good deal. We did the right thing. We went through the processes, Mr. Jinapor explained.

Background

The 17-member committee was constituted on grounds of the $150 million anomaly, as well other financial, technical and legal issues, and insisted that AMERI must be made to re-negotiate the deal or be rejected by Government on grounds of fraud.

The committee maintains that AMERI in its agreement with government dated February 10th, 2015, charged Ghana significantly higher than what it was charged by the Turkish registered company, PPR, which financed and executed the project.

The Turkish firm pegged the total cost of the project which is to span over a 5 year period at a maximum of 360 million dollars.

However, the Build Operate Own Transfer (BOOT) agreement signed between government and AMERI was pegged at a minimum of 510 million dollars.



By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana
The Minority in Parliament has accused government of shortchanging Ghanaians in the implementation of its campaign promises.

According to the Minority Spokesperson on Finance, Cassiel Ato Forson, government has lumped up most of its campaign promises such as one district one factory, and Zongo Development Fund among others, which they say are all being covered by funds from the one million dollar per constituency, instead of each promise being a stand alone project as captured in the NPP manifesto.

What we have seen is a departure of what the narratives of the budget statement talked about and what is indeed the estimate. We have also seen a contradiction of what is in NPP manifesto as against what is in the estimate. We say this because during the reading of the budget, the Minister was very emphatic that they are going to start certain infrastructural projects. 

The budget says one thing, and when you go to the estimate, you see another thing. What even saddens us as Minority is the clear departure of their own promise, and the budget statement that says that aside the $1 million dollars, they will be allocating some money for the purposes of one district, one factory, and they will be allocating some money for the Zongo Development Fund. Today we are seeing the same one million, one constituency, of which they will use part of that money for the Zongo Development Fund so Zongo Development Fund is not standing alone.

Government had indicated that it will use a total amount of GH456.3 million for the implementation of its f lagship one-district, one-factory policy programme.

But Mr. Forson believes the amount is too low to cater for the various districts and constituencies.

They have also taken part of the money for the purposes of taking care of one district, one factory, and it is a paltry GHC 443 million cedis. In fact, in today's term, it is less than a $100 million. One will wonder how many districts or constituencies will benefit from this.

Mr. Forson wondered why funds for the 1 million per constituency project had also been earmarked for projects under the Agricultural Ministry, saying you have the Ministry of Agric and you are going to send money to the Chief of Staff for the purposes of Agric input. Does the Chief of Staffs office have the requisite knowledge on Agriculture to procure Agric input that is required in this country?Do they know about it. It is a question we want to find out.



By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @EfeAnsah
28.03.2017 LISTEN

By the kind courtesy of a senior when I read the tall profile of the new MCE for STMA, Mr Anthony K.K Sam I thought for once I am too short a young man to think I can touch the sky with this my 510 height. But then I realized that to be in space you dont necessary needs to be that tall. You simply need to be a determined astronaut.

I have written about the STMA and the fact that we have lost our voice in the whole national dialogue and in setting the development agenda. I have written about the flooding of the inner roads and pavements and even the runway at the little provocation of the rain. And as well the wickedness of the men and women who have condemned us to such fate and the absurdity of outsourcing the management of the Jubilee Park and the self-dom of the many NGOs.

Today we blame the chiefs for all the problems we have with illegal mining but are they not the same people we go to for their endorsement and even request them to grace our magnanimity just as we saw happen to the confirmation of Mr K. K. Sam? And so enough about our chiefs. We are the very reason they are who they are.

Today it is pathetic to note that the only image I have of the immediate past MCE is the greenhouse she left behind. Perhaps she was an environmentalist. And the ingenuity she bore out of her passion was to give her outfit such a befitting colour. For the one before her the mortal remains of his mall and the virtual bypass still hunts and so he better comes back to bury them before they start tormenting the next generation like the Abiku in JP Clark's poem.

Moving on to a cliche, they say its only a fool who thinks tomorrow cant be better. And that, of course, is dependent on variables. Mr. K. K Sam from a source is not new to political appointments. He has been once at the helm of a regional employment agency. So for me, its more like an old wine in a new glass. But once drinking becomes a solidarity sport then one can say that the new glass can provide a little bit of an appetizer, to say the least. And of course his performance there should have been a key determinant and it is not surprising that to avoid acrimony some role compensations have emerged. He has already engaged an aide and thinks that embarking on a clean-up exercise on the 4th of April is the presence he needs to announce badly. Perhaps he also seems to be an environmentalist.

Well, the challenges of the metro is a known secret to even toddlers and the solutions not in the space to require rocket science. A city must be a city. It must be spatially planned. Its infrastructure must be beaming, free of filth, better drainage systems and above all booming with opportunities for her inhabitants to thrive.

The poor state of the Gyandu Park and the underutilisation of the Centre for National Culture and of course the lack of a youth centre and it retrogressive progression pace of its rehabilitation or whatever it may be called are all visible.

Constantly we must bear in mind that the foreigners who come to work offshore have great expectation of Sekondi-Takoradi when they are porting and they will have a chance to visit.

Barely a week ago, we had to spend an entire day searching for Ghanaian artefacts as souvenirs for some Filipino crew friends. They couldnt even use their debit cards to buy stuff. The very first thing one wanted to know is if there is a mall we could visit. It is simply because we succeeded in making so much noise about the oil city that never has been. So you land and then you are met with an eyesore of landing beach and a ghost of a European town.

The task ahead is a greater one for Mr Sam only if he means business. And like Rogier van der Heide wrote we have to rethink the way we light our cities. We have to think again about light as a default solution. Why are all these motorways permanently lit? Is it really needed? Can we maybe be much more selective and create better environments that also benefit from darkness? Can we be more gentle with light? So you see we can even create something out of darkness than climbing a pole to the other all in the name of fixing bulbs that dont even provide the shining we want.

Again like Jay Samit wrote just as the music industry couldn't combat the financial impact of digital piracy, major corporations will have to rethink how to maintain margins when many of their most profitable items can be easily manufactured at home. Today many of the revenues that should go to the metro are manufactured and enjoyed privately and yet he speaks without telling us how he will curb these menace and maximise revenue generation.

Just as I must conclude but to return at a later date I pick some few points from his note for subjections and say that he sounds more remediable than preventative. Coming to treat than to put in place sustainable measures. He talks about efforts by his predecessors to make the city much better and an ambition to follow suit. Like was he serious to think less? There was no hint of an agenda for self-initiated and funded projects and highlights challenges without solutions.

In the context of the spatial plan put together by the Jubilee Partners, if he really means business then he should look at the Shama District. It's the only district across the six coastal districts who have implemented it to admiration.

Tomorrow you may forget everything but do well to not forget the words of Peter Ackroyd and I quote, All cities are impressive in their way, because they represent the aspiration of men to lead a common life; those people who wish to live agreeable lives, and in constant intercourse with one another, will build a city as beautiful as Paris. I hope you do enjoy your stay as you live the desires of many.

To the citizenry I rephrase the words of Nancy Pelosi and say, never confine your best work, your hopes, your dreams, the aspiration of the people of Sekondi-Takoradi to what will be signed by Mr K. K. Sam nor tie your hopes to his words because that is too limiting a factor and much more like being a spectator. Do act. The least, speak.
Johannesburg (AFP) - South Africa's anti-apartheid icon Ahmed Kathrada, who was jailed alongside Nelson Mandela, was feted as a humble liberation hero who shunned the power and glory that came with freedom.

Unlike many struggle veterans, Kathrada, who was imprisoned on Robben Island, never held public political office after the fall of apartheid and Mandela's election as president in 1994.

He choose instead to serve as one of Mandela's closest advisors during his time as the country's first black leader.

When Mandela left office in 1999, after serving a single four-year term, Kathrada also stepped away from politics -- immersing himself in activism through his Ahmed Kathrada Foundation.

Released from prison in 1989, the softly-spoken Kathrada commanded huge respect within the African National Congress (ANC) party, belonging to the golden generation of freedom fighters untainted by later corruption scandals.

He was often described as Mandela's "trusted lieutenant", an "unsung hero" and "humble icon".

To those close to him, he was known as "Kathy" or "Uncle Kathy".

In his book "Long Walk to Freedom", Mandela recalled meeting a young and impassioned Kathrada during the early days of the struggle, and then their later time on Robben Island.

"Kathy was a slender fellow unused to hard physical labour," Mandela said, referring to the back-breaking daily work of crushing rock at the prison quarry.

Mandela recounted how Kathrada was mocked by prison warders when he could not move a wheelbarrow laden with rocks, while the guards prevented Mandela from helping his friend.

Strategic thinker

Kathrada was a close advisor to Nelson Mandela

In the cells, "Kathy" was a teacher for fellow prisoners and a strategic thinker who later formed part of the ANC delegation in the negotiations that finally ended apartheid.

Born on August 21, 1929 in Schweizer-Reneke, a small rural town in what was then known as Western Transvaal, Kathrada was a second generation South African of Indian descent.

In his youth, he joined apartheid resistance movements, including the South African Indian Congress, which followed the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi's passive resistance.

"Even as a young man, he stood out as a leader," said retired Constitutional Court judge Albie Sachs.

Kathrada's arrest with other anti-apartheid activists in a 1963 police raid at Liliesleaf Farm, a secret safe house outside Johannesburg, was a turning point in his life.

He was arrested along with Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Denis Goldberg, Elias Motsoaledi and Andrew Mlangeni and charged with sabotage.

"There was nothing I could do," said Kathrada, remembering how a police team burst out of a laundry van and surrounded the property.

Sacrifices for freedom

Those arrested were tried at what became known as the Rivonia trial, including Mandela, who was already in prison.

The trial drew worldwide attention to the brutal legal system under the apartheid regime.

In 1964, Kathrada and his co-accused were convicted and sentenced to life on Robben Island prison.

"From the word go, the message was, you are going to die," said Kathrada in 2016 at a screening of a documentary about his life.

"What we were being arrested for already warranted the death sentence."

In 1982, after spending 18 years on Robben Island, he was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town, serving a total of 26 years and three months in jail.

Since Mandela's death in 2013, Kathrada was one of the three surviving members of the Rivonia trial.

"Freedom did not fall from heaven, our freedom was fought for, sacrificed for," he once said.

In later years, Kathrada spoke out against corruption

In recent years, Kathrada was a fierce critic of the ANC government under President Jacob Zuma, himself a fellow Robben Island inmate.

In 2016, Kathrada wrote an open letter to Zuma urging him to resign after the country's highest court found the president in breach of the constitution for using public funds to upgrade his private home.

Kathrada also spoke out against corruption, offering support to Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan when he faced possible prosecution for fraud.

After being released unconditionally from prison in 1989, Kathrada applied for amnesty in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) over his conviction in the Rivonia trial.

In a formality, the commission granted him a pardon in 1999.

The Kathrada foundation said he was survived by his wife, Barbara Hogan, also an ANC stalwart.
Casablanca (Morocco) (AFP) - Shanties have mushroomed on the rooftops of historic apartment buildings in Casablanca, as the Moroccan city's once-prestigious centre crumbles below.

Clotheslines, satellite dishes and tangled cables have sprouted on the deteriorating facades of the buildings, constructed nearly a century ago under French rule.

What was once a feted blend of Moroccan and European architecture is falling apart under the weight of an expanding urban population and neglect.

The city "was once at the forefront of world architecture," architect Rachid Andaloussi says.

But today its early 20th-century residential buildings have been "abandoned by landlords tired of seeing them deteriorate", says Andaloussi, the head of Casamemoire, an association to protect the city's architectural heritage.

And a housing crisis in the traffic-clogged economic hub has led Moroccans with nowhere else to live to cobble together makeshift homes on rooftop terraces.

Casablanca, known by the Spanish translation of its Arabic name Dar al-Bayda ("White House"), greatly expanded under the French protectorate from 1912

"They've squatted in public infrastructure, factories -- and now they've moved on to the terraces," Andaloussi says.

Building themselves shelter from corrugated iron, bits of wood and plastic bags, they have come to occupy what were once emblematic architectural spaces.

Casablanca, known by the Spanish translation of its Arabic name Dar al-Bayda ("White House"), greatly expanded under the French protectorate from 1912.

North Africa's first skyscraper

French architect and urban planner Henri Prost presented his first plan for the Moroccan city in 1915.

Casablanca was built in the 1920s and 1930s by architect and urban planner Henri Prost and mostly fellow French architects

In the 1920s and 1930s, Prost and mostly fellow French architects built the city that has become the country's economic heart.

They created the city's unique style by blending traditional Moroccan elements like mosaics, stucco and sculpted cedar wood with the European trends of Art Deco and Art Nouveau.

Their work includes the Lincoln Hotel, an Arabesque Art Deco building that was built in 1916 and used by American spies during World War II. But it closed in 1989 and today stands largely in ruins.

The Liberty Building, also called "The 17th Floor", was North Africa's first skyscraper when it was built between 1949 and 1951.

And the Wilaya, a former town hall, is an example of the mixed architecture typical of many administrative buildings under the French protectorate.

Architect Driss Kettani says the Casablanca city centre was once a "feat of architecture and urban planning", "with its wealth of neo-Moorish, Art Deco and Modernist architecture".

"What was a few decades ago the indisputable heart of the city has today suffered from a lack of maintenance," Kettani says.

'Extraordinary potential'

Wealthier Moroccans are increasingly buying apartments in central Casablanca's Art Deco buildings, as they become fashionable and the area gentrifies

Tenants in these buildings often pay "ridiculously low" fixed rents, and landlords can only remove them if they pay a huge relocation fee.

Neither the tenants nor the owners pay for the upkeep of the buildings.

The city's old core is also threatened by real estate speculation, as developers look to buy historic properties to tear them down and build modern apartment blocs instead.

Urban planner Mostafa Kheireddine explains that Casablanca's housing crisis stems from a booming population from successive migration flows to the city in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

"Over the years, it experienced pressure on the urban planning sector that was unprecedented in the history of Morocco's cities," he says.

As all of Morocco's social tensions came to the fore in 1980s Casablanca, "quality urban housing was not given priority," Kheireddine says.

But times are changing, raising hopes of an urban revival.

The authorities have started upgrading the city centre after what Kettani calls "a realisation of the extraordinary potential of this part of the city".

The opening of a tram line has given the area's buildings added value.

And wealthier Moroccans are increasingly buying apartments in the Art Deco buildings, as they become fashionable and the area gentrifies.
Deputy Interior Minister-designate, Henry Quartey, has promised severe sanctions against members of the NPP-affiliated vigilante groups, Delta Force and Invincible Forces, following last Fridays attack.

He also promised to deal with the activities of all other vigilante groups in the country threatening the rule of law and the countrys peace.

Mr. Quartey gave the assurance when he appeared before Parliaments Appointment Committee Monday to be screened for his portfolio.

We will ensure that the appropriate sanctions are applied. The people of this country must be protected. Properties must be protected. Lives must be protected, he said, promising to assist the Interior Minister, Ambrose Dery and other state agencies, to fight the menace of vigilante groups.

Over 200 members of Delta Force stormed the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council on Friday and violently attack the Regional Security Coordinator, George Agyei, over his appointment.

The group claims the Coordinator did not play any role in the struggle to bring the NPP to power.

They argue that one of their members, a man identified only as Mohammed, was more suited for the job of Regional Security Coordinator.

The police have since arrested five members of the group.

The men arrested include, Kwadwo Fosu Bamba (Commander of the group), Awal Sadat Abubakar, Abubakar Sadiq Abdul Hameed, Jamil Issah, and Hamza Mohammed.

Apology to President

Meanwhile, the 'Commander' of Delta Force, Kwadwo Fosu Bemba, has since apologised to President Nana Akufo-Addo and members of the party for last Fridays incident.

Shortly after his release on Monday, he told Accra-based Citi FM, we are begging the Presidentwe are waiting for anything the President will say. We are ready to obey our President. I feel bad about the whole incident and I wish it will not happen again.

The activities of political party-affiliated vigilante groups have been a persistent problem that threatens the countrys democratic dispensation.

There have been calls for them to be disbanded, but the lack of political will has meant promises by past governments failed to put a stop to the problem.

In the past, the National Democratic Congress (NDC)-affiliated Azorka Boys have clashed with security agencies to register their discontent with a government decision.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | George Nyavor | [email protected]
The Manso Adubia constituency in the Ashanti Region has seen the illegal mining activities over the past few years leave the area in the alarming position of having no natural water body fit for human use.

The Member of Parliament for Manso Adubia, Yaw Frimpong Addo, had ominous words for the rest of the country as he warned that no water body will survive this threat of illegal mining if it is not tackled.

Speaking to Citi News' Richard Sky, Mr. Addo recounted growing up in the constituency and being able to drink from the streams in the area which have now been polluted by illegal mining activities.

All the streams that flow into the two major rivers in the constituency; the Offin River and the Oda River, are gold bearing streams and because of that, their valleys are also full of gold, the MP explained.

File photo

Chemical pollution of water bodies is one of the expected by-products of the illegal mining activities, which have forced a number of water treatment plants nationwide to shut down.

Mr. Addo reminded that the chemicals used to extract gold and are poisonous thus, any river you see there or pool of water you see there; no fish can survive in it. Aquatic life is gone completely because of the chemical inflow into such streams.

Community swapping cocoa farms for galamsey pits

The effects of illegal mining in the Manso Adubia extend to cocoa farming. In the last four years, the country's cocoa production is has gone from 835,000 in 2013, 897,000 tonnes in 2014, 740,000 tonnes in 2015 and the increased to 840,000 tonnes in 2016.

The MP noted that cocoa production has indeed been dwindling since 2010 and in Parliament, he has maintained that the ailing cocoa production is not down to just weather patterns.

It is not only the fact that we don't have good weather and all that. Large tracts of our cocoa farms have been removed in search of gold through galamsey activities but nobody took what I said seriously.

So what is happening is, all the lands in water logged areas, where they dig alluvial gold, are gone. They have decimated the land in such a way that nothing is left there so they have moved from that level to attack the mainlands.

During the campaign, I observed something that made me so sad; large tracts of cocoa lands that I knew not too long ago had been destroyed in such a manner I can imagine that land can never be brought back.

Fighting illegal mining is a complex issue and Mr. Addo lamented that these complexities have been compounded by the fact land owners willing sell land off their lands with no regard for the consequences.

Era of excavators escalated epidemic

Illegal mining has always existed in Manso Adubia, according to Mr. Addo and the youth who were not too keen on farming had always gravitated towards it.

Its only when heavy machinery wound its way into illegal mining that the situation as a ticking time-bomb started to wind down faster and spark the destructive nature of the small-scale gold mining in the area.

File photo

The gold business in that area has existed for thousands of years. It is just the era of excavators that has aggravated the whole thing. Otherwise, it wasn't a bad thing because it was giving the people employment and they were still doing their farming, Mr. Addo noted.

The dire situation has not had the expected correlation on the economic situation of the people with the MP explaining that illegal mining has rather increased poverty levels in all the communities.

A chunk of this money leaves the shores of Ghana with the Lands and Natural Resources Minster, John Peter Amewu revealing Ghana lost about GHc 2.3 billion to illegal mining and related activities.

The money goes to just a few people, especially the abled bodied young men and women who can go there on a daily basis to work and get the money. Otherwise, the bulk of the money just goes to the urban areas and even outside the country.



By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana
John Wilson presenting the Best HR Practitioner award to Irene Asare of Tullow Oil Ghana

Unilever Ghana was on Saturday, 25th March, 2017, adjudged the Overall Best Organization in HR Practice by the Institute of Human Resources, Management Practitioners, Ghana (IHRMP) at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel.

Unilever, in addition, received the Best Organization in Learning & Development Practice Award, Best Talent Management Strategy Award and Best Use of CSR in HR Award.

Guinness Ghana Breweries Limited (GGBL) received three awards- the Best Workplace Diversity Strategy Award, Most Innovative Use of Technology Award and Best Organization in Employee Relations Practice.

Graphic Communications Group Limited was adjudged the Best Organization in Recruitment and Selection, while HFC Bank was awarded as the Most Successful Change Management Programme.

Barclays Bank won two awards- the Best Organization in Rewards Management Practice Award and the Best Organization in Performance Management Award.

Head of HR at Tullow Oil Ghana, Irene Asare won the Best HR Practitioner of the year Award, while Ghana Prisons Service received an award as the most promising Public Sector Organization in the use of ICT.

In his statement at the function, the President of the IHRMP, John Wilson said the CDH-Phoenix Ghana HR Star awards has been instituted to motivate HR practitioners and organizations in both public and private sectors.

The guest speaker, Edward Briku-Boadu, the Chairman of National Labour Commission, speaking under the theme: 'Human Capital and National Development,' urged HR practitioners to take training and retraining of their workers seriously because it is a strategic component of human capital formation.

He added that it is firmly recognized in the Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651).

The Chairman of the Planning Committee, Dr. Edward Kwapong, who is also the Vice-President of IHRMP, expressed delight and appreciation to various sponsors for ensuring the success of the 1st Ghana HR Star Awards.

The event, which was attended by HR practitioners, Governing Council members, corporate bodies and the general public, was sponsored by CDH-Phoenix as headline sponsor.

Other sponsors include KPMG, GCB Bank, Tullow Oil Ghana, Ghana Water Company Ltd, Fidelity Bank, Unilever Ghana, South Akim Rural Bank, Raincoat Roofing Systems, Tema Lube Oil Company Ltd, VALCO, Guinness Ghana Breweries Limited, Everpure Ghana Ltd and La Palm Royal Beach Hotel.

Other media sponsors include Graphic Communications Group Limited, New Times Corporation, Multimedia, DAILY GUIDE, Parliamentary News and Today's Newspaper.

A business Desk Report


Dr Steve Manteaw, the representative of Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GHEITI) on the Public Interest Accountability Committee (PIAC), says the appointment of political figures to lead State-owned Enterprises (SoEs) is outmoded and should be discontinued.

He said the practice has denied Ghana the opportunity of getting competent personalities to develop various sectors of the economy, adding that that could partly be the reason for the inefficiency in many SoEs.

They dont get the brightest and best in their sectors to take up the leadership positions in these State-owned Enterprises, Dr. Manteaw noted.

He said this in an exclusive interview with BUSINESS GUIDE in Koforidua after a workshop organised by PIAC and Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists (IFEJ).

The workshop sought to interrogate the 2016 Semi Annual Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) Report.

In my view, we should appoint people to these positions through a competitive process; possibly supervised by the Public Services Commission. Interested persons will have to bring their certificates and CVs and also go through a competitive interviewing session. You show your competence, track-record and above all your integrity and once you are appointed, you should have a contract.

The contract can either have a fixed term or renewable and should be crafted in a way that makes it difficult for any State-owned Enterprise head to be removed politically, and even if that happens, there should be a substantial compensation for the removal. If there are consequences for removing such heads, then governments in power will think twice about taking that decision. That way, we will be able to retain very good materials and ensure that State-owned Enterprises function effectively.

Dr Manteaw added that the excessive power of government motivates new administrations to remove existing heads and replace them with party loyalists as a reward for their contribution towards the victory of a ruling party or for just being members.

He suggested the listing of SoE, especially the commercial ones on the Ghana Stock Exchange to 'dilute' government's share and reduce its power to replace the heads of SoEs at will, especially for political reasons.

The way to achieve that is to dilute the ownership of these State owned Enterprises, but I am not suggesting in any way that we should offload government's interest in these State-owned Enterprises to foreign companies, I'd rather that they are retained by Ghanaians. I would prefer that we offload the majority of government's interest in these companies on the stock exchange in a way that makes Ghanaians part owners of their own enterprises and give them a say in how these enterprises are managed.

Dr Manteaw cited the recent controversy over the appointment of the CEO of GOIL, saying government does not have absolute power to replace him at will.

From Ebo Bruce-Quansah, Bolgatanga


Government's plan to support the pilgrimage of Christians to Israel is as instructive as it is commendable. Coming at a time when a so-called government sponsorship of Muslims and the construction of a national Cathedral have been thrown up on the public space as a constitutional breach, it offers an interesting subject for public discourse, objectively of course.

This way, the proper role of government to her citizens in the various spheres of life can be better defined so things can be put in their right perspectives and the rabblerousing reaction to these matters confined to the backburners permanently.

The government support being referred to might not be the literary doling out of monies to pilgrims to cater for their daily needs while in the Holy Land or even the acquisition of aircraft to convey the faithful to and from Israel and Saudi Arabia, but the facilitation of the trip through various state interventions. This comes in various forms, one of which being the setting up a body for the facilitation of such trips which as it is being showed in the Israel pilgrimage under review, a government to government engagement.

Such a government to government interface is an essential factor in such matters without which the movements of large numbers of citizens for convergence on one geopolitical location will be blocked by diplomatic bottlenecks.

While we doff our hats for government's decision on the pilgrimage to Israel, we acknowledge that it is the responsibility of the state to ensure that members of the various religious persuasions practise their faiths without let or hindrance. That is constitutional as enshrined in the written document of the country.

It is our position that given the large number of persons traveling almost simultaneously to a foreign land where they would live for close to or even a month, it would be an act of irresponsibility not to be involved in such matters. A government's indifference to such religious arrangements can only expose her to diplomatic ridicule. Such mass movements of people cannot in any way be likened to trips to national parks.

We must commend the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs for the initiative and to ask those who due to personal idiosyncrasies and other factors, would rather the over 5,000 or so Muslim pilgrims should do so without a government cover must rethink their logic and general understanding of such matters.

In creating the enabling environment for such religious activities to take place, international best practices must be adhered to.

Since government funds must be expended in such activities as in the case of providing secretariats and the provision of consular services inter alia as it were, proper management of these must be ensured because experience has showed that there is the tendency for those put in-charge to treat these without recourse to proper management methods.

We have observed the pains taken by government to ensure that the indebtedness incurred by the previous political administration does not prevent Muslims from performing this year's Hajj. We have also learnt about how efforts are being made to ensure that whoever dipped their hands into funds not belonging to them are made to account for these in the spirit of accountability.


The humiliating defeat suffered by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the December 7, 2016 general election has been blamed on the appointments of numerous 'greedy bastards' by ex-President John Mahama.

A pro-NDC pressure group  the Action Movement of the NDC  disclosed this, accusing Mr. Mahama and his 'greedy' appointees of sending the party into forced opposition.

They also claimed that the president's brothers were the main reason why the NDC lost the 2016 elections, accusing them of collecting all contracts from airport, roads, Cocobod, GNPC, ECG, VRA, Ministry of Power and all major contracts in the country.

If you don't see JM brothers, you cannot get a contract and if you see them, then you have to pay money before you get the contract, frustrating foreign contractors and companies by taking Ghanaian contractors for granted and creating enemies for the NDC party, the group alleged.

Addressing a press conference yesterday at the Accra International Press Centre, spokesperson of the Action Movement, Kodzo Hamenya Keglo, said Mr Mahama appointed greedy 'bastards' who knew nothing about their work.

There has been a free-for-all fight by some top shots of the opposition party lately regarding the shock defeat it suffered in December 2016, making John Mahama Ghana's first one-term president.

According to Keglo, all former President Mahama did was to frustrate Ghanaians and foreign businesses in the country.

This led to the economic hardship the country was met with and a subsequent loss of election, he said.

While doing this, he indicated, the then candidate for the NPP, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, was also going round telling Ghanaians what he would do for them when voted into power, he emphasized.

Dead Goat

The group added that the NDC also lost the election due to a statement made by the former president that 'he is a dead goat.'

According to the pro-NDC group, the party's downfall started as soon as former President Mahama made the statement before the polls that 'he is a dead goat,' which meant it did not matter to him if he won the 2016 election or not.

Ex-President Mahama had reportedly said in an address to the Ghanaian community in Botswana that he's a dead goat, apparently to mean that he did not care any longer about the numerous complaints being made by Ghanaians about the severe economic crisis that faced the country during the first few years of his tenure as a president.

This, Keglo said, was disrespect to Ghanaians and an indication that Mr. Mahama did not care about the plight of Ghanaians whose mandate he needed to continuously rule the country.

Appeal

The group has therefore, called on the party's hierarchy and delegates to appoint what it termed as non-arrogant appointees who must equally know how to address issues whenever they are engaging the media.

Other allegations levelled against the former head of state included the former first lady, Lordina Mahama's printing and importing party T-shirts from China into the country while his husband was busily campaigning for the purchase of made-in-Ghana goods; a huge disappointment on the party's behalf, he added.

He said while JM was preaching made-in-Ghana goods such as shoes, batik and locally made clothes, the wife was doing the opposite by printing T-shirts in China, which he noted, is a huge disappointment for Ghanaian printing companies. The 20 million pieces of T-shirts printed from China, Kodzo Hamenya Keglo said, could have been shared to party members to print them locally to create a lot of jobs for Ghanaians.

When in the history of Ghana has a first lady printed campaign T-shirts and become the major source of party materials in an election? To the extent that the wife of the president printing Mayafi (scarf) with her image on it, does she have presidential ambitions, she should tell us, he quizzed.

The group claimed that the appointment of Dr Stephen Kwabena Opuni as Cocobod CEO, changing of Lt Col. Larry Gbevlo Lartey and bringing in Yaw Donkor as the security coordinator were also big mistakes made by the president.

Descending on the former Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah, Mr. Kegli alleged that he (Julius Debrah) also went around the country sharing money to Ghanaians thinking that was the path towards winning election 2016.

The group further lambasted former Communications Minister, Omane Boamah, saying instead of him to have sold ex-President Mahama to the electorate, he rather chose to be saying on TV and radio that Nana Akufo-Addo can never become a president, when there were loads of issues for him to explain to Ghanaians.

Meeting Ex-Appointees

Meanwhile, DAILY GUIDE has learnt that the former president may be meeting his appointees this week to strategise for the way out, following the internal opposition to his re-entry for the 2020 presidential race.

A text message is said to have been sent by a former deputy chief of staff to all the former appointees to attend the meeting at possibly Gold House area where some party supporters would be bused to chant No Mahama No 2020 to stampede the system to pave way for his contest.

The former president also has an engagement at the University of Ghana tomorrow afternoon where he is expected to take his audience through readings from his book, My First Coup D'Etat.

BY Melvin Tarlue
Johannesburg (AFP) - Celebrated South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, a Robben Island prisoner and one of Nelson Mandela's closest colleagues in the struggle against white rule, died Tuesday aged 87.

Kathrada was among those tried and jailed alongside Mandela in the Rivonia trial in 1964, which drew worldwide attention to the brutalities of the apartheid regime.

He died in hospital in Johannesburg after a short illness following brain surgery, his charity foundation said.

Kathrada spent 26 years and three months in prison, 18 of which were on Robben Island, the notorious jail off the coast of Cape Town.

After the end of apartheid, he served from 1994 to 1999 as parliamentary counsellor to President Mandela in the first African National Congress (ANC) government.

Leading a flood of tributes, retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu described Kathrada as "a man of remarkable gentleness, modesty and steadfastness", hailing him a moral leader of the anti-apartheid movement.

"These were people of the highest integrity and moral fibre who, through their humility and humanity, inspired our collective self-worth -- and the world's confidence in us," Tutu said in a statement.

Ahmed Kathrada's activism against the white-minority apartheid regime started at the age of 17, when he was one of 2,000 'passive resisters' arrested in 1946 for defying a law that discriminated against Indian South Africans

Lifelong activist

Kathrada's activism against white-minority apartheid rule started at the age of 17, when he was one of 2,000 "passive resisters" arrested in 1946 for defying laws that discriminated against Indian South Africans.

The ANC party was banned in 1960, and two years later Kathrada -- often known as 'Kathy' -- was placed under house arrest.

Soon afterwards, he went underground to continue the struggle as a member of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK).

In July 1963, the police swooped on Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, outside Johannesburg, where Kathrada and other senior activists were meeting in secret.

At the famous Rivonia trial, eight of the accused were sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour on Robben Island.

His fellow prisoners included Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Denis Goldberg.

"The nation has lost a titan, an outstanding leader and a great patriot," the ANC said.

"His life is a lesson in humility, tolerance, resilience and a steadfast commitment to principle."

The Nelson Mandela Foundation lauded him as "the embodiment of promise" during the apartheid years, saying Kathrada was "a comrade, associate and close friend of Nelson Mandela's through seven decades."

Key negotiator

The Donald Gordon medical centre in Johannesburg where anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada died early on March 28, 2017

Released from prison in 1989, the softly-spoken Kathrada belonged to the golden generation of freedom fighters untainted by later corruption scandals.

In jail, he was a teacher for fellow prisoners and a strategic thinker who formed part of the ANC delegation in the negotiations that finally ended apartheid.

"He will be remembered as an unassuming freedom fighter, whose wisdom, tolerance, humility, steadfastness and humour earned him the love and respect of our people," said South Africa's Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.

"After the achievement of democracy and the adoption of a new democratic constitution... 'Kathy' was determined to continue to serve the people."

Kathrada chose not to pursue a political career, but remained an activist and he was critical of the current ANC government under President Jacob Zuma.

Fellow Robben Island prisoner Laloo "Isu" Chiba said Kathrada was a figurehead to all anti-apartheid fighters.

"He has been my strength in prison, my guide in political life and my pillar of strength in the most difficult moments of my life," Chiba said in a statement.

FW de Klerk, the white-minority president who ended the ban on the ANC, said that Kathrada was "a brave warrior for democracy, justice and non-racialism (who) leaves an indelible mark on generations of South Africans."

He was survived by his wife, Barbara Hogan, also an ANC stalwart.

Kathrada will have an Islamic burial on Wednesday, the foundation said, while the government ordered national flags to be flown at half-mast.


Second Lady Samira Bawumia has expressed gross worry over the increasing teenage pregnancy cases in the country, mentioning that the situation endangers the lives of the teenage mothers and their children.

Giving statistics to buttress her claim, she disclosed that the Ghana Health Service (GHS) statistics indicate that 359 teenage pregnancies were recorded in the Ashanti Region alone in 2016.

According to Samira Bawumia, 323 of the teenage pregnancies involved minors, saying, This means that children between the ages of 11 to 17 years are giving birth too soon, which is bad.

The second lady has consequently appealed passionately to all and sundry, including traditional leaders, religious leaders, teachers, parents and opinion leaders, to play key roles to help stop teenage pregnancies.

She was speaking during the launch of the 'Adolescent Reproductive Health Week' in Kumasi under the theme: 'Preventing Adolescent Pregnancy- A Shared Responsibility'.

Samira Bawumia stated that people experience both physical and psychological changes in their lives when they reach adolescence, stressing the need for adolescents to be given special attention and guidance.

According to her, teenage pregnancy has the tendency of leading the victim to drop out from school, adding that the GHS alone cannot work to reduce teenage pregnancies, so all must come on board.

The second lady observed that sexual violence, teenage pregnancy, child abuse, limited access to healthcare and sexual abuse, remain some of the threats that the adolescents face, calling for ways to address these issues.

The Director General of Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Anthony Nsiah Asare, said that the GHS now boasts of mobile applications, both for service providers and adolescents, to improve knowledge on sexual and reproductive health issues.

He expressed the GHS' gratitude to the UK government, via the Palladium Group, for its support for the programme, adding that government remains committed to actively supporting people who have attained adolescence in the country.

FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi


The Ghana Baptist Convention (GBC) has inaugurated the Baptist International Worship Centre (BIWC), an interdenominational church in Accra.

Executive President of the Ghana Baptist Convention (GBC), Reverend Dr. Ernest Adu-Gyamfi, delivering the sermon on Sunday, urged churches to consistently teach the biblical truth of God in order to spread the gospel.

The inauguration, which was attended by members of the GBC across the country, was climaxed with prayers and thanksgiving.

The BIWC will be opened to members of GBC on Wednesday for Bible teaching, Friday for consistent prayer and Sunday for the normal worship.

He said churches must prepare people for heaven through bible teaching which BIWC seeks to achieve.

The Executive President said sincerity in worship was very important to the viability and progress of every church and urged all members of the GBC to be faithful to the church.

He said every Church of God could only survive through the above-mentioned basic principles and that people in the Christian fraternity these days say things on radio and television, which are contrary to the teachings of God.

Every church that seeks to adopt these four basic principles would see the light of the world.

Rev Adu-Gyamfi appealed to members of the GBC to be committed to the four basic principles which would ensure the development of churches.

Everything impossible in life could be made possible with prayers as revealed in the book of God, every achievement made by individuals or organisations are bestowed with prayers.

BY Melvin Tarlue


But for the timely intervention of the Eastern Regional Police Command, the Chief of Suhyen in the New Juaben Traditional Council and his elders would have been lynched during the celebration of Akwasidae.

The two factions hurled stones on Sunday after a destooled chief of Suhyen, Nana Frimpong Manso and the gazetted chief, Okogyeaman Ankomah Basapon, decided to celebrate Akwasidae.

The situation raised tension in the traditional community on Sunday and armed police officers from the Regional Police Command, led by ACP N

uhu Jango, stormed the town to maintain peace and order.

The protracted chieftaincy dispute in Suhyen has led to several clashes and injuries previously.

Nana Frimpong Manso, according to reports, was destooled years ago after he allegedly abdicated the seat for greener pastures overseas.

However, upon his return to Ghana, he continued to hold himself as chief of the area.

ACP Jango, Deputy Regional Police Commander, told DAILY GUIDE that his outfit dispatched men to the community to restore peace and maintain law and order, adding that investigations were underway to ascertain the cause of the skirmishes.

The Chief of Suhyen, who doubles as Mponuahene of the New Juaben Traditional Area, Okogyeman Ankomah Basapon, when contacted by the paper, accused the Effiduase Police Command, DSP Daniel Yaro, of leading his men to protect the rival destooled chief which led to the incident.

Nana Basapong appealed to the IGP to place the town under a different police command due to the loss of confidence in the Effiduase District Police Command.

From Daniel Bampoe, Koforidua


28.03.2017 LISTEN

Head pastor and General Overseer of Christ Oilfields Authority Church, Reverend King David Abazeri, has urged the Akufo-Addo government to seek the face of God to curtail the series of disasters happening in the country.

He said: I have realised that the world is running out of ideas in science, politics, economics, and even in philosophies, and ideas are getting dead, so the answers we are getting for our contemporary life are no more effective. So, we have to yield ourselves to a high power and the high power can only be God, so its time to seek the face of God and hear from him so that we can generate new ideas by the spirit of God by His inspiration to be able to move our nation and the world better. Because there is no way the world is going to become better with the intervention of God.

His advice comes on the back of recent suicide cases and motor accidents across the country.

He told Class News Kwesi Parker-Wilson: Politicians dont create human beings, its God who creates human beings, its only God who can diagnose the need and the problems of human beings properly and give him the right solution and so when politicians fail to hear from God, then they fail to produce and to provide the answers the people need and so they must align themselves with God and lead the people well.

He added that the frequent occurrences of suicides and road accidents cannot entirely be blamed on the NPP government but seeking the face of God can avert them.

The man of God noted: We cannot attribute what is happening immediately to a political party  all we can say is that its a sad situation, but since the NPP is a party in power, it will be good for them to seek the face of God to find out the root cause of all these disasters so that we can bring the hand of God to bear in solving the problems. The people who are dying once voted for them and when they are dead there wouldnt be anyone to vote for them next time around, so they have seek the face of God so that God can speak for us to solve these problems.

He, however, urged politicians, stakeholders, and Ghanaians to let the voice of God they hear reflect in their lives. The voice you hear is what controls your life and so if that voice is controlling your life it automatically reflects on the things you do. Therefore, the voices that the parliamentarians, the president, politicians hear are the voices that are controlling the land; that is what they use to rule the land. If they hear from God they will rule the land according to the will, the plan, and purpose of God.
Accra, Ghana, March 27, 2017  The African Development Bank (AfDB), in partnership with the Government of Ghana through the Ministry of Energy, the Energy Commission and other partners, organized a two-day workshop under the title Actualizing Mini-grid Policy and Advancing Universal Energy Access in Ghana on March 23-24, 2017 in Accra. The purpose of this Action Learning Event was to explore the policy related to mini-grids and facilitate a discussion that will enhance the successful implementation of policies that will encourage widespread mini-grid build-out and ultimately universal energy access in Ghana. More than 100 participants were present from government officials, key players in the private sector and development partners.

Mini grids hold great potential for expanding electricity access in Ghana. This workshop not only attests to this fact, but also demonstrates the willingness and commitment by key stakeholders to take this potential to scale, Kennedy Mbekeani, Officer in Charge, Country Manager of AfDBs Ghana office, stated during his opening remarks.

Through the New Deal on Energy for Africa, he continued, the Bank as an aspirational goal more specifically, an off-grid electricity access target of reaching 75 million connections by 2025. This goal can only be achieved through collaboration and partnership across a wide spectrum of fully committed and dedicated partners as the ones gathered here today. The Bank is working to achieve this goal through the various Bank initiatives, such as the AfDB-hosted Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA) with support from Department for International Development (DFID), which is leading a Green Mini Grid Country Support Program for countries such as Rwanda, Mozambique, Niger and, more recently, The Gambia. In this context, the Bank is also organizing and hosting an Off Grid Revolution Stakeholder Consultation Workshop in Abidjan, Cote dIvoire, on March 28, 2017.

Although Ghana has one of the highest electrification rates in Sub-Saharan Africa, there are still roughly two million people living in rural and/or isolated areas where the grid is unlikely to reach them within the next 10 years. In Ghanas rural areas, roughly 59% of communities do not have access to electricity, including a number of communities living on islands in Lake Volta and in isolated lakeside locations.

The AfDB is financing initial efforts to scale up mini grids in Ghana for example through the implementation of the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) Scaling Up Renewable Energy Program (SREP) Ghana Investment Plan Renewable Mini-grids and Stand-alone Systems project, which consists of financing market studies for the construction of 55 renewable energy-based mini-grids and 35,250 stand-alone photovoltaic (PV) electrification systems installed in 500 rural communities.

Emmanuel Biririza, SEFA Mini Grid Expert, animated a session which wrapped up the1st day workshop on various model options when Grid Encroachment. The conversation encouraged partnership between public and private sector to be able to achieve universal access.

AfDB was represented at the workshop by Antony Karembu, Senior Energy Economist in charge of the Ghana Energy Sector; Emmanuel Biririza, SEFA Mini Grid Expert; and Komal Hassamal, Senior Climate Finance Officer in the AfDBs Renewable Energy Department.

The other supporting partners of the workshop included the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Power Africa, the World Bank Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) and Inner City Fund (ICF).

Technical contact: Antony Karembu, Senior Energy Economist, T +225 20 26 19 61, [email protected]

Communications contact: Sonia Borrini, Communications Specialist, Climate Change and Green Growth Department, T. +225 20 26 55 62, [email protected]
Ghanaian peacekeeping troops (GHANBATT) serving under the UN Mission in South Sudan are providing desperately needed medical services to the local population in Leer County in Southern Unity state.

Health facilities in the region have been subject to looting during the on-going conflict. In addition, several local health partners were evacuated, leaving the county without a functioning health facility to provide basic services.

These dire circumstances made UN peacekeepers step in to lend aid to pregnant women suffering complications during delivery at the clinic in Leer.

Dr. Bny Agyiri, a physician with the Ghanaian battalion operating at the temporary base, explained their activities in the county.

Personally, as a peacekeeper, it is very sad to see people dying when you can provide medical health care to them or when you can assist them as a medical doctor. Currently in Leer, there is no hospital, clinic or health post at the moment and GHANBATT has taken it upon themselves to help these people, he said.

Dr. Agyiri said he has personally delivered 35 newborns with a 100 per cent survival rate.

I want to let people know that we are here for them and that they shouldnt hesitate to call on us at any time if it is an emergency, he said.

Mary Nyadeng, 36, whom experienced complications during her delivery, was appreciative of the aid the peacekeepers at the medical clinic provided.

The UN did something very good for us all who delivered here. Like me, I was given drips and drugs in the UN clinic. I am very pleased about that. Many thanks to the UN peacekeepers for saving my life and my childs. My baby is now healthy and growing very well, Nyadeng said and added:

I want this hospital to be upgraded so that the peacekeepers can continue helping us.

Another patient, 26-year-old Maria Nyarick, also commented on GHANBATTs aid,

We are happy with the UN Peacekeepers because they have assisted us during our problems and they are still standing with us today. I have much appreciation for the great job they are doing. They are protecting us and at the same time they are providing us with medical services.
Researchers working under the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture led Cassava Weed Management Project (IITA-CWMP) will this week share findings and recommendations on how to tackle weeds in cassava farming systems.

The sharing of research findings is part of activities marked for a week-long annual review and planning meeting and Steering Committee meeting scheduled to hold 27-30 March 2017 at IITA in Ibadan.

We are optimistic that the key findings from our research will help farmers to tackle the problem of weeds in cassava, with the view to having more yield, says the Project Leader of IITA-CWMP, Dr Alfred Dixon, who is also a Director with IITA on Monday.

Declaring the meeting open, Dr Kenton Dashiell, IITA Deputy Director General, Partnership for Delivery, said the goal of the project was to take off drudgery due to weeding in cassava farming systems.

I am happy that this meeting will share findings that will impact positively on weed control, Dr Dashiell said.

Grown on about 7 million hectares, cassava is a major staple in Nigeria and it has transited from a food security crop to a cash crop. However, yield per ha of the root crop is about 8 tons per ha or less than half the amount realised on research stations. One of the major factors affecting the yield of cassava is weeds. Most of those involved in weeding are women and children, often times skipping classes to assist in weeding in Nigeria.

In 2014, the Cassava Weed Management Project was conceived to address the problem of weeds in cassava. The 5-year project which is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is exploring diverse weeds control methods including the use of simple motorised implements, use of safe and environmentally friendly herbicides, and the use of best-bet agronomic practices.

This year, which is the fourth, researchers, will make available findings of what has been done over the period.

Lawrence Kent of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said the findings of the project would contribute to improvement of cassava with positive impact on women and children who bear the burden of weeding in cassava.

Our major task in this meeting is to translate research findings into recommendations that farmers can use to improve cassava farming and their livelihoods, he said.

Dr Dixon said the project is in an exciting phase. This is an exciting time for us Because we are going to begin the sharing of new findings to farmers and farmers will begin to benefit, Dr Dixon said.

The IITA Cassava Weed Management Project is being implemented in Nigeria by IITA in partnership with the National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) Umudike, Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, University of Agriculture Makurdi, and the state-based Agricultural Development Programs of Abia, Benue, Ogun, Oyo; and non-governmental organisations including the Justice Development and Peace Movement (JDPM) in Oyo and Abeokuta, and KOLPING in Abia.

For more information, please contact: Godwin Atser, [email protected], Communication & Knowledge Exchange Expert.
Volunteers for International Medical Aid (VIMA), a California-based International humanitarian organization, has donated sets of medical suppliers to the Amedzofe Clinic in the Ho West District of the Volta Region.

The donation forms part of the organization's mission of assisting to improve the quality of healthcare services in rural Ghana.

The Amedzofe town is noted for its rich tourism potential. The area is the highest human settlement in Ghana in terms of altitude and has a temperate weather condition that attracts many tourists.

Partners of the organisation in the United States who earlier visited the town to make similar donations, returned this week upon requests from the town folks to repeat the gesture.

The items donated include Ice old pack, adhesive bandages, dressing changes, sutures, glucose meter, test strips, and toiletries.

Health workers and residents of Amedzofe have expressed their gratitude for the gesture.

The founder and CEO of VIMA, Francis Kwame Agbemafle, who grew up in the area, stated that the gesture is to give back to the society that nurtured him in his formative years.

Since the establishment of VIMA in 2009, clinics and local caregivers in rural Ghana have depended on its consistent medical supplies for their operations.



By: King Nobert Akpablie/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Ghana is on the radar of fintech companies, funders and investors as a market that has made significant progress towards financial inclusion in the last five years seeking to better connect poor people to financial services by capturing and digitizing the data of business transactions in the informal sector.

Speaking at the media training breakfast session, David del Ser, Deputy Project Director for Financial Inclusion on Business Runways (FIBR) said, with the financial inclusion 2020 goals approaching, 48 percent of the adult population in Ghana have financial accounts either a bank account, mobile money account or an account with a non-bank financial institution.

He indicated that Ghana is poised to lead financial inclusion in the region with 91 percent of population on mobile phones and a promising regulatory set of best practices on agents and e-money.

David del Ser said this at the Financial Inclusion on Business Runways (FIBR), an initiative of the MasterCard Foundation, and partner Nomanini for the first annual African Fintech Unconference in Accra.

He indicated that they believe in the potential and seek to increase awareness and knowledge of inclusive fintech leadership by Ghana.

According to him, The Unconference seeks to enable fintech companies to engage in smarter partnerships in a fast-moving industry that is ripe for consolidation in Ghana and across Africa.

He added that the African Fintech Unconference is an event driven by the agenda of African fintech innovators and entrepreneurs focusing on their reality and challenges an event concept that was designed with the African fintech innovator in mind.

FIBR brings its network of fintech players that are exploring new, data-driven ways to leverage the trusted business relationships in low income communities to create linkages to financial services, he intimated.

The first African Fintech Unconference brought together fintech innovators, banks, telcos, thought leaders and other established financial players in the dynamic fintech sector.

Vahid Monadjem, Chief Executive Officer of Nomanini said for instance, Nomanini has built a strong network of merchants and merchant services across Africa to increase access to payments for everyone, everywhere.

He indicated that the smartphone now makes it possible to propose new and more targeted solutions by a new range of players adding that how this happens and what will succeed is largely untested but it will be a transformative contribution to the financial services sector and how the poor will better manage their money.

Vahid Monadjem added that by 2020, smartphone ownership is projected to rise from about 18 percent to over 50 percent in Africa, generating large amounts of new customer data.

According to him, FIBR sets out to support technology, business and financial partners that can use this data to design and develop new ways to make savings, credit and insurance products available to underserved customers.

He indicated that his outfit has been developing technology to enable real time credit scoring and to increase wallets so merchants can keep trading in Ghana which is convenient for use.

It worked very well here in Ghana and we have been able to improve merchant activity by 30 percent and we are looking forward to work where the market is really dynamic and the mobile operators, the Fintech and telcos have a very rich ecosystem, he intimated.

Vahid Monadjem posited that the idea for this conference is to foster connections and communications that enables ecosystem to work together rather than having a number of small Fintech working on solutions that we can share and collaborate.

Romeo Kwame Bugyei, Managing Director, IT Consortium, emphasized that the challenge is that Fintech companies need partnership to drive growth in their business and especially with banks however, the Bank of Ghana does not regulate Fintech companies in the country.

Therefore when you are doing something that requires deposit or lending the difficulty is that you cannot do it alone so you will need partnership with the financial institutions, he stated.

According to him, the main challenges is that these small fintech companies finds it difficult to strike a partnership deal with a financial institution that is evenly distributed.

He urged government to allow the sector to operate freely without any regulations so that the small businesses can innovate and grow.
LATE JUSTICE EMMANUEL NII AKWEI ADDO

28.03.2017 LISTEN

Mr. Justice E.A. Addo, was a jurist of uncommonly high pedigree. He spent a large part of his early legal career as a State Attorney. He served in Tamale, Sunyani and other regional offices of the Ministry of Justice, where he honed his considerable Legal skills. It was therefore no surprise that he rose to become Solicitor General and retired as an Appeal Court Judge.

Our paths crossed when after the 31st December Revolution he was invited by Dr. Obed Yao Asamoah, then PNDC Secretary for Foreign Affairs to head the Legal and Consular Department. Mr. Addo, Chief State Attorney as he then was, had just from come down from Cambridge. For some of us Lawyers in the Foreign Service, his arrival as Director, LECB like was a breath of fresh air.

The remit of the legal and consular Bureau has always been to provide advice on all aspects of international law to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and indeed to the Government of Ghana. This includes negotiation and ratification of treaties, as well as generally ensuring administrative justice in the internal management of the ministry. It also provides consular and notarial services, provides the interface between municipal and international law. At the best of times it was an uneventful bureau, where nothing much happened. Directors generally came and went, waiting for the proverbial posting.

Dr. O.Y. Asamoah, an academic lawyer and lecturer in Law and Publicist of International Law. He was appointed PNDC Secretary for Foreign Affairs L.E.C.B. was never to be the same again.

As a lawyer, with a more than ordinary interest in Public International law, his focus naturally turned on to the Legal and Consular Department. He zoomed in like a laser on the legal department. It did not take him long to arrive at the conclusion, that the department was not fit for purpose. He decided to introduce more professionalism into the place. He brought in Mr. E. A. Addo on secondment from the Attorney Generals Department. A Chief State Attorney, with long experience in the regions Mr. Addos arrival was not met with too much enthusiasm at first. Who is this fellow? How much Law does he know anyway? Mr. Addo, turned out to be serious, focused, informal and totally unassuming. He had this disarming self-deprecating sense of humor. He also knew his law, and he was not about to allow anybody to forget that.

He began to quietly reorganize the department. He proved ready and willing to discuss and debate legal issues. He was not overly concerned about rank and hierarchy, and above all, he did not stand on ceremony. This was our good fortune. He immediately put a stop to the practice of automatically referring all seemingly complex Legal issues to the Attorney Generals department. He turned out to be the consummate professional. One such instance was the question of the legal ownership of the Residency of the Ghana Embassy in Cairo. This is a very capacious building in the very busy Commercial area in Mohandessin, Cairo, acquired in the early sixties through Kwame Nkrumahs relations with President Nasser of Egypt, his Akonta. Though purchased outright during the Nkrumah regime in the 60s, the Egyptian land lords successor had commenced a legal process purporting to reclaim his property. He alleged that it was lease hold rather than freehold. Documents on the property were not readily available in the archives. Mr. Addo took the matter up with more than ordinary zeal.

Several visits to the legal record office in Cairo became necessary. Litigation became inevitable. To cut a long story short, our interest in the property was secured. This property currently houses the Chancery of the Ghana Embassy. With the benefit of hindsight it is fair to say that without Mr. Addos dedication, this property would have been lost to Ghana. This I believe is Mr. Addos most important legacy to the Foreign Ministry.

Mr. Justice Addo also put in a lot of work negotiating Ghanas positions at the Law of the Sea Conference. This ended with a Ghanaian, Mr. Nii Allotey Odunton as UN Under Secretary General and Chief Executive of the International Sea Bed Authority. As a measure of his international reputation, Mr. Addo was promptly elected to the International Commission of Jurists, the only Ghanaian, I believe to have been elected to this international juridical body. Against this background, it did not take long for the Attorney Generals Department to seek his return. That was how he became Solicitor General, and later Justice of Appeal.

To our astonishment, Mr Addo after a short while resigned from the bench, he said, to pursue other interests in international law. I suspect he might have been a little unnerved by some occurrences on the bench which did not rest soundly with his Christian conscience. Many of us had hoped that he would set up his Chambers so we could practice law under his guidance. He had diligently trained many of us. One of his officers, Mr. Ebenezer Appreku, was

later elected to the African Union Commission on International Law. Mr. Appreku passed away recently, another sad event from which we are yet to recover.

So today, even as we mourn his passing, the born again Christian that we knew he was, we are comforted by the thought that Mr. Justice Addo is probably rest smiling benignly down on us, and ready to put in a nolle prosequi on our joint behalves. We miss him, and will continue to do so.

May his gentle soul rest in perfect peace.

REQUIESCAT IN PACE, DIRECTOR

Kwesi Quartey

Addis Ababa
An awareness campaign aimed at challenging women especially female students to endeavour taking up responsibilities that would change the status quo on female representation and involvement in the study of Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects and other lucrative opportunities has been launched in Accra.

The maiden exercise which was dubbed THE STEM BELLE  was held at the Dzorwulu Junior High School, a suburb of Accra last week to commemorate the month of March as Womens History Month, aimed at celebrating and acknowledging achievements chalked by women globally.

Speaking at the ceremony the convener of Ms. Doreen Anene, a 2017 UN Empower Women Global Ambassador for Change, in her speech underscored that the exercise was meant to identify, discuss and break stereotypes and barriers which are holding girls from budding their interest and joining STEM fields. Empower Women is a leading global movement for women's economic empowerment with its members and affiliates from over 190 countries.

We are committed to the total well being of women across the country to dare for more in their daily respective activities as well as engaging, motivating and empowering them to be bold and targeted at changing the Status quo on female representation and involvement in STEM Subjects and careers. She added.

Ms. Anene who is a Fellow and an award winner of the 2016 Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) Cohort One held in Nigeria called on parents and guardians to serve as positive role models to their wards by offering wise counsels, motivating and encouraging them to take responsibilities and joining STEM fields.

She added that one of the channels through which women can be strengthened in other to make significant contributions towards economic development is by helping girls to break gender based stereotypes on joining STEM and by encouraging and mentoring girls to take up subjects and eventually lead careers in STEM.

The Ambassador cited that a major contributing factor to the drop out and subsequent low representation of women and girls in STEM fields especially in Africa, is the gender based stereotypes and cultural barriers surrounding girls in STEM and the low encouragement of girls to pursue mathematics and science at the Senior school-going age.

The minds of girls have and are constantly being manipulated by statements and hearsays thus discouraging and limiting them from following their dreams to achieve their full potentials as Scientists, Technologist, Engineers or Mathematicians she stressed

On her part, the Head Teacher of the Dzorwulu Junior High School, Mrs Stella Tsekpo lauded the initiative and stressed that there is a great need to have more women in STEM fields. This, she added will help close the gender gap in all sectors, hence girls must be encouraged and guided to join the STEM fields.

The Girl Child Education Coordinator of the School, Mrs Doris also expressed her appreciation to the organisers saying that the initiative is the right step at the right time in the right direction.

The event also had STEM Champions Florence Toffa, CEO of Mobile Web Ghana and a 2015 recipient of the prestigious Mandela Washington Fellowship and Dr Amina Sanni  Toure, the first Female Medical Doctor from Nima - Zongo who served as facilitators for the specialised sessions in Technology and Science respectively.

The event ended with a feed back session from the female students who contributed strategies which could be put in place to encourage and bud more girls in STEM. A certificate of participation was presented to the School which was thankfully received by the head teacher.
Celebrated South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, a Robben Island prisoner and one of Nelson Mandelas closest colleagues in the struggle against white rule, died Tuesday aged 87.

Kathrada was among those tried and jailed alongside Mandela in the Rivonia trial in 1964, which drew worldwide attention to the brutalities of the apartheid regime.

He died in hospital in Johannesburg after a short illness following brain surgery, his charity foundation said.

Kathrada spent 26 years and three months in prison, 18 of which were on Robben Island, the notorious jail off the coast of Cape Town.

After the end of apartheid, he served from 1994 to 1999 as parliamentary counsellor to President Mandela in the first African National Congress (ANC) government.

Leading a flood of tributes, retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu described Kathrada as a man of remarkable gentleness, modesty and steadfastness, hailing him a moral leader of the anti-apartheid movement.

These were people of the highest integrity and moral fibre who, through their humility and humanity, inspired our collective self-worth  and the worlds confidence in us, Tutu said in a statement.

Ahmed Kathradas activism against the white-minority apartheid regime started at the age of 17, when he was one of 2,000 passive resisters arrested in 1946 for defying a law that discriminated against Indian South Africans

 Lifelong activist 

Kathradas activism against white-minority apartheid rule started at the age of 17, when he was one of 2,000 passive resisters arrested in 1946 for defying laws that discriminated against Indian South Africans.

The ANC party was banned in 1960, and two years later Kathrada  often known as Kathy  was placed under house arrest.

Soon afterwards, he went underground to continue the struggle as a member of the ANCs armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK).

In July 1963, the police swooped on Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, outside Johannesburg, where Kathrada and other senior activists were meeting in secret.

At the famous Rivonia trial, eight of the accused were sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour on Robben Island.

His fellow prisoners included Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Denis Goldberg.

The nation has lost a titan, an outstanding leader and a great patriot, the ANC said.

His life is a lesson in humility, tolerance, resilience and a steadfast commitment to principle.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation lauded him as the embodiment of promise during the apartheid years, saying Kathrada was a comrade, associate and close friend of Nelson Mandelas through seven decades.

 Key negotiator 



The Donald Gordon medical centre in Johannesburg where anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada died early on March 28, 2017

Released from prison in 1989, the softly-spoken Kathrada belonged to the golden generation of freedom fighters untainted by later corruption scandals.

In jail, he was a teacher for fellow prisoners and a strategic thinker who formed part of the ANC delegation in the negotiations that finally ended apartheid.

He will be remembered as an unassuming freedom fighter, whose wisdom, tolerance, humility, steadfastness and humour earned him the love and respect of our people, said South Africas Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.

After the achievement of democracy and the adoption of a new democratic constitution Kathy was determined to continue to serve the people.

Kathrada chose not to pursue a political career, but remained an activist and he was critical of the current ANC government under President Jacob Zuma.

Fellow Robben Island prisoner Laloo Isu Chiba said Kathrada was a figurehead to all anti-apartheid fighters.

He has been my strength in prison, my guide in political life and my pillar of strength in the most difficult moments of my life, Chiba said in a statement.

FW de Klerk, the white-minority president who ended the ban on the ANC, said that Kathrada was a brave warrior for democracy, justice and non-racialism (who) leaves an indelible mark on generations of South Africans.

He was survived by his wife, Barbara Hogan, also an ANC stalwart.

Kathrada will have an Islamic burial on Wednesday, the foundation said, while the government ordered national flags to be flown at half-mast.

-Daily Mail
Two citizens recorded as students of the Faculty of Law of the University of Cape Coast have filed a suit at the Supreme Court, seeking interpretation on the creation of the District Assemblies Common Fund as enshrined in the 1992 Constitution.

According to the writ filed on Monday, March 27, the allocation of part of the Common Fund to members of Parliament (MPs), assuming the name MPs Common Fund is inconsistent with and sins against the letter and spirit of articles 252 (1), (2) and (3) of the Constitution, 1992.

The two citizens  John Ndebugri and Richard Kwadwo Nyarko  are seeking, among three reliefs, interim injunction order restraining the District Assemblies Common Fund Administrator, his agents, assigns and servants from allocating or disbursing any portion or share of monies accruing to the District Assemblies Common Fund to Members of Parliament under any guise and Regional Coordinating Councils until the final determination of this suit.

The suit is against the Attorney General.

The plaintiffs say there is nothing like MPs Common Fund in the constitution and the allocation of 5% of the District Assemblies Common Fund to the MPs' is without legitimacy.

The AG has been given 14 days within which to file its response.

The issue has cropped up after it emerged that part of the District Assemblies Common Fund will be allocated for government's new project of Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP), which will see each constituency given $1 million.

This was captured in the Minister of Finance's budget delivery on Thursday, March 2.

-3news
Libreville (AFP) - Gabonese President Ali Bongo launched a forum Tuesday of political and social groups on resolving a crisis sparked by his re-election last year, but the talks are boycotted by his rival Jean Ping.

Ceremonies to launch Bongo's promised "dialogue" took place at the presidential palace, attended by representatives from 1,200 groups from civil society, around 50 political parties and government officials and diplomats.

Notable by his absence was opposition leader Ping, who has repeatedly declared himself the winner of last August's election, in defiance of Gabon's constitutional court, which upheld Bongo's victory.

In an opening speech, Bongo characterised the country's problems as a post-electoral "family quarrel," of the kind that had marked the country's history even before independence from France in 1960.

"There's nothing new under the Gabonese sun," he said. "What some people are calling a crisis is and should remain a family quarrel."

Bongo said the "dialogue" -- which is expected to last three weeks but can be extended -- "can discuss everything."

"Our institutions should reflect our identity," he declared.

Topics on the agenda include "institutional reform," changes to the electoral code, the role of the Constitutional Court and "consolidating peace and social cohesion."

Violence erupted on August 31, four days after the vote, when Bongo was declared winner by a mere 6,000 votes.

Demonstrators set parliament ablaze and clashed with police, who made around 1,000 arrests. Opposition figures say more than 50 people were killed. The government has given a toll of three dead.

Ping, 73, a career diplomat, asked for a recount in Haut-Ogooue province, where 95 percent of voters in the Bongo family stronghold were reported to have cast their ballots for the president on a turnout of more than 99 percent.

On September 24, the Constitutional Court ruled Bongo had won 50.66 percent of the vote and Ping 47.24 percent, extending Bongo's lead to 11,000 votes.

Bongo seized the start of his second term to promise an "inclusive political dialogue without taboo" and a 2025 programme that would deliver a flourishing economy for all.

Ali Bongo took over from his father Omar Bongo, who ruled for 41 years until his death in 2009. His second mandate has received a cool reception from the African Union, EU and United Nations.

Gabon has large oil, mineral and tropical timber resources, and its per-capita national income is four times greater than that of most sub-Saharan nations.

But about a third of its population of 1.8 million still live below the poverty line -- the result, say specialists, of inequality, poor governance and corruption

Already-postponed legislative elections are due to be held by the end of July, but could be rescheduled again if there are changes to the constitution, sources close to the Gabonese presidency said.
Johannesburg (AFP) - Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan returned to South Africa on Tuesday after President Jacob Zuma recalled him from a trade trip, fuelling speculation of a dramatic political showdown.

Zuma's decision to order Gordhan back from Britain in the middle of an investment roadshow led to predictions that Gordhan may soon be sacked -- a move likely to deepen sharp divisions in the ruling ANC party.

The president and Gordhan have had an increasingly uneasy relationship in recent months.

Zuma has vowed to enact "radical economic transformation" to tackle racial inequality and poverty, while Gordhan has fought to control spending and root out corruption.

"The president is my boss, so if he says come back, we come back. Let's wait and see," Gordhan said shortly after landing.

"We're living in an uncertain world... But what South Africans should be assured is that there are many in the government who want to do the right thing," he told the state-run SABC broadcaster.

Local media reported that Gordhan visited ANC party headquarters in Johannesburg shortly after his return.

The government has given no reason for Gordhan's sudden recall.

Gordhan, who has the support of several other ministers, has been at loggerheads with Zuma since last year, with many presidential loyalists calling for him to be ousted.

The fresh bout of political tension spooked foreign exchange markets, with the rand losing almost six percent against the US dollar since the recall was announced Monday, with $1 buying 13 rand at 1300 GMT on Tuesday.

In December 2015, Zuma unexpectedly sacked finance minister Nhlanhla Nene and replaced him with an obscure lawmaker, triggering panic among investors and a sharp drop in the rand.

Just four days later, the internationally respected Gordhan was appointed to the role to calm markets.

Political manoeuvrings in South Africa may be put on hold as the country mourns the death of anti-apartheid ANC veteran Ahmed Kathrada, who died on Tuesday.
A 26-year-old Anna Cherdantseva, from the city of Ufa, in Russias Bashkortostan Republic is a full-time sofa tester, spending up to 10 hours every day trying out new sofas for comfort and safety.

Last month, Russian furniture giant MZ5 Group announced that it was taking application for a new position  full-time sofa tester. Although all new products are tested in a specialized laboratory, management decided that in order to better meet the needs of consumers it needed some feedback on real-life use of its sofas. In just a few days, MZ5 received over 5,000 job applications from people eager to spend most of their time sitting and lying on sofas.

We were selected candidates in several stages, MZ5 Group spokesperson Anastasia Russkih said. Initially we checked their CVS, and then we let them tell us why they wanted the job. Eventually, the furniture company shortlisted just 7 candidates, out of which Anna Cherdantseva, a 26-year-old marketing expert, proved to be the most suitable for the job.

I felt extreme competition, it was a real fight for my dream job, Anna said after getting selected. I have a lot of ideas for improving the sofas, but I would prefer not to talk about them for now. I believe it will all work out between me and the sofas.

Despite describing herself as an active person, Cherdantseva says that spending about 10 hours a day sitting on sofas doesnt sound bad at all. Of course I will spend a lot of time on new sofas, the more time I spend on them the better it will be for my work, she told reporters.

Anna Cherdantseva is currently on a three-month probation at MZ5, but the company claims that as long as she proves to be up to the task, they plan on offering her a permanent position as sofa tester. The young woman will receive a monthly salary of 56,000 rubles ($1,000) for the first three months. Its not so bad for literally sitting on the job.
The Vice President has assured the Ghana Navy government will continue to protect the country's offshore assets, fishing industry and external trade by investing heavily in both material and human resources.

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia said even as threats to fishing in the Gulf of Guinea continue to exist, government will prioritise efforts at protecting citizens.

Delivering the keynote speech at the third edition of the Coastal and Maritime Surveillance Africa conference at the International Conference Center in Accra, Tuesday, he added that oil discoveries and several mobile drilling activities ongoing offshore makes Ghana's maritime domain "a critical national asset" with its attendant vulnerabilities.

"Ghana has remained an island of peace in the turbulent Gulf of Guinea where piracy incidents are reported to be the highest in the world.

"We are committed to helping out our neighbours to achieve similar levels of stability because whatever happens in the region has a rippling effect on other countries," he stated.

He promised government's commitment to invest in the Ghana Navy to be able to neutralise the emerging threats.

According to the former deputy Central Bank Governor, in charting a course to protect offshore resources, it is important that the nation gets the best both in terms of effectiveness and cost.

The Vice president charged the service chiefs to work closely with their counterparts in the region to access products and solutions they will need to counter the emerging threats posed by unscrupulous local, regional, and multinational organizations operating in the region.

Chief of Naval Staff, Rear Admiral Peter Kofi Faidoo says, the Ghana Navy is apprehensive about ongoing efforts to convince the government of Ghana to mortgage its maritime security to the private sector or mortgage it to a foreign government.

"We are of the conviction that issue of sovereignty is at the core of our vital national interest and state institution must pave the way for safeguarding the nation's interest," he said.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim
It is important that we uphold his values and his strength and integrity, South African activist Denis Goldberg told DW today, remembering Ahmed Kathrada, his fellow prisoner and personal adviser to President Nelson Mandela, who has died in Johannesburg, aged 87.

Goldberg: I saw him a month ago. Ahmed Kathrada was very ill, very frail, but he was there and he spoke in such a strong voice about what we have done and why we did it and why it was necessary to go on promoting non-racism, respect for people, respect for immigrants, respect for all. And I must admit that humor, courage, integrity, persistence, all of these words apply to him, and tremendous charm as well.

Goldberg remembered the trial of Ahmed Kathrada and Nelson Mandela in the 1950s: We were on trial for a conspiracy to overthrow the apartheid state. What I remember is Kathrada's calm, his humor, his ability to see that what we were doing was something we had to do. Because you cannot allow tyranny to continue. His whole life was spent doing this, before prison, during prison, after prison.

On the legacy Kathrada leaves for the African National Congress (ANC), Goldberg said:There is the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation: they are very active in upholding his belief in non-racism and integrity and accountability of government. I have a fear that the government will give him a state funeral, which he deserves, but in a way of trying to defuse his criticism of government.

Kathrada lately was disappointed with the ANC under President Jacob Zuma, Goldberg told DW. He never gave up. You know we say the struggle continues and he struggled right to the end.
By Elsie Appiah-Osei, GNA

Accra, March 28, GNA - Mr John K. Nyarko, the Acting Registrar of Co-Operative Societies, has called on the Controller and Accountant-General Department (CAGD), to reduce its increased service charge of three percent.

He said the new service charge from one per cent to three per cent was too much for Credit Unions (CUs) to operate especially when it was raising its operational expenses and projected premium targets.

Effective January 15 this year, the CAGD raised its charges for the various deductions it makes from the salaries of government workers on behalf of all third party institutions including insurance companies, credit unions, financial institutions, hire purchase companies, and welfare unions.

'Reconsider the rate of three per cent to probably one per cent again as it is hindering the activities of credit unions and other financial institutions,' he said.

Mr Nyarko made the call at the 19th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Controller and Accountant-General's Employees Co-Operative Credit Union (CAGECCU) held in Accra at the weekend.

He also appealed to government to consider the call and intervene.

'By doing this it will help build the nation and members will be served as they deserve,' he said.

Mr Nyarko therefore charged management of respective CUs to bring to bear clear effective policies and run the sector with its proper implementations.

'Effective roles played as leaders and members will bring a vibrant front for a good credit union to be built for a secured future,' he said.

Speaking on the theme: 'Credit Union: Your Future is Secured', Nana Akwasi Agyapong, the General Manager of Credit Union Associations, said going forward, it was expected that the membership of CUs would increase to two million.

'And so since the credit union licensing has begun, it is an expected process that smaller ones will merge with big ones for effective operations,' he said.

He noted that plans were in place to strategise all CUs for them to be strong and vibrant to the standards of financial institutions with high liquidity and run at all times.

Lauding CAGECCU as a viable entity because of how safe it was, with members liking its services, trust as well as confidence, Nana Agyapong advised management to work with good governance, democratic principles and financial assistance, as some of the good foundations it could thrive on in the coming years.

'I however challenge CAGECCU to be among the best ten credit unions in the country within two years, based on product, service, members and access,' he said.

He also advised the leaders of CAGECCU to make their systems operations transparent and let their members have access to adequate and accurate information.

As part of events marking the AGM, elections were held to elect new leaders who would steer the affairs of CAGECUU.

The new leaders for the Board of Directors are Mr Isaac K. Dupey; Chairman, Madam Juliana O. Addo; Vice President, Mr Martin Dordzie; Treasurer, Mr Christian Osei Yaw; Assistant Treasurer and Mr Andrews K. Dzokoto; Member.

For the Supervisory they are Mr Kennedy K.K Quartey; Chariman, Mr Ebenezer A. Yirenkyi; Secretary and Mr Amatus Belakpeng; member.

Other were, Mr Anthony Kojo Dankwa; Chairman, Madam Patience Akparipoka; Secretary and Madam Evelyn Mauwuse Dzidzormu; member all going for the loans committee.

In his remarks, the newly elected Chairman of the Board of Directors, Mr Isaac K. Dupey told the members to trust the leadership and assured them of moving the union forward.

Giving his address after steering the affairs of CAGECCU for two-four-year terms, the immediate past Chairman of CAGECCU, Mr Albert Ben Crabbe, observed that the total assets of CAGECCU increased from 11,085,110 to 12,884,855.09 representing a growth of 16.24 per cent.

On membership savings, Mr Crabbe said there was an increase from 8,671.75 to 10,605,829.13 representing 22.31 per cent raised over the year 2015.

'We are also happy to report that our investments increased by 26.28 per cent from the previous year and we attribute these achievements to the collective efforts of the members and staff,' he said.

He mentioned inadequate staff strength, absence of official vehicle and the lack of development of additional programmes to expand operations as some of their challenges.

Mr Crabbe expressed gratitude to members of CAGECCU for making 2016 one of the most successful year of its existence and urged them to give same support to the new management team.

GNA
28.03.2017 LISTEN

Late in 2016 the Rwandan Government indicted several senior French Army Generals for crimes against humanity including genocide for their role in the 1994 Rwandan holocaust.

The Rwandan case against the French Generals is based on the French having instigated and trained the Interhamwe para military Hutu militia that was responsible for most of the killings of the minority Tutsi tribe and its supporters. This most inconvenient of facts is admitted to by the French media who are still trying to shrug off blame for the French crimes in Rwanda and deny any smoking gun exists.

This latest in a long series of Rwandan government exposes of the French Military and Foreign Ministrys role in the 1994 mass murder (some 800,000 by most accounts) provides that very smoking gun, for the well documented French Military role in the very existence of the Interhamwe death squads in undeniable.

Who is going to believe that after creating, training and paying the salaries of the leadership, the French had no idea the Interhamwe ethnic death squads were going to carry out what they were broadcasting so rabidly.? It goes further, for the evidence shows the French were actually behind the mass murder in just another storm of massacre and mayhem that typifies neo colonial French Africa.

All one has to do is view the excellent three part series on Aljazeera The French African Connection to hear first hand senior French Intelligence agents matter of factly describe coup detas and mass murder they directed in the years before the Rwandan genocide through out neo colonial French Africa. After watching the series tell me you still don't believe the French were capable of the crimes committed in Rwanda in 1994?

Earlier in 2016 news broke about the French role in suppressing the anti neo colonial rebellion that broke out in Cameroon in the 1970s where over 10,000 Cameroonian's were murdered by the Cameroon Army directed by French officers. All to maintain French control of their former colonies and continue the super exploitation of African resources that is critical to maintaining the high standards of living the French people have come to expect.

The French military is still very active in enforcing neo colonialism in French Africa, with contingents and or training operations in Mali, Central African Republic, Congo, Djibouti and Cote dIvoire. France has been at the forefront in demanding military intervention in Burundi by the UN, offering military forces for a potential occupation. French neo colonialism remains a potent force of reaction in Africa today and recognizing the French role in the Rwandan genocide in 1994 can play a vital role in helping the world understand this thorn in the side of the African peoples fight for independence, social equality and justice. Rwanda indicting French Generals for genocide is a good start.

Thomas C. Mountain is an independent journalist in Eritrea, living and reporting from here since 2006. See thomascmountain on Facebook or best reach him at thomascmountain at g mail dot com
The Ghana National Petroleum Commission (GNPC) is urging Ghanaians especially residents living in rich-resource communities to equip themselves with the necessary skills to enable them to benefit adequately from the oil and gas industry.

According to the Commission, the introduction of the Local Content Law L.I 2204 gives backing to more local participation in the industry hence residents must take advantage of the LI and tap into opportunities in the industry.

This was made known during a two-day advocacy program at Abor and Anloga communities with regards to oil and gas exploration activities in the Keta Lagoon.

The program was organized by the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists (IFEJ) in collaboration with Evidence and Lessons from Latin America (ELLA).

The advocacy program was to engage stakeholders and community members and enlighten them on the prospects of the oil and gas industry and its accompanying job opportunities.

The Contract and Procurement Administrator at the Local Content Department of GNPC, Agatha Eno Armarh who educated participants on the Local Content Law asserted that the introduction of the Law was to enable Ghanaians to benefit adequately from industries in their areas.

She added that there are lots of opportunities in the oil and gas industry, urging the participants to equip themselves with the needed skills and required qualification to be able to tap into these opportunities to improve their livelihoods.

A Geophysicist at GNPC, Greenfield Selorm Dogbevia implored residents around the Keta lagoon to exercise patients since benefits from the oil and gas exploration would take some time to manifest.

He urged communities to cooperate with companies that would embark on the oil exploration works in the Keta Lagoon and proposed that the Chiefs and land owners should lease out lands to the companies instead of selling.

The Paramount Chief of Abor Traditional Area, Togbe Dordziavudzi Atrinfu II was optimistic oil would be found in commercial quantities in the Keta Lagoon and advised participants and the younger generation to train in oil and gas related programs to enable them to work in the industry to benefit the community.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Fred Quame Asare | Joy News
28.03.2017 LISTEN

The Tema Traditional Council (TTC) has slaughtered a goat to demonstrate its un-readiness to welcome a non-indigene as the Tema Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE).

The symbolism of the slaughtering, according to Nii Armah Somponu, Nii Shipii (Chief Warrior) of the TTC, demonstrates the anger of the TTC and the sour courtesies it would accord its non-indigene Chief Executive.

The slaughtering of the goat was done in the presence of a mass of youth, traditional priests and priestesses and youth warriors on the compound of the TTC.

The TTC Chief Warrior addressed a section of the media and the youth of Tema saying, We wish to caution that if a non-indigene is imposed on us by the government, we shall fight back to register our discontent.

He said the TTC had presented five names of competent indigenes to the presidency; however, some visible developments were giving the TTC a cause to worry, fearing that none of their nominees would be considered by the presidency.

Nii Shipi argued that in the erstwhile government of former President John Kufuor, Samuel Evans Ashong Narh, an indigene was nominated as the Tema Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE).

This was a government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). Therefore, we do not expect anything short of what the first NPP government did to honour Tema, he noted.

Charging the youth, most of whom were wearing red and displaying placards, some of which read: 'Ben Ashitey is the best for TMA', 'Patriots of Tema want a Tema indigene' and 'Give Tema Ben Ashitey'.

Nii Shipi stated that the TTC believed the actions of the three Members of Parliament (MPs) for Tema were putting roadblocks in its way.

He identified Titus Kwartei Glover, Tema East, Kofi Brako, Tema Central and Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah, Tema West, Nii Shipii observed that the three MPs were hindering the TTC to have its matter concluded peacefully, without further delay.

It is in view of the hurdles and certain ill developments the TTC was previewed to that had stirred Tema to arise with such a symbolism of slaughtering a goat to honk their displeasure and sullenness, he said.

We are going to resist any wrong move and we pray President Akufo-Addo will repeat what former President Kufuor did to honour us, Nii Armah Somponu concluded.

From Inusa Musah, Tema
28.03.2017 LISTEN

A former Ashanti Regional Coordinator of the defunct Alliance For Change (AFC), Nana Nanabanyin Ninsin-lmbeah II, has queried recent prescription by the former Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) boss for the appointment of Special Prosecutor.

Mr. Justice Emile Short has argued that the appointment of a Special Prosecutor should not be left at the discretion of the President, noting that it must be subjected to consultative process before his/her appointment.

That person should not be appointed by the President because it will not give the appearance of independence if that person is appointed by the President, the distinguished human rights advocate said on 3FM morning show last week Wednesday.

The former CHRAJ boss stated, I think that what can be done is to have a committee that composes of representatives from certain recognizable professional institutions like the bar association, the Christian Council, the Trade Union Congress etc.

Mr. Emile Short added that the committee will be responsible for vetting interested candidates and presenting a three member shortlist for the President to appoint one of the candidates.

But much as Nana Ninsin-lmbeah II appreciates Mr. Short's prescription based on competence and independence, he would want him (Short) to go further and tell the world if the present appointee by the President to the position as Special Prosecutor falls short of his prescription and why.

If he doesnt fall short, then why, this prescription after H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has appointed Lawyer Akoto Ampaw to the position, Nana Ninsin-Imbeah, also an Ex-Nyimfahen of the Mfantseman Council in Ashanti has queried.

From Sebastian R. Freiku, Kumasi
A robber, who broke into a container shop at Oyarifa near Adenta in the Greater Accra Region at dawn yesterday, met his untimely death as he was electrocuted by some electrical wires at the shop.

People living in the suburb thronged the place when the news about the electrocution went public, forcing the police to quickly come in to fetch the body, which they deposited at the morgue.

The Oyarifa Police is currently investigating the case, but the identity of the deceased was still not known at the time of going to press.

Neighbours around the area known as Container, where the incident happened, revealed that though they were not familiar with the young man, believed to be in his 30s, this was not the first time a robbery incident had occurred in the vicinity.

The head and chest of the alleged robber were found trapped in between the doors of the iron container shop.

The owner of the small blue container shop where provisions are sold, Madam Manubea Opoku, who is assisting the police in their investigations, told the media that at 4:00am on Monday, her husband received a message that her store had been broken into.

Items found on the suspected armed robber included a screwdriver, an iron bar and broken padlocks. Meanwhile, a small bottle of Lucozade energy drink was also found beside him.

From Maame Abena Kodie, Oyarifa
Lusaka (AFP) - Zambia opened public consultations this week on the government's plan to leave the International Criminal Court, as several other African countries re-assess their membership.

South Africa recently revoked its planned departure from the ICC, based in The Hague, and The Gambia's new president, Adama Barrow, reversed his predecessor's decision to withdraw.

Zambian justice minister Given Lubinda announced the consultation, which will run until Friday, in a speech to parliament last week.

"The consultative process will be conducted through public hearings in 30 districts where members of the public will be invited to make oral and written submissions," Lubinda said.

The government will then decide whether to seek to leave the court, and plans to announce its decision at an African Union assembly later this year.

The court has been hit by withdrawal threats following longstanding complaints of an alleged bias against African nations.

Along with South Africa and The Gambia, Burundi has also registered to leave, while Kenya is considering following suit.

One Zambian opposition leader accused President Edgar Lungu of trying to evade justice by seeking to leave the court.

"President Lungu thinks that by running away from ICC he cannot face the ICC," said Nason M'soni, of the MMD party.

Opposition parties accuse Lungu of electoral fraud and political violence during his 2016 re-election campaign, though the result was upheld by the courts.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has sworn in former Housing Minister, Hackman Owusu-Agyeman as Board Chairman of Cocobod.

The Tuesday ceremony also saw the swearing in of other members of the Board namely Kwame Sarpong, Nana Johnson Mensah, Carlos Ahenkorah, among others.

The President implored the new Board to improve on the yields of the crop since it is the flagship commodity on the international scale and a source of good livelihood for several generations of Ghanaian farmers.

He noted the interest of farmers in the crop is waning due to previous government neglect.

Former Cocobod CEO, Dr Stephen Opuni

President Akufo-Addo said his government is committed to reviving the cocoa industry in order to increase production.

The government and I have made a commitment to raising production levels of cocoa to at least 1 million tonnes, and to process more than 50 percent of our cocoa beans, he said.

Mr. Owusu-Agyemangs swearing in comes at a time when the former Chief Executive Officer of Cocobod, Dr Stephen Frimpong, has been interdicted for corruption allegations.

Hackman Owusu takes over the chairmanship board from former Ashanti Regional Minister, Daniel Ohene Agyekum who was appointed by the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) government.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | AKABP
Johannesburg (AFP) - Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan returned to South Africa on Tuesday after President Jacob Zuma recalled him from a trade trip, fuelling speculation of a dramatic political showdown.

Zuma's decision to order Gordhan back from Britain in the middle of an investment roadshow led to predictions that Gordhan may soon be sacked -- a move likely to deepen sharp divisions in the ruling ANC party.

The president and Gordhan have had an increasingly uneasy relationship in recent months.

Zuma has vowed to enact "radical economic transformation" to tackle racial inequality and poverty, while Gordhan has fought to control spending and root out corruption.

"The president is my boss, so if he says come back, we come back. Let's wait and see," Gordhan said shortly after landing.

"We're living in an uncertain world... But what South Africans should be assured is that there are many in the government who want to do the right thing," he told the state-run SABC broadcaster.

Local media reported that Gordhan visited ANC party headquarters in Johannesburg shortly after his return.

The government has given no reason for Gordhan's sudden recall.

Later in the day Gordhan was asked by a reporter in Pretoria if he was still the finance minister of Africa's most advanced economy, and he replied "I'm still".

Gordhan, who has the support of several other ministers, has been at loggerheads with Zuma since last year, with many presidential loyalists calling for him to be ousted.

The fresh bout of political tension spooked foreign exchange markets, with the rand losing almost six percent against the US dollar since the recall was announced Monday, with $1 buying 13 rand at 1300 GMT on Tuesday.

In December 2015, Zuma unexpectedly sacked finance minister Nhlanhla Nene and replaced him with an obscure lawmaker, triggering panic among investors and a sharp drop in the rand.

Just four days later, the internationally respected Gordhan was appointed to the role to calm markets.

Political manoeuvrings in South Africa may be put on hold as the country mourns the death of anti-apartheid ANC veteran Ahmed Kathrada, who died on Tuesday.
Lands and Forest Minister John Peter Amewu has warned government will not spare anyone in its effort to combat illegal mining known as galamsey.

He has served notice to politicians, chiefs and other Ghanaians who are backing the illegal miners to desist from same forthright else they would be dealt with if they are found culpable.

Speaking on the Joy FMs Top Story programme Tuesday, Mr Amewu said government will act swiftly because the political will to stamp out the practice is high.

A major discourse in the country for the past month has been about the activities of illegal miners that are degrading the forests and polluting water bodies.

The Tano River in the Brong Ahafo Region has dried up for the first time in 40 years, a development blamed on illegal mining.

These activities are carried out by some Ghanaians with their Chinese counterparts in largely poor communities in the country.

Last Friday, six Chinese were arrested in the Western Region for illegally mining in the Ankobrah River, muddying it beyond use.

Mr Amewu has indicated his preparedness to save Ghanas environment by discouraging the practice.

On Monday, the Minister met with the Chinese Ambassador to Ghana, Sun Baohong to discuss with her how she could work with government to discourage the Chinese from going into illegal mining.

At the end of the discussion, Mr Amewu begged the Chinese Ambassador to speak to her fellow nationals.

Some Ghanaians were displeased with the tone of the Minister, suggesting his posture indicates he is not in the position to end the menace.

But Mr Amewu said he was not soft on the Chinese as it has been claimed in the public. I spoke with passionI made an appeal.

He said the reason Ghana has not been able to end the practice is because previous governments adopted militant and combative approach. They have not worked.

He said they are coming with a more sustainable approach to end the practice and save the environment.

Upper Denkyira West Member of Parliament (MP), Nsonwah Gyan, has asked government to tread cautiously in its attempt to flush out illegal miners.

He said galamsey has become the main source of livelihood for many people, adding any attempt to discourage the practice without an alternative source of livelihood will not work.

My constituency will be most affected if these galamseyers are flashed out because about 10,000 people are into in this industry and for that the government has to take a second look at it, he said.

Although he admitted illegal mining has led to the pollution of the rivers in his Constituency, Mr Gyan said it has employed so many young people who also taking care of their families.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brako-Powers | [email protected]
28.03.2017 LISTEN

The Association of Alcohol Manufacturers and Importers (AAMI) announces its support for the National Alcohol Policy (NAP), launched recently by the Ministry of Health in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Baraka Policy Institute (BPI).

The AAMI notes that the contents of the National Alcohol Policy are in line with its own commitment to the promotion of responsible drinking.

AAMI and its members have been advocating for a NAP since 2006 and so it comes as welcome news that the Ministry Health has finally adopted a NAP that has all stakeholders support.

The National Alcohol Policy sets out a policy direction aimed at regulating the production, distribution sale, advertisement and consumption of alcohol, with the aim of minimising the negative impact of its abuse on the individual, family and society as a whole.

Corporate and Legal Affairs Director of Accra Brewery Limited, and current chairperson of AAMI, Adjoba Kyiamah said,  W e pledge our full support for the National Alcohol Policy and the immediate development of the Legislative Instrument. We believe effective implementation of the NAP will ensure all beverage alcohol manufacturers and importers in Ghana will be required to advertise and sell their products in a responsible manner. As responsible and compliant businesses, we would like to see best practice amongst all producers and importers of beverage alcohol, especially when it comes to the advertising and sale of alcohol. 

The Association last year signed the Code of Commercial Communications to regulate the conduct of their business in the advertising of their members brands; an essential measure in the associations partnership with government and maintaining public trust. The code ensures members maintain the highest standards in all their commercial communications including advertising in print and electronic media, packaging, merchandising, consumer promotions, product placement, point of sale information, sponsorship and research.

The Association of Alcohol Manufacturers and Importers (AAMI) was incorporated in 2008 with the objective of promoting responsible attitudes and behaviour in the consumption of alcoholic beverages. AAMI members are committed to being compliant with laws and regulations of Ghana hence the promotion of responsible alcohol consumption as mandated by the Food Advertising Guidelines of the Food & Drugs Authority. The 25 member companies believe that societally acceptable alcohol beverage consumption is possible with a responsible industry and society.

Story by Ghana|Myjoyonline.com
A ranking member of the Finance Committee of Parliament is chiding government for the octopus style it has adopted in raising revenue to implement its campaign promises.

Casiel Ato Forson insists the government's decision to cut down on statutory payment and its plan to operate a centralised system for all internally generated funds for hospitals, schools and other public institutions is nothing more than a desperate effort to raise revenue to execute outlandish policies.

The former Deputy Minister of Finance said these octopus style of raising revenue will have dire consequences not just on the economy but on the sustenance of key public institutions.

The government in its 2017 budget statement hinted it will cut back on the annual government revenue to be ceded to the District Assemblies Common Fund and other statutory payments.

This the minority insisted was a violation of Article 252 (2) which states that at least 5% of annual government revenue be ceded to the District Assemblies Common Fund.

During the Appointment Committee of Parliament vetting of the Deputy Minister of Finance nominee, Kweku Kwarteng on Tuesday, the matter came up for debate with the nominee justifying government's decision and strategy.

But Ato Forson insists Ghanaians are doomed. Speaking to Joy News the MP for Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam argued by that singular policy to reduce the statutory funds, the GETFund and the National Health Insurance Scheme are on the verge of collapse.

According to him, GETfund has been starved of not less than one billion cedis as a result of this new policy.

"GETfund has not outlived purpose," he said adding, by this decision, "contractors will not get paid, contractors will not get their loans approved."

He said for a party that was loud in opposition accusing the then government of collapsing the NHIS due to non-payment of claims, he thought that, now in government, the NPP would have looked for alternative means of raising revenues to support the operations of the NHIS.

He didn't know that the government would rather reduce funds meant to go into the operations of the Scheme.

"I thought that at the very least, they will rather look for money somewhere else to increase the allocation going to the National Health Insurance fund and not necessarily to go and cap the amount going to the fund and reduce it. I am surprised"

"...They have also capped all the IGF retentions, to the extent that even the psychiatric hospitals, Pantang, Accra Psychiatric Hospital, Ankafo in the Central Region, all the teacher training colleges, all the polytechnics, universities have been capped saying that they need the money at the centre. It is a clear sign of a government that has over promised the people and looking for money anywhere else to make sure they can fund the government promises," he said.

Story by Ghana|Myjoyonline.com|Nathan Gadugah
Ive spent many years denying that I needed to specifically write to women.

Trotting out the same reason; Money has no gender, therefore I dont need to target just one section of the population.

Over the past year, Ive discovered this outlook wasnt good enough. More and more women are investing, and they are looking for information anywhere they can find it. The difference is, they arent as visible as male investors.

It was a shock to discover that at least 30% of the audience at our Great Repression conference in Port Douglas last year was female.

This was in contrast to the 10 or so women in the 400-strong audience for our World War D conference in 2014.

At first I  and perhaps some of my co-workers  just assumed they might be the better halves of other attendees.

Once I started talking to some of the women in the audience, I discovered most of them were there because they were interested in their financial freedom. Not for their hubby.

The incredible female presence made me sit back and rethink how I reach out to female investors.

So, a few weeks ago I put a call out to hear from our female audience. As you can read here and here, I have been blown away by the response.

After sifting through the many emails women sent through, the biggest deterrents to investing for women were knowledge and industry jargon.

In every email, female investors wanted to learn as much as possible before taking the leap. Some women would spend thousands on a course to learn more about investing. Other women would take years reading about the stock market before buying shares.

That, and they found the gobbledegook from those in the markets useless.

However the key thing is, many female investors want to know the basics when it comes to deciding what company they should buy shares in. Many beginners didnt even know where to start.

Over the next few weeks, Im going to cover the basics of fundamental investing, qualitative analysis and technical analysis. All of these methods have their place. Some people like to combine a mixture of all three. Other investors tend to only stick to one. The important thing is to educate yourself, work out what youre comfortable with, and go from there.

Like I said, it will just be the basics, but it should give you enough confidence to help you make a decision.

Today, Im going to tackle fundamental analysis.

Fundamental Analysis

Fundamental analysis is a fancy-pants industry term to describe how you determine the intrinsic value of a company.

In other words, what the business is actually worth, as opposed to what it trades for on the stock market.

Using this approach, you are using the companys earnings to assess the real value of the firm.

This is a good place to start.

However, before you start to crunch the numbers, make sure you understand how the company makes money.

If you cant understand the business model, step away from the stock.

Quite frankly it shouldnt be that hard for a business to explain its revenue stream. Another way of looking at it is, if you cant break down how the company earns money in 10 words or less, walk away.

Leave those sorts of speculative plays for investors that love rollercoaster rides.

Once youve got your head around how the company makes money, start with the dividend yield.

That is, the percentage return you will receive as income from owning the shares.

If youre a medium to long term investor, you may want to consider opting in for a companys dividend reinvestment plan (DRP). These are useful for gradually increasing your position in stock without spending more cash. Instead of receiving a dividend each year, you sign up for the DRP, and the total value of your dividend is converted into new shares.

Should you decide youd rather receive the dividend as income, take a look at the yield before buying shares.

The formula is quite simple. You take the total annual dividend and divide it by the stock price, then times it by 100 to put it in percentage terms.

Lets take BHP for example.

The full year 2016 dividend was 40.4 cents, and the share price is $24.87. So 40.4 divide by 24.87 = 0.0162. Times that figure by 100 and you have a current yield of 1.62%.

Simple, right?

What you need to remember is that this figure constantly changes based on the share price and the dividend paid each year. The prior year BHP had a yield of 3.4%. Often when a company cuts a dividend, analysts talk about investors fleeing to higher yielding companies. This means people looking for companies that are paying a more solid dividend.

Remember that if youre looking a company that pays a reliable dividend each year, look at the historical dividend payments. Slowly increasing dividends each year are a good sign that the income will remain relatively stable.

Next up, is price to book ratio, or the P/B ratio.

The idea of the PB ratio is to calculate what the assets of the company are worth by using their book value. In theory, the book value is the cost of the assets minus liabilities, with the accounting genius that is depreciation or amortization applied. Generally speaking, the final book value should only include tangible assets.

Over the years, clever accounting practices have seen goodwill or intellectual property (intangible assets) creep in to valuation. Most of the time, a book value will note if it does incredible intangible assets.

Theres a reason why you need to know about the book value of a company. Book value is the sum of all the companys assets, and the P/B ratio uses this information to give you an idea what the company would get for their assets if they went bankrupt immediately.

Dont worry, you dont need to work out the book value yourself. Most of that information can be found for free on sites like Yahoo Finance. In fact, your online broker may even have some of this information listed.

To calculate the P/B ratio is simple. You divide the closing price of the stock into the firms most recent quarter book value figure.

Ill use BHP again. Mondays closing price was $24.88, and the March 2017 quarter book value was 2.34.

As a formula, that looks like 24.88 divide by 2.34 = 10.6%.

For an infrastructure heavy company like BHP, the P/B ratio is a reasonable figure. Bank and tech stocks will have low P/B ratios, because they essentially dont have any real assets.

What holds back the P/B ratio, is that it doesnt tell you about the companys debt level just by looking at it (remember how the book value figure is tangible assets minus liabilities?). However a debt-heavy company is likely to have low P/B ratio.

In fact, Warren Buffet reckons this is a useless way to determine the value of the company.

I disagree. The P/B ratio has a place. Youll find its a useful tool to compare the asset backing of companies in the same sector.

More importantly, the 1993 Fama and French study highlighted that companies with a low P/B ratio tend to outperform firms with a high P/B ratio. That data is two decades old now, but research from Foye and Mramor in 2016 found the same applies today.

Thats enough to get you started. Next week Ill explain how to calculate and use price to earnings ratio and price to earnings growth ratio.

They are nowhere near as complicated as some people in the industry would like you to think!

Regards,

Shae Russell,

Editor, Strategic Intelligence

From the Port Phillip Publishing Library

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How to recharge Startimes with mobile phone? It is a frequently asked question in Nigeria. If you need an answer, this article is the right place for you whatever type of mobile phone or smartphone you have.

How to recharge startimes with mobile phone?

Startimes was first established in China in 1988. It is a home pay TV offering more than 200 various channels. In 2010, the company entered the Nigerian market. It signed an agreement with the Nigeria Television Authority to provide pay TV services to millions of Nigerians at reasonable prices.

The matter is that it is quite easy and convenient to recharge your Startimes decoder using a mobile phone because you will not have to either drive or walk anywhere to find a local Startimes dealer.

READ ALSO: IT companies in Nigeria

How to recharge Startimes with mobile phone?

So, how to recharge Startimes with the mobile phone using, for example, your GTBank Account. It is informed to be the simplest method to recharge your Startimes Decoder. The algorithm is:

Take your Startimes Smart Card

Get hold of the code using the following combination: *737*37*AMOUNT*SMARTCARDNUMB#

How to recharge startimes with mobile phone?

Use the code on the exact phone number that you used to register your account in GTBank

Note: The AMOUNT should be understood as the bouquet you wish to make your Startimes subscription. For example, you want to subscribe for the Basic bouquet that costs N1200. Thus, you should enter 1200 in the AMOUNT field.

How to recharge startimes with mobile phone?

SMARTCARDNUMB is the Smartcard number for you Startimes recharge. This number is located behind the card. It consists of twelve digits.

Having dialed the code, you will immediately get a confirmation message asking you to enter the last four digits of your GTBank card number. It is an individual bank protection against any fraudulent activity.

READ ALSO: How to check Airtel data balance online?

Insert your Startimes smartcard and switch to any channel you wish. Then you will see that your Startimes subscription has been completed.

How to recharge startimes with mobile phone?

Please note that if you have any questions concerning you Startimes subscription with your mobile phone, please, visit either Contact US or FAQ page.

Conclusion

We hope that this article will be useful for all those people who use Startimes decoder. You see that it is very easy and convenient. If you have some additional information on this issue, please, share with us in the comment below.

Source: Legit.ng
North West states in Nigeria are rather huge and they account for more than 4 territories and about 15% of the country's population.

The North-West includes a few large states, which are sometimes extremely different from the other regions in Nigeria.

List of states in Nigeria (North West):

Zamfara, Kano, Kebbi, Katsina, Sokoto, Kaduna Jigawa.

This part of Nigeria as a whole is poorly developed economically. The population density is low. In agriculture, consumer and small-scale farms predominate. It has long been a region of extensive cattle breeding.

As the population grows, the role of agriculture increases, which becomes producing from consuming. The areas under cultivation are expanding, artificial fertilizer and irrigation are increasingly being used.

The most favorable soil-climatic conditions in the interfluve of Sokoto-Rome, where rice, sugarcane, tobacco, and other crops are successfully grown, and in the valley of the rivers Niger and the lower reaches of Kaduna. The depths of the North-West are poorly investigated. Of the various minerals available, limestone and coal are being developed.

Before the proclamation of independence, the factory industry in the North-West was absent. Now a sugar factory, an abattoir, a textile factory, a tobacco and match factories, a pulp and paper mill, a cement plant have been built. Almost all the enterprises are located in Ilorin (282 thousand inhabitants) and Sokoto (90 thousand inhabitants) - the administrative and main economic centers of the states of Kwara and Sokoto, respectively. In cities and rural areas handicrafts, especially pottery and tanning, are widespread.

The difference between North West and Northeast of Nigeria

READ ALSO: Nigerian Navy Secondary Schools

The Northeast is extremely rich in livestock resources. More than 45% of the livestock population is concentrated here. However, a cattle breeding is extensive. The foundations of the meat industry are laid. There are slaughterhouses, canning enterprises, tanning shops for processing raw hides. In the town of Vome on the Jos Plateau, dairy producing works. It all raises the marketability of livestock.

The Northeast is known for its mineral wealth lying on the same Plateau. There may be found tin ore and niobium. In addition, large deposits of iron ore, coal, limestone have been discovered here. In this part of the country, there are two important economic centers - Maiduguri and Joey. The growth of the first is connected with the development of the food industry, the growth of the second - in the mining industry.

Maiduguri (about 189 thousand inhabitants) is the largest city in the region, the administrative center of the state of Borno. Here is the residence of Sheikh Borno, the traditional kanuri ruler. In the city, there is an abattoir, a plant of arachid oil. From here, oil products from the southern regions are distributed to other cities of the Northeast. Majduguri passes a significant part of the region's export products.

Jos (90 thousand inhabitants) is the administrative center of the state of the Oyo Plateau. It operates the smelting and mechanical plants, woodworking enterprises. It does not look like other cities in the northern regions. This young city was founded by English missionaries in the early 20th century. The settlement of Guash, where Hausa has long been extracted tin. It has a lot of churches and mission schools. A significant event in the life of the city was the opening of the department of the Ibadan University.

The Northeast covers the states of Borno, Benue, Plateau, Bauchi and Gongola. Thanks to the cool climate and picturesque surroundings, Oyo attracts tourists. In the vicinity of the city, they can find ancient rock paintings. The archaeological museum has a lot of interesting exhibits, including terracotta figures found near the famous Nok settlement.

North West and northeast are totally different. They even say that even inhabiting people are different.

Nigeria is completing the second decade of its independent existence. During this period, there have been changes in the pace of economic development, in the sectorial structure of the economy, the positions of the public sector have strengthened, the country's external economic ties have expanded, in particular with the socialist countries, further consolidation of the peoples of Nigeria is continuing, and their cultural level is growing. Further political and socio-economic development aimed at the elimination of the colonial heritage can help Nigeria strengthen its independence and ensure the prosperity of the peoples inhabiting it.

Current situation in the North West states in Nigeria

Almost 50,000 children living in the northeast of Nigeria can die from malnutrition, said UNICEF director for West and Central Africa Manuel Fontaine. According to him, this is almost a quarter of the total number of children living in the state of Borno. They need medical care and regular food supplies.

UNICEF notes that a lot of people in the state of Borno live in dilapidated cities and actually do not have access to drinking water and food. A lot of families whose homes were destroyed live in unsanitary conditions.

Earlier, the United Nations declared that about 2.5 million people were suffering from famine in the northeastern part of Nigeria, over 800,000 people in Borno and Yobe were in dire need of food. In February, the organization described the situation with food in the country as critical. This condition made a lot of Nigerian areas similar.

In June, the international organization Medecins Sans Frontieres reported that over 200 people had died of starvation in the city of Bama in the state of Borno for the past month, leaving homes because of the attacks of the Boko Haram militants.

The Boko Haram group, despite the losses suffered by the Islamists in battles with government forces and the combined contingent of African states, continues to pose a serious threat to the region. Its activity greatly complicates the delivery of humanitarian aid.

The Boko Haram militants, who swore allegiance to the extremist group Islamic State a few years ago, are conducting an armed campaign to implant a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam in northern Nigeria since 2009. About 20,000 people became victims of attacks by Islamists in eight years. More than two million people were forced to leave their homes.

In May 2014, the UN Security Council sanctions Committee recognized Boko Haram as a terrorist organization.

The living conditions in North West Nigerian states are not perfect and sometimes even not normal at all. Any state in Nigeria has its own problems and disadvantages. However, our government should work better in order to provide the citizens a better living. This is the main task of every leader.

READ ALSO: Edo traditional wedding attire

Source: Legit.ng
Do you know the history of agriculture in Nigeria before independence? Keep reading if you understand the importance of agriculture and farming in Nigeria and want to get to know about their historical development.

History of agriculture in Nigeria before independence

Nigeria has considerable land fund, but it is not used in full swing. Soil in the northern parts of the country is used much rarely, although there are some places of intensive agriculture. In order to obtain sustainable yield here, you need artificial irrigation, which would allow cultivating hundreds of thousands of hectares of new land. The irrigated area is still not very huge.

Natural conditions allow to till almost all cultures distributed in West Africa. In the forest area with its abundant rainfalls and long wet season are cultivated tree crops (cocoa, oil palm, coffee, Kola, rubber) and root crops (cassava, yam, taro, cocoyam), as well as maize and rice.

History of agriculture in Nigeria before independence

Pre-colonial period

Many Nigerian residents have migrated to its territory from the North nearly 4 thousand years ago. Around 2000 BC the majority of the indigenous population adopted some skills of farming and domestication of animals from the newcomers. The transition to settled agriculture resulted in the establishment of permanent settlements, which served as a defense against external enemies. In these villages the ancestors of NOK culture lived. Numerous evidence found on the territory of the Northern part of the country led to the conclusion that NOK culture representatives were familiar with the technology of smelting and processing of tin and iron. These skills allowed them not only to revolutionize agricultural production, but also start manufacturing weapons.

History of agriculture in Nigeria before independence

Nigeria as a British colony period

Nigeria is a former British colony. The colonial powers had filtered into the land of Nigeria in the fifteenth century. For some time, Nigeria was a source of cheap raw materials for Europe, supplying ivory, slaves and other wonders.

At that times, Nigeria residents were able to feed themselves by gathering in their harvest crops. In addition to being involved in agriculture for food needs, they also tend to sell crops on the basis of barter system.

History of agriculture in Nigeria before independence

Colonial period

This time was mainly devoted to the development and research guided by the importance of agriculture.

It was the period of establishing of Department of Botanical Research. It was in 1905, when Moor Plantation in Ibadan was occupied by British Cotton Growers Association.

This period main aim was to increase export crops for Britain. Everything was done for the improvement of crop production.

History of agriculture in Nigeria before independence

Speaking about the lifestock, at last great attention was paid to its hygiene and health. In 1924 Nigerians managed to create a laboratory for rinderpest serum producing.

As for the development of one of the most important branches - it was the progress in the sphere of fishery. During that difficult for agricultural economics period Nigerians conducted lots of experiments and surveys on fish culture breeding. Main venues were - Onikan ponds, Victoria Island, Kuramo waters and Apese village.

History of agriculture in Nigeria before independence

In 1949 Nigerians witnessed Nigeria Agricultural project. Its main designation was overcoming food shortage and increasing Nigeria farming productivity. Main features were growing of groundnut and guinea-corn both for local needs and for export means.

Cultivated cultures in different states

Nigeria farmers are doing agricultural works all year-round. In every area of the country there is a traditional alternation and combination of cultures. In the southwestern States, for example:

Yoruba and Edo

For the first year the soil is ready for planting, in September on the flat plains Nigerians cultivate late sorts of maize; beds for yam are prepared in November, it is planted in the same month.

History of agriculture in Nigeria before independence

For the second year, in March, between the beds of yam Nigerians sow spring maize, at the beginning of August  cotton, beans and pumpkin. For the third year, spring maize is combined with cassava.

Hausa

In the Northern States crop transplanting is different. Here in the first year we plant yam, cotton, and peanuts, in the second year corn, sorghum or millet, and in the next two years millet and sorghum. More often the land is divided into small segments, each of them has a certain culture. During such kind of farming, the soil becomes exhausted very quickly, and the harvest is less bumper. To restore soil fertility, the land is left to fallow.

History of agriculture in Nigeria before independence

So, what about current agriculture indicators?

The share of agricultural sector in GDP is 26.8%. 31,29% of the land is being cultivated. But how were all these results achieved?

READ ALSO: Natural resources in Nigeria

Stagnation of the agriculture sector contributed to droughts, migration into the city and reorientation of the population for imported food products as a result of increased revenues generated from the sale of oil.

History of agriculture in Nigeria before independence

65 % of the population is engaged in different branches of agriculture. The main part of the farming in Nigeria is focused on growing cocoa beans. The main food crops in Nigeria are:

cocoa beans;

rubber;

cotton;

batata;

maize;

yam.

Cocoa plantations

History of agriculture in Nigeria before independence

In the late nineteenth century there was founded a small cocoa plantation in the vicinity of Lagos, Calabar and Benin. However, by the beginning of XX century the plantations were abandoned, as local sandy soils were not suitable for such trees. More suitable for the growth of the cocoa tree were soils of the southwestern States (Oyo, Ondo, Ogun), mostly populated by the Yoruba nation. These soils retain moisture very well, so the cocoa trees can easily tolerate short dry season. Cocoa is one of the main sources of income of the population of the abovementioned States.

Most amount of cocoa is subjected to export (in 1976 nearly 223.000 tones were exported). Cocoa is bought mainly in the USA, UK, Netherlands, Germany and other countries.

Fruits grown in Nigeria

History of agriculture in Nigeria before independence

In addition to this, among the fruits grown in Nigeria are: pineapples, bananas, legumes, potatoes, cassava, corn, mango, papaya, millet, rice, sorghum, tobacco, tomatoes, citrus fruits and yam.

Animal husbandry

History of agriculture in Nigeria before independence

As in many West African countries, in Nigeria, animal husbandry is separated from agriculture. Agricultural work is done almost without the use of working cattle and herdsmen. The number of cattle (in 1976 it amounted to 11.3 million heads) in Nigeria is much superior to the rest of the Guinean coast countries. Cattle is mainly represented by the zebu breed (animals with widely spaced horns and a hump).

Breeding livestock - camel, goats, cattle, horses, sheep, donkeys, pigs, also poultry farming.

Fishing

History of agriculture in Nigeria before independence

Fishing mainly takes place in the waters of the Gulf of Guinea rivers and Chad lake. Chad is a home to valuable species of fish. However, fishing is developed very poorly. The fishermen still use traditional primitive fishing gears. Apart from drying, other methods of fish preservation are hardly used.

READ ALSO: Three Oil firms agree to payback $184 million to Nigerian govt

Now you know everything about the history of Nigeria agriculture development throughout the years, dozens of years and centuries.

Source: Legit.ng
Reno Omokri, ex-aide on new media to former president Goodluck Jonathan, has accused President Muhammadu Buhari of practising the worst kind of corruption.

Omokri (right) believes that President Buhari (left) is not any different from the corrupt people he is arresting and prosecuting

In a tweet on Monday, March 27, Omokri accused President Buhari of constantly breaking his campaign promises to Nigerians who voted him into power. He noted that this was the worst kind of corruption.

READ ALSO: Dino Melaye sings to taunt his enemiesDino Melaye sings to taunt his enemies

Legit.ng gathered that Omokris words came at about the same time as criticism of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday which accused President Buhari of losing control of his government.

The main opposition said by allowing his government to fall apart, President Buhari has failed Nigerians that were expecting so much from him based on campaign promises.

READ ALSO: Governor diverts N500m from Paris-club loan refund to repay his loanGovernor diverts N500m from Paris-club loan refund to repay his loan

The party tweeted: "@MBuhari has the responsibility of putting his government in order. Losing control is an indication that he has no clue on governance.

"Nigerians are not interested in which of the @APCNigeria cabals call the shot,they are interested in service delivery and ease of livelihood."

Source: Legit.ng
Violence and Utopia- Realism and

Idealism in the age of gun control

By Rob Morse. March 27th, 2017

Article Source

Evil is hard to accept. I attended a self-defense training class last week where an expert described how callous and downright evil violent criminals can be. I dont think Im a coward, but recognizing evil takes an emotional toll. Im not alone in feeling that way. Gun prohibition laws give us psychological relief from facing evil. Projecting evil intent on an inanimate object protects us from having to recognize violence as part of the human condition. By contrast, recognizing evil strips away our innocence and imposes obligations on us. This psychological dynamic explains a lot about the political dynamics behind gun control. Gun control continues to appeal to a certain type of person despite its record of failure.

We dont know what a violent person looks like. Violence would be so much easier to tolerate if every violent criminal came with a cartoon thought-bubble floating above them that said, Watch out for this crazy person. In fact, criminals defy simple explanation. Some criminals are poor and some are rich. They can be crazy or sane. Some criminals are addicts; others are as sober as the proverbial judge. Some violent criminals grew up deprived and abused, while others grew up pampered and indulged.

Violence will not go away despite our efforts to label or rationalize criminals and violent behavior. .......

This usefully sums up what most rational people know - criminals do not follow the law, however restrictive that might be - and, the "holier-than-thou" anti-rights people feel that just because they do not want to be armed, no one else should be either. In fact, there are plenty of hypocrites out there who decide that they can be armed but still promote disarmament for everyone else.... "don't do as I do - do as I say"! We have said many times - the more laws there are for "gun control" the more the criminals like it - they want unarmed good guys.

"You don't have to be Jewish to fight by our side."

 2017 JPFO All rights reserved.

jpfo@jpfo.org

1-800-869-1884

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

12500 NE 10th Pl.

Bellevue, WA 98005 USA

"America's most aggressive defender of civil rights"

We make the NRA look like moderates

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Major Nigerian newspapers for Tuesday, March 28, are focused on various issues such as a former governor diverting the sum of N9.79billion, detectives recovering N500million allegedly diverted by a governor from the London-Paris Club loan refund and how CBN pegged one dollar to N360 at the market.

The Nation reports that N500million allegedly diverted by a governor from the London-Paris Club loan refund has been recovered by detectives.

Detectives have recovered N500million allegedly diverted by a governor from the London-Paris Club loan refund

It was learnt that the governor diverted the N500million (out of his states share of the N19b first tranche) to a mortgage bank where he was indebted to the tune of N800million. He was said to have used the cash-at-hand to defray his debts with a waiver by the mortgage company.

However, it was tracked and secured by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

A source close to the investigation said: Of the N19billion, we discovered that a consultant brought by the North-West governor was paid N2.2billion. From the N2.2billion, the governor got N500million."

The source disclosed that the mortgage bank decided to refund the N500million to the EFCC.

The Punch reports that a former governor of Benue state, Gabriel Suswam, and two others were accused by the federal government of diverting the sum of N9.79billion, part of which was meant for police reform programme and Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P).

The funds were allegedly diverted by Suswam between 2012 and 2015

The two others were identified as a former commissioner for Benue state under the Suswams administration, Mr. Omadachi Oklobia; and the then accountant, Benue state government house administration, Mrs. Janet Aluga.

READ ALSO: Opinion: 6 signs Apostle Suleman is FAKE

The funds were allegedly diverted by three defendants between 2012 and 2015 while Suswam was the governor of the state.

According to report, the money was taken from the Benue State SURE-P account number 0116099195, domiciled in Guaranty Trust Bank, into various illegal accounts with the aim of concealing the money.

The defendants are being accused of conspiracy, conversion of property derived directly from corruption; collaboration to conceal property derived from corruption; obtaining by false pretences and accepting cash payments, exceeding the amount authorised by law.

The allegations were contained in the 32 fraud and money laundering charges filed against Suswam and two others on Monday.

Meanwhile, Senate president Bukola Saraki and Senator Dino Melaye are at the centre of a vehicle racketeering and fake certificate scandal.

READ ALSO: 5 federal directors sacked over employment irregularities

Vanguard reports that both men defended themselves, vowing not to give in to organised blackmail against the legislature.

Saraki has since denied having anything to do with the importation of the Range Rover SUV

On Monday, an official of an automobile marketing firm disclosed that the controversial Range Rover SUV which was said to belong to Saraki, was actually imported by his company on behalf of an oil major and subsequently sold to the National Assembly.

The Senate president has denied any role in the importation of the N298 million Range Rover.

On the certificate scandal involving Melaye, the vice-chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Prof. Ibrahim Garba, confirmed that the senator graduated with a third class degree from the university in year 2000.

He disclosed this at the investigative hearing conducted by the Senate Committee on Ethics and Public Petitions at the Senate building in Abuja.

READ ALSO: Dino Melaye sings to taunt his enemies

In other news, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has approved an exchange rate of N360 to one dollar in line with its liberalisation policy for the retail segment unveiled five weeks ago, The Guardian reports.

The apex bank offered $85 million to banks at the rate of N357/$ to commence the new policy and $100 million to boost liquidity for players in the manufacturing sector.

Financial institutions have been directed to immediately advertise the new rates at their banking halls nationwide as the apex bank will begin selling to them at N357/$.

All banks have also been directed by the CBN to immediately begin the sale of forex for Business Travel Allowance (BTA), Personal Travel Allowance (PTA), tuition and medical expenses at the new threshold.

Legit.ng was on the streets to get reactions from Nigerians about who is a better leader between President Buhari and his vice Yemi Osinbajo.

Source: Legit.ng
- Senator Melaye raised more than a few eyebrows when he appeared at the Senate on Tuesday dressed in full Academic robe

- The senator is currently knee-deep in a certificate scandal after Sahara Reporters alleged that he did not gradate from Ahmadu Bello University

Following his certificate scandal, Senator Dino Melaye, representing Kogi west senatorial district appears at the Senate on Tuesday, March 28 for plenary dressed in academic robe and cap, Legit.ng gathered.

Melaye reportedly went round the chamber to exchange pleasantries with all the Senators present, while also parading his academic robe, News Agency of Nigeria reports.

Melaye first degree at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria had come under hot questions in the last week.

Melaye shows up at the Senate on Tuesday wearing full academic robe and cap.

Many online reports had it that the senator did not graduate from the institution like he claimed.

However, the question surrounding his graduation was laid to rest on Monday when the Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Professor Ibrahim Garba confirmed that the senator graduated from the University.

READ ALSO: Buhari hails Tinubu at 65, speaks of his importance to Nigeria

Professor Garba told the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public petitions that Melaye graduated in year 2000 as Daniel Jonah Melaye.

He added that the Senator graduated with a third class degree in geography.

There have been allegations that Melaye's first degree certificate from Ahmadu Bello University is fake and he did not graduate from the school.

READ ALSO: 5 federal directors sacked over employment irregularities

Meanwhile, Legit.ng has gathered that there is an alleged ongoing plot by the Senate to suspend Senator Ndume over his motion that led to investigation against Senate President Bukola Saraki and Senator Dino Melaye (APC, Kogi West).

Ndume, who was the former majority leader, made a motion last week notifying the Senate of media reports alleging that the Senate was on vengeance against the Customs Comptroller-General, Hamid Ali over a seized SUV car allegedly belonging to Saraki.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng has gathered few reactions of people to Senator Melaye arriving the Senate in his academic gown:

Not all Nigerians find Melaye's dressing to the Senate funny.

Melaye's dressing is no doubt a way to mock those he termed as enemies after the VC of ABU put allegations against him to rest.

Popular activist, Oluwakayode Ogundamisi, while reacting to the photo of Dino Melaye's appearance in the Senate today said: "The tragedy of @dino_melaye aka Meliar storming @NGRSenate in borrowed academic robes. He claimed to have graduated from ABU 17 years ago but failed to 'collect' his certificate. Photo Here is the sad story of a Fraudster."

Ogundamisi shared series of photos to show the difference between Melaye's NYSC certificate and that of another man.

Ogundamisi who isn't convince by the ABU VC's testimony thinks Melaye is a fraudster.

The video below shows former NNPC boss, Andrew Yakubu in court over fraud allegations.

Source: Legit.ng
Violence and Utopia- Realism and

Idealism in the age of gun control

By Rob Morse. March 27th, 2017

Article Source

Evil is hard to accept. I attended a self-defense training class last week where an expert described how callous and downright evil violent criminals can be. I dont think Im a coward, but recognizing evil takes an emotional toll. Im not alone in feeling that way. Gun prohibition laws give us psychological relief from facing evil. Projecting evil intent on an inanimate object protects us from having to recognize violence as part of the human condition. By contrast, recognizing evil strips away our innocence and imposes obligations on us. This psychological dynamic explains a lot about the political dynamics behind gun control. Gun control continues to appeal to a certain type of person despite its record of failure.

We dont know what a violent person looks like. Violence would be so much easier to tolerate if every violent criminal came with a cartoon thought-bubble floating above them that said, Watch out for this crazy person. In fact, criminals defy simple explanation. Some criminals are poor and some are rich. They can be crazy or sane. Some criminals are addicts; others are as sober as the proverbial judge. Some violent criminals grew up deprived and abused, while others grew up pampered and indulged.

Violence will not go away despite our efforts to label or rationalize criminals and violent behavior. According to data from the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, between one-out-of-two and one-out-of-three of us will be victims of violent crime in our lifetime. Though not an everyday occurrence, the sad fact is that criminal violence is with us. It is uncomfortable to feel at risk. It can even be depressing.

This is where each of us faces a choice. On one hand, we can view the world as imperfect and slightly dangerous. A realist takes responsibility for his or her own safety. On the other hand, we can cling to a utopian view of the world. An idealist says that it is societys duty to protect people against violence.

It is easier for the idealist to talk about utopian prohibitions against violence than to face the real day-to-day effort of personal protection. Idealists say it is up to the police to keep us safe. Realists say we are our own first line of defense, and the police are only there to take reports and make arrests.

For the idealist, the benefits of being disarmed are real. Placing the burden of protection on society allows the idealist to keep human evil at arms length. When someone is attacked, the idealist responds by proposing more gun control laws. Weapons prohibition is psychic Valium to control the toxic emotional impact of real violence.

The idealist also condemns the realist. The level of psychological projection by idealists is several levels deep. On the surface, the idealist turns the physical objects of the gun or the knife into a fetish. It is the inanimate objects that are dangerous rather than seeing danger in flesh-and-blood human beings. At a deeper level, the placebo of firearms prohibition lets the idealist replace concern with complacency.

At a still deeper level, idealists not only blame the gun, but the gun owner. The honest person who wants to use a firearm for personal protection disrupts the fantasy that guns are the problem. Idealists cannot allow themselves to admit that honest citizens often prevent a crime or protect the innocent from violence. Therefore, the idealist, especially those in the media, feel compelled to shield the public from this disturbing evidence. That may seem to be a bold claim, but you can see the evidence for yourself.

Look at the typical news cycle after another innocent person is horribly attacked by a violent criminal. Anti-gun activists and politicians run to the news media to say there is no personal responsibility to protect ourselves. Im paraphrasing here:

You dont need to change how you live because we only need

a little more gun-control and then everything will be fine.

Gun prohibition has no effect on criminals. For example, Maryland imposed strict gun control a few years ago, banning the sale of the most popular semi-automatic rifles. Legislation also limited the number of cartridges allowed in a firearm. Criminals dont follow gun laws so the results were entirely predictable. The crime rate is now at record levels in Baltimore, (and here) Marylands most populous city. That story is repeated again and again in gun-control cities like Chicago and Los Angeles.

Unfortunately, the idealist doesnt stop with gun control. He extends his antipathy beyond guns and knives to include any armed civilian. Licensed concealed carry holders are the most law abiding segment of society. They are charged with fewer firearms violations than other segments of society, including the police. Licensed gun owners are the boy scouts of society. Idealists say that since they dont want to carry a firearm, we all should be disarmed.

The idealists say their laws stop crime, but gun laws miss their target the vast majority of the time. These anti-gun laws really target the law-abiding gun owner.

We have already passed some 23 thousand firearms regulations. They failed to stop or materially reduce violent crime. This is the rule rather than the exception since weve seen prohibition fail time after time in country after country.

But if criminals obeyed the laws then these gun laws would work.

We just need to pass another law!

The antipathy towards gun owners is not based upon stopping violence, but upon reducing the discomfort felt by idealists. For the idealist, letting society take the burden removes both the duty and the emotional cost of facing an imperfect world. For the idealist, protecting the fantasy narrative is more important than respecting the facts.

In the meantime, the realist faces the daily grind of training and preparation for self-defense.

Which will you choose?

~_~_

Thank you to William April, Tom Givens, and Anna Valdiserri for inspiring this article. I received editorial help from Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse.

This usefully sums up what most rational people know - criminals do not follow the law, however restrictive that might be - and, the "holier-than-thou" anti-rights people feel that just because they do not want to be armed, no one else should be either. In fact, there are plenty of hypocrites out there who decide that they can be armed but still promote disarmament for everyone else.... "don't do as I do - do as I say"! We have said many times - the more laws there are for "gun control" the more the criminals like it - they want unarmed good guys.

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A faction of the Boko Haram insurgents loyal to Abu Musab al-Barnawi has raided Sabon Garin Kimba village to steal food and medical supplies.

Witnesses say the new insurgents were reluctant to hurt anyone in the village which is different from the Shekau group's way

According to reports, the raid occurred on Friday, 24 March evening at about 6pm.

The report said the militants were dressed in military uniforms during the raid and they arrived at the village in a pick-up truck in Nigerian Army colours.

READ ALSO: 5 federal directors sacked over employment irregularities5 federal directors sacked over employment irregularities

But unlike previous Boko Haram attacks, there was no one killed in the raid.

This, the report says, suggests that the Barnawi faction operate on a different set of rules from Shekau's.

A member of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) militia said: "They kept telling residents they were from the Barnawi faction and would not harm anyone as long as no one got in their way."

BBC reports that insurgents that stormed Sabon Garin Kimba, some 140 kilometres (88 miles) southwest of the Borno state capital Maiduguri, were scores in number.

This account of the attack was supported by another member of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) militia Suleiman Musa.

READ ALSO: Dino Melaye sings to taunt his enemies

Meanwhile, Legit.ng gathered that the presidency has commended the Nigerian Army for clearing the remnants of Boko Haram terrorists from north east of the country.

The special adviser to the president on media and publicity Femi Adesina made the commendation on Monday, March 27 at the Guards Brigade's first quarter inter-unit short talk competition in Abuja.

Source: Legit.ng
Chief Audu Ogbeh, the minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, says foreign exchange from agriculture and solid minerals could service the countrys debt and loan profile.

Chief Audu Ogbeh, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development believes agriculture can go a long way in helping the country pay for her external debts

Ogbeh made the assertion on the sideline of the National Agribusiness Youth Training Programme funded by the Federal Government and the African Development Bank (AfDB) in Abuja on Tuesday.

The minister said that most funds for the training of youths in agriculture were borrowed from the World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB).

READ ALSO: Dino Melaye wears academic robe to Senate

He said the Federal Government was designing a strategy through agriculture to enable the country earn enough foreign exchange to service its debt in due course.

According to him, after satisfying our needs in local staples for the grains mainly, we have to design a scheme from which we shall earn enough foreign exchange to settle debts.

He said the Federal Government would soon launch a National Plantation Programme to encourage individuals to farm the smallest part of their unused land to invent their future.

All these monies for trainings on youth agriculture are borrowed.

We borrowed from the AfDB and World Bank and if you take a loan, you must think of when and how to pay.

Some of these loans will be due in 35 to 40 years. Time flies and the question is, how do we pay.

We are not likely to sell oil for 100 dollars a barrel ever again and even if we do, we are not usually careful, he said.

We waste the money when it comes, so, agriculture and solid minerals will have to pay the loans and we will pay through exports.

The average age of a farmer now is between 60 to 65 years and that is why we want the youths to be involved in agriculture.

There is a programme which we will launch very soon. It is called the National Plantation Programme.

Everyone with a land somewhere should do a plantation like cocoa, cashew, shea butter, coconut and pigeon pea to make money to recover the image and honour of this country.

The minister noted that the Federal Government would re-launch cocoa before the end of the second quarter of the year to also boost the production for exports.

He said the plan was to take the country back to its place of pride as the highest producers of cocoa.

READ ALSO: Man found drinking in a bar after his family assumed he was dead

The only way of controlling tomorrow is by planning for it but we Africans are not very good at that.

We get caught by the future, we do not remember much of the past, he said.

Ogbeh commended the President of the AfDB, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, for his support to the country.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng in the report below made a market survey to determine if Nigeria's N 1,000 can successfully be used in preparing a pot of soup in the present economic situation facing the country.

Source: Legit.ng
The federal government has finally admitted that Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, is still alive.

The minister of defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, has said Shekau will soon be captured.

The minister of defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, made the disclosure on Tuesday, March 28, shortly after briefing President Muhammadu Buhari of his ministrys activities at the presidential villa, Abuja.

READ ALSO: Dino Melaye wears academic robe to Senate

Dan-Ali explained that apprehending the sect leader has proved difficult for security forces because the insurgents normally wear masks to conceal their identities and divert attention, the Punch reports.

The minister however, expressed the confidence that the Shekau will soon be captured

He said anybody who has the opportunity of visiting Sambisa Forest would know that Boko Haram has been defeated.

Dan-Ali said the nations security forces will continue to ransack the Sambisa forest, the former strong hold of the insurgents, for the whereabouts of Shekau.

I believe it is just a matter of time. It took America about seven to ten years to get Bin Laden. So. we will get Shekau as soon as possible.

The sects spiritual headquarters has been ransacked and vandalised. He (Shekau) is on the run.

He may be hiding in one of the enclaves of Sambisa Forest which we are dominating.

We have opened up the place. We are using the place as a training area. The Army engineers will open up roads and we shall be patrolling and be ransacking that forest for the whereabouts of Shekau, he said.

READ ALSO: Ali Ndume lied! I finished NYSC in 2001 - Dino Melaye (photo)

When asked why the government had at different times in the past claimed that Shekau had been killed, the minister attributed that error to disguise by the insurgents.

He said: These insurgents have a way of putting on mask. There could be so many but we are looking for the real one.

They have been using mask to portray Shekau in one incidents or the other to give an impression that he has been killed so that we will relax. But we will not relax, we are on him.

The minister said he briefed the president about the security situation across the country and he (the president) was impressed with the performance of the armed forces.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng has reported that Boko Haram fighters have abducted four women and six youths in an attack on Konduga local government area of Borno state.

The commandant of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Borno, Ibrahim Abdullahi, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Maiduguri on Tuesday, March 28, that the insurgents also invaded Mittiri, Akalli and Arribbari villages in the same Konduga local government area.

Watch as families of detained suspects in DSS custody speak with Legit.ng

He explained that the remnants of the insurgents were desperately recruiting more youths to sustain their fight in the state, having been effectively decimated and degraded by the Nigerian Military.

Source: Legit.ng
Mike and Jesse are adding interesting stuff to the blog in our spare time, so pardon the miscellany and lack of any organization.



If you need to email about something (not hood ornaments) that isn't relevant to the comment section, e mail me at jbohjkl@yahoo.com, which will be responded to pretty fast on weekdays



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This is under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license.See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/legalcode
President Muhammadu Buhari has signed the Instrument of Ratification of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

The Presidency announced the big development on its official Twitter handle on Tuesday, March 28.

President Buhari signing the Paris Agreement on climate change

It also posted pictures of President Buhari signing the ratification documents in his office in the Presidential Villa at Aso Rock in the Federal Capital Territory in Abuja.

READ ALSO: Senators protest, suspend confirmation of Buhari's REC nominees over refusal to sack Magu

Legit.ng gathered that the Paris Agreement is an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and deals with greenhouse gases emissions mitigation, adaptation and finance starting in the year 2020.

According to Wikipedia, the agreement was negotiated by representatives of 195 countries at the 21st Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC in Paris and adopted by consensus on 12 December 2015.

With the agreement, Nigeria now has to reduce practices within the country that promote deteriorating of the environment

The agreement was opened for signing on April 22, 2016 at a ceremony in New York and went into effect on November 4, 2016.

READ ALSO: Dino Melaye takes Sowore, Sahara Reporters to DSS over certificate scandal

Legit.ng further gathered that Nigeria as now joined the 194 UNFCCC members that have signed the treaty and the around 141 that have ratified it as at March 2017.

Recall that the Presidency said Buhari would, during his stay in the United States for the 71st UN General Assembly, sign the Paris Treaty on Climate.

This was disclosed by Geoffrey Onyeama, Nigeria's minister of foreign affairs, during a news conference in New York ahead of the president's visit.

Source: Legit.ng
- Nigerians have started mocking the Senate as Dino Melaye wears academic gown to the plenary

- Some graduates of ABU had earlier defended Melaye on his certificate scandal

- ABU VC had also told the Senate committee that Dino Melaye graduated from the institution with third class degree

In reactions to the confirmation by the Ahmadu Bello Universitys authorities that Senator Dino Melaye was a student of the institution and graduated in 2000 with a Third Class, Bachelor of Arts in Geography, he stormed plenary on Tuesday March 28 in an academic gown.

See the reactions:

A Facebook user, Conitnu said: "I pity his senatorial zone. They are suffering from Buhari's change, there governor is not doing well and now Dino poured more salt to their wound. chai.

Senator Dino Melaye wears academic gown to plenary

Another Facebook user, Babanla said: "Need I say it again that our senators are grossly unemployed? Of what use is Dino's donning of an academic gown to the floors of the senate? In the first place, academic gowns are owned by Institutions not an individual.

"It is obvious therefore that Dino sowed this one in Wuse market in Abuja or probably the VC parceled it along as part of his defense before the senate. Shame to Nigerian type of democracy that celebrates impunity, corruption and all forms of lawlessness.

Holy Wahala commented that: "3rd. Class Clown... Hahaha chai, LoL!

"Sen. Dino Melaye certainly deserves his victory lap after that body-slam he gave to his ditractors and hired character assassins... I expected him to rob it in and make rounds giving hi-fives to his numerous co-criminals.

"Dino is a bona fide clown the mob couldn't lynch so it's alright if he parades his gown before the red floors.

"If I read his reasoning right, I'm equally sure he asked that VC to bring him the clown he's now parading about in as a lowlife who managed to graduate from university. Dino Melaye is comical relief... lol!

TDaniels2 noted: "Academic gown sown by a tailor under the bridge. It proves nothing. Those who graduated with proper degrees don't need to wear or parade themselves in academic gowns to prove their educated minds.

"Dino's display is not only laughable but unfortunate for the senate. This is the mental capability of those who desire to rule over lives of Nigeria! What a shame!

Jaybee said: "This guy called melaye act like a thug. If ppl like him continues to represent us I don't think our beloved country will ever get better. A fully grown up grandpa acting and mocking his perceived enemies like a kid doing hoobi. As a grown up, there are better and matured ways of rubbishing your enemies. Our national assembly seems to me to be a playground for the senators.

Source: Legit.ng
Nigerian business owners go through several challenges getting their products across Nigerian borders.

One of the promises of the Buhari's administration is to ensure the ease of doing business in Nigeria

Legit.ng gathered that many are not aware of the processes they should carry-out in order for them to have a smooth-sail when it comes to exportation.

The process of exportation may be challenging especially considering the series of processes being implemented by different countries to check influx of goods into their territory.

Digital magazine, brandspur.com lists 11 the following documents commonly used in exporting based on the requirements of both the Nigerian government and the government of the importing country.

1. Commercial invoice

A commercial invoice is a customs document. It is used as a customs declaration provided by the person or corporation that is exporting an item across international borders.

2. Bill of lading

A detailed list of a ships cargo in the form of a receipt given by the master of the ship to the person consigning the goods.

3. Consular invoice

A consular invoice is a document, often in triplicate, submitted to the consul or embassy of a country to which goods are to be exported before the goods are sent abroad.

4. Certificate of origin

A Certificate of Origin (CO) is an important international trade document attesting that goods in a particular export shipment are wholly obtained, produced, manufactured or processed in a particular country. COs also constitute a declaration by the exporter.

5. Inspection certification

A document certifying that merchandise (such as perishable goods) was in good condition at the time of inspection, usually immediately prior to shipment. Pre-shipment inspection is requirement for importation of goods into many developing countries.

6. Dock receipt

A dock receipt in international shipping using sea freight is a document issued by a sea freight carrier to acknowledge receipt of sea freight shipment at the carriers shipping terminal.

7. Warehouse receipt

A warehouse receipt is a document that provides proof of ownership of commodities (e.g., bars of copper) that are stored in a warehouse, vault, or depository for safekeeping. Warehouse receipts may be negotiable or non-negotiable.

8. Destination control statement

This statement appears on the commercial invoice, ocean or air waybill of lading, and Shippers Export Declaration (SED) to notify the carrier and all foreign parties that the item may be exported only to certain destinations.

9. Insurance certificate

A certificate of insurance is a document used to provide information on specific insurance coverage. The certificate provides verification of the insurance and usually contains information on types and limits of coverage, insurance company, policy number, named insured, and the policies effective periods.

10. Export license

Before you start any export business in Nigeria, it is advisable you obtain a license from relevant government agencies saddled with the issuance of licenses to exporters.

11. Export packing list

An export packing list accompanies the international shipment and is used to inform transportation companies about what they are moving as well as to allow the customer and others involved in the transaction to check what has been shipped against the proforma invoice.

These are the eleven documents any exporter must prepare and arrange before proceeding with shipment process of export goods.

Source: Legit.ng
- The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has called on Justice Binta Nyako to guard her utterances in the ongoing trial of its leader Nnamdi Kanu

- IPOB said Justice Nyako must be mindful of her remark while presiding on Kanu's matter if she must continue with it

- The group said Justice Nyako displayed the highest level of judicial indiscretion when she referred to an analogy on the requirements of sharia law

IPOB has called on Justice Binta Nyako to guard her utterance in the trial of its leader Nnamdi Kanu

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has called on Justice Binta Nyako to guard her utterances in the ongoing trial of its leader Nnamdi Kanu.

The group in a statement signed by its new spokespersons Ikenna Chinaka and Grace Ukpai said Nyako has aligned herself with the dictates of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Legit.ng gathered that the new spokespersons will replace Emma Nmezu and Clifford Iroanya while Emma Powerful remains the media and publicity secretary.

However, the group in its statement said Justice Nyako must be mindful of her remark while presiding on Kanu's matter if she must continue with the matter.

Justice Nyako had at the last sitting at the Federal High Court made reference to sharia law.

Nyako in her an analogy on the requirements of sharia law for women in purdah tried to explain why witnesses must be protected during the course of the trial.

But IPOB said Justice Nyako displayed the highest level of judicial indiscretion when she referred to such requirements of Sharia in a Federal High Court.

READ ALSO: BREAKING: Senate suspends screening of Buhari's appointees over Magu

"That is why Binta Nyako elected to invoke the principles of Sharia Law in a matter pending before a Common Law court. IPOB worldwide is implacably opposed to the adoption of elements of Sharia Law in the trial of our leader and other Biafrans charged alongside him," IPOB said.

Justice Binta Nyako must bear the following in mind if she is to continue presiding over this matter that has attracted so much international media attention:

A Judge by the nature of his or her position and professional calling, is expected to be straightforward, upright, diligent, consistent and open in whatever he or she does in court and in any other place of human interaction and human endeavor that he happens to find himself. This is because his or her character as a Judge is public property," the group said.

IPOB said: "He or she is the cynosure of the entire adjudication in the court, and like Caesars wife of Ancient Rome, he is expected to live above board and above suspicion, and he must live above board and above suspicion, if the judicial process should not experience any reverse or suffer any detriment. A Judge should know that by the nature of his or her judicial functions, he or she is persistently and consistently on trial for any improper conduct immediately before, during and immediately after the trial of a case. See Eriobunah v. Obiorah (1999) 8 NWLR (pt. 616) C.A. 622.

READ ALSO: Dino Melaye dances in jubilation in new video after Senate hearing, takes Sowore to DSS (watch video)

Chinaka further added that the members of the IPOB have been watching as event turns in the trial of its leader and will not take lightly, the tendencies by Justice Nyako to impose sharia law on the defendants standing trial before the Federal High Court where such law has no place in judicial proceedings.

Chinaka said: "For purposes of straightening the records, there is freedom of religion inexterminably embedded in the Nigerian Constitution as eloquently consecrated by section 38(1). By fishing far afield into the prohibited province of the inapplicable sharia law, Justice Nyako goofed full time by struggling to assist the prosecutors case in defiance of the sound admonitions of the Nigerian Supreme Court in the case of Ndidi v. The State (2007) 5 S,C, 175 at 196 thus;

.we should not forget that in criminal trials, particularly in capital offences, the trial court must arrive at its decision through a process of reasoning which is analytical and commands confidence. A judgment which sends a man to the gallows and awaits the hangman to execute him at any single minute, must be punctuated by a logical thinking based on a cogent and admissible evidence in which the facts leading to his conviction are clearly found and legal inference carefully drawn. It can hardly be allowed to stand if founded on scraggy reasoning or a perfunctory performance.

READ ALSO: Massive sack in Buharis government, 5 directors sent home over illegal recruitment

The IPOB said the Supreme Court has laid down in clear terms that a trial court must not be seen to appear to look for excuse to support the case before it.

The group also noted that such move by a court only shows that the court has turned itself to a prosecutor in the matter.

"In summing up, we would like to take the liberty of this press release to remind Justice Nyako of that immortal counsel of the great Master of the Rolls, Lord Denning, in his classic, Family Story at page 162. Hear him;

When a judge sits to try a case he is himself on trial before his or her fellow countrymen and women (gathered in the courtroom.) It is on his behavior that they will form their opinion of our system of justice. He or she must be robed in the scarlet of the Red Judge  so as to show that he or she represents the majesty of the law.

READ ALSO: JUST IN: Top Nigerian singer Davido hospitalized (photos)

He or she must be dignified  so as to earn the respect of all who appear before him or her. He or she must be alert  to follow all that goes on. He or she must be understanding to show that he or she is aware of the temptations that beset everyone. He or she must be merciful  so as to show that he or she too has the quality which droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.

One sincerely hopes that moving forward Justice Nyako would carry on with the trial in a manner wholly consistent with the best tradition of the judiciary under the Nigerian Constitution. She (Justice Nyako) should do well to imbibe the counsel of Fabiyi, J.C.A when he advised thus;

Sobriety should be the first watch-word for anyone who, per chance, finds himself in the exalted position of a Judge. A judicial officer should not be talkative or loquacious Above all, a judge should not be biased under any guise. See Eriobunah v. Obiorah (1999) 8 NWLR (pt. 616) C.A. 622 at 646.

We choose to say no more on this until the determination of the court on the issue of secret trial slated for April 6.

Source: Legit.ng
- Pro-Biafra political party, United Progressives Party, has scheduled a world summit in London

- Issues listed for discussion include Biafra agitation, Nigeria's economy and lack of transparency in the country

- It also said Niger Delta and the poor security system would be discussed

The political party adopted by the pro Biafra groups, United Progressive Party (UPP), has announced its plan to hold a crucial meeting in London on 4th April 2017.

Pro Biafra agitators calling for independence from Nigeria

In a statement signed by its national chairman, Chief Chekwas Okorie and made available to Legit.ng the party listed present economy of Nigeria, lack of democracy and transparency, agitation of the people of Biafra, Niger Delta and other burning issues in Nigeria as some key issues on the front burner for discussion.

READ ALSO: Despite VC's confirmation, new documents reveal Dino Melaye never graduated as claimed

It also said the yearning of the poor Nigerians and the insecurity of the rich is another issue that must be discussed at the London summit.

The statement said: "Delegates from Nigeria would give us situation reports about Nigeria, and we need the opinion of all progressive minds on whether we should either support the present government or provide an alternative via the ballot box in the coming election.

Source: Legit.ng
The presidency has finally responded to call by the senate to remove Ibrahim Magu as chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) saying it would pursue a line of dialogue.

Magu was rejected as chairman of the anti-graft agency by the Senate on the basis of an indictment by the Department of State Services (DSS) although he still continues in the acting position in spite of call to remove him.

READ ALSO: We await Buhari's action over our rejection of Ibrahim Magu

The senate, on Tuesday, March 28, suspended the screening of some regional executives of Independent National Electoral Commission over Magus continuation as EFCC chairman in spite of Senates call to remove him.

Presidency reacts to call to remove Magu by Senate

Premium Times reports that President Buharis Senate liaison officer, Ita Enang, reacted to the pressure to remove Magu saying it would not question the Senates authority.

He said: The Nigerian Senate is an arm of government that must be respected in any decision it takes in the course of exercising its powers as an independent institution.

We will not question the power of the senators to take decision on how they want to conduct nomination hearings.

we will listen to their grievances and reason along with them.

Meanwhile, Senator Francis Alimekhena described Magu, as a terrorist.

Alimekhena accused Ibrahim Magu of terrorizing the senate with myriads of accusations of financial scandals against Senators trending in the media.

He said since the Senate rejected Magus confirmation, he has resorted to terrorizing them.

Senator Alimekhena said that no day passes without reports of financial crimes against any Senator emerging on the social media.

Source: Legit.ng
For this series, T celebrates shops around the world that sell just a single kind of product.

The sense of neighborhood has gone, never to return, the American art critic John Russell wailed in Paris, his classic 1975 study of the City of Light. The one-person shop, the solitary craftsman, the frugal, secret and yet dignified life  all have been lost.

Except, that is, on a street like the Rue des Martyrs. Here, on this narrow, half-mile stretch that moves upward into the base of Montmartre, the one-product (if not, one-person) shop is celebrated. In the past several years, the Rue des Martyrs and the surrounding neighborhood of South Pigalle (SoPi, or soapy for short) have been gentrifying at breakneck speed. High-end specialty shops inevitably have followed, and mostly offer culinary pleasures: Mesdemoiselles Madeleines (37 rue des Martyrs) makes only madeleines; Les Grands dEspagne (36 rue des Martyrs) specializes in Spanish pata negra ham.

Image Spanish pata negra ham at Les Grands dEspagne. Credit... Gabriela Plump

Not all mono-product shops make it. Hot Dog Corner, a shop that made American-style hot dogs, went bust after only a short stint; so did La Fabrique, a boutique selling giant American-style cookies. There is also the risk of flooding the zone with too much of a good thing. Take artisanal ice cream, for example. Ice cream is now sold by several boutiques, including two pastry shops. Recently, Cave du Miroir, a wine bar and retail store at the top of the street (91 rue des Martyrs), started selling ice cream cones. Henri Guittet, the founder of Glaces Glazed, which offers artisanal ice creams and sorbets (54 rue des Martyrs), is not worried, however. His creations, made in a nearby atelier, are offbeat, and inspired by the titles of songs and movies. (Orange mecanique is a sorbet made with orange juice, Campari and balsamic vinegar; Retox a sorbet of beet, fennel, apple, ginger and old rum.) When you make only one product, you give your heart to it, said Guittet. You are totally devoted to delivering quality.
A request by Bill Cosby to have potential jurors in his sexual assault trial prescreened should be denied, Pennsylvania prosecutors said in court papers filed Monday, suggesting he was seeking special treatment.

Mr. Cosbys lawyers had argued earlier this month that intense media coverage of the case meant that many potential jurors had already made up their minds as to whether Mr. Cosby is guilty. They said an extra level of scrutiny is warranted before the regular jury-selection process and asked the judge, Steven T. ONeill of the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, to approve a special questionnaire to be sent to between 1,500 and 2,000 potential jurors more than a month ahead of the trial.

But in the response filed Monday, Kevin R. Steele, the county district attorney, said he was confident it will not be difficult to find fair and impartial jurors and that the court should rely on the standard jury selection process, in which prospective jurors are given a shorter questionnaire and examined in the courtroom before trial by both sides to see if they exhibit any signs of bias.

Special treatment is neither necessary nor appropriate, Mr. Steele said in court papers.

The trial is due to start in June.
 The work of two young Serbian activists  one pro-Russian, the other pro-E.U.  reflects the countrys deep divisions ahead of presidential elections on Sunday. [Balkan Investigative Reporting Network]

 Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor with close ties to President Trump, will help defend a prominent Turkish trader accused of facilitating millions of dollars in illicit transactions on behalf of Iran. [The New York Times]

 A really big heist: The worlds largest gold coin, worth more than $4 million, was stolen from a museum in Berlin. [The New York Times]

 In other numismatic news, new coins that are harder to counterfeit will enter circulation in Britain today. As many as 45 million fake one-pound coins are said to be in circulation. [Wired]

 And in chess, the Cold War simmers on: The World Chess Federation said its Russian president resigned. He denied it, accusing the U.S. of trying to engineer his ouster. [Bloomberg]

Smarter Living
Just a few days after being sworn in as president, Donald J. Trump convened a meeting at the White House of some of the nations most prominent chief executives to discuss how to improve manufacturing. Mr. Trump was joined by Elon Musk of Tesla, Mark Fields of Ford, Andrew Liveris of Dow Chemical, Marillyn A. Hewson of Lockheed Martin and Michael Dell of Dell, among others.

Before the meeting formally began, with cameras rolling, Mr. Trump wanted to talk about corporate tax rates  specifically lowering them. During one debate with Hillary Clinton, he had told voters: Under my plan, Ill be reducing taxes tremendously, from 35 percent to 15 percent for companies, small and big businesses. Thats going to be a job creator like we havent seen since Ronald Reagan. Its going to be a beautiful thing to watch.

He repeated the 15 percent figure over and over again.

However, when Mr. Trump spoke to the C.E.O.s that morning, he shifted the goal post slightly: Were trying to get it down to anywhere from 15 to 20 percent.

Inside the White House, until last Friday, according to people involved in the conversations, the target rate had been bumped up again, to a minimum of 20 percent and very likely a bit more.
Yet, coal miners also should not assume their jobs will return if Trumps regulations take effect.

The new order would mean that older coal plants that had been marked for closings would probably stay open, said Robert W. Godby, an energy economist at the University of Wyoming. That would extend the market demand for coal for up to a decade.

But even so, the mines that are staying open are using more mechanization, he said. Theyre not hiring people.

Understand the Latest News on Climate Change Card 1 of 5 A new response to rising seas. Consigned to marginal land more than a century ago by the U.S. government, some Native American tribes are trying to move to areas that are better protected from high water and extreme weather. In response, the Biden administration has created a program designed to help relocate communities threatened by climate change. A change in priorities. Gabon, a major producer of oil, knows the resource wont last forever. So the countrys officials are turning to the Congo Basin rainforest for revenue  while also promising to preserve the area. The approach, which aims to strike a balance between the needs of a nation and those of a world facing a climate crisis, appears to be working. A warming Siberia. Rapid warming of the Arctic has led to extreme wildfire seasons in Siberia in recent years, scientists have concluded, and such severe fires are likely to continue. The researchers said that the region may be near a threshold beyond which even small temperature increases could result in more intense fires. Shift to clean energy. The energy crisis sparked by Russias invasion of Ukraine is likely to speed up rather than slow down the global transition away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner technologies like wind, solar and electric vehicles, the International Energy Agency said in its annual World Energy Outlook, a 524-page report that forecasts global energy trends to 2050. Climate pledges fall short. Countries are failing to live up to their commitments to fight climate change, pointing Earth toward a future marked by more intense fires, drought and other havoc, according to a new U.N. report. Just 26 of 193 nations that agreed last year to step up their climate actions have followed through with more ambitious plans.









So even if we saw an increase in coal production, we could see a decrease in coal jobs, he said.

Legal experts say it could take years for the Trump administration to unwind the Clean Power Plan, which itself has not yet been carried out because it has been temporarily frozen by a Supreme Court order. Those regulations sought to cut planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution from coal-fired power plants. If enacted, they would have shut down hundreds of those plants, frozen construction of future plants and replaced them with wind and solar farms.
TUESDAY PUZZLE  At some point in your life, you must have run across the wordplay known as Tom Swifties. These are the puns that connect the action in a sentence to an adverb that follows a name, like so: I like modern painting, said Tom abstractly.

Today Ryan Milligan returns with a theme where celebrities are the subjects of the Swifties.

Todays Theme

Tom Swifties are actually a more modern version of the Wellerism, based on the character Sam Weller in Charles Dickenss Pickwick Papers. Tom Swift was a character in a series of adventures stories by the author Edward L. Stratemeyer, under the pseudonym Victor Appleton. Mr. Stratemeyer wrote the character in such a way that poor Tom could rarely make a remark without a qualifying adverb, and an entire genre of wordplay was born.

The first theme entry I got was 20As GLENN CLOSELY, after getting a few of the letters and reading the clue, Sorry Im in your space, its an actress thing, said ___, which immediately struck me as having the Tom Swifty format. Mr. Milligan discusses the additional theme entries below, if you need additional hints.

Tricky Clues

 9A: My first thought for Class with masks? was Noh theater, which wasnt far-off the mark. The answer today is DRAMA, because of the traditional theater mask symbols of comedy and drama.
The United States attorneys office in Manhattan said in a court filing on Monday evening that it was told that Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Mukasey have been retained by the defendant and are involved in, and will continue to be involved in, efforts to explore a potential disposition of the criminal charges in this matter.

Mr. Zarrab, 33, who was born in Iran and moved to Turkey as an infant, has dual citizenship. He was arrested in March 2016 as he arrived on a trip to Miami, and was sent to New York to face charges. Prosecutors, arguing against bail, said Mr. Zarrab had used his considerable wealth and influence to be released from a prison in Turkey after he was detained there in 2013 as part of a corruption investigation of businessmen with close ties to Mr. Erdogan, then Turkeys prime minister.

Mr. Erdogan has publicly criticized Mr. Zarrabs prosecution in the United States. According to Turkish news reports, Mr. Erdogan said last fall that he had raised Mr. Zarrabs case with then-Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. during talks at the United Nations, and Mr. Erdogan also said there were malicious" intentions in the prosecution, according to the reports.

What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? Whats their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source. Learn more about our process.

Mr. Zarrab has been charged with facilitating millions of dollars in illicit transactions on behalf of Iran and other sanctioned entities through the use of front companies and false documentation. Prosecutors have said he allegedly tricked numerous U.S. financial institutions into processing barred transactions. Mr. Zarrab has also been charged with conspiracies to commit money laundering and bank fraud. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and was ordered detained without bond.

Mr. Zarrabs decision to retain Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Mukasey was revealed on Monday in a court filing by the office of Joon H. Kim, the acting United States attorney in Manhattan, who took office this month after Preet Bharara was dismissed by the Trump administration.
Look, Im a policy guy.

That was Paul Ryans line before last Friday, when the health care bill he designed in secret went down without a vote, his own party showing what they thought of his policy.

Time and again when he was asked about President Trumps attacks on immigrants or the courts, his ties to Russia or his claims of massive election fraud, the speaker of the House would say he was too busy working on his agenda, A Better Way, to think about all that nasty stuff.

That Mr. Ryan failed on the policy promise that Republicans have been running on for eight years makes it clear that if he is the policy wonk of the Republican Party, then the Republican Party has no policy. And with a health care plan that would have stripped 24 million Americans of basic care and drastically hiked premiums for people over 60, it seems that they dont much care what Americans need or want.

The discrepancy between promise and reality should be no surprise to anyone who has looked at Mr. Ryans proposals over the years. Mr. Ryan has been rolling out grand pronouncements in bound volumes with fancy covers and snappy names, but the main message never changed: Americas path to prosperity (remember that one? 2011) lies in tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, and slashing social programs and regulations.
When it comes to modern authoritarian leaders, President Vladimir Putin ranks high for ruthlessness and repression. Yet as the Sunday protests in Moscow and other cities proved, he has failed to crush the spirit and courage of Russian citizens who are willing to risk retribution to resist the excesses of his regime.

The anti-government demonstrations were the largest in more than five years, drawing tens of thousands of people into the streets in scores of cities despite a sweeping ban on unsanctioned rallies. The protests called for the resignation of Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev; their proximate cause was a 50-minute video produced by Aleksei Navalny and other opposition allies and viewed more than 13 million times on social media. The video alleged that Mr. Medvedev had received bribes from prominent oligarchs that enabled him to maintain fancy estates, vineyards and yachts in Russia and overseas. The protests also reflected broader public discontents, including unhappiness with the economy and the governments suppression of peaceful demonstrations.

Protesters knew the risks. In nearly 20 years as president or prime minister, Mr. Putin has worked to crush any serious political opposition, independent media, freedom of expression and human rights in general. He has also been aggressive on the international stage with his annexation of Crimea and military involvement in Syria on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad. Over the past five months, some eight high-profile Russians, including five diplomats, have died, some in suspicious circumstances. Mr. Putin has long been accused of killing journalists and other opponents.

The police response to the protests was predictably brutal. More than 1,000 demonstrators in Moscow were beaten and arrested, including Mr. Navalny. Although many of those detained were soon released, Mr. Navalny on Monday received a 15-day prison sentence for resisting arrest. He wants to run for president in 2018, and seems to have the charisma and a sufficiently strong message, clearly, to bring people out into the streets.
President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that calls on Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, to take steps to dismantle the Clean Power Plan, a set of rules regulating energy plants powered by fossil fuels.

What was happening with the Clean Power Plan until now?

The plan, which would have regulated carbon dioxide emissions from existing fossil fuel-powered electricity plants, has been tied up in courts for more than a year, after more two dozen states, industry representatives and others sued the E.P.A. They claimed that the plan was unconstitutional, and it hadnt yet taken effect because the Supreme Court had said the plan could not be carried out while it was being argued before a lower federal court.

Mr. Trump criticized the Clean Power Plan during the campaign and promised to bring back coal mining jobs and create new jobs in the fossil fuel industry; the rules would have made that more difficult. Mr. Pruitt, as Oklahomas attorney general, sued the E.P.A. 14 times over environmental regulations, including the Clean Power Plan.

What happens next?

The problem for Mr. Trump and Mr. Pruitt is that, if they get rid of this plan, they are legally required to come up with another one.
Im getting too old for this, he mutters after falling to the ground. No, hes not. Mr. Leguizamo registers as hyperkinetic even on the rare occasions hes standing still during this 90-minute performance piece. And he will most likely remain a perpetual motion machine into his twilight years.

But having now crossed into his 50s, the creator of signature angry-young-Latino works of the 1990s like Mambo Mouth and Freak has accepted the role of a middle-aged father of two teenagers who are far hipper and savvier than their old man. It is a status he wears with humility and dignity. Well, as much dignity as is allowed to someone whose job is showing himself slipping on the banana peels that life continues to throw in his path.

The humility is undeniable, though, remarkably so for a professional showoff. Attired in professorial jacket and tie, Mr. Leguizamo may score points off us, his ignorant students in the audience. But as he depicts his flailing attempts to help his son prepare a crucial middle school project on Latino heroes, he clearly counts himself among the morons of his plays title.

Latin History is, most obviously, a forum for its creator to share his delightfully reprocessed research into the history of indigenous Americans and their European colonizers. (Rachel Haucks set is a free-range personal library of clippings and books.) The show slyly poses sharp and timely questions of what culturally defines American identity and who, in the nationalistic age of Trump, has the right to be here.
The State of Michigan has agreed to spend $87 million in a proposed settlement to replace thousands of lead pipes throughout Flint over the next three years, the latest effort by state and city officials to fix the contaminated water system.

The state may use a combination of federal and state funds for the project, which, if approved, would settle a lawsuit brought last year by a coalition of Flint residents and national groups. The suit blamed city and state officials for failing to protect residents from drinking lead-tainted water for more than a year.

A federal judge is expected to review the agreement during a hearing in Detroit on Tuesday. The proposed deal also calls for the state to provide free bottled water and to conduct extensive testing of Flints tap water for lead in the coming months. By January 2020, the agreement says, the city will have replaced pipes in and around thousands of homes  perhaps 18,000 of them  speeding up a project that began last year to replace corroded lead pipes. Pipes made of lead or galvanized steel are expected to be replaced with copper.

This proposed agreement is a win for the people of Flint, said Dimple Chaudhary, a lawyer for the National Resources Defense Council. It provides a comprehensive framework to address lead contamination in Flints tap water. The agreement is a significant step forward for the Flint community, covering a number of critical issues related to water safety.
The father of an undocumented immigrant accused of raping a fellow student this month at a Maryland high school has been detained by the federal authorities, the latest development in a case highlighted by the Trump administration as a reason for pursuing a crackdown on illegal immigration.

Officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested the father, Adolfo Sanchez-Reyes, on Friday after a review of his immigration history found he had entered the United States illegally, the agency said on Monday. Mr. Sanchez-Reyes, 43, is a native of Guatemala, the agency said, and is being held at a detention center in Maryland.

Mr. Sanchez-Reyes is the father of Henry E. Sanchez-Milian, 18, who with another student, Jose O. Montano, 17, was charged with forcing a 14-year-old girl into a bathroom at Rockville High School and raping her in a stall, the authorities said. Immigration officials said last week that Mr. Sanchez-Reyess son was a Guatemalan citizen and living in the United States illegally.

Image Henry E. Sanchez-Milian, one of two students charged with raping a 14-year-old girl. Credit... Montgomery County Police Department

Mr. Montano and Mr. Sanchez-Milian were charged as adults last week with first-degree rape and first-degree sexual offense.
Mr. Pence, the presidents influential No. 2, has appeared to question climate science, although his aim was less to question the existence of climate change as to stand up for the coal-fired power plants that provide his home state, Indiana, with most of its electricity.

What he has said:

Its just a few years ago, we were talking about global warming, which is  we havent seen a lot of warming lately. I remember back in the 70s when we were talking about the coming ice age. And, look, you know, we have  weve had a tough winter. And in the Midwest, were  were made of hardy stock. Weve seen these kind of winters before. And well shoulder through them. Well leave the scientific debates for the future. MSNBC interview, 2014.

In an interview with CNN in September, Mr. Pence, like his boss, modulated that view.

Theres no question that the activities that take place in this country and in countries around the world have some impact on the environment and some impact on climate. But Donald Trump and I say lets follow the science, but for heavens sakes lets not go rushing into the kind of restrictions on our economy that are putting Americans out of work and, frankly, are driving jobs out of this country.

Stephen K. Bannon

Mr. Trumps influential senior strategist is the former chief executive at Breitbart News, which regularly publishes articles with headlines like Global Temperatures Plunge. Icy Silence From Climate Alarmists and Climate Change: The Greatest-Ever Conspiracy Against the Taxpayer. Mr. Bannon is said to be pushing Mr. Trump to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris agreement, which committed nearly every country to take action on carbon dioxide pollution.

What he has said:

The national debt is not a manufactured crisis like global warming or the health care crisis. This is a  this is an existential crisis. Fox News, 2010.

Scott Pruitt
WASHINGTON  The Trump administration, signaling its intent to toughen enforcement of immigration laws across the country, threatened on Monday to withhold or revoke law enforcement funding from states, cities and localities that block the police or sheriffs from telling federal authorities about undocumented immigrants in their custody.

In an announcement at the White House, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said state and local governments seeking certain law enforcement grants would have to certify that they were complying with a law that bars any official from withholding information from the Department of Homeland Security about a persons immigration status. Those that are violating the policy could see such grants clawed back, he said.

Mr. Sessionss appearance was an effort to threaten painful consequences for so-called sanctuary cities, those that decline to cooperate with the federal government in efforts to track and deport undocumented immigrants.

I strongly urge our nations states and cities and counties to consider carefully the harm they are doing to their citizens by refusing to enforce our immigration laws and to rethink these policies, Mr. Sessions said. Such policies make their cities and states less safe  public safety as well as national security are at stake  and put them at risk of losing federal dollars.
MOSCOW  The weekend anticorruption protests that roiled Moscow and nearly 100 Russian towns clearly rattled the Kremlin, unprepared for their size and seeming spontaneity. But perhaps the biggest surprise, even to protest leaders themselves, was the youthfulness of the crowds.

A previously apathetic generation of people in their teens and 20s, most of them knowing nothing but 17 years of rule by Vladimir V. Putin, was the most striking face of the demonstrations, the biggest in years.

It is far from clear whether their enthusiasm for challenging the authorities, which has suddenly provided adrenaline to Russias beaten-down opposition, will be short-lived or points to a new era. Nor is it clear whether the object of the anger  blatant and unabashed corruption  will infect the popularity of Mr. Putin.

But the harshness of the response to the protests on Sunday  hundreds of people were arrested, in many cases simply for showing up  suggested that Mr. Putins hierarchy was taking no chances.
Aipac, as it customarily does, invited both the president and the prime minister to address the meeting. Mr. Netanyahu has appeared in person several times, but has also spoken via video. Mr. Obama likewise appeared periodically, but more often sent surrogates like Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

For the organizers, Mr. Trumps decision not to attend probably counted as a relief. He spoke last year as a Republican candidate and stirred a tempest by describing Mr. Obama as maybe the worst thing to happen to Israel. The next day, Aipacs president, Lillian Pinkus, tearfully apologized, saying Mr. Trump had violated the groups bipartisan tradition.

We have said, in every way we can think of, Come together,  she said. But last evening, something occurred which has the potential to drive us apart, to divide us. We say, unequivocally, that we do not countenance ad hominem attacks, and we take great offense to those that are levied against the president of the United States of America from our stage.

Aides to Mr. Trump were furious at the apology, according to a person told about the dispute, and warned Aipac officials that he would remember it. Still, there was little sign that the White House was snubbing Aipac. In addition to sending the vice president, the White House also sent Nikki R. Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, who has become a favorite in pro-Israel ranks for her staunch defense of the country.

Marshall Wittmann, a spokesman for Aipac, said the group was satisfied with the turnout. We have been very pleased to have as speakers representing President Trumps administration both Vice President Pence and Ambassador Haley, as well as the entire bipartisan leadership of Congress, he said.

For his part, Mr. Pence generally avoided a partisan tone in his remarks, though at one point he did say that for the first time in a long time, America has a president who will stand with our allies and stand up to our enemies.
Lawyers for Bill Cosby asked a Pennsylvania judge on Tuesday to exclude from his sexual assault trial the entertainers deposition testimony from a 12-year-old civil suit in which he acknowledged that he obtained quaaludes as part of his efforts to have sex with women.

The deposition statement is among the most potentially damaging evidence in the case brought by prosecutors in Montgomery County, who have accused Mr. Cosby of sexually assaulting a former Temple University staff member in 2004 after drugging her. Mr. Cosby has said the encounter at his home outside Philadelphia was consensual and he has described the pill he administered to the woman, Andrea Constand, that night as an over-the-counter allergy medicine.

Ms. Constand later sued and it was in a deposition in that 2005 civil case that Mr. Cosby testified about the quaaludes. In an important decision this past December, Judge Steven T. ONeill ruled that he would admit Mr. Cosbys deposition testimony at the criminal trial, set to start the first week in June.

Prosecutors have described the testimony about the drugs, which became public in 2015, as crucial evidence that led them to reopen the investigation into the Constand case.
Yes, theyre both women and theyre both in the dance world. But thats where the similarity ends.

Maria Alexandrova, from Russia, has spent 20 years reigning over the classical repertory at the Bolshoi Ballet. Blanca Li, from Spain, armed with hard-core training in flamenco, modern dance and gymnastics  she was a member of Spains national rhythmic gymnastics team  stretches beyond the dance world. A choreographer as well as a dancer, she has worked with the film director Pedro Almodovar; fashion designers including Azzedine Alaia and Stella McCartney; and, in the land of music, Beyonce and Daft Punk.

But while they are in some respects an unlikely pair, the artistic union between Ms. Alexandrova and Ms. Li celebrates what they have in common: female power.

This is the first woman choreographer in my life, Ms. Alexandrova, 38, said bluntly after a recent rehearsal for their two-woman dance show, Goddesses & Demonesses.
C. P. Lacey glanced at his oversized silver watch and began tap-dancing across the floor of his cramped dressing room in Harlem. There was pep in his fleet-footed steps. At 55, he moved joyfully among the dazzling costumes and wigs in his dimly lit quarters.

Gotta check my taps for sound, Mr. Lacey, decked out in a gray silk suit and tilted fedora, said 90 minutes before showtime at the Apollo Theater. He turned up one spit-shined shoe to reveal a tiny microphone on the bottom, and then checked the other.

Mr. Lacey might have been a breakout star in another era. His heart is in vaudeville and in talent shows, but he was born too late for the Ziegfeld Follies, too early for American Idol. Instead, for the past 30 years, he has been playing the supporting role of the Executioner every Wednesday at Amateur Night at the Apollo, the competition that has been a steppingstone for Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, DAngelo and many more.
This week, the Joffrey Ballet, which left New York for Chicago in 1995, returns to this city: It brings Romeo & Juliet  choreographed by Krzysztof Pastor to the Prokofiev score  with a difference. Here, the story is told through the sequence of 20th-century Italian politics. The first act is set during Mussolinis regime in the 1930s, the second act in the relatively prosperous 1950s, the third in the 1990s. Nonetheless, the central characters are still called Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio, Tybalt and so on. Chicagoans have admired this Romeo; New York sees it for the first time this week.

Does this concept seem far-fetched? History shows that nearly every version of this famous score has been different  different from Shakespeare or from Prokofievs idea, or both. Shakespeares Lord Capulet says to his cousin, You and I are past our dancing days, but you may be sure all choreographers have ignored that.

When he composed his Romeo in 1935, Prokofiev gave that Shakespeare tragedy a happy ending. (This idea is as old as Romeo itself; Lope de Vega, a contemporary, gave his play Capulets and Montagues a happy ending.) The score was first staged in 1938 in Czechoslovakia. Only, however, when Prokofiev, working with the Russian choreographer Leonid Lavrovsky, agreed to allow Romeo and Juliet to die did it finally reach the stage in the Soviet Union  at the Kirov (now Mariinsky) Theater in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in 1940.

And the changes had only just begun. Here are some of the other treatments Prokofievs three-act score has received over the years.
When this years edition of the Aipad Photography Show opens on Thursday, one of its booths will be empty  a casualty of President Trumps travel ban.

Ag Galerie, which was to have its debut at Aipad, at Booth 317, is based in Iran, one of the six predominantly Muslim countries whose citizens are barred from entering the United States under the ban.
To the short list of television shows focused on prostitution  Hung, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, The Girlfriend Experience  add Harlots, an eight-episode British costume extravaganza that started this week on Hulu. If the cool minimalism of Steven Soderberghs Girlfriend Experience isnt your thing, then the strenuously theatrical Harlots (keywords bawdy and voluptuous) might be more your speed.

Starring a pair of fine actresses, Samantha Morton and Lesley Manville, as rival brothel owners in 1763 London, the show walks a fine line between empowerment (sex work as a choice more liberating than marriage or poverty-level employment) and victimization.

Accomplishing that in a way that isnt just depressing or infuriating involves turning the profession and the time period into a raucous combination of pageant and farce. Harlots doesnt shy away from doubt, sorrow and the straightforward presentation of appalling exploitation, but it doesnt linger on them  it always moves right along to the next scene of intrigue and competition between brothels, or the next bit of comic business involving the desperate buffoonery of the male customers. All against a backdrop of jolly sex and nudity, mostly by extras.

The shows creators  the accomplished and ambitious playwright and screenwriter Moira Buffini and the actress Alison Newman  set an unflagging pace in the two episodes available for review, with dialogue thats sufficiently crisp and performances that are entertaining enough to keep you interested, even if the story feels a little hollow at the core.
Trevor Noah poked fun at House Republicans last week for their inability to master the surprise album release, a la Drake or Beyonce. On Monday he went back to his R&B metaphor toolbox.

Theyve been running against Obamacare for seven years. Every election theyd be like: Vote for us, America, were going to repeal and replace! But now, when they actually have control of the entire government, they fail to agree on their own plan. You know, this whole situation is whats known in the R&B community as the player-hater phenomenon. You know those songs where a guys hating throughout the song? Hes like [singing], Girl, you deserve so much better! He doesnt treat you right, just give me a chance and Ill treat you like a .

That was the Republicans. And then this time America was the girl who was like, O.K., you know what? Im gonna give you a shot. Suddenly the Republicans were like, Girl, wait  what? Well, actually, right now, Im living with my mom, and Im between jobs, and I have a cold sore right now, so maybe just give me a few weeks to get my life together. But after that, [singing] Im gonna love you girl! Im gonna love you girl!  TREVOR NOAH
In the pilot of FXs Legion, we meet David (Dan Stevens), a powerful telekinetic (so were told) suffering from mental illness (so hes been told) who is rescued from a psychiatric hospital (so it appears). Unsure whether to trust his perceptions, he asks his savior and new girlfriend, Syd (Rachel Keller): I have to know, is this real?

If youve kept up with this hallucinatory Marvel Comics drama, whose first season finale airs on Wednesday, you know the answer: Yes. No. Maybe! And, anyway (inhales deeply from frog-shaped vaporizer), what is real?

Legion has left viewers as full of existential doubt as David, and with good reason. Many of Davids thoughts and memories  his best friend, Lenny (Aubrey Plaza), even his childhood dog  have turned out to be figments generated by the Shadow King, a mental parasite living rent-free in Davids noggin.

Scenes take place within illusions, or illusions nested within illusions. David visits the scientist Oliver Bird (Jemaine Clement) in the astral plane, where Oliver lives in a space-age bachelor pad inside an ice cube, which he generated by thought. Whats real in this space, Oliver says, is whatever you want it to be.
To wit, here is a new self-help genre one might call the power woman next door. An ultrahigh achiever (Dufu is the chief leadership officer of the millennial professional network Levo) gives a TEDx talk, or writes a memoir, or does both. It centers on an aha moment when family and career collided (in Dufus case, weeping in a bathroom stall at work, breast milk exploded all over her designer suit). Now comes the pivot where the type-AAA female becomes an Everywoman, with advice on how to relax. Consider Arianna Huffington, between Davos panels, writing a best seller about this new thing she discovered called sleep. This self-care helps more women to become leaders to further womens rights, which  next turn  deepens our marriages. Sandberg enthuses: Everyone benefits when men work towards equality. . . . Our relationships and our lives are richer when we lean in together.

Image

Its perhaps most useful to widen the lens and see Drop the Ball as a peculiar form for a peculiar moment, which is how Marche describes his own book. Why must every super-C.E.O.-moms memoir now be pretzel-twisted into a manifesto? More than 50 years since Betty Friedans The Feminine Mystique, urging working women to drop the ball  a.k.a. allow more imperfection and engage their husbands more around the home  is hardly revolutionary. Dufus book is more engaging as a heartfelt look into the emotions  like mommy guilt, still!  of a particular set of high-achieving women in a half-changed time. She candidly checks her own neuroses (hangers must face the same way, bra and panties must match, her husband was briefly put on a rewards sticker system). Her pre-dropped-ball to-do lists vibrate with Martha Stewarts dog whistle: Pick up dry cleaning, iron outfit, put oxtails in crockpot, send thank-you note to last weeks dinner party host.

On top of training for triathlons, Dufu morning-mentors five people a week, and so she can report, credibly, that her network is indeed filled with other working women dropping the ball. Although many still decry pizza for family dinner, one offers a dark confession: I stopped cleaning the top of my refrigerator years ago. In the end, Dufu is blessed with an enlightened professional husband who shares her love of their household Management Excel List (or MEL) and passion for sub-Saharan African and womens causes. Overseeing their purpose-driven life like a nonprofit (complete with mission statements), they appear, indeed, to be leaning in together.

Far less utopian  and confident  is the shaggier beta male memoir The Unmade Bed. Esquires culture columnist, Marche deems his book the fruit of many confusions, both personal and intellectual. . . . Half argument, half confession. In Marches case, it was his alpha female wifes career that uprooted them. To hear him tell it, leaning in together  leaving his job for stay-at-home dadhood  did not make his life richer. Child care is restless labor; the total intimacy shared with another lump of flesh is no compensation for the utter loneliness of spirit that accompanies it.
The merger between the Republican Party and the evangelical movement did not result in separationisms total abolition. FitzGerald includes a fascinating chapter on conservative Christian intellectuals. One of them, R.J. Rushdoony, developed a complicated theological system he called Christian Reconstructionism; he taught that with God on their side, Christians had no need for majoritarian politics, or for compromise and accommodation to reach their goal, as FitzGerald puts it. The other prominent thinker within the movement was Francis Schaeffer, a prolific author and filmmaker who, again as FitzGerald characterizes his ideas, argued that Christians had a duty to resist a government that acted against Gods law. (One of Schaeffers funders was the father-in-law of our secretary of education, Betsy DeVos.) Schaeffers legacy lives on among those, like the former congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who believe that this country was founded by religious Christians.

Amazingly enough, The Evangelicals, for all its length, is not comprehensive. There is no discussion of church music here, even as the evangelicals led a move away from the organ to Christian rock and white gospel. Missing as well are Christian bookstores and the self-help therapies and guides to sexuality they can barely keep in stock. African-Americans are not included in FitzGeralds story either, and while she justifies her choice on the grounds that their religious histories and traditions are different from those of whites in matters of worship style and, to a lesser degree, theology, they stem from very similar roots. (Pentecostalism, for example, began with blacks and whites worshiping together before splitting along racial lines.)

Image Pat Robertson, October 1996. Credit... Amy Toensing for The New York Times

Although FitzGerald ends with Donald Trumps presidential victory, her book helps us understand why separationism has become an all-but-forgotten aspect of the conservative Protestant religious experience. Despite Trumps quite secular lifestyle and attitudes, evangelicals, more concerned with the Supreme Court than a Supreme Being, voted overwhelmingly for him, and he returned the favor by offering to destroy the Johnson amendment, which seeks to prevent the clergy from endorsing candidates by revoking their tax exemptions if they do. With Trump in power, an alliance between conservative Christians and conservative politicians seems as strong as it will ever be.

One should not, however, ignore the irony. Because they work so ceaselessly to shape America, it is fair to say that conservative Christian political activists, at least from the standpoint of the separationists, are doing the Devils work far more than the American Civil Liberties Union. The overweening pride, lust for power and idolatry of worshiping the state that characterizes so many of todays conservative evangelicals will at some point probably doom them, but only when the criticism comes from within their own ranks. FitzGerald touches on this at the end of her book when she discusses the work of people like Russell Moore, who in 2013 replaced the culture warrior Richard Land as the president of the Ethics and Religious Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and worked to bring the S.B.C. back to its original religious roots. At the time of this writing, Moore seemed in danger of losing his job for aggressively opposing Trump. Watch to see if he does, and you get a glimpse of the future direction the evangelicals will take.
Gerards essay collection is one of two new books that examine the Florida experiment. The other is Jack E. Daviss Gulf: The Making of an American Sea, a sensitive and sturdy work of environmental history.

Obviously, the Gulf of Mexico does not belong solely to Florida. It is the 10th-largest body of water in the world. It touches several other countries  indeed, it is named for one of them  as well as other American states.

But Davis lives in Florida, and that states wet western edges run along a vast amount of the Gulf, like salt on the rim of a cocktail. He cant help but dwell often upon his home place.

Thanks to books by John Jeremiah Sullivan (Pulphead) and Leslie Jamison (The Empathy Exams) and a handful of other young writers, the essay collection has new impetus and drama in American letters. The essay has gained ground on the short story.

Sunshine State deserves to be talked about in this company, even if its essays are hit-and-miss. When Gerard is on, she is really on. Shes the author of one previous book, the novel Binary Star (2015).

The first essay is a knockout, a lurid red heart wrapped in barbed wire. Its called BFF, and its about the authors intense friendship with a girl who grew up to become a stripper and who spent time in shelters for battered women.

This essay is about attraction and betrayal, and has the sinister propulsion of a Mary Gaitskill short story. You shinier, Gerard writes about her friend. You prettier. You taller. You thinner, more popular. In middle school, you had friends and I had you.
2. House Republican leaders and the White House, under extreme pressure from conservative activists, have restarted negotiations on legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Speaker Paul Ryan did not divulge what the next version of the bill might look like.

The midterm elections next year pose a dilemma for House Republicans: Which way to go on health care?

_____
Score one for the machines.

The largest fund company in the world, BlackRock, has faced a thorny challenge since it acquired the exchange-traded-fund business from Barclays in 2009.

These low cost, computer-driven funds have exploded in growth, leaving in the dust the stock pickers who had spurred an earlier expansion for the firm. The rise of passive investing  exchange-traded funds, index funds and the like  has revolutionized the investment world, providing Main Street investors with greater opportunities at lower fees while putting pressure on even Wall Streets biggest money managers.

Now, after years of deliberations, Laurence D. Fink, a founder and chief executive of BlackRock, has cast his lot with the machines.

On Tuesday, BlackRock laid out an ambitious plan to consolidate a large number of actively managed mutual funds with peers that rely more on algorithms and models to pick stocks.
HONG KONG  Didi Chuxing, a company in China that last year bested Uber in that huge ride-sharing market, is in negotiations to get SoftBank of Japan to take part in a multibillion-dollar investment round, according to people familiar with the talks.

Should a deal be reached, it could be the latest big bet that SoftBanks eccentric leader, Masayoshi Son, has placed on a significant technology company. Mr. Son has been raising $100 billion for what he calls the SoftBank Vision Fund and has already pledged to invest $50 billion and create 50,000 jobs in the United States. While it is unclear whether that fund is involved in the talks over Didi Chuxing, analysts say it could be further used to make sizable investments in big, global tech companies.

A deal could also help Didi Chuxing, which counts Apple among its powerful backers, contend with a rash of difficulties. Since the company bought Ubers business in China in the summer to form a business valued at $35 billion, it has been mired in regulatory pressures.

Still, executives at the company have said that they harbor international ambitions, and it is pushing aggressively to catch up in the development of driverless car technologies. A deal with SoftBank is also intended to increase Didi Chuxings value, said one of the people familiar with the talks.
LONDON  The British supermarket giant Tesco said on Tuesday that its domestic business had reached an agreement in principle to avoid criminal charges in an accounting scandal that rocked the company nearly three years ago.

Tesco said that its British arm, Tesco Stores Limited, would enter a so-called deferred prosecution agreement with the Serious Fraud Office, Britains anticorruption watchdog, and pay a penalty of 129 million pounds, or about $162 million.

That agreement is subject to final approval at a court hearing next month and is related to false accounting statements from February 2014 to September 2014. The fraud office began its inquiry in October of that year.

In September 2014, Tesco announced that it had overstated its expected first-half profit by 263 million and that it had suspended several executives for accounting irregularities.
Chaudhary Group to invest Rs50b in three years to create 25k jobs

Chaudhary Group (CG), one of the countrys biggest conglomerates, is making a fresh investment of over Rs50 billion in existing businesses in Nepal in the next three years to generate 2,500 new jobs.
In the latest blow to Wells Fargos efforts to rebuild its reputation after months of turmoil, the bank on Tuesday received a failing score on community lending from its federal regulator.

Wells Fargo was given a needs to improve rating on its latest evaluation under the Community Reinvestment Act, a 1977 law intended to promote lending in low-income neighborhoods.

Drawing on both public material and confidential information obtained during its review, the banks regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, said it had uncovered an extensive and pervasive pattern and practice of discriminatory and illegal credit practices across multiple lines of business within the bank, resulting in significant harm to large numbers of consumers.

The regulatory action came on the same day that the bank agreed to pay $110 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over its creation of unauthorized customer accounts. The bank has been under fire since its admission in September that over the course of several years, employees trying to meet aggressive sales quotas opened as many two million fraudulent accounts.
The audits help promote self-reflection, even among female managers, about the potential for unconscious bias anywhere.

At a Reykjavik-based ad agency called the White House, Anna Kristin Kristjansdottir, a board member and owner, said the equal pay audit revealed leanings in the 45-person work force, including the proportion of higher-level jobs held by men. Like the Customs agency, she is seeking to even the percentages, especially in upper management, where she aims to achieve gender parity.

Whether such adjustments work are debatable. Some studies show pay gaps between men and women reside largely within occupations, not between them.

Equally disturbing to Ms. Kristjansdottir was that women negotiated lower salaries than men. Generally, men are four times as likely to ask for a raise, and when women ask, they seek 30 percent less on average.

Youd be sitting there doing the interview, and theyd ask for less, Ms. Kristjansdottir said. The audit showed this was a flaw in our recruitment, that we were allowing this to happen and didnt quite realize it.

For Mr. Viglundsson, the government official, the fact that larger equality issues surface in the debate over equal pay is justification enough for the legislative proposal.

When it comes to the workplace, men have enjoyed a certain level of privilege for a long time, he said. But if you look at the vested interests for society of eliminating discrimination against women, that far outweighs any regulatory burden.
Donald J. Trump can be brilliant. On the campaign trail, his diagnosis of the raw anger and disillusionment among white working-class Americans bested the most sophisticated analyses from the professional political class.

His description of American carnage in his Inaugural Address  complete with rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape, impoverished mothers and children, crime, drugs that robbed our country of so much unrealized potential  struck a nerve with millions of voters who feel left behind by a country buffeted by demographic, technological and social change.

But something must have happened between then and now.

President Trump cannot possibly believe that nixing the health insurance of 24 million poor or nearly poor Americans to pay for tax cuts at the very top of the income distribution would serve the white Everyman he promised to defend.

Its also hard to fathom how whites without a college degree would benefit from Mr. Trumps proposal to cut $54 billion from the civilian discretionary budget  slashing projects to help low-income families pay for heating in the winter or move to better neighborhoods; cutting nutrition assistance for mothers and help for low-income students to enter college.
DETROIT  President Trumps goal of stimulating growth in the American auto industry is getting a big push from the seemingly insatiable appetite of consumers for more trucks and sport utility vehicles.

On Tuesday, Ford Motor became the latest car company to announce major investments in its facilities in the United States, prompting Mr. Trump to hail the move as another milestone in his efforts to support domestic auto manufacturing.

But the decision by Ford to invest $1.2 billion in three Michigan locations is more about Americas love affair with pickups and S.U.V.s than about economic policies put forth by the Trump administration.

Like similar announcements made this year by General Motors and Fiat Chrysler, Fords move is primarily driven by competitive pressures to keep pace with the surging market for new truck and S.U.V. models.
At the heart of the Paris accord was a breakthrough 2014 agreement between Mr. Obama and Chinas president, Xi Jinping, in which the leaders of the worlds two largest polluting countries agreed to enact policies to cut their emissions. At the time, Mr. Obama offered the Clean Power Plan as evidence that the United States would meet its target.

Their hard-won deal was seen as the catalyst to bring other countries to the table to forge the Paris pact. If Mr. Trump reneges on his predecessors commitment, it could further fray a relationship that has become more tenuous since his election.

Getting to that point was not easy, said Kelly Sims Gallagher, an expert on Chinese environmental policy at Tufts University who helped broker the Obama-Xi climate talks. This undoes many years of work building up trust that the U.S. will honor the commitments it makes at the presidential level.

Mr. Trump is tentatively scheduled to meet with Mr. Xi next week at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate.

Mr. Xi has signaled that he is prepared to move forward with his Paris pledge that Chinas emissions will drop by or before 2030. Speaking at the Davos economic summit meeting in January, Mr. Xi said, All signatories should stick to it instead of walking away from it, as this is a responsibility we must assume for future generations.

But experts say that without action from the United States, Chinas efforts to curb emissions may slow. It may empower business and political interests within China that still opposed climate action, said Alex L. Wang, a legal scholar of Chinese environmental policies at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Nobu has come a long way in the nearly 23 years since it opened in TriBeCa: The chef Nobuyuki Matsuhisas innovative Japanese restaurant has become a global empire with more than 30 branches.

Now, prompted by a rent increase, the flagship is moving to the financial district, which is increasingly drawing marquee chefs. Like a number of other downtown projects, Nobu is being installed in a majestic commercial building, the former headquarters of AT&T. (Its TriBeCa sibling, Nobu Next Door, closed on Saturday.)

Nobu Downtown, scheduled to open next week, is on two levels. A spacious lounge is set in the soaring neoclassical forest of Botticino marble columns in part of the lobby of the building, a landmark that was erected from 1912 to 1922. In the center is a large, circular bar, faced in backlit onyx, serving drinks, bar food and sushi, under black ribbons of wood meant to represent Japanese calligraphy. Upholstery is inspired by weavings from Japan as well as Peru, where Mr. Matsuhisa once lived and worked.
Good riddance to geek chic.

Yes, we could be witnessing the demise of hipster eyewear. You know the kind. Theyre black, brown or sometimes tortoise shell. Theyre chunky, oversize and made of acetate. Theyre part of an L train look that in the last five years has been worn by everyone from Hollywoods A-list to the local CVS pharmacist.

But now, like giving up your favorite dive bar that has been invaded by tourists, its time to move on. Kendall Jenner, Tracee Ellis Ross, the blogger Chiara Ferragni and the model Bella Hadid already have. They are just a few tastemakers breathing new life into a classic style of eyeglasses: the aviator.

Trendsetters now want metal frames again, said Jordan Silver, an owner of the hip eyewear outfitter Silver Lining Opticians in New York. They want gold. They want silver. They want flash. Because the chunky, oversize look is everywhere, its kind of out.
Before joining Puig in 2012, he had been responsible for hiring such celebrated designers as Alber Elbaz (whom Mr. Toledano brought to Paris as creative director of Guy Laroche) and Phoebe Philo at Chloe. At Puig, Mr. Toledano was responsible for recruiting a new generation of creative talent, such as the designers Guillaume Henry at Nina Ricci and Julien Dossena at Paco Rabanne.

Mr. Toledanos exit is the latest in an unprecedented wave of executive changes in the fashion industry, as it attempts to come to grips with a slowdown in luxury spending because of lower tourist travel and geopolitical uncertainty.

In the past two years, for example, Kering, the French parent company of brands such as Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, has changed either the creative or management leadership at more than three quarters of its 15 luxury companies. In Britain, Burberry has welcomed Marco Gobbetti as its new chief executive, as Christopher Bailey steps back from that role to become president and chief creative officer. Celine, the French brand owned by Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, also named a new chief this year, and in the United States, Stefan Larsson resigned as the head of Ralph Lauren.

Puig derives the bulk of its revenue from its business as a licensed perfume maker for big brands such as Valentino and Prada, and it also owns the small couture and ready-to-wear businesses Paco Rabanne, Jean Paul Gaultier and Carolina Herrera, as well as those brands respective perfume businesses.

For Puig, the changes at the top have been relatively recent.

Earlier this year, Francois Kress, chief executive of Carolina Herrera, left that brand after a public kerfuffle around the hiring of the designer Laura Kim as effectively a creative director-in-waiting. It was a move made without the knowledge of Mrs. Herrera herself, and one that resulted in a lawsuit, now settled. Ms. Kim is currently co-creative director of Herrera rival Oscar de la Renta.
MALIBU, Calif.  Have the coco-tini; its loaded with calories, Shirley MacLaine urged pleasantly. She would be having nothing more lethal herself than a decaf cappuccino spiked with raw sugar. She had settled the other day into her favorite banquette high atop Geoffreys Malibu, the terraced seaside restaurant that doubles as her home away from home.

She has been a regular here since the late 1950s, when the space and its then-adjacent hotel were known as Holiday House, a hideaway for Ms. MacLaine, her Rat Pack pals  Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.  and visiting dignitaries from the Kennedy clan.

At 82, Ms. MacLaine had the past on her mind.

Whatever little affair I was having, or not having, I used to come here, she said. That was why people came to Malibu: to have an affair.
The powdered, matte face has long been out of favor. But its replacement, the look of the moment, is a moving target.

It wasnt long ago that contouring was a YouTube obsession, followed soon after by strobing and assorted batty offshoots. Whatever the technique, though, the focus was always on using light (or its absence) to enhance ones features. During the fall 2017 fashion shows that just ended, some makeup artists did just that in the prettiest way possible, using a combination of blush and highlighter. The collections were autumnal, but the models were aglow with springlike dewy skin.

By adding both highlight and blush, it gives a liveliness to the skin, which is very beautiful all year round, said Kelli Bartlett, the vice president for makeup and new services at the beauty-services booking app Glamsquad. She created an understated glow at the Erin Fetherston show at New York Fashion Week.
China calls for explanation after Paris police shoot dead Chinese man

French police said on Tuesday they opened an inquiry after a Chinese man was shot dead by police at his Paris home, triggering rioting in the French capital by members of the Chinese community and a sharp reaction from Beijing.
In trying to reach an agreement before approval, Dr. Miller said, this is how the system is supposed to work.

Christine Cramer, a spokeswoman for CVS Health, another leading pharmacy benefit manager, said, While we believe our advocacy on behalf of our clients did ultimately influence Regenerons initial pricing strategy, the drug will be expensive.

But Peter Maybarduk, director of the Access to Medicines program at Public Citizen, a consumer group, noted that negotiations still took place out of the public eye and within the context of a system that is inherently unfair. Its the arrangement that corporations found beneficial in a system that provides monopolies and rewards secrecy, and we should ask for considerably more as the standard, he said.

Dupixent treats severe to moderate atopic dermatitis, a common form of eczema that goes beyond the occasional bouts of itchy, dry skin that many people get. For people with serious forms of the disease, other treatments often do little to calm their skin, leading to sleeplessness, depression and social anxiety. Regeneron said Tuesday that an estimated 300,000 people in the United States could qualify for its drug.

I always say that atopic dermatitis doesnt kill you, it just ruins your life, said Dr. Elaine Siegfried, a professor of pediatrics and dermatology at the St. Louis University School of Medicine. She was not involved in the clinical trials that led to approval, but she said she was likely to enroll patients in pediatric studies that are getting underway. Dupixent, she said, appears to work well, with few serious side effects. It is groundbreaking, she said.

Debbie Byrnes, a sixth-grade teacher from San Antonio who participated in the clinical trial, had suffered for years with severe eczema that often covered her face. That was the really difficult thing for me  I could never hide it, she said. I would have days when I went into school, and the kids would look at me and say, What happened to you? 

Ms. Byrnes said she began noticing a difference about five days after her first dose and has now been using the drug for two years. Her skin is now almost completely clear, and occasional flare-ups are quickly brought under control. If you saw me, she said, you wouldnt know that I ever had atopic dermatitis.
Fascinating

From Our Picks: No partisanship here. Just great stories about the worlds greatest book deal, the man who wrote Groundhog Day twice and famous love letters.

(But if you really want partisanship, check out my latest collection of political writing from the right, left and center.)  Anna Dubenko, senior digital strategist
In your mind, who has what it takes to be a leader? Think of one person  famous or not, young or old  and describe why that person is, in your opinion, a true leader.

Conversely, think of a person who misuses his or her leadership role. Why does that person fall short of being a leader, and how?

In  Not Leadership Material? Good. The World Needs Followers., Susan Cain writes:

In 1934, a young woman named Sara Pollard applied to Vassar College. In those days, parents were asked to fill out a questionnaire, and Saras father described her, truthfully, as more a follower type than a leader.

The school accepted Sara, explaining that it had enough leaders.

Its hard to imagine this happening today. No father in his right mind (if the admissions office happened to ask him!) would admit that his child was a natural follower; few colleges would welcome one with open arms. Today we prize leadership skills above all, and nowhere more than in college admissions. As Penny Bach Evins, the head of St. Pauls School for Girls, an independent school in Maryland, told me, It seems as if higher ed is looking for alphas, but the doers and thinkers in our schools are not always in front leading.

Harvards application informs students that its mission is to educate our students to be citizens and citizen-leaders for society. Yales website advises applicants that it seeks the leaders of their generation; on Princetons site, leadership activities are first among equals on a list of characteristics for would-be students to showcase. Even Wesleyan, known for its artistic culture, was found by one study to evaluate applicants based on leadership potential.

If college admissions offices show us whom and what we value, then we seem to think that the ideal society is composed of Type As. This is perhaps unsurprising, even if these examples come from highly competitive institutions. Its part of the American DNA to celebrate those who rise above the crowd. And in recent decades, the meteoric path to leadership of youthful garage- and dorm-dwellers, from Steve Jobs to Mark Zuckerberg, has made king of the hill status seem possible for every 19-year-old. So now we have high school students vying to be president of as many clubs as they can. Its no longer enough to be a member of the student council; now you have to run the school.

Yet a well-functioning student body  not to mention polity  also needs followers. It needs team players. And it needs those who go their own way.

It needs leaders who are called to service rather than to status.
That isnt always an obvious distinction. The Stasi security service deployed hundreds of thousands of East German citizens as spies and informants, creating a climate of near-total surveillance and pervasive paranoia. Stasi agents routinely collected information from colleagues and neighbors, and broke into apartments in search of incriminating evidence. What they usually found, according to one former officer, were hand-copied West German television schedules and overnight bags packed in anticipation of flight or arrest.

Ms. Epperlein conducts her inquiry armed with a giant, fuzz-covered microphone and adorned with a pair of heavy black headphones. This equipment looks a bit comical, but its presence is as much a declaration of ethical principles as an arresting visual joke. The Stasi took pictures and made recordings in secret; its surveillance was stealthy, invisible. Ms. Epperlein  who with her cropped blond hair and regal bearing resembles Robin Wright in House of Cards  becomes a walking emblem of honesty and transparency, an embodiment of the documentary ideal.

In addition to illuminating the inner workings of everyday political terror, she tries to shed light on a family tragedy. In 1999, 10 years after the collapse of East German communism, Ms. Epperleins father committed suicide. Fifteen years after that, his only daughter forces herself to confront the awful possibility that he might have collaborated with the Stasi. So many people did.

The mystery of her fathers life and death provides Karl Marx City with suspense, and with a concrete sense of profound moral and emotional stakes. Repressive regimes excel at creating ambiguity, at making complicity easier than resistance and at blurring the lines between heroes and villains. Ms. Epperlein and Mr. Tucker, shooting in black and white and making judicious use of historical footage, brilliantly evoke a landscape of gray areas. They also uncover glimmers of decency, loyalty and solidarity  the tiny cracks in the totalitarian edifice that foretold its eventual and inevitable collapse.
In a city as pizza-crazed as New York, pizza wars erupt with some regularity, from dollar slice joints battling for customers in Manhattan to a Mafia-tinted dispute over a stolen sauce recipe between a pizza shop in Brooklyn and another on Staten Island.

But perhaps nothing compares to a kosher pizza war, pitting 21st-century foodie-ism against the decidedly 19th-century world of an insular Hasidic neighborhood.

Two pizza restaurant owners, both Orthodox Jews, have become entangled in an only-in-Brooklyn lawsuit, not in an august courthouse, but in an obscure hall of justice known as the Rabbinical Court of Borough Park, which hears cases in a simple room above a synagogue on a residential block.

At the center of the battle are not prices or sauce recipes, but cryptic interpretations of holy law set down in ancient Aramaic thousands of years ago. Both sides have invoked rules dictated by the Torah and the Talmud, as well as a cookbooks worth of interpretations of kosher rules and certification standards.
The house on Wareham Place has become another curiosity in the vast orbit of properties connected to Mr. Trump, even though he last lived in the five-bedroom home, built by his father, Fred C. Trump, when he was 4. The houses intrigue lies not just in the price it fetched in an auction by Paramount Realty USA  $2.14 million, more than double the price of comparable houses in the area  but also in the mystery surrounding the buyer. She remains unknown, shrouded behind the limited liability company.

A thin trail of documents associated with the sale led first to a second-story office on Main Street in Flushing, Queens, of Michael X. Tang, a lawyer who represents Trump Birth House. In the cramped and bustling office, which, according to its website, specializes in facilitating Chinese purchases of American real estate, a woman at a desk welcomed visitors.

Oh, about the Trump house, she said. She continued: Mr. Tang declined to comment.

Documents show that Mr. Tang was also the lawyer for a seemingly unrelated transaction on a palatial home in Old Westbury, N.Y., which sold for more than $3.6 million in 2014 to a person named Jiying Wei. The redbrick mansion, tucked at the end of a cul-de-sac and abutted by a private tennis court, is a far cry from the modest butter-colored childhood home of Mr. Trump. But, according to a person with knowledge of the sale, the mansions owner is a relative of the woman from China who bought the Trump family home.

Standing in the collonaded entryway of her home a few doors down in Old Westbury, a neighbor, who declined to give her name for privacy reasons, deepened the mystery: The only person who lives in the mansion, she said, is the familys son, a local college student; the rest of the family lives in China.

The trail dead-ended at the cul-de-sac: The house was empty and the owner could not be reached.

I did have some expectation that the purchaser would be a huge Trump supporter from within America, Misha Haghani, principal of Paramount Realty USA, said of the Jamaica Estates home. He declined to reveal the identity of the buyer. But it is entirely possible that the purchaser is a huge Trump supporter from outside of America, he said.
On a recent afternoon, customers crowded the old store.

Along with the French professor, they included a man from Bronxdale who said he had come four times in three days searching for a bulb that looked vintage but was LED, a woman cradling a light fixture in her arms, and a man pinching a burned-out bulb the size of a cherry tomato.

Its a light from my oven, said Daniel Sanchez of East Harlem. Wish me luck.

They stood amid boxes stacked floor to ceiling and beneath boughs of string lights. The shop was alternately dimly lit, and, in places where bulbs had been screwed into strips of sockets to show off their powers, blinding.

Employees carried on a meandering conversation as they rang up orders, took calls and shouted out model numbers as long as Social Security numbers, while others zipped around to fetch the bulbs.

Mr. Brooks is a third generation light-bulb purveyor. His grandfather got into the light-bulb business during World War II, peddling them door-to-door at a time when there was a shortage. He later opened a shop in Midtown. In 1980, Mr. Brookss mother, Shirley Brooks, and his sister, Judi Brooks, opened Just Bulbs in Chelsea, which was once lampooned by David Letterman in a comedy sketch, along with a shop called Just Shades.
The nature and circumstances, of the defendants criminal abuse of their government power was truly outrageous and warrants a meaningful term of imprisonment for both Baroni and Kelly, Paul J. Fishman, the former United States attorney for New Jersey, who oversaw the trial, wrote in a sentencing brief that was released on Monday.

Mr. Baroni and Ms. Kelly were convicted last fall after a seven-week trial that highlighted a wide-ranging and odd scandal of political payback and abuse of power: Aides and allies of Mr. Christie directed the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the George Washington Bridge, to shut down two of three access lanes for several days in September 2013, paralyzing traffic in Fort Lee, N.J.

The mayor of Fort Lee, Mark J. Sokolich, a Democrat, had declined to endorse Mr. Christie, leading to what has become an infamous email from Ms. Kelly that prosecutors say led to the lane closures: Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.

While Mr. Christie was never charged in the scandal and has adamantly denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of the plot, testimony from David Wildstein, another former Christie appointee at the Port Authority and an orchestrator of the closings, indicated that Mr. Christie knew about the lane closing as it was happening.

Lawyers for Ms. Kelly and Mr. Baroni argued in a court filing on Monday for probation and community service. Mr. Baronis filing included more than 100 letters of support; in one, former Gov. Jim McGreevey asked the court for mercy, saying, Bill has the capacity to change lives for the better.
Standing a safe distance back from the traffic rolling down Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn, Betty Smith, cane in hand, waited at noon on Monday for the Beverley Road light to change. She was discussing the speed limit on the parkway, which a state senator wants to boost to 30 miles per hour from the current 25. I think the traffic moves pretty well now, she said. Just then, like a log hurtling down a flume, the wheels of a car skirting the curb picked up a puddle of slush-melt and sent it jetting toward Ms. Smith. She took a step back and finished her thought.

So, Ms. Smith said. I dont think it needs to be raised.

Ocean Parkway runs about five miles, from Prospect Park to Brighton Beach. With its six lanes and tree-lined medians, it is one of the great boulevards of the United States. It has also ranked among the citys most dangerous  one of the highest crash and fatality rates in Brooklyn, Polly Trottenberg, the commissioner of the citys Department of Transportation, said.

Along the very stretch of road where Betty Smith stood, someone had driven over the speed limit every six seconds during the week of March 5th to 11th, according to readings taken by city cameras. Thats about 91,000 drivers.

On average, though, fewer than 1.1 percent of speeders on the parkway receive tickets sent by the automated system, because of limitations that include the hours that the cameras can issue them (during the school day), a state law that permits fines only for those caught going 11 miles per hour or more over the limit (speeds of 26 to 35 are illegal but not enforced by the cameras) and, in some cases, technical difficulties in identifying the license plate.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York likes to trumpet his record as a criminal-justice reformer, pointing to the reduction in the state prison population and the closing of 13 prisons under his watch. A lot more needs to be done, but Mr. Cuomo has shown an understanding of the need for humane justice policies.

So it was all the more inexplicable that his budget for 2017-18 called for slashing family visiting hours at New Yorks 17 maximum-security prisons, a hugely destructive move that would save the state budget a tiny amount of money.

No one disputes how important these visits are to the inmates and their families. Research shows that prisoners who get regular visits from their families are more likely to do well upon their release, are less likely to commit new crimes and may even be less violent while in prison  keeping people safer and reducing costs to taxpayers. For children in particular  more than 100,000 of whom have a parent behind bars in New York  in-person visits are a crucial part of developing healthy, long-term bonds with their incarcerated parents.
Anil Giri is a reporter covering diplomacy, international relations and national politics for The Kathmandu Post. Giri has been working as a journalist for a decade-and-a-half, contributing to numerous national and international media outlets.
Guttman had an advantage: By starting from scratch, it didnt have to persuade faculty and staff to change how they did things, which is the single biggest obstacle to reform. They didnt have to deal with existing political issues and faculty relationships, said Thomas Bailey, director of the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, whose 2015 book, Redesigning Americas Community Colleges, lays out the guided pathways strategy.

The strategy has helped other schools as well. Georgia State, Florida State, the entire Tennessee system and many other schools have dramatically increased retention and graduation rates. And the reforms help the least-prepared students the most, which is exactly what you want.

Heres what the schools are doing:

Full-time enrollment. This is one of Complete College Americas most urgent recommendations. Many schools call 12 credit-hours per semester full time enrollment. But its not; it doesnt get you to graduation in four years. The University of Hawaii started a campaign, now in use all over, called 15 to Finish. It offers 15 credits for the price of 12 and reminds students often that taking 15 leads to better grades, earlier graduation and increased earnings.

Meta majors. Tennessee colleges, like all colleges, ask incoming students what they plan to study. About a third say, Oh, I dont know,  said Tristan Denley, vice chancellor for academic affairs at the Tennessee Board of Regents, which oversees higher education. We found that more than half of those students dropped out of higher education entirely before they even chose anything at all. Choosing to choose later is really an impediment to their success.

For the last three years, however, each incoming Tennessee student meets with an adviser to choose a field of focus, or meta major, such as social sciences, business, science or education. Denley said that most students are prepared to make that choice.

Everyone in the focus area gets the same freshman classes, including three in their area. When they take those three, the graduation rate doubles in community colleges, said Denley. People are simply more committed to something when they feel the purpose of what theyre doing.
MODIIN, Israel  In this country, people have learned to accept that one war follows another, every two or three years. An Inevitable Conflict in Gaza, ran a headline in the daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot earlier this month. With Lebanon no longer hiding Hezbollahs role, next war must hit civilians where it hurts, Israeli minister says, Haaretz reported a few days later.

What hardly any Israelis will consider, though, and virtually no influential voices in the West will publicly suggest, is that Israel  not Hezbollah in Lebanon, nor Hamas in Gaza, nor the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria  is provoking the next war. Counterintuitive though it may be to Israeli and most Western minds, Israel, not its militant Islamist or brutal Syrian enemies, is the aggressor in these border wars.

On March 17, Israeli military jets did what theyve been doing every few months since the Syrian civil war started in 2011  they bombed Syrian weaponry believed destined for Hezbollah, Syrias ally and Israels enemy in southern Lebanon. But this time, instead of letting the attack pass without a response as it usually does, the Syrian Army fired antiaircraft missiles at the Israeli jets.

By the time the exchange was over, air raid sirens had woken people in Israel. Afterward, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted publicly what Israel was doing. Our policy is very consistent, he said. When we identify attempts to transfer advanced weapons to Hezbollah, and we have the intelligence and the operational capability, we act to prevent that. That is what was and that is what will be.
Through that pathway, the Trump administration can chip away at other parts of Obamacare, notably the expansion of Medicaid.

While Medicaid expansion cant collapse the way that the exchanges could, Mr. Price could diminish it by taking steps like allowing states to impose a work requirement on enrollees or to limit lifetime benefits. He could also water down the 10 essential benefits required for all policies by the law, like maternity care and mental health coverage.

Even if my worries are misplaced, remember that Obamacare worked, in part, because it had the active support of the entire executive branch.

Its no surprise that, like every huge new social program, the A.C.A. needs some tuneups.

For example, the well-intentioned decision to limit the size of the premiums that can be charged to older people to three times what can be charged to younger people has resulted in higher premiums for younger Americans, which has in turn discouraged sign-ups.

Raising that limit (as Republicans have proposed) would be a plus if coupled with higher subsidies for deserving older people, as would be increasing the penalties on those who opt out. At present, those fees are far less than the cost of insurance.

Conservatives say they want states to have more flexibility. One meritorious idea would be allowing states to create reinsurance pools that would cushion insurers against losses, thus lowering premiums.
Without a viable health care agenda of their own, Republicans now face a choice between two options: Obamacare and a gradual shift toward a single-payer system. The early signs suggest they will choose single payer.

That would be the height of political irony, of course. Donald Trump, Paul Ryan and Tom Price may succeed where left-wing dreamers have long failed and move the country toward socialized medicine. And they would do it unwittingly, by undermining the most conservative health care system that Americans are willing to accept.

Youve no doubt heard of that conservative system. Its called Obamacare.

Let me take a step back to explain how we got here and how the politics of health care will most likely play out after last weeks Republican crackup.

Passing major social legislation is fantastically difficult. It tends to involve taking something from influential interest groups  taxing the rich, for example (as Obamacare did), or reducing some companies profits or hurting professional guilds. Those groups can often persuade voters that the status quo is less scary than change.
It seems as if theres always some kind of feline holiday crouched around the corner, wriggling its bottom, ready to pounce. National Cat Day, National Feral Cat Day, National Hairball Awareness Day, Happy Mew Year  even the dog days of August are filled with feline jubilees.

A celebration on Tuesday stands out from the pride, however, because it promises to deliver our cats what they most deserve, which is not a Meowjito. Its Respect Your Cat Day, an opportunity to pay homage to that mysterious silken life form beside you, which can hear the height of sounds and has beaten the evolutionary odds to occupy your lap.

Sadly, as cat lovers we dont always fully grasp the formidable feline qualities we should be honoring. Respect Your Cat Days literature (mostly a news release put out by the folks at a website called National Today, who claim the source of the holiday dates back to an 1384 edict by Richard II of England forbidding the consumption of cats) highlights some impressive statistics about our feline besties, including the revelation from a survey that 64 percent of Americans allegedly prefer their cats company to their significant others. (No comment, dear.)

But when it comes to how, exactly, people go about respecting their cats, the surveys findings seem a little misguided, if not downright disrespectful:

Give your cat verbal compliments? Please. Cats emphatically do not understand English and studiously disregard their owners calls. With their supersensitive hearing, some may dislike the volume of the human voice, especially in confined quarters. When speaking in the feline presence, you might even consider consulting a decibel meter to ensure your jibber-jabber does not irritate their ears. If you flatter your cat, do so in a reverent whisper.
To the Editor:

Re Iowa Drive Is Opening Battle for School Choice (front page, March 22): The use of tax funds to support religious schools raises a constitutional issue, but more than that a question of fairness.

After all, we all pay taxes. Is it fair for Protestants, Jews, Muslims and atheists to pay for religious instruction in Catholic schools? Or for Catholics to pay for Protestant instruction?

There is a reason the Constitution separates church and state, and not only to prevent state-sponsored religious indoctrination, but also to require that taxes should be religiously neutral.

The Constitution is a remarkable document, of which some parts remain opaque and in need of constant interpretation, but the question of fair use of tax dollars is profoundly clear.
With all the controversy surrounding the painting of Emmett Tills mutilated remains at the Whitney Biennial, one important voice is missing from the dialogue. What would Mamie Till-Mobley, Emmetts mother, have to say about a white artists rendering of the iconic Jet magazine coffin photograph of her son, a 14-year-old African-American from Chicago who was lynched while visiting relatives in Mississippi in 1955?

Based on what I learned in working with Mrs. Till-Mobley during the last six months of her life, as we raced the clock to ensure that her story  and Emmetts  would live on, I believe she would have found purpose in it all. She would have challenged protesters and the Whitney to engage the public on the history of Emmetts image, Dana Schutzs painting and what it all means.

For Mrs. Till-Mobley, it begins with a perspective on her son as a sacrificial lamb, whose death jump-started mass civic engagement. The Rev. Jesse Jackson called this tragedy the big bang of the civil rights movement. The death of Emmett Till was more than an isolated act of race hatred by white terrorists. It was enforcement of a social hierarchy in which place, privilege and power are maintained through intimidation, threat and violence.

For Emmetts mother, what happened to her son was not just an African-American story, it was also an American story, mapping a national journey to fulfilling the promise of freedom, justice and equality for all.
When Donald Trump met Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany earlier this month, he put on one of his most truculent and ignorant performances. He wanted money  piles of it  for Germanys defense, raged about the financial killing China was making from last years Paris climate accord and kept frequently and brutally changing the subject when not interested, which was the case with the European Union.

This was the summation provided to me by a senior European diplomat briefed on the meeting. Trumps preparedness was roughly that of a fourth grader. He began the conversation by telling Merkel that Germany owes the United States hundreds of billions of dollars for defending it through NATO, and concluded by saying, You are terrific but still owe all that dough. Little else concerned him.

Trump knew nothing of the proposed European-American deal known as the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, little about Russian aggression in Ukraine or the Minsk agreements, and was so scatterbrained that German officials concluded that the presidents daughter Ivanka, who had no formal reason to be there, was the more prepared and helpful. (Invited by Merkel, Ivanka will attend a summit on womens empowerment in Berlin next month.)

Merkel is not one to fuss. But Trumps behavior appalled her entourage and reinforced a conclusion already reached about this presidency in several European capitals: It is possible to do business with Trumps national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, with Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, and with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, but these officials are flying blind because above them at the White House rages a whirlwind of incompetence and ignorance.
COLLEGE STATION, Tex.  Last week, Rick Perry, the energy secretary of the United States, took time to criticize the student government election at his alma mater, Texas A&M. In an op-ed essay in The Houston Chronicle, Mr. Perry asserted that the process, which resulted in the election of the first openly gay student body president, was rigged in the name of diversity and made a mockery of due process and transparency.

The essay by Mr. Perry, the former governor of Texas, drew attention, elevating a campus controversy into a subject of national debate. As someone who covered the race as the editor in chief of The Battalion, the universitys daily student newspaper, I found Mr. Perrys assessment pretty astounding.

Heres what happened: When the vote for student body president was held in February, a junior named Robert McIntosh won. He was disqualified, however, first because of charges of voter intimidation (which were later overturned by the student government court) and then because he had failed to disclose the cost of glow sticks used in a campaign video on a required expense report.
CAIRO  When I heard that Egypts former president Hosni Mubarak had been released on Friday from the military hospital where he had been detained since his trial began a few months after the January 2011 revolution that ousted him, I looked up pictures from that trial. I wanted to remember the thrill, albeit short-lived, of seeing this incarnation of all the entitlement accrued over nearly 30 years of rule confined to the cage where defendants are kept in Egyptian courtrooms.

It is awful and humiliating to be in that cage. That is its intention.

So this was a sight that expressed Egypts revolutionary audacity. Mr. Mubarak was the first of the leaders overthrown by the uprisings that swept across this region to be present at his trial.

The very first leader to be toppled, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, fled on a plane to Saudi Arabia, which refused to extradite him for his civilian trial in 2011 and a military trial in 2012. That second trial ended with a conviction in absentia and a sentence of life in prison in connection with the killing of 23 demonstrators by the police during Tunisias revolution.

I will forever remember the day when Mr. Ben Ali ran away. That, too, was a moment of audacity: the realization that the people could overthrow a dictator in our region.
EU pledges to support sustainable growth of Nepal

The European Union has pledged to support sustainable and inclusive economic growth and social justice in Nepal.
LONDON  On Wednesday, Britains prime minister, Theresa May, is to deliver a letter to the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, informing him that after 44 years of membership, her nation is leaving the European Union. Approximately two years later, after negotiating the terms of that departure, the union will lose at a stroke an eighth of its population, a sixth of its G.D.P., half its nuclear-arms cache and a seat on the U.N. Security Council, as Susan Watkins, the editor of New Left Review, noted recently.

Ms. Watkins is a Lexiteer, as left-wing supporters of Brexit like me are known. We were hardly a significant force among the 52 percent of Britons who voted to leave in the referendum of June 23. But we were an influence. A counterweight to the anti-immigrant fear mongering of the former leader of the right-wing U.K. Independence Party, Nigel Farage, Lexiteers argued a left-wing, democratic and internationalist case for Brexit. The position was expressed crisply by Perry Anderson, the former longtime editor of New Left Review: The E.U. is now widely seen for what it has become: an oligarchic structure, riddled with corruption, built on a denial of any sort of popular sovereignty, enforcing a bitter economic regime of privilege for the few and duress for the many.

Although Lexiteers have little patience for the national nihilism of Davos Man, the globalist elite, we are no xenophobes. We voted Leave because we believe it is essential to preserve the two things we value most: a democratic political system and a social-democratic society. We fear that the European Unions authoritarian project of neoliberal integration is a breeding ground for the far right. By sealing off so much policy, including the imposition of long-term austerity measures and mass immigration, from the democratic process, the union has broken the contract between mainstream national politicians and their voters. This has opened the door to right-wing populists who claim to represent the people, already angry at austerity, against the immigrant.

It was the free-market economist Friedrich Hayek, the intellectual architect of neoliberalism, who called in 1939 for interstate federalism in Europe to prevent voters from using democracy to interfere with the operation of the free market. Simply put, as Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission (the unions executive body), did: There can be no democratic choice against the European treaties.
 What we know about the airstrike that might have killed hundreds in Mosul.

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Every block has three or four homes that are livable and the rest are abandoned, said Elinor Mount-Simmons, the president of the Hillside Organization of Laborers for Apalachicola, a community group. It would be great if the Hill could come alive again as it once was.

Even so, Ms. Mount-Simmons is not enthusiastic about the Brown program, which is sometimes referred to as Save Our Shotguns. Too many details remain unclear, she said.

The Denton Cove plan, by contrast, was outlined in thick contracts and bank documents as required by law. The town homes would have energy efficient appliances, a pool and a fitness center. But the development was not for people with moderate incomes, as some residents had originally been told. The countys depressed earnings meant only the poorest would qualify to live there.

Concentrating the poor in one project was not a modern approach, said Bonnie Davis, a retired lawyer who moved to Apalachicola from Tallahassee. She and others embraced the idea that Apalachicolas architectural past might guide the future as it had in cities like Louisville, Ky., and New Orleans, where shotgun restoration programs have been underway for years.

When all this brouhaha came up, I, the Browns, many people said, We have to be about more than no, Ms. Davis said.

In addition to training the local labor force in construction, Mr. Browns plan had a financing component. Because 33 of the lots have more than one home on them, the purchaser would buy one home to live in and a second income-producing rental unit to help pay the mortgage. But speed was important.
Image Credit... Photo: Jacob Hagg. Portrait: Courtesy of the designer.

Designer: Jacob Hagg

Based in: Los Angeles

The brothers Jacob and Axel Hagg moved to Los Angeles from New York in 2012  and a year later, they launched their brand, Brashy Studios. There was and is a creative opportunity in creating a new womens streetwear line not present in the mens market, says Jacob, who first moved from Stockholm to New York to intern for a creative agency before decamping to the West Coast. The brothers draw inspiration from the deep corners of the internet  as well as from people they find on Instagram, like the musical artist Tommy Genesis, an underground female rapper known for her rebellious attitude and lyrics. Though Brashy is geared toward female customers, some pieces in the collection  such as oversize hoodies, boxy jackets and roomy trousers  are intentionally gender-fluid. For us, streetwear should incorporate something of an anti-establishment ethos; establishment can of course be freely interpreted, Jacob says. The brands spring/summer 2017 collection  which is available now at Colette in Paris and on the Brashy Studios website  consists of a fluorescent-pink vinyl jacket and pants, a tearaway tracksuit and pieces emblazoned with the word GIRLS.

Image Credit... Photo: Mayan Toledano. Portrait: Elvin Tavarez.

Designer: Erin Magee

Based in: New York

Erin Magee, the designer of MadeMe, is no stranger to the world of streetwear: She also serves as the director of development and special projects for Supreme. And before starting there full time in 2005, she worked on the Umbro by Kim Jones Collection and the Umbro x Supreme collaboration a year later. After working in mens wear for many years, I wanted to provide something for girls like me, Magee says. It was a little bit of a reaction to my day job. Magee launched the brand in 2007; her pieces include a leather moto jacket with tattoo-style embroidered sleeves  available on her site and at Opening Ceremony  which she produced in collaboration with the leather brand Schott. I create collections and pieces because I feel theyre cool and right for the time, Magee tells T. She does not feel the pressure of having to constantly create to keep up with the retail or wholesale calendar  which she feels makes MadeMe distinct. She looks to women like Kim Gordon and Petra Collins for inspiration, and when asked who her ideal customer would be, she says: Literally any woman except Kellyanne Conway.
Uber released a report on Tuesday detailing the diversity of its work force. The numbers starkly show the lack of women and minorities at the ride-hailing company.

About two thirds of Ubers employees are men. Of the companys technology jobs, 85 percent are held by men. Half of the companys workers in the United States are white.

These statistics are not surprising. Silicon Valley technology companies have long grappled with improving diversity. At Google, 69 percent of the overall work force is male; 81 percent of the companys tech jobs are filled by men. In the United States, 59 percent of Googles employees are white. The ratios are similar at Facebook, Apple and other tech companies.
SAN FRANCISCO  After a string of scandals this year, Uber has rushed to repair its corporate culture. The ride-hailing company has started an internal investigation into workplace practices, issued apologies for some of its behavior, and has had several female executives and a board member speak up on its behalf.

On Tuesday, Uber continued its mea culpa tour by releasing its first report detailing the composition of its work force, which depicted an overwhelmingly male employee base and showed that the largest ethnic group is white. In addition, the company forcefully repudiated its past, saying that its intense, masculine culture went too far.

Every strength, in excess, is a weakness, Liane Hornsey, the recently appointed chief human resources officer, said in an interview at the companys headquarters in San Francisco. What has driven Uber to immense success  its aggression, the hard-charging attitude  has toppled over. And it needs to be shaved back.

Fixing Ubers culture and image has become a top priority for the privately held company, which is valued at nearly $70 billion. Last month, Ubers dysfunctions were thrust into the public eye after a former engineer detailed her experience with sexual harassment and a lack of support from human resources at the company. Employees have described a cutthroat, political environment among some managers. Scrutiny has fallen on Ubers chief executive, Travis Kalanick, who helped found the company and has set its tone.
While the suspension of the most recent proposal on baggage fees could be interpreted as a setback for transparency advocates, the Travel Technology Association  a trade group that represents travel websites like TripAdvisor, Skyscanner and others that allow consumers to compare airfares and refer them to booking sites  said it was hopeful that the departments new staff would carefully review this and other transparency considerations.

The larger concern with this proposal, the group said, was that it was too narrow in its aim and did not address whether consumers could purchase add-ons for checked baggage on third party travel sites.

The groups president, Steve Shur, said that a 2014 Transportation Department proposal was a more comprehensive attempt to address ancillary fee transparency. The latest proposal was boiled down to addressing only baggage fee information, which, for the most part, is already transparent, Mr. Shur said.

We saw that as not a great outcome after all that time. Mr. Shur said.

Mr. Shur said that what consumers should have when searching for airfare is an apples-to-apples comparison of the airlines participating, with all those costs included, so you would know the true cost of the trip and could comparison shop, and thats whats not happening right now.

Rafi Mohammed, the author of The 1% Windfall and a pricing strategy consultant, agreed that airlines more or less already make baggage fees apparent on their websites, but he doesnt necessarily think they should be obligated to.

I feel like checked baggage fees are really an optional thing; its akin to an a la carte option anywhere you go, Mr. Mohammed said.

Mr. Mohammed said that fees for carry-on luggage, like those charged by budget airlines like Spirit and Frontier, are a different story, since almost all passengers have carry-on items when flying.
In the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, many analysts suggested that Hillary Clinton lost to Donald J. Trump because of poor Democratic turnout.

Months later, it is clear that the turnout was only modestly better for Mr. Trump than expected.

To the extent Democratic turnout was weak, it was mainly among black voters. Even there, the scale of Democratic weakness has been exaggerated.

Instead, its clear that large numbers of white, working-class voters shifted from the Democrats to Mr. Trump. Over all, almost one in four of President Obamas 2012 white working-class supporters defected from the Democrats in 2016, either supporting Mr. Trump or voting for a third-party candidate.

This analysis compares official voter files  data not available until months after the election  with The Upshots pre-election turnout projections in Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. The turnout patterns evident in these states are representative of broader trends throughout the battleground states and nationwide.
It was a jolt, even by the standards of St. Clair. Mr. Cheatham recalled hearing from other men inside: Maybe we can take this camp. What they going to do, lock us up? Where they dont have any rooms? And what if I get transferred? Thats a win-win.

Staffing levels continued to fall, along with the morale of officers who remained. Twelve-hour and 16-hour days became mandatory. The number of officers on duty at any one time dwindled to perilous levels  this when an officer had been stabbed in the head and killed at another Alabama prison with dangerously low staffing levels.

In the fiscal year ending in September 2016, there were 249 reported assaults at St. Clair, a more than tenfold increase from the same point six years earlier. The number of corrections officers was down by nearly half over that same period.

Since the summer, officers from other prisons have been brought to St. Clair to work overtime shifts, an emergency response team has patrolled almost daily, and several hundred inmates have been transferred to other prisons, resulting in a population at capacity rather than far above it. A $3.5 million plan is underway to replace the locks. Though the bloody headlines continue unrelentingly elsewhere in the system, inmates and staff at St. Clair say, warily, that recent months have been quieter.

Mr. Dunn, the corrections commissioner, points to this as support for his conviction that the root problems at St. Clair and in the Alabama prison system lie in the numbers. I still believe that the fundamental, systemic problem is a combination of lack of staff and overcrowding, he said.

He described the recent efforts at improving St. Clair as only a temporary fix, robbing Peter to pay Paul. The construction of modern prisons, he said, is the important first step to making changes that will last, allowing for safer facilities and more rehabilitative programming. But the plan, still making its way through the Legislature, has met with deep skepticism, objections that it costs too much, worries from small towns dependent on prisons for jobs and arguments that it does not address the fundamental problems. And then there are those, like Mack Waldrop, for whom any of it is too late.

In June 2014, Mr. Waldrop learned, through a call from a St. Clair inmate with an illicit cellphone, that his son Jodey had been stabbed in his cell. Mr. Waldrop said the warden later called just to tell him his sons body was at the morgue. Jodey Waldrop would be one of three men killed in the prison that year.

I wish God could give you every answer, Mr. Waldrop said, when asked what could fix the prisons in Alabama. Because Id like to know.
The hosts have persistently criticized the polygraph tests that are required of anyone who is applying to become a border agent, saying they take too long, are often confrontational in tone and fail far more people than similar tests carried out by other federal agencies.

They have labeled reporters who cover topics in a way they do not approve as activists. Chris Cabrera, vice president of Local 3307 in Texass Rio Grande Valley, once accused Jorge Ramos, the Univision anchor, of having a vendetta against Mr. Trump. Fox News correspondent William La Jeunesse, on the other hand, has received warm welcomes in his appearances on the show.

They have also railed against the Obama administrations hierarchy of priorities that forced border and immigration agents to focus on only deporting serious criminals. Then, they celebrated the new hard-line attitude by Mr. Trump.

Its a good time to be a Border Patrol agent right now, the unions president, Brandon Judd, said on Episode 143, released on March 9. One thing that President Trump did that no politicians had done previous is he kept the conversation on the border.

Mr. Del Cueto, who is also president of Local 2544, which represents 3,000 agents in the Tucson Sector, the Border Patrols largest regional division, replied, Hes definitely kept his foot on the pedal.

The unions foray into podcasting began in July 2012, when it launched State of the Union, which focused on work matters.

State of the Union eventually merged into The Green Line, whose first episode came online on Sept. 23, 2014. Six months later, the podcast gained a major sponsor, Breitbart News, the conservative-leaning organization with an outsize influence in the Trump administration; its former executive chairman, Stephen K. Bannon, is a chief strategist to the president.
How Delhi views Dahals China visit

India is keenly watching Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahals visit to China but it would not immediately affect relations between Dahal and New Delhi, observers have said.
Gov. Jerry Brown, who is both a fiscal hawk and an ardent supporter of Affordable Care Act, has already spoken about his skepticism of a single-payer program, saying it would be prohibitively expensive.

But at least one candidate running for governor next year plans to make universal health care a centerpiece of the campaign. Earlier this month Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom said he was working with health care experts to craft a plan for a single-payer system. While he was mayor, the city approved a plan to offer universal health care for all of its residents.

Mr. Lara said the Republican defeat in Congress could pave the way for a single-payer system.

Its easier to expand health care than make up lost ground as we would have had to do, he said. We really have the chance to make universal health care a reality now.

The proposal differs from existing programs in one big way: It would include all residents, regardless of their immigration status. Obamacare explicitly excluded undocumented immigrants from benefits of the program, though children in California can receive basic coverage even if they are undocumented.

Advocates of a single-payer program argue that it would bring down costs and encourage preventive care. But opponents say there would be less choice and efficiency in medical care, and that taxes would rise significantly for all residents.
Since Ian Grillot intervened in a shooting in February that left one Indian immigrant dead and another one wounded, Indian immigrants have rallied to help him in return.

Mr. Grillot, a 24-year-old from Olathe, Kan., ran at a gunman at Austins Bar and Grill on Feb. 22, thinking the attacker had run out of bullets and hoping to stop him from fleeing. But he had miscalculated and was shot through the hand and chest.

His confrontation with the gunman has been widely praised in India, where officials have extended an invitation to visit the country. It has also been appreciated by Indian immigrants in the United States. On Saturday, India House Houston, a nonprofit organization, presented Mr. Grillot with $100,000, which it had raised to help him buy a home.

This is the real America, not the America thats generally portrayed, Jiten Agarwal, the organizer of the groups annual gala, said on Monday of Mr. Grillots actions during the attack.
WASHINGTON  President Trumps failure to push through the broad health care overhaul he promised has raised questions about the prospects of a sweeping rewrite of the tax code. It is a politically fraught and dizzyingly complex endeavor that pits powerful interests against one another and threatens to increase the federal deficit.

Trump has to win on this, said Stephen Moore, a distinguished visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation who advised Mr. Trump on tax policy during his campaign and transition. Theres no margin for error here, and failure is just not an option.

Just how difficult will it be? Here are five obstacles to getting a new tax law:

A leadership vacuum

The greatest hurdle to a tax overhaul may be the White House itself. Mr. Trump has yet to make basic decisions about the structure and scope of his plan, the strategy for pushing it through Congress or even who in his administration will be in charge of crafting and selling it. While White House officials said they would unveil a plan weeks ago, one has not materialized.

Obviously, were driving the train on this, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Monday as he deflected basic questions about what the presidents proposal would look like. That is hardly obvious to many members of Congress, administration insiders and outside observers who now question whether Mr. Trump and his close advisers are capable of executing on such an ambitious and high-stakes negotiation.
Speaker Paul D. Ryan maintained on Tuesday to reporters that he saw no reason for Mr. Nunes to step away from the investigation.

Last week, Mr. Nunes said he briefed Mr. Ryan on information indicating Mr. Trump or members of his transition team might have been incidentally caught up in legal surveillance of foreign operatives by American spy agencies. Mr. Ryan said on Tuesday that he did not know the source of that information.

In a new flare-up on Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that the White House had tried to block Sally Q. Yates, who was fired by Mr. Trump as acting attorney general in January, from appearing before the committee, apparently arguing that much of her testimony could be banned from discussion by presidential privilege that shields certain sensitive information from the public.

In letters later obtained by The New York Times, her lawyer pushed back, asserting that much of what Ms. Yates would address had already been described publicly by senior administration officials. The letters were dated late last week, around the time Mr. Nunes abruptly announced his decision to scrap a public hearing.

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, rejected the report as 100 percent false, saying the White House would not bar Ms. Yates from testifying. He also rejected the idea that the White House had pressured Mr. Nunes to cancel the hearing.

I hope she testifies, he said. I look forward to it.

Mr. Schiff said he was deeply concerned by the cancellation of the hearing with Ms. Yates and other former officials, which he said would have focused at least in part on Michael T. Flynn, the national security adviser who resigned after it was revealed that he lied to White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, about his contacts with Russia.

It was the latest development in a week in which bipartisan cooperation quickly collapsed. Last week, without consulting Mr. Schiff, Mr. Nunes bumped a planned public hearing with James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence; John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director; and Ms. Yates, who was fired after she instructed Justice Department officials to not carry out Mr. Trumps first proposed travel ban.
The Republicans repeal bill, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would have left an additional 24 million Americans without insurance by 2026, a major worry for moderate Republicans. It would also have left in place regulations on the health insurance industry that are anathema to conservatives.

Mr. Ryan declined to say what might be in the next version of the Republicans repeal bill, nor would he sketch any schedule for action. But he said Congress needed to act because insurers were developing premiums and benefit packages for health plans to offer in 2018, with review by federal and state officials beginning soon.

The new talks, which quietly began this week, involve Stephen K. Bannon, the presidents chief strategist, and members of two Republican factions that helped sink the bill last week, the hard-right Freedom Caucus and the more centrist Tuesday Group.

Any deal would have to overcome significant differences about how to rework a law that affects about one-fifth of the American economy. Those differences were so sharp that they led Mr. Trump and Mr. Ryan to pull the bill just before the House was to vote on it.

Still, Republican members of Congress said they were hopeful.

I think everyone wants to get to yes and support President Trump, said Representative Dave Brat of Virginia, a Freedom Caucus member. There is a package in there that is a win-win.

Representative Raul R. Labrador of Idaho, also a Freedom Caucus member, said he hoped the discussions would yield a compromise after a divisive debate that revealed deep fissures within the party. I think we will have a better, stronger product that will unify the conference, Mr. Labrador said.
The political news cycle is fast, and keeping up can be overwhelming. Trying to find differing perspectives worth your time is even harder. Thats why we have scoured the internet for political writing from the right and left that you might not have seen.

We would love to hear your thoughts on this collection. Send your feedback to ourpicks@nytimes.com

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From the Right
Confinement was something of an education: he and his fellow prisoners deepened their conviction that only continued pressure, at home and abroad, would help bring about an end to apartheid.

It really confirmed our belief that the South African authorities do not suddenly undergo a change of heart, Mr. Kathrada said in 1989.

He and his compatriots had suspected that they would be arrested, he said, and had prepared psychologically. They understood, he said, that the isolation of Robben Island  in cold, shark-infested Atlantic waters off Cape Town  was intended to break them.

From the security police to the prison authorities, they tried to instill into our minds that we would be forgotten in a few years time, Mr. Kathrada said. They did everything to crush our morale.

For the first six months, he said, the prisoners were put to work breaking stones with hammers. Then they were sent to work in the prisons lime quarry for more than a decade. At one point, he said, Mr. Mandela and Mr. Sisulu were put on a meager ration of rice gruel as punishment for supposedly not working hard enough.

Mr. Kathrada said that on arriving at the prison he and the mixed-race convicts were issued long trousers, while black convicts like Mr. Mandela and Mr. Sisulu had to wear shorts without socks. Even sugar, coffee, soup and other foods were apportioned to inmates according to lines of racial hierarchy.
She was not shy about speaking out.

Brian Palmer, a friend who had invited her to speak to his class at Uppsala University, where he teaches, described her as an exuberant person who candidly spoke about the United Nations limitations.

She was not at all shy to talk about difficult questions, he said. She had come to see the people that she was trying to help as her equals and her friends and had very much loyalty to them.

The two, accompanied by an interpreter and drivers, all Congolese, had gone to a part of Kasai-Central Province in early March to investigate the fighting there, which pitted the Congolese Army against an array of rebel factions.

They traveled by motorcycle, the only way to navigate the area. Going with United Nations peacekeepers would not have been a good idea because they are not always trusted by gunmen.

They were doing what weve all done, said Jason Stearns, a former member of the Group of Experts who now runs the Congo Research Group at New York University. Getting a couple of motorcycle guys, getting an interpreter. And they trekked out to rebel territory, which Michael has done so many times, hundreds of times probably.

The experts are not everyones friends. They uncover inconvenient facts about people committing crimes, and higher-ups helping them. In their previous reports, the experts had implicated some military officials in wrongdoing. The part of Kasai-Central Province they had traveled to had lately been littered with suspected mass graves, and the Congolese Army was blamed for some of them.

Image Zaida Catalan, from Sweden, was known for candidly speaking about the United Nations limitations.

There were reports of children being conscripted to fight. Ms. Catalan was responsible for investigating child soldiers, among other things. Mr. Sharp was the coordinator of the panel.
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast  A court in Ivory Coast on Tuesday acquitted a former first lady of war crimes and crimes against humanity after a trial that focused on her role in abuses that led to the deaths of thousands after an election in 2010.

A jury voted unanimously to acquit Simone Gbagbo, the wife of former President Laurent Gbagbo, said Judge Kouadio Bouatchi. The prosecution had asked for a life sentence, saying she was part of a committee that organized abuses against supporters of her husbands opponent after the 2010 election. More than 3,000 people were killed after Mr. Gbagbo refused to accept his defeat by the current president, Alassane Ouattara.

Ms. Gbagbo, however, still must serve 20 years in prison after being found guilty in 2015 of offenses against the state. She has also been indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, but Ivory Coast has refused to transfer her. Mr. Gbagbos trial before the international court began in January.

The acquittal on Tuesday was a surprise for many. Ms. Gbagbo did not attend the trial in protest and was not present for the verdict.
Mr. Ouattara, an American-trained economist, is under acute pressure to solve what the local media refers to as the social discontent, a term that encompasses the striking teachers and workers, the raging students and a recent military mutiny that revived painful memories of a civil war that left thousands dead. Groups as varied as Catholic bishops and local chieftains have expressed concern about where the social tensions could lead.

All of the social discontent thats building worries me and doesnt bode well for calm in the future, said Edith Brou, a prominent Ivorian blogger whose two young boys could not go to school during the strike.

The demonstrations stem from the belief that every Ivorian thinks the time is ripe to have his share of the emergence, the term used by authorities, in relation to Ouattaras vision for Ivory Coast in 2020, said Andre Silver Konan, an Ivorian journalist and political analyst. Despite the countrys impressive economic growth, 46 percent of the population still lived in poverty in 2015, according to the International Monetary Fund.

The strike came on the heels of a multiday military revolt that erupted in early January. Soldiers, many of them former rebels who helped bring Mr. Ouattara to power, threw up barricades and fired shots into the air across the country to demand back pay and better living conditions.

After a tense standoff, the government agreed to pay the 8,500 or so mutineers an estimated $19,500 each. Though an uneasy calm now holds, the haphazard nature of the agreement could encourage future uprisings.

The governments capitulation to the rogue soldiers had a psychological effect on the civil servants, said Theodore Gnagna Zadi, the head of the countrys biggest conglomerate of unions, which has led the strike. Why cant we get our money? he said the thinking was, with workers reasoning that the state should give it to us if they give it to others.
Huge cyclone makes landfall in Australia

A powerful cyclone has pummelled the north-east Australian coast, causing major damage, torrential rain and power cuts to tens of thousands of homes.
KABUL, Afghanistan  One of Afghanistans top generals, appointed by the countrys president to clean up corruption in war-torn Helmand Province, has been arrested on sweeping corruption charges after little more than a year on the job, senior Afghan officials said on Tuesday.

Maj. Gen. M. Moein Faqir, the former commander of the 215th Corps of the Afghan National Army in Helmand Province, was arrested Monday by the Afghan attorney general on charges that included misuse of food money meant to supply his soldiers, according to Lt. Gen. Helaludin Helal, a deputy defense minister.

General Faqirs reported arrest was the latest in a long series of setbacks in efforts to fight official corruption in Helmand, Afghanistans most violent province, where Taliban insurgents now dominate 12 of 14 districts. He was appointed in December 2015 after a scandal involving ghost soldiers, in which up to 40 percent of the 215th Corpss troops were said to exist only on paper so corrupt officers could collect extra pay.

Further illustrating the difficulty of bringing Afghan officials to account for their actions, General Faqir, reached by telephone on Tuesday, denied that he had been arrested, although he confirmed corruption charges against him. I am home, he said. What the government is saying are all allegations. If they prove them, I am ready to be hanged.
BEIJING  The action-packed, prime-time segment on Chinese state-run television featured an elite police force storming a gated desert compound and sprinting toward a white, three-story house.

To some viewers, that house looked familiar.

The structure bore an uncanny resemblance to the compound in Pakistan where United States Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. Like that house, this one had a wide, flat roof and small windows; the verandas and the outhouses were similar, and even the triangular yard was of the same proportions.

The news item, broadcast Friday on a China Central Television channel devoted to military affairs, did not mention bin Laden or point out the similarities to the compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad where he spent his last years in hiding. But an eagle-eyed fan of the Peoples Liberation Army noticed, posting a screen shot of the replica on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, along with several photos of the bin Laden compound for comparison.

Imitating and then innovating is better than working on your own behind closed doors, one Weibo user said in a comment on the post.
SYDNEY, Australia  A menacing Cyclone Debbie struck the northeastern Australian coastline with devastating force Tuesday, slowly churning its path of destruction inland with wind gusts as high as 160 miles per hour, forcing tens of thousands to flee and leaving at least 48,000 homes without power.

After lashing low-lying tourist islands off the coast, the storm bore down on the mainland, tearing roofs from homes and drenching low-lying coastal towns with heavy rainfall. Its slow, potent march inland had officials fearing widespread damage, but the loss of telephone service and power left emergency responders struggling to assess the situation.
SYDNEY, Australia  Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull canceled a parliamentary vote to ratify an extradition treaty with China on Tuesday after opposition lawmakers said they would not support it, and after some members of Mr. Turnbulls own Liberal Party expressed concern about moving forward.

It was a significant symbolic and public rejection, suggesting that even though relations between China and Australia have warmed since President Trump took office in the United States, Australias concerns about Chinas repressive legal system and human rights record will continue to limit how close the two countries become.

Whats clear now is that even Donald Trump is not enough to encourage Australia into a full strategic embrace of China, said Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at Australian National University. There is a kind of a comprehensive reality check going on.

China has been waiting a decade since the extradition treaty was signed for it to be passed, and the decision not to put it to a ratification vote may have surprised the countrys leaders. The Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, had left Australia just two days earlier with several new trade deals and mostly positive news coverage.
WARSAW  Eleven people who slaughtered a sheep, stripped naked and chained themselves together outside the gates of Auschwitz last week were pacifists trying to send an antiwar message, not neo-Nazi extremists, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

The macabre ceremony on Friday stunned officials in charge of the Auschwitz complex, a memorial to the more than one million people, mostly Jews, who died at the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp during World War II.

As part of their demonstration on Friday, the 11 people  seven men and four women  unfurled a banner with the message Love over the entrance gate to Auschwitz, with its infamous scrollwork bearing the German words Arbeit Macht Frei, or Work Makes You Free.

The police from the surrounding town of Oswiecim, in southern Poland, an area that was annexed by Germany during World War II, detained the group almost immediately. The group included six Poles, four Belarussians and one German. Oswiecim is the Polish spelling for Auschwitz.
BERLIN  German officials acknowledged on Tuesday that they had rebuffed a request by the Turkish government to spy on its opponents in Germany, the latest strain to relations as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey pursues a referendum next month to expand his powers.

Tensions between Turkey and a range of European countries have mounted in recent weeks as the Turkish government, in effect, seeks to broaden the scope of its activities among Turks living in Europe, who can also cast votes in the referendum, which Mr. Erdogan is by no means assured of winning.

The latest tension centers on supporters of the Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is accused by Mr. Erdogan of orchestrating last Julys failed coup in Turkey. Since then, Mr. Erdogans government has purged tens of thousands of people suspected of being Gulen supporters from jobs in schools, universities, the news media and state institutions. Mr. Gulen lives in Pennsylvania.

On Tuesday, one of Germanys leading newspapers, Suddeutsche Zeitung, and two public service broadcasters reported that Turkey had handed over a list of more than 300 individuals and about 200 associations, schools and other groups among the three million Turks living in Germany that supposedly support the exiled cleric.
HOLMESTRAND, Norway  Shotgun at her side, Stine Hagtveldt Viddal stops at a bare patch of ground in this valley, which is thick with pine trees, pointing to the spot where she helped hunt and then skin a roe deer a few weeks ago. Taking out her phone, she shows a photo of herself holding the animals heart in the palm of her hand, then another of the meal she made from it later that day.

Hunting was once a mans pastime in Norway, one of the last bastions of macho male culture.

Today thats no longer the case. Ms. Viddal is among the 12 percent of Norwegian hunters who are female, according to figures from 2013, an increase of about 60 percent over a decade.

This trend seems to underscore a growing interest both in the countryside and in the provenance of food. My daughter is 6 years old, says Ms. Viddal, 33. I want her to know that food comes from nature, not the freezer.

But the rise in the numbers also reflects increased opportunities for Norwegian women to participate. Generally the men are welcoming, says Ms. Viddal, and though she has encountered instances of mansplaining  condescending advice  on the shooting range, it has not proved a big problem.
The French authorities confirmed on Tuesday that they were investigating the fatal shooting by the police of a Chinese man at his home in Paris during the weekend. A lawyer for the mans family said the killing was not justified, and the Chinese government called for a thorough investigation.

Members of the Chinese community in Paris have been protesting the killing, and the demonstrations turned violent on Monday night, with the police arresting 35 people, officials said.

The death of the man, identified in news reports as Liu Shaoyo, 56, comes at a time of heightened unease in Frances Asian community. Many Asian immigrants live in poorer neighborhoods in eastern Paris and the capitals eastern suburbs. Last year, the death of a Chinese tailor who had been beaten by a gang of youths in a Paris suburb prompted protests.

The police went to Mr. Lius home on Sunday, according to French news accounts, in response to a call from a neighbor. An officer shot Mr. Liu, who was holding a pair of scissors, as the door opened.
LONDON  Only hours before Britain is to embark on its momentous journey out of the European Union, Scotlands Parliament on Tuesday underscored one of the risks along that path by voting to demand a new referendum on Scottish independence.

By a vote of 69 to 59, members of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh approved plans to request a referendum on independence that could take place just before Britain completes its withdrawal from the European Union, a process known as Brexit.

That timing has already been rejected by Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, who must agree to any legally binding referendum on Scotlands future.

Nevertheless, the Scottish Parliaments vote sets the stage for a constitutional tussle between London and Edinburgh, and it illustrates the far-reaching, and destabilizing, consequences of Britains divisive decision in June to withdraw from the European Union. In that referendum, 52 percent of voters chose to leave the European Union.
That is something we have got to figure out, he added.

With an increase in reports of civilian casualties from the American bombing of Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria, some human rights groups have questioned whether the rules of engagement have been loosened since President Trump took office.

Pentagon officials said this week that the rules had not changed. But General Townsend said on Tuesday that he had won approval for minor adjustments to rules for the use of combat power, although he insisted they were not a factor in the Mosul attack.

General Townsend acknowledged, however, that steps had been taken to speed up the process of providing air power to support Iraqi troops and their American Special Operations advisers at the leading edge of the offensive to recapture Mosul from the Islamic State. The goal, he said, was to decentralize decision-making.

General Townsend did not describe the changes in detail, but he cast them as a return to the militarys standard offensive doctrine, in contrast to the very centralized approach he said was initially put in place after President Barack Obama sent American forces back to Iraq to combat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

Maj. Gen. Maan al-Saadi, an Iraqi special forces commander, has said that his men called in a coalition airstrike to take out snipers on the roofs of three houses in a Mosul neighborhood called Mosul Jidideh. The Iraqi forces, General Saadi said, were unaware that at least some of the houses were filled with civilians.
Immigration employees involved in women smuggling: Parliamentary team

A parliamentary team has come up with the finding that employees of the Department of Immigration under the Ministry of Home Affairs have a role in sending Nepali women to foreign countries as domestic help through an illegal channel.
GENEVA  Airstrikes against Islamic State fighters are killing so many civilians that Iraq and its American-led coalition of allies should reconsider their tactics, the top human rights official at the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Zeid Raad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said he did not underestimate the difficulty of rooting out the Islamic State forces from their remaining strongholds in Mosul, Iraqs second-largest city. But he urged Iraq and the coalition to undertake an urgent review of tactics to ensure that the impact on civilians is reduced to an absolute minimum.

There were clear indications that the militants were using large numbers of civilians as human shields, he said, and under those conditions, airstrikes on densely populated areas can have a lethal and disproportionate impact on civilians.

The United Nations reported that as of March 22, at least 307 people had been killed and an additional 273 had been wounded in Mosul in a little more than a month, as Iraqi troops pressed their attack on Islamic State forces entrenched in the city.
Very few women went to Vietnam as journalists, and even fewer as dedicated war photojournalists. In fact, for most of the 1960s, there were only two: Dickie Chapelle, who was killed by a grenade in 1965, and Catherine Leroy.

Leroy was widely considered the most daring photographer in Vietnam. She almost certainly spent the most time in combat  in part because she had no money, having traveled from her native France to Vietnam as a freelancer in 1966 with no contracts and a short list of published work. Living with soldiers meant that she could eat rations and sleep in the countryside.

Subscribe to the Vietnam 67 Newsletter This weekly newsletter includes eyewitness accounts, rare photos and historical insights about the Vietnam War.

Leroy faced no shortage of sexism. After she parachuted into combat during Operation Junction City, in early 1967, rumors circulated that she had slept with a colonel in exchange for permission. In fact, she had earned her parachutist license as a teenager, and had already jumped 84 times. Still, she developed a reputation as a photographer quickly, selling photos to The Associated Press and U.P.I.

At one point during the Tet offensive, in early 1968, she was captured by the North Vietnamese Army while with the French journalist Francois Mazure. There was a young lieutenant that they could converse with in French. They explained that they were journalists and would do no harm, so the soldiers decided to let them go. But first she persuaded them to let her take photos, saying that it was important because only one side of the story was being seen. The photos ran as a cover story in Life magazine, which she wrote herself.

Leroy never promoted herself or her work, which is one reason she remains largely unknown among the war photographers of the day (though not forgotten: In 2015 the writer and filmmaker Jacques Menasche completed a documentary about her career, Cathy at War; a clip from the film is available here). But she was one of the Vietnam Wars most lauded photojournalists, winning Picture of the Year from the George Polk Awards and, for her later work in Lebanon, the Robert Capa Gold Medal.

Later in life, Leroy ran a vintage clothing website. She died in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2006.

Leroys photo series of Vernon Wike became some of her most famous pictures, and in 2004 Paris Match magazine commissioned her to visit him at his home in Prescott, Ariz. Mr. Wike, 58, stood in his living room, his arms heavy with tattoos, including the names of fellow soldiers killed in Vietnam.
India declines Nepals request to raise ceiling

A meeting between Nepali and Indian central banks officials to raise the exchange facility ceiling for Nepalis holding demonetised Indian currency ended inconclusively on Monday, delaying the process of replacing now-useless Indian banknotes of 500- and 1,000-rupee denominations with legal tenders.
Lessons from a recent summit

The second Himalayan Consensus Summit concluded on Saturday. Attended by people from around the world, various ideas were put forth regarding what individuals can do to take incremental steps towards achieving one goal: the use of Himalayan ideas to help global prosperity.
From Truthdig



U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch speaking at the announcement of his selection on Jan. 31, 2017.

(Image by (Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)) Details DMCA



When Donald Trump's chief of staff Reince Priebus addressed the Conservative Political Action Committee in February, he identified two priorities of the administration: the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, and deregulation.

It turns out that elevating Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and achieving deregulation are inextricably linked.

During Gorsuch's confirmation hearing, Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee challenged him on his pro-business positions.

Minnesota Sen. Al Franken pressed him on a case -- that of the now-infamous "frozen trucker" -- in which the judge reached what Franken characterized as an "absurd" result.

Alphonse Maddin was driving a truck for TransAm Trucking Inc. in 2009 when the brakes froze on the trailer he was hauling. The heater inside the truck wasn't working, and the temperature outside was 27 below zero.

Maddin contacted his employer, who arranged for a repair unit to come to Maddin's location. While waiting for help to arrive, Maddin nodded off. "I awoke three hours later to discover that I could not feel my feet, my skin was burning and cracking, my speech was slurred, and I was having trouble breathing," he said at a recent event in Washington, D.C. When Maddin stepped out of the truck, he said he "was on the verge of passing out. I feared that if I fell, I would not have the strength to stand up and would die." Maddin was exhibiting symptoms of hypothermia.

He called his employer again to report that he was leaving to seek shelter. His supervisor ordered him "to either drag the trailer [with no brakes] or stay put."

"In my opinion, clearly, their cargo was more important than my life," Maddin said.

Faced with defying his employer's order to remain with his disabled trailer or freezing to death, Maddin chose to unhitch the trailer and drive his truck to safety.

TransAm fired Maddin for disobeying orders, and he filed a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, an agency of the Department of Labor.

The operative statute in this case forbids employers from firing an employee who "refuses to operate a vehicle because the employee has a reasonable apprehension of serious injury to the employee or the public."

The Labor Department found that TransAm had violated the law, concluding that the word "operate" includes not only driving, but also "other uses of a vehicle when it is within the control of the employee." Maddin had refused to operate his vehicle in the manner his employer had ordered -- with the trailer hitched to the truck.

Of the seven judges who ultimately ruled on the case, Gorsuch was the only one who voted to uphold Maddin's firing. He decided that Maddin did "operate" his vehicle, which took him outside the statutory language that protects an employee who refuses to operate his vehicle.

What source did Gorsuch consult to construe the word "operate?" He turned to the Oxford English Dictionary, refusing to defer to the Department of Labor's broader interpretation of the statute. Gorsuch characterized "health and safety" concerns as "ephemeral and generic," writing, "After all, what under the sun, at least at some level of generality, doesn't relate to 'health and safety'?"

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Prosperity for whom? Asks Asia Pacific CSO Forum on Sustainable Development from governments

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The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) is convening the 4th session of the Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD 2017) from 29 to 31 March 2017, in Bangkok, Thailand. The APFSD is expected to define a regional road map to support member States' implementation of the 2030 Agenda over the next 15 years.

The conclusions and recommendations of the APFSD will also inform the global debate at the High-level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development, next meeting of which will be convened in New York in July 2017. The APFSD 2017 is preceded by an Asia-Pacific Civil Society Forum on Sustainable Development, currently taking place in Bangkok (26-28 March).

A snapshot: Voices from the frontlines

Speaking with CNS (Citizen News Service), some civil-society members shared their expectations from the governments of Asia Pacific nations engaging with APFSD 2017. While Ranja Sengupta from Third World Network (TWN) sought effective regional cooperations on SDGs, that would enable the developing countries and least developed countries (LDCs) in the region to be able to implement the SDG agenda, for Ajay Jha of Centre for Community Economics and Development Consultants Society (CECODECON) the most pressing concern was the incorporation of SDGs into the national programmes/ policies of the countries of the region. Wali Haider, Secretary of Pakistan Kisan Mazdoor Tehreek, a national alliance of small and landless farmers, wanted a ban on corporate capture of agricultural land, particularly in countries where a sizeable population depends on agriculture for their survival.

Road map is about regional cooperation: Ranja Sengupta

Ranja Sengupta added: "The regional road map is about regional cooperation. The most important point is to make countries work together regionally so that they are able to implement SDGs. Many free-trade agreements (FTAs) are being negotiated and signed by countries, including India, without giving any thought to the roadblocks some of them might create in meeting the SDGs. All countries need to do an SDG compatibility impact assessment of the policies which they are following in the field of trade investment, technology, taxation and other financial and macro economic issues. Countries must not forget that aggressive liberalisation severely limits the scope of implementation of SDGs. We also need an intergovernmental tax body, as many LDCs are losing a lot of finance due to tax evasion by corporations. Countries of the region and civil society must together explore ways to make available the Means of Implementation to LDCs to meet the SDGs. India should play a major role in fostering cooperation in the field of technology, taxes and finances, and governance in the region."

End corporate capture of agriculture sector: Wali Haider

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From Truthdig

This week marks the beginning of year three of the Saudi-led military intervention in the civil war in Yemen, an intervention that has resulted in an epic tragedy of destruction and starvation. Tens of thousands of Yemenis marked the occasion by pouring into the streets of the capital, Sanna, to call for an end to the Saudi airstrikes that have been supported by the United States military. But instead of pushing to jump-start stalemated negotiations to end the conflict, the Trump administration seems anxious to get more deeply involved in the war by supporting an attack on the key port of Hodeidah and resuming halted weapons sales.

Greater U.S. support for the Saudis, who intervened in Yemen to try to stop the Iran-friendly Houthis from coming to power, is part of Trump's "get tough" policy on Iran. But further escalation of the war in Yemen, particularly an offensive to seize Hodeidah from the Houthi rebels, will mean even more death and hunger for the Yemeni people. Jeremy Konyndyk, who was the director of foreign disaster assistance at USAID under Barack Obama, said a serious disruption of the Hodeidah port could well "tip the country into famine."

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has requested for U.S. support for the Hodeidah attack, a request that will reportedly come before Trump's national security advisers this week. The Obama administration, which had been helping the Saudi bombing campaign from the beginning with weapons and logistics, did not support this particular attack because they thought it would exacerbate the humanitarian crisis since Hodeideh has been the main port of entry for humanitarian supplies.

On March 23, a bipartisan group of 10 senators, including Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), urged Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to launch an urgent diplomatic effort to help avert a pending famine in Yemen and three other nations, and included a specific call to keep the Hodeidah port open to humanitarian aid.

Yemen imports 90 percent of its food, and the war, including a Saudi naval blockade and a previous bombing of cranes at the Hodeidah port where all the large grain silos are located, has made it difficult to import sufficient food and humanitarian supplies. Food shipments into Hodeidah have already fallen precipitously, with only a few ships arriving each week, compared to dozens before the war, and more shipping lines are pulling out due to the growing risks.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says speed is of the essence to prevent a tragedy of massive proportions. "Words cannot capture the extent of the suffering of the Yemeni people," said ICRC Middle East director Robert Mardini. "Their resilience has reached a breaking point... Twenty people are dying every day, many of curable diseases because only 45 percent of the health facilities are functioning."

A UNICEF report shows over 400,000 Yemeni children suffering from severe acute malnutrition, and a child dying every 10 minutes from malnutrition, diarrhea and respiratory-tract infections.

Jamie McGoldrick, Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen put the tragedy in human terms. "Fisherman can't fish, farmers can't farm, civil servants don't get paid ... people having to make life and death decisions: Do you feed your children or do you pay for medical treatment for your child? And that's a daily call for many families."

United Nations and private relief organizations have been mobilizing to respond to the crisis. In February, the UN launched a humanitarian appeal calling for $2.1 billion. As of March, however, only 7 percent of the appeal had been funded, and the UN Refugee Agency has received less than half the funds it needs.

While the wealthy nations must open their wallets to feed starving Yemenis, the only way to end the humanitarian crisis is to end the conflict. This would mean a ceasefire, a push for negotiations and, in the case of the U.S, an end to weapons sales to the Saudis.

President Obama supported the Saudis with massive weapons sales during his eight years in office. But just before leaving office in December 2016, when faced with increased pressure from human rights groups and lawmakers after a Saudi strike on a Yemeni funeral killed at least 140 people, President Obama put a halt of the sale of precision-guided munitions to the Saudis.

Trump's State Department already gave notice to Congress that they have approved a resumption of these sales. If there is no objection from Congress and President Trump signs off on the deal, the deal will go through. Amnesty International urged Trump not to sign off on the sales, saying that new U.S. arms could be used to devastate civilian lives in Yemen and could "implicate your administration in war crimes."

This is not the time to escalate the war. Unless an urgent effort is made to find a political solution and get massive food aid into the country, almost 7 million people in this war-torn nation will face starvation. Stopping an attack on Hodeidah and making sure the port is secure for food shipments is a critical first step.
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Bridging the Nations, With TAS Cru's Band

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I said three days ago, in response to an article click here I found on Yahoo News:

"We have always known there was more to Kushner than was being disclosed during the campaign and the Prez-Elect period. Now that he is being tapped for an absolutely crucial job-- none more crucial in American international diplomacy-- we see that he is going to be utterly unable to avoid bias towards the one-state solution, having already helped the settler movement. And if he actually becomes part of the Bank Hapoalim investigation, he's gone. Everybody needs to archive this, because there may not be any more complete recitation of his history forthcoming."

And now, since that radical but not entirely unexpected appointment, Kushner has been tapped, besides, for being the mover in overhauling American bureaucracy, and has made one subsequent statement that he will run America like a business, and gain "efficiencies" for the citizens, with American business executives running the show.

I am not one of those who believes it facially impossible for a 36-year-old to be capable of conceiving and effecting positive change in the American ways of government, a too young, insufficiently trained and inexperienced boy on a man's job.

I have known at least one man, a professor, author and political researcher, whom I would have trusted at less than that age to be both competent and inspirational for the leadership position in that job, if he had been selected for it (or, in fact, to have been President of the US). There ARE brilliant people available.

But Kushner is not one of them. He is no more than an heir to a fortune who has tied his wagon to another heir of a fortune, one who never began to exhibit any sense of ethics (never had to, there are no such codes in the real estate or gambling industries). He has no experience in government, no matter how long he has known Benjamin Netanyahu. He has never been anything but an international (and by that I mean American-Israeli) capitalist; like Trump, he's never done an honest day's labor in his life.

And it is a sign of the chaos at the innermost circle of the Trump Administration that, since last November, Kushner has first been given a Senior White House Advisor position, next, an uber-crucial diplomatic position, and before you can say Jack Robinson, a place at the top of an operative organization-- "American Innovation"-- that didn't even exist until late last week.

Though it is clear that the man is utterly over his head, and permanently vulnerable to accusations of nepotism-- why, even Ivanka is now being given a White House office and a security clearance!-- he might conceivably grow into and do one of those jobs. Being the head of "American Innovation" is not something that NECESSARILY is bound to hurt somebody.

A one-state solution in Palestine will. That will be a war crime. And Kushner just cannot be a plenipotentiary ambassador without portfolio (David Friedman, Donald Trump's bankruptcy lawyer and an even larger and more direct settlements investor, holds the portfolio) while heading an entirely unrelated US governmental agency, and besides that being a "senior" advisor to Trump.

The meteoric rise of the influence of Jared Kushner can only be followed by his meteoric fall. And we may be sure that he's got enough millions of dollars set aside to maintain his lifestyle when the jig is up, and he must resign, or be fired, in the disgrace of his barrel-full of conflicts of interest-- just like his boss and mentor.
From Paul Craig Roberts Website

The mental convolutions in which some will engage in order to ignore the evidence that the polar ice caps are melting -- and if not from warming from what? -- is as astounding as the convolutions and denial of basic facts that characterize those who believe the government's official 9/11 fairy tale.

If all science is rigged, as a few of you say, by the Bilderbergs, Rockefellers, or the Rothchilds, then where does your science, your information come from? If there is no reliable scientific information about climate change, what is the basis for your argument? Why are only carbon industry spokespersons honest? How come the Rothchilds didn't rig them also?

Yes, the carbon tax is another way of following the money, but it obviously leads in the opposite direction of where a few want to take it. The carbon tax is not a solution offered by climate scientists. It is the industry solution backed by the industry's free market libertarian allies and Wall St, which sees it as another profitable trading vehicle. The industry sees it as a replacement for regulation and emphasis on alternative green energy sources.

The readers who assured me that the polar ice always melts in summer and refreezes in winter did not know that more melts than refreezes and that the polar ice cap is shrinking dramatically.

The readers who said that there is no global warming now say that it is natural and not man-made, that it has happened before, and so on, which means next to nothing. The biosphere evolved in a way that supports life. When the delicate balance is altered, life dies out. With 150 years of deforestation while 1,500 gigatons of CO2 are dumped into the atmosphere, why is anyone surprised that the biosphere alters? If warming, whatever the cause, can result in the sudden release of methane equal to 1,000 gigatons of CO2, why would this have no effect?

Some readers assure me that global warming is the result of US geoengineering for war or against humanity; others say it results from the particles released in chem trails.

Some readers are exasperated with global warming denial:

"I fish 150 days a year minimum for decades now. Being an outdoorsman I notice the environment as do all of my hunting and fishing friends in upstate NY and MA. Not one of them denies global warming anymore, though it took more time for most of them to come around. But if you spend time outdoors eventually it washes over you -- something ain't right! In the late '90s in western NY in November I stood in a Great Lakes Tributary in neoprene waders and the temperature hit 85 f. This killed the fishing because the snow-melt lowered the water temperature to the point the fish became lethargic while I broiled and had to run for the parking lot to change into my jeans and drink some water. I had already been noticing that winters came later and lasted for a shorter duration while summers were definitely hotter. The heatwaves threatened inland fisheries in the Catskills that never had problems before with heat-induced fish kills. I started researching global warming and it didn't take too much to convince me that what I had been experiencing was at the very least a substantial break from what I had grown up with and heading one direction -- toward warming. There is so much natural evidence for observant outdoors-men -- the range of former primarily southern birds like Cardinals and Red-Bellied Woodpeckers that never wintered here are now established year-round in Northern climes. Range expansion due to global warming goes for plants and insects as well. I am so very tired of being told to ignore my lying eyes, to ignore common laws of physics and common sense, to accept ever more implausible explanations for obvious causes of events. This is truly the age of deception sponsored by the forces that constitute US corporate rule."

Funny, isn't it, that everyday experience corresponds with global warming.

Some readers do not understand that the measured rising temperatures are not products of a global warming model, but are actual measurements. The models can be as wrong as you like, and they have under-predicted the melting of the polar ice caps, but the actual measurements show warming. Are the Rothchilds paying or ordering all the measuring stations to report higher temperatures?

What is the point of telling me that you disagree with climate scientists? What does that mean? Are you more knowledgeable than climate scientists?

What is most amazing is those few who believe carbon industry climate science, but not other climate scientists. It is certainly the case that there is peer pressure in every discipline to stay within the paradigm of the profession. In economics, for example, just ask me or Michael Hudson about closed neoliberal minds. My Oxford professor's theory of chemical absorption was suppressed for 4 decades because it did not fit within the existing paradigm. There is no doubt that the climate scientists could be wrong that CO2 emissions are the cause of global warming. But their explanation is the best that we have and is the only explanation that we can do anything about. So, should we just ignore what we do know, or think we know, on the basis of faith that God or nature will turn it around? The consequence of the information being correct, yet doing nothing is apocalyptic.

Keep in mind, also, that the same peer pressure that exists in science and academic disciplines also exists among carbon industry-financed climate science. How many scientists warning about global warming do you know who are financed by the Koch brothers?
From The Nation

Judge Neil Gorsuch knows full well that he is attempting to take a place on the Supreme Court that should have gone to another jurist, Judge Merrick Garland. Shortly after Donald Trump nominated him, Gorsuch called Garland "out of respect." Later, Gorsuch described Garland to be an "outstanding judge."

Yet, Gorsuch sacrificed his own self respect last week, during his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing. The nominee refused to answer a simple question about the shameful treatment of Garland, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit judge who President Obama nominated to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the cabal of lawless partisans who corrupted the confirmation process in 2016.

The senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee asked Gorsuch a simple question about the refusal of the Senate to even consider the Garland nomination: "Do you think he was treated fairly by this committee, yes or no?"

"Senator," Gorsuch replied, "as I explained to you before, I can't get involved in politics. There's judicial canons that prevent me from doing that, and I think it would be very imprudent of judges to start commenting on political disputes between themselves, or the various branches."

That was a legalistically-worded, yet shamefully dishonest answer. Instead of making a case for his confirmation, Gorsuch's testimony strengthened the already powerful argument for rejecting this nomination.

When Minnesota Senator Al Franken raised the issue, Gorsuch continued the charade, announcing that: "There is a reason why judges don't clap at the State of the Union, and why I can't even attend a political caucus in my home state to register a vote in the equivalent of a primary."

Franken explained that, "I think you're allowed to talk about what happened to the last guy that was nominated in your position. You're allowed to say something without getting involved in politics. You can express an opinion on this." The senator pointed to the legitimate constitutional concerns that had been raised by the failure of the Republican-controlled Senate to even consider the Garland nomination.

Click Here to Read Whole Article
Morcha cadres picket Saptari election office

Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha (SLMM) cadres organised a gherao at Saptari District Election Office in Rajbiraj on Tuesday. The protest has affected the preparations being done for the local level elections.
Reprinted from neweconomicperspectives.org

The New York Times' editorial board published an editorial on March 12, 2017, praising Preet Bharara as the "Prosecutor Who Knew How to Drain a Swamp." I agree with the title. At all times when he was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (which includes Wall Street) Bharara knew how to drain the swamp. Further, he had the authority, the jurisdiction, the resources, and the testimony from whistleblowers like Richard Bowen (a co-founder of Bank Whistleblowers United (BWU)) to drain the Wall Street swamp. Bowen personally contacted Bharara beginning in 2005.

You were quoted in The Nation magazine as saying that if a whistleblower comes forward with evidence of wrongdoing, then you would be the first to prosecute [elite bankers].

I am writing this email to inform you that there is a body of evidence concerning wrongdoing, which the Department of Justice has refused to act on in order to determine whether criminal charges should be pursued.
See original here

By *Adam Johnson

As reports come in detailing the degree to which Donald Trump has escalated the "War on ISIS" -- and killed hundreds more civilians in the process -- this would seem like a good time for the country to sit back and examine the United States' approach to fighting "terrorism" and its recent iteration, the so-called Islamic State.

Not for the New York Times editorial board, which didn't take the wave of civilians deaths as a reason to question the wisdom of America's various "counter-terror," nation-building and regime-change projects in the Middle East, but instead chose to browbeat Congress into rubber-stamping a war that's been going on for almost three years.

The editorial, "Congress's Duty in the War With ISIS" (3/26/17), began with a false premise:

"But as the American military is doing its job, Congress is refusing to do its duty. Nearly three years into the war against ISIS, lawmakers have ducked their constitutional responsibility for making war by not passing legislation authorizing the anti-ISIS fight."

Congress does not have a "constitutional responsibility for making war"; it has a constitutional right to make war, which is to say it can authorize it or not authorize it. Congress is under no obligation -- legal, moral or otherwise -- to rubber-stamp existing wars started without its consent.

Presidents, on the other hand, do have a duty under the Constitution to get Congress's approval before waging war.

Originally launched in August 2014 under the auspices of "targeted," "limited" airstrikes to stop an impending genocide, the war on ISIS has since expanded to include four countries, 50,000+ bombs, 1,000 attacks on civilians and over $11 billion handed out to defense contractors.

The Times correctly notes that the one-page "War on Terror" AUMF used to justify the original launching of the war in 2001 is on thin legal ground. But instead of then interrogating the legality or wisdom of this initial act -- or whether or not the public would have gone along with it had they known it would eventually spiral into a global, never-ending war -- it simply uses this initial bait-and-switch as further reason for Congress to validate it:

"The Pentagon has operated under the 2001 authorization for the use of military force that was passed after Al Qaeda's 9/11 attacks. But that justification is of questionable legality because ISIS did not exist when the authorization was approved. "The United States can claim a legal basis for its involvement in Iraq because Baghdad sought American help... But there has been no such request from the Syrian government, which believes that a US-led attack on Raqqa would be illegitimate unless it were coordinated with Damascus, the chief Syrian negotiator to peace talks in Geneva, Bashar Ja'afari, said on Friday. Such coordination is unlikely, given how little the Pentagon thinks of President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian backers."

It's not clear why the Times is bringing up Iraq and Syria's differing stances on the US bombing their country; the approval of Iraqi government -- which was ranked "not free" by the US-funded Freedom House at the time it green-lighted the US to bomb it -- does not make a war unsanctioned by Congress any more constitutional. And a congressional OK would not make bombing a country's territory against its government's will any more legal under international law. But perhaps the key phrase here is "can claim a legal basis"; if an appearance of legality is more important than actually following the law, then any kind of official-looking action would be better than nothing.

And the Times (8/7/14) had no apparent problem with President Obama using the 2001 AUMF to launch the war in the first place. It did not then mention what it now calls the "questionable legality" of the authorization, instead playing up the ticking time bomb nature of the war effort, and even going out of its way to chide Obama for not following through on veiled threats to bomb the Assad regime the previous year.

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President Trump is a sad president in more ways than one" Not only is he not qualified to sit on the chair he occupies, but his idea that he was grown enough to occupy it has shown he has much growing to do, and worse of all, he doesn't have qualified advisors surrounding him, or at minimum they are incompetent.

The health care issue exposed all the above. The Republicans have since the passage of Obama Care 7 years ago promised their constituents they would repeal it and replace it with a superior program. Trump took up the trumpet during his campaign with promises that on the first day he would repeal Obama Care and within weeks a new and superior program would be approved by Congress.

Sixty-four days into his presidency Trump took his first major political black-eye administered to him by his own party. Not only did he fail to follow through "on my first day" but making it worse he had to finally admit he didn't have the votes in his own party to pass the health care reform.

Recollect the days of President Clinton who was constantly accused of making policy decisions after taking a reading which way the political winds were blowing, this was possible because Clinton had "political" advisors as well as "policy" advisors.

Not suggesting that Clinton was right on putting politics before national interests, simply that at the level of such an office, presidents should be surrounded by qualified political and policy advisors as should have Trump.

Had he, his political advisors would have taken a reading on the mood of the districts members of his own party represent. Doing so, he would have found that the one coalition he need in bulk to support his health reform legislation, was not susceptible to political strong-arm-tactics persuasion. Why? Because in those Congressional districts the Republican candidates won by a greater margin than President Trump did. In other words, they were stronger in their own Congressional District than the president. Further his advisors could have easily found that telephone calls, e-mails and letters to those district representatives were 100 to 1 opposing the change the White House and Speaker Ryan proposed.

This information alone would have indicated that the bill was dead on the water. Needless to say, the policy advisors were also way off their mark -- otherwise they would have known that the reason for the opposition was due to the bill itself.

Trump seems to be from the old-school of salesmanship that sometimes serves him well and other times leaves his face smeared with eggs and lately with even more rotten eggs. The old-school adage is "every sales person worth his salt will BS in the course of a sales presentation, but the real sales person will go out and turn the BS true. Otherwise you are not a sales person, you are a BS artist." His campaign rhetoric, positions and ideas on a multiple of issues -- build a wall, Mexico will pay -- China will obey or lose -- Japan, Korea and Europe need to pay more for protection and buy more from us -- US companies will return to the US and of course other grandiose promises were all part of the "sales presentation" with a lot of BS thrown in to win the votes.

But once the election was over and he won -- time to turn the BS into truth, but so far no truth simply more BS. The surprise is -- where in the hell are his advisors? Or are they as incompetent as the record of failure so far shows? Are such people doing right by the president or do they read him as a man who only wants to hear agreement with his words and ideas? If so, what kind of persons are these fools?

President Trump will now face the investigation of collusion with Russia by some of his top advisors that will further damage the office of the president. It would seem that these fools that surround President Trump are leading him (and the nation) into a very deep crevice which in turn lead to a period of terrible uncertainty, another major recession, and loss of faith in our democratic process and opened to civil disobedience as not seen since the Vietnam days.

President Trump must now make an immediate change in the direction his presidency is going by ridding his office of such incompetency, becoming more political astute with proper advisors, study and seek the best available advise on issues facing the nation before taking political action.

Or resign the Presidency.
by Franklin Lamb

The United Nations has recently reported that nearly one million Syrians now live under siege, a figure that is up from 393,000 Syrians at the same time last year. "Horror is now usual," UN Emergency Relief coordinator Stephen O'Brien said in a November statement before the UN Security Council in New York. "It is a level of violence and destruction that the world appears to consider normal for Syria and normal for the Syrian people."

Four year old Manal and three year old Mohamand-Kamal shown above in better days. Since July 2015 with an airtight encirclement reinforced by thousands of landmines. The result continues to be widespread starvation, with residents surviving on foliage and scraps. Like literally hundreds among the thousands of children still trapped in Madaya, the children are fading and weakening from malnutrition and related illnesses without much to eat for many months. More about Manal and Kamal at: Will proxy politics bring death for Madaya siblings Manal and Mohammed-Kamal? (Above photo of Manal and Kamal courtesy of Sahar, mother of the babies. She has not seen them for nearly one year)

A total of 56 Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) trucks, in coordination with the United Nations (UN) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) finally entered nearly two years long besieged Madaya last week.

After five months with very little to eat, almost no medicines or medical care, the 40,000 residents of Madaya, a former holiday destination for many in Syria, Lebanon and the Gulf, located 26km northwest of Damascus received some international aid. On 3/15.2017 7,800 food packages that included canned beans and hummus, lunch meat, peas, cooking oil, olive oil, thyme, beans, sugar, rice lentils, bulgur and flour arrived. No fuel or cooking gas was included in the aid delivery, although Madaya residents regularly request these much needed items. Some basic medicines were allowed in and children's medicines, mineral salts, vitamins, anti-inflammation medication and limited surgical supplies.

Unfortunately, for the dozens of Madaya residents in active kidney failure due to malnutrition, dialysis supplies, which have long been urgently requested of the UN to treat scores of Madaya residents like Manal and Kamal shown above, did not arrive.

According to ICRC spokeswoman Ingy Sedky, last week: "The people of Madaya have been suffering for years and there must be a regularity to bring them aid that can save their lives," "Waiting four or five months is not a solution." The ICRC is "keeping a dialogue" open with the Syrian regime in order to regulate access Sedky said adding that "an aid delivery every now and then will never solve the problem."

Madaya Local Council Representative Firas al-Hussein, among others has reported that Shia militia fighters from a few countries still surrounding Madaya are shooting residents who approach food distribution points set up recently by the UN, ICRC and SARCS. Mr. al-Hussein advised this observer a few days ago that "sectarian snipers from four countries shoot at anyone who tries to reach the distribution centers."

As a result, the local council has been forced to stop distributing food parcels to nearly half of the 40,000 residents in the besieged town, which received its first UN-sponsored aid delivery in nearly six months on March 14, 2017. Of the six residents who were shot trying to approach and collect a family box of aid, two are dead, and one is comatose, claims Mr. al-Hussein.

He added that "The snipers, who ring the town along with thousands of landmines, shoot at anyone who attempts to flee from their blockade."

Even since fighters surrounded the former resort town in July 2015, more than 20 Madaya residents have been killed by snipers and landmines, according to a July 2016 report by Physicians for Human Rights.



The above warehouse in north Madaya, was reportedly hit by artillery shells on March 15. An increasingly common "surrender of starve" vaporization of food and medicines. Photo courtesy of Firas al-Hussein.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which helped deliver the aid on 3/14/2017, has not commented on the shootings. They claim that if they do they may be expelled from Syria, so reports al-Hussein.

If the sniping continues, local council members plan to begin distributing the remaining food packages in the middle of the night. So far, as noted above, six residents have been shot by snipers. Two have died and one is lying in the hospital, comatose. One man, from neighboring Baqin, was shot when the UN convoy entered. The next day, while the aid trucks were unloading the supplies, several young men were shot.

Local media has reported that residents are being targeted not just by snipers but also by artillery fire. When asked by this observer how has this affected the local council's ability to distribute aid packages to residents, one resident replied: "We have not distributed any food packages to the northern section of the town because snipers are shooting at anyone who tries to reach the distribution centers. Residents are targeted by artillery fire, too."

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Irony is a widely misused word, as illustrated by Alanis Morrissettes hit song from the 90s. That said, like obscenity, most people know it when they see it. And on Monday, we saw it.

Former Obama aide and Hillary Clinton booster Jim Messina sent out a tweet soliciting donations for a former Obama staffer who is currently facing a serious health issue, and potential bankruptcy under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Dear @OFA world. @WillLeaverton was a great 2012 staffer & battling tough medical condition. Join me in helping https://t.co/bC8Rn2kKZ0  Jim Messina (@Messina2012) March 27, 2017

Why is that ironic, you ask?

Well, Messina, a former aide to Montana Senator Max Baucus, served as Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Operations under President Obama where he became the unofficial enforcer for the neoliberal elements within the administration. He was a key player in ensuring the Affordable Care Act included neither a single-payer plan or even a public option.

As The Nation reported back in 2011, Messina used his influence to place his old boss at the center of the health care debate, helping to secure his gang of six senators to write the legislation which would eventually become the Affordable Care Act. In retrospect, this move was widely viewed as a misstep as it slowed the process down, and opened it up to the influence of industry. And yet, while this was going on, Messina took on the role of bully-boy to shield Baucus from progressive critics and scuttle efforts to reform the bill by groups like Health Care for America Now (HCAN).

As the article explains, When they were negotiating special deals with industry, Messina and Baucus chief of staff Jon Selib were also pushing major healthcare companies and trade associations to pour millions of dollars into TV ads defending the bill.

Messinas work against government-funded health care did not stop after he left the White House in 2011. During the 2016 Democratic primary, he actively worked for former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton against her opponent Senator Bernie Sanders. One of the issues he targeted the Vermont upstart on was his plan for single-payer health care, telling Amy Lynn Smith of Electablog the following:

Bernie Sanders is doing a very interesting political play, trying to run against Barack Obama. Hes out there taking shots at Obamacare and saying we need a single-payer system, when a huge number of Democrats  and especially in Michigan  fought so very hard to pass Obamacare. Millions of people now have coverage, and better coverage, and much better guarantees and rights and access to preventive care. Bernie seems to be trying to pick a fight with it and, really, its one of the most confusing political moves Ive seen recently.

On the other hand, youve got Secretary Clinton, who has been working on these issues since the 1990s and understands them very well, can speak very authentically. I was in the Oval Office branch when the President signed the bill and watched Secretary Clinton hug him and congratulate him on the laws passage. She knew how hard this was. And I think she is doing a very good job talking about her support for it and how we can strengthen it. I think thats a very reasonable discussion.

Following Donald Trumps victory in November, many outside observers have noted that Sanders would have been the stronger candidate.

In any case, here we are today, shortly after the Republican health care proposal failed spectacularly. At this point, Messinas disingenuous attacks on Sanders and progressive policy have been laid bare. In the wake of the GOPs failure, the plight of his friend is a stark reminder that you can slap lipstick on the pig that is private insurance, but its still just a pig. Our current mode of health insurance failed his friend, and faced with that reality, Messina turned to a different form ofyou guessed itthe public option.

Perhaps now would be a good time for Messina to get on board with Senator Sanders renewed push for single-payer.
Peter Dutton has been called many things  mostly, a potato. His role as Immigration Minister means the buck stops with him on asylum seeker mistreatment, operational crises at Nauru and Manus Island, and the shroud of unnecessary secrecy that clouds all on water matters. Name calling might be childish, but my god its satisfying.

Heres a new one to add to your moniker repertoire: Peter Dutton, feral dick.

That pic was taken by Griffith University student Priya De, who was one of about 20 people outside Duttons offices in Brisbane yesterday protesting the imminent deportation of 60-year-old Iraqi refugee Saeed (not his real name).

Saeed and his brother came to Australia in 2012, fleeing persecution in Iraq on religious grounds (they come from a religious minority, and supporters say the local head of their ethnic group was murdered in a suicide attack two years ago).

Saeeds brothers refugee claim was accepted, but Saeeds was not, which the Refugee Action Coalition says was on a technicality.

The same experiences in Iraq led Saeed and his brother to escape together, RAC spokesperson Ian Rintoul told the Daily Telegraph. The fact he is being deported on a technicality when his brother has been recognised as a refugee is yet another example of Duttons contempt for life and safety.



Saeed was transferred to Villawood Detention Centre on March 23, and had spent the previous three weeks on hunger strike in light of his looming deportation. Protests have been going on around the country.

His solicitor, Allison Battison, released a statement last week upon the move to say her client was a family man who wanted to live out his days in Australia, and was overwhelmed and grateful for the support shown him by the Australian community.

He only asks that the government hear his full story before making a decision to send him back to a country in which he, as a member of a persecuted minority group, faces violence, she said.

Rintoul confirmed to PEDESTRIAN.TV that despite fears, Saeed remains in the country and has a number of medical appointments today.

Anyway. Dope sign good, asylum seeker mistreatment bad.

Photo: Priya De / Supplied.


Mini Bar Details:

 L-handle: TIG-welded steel tubing, 3.8" x 1.3" (97 x 33.5mm), 1.4" driver - 3 places

 Durable electroless nickel finish

 10 standard 1/4" bits: (carrier holds 6) 2, 2.5, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8mm, Torx T25, Phillips, flat screwdriver

 Bits and L-handle secured by powerful neodymium magnets

 Safe, rounded shape when stowed

 Weight: 112 grams (4 ounces)tool carrier and 6 bits

 MSRP: $34.99 USD

Magnets on either end of the tool carriage lock the L-wrench snugly into position when stowed.



Stored bits reside inside the L-handle's holes. Powerful magnets also keep the bits in their proper receptacles.

Ride Report



Barstow Tire Lever Details:

 Anodized aluminum cap with internal expander wedges

 Replaceable, modified Quik Stik tire lever

 15.9mm OD fits inside most aluminum and carbon handlebars

 Requires 5mm Allen key to install/remove from handlebar

 Colors: red, black and silver

 Weight: 30 grams (1.1 ounces)

 Replacement lever: $11.99 USD

 MSRP: $39.99 USD (includes two end caps, one with tire lever)

Mineral Design image



The Barstow tire lever remained rattle free. A 5mm Allen hex expands the wedges inside the handlebar.

Ride Report

Barstow ChainTool Details:

 O-ring prevents swivel handle from bouncing inside handlebar

 Long-wearing cast steel body

 Replaceable pin plunger doubles as the expander bolt

 Magnetic quick-link storage feature

 Requires 5mm Allen key to operate

 Weight:47 grams (1. 4 ounces)one side

 Colors: Red, black, silver

 MSRP: $44.99 USD (tool including second end-cap.)

Quick link storage feature.  Mineral Design image

The chain breaker operates with a 5mm Allen Key A tiny magnet between the holes retains both sides of a quick link.

Ride Report

Pinkbike's Take:

Mineral Design has obviously put some time and engineering into their first three tool offerings. My favorite is the Mini Bar because its L-shape driver makes repairs much simpler than fussing with a folding kit's stubby, hinged tools. I am a fan of the Barstow duo, partly because they are so functional, but mostly because of their elevated cool factor. Hidden behind the handlebar end caps, they remind me of my first Swiss Army knifewaiting in my pocket for that moment when a friend says: "Gosh, I sure wish I had a magnifying glass and some tweezers right now."  RC

Justin Dodd and Mike Manzione founded Mineral Design with three products: The "Mini Bar" multi-tool and the "Barstow System," which is a pair of handlebar end-capsone that houses a chain breaker, and another tipped with a Quik-Stik tire lever. Each is sold separately, but I thought I'd lump the trio together, because they are well made and so cleverly designed that, after you bought one, you'd probably be inspired to collect the setif not for their intended purpose, then for trail-side show and tell. Mineral's tools can be purchased directly from their web store , with prices ranging from $34.99 USD for the Minibar to $54.99 for the Barstow chain breaker and tire lever combination.Mineral TIG-welds the Mini Bar's L-handle from lightweight steel tubing, which is then nickel plated. All three ends of the L-handle accept standard 1/4-inch tool bits, retained by powerful neodymium magnets. The Mini Bar comes with ten popular bits, so you can customize its six-tool plastic carrier to suit your bike's hardware. Like the L-handle, the carrier has magnets to retain each of the six bits, and magnets on each end of the tool carriage secure it to the L-handle when stowed. The advantage of the Mini bar is that it offers much more leverage than a folding tool for jobs like removing a pedal or a crank arm, and far more dexterity for accessing hard-to-reach hardware or for tedious jobs, like changing brake rotors. Weight is 112 grams for the kit, including six tool bits.Mineral's Mini Bar tool feels good in the hand and is a joy to work with. The kit is heavier than I would like it to be, but the trade-off is its usefulness in the most common situations that give cause to reach for a multi-tool when I am away from my workshop. I can use foot pressure on the sturdy L-handle to remove a stubborn pedal, and I can spin the long end of the L-handle like a slim screwdriver to adjust rear derailleur stop-screws, tighten a pedal cleat, access fussy seat rail clamps, or to speed up the task of switching brake levers (I ride moto style). What the Mini bar lacks are the seldom-used essentials that come on better folding multi-tools, like spoke keys, valve core removers, and a chain breaker. You'll have to carry those extras or wager that you won't need them. That said, the Mini Bar is like using a pro-quality tool while making trail-side repairs, which is a treat.The Barstow system begins with a pair of machined aluminum bar ends that grip the inside of the handlebar with expandable wedges. The wedges fit most handlebar inner diameters and are secured with a five-millimeter Allen key, which means that you'll need to have at least one tool on the outside of the handlebar to access your secret stash on the inside. The tire lever is the famous Quik-Stik, which is the weapon of choice for tire-changing competitions because only a single tool is required to lift the tire bead free from the rim and then off in one powerful sweeping motion. Should you break your modified Quik-Stik, Mineral Designs sells replacements for $11.99. Weight is pegged at 30 grams (1.1 ounces) and bar ends are available in red, black or silver.Mineral Design's bar-end tire lever is not ground-breaking, as there are a number of similar products available. What makes theirs stand out is partnering with the Quik-Stik lever, which is the only solo tire lever I have used that can do the job well. I can work most tires off with my bare hands, but having an emergency lever in the handlebar is insurance that I won't get caught in the middle of nowhere with a stubborn tire and no easy solution to remove it. If you ride heavy DH tires on your trail bike, the Barstow could be a day saver. The downside is that a conventional tire lever is easy to carry and extremely lightweightabout a third that of the Mineral bar-end. So, forty bucks to have a tire lever stashed in your handlebar is more stylistic than practical.As chain tools go, the Barstow option is one of the better solutions for riders who want to at least appear that they travel light. It's a class act, from the O-ring insert that keeps the swivel handle in position while you are using it (and rattle free when you're not), to its sturdy cast steel body. The swivel handle has a magnetized quick-link storage feature that retains the link, unlocked. Operating the chain tool requires a five millimeter Allen key, and the pin plunger doubles as the bar-end's expander bolt. Weight is 47 grams (add another 15 grams for the second end-cap that comes with the kit), and the MSRP is $44.99.Anyone who has wrestled with a bad chain tool will appreciate a good one. The Barstow chain tool operates smoothly, so its user can successfully press a pin through a side plate for an exact distance, and it doesn't require excessive torque to manipulate. Much of that is due to Mineral's choice to use a steel body, which creates a smoother sliding surface for the threaded plunger than a lighter-weight aluminum body would. The diameter of the chain breaker body interfered with one house-brand carbon handlebar in my collection, which reminded me to mention that the Barstow's expanding plug design may not interface with some handlebars, and grip designs with closed ends. I had no issues with the swivel handle clanking around inside the bar, but I question how long that O-ring is going to last in the Southern California heat. For the minimalist rider, the Barstow chain breaker allows you to stash a pro-quality tool discreetly inside your handlebar, so all you need in your pocket is a small, basic folding kit.
WSOPE 111,111 One Drop High Roller Hits 50 Deposits

March 28, 2017 Katie Callahan

Kings Casino announced its first European 111,111 One Drop High Roller to kick off at the World Series of Poker Europe in November, but not before noting that 50 players had already paid the 11,000 deposit to play.

These kind of numbers are something that is surely unprecedented in an event of this kind this far away from it starting, said Leon Tsoukernik, owner of Kings Casino. With a cap of 111 players, we nearly have half the field with well over six months to go!

The One Drop, the official charity partner for WSOP, starts Nov. 3 and will guarantee 10,000,000 in prize pool winnings for this flagship event and 500,000 for the Little One for One Drop Nov. 1-2.

It was this news of such strong pre-registration that prompted Kings to add the 10,000,000 guarantee, Tsoukernik said. My advice now is simple: Register and pay your deposit as soon as possible to avoid missing out on a seat!

Of those on the list for the high roller are notables Martin Kabrhel, Tony G, Tsoukernik, Antonio Esfandiari, Paul Newey, Fedor Holz, Patrik Antonius, Bertrand ElkY Grospellier, Daniel Jungleman Cates, Phil Ivey, Pierre Neuville, Rainer Kempe, Phil Hellmuth, Sergio Aido, Nick Petrangelo, Talal Shakerchi, Boris Becker, Charlie Carrel and Adrian Mateos.

Hellmuth lost too much money playing poker in Vegas once and handed Guy Laliberte some cash for One Drop. Laliberte is the creator of the One Drop and founder of Cirque du Soleil who last year made the Big One for One Drop Invitational for recreational players only.

Now, the poker world is all in for One Drop! Ive heard so much about Leon and Kings Casino and look forward to checking it out in person, he said. I will be going for the WSOP Circuit and then on to WSOP Europe and naturally I will be playing both the High Roller and the Little One for such a brilliant cause and the bracelets up for grabs.

One Drop has raised over $18,500,000 since 2012 to fund water access projects worldwide. Hoping to hit the $20,000,000 milestone this year, tournament organizers will continue to contribute to water access, sanitation and hygiene causes. Already, the initiatives have positively affected nearly 200,000 people in India, West Africa and Latin America, according to a joint release from WSOP and King's Casino.

Kings Casino has a multi-year partnership with the WSOP, with two tournaments in Rozvadov planned and more in the series planned.

Here's the WSOPE schedule:

Date Time Event Buy-in Guarantee Info Oct. 19 2 p.m. Event #1: 1,100 No-Limit Hold'em MONSTER STACK 1,100 500,000 Flight A (3 starting flights) Re-entry allowed into next available flight(s) Oct. 20 2 p.m. Event #1B - 1,100 No-Limit Hold'em MONSTER STACK 1,100 500,000 Starting Flight B (3 starting flights). May re-enter Flight C if eliminated. Oct. 21 2 p.m. Event #1C - 1,100 No-Limit Hold'em MONSTER STACK 1,100 500,000 Last available starting flight. (Event has three starting flights). Oct. 23 2 p.m. Event #2: 550 Pot-Limit Omaha 550 - Flight A. (Two starting flights) Unlimited re-entry during open registration period. This event plays 8-Handed. Oct. 24 2 p.m. Event #2B - 550 Pot-Limit Omaha 550 - Second and final starting flight. (Event has two starting flights) Play is 8-Handed. Oct. 25 3 p.m. Event #3: 1,100 No-Limit Hold'em Super Turbo BOUNTY 1,100 - Every player is a 300 bounty. Unlimited re-entry during open registration period. Oct. 26 3 p.m. Event #4: 1,650 No-Limit Hold'em 6-Handed 1,650 - Single re-entry during open registration period. Oct. 27 12 p.m. Event #5: THE COLOSSUS - 550 No-Limit Hold'em 550 2,000,000 Flight B. (10 starting flights). One re-entry per flight. Oct. 28 12 p.m. Event #5C: THE COLOSSUS - 550 No-Limit Hold'em 550 2,000,000 Flight C. (10 starting flights). One re-entry per flight. Oct. 28 2 p.m. Event #6: 2,200 Pot-Limit Omaha 2,200 - 8-Handed. Unlimited re-entry during open registration period. Oct. 28 6 p.m. Event #5D: THE COLOSSUS - 550 No-Limit Hold'em 550 2,000,000 Flight D. (10 starting flights). One re-entry per flight. Oct. 29 12 p.m. Event #5E: THE COLOSSUS - 550 No-Limit Hold'em 550 2,000,000 Flight E. (10 starting flights). One re-entry per flight. Oct. 29 6 p.m. Event #5F: THE COLOSSUS - 550 No-Limit Hold'em 550 2,000,000 Flight F. (10 starting flights). One re-entry per flight. Oct. 30 12 p.m. Event #5G: THE COLOSSUS - 550 No-Limit Hold'em 550 2,000,000 Flight H. (10 starting flights). One re-entry per flight. Oct. 31 12 p.m. Event #5I: THE COLOSSUS - 550 No-Limit Hold'em 550 2,000,000 Flight I. (10 starting flights). One re-entry per flight. Oct. 31 2 p.m. Event #7: 1,650 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better 1,650 - Unlimited re-entry during open registration period. Oct. 31 6 p.m. Event #5J: THE COLOSSUS - 550 No-Limit Hold'em 550 2,000,000 Flight J. (10 starting flights). One re-entry per flight. Nov. 1 2 p.m. Event 8: 1,100 Little One for One Drop No-Limit Holdem 1,100 500,000 Flight A (two starting flights). Unlimited re-entry during open registration period. 50 of each entry goes to One Drop charity. Nov. 1 3 p.m. Event #9: 25,000 No-Limit Hold'em High Roller 25,000 - Unlimited re-entry during open registration period. Nov. 2 2 p.m. Event #8B: 1,100 Little One for One Drop No-Limit Hold'em 1,100 500,000 Flight B (two starting flights). Unlimited re-entry during open registration period. 50 of each entry goes to One Drop charity. Nov. 3 2 p.m. 111,111 High Roller for One Drop 111,111 10,000,000 Unlimited re-entry during open registration period. Player cap of 111 unique entries. Charity component. Nov. 4 12 p.m. Event #11: 10,300 No-Limit Hold'em MAIN EVENT 10,300 4,000,000 Flight A (two starting flights). Single re-entry. Nov. 5 12 p.m. Event #11B: 10,300 No-Limit Hold'em MAIN EVENT 10,300 4,000,000 Flight B (two starting flights). Single re-entry.

Player List for the High Roller for One Drop:

1 Martin Kabrhel 13 Paul Newey 25 Reserved player 37 Reserved player 49 Reserved player 2 Scott Hanna 14 Ali Reza Fatehi 26 Sam Trickett 38 Christian Christner 50 Reserved player 3 Martin Burda 15 Amir Hossein 27 Phil Ivey 39 Nick Petrangelo 51 Tomi Brouk 4 Tony G 16 Andreas Eiler 28 Quirin Zech 40 Talal Shakerchi 52 Jan Schwippert 5 Teodor Lejsek 17 Fedor Holz 29 Reserved player 41 Christoph Vogelsang 53 Eugene Katchalov 6 Ilya Bulychev 18 Patrik Antonius 30 Pierre Neuville 42 Adrian Mateos 54 Gleb Larionov 7 Leon Tsoukernik 19 Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier 31 Rainer Kempe 43 Sergio Aido 55 Vladimir Troyanovskiy 8 Rob Yong 20 Reserved player 32 Steffen Sontheimer 44 Boris Becker 56 Phil Hellmuth 9 Reserved player 21 Reserved player 33 Julian Thomas 45 Charlie Carrel 57 [Removed:17] 10 Jan Barta 22 Reserved player 34 Koray Aldermir 46 Reserved player 11 Andrew Pantling 23 Daniel "Jungleman" Cates 35 Claas Segebrecht 47 Reserved player 12 Antonio Esfandiari 24 Bill Perkins 36 Stefan Schillhabel 48 Reserved player

*Reserved players did not wish for their names to be disclosed or have yet to pay the deposit.

Other interested players can email [email protected] to grab their seats.
Writings on the Wall

Many years ago, I got a phone call from Troy Torres at a political candidates office. He had seen an election estimate I had written and didn Read morePower of polls and weekend talks
PR-Inside.com: 2017-03-28 17:43:01

(Article 14 of the law of May 2, 2007 on the disclosure of significant shareholdings)

Mortsel, Belgium - March 28, 2017 - 5.40 p.m. CET

According to Agfa-Gevaert NV's bylaws, the threshold as from which a shareholding needs to be disclosed, has been set at 3%, 5% and a multiple of 5%.

In conformity with the Law of May 2, 2007 regarding the disclosure of significant shareholdings in listed companies, Agfa-Gevaert (Euronext: AGFB) discloses the following declarations:

Norges Bank has announced on March 23, 2017, that it held a stake in Agfa-Gevaert as per March 22, 2017 of 7,781,973 voting rights or 4.53% (denominator is 171,851,042), thus crossing the threshold of 5% downwards.

On March 27, 2017 Norges Bank announced that it holds a stake in Agfa-Gevaert as per March 24, 2017 of 9,206,471 voting rights or 5.36% (denominator is 171,851,042), thus crossing the threshold of 5% upwards again.

Norges Bank is the central bank of Norway. As part of its central bank activities, Norges Bank manages Norway's foreign exchange reserves and is responsible for the management of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG). The formal responsibility for the management of the GPFG is placed with the Ministry of Finance, but is delegated to Norges Bank. All investments are executed by Norges Bank acting as principal and all holdings are registered in the name of Norges Bank.

Notifications of important shareholdings to be made according to the Law of

May 2, 2007 or Agfa-Gevaert NV's bylaws, should be sent to viviane.dictus@agfa.com.

About Agfa

The Agfa-Gevaert Group develops, manufactures and distributes an extensive range of analogue and digital imaging systems and IT solutions, mainly for the printing industry and the healthcare sector, as well as for specific industrial applications.

Agfa's headquarters and parent company are located in Mortsel, Belgium.

The Agfa-Gevaert Group achieved a turnover of 2,537 million euro in 2016.

Contact:

Viviane Dictus

Director Corporate Communications

tel. ++32 0 3 444 7124

e-mail: viviane.dictus@agfa.com

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: Agfa-Gevaert via Globenewswire


Nepal, India sign new oil supply agreement

Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) on Monday signed a new petroleum supply agreement that is expected to smoothen supplies of petrol, diesel and cooking gas from India.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-03-28 13:15:04

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FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for King's Bay Gold Corporation--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Vancouver, British Columbia (FSCWire) - King's Bay Gold Corporation (TSX Venture:KBG). has issued a press release with the following headline:Kings Bay Sells Menary Gold ProjectTo 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 King's Bay Gold Corporation, 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/King's Bay Gold CorporationSource: King's Bay Gold Corporation (TSX Venture: KBG)Date: March 28, 2017Time: 7:00 AM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of King's Bay Gold Corporation 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.)
PR-Inside.com: 2017-03-28 16:35:02

Expands opportunity to deliver Misys FusionBanking Loan IQ, a single solution that enables lenders to consolidate, automate and optimise corporate and commercial lending

Linium Achieves InFusion Partner Programme Status from Misys

Misys

Caroline Duff

Senior PR Manager

caroline.duff@misys.com

or

Linium

Sarah Noonan

Marketing Director

sarah.noonan@linium.com

Linium, a world-class provider of business services that empower the entire enterprise, announced today it has joined the Misys InFusion partner programme. Misys, a global financial software company, will expand its opportunities to deliver the worlds leading solution for servicing commercial loans.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201703280060

(Photo: Business Wire)

Leveraging the rich functionality of FusionBanking Loan IQ, Linium provides financial institutions with a single platform for bilateral, commercial and syndicated loan servicing, trading and settlement. The unified platform allows banks to consolidate lending lines onto a single servicing solution to lower total cost of ownership, drive transparency across lending operations, and enable more profitable growth by tightening risk control, and generating more timely and accurate data across the loan book.

Linium is delivering significant results through its partnership with Misys, including successfully leading the implementation of a major system rollout for a global bank. Linium consolidated and moved all syndicated and participation deals from legacy commercial lending systems into FusionBanking Loan IQ, while also decommissioning all legacy loan systems and sub-systems. Other FusionBanking Loan IQ clients have now selected Linium to execute their latest version upgrade in multiple locations across North America and EMEA.

We are delighted to be awarded partner status with Misys, in recognition of our track record of delivering successful FusionBanking Loan IQ implementations for multiple clients, said Gary Huang, Managing Partner at Linium. In leveraging the resources of one of the worlds premier financial software companies, we are well-positioned to assist financial institutions in modernizing their commercial lending operations, reducing cost and redundancy, and accelerating efficiency. This capability fits perfectly with Liniums consulting expertise and provides additional digital business solutions to serve the needs of our clients.

Around 70% of our FusionBanking Loan IQ client base uses the platform to consolidate lending lines, as it delivers the broadest servicing functionality for all types of bilateral, specialised and syndicated loans, said Brian Gibson, Vice President, Partners and Ecosystem at Misys. It is a pleasure to recognize Linium as a partner in our InFusion programme. Its team of experts has in-depth experience with the FusionBanking Loan IQ product, domain knowledge in the commercial lending business, and the ability to implement seamlessly around the world. We look forward to working with them to continue to drive efficiency and profitability in corporate and commercial banking.

-ENDS-

About Misys

We provide the broadest, deepest portfolio of financial services software on the market. Our solutions cover retail and corporate banking, lending, treasury, capital markets, investment management and enterprise risk. With more than 2,000 customers across 125 countries our team of domain experts and partners has an unparalleled ability to address industry requirements at both a global and local level. We deliver market leading solutions by putting customer needs at the centre of everything we do. We offer a unique componentised, open architecture to enable our clients to innovate, connect and expand their existing services and increase value faster. To learn more about how our Fusion software portfolio can deliver a holistic view of your operations, and help you to solve your most complex challenges, please visit www.misys.com and follow @MisysFS on Twitter. For the latest news, interviews, videos and features from the financial technology industry visit www.fusionwire.net.

About Linium

Linium is a globally recognized firm with 17 years of experience in consulting. We deliver the most comprehensive solutions encompassing people, process, and platforms to change the way people work. With our deep levels of expertise, we can work across multiple organizational boundaries, business units and product lines, from the front office to the back office. Our experts have an intimate understanding of FusionBanking Loan IQ and domain knowledge in the commercial lending business. Linium performs a wide variety of Loan IQ initiatives ranging from full blown implementations to upgrades and loan migrations. We leverage decades of best practices to deliver successful engagements. The bottom line  we help our clients achieve operational efficiencies through modernization and automation. For more information, visit www.linium.com/financialservices.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201703280060
PR-Inside.com: 2017-03-28 14:00:08

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FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for 92 Resources Corp.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Vancouver, BC (FSCWire) - 92 Resources Corp. (TSX Venture:NTY). has issued a press release with the following headline:92 Resources Corp. Initiates Metallurgical Program for the Hidden Lake Lithium ProjectTo 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 92 Resources 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/92 Resources Corp.Source: 92 Resources Corp. (TSX Venture: NTY)Date: March 28, 2017Time: 8:00 AM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of 92 Resources 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.)
PR-Inside.com: 2017-03-28 13:04:02

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 28, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Skyharbour Resources Ltd. (TSX-V:SYH) (OTCQB:SYHBF) (Frankfurt:SC1P) (the "Company"), in conjunction with Preston Uranium Project partner Clean Commodities Corp. ("Clean Commodities"), is pleased to announce the execution of an Option Agreement (the "Agreement") with Azincourt Uranium Inc., ("Azincourt") which provides Azincourt an earn-in option to acquire a 70% working interest in a portion of the Preston Uranium Project known as the East Preston Property. Under the Agreement, Azincourt will issue 4,500,000 listed common shares and contribute cash and exploration expenditure consideration totaling up to CAD $3,500,000 in exchange for up to 70% of the applicable property area over three years. Of the $3,500,000 in project consideration, $1,000,000 will be in cash payments to Skyharbour and Clean Commodities, as well as $2,500,000 in exploration expenditures over a three year period. Azincourt will be issuing Skyharbour and Clean Commodities each 2,250,000 common shares upfront for a total issuance of 4,500,000 common shares.

Preston Uranium Project Claims Map:

http://skyharbourltd.com/_resources/maps/SYH_Patterson_Lake_Area_Promo_20161212_blue_hi_res.pdf

Skyharbour's President and CEO, Jordan Trimble, commented: "Skyharbour continues to execute on its business model by adding value to its project base in the Athabasca Basin through focused mineral exploration at its flagship Moore Uranium Project as well as utilizing the prospect generator model to advance its other projects with strategic partners. We are excited to have the opportunity to work with a new partner in Azincourt led by a dynamic management and technical team. This Agreement also complements the recent option agreement signed with industry-leader AREVA Resources Canada and together the two option agreements combine for $9,800,000 in total exploration expenditures over six years, as well as $1,700,000 in total cash payments and the issuance of 4,500,000 shares of Azincourt split between Skyharbour and Clean Commodities in return for 70% interests in the respective property areas. The Preston Uranium Project is a strategic, district-scale property with robust exploration upside potential throughout and is located near recent high-grade discoveries in the Patterson Lake area including NexGen Energy's Arrow deposit, Fission Uranium's Triple R deposit, and the Spitfire discovery."

Highlights of the Option Agreement:

Azincourt may earn a 70% interest in East Preston totaling 25,329 hectares, which represents the eastern region of the larger 121,148 hectare Preston Project through the upfront issuance of 4,500,000 shares as well as $3,500,000 of total project consideration over three years, including up to $2,500,000 of exploration work programs and $1,000,000 of cash payments to Skyharbour and Clean Commodities to be split equally.

If carried to completion, a tripartite joint venture would be formed being 70% as to Azincourt and 30% as equally divided between Skyharbour and Clean Commodities.

The Preston Uranium Project is one of the largest tenure positions in the Patterson Lake region and currently consists of 121,148 hectares strategically located near NexGen Energy Ltd.'s high-grade Arrow deposit hosted on its Rook-1 property and Fission Uranium Corp.'s Triple R deposit located within their PLS Project area.

In addition to this Agreement on the 25,329 hectare Preston East Property, Skyharbour recently announced that it signed an option agreement with AREVA Resources Canada whereby AREVA may earn up to a 70% interest in a separate 49,635 hectare portion of the Preston Project.

Skyharbour and Clean Commodities will continue to retain ownership of the balance of the Preston Uranium Project outside of the ground currently optioned to AREVA and Azincourt consisting of a further 46,184 hectares of mineral tenure.

Option Agreement Terms for the East Preston Project:

Under the terms of the Option Agreement, Azincourt may acquire up to a 70% interest in the East Preston Property by incurring an aggregate of $2,500,000 of staged exploration expenditures, pay a total of $1,000,000 in staged cash payments and issue 4,500,000 common shares to Skyharbour and Clean Commodities as follows:

Date Cash Payments Exploration Expenditures Common Shares On execution of Option Agreement $ 150,000 $ 0 4,500,000 On or before March 27, 2018 $ 150,000 $ 250,000 0 On or before March 27, 2019 $ 300,000 $ 750,000 0 On or before March 27, 2020 $ 400,000 $ 1,500,000 0 TOTAL $ 1,000,000 $ 2,500,000 4,500,000

Note: Cash and share consideration will be divided equally as between Skyharbour and Clean Commodities.

Preston Uranium Property Map and Regional Exploration Corridors:

http://skyharbourltd.com/_resources/SYH_Regional_Corridors.jpg

The significant potential of the Western Athabasca Basin has been highlighted by recent discoveries in the area by NexGen Energy Ltd. (Arrow), Fission Uranium Corp. (Triple R) and a joint-venture consisting of Cameco Corporation, AREVA Resources Canada Inc. and Purepoint Uranium Group Inc. (Spitfire). In excess of $4.7-million in expenditures on the entire Preston Uranium Project have been incurred to date, including over $2 million at East Preston. This exploration has consisted of ground gravity, airborne and ground electromagnetics, radon, soil, silt, biogeochem, lake sediment, and geological mapping surveys, as well as two exploratory drill programs. Several high-priority drill target areas associated with multiple prospective exploration corridors have been successfully delineated through this methodical, multiphased exploration initiative, which has culminated in an extensive, proprietary geological database for the project area.

Furthermore, on March 9th, 2017, Skyharbour announced an option agreement with AREVA Resources Canada which provides AREVA an earn-in option to acquire up to a 70% working interest in a 49,635 hectare portion of the total 121,148 hectare Preston Uranium Project (see News Release dated March 9th, 2017). Under the agreement, AREVA will contribute cash and exploration program consideration totaling up to CAD $8,000,000 in exchange for up to 70% of the applicable project area over six years.

There is an underlying 2% NSR on the East Preston Property and AREVA Resources Canada will retain a Right of First Refusal on the any future proposed sale of East Preston. The parties' obligations to close the Option Agreement are subject to the satisfaction of the usual conditions precedent including the receipt of all necessary approvals of the TSX Venture Exchange. Skyharbour is paying no finder's fee in connection with this transaction.



Qualified Person:

The technical information in this news release has been prepared in accordance with the Canadian regulatory requirements set out in National Instrument 43-101 and reviewed and approved by Richard Kusmirski, P.Geo., M.Sc., Skyharbour's Head Technical Advisor and a Director, as well as a Qualified Person.

About Skyharbour Resources Ltd.:

Skyharbour holds an extensive portfolio of uranium and thorium exploration projects in Canada's Athabasca Basin and is well positioned to benefit from improving uranium market fundamentals with five drill-ready projects. In July 2016, Skyharbour acquired an option from Denison Mines to acquire 100% of the Moore Uranium Project which is located 20 kilometres east of Denison's Wheeler River project and 39 kilometres south of Cameco's McArthur River mine. Moore is an advanced stage uranium exploration property with a high grade uranium zone known as the Maverick Zone with drill results including 21% U3O8 over 1.5 metres at a vertical depth of 265 metres. Skyharbour recently signed an option agreement with AREVA Resources Canada whereby AREVA can earn in 70% on the Company's Preston Project through $8 million in project consideration. Preston is a large, geologically prospective property proximal to Fission Uranium's Triple R deposit as well as NexGen Energy's Arrow deposit. The Company also owns a 100% interest in the Falcon Point Uranium Project on the eastern perimeter of the Basin which hosts an NI 43-101 inferred resource totaling 7.0 million pounds of U3O8 at 0.03% and 5.3 million pounds of ThO2 at 0.023%. The project also hosts a high grade surface showing with up to 68% U3O8 in grab samples from a massive pitchblende vein, the source of which has yet to be discovered. The Company's 100% owned Mann Lake Uranium project on the east side of the Basin is strategically located adjacent to the Mann Lake Joint Venture operated by Cameco, where high-grade uranium mineralization was recently discovered. Skyharbour's goal is to maximize shareholder value through new mineral discoveries, committed long-term partnerships, and the advancement of exploration projects in geopolitically favourable jurisdictions.

Skyharbour's Uranium Project Map in the Athabasca Basin:

http://skyharbourltd.com/_resources/SYH_Landpackage_2014.jpg

To find out more about Skyharbour Resources Ltd. (TSX-V:SYH) visit the Company's website at www.skyharbourltd.com.

SKYHARBOUR RESOURCES LTD.

"Jordan Trimble"



Jordan Trimble

President and CEO

For further information contact myself or:

Nick Findler

Corporate Development and Communications

Skyharbour Resources Ltd.

Telephone: 604-687-3850

Toll Free: 800-567-8181

Facsimile: 604-687-3119

Email: info@skyharbourltd.com

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THE CONTENT OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed to be "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that management of the Company expects, are forward-looking statements. Although management believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements, include market prices, exploration and development successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Please see the public filings of the Company at www.sedar.com for further information.

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: Skyharbour Resources Ltd via Globenewswire


Officials discuss security issues in view of Morcha protests

Officials of security agencies on Monday discussed possible challenges to holding local level polls in the eastern Tarai districts if the Madhes-based parties refuse to participate in elections.
Sunshine Care Partners expands geographically and serve Medicare beneficiaries who suffer from chronic illness in the general community, assisted living, rehab/LTAC, and nursing homes.

Contact

Keith Farnsworth

Sunshine Care Partners

***@sunshinecp.com Keith FarnsworthSunshine Care Partners

End

--Sunshine Care Partners Tulsa County, OKLAHOMA welcomes territory owners in Oklahoma and Texas. Sunshine Care Partners provides Medicare beneficiaries chronic care management and transitional care management services through physician practices in local, rural, and metro markets.Beginning in 2015 Medicare began reimbursing qualified healthcare providers to provide chronic care management and care transition services to those beneficiaries who suffered from 2 or more chronic illnesses. 68.9% of all Medicare beneficiaries suffer from 2 or more chronic illnesses, over 35 million people.New Sunshine Care owner groups include Oklahoma Tulsa Metro Counties, Oklahoma Washington County, Oklahoma City Metro including Edmond and Norman, and Texas Dallas Fort Worth Metro area. Owner groups include physicians, pharmacists, and other healthcare practitioners."Sunshine Care Partners now provides chronic care and transitional care services for hundreds of patients in the general community, assisted living, and long term care nursing settings. Our goal is to provide an individual Sunshine Care Partner to every older American who suffers from chronic illness, a trusted friend who represents their doctors' office and has access to their medical record. Someone who reached out regularly to check up on them, help arrange services, relay important medical information to family. To serve as an advocate for the patient, family, and a coordination resource for healthcare practitioners"states Sunshine Care Partners corporate CEO Rusty McMurray.Sunshine Care Partners hopes to finalize national franchising by this upcoming June, while continuing the territory licensing model for current expansion. Sunshine Care Partners IntellPatientsoftware platform has worked functionally in each patient care setting with existing EHR platforms.For more information contact Keith Farnsworth at keith.farnsworth@ sunshinecp.com
Media Contact

Mr T.Vijay

Mr Nahil Hilal

***@ptlgroup.com.sg

(+65) 6841 0826 Mr T.VijayMr Nahil Hilal(+65) 6841 0826

End

-- The Association of Strata Managers (Singapore) or ASM (www.asm.org.sg)and the PTL Group (www.ptlgroup.com.sg), a branding and communications consultancy who are also Awards organisers, have signed an Agreement for the Association of Strata Managers to be appointed as "Official Association Partners" for the BEI Asia Awards 2017. The Honorary President of the Association of Strata Managers, Mr Chan Kok Hong and the General Manager of PTL Group Pte Ltd, Mr Fong Kwok Shiung, signed the Agreement. This is a first tie-up for the Association with an awards event as much as it is also a first for the BEI Asia Awards to work with a built environment industry related Association, as Partners.This tie-up is a win-win for both the Association as well as the BEI Asia Awards as both aim to serve the continued development, growth and promotion of the built environment industry. As such through the tie-up, both partners aim to lean on each other's strengths and connections to further the overall aim for the built environment industry, although for the ASM the special emphasis would be on the professional development and growth of strata managers.In this regard, the ASM has among its several objectives, the promotion of a higher standard of expertise and integrity in the management of strata subdivided buildings, professional development, training and education to members and potential members, and the promotion of professional relationships with persons providing strata title management services locally and internationally.How the ASM plans to meet its objectives includes the organising of conferences, conventions, seminars, events and training programmes for the benefit of the members of Association and the general public, as well as publish, print or disseminate information that the Association may think desirable for the promotion of its objectives. Therefore, the tie-up with the BEI Asia Awards affords the ASM the opportunity to take advantage of the event platform that the Awards provide to fulfil their aims.The BEI Asia Awards ( www.beiasiaawards.com ), a pioneer in the industry and the first of its kind in Singapore, when inaugurated in 2013, recognises, rewards, and honours the achievements of MNCs and SMEs across Asia's Built Environment Industry. The awards acknowledge both local and regional companies who have demonstrated excellence in business while incorporating best business practices, as for example for, green initiatives and technologies, regional development, noteworthy business growth and corporate social responsibility through sustainable efforts. Through show casing exemplary businesses, the BEI Asia Awards also create higher industry standards and benchmarks for others to aspire to.
Sioux Falls, United States - Lesley Hopkins has launched a funding campaign using the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo with a goal of raising $25,000.

By: Smartbusinesspartners

Media Contact

Lesley Hopkins

***@smartbusinesspartners.com Lesley Hopkins

End

--Confused, lost, unable to trust? These are three essential problems the 3D-Didici database solves. Whether you are hearing impaired, lost an audio or video you needed to re-watch, or are simply unable to trust the media article you are reading the 3D-Didici searchable database will always be 100% clear, easy to search and trustworthy.Hi, I'm Lesley. For 21 years I've been in the technology industry. For the last 12 I've been running my own translation and transcription company. At Smart Business Partners I have used my knowledge in technology to keep pushing the industry of transcription forward for our customers. This year I saw a greater need to push transcription forward with available technologies into a web-based searchable database. This solves the top three problems experienced with being able to read what you can't hear, Find what you can no longer find with search engines. Lastly, but more importantly, trust that the information is accurate.your support is urgently needed! Please consider getting involved, at whatever level you can, and helpget funded!If you can't afford to donate, don't worry - there are plenty of other ways you can help. Please take some time to share this campaign across your social networks and encourage your friends and family to donate.If you want to support this project, you can do so by donating on their Indiegogo page:
By: Neveen Dominic Cosmetics

Juba by Neveen Dominic Cosmetics

Contact

Stephania Schirru

***@dynamicallybpr.com Stephania Schirru

End

-- Hailing from South Sudan, Neveen Dominic often struggled to find cosmetic products made for her ebony skin tone. With so many cosmetics companies touting their foundations' "wide range" of skin tones, Dominic was often let down when she found that these same companies' color ranges so often stopped short at "mocha." She remembers the days she struggled to find any products to suite her skin tone and although she was passionate about beauty, the limited product choices made it hard to achieve that glam look every girl dreams of. The job of perfecting the complexion is even more daunting for dark skinned women, who often have to perfect intricate makeup techniques or are left without being able to wear makeup at all. She noticed that even professional makeup artists shied away from taking clients with deep skin tones because of the limitations in their own product offerings. When Neveen saw other dark skinned women turn towards extreme methods such as skin bleaching to fit more Eurocentric standards of beauty, she knew that the issue was more than skin deep.Fed up with having to compromise, Mrs. Dominic created Neveen Dominic Cosmetics with the goal of making all women look and feel beautiful, regardless of skin tone. The philanthropist and entrepreneur had a vision for celebrating and embracing multifaceted beauty and making accessible cosmetics for diverse women. With her mission in mind and after over two years of research, testing, and development, the Juba Collection was born.Named after the capital of Sudan, the Juba Palette is made of only the highest quality products to nourish the skin and enhance the complexion. The Juba Collection features concealers, compact powders, eyeshadows, blushes, bronzers, eyeliner, lip gloss, lipstick and six foundation shades. Designed to suit and compliment deeper and hard-to-find skin tones, the Collection promises to empower women by providing a quality cosmetic line for women who've been ignored by other brands. It further serves the purpose of restoring professional makeup artists' confidence and diginity to service a wide range of skin tones. The Juba product line will be available online for pre-order beginning on April 1, 2017 at https://neveendominic.com/ and ready to purchase at IMATS New York (Booth # 612) April 7 April 92017.Portion of proceeds from the launch in New York will go to the Youth Empowerment Scholarship which aids South Sudanese youth further their education.For more information about Neveen Dominic Cosmetics visit https://neveendominic.com/. For press and business inquiries contact Sschirru@dynamicallybpr.com.
If you are new to iQ you can schedule a demo and learn more about this opportunity.

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As it heads out to Europes leading TV content market, MIPTV, TCB Media Rights has appointed former BBC Worldwide sales manager Simona Argenti to add fire power to its commercial team.





Argenti (pictured) will take up her new post at the London-based rights-ownership and distribution company on 1 April and will be responsible for TCB Media Rights sales in Italy, Spain, Latin America and Canada. She began her career in commercial television four years ago as a sales assistant at BBC Worldwide. She was quickly promoted to an executive position, handling sales across cinema, TV, digital, DVD and merchandise.TCB Media Rights is showcasing its biggest ever slate of new releases at this years MIPTV. Among its 200 new hours and 25 new titles are the 60 doc Diana and the Paparazzi from TVT Productions, Royal Murder Mysteries (6x60') from Like A Shot and Channel 5 UK commissions Secrets of Historic Britain (aka Secrets of the National Trust) (6x60') from Spun Gold/GME and Highland Midwives (3x60') from Matchlight/GME. TCB Media has always favoured hiring emerging hot shots to blend with our experienced team; their hunger, enthusiasm and ideas contribute real dynamism, said CEO Paul Heaney, commenting on the appointment. Simona has all of these traits and has the advantage of her outstanding track record at BBCWW. Italy has been a spectacularly successful market for TCB.
Televes Corporations TRedess has been selected by Thai broadcaster TBPS to provide medium and low-power digital equipment.





The project, implemented through TRedess local partner Planetcomm, will see the Spanish company supplying 46 DVB-T2 transmitters of the Fourth Series product line as well as fabrication acceptance tests (FAT) and site acceptance test (SAT) services. TRedess Fourth Series line includes transmitters and gap-fillers for DVB-T, DVB-T2 and ISDB-T digital TV standards, both for MFN and SFN networks. All the solutions count on Dohertys ultra-wide band technology, which guarantees high efficiency.Its not the first time the Santiago-based company has taken its broadcasting solutions to Thailand. Last year, the Dhammakaya Temple, the countrys largest Buddhist centre, selected Televes IPTV hospitality solution
AMC Networks International Iberia has decided to remove all commercial advertising from Canal Panda, its childrens pay-TV network in Spain.





According to the company, environment, health and sports-related values will be promoted instead of commercial products. Advertising breaks will be removed with immediate effect from Canal Pandas line-up and gradually replaced by various educational campaigns.By removing conventional advertising from Canal Panda, we will be able to get the cannel closer to the youngest viewers at home, focusing on education and becoming a perfect partner for parents looking for safe ways for their kids to watch TV, said Eduardo Zulueta, president, AMC Networks International Iberia and Latin America.
Spanish satellite operator Hispasat invoiced two-thirds of its total 2016 revenues through operations in Latin and North America.





During its last business year, Hispasat hit in 228.9 million in revenues, a 4.2% increase compared with the previous year. By area, 35.4% of the revenue came from Europe and Northern Africa, while 64.6% came from North and South American markets.The investment amount was 167.8 million, spent mainly on ongoing satellite programmes : the Hispasat 36W-1 satellite, launched on 28 January; the Amazonas 5 satellite; and the Hispasat 30W-6 satellite, planned for launch this year.As a result, the Spanish company obtained a consolidated operating profit of 99.9 million, 8.1% higher than the previous year, mostly thanks to lower amortisation expenses. The net profit was 79.1 million, 33.4% more than in 2015.The companys commercial efforts have also led to the consolidation of significant backlog (guaranteed long-term satellite capacity contracts), which is a figure equivalent to 6.5 times the companys annual revenue at the end of the financial year, amounting to 1,485 million, one of the best in the sector. 2016 was a very intense year in which the company faced several challenges and unexpected situations, but even so we were able to overcome them positively and keep growing our revenue, said Elena Pisonero, president, Hispasat. We continue to work on our strategic growth path as we focus on developing our satellite projects, which will become a reality in 2017, and applying innovation in the search for new solutions and products.PIC: hispasat-2016-resultados
Petrol bomb hurled during FSU elections at RR campus, 3 journos injured (with photos)

An unknown man hurled a molotov cocktail during the Free Students Union elections at Ratna Rajya Laxmi Campus in Kathmandu on Tuesday, leaving three journalists injured in the attack.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is no fan of gender equality, which he routinely decries as a Western concept that damages women and distracts them from their vital roles as wives and mothers.

And again this week, at a speech on March 19 marking the birth of the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, Fatima Zahra, Khamenei doubled down, suggesting that Westerners themselves are having second thoughts.

"Today, Western thinkers and those who pursue issues such as gender equality regret the corruption that it has brought about," said the man who has the final say in religious and political matters in a country of 83 million people.

He even blasted gender equality as a "Zionist plot" aimed at corrupting women's role in society.

"Making women a commodity and an object of gratification in the Western world is most likely among the Zionist plots aiming to destroy society," Khamenei was also quoted as saying.

Women in Iran are denied equal rights before the law in divorce, child custody, inheritance, and other areas. A woman's testimony in court is considered to be half the value of a man's. Women need the permission of their father or husband to travel. And women are forced to cover their hair and body.

There are rare reports of women being sentenced to death by stoning, although it is unclear how many such sentences are carried out under Iran's opaque justice system.

Khamenei suggested that Western views of women used to be "more decent," "more prudent," and "more suitable" with "the nature of men and women."

"When you look at the literature in European countries in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was absolutely different from the 20th century," Khamenei said. He added that "it is obvious that there has been political work from the Zionist and the colonial system."

Khamenei went on to say that Iran's overwhelmingly male, clerically dominated establishment does not aim to keep women at home. Yet he added that, in his eyes, the roles of mother and wife are the most important a woman can play.

"The role a woman can play as a family member is in my view more important than all other roles that a woman can play," the Iranian leader said. "The question is whether a woman has the right to ruin her role as a mother and a wife because of all the good, interesting, and sweet [opportunities] that could be there for her outside the family environment."

Khamenei has said in the past that the effort to establish equality between men and women was "one of the biggest intellectual mistakes" of the Western world. "Why should a job that is masculine be given to a woman? What kind of honor is it for a woman to do a man's job?" he asked in a 2014 speech.

Iranian hard-liners routinely accuse women's rights champions of promoting "obsolete" feminist views and claim that such views and demands are anti-Islamic.

In December, the head of Iran's female Basij militia called the promotion of gender equality illegal and demanded that the country's powerful judiciary take action against people who speak out against gender discrimination.

Women's rights activists have been persecuted by the Iranian state through interrogation, arrest, and jail sentences. Many have been forced to leave the country.

Homa Hoodfar, a retired professor at Concordia University in Montreal known for her work on gender relations, was imprisoned in Iran last year for more than 100 days for what a state prosecutor called "dabbling in feminism and security matters."

Iran's lone Nobel laureate, lawyer and 2003 Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, now lives abroad following years of persecution for her work on human rights cases.

In a 2009 contribution to The Guardian, Ebadi noted that "despite the cultural, social and historical heritage of Iranian women, the Islamic republic has imposed discriminatory regulations against them."

She added, "The laws imposed on Iranian women are incompatible with their status and, consequently, the equality movement is very strong."

The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL
The largest Russian bank, Sberbank, is selling its Ukrainian branches amid increasing pressure from the Ukrainian government and protesters in Ukraine.

State-controlled Sberbank said in a March 27 statement that a consortium led by Norvik Bank of Latvia and a private Belarusian firm would purchase the Russian bank's assets in Ukraine.

The sale comes less than two weeks after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree imposing sanctions on Sberbank and four other banks with Russian financing.

The bank's outlets in Ukraine have also been the focus of protests led by Ukrainian nationalists angered after Sberbank said it would comply with Russian President Vladimir Putin's February 18 decree ordering Russian authorities to recognize identity documents issued by Russia-backed separatists who hold parts of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Sberbank later said that it would not recognize the documents in Ukraine.

Sberbank said the sale of its Ukrainian assets is expected to be completed by July after gaining approval from antitrust regulators.

Said Gutseriyev, head of the Belarusian company involved in the sale and the son of Russian billionaire Mikhail Gutseriyev, will become the largest shareholder in Sberbank's Ukrainian holdings after the transaction.

Sberbank said that it hopes the sale will allow for the "resumption of regular operations" and that its customers will no longer be hindered at its branches in Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on March 28 that Russia was very concerned about the treatment of Russian businesses in Ukraine.

"We've been following this and are extremely worried," Peskov told journalists.

He said Russia believes that the Ukrainian authorities should "protect the private property of foreign investors from attacks by ultranationalists and extremists."

With reporting by Reuters, Interfax, and AFP


The BMW G310Rs launch in India has been delayed. Earlier, BMW Motorrad had confirmed that the launch will take place by March 2017. But that is not happening. Instead of launching the G310R, BMW Motorrad will open India innings by launching their big bikes next month.

Speaking about the India-spec G310R, it has now been showcased at the 2017 Bangkok Motor Show, which is currently underway. Seen in dual tone Black and White colour, the new G310R is the most affordable BMW motorcycle ever. It is manufactured by TVS Motors in India.

Compared to the Europe-spec G310R, which debuted last year, the India-spec variant comes with longer side indicators, new tail light, handle bar grip is new, exhaust cover at the end gets more steel finish. Even the ECU mapping is different.

The most affordable Bimmer has entered production at a new assembly line within TVS Motor Cos Hosur premises. Initially, it will be exported to markets in Europe. The company is looking to have adequate inventory before opening bookings in the local market.

The street fighter is expected to receive huge orders in the domestic market and the German giant apparently prefers to delay the launch until it is able to commence deliveries seamlessly rather than opening the order books earlier and let the waiting period escalate to several months. Deliveries in Europe are expected to commence any time now.

The BMW G 310 R is priced lower than the made-in-India KTM Duke 390 in Europe. If the brand could manage a similar positioning in India, it would garner immense response from the market. The motorcycle targets brand-conscious urban motorcycle enthusiasts.

As per the cooperation agreement with TVS, the platform will also spawn a TVS derivative which was previewed by the Akula 310 concept at the Auto Expo.
An extra layer of fat won't provide a cushion against pain -- in fact, obese people are more sensitive to pressure pain than those who are not overweight, and they are equally susceptible to extremes of hot and cold.

A new study, carried out at Leeds Beckett University, highlights the differences in pain response between different groups of people. The results could reinforce the argument for weight loss programmes being part of pain management plans for obese people suffering from chronic pain.

The team investigated 74 volunteers, categorised as obese, overweight or normal according to their body mass index (BMI) -- a standard way of measuring if a person is at a healthy weight for their height.

Volunteers in each group had pressure, cold and heat applied to two different areas of the body. The first experiment tested the hand, at the base of the thumb, an area that has little body fat. The second measured responses near the waist, in an area where extra fat is stored. Volunteers were asked to report at what point the pressure, cold or heat first felt painful.

Each volunteer was also asked to report their experience of cold pain by putting their hands into icy water. Again, they were asked to report the point at which they felt pain.

In the obese group, volunteers reported feeling pain from pressures equivalent to around 4.3kg per square centimetre, while those in the group with normal BMI reported pain at about 8.6kg per square centimetre. Interestingly, the middle group, those classed as 'overweight', had a slightly higher pressure pain threshold than the 'normal' group, with pain being reported at 10kg per square centimetre.

In terms of response to hot and cold temperatures, there was no significant difference across any of the groups, when tested at the waist. Only a small increase in sensitivity was reported in tests on the hand, suggesting that an extra layer of fat is no protection against extreme temperatures.

"Obese people are more likely to experience pain from factors such as the mechanical impact of increased weight on joints than people with a normal BMI," explains Dr Osama Tashani, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Pain Research at Leeds Beckett University. "But our study suggests that even in areas of the body which are not bearing weight, obese people are more susceptible to pressure pain."

"The overweight group had the highest pressure pain threshold, which might be because there were more people in this group taking part in physical activities, which could also affect how a person feels pain," says Dr Tashani.

The results, published in the European Journal of Pain, show that obese people are likely to have the lowest pressure pain threshold -- but it could also suggest that those with a low pressure pain threshold are more likely to become obese. "It could be the case that a person who is more sensitive to pain is less likely to do physical activity and therefore more likely to gain weight and become obese," says Dr Tashani.

The team plan to carry out further research into the factors that make people more susceptible to pain. This includes examining the chemicals secreted by fatty tissues in the body which could affect the response of pain receptors.
Opioids have long been an important tool in the world of pain management, but the side effects of these drugs -- from addiction and respiratory failure to severe itching and dizziness, can be overwhelming. Scientists have been trying to understand how these side effects happen so they can create better, less problematic pain relievers.

New findings published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology by UNC School of Medicine scientists show that MRGRPX2, a receptor protein on the surface of mast cells, can trigger the immune system response that leads to itching associated with some opioids.

Kate Lansu, the paper's first co-author and a graduate student in the lab of Bryan Roth, MD, PhD, explains how this process works.

"Receptors in mast cells -- part of the immune system -- respond to an activation signal and release inflammatory factors like histamine, in a process called degranulation," she said. "When that happens, other cells are recruited to the site of inflammation to clear the infection. This response is also important for things like allergies. And this is what presents itself as itching."

"Opioid drugs have been link to degranulation also, but it was through an unknown mechanism. We think that our data could potentially explain why degranulation occurs as a side effect of opioid ligands (morphine and other drugs), something that is well-known but not well-understood."

The findings are significant not only because they offer a potential explanation for opioid-induced itching, but also because the data suggest a way to characterize the function of the orphan receptor MRGRPX2.

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Currently there are about 120 orphan receptors in humans. They are "orphan" because, though we know they exist, we don't yet know what they do. The Roth lab screens these receptors against thousands of small molecules to find out what might activate them. This process involves a combination of physical screening and computational modeling.

"We start with the physical screening data to give us a sense of what types of molecules interact with the receptor," Lansu said. "Working on MRGRPX2, I screened around 7,000 molecules, and that data gave us a sense of what the binding site might look like. Once that tentative picture was in place, we were able to use computational tools to create a more precise model of the site."

The computer modeling, performed by co-first author Joel Karpiak, a graduate student at the University California at San Francisco, tested 3.7 million models for potential interaction with the receptor.

"And that's so many more different types of chemicals than I could do by hand in an assay," said Lansu.

The physical data combined with the computational models allowed the researchers to create a chemical probe designed to interact specifically with MRGRPX2. This new tool made it possible to gain a more precise understanding of this receptor's effects without the noise of other receptors. An opioid might activate the orphan receptor, but it might also activate other receptors that it interacts with.

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Imagine trying to recreate a musical score by listening to an orchestra perform a piece of music. "You hear the whole ensemble play and you might think 'this is very moving' but it may not explain much about how that effect is achieved," Lansu said. "But if you had a tool that allowed you to isolate just the trumpets, for example, it could teach you something about how that part contributes to the whole -- something you may not be able to hear otherwise."

Understanding what triggers the itching response could help pharmacologists develop an antagonist for this receptor to reduce the itching side effect. In other cases, clinicians may want to induce histamine release, thereby boosting the immune response, as in the case of vaccine adjuvants, where an increased immune response may improve immunity. These findings suggest there may be a way to do that selectively.

The researchers will now move onto other orphans. There are four receptors in the same family as MRGRPX2, and Lansu hopes to find chemical probes that can interact with each one.

She also emphasized that work like this would not be possible without the cooperation of a wide variety specialists.

"This kind of work speaks to the importance of collaborative sciences because you have modeling, you have pharmacologists doing in vitro experiments and you have chemists making stepwise changes on the molecule. And all of these specialists working together makes findings like these possible."
Drought and reduced seasonal flooding of wetlands and farm fields threaten a globally important stopover site for tens of thousands of migratory shorebirds in California's Sacramento Valley, a new Duke University-led study shows.

The researchers' analysis of historical biweekly NASA Landsat satellite images of the valley reveals that flooded habitat near the peak time of spring migration has shrunk by more than twice the size of Washington, D.C. over the last 30 years.

"On average, we're losing an area about four times the size of Central Park each year, during a critical window of time in late March," said Danica Schaffer-Smith, a doctoral student at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment, who conducted the study with researchers from the nonprofit Point Blue Conservation Science.

More than half of all shorebird species in the Western hemisphere are now in decline, Schaffer-Smith noted.

The Sacramento Valley site is an internationally important resting and refueling stop for tens of thousands of these wetland-dependent birds traveling along the Pacific Flyway. Some of these species migrate thousands of miles from Argentina to Alaska and back again each year.

"The fact that these highly mobile species are increasingly struggling to find flooded habitat on their migrations is an indicator that our freshwater wetland systems are in trouble," Schaffer-Smith said. "Freshwater is essential for all life. Many other species rely on these same habitats, too."

The Sacramento Valley once supported a huge network of wetlands connected to the San Francisco Bay Delta, but more than 90 percent of them have been drained for agriculture. Analysis of recent satellite images by Schaffer-Smith and her team shows that open water covers just three percent of the landscape during peak migration in April, when the birds urgently need flooded habitat to rest and feed.

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This winter's heavy rains are unlikely to reverse these habitat losses.

"One season of plentiful rainfall can't undo the effects of years of habitat destruction and increased water consumption for a growing number of competing uses," she said. "However, most water in California is captured in reservoirs and diverted through a system of canals and ditches, which also makes it possible for us to intentionally manipulate flooded habitat on the landscape."

During the worst of the recent drought years, conservation organizations joined forces to launch BirdReturns, a payment-for-services program that compensated farmers for flooding their fields to provide additional habitat for birds, Schaffer-Smith said. The new study's findings could help guide the future timing and location of such initiatives.

"Years of drought have heightened scrutiny of water use in California to the point that even rice farmers have begun to explore a switch to drip irrigation to conserve water, but these fields provide important habitat where wetlands have been lost," she said.

Schaffer-Smith and her colleagues published their peer-reviewed paper this month in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment. The study is freely available online through May 3, 2017.

"Satellite imagery can help us get the biggest bang for our buck by targeting conservation initiatives in a specific window of time at key locations," she said. "Landsat is the longest running Earth observation satellite system we have, and free access to this data enables researchers to look at the effects of seasonality, climate cycles, and long-term trends in land-use change."
The science and engineering workforce in the United States is aging rapidly, according to a new study. And it is only going to get older in coming years.

Economists at The Ohio State University found that the average age of employed scientists increased from 45.1 to 48.6 between 1993 and 2010, faster than the workforce as a whole.

The study estimates that, all else being the same, the average age of U.S. scientists will increase by another 2.3 years in the near future.

"The aging of the scientific workforce is not over -- not by a longshot," said David Blau, co-author of the study and professor of economics at Ohio State.

Some researchers have raised concerns that older scientists may not be as creative or productive as those at the beginning of their careers, and might be keeping younger scientists out of the field. But those possibilities haven't been proven, said co-author Bruce Weinberg, also a professor of economics at Ohio State.

"We don't have the answers yet, but we are continuing to investigate the implications of our aging scientific workforce," Weinberg said.

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The study was published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The main source of data for the study came from the 1993 to 2010 National Science Foundation's Survey of Doctorate Recipients. Blau and Weinberg used detailed information on age, field of degree, job tenure, previous and current employment, occupation and sector of employment on about 73,000 scientists aged 76 or younger. They supplemented this with Census data.

Findings revealed that a substantial majority of the recent aging of the scientific workforce can be attributed to the large number of people in the baby boom generation getting older.

But there is another significant factor at work: Scientists have been working longer since mandatory retirement of university professors ended by law in 1994.

"We have scientists who prior to 1994 would have been forced to retire who are now working to older and older ages," Weinberg said.

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In 1993, 18 percent of scientific workers were aged 55 and older, but that nearly doubled to 33 percent in 2010. Meanwhile, the share of all workers 55 and older increased much more modestly, from 15 to 23 percent in the same time period.

Blau and Weinberg created a model to estimate what the future holds for the age distribution of scientific workers. Results suggested that the average age of scientists will go up an additional 2.3 years in the future, all else being the same.

"Even after the baby boom generation is long gone from the workforce, the scientific workforce will still continue to get older," Blau said. "Scientists are retiring later and that will continue to have an effect."

The growth in the number of women and the number of immigrants working in science had no real effect on the age of the workforce, the study found.

Results showed that the average age of scientists in nearly all fields is on the rise. Even computer and information science -- which historically has had a much younger workforce than most other fields -- has seen a graying of the workforce. In fact, the average age of computer scientists is increasing more rapidly than other fields, narrowing the historical gap.

This study is part of a larger project by Blau and Weinberg to determine what happens to the productivity and creativity of scientists as they get older.

"The conventional wisdom has been that scientists become less creative and less innovative as they age," said Weinberg. But some of his own research has suggested otherwise.

"My work suggests the conventional story isn't as true as we might think," he said. "Many of the scientific fields people think about are not typical and over time people are starting to be more productive at later ages."

The ongoing project will shed more light on this issue, the researchers said.

The new research may also help determine if advancing retirement ages are keeping young scientists out of the workforce. Blau and Weinberg said this current study couldn't determine if that is currently happening.
Long before the advent of agriculture, hunter-gatherers began putting down roots in the Middle East, building more permanent homes and altering the ecological balance in ways that allowed the common house mouse to flourish, new research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates.

"The research provides the first evidence that, as early as 15,000 years ago, humans were living in one place long enough to impact local animal communities -- resulting in the dominant presence of house mice," said Fiona Marshall, study co-author and a professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. "It's clear that the permanent occupation of these settlements had far-reaching consequences for local ecologies, animal domestication and human societies."

Marshall, a noted expert on animal domestication, considers the research exciting because it shows that settled hunter-gatherers rather than farmers were the first people to transform environmental relations with small mammals. By providing stable access to human shelter and food, hunter-gatherers led house mice down the path to commensalism, an early phase of domestication in which a species learns how to benefit from human interaction.

The findings have broad implications for the processes that led to animal domestication.

"The findings provide clear evidence that the ways humans have shaped the natural world are tied to varying levels of human mobility," said Marshall, the James W. and Jean L. Davis Professor in Arts & Sciences. "They suggest that the roots of animal domestication go back to human sedentism thousands of years prior to what has long been considered the dawn of agriculture."

Led by Thomas Cucchi of National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, France, and Lior Weissbrod of the University of Haifa in Israel, the study set out to explain large swings in the ratio of house mice to wild mice populations found during excavations of different prehistoric periods at an ancient Natufian hunter-gatherer site in the Jordan Valley of Israel.

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Examining tiny species-related variations in the molar shapes of fossilized mice teeth dating back as far as 200,000 years, the team built a timeline showing how the populations of different mice fluctuated at the Natufian site during periods of varying human mobility.

The analysis revealed that human mobility influenced competitive relationships between two species of mice -- the house mouse (Mus musculus domesticus)and a short-tailed field mouse (M. macedonicus) -- that continue to live in and around modern settlements in Israel. These relationships are analogous to those of another pair of species called spiny mice which Weissbrod and Marshall discovered among semi-nomadic Maasai herders in southern Kenya.

Findings indicate that house mice began embedding themselves in the Jordan Valley homes of Natufian hunter-gatherers about 15,000 years ago, and that their populations rose and fell based on how often these communities picked up and moved to new locations.

When humans stayed in the same places for long runs of time, house mice out-competed their country cousins to the point of pushing most of them outside the settlement. In periods where drought, food shortages or other conditions forced hunter-gatherers to relocate more often, the populations of house mice and field mice reached a balance similar to that found among modern Maasai herders with similar mobility patterns.

The study confirms that house mice were already a fixture in the domiciles of eastern Mediterranean hunter-gatherer villages more than 3,000 years before the earliest known evidence for sedentary agriculture.

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It suggests that the early hunter-gatherer settlements transformed ecological interactions and food webs, allowing house mice that benefited from human settlements to out-compete wild mice and establish themselves as the dominant population.

"The competition between commensal house mice and other wild mice continued to fluctuate as humans became more mobile in arid periods and more sedentary at other times -- indicating the sensitivity of local environments to degrees of human mobility and the complexity of human environmental relationships going back in the Pleistocene," said Weissbrod, currently a research fellow at the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa.

Weissbrod's research involves analysis of microvertebrate remains from a wide range of prehistoric and historic sites in Israel and the Caucasus dealing with paleoecology and human-ecosystem interactions.

A 2010 graduate of the doctoral program in archaeological anthropology at Washington University, he began research for this study as part of a dissertation examining fluctuations in populations of mice and other small animals living around Maasai cattle herding settlements in Kenya.

Marshall helped Weissbrod to develop the ethnographic context for underlying research questions about the ecological impact of human mobility. Together they built field-based ecological frameworks for understanding changing animal human interactions through time focusing on mice and donkeys.

Working from his lab in Paris, Cucchi used a new technique called geometric morphometrics to identify the mouse fossils and reliably distinguish telltale differences in the miniscule remains of house mice and wild species. The method relies on high resolution imaging and digital analysis to categorize species-related variations in molar outlines nearly as thin as a single millimeter.

The findings, and the techniques used to document them, are important to archaeological research in a broader sense because they lend further support to the idea that fluctuations in ancient mouse populations can be used as a proxy for tracking ancient shifts in human mobility, lifestyle and food domestication.

"These findings suggest that hunter-gatherers of the Natufian culture, rather than later Neolithic farmers, were the first to adopt a sedentary way of life and unintentionally initiated a new type of ecological interaction -- close coexistence with commensal species such as the house mouse," Weissbrod said. "The human dynamic of shifts between mobile and sedentary existence was unraveled in unprecedented detail in the record of fluctuations in proportions of the two species through time."
To meet skyrocketing demand for electricity, African countries may have to triple their energy output by 2030. While hydropower and fossil fuel power plants are favored approaches in some quarters, a new assessment by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has found that wind and solar can be economically and environmentally competitive options and can contribute significantly to the rising demand.

"Wind and solar have historically been dismissed as too expensive and temporally variable, but one of our key findings is that there are plentiful wind and solar resources in Africa that are both low-impact and cost-effective," said Ranjit Deshmukh, one of the lead researchers of the study. "Another important finding is that with strategic siting of the renewable energy resource and with more energy trade and grid interconnections between countries, the total system cost can be lower than it would be if countries were to develop their resource in isolation without strategic siting."

The research appeared online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in an article titled, "Strategic siting and regional grid interconnections key to low-carbon futures in African countries." The lead authors are Deshmukh and Grace C. Wu, both Berkeley Lab researchers in the Energy Technologies Area. Much of the initial research was funded by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), which is based in Abu Dhabi. Individual fellowships from the National Science Foundation and the Link Foundation to Wu and Deshmukh supported the expanded analysis on wind siting.

"As a region, Africa is in an unparalleled energy crisis rife with electricity deficiency, lack of access, and high costs," said Wu. "How African countries and the international community tackle this crisis in the coming decades will have large social, environmental, and climate implications."

One-of-a-kind open-source planning framework and tool

The Berkeley Lab study is the first of its kind for Africa, using multiple criteria-such as quality of the resource, distance from transmission lines and roads, co-location potential, availability of water resources, potential human impact, and many other factors-to characterize wind and solar resources. Looking at the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) and the Eastern Africa Power Pool (EAPP), which together include 21 countries accounting for half the continent's population, it found that many countries have wind and solar potential several times greater than their expected demand in 2030.

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The tool they used to make these evaluations, the Multicriteria Analysis for Planning Renewable Energy (MapRE, at mapre.lbl.gov) was developed at Berkeley Lab in collaboration with IRENA and is open-source and publicly available to researchers and policymakers.

"Usually project developers will just choose the site with the least levelized cost and best wind speeds, but in reality those aren't the best sites," Deshmukh said. "Often times you want development closer to transmission infrastructure or to cities so you don't have to assume the risk involved in developing transmission infrastructure over long distances, let alone transmitting electricity across those distances. It's difficult to quantify those costs. Our tool enables stakeholders to bring all these criteria into their decision-making and helps them prioritize areas for development and preplanning of transmission."

Siting and grid interconnections are key

Not only did the researchers find plentiful wind and solar resources in Africa, another key finding was that system costs and impacts could be lower with robust energy trade and grid connections between countries. And if wind farms are strategically sited so as to manage peak demand, costs can be lower still.

"System costs can be further reduced if wind farms are sited where the timing of wind generation matches electricity demand rather than in areas that maximize wind energy production," Wu said. "These cost savings are due to avoided natural gas, hydro, or coal generation capacity."

For example, the researchers found that in a high-wind scenario in the Southern Africa Power Pool, strategic siting and grid interconnections would reduce the need for conventional generation capacity by 9.5 percent, resulting in cost savings of 6 to 20 percent, depending on the technology that was avoided.

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"Together, international energy trade and strategic siting can enable African countries to pursue 'no-regrets' wind and solar that can compete with conventional generation technologies like coal and hydropower," Wu said. "No-regrets options are low-cost, low-impact, and low-risk."

With Berkeley Lab's MapRE tool, policymakers will be able to do a preliminary evaluation of various sites on their own without having to rely on developers for technical information. "This information brings policymakers level with project developers," Deskhmukh said. "It reduces costs for everybody and allows for a much more sustainable planning paradigm."

In addition to Africa, the researchers have uploaded data for India and plan to add more countries, most likely in Asia. And they have held five workshops in Africa for regulators, academics, utilities, and energy officials to share the approach and findings. "They've been super enthusiastic," Deshmukh said. "We're seeing impacts on the ground."

The amount of wind and solar currently deployed in Africa is tiny, he said. But with global prices having declined dramatically in the last decade or so, renewable energy has become a competitive alternative. And while hydropower is a significant and familiar resource in Africa, climbing costs and persistent droughts are making it less attractive.

"Just based purely on economics today wind and solar are attractive," Deshmukh said. "It makes economic sense. Through planning around multiple stakeholder criteria and prioritizing wind and solar projects for regional energy trade, policymakers and financiers can increase their cost-competitiveness."
U.S. sailors and Marines face continuous periods of excessive stress in "fight-or-flight" situations, triggering surges of chemical messengers called neurotransmitters, often known as an adrenaline rush. While these surges are important for relaying messages in the brain, prolonged high levels can cause long-term health problems, including anxiety and susceptibility to infection.

Imagine if a naval officer and other members of the Navy could swallow a probiotic pill or yogurt to better protect them from the effects of these surges.

Tae Seok Moon, an engineer in the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis, is working to create a probiotic from a commercially-available, beneficial bacterial strain of Escherichia coli after receiving a three-year, $508,635 grant from the Office of Naval Research's 2017 Young Investigator Program. The nationwide award was one of 33 given to early-career engineers and scientists from more than 360 applicants.

Moon, assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering, specializes in building synthetic gene circuits to control and improve cellular process for human-defined functions. For this project, he will change the genes of E. coli Nissle 1917, then provide it as a probiotic supplement to mice to regulate the neurotransmitters in the brain and gut -- better protecting model mice from the harmful effects of long-term exposure.

The human gut hosts a community of more than 100 trillion microbial cells that influence physiology, metabolism, nutrition and immune function. Previous studies by other researchers have shown the gut microbiota may influence the brain neurotransmitter systems, development of emotional behavior and stress- and pain-modulation systems. Probiotics are live microorganisms intended to have health benefits and are often given as supplements to treat digestive, allergic and other disorders.

"We tend to think the gut and the brain are separate, but recently, more researchers think they are connected through the microbiota-gut-brain axis," he said. "Because I'm an engineer, I asked how I could make probiotic bacteria that could be applied to this concept and deepen understanding of that connection."

In 2013, Moon received a Grand Challenges Explorations Grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to engineer probiotic bacteria that would be added to foods to kill intestinal parasites. In 2014, he received the National Science Foundation's CAREER Award given to early-career investigators.

Moon joined the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis in July 2012. Before earning a doctorate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009, Moon worked in industry for LG Chemical Ltd., LG Chem Investment Ltd. and LG Life Sciences Ltd. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Seoul National University.

The Office of Naval Research's Young Investigator Program is one of the most selective scientific research advancement programs for investigators who have obtained a tenure-track position within the past five years and whose work shows promise to support the Department of Defense as well as their own professional development.
PM Dahal reaches Lhasa

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who is on a six-day visit to China, observed the ancient Potala Palace in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, on Tuesday.
Blood-sucking flies can act as 'flying syringes' to detect emerging infectious diseases in wild animals before they spread to humans, according to research published in the journal eLife.

The discovery has significant implications for our ability to control the global outbreak of new and re-emerging infections such as the Ebola and Zika viruses.

Seven new pathogens are identified worldwide each year, and this is predicted to reach 15-20 every year by 2020 because of increased human contact with wildlife species that are potential reservoirs of disease. Despite significant scientific advances, researchers are still unable to predict where, when and how epidemics arise.

"This is a huge public health issue that urgently requires new tools for the active monitoring of outbreaks and rapid diagnosis of the pathogens involved," explains senior author and evolutionary geneticist Franck Prugnolle, from the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Montpellier, France. "We wanted to investigate whether blood-feeding insects could act as a sampling tool out in the wild environment, allowing us to monitor the presence and emergence of infectious disease."

Existing methods for studying the circulation of pathogens in wild habitats involve analysing animals caught for food, which represent only a fraction of a region's wildlife, or directly trapping animals to study the presence of infection in their organs and tissues, which is difficult and dangerous to protected species.

Previous research had shown that DNA from host animals, and from pathogens such as malaria, is preserved in the blood meals of flies. This prompted Prugnolle and his team to see whether blood meals could be used as an indirect, non-invasive way of studying the circulation of pathogens in wild animals.

Over a 16-week period, they conducted a field study in four national parks in the forests of Gabon, Central Africa, setting traps for three types of fly. They then analysed the insects' blood meals to determine the origin of the blood and the species of any malaria parasites present.

More than 4,000 flies were captured, of which 30% -- mostly tsetse flies, which spread African sleeping sickness -- were engorged with blood. Lead author Paul-Yannick Bitome-Essono, from the National Center for Scientific and Technological Research, France, explains: "We thought the tsetse fly might be a good candidate in our study, as both sexes feed on blood, they are large and easily trapped, present in large numbers in Central Africa, and are opportunistic feeders with no strong preference for a particular host animal, so would feed on a large range of wildlife."

Using a new technique for closely studying host blood DNA, the team determined the host origin for three-quarters of these samples, showing that the flies had fed on over 20 different species ranging from elephants and hippopotamuses to reptiles and birds. They found malaria parasites in nearly 9% of the blood meals, including 18 cases of previously undocumented malaria species. The method also allowed them to identify the natural hosts of some malaria species whose preferred host was previously unknown.

"These results show that blood meals of the engorged flies can be successfully used to analyse the diversity of known malaria parasites," says Prugnolle.

He adds that the next step is to look at ways to improve the method with next-generation sequencing and high-throughput pathogen detection methods. "This approach of 'xenosurveillance' could detect pathogens before they spread to humans, as well as the emergence of new diseases in wild animals that may threaten their long-term survival."
Dust from as far away as the Gobi Desert in Asia is providing more nutrients than previously thought for plants, including giant sequoias, in California's Sierra Nevada mountains, a team of scientists, including several from the University of California, Riverside, have found.

The scientists found that dust from the Gobi Desert and the Central Valley of California contributed more phosphorus for plants in the Sierra Nevadas than bedrock weathering, which is breaking down of rock buried beneath the soil. Phosophorus is one of the basic elements that plants need to survive, and the Sierra Nevadas are considered a phosphorus-limited ecosystem.

"In recent years it has been a bit of mystery how all these big trees have been sustained in this ecosystem without a lot of phosphorus in the bedrock," said Emma Aronson, an assistant professor of plant pathology and microbiology at UC Riverside. "This work begins to unravel that mystery and show that dust may be shaping this iconic California ecosystem."

Aronson is a co-author of a just-published paper in the journal Nature Communications about the research. Two other scientists with UC Riverside ties are co-authors: Chelsea Carey, a former post-doctoral researcher in Aronson's lab; and Jon Botthoff, a field technician at the university's Center for Conservation Biology.

The study may help scientists predict the impacts of climate change which is expected to increase drought and create more desert conditions around the world, possibly including California. If that happens, based on these findings, scientists expect a lot more dust moving in the atmosphere, and likely bringing phosphorus and important nutrients to far flung mountainous ecosystems.

Nutrients such as carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus regulate the distribution of life across Earth's surface. Therefore it is important to understand the different sources of nutrients, including underlying bedrock and wind-spread dust. Quantifying the importance of dust, which is sensitive to changes in climate and land use, is crucial for predicting how ecosystems will respond to global warming and greater use of the land.

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Little is known about the role of dust in mountainous forest ecosystems, such as the Sierra Nevadas. To change that, the researchers quantified the relative importance of dust and bedrock in ecosystem nutrient supply across four sites of increasing elevation, from about 1,300 to 8,800 feet, in the Sierra Nevadas, just east of Merced.

They then combined dust they collected with existing erosion data at the same location. They captured the dust using homemade dust collectors, which consisted of non-stick bundt pans filled with glass marbles to keep the dust from blowing out. The pans were attached to 6-foot poles to prevent dust kicked up by the researchers from entering the pans.

The researchers studied the isotopic signatures in several elements in the dust to determine the place of origin of the dust. The isotopes act a fingerprint for source of origin.

The percentage of Asian dust ranged from 20 percent on average at the lowest elevation, to 45 percent on average at the highest elevation. The percentages were higher at the higher elevation sites because dust tends to travel high in the air stream and not fall unless it hits an object, such as a mountain.

The researchers found that the amount of dust from Central Valley sources was greater at lower elevations compared to higher elevations. That was expected, but they also found that more Central Valley dust was entering higher elevations later in the dry season than just after the spring rains.

"Considering we took our measurements in 2014, in the middle of the drought, this makes us think that the drought is a factor here." Aronson said.

The researchers believe their findings will hold true for other mountainous ecosystems around the world and have implications for predicting forest response to changes in climate and land use.
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On March 12th 2017 Pakistan put the first LOMADS (Low to Medium Altitude Air Defense System) HQ-16 mobile anti-aircraft missile battalion into service. Pakistan ordered three HQ-16 batteries and six search radars in 2013 and additional batteries in 2014. The HQ-16 is apparently going to become the standard medium range anti-aircraft system in Pakistan replacing elderly French systems. .

Ironically the Pakistanis bought the HQ-16 to replace the French Crotale system, a 1970s vintage system that both China and Pakistan used. China reverse-engineered the French Crotale system to produce the HQ-7, which entered Chinese service in 1987. The export version was first offered in 1998. The search radar has a max range of 25 kilometers, and 84.5 kg (186 pound) missiles with a max range of 15 kilometers. The warhead has a proximity (radar) fuze, which detonates when the radar controlled missiles comes close enough to a target. There is also a visual tracking system, with a range of 15 kilometers. An HQ-7 battalion consists of three search radars, nine tracking radars and 36 launcher vehicles, each with four missiles.

The HQ-7 was replaced by the HQ-16, which is based on licensed Russian technology. China began using the HQ-16A anti-aircraft system in 2011 when the army received the first HQ-16A battalion. This is a land based version of the HQ-16 system used in ships. This system is based on the Russian Buk M2 anti-aircraft missile systems. These are the latest version of the SAM-6 class missiles, which proved so effective in the 1973 Arab Israeli war. The M2E missiles weigh 328 kg (720 pounds) and have a max range of 40 kilometers although the latest (HQ-16B) version has a range of 70 kilometers. The export version is called the LY-80. The system can hit targets as high as 10,000 meters (31,000 feet) and as low as a hundred meters (310 feet).

Each HQ-16 battalion has a truck mounted target acquisition radar has a range of over 150 kilometers. There are is also a truck mounted command and control system as well as trucks for maintenance. A battalion usually has four batteries but some battalions have been seen with as few as two batteries.

Each battery has a truck mounted tracking radar (range 85 kilometers) that can detect six and track four targets. This radar supports up to four 8x8 launcher trucks each containing shipping/firing containers for six missiles. These containers are tilted back so that the missiles can be fired straight up, just as they are from VLS (Vertical Launch System) cells. The HQ-16 naval version has the missiles fired out of VLS that are flush with the deck of the ship. The VLS design was pioneered by the United States during the Cold War and is standard in most Western navies.
Despite the sanctions and low oil prices Russia continues to maintain high military spending. Usually details of how this works is hidden from the Russian public by increasing the size of the classified (black) budget. This doubled from 2010 to 2015 to $60 billion a year. Much of this is believed for defense related items. But in early 2017 the Russians admitted what was becoming obvious; that since 2015 the defense spending has gone down. It declined 3.8 percent in 2015, five percent in 2016 and is expected to decline 7 percent in 2017 and keep declining at least until 2020. The black budget shrank as well.

What Russia does not like to talk about is the cause of their persistent budget problems. As it was in the Cold War the main problems were low oil prices and American technology. It is happening again. The falling (dipping under $40 a barrel at times) price of oil and its devastating impact on the Russian economy was initially the work of Saudi Arabia and meant to weaken Iran and cripple resurgent American oil and gas production. Russia and Saudi Arabia thought they could end the low oil prices by cutting their own production that did not work when it was tried in 2016. No longer a short term threat Russia is now admitting that the low oil prices are causing them long-term problems. The primary cause of this long time problem has a name; hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The main reason for persistent low oil prices was the development of effective fracking technology in the United States. This created a sharp increase in oil and natural gas production in North America. But fracking is expensive compared to just drilling and as the oil price declines a growing number of oil and natural gas operations dependent on fracking have to be shut down until the price increases again. The Saudis and Russia hoped the lower oil prices would kill off fracking, but that didnt happen.

In the past rising oil prices always made it feasible to go after expensive to extract (like very deep or off-shore) oil and natural gas. As prices decline, these high cost operations have to be temporarily shut down, not eliminated entirely and forever. When some firms go bankrupt other firms buy up the assets and resume production when prices rise again. But it was worse than that with fracking because the lower prices simply encouraged the producers using fracking to improve their relative new technology. That has happened before but it is happening faster and on a larger scale because most of the frackable oil and gas is in North America where the voters and their governments encourage its use.

Meanwhile conventional oil reserves are found largely elsewhere, as in in Iraq (153 billion barrels), Iran (158 billion barrels), Saudi Arabia (266 billion) and Venezuela (300 billion). These four nations have the largest conventional reserves and those four comprise about 60 percent of the world total. These four nations and many of the lesser producers belong to an oil cartel which has, since the 1970s, kept oil prices high by controlling what is made available on the world market. What is keeping the world oil price low now is fracking. That new American technology is making much more oil and gas available and it is expected that the U.S. and Canada will soon have proven reserves equaling a third of the current world total conventional reserves. The fall in oil prices since 2013 (from over $100 a barrel to as low as $30) is expected to stay at $50 to $60 a barrel. For the moment the record high of $132 a barrel (in mid-2008) is gone.

In the midst of all these money woes Russia also complains that it is also dealing with chronic reliability and quality control problems in their defense industries. Some Russians have noted that the West has far fewer problems in that area, especially when it comes to fracking. The Russian government does not want to dwell on that angle just yet, but eventually may be forced to. Fracking is not all that complex and Russia can develop such tech but not the kind of culture that encourages new tech being put to effective use. This is not just a Russian problem, it is common throughout the Moslem world where it is often declared un-Islamic to encourage the use, much less development, of new tech.
Police exchange fire with marijuana smugglers in Makwanpur

Police exchanged gunfire with marijuana peddlers at Manhari in Makwanpur district on Tuesday morning.
CALGARYCanadas finance minister says he intends to head south of the border next week to reinforce the importance of Canada-U.S. trade.

Our approach was to be deeply engaged with the new administration from Day 1 ... Ive been there three times this month, Bill Morneau told a question-and-answer session following a speech about the federal budget to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce on Monday.

This is an ongoing effort for us to make sure the Americans were working with really understand the benefits of dealing with Canada.

Morneau, who spent time with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin last weekend, said the next round of meetings wont be with the powerbrokers in Washington, D.C.

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On my post-budget tour next week, Im going to American cities and Im meeting with governors and Im meeting with mayors to talk about the importance of Canada-US trade. How many U.S. jobs rely on trade with Canada? Its nine million in case youre counting, he said.

When you go state by state, you find that theres a very positive response from the states who understand how important Canada is to the United States ... to the employment of American workers.

Morneau joked with the audience that the one question he has heard from individuals as he has travelled across the country is what is Donald Trump like? He noted TransCanada Corp. CEO Russ Girling was at the head table.

I dont have to answer it because Russ is here and he met with him last week. Hes got more recent experience.

Calgary-based TransCanadas hotly debated, long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline received its elusive U.S. presidential permit from Trump last week, eight years and six months after the energy company first applied.

Morneau suggested continuing to engage with the new U.S. administration could potentially provide more opportunities for Canada.

The opportunity that TransCanadas had is obviously a positive outcome of the new administration, but we should be working toward more positive outcomes.

Morneau spent most of his speech touting his recent budget. He acknowledged that things have been tough in Alberta.

I know that Albertans, perhaps more than anybody in Canada, fully understand these challenges. I know that the drop in global oil prices, now more than two years old, was a precursor to some real challenges, he said.

Theres emerging evidence that the worst effects of the oil shock are fading. Employment in this province has increased by 20,000 since July 2016. Weve seen since we came into office a reduction in unemployment from 7.1 per cent down to 6.6 per cent.

I recognize that despite some hopeful signs, families are still anxious. And we know that we can do more.

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DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATESAmazon purchased the Middle Easts biggest online retailer Souq.com on Tuesday for an undisclosed amount, a day after a state-backed firm disclosed an $800 million (U.S.) counter-offer.

A joint statement described the purchase as expanding Amazons influence into the Middle East. Meanwhile the chairperson of the state-supported firm Emaar is preparing to launch his own retail website in a country known more for its luxury malls than online shopping.

That could put Seattle-based Amazon in a head-to-head competition with a firm helmed by one of the sheikhdoms favoured business magnates.

This is a milestone for the online shopping space in the region, Souq.com co-founder and CEO Ronaldo Mouchawar said in a statement.

The announcement said the two companies expect the sale to close this year.

Together, well work hard to provide the best possible service for millions of customers in the Middle East, Russ Grandinetti, a senior vice-president at Amazon, said in a statement.

Amazon and Souq.com share the same DNA  were both driven by customers, invention and long-term thinking, he said.

Amazon has been stepping up its overseas expansion. Having largely ceded China to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., the company is waging a war of attrition with Flipkart Online Services Pvt in India, where it has pledged to spend $5 billion in the next few years. The Middle East has lagged behind the rest of the world in e-commerce, but online shopping is picking up in such countries as Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, where most people own mobile phones.

As growth in core markets mature, Amazon is looking for new avenues of growth, Edward Yruma, managing director of KeyBanc Capital Markets, said in an interview. You have very entrepreneurial e-commerce startups that need help getting to the next degree of scale so this makes sense from a lot of perspectives. In an earlier note, Yruma said acquiring is a bit of a departure for Amazon, which typically builds businesses from the ground up.

In buying Souq.com, Amazon will leapfrog into the crucial Middle Eastern markets of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, where the Dubai-based retailer already has local operations.

As a private company, Souq.com hasnt had to file public earning reports, though the website last year raised more than $275 million in a round of financing that the company said would help fuel its future growth.

Souq.coms status as a free-zone firm also means Amazon will be able to run a 100-per cent foreign-owned operation. Amazons entry into the U.A.E. comes after Apple Inc. opened its first stores in the Arab world in Dubai and the UAE capital of Abu Dhabi in October 2015.

The websites major investors have included Tiger Global Management LLC and South Africa-based Naspers Ltd.

Rumours about Amazons interest in Souq.com have circulated for months. In November, Emaar chairperson Mohamed Alabbar reportedly met Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos at the state-backed firms cavernous Dubai Mall, home to a massive aquarium and in the shadow of the Burj Khalifa, the worlds tallest building the company built.

On Monday, Emaar Malls PJSC made public its $800-million bid for Souq.com in a filing on the Dubai Financial Market. The short filing, signed by Emaar Malls vice-chairperson Ahmad Thani al-Matrooshi, said the bid was made in line with the strategy to align e-commerce with physical shopping.

Last year, Alabbar received a $1-billion investment in a forthcoming e-commerce venture from the Saudi governments Public Investment Fund, the same sovereign wealth fund that invested $3.5 billion in the ride-hailing app Uber. That project, called noon.com, has yet to begin operations.

Alabbar also holds stakes in the delivery company Aramex, which could prove useful for his online retailer.

Dubai, the commercial capital of the United Arab Emirates, home to the long-haul carrier Emirates and one of the worlds busiest international airports, also has luxury malls that even include an indoor ski slope. Its summer heat of over 50 C makes malls a major attraction for both shopping and leisure time in the city.

While Uber and other online services firms work in Dubai, online retail shopping has yet to truly take off like it has in Western countries. Amazons entry into the market likely will change that.

With files from Bloomberg

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When a consumer product is defective and the manufacturer wont help, I ask the retailer to step in.

This did the trick for Verna Harrison and Don Dolson, whose Oreck air purifier stopped working after two years.

The Truman Cell, the air purifiers key component, had a three-year warranty. So, when the cell started to arc constantly, they shipped it to the manufacturers Winnipeg office.

We have not heard from Oreck since we sent it on Dec. 5, Harrison told me in February.

We made 12 to 15 calls and all we got was a message that says All our operators are busy with other customers. Please leave your phone number and well get back to you as soon as possible. There was no response.

When I didnt get around to reaching Oreck Manufacturing Co., she sent me a reminder and said she had bought the product at a Canadian Tire store northeast of Toronto.

Stephanie Nadalin, a spokeperson for the chain, reached out to the dealer in Uxbridge (northeast of Toronto).

He wanted to make things right for the customer, even though the issue lies with the manufacturer, Nadalin said.

It turns out that the product is discontinued. He would like to offer a new unit (comparable) absolutely free.

The couple visited their local Canadian Tire store to pick up their new air purifier two days later.

After months of not being able to connect with Oreck, our last resort was to email you, Harrison said. We appreciate your help. The store made sure we were satisfied.

While I rarely hear from Apple customers, I received a recent complaint about Jacob Thielmanns tablet problems.

Four years ago, Dad purchased an iPad Mini, 64 GB model, from Best Buy, said his son-in-law Bob Romanuk. No one is disputing that the device was out of warranty.

Last August, Thielmann found the unit would not hold a charge for 24 hours, even when not in use. Then, it wouldnt start.

His son-in-law took the iPad to an Apple repair centre, which processed a replacement order. It cost $260 to send the iPad back and get a new model within three days.

Things were great until October, when the problem recurred. This time, the repair centre charged $33 to test the battery and charging system, only to insist that nothing was wrong.

I took it to our nearest Apple store, Romanuk said. The rep performed some diagnostics and immediately provided me with a replacement.

The second replacement had a 90-day warranty. After 75 days, the iPad again was failing to hold a charge.

Romanuk drove back to the Apple store, where another rep advised doing a complete reset. It didnt work.

The iPad continues to be unable to hold a charge. We even removed the mail app, as we were told that Gmail might be sucking juice in the background.

The warranty ended Jan. 14, but Apple said Thielmann would be covered because he had reported the problem during the 90-day period.

Relief was followed by disappointment when Apple requested payment for a third replacement.

In a live chat, an Apple senior adviser promised to send a refurbished unit to Thielmann once he returned his faulty iPad.

Nothing has been received, Romanuk said three weeks later. It is not easy for my father-in-law to get around and typing is a challenge. Being without an iPad is also a great inconvenience.

Apple Canada spokesperson Tara Hendela thanked me for sending the complaint. Within days, Apple called from San Jose, Calif., and sent a new iPad.

The actions of Apples representatives restored our faith in the company, Romanuk said. Jacob and I received what can only be described as exemplary treatment.

Apple, a manufacturer, started its chain of stores in 2001. Founder Steve Jobs was inspired by the service provided by a Canadian company, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts.

Im keen to hear from readers. Have you tried Apples customer service? Where does it excel? Where does it slip up? Ill report on your views in an upcoming column.

Ellen Roseman appears in Smart Money. You can reach her at eroseman@thestar.ca .

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According to his Tinder profile, Liam Nelson, 26, likes good music and good food. He dislikes bad music and bad food. He also considers himself sapiosexual.

To Nelson, who is straight and works as a recruiter in Toronto, this means not necessarily a womans IQ but her emotional maturity and open-mindedness. He knows its entirely subjective.

Its no different from saying, Im attracted to brunettes. Its not some sort of strict rule. Its what we know about ourselves in terms of what tends to push our buttons in order to feel attraction, Nelson says.

Sapiosexual refers to those who are sexually attracted to highly intelligent people, according to Merriam-Webster. Derived from the Latin for wise, sapiosexuality is technically genderless and has been adopted by straight and non-straight people alike.

While the concept of sapiosexuality isnt new, its become a common declaration on dating apps, alongside a users height and assurances that, no, the baby in the photo is not their own.

Because its 2017, there is, of course, an app for this. Sapio, designed for those sick of superficial hookup apps, officially launched this year and claims to have signed up 50,000 new users in the last month, mostly in North America.

Sapiosexual was defined as early as 2004 on Urban Dictionary as one who finds intelligence the most sexually attractive feature.

The definition has been updated several times in the last few years to take on a more cynical tone appropriate for the digital age. From 2015: Something you put on your dating profile if you want to be pretentious.

From 2016: For many, defining oneself as sapiosexual is also a statement against the current status quo of hookup culture and superficiality, where looks are prized above all else.

Whether sapiosexuality is indeed a true orientation, a preference or just a new way to brag remains to be seen. Some critics say sapiosexuality is ableist and possibly discriminatory, since intelligence comes in many forms.

The saying smart is sexy is problematic because you're insinuating (probably subconsciously) that those who aren't traditionally smart are less attractive, wrote one commenter on a Facebook thread. The website Bustle called sapiosexuality the worst dating trend because it seems exclusionary.

Lindsay Gonder, 33, says she always swipes left on  ignores  self-proclaimed sapiosexuals. She started seeing the label on Tinder a year ago and doesnt like what it implies: the pressure to perform being smart in order to appear attractive to someone else.

You want my body and now you want my mind, too? says Gonder, who works at a Toronto university and is straight.

She also rejects the idea that intelligence and sex are mutually exclusive.

I can be intelligent and just want to hook up, and its my decision, Gonder says. Relationships and dating are fluid.

Intelligence is an increasingly desirable trait in a partner, according to whats known as the American mate selection survey. Various researchers have used the questionnaire once a decade since the 1930s.

The most recent analysis, published in 2015 in the Journal of Family Issues, found men ranked education and intelligence fourth, up from 11th in 1939. Women ranked intelligence fifth, up from ninth 80 years ago. (Both sexes have ranked mutual love and attraction first since the 1980s.)

Some individuals are attracted to social or emotional intelligence; others to intelligence based on education or intellect, says Florida-based Sapio co-founder Kristin Tynski.

Sapio users are encouraged to answer questions such as, What is the purpose of life? and Whats most wrong with your generation? and What would your parents be most surprised to learn about you? Users can then search for matches based on responses.

Theres no blanket, universal definition of intelligence, Tynski says.

And self-described sapiosexuals who spoke to the Star said the attraction was less about having an advanced degree than about someones perspective or curiosity about the world.

Of course, theres a difference between finding something attractive and defining a sexual orientation by it.

Having sapiosexuality as an orientation was a choice to improve the user experience, not a lofty declaration of what we recognize as official orientations, says Bernadette Libonate, director of brand partnerships for dating website and app, OkCupid, which since 2014 has allowed users to add sapiosexual to other orientations such as gay, straight, pansexual, heteroflexible and others.

Research shows it takes about seven seconds to size someone up as a potential partner, says Toronto therapist and relationship expert Kimberly Moffit. That doesnt leave much time to move beyond appearances, which is why using sapiosexual could just be a way to filter out unlikely candidates.

You still might have to go on 50 dates to find someone youre attracted to, but once you do, you might find you have those core values in line with the other person, Moffit says.

Adam Shalaby included sapiosexuality on his OkCupid profile alongside his age, 39, and his hobbies: making his own sourdough, attending art openings, taking photos with a fisheye lens and conceptual Halloween costumes.

Shalaby, a teacher in Toronto, says his intention is to let potential matches know Im interested in someone who takes an interest in learning and understanding ideas, exploring ideas, exploring different types of thought.

There are plenty of ways to learn and be educated. Ive met plenty of people who dont have formal education who are incredibly well read. Its not a prerequisite, having a piece of paper or going to an institution.

Decades of research has shown that couples tend to be similar in a variety of ways, including age, social attitudes, intelligence, attractiveness, education, race, ethnicity, political attitudes, mental health, even height. This is called assortative mating and likely has both a genetic and social component, though the actual mechanism is still unclear.

In fact, a 2015 paper from the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research found that husband-and-wife couples were more likely in 2005 than 1960 to have similar levels of education.

At New Jersey-based Monmouth University, psychology professor Gary Lewandowski recently conducted a survey of 800 Americans, asking what level of intelligence was most desirable in a partner.

Most (51 per cent) wanted a partner to be equally as smart. A smaller group (39 per cent) wanted someone even smarter. Just a tiny proportion (3 per cent) wanted someone less smart than them.

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Polling stations fixed in 68 districts

The Election Commission has said it has designated polling stations in 68 districts for the local level elections scheduled for May 14.
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The corporation created by the province to protect buyers of new homes is keeping secret records of poor or incomplete work by builders, a Star investigation has found.

Tarion Warranty Corp. has recovered nearly $30 million from developers in the past five years for deficiences in new homes but wont say who those builders are or what the problems were.

That means consumers looking to buy a new home cant find out from Tarion which builders were on the hook when the warranty program  following one of its key mandates  stepped in to complete work or fix problems after homeowners complained.

In a series of responses to questions from the Star, Tarion said it does not have to reveal the records because it already publishes a lot of information online, including a database of licensed builders, a list of developers who have had their licences revoked, and names of those prosecuted for illegal building.

Whether or not weve recovered money from a builder can be affected by so many factors that its not a useful information tool for consumers, said Karen Mortfield, Tarions vice-president of stakeholder relations.

Here are three cases the Star found where buyers had deficiencies in their new homes, yet consumers looking up the builders records on Tarions online database would have no way of learning what the problems were:

North Toronto luxury homebuilder JRC Developments Ltd. is the subject of a $42,000 lawsuit launched by Tarion to recover money it says it spent to correct construction deficiencies in a home. JRC denies responsibility and is countersuing Tarion for $51,000 in damages.

Builder Georgian Homes installed faulty heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems in a downtown Toronto townhouse complex and paid more than $50,000 in compensation to homeowners. Georgian says it did not intentionally install faulty systems.

Homebuilder Picture Homes Millenium installed an uneven garage floor in Port Perry that became cracked, allowing water to seep in and form puddles when it rained or snowed. The builder maintained, in an interview with the Star, that the floor was built in accordance to Tarion guidelines but nonetheless repaired the problem. An independent engineering firm later recommended the floor be repaired again, so Tarion offered the homeowners a cash settlement.

Tarion does not receive government funding, so it is not subject to freedom-of-information laws or oversight by the Ontario ombudsman. Likewise, the salaries of its CEO, chief operating officer, eight vice-presidents, 17 directors (such as director of warranty services, director of builder relations) and 30 managers are not made public. The corporation reported that it paid out nearly $24 million in salaries and benefits last year.

The majority of Tarions revenue of $60 million in 2012 came from home warranty enrolment fees  between $385 and $1,500 depending on the price of the home  that builders sometimes pass on to purchasers.

New-homeowner advocate Karen Somerville says Tarion should be more transparent because the purchase of a home is the largest investment most people make.

Consumers need reliable and complete information about a builders track record in order to make an informed purchase, said Somerville, president of Canadians for Properly Built Homes, a national non-profit consumer-protection organization.

Somerville started the organization in 2004 after she and her husband say they found more than 140 construction defects  including more than 50 Ontario Building Code violations  in their new Ottawa-area home.

For several years, the group has been lobbying the provincial government to make Tarion more transparent and update the 37-year-old legislation it administers.

With todays technology and the information Tarion has accumulated about the builders performance, we do not understand why this problem continues, Somerville said.

When a builder does not finish a job or fix a problem covered by warranty, Tarion will step in and complete the work or offer a settlement to the homeowner. Tarion will then invoice the builder to recover the cost of fixing the problem. Since 2008, Tarion has recovered nearly $30 million from builders, according to its latest annual report.

But Tarion does not make the names of these builders public or disclose how many are involved. Tarions mandate, in part, as stated on its website, is to protect consumers when builders fail to fulfill their warranty obligations.

Tarion does maintain an online database of licensed builders, which includes the number of times its inspectors found incomplete work and any compensation paid to homeowners, but it does not include specific information about the problems.

As a result, consumers have no way of knowing whether a problem was cosmetic, such as a poor paint job, or more serious, such as a faulty furnace.

In addition, the database lists only new homes by location going back three years, meaning consumers cant get a full picture of where a developer has built homes in the past.

The corporation acknowledges its public builder profiles do not provide a complete picture of customer-service records.

Our records, I think, are an indication. Theyre not a perfect indication, Tarions president and CEO, Howard Bogach, said in an interview with the Star. Were advocating that you do a lot more research in terms of picking your builder, doing references, talking to other people who have bought homes from those people.

Bogach said posting more information on Tarions website was something we can do a little more research with and talk about.

Alex and Sharon Patinios had always wanted to build their own home and saved for more than 10 years to do so.

In 2007, they hired JRC Developments to build their home on a lot they purchased in North Toronto. Construction went seemingly according to plan and, in April 2008, the Patinioses and their three children moved in.

Tarions statutory warranty process allows new homeowners to submit within the first 30 days of possession a list of deficiencies they believe should be covered by the warranty. Similar lists can also be submitted on the first and second anniversaries of possession.

For their 30-day warranty claim, the Patinioses noted more than 200 items they regarded as deficiencies, including a crack in a front window, incomplete painting throughout the house and a missing exhaust fan in a bathroom.

They say their builder, JRC, was initially amenable to addressing the deficiencies and came to the house to make repairs over the course of several months.

But after 120 days, the time builders are given by Tarion to correct problems, Alex Patinios said it became clear to him JRC wasnt going to finish everything.

The Patinioses requested an inspection, after which Tarion said 46 items were warranted.

The family challenged Tarions assessments at the Licence Appeal Tribunal, a provincial forum created to hear appeals of licensing decisions in government-regulated industries.

The Patinioses ended up making claims for what they believed were a further 200 deficiencies on their one-year and two-year anniversaries of possessions.

In the end, Tarion settled with the Patinioses for $35,520. Alex Patinios says he spent in excess of $50,000 in lawyer fees over the course of their ordeal.

Many major deficient items were fixed or compensated only when we challenged Tarion at great cost to us in time and money, said Patinios. In all our experiences dealing with Tarion, it appears to us to be a system designed by builders for the protection of builders.

Tarion says it is puzzled by Mr. Patinioss combative attitude toward Tarion.

Mortfield said that all of the Patinioses warranty items were either fixed or paid out in a cash settlement.

The vast majority of homeowners would be delighted by that outcome, she said.

Tarion has filed a lawsuit against JRC in an effort to recover more than $42,000 for losses it incurred in respect of the failure of the builder to perform certain obligations.

The suit alleges that JRC failed to ensure that reasonable skill and diligence was exercised in the construction of the home and that JRC has not reimbursed Tarion.

JRC denies the allegations in its statement of defence and is countersuing Tarion for $51,000 in damages. JRC argues that because the Patinioses supplied much of the interior finishes and hired their own bricklayer, among other things, it did not build the entire home or supply all the materials, so is only responsible for portions that it worked on.

JRC owner Ross Cammalleri declined to comment when contacted numerous times by the Star.

Mortfield would not discuss the lawsuit and said that collection litigation is a matter that should not be tried in the press or the Internet but rather should be permitted the due process of the courts.

None of the allegations has been proven in court.

Despite the settlements paid to the Patinioses and the fact that Tarion is pursuing JRC for money it says its owed, there is nothing about the deficiencies on Tarions profile for JRC.

Tarion was created by the province in 1976 to administer the Ontario New Home Warranties Plan Act.

Buyers of new homes and condominiums in Ontario are entitled to Tarions warranty program that protects against loss of deposits, delays in occupancy, defects in work and material, and major structural problems, among other things. Tarion also regulates new homebuilders, sets construction performance guidelines and prosecutes illegal builders.

Critics of the warranty program have long called for Tarion to come under the jurisdiction of the Ontario ombudsman.

Former ombudsman Dr. Daniel Hill first suggested just that in 1986. The suggestion wasnt taken up.

The current ombudsman, Andre Marin, used Tarion as an example last year while imploring MPPs not to let his office lose oversight of certain provincial agencies. Since 2007, his office has received 294 complaints about Tarion even though the corporation doesnt fall under his jurisdiction.

History has taught us that these organizations can be fraught with problems because their independence tells them that theyre really not governmental and they can act as if theyre not governmental, Marin told the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs.

Critics also point out that Tarions board is dominated by the construction industry and argue that its composition should be changed to include more consumer advocates.

Tarion board chair Harry Herskowitz, a development lawyer, says theres nothing unusual with the boards makeup, given that boards of other regulatory organizations, such as the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and the Law Society of Upper Canada, also have a majority of members from their respective professions.

The best people to govern or licence or regulate or oversee or manage how the industry is doing are builders themselves because they know what its like, they know what the higher standards should be, said Herskowitz. We have to balance consumer protection against commercial reality and we try to do that but always in the best interest of the homeowners, always.

Former Tarion CEO Greg Gee says it was a challenge to get approvals from the board for consumer initiatives and funding during his tenure.

If youre a consumer organization, how can you have a 35-year history of a board thats dominated by people that youre licensed to administer and control? Well, thats one of the conundrums that is at the root of Tarion, said Gee, who was at the helm of the corporation between 2001 and 2008.

Consumer Services Minister Tracy MacCharles told the Star she has met with Tarions leadership and doesnt see significant problems with the organization or the need for big changes.

The system is operating relatively well  it is not perfect  but it is also not broken, MacCharles said.

In December 2007 , purchasers of a new townhome development, Watermark Lofts, on Torontos Gerrard Street, started moving in, only to encounter major problems with their heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems.

But consumers hoping to learn about the track record of the builder, Watermark Developments Ltd., wont find it on Tarions online database. Thats because Tarion lists only builders that have current licences  Watermarks licence expired in 2009.

Tarion told the Star Watermark is a division of Georgian Homes. The Star could not find records of the Watermark Lofts deficiencies under Georgians public profile on Tarions website.

Bev Craddock, one of the townhome owners at Watermark Lofts who experienced problems, wonders how consumers are supposed to know that her builder is a division of Georgian Homes if there is nothing on Tarions website to indicate that.

Just a day after taking possession of her new home, Craddock discovered she had no heat. A repair was made to her HVAC system but the lack of heat proved to be just the beginning of her problems.

During the winter, her upstairs bedroom would become sweltering while rooms on her lower floors would stay cold. She also had trouble heating her kitchen, living room and dining room to 22 C, as required by the Ontario Building Code.

It was like living in multiple climate zones, said Craddock, 54.

Despite numerous attempts to fix the problem by contractors for the builder, Craddock noted the issue on her one-year warranty form. A Tarion inspector  who had no training in HVAC systems  denied Craddocks claim.

When Craddock appealed to the Licence Appeal Tribunal, Tarion conducted another inspection and found a temperature discrepancy of 14 degrees between the upper and lower floors, and agreed the complaint had merit.

Using her own money, Craddock hired an HVAC expert who suggested the system could be repaired for $60,000. Another expert hired by Tarion said the work could be completed for $20,000.

The owners expert was recommending extremely invasive, extensive repairs that would have gone well beyond anything to do with the claim, said Tarions Mortfield.

Tarion argued that because Craddock did not specifically mention problems with the air conditioning, any repairs should be limited to addressing heating issues.

The tribunal disagreed and said the system as a whole should be fixed. In the end, the tribunal awarded Craddock $40,000.

In some cases we dont get it right and we feel we let Bev Craddock down, said Mortfield. We should have been faster in finding a solution and we could have been more empathetic, understanding that she lived with a horrible situation for a very long time.

Craddocks next door neighbour, Cathy Pascuttini, experienced similar problems with her HVAC system and settled with Tarion for $35,500 last summer  more than four years after moving in.

We strongly feel and believe Tarion is not there to protect the rights of homeowners, Pascuttini said.

Georgian Homes president Anthony Maida said his company is very cognizant that the purchasers had a problem and the equipment failed and we did our best to fix it.

Maida stressed that builders rely on the expertise of contractors who install electric, heating and plumbing systems. He said Georgian Homes was told by Tarion to pay for half of Craddocks award and all of Pascuttinis settlement.

The builder has the ultimate responsibility, but he has all these, Ill use the word soldiers, that he hires and hes relying on them, too.

The company is now suing the HVAC systems designer, manufacturer, distributor and installer for $2 million.

About a year after moving in to their new home in Port Perry, Ray and Sharon Smith noticed cracks in their garage floor that allowed water to pool when it rained or snowed. When the temperature dropped, the couple says the puddle would freeze, creating a slipping hazard.

They informed Tarion of the problem on their one-year warranty claim form and say they were told the problem was not warrantable but that they should work with their builder, Picture Homes Millenium, to rectify the issue.

The couple says two repair attempts by the builder failed, so they approached Tarion but were told that because they did not request an inspection after submitting their one-year warranty claim on the garage floor, their file was closed.

It was intensely frustrating, said Ray Smith, 54.

After the Smiths sent several complaint letters to Tarion, the corporation agreed to have an engineering firm inspect the garage floor. The firm concluded the floor was constructed on loose soil and recommended the concrete slab either be replaced or raised.

Finally, nearly three years after taking possession, the Smiths settled with Tarion for $7,000, which included compensation for scratches in their patio door glass. The Smiths then hired their own contractor using this money to fix their garage floor.

Lorne Stein, vice-president of sales and marketing at Picture Homes Millenium, told the Star that minor unevenness in garage floors occurs occasionally.

In our view, there was no necessity for the homeowner to replace the garage floor. We met with two engineers retained by Tarion and a Tarion representative in the winter of 2008, at which time the engineers concluded the floor was acceptable and we did not hear anything further on this matter.

Stein said his company has no record of being advised of any payment made to the homeowners by Tarion, nor any records of problems with the Smiths patio doors.

We feel we handled the garage-floor issue properly and in a manner consistent with our advertising.

Anyone looking up Picture Homes Milleniums profile on the Tarion website would find a nearly flawless record. There is also no record of the builder having built homes in Port Perry, because Tarion only lists homes by location going back three years. (The development was finished in 2006).

Tarion says the settlement offered to the Smiths is not reflected on the builders profile because the items were not warranted and the payment was a goodwill gesture made by Tarion.

Smith says he thinks calling the payment a goodwill gesture masks any fault the builder may have.

Whether or not the settlements Tarion pays are recoverable from the builder, a new homebuyer would still want to know a builders record as reflected by the number and costs of defects that had to be corrected.

Kenyon Wallace can be reached at (416) 558-0645 or kwallace@thestar.ca .

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OTTAWAThe senator from Richmond Hill who had a sexual affair with a teenage girl will honour an invitation to speak with the Senate ethics committee considering how to punish him for his misconduct.

The appearance is linked to one of two controversies the Senate is dealing with this week. The other surrounds a Conservative senator who drew widespread condemnation for defending what she called the abundance of good inside Canadas now-defunct residential school system.

In the first instance, Sen. Don Meredith, 52, remains on sick leave from his Senate post and plans to speak with the ethics committee April 4, his lawyer Bill Trudell told the Star in an email Tuesday.

Depending on Merediths condition, which Trudell previously described as related to the stress of the sex scandal, the embattled senator could appear in person or speak to the committee by phone or video, Trudell said.

Sen. Meredith will honour the committees invitation on April l 4, but the format . . . will depend on the health concerns, he said.

There have been widespread calls for Merediths resignation. His fellow senators were back at work after a March break on Tuesday, during which several members were asked about the finding by the chambers ethics officer that the Pentecostal pastor used his political post to lure a teenage girl into a sexual affair.

Liberal Sen. Serge Joyal, who is deputy chair of the ethics committee, said they are taking the Meredith case one step at a time.

According to Senate rules, the committee must give the subject of an investigation the chance to speak for themselves before any sanctions are recommended for a vote on the Senate floor.

Joyal said the committee will report as promptly as possible to the Senate, after the April 4 meeting.

Appointed to the Senate by former prime minister Stephen Harper in 2010, Meredith was kicked out of the Conservative caucus when the Star first reported on his affair in 2015.

He has since apologized for the affair in an interview with The Canadian Press, but has, so far, refused to step down.

Another controversy in the Senate involves Lynn Beyak, a Conservative senator who ignited a firestorm when she gave a speech on the floor, referring to the abundance of good inside Canadas now-defunct residential school system, which infamously removed thousands of indigenous children from their families and home communities.

Earlier this month, NDP MP Romeo Saganash, who attended residential school, said Beyaks comments were like trying to find the good in the Holocaust.

Canadas Truth and Reconciliation Commission ruled the schools permanently damaged many students and left their lives disrupted and scarred.

Beyak has since doubled down on her position, telling the CBC this week that, while she acknowledges the horrific aspects of the schools, she doesnt need to revisit her Canadian history.

I appreciate their suffering more than theyll ever know, she told the broadcaster. The best way to heal is to move forward together. Not to blame, not to point fingers, not to live in the past.

On Tuesday, Beyak attended a meeting of the Senates aboriginal peoples committee, of which she is an active member.

Committee chair Lillian Dyck has called for Beyak to consider stepping down, but on Tuesday said outside the Senate that its up to the Conservative caucus to make a decision to remove her.

Sen. Larry Smith, a former CFL commissioner who was elected as the partys leader in the Senate on Tuesday, said the Conservative caucus didnt discuss Beyak.

Smith said he wouldnt rush a decision, and that he would talk to the members of the committee to get their opinions on her future.

Its not an easy situation, he said in French. Its a very, very sensitive question with our aboriginal population.

Independent Sen. Marilou McPhedran, who sits on the aboriginal peoples committee, said the members are actively discussing Beyaks comments, and checking into whether it is possible to remove her from the group.

McPhedran said that, while Beyak is entitled to her own views, her comments do not support the vision of the committee as supporting a renewed nation-to-nation relationship between the Canadian government and indigenous peoples across the country.

Other senators said that, while they disagree with Beyaks statement, she shouldnt be pushed off the committee.

We dont want a bunch of yes people sitting on committees that are only going to agree with everything everybody else agrees with, said Conservative Sen. Don Plett. She exercised her freedom of speech.

Sen. Scott Tannas, a Conservative who sits on the committee said hes not aware of any movement from the group to push Beyak out. He added that he considers the matter finished and that the senator is entitled to her opinion.

Better work gets done when people from a multitude of views are around. Otherwise you get groupthink, said Tannas, making it clear that he doesnt agree with Beyaks comments.

While it makes us uncomfortable sometimes, and sometimes its annoying, it can be a positive influence.

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Theres something that probably ought to be cleared up. Theres a perception out there  it arose during Tuesdays city council meeting debating (again) the extension to the Bloor subway line to the Scarborough Town Centre  that proponents of the competing LRT proposal have somehow delayed the construction of the subway for years.

Councillor James Pasternak said so again in a speech, saying subway skeptics have delayed and delayed before Councillors Gord Perks and Shelley Carroll loudly objected. In truth, as they pointed out, there has been no delay of the subway extension at all. Since it was proposed by Karen Stintz and Glenn De Baeremaeker as an alternative to the LRT plan that was to be constructed, it has proceeded, gaining approval by council, and having that approval affirmed with every adjustment of the plan since then, and every update from city staff on the revised budgets, timelines, and plans.

It has taken a long time, and theres debate each time, but there have been no delays of any kind  as Carroll said in her speech, Mayor John Tory and his allies have won every vote, every time. It has taken a long time, but that is because planning, designing, and building a subway takes a long time. The rest of the process will take a lot longer.

No, LRT proponents have not delayed this subway extension. In fact, as city staff clarified under questioning, the big source of delay came from the other side: if the seven-stop LRT plan had not been shelved and replaced by the subway extension plan, it would be under construction now and would be completed by 2019. (Meanwhile, if the subways-or-bust crowd under Rob Ford hadnt tried to shelve the Sheppard LRT to attempt a different subway extension, that line would be operating already.) Something for the get on with it crowd to chew on.

City staff also clarified something else that might run contrary to widespread perception. In as long as weve been having these LRT versus subway debates in this city, the citys government has never done a side-by-side business case comparison of the two plans in this corridor.

City manager Peter Wallace and Chief Planner Jennifer Keesmaat were emphatic about this  city council has never asked the professionals who report to them to evaluate the proposals side-by-side, which means essentially that staff have been forbidden from doing so. Repeatedly, Keesmaat clarified that the rationale for the one-stop-plus network plan she presented last year did not come from a comparison of the plan against the LRT alternative, it came from the explicit instructions of city council to build a subway.

So, for all the debate we have had, there have been no delays in the subway process. And for all the debate weve had, there has been no professional direct comparison of the alternatives.

During the debate on Tuesday, subway skeptics did not put forward any proposal to delay the process of building the subway extension. But they did put forward a motion to do the side-by-side comparison so that during future debates  as more detailed and accurate information about the subway plans costs and projections become available  our government will have some basis for comparison to judge how worthwhile it is.

Now something this delay-free, comparison-free years-long debate has featured a lot of is an aversion to information on the part of the subway advocates. Former mayor Rob Ford set the mould in which regional grievance is the only valid basis for debate, and LRT should be defined as some kind of insult while subways defined as a form of validation. Mayor Tory, and his allies especially including De Baeremaeker, have continued the tradition, going on about what Scarborough deserves and about how downtowners who never visit Scarborough want to deprive them of it. The Star this week reported an academic study showing average bus trips would be longer for Scarborough commuters under the subway plan, and TTC staff confirmed Tuesday their own preliminary study shows the same thing. But Tory insisted that would not be the case. I dont know how anybody could reach those conclusions a Globe reporter tweeted him saying on Monday. I continue to talk to real people, a Star reporter tweeted he said in justifying his own time estimates. He didnt call them folks, folks, folks, but the same old criteria for evaluating information was obvious.

The Scarborough subway extension has not been delayed, and nothing that happened at the meeting will change that. The comparison to LRT that has never been made will not be made either, as Tory and his team voted down the request for information. No matter how long we discuss this, some things never change.

Other things do change: the cost goes up. The number of expected riders goes down. The Scarborough subway extension, we heard at Tuesdays meeting, will be a deep tunnel  bored in bedrock to get it under the watery earth and creeks it needs to get past. Its terminal station will be buried deeper than any other in the system, which is part of why it will be so expensive, it needs so much more concrete, so many more levels in the station. Into this deep tunnel we will pour everything: oodles of money, the opportunity to build other projects to serve the people of Scarborough, years of our lives in debate. A majority of our politicians are not just determined to bury so much in that tunnel, but to consider that there is any other alternative worth even looking at.

Edward Keenan writes on city issues ekeenan@thestar.ca . Follow: @thekeenanwire

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Toronto police say a male was shot during a home invasion in Torontos Swansea neighbourhood Monday afternoon.

Police were called to the scene, near The Queensway and Windermere Ave., just before 4 p.m.

Const. David Hopkinson said that the victim sustained non-life threatening injuries.

Police say there is no suspect information.

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MIAMIThe family of a Canadian filmmaker and conservationist who died during a shark filming excursion off the Florida Keys filed a wrongful-death lawsuit Tuesday.

Rob Stewart, 37, of Toronto, died while diving in January off the coast of Islamorada, Fla., to film a follow-up to his 2006 documentary Sharkwater, which examined the impact of shark hunting on the oceans ecosystem. He also made a 2013 documentary Revolution about environmental collapse and was a wildlife photographer.

According to the lawsuit, Stewart and dive organizer Peter Sotis both surfaced at the same with apparent breathing difficulties, but Stewart didnt make it back on board the dive boat. While others were treating Sotis, they allowed Stewart to slip away.

Read more:

Toronto filmmaker Rob Stewart channelled passion for environment into global movement

Stewarts submerged body was found three days later, about 100 metres from where he was last spotted on the surface, following a massive search involving the Coast Guard and several other agencies.

Stewarts death was a preventable tragedy that was going to happen to someone, his familys attorney, Michael Haggard said in an email.

The family hopes the legal action will push out and/or change the ways of all irresponsibly operating diving businesses and help keep attention on Stewarts mission of ocean conservation, he added.

Unspecified damages are being sought in the negligence lawsuit filed in Broward County, Florida, Circuit Court. It names as defendants Horizon Dive Adventures of Key Largo, Fla., Add Helium LLC of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and dive organizers Peter and Claudia Sotis, who operate Add Helium.

An attorney for Sotis did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

According to the lawsuit, the dive was taking place at the wreck of the Queen of Nassau in about 70 metres of water and about 10 kilometres from the Islamorada coast. A grappling hook had been placed on the wreck that was attached to a surface buoy to mark the location of the dive. Stewart and Peter Sotis encountered difficulties when they went down a third time to remove the grappling hook.

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Residents of the Mount Dennis community are breathing easier after Metrolinx agreed to scrap plans to build a gas-fired power plant in their neighbourhood.

At a news conference Tuesday at the future site of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT maintenance and storage facility, Ontario Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca and York-South Weston Liberal MPP Laura Albanese announced that Metrolinx would build a battery energy storage system instead.

The province says the facility, which is designed to provide supplementary power to the LRT, would increase reliability of the transit line, reduce its operating costs, and lower emissions.

This is a dream. This is a pinch me moment, said Rick Ciccarrelli, a member of the Mount Dennis Community Association who attended the announcement.

He said that he and other residents had been pushing back against the planned 18-megawatt gas plant plan since they learned in late 2015 that it was included in plans for the LRT facility on the old Kodak lands.

Ciccarrelli said he was concerned the emissions from the plant would have negatively affected nearby residents. The land where the plant was to be built, which is just north of Eglinton Ave. West and Weston Rd. at the western terminus of the LRT line, is close to single family homes and a pair of residential highrises.

The immediate air shed is what we were concerned with. People have to breathe the air, said Ciccarrelli, who praised Albanese as well as local councillors Frances Nunziata and Frank Di Giorgio for helping pressure the government to bring about the change.

The gas-fired plant was supposed to be built by Crosslinx Transit Solutions, the consortium the province has contracted to build and maintain the line, and was expected to reduce energy costs by 40 per cent. But in the face of community opposition, Metrolinx had been discussing alternatives to the plant for at least a year.

Under the new plan, the battery energy storage facility would be connected to the existing hydro grid and be charged during off-peak periods when energy is cheap, such as overnight. The stored energy could then be used to supply energy to the Crosstown throughout the day. The batteries could also provide backup power in the event of an outage, which would be critical to removing trains from tunnels and providing ventilation during an emergency.

The province estimates the facility, which would also include a 90-kilowatt solar panel, could provide back-up power for up to four hours. Chris Tyrrell, Toronto Hydro chief customer care and conservation officer, said that power failures typically dont last that long.

Tyrell described the battery facility as a very innovative, creative project that met both the needs of the local residents and the transit project.

This community wanted a different option, wanted a greener option, said Minister Del Duca, who represents the riding of Vaughan for the provincial Liberals.

Today, Im here to tell you that the Ontario government has heard you loud and clear ... We worked very hard, we worked very creatively, we went back to the drawing table and we came back with an environmentally sustainable solution.

Del Duca said the government has yet to procure the new storage facility, and while its expected to reduce operating expenditures, he couldnt say how much it would cost to build. I dont anticipate it will be more expensive than the original plan, he said.

The 19-kilometre Crosstown line is scheduled to open in 2021.

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Toronto will host a new institute devoted to artificial intelligence, a major gambit to bolster a field of research pioneered in Canada but consistently drained of talent by major U.S. technology companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft.

The Vector Institute, an independent non-profit affiliated with the University of Toronto, will hire about 25 new faculty and research scientists. It will be backed by more than $150 million in public and corporate funding in an unusual hybridization of pure research and business-minded commercial goals.

The province will spend $50 million over five years, while the federal government, which announced a $125-million Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy in last weeks budget, is providing at least $40 million, backers say. More than thirty companies have committed upwards of $80 million over 10 years, including $5 million each from sponsors including Google, Shopify, Loblaws, and several big banks, $2.5 million from a tier that includes Air Canada and Telus, and smaller commitments from a range of homegrown startups like FreshBooks and Deep Genomics.

The mode of artificial intelligence that the Vector Institute will focus on, deep learning, has seen remarkable results in recent years, particularly in image and speech recognition. Geoffrey Hinton, considered the godfather of deep learning for the breakthroughs he made while a professor at U of T, has worked for Google since 2013 in California and Toronto.

Hinton will move back to Canada to lead a research team based at the tech giants Toronto offices and act as chief scientific adviser of the new institute.

Its certainly the case that there will be other researchers who will want to come back from the States  Ive had inquiries from quite a number, Hinton said.

Researchers trained in Canadian artificial intelligence labs fill the ranks of major technology companies, working on tools like instant language translation, facial recognition, and recommendation services. Academic institutions and startups in Toronto, Waterloo, Montreal and Edmonton boast leaders in the field, but other researchers have left for U.S. universities and corporate labs.

The goals of the Vector Institute are to retain, repatriate and attract AI talent, to create more trained experts, and to feed that expertise into existing Canadian companies and startups.

We want those firms to grow to be a great worldwide supplier of AI capability, so that we turn this into a service export to the world, and not have a situation where all Canada does is produce PhDs and send them south, said Ed Clark, chair of the Vector Institute board and adviser to Premier Kathleen Wynne.

We want Toronto, Ontario to be one of the core intellectual centres of artificial intelligence research in the world.

Some members of the institute will be focused purely on research. We dont really know where the new big breakthroughs are going to come from in this area, said Richard Zemel, the institutes research director and a professor of computer science at U of T.

We want to make sure we are at the forefront of that, so bringing on people who are doing research is really essential.

Hospitals are expected to be a major partner, since health care is an intriguing application for AI. Last month, researchers from Stanford University announced they had trained a deep learning algorithm to identify potentially cancerous skin lesions with accuracy comparable to human dermatologists. The Toronto company Deep Genomics is using deep learning to read genomes and identify mutations that may lead to disease, among other things.

Intelligent algorithms can also be applied to tasks that might seem less virtuous, like reading private data to better target advertising. Zemel says the centre is creating an ethics working group and maintaining ties with organizations that promote fairness and transparency in machine learning. As for privacy concerns, thats something we are well aware of. We dont have a well-formed policy yet but we will fairly soon.

The institutes annual funding pales in comparison to the revenues of the American tech giants, which are measured in tens of billions. The risk the institutes backers are taking is simply creating an even more robust machine learning PhD mill for the U.S.

They obviously wont all stay in Canada, but Toronto industry is very keen to get them, Hinton said. I think Trump might help there. Two researchers on Hintons new Toronto-based team are Iranian, one of the countries targeted by U.S. President Donald Trumps travel bans.

We hear from the community that Canada is a beacon, a beacon for openness and diversity, but also for our respect for research, science, and evidence-based decision making, said Kirsty Duncan, federal Minister for Science, speaking on Tuesday about the pan-Canadian AI strategy.

Hintons team is an extension of Google Brain, a research group that has made advances in speech and image recognition underlying tools like Google Translate and image search. The company announced it would open a Google Brain group in Montreal last November.

The Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms, led by another AI pioneer, Yoshua Bengio, has also received millions in public and private funding, and on Tuesday the Quebec government announced another $100 million for artificial intelligence.

AI is going to bring a lot of wealth, but if its made elsewhere we arent going to get a reasonable share of that wealth, even if we contributed to the original science, Bengio said.

March 30, 2017: This story has been modified with updated information on the institute's sponsors.

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Amid mounting controversy over police participation in pride events across the country, a Toronto city councillor is calling for a municipal donation to Canadas largest Pride parade to be cut after the event banned police floats from future festivities.

Coun. John Campbell said about half a dozen councillors so far agree that Pride Torontos annual grant request, expected in April, should be voted down until the citys Pride parade returns to its core principles of equity and inclusivity.

It doesnt sit right with me and with other councillors that we issue this grant in view of the position that theyve taken with respect to the police force, he said Tuesday. We need a certain level of equity and inclusivity attached to the issuance of grants for organizations.

In a surprise move at its annual general meeting in January, Pride Toronto adopted a list of demands issued by the Toronto chapter of Black Lives Matter, including banning police floats from the parade.

Members of the anti-racism activist group held a sit in part way through the citys annual Pride parade last July, stopping it from moving forward for about a half hour, until Pride organizers signed the list of demands. Black Lives Matter said it opposed police presence in the parade because it could discourage marginalized communities from participating.

Black Lives Matter bullied Pride into making a decision that I dont think was in the best interests of the city, Campbell said.

Janaya Khan, co-founder of the groups Toronto chapter, said the councillor did not understand race relations.

What is missing is a real understanding of what it means to be a racialized person in this city, and the fear that exists in your body when you are around a police officer, Khan said. The institution of policing discriminates people based on race. We actually wouldnt need to exist if city councillors were doing their job.

The groups goal, Khan said, is to create a broader discourse about public safety while creating a safe space for the black community involved in the parade.

Still, Prides decision to comply with Black Lives Matters demands was panned by some as a significant setback for police and LGBTQ relations.

Read more:

Mayor John Tory disappointed and frustrated after police say they wont participate in Pride parade

Toronto police should not have been forced out of Pride Parade: Editorial

Halifax police bow out of Pride parade amid national debate

Pride Toronto apologizes to Black Lives Matter for history of anti-blackness

In February, Torontos police chief announced that his force would not be participating in the annual event this year. Chief Mark Saunders pointed to divisions within the LGBTQ community as the primary reason for his decision.

Campbell said his objective is to get pride organizers and police talking again and working towards a more positive relationship.

In addition to the annual grant, worth about $260,000, the city foots the bill for about $750,000 worth of services related to the event, including policing, paramedics, transportation and waste collection. Those funds wont be affected, Campbell said.

Pride Toronto executive director Olivia Nuamah said she can barely speculate on the impact of potentially losing the grant from the city.

We believe in our festival and our festival will go on no matter what, she said.

Nuamah said the organization has worked hard to address the concerns of its membership.

Our memberships relationship with the police was spelled out as an issue, she said. We feel positive that we will find the right solution to the issues that have been brought up.

Nuamah, who has been in her position for about six weeks, said her understanding is the police withdrew from the festivities in order to minimize negativity and address community concerns. She said police will continue to provide public safety throughout the festival.

Torontos Pride parade and festival, the largest in North America, is not the only LGBTQ event in Canada to be engulfed in controversy in recent months.

In Vancouver, where police have marched in that citys pride parade since 2002, officers have been asked to show up in fewer numbers and leave their uniforms at home.

The Vancouver Pride Society made the request last month after the local chapter of Black Lives Matter asked the Vancouver Police Department to voluntarily withdraw from the march as a show of solidarity and understanding because the presence of uniformed officers makes some minority groups feel unsafe.

Meanwhile, Halifax Regional Police said in early February that after considering the national debate about police involvement in such events, it would pull out of this years Halifax Pride parade.

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When Rich Zagorski wandered through the crowd at the MaRS Discovery District on Tuesday morning, he blended in easily with the hundreds of people dressed just like him, with slightly disheveled white hair and matching moustaches.

One young student from Forest Hill Junior and Public School, wearing a white wig and taped-on moustache, stared at Zagorski  a dead-wringer for Albert Einstein  and declared I thought you were dead.

Im usually that guy that people think looks like Einstein. Here, Im just part of the crowd, said Zagorski, who drove seven hours from Albany, New York just to join the horde of Einstein lookalikes.

The group of 404 people set a Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of people dressed as Albert Einstein on Tuesday, beating the previous record by 99. Chants erupted when news broke that the group succeeded, with white wigs getting tossed in the air in jubilation.

But Tuesdays event was about more than setting a record  it also marked the start of the Next Einstein, an online competition that offers a $10,000 award for an idea that will make the world a better place.

Rami Kleinmann, president of the Einstein Legacy Project, says the competition encourages innovation and free-thinking.

Were living in a world where people are not revealing their ideas, they are too afraid to share them, he said. What were creating here is a way to encourage people to use their imaginations, share their ideas and improve the world.

Jonathan Sherman, 13, and Daniel Solomon, 14, have their own unique idea on how to improve the world.

Wearing matching white wigs and slightly itchy moustaches, the two Forest Hill students describe what they are hoping will be a $10,000 idea worthy of Einstein himself.

Weve basically made a device to stop robberies, said Solomon.

After Shermans family home was broken into, the pair created a security device that includes a motion sensor outside the home, and a hologram inside. When the motion detector is tripped, the hologram turns on and projects an image that makes it look as if people are home.

Although creating the device took many tries and included various challenges, the duo is excited to share their idea.

This a great opportunity for young people like us who are trying to get into the innovation world and have some good ideas, said Sherman.

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Saarc Handicraft Design Centre to be established

Saarc Handicraft Design Centre, the first such centre in the South Asian region, is slated to be established by the end of this fiscal year.
Imagine a woman who fled an abusive husband with her small kids and came to Canada without disclosing her broken marriage.

Fast forward 30 years. An immigration officer in Ottawa found out the woman used to be married and decided to revoke her citizenship because she had misrepresented herself in her citizenship application.

That was the case described by Sen. Elaine McCoy in a Senate meeting recently. Thats whats been happening, McCoy said.

I started getting very interested in this whole case and asked to see a copy of a revocation letter. Well, the story gets worse. The revocation letter is signed, Yours sincerely, D1816, she told the meeting, referring to the unidentified adjudicator who decided the case.

The independent senator representing Alberta was so disturbed that she decided to table a motion to amend the Bill C-6, the act to amend the Citizenship Act, to ensure a due process is established for those facing citizenship revocations on grounds of fraud and false representation.

The motion will be voted on in the Senate on Wednesday before the bill is sent back to the Parliament for a final vote.

They dont give any hearing, said McCoy, a lawyer by profession, who did not reveal the identity of the woman stripped of the citizenship. Im saying this is ludicrous; its bad and its wrong. Thats what the amendment is designed to address. It will give us a due process.

Canadian law has allowed citizenship to be revoked on the grounds of fraud and false representation since 1947, but the former Conservative government introduced reforms to transfer the power from the Governor in Council (essentially Governor General acting on the advice of cabinet) to immigration officials.

In less than two years since the new process started in May 2015, Canada has stripped the citizenship of 235 Canadians. Thats compared to a total of 167 under the old system from 1988 until the change.

Bill C-6was introduced by the Liberals to fulfil a campaign promise to repeal what the party said were unfair elements of its predecessors rules, including allowing citizenship revocation for dual citizens convicted of serious crimes such as terrorism, arguing it created two classes of citizens.

Among other changes, the Liberal bill would remove the requirement that a citizenship applicant intend to continue to live in Canada, reduce the residency requirement for citizenship eligibility to three years out of four (versus four out of six) and restrict the citizenship exam and language test to applicants between 18 and 54 (versus 14 and 64).

Immigration lawyer Steven Meurrens said he found it surprising that the Liberal government has chosen to keep the Conservative citizenship revocation measure for fraud and misrepresentation.

Before 2015, the law used to require immigration officials to first go before the Federal Court to prove a citizen had obtained the citizenship through fraud before the persons name was presented to the Governor in Council for the actual revocation.

However, the Conservatives streamlined the process so that an immigration officer would both determine whether there was fraud and if citizenship would be revoked.

No hearing is required and the proceedings are generally conducted by mail. A citizen can only ask the Federal Court to review the decision after the citizenship has already been revoked.

It is mind-boggling that it is easier to lose citizenship than permanent residency, said Meurrens.

His concern is echoed by the Canadian Bar Association, which advocates for the right to a hearing for revoked citizens before the Federal Court and that citizenship should not be revoked without an assessment of the humanitarian and compassionate factors.

A citizen whose citizenship is revoked should revert to permanent resident status, rather than immediately becoming an inadmissible foreign national, the bar association said in its submission to the government in response to the proposed legislation.

While in the past there were too many steps and jurisdictions involved in citizenship revocation making it almost impossible to strip someones citizenship, Sen. Ratna Omidvar said the Conservative government had swung the pendulum too far.

Citizenship is the foundation of all rights in Canada. You just cant take it away without access to due process, said Omidvar, an independent senator representing Ontario. We would like to swing the pendulum back to the centre.

Camielle Edwards, a spokesperson for Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, said the minister believes the system is constitutionally sound and has enough safeguards.

We will carefully review and consider the proposed amendment once it has been voted on in the Senate, said Edwards. The end goal is to maintain the integrity of our system while also doing what we can to ensure that the necessary procedural fairness is in place.

The current citizenship revocation regime is under a constitutional challenge in the Federal Court, which so far has stayed some of the citizenship revocation proceedings while the litigation is in process.

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How does Kathleen Wynne overcome her dismal popularity ratings?

Theres no good answer, but heres a better question: With or without Wynne, how do Liberals compete in the next election?

Recurring speculation about the premiers fate misses the mark. There is no saviour waiting in the wings, or walking on wings, capable of jettisoning all the excess baggage from nearly 14 years of Liberal rule.

Image is highly overrated in Ontario politics. Few people have any idea who now helms the opposition Progressive Conservatives (hint  Patrick Brown) or New Democrats (still  Andrea Horwath), yet both are flying high, personally, in the polls.

Their ratings may prove ephemeral, yet the opposition seems content to coast on negative public perceptions of the premiers personality and Liberal criminality. Thats precisely how they lost the 2014 campaign  damning Wynne as the devil incarnate, yet inchoate or inconsistent in their own ideas.

If Liberals are losing the battle of endearment, they can at least set the terms of engagement. The challenge is to focus on policy over personality, ideology over popularity.

In 2014 they campaigned hard on a new public pension plan, targeting fears about retirement security at a time of rising economic uncertainty and corporate insolvency. It proved popular on the campaign trail and ultimately drove major reforms to the Canada Pension Plan.

That same impetus for government activism at a time of private sector paralysis can reposition the Liberals as a party of ideas in the run up to next years provincial campaign. Starting in next months budget.

While the federal Liberals produced a stand-pat budget last week, expect the provincial government to come out with a more substantive document later next month. It will foreshadow major policy thrusts to stake out a reform agenda for the 2018 campaign.

It will go far beyond the recent mantra of affordability that drove the premiers repentance on road tolls and hydro rates. The governments goal in both cases was to address pocketbook concerns  or at least dial down the volume  so that the rest of their agenda can get a hearing.

The Liberals arent counting on affordability to generate lovability, but they are keen to avoid the kind of American alienation that helped elect Donald Trump president. So far, their promised 25 per cent cut to hydro rates has dramatically reduced the static, clearing the decks for next steps.

Affordability is the flip side of uncertainty. In a precarious economy, where few young workers can count on jobs for life, what role can government play in addressing peoples future prospects and present-day problems?

As the government weighs a just-completed report on the workplace, expect the Liberals to recognize the challenges of eroding wages  and the decline of private sector unions that has accompanied it. Employment standards and union organizing rights in the new (and disrupted) economy will be key.

How can low-wage workers who bounce from job to job, lacking any company benefits plan, afford to buy their own medicines? The governments study of a minimum annual income has attracted little attention, but could prove to be a winner if it is recast as a necessary response to the unpredictability of unemployment.

In the months ahead, the government will talk up its promise of free tuition for lower income families, which was phased in slowly and remains below the radar. And it is hinting at expanded rent controls later this spring to round out its affordability agenda.

This will be the first provincial budget to be balanced in nearly a decade. Ever since the 2008 economic crisis forced the Liberals to give up on annual surpluses, they have been tracking toward deficit elimination  incurring the wrath of public sector unions as they froze wages for years.

A balanced budget will be cast not as a fiscal end, but as a foundation to shore up social supports. A robust economic recovery has left much of the province behind, especially outside the big cities, but it has left the government flush with tax revenues.

The Liberals arent alone in going back to basics on policies. To their credit, the third-place NDP has rediscovered the merits of a higher minimum wage, public ownership of hydro, and rent controls as an urban vote-getter.

By contrast, the Tories have so far steered clear of major policy pronouncements. A promised hydro plan hasnt materialized, and a planned policy conference has been deferred to November.

As long as Brown remains a political unknown, we cant know how voters will react to his (so far) invisible personality  or lack of policy. He reaches out tirelessly to new groups of people, but the suspicion remains that he will try to be all things to all people.

Even if Wynne cant make a miraculous comeback in her personal popularity, her party can at least bounce back with a public policy agenda. Ahead of the next election, expect the Liberals to contrast their emerging ideas with the submerging platform of the PC leader.

Or in political terms: a full policy suite versus an empty suit.

Martin Regg Cohns political column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. mcohn@thestar.ca , Twitter: @reggcohn

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Tory MPP Jack MacLaren caused another headache for his party after calling zero tolerance of sexual abuse of patients dangerous  his second gaffe that comes a year after he underwent sensitivity training for telling a vulgar joke at a cancer fundraiser.

While MacLaren soon apologized, PC Leader Patrick Brown called the comment unacceptable and foolish, warning this cant happen again.

I was disappointed by the comments  he needs to think more carefully about his words, Brown told reporters, saying his party unequivocally supports a zero-tolerance policy.

Hes apologized, he knows all of his colleagues are disappointed, Brown added.   He needs to go back home and think about this. The last time he made a mistake, he went and talked to his family and went through sensitivity training 

It cant happen again and Jack knows that.

This is the third controversy to hit the Tories in recent days. Last week, MPP Randy Pettapiece (Perth-Wellington) asked an energy board appointee if she could do something about this coffee at Queens Park. Then, Brown himself was criticized by the Liberals for agreeing to speak at an event arranged by the male-only Cambridge Club, though held at a co-ed facility.

Pettapiece formally withdrew his comment and has apologized. MacLaren (Carleton-Mississippi Mills) posted a retraction online and then faced reporters after question period.

I have zero tolerance for sexual abuse of patients and the full force of the law should be applied in all cases, MacLaren said at Queens Park. So I assure you Ill be much more careful in the future about choosing my words because that was a mistake and I regret it very much.

He said, however, he doesnt need additional sensitivity training.

I respect doctors and health care professionals, my wife is a nurse and my three daughters are registered nurses, he said.   I just wanted to make sure that we didnt taint the good reputation of those people who provide such a valuable service  I apologize for any confusion or mixing of message that I made (Monday), it will not happen again.

During Mondays debate on patient protection legislation, MacLaren described a change that would boost discipline for health-care providers who abuse patients as going overboard.

Any time you hear the term zero tolerance, I find that dangerous, because there always has to be consideration of leniency, of understanding and of tolerance.

Deputy Premier Deb Matthews called his remarks a throwback to another era when misogynist opinions were the norm.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath later told reporters that Brown has some work to do with his members. That kind of language, that kind of attitude is not something that should be accepted by any member of this legislature in this day and age.

Brown said hed be offended if the Liberals are pouncing on these comments to distract from their poor record in government  but regardless, MacLarens words were a mistake.

Theres no grey in this issue, he added. It was a foolish comment.

Last April, MacLaren spoke at an Ottawa fundraiser, telling a joke that included crude reference to the sexual relationship between a female MP and her husband.

Liberal MPPs too have landed in trouble for inappropriate comments, including in 2014, when Bob Chiarelli was chided for sounding patronizing after commenting that the female auditor generals report was on an issue  electricity  that is very complex, is very difficult to understand.

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GAZA CITY, Gaza StripAfter spending a day at the beach, Mazen Fuqaha, a commander of Hamass military wing, dropped his wife and children at the entrance to their Gaza apartment block and went to park his car.

His life ended in a garage, where he was found dead in the drivers seat of his car after sunset Friday, shot four times in the head from close range. Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls the Palestinian coastal territory of Gaza, blamed Israel. The group presented no evidence but said the quiet assassination bore the hallmarks of a hit by Mossad, Israels spy agency, and pledged to respond.

Israeli officials have not commented on Fuqahas death other than to say that he was involved in planning attacks against Israel.

The mysterious killing of a leader of Hamass military wing, the Qassam Brigades, has raised tensions with Israel and threatened to undermine the fragile ceasefire that ended 50 days of deadly fighting in Gaza in summer 2014.

The assassination of Fuqaha could herald a new kind of shadow war between bitter foes: a message from Israel to Hamass new, hardline leader, Yehya Sinwar. Or Fuqahas death could be an ominous sign of internecine rivalries among Palestinian factions and even within Hamas under Sinwar, who has a reputation as a harsh enforcer of loyalty in the group.

Fuqaha and Sinwar shared a cell for a year in an Israeli prison, Fuqahas widow, Nahed Assida, said in an interview Monday. They were close friends, Assida said.

She added that Fuqaha had received threats from Israelis on a weekly basis, and that the couple knew he was a marked man. We expected him to be assassinated by an Israeli rocket that would hit our home in the next war, something of this sort, she said. Not this ugly crime.

The assassin, or assassins, who killed Fuqaha shot him point-blank using a weapon fitted with a silencer, according to Hazem Kassem, a Hamas spokesman. This, he said, was one of several Mossad fingerprints pointing to Israel as the perpetrator.

Israel has carried out assassinations of Hamas leaders in Gaza in the past, usually by airstrikes. Hamas has typically responded by firing rockets into Israel. Hamas officials said that only Israel had anything to gain from the assassination, and that they would choose the right time and place to take revenge.

Israel has not confirmed or denied involvement, preferring to maintain ambiguity. Some former Israeli officials and experts have suggested that Hamass rival, the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, or Egypt could also have had an interest in Fuqahas demise  or even Hamas itself.

Hamas is accusing us, but it could be Hamas, Danny Yatom, a former Mossad chief, told Israel Radio. If Israel was behind the killing, he said, it is possible we are witness to a preventive strike and not an elimination, suggesting that Fuqaha may have been planning an attack in the West Bank or Israel.

Gazas Interior Ministry has taken the extraordinary measure of closing border crossings with Egypt and Israel to anyone except for patients needing medical treatment, the families of prisoners in Israeli jails or ministers in the Palestinian government.

Fuqaha lived in the Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza City, where members of the Qassem Brigades searched cars around the apartment building on the night of the assassination. Authorities also closed Gazas small port on the Mediterranean coast, barring fishermen from setting sail, as there was speculation that the assassin, or assassins, may have escaped by sea.

On Monday, dozens of police motorcycles surrounded the building and barred reporters from gaining access. Palestinian Attorney General Ismail Jaber announced a ban on the publication of any details relating to the investigation. People in the neighbourhood said Hamas security forces had searched all the apartments in the building and had taken the male residents in for questioning.

Thousands participated in Fuqahas funeral Saturday, which was also attended by top Hamas leaders, including Sinwar.

Fuqaha, who was 38, was from Tubas in the West Bank. In a statement issued after his death, the Qassam Brigades said he was a leader with a great role in planning and supervising a number of heroic anti-occupation operations against Israel.

He was convicted and sentenced to nine life terms in prison by Israel for his role in planning a suicide bombing that ripped through a bus in the Galilee in 2002, at the height of the second Palestinian intifada, killing six civilians and three Israeli soldiers. He was released in 2011, along with Sinwar and 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was captured during a 2006 cross-border raid and was held by Hamas in Gaza for five years.

Israel barred Fuqaha from returning to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, so on his release he moved to Gaza, where he joined Hamass remote West Bank command. Israel withdrew its forces and settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

Mazen always said that Gaza was the safest place for him, Assida, his widow, said. He did not want security and bodyguards.

She was sitting in a womens mourning tent in Katiba Square in central Gaza as hundreds came to pay their respects. Dozens of children gathered around dressed in Qassam outfits and carrying toy guns.

On the day her husband was killed, Assida said, they had taken their 4-year-old son, Mohammed, and 18-month-old daughter, Sama, to the beach. After they returned home, Assida was getting the children ready for bed in their fifth-floor apartment. She said she had not worried when Fuqaha did not immediately come home after going to park his car. She assumed that he was talking to neighbours.

She said of her children, I will teach them resistance: Islam, jihad, power and expelling the Jews from Jerusalem.

If they grow up and the Israeli occupation is still there, she said, I will be happy to sacrifice them to die for Palestine.

Assida said that Israeli soldiers would break into her familys home in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, threatening to kill her husband if he did not stop his activities.

In June 2014, she said, someone called her familys home phone and told Fuqaha: We will kill your family. We will kill your kids.

She said she also remembered another call when Fuqaha had told an Israeli who was threatening him, If you are a man, come to Gaza.

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MINNEAPOLISA student actors insensitive posting of a photo showing fellow cast members in costumes Ku Klux Klan garb prompted the cancellation of a play scheduled for this weekend that was being put on by students at a Minnesota high school, the principal said Monday in an email to students and parents.

Making the rounds over the weekend on social media was an image shot from a row or two back showing the stage with New Prague High School students in the white robes and hoods favoured by the KKK, whose long-fought and violent campaign against blacks in the United States has come to symbolize racism in the country. New Prague is about 72 kilometres south of Minneapolis.

I think youre gonna want to come to the spring play were the words on the bottom of the photo, referring to the production scheduled for staging Friday and Saturday nights.

On Friday afternoon, (an) NPHS student involved in the play posted a captioned photo on social media of some fellow cast members in KKK costumes that are used in the final scene of the play to depict an evil force in the play titled The Foreigner, said the email signed by Principal Lonnie Seifert and Assistant Principal Tom Wetschka.

Administration was made aware of the posting, and the insensitive nature of this post, the email continued.

The email did not specify what it was about the social media posting that made school officials deem it insensitive.

In an interview Monday afternoon, Seifert said the postings lack of context made the photo and the accompanying words troubling.

While the KKK members depicted in the play are portrayed as ignorant and closed-minded villains who lose out in the end, the principal said that message was lost with the post.

He said staff met with students who were offended and understand there are students and adults who are uncomfortable with that part of history. Seifert said there are 12 black students among the 1,300 or so attending his school.

The principals email explained that as we reviewed the social media post and conducted meetings with our theatre director and concerned community members, we feel it is in the best interest of New Prague Area Schools to not present the show this weekend.

The principal and his assistant said in the email that the dust-up over the posting will be followed up by discussions among students, staff and others as we continue to work at embracing a culture of acceptance and respect for all students within the school district.

The Foreigner is a two-act comedy by American playwright Larry Shue that is set in a fishing lodge in rural Tilghman County, Ga., where two Englishmen arrive as guests. One of them soon discovers scandals among some of the residents of the lodge.

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UNITED NATIONSSaying the time was not right to outlaw nuclear arms, the United States led a group of dozens of UN members Monday that boycotted talks at the global organization for a treaty that would ban the weapons.

There is nothing I want more for my family than a world with no nuclear weapons, Ambassador Nikki Haley of the United States told reporters outside the General Assembly as the talks were getting underway. But we have to be realistic. Is there anyone who thinks that North Korea would ban nuclear weapons?

Haley and other ambassadors standing with her, including envoys from Albania, Britain, France and South Korea, declined to take questions.

The talks, supported by more than 120 countries, were first announced in October and are led by Austria, Brazil, Ireland, Mexico, South Africa and Sweden. Disarmament groups strongly support the effort.

The United States and most other nuclear powers, including Russia, oppose the talks. The Obama administration voted against convening them.

The talks come against the backdrop of increasing worries over the intentions of a reclusive North Korea, which has tested nuclear weapons and missiles that could conceivably carry them. Defying international sanctions, the North Koreans have threatened to strike the United States and its allies with what North Koreas state media has called the nuclear sword of justice.

Haley and U.K. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft emphasized that their countries had vastly reduced the size of their nuclear arsenals since the height of the Cold War.

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Rycroft said his country was not participating in the talks because we do not believe that those negotiations will lead to effective progress on global nuclear disarmament.

Haley questioned whether countries favouring a weapons ban understood the nature of global threats. Referring to countries participating in the talks, she said, You have to ask yourself, are they looking out for their people?

She cited North Korea and Iran in articulating her opposition to the talks. But those countries have taken divergent positions on negotiations for a treaty. North Korea, like the United States and its allies, is sitting out the talks. Iran, which does not have nuclear weapons and has promised to never acquire them, is participating.

Is it any surprise that Iran is in support of this? Haley said.

Haleys counterparts from Russia and China, both veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council, did not join her protest group. But they are not participating in the talks.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia said in Moscow last week that his government did not support a global nuclear weapons ban, essentially agreeing with the U.S. position.

Efforts to coerce nuclear powers to abandon nuclear weapons have intensified significantly recently, the Tass news agency quoted him as saying. It is absolutely clear that the time has not yet come for that.

Proponents of a nuclear weapons ban have acknowledged the challenges of reaching a treaty but have been encouraged by efforts that led to landmark prohibitions on other types of weapons, including chemical weapons, land mines and cluster munitions.

If a sufficient number of countries were to ratify a nuclear weapons ban, supporters contend, it would create political and moral pressure on holdouts, including the big nuclear powers.

Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said in a statement that the opposition expressed by Haley and her allies demonstrates how worried they are about the real impact of the nuclear ban treaty.

Fihn, whose organization is a strong supporter of the negotiations, said a treaty would make it clear that the world has moved beyond these morally unacceptable weapons of the past.

Humanitarian aid groups not directly engaged in disarmament causes also endorsed the talks.

Of course, adopting a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons will not make them immediately disappear, Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in a statement. But it will reinforce the stigma against their use, support commitments to nuclear risk reduction and be a disincentive for proliferation.

As the talks began inside the General Assembly hall, Toshiki Fujimori, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, made an emotional appeal to diplomats. He was a baby on his mothers back during the attack, he said, but one of his sisters was in junior high school, closer to the bombing site. Her body was never found.

Im here at the U.N. asking for an abolition of nuclear weapons, he said through an interpreter. Nobody in any country deserves seeing the same hell again.

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MOSUL, IRAQA sharp rise in the number of civilians reported killed in U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria is spreading panic, deepening mistrust and triggering accusations that the United States and its partners may be acting with an unprecedented disregard for lives of non-combatants.

The escalation comes as local ground forces backed by air support from a U.S.-led coalition close in on Daeshs two main urban bastions: Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.

In front-line neighbourhoods in western Mosul, families described cowering in basements for weeks as bombs rained down around them and Daesh battled from their rooftops. Across the border in Raqqa, residents desperately trying to flee before an offensive begins are being blocked by the militants, who frequently use civilians as human shields.

Throughout his election campaign, U.S. President Donald Trump pledged to target Daesh, also known as ISIS and ISIL, more aggressively, criticizing the U.S. air campaign for being too gentle and asking for a reassessment of battlefield rules. The United States has denied there has been any shift and defended the conduct of its campaign.

But figures compiled by monitoring organizations and interviews with residents paint an increasingly bloody picture, with the number of casualties in March already surpassing records for a single month.

The worst alleged attack was in Mosul, where rescue teams are still digging out bodies after what residents describe as a hellish onslaught in the Mosul al-Jadida neighbourhood during the battle to retake it two weeks ago. Iraqi officials and residents say as many as 200 died in U.S.-led strikes, with more than 100 bodies recovered from a single building. The U.S.-led coalition says it is investigating the reports but has acknowledged carrying out a strike against militants in the area.

The wooden carts that residents use to carry vegetables and other wares in the once busy market area instead ferried out cadavers recovered from the rubble last week.

Speaking from Baghdad to reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday, U.S. army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend said that U.S. officials are looking into the possibility that Daesh militants had forced civilians to gather there as human shields or to lure the U.S. into attacking. He also stressed that no one should think the casualties were a deliberate U.S. act.

If we did it  and Id say there is at least a fair chance we did  it was an unintentional accident of war, he said.

Also on Tuesday, the spokesman of the UN human rights office called on the coalition to work to minimize the impact on civilians. Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Rupert Colville said Daesh militants are brazenly employing human shields, urging the coalition to avoid this trap.

Amnesty International said the coalition was not taking sufficient precautions to prevent civilian deaths in Mosul, in a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.

It was just one of numerous incidents across Iraq and Syria in recent weeks that have raised concerns that the United States has flouted rules requiring it to protect civilians. In both countries, local politicians and activists say the high numbers of deaths are spreading alarm among civilians and sewing distrust of the U.S.-backed campaign advancing toward their homes.

People used to feel safe when the American planes were in the sky, because they knew they didnt hit civilians, said Hussam Essa, a founder of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, which monitors violence in Raqqa province. They were only afraid of the Russian and regime planes. But now they are very afraid of the American airstrikes. It is only American planes that are active, and they are targeting everywhere.

According to the U.K.-based organization Airwars, which tracks allegations of civilian deaths in airstrikes, out of 1,257 claims of deaths in U.S.-led coalition airstrikes this month, a record 337 have been assessed as being fair, meaning that there is a reasonable level of public reporting of the alleged incident from two or more generally credible sources and that strikes have been confirmed in the vicinity on the day in question.

The scale of the destruction is huge, and we are reeling from the number of alleged cases, not just in Mosul but in Raqqa, too, said Chris Woods, the director of Airwars. Casualty numbers from western Mosul are absolutely shocking. In Syria its a car here, a family there. It happens every day.

The group has stopped monitoring Russian strikes in Syria, in order to focus on accusations linked to the U.S.-led coalition, saying its organization is overwhelmed. In the first two months of the year, U.S. strikes were responsible for more civilian casualties than Russian strikes for the first time since Russia intervened in 2015, according to Airwars figures. Russian strikes are now climbing again as a partial ceasefire collapses.

In Raqqa they havent yet completed the encircling, and yet theres been a huge jump in reported casualties from coalition strikes since Trump, Woods said. That is an indication that the U.S. is taking less care.

Woods said the intensification began during the Obama administration but escalated under Trump. In December, the U.S.-led coalition delegated approval to battlefield commanders in Mosul, speeding up the responsiveness of strikes after a tough battle for the eastern part of the city. The coalition says strikes are subject to the same scrutiny.

There is no military force in the world that has proven more sensitive to civilian casualties, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday. We are keenly aware that every battlefield where an enemy hides behind women and children is also a humanitarian field, and we go out of our way to always do everything humanly possible to reduce the loss of life or injury among innocent people.

The escalation of U.S. strikes around the city of Raqqa ramped up in February as the United States intensified efforts to train and equip a Syrian force in preparation for an offensive against the city, expected to begin in the coming months.

In March, the tempo increased further, with more sites being targeted that have no obvious military value, according to a Syrian living in Turkey who is from Raqqa and is in regular contact with his family and friends who are still there. They are hitting everything that isnt a small house, he said, including the barges that ferry passengers across the river dividing the city now that the bridges have been disabled.

Among the bigger incidents was a strike last week on a farmhouse sheltering displaced people in the town of Mansoura outside Raqqa that killed at least 30 people, according to monitoring groups. An attack on a mosque in western Aleppo that the U.S. military said was aimed at known Al Qaeda operatives also appears to have killed dozens of people attending prayers, according to witness accounts and monitoring groups.

A wave of continued attacks in the past week in the small town of Tabqa has added to a record toll of 101 civilians killed by U.S. strikes from the beginning of the month to March 21, Essa said. He provided the names of 41 people alleged to have been killed in a three-day period last week in strikes that hit a bakery, a car wash, a slaughterhouse and other targets.

In Iraq and Syria, there has also been a discernible shift in the kinds of targets being hit  with infrastructure such as hospitals and schools coming under fire. The U.S.-led coalition contends that militants are increasingly using such protected buildings as bases for attack, knowing that there are restrictions on bombing them under U.S. rules of engagement.

Tabqa is a crucial step on the path to Raqqa, and it is the current focus of the battle. Reports that the Tabqa dam have also been hit by airstrikes during the fighting have further contributed to the sense of panic after Daesh issued a warning on Sunday that the dam could burst.

Downstream from the dam, residents are terrified by the intensified bombing and of the risk of a dam breach, the Syrian said. His family is desperate to escape, but Daesh has erected checkpoints to prevent people from fleeing. People dont know what to do, he said.

In Iraq, too, civilians are trapped as Iraqi forces push into the most densely packed areas of Mosul, including the Old City, where an estimated 400,000 people are trapped in old structures on narrow streets.

The UN said that at least 307 civilians have been killed and 273 wounded in western Mosul since Feb. 17, warning Iraqi security forces and the coalition to avoid falling into Daeshs trap as the group deliberately puts civilians in danger.

With a large amount of artillery and ordnance being fired into the city, though, it is also hard to ascertain which deaths the coalition is responsible for, Woods said. Iraqi commanders, who call in airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition, say its difficult for them to know whether civilians are in houses when many are stuck inside for weeks at a time and it is not possible to see them through drone surveillance.

Lt. Gen. Abdul Ghani al-Asadi, commander of Iraqs counterterrorism units, said the troops are instead relying on tips from those fleeing as to which houses have civilians inside.

Still, Mosul Eye, a monitoring group in the city, said it had warned Iraqi forces that civilians were trapped in homes in Mosul al-Jadida days before the U.S. strike there and sent co-ordinates.

Amnesty International said that because the government has told residents to stay in their homes, the U.S.-led coalition should have known that strikes would be likely to result in significant numbers of civilian casualties.

For civilians, many of whom are trapped and unable to leave, the situation is dire.

Nour Mohammeds family of 23 people hid in a basement in western Mosul for nearly two weeks as explosions rang out around them, crammed into an area of just 12 square meters.

Daesh militants forced the family to keep the front door open so that they could move in and out of the building freely and fend off the advancing Iraqi forces from the roof.

We were terrified every time wed hear the sound of an airplane that theyd bomb us all, she said as she fled the city last week.

With files from The Associated Press

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JOHANNESBURGAnti-apartheid leader Ahmed Kathrada, who spent 26 years in prison for opposing South Africas white minority government  much of that time alongside the countrys first black president, Nelson Mandela  died Tuesday at age 87.

Kathrada late in life became such a scathing critic of current President Jacob Zuma, even pleading with him to resign, that he requested Zuma not attend his funeral, local media reported Tuesday. Kathrada had been distressed by the numerous corruption allegations against the leader of a country he had long fought to see exist.

I can imagine how pained he was that he left at this point in time, said Mandelas ex-wife Winnie Madikizela Mandela, who wept at Kathradas memorial and had supported his call last year for Zumas departure. It is a tragedy that he did live and saw what is happening today.

She and other friends defended Kathradas remarks even as senior members of the ruling African National Congress criticized them.

Kathrada died at a Johannesburg hospital after being admitted for surgery linked to blood clotting on the brain. His funeral was set for Wednesday morning.

Zuma, meanwhile, described Kathrada as a much-loved member of South Africas long liberation struggle and ordered the national flag to be flown at half-mast at all government buildings.

The struggle denied Ahmed Kathrada the opportunity to have children of his own; he was first imprisoned at the age of 17. But many South Africans looked up to him as a favourite grandparent, Nobel laureate and former archbishop Desmond Tutu said in a statement.

Kathrada was born in 1929 to a scholarly Muslim family and became involved in political activism at the age of 11. He joined the Communist Party in the early 1940s and, as general-secretary of the Transvaal Indian Congress, was instrumental in linking it to the ANC. He later became a member of the ANC military wings high command.

He was acquitted in the 1956-61 mass treason trial but was placed under house arrest in 1962. He went underground a few months before being swept up in the arrests of anti-apartheid activists at Liliesleaf Farm on the outskirts of Johannesburg in 1963. Kathrada and Mandela were part of a group sentenced to life imprisonment after the historic Rivonia trial in 1964.

Kathrada denied all charges against him and was convicted on only one count, sabotage.

He was released from prison in 1989, just months before Mandela himself walked free. In 1994 as Mandela was elected president, Kathrada was chosen as the first all-race parliament for the ANC.

Later in life, Kathrada would recall his friend Mandelas abundant reserves of love, patience and tolerance during their long years in prison on Robben Island. He said it was painful when he saw Mandela for the last time in his hospital bed.

He tightly held my hand, it was profoundly heartbreaking, Kathrada said in 2013. How I wish I never had to confront what I saw. I first met him 67 years ago, and I recall the tall, healthy strong man, the boxer, the prisoner who easily wielded the pick and shovel when we couldnt do so.

During the past year, Kathrada was a regular at demonstrations and marches around South Africa, frequently offering his support to students protesting for free education.

But it was a letter he wrote to the president last year, after South Africas highest court found that Zuma had violated his oath of office, that brought Kathrada back into the headlines.

The court made the finding after Zuma had refused to abide by an order to pay back some of the millions of dollars in public money spent on upgrading his rural home.

Dear Comrade President, dont you think your continued stay as president will only serve to deepen the crisis of confidence in the government of the country, Kathrada wrote.

A fellow target in the Rivonia trial, 91-year-old Andrew Mlangeni, said Tuesday that his friend criticized the ANC because he loved it and was prepared to say where it had gone wrong.

Kathrada was married to former government minister Barbara Hogan, who was sentenced to 10 years in jail for high treason against the apartheid government in 1982.

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BUDAPEST, HUNGARYHungarys new legislation allowing for the detention of asylum-seekers in shipping containers at border camps took effect Tuesday, with the European Unions commissioner for migration saying that it needs to comply with the blocs rules.

Dimitris Avramopoulos said that EU and Hungarian experts will meet to discuss the new law, which has been sharply criticized by UN agencies and human rights advocates.

The new legislation is meant to complement the fences built by Hungary in 2015 and this year on the borders with Serbia and Croatia. The barriers have drastically reduced the number of migrants able to pass through the country on their way to Germany and other destinations in Western Europe.

We decided to work together through our experts and ensure that EU rules also are complied with, Avramopoulos said after meeting with Hungarian officials. The European principles have been jointly and unanimously agreed by all member states and should therefore be respected and implemented by everyone, too.

This implies giving effective access to the asylum procedure while fighting against abuses, but also ensuring a fair review of decisions, the commissioner added.

Read more: Hungary votes to detain all asylum seekers in camps built from shipping containers

Interior Minister Sandor Pinter said that while there was agreement with the EU about the need to increase European security, there were differences on how to deal with migrants trying to enter countries while avoiding regular border controls.

Our positions came closer even today and by the summer, we will find a way to express a common position, Pinter said.

Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group, said that the commissioners visit was long overdue and noted that other countries in the region, like Poland and Slovenia, were following Hungarys example by adopting similarly restrictive asylum rules.

Hungarys new rules are designed to make it difficult to seek asylum there, and unpleasant or downright dangerous for those who do, said Lydia Gall, an HRW researcher in Eastern Europe.

She said that Avramopoulos should demand that Hungary change course. He should also be willing to use legal enforcement action if Hungary fails to comply.

Meanwhile, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, an advocate for asylum-seekers, said that a temporary order late Monday from the European Court of Human Rights was meant to prevent Hungary from taking eight teenagers and a woman with a high-risk pregnancy from refugee reception centres to the shipping container border camps.

The rules coming into force today simply deny protection to children, deny protection to refugees and essentially resort to illegal detention, said Marta Pardavi, the Helsinki Committees co-chair.

Gyorgy Bakondi, Prime Minister Viktor Orbans national security adviser, said that 88 asylum-seekers, including 21 unaccompanied minors between the ages of 14 and 18, were now in reception centres around the country and could be taken to either of the two transit zones on the Serbian border, in the towns of Roszke and Tompa.

We took these legal steps so that no one is able to enter Hungary illegally, Bakondi said. Our aim is to decrease the security risk markedly present in Europe since 2015. We are protecting not only Hungarys borders, but Europes as well.

UN childrens agency UNICEF has also expressed concerns over that fact that unaccompanied minors older than 14 will also be detained in the border camps.

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NAIROBI, KENYAThe worlds largest humanitarian crisis in 70 years has been declared in three African countries on the brink of famine, just as U.S. President Donald Trumps proposed foreign aid cuts threaten to pull the United States from its historic role as the worlds top emergency donor.

If the deep cuts are approved by Congress and the U.S. does not contribute to Africas current crisis, experts warn that the continents growing drought and famine could have far-ranging effects, including a new wave of migrants heading to Europe and possibly more support for Islamic extremist groups.

The conflict-fuelled hunger crises in Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan have culminated in a trio of potential famines hitting almost simultaneously. Nearly 16 million people in the three countries are at risk of dying within months.

Famine already has been declared in two counties of South Sudan and 1 million people there are on the brink of dying from a lack of food, UN officials have said. Somalia has declared a state of emergency over drought and 2.9 million of its people face a food crisis that could become a famine, according to the UN And in northeastern Nigeria, severe malnutrition is widespread in areas affected by violence from Boko Haram extremists.

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UN says world faces largest humanitarian crisis since 1945

Canada pledges $120M after UN warns of largest humanitarian crisis since WWII

We are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations, Stephen OBrien, the UN humanitarian chief, told the UN Security Council after a visit this month to Somalia and South Sudan.

At least $4.4 billion is needed by the end of March to avert a hunger catastrophe in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in late February.

But according to UN data, only 10 per cent of the necessary funds have been received so far.

Trumps proposed budget would absolutely cut programs that help some of the most vulnerable people on Earth, Mick Mulvaney, the presidents budget director, told reporters last week. The budget would spend less money on people overseas and more money on people back home, he said.

The United States traditionally has been the largest donor to the U.N. and gives more foreign aid to Africa than any other continent. In 2016 it gave more than $2 billion to the U.N.s World Food Program, or almost a quarter of its total budget. That is expected to be reduced under Trumps proposed budget, according to former and current U.S. government officials.

Ive never seen this kind of threat to what otherwise has been a bipartisan consensus that food aid and humanitarian assistance programs are morally essential and critical to our security, Steven Feldstein, a former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Obama administration, told The Associated Press.

In an interview last week with the AP in Washington, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rejected the proposed cuts to foreign aid. America being a force is a lot more than building up the Defence Department, he said. Diplomacy is important, extremely important, and I dont think these reductions at the State Department are appropriate because many times diplomacy is a lot more effective  and certainly cheaper  than military engagement.

The hunger crises in Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan are all the more painful because they are man-made, experts said, though climate change has had some impact on Somalia and Nigerias situations, said J. Peter Pham, the head of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council.

South Sudan has been entrenched in civil war since late 2013 that has killed tens of thousands and prevented widespread cultivation of food. In Nigeria and Somalia, extremist groups Boko Haram and al-Shabab have proven stubborn to defeat, and both Islamic organizations still hold territory that complicates aid efforts.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

If Trumps foreign aid cuts are approved, the humanitarian funding burden for the crises would shift to other large donors like Britain. But the U.S.s influential role in rallying global support will slip.

Without significant contributions from the U.S. government, it is less able to catalyze contributions from other donors and meet even minimal life-saving needs, Nancy Lindborg, president of the United States Institute of Peace, said in prepared remarks to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, neighbouring African countries will feel the immediate consequences of famine, experts said. On Thursday, the UN refugee chief said Uganda was at a breaking point after more than 570,000 South Sudanese refugees had arrived since July alone.

Others fleeing hunger could aim for Europe instead.

We are going to see pressure on neighbouring countries, in some cases people joining traditional migration routes both from the Sahel into Europe, or south into various destinations in Africa, Joseph Siegle, director of research at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, told the AP.

You have 19 countries facing some degree of food stress in Africa, and three of them are facing famine conditions. All three of them are facing conflict, and the vast majority of the countries facing more serious crises are non-democratic governments, Siegle said.

He described a series of possible consequences. Most likely there will be increased flows of people migrating from Somalia and the vast Sahel region north into Libya, where trafficking routes are a valuable source of finance for Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL), he said.

Closer to home, people from South Sudan and Somalia seeking food likely will strain the resources of neighbouring countries where political will and goodwill to refugees can be fleeting, said Mohammed Abdiker, director of operations and emergencies with the International Organization for Migration.

The regional consequences will depend on how the international community responds, Abdiker said.

Alex De Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation, summed up the situation: Famine can be prevented if we want.

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Security Council recommends Army deployment for May polls

A meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) has recommended deployment of the Nepal Army for the upcoming local elections.
BAGHDADA recent spike in civilian casualties in Mosul suggests the U.S.-led coalition is not taking adequate precautions as it helps Iraqi forces battle Daesh (also known as ISIS), Amnesty International said Tuesday.

The rights groups allegations came after the U.S. military acknowledged carrying out a March 17 airstrike in an area of western Mosul where residents say an explosion killed more than 100 civilians. U.S. officials did not confirm there were civilian casualties, but said a probe is underway.

Read more: U.S. military acknowledges airstrike on Mosul where residents say more than 100 were killed

Amnestys report also cites a second strike on Saturday that it said killed up to 150 people. The U.S.-led coalition said in a statement that it was investigating multiple strikes in western Mosul that allegedly resulted in civilian deaths.

Evidence gathered on the ground in Mosul points to an alarming pattern of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes which have destroyed whole houses with entire families inside, the Amnesty report said.

It said any failure to take precautions to prevent civilian casualties would be in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.

In Baghdad, visiting U.S. army chief of staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, said Monday that the exact cause of the March 17 explosion was still unknown, adding that some degree of certainty will be known in the coming days following the investigation.

It is very possible that Daesh blew up that building to blame it on the coalition in order to cause a delay in the offensive into Mosul and cause a delay in the use of coalition airstrikes, Milley told reporters. And it is possible the coalition airstrike did it.

Initial results from an investigation launched by the Iraqi Defence Ministry showed that the airstrike hit an explosive-laden tanker truck which was heading toward the advancing troops, according to Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, an Iraqi military spokesman. The explosion damaged a number of buildings, including the one where Daesh was holding 130 civilians as human shields and where snipers were deployed on its roof, Rasool said.

Read more: Battle for west Mosul could be deadliest yet for Iraqis

It is a new tactic being used by the members of this terrorist group, using big car bombs against the troops that impact the civilians to inflame the public, he told The Associated Press. He added that the rules of engagement adopted by Iraqi troops and the coalition had not changed.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, the spokesman of the U.N. human rights office called on the coalition to work to minimize the impact on civilians. Rupert Colville said Daesh militants are brazenly employing human shields, urging the coalition to avoid this trap.

Colville added that the rights office has tallied the deaths of at least 307 people between Feb. 17 and March 22, including 140 from the March 17 airstrike.

Iraqi forces began the assault on Daesh-held Mosul in October, after months of preparation and buildup. In January, Iraq declared the eastern half of Mosul  the Tigris River divides the city into an eastern and western sector  fully liberated. Iraqi government forces are now battling to retake the citys western half.

Civilians, humanitarian groups and monitoring officials have repeatedly warned of the possibility of increased civilian casualties in western Mosul due to the higher density of the population there and the increased reliance on airstrikes and artillery. Faced with their toughest fight against Daesh yet, Iraqi and coalition forces have increasingly turned to airstrikes and artillery to clear and hold territory in Mosuls west.

Unlike in previous battles against Daesh in urban settings in Iraq, the government instructed Mosul civilians to remain in their homes, to prevent large-scale displacement. In the battles for Fallujah and Ramadi, those cities were entirely emptied of their civilian population while Iraqi forces fought to push out Daesh.

Read more: Thousands flee Mosul as fight between Iraqi forces and Daesh rages on

When the operation to retake Mosul was launched, more than a million people were estimated to still be living in the city, Iraqs second-largest. Today, the United Nations estimates about 400,000 people remain trapped in Daesh-held neighbourhoods in western Mosul.

Amnesty Internationals report quoted survivors and eyewitnesses of airstrikes that have killed civilians as saying that they did not try to flee as the battle got underway because they received repeated instructions from the Iraqi authorities to remain in their homes.

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More than 100 million years ago, on a muddy stretch of land that is now Australia, nearly two-dozen species of dinosaur once roamed.

There were duck-billed ornithopods, which left long, three-toed tracks in their wake. Heavy armoured dinosaurs pressed large, tulip-shaped prints into the soil. Predators scratched the ground with their talons. And the feet of gigantic, long-necked sauropods created bathtub-sized depressions in the dirt.

Asteroids struck, continents moved, sea levels rose and fell. What was once a damp, forested environment surrounded by shallow seas became the hot, rugged coastline of northwestern Australia.

But the dinosaurs tracks remained. The footprint assemblage, which contains evidence of 21 species, is the most diverse in the world, researchers reported Friday in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

One of those tracks is the largest dinosaur print ever recorded: a 5-foot-9-inch print from a sauropod, or long-necked dinosaur. The tracks also provide the first evidence that spiky tailed stegosaurs lived in the land down under.

The tracks provide a snapshot, a census if you will, of an extremely diverse dinosaur fauna, lead author Steve Salisbury, a paleontologist at the University of Queensland, told Gizmodo. Twenty-one different types of dinosaurs all living together at the same time in the same area. We have never seen this level of diversity before, anywhere in the world. Its the Cretaceous equivalent of the Serengeti. And its written in stone.

There are thousands of marks along the 15-mile stretch of coastline, called Walmadany by the indigenous Goolarabooloo people and labelled James Price Point on most maps. Salisbury likened the region to Australias own Jurassic Park.

The Goolarabooloo have known about the fossil trackways for millennia. The massive markings, which are visible only at low tide, are featured in Goolarabooloo oral histories, or song cycles, Salisbury told the BBC.

They relate to a creation mythology, and specifically the tracks show the journey of a creation being called Marala  the emu man. Wherever he went he left behind three-toed tracks that now we recognize as the tracks of meat-eating dinosaurs, he said.

In 2008, Walmadany was selected as the preferred site for a natural gas plant. Worried that the sacred and scientifically significant site would be lost, the Goolarabooloo reached out to paleontologists and asked them to look into the tracks.

We needed the world to see what was at stake, Goolarabooloo leader Phillip Roe said in a statement.

The area was listed as a natural heritage site in 2011, and plans for the natural gas plant fell apart two years later.

Working alongside the Goolarabooloo, who are considered the regions traditional custodians, Salisbury and his colleagues spent 400 hours investigating the markings. Each one was measured with three-dimensional photogrammetry, a technique used to build a 3-D reconstruction of an object by taking photographs from a variety of angles. For some tracks, the scientists also made casts out of flexible silicon, which can later be used to produce museum replicas of the prints.

According to Salisbury, most other Australian dinosaur fossils come from the continents eastern side and date back to the mid-Cretaceous, about 90 to 115 million years ago. These tracks, which are between 127 and 144 million years old, represent the only fossil evidence from the early Cretaceous and are some of the oldest dinosaur remains in Australia, he said.

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The federal government has a fundamental responsibility to appoint a sufficient complement of judges such that our courts can function properly. Its failure in that regard creates a constitutional crisis that goes to the very rule of law that underpins our justice system.

A lack of judicial appointments in the context of increasing pressure to conduct timely trials equals a systemic miscarriage of justice. With caseloads where they are, the system is at its breaking point.

Add to this difficult dynamic the recent Supreme Court of Canada ruling in the R v Jordan decision, which mandates criminal trials must be heard within 18 months for the so-called lower courts, and 30 months for the Superior ones. Absent compelling circumstances, delinquent prosecution equals administrative dismissal.

Due to this artificial prescription dozens of cases have been tossed, including murder and sex assault cases. No trial. No verdict. Worse still, the victims and their families are left without recourse or remediation and no one is accountable. Not fully appreciated as yet, this jarring situation stands to worsen due to the arbitrary deadline, which provides no consideration for the seriousness of the offence.

Against this backdrop we note inertia from the federal government on the appointment of judges to hear these languishing cases. Canadians face an alarming scenario of serious violent charges being vacated due to the acute shortage of judges. Justice delayed is justice denied is a maxim never more appropriately invoked than now.

As minister of justice (2013-15) I oversaw the appointment of more than 230 judges; prior to that my government prioritized hundreds more. We appointed a judiciary that represented the face of Canada, a diverse bench predicated and built on inclusion of all races, creeds, and genders in the legal community across Canada.

Vacancies on the federally appointed bench is at an all-time high. Sixty-two empty seats (currently 58 empty seats - see correction below) of the 840 federally appointed judges, against 14 (the lowest in decades) when my government left office. In June 2015, we appointed a record 22 women: over 60 per cent of the judges appointed on that occasion. We appointed more judges on one day (43) than the current government has in 16 months in office.

We also incorporated several justice enhancing features in the long-standing Judicial Advisory Counsel (JAC) process, such as a police presence on the oversight selection committee, to augment law society, governmental and judicial oversight. The present government precipitously axed police participation, despite increasingly obvious security concerns. Seemingly as the government let lapse all the existing JACs and has only reconstituted seven of the 17 required to vet lawyers, it has also diminished wider participation.

The current resultant bottleneck in the process is predictable: relatively few judges appointed since this government took office. More than half the country is now without a system of nomination given the dearth of committees for judges. And the corollary: a moribund system, few cases tried on a timely basis, more cases dismissed, more burnout inside our justice system, including our judges, our police services, our prosecutors, defence counsel, court staff, victim services and child youth advocacy centres.

The most profoundly impacted are the victims. Investing time and trust in our justice system is hard enough for victims. To have the alleged perpetrator walk away scot-free makes it that much worse. Many victims come away feeling re-victimized by the system and form the conclusion that they would not report the crime again based on their negative experience.

Will such frustration and betrayal result in refusal or failure to report crime? Most assuredly. Many more victims will be re-victimized by an undernourished system unless and until the government acts decisively.

Speaking of those disenfranchised by this inertia, recall the Victims Bill of Rights, which became law in 2015. One can search high and low and will find nary a mention of this important legislation. The government has failed them further by ignoring and underfunding programs for victims, in rolling-back mandatory minimum penalties for serious violent offenders and use of conditional sentences (house arrest), and in stripping away victim fine surcharge-funded support for the victims.

So  what justifies starving the bench of its human capital? A reluctance to replenish in the face of a growing number of terrible injustices? The present government owes us immediate action.

The impact of the Jordan decision undeniably exacerbates the current systemic crisis. Adherence to a political philosophy, Charter affinity, or party loyalty cannot be seen or heard to interfere with high-quality candidates filling widening vacancies.

Reprioritization of an efficient, functional, reliable judicial system can only occur with a full complement of competent judges. Its fundamental to the rule of law. Justice must be seen to be done lest justice be denied.

Peter MacKay is a former federal minister of justice and partner at the law firm Baker McKenzie in Toronto.

Correction  March 30, 2017: The above article states that 62 of the 840 federally appointed bench seats are vacant. In fact, the article was written prior to the federal Justice Minister appointing four judges to the Superior court on March 24, decreasing the number of current judicial vacancies to 58.

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Canadian officials are over in Brussels, we are told, trying to figure out whether this country should join the so-called laptop ban imposed by the Trump administration on a number of Muslim-majority nations. Transport Minister Marc Garneau says they are carefully assessing information of concern.

They should indeed be careful, but they should also be very skeptical about this latest measure. Security experts are still scratching their heads about the logic of forcing passengers to pack laptops and other electronic devices larger than a cellphone in their checked baggage.

The ban was announced early last week by U.S. officials, who said passengers travelling on direct flights from eight Middle Eastern and north African countries would have to check their devices. The reasons were murky, but the New York Times reported that new intelligence showed that Daesh (aka the Islamic State) was developing a bomb hidden in portable electronics.

If true, this might well be quite a threat. But only Britain joined in the ban right away, with other countries (including Canada and the rest of Europe) waiting on the sidelines.

This alone puts a big question mark over the effectiveness of the new rule. Security experts have pointed out the obvious: what prevents a would-be terrorist from simply flying from, say, Cairo, which is on the U.S. banned list, to Paris or Frankfurt and changing planes for New York?

It also raises the question of why the vast army of airport security screeners isnt able to distinguish between a harmless laptop or tablet and one with a bomb built in? Isnt that what theyre for?

And the result of forcing travelers to check their devices means that potential bombs could be secreted in luggage compartments, ready to be detonated by remote-control. Philip Baum, editor of Aviation Security International magazine, summed it up to the Guardian: I think its a very ill-thought-out proposal.

Its also a measure of the Trump administrations low level of trust and credibility that another, less straightforward motive for the laptop ban is being floated.

Three of the most affected airlines  Emirates of Dubai, Etihad Airways of Abu Dhabi, and Qatar Airways  have long been accused by their American competitors of receiving massive subsidies from their governments. The theory is that the ban amounts to retaliation by the protectionists now in control of the White House.

All of which means Canada and other countries should take a long hard look at the evidence for this ban before signing on. If theres persuasive proof it could save lives, then it may be worth the added inconvenience. But given the Trump administrations highly questionable track record so far, there should be no rush to fall in line.

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Re: Transit tax break to be cut, March 23

Transit tax break to be cut, March 23

Its often said that its the little things that bring down governments. Particularly when they add up. The Trudeau governments decision to eliminate the tax credit on transit passes is one of the those things.

The elimination of the tax break shows how increasingly the Liberals are out of touch with Canadians.

Whats amazing about this decision is that it comes from a government that prides itself on its environmental commitment. The Liberals are supposed to be a government devoted to fighting climate change. You can sign all the Paris climate accords you want, but its things like getting more people to use public transit and out of cars that help the planet.

A year and a half into their mandate, the Liberal brand is beginning to wear thin. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau loves the glamour of the job: vacationing with the Aga Khan, hanging out with Ivanka Trump in New York. But hes forgetting that he was elected to do a job to help Canadians. Stephen Harper looks better and better every day.

Andrew van Velzen, Toronto

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Re: Knowledge is money, March 25

Knowledge is money, March 25

Excellent editorial position, especially the emphasis to teach young people. Indeed, money management skills should already be taught in grade school, not just high school.

Its just too bad that it is obviously much too late to send Premier Kathleen Wynne and her government members back to school to learn these same skills on how to manage money. Ontario might not be so heavily indebted had they been taught these lessons early in their first mandate.

J. Brunins, Britt, Ont.

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Re:

Re: Time to be open, March 24

Time to be open, March 24

I would like to provide a point of clarity regarding your editorial.

The Police Services Act forbids me, as chief of police, from publicly disclosing many details of officer discipline. The information I am permitted by law to share is done through our legislated police tribunal process.

I am required to submit reports to the Police Services Board that addresses incidents investigated by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU). These reports include aspects of officer discipline as well as the results of any review conducted in light of concerns raised by the SIU.

This reporting process is very transparent and at no time does it require me to report directly to the SIU.

If, as part of its investigation, the SIU believed our officers were tampering with evidence, I would expect them to lay the appropriate criminal charges. Instead, the SIU report provides opinion, not fact.

I agree that creating a report for the public is the right thing to do; however, compromising any requirements placed on me through legislation is not.

Your editorial gives the public the sense that I am personally choosing to withhold this information from the public. This is wrong.

Chief Mark Saunders, Toronto Police Service

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Seven Senate Democrats including Senator Elizabeth Warren on Monday send a letter to Carl Icahn arguing that the billionaire corporate raider turned activist may be breaking federal conflict of interest laws because of his position as special adviser to the Trump Administration for overhauling federal regulations.

President Trump tapped Icahn for the role in December, arguing that he's "one of the world's great businessmen" and "not only a brilliant negotiator but someone who is innately able to predict the future especially having to do with finances and economics."

However, the role has raised questions among Democrats, some of whom have been arguing for weeks that Icahn's ownership of specific companies and stakes, in oil refiner CVR Energy, Herbalife (HLF) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) , for example, raises "alarming" questions about how the billionaire investor is handling his conflicts of interest.

"Your multi-billion dollar commercial holdings are vast and riddled with conflicts of interest, and, yet, you have not divested from these holdings since taking your position in the White House," the letter said.

The letter raises concerns that Icahn was intimately involved with the selection of Trump's pick for key regulatory posts, including the White House's choice of Wall Street lawyer Jay Clayton to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, an "agency that is or has been involved in multiple investigations of companies you own." It noted that the SEC is investigating Herbalife - Icahn owns about a 25% stake -- for potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The agency also recently settled claims against CVR Energy, where Icahn owns an 82% stake, the letter notes.

At his confirmation hearing last week, Clayton was pressed by Warren over his relationship with Icahn. The SEC nominee acknowledged that he met with Icahn, but only after he was nominated for the job of heading the regulatory agency. Clayton added that no discussion of SEC regulations or Icahn's investments came up. "We talked about Mr. Icahn's view on the importance of activist investors and how through their methods drive the performance of public companies," Clayton said.

Clayton added, to chuckles from the audience, that "he [Icahn] thinks they do well for the markets."

Warren alleged that Icahn might recently have taken a state in Bristol-Myers Squibb recently based on some sort of inside information he could have obtained about potential changes to regulations for the large multinational drug company. The Wall Street Journal reported in February that Icahn acquired a Bristol-Myers stake and thinks the drug giant could become a target for a takeover down the road. The Deal in January identified Bristol-Myers as a potential activist target, arguing that Pfizer could be interested in buying it.

"He purchased a stake months after he was appointed a special adviser to Trump on regulatory policy," Warren said. "If Mr. Icahn had insider information on federal policy affecting Bristol-Myers-Squibb and he chose to buy shares based on that info is that potentially a violation of securities laws?"

However, Clayton declined to venture an opinion, arguing that the question of the scope of securities laws around insider trading is a facts and circumstances analysis.

In the letter, Warren and other senators asked Icahn to provide more specific details about his official position as an adviser to the Trump Administration, and whether he was required to divest holdings or recuse himself from any discussions. The letter also asks whether Icahn received any waivers from ethics requirements.

Icahn did not return a request for comment.
Simple solution

Nepals geopolitical significance in and beyond the South Asian region can be viewed from two focal dimensionsone, Tibet of China, and, two, the Himalaya as the boundary marking Indias physical security.
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.
Singapore couple jailed for starving Philippine maid

A Singaporean couple have been jailed for starving their domestic worker from the Philippines, in a case that has shocked the city-state.
Canada will soon deliver to Ukraine the next batch of non-lethal military equipment.

This was stated by National Defense Minister of Canada Harjit Sajjan, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Our next delivery will include first-aid kits, training materials for the military police and ammunition disposal equipment," Sajjan said.

He reminded that Canada had been supplying various units of non-lethal military equipment to Ukraine for a long time, e.g. tactical communication systems, night vision goggles and even a mobile field hospital.

"This vital equipment will increase the capabilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces while reducing the financial burden on the Ukrainian government," Sajjan said.

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It has become obvious since the end of last year that the West has not been taking sufficient measures to make Russia implement the Minsk agreements.

This has been stated by James Bezan, the Official Opposition Critic for National Defence and member of Conservative Shadow Cabinet, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"As we have seen since the end of 2016, neither Russia nor the Russian-backed militants in Donetsk and Luhansk regions comply with the Minsk agreements, while Ukraine pays for that," Bezan said.

In his opinion, the regular violations of the Minsk agreements require that the West provide Ukraine with lethal weapons.

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International NGO for combating corruption Transparency International and its branch in Ukraine have called on the Ukrainian government to abolish controversial amendments to the Law on Prevention of Corruption that appear designed to intimidate and target anti-corruption activists.

This is said in the statement, posted on the organization's website.

"The e-declaration law was introduced to inhibit corruption and allow for public scrutiny of the wealth of those in power to ensure people did not abuse their official positions to increase their assets beyond their salaries. It has no relevance to anti-corruption activists who are not paid by the state," the statement said.

As reported, Verkhovna Rada Chairman Andriy Parubiy yesterday signed the law obliging representatives of non-governmental organizations to submit e-declarations.

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President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko held a meeting with heads of governments of the member-states of the GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development, the presidents press service reported on Monday evening.

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko met with Prime Minister of Georgia Giorgi Kvirikashvili, Prime Minister of Moldova Pavel Filip and Deputy Prime Minister of Azerbaijan Ismat Abbasov. The Head of State praised the results of the Summit that have a significant importance for the launch of the GUAM free trade area, reads a report on the presidents official website.

In particular, participants in the meeting praised the signing of documents aimed at promoting the development of the GUAM transport corridor as an important communication link between Europe and Asia, as well as open broad opportunities for enhancing economic ties between the countries of the organization.

The parties also discussed the extending of cooperation in the sphere of security within the GUAM and the Eastern Partnership. In particular, they discussed the establishment of the Regional Center of Eastern Partnership to combat cybercrimes and the coordination of actions to fight against terrorism.

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Ukraine and Moldova have started active implementation of joint projects and programs within the scope of the Roadmap for Cooperation, which was signed in February 2017.

Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman sated this at a meeting with Prime Minister of Moldova Pavel Filip that was held within the framework of the GUAM summit at the initiative of the head of the Ukrainian government, the Cabinet of Ministers official website reports.

Moldova for us is a friendly country," Groysman said.

He added that Ukraine and Moldova, together with Georgia and Azerbaijan, signed a range of very important documents on the establishment of a free trade area within GUAM and the recognition of customs procedures.

Weve managed to discuss the procedure of cooperation and discuss the issues of bilateral cooperation. It is important that weve signed the document on a free trade within GUAM, and this means new jobs, the revival of trade process within the framework of our agreement," the Prime Minister said.

The parties also discussed urgent issues that are to be resolved at the level of experts and regulatory bodies of the two countries, in particular in the sphere of environmental expertise and border control.

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Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman is planning to pay an official visit to Georgia in late November 2017.

Volodymyr Groysman wrote this on Facebook following a meeting with Prime Minister of Georgia Giorgi Kvirikashvili.

I thank Giorgi Kvirikashvili for the invitation - I will definitely make an official visit to Georgia at the end of November 2017... The main topic of discussion [at the meeting] was prospects and directions for deepening cooperation between Ukraine and Georgia. Id like business contacts and comprehensive cooperation to deepen," Groysman wrote.

According to him, there are prospects in the development of bilateral trade, as well as in the spheres of infrastructure and agriculture.

"A positive step in this direction will be the holding of a sitting of the joint intergovernmental Ukrainian-Georgian commission on economic cooperation on April 12-13," the prime minister said.

He also thanked Georgia for consistent support of Ukraine's territorial integrity and its position on Russia's aggression against Ukraine.

The meeting was held within the framework of the GUAM summit.

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The Resurgence of Nokia

There hasnt been a brand-name, apart from Apple, as seminal as Nokia in the field of smartphones.
On Friday, March 31, a meeting of NATO-Ukraine Commission at the level of Foreign Ministers will be held in Brussels.

The Ukrainian delegation will be headed by Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, own Ukrinform correspondent in Brussels reports.

The meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission will be held in the scope of a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of NATO Allies and Partners

NATO Foreign Ministers will discuss current issues of adapting to new challenges and threats, as well as preparations for a NATO summit that is to be held in Brussels on May 25.

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The Parliamentary Assembly of Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania has condemned the Russian aggression in Ukraine, supported the creation of the economic assistance plan for Ukraine and decided to send a joint letter to the parliaments of the EU countries and the United States, asking to support Ukraine.

This is stated in the wording of the final document of the VIII session of the Interparliamentary Assembly of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and the Sejm and the Senate of the Republic of Poland, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"The Interparliamentary Assembly of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and the Sejm and the Senate of the Republic of Poland has confirmed at its meeting in Warsaw on March 27-28, 2017 its support for Ukraine's complete sovereignty and territorial integrity within the borders recognized by the international law. The Assembly calls on the Russian Federation to stop the occupation of Crimea and cease to violate the human rights of its residents," the Assembly's document reads.

The Assembly asserts that there are grounds for maintaining the international sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation until Minsk agreements are fully implemented by Russia and Crimea is de-occupied.

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Head of the NATO Representation to Ukraine Alexander Vinnikov has stated that Russia has long been using the myth which holds that Moscow can prevent Ukraine from exercising its right to chart its own foreign policy course.

Mr. Vinnikov said this at the international roundtable meeting "Overcoming myths about NATO: Agenda 2020", an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"I would like to focus on the myth that Russia allegedly has a legitimate right to veto Ukraines foreign and security policy choices, for example by demanding guarantees that Ukraine will not join NATO. This myth has been being used actively not only in the Russian media but in your country [Ukraine] as well. This myth contradicts the fundamental principles of international law. Every country has the right to choose whether or not to belong to international organizations," Vinnikov said.
Trump son-in-law met executives of sanctioned Russian bank, will testify

A Russian bank under Western economic sanctions over Russia's incursion into Ukraine disclosed on Monday that its executives had met Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a top White House adviser, in December.
Trump son-in-law to be questioned over alleged Trump-Russia ties

President Donald Trump's son-in-law and aide, Jared Kushner, will be questioned by a US committee investigating alleged ties between the Trump team and Moscow.
Conflict, drought, displacement and disease are driving a massive humanitarian crisis, with nearly 1.4 million children at imminent risk of death from severe acute malnutrition this year.

They now face the risk of death from starvation, but also from preventable diseases like cholera and measles, which cause severe diarrhoea and dehydration.

Increasingly, the crisis is one not only of food insecurity but also of clean water and sanitation and health care  especially of disease prevention and treatment to protect already vulnerable malnourished children.

This crisis is largely human-made. Scorched earth tactics by conflicting parties are destroying crops and critical infrastructure like health facilities. Heavy fighting is forcing farmers to abandon their fields, while blocking humanitarian access to people in desperate need of food aid and clean water.

As families flee their homes, children have no access to health and nutrition services, clean water, or adequate sanitation and hygiene  putting them at greater risk of malnutrition. Diseases are spreading rapidly in crowded sites for displaced people. And drought is further exacerbating food crises in other areas, such as the Horn of Africa and Lake Chad basin.

With so many lives at stake, UNICEF and partners are calling on all parties to the conflicts in each respective country to provide unconditional and unimpeded humanitarian access. Ultimately an end to conflict in all four countries is needed to improve the lives of children and their families now and in the years to come.
NEW YORK, 27 March 2017  All of us at UNICEF are shocked by the senseless killing of staff belonging to our partner organization, the Grassroots Empowerment and Development Organization. The humanitarian workers were travelling in a car that was clearly marked as belonging to a nongovernmental organization.



We are appalled that humanitarians working to improve the lives of the vulnerable in South Sudan were so brutally targeted and call on the authorities to find and hold accountable those responsible.



GREDO is working on community-based reintegration programmes, supporting children released from armed forces and groups.



We offer our deepest condolences to the families and colleagues of the victims.



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UNICEF/Knowles-Coursin

Download photos and videos from: http://weshare.unicef.org/Package/2AMZIFDD22Q

NEW YORK/DAKAR/NAIROBI/AMMAN, 28 March 2017  More than a month after famine was declared in South Sudan, time is running out for more than a million children as drought and armed conflict devastate lives in northeast Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen, UNICEF said today.

Children cant wait for yet another famine declaration before we take action, said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF Director of Emergency Programmes. We learned from Somalia in 2011 that by the time famine was announced, untold numbers of children had already died. That cant happen again.

Some 22 million children have been left hungry, sick, displaced and out of school in the four countries, UNICEF said. Nearly 1.4 million are at imminent risk of death this year from severe malnutrition.

UNICEF will require close to $255 million to provide these children with food, water, health, education and protection services for just the next few months, according to a new funding update.

Most of the funds  over $81 million  will go towards nutrition programmes to screen children for malnutrition and provide them with therapeutic food.

An additional $53 million will be allocated to health services including vaccinations, while over $47 million will go to water, sanitation and hygiene programmes to prevent potentially deadly diahorreal diseases.

The remaining funds will help protect children affected by conflict and displacement and provide them with education services. Cash assistance will also be offered to the most vulnerable families.

The resources needed over the next few months are part of a broader appeal for all of 2017, totaling $712 million  a 50 per cent increase over funding requirements in the four countries at the same time last year.

UNICEF has been working with partners in the four countries to respond to the famine threat and prevent it from spreading:



 In northeast Nigeria, UNICEF will reach 3.9 million people with emergency primary healthcare services this year, treat 220,000 severely malnourished children under the age of five, and provide more than a million people with access to safe water.



 In Somalia, UNICEF is supporting 1.7 million children under-five years of age, including the treatment of up to 277,500 severe acute malnutrition cases through facility-based and mobile health and nutrition services.

 In South Sudan, UNICEF, together with partners, has delivered life-saving assistance to 145,000 people in areas affected or threatened by famine, including 33,000 children under the age of five.

 In Yemen, UNICEF has scaled up activities to respond to malnutrition through health facilities, mobile teams, community health workers and volunteers reaching hard-to-access communities and displaced families. UNICEF is also supporting severely acutely malnourished children and their families with cash assistance and water and sanitation services, including the provision of safe water, supplies and hygiene promotion.



Armed conflict is a major driver of this crisis, UNICEF said, calling for unconditional, unimpeded and sustainable access to the children in need and an end to the violations of childrens rights in the affected countries.

UNICEF also sounded the alarm about a worsening nutrition situation in neighbouring countries.

As violence, hunger and thirst force people to move within and across borders, malnutrition rates will continue to soar not just in these four countries, but also in the Lake Chad basin and the Greater Horn of Africa, Fontaine said. If humanitarian agencies do net get the access and resources they need to reach the most vulnerable, lives will be lost.

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UNICEF/UN057035/Hatcher-Moore

Download photos and videos from: http://weshare.unicef.org/Package/2AMZIFDD22Q

NEW YORK/DAKAR/NAIROBI/AMMAN, 29 March 2017  Water shortages, inadequate sanitation, poor hygiene practices and disease outbreaks are posing an additional threat to severely malnourished children in northeast Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen, UNICEF said today.

Across the four famine-threatened countries, nearly 27 million people are reliant on unsafe water which, for malnourished children, can lead to fatal diarrheal diseases.

The combination of malnutrition, dirty water and poor sanitation sets off a vicious cycle from which many children never recover, said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF Director of Emergency Programmes. Because unsafe water can cause malnutrition or make it worse, no matter how much food a malnourished child eats, he or she will not get better if the water they are drinking is not safe.

In northeast Nigeria, 75 per cent of water and sanitation infrastructure in conflict-affected areas has been damaged or destroyed, leaving 3.8 million people with no access to safe water. Displaced families are putting enormous pressure on already strained health and water systems in host communities. One third of the 700 health facilities in the hardest-hit state of Borno have been completely destroyed and a similar number are non-functional.

In Somalia, the number of people needing access to water, sanitation and hygiene in the coming weeks is projected to increase from 3.3 million to 4.5 million  about a third of the population. Many water sources have dried up or are contaminated, toilet facilities are in short supply, and water-borne diseases are rampant. More than 13,000 cases of cholera and acute watery diarrhoea have been reported since the beginning of the year, nearly five times more than in the same period last year. Water prices have risen six-fold in the remotest areas  putting it out of reach of the poorest families.

In South Sudan, 5.1 million people lack safe water, adequate sanitation and hygiene. Half of the water points in the country have been damaged or destroyed. As a result of seasonal dry weather, low water tables are reinforcing competition for water among people and animals, with the result that scarce water sources are being over-used. Lack of adequate sanitation facilities and poor hygiene practices are spreading disease. A cholera outbreak in June 2016 produced more than 5,000 cholera cases and over 100 deaths.

In Yemen, ongoing conflict and mass population displacement have left at least 14.5 million people without adequate drinking water, basic sanitation and hygiene, while causing damage to water infrastructure. An outbreak of cholera and acute watery diarrhoea in October 2016 continues to spread, with over 22,500 suspected cases and 106 deaths. Almost 2 million children are at risk of diarrheal diseases which, even before the conflict, were the second leading cause of death among children under the age of five. The primary health care system in the country is on the verge of collapse, putting the lives of millions of children at risk.

UNICEFs response, alongside its partners in the four affected countries, includes:

In northeast Nigeria, providing safe water to nearly 666,000 people and treating nearly 170,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition over the last 12 months;

In Somalia, providing 1.5 million people with access to 7.5 litres of water per day for 90 days, or until the next rains due in April, promoting lifesaving hygiene behaviours, rehabilitating boreholes, establishing new water sources and ensuring appropriate water, sanitation and hygiene services in cholera treatment centres. An oral cholera vaccination campaign  the first of its kind in the country  is also under way to vaccinate half a million people;

In South Sudan, working with the World Food Programme to fly in nutrition, health, water and sanitation services to children in remote areas; and accelerating hygiene promotion and water safety measures in epidemic prone locations;

In Yemen, working with partners to keep health facilities functional for the prevention and treatment of malnutrition among the most vulnerable children, and supporting water and sanitation services for 4.5 million people, many of them are displaced.

We are working around the clock to save as many lives as we can as fast as we can, said Fontaine. But without an end to the conflicts plaguing these countries, without sustainable and unimpeded access to the children in need of support and without more resources, even our best efforts will not be enough.

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There is a lack of studies on erectile dysfunction (ED) in patients diagnosed with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The present study aimed to estimate the prevalence of ED in patients with NAFLD and to determine the independent predictors of ED in these patients.

We conducted a prospective, hospital-based study of 192 consecutive male patients with NAFLD. All patients underwent clinical evaluation; abdominal ultrasonography; test for viral hepatitis markers; and estimation of liver chemistry panel, complete blood count, prothrombin time, serum lipids panel, serum testosterone, and fasting serum levels of glucose, insulin, and C-peptide.

The mean age of the study population was 42.47.7years (79.1%40years). Of the 192 patients with NAFLD, 88 (45.8%) had ED, 28 (14.6%) had metabolic syndrome, 25 (13%) had type-2 diabetes mellitus (DM), and 131 (68.2%) had insulin resistance (IR). The mean level of serum testosterone was 3.172.94ng/mL, while the mean insulin resistance index was 2.91.7. Mild ED (38.6%) was the most frequent grade of ED. Age40years (odds ratio [OR] 6.4; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.7-24.1; p- 0.006), IR (OR 5.9; 95% CI 1.7-20.6; p- 0.005), and low serum testosterone (OR 5.1; 95% CI 1.5-17.1; p- 0.009) were the predictors of ED.

ED is a common disorder in male patients with NAFLD; both IR and low serum testosterone contribute to its development. Treatment of IR may carry a dual benefit of improving erectile function and decreasing the grade of hepatic steatosis.

Arab journal of gastroenterology : the official publication of the Pan-Arab Association of Gastroenterology. 2017 Mar 16 [Epub ahead of print]

Ahmad Farooq Alsayed Hasanain, Reem Ezzat Mahdy, Ali Mohamed Abdel-Rahman Mahran, Ahmed Serag Mahmoud Safwat, Asmaa Omar Mohamed, Sherif Mohamed Abdel-Aal

Department of Tropical Medicine and Gastroenterology, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Egypt. Electronic address: ., Department of Internal Medicine (Gastroenterology Unit), Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Egypt., Department of Dermatology and Andrology (Andrology Unit), Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Egypt., Department of Urology, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Egypt., Department of Clinical Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Egypt., Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Egypt.

PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28325476
The Hawaiian Islands are not only home to the most active volcanoes in the world, Kilauea and Mauna Loa on the Big Island, but also boast a unique natural environment. Born by volcanic activity of a very active hot spot in the middle of the Pacific Plate, they are a showcase of natural history.
Trump to scrap Obama climate policies

US President Donald Trump is due to sign an executive order to overturn key parts of the Obama administration's plan to tackle global warming.
In a life defined by restless searching, William McPherson was a three-time college dropout, a Merchant Marine seaman (one of my attempts to try on a new identity and escape the world around me) and a Pulitzer Prize-winning literary critic for The Washington Post.

He was editor of The Posts Book World section in the 1970s and wrote two novels in the 1980s, one of which the Atlantic Monthly declared a flawless literary achievement. He was 53 and at the pinnacle of his craft when he left The Post in 1987 to seek adventure in Eastern Europe ahead of the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite countries.

He freelanced, but bad investment decisions and health reversals shriveled his savings. To considerable attention, he wrote a self-lacerating essay in 2014 about his slide into what he called the upper edge of poverty  not quite destitution but where a roof over your head and a wardrobe that doesnt look as if it came from the Salvation Army is as good as it gets.

He described the confluence of events  largely of his own making  that acted as a current tugging him away from the middle class and beaching him on Grub Street.

Mr. McPherson, 84, died March 28 at a hospice center in Washington. The cause was complications from congestive heart failure and pneumonia, said his daughter, Jane McPherson.

Mr. McPherson had come to The Post in 1958 as a copy boy and was travel editor within five years. After an interlude in New York as a senior editor at the publishing firm William Morrow & Co., he was lured back to The Post in 1969 by executive editor Benjamin C. Bradlee to run Book World.

He poured out reviews, applying what the 1977 Pulitzer jury commended as broad literary and historic perspective to authors as varied as poet Archibald MacLeish, essayist and childrens book author E.B. White and novelist Saul Bellow.

In a biographical sketch for the Pulitzer, Mr. McPherson wrote in the third-person dry: Grateful to be able to pick the books he likes. Does not enjoy reviewing books he does not like.

Soon after his win, he moved to the editorial page staff as a letters editor and occasional columnist. I didnt want to edit Book World anymore, he later told the Chicago Tribune, because I knew how hard it was to write a book, and I didnt want to criticize other books.

Meanwhile, he was busy writing his first novel, the lavishly praised Testing the Current (1984). Set on the cusp of World War II, it chronicled the lost innocence of a remarkably observant 8-year-old boy in Michigan who struggles to understand a world that is at once destabilized and destabilizing, with his mothers affair and the death of a schoolmate.

Writing in the New York Times, author and poet Russell Banks called Testing the Current an extraordinarily intelligent, powerful and . . . permanent contribution to the literature of family, childhood and memory. He placed the book, fictional with some clearly autobiographical elements of Mr. McPhersons Midwestern youth, on equal footing with such first-rate memoirs as Frank Conroys Stop-Time and Russell Bakers Growing Up.

Mr. McPhersons second book, To the Sargasso Sea (1987), picks up with the same character at 40, a successful playwright suffering a domestic and professional crisis.

With two well-received books to his name, Mr. McPherson took early retirement from The Post, went to Europe to see the Berlin Wall come down and spent six years freelance writing about post-Ceausescu Romania.

He badly miscalculated how far his savings would take him. Id acted like one of those people who win the lottery and squander it on houses, cars, family, and Caribbean cruises, he wrote in his 2014 essay, Falling, published in the Hedgehog Review academic journal. But I hadnt won the lottery; Id fallen under the spell of magical thinking.

His newspaper pension was paltry, he said, and medical costs soared. He suffered a major heart attack that brought on congestive heart failure, enervating him and curtailing his income from writing.

In Falling, he described the humiliation of asking friends and family for handouts, which managed to keep him off welfare, Medicaid and food stamps. He lived in Washington, where he received a housing subsidy from the federal government. The city helped cover medical insurance payments. He was able to afford a cellphone and a computer  instruments that for a writer, he said, were needs more than wants.

The essay was admired as an unvarnished reflection on a precarious freelance existence. Los Angeles Times book critic David L. Ulin offered that it was also broadly, even frighteningly, relevant to circles beyond the world of journalism.

The issue here is hardly exclusive to writers, Ulin noted, although its hard to read this essay as a writer without a blade of apprehension slicing through your heart. Why? McPherson was working, is still working; Falling is beautiful, deft.

William Alexander McPherson was born on March 16, 1933, in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., where his father was manager at a Union Carbide chemical plant.

He told the Washington Independent Review of Books that in childhood he read omnivorously and indiscriminately. . . . It was my father who kept the Index of Prohibited Books. He saw me pull Anthony Adverse off the shelf . . . and told me to put it back. I was too young to read it. That was all I needed. I devoured the book.

He attended the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and George Washington University but, he later told the Times, I never did snag a degree.

His marriage, to Elizabeth Mosher, ended in divorce. Besides his daughter, of Athens, Ga., survivors include two grandchildren.

Testing the Current was reissued in 2013 by New York Review Books Classics. The next year, Mr. McPherson wrote Falling.

I am glad that none of my friends has ever found himself sitting on a bench in a park with a quarter in his pocket, as I once did, and nothing in the bank, he noted in the essay. It gives new meaning to the sense of loneliness and despair.

I wallowed in that slough for a bit. It was not, after all, a happy situation and I am not a dimwitted optimist. But I had two choices, die in the slough or move on. I thought of the last two lines of Miltons Lycidas ,

At last he rose, and twitchd his mantle blue:

To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

So I got up, forever grateful to Mr. Barrows, my college English instructor, for teaching me to study Lycidas seriously and realize what a great poem it is and why that matters.
Tony Curtis and his then-wife, actress Christine Kaufmann, in 1963 stroll at Red Square in Moscow during the 3rd International Moscow Film Festival. (AP)

Christine Kaufmann, an Austrian-born actress who became the countrys first Golden Globe winner and was married to Hollywood star Tony Curtis in the 1960s, has died. She was 72.

Ms. Kaufmann died in Munich of complications from leukemia, her management company told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur news agency on Tuesday. No further details were immediately available.

Christine Maria Kaufmann was born in Lengdorf, Austria, on Jan. 11, 1945, to a German father and French mother.

She made her acting debut in 1952 and appeared in European films, including the Italian-made sword-and-sandal drama The Last Days of Pompeii (1959) opposite Steve Reeves. Her best-known film was Town Without Pity (1961), as a sexually precocious German girl raped by American soldiers occupying her town. Kirk Douglas portrayed the Army defense attorney.

A New York Times reviewer wrote that Christine Kaufmann, as the ill-fated, ruined girl in the case, who is found to be less than the perfect child her parents imagine her to be, contributes a beautifully shaded stint in a role calling for nuances of feeling and delivery.

From left: Actress Allegra Curtis, her son Raphael and her mother, actress Christine Kaufmann, in 2010. (Uwe Anspach/European Pressphoto Agency)

Ms. Kaufmann won a Golden Globe for most promising female newcomer. She appeared in several other English-language films, including Taras Bulba (1962) and Wild and Wonderful (1964), both opposite Curtis.

Curtis left his wife, Janet Leigh, to marry the Austrian-born starlet in 1963, despite an age gap of 20 years. They had two daughters, Alexandra and Allegra, before divorcing in 1968. That same year, Curtis wed 23-year-old model Leslie Allen. It did not last.

After her marriage to Curtis, Ms. Kaufmann resumed a long career in television and film in Europe and also wrote health and beauty books. She married three more times. A complete list of survivors was not immediately available.


Erin Hanratty, left, and Emily Sucher in Venus Theatre's Selections From The Methuen Drama Books of Suffrage Plays.  (Curtis Jordan)

Old mindsets die hard: Just consider the case of Lady Geraldine Boleyn. Before this Edwardian aristocrat will support womens suffrage, she requires an intervention involving a famous pianist, a famous artist, a literature professor and a potted fern wearing a hat.

Such, at least, is the case in Venus Theatres rough-hewed but interesting current offering, Selections From The Methuen Drama Book of Suffrage Plays,  a showcase of five short plays written to further the womens suffrage movement in early 20th-century Britain. Directed by Deborah Randall, the production includes Beatrice Harradens Lady Geraldines Speech, about a bluebloods life-changing encounter with a group of feminists. Seemingly making a virtue of meager resources, the Venus staging relies on a deliberately too-small cast for this playlet, with the fern humorously standing in for characters who arent speaking at various points.

The fronded-surrogate device fits in with an overarching directorial conceit  that the Venus production is the work of protesters fired up by Januarys Womens March. (Performers wearing pink hats sometimes stray onstage before or after scenes.) Of course, even without that framing notion, theres a timeliness in these plays, which were written between 1908 and 1914 as unapologetic propaganda pieces, as The Methuen Drama Book of Suffrage Plays (this shows source book) puts it. The fervor behind the scripts seems to echo the fervor that has prompted some contemporary feminists to embrace the term nasty women.

Lady Geraldines Speech is among the more diverting selections. Emily Sucher portrays the ditsy anti-suffragist Lady Geraldine, who sheds her reactionary viewpoint after hobnobbing with colorful progressives, including a professor (Jean H. Miller) who thinks Shakespeare would champion votes for women. The other comic pieces include Mrs. Harlow Phibbss monologue The Mothers Meeting, about a working-class woman (Miller) who accidentally discovers she can pick holes in anti-suffragist arguments. George Middletons Tradition is the lone all-serious piece, chronicling a polite showdown between a rebellious young woman (Sucher) and her conservative father (Erin Hanratty).

With the exception of the fine Hanratty, the performances are more workmanlike than polished. (Amy Rhodes designed the apt set, peppered with antique-looking furniture.) Still, the production offers a rare chance to experience the adrenaline-rush passions of the suffrage era, a time when theater helped fuel a political movement.



Elizabeth Pierotti and Audrey Bertaux in Well at 1st Stage through April 23. (Teresa Castracane)

If its hard for a society to pry itself away from old thought patterns, the same can be true for individuals. Lisa Krons Well  now running in a delightful production at 1st Stage  is, in part, about a young womans realization that she has to separate herself from her childhood worldview.

Growing up in Lansing, Mich., Lisa (Audrey Bertaux) didnt wonder at the fact that her mother, Ann (Elizabeth Pierotti), was constantly ill: Sickness was the family norm. Ann did muster the energy for a fight to keep their neighborhood integrated, an effort her daughter still admires. As a memory play Lisa is trying to stage spins kookily out of control, she ponders the relationship between disease and wellness, and between her mother and herself.

Director Michael Blooms beautifully paced production has a warm, funny anchor in Bertauxs now-poised, now-rattled Lisa. The wonderfully cluttered suburban-living-room set, designed by Luciana Stecconi, helps define the characters psychological journey.

Pierottis affably batty Ann generates hilarious and touching moments. Thats particularly true when Ann unintentionally sabotages her daughters memory-play plans, luring the ensemble  Laura Artesi, Edward Christian, Marquis D. Gibson and Lolita Marie, all engaging  away from their assigned roles as figures from the past. Ultimately, Lisa has to adapt. Perhaps she realizes that a little chaos can be the price of progress.

Selections from The Methuen Drama Book of Suffrage Plays, edited by Naomi Paxton. Direction, costumes and props by Deborah Randall; assistant director, Patrick Gorirossi; lighting design, Amy Rhodes; sound, Neil McFadden. With Allison Frisch and Christine Jacobs. About 90 minutes. Through April 9 at Venus Theatre, 21 C St., Laurel, Md. Tickets: $20-$40. Visit venustheatre.org.

Well, by Lisa Kron. Directed by Michael Bloom; costume design, Danielle Preston; lighting, Catherine Girardi; sound, Kenny Neal; props, Deb Crerie and Kay Rzasa. About 100 minutes. Through April 23 at 1st Stage, 1524 Spring Hill Rd., McLean. Tickets: $15-$30. Call 703-854-1856 or visit 1ststage.org.


Daryl Davis with Chuck Berry in 1997. (Marti Wise/Courtesy Daryl Davis)

My dream was to meet Chuck Berry.

It was April 1973, and he and Jerry Lee Lewis were playing at University of Marylands Cole Field House. I was a 15-year-old student at Rockvilles Wootton High School and dreamed of being a musician. My parents bought me a ticket for the evening concert, but I got there around noon in hopes I might see Berry rehearsing with the backup band. I had done my research and found out that Chuck always traveled alone and his contract called for the promoter to supply a backing band.

I walked into the venue hoping to not be questioned; stagehands were bringing in lights and speakers. I stayed out of everyones way and eventually made my way over near the stage where the band was hanging out. Having never played with, or even met Chuck before, they were nervous. Their thinking was that he would be there to rehearse and to do a sound check about 2 p.m. I was excited and anxious. Excited to meet my hero, but nervous I would be kicked out for not belonging backstage.

The rehearsal hour had come, and there was no sign of Chuck. Another hour passed. The band was on pins and needles. They went onstage for their sound check and ran through a few of Chucks songs.

Jerry Lee Lewis came in shortly after 7 p.m., but there was still no sign of the Chuck. The band seemed to be in a state somewhere between disappointed that he may have canceled and a nervous wreck that if he did show up, there was now no time to rehearse. They played a great set of their own material to kick off the concert.

The guy I figured out was the promoter was nervous because his star headliner had not shown. There were no cellphones back then to reach anyone who might be away from a landline. I remained optimistic because, in my intelligence gathering on Chuck, I had come to find out that he was in the habit of showing up about 10 minutes before his scheduled appearance time. I wasnt nervous about his not showing; I was nervous about what I would say to my idol.

[Appreciation: Chuck Berry helped build rock-and-roll. Then he took it for a ride.]

Jerry Lee hit the stage on schedule and was playing a great set. The crowd was going crazy. Little did they know that the headliner wasnt even in the building. The promoter and the band knew it all too well.

Just before Jerry Lee finished his set, the backstage door opened, and in walked the King of Rock-and-Roll. He had nothing with him and he was alone. He breezed right past me. I had no chance to say a word to him. He asked a question to one of the stagehands, who pointed him down a corridor to a door. Chuck followed the direction and entered the door. He emerged a few minutes later and passed me again, heading back outside through the backstage door.

A moment later, he returned, but this time with his guitar case in hand. I realized I had witnessed Chuck doing something I had read about as being common practice. He showed up and got paid in advance before even thinking about unpacking his guitar. This is the stuff you dont learn in Music Business 101. It comes from the Chuck Berry School of Business.

He walked over toward the stage where the band and I were standing. The bandleader introduced himself with an extended hand saying something to the effect of, Hi Mr. Berry, Im Bruce Springsteen and we are your band this evening. We thought you were going to be here this afternoon for a rehearsal.

Chuck shook everyones hand and said, Rehearsal? No, scoffing at the notion. The guy who said his name was Bruce told Chuck that they had run over some of his songs that afternoon and asked if he knew offhand which ones he might play this evening. Chuck was pulling his guitar out of his case and replied, I think Ill play some Chuck Berry. With that, he walked onstage, asked for a note from the piano player and quickly tuned his guitar. Then, without warning, he launched into the most famous rock guitar intro in the world. The Bruce guy and his band were right there with him and it was one of the greatest shows I had ever seen. I was sold on what I was going to do for a career.

Davis and Berry in 1975. (Courtesy of Daryl Davis )

By 1981, I had graduated from Howard University with a music degree in jazz. I had also been keeping up a one-way correspondence with Chuck for many years. I got his address and would regularly send him updates on my musical education, how I was learning to play like the great boogie-woogie pianist Pinetop Perkins and Chucks original pianist, Johnnie Johnson. When Chuck played at Baltimores Pier Six Pavilion that year, I called the shows promoter and successfully convinced him that I knew more about Chuck Berrys music than anyone in the area and he should hire me to put together the band.

When the date of the concert arrived, we were ready. Chuck showed up, and I asked him if there was anything in particular he wanted me to do on the piano behind his guitar playing. He responded, You said you played like Pinetop Perkins and Johnnie Johnson. Do that. So, he was reading my letters!

Chuck was very happy with my playing that night, so much so that whenever he came through the D.C. area over the next few years I got the call to come play with him. Soon my region expanded and I was Chucks go-to player up and down the East Coast and sometimes the Midwest. Soon, Chuck was calling me on the phone himself to ask if I could do dates with him. We would often go out to dinner before or after the show. He loved barbecue and Chinese food.

I came to know all of Chucks quirks. He would almost always rent a car and drive himself from the airport to the gig, hotel or wherever he wanted to go. People would send limos for him and he would refuse them, choosing instead to follow the limo in his rental car.

Among our most memorable gigs together was Bill Clintons inaugural in 1993. Chuck was one of President Clintons favorite musicians and Chuck took me along as his musical director. The arena was packed with celebrities that night, and they all came over to our table to pay their respects to Chuck. Barbra Streisand, Dionne Warwick, Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins and many more.

Sometimes, Chuck just liked to talk. We would do this in his hotel room, restaurant table, dressing room or riding in the car. Unlike many musicians who can only converse about music, Chuck could and would speak on a variety of subjects and share stories he lived through. He told me stories of racism that endured throughout his career. He spoke about touring with people such as Carl Perkins and Buddy Holly, who would refuse to eat at places that would not serve Berry. In cases where there wasnt a place that would serve him, Buddy and his band members or Carl would go in and bring the food out for Chuck. It was like oral tradition history for me. I will always remember each and every story he told me. This one always makes me smile.



Daryl Davis with Chuck Berry in 2010. (Glynis McKay)

In 1994, Chuck was booked to play Patriot Center at George Mason University. Peter Noone from Hermans Hermits and Lesley Gore were the opening acts. I stopped by Chucks hotel and took his guitar over the arena to the sound check. During both Peters and Lesleys sound checks, a gentleman was standing at the downstage right corner doing sign language to the lyrics as each of those artists ran through some songs.

After I did Chucks sound check, the signer approached me and told me he was hired to sign for any deaf and hearing-impaired who might be in the audience that evening. He then asked if Chuck would mind him doing that during his performance. I told him I would find out for him when Chuck arrived.

A little while later, Chuck and I were walking down the corridor to his dressing room. The signer caught up with us about halfway down the hall and explained to Chuck what his purpose was and asked permission to do his job. Chuck said, Yeah baby, no problem, do your thing. Then Chuck looked at the guy and said, Youre a signer? The man acknowledged his vocation, and Chuck began snickering. I didnt see what was so funny, and the guy was just scratching his head because he didnt know either. Chuck continued laughing to himself and elbowed me in the ribs pretty hard as if to say, Dont you get it?

Well, I didnt get it, and Chuck turned and continued walking to his dressing room. I shrugged my shoulders at the signer to let him know I was as clueless as he was as to what was so amusing for Chuck. What the hell was so funny? I asked.

That guy says hes a signer, answered Chuck. I confirmed to him that the guy was indeed a signer and I had seen him do his signing during Peter and Lesleys sound checks. Chuck said he didnt doubt it. So I asked again what was so funny. Chuck replied, I was just thinking, hows he going to sign to My Ding-a-Ling? 

1 of 18 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  The career of rock-and-roll legend Chuck Berry (1926-2017) View Photos Chuck Berry, a charismatic singer, songwriter and one of the greatest guitarists of all time, died March 18 at his home in St. Charles County, Mo. He was 90. Caption Chuck Berry, a charismatic singer, songwriter and one of the greatest guitarists of all time, died March 18 at his home in St. Charles County, Mo. He was 90. Circa 1958 Rock and roll musician Chuck Berry poses for a portrait holding his Gibson hollowbody electric guitar. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Wait 1 second to continue.

In 1976, I was a senior in high school. For the school newspapers last issue of the year, seniors were asked about their plans. When asked, I said I was going to play piano for Chuck Berry. The interviewers burst out laughing. When the paper came out, all the seniors were listed alphabetically and next to their names were their plans. Next to my name it said one word: Undecided.

Chuck Berry was the reason I became a musician. I met him as a teenager and worked with him on and off for about 32 years. Pinetop Perkins and Johnnie Johnson taught me how to play, and Chuck taught me how to make a good living and make a name for myself. I applied it, and now, 37 years after I started playing professionally, I am still making a living as a musician on my own name, thanks to Chuck Berry. He gave me a career and enabled me to make a living. There was no rock-and-roll before him and now its forever a part of American culture. I will always keep his music alive and I wont be alone in doing that.

Daryl Davis is a Maryland-based musician who has performed with many artists, including Chuck Berry and B.B. King, and toured across the world.
During the creepy-clown scare of October 2016, when rumors and social-media posts about threatening clowns shook schools across the Washington area, kids in Danina Garcia-Fullers eighth-grade language-arts class mostly shrugged in disbelief.

Some people were getting scared because they saw things on social media, said 13-year-old Patricia Visoso, one of Garcia-Fullers students at St. Francis International, a Catholic school in Silver Spring, Maryland. But they never looked into seeing who was saying this.

The Instagram and Facebook posts were made not by mainstream news outlets, but by teenagers who offered no hard evidence that clowns really were plotting to attack students. The story turned out to be a hoax.

I think a lot of people just look at one thing and automatically assume its true, Patricias classmate Ivy Brooks, also 13, told KidsPost recently. Its really important to know whats going on, so you need to look at the right sources and pay attention to what is opinion and what is fact  or, in the case of the crazy clowns, to what is simply rumor.

Garcia-Fullers students are some of the many kids across the country working to think critically about information theyre seeing in the news and on the Internet. Its an increasingly important skill at a time when stories can spread lightning-fast and when seemingly anyone can make a website to frame opinions, or outright lies, as facts.

According to a new report by Common Sense, a nonprofit organization that studies the way kids interact with the media, only 44 percent of kids said they feel that they can tell real news stories from fake news that is intentionally wrong or inaccurate. About one-third of kids said they had shared a news story online that they later found out was inaccurate.

There are a few ways kids can avoid falling for fake news stories and be better consumers of real news, says Peter Adams, a senior vice president of the nonprofit News Literacy Project.

One of the first steps is to slow down, Adams told KidsPost. If a story or social-media post or even a photo seems too perfect, too good to be true, stop and think: Is there evidence that supports whats being claimed? And where is this coming from? Is it from a news organization that has standards, such as correcting things when it gets them wrong? Does the author or organization have any bias or prejudice?

Distinguishing between fact and opinion, as well as between fact and fiction, is a crucial skill that allows democracy to work, Adams said. If we cant agree on what exists, on whats a demonstrable truth and what is someones take on that, then it becomes very hard to have a national conversation.

Speaking to KidsPost during their lunch break last week, six of Garcia-

Fullers students said they got most of their news from watching television programs on local channels such as Fox 5, or on national networks such as Univision. When they read stories on their phones or in print, they said, they often search for specific facts to check for accuracy and potential bias.

Theyre practicing skills that they learned in part through Checkology, a News Literacy Project tool that features reporters from The Washington Post and other news organizations discussing journalistic principles such as fairness and using balanced sources. The interactive Web program lets kids play the role of a newspaper editor, where they have to decide which stories to emphasize.

It also covers the difference between fact and opinion, in the news as well as in political propaganda, where officials try to win readers or viewers to their side.

Opinions are good to read, said McKenzie Campbell, 13, but you also have to go back to your facts and make sure they dont contradict.

Sometimes it can be tricky to distinguish fact from fiction, Garcia-Fuller acknowledges. She tests her younger students with a website that appears to provide information on an animal called the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus.

The site is full of information on this tree-climbing creature, along with a few grainy photos. But like the creepy clowns, its entirely made up.

The lesson, Garcia-Fuller tells her students, is to double-check the information youre seeing and question everything  including things that I say.
In an interview with broadcast journalist Ted Koppel that instantly went viral on Sunday, Fox News host Sean Hannity offered this reply to Koppels claim that opinionated programs such as Hannitys have deepened political polarization: We have to give some credit to the American people that they are somewhat intelligent and that they know the difference between an opinion show and a news show, Hannity said.

The causes of Americas deepening political divide are many and much disputed, but the differences between an opinion show and a news show might be difficult for people to discern. The reason: Programs such as Hannitys and others on cable news are often a mix of many things  news, commentary, analysis and pure, unadulterated opinion.

For years, cable-news networks have trafficked in this hybrid form. They regularly present panels of people from differing perspectives and different disciplines  a reporter, a commentator, a host, a political surrogate or former politician  to chew over some development. The discussion can jump quickly from news to commentary to partisan bickering, without clear distinctions.

The dangers of such blending were on display this month as two cable analysts seemed to be reporting breaking news. Or was it?

Former judge Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News legal analyst, repeatedly stated on the network that three intelligence sources had told Fox News that President Barack Obama had persuaded British agents to wiretap Trump Tower during the campaign. The claim appeared to validate President Trumps assertions that Obama had done exactly that. (Trump, in turn, referred to Napolitano to support Trumps own assertion.) But this came as a surprise to Foxs journalists, who never corroborated Napolitanos statements. And after British officials denied the story, Fox anchors Shep Smith and Bret Baier stepped in to say the network had no information to support it.

On Friday, CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem offered what sounded like another newsworthy development.

It is starting to look like, from my sources and then also from open reporting, that Michael Flynn is the one who may have a deal with the FBI and that is why we havent heard from him, she said on Don Lemons prime-time program. She was referring to Trumps former national security adviser, who resigned last month after failing to disclose contacts with Russian officials and making misleading statements about it to Vice President Pence.

Like Fox, CNN offered no guidance to its viewers about the veracity of Kayyems statement. However, amid an explosive reaction on social media, Kayyem on Saturday clarified her comment that Flynn perhaps was cooperating with the FBI. She wrote on Facebook that her sources were merely increasingly wondering whether Flynn had agreed to speak to the FBI. To be clear, I did not say on this segment that I have any confirmation that he is actually cooperating or that I have talked to anyone who does, she wrote.

A CNN spokeswoman, Barbara Levin, said on Monday that the Fox and CNN episodes arent equivalent, given that Kayyem, unlike Napolitano, had hedged her original claim. Any attempt to equate what Juliette Kayyem said to what Judge Napolitano said on Fox News is laughable and absurd, Levin said.

Hannity, a longtime supporter of President Trump, has always asserted that hes a talk-show host, not a journalist, and thus he should be held to a different standard. But his program typically includes journalistic elements, such as news clips and interviews with newsmakers (such as Trump) as well as with Fox reporters about developing stories.

Moreover, Hannity, and similar programs, are rarely labeled as commentary.

The blurring extends to other elements of cable news, too. MSNBC has often paired an opinion host, such as Rachel Maddow, with a news anchor, such as Brian Williams, on its election coverage. Asked if the mixing of news and commentary figures might confuse viewers about MSNBCs approach, network spokesman Errol Cockfield offered a one-word response: No.

Just as on a panel-discussion show, some would argue with that.

It is confusing, said Frank Sesno, a former CNN reporter and anchor who now runs George Washington Universitys School of Media and Public Affairs. One of the dangers is thinking that people know the difference between the editorial page and the front page, between a commentator or pundit commenting on something alongside a reporter whos supposed to be providing facts. In this environment, when you have news, talking points and opinions all colliding, it can be really disorienting to the audience.

The cable networks try to keep the lines clear with identifying graphics, he said, but these labels are often overshadowed and overwhelmed by the speed of debate. Its hard for the casual viewer to keep track of the scoreboard, said Sesno.

The confusion about whos who may fuel public perceptions that news reporters are biased, said Dave Statter, a former TV journalist who is now a blogger and consultant on media issues. Viewers and readers just dont know who is a reporter and who is a partisan commentator, he said.

The modern era of journalists as TV opinion slingers may have started with the pundit-centric McLaughlin Group beginning in 1982. A few years later, CNNs Capital Gang tweaked the format, putting liberal and conservative opinion journalists into a discussion with a public official, said Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute.

Since then, opinion journalism  which Rosenstiel notes is rooted in factual reporting  has given way to outright political activism online and on the air, he said. The fact that someone is publishing something, saying it out loud, doesnt make it journalism, even opinion journalism.

Who can blame viewers for being confused, he adds. It took many hands to create this situation, and a lot of loose thinking on behalf of people in news.
Two Nepalis charged for possession of fake visas languishing in Bangkok jail

A Nepali woman from Barbote  7 of Ilam has been languishing in a jail in Bangkok  the capital of Thailand  for the past six months.
Just as the swallows return to San Juan Capistrano, Calif, so the penguins have (finally) returned to the Silver Spring Metro station. (John Kelly/The Washington Post)

Every March, hundreds of thousands of mighty emperor penguins return to the pack ice of Antarctica to breed.

Last week, after a 12-year absence, the penguins finally returned to Silver Spring, Md.

Theyd been gone since 2005, when a massive mural depicting dozens of anthropomorphic penguins commuting by public transportation was removed from along Colesville Road, outside the Silver Spring Metro station. A lot of the paint had peeled from the 25 eight-by-four-foot plywood panels that made up the 100-foot-long Penguin Rush Hour.

[When will the penguins return to Silver Spring?]

Artist Sally Callmer Thompson repainted her penguins, but by then construction had started on the snakebit Paul S. Sarbanes Transit Center. The panels were put in storage, and there they remained.

Now theyre back up. Sort of.

Its actually a digital reproduction of the panels, which is why Im so happy about it, Sally told me on the phone from her home on Virginias Eastern Shore. It wont have all the problems with deteriorating from the elements.

The 25 original panels were transported to Dodge-Chrome, an imaging and printing company in Silver Spring. Employees there used something called a bar scanner to digitize them.

The digitized images were then printed on thin aluminum sheets that are bonded to a polyethylene core.

The materials are flexible, durable and have an anti-graffiti coating on them, said Suzan Jenkins, chief executive of the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County.

The aluminum panels are not subject to the foibles of weather and rot, said Don Scheuerman of the Montgomery County Department of General Services. If a panel gets damaged, they can just print out another one.

And I dont have to fix it! Sally said. Im very happy about that. Ive done enough of the fixing part. It was not as fun as it was fun doing the original.

Sally is delighted that her handiwork is back up after so long.

What good is a mural thats in storage? she said. Nobody can see it.

She said that the original painted panels may wind up in an indoor venue somewhere, perhaps in Silver Spring, where the penguins became an unofficial mascot after the mural was unveiled in 1990.

They havent found a place yet, because its kind of big, but its nice to know that the originals may go up again someday, Sally said.

The digital re-creation looks pretty good to me, the lines crisp, the colors bright. Don said we shouldnt worry too much that its not the real mural. After all, the original statue of David in Florence was moved inside and a replica was put up outside  not to compare 25 plywood panels to Michelangelo, Don said.

At 9 a.m. Wednesday, Montgomery County bigwigs will assemble at the Silver Spring Metro station to welcome back the penguins.

Im hoping their return  the penguins, not the politicians  will bring good luck to troubled Metro. Perhaps the penguins are like another species of bird: the raven. Its said that should the ravens ever leave the Tower of London, the monarchy will fall. The penguins left Silver Spring and, well, you know what happened.

Each morning I wake up . . .

The view outside the window was dreary as I rode the Red Line on Tuesday morning. Rain streaked down the glass while, outside, everything and everyone looked wet and miserable.

The backs of the industrial buildings near the Fort Totten station showed their haphazard graffiti. Here and there on the ground were piles of railroad ties, gravel, rusty metal.

A woman sat down across from me and, with careful concentration, began to slowly transform herself.

She picked out the edges of her eyes with a pencil, then daubed her lids with iridescent eye shadow.

Next, she unscrewed a mascara brush from its little cylinder and swept the inky corkscrew across her eyelashes, turning them from tiny apostrophes into long exclamation points.

It was a private ritual, this morning maquillage, undertaken in public. As commuter behavior goes, it struck me as pretty harmless. She wasnt clipping her toenails or eating a breakfast burrito. And she wasnt trying to put on her makeup while behind the wheel of a Camry hurtling around the Beltway.

The rain had stopped when we pulled into the Rhode Island Avenue station. The woman snapped her compact mirror shut, grabbed her bags and got off, a new face ready for a new day.

Twitter: @johnkelly

For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/johnkelly.
Sarah Riback doesnt have personal experience with getting the pills on campus. But the 19-year-old at the University of Maryland knows peers who have needed them. This is a common thing that a lot of other female students have had to do, she said.

Shes talking about emergency contraception. Riback and other advocates say morning-after pills should be available on college campuses at all hours.

At U-Md., theyre available at a student health center pharmacy that is open 36 hours a week, Monday through Friday.

Unlike a business, a students sex life does not operate on a 9-5 schedule, and because of this, access to emergency contraceptives should not operate on a schedule, Riback, a government and politics major from Baltimore, wrote this month in the student newspaper the Diamondback.

Experts say the morning-after pill works best the sooner one takes it after unprotected sex. Students who need it sometimes dont want to wait for health centers to open. One option to solve this problem on some campuses is a simple vending machine.

About 1,000 students from six college campuses in Maryland have signed petitions in support of 24-7 campus access to over-the-counter emergency contraception, according to NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland.

This year, a Maryland lawmaker proposed a bill to require that level of access at public colleges and universities. Its chances dont seem great. The legislation from Del. Marice I. Morales (D-Montgomery), HB 1205, has stalled in Annapolis.

[ Why women are seeking out birth control that can outlast a presidency ]

A woman named Alice  who asked that her last name not be used to protect her privacy  submitted testimony on the bill to lawmakers that relayed her own experience as a student at St. Marys College of Maryland.

Alice, who graduated from the public college in 2015, told The Washington Post that she and her boyfriend were very careful about birth control but that during her sophomore year, their birth control failed. So she visited the student health center for the morning-after pill.

The staff acted coldly, she said, and left her feeling ashamed. Afterward, she was hesitant to visit the health center again.

Just because I had a negative experience doesnt mean women in the future should, too, Alice said.

St. Marys spokesman Michael Bruckler confirmed that Alice was a student at the college. The school provides emergency contraception to students when its wellness center is open, he wrote in an email, and is looking into options for 24-7 access.

Bruckler said the colleges wellness center policies about emergency contraception had changed drastically in the past few years.

We welcome student feedback and continue to adjust our policies and procedures in order to meet the needs of our students, he wrote. For instance, our policy used to require students to meet with a provider in order to obtain emergency contraception, but we changed that policy once we realized that it was not an effective or accessible model.

The federal government first approved emergency contraception for prescription use in the 1990s. Debate over access to the drug continued for years until it became available to women of all ages, without a prescription, in 2013.

[Obama administration drops fight to keep age restrictions on Plan B sales]

Plan B One-Step generally costs about $40 to $50, according to a legislative analysis of the Maryland bill, and generics cost about $35 to $45.

At U-Md., students can obtain emergency contraception at the universitys pharmacy when it is open on weekdays. They also can get it at off-campus pharmacies in College Park.

The Post asked U-Md. whether it would consider providing 24-7 access to the pill on the campus of the 38,000-student university even if the bill dies. But university officials declined to discuss a hypothetical situation.

The University of Maryland prides itself on providing convenient and high-quality health care and services for our students, faculty and staff, U-Md. spokeswoman Katie Lawson said in a statement. We are aware of the pending legislation and will monitor any new developments.

The Morales bill did not dictate how schools should make emergency contraception available at all hours. But the legislative analysis estimated that obtaining a vending machine would cost less than $4,000.

Vending machines have popped up on various campuses since Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania made headlines in 2012 for using one to sell emergency contraceptives.

A machine at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire sells emergency contraceptives as well as nasal spray, pain medication and cough drops. Pomona College has one, too, in a residence hall.

This is a common-sense measure for colleges and universities, said Miriam Feldblum, dean of students at the private college in California. So we have been getting, over the years, more colleges and universities who have heard about it, who are trying to figure out how to implement these kinds of vending machines.

At Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the director of the student health and wellness center said she can see a potential downside to vending machines because they dont provide information to consumers.

College students are still learning to navigate the health-care system and can benefit from guidance by a trained health-care professional, the director, Roanna Kessler, said.

At Hopkins, students who need emergency contraception are asked to make an appointment, Kessler said, but they are almost always seen the same day. The pills are available at a campus pharmacy when it is open. After hours, a nurse will direct students to follow up at the health center or go to a local pharmacy off campus.

Kessler said she would be fine with a campus vending machine in theory, especially if the contraception comes with educational materials.

Of course I would prefer students to come to the health center where they would get more comprehensive care, education, and a lower fee for the medication, she wrote.

At Towson University in Baltimore County, students can get emergency contraception at the health center during regular business hours, said Deb Moriarty, vice president for student affairs.

For us, the important part of that is the educational component that would go with the distribution of emergency contraception, she said.

From time to time, Moriarty said, students have raised the idea of 24-7 access.

I think that the concern is, if you just make it available without any kind of educational or personal conversation with the individual, will this become a pattern that repeats itself? Moriarty said.
I just like the Army, so I stayed, officer John R. Fitzpatrick Jr. told Time magazine. Here in Korea I was helping and learning at the same time. He retired from the Army as a colonel. (Family Photo)

Retired Army Col. John R. Fitzpatrick Jr., reportedly the longest continuously serving U.S. service member to fight in the Korean War, died March 7 at his home in Fairfax County, Va. He was 93.

The cause was renal failure, said his son, John F. Fitzpatrick.

Col. Fitzpatrick, a native Washingtonian, was drafted in 1944 to serve in World War II while studying at The Citadel, the military college in South Carolina. An infantryman, he fought in the Battle of Manila, which ended almost three years of Japanese occupation of the Philippines, and at Okinawa. He later served in Japan during the postwar U.S. occupation of that country.

He began his combat tour in the Korean Peninsula in September 1950 as part of the landing on the Inchon beachhead under forces led by Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Since then, the New York Times reported in April 1953, he has chased and been chased up and then down the Korean Peninsula.

According to published accounts, a veteran with 40 rotation points can go home. When in April 1953 then-Capt. Fitzpatrick went to check out of the 7th infantry divisions rotation center, the clerk saw that the officers card showed 99 points. Capt. Fitzpatrick said he had 129 but that, as Time magazine reported, the I.B.M. machine was preset for only two digits.

Time and the Times said 129 was accurate and that Capt. Fitzpatrick accumulated the highest total of rotation points ever attained by any U.S. soldier in Korea.

He was 29 and unmarried and reportedly rejected offers to return to the United States until receiving a direct command from the Pentagon. He was in Korea for the vast bulk of the wars combat phase.

I just like the Army, so I stayed, he told Time. Here in Korea I was helping and learning at the same time. Besides, all the friends I have are in the Army.

When asked about his friends stubbornness, an anonymous soldier quipped to the Times, Fitz just has high resistence to harrassment.

Thomas Stevens, president of the Korean War Veterans Association, said the organization does not keep records about who served longest in the war. He added, Most Army guys served somewhere around a year or even less in Korea, so if he served two and half in Korea that would have been extremely unusual.

Col. Fitzpatrick became an Army ranger and served as an adviser to the South Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. His decorations included two awards of the Legion of Merit, three awards of the Bronze Star Medal and three awards of the Army Commendation Medal, according to his family. He retired from the military in 1972.

John Raymond Fitzpatrick Jr. was born in the District on Nov. 2, 1923. His father was an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington who became dean of the Columbus University law school, now part of Catholic University.

The younger Fitzpatrick completed his Citadel degree in 1947 and graduated from Catholics law school in 1976.

He later spent several years practicing business and real estate law with the firm Lieding & Becker in McLean, Va. In the 1980s, he volunteered as an immigration legal counsel on behalf of Central American refugees.

Survivors include his wife of 61 years, Ruth McDonough Fitzpatrick of Fairfax; three children, Michael J. Fitzpatrick of Oakton, Va., John F. Fitzpatrick of Arlington, Va., and Patricia Kelly Fitzpatrick of Portland, Ore.; a brother, Jake Fitzpatrick of Millersville, Md.; a sister, Suzanne Coleman of Fredericksburg, Va.; and six grandchildren.
People who want to ban hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in Maryland rally outside the statehouse and governor's residence in Annapolis, Maryland, on Thursday, March 2, 2017. (Brian Witte/AP)

A Maryland bill that bans hydraulic fracturing cleared its final hurdle Monday night when the Senate approved the measure with a 35-to-10 vote.

The legislation now heads to Gov. Larry Hogans desk, who has pledged to sign it.

Maryland will become the third state in the country to prohibit hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking.

New York and Vermont are the other states that have banned fracking, with an executive order and with legislation, respectively. Maryland is the first state with gas reserves to pass a ban through legislative action.

Anti-fracking activists from Western Maryland cheered as the tally was taken.

ANNAPOLIS, MD  MARCH 22: Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, Jr. leads the Senate session on March 22, 2016 in Annapolis, MD. (Jonathan Newton / The Washington Post) (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)

This vote confirms the power of participant democracy, Ann Bristow, a resident of Garrett County and a member of a state commission that studied fracking. Never believe when someone tells you that an organized movement cant produce change against overwhelming odds. We are proving otherwise.

Sen. George C. Edwards (R-Garrett), who voted against the measure, offered an amendment for the state to continue a moratorium until 2027. The amendment was rejected.

Fracking, which has the greatest potential in Garrett and Allegany counties, involves injecting water, sand and chemicals deep into the ground at high pressure to break up rock and release natural gas. Advocates say the practice provides a cleaner energy source than coal, but opponents have raised concerns about the potential for water contamination, greenhouse-gas emissions and earthquakes.

After a nearly 90-minute debate, the Senate gave preliminary approval to a controversial bill that would limit the power of the State Board of Education in how to turn around low-performing neighborhood schools and would set up an accountability system for rating schools. Hogan (R) has threatened to veto the measure.

Sen. Paul Pinsky (D-Prince Georges), vice chairman of the Senate Education, Health and Environment Committee, said the legislation, which is in response to the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, provides a strategic framework for the state board.

Pinsky offered an amendment, which was approved, to increase the rate of academic indicators (standardized testing, student achievement, student growth and graduation) to 65 percent of the schools accountability rating. The original bill had the limit at 55 percent.

Republicans who oppose the bill said that even at 65 percent, the state would still rank below states that rate 75 percent and higher.

Pinsky said the legislation sends a strong message to the State Board of Education that the General Assembly does not want low-performing schools turned into charter schools.

The Senate also gave initial approval to a watered-down version of a bill that would have prohibited public and private colleges and universities from including questions about criminal history on their applications.

Under the measure that passed the House earlier this month, Maryland would have become the first state in the country to require colleges and universities to remove the question from their applications.

Instead, the Senate bill calls on colleges and universities not to use the information against an applicant in the admissions process.

Caryn York Aslan, director of policy and strategic partnership for the Job Opportunities Task Force, said advocates will work with the Senate to bring the bill closer to the stronger House version.

The question is a deterrent, York Aslan said.

At one point in the evening, several lawmakers in the Legislative Black Caucus left their respective chambers to huddle about a bill that has stalled in the Senate and is supposed to address problems with the states nascent medical marijuana program.

An advocate who attended a meeting of the caucus earlier in the day described the decision to leave the chambers as a protest of inaction on the issue. But others  including an aide to Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert), and Sen. Joan Carter Conway (D-Baltimore), a member of the caucus  said it was simply a chance for the lawmakers to discuss the bill.

Also on Monday night, the House gave final approval to a bill that would create a commission to oversee safety of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authoritys rail system, a move the Federal Transit Administration required for the release of at least $2.8 million the agency plans to withhold this year until the panel is established. The measure will move to the governors desk for his signature.

The House also passed legislation that would set up a commission to monitor potential federal changes to the Affordable Care Act and recommend actions to protect access to health-insurance coverage, a response to concerns that the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress might repeal the health-care law.

The Senate passed the bill a week ago, but the two chambers must reconcile differences between their latest versions of the measure before it could receive final approval.
Montgomery County Council member Marc Elrich has officially launched a widely expected campaign for county executive, promising to bring his brand of liberal community activism to the office.

Donning a rarely-seen necktie to speak to supporters at the Barking Dog pub in Bethesda on Sunday, Elrich (D-At Large) said he would accept no money from real estate developers or their attorneys.

I want to set forth a cooperative path forward with people in the community and people in the county government, he said, according to video of the event shot by MoCoVoters.org, a grass-roots group working to increase voter turnout.

I want to make sure this works for you. And I promise you I will not disappoint you. No money from developers, he said.

Elrich, 67, is the second formal entrant into what promises to be a lively 2018 Democratic primary. He joins council member George L. Leventhal (D-At Large), who, like Elrich, resides in heavily liberal Takoma Park. Both have announced that they will use the countys new public campaign finance system, which leverages matching funds up to $750,000. Council President Roger Berliner (D-Potomac-Bethesda), is likely to join the race.

Two candidates from the private sector, wine retailer David Trone and health-care executive David Blair, both of Potomac, are also considering candidacies. Trone lost a bid for Marylands 8th Congressional District seat, spending about $13 million of his own money.

Elrich is serving his third council term, which makes him ineligible for reelection under the new term limits charter amendment passed by county voters in November. Three-term incumbent County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) would also be term-limited, but decided to retire before the amendments passage.

Elrich has established himself as a contrarian voice on some county issues, frequently expressing opposition to new development projects and calling on businesses to assume a larger share of the costs for roads and other infrastructure.

He led the councils 2013 passage of a gradual increase in the county minimum wage, from $7.50 to $11.50 an hour by this July. He was lead sponsor of a measure to extend the wage to $15 by 2020, a measure vetoed by Leggett. Elrich also sponsored a bill last year that established new protections for tenants against poor conditions.

He spent 17 years teaching math at Rolling Terrace Elementary School in Takoma Park and served on the towns city council for nearly 20 years.
Upgradation work likely to resume next week

Upgradation work at Gautam Buddha Airport in Bhairahawa is expected to resume in a weeks time after payment disputes between the contractor and the subcontractor brought the project to a grinding halt two weeks ago.
Stacy B. Lloyd III, a former Foreign Service officer who served in Laos during the 1960s and later was proprietor of an antiquarian and travel bookstore in Washington, died March 16 at his home in Winchester, Va. He was 80.

The cause was liver ailments, said a half brother, Robin Lloyd.

Mr. Lloyd was the son of Rachel Bunny Mellon, the Listerine fortune heiress who later married Paul Mellon, an art collector and patron, philanthropist and horse breeder. He was raised at the Mellon farm in Upperville, Va. His father and namesake was a Virginia publisher who helped found the equestrian journal the Chronicle of the Horse.

Stacy Barcroft Lloyd III was born in Millwood, Va., on Sept. 23, 1936. He graduated in 1960 from Middlebury College in Vermont and began his career aboard the hospital ship Hope, traveling to Peru and Saigon.

In the early years of Americas entry into the Vietnam War, Mr. Lloyd became a U.S. Information Service field officer in a remote area of northeastern Laos. He spoke the language of the mountain tribesmen, among whom he was trying to promote a sense of identity and loyalty with the Laotian governing authorities.

Stacy Lloyd believes the best way to fight the foreign ideology of communism is to promote indigenous nationalism, a journal of the Foreign Service Association said in 1968.

The journal quoted a Laotian military officer: Stacy Lloyd understands us. He speaks good Lao. He comes and stays with us two or three nights.

In 1968, Mr. Lloyd he was the first recipient of the Averell Harriman Award, which honors outstanding work among young Foreign Service officers.

After five years with the Foreign Service in Laos and two in Washington, Mr. Lloyd left the State Department and spent a year as a writer and researcher for newspaper columnist Jack Anderson.

He later opened an antiquarian and travel bookstore in Georgetown called Lloyd Books, where published authors were known to browse on the third floor. Customers could get discounts on their purchases with correct answers on a daily travel quiz. The staff made a practice of celebrating such little-known events as the mailmans birthday.

Mr. Lloyds marriage to the former Anne Pepper ended in divorce in 1987, and the bookstore was sold about the same time. After that, he traveled regularly to Africa and Asia, where he was particularly fond of the old royal Laotian city of Luang Prabang on the Mekong River. He also made an annual trip to Frances Brittany coast.

Survivors include two sons, Thomas Llewelyn Lloyd of Chevy Chase, Md., and Stacy B. Lloyd IV of McLean, Va.; a half brother, Robin Lloyd of Chevy Chase; and two grandchildren. His mother died in 2014 at 103.
D.C. police have begun expanding the agencys civilian cadet corps and are rehiring some detectives and sergeants who recently left the agency to help staff the force amid a retirement bubble.

The rules passed last year by the D.C. Council enable police to grow their hiring pool among young D.C. residents, a long-term initiative, and bring back seasoned officers for up to five years, which the department describes as a stopgap measure.

The Districts acting police chief, Peter Newsham, and Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) discussed the initiatives Tuesday morning at the training academy in Blue Plains in Southwest.

The new initiatives, Bowser said, are already paying dividends and are helping us recruit the best and the brightest, right here in Washington, D.C.

In an interview, Newsham said the department remains in the retirement bubble, in which attrition is outpacing hiring. It is blamed on a hiring binge 25 years ago that means a large portion of officers are now eligible to retire at the same time. The number of officers on the force fell from about 3,920 in 2015 to 3,785 at the end of 2016. Newsham said the force is now back up to more than 3,800 officers.

[Size of police force falls under 3,800 officers]

In fiscal 2015, 112 officers resigned and 244 retired; in fiscal 2016, 113 officers resigned and 230 retired. The department tries to hire 360 officers each year.

District leaders have attempted several incentive programs to encourage growth in the force. Last year, the city began allowing military members and officers from other jurisdictions to substitute two years of experience for 60 college credit hours, the minimum required to be a D.C. officer.

[D.C. Council member Vincent C. Gray wants to improve officers pay]

D.C. Council member Vincent C. Gray (D-Ward 7) proposed in January that the city spend $63.8 million on raises and retention bonuses for police officers, including doubling the salaries of officers who stay an additional five years after retirement eligibility.

The former mayors proposal did not go anywhere.

Newsham has begun rehiring sergeants and some detectives who have already retired. The council voted to allow a limited program that essentially sanctions double-dipping  the officers receive their pension and a lower salary for coming back. Their service is limited to five years, and the program ends after three years, though Newsham said he is seeking approval to extend that to five years, until we get safely through the bubble.

The police union objected to the provision, saying it would hurt morale by allowing retired officers to take slots away from officers on promotion lists. Sgt. Matthew Mahl, the chairman of the police union, said about 200 retired detectives and sergeants have taken advantage of the expanded rule.

It slows up promotions, Mahl said. It stops vertical and horizontal movement in the department. I dont think its going to be permanent, but I dont think its doing anything to help the problems we have. He said increasing salaries would be a better recruitment and retention tool.

Newsham said the unions concerns are valid but called the hirings a stopgap provision. He noted the programs three-year shelf life and limits on returning officers working no more than five years.

The concern is that it could take a spot otherwise occupied by a younger member, Newsham said. But I also know we have to make sure we maintain our staffing at a level we feel comfortable with. Younger folks may have to wait a little bit longer for those positions to open, but were thinking collectively about this city.

As for the cadet program, new hires can now be up to 24 years old; the previous age was 20. The minimum age, 17, remains the same. Already, Newsham said, six of the 35 recently hired cadets are taking advantage of the more liberal provisions. Cadets are paid about $30,000 and work in a wide variety of jobs throughout the department, and the agency pays their tuition at the University of the District of Columbia. The idea is for many of them to stay to become sworn officers.

Newsham said the current program costs about $1.7 million, and he wants to double its size next year. He said it is a way of attracting more District residents to the force by increasing the pool of talent for D.C.
D.C. police have located the Toyota Prius that was missing from the Capitol Hill residence of an artist who was found tied up and fatally stabbed last week in her basement apartment, according to authorities.

The discovery comes as police continue to search for a person of interest captured in two surveillance videos that surfaced in the investigation of the killing of Corrina Mehiel, 34, who was living in the District temporarily while working on a project at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design.

Were making a lot of progress in the investigation, said acting police chief Peter Newsham. Noting last weeks shooting of a college student, 18-year-old Ayana McAllister, home on spring break, Newsham said both killings shocked our community.

Mehiel was found dead the afternoon of March 21 in her rented apartment in the 600 block of 14th Street NE, near the H Street corridor. Police said she had been tied up. A police report made public Monday indicates that she was found in her bedroom, in the back of the rowhouse, and that she was bound by various pieces of clothing and bedding.

[Artist found fatally stabbed in Capitol Hill apartment]

A person of interest in the killing of Corrina Mehiel. (D.C. police)

Mehiel, whose permanent residence was in North Carolina, had been in the District for the past several months working with well-known artist Mel Chin on a Corcoran exhibit called The Fundred Reserve. It consists of hand-drawn $100 bills that visitors create and are used to highlight the dangers of lead poisoning and remind us that every childs future has value.

Police said Mehiel was last seen March 19 at the Corcoran, although Chin said she had dinner with friends at his apartment in Foggy Bottom that evening.

Chin said Monday by email that he does not recognize the person being sought by police. I have been looking at gatherings of people at the Reserve openings and pushing my thoughts to anyone who might resemble the person in the photo, he said, adding, We are still grieving and remain deeply unsettled.

Police have not said where the womans car was found. And although two sets of photos of the person of interest appear dissimilar, Newsham said detectives are confident that the photos show the same person. In one picture, the person appears to be wearing a white shirt; in another, a dark shirt. And his complexion appears lighter in one picture.

Newsham attributed the differences to poor lighting.
Federal immigration agents in Maryland arrested the father of an 18-year-old charged in a high-profile high school rape case, saying they had reviewed the fathers immigration history and determined that he was in the country illegally.

The father, identified as Adolfo Sanchez-Reyes, a 43-year-old citizen of Guatemala, was picked up Friday, issued a notice to appear in immigration court and taken to the Howard County Detention Center, said Matthew Bourke, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Bourke would not say whether Sanchez-Reyess arrest was related to his sons criminal case in Montgomery County, or what prompted the review of the fathers immigration status. Bourke said it is not uncommon that ICE would look into the immediate connections of a primary target when reviewing a case.

Attorneys for the son  Henry Sanchez Milian, who is accused by police of raping a 14-year-old girl at Rockville High School on March 16  said Tuesday that his father came to the United States about 12 years ago.

The lawyers said they were unaware of Sanchez-Reyes having ever been criminally charged in Maryland. In a 2010 traffic incident, according to the lawyers and Maryland online court records, Sanchez-Reyes was cited for driving without a license and unsafe lane changing.

The attorneys said they will work to get the father released.

We hope to get him out soon, said one of the lawyers, Andrew Jezic. And we will assert grounds for him to stay in the country.

Jezic would not say whether he thought the father was arrested as a result of attention attracted by his sons case.

ICE has stepped up its enforcement nationwide, Jezic said, and he is one of many who are being detained who would not have been detained 100 days ago.

Jezic said the father works 60 hours a week as a carpenter. Jezic would not comment on the fathers immigration status.

The son, Sanchez Milian, illegally entered the United States about seven months ago and was detained by the Border Patrol, according to federal officials. He was released from immigration custody, went to Montgomery County, moved in with his father and enrolled at Rockville High School in September, according to Jezic and school officials.

On March 16, according to Montgomery County police, Sanchez Milian and another student  17-year-old Jose Montano, who has been charged as an adult  took turns raping a 14-year-old girl in a stall inside a boys bathroom at the high school. Attorneys for both suspects have said that the sex acts were consensual.
When Yousif Al Mashhadani came to the United States as a refugee in 2008, he told officials his brother had been kidnapped in his native Iraq because of Al Mashhadanis anti-corruption efforts and wanted to come to America for his own safety.

Now, prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia say Al Mashhadani lied about being kidnapped and about his own connection to a vicious kidnapper.

On Tuesday, Al Mashhadani, his brother Adil Hasan, and Hasans wife, Enas Ibrahim, appeared in court on charges of naturalization fraud.

All three live in Fairfax County; they moved here from Iraq in 2008. But when they applied to become lawful permanent U.S. residents, none of them acknowledged a relationship to Majid Al Mashhadani, a convicted kidnapper who is Yousif Al Mashhadani and Hasans brother, an affidavit from FBI agent Sean MacDougal said.

In November 2004, U.S. contractor Roy Hallums was kidnapped in Iraq and kept in an underground bunker with other captives. They were freed in a raid after spending nearly a year bound and blindfolded in cells below the earth. Majid Al Mashhadani was arrested in Iraq in connection with the kidnapping but was released from prison in 2007, according to the court documents.

Federal authorities said one of Yousif Al Mashhadanis fingerprints was found on a document recovered during the raid to free the captive. But they did not elaborate on whether they believe he played a role in the incident.

He and his brother and sister-in-law eventually told FBI agents, prosecutors say, that they left Majid Al Mashhadani off their family trees because they did not want to hurt their chances of being admitted as refugees.

Hasan and his wife allegedly stopped using the last name Al Mashhadani to obscure the connection.

Yousif Al Mashhadani and Hasan also admitted that they made up a story about Hasan being kidnapped because Yousif Al Mashhadani was involved in anti-corruption efforts, and about Hasan being released after Yousif Al Mashhadani dropped his efforts, prosecutors say. They also allegedly made up stories of being threatened and coerced.

The family said Hasan was once detained for five hours by members of a Sunni militia in Taji, Iraq, according to the affidavit, but released when they failed to find a Green Zone access card showing he had worked with coalition forces.

In court Tuesday, family members cried as the charges were read. All three defendants proclaimed that they had not lied on any government forms.

Their original claims were processed not by U.S. officials but by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

(Claritza Jimenez,Dani Player/The Washington Post)

Al Mashhadani and Hasan were detained until a hearing Friday. Ibrahim, who has young children with Hasan, was released on a personal recognizance bond. They each face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison if convicted.

Family members and an attorney for the defendants declined to comment.

Their arrests come as President Trump continues to argue that more extreme vetting of travelers and refugees from several predominantly Muslim countries is necessary. His second executive order temporarily banning all travel from those countries has been blocked by courts in Hawaii and Maryland. Unlike his first attempt, that order does not include Iraqis, but it does suspend admittance of all refugees.

This story has been updated to reflect that Yousif Al Mashhadani claimed his brother was kidnapped, not that he had been kidnapped.
A 58-year-old pedestrian who was struck by a vehicle Saturday night in Northeast Washington has died, and police said they charged the driver with second-degree murder and driving under the influence.

The crash occurred shortly before 9 p.m. in the 1200 block of Eastern Avenue NE in Deanwood. Police said the driver of a silver Ford Expedition heading west on Eastern Avenue struck a man who was standing behind a black Dodge Charger.

D.C. police said Lionel Stacey Bruce of Northeast was taken to an area hospital, where he died Sunday.

Police said they charged Michael Anthony Fenderson, of Hyattsville, Md., with second-degree murder, driving under the influence and possession of an open container of alcohol.
D.C. police have identified the body of a woman recovered Saturday from the Potomac River near the Blue Plains Wastewater Treatment plant, according to a department spokeswoman.

The remains were of Sarah Gaddy, 27, of Northeast, according to the spokeswoman, Aquita Brown. A cause of death has not been announced by the medical examiners office.

Police said the body was found about 10:30 a.m. by a fisherman. A police report says the fisherman was in back of the plant in Southwest Washington.
Attorneys for one of the two suspects accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in a bathroom stall at Rockville High School said the girl texted their client the day before the incident and agreed to have sex with him, according to court papers filed Monday.

The girl also texted explicitly compromising images of herself to him, the attorneys asserted in the court filing.

This was a consensual act. It was preplanned, said David Wooten, an attorney for Jose Montano, 17.

Wootens comments echo those made last week by an attorney for the other suspect in the case, Henry Sanchez Milian, 18. All parties were willing participants, that attorney, Andrew Jezic, said again Monday.

The court filing Monday, in which Wooten and defense attorney Maria Mena asked for a court hearing to have the terms of Montanos bond reviewed, has the potential to add even more controversy to a case that already has been marked by it, owing to the suspects status as newly arrived illegal immigrants.

Many parents in Montgomery County have questioned what the school system knew about the teenagers before enrolling them at Rockville High. And the case has gained national attention in the debate on illegal immigration.

Even if there were such communications made between the girl and one of the suspects, the criminal case would hinge on whether the girl agreed at the time to have sex  in a bathroom stall, with two people  or whether she was attacked.

Capt. James Humphries, commander of the Montgomery Police Departments Special Victims Investigation unit, which is handling the case, said he stands by the investigations findings.

The events were horrible. They were not consensual, he said.

Police Chief Tom Manger has described the attack as brutal and said he is confident that police have a strong case.

[Suspects in Rockville High rape case came to U.S. last year to join relatives]

The police affidavits in the case, filed to obtain criminal charges against the suspects, both ninth-graders, describe several sexual assaults inside a boys bathroom during school hours the morning of March 16. The allegations in the affidavits were largely based on the girls statements to police.

The encounter started about 9 a.m., according the police, when Montano and the girl, who knew each other, began talking in a hallway. Montano asked the girl for sex, and she refused, prompting Montano to keep asking and to push her into the bathroom, the affidavits stated. The girl was pulled into a stall as she tried to resist by grabbing a sink, according to the affidavits.

Sanchez Milian then entered the stall, according to the affidavit, and the two young men took turns raping the girl as she cried out in pain and repeatedly told them to stop, according to the affidavits.

According to the affidavits, and to a prosecutors account in court, police obtained forensic evidence in the bathroom that seemed to confirm that sex activities had taken place.

Detectives spoke with both teenager, describing what they said in court papers that identified the girl as Victim A.

Montano denied having any sexual contact with Victim A, detectives wrote. Montano stated they went into the bathroom to tell jokes.

Sanchez Milian initially stated nothing happened, detectives wrote. Then changed his statement multiple times and admitted to having sex with the victim with his friend Montano.

On March 17, the suspects appeared in court and were ordered held on no-bond status, based on the seriousness of the charges and their immigration history that made them extreme flight risks. Montano was charged as an adult.

On Monday, the attorneys for Montano asked for a hearing to have his bond conditions reviewed. They cited new evidence that has surfaced  the text messages allegedly sent by the girl to their client. The girl, they said, wrote about previous sexual activity with Montano and agreed to have sex with him the next day, during P.E. class.

This new evidence completely changes the courts bail review analysis, insofar as considering the nature and circumstances of the crime alleged, the attorneys, Wooten and Mena, wrote. The defendant appears to be actually innocent, and should be released forthwith.

Mena said her client doesnt understand why he has been charged with a crime: He comes from a wonderful, hard-working family who supports him 100 percent.
Corrina Mehiel with one of her bicycle sculptures. She fixed abandoned bikes on the streets of Philadelphia by replacing their missing parts with colorful non-functioning items so that the public would get a different view of what may typically be seen as trash or an eyesore. (Photo from Maiza Hixson)

A man arrested in the stabbing death of an artist who was found tied up in her basement apartment on Capitol Hill did not know the victim, according to D.C. police, while court documents suggest she may have been targeted in a robbery.

The suspect, El Hadji Alpha Madiou Toure, 28, was apprehended Monday on Hamlin Street in Brookland. Police described him as homeless and living in District shelters, although he had a Maryland drivers license and appears to have family living in Laurel.

At the time of his arrest he was wanted on a charge of violating probation in a robbery conviction in Tennessee, and he has an extensive criminal record in Georgia with convictions for making a terrorist threat, assault and robbery.

Toure was charged in the District with first-degree murder while armed and theft in the death of Corrina Mehiel, 34, whose body was found the afternoon of March 21 in a back room of a rowhouse in the 600 block of 14th Street NE, near the H Street corridor. She lived in North Carolina but had been in the District for months as she worked on an exhibit at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design.

Were relieved a man is in custody, said the victims stepmother, Lari Mehiel, 58, who lives in Seattle. A memorial service was held Sunday in Glenville, Pa., near the Hanover home of her maternal grandparents.

(WUSA9)

Toure appeared in D.C. Superior Court on Tuesday with his ankles and wrists in shackles and wearing a white plastic jumpsuit. A judge ordered him jailed until his next hearing April 11.

Toures attorney, Jacqueline Cadman of the Public Defender Service, argued that her client was innocent. There is no evidence Mr. Toure committed this murder, Cadman said. She said it was a huge jump to link Toure with the killing just because stolen property may have been found on him.

Cadman said that there was no murder weapon found, no eyewitness and no injuries to Toure.

Mr. Toure was not in that apartment and he did not kill the decedent, she said.

Although robbery remains a possible motive, police say other motives remain under investigation. An arrest affidavit filed in D.C. Superior Court quotes an acquaintance of the suspect telling another person that the defendant was trying to rob the woman, but was not trying to kill her.

[Visiting artist found slain on Capitol Hill]

The affidavit says Toure used Mehiels Toyota Prius and repeatedly withdrew money, using her bank card, in increments of $400, $500 and $800 in Maryland and the District. Police said they found paperwork with the suspect showing that he had purchased a Ford Taurus on March 24, the day after Mehiel disappeared, and had made a $1,000 down payment.

Police released this image March 24 saying it showed a person of interest in the death of Corrina Mehiel. The person was identified Tuesday as El Hadji Alpha Madiou Toure. (D.C. Police)

Police have said Mehiel was at the Corcoran on Sunday, March 19, then went to a dinner party with well-known artist Mel Chin at his apartment in Foggy Bottom. Mehiel texted her boyfriend at 1:24 a.m. on Monday.

She was to leave for home in Burnsville, N.C., later that day.

Is is unclear when the attack occurred, although video from a home surveillance system shows the suspect standing in front of Mehiels home and near her car at 10:13 a.m. Monday, and a man that fits the suspects description driving her car at 12:57 p.m., according to the affidavit. The affidavit does not say how the attacker got inside the apartment, although police have said there were no signs of forced entry.

Police went to the home about 4:15 p.m. after Mehiel had not returned home to North Carolina as expected and her father could not reach her. A police report says she was found tied with bedding and clothing.

The affidavit describes a gruesome scene inside the house. Mehiel had been stabbed in the neck and repeatedly in the body, and a detective wrote that the number of wounds and their severity suggest some sort of torture had been done to the decedent. Police also said the victim had defensive wounds on her left hand and palm indicating a struggle.

Detectives were eventually able to track the suspects movements using surveillance video from private homes on the victims block, moving Metro buses as they rolled by Mehiels house and electronic license-plate readers. The affidavit says police were able to identify Toures SmarTrip card number as he entered and left subway stations, and learned of locations where he allegedly withdrew money in College Park, Beltsville, Elkridge and Hyattsville.

Police said they found Mehiels Toyota Prius on March 23 in the 700 block of Irving Street NE, where it appears to have been abandoned and given a parking ticket. Authorities also released two sets of surveillance photos of a person of interest, who they confirmed on Tuesday is the man they arrested.

D.C. interim police chief Peter Newsham, who is awaiting confirmation, said at a news conference that right now, we do not have a strong motive in the case. We dont have any information to suggest that the victim knew the suspect. He also said there is no evidence the victim was sexually assaulted. Newsham credited the arrest to a tip from the community that was instrumental in closing the case.

Police initially held Toure on the arrest warrant from Tennessee.

James E. Bradford Jr., a spokesman for the sheriff's office in Bradley County, Tenn., said Toure pleaded guilty in October 2006 under his birth name, Ellie Brown, to two counts of robbery. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and served one year before being released on probation. A warrant charging him with violating the terms of his probation was filed Thursday.

Dana Hedgpeth, Magda Jean-Louis and Lynh Bui contributed to this report.
What drivers will see in their Uber app after accepting pickups through the new carpooling service Commute. (Uber)

Uber will use Northern Virginia as a testing ground for a new carpooling feature, described by the company as digital slug lines. And while the news is drawing applause in the high-tech corridors business community, the regions sluggers  a dedicated group of commuters who pool together to use HOV lanes to save time and money  have been less enthusiastic, with reaction ranging from flattery to scorn.

Theres one clear consensus however: Ubers program may be inspired by their grass-roots community, but its not real slugging. Traditional slugging is free; Uber will charge a fee for its service.

I dont think it actually fits the slugging community model, said David LeBlanc, who wrote the book Slugging: The Commuting Alternative for Washington, D.C. and curates the website Slug-Lines.com.

Slugs are a thrifty community. And they like the idea of getting to work faster and for free, LeBlanc said.

The new Uber service, called Commute, will initially be available in Tysons, Fairfax City and Alexandria, targeting the Interstate 66 and Interstate 395 corridors along with the George Washington Parkway. Uber has not announced a launch date and says its gauging interest among employers. The company plans to roll out the feature in coming weeks, and it is eyeing an eventual expansion to the entire D.C. region, depending on the success of the pilot.

Drivers will net $5 to $10 per ride, and passengers will probably pay a fee within that range, with their costs skewing toward the lower end, the company says.

[Looking for an alternative to SafeTrack? Try the original ridesharing system: Slugging]

Uber is advertising Commute as a lower-cost alternative to uberPool, the apps cheapest option, where riders headed in the same direction split the cost of a trip.

An uberPool trip costing $15 to upward of $25 would cost $5 to $10 with Commute, the company says.

So why does Uber think commuters will pay for a service they now get free? Well, despite the established slugging culture on I-395, the company sees a potential market for paid carpooling on I-66, where there are HOV-2 restrictions during rush hours (compared with HOV-3 on I-395) and fewer places for would-be slugs to catch a ride.

In addition, Uber said the feature might appeal to a new group of customers who are used to ride-hailing apps but cant afford to use them for daily long-

distance commutes  or who dont want to wait in slug lines.

Think of it as digital slug lines, Uber said in a company blog post. By sharing their daily commute, drivers heading to and from D.C. can help recoup the costs of their trip, like gas and parking. Commuters in need of a trip into or out of town will be able to get a low-cost, convenient ride with a neighbor or co-worker. And both will benefit from access to those speedy HOV lanes.

Jim Corcoran, president and chief executive of the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce, lauded the announcement, pointing to the regions slugging culture as a reason Uber would be drawn to pilot the program here.

Uber has tried its hand at carpooling before with a similar feature in Chicago that floundered. (Uber rival Lyft discontinued a carpooling pilot, Lyft Carpool, last year, saying that not enough drivers were interested.)

Certainly when you look at the 95 corridor, [riding with a stranger] is a generally accepted practice in our marketplace  more so than Ive seen in most other metropolitan areas, Corcoran said. He welcomed Ubers attempt to take cars off the regions congested highways. The chamber has always believed in an all-of-the-above solution to traffic congestion relief. Cant be all roads, cant be all mass transit, cant be all the same old, same old. There needs to be innovation.

But in addition to asking customers to pay for a service readily available for free, the feature raises legal and technical questions for the embattled ride-

hailing company. Its unclear whether drivers would need to be screened under Virginias transportation network company law, which requires a criminal-

background check and rescreenings every two years.

Uber says that Commute drivers will not be subject to the same screening and that they shouldnt be required to because they arent driving for profit. The company compared the exchange of money to neighbors who share fuel and parking costs to carpool to work together.

Brandy Brubaker, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, issued a short statement saying the agency plans to explore the issue.

Uber has approached us about this service and we will meet with them . . . to learn more about the business model, she said.

In any case, Uber says it plans to warn riders through the app that drivers are not subject to its normal screening requirements. Customers will be required to confirm and consent to riding with someone who hasnt been subject to traditional screening checks.

To use the service, riders will select Commute within the regular Uber app and begin scheduling rides between Northern Virginia and the District. Rides will be scheduled in advance, with morning trips set up the night before. The company says Commute will operate 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday. Drivers will be prompted to download a specialized version of Ubers driver app.

So why did Uber choose the D.C. region? Uber says Commute began as an in-house pilot at its D.C. headquarters and became popular with employees.

Uber officials say the D.C. region, which has grappled with Metros SafeTrack maintenance program for nearly a year, is uniquely suited for Commute.

Uber East Coast General Manager Meghan Joyce cited the stress and strain that is already in this market.

[Uber is finally releasing a data trove that officials say will make driving better for everyone]

We have these heavily congested roadways. But particularly in light of the SafeTrack initiative, we knew that there was going to be additional congestion [and] strain, she said.

In response to questions surrounding past Uber failures and Lyfts inability to succeed with a carpooling feature, Joyce said Uber sees its pilot as a way to gauge interest.

Were curious to see if this works. And were launching it as a pilot. And we will pivot as needed and maybe well find that the appetites not there, Joyce said. Were hopeful based on the investment that this community has made, the long tradition of things like sluglining and buses and Metro and shared rides, and the opportunity to help those people who want to drive get reimbursed, help people who want to ride get really affordable rides, and we hope to help reduce congestion while were at it.

[New slugline offers rides from the Franconia-Springfield Metro station to LEnfant Plaza]

Other key players in the slugging community raised doubts about whether the program is a good-faith effort or an attempt to capitalize on a bustling market.

This is not helping people. In no way is it going to help the traffic, said Kalai Kandasamy, the developer behind the sluglines.com app, which arranges rides between commuters and drivers in Northern Virginia. This is not slug lines. This is just trying to profit off something that is existing that is helping people.

Uber says it initially does not plan to take a cut from its carpooled rides.

Another app developer, Andriy Klymchuk of slug app Sameride, which transports about 100 passengers per week between Woodbridge and Tysons, welcomed Ubers arrival to the carpooling community. He said the company could use the region as a test lab to learn how to adopt carpooling in other cities.

Both sluglines.com and Sameride are free.

Im happy theyre coming because it proves our assumptions and rationale, Klymchuk said. Its not that Uber will kill everybody else here. Its still a problem to be solved, and not only at the local area here, but at the global level.
When President Trump took office, Gov. Terry McAuliffe managed to sound surprisingly conciliatory.

McAuliffe (D), who had gone all-out to elect his old friend Hillary Clinton, said he has known Trump for 20 years and could do business with him. When the National Governors Association met in Washington last month, McAuliffe  who leads the group  spent a three-hour dinner in private conversation with Trump. The two men toasted one another.

[Virginia governor lives it up on the national stage, hedges bets about future]

It didnt last.

McAuliffe has been increasingly critical of the Trump administration, starting with resisting the January travel ban and continuing last week when the governor called the president a one-man wrecking crew for the Virginia economy.

On Tuesday, he again took it up a notch.

Trumps proposed federal budget, McAuliffe said, is the craziest I have ever seen introduced. It literally cripples, hurts, everybody. . . . He is hurting the exact people who went out and voted for him. I think folks are now realizing that they were sold a bunch of goods, and theyre not happy.

A federal hiring freeze threatens the states significant population of government workers, he said. The travel ban and stepped-up immigration enforcement have scared away prospective businesses, he said. The fight over health care caused fear and uncertainty, he said. He worked up a head of steam.

He has cut all the funding for the Chesapeake Bay, McAuliffe said, referring to federal money for bay cleanup. That has to be one of the dumbest things I have ever. . ., and he trailed off without finishing the sentence.

The actions he is taking today [have] done nothing but hurt Virginia. And I speak for many governors who would have the same argument, McAuliffe said.

Hours later, after Trump signed an executive order that scraps federal rules curbing U.S. carbon emissions and other environmental protections, McAuliffe said the presidents actions threaten our environment, our security and our ability to compete in the global economy. It is impossible and downright reckless to deny the science of global warming. . . . Sea-level rise and extreme weather are already impacting Virginia families, businesses and key military assets like the worlds largest naval base in Norfolk.

Of course, McAuliffe also is urging Virginians to elect a Democrat to replace him as governor later this year, and opposing the Republican administration is a cornerstone of that campaign. The state constitution prohibits him from serving two consecutive terms.

But McAuliffe is also a self-proclaimed dealmaker who tends to keep the door open for negotiating with anyone and everyone, so the tone of his rhetoric against Trump comes as a bit of a surprise.

He made the remarks while going over some final proposed changes to the state budget passed last month by the General Assembly. Because of what McAuliffe sees as the likelihood that Trump will not prevent automatic federal budget cuts known as sequestration, the governor is proposing to nearly triple the money set aside for emergencies  to $10.4 million from $3.6 million.

He would pay for that partly by cutting in half the $10 million the General Assembly wants to spend on celebrating the 400th anniversary of representative government at Jamestown in 2019. McAuliffe also would use some technical adjustments to make small increases in spending on training for solar energy and cyber-related jobs, and to keep alive a program for assessing jail inmates for mental illness.

The General Assembly will hold a one-day session on April 5 to consider McAuliffes amendments and vetoes.

While the governor praised the Republican legislature for working with him to produce what he termed a good budget, he repeated fears that the administration in Washington will mess it up.

The actions taken by the administration have been negative towards our economy, so were taking that into consideration, he said.
Supreme Court Justice nominee Neil Gorsuch smiles on Capitol Hill in Washington, during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Tuesday. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrats from Maryland, announced Tuesday that they will oppose the nomination of President Trumps Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch.

Van Hollen, a freshman senator from Montgomery County, and Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Gorsuch cannot separate his political views from his legal judgment.

Both contrasted the handling of Gorsuchs confirmation process with that of President Barack Obamas nominee, Merrick Garland, who was not granted a hearing or a vote in the GOP-controlled chamber after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

The Maryland senators plan to vote no carries little political risk in the overwhelmingly blue state.

Van Hollen also joins about a dozen Democratic senators, including Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), in trying to prevent Gorsuchs nomination from even getting a vote on the Senate floor. Republicans have 52 members and need eight Democrats to join them to break the Democrats likely filibuster. Republicans other option: Get rid of the filibuster for nominees entirely. (In 2013, Senate Democrats undid the filibuster for most political and judicial nominees but left the 60-vote threshold in place for Supreme Court nominees.) Cardin is undecided on the filibuster.

[Gorsuch may fall short of votes needed for smooth Supreme Court confirmation]

Fellow Democratic Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia have not yet said publicly where they stand on the judges nomination. Kaine is up for reelection in 2018.

Van Hollen said that in Gorsuch, Trump found a nominee who would block access to abortion and appease the National Rifle Association.

After carefully evaluating Neil Gorsuchs record and his testimony before the Judiciary Committee, I have concluded that he applies a cramped reading of the law and consistently sides with powerful special interests against the rights of individuals, workers, and consumers. When he had an opportunity during the hearings to clarify that bias, he chose instead to evade questions and answered with platitudes, not substance, Van Hollen said in a statement.

While he is undoubtedly a skilled lawyer, his bias in favor of corporate power, coupled with his refusal to answer reasonable questions, lead me to conclude that he falls outside the judicial mainstream, he added.

Cardin said Gorsuchs record shows why he had the support of conservative groups, including the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society.

I am greatly troubled by Judge Gorsuchs record, Cardin said in a statement. His extensive legal record is peppered with examples of putting corporate interests before working Americans, showing hostility to agency decisions that protect our environment, disregard for womens health, marginalizing students with disabilities and many more troubling decisions.

Despite his protestations, his record points to a jurist who has not separated his political views from his legal views. I do not believe that he would serve as an independent check on this president, who has tested the limits of the Constitution and the separation of powers in a way that no other modern president has done, he added.

Liberal activists galvanized by the election of Trump have flooded senators offices and Facebook and Twitter accounts with messages urging them to block Gorsuch.

The Virginia GOP has also tried to pressure Kaine and Warner to state their position.

We understand that both Tim Kaine and Mark R. Warner are under intense pressure from their far-left base to oppose any and all nominations President Trump has put forward, John Whitbeck, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, said in a statement this month. But continuing to obstruct Judge Gorsuch is simply a bridge too far. Regardless of whether or not Warner and Kaine decide to vote against confirming this highly-qualified nominee, he deserves an up-or-down vote.

Amber Phillips contributed to this report.
Virginia Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, left, and former Virginia congressman Tom Perriello are vying for the Democratic nomination for governor. (AP photos)

Former Virginia congressman Tom Perriello is gaining ground and is tied with Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, according to a survey released Tuesday, while Republican Ed Gillespie is expanding his lead.

Perriello and Northam each drew support from 26 percent of Democratic-leaning voters in the poll by the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University. Just under half of those surveyed for the Democratic primary were undecided.

Support for Perriello increased 11 percentage points since the organizations last polling of the race in late January but remained stagnant for Northam.

In the three-person GOP field, Gillespie has the support of 38 percent of Republican-leaning voters, an increase of five percentage points. Trailing behind the longtime GOP strategist are Prince William Board of County Supervisors Chairman Corey A. Stewart with 11 percent and state Sen. Frank W. Wagner (R-Virginia Beach) with 10 percent.

[Full poll results]

The poll is the latest to show Gillespie with a comfortable lead ahead of the June 13 primaries and a tight Democratic race since Perriello unexpectedly announced his candidacy in January.

Quentin Kidd, director of the Wason Center, said the outcome of the Democratic primary depends on who shows up at the polls in June. The traditional older, whiter electorate would favor Northam, but Perriello has a better path to victory if voters newly mobilized by the election of Donald Trump participate in the primary, Kidd said.

This is going to sound odd, but is Perriello going to pull off a Donald Trump in this election and turn out voters who havent been turning out in Democratic primaries? Kidd said.

[Quinnipiac poll: Democrats ahead of Republicans in Va. governor race]

The poll suggests divisions in the Democratic Party highlighted during the 2016 presidential primary are carrying over into the gubernatorial race.

Poll respondents who chose Hillary Clinton in the presidential primary support Northam over Perriello 34 percent to 25 percent. Those who preferred Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) favor Perriello 32 percent to 21 percent. Clinton defeated Sanders by nearly 30 percentage points in Virginia.

While both gubernatorial campaigns reject comparisons to the Sanders-Clinton race, faint echoes of that contest are apparent in the Democratic contest. Northam is the favorite of the state party establishment, with endorsements from all but one Democrat holding state or federal office. And Perriello is running a populist campaign with a Sanders-style message that the economic system is rigged against many Americans.

Perriello and Northam are fairly unknown to the broader electorate, the poll found. About 7 in 10 voters had no opinion of either Democrat, while about 15 percent had favorable impressions. Northams support is concentrated in his home region of Hampton Roads, while Perriellos strongholds are the Richmond area and the states south and southwest regions. Neither Democrat is strong in voter-rich Northern Virginia.

Gillespie, who nearly unseated Democratic Sen. Mark R. Warner in 2014, had the highest favorability ratings of the five gubernatorial candidates, with 23 percent. He also had the highest unfavorable rating, at 15 percent. Stewart was the only candidate whose unfavorability (12 percent) was higher than his favorability (11 percent).

Geographically speaking, Gillespie led his rivals in all regions, with his strongest support in Richmond and central Virginia and the southern and southwestern parts of the state. Stewart and Wagner had their best showings in their home turf of Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, respectively.

Gillespie led his primary opponents across every demographic and ideological group. The poll also suggests Stewarts attempts to court Trump supporters by mimicking the presidents brash style and harsh rhetoric about immigrants are falling short: A third of Trump primary voters back Gillespie, while Stewart and Wagner are drawing 11 percent each.

[Trumps mini-me struggles to gain ground in Virginia]

A Trump effect adds some uncertainty to the Republican contest, said Rachel Bitecofer, assistant director of the Wason Center. Gillespie, the establishment favorite, is underperforming among voters who preferred Trump to all those insider Republicans last year. But Stewart and Wagner dont seem to be picking them up, either.

Other poll findings suggest favorable terrain for Democrats in the general election.

Just 37 percent of Virginia voters approve of Trumps performance as president, with 59 percent disapproving. And half of voters say the commonwealth is heading in the right direction under Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat constitutionally barred from serving consecutive terms, while 55 percent say the country as a whole is headed in the wrong direction.

As one of just two states with a gubernatorial contest this year (the other is New Jersey), Virginia is shaping up to be a test of the national political mood.

The Wason Center also conducted its first polling of the lieutenant governors race.

It found Susan Platt, a former Altria lobbyist and aide to Joe Biden in the Senate, led the three-person Democratic field with 20 percent of voters. Justin Fairfax, a former federal prosecutor who narrowly lost the 2013 Democratic primary for attorney general, registered at 11 percent, while Gene Rossi, another former prosecutor, was at 6 percent.

On the GOP side, state Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel (Fauquier) is ahead with 17 percent of Republican voters, while Del. Glenn R. Davis Jr. (Virginia Beach) drew 13 percent and state Sen. Bryce E. Reeves (Spotsylvania) had 10 percent.

About 6 in 10 Democratic- and Republican-leaning voters were undecided in their respective lieutenant-governor races.

Pollsters surveyed 831 registered Virginia voters between March 16 and Sunday, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. The margin of error is plus or minus 5.4 percentage points for Democratic-leaning voters and slightly higher for Republican-leaning voters.
Washington

Man released pending deportation hearing

A Mexican man who has spent more than six weeks in immigration detention despite his participation in a program designed to protect those brought to the United States illegally as children can be released from custody pending his deportation proceedings, an immigration judge ruled Tuesday.

Lawyers for Daniel Ramirez Medina, 24, told the Associated Press they expect him to be released as soon as Wednesday following the decision by Judge John Odell in Tacoma.

Ramirez spent 40 minutes answering questions from prosecutors during a two-hour hearing Tuesday, and he repeatedly and credibly denied having any connections with gangs, attorney Mark Rosenbaum said.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

Immigration agents arrested Ramirez on Feb. 10 at a suburban Seattle apartment complex where they had gone to arrest his father, a previously deported felon. Agents said Ramirez, who came to the United States at age 7, acknowledged affiliating with gangs. He denies any gang ties or making any such admission.

Ramirez has no criminal record and twice passed background checks to participate in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows young people brought illegally as children to stay in the country and work.

 Associated Press

MICHIGAN

Court gives approval to Flint water-pipe deal

A federal judge approved a deal Tuesday to replace water lines at 18,000 homes in Flint, Mich., marking a permanent remedy for the disastrous decision in 2014 to draw water from a river without treating it to prevent lead contamination.

Flint will be responsible for replacing lead and galvanized-steel lines that bring water into homes. The cost could be as high as $97 million, with federal and state governments covering the bill. Pipes at more than 700 homes have been replaced so far.

The court-ordered pipe replacement is unprecedented in the United States, said lead attorney Dimple Chaudhary of the Natural Resources Defense Council. The organization sued Flint and Michigan on behalf of residents, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan.

Flints water was tainted with lead for at least 18 months, starting in spring 2014. While under the control of state-appointed financial managers, the city tapped the Flint River as its water source while a new pipeline was being built to Lake Huron. But the river water wasnt treated to reduce corrosion. As a result, lead leached from old pipes and fixtures.

Under the new agreement, pipes serving 18,000 homes will be replaced by January 2020. Michigan will continue to provide water filters, but the state can start closing free bottled water sites in Flint depending on demand and results of water quality tests.

U.S. District Judge David Lawson approved the settlement, which was the result of weeks of negotiations involving a court-appointed mediator.

 Associated Press

CALIFORNIA

Building hit by fatal blaze lacked fire safety

Inspectors discovered that a building in a rundown neighborhood of Oakland lacked fire extinguishers, smoke detectors in every apartment and a working sprinkler system just three days before a blaze erupted and killed four low-income residents.

Officials uncovered multiple fire code violations during an inspection Friday and ordered the owner of the building to immediately fix the fire alarm and sprinkler systems, according to documents released by the city.

Residents complained they didnt hear alarms, feel sprinklers or see fire extinguishers early Monday as they fled flames tearing through the three-story building that housed about 80 recovering drug addicts and former homeless people.

The fourth body was discovered Tuesday at the building where four other people were injured, authorities said.

The Alameda County coroner has identified one of the victims as Edwarn Anderson, 64. The others have not yet been identified.

The fire broke out nearly four months after a warehouse called the Ghost Ship, about five miles away, caught fire and killed 36 people attending an unlicensed concert.

 Associated Press

Former Army medic held in attack on mosque: Police arrested a former Army medic after a vandal broke windows and left a Bible at a Colorado mosque, an act that led to an outpouring of support for Muslims, authorities said. Joseph Scott Giaquinto, 35, was taken into custody Monday on suspicion of committing a crime motivated by bias and other allegations just hours after police released surveillance video and asked for the publics help in identifying a hoodie-wearing man seen picking up a stone and kicking a door at the Islamic Center in Fort Collins. The suspects father, Michael Giaquinto, told the Coloradan that his son served in Iraq and Korea.

Judge dismisses lawsuit against Ark. execution law: An Arkansas judge dismissed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the states lethal injection law, the latest setback for efforts to block the states unprecedented plan to conduct four double executions over a 10-day period next month. Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Wendell Griffen granted the states motion to dismiss the amended complaint filed by eight inmates facing lethal injection next month. Griffen said he has no jurisdiction over the case after the state Supreme Court reversed his previous decision striking down the law and the states three-drug protocol.

 From news services
(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Jim Brainard is a Republican mayor in a Republican city in a Republican state. But that hasnt stopped him from taking aggressive steps in recent years to combat climate change and become more energy efficient.

During his tenure, Carmel, Ind., has shifted its fleet to hybrid and biofuel vehicles, replaced streetlights with LED bulbs, installed hundreds of miles of bike paths and spent millions of dollars planting trees to absorb carbon dioxide and provide shade.

Carmel now has 102 roundabouts  more than any community in the country, he says proudly  that have reduced traffic accidents as well as helped to conserve gasoline, reduce air pollution and save electricity by negating the need for traffic lights. For a long time, taking care of our environment was a nonpartisan issue, Brainard said. I have yet to meet a Republican or Democrat who wants to drink dirty water or breathe dirty air.

But Tuesday afternoon, President Trump signed an executive order instructing the Environmental Protection Agency to roll back the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administrations signature effort to combat climate change by limiting carbon emissions from power plants and requiring states to cut down on overall emissions.

Trump maintains that Obama-era regulations have unnecessarily hampered businesses and that freeing companies from such burdensome requirements will provide an economic boost.

Some mayors, governors and business leaders plan to press ahead with plans to clamp down on carbon emissions, saying it makes sense for the economy as well as the climate. It doesnt impact anything were doing, Brainard said.

Hed rather not see the Clean Power Plan scrapped, but its absence wont alter the trajectory of Carmel, which sits just north of Indianapolis, or many other places around the country. Cities arent going to stop. They were working on things that save money and provide a better environment long before the federal government got involved with the Clean Power Plan, and theyll continue to do so.

[Trump moves decisively to wipe out Obamas climate-change record]

Its not only cities. About 30 states have established standards that require utilities and power companies to sharply increase their reliance on renewable energy over the next decade or more.

Falling prices for wind and solar and low prices for natural gas have further undercut coals share of the electricity market. According to the Sierra Club, 175 coal plants in the United States have shut down since 2010, and 73 others are scheduled to retire by 2030.

The Energy Information Administration is more sanguine about coals prognosis, but it still says that coal will be eased out of the electricity mix even without the Clean Power Plan. In a 2015 report, the EIA said that 90,000 megawatts of coal-fired capacity would be retired by 2040 with the plan in place. Without the plan, coal capacity would still fall by 40,000 megawatts.

Were not building any new coal plants in this country, and the existing ones are having a harder and harder time competing with ever-cheaper renewables, said Mary Anne Hitt, the head of the Sierra Clubs Beyond Coal campaign. Theres a . . . structural disadvantage for coal in the marketplace. Thats not something Donald Trump can wave away with the stroke of a pen.

State-level programs to boost renewable sources of electricity have support, in some cases, across party lines. In the weeks after Trumps election, Republican governors in three Midwestern states  Illinois, Ohio and Michigan  committed to adding more renewable power and boosting energy efficiency.

If President Trump doesnt recognize it, weve seen that Republican governors do see an investment opportunity with efficiency and renewable energy, said Dick Munson, who works on clean energy programs in the Midwest for the Environmental Defense Fund.

(Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

In Illinois, Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) signed the Future Energy Jobs Bill, which was negotiated with the states Democratic-controlled legislature. The measure would channel more than $200 million a year into renewable energy investment. It also sets tougher standards for utilities, requiring them to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 56 percent by 2030. The Clean Power Plan would have required a comparatively modest cut of 34 percent.

In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich (R) vetoed a bill that would have weakened that states renewable standards. Major corporations such as Amazon and Whirlpool, as well as wind and solar developers, had urged him to stick to ambitious renewable goals. (Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

I believe its real, Kasich said of climate change in a speech last fall at the University of Texas at Austin. You cant read these stories about these things happening all over the world, on our coasts and the rising sea levels, without being concerned about it.

Out west, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) has made clear that he will eagerly push forward with his states efforts to combat climate change and shift to cleaner energy sources.

Whatever they do in Washington, they cant change the facts, Brown said during a state of the state address days after Trumps inauguration. And these are the facts: The climate is changing, the temperatures are rising, and so are the oceans. Natural habitats everywhere are under increasing stress. The world knows this.

Months earlier, Brown had signed legislation requiring the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030  an ambitious goal compared with past targets. Weeks earlier, the state had hired an outside legal team that includes former U.S. attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. to help defend its environmental and other policies in the age of Trump.

[Trumps climate rollback could undermine our promises to the rest of the world]

Some of the nations biggest utilities also say that shelving the Clean Power Plan will have little effect on their long-term actions, which arent aimed at four-year presidential cycles but involve looking decades ahead.

[Our] long-term strategy is focused on generating and delivering electricity in ways that meet the needs and expectations of our customers, Nick Akins, chief executive of American Electric Power, one of the nations largest utilities, said in an email. That includes diversifying our fuel mix and investing in renewable generation and other innovations that increase efficiency and reduce emissions. That wont change.

AEPs 2016 carbon dioxide emissions were already 44 percent below 2000 levels, and Akins said the company expects further declines as it adds more natural gas and renewable power generation. It plans to invest about $1.5 billion in renewable energy over the next three years.

Marijke Shugrue, a spokeswoman for another major utility, NRG, said the company set our sustainability goals back in 2014 unconnected to the Clean Power Plan. Whatever happens to that, our goals still stand. It made sense before, and it still makes sense. The plan set a goal of reducing NRGs carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2030.

Investors also understand that operating coal plants these days can be bad for the bottom line. After the owners of the 40-year-old Navajo Generating Station in Arizona announced Feb. 13 that they would close the stations coal-fired power plant, Moodys Investors Service called the decision credit positive for the owners.

Closing the enormous 2,250-megawatt facility  the largest coal plant west of the Mississippi River  reduces risks associated with the coal-fired units meeting environmental standards, Moodys said. In addition, the shutdown brings economic benefits to ratepayers.

At the Environmental Defense Fund, Munson expects renewable energy will continue to surge even in states that lack renewable portfolio standards. Look at Texas, he said. Not exactly a font of progressive policies. Even so, Texas is home to one-fourth of the nations wind capacity, with more on the way.

On Nov. 27, wind energy set a record there, providing 45 percent of the states total electricity demand that day. Overall, wind provides 12.7 percent of the states electricity, and projects underway will bring that to about 16 percent when finished.

Yet it would still be a setback if Trump manages to stymie the Clean Power Plan, Munson said. It was a symbol, and an important one, that suggests this is the path that our nation is going to take to tackle this challenge and do it in an investment-focused way, he said. Backing away from that sends the wrong message.
(The White House)

President Trump on Tuesday took the most significant step yet in obliterating his predecessors environmental record, instructing federal regulators to rewrite key rules curbing U.S. carbon emissions.

The sweeping executive order  which the president signed with great fanfare in the Environmental Protection Agencys Map Room  also seeks to lift a moratorium on federal coal leasing and remove the requirement that federal officials consider the impact of climate change when making decisions.

The order sends an unmistakable signal that just as President Barack Obama sought to weave climate considerations into every aspect of the federal government, Trump is hoping to rip that approach out by its roots. The president did not utter the words climate change once, instead emphasizing that the move would spur job creation in the fossil fuel industry.

Our administration is putting an end to the war on coal, he said, accompanied onstage by more than a dozen coal miners, Vice President Pence and three Cabinet members. Were ending the theft of American prosperity, and rebuilding our beloved country.

Some of the measures could take years to implement and are unlikely to alter broader economic trends that are shifting the nations electricity mix from coal-fired generation to natural gas and renewables. The order is silent on whether the United States should withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, under which it has pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions between 26 and 28 percent by 2025 compared to 2005 levels, because the administration remains divided on that question.

The order comes after several moves by Trump to roll back Obama-era restrictions on mining, drilling and coal- and gas-burning operations. In his first two months as president, Trump has nullified a regulation barring surface-mining companies from polluting waterways and set aside a new accounting system that would have compelled coal companies and other energy firms to pay more in federal royalties.

The administration also has announced it will reconsider stricter fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks and has approved two major oil pipelines, Dakota Access and Keystone XL, that Obama had halted.

[As Trump halts federal action on climate change, cities and states push on]

Accelerating fossil-fuel production on federal lands and sidelining climate considerations could lead to higher emissions of the greenhouse gases driving climate change and complicate a global effort to curb the worlds carbon output. But Trump has repeatedly questioned whether climate change is underway and emphasized that he is determined to deliver for the voters in coal country who helped him win the Oval Office.

The president thanked the miners onstage twice during the ceremony, and as they gathered around him when he signed the executive order, he looked up and remarked, You know what it says, right? Youre going back to work.

U.S. coal jobs, which number about 75,000, have been declining for decades. A senior administration official who briefed reporters Monday evening did not predict how many jobs might be spurred by this shift in policy.

Still, Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) and other administration supporters said the change in policy would have a tangible impact on the economy. This order is a clear sign to the country that Trump is serious about unleashing this countrys energy dominance, Inhofe said in a statement.

Legal fight possible

The centerpiece of the new presidential directive, telling the Environmental Protection Agency to begin rewriting the 2015 regulation that limits greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants, will trigger a laborious rulemaking process and a possible legal fight.

The agency must first get permission from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where the rule is tied up in litigation, to revisit the matter. Then, agency officials will have to justify reaching the opposite conclusion of the Obama EPA, which argued it was technically feasible and legally warranted to reduce carbon pollution by about one-third by 2030, compared with 2005 levels.

So, for the president, even if he would like to revoke the Clean Power Plan, he doesnt have legal authority to do that, said Jeffrey Holmstead, a partner at the Bracewell law firm who opposes the Obama-era rule. Holmstead, who headed the EPAs air and radiation office under President George W. Bush, said he thinks the agency can justify reversing the regulation. But they have to justify why they have changed, he added.

While environmental groups decried Trumps move, mining officials welcomed it as an important course correction in federal energy policy.

This rule was an unlawful attempt to radically transform the nations power grid, destroying valuable energy assets and leaving our economy more vulnerable to rising power prices  all for an insignificant environmental benefit, said Hal Quinn, president and chief executive of the National Mining Association.

Environmentalists vowed to fight the executive order in court and press ahead with their goals on the state level.

David Doniger, director of the Natural Resources Defense Councils climate and clean-air program, said unwinding the Clean Power Plan will not happen quickly, no matter what the president wants. Tearing the rules down require going through the same process it took to build them up, Doniger said. We will make them face the music at every step.

Christopher Field, a professor at Stanford Universitys Wood Institute for the Environment, said in an email that the directive carries long-term risks, rather than immediate ones. Some are risks from eroding the position of U.S. companies in the clean energy sector, Field said. Others are from the loss of irreplaceable natural heritage that is put in jeopardy by ill-conceived policies.

The president will also instruct the Interior Department to rewrite a 2015 rule, currently stayed in court, that imposes restrictions on hydraulic fracturing on federal and tribal lands. The directive will also make it easier to flare methane in oil and gas operations on federal land, by triggering the review of a rule the Interior Department finalized in November.

More immediate actions

Other aspects of the executive order can take effect immediately, though it is unclear how quickly they will translate into greater coal extraction. One section overturns a 2016 White House directive to consider climate change when agencies conduct reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, a sweeping law that informed any federal decisions that have a significant environmental impact.

Another provision instructs Interiors Bureau of Land Management to lift a freeze on federal coal leasing. That moratorium has been in effect since December 2015.

Tom Sanzillo, director of finance for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said in an interview that the move becomes a largely politically symbolic measure for right now because other, lower-carbon sources of energy are out-competing coal. He noted that U.S. coal consumption has declined 27 percent since 2005, from 1.02 billion tons to 739 million tons in 2016, its lowest level in nearly four decades.

(Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Theyre not going to reverse the fundamental economic law here, Sanzillo said. Theres no market signal thats telling them they should be mining more coal.

Still, regulatory relief could make some coal firms, nearly 50 of which have filed for bankruptcy since 2012, somewhat more economically viable. Some of the sectors biggest companies  including Arch Coal, Peabody Energy and Alpha Natural Resources  are just now emerging from bankruptcy protection.

Ethan Zindler, head of U.S. research at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said in an email that solar and wind are competitive with coal in some parts of the country and that natural gas ranks as the lowest-cost source of electricity generation overall. The sector that could suffer the greatest hit from the elimination of the Clean Power Plan is nuclear energy, which provides about a fifth of U.S. businesses and households power.

Many of the 100 or so U.S. plants are aging, and approximately a third are economically uncompetitive today, Zindler said. Without stricter federal emissions limits, he added, there may be little to stop the retirement of these plants in coming years and their replacement with a combination of gas/wind/solar.

National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Jim Matheson, whose group challenged the Clean Power Plan in federal court, said in an interview that he does not anticipate many of his members will start building new coal-fired plants. But for those who have already invested heavily in keeping their coal plants operating, he said, It has given them much greater flexibility to maintain more reasonably-priced and affordable power for our consumers.

Separately, Trump has instructed federal officials to abandon the 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 currently 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 have criticized it as too sweeping.

Federal officials will return to the traditional cost-benefit analysis outlined in a 2003 Office of Management and Budget guidance, which appears to put the cost associated with carbon emissions at zero.

As Trump seeks to scale back federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions, states and cities are likely to take on a larger role in charting the course forward.

An analysis by the Rhodium Group, an economic consulting firm, found that Trumps forthcoming executive order would slow the countrys shift away from carbon-emitting sources of energy. It found after Trumps action, the United States would be 14 percent below its 2005 emissions levels by 2025, compared to 21 percent below that mark had current Obama-era policies remained in place.

All three West Coast governors and a handful of mayors issued a statement within minutes of the orders signing, vowing to press ahead with their own policies to cut carbon emissions. In an interview, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D), said his state would fight to maintain strict carbon standards in court, and would participate in U.N. climate talks to help foster further action overseas.

 Gutting the Clean Power Plan is a colossal mistake, and defies science itself, Brown said. Erasing climate change may take place in Donald Trumps mind, but nowhere else.

Tim Profeta, who directs Duke Universitys Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, said regulators from more than half-dozen states in the Southeast are now talking about how to chart their own path forward. Having met for nearly three years, the group stopped discussing how to comply with the Clean Power Plan after Novembers election, but it is still talking.

We are now talking about the evolution of the power sector in an environment of uncertainty, Profeta said in an interview. Were seeing the beginning of states taking control of their destiny.


The Kansas Senate votes to accept the federal Medicaid expansion at the statehouse in Topeka on March 28. (Christopher Smith/For The Washington Post)

 State lawmakers in this deep-red state on Tuesday did what a year ago would have been unthinkable: They voted to expand Medicaid under the health-care law that Republicans here have railed against for years.

Among them was Sen. Barbara Bollier (R), whose support last year for extending the government health program to more poor Kansans was considered so rogue that her colleagues tossed her off a health committee. This month, so many Kansas lawmakers voted for the expansion that they nearly mustered the two-thirds majority needed to block the Republican governors expected veto.

The abrupt reversal in Kansas could be the front edge of a larger shift nationally, as state lawmakers absorb the repercussions of congressional Republicans failed attempt to repeal and replace elements of the Affordable Care Act.

In Virginia, Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) on Monday pledged to revive efforts in his states Republican-led legislature to pass Medicaid expansion. Georgias Republican governor, Nathan Deal, also announced plans to change his states Medicaid program. Medicaid advocates in North Carolina see hope for renewed momentum as Gov. Roy Cooper (D) has sought to expand the program there through executive action.

Kansas lawmakers are shrugging off what had long been a concern for critics of the health law: that agreeing to expand Medicaid would make the law far more difficult to repeal because it is politically dangerous to revoke benefits once people have them. In Kansas, the expansion would make 150,000 additional low-income residents eligible for Medicaid. Some of the most vocal critics of the GOP repeal plan were Republican governors of states that embraced the Medicaid expansion for their constituents.

The vote in Kansas comes as politicians in Washington also grapple with the fallout of last weeks health-care battle. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) is trying to reassure donors that congressional Republicans will go back to the drawing board as they pressed forward on other aspects of President Trumps agenda. Democrats, meanwhile, are using the moment to press for improvements to the existing health law and to renew calls for universal health care.

Though Kansas legislators strongly approved Medicaid expansion  the 25-to-14 Senate vote included 16 Republicans in favor of it and 14 against it  Gov. Sam Brownback has signaled he will veto the bill, asserting that the health law will collapse regardless of congressional action.

To expand Obamacare when the program is in a death spiral is not responsible policy, spokeswoman Melika Willoughby said in a statement. Kansas must prioritize the care and service of vulnerable Kansans, addressing their health care needs in a sustainable way, not expanding a failing entitlement program to able-bodied adults.



Kansas state Sen. Laura Kelly (D) works in her office in the on March 28. She voted in favor of the Medicaid expansion. (Christopher Smith/For The Washington Post)

The vote Tuesday in Topeka was more than just symbolism, sending a clear signal that Republicans nationally are facing new pressure to participate in a program they once saw as one of the 2010 laws central evils.

[McAuliffe: If Obamacare is here to stay, then its time to expand Medicaid]

Medicaid is administered by the states, combining state and federal dollars to provide health services to low-income people, including children and their caretakers, pregnant women, the disabled, the blind, and those over the age of 65 who qualify. The coverage can vary by state, but the federal government requires it to include doctors visits and hospital expenses, among other services.

Expanding Medicaid is the Affordable Care Acts primary mechanism for extending health coverage to millions of previously ineligible low-income adults. Initially, states were required to participate in the Medicaid program, but the U.S. Supreme Court found the requirement unduly coercive and made expanding the program optional.

Over time, 31 states and the District of Columbia opted in, according to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, collecting millions of new federal dollars to cover those adults. Nineteen states, including Kansas, turned down the money, unwilling to enlarge a costly entitlement program that required additional financial contributions at the state level. Besides, they said, why sign on to an expansion that they dearly hoped Washington would eventually repeal?

That created what health experts called a coverage gap in the states that declined the expansion. Extremely poor parents continued to receive health care under the original Medicaid program, and people above the poverty level could get subsidies to help them buy coverage on the insurance marketplaces. But those in the middle  the poor, non-disabled single people and slightly-less-poor parents  had no options. That group included more than 2.5 million people last year nationwide, according to Kaiser.



State senators Laura Kelly (D) and Barbara Bollier (R) talk after the Senate voted to accept the federal Medicaid expansion. (Christopher Smith/For The Washington Post)

Bollier had long been one of the best-known outliers in her party when it came to Medicaid expansion. A retired anesthesiologist from eastern Kansas, just across the state line from Kansas City, Mo., she said her support was rooted in her concern for poor uninsured patients, who she said often get treatment for acute problems in the emergency room but went without treatment for chronic conditions.

Asked whether she felt vindicated by Tuesdays vote, she demurred. I am just elated that were now at the point that we can debate this bill, she said.

Once the bill gets to Brownbacks desk, he has 10 days to veto or sign it. If he does neither, the law automatically goes into effect. Advocates for Medicaid expansion already are mobilizing to whip up the three additional votes in the House and the two additional votes in the Senate needed to override his veto.

The seeds for Kansass actions were planted years ago, though proponents of Medicaid expansion say they got a boost from the news out of Washington last week.

Bollier was one of the moderate Republicans elected to the Kansas House and Senate who last year dislodged the grip that hard-line conservatives once held in the legislature. Bollier was elevated from the state House of Representatives to the upper chamber.

Kansas voters had grown weary of severe cuts initiated by Brownback, who pared back income taxes, particularly for the wealthy, and eliminated taxes for about 330,000 businesses, said Burdett Loomis, a professor of political science at the University of Kansas. The state ran out of money to repair highways and its credit rating had been downgraded multiple times, he said.

In 2016, people finally had enough, Loomis said. The experiment wasnt working.

[The Daily 202: New momentum for Medicaid expansion, as more Republicans conclude Obamacare wont get repealed]

At the same time, health-care advocates and hospitals joined forces for a campaign that many credit with helping turn around negative views of the Medicaid component of the Affordable Care Act.

Alliance for a Healthy Kansas, an advocacy group representing dozens of health-care organizations and professionals, cited studies that found that expanding Medicaid would benefit working people and create as many as 4,000 jobs statewide. It emphasized the states role in administering Medicaid, which advocates referred to by its local moniker, KanCare.

A January poll by the advocacy arm of the American Cancer Society found that 82 percent of Kansans supported expanding KanCare, a 10-point jump over 2013.

The 2015 closure of Mercy Hospital in Independence, Kan., also was a rallying point. Among the reasons the hospital cited for shuttering was reduced revenue that would have been offset by more Medicaid patients under the health law. The Kansas Hospital Association, which supported expanding Medicaid, warned that other hospitals could similarly fail without government action to ensure that more sick, low-income Kansans had some sort of health-care coverage.

I think that is exactly what changed the conversation, that we had the closure of a significant rural hospital, said Sen. Laura Kelly, the top Democrat on the Public Health and Welfare Committee. What you watched then was the legislators from that area . . . realizing, before an election, that, Oh, my gosh, this is really awful. 

Republican critics of the bill said they are sympathetic to the hospitals plight but are reluctant to join a program that they think is flawed.

I care about my hospitals, Republican state Sen. Susan Wagle said during a floor debate Monday, growing emotional. But this is a broken program. Its a broken program, people.

The pro-Medicaid position has led to a tricky balancing act for some Republicans, considering that opposition to Obamacare has been a central plank in the GOP platform for years.

On his campaign website, freshman Kansas Rep. John Eplee (R) said he believes health policy should be decided by the state and not the federal government. In an interview, he said he remains opposed to the Affordable Care Act. Yet he has been among the more vocal supporters of Medicaid expansion in Kansas.

This, in my opinion, is not Medicaid expansion in the sense that it is Obamacare, Eplee said. Its a Kansas plan.



The Kansas State Capitol in Topeka. (Christopher Smith/For The Washington Post)

Somashekhar reported from Washington.
NEW YORK

Man charged with murder as terrorist act

Prosecutors in New York have upgraded the charges against a white man who police say admitted to fatally stabbing a black man in a burst of racial hatred, indicting him on two new charges of murder as an act of terrorism.

Police say James H. Jackson, a 28-year-old from Baltimore, admitted to traveling to New York specifically to target and kill black men. Once in the city, they say, he stalked numerous potential victims before confronting Timothy Caughman, 66, and fatally stabbing him with a sword in what Jackson intended to be the first of many attacks.

Accounts from police and Jacksons statements to the media detailed a long-standing, visceral hatred of black people that culminated in his decision this month to board a bus to New York and attack black men where he could gain the most attention.

James Jackson prowled the streets of New York for three days in search of a black person to assassinate in order to launch a campaign of terrorism against our Manhattan community and the values we celebrate, said Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the district attorney for Manhattan.

Jackson was indicted in New York State Supreme Court on one count of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder, both as acts of terrorism. Jackson had been charged last week with murder as a hate crime and three counts of criminally possessing a weapon.

 Mark Berman

ILLINOIS

Immigration official shoots man in Chicago

A federal immigration official shot and injured a man in Chicago while attempting to arrest another person in the city on Monday, authorities said.

It was not clear whether immigration officials were attempting to arrest someone because of their immigration status or if the person was being sought on other charges.

Since President Trump took office, his administration has conducted immigration raids throughout the country and vowed to speed up deportation hearings and expand the pool of people who could be removed.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a statement that agents with its Homeland Security Investigations arm, which has a broad mandate touching on numerous types of crimes, attempted to make an arrest when a second person pointed a weapon toward agents.

As a result, a special agent discharged his firearm and shot the individual, injuring him, the agency said.

The man who was shot was the father of the person being sought, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the incident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.

Police described the injured man, who was not immediately named, as a Hispanic man shot in his extremities and said he was taken to a hospital in serious condition.

Chicago police were called to the scene around 6:30 a.m., the department said. Chicago police officers were not involved in the operation, but the department will now investigate the shooting. The police probe will not focus on whether the use of force was in accordance with the standards of ICE or the Department of Homeland Security. ICE said that it would also launch an internal review of the shooting.

 Mark Berman

18,000 chickens destroyed due to bird flu in Georgia: About 18,000 chickens were destroyed at a northwest Georgia poultry farm after tests confirmed avian influenza in the flock, the first time the disease has been detected in commercial birds in the state, authorities said Monday. The infected chickens were flagged by routine screening at a poultry breeder in Georgias Chattooga County, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Agriculture said. The county is on the Georgia-Alabama state line and not far from Tennessee. Both neighboring states, along with Kentucky, also have reported bird flu in poultry flocks in recent weeks.

 Associated Press
SOUTH KOREA

Prosecutors request warrant to arrest Park

South Korean prosecutors, citing concerns about destruction of evidence, asked a court Monday to order the arrest of former president Park Geun-hye, who was impeached this month in connection with a corruption and influence-peddling scandal.

Prosecutors grilled Park for 14 hours last week, the first time she agreed to answer questions about her role in the scandal.

The Seoul Central District Court scheduled a hearing for Thursday morning to decide whether Park, 65, should be detained for further questioning.

Prosecutors have identified 13 charges that could be leveled against her.

A lot of evidence has been collected so far, but as the suspect denies most of the criminal allegations against her, there is a possibility of her destroying evidence, the prosecution said.

However, analysts said, Park already has had plenty of time to destroy evidence. She was suspended as president in early December when the National Assembly passed a motion to impeach her and forwarded the matter to the Constitutional Court.

But she remained in the presidential Blue House throughout the three months that the court was deliberating and then stayed on for 60 hours even after she was impeached.

Park also refused to allow prosecutors access to her office.

The scandal centers on her relationship with Choi Soon-sil, her confidante. Choi, who had no policy or political experience and no security clearance, is accused of extracting $70 million from major businesses on the promise that they would get favorable treatment from the government. Prosecutors have said that Park colluded in the scheme.

 Anna Fifield

SYRIA

U.S.-backed fighters pause action near dam

U.S.-backed forces in northern Syria on Monday paused military operations near a dam held by the Islamic State militant group to allow engineers to fix any problems after conflicting reports about its stability.

The decision by the Syrian Democratic Forces came a day after divergent reports about whether civilians had begun evacuating the nearby city of Raqqa  the Islamic States de facto capital  because of concerns about the Tabqa dam.

Some activist groups opposed to the Islamic State said residents were seeking higher ground, fearing that the collapse of the dam could cause severe flooding, while others said people were remaining in place.

The SDF, a U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led force, has been fighting the Islamic State in the area since Friday in an attempt to capture the dam, a key source of electricity in northern Syria.

The SDF said the cease-fire expired at 5 p.m. local time, after its engineers inspected the structure and found no faults.

Elsewhere in Syria, authorities resumed the evacuation of the last opposition-held neighborhood in the central city of Homs, part of an agreement to surrender the district to the government.

Opposition activists have criticized the agreement, saying it aims to displace 12,000 Waer residents, including 2,500 fighters.

 Associated Press

Kenya says it killed 31 al-Shabab extremists: Kenyas military said it has killed 31 fighters from al-Shabab in a raid in southern Somalia, but the Islamist militant group denies it. The Kenyan military said its ground troops were supported by helicopter gunships and artillery fire in striking two al-Shabab bases. Kenyas military is part of an African Union mission in Somalia bolstering the government against an al-Shabab insurgency.

Avalanche kills 8 in Japan: An avalanche killed seven high school students and an instructor during a mountaineering field trip north of Tokyo, Japanese authorities said. Nearly 50 students and instructors were caught in the morning avalanche in the town of Nasu, about 120 miles from the Japanese capital. Forty people were injured, including two who were in serious condition.

Pro-E.U. party wins Bulgaria vote: Near-final results indicate that a center-right, pro-European Union party is the clear winner in Bulgarias parliamentary election. With about 96.7 percent of the ballots counted, GERB had 32.6 percent of the votes, the election commission said. The Socialist Party came in second, with 27.1 percent. GERB did not win enough votes to govern alone, but the Socialists declined to take part in a coalition government.

 From news services
Pope Francis waves to the crowd during the Angelus noon prayer in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on Sunday. (Gregorio Borgia/Associated Press)

John Gehrings March 25 Religion essay, What I saw at a conservative Catholic gathering in Trumps hotel, painted a dark picture of conservative Catholics willing to ignore the presidents harmful, divisive and xenophobic rhetoric in exchange for his pro-life and anti-same-sex-marriage stances. It seems that the conservative Catholics, as portrayed by Mr. Gehring, are worshiping at the altar of political opportunism instead of showing human compassion for immigrant families facing trauma and displaying urgent concern over our fragile environment.

As Mr. Gehring wrote, Pope Francis would be a far better thought leader for the people at the symposium  not least because of his spiritual strength and relentless focus on human rights  than the White House occupant. Admiration and respect for Pope Francis require no ambiguity; he represents the bright, optimistic side of humanity.

Howard Freedlander, Easton
UNTIL NOW there has been a stark contrast between the tactics of the U.S.-backed military campaign to recapture Mosul, Iraq, from the Islamic State and those of Russian and Syrian government forces attacking rebels in neighboring Syria. The latter has featured deliberate bombing of civilian targets, including hospitals, food stores and aid convoys, at the cost of thousands of lives. In Mosul, meanwhile, Iraqi counterterrorism forces have sustained heavy casualties in street fighting while limiting the use of artillery and airstrikes to avoid civilian deaths, winning praise from humanitarian groups.

A U.S. airstrike that may have killed scores or even hundreds of people in Mosul on March 17 may now tarnish that record. Iraqi civil defense officials are saying the attack targeted a building in Mosuls al-Jadida neighborhood where many people were crowded in a basement; the remains of more than 100 had been recovered by Sunday. On Saturday, the Pentagon confirmed that the coalition had targeted Islamic State fighters at the location corresponding to the allegations of civilian casualties and said a formal inquiry was underway.

Confusion still surrounds the incident: Iraqi military authorities are saying the casualties were caused by booby traps the Islamic State had planted in the house, or by a suicide car bomb that detonated nearby. Theres no question that the jihadists are using civilians as shields, forcing them to stay in homes that are used as firing positions. It is nevertheless vital that U.S. authorities determine as quickly as possible whether an American or coalition bomb caused the civilian deaths, and, if so, accept responsibility.

Its equally important that U.S. and Iraqi forces minimize further civilian casualties as they reclaim the remaining, densely populated areas of Mosul still held by the Islamic State. Once the fight is over, the Shiite-led Iraqi government will face the stiff political challenge of stabilizing a multiethnic city that includes hundreds of thousands of Sunnis; that will be all the more difficult if the pro-government forces have inflicted heavy casualties.

U.S. commanders appear to understand the stakes. Gen. Joseph Votel, leader of U.S. Central Command, issued a statement saying the death of innocent civilians in Mosul is a terrible tragedy and that the coalition will continue to take extraordinary measures to avoid harming civilians. U.S. spokesmen say the rules of engagement governing airstrikes, which are tailored to avoid civilian deaths, have not changed.

Outside observers nevertheless are speculating that the advent of the Trump administration has loosened restraints on U.S. attacks in the Middle East. A controversial Jan. 29 raid in Yemen, approved by President Trump, killed up to a dozen civilians, according to Mr. Votel. A U.S. airstrike in Syrias Aleppo province on March 16 is under investigation amid allegations that it killed scores of civilians gathered in a mosque; the Pentagon described the target as an al-Qaeda gathering.

President Barack Obama was frequently criticized, with some reason, for micromanaging military strike decisions and exercising excessive caution. Mr. Trump, on the other hand, has talked loosely about heavily bombing Islamic State-held areas and has stepped up direct U.S. involvement in the fighting. Defeating the Islamic State more quickly through the greater use of U.S. force is a worthy goal. But doing so at the cost of higher civilian casualties would be a serious mistake.
The central promise of the Trump administration  the repeal and replacement of Obamacare  has failed. The central premise of the Trump administration  that Donald Trump is a brilliant negotiator  has been discredited. In the process of losing a legislative battle, Trump has lost the theory of his presidency.

It was a profoundly personal rejection. Trumps ignorance of policy details alienated legislators. His ill-timed threats backfired. His bonhomie fell flat.

The lessons, however, run deeper. Like other politicians before him, Trump ran for office arguing, in essence: Just give my party control of the elected branches of the federal government and massive change will quickly follow. Many Americans believed in this promise of winner-take-all government.

The American system of government  with its constipated Senate rules and its complicated House coalitions  is designed to frustrate such plans. But the closeness of recent national elections has encouraged partisan dreams of political dominance. Republicans had control of the House, Senate and presidency in the 108th Congress. Democrats had the same in the 111th Congress. Now Republicans have it all in the 115th Congress.

Total control is intoxicating. The winners feel like they have a mandate, even a mission. But the losers know, if they maintain partisan discipline and prevent achievements by the other side, they have a realistic chance of winning it all back. This leads to a cycle of hubris and obstructionism.

(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

How can this cycle be broken? There is only one way. Someone must engage in genuine outreach, involving the credible promise of compromise, from a position of strength. It is the winners who must act first, taking the risk of offering a hand that may be slapped away. Then it is the political losers who have the responsibility to reward good faith.

Obamacare  passed in a partisan quick march and viewed by some Republicans as the focus of evil in the modern world  may not be the most promising ground for agreement. The same may be true of tax reform, which involves a thousand well-funded special interests. But genuine negotiation might be possible on an infrastructure bill. The same might be true of legislation designed to increase the skills  and deal with the dislocation  of the 38 percent of American workers whose jobs are threatened by automation. And at least one culture-war issue belongs on the list: religious liberty.

Many religious conservatives imagined they would, at this point, be in a defensive crouch. The Obama administration had required the Little Sisters of the Poor to provide insurance coverage for sterilizations and the emergency contraceptive Plan B. Religious conservatives expected the Hillary Clinton administration to require the distribution of condoms at Mass (I exaggerate, but only a little).

Instead, unexpectedly, religious conservatives find themselves in a position of relative strength, as one of the main contributors to Trumps victory. It is possible they will squander their standing on repeal of the Johnson Amendment, which restricts political endorsements from the pulpit  a change that few have demanded and none really need. Instead, they could use their influence to encourage genuine pluralism, with benefits that are shared and nonsectarian.

What would the elements of a legislative compromise look like? It would need to allow institutions motivated by a religious mission  including religious schools and charities  to maintain their identity. Religious liberty involves not just the freedom of individual belief but the freedom to create institutions that reflect a shared belief.

But any realistic agreement would also need to include broad anti-discrimination protections in employment and services  including for gay people  outside of the strong carve-out for religious nonprofits. Religious conservatives would need to accept sexual orientation as a protected group in economic interactions.

This is consistent with what Jonathan Rauch calls the obvious compromise: protections for gay people plus exemptions for religious objectors. In practice, this would allow religious people to organize colleges, hospitals and charities according to their beliefs. But the cake baker would need to bake for everyone. The florist would need to sell to everyone.

The strongest advocates on both sides of this issue will find any compromise abhorrent. But it could be powerful for religious conservatives to attempt outreach from a position of political strength. And Trump, oddly, may be the leader to get this kind of deal. He broke ground among Republicans in recognizing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights in his Republican National Convention speech. But he is also close to religious conservative leaders.

And just about now, Trump needs a way to reconstitute the meaning of his presidency.

Read more from Michael Gersons archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook .
Correction: An earlier version of this column incorrectly said that Israel reserves some roads for Jews. The country closes some roads to virtually all Palestinians, but they are open to all Israeli citizens and to other nationals, regardless of religious background. This version has been updated.

On what seems a regular basis, the United Nations takes a poke at Israel  for its settlements policy, its treatment of Palestinians and, once, in the 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism, merely for existing. Altogether, the United Nations and its agencies have condemned Israel so many times that, on one of those proportional maps, tiny Israel would loom over Saudi Arabia, with its beheadings and ban on women driving. This, in itself, calls for a resolution.

Recently, a report prepared for a U.N. agency returned to the racism theme and called Israel an apartheid regime. It was an insulting choice of words, since apartheid harkens back to white-supremacist rule in South Africa. That government was so obsessed with race that it created its own categories  white; black; colored, for mixed-race persons; and one for people of Indian/Asian extraction.

The word apartheid clearly does not apply to Israel. Its founding document, the Israeli Declaration of Independence of 1948, is admirably liberal. It ensures complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex. And true to its word, Israel grants its Arab minority the vote, seats its representatives in the Knesset and, years ago, had a female prime minister, the formidable Golda Meir. The United States, as the November debacle proved, is not yet there.

I am intellectually and emotionally pro-Israel. It is the only miracle about which I am not the least bit cynical  the creation of a nation and a culture where a century or so ago none existed. Even the language is new. In the riveting Netflix series Fauda, Israelis make adulterous love in a language once used mostly for prayer. Theodor Herzl, the creator of secular Zionism, could not have envisioned such a thing. (Anyway, he preferred German.)

But the word apartheid looms like thunderheads on the horizon. Israels continued occupation of the West Bank means the continued oppression of its Palestinian residents. If Israel annexes additional sections of the West Bank, then additional Palestinians will be oppressed. The occupation has not only gnawed at Israels image worldwide, it has weakened Israels democracy itself. A new law bars entry into Israel of anyone who supports the international boycotts of Israel.

Some of those movements  BDS is the shorthand for boycott, divestment and sanctions  would apply to anything produced anywhere in Israel. But some prominent American Jews support a limited version of BDS. They would boycott only products made in the West Bank settlements unrecognized by international law. One such advocate is Letty Cottin Pogrebin, a staunch Zionist, liberal and feminist (she was a founder of Ms. magazine). She supports a settlement boycott.

If that makes me an enemy of the state, so be it, she wrote in a recent op-ed for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

She also rues the direction Israel is going. Israel has legalized the creation of additional West Bank settlements, built roads that are not open to virtually all Palestinians and, while recoiling from the word apartheid, adopted some of its techniques. For many Palestinians, freedom of movement is impossible.

Once upon a time, Zionism was embraced by the left. The British Labour Party nearly a dozen times called for the creation of Israel and, in the United States, Democrats outdid Republicans in support of Israel. Now, though, the Labour Party is hostile to Israel and the Demo-cratic Party here is drifting that way. Support for Israel has become a right-wing affectation  along with small government, lower taxes and opposition to abortion. Meir, that old Milwaukee socialist, would be appalled.

I leave it to Jared Kushner to come up with a swift solution to the century-old Jewish-Arab struggle. Lives are at stake and positions have hardened. Israel pulled out of Gaza and was thanked with rocket attacks. The Palestinian leadership is split, feckless and often inept. For its part, Israel has drifted to the right, content to let the clock tick.

The United Nations obsession with Israel obscures the far more dangerous erosion of support for the Jewish state in places where it once was fervently embraced. It permits too many Israel supporters to dismiss legitimate criticism as anti-Semitic babbling or to focus on the astounding failings of the Palestinians and not on the rightward drift of Israel in response. A law that stifles dissidence, that bars lovers of Israel from Israel itself, is not only repugnant on the face of it, but also additional evidence that occupation of the West Bank is corroding Israeli democracy. Israel may win the West Bank and lose its soul.

Read more from Richard Cohens archive.
The March 23 editorial Give North Korea the Iran treatment continued the general practice of claiming that North Korea failed to fulfill its commitments, when it was the United States that failed to do so in the two most promising negotiations to stop the North Korean nuclear weapons program.

The 1994 Agreed Framework successfully suspended production of plutonium by North Korea. The United States, however, was delinquent in deliveries of fuel oil and years late in beginning construction on two promised light-water reactors and normalizing economic and political relations. The agreement was terminated in 2003.

The United States agreed in September 2005 to a Statement of Principles providing for phased steps of commitment for commitment, action for action. Negotiations finally moved into Phase II in October 2007 with North Korea fulfilling its commitments, including submission of an extensive record of its past nuclear activities and dramatically blowing up the cooling tower on its reactor. There was no provision for verification of the North Korea report, anticipated for Phase III. Nevertheless, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a June 2008 speech demanded an immediate agreement on arrangements to verify the statements in the North Korean report as a precondition for the United States fulfilling its Phase II commitments to delist North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism and relax trade sanctions. This was the beginning of the end of these negotiations.

Responsible negotiations havent been tried.

Robert Gibbins Gard Jr., Arlington

The writer is a member of the National Advisory

Board for the Center for Arms Control

and Non-Proliferation.
Even by the lofty standards of the Trump era, the past week in Washington has been chaotic. Just a few days after FBI Director James B. Comey stepped back into the political spotlight by publicly confirming the bureaus investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, the presidents bid to rush his health-care bill through the House failed in spectacular fashion. As a result, the Senate confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch received much less attention than they would have under ordinary circumstances.

In light of Comeys revelation, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called for delaying a vote on Gorsuch until the investigation is resolved. Some progressives went a step further. For example, MoveOn started a petition demanding a halt to all legislation and appointments . . . until the American people learn the full truth about Trump and Russia, a position that Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) echoed on Twitter.

The impulse to hype the FBI investigation is natural. But its worth remembering that, even before Comeys announcement, there were plenty of reasons for Democrats to do everything in their power to stop Gorsuchs nomination from coming to the floor  starting with the fact that he was nominated to fill a stolen seat. After Senate Republicans refused to even hold a hearing on President Barack Obamas nomination of Merrick Garland for about 300 days, an unprecedented level of obstruction, there is no reason for Democrats to acquiesce to an up-or-down vote on Gorsuch now. They are right to fight back.

This is especially true considering Gorsuchs record of right-wing judicial activism. Since his appointment by President George W. Bush to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in 2006, Gorsuch has consistently sided with corporations over workers and consumers. He has also demonstrated a pattern of hostility toward the civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, as well as women and minorities, which may help explain why he was a top choice of the conservative ideologues at the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society to replace the far-right Justice Antonin Scalia.

During his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, several Democrats aggressively questioned Gorsuch over his clear history of corporate favoritism, the most prominent example of which is probably his dissenting opinion in the so-called frozen trucker case. In that case, Gorsuch defended the right of the TransAm Trucking corporation to fire a driver who, fearing for his safety, abandoned a broken trailer after waiting several hours in subzero temperatures without heat for help. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) lambasted the opinion, calling it absurd that an employee would have to choose between keeping his job and possibly freezing to death. I had a career in identifying absurdity, he said. And I know it when I see it.

Noting that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.s court has served as a rubber stamp for corporations, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) argued that Gorsuchs confirmation would exacerbate the problem, raising concerns about the influence of dark money in particular. Your record on corporate versus human litigants comes in, by one count, at 21-2 for corporations, he told Gorsuch. Tellingly, big special interests and their front groups are spending millions of dollars in a dark-money campaign to push your confirmation.

And its not just Gorsuchs pro-corporate ideology that is cause for alarm. As Ari Berman writes at the Nation, Gorsuch has praised one of the GOPs most notorious voter-suppression advocates. Hes criticized liberals for challenging gay marriage bans in the courts. During the George W. Bush administration, he praised the Guantanamo Bay prison and defended harsh anti-terror policies. As a judge, he joined the Hobby Lobby decision restricting a womans right to choose.

Taken together, Gorsuchs record makes him more conservative than 87 percent of federal judges, according to one study. Another study found that, if confirmed, hed be the most conservative member of the court with the exception of Clarence Thomas.

At the conclusion of last weeks hearings, Schumer announced that Democrats intend to filibuster Gorsuchs nomination, meaning that he will not be confirmed unless Republicans can muster 60 votes or decide to invoke the nuclear option and get rid of the filibuster. Given the stakes, a filibuster is clearly warranted. But progressives would be wise to avoid linking this fight, or any major policy fight, to a Russia investigation whose outcome is totally uncertain  especially when they have the ability to win those fights on the merits. As the collapse of the health-care bill demonstrated, President Trumps greatest political weakness isnt his alleged ties to Russia. Its a cruel policy agenda that the American people overwhelmingly reject.

Indeed, while a fair and independent investigation into the Trump campaign is appropriate, there is scant evidence at this point that Russia-related issues will sway voters any more in the midterms than they did in November. The 2018 elections will very likely be determined by voters who care more about their economic security. And with the presidents empty promises being exposed more every day, Democratic leaders and progressives main priority should be crafting and fighting for a real progressive alternative to Trumps faux-populist brand.

Read more from Katrina vanden Heuvels archive or follow her on Twitter.
I am troubled by the fact that Debby Ng and Joel Berger presented their data on dogs in a Cujo-like scenario that would lead us all to believe that we will soon be overtaken and destroyed by marauding canines [When mans best friend turns foe, op-ed, March 25]. In their zeal to do so, they focused on the result, not the cause. Poverty and/or ignorance are the true cause of these problems; they do not originate with the dogs. Dogs have a relationship with man that developed over thousands of years and that should inform a broader view of the data.

Barbara T. Osgood, Fairfax

Debby Ng and Joel Berger described the costs of failure to manage the global stray-dog problem in the spread of disease, killing of wildlife and losses of endangered species. They also noted that dog management remains reactive in most poor countries and rural areas, which use barbaric programs, such as mass culling and poisoning.

The stray-dog problem is a symptom of weak municipal services and of governments incapable of implementing proper programs. In wealthy countries, governments tax and spend for licensing, vaccinations, leash laws, muzzle laws and pounds. But both types of contexts must deal with the constraints of regulatory irrationality. In Bucharest, Romania, where I worked and lived, stray dogs simply traveled to the next urban district with weak regulatory systems and archaic stray-dog databases. Aggressive and vicious stray dogs have been a problem in that country for many decades. There are about 64,000 strays in Bucharest, or 1 for every 36 people. Division of city governments into separate districts is a common worldwide problem that prevents area-wide regulatory solutions.

In countries with authoritarian legacies such as Romania, a deep cultural admiration for free-

roaming dogs exists that discourages people from turning them over to the authorities. Dogs are viewed as political heroes. Ironically, many police and officials employed to cull dogs also feed the strays near their homes, making rational dog management even harder to achieve.

George Guess, Potomac
ON MONDAY, March 20, Denis Voronenkov met a Post journalist in the lobby bar of Kievs five-star Premier Palace Hotel, along with his wife, seeming to feel he was in danger. For our personal safety, we cant let them know where we are, he said. Both Mr. Voronenkov and his wife were former members of Russias lower house of parliament, the State Duma, but defected to Ukraine, where he became an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his cronies.

Its a totally amoral system, and in its anger it may go to extreme measures, he said to the journalist. Theres been a demonization of us. Its hard to say what will happen. The system has lost its mind. They say we are traitors in Russia. Less than 72 hours later, Mr. Voronenkov was shot twice in the head in broad daylight outside the same lobby bar. Ukraines president, Petro Poroshenko, called it an act of state terrorism by Russia, which Mr. Putins spokesman called absurd.

The same week, on March 21, Nikolai Gorokhov, a lawyer for the family of whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, fell from the fourth floor of his apartment building, suffering serious injuries. Mr. Gorokhov was scheduled to appear in court the next day on a matter relating to Mr. Magnitsky, who died in prison from maltreatment in November 2009 after revealing a massive financial fraud by Russian officials.

These are only the latest in the string of violence and death that has trailed those who criticize Mr. Putin and his regime. Boris Nemtsov, the opposition leader and one-time deputy prime minister, was assassinated while walking home across a bridge within sight of the Kremlin walls. Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB officer who had become a fierce critic of Mr. Putin, was killed in London with radioactive polonium placed in his tea. The killers  and those who gave them orders  have not been brought to justice. These are the marks of a regime that practices the most brutal retribution and coercion against its critics.

Contrast this with the courage of Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner and potential challenger to Mr. Putin, who has persisted in questioning the honesty of Russias leaders despite repeated, crude attempts to silence him with trumped-up prosecutions. Recently, he published a report showing that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has accumulated more than $1 billion worth of property. On Sunday, tens of thousands of people in more than 80 Russian cities heeded Mr. Navalnys call for unsanctioned, peaceful protests against corruption. The authorities censored the protests on state-controlled news media and arrested hundreds for the crime of participating in an unapproved rally, including Mr. Navalny.

What the tableau showed most clearly is that, once again, Russian state and society have cleaved. The state is in the hands of Mr. Putin and his cronies, who enrich themselves in power, neutralize their foes and summon the riot police to squelch dissent. Russian society  at least some of it  sees the Putin regime for what it is. On the streets Sunday, their understanding could not be denied and their discontent could not be killed.
You thought tax reform would be an easy win for Republicans?

Oh, it feels good to laugh again.

After the Obamacare-repeal disaster, President Trump has decided to move on to tax reform. Hes hoping to quickly restore public faith in his leadership, which has so far been stymied by federal judges, the House Freedom Caucus and basic math.

But many of the issues that brought down repeal-and-replace will dog his tax plan, too.

Some of these are procedural, and relate to arcane Senate rules governing the libuster. Some concern the fact that every change to the tax code  as with every change to health care  involves painful trade-offs and angry interest groups that will work to obstruct said change.

The biggest hurdle, however, is not about technicalities or political transactions. Its about substance. As with health care, the Trump administration has made too many contradictory, sometimes mutually exclusive promises that will be impossible to keep.

In particular, Trumps many scattershot promises about whats going to happen to wealthy peoples taxes.

The rich will pay their fair share, Trump the populist promised his supporters during the campaign, when he often railed against upper-class greed and special-interest tax breaks.

Since then, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has repeatedly pledged that the administration would offer life-changing, economy-transforming tax cuts for the working class. Any tax-rate cuts for the wealthy, on the other hand, would be fully canceled out by closing deductions, credits and other loopholes. On net, the wealthy would pay the same amount they are now  hey, maybe more!

There will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class, Mnuchin promised.

This guarantee  that unlike all other Republicans, Trump did not plan to cut taxes on the rich  was so bold and unusual that it even earned a nickname. At Mnuchins confirmation hearings, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) dubbed it the Mnuchin rule. In a CNBC interview, Mnuchin expressed pride at being the namesake of an official rule, blithely remarking that this put him in the company of Paul Volcker and Warren Buffett.

Of course, if you actually look at Trumps tax plan, youll see that this rule was made to be broken.

1 of 83 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  See what President Trump has been doing since taking office View Photos The beginning of his term has featured controversial executive orders and frequent conflicts with the media. Caption The beginning of the presidents term has featured controversial executive orders and frequent conflicts with the media. March 17, 2017 President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump and their son, Barron, walk to Marine One at the White House en route to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

The Trump tax plan released last fall, which Mnuchin helped to author, includes enormous absolute tax cuts for the rich, even after accounting for the elimination of deductions and credits. In fact, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, Trumps plan would give rich people the biggest tax cuts of any income group.

Thats true however you slice it. The top 1 percent of taxpayers get the biggest cut in raw dollar terms, as a percentage of their incomes and as a percentage of total tax cuts. Theyd receive nearly half the total tax cuts under Trumps plan (and three-quarters of all the cuts under the House GOP plan).

The one and only concrete example Trump has offered of how he would force rich people  or at least, a tiny subset of rich people  to pay their fair share is his proposal to close the so-called carried interest loophole.

But even thats a lie.

Carried interest refers to the cut of client profits collected by managers at certain kinds of investment funds (such as private equity and venture capital funds). Its basically a performance fee. Under current law, that fee gets taxed at long-term capital gains rates (20 percent) rather than at ordinary wage income rates (top rate of 39.6 percent).

Trump has pledged to close this loophole by treating carried interest as ordinary income. Which is great, and much fairer than the current state of affairs. At least it would be if Trump didnt offer these same taxpayers a much, much more valuable tax cut.

Buried in Trumps plan is a provision allowing owners of pass-through businesses (which include sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations) to be taxed at a flat rate of 15 percent rather than the regular individual income-tax rates. The investment fund partnerships that currently benefit from preferential rates on carried interest would qualify for this special pass-through rate.

Trump claims hell soak Wall Street, but hes really just allowing investment fund managers to swap one preferential tax rate for another, even lower one. Hes cutting their taxes, not raising them.

All of which is to say: Just as all of Trumps health-care promises proved impossible to square, so too will his tax populism collide with the plutocratic reality of his true priorities.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out the standards Texas used to decide that a convicted murderer was not intellectually disabled and thus eligible for execution, continuing a trend of the justices narrowing how states can make such determinations.

The court decided 15 years ago in Atkins v. Virginia that executing what it referred to as the mentally retarded violated the Constitutions prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. That decision generally left it up to the states to set the standards for such designations.

But in 2014, the court stuck down Floridas guidelines as too rigid. And on Tuesday, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that the process Texas uses creates an unacceptable risk that persons with intellectual disability will be executed.

In a 5-to-3 decision written by Ginsburg, the court sent back the case of Bobby James Moore, who fatally shot store clerk James McCardle in a botched robbery in 1980. Moores decades-long trip through the appeals courts has been marked by conflicting opinions on whether he is intellectually disabled.

Texass Court of Criminal Appeals eventually determined that he was not. But the Supreme Court concluded that this decision improperly relied on outdated medical standards, borderline IQ scores and a list of unique-to-Texas factors that Ginsburg termed an invention . . . untied to any acknowledged source.

[High court reviews Texas standards for determining intellectual disability]

Texas cannot satisfactorily explain why it applies current medical standards for diagnosing intellectual disability in other contexts, yet clings to superseded standards when an individuals life is at stake, Ginsburg wrote. She was joined by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. dissented from the decision, along with Justice Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Roberts said the majority crafts a constitutional holding based solely on what it deems to be medical consensus about intellectual disability. But clinicians, not judges, should determine clinical standards; and judges, not clinicians, should determine the content of the Eighth Amendment, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment.

Moores attorney at the Supreme Court, Washington lawyer Cliff Sloan, said the ruling contained a lesson for states. The Supreme Court has made clear that no state may assess intellectual disability in a manner that would allow for the execution of someone who has intellectual disability under current medical standards, Sloan said in a statement.

It was the second time this term that the Supreme Court has ruled for a Texas death-row inmate. Last month, the court ruled that Duane Bucks death sentence was infected by racial prejudice because of testimony that he might pose a future risk because he is black.

[Court says race-based testimony discriminated against black inmate]

In Moores case, Ginsburg said the Texas court followed the accepted, uncontroversial process for determining intellectual disability: whether the subject had low IQ test scores, an inability to learn basic skills and adapt behavior to changing circumstances, and whether these deficits began when the person was a minor.

But she said the Texas court was too rigid in relying on Moores IQ results, which were slightly higher than 70, generally considered a dividing line. Scores are imperfect, she said, as the court had found in the 2014 Florida case.

[Supreme Court strikes down Florida law on mentally impaired inmates]

Ginsburg noted Moores deficiencies  that at 13 he had trouble understanding the days of the week, that he failed every class before dropping out of school, that he had lived on the streets as a teenager.

The Texas court had seen Moores survival as a test of his adaptive strengths. He played pool for money and mowed lawns. The Texas court and Roberts in his dissent noted that Moore provided the firearms for the robbery, that he wore a disguise and that he fled to Louisiana to escape capture.

After a Texas judge, following years of court proceedings, found Moore intellectually disabled, the Court of Criminal Appeals overruled. It said the lower court should have used the 1992 standards contained in a decision it issued on determining such disability, not on current standards.

The Moore case has drawn attention because of Texass use of additional standards to judge a persons adaptive behavior, another way of saying whether a person can go about daily life as others would.

A Texas judge likened the factors to the Lennie standard, a reference to Lennie Small, the gentle but deadly fictional farmhand in John Steinbecks Of Mice and Men.

The judge wrote that most Texas citizens might agree that Lennie should be exempt from execution because of his lack of reasoning skills but that other killers might not be exempt.

Ginsburg did not mention the Lennie standard but said the Texas factors are an outlier, in comparison both to other states handling of intellectual-disability pleas and to Texas own practices in other contexts.

Roberts and the dissenters agreed with the majoritys concern about one of the specific factors used by Texas, saying that the adaptive-behavior standards are an unacceptable method of enforcing the courts decision in Atkins.

The case is Moore v. Texas.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, shown Feb. 2 in Brooklyn, said Tuesday there was prejudice in the advice and prejudice in the decision to ... move forward in the drug-plea case of Jae Lee. (Kathy Willens/AP)

Everyone agrees that Jae Lee pleaded guilty to a drug charge and now faces deportation to South Korea because of bad lawyering.

The Tennessee restaurateur, who came to the United States as a child in 1982, was told if he took the plea hed serve a year in prison. But his lawyer Larry Fitzgerald told him there was no chance that a longtime legal permanent resident like him would be deported. Fitzgerald was wrong.

But does Fitzgeralds mistake make any difference if the evidence against Lee was so strong that he almost certainly would have been convicted had he rejected the deal and gone to trial? As the appeals court that ruled against him noted, he would still be deportable.

The Supreme Court struggled with the issue Tuesday. Does Lee deserve a second chance, because of his lawyers mistake, to either seek a plea deal that would not result in his deportation or roll the dice with a jury and hope that somehow he is not convicted?

The answer could be important, as the Trump administration promises a new vigor in deporting immigrants convicted of crimes.

Assistant Solicitor General Eric J. Feigin reminded the justices that ineffectiveness of counsel must be shown not only to be bad advice to the client, but that the bad advice affected the ultimate consequences.

A defendant cant prevail . . . if theres nothing constitutionally competent counsel could have done to create that chance of a better outcome, Feigin said. And thats the case here where the lower courts found, in the words of the court of appeals, that (Lee) had no bona fide defense, not even a weak one, and stood to gain nothing from going to trial aside from a longer prison sentence.

But Feigin ran into stiff opposition from Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

So here we have a defense attorney who says: I didnt know the law. I told him he wouldnt be deported. And if I had known the law, I would have told him to go to trial,  Sotomayor said. So this is both prejudice in the advice and prejudice in the decision to . . . move forward.

And Kagan said she believed a judge could think it rational for Lee to take his chances--because if she were in his position, she would.

Why cant a judge find . . . that it is objectively reasonable to give up six or eight or nine months for a shot at staying in this country rather than being deported to a place that you dont know and where you have no ties? Kagan asked. I mean, you know, if somebody gave me that choice  sign me up.

Even justices not as drawn to Lees side said he had a sympathetic case. Hes lived most of his life here, coming with his family to Brooklyn, and he has no ties to South Korea. He moved to Tennessee, and hes worked in restaurants in the Memphis area.

He began to use the drug ecstasy recreationally, and the government says he became a dealer. When police executed a search warrant in 2009, they found 88 ecstasy pills, over $32,000 in cash, and a loaded rifle, Feigin said.

When Fitzgerald began to negotiate a plea deal, Lee told him his top priority was not to be deported. Fitzgerald told him he should not worry. But when Lee was assigned to a facility, he discovered it was a detention camp and he would be deported.

Lee tried to get a second chance. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled against him, somewhat reluctantly. Other courts have ruled for immigrants in such cases.

The plea resulted in mandatory banishment from the United States, said John Bursch, who argued Lees case before the justices. No one seriously doubts that if Mr. Lee knew the truth about his plea, he would have rejected it.

But some justices said ruling for Lee would create havoc in lower courts, as judges would have no standards on which to decide when a lawyers bad advice affected the outcome of the proceeding.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said Bursch was asking the court to adopt a purely subjective standard.

No, Bursch said.

What is your standard? demanded Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

Bursch said it was whether there was a reasonable probability the defendant would not have pleaded guilty.

Even if its irrational? asked Justice Stephen G. Breyer.

The problem with the 6th Circuits decision, Bursch said, was that it looked only at the likelihood of success at trial. There are other factors that should be considered as well, such as the prospect of getting a better plea deal, he said.

The case is Lee v. United States.
(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

During the first of Vice President Pences two unsuccessful races for Congress, he rode a single-speed bicycle more than 250 miles around his district, much of it accompanied by his wife, Karen, along for the journey.

During their time in the Indiana governors mansion, the Pences installed twin treadmills upstairs in their residence.

And during his years as a House member in Washington, after he had finally won on his third attempt, Mike Pence proudly displayed an antique red phone on his desk  a Christmas gift from his wife for which only she had the number, a hotline straight from her to him.

More than a decade later, even as cellphones were the norm, Mike Pence had that same red phone installed in his statehouse office  a reminder, both physical and symbolic, of the direct and enduring connection between Mike and Karen Pence.

Now, as second lady, Karen Pence, 60, remains an important influence on one of President Trumps most important political allies. She sat in on at least one interview as the vice president assembled his staff, accompanied her husband on his first foreign trip and joins him for off-the-record briefings with reporters, acting as his gut check and shield.

On the vice presidents visit last month to Germany and Belgium, the Pences quietly toured Dachau concentration camp, often holding hands, and huddled together on the Air Force Two ride home to debrief on the trip. When Mike Pence, 57, ventured to the back of the plane to chat off the record with reporters, his wife accompanied him, bearing a silver tray of cookies and standing by his side for the 20-minute conversation.

[Pence plays role of Trumps ambassador to nervous Republicans]

As governor, Mike Pence had a very tight inner circle, and Karen Pence was very much a part of that, said Brian Howey, publisher of Howey Politics Indiana, a nonpartisan political newsletter in the state. I would characterize her as the silent, omnipresent partner. You knew she was there, you knew there was some considerable influence she wielded, but, boy, she was not public about it.

Over the years, Karen Pence has repeatedly said that one of her hard and fast rules is that she never weighs in on or attempts to influence policy.



Pence, through a spokeswoman, declined interview requests for this profile. (Her spokeswoman did, however, say she would be open to participating in a story that focused solely on her art therapy initiatives and other passions).

Friends and aides, meanwhile, say she is the Pence family prayer warrior, a woman so inextricably bound to her husband that even then-candidate Trump understood her importance and consulted her in critical campaign moments.

When Trump called to offer Mike Pence the No. 2 slot, the businessman knew Karen Pence was by his side and asked, I hear Karen is there, too? Can I talk to her? And nearly three months later, when an Access Hollywood tape revealed Trump talking crudely about women, Trump called his running mate to apologize and then asked him to hand the phone to his wife, so he could apologize personally to her, too.

Though aides said Karen Pence was among those most upset by the tape, they stressed that she also emerged privately as one of Trumps staunchest defenders overall.

She was a major part of our campaign, and she just never flinched, said Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president. Karen Pence was one of the biggest pro-Trump people and Trump defenders there was  She has a great sense of people and saw at events and rallies the enthusiasm and support for Mr. Trump.

Born Karen Sue Batten in Kansas, she grew up just north of downtown Indianapolis, where she met Steve Whitaker, her first husband, in high school, where she was valedictorian and president of the Speech Club. In a telephone interview, Whitaker recalled few details about his 21-year-old bride. The marriage ended, he said, after they simply grew apart as he, then a medical student, spent long hours at the hospital.



Mike Pence, center, and Karen Pence campaign at Parkside Elementary School in Columbus, Ind., in 2004. (Joe Harpring/Associated Press)

In fact, he added, the last time he saw her was more than three decades ago, when they ran into each other on the street in Indianapolis. He didnt know who she was married to  or that her husband was Trumps running mate  until shortly before the election.

We were kids, said Whitaker, now the chief medical officer of a Seattle-based biopharmaceutical company. We probably didnt necessarily know what we were doing.

[Conservative womens group knocked for giving Working for Women award to Mike Pence]

Later, after dating Mike Pence for eight months, Karen engraved a small gold cross with the word Yes and slipped it into her purse to give him when he popped the question.

He did, just a month later, as the two were feeding the ducks at a local canal. He hollowed out two loaves of bread, placing a small bottle of champagne in one and the ring box in the other for her to discover as she tore off pieces, according to local news reports. (They later got the bread shellacked, as a keepsake, a local paper noted).

The Pences were married in a Roman Catholic church in 1985 but later became evangelical Christians.

In 2002, Mike Pence told the Hill that he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife and that he wont attend events featuring alcohol without her by his side, either.

Supporters and critics alike cite her as a force behind her husbands socially conservative stances, including his opposition to gay marriage and the religious freedom law he signed as governor of Indiana, which opponents worried would allow business owners to discriminate against gays and lesbians by citing religious concerns.

You cant get a dime between them, said Ken Blackwell, senior fellow at the Family Research Council and a senior domestic policy adviser on the Trump transition team. It is not him seeking her approval, but his doing a sort of gut check with what they have learned together and come up through together in terms of their shared Christianity.

In 1991, Karen Pence, then an elementary-school teacher, penned a letter to the editor in the Indianapolis Star, complaining that the papers Childrens Express section had featured an article that encourages children to think theyre gay or lesbian if they have a close relationship with a child of the same sex or admire a teacher of the same gender.

I only pray that most parents were able to intercept your article before their children were encouraged to call the Gay/Lesbian Youth Hotline, which encourages them to accept their homosexuality instead of reassuring them that they are not, she wrote.

Friends of Pence  who say she quietly held a small Bible study group during her time in the governors mansion  say her faith has sustained her through challenging periods, from when she and Mike first had trouble getting pregnant to the vagaries of politics, including her initial reluctance to support his third attempt to win a congressional seat.

[In Mr. Pences new neighborhood, not exactly the welcome wagon]

Vicki Lake, the wife of the Pences former pastor, recalled a visit from Karen Pence one day at her Greenwood, Ind., home. As Pence was leaving, Lake recalled, She grabbed my hands, and we prayed together in my laundry room.

Thats the kind of person she is, a person who believes in prayer, a godly mother and wife, Lake said. In fact, when Mike was a congressman, Karen would send out prayer requests to people  to pray for them as a family, that God would give them the strength to do all that they had to do.

Marilyn Logsdon, who met Karen Pence when they were elementary-school teachers in the late 1980s and later served on her charitable board when she was the first lady of Indiana, recalled her friend beginning meetings with prayer. She would say, Before we look at these grants, lets just ask God for wisdom and discernment, Logsdon said.



Karen Pence, second from right, talks to U.S. Marine Corps 1st Lt. Talia Bastien at her residence on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

Pence has stayed close with many of the women she met in church, as a teacher and through her childrens play groups, all of whom describe her as a loyal friend. Lake, who has a disease that hinders her red blood cell production, says Pence often prays for her hemoglobin count. I personally get an occasional text asking me, How are your numbers?  she said.

Lake also remembers a lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in Greenwood with Pence, who ordered a salad-to-go for a friend after the two women had finished their meal. Now this is the governors wife, Lake said, and she was going to stop by her house and drop off this salad for a friend.

As Indianas first lady, Pence became the first governors wife in modern memory to keep her own office suite on the second floor of the statehouse, just down the hall from her husband.

She reached out to all her living predecessors for tips and advice on the job, eventually settling on her own dictum: The role was hers to mold as she saw fit. Pence, who minored in art at Butler University and still paints watercolors, combined her interests in art, education and families, becoming the honorary chair of the art therapy program for Indianas Riley Hospital for Children and serving on the board of Tracys Kids, an art therapy program at childrens hospitals in the Washington area.

Now, as second lady, she expects art therapy to be one of her big initiatives, along with work supporting military families. On Thursday, Pence hosted roughly two dozen female service members at her residence for a small reception in honor of Womens History Month.

I just want you to know how much we appreciate you, and I think a lot of times, people in the military, men and women, arent told enough how much we appreciate you, she said. So we are saying thank you to you.

In Washington, Pence is repeating many of her routines. She has begun reaching out to her counterparts and, like her predecessors, plans to keep an office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where her husbands team works.

She hired as her chief of staff Kristan King Nevins, who previously served as first lady Barbara Bushs chief of staff and also worked for the CIA, where her portfolio included counterproliferation, counterterrorism and cyberoperations in the Middle East and North Africa.

In the governors office, Pence accompanied her husband on trips abroad, including to Germany and Japan. And almost exactly a month into his vice presidency, she joined him on his first trip overseas to the Munich Security Conference  a practice that will likely be routine for future foreign travel.

They are in a strong, supportive marriage bound by common faith, said Peter Rusthoven, a lawyer active in Indiana Republican politics who has known the Pences for more than 25 years. I dont think they make decisions separately.

Indeed, her prime allegiance remains to her husband, and the loyalty is reciprocal. Among all the frustrations Mike Pence has faced since becoming Trumps No. 2  the Access Hollywood tape; the revelation that Michael Flynn, Trumps former national security adviser, lied to him about his contact with Russians; the failure of the health-care bill for which he lobbied  the most publicly outraged he has become involved an Associated Press story that published his and his wifes private AOL email addresses.

Mike Pences team demanded that the AP take down Karens private email, and when it didnt, the vice president tweeted that his wife was owed an apology.

The email accounts, naturally, were all-but-matching his-and-hers emails, exactly the same but for the first initials.

Alice Crites contributed to this report.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York speak about the GOP health-care bill on March 13. Aides to both said the White House has not reached out since the Republican bill failed. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

In the wake of the collapse of his first major legislative push on health care, President Trump and his aides have suddenly begun talking about reaching out to skeptical Democrats to breathe new life into his flagging administration.

But theres little evidence that any outreach by the administration has occurred  and many Democrats warn it may already be too late.

The abrupt talk of bipartisanship comes after two months in which Trump alienated Democrats with personal attacks and polarizing policies, both of which have made the road to cooperation more politically risky for the minority party. And Trumps halting overtures to moderate Democrats and unions early in the administration have produced little, if anything, in the way of policies or legislation.

The president needs to find a new presidency within himself, Rep. Joseph Crowley (N.Y.), the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said Tuesday. Suggesting that hes going to negotiate with us, and simultaneously asking for cuts in the budget that will hurt our constituents tremendously, or cutting funding for sanctuary cities, or going after the undocumented in a way thats causing unbelievable stress in our communities, is not going to work.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday that in the days after the Republicans health-care bill failed the president and his aides received calls from Democrats offering to work with the administration. But the White House declined to provide details on who called or what the president might do to bring Democrats to the table.

President Trump, seen at the White House on March 27, is a dealmaker and open to negotiating with Democrats, some say. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

One of the few Democrats that Trump talked with on health-care issues was Zeke Emanuel, an architect of President Barack Obamas Affordable Care Act, who has met with Trump three times since the election. Their last meeting, which came five days before Republicans pulled their health bill from the House floor, was cited by Spicer as evidence of the White House reaching out to Democrats.

But Emanuel said in an interview that there was no discernible change in the legislation as a result of the meetings. Prior to the vote on the Republican health-care bill, I had spoken to the president and his staff, he said. To the best of my knowledge, none of my ideas had been incorporated into the bill.

For their part, congressional Democrats offer a conditional response to the presidents overtures: Were willing to work on bipartisan legislation, but we wont rubber-stamp Trumps agenda.

A Senate Democratic leadership aide said Democrats are open to cooperating with Trump on issues where they might have common cause, such as infrastructure and trade. But, the aide noted that Trump would have to be willing to buck Republican orthodoxy to fulfill some of the more populist promises he made on the campaign trail  something that so far he has been unwilling to do.

Speaking on the Senate floor Monday, Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the two sides could work together on health care only if Republicans and the administration stop trying to repeal Obamacare  something that has been a legislative priority for Republicans since the day Obama signed the ACA into law.

The sentiment was echoed by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in an interview Monday with NBC News. Were willing to listen, Pelosi said. We always want to work with the president, but my message to the president is, First do no harm. 

Aides to both Pelosi and Schumer said the White House has not reached out on health care since the Republican bill failed Friday.

(The Washington Post)

In his first weeks in office, Trump signaled to Democratic members of the Congressional Black Caucus that he might be open to legislation that would allow the government to negotiate prescription drug prices, and he has also held meetings at the White House with union leaders on infrastructure, trade and jobs.

But none of those discussions has materialized into legislation. Instead, Democrats have been irked by Trumps decision to push a controversial immigration travel ban targeting Muslim-majority countries, his proposal for sharp cuts in the federal budget and his penchant for criticizing Democratic lawmakers in cutting personal terms.

And the decision to proceed with an overhaul of the health-care system through the arcane reconciliation process  which would not require any Democratic votes for the bill to become law  might have already sealed his fate on that issue.

Right now its just a notion, because he realizes he cant get a majority of Republicans, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said, referring to the health-care debate. Its not very serious yet. Hed have to come our way on policy, and theres no sign he wants to do that yet.

More broadly, Schatz added: Theres no indication that he strays from right-wing orthodoxy. All weve learned is that in addition to having unacceptable ideas, he has a political shop that cant get them done.

Richard Hohlt, a longtime Republican consultant, said he believes that Trump, a consummate dealmaker who is not particularly ideological, is certainly open to negotiating with Democrats.

I think hes pragmatic and wants to get things done, and theres two ways to get things done, Hohlt said. One is you reach out to Republicans, one is you reach out to Democrats, or maybe you reach out to both. Every president Ive worked with since Reagan has always reached out to both. The idea that you only reach out to one party has never been done in the 45 years Ive been in Washington. Though now things, of course, are more difficult because of polarization.

On Twitter on Tuesday, the president reiterated his criticism of the conservative Freedom Caucus, a group of about 30 hard-liners that did not deliver much-needed votes for the Republican health-care bill.

But even without most of the Freedom Caucus, there probably are not enough moderate Democrats in the House to give Trump a majority he needs to govern. Only 12 Democrats sit in congressional districts that Trump won.

With the Republicans failure to advance their bill on Friday, the Democratic Party has caught a whiff of blood, said Jim Manley, a longtime Democratic strategist who was an aide to former Senate majority leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).

Democrats dont have anyone to negotiate with right now, Manley said. Trump has proven he cant handle the Republican Congress. . . . Not only are there not strong leaders able to cut any deals within the House, but at 37 percent [job-approval rating], the president is very weak right now.

Many Democrats also say there is little reason to trust that the president is serious. The White Houses sudden notes of conciliation stand in stark contrast to Trumps own comments since his election. Trump has routinely disparaged Democrats  calling Schumer the head clown in one tweet  and began blaming them for the demise of the Republican health plan almost as soon as GOP leaders pulled the bill from the floor.

I think the losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, because now they own Obamacare, Trump said on Friday afternoon.

Since his inauguration, Trump has met with Schumer twice and Pelosi once  at a White House reception for lawmakers in which he aired his bogus claim that more than 3 million undocumented immigrants caused him to lose the popular vote by casting illegal ballots.

Democrats have long endorsed reforms on prescription drugs, and they say that if infrastructure and tax changes are done in a bipartisan way, they could get on board.

There is an opening on infrastructure, but they have to stop this extreme ideological approach to things, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said. And its got to be more than tax cuts, because tax cuts dont build roads in rural America.

But before then, more pressing issues loom. Trumps Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, faces the threat of a filibuster in the Senate, and Trump is likely to face renewed tensions with conservative Republicans in the House on government funding. Both issues underscore the incentives for Trump and his team to successfully build bridges with Democrats.

Trumps team needs to better focus on governing and getting broad based support for the Gorsuch nomination and a continuing resolution to keep the government open  including support from Senate Democrats in cycle and moderate House Democrats (both of them), Scott Reed, chief strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement.
1 of 15 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Buying New | 3211 Wisconsin Avenue in Northwest Washington View Photos The condos are priced from $399,900 to $1.45 million. Caption The condos are priced from $399,900 to $1.45 million. The original house at 3211 Wisconsin Ave. NW in Washingtons Cleveland Park neighborhood has three condo units and a new building has five units. Benjamin C. Tankersley/For The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

The neighborhood of Cleveland Park is well-known for its charming bungalows, Cape Cod-style homes and Victorian residences, but most of the communitys single-family houses are on narrow side streets rather than directly on a main thoroughfare. For years, the sweet bungalow at 3211 Wisconsin Ave. NW rested far back on its lot, dwarfed by the adjacent tall apartment buildings.

The Queen Anne-style house was built in 1906 and given by the buyer to his sister, says John Guggenmos, vice president of McWilliams Ballard. The house was placed on the historic preservation list in 1986, so Adams Investment [the developer] worked with the Historic Review Preservation Board to refurbish it.

John Holmes, principal of Adams Investment Group, says his company stepped in after years of conflict between the community, the former owner of the house and historic preservationists.

Not wanting to see the home demolished, the community and owner were at odds over the development, says Holmes. We went out to the community and worked with them and the historic preservation office to come up with a plan that satisfied all parties involved. By moving the historic home forward on the lot, closer to Wisconsin Avenue, we were able to add a new modern addition on the rear of the site and attached it to the existing historic structure. The more prominent position allows the home to not be swallowed up by the surrounding apartment buildings.

[Development in Fairfax County, Va., offers houses with plenty of gathering spaces]

The original house now has three condo units, and the new building has five units on three levels with an elevator. (Benjamin C Tankersley/For The Washington Post)

Elevator building: The original house now has three condo units, and the new building has five units on three levels with an elevator. The eight-unit condo offers a mix of floor plans, styles, sizes and prices that span the range from $399,900 to $1.45 million.

The penthouse unit, priced at $1.45 million with a condo fee of $975, has 1,550 square feet with a spiral staircase leading up to a rooftop deck with space for a table and chairs where residents can absorb close-up views of Washington National Cathedral and look across the city to the Capitol. The cathedral bells offer an uplifting soundtrack from the rooftop deck and from either of the two narrow balconies off the living area and master bedroom.

The showpiece of the penthouse is the Calcutta Gold marble island, which fills the center of the open living space, says Guggenmos. The marble creates a soft appearance in this contemporary space.

The island also features two of everything to balance its length: a built-in wine rack at each end, two sinks and two dishwashers for easier cleanup when entertaining. The penthouse is designed for entertaining, with windows on four sides and open and oversize living and dining spaces.

One unique feature about this building is the elevator, which you dont always find in a condo of this size, says Guggenmos. The elevator opens directly into the penthouse unit, which is also unusual for D.C.

[Poolesville, Md., houses give families plenty of breathing room]

Smart shower: The penthouse has two bedrooms, each with a full bath. The master bathroom has a deep soaking tub in addition to a glass-enclosed shower. One smart detail in the master shower is that the controls are set on the opposite wall from the rain shower head, making it easier to operate without getting soaked by an initial cold spray.

Unit 302, which has 790 square feet, is priced from $649,900 with a condo fee of $531. This loft unit has an 18-foot-high ceiling in the main level, which consists of a den, a powder room and an open living and dining area with a movable kitchen island. Upstairs is an open loft bedroom with a full bath and walk-in closet.

The 565-square-foot, one-bedroom No. 301, the smallest of the three units in the original house, is priced at $399,900 with a condo fee of $355.

The focal point for this unit is the lunette-style window that we preserved from the original house, says Guggenmos. Some of the people who have seen this unit think it looks like a Parisian apartment because of that window and because of the sloping ceilings and little nooks.

This unit has extra storage, too, with a coat closet by the front door, as well as a clothes closet and storage closet in the bedroom. The open kitchen, living and dining area has another closet with a washer and dryer. A small hallway has space for a desk and a closet along one wall. The gray-and-white marble bathroom features the lunette window and a sloping ceiling.



The kitchen has marble countertops and stainless-steel appliances, including a five-burner gas range and a French door refrigerator. (Benjamin C Tankersley/For The Washington Post)

Each of the units on the back of the new building has a Juliette balcony with two glass doors and space to stand outside.

Another unit in the historic home, No. 103, uses the original separate entrance. Priced at $669,500 with a condo fee of $509, this more traditional unit has an open living and dining area and kitchen at the front, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms at the back of the unit.

Whats nearby: Within one or two blocks of this condo are numerous restaurants and shops, including the longtime neighborhood favorite, Cactus Cantina, Jetties sandwich shop, Cafe Deluxe, La Piquette and 2 Amys, which frequently makes it onto best restaurant lists. The new Cathedral Commons development has brought more restaurants and shops to the neighborhood, including a Giant grocery store, Barcelona tapas restaurant, Raku restaurant and several fitness options such as Pure Barre and Zengo Cycle. Residents can walk to Washington National Cathedral.

Schools: Eaton Elementary, Hardy Middle, Wilson High.

Transit: The condo is served by numerous Metrobus routes and is approximately one mile from the Tenleytown-American University and Cleveland Park Metro stations, both with Red Line service.



A spiral staircase in the penthouse unit leads to a rooftop deck with space for a table and chairs where residents can absorb close-up views of Washington National Cathedral and look across the city to the Capitol. (Benjamin C Tankersley/For The Washington Post)
Ahmed Kathrada in 1989, arriving home following his release from prison, where he served 26 years for his opposition to South Africas racially discriminatory system of apartheid. (Walter Dhladhla/AFP via Getty Images)

Ahmed Kathrada, an anti-apartheid activist who spent 26 years in prison with Nelson Mandela and later served as a leader and a voice of conscience of the African National Congress, died March 28 at a hospital in Johannesburg. He was 87.

His nonprofit organization, the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, announced his death. He had recently undergone surgery to remove a blood clot in his brain.

The son of Indian immigrants, Mr. Kathrada dropped out of school as a teenager in the 1940s to devote himself to the liberation struggle  first for South Africas marginalized Indian population, and then, joining forces with Mandela, for the country as a whole.

The two met in the mid-1940s, shortly before the white-supremacist National Party began formalizing rules that dictated where black Africans, mixed-race coloreds, whites and Asians such as Mr. Kathrada could live or work.

When Mandela was starting out, he wasnt very interested in allying with people of other races because he felt it was an African struggle, Stephen Clingman, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, said in an interview. Mandelas views changed, he said, in part by seeing people such as Mr. Kathrada risk jail time or worse for acts of civil disobedience.

Mr. Kathrada leads President Barack Obama on a tour of Robben Island, a former prison, in 2013. (Madelene Cronje/Mail and Guard/European Pressphoto Agency)

Beginning with his arrest for protesting the Ghetto Act of 1946, which restricted the rights of Indians to own land, Mr. Kathrada was at or near the center of seemingly every major anti-apartheid action of the era, including the 1952 Defiance Campaign that he helped organize with Mandela and other leaders of the ANC and its Indian counterpart, the South African Indian Congress.

After 69 black protesters were shot by police officers in the northern city of Sharpeville in 1960, the ANC, outlawed and branded a terrorist organization, responded by launching a wave of bombings directed at government property.

On July 11, 1963, Mr. Kathrada and about a dozen other ANC leaders were swept up in a police raid on the organizations secret headquarters, a farmhouse in the Johannesburg suburb of Rivonia, and charged with 221 acts of sabotage for conspiring to ferment violent revolution.

The trial riveted the nation, in part because of a three-hour courtroom speech by Mandela, who was already in prison but faced new charges linked to alleged ANC bomb plans found at the Rivonia farmhouse. He called for a democratic and free society in which all people will live together in harmony . . . an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

Instead of receiving death sentences, Mandela, Mr. Kathrada, ANC deputy Walter Sisulu and six others were sentenced to life in prison.

Mr. Kathrada spent 18 years at Robben Island, an Alcatraz-like compound off the coast of Cape Town, and eight more at nearby Pollsmoor Prison. Robben, he told the NPR program Here & Now in 2013, was a microcosm of apartheid as it existed outside. Performing forced labor at a limestone quarry on the island for about a decade, he was granted an outfit of long pants and socks. Black inmates such as Mandela were allowed to wear only short pants, and even in the winter were forced to work without socks.

Despite the hardship, Mr. Kathrada used his prison time as a political training ground, discussing organizing techniques with Sisulu, with whom he shared a cell for several years, and helping Mandela draft and then smuggle his memoirs to the outside world. Supported by money from his family, Mr. Kathrada also completed four bachelors degrees in history and African politics.

President Nelson Mandela talks to Mr. Kathrada before an address to parliament in 1999. (Reuters)

The prison was also a place of relative safety, he told the New York Times in 2013. Unlike on the mainland, he said, no policeman could come to Robben Island and start shooting at us. . . . Others, people we knew closely, [were] tortured to death, shot, assassinated. We were safe.

Mr. Kathrada was released in 1989, after negotiations that resulted in the official recognition of the ANC and the countrys first open elections. Mr. Kathrada was elected to South Africas Parliament in 1994 and served five years as parliamentary counselor to Mandela, who was elected president.

He expressed little bitterness about his prison sentence, or about apartheid more generally, and later became a sort of diplomatic tour guide on Robben Island, showing foreign dignitaries his cell at the prison.

Anger, revenge are negative emotions, he told NPR this year. If one harbors those emotions, you suffer more. And that is where our very progressive policy of forgiveness [came from], in which the ANC started with the transformation from apartheid to democracy  forgive. Dont harbor hatred and revenge.

Ahmed Mohamed Kathrada was born in Schweizer-Reneke, a northern farming community, on Aug. 21, 1929. His father was a shopkeeper.

Unable to attend local schools because of racial restrictions, he studied in Johannesburg, 200 miles to the east and quickly immersed himself in politics, joining the Young Communist League at 12.

Mr. Kathrada said he experienced a turning point of sorts when he visited the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1951. He collected a small amount of bones  a reminder, he later said, of the evils of racism which dominates every aspect of South African life.

Survivors include his wife, Barbara Hogan, a fellow political prisoner who served in the cabinets of Kgalema Motlanthe and his successor, President Jacob Zuma. Mr. Kathrada called for Zumas resignation last year, amid a corruption scandal in which the president was found to have used public money for renovations on his country home.

A statement from Zumas office described Mr. Kathrada as a stalwart of the liberation struggle for a free and democratic South Africa.
In the bitter breakup between Britain and the European Union, Britons on Wednesday will finally file the divorce papers. But the 27 spurned partner nations of Europe may have far more at stake.

French leaders are fearful of their countrys insurgent anti-E.U. forces, who will chalk up any British gain from the divorce settlement as a reason to file exit papers of their own. Italian leaders are combating anti-establishment parties who may gang up to hold a Brexit-style referendum. And surging anti-E.U. campaigners elsewhere are eager to press any advantage they see from the negotiations, which will start after Wednesdays formal notice from Downing Street.

[In historic break, Britain gives formal notice it is leaving the European Union]

The decision triggers a two-year clock before Britain drops down the E.U. escape hatch. In the meantime, the two sides will haggle over such matters as the cost of the exit  upward of $65 billion, the European Union says  and whether British retirees can keep living under Spains golden sun. The British are hoping that Europe will go easy on them to soften any hit to fragile economies. But with E.U. unity at stake, Brussels can hardly afford to be kind, leaders say.

The outcome may be a jarring wake-up call to British leaders who say that their nation has opted for a latter-day declaration of independence, one that will give the country back its rightful place as one of the worlds eminent powers.





The United Kingdom remains a partner of the Union, but by necessity it will pay the consequences, because that is the choice it has made, French President Francois Hollande said Saturday at a pomp-filled ceremony in Rome marking the 60th anniversary of the treaty that laid the foundation for the European Union.

Hollande is trying to thwart the surging anti-E.U. leader Marine Le Pen, whose rat-a-tat nationalistic call to arms has made her the most popular politician in France ahead of presidential elections in April and May. Even if she ultimately falls short of the Elysee Palace, she will remain a ballot-box threat who will stiffen the spine of whichever French leader is charged with negotiating Britains departure in March 2019.

Leaders elsewhere in Europe are facing similar concerns  and in a bloc notable for its fractious disputes in recent years, they have been unusually unified in taking a tough line against Britain. Any new deal between the European Union and Britain will have to be ratified by all of Europes parliaments, giving extra leverage to the toughest holdouts.

In order to maintain Europe in the long term, but above all to strengthen Europe in the long term, we must preserve and defend the achievements of European integration, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the German Parliament last week.

It was a gentle but unmistakable reminder that Europes most powerful leader is committed to preserving club benefits for E.U. members  but cutting them off for those who no longer want to pay the dues.

It would be hard to overstate just how much Britain has at stake in the negotiations that will come after Wednesdays divorce notice, known as an Article 50 notification after the once-obscure section of a European treaty that governs breakups.

The nations international trading relationships and laws will all be on the line when British negotiators square off with their erstwhile European Union partners. Decades of E.U. integration have meant open access to European markets for British goods, services and workers  and all of it will now need to be untangled during a brief window. Even Britains integrity as a single country could be in question if Scotland opts to hold an independence referendum, because Scottish voters favored remaining in the European Union.

Analysts think the downside costs of a bad deal  or, perhaps even worse, no deal  would be considerable. About half of Britains international trade runs through the European Union, and its trading relationships outside the bloc are governed by the bodys rules. Economists have warned that an unfavorable outcome for Britain could seriously harm the worlds fifth-largest economy.

But if Britons concerns are focused largely on their pocketbooks, Europeans are facing a more existential threat: the possibility that the E.U. breakup doesnt stop with Britain. The imbalance creates all the more incentive for European leaders to take a tough line.

This free-trade agreement cannot be equivalent to what exists today. And we should all prepare ourselves for that situation, Michel Barnier, a French former politician who has served as the European Unions lead negotiator, told regional officials last week.

Barnier said he plans to insist on finalizing the terms of the split before beginning talks on a new trade deal. Given the speedy negotiating timeline, that stance will put intense pressure on the British. E.U. leaders will meet April 29 to finalize Barniers negotiating guidelines.

If Brexit leads to a bright, prosperous future in the U.K., that is something that could lead to a domino effect, said Janis Emmanouilidis, the director of studies at the Brussels-based European Policy Centre, an influential think tank that often advises E.U. policymakers.

It clearly will have to be something which is not better than when they were inside the club. The red lines we have drawn, I think we will clearly stick to them, he said.

Despite the risks, British leaders have emphasized the benefits of coming out from under the thumb of an E.U. bureaucracy that Brexit advocates regard as an intolerable infringement on U.K. sovereignty.

Prime Minister Theresa May outlined her negotiating aims in a January speech that identified control over immigration levels, an exemption from the European Court of Justice and freedom to negotiate Britains own trade deals as her red-line demands.

We seek a new and equal partnership  between an independent, self-governing, global Britain and our friends and allies in the E.U. Not partial membership of the E.U., associate membership of the E.U., or anything that leaves us half in, half out, she said.

Many European officials considered the speech a step toward a more realistic British stance because it recognized that the United Kingdom would need to sacrifice some of the benefits of E.U. membership if it also wanted to forsake the responsibilities.

Until then, Britains position had been caricatured by the oft-repeated pro-cake, pro-eating it stance of Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

But analysts say Britain is still probably asking for more than Europe can give, and is setting itself up for disappointment.

Simon Tilford, deputy director of the pro-E.U., London-based Center for European Reform, said British officials are naive because they dont realize their demands are seen across the continent as an example of egregious free riding.

It would appear that they realize they cant have their cake and eat it. But its wrong to say that the British government understands now what is possible and what isnt, Tilford said. Theyre still much too optimistic about the amount of leverage Britain has in this process, and the amount of wiggle room the other side has.

In particular, Tilford said, British leaders underestimate just how much of an incentive their European counterparts have to ensure Britain doesnt walk away with an attractive deal that would contribute to E.U. disintegration.

Other analysts think a failure to reach a deal is a distinct possibility  and perhaps even likely.

Longtime British diplomat John Kerr, who wrote Article 50 on behalf of the European Union, has said there is a less than 50/50 chance that Britain can conclude divorce talks and reach agreement on a new relationship with the bloc by the time the two-year deadline comes around in 2019.

The two-year deadline was imposed in part to deter countries from contemplating an exit, and gives the union a distinct advantage over any country that decides to bolt.

If Britain and the European Union fail to reach agreement on new trade terms, World Trade Organization rules would kick in  meaning considerably higher tariffs on the flow of goods and services across the English Channel.

That probably would hurt both sides  but economists say it would hurt Britain more.

The negotiation process will be quite damaging and negative all around, said Stefan Lehne, a former senior Austrian diplomat. Any kind of divorce is always pretty nasty.

Witte reported from London.

Read more

In Shakespeares home town, a house divided as the U.K. plunges unto the Brexit breach

As attacks continue, Brexit could hamper European counterterrorism efforts

Article 50: A guide to Britains untested plan for Brexit

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
Afghan activists and artists stand around a monument to Farkhunda Malikzada in Kabul in March 2016. Malikzada died on March 19, 2015, after being beaten with sticks and rocks, thrown from a roof, run over with a car, set on fire and then dumped in a river, as police looked on, after she was falsely accused of burning a Koran. (SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images)

From the steps of the old, blue-domed shrine, if you look past the families feeding pigeons on the plaza below and the lines of clogged traffic beyond, you can glimpse the stark, white stone monument two blocks away, rising from a platform next to the street.

If you approach it, following the garbage-strewn banks of the Kabul River on one side and a row of small shops on the other, you feel a prickle of horror. The railings around the monument are hung with posters of womens faces  disfigured, half-blind, burned.

People flow past the site, carrying shopping bags, tugging at children, heading somewhere in the city. Some pause to look at the posters, or read the inscription etched in the stone, although most hurry by. On the riverbank below, drug addicts huddle, lost in another world.

But everyone knows what happened here two years ago, in the shadow of the historic Shah-do Shamshira mosque and the adjacent shrine of an ancient Mogul king.

Everyone knows that a young woman named Farkhunda was attacked outside the shrine after being falsely accused of burning a Koran, then dragged along the river road by a frenzied mob that bludgeoned and stoned her to death, ran her over with a car and set her body on fire. The white obelisk, unveiled on the first anniversary of her killing, marks the spot where she died.

A man looks grimly at a photo of Malikzada, part of the monument erected in her memory near the site of her killing. (Pamela Constable /The Washington Post)

It was a terrible, savage thing, said Naquibullah, a tailor whose workshop is across the street. On the afternoon of March 19, 2015, he was bent over his sewing machine when he heard shouting and commotion and poked his head out the door. I saw them throwing stones. . . . I couldnt bear to watch.

The killing of Farkhunda Malikzada, 27, captured on cellphones and shown repeatedly on TV, horrified the nation and the world. It also embarrassed officials of the Western-backed government, which has attempted to promote womens rights in the conservative, tribal Muslim society, where women and girls are often killed with impunity in the name of protecting family honor.

Nearly 50 men were tried in connection with the attack, including police officers accused of failing to stop the assailants. Four men were sentenced to death, but those sentences were later commuted, and most of the lengthy prison terms given to eight others were reduced. The incident also energized the struggling Afghan womens movement, which staged protests outside the shrine. But over time, the momentum dissipated.

[How a slain Afghan woman became an unlikely champion for womens rights]

Last week, as Afghans celebrated the Persian spring festival known as Nowruz, families dressed up and visited shrines across the city. Outside Shah-do Shamshira, they bought corn and took pictures of their children feeding the pigeons. Some climbed the steps to the shrine, took off their shoes and went inside to pray or meditate.

The tall white monument stood almost unnoticed. A few women paused briefly to look up. Some wore burqas that hid their eyes; others remained silent while their husbands discussed the case. One woman, a government worker wearing a flowered headscarf, stopped long enough to touch the pedestal and murmur a prayer.

She was a good girl. She did not deserve this, the woman said firmly before she hurried away.

But the most disturbing aspect of Malikzadas murder was how many Afghans  preachers, police officials, young urban men wearing jeans and carrying cellphones  were ready to think that she did.

Her attackers were driven by religious rage, converging on the shrine as word spread that its custodian had accused her of burning a Koran. This was blasphemy  an unpardonable sin and a capital crime in a tribal society steeped in Sunni Islam and deeply conflicted about Western influence.

Even in a busy capital with a veneer of modernity, hundreds of youths rushed to join the vengeful fury. Video footage showed a crowd stomping and pummeling a body on the sidewalk, while others filmed the scene on their phones. There were exultant shouts of Allahu akbar!

Afghans are easily roused to defend their faith, whether they wear long beards or razor haircuts. Thirty years ago, they went to war against the Soviet army in the name of Islam. In the past decade, as Western military and cultural influence spread, so did local resentment and suspicion. In 2012, protests erupted over reports that Korans had been incinerated at a U.S. military base.

[Afghans protest burning of Korans at U.S. base]

There was a startling anti-Western element to Malikzadas murder, too. As they beat and kicked her, some attackers shouted that she was working with foreigners. By the next day, imams and government officials were denouncing her as having colluded with infidels.

A photo that circulated widely on social media, taken during the attack, showed a woman with wild, disheveled black hair, her face streaming blood, gesturing in defiance at her attackers. It was easy to see how she could be viewed as a blasphemous witch.

It later emerged, though, that Malikzada was studying theology and teaching children to recite the Koran. The incident at the shrine started when she confronted its custodian for selling religious charms, which she felt was un-Islamic, and he shouted that she had burned a Koran. After a police investigation found the charge was false and the custodian was arrested, public opinion quickly changed and womens groups and political activists staged protests.

In my village some people said she deserved what happened for desecrating our religion, but later they regretted it, said an engineer named Abdul Aziz, 30, who stopped by the monument Thursday. A visitor from a northern province, he said he had learned about the incident on Facebook. What they did was wrong, whether to a Muslim or a non-Muslim, he concluded.

A little while later an elderly man, hunched over and carrying a sack, stopped in front of the monument and gazed at it for several minutes. An educated man who had seen better times, he spoke with an air of sad wisdom.

It was so shameful, he said. Even if Malikzada had committed blasphemy, he said, she should not have been dragged down the street and burned.

Did we not have a government? Did we not have courts? he demanded. There is no justice in this country, no rule of law. So people take it into their own hands.

As the afternoon sun waned, drug addicts were still crouched on the riverbank beneath the monument. In the plaza down the street, people were still scattering corn to the pigeons. On the shrine steps, a young woman named Zarifa, wearing a fashionable but modest black robe, was talking on a cellphone through her face covering.

She nodded when asked whether she knew what had happened to Malikzada.

Yes, it was totally wrong. It was against our religion and our culture, she said. Then she turned away and went back to her conversation.

Read more

An Afghan womans murder has led to sound and fury, but little justice

In 2004, I met an Afghan girl sold into an abusive marriage at age 9. This month, I set out to find her.

The unlikely life of Afghanistans first female taxi driver

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
The Scottish Parliament on Tuesday voted in favor of seeking another referendum on independence, setting the stage for a clash between the British prime minister and the first minister of Scotland.

The motion in the semiautonomous Scottish Parliament had been widely expected to pass, with the minority Scottish National Party government and the Scottish Greens supporting it.

Advocates for Scottish independence now have parliamentary authority for a referendum. But holding a binding referendum still requires approval from the British government.

Prime Minister Theresa May has not ruled out a second referendum, but she has rejected the proposed timetable. The Scottish motion calls for a vote by spring 2019.

[Video: Scotland slams Theresa Mays Brexit speech]

Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party, wants the referendum held within two years. In such a scenario, Britain would be engaged in negotiations to leave the European Union  a process often referred to as Brexit  while, simultaneously, Scotland would vote in a referendum on independence from Britain.

Scotlands future should be in Scotlands hands, Sturgeon said before the parliamentary vote, which was originally slated for last Wednesday but was postponed after a deadly terrorist attack in London that day.

Sturgeon met with May in Scotland on Monday to discuss the upcoming Brexit negotiations and the possibility of a second referendum on Scottish independence.

During the talks in Glasgow, Sturgeon said, May made clear that the details of Britains divorce deal would be known within two years.

When that deal emerges, I think people in Scotland should have an informed choice about whether thats the path they want to take, or whether they want to take the path of becoming an independent country, Sturgeon told the BBC.

May has repeatedly said that now is not the time for another independence ballot. Now is the time when we should be pulling together, not hanging apart, she told reporters after her meeting with Sturgeon.

We have a standoff, and theres not going to be any immediate resolution, said John Curtice, a professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde. But he said that an informal campaign for independence has begun and that the argument ahead would center on when  not if  a fresh referendum will occur.

David Mundell, the British governments Scotland secretary, told the BBC on Tuesday, We wont be entering into any negotiations at all until the Brexit process is complete.

Sturgeon has signaled that she is willing to negotiate the date within reason.

On Wednesday, May will trigger Article 50, the formal mechanism that will officially kick off the process of Britains withdrawing from the E.U. Divorce talks between Britain and the E.U. are expected to last two years.

Sturgeon dropped a bombshell this month when she said she would seek a new referendum.

In 2014, Scotland voted 55 percent in favor of staying in the United Kingdom. At the time, Scottish leaders said it was a once in a generation vote. But Sturgeon has argued that last years British referendum on the E.U.  in which a majority of Scottish voters chose to remain in the bloc and a majority of English voters opted to leave  represents a material change in circumstances and that Scotland risks being taken out of the E.U. against its will.

Pollsters say support for Scottish independence is roughly where it was in 2014.

Scotland is split down the middle on whether to have a referendum and on the outcome, said Mark Diffley, research director at the Ipsos MORI survey firm. He added that both sides hope the ongoing debate will shift the dial.

Later this week, Sturgeon will write to May requesting permission to hold a new referendum by spring 2019. If the request is turned down  as is expected  she said she will return to the Scottish Parliament after Easter to set out her next steps.
An elderly man sits speaking incoherently amid the rubble of a building in the Mosul al-Jadida neighborhood of Mosul, Iraq, on March 24. (Alice Martins for The Washington Post)

A sharp rise in the number of civilians reported killed in U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria is spreading panic, deepening mistrust and triggering accusations that the United States and its partners may be acting without sufficient regard for lives of noncombatants.

The increase comes as local ground forces backed by air support from a U.S.-led coalition close in on the Islamic States two main urban bastions  Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.

In front-line neighborhoods in western Mosul, families described cowering in basements for weeks as bombs rained down around them and the Islamic State battled from their rooftops. Across the border in Raqqa, residents desperately trying to flee before an offensive begins are being blocked by the militants, who frequently use civilians as human shields.

Throughout his election campaign, President Trump pledged to target Islamic State militants more aggressively, criticizing the U.S. air campaign for being too gentle and asking for a reassessment of battlefield rules. The United States has denied there has been any shift and defended the conduct of its campaign.

But figures compiled by monitoring organizations and interviews with residents paint an increasingly bloody picture, with the number of casualties in March already surpassing records for a single month.

[Mosul residents say U.S.-led coalition airstrikes killed scores of people]

The worst alleged attack was in Mosul, where rescue teams are still digging out bodies after what residents describe as a hellish onslaught in the Mosul al-Jadida neighborhood during the battle to retake it two weeks ago. Iraqi officials and residents say as many as 200 died in U.S.-led strikes, with more than 100 bodies recovered from a single building. The wooden carts that residents use to carry vegetables and other wares in the once busy market area instead ferried out cadavers recovered from the rubble last week.

The U.S.-led coalition, which has acknowledged carrying out a strike against militants in the area, says it is investigating the reports. If we did it, and Id say theres at least a fair chance that we did, it was an unintentional accident of war, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the top U.S. commander for Iraq and Syria, said Tuesday at the Pentagon.

Amnesty International on Tuesday said the coalition was not taking sufficient precautions to prevent civilian deaths in Mosul, in a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.

It was just one of numerous incidents across Iraq and Syria in recent weeks that have raised concerns that the United States has flouted rules requiring it to protect civilians. In both countries, politicians and activists say the high numbers of deaths are spreading alarm among civilians and sowing distrust of the U.S.-backed campaign advancing toward their homes.

People used to feel safe when the American planes were in the sky, because they knew they didnt hit civilians, said Hussam Essa, a founder of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, which monitors violence in Raqqa province. They were only afraid of the Russian and regime planes. But now they are very afraid of the American airstrikes. American planes are targeting everywhere, he said.

According to the U.K.-based organization Airwars, which tracks allegations of civilian deaths in airstrikes, out of 1,257 claims of deaths in U.S.-led coalition airstrikes this month, a record 337 have been assessed as being fair, meaning that there is a reasonable level of public reporting of the alleged incident from two or more generally credible sources and that strikes have been confirmed in the vicinity on the day in question.





[Airstrike monitoring group overwhelmed by claims of civilian casualties]

The scale of the destruction is huge, and we are reeling from the number of alleged cases, not just in Mosul but in Raqqa, too, said Chris Woods, the director of Airwars. Casualty numbers from western Mosul are absolutely shocking. In Syria its a car here, a family there. It happens every day.

The group said in a statement last week that it had stopped monitoring Russian strikes in Syria, in order to focus on accusations linked to the U.S.-led coalition, saying its organization is overwhelmed. In the first two months of the year, U.S. strikes were responsible for more civilian casualties than Russian strikes for the first time since Russia intervened in Syrias civil war in 2015, according to Airwars figures. Russian strikes are now climbing again as a partial cease-fire collapses.

Woods said the intensification began during the Obama administration but escalated under Trump. In December, the U.S.-led coalition delegated approval to battlefield commanders in Mosul, speeding up the responsiveness of strikes after a tough battle for the eastern part of the city. The coalition says strikes are subject to the same scrutiny.

The death of innocent civilians in war is a terrible tragedy that weighs heavily on all of us, said Col. Joseph Scrocca, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Baghdad, adding that the United States works within the laws of armed conflict. We set the highest standards for protecting civilians, and our dedication, diligence and discipline in prosecuting our combat operations, while protecting civilians, is without precedence in the history of warfare.

The escalation of U.S. strikes around the city of Raqqa occurred in February as the United States intensified efforts to train and equip a Syrian force in preparation for an offensive against the city, expected to begin in the coming months.

[On the front lines of the fight for the Islamic States capital of Raqqa]

In March, the tempo increased further, with more sites being targeted that have no obvious military value, according to a Syrian living in Turkey who is from Raqqa and is in regular contact with his family and friends who are still there. They are hitting everything that isnt a small house, including the barges that ferry passengers across the river dividing the city now that the bridges have been disabled, he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of concern for his family.

Among the bigger incidents was a strike last week on a school sheltering displaced people in the town of Mansoura, outside Raqqa, that killed at least 30 people, according to monitoring groups. An attack on a mosque in western Aleppo that the U.S. military said was aimed at known al-Qaeda operatives also appears to have killed dozens of people attending prayers, according to witness accounts and monitoring groups.

The U.S. military said after the Aleppo strike that it had hit a gathering of militants near a mosque but denied striking the mosque itself. The military is conducting an investigation into the incident.

Townsend said the initial indications were that the school strike was clean and did not kill civilians.

A wave of continued attacks in the past week in the small town of Tabqa has added to a record toll of 101 civilians killed by U.S. strikes from the beginning of the month to March 21, Essa said. He provided the names of 41 people alleged to have been killed in a three-day period last week in strikes that hit a bakery, a carwash, a slaughterhouse and other targets.

In Iraq and Syria, residents and activists say there has also been a discernible shift in the kinds of targets being hit  with infrastructure such as hospitals and schools coming under fire. The U.S.-led coalition contends that militants are increasingly using such protected buildings as bases for attack, knowing that there are restrictions on bombing them under U.S. rules of engagement.

Tabqa is a crucial step on the path to Raqqa, and it is the current focus of the battle. Reports that the Tabqa dam have also been hit by airstrikes during the fighting have further contributed to the sense of panic after the Islamic State issued a warning on Sunday that the dam could burst.

Townsend said the United States had not been targeting the Tabqa dam and had been using non-cratering munitions in that area to protect the site.

Downstream from the dam, residents are terrified by the intensified bombing and of the risk of a dam breach, the Syrian said. His family is desperate to escape, but the Islamic State has erected checkpoints to prevent people from fleeing. People dont know what to do, he said.

In Iraq, too, civilians are trapped as Iraqi forces push into the most densely packed areas of Mosul, including the Old City, where an estimated 400,000 people are trapped in old structures on narrow streets.

The United Nations said Tuesday that at least 307 civilians were killed in western Mosul between Feb. 17 and March 22, warning Iraqi security forces and the coalition to avoid falling into the Islamic States trap as the group deliberately puts civilians in danger.

With a large amount of artillery and ordnance being fired into the city, though, it is hard to ascertain which deaths the coalition is responsible for, Woods said. Iraqi commanders, who call in airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition, say its difficult for them to know whether civilians are in houses when many are stuck inside for weeks at a time and it is not possible to see them through drone surveillance.

Lt. Gen. Abdul Ghani al-Asadi, commander of Iraqs counterterrorism units, said the troops are instead relying on tips from those fleeing as to which houses have civilians inside.

Still, Mosul Eye, a monitoring group in the city, said it had warned Iraqi forces that civilians were trapped in homes in Mosul al-Jadida days before the U.S. strike there and sent coordinates.

Amnesty International said that because the government has told residents to stay in their homes, the U.S.-led coalition should have known that strikes would be likely to result in significant numbers of civilian casualties.

For civilians, many of whom are trapped, the situation is dire.

Nour Mohammeds family of 23 people hid in a basement in western Mosul for nearly two weeks as explosions rang out around them.

Islamic State militants forced the family to keep the front door open so that they could move in and out of the building freely and fend off the advancing Iraqi forces from the roof.

We were terrified every time wed hear the sound of an airplane that theyd bomb us all, she said as she fled the city last week.

Sly reported from Beirut. Mustafa Salim in Mosul and Missy Ryan in Washington contributed to this report.

Read more:

Away from Iraqs front lines, the Islamic State is creeping back in

I thought, this is it: One mans escape from an Islamic State mass execution

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
An Asia analyst who criticized President Trump during the 2016 campaign was forced to withdraw from the position of heading a Pentagon-funded think tank in Hawaii. (Staff/AFP/Getty Images)

Patrick Cronin, a widely respected Asia analyst who had been selected to run a Pentagon-funded think tank, turned down the position under pressure because he had signed a letter last year opposing President Trumps candidacy, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter.

Cronin was chosen to oversee the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu on Jan. 17, three days before Trump assumed the presidency. His forced withdrawal is unusual because the position is not a political appointment.

Cronin was selected to run the Asia-Pacific Center by a three-member panel that consisted of representatives from the U.S. military and the Pentagons civilian leadership.

Senior Pentagon officials had come to see the center as an expensive and underutilized asset that offered non-accredited graduate-level classes but produced little research.

Cronins mandate was to overhaul the institution and turn it into a real thought center that would produce valuable research that could help drive policy decisions in Washington, said a U.S. official involved in the planned overhaul.

The shake-up alarmed some long-term staff members, who feared that they might be pushed out of their positions at the policy center.

There are a lot of career people in the Pentagon and the White House, and right now theyre wondering where does it stop? said Kelly E. Magsamen, a former Pentagon official in the Obama administration who headed the search process that led to Cronins selection. Where does it stop in terms of filtering?

Some mid-level career bureaucrats on the National Security Council have in recent months been questioned about old posts on their social-media accounts that seemed to criticize the president, according to U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the internal workings of the White House. But none of those officials have been disciplined or moved from their positions.

Until last week, Cronins position had been held up as part of a broad hiring freeze imposed by the Trump administration. In mid-March, senior Pentagon officials approved a waiver that would have allowed Cronin to assume the job.

Cronin, a Republican who has worked closely with national security adviser H.R. McMaster, was preparing for the move to Hawaii when an article in the Washington Times described him as a liberal and noted that he was among 122 Republican national security officials who had signed a letter opposing then-candidate Trump.

Shortly after the article appeared, Cronin said he was no longer interested in accepting the position and cited personal reasons for his withdrawal. People close to Cronin said he was pressured to not take the job. Cronin, who runs the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, declined to comment.

The White House did not respond to questions about Cronins decision to withdraw from the job.

Pentagon officials said Defense Secretary Jim Mattis became aware of the controversy only after the Washington Times report.

Secretary Mattis was not involved in the hiring decision, and he was not involved with Mr. Cronin withdrawing, said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.
The Trump administration sought to block former acting attorney general Sally Yates from testifying in the House investigation of possible links between Russian officials and Donald Trumps campaign, according to letters provided to The Washington Post. The effort to keep Yates from testifying has further angered Democrats, who have accused Republicans of trying to damage the inquiry.

According to the letters, the Justice Department notified Yates earlier this month that the administration considers her possible testimony  including on the ouster of former national security adviser Michael Flynn for his contacts with the Russian ambassador  to be off-limits in a congressional hearing because the topics are covered by attorney-client privilege or the presidential communication privilege.

[Read the letters on Sally Yates testifying before Congress]

The issue of Yatess testimony adds to the political controversy surrounding the House Intelligence Committees investigation of Russian meddling in last years election and any possible coordination between Trump associates and Moscow.

David ONeil, an attorney for Yates, met at the Justice Department to discuss the issue with government officials on Thursday. At the meeting, ONeil presented a letter in which he said the Justice Department had advised him that Yatess official communications on issues of interest to the House panel are client confidences that cannot be disclosed without written consent. ONeil challenged that interpretation as overbroad in the letter.

The following day, in a letter to ONeil, the Justice Department responded with another objection: that Yatess communications with the White House are probably covered by presidential communications privilege, and referred him to the White House.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.

ONeil then wrote to White House Counsel Donald McGahn, saying that he believed any privilege had been waived as a result of past White House statements and that Yates planned to testify unless he heard back from McGahn.

But that same day, the hearing, which also would have included former CIA director John Brennan and former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., was canceled by the House Intelligence Committees chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), and any White House decision on Yatess testimony became moot.

In his Tuesday briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer said that the White House did not weigh in on whether Yates could testify. To suggest in any way, shape or form that we stood in the way of that is 100 percent false, he said.

Nunes has said he canceled the hearing to first hear from FBI Director James B. Comey in a classified setting. That session was also canceled.

Democrats charge that Nunes has aligned himself too closely with the White House to conduct an independent probe.

Then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates at the Justice Department on May 15, 2015. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post)

You see the unraveling of this committee happening overnight for no good reason, said Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), a committee member. We have a responsibility to do this investigation.

ONeils meeting at the Justice Department and the exchange of letters came to light as the House GOP leadership continued to stand by Nunes. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) rejected demands that Nunes recuse himself. Nunes said Tuesday that he had no plans to step aside.

Yates was the deputy attorney general in the final years of the Obama administration and served as the acting attorney general in the first days of the Trump administration.

Trump fired Yates in January after she ordered Justice Department lawyers not to defend his first immigration order temporarily banning entry to the United States for citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries and refugees from around the world.

As acting attorney general, Yates played a key part in the investigation surrounding Flynn, who was ousted after revelations that he had discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Yates and Brennan had made clear to government officials by Thursday that their testimony to the committee would probably contradict some statements that White House officials had made, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

ONeil and Ken Wainstein, a lawyer for Brennan, declined to comment.

During his press briefing Tuesday, Spicer said of Yates: I hope she testifies. I look forward to it.

Spicer said the White House did not seek to have the House hearing canceled.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said the panel was aware that Yates sought permission to testify from the White House. Whether the White Houses desire to avoid a public claim of executive privilege to keep her from providing the full truth on what happened contributed to the decision to cancel todays hearing, we do not know. But we would urge that the open hearing be rescheduled without delay and that Ms. Yates be permitted to testify freely and openly.

[Chairman and partisan: The dual roles of Devin Nunes raise questions about House investigation]

In January, Yates warned McGahn that statements White House officials, including Vice President Pence, had made about Flynns contact with the ambassador were incorrect and could therefore expose the national security adviser to future blackmail by the Russians.

In his March 23 letter  addressed to acting assistant attorney general Samuel Ramer  ONeil noted that Yates was willing to testify and that she would avoid discussing classified information and details that could compromise investigations. The correspondence was later shared with the House Intelligence Committee.

ONeil went on to memorialize the governments position:

The Department of Justice has advised that it believes there are further constraints on the testimony Ms. Yates may provide at the [House Intelligence Committee] hearing. Generally, we understand that the department takes the position that all information Ms. Yates received or actions she took in her capacity as Deputy Attorney General and acting Attorney General are client confidences that she may not disclose absent written consent of the department, he wrote.

ONeil continued: We believe that the departments position in this regard is overbroad, incorrect, and inconsistent with the departments historical approach to the congressional testimony of current and former officials.

In particular, we believe that Ms. Yates should not be obligated to refuse to provide nonclassified facts about the departments notification to the White House of concerns about the conduct of a senior official. Requiring Ms. Yates to refuse to provide such information is particularly untenable given that multiple senior administration officials have publicly described the same events.

The following day, Scott Schools, a senior Justice Department lawyer, replied to ONeil, writing that Yatess conversations with the White House are likely covered by the presidential communications privilege and possibly the deliberative process privilege. The president owns those privileges. Therefore, to the extent Ms. Yates needs consent to disclose the details of those communications to [the intelligence panel], she needs to consult with the White House. She need not obtain separate consent from the department.

That letter, in essence, marked Justice Department officials backing away from their earlier strictures, saying that although they thought executive privilege probably applied to Yatess discussions, that was a conversation she would have to have with lawyers at the White House.

In response, ONeil sent a letter Friday to McGahn, the White House counsel, saying that any claim of privilege has been waived as a result of the multiple public comments of current senior White House officials describing the January 2017 communications. Nevertheless, I am advising the White House of Ms. Yates intention to provide information.

He closed the letter by saying that if he did not hear back from the White House by 10 a.m. Monday, he would assume that it does not exert executive privilege over these matters with respect to the hearings or other settings.

The cancellation of the hearing made ONeils deadline moot, although Spicer said the lack of a response to the lawyers letter showed the administration had no problem with Yates testifying.

Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.

Read more:

The web of relationships between Team Trump and Russia

Who is Sally Yates? Meet the acting attorney general Trump fired for betraying the Justice Department.

Russia is the slow burn of the Trump administration, and its not going away
Jordan's King Abdullah II, right, welcomes Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi in Amman on the eve of the Arab League summit. (Khalil Mazraawi/AFP via Getty Images)

Faced with multiple crises and wary of President Trumps approach toward the Middle East, leaders of a divided Arab world hope to forge common positions on the regions most pressing concerns when they meet Wednesday for their annual summit.

In particular, the Arab leaders are widely expected to reiterate support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, sending a strong message to the White House. Trump has indicated willingness to break from long-held U.S. support for a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel, a shift that could damage efforts to restart a peace process.

The Arab leaders also are expected to stress opposition to Trumps campaign promise to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The holy city is claimed by both Israelis and Palestinians as their capital, and many fear that relocating the embassy there could trigger violence in Israel and across the Muslim world.

A draft statement, reportedly drawn up by the Palestinian delegation and approved by the foreign ministers of Arab League nations, says the leagues members reaffirm their commitment to the two-state solution, according to Agence France-Presse.

The memorandum calls on all countries to respect UN Security Council resolutions that reject Israels annexation of occupied east Jerusalem and not to move their embassies to Jerusalem.

The Arab League gathering comes at a time of frustration across the Arab world over the inability of its leaders, fractured by politics, geography and sect, to resolve the Middle Easts bloody conflicts, stabilize its wobbly economies and reduce high rates of youth unemployment. Arab governments are divided over the way forward in Syria, Libya and Yemen.

[Trump administration weighs deeper involvement in Yemen war]

It is a very difficult reality that we are living in, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told journalists gathered in this tranquil Dead Sea resort town. There are numerous challenges facing all of us  challenges of terror, challenges of continuing occupation, crises in Syria, Libya and Yemen. And that has led to an erosion of trust that people have in the regional Arab order.

Still, it is unlikely there will be any serious push to end the regions deadliest conflict  the Syrian civil war. Arab leaders remain fractured over President Bashar al-Assads future role and which factions to support, and those divides have permitted Russia, Turkey and Iran to play a greater part in the conflict.

Saudi Arabias King Salman and Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi are attending the summit, presenting an opportunity for a rapprochement between their countries. Tensions have been high in recent months, particularly over Syria. Riyadh backs the Syrian opposition, but Egypt is pushing for a political deal that could keep Assad in power. Saudi Arabia is also displeased that Egypt has not contributed troops to a Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen. In October, the Saudis cut off oil aid to Egypt, although the shipments resumed this month.

Amid the tumult, a key message the Arab leaders at the summit want to send is one of unity. The Palestinian cause allows for that possibility.

Several leaders at the summit, including Sissi, Jordans King Abdullah II and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, are scheduled to travel next month to Washington to meet Trump. The Jordanian monarch, government officials said, plans to discuss with Trump the perils of religious extremism; terrorism; the fighting in Syria, Libya and Yemen; and, in particular, the Israeli-

Palestinian conflict.

That conflict, for decades the core cause of the Arab world, has been neglected for the past few years amid the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 and the wars that followed in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. The summits host, Jordan, is home to about 2 million Palestinian refugees and is seeking to again position the Palestinians plight as a central cause for all Arabs.

[Palestinians warn Trump not to abandon their dream of independent state]

The Arab leaders are expected to reaffirm a Saudi-led peace plan, known as the Arab Peace Initiative, that was proposed 15 years ago. It calls for Israel to withdraw from lands seized in 1967 in exchange for full diplomatic and economic relations with moderate Arab and Muslim nations. That would allow for the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state that includes the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

Ghassan Khatib, a professor of political science at Birzeit University near the West Bank town of Ramallah, said the summit is important to counter recent suggestions by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that reaching peace with the Palestinians must begin with a wider regional initiative.

He believes that after having normal relations with the moderate Arab states, it will be easier to achieve peace with the Palestinians, Khatib said.

If the Arab states restated their commitment to the Arab Peace Initiative, he added, it would go against the impression Trump gave in a news conference last month with Netanyahu that he accepted the Israeli leaders proposal for a regional peace process.

If the resolution that comes out of the summit is support for the Saudi initiative, then it will contradict Netanyahu, and we hope it will play a role in shaping the final position of the United States on this issue, Khatib said.

The Arab leaders are being asked to support the Saudi plan in its current form, analysts said. Members of the Palestinian delegation say they fear that any negotiations could weaken their position.

[Israeli intelligence minister says Trump created a new path to peace]

Efraim Inbar, founding director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv, said the issue is simple: If the Arab League is willing to negotiate over its plan, there is something to talk about.

Until now, the Saudi plan was a take-it-or-leave-it plan, which Israel was not ready for, Inbar said.

Netanyahu is willing to negotiate if the Saudis are ready to come to the table, he added.

Two other areas where the Arab leaders could show unity are Iran and terrorism. The predominantly Sunni Arab leaders, particularly the Saudis, are wary of Tehrans Shiite theocracy. In Yemen, the Iranians are widely thought to be backing Shiite Houthi rebels, the enemies of a Saudi-led coalition waging a campaign on behalf of the beleaguered Yemeni government.

Irans intervention in Arab affairs will occupy a major part of discussions and will certainly be condemned, but Jordan will also seek to send a message to Tehran to opt for diplomacy and normalize relations with the Arab world, Osama al-Sharif, a political commentator, wrote in the regional daily Arab News.

Safadi, the Jordanian foreign minister, said there is political will among the Arab leaders to follow through on their pronouncements and address the regions challenges.

He added that they would work more effectively on combating terrorism, which we consider a threat to us Arabs and Muslims first because it has killed more of us than it did any other race and nation.

Well move forward to create a new reality of hope, opportunity, and of peace and stability in the region, Safadi said.

Ruth Eglash reported from Jerusalem.

Read more

Trump says he really wants Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, warns both sides to act reasonably

How the new electronics ban serves the Trump agenda

Trumps First 100 Days: The president and the Middle East (and Australia)

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
Beauty queen Victoria Graham, who has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, proudly shows her surgery scars. (Photo: Instagram/victonation)

Victoria Graham is much more than just a pretty face.

The 22-year-old Maryland college student, who was crowned Miss Frostburg in October (a local title associated with the Miss America Organization), is on a mission to raise awareness about Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS)  a rarely diagnosed genetic condition that affects connective tissue in the skin, joints, and blood vessels. The reason: Graham was diagnosed with a severe form of this disorder when she was in her teens.

While she named her platform, But You Dont Look Sick  Making Invisible Illnesses Visible, Grahams 25-inch spine scar (which reaches from directly beneath her skull to her tailbone) is on full display when shes walking down a runway wearing a backless evening gown. However, this level of confidence took time to build.

I went through a period, up until age 19  [when] I was embarrassed beyond belief about my illness, she tells Yahoo Beauty.

In fact, she never imagined herself entering a beauty pageant. In reality, I did not really understand them, admits Graham. My roommate and I were sitting one evening discussing how we needed to do something crazy and something we had never done before. We wanted to cross something off a bucket list. We decided either [auditioning for ABCs] The Bachelor or [entering] a pageant.

Victoria Graham has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome  a rarely diagnosed genetic condition that affects connective tissue in the skin, joints, and blood vessels. (Photo: AllyKat Photography)

Graham says she decided to bite the bullet and swallow her pride after she realized her life was no longer on a path she was in control of, she explains. I needed to do things I never would have before because I was changing, and I wanted to try everything that life had to offer while I still could, Graham added.

Story continues

And thats because behind her winning smile is a young woman whos been suffering from excruciating pain on a daily basis for about 10 years.

Before and even after my diagnosis, I have trouble communicating my pain in a way that medical professionals can understand and take seriously, says Graham. Around age 12, one doctor dismissed my pain by saying, Oh sweetie, if you were in that much pain we would be peeling you off the ceilings! But look at you, youre smiling! And yes, I smile  and I will always smile because I am alive.

The 22-year-old Maryland college student was crowned Miss Frostburg in October 2016. (Photo: AllyKat Photography)

The pain is typically caused by her overly flexible joints, which regularly dislocate because of her condition. While Graham takes 31 pills and one blood-thinning injection each day (her medication schedule runs from 7 a.m. until 1 a.m.), at times her body does not cooperate and she is temporarily paralyzed.

This means anything from full-body, quadriplegic paralysis to limbs not responding or moving, explains Graham. It is caused by hypokalemic periodic paralysis or the potassium in my body dropping low. I once went paralyzed on a date  that was fun!

Graham also confesses that there are days shes not strong enough to get out of bed. I begin my alarms about two hours before I actually need to be awake so that I leave myself enough time in case something in my body is off, she says. On days when I am not feeling my best, people will ask how I am, and Ill respond, Upright. Or they may say that I look great, and I will respond, The makeup helps!

To shed light on EDS, last year Graham launched The Zebra Network, a nonprofit organization that educates, advocates, and supports patients about this invisible disease. We are able to give blankets, soaps, pajamas, Barkthins chocolate, and other donated items to patients who are having surgery, she explains. My dream goal is to have a home to house and feed patients during their stay. We would have a rehabilitation for surgical patient to safely walk, and transportation services to take them to their appointments.

And because Graham learned at an early age to be her own health advocate, she adds, This passion and mission has always been inside of me.

The pageant winner is also proud to be a part of the Miss America organization. One of the things that I love about them is that they are not focused solely on beauty, she explains. Service and scholarship are two very big key components.

Graham adds that it may seem a bit juxtaposed that I am scarred and competing in a beauty pageant, she says. But in my opinion, the 25-inch scar on my back is the most beautiful part of me. It makes me perfectly imperfect. It shows where I overcame a weakness  both literally and figuratively.

To the many women who struggle to love and accept their bodies, Graham offers these inspirational words of wisdom: If you live a healthy, happy life, there is not one part of yourself that you should dislike. My body is literally falling apart  one strand of collagen at a time  but I love my body. It gets me up every day and lets me take on the world. And yours does, too!

Read more from Yahoo Beauty + Style:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyle and @YahooBeauty.
Photos of a kind stranger buying a child street vendor new shoes are going viral (Photo: Getty Images)

Heartwarming photos of a kind stranger buying shoes for a barefoot teen on the street are blowing up online.

According to a March 23 Facebook post by Ahyan Yerro (who claims to have witnessed the interaction), a man named Kris Carroll was traveling through the Philippines when he spotted a teenager selling flowers and asking for money outside a mall. Yerro shared with Yahoo Style that the 14-year-old boys name is Warren and he lives in Pasing City in the Philippines.

A man reportedly named Kris Carroll bought the small child a new pair of shoes. (Photo: Ahyan Yerro/Facebook)

Upon noticing that Warren was barefoot, Carroll took him to a nearby Nike store and, after having his feet measured, bought Warren a new pair of $60 sneakers.

(Photo: Ahyan Yerro/Facebook)

Carroll also reportedly asked a saleswoman for the location of a different store to buy Warren clothing. In return for the mans generosity, the teen offered Carroll his supply of sampaguita (jasmine) flowers. The two then headed off to The SM Store (a department store) and McDonalds for a meal.

(Photo: Ahyan Yerro/Facebook)

The post, which was loosely translated into English, has received 22K reactions and more than 7,500 shares. In the comments section, Carroll is called a hero with a big heart.

We think he is, too.

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.


False Alarm: Jared Kushner Did Not Register to Vote as a Woman -- How a Database Error Led to the Mix-Up

Monday brings some good news - and some bad news - for Jared Kushner, President Donald Trumps son-in-law and senior adviser.

First, the bad news: The Senate Intelligence Committee investigating Russias interference in the 2016 presidential election is planning to grill Kushner, 36, about meetings he arranged with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, The New York Times reported Monday, citing administration and congressional officials.

Among the meetings in question is a previously undisclosed sit-down with the head of Russias largest state-owned bank, Vnesheconombank, which drew sanctions from the Obama administration after Russia annexed Ukraines Crimea in 2014.

Until now, the White House had only acknowledged a meeting Kushner and Kislyak had in December, before President Trumps inauguration. That first meeting, said to be intended to open the lines of communication with the Trump administration, took place in Trump Tower and was also attended by former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who resigned last month amid allegations he lied about discussing sanctions with Kislyak. (Flynn was officially asked to step down because he misled Vice President Pence about his talks with the Russian ambassador.)

When Kislyak requested a second meeting later that month, Kushner asked a deputy to go in his place, officials told the Times. But, at Kislyaks request, Kushner later met with Vnesheconombank chief Sergey N. Gorkov.

Asked for comment, White House spokesperson Hope Hicks told the Times that Kushner didnt mention the meetings to senior staff members earlier because he believed them to be inconsequential.

There was nothing to get out in front of on this, she said.

Shortly after The New York Times report was published Monday morning, CNN reported that Kushner has offered to speak with the Senate Intelligence Committee over the Russia meetings.

Throughout the campaign and transition, Jared Kushner served as the official primary point of contact with foreign governments and officials, a White House spokesman said in a statement. Given this role, he has volunteered to speak with Chairman Burrs Committee, but has not yet received confirmation.

Story continues

RELATED VIDEO: Watch: Natasha Stoynoff Breaks Silence, Accuses Donald Trump of Sexual Attack

Also on Monday, Kushner was announced as the head of the newly created White House Office of American Innovation, which according to The Washington Post will be staffed by former business executives who have been given sweeping authority to overhaul the federal bureaucracy.

We should have excellence in government, Kushner told The Post ahead of Mondays announcement.

The government should be run like a great American company. Our hope is that we can achieve successes and efficiencies for our customers, who are the citizens, he added.

FROM COINAGE: This Is How Much It Would Cost to Paint the White House (And More Crazy Facts)

That was the good news - but Kushner is already facing social media backlash over this announcement, too.

Hey Jared Kushner,

we are your BOSSES, not customers. #clueless #nepotism - el maestro (@filmteachur) March 27, 2017

*Jared Kushner clears throat at meeting of government agency heads*

"What if every department had a rich dad?" - Josh Gondelman (@joshgondelman) March 27, 2017

Jared Kushner just got promoted to the highest-ever level in Government Cosplay. - John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) March 27, 2017

So other agencies are being slashed so that "Jared Kushner" can have his own agency in 45's new family business (our government)? #resist - Ione Bohley (@Ione_Bohley) March 27, 2017

Many pointed out the former media executive and real estate developers lack of government experience.

Jared Kushner gets a WH job which he is utterly unqualified for while being investigated for treason. Makes perfect sense. #nepotism pic.twitter.com/grEjAB6nMZ - Take Ivanka to Work (@IvankaToWorkDay) March 27, 2017

Jared Kushner is about as qualified to do government overhaul as Betty White is to play linebacker for the Patriots. - Impeach Donald Trump (@Impeach_D_Trump) March 27, 2017

And one Twitter user marveled at what a difference a day makes:

You go to bed and Jared Kushner's trending for being tasked with reorganizing gov, then wake to him trending for Senate intel questioning. - Nathaniel Spuewell (@natespuewell) March 27, 2017

You go to bed and Jared Kushners trending for being tasked with reorganizing gov, then wake to him trending for Senate intel questioning, wrote @natespuewell.

This article was originally published on PEOPLE.com
Associated Press

Concerns over the Buffalo Bills troubling loss to the New York Jets were quickly overshadowed by even bigger worries regarding the status of Josh Allens throwing elbow on Monday. Suddenly, the entirety of the organization and its fanbase is holding its collective breath while awaiting the results of medical tests to determine the severity of Allens injury sustained in the final minutes of a 20-17 loss to the Jets  and what impact it will have on the second half of the season and the franchises Super Bowl aspirations. The reality, however, is bracing for the potential of having to turn over a very Allen-centric offense to journeyman backup Case Keenum to keep the AFC-leading Bills (6-2) afloat in the interim.
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 it comes to choosing a law school, there are some schools that are more popular among admitted students.

One indicator of a school's popularity is its yield rate -- the percentage of students who enroll at the school after being admitted.

Yale Law School, which ranks No. 1 in the 2018 Best Law Schools and accepted 9.5 percent of applicants for fall 2016, topped the list of ranked institutions with the highest yield. The Connecticut law school had an 81 percent yield rate for students starting in fall 2016, according to data submitted to U.S. News by 195 ranked law schools in an annual survey.

See [which law schools offer the most tuition help.]

Brigham Young University's Clark School of Law, a school affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that offers lower tuition to church members, claimed the second spot on the list. Of the 191 students accepted by Clark in 2016, 138 enrolled. Those figures represent a 72 percent yield.

Explore photos of the [2018 Best Law Schools.]

Among all 195 ranked schools that submitted these data to U.S. News, the average yield was about 24 percent. In comparison, the average yield was much higher among the top 10 schools on the list: 54 percent.

At the other end of the spectrum, the University of Massachusetts--Dartmouth and Western Michigan University's Thomas M. Cooley Law School had the lowest yields among law schools, at 11.5 percent and 10.1 percent, respectively.

Below is a list of the 10 law schools with the highest yield rates for full-time students for the 2016-2017 school year. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.

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* RNP denotes an institution that is ranked in the bottom one-fourth of all law schools. U.S. News calculates a rank for the school but has decided not to publish it.

Don't see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News Law School Compass to find enrollment 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 203 schools for our 2016 survey of law 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 Law Schools rankings, the data can also be useful when examined on a smaller scale. U.S. News will now produce lists of data, separate from the overall rankings, meant to provide students and parents a means to find which schools excel, or have room to grow, in specific areas that are important to them. While the data come from the schools themselves, these lists are not related to, and have no influence over, U.S. News' rankings of Best Colleges, Best Graduate Schools or Best Online Programs. The enrollment data above are correct as of March 28, 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.
Embrace clear nighttime views, astronomy walks and celestial-friendly activities.

Whether it's the spate of sci-fi movies or the upcoming total solar eclipse, interest in space travel and astro tourism is sky high. Travelers should keep in mind that stargazing is dependent on weather and, often, research facilities that are unsure of funding. However, thanks to nonprofit groups like the International Dark-Sky Association, a growing number of areas are fighting light pollution to conserve our natural nighttime environment. With that in mind, here are 10 places where sky-watchers can discover sublime celestial observations beneath a star-speckled sky.

Big Bend National Park

Texas

Because Big Bend has the least light pollution among national parks in the lower 48 states, visitors can see up to 2,000 stars in the Milky Way. This spring's Some Endangered Evening programs are at Chisos Basin Amphitheater, and last summer's weekly telescope and laser programs explored ancient star navigation at Rio Grande Village. Schedules are tentative, so come prepared with your own star charts. You can access printouts at Space.com, CloudyNights.com or Skymaps.com or utilize tools such as Google's Sky Map and binoculars.

Cedar Breaks National Monument

Utah

In March, Cedar Breaks became the 16th designated International Dark Sky Park for its protection of natural darkness and many public programs. From Memorial Day through Labor Day weekend, you can enjoy free star parties at Point Supreme Overlook. With a 10,350-foot altitude, on a clear night you may see the moon's craters and mountain ranges as well as the rings of Saturn, Jupiter's Galilean moons, star clusters and more. And in inclement weather, astronomy presentations move indoors. What's more, winter night sky events are planned at nearby Brian Head.

Dinosaur National Monument

Colorado and Utah

If you're a dinosaur enthusiast, head to this scenic area, situated along the Colorado-Utah border, near the Yampa and Green rivers. Today, visitors can hike or raft from the Canyon Visitors Center in Dinosaur, Colorado; then, stop at the Quarry Visitor Center in Jensen, Utah, to admire its famous wall of dinosaur fossils and participate in its Stargazing with Telescopes program. Rangers and amateur astronomers lead 20- to 60-minute sessions devoted to the planets, nebulae, star clusters and other sky objects for ages 5 and older. Sky tours take place at 4,800 feet Wednesday and Saturday nights from July to September, with full-moon walks and a solar eclipse viewing planned.

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Palm Springs

California

Greater Palm Springs' desert environment is ideal for stargazing. In the heat of summer, you'll see Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. In August, you can catch sight of Venus, and in winter and spring, you can view the Orion Nebula, Sirius and the Andromeda Galaxy. At nearly 5,000 feet, Joshua Tree National Park holds the annual Night Sky Festival in the fall. Meanwhile, Sky's the Limit Observatory and Nature Center in 29 Palms teaches basics frequently, with adult astronomy camps from April to June. Plus, Rancho Mirage Observatory opens its outdoor viewing deck and telescope in a 22.5-foot rotating dome this autumn. Until then, check into the Ritz-Carlton, Rancho Mirage where an 11-inch computerized telescope magnifies stars.

Haleakala Observatory

Maui, Hawaii

Above Maui's beaches and the tropical inversion layer, the Haleakala Observatory, an astrophysical complex, studies stars and man-made space such as satellites. Visitors cannot enter, but national park rangers guide day tours, and private companies offer sunset tours for star-chasers. The Hyatt Regency Maui Resort & Spa puts on three Tours of the Stars for $25 nightly. Plus, the Hyatt's sophisticated rooftop observatory includes reflectors, binoculars and the 14-inch Edge telescope, which guests use after practicing with the naked eye and astronomy binoculars. The resort's director of astronomy, Eddie Mahoney, is renowned for his ability to describe each star, constellation and planet while recounting Hawaiian wayfaring lore.

Mauna Kea Observatories

Hilo, Hawaii

An arid climate, the world's tallest mountain at a staggering 33,000 feet from the sea floor and strictly enforced low-light ordinances make Mauna Kea's 12 observatories among the best for deep space exploration. The University of Hawaii runs free evening telescope demonstrations, but most travelers prefer to summit at sunrise or sunset. On Hawaii Forest & Trail tours ($215 for participants ages 16 and older), a knowledgeable guide explains submillimeter, infrared and optical research and sets up a telescope to share the heavenly view. On May 6, the designated AstroDay in Hilo, see the discoveries being made on Mauna Kea.

Sedona

Arizona

Sedona's striking red rock formations have long lured and enchanted those seeking spiritual awareness, from Native Americans to modern-day tourists. Experience a transformative Hopi vision quest ritual, or spend the night at an energy vortex to connect with the universe. On evening sky tours with operator Sedona Stargazing, professional astronomers point out Mars, Jupiter and Saturn to participants ages 6 and older who are comfortable with state-of-the-art telescopes. Keep in mind, May to July are the clearest months for taking in a star-studded sky.

Sunspot Astronomy and Visitor Center

Sunspot, New Mexico

Our largest star, the sun, is subject to solar, high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy at the National Solar Observatory. After walking through the telescope loop, continue your stargazing adventure at the Sunspot Astronomy and Visitor Center run by Apache Point Observatory and the USDA Forest Service. Study educational exhibits and star maps during the winter weekends, with longer hours April to November. Budding astronomers should head west to the Cosmic Campground in Silver City, New Mexico, or move into Astronomy Village in New Mexico's IDA-designated dark-sky zone for more stargazing.

Jackson Hole and Casper

Wyoming

Embark on an unforgettable adventure in Wyoming, where the total solar eclipse can be seen on Aug. 21. Enjoy night sky viewing at Devils Tower National Monument, where free viewing programs run frequently. At the Four Seasons Resort and Residences Jackson Hole, naturalist-led star tours (available for $600) teach families how to use a 12-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope to discover jaw-dropping views. And Casper, home to Astrocon from Aug. 16-19, is the center of the weeklong Wyoming Eclipse Festival. In preparation, Casper Planetarium will run shows weekly, starting at $3 for ages 6 and older, plus live, hourlong sky tours each month.

Lapland

Finland

Travelers should chase the northern lights between 66 to 69 degrees north in the auroral zone, where they're seen a few nights weekly from September to March. The Finnish Meteorological Institute reads daily magnetic disturbance levels. However, there are no viewing guarantees, so plan a trip to a destination where there are other activities and enticements. By day, Lapland is known as the hometown of Santa Claus with a Santa-inspired village. Plus, Rovaniemi boasts several outfitters leading afterdark star-viewing tours by snowmobile or reindeer. And in Kemi, you can try an ice hotel and icebreaker tour of the Baltic Sea.
Winning at losing

Tim Chambers looks like an outdoorsy guy who's probably always been slender and active. He's proof that looks can be deceiving. In reality, just three years ago, Chambers, a 49-year-old digital technologist in Bethesda, Maryland, weighed 290 pounds. He lost 110 pounds in two years and is now maintaining his weight at 175 to 180 pounds. How'd he do it? By developing and following these 10 strategies:

1. Pay attention to red flags.

At only age 46, Chambers already had high cholesterol and blood pressure, and not much energy. He was also diagnosed with and treated for sleep apnea, which is often a complication of being overweight or obese. But Chambers missed these red flags -- until he collapsed and landed in a hospital emergency room, where he was evaluated for a possible heart attack. When his wife and son rushed to his bedside, both shaken and begging him not to die, he finally acknowledged he was ready to change.

2. Learn how to do it -- and keep doing it.

Since his 20s, Chambers had removed and regained the same 60 pounds three times. He knew how to shed pounds -- he just didn't know how to keep doing it. This concept was a major revelation for Chambers. He realized he needed to shift from a weight-removal mentality to a weight-maintenance mindset. This meant accepting a lifelong commitment to a new set of healthier lifestyle habits that could continue after he achieved his goal weight.

3. Don't break the chain.

When asked about a secret to productivity, Jerry Seinfeld said he marks an X on a calendar every day he makes progress toward a goal. "Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day," he told the reporter. "Your only job next is to not break the chain." Chambers used this call to action to fuel his weight-maintenance mindset. He could easily visualize creating each day's link, and connecting one day to another. His daily lifestyle habits took on a deeper meaning, strengthening his drive to stay on track. In no time, he was doing it -- and keeping at it.

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4. Know your must-do numbers.

One way Chambers kept doing it was by determining the minimum he had to do every day to build that link. After doing his homework, he settled on three daily numbers: 1,600 calories, 10,000 steps and seven hours of sleep. As long as he kept to these numbers as best he could and regrouped quickly if he slipped up, he was making progress.

5. Don't sweat day-to-day weight fluctuations.

After beginning his sedentary computer work at age 22, Chambers' natural 170-pound body ballooned. So when setting his goal weight, he chose a range of 175 to 180 pounds. If he reached the higher end of that range during weight maintenance, he readjusted his nutrition and physical activity behaviors -- without worrying about daily fluctuations. He learned to trust that by staying consistent with his healthy choices, his weight would balance out as planned.

6. Stop floating into mindlessness and stay accountable.

Reflecting on his past experiences, Chambers recognized he had trouble maintaining weight loss because he would fall into a pattern of becoming mindless and unaccountable. So he tapped into his digital expertise and found a new world of tools -- including a wireless scale, My Fitness Pal and other apps -- to keep him accountable. He became acutely aware that he could not outrun his fork -- that is, he couldn't use exercise to correct any overeating. He continues to log his food and activity today.

7. Find support.

Chambers counted on apps like Lose It! and Nerd Fitness for support. The virtual voices of folks like him who were working through challenges and welcomed sincere encouragement and advice helped him stick to his plan. His family also supported him by joining in his healthy lifestyle campaign, which benefited everyone.

8. Burn calories wisely and well.

Chambers knew he had to exercise every day to reach and maintain his goal, so he decided he might as well enjoy it by discovering the outdoors. He's since explored new neighborhoods, hiked park trails and adopted a dog to help incentivize his walks. He "spends" his physical activity calorie burn wisely, squeezing every ounce of pleasure and joy out of each foray into the outdoors and weightlifting session with his son. Getting up and being more active has other advantages for Chambers, including a cleaner garage and tidier living and work spaces.

9. Look at weight maintenance as a lifelong practice.

When Chambers launched his new lifestyle program three years ago, he initially saw it as a second job. It took the same level of daily vigilance, work and determination required of his professional and family roles. Over time, the lifestyle habits have become more ingrained. With humble acceptance, he's now entered a new phase of the lifelong practice of healthy living. In doing so, he's also inspired and mentored friends and coworkers.

10. Be patient with the mind.

After years of hiding under loosely fitting baggy clothes, Chambers is not yet comfortable donning skin-hugging workout gear -- even though he's dropped almost five suit sizes. He's also still surprised when people he hasn't seen in years remark about his weight loss, and he worries the weight will return. But these thoughts are normal after weight loss of any magnitude. In fact, for every 25 pounds of weight loss, it tends to take about one year to mentally adapt and adjust to the physical change. But with patience and daily practice, Chambers will solidify his mental and physical "new normal" and, in doing so, maintain his healthy weight for life.
A 14-year-old teen was killed while snapping pictures with friends at an Oregon beach after a 30-foot log rolled on top of her.

Aurora Sheffel was at a beach with friends in Bandon during a heavy receding tide Saturday when a wave overtook the group and the log she was standing on moved over her, according to her friends.

Read: Mother-of-Three Killed on Vacation in Freak Ziplining Accident

Bystanders quickly rushed to the ninth graders side, and after several attempts, were able to remove her from beneath the log.

Aurora was rushed to the hospital but later died. Her family believes the log may have broken the teens neck.

Family and friends disputed various reports that the teen was taking a selfie prior to her death.

Aurora's final moments were captured in photos taken by one of her friends.

"Her friend Maddie gave us the pictures," David Wederquist, Auroras stepfather, told InsideEdition.com. "You can see in the picture the wave coming."

Her family said they've found solace in knowing that she was enjoying herself with friends before she passed.

Its comforting to be able to look at that and to just see that right up to the end she was just being who she was and she was having fun," Aurora's dad, Chris Hendricks told InsideEdition.com. "You can just see the free spirit that she is in her last pictures."

Read: Woman Crushed By Own Car in Drive-Thru in 'Freak Accident'

Aurora, a straight-A student, was a varsity cheerleader at her high school as well as a great big sister to her five siblings, her family said.

She was so kind and so generous and she would always have a smile for you," Hendricks said. "She was light and she was warm. Our biggest thing too for the littlest ones is to make sure that they never forget her.

Watch: Father of 4 Left Paralyzed After Being Hit by Freak Wave on Family Vacation

Related Articles:
LEESBURG, Fla. (AP)  Officials say two school resource deputies in Florida have lost their jobs for trying to cover up the accidental shooting of a school employee with a stun gun.

The Orlando Sentinel (https://goo.gl/YsIO9g ) reports that the Lake County Sheriff's Office announced Monday that Master Deputy Raymond Mattiucci resigned March 8, and Deputy Darrell Blanton was fired March 15.

A sheriff's office internal investigation found that Mattiucci accidentally deployed his stun gun Jan. 31 in central Florida when a Leesburg High School security monitor asked him how far it could shoot. A report says Blanton then colluded with Mattiucci to cover up the accident, which caused the monitor to fall unconscious and break his wrist. Another school employee was reportedly "terrified" to come forward.

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Information from: Orlando Sentinel, http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP)  Adil Hasan and his wife, Enas Ibrahim, came to the U.S. in 2008 as refugees from Iraq, and have been living peacefully in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., ever since.

To get here, though, they faced a dilemma as they sat in a camp in Jordan, where they were required to fill out their family trees to apply for refugee status: Should they include Hasan's brother, Majid Al Mashhandani, who participated in the 2004 kidnapping of American contractor Roy Hallums?

In a phone interview Tuesday, Ibrahim said they decided to keep that relationship a secret.

"We just wanted to leave our country," she said. "When we started the process we were just scared to add his name."

Now Ibrahim, her husband and her husband's brother, Yousif Al Mashhandani, 35, of Vienna, Virginia, are charged with immigration fraud for failing to disclose the relationship. The three made their initial appearance in federal court Tuesday. All face up to 10 years in prison and eventual deportation.

Yousif and Hasan were detained pending a hearing scheduled for Friday. Ibrahim was allowed to remain free and return to her home in Burke, Virginia, where she cares for the couple's two children, ages 5 and 6, who are natural born U.S. citizens.

The case comes in the midst of national debate over U.S. authorities' ability to effectively vet refugee applicants. President Donald Trump has issued an executive order that temporarily suspends the nation's refugee program to allow time for a review of the screening process. Refugee advocates argue that the vetting process is already very strict, and a federal judge has temporarily blocked Trump's executive order from taking effect.

The charges against the three make no allegation that any of them were involved in Hallums' kidnapping, though a court affidavit says Yousif's fingerprint was found in the building where Hallums spent nearly a year in captivity before he was freed in an Army raid.

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Hallums, though, said his kidnapping was largely a family affair perpetrated by the Mashhandani clan.

"The gang that had me was all one family," Hallums said in a phone interview from his home in Memphis, Tennessee. "There were so many people involved in this kidnapping."

Hallums said he was surprised to learn Tuesday that the three had been able to enter the U.S., given the fact that Yousif's fingerprint had been on file with authorities for years when he made his refugee application in 2007.

When all three applied for U.S. citizenship, they had to answer whether they had ever given false or misleading information while applying for any immigration benefit.

And when the FBI came calling last year, Ibrahim said they came clean, giving agents Majid's address and every bit of information they had about him. Ibrahim said she even offered to go with agents to Iraq to help them find him.

"I thought we were OK," she said. "The agent was very nice. He said, 'We know you are good people.' I told him, 'Just put yourself  if you were us, and you had someone behind you who wants to kill you."

She said her husband worked in Baghdad's Green Zone and was a target for terrorists.

In court papers, prosecutors allege that Ibrahim and her husband embellished the threat they faced, saying that Hasan had been kidnapped, tortured by a Shia militia, and released after paying a $20,000 ransom. In reality, they allege, Hasan later acknowledged that he was only once stopped at a Shia militia checkpoint for five hours, and slapped once on his shoulder with an open hand.

As for Yousif's fingerprint, Ibrahim said that her husband's father kept all the family paperwork in the same place, and it's not surprising that some of Yousif's and Majid's paperwork was commingled.

She wept as she contemplated the implications of the criminal case on her family.

"I don't want to go back to Iraq," she said through sobs. "It's my nightmare."
In celebrity circles 40 is often viewed as the new 20, but that philosophy doesn't necessarily apply where your investments are concerned. Taking big gambles with your portfolio in your 20s isn't a strategy you can adopt as easily in your 40s or 50s when you have a shorter timeline until retirement.

As you move into your middle years, it's important to make sure your investment approach isn't straying too far off the mark. Here's how to avoid falling victim to a midlife investing crisis.

Don't toss the rulebook out of the window. One of the most common errors investors in their 40s and 50s can make is doing a poor job of managing risk, according to Chris Battreall, managing director at United Capital in Chicago.

"This most frequently takes the form of increasing their portfolio's share of stocks when the market is high and overvalued, then selling after the downturn when most companies are on sale and cheap," Battreall says.

Another mistake is chasing after the hot fad of the day, Battreall says. He points to tax credit investment programs, pricey variable annuities, hedge funds and specific stock purchase strategies like smart beta as examples.

[See: 9 Psychological Biases That Hurt Investors.]

"While it isn't bulletproof, keeping to the basic fundamentals of a buy-and-hold portfolio over a long time period may be the most prudent decision," Battreall says.

In addition to managing risk within their portfolios, middle-aged investors should also be keeping an eye on other potential threats to their retirement security.

"One blunder made by investors reaching their 40s and 50s is failing to look at risks beyond those presented by the capital markets," says Kei Sasaki, regional chief investment officer for Wells Fargo Private Bank in New York.

The reality is that an individual's risk extends well beyond simply market risk, Sasaki says. He advises middle-aged investors to also consider risk factors that are unique to their retirement plan, such as evolving liquidity needs, tax sensitivies, legacy planning and their overall investment time horizon.

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Avoid being distracted by what other investors are doing. Investors must be careful to tune out the crowd when making investment decisions, says Oliver Lee, a financial planner and investment advisor at The Strategic Planning Group in Lake Orion, Michigan.

"A common investment mistake people tend to make once they hit their 40s and 50s is taking financial advice from office chatter and water cooler talk," Lee says.

In some instances, investors may attempt to outthink the market, based on what they see others doing. While that may have worked in the past, it can backfire if you get the timing wrong. Lee recommends that investors in the middle stages of retirement planning stick to the facts when making investment choices.

[See: 7 Notable Quotes From Warren Buffett.]

"It's important to know what [assets] you're invested in and why you're invested in them," Lee says.

Paul Tarins, president of Soverign Retirement Solutions in Winter Park, Florida, says investors in their 40s and 50s should be wary of any investment that seems too good to be true.

"Chasing returns with speculative products can be a way to possibly do very well, but usually ends up doing more financial harm than good," Tarins says.

Be careful about which basket you put your eggs in. Diversification is important at any age and maintaining the right mix of assets can be a balancing act in your middle years.

Todd Flynn, a certified financial planner and principal at Soundmark Wealth Management in Kirkland, Washington, says creating an intelligent allocation between stocks and bonds is essential for someone in their 40s or 50s.

"As they continue to save and invest in workplace retirement accounts, it's important that they invest with an aggressive tilt to their portfolios while time is still on their side to maximize the return potential of equities compared to bonds," Flynn says.

Flynn says that in periods of bear markets, middle-aged investors have more opportunity to take advantage of dollar cost averaging when making stock purchases. He does, however, caution investors to be mindful of inadvertently compromising returns in the decision-making process.

Robert Baltzell, president of RLB Financial in Los Angeles, says where you're putting your retirement assets is another important element in achieving appropriate diversification.

"People in their 40s and 50s tend to stick too much money in qualified accounts or tax-deferred accounts," Baltzell says. "This might sound great at first but putting a majority of your money in one of these accounts is basically like a ticking time bomb. At some point, you'll have to pay taxes and Uncle Sam is going to dictate when and how much you have to pay."

Baltzell recommends that investors take advantage of their employer's 401(k) to get a company match while putting at least 10 percent of their additional long-term savings into a Roth individual retirement account (IRA). Once you reach age 59.5, qualified withdrawals from a Roth account would be tax-free.

Remember that panicking isn't the answer. If you're in your 40s or 50s and retirement is getting closer, the last thing you can afford to do is let anxiety over running short on cash take center stage.

"Go back and visit your target," Baltzell says. "Make sure it's appropriate based on tax rates, realistic growth rates and the amount of money you're putting away. If your target is realistic and you're missing it, go back to the basics. Create a budget and look for ways to eliminate expenses as much as you can. If you don't find a way, you'll have to work longer."

Sasaki reminds investors who may be worried about their retirement outlook to routinely assess their investments to make sure they're aligned with their personal life goals and objectives. These can evolve over time, especially when life changing events like marriage and having children are thrown into the mix. In that respect, your investment portfolio should also have the ability to evolve.

One thing he strongly advises against: blindly taking on more risk in the hope of higher returns to make up for a shortfall. That can put you at risk for digging an even deeper hole.

[See: 13 Tips for Singles Nearing Retirement.]

"The key," Sasaki says, "is to win by not losing."

Rebecca Lake is a freelance Investing & Retirement reporter at U.S. News & World Report. She's been reporting on personal finance, investing and small business for nearly a decade and her work has been featured on The Huffington Post, Business Insider, CBS News and Investopedia. You can connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter or email her at rlake0836@gmail.com.
Johannesburg (AFP) - South Africa's anti-apartheid icon Ahmed Kathrada, who was jailed alongside Nelson Mandela, was feted as a humble liberation hero who shunned the power and glory that came with freedom.

Unlike many struggle veterans, Kathrada, who was imprisoned on Robben Island, never held public political office after the fall of apartheid and Mandela's election as president in 1994.

He choose instead to serve as one of Mandela's closest advisors during his time as the country's first black leader.

When Mandela left office in 1999, after serving a single four-year term, Kathrada also stepped away from politics -- immersing himself in activism through his Ahmed Kathrada Foundation.

Released from prison in 1989, the softly-spoken Kathrada commanded huge respect within the African National Congress (ANC) party, belonging to the golden generation of freedom fighters untainted by later corruption scandals.

He was often described as Mandela's "trusted lieutenant", an "unsung hero" and "humble icon".

To those close to him, he was known as "Kathy" or "Uncle Kathy".

In his book "Long Walk to Freedom", Mandela recalled meeting a young and impassioned Kathrada during the early days of the struggle, and then their later time on Robben Island.

"Kathy was a slender fellow unused to hard physical labour," Mandela said, referring to the back-breaking daily work of crushing rock at the prison quarry.

Mandela recounted how Kathrada was mocked by prison warders when he could not move a wheelbarrow laden with rocks, while the guards prevented Mandela from helping his friend.

- Strategic thinker-

In the cells, "Kathy" was a teacher for fellow prisoners and a strategic thinker who later formed part of the ANC delegation in the negotiations that finally ended apartheid.

Born on August 21, 1929 in Schweizer-Reneke, a small rural town in what was then known as Western Transvaal, Kathrada was a second generation South African of Indian descent.

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In his youth, he joined apartheid resistance movements, including the South African Indian Congress, which followed the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi's passive resistance.

"Even as a young man, he stood out as a leader," said retired Constitutional Court judge Albie Sachs.

Kathrada's arrest with other anti-apartheid activists in a 1963 police raid at Liliesleaf Farm, a secret safe house outside Johannesburg, was a turning point in his life.

He was arrested along with Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Denis Goldberg, Elias Motsoaledi and Andrew Mlangeni and charged with sabotage.

"There was nothing I could do," said Kathrada, remembering how a police team burst out of a laundry van and surrounded the property.

- Sacrifices for freedom -

Those arrested were tried at what became known as the Rivonia trial, including Mandela, who was already in prison.

The trial drew worldwide attention to the brutal legal system under the apartheid regime.

In 1964, Kathrada and his co-accused were convicted and sentenced to life on Robben Island prison.

"From the word go, the message was, you are going to die," said Kathrada in 2016 at a screening of a documentary about his life.

"What we were being arrested for already warranted the death sentence."

In 1982, after spending 18 years on Robben Island, he was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town, serving a total of 26 years and three months in jail.

Since Mandela's death in 2013, Kathrada was one of the three surviving members of the Rivonia trial.

"Freedom did not fall from heaven, our freedom was fought for, sacrificed for," he once said.

In recent years, Kathrada was a fierce critic of the ANC government under President Jacob Zuma, himself a fellow Robben Island inmate.

In 2016, Kathrada wrote an open letter to Zuma urging him to resign after the country's highest court found the president in breach of the constitution for using public funds to upgrade his private home.

Kathrada also spoke out against corruption, offering support to Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan when he faced possible prosecution for fraud.

After being released unconditionally from prison in 1989, Kathrada applied for amnesty in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) over his conviction in the Rivonia trial.

In a formality, the commission granted him a pardon in 1999.

The Kathrada foundation said he was survived by his wife, Barbara Hogan, also an ANC stalwart.
By Hadeel Al Sayegh and Alexander Cornwell DUBAI (Reuters) - Souq.com will expand its workforce and operations after Amazon clinched a deal to buy 100 percent of the Middle East online retailer, executives from both firms said. Amazon and Souq.com said earlier on Tuesday they had agreed on the takeover, despite an eleventh-hour bid by Dubai billionaire Mohamed Alabbars Emaar Malls to cut in with an offer it said was worth $800 million. Executives have not disclosed the value of the Amazon deal, which adviser Goldman Sachs called "the biggest-ever technology M&A transaction in the Arab world". Sources with knowledge of the takeover said Amazon was paying less than Emaar's offer, making it lower than Souq.com's $1 billion valuation when it sought funding last year. One source said Souq.com would have broken an exclusivity agreement with Amazon if it accepted Emaar's bid at this stage. "Amazon is a great fit with us. We have a lot of common values and it is all about innovation, technology and the type of customer experience and thinking that Amazon has," Souq.com Co-Founder and Chief Executive Ronaldo Mouchawar told Reuters. Souq.com, founded in 2005, stocks 8.5 million items on its website and generates about 50 million monthly visits, Mouchawar said. It delivers to the six Gulf Arab states and Egypt. Mouchawar said there was scope to expand the business with Amazon and to increase the 3,000-strong workforce to boost Souq.com's reach, without saying by how many it would rise. "We will continue to invest in our segment and grow our markets," he said at Souq.com's Dubai headquarters. Despite its young, tech-savvy population, shoppers in the Middle East still prefer to shop in stores. Online retail accounts for less than 1 per cent of total sales in the Middle East, according to market researcher Euromonitor International. "We want to figure out how to grow the team here. If we're going to grow the business we have to grow logistics, we have to grow technical development," Amazon Senior Vice President Russ Grandinetti said. In a deal document seen by Reuters, Goldman said the acquisition would accelerate Amazon's entry into "attractive Middle East countries with significant growth potential." After the Amazon takeover, Middle East consumers will be able to buy products available on Amazon.com through Souq.com, and Middle East merchants will have access to a wider market via Amazon's network. The acquisition is expected to close later this year. Souq.com's current shareholders include South Africa's Naspers Ltd and Tiger Global Management. The Amazon deal was backed by the Dubai government, which wants to use technology to expand its regional retail footprint. Dubai's Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum said in a statement it showed the city state's position "as a regional and global hub for the world's biggest and leading organisations." Amazon's acquisition of Souq.com is seen as significant for the Middle East's nascent tech sector. "This is effectively a vote of confidence in the region. You have a major American company going into a digital company in the region," said Fadi Ghandour, founder Dubai-listed logistics firm Aramex and a prominent venture capitalist in the Middle East. (Editing by Edmund Blair and David Evans)
China Southern Airlines said on Tuesday it will sell a small stake to American Airlines Group in a $200 million deal that will give the carriers better access to the worlds two largest travel markets.

China Southern will issue new shares worth HK$1.55 billion ($199.6 million) to American Airlines





aal







, making American the second U.S. carrier to own part of a Chinese airline after Delta Air Lines





dal







bought 3.55% of China Eastern Airlines for $450 million in 2015.

It also means Chinas three biggest airlines now have tie-ups with foreign airlines, something Beijing has encouraged as a way to boost the sectors global competitiveness. Hong Kongs Cathay Pacific and Chinese flag carrier Air China purchased stakes in each other in 2006.

Get Term Sheet, Fortunes daily email about deals and deal-makers.

Were pleased to begin this relationship to better connect two of the worlds largest aviation markets and leading economies, China Southern Chairman Wang Chengshun said in a statement issued by American Airlines.

In a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange, China Southern said it would issue 270.61 million Hong Kong-listed H-shares, representing 2.68% of the enlarged share capital of the airline. The shares would be issued at HK$5.74 apiece, or a 4.6% premium to the previous close.

The carriers mainland-listed shares, which resumed trading after a three-day suspension, jumped as much as 4.3% in early trading to their highest price in 7-1/2 months.

Its Hong Kong-listed shares, which opened higher, were down 2.37% by 06:41 GMT at HK$5.36, lower than the price of the newly issued shares.

We are two of the biggest carriers in the world and our networks are highly complementary, American Airlines President Robert Isom said in the statement.

COOPERATION PLANS

For American Airlines, the deal could widen access to China, one of the biggest sources of tourists to the United States, and will help it compete with rival Delta, which has invested in foreign carriers in Mexico, Brazil and Britain in recent years.

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It said the two carriers expected to begin codeshare and interline agreements later this year that would allow customers to travel to more than 70 destinations beyond Beijing and Shanghai, and for China Southerns customers to access almost 80 destinations beyond Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.

Guangzhou-based China Southern, the countrys biggest airline in terms of passenger numbers, said the deal would help it achieve the strategic goal of building a world-class aviation industry group.

The airlines also could increase cooperation in other areas including staffing, sales, passenger loyalty programs, and sharing airport facilities, it said.

Analysts, however, said they expected the deal to have little impact on the airlines operations beyond closer cooperation.

It makes sense to partner with another foreign airline, said Daiwa Capital Markets analyst Kelvin Lau, citing Air China and China Easterns deals.

But ... because the stakeholding is pretty small, I dont think it will make any material changes in terms of management.

Beijing has vowed to shake up Chinese airlines by implementing mixed-ownership reforms and introducing private capital and strategic investment into its state-owned enterprises to improve efficiency and competitiveness.

Chinese airlines have been aggressively expanding their fleet and international routes as they seek to capitalize on strong growth in outbound Chinese travel that has far outpaced tourism at home.

This article was originally published on FORTUNE.com
BAGHDAD - A recent spike in civilian casualties in Mosul suggests the U.S.-led coalition is not taking adequate precautions to prevent civilian deaths as it battles the Islamic State militants alongside Iraqi ground forces, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

The human rights groups report follows acknowledgement from the coalition that the U.S. military was behind a March 17 strike in a western Mosul neighborhood that residents have said killed more than a hundred civilians.

U.S. officials did not confirm there were civilian casualties but opened an investigation.

Amnestys report also cites a second strike on Saturday that it said killed up to 150 people. The U.S.-led coalition said in a statement that it was investigating multiple strikes in western Mosul that allegedly resulted in civilian deaths.

Evidence gathered on the ground in Mosul points to an alarming pattern of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes which have destroyed whole houses with entire families inside, the report stated.

It said any failure to take precautions to prevent civilian casualties would be in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.

In Baghdad, visiting U.S. army chief of staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, said on Monday that what caused the explosion was still unkown and added that some degree of certainty will be known in the coming days following the investigation.

It is very possible that Daesh blew up that building to blame it on the collation in order to cause a delay in the offensive into Mosul and cause a delay in the use of collation airstrikes, that is very possible, Milley told reporters after meetings at the Iraqi Defense Ministry.

Daesh is an Arabic language acronym for the Islamic State group.

And it is possible the collation airstrike did it, he added.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, the spokesman of the U.N. human rights office called on the international coalition fighting in Iraq to work to minimize the impact on civilians. Rupert Colville said IS militants are brazenly employing human shields, urging the coalition forces to avoid this trap.

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Colville added that the rights office has tallied the deaths of at least 307 people between Feb. 17 and March 22, including 140 from a single March 17 airstrike incident on a house in al-Jadida neighborhood on March 17.

Iraqi forces began the assault on IS-held Mosul in October, after months of preparation and buildup. In January, Iraq declared the eastern half of Mosul - the Tigris River divides the city into an eastern and western sector - fully liberated. Iraqi government forces are now battling to retake the citys western half.

Civilians, humanitarian groups and monitoring officials have repeatedly warned of the possibility of increased civilian casualties in western Mosul due to the higher density of the population there and the increased reliance on airstrikes and artillery. Faced with their toughest fight against IS yet, Iraqi and coalition forces have increasingly turned to airstrikes and artillery to clear and hold territory in Mosuls west.

Unlike its previous battles against IS in urban settings in Iraq, the government made the decision to instruct Mosul civilians to remain in their homes. In the battles for Fallujah and Ramadi, those cities were entirely emptied of their civilian population while Iraqi forces fought to push out IS. In Mosul, the Iraqi government said it asked civilians to remain in place to prevent large-scale displacement.

When the operation to retake Mosul was launched, more than a million people were estimated to still be living in the city, Iraqs second-largest. Today, the United Nations estimates about 400,000 people remain trapped in IS-held neighborhoods in western Mosul.

Amnesty Internationals report quoted survivors and eyewitnesses of airstrikes that have killed civilians as saying that they did not try to flee as the battle got underway because they received repeated instructions from the Iraqi authorities to remain in their homes.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Photo credit: Getty

From Esquire

Just when you thought German chancellor Angela Merkel's visit couldn't have been any worse, it has been recently reported that President Donald Trump actually printed out an invoice for $374 billion-money Trump believes Germany owes to NATO, with interest-and handed it to Merkel during their closed doors meeting, The Sunday Times reported.

This is embarrassing for so many reasons. First, it's just plain rude to invite a guest into your home and then hand them a bill. Emily Post must have written a chapter on this somewhere.

Furthermore, this is simply not how NATO defense funding works.

According to CNN, NATO sets a target for how much countries should spend on their own defense forces, the theory being that if all NATO countries have a strong defense, it will benefit all members. Currently the target for spending is 2% of a country's gross domestic product. Germany currently spends 1.2% of GDP on defense while the United States spends 3.61%. Only the U.S., Britain, Estonia, Poland, and Greece actually exceed 2% GDP defense spending.

But 2% is merely a guideline, and the money does not go to NATO as Trump seems to believe. It just means that Germany is spending 0.8% less of its GDP on its own defense, so even if Germany technically "owes" $374 billion in defense spending, it owes those funds to Germany's armed forces, not NATO. Trump basically handed Merkel a bill stating that she owes herself money.

"The president has a very unorthodox view on NATO defense spending," a source told the Times. "The alliance is not a club with a membership fee. The commitments relate to countries' investment in their defense budgets."

Unorthodox is one way to put it. Crazy is another. It's going to be a long four years, folks.

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It'd be nice if, for once, Sean Spicer could make it through a press conference without crushing one of the country's core values.

Unfortunately, that day was not today. During Tuesday's press conference, the Press Secretary became incensed that April Ryan, the Washington Bureau Chief for American Urban Radio Networks, was shaking her head at an answer he gave. And, for some reason (likely a terrible one), Spicer decided to comment on it.

SEE ALSO: Interview: Maxine Waters thinks millennials can change politics for everyone (yes, everyone)

"Which is the President  I'm sorry, please stop shaking your head again," Spicer said to Ryan.

This isn't the first time Ryan has been targeted by a member of the Trump administration, each time with vaguely racist and sexist overtones.

In February, President Trump asked April Ryan to help him set up a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus, even though she: 1. Isn't a member of Congress; 2. isn't his secretary; 3. didn't know what he was talking about.

Earlier in this depressing day, a Fox News commentator told viewers he couldn't listen to Congresswoman Maxine Waters because of her "James Brown wig." Waters is the most senior black woman in Congress and one of the Trump's administration's chief critics.

Twitter quickly spoke up in horror.

Bill and Sean are showing the world how Black Women get talked about and treated everyday.



Take notice-and do something.  Brittany Packnett (@MsPackyetti) March 28, 2017

Maxine Waters & April Ryan. Today seems to be the day for Republicans to insult black women.  Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) March 28, 2017

Never have I seen so blatant misogyny and condescending. "April Ryan" It's time for Spicy to go. We are with you April Ryan  Barbara Biez (@biespitz) March 28, 2017

Apparently it's Voice Your Unsolicited Opinion About What Black Women Do With Their Heads day at the White House and their state media.  Chloe Angyal (@ChloeAngyal) March 28, 2017

Shortly after the incident, Ryan seemingly (sub)tweeted the following.

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It is unclear whether the White House will dispatch Frederick Douglas for comment.

WATCH: OpTic crowned champions at $1 million 'Halo' championship
WASHINGTON (AP)  The question of collusion between Russian interests and Donald Trump's campaign is far from answered, despite repeated assertions by the president's spokesman that it's case closed.

Sean Spicer angrily dismissed inquiries about the matter Tuesday, declaring that "every single person who's been briefed on this, as I've said ad nauseam from this podium ... have been very clear that there is no connection between the president or the staff here and anyone doing anything with Russia."

That goes for "Republican, Democrat, Obama appointee" and career civil servants, he added. They "have all come to the same conclusion."

THE FACTS: The matter is being investigated by the FBI and two congressional committees, so no conclusions have been reached at all.

According to a report published at the end of the Obama administration by the outgoing director of intelligence, James Clapper, no coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia had been established. But investigations are continuing into that very question.

FBI Director James Comey said last week: "I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts."

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He said that "as with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed."

As for Clapper's report, his spokesman Shawn Turner said last week that the findings "could not account for intelligence or evidence that may have been gathered since the inauguration on January 20th."

Spicer's claim that even Democrats who have been briefed on the matter agree there was no collusion is at odds with statements from Democrats. Rep. Adam Schiff of California, top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and a recipient of classified briefings, has said "there is more than circumstantial evidence now" of a relationship between Russian interests and Trump associates.

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Michael Flynn was fired as national security adviser when his pre-inauguration contacts with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. emerged. As for "staff here" being in the clear, as Spicer put it, they have neither been identified as targets of the investigations nor ruled out.

A close adviser to Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner, has agreed to talk to lawmakers about his business dealings with Russians. Other Trump associates have volunteered to be interviewed by the House and Senate intelligence committees as well.

___

AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace contributed to this report.

___

Find all AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd

EDITOR'S NOTE _ A look at the veracity of claims by political figures
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Ali Sawafta Dead Sea, JORDAN (Reuters) - Divided Arab leaders arriving in Jordan for a summit on Wednesday are seeking common ground to reaffirm their commitment to a Palestinian state, a longstanding goal that U.S. President Donald Trump last month put into doubt. The Dead Sea meeting is expected to have a bigger turnout than recent Arab summits, Jordanian officials say, and security forces cast a high profile in the capital Amman with armored vehicles standing at traffic junctions as leaders flew in. While they are highly unlikely to bridge rifts over the regional role of Iran or intractable wars in Syria and Yemen, Arab leaders remain united in supporting a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "We are concerned that there should be an Arab consensus on the Palestinian file so that this reflects clearly in the discussions of Arab states and their leaders with the new American administration," Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told Reuters. Before taking office in January, Trump promised to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem - something adamantly opposed by Arabs as tantamount, in their view, to recognizing Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. The Palestinians want Arab East Jerusalem - which Israel captured in a 1967 war and later annexed in a move not recognized internationally - as the capital of a future state encompassing the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been frozen since 2014. Trump also, during a White House news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month, he indicated he was open to a one-state solution to the conflict. That would be deeply problematic for both sides, as it would mean either two systems for two peoples - something Palestinians would see as apartheid and endless occupation - or equal rights for all, which would compromise Israels Jewish character. The Arab monarchs and presidents attending Wednesday's summit will meet at the Dead Sea, only a few km (miles) from the West Bank and with Israeli settlements visible to the naked eye. The United States is sending a representative to the summit, Maliki said. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan's King Abdullah are both scheduled to meet Trump soon. A draft resolution on Jerusalem and seen by Reuters will require all Arab states to respond to any move by any country to move its embassy there, without specifying the United States. "The Palestinian issue is the central issue. It is the root cause of conflict in the region and its resolution is the key to peace and stability. We hope we will be able to again relaunch efforts that would get serious negotiations restarted again," said Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi. SPLITS OVER IRAN, WARS IN YEMEN, SYRIA The biggest disagreement among Arab countries is over the regional role of Iran, an ally of Syria and Iraq and the Shi'ite Hezbollah movement that dominates Lebanon, but regarded by Saudi Arabia and some other Sunni Muslim states as a bitter adversary. Shi'ite Iran and Saudi Arabia support opposing sides in the civil wars in Syria and Yemen, which have caused humanitarian catastrophes, and in political and factional disputes simmering for years in Bahrain and Lebanon. The Middle East's political feuds have stoked sectarian tensions between Islam's main Sunni and Shi'ite branches in recent years, contributing to increased militant violence. "We meet in a difficult Arab era dominated by crisis and conflicts that deprive our region of the security and stability they need to attain our people's rights," Safadi said in a meeting with fellow foreign ministers before the summit. A Jordanian official told Reuters that the final statement from the summit was expected to include a condemnation of Iran for what it called meddling in internal Arab affairs, and to call on it to refrain from using force or threats. Iran denies any such interference. A summit meeting of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation included a similar line in its final statement last year. Friction also smolders between Saudi Arabia, the richest Arab state, and Egypt, the most populous one - close allies for decades before the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings - over approaches to Syria's war and the demarcation of their marine border. The kingdom's oil giant Saudi Aramco resumed petroleum shipments to Egypt earlier this month, suggesting relations may be improving, and Egypt's Sisi is hoping for a bilateral meeting with King Salman in Amman this week. "There could actually be a product of the Arab summit - a unified attitude towards Washington's policy in Palestine. They might disagree on all other issues, but I think this is the unifying one," said Mustafa Alani, an Iraqi security expert with close ties to the Saudi Interior Ministry. (Additional reporting by Dominic Evans in Cairo, Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Stephen Kalin and Noah Browning in Dubai; Writing by Angus McDowall; editing by Mark Heinrich)
By Caroline Stauffer BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina has few funds available to replace an outdated military fleet beyond buying 12 Beechraft Texan aircraft to train pilots, Defense Minister Julio Martinez told Reuters on Tuesday. Martinez said actual plans were more modest than those reported by media in Argentina and Brazil in recent months, which said the government was interested in buying war planes from abroad, including from Brazil's Embraer or Mig fighters from Russia. "For now, we do not have much budget capacity," Martinez said after an event commemorating the end of Argentina's latest Antarctica mission. "We are only buying training aircraft, and just a few, 12." Argentina's center-right President Mauricio Macri has set an ambitious goal to trim spending and narrow a budget deficit after two terms of free-spending populism under leftist leader Cristina Fernandez. Martinez did not say how much Argentina was spending on the training planes, only acknowledging that the budget was "very small." The Beechcraft Texan planes will help replace 24 Embraer EMB-312 Tucanos that have been used in the air force training school for decades. Beechcraft is a subsidiary of Textron Inc making Beechcraft T -6C Texan II planes that are used for training pilots in several countries. "We will need 12 more, and then we need a lot of other aircraft, medium-sized transport and other kinds of planes," Martinez said. A navy spokesman said in December Argentina was also in talks to buy four C-205 aircraft manufactured by Europe's Airbus Group SA. Asked if Argentina would need new aircraft to achieve Macri's goal of better patrolling borders with Paraguay and Brazil to stop drug flights, Martinez said the training aircraft could potentially also be used for that purpose. Macri's government is also looking to restart manufacturing at cash-strapped state-run aircraft producer Fadea, which was previously operated by Lockheed Martin and nationalized under Fernandez. Martinez confirmed a report by state-run news agency Telam last week that said Fadea would manufacture three Pampa training planes this year. Martinez also said Argentina did not have any immediate plans to purchase arms from abroad, denying statements on Twitter from former President Fernandez who said on Monday that Argentina sought to buy $2 billion of "sophisticated weapons of war" from the United States. "For now no, no arms," Martinez said. (Reporting by Caroline Stauffer; editing by Grant McCool)
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP)  An Arkansas judge dismissed an effort Tuesday to block the state's unprecedented plan to conduct four double executions over 10 days next month, while a new federal lawsuit argued the compressed schedule is depriving the condemned inmates of a fair process to seek clemency.

Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Wendell Griffen granted the state's motion to dismiss the amended complaint challenging Arkansas' lethal injection law filed by eight inmates facing execution next month. Griffen said he has no jurisdiction over the case after the state Supreme Court reversed his previous decision striking down the law.

"That dismissal effectively ended this court's jurisdiction over all claims and contentions in the lawsuit that led to the dismissal," Griffen wrote in his decision.

An attorney for the inmates said he planned to appeal Griffen's ruling quickly to the state Supreme Court.

"We will again ask the court to reconsider its findings and point out the flaws in its earlier findings," Jeff Rosenzweig said.

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson last month scheduled the executions to begin before the state's supply of midazolam, a controversial sedative used in its three-drug protocol, expires. Arkansas has not executed an inmate since 2005.

Five of the eight inmates are seeking clemency and they asked a federal judge Tuesday to halt all eight executions, arguing the "assembly-line schedule" has created a rushed clemency process that's unconstitutional.

"The state can show no valid reason it cannot schedule executions at a pace that would allow for meaningful review, including individualized consideration and full access to the clemency process guaranteed by state law and regulations," the inmates said in the lawsuit.

All the inmates set to be put to death next month are fighting on multiple fronts to halt the executions, including another federal lawsuit filed Monday. They've also asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider its decision to not review a state court ruling upholding the lethal injection law, which keeps the source of Arkansas' execution drugs secret.

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The ruling comes a day after the state Parole Board recommended Hutchinson reject a clemency request by Stacey Eugene Johnson and Ledell Lee, two of the convicted murderers scheduled for execution. The panel held another hearing Monday for convicted murderer Marcel Williams, and hearings are set for Friday for two other death row inmates.

Arkansas hasn't executed an inmate in more than a decade because of court challenges and difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs. The state hasn't carried out a double execution since 1999, and while Texas has executed eight people in a month  twice in 1997  no state in the modern era has executed that many prisoners in 10 days.

The executions are scheduled April 17, 20, 24 and 27.

In his ruling, Griffen wrote that he was troubled by the state Supreme Court decision and by the inmates' argument that the lethal injection protocol could subject them to painful executions.

"It is more than troubling that Arkansas judges must now deny persons sentenced to death by lethal injection a fair and impartial evidentiary hearing concerning their allegations that the state of Arkansas intends to subject them to an execution process which they allege will involve demonstrable risk of severe pain," he wrote.

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge's office said she was pleased with the lawsuit's dismissal.

"The attorney general will continue to work on behalf of the state and particularly the victims of these horrific murders to ensure that justice is done," spokesman Judd Deere said.

___

Follow Andrew DeMillo on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ademillo
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia cancelled a vote on Tuesday to finally ratify an extradition treaty with China, 10 years after it was signed, with the government set for an embarrassing defeat on the vote. Australia's inability to ratify the treaty is a setback in China's overseas hunt for corrupt officials and business executives who have fled abroad with their assets, dubbed Operation Fox Hunt. Political opposition to the treaty in Australia stems from concerns over China's humanitarian record, with human rights groups regularly accusing Beijing of obtaining confessions through torture or under duress. The planned parliamentary vote was to be held two days after China Premier Li Keqiang left Australia, where trade deals underpinned fast improving Sino-Australia relations. But a spokesman for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the vote had been cancelled, after opposition politicians who control the upper house Senate made clear they would not support the treaty. "It has been in our national interest to have this agreement with China," Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told a news conference. "We will speak with our Chinese friends in more detail and decide what to do." If Australia had ratified the pact, it would have become one of the few Western countries besides France and Spain to enter into an extradition treaty with China. In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the treaty would allow both countries to go after cross-border criminals and was in their joint interests. "We hope that Australia keeps in mind the broader picture of bilateral relations and continues to promote the relevant domestic process so the treaty can go into enforcement as soon as possible," Hua told a daily news briefing. In an article published on the eve of Li's visit, China's ambassador to Australia, Cheng Jingye, highlighted his country's hopes for the extradition treaty to enter into force soon. "The visit seems to have been very successful on the economic merits, but this inability to ratify the extradition treaty will inevitably lead to a sense of deflation," said Euan Graham, director of the national security programme at Australian think-tank Lowy Institute. It is also a blow for Turnbull, who revived the long-dormant process of ratification a year ago, with Australia seeking closer cooperation with Chinese law enforcement to stem a rising tide of synthetic drugs trafficked from southern China. Three Australian employees of casino operator Crown Resorts Ltd remain in Chinese custody following their arrest in November 2016 for alleged gambling offences. (Reporting by Colin Packham in Sydney; Additional reporting by Philip Wen and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
CANBERRA, Australia (AP)  The Australian government on Tuesday shelved a planned extradition treaty with China rather than allow the Senate to reject it over human rights concerns.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said senior ministers decided not to proceed with trying to ratify the treaty after the opposition Labor Party declared it would block it in the Senate. Labor was the conservative government's last hope of getting the treaty through the upper house a decade after it was signed.

Bishop said she would renew negotiations with China and Labor to find a compromise that the Senate would accept.

"China has asked us to uphold our end of the deal which is to ratify the treaty and that's what we've been seeking to do," Bishop told reporters.

"It is very much in Australia's national interests for us to have the highest level of cooperation with China and other countries with whom we have an extradition treaty," she said.

Former conservative Prime Minister John Howard's government signed the treaty in September 2007, only weeks before it was defeated in a general election. The prime ministers who have followed Howard in the past decade have proved less enthusiastic about the deal which was never ratified.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang urged Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to ratify the deal during a visit last week which focused on closer economic ties, Bishop said.

"They want the extradition treaty because they are seeking to crack down on criminals who leave China and seek safe haven in Australia," Bishop said.

The issue has split the government, with government lawmaker and former prime minister Tony Abbott telling The Australian newspaper in an interview published Tuesday that "China's legal system has to evolve further before the Australian government and people could be confident that those before it would receive justice according to law."

The Chinese Embassy in Australia did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.

Story continues

Australia has an extradition treaty with Saudi Arabia which, like China, has not ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

A parliamentary committee recommended in December that it be ratified, but made recommendations designed to strengthen protections of human rights.

A report by Labor lawmakers said the committee should not dismiss concerns over the lack of transparency in the Chinese judicial system, allegations of ill-treatment and torture of prisoners and the continuing imposition of the death penalty.

Australia opposes capital punishment and demands assurances that extradited prisoners will not be executed.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP)  The Australian government on Tuesday shelved a planned extradition treaty with China rather than allow the Senate to reject it over human rights concerns.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said senior ministers decided not to proceed with trying to ratify the treaty after the opposition Labor Party declared it would block it in the Senate. Labor was the conservative government's last hope of getting the treaty through the upper house a decade after it was signed.

Bishop said she would renew negotiations with China and Labor to find a compromise that the Senate would accept.

"China has asked us to uphold our end of the deal which is to ratify the treaty and that's what we've been seeking to do," Bishop told reporters.

"It is very much in Australia's national interests for us to have the highest level of cooperation with China and other countries with whom we have an extradition treaty," she said.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters that the treaty would help in the fight against transnational crime and promote judicial and law enforcement cooperation.

"We hope Australia can bear in mind the general picture of bilateral relations and proceed with its relevant domestic procedures so as to make the treaty come into force as soon as possible," Hua said.

Former conservative Prime Minister John Howard's government signed the treaty in September 2007, only weeks before the government was defeated in a general election. The prime ministers who have followed Howard in the past decade have proved less enthusiastic about the deal, which was never ratified.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang urged Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to ratify the deal during a visit last week which focused on closer economic ties, Bishop said.

"They want the extradition treaty because they are seeking to crack down on criminals who leave China and seek safe haven in Australia," Bishop said.

Story continues

The issue has split the government, with government lawmaker and former Prime Minister Tony Abbott telling The Australian newspaper in an interview published Tuesday that "China's legal system has to evolve further before the Australian government and people could be confident that those before it would receive justice according to law."

Australia has an extradition treaty with Saudi Arabia which, like China, has not ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

A parliamentary committee recommended in December that it be ratified, but made recommendations designed to strengthen protections of human rights.

A report by Labor lawmakers said the committee should not dismiss concerns over the lack of transparency in the Chinese judicial system, allegations of ill-treatment and torture of prisoners and the continuing imposition of the death penalty.

Australia opposes capital punishment and demands assurances that extradited prisoners will not be executed.

___

Associated Press writer Louise Watt in Beijing contributed to this report.
North Korea has developed a rocket technology that would bring Australia within the range of Pyongyangs nuclear attack, the commander of the United States Forces Korea (USFK) told Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, according to a Sunday report by the Australian.

The Kim Jong Un regime has continuously threatened rival South Korea and the U.S. of launching an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)  capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. However, Pyongyangs plans to attack Washingtons ally Australia was unheard of, until now.

Vincent K. Brooks, the commander of USFK, informed Bishop about the Norths latest development last month in South Korea, the Australian reported.

Read: North Korea's Nuclear Ambitions Won't Be Curbed By Diplomacy, International Nuclear Head Says

The assessment was that North Korea ... was now at a point of advanced technology when it came to ballistic missiles that were capable of carrying a single nuclear warhead, that it was an increasing security risk not only to the Korean peninsula but also to our region, including Australia, Bishop told the Australian. It was the first time I had heard it in such stark terms. It is deeply concerning that North Korea has been able to take the opportunity to advance its capability.

North Koreas Musudan missile is believed to have a range of about 2,500 miles. The newspaper noted that if the reclusive nation can develop a missile capable of traveling nearly 4,500 miles, it can reach the Australian city of Cairns in Queensland, which is just over 4,000 miles from Pyongyang.

In a bid to counter the nuclear threat from North Korea, Seoul and Washington have been carrying out military drills in the Korean Peninsula  much to the anger of Pyongyang. On March 22, a powerful long-range bomber was flown over the Korean Peninsula.

Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said during a visit to Seoul that preemptive military action is on the table if Washington or its allies are threatened by North Koreas nuclear weapons program.

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Luke Pell, Danielle Lombard, Vinny Ventiera

Photo: iHeartMedia + BMF Media

Soaking up the sun and EDM vibe during Miami Music Week, "The Bachelors" Danielle Lombard attended the Music Lounge by iHeartMedia + BMF Media escorted by her new flame "The Bachelorettes" fan favorite Luke Pell and co-contestant Vinny Ventiera.

Luke Pell, Danielle Lombard, Vinny Ventiera

Photo: iHeartMedia + BMF Media

Not trying to keep their obvious chemistry under wraps, guests noticed Danielles coy hugs and affectionate touches with Luke, while Vinny trailed behind the couple catching a few random stares and taking selfies with fans. The couple shared a Heineken as they watched Vinny busying himself with his cellphone or smiling at girls who were trying to get his attention.

Luke Pell, Vinny Ventiera

Photo: iHeartMedia + BMF Media

The trio proceeded to Boohoos dream closet, where Danielle picked out a denim jacket from the new spring collection while Luke and Vinny stayed outside rocking his new Man cap from Boohoo, snapchatting and horsing around.

Danielle Lombard

Photo: iHeartMedia + BMF

Keeping close to Danielle at all times, Luke bobbed to DJ sets while Vinny kept them company. A foreshadowing scene from the upcoming Bachelor in Paradise perhaps? We certainly hope so!

Luke Pell, Danielle Lombard, Vinny Ventiera

Photo: iHeartMedia + BMF Media

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London (AFP) - Britain's Daily Mail newspaper faced a backlash Tuesday for comparing the legs on show when British Prime Minister Theresa May and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon held talks.

While the two leaders clashed over Brexit, which May is set to trigger Wednesday, and Sturgeon's push for another Scottish independence referendum, the Mail spun it as a battle of the legs and focused on what could be read into their outfits and body language.

"Never mind Brexit, who won Legs-it!", the tabloid's front page said, alongside a picture of the two leaders meeting in a Glasgow hotel on Monday.

"It wasn't quite stilettos at dawn, but there was a distinctly frosty atmosphere," it read underneath.

Inside, the paper's style editor compared their "boxy navy blazers, skirts that stopped just above the knee, shiny nude tights and pointy shoes -- a look replicated by career women of a certain age worldwide".

And in what the tabloid called a "light-hearted verdict on the big showdown", columnist Sarah Vine asserted: "What stands out here are the legs -- and the vast expanse on show.

"Both women consider their pins to be the finest weapon in their physical arsenal.

"May's famously long extremities are demurely arranged," she said, while "Sturgeon's shorter but undeniably more shapely shanks are altogether more flirty."

Sturgeon's pose was "a direct attempt at seduction... 'Come, succumb to my revolutionary allure,' she seems to be saying. 'You know you want to'."

- 'Have a bit of fun' -

The coverage sparked a swift backlash against Britain's second-most popular newspaper, which sells 1.5 million copies daily.

Former women and equalities minister Nicky Morgan called it "appalling sexism" that Britain's most senior female politicians were being judged for their legs.

The conservative Mail is the bete noire of the left, for whom Daily Mail bashing is an instinctive visceral reflex.

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Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn led the charge, saying: "It's 2017. This sexism must be consigned to history. Shame on the Daily Mail."

Amelia Womack, the Green Party's deputy leader, has formally complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation, claiming the headline discriminated on the grounds of gender.

But May said she did not mind if people wanted to have "a bit of fun" around the way she dressed.

"You will notice that I am wearing trousers today!" she told the Express and Star regional newspaper.

The Conservative leader said there had always been close attention on what she wore, particularly her shoes -- which are typically leopard-print kitten heels.

"Most people concentrate on what we do as politicians," she said.

"But if people want to have a bit of fun about how we dress, then so be it."

- 'Back to the 70s' -

A spokesman for Sturgeon said the focus on legs was "slightly surprising".

"Brexit may risk taking Britain back to the early 1970s but there is no need for coverage of events to lead the way," he said.

A spokesman for the Daily Mail urged critics to "get a life".

He said the Mail had backed May to become prime minister and regularly commented on the appearance of male politicians.

"Is there a rule that says political coverage must be dull, or has a po-faced BBC and left-wing commentariat -- so obsessed by the Daily Mail -- lost all sense of humour and proportion?" he asked.

In a BBC radio discussion, Catherine Mayer, co-founder of the Women's Equality Party, said it was "laughable and ridiculous" to treat two government leaders as "unlikely sex symbols" rather than professionals.

"It's precisely meant to diminish their power."

Newspaper columnist Angela Epstein countered that May and Sturgeon "both understand that clothes are a tool by which we can communicate who we are".

She added: "They've both got fantastic legs."
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is mulling how to respond to a letter delivered March 14 by six senators urging him to investigate the activities of U.S. embassies, USAID missions, and diplomatic outposts working to support democracy around the world.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), the lead signatory, and his fellow senators unquestioningly spread false allegations made in a pamphlet distributed to Congress by a Macedonian group, Stop Operation Soros, which was set up by Cvetin Chilimanov, the editor of Macedonias state news service and a former employee of the presidents office. The letter focuses on the efforts of two career U.S. ambassadors to support democracy in Macedonia and Albania, implying that their missions meddled in local party politics to invigorate the political left. It alleges that the Foundation Open Society Macedonia and the Open Society Foundation for Albania, which are supported by billionaire philanthropist George Soros, acted as middlemen in this endeavor.

Tillerson should ignore the letter, because theres nothing to investigate. In addition to being littered with inaccuracies about the foundations work, the senators echo Kremlin talking points and support the agenda of corrupt and undemocratic elements in the region.

I know this because I am the director of the Open Society Initiative for Europe, which Soros founded. I am also Macedonian. In 2015, my country was thrown into political crisis after an opposition party published a series of intercepted audio conversations. One appeared to show then-Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski encouraging election officials to invalidate ballots cast against his party. Other recordings revealed rampant corruption and a mass surveillance program targeting 20,000 people. In response, hundreds of thousands of protesters against the government took to the streets across Macedonia in 2015 and 2016 and a special prosecutor launched an investigation against Gruevski, who was encouraged to step down by the European Union. Elections late last year left no party with enough seats to form a new government; Gruevski remains the most powerful force in a divided Macedonia.

Faced with a potential prison sentence, Gruevski is unwilling to admit responsibility for the crime and the political crisis caused by the ongoing investigation. Admonished by the EU and eager to shift the blame, he appears to be taking his lines from Moscow. He has parroted Kremlin propaganda that labels critical voices as enemies of the people. Soros, who co-funds independent organizations with other private donors and the EU, has become a convenient scapegoat.

It has been widely understood in the U.S. Congress that support for civil society organizations around the globe was not a partisan affair. Since the days of President Ronald Reagan, both parties have overwhelmingly supported work to help countries transition from communism to democracy. Yet in their letter, the senators ask Tillerson to shut down democracy promotion that is disrespecting national sovereignty. Such an interpretation assumes that governments are sacrosanct and sovereign, not the voters who elect them, and that a healthy civil society undermines a countrys development.

In pushing these claims, the senators have unwittingly ushered Russian President Vladimir Putins authoritarian narrative straight into the Capitol. In wording akin to Russian state medias depiction of the crisis in Ukraine, which branded all popular dissent as fomented by the West, the letter accuses USAID of destabilizing Albania, a former communist state turned NATO ally, by pushing for justice reform there. They offer no proof to substantiate their claim beyond USAID funding the work of the Open Society Foundation for Albania, and even this is incorrect.

Contrary to the allegations leveled in the letter by unnamed respected leaders from Albania, the Open Society Foundation for Albania has never accepted or administered USAID funding. It did not create the Strategic Document for Albanian Judicial Reform as the letter claims; Albanias multiparty parliamentary commission for judicial reform did. The foundation supported the process by funding the commission and its technical support team, but had no input in the document. The senators appear to have fallen victim to a political exercise to discredit the judicial reform process and the prime minister  ironic given their concerns about stability in the country.

Perhaps most alarming is that the senators letter equates pushing a progressive agenda with promoting a political agenda. They seem to forget that progress  in rule of law, democracy, and respect for human rights  is a human ideal enshrined in international law by governments from across the political spectrum. The senators argue that critical debate and reform aimed at realizing that ideal have had a destabilizing effect in the region.

History demonstrates that theyre wrong. Its no coincidence that the most prosperous countries in the world (think of Germany or the Netherlands, not to mention the United States) play host to vibrant and diverse policy debates. Airing and addressing public concerns creates long-term stability, and suppressing them only feeds frustration and increases the likelihood of unrest.

It is not surprising that the senators have heard from entrenched leaders who view critical civil society as subversive. Politicians dont like to be criticized. But the investigation they call for would target the work of pro-democracy organizations like the International Republican Institute, National Democratic Institute, National Endowment for Democracy, U.S. Institute of Peace, and countless others around the world, based on what appear to be the comments of a few self-interested politicians in two countries. Agreeing to such an investigation would mark a dangerous departure from decades of American policy promoting democracy and human rights abroad, practiced by both Republican and Democratic administrations. It would mark the abandonment of the understanding that U.S. interests are best served by relationships with stable, peaceful countries that share the same democratic values.

The letter also ignores the fact that much of the foundations work is designed to support government institutions. Tillerson should take stock of this before he makes his decision. Since Soros founded the Open Society Foundations in 1979, our work has helped improve the lives of millions of people around the world.

The Foundation Open Society Macedonias support was vital to the countrys survival in its early years. Blockaded by its neighbors after declaring independence in 1991 during the breakup of Yugoslavia, the foundation helped keep Macedonias health care system alive, bringing medicine, lab equipment, ambulances, and sanitary supplies to 45 hospitals and clinics across the country. In 1994, it paid 50 percent of the costs for 40 massive airfreight flights to Slovenia so that Macedonian farmers could get their fresh produce to a European market.

To date, the Foundation Open Society Macedonia spent $171,500 more than the Macedonian government to provide the countrys poorest people with free legal aid. These projects offer legal assistance to any person or organization refused access to information about government activities, such as spending on a local infrastructure project. The foundation has provided free legal advice to 100 victims of domestic abuse. It even helped the government by paying for a new digital records system for the national health care system and funded the countrys justice ministry website.

The Foundation Open Society Macedonia has helped train more than 2,000 instructors to use interactive teaching methodologies and paid for refurbishing and equipping amphitheaters, hallways, toilets, multimedia libraries, and classrooms at eight teacher training faculties at four state universities. During the economic crisis from 2009 to 2011, it used emergency funds to disburse $1.9 million to organizations teaching farmers and small-business men financial management so they could keep their businesses afloat.

The Open Society Foundation for Albania has spent more than $57 million building 275 schools and kindergartens across the country. Seventy percent of its population has benefited from these schools, and children are still educated in them. Open Societys internet program opened up Albania to the outside world, setting up the countrys first internet antenna in 1997 and helping to deliver free online services to libraries, universities, and NGOs.

The Open Society Foundations pride themselves on being transparent and nonpartisan. We advance human rights and fundamental freedoms for the long term, irrespective of the political leaders of the day. If leaders with authoritarian tendencies cut off support to the brave NGOs that question them, activists would be left increasingly exposed to harassment, intimidation, and violence. The world would become less stable.

The secretary of state should think long and hard about standing behind Americas international political commitments. Abandoning them would mean taking his country, and the world, in a different and far darker direction.

Photo credit: ROBERT ATANASOVSKI/AFP/Getty Images
BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing will publish a draft plan for the long-term development of the Chinese capital on Wednesday, according to state media, which includes measures to cap the population and cut air pollution. Under the plan, Beijing, now home to around 22 million people, will limit its population to 23 million as of 2020, and pull air quality levels in line with national standards by 2030, the China News Service said on Tuesday. The city aims to show clear progress by 2030 in curing itself of "Big City Syndrome", in which rapid, imbalanced growth creates a congested, polluted and chaotic industrial megapolis, besides reducing the size of the city. Beijing hopes to be a top global city by 2050 with forest covering 45 percent of land area and at least 180,000 beds for aged care by 2030, the report added. Another key aspect of China's plans for the Beijing area is integration of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, which the draft plan says should reach a "high level of coordinated development" by 2050. The draft plan will be available for public comment through April 27. (Reporting by Elias Glenn; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Paris (AFP) - The family of a Chinese man shot dead by French police called for calm Wednesday following two nights of violent protests over his killing.

Liu Shaoyo was shot on Sunday by a police team that was called to his apartment in northeast Paris over a suspected domestic dispute.

The police said the officer who fired the shots acted in self-defence after the 56-year-old father of five attacked another officer with a knife.

His family has denied that version of events, saying the shooting -- which drew an official complaint from China -- was unprovoked and that the victim had been "trimming fish with a pair of scissors" when the police burst in.

On Tuesday night, around 400 members of the Asian community and supporters of anti-racism groups protested for a second night outside a police station in the city's 19th district, chanting "police murderers" and "injustice".

Ten people were arrested for throwing projectiles at the police. On Monday night, 35 people were arrested for violent acts during a similar protest.

At a press conference on Wednesday, the victim's eldest daughter said the family were still trying to come to terms with the killing.

"We still do not understand why the police shot our father," said the visibly distraught 26-year-old, who was flanked by her siblings. She did not give her name.

The family's lawyer Francois Ormillien said the family had called the meeting "to launch an appeal for calm".

"We know this investigation has caused considerable turmoil," he said.

In a rare move reflecting the shock in China over the shooting, the government in Beijing said Tuesday it had filed an official complaint to France.

China called on Paris to "guarantee the safety and legal rights and interests of Chinese citizens in France and to treat the reaction of Chinese people to this incident in a rational way," a foreign ministry spokeswoman said.

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French Interior Minister Matthias Fekl said the police had his "full support".

- Police accused of brutality -

The Chinese community in Paris is estimated at between 200,000 and 300,000. Many of the first-generation Chinese nationals who live in the French capital arrived in the 1980s and work in the textile industry.

French police have repeatedly come under fire for alleged brutality during operations in poor parts of Paris and surrounding suburbs.

In a case that caused widespread outrage, a black youth worker was hospitalised in February with severe anal injuries after being allegedly sodomised with a police baton.

The incident in the gritty northern suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois triggered several nights of rioting on housing estates around the city.

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Berlin (AFP) - German media and publishing group Bertelsmann Tuesday presented ambitious objectives for 2020, as its bets on digital and international expansion paid off with a second one-billion-euro annual profit in 2016.

"Effectively, what we have to do in the next years is to do what we have done in the last years," chief executive Thomas Rabe told journalists at a press conference.

The group reported net profits of 1.14 billion euros ($1.23 billion) in 2016, an increase of 2.6 percent over 2015's figure.

While higher taxes weighed on the bottom line, operating or underlying profit before taxes and interest stood at 2.6 billion euros, compared with 2.5 billion the previous year.

Bertelsmann, which owns broadcaster RTL, a stable of magazines and most of publisher Penguin Random House, saw revenues slip slightly to 17 billion euros.

Exchange rate effects were to blame for much of the drop, the firm said, as the fall in the value of the pound following Britain's vote to quit the European Union in June meant its UK revenues were worth less.

Since taking the top seat at the family-owned firm in 2012, Rabe has invested some 4 billion euros to close Bertelsmann's digital gap with other publishers and expand outside Germany.

Looking ahead to 2020, the CEO aims for revenues of 20 billion euros, with some 40 percent generated from "growth" activities such as online media and e-commerce, compared with 30 percent today.

The group's digital product range has also grown to educational software, while it plans to completely abandon shrinking legacy businesses like its book clubs.

Half of investments will go to the United States, with other big bets on China, India and Brazil.

Within three years, Bertelsmann hopes to make 60 percent of its revenue in Europe and 40 percent internationally, including some 30 percent in the US.

The group offered little detail about its objectives for 2017, saying only that it aims to increase profits and revenues while maintaining its high margins.

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- Brexit to sap advertising -

This year could see Bertelsmann expand in book publishing, as it plans to increase its stake in Penguin Random House -- a merged publisher it created with Britain's Pearson in 2013.

With Pearson looking to sell its share, the German firm could increase its holdings in the group as high as 75 percent from its present 53 percent if the price is "reasonable," Rabe said, but "it will take a bit of time."

No assessment of the publisher's value will be available until the summer, he went on.

"There's a pretty long queue" for the remainder of the shares, Rabe added, but "we are looing for an investor with a real interest for the business."

Impacts on Bertelsmann from Brexit have so far been "pretty limited" according to the CEO, but he made no secret of his concerns for the future.

Beyond the fall in the pound, economic uncertainty is expected to sap the advertising market, while questions remain over non-British employees' right to remain in the UK and UK firms' access to the European single market, Rabe said.

Nevertheless, "clearly our objective is to maintain our business in the UK and to continue to invest in the UK," he added.
By Nick Mafi. Photos courtesy of BIG.

According to the 2017 World Happiness Report, Norway was recently named the happiest country in the world. Today, Norwegians have another reason to celebrate, as one of the world's most exciting young architects has announced plans to design a home for one of the world's rarest animals. Indeed, Danish architect Bjarke Ingels' firm has unveiled plans for a new yin and yang-shaped home in Copenhagen Zoo for panda's that will closely resemble their natural habitat.

Of late, the population of pandas have declined due, in large part, to the destruction of their spaces in the wild. In certain regions of the world such as China, the growth of human populations have pushed the animals into smaller, less livable areas. That's one of the reasons BIG decided to design a new, $22 million home for the rare mammals. Construction for Panda House is expected to begin later this year, while it is currently slated to be finished by 2018just in time for the arrival of the two giant pandas from Chengdu, China.

The design of Copenhagen's Panda House will feature a nearly 13,500 sq. ft. interior space and a 13,000 sq. ft. exterior space that mimics a yin and yang-shaped home. The setting is meant to allow visitors to feel as if they are witnessing the panda's natural environment, rather than the mammals being viewed as a foreign objects in a new land. According to a statement by BIG, "the habitat forms the freest and most naturalistic possible environment for the pandas, providing the freedom to roam about and the ideal conditions to mateone of the major challenges facing pandas from becoming endangered." What's more, the circular space will be situated right next to the award-winning Elephant House, by famed architect Norman Foster.

Architecture is like portraiture," said Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner at BIG, in a statement. "To design a home for someone is like capturing their essence, their character and personality in built form. In the case of the two great Pandas, their unique solitary nature requires two similar but separate habitatsone for her and one for him."

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More: 13 of the Most Fascinating Public Sculptures

This story originally appeared on Architectural Digest.

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AVDIIVKA, Ukraine -- In early 2015, Musa Magomedov, the director of the Avdiivka coke and chemical plant in eastern Ukraine, gathered 100 of the facility's shift managers and gave them a choice: they could either shutter the billion-dollar business, or continue operations.

The bloody conflict in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces that kicked off in April 2014 was escalating and the plant -- about 340 miles southeast of Ukraine's capital of Kiev -- was now on the frontlines of the bloodiest conflict in Europe since the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. Rockets regularly buzzed overhead and the boom of heavy artillery was audible through the hisses of the plant's machines.

"It wasn't fair to ask people to come to work and risk their lives every day if they weren't part of the decision-making process," Magomedov says.

Despite the risks, the group decided the factory would operate through the conflict, providing some sense of normalcy, heating, and much-needed income to area residents.

Two years later a blockade in eastern Ukraine now threatens the future of the Avdiivka plant and the health of Ukraine's already shaky economy. Activists, with the support of some politicians, initiated the blockade in January with the intention of halting trade between businesses in Ukrainian and separatist-held territories. In mid-March the government in Kiev joined in, reversing itself and announcing a full transportation blockade of rebel-held areas, a move that shows little sign of abating in the near future.

"What am I supposed to tell these guys after they've been through so much? 'Sorry, but politics are more important than your pay'?" Magomedov says in frustration.

The stakes are high for Avdiivka, the surrounding Donbas region and for Ukraine. Economic uncertainty from the halt in trade has prompted the International Monetary Fund to delay delivery of the next instment of its aid package to Ukraine. Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman estimates that Ukraine will lose 75,000 jobs and at least $3.5 billion in foreign-exchange earnings by year's end. The country's central bank estimates economic growth could be halved if the blockade does not lift, according to Reuters.

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Avdiivka's population has shrunk from 35,000 to an estimated 16,000 during the course of the 3-year-long conflict. Magomedov says prospective town shop owners first call him before opening a shop, seeking assurances that wages will be paid on time. (During the course of a 30-minute interview, he receives three phone calls. One from the city's mayor checking up on the factory.)

Magomedov says 200 of the factory's 4,000 employees have been taken off their regular 12-hour shifts -- a similar move was made during the height of fighting in 2014 and 15. Some busy themselves with repairs to the factory, while others are reading manuals during the day to stay busy. They receive 66 percent of their monthly salary of $223. The factory director worries that if the blockade continues another 800 workers will also be taken off their shifts in April.

Nataliya Vasilyevna, one of the workers relegated to reading manuals, says she opposes the blockade. "The entire system was built in Soviet times and interconnected. I understand that politicians might want to change something, but it takes time. To do something this suddenly -- it just doesn't make sense."

An hour-and-a-half drive from the factory in the town of Bakhmut, blockaders express little sympathy for the region's industry workers, focusing instead on what they call the "trade in blood" between Ukrainian businesses on separatist-held areas and those on government-controlled territory.

The group of several dozen men, supplied with canned goods, pasta and what appeared to be Molotov cocktails, has camped out, determined to ensure no train crosses the tracks. Since the protesters set up the first blockade on January 26, separatists have taken control over Ukrainian businesses on their side of the demarcation line.

Before the full blockade was in place, Kiev had allowed cargo trains to crisscross the frontlines, servicing the factories and mines that are the bread-and-butter of the industrial Donbas region. Such trade was an open secret, reported by the Western press in 2015. The factories in separatist-held areas continued to pay millions of dollars in much-needed taxes to Kiev as well as to the separatists, while keeping thousands of workers in the region employed.

While the workers benefited from a steady flow of wages during the conflict, protesters say that doing business with the separatists helped keep the self-declared republics afloat, all the while the oligarch who owned the region's industries, Rinat Akhmetov, continued to turn a profit.

Semyen Semyenchenko, a member of parliament who rose to prominence for his work as an activist in the "Euromaidan" protests, a wave of demonstrations demanding closer ties with Europe and a more transparent form of governance, is now an avid supporter of the blockade. His reason is simple: "Buying things from the occupiers is financing terrorism," Semyenchenko said, referring to the separatists and the continued conflict with Ukrainian forces.

Opponents of the blockade say cutting coal supplies could also cause blackouts, since around 15 percent of the country's electricity is coal powered. Semyenchenko dismisses those fears, saying the country needs to diversify its power sources.

Semyenchenko says a prolonged suspension of trade won't destroy the region's industry. "Listen, we have a medicine called Prozac. It helps people worry less."

In Kiev, support for the blockade was initially split between competing factions, with Groysman referring to the protesters' encampment as "populist PR." However, shortly after state security services forcefully dispersed one encampment and rebels seized companies owned by Akhmetov on separatist-held territories, Groysman's ruling coalition flipped their position. The blockade, they say, will stay in place until businesses the rebels seized are returned, including the ones owned by Akhmetov, considered Ukraine's richest person.

Nevertheless, the blockaders say they aren't going anywhere soon. A man in his mid-20s who calls himself "Katana," referring to the Japanese Samurai sword, said the rhetoric from Kiev is just a distraction. "They want us to leave and then they'll go back to cutting deals with the occupiers," he says, referring to the Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region.

Plant director Magamedov, meanwhile, says he isn't sure how much longer the coal supply will last. The type of coal needed is available from the U.S. and Australia, but it is more expensive. The blockages have caused the factory to post losses in January and February. "We're part of a system," he says, if the factory is cut off from their suppliers, it doesn't bode well for the future.

Back out in the factory production area, Genadii Golovatiuk glances from his corner office window toward a wagon full of coal waiting to be transported on the inter-factory track for smelting into coke.

"This is what it's all about," he says wryly gesturing outside. The 59-year old has spent his work life in the coke industry, the past 20 at the factory in Avdiivka. When asked about current events, he offers a bit of sage advice: "Don't choose your house, choose your neighbors."

Will another shipment of coal arrive anytime soon? That, he says, is a question for the neighbors, not him.

Katherine Jacobsen is a Kiev-based journalist covering Ukraine and the former Soviet Union. You can follow her on Twitter here.

Oksana Parafeniuk is a Kiev-based photographer. You can follow her on Instagram here.
Kinshasa (AFP) - Two foreign UN contractors who were kidnapped in DR Congo have been found dead, one of them decapitated, the government said Tuesday, as spiralling violence in the vast country sparked international condemnation.

The bodies of American Michael Sharp and Swedish national Zaida Catalan were found as the UN Security Council prepared for a vote on Wednesday on extending its peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres vowed that the world body would do "everything possible" to bring justice in the case.

"Michael and Zaida lost their lives seeking to understand the causes of conflict and insecurity in the DRC in order to help bring peace to the country and its people," the UN chief said.

"I trust that the Congolese authorities will conduct a full investigation into this incident. The United Nations will also conduct an inquiry. In case of criminal acts, the United Nations will do everything possible to ensure that justice is done."

The two were kidnapped by unidentified assailants on March 12 along with four Congolese accompanying them in Kasai-Central province.

Government spokesman Lambert Mende said the woman's body had been decapitated.

The remote region has been plagued by violence since mid-August, when government forces killed Kamwina Nsapu, a tribal chief and militia leader who had rebelled against President Joseph Kabila's central government.

The violence has spilled over from Kasai to the neighbouring provinces of Kasai-Oriental and Lomami, leaving at least 400 people dead.

Several days before the two UN experts were kidnapped, a Uruguayan peacekeeper was shot and injured in the same region.

Sharp's father, John Sharp, said there was a "high probability" the bodies were those of his son and Catalan.

"Dental records and DNA samples will be used to confirm the identities. This will take some time," he added on Facebook.

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- 39 officers killed -

On Monday, Congolese national police accused rebels of massacring 39 of their officers in Kasai.

The victims were killed in an "ambush" early Friday as they were travelling in trucks, and buried in a mass grave by supporters of the late Kamwina Nsapu, a police spokesman said.

Jordan Anderson, Africa analyst for IHS Markit, cited reports that all 39 had been beheaded.

The Kamwina Nsapu militia "is increasingly taking violent and hostile action against anyone it sees as being outsiders, interfering in the Kasai," he said.

The United Nations, European Union and African Union on Tuesday expressed "grave concern" over the spiralling violence in Kasai.

The organisations "condemn this despicable act and express their condolences to the families of the victims," they said.

They called for an "urgent response from the country's political leaders" to curb the violence and "urge the defence and security forces to exercise restraint in the efforts to restore order in the Kasai."

The UN Security Council is set to vote on Wednesday on extending its mission in the DR Congo, the largest and costliest UN peacekeeping mission in the world.

The UN has 19,000 soldiers, police and military observers deployed in the mission, costing $1.2 billion annually.

About 100 of those troops were recently dispatched to the Kasai region.

- 'Playing with fire' -

France warned last week that drastic cuts to the mission would be tantamount to "playing with fire" as the DRC is also embroiled in election turmoil.

France has circulated a draft resolution to renew the mandate of the peacekeeping mission, but is facing scrutiny from the United States which is seeking cuts to UN peace operations.

The influential Catholic Church in DR Congo brokered a deal in late December to pave the way for elections by the end of 2017, but the agreement has been bogged down in disputes over the appointment of a new prime minister.

Elections would bring an end to the rule of Kabila, in power since 2001.

The Church and the electoral commission said earlier this month that the growing unrest in Kasai threatened to derail voter registration.

Police reinforcements meanwhile were sent to strategic points in the capital Kinshasa on Tuesday after clashes between demonstrators and officers in several districts, where tyres were burned and roads blocked.
Speedy outfielder Peter Bourjos and infielder Scooter Gennett were among the players on the go Tuesday as big league teams tweaked their rosters less than a week before opening day.

The Tampa Bay Rays added some depth by acquiring Bourjos from the Chicago White Sox for cash or a player to be named.

The 29-year-old Bourjos hit .251 with five homers and 23 RBIs in 123 games for Philadelphia last season. He signed a minor league contract with the White Sox on Jan. 30 and batted .313 in 19 spring training games.

Cincinnati claimed Gennett off waivers from the Milwaukee Brewers, giving the Reds another option at second base and a utility player off the bench.

Gennett grew up in Cincinnati and will make $2,525,000 this season. The 26-year-old hit .263 with a career-high 14 homers and 56 RBIs last season, but the Brewers decided to go with Jonathan Villar at second base.

In another move, the Baltimore Orioles added a starting pitcher, acquiring right-hander Alec Asher from the Phillies for a player to be named or cash.

The 26-year-old Asher was 2-7 with a 5.88 ERA in 12 major league starts for the Phillies in 2015 and 2016. He served an 80-game suspension for steroid use last season, when he went 2-1 with a 2.88 ERA in five starts.

"Good, young arm with options," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. "I think the plan is for him to come to camp with us and see if we can work him in for an outing. ... He's had some challenges he's gotten behind."

There was a noon Tuesday deadline for teams to make decisions on players who became free agents and agreed to minor league contracts, and several were given formal notice they will be added to 25-man rosters by opening day. Among them were White Sox catcher Geovany Soto, Angels right-hander Yusmeiro Petit, San Diego shortstop Erick Aybar, San Francisco third baseman Aaron Hill and Toronto catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia

In addition, teams paid $100,000 retention bonuses to six players with minor league contracts so they could keep them: Baltimore power hitter Pedro Alvarez, Kansas City right-hander Peter Moylan, Dodgers righty Brandon Morrow and Toronto right-hander Mat Latos.

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The Rays agreed to pay the $100,000 due Bourjos. Tampa Bay also paid the bonus earlier this month to right-hander Tommy Hunter, whose contract had a March 15 deadline for the decision.

Several veterans were released, including Atlanta right-hander Kris Medlen, Baltimore outfielder Michael Bourn, Minnesota right-hander Ryan Vogelsong and Phillies catcher Ryan Hanigan. Teams can re-sign released players if they want to, avoiding the $100,000 retention bonus.

In games across the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues:

BLUE JAYS 10, PHILLIES 4

Josh Donaldson's first hit of the spring was a double and he added a long home run for Toronto. He also scored three times.

Troy Tulowitzki hit a solo homer and walked with the bases loaded, Melvin Upton Jr. had a two-run shot and Jose Bautista singled home a run. Blue Jays starter Marco Estrada gave up four runs and seven hits in four innings, striking out five. Leadoff batter Devon Travis had three hits.

Howie Kendrick tripled and hit a two-run double for Philadelphia. Aaron Nola didn't make it through the second inning, giving up five runs and seven hits despite four strikeouts. Colton Murray, who had thrown 10 1/3 scoreless innings, left in the eighth grabbing his lower back. He gave up two runs and four hits over 3 2/3 innings.

TIGERS 6, YANKEES 3

Detroit finally got to Yankees starter Masahiro Tanaka after being held hitless over 10 2/3 innings and three starts. Ian Kinsler singled, Alex Presley doubled him home and Presley scored on a throwing error by catcher Gary Sanchez.

Tanaka, who finished the spring with a 0.38 ERA, went five innings and yielded three hits. He struck out six.

Justin Upton had a two-run homer for the Tigers, his fifth.

Aaron Judge, competing with Aaron Hicks to start in right field, hit his third homer for New York.

Detroit starter Michael Fulmer, who tweaked his right ankle again, gave up a run and three hits in five innings. The Tigers told Anibal Sanchez he will pitch out of the bullpen.

RED SOX 9, PIRATES 2

Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley Jr. homered, and minor leaguer Heiker Meneses had a two-run triple in the first inning as Boston pounded Drew Hutchison for seven quick hits.

Betts had a two-run double and Bradley an RBI single in the fourth. Hutchinson went 3 2/3 innings, giving up nine runs and 10 hits. Bradley and leadoff batter Brock Holt finished with three hits apiece.

Steven Wright went four innings for the Red Sox, giving up four hits and a run.

Pirates reliever Juan Nicasio has 14 strikeouts in eight scoreless innings this spring.

MARLINS (ss) 4, NATIONALS 2

After missing most of spring training with a hamstring injury, A.J. Ellis singled and scored when Matt den Dekker hit a two-run double off Washington starter Jacob Turner.

Turner went four innings, allowing three runs and two hits. Jeremy Guthrie followed with four innings and gave up one run. With an ERA of 2.41, he might have locked up a job as a long reliever for the Nationals.

Miami starter Scott Copeland permitted two runs and five hits in 3 2/3 innings. Included was a two-run homer by Jayson Werth.

ORIOLES 5, BRAVES 4

Baltimore starter Wade Miley gave up one run in four innings, Pedro Alvarez had a two-run single and Caleb Joseph got two hits.

Jaime Garcia allowed three runs on eight hits in six innings for Atlanta. Freddie Freeman went 2 for 2 with an RBI.

ASTROS 7, MARLINS (ss) 3

Houston ace Dallas Keuchel gave up three runs on six hits and two walks over 4 2/3 innings. Brian McCann hit a two-run homer, Jose Altuve had an RBI double and Yuli Gurriel and Marwin Gonzalez each had two hits.

Miami's Edison Volquez allowed three runs and eight hits over five innings. Giancarlo Stanton hit his second homer of the spring.

TWINS 1, RAYS 0

Byung Ho Park homered and is hitting .362 with 10 RBIs in 47 spring at-bats. Nick Tepesch gave up three hits and a walk over four scoreless innings for Minnesota.

Tampa Bay's Chris Archer threw three scoreless innings, giving up one hit and one walk while striking out four. Logan Morrison and Daniel Robertson both went 2 for 3  the 23-year-old Robertson has a six-game hitting streak and is batting .550 during that span.

CARDINALS 3, METS 3, 9 INNINGS

Adam Wainwright gave up three runs and five hits with no walks over five innings for St. Louis. Matt Adams homered and had three hits, and Jhonny Peralta got two hits. Matt Carpenter went 0 for 2 and is hitless in his last 11 at-bats with five strikeouts.

Robert Gsellman allowed three runs and five hits with six strikeouts in six innings for the Mets. Lucas Duda hit a three-run homer, and Yoenis Cespedes got two hits and made a leaping catch at the wall.

GIANTS 10, CUBS 7

Matt Cain gave up four runs and five hits in 5 1/3 innings, striking out five, and doubled in two runs off Cubs reliever Mike Montgomery. Cain threw 99 pitches, a spring high on the Giants' staff.

Denard Span led off the game with a home run against Jake Arrieta. San Francisco prospect Chris Marrero hit a three-run homer in the ninth, his seventh, after replacing first baseman Brandon Belt, who struck out three times.

Arrieta gave up three runs and five hits while striking out seven over four innings. He also had a hit and scored a run.

REDS 9, DODGERS (ss) 3

Adam Duvall had three hits and four RBIs, including a pair of homers. Billy Hamilton added two hits and twice stole third off Los Angeles lefty Alex Wood, who gave up six runs  five earned  and 11 hits in six innings. Arismendy Alcantara also had two hits, including a solo homer.

Cincinnati right-hander Scott Feldman gave up two runs over 5 2/3 innings in a tuneup for opening day. He struck out four and walked two. Cody Bellinger hit a two-run homer off Feldman.

RANGERS 4, ROCKIES 3

A.J. Griffin allowed two runs on six hits and three walks over 5 1/3 innings for Texas. Joey Gallo went 2 for 4 with a solo homer and an RBI double.

Making a bid to bat leadoff for the Rangers, Delino DeShields has been on base 11 times in 16 plate appearances with center fielder Carlos Gomez sidelined by a shoulder injury.

Colorado prospect Antonio Senzatela gave up three runs and nine hits in five innings. Mark Reynolds hit a two-run homer and Nolan Arenado had two doubles.

ROYALS 7, WHITE SOX 4

Nathan Karns, who won a spot in Kansas City's rotation this spring, struck out seven while allowing one run and five hits in six innings.

Alex Gordon hit a leadoff homer for the Royals, and Cheslor Cuthbert and Brandon Moss each added a solo shot. Moss homered for the third straight game and has four this spring.

Chris Volstad gave up four runs and six hits  including three homers  over 3 2/3 innings for Chicago. White Sox prospect Jacob May appears to have won the center field job after getting two hits.

DODGERS (ss) 3, PADRES 1

Julio Urias allowed two hits in 2 2/3 scoreless innings and Bobby Wilson hit a two-run homer for Los Angeles.

Luis Perdomo tossed three scoreless innings for the Padres, who announced newcomer Jhoulys Chacin will start on opening day against Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers.

DIAMONDBACKS 15, MARINERS 6

In a marquee matchup of aces, Zack Greinke gave up three runs and six hits for Arizona without a walk or strikeout in four innings.

Seattle right-hander Felix Hernandez allowed one hit  a solo homer by Brandon Drury  while striking out four in two innings. Mike Zunino hit a two-run homer for the Mariners.

Kristopher Negron, A.J. Pollock, Jake Lamb, David Peralta and Marty Herum also homered for the Diamondbacks, and Yasmany Tomas stole home. Herum's drive was a grand slam.

BREWERS 13, INDIANS 12

Orlando Arcia hit two homers off struggling Cleveland ace Corey Kluber, who has a 6.17 ERA. Kluber gave up five runs on six hits with six strikeouts in five innings.

Ryan Braun also homered off Kluber.

Milwaukee's opening day starter, Junior Guerra, permitted nine hits and four runs in 3 2/3 innings. In his final two Cactus League starts, Guerra gave up 16 runs  11 earned  and 19 hits in 7 1/3 innings to finish the spring with a 6.75 ERA.

Cleveland's Daniel Robertson, a non-roster invite, had three hits, including a three-run double on which he appeared to strain his hamstring trying to go to third.

ANGELS 14, ATHLETICS 3

Martin Maldonado had five RBIs for Los Angeles, including a three-run homer. Bud Norris went two innings, allowing a hit with five strikeouts and one walk. Non-roster invitee Blake Parker, making a strong bid for a spot in the Angels' bullpen, struck out the side in the sixth. His last 11 outs have been strikeouts, with just one hit mixed in.

Oakland starter Logan Shore gave up one run and two hits in four innings.
By Tom Polansek CHICAGO (Reuters) - A cadre of U.S. lawmakers and food safety advocates are pressuring the federal government to join other nations blocking shipments of raw beef from Brazil in the face of a scandal in that country's meatpacking sector. The United States has already started testing all beef from Brazil for pathogens. But farm organizations argue stronger action is needed to protect the food supply, with consumers less able to choose the meat they buy following the end of U.S. laws requiring that beef be labeled to show its origin. Their push to halt Brazilian imports could also boost domestic sales. A slew of major meat buyers suspended imports after Brazilian federal police on March 17 unveiled an investigation into alleged payments to government health officials by meat processing companies to forego inspections and cover up health violations. Without a similar move by the United States, "consumers who wish to avoid the Brazilian product would have to avoid all the products," said Bill Bullard, chief executive of U.S. cattle producers' group R-CALF USA. U.S. legislators scrapped the U.S. labeling laws, known as COOL, in 2015 to avoid more than $1 billion in trade sanctions by Mexico and Canada. Last year, the United States began allowing shipments of fresh beef from Brazil after banning them due to concerns about foot and mouth disease in cattle. A box of meat imported from Brazil now would be labeled as coming from Brazil if it was sold to consumers in its original container, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). However, it would not be labeled if it is repackaged or reprocessed, the agency said. Meat from Brazil is generally processed further in U.S. facilities and then used to make products such as ground beef, lunch meat, frozen food or fast food, according to the North American Meat Institute, which represents U.S. meatpackers. On Monday, Brazil's agriculture minister said the country faced an uphill battle to rebuild its $14 billion meat export sector after the scandal hurt confidence in its products. Officials were heartened, though, by China's decision to lift import suspensions. A block on Brazil's beef by the USDA would deal another blow to the reputation of its meat, even though the United States is not a top customer. POSSIBILITY OF RETALIATION U.S. Senators Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Jon Tester of Montana, and U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, have pushed for a halt. Allowing unsafe beef into the country endangers consumers and "the reputation of U.S. beef producers whose meat is sold next to imported meat - now without mandatory country of origin labeling," Heitkamp said in a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump. Representatives of the USDA did not respond to requests for comment specifically on the lawmakers' calls for a ban. Sonny Perdue, tapped to be the next U.S. agriculture secretary, supports the agency's extra checks but told U.S. senators last week that Brazil might retaliate if the country halted beef imports. The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) visits plants approved for exports to ensure they have equivalent safety standards to U.S. facilities and could suspend Brazil's eligibility if it does not maintain such standards. Brazil's Agriculture Ministry says it has a strict system for regulating its 4,837 animal product-producing facilities, with 2,300 employees working on health inspections. Mauricio Porto, head of Brazil's National Union of Federal Sanitary Inspectors, said the safety system was strong. But he said the ministry had backed off a practice of rotating inspectors among plants to minimize influence and pressure from companies. Tony Corbo, a senior lobbyist for environmental group Food & Water Watch, said the USDA's extra checks on imported Brazilian beef amounted to the agency doing Brazil's inspection work. The United States has "spent a lot of money sending auditors down there and increasing inspections at ports and yet we still recognize them as having an equivalent inspection system," he said about Brazil. "It's just not." (Additonal reporting by Gustavo Bonato in Sao Paulo; Editing by Mary Milliken)
SAO PAULO (AP)  Police have arrested a former executive engineering manager of Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras for his alleged role in a mammoth corruption-kickback scheme.

Prosecutor Roberson Pozzobon tells reporters that Roberto Goncalves was arrested on Tuesday.

Petrobras has been at the center the corruption scandal that has ensnared powerful lawmakers and business executives.

Roberson says that Goncalves is suspected of using bank accounts in China, the Bahamas and Switzerland to receive billions of dollars worth of bribes paid by big construction companies to Petrobras executives to get lucrative contracts.
By Stephen Eisenhammer BRASILIA (Reuters) - Hong Kong said on Tuesday it has lifted a ban on the import of Brazilian meat, removing one of the last blanket bans by a major importer, but strong words from an EU commissioner visiting Brazil suggests the scandal over health standards is not over yet. "A suspicion of corruption is unacceptable," Vytenis Andriukaitis, EU commissioner for health and food safety, told reporters after meeting with Brazil's Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi to discuss police allegations that government regulators were paid bribes to turn a blind eye to breaches of sanitation rules. The Operation "Weak Flesh" probe has hit exports from the world's top beef and poultry exporter. Meat exports fell by around a fifth last week, the trade ministry said. Andriukaitis said he was happy with Brazil's attempts to clarify the situation but also urged broader action. "I expect Brazilian authorities to implement corrective actions to restore the credibility of their official controls as soon as possible," he said, adding "the question is not over." The comments demonstrate the uphill struggle Brazil now has to restore credibility in the competitive global market even as the immediate problem of import bans subsides. Hong Kong's Center for Food Safety said it eased the ban on Brazilian meat and poultry imports after it received further information from Brazilian authorities, according to statement on its website. Hong Kong had been one of several major buyers of Brazilian meat that froze imports after Brazil's federal police arrested dozens of people on March 17 and made allegations of corruption in the meat industry. No formal charges have been announced. Brazil's government moved to block exports from the 21 plants directly implicated in the probe and urged importers to restrict bans to just these units as it campaigned to inform trade partners about standards in the industry, one of the few sectors to have bucked a painful recession in the country. Most countries have now followed that guidance. Together with China, which lifted its ban on Saturday, Hong Kong bought nearly one-third of the $14 billion of meat that Latin America's largest economy exported last year. Hong Kong narrowed its ban to just the 21 plants and voiced confidence in "Brazilian authorities' stringent checks on the procedures for issuing international health certificates." Agriculture minister Maggi said investigators had not found any products that could harm the health of consumers, but conceded Brazil faced a struggle to recover its market share. EU officials and their Brazilian counterparts will meet in Brasilia on Thursday to continue discussing the implications of the police probe, Maggi told reporters after talks with Andriukaitis. The commissioner said during the talks that there was pressure from European consumers to clarify whether Brazilian meat was safe, Maggi said. He said the probe was an isolated problem exaggerated by the federal police. Brazil has ordered the temporary closure of six of the 21 food processing plants under investigation by the police and health authorities. The other 15 plants are not allowed to export, although they may still produce for the domestic market. The European Union has maintained a partial ban on products from the 21 meatpacking plants under investigation. In the United States, pressure is mounting on the federal government to join other nations blocking shipments of raw beef from Brazil. Brazil only gained access to the U.S. market for fresh meat last year, an important seal of approval for other importers. (Reporting by Stephen Eisenhammer and Ana Mano; Editing by Phil Berlowitz and Grant McCool)
By Brad Haynes SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc has dived into a spirited debate about graffiti in Brazil's biggest city, drawing a pointed response on Tuesday from Sao Paulo's mayor, who called the company "opportunist" and challenged it to make a public donation. Amazon kicked off the controversy with an online ad pegged to Mayor Joao Doria's "Pretty City" campaign, which has attracted both strong praise and criticism for painting over the city's street art and spray-painted tags. "They covered the city with grey?" reads the minute-long commercial, which shows quotes from famous works of literature projected onto major avenues painted over by the mayor. "We covered the grey with stories." The campaign added fuel to the debate over whether Doria was defending public landmarks or silencing artistic expression in a metropolis defined by the flamboyant graffiti that punctuates an otherwise monotonous urban landscape. It also pitted Amazon against a wealthy publisher and former reality TV star whose stunning first-round victory in last year's mayoral election has fed rumours that he could enter the wide-open 2018 presidential race. "I watched Amazon's commercial using the image of Sao Paulo to sell its products," Doria wrote in a response on Facebook, challenging the online retailer to donate books to city schools. "There are many ways for Amazon to act as a true citizen rather than an opportunist." Amazon press representatives in Brazil declined to comment. The company has been slower than other tech giants to embrace the Brazilian market, where it arrived in 2012 with its Kindle e-reader, which faces local competition from Livraria Cultura's Kobo and Livraria Saraiva's Lev . Amazon began selling physical books in Brazil in 2014 and brought its streaming video service to the country in December. (Reporting by Brad Haynes; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Brexit secretary David Davis (Rex)

Northern Ireland would have the ability to stay in the European Union after Brexit if it opts to join the Republic, a leaked ministerial letter has said.

Unlike Scotland, the country would not have to reapply for membership, if it voted for reunification, because the Republic of Ireland is already a member.

With Nicola Sturgeon pushing for second a Scottish referendum vote, the news could further damage Theresa Mays efforts to keep the Union together.

Ministers and government lawyers have concluded that the situation in Northern Ireland is similar to that of Germany before reunification.

The united Germany became an enlarged continuation of the Federal Republic and not a successor state in 1990.

It therefore retained all its memberships to the European Community (later the European Union) and Nato.

The leaked letter, from Brexit secretary David Davis to SDLP MP Mark Durkan, comes as civil servants prepare to take control of the countrys budget after power-sharing talks collapsed, according to The Times.

James Brokenshire, the Northern Ireland secretary, said there is no appetite for another election after the deadline to form a government passed.

He said that Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party would have a short window to resolve their differences.

We are rapidly approaching the point where Northern Ireland will not have an agreed budget, he said. This is not sustainable.

Both parties blamed each other. Sinn Fein was not in agreement-finding mode, Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Arlene Foster said.

Sinn Feins Michelle ONeill accused the DUP of not having the right attitude.

Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU last June by 56 per cent to 44 per cent.

Theresa May will trigger Article 50 on Wednesday, March 29, formally beginning the process by which Britain leaves the EU.
On the brink of famine Relatives of the six aid workers who were ambushed and killed grieve as they wait to collect and bury the bodies of their loved ones, outside the morgue in Juba, South Sudan Monday, March 27, 2017. The ambush of the six aid workers took place Saturday on the road from Juba, the capital, to Pibor, and is the latest of several attacks on aid workers in the country where at least 12 aid workers have been killed so far this year and 79 since civil war began in 2013. (AP)

The worlds largest humanitarian crisis in 70 years has been declared in three African countries on the brink of famine, just as President Donald Trumps proposed foreign aid cuts threaten to pull the United States from its historic role as the worlds top emergency donor.

The conflict-fueled hunger crises in Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan have culminated in a trio of potential famines hitting almost simultaneously. Nearly 16 million people in the three countries are at risk of dying within months.

We are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations, Stephen OBrien, the U.N. humanitarian chief, told the U.N. Security Council after a visit this month to Somalia and South Sudan. (AP)

>>> READ MORE ABOUT AFRICAS HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

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London (AFP) - Britain's new 1 coin with the symbols of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland goes into circulation from Tuesday on the eve of the launch of a Brexit process that has put national unity in doubt.

The 12-sided coin is the first change to the shape of the 1 coin since its introduction in 1983. Britain's finance ministry said the new coin would be "the most secure of its kind in the world" to prevent a rise in counterfeits.

About three percent of the current round-shaped coins are fakes.

The new pound coins will be thinner, lighter and slightly bigger than the old ones and will have a hologram-like image that changes from a "" symbol to the number "1" when viewed from different angles.

"Staying ahead of sophisticated counterfeiters remains a constant challenge and this coin helps in that battle," said Adam Lawrence, head of the Royal Mint, which is producing around 1.5 billion new coins.

The new bi-metallic coin has the same shape as the popular old "Threepenny bit" that was introduced in 1937 and went out with decimalisation in 1971.

Queen Elizabeth II's portrait will be on the obverse side of the coin, while England's rose, Scotland's thistle, Wales's leek and Northern Ireland's shamrock will be on the other side, held in a crown.

The old coins cease to be legal tender on October 15.

Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday is set to formally notify the European Union of Britain's intention to leave the bloc in a process that has caused a steep plunge in the value of the pound compared to the euro and dollar.

The United Kingdom as a whole voted to leave the EU in a referendum last year.

Most voters in Scotland and Northern Ireland wanted the UK to stay in the EU, but a majority in England and Wales opted for Britain to leave the bloc.
London (AFP) - British Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday signed the historic letter that will launch Brexit when it is delivered to Brussels on Wednesday, a photo released by her office showed.

Sitting in front of a lone Union Jack national flag and a portrait of Britain's first prime minister, Robert Walpole, a serene-looking May signed the letter to begin the country's departure from the European Union.

The letter will be taken from 10 Downing Street to Brussels, where it will be delivered by Tim Barrow, Britain's EU ambassador, to EU President Donald Tusk around 1130 GMT on Wednesday.

Formally notifying Tusk of Britain's intention to leave the bloc, by triggering Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, sets the clock ticking on a two-year negotiating period to end the UK's 44 years of membership.

On the eve of launching Brexit, May on Tuesday evening made separate phone calls to Tusk, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"They agreed that a strong EU was in everyone's interests and that the UK would remain a close and committed ally,"

Downing Street said.

"They also agreed on the importance of entering into negotiations in a constructive and positive spirit, and of ensuring a smooth and orderly exit process."

As Britain begins its break with the bloc on Wednesday, May will address parliament and promise to represent everyone in the UK -- including EU citizens -- in the negotiations with Brussels.

She will express hope "that we are no longer defined by the vote we cast, but by our determination to make a success of the result".

"We are one great union of people and nations with a proud history and a bright future. And, now that the decision has been made to leave the EU, it is time to come together," the prime minister will say, according to her speech published in advance by Downing Street.

Britain voted by 52 percent to leave the European Union in a referendum on June 23, 2016.
London (AFP) - A British court on Tuesday cut a soldier's sentence for killing an injured Taliban fighter to seven years after his murder conviction was reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Veterans hugged, cheered and waved flags bearing former Royal Marine Alexander Blackman's image outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London after the ruling, which means he could be released within weeks.

Blackman was sentenced in 2013 for shooting the fighter at close range in Afghanistan's Helmand Province on September 15, 2011, after the man was seriously injured by fire from an Apache helicopter.

"There you are. Shuffle off this mortal coil... It's nothing you wouldn't do to us," Blackman was heard saying, paraphrasing William Shakespeare's "Hamlet", in footage captured by a camera on another soldier's helmet.

"Obviously this doesn't go anywhere, fellas. I just broke the Geneva Convention," he said to his fellow Royal Marines, a reference to international laws governing the treatment of prisoners of war.

Blackman was originally sentenced to life in prison with a 10-year minimum although this was later reduced to eight years to account for the fact he was suffering from combat stress disorder.

That was the same reason given by judges earlier this month for downgrading his conviction to manslaughter.

"As with any person sentenced to a determinate term, his release will ordinarily be at the half-way point of the sentence," judge Robert Thomas said on Tuesday.

That means Blackman would be released three and a half years after his original December 2013 conviction.

Apart from army veterans, the campaign to free Blackman also had the support of the Daily Mail newspaper and best-selling author Frederick Forsyth.

The case marked the first time since World War II that a British soldier was convicted of a murder carried out on the battlefield.

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"You treated that Afghan man with contempt and murdered him in cold blood," judge Jeff Blackett told Blackman at his court-martial in 2013.

"By doing so you have betrayed your corps and all British service personnel who have served in Afghanistan, and you have tarnished their reputation," Blackett said.

The conviction was supported by Britain's chief of the defence staff at the time, Nicholas Houghton, who said: "Murder is murder, this is a heinous crime."

But earlier this month, judges said Blackman was suffering from a "combination of stressors" that impaired his ability to make rational decisions.

They said it was "clear that a consequence was that he had developed a hatred for the Taliban and a desire for revenge".
By David DeKok

HARRISBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - The discovery of a cache of cannon balls left behind after the worst civilian disaster of the U.S. Civil War brought construction on a Pennsylvania apartment complex to a halt on Tuesday while workers waited for the ordnance to be removed.

At least 20 cannon balls were unearthed on Monday in Pittsburgh by a contractor on the site of the former Allegheny Arsenal, where a Sept. 17, 1862 explosion killed 70 mostly teenaged workers.

There were too many cannon balls for the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police's bomb disposal unit to remove so a specialty firm from Maryland was called in to clear the site, said Sonya Toler, a spokeswoman for the Pittsburgh Department of Public Safety.

"They should be on the site today to begin the work," Toler said in an interview.

Officials believe the cannon balls are stable, but have posted a 24-hour police guard on the site, Toler said.

The cannon balls made at the site were often filled with black powder, intended to explode in the air and shower enemy troops with shrapnel, said Andrew Masich, president of the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh.

Workers had been alerted of the possibility that ordnance would be found, and stopped when the first cannonball turned up in the bucket of a excavator.

Many of the victims of the arsenal were torn apart and burned beyond recognition by the blast, which killed the 13-year-old daughter of one of the plant's supervisors, who had worked on the production line.

The disaster took place on the same day as the Battle of Antietam, which stands as the deadliest one-day battle of the war that led to the abolition of slavery in the United States.

Today, the cannon balls would likely pose little danger to the public, said John Biemeck, a retired U.S. Army Colonel who lives in Richmond, Virginia, and writes for Artilleryman Magazine: "These things are absolutely harmless unless some idiot took an electric drill and drilled into it."

(Editing by Scott Malone and James Dalgleish)
By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California man who prosecutors say led a gang of burglars in a decade-long string of Hollywood-style bank robberies, rappelling through roofs in matching outfits and carrying walkie-talkies, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Alceu Johnny Andreis, who was already serving 51 months behind bars for an attempted bank robbery in 2014, was also ordered by a federal judge to pay $12 million in restitution and forfeit two Mercedes-Benz cars and four Ducati motorcycles purchased with stolen loot.

Andreis, 48, was convicted of two counts of bank robbery following a jury trial in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in Los Angeles late last year.

Prosecutors said Andreis led a crew of burglars in a series of well-planned bank robberies across Southern California in which the members carefully cased each building, cut holes in the roofs to gain access via ropes and conducted numerous dry runs.

According to evidence presented at trial, the burglars also disabled sophisticated security systems, communicated via walkie-talkies and jackhammered through thick concrete bank vaults before making off with the cash and the contents of safe-deposit boxes.

Prosecutors said in court documents that Andreis drug-tested his subordinates, had them wear identical clothing and shoes and thoroughly wipe down their equipment to ensure they would leave behind no fingerprints or DNA evidence.

Andreis and other members of the gang were apprehended in 2014 while trying to burglarize a Citibank branch in the Los Angeles suburb of Diamond Bar.

Three other members of the group have pleaded guilty in connection with the bank robberies, prosecutors say. Two of those defendants were sentenced to prison terms of up to 10 years, while a third was awaiting sentencing.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Canada and Australia have goals to attract more international students to their universities with policies that include more relaxed visa procedures, work rules and paths to citizenship. And given the current unsettled political climate in the U.S. -- as well as the United Kingdom -- Canada and Australia are emerging as attractive education destinations for prospective international students.

Independent education consultant Zahra Rasul, founder and owner of Rasul Learning Group in Vancouver, says many of the firm's international clientele typically seek entrance into American universities. But she says that trend is quickly changing.

This application cycle compared to the last, she's seen a 25 percent increase in the number of international students applying to Canadian universities.

[Read these five considerations for choosing a university overseas.]

"Our Canadian students seem to also have shifted their focus away from the U.K. and the U.S. and are either choosing to remain in Canada or go to Australia," says Rasul.

Apart from Canadian universities offering high-quality education, she says many international students are drawn by the country's immigration policy and job opportunities. Rasul says a Taiwanese client turned down King's College London for McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, "because she seeks a path to citizenship in Canada."

Brazilian national Ligia Braidotti says she chose to study journalism in Canada because of the opportunity to work and live there longer after graduation than in the U.S. She graduated from Red River College in 2016 and is working for a community newspaper in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

[Learn three facts about earning a bachelor's degree in Canada.]

"Here I have opportunities to work in my field of study and apply for permanent residency, which leads to citizenship," says Braidotti.

In 2016, international students chose Canada because of its education system's reputation, its tolerant and nondiscriminatory society and its reputation as a safe country, according to the Canadian Bureau for International Education's international student survey.

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Inviting international students to Canada is part of a government strategy to attract talent for job creation and economic growth. In November 2016, changes to Canada's Express Entry program -- a merit-based system that allows skilled workers to immigrate -- made it easier for international students to become Canadian citizens.

Enrolled international students with a study permit are allowed to work off campus for up to 20 hours per week during the academic year and full time during scheduled breaks. With a postgraduation work permit, international students may continue working in Canada for up to three years after completing their studies.

In addition, Rasul says the progressive political climate in Canada under the current liberal administration of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau -- in contrast to the U.S.' more conservative administration, led by President Donald Trump, and particularly its stance on immigration -- makes Canada attractive to prospective international students.

One of Rasul's clients, who is a United Arab Emirates national, this year turned down early admission to Rice University in favor of the University of British Columbia, believing Canada offers him greater safety and religious freedom.

Australia is also earning a reputation as a popular study destination for international students. Last year, the number of international students in Australia hit a record high, with more than 550,000 international students from 190 nationalities, according to the Australian Department of Education and Training. Per the department, international education is Australia's third largest export.

[Learn about earning an undergraduate degree in Australia.]

Early this year, the department released the results of its biennial international student survey, in which 89 percent of those surveyed were satisfied with their study experience. The survey showed that the quality and global reputation of Australia's higher education system and degrees as well as personal safety and security were primary factors drawing international students.

Susan Elliott, professor and deputy vice-chancellor international at the University of Melbourne, said via email that the school's "extensive global networks and performance in international rankings puts us at the forefront of higher education in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond." She says this makes the school an attractive study destination for international students.

Prospective international students may also find appealing the ease with which they can secure student visas and work opportunities during their academic studies and postgraduation in Australia.

The government recently made the visa application process simpler for international students to navigate. Last April, it released the first National Strategy for International Education 2025, a 10-year plan for expanding Australia's global role in education, research and training. The plan in part focused on strengthening graduate employability.

International students can work part time during their studies and, depending on their visa, may remain in Australia for up to four years after graduation.

Ever since American Anna Donlan visited Australia in 2010 for a two-week volunteer program, she knew she had to go back. Now in her final year at the University of Melbourne's Doctor of Veterinary Medicine program, she says she chose Australia for the path to permanent residency as well as for work opportunities.

"At the moment, I would like to obtain permanent residency in Australia and start working in Australia for the first couple of years out of school and then see where life takes me," says Donlan. She may pursue full citizenship in the future too.

See the complete rankings of the Best Global Universities.

Anayat Durrani is a Los Angeles-based freelance education reporter for U.S. News, covering global universities, including those in the Arab region.
Paris (AFP) - Self-styled revolutionary Carlos the Jackal, already serving two life terms for murder, was given a third life sentence on Tuesday for a deadly 1974 Paris bombing.

Prosecutor Remi Crosson du Cormier had told the court in Paris on Monday that "all evidence gathered in this investigation points to Carlos" while admitting that investigators had found no DNA, fingerprints or CCTV evidence from the grenade attack on a store in the French capital that left two dead and 34 injured on September 15, 1974.

The flamboyant white-haired defendant, wearing a black shirt and jacket with a trademark kerchief in the breast pocket, blew kisses at supporters at the start of the hearing, taking the stand to denounce the "absurdity of a trial held 43 years after the fact".

Lawyers for the 67-year-old Venezuela native, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, had derided the two-week trial as "judicial palaeontology".

Defence lawyer Francis Vuillemin, calling for an acquittal, said a conviction would only feed the cult status of his client, who has been in prison in France since he was arrested by French elite police in the Sudanese capital Khartoum in 1994.

"If you convict him, he wins, if you acquit him, he loses," Vuillemin told the three-judge panel. "So acquit Carlos and he will take it out on his lawyers."

Carlos was the world's most wanted fugitive in the 1970s and early 1980s, when Europe was repeatedly targeted by groups sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

He boasted at the start of the trial: "No one in the Palestinian resistance has executed more people than I have."

- 'You don't snitch' -

He has claimed personal responsibility for 80 deaths but repeatedly denied responsibility for the Paris attack on the Drugstore Publicis store in the upmarket Left Bank district of Saint-Germain.

Carlos argued that he should not be required to testify against himself and said he faced death if he divulged operational information.

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On Tuesday he returned to his "Palestinian resistance" rulebook, saying: "You don't snitch, and you don't cooperate with a court you don't recognise."

Little known at the time of the Drugstore Publicis attack, Carlos rose to international notoriety the following year when his commando group burst into a meeting of the powerful OPEC oil cartel in Vienna, taking 11 people hostage. Three people were killed.

Carlos is serving life sentences for the murders of two policemen in Paris in 1975 and of a former comrade who betrayed him.

He was also found guilty of four bombings in Paris and Marseille in 1982 and 1983, some targeting trains, which killed a total of 11 people and injured nearly 150.

He was dubbed "Carlos the Jackal" by the press when he was giving international security services the slip while on the run.

The nickname came from a fictional terrorist in the 1971 Frederick Forsyth novel, "The Day of the Jackal", which was turned into a popular film.

Georges Holleaux, a lawyer representing the two widows of the men killed and 16 other people affected by the attacks, said before the trial that his clients relished the chance of seeing Carlos face justice.
He was once the worlds most wanted fugitive. In his heyday, Ilich Ramierz Sanchez, dubbed Carlos the Jackal, was the most prominent political terrorist of his time and the center of a worldwide manhunt that captured the worlds attention. But on Tuesday, a French court convicted the man to life in prison  for the third time.

Tuesdays verdict may quietly close this last chapter in a bizarre story that won Carlos international infamy. The Venezuelan-born militant joined the ranks of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a militant revolutionary group, at the age of 24. After joining, he carried out a spate of deadly attacks in the 1970s and 80s, all in the name of communist and Palestinian causes.

Terrorists werent even known then, said Billy Waugh, a former CIA operative who helped track him. Carlos was the man, he told BBC in 2014.

Carlos evaded police for decades, but French intelligence services finally captured him in Khartoum, Sudan, in 1994. They extradited him back to France, where hes been imprisoned ever since.

The latest trial centered on his 1974 grenade attack on a Paris shopping area that killed two and wounded 34. When the trial began in March, he claimed any killings he carried out were in the name of the revolution.

No-one has executed more people than me in the Palestinian resistance[and] I am the only survivor, Carlos said. In all the fighting, there were collateral victims, its unfortunate. He once bragged to a Venezuelan newspaper he killed 2,000 people in over 100 attacks.

The Marxist revolutionary was already sentenced to two life prison sentences  one for killing two French police officers in 1975 and another for orchestrating attacks on Parisian streets and train stations in 1982 and 1983 that killed 11 and wounded 150. In one of his most famous attacks, Carlos and five other militants stormed a meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting in Austria in 1975, killing three and taking sixty hostages, before escaping with hostages in tow to Algeria.

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The latest case took over twenty years to go to trial. It was initially dismissed after his capture in 1994 due to lack of evidence. Then when prosecutors brought the case forward again, Carloss lawyers challenged each step at every turn, dragging the procedure on for decades, and in turn arguing the case extended beyond the normal statute of limitations. When he took the stand this month he denounced the case as an absurd trial some four decades after the crime.

But the five-judge panel who delivered the verdict wasnt swayed and gave him a third life sentence. (A life sentence is the harshest verdict that can be doled out in France.)

For families of the victims, it was a far overdue judgment. Today we are extremely relieved, said Georges Holleaux, the lawyer representing the two dead victims families. Todays verdict is proof that there is nowhere, never, impunity if one is ready to fight. Let perpetrators of terrorist crimes know it: now the victims will never give up, Holleaux said.

French authorities arent investigating Carlos for any other crimes, so this is likely the last case against him. The story may not be over yet, though. Carloss lawyers vowed to appeal Tuesdays decision.



The media truth has permeated the judicial truth. The magistrates didnt dare acquit Carlos, Francis Vuillemin, one of his lawyers, said. Lets meet again in one year, for the appeal trial and for a new performance in this justice drama.

Photo credit: THOMAS COEX/AFP/Getty Images
By Pawel Sobczak WARSAW (Reuters) - The leaders of four Central European countries vowed on Tuesday not to be blackmailed by threats of financial punishment from Brussels if they don't join in the relocation of thousands of Middle Eastern and African refugees. Austria also said it will seek an exemption from having to accept more asylum-seekers, arguing that it has already taken in its fair share during Europe's migration crisis. The prime ministers of the Visegrad Group (V4) -- Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic -- said they have a sovereign right to decide how to deal with the migrants who have flooded into the continent mainly from the war in Syria. The EU's top migration official warned member states last week against failing to host refugees to help alleviate the pressure on countries like Greece and Italy, which have borne the brunt of arrivals across the Mediterranean. A number of politicians in the western EU have also spoken in favor of the bloc's plans to take actions against countries that do not want to accept refugees, including having their EU funding cut. "Poland and the Visegrad Group will never agree to this blackmail or to such conditions to be dictated," Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo told reporters journalists after the V4 meeting. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico also said it was "blackmail" to tie the issue of EU funding to migration policy. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has called mass migration a "Trojan horse for terrorism" also defended his new policy to detain migrants at the border. Fewer than 14,500 asylum-seekers have been relocated from Greece and Italy under the two-year EU plan that was supposed to cover 160,000 people and which expires in September. Some 1.6 million refugees and migrants reached the European Union between 2014 and 2016 and how to handle them has been a major point of contention between member states. "The current migration policy has failed the exam," Szydlo said. (Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Angieszka Barteczko, Pawel Florkiewicz in Warsaw and Krisztina Than in Budapest; Writing by Lidia Kelly Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
By Alastair Macdonald

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Leaving the European Union, to be triggered by Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday, may transform Britain but it will also change the EU. Here's how:

EU BUDGET: WHERE'S THE MONEY GONE?

The Union's budget accounts for only 2 percent of public spending in the bloc. But in the east, transfers from Brussels contribute a much bigger share - some 8 percent of Poland's budget and nearly a fifth of Bulgaria's.

Without Britain, Brussels will have about a sixth less to give to countries that are net recipients, setting up a fight between east and west over a 7-year spending plan from 2021.

In the short term, there will also be a battle with Britain over what it owes on leaving. London may choose to keep paying for access to some key EU budgets, such as for research. But big accounts, like farm subsidies, could be in for radical review.

BALANCE OF POWER: FRIENDS LEFT IN LURCH

Britain has used its 12-percent share of EU votes to curb Brussels spending and push hard for free trade. Its departure worries smaller northern allies like the Nordics and Dutch.

Poorer easterners, whose membership Britain championed, fret that Germany and France may stiffen barriers to their low-wage workforce or beef up EU federal powers the ex-communist states dislike. Aspiring new members, notably in the Balkans, also lose an ally against rich westerners wary of further EU enlargement.

The 19 euro countries will lose a key block on their caucus power. They can now outvote non-euro states, but only just. A non-euro bloc led by Poland and Sweden would need major dissent among euro countries to prevent the euro zone setting EU policy.

France becomes the EU's only nuclear-armed, veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and loses a dogged opponent of its ambitions for more EU defense cooperation outside the U.S.-led NATO alliance; defense is already back on Brussels' agenda.

Germany, ambivalent about being seen as dominating Europe by dint of its economic muscle and being home to nearly one post-Brexit EU citizen in five, is uneasy about how to maintain balance, notably with economically struggling co-founder France.

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EU IN THE WORLD: A DIMINISHED FORCE

The EU loses a hefty interlocutor with the United States and the wider English-speaking world. A historic diplomatic and military force, Britain's insight and influence with powers like China and Russia or in the Middle East have been useful to the EU. In Africa, a source of growing concern over migration, British aid budgets and other clout have played a key role.

London's tough line with Moscow has won it friends among the likes of the Baltic states and the Netherlands, which fear that a softer approach from France, Italy and, possibly, Germany will undermine a consensus for pressuring Russia with sanctions over its actions in Ukraine or for cutting dependence on Russian gas.

POLITICAL CULTURE: VIVE LE BREXIT?

Though under-represented in the staff of EU institutions, British officials over 44 years of membership have established a key role in senior positions as well as in the EU parliament. That will disappear as British citizens are shut out of EU jobs.

Many governments, notably from smaller states, value what they see as a British approach to administration that is more pragmatic and laissez-faire than the more centralized, dirigiste tradition embedded in the French foundations of the Union.

Britain will leave one legacy likely to survive in the form of English as Brussels' working language, despite some hopes in Paris of restoring the prominence of French.

SURVIVAL GAME: BREAKING THE BREAK-UP TABOO

Since the Brexit vote, EU leaders speak of a renewed unity among the remaining 27. Polls suggest popular support for the EU has broadly increased. But unity will be sorely tested by Brexit negotiations, with governments all having differing priorities.

The unprecedented use of Article 50 of the EU treaty breaks a taboo and means invocations of an "indivisible Union" now ring hollow. Brussels will have to contend with more threats to quit, coloring decision-making across the board for years to come.

(Additional reporting by Waverly Colville; editing by Andrew Roche)
By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China appears to have largely completed major construction of military infrastructure on artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea and can now deploy combat planes and other military hardware there at any time, a U.S. think tank said on Monday. The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), part of Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the work on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reefs in the Spratly Islands included naval, air, radar and defensive facilities. The think tank cited satellite images taken this month, which its director, Greg Poling, said showed new radar antennae on Fiery Cross and Subi. "So look for deployments in the near future," he said. China has denied U.S. charges that it is militarizing the South China Sea, although last week Premier Li Keqiang said defense equipment had been placed on islands in the disputed waterway to maintain "freedom of navigation." China's Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Tuesday she was unaware of the details of the think tank's report, but added the Spratly Islands were China's inherent territory. "As for China deploying or not deploying necessary territorial defensive facilities on its own territory, this is a matter that is within the scope of Chinese sovereignty," she told a daily news briefing. A Pentagon spokesman, Commander Gary Ross, declined to comment on the specifics of the AMTI report, saying it was not the Defense Department's practice to comment on intelligence. But he said that "China's continued construction in the South China Sea is part of a growing body of evidence that they continue to take unilateral actions which are increasing tensions in the region and are counterproductive to the peaceful resolution of disputes." AMTI said China's three air bases in the Spratlys and another on Woody Island in the Paracel chain further north would allow its military aircraft to operate over nearly the entire South China Sea, a key global trade route that Beijing claims most of. Several neighboring states have competing claims in the sea, which is widely seen as a potential regional flashpoint. The think tank said advanced surveillance and early-warning radar facilities at Fiery Cross, Subi and Cuarteron Reefs, as well as Woody Island, and smaller facilities elsewhere gave it similar radar coverage. It said China had installed HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles at Woody Island more than a year ago and had deployed anti-ship cruise missiles there on at least one occasion. It had also constructed hardened shelters with retractable roofs for mobile missile launchers at Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief and enough hangars at Fiery Cross for 24 combat aircraft and three larger planes, including bombers. U.S. officials told Reuters last month that China had finished building almost two dozen structures on Subi, Mischief and Fiery Cross that appeared designed to house long-range surface-to-air missiles. In his Senate confirmation hearing in January, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson angered China by saying it should be denied access to islands it had built up in the South China Sea. Tillerson subsequently softened his language, saying that in the event of an unspecified "contingency," the United States and its allies "must be capable of limiting China's access to and use of" those islands to pose a threat. In recent years, the United States has conducted a series of what it calls freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea, raising tensions with Beijing. (Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Richard Chang, Leslie Adler and Nick Macfie)
He may not be on set, but Chris Hemsworth would still prefer people not step between him and the camera. Any camera.

The Australian actor posted an amusing photo of his friends Luke Mun and April Mun posing with beers in hand by a pool on his Instagram Monday.

SEE ALSO: Chris Hemsworth goes full beast mode in intense workout video

Little do the pair know, but Hemsworth is effortlessly photobombing their shot, shirtless and with a drink in hand. Nothing but Thor chilling, you guys.

A post shared by Chris Hemsworth (@chrishemsworth) on Mar 27, 2017 at 2:11am PDT

Hemsworth's being enjoying himself on the beach recently, if his Instagram is anything to go by. He even dropped by the Quiksilver Pro surfing competition on the Gold Coast.

All that leisure time is not to say he hasn't been maintaining the bod, as you can see in this pretty intense workout video. He's also been busy photobombing other people's wedding snaps.

Because if you're Thor, you can do whatever you want, really.

WATCH: Lynda Carter is the POTUS we need in 'Supergirl'
The shooting at a nightclub in Cincinnati, Ohio, Sunday night that left one man dead and 15 others injured has raised concerns regarding the spike in mass shootings in the United States. The shooting was reported after 1 a.m. at the nightclub named Cameo, in which the police believe more than one person fired shots, according to local reports.

The Cameo nightclub has a history of gun violence, authorities said. Police said that in 2015, there were two shootings at the club, one on New Year's Day and the other in September, according to WLWT, an NBC affiliate.

Read: Wife of Killer, In Deadly Terrorist Attack At Gay Nightclub In Orlando, To Be Detained Until Trial

A mass shooting is any incident where four or more people are injured or killed. There have been already 71 incidents of mass shootings in the U.S. this year, according to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive. In 2016, there were nearly 340 mass shooting incidents in the U.S. and more than 400 people were killed and about 1,400 were wounded. In 2015, there were about 372 mass shootings.

Here is a look at some mass shooting incidents in the U.S. in the past four years that have caught international attention:

On June 12, 2016, Omar Saddiqui Mateen, 29, opened fire inside a gay nightclub in Orlando where at least 49 people were killed and more than 50 were injured. Mateen was killed by law enforcement officials who raided the club after a long standoff, according to reports.

On March 9, 2016, two gunmen fired at a backyard barbecue party in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, killing five people, of whom four were women. The police said that once the shooting started, people tried to run inside the house but a second gunman opened fire from the side not allowing the people to run for protecting themselves, according to BBC.

On Dec. 2, 2015, two heavily armed attackers, Syed Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, opened fire on a banquet at a social service center for the disabled in San Bernardino, California. Fourteen people were killed and more than a dozen others were seriously wounded, according to Dawn.

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On Oct. 1, 2015, Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer went on a deadly shooting rampage at an Oregon college, in which nine people were killed and nine others injured. The shooter died after a gun battle with police at the college, according to CNN.

On June 17, 2015, white gunman, Dylann Roof, 21, shot and killed nine people inside a historic black church in South Carolina. Roof told the police that he wanted to start a race war, Huffington Post reported.

On Sept. 16, 2013, Aaron Alexis, a 34-year-old former Navy reservist, opened fire at Navy Yard, killing 12 people before police killed him, according to the Guardian.

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Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray said though hes encouraged by President Donald Trumps assault on what he called fraudulent green legislation, he doubts many mining jobs will be coming back.

Murray, 77, founder of the largest privately held coal mining company in the U.S., told Mondays Guardian he is confident the president will follow through on promises to scrap the clean power plan, former President Barack Obamas signature climate change plan, which was designed to cut carbon emissions from the power sector by 32 percent by 2030. Murray blamed the plan for the closure of 411 coal-fired power plants and a freeze on new construction.

Read: Coal Lobbyist Next EPA Deputy Administrator, Report Says

Murray, who accused the Obama administration of trying to destroy the coal industry, visited the White House last month and presented Trump with a plan for overturning many of the previous administrations protections, including reclassifying carbon dioxide as a nonpollutant. He also wants Trump to level the playing field by eliminating subsidies for renewable energy sources like solar and wind.

Barack Obama and his Democrat supporters were the greatest destroyers the United States of America has ever seen in its history, Murray told the Guardian. He destroyed reliable electric power in America, he destroyed low-cost electric power in America, and he attempted to totally destroy the United States coal industry.

Coal currently provides 30 percent of the nations electric needs, down from 52 percent in 2009. The Mine Safety and Health Administration says the coal industry employed 98,505 people in 2015, down from 127,745 in 2008 and 250,000 in the 1970s.

Read: Is The Environment Protection Agency In Danger?

Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, Monday signed a series of measures that cancel federal regulations and cut red tape.

During the presidential campaign, he pledged to bring back coal jobs and repeated those promises last week at a rally in Louisville, Kentucky. The budget he presented earlier this month gutted the Environmental Protection Agency.

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Murray said he told the president to temper his expectations when it comes to restoring mining industry jobs, however, because many of them were lost to technology, not regulation.

He cant bring them back, Murray said.

The administration is expected to lift a moratorium on federal coal mining leases Tuesday, but Robert Godby, a professor of energy economics at the University of Wyoming, told Bloomberg no one is looking for new coal reserves.

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Abidjan (AFP) - An Ivory Coast jury on Tuesday acquitted former first lady Simone Gbagbo of crimes against humanity during the 2010-11 post-election crisis in a stunning verdict after the prosecution had sought to jail her for life.

"A majority of the jury declared Simone Gbagbo not guilty of the crimes of which she has been accused, pronounced her acquittal and ordered that she be immediately freed if she is not being held for other reasons," said the head of the country's top criminal court, judge Kouadjo Boiqui.

Once dubbed Ivory Coast's "Iron Lady," Gbagbo, who was not in court Tuesday, is already serving a 20-year sentence for "endangering state security."

The prosecution in summing up its case against the 67-year-old wife of ex-president Laurent Gbagbo on Tuesday had called on the jury to find her "guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes and sentence her to life imprisonment," said prosecutor Aly Yeo.

He described her as a shadowy figure who orchestrated attacks on her husband's opponents.

"After her spouse came to power, she started to impose herself as the real head of Ivory Coast, the army, the police and gendarmerie," Yeo said.

Laurent Gbagbo is on trial for crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and persecution, having been handed over in November 2011 to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

The ICC also wanted to prosecute his wife and issued a warrant for her arrest, but Ivorian authorities refused to hand her over, insisting she would receive a fair trial at home.

- 60 days to appeal -

The judge on Tuesday said that the parties had 60 days to appeal the verdict which the jury reached after deliberating for six hours.

The head of Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), former prime minister Pascal Affi Nguessan, welcomed the court decision and said he looked forward to "the release of other political prisoners".

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The FPI said it saw the decision as "a readiness to move to reconciliation".

Following the 2010 presidential elections, some 3,000 people died in five months of unrest in the cocoa-rich west African state after Laurent Gbagbo, who lost to current Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara, refused to step down.

The prosecution charged that Simone Gbagbo had headed a crisis cell -- "a genuine decision-making body" that allegedly coordinated attacks by armed forces and pro-Gbagbo militias.

The evidence came from documents found in the home of the presidential couple when the pair were arrested on September 11, 2011, he said.

"She replied to correspondence from arms dealers offering weapons and combat helicopters," said Yeo.

She was accused of distributing arms to militias backing her husband following his election defeat.

In one case, she allegedly played an indirect role in the shelling of a market in Abobo, a Ouattara stronghold in the economic capital Abidjan, in November 2010.
A community erupted in celebration for a 5-year-old Indiana boy returning home for the first time in a year after beating cancer.

Read: Veteran Diagnosed With Parkinson's Disease and Throat Cancer Gifted $20,000 From Local Church

Carter Guess, 5, celebrated his homecoming to Terre Haute alongside local deputies, firefighters and even a motorcycle club over the weekend after spending the past year in isolation at the hospital, where he received treatment.

Carter even became an honorary firefighter, thanks to the Lost Creek Fire Department, which also honored him with the department's annual courage award.

"He gets to be a 5-year-old now," his mom, Jessica Guess, told WTHI. "It just overwhelms you to see people come out and support your journey when you've been isolated for so long."

She explained that her son was diagnosed with neuroblastoma 18 months ago, and was only given a five percent chance of survival.

"For the first year, he couldn't be around anybody," Guess explained. "He was suicidal, upset. He thought everybody turned against him and he didn't have friends, but he just wasn't allowed to be around people for his own safety."

During that time, he was treated with radiation, chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants, and a surgery.

Read: Take That, Sith Lord! Little Boy 'Jedi' Battles Cancer, Then Kicks Darth Vader's Butt

Despite the painful treatments, Carter was declared cancer free over the weekend, and was allowed to go home the following day.

"I just pray the cancer stays away and he gets to grow up and live and be a little boy right now," Guess said.

Watch: Flash Mob Surprises Mom of 4 Battling Cancer With $13,000 for Medical Bills

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As President Trump moved to dismantle climate change rules today, another lesser known political battle was waiting in the wings: A Penn State professors testimony before a House committee chaired by a congressman firmly opposed to the scientists work.

Michael Mann, a professor of atmospheric science, is expected to testify Wednesday that climate change is real and that its chief cause is human activity.

But hell be speaking before Texas Republican Lamar Smith, chairman of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Smith is a fervent believer that climate change is a politically motivated manipulation of facts.

Mann was on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international panel of scientists assessing climate, and is widely viewed as a leader in the field. Hes also become a lightning rod and says hes received death threats.

Smith has lined up three other speakers, academics and scientists who either doubt the methods used by people like Mann to prove the climate is changing, or doubt that it is caused by human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels.

One of the speakers, Judith Curry, a recently retired professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, relished in her blog this week the thought of lining up against Mann.

It is the first time I will be on the same panel as Michael Mann, she wrote. This should be high theater for climate geeks. Get your popcorn ready.

John Christy, a professor at the University of Alabama and that states climatologist, is also scheduled as a witness. In the past, he has testified before Congress against the mainstream scientific communitys view on climate.

Also scheduled is Roger Pielke Jr. a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado. Pielke has written that he believes climate change is real and human activity has an impact. But he says theres little evidence that weather has gotten more extreme. In fact, he believes current weather patterns are not extreme.

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Mann says he believes its important for him to testify, regardless of the panels composition, because, the stakes here couldnt be any greater. Mann has been the target of a professor watch list and has been under fire previously by the right.

I doubt that Lamar Smith can be convinced to accept the basic facts. His leading funders are the fossil fuel industry, Mann wrote in an email. As Upton Sinclair once famously said, It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

My message  that the science is clear that climate is real, human-caused, and a problem  is aimed at reasonable folks looking on. I think it will become clear over the course of this hearing, who stands for science, and who stands for obfuscation.

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Tabqa Dam (Syria) (AFP) - Clashes raged around a key northern Syrian town on Tuesday after the Islamic State group launched a counter-attack to fend off a US-backed advance near the jihadists' stronghold Raqa.

Backed by air power from the international coalition bombing IS, the Syrian Democratic Forces are laying the groundwork for an assault on the heart of the jihadists' so-called "caliphate".

A key part of the campaign is the battle for the IS-held town of Tabqa on the Euphrates River, as well as the adjacent dam and military airport.

The SDF seized the Tabqa airbase late Sunday and began moving north towards the town itself, but IS fighters began pushing back on Tuesday, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"The fighting is a result of IS launching a counter-offensive to exhaust the Syrian Democratic Forces around the Tabqa military airport," said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Observatory.

The SDF was working to "consolidate its positions" near the airport ahead of a final push for the town, he said.

IS launched the attack with a car bomb targeting SDF forces stationed near the airport, the alliance's media arm said.

Fierce clashes broke out but the SDF held back the attack and managed to seize some ammunition and rocket stores from IS, according to pictures published by the SDF.

SDF fighters are also bearing down on the Tabqa dam after capturing its northern entrance on Friday from IS fighters.

The fight around the structure has been backed by forces from the US-led coalition, with American-made armoured vehicles bearing the markings of the US Marine Corps seen moving along a nearby road.

An AFP correspondent at the dam on Tuesday said it was generally quiet around the dam itself, despite the occasional IS-fired mortar that landed in SDF-controlled parts of the riverbank.

Planes could be heard above as SDF forces patrolled the northern entrance of the structure.

- 'Acceptable' water levels -

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On Tuesday, coalition forces could be seen standing near military vehicles less than two kilometres (one mile) from the dam, their mortar rounds casually stacked nearby.

After a brief pause in fighting on Monday to allow technicians to enter the dam complex, SDF fighters resumed their operations around the structure, said spokeswoman Jihan Sheikh Ahmed.

"IS amassed its fighters and attacked our forces in the area, which forced us to respond and resume the operations to liberate the dam," she said.

Earlier this year, the United Nations raised concern about the prospect of damage to the dam in fighting, warning that water levels -- which put pressure on the structure -- were already high.

On Tuesday, technicians accompanied by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent could be seen examining the dam to assess whether water levels had risen in recent days.

"The explosions and the clashes are threatening the dam, and we ask for all sides to distance themselves from it," said Ismail Jassem, an engineer from the SDF-controlled Tishreen Dam in neighbouring Aleppo province.

"The water levels are acceptable now. We came to open up one of the gates to relieve the pressure," he told AFP.

IS has accused the US-led coalition of bringing the dam to near-collapse with its air strikes, and on Tuesday it said an American air raid killed top technicians at the dam.

"An American strike yesterday targeted the technical team at the Euphrates Dam, which killed the dam director, a technician, and an electrical engineer," the group said on its Amaq propaganda channel.

The SDF launched its offensive for Raqa city in November, seizing around two thirds of the surrounding province, according to the Britain-based Observatory.

At their closest point, the forces are just eight kilometres (five miles) from Raqa city, to the northeast. But they are mostly further away, between 18 and 29 kilometres (between 11 and 18 miles) from Raqa.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources on the ground in Syria, said IS had deployed around 900 fighters from Raqa city to various fronts in the wider province.

"Fighting is raging on every front around the city of Raqa, accompanied by non-stop air strikes," Abdel Rahman said.

Syria's conflict began with protests against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011 but has turned into a brutal war pitting government forces, jihadists, rebels, and Kurds against each other.

UN-mediated talks between government and rebel representatives continued Tuesday in Geneva, aimed at bringing an end to the war that has killed 320,000 people.

The lead negotiator for the main opposition High Negotiations Committee, Mohamad Sabra, said in an interview late Monday that there could be "no real and viable political solution without the presence of the Americans."
Beirut (AFP) - The Islamic State group launched a counter-attack Tuesday against US-backed fighters closing in on a key jihadist-held town in northern Syria, a monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said clashes were raging around Tabqa, a town on the southern bank of the Euphrates River.

"The fighting is a result of IS launching a counter-offensive to exhaust the Syrian Democratic Forces around the Tabqa military airport," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

The battle for Tabqa is a major part of the SDF's flagship campaign for the city of Raqa, the Syrian heart of IS's so-called "caliphate".

Backed by the US-led coalition bombing IS, the SDF seized the Tabqa airbase late Sunday and began pushing north.

Abdel Rahman said the SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab forces, was working to "consolidate its positions" near the airport ahead of a final push for the town.

SDF fighters are also bearing down on the Tabqa dam after capturing its northern entrance on Friday from IS fighters.

After a brief pause in fighting on Monday to allow technicians to enter the dam complex, SDF fighters resumed their operations around the structure, spokeswoman Jihan Sheikh Ahmed said.

"IS amassed its fighters and attacked our forces in the area, which forced us to respond and resume the operations to liberate the dam," she said.

Earlier this year, the United Nations raised concern about the prospect of damage to the dam in fighting, warning that water levels -- which put pressure on the structure -- were already high.

At their closest point, the SDF are just eight kilometres (five miles) from Raqa city, to the northeast. But they are mostly further away, between 18 and 29 kilometres (between 11 and 18 miles) from Raqa.

The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources on the ground across the country, said IS had deployed around 900 fighters from Raqa city to various fronts in the wider province.

"Fighting is raging on every front around the city of Raqa, accompanied by non-stop air strikes," Abdel Rahman said.
A Tennessee couple was arrested last week after allegedly trying to sell their infant on Craigslist.

According to the Greene County Sheriff's Office, John David Cain, 26, and Deanna Lynn Greer, 37, told a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation official they wanted $3,000 for the baby after posting an ad last week.

Watch: Couple Tries to Sell 3-Month-Old Baby for Drug Money, Cops Say

An undercover TBI agent reportedly arranged to meet the couple Friday afternoon at a Dollar General store, where authorities say Cain and Greer were paid the asking price in cash before allegedly handing over the 5-month-old.

Cain and Greer were subsequently arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse and aggravated child neglect or endangerment.

According to the arrest warrant, the couple "did knowingly place the child in threat of serious danger, bodily injury or death by selling the child to an unknown person."

Read: Foster Children Found Locked in Dark Room, Bound to Beds With Hands and Mouths Taped Shut: Cops

Both are being held at the Greene County Jail on $150,000 bond.

Greer is due in court April 7 and Cains date was set for the following day.

Watch: 3 Young Children Die in Fire While Visiting Grandpa's House

Related Articles:
Sorry to ruin your lives, but Crayola is acting ~cray~ and we really need to address it.

Last week, the beloved art supply company that fueled all of your childhood creativity announced it would be doing something huge on March 31 (a.k.a. National Crayon Day).

Handing out free art supplies? Organizing the world's largest craft mob? NOPE. For the first time in over one hundred years, Crayola decided it's time to retire a color from its classic, iconic 24-count box of crayons.

SEE ALSO: This App Makes Coloring Books Come to Life

The company casually announced its ruthless decision on its social media platforms as though it wouldn't crush anyone who has ever colored outside the lines or dared to dream. My gosh. Then, Crayola had the audacity to announce it would be live-streaming the madness and holding an event in New York's Times Square to really celebrate this tragedy.

If you're wondering whether the company will be welcoming a new color to the 24-pack or we'll have to adjust to life with 23 crayons, Joshua Kroo, Director of Marketing Communications & Virtual Creativity Platform, assured Mashable that the 24-count box is safe. So at least we still have that.

"The color will be retired across the entire crayon portfolio including the iconic 24 and 64 count boxes as well as all other Crayon products," he said. "Crayola is all about innovating with color so consumers can expect that there will be a new, exciting color coming soon! Of course, the 24 box will always have that number of crayons."

Have you seen our larger than life crayon box in Herald Square in NYC?! Tag us in your photos & click the link in our bio to find out #whosleaving the box on 3/31/17! A post shared by Crayola (@crayola) on Mar 26, 2017 at 5:24pm PDT

Everything wrong with this heartless decision:

The general timing of this ordeal: Do we really need this added drama in our lives right now, Crayola? No. And you choose to celebrate NATIONAL CRAYON DAY, of all days, by killing a classic crayon off? How do you plan to sleep at night?

You're pitting us against one another: Aside from harsh social media hashtags associated with this event such as #WhosLeaving and #ShareYourFave, Crayola is also encouraging crayon lovers everywhere to fight for their most beloved colors to stick around, promoting favoritism and resulting in a bunch of sad crayon posts.

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Is there a color you can't live without? Share a photo w/ #ShareYourFave on Instagram! https://t.co/9otXTPwWUg pic.twitter.com/JSozNdcJhh  Crayola (@Crayola) March 27, 2017

This brutal, gut-wrenching COUNT DOWN on Crayola's website, which shows the company is clearly a monster disguised as a fun-promoting, childhood-loving farce for all these years.

Coloring book of the dead

So the 24-count box currently includes the following crayon colors: red, yellow, blue, brown, orange, green, violet, black, carnation pink, yellow orange, blue green, red violet, red orange, yellow green, blue violet, white, violet red, dandelion, cerulean, apricot, scarlet, green yellow, indigo and gray.

It seems like the primary and secondary colors would remain, along with everyone's go-tos, black and brown. But who even knows anymore??

"We know from polls across America that blue is the most popular color, but of course, everyone has their favorite Crayola color!" Kroo said.

This means color combos and variations of classics might have reason to worry. But if we were the notoriously useless white crayon, we'd be sweating our wrappers off right now.

Whatever happens, we'll always remember our classic 24-pack.

WATCH: Create hundreds of different color tones with this magical art tool
Las Vegas (AFP) - Filmmaker Edgar Wright revealed Monday the death-defying extremes he went to for heist thriller "Baby Driver" -- strapping himself to the outside of a speeding car to get the right shots.

The British writer-director said he would normally direct his bank robbers from the safe distance of a "command van" but found he had to get closer to the action when the satellite feed failed.

"I took to strapping myself to the car, on the outside of the car like Mad Max," Wright, 42, told an audience on the opening night of the CinemaCon conference in Las Vegas.

"I was genuinely suffering for my art, so I could see the actors' faces... I now know what it is like to go backwards at 70 miles per hour."

The hotly anticipated crime caper was showcased as part of Sony's presentation at CinemaCon, an annual event in which Hollywood decamps to Sin City to show theater operators the movies it has planned for the coming 12 months.

"Baby Driver" stars Ansel Elgort ("The Fault in our Stars") as a gifted getaway driver who suffers from tinnitus -- ringing in his ears -- and has to play music on an iPod to concentrate when he is behind the wheel.

Wright ("Shaun of the Dead," "Hot Fuzz"), Elgort and Jon Hamm took to the stage at Caesar's Palace to show off the opening minutes of the movie, which also stars Lily James, Jamie Foxx, Kevin Spacey and Jon Bernthal.

Hamm ("Mad Men") revealed that the high speed action filmed over three months on the highways of Atlanta last year was all real, with no help from green screens or CGI.

"It is very real and very exciting to be in a car that is going the wrong way on a working interstate being driven at 70 mph by a kid from New York who kind of just learned how to drive," the 46-year-old said.

"There's not a lot of acting in the back seat, where I'm looking terrified and visibly sweating."

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"Baby Driver" has become one of the most eagerly awaited films of the summer after scoring an average of 8.5 out of ten from more than 20 early reviews collated by movies website Rotten Tomatoes.

In a sign of Sony's growing confidence in the high-octane action film, the studio revealed it had moved the release date forward more than six weeks to June 28.

The new date puts the crime caper on a collision course with "Transformers: The Last Knight," and "Despicable Me 3," both of which will hit cinemas in the first weekend in July.

But the competition is unlikely to faze executives after a triumphant debut at the South by Southwest festival in Texas this month, where "Baby Driver" received rave reviews.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A member of President Donald Trump's transition team, Makan Delrahim, will be nominated to head the U.S. Justice Department's Antitrust Division, the White House said on Monday. Delrahim is expected to move to the Justice Department after finishing up in the White House counsel's office, where he has worked to steer Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch through the Senate confirmation process. The Senate must vote to confirm Delrahim once the nomination is formalized. As the proposed chief of the Antitrust Division, Delrahim would review corporate mergers at a time when many investors and corporate executives are anticipating a more relaxed view of deal-making after years of tough oversight by the administration of former President Barack Obama. Antitrust experts who have followed Delrahim's career have said that when it comes to merger approvals he would follow in the footsteps of a former boss, Hewitt Pate, who was assistant attorney general of antitrust from 2003 to 2005. Delrahim was Pate's deputy, specializing in international antitrust. Under Pate, the division was criticized for allowing too many deals, but it sued to stop US Airways from merging with United Airlines and blocked a deal to combine DirecTV and EchoStar. It tried but failed to stop Oracle Corp from buying PeopleSoft. "I know Makan Delrahim to be smart, energetic and expert in antitrust. He is certainly no pushover," said Seth Bloom, a former general counsel of the Senate antitrust subcommittee who knew Delrahim when both worked on Capitol Hill. Reuters first exclusively reported on March 17 that Delrahim was expected to be nominated to head the Justice Department's Antitrust Division. If confirmed, Delrahim would oversee the Justice Department's assessment of AT&T's Inc plan to buy Time Warner Inc, the owner of HBO, Warner Brothers and news network CNN. The department is reviewing a number of major transactions in seeds and agricultural chemicals, like the mergers of Dow Chemical Co and Dupont, and of Bayer and Monsanto. Those proposed deals, along with ChemChina's purchase of Syngenta, would consolidate six agricultural chemical companies into three.Before going to work at the White House after Trump's inauguration in January, Delrahim was a lobbyist with the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP. One client in 2016 was health insurer Anthem Inc, which this year lost a court fight with the Justice Department over whether it would be allowed to merge with Cigna. Anthem has appealed the loss. (Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
Rep. Devin Nunes briefs reporters at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., last week. (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

House intelligence committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., is resisting growing calls for him to step aside over the revelation he had gone to the White House grounds to receive classified information related to committees investigation into Russian interference in last years election.

Speaking to reporters as he arrived on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning, Nunes said the investigation is moving forward.

Weve been investigating Russia for many, many years, he said.

Asked if he felt he could continue to lead the investigation, Nunes replied: Why would I not?

His comments came amid a chorus of Democrats calling for his recusal.

This is what a cover-up to a crime looks like, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., a member of the committee, said on MSNBCs Morning Joe. Going over to the White House, he went to receive information that you know, Joe, we can receive at the Capitol. We have our own secure facility.

I do think it is time for Mr. Nunes to step aside for the sake of this investigation, Rep. Joseph Crowley. D-N.Y., said on CNN, so we can get to the bottom of this without innuendo or suspicion.

Related: Russia probe in turmoil as top Dem calls for Nunes recusal

Nunes sparked a firestorm last week when he declared that had seen information leading him to believe that communications from President Trump or his associates may have been incidentally picked up by U.S. intelligence agencies.

His statement, provided without evidence, was seized on by Trump, who said it supported his own apparently baseless claim that former President Barack Obama ordered a wiretap of his Trump Tower headquarters. The White House called on the House and Senate intelligence committees to investigate Trumps wiretapping claim while they probe the Kremlins efforts to influence the U.S. election.

Nunes apologized to his committee members for briefing the White House on his findings before them, and intrigue has swirled as to who, exactly, gave the California lawmaker his secret intel. On Monday, reports indicated that he had talked to his mystery source on the White House grounds.

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But it wasnt just Democrats who were befuddled by Nunes actions.

I think he put his objectivity in question at the very least, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on NBCs Today. The problem that hes created is hes gone off on a lark by himself, sort of an Inspector Clouseau investigation here.

I think there needs to be a lot of explaining to do, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on CBS This Morning. Ive been around for quite a while, and Ive never heard of any such thing.

Graham said if Nunes is not willing to tell the Democrats and the Republicans on the committee who he met with and what he was told, then I think hes lost his ability to lead.

McCain reiterated his call for a select committee to investigate Moscows meddling in the U.S. election process.

This is a very serious issue, McCain said. It all started with Russian interference, attempt to change the outcome of our election. It turned into a centipede like these things have a tendency of doing, and another shoe seems to drop every few days.

On Monday night, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the committee, called for Nunes to recuse himself.

Also read: Schiff has gone up against Russia (and Colbert) before

This is not a recommendation I make lightly, Schiff said in a statement. But in much the same way that the attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Russia investigation after failing to inform the Senate of his meetings with Russian officials, I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the presidents campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman.

Nunes abruptly canceled a public hearing set for Tuesday, and CNN reported that all intelligence committee meetings were canceled this week amid the growing rancor within its ranks.

I dont trust him, Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., said on CNN. I think hes a very nice man. I think he is frankly over his head.

I think that the writing is on the wall, she added. It might make a good spy novel. It doesnt make a good investigation.

Not only has this investigation sort of had a shadow cast on it, but the committees been put into suspended animation, Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., said on Morning Joe.

Meanwhile, Schiff is urging that former acting Attorney General Sally Yates be permitted to testify before the committee following a Washington Post report that Yates had sought permission from the White House to speak, but was told much of her testimony would be barred because the topics are covered by the presidential communication privilege.

The White House called the report entirely false.

The White House has taken no action to prevent Sally Yates from testifying and the Department of Justice told her that it would not stop her, an administration official said in a statement. To suggest otherwise is completely irresponsible.

I hope she testifies, White House press secretary Sean Spicer added at his daily briefing. I look forward to it.

Yates and other former intelligence officials had been scheduled to appear before committee this week, but Nunes abruptly canceled the hearing.

Read more from Yahoo News:
(WASHINGTON) - House intelligence chairman Devin Nunes went to the White House grounds to review intelligence reports and meet the secret source behind his claim that communications involving Trump associates were caught up in incidental surveillance in the waning days of the Obama administration.

The location of the meeting, confirmed Monday by Rep. Devin Nunes spokesman, revived questions about the independence of the committees investigation into Russias interference in the 2016 election and Trump associates ties with the Kremlin. Democrats have accused Nunes of coordinating with the White House, an allegation he has strongly denied.

After reviewing the information last week, Nunes called a news conference to announce that U.S. spy agencies may have inadvertently captured Trump and his associates in routine targeting of foreigners communications. Trump quickly seized on the statements as at least partial vindication for his assertion that President Barack Obama tapped his phones at Trump Tower - though Nunes and FBI Director James Comey as well as the committees top Democrat have said there is no such evidence.

The Senate intelligence committee is also conducting an investigation into Russias interference in the election and possible ties with the Trump campaign. And on Monday, it announced that Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner has agreed to be interviewed. The White House confirmed that Kushner, a senior Trump adviser, had volunteered to be interviewed about arranging meetings with the Russian ambassador and other officials.

Kushner is the fourth Trump associate to offer to be interviewed by the congressional committees looking into the murky Russia ties. Trumps former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, Trump adviser Carter Page and Trump associate Roger Stone last week volunteered to speak as well.

Mr. Kushner will certainly not be the last person the committee calls to give testimony, but we expect him to be able to provide answers to key questions that have arisen in our inquiry, the chairman, Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, and the top Democrat, Mark Warner of Virginia said in a joint statement Monday in a sign of bipartisanship.

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The House investigation, meanwhile, has been plagued with partisan divisions under Nunes leadership.

The chairman did not tell the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, about the meeting at the White House complex. It is highly unusual for a committee chairman and ranking member not to coordinate meetings related to an investigation.

I think the chairman has to make a decision whether to act as a surrogate of the White House - as he did during the campaign and the transition - or to lead an independent and credible investigation, Schiff said Sunday on CBS Face the Nation.

Spokesman Jack Langer said Monday that circumstances required that Nunes go to a secure room at the White House complex to review classified executive branch documents that have not been provided to Congress.

In addition to the White House itself, the grounds include an adjacent building with offices for National Security Council and other executive branch employees.

Because of classification rules, the source could not simply put the documents in a backpack and walk them over to the House Intelligence committee space, Langer said. The White House grounds was the best location to safeguard the proper chain of custody and classification of these documents, so the chairman could view them in a legal way.

Nunes would not name the source of the information. In an interview with Bloomberg View on Monday, Nunes said the source was not a White House staffer and was an intelligence official.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer would not comment on whether White House officials were involved with Nunes.

Im not going to get into who he met with or why he met with them, Spicer said.

The clandestine meeting was remarkable for a committee that seeks to demonstrate bipartisanship, said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University who has written extensively about separation of powers.

Ideally, any meeting at the White House on a subject under investigation would have been done with the knowledge of the ranking member or his staff, Turley said. Because these committees are the least transparent in Congress, both parties have historically tried to be open with each other on contacts or meetings with agencies on key questions.

The disclosure renewed calls for an independent committee to investigate the Russia ties.

Indeed, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on House Speaker Paul Ryan to replace Nunes as chairman of the intelligence committee.

He has not been operating like someone who is interested in getting to the unvarnished truth. His actions look like those of someone who is interested in protecting the president and his party, Schumer said.

When Nunes disclosed the intelligence reports last week, he said what he reviewed had nothing to do with Russia, which could suggest that Trump associates were in touch with other foreign targets of U.S. intelligence surveillance in November, December or January.

The chairman is extremely concerned by the possible improper unmasking of names of U.S. citizens, and he began looking into this issue even before President Trump tweeted his assertion that Trump Tower had been wiretapped, Langer said.

It is unclear exactly what documents Nunes reviewed.

Nunes and Schiff have asked the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency for the names of officials who were cited in intelligence reports. The committee has said it is getting some of what it requested, but has not received everything.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
A young couple's dreams of children may be dashed by a bizarre discovery about Emily's reproductive system.

Newlyweds Emily and Shane were excited to start their family. Six months after their wedding Emily became pregnant  sadly, that pregnancy ended in miscarriage. On their second attempt, the couple conceived their son, Porter, who was born prematurely at 31 weeks.

Watch: Managing a Miscarriage Diagnosis

Afterward, Emily decided to donate eggs to help someone else conceive. During her exam, the doctor asked Did you know that you have two cervices?

Emily was diagnosed with uterus didelphys  two cervices, two uteri, and two vaginal canals divided by a septum. Its not something you can see on the outside, she explains. They told me I had a higher chance of miscarriage and preterm labor.

Emily suffered two more miscarriages before another pregnancy  her fifth  resulted in preterm labor at 29 weeks and the birth of Shane and Emilys daughter, Kendall. Kendall was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, which can be associated with preterm birth. It was devastating, says Emily. We were thinking we couldnt do this again. But the couple had always wanted a large family.

The Doctors sent Emily to Fertility Specialist Dr. Tina Koopersmith for answers about her condition. 25 percent of the time, when someone has repeated miscarriages we find uterine abnormalities, Dr. Koopersmith explains.

Watch: Conceiving After Miscarriage

Dr. Koopersmith joins The Doctors and Emily to discuss her findings. A normal uterus is sort of a T, she tells them, And she basically has a T with the littlest divot at the top  and then inside that normal-shaped uterus, she has two cavities. They may be divided by muscle or a septum.

How does that change things? ER Physician Dr. Travis Stork wonders. I think it changes things a lot! replies Dr. Koopersmith.

Women with an untreated septate uterus have an 80 percent chance of miscarriage. If Emily does have a uterine septum, instead of a muscle dividing the cavities, then Dr. Koopersmith can cut it -- and Emily will have an 80 percent chance of carrying a pregnancy to term. She wants to do another ultrasound or an MRI to see what Emilys surgical options are.

Im feeling hopeful! says Emily. Shes only 23, and if her condition can be treated her dreams of a large family might become a reality.
By Dale Eisinger

In yet another WTF moment uncovered from President Donald Trumps disastrous meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel last weekend, The Sunday Times is reporting that Trump actually serviced the German leader with a fake invoice for $300 billion, for NATO services. From the piece:

Donald Trump handed the German chancellor Angela Merkel a bill  thought to be for more than 300bn  for money her country owed NATO for defending it when they met last weekend, German government sources have revealed. The bill  handed over during private talks in Washington  was described as outrageous by one German minister. The concept behind putting out such demands is to intimidate the other side, but the chancellor took it calmly and will not respond to such provocations, the minister said.

To be clear, this is not how NATO works, and Germany doesnt owe the US any such moneys. But at this point, we apparently cant expect the president to know how NATO works at all. Following Trumps staggeringly bleak interview with Time Magazine last week, The Washington Post took to saying that he literally has no idea how the alliance functions, and two tweets from the president hint at this fact.

Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Nevertheless, Germany owes..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2017

vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2017

This led to a rebuke from Germanys defense minister, as well as an excoriating twitter thread from the former US ambassador to NATO, Ivo Daalder:

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2/ This is not a financial transaction, where NATO countries pay the US to defend them. It is part of our treaty commitment.  Ivo Daalder (@IvoHDaalder) March 18, 2017

3/ All NATO countries, including Germany, have committed to spend 2% of GDP on defense by 2024. So far 5 of 28 NATO countries do.  Ivo Daalder (@IvoHDaalder) March 18, 2017

Click through to learn some basics Trump apparently does not grasp. Our current presidents levels of pettiness and stupidity continue to astound us.

UPDATE 3/27: A spokesman for the German government has denied that Trump presented Merkel with a bill, according to Politico.

Reports that President Trump had presented the federal chancellor with a kind of bill with a concrete billion sum are not true, spokesman Steffen Seibert said at a press conference.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer has also denied the report.

This post Donald Trump Gave a $300B Bill to Angela Merkel (UPDATED) first appeared on SPIN.
Thousands of people took part in anti-corruption protests, demanding the resignation of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, in several cities across Russia on March 26.

The protests were held in response to a report released in early March by a group affiliated with Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny, which accused the prime minister of accumulating funds for assets through charities and NGOs.

Navalny, who led the protests in Moscow on March 26, was reported to have been arrested during the demonstrations. Dozens of others were also detained. Credit: YouTube/Alex Sasha via Storyful
By Tom Westbrook SYDNEY (Reuters) - The Australian army headed into areas hardest hit by Cyclone Debbie and tens of thousands of homes remained without power as dawn broke on Wednesday amid reports of substantial damage in some areas. Debbie ripped a trail of destruction through northeast Australia on Tuesday as a category four storm, one rung below the most dangerous wind speed level, before being gradually downgraded through the night to a tropical low. Thousands of people took shelter as tourist resorts along the world-famous Great Barrier Reef and mainland coastal areas were belted with wind gusts stronger than 260 km per hour (160 mph). There were early reports of significant structural damage to homes and public infrastructure after howling winds, heavy rain and huge seas. Two people were injured, one with serious head injuries after being hit by a falling wall, police said. More than 51,000 homes were without power. Queensland state premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said it appeared the worst-hit areas were the tourist magnet of the Whitsunday Islands off the coast and Airlie Beach and Proserpine, some 900 km (560 miles) northwest of the Queensland capital, Brisbane. "It's been absolutely smashed. You can't get out or in there's so many trees down. There are boats all over the harbor," Jon Clements, who was holidaying on Hamilton Island when the storm hit, told Reuters. Wind gusts of 262 kmh, the highest during the storm, were recorded on Hamilton Island, so it was expected to be hit hard, although its resorts were designed to withstand category 5 storms. Palaszczuk said she would be briefed on damage at an imminent emergency services meeting. The storm was declared catastrophic by the Insurance Council of Australia. She said the defense force would fly over the area for an assessment as soon as it was safe to do so. The tropical low continues to bring winds and heavy rain and flood warnings are in place in several areas. "Our main priority is to get that level of assessment done and then to pinpoint where our emergency services personnel need to get in there and fix things as quickly as possible," she told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio. Cyclone Debbie made landfall at Airlie Beach, north of Proserpine, shortly after midday local time (0200 GMT) on Tuesday, knocking out telephone services. Authorities had urged thousands of people in threatened areas to flee their homes on Monday, in what would have been the biggest evacuation seen in Australia since Cyclone Tracy devastated the northern city of Darwin on Christmas Day, 1974. (Reporting by Tom Westbrook; Writing by Jane Wardell; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
Montreal (AFP) - British and US bans on laptops and tablet computers in flight cabins are not sustainable in the long term, the head of the association representing airlines said Tuesday.

"The current measures are not acceptable as a long-term solution to whatever threat they are trying to mitigate," said Alexandre de Juniac, director general of the International Air Transport Association.

"Even in the short term, it is difficult to understand their effectiveness. And the commercial distortions they create are severe," he said in a speech in Montreal.

"We call on governments to work with the industry to find a way to keep flying secure without separating passengers from their personal electronics."

Last week, Washington banned electronic devices bigger than mobile phones on direct flights to the United States from 10 airports in seven Middle Eastern countries and Turkey.

Britain followed with a similar ban from five countries from the Middle East and North Africa, and Turkey.

US officials said the measure was intended to thwart possible attacks on airliners with small explosive devices hidden in consumer electronics.

In theory, it would be harder to hide a bomb in checked luggage because these are usually scanned with more sophisticated equipment.

De Juniac lamented a lack of advance consultation with the airline industry and "little coordination by governments" in the measure's rollout.

He pointed to pushback from airlines and their passengers who are questioning the security measure, especially after other Western nations chose not to impose a ban.

"Why don't the US and the UK have a common list of airports?" he asked. "How can laptops be secure in the cabin on some flights and not others (from the same airport)?

"And surely there must be a way to screen electronic equipment effectively at airport checkpoints," de Juniac concluded.

All of the countries impacted by the ban are allies or partners of the United States: Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.

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The British ban targeted Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia.

Airlines and airports acted quickly to put the new restrictions in place, after they were announced.

But, de Juniac told a press conference, they would have appreciated "a bit more information" from the US and British governments.

The ban will have a "significant impact" on airline revenues, he said, as it would lead some passengers to bypass the airports in question in order to avoid any inconvenience.

Nine airlines in total are affected by the ban.

Laptops and other electronic equipment in large numbers may pose an additional risk because of their lithium-ion batteries, de Juniac noted.

In February 2016, the batteries were banned in checked bags on flights by the ICAO for safety reasons, at the request of airlines and pilot associations. That policy will be reviewed in 2018.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe's second-highest court on Tuesday lifted sanctions on the daughter of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, arguing the changed situation in Libya no longer justified the measures. As part of sanctions imposed in 2011 over serious human rights violations in Libya, Aisha Muammer Mohamed El-Gaddafi was included on a list of people subjected by EU governments to a travel ban and a freeze on their financial assets. At the time, the European Union's General Court, only lower than the Court of Justice, approved the sanctions based on "closeness of association with (the) regime." Oman granted asylum to some of Gaddafi's family in 2013, including Aisha and her brother Hannibal who were both wanted by Interpol. In 2014, the EU amended its sanctions but kept Aisha on the list and rejected her requests to be removed. She sued, arguing there was no clear reason why she remained under restrictions after the death of her father and the fall of his regime. The court has now agreed, lifted the sanctions and ordered EU governments to pay the legal costs of the case. (Reporting by Waverly Colville; Editing by Julia Glover)
Brussels (AFP) - EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier warned London Tuesday on the eve of its Brexit launch that the bloc would be "firm" on the rights of European citizens living in Britain.

"#Brexit made EU citizens worry about their future in EU27 and UK. EU will be firm on their rights @The3Million #citizensfirst," former French minister Barnier tweeted in English.

Brussels insists that Britain's divorce, including issues such as the rights of more than three million EU nationals in the UK, must be dealt with before any future trade relationship.

Last week Barnier, who was previously a European commissioner, said the amount that the EU says Britain must pay before it leaves, and the future of the border in Northern Ireland, must also be settled.

The European Union meanwhile tweeted a picture of Barnier's negotiating team around a table, with him sitting at the front.

While Barnier was warning Britain, European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker stayed silent on the issue during their public appearances on Tuesday.

Tusk is due to receive a letter from British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday formally notifying the EU of its intention to leave, and launching the two-year negotiation process.
SARAJEVO (Reuters) - The European Union peacekeeping force (EUFOR) in Bosnia warned its political leaders on Tuesday it was prepared to intervene at short notice should violence resume two decades after the end of its ethnic war that killed 100,000 people. Concerns are rising about increasing instability in the historically volatile Balkans including secessionist pressures in Bosnia, a parliamentary boycott in Montenegro and renewed tensions between Serbia and its former province of Kosovo. "A lot has been achieved but a lot can be lost again," Major General Anton Waldner said at a ceremony in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo marking his takeover of the command of EUFOR, which has 800 troops deployed in Bosnia. "There is still an executive mandate which allows significant reinforcement at short notice of (EUFOR). I will not hesitate to call (on) these reserve forces if needed," Waldner, an Austrian, said. "You, political leaders, have the most powerful key in your hands." EUFOR's new operations chief, General James Everard, said there were "external influences at play in the wider Western Balkans region, and in Bosnia, (that) have the potential to challenge progress. Western leaders have accused Russia of seeking to exploit diminishing EU leverage in the Balkans by manipulating political events in the region. Russia, which denies such allegations, is a historical ally of the Serbs. "In the face of such challenges it is essential that we persevere together," added Everard, a Briton. Last year, Montenegro's authorities accused a group of Serb and Russian nationalists of planning a coup during elections to get an opposition alliance into power. Russia strongly opposes the former Yugoslav republic becoming a member of NATO, but rejected the accusations. EUFOR first deployed in Bosnia in 2004, replacing the 60,000-strong NATO Stabilization Force (SFOR). For its part, NATO had said that in case of any violent flare-up in Bosnia, it could quickly deploy military assets, mainly from Italy and Germany.Fears of fresh conflict in Bosnia have risen amid calls from Serbs for the secession of their post-war autonomous entity from Bosnia and their overwhelming vote to keep a national holiday that Bosnia's central top court has ruled unconstitutional. Post-war Bosnia's two highly autonomous regions, the Serb Republic and the Bosniak-Croat Federation, largely eclipse a weak central cabinet in Sarajevo. This has meant that economic reforms and development often become hostage to ethnic politicking and conflicting visions of the nation's future. (Reporting by Maja Zuvela; editing by Mark Heinrich)
(Reuters) - The Europa League offers Manchester United a great alternative route into next season's Champions League as they battle for a top four slot in the Premier League, former manager Alex Ferguson has said. A top four Premier League place is needed for access to the Champions League but United are currently only fifth, four points behind fourth-placed Liverpool albeit with two games in hand. However, United can also guarantee a place in next season's Champions League by winning the Europa League. United are in the last eight of the Europa League. "They're in the Europa League and I think they have a great chance there," Ferguson, who won more than 30 trophies during his 26-year spell at Old Trafford, told United States radio channel SiriusXM. "In the Premier League at the moment, there is a real fight for the positions... It's not going to be easy to get into the top four," Ferguson added. "They could do it. But I look at the Europa League as a great chance." United, who have never won the Europa League, travel to Belgian side Anderlecht for the first leg of their quarter-final tie on April 13. Since Ferguson's retirement in 2013, United have managed just two major pieces of silverware -- the FA Cup last season and the League Cup in February. They missed out on the Champions League this season and another absence would be costly in terms of lost revenue. Ferguson heaped praise on current United manager Jose Mourinho. "I get on well with Jose and I think he's doing a really good job," Ferguson said. "He's been a bit unlucky because they've been absolutely brilliant in most of their home games and drawn (seven of) them. If they had got the wins they would be challenging for the league, no doubt about that." United's run of nine games in April begins on Saturday when they host eighth-placed West Bromwich Albion at Old Trafford. (Reporting by Aditi Prakash in Bengaluru; Editing by Keith Weir)
PHILADELPHIA (AP)  A former church official in Philadelphia must decide this week whether to be retried on child endangerment charges or seek further appeals.

Prosecutors are seeking to retry Monsignor William Lynn although he has served nearly three years of a three- to six-year sentence in a child endangerment case.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ultimately threw out his 2012 conviction over weeks of testimony from 23 priest abuse victims not directly tied to his case.

This time, prosecutors asked to introduce complaints about nine other priests to try to show that Lynn helped the Roman Catholic church cover up abuse complaints and keep problem priests on the job. Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Gwendolyn Bright ruled on Tuesday that one can be admitted, and delayed a decision on three others.

She did not set a trial date to give the defense time to consider appealing her decision not to dismiss the case. Lynn plans to decide by Friday.

Lynn, 66, is accused of endangering an altar boy who said he was assaulted by a parish priest in 1998. The priest had been transferred to the parish despite earlier complaints that he was molesting children. The altar boy told jurors he also was abused by another priest and his Catholic school teacher. They were convicted at a separate trial.

Lynn's lawyers hope to introduce psychiatric evidence at the retrial that questions the young man's credibility. He has battled drug addiction for many years. After Lynn was convicted, he reached a civil settlement with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for an undisclosed sum.
HOUSTON (AP)  A grand jury has indicted former U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman on charges he and a former aide orchestrated a scheme to misuse hundreds of thousands of dollars in charitable donations for personal and campaign expenses.

The Republican ex-lawmaker was indicted in Houston federal court on Tuesday along with Jason Posey.

Both face a variety of charges, including mail and wire fraud, making excessive campaign contributions and money laundering. The indictment alleges both men misused much of $1.25 million in donations.

Shaun Clarke, Stockman's attorney, said Tuesday the ex-congressman "is an innocent man. He intends to enter a plea of not guilty."

Stockman, who served two non-consecutive terms in the U.S. House, is free on bond after his arrest this month.

Court records didn't list an attorney for Posey.
By Josh Smith and James Mackenzie KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan plans to double the number of elite special forces from 17,000 troops, officials said, part of a long-term strategy to bolster units stretched and exhausted by persistent attacks from Taliban insurgents and other Islamist militants. Special forces, who represent a small fraction of the 300,000-strong armed forces, have been carrying out nearly 70 percent of the army's offensive operations across the country, underlining Afghanistan's heavy reliance on them. While regular forces, including police, are deployed largely to defend positions, special forces are taking the battle to militants from Kunduz in the north to Helmand in the south, sometimes working in tandem with U.S. counterparts. "Our commando forces have to be strengthened and have to be better equipped," Defence Ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri said. Waziri declined to give exact numbers, saying only that the special operations division would be increased to the level of an army corps. But three Afghan and Western officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that under current plans, special forces would double and the government was talking to foreign donors about contributing through funding and other assistance. Recruitment in recent months has focused on replacing special forces troops lost during last year's fighting, meaning the drive to "substantially" increase numbers would take longer, said NATO coalition spokesman Captain Bill Salvin. "It's going to take several years to grow to the level that (Afghan President Ashraf) Ghani currently envisions," Salvin said. Recruitment and training was already underway for more commandos, as well as special forces support units like medical care, intelligence, logistics and communications, he added. TRUMP'S CALL On exercises at the Afghan army's special operations training base just outside Kabul, soldiers were confident that they could handle the workload. "There has been an increase in our operations, but we will keep up our efforts," said Fawad Kamal, a special forces commander. "There hasn't been any interruption." When they reach the battlefield, newly trained troops will likely be conducting offensive operations, from tracking militant cells to clearing towns seized by insurgents. "There is a huge need for the number of commandos and special forces to increase in the country," said Mohammed Arif, a new commando recruit. "As long as they are well equipped, they can defend the country very well." Afghanistan's international allies regularly praise the performance of the special forces, but there is also concern that the workload places them under too much strain. Last year, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, discussed plans to strengthen and regenerate the force over the winter months. At the special forces base, NATO trainers work alongside Afghan instructors, teaching a range of courses from basic shooting and room clearance for new commandos, to advanced leadership courses for the more experienced. The NATO instructors are part of the Resolute Support mission involving some 13,000 international troops, more than half of them Americans, who train special and regular forces and sometimes advise Afghan troops on the battlefield. A smaller U.S. counter-terrorism unit is engaged in fighting radical networks including al Qaeda and Islamic State, and often works closely with elite Afghan units in the field. Nicholson said last month that thousands more advisers would be needed to help prepare Afghan forces to break the "stalemate" in the 15-year conflict, a factor U.S. President Donald Trump must consider when he decides his strategy for Afghanistan. More than two years after the departure of most international troops, Afghan forces control just 57 percent of the country, compared with 72 percent a year ago, according to SIGAR, a Congressional oversight body. "A LOT WAS ASKED OF THEM" The outgoing U.S. military spokesman in Kabul, Brigadier General Charles Cleveland, said Afghan special forces were "the absolute best in this region". "But by the end of the year they were stretched. An awful lot was asked of them." Cleveland said any move to boost commando numbers would be factored into coalition deliberations over the future of the international mission. It peaked at some 100,000 soldiers in 2011, but fell sharply with the intention of eventually handing over control to local forces. A stubborn enemy, lack of resources and high casualty rates among Afghan troops have seen that objective pushed back. "We'll adjust as we see fit," Cleveland said. "As they (special forces) go into the spring fighting, they are absolutely going to be stronger than where they were in the fall." NATO is also trying to help the conventional army corps become more effective and relieve pressure on elite units, according to Cleveland. "The real goal is to get the conventional corps up to the same level of proficiency at their job as the special forces are at their jobs. "We want these corps to be able to conduct their operations without having to misuse, if you will, the special operations forces." (Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
By Dan Levine (Reuters) - For years the national political organizations of both Democratic and Republican state attorneys general observed an agreement not to target the other party's incumbent office-holders in elections. That hands-off stance ended this month when Republican AGs voted to abandon the agreement and spend money to help unseat Democrats in other states, according to the Republican Attorneys General Association. The decision has not been previously reported. The move comes as Democratic attorneys general in states across the country have assumed lead roles in opposing some of Republican President Donald Trump's policies. State AGs in Washington and Hawaii successfully sued to block Trump's executive orders restricting travel from some Muslim-majority countries, and California's attorney general has pledged to defend the state's environmental standards. Republican attorneys general who supported the change reasoned that AGs should join other national political campaigns which target incumbents, two sources familiar with the closed door process said. Additionally, a desire by some to roll back same-sex marriage and the potential for increased corporate contributions played a role in the decision, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss the deliberations. The so-called 'incumbency rule' observed by the state attorneys' party fundraising arms reflected a rare bit of bipartisanship in the polarized environment of U.S. politics, aimed at promoting cooperation across state lines on issues of common interest, such as consumer protection. Attorneys general are the top public lawyer in each state, charged with defending state agencies from lawsuits as well as initiating litigation on their own. AGs took tobacco companies to court in the 1990s, and pursued mortgage lenders in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. In larger states, an attorney general commands hundreds of lawyers and other resources. Twelve Republican state AGs on Monday filed a federal appeals court brief supporting Trump's revised travel restrictions. Scott Will, executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association, confirmed the decision to abolish the incumbency rule, but declined to discuss specifics of the vote. "The stakes are too high for us to leave winnable races on the table," Will said in a statement to Reuters. The vote was taken over the phone with a tally of 15-8, the two sources said. Not every Republican AG participated. Some of those who supported the change argued that every other national campaign committee targets incumbents, so AGs shouldn't be any different, the sources said. Those opposed expressed fears about threats to bipartisanship, and noted that Republican AGs had grown their ranks under the current system, showing there was no need to change the rules now, the sources said. In 2000, Republicans held 12 of the 51 state AG positions, including the District of Columbia, but that number is about to hit 29, if a nomination made by New Hampshire's Republican governor this month is confirmed. One of the first fights after the rule change will likely come in Virginia, where Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, is seeking reelection this November. In all, 31 AG elections are scheduled for 2018. Republicans currently hold 18 of those seats, compared to 13 for Democrats, but some of the incumbents may not run for re-election. Karl Racine, attorney general for the District of Columbia and current co-chair of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, said the Republican group's decision likely means Democrats will follow suit. "What's good for the goose is good for the gander," Racine said in an interview. Colorado attorney general Cynthia Coffman, a Republican, is up for election next year in a state that has been trending Democrat. A well-funded push to unseat her, something the Democratic AG group wouldn't have participated in under the incumbency agreement, could spell trouble. Coffman opposed the incumbency rule change, the sources said. Her office did not respond to a request for comment. CORPORATE PLEDGE In laying out the reasons for the rule change, Will pointed to the key role Republican AGs played in opposing some of President Barack Obama's policies. Rolling back same-sex marriage was another issue cited during deliberations, said the two people familiar with the discussion. More Republican state AGs could help further that effort, though the current composition of the U.S. Supreme Court would make any sweeping rollback unlikely. Additionally, the group discussed a pledge from corporate interests to pour money into unseating Democratic AGs, the two sources said. Participants in the vote were told that the group had received pledges totaling millions of dollars from organizations including from the company that makes the caffeinated beverage 5-Hour Energy, the sources said. The money depended on the Republican group changing its rules to target incumbent Democrats. The company that manufactures 5-Hour Energy, Innovation Ventures, declined to comment. A spokesman for the Republican AG group declined to answer questions about the debate, including the role of 5-Hour's pledge. Innovation Ventures has been sued by attorneys general in at least five states for alleged deceptive advertising of its energy drink, with varied outcomes. Last month a Washington state judge issued a judgment against the company for nearly $4.3 million in one such case, brought by Bob Ferguson, the Democratic attorney general whose lawsuit caused a judge to block Trump's first travel restrictions. The company has said it would appeal the ruling. In at least two other cases, in Oregon and Indiana, Innovation Ventures prevailed. Oregon has appealed. The precise dollar amount of the company's pledge to Republican AGs could not be determined, nor is it clear if it is the only company that promised a contribution to target Democrats. Already, the Republican Attorneys General Association has built a fundraising advantage. In 2016, it raised about $14.5 million, including donations from companies and conservative interest groups like the Judicial Crisis Network and Koch Industries, according to tax filings. Sean Rankin, executive director of the Democratic AG group, said it raised about $5.2 million in 2016. The groups tax filings show a mix of contributors including companies, plaintiff law firms and labor unions. Click http://tmsnrt.rs/2o6h4ZT for graphic on attorneys general facing the voters (Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Sue Horton and Paul Thomasch)
WASHINGTON  An executive order being prepared by the Trump administration would set an ambitious timetable for new recommendations to address the nations opioid crisis and appoint top administration officials to oversee the effort, according to a draft obtained by STAT.

The administration is expected to unveil a commission focused on the nations opioid epidemic soon. The panel would be composed of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin and Defense Secretary James Mattis, according to the draft order. Another five members from state governments, law enforcement, and other groups would fill it out.

The Washington Post reported this week that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie would chair the commission.

The draft order could be changed before it is officially issued. The White House declined to comment.

Read more: White House proposes new, sweeping budget cuts at NIH

The panels mission would be to identify federal funding streams that could be directed to address the crisis, for everything from medical treatments to long-term support services. The commission would also aim to identify areas in the United States with limited treatment options, review ways to prevent opioid addiction  including possible changes to prescribing practices  and consider changes to the criminal justice system to provide support for incarcerated individuals after their release from prison.

The Office for National Drug Control Policy would support the commission, according to the draft order, and the offices director  commonly known as the nations drug czar  would represent the president. The White House has interviewed candidates for the ONDCP post, but not yet appointed a director.

The commission would make interim recommendations within three months of its establishment along with a final report in October, according to the draft order. The agencies involved in its efforts would be expected to quickly take administrative and regulatory actions implementing those policies.

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The opioid crisis is now killing more than 30,000 Americans annually, and Trump swore during the campaign to end it. The commission would be a high-profile public step to fulfill that promise.

However, some advocates within the recovery community are already frustrated that Trump has not yet filled key posts, like ONDCP director, and that his other policy proposals clash with his stated goals. A new spending plan reported Tuesday would cut the Substance Use and Mental Health Services Administrations mental health block grant by $100 million this year. Trumps proposed 2018 budget for HHS would have cut the agencys funding by nearly 20 percent.

The Republican health care bill that failed last week, and which Trump lobbied for, would also have rolled back requirements for Medicaid coverage of addiction treatment and dramatically overhauled that program, the single largest provider of mental health and addiction coverage in the country.
Washington (AFP) - Energy giant Exxon Mobil has asked the Trump administration not to scrap US participation in the landmark Paris climate agreement, running counter to White House moves on carbon emissions.

The news came as President Donald Trump on Tuesday unveiled a new executive order that could roll back some of the previous Democratic administration's policies aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

In a March 22 letter to Trump energy advisor G David Banks, Exxon's head of environmental policy and planning, Peter Trelenberg, praised the 2015 Paris Agreement as the first to tackle emissions by both the developed world and developing countries such as China and India.

China is the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter and India could overtake the United States as the world's second-largest by mid-century, Trelenberg said in the letter.

The US is poised to compete in energy markets while abiding by the agreement's calls for emissions reductions in part due to its increasing reliance on natural gas, which produces energy with fewer emissions, Trelenberg said.

"It is prudent that the United States remain a party to Paris Agreement to ensure a level playing field so that global energy markets remain as free and competitive as possible," wrote the executive from Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly-traded energy firm.

Fighting climate change will require technological advances, the letter said, and the United States should advance policies that promote this.

The Trump administration has not said whether it will pull out of the Paris agreement but on Tuesday unveiled policies that could move the US away from meeting internationally agreed emissions targets.

The Republican president said the US was ending a "war on coal," claiming that lifting regulations on the industry would lead to new jobs.

He ordered a review of emissions limits on coal-fired power plants and restrictions on federal leasing for coal production.

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The Trump administration is linked to Exxon Mobil through Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who served as the energy giant's chief executive before becoming America's top diplomat.

Several states have sued the energy company for allegedly deceiving the public about the role of fossil fuels in global warming.

But Tillerson himself is credited with steering ExxonMobil towards public acceptance of the science of climate change.
A teenage girl in Maryland has been accused of plotting a mass shooting at her high school that she anticipated would end with her own death, police said.

The suspect, 18-year-old honor roll student Nichole Cevario, was immediately pulled from class Thursday after her father warned officials at Catoctin High School in Thurmont that she was a threat to student safety.

Watch: Counselor Talks 14-Year-Old Student Out of Using Gun He Brought to Middle School

After questioning the teen, investigators determined she also posed a threat to her own safety and she was taken to a hospital to be treated for mental health issues.

Authorities say Cevario had been plotting and amassing supplies for months (Frederick County Sheriff's Office)

Authorities also searched the teen's home, where they reportedly discovered evidence Cevario had been planning the assault, and amassing materials to help bring it into reality, for months.

The Frederick County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that Cevarios journal "clearly spelled out a detailed shooting event that she planned to execute on a specific date in April at Catoctin High School."

"Evidence recovered from her home revealed that she was actively acquiring materials needed to execute the plot. Those items included a shotgun with ammunition, bomb making materials to include pipes with end caps, shrapnel, fireworks, magnesium tape, and fuse material," the statement said.

At a press conference held Monday, Frederick County Sheriff Charles Jenkins was frank as he described how it felt to read the teen's journal of her planning for the alleged plot, which began with an entry on December 16, 2016.

"It shocks the conscience to see that someone of that age could be thinking like this," Jenkins said. "For some time [Cevario] had been compiling intelligence on behavior activities of the school, noting emergency procedures associated with drills conducted by school staff and obtaining intelligence on the School Resource Deputy."

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Cops say items found at Cevario's home included bomb making materials, shrapnel, fireworks, magnesium tape, and fuse material

Authorities obtained an arrest warrant for Cevario that will be served upon her release from Frederick Memorial Hospital, charging her with possession of explosive material with intent to create a destructive device and possession of incendiary material with the intent to create a destructive device.

Watch: 2 Teen Boys Arrested for Planning Mass Shooting at Middle School: Cops

In a video posted to YouTube, Frederick County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Terry Alban called Cevario's parents "courageous" for coming forward.

"Whenever you hear or see anything that raises concern, you need to trust us and come to us so that we can do the right thing and handle it just like we did in this case," Alban said. "Those relationships, that trust, that's what enables the policies and the procedures that we have put in place to keep our school safe work. And they did."

Watch: Brothers, 3 and 5, Killed After Mom Allegedly Set Fire to Their Beds

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Firefighters have saved a tiny kitten that somehow became stuck inside the wall of a Florida home this week.

Authorities arent sure how the stray kitty wound up inside, but thanks to the actions of the Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue, the animal got out safely.

Read: Paralyzed Kitten Speeds Around the Hospital Using Lego Wheelchair

The department used heat-seeking technology to detect where the animal was located in the wall.

The guys did the whole creeping around the house thing, deputy fire chief Timothy Heiser told ABC News. They got a thermal imaging camera ... and knocking and going along the wall, they managed to find where the cat was."

Read: Kitten Jumps Out of Gift Box Before Confused Little Girl Sees It

The team tore a hole in the wall and lifted the kitten out to safety.

The cat, which was not harmed, was then transferred to a no-kill animal shelter.

The fire rescue team said the kitten is happy and healthy.

Watch: Kitten Jumps Out of Gift Box Before Confused Little Girl Sees It

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In a touching show of solidarity, Courtland Lamberts fellow firefighters shaved their heads in support of Lamberts 3-year-old son, who was recently diagnosed with cancer.

Lamberts son, Caleb, began having stomach pains earlier this year, and by February, doctors found a mass in his abdomen and he was diagnosed with a stage 3 neuroblastoma.

Read: Father Discovers 1-Year-Old Son's Cancer After Noticing a Minor Blemish on a Photograph

Immediately after Calebs diagnosis, Lambert's colleagues at the Richmond Fire Department in Virginia banded together to start a GoFundMe page for the family to help with Calebs medical bills.

"We spend 10 days a month and 24-hour days working together," Betty Migliaccio, who works at the station, told InsideEdition.com. "That kind of a bond becomes a family bond. When he called us that night with the diagnosis, it became clear that we needed to support him. Three-year-olds shouldnt have to go through this stuff."

Neither Lambert, who has been a firefighter for 15 years, nor his wife have been able to work while managing Calebs diagnosis and their two other children, ages 9 and 13.

"The people at my job have been awesome at picking up shifts for me so I can be there with my family," Lambert told InsideEdition.com.

Read: Boy, 12, Diagnosed With Brain Tumor Right After Shaving His Head for Cancer Fundraiser

Last week, the firefighters sold T-shirts, raffled off a truck, and shaved their heads to honor Caleb while partnering with the St. Baldrick's Foundation to raise money.

Lambert was struck by the efforts of his comrades.

"Its very humbling," he said. "It was awesome to see the support. Its something you never want to go through but its awesome to have that support."

His co-workers have already raised nearly $50,000 through the GoFundMe campaign.

Watch: Couple Overjoyed With Free Dream Wedding After Both Battling Cancer

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Ivanka Trump will visit Germany late next month to attend a women's empowerment summit in Berlin, senior administrative officials told the Associated Press (AP) Saturday. The trip will mark Ivanka Trump's first visit abroad following her father's election as the president of the United States.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel invited the first daughter to the W20 summit during her recent visit to Washington, D.C., a senior White House official told the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. Merkel had spent some time with the first daughter during her visit to the White House. Ivanka also set up a gathering for German and American business leaders to discuss vocational training on the request of German officials.

"Looking forward to working together in Berlin next month to promote the role of women in the economy..." Ivanka posted on Facebook late Sunday evening, linking to a Washington Post report that had the original AP story link. The W20 summit is a women-focused program which promotes the economic participation of women within the 20 member states. Although Ivanka's plans have not been finalized, officials said she hopes to study successful apprenticeship programs at the summit. She will join four other U.S. delegates at the summit.

The first daughter had spoken about women empowerment at the Republican National Convention in July 2016 during her father's presidential campaign. However, she has not taken any publicly known action on the issue since Donald Trump took office as president.

It was announced last week that Ivanka will get an office in the West Wing of the White House. Although she will obtain security clearance and government-sponsored communication devices, she won't be working as a government employee. She will not draw a salary either.

This move has raised questions about the ethical provisions that are in place for government employees. Ivanka had played a major role in advising her father during his presidential campaign and even later. According to her attorney Jamie Gorelick, Ivanka will continue to be the president's "eyes and ears."

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"She will not be his only source of input and insight, obviously, but she may be able to provide insights into the concerns of people whom he might not meet as President," Gorelick told CNN through email last week.

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Chicago (AFP) - A federal judge on Tuesday approved a $97 million settlement in a lawsuit over drinking water contamination in the US city of Flint, Michigan, requiring that all lead pipes be replaced.

The agreement comes almost three years after lead first began to contaminate the drinking water of the hard-scrabble Midwestern city near the US automotive capital of Detroit, due to a switch to a more corrosive water source that had not been properly treated to protect aging underground pipes.

The lead contamination, initially denied by state and local officials, poisoned thousands of children. The tainted water caused the deaths of 12 people from Legionnaire's disease, officials said.

According to the state's top law enforcement official who is now investigating the crisis, a $200-a-day water treatment would have prevented the lead leaching.

The settlement requires that all of Flint's lead and galvanized steel pipes be replaced within three years. The state must also guarantee the availability of water filters through 2018 and provide bottled water at least until September.

US District Court Judge David Lawson will monitor the settlement's implementation.

"For the first time, there will be an enforceable commitment to get the lead pipes out of the ground. The people of Flint are owed at least this much," said Dimple Chaudhary, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The NRDC is one of the groups that brought the lawsuit along with Flint area pastors and the Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Flint resident Melissa Mays was also a party to the suit.

"This is a win for the people of Flint," Mays said in a statement. "The greatest lesson I've learned from Flint's water crisis is that change only happens when you get up and make your voice heard."

Almost half of the money in the settlement will come directly from the state of Michigan, with the rest allocated by the US Congress.

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Michigan Governor Rick Snyder supported the settlement, saying it was the best path forward for Flint.

"While the settlement provides for commitments to many different resources, the state will continue striving to work on many priorities to ensure the city of Flint has a positive future," Snyder said in a statement.

Thirteen current and former government officials have been criminally charged in the ongoing investigation of the handling of the water crisis and the decisions that caused it.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has also sued two water engineering companies, the French firm Veolia and the Texas-based Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam, claiming they failed to prevent or properly address the crisis.

The two companies have denied wrongdoing.
The Arkansas government is preparing to execute eight death-row prisoners in a ten-day span, before one of its lethal-injection drugs expires. It plans to execute two people per day over four days: April 17, 20, 24 and 27. The decision is dangerous for many reasons. As has been widely discussed, the sedatives may not be safe to use and could risk prolonged, torturous deaths. But an additional set of trauma and peril must be accounted for as well: The rapid schedule will put an extraordinary burden on the men and women required by the state to carry out this most solemn act, and it will increase the risk of mistakes in the execution chamber - which could haunt them for the rest of their lives.

As Commissioner of Corrections in Georgia, I presided over five executions. Those executions were spaced over two years. We had a legal duty to carry them out and attempted to do so with integrity. However, for me and many of my former colleagues in other corrections agencies, our role in executions led to a deep sense of guilt, sleepless nights and permanent emotional damage.

For me, unlike the kill or be killed mindset in war or other forms of self-defense, carrying out executions felt very much like participating in premeditated and rehearsed murder. Either from religious training (thou shall not kill) or established societal norms, every person knows that taking a human life is one of our cultures most serious offenses. It exacts severe mental trauma - even when done under the auspices of state law. As I have written before: I dont remember their names, but I still see their faces in my nightmares.

Read more: Weve Never Seen Anything Like This: Why Arkansas Is Executing 7 People In 11 Days

Ron McAndrew, a warden who oversaw executions in Florida has bravely spoken publicly about how the trauma from doing his job led to a period of alcohol abuse and nightmares about the men he had executed. Fred Allen, who worked as a member of the Texas tie-down team responsible for securing men before the lethal chemicals are injected, helped execute 130 men before he finally broke down and had to leave his job. Former Oregon warden Frank Thompson has written about how participating in executions leads to drug abuse, alcohol abuse, depression and suicide. Ira Craig Baxley, a former corrections major responsible for executions in South Carolina, began suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. These examples are only a small sampling.

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I am gravely concerned for the well-being of the execution team in Arkansas, especially given the compressed schedule. The amount of fear, stress and exhaustion - all compounded by the terror of making a mistake - is too much to ask.

The states plan is relentless and harsh in and of itself. But when you examine the drugs that state officials are rushing to use, the risk of harm gets even worse.

The reason for Arkansass planned 10-day mass execution is that a sedative called midazolam is going to expire at the end of April. Midazolam has been used in many executions that went horribly wrong, including in Ohio, Arizona, Alabama and elsewhere. In Oklahoma, on April 29, 2014, Clayton Lockett did not die until more than a half-hour after he was injected with midazolam. Well after he was expected to be unconscious, he groaned, convulsed, and visibly struggled while on the execution table.

Locketts execution was scheduled to be the first of two performed back-to-back that day. The Oklahoma Department of Public Safetys subsequent investigation includes a section, Two Executions Scheduled on the Same Day, which includes interviews with the execution team members. They discuss the added stress and urgency that they felt because of the rate of executions. In order to decrease chances of future botched executions, the report recommends that executions should not be scheduled fewer than seven days apart.

Arkansas has never used midazolam before, and the state has not executed anyone for twelve years. State officials have put this intense execution schedule on a staff that has not conducted an execution in the state using this risky protocol in over a decade. They will be using drugs they have not used before, which no one, as far as we know, has experience administering in an execution.

Arkansass accelerated execution schedule is far more risky and dangerous than any other planned executions I am aware of. I implore state officials to abandon this dangerous plan. They can still save truly innocent people - corrections workers - from life-altering trauma.

Dr. Ault, a former warden of a maximum security prison, served as a commissioner of the Georgia, Mississippi and Colorado Departments of Corrections and later as chief of the Special Projects Division of the National Institute of Corrections; he recently retired from being dean of the College of Justice and Safety at Eastern Kentucky University.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Four of the six aid workers killed in an ambush in South Sudan over the weekend were Kenyans working for a local non-governmental organization, Kenya's government said on Tuesday. An official with the United Nations said the attack on Saturday, the deadliest single assault on humanitarian staff in a three-year-old civil war, could amount to a war crime. [L5N1H30TS] No side has taken responsibility for the attack on the six, who were ambushed as they traveled from the capital Juba toward the town of Pibor through remote territory largely under government control but fought over by both sides and plagued by militia and other armed groups. "The six were ambushed and murdered by unknown gunmen," the Kenyan foreign affairs ministry said in a statement. The U.N. in Juba had told Reuters the dead aid workers were Kenyan and South Sudanese without giving a breakdown of the nationalities. The six were working for a local NGO called GREDO, the ministry said, and had been funded by UNICEF to build youth centers in Pibor. The Kenyan government said it was working with both organizations and South Sudanese security personnel to retrieve the bodies. At least 79 aid workers have been killed since President Salva Kiir's government forces clashed with his former deputy Riek Machar's men in December 2013. A long-running rivalry between the two has split the country along ethnic lines. U.N. monitors have found Kiir's government mainly to blame for the catastrophe in a country which, in less than six years of independence, has collapsed into a chaotic ethnic war and an epidemic of rape and famine. (Reporting by Duncan Miriri, editing by Ed Osmond)
Berlin (AFP) - French Socialist presidential candidate Benoit Hamon took his call to broaden decision-making in the eurozone to Berlin Tuesday in talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

During a one-day visit, Hamon met the German leader, who has said she would speak with any of the mainstream candidates in the French race ahead of next month's first round -- excluding far-right contender Marine Le Pen.

Hamon also met Merkel's Social Democratic (SPD) challenger in Germany's September general election, Martin Schulz, who offered his backing.

Following the Merkel meeting, Hamon told reporters that she had listened to his proposal to replace the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers with an assembly of deputies from national parliaments and the European Parliament.

The new body would have decision-making powers over budgets and the harmonisation of fiscal and social policies in the 19 countries using the euro.

"The chancellor told me about the reservations she had in terms of the legal foundation and as far as the political difficulty of implementing a proposal like this but did not close the door to the discussion, which I see as positive," he said.

Merkel, who has in recent months sat down with French candidates Francois Fillon and the current frontrunner in the race, independent centrist Emmanuel Macron, did not comment on the talks in keeping with protocol.

However Schulz, the former European Parliament president, told reporters that Hamon had the support of Europe's socialist parties including his SPD for the election.

"I have long wished Benoit Hamon success in the presidential race in France," he said.

Hamon has been sharply critical in the past of Merkel's drive for budgetary discipline in the eurozone and her perceived political dominance in it.

The leftwing former education minister has captured headlines with his proposal to pay everyone in France a so-called "basic income" of around 750 euros ($800) a month, a costly and radical reform of state spending.

Polls currently show that Macron, who professes to be neither left nor right, has a slim lead over Le Pen in the run-up to the April 23 first round of the French vote.
Paris (AFP) - Penelope Fillon, wife of France's conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon, was charged Tuesday with complicity in the abuse of public funds in a scandal that has engulfed her husband's campaign, a judicial source said.

Francois Fillon has already been charged in the case involving allegedly fictitious jobs as a parliamentary aide for which his Welsh-born wife Penelope was paid hundreds of thousands of euros.

The charges in the scandal dubbed "Penelopegate" also relate to a job she had at a literary magazine owned by a billionaire friend of the couple for which she allegedly did little or no actual work.

The new blow to the campaign comes less than four weeks before French voters go to the polls in a two-stage election on April 23 and May 7.
By John Irish PARIS (Reuters) - Francois Hollande's election as president in 2012 was supposed to herald a new dawn for French socialism after 17 years of right-wing rule, but by June his party could be struggling to survive. Weeks before the start of an election to pick France's next president, the ruling bloc is in tatters. Socialist Party (PS) nominee Benoit Hamon is floundering after adopting a hard-left program that alienated more moderate colleagues. Polls put Hamon in a humiliating fifth place, behind the independent leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon whose charisma and similarly radical program have overshadowed Hamon's message. Party grandees, meanwhile, are jumping ship to back independent centrist Emmanuel Macron, Hollande's former economy minister who is now favorite to win the presidency. Macron is more palatable to party moderates who see Hamon's policies as outdated and resent his refusal to defend the president's legacy. "The future is very uncertain. The Socialist party must negotiate its transformation for its survival," said Adelaide Zulfikarpasic of pollster BVA. The potential implosion of the Socialist party weakens France's two-party system that has been in place for 30 years and has prevented the far right from increasing its power in presidential and legislative elections. Like in Britain, it also risks leaving the main left-wing party in opposition for years as it takes a radical turn, reinforcing an anti-European side on the left. If Macron were to fail, it would be unclear what would happen to the center-left at a time when France's traditional center-right is increasingly radicalized and could also be in disarray should its candidate, Francois Fillon, also fail to reach the May 7 run-off. In 2002, outgoing Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin was beaten to the presidential runoff by then far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. The party potentially faces an even bloodier defeat this time. Their disarray reflects the wider struggle of Europe's left where leaders in Italy and Germany have fallen on their swords and the British Labour Party is riven by infighting. Some French Socialist lawmakers say in private that their aim now is to limit the damage in the presidential vote so as to build a foundation for the legislative elections in June. A vote above 10 percent for Hamon could help save seats, creating a platform for a say in a Macron parliamentary majority, but some kind of party split looks likely. "I think that after the elections, the Socialists will implode into the 'reformed Socialists' who could be part of a governing majority and the 'status quo Socialists'," a minister in the current government told Reuters. This split has its roots in Hollande's five years in power, when he moved away from pro-worker election pledges to launch business-friendly reforms. Their failure to spur the economy emboldened rebels such as Hamon and further alienated voters. Stinging defeats in local elections followed, and party membership has almost halved since 2012. As a result, and despite having a majority in both parliamentary houses, Hollande became the first postwar French president not to seek re-election. STABBED IN THE BACK "I respect Benoit Hamon's logic, which has always existed on the Left - a utopian project - but it's clear that implementing such a project does not correspond to reality and a capacity to act," said Defence Minister Jean Yves-Le Drian, a Socialist party heavyweight, who last week backed Macron. Some 50 other Socialist lawmakers have turned to Macron's newly-formed En Marche! (Onwards!) movement, defections that Hamon calls a "betrayal". Meanwhile, former prime minister Manuel Valls, who lost to Hamon in the primaries and is seen as waiting in the wings to pick up the pieces after the presidential race, has been scathing about the former education minister. Hamon signed a motion of no-confidence against Valls' government last year. "Those who join Emmanuel Macron, and are stabbing me in the back, are not those who gave me life ... Those are the 2 million voters," Hamon told France 2 television on Sunday, referring to the turnout for the January Socialist primaries. "Anyway I would never have governed with them." Macron's momentum ahead of the April-May vote will be key for how the Socialists shape up in the coming years. His movement says it bridges France's left-right divide, and although the race remains tight and voters unsure, polls show that Macron should easily beat National Front leader Marine Le Pen - daughter of Jean-Marie - in the run-off. "If this central scenario materializes, there will be less reason for parties to stick together," said Eurasia analyst Charles Lichfield. "This is especially likely on the left, as the PS is likely to do very badly. Expressing some proximity to Macron may be a way for 100-150 PS members of parliament to save their seats." Even uniting the left into opposition will be hard, given that Melenchon offers a clean break from the tarnished Socialists. The one-time Trotskyist and former teacher who quit the party in 2008 has sucked away the hard left vote with calls to fight the rich and powerful, asking PS supporters: "In these conditions, without a project or electoral advantage, what is the point of a Socialist candidate?" Click http://tmsnrt.rs/2lPduBG for graphic on French presidential election (Additional reporting by Marine Pennetier and Emile Picy; Editing by Andrew Callus and Robin Pomeroy)
A federal appeals court getting set to review a Maryland judges order against President Trumps immigration restrictions is considering bypassing a three-judge panel and to hear the case before all 15 active judges. The process, rarely used in that court, could speed up the process considerably.

In a brief order issued Monday afternoon, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit told lawyers on both sides of the case to offer their views, by Thursday, on whether the case should be heard en banc. The court acted on its own, probably in response to a request from one of its judges.

It would take the votes of at least eight of the Fourth Circuit Courts active judges to put the case before the full bench. If initial en banc review is granted, it could speed this particular case toward the Supreme Court by bypassing one step in the usual procedure.

The case of International Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump is an appeal by the Trump Administration challenging a ruling this month by U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang of Greenbelt, MD, blocking enforcement of the presidential order that would impose a 90-day suspension on entry into this country of any foreign nationals from six Mideast nations that have majority Muslim populations.

Judge Chuang, responding to a challenge by two refugee resettlement organizations and several individuals, ruled that the challengers were likely to win ultimately on their point that the suspension order violates the Constitution by discriminating against Muslims based on their religion.

President Trump and his aides drafted a revised executive order after the original version was blocked by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

A group of 11 states, along with the governor of a twelfth, joined in the Fourth Circuit Court as a friend-of-the-court, urging the judges not to follow what the Ninth Circuit Court had done on the initial Trump order.

The Fourth Circuit Court is considering two issues, apparently separately: first, whether to put Judge Chuangs ruling on hold while the appeal proceeds, and, second, whether to uphold the legality of the revised executive order

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.
Berlin (AFP) - German prosecutors announced an investigation Tuesday into claims that Turkish agents are spying on alleged followers of exiled preacher Fethullah Gulen in Germany.

The probe came as a German state minister accused Turkey of the "unacceptable" espionage against supporters of Gulen, blamed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a failed coup attempt last year.

The claims open a new front in the diplomatic row between NATO allies Germany and Turkey, whose relationship has been strained by a series of disputes centred on human rights issues.

"It is clear that the Turkish secret service MIT is investigating people living in Germany," said Boris Pistorius, interior minister of the northern German state of Lower Saxony, deploring the "intensity and ruthlessness" of Turkey's pursuit of people living abroad.

"It's intolerable and unacceptable," he said at a press conference.

Erdogan's government had asked Berlin to help spy on about 300 alleged Gulen supporters, Pistorius said, adding that the list was handed to Germany's BND spy service, which turned it over to state governments.

But Pistorius's state decided to inform the more than 10 targets in Lower Saxony, including a school and at least two companies, fearing people could suffer "retaliation" if they travelled to Turkey while unaware they were on a watch list.

Turkish authorities were acting with "something close to paranoia," he said, adding that "all Gulen supporters are assumed to be terrorists and enemies of the state even though there is not the tiniest scrap of evidence."

"As of today, we have no evidence whatsoever that Gulen supporters have violated any rules in any way."

According to German media, Turkish officials handed the target list including names, addresses, telephone numbers and photographs to their German counterparts during the Munich Security Conference in February.

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Federal prosecutors will now examine how Turkey compiled such detailed information on their targets.

"The success of our investigation will depend largely on the information shared with us by German counter-espionage agencies," spokeswoman Frauke Koehler said about the probe into "persons unknown".

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere meanwhile warned Turkey against spying in Germany, saying "espionage activities on German soil is punishable by law and will not be tolerated by us".

- Fraying ties -

Although Gulen, a 75-year-old cleric living the United States, has denied charges that he was involved in the failed coup last July to overthrow Erdogan, Ankara has cracked down hard on the preacher's followers.

More than 41,000 people in Turkey have been arrested over suspected links to Gulen's movement, and 100,000 fired or suspended from their jobs. Many of them are teachers, police, magistrates and journalists.

In February, German police raided the homes of four Turkish Muslim preachers suspected of spying on alleged Gulen supporters for Erdogan's government.

Erdogan has in turn accused Germany of harbouring Kurdish and other "terrorists", claiming that Berlin is refusing to hand over alleged suspects.

Separately, the foreign ministries in Sweden and Denmark have called in Turkey's envoys over claims of Turkish spying on opposition figures living in the Scandinavian countries.

Germany's foreign intelligence chief Bruno Kahl drew Ankara's ire last week when he said he did not believe that Gulen was behind the failed coup.

Turkey had tried to convince Berlin that Gulen, who lives in a secluded compound in Pennsylvania, was behind the coup, "but they have not succeeded", Kahl told Der Spiegel magazine.

Kahl said the putsch was launched by a "part of the military" that expected to be targeted in an ongoing government purge.

Berlin has emerged as a strident critic of Ankara's post-coup crackdown, and is also urging Turkey to release a correspondent for the German daily Die Welt who is jailed on terror charges.

Ankara has been riled by German authorities' refusal to allow some Turkish ministers to campaign in the country's Turkish communities for a "yes" vote ahead of the April 16 referendum on giving Erdogan the powers of an executive presidency.
By Madeline Chambers and Andrea Shalal BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany launched a second investigation on Tuesday into suspected spying by Turkey and its interior minister said Berlin would not tolerate foreign espionage on its soil. Tensions are running high between the two NATO allies ahead of a referendum in Turkey next month that proposes expanding the powers of President Tayyip Erdogan. Berlin infuriated Ankara by cancelling several campaign rallies by Turkish ministers on German soil, drawing accusations from Turkey of "Nazi" tactics. Media reports of Turkish espionage targeting members of Germany's large ethnic Turkish diaspora have deepened the rift. "We have launched an investigation against an unnamed entity on suspicion of espionage," a spokesman for the Federal Prosecutor's Office (GBA) said. He declined to comment on German media reports that the entity was the Turkish Intelligence Agency (MIT) and that it was suspected of spying on supporters of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. Ankara accuses Gulen of organizing a failed coup last July, a charge he denies. A GBA spokeswoman said the investigation was separate from a probe launched earlier this year into possible spying by clerics sent to Germany by the Turkish government. "Both cases concern suspected espionage involving Turkey, but at this moment there is no common substance to the two probes," she said. There was no immediate response from Turkish officials. LIST OF NAMES The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and two broadcasters have reported that Turkish intelligence gave Germany's foreign intelligence service a list of names of more than 300 supposed Gulen supporters living in Germany and 200 groups, schools and other institutions associated with the cleric. A German investigation indicated some of the photos may have been taken by hidden surveillance cameras, the reports said. One German government source said it was clear that there was spying involved because of the nature of the documents provided to Berlin by the Turkish government. Interior Minster Thomas de Maiziere said on Tuesday he was not surprised by the latest media report and that the lists of names would be looked at individually. "We have told Turkey several times that such (activity) is not acceptable. Regardless of what you think of the Gulen movement, German law applies here and citizens who live here won't be spied on by foreign states," he said. Since last year's abortive coup Turkish authorities have purged state institutions, schools, universities and media of tens of thousands of Gulen's suspected supporters, prompting concerns in the European Union about human rights abuses. German and EU officials also fear victory for Erdogan in the April 16 referendum will further stifle dissent and undermine democracy in Turkey. The speaker of the Bundestag lower house of parliament said in a speech late on Monday that Turkey was turning into an authoritarian system and that its president was effectively staging a coup against his own country. Norbert Lammert, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, said the referendum was about "transforming an undoubtedly fragile but democratic system into an authoritarian system - and this second coup attempt may well be successful". (Additional reporting by Reuters TV, Hans-Edzard Busemann in Berlin, Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul and Daniel Dixon in Stockholm; Writing by Madeline Chambers and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Gareth Jones)
President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday afternoon, following through on his campaign promise to roll back Obama-era environmental protections intended to combat climate change.

The Trump administrations Energy Independence order essentially begins the process of dismantling the Clean Power Plan (CPP), which limits greenhouse gas emissions from coal-burning power plants. It was former President Barack Obamas signature legislation for restricting the carbon emissions that contribute to global warming.

In courting miners on the campaign trail, Trump condemned his predecessors environmental policies as an assault on American workers in the coal industry. His rhetoric made no allowances for jobs that might be created in renewable energy. In 2015, Fortune Magazine calculated there were twice as many Americans working in the solar-power industry as coal miners.

While introducing Trump at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters, Vice President Mike Pence said, The war on coal is over. Everyone here knows the truth that affordable, abundant and reliable energy powers the American economy.

Trump celebrated the signing of the executive order as the start of a new era in U.S. energy production and job creation.

The action Im taking today will eliminate federal overreach, restore economic freedom and allow our companies and our workers to thrive, compete and succeed on a level playing field for the first time in a long time, fellas. Its been a long time. Im not just talking about eight years. Im talking about a lot longer than eight years, Trump said.

Earlier Tuesday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the executive order directs all agencies to review all regulations, rules, policies and guidance documents that hinder domestic energy production and identify those that are not mandated by law or contributing to the public welfare.

For too long, the federal government has acted as a barrier to energy independence and innovation. By reducing unnecessary regulatory obstacles, well free up American energy companies to responsibly use our vast energy resources, Spicer said.

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President Trump, seated, accompanied by coal miners and, from left, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt, second from right, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and Vice President Mike Pence, far right, holds up the signed Energy Independence Executive Order on March 28, 2017, at EPA headquarters in Washington. (Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

In anticipation of the executive order, Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said Tuesday morning that she will not surrender our childrens future to profits for the coal and natural gas industry without a fight.

This is an all-out assault on the protections we need to avert climate catastrophe. Its a senseless betrayal of our national interests. And its a shortsighted attempt to undermine American clean energy leadership, Suh said in a statement.

Trump is sacrificing our future for fossil fuel profits  and leaving our kids to pay the price. This would do lasting damage to our environment and public lands, threaten our homes and health, hurt our pocketbooks and slow the clean energy progress that has already generated millions of good-paying jobs.

The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) president Gene Karpinski also weighed in:

Rolling back these public health protections shows Trump cares more about big polluters than the well-being of our communities. There is no excuse for unsafe drinking water, dirty air, more asthma attacks in kids, and increased extreme weather events that destroy homes and livelihoods, he said. Donald Trump may care more about corporate interests, but the people of this country care about a safe, clean and healthy environment, and they will not let him get away with destroying it.

Former Vice President and climate champion Al Gore released a statement saying the discouraging executive order is a misguided step away from a sustainable carbon-free future.

It is essential, not only to our planet, but also to our economic future, that the United States continues to serve as a global leader in solving the climate crisis by transitioning to clean energy, a transition that will continue to gain speed due to the increasing competitiveness of solar and wind, Gore said.

Annie Leonard, Greenpeaces USA executive director, said the executive order provides further evidence that Trump is not a leader but a fossil fuel industry stooge with a presidential pen.

She went on to say, Thankfully, for all his bluster, the best Trump can do is delay Americas inevitable transition to clean energy, but he cant stop it. The problem, of course, is how much devastation his administration will inflict on the climate, vulnerable communities and the environment in the meantime.

The CPP is the centerpiece of Obamas efforts to fight climate change. Its also the key to U.S. compliance with the landmark Paris Agreement, in which 194 countries pledged to reduce carbon emissions to limit the increase in average global temperature to below 2C. That the dismantling of the CPP disrupts the Paris Agreement is not likely to be a big concern for Trump, since he has vowed to pull the United States from the accord anyway.

A senior administration official told reporters Tuesday, The previous administration devalued workers by the policies. Were saying we can do both. We can protect the environment and provide people with work and keep the economy growing. And thats the policy agenda were going to try to focus on.

But scientists say that climate change will have serious economic consequences, in the form of rising sea levels and more disastrous hurricanes. The White House official could not respond when asked what the administration makes of those economic arguments.

Again, youll have to talk to those scientists. Maybe I can talk to you afterward. Im not familiar with what youre talking about, the official said.

Trump once characterized himself as being an environmentalist to a large extent but his actions and rhetoric paint a drastically different picture. In fact, that same day he signed executive orders advancing the controversial Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines.

In December, more than 2,300 scientists, including 22 Nobel Prize winners, signed an open letter beseeching Trump to respect scientific research and rely upon it when shaping policy.

The former real estate magnate went on to nominate Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who has close ties to the fossil fuel industry and sued the EPA more than a dozen times, to lead that very agency. Pruitt recently said he does not think carbon dioxide is the primary driver of climate change. Trumps secretary of state is former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, whose company has been accused of leading a campaign to deny climate change as far back as the 1970s  although ironically, its public stance now (acknowledging that the risk of climate change is real and the risk warrants action) would seem to put it to the left of the administration on this issue.

President Donald Trump signs an executive order eliminating Obama-era climate change regulations at the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington on March 28, 2017. (Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Trump has variously called climate change a hoax perpetrated by China to make the U.S. uncompetitive in manufacturing and claimed nobody really knows if its real. Neither claim is accurate. The overwhelming majority of scientific organizations say the scientific evidence of the climate systems warming is incontrovertible.

For instance, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.K. Royal Society, the Science Council of Japan and other international science organizations signed a joint statement affirming the reality of climate change back in 2005.

Climate change is real. There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the worlds climate. However there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring, the statement reads. The evidence comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes to many physical and biological systems. It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities.

Independent analyses from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that the Earths average surface temperatures in 2016 were the warmest since record-keeping began in 1880. It was the third consecutive year that the global temperatures set a new record for warmth.

Amid such dire data, 21 young Americans, who range in age from 9 to 20, have taken it upon themselves to force the federal government to protect the environment. The group filed a lawsuit, Juliana v. United States, against the federal government in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon in 2015. They argue that the U.S. governments actions contributing to climate change violate the younger generations constitutional rights to life, liberty and property, and amount to a failure to protect public trust resources. The case is expected to go to trial sometime this year.

Joanne Spalding, the chief climate counsel at the Sierra Club, said the lawsuit is especially important given the Trump administrations apparent denial of climate science.

The Juliana case essentially says no matter what the statutes require of the EPA or other agencies, there is this fundamental right to a life-sustaining climate and that the federal government has a duty to protect that, Spalding told Yahoo News. Its really groundbreaking.

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By Rodi Said TABQA DAM, Syria (Reuters) - Syrian engineers worked on Tuesday to open spillways and ease pressure on a major dam across the Euphrates River during a pause in a U.S.-backed assault to capture it from Islamic State (IS) militants, a Reuters witness said. The Tabqa Dam is a key strategic target in the military campaign to isolate and capture the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa, Islamic State's biggest urban stronghold. Engineers arrived from the dam's northern entrance, which the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance captured last week. The dam's southern reaches remain in IS hands. U.S.-led coalition aircraft could be heard overhead as SDF forces manned positions on the dam. Coalition forces in armored vehicles were also seen in the area. Inspections at the dam were being carried out after the Syrian government on Sunday said it had been damaged by U.S. air strikes and could collapse, with the risk of catastrophic flooding. Islamic State said the dam's operating systems were not working properly and it was vulnerable to collapse. The coalition later said it saw no imminent danger to the dam, unless the militants planned to blow it up. No fighting could be seen or heard at the dam on Tuesday, according to the Reuters photographer, who was at the site for about 90 minutes. Islamic State said in a statement on Tuesday that the maintenance team responsible for the dam had been killed in a U.S.-led air strike on Monday, the day the SDF paused its assault. The coalition press office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The main operations buildings for the dam along with its technicians are located on the southern bank controlled by Islamic State. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had learned from trusted sources that the engineer responsible for administering the dam had been killed along with another technician, but did not detail how. The Observatory on Tuesday cited sources saying Islamic State had sent 900 fighters from Raqqa to confront the SDF as it advances on the city on several fronts. It was not clear where they had been sent to. The head of the Kurdish YPG militia, fighting in the Raqqa campaign as part of the SDF alliance, has said the final assault on the city will begin in early April. RAQQA OFFENSIVE U.S.-backed forces are also battling Islamic State for control of the Iraqi city of Mosul. Defeats in Mosul and Raqqa would deal a heavy blow to Islamic State in the cities from where it declared its "caliphate" across Syria and Iraq in 2014. The SDF seized Tabqa air base on Sunday, the first such facility to fall under the control of Syrian Kurdish militias and their allies that now control swathes of northern Syria after six years of multi-sided civil war. In comments to the London-based Arab newspaper al-Hayat published on Tuesday, the head of the Kurdish YPG militia said 16,000-17,000 Arab and Kurdish fighters would take part in the assault on Raqqa. YPG commander Sipan Hemo also said U.S. Apache attack helicopters "will participate in providing air support to our forces". Hemo told Reuters earlier this month that the operation to storm Raqqa would start in early April and last no more than a number of weeks. Echoing that assessment, he told al-Hayat "we will liberate Raqqa in weeks or one month, not more". Turkey is fiercely opposed to the YPG's role in the Raqqa offensive, and has been lobbying the United States to drop the Kurds and instead work with Ankara and its Syrian rebel allies to take the city. Ankara sees the YPG as an extension of a Kurdish militant group that is fighting an insurgency in Turkey. Washington says a final decision on when and how Raqqa will be taken has yet to made. (Writing by Tom Perry in Beirut; editing by Mark Heinrich)
Paris (AFP) - Less than a month to the first round of the French presidential election, the wife of onetime frontrunner Francois Fillon as charged with complicity in his fake jobs scandal and far-right contender Marine Le Pen said the EU was "crumbling".

Here are four things that happened in the campaign on Tuesday:

- Penelope Fillon charged -

The wife of conservative candidate Francois Fillon was charged with complicity in the abuse of public funds in a scandal that has engulfed her husband's campaign.

He has already been charged in the case involving allegedly fictitious jobs as a parliamentary aide for which the Welsh-born Penelope Fillon was paid hundreds of thousands of euros.

The 61-year-old Penelope was also charged over a salary she received from a literary magazine owned by a billionaire friend of her husband's, Marc Ladreit de Lacharriere.

She has told police she never stepped foot in the offices of the Revue des Deux Mondes, according to a report in the Journal du Dimanche weekly.

- Hamon meets Merkel, wins Schulz backing -

Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon, who risks elimination in the first round of the election, met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin in a bid to assert his vision to broaden EU decision-making in the eurozone to national parliaments and the European Parliament.

Hamon, 49, is the third French presidential candidate to hold talks with the centre-right German leader after right-wing contender Francois Fillon and Europhile centrist frontrunner Emmanuel Macron.

Following his meeting with Merkel, Hamon told reporters she had expressed her "reservations" on his proposal.

During his one-day trip to Berlin, the Socialist candidate also received the backing of Martin Schulz, leader of the Social Democrats (SPD) and Merkel's challenger in Germany's September general election.

- Le Pen says EU 'crumbling' -

Facing France's employers along with three other candidates, far-right contender Marine Le Pen compared the European Union to a "crumbling" empire.

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The leader of the National Front (FN) was grilled by business leaders on how French businesses would measure up to economic giants like China if France were to leave the euro.

"What I see is that nations are moving forward while empires like the European Union are crumbling," she said in response, defending her decision to drop the European common currency if she is elected.

Le Pen has vowed to hold a referendum on leaving the European Union within the first six months of her presidency.

- Macron brushes off concerns -

Centrist frontrunner Emmanuel Macron brushed off concerns about his ability to form a parliamentary majority if elected, declaring his fledgling En Marche (On the move) party to be "France's premier political force".

En Marche claims to notched up 230,000 members in a year. Membership is free.

Macron, who has said he plans to run candidates in all 577 constituencies in the June general election, said he was "shocked" at suggestions that he would not win the vote with a slate of mostly political neophytes.

His conservative rival Francois Fillon is campaigning as the only candidate whose party -- former president Nicolas Sarkozy's Republicans -- has a decent chance of winning the parliamentary vote.

Macron has said the French are tired of the same old faces.
A hedge fund executive who lost billions to notorious Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff jumped to his death Monday in an apparent suicide at a New York City hotel.

Read: LAX Officer Hailed Hero After Saving Man Who Attempted Suicide

Charles Murphy apparently jumped to his death shortly after 5 p.m. at the luxurious Sofitel Hotel in midtown Manhattan. Stunned witnesses told police that they saw a man in a dark business suit leap from the 24th floor and land on a fourth floor terrace.

He was a Harvard Law School graduate who recently worked for Paulson & Co. During the 2008 Madoff scandal, he worked for the Fairfield Greenwich group, a high-stakes hedge fund that lost $7 billion in the scam.

Murphy's death is a sobering reminder that despite Madoff's 2009 conviction and 150-year prison sentence, the impact of his crimes is still reverberating in the financial world.

"As Bernie Madoff sits in jail, the wreckage of what he has done is still taking place," Andrew Kirtzman, the author of Betrayal: The Life and Lies of Bernie Madoff, told Inside Edition. "Four people have now committed suicide, including his son, all because they trusted him."

Murphy owned a stunning mansion on New Yorks chic Upper East Side that he had been trying to sell for a staggering $49.5 million with no takers. The mansion has this grand entrance with a spiral staircase that winds up seven stories. Inside, there is a two-story wood-paneled library and gallery spaces between floors.

Money was reportedly so tight in the Murphy household that his wife, Annabelle, couldn't pay for repairs on her Honda Odyssey last summer.

Read: Mom May Have Watched Daughter's Sucide on Social Media Livestream: Officials

"People are still suffering, there are people still trying to reclaim their lives after losing everything," Kirtzman said. "This was a case where someone could not continue."

The story of Madoffs brazen Ponzi scheme is set to be retold onscreen with Oscar-winner Robert De Niro as Madoff and Michelle Pfeiffer as his wife, Ruth, in the upcoming HBO movie, The Wizard Of Lies.

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Murphy is survived by his four children, two from his first marriage to Heather Kerzner, and two with wife Annabelle.

Watch: In Court Papers Lisa Marie Presley Claims She Found Inappropriate Photos of Children on Husband's Computer

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NEW YORK (AP)  Two men were arrested on drug charges after heroin was found hidden in the false bottom of a dog crate containing a Labrador retriever that had been shipped from Puerto Rico to New York.

Samuel Seabrooks, 35, of the Bronx, and Carlos Betancourt-Morales, 27, of Carmel, were arraigned on drug possession and conspiracy charges Sunday, according to the Queens district attorney's office.

Prosecutors said Seabrook and Betancourt-Morales met up at a Bronx IHOP restaurant Friday night and traveled in separate vehicles to the American Airlines Priority Parcel Services at Kennedy Airport.

The two men had a brief conversation before Betancourt-Morales entered the cargo building and signed for a delivery receipt for the dog crate, prosecutors said. He was stopped by police as he pushed the crate on a rolling cart toward the building's exit.

After obtaining a search warrant, authorities recovered 10 plastic wrapped packages containing more than 22 pounds of heroin with a street value of more than $1 million. The packages were stamped with the Nike swoosh logo and a five-pointed star.

The two New York men face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Information on their attorneys was not immediately available.

"Statistics show that, unfortunately, heroin has made a comeback in New York City and its surrounding suburbs, with fatal overdoses outpacing homicides," said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

Animal rights activists condemned the use of a "helpless canine as a drug mule," said Jean Shafiroff of the American Human Society. She called for better animal control at New York City airports.
Photo credit: TheGallerycars / YouTube

From Road & Track

If you've never seen a rally in person, it's a real spectacle. Cars are flying through the air, getting sideways through every turn, and shooting flames out their exhausts the whole time. It's great when modern modern WRC cars are zipping around the stages, but it's even better when the historic rally cars come out to play.

The 65th annual Rally Costa Brava happened this weekend in Spain, and it was full of nothing but your favorite historic rally legends. Everything from an Audi Quattro to a Renault 5 Turbo made an appearance, not to mention a couple of Porsche 911s, and yes, even a Lancia Stratos.

These drivers aren't going easy either. Despite the rarity and value of these vintage cars, the drivers have no problem sliding around sharp, narrow turns lined by rocks and barriers. Youtube channel TheGallerycars captured the rallying action on camera, bringing us to the best seats in the house. And you don't even have to stand out there in the cold and rain.

Make sure to turn the sound up.

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Brasilia (AFP) - Brazil sought to swallow the last of the scandal surrounding its tainted meat exports Tuesday as top beef buyer Hong Kong resumed imports -- the final major market to lift its ban, the government said.

Instead of a blanket ban, Hong Kong will now only block imports from 21 companies being investigated for passing off expired meat as fresh, the Brazilian government said in a statement.

The recession-hit South American nation, the world's top beef and poultry exporter, welcomed the news as a victory.

"With this measure, all the big markets for our meat exports are open again for (imports destined for) human consumption," the government said.

- Big on beef -

Brazil was rocked by investigators' accusations on March 17 that the 21 meat processing companies used chemicals to hide the smell of rotting meat and bribed health inspectors to pass off their products as safe.

About 20 countries last week fully or partially closed their doors to Brazilian meat imports.

After the bans, Brazil's average daily meat exports plunged 19 percent in a week, or $11.7 million, according to the trade ministry.

Meat exports brought in more than $13 billion to the Brazilian economy in 2016. The industry employs six million people.

Three major importers -- China, Egypt and Chile -- had lifted their restrictions as of Saturday, opening up to imports from Brazilian producers except for the 21 plants under investigation.

Hong Kong is the biggest importer of Brazilian beef, with more than $718 million in imports in 2016, according to the Brazilian trade ministry.

- Ministers to meet -

The European Union has also barred imports from the plants in question.

The EU's health and food safety commissioner, Vytenis Andriukaitis, met with Brazilian Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi on Tuesday.

"There are many, many problems to be discussed," Andriukaitis told reporters after the meeting.

He said he hoped Brazilian officials would "do everything possible to restore confidence."

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The two officials are due to give a joint press conference Wednesday.

- Damaged image -

Maggi said on Monday that the EU commissioner's visit, scheduled before the meat scandal broke, was an important chance for Brazil to offer "clarifications."

"Our image was very heavily attacked in recent days. The comments overseas were very bad," he said.

"Our competitors... are taking advantage of this moment of fragility to win clients and market attention."

Officials have been scrambling to contain the damage, both domestically and with trade partners. Police have arrested more than 30 people and three plants have been closed.

President Michel Temer has several times pointed out that only 184 consignments of meat were deemed by importers to be in violation of standards, among the 853,000 consignments exported in 2016.
By Venus Wu HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong-leader elect Carrie Lam said on Tuesday she was "very determined" to tackle the high cost of housing in the densely populated city, among the top concerns of foreign business people working there. Lam, the Chinese-controlled financial hub's former chief secretary, was chosen on Sunday by a 1,200-person committee to lead the city, pledging in her victory speech to unite political divisions, illustrated by huge pro-democracy protests in 2014, that have hindered policy-making and legislative work. Speaking at a Credit Suisse investment conference in Hong Kong, Beijing-backed Lam also said the former British colony faced tough competition from the region and also from mainland Chinese cities which are "becoming very powerful". The cost of housing is one of Hong Kong's biggest social issues and making homes more affordable was among outgoing leader Leung Chun-ying's top priorities, something he failed to achieve. Lam said land and labour were two "major bottlenecks" for Hong Kong's development. "On the land issue, I am very determined to tackle that in the next term of government in a big way," she told an audience of 200 financial and business professionals. "It's not just looking at the annual land sale programme but really, the long-term supply of land, or better still, a land bank for Hong Kong." Lam also pledged during her campaign to tackle the problem by increasing land supply. Lam's call to mend social divisions suffered a setback a day after she was elected when police on Monday charged nine organisers of the 2014 demonstrations, provoking anger among protesters. In perhaps her strongest admission to date on China's perceived behind-the-scenes interference in Hong Kong politics, she told a radio programme she knew the Central Liaison Office, China's top representative office in Hong Kong, had been involved in lobbying legislators in the past. "We do not need our friends at the Central Liaison Office to worry," she told reporters after the programme, saying she wouldn't welcome its involvement in Hong Kong affairs under her administration. Since the 2014 protests, there have also been some calls for independence in the city which operates under a "one country, two systems" formula, allowing it freedoms not enjoyed on the Communist Party-ruled mainland. Lam said if the city started to argue about whether it should become independent, then "we have no common basis to start this common journey to give Hong Kong a better future". The next few months will be critical for Leung and Lam, with Chinese President Xi Jinping expected to pay a visit on July 1 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's handover from British rule, with large protests expected. The city also had a lot of catching up to do in terms of comprehensive double tax agreements, Lam said. In her victory speech on Sunday, Lam pledged to follow through on her promise to introduce a two-tier profits tax. (Reporting by Venus Wu; Writing by Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by Nick Macfie)
By Doina Chiacu WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top Republican in Congress on Tuesday stood by Devin Nunes, an ally of President Donald Trump who heads the House of Representatives intelligence committee and is under fire for his handling of an investigation into possible Russian ties to Trump's election campaign. Democrats accuse Nunes of being too close to the president to be able to head the probe. Some of Nunes' fellow Republicans have questioned his objectivity after he made a controversial announcement last week about U.S. spy agency surveillance. House Speaker Paul Ryan, asked at a news conference whether Nunes should step aside from the investigation and if he knew the source of Nunes' claims about surveillance, said: "No and no." At an event in the White House, Trump declined to comment on whether Nunes should step back. The specter of possible Russian influence on the election in Trump's favor has cast a shadow over the president's first two months in office. Nunes announced last week without providing a source that he had information Trump associates may have been ensnared in incidental intelligence collection before the president took office in January. The lawmaker acknowledged visiting the White House before making the announcement but has declined to say who he met there. Critics say that Nunes' disclosure was an effort to justify Trump's unfounded accusations this month that his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, had directed surveillance on Trump Tower during the election campaign. The Senate Intelligence Committee, which is also investigating Russia's role in the election, wants to question Trump's son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, about meetings he held with the Russian ambassador and a Russian banker in December. Nunes, who was a member of the team that ran Trump's transition to the presidency after the Nov. 8 election, told reporters on Tuesday the House panel's investigation was moving forward. Asked whether he would recuse himself, he said, "The investigation continues." Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said in an email that "Speaker Ryan has full confidence that Chairman Nunes is conducting a thorough, fair, and credible investigation." But Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, influential foreign policy hawks, joined Democrats in questioning Nunes' objectivity although they stopped short of calling on him to remove himself from the probe as Democrats have done. "I think he put his objectivity in question, at the very least," Graham said on NBC's "Today" show. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu; additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Patricia Zengerle; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Grant McCool)
WASHINGTON (AP)  The Supreme Court tried to figure out Tuesday whether immigrants should get a second chance in court when bad legal advice leads to a guilty plea and certain deportation.

The justices seemed divided during an argument about what to do in cases in which the evidence against criminal defendants is strong and the chances of acquittal by a jury are remote.

The court is considering the case of Jae Lee, a South Korean immigrant who was facing drug charges.

Lee pleaded guilty after his lawyer mistakenly assured him a conviction would not lead to deportation.

The Trump administration is arguing the outcome at trial would have been the same. The administration has pledged to increase deportations, with a focus on immigrants who have been convicted of crimes.

John Bursch, Lee's lawyer, told the court that his client would have taken his chances at trial or had his lawyer seek a better plea deal that might allow him to remain in the United States.

Justice Elena Kagan, seeming to favor Lee, said she would make the same choice if she were in Lee's shoes. "Sign me up," Kagan said.

The issue in Lee's appeal is whether the lawyer's recommendation to take the deal offered by prosecutors was so bad that it amounts to a violation of Lee's constitutional right to a lawyer.

Both sides agree that the performance of the lawyer, Larry Fitzgerald, was deficient in representing Lee. The Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that immigrants have a constitutional right to be told by their lawyers whether pleading guilty to a crime could lead to their deportation.

But Lee almost must show that the bad lawyering mattered to the outcome of the criminal case.

The federal appeals court in Cincinnati ruled that the evidence against Lee was overwhelming and that he would have been convicted had he rejected the plea offer and taken his chances at trial. Other appeals courts around the country have sided with immigrants in similar circumstances. The Supreme Court is expected to set a national standard.

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Justice Anthony Kennedy said a ruling for Lee could put judges in a tough position. "You're asking us to assess the mindset of a defendant when he makes the plea," Kennedy said.

Alabama is leading 19 other states in backing the administration's argument that the appeals court ruling should be upheld.

The Obama administration Justice Department had previously urged the Supreme Court to turn down the appeal and leave the lower court ruling in place. The new administration announced in February that any immigrant in the country illegally who is charged with or convicted of any offense, or even suspected of a crime, will now be an enforcement priority for deportation. Some 11 million immigrants are living illegally in the U.S.

Immigrant rights groups and the bar association are among those siding with Lee.

A decision in Lee v. U.S., 16-327, is expected by late June.
Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - At Amin al-Husseini secondary school in the occupied West Bank, with an Israeli settlement visible in the distance, singing the Palestinian national anthem is a daily ritual of student life.

For the Palestinians, Haj Amin al-Husseini, former grand mufti of Jerusalem, is the hero of a 1936 revolt against the British mandate over Palestine.

To Israelis, he was an ally of the Nazis and naming a school after him is an example of incitement to hatred of Israel and Jews.

Few topics are more indicative of the starkly different viewpoints of Israelis and Palestinians than the debate over incitement in schools.

While Israel says it is a main cause of violence, Palestinian officials call such accusations baseless propaganda that seeks to deny them their right to teach children their history.

Last month, at his first White House meeting with President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said incitement was a key factor in the long-running conflict with the Palestinians.

"They continue to call for Israels destruction -- inside their schools, inside their mosques, inside the textbooks. You have to read it to believe it," he said.

"I think the Palestinians have to get rid of some of that hate that they're taught from a very young age," Trump said, responding to a reporter's question about concessions each side needs to make.

"It starts in the school room," he added.

Israeli public security minister Gilad Erdan told AFP that the 1.19 million Palestinian students learn "from kindergarten to university" that Israel has no right to exist.

Israel does not appear on the maps in their schoolbooks or on the walls of their schools, which are named after "terrorists", according to Erdan.

Tharwat Zeid, curriculum chief at the Palestinian education ministry, flatly denies the Israeli accusations.

"Our books are not for inciting hatred but for teaching," he said.

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"Historical Palestine" -- the Palestinian territories and Israel -- is taught to children "because it is our history and it was our land", he explains.

Israel came into existence as a state in 1948 and the war surrounding its creation resulted in hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees.

- 'Odes to the Israelis' -

Since the end of the 1980s, the Palestinian leadership based in the West Bank -- unlike Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip -- has recognised the Jewish state's existence.

School programmes are inspected by the international donors who finance the Palestinian Authority and therefore public education.

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, has said in a report that nothing in the Palestinian study programmes under its oversight supports charges of inciting hatred against Israel or anti-Semitism.

However, Israel alleges that Palestinians are encouraged to hate Jews, citing examples such as what it calls the glorification as "martyrs" of people who carry out attacks.

Israelis point to schools named for those responsible for attacks, while many Palestinians see such figures as heroes of their struggle against the occupation.

The Palestinians say it is the Israeli curriculum that teaches hatred and ask whether teaching their own history should be off-limits.

"Should we write odes to the Israelis and the occupation? Should we teach the history of Israel?" asked Al-Husseini teacher Ziad Khadash.

The debate gained resonance when a new wave of violence broke out in October 2015 that has killed 256 Palestinians, 40 Israelis, two Americans, one Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese national, according to an AFP count.

Most of the Palestinians who lost their lives were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, according to Israeli authorities. Many were young people acting on their own.

- 'The other as the enemy' -

Israel blames Palestinian education, social media and children's TV programmes, whether broadcast by the Islamist Hamas movement or the Palestinian Authority dominated by president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party.

Zeid says it is more likely that it is the overall situation created by the occupation that fuels hatred rather than schools.

The Gaza Strip, ruled by Hamas, which calls for Israel's destruction, has been under an Israeli blockade for 10 years.

The West Bank has been occupied for 50 years, is criss-crossed by Israeli checkpoints, largely blocked off on its western edge by Israel's security wall.

It is also dotted with Israeli settlements around which clashes are frequent.

Some students are forced to make wide detours to reach their schools due to settlements in the area.

In the Gaza Strip, ravaged by three wars since 2008, the last conflict in 2014 destroyed 24 schools and damaged 190 others.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian youngsters need psychological support, according to the UN.

Both Palestinian and Israeli children, who have grown up with the conflict, lack "mention of the culture of the other", says Sami Adwan, a researcher in education sciences.

With a team of Israeli and Palestinian researchers, he analysed both sides' study programmes.

They found that "instances of dehumanisation and demonisation of the other" regularly alleged by each side are actually rarely found in either curriculum.

But "Israeli and Palestinian books contain unilateral national narratives that present the other as the enemy," their study says.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian police arrested five people on Monday for beating up several Nigerian students in a Delhi suburb, the latest attack on Africans in the country. The attack came after a protest at the death of a 19-year-old student allegedly from a drug overdose, media said. A mob attacked the Nigerians who were shopping in Greater Noida, a town in Uttar Pradesh state, police official Sujata Singh said. The crowd blames the Nigerian community in the area for supplying the drugs, according to media reports. Singh said the reason for the death of the student was as yet unknown. Four of the students were badly wounded in the attack and taken to hospital. Television footage showed a scuffle with the crowd punching, kicking and beating people with heavy objects as they lay on the ground. In a tweet on Tuesday, India's external affairs minister, Sushma Swaraj, said that Yogi Adityanath, the newly appointed chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, had assured her of "a fair and impartial investigation". (Reporting by Aditi Shah; Additional reporting by Malini Menon in New Delhi; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Public health efforts appear headed for the chopping block under the Trump administrations recently released budget. Thats a threat to national security.

A warning to the president and Congress: A nation cannot be great if it isnt healthy. Public health, that often invisible science that promotes the well-being of families and communities, is a bulwark of strong defense. We need the hard power of health to keep Americans safe.

Advances in public health have helped Americans live an average of 25 years longer than they did a century ago. Widespread immunization, better control of infectious diseases, declining tobacco use, healthier foods, and road safety are among the CDCs picks for the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century. Such triumphs produce healthy children, strong families, and a military prepared to protect its people.

The business case for public health is also compelling. Healthy workers are the drivers of Americas economic engine. Chronically ill employees lose 450 million more work days than healthy ones, according to Gallup polling data. The Institute of Medicine estimated the indirect costs of preventable chronic illness at more than $1 trillion a year. Reducing what employers pay for health insurance makes it cheaper to produce goods and services for global markets.

Read more: Trump budget calls for slashing biomedical and science research funding

Strengthening public health doesnt require dramatic scientific breakthroughs or elegant research. What it does take is strategic thinking, long-term vision, and the political will to allocate resources today in order to reap benefits tomorrow. The math is simple. Every 10 percent increase in local public health spending reduces mortality rates by between 1.1 and 6.9 percent. Provide lead-free drinking water or pay for a lifetime of developmental delays. Support surveillance to detect early signs of flu virus mutation or confront a treatment-resistant epidemic later. Spend modestly to prepare for a natural disaster or bear the costlier burden of coping with it afterward.

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The Trump administrations proposed 19 percent reduction in the National Institutes of Health budget would undermine biomedical research, with its potential to advance knowledge of the brain, repair genetic defects, and find cures for cancer. The budget would also reform the CDC, the nations premier public health agency, apparently by diverting federal funds to the states.

And theres more. Drastic spending cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency endanger efforts to address the increasingly apparent health consequences of climate change. Worker safety would be undermined if the Occupational Safety and Health Administrations training grants are eliminated. And echoing presidential priorities, Congress has threatened to shut down the $1 billion-a-year Prevention and Public Health Fund, which was part of the Affordable Care Act.

Instead of making deep investments in public health, and thus public safety, we allocate pennies. Americans spend more per capita on health care than any other country in the world, but less than 3 percent of all health spending goes to public health. The CDCs budget has declined slightly over the past decade, and funding cuts at the state and local levels have been drastic, says Trust for Americas Health. We have neglected our public health infrastructure just as we have neglected our transportation infrastructure. Will we let our health deteriorate as we have seen our roads and bridges crumble?

Read more: For health community, an unexpected bright spot in Trump budget: vaccines

As Trump said during his campaign, we must start to build again. Now is the time for him to back those statements with action by making cost-effective investments in community health centers, water systems, public transportation, walkable cities, disease monitoring, supply chains that carry nutritious foods, safe housing, and much more.

We should commit to curbing diabetes, which afflicts 30 million Americans and consumes one out of every three Medicare dollars. Lets lower the infant mortality rate instead of tolerating one that puts us behind 26 other wealthy countries. We need to craft innovative information systems that tell us whether our programs and practices are working and conduct timely surveillance to pinpoint looming infectious diseases.

This is the moment to give our public health agencies the resources they need to respond to imminent dangers like bioterrorism but also to perils that dont grab headlines but do steal lives. Not having enough public health workers is a persistent problem, so directing more funding and greater respect to the field is also an essential job-creating opportunity.

The presidents current budget proposal is not altogether bleak for public health. A new Federal Emergency Response Fund would make resources immediately available when the next Zika or Ebola virus strikes, as it certainly will. The budget would also preserve a four-year, billion-dollar commitment to Gavi, the global vaccine alliance. Such inclusions suggest that some people in the Trump administration do recognize the sizable return on public health investment.

Lets listen more closely to those voices. Public health can help Trump keep his promise to rebuild the nations infrastructure and make America safe. Healthy Americans create a prosperous and secure nation. Lets give them the resources they need to get to work.

Ruth J. Katz is the executive director of the Aspen Institute Health, Medicine, and Society Program and a former dean of the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health.
CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamic State's branch in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula posted a video on Tuesday depicting the beheading of two men the militant Islamist group said it had found guilty of practicing witchcraft and sorcery. The video, posted on a Telegram channel often used by IS, showed the group forming a religious police unit known as the Hasbah in northern Sinai, where it has waged an insurgency for years. The rugged, thinly populated peninsula borders Israel, Gaza and the Suez Canal. No comment was immediately available from Egypt's military or Interior Ministry. In the video, two elderly men appear in orange jumpsuits and are taken out of a black van and led to the desert, where they are beheaded. A man reads out what he says is a verdict from a Sharia court condemning them to death for "apostasy, sorcery, claiming the ability to tell the future, and leading people to polytheism." Islamic State uses the terms sorcerers and heretics to refer to adherents of Sufism, a non-violent form of Islam involving mystical rituals that has been practiced for centuries. IS has killed hundreds of soldiers and police in Sinai since 2013, when fighting intensified, but the video shows the militants are expanding their activities to target civilians. "Thanks be to God who has allowed the Islamic State's soldiers in Sinai in applying his law and instituting religion in spite of all the infidels, apostates and envious Jews," one fighter can be seen and heard saying. In the video, which is also notable for the fact that the men speaking in it are unmasked, fighters are shown seizing trucks full of cigarettes and drugs, and then burning them. They are also seen handing out fliers with religious advice to motorists at checkpoints and raiding a Sufi gathering and arresting a number of men, who are given a religious sermon and then made to sign a document saying they will repent. Fighters are also seen smashing television sets and satellite dishes, destroying tombs they say go against Islamic burial laws, and using sticks to beat men accused of smuggling. They are also shown blowing up what they describe as Sufi shrines. Islamic State has instituted similar religious police units in Syrian and Iraqi territories it controls. The Egyptian branch first showed signs of expanding its goals beyond fighting security forces when in December it bombed a church adjoining Cairo's St Mark's Cathedral, the seat of the Coptic papacy, killing 28 people. In February the militants threatened all Egyptian Christians, the Middle East's largest Christian community, in a video, and began circulating names of Christians who must leave Sinai or die. Within a period of three weeks they killed seven Christians, prompting almost 200 families to flee northern Sinai, church officials and human rights groups say. (Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein and Ali Abdelaty; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Photo credit: Getty

From Cosmopolitan

Photo credit: Getty

Ivanka Trump is planning a trip to Germany to attend a summit on the economic empowerment of women, a senior administration official says.

The first daughter was invited by German Chancellor Angela Merkel during Merkel's recent White House visit, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss details of the trip by name and requested anonymity.

The W20 summit, a women-focused effort within the Group of 20 countries, will be in Berlin in late April. Ivanka Trump's plans are still being worked out but she hopes to study successful apprenticeship programs during her visit.

Merkel and Ivanka Trump spent time together when Merkel visited the White House to meet with President Donald Trump. At the request of German officials, the first daughter helped arrange a meeting between American and German business leaders to discuss vocational training.

The meeting marked the second time foreign leaders reached out to Ivanka Trump to coordinate an economic conversation. During Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's visit last month, she helped organize a meeting on economic development opportunities for women. That came together at the suggestion of Trudeau's office.

Ivanka Trump has been discussing job training opportunities with CEOs for some time, starting with meetings she held before her father took office. She has also pledged to work on expanding economic opportunities for women.

The first daughter is seen as a rising power in the young administration. She is getting an office in the West Wing, a security clearance, and government-issued electronic devices even though she is not an official employee.

She is relinquishing control of her lifestyle brand but is retaining ownership. Ivanka Trump also has pledged to "voluntarily comply" with all ethics rules that apply to employees. Still, ethics experts have raised concerns that by not becoming an official employee, she could skirt transparency and ethical provisions.

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Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump's daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump will attend a women's empowerment summit in Berlin next month sponsored by the Group of 20 major economic powers.

Dubbed the W20 summit and held this year under the Germany-led G20, the meeting's themes will include gender pay equality, the relatively small number of female executives and women as entrepreneurs.

"Looking forward to promoting the role of women in the economy and the future of our workforce globally #W20," Ivanka Trump posted on Twitter, confirming the news she would attend first reported by The Washington Post.

The 35-year-old daughter of the US Republican president -- who was managing her own company before moving with her family to Washington to advise her father -- has an office at the White House although she is not a government employee.

On Monday, President Trump and Ivanka Trump hosted women small business owners at the White House for a roundtable meeting.

Since Trump's inauguration on January 20, Ivanka Trump has been a visible presence at his high-level diplomatic visits.

Most recently, she participated in a round-table discussion with the president and Chancellor Angela Merkel during the German leader's visit to the White House on March 17.
Ivanka Trump celebrated the birthday of her youngest child with husband Jared Kushner by posting adorable pictures of the 1-year-old on Instagram on Monday.

Theodore James Kushner turned 1 on Monday, and was treated to spaghetti, a Kushner family tradition, and a lovely cake baked by the family. Ivanka took to social media to express her love for her youngest child in a post captioned, One year ago today, little Theodore was born, expanding both our family and our hearts! This little boy is pure sunshine! Happy birthday baby boy!

Read: Donald Trumps Children In Aspen For Family Spring Break

Ivanka, 35, moved to Washington, D.C., from New York earlier this year after her husband was appointed as a special adviser to her father President Donald Trump. The couple has moved into the posh Washington neighborhood of Kalorama, which boasts of a number of other high-profile neighbors including former President Barack Obama.

Theodore was born when his grandfather was still over two months away from the Republican nomination for president. A frequently appearing face on his mothers Instagram, the young Kushners first attempt at crawling was captured at the White House, a big milestone for the family.

Theodore has two older siblings. Arabella Rose Kushner is 5 years old, while her younger brother Joseph Frederick Kushner is 3. Ivanka also posted a picture of Arabella holding Theodores birthday cake on Instagram on Monday.

The first daughter took her three children out to the Smithsonian National Zoo over the weekend, and posted a picture with an elephant on Instagram. Ivanka and Kushner also took a mini winter vacation earlier this month, when the whole family flew down to the ski resort town of Aspen, Colorado.

Here are some adorable pictures and videos of the youngest Trump-Kushner child:

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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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Ivanka Trump and her family appeared to have settled into their new home in the nation's capital, but their presence in the Kalorama neighborhood of northwest Washington might taking some adjustment for nearby residents.

Complaints from the elite D.C. neighborhood surfaced recently, and locals have complained that Trump and her family have taken up too much space on the small street  from street parking to sidewalk space overtaken by full trash bags, the Associated Press reported Saturday.

Neighbors have specifically cited three major issues with the family: lack of street parking availability, the Trump/Kushners inability to keep to the proper trash pickup schedule and the conspicuous presence of security and Secret Service members that have tied up parking and general street space.

Read: First Daughter Enjoys Time With Children During Zoo Visit

It has been a three-ring circus from the day that theyve moved in, a neighbor that lived across the street, Marietta Robinson, told the AP.

The complaints came to light following a recent neighborhood commission meeting, the news outlet reported. In attendance to voice concern over the lack of parking in the area was Chris Wallace, a Fox News Anchor. Neighbors have also complained about the Secret Service presence  Trump travels with a four-vehicle motorcade in tow, according to Robinson.

Secret Service agency officials were said to have met with city members and neighbors to discuss the concern over parking. Some have complained that secret service members have parked their cars all over Tracy Place NW, and No Parking signs have been posted by the family.

The first daughter and her family rent the six-bedroom, $5.5 million home, and moved into the residence this past winter. Barack Obama recently moved into a home in the area with his family following the end of his presidency. Kalorama boasts a community of major political figures, ambassadors, philanthropists and is one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the capital.

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By Loucoumane Coulibaly ABIDJAN (Reuters) - A court in Ivory Coast acquitted former First Lady Simone Gbagbo of crimes against humanity and war crimes charges linked to her role in a 2011 civil war that killed about 3,000 people, state television announced on Tuesday. The trial, the West African nation's first for crimes against humanity, was held in an Ivorian court after the government rejected her extradition to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Gbagbo, who has often been absent from the trial on complaints of poor health, was not present for the verdict. Her husband, ex-president Laurent Gbagbo, is standing trial before the ICC on similar charges connected to the brief conflict, which was triggered by his refusal to accept defeat to Ouattara in a 2010 presidential run-off election. "We are happy. Since the start of the trial we proclaimed her innocence. The prosecution's case against her was empty," her lawyer Mathurin Dirabou told Reuters after the verdict was announced. But Human Rights Watch said the judgment left "unanswered serious questions about her alleged role in brutal crimes." "The acquittal ... reflects the many irregularities in the process against her," Param-Preet Singh, Associate Director in Human Rights Watchs International Justice program, said. "The poor quality of the investigation and weak evidence presented in her trial underscore the importance of the ICCs outstanding case against her for similar crimes." Simone Gbagbo had already been tried and convicted in March 2015 of offences against the state and sentenced to 20 years in prison, a jail term that was upheld on appeal this month. Prosecutors in her war crimes trial alleged she was part of a small group of party officials from Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) which planned violence against supporters of Alassane Ouattara, who is now president, to stop him taking power. "We regret this decision when we think of the many victims," Soungaola Coulibaly, lawyer for the victims, told Reuters by telephone. "If Simone Gbagbo is declared not guilty of these acts then who was? ... The victims do not understand this decision." (Reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Tim Cocks and James Dalgleish)
London (AFP) - Letters written by Jackie Kennedy to a British diplomat rejecting his marriage proposal years after the assassination of her husband, US president John F. Kennedy, were sold in a London auction on Wednesday.

The correspondence between Kennedy and David Ormsby Gore, Britain's ambassador to the US during Kennedy's presidency, show her explaining her reasons for not wishing to wed the former diplomat.

"We have known so much & shared & lost so much together -- Even if it isn't the way you wish now -- I hope that bond of love and pain will never be cut," she wrote to Ormsby Gore after his proposal in 1968.

"You are like my beloved beloved brother -- and mentor -- and the only original spirit I know -- as you were to Jack," she added.

The letters are part of a larger cache of papers found at Ormsby Gore's family home, including correspondence from John F. Kennedy and British prime ministers, which was sold for 100,000 ($124,000, 116,000 euros) at Bonhams auction house in London.

Ormsby Gore had suggested a "secret marriage" to Kennedy during the summer of 1968 and said he found the categorical rejection "unbearable".

His wife was killed in a car accident in 1967 and Kennedy, whose husband was assassinated while president in 1963, had written to offer her condolences.

"Your last letter was such a cri de coeur of loneliness -- I would do anything to take that anguish from you," she told the former ambassador.

Kennedy went on to marry Greek shipping mogul Aristotle Onassis, explaining her choice in her final letter to Ormsby Gore.

"You and I have shared so many lives and deaths and hopes and pain -- we will share them forever and be forever bound together by them," she wrote.

"If ever I can find some healing and some comfort -- it has to be with someone who is not a part of all my world of past and pain -- I can find that now -- if the world will let us."

The collection of 18 letters from Kennedy to Ormsby Gore covers the period from her husband's assassination until her marriage to Onassis in 1968.

Ormsby Gore served as British ambassador from 1961 until 1965, when he returned to the UK, and died after a car crash in 1985.
A Japanese appeals court on Tuesday ruled that a pair of nuclear reactors halted by a lower court order can be restarted, in a victory for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's energy policy.

Japan shut down all of its reactors after the Fukushima nuclear crisis in 2011, relying on imported fossil fuels to power its economy. Due to public opposition, only a handful have since been restarted.

But Abe has repeatedly said that resource-poor Japan, the worlds third-largest economy, needs nuclear power and has pushed to get reactors back into operation despite public anxiety.

In Tuesday's decision the Osaka High Court in western Japan struck down an injunction by a lower court that had forced the two reactors to be shut down over safety concerns.

At issue were the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at the Takahama nuclear plant in Fukui prefecture, some 350 kilometres (215 miles) west of Tokyo.

The district court in Otsu city near Fukui ordered Kansai Electric Power (KEPCO) in March last year to suspend their operations, spurring the utility to appeal.

KEPCO hailed the decision to cancel the injunction, saying the lower court's move "lacked rationality."

"Our company, while regarding safety as our priority, will seek to gain the understanding of Fukui prefecture as well as residents of host communities as we move toward restarting" the reactors, it said in a statement.

The government of Fukui prefecture, where the nuclear power industry is a major employer, approved the reactors' restart before the injunction, which was initiated by concerned residents of neighbouring Shiga prefecture.

But a crane accident at the Takahama plant in January prompted the prefecture to ask KEPCO for a safety review.

Yoshihide Suga, the government's top spokesman, refrained from commenting directly on the court decision, but said the government stands by its policy of promoting nuclear energy so long as reactors meet the nation's safety standards.

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It was not immediately clear if the plaintiffs would appeal the ruling, but outside the courthouse they said judges failed to take into consideration the wishes of those living near the reactors.

"Unjust ruling that ignores national, regional public opinion," read a banner they unfurled after the decision.

"Judicial negligence that ignores wishes of residents," read another.

Anti-nuclear campaigners also denounced the ruling.

"While the overturning of the injunction was not wholly unexpected in the notoriously nuclear-friendly Japanese legal system, it clears the way for KEPCO to restart reactors that have serious unresolved safety issues," Kendra Ulrich of Greenpeace Japan said in a statement.
President Donald Trump is expected start Monday a White House Office of American Innovation, a new office with sweeping powers to be headed by his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

The office, staffed by former business executives and strategic consultants, will aim to cut government red tape and inefficient bureaucratic functioning, while also fulfilling key campaign promises such as reforming care for veterans and fighting opioid addiction.

All Americans, regardless of their political views, can recognize that government stagnation has hindered our ability to properly function, often creating widespread congestion and leading to cost overruns and delays I promised the American people I would produce results, and apply my ahead of schedule, under budget mentality to the government, Trump told the Post.

Read: Ivanka And Jared Kushner Had To Stop President From Dropping Paris Climate Deal

Several bold initiatives have been hinted at already: Digitization of every federal department and agency; reimagining workforce building and training initiatives; and delivering on big, ambitious projects that are part of Trumps $1 trillion infrastructure plan, such as providing broadband internet service to every American.

We should have excellence in government The government should be run like a great American company. Our hope is that we can achieve successes and efficiencies for our customers, who are the citizens, Kushner told the Post on Sunday in an interview in his West Wing office.

It seems likely the innovation office will lay particular emphasis on technology moguls. More than 100 such leaders, including several prominent names like Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Tesla founder and chief executive Elon Musk have met several government officials for multiple ideation sessions.

Kushner will be aided in his mission with support from his wife and the presidents elder daughter, Ivanka Trump, who recently found herself office space within the White House, although the Post citing White House aides mentions that the collaboration between the two will be unofficial and be limited to issues such as workforce development.

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However, concerns persist over the lack of political experience of members of Kushners team. Individuals lacking political experience include Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council; Chris Liddell, assistant to the president for strategic initiatives; and Reed Cordish, assistant to the president for intergovernmental and technology initiatives

The Washington Post report also warned that the office could possibly lead to privatization of some government functions or it could direct existing contracts to be transferred to new bidders.

But for now, the offices first announcement may be their assistance in combating the opioid abuse epidemic as the president is expected to announce the creation of an official drug commission that focuses on the problem and will be chaired New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

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CHERRY HILL, N.J. (AP)  A New Jersey man wanted only one thing for his 100th birthday: to return to his old job.

Hutchinson Plumbing, Heating and Cooling in Cherry Hill made Bill Hansen's wish come true, and on Monday welcomed back the retired permit coordinator. There was a birthday cake and a standing ovation before Hansen got back to work.

CEO Fred Hutchinson agreed to pay him $1 and organized a complete day of assignments.

"He took off about 15 minutes after we signed that agreement to get to work," Hutchinson told WCAU-TV.

Hansen, of Haddon Township, retired at the age of 97 after working 32 years for the company.

"I hate being retired," he said.

Hansen went from job to job. His former co-workers wished him a happy birthday throughout the day.

Carl Canfield, the man Hansen trained to replace him, said he only hopes he can aspire to be "half the man" Hansen is.

Hansen, who spent nearly four decades working for other companies, including Exxon, said he was "blessed."

"I never had a job where I didn't want to go to work in the morning," he said.

Hansen attributes his love of work, his wife and family for his happiness. They're also the motivation for his newest goal.

"To live to see my youngest granddaughter graduate," Hansen said. "That'll be in 2024."
Computer security magnate John McAfee will be played by Johnny Depp in "King of the Jungle," an account of McAfee's time in Belize which saw his compound raided and the billionaire software salesman accused of raising a militia and drug trafficking.

Based on an account that appeared in a 2012 edition of Wired magazine, "King of the Jungle" will be a "darkly comic" movie typified by "paranoia, machine guns, sex and murder" according to Deadline.

https://www.wired.com/2012/12/ff-john-mcafees-last-stand/

Feature writer Joshua Davis had visited McAfee at his compound on the island of Belize that year; McAfee had been the target of a government raid, accused of raising a private army and of drug production. By the end of 2012 he was wanted for questioning after his neighbor was found dead.

Attached to direct are Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, who together have previously helmed "I Love You Phillip Morris," "Crazy. Stupid. Love," and "Focus," and "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot."
DETROIT (AP)  Water lines at 18,000 homes in Flint, Michigan, will be replaced under a landmark deal approved by a judge on Tuesday, marking a milestone in the effort to overcome the disastrous decision in 2014 to draw water from a river without treating it to prevent lead contamination.

Flint will be responsible for replacing lead and galvanized-steel lines that bring water into homes. The cost could be as high as $97 million, with federal and state governments covering the bill. Pipes at more than 700 homes have been replaced so far.

The court-ordered pipe replacement is unprecedented in the United States, said lead attorney Dimple Chaudhary of the Natural Resources Defense Council. The group sued Flint and Michigan on behalf of residents, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan.

"Flint proved that even while poisoned, we're not just victims," said resident Melissa Mays, a plaintiff in the case. "We're fighters."

Flint's water was tainted with lead for at least 18 months, starting in spring 2014. While under the control of state-appointed financial managers, the city tapped the Flint River as its water source while a new pipeline was being built to Lake Huron. But the river water wasn't treated to reduce corrosion. As a result, lead leached from old pipes and fixtures.

Under the new agreement, pipes serving 18,000 homes will be replaced by January 2020. Michigan will continue to provide water filters, but the state can start closing free bottled water sites in Flint depending on demand and results of water quality tests.

U.S. District Judge David Lawson approved the settlement, which was the result of weeks of negotiations involving a court-appointed mediator. The judge praised Gov. Rick Snyder for suggesting negotiations after his administration lost two major court rulings on door-to-door water delivery.

Lawson said the settlement was "fair, adequate, reasonable, consistent with the public interest."

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Crews have been replacing pipes for months in Flint, where residents still feel betrayed by a series of devastating decisions that caused the crisis.

"The pipes are corroded inside," said Ron Blackmer, 55, who watched holes being drilled outside his home. "There's nothing they can do to fix them other than replace them. The right thing to do is replace them."

Marc Edwards, an expert at Virginia Tech who in 2015 warned about dangerous lead levels after state regulators repeatedly dismissed the concerns, said the agreement is a good deal for Flint's roughly 100,000 residents.

He told The Associated Press that with improved water quality, temporary use of filters and new pipes, "Flint residents really have nothing to worry about other than the lost trust and history of this disaster, which may take a generation to repair."

Residents who get new water lines will be urged to continue using a filter for six months. There will be no cost for replacement cartridges or household testing kits.

There will be tests for lead in the Flint system every six months until one year after the replacement of water lines. An independent monitor also will check household water samples for lead, and the results will be posted online.

The state will pay $895,000 in legal fees and expenses to lawyers representing residents.

___

Associated Press reporter Mike Householder contributed to this story from Flint.

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Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwhiteap
ATLANTA (AP)  A federal judge in Atlanta has dismissed a lawsuit accusing the founder of the company that makes Glock pistols of conspiring to steal millions from his ex-wife.

More than 350 pages long, the suit initially filed by Helga Glock in October 2014 included salacious allegations and drew unflattering comparisons between Gaston Glock and Shakespeare's King Lear.

It accused Gaston Glock, his associates and related companies of participating in a decades-long, worldwide racketeering scheme to take money from Helga Glock through improper royalty payments, laundering money through fraudulent billing companies, and sham lease and loan agreements.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash wrote in an order last week that Helga Glock, an Austrian citizen and resident, didn't suffer harm to her business or property in the U.S., meaning she can't bring a racketeering claim here.

"We respectfully disagree with the trial court's ruling," John Da Grosa Smith, an attorney for Helga Glock, wrote in an email Tuesday. He added that they intend to appeal to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Lawyers for Gaston Glock, who also lives in Austria, did not immediately respond to an email Tuesday seeking comment on the ruling. They have previously said in court filings that Helga Glock lacked standing to bring the complaint.

The lawsuit sought damages of approximately $500 million and asked a judge to remove Gaston Glock and others from their roles in the company, reorganize the companies owned by Glock and restore a larger ownership interest for Helga Glock.

Helga and Gaston Glock started a company in 1963 that eventually became a gun manufacturer called Glock Ges.m.b.H. in 1983, and two years later Gaston Glock established a U.S. subsidiary in Smyrna, just outside Atlanta, according to the lawsuit. That U.S. subsidiary quickly became a major economic driver for the company as its pistols became popular among law enforcement officers and civilians alike.

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Gaston Glock and his associates set up a network of sham companies around the world to hide money from Helga Glock, his wife and business partner, and then demanded trust and used intimidation to avoid her questions, the lawsuit said.

He created foundations and convinced her and their children to contribute their assets and waive inheritance rights, ostensibly to benefit them and protect the family's control of the company, the lawsuit said.

After the pair divorced in 2011, Gaston Glock removed his wife and three adult children as beneficiaries of the foundations and said they and their descendants could not have any further association with the company, the lawsuit said.

Glock's actions toward his family "resemble the senseless and self-destructive rage of Shakespeare's King Lear, when he foolishly mistreats a loyal but candid daughter, Cordelia, in favor of cunning and ruthless flatterers," the lawsuit said. "Perhaps neither pathology nor psychology can provide a satisfactory explanation for why an aging billionaire would spend his twilight years seeking to terrorize members of his own family."
Attorney General Jeff Sessions reinforced President Trumps call for an end to so-called sanctuary policies Monday, urging state and local law enforcement agencies to comply with federal immigration laws or risk losing Justice Department grants.

[I] strongly urge our nations cities, states and counties to consider carefully the harm they are doing to their citizens by refusing to enforce our immigration laws, and to rethink such policies, Sessions told reporters during a surprise appearance at the daily White House press briefing.

Following last weeks release of the first installment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements controversial new Declined Detainer Outcome Report, Sessions statement seems likely to further elevate tensions between the federal government and local law enforcement agencies over immigration enforcement.

Although different jurisdictions interpret their sanctuary policies differently, what they mostly have in common  and the flashpoint with the administration  is declining to honor detainer requests from ICE to hold arrestees for up to 48 hours after they would otherwise be released.

In a single week, there were more than 200 instances of jurisdictions refusing to honor ICE detainer requests with respect to individuals charged with or convicted of a serious crime, Sessions said, referring to the recent report, which identified specific jurisdictions that declined 206 of the 3,083 detainer requests ICE issued during the week of Jan. 28, 2017, to Feb. 3, 2017, (PDF).

Several sheriffs and other county officials have criticized the report as inaccurate and misleading. Reportedly, ICE itself has even acknowledged that at least two jurisdictions, Pennsylvanias Franklin County and Nassau County in New York, were wrongly included in its list of top 10 non-cooperative jurisdictions. That error could have inflated the number of detainers that were declined by as many as 43 of the reported total of 206.

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This photo, released Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017, shows foreign nationals being arrested in a targeted enforcement operation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) aimed at immigration fugitives, re-entrants and at-large criminal aliens in Los Angeles. (Photo: Charles Reed/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via AP)

Created in accordance with Trumps executive order on border security and immigration enforcement, the weekly reports appear to be designed to embarrass local law enforcement agencies that refuse to keep people in jail on ICEs request.

What both Sessions and the report itself do not mention is that a majority of the jurisdictions listed as noncooperative have policies based on rulings by federal court judges that ICE detainers are not only optional but illegal and unconstitutional.

Although the report was wrong in accusing Franklin County of releasing five individuals of interest to ICE, it correctly noted that the countys policy is to treat ICE detainers as nonmandatory requests, unless there is a court order.

The policy was implemented in 2015, following a federal court ruling the year before in the case of a U.S. citizen mistakenly held beyond the time of his release on an ICE detainer in Lehigh County, Pa. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Lehigh County was not required to enforce the detainer and therefore could be liable for illegally holding the man on ICEs behalf.

Oregons Washington County was also listed among the ICE reports top 10 noncooperative jurisdictions.

But Washington County Sheriff Pat Garrett insisted to the Portland Tribune last week that the report does not accurately describe the difficulties or potential legal ramifications associated with honoring ICE detainer requests.

Garrett pointed to the 2014 decision by a U.S. District Court judge in Portland that led Washington County and pretty much every other county in Oregon  and several in Washington state  to stop complying with ICE detainers. In that case, the judge ruled that the Clackamas County Sheriffs office had violated a womans Fourth Amendment rights by holding her on ICEs request after she was eligible for release on bail. An ICE detainer, the federal judge declared, did not provide sufficient probable cause to warrant additional detention for the woman after bail had been granted.

We are doing nothing different than the other law enforcement agencies that are set forth in place by the courts, and they have all found that holding someone after theyve satisfied the court is illegal, a spokesperson for Floridas Alachua County Sheriffs Office said in response to the ICE report last week. Its illegal search and seizure.

Alachua County, which was also cited in the report, has a policy that allows the jail to notify immigration officials of all new arrests, but since September 2015 has declined to keep people in custody on ICEs behalf.

In fact, over the past few years, hundreds of counties and cities around the country have developed policies against ICE detainers in response to federal court rulings.

Despite the Trump administrations bluster and threats, the federal government cannot coerce local police into becoming deportation agents, and should not try to scare local authorities into taking illegal actions that undermine public safety and subject them to liability, Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Unions Immigrants Rights Project, said in response to Sessions announcement Monday. Police and municipal officials have been sticking by their decisions to do whats best for the safety of their communities, and we will continue to stand with them in court to defend those lawful choices.

Delilah Gutierrez, 10, left, holds a sign during a protest against President Trumps efforts to crack down on immigration on Feb. 16, 2017, in San Francisco. ( Photo: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)

Although Sessions, citing several high-profile crimes by immigrants who were eligible for deportation, argued that sanctuary policies undermine public safety, several studies have found the exact opposite. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearing House, or TRAC, Immigration Project at Syracuse University, cooperation by state and local law enforcement has proven ineffective as a means of improving ICEs ability to apprehend immigrants it seeks to deport. A recent analysis of ICE data and crime statistics by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, found that an average of 35.5 fewer crimes per 10,000 people are committed in sanctuary counties, defined as those that do not comply with ICE detainers, compared with nonsanctuary counties.

Altogether, the data suggest that when local law enforcement focuses on keeping communities safe, rather than becoming entangled in federal immigration enforcement efforts, communities are safer, and community members stay more engaged in the local economy, the researchers concluded.

Arizonas Maricopa County illustrates this point. Hundreds of sex crimes were not investigated at the height of former Sheriff Joe Arpaios campaign to strictly enforce immigration laws. Other jurisdictions, for example New York City and Washington state, have pointed to the lack of trust between law enforcement and immigrant communities as among the reasons for cutting their ties with ICE.

In response to Sessions ultimatum Monday, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee tweeted his commitment to the citys sanctuary policies, while New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio reportedly vowed to challenge the Justice Department in court if it acts to deprive the city of federal funds.

#SF knows that #SanctuaryCities are safer, more productive, healthier places to live. We work for all our residents. #SFStandsAsOne pic.twitter.com/768sO981Q4  Mayor Ed Lee (@mayoredlee) March 27, 2017

"If they actually act to take away our money, we'll see them in court." @BilldeBlasio  Erin Durkin (@erinmdurkin) March 27, 2017

Its not entirely clear which jurisdictions are at risk of losing federal funding. At Mondays press briefing, Sessions referred specifically to 8 U.S. Code  1373, which prohibits federal, state and local government entities from withholding information about a persons citizenship or immigration status from federal immigration officials.

Any jurisdiction seeking Justice Department grants for things like local law enforcement and public safety must now comply with 1373, Sessions announced, adding that the DOJ will take all lawful steps to claw back all funds awarded to any state that willfully violates 1373.

But 1373 only appears to refer to the sharing of information, and makes no mention of ICE holds or detainer requests. Despite Sessions threats, a closer look at the jurisdictions listed in the first declined detainer report reveals that cities and states have implemented a variety of policies, many of which include some sort of communication with ICE officials.

The vast majority of sheriffs  want to cooperate with ICE, want to cooperate with DHS, said Jonathan Thompson, CEO of the National Sheriffs Association. But they want to do so in a way that is constitutional and protects the rights of everyone involved, including victims. Especially victims.

Last week, ICE unveiled a new detainer request form that provides for the inclusion of either a warrant for arrest of alien or a warrant for removal signed by an authorized immigration official  but not a judge.

While DHS has not retreated from its position that detainers serve as a legally authorized request upon which a law enforcement agency may rely, ICE Spokesperson Yasmeen Pitts OKeefe told Yahoo News Monday, the addition of such warrants, as a matter of policy, will help mitigate future litigation risk and will further our efforts to ensure that our law enforcement partners will honor our detainers.

But Thompson argues that its not so easy.

Echoing the concerns of local law enforcement agencies around the country, he issued a statement Friday afternoon declaring that the Sheriffs of America cannot continue to support the current detainer process, including its revised form and calling for the Department of Justice to issue legal guidance confirming the constitutionality of current detainers.

When we met with the President last month, we pledged our support to secure the borders and protect all of our communities under the law, but also asked for this legal clarification, and he agreed, Thompsons statement read. Without this, Sheriffs remain vulnerable legally when detainees are subject to release on state and local charges.

Following Sessions statements at the White House on Monday, Thompson told Yahoo News that he stands by his statement Friday.

We feel very strongly that sheriffs have got to have a fairly high degree of certainty that theyre not going to be sued in federal court for honoring an ICE detainer, he said.

Thompson said that the National Sheriffs Association is working with ICE and the Justice Department to overcome the objections by some in the judiciary to detainers, and that we think there is some way to work through this.

Ultimately, however, only the DOJ is going to be able to answer that legal question, that constitutional question. Until then, he said, we are in a legal limbo.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Children in New Zealand who were exposed to high levels of lead have grown up to be less intelligent adults than their counterparts who were not as affected, researchers said Tuesday.

The decades-long study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) shows that the effects of lead, a metal and potent neurotoxin, can be long-lasting.

The research involved more than 500 people living in the southeastern city of Dunedin in the 1970s and 1980s, an era when leaded gasoline (petrol) was common and the exhaust from vehicles meant most people were exposed to high levels of lead.

New Zealand's lead levels were consistently higher than international standards during this time.

A full 94 percent of children in the area had blood-lead levels that were higher than five micrograms per deciliter, the level at which the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now recommends a public-health intervention.

On average, kids' blood level was 11 micrograms of lead per deciliter -- twice today's warning level.

Children with this high amount of lead in their blood were given IQ tests as 38-year-old adults, and their IQ was on average 4.25 points lower than peers who had been exposed to less lead.

This is a "slight but significant" difference" that also affected their ability to gain well-paying jobs, said the study.

"The cognitive deficits associated with lead persisted for decades, and showed in the kinds of occupations people got," said lead author Aaron Reuben, a researcher at Duke University in North Carolina.

New Zealand eventually banned leaded gasoline in 1996, and it has also been phased out elsewhere in the world.

However, experts say there is no safe level of lead exposure, and the recent water crisis in Flint, Michigan -- where lead in pipes leeched into drinking water -- shows that risks remain.

Researchers say the Dunedin study is particularly useful because it tracked people for four decades.

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Also, it showed "high blood lead levels were observed among children from all socioeconomic status levels," allowing a clearer look at the long-term effects of lead exposure.

Often, exposure to peeling paint in older buildings -- which also tend to be inhabited by poorer people -- is considered a key risk for lead exposure.

"It is routine to treat socioeconomic status as a potential confounder, yet this study suggests that lower socioeconomic status in adulthood is an outcome of early-life exposure, not merely a confounder," said an accompanying editorial by David Bellinger, a researcher at Boston Children's Hospital.

"The study results also provide support for the estimate that interventions since the 1970s to reduce the lead exposure of the US population have raised the mean IQ in adults by as much as 4.5 points."
On Sunday, thousands across Russia came out to protest peacefully against corruption. Many were quite young. Over 1000 were detained. Photos showed children being dragged into police vans and brought into court.

On Tuesday, the Kremlin came up with a reason for why kids were protesting against Russian corruption: they were paid.

We cannot respect the kind of people who knowingly mislead minors  children, in fact  with the promise of some monetary award just to make them take part in an illegal rally, said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov. This was perhaps, as the Moscow Times notes, an allusion to the fact that, ahead of the protest, organizer, activist, and presidential candidate Alexei Navalny promised to win compensation from the European Court of Human Rights for those arrested during Sundays protest. (Navalny himself received a 15-day sentence from a Moscow court. Eleven of those working for his Anti-Corruption Foundation were jailed, too.)

But perhaps it was also Peskovs attempt to respond to the fact that Sundays protests were notable for the sheer number of young people  teenagers  who came out to protest against corruption. A fifth grader even gave a speech in Moscow. Unlike their parents and grandparents, these kids didnt live through the dissolution of the Soviet Union, or the wild west days of the 1990s. They grew up on the internet, not on state television. They did not grow up watching Putin purportedly save Russia.

And while the state may well find a new way to respond to them yet, Peskovs response  that outside forces and finances must have been at play  is not a new tactic. Its the same excuse the Kremlin seized on to respond to the 2011 protests against electoral fraud.

Back then, the Kremlin blamed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. On Tuesday, Russian officials dismissed the current U.S. state department, which issued a statement urging Russia to allow peaceful protests.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he recalled the batons and tear gas and whatever that police in Europe and the United States wielded to tame protests. This, even though the U.S. State Department is helmed by Russian Order of Friendship Recipient Rex Tillerson.

Photo credit: VASILY MAXIMOV/AFP/Getty Images
Moscow (AFP) - The Kremlin on Tuesday said that meetings between senior state bank officials and Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and his company were "normal business."

Kushner, 36, one of Trump's top aides, was his intermediary with foreign governments during the 2016 presidential campaign and is set to appear before a Senate panel investigating possible collusion with Moscow.

"There were dozens of meetings, among them with Mr Kushner's company and with Mr Kushner himself," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.

"It's normal business," he said, adding that the Kremlin was not aware of these meetings at the time as they were "routine work" of the bank.

Russia's state Vneshekonombank (VEB) on Tuesday confirmed that Kushner met its executives in 2016, after The New York Times reported that Kushner met VEB chief Sergei Gorkov.

The bank said in an emailed statement to AFP that its management met on several occasions in 2016 with representatives of the world's leading financial institutions "including with the chief of Kushner Companies, Jared Kushner."

The meetings were "in a 'roadshow' format" regarding the bank's "development strategy until 2021," the statement said.
By Ian Simpson

(Reuters) - Ohio police have made no arrests yet in a fatal weekend shooting in a Cincinnati nightclub, in part because there was no security video footage available to investigators despite a history of violence at the venue, authorities said on Monday.

The shooting at the packed Cameo Nightlife early on Sunday left a 27-year-old man dead and 16 others wounded; the number of wounded had initially been put at 15 people.

The gunfire, which sent hundreds of patrons fleeing and ducking for cover, grew out of a dispute inside the club, where two shootings took place in 2015, authorities said.

Unlike last year's massacre at a Florida nightclub, there was no indication that the Cincinnati shooting was "terrorism-related," authorities said on Sunday. The rampage in Orlando last June was the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, leaving 49 people dead.

Even though Cincinnati police lacked a video recording of the chaos, Chief Eliot Isaac said on Monday the department was confident of finding those responsible.

The best witnesses to the shooting were those who had been shot and were still recovering, Isaac said at a televised hearing of the public safety panel. In addition, some witnesses were reluctant to cooperate immediately after the incident, police have said.

Isaac said the number of wounded rose to 16 after another person came forward late on Sunday claiming to have been hit by gunfire. Two people remained in critical condition at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

Patrons managed to bring guns into Cameo Nightlife even though four off-duty police officers were providing security in the parking lot. Employees also used handheld metal detectors to check patrons for firearms before they could enter the club.

Even so, one customer told the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper that clubgoers in a "no-wait" line were not being screened.

Club owner Julian Rodgers issued a statement late on Sunday expressing condolences to the victims. "We will do everything in our power to cooperate and make sure the monsters that did this are caught and brought to justice," he said.

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A telephone call to the club was not answered and its Facebook page was unavailable. However, late Monday Cincinnati City Manager Harry Black said on Twitter that the club had voluntarily surrendered its liquor license and that the facility would be closed until the investigation is complete.

The shooting was the worst this year in the United States in terms of the total number of dead and wounded, according to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive, which tracks U.S. shootings.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Additional reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; Editing by Frank McGurty and Leslie Adler)
Paris (AFP) - The city of Paris on Tuesday dumped French-Swiss group LafargeHolcim as supplier of sand for the makeshift "Paris Plages" beach over the company's readiness to supply cement for US President Donald Trump's controversial border wall.

"We will do without their services," Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo's deputy Bruno Julliard told the city council, citing Lafarge's readiness to "work on the nefarious project" of a wall along the US-Mexico border.

The council later backed the decision in a vote.

Paris uses over 3,000 tonnes of sand to convert a long stretch of the north bank of the Seine into a makeshift beach every summer.

Julliard said the decision to drop Lafarge was in keeping with "the ethical commitments that Parisians can expect from the city".

Ecologist lawmakers had pressured Hidalgo, a Socialist, to break off ties with the cement giant after the company appeared last month on an official list of companies interested in participating in the wall project.

The 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometre) anti-immigrant barrier which Trump promised during campaigning is expected to cost at least 15 billion dollars (14 billion euros).

CEO Eric Olsen confirmed to AFP that he was ready to supply materials "to all types of infrastructure projects in the United States."

"We are the leader in cement, so we supply all our customers," he said. "We are here to support the building and development of the United States," he told AFP in a March 9 interview.

LafargeHolcim was created in 2015 by the merger of French cement manufacturer Lafarge and its Swiss counterpart Holcim.

The company hopes to be one of the big winners from Trump's planned infrastructure spending boost.
Its been a long time coming, but the Lamborghini Urus SUV is nearly a reality. However, unlike some of its supercar brethren, the Urus is not being developed as a speed king for performance driving.

Motoring reports Lamborghini doesnt have much interest in proving the Urus around the Nurburgring, as the Italian brand did with the Huracan Performante which just set the lap record at the German track. In fact, the Urus will house a completely different set of objectives than the brands super cars.

If you go to the Nurburgring, you go to be the fastest, said Lamborghini Asia Pacific boss Andrea Baldi. "The Urus is a different concept... the Urus will have a target that will also be contemplating some off-road [strengths]."

Its a car thats supposed to be high-performance, but that capability off-road you will see," Baldi added.

The Urus will have two engine choices: a twin-turbocharged V-8 and a plug-in hybrid setup, with the latter coming after launch. But why no naturally-aspirated V-10 or V-12?

Sometimes its not really a matter of emissions, its a matter of taxation," Baldi explained. "If you go to one of the most important markets in the future for us given were producing an SUV, China, every time you increase the engine capacity by one liter, you pay many more taxes.

--Sean Szymkowski
By Dominique Patton and Charlotte Greenfield BEIJING/WELLINGTON (Reuters) - The deadly bird flu that's forced mass bird culls and roiled the global egg and poultry trade has spawned one unlikely success  New Zealand, a rare source of disease-free birds and supplier for China's voracious chicken consumption. When Spain reported an outbreak of H5N8 bird flu last month, it left New Zealand as the only source, albeit a tiny one, of disease-free birds to replenish China's white-feathered broiler chicken stock. China, the world's second-largest poultry consumer, relies on imports for its supply of white feather chicken, which are favored by fast-food chains for their more rapid development and plumper meat, compared with yellow-feathered birds, which are native to China and generally sold retail. New Zealand's live chicken exports to China soared more than ten-fold last year and analysts expect rapid growth again this year. The world's major poultry companies are looking to take advantage of the Pacific island's clean credentials, which could create an upstream boon for local industry. "Geography's a disadvantage from a freighting point of view, but it's a big advantage because we're not on the major flyways of any birds that are likely to carry the disease down here," said Brent Williams, general manager of Bromley Park Hatcheries, a New Zealand-based firm that raises pedigree stock for Cobb-Vantress. Century-old Cobb, headquartered in Arkansas, is one of the world's top poultry breeders, selling pedigree "grandparent" day-old chicks to Chinese companies. Cobb-Vantress is seeking approval to build new breeding facilities in New Zealand, said Clark Baird, media relations director at the firm, though he declined to reveal the location or production volumes targeted by the new plant. Other major global poultry breeders which have operations in New Zealand include United States-based Aviagen [EWESJA.UL], which raises great grandparent stock in the country to supply Asian markets with their offspring. Aviagen said it does not disclose information on its supply chain and production. FALLING SHORT It's luck of geography that means New Zealand is now the sole supplier of breeder birds to China. Its isolated location away from birds' flight paths means it has escaped an outbreak of the deadly viruses that have spread around the globe in recent months. However, it has always been a relative minnow in the live poultry export trade. Exports to China surged last year but to a mere NZ$9.8 million ($6.78 million). In 2016, New Zealand sold about 200,000 packages of grandparent chicks to China, according to industry sources. The packages, typically containing around 170 day-old chicks, currently sell for about $28 each. That compares with about 300,000 from Spain in 2016. The U.S. Department of Agriculture in a report warns the island can't offset the loss in production from elsewhere, depleting China's breeder stock and cutting China's output of meat by 11 percent this year. The department said China's lack of new grandparent breeding stock will be the "greatest obstacle" to increasing its poultry production, a problem for a country of 1.4 billion that has rapidly developed a hankering for fast food chicken. Meanwhile, ongoing disruptions from China's main suppliers will only add to problems. A recent outbreak of bird flu in Tennessee in the United States suggests that Beijing is unlikely to lift a ban imposed in 2015 due to bird flu. Before that ban, the United State was China's top supplier, providing 90 percent of its white-bird grandparent stock. There is also the risk that New Zealand loses its status as a pristine poultry producer. David Fyfe, Asia business director at Hubbard Breeders, another producer of broiler chicken breeds, owned by France's Groupe Grimaud, warns it may be "just a matter of time" before New Zealand reports a case of avian influenza. His firm has "no immediate plans" to set up a breeding operation there, he added. For now, however, Pan Chenjun, an analyst at Rabobank, expects prices will be "strongly supported" by the fall in production in China. That might help offset the demand-side hit the industry has taken in recent years, with prices languishing at decade lows due to China's own bird flu outbreaks and overproduction. And over the longer-term, higher prices could give a further boost to chicken exporters, like New Zealand. (Reporting by Dominique Patton in BEIJING and Charlotte Greenfield in WELLINGTON; editing by Josephine Mason and Sam Holmes)
PARIS (AP)  The Latest on Paris clashes after Chinese man killed by police (all times local):

12:45 p.m.

About 100 people from the Chinese community in Paris have gathered at a police station to demand justice after a Chinese man was killed during a police intervention in his home.

The crowd at Tuesday's protest includes families and friends of 35 people arrested in violent clashes with police at a similar protest Monday night. The families are waiting for their loved ones to be released from custody.

"Justice must be done, the killer must be punished!" the protesters shouted in French. The Chinese community is holding a meeting Tuesday to decide further actions.

Demonstrators and police gave conflicting versions of the killing of the Chinese man Sunday in northeast Paris, and of the ensuing clashes Monday night, which left three police officers injured.

___

11:40 a.m.

China's Foreign Ministry says it has summoned a French envoy in Beijing over the police shooting of a Chinese man in Paris.

Police shot the man Sunday night. His death sparked clashes Monday in Paris that injured three officers and led to 35 arrests.

Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that the man had been shot by plainclothes police at his home. She said China had summoned a representative of the French Embassy in Beijing and urged French authorities to "get to the bottom of the incident as soon as possible."

Protesters said the man was killed while cutting up fish. Police said the officer fired in self-defense.

Hua said Chinese authorities "hope that Chinese nationals in France can express their wishes and demands in a reasonable way."

___

10:15 a.m.

Clashes in Paris over the killing of a Chinese man by police have left three officers injured and led to 35 arrests.

Police official Agnes Thibault Lecuivre said Tuesday that demonstrators, who were from the Asian community, had gathered Monday night in the 19th district on the French capital's northeastern edge. They were paying homage to the man shot dead by police in a raid Sunday night. Protesters also set fire to a car. Chinese media say the man was Chinese.

Protesters say the man was killed while he was cutting up fish. But police say the officer fired in self-defense because the man was holding a bladed weapon.

The latest violence comes weeks after anti-police protests erupted over the alleged rape by police of a 22-year-old man.
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP)  The Latest on the Dakota Access oil pipeline. (all times local):

3:45 p.m.

An American Indian activist accused of inciting a riot during protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline in North Dakota has pleaded not guilty.

Chase Iron Eyes entered his plea Tuesday. He could face up to five years in prison if convicted on the felony charge. He also faces a misdemeanor count of criminal trespass.

Iron Eyes and 73 others were arrested Feb. 1 after setting up teepees on land that authorities say is owned by pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners. Protesters maintain they were peacefully assembling on land they believe rightfully belongs to American Indians.

Iron Eyes has said he doesn't dispute his involvement but that he wasn't the leader of the effort and had no authority to stop it.

___

11:30 a.m.

Industry groups say the imminent flow of oil through the Dakota Access pipeline is good news for energy and infrastructure.

Texas-based developer Energy Transfer Partners said Monday that it's placed oil in the pipe under a Missouri River reservoir that was the final piece of construction. The pipeline should be fully operational in about three weeks, moving oil from North Dakota's Bakken oil fields to a distribution point in Illinois.

North Dakota Petroleum Council President Ron Ness says the pipeline will "have a significant impact on Bakken transportation going forward."

The MAIN Coalition is made up of agriculture, business and labor entities that benefit from Midwest infrastructure projects. Spokesman Craig Stevens says the pipeline is "a public triumph" for the Trump administration and its commitment to energy and economic development.

___

11:10 a.m.

The American Indian tribes leading the legal fight against the Dakota Access pipeline say they aren't giving up after oil was pumped into a controversial section of the line running under their water source.

Harold Frazier is chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux. He says the tribes believe they ultimately will convince a federal judge to shut down the pipeline.

Story continues

Environmental law nonprofit Earthjustice is representing the Standing Rock Sioux in the tribes' lawsuit. Spokesman Phillip Ellis says "hope remains" for a favorable outcome.

Texas-based developer Energy Transfer Partners said Monday it had pumped oil into the section of the pipeline under a Missouri River reservoir. The pipeline should be fully operational in about three weeks.

Tribes maintain the pipeline threatens their cultural sites, water supply and religious practices. ETP disputes that assertion.

___

12:10 a.m.

The developer of the Dakota Access pipeline says oil has been placed in the pipe under a Missouri River reservoir and the full line will be in service soon.

Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners made the announcement in a court filing Monday.

The move comes despite months of protests and the objections of two American Indian tribes who say a rupture could threaten their water supply and cultural sites. The Sioux tribes still have an unresolved lawsuit seeking to stop the project.

The company says the four-state, 1,200-mile (1930-kilometer) pipeline is safe. The U.S. government gave ETP permission to complete the project after Republican President Donald Trump took office.

The protests were centered in North Dakota.
AMMAN, Jordan (AP)  The Latest on the Arab Summit (all times local):

10:30 p.m.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says he's waiting to hear from the U.S. on the extent to which Israel is willing to curb settlement construction.

Abbas spoke to reporters Tuesday, after meeting with President Donald Trump's envoy, Jason Greenblatt, on the sidelines of an Arab summit.

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been deadlocked for years over Israel's building on war-won lands sought for a Palestinian state. Abbas says he can't negotiate while settlements grow.

Greenblatt has talked to Israel's leader about construction curbs.

Abbas, who is to meet Trump in coming weeks, says there are "lots of questions from the American side at this stage, and we answered all of their questions."

He says he's pleased with the summit draft resolutions, saying that "we count on the Arab leaders to represent the Palestinian interests."

___

9:40 p.m.

President Donald Trump's envoy has met with the Palestinian leader, the foreign ministers of Qatar and Egypt, and the EU foreign policy chief to talk about reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

Jason Greenblatt held the meetings on the sidelines of an Arab summit.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki says Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Greenblatt met because "the American administration still needs certain clarifications."

Israeli settlement construction was likely a central issue.

Negotiations have been deadlocked for several years, in part over Israel's building on war-won lands sought for a Palestinian state. Abbas says he cannot negotiate while settlements grow.

Greenblatt tweeted after his meeting with the Qatari foreign minister that they "exchanged views on how to move peace efforts forward, combat terrorism and help the people of Gaza."

___

7:20 p.m.

Sudan's president, sought by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges, has been welcomed in Jordan despite calls by human rights groups to deny him entry.

Story continues

Omar al-Bashir is among 21 Arab leaders gathering for a summit.

The ICC charged him in 2009 and 2010 with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in connection with his government's campaign against insurgents in Sudan's Darfur region.

Al-Bashir was welcomed Tuesday by Jordan's King Abdullah II.

Jordan, an ICC member, has said Arab League member Sudan has a right to attend Wednesday's summit.

Adam Coogle of the international group Human Rights Watch says that "we're very concerned about the possibility of impunity" signaled by al-Bashir's visit.

Al-Bashir has traveled despite ICC arrest warrants, but is careful where he goes.
(This March 27 story was corrected to show in headline that at least three people were killed, not two)

(Reuters) - At least three people died in a four-alarm fire that swept through a residential building in Oakland, California, on Monday, officials said.

The fire broke out at about 6 a.m. local time, ravaging a building that media said had been the target of safety complaints.

One of the dead was identified as Edwarn Anderson, 64, said Deputy S. Sobrero, a spokesman for the Alameda County Coroner's office. He did not release the identity of the other victims.

The Alameda County Sheriff's Office said on Twitter three people were killed in the fire and a fourth person was missing.

Firefighters said earlier on Twitter that crews were being withdrawn from the building after the roof and some floors were "compromised."

Video footage on local media showed smoke billowing into the sky from the building as firefighters poured water onto the flames.

Firefighters rescued at least seven people from the blaze, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The newspaper said the building on San Pablo Avenue was leased by agencies running housing and social service programs.

It reported that numerous complaints had been lodged against the building for safety and sanitation problems, citing city records.

Last December, 36 people were killed when a fire erupted at a dance party at a sprawling, two-story warehouse in Oakland known as the Ghost Ship that had been leased to an artists' collective.

It was the deadliest blaze in the United States since 100 people perished in a 2003 nightclub fire in Rhode Island.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Tom James in Seattle; Additional reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California and Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Bernard Orr and Paul Tait)
On Monday, United Airlines defended an employees decision to bar two girls from boarding a flight from Denver to Minneapolis on Sunday morning because their leggings violated the airlines dress code for pass travelers, adding another incident to the surprising history of what seems to be the most controversial leg-covering of the moment.

But, even though it may seem that such news is a decidedly recent phenomenon, in fact leggings have been around for centuries.

Before they became a form of activewear, they were used for practical purposes. For obvious reasons, the concept of pants - as opposed to skirts, kilts or other clothing that doesnt protect the legs individually - is closely linked to the development of societies that used horses to get around, as described by T.C.F. Hopkins in Empires, Wars, and Battles: The Middle East From Antiquity to the Rise of the New World: From Asia to Europe, the riders of horses are also the wearers of trousers. The image of horsemen without leggings is a film convention, not a reflection of actual riding conditions.

The term leggings dates back centuries, but the early uses of the word applied to items that few of todays yoga pants devotees would recognize as leggings.

In North American history, the term was often associated with the leg coverings worn by some Native Americans and eventually adopted by many settler frontiersmen. Those leggings could often look more like high-top moccasins than pants, and for special-occasion use artists would decorate them with beadwork or attach flattened porcupine quills to them. Great Plains indigenous women wore leggings made out of hides from deer, elk and various game animals. The garments served not only a societal role - it was proper etiquette for women to keep their ankles covered - but also a practical one, protecting womens legs from plants and animals, says Emil Her Many Horses, historian and curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.

Story continues

Meanwhile, in Europe and colonial American history, the word could refer to something more like a sturdy set of stockings. Stockings had been invented during the 16th century, when Londoner William Lee invented a special loom that could produce machine-knitted silk stockings. By the 18th century, men who sought a lower-leg covering for warmth could turn to leggings that fully covered the lower leg from a few inches above the knee extending to cover the top of the foot, according to Colonial Williamsburgs guide to mens clothing. Made of stout woolen or linen cloth or of leather, leggings and spatterdashes were worn by the sporting gentleman, laboring man, and the military.

For centuries thereafter, even after modern trousers came into fashion, leggings were comfortable, tight but protective garments worn by children or by men during activities that ranged from battle to hunting, eventually transitioning from mostly something that just covered the lower leg to something more like pants. That old-time use of the word leggings remained the dominant one until the 20th century.

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

Then, the high demand for rubber during World War II led to a reduced supply and a demand for rubber alternatives. During the course of research into that problem, DuPont chemist Joseph Shivers developed a synthetic fiber in 1959 that could stretch up to 600% of its original size and go back to its original shape, according to the American Chemical Society. Originally called Fiber X, this lighter, more breathable invention replaced natural rubber in garments and became known as Lycra or Spandex (an anagram of the word expands).

So, when stretch pants became technologically possible, it made sense that they would eventually take on the name that had long been associated with garments that fit tight around the legs. And the timing was perfect for leggings to become what they are today: the 20th century saw a rapid rise in pants-wearing by women, as well as a growing trend toward casual dress in American life.

As the children of the 1960s stretched social norms, leggings made of stretchier fabric came into vogue. By the 1970s, Oxford Dictionaries was defining leggings as tight-fitting trousers made of a stretch fabric, worn especially by women and girls.

A look at appearances of the word in English-language books reveals that the word peaked around 1940 - presumably the old usage of leggings - and then began to pick back up again in the 1980s. Thats when women were increasingly seen wearing Lycra leggings on the street and in the gym, as popularized in part by Jane Fonda, who was the most popular face of the rise of aerobics. According to anthropologist Kaori OConnor, who has written extensively about Lycra, women embraced the new physical and social freedom, expressed through rule-breaking practices like aerobics, in which strenuous, sweaty gym-based exercise became socially acceptable for the first time.

But, as OConnor has written about, the garment became closely associated with workout culture and youth, to the extent that its more recent popularity among women of all ages for a wide variety of activities was surprising to many.

The popular, casual attire has come under fire many times in the past few years as being inappropriate for students in school and even for adult women in public. In 2014, anger over the lack of tolerance for leggings prompted some middle school girls in Illinois to picket. The girls were apparently told leggings were too distracting to boys, the Evanston Review reported at the time. Critics have called such policies against leggings sexist and have repeatedly condemned the bans. Last year, after a Rhode Island man wrote a published letter to his local newspaper decrying yoga pants as bizarre and disturbing on adult women, hundreds of legging-clad protesters demonstrated outside his house. Also in 2016, a North Carolina school districts ban on skinny jeans and leggings was met with outrage after officials reportedly said one of the reasons for the change was because some of the bigger girls were getting bullied because of their tight jeans.

Nevertheless, analysts found that 2016 online purchases of leggings were up 41% over the year prior, with the volume of orders surpassing orders of denim as women have come to see them as more versatile and appropriate for working out, sleeping, and going to the office.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
United Airlines' recent leggings ban has done much more than anger the online world  it's sparked an important discussion about the ongoing struggle women face dress in regards to unfair dress codes.

Though the great "should leggings be considered pants?" debate has been around for years, the controversy surrounding women's dress codes was furiously reignited after Shannon Watts tweeted about two girls being banned from boarding a flight until they changed out of the leggings.

SEE ALSO: United Airlines: 'Your leggings are welcome.' Delta: 'Duh'

Following the severe backlash, Jonathan Guerin, a spokesperson at United Airlines, assured Mashable that the leggings restriction solely applies to a select group of people: employees and their "pass riders," friends or relatives of United employees who receive free or heavily discounted travel. All other passengers are invited to wear their leggings onboard United flights.

Why your worries are completely justified

Still, if you're a woman and you're flying as a pass rider, you are held to a much higher dress standard than others on your flight  including being expected to leave your comfy, form-fitting leggings at home.

"Women are always damned if they do, damned if they don't," Dana Suchow  a writer, stylist, and activist who runs Do The Hotpants , a body-positive blog focused on women's empowerment  told Mashable. "It seems like women exist solely to be judged by others and that there's no space in which women are safe in to exist in the way that we want to exist ... It goes from policing how much makeup we wear to how our hair is done or if our nails are a certain color."

Other women agree. They rallied on Twitter to offer support and reflect on the fashion regulations that have made them feel "embarrassed" or "sexualized" by others.

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Though United's official statement casts its response as simply following a procedure that "most companies" also enforce, on Sunday, Twitter user Dana Schwartz explained why the dress code controversy matters so much.

Schwartz encouraged women to vocalize their own thoughts on the incident by sharing an anecdote about her shorts being too short in fifth grade. She also put the problem into visual terms by sharing a powerful drawing of a girl wearing "acceptable" clothing on one half of her body and "unacceptable" clothing on the other half.

As dozens of women opened up about dress code-related pressures and negative experiences they've had in their own lives  in schools, during extracurricular activities and even at their places of employment  the problematic expectations of women's fashion and bodies became increasingly clear. The stories shared, which included criticism for too much jewelry and cleavage, or not enough length, fabric or footwear, are nothing new and often straddle the line between enforcing "appropriate" fashion and slut-shaming.

"I want those girls to know they're not alone," Suchow said. "Even though it feels like the world, your schools and even plane companies  all the places you spend your money  are against you, there are people fighting for you and going through the same struggles. There are people who love you and know you're worth more than what you're wearing or how much makeup you have on."

As beautifully displayed on an oversized white T-shirt by Isabella Villegas  an 18-year-old girl who recently came to her 13-year-old's sister's defense after she was told her off-the-shoulder top was too revealing  aside from being complete BS, dress codes can also promote objectification, sexualization and blaming the wearer for the actions of others. And though males are also given certain dress code guidelines, the strict and limiting regulations often lead to a feeling of shame amongst women.

my 13 year old sister was dress coded for her shirt today for "revealing too much chest and shoulder" so i made her a shirt to change into pic.twitter.com/NdRQws91HB  isabella rossellini (@bellavillegas_) March 13, 2017

In a 2015 interview with The Atlantic, Maggie Sunseri, producer of Shame: A Documentary on School Dress Code  a short film featuring interviews with high school students about the negative impacts of dress codes  explained, "Ive never seen a boy called out for his attire even though they also break the rules ... The dress code makes girls feel self-conscious, ashamed, and uncomfortable in their own bodies."

"But dress codes apply to boys too!" Men, did you feel shame for breaking dress code? For women, it becomes a character indictment.  Dana Schwartz (@DanaSchwartzzz) March 26, 2017

Airline dress code drama is nothing new

Though United's latest dress code drama is making major headlines, this is not the first time women have been asked to change their physical appearance or to cover up by airlines.

Back in 2012, Southwest Airlines found itself in hot water after reportedly confronting a woman on her flight for showing too much cleavage in her flannel shirt. According to Jezebel, the woman, Avital, was told her cleavage was "inappropriate" and that she wouldn't be able to fly unless she buttoned up a bit more.

"I didn't want to let the representative's Big Feelings about my breasts change the way I intended to board my flight," she told the publication, "And lo and behold, the plane didn't fall out of the sky ... my cleavage did not interfere with the plane's ability to function properly."

And though the airline reportedly offered her an apology and a refund on her flight, "to add insult to injury," Avital explained, "the guy sitting in front of me on the plane was wearing a shirt with an actual Trojan condom embedded behind a clear plastic applique and had no trouble getting on his flight."

She concluded: "Slut shaming, pure and simple."

Last May, JetBlue delayed boarding privileges for a 26-year-old woman traveling from Boston to Seattle because of her clothing. As Salon wrote, the Seattle burlesque performer, Maggie McMuffin, was reportedly told her shorts were too short and a gate agent requested she "cover up in order to get on the flight."

Hey @JetBlue I was catching a connecting flight in Boston after a lovely flight from New York. Five minutes before boarding I was stopped.  Maggie McMuffin (@MaggieMcMuff) May 18, 2016

"I felt angry. I felt disrespected. I felt disappointed in the company," McMuffin told the publication, while JetBlue spokesperson, Morgan Johnston, explained the decision was made with families in mind.

"The gate and onboard crew discussed the customers clothing and determined that the burlesque shorts may offend other families on the flight. While the customer was not denied boarding, the crew members politely asked if she could change," Johnston told Salon.

After purchasing a new pair of shorts, McMuffin reportedly boarded her flight without further incident. JetBlue reportedly sent her a direct message on Twitter after seeing her frustrated tweets, explaining the request came from the pilot.

"It's getting frustrating and exhausting," Suchow said, reflecting on the numerous dress code regulations and appearance-based judgements women are constantly faced with. "I just don't know what the ideal dress for a woman is. I honestly believe that these fake rules exist and keep women focused on their bodies and their appearance."

"It keeps them shopping and it keeps them spending money instead of fighting for equal rights, fighting for equal pay, fighting for a seat at the table where they are treated equally because we're so focused on our appearance ... that's what society has told us is important."

But hey, don't worry, if airlines dont want you to wear shorts that come above your knees or shirts that drop any lower than your collarbone there are plenty of other amazing fashion alternatives for you to choose from. The New Yorker jokingly defines appropriate female flying attire as "refraining from showing cleavage, too much leg, or the outline of a human body," and suggests women wear "a baggy tuxedo that looks like it belonged to a nineteen-thirties tap dancer, or a full hazmat suit."

But rest assured, you dont need to take things THAT far. In the winter its easy to bundle up in ultra conservative sweaters topped with puffy ski jackets to ensure even someone with x-ray vision wont be able to make out any semblance of a female figure, and when the hot summer sun arrives you can strip down to light layers, like a nice mumu and baggy sweats, or full-length overalls paired with a fashionable turtleneck.

Sounds great, right? Just great.

WATCH: United Airlines passenger booted off plane after interaction with flight staff over Marvel baseball cap
London (AFP) - As a Foreign Office diplomat, Crispin Tickell helped Britain join the European Union in 1973. Now 86, he reflects on missed opportunities and his deep disappointment at the Brexit vote.

"I think it's a disaster. I think it's a failure of foreign policy," he told AFP in his book-filled, top-floor flat overlooking London's Regent's Canal.

"British foreign policy has been subjected to the vote of people who know nothing whatsoever about all this, and probably have a sneaking dislike of foreigners."

Tickell was in the British embassy in Paris when France blocked Britain's bid to join what was then the European Economic Community, and was private secretary to the three negotiators who subsequently struck the membership deal.

He disputes the claims by Brexit supporters that Britain had only intended to join a trading bloc when it signed up in 1973, not the more political union that the EU became.

"In the beginning it was obvious we were going in that direction, towards a united states of Europe. But that didn't mean we were going to give up sovereignty," he said.

During the campaign for the June referendum on EU membership, the "Leave" side used the slogan "Take Back Control" to harness public anger over decisions made in Brussels.

But Tickell said the feeling back then was that "we were able to participate in what would be the largest trade bloc in the world, that shared our common values and attitudes".

"We would be far more effective in an age when the Commonwealth was gradually declining in value and Britain was becoming less important," he said.

He added: "Joining the EU, as (then prime minister) Ted Heath understood very well, gave us a much stronger position.

"What we failed to do was to take advantage of it and realise what we could do."

- 'UK never took the EU seriously' -

The current French government has promised to be tough with Britain in the EU exit talks, and back then, it was Paris that twice vetoed London's application to join the bloc.

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But Tickell, who spent six years at the Paris embassy and was chief of staff to European Commission president Roy Jenkins in the 1970s, says many in France were keen on British membership as a counterbalance to Germany.

Tickell was present at many of the negotiating meetings, and insists Britain got a good deal.

A major problem, he said, was that "some British leaders never took the subject very seriously".

"I don't think people realised the extent to which we could negotiate what we wanted in the European Union," Tickell said.

As an example, he said Britain should have tried harder to reform the bloc's generous farm subsidies.

"There were so many things we could have done from within without having to pull ourselves out," he said.

- 'Diminishing in strength' -

Tickell was in the Foreign Office for 36 years, and later became an unofficial advisor to prime ministers John Major and Tony Blair on environmental issues.

He knows Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, whose father Stanley is an old friend and whose mother, Charlotte Johnson Wahl, painted a picture of Tickell and his wife that hangs in his flat.

His final posting was as Britain's ambassador to the United Nations -- an experience that gave him a clear view of how Britain could exert its international strength.

He said that after Brexit, Britain's role on the world stage would be a "lesser one, because we don't have the strength that the European Union gave us".

"As it is we're now diminishing in strength worldwide," he said.

"You just have to look at the way the Americans no longer take us as seriously as they did. And I think members of the Commonwealth feel the same thing."

While he despairs at the outcome of the referendum, however, he hopes it may not be definitive.

After all the negotiations, he suggests: "We may decide it's more to our advantage to be in than out."
Lindsay Lohan is once again confusing her fans and stirring rumors that shes converted to Islam with her latest Instagram post. The Mean Girls star appears to have known that her new photo would cause a commotion among her followers, so she asked them to not judge her because of this.

On Monday, Lohan took to the photo-sharing site to share a black and white photo of her in a simple dress with her head covered in a white cloth like a hijab. It wasnt clear if Lohan shared the pic to tease her upcoming fashion line or to send a strong message to the people who keep on judging her.

Just last month, Lohan shared that she was stopped at Londons Heathrow Airport for wearing a hijab. At the time, the actress said that the guard racially profiled her, and it was the first time that someone judged her for wearing the headscarf. She also admitted then that it left her feeling intimidated.

READ: Lindsay Lohan announces Hollywood comeback project

In the caption of her latest post, Lohan wrote dont judge the book by its cover both in English and in Arabic. Fans of the 30-year-old Hollywood celeb quickly left her positive comments for her devotion to the Islamic language. One fan wrote: Wow! You can speak Arabic! Arabic language is the Qurans language the greatest language. Another chimed in: Thats right Lindsay. Allah is the only judge. I am so proud of you for learning our language.

Meanwhile, other people seem to be upset by The Anti-Social Network hosts new Instagram post. One commented: Im not Muslim, but I dont know what youre trying to do here. The hijab is a symbol of modesty, and if you cant respect that you shouldnt be wearing it. Another stated: Well dear Lindsay, do whatever you want but please do not play with ones cultural or religious codes. Whether you are in or wether [sic] you are out. Its disrespectful.

In early February, Lohan admitted that shes studying the Quran and the Islam religion. She also confirmed speculations of conversion when she said that shes in the process of converting. Its a process to convert to anything  Its a beautiful religion and I am a very spiritual person, she said at the time.

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Despite her admission, Lohans father, Michael, recently claimed via a now-deleted Facebook post that his daughter is not a Muslim. My daughter is not of Muslim faith. She was raised Catholic but is Christian, Lohans father said after getting backlash for writing in a previous post that he thinks his daughter has not converted.

Lindsay Lohan

Photo: Reuters/Suzanne Plunkett

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By Nate Raymond (Reuters) - The assistant to a billionaire real estate developer from Macau accused of engaging in a scheme to pay bribes to a former United Nations General Assembly president is in plea talks, his lawyer said on Tuesday. The negotiations involving Jeff Yin, who was arrested along with billionaire Ng Lap Seng in 2015, were disclosed in a letter filed in Manhattan federal court by his attorney, who said prosecutors had extended him a plea offer. The lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, sought to extend court deadlines so that Yin, 31, could consider the plea offer, which "is complex and involves civil tax assessments and liabilities," according to her letter. The plea talks come ahead of a jury trial scheduled for May 15, in which Yin and his boss could face substantial prison time if convicted. It was unclear what charges Yin would have to plead guilty to if he accepted the offer. He had faced bribery, money laundering and tax-related charges, and was also accused of violating the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Shroff declined comment. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan, which is pursuing the case, also declined comment. Ng, who was once linked to a campaign fundraising investigation during former U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration, is one of seven individuals charged since October 2015 in the U.N.-related probe. Prosecutors accuse Ng and Yin of paying more than $500,000 in bribes to John Ashe, a former U.N. ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda who served as General Assembly president from 2013 to 2014. Ashe died in June awaiting trial. The indictment said Ng and Yin also paid bribes to Francis Lorenzo, a then-deputy U.N. ambassador from the Dominican Republic who pleaded guilty in March 2016 to bribery and money laundering charges as part of a deal to cooperate in the probe. The main goal of the bribes, according to the indictment, was to have both ambassadors take steps to help obtain United Nations' support for a multibillion-dollar U.N.-backed conference center in Macau that Sun Kian Ip Group would develop. Yin, a U.S. citizen who currently lives in California, also faces charges for taking steps to evade paying income taxes and helping Lorenzo conceal portions of his income from U.S. tax authorities. Ng, the founder of Macau-based real estate developer Sun Kian Ip Group, has denied wrongdoing. A lawyer for Ng declined to comment. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Tom Brown)
Barcelona (AFP) - Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy pledged Tuesday to invest 4.2 billion euros ($4.6 billion) in Catalonia by 2020 as a battle for hearts and minds rages between Madrid and regional authorities that want independence.

At loggerheads with the separatist government in the northeastern region, which plans to hold a Scotland-style independence referendum against Madrid's will, Rajoy has launched a so-called "operation dialogue" in a bid to ease tensions and win over public opinion.

Criticised for inaction during his first term in office as independence fervour mounted in Catalonia, Rajoy promised to strive for a rapprochement when he took power again in November to solve what he has dubbed Spain's most serious problem.

Speaking in the seaside city of Barcelona, Rajoy promised "4.2 billion euros in investment in infrastructure, transport and housing between this year and 2020, which represents more than a billion a year."

Lack of investment in the wealthy but indebted region has long been a source of contention, pushing some weary Catalans to come out in support of independence, particularly as they see their tax money sent to Madrid and used to prop up other poorer regions.

The belated arrival of the high-speed train to Barcelona in 2008, 16 years after the first such link to Seville in the south, a lack of free highways, and delays in commuter trains are just some of the issues that have contributed to this weariness.

But polls show that many recently converted independence supporters would happily settle for more autonomy and better funding.

Hoping to lure them back, Rajoy pledged to pour money into the commuter train network, airports, roads and ports.

He also promised to finish by 2020 the Catalan section of a Mediterranean freight railway link due to go through coastal regions all the way down to Algeciras on Spain's southern tip.

In addition, Rajoy said he would address the long-time complaint about regional funding and taxes.

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"This matters to me. I want Catalonia to be prosperous in a thriving Spain," he said, asking companies for "help in winning the battle for moderation".

- Received with scepticism -

But the regional government headed by Carles Puigdemont has reacted with a strong dose of scepticism to these overtures.

"Promises of investment in Catalonia made by the Spanish government have lost all credibility in the eyes of Catalan society," Puigdemont said in an article penned with his deputy Oriol Junqueras and published Tuesday in the regional daily El Periodico.

They said the central government's previous investment pledges had only been partially fulfilled.

"The state's investment in Catalonia represents 8.2 percent of total investment in regions," they said, arguing this was "way below" what it should be getting given the wealth it generates and how populous it is.

Catalonia is the region that contributes most to Spain's overall economy, accounting for just under a fifth of the total.

As if emphasising this, Puigdemont was in the United States to establish contacts with think tanks and media outlets and defend his plans to call a referendum in September, just as Rajoy made his announcement.

Madrid has warned repeatedly that such a vote would be illegal and against the constitution -- a stance supported by the judiciary.

But the Catalan government has pressed ahead regardless.

Dominated by a coalition of separatist parties, the regional parliament last week approved a 2017 budget that pointedly includes funding for the referendum.

In doing so Catalonia's leaders risk legal repercussions, as illustrated by the two-year ban on public office imposed on former Catalan president Artur Mas this month for organising an illegal independence referendum in 2014, even though the vote was non-binding.
Las Vegas (AFP) - Legendary sci-fi director Luc Besson revealed Tuesday he has been thinking about making his latest film "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" since he was 10.

The 58-year-old French auteur has made a string of iconic hits, including "The Fifth Element," "Leon: The Professional," "Lucy" and "Nikita."

But he said his upcoming movie has been a passion project since he began reading the serialized 1960s comics from Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mezieres on which it is based.

"There was no internet, no YouTube, nothing and you had to wait a week to get two more pages," he told delegates at the CinemaCon gathering of movie theater operators in Las Vegas.

"I got totally addicted... It was so cool at the time, really new and I never stopped thinking about it."

Besson believed a movie based on a comic about just two human characters and 1,000 aliens would be impossible, he told the audience at Caesar's Palace.

"But then this gentleman, this young director James Cameron -- you've heard of him? -- he just made these techniques possible after 'Avatar.' Thanks to him now, the imagination is the limit," Besson added.

- Fever dream -

The $180 million "Valerian" -- which comes out on July 21 -- centers on a dark force threatening Alpha, a vast metropolis and home to species from a thousand planets.

Blacks ops agents Valerian (Dean DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) race to identify the marauding menace and safeguard the universe.

The audience was treated to a new trailer, a surreal but self-aware fever dream in vivid 3-D featuring a huge, drooling CGI dog-like monster that rips a bus apart, as well of plenty of large Zen-like aliens and desert vistas with echoes of Mad Max.

"I grew up loving Luc's movies from when I was a kid. This is my biggest dream," said 24-year-old British fashion model-turned-actress Delevingne ("Paper Towns").

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Adam Fogelson, studio head of Hollywood newcomer STX, introduced "Valerian" as part of a slate of its upcoming movies building on an impressive portfolio of 10 releases in its first two years in business.

An array of stars, including Jessica Chastain, Aaron Sorkin, Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis took to the stage to discuss upcoming projects in various stages of development.

There was a first look at Jackie Chan action vehicle "The Foreigner," an American-Chinese production that hits US theaters October 13.

- 'Female power' -

There was also very early concept art from animations "Ugly Dolls," which Fogelson announced would be benefiting from the creative oversight of veteran director Robert Rodriguez, and an untitled rodeo comedy starring Eddie Murphy.

Wahlberg introduced actioner "Mile 22" saying he hoped it would become a trilogy and "the thing that defines me," while Kunis chatted about motherhood and the sequel to smash-hit "Bad Moms," due for release in November.

Oscar nominee Chastain stars in "Molly's Game" as Molly Bloom, a real-life skier who lost out on her Olympic dream and became an organizer of underground poker games for the Hollywood elite.

"I like that the film explores female power and what that means in society," said Chastain, who got to meet Bloom during production.

First-time director Sorkin, 55, is best known for his writing on televisual milestones such as "The West Wing" and the "The Newsroom," as well as movies "Moneyball" and "The Social Network."

"It isn't often you come across a story that is both cool and has a lot of heart, and this one does," he told the CinemaCon crowd after a screening of the trailer.

"And what drew me to the story is the character of Molly. She is a thoroughly original movie heroine."
Kuala Lumpur (AFP) - Six weeks after the airport assassination of Kim Jong-Nam, Malaysia on Tuesday said it was still waiting for family to claim the body, denying rumours it had been sent back to Pyongyang.

The half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un was poisoned with the lethal nerve agent VX in a brazen Cold War-style assassination on February 13 in Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

"There have been a lot of rumours that the body was cremated but we would not do this without the responsible parties giving us directives or agreement," Health Minister S. Subramaniam told reporters.

In recent days, there has been some speculation that Kuala Lumpur had done a deal with Pyongyang to send the body to North Korea, in exchange for the return of nine Malaysians being prevented from leaving by Kim Jong-Un's regime.

Other reports had suggested the corpse would be transported to Macau, where Kim had been living with his family.

"The body is still in the morgue at Hospital Kuala Lumpur," Subramaniam said, adding it would remain there until the government had decided what to do.

Kuala Lumpur has been waiting for the next of kin to come forward and claim the body, but as this has not happened, they are now seeking other solutions.

Kim's wife and children, who were living in exile in the Chinese territory of Macau, staged a vanishing act after the murder. There are fears his 21-year-old son, Kim Han-Sol, could be targeted next and the family is thought to be in hiding.

The killing has triggered a bitter row between Malaysia and North Korea, which have expelled each other's ambassadors and barred their citizens from leaving.

Two women -- one Vietnamese and one Indonesian -- have been arrested and charged with the murder. Airport CCTV footage shows them approaching the 45-year-old victim and apparently smearing his face with a piece of cloth.

Investigators are seeking seven North Korean suspects, four of whom left Malaysia on the day of the murder.

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The police chief has said he believes they fled to Pyongyang while the other three are hiding in North Korea's embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

Seoul has blamed Pyongyang for his death, but the North denies this, refusing to confirm the identity of the victim, who was carrying a passport bearing the name of Kim Chol when he was attacked.

Malaysia has officially confirmed his identity using DNA evidence.
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Tuesday that he discussed the possible purchase of Dassault Aviation SA's Rafale fighter jets with French President Francois Hollande but remained undecided. "We're not ready yet to make a decision, but we take note of its success in other countries...," Najib said at a joint news conference with Hollande in Kuala Lumpur. Rafale is seen as a frontrunner as Malaysia looks to buy up to 18 jets in a deal potentially worth more than $2 billion, sources have said. Malaysia's plan is to replace the Royal Malaysian Air Force's (RMAF) squadron of Russian MiG-29 combat planes, nearly half of which are grounded. Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein was reported in the media as saying the race for new fighter jets has narrowed to the Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon, built by BAE Systems. "I know you will be making a decision, and against that background, we want to provide the necessary support," Hollande said in his speech after comments from Najib. "Our ministers are already working to that effect. All I would like to say is that the Rafale jet is the best in its category, and then we propose to discuss the prices, and the specifications. I trust you will make the decision when the time comes," he added. Hollande held bilateral talks with Najib during his visit to Malaysia, which is part of a three-nation tour of Southeast Asia. Hollande was in Singapore earlier this week and is headed to Indonesia later on Tuesday. (Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; writing by Praveen Menon; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Michael Perry)
Police have arrested a man they believe is responsible for the murder of an 8-year-old boy who was killed in front of his parents and brother in a drive-by shooting in California last month.

Jonah Hwang was killed when a suspect opened fire on a Pomona home, striking the little boy in the head as he and his family gathered with others for a church-related dinner on February 20, officials said.

"The devastation that we feel from this loss is unfathomable," his family said in a statement after the murder of the child, who had been adopted three years earlier from Taiwan.

"He had an infectious smile and loved everyone and everything: Sports, wrestling with his dad, running, laughing, superheroes," the family said. "With his playful demeanor, he adapted almost immediately to life in the United States and became a full-blooded American in no time at all."

Read: Organs of Girl, 11, Killed by Stray Bullet Are Donated to Save 8 People, Including Her Cousin

The home where Jonah was killed had been a target of a drive-by shooting before his death and saw two more after, but the residence was unoccupied during the other incidents, police said.

Evidence suggests that all four of these shootings are related," Pomona Police Department Chief Paul Capraro said at a press conference Monday.

On Sunday, police arrested Sengchan Houl, who they said was driving the vehicle investigators believed was used in the four shootings.

Houl, 35, was also allegedly carrying the firearm used in the crimes, officials said.

A motive for the shootings was unclear.

"Mr. Houl does not appear to have an extensive criminal history," Capraro said. "We are researching to see if he has any ties to any criminal organizations."

The arrest served as a fraction of closure for a community mourning the loss of a little boy taken far too soon.

Read: Stray Bullet Narrowly Misses Sleeping Baby As It Passes Through Crib

"Jonah was a light and joy in our household and we cannot imagine our family without him, his family wrote on a GoFundMe page created after his death.

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As of Tuesday, the site had raised nearly $60,000, far surpassing its original $10,000 goal and leaving Jonahs family touched by the show of love and support, a relative wrote.

"The GoFundMe has well exceeded its initial goal, and with your kind donations they plan to create a scholarship fund in honor of Jonah to bless and give back to the children of Pomona," the page said.

We hope that Jonah can continue to be a beacon of light in this city, and that he won't be forgotten because of the love of so many people that have made his light shine as brightly as the person he was, his family wrote.

Houl is being held on $2 million bail. He is expected to appear in court Tuesday.

Watch: Widow Relives Heartbreaking Moment Husband was Shot in Mall Parking Lot

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SHAWNEE, Okla. (AP)  Oklahoma court records show a 35-year-old man suspected of fatally shooting a 22-year-old police officer during a traffic stop faced a stolen property charge.

Pottawatomie County District Attorney Richard Smothermon identified the suspect Tuesday as Byron James Shepard of Okemah. Shepard is suspected of shooting Tecumseh Police Officer Justin Terney Sunday night. Terney died Monday after undergoing surgery.

Authorities say Shepard was also struck by gunfire and remains hospitalized in undisclosed condition.

Officials say Terney stopped a vehicle in which Shepard was a passenger and learned Shepard had an outstanding warrant. Court records show Shepard was charged in Okfuskee County on Feb. 22 with one count of knowingly concealing stolen property.

A woman who was with Shepard, 22-year-old Brooklyn Danielle Williams, was arrested Tuesday for harboring a fugitive.
By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) - A former University of New Mexico student failed to persuade a federal appeals court that the school violated her free speech rights by rejecting an essay containing anti-lesbian remarks that she had written for a film class.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday said the university had legitimate pedagogical concerns when its professors refused to grade Monica Pompeo's critique of a film about a lesbian romance and suggested that she rewrite it, prompting her withdrawal from the class in the spring of 2012.

Pompeo had written that the 1985 film, "Desert Hearts," could be viewed as "entirely perverse in its desire and attempt to reverse the natural roles of man and woman in addition to championing the barren wombs of these women."

Writing for a two-judge panel, Circuit Judge Carlos Lucero said Pompeo did not have an unfettered right to use language in a course assignment that professors might find offensive.

He said this meant the university and two professors who reviewed Pompeo's essay were not liable for damages for any alleged First Amendment violations.

"Teaching students to avoid inflammatory language when writing for an academic audience qualifies as a legitimate pedagogical goal," Lucero wrote. "Short of turning every classroom into a courtroom, we must entrust to educators these decisions that require judgments based on viewpoint."

Pompeo's lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A university spokeswoman, Dianne Anderson, said in an email on behalf of the professors that the school was pleased that the decision "provides a more complete perspective on the facts" and affirms the lack of evidence of a free speech violation.

The university refunded Pompeo's tuition for the class, court records show.

Tuesday's decision by the Denver-based appeals court let stand a September 2015 ruling by Chief Judge M. Christina Armijo of the federal court in Albuquerque.

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Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch, the U.S. Supreme Court nominee of President Donald Trump, was originally part of the 10th Circuit panel but did not participate in Tuesday's decision.

The case is Pompeo v. Board of Regents of the University of New Mexico et al, 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 15-2179.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Tom Brown and Richard Chang)
(WASHINGTON) - Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was paid more than $67,000 by Russian companies before the presidential election, according to documents released Thursday by a Democratic congressman.

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland asked the Trump administration to provide a comprehensive record of Flynns contacts with foreign governments and interests.

Flynn accepted $33,750 from Russias government-run television system for appearing at a Moscow event in December 2015 - a few months before Flynn began formally advising President Donald Trumps campaign - and thousands more in expenses covered by the network and in speech fees from other Russian firms, according to the documents.

Flynns financial relationship with the RT network may violate a constitutional provision against gifts from foreign governments, said Cummings, who released documents obtained during the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reforms inquiry into Flynns activities before Trump appointed him to become national security adviser.

In addition to the record of Flynns foreign contacts, Cummings, the senior Democrat on the committee, also asked the Defense Department to compel Flynn to pay the money he received to the U.S. government.

I am writing to request information about whether Gen. Flynn fully disclosed - as part of the security clearance and vetting process for his return to government - his communications with Russian agents, Turkish agents and other foreign agents, as well as his payments from foreign sources, Cummings wrote. Last week, Flynn registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent whose lobbying work may have benefited the Turkish government. The lobbying occurred before Election Day from August to November, during the period when Flynn was Trumps campaign adviser.

Trump fired Flynn as national security adviser last month, saying the former U.S. Army lieutenant general misled Vice President Mike Pence and other White House officials about his conversations with Russias ambassador to the U.S. Flynns ties to Russia have been scrutinized by the FBI and are part of House and Senate committee investigations into contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russians.

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The newly-released files show that RT - designated by the U.S. intelligence community as a propaganda arm for Russias government - also paid for luxury hotel stays and other expenses incurred by Flynn and his adult son, Michael Flynn Jr., during the Moscow trip.

Flynn, who was fired in August 2014 as chief of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, sat next to Russian President Vladimir Putin during the climax of the televised RT gala.

Cummings said Flynns acceptance of payments from RT violated the emoluments provision of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits retired military officers from accepting gifts from foreign powers. RT identifies itself as an independent news network, but a report by U.S. intelligence agencies made public in January said RT has long been considered by the U.S. government a Russian propaganda arm.

In letters sent to Trump, Defense Secretary James Mattis and FBI Director James Comey, Cummings said Flynn violated the Constitution by accepting tens of thousands of dollars from an agent of a global adversary that attacked our democracy. Cummings was referring to the intelligence agencies conclusion that Russia instigated cyber-hacking of Democratic party officials and organizations in the months before the presidential election.

The Defense Department has said retired military officers are covered by the emoluments clause because they could be recalled to military service. The department has also noted that the prohibition on accepting foreign gifts includes commercial groups controlled by foreign governments or others considered instruments of the foreign government.

A Flynn spokesman said Flynn informed the DIA before he went to Moscow and after his return. Price Floyd, a spokesman for Flynn, said that as many former government officials and general officers have done, Gen. Flynn signed with a speakers bureau and these are examples of that work.

DIA spokesman Jim Kudla said Thursday that Flynn did report to the agency in advance that he was traveling to Moscow in accordance with standard security clearance procedures.

Separately, the Army is looking into the matter of Flynns reporting and compensation, but has found no answers yet, according to spokesman Col. Pat Seiber.

Emails indicate Flynn initially asked for a higher fee than the $45,000 paid to his speakers group, Leading Authorities Inc., but was asked to reduce his price. Flynns take from RT was ultimately $33,750 after Leading Authorities received its commission.

If Gen. Flynn is coming, we would like him to be front and central at the Moscow conference, an RT official told Flynns representatives in a November 2015 email. During his Moscow stay, Flynn was interviewed by an RT personality on national security affairs before attending the lavish RT gala with Putin.

In an addition to the RT payments, Flynn was also paid $11,250 for two speeches in Washington - one in August for Volga-Dnepr Airlines, a Russian charter cargo airline, and a second, in September, for Kaspersky Government Security Solutions Inc., a U.S. subsidiary of Kaspersky Lab, a Russian-based cybersecurity firm.





Flynn and his son also received an unspecified amount in expenses paid by RT for business-class flights to and from Moscow and for their three-day stay at the Hotel Metropol. RT representatives said the stay offered tours of the Kremlin, RT headquarters, the Bolshoi Theater and art museums. Another attendee who took part in some of the tours told The Associated Press they did not see Flynn at those events.

Cummings said he has given the Trump administration, the FBI and the Defense Department until April 7 to produce documents related to Flynns contacts with foreign nationals and any documentation of funds he received from foreign sources.

Cummings also asked for documents about Flynns security clearance over the past 10 years. They include how Flynn answered questions about his contact with foreign nationals, his work for foreign governments and businesses, and any international real estate holdings.

The release of the documents comes one week after Flynn and his firm, Flynn Intel Group, registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents whose lobbying work may have benefited the government of Turkey.

The registration involved $530,000 worth of lobbying that Flynns firm performed for a company owned by a Turkish businessman. In that filing, Flynn acknowledged the lobbying on behalf of the company, Inovo BV, could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey.

The AP reported last week that while Flynn was under consideration for the top national security post, his attorneys informed the presidential transition team that it was likely he would have to register as a foreign agent. After Flynn was appointed, his attorneys then notified the White House counsels office that a filing was imminent.

The White House initially said it had no recollection of the second discussion but later acknowledged such a contact had occurred.

Associated Press writers Robert Burns and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
A mother is venting her anger at the TSA after she claims they spent an hour at a checkpoint, resulting in a missed flight to California.

Read: Woman Once Victimized by Teacher Weighs In on Missing Student Case: 'She Has Been Taken Advantage Of'

Jennifer Williamson posted a video of her 13-year-old sons pat-down on Facebook Sunday at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

We were treated horribly by the TSA. There was a lot of commentary that was directed towards us that was inappropriate. They were very rude to us," she told Inside Edition.

She also told CBS This Morning Tuesday her family was "treated like dogs."

Williamson said the two-minute pat-down came after agents found a laptop in her son's carry-on bag as it went through the scanner.

She said her teenage son, Aaron, suffers from a "sensory processing disorder," which makes him extremely sensitive to touch. She claims that she asked the TSA to search him some other way.

"It is something that he deals with every day and it is something that I brought to the attention of the TSA. They seemed to ignore it completely," she told Inside Edition.

Aaron told Inside Edition: "I couldnt understand what I had on me, I have been asking this question and didnt know what I did wrong at all."

In the upset mothers Facebook video, the agent explains the procedure for patting Aaron down and his supervisor observed the situation.

Read: United Airlines Takes Heat After Refusing to Allow 2 Teens in Leggings to Board Plane

The TSA claims the proper protocols were executed in Aaron's case.

"All approved procedures were followed," the agency said in a statement to Inside Edition. "The pat down took approximately two minutes, and was observed by the mother and two police officers who were called to mitigate the concerns of the mother."

She disagrees that TSA agents were doing their jobs, adding: My son passed the x-ray without any incident, I was displaying a horrible example to my children by questioning the TSA.

Story continues

Watch: CNN Commentator Says She Was Subjected to Humiliating TSA Pat-Down: 'The System Is the Problem'

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La Ferte-Saint-Aubin (France) (AFP) - Having a flutter on the horses in his local bar, Eric Belouet picks his favourites without hesitation. But when it comes to France's presidential election, he can't make up his mind.

"Really, I can't," said the 59-year-old, his eyes on the TV screen broadcasting the races. "I'm on the right. But for Francois Fillon, it's over."

Belouet, a former funeral goods salesman who lives in the little town of La Ferte-Saint-Aubin in central France, said "the door had been wide open" for Fillon to become president when the country votes in the two-round election on April 23 and May 7.

But that was before Fillon's campaign was rocked by multiple scandals over expenses and conflicts of interest, including allegations that he paid his wife for years as a parliamentary assistant with little evidence that she did any work.

Unable to forgive Fillon, Belouet finds himself among the 40 percent of voters who have yet to decide how they'll vote with less than a month to go -- or even if they'll show up on election day at all.

It is the highest rate of indecision France has ever seen at this point in a presidential campaign, and adds yet another element of uncertainty to one of the most unpredictable elections in living memory.

For Anne Jadot, a political science professor at the University of Lorraine, it is the string of scandals and surprises in the campaign so far that have left so many voters on the fence.

"This has created a lot of uncertainty and unexpected developments, so we're talking less about the issues and policies," Jadot told AFP.

- Going fishing -

La Ferte-Saint-Aubin was divided at the last election in 2012, voting narrowly for rightwinger Nicolas Sarkozy ahead of the eventual winner Francois Hollande.

Five years on, many in the quiet red-brick town of 7,400 people, at the edge of the hunting forests of Solognes, could hardly be bothered with politics in this election cycle.

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"At the outdoor market, only one person in 20 talks to me about the presidential election," says Constance de Pelichy, the town's conservative mayor.

"It's worrying, because that shows a lack of interest."

France endured many months of speculation before knowing who was actually running for president.

Hollande held off until December to announce he would step down, forgoing a run for re-election after five difficult years at the helm.

It then took until late January, after a two-round primary, for Benoit Hamon to emerge as the Socialists' candidate.

On the right meanwhile, Fillon suffered weeks of pressure to abandon his presidential bid because of the fake jobs scandal, but he has insisted on staying in the race, even after being formally charged with misuse of public funds.

"There's major confusion," sighed 65-year-old Jacques Drouet as he sat in the 1960s-style bar in La Ferte-Saint-Aubin.

"We're trapped between voting with our hearts and voting tactically," said the former trade unionist, who usually votes on the left.

The typical election scenario is for the French to vote for their favourite candidate in the first round before trying to eliminate their least favourite in the second.

Drouet's ideas are closest to Hamon's -- but he's considering breaking with tradition and voting for centrist Emmanuel Macron even in the first round, hoping to minimise far-right leader Marine Le Pen's chances of making it into the run-off, as polls predict she will.

For many, the most dramatic example of tactical voting was in 2002, when Le Pen's father Jean-Marie Le Pen rocked the political establishment by reaching the runoff. In that second round, voters of various political stripes reluctantly got behind conservative candidate Jacques Chirac to block the far right.

This time, the major remaining unknown is who will face Marine Le Pen. Fillon started the campaign as her most obvious rival, but the scandals have battered his ratings. Polls predict that Le Pen is most likely to square off against Macron, formerly seen as an underdog, at the May 7 run-off vote.

But if her opponent is Fillon, Drouet said: "I'd leave my ballot blank as things stand now."

Other undecided voters are planning on simply staying away on election day, meaning abstention rates could be high -- perhaps beating the 20 percent who abstained in 2012.

Eric Belouet is contemplating doing something else on April 23 instead of heading to the ballot box -- going fishing, perhaps, though not even that is a certainty.

"It'll depend on the weather," he said.
By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic opposition to President Donald Trump's U.S. Supreme Court nominee grew on Monday while the White House demanded a "fair, up-or-down vote" in the Senate on confirming Neil Gorsuch to the lifetime post. Four more Democratic senators added their support to a growing effort to block a confirmation vote through the use of a filibuster. That procedural hurdle requires 60 votes in the 100-seat Senate to allow a confirmation vote by a simple majority. Republicans control the Senate 52-48. There are now 20 senators who have backed Democratic leader Chuck Schumer's filibuster call - up from 16 on Friday. Senator Joe Manchin, however, announced on Monday that he opposes a filibuster, according to an aide, and Senator Heidi Heitkamp also indicated she would oppose it. "It's my duty to fully consider any Supreme Court nominee, regardless of which party is in the White House," she said in a statement. Democratic opposition to Gorsuch could prompt a Senate showdown over the confirmation of the conservative appeals court judge from Colorado, but Republicans could change the Senate's rules to disallow filibusters against Supreme Court nominees. Trump is seeking to avoid another setback in Congress after major healthcare legislation he supported was pulled from the House of Representatives floor amid Republican opposition on Friday. The confirmation of Gorsuch, 49, to replace Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016, would restore the nine-seat court's conservative majority, a major campaign promise for Trump. The latest Senate Democrats to join the fight include Bill Nelson, who said there are "real concerns" that Gorsuch would be hostile to voting rights and support businesses over workers and consumers. The other three Democratic senators to have newly announced their opposition were Judiciary Committee members Mazie Hirono, Al Franken and Jack Reed. Manchin and Nelson are among 10 Democrats who conservative activists had hoped would join Republicans in preventing any attempt to block a Gorsuch vote. They are all up for re-election in 2018 in states Trump won in the 2016 presidential election. Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont, also a Judiciary Committee member, said he generally opposes filibusters but added that Gorsuch would face one if he does not adequately answer written questions. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said any attempted filibuster would be "nothing short of obstructionism." The committee is due to vote next Monday on sending the nomination to the full Senate. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham and Bill Trott)
BRUSSELS (AP)  Ambassadors from NATO and Russia will meet this week for the first time this year in a fresh attempt to resolve some of their differences.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement Tuesday that a NATO-Russia Council  their main forum for dialogue  would be held at the military alliance's Brussels headquarters on Thursday.

Disputes over meeting agendas, particularly on the thorny issue of the conflict in Ukraine, have held up talks in the past.

Stoltenberg said after the last NATO-Russia Council in December that the 28-nation, U.S.-led military alliance and Russia "have profound disagreements on the crisis" in Ukraine.

NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said Thursday's meeting would include talks on "the situation in and around Ukraine," security in Afghanistan, and efforts to reduce the risk of incidents or accidents from military exercises. Russia has announced plans to conduct war games near its western border in September.

"While NATO's practical cooperation with Russia remains suspended due to Russia's illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea and its continued destabilization of eastern Ukraine, NATO keeps channels of political dialogue open," Lungescu said.

NATO foreign ministers meet U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for the first time in Brussels on Friday, with Ukraine also on the agenda.
Brussels (AFP) - NATO ambassadors will meet the Russian envoy on Thursday in a new bid to ease tensions on the eve of the alliance's first talks with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

The ambassadors will discuss the crisis in Ukraine as well as Afghanistan's security, and terrorism in the region, a NATO official said.

"Following consultations with the members of the NATO-Russia Council (NRC), I have invited them to a meeting at ambassadorial level," NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.

"The meeting will take place on 30 March at NATO headquarters in Brussels," he added.

The NRC had met regularly until the Ukraine crisis plunged relations with Moscow into the deep freeze in 2014, though this will be the fourth meeting since the forum resumed nearly a year ago.

NATO was alarmed when Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 and has accused Russia since of fuelling a rebellion in eastern Ukraine against the pro-Western government in Kiev.

US-led NATO has suspended all practical cooperation with Russia over its role in Ukraine but Stoltenberg has said political channels of communication have always remained open.

Russia's ambassador to NATO Alexander Grushko and alliance counterparts will also discuss "military activities, reciprocal transparency and risk reduction in order to improve stability and security in the Euro-Atlantic area," the NATO official said on condition of anonymity.

The meeting comes on the eve of Tillerson's visit to Brussels for consultations with the other foreign ministers of the 28-nation alliance.

NATO rescheduled the meeting for Friday after Tillerson was unable to make the original date next week and sowed doubts about US President Donald Trump's commitment to an alliance he had dismissed as "obsolete."

Tillerson's decision to skip the initial NATO meeting and visit Moscow the same month instead also fuelled concerns among the alliance about Trump's admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The German government has denied reports that US president Donald Trump handed a 300bn invoice to its chancellor, Angela Merkel.

The Sunday Times had reported that Mr Trump gave a fake bill for $374bn to Ms Merkel when they met in Washington DC earlier this month.

It said the figure referred to an amount supposedly owed by Germany to Nato.

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However, Germany moved quickly to deny the report.

Government spokesman Steffen Seibert told journalists at a press conference: Reports that President Trump had presented the federal chancellor with a kind of bill with a concrete billion sum are not true.

Following the two leaders meeting, Mr Trump tweeted: Germany owes vast sums of money to Nato and the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!

Mr Seibert said the leaders discussed defence spending but there was no debt account at Nato.

Nato members are urged to spend 2 per cent of their gross domestic product on defence, but Germany has fallen short of that marker.

Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Nevertheless, Germany owes..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2017

vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2017

However, German defence minister Ursula von der Leyen criticised the US presidents remarks, saying: There is no account where debts are registered with.

Defence spending also goes into UN peacekeeping missions, into our European missions and into our contribution to the fight against Isis terrorism.
Geneva (AFP) - A political deal to end the Syrian conflict is not possible without a strong US role, the opposition's chief negotiator told AFP, warning that Washington's absence was threatening ongoing peace talks.

Lead negotiator for the main opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), Mohamad Sabra, said in an interview late Monday that the UN-backed talks in Geneva remained "stalled".

"There can be no real and viable political solution without the presence of the Americans," he said.

The United States has a "moral duty" to throw its weight behind efforts to end the six-year conflict, he added.

Years of diplomatic initiatives have failed to end the war, which has killed more than 320,000 people and displaced millions since it started in March 2011 with protests against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Washington has long been the biggest backer of the Syrian opposition, but it appears to be putting far less diplomatic muscle towards the rebel cause since President Donald Trump came to power in January.

Two UN-backed taskforces co-chaired by the United States and Russia and aimed at securing ceasefires and access for humanitarian aid in Syria seem to be having less impact.

At the same time, regime supporters Russia and Iran along with rebel-backer Turkey have been pushing separate negotiations in Astana since January after gains on the ground by Damascus turned the tables in the conflict.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was on Tuesday set to host his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani for talks that are being closely watched for signs of their next moves in Syria.

Closer cooperation between the two Syrian regime supporters will likely go even further in marginalising US influence in the peace process.

- 'No partner' -

While urging Washington to be more fully engaged in the peace process, Sabra warned that a deal would be impossible "if the Russians do not withdraw their (military) support for the regime."

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Russia's entry into the conflict in September 2015 -- when it began launching air strikes to shore up Assad's forces -- played a significant role in turning the tide for the Syrian regime.

The HNC delegation was expected to meet with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Genady Gatilov on Wednesday, after he met with the government delegation on Tuesday.

In the interview, Sabra also reiterated the HNC's often-repeated claim that the Syrian government delegation, headed by the country's ambassador to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari, was "not seriously involved" in the talks.

"Until now, we don't have a partner in these negotiations," he insisted.

His comments came amid a fifth round of negotiations in Geneva being mediated by UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura which have remained clouded by persistent violence on the ground and deadlock over the country's political future.

The government has ruled out discussing Assad's possible departure, while the HNC says it will refuse any deal that leaves him in power.

Sabra insisted that "once the transitional government is formed," Assad's regime would end, and he "and his clique will be referred to a fair trial" for their crimes.
New York (AFP) - American theater-goers got a small taste Monday of a new play by Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek that tries to understand President Donald Trump and what he says about today's society.

Jelinek, an Austrian, won the world's top literature prize in 2004 and is known for writing the novel "The Piano Teacher," which became a movie of the same name in 2001.

Entitled "On the Royal Road: The Burgher King," her new play tries to make sense of Trump's election as president of the United States.

Excerpts were read on Monday night at the Martin E. Segal Theatre at City University of New York.

As with other works by Elfriede, the play is dense, written in language in which each word or sentence seem to be key pieces in the task of solving a puzzle.

"When I first read the text, it felt like abstract painting," said actress Masha Dakic, who did the solo reading on Monday.

The play's main character is Miss Piggy, she of the Muppets. But in this case, she is blind, her eyes streaming blood, as she wonders aloud about Trump.

Trump has destroyed the past and hijacked the future so as to make everything all about the present -- the world of the tweets of which he's so fond, Jelinek has said.

Director Stefan Dzeparoski said he staged the play in short segments that "behave almost like news bursts, like breaking news," he told AFP.

- 'How can you get a hold on Trump?'

"Everything has this punching rhythm so you can never have a moment to think. There is no time to think," he added.

Gitta Honegger, who translated the play from German into English, said the election of Trump was a gut punch, something hard to digest and likened it to the rise to power of the Nazis.

She said just that like intellectuals in that period, she watches those of today who were "not thinking that it's even possible that somebody with a brain like this and behavior like this and emptiness like this can be a president."

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Honegger, pressed to say what the play is about, said: "How can you get a hold on Trump?"

"You can't get a hold on stupidity," Jelinek says in a yet unpublished interview in the US magazine Theater, in which a shortened version of the text of the play will be published.

Jelinek did not come to New York for the reading on Monday. She suffers from acute anxiety and does not go out, spending her time at home in Vienna, said Honegger.

Honegger said that when she learned Jelinek was writing something about Trump, whom Honeger focused on closely as soon as he was elected, she proposed to the writer translating it into English and performing it in America.

The actual premiere is scheduled for October in Hamburg, Germany.
A virtuous son or a vigilante murderer: the case of a man who killed a debt collector in defence of his mother has sparked heated debate in China, as an appeal court decides whether to uphold his life sentence.

Social media erupted after 22-year-old Yu Huan was convicted for stabbing to death a man who had beaten and humiliated his parent.

In a country where law enforcement is weak and frequently seen as corrupt, some web users saw his actions as a proportionate and justified response when police failed to step in.

Others have insisted that "the law is the law" and Yu should serve his full term.

The public fury has reached such a fever pitch that the Supreme People's Procuratorate, China's highest investigation agency, has opened a rare probe into the incident.

- 'Don't use your fists' -

Court documents reveal that Yu Huan's mother, Su Yinxia had borrowed more than one million yuan ($145,000) for her auto parts manufacturing company from a local real estate developer.

Little by little, she told police, she had paid him back 1.5 million yuan. But the ten percent monthly interest payments kept piling up, making it difficult for her to get out from under her debt.

The developer, Wu Xuezhan -- who has reportedly been detained by police for connections to organised crime -- sent a gang of loan collectors to Su's factory in April 2015, where, Su says, they began yelling at her and her son.

Yu says a man named Du Zhihao then exposed himself.

A police officer arrived on the scene a short time later, witnesses claim, but rather than stepping in to stop the abuse, he issued a mild warning: "If you're here to settle debts don't fight, don't use your fists -- just talk it out."

After the officer left, a fracas erupted.

Su insists the debt collectors started the violence. But Yu finished it, pulling out a fruit knife and stabbing four of the men, including Du, who died from blood loss.

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The debt collectors deny Su and Yu's claims that they had hit and humiliated them.

Yu was convicted of intentionally causing harm that resulted in death, and sentenced to life.

Wu has since been arrested for gang-related activities, according to local media.

- 'What is the law for?' -

Much of the discussion on social media has centred on whether the country's rule of law has deteriorated to the extent that children need to step in to protect their parents when authorities fail to help.

"If the law doesn't bring justice to this kind of person, what is the law for, anyway?" asked one user on the Weibo social network.

"If anyone dared do that to my mom, I'd kill them right away," wrote another.

It is a sticky issue for the government, which has strongly promoted filial piety -- even passing laws requiring children to visit their parents -- as part of a nation-wide push to promote traditional values.

In an unusual critique of law enforcement, the nationalistic Global Times on Sunday called for Yu to receive a fair sentence.

"We welcome the Supreme People's Procuratorate's probe into whether Yu was legitimately acting in self-defence and whether the police officers' behaviour can be considered a dereliction of duty," the column said.

Yu's lawyer, Yin Qingli, told AFP he was hopeful his client would be shown leniency by the Shandong Higher People's Court when it hears the appeal.

"Under the present circumstances, I believe there is a very high chance that Yu Huan's sentence will be changed," Yin said.
The administration of President Donald Trump and its policy on the North Korean nuclear program is no different from that of former President Barack Obama, according to an op-ed published Monday in a North Korean news outlet. The commentary was likely an attempt to strike a nerve in the current presidency by comparing it to one for which it has continuously tried to undo policies.

"No big differences are found between Obama's ruptured 'strategic patience' policy and the incumbent U.S. administration's (North Korea) policy," the Rodong Sinmun

wrote Monday. The news outlet is run by the Workers' Party, to which is North Korean leader

Kim Jong Un not only belongs but was elected to be the chairman of last year.

Read: North Korea Likely To Conduct Sixth Nuclear Test Soon

The Rodong Sinmun continued: "Differences, if any, are only the addition of a military pressure to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons (on the Korean peninsula) to Obama's policy. The new U.S. administration follows Obama's failed North Korea policy, although even a stupid animal would not fall into a hole again once it did so."

The U.S. Department of State imposed additional sanctions on North Korea last week, following multiple recent missile launches by Pyongyang that were banned under international law. The sanctions were as part of the Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act.

The op-ed came nearly two weeks after State Department Secretary Rex Tillerson announced the U.S. would not negotiate with North Korea and hinted at military action if Pyongyang doesn't comply with sanctions.

"The policy of strategic patience has ended," Tillerson said in South Korea's capital Seoul on March 17. As the New York Times pointed out, that same phrase was used by the Obama administration and directed at North Korea, a fact that likely prompted the Rodong Sinmun's op-ed.

Read: North Korea Threatens US Over Preemptive Strike

Story continues

According to a former U.S. ambassador, military action against North Korea is not the right move.

"There are no good military options," Christopher Hill, who served as former President George W. Bush's ambassador to South Korea from 2004 to 2005, said in an interview

Sunday. "In the last few years, North Korea's threat has really grown. Now we are seeing them modernize their missile arsenal such that it's quite likely in the near future... North Korea will have a deliverable nuclear weapon. And then the question is, what are we all going to do about that?"

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By David Gaffen NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil resumed its slide on Monday as investors remained uncertain whether producing nations would extend an OPEC-led output cut beyond the end of June in an effort to reduce a global glut of crude. On Sunday, a committee of ministers from OPEC and outside producers agreed to look at prolonging the deal, stopping short of an earlier draft statement that recommended keeping the measure in place. Oil prices have been falling since the middle of the month, as a spate of reports showing stronger-than-expected growth in U.S. inventories sparked selling from speculators that had built record long positions in crude futures. Last week's futures data showed speculators were still unwinding long positions as high U.S. inventories offset cuts from other oil producers. Long positions as of last Tuesday were at their lowest since December. A number of ministers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers met in Kuwait to review progress of their supply cut. "When you look at the last two-and-a-half weeks we've moved into a sliding pattern vs. the sideways trend we have seen for much of the year," said Michael Train, director of global energy strategy at RBC Capital Markets. U.S. crude was down 33 cents at $47.63 a barrel, a 0.7 percent drop, as of 1:56 p.m. EDT. International benchmark Brent crude fell 17 cents to $50.63. Brent's session low was $50.03. The discount of U.S. crude to Brent has grown to around $2.90 per barrel, heading for its widest close since late 2015. That could result in U.S. producers sending more barrels overseas to take advantage of appetite for cheaper U.S. crude and help draw down stocks. In December, OPEC and 11 other producers including Russia agreed to reduce combined output by almost 1.8 million barrels per day in the first half of this year. While many in OPEC have called for prolonging the curbs, Russia has been less definitive. Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Sunday it was too early to make that call. Some analysts believe that the backward-looking nature of U.S. inventory figures understate the oil market's rebalancing. "We believe that the rebalancing of the oil market is making progress, despite the record high US crude inventories with non-crude US inventories and non-US inventories down year-over-year," analysts at Goldman Sachs wrote Monday. They said cuts may not need to be extended. (Additional reporting by Alex Lawler in London and Henning Gloystein in Singapore; Editing by David Gregorio and Andrew Hay)
Frankfurt am Main (AFP) - One in ten German firms present in Britain plans to stop investing in the island nation even before it definitively leaves the European Union, an industry group survey published Tuesday found.

German firms believe Brexit "will seriously damage business with the United Kingdom," said Eric Schweitzer, president of the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK), which surveyed 2,200 internationally active companies.

Some nine percent of firms who have invested in the UK plan to shift investments elsewhere, with Germany and the rest of the EU the top choices.

Britain is the third-biggest export market for Germany after the United States and France, buying some 86 billion euros of goods in 2016.

The DIHK estimates some 750,000 German jobs are dependent on exports to Britain.

Meanwhile, 2,500 German firms active in the UK have created some 400,000 jobs, compared with around 220,000 people in Germany employed by 1,200 British firms.

Nothing will formally change about economic relations between Britain and the 27 remaining EU countries until the end of two-year exit talks -- expected to be launched Wednesday by Prime Minister Theresa May.

But while companies have a slightly positive view of present business between the UK and Germany, some 40 percent expect trade to get worse in the coming months.

German exports to Britain fell by 3.5 percent last year compared with 2015, with a particularly strong decrease in the six months after the June referendum on quitting the EU.

Smaller firms with revenues of between 10 million euros and 50 million euros per year and those who import goods from Britain are most pessimistic, with the latter group fearing disruption to their supply chains and increased customs bureaucracy at borders.

Looking ahead to the talks between London and Brussels, almost nine out of 10 firms surveyed hope that free movement of goods between Britain and the EU will be upheld once Britain is out of the bloc's single market.

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The next fondest hope of German firms was for no increase in bureaucracy, at 83 percent, while 67 percent will look for free movement of capital to be maintained.

Around half of firms would prefer free movement of people between the EU and UK to continue after Brexit.

"There should be as few limitations to movement of goods and as little additional bureaucracy as possible," DIHK chief Schweitzer said.

But "too many concessions by the EU in the negotiations must not endanger the single market," he went on -- alluding to fears that allowing Britain to "cherry-pick" benefits of membership in the economic bloc could undermine its members' unity.

"That would be an even bigger problem for our companies set up abroad," he added.
By Vladimir Soldatkin and Rania El Gamal KUWAIT (Reuters) - A joint committee of ministers from OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers has agreed to review whether a global pact to limit supplies should be extended by six months, it said in a statement on Sunday. An earlier draft of the statement had said the committee "reports high level of conformity and recommends six-month extension". But the final version said only that the committee had requested a technical group and for the OPEC Secretariat to "review the oil market conditions and revert ... in April, 2017 regarding the extension of the voluntary production adjustments". Oil sector analysts said the lack of an immediate extension could drag on crude prices. "The dropping of the recommendation to extend cuts in favor of technical review committee is likely to lead to a lot of disappointment and potential further liquidation of long positions by money managers that will put downward pressure on oil prices," said Harry Tchilinguirian, head of commodities strategy at BNP Paribas in London. It was not immediately clear why the wording had been changed, although a senior industry source said the committee lacked the legal mandate to recommend an extension. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and rival oil-producing nations were meeting in Kuwait to review progress with their global pact to cut supplies. OPEC and 11 other leading producers including Russia agreed in December to cut their combined output by almost 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first half of the year. The original deal was to last six months, with the possibility of a six-month extension. "Any country has the freedom to say whether they do or they don't support (an extension). Unless we have conformity with everybody, we cannot go ahead with the extension of the deal," Kuwaiti Oil Minister Essam al-Marzouq said, adding that he hoped a decision would come by the end of April. The oil ministerial committee "expressed its satisfaction with the progress made towards full conformity with the voluntary production adjustments and encouraged all participating countries to press on towards 100 percent conformity," the statement said. The December accord, aimed at supporting the oil market, has lifted crude to more than $50 a barrel. But the price gain has encouraged U.S. shale oil producers, which are not part of the pact, to boost output. The committee said it took note that certain factors, such as low seasonal demand, refinery maintenance and rising non-OPEC supply had led to an increase in crude oil stocks. It also observed the liquidation of positions by financial players. "However, the end of the refinery maintenance season and noticeable slowdown in U.S. stock build as well as the reduction in floating storage will support the positive efforts undertaken to achieve stability in the market," it said. It asked the OPEC Secretariat to review oil market conditions and come back with recommendations in April regarding an extension of the agreement. "This reaffirms the commitment of OPEC and participating non-OPEC countries to continue to cooperate," the statement said. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said it was too early to say whether there would be an extension, although the agreement was working well and all countries were committed to 100 percent compliance. Olivier Jakob, of oil consultancy Petromatrix, said that with the revision of the ministerial committee's statement, it was becoming more difficult to know who was responsible for what in OPEC. "That is not the best option to provide clarity to the oil markets," Jakob said. Ellen Wald, a consultant on the global energy industry, said: "I think the market will react negatively to the lack of a clear direction on a rollover for the deal." 'ENCOURAGING ELEMENTS' Before the meeting, Iraqi Oil Minister Jabar Ali al-Luaibi told reporters there were some encouraging elements that suggested the oil market was improving, and that if all OPEC members agreed measures to help price stability, Iraq would support such steps. "Any decisions taken unanimously by members of OPEC ... Iraq will be part of the decision and will not be deviating from this," Luaibi said. Iraq's oil production is running at 4.312 million bpd this month, Luaibi said, adding that his country had cut its oil exports by 187,000 bpd so far and would reach 210,000 bpd in a few days. Compliance with the supply-cut deal was 94 percent in February among OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers combined, Russia's Novak said. Russia is committed to cuts of 300,000 bpd by the end of April, Novak said. Novak said he expects global oil stockpiles to decrease in the second quarter of this year. "The dynamics are positive here, I believe," Novak said, adding that inventories in the United States and other industrialized countries had risen by less than in the past. Kuwait's oil minister said the market may return to balance by the third quarter of this year if producers comply fully with their production targets. "More has to be done. We need to see conformity across the board. We assured ourselves and the world that we would reach our adjustment to 100 percent conformity," Marzouq said. (Reporting by Rania El Gamal, Vladimir Soldatkin, Ahmed Hagagy; Additional reporting by Christopher Johnson in London; Editing by Dale Hudson and Catherine Evans)
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP)  The governor is now truly a politician you could get a beer with.

Republican Gov. Paul LePage drew a packed room as he served drinks as a celebrity bartender Monday evening at the Quarry Tap Room in Hallowell, outside Augusta. LePage, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, grinned as he leaned against the bar and took customers' orders.

"I'm a little rusty, but I'm getting used to it," said LePage, who said he used to bartend during his college days.

One dollar for every drink sold went to a foundation to help wounded veterans set up by former soldier Travis Mills, who lost his limbs in an explosion in Afghanistan.

Mills lives in nearby Manchester with his wife and daughter. His in-laws, Craig and Tammy Buck, said the family appreciates all that the LePages have done for him and other veterans.

"We've become friends, and we can't thank him enough for all he's done for us," Craig Buck said.

In 2014, Mills went skydiving with first lady Ann LePage to raise money for a veterans center and museum in Fort Kent.

Ann LePage, who spent last summer working as a waitress in Boothbay Harbor, walked around with a spread that included jalapeno cheese. She explained that the snacks were complimentary but added: "Oh, honey, nothing's ever for free!"

Some attendees said they set aside their differences with the outspoken governor for a good cause.

"It makes him human," said Jeremiah Elwell, a U.S. Marine who said he respects Paul LePage's work for veterans.

Bill Noble, of Augusta, sipped a beer near the bar and said he felt mixed, though he cast his ballot for LePage in 2014 because he "trusted Paul more."

"There are some things I wish he wouldn't say or do," Noble said.

LePage has often been criticized for his caustic comments and behavior, including leaving an obscene message on a Democratic lawmaker's voicemail, saying he wished he could challenge the lawmaker to a duel and point a gun at him, complaining about out-of-state drug dealers named "D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty" impregnating white girls and associating a rise in infectious diseases with immigrants without providing data. He has occasionally apologized but also has blamed liberals for inserting race into his comments and distorting his meaning.

Across the street on Monday, The Liberal Cup pub collected donations for Mills' foundation from those who couldn't  or declined to  squeeze into Quarry.

"It's a very liberal town, and I think there were many who did not want to go there," said Robin Dennett, who said she and her husband didn't vote for LePage. "That's OK as long we come together for the same cause."
By Syed Raza Hassan KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Facebook has assured Pakistan that concerns about blasphemous content on the social media site will be addressed and a company delegation will visit this week to discuss the issue with the government, the interior minister said on Tuesday. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif earlier this month ordered that blasphemous content on social media be removed or blocked and that anyone posting such material be punished, and the government requested a meeting with Facebook. Blasphemy is a criminal offense in the strictly Islamic country and can carry the death penalty. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, quoting from what he said was a letter from Facebook's vice president received a day earlier, told reporters: "I wanted to reiterate that Facebook takes the concerns raised by the Pakistani government very seriously. We have also committed our representative to meet with you and senior officials of your government." Khan described this message as a "very big improvement" from Facebook as, he said, the U.S. social media giant generally had not responded to such complaints in the past. He said Facebook through Pakistan's ambassador in the United States has told him that over the past few months it had blocked 62 blasphemous webpages, and 45 in the past several days alone. "We see it very positively that at the highest level Facebook has responded and takes this issue seriously." He said Pakistan's Washington ambassador had spoken to the FBI and Justice Department to underline Islambad's concerns and both agencies had been receptive. There was no immediate comment from Facebook. Last week, Khan warned he would close social media sites that fail to prevent online blasphemy, but gave no details. Facebook data indicate the social media app has about 25-30 million active users in Pakistan even though Internet penetration remains poor in the South Asian nation. Facebook's Instagram unit and rival Twitter are also popular. The ruling PML-N party's tough talk against blasphemy will appeal to its conservative voter base ahead of elections likely to take place next year. At least 65 people, including lawyers, defendants and judges, have been murdered by Islamist militants over blasphemy allegations in Pakistan since 1990, according to think-tank figures and local media. (Reporting by Syed Raza Hassan; editing by Mark Heinrich)
GUILFORD, N.Y. (AP)  The parents of a mentally and physically disabled New York teenager have been indicted on murder charges that allege they killed him in the family's New York home before setting it on fire to cover up the crime.

The Chenango County grand jury indictment charges Ernest Franklin II and Heather Franklin with second-degree murder, arson and tampering with physical evidence.

Authorities say the couple killed 16-year-old Jeffrey Franklin on Feb. 28 before setting their trailer home in Guilford on fire. Officials haven't said how the adopted teen was killed or why.

The blaze destroyed the trailer, but firefighters found the teen's body in the debris.

Police say an autopsy determined that Jeffrey was dead before the fire.

The Franklins have pleaded not guilty. They're being held in jail without bail.
PARIS (AP)  Chinese immigrants and China's government are protesting a police killing in Paris that prompted violent street clashes and exposed the fears and frustrations of France's large Asian community.

Protesters gathered Tuesday in northeast Paris for a second day of demonstrations over the fatal shooting of a Chinese man in his apartment, and police launched an internal investigation into a death that took on diplomatic implications.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China had summoned a representative of the French embassy in Beijing Tuesday and urged French officials to "get to the bottom of the incident as soon as possible."

Chinese authorities "hope that Chinese nationals in France can express their wishes and demands in a reasonable way," Hua said.

Residents and police gave conflicting accounts of what happened before the man was shot to death by police on Sunday evening.

Police said an officer fired in self-defense during a raid after the man wounded an officer with a "bladed weapon." Rumors circulated among Chinese immigrants that 56-year-old Shaoyo Liu was in front of his children while cutting up fish with scissors and had not hurt anyone.

Protesters outraged by the killing and baton-wielding police clashed for several hours on Monday night. Three police officers were injured and 35 protesters arrested, authorities said Tuesday.

With chants of "murderers" and candles that spelled "opposition to violence" lining the road, scores of demonstrators broke down barricades, threw projectiles and set fire to cars.

Authorities said 26 demonstrators were held for participating in a group planning violence, six for throwing projectiles, and three others for violence against police that saw a police car damaged by arson.

Witnesses said that one man of Chinese origin was injured in the clashes, according to China's state-run Xinhua News Agency.

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France's Foreign Ministry responded Tuesday by calling the security of Chinese in France "a priority."

The ministry confirmed that an inquiry has started to shed light on the circumstances of the shooting.

The move did not calm some 100 people from Paris' Asian community who gathered at the police station on Tuesday afternoon, including families and friends of people detained the night before.

"Justice must be done, the killer must be punished!" the protesters shouted.

A meeting of the Chinese community in Paris was planned to discuss possible further actions.

France is home to Europe's largest population of ethnic Chinese, a community that routinely accuses police of not doing enough to protect it from racism.

In September, 15,000 people rallied in the French capital to urge an end to violence against the Asian community after the beating death of Chinese tailor Chaolin Zhangh called attention to ethnic tensions in Paris immigrant suburbs. The victim's lawyer said the August 2016 attack was ethnically motivated.

"Chinese are victims of racist attitudes in France, especially from other ethnic groups," Pierre Picquart, an expert on China at the University of Paris VIII, said. "They are targets for crime because they often carry cash and many don't have residence permits, so can be threatened easily. They're angry with police for not protecting them enough."

"Chinese people do not like to protest or express themselves publicly, so when we see them like this, it means they are very, very angry. They've had enough of discrimination," Picquart added.

He estimated that there are 2 million people of Chinese origin living in France, a country with a population of about 66 million.

The recent killing and clashes came after thousands of people marched in Paris to condemn the alleged rape in February of a young black man by police.

The alleged incident in the Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois turned the 22-year-old, identified only as Theo, into a symbol for minorities standing up to police violence.

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Associated Press writer Louise Watt in Beijing and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.
Paris (AFP) - Penelope Fillon, long a low-profile political wife, has been thrust into the spotlight with a scandal bearing her name -- "Penelopegate" -- that is dimming her husband Francois Fillon's hopes of becoming France's next president.

She was charged Tuesday with complicity in the abuse of public funds in a case involving alleged fake jobs as a parliamentary aide to her conservative husband over a number of years for which she was paid hundreds of thousands of euros.

Her husband, the surprise winner of the rightwing Republicans' nomination in November after campaigning as a man of integrity, has already been charged in the affair, which also covers a salary Penelope received from a literary magazine owned by a billionaire friend of her husband's.

The 61-year-old has told police she never stepped foot in the offices of the Revue des Deux Mondes, according to a report the Journal du Dimanche weekly.

Last week financial prosecutors expanded the probe, looking at whether the couple forged documents to try to justify her salary.

Since the scandal broke in January, with revelations by the satirical and investigative weekly Le Canard Enchaine, Francois Fillon has seen his poll standings have nosedive.

Voter surveys now show that the one-time frontrunner would crash out of the first round of the two-stage election on April 23, likely leaving far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and rising star Emmanuel Macron, a centrist, to battle it out in a May 7 runoff vote.

As her husband came under intense pressure to abandon the race, the silver-haired Penelope appeared with him on stage at a rally on March 5 near the Eiffel Tower attended by tens of thousands, receiving a standing ovation from the crowd as she waved a French flag.

In an interview on the same day, she said she had been through the worst time of her life but had found strength in the Catholic faith she shares with her husband.

During the primary campaign, Penelope Fillon told regional newspaper Le Bien Public: "Until now, I have never got involved in my husband's political life."

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In 2008, when her husband was prime minister, she told French TV that her role was limited to "accompanying him (on some functions)".

- 'Country peasant' -

Penelope Fillon has been a local councillor in Solesmes, the village of 1,000 people in the Sarthe area where the couple live in a chateau, since 2014. They raised their five children there.

The mayor of Solesmes, Pascal Lelievre, told AFP she "never misses a meeting".

Penelope also told Britain's Sunday Telegraph in 2007, after her husband became premier, that she preferred caring for her children and horses in the countryside to the bright lights of Paris.

"I'm just a country peasant, this is not my natural habitat," Penelope joked.

Glossy magazine spreads at the time showed the family sitting in the grounds of their country estate.

Penelope, from the market town of Abergavenny in south Wales, met her future husband when she was studying law in Le Mans. She was 23 and they married three years later, when he entered parliament for the first time.
A community-based after school program for Latino high school students in South Philadelphia. Better healthcare management for the city's homeless.

A new school for at-risk children in Senegal, the first in that country to emphasize both literacy education with vocational skills.

And a new company that gives everyone what they need to be software developers.

The eight students at the University of Pennsylvania who developed these initiatives - chosen from 80 applicants  are the 2017 winners of Penn President Amy Gutmanns engagement and innovation prizes, the school announced Tuesday.

The annual awards, aimed at making the world a better place, provide $100,000 in funding to Penn seniors to design and launch their projects the year after they graduate.

Over the past two years, the university has awarded $1.5 million for the projects.

These members of the class of 2017 have set out to implement an extraordinarily promising venture, and each has brought to the table an outstanding ability and an infectious eagerness to make a tangible, substantial, sustainable impact, Gutmann said.

Each of the four projects will receive up to $100,000, plus a $50,000 living stipend per team member.

The winners of the engagement prize are:

Alexa Salas, Camilo Toro and Yaneli Arizmendi. The students will design an experiential, bilingual, culturally inclusive curriculum for their after school program that will serve students from Latino immigrant families. Their project, Lanzando Lideres, aims to bridge educational disparities and help students develop self-efficacy to reach their personal, educational and professional goals, Penn said.



Marcus Henderson and Ian McCurry. Their work will integrate innovative healthcare case management into homeless services offered by the Bethesda Project, based in Philadelphia.



Antoinette Zoumanigui and Selamawit Bekele. Their project, Youth for Vocational Education and Training in Agriculture, will provide students with an education focused on improving literacy skills, as well as technical training in agriculture and agri-entrepreneurship. Students are partnering with the Senegalese Ministry of Agriculture.

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The winner of the innovation prize is William Fry. He will use the prize to further the work of SolutionLoft, a company he founded in 2016 that will help everyone, regardless of technical skills or income level, be able to create software. To reach this goal, SolutionLoft has designed a proprietary code engine that enables code to be re-used, streamlining the development process, Penn said.

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People who are allergic to one type of tree nut, such as cashews, may not be allergic to all other kinds of tree nuts, though they are often told to avoid those nuts, a new study finds.

The study's authors suggest that people who have developed allergic symptoms in the past to one tree nut, and who have been avoiding eating all other tree nuts based on medical advice may wish to undergo a properly supervised "oral food challenge" test, to see if they are truly allergic to other tree nuts. However, more research is needed to confirm the new findings.

Tree nuts are a group of eight nuts: almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, pecans, pistachios and walnuts. Researchers in the new study found that 76 percent of the participants who had an allergy to one type of tree nut could pass an oral food challenge test with a different tree nut. This test involves eating very small amounts of a food under medical supervision to see if the individual develops any symptoms of an allergic reaction, such as wheezing, a rash, an upset stomach or facial swelling. [How to Cope with Allergies & Asthma in 2017]

An oral food challenge is a closely supervised medical procedure, and people with known allergies to tree nuts or peanuts should not be experimenting with eating nuts on their own, because this could trigger a severe allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis.

Passing an oral food challenge test is considered the most accurate way for people to demonstrate that they do not have a food allergy, according to a statement from the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, an association of allergy specialists that publishes the medical journal in which the new study appears.

"We found that patients with tree nut allergies can be allergic to one nut but be tolerant to another tree nut," said Dr. Christopher Couch, an allergist at the Allergy Asthma Clinic, Ltd. in Phoenix, and the lead author of the study published today (March 27) in the journal Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

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Allergies vs. sensitivities

Two other tests, a blood test and a skin-prick test, are also used to diagnose food allergies. However, a positive result on either of those tests does not always indicate that a person is truly allergic to the food being tested, Couch told Live Science. A food challenge is the next step to confirm the allergy, he said.

About 1 percent of children in the United States are allergic to tree nuts, according to an estimate published in the journal Pediatrics in 2011.

In the new study, researchers analyzed data from the medical records of 109 patients who had visited allergy clinics affiliated with the University of Michigan Medical Centerduring an eight-year period, from 2007 to 2015. Most of the patients were children.

The study included only people with known allergies or sensitivities to a single tree nut. These participants were given an oral food challenge test at a clinic, to find out whether they were also allergic to other nuts. [8 Strange Signs You're Having an Allergic Reaction]

In the research, people who had developed allergy symptoms after eating a specific tree nut were considered to be allergic to that nut, while people who had positive blood or skin-prick test results to tree nuts but had never actually eaten that food were considered sensitized, Couch explained.

High pass rates

The study found that 76 percent of people with allergies to a specific nut passed the oral food challenge test for a different type of tree nut. In addition, 91 percent of the participants passed the food challenge if they had food sensitivities to a tree nut rather than true allergies.

Interestingly, all of the participants who ate an almond during the food challenge passed the test, whereas the passage rates for people given a walnut or a cashew were lower, at 82 percent and 79 percent, respectively.

It was surprising to find that everybody passed the almond food challenge but not those of other tree nuts, Couch said. The reasons why are not exactly clear, but it's possible that something about the structure of the almond is unique, he said. [9 Myths About Seasonal Allergies]

The researchers also looked at people with peanut allergies, who had positive blood or skin-prick tests for tree nuts but had never eaten any of these nuts. (Peanuts are not tree nuts, but allergy specialists usually tell people with peanut allergies to avoid tree nuts, too.)

Results showed that 96 percent of the people with peanut allergies passed the oral food challenge with tree nuts, meaning that only 4 percent developed an allergic reaction when given a small amount of an individual tree nut.

One of the limitations of the study is that the patients were drawn from only one health care system in Michigan, and so may not be representative of people throughout the United States, the authors noted.

Originally published on Live Science.

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CONCORD, N.H. (AP)  Advocates for Pamela Smart, who's serving a life sentence for plotting with her teenage lover to kill her husband, say they are planning to file a petition seeking a reduced sentence.

Dr. Eleanor Pam, a legal advocate for Smart, tells WMUR-TV (http://bit.ly/2nctxWE ) the new petition could reach the desk of Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu in a few months. Smart's mother is involved in preparing the petition and supporters of Smart launched a Twitter campaign over the weekend.

Smart was a media coordinator at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton when she seduced 16-year-old William Flynn in 1990. At trial, Flynn testified that Smart told him she needed her husband killed because she feared she would lose everything if they divorced. He said she threatened to break up with him if he didn't kill him.

Smart has admitted seducing Flynn, but said she didn't plan her husband's murder.

The petition will request the possibility of parole, with the consideration that Flynn and three other teens convicted in the case have been paroled.

"She's the one carrying the burden of this exceptional sentence, and they're walking around free," Pam said.

It was not described as a pardon request, although a statement from the governor's office said Sununu will share pardon requests with members of the Executive Council, and then decide as a group whether the requests will be considered.

Prosecutors said on May 1, 1990, Flynn and 17-year-old Patrick Randall entered the Smarts' Derry condominium and forced Gregg Smart to his knees in the foyer. As Randall restrained him, holding with a knife to his throat, Flynn fired a hollow-point bullet into his head. Vance Lattime supplied the gun and was the getaway driver; Raymond Fowler was in the car.

The trial was a media circus and one of the first high-profile cases about a sexual affair between a school staff member and student. It inspired the Joyce Maynard novel "To Die For," which, in turn, was made into a movie starring Nicole Kidman.

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Information from: WMUR-TV, http://wmur.com
A man carries his daughter away from an Islamic State-controlled part of Mosul toward Iraqi special forces soldiers during a battle in Mosul, Iraq, March 4, 2017. (Photo: Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

The lives of countless Iraqis were upended when ISIS seized Mosul in June 2014. As the Iraqi army fights to liberate this key northern city from the terrorist group, photojournalists are on the ground bearing witness to the waking nightmare.

Although Iraqi troops outnumber ISIS fighters, terrorism tactics  suicide bombers, booby traps, etc.  and the presence of civilians have slowed their progress through the city.

The life of a war correspondent is fraught with danger but essential to informing the rest of the world of the scene. Government propaganda and partisan passions often obscure the reality of whats happening on the ground. As the famous saying goes, truth is the first casualty of war. It often falls upon war correspondents to sharpen our understanding of hazardous situations with objectivity and precision. The photojournalists camera lens can bring clarity amid the fog of war and humanize the incomprehensible.

But this reporting comes at a price. Beginning in 2014, ISIS started making videos of their beheadings  targeting soldiers, civilians and journalists  reminding viewers back home of the risks war correspondents face in places like Iraq and Syria.

The International Federation of Journalists reports that 93 journalists and media professionals were killed across 23 countries last year. That was a decline from 112 in 2015. An additional 29 journalists died in accidents and natural disasters, bringing the total number of deaths to 122. Iraq had the highest number of media killings at 15, and Syria had the sixth most with six.

The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 179 journalists have been killed in Iraq since 1992. In Syria during the same period, 108 journalists were killed.

Yahoo News reached out to three Reuters photographers who have been assigned to cover the battle of Mosul since the Iraqi army launched an offensive to reclaim the city on Oct. 16, 2016. They were asked a variety of questions pertaining to their experiences in the war-torn city. The photographers discussed their careers leading to this assignment, what its like to work alongside Iraqi troops, their interactions with the displaced civilians and which photographs meant the most to them.

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Reuters photographers, from left: Zohra Bensemra, Alaa Al-Marjani and Goran Tomasevic. (Photos: Kawa Dosuki, courtesy of Alla Al-Marjani, Phil Moore)

Zohra Bensemra

Zohra Bensemra, from Algiers, has been a photojournalist since 1990, when she started covering the revolution in her home country of Algeria for local newspapers. The revolution changed the nations government from a single-party to a multiparty system. She joined Reuters as a stringer in 1997 during the Algerian civil war and went on to cover the battles between the Albanians and the Serbs in Macedonia.

My experience from Algeria led me to work in countries suffering from internal conflict, be it social, economic or humanitarian, she said.

In 2003, shortly after the U.S.-led invasion, Bensemra was assigned to Iraq. She became a Reuters staff photographer the following year while covering the city of Najaf in central Iraq. She has returned to Iraq several times since and has also covered major conflicts in the Middle East, North Africa, Darfur, Sudan, and Afghanistan. She was based in Pakistan for three years.

She was assigned to Mosul in 2005 during Iraqs first, landmark elections. At the time, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi  a terrorist who would soon after join al-Qaeda and pledge allegiance to Osama bin Laden  declared war on the elections and issued a warning to frighten Iraqi citizens from participating in the democratic process.

So covering the battle to liberate Mosul from the Islamic States militants is like a continuation of my previous assignment in Iraq, she explained.

Displaced Iraqi women who just fled their homes wait to be transported while Iraqi forces battle Islamic State militants in western Mosul, Iraq Feb. 27, 2017. (Photo: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

Slideshow: Capturing the battle against ISIS in Mosul  photojournalist Zohra Bensemra >>>

Bensemra recalled particularly striking photographs she captured of a 90-year-old woman, Khatla Ali Abdallah, fleeing the citys fighting. She was in the desert on the outskirts of western Mosul.

The moment was so emotional that I had tears in my eyes when I photographed her. I felt bad because I could not do anything else for her apart from photographing her to show to the world the physical and mental state of the people who flee Mosul desperate to reach the Iraqi security forces area, Bensemra said.

When you face such a moment, you always think that it could happen to any one of us. But despite everything, she looked to me a beautiful woman. Her wrinkles, every line on her face, tell a story. I was happy to meet her again a few days after in the refugee camp.

Bensemra, who uses both a Canon 5D Mark 4 and 1D Mark 2, said her role is to be a witness and convey the situation as experienced on the ground to the best of her abilities. She said shes most interested in the humanitarian side of conflicts. She hopes her work helps people see the human being is the same regardless of ones nationality or religion.

For safety, Bensemra wears body armor and a helmet. Reuters also provided training courses for living in a hostile environment and assessing the field for danger. She described the Iraqi troops she works alongside as friendly and eager to take selfies with foreign journalists or share their tea, water or food.

She also finds it relatively easy to form connections with the citys displaced civilians.

I speak Arabic and I am a woman, so its easy for me to get close immediately, she said. I tell them first what we use to say to people who newly came back from somewhere  I praise God for your safety.

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Alaa Al-Marjani

Alaa Al-Marjani had been a photographer in Iraq for 25 years before he started working in journalism toward the end of 2003. He covered news and politics in most Iraqi provinces and wound up highlighting important stories like the battles in Jurf al-Sakhar (now known as Jurf Al-Nasr), Tikrit and Fallujah. He also covered the Syrian conflict.

He said he was well prepared to cover Mosul thanks to the support of the Reuters office in Baghdad and his manager, Ahmed Jadallah, in particular.

A man returns to his village after it was liberated from Islamic State militants, south of Mosul in Qayyara, Iraq, Oct. 22, 2016. The fumes in the background are from oil wells set ablaze by Islamic State militants. (Photo: Alaa Al-Marjani/Reuters)

Slideshow: Capturing the battle against ISIS in Mosul  photojournalist Alaa Al-Marjani >>>

The most significant picture I had during Mosul battle was of a displaced elderly man, evidently expressing his misery. The pale eyes of the man and his view for the future have been etched in my memory, he said.

Al-Marjani said people were oppressed and hoping to escape their current situation.

After I spent some time with several citizens, I found them very oppressed, and they were actually looking for a savior, he said. It is part of my work to show reality as it is without any distortion.

Al-Marjani also credited the safety and hostile-environment training courses for helping him to perform his job well: I always try to implement what I had been taught from these training.

He was embedded with a variety of Iraqi forces, including the Counter Terrorism Forces (CTS), Rapid Response Forces, Federal Police Forces and the Iraqi army. Security advisers also closely guided him throughout the city and provided safety instructions.

I dealt with the displaced people while I was covering their suffering and their happiness after making it to safe areas, he said. I tried to be friendly to the displaced by offering some kind words and a smile, especially when I met them very exhausted after fleeing.

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Goran Tomasevic

Goran Tomasevic, a Serbian photojournalist based out of Nairobi, Kenya, started covering Mosul last October but took a break and returned toward the end of February. He was embedded with CTS and Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) for about 10 days inside the city.

I guess people expected to see the things that I saw, but it was good to be able to show them. Each time, its a different impact on the viewers. I didnt see anything in Mosul I didnt expect to see  just another terrible war, he said.

Slideshow: Capturing the battle against ISIS in Mosul  photojournalist Goran Tomasevic >>>

Tomasevic, who uses a Canon 1DX Mark 2 and a 5D Mark 4, shot powerful photographs of a father crying (see lead photo) while holding his young daughter in the rubble-littered streets of Wadi Hajar. He was fleeing from ISIS-controlled territory to Iraqi army-controlled territory during a counterattack by the terrorist group.

An Iraqi special forces soldier carries a woman injured during a battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State fighters in Mosul, Iraq February 28, 2017. (Photo: Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

Securitywise, Im doing the same things as usual, following our security protocols while on the ground following the Iraqi soldiers, said Tomasevic. They were good, very professional as expected. They would stand and fight and go ahead against incoming fire. They were fast and accurate.

Tomasevic said he mostly followed the military and did not have much contact with civilians, except when soldiers arrived to liberate them.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:
By Luke Baker JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's politics are darkening: the governing coalition, in power for barely two years, is in tumult and regional tensions are rising. Looking only at the economy, things seem bright. U.S. chip giant Intel recently bought local start-up Mobileye for $15 billion, growth is robust and the currency is at record highs. But beyond the boom, speculation of early elections is rife, friction with Gaza's Hamas rulers is intensifying and Israeli air strikes on Hezbollah fighters in Syria have provoked anti-aircraft missiles in response from Damascus government forces. To an extent, Israel is always juggling economics and politics. In the past it has sustained growth and foreign investment despite electoral uncertainty and bouts of conflict, whether with Hamas or with Hezbollah on the Shi'ite movement's Lebanese home turf. The difference now is how rapidly the picture has changed and how close it may be getting to shifting out of control, even if neither Israel nor Hamas nor Hezbollah seeks war. A month ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition appeared solid. Despite being a suspect in two criminal investigations, "Bibi" was set to eclipse David Ben-Gurion's record to become Israel's longest-serving leader. But in the past few weeks Netanyahu has picked a fight with his finance minister - they disagree over the creation of a new public broadcaster - exposing wider discontent in the coalition and prompting active talk that he might seek an election two years ahead of schedule.[nL5N1GW0JJ] At the same time, tension with Hamas has surged, especially after the assassination of one of its high-profile militants last week, a death blamed on Israel. The air strikes targeting Hezbollah forces fighting in support of the Syrian government prompted Damascus to fire Russian-supplied surface-to-air missiles at Israeli jets, ratcheting up regional anxiety. Chagai Tzuriel, director general of Israel's ministry of intelligence, said economic hardship in Gaza was fuelling social and political problems and making the situation unpredictable. "Hamas is the greatest non-state threat in terms of volatility," he said, while describing Hezbollah's military capability - it is estimated to have 100,000 rockets that can target Israel - as more worrying overall. WAR IN LEBANON? While the chatter about early elections may be overdone - none of Netanyahu's coalition partners wants new polls and he may be exploiting that concern to keep potential disruptors in line - the regional risks are harder to control. Hamas appointed a new leader in Gaza last month, Yehya Sinwar, who spent 20 years in an Israeli jail and is close to the movement's military wing. Since then, analysts have worried about the risk of another war after three major conflicts in the territory since Hamas seized power in 2007. [nL8N1FY2FR] Those fears deepened last Friday when Mazen Fuqaha, a militant released by Israel in a 2011 prisoner swap and exiled to Gaza, was shot and killed, apparently by killers using silencers. Hamas immediately blamed Israel, despite questions about how it would have carried out the killing and why. An Israeli army spokeswoman declined to comment. Before Fuqaha's death, Hamas kept tensions in check, making sure its militants tested rockets by firing them into the sea, and tracking down rival groups that fire into Israel. Israel too largely kept to script, retaliating to rockets with air strikes that usually targeted empty Hamas buildings. That may change, depending on the fallout from Fuqaha. "If war begins, battles will be tougher with Sinwar at the top," said Gaza political analyst Akram Attalah. "The situation is on the edge of collapse. Hamas and Israel are in a dilemma over how things can proceed." If Gaza is unpredictable, Hezbollah may be more so. In 2006, when Israel and Hezbollah last fought a war, the conflict began after shelling over the country's border with Lebanon and an ambush in which Hezbollah militants killed three Israeli soldiers and seized two others. The month-long conflict killed 1,400 people and caused a mass upheaval of populations. A decade on, with the war in Syria allowing Hezbollah freer rein to encroach toward Israeli-occupied territory on the Golan Heights, the risk of an unforeseen escalation is constant. Israel has carried out air strikes on Hezbollah units in the area, saying it wants to prevent advanced weaponry from reaching the group, which is backed by Iran. From its side, Hezbollah denounces Israel's actions with strong rhetoric. Naftali Bennett, a right-wing member of Netanyahu's coalition and a potential challenger, sees another war with Hezbollah as a rising risk, one he hopes can be kept in check by warning Lebanon as a nation to beware. "The Lebanese institutions, its infrastructure, airport, power stations, traffic junctions, Lebanese army bases - they should all be legitimate targets if a war breaks out," he told Haaretz newspaper this month. "If we declare and market this message aggressively enough now, we might be able to prevent the next war. After all, we have no intention of attacking Lebanon." (Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; editing by David Stamp)
Paris (AFP) - Voluntary efficiency programmes -- including one targeted for elimination by the Trump administration -- have led to energy savings of up to 30 percent in commercial buildings in Los Angeles, researchers have reported.

Describing their study as the first large-scale analysis of green certification schemes for big buildings, a pair of researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles reviewed data on nearly 179,000 properties in the city.

"We found that -- with the programmes -- there is a significant improvement in energy efficiency," said co-author Magali Delmas, an environmental economist.

The Energy Star certification scheme under threat from the Trump administration offers tax credits, rebates and other incentives to commercial building owners to improve energy efficiency.

Besides lowering energy costs, this also contributes to reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that drive global warming, Delmas said.

"These findings are important because they show that voluntary information programmes can be effective to reduce energy and CO2 emissions," she told AFP.

The energy supplied to buildings around the world -- mostly through electricity -- accounts for about one-third of total energy use, which means that gains in efficiency can make a serious dent in global warming.

Based on their findings for Los Angeles, the researchers estimate that a modest 20 percent participation rate for office and industrial real estate in the United States would cut emissions by nearly six million metric tonnes annually.

- 'More efficient choices' -

"This is the equivalent of powering 862,546 homes with electricity each year, or burning 6.23 billion pounds of coal," Delmas said.

The study was published Monday in the journal Nature Energy.

One of the three programmes analysed was set up by the US Green Building Council, a nonprofit organisation.

The other two are operated by the federal government -- Energy Star is overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency, while the Department of Energy runs the Better Building Challenge.

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The EPA says that since its inception, Energy Star has lowered consumers' electricity bills by $430 billion (400 billion euros) and avoided 2.7 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

It's annual operating costs are about $55 million (52 million euros).

President Donald Trump was expected to sign an executive order Tuesday to dismantle the EPA's climate change policies, many of them put in place by his predecessor, Barack Obama.

In a budget blueprint unveiled this month, Trump called for axing dozens of the agency's programmes, including Energy Star.

Exactly why is not obvious, given that the voluntary programme -- which is not a regulation -- helps consumers and businesses save money.

"Without the information provided by Energy Star, customers cannot evaluate the energy efficiency of different products and make more efficient choices," Delmas said.

Many consumers trust the Energy Star label, and depend on it to make smart choices in buying big ticket items, said Robert Cowin, director of government affairs for climate and energy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington-based policy think tank.

"I think the reason that it is marked for elimination in purely ideological," he told AFP.

Beyond the animus against climate change measures, "there's the ideology of what the government's role should be, the idea that the private sector could do it better."

Under the proposed federal budget, the agency's $8.2 billion budget would be cut by more than 30 percent, and 3,200 of its staff would be laid off.

The EPA's Office of Research and Development would see its funding slashed to $250 million from $483 million.

Congress -- which has the final say on budget matters -- may decide not to kill Energy Star, Cowin said.

"I think it will survive," he told AFP. "It has a lot of support on both sides of the aisle."
Brussels (AFP) - The mayor of London on Tuesday warned the European Union against punishing Britain in Brexit negotiations, saying that everyone would suffer the consequences.

Speaking in Brussels a day before Britain triggers the two-year Brexit process, Sadiq Khan also urged Prime Minister Theresa May to give a "cast iron" guarantee of the rights of EU citizens living in Britain.

"There is no need for the EU to send a message or to instil fear by punishing the UK," Khan told an event run by the Politico Europe newspaper.

"A bad Brexit deal that hurts London would hurt the EU too," added Khan, who is meeting key EU figures including European Parliament chief Antonio Tajani while in Brussels.

Khan warned that businesses driven out of London, one of the world's leading financial centres, would "leave Europe altogether and go to New York and Singapore instead."

"A bad Brexit really is a lose-lose situation."

The London mayor, whose city voted overwhelmingly against Brexit in last year's referendum, called on May to set a positive tone for the Brexit talks by quickly agreeing to protect the rights of the three million EU citizens in Britain, including one million in London.

"It would be a perfect gesture of goodwill to provide a cast iron guarantee of their rights to remain in the UK," Khan said.

Khan also held a minute of silence for victims of last week's attack outside the British parliament and said it was important for Britain and the EU to keep cooperating on security after Brexit.

- 'Very costly' -

After meeting Khan, Tajani said that he would "work hard towards achieving a fair and orderly divorce between the European Union and the United Kingdom".

MEPs will have the final vote on any Brexit deal, and are also set to vote next week in Strasbourg on a resolution on their goals for the negotiations.

Manfred Weber, the German head of the European People's Party, the largest group in the parliament, warned Britain's bill to leave would be "very costly".

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The EU says Britain will have to agree to meet billions of euros of spending commitments made while still a member as part of the divorce.

"In the last nine months we saw only the message about what they don't like. Hopefully tomorrow we will have more idea about what they like," Weber told reporters.

"The promises of Brexit campaigners last year that it would be positive for the budget were a lie. It will be very costly for the British," he said.

Weber said it would be a in "both sides' interest to immediately clarify" the fate of EU nationals.
Highbay 1 at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is one of the most sterile cleanrooms on Earth. Not long from now, NASAs next big Mars mission, the life-hunting Mars 2020 rover will have its parts attached here and so will the first probe sent to Europa. As long as un-crewed missions keep going to space, their Frankenstein bodies will be attached piece-by-piece in this room.

To sterilize the robots, the hardware is either baked, bathed in hydrogen peroxide steam, or wiped down with the same pure isopropyl alcohol used to clean open wounds. However, theres one bacteria that has managed to survive in this extreme environment. SAFR-032 is a radiation-resistant bacterial spore found only in spacecraft cleanrooms. Indeed, it takes its very name from its peculiar habitat: SAFR stands for: S pacecraft A ssembly F acility,( the R is for the medium in which its cultured.)

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SAFR-032 has been found in all of NASAs cleanrooms, from California all the way to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Its spores have evolved a unique survival tactic where they can build up layers of cells to use as shields that in turn protect their DNA. Not unlike the way we slather ourselves with sunscreen before going outside to protect ourselves from U.V. radiation, endospores create a type of biological fortress until theyre able to find a safer situation and can reactivate their metabolism.

NASA is keen to keep these microbes off of its equipment. The agencys Office of Planetary Protection is tasked with making sure we arent contaminating the entire solar system with earthly bacteria. Its guidelines limit how many viable microbes are allowed on a spacecraft before its even granted access to the launch pad. The office was created to make sure that NASA observes the Outer Space Treaty, a legal document drafted during the space race, and now recognized by 105 countries around the world. The treaty forbids space agencies from interfering with the integrity of other planetary bodies in the solar system. In other words, transporting viable microbes from Earth to places like Mars is off-limits.

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Scientists whose missions need to comply with the law have been wondering whether space itself might kill off SAFR-032, and so they decided to send it there. The E-mist experiment (Exposing Microorganisms in the Stratosphere) was run out of NASAs Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley by the microbiologist Dr. David J. Smith and his team. As its name suggests, it was designed to expose a large sample of SAFR-032, swiped from the Mars Odyssey orbiter before its launch to the stratosphere.

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Smiths team sent a balloon 32 kilometers above the Earths surface for eight hours, exposing pre-filled cartridges of dormant SAFR-032 samples, 40 million of them in total. In the stratosphere, conditions resemble the dangerous landscape of the Martian surfaceits extremely dry and cold, and theres less atmosphere to shield anything from getting blasted by cosmic radiation. The team was hoping to find out how many of the spores would re-activate after exposure to freezing temperatures, increased cosmic radiation, and U.V. radiation, something SAFR-032 is known to be especially resistant to. They were also watching to see how quickly the spores would deactivate.

When we got the samples back to the lab a couple of weeks later we saw that there was almost a complete kill, says Smith. 99.9 percent of the entire population was destroyed. Smith didnt expect them to survive the journey, so the outcome wasnt too surprising to him.

SAFR-032 has been tested in the lab repeatedly over the years, and scientists know that UV radiation can kill it if it has enough exposure. But, Smith was surprised by just how fast they were killed. He exposed different pre-filled cartridges to the elements for two, four, six, and eight hours respectively, and after 500 minutes, almost all were irreparable.

Our results predict that most terrestrial bacteria would be inactivated within the first [day] on Mars if contaminated spacecraft surfaces receive direct sunlight. That seems like really good news for planetary protection, Smith explains. Let the rovers sunbathe [and] help keep Mars pristine, he said.

Those that were alive from the ISS experiment also ended up showing a resistance to antibiotics.

But, an almost complete kill of 99.9 percent is not a total kill. Out of the 40 million SAFR spores sent to space, 267 were able to reactivate upon their return, and while thats not very much given the starting number, its what many of the remaining 267 had in common that has Smith confounded.

A large number of the surviving 267 spores showed evidence of a very common genetic change called a single nucleotide polymorphism, or a SNP (snip). A SNP is a kind of genetic do-si-do between base pairs when an A changes to a T and so on. It may not result in any change of gene expression, or it may serve to be a benefit, or even cause disease, they arent exactly sure. In 2008 a team out of JPL led by Kathsuri Venkateswaran went so far as to send samples of SAFR-032 to live outside of the International Space Station for 18 months. Unlike E-Mist, the ISS samples werent exposed at different intervals, and were run in unison with controlled simulations on the ground. Some of the ISS microbes were exposed to less sunlight, and they tended to survive in greater numbers.

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But like Smiths microbes, the samples that were subject to direct U.V. radiation were mostly killed. The few that managed to survive the vacuum of space for 18 months had undergone changes to the proteins associated with genetic expression. Their offspring also showed an even greater resistance to UV-C exposure, the most harmful category of U.V. radiation, than those in the control group on Earth. Nine years later, Venkat and the team are still trying to make sense of the data. And whats particularly interesting, Smith says, is that those that were alive from the ISS experiment also ended up showing a resistance to antibiotics. The type of SNPs that changed the survivors from E-Mist were varied. Some experienced an A to a T swap, others a C to a T, and some of those were in cartridges that were exposed for different lengths of time to the sun. While both teams arent exactly sure what the genetic changes mean in either of the experiments, they suspect that they may be playing a role in their survival.

For planetary-protection purposes, resistant strains like SAFR-032 pose an interesting problem. Scientists are learning how to kill them, and direct sunlight seems to do the trick. But, on Mars in particular, there are dust storms that sweep up the fine rusty regolith, coating robotic rovers like powdered sugar on a pancake. Over time those layers build up, and while the gentle breeze that is sure to follow can clean the spacecraft, its not a guarantee that there wont be a coating of dirt just thick enough to protect the bacteria from the Martian sunlight.

Inactive microorganisms like SAFR-032 have been found attached to dust as far back as 200 years ago. When Charles Darwin returned to England on the H.M.S Beagle he brought back with him a collection of dust that had settled on his ship while sailing off the coast of Africa. After looking through the microscope he made a note that there appeared to be dead microbes like fungus and bacteria mixed into the dust. Just 10 years ago scientists were able to experiment with some of those 200-year-old samples in a lab, and successfully brought them back to life. What Darwin thought were remains, was just an evolved temporary state of a very living thing.

Bacterial sporeslike Darwins stowawaysare skilled at using material like particles of dust as life rafts to protect themselves, whether its on a ship sailing the open seas of the Atlantic or those sloughed onto the surface of Mars.

Perhaps the most complex issue in relying on direct sunlight to kill hitchhikers is that not all parts of a spacecraft will be exposed to sunlight. Bacteria dont just conveniently survive on the surfaces of things, but they can work their way into wiring and tiny microscopic crevices in the aluminum-those well hidden and permanently shaded in the unreachable areas are the ones that Smith and the office of planetary protection are most concerned about.

Smith and his team plan on launching another experiment later this year where other spacecraft cleanroom microbes will travel alongside SAFR-032 to space. This time they plan on trying to better understand what these genetic swaps mean for the resistance function of these spores.

If were sending viable biomass to Mars, we want to make sure were not going to hit a spot where terrestrial contaminants can start to propagate and take over the environment, Smith says. Those spots on Mars with ice and any warmer regions are strictly off limits to human missions for that very reason, for now anyway.

Missions like the Europa Clipper, which is expected to fly through a plume on Jupiters icy moon sometime in the 2020s, will be more complicated. Because the mission will be looking for extraterrestrial life, it will be all the more important not to send along microbes from Earth.

Back in the cleanroom at JPL, there are several empty rectangular frames lining the walls some 50 feet above the medicinal white floor. Above those are circular mission patches, each representing a spacecraft thats been built in Highbay 1 and launched to space. From Voyager to Juno, these colorful badges are the only eye-catching thing about this austere room, with the exception of a spacecraft. Each empty rectangle waits for its own mission. Perhaps one will tell us if life exists elsewhere in the cosmos, so long as we can be certain that our extraterrestrial find isnt a stowaway from our terrestrial world of wonders.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Rachel Dolezal, the white woman who made national headlines in 2015 after she pretended to be black, is back in the spotlight thanks to a new memoir titled In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World.

In the book, which will be released on March 28, the former Washington NAACP leader doesnt walk back on her claims that she self-identifies as a black woman, saying that living her life as a black person made her life infinitely better, although it did make her feel more distant and isolated from white people as she started to embrace more elements of African-American culture.

Dolezal, who was raised by white parents in Troy, Montana, writes that the first time she was finally able to embrace my true self was when she allowed the little girl Id colored with a brown crayon so long ago to emerge. But as happy as she was to be seen as black, it didnt come without its challenges.

It was still confusing, awkward, painful, isolating for at times - because who was I going to talk to about what felt like a major life transition?

Rachel Dolezal

She recalls her marriage to a black man named Kevin, a man she says frequently urged me to speak and act whiter and often complained about my figure.

I was a little too white Black for his tastes, she writes. Not only did he discourage me from wearing my braids or other Black hairstyles, he also dissuaded me from sitting in the sun, preferring my skin to be as pale as it could possibly be.

Looking back at her marriage, Dolezal writes, Kevins Blackness wasnt the cause of our disconnect; if anything, it was his disdain for Blackness that created so much distance between us.

It was a couple years after their divorce that she was no longer felt obligated to check white on medical forms.

Once I started claiming my identity and checking black, any whiteness I possessed became invisible to the people collecting the forms and even to the doctors examining the most intimate parts of my body.

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Rachel Dolezal with her husband Kevin on their wedding day in 2000

Dolezal also delves into the controversy that thrust her into the spotlight, remembering the moment in 2015 when a reporter first asked her if she was African American.

I knew the answer I gave could put me in an impossible situation, she wrote. I knew any answer I gave could be used to ruin my credibility. If I said yes, Id be asked to prove it. If I said no, Id be tried in the same court of public opinion for how Id been identifying on and off since my college days.

By the next morning, she had already gotten more than twenty text and voicemail messages. Over the next four days that number turned into hundreds, maybe even thousands.

People wanted me to explain myself to them. They said they felt shocked and betrayed. They were confused. They were angry. A few of my friends reached out to make sure I was doing all right, but they were the minority. Many more people, who Id once considered friends, told me they no longer wanted to have anything to do with me, she wrote.

FROM COINAGE: Wedding Etiquette Isnt Hard, But Just in Case, Here Are Eight Tips

After the controversy, Dolezal, who previously worked as professor of African studies at Eastern Washington University, writes that she was faced with mounting bills and had to make ends meet by braiding hair.

Rachel Dolezal in 2009

When I tell people I still identify as Black, they want to know why, she writes at the end of the book. I explain that Black is the closest descriptive category that represents the essential essence of who I am.

She adds: For me, being Black isnt playing dress-up. Its nothing something I change in and out of or do only when its convenient. This is who I am.

In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World (BenBella Books) will be released on March 28.

This article was originally published on PEOPLE.com
If you work for a bank, here's some good news: An economic research firm, Moebs Services Inc., recently released a survey of 3,817 financial institutions, and found that overdraft fees on checking accounts brought in $33.3 billion in revenue in 2016, the largest amount in seven years.

But good news for your bank can be bad news for you.

A bank or credit union charges a customer overdraft fees when there isn't enough money in their account to cover an expense. So if you spend $30 with your debit card, but you only have $10 in your bank account, you may be able to walk out of a store with $30 in merchandise, but your bank account is now $20 in the negative. And you'll owe your bank even more once you're charged an overdraft fee the next day.

A typical overdraft fee is around $35. That can become very expensive if a consumer collects a few overdraft fees overnight -- and especially if they start picking up fees on a regular basis.

All of which means you have a lot of incentive to avoid overdraft fees. Your bank may seem greedy, but you're probably doing something wrong, too. But what? If you can figure that out, you can probably stop the overdraft madness.

[See: 10 Money Leaks to Shut Down Now.]

Perhaps you aren't paying enough attention to your bank accounts. This is the most obvious explanation, and one you should really consider thinking about. Maybe you look at your bank balance on a daily basis, but if you're spending a lot and using your debit card, your smartphone and taking out ATM withdrawals to pay bills and make purchases, perhaps you should try looking at your bank account two or three times a day.

Joe Mecca, a spokesman for Coastal Federal Credit Union in Raleigh, North Carolina, says there seem to be two types of customers who get overdraft fees.

"There are people who simply don't pay attention to how much they have in their account or what's scheduled to come out of it. To them, an overdraft is a surprise," he says.

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But Mecca adds that the second group of consumers "are people who intentionally use overdrafts, despite the fees. They use it as a form of short-term credit, albeit an expensive one."

Forget about the second group for now, though we will come back to them. If you're in the first group, you clearly need to pay more attention to your account, or devise some life hacks to remind you about the dangers of overdrafting. Mecca suggests the following:

-- "Set up alerts to warn you when you have a low balance and should stop spending."

-- "Check your accounts regularly and keep track of all transactions."

-- "Maintain separate accounts for paying bills and spending."

-- "Download your [financial] institution's app so you can quickly check your balance before making a purchase."

-- "Establish overdraft protection in the form of automatic transfers from other accounts."

On that last point, it should be noted some banks charge fees for moving money from one account to another. Still, Mecca's point in bringing it up is a good one. If you have an overdraft problem, talk to your bank. The bank shareholders may enjoy those overdraft fees, but your bank manager or teller will probably be more than happy to offer suggestions that help you put a stop to those charges.

[See: 8 Easy Ways to Organize Your Financial Life.]

Maybe you don't have a dollar number in mind that makes you curb your spending. Maybe you feel as if it's perfectly acceptable to reach zero dollars in your bank account (after all, it's your money), and so you continually spend as much as you have -- and then sometimes run into trouble when you forget about a rogue check you wrote or about an automatic withdrawal scheduled to come out.

John Lynch, a New York City-based marketing director with ExpressBusinessLoans.com, says that small business owners need to be mindful of overdraft fees as much as consumers.

"The fees are often higher for small businesses," he says.

Lynch advises business owners who struggle with cash flow to keep an average daily balance of one-fifth of their total monthly revenue. But that's not a bad plan for consumers either, or some variation of his idea. If you make $5,000 a month, and you're hammered with monthly bills, you may feel there's no way you can constantly keep $1,000 in your bank account -- but what about $500? Or at least $300?

If you continually keep some sort of substantial cushion in your bank account, you should (at least in theory) be able to avoid going into overdraft, even if you have forgotten your cable bill will be automatically withdrawn tonight.

[See: 9 Financial Tools You Should Be Using.]

Could it be that you no longer mind overdraft fees? As Mecca said, some consumers pay bills knowing they'll go into overdraft, and use it as a form of expensive credit.

It's understandable that if you're choosing between owing money to the electric company or your bank, you'll choose your bank and pay that utility bill -- and then later, play catch up with your bank account. But, still, if overdraft fees have become part of your routine, you're more likely to not do anything to stop them.

It might be helpful to know some of the characteristics of a typical consumer who has had an overdraft fee in the last month. Fifth Third Bank, a regional bank headquartered in Cincinnati, recently commissioned a survey of 3,380 adults -- and out of the 7 percent of them who had at least one overdraft fee in the last month, the consumers all shared several characteristics, including the following:

-- Only 45 percent of the 7 percent of consumers who had an overdraft have overdraft protection

-- Two-thirds (68 percent) of that 7 percent live paycheck to paycheck

-- Fifty percent have chosen to pay a bill late to pay for something essential they needed (i.e. groceries, car maintenance, etc.)

-- Sixty-nine percent feel not making enough money to save for emergencies stands in the way of their financial security

Clearly, there's a trend here -- consumers who pay overdraft fees tend to have serious money problems.

And it can be very challenging to avoid being socked with overdraft fees when you have constant money problems. But that's why it's important to not become resigned to this expensive fate. Maybe you have constant money problems because you're constantly paying for overdraft fees. Understanding the problem can be the first step to finding a solution.
The ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee has called on Chairman Devin Nunes to recuse himself from the investigation surrounding Russias involvement in the 2016 election.

Rep. Adam Schiffs call comes revelations that he held a meeting on White House grounds before his controversial announcement that intelligence had been incidentally collected on members of the Trump transition team.

I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the Presidents campaign or transition tram can be objectively investigated or overseen by the Chairman, Schiff said in a statement Monday evening, noting that Attorney General Sessions had recused himself after failing to disclose he had met with Russian officials during his confirmation hearing.

This is not a recommendation I make lightly, as the Chairman and I have worked together well for several years, he said,

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

Schiffs statement is the culmination of nearly a week of public tension between the two top-ranked members of the intelligence community, beginning with Nunes announcement that the intelligence community collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition team. Nunes, a Republican, bypassed the committee, including Schiff, and told the press and the White House that he had received the information.

Nunes confirmed Monday that the meeting where he had obtained that information was held on White House grounds and that he viewed it there because they hadnt been provided to Congress yet.

I had been working on this for a long time with many different sources and needed a place that I could actually finally go because I knew what I was looking for and I could get access to what I needed to see, he told CNNs Wolf Blitzer.

Schiff also said in his statement that members of the intelligence committee still had not seen the documents Nunes had briefed the press and the White House on last week.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Wiz Khalifa has gotten some heat for paying his respects to an infamous drug lord while the rapper was visiting Colombia.

The Pittsburgh native was criticized by Medellin Mayor Federico Gutierrez for snapping a picture of Pablo Escobars grave  where Khalifa had laid flowers and a marijuana joint by the headstone  BBC News reported Monday.

Pablo Escobar, the drug kingpin known for terrorizing the country during his bloody reign through the eighties, died in 1993 after a shootout with police. Escobar and the Medellin drug cartel were said to have supplied the U.S. with more than 80 percent of its cocaine. By the time he died, Escobar had accrued an estimated $30 billion empire from U.S. sales. The drug lord was buried in the Colombian city of Medellin.

Khalifa, 29, paid a visit to the gravesite after playing a show Friday. He posted a picture to his Instagram page Sunday, which included Escobars headstone with a bunch of flowers and a joint.

Read: Amber Rose Denies Getting Back With Wiz Khalifa In Instagram Post Following Val Chmerkovskiy Split

Gutierrez admonished the rapper, who is known for his cannabis consumption, claiming that Khalifa endorsed crime and was a scoundrel, BBC News reported.

It shows that this guy has never had to suffer from the violence inflicted by these drug traffickers, Gutierrez said via the British news outlet.

Escobar, who rose to fame after creating his cocaine trafficking operation in the mid-seventies, led a bloody campaign as head of the Medellin drug cartel and was credited for thousands of killings.

In another Instagram picture, Khalifa was shown standing in front of the apartment that Escobar had lived in.

Its embarrassing that Wiz Khalifa honors Pablo Escobar. What a lack of respect with the people of Colombia, one Twitter user, Jose Miguel Quintero, wrote.

Khalifa, who will be playing upcoming concerts in the U.S. this April, had yet to comment on the photos or issue an apology.

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This week President Trump put his son-in-law Jared Kushner in charge of a new White House office, the Office of American Innovation. It will reportedly be staffed by former business executives who will operate like a SWAT team to bring new ideas to government.

This is an admirable undertaking. Like any large organization the government can always use fresh ideas. But the reality is that government is like the private sector only in some pieces of its operationsconsulting business executives can be very useful, but a real government-reform effort must be led by people with in-depth knowledge of the government itself. Otherwise, it will simply be another initiative that is forgotten almost as soon as it is announced.

Consider the size and scope of the federal government. In 2014, it had revenues of $3.021 trillion. This is more than the combined revenues of the 16 largest Fortune 500 companies at the time. It also had about 4.2 million employees (including uniformed military personnel) a size that equals the total employment of the six largest U.S. companies. It is impossible to find anyone who has ever run a company this big.

Most corporations, even very large ones, have a core business like building airplanes or selling hamburgers. The federal government does everything from contracting for state-of-the-art weapons systems to reviewing new drugs to sending out retirement checks. It has a wide variety of missions and a wide variety of personnel needs.

Recommended: How Right-Wing Media Saved Obamacare

For many of the biggest and most expensive operations of the federal government, there is no private sector analog from which to take good ideas or best practices. For instance, no one in the private sector manages a nuclear arsenal. Thats what many people in the Department of Energy do. And no one in the private sector makes plans and conducts operations for the defense of Europe. Thats what they do over at the Pentagon.

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And the federal government doesnt actually do much of what it pays for. In a whole host of areas, from clean water to drug counseling, the federal government sends money to states and localities where other government officials or private-sector contractors actually do the work. Tackling the opioid crisis is a very laudable goal, but the front lines in that fight are staffed by local law enforcement officials and drug counselors. Other than sending more money through the federal pipeline, there are limits to what can be done from Washington.

How can private-sector leaders be most helpful? When I helped Vice President Al Gore run the Clinton administrations reinventing government initiative, we met with many corporate executivesespecially ones who were famous for turnarounds. The first thing we learned was that it was near impossible to do a successful turnaround without the buy-in of the workers. I suspect that this advice still holds, even though it is now 24 years old. So far, the Trump administration has gone out of its way to insult federal workers in its attempts to drain the swamp. They will soon learn what all the feds knowthe bureaucracy pre-dates and outlasts individual presidents.

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The second thing we learned was that most corporate executives were horrified at the constraints under which the average government manager works. From the outdated civil-service rules and salaries that will not let them hire the talent they need, to budget rules that made the movement of money within agencies nearly impossible, federal managers are handcuffed in ways that few CEOs in private-sector organizations are. If Trumps effort does nothing more than build a consensus in the Republican Party for normalizing the civil service and making budget rules more flexible, it will be a success.

This is not to say that the federal government cant learn from the private sectorit can. But the best opportunities are at the operational level. The Armys motor pool can probably learn a great deal from Hertz and Avis about keeping cars clean, reliable, and available. Those who want to improve health services for veterans can surely learn a great deal from those who run large, complex hospital systems.

There are, no doubt, many good ideas out there for improving government operations. But they need to be implemented and not just articulated. And that takes a fully staffed-out government. The Trump White House has barely begun to fill the critical second layer of government that is so important to the implementation of such initiatives.

The Clinton administration was the last to cut the size of government and balance the federal budgetall while avoiding government fiascos like the response to Hurricane Katrina under President George W. Bush or the Veterans Administration meltdown under President Obama. Both Bush and Obama made progress on government modernization, but during their terms, they both had bigger fish to fry: For Bush, there was 9/11, and for Obama, the financial crisis. Trump can tackle the hard work of government reform once againbut doing it is no easy task.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Bill Hansen has always loved to work, so when his 100th birthday rolled around, there was no greater gift than to come out of retirement for the second time.

"I never had a day I didnt want to go to work," Hansen, of New Jersey, told InsideEdition.com.

Read: 2-Year-Old Prom Queen Given a Night to Remember After Stopping Treatment for Terminal Cancer

Hansen first retired at the age of 65, but it wasn't long before he grew bored of his monotonous routine and returned to the workforce.

At 66, Hansen started working at a family friends company, Hutchinson Plumbing, Heating and Cooling in Cherry Hill, as a permit coordinator.

"My father and uncle (who started the company) died in the early 70s. They were our mentors and it was great to have Bill around to adopt him as new mentor," said Fred Hutchinson, the CEO of Hutchinson Plumbing, Heating and Cooling in Cherry. "He helped drive the same work ethic through the company."

Hansen went on to work at the company for 32 years until retiring again in 2014 at the age of 97.

We see him frequently  he passes by and visits us and is on the move," Hutchinson told InsideEdition.com. "His birthday was coming up and we asked him what he wanted to do. He was like, 'I want to work for Hutchinson on my birthday.

But if Hansen was going to work for the day, he was going to get paid, so the company wrote up an employee agreement that said that Hansen would be compensated $1 for his work.

With payroll out of the way, Hansen returned to the office on Monday  three years after his retirement  and was greeted by cheers.

Cops 'Arrest' Woman, 102, to Cross It Off Her Bucket List: 'She Wants to Be Handcuffed'

After signing the agreement, "He got up and was like, 'Well, lets go to work boys,'" Hutchinson said. "He went to township halls and took out permits. It was very inspiring. He had one hell of a day."

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And Hansen was thrilled to be back in the workforce.

"I enjoyed every minute of it and meeting the young people in the borough halls," said Hansen. "I never had a job I didnt enjoy. I was blessed that way. Ive been blessed my whole life. My lifes a bowl of cherries."

Hansen is now looking forward to the next milestone.

"I want to have four more years," he said, to see his grandson graduate from high school.

Watch: Why Woman Organized a Picnic for Homeless Instead of Having 28th Birthday Party

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The House intelligence committee investigation into Russian interference in last years election was thrown into new turmoil Monday night, after the ranking Democrat on the panel called on the Republican chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., to recuse himself from any further involvement.

The call by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., came after Nunes acknowledged he had gone to the White House grounds to receive classified information from an unidentified source about U.S. intelligence community surveillance that, he says, had swept up conversations involving Trump transition officials. That information  which Trump has claimed partially vindicates his tweets charging that former President Barack Obama had wiretapped him  was never shared with others on the panel, Democrats charge.

Schiff said his call for Nunes to step aside was not made lightly, because the two have worked well together for years.

But in much the same way that the attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Russia investigation after failing to inform the Senate of his meetings with Russian officials, I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the presidents campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman, Schiff said in his statement.

The Schiff statement came as panel staffers speculated on the possible identity of Nunes White House source, focusing on Michael Ellis, a lawyer who worked for Nunes on the intelligence panel and who was recently hired to work on national security matters at the White House counsels office. A White House official and spokesman for Nunes declined to comment on whether Ellis was involved in providing information to Nunes, as did a spokesman for Schiff. White House press secretary Sean Spicer insisted that White House officials were not aware of Nunes secret trip to meet his source and referred all questions to Nunes office.

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House intelligence committee, briefs reporters at the U.S. Capitol on March 24, 2017. (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Democrats have been furious that Nunes has yet to describe precisely the classified intelligence he has seen. Nor has he shared any documents with others on the House intelligence panel. Nunes, for his part, defended his previously undisclosed trip to the White House grounds, telling CNNs Wolf Blitzer that he had to view the classified documents in an executive branch location because the intelligence community had not yet provided them to Congress.

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The Congress has not been given this information, these documents, and thats the problem, Nunes said. This is executive branch.

Last week, Nunes announced the postponement of a public hearing scheduled for Tuesday at which former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had been due to testify. Instead, Nunes said, FBI Director James Comey and NSA director Mike Rogers would be called back in closed session to explain the new material that he says shows Trump transition officials, and possibly even the president himself, were captured during U.S. surveillance of foreign targets.

But late Monday, the committee confirmed that that session too had been postponed, and will be rescheduled. Comey and Rogers were said to be unavailable.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Moscow (AFP) - International chess governing body FIDE was plunged into controversy Tuesday after announcing its long-time president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov had resigned in a statement he has dismissed as "fake".

Ilyumzhinov, a Russian businessman and former leader of Russia's Buddhist Kalmykia region, is no stranger to controversy, perhaps best known for claiming to have encountered aliens.

He was added to a US sanctions list in 2015 after Washington accused him of "materially assisting" the Syrian government.

The World Chess Federation (FIDE) on Monday published a statement on its website that was still posted on Tuesday saying Ilyumzhinov had announced his resignation.

But Ilyumzhinov described the statement to AFP as "fake" and denied that he had quit the elected position he has held since 1995.

In a letter published Tuesday on FIDE's website, FIDE executive director Nigel Freeman wrote that Ilyumzhinov had "several times threatened to resign" at a meeting on Sunday.

"At the end of the meeting, three times you repeated 'I resign' before leaving the room," Freeman wrote, adding that the board will hold an extraordinary meeting on April 10 to discuss the situation.

Ilyumzhinov meanwhile wrote in a separate letter published by FIDE on Tuesday that he had not formally submitted his resignation and had no intention of doing so.

On Tuesday, Ilyumzhinov acknowledged to AFP he offered to stand down during an "emotional, unofficial" conversation with board members on Sunday after the meeting.

"I said that I was ready to leave if everyone agrees and considers that I've done something bad to FIDE," he said.

He added that his presence on the US sanctions list was the "one grievance" raised by board members against him.

Ilyumzhinov hinted to AFP in an earlier comment on Monday that FIDE's announcement was an attempt to push him out.

"Somebody really wants me to resign," he said.

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The chess chief in 2010 claimed that he had been abducted by aliens wearing yellow spacesuits who communicated telepathically and took him to another planet.

Ilyumzhinov has mixed with some of the world's most controversial leaders including Syria's Bashar al-Assad, as well as the late Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Moamer Kadhafi of Libya.

World chess champions Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov have harshly criticised Ilyumzhinov, who has never been a professional chess player, and ran unsuccessfully against him in FIDE elections.

Georgian grand master Zurab Azmaiparashvili, a member of FIDE's presidential board who attended Sunday's meeting, told AFP there was a "crisis" at the federation, but said its details were "confidential".

Azmaiparashvili said that Ilyumzhinov had in fact threatened to resign during the course of the meeting.
Moscow (AFP) - Russia's Sberbank, the largest in the country, on Tuesday announced it had sold its Ukraine division, where operations have been complicated since Moscow's annexation of Crimea.

Sberbank, whose controlling stake is owned by the Russian state, said in a statement Tuesday that it had signed a deal with a "consortium of investors" including Latvia's Norvik Banka and a Belarusian private company.

"The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2017," the statement said.

The bank has faced difficulties since 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea while pro-Russian separatists declared independence in parts of eastern Ukraine, sparking a conflict that has killed thousands.

Ukrainian activists have viewed Sberbank as a symbol of Russia's unwelcome presence in the country, with many incidents of vandalism over the past three years.

On March 16, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko slapped one-year sanctions on a number of Russian state-owned banks in the country, including Sberbank, blocking them from taking money out of the country.

As part of a campaign to strip Russian banks of licenses to operate in Ukraine, Ukrainian activists earlier this month completely mured the entrance to one of Sberbank's branches in Kiev with bricks and mortar.

"We hope that the decision... will help to unblock its offices and to renew normal work," the Sberbank statement said.

Ukrainian media reported that activists have already started to take down bricks they had used to block the entrance to the bank.
The Justice Departments announcement of funding sanctions against cities and counties that dont honor some immigration enforcement policies is the latest step toward a seemingly inevitable legal showdown.

On Monday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at a White House appearance that the Trump administration could cut off $4 billion in Justice Department grants to states, cities, and counties it felt werent complying with federal laws and policies. Sessions was repeating policy statements made in an earlier Trump Executive Order about immigration security.

Today, I'm urging states and local jurisdictions to comply with these federal laws, including 8 U.S.C. Section 1373. Moreover, the Department of Justice will require that jurisdictions seeking or applying for Department of Justice grants to certify compliance with 1373 as a condition of receiving those awards, Sessions said

Section 1373 requires that a Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.

But at the start of his statement, Sessions pointed to another factor in his departments grant funding decision. According to one recent poll, 80 percent of Americans believe that cities that make arrests -- that arrest illegal immigrants for crimes should be required to turn them over to immigration authorities. Unfortunately, some states and cities have adopted policies designed to frustrate this enforcement of immigration laws. This includes refusing to detain non-felons under federal detainer requests or otherwise failing to comply with these laws, Sessions said.

Immigration detainer requests come from federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (or ICE) officials, asking local law enforcement officials to hold suspected illegal immigrants in custody for up to 48 additional hours if they already are arrested or detained related to a criminal act. The requests themselves are legally voluntary on the part of local law enforcement and Department of Homeland Security policy directives repeatedly phrase detainers as requests made to local law enforcement.

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But the Justice Department had been applying pressure on some local agencies that dont honor these voluntary requests by publishing their names in a new report.

Financial penalties for sanctuary jurisdictions are now the subject of several current lawsuits. In San Francisco, for example, the citys federal lawsuit against the Trump administration claims the executive order violates the 10th Amendment to the Constitution because of its financial penalties. The executive order is a severe invasion of San Franciscos sovereignty.  The Executive Branch may not commandeer state and local officials to enforce federal law. The lawsuit explicitly mentions the denial of federal grant money for its adoption of laws that it feels complies with Section 1373; the city also claims it will be denied grant money because Homeland Security could include local governments that dont honor voluntary detainer requests on its sanctuary jurisdictions list. And it claims Section 1373 is unconstitutional.

Two cities in Massachusetts, Chelsea and Lawrence, also filed suit in February against Trumps sanctuary city policies. This executive order comes in and unconstitutionally coerces [the municipalities] to use local resources in a way that is contrary to important principles of local control, and the local officials determination regarding what is best for their citizens, for the citizens of Chelsea and Lawrence, said Inez Friedman-Boyce, an attorney representing the cities.

Supporters of the Trump executive order that expands immigration enforcement in this area point to one of the most powerful tools in the Constitution, Article VIs Supremacy Clause, which in part reads, This Constitution, and the laws of the United States  shall be the supreme law of the land and the clause establishes that the Constitution and federal laws in general, take precedence over state and local laws in areas where they conflict. As stated in the executive order, the Trump administration believes sanctuary jurisdictions across the United States willfully violate Federal law in an attempt to shield aliens from removal from the United States.

One federal court decision could lead to some insight into where the overall legal argument will head, at least on the 10th Amendment and Supremacy Clause issues. In Galarza v. Szalczyk, a 2014 opinion from the Third Circuit Appeals Court based in Philadelphia found that local governments didnt have to comply with detainer orders. On two occasions the Supreme Court has struck down portions of federal laws that compelled states or local state agencies on anti-commandeering grounds, the opinion read.

In a challenge to the Trump immigration order on sanctuary cities, a Florida state judge, Milton Hirsch, didnt cite the Galarza decision in a ruling earlier in March that supported a Haitian national. James Lacroix was held on an immigration detainer after Miami-Dade Countys mayor changed that citys policy after the Trump immigration executive order was issued. Instead, Hirsch cited at length a decision written by the late Antonin Scalia in Printz v. United States from 1997.

Apparently it was clear to the members of the first Congress that the federal government is without power to compel state authorities to house and maintain federal prisoners  even if the federal government offers to pay a fair price for that housing and maintenance, Hirsch said, citing Scalias reasoning in the Printz case.

Miami-Dade is appealing Hirschs decision.

Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.
The ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee says the Republican chairmans justification for abruptly canceling a scheduled hearing for former acting Attorney General Sally Yates frankly didnt add up  and is hoping to reschedule her testimony soon.

Its time to put that hearing back on track, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric on Tuesday. If we take the White House at its word, it wants Sally Yates to testify now. So lets reschedule that hearing.

Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the embattled chairman of the House intelligence committee, canceled the public hearing on Friday.

Earlier Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that Yates had sought permission from the White House to speak, but was told much of her testimony would be barred because the topics are covered by the presidential communication privilege.

The White House called the report entirely false.

I hope she testifies, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said at his daily briefing on Tuesday. I look forward to it.

Meanwhile, Schiff has called for Nunes to recuse himself from the committees investigation into Russian interference in last years election, following the revelation that he had gone to the White House grounds to receive classified information related to the probe from an unnamed source.

On Monday night, Yahoo News Michael Isikoff reported that speculation about the identity of the source was focusing on Michael Ellis, a lawyer who worked for Nunes on the intelligence committee and now works on national security matters at the White House.

Related: Russia probe in turmoil as top Dem calls for Nunes recusal

I dont know if thats true or not  we certainly should get to the bottom of it, Schiff said. But the circumstances are highly questionable.

Schiff laid out the timeline of events that led up to Nunes mystery meeting.

We had a hearing on Monday, the first open hearing in which the directors of the FBI and NSA roundly repudiated the presidents claim that he was wiretapped by his predecessor, Schiff said. Then there is this urgent clandestine meeting between the chairman and someone on the White House grounds. We dont know who  its not just the Democrats on the committee, the Republicans dont know who he met with either.

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Before sharing the information with the rest of the intelligence committee, Nunes presented it to the White House.

The whole sequence of events looks very odd to put it in the most diplomatic terms, Schiff said.

Schiff reiterated his call for Nunes to recuse himself from the investigation, and for the establishment of a fully independent commission to investigate Moscows election meddling  one that is wholly immune from any kind of political influence.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Edinburgh (AFP) - Just a day before Britain kick-starts Brexit proceedings, the Scottish parliament is on Tuesday expected to dismiss Prime Minister Theresa May's overtures and back calls for a fresh independence referendum.

Lawmakers in Edinburgh are due to vote on Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon's bid for a new referendum, despite the prime minister's last-minute appeals.

The Scottish vote had been scheduled for last Wednesday but was postponed after the terror attack near the British parliament in London, the same day, in which four people were killed and dozens more injured.

The attack has not, however, put the brakes on Britain's EU divorce, with May vowing to stick to her timetable of invoking Article 50 of the European Union's Lisbon Treaty on Wednesday and thus triggering two years of Brexit negotiations.

The Brexit vote last year has spurred the independence campaign of Sturgeon, head of the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP), who argues that Scotland is being forced out of the European bloc against its will.

Both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU, but they were outnumbered by voters in England and Wales who backed Brexit.

- UK an 'unstoppable force' -

Sturgeon and May met in Scotland on Monday, with the prime minister reiterating that "now is not the time" for a referendum and describing the four nations of the United Kingdom as an "unstoppable force".

The SNP leader has suggested an independence vote should be held by spring 2019 at the latest -- before Britain leaves the EU -- although after winning the backing of Scottish parliament she needs approval from London for a referendum to take place.

Rejecting such a request would be politically risky for May, whose government is also trying to prevent the collapse of the power-sharing arrangement which governs Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland executive collapsed in January following a dispute between the two main parties, the Democratic Unionist Party and Irish nationalists Sinn Fein, which failed to reach a new power-sharing deal by a 1500 GMT Monday deadline.

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The British government has extended the talks and, if a resolution is not reached, fresh elections could be called or London could resume direct rule over Northern Ireland.

The fate of the province is one of the priorities set by the EU's chief Brexit negotiator. "We will not stand for anything that weakens dialogue and peace in Northern Ireland," he wrote in the Financial Times on Monday.

- 'Pulling together' -

Despite May's assertion that she will seek the best Brexit deal for all of Britain -- including Scotland -- she has failed to convince the SNP which has warned of the negative consequences of leaving the EU.

The economic uncertainty of Scotland outside the United Kingdom was a factor in voters rejecting independence in a 2014 referendum, but the SNP claims breaking away from the European single market would cost Scotland tens of thousands of jobs.

Scotland's economic hand was strengthened on Monday when exploration firm Hurricane Energy announced the "largest undeveloped discovery" of oil in British waters, located west of the Scottish Shetland Islands.

But May also won a financial boost, with Qatar committing to invest 5 billion ($6.23 billion, 5.8 billion euros) in the UK economy within five years.

The announcement will allay fears of investors abandoning Britain when it leaves the EU and the European single market, which May has said is a necessary step to control immigration.

Both May and Sturgeon said they were not ready to compromise and the rift is unlikely to end before Article 50 is triggered.

The prime minister made a plea for unity ahead of Britain's historic EU departure.

"Now is the time when we should be pulling together, not hanging apart. Pulling together to make sure we get the best possible deal for the whole of the UK," she told reporters.
The Scottish parliament has voted to hold a second referendum on independence from the United Kingdom in late 2018 or 2019.

Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) voted 69 to 59 to back First Minister Nicola Sturgeons independence bid once the terms of the U.K.s Brexit negotiations have been made clear, Reuters reports.

Sturgeon now has the authority to seek permission for a so-called Section 30 order from Britains Parliament in Westminster, which is needed to pursue a legally-binding referendum in Scotland. She is expected to make a formal request for the order later this week, which is also when Prime Minister Theresa May will formally trigger Article 50, kickstarting the Brexit process.

The news comes around two-and-a-half years after Scotland voted no to independence in a referendum in 2014. At the time, the Scottish National Party (SNP) branded the vote once-in-a-generation. Sturgeon said circumstances have changed since 2014 as the U.K. voted to leave the European Union last year while Scotland voted strongly to remain.

A recent YouGov poll of 1,028 Scottish adults found that 43% thought Scotland should have a second independence referendum, compared to 57% who didnt.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Scotland is inching toward another vote to break off from the United Kingdom.

On Tuesday, Scotlands parliament gave First Minister Nicola Sturgeons government the go-ahead to hold a second referendum on Scottish independence. MPs voted 69-59 to seek permission to hold a second referendum before Brexit is finalized.

The vote had been slated for last Wednesday, but was rescheduled following the Westminster terrorist attack. Even last Wednesday, it was expected to pass: Between Sturgeons Scottish National Party and the Green Party, Sturgeon had the votes.

One important yes Sturgeon hasnt been able to secure is that of British Prime Minister Theresa May. Without Westminsters approval, Scotland cannot hold a second independence referendum. May has said now is not the time and that she intends to protect our precious union.

That precious union stood the test that was 2014s referendum on Scottish independence, but that was before 2016s Brexit referendum passed. Scots voted overwhelmingly to remain in the European Union, and so, though May is trying to say that this is an opportunity to strengthen ties within the United Kingdom, many believe that a second referendum on Scottish independence would pass..

And with May poised to mark the official beginning of Brexit on Wednesday, Scots may find it difficult to swallow her no, not now line  May might be busy with Brexit, but Sturgeon wants to hold the referendum in late 2018 or early 2019, before the United Kingdom is out of the EU and takes Scotland out with it.

Certain British commentators are probably not helping matters. Nigel Farage, the former head of United Kingdom Independence Party who campaigned for Brexit and then resigned from politics, saying, I want my life back, only to become a Fox News contributor, has come out against a second Scottish referendum because, he says, it offers false independence. One might imagine the Scottish people do not feel that is his decision to make.

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The Daily Mail, for its part, helpfully weighed in with nuanced, thoughtful political coverage, by which we mean this sexist cover:

Literally 'look at their legs and compare them'. What fresh tittery is this. And this is the newspaper of the year pic.twitter.com/APcpsOfeWU  Felicity Morse (@FelicityMorse) March 27, 2017

After the Monday meeting at which the photograph in question was taken, Sturgeon said she was frustrated by a process that appears not to be listening.

To recap, then: The Scottish parliament has moved with respect to a second independence referendum, and the British government has moved with respect to Brexit, but the British government has not moved with respect to the Scottish parliaments move toward a second independence referendum.

Photo credit: Russell Cheyne  WPA Pool/Getty Images
Why does Sean Hannity care so much about what Ted Koppel thinks?

More than a day after Ted Koppel told Sean Hannity his brand of opinionated journalism was bad for America, the Fox News host continued to complain about the segment, which he called edited fake news

You pretend to be fair and balanced, I dont, Hannity said of CBS and Koppel on his syndicated radio show Monday, which airs locally on 1210 WPHT. He continued the drumbeat against Koppel on his Fox News show later in the evening.

"Ted's interview with me wasn't about substance, it wasn't about getting my real opinion, Hannity said. I was just used as a prop to advance his narrative."

Hannity used the edited segment to reinforce a constant narrative at Fox News and other conservative media outlets that that mainstream media is out to attack conservatives, and by extension, President Trump, though he offered little evidence other than conspiracy theories involving Bill Ayers and black liberation theology to back up his claims.

Guys like [Bill] OReilly and Hannity enjoy pillorying the mainstream media week after week, complaining about how the countrys press establishment is out to get President Trump, wrote Washington Post columnist Erik Wemple. Yet these fellows still appear to want the approval of a guy like Koppel.

Hannity is demanding that CBS release the entire interview he conducted with Koppel, which he says lasted over 45 minutes. News networks, including Fox News, are forced out of necessity to regularly edit down interviews to fit within the time constraints forced by television programing.

CBS did not respond to a request for comment.

As CNNs Dylan Byers noted, Hannity finds himself at a crossroads forced by several early failures of the Trump administration, including the implosion of the American Health Care Act, the Republican partys plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. So far, Hannity remains a loyal cheerleader for President Trump, even as traditionally conservative outlets like The Wall Street Journal and the Weekly Standard have been critical of the president since taking office.

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Late Monday evening, while riding the train home from work, Hannity lashed out at Byers in a back-and-forth on Twitter.

Dylan You know NOTHING about conservatives. You just know u hate them and are biased. You and Humpty Dumpty (Stelter) are obsessed stalkers. https://t.co/uaKMkRYyE5  Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) March 28, 2017

Can you imagine the audacity it takes to tell someone you've met a grand total of once what they know about or who they 'hate'? https://t.co/IaqbSz17ic  Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) March 28, 2017

I mean... it's midnight in New York and you're picking fights with a media reporter? (who likes all folks, so long as they adhere to facts) https://t.co/IaqbSz17ic  Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) March 28, 2017

I finished the show at 11 p. So on the long ride home I get bored. You are correct though, you and Humpty Dumpty are a waste of my time. https://t.co/V3eBMXGJew  Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) March 28, 2017

The ad-hominem attacks and name-calling are indeed a waste of all our time... A substantive debate, any time, would be great... https://t.co/pfJeWPl3vZ  Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) March 28, 2017

Breitbart denied press credentials

Breitbart, the conservative website formerly run by top Trump aide Steven Bannon, has been denied permanent press credentials on Capitol Hill.

The Standing Committee of the Senate Press Gallery cited the outlets failure to demonstrate editorial independence from the White House and its ties to Rebekah Mercer, a member of Trumps transition team and the daughter of hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer, who backed Trumps presidential campaign.

The Mercers are investors to Breitbart.

In addition, the committee wants Brietbart to clarify the roles of two employees on its masthead  senior editor-at-large Peter Schweizer and managing editor Wynton Hall  who are affiliated with the conservative nonprofit Government Accountability Institute.

President Trump to America: Watch Fox News

On Saturday, President Trump took to Twitter and urged Americans to tune in to Fox News to watch Justice With Judge Jeanine, where host Jeanine Pirro called for Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to step down.

On Tuesday morning, Trump again was pointing his followers to Fox News, only this time he encouraged everyone to tune in to a show he watches regularly, Fox & Friends.

Watch @foxandfriends now on Podesta and Russia!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2017

Those who flipped over to Fox News this morning caught a segment about former Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podestas reported ties to an alternative energy firm that attracted a Russian state fund as an investor.

McClatchy, reporting on the supposed connections back in October, called the accusations misleading and said any ties Podesta had with Russia were indirect.

The report comes after the New York Times revealed on Monday that Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had a previously undisclosed meeting with Sergey Gorkov, the head of Russias state-owned Vnesheconombank, which has been under sanctions since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

Lawmakers and the FBI are investigating possible ties between the president's campaign and Russian officials and whether Russia meddled in the 2016 election.

The Fox & Friends segment aired hours after Trumps remarks on Twitter Monday night spotlighting Podesta and debunked claims involving the Clintons and a Russian uranium deal.

Why isn't the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2017

...money to Bill, the Hillary Russian "reset," praise of Russia by Hillary, or Podesta Russian Company. Trump Russia story is a hoax. #MAGA!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2017

Trump is well-known to favor Fox News, often congratulating the network on its ratings and labeling its coverage of him great. He has said that Fox & Friends is one of his favorite programs, and he has called the hosts very honorable people, saying they have the most honest morning show.

The show has certainly enjoyed the added attention. Fox & Friends, like many cable news shows, has seen its ratings jump. Its average February audience of 1.72 million viewers was 49 percent over last year's, according to Nielsen. The show usually has more viewers than MSNBC's Morning Joe and CNN's New Day combined.

Melania Trump picks a communications director

First lady Melania Trump, last seen over the weekend at her husband's Mar-a-Lago resort, has named Stephanie Grisham as her communications director.

"Stephanie is a wonderful addition to the team," the first lady said in a statement. "She brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the job, and will be an incredible asset to my office as we build out our agenda, preserve our country's rich traditions and serve the American people."

Grisham, who currently serves in the White House as a deputy press secretary, was one of the earliest members of the Trump campaigns press operations. Grisham said she was honored by the new opportunity to promote Melania Trumps initiatives.

Other than a brief speech during an inaugural ball, the first lady has chosen to remain silent, not issuing any public remarks or statements since her husband took office back in January.

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The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced Monday it is seeking help from law enforcement officials in Mexico and Central America to find a missing teen, who is suspected to have been kidnapped by her school teacher. TBI launched an amber alert earlier this month for the student Elizabeth Thomas, who is suspected of being kidnapped by her teacher Tad Cummins.

The bureau made the request, through FBI, as a precaution and there have been no reports of sightings of 15-year-old Thomas or 50-year-old Cummins south of the U.S. border. TBI also clarified that it has not extended the statewide amber alert to Mexico and Central America.

Read: Missing Tennessee Teen Updates Instagram Bio Describing Herself As Wife

"We have not requested an AMBER Alert be issued in Mexico or Central America. We have, through the FBI, shared with law enforcement in Mexico and Central America, relevant information about the case, to include identifying information about both individuals. This is, however, in the name of due diligence. We have no specific information Tad Cummins took Elizabeth Thomas across the border," TBI spokesman Josh DeVine said in a statement, posted on Twitter.

Last week, the bureau received a tip that Cummins car may have been spotted in Corpus Christi, Texas. However, police were unable to confirm it, the Associated Press reported.

Cummins has been listed under Tennessees Top 10 Most Wanted for the suspected abduction and TBI issued a warrant against him for kidnapping and having sexual contact with Thomas. Maury Countys Culleoka Unit School  where Thomas is a student  fired Cummins from his job as a health science teacher after the alleged kidnapping.

District Attorney Brent Cooper told People magazine Monday the teacher exchanged romantic and troubling emails with Thomas.

You could describe it as somewhat intimate in nature, Cooper told People, adding the messages were not a conversation expected for a teacher to be having with a 15-year-old student.

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According to Cooper, Cummins sent those messages to Thomas through his work email, which do not contain anything really graphic or explicit, but definitely inappropriate. He also said the emails do not make clear that anything physical had happened between them, but it definitely makes clear that the nature of their relationship, they seemed to view as romantic.

School documents dated Jan. 23 reportedly show a student saw Cummins and the teen kissing. The following week, a local law enforcement official informed Thomas father about the alleged incident.

TBI is also seeking help from people for information on the missing student-teacher duo. The bureau is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to Cummins arrest.

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With Adam Rawnsley

More strikes, no change. The U.S. isnt planning on making any changes to how it conducts airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, a defense official said on Monday, even as the American military is investigating a rash of civilian casualties. With Iraqi forces calling in more American bombs on Islamic State positions in Mosul, U.S.-backed Syrian rebels pushing closer to Raqqa, and a stepped-up campaign against al Qaeda in Syria, the ground is shaking along multiple fronts. And along with that, have come more allegations of dead civilians.

Many Iraqi commanders welcome the more aggressive American role, saying that coalition officers were too risk averse under the Obama administration, writes the New York Times Tim Arango, who visited the site of the largest strike in Mosul, which may have killed as many as 200 Iraqis. Military officers from Baghdad also say fighting for the dense, urban spaces of western Mosul requires more airpower, even if that means more civilians will die.

American military commanders have kicked off multiple investigations not only into what happened in Mosul, but what locals claim was a mosque in Jinah, Syria  in a strike the Pentagon says killed al Qaeda leaders  and a strike at a school near Raqqa. Overall, the death toll between the three sites could be over 300 people.

In recent months, FPs Paul McLeary writes, American commanders on the ground have been given more more freedom to operate, and can make the decision to launch strikes without the blessing of the White House, as was often the case under the more restrictive Obama administration.

Numbers, they got em, we dont. Despite a growing U.S. presence on the ground in Iraq and Syria, the exact number of troops being sent into combat will no longer be available. Spokesman for the U.S. Central Command Col. John Thomas told reporters at the Pentagon that they would stop giving figures for future troop deployments in Iraq and Syria, and would only provide general unit sizes. Its about capabilities not numbers, he said. There are over 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq currently, and as many as 1,000 in Syria.

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The refusal to provide numbers comes as other recent deployments were leaked to the press, including U.S. Army Rangers sent to northern Syria, several hundred Marines to a fire base near Raqqa, and the upcoming deployment of 200 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to the area around Mosul.

Russian rules. As the U.S.-led coalition drops bombs, Moscow is dropping criticisms. The Russian General Staffs Colonel-General Sergey Rudskoy said on Tuesday that the Americans are wrecking the regions infrastructure. We continue observing the international coalitions actions on the territory of Iraq and Syria. An impression is being created that the international coalition has set the goal of fully destroying critically important infrastructure facilities on the territory of Syria and maximally complicating the countrys postwar reconstruction, the general said.

More Tehran-Moscow cooperation. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Tuesday that Russia will be able to make use Iranian military bases to launch airstrikes in Syria on a case by case basis. Speaking with Reuters, Zarif said since both Russia and Iran are close allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and Russia doesnt have a military base (in Iran), we have good cooperation, and on a case by case basis, when it is necessary for Russians fighting terrorism to use Iranian facilities, we will make a decision. Russian jets used an Iranian base late last year, but hard-liners in Tehran complained, forcing the flights to end.

China looks ready. A Washington think tank said Monday that it looks like China could deploy military equipment to a series of man-made islands in the South China Sea any day now. The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, an arm of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the work on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reefs in the Spratly Islands included naval, air, radar and defensive facilities, and theyre ready for action.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters Tuesday that Beijing didnt see the problem with this, since the islands are part of Chinese territory. (International law, and Chinas neighbors disagree with this interpretation.) As for China deploying or not deploying necessary territorial defensive facilities on its own territory, this is a matter that is within the scope of Chinese sovereignty, she told a daily news briefing.

To the sea. The leaders of the sea services from the U.K., France and the U.S. have signed a trilateral cooperation agreement that will allow the three navies to work more closely together  especially in the realms of submarine warfare and carrier operations, USNIs Sam LaGrone reports. The agreement  signed Monday in London  could be a significant marker in the relationship between the three nations as maritime threats in the South China Sea, and Russian action in the Baltic Sea, grows more complex.

Welcome to SitRep. Send any tips, thoughts or national security events to paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or via Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley.

Missiles. North Korea carried out yet another rocket engine test on Friday, this time keeping it quiet from the wider public. The U.S. intelligence community, however, managed to find out about it and some officials passed the word along to Reuters. Officials are worried that the engine, like one tested publicly in the North early in March, could be used to power an intercontinental ballistic missile. North Korea claims its rockets are used for launching satellites but the technology for

New money. NATO is prioritizing defenses against rising threats like hackers and Irans ballistic missile systems, spending big on computers and satellite communication systems, according to Reuters reports. Around $1.7 billion will go towards satellite systems to improve alliance members ability to communicate with troops and equipment in the field. The remaining funds will go to bankroll new command and control systems as well as cybersecurity tools in order to defend NATO facilities from hackers.

Membership. The Senate is inching closer to approving Montenegros bid to join NATO, moving to end debate on the issue and head towards a vote. The 97-2 tally to end debate is an indication that the Senate is likely to ultimately greenlight the countrys membership application, despite opposition from Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Mike Lee (R-UT). Montenegro has sought to join the alliance despite opposition from Russia and an allegedly Russian-backed plot to assassinate the countrys former pro-NATO prime minister that was disrupted in 2016.

Drones. The South China Morning Post has more details on Saudi Arabias drone deal with China. Earlier this month, the two countries signed an agreement that would allow the kingdom to manufacture Chinese drones domestically. The Post reports that the two countries inked the deal at the International Defence Exhibition and Conference in Abu Dhabi after a visit from Saudi King Salman to China in March laid the groundwork for the agreement. Saudi Arabia will manufacture the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation CH-4 drone under the deal. While countries like Iraq have already purchased and used the CH-4 in combat, Saudi Arabias factory would represent the first such production in the region.

Madlibs. What is an interim zone of stability? Its Secretary of State Rex Tillersons newly-coined term for what the U.S. will create in Syria, and no one seems to know precisely what it means. As the BBC reports, the term sounds an awful lot like a safe zone that picked up a few extra syllables along the way and a new explanation of the concept offered to the Beeb by an anonymous diplomat certainly makes it sound that way. The term refers to places formerly held by the Islamic State or where a ceasefire with the Assad regime has taken place, where the U.S. will provide humanitarian support.

Going dark. The State Department is once again going dark to the press and the public, killing press briefings for two weeks while the department looks for a new spokesperson. The move is part of a pattern of media-aversion from Secretary of State Tillerson, who famously booted the diplomatic press corps from his recent trip to Asia and stopped the department from holding an on-camera press briefing until early March. Former Fox News anchor Heather Nauert is expected to take over from current spokesman Mark Toner and briefings will halt as Nauert waits on her security clearance.

Whos where when.

5:30 p.m. Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter makes his first public comments since leaving office in January on Tuesday night at Harvard, where hell speak about building relationships between the tech sector and the Pentagon. Livestream here.

Photo Credit: AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images
Now this is the story all about how... The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air cast reunited!

Alfonso Ribeiro, who played Carlton Banks on the 90s classic, shared an Instagram photo of the Banks family and their quirky Philadelphia cousin. Always amazing to spend an afternoon with my Fresh Prince family, Ribeiro, 45, wrote in the caption.

For the photo, Ribeiro stood in between on-screen sisters Tatyana Ali and Karyn Parsons, who posed next to the fresh prince himself, Will Smith. Rounding out the group were Daphne Maxwell Reid and Joseph Marcell a.k.a. everyones favorite butler Geoffrey.

Noticeably missing was actor James Avery who played Uncle Phil. Wishing that James Avery was still with us to make this complete, Ribeiro concluded his post. Avery died from complications during open heart surgery in December 2013 at the age of 68.

Always amazing to spend an afternoon with my Fresh Prince family. Wishing that James Avery was still with us to make this complete. A post shared by Alfonso Ribeiro (@therealalfonsoribeiro) on Mar 27, 2017 at 5:27pm PDT

In May 2016, Fresh Prince celebrated its 20th anniversary since the series finale aired. Most recently, Smith unknowingly gave fans a major Bel-Air throwback when many social media users noticed that he resembled Uncle Phil in his recent bungee jumping video.

The actor made a surprise visit to Zimbabwes Victoria Falls while on vacation in Africa and fulfilled what he said was a 20-year dream to bungee jump off the bridge.

This article originally appeared on People.com

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Despite the close distance to Australia, there are no snakes in New Zealand, bar the occasional sea snake.

So you can imagine the surprise when biosecurity officials at Auckland Airport found a live snake on a plane that arrived from Australia on Sunday.

It was quickly captured by authorities, who used a bucket to contain the reptile.

SEE ALSO: Once and for all, people: Stop bringing snakes on planes, because stuff like this happens

"It appears the snake had crawled into the wheel housing of a private jet that arrived from Brisbane," Craig Hughes from New Zealand's Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) said in a statement.

Snake on a plane! 

We've snared a live snake that hitchhiked to NZ on a private jet!https://t.co/dVoZf9WYiq #biosecurity @AKL_Airport pic.twitter.com/3EvTp4DDhT  Primary Industries (@MPI_NZ) March 27, 2017

MPI officials have yet to identify the species of snake, but it's believed to be a brown tree snake.

They're not a species considered dangerous to humans, but as the MPI pointed out, any foreign wildlife could be a threat to New Zealand's environment and native creatures  as it found out the hard way with the Australian possum, which is a major pest.

The private jet had been parked in a remote bay for six weeks before making its way across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand.

No other snakes were found by authorities in the area or on the plane, but unfortunately for this travel-weary snake, it will likely be euthanised.

"We don't have a snake population in New Zealand. Biosecurity officials are doing their best to make sure it stays that way," Hughes said.

[H/T ABC)

WATCH: Is coconut a nut?
Comedian Chris Kattans journey for the mirror ball trophy has ended as the SNL alumnus was the first to get the boot on the new season of Dancing With the Stars, but the elimination was followed by a startling confession.

Read: Could Romance Be Blossoming on Dancing With the Stars? Couple Turns Heads with Steamy Routine

Kattan was pretty stiff during his first dance on the show's 24th season premiere last week, and after he and partner Witney Carson were kicked off Monday night, he previously revealed that he broke his neck 14 years ago while performing a stunt.

He added that he's still dealing with the medical issues, but didn't want to pass up on the reality dance competition.

I wanted to do it, the former SNL star said on Good Morning America Tuesday morning. "But I still wasnt quite the best dancer youve ever seen. But theres so many great dancers. Witneys unbelievable. And you cant compete with Simone [Biles] who is a gold medalist."

Despite his short-lived tenure, Kattan called his time with the show "such an amazing experience" and he had a blast.

Following Monday nights show, many are questioning whether a feud is brewing between a judge and one of the celeb participants.

Real Housewife of Beverly Hills star Erika Janye blasted judge Len Goodman for what he had to say about her sexy routine.

Read: Kristi Yamaguchi Tells Nancy Kerrigan, Once Attacked by Club-Wielding Man, to 'Break a Leg'

Following her dance, Goodman said: "For me it was a little too raunchy, but I am what I am"

She appeared to laugh it off on TV, but in a blog post on People.com, she condemned the remark as sexist.

"You're held to a different standard and judged differently than men," she wrote. "But that doesn't mean Im stopping!"

Watch: Why This Prison Created Father-Daughter Dances for Inmates

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Las Vegas (AFP) - Sony kicked off the annual CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas Monday with an array of stars and plenty of thrills in never-before-seen footage of its upcoming slate of movies.

Hollywood decamps to the Nevada desert for four days every year for the gathering, where theater operators are offered exclusive previews the movies they can expect to be showing over the coming year.

Sony set the tone for what is expected to be a week of surprises with exclusive footage from "Blade Runner 2049," "Spider Man: Homecoming," "The Dark Tower" and many other blockbusters due to hit theaters over summer and beyond.

Among the stars presenting on stage at Caesar's Palace were Jon Hamm, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Tom Holland, Nick Jonas and Jack Black.

The presentation kicked off with the opening minutes of heist thriller "Baby Driver," with Sony announcing they were moving the film's release forward six weeks to June 28.

Director Edgar Wright ("Shaun of the Dead") revealed he had risked life and limb to make sure he got the perfect shots of the getaway car during high octane chase scenes filmed in Atlanta, Georgia.

"I took to strapping myself to the car, on the outside of the car like Mad Max," Wright, 42, told the audience.

"I was genuinely suffering for my art, so I could see the actors' faces... I now know what it is like to go backwards at 70 miles per hour."

- Crowd-pleasing -

Next up was a look at the big screen treatment of horror novelist Stephen King's fantasy series "The Dark Tower," starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey and due out in July.

The project has been shrouded in secrecy, with plans for a trailer shelved last year, so it was an exclusive for the CinemaCon delegates, who were treated to plenty of crowd-pleasing slo-mo shoot-outs.

Sony lightened the tone with footage from its upcoming animated slate, including "Smurfs: The Lost Village," Christian comedy "The Star" and "The Emoji Movie," which appears to put the "poop" emoji front and center.

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Then Marvel chief Kevin Feige introduced footage from "Spider-Man: Homecoming" which gave the audience a first look at Michael Keaton as the webslinger's arch-nemesis The Vulture.

Sony movies chief Tom Rothman came to the stage to present stunning new footage from "Blade Runner 2049," showing a darker-looking movie than Ridley Scott's 1982 original.

"Netflix my ass," he quipped after wowing the crowd with bleak scenes from Los Angeles and a snow-bound Las Vegas, all of which were filmed in Budapest.

Denis Villeneuve's "Blade Runner 2049" stars Ryan Gosling as the LAPD's Officer K while Harrison Ford reprises his role as Rick Deckard from the original.

It is already one of the most hotly anticipated movies of the year six months ahead of its release, but that didn't stop Rothman taking a swipe at new kid on the block Netflix.

- DiCaprio's 'whining' -

The internet streamer has found itself in conflict with movie theater operators in the past because its original content goes straight to viewers' TVs and mobile devices.

The comic highlight of the evening came with Dwayne Johnson bringing on castmates Nick Jonas, Karen Gillan and Jack Black to present footage from "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle," a remake of 1995's "Jumanji" starring Robin Williams.

The segment started off respectably enough, with Johnson paying tribute to the late Williams and recalling his nerves at meeting his comic hero.

But then Black hilariously brought down the tone by complaining about harsh conditions -- "the mosquitoes, the heat, the hellish terrain" -- during the shoot in Hawaii.

"A lot of people make a big deal about how awesome it was that Leonardo DiCaprio braved the ice-cold tundra in 'The Revenant,'" he ventured.

"I don't want to hear his whining. You try to make a movie in Hawaii... We got centipedes nipping at the sack, so I don't wanna hear it, DiCap!"

In an action-packed presentation lasting almost two hours, Sony also squeezed in footage from Diederik Van Rooijen's horror "Cadaver," Taraji P. Henson's starring role as an assassin in "Proud Mary," and a remake of 1990 horror "Flatliners," starring Ellen Page and Diego Luna.
"The war is over, gunslinger," says the Man in Black  a purrier-than-usual Matthew McConaughey in this case  and thus begins the first footage ever seen from Sony Pictures' adaptation of the Stephen King saga The Dark Tower.

But really, it looks more like a war is just beginning.

Many years in development, this first look came Monday during Cinemacon, the annual gathering of cinema owners from around the globe and Hollywood studios who come to Las Vegas to show their wares.

SEE ALSO: Stephen Kings Unpublished N. Coming to Your Cell Phone

The two minutes or so played like a trailer, showing scenes from the epic, era-spanning post-apocalyptic story that King began in the early 1980s. McConaughey plays the Man in Black, a timeless villain who seems in the film version to have ... the Force?

Wearing a simple black shirt and pants, the Man in Black's abilities include stopping bullets between his fingers without looking, moving fallen shards of glass out of his umbra and other telekinetic abilities that would impress Yoda himself. Even if he was just trying.

And then there's Roland the Gunslinger, played by Idris Elba, the last of an ancient order of protectors who roam the wasteland. We first met Roland in The Gunslinger, and like the books, his abilities lie mostly in the chambers of two heavy six-shooters.

"I kill with my heart," Elba says in voiceover, as we see him traversing a world now littered with the junk and rubble of a war gone by. The Gunslinger is seeking the Tower  and we get a few glimpses of the tower itself in various stages of disrepair  and though he's not sure what he's going to do when he gets there, he knows his quest requires it.

Along the way he meets a cast of random characters who will aid him in various ways, the first of whom is Jake (Tom Taylor), a roughly 9-year-old boy who starts his journey in our world and time. Back home he sees (and also draws) visions of the tower, the Gunslinger and an old, abandoned house  which we see him find, enter and finally slide through a portal into that other world.

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Once there, he shows Roland his Gunslinger drawing  it's a spitting image  and an alliance is formed.

We see Jake and Roland walking in front of the wreckage of war, and at one point, during the chaos of some kind of raid, Jake is being stolen away by one of the Man in Black's goons. Roland looks to the ground and takes along pause, raising his pistol of to some unseen target, waiting until his instincts tell him to fire. The bullet whizzes through various points in time, then finds its mark  Jake's kidnapper is dropped to the ground and the boy is ostensibly saved in a single shot.

Other visions we glimpsed: The tower falling (!!!) and its reverberations rippling through time, giant moons eclipsing on the horizon in the Gunslinger's realm, a wall with the phrase "All Hail the Crimson King!" scrawled in red as the Man in Black walks past (True Detective vibes, anyone?), and a major showdown between Roland and Black in an abandoned building.

That's where we see the Main in Black's Force-like powers are on full display, something that's not necessarily in The Gunslinger book  but then, in a time-jumping tale like this one, you can bet the first installment will be borrowing ideas from all across the eight-book saga written over 22 years.

The Dark Tower arrives in theaters on July 28.

WATCH: 'Shawshank Redemption' expands the book beyond its bars
(JOHANNESBURG) - Anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, who spent 26 years in jail-many of them alongside Nelson Mandela-for acts of sabotage against South Africas previous white minority government, died in Johannesburg on Tuesday morning. He was 87 years old.

Kathrada died after being admitted to hospital with blood clotting in his brain earlier in March.

Kathy was an inspiration to millions in different parts of the world, Neeshan Balton, the chief executive of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, said in a statement. This is great loss to the ANC (the African National Congress, South Africas ruling party), the broader liberation movement and South Africa as a whole.

Tributes poured in for Kathrada, who was released from prison in October 1989 at the age of 60.

Comrade Kathy was a gentle, humane and humble soul. He was a determined revolutionary who gave his entire life to the liberation struggle in our country, said Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom.

Kathrada was born on August 21, 1929, to Indian immigrant parents in a small town in northwestern South Africa.

He was arrested on the outskirts of Johannesburg in July, 1963 when the police swooped on Liliesleaf Farm in the suburb or Rivonia, where he was meeting with others banned by the apartheid government.

Their arrest led to the Rivonia trial in which eight accused, including Mandela, were sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor.

After his release from prison, Kathrada was a member of parliament and he married anti-apartheid activist Barbara Hogan, who herself had been sentenced to 10 years in jail for high treason against the apartheid government in 1982.

Recently Kathrada was a vocal critic of scandal-plagued President Jacob Zuma and the African National Congress government.

In April last year Kathrada called on Zuma to resign after South Africas highest court found that Zuma had violated his oath of office by refusing to pay back public money spent on upgrading his rural home.

I know that if I were in the presidents shoes, I would step down with immediate effect, he said. I believe that is what would help the country to find its way out of a path that it never imagined it would be on, but one that it must move out of soon.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
A Texas teacher has been arrested following what police say was an investigation into her alleged relationship with a middle school student.

Rebecca Goerdel, 28, was arrested Friday after having been removed from the campus of Young Men's Leadership Academy at Kennedy Middle School after the allegations came to light March 10, according to the Grand Prairie Independent School District.

Watch: Teen Who Ran Off With 50-Year-Old Teacher Wrote: Every Beauty Needs Her Beast

Administrators received "information indicating potential impropriety" that allegedly occurred after school dismissed on the afternoon of March 10, according to a school district statement on the matter.

Officials said Goerdel was relieved of all duties immediately and has not been in the classroom since.

Law enforcement was notified that same afternoon and opened an investigation, which culminated in an arrest on Friday.

In her strongly worded response, the Grand Prairie ISD Superintendent of Schools Dr. Susan Hull offered no clarity on the exact nature of the alleged relationship while urging law enforcement to "pursue all available action."

Watch: Teacher Charged With Child Sex Abuse After Being Impregnated By Student

"This kind of conduct is outrageous and will not be tolerated," Dr. Hull said. "The teacher-student relationship is sacred. It reflects a vow from teachers to parents that their children are safe  as safe as they would be at home. When a teacher in Grand Prairie ISD breaks that vow, he or she ill be dealt with quickly and aggressively."

It is unclear whether the boy was in Goerdel's class when the relationship is alleged to have occurred.

Watch: Former Student Who Had Relationship With Teacher: I Didn't Know I Was a Victim

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Washington (AFP) - Secret meetings, phone taps, Russian oil money and mysterious intelligence dossiers: the swirling scandal over Donald Trump's ties to Moscow has all the makings of a classic spy novel -- whose ending has yet to be written.

But the maelstrom engulfing Washington over Russia's interference in the US election last year is very real, and the political stakes have never been higher: Trump's presidency itself.

Increasingly the story is turning to one of deliberate misinformation, leaks to the media, and worries of a high-level cover-up.

The plot appears simple: Moscow, aiming to damage the presidential prospects of Democrat Hillary Clinton, deployed hacked documents and misinformation to boost the campaign of rival Trump.

But underlying that is the explosive question: did Trump's campaign collude with Moscow?

That's where the wiretaps, a former British spy's dossier on contacts between Trump's campaign and Russian intelligence, Trump's business dealings with Russian tycoons, and cryptic statements by US spy chiefs, take hold of the plot.

The Director of National Intelligence and the heads of the FBI, CIA, and National Security Agency announced on January 6 that they were convinced that Russian President Vladimir Putin had masterminded the effort to manipulate the November election.

But they held back their evidence. Nor did they comment on the report by Christopher Steele, a former British MI6 agent, that details numerous alleged communications between Trump advisors and Russian officials during 2016.

The Steele report, which has not been substantiated and has been rejected by the White House as "fake news," lies at the heart of suspicions of collusion. It also, provocatively, suggests Putin has possession of a sex video secretly filmed in 2013 while Trump was in Moscow.

- Kaleidoscope of characters -

Like any good political yarn, the story has unfolded with a kaleidoscopic cast of characters.

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A key mystery man throughout is Russia's chummy ambassador Sergey Kislyak, who appears to have met Trump and everyone around him during the campaign.

There is Michael Flynn, a former US military intelligence chief who was generously paid to attend a gala of Russia's RT television in December 2015, where he sat together with Putin. It was Flynn's half-truths about his calls with Kislyak that forced him out of his new job as White House national security advisor in February.

Another key person is Paul Manafort, who spent years working for Moscow-backed Ukraine leader Viktor Yanukovych before becoming Trump's campaign chief. Did he also have contact with Russian intelligence, as the New York Times suggests?

Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, met with Russia's ambassador and a top Russian banker in December. Jeff Sessions, the Trump government's attorney general, first said he never met Kislyak during the campaign and then admitted to doing so. Carter Page, a Trump advisor and former Moscow-based banker, also met the omnipresent Moscow envoy and other Russian officials.

- Stonewalled investigations? -

The question now is whether various investigations will go ahead, without interference. The FBI is conducting a counterintelligence probe, under the lead of a director already under a cloud for his own alleged interference in the election, which hurt Clinton.

The House and Senate intelligence committees, which are privy to classified intelligence, are also investigating.

But the House committee probe appears under threat. Its chief, Republican Devin Nunes, cancelled a planned open hearing this week after he "discovered" secret surveillance documents that he said showed Trump and associates were picked up in "incidental collections" by US intelligence agencies. Nunes later admitted having received the documents during a surreptitious visit to a White House "safe" room last week.

Rather than share the information with his committee, Nunes made a very visible trip to present it to Trump, who said it "somewhat" vindicated his unproven charge that former president Barack Obama had ordered the intelligence agencies to wiretap Trump Tower during the campaign.

Since then Nunes has revealed nothing about the information he received, drawing sharp criticism and calls to step down. Jackie Speier, a Democratic member of the committee, said the moves smack of an effort by the White House and Nunes to shut down the House investigation.

"I don't think the president wants this investigation to go forward," she told MSNBC on Tuesday.

- Trump at the center -

At the center, of course, is Trump, who has animated the story with his off-the-cuff tweets. But he perpetuates suspicions by criticizing US intelligence bodies, the media, and Democrats, while praising the Russians.

His focus has been to defend his election victory as legitimate while changing the subject.

"Why isn't the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia," he tweeted Monday in a reference to the Clintons.

Trump's tweets, Nunes' evasive tactics, and denials by Trump aides of any wrongdoing have failed to kill the plot. Yet the question remains, was there any real collusion with Moscow? Trump's opponents are certain there is; his defenders say it is all smoke.

John McCain, the veteran Republican senator, adapted a classic metaphor to suggest how it will unroll.

"I think there are a lot of shoes to drop from this centipede."
What good is a writer if he cant destroy literature? The question comes from Julio Cortazars landmark 1963 novel Hopscotch, the dense, elusive, streetwise masterpiece that doubles as a High Modernist choose-your-own-adventure game. Famously, it includes an introductory table of instructions: This book consists of many books, Cortazar writes in it, but two books above all. The first version is read traditionally, from chapter one straight through; the second version begins at chapter seventy-three, and snakes through a non-linear sequence. Both reading modes follow the world-weary antihero Horacio Oliveira, Cortazars proxy protagonist, who is disenchanted with the tepid certainties of bourgeois life, and whose metaphysical explorations form the scaffolding of a billowing, richly comic existential caper. Of his magnum opus, Cortazar said, laconically, Ive remained on the side of the questions. But it was the novels formal daringits branching pathsthat hinted at what was to be the Argentine authors most persistent and most personal inquiry: Why should there be only one reality?

That suspicion of grand narrativesboth in literature and in lifeinforms much of Literature Class, a newly published collection of eight lectures the writer delivered at the University of California, Berkeley in 1980. The consequent lecturesoriginally delivered in Spanish and translated adeptly by Katherine Silverare erudite, intimate, charmingly fragmented, and anecdotal, covering a range of topics, from Eroticism and Literature to The Realistic Short Story. The unifying through line is Cortazars abiding insistence on the elasticity of literary art, the better to capture what he saw as a fleeting, contentious, and ever-fluid reality. At one point, Cortazar tells his students, I had lived with a complete feeling of familiarity with the fantastic because it seemed as acceptable to me, as possible and as real, as the fact of eating soup at eight oclock in the evening. The fantastic, then, was a means of leavening the flatness of the widely accepted, or the merely prosaic. The sentiment becomes something of a refrain. For Cortazar, like his creation Horacio, the joylessand, in cases, politically expedientnarrowing of lived possibility was forever conspiring with a larger falseness, one he called the prefabricated, pre-established world.

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While Cortazar doesnt explicitly explain what he meant by this, his work suggests a deep distrust of the very everydayness of life, a suspicion that it constitutes a paralysis masquerading as a soothing routine. It occurred to me like a sort of mental belch, Horacio says in one of Hopscotchs lengthy internal monologues, that this whole A B C of my life was a painful bit of stupidity, because it was based solely onthe choice of what could be called nonconduct rather than conduct. Elsewhere, in the short story The Instruction Manual, Cortazar writes with similar misgiving, How it hurts to refuse a spoon, to say no to a door, to deny everything that habit has licked to a suitable smoothness. The lectures take up arms against that smoothness with a disarming candor: Why do people accept that things are the way they are when they could be some other way? he asks his students in a lecture called The Ludic in Literature. It seems a simple, even banal, question, yet it animated his work to an extraordinary degree.

Literature Class suggests that the audacity of Cortazars work is inextricable from the tumultuous mid-century politics.

By the time of his Berkeley sojourn, Cortazar was no stranger to undermining these kinds of assumptions. Indeed, for the offshoot of literary modernism referred to as the Latin American Boomin which Cortazar played a definitive role in its 1960s heydaya radical reevaluation of reality came with the territory. The Boom, which included the fertile works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes, and Jose Lezama Lima, among others, helped to shatter the barriers between the mundane and the fantastic. Cortazar himself brought a kind of cosmopolitan cubism to the novel in which time, place, language, even the literal text itself, became sites of contention, participation, and play. The read-as-you-like instructions of Hopscotch, then (The reader may ignore what follows with a clean conscience) should not be taken as mere gamesmanship or avant-garde posturing; rather, they actively pushed up against a literary realism that no longer suited the fragmented textures of contemporary Latin American life.

Widespread political turbulence was an inescapable feature of that experience, even as a concomitant concern with what it meant to be a politically engaged Latin American artist took shape beside it. A new wave of fiercely complex, narratively adventurous novels like Augusto Roa Bastoss I, the Supreme, a barely concealed censure of the Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner, and Mario Vargas Llosas The Time of the Hero, copies of which the Peruvian military burned, showcased the potency of literature as a means of speaking to dictatorial power. I think it is now clear that the inevitable dialect that always exists between reality and literature has evolved deeply in many of our countries through the force of circumstance, Cortazar tells his students in A Writers Paths, the most nakedly autobiographical of the Berkeley lectures. Literature Class is punctuated by such candid remarks, and suggests that the sparkle and audacity of Cortazars work, to say nothing of the Boom as a whole, are in many ways inextricable from that tumultuous mid-century political moment. Cortazars mid-career epiphany that literature should be born out of the process of the populace, the peoples that the author belongs to arguably came out of this experience; it represented a radical awakening to a frankly political, though never crudely didactic, art. I had to switch my emphasis to the condition of being Latin American, Cortazar says in the same lecture, and take on everything that came with that responsibility and that duty.

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No small part of that duty was Cortazars project of reality-testing. Just as in his novels and short stories, that wordrealityappears dozens of times throughout Literature Class. Over the course of the lectures, the word accretes a kind of moral gravity until one begins to understand it as Cortazar himself appeared to: a battlefield over which opposing forces grappled for control. This was no mere abstraction. During the brutal regimes of Peron, Batista, Somoza, and others, officially sanctioned reality lost any claim to the real; rather, it served as a kind of malignant fiction in which the State was the unquestioned narrator. (The Trump administrations insistence on alternative facts is only the latest iteration of this tactic.) Cortazars experience of this encroachment would be sporadiche had lived in Paris since 1951but profound. The so-called Dirty War saw thousands of his countrymen killed or disappeared in the 1970s as anti-communist death squads ruthlessly eliminated supposed dissidents. It is in this realm, Cortazar says to his students in the lecture Latin American Literature Today, so stained with blood, torture, prisons, and depraved demagoguery, where our literature is fighting its battles.

The lectures show a great writer interrogating the efficacy of a weapon he has no choice but to use.

Cortazars quest for reality, then, became indistinguishable from his critique of it. In a 1976 edition of the international literary quarterly Books Abroad, he wrote, Nothing seems more revolutionary to me than enriching the notion of reality by all means possible. No matter what form that enrichment took in his fiction (the branching paths of Hopscotch, the visionary naivete of Cronopios and Famas, the genre instability of Blow-Up: And Other Stories), its objective, as he suggests in The Realistic Short Story, was to produce reality as it is, without betraying it, without deforming it, allowing the reader to see beneath the causes, into the deeper workings, the reasons that lead men to be as they are or as they are not. Always something of a moving target in his work, reality, finally, wasnt meant to be found, much less achieved. It was an endless pursuit, morally malleable, generous, radically free. When you reach the limits of expression, he says in another lecture, just beyond begins a territory where everything is possible and everything is uncertain. In Cortazars terms, weve reached Eden: the ultimate state of grace.

The classroom, of course, was another story entirely. Cortazar might have seen it as a place where official narratives, that pre-established world, could be nurtured and legitimized for studentsan irony he was doubtless abundantly aware of as he lectured. Indeed, almost immediately one can feel him chafing beneath the authority conferred by the lectern. I want you to know that Im cobbling together these classes very shortly before you get here, he says on his first day. Im not systematic, Im not a critic or a theorist. Later, in the lecture Writing Hopscotch, he reveals the ultimate source of his apprehension: How can [the writer] denounce something with the tools that are used by the enemy, that is  a language already used by the masters and their disciples? Whatever the ostensible topic of a given lecture, these evasions continue to surface like an anxious tic. Taken together, they comprise the enormously enjoyable subtext of Literature Class: the ambivalence of a great writer who seeks to interrogate the efficacy of a weapon he has no choice but to use.

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Coming at the end of Cortazars life (he would die less than four years later), the lectures of Literature Class form a capstone to a remarkable career. While its tempting to endorse the seductive, ready-made narrative such a collection invitesconquering literary hero dispenses distilled wisdom to ravenous devoteesCortazar himself would probably have rejected that facile framing. I want to say that I am deeply grateful for your loyalty, he tells his students before their final parting, and the attention with which you have attended this, that wasnt really a class, that was more like, I think, a dialogue, a connection. The distinction is instructive. One recalls his remark concerning Hopscotch, Ive remained on the side of the questionsand little wonder. For Julio Cortazar, reality was just that: a question without need of an answer, an endless conversation, the breathless plunge when solid ground gave way to something falling, something freeing.

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This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
DEAD SEA, Jordan (AP)  The Palestinian president said Tuesday that he expects this year's Arab summit to deliver a "clear message to the world" about Palestinian rights.

Mahmoud Abbas spoke to reporters on the sidelines of the summit, which brought together kings, presidents and top officials from 21 Arab countries.

The long-stalled Palestinian quest for statehood is a key issue at the gathering. Several of more than a dozen draft resolutions deal with the Palestinian issue.

Abbas said he expects the summit to give full backing to the Palestinian positions and to deliver a "clear message to the world about Palestinian rights."

A 2002 Arab peace plan, which offers Israel normal ties with dozens of Arab and Muslim states in exchange for withdrawing from war-won lands sought for a Palestinian state, is to be reaffirmed when heads of state meet Wednesday.

On the eve of the summit, Abbas met with U.S. President Donald Trump's international envoy, Jason Greenblatt, who has been shuttling between Israel, the West Bank and Jordan in recent weeks to assess prospects for reviving Israeli-Palestinian negotiations after years of paralysis.

Israeli settlement construction has been a major obstacle to resuming talks. Abbas has said he can't negotiate while Israel continues to build more homes for Jews on occupied lands. Greenblatt has talked to Israel's leader about construction curbs.

Referring to the settlements, Abbas said Tuesday that "we are now waiting how things are being dealt with between them (the Americans) and the Israelis."

At the same time, he said, there are "lots of questions from the American side at this stage, and we answered all of their questions."

Abbas initially feared he would be sidelined by the Trump administration, which early on embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump has since invited Abbas to the White House, a meeting Abbas said he expects to take place in late April or early May.

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Greenblatt met Tuesday with the Qatari and Egyptian foreign ministers as well as the European Union's foreign policy chief on the sidelines of the summit. In Twitter messages, Greenblatt said he was talking to them about ways to support Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

Earlier Tuesday, King Abdullah II of Jordan welcomed Arab leaders arriving for the summit, including Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is being sought by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The international group Human Rights Watch urged Jordan to arrest al-Bashir, based on two long-standing arrest warrants issued by the court. The charges were filed in connection with his government's campaign against insurgents in Sudan's Darfur region.

Jordan has said that as an Arab League member Sudan has a right to attend Wednesday's summit.

Al-Bashir has traveled despite ICC arrest warrants, but is careful where he goes.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with a Texas death row inmate who claims he should not be executed because he is intellectually disabled.

The justices, by a 5-3 vote, reversed a Texas appeals court ruling that said inmate Bobby James Moore was not intellectually disabled.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in her majority opinion that Texas' top criminal appeals court ignored current medical standards and required use of outdated criteria when it decided Moore isn't mentally disabled. That ruling removed a legal hurdle to Moore's execution for the shotgun slaying of a Houston grocery store clerk in 1980.

"Texas cannot satisfactorily explain why it applies current medical standards for diagnosing intellectual disability in other contexts, yet clings to superseded standards when an individual's life is at stake," Ginsburg said.

The decision was the second this term in which the high court has ruled for a Texas death row inmate. In February, the justices said race improperly tainted inmate Duane Buck's death sentence.

Chief Justice John Roberts dissented, along with Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. Roberts agreed that the Texas court used the wrong factors to determine mental disability. But he said the court also made a separate and independent determination about Moore's intellectual abilities, finding they were not low enough to warrant a finding he was mentally disabled.

"Clinicians, not judges, should determine clinical standards," Roberts said. "And judges, not clinicians, should determine the content of the Eighth Amendment."

The Supreme Court held in 2002 that people convicted of murder who are intellectually disabled cannot be executed. The court gave states some discretion to decide how to determine intellectual disability. The justices have wrestled in several more recent cases about how much discretion to allow.

In 2014, the court ruled unconstitutional a Florida law that barred any other evidence of intellectual disability if an inmate's IQ was over 70.

Texas looks at three main points to define intellectual disability: IQ scores, with 70 generally considered a threshold; an inmate's ability to interact with others and care for him- or herself and whether evidence of deficiencies in either of those areas occurred before age 18.

The case is Moore v. Texas, 15-797.
By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Tuesday faulted Texas, the U.S. leader in executions, in a death penalty case for the second time in a month and again ruled in favor of a black inmate, finding the state used an obsolete standard to assess whether he is intellectually disabled and exempt from capital punishment.

The justices, in a 5-3 decision, threw out a Texas court's ruling upholding the death sentence of Bobby Moore, 57, who was convicted at age 20 of fatally shooting an elderly grocery store clerk during a 1980 robbery in Houston. Moore's lawyers argue he is intellectually disabled and thus not eligible for the death penalty, and now get another chance to show that in court.

"Today, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that all persons with intellectual disability are exempt from execution, and that current medical standards must be used to determine whether a person is intellectually disabled," said Cliff Sloan, Moore's lawyer.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that the execution of people who are intellectually disabled violates the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which bans cruel and unusual punishment. In Moore's case, in a ruling authored by liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the court held that the Texas system for gauging the intellect of defendants is deficient.

On Feb. 22, the court gave another Texas death row inmate, Duane Buck, a chance to avoid execution because his trial was tainted by testimony from a psychologist who stated Buck was more likely to commit future crimes because he is black. Chief Justice John Roberts denounced the "noxious strain of racial prejudice" seen in that Texas case.

Since the resumption of capital punishment in the United States four decades ago, Texas has carried out 542 executions, far more than any other state. Texas has executed four inmates so far this year, more than every other state combined.

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office said he was disappointed in the ruling on Moore but offered no further comment.

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The lower court that upheld Moore's sentence wrongly used a quarter-century old definition employed in Texas when it determined Moore was not intellectually disabled, the court ruled. Moore's lawyers said a lower court found that Moore's IQ of 70 was "within the range of mild mental retardation."

'DIMINISH THE FORCE'

Ginsburg noted that the Supreme Court had previously said consideration of intellectual disability must be guided by the views of medical experts.

"That instruction cannot sensibly be read to give courts leave to diminish the force of the medical community's consensus," Ginsburg wrote.

Conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the court's four liberals in the ruling. Three of the court's conservatives, Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito, dissented.

Roberts wrote in dissent that court precedent did not compel a ruling favoring Moore.

"The court instead crafts a constitutional holding based solely on what it deems to be medical consensus about intellectual disability. But clinicians, not judges, should determine clinical standards; and judges, not clinicians, should determine the content of the Eighth Amendment," he wrote.

Moore, a repeat offender at the time of the murder, shot store clerk James McCarble in the head with a shotgun after entering the Birdsall Super Market with two other robbers wearing a wig and sunglasses, according to prosecutors. Authorities apprehended him in Louisiana 10 days later.

More death row inmates from Harris County, where Moore was prosecuted, have been executed since the resumption of the death penalty than any other county. In fact, the number of inmates executed from that single county exceeds the total of any other whole state other than Texas.

U.S. executions are becoming less common, with opinion polls showing rising opposition to the death penalty. Twenty executions were carried out in 2016, the lowest total since 1991, and they took place in only five of the 50 states.

The Supreme Court's justices have differed among themselves over capital punishment but the court has shown no indication it will take up the broader question of the whether the death penalty itself violates the Constitution.

In 2015, they upheld Oklahoma's lethal injection process in a 5-4 ruling. But Ginsburg and fellow liberal Justice Stephen Breyer asserted that the way the death penalty is implemented may be unconstitutional in part because of state-to-state differences.

On Feb. 21, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor faulted the court for declining to consider whether Alabama's lethal injection procedures amounted to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Will Dunham)
Washington (AFP) - Trying to avoid costly prosecutions and long prison sentences for the accused, plea bargains are commonplace in the United States.

But what if the defendant is given bad legal advice to plead guilty, eliminating their constitutional right to a jury trial?

The Supreme Court was weighing that issue Tuesday, in the case of a South Korean-born immigrant who claims he was ill-advised by his lawyer in a minor drug case.

Jae Lee, a lawful US resident, came from South Korea to New York at 13, accompanied by his parents. He grew up in the borough of Brooklyn; his parents became US citizens but he did not.

Lee later moved to the southern state of Tennessee, where he worked in the restaurant business before opening his first restaurant, and then a second.

He became an occasional user of ecstasy, a synthetic psychoactive drug, and according to authorities, began selling it.

In January 2009, police armed with a search warrant found 88 ecstasy tablets in his home. He was arrested for possession of the drug with the intent to distribute it.

Lee told his attorney, Larry Fitzgerald, that it was crucial for him to avoid deportation from the United States.

Fitzgerald began negotiations with the prosecutor and convinced Lee to plead guilty. His attorney assured him that even though he was not a US citizen, he would not be deported after he served his sentence because of his heretofore clean record over three decades in the country.

- Lawful resident -

The restaurateur was finally sentenced to one year and one day in prison, a much more lenient penalty than normally imposed for drug trafficking.

The problem was that Fitzgerald was mistaken about immigration laws: Deportation is automatic for non-US citizens pleading guilty to the crime of drug trafficking.

Devastated, Lee petitioned the courts against his lawyer, saying that without Fitzgerald's advice he would have taken his chances by going to trial, or negotiating a lesser plea that would not force his deportation, and serving a longer sentence if it meant he could stay in the US.

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Under US law, a conviction can be overturned if the defendant did not receive effective aid from the lawyer. But the defendant has to show firstly that the lawyer's representation was deficient, and secondly that the deficiency caused him damage.

It is the second element that the federal government is disputing in the case. The government insists that when there is overwhelming evidence of guilt, the defendant cannot be injured by a plea bargain.

According to Eric Feigin, assistant to the solicitor general at the Justice Department, even if Lee had gone to trial he would have certainly been convicted, sent to prison and deported.

That trial outcome is uncertain, argued John Bursch, the new lawyer representing Lee, who pointed out that the defendant could have sought a lesser plea alternative.

"There could have been some other arrangement" with the prosecutor, said Bursch, whose remarks seemed to catch the ear of the liberal justices on the Supreme Court.

- Anything but deportation -

In considering that Lee's plea bargain had only reduced his sentence by nine months, and he still would have to be deported, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said it would have been rational for him to take a chance on a trial.

Putting herself in Lee's position, she said that if "there's even a one percent chance that I might be found not guilty, or at least found guilty of possession and not something else, I think I'm going to roll the dice."

The case comes as President Donald Trump's administration steps up enforcement of immigration laws and pursues deportations of undocumented immigrants, with a priority on those who commit crimes.

An estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States.

The Lee case, which should be decided by late June, also casts a light on the deficiencies of plea bargaining, criticized for overshadowing a judge's independence.

More than 95 percent of criminal cases in the US federal justice system are resolved by a plea bargain.

Often innocent people plead guilty for fear of facing a harsher sentence if they risk a jury trial for a crime they did not commit.
(Reuters) - Swansea City midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson does not get the credit he deserves and would be recognised as one of the Premier League's best players if the club were higher up the table, manager Paul Clement has said. With his tally of eight goals and 11 assists, Sigurdsson has played a key role in helping 17th-placed Swansea climb out of the relegation zone. Clement believes the Iceland international deserves a mention among the league's top players. "I think he is more than good enough to be in that discussion, he probably gets overlooked because of the position of the team," he told British media. "When teams are lower down in the table, the individual players don't always get that recognition they deserve, but he is a player that's done really, really well." Clement praised Sigurdsson for putting in extra work on the training pitch, as well as for his professional attitude. "Every day in training, pushing, extra stuff to work on his technique, his finishing, set plays," he added. "He is really alert and attentive in the video meetings, (takes) good care of his body, (a) very good professional." Swansea, who have won their last three home games, host 19th-placed Middlesbrough on Sunday and second-placed Tottenham Hotspur three days later. (Reporting by Hardik Vyas in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
Tabqa Dam (Syria) (AFP) - The road to the Tabqa dam in northern Syria is strewn with evidence of the clashes being waged by a US-backed alliance of fighters against the Islamic State group.

Bits of burned vehicles and the casings of ammunition litter the roadside leading into the dam complex, which the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) entered Friday.

Two overturned tanks lie in the rubble and dirt berms along the roadside, and the bodies of several alleged IS fighters lie in the shallow water of a canal.

The jihadist group still controls the main dam itself, Syria's largest, which straddles the Euphrates River.

But fighters from the Kurdish-Arab SDF alliance who were airlifted behind IS lines last week by US forces entered the complex from the north on Friday and seized part of it.

The battle for the dam has sparked concern about its integrity, with fears that any damage to it could cause its failure and "catastrophic" flooding.

The facility went out of service over the weekend, a technical source there told AFP, after damage to its power station.

"We tried to preserve the dam as much as possible so that it was not damaged," SDF commander Rojda Felat told AFP.

"We think Daesh has laid explosives on it to prevent our advance," she added, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

- 'Jihad is our path' -

Signs of IS control are everywhere, starting with a placard cautioning that the maximum load allowed on the dam is 50 tonnes, and warning that any additional weight will incur a fine.

Elsewhere, a sign in white Arabic script on a black background reads: "The Quran is our constitution, Mohammed is our leader, and jihad is our path."

The battle for the dam is part of the SDF's preparations for a larger assault on IS's de facto Syrian capital Raqa, which lies around 55 kilometres (34 miles) east of Tabqa.

The alliance, backed by the US-led coalition fighting IS in Iraq and Syria, is aiming to effectively encircle Raqa, and on Sunday captured the nearby Tabqa military airport.

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The coalition has launched air strikes in support of the operation, and Felat said its forces were playing a stepped-up role on the ground.

"This time, coalition forces took part in greater force than previous occasions with new tactics like the airlift, crossing the river, and artillery fire," she said.

Inside the part of the complex under SDF control, a concrete bunker near the water's edge bears a crude white rendition of IS's flag, painted on its side.

And from a position on the edge of Lake Assad, created by the dam and Syria's largest water reservoir, positions still held by IS can be seen, with the group's black flag fluttering next to a mosque.

- Fears of flooding -

Since arriving at the complex, the SDF has left their mark too: the letters SDF and YPG are graffitied in English on concrete barrages pockmarked by bullets.

Amid fears for the dam's integrity, the SDF announced Monday it was pausing operations for four hours to allow engineers to enter the facility.

A source at the dam said the team needed more time to carry out inspections and repairs.

"It will take two or three days to assess and repair the damage, which was a result of the bombardment of the electrical distribution room," he told AFP.

"The teams will try to find alternatives to the power station to make the dam functional again," he said.

But an SDF spokeswoman said inspections had been successful and the pause in fighting was now over.

"There is no damage to the dam or its function, the engineers have finished their work and confirmed that the dam has not been damaged, and on this basis the ceasefire ended," said Jihan Sheikh Ahmed in a statement.

Earlier this year, the United Nations raised concern about the prospect of damage to the dam in fighting, warning that water levels -- which put pressure on the structure -- were already high.

It warned damage to the dam could produce "massive scale flooding" in Raqa province and even further east in Deir Ezzor, with "catastrophic humanitarian implications".
By Maha El Dahan and Polina Devitt CAIRO/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Syria has received 50,000 tonnes of Russian wheat as humanitarian aid, Syrian and Russian government sources said on Tuesday. The two cargoes arrived in March, they said. However, no Russian wheat from the commercial deals signed with state grain buyer Hoboob have arrived yet, the Syrian government source said. The Russian Agriculture Ministry declined to comment. Russian government officials said in November their country plans to send around 100,000 tonnes of wheat as aid to Syria. A deal struck in October for Syria to buy 1 million tonnes of Russian wheat with little known firm Zernomir is in jeopardy, according to Syrian and Russian government sources, after Hoboob failed to receive any grain from the deal. Also no wheat has arrived under another deal struck with local Syrian wheat traders in February for 1.2 million tonnes of Russian wheat. "We have received nothing from these two deals yet," the Syrian government source said. (Reporting by Maha El Dahan, Polina Devitt and Michael Hogan; Editing by Mark Potter, Greg Mahlich)
By Andrius Sytas and J.R. Wu VILNIUS/TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer Quanta Computer Inc <2382.TW> has acknowledged that its name was used as part of an email fraud scheme that bilked two U.S.-based internet companies out of more than $100 million. U.S. prosecutors last week indicted a Lithuanian man, Evaldas Rimasauskas, for the fraud. He was arrested this month in Lithuania at the request of U.S. authorities and is currently in jail there. Rimasauskas' alleged scheme involved sending emails to employees of the two unnamed companies asking them to wire money that they actually owed to the Asian hardware vendor to the accounts of companies in Latvia and Cyprus that carried the name Quanta. In order to conceal his fraud from banks that handled the transfers, Rimasaukas forged invoices, contracts and letters purportedly signed by executives of the two victim companies, according to prosecutors. In a statement on Monday to Reuters, Quanta spokeswoman Carol Hu said the company had been "impersonated" as part of the fraud. "Quanta did not suffer from any financial harm from this incident," she added, calling the matter "unfortunate." Quanta, with a market capitalisation of $8.4 billion, is a supplier of servers and other hardware to major technology companies. It is part of the Open Compute Project, an initiative launched by Facebook Inc to share server design technology. In 2011 Amazon.com Inc outsourced the assembly of its Kindle Fire tablet to Quanta. It is not known who the two victims of the alleged $100 million fraud were. U.S. prosecutors referred to them in a statement as a "multinational technology company" and a "multinational online social media company." Representatives of Amazon and Facebook have had no comment on whether they were possible victims of the scheme. Rimasauskas, through his lawyer, confirmed he was the owner of a Latvian company with the same name as Quanta from 2013 to 2016, the time frame in which the fraud occurred, according to the indictment. "Rimasauskas did buy the Latvian company, because he was going to develop a business," the lawyer, Linas Kuprusevicius, told Reuters in an email. Rimasauskas strongly contests the charges presented by U.S. authorities, the lawyer said. He has a construction engineering degree and was working at a construction business in Lithuania prior to his arrest, he said. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation said last year that U.S. and foreign victims had made 22,143 complaints since October 2013 about so-called business email compromise scams involving requests for more than $3 billion in transfers. A U.S. extradition request for Rimasauskas is expected by late May, Lithuanian prosecutors told Reuters. He is charged with wire fraud and money laundering, which each carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, and identity theft, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of two years. (Reporting by J.R. Wu in Taipei and Andrius Sytas in Vilnius; Additional reporting by Stephen Nellis, Jeffrey Dastin and David Ingram in San Francisco; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Tom Brown)
BEIJING (AP)  China's government said Wednesday it has detained a Taiwanese pro-democracy activist and is investigating him on suspicion of "pursuing activities harmful to national security."

Spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office Ma Xiaoguang said Lee Ming-che, 42, was in good health, but gave no information about where he was being held or other terms of his detention.

Lee disappeared after clearing immigration on March 19 in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory of Macau and never showed up for a planned meeting later that day with a friend across the border in China.

"Regarding Lee Ming-che's case, because he is suspected of pursing activities harmful to national security, the investigation into him is being handled in line with legal procedures," Ma told reporters at a news briefing.

On Tuesday, a colleague of Lee's said he may have attracted the attention of China's security services after he used the social media platform WeChat to discuss China-Taiwan relations.

Cheng Hsiu-chuan, president of Taipei's Wenshan Community College where Lee has worked for the past year as a program director, said Lee used WeChat to "teach" an unknown number of people about China-Taiwan relations under the government of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen.

"For China, the material he was teaching would be seen as sensitive," Cheng said. WeChat has hundreds of millions of active users and is hugely popular as a means of communication in China.

Lee had traveled annually to China for the past decade to see friends, Cheng said. He would discuss human rights in private but had never held any public events there, Cheng said.

However, in mid-2016 Chinese authorities shut down Lee's WeChat account and confiscated a box of books published in Taiwan on political and cultural issues, Cheng said.

"According to the news we've gotten, the state security bureau there doesn't know how to handle Lee's case," Cheng said.

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On his most recent trip, Lee planned to see friends and obtain Chinese medicine for his mother-in-law in Taiwan, his wife, Lee Ching-yu said. He was expected to stay in the southern Chinese hub city Guangzhou through March 26, she said.

Lee Ching-yu said a Taiwanese government agency also told her this week it had indirect information pointing to a Chinese state security detention.

"I want the government of China to act like a civilized country and tell me what they're doing with my husband on what legal grounds and, like a civilized country, what they plan to do with him," Lee said.

China claims sovereignty over Taiwan, a free-wheeling democracy with personal and political freedoms largely unknown on the authoritarian, Communist-ruled mainland. China insists that the two sides must eventually unify and has raised pressure on Taiwan since the election last year of President Tsai, whose Democratic Progressive Party advocates for Taiwan's formal independence. China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949.

___

Jennings contributed to this report from Taipei, Taiwan.
Taipei (AFP) - Filmmaker Huang Hui-chen felt bound by labels while growing up in Taiwan -- impoverished, a school dropout and daughter of a lesbian Taoist priestess who she yearned to understand.

Her award-winning directorial debut "Small Talk" is the culmination of two decades of filming their fraught relationship and was named best documentary last month at the Berlin International Film Festival, winning the LGBT-focused Teddy Award.

Set to hit the big screen in Taiwan in April, it comes as the island's parliament prepares to vote on a final bill to legalise same-sex marriage.

A landmark case currently in the constitutional court could also lead to a change in the law, making Taiwan the first place in Asia to allow gay couples to legally tie the knot.

But three decades ago, when Huang was a child, homosexuality was much less accepted.

She recalls vividly how, as an 11-year-old, she overheard two elderly acquaintances calling her mother abnormal, a "tongzhi" -- the Chinese term for someone who is gay.

Until then, Huang had not thought twice about her mother's relationships with women.

"My impression when I was little was that she was always surrounded by girlfriends. That she liked girls and was friendly with them," she told AFP.

"That one sentence sowed a seed of doubt in me. Why is that called abnormal?"

- On the outside -

Huang, 39, says she also felt like an outsider due to her family's unconventional lifestyle.

From the age of six, she and her younger sister worked in the capital Taipei with her mother as part of her duties as a priestess for Taoism -- Taiwan's dominant religion.

The family specialised in a ritual called "leading the dead," a song and dance performance believed to guide the soul to salvation and staged at funeral parlours and gravesides.

Huang says the occupation is considered a lowly blue-collar job and she felt her peers looked down upon her.

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By the time she was 10, she had stopped attending school. Her mother left Huang's abusive father -- who she had been married off to at a young age -- and did not enroll her in classes in their new neighbourhood.

Her film is an attempt to encourage younger generations who feel isolated or undervalued, she says.

"Kids who don't go to school, people who 'lead the dead', a child with a tongzhi mother -- all of them are worth more than the label society gives them," Huang told AFP.

- Violent undercurrents -

Huang's mother -- Hung Yue-nu, known as Anu -- never tried to hide her sexuality after splitting from her husband and only had relationships with women after that.

But equally she never discussed it with her daughter, who says her mother was always distant.

While the pair did not fight, Huang felt ignored as her mother lavished attention on her girlfriends. She was also resentful about not attending school like other children.

"Our relationship seemed peaceful on the surface, but violent undercurrents raged beneath," Huang said.

In her film, she tries to broach the divide.

The film was described as a "courageous portrayal" of her family's story by Berlin's Teddy Award jury.

Huang narrates the movie and her mother, ex-girlfriends and family members are all interviewed.

Renowned Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien, who made award-winning film "The Assassin", is executive producer.

Anu first watched herself in the film's world premiere in Taipei, ahead of Taiwan's 2016 Golden Horse Awards, where it was nominated for best documentary.

"She sat next to me and I could tell she was holding back tears," Huang said.

- Gay marriage debate -

Huang became interested in filmmaking at the age of 20, when a director came to shoot her as part of a piece about young funeral performers.

She then took film courses at a community college and began to explore her emotions about her mother for the first time.

"I learned another way to observe the world," she told AFP.

Huang, who is now mother to a five-year-old daughter, says communication with Anu is still not perfect, but is better than in the past.

"The film was not only about me understanding my mother, it was about her understanding me," she says.

Huang also hopes her film will spur conversations on gay rights and issues around education and single parenthood.

She believes the government should work harder to push the gay marriage bill, despite opposition from conservative groups.

But Anu appears to have little interest in the debate, says Huang.

She once brought her mother to Taipei's huge annual gay pride parade.

Despite the party atmosphere, Anu soon became bored and wanted to go and play chess with her friends, Huang says.

"Perhaps her state of mind is the most ideal -- that one does not need to make a statement to prove one's value," she says.
Small businesses, as the saying goes, need all of the help they can get these days. Clate Mask, CEO and cofounder at Infusionsoft, is one who helps small businesses and lends a hand. Mask is a visionary leader who took Infusionsoft from a struggling startup to an eight-time Inc. 500/5000 winner. Clate has helped this company land four rounds of venture capital, including a $55 million Series D led by Bain Capital Ventures with contributions from prior investors that included Signal Peak Ventures and Goldman Sachs.

Clate Mask has been named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist, a Top 100 Small Business Influencer by Small Business Trends, one of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs of 2013 by Goldman Sachs, and Business Leader of the Year by the Arizona Technology Council. Mask also co-authored the New York Times bestseller, Conquer the Chaos: How to Grow a Successful Small Business Without Going Crazy.

But what Mask does exceedingly well is help other entrepreneurs understand how to determine and accept the right funding for their businesses as well as how to assess what type of funding may not be right for them. I was able to catch up with Mask and learn more about his continued success and how his transition to Infusionsoft has progressed:

Why did you start Infusionsoft?

Scott Martineau, the Co-Founder, and I started Infusionsoft to create a team of innovators, industry experts, tech geeks and small business zealots that were focused on our mission to help other small businesses succeed. As entrepreneurs ourselves, we understood the struggle of turning an idea into a viable business and getting the funding needed to do so.

What had to change about the product in order to get investors interested?

We knew we had a powerful piece of software that did a lot for automating sales and marketing. However, we quickly realized that we needed to streamline the implementation experience so customers could tap into that great power much more easily and shorten the time it took to start enjoying the benefits of the software. Once we really got the automation process in place, it changed interest and we knew we had something special.

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What can an entrepreneur do to ensure they have something investors may want to fund?

Have a big problem to solve that involves a large segment of the market. Be prepared to go the distance with passion and tenacity to get through the barriers, especially one of the big barriers - rejection. Creating a big vision keeps you focused on what you are trying to accomplish.

What types of problems did you experience when trying to accomplish what you were creating with Infusionsoft?

The first three years essentially involved not being sure we were going to make it as a business or be able to get enough funds to even begin to have an income. We then ended up with considerable funding, raising approximately $19 million, but we still had some problems in terms of adjusting our business model. This led to our churn going sky high and that caused our business model to get screwed up. An unstable business model nearly cost us the company because we were close to using up all those funds in the process.

Did this funding nearly kill the business or was it a particular situation?

Its really a combination of things that can make you succeed, but its critical to get the right investor and right funding in the first place. Having the right funding and investor can prevent making the mistakes we did - that nearly killed our company. When we received the $19 million, it just seemed like those funds would last forever and we would be able to do whatever we wanted to with it. However, if we were to do it all again, I would say that it would help to have investors that participated more in the strategy and build-out so we could learn from their experience and be guided a bit more through the decision-making process on how the funds should be spent. We needed someone with experience with funds who would be willing to help us with the knowledge of what were essentials for purchase in a business and which items can wait. Having investors who doubled as mentors and who filled in the skills gaps really helped us to ensure we didnt waste funding.

Youve received even bigger amounts than $19 million so how did you stay grounded and use those funds wisely?

Its important never to focus on the size of the funding. Instead, only look at what you want to accomplish and then thoughtfully determine how you can get those processes done, talent hired, or company expanded on as lean a budget as possible. Stay scrappy and tell yourself you have to survive on scraps rather than assuming you are utterly successful and can spend like theres no tomorrow just because the funding is there.

Do you have other suggestions about what else is important for an entrepreneur to know about raising money?

You arent raising the money in the first place to completely change your strategy. You are looking for funding to fuel the strategy you already crafted and help accelerate the transition from idea into full-blown business. Stay focused on what you need the money for as your marker for going out and finding investors who share that same vision of what your company is intended to become.

Maintain that reality check for yourself as founders and for the talent that comes on board and hears how much money has been raised. Communicate how the funding will be spent on enacting your existing strategy and how those who join you can help achieve the company goals.

Do you have any advice on how to spot a bad investor for your company?

We learned that having common interests doesnt mean the investor is necessarily right for you. Sure, they are in your industry as well as understand and believe in what you are developing. Maybe they even have great connections to help you. However, if they dont share your common vision, its never going to be successful. This vision is about where the company is headed, how it will get there, how big your company will become, how the business plan for the company will evolve, and what will happen to plans in the future. If there are conflicting opinions on this vision, this could be the death knell, or the last tolling of the bell for the company. Make sure you know what each investors vision is for the company before taking their money.

What else can an entrepreneur look for to determine if its a good or bad investor for their company?

Do your research and study the investors that are out there and especially any investors which have shown interest in providing you with funds. You can find out what these investors or companies have invested in before and why and how they have helped other ventures, as well as how the investment operations ended up. Also consider how experienced a company is at investing in general in your industry, and in your particular solution. The company which wants to become a part of your business experience and reputation will also tell you what you can expect from the relationship. How has this investor handled previous challenges? You can even check in with other startups where your investor has supplied funds to learn more about how the experiences were for that founder. This due diligence can then provide the answer as to whether this investor is right or wrong for your company.

Entrepreneurs are taking a risk just like the investors they are pitching to because the entrepreneur is inviting someone else into their company to share in its development in exchange for a significant chunk of money that they will have to return at some point. Mask noted that, the more time you can spend doing your investor homework, the better chance you will have for finding the perfect match that takes your startup to the next level.

Peter Daisyme is the co-founder of Palo Alto, California-based Hostt, specializing in helping businesses with hosting their website for free, for life. Previously he was the co-founder of Pixloo, a company that helped people sell their homes online, which was acquired in 2012.

WATCH: Esports bars bring fans together to socialize and game
By Tim Ghianni

NASHVILLE (Reuters) - A Tennessee state judge was arrested on Tuesday and charged with obstructing justice as part of an investigation of whether he traded favors for sex, officials said.

Davidson County General Sessions Court Judge Cason "Casey" Moreland was charged with obstructing justice through bribery and with witness tampering following a two-month investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court.

Moreland, 59, faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Tennessee said in statement.

Moreland and his attorney could not be reached for comment.

Moreland's attorney met with the U.S. Attorney's Office to discuss the probe on Feb. 23. The judge, in local media interviews, has denied intervening on behalf of others, according to the complaint.

The FBI on Jan. 25 opened a probe of whether the judge extorted and accepted sexual favors, travel and lodging from people with whom he had close personal relationships, according to the complaint.

"The allegations set forth egregious abuses of power by a judge sitting here in Nashville," acting U.S. Attorney Jack Smith said at a press conference.

One complaint filed with the Board of Judicial Conduct alleged that the judge had sex with a person in the chambers of his courtroom in exchange for dismissing charges against that person. He also engaged in sexual relationships with women who appeared before him as defendants, the complaint said.

Moreland, from Nashville, became aware of the investigation on Feb. 1 when FBI agents tried to interview him.

Moreland then tried to obstruct the investigation by attempting to pay off one witness with $6,100 so she would recant previous statements made against the judge, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

The judge also tried to arrange to have drugs planted on the witness and orchestrate a traffic stop so the drugs would be found, destroying that person's credibility, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Moreland appeared before a U.S. magistrate on Tuesday afternoon and said he understood the charges against him, according to The Tennessean newspaper. He again declined to comment after the hearing.

(Reporting by Tim Ghianni; Editing by Ben Klayman and Leslie Adler)
London (AFP) - Supermarket Tesco has agreed to a fine and compensation costs totalling A214 million ($268 million, 247 million euros) after an accounting scandal at Britain's biggest retailer, the Serious Fraud Office said Tuesday.

Under a SFO deal that draws a line under the scandal stretching back three years, Tesco will not face prosecution.

However, charges have previously been brought against three former Tesco executives, who will face trial over alleged fraud and false accounting.

"Tesco... has in principle reached a deferred prosecution agreement with the UK Serious Fraud Office regarding historic accounting practice," the supermarket giant said in a statement.

This "is a voluntary agreement under which Tesco Stores Limited will not be prosecuted provided the business fulfils certain requirements, including paying a financial penalty of A129 million".

In addition, Tesco will compensate shareholders by around A85 million in total.

Tesco had been accused of overstating profits by A326 million between February and September 2014.

Following the incident, the company appointed outsider and former Unilever executive Dave Lewis in July 2014 to replace long-standing chief executive Philip Clarke and oversee a drastic restructuring of the group.

- 'Sincere regret' -

"Over the last two and a half years, we have fully co-operated with this investigation into historic accounting practices, while at the same time fundamentally transforming our business," Lewis said in the statement.

"We sincerely regret the issues which occurred in 2014 and we are committed to doing everything we can to continue to restore trust in our business and brand."

In recent years, Tesco has suffered in the face of fierce competition in its domestic market from German-owned discount retailers Aldi and Lidl -- and also from Sainsbury's, Morrison and Wal-Mart unit Asda.

Tuesday's announcement comes amid growing investor opposition to Tesco's proposed A3.7-billion takeover of British wholesaling giant Booker.

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Major Tesco shareholders Schroder Investment Management and Artisan Partners have demanded the board scrap the deal over the high price -- and branded it an unwelcome distraction from the supermarket's ongoing turnaround plans.

"The supermarket can now put the whole sorry saga of mis-stating its profits back in 2014 behind it," said ETX Capital analyst Neil Wilson.

"But it now has another fire to fight in the shape of a shareholder revolt over its proposed A3.7-billion buy-out of Booker."

Booker meanwhile is Britain's biggest cash-and-carry operator and sells goods to more than 503,000 customers -- including grocers, pubs and restaurants.

It also owns convenience store chains Budgens, Londis and Premier, as well as wholesalers Makro and Booker Wholesale.

In Tuesday deals, Tesco shares finished 0.66 percent lower at 191.20 pence on London's FTSE 100 index, which gained almost 0.7 percent to close at 7,343.42 points.

- 'Baptism of fire' -

Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown, said that investors took heart at news of the compensation.

"This kind of accounting error is exceptionally rare in the UK stock market, nonetheless shareholders in all companies will be heartened to learn that in instances where false information is provided to the market, the regulator will see to it that investors are duly compensated," Khalaf said.

"Dave Lewis underwent a baptism of fire when he took over as CEO in 2014, just as the accounting scandal struck.

"He and the supermarket will now be hoping to draw a line under the matter, and concentrate on nurturing Tesco's nascent recovery."

Tesco is the world's third-biggest supermarket group after France's Carrefour and global leader and US giant Wal-Mart.
The Daily Mail has hit back at critics who condemned its front page that focused on Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeons legs rather than their politics.

The newspapers Tuesday splash showed a picture of the British prime minister and Scottish first minister with the headline, Never mind Brexit, who won Legs-it!

The front page of the two leaders was widely panned after it first appeared on Twitter on Monday night.

The PM, whos new press secretary used to work at the Mail, said it was a bit of fun, telling the Wolverhampton Express and Star: You will notice that I am wearing trousers today!

As a woman in politics throughout my whole career I have found that very often, what I wear  particularly my shoes  has been an issue that has been looked at rather closely by people.

Obviously what we do as politicians is what makes a difference to peoples lives. I think that most people concentrate on what we do as politicians.

But if people want to have a bit of fun about how we dress, then so be it.

MORE: Worlds biggest dinosaur footprints discovered at Australias Jurassic Park

MORE: Westminster terror attack victim Kurt Cochran was killed on his first trip abroad

The two leaders met at Glasgows Crowne Plaza Hotel on Monday to discuss Brexit, the triggering of Article 50 on Wednesday and Scotlands potential independence.

The 1950s called and asked for their headline back.#everydaysexism https://t.co/s1W1XfhrhN  Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) March 27, 2017

Moronic! And we are in 2017! pic.twitter.com/LTGEZdtNo3  Harriet Harman (@HarrietHarman) March 27, 2017

But judging by the Daily Mails front page, the newspaper was only interested in one thing.

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Inside the paper, an article on the meeting by columnist Sarah Vine was headlined: Finest weapons at their command? Those pins!

In her column, Vine wrote: But what stands out here are the legs  and the vast expanse on show.

It's 2017. Two women's decisions will determine if United Kingdom continues to exist. And front page news is their lower limbs. Obviously pic.twitter.com/AMp0YvtISa  Yvette Cooper (@YvetteCooperMP) March 27, 2017

There is no doubt that both women consider their pins to be the finest weapon in their physical arsenal. Consequently, both have been unsheathed.

Mays famously long extremities are demurely arranged in her customary finishing-school stance  knees tightly together, calves at a flattering diagonal, feet neatly aligned. Its a studied pose that reminds us that for all her confidence, she is ever the vicars daughter, always respectful and anxious not to put a foot wrong.

Sturgeons shorter but undeniably more shapely shanks are altogether more flirty, tantalisingly crossed, with the dominant leg pointing towards her audience.

If you see a Daily Mail tomorrow #ripitup  Alastair Campbell (@campbellclaret) March 27, 2017

Arguably two of most powerful people in UK discussing biggest issue of the day & Daily Mail talks abouttheir legs. What a rag #DailyFail pic.twitter.com/J9MqbziY5Q  Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) March 27, 2017

Its a direct attempt at seduction: her stiletto is not quite dangling off her foot, but it could be.

Politicians, journalists and commentators queued up on Twitter to lambast the front page.

Former Labour leader Ed Miliband tweeted: The 1950s called and asked for their headline back.

Excellent Wiki trolling of Paul Dacre this morning in response to @DailyMailUK's depressing #legsit headline. pic.twitter.com/MqU04Iuecy  Tom McKenzie (@TomMcKCharity) March 28, 2017

Labour MP Yvette Cooper wrote: Its 2017. Two womens decisions will determine if United Kingdom continues to exist. And front page news is their lower limbs. Obviously.

Her fellow MP Harriet Harman simply called it moronic.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tweeted: This sexism should be consigned to history. Shame on the Daily Mail.

It's 2017. This sexism must be consigned to history. Shame on the Daily Mail. pic.twitter.com/V3RpFSgfnO  Jeremy Corbyn MP (@jeremycorbyn) March 27, 2017

In response the Daily Mail branded critics po-faced and lacking any humour.

Daily Mail spokesman: Has a po-faced BBC&left-wing commentariat, so obsessed by the Daily Mail, lost all sense of humour and proportion?  Chris Mason (@ChrisMasonBBC) March 28, 2017

Daily Mail editor Paul Dacres Wikipedia page was even hacked, with the modified entry callling him an English Caveman editing British hate promoting paper the Daily Mail.

In contrast, the front page of the Scottish edition of the Mail carried the same photograph but a different headline: Oh so frosty! Secrets of Nicola and PMs talk-in.

Interesting the Daily Mail's Scottish edition choses not to involve itself in the discussion over Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon's legs pic.twitter.com/zutHRnYovs  Adrian Rutherford (@arutherfordNI) March 27, 2017

Later editions of the Mail ran the line, Sarah Vines light-hearted verdict on the big showdown.
By Tom Westbrook and Benjamin Weir SYDNEY (Reuters) - Howling winds, heavy rain and huge seas pounded Australia's northeast on Tuesday, damaging homes, wrecking jetties and cutting power to thousands of people as Tropical Cyclone Debbie tore through the far north of Queensland. Wind gusts stronger than 260 km per hour (160 mph) were recorded at tourist resorts along the world-famous Great Barrier Reef as the storm made landfall as a category four, one rung below the most dangerous wind speed level. It was later downgraded to category two. Forecasters said high winds would likely persist overnight, although the storm would then weaken rapidly and was expected to be downgraded to category one by dawn on Wednesday. Police said one man was badly hurt when a wall collapsed at Proserpine, about 900 km (560 miles) northwest of the Queensland capital, Brisbane, and was taken to hospital. But the weather was still too bad to assess damage fully or mount an emergency response. "We will also receive more reports of injuries, if not deaths. We need to be prepared for that," Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart told reporters in Brisbane. As the storm forged slowly inland after nightfall, state premier Annastacia Palaszczuk urged people to stay indoors. "It is a serious event and we do not want to see loss of life," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "It will be a difficult night for people across our state." Cyclone Debbie made landfall at Airlie Beach, north of Proserpine, shortly after midday local time (0200 GMT), knocking out telephone services. "It's very noisy: Screaming, howling wind ... sounds like a freight train," Jan Clifford told Reuters by text from Airlie Beach as the cyclone made landfall. "Still blowing like crazy," she said four hours later. Authorities had urged thousands of people in threatened areas to flee their homes on Monday, in what would have been the biggest evacuation seen in Australia since Cyclone Tracy devastated the northern city of Darwin on Christmas Day, 1974. CATASTROPHE DECLARED Torrential rain flooded streets and wind smashed windows, uprooted trees and tossed debris down streets, while jetties at Airlie Beach marina were wrecked, Nine Network television pictures showed. Power was cut for 48,000 people in a wide area between the towns of Bowen and Mackay, north and south of Airlie Beach, Ergon Energy spokesman John Fowler said. Ports at Abbot Point, Mackay and Hay Point were shut and Townsville airport was closed. Airlines Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin Australia suspended flights to and from the region and said planes may also be grounded on Wednesday, although Townsville airport said it would reopen. BHP Billiton and Glencore halted work at their coal mines in the storm's path. The Insurance Council of Australia declared Cyclone Debbie a catastrophe, making it easier to make claims, but said in a statement it was too early to estimate the cost of damage. With an eye 50 km (30 miles) wide, the cyclone had earlier damaged tourist resorts, washed away beaches and tore boats from moorings as it swept through the Whitsunday islands, guests told Reuters by telephone. Cyclone Debbie is the strongest storm to hit Queensland since Cyclone Yasi destroyed homes and crops and devastated island resorts in 2011. Authorities had feared tidal surges in low-lying areas as the storm whipped up waves and currents and lifted sea levels, but said later that danger had eased. Holidaymakers tried to make the best of it as they bunkered down in resort buildings. "Go to the Whitsundays they said, it'd be fun they said, beautiful weather over here," holidaymaker Kurt Moore told the Sydney Morning Herald. "I'm so glad we got evacuated out of the place we were staying at, I think we'd be pooping watermelons right now to be honest," he said. Despite issuing evacuation orders, police said they were not sure how many people had heeded their advice. That did not deter some thrill-seeking bodyboarders who paddled out to surf in the heaving seas at Airlie Beach, television footage showed. (Additional reporting by Byron Kaye; Editing by Paul Tait)
JERUSALEM (AP)  Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews demonstrated in Jerusalem on Tuesday over military service in one of several protests following the recent detention of a rabbi's son who refused to report to a draft office.

Military service is mandatory for Jews in Israel, but ultra-Orthodox leaders say their communities serve the Jewish nation through religious study and prayer, and fear integration into the army would threaten their insular, pious lifestyle.

Draft exemptions are granted to young ultra-Orthodox men who declare their values at a recruitment center. Those refusing to report to a draft office can be detained.

Draft privileges go back to when Israel's founders granted exemptions to a few hundred gifted students to help rebuild the great schools of Jewish learning destroyed in the Holocaust. But numbers have ballooned dramatically since then.

Josef Berger a 26-year-old protester, told The Associated Press his community wants to continue "the way of life we lived the last 2,000 years."

"They say it's for security reasons and they need more people in the army, but the real reason is they want to change us," he said.

Protestor's waved banners reading: "don't force religious Jews into the army."

Exemptions have bred resentment among Israel's secular majority, whose children mostly serve after high-school.
By Timothy Mclaughlin (Reuters) - The state of Michigan will replace water lines serving at least 18,000 homes in Flint over the next three years under a settlement approved by a U.S. judge to address a 2015 crisis that exposed residents to lead in their drinking water. The state will pay $87 million to identify and replace the service lines containing lead or galvanized steel by 2020, according to the settlement approved by U.S. District Judge David Lawson in Detroit, court documents said. An additional $10 million is being held in reserve. The deal marked a major agreement to replace piping that played a significant role in the Flint water crisis that prompted dozens of lawsuits and criminal charges against former government officials. Lawson found the settlement to be "fair, adequate, reasonable, consistent with the public interest," according to online court documents, adding that it furthered the objectives of the Safe Drinking Water Act which protects drinking water supplies throughout the nation. The settlement is the result of a lawsuit filed last year by Concerned Pastors for Social Action, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the American Civil Liberties Union and a Flint resident against state and city officials. For the first time, there will be an enforceable commitment to get the lead pipes out of the ground. The people of Flint are owed at least this much, Dimple Chaudhary, an attorney for NRDC, said in a statement. Flint Mayor Karen Weaver welcomed the settlement. This agreement is good for the people of Flint," she said in a statement. The settlement "continues the states commitment," to providing recovery resources to the residents of Flint, Republican Governor Rick Snyder said in a statement. Flint's water contamination emerged when tests found high amounts of lead in blood samples taken from children in the predominantly black city of about 100,000. Flint was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager when it switched its water source to the Flint River from Lake Huron in April 2014. The more corrosive river water caused lead to leach from pipes. Flint switched back to the previous water system in October 2015. Lead poisoning stunts children's cognitive development, and no level of exposure is considered safe. The $87 million will be drawn from a number of sources, including up to $20 million from the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act, which was passed by Congress last year and signed by former president Barack Obama. Another $20 million will come from state matching funds. (Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; Editing by Andrew Hay)
BANGKOK (AP)  The Ferrari driver who allegedly slammed into a motorcycle cop, dragged him along the road and then sped away from the mangled body took just hours to find, as investigators followed a drip, drip, drip trail of brake fluid up a street, down an alley, and into the gated estate of one of Thailand's richest families. The prosecution of Red Bull heir Vorayuth "Boss" Yoovidhya, however, has been delayed for close to five years. The times when Vorayuth has been called in on charges, he hasn't shown up, claiming through his attorney that he was sick or out of the country on business.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP)  Malaysia's health minister said Tuesday the body of Kim Jong Nam is still in Malaysia, six weeks after the exiled half brother of North Korea's leader was poisoned in Kuala Lumpur. Health Minister Subramaniam Sathasivam made the announcement as rumors swirled that Kim's body was about to flown out of the country as part of diplomatic negotiations. Custody of the body has been a flashpoint in the case as relations between Malaysia and North Korea deteriorated sharply. Kim was poisoned on Feb. 13 at a crowded airport terminal in Kuala Lumpur. According to Malaysian investigators, two young women went up to Kim as he waited for a flight and smeared VX nerve agent  a banned chemical weapon  across his face.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  South Korea has approved the North Korean women's ice hockey team to compete in an international event next month at Gangneung, a venue for the 2018 Olympics. Seoul's Unification Ministry on Wednesday said the North Korean team would be permitted to stay from April 1-9 to participate in the group rounds of the Ice Hockey Women's World Championship. North Korean athletes haven't competed in South Korea since the 2014 Asian Games at Incheon. Relations between the rival Koreas have significantly worsened over the past year after a series of rocket launches by North Korea. The women's world championship is one of the many sports events South Korea plans to host at its Olympic facilities to prepare for next the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games.

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PARIS (AP)  Chinese immigrants and China's government are protesting a police killing in Paris that prompted violent street clashes and exposed the fears and frustrations of France's large Asian community. Protesters gathered Tuesday in northeast Paris for a second day of demonstrations over the fatal shooting of a Chinese man in his apartment, and police launched an internal investigation into a death that took on diplomatic implications. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China had summoned a representative of the French embassy in Beijing Tuesday and urged French officials to "get to the bottom of the incident as soon as possible." Chinese authorities "hope that Chinese nationals in France can express their wishes and demands in a reasonable way," Hua said.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  The first government announcement Tuesday was startling: Salvage crews had found bones near the wreckage of the Sewol ferry, which sank in 2014 and killed 304 people. The discovery raised hopes that the remains were of some of the nine people still missing. Such a find would bring a measure of closure in one of South Korea's deadliest maritime disasters. But hours later, investigators from the National Forensic Service concluded that it was all a mistake. The bones were from unidentified animals, not human remains. There was no immediate explanation from the government, which has been widely criticized over its handling of the disaster.

BEIJING (AP)  China's government said Wednesday it has detained a Taiwanese pro-democracy activist and is investigating him on suspicion of "pursuing activities harmful to national security." Spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office Ma Xiaoguang said Lee Ming-che, 42, was in good health, but gave no information about where he was being held or other terms of his detention. Lee disappeared after clearing immigration on March 19 in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory of Macau and never showed up for a planned meeting later that day with a friend across the border in China. "Regarding Lee Ming-che's case, because he is suspected of pursing activities harmful to national security, the investigation into him is being handled in line with legal procedures," Ma told reporters at a news briefing.

BEIJING (AP)  A report from a U.S. think tank says China has nearly completed construction work on three man-made islands in the South China Sea, giving it the ability to deploy combat aircraft and other military assets to the disputed region. The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies analyzed recent satellite photos and concluded that runways, aircraft hangers, radar sites and hardened surface-to-air missile shelters have either been finished or are nearing completion. The report, released Monday, appears to be the most conclusive indication yet that China is using its island-building project to give teeth to its claim over almost the entire South China Sea and its islands and reefs.

TOWNSVILLE, Australia (AP)  Residents of Australia's cyclone-battered tropical northeast emerged from their homes on Wednesday to find roofs lying in their yards, boats flung onto rocks and roads blocked by tangles of fallen trees and power lines, as emergency officials tried to reach communities cut off by the powerful storm. Cyclone Debbie, which slammed into the coast of Queensland state on Tuesday with winds up to 260 kilometers (160 miles) an hour, weakened quickly as it moved inland and was downgraded to a tropical low by Wednesday morning. Australia's military sent vehicles, aircraft and supplies to the region, and clean-up efforts were expected to begin later Wednesday.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  Ousted South Korean President Park Geun-hye has decided to attend a questioning session by a Seoul court before it determines whether she should be arrested over corruption allegations, prosecutors said Tuesday. Prosecutors said Park's lawyers have informed them that she will appear at the Seoul Central District Court on Thursday when a judge reviews whether to grant the prosecutors' request for an arrest warrant against her. If the court issues the warrant, Park will become the third former president to be arrested over criminal accusations after leaving office since South Korea turned from a dictatorship to a democracy in the late 1980s.

BANGKOK (AP)  Conservationists say they have evidence that the critically endangered Indochinese tiger is breeding in a Thai jungle, giving hope for the survival of an animal whose total population may be less than 300. Thailand's Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation along with two private organizations announced Tuesday they have photographic evidence of new tiger cubs in eastern Thailand, supporting a scientific survey that confirmed the existence of the world's second breeding population of the tigers. The other breeding ground is in the Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary in western Thailand. The Thai agency, along with Freeland, an organization fighting human and animal trafficking, and Panthera, a wild cat conservation group, said only 221 Indochinese tigers are estimated to remain in two Asian countries, Thailand and Myanmar.
Johannesburg (AFP) - Celebrated South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, one of Nelson Mandela's closest colleagues in the struggle against white rule and a fellow Robben Island prisoner, died Tuesday aged 87.

Kathrada was among those tried and jailed alongside Mandela in the 1964 Rivonia trial, which drew worldwide attention to the brutalities of the apartheid regime.

He died in hospital in Johannesburg after a short illness following brain surgery, his charity foundation said.

Kathrada spent 26 years and three months in prison, 18 of which were on Robben Island, the notorious jail off the coast of Cape Town.

After the end of apartheid, he served from 1994 to 1999 as parliamentary counsellor to President Mandela in the first African National Congress (ANC) government.

Leading a flood of tributes, retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu described Kathrada as "a man of remarkable gentleness, modesty and steadfastness", hailing him a moral leader of the anti-apartheid movement.

"These were people of the highest integrity and moral fibre who, through their humility and humanity, inspired our collective self-worth -- and the world's confidence in us," Tutu said in a statement.

- Lifelong activist -

Kathrada's activism against white-minority rule started at the age of 17, when he was one of 2,000 "passive resisters" arrested in 1946 for defying laws that discriminated against Indian South Africans.

The ANC party was banned in 1960, and two years later Kathrada -- often known as 'Kathy' -- was placed under house arrest.

Soon afterwards, he went underground to continue the struggle as a member of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK).

In July 1963, the police swooped on Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, outside Johannesburg, where Kathrada and other senior activists were meeting in secret.

At the famous Rivonia trial, eight of the accused were sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour on Robben Island.

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His fellow prisoners included Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Denis Goldberg.

"The nation has lost a titan, an outstanding leader and a great patriot," the ANC said after his death was announced.

"His life is a lesson in humility, tolerance, resilience and a steadfast commitment to principle."

The Nelson Mandela Foundation lauded him as "the embodiment of promise" during the apartheid years, saying Kathrada was "a comrade, associate and close friend of Nelson Mandela's through seven decades."

- Key negotiator -

Released from prison in 1989, the softly-spoken Kathrada belonged to a generation of freedom fighters untainted by later corruption scandals.

In jail, he was a teacher for fellow prisoners and a strategic thinker who formed part of the ANC delegation in the negotiations that finally ended apartheid.

"He will be remembered as an unassuming freedom fighter, whose wisdom, tolerance, humility, steadfastness and humour earned him the love and respect of our people," said South Africa's Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.

"After the achievement of democracy and the adoption of a new democratic constitution... 'Kathy' was determined to continue to serve the people."

Kathrada chose not to pursue a political career, but remained an activist.

He was critical of the current ANC government under President Jacob Zuma, which has been accused of graft, mismanagement and failing black South Africans.

"I can imagine how pained he was that he left at this particular time," Winnie Mandela, Nelson's former wife, told reporters Tuesday.

"All what he had fought for is not what is going on today. It is a tragedy that he did leave and saw what is happening. We cannot pretend South Africa is not in crisis."

He was survived by his wife, Barbara Hogan, also an ANC stalwart.

Kathrada will have an Islamic burial on Wednesday, the foundation said, while the government ordered national flags to be flown at half-mast.
Just six months ago, millions of Americans thought they were on the brink of electing the country's first female president. Marketing so-called empowerment to women had already become fashionable; a historic victory by Hillary Clinton would've made the strategy a no-brainer.

Then President Donald Trump happened.

SEE ALSO: 7 influential feminists share the most powerful thing about being a woman

With his surprising majority of white female voters, you could envision a future in which brands thought it wiser to be more subtle or even go retro, placing more emphasis on Father Knows Best.



But that wasn't the end of the story. The day after Trump's inauguration, millions of defiant women flooded the streets, offering a staggering glimpse of their political and economic power. The Super Bowl came next with politically confrontational ads, including one about equal pay from carmaker Audi. On International Women's Day, brands like Stacy's Pita Chips and Western Union clamored to position themselves as front row cheerleaders in the fight for gender equality.

The snack brand unveiled these limited-edition bags for International Women's Day.

Image: stacy's pita chips

Basically, selling empowerment looks even more appealing these days. A perfectly timed ad with the right message about equality, after all, may go viral because it's what consumers want to share with friends and family  and because it's a small act of resistance.

There's now an audience of consumers desperate to spread narratives that promote gender equality. Many of those storylines will be imperfect. Some may commodify the concept of empowerment, and deserve criticism when they do. But the most effective ones will offer women and their allies valuable currency: Small proof in the Trump-era culture wars that we refuse to go backward, no matter how dramatically our politics have changed.

There are risks, of course. Landing in Trump's Twitter sights could tank a company's stock, even for just a day (see: Lockheed Martin). Pitching a message that amounts to "white feminism"  addressing only the needs and concerns of well-to-do white women  is also bound to backfire with a diverse audience that believes no one is free until everyone is. And peddling equality when it doesn't exist at the brand itself is a recipe for disaster. Plenty of savvy consumers who believe in gender equality also remain highly critical of empowerment marketing because it pays lip service to a cause without necessarily doing any real or radical work to achieve it.

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When the shoe retailer DSW recently launched its #MarchOn campaign, for example, it lacked a sophisticated message and looked like a bald effort to capitalize on women standing their ground.

No matter what life throws at you, just put on your big girl shoes and #MarchOn. pic.twitter.com/YrNgwimS0k  DSW Shoe Warehouse (@DSWShoeLovers) March 2, 2017

That's why principled messages that feel authentic to the company pitching them are critical to success, says Jess Weiner, CEO of Talk to Jess and a brand strategist who has consulted for companies like Dove, Disney and Johnson&Johnson.

"Whether a brand comes out and believes in feminism, they have to engage in marketing thats reflective of diversity and inclusivity," she says. "It was heading that way before Trump and it's emphasized explicitly now because of Trump."

Dove, the company that pioneered empowerment marketing more than a decade ago with its "Real Beauty" campaign, remains as devoted as ever to reaching women with messages about their inherent worth.

"We recognize and respect that political and social issues are at the forefront," says Kathy OBrien, vice president at Unilever, Dove's parent company. "Our mission to inspire women and girls to develop a positive relationship with beauty  this has not changed or faltered."

Under any other president, such a statement coming from a hair and skincare company wouldn't be political or partisan  and O'Brien makes clear that Dove is careful not to touch that third rail. But under Trump, who has gleefully rated women's bodies and appearances in public, telling female consumers of every shape, size and background that they are beautiful takes on new meaning in the marketplace. That message gives consumers an opportunity to endorse their personal and political beliefs in the soap aisle.

It's also a strategy that reflects an emerging reality: American women make most household purchasing decisions, control trillions in consumer spending and they don't like it when a company defines beauty narrowly for them. O'Brien says Dove's research indicates women want to see a more expansive vision of what it means to look and feel attractive. Female consumers also don't need a company's definition because they can spread their own on social media, and in many cases, it'll look a lot more diverse and inclusive than what marketers are putting in front of them.

In other words, says Weiner, now is the worst time for companies to patronize women or produce tone-deaf ads that reinforce cliches or stereotypes about gender roles and identity.

Dove, for example, celebrated the 60th anniversary of its "beauty bar" in January with a 30-second spot that gave a nod to the evolution of beauty marketing since its soap first debuted. It included split-second portraits of an older black woman posing nude, an androgynous person staring confidently into the camera, a woman proudly displaying her mastectomy tattoo, and a young woman wearing a headscarf.

That montage might not interest hardcore Trump supporters, yet it's a powerful way to convince some consumers that Dove not only has your back, but also the backs of women who may not look like you.

At fashion retailer Lane Bryant, promoting body positivity has been at the heart of its marketing strategy for a few years.

"This isnt about a political moment. This is about something we believe is right regardless of the time or era were operating in," says Brian Beitler, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Lane Bryant and Catherines.

The retailer's I'm No Angel and This Body campaigns have sparked controversy by unapologetically featuring curvy models, many of them women of color, in its video and print ads. Some accused the "Angel" campaign of "thin-shaming" while others felt it wasn't nearly inclusive enough. The company responded to critics, and Beitler says consumers can expect more advertising focused on elevating women: "We want women to be treated equally. We want women of all shapes and sizes to be seen and celebrated in the fashion industry."

It's a big leap, however, from good intentions to executing a smash-hit marketing campaign  and the internet is eager to exploit every potential weakness.

State Street Global Advisors recently pulled off a branding coup by positioning a bronze statue of a defiant little girl to face off with the Wall Street bull that became a viral sensation, a move described by a New York Times critic as essentially a sleight of hand to conceal the firm's parent company's fraud charges with the gloss of "corporate feminism." And when Audi debuted its ad on equal pay, many of the Twitter and YouTube comments either attacked the company from the right for tackling the subject or focused on the brand's own less-than-diverse board.

Alan Abitbol, assistant professor of public relations at the University of Dayton who has written about "femvertising," thought the Audi ad was an effective way to reach male consumers who may also be fathers while signaling to women that the brand supports equality. Still, he says, companies that don't have authentic messages and don't implement initiatives to match their rhetoric will pay the price because consumers are skeptical about their motivation for embracing empowerment marketing.

Underlying all of this, says Jess Weiner, is consumer fatigue when it comes to ads that generically sell confidence and empowerment. The concepts, she says, have been used so interchangeably that they sometimes lose meaning, and that requires brands to be more specific in addressing things like access to opportunity, representation in media and pop culture, and women's agency over their own bodies.

"We have to go deeper into what will truly empower women," she says. "We are no longer wooed by a product telling us how fabulous we are."

That might sound tricky for traditional corporations allergic to even a whiff of controversy. Weiner, however, believes the rise of Trump is actually a big opportunity for brands that want to reach consumers hungry for portrayals of women as complex human beings. They should also already practice what they plan to preach by having women in senior leadership positions and supporting related community and on-the-ground women's issues.

"Brands that will be most competitive [will] take a risk and speak to them about their lives and world," she says.

The recent #WomenInProgress Motrin campaign that Weiner worked on, for example, features women talking candidly about their physical and emotional pain as temporary setbacks they ultimately overcame. The moving stories show confident women leading very different lives, but the ads don't resort to familiar or condescending cliches.

Efforts like these can shatter stereotypes, seeding pop culture and the internet with new portrayals of diverse, complex women. Those visual reminders, which hinge on treating all girls and women with respect and dignity, have the potential to counteract some of the creeping chauvinism ushered in by Trump and his policies.

That kind of marketing may not lead to legislation, erase biases or change the world, but it offers something else: a vivid reminder that we can and should insist on gender equality.

WATCH: BBC Dad's kids are your new IDGAF heroes
President Donald Trump tweeted late Monday night saying that the "Trump Russia story is hoax" and attacked Hillary Clinton asking why the House Intelligence Committee has not been investigating the Clintons for various alleged ties to Russia.

Trump demanded a probe into the relations between the Clintons and the Kremlin on Monday. He referred to several issues involving former President Bill Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton. Most of the matters Trump focused on have already been investigated and reported earlier.

The major charge he raised against Hillary Clinton dealt with the permission regarding a deal that allowed Russia's nuclear agency to buy a 51 percent share of a Canadian firm, which had control over 20 percent of the known uranium deposits in the United States. Hillary Clinton was then serving as the secretary of state and was a part of the panel that approved the deal in 2015. Trump was referring to a report on this deal, which also mentioned that the financier of the Canadian firm donated to the Clinton Foundation, according to Fox News Insider.

Trump's comments came amid the investigations into White House senior adviser Jared Kushner's contacts with a Russian bank named Vnesheconombank (VEB). Trump's son-in-law was given the responsibility Monday morning to head a new unit aimed at overhauling the U.S. federal bureaucracy. Soon after the announcement, Kushner's alleged connections with Moscow came to the fore and he is now a part of the probe that is looking into contacts between Trump's administrative officials and the Russian government, according to CBS News.

Kushner met with Sergei Kislyak, Russian ambassador to the U.S., in December at a meeting at the Trump Tower. This meeting was confirmed earlier by the White House. However, later on Kislyak had asked the senior adviser to set up a meeting with the head of the Russian bank VEB. The bank was previously chaired by Russian President Vladimir Putin and is said to have major ties with Russian intelligence agencies.

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The president's tweets also followed major incidents Monday night when leading Democrats wanted Republican Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes to recuse himself from the investigation into the U.S.-Russia dealings. Nunes has been under fire since last week after he briefed classified material to the president without informing the committee. Adam Schiff, Nunes' counterpart on the committee, demanded Nunes to recuse himself and compared his recusal to that of Jeff Sessions saying, "I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the presidents campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman."

Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, also demanded Nunes' recusal from the U.S.-Russia probe and asked House Speaker Paul Ryan to support her move. "Speaker Ryan must insist that chairman Nunes at least recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation immediately. That leadership is long overdue," she said, according to the Guardian.

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President Donald Trumps weekend visits to his Florida estate have been a source of great financial burden on the local government, Florida Democrats say, urging the president to pay for the spike in expenditure or cut down on his trips to Mar-a-Lago, his exclusive Palm Beach resort.

The estate falls under the congressional district of Rep. Lois Frankel, who wrote a letter to the president, listing the massive increase in expenditure that the Palm Beach County had to suffer to provide for Trumps visits to Mar-a-Lago. The letter was co-signed by Florida Reps. Alcee Hastings and Ted Deutch, both Democrats.

Read: President Trumps Mar-a-Lago Visits May Force Florida County To Increase Taxes

While we want the fullest protection for your visits, we hope you would be responsive to the losses of small businesses and residents of Palm Beach County, Frankel wrote. If compensation is not assured of being forthcoming, we respectfully ask that you curtail your visits until such time as that matter is resolved favorably to our area.

Trump has taken weekend trips to Mar-a-Lago five times in the two months he has been in office. According to Frankel, the Palm Beach County Sheriffs Department and Fire Rescue have spent over $1.7 million in overtime costs, a figure that is expected to jump to $5.8 million by the end of 2017. An additional $60,000 was spent by the city on overtime for law enforcement responsible for handling Trump-related protests.

Frankel also wrote that the company that manages the citys Lantana Airport has reportedly lost $170,000 over flight restrictions during Trumps visits. The collective loss reported by other companies at the airport was pegged at about $720,000.

In addition to this, she wrote that Chinese President Xi Jinpings planned visit to Mar-a-Lago will cost the sheriff and fire departments around $280,000.

We write to ask your assistance in alleviating the financial burden being shouldered by Palm Beach County, the City of West Palm Beach, and Palm Beach County businesses as a result of your repeated visits to your Mar-A-Lago estate, the letter said.

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Trumps visits to his Florida estate have been the subject of much criticism directed toward him. Critics say that his vacations are an increasing burden on the taxpayer, while some cite the possible security dimensions of the trips, calling them a security nightmare.

Democrats are also pushing for a MAR-A-LAGO Act  short for Making Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness Act  which will require the Trump administration to release the names of any person who visits the White House or any other location at which the President or the Vice President regularly conducts official business, a direct dig at his Mar-a-Lago trips.

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When President Obama was faced with a Congress unwilling to work with him on virtually anything, he reminded the country that the chief executive has other ways of affecting the way the nation does business. Specifically, he said, he had a phone and a pen and proceeded, much to Republicans fury, to overhaul much of the way the federal government does business through executive orders.

Now his predecessor, faced with a humiliating legislative defeat in his first major effort to enact a new law, is following the same path, though arguably in reverse. Donald Trump on Tuesday is expected to sign an executive order that will roll back a vast array of Obama-era requirements meant to protect the climate from global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the countrys investment in renewable energy.

Related: Trump Administration Takes Aim at Funding for Sanctuary Cities

That order follows close on the heels of a second, less-noticed, one that revoked rules put in place by Obama to ensure that companies winning large federal contracts do not have a history of violating labor laws and workplace safety requirements.

The two back-to-back orders are just the latest in a flurry of activity from the new administration, which has used executive orders to push its policy agenda forward in areas as diverse as immigration, regulatory reform, and enforcement of the Affordable Care Acts insurance coverage mandates.

The order expected Tuesday will have sweeping consequences for the way the Environmental Protection Agency enforces federal laws related to carbon emissions and will absolve federal agencies of a requirement that they consider the environmental impact of their actions when making regulatory decisions.

The rule will undo a ban on the leasing of federal land for coal mining, an effort taken by the Obama administration as part of a push to move the country away from carbon-intensive fuels that create significant pollution and toward more renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar.

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Related: Why Another Government Shutdown Is Suddenly in the Cards

An anonymous administration official told The Washington Post the new policy was meant to make the country energy independent and denied that the move represents an abandonment of efforts to combat climate change. When it comes to climate change, we want to take our course and do it in our own form and fashion, the official said.

The order is not the first one Trump has signed paring back environment-related regulations, but it is the most sweeping. He previously signed a rule that removed restrictions preventing coal mines from polluting streams and other waterways and recalculated the royalties that private companies pay for mining on federal lands.

Much of the new rule focuses on undoing restrictions the Obama administration placed on coal-burning power plants. The new president has made the reviving the coal mining industry a focal point of his new administration. This despite the fact that coal mining represents a tiny fraction of overall employment in the US, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and that even top executives in the coal industry believe the effort to bring jobs back is doomed.

The order signed Monday, though less broad in scope, was also aimed at undoing efforts by the previous president that had frustrated conservatives. The main target of the action was President Obamas July 2014 Executive Order 13673, entitled Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces. The Obama order, among other things, imposed strict transparency requirements on federal contractors with regard to information they were required to share with employees about their compensation.

Related: Trump Wants to Overhaul an Understaffed Government Desperate for Leadership

Congress had already taken steps to undo the Obama-era rule, which detractors said created a blacklist of companies that would be barred from receiving federal contracts.

While Republicans, by and large, cheered Trumps latest efforts to undo the Obama legacy, Democrats were dismayed -- particularly by the move to slash environmental rules.

Delaware Sen. Chris Coons told Politico that the GOP had reached peak climate science denial, adding, "Theyre going to extraordinary lengths to deny this meteor that is global warming catapulting toward the Earth. Im scared stiff. My kids wont be able to solve this problem if we dont tackle it right now because it will be too late in 20 years."

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
On a day when the House Intelligence Committee was supposed to be questioning former Obama administration officials about Russian interference in the 2016 election, partisan warfare instead consumed the panel and intensified doubts about its ability to investigate the Kremlin campaign.

Many congressional Democrats are now questioning whether chairman Devin Nunes (R.-Calif.) is capable of leading a credible investigation, amid questions about whether the California Republican may be running political interference on behalf of the White House. Nunes acknowledged Monday that he met with a source on the White House grounds just before announcing that associates of President Donald Trump had been caught up in U.S. surveillance. On Friday, he abruptly cancelled a planned hearing featuring former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper, and former acting Attorney General Sally Yates.

Now there are allegations that the White House may be running its own political interference to keep Yates from talking. She briefly served a key role in the affair now being examined by the FBI and investigators in Congress, and informed the White House in January that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had lied about his conversations with the Russian ambassador and was a blackmail risk.

According to a series of letters published by the Washington Post on Tuesday, the White House could be construed as having attempted to prevent Yates from testifying at Mondays hearing. In an exchange with Yatess lawyer, Justice Department officials claimed that her work on behalf of the department may be protected by executive privilege, the broad legal protection against the disclosure of internal White House deliberations.

On Friday, Yatess attorney wrote to White House Counsel Don McGahn and asked him whether the White House would assert executive privilege to block her testimony. The same day, Nunes announced that he would cancel the scheduled hearing  making it unnecessary for the White House to assert executive privilege at all.

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According to the Post, Yates had informed the Trump administration that her testimony would likely contradict the statements of some White House officials. Trump fired Yates during the first weeks of his administration when she refused to mount a defense of the presidents legally doomed travel ban targeting 7 Muslim nations.

The White House has taken no action to prevent Sally Yates from testifying and the Department of Justice specifically told her that it would not stop her and to suggest otherwise is completely irresponsible, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in a Tuesday statement.

A spokesman for Nunes denied that the chairman had communicated with the White House about Yatess testimony.

But Rep. Adam Schiff (R.-Calif.), the ranking member of the intelligence panel, who has increasingly questioned Nunes handling of the investigation, suggested that the White House might have sought to keep a lid on potentially embarrassing disclosures.

Whether the White Houses desire to avoid a public claim of executive privilege to keep her from providing the full truth on what happened contributed to the decision to cancel todays hearing, we do not know, he said in a statement.

Schiff urged that the hearing be rescheduled so the Yates could freely testify. So far, all the committees meetings for the week have been cancelled.

Alongside a slew of congressional Democrats, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.), Schiff has called on Nunes to recuse himself from the committees Russia investigation, but Nunes said he sees no reason to do so. And other Republicans are standing by the chairman.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R.-Wisc.), who has the power to dismiss Nunes from his chairmanship, said he did not need to recuse himself from the investigation.

In addition to the cancellation of Tuesdays hearing, the scrutiny of Nunes centers on his decision last week to go public with information from what he has described as an intelligence community source describing incidental surveillance on Trump campaign operatives during the election.

This week, Nunes admitted that he had met with his source on the grounds of the White House in order to review the classified material, raising questions about whether the material was supplied to him in order to distract from a series of damaging revelations for the Trump administration.

While even other Republicans, such as Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.), have called for Nunes to disclose the identify of his source, Nunes has steadfastly refused.

Photo by Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images
By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday to undo a slew of Obama-era climate change regulations, a move meant to bolster domestic energy production but which environmentalists have vowed to challenge in court.

The decree, dubbed the "Energy Independence" order, will seek to undo former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan requiring states to slash carbon emissions from power plants - a critical element in helping the United States meet its commitments to a global climate change accord agreed by nearly 200 countries in Paris in December 2015.

It will also rescind a ban on coal leasing on federal lands, reverse rules to curb methane emissions from oil and gas production, and reduce the weight of climate change in federal agencies' assessments of new regulations.

"We're going to go in a different direction," a senior White House official told reporters ahead of Tuesday's order. "The previous administration devalued workers with their policies. We can protect the environment while providing people with work."

Trump will sign the order at the EPA with the agency's Administrator Scott Pruitt, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Tuesday afternoon.

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For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.

The wide-ranging order is the boldest yet in Trumps broader push to cut environmental regulation to revive the oil and gas drilling and coal mining industries, a promise he made repeatedly during his campaign for the presidency.

"I cannot tell you how many jobs the executive order is going to create but I can tell you that it provides confidence in this administrations commitment to the coal industry," Kentucky Coal Association president Tyler White told Reuters.

PARIS ACCORD NOT ADDRESSED

Environmental groups have promised to challenge the orders.

"These actions are an assault on American values and they endanger the health, safety and prosperity of every American," said billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer, the head of activist group NextGen Climate.

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Green group Earthjustice said it will fight the order both in and out of court. This order ignores the law and scientific reality," said the group's president Trip Van Noppen.

Trump campaigned on a promise to sweep aside green regulations he said hurt the economy, and vowed to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord. Since being elected, however, he has been mum on the Paris deal and the executive order does not address it.

The White House official said Trump's administration was discussing its approach to the accord, meant to limit the planet's warming by reducing carbon emissions.

The order will direct the EPA to start a formal "review" process to undo the Clean Power Plan, which was introduced by Obama in 2014 but has never been implemented in part because of legal challenges brought by Republican states.

The review is likely to trigger legal challenges by environmental groups and some state attorneys general that could last years.

The Clean Power Plan would have required states to collectively cut carbon emissions from power plants by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

(Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Mary Milliken)
By Valerie Volcovici and Jeff Mason WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an order to undo Obama-era regulations to curb climate change, keeping a campaign promise to support the coal industry while calling into question U.S. support for an international deal to fight global warming. Flanked by coal miners, Trump enacted his "Energy Independence" executive order at the Environmental Protection Agency. A coalition of 23 states and local governments vowed to fight the order in court. The order's main target is former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan, which required states to slash carbon emissions from power plants - a key factor in the United States' ability to meet its commitments under a climate change accord reached by nearly 200 countries in Paris in 2015. Trump's decree also reverses a ban on coal leasing on federal lands, undoes rules to curb methane emissions from oil and gas production and reduces the weight of climate change and carbon emissions in policy and infrastructure permitting decisions. Carbon dioxide and methane are two of the main greenhouse gases blamed by scientists for heating the earth. "I am taking historic steps to lift restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion and to cancel job-killing regulations," Trump said at the EPA. The room was filled with miners, coal company executives and staff from industry groups, who applauded loudly as Trump spoke. Shares in U.S. coal companies edged higher in response. The wide-ranging order is the boldest yet in Trumps broader push to cut environmental regulation to revive the drilling and mining industries, a promise he made repeatedly during the 2016 presidential campaign. Energy analysts and executives have questioned whether the moves will have a big effect on their industries, and environmentalists have called them reckless. "I cannot tell you how many jobs the executive order is going to create, but I can tell you that it provides confidence in this administrations commitment to the coal industry," Kentucky Coal Association president Tyler White told Reuters. Environmental groups hurled scorn on Trump's order, arguing it was dangerous and went against the broader global trend toward cleaner energy technologies. "These actions are an assault on American values and they endanger the health, safety and prosperity of every American," said billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer, the head of activist group NextGen Climate. Trump signed the order with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Vice President Mike Pence by his side. LEGAL CHALLENGES U.S. presidents have aimed to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil since the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, which triggered soaring prices. But the United States still imports about 7.9 million barrels of crude oil a day, almost enough to meet total oil demand in Japan and India combined. Green group Earthjustice was one of many organizations that said it will fight the order both in and out of court. "This order ignores the law and scientific reality," said its president, Trip Van Noppen. An overwhelming majority of scientists believe that human use of oil and coal for energy is a main driver of climate change, causing a damaging rise in sea levels, droughts and more frequent violent storms. But Trump and several members of his administration have doubts about climate change, and Trump promised during his campaign to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, arguing it would hurt U.S. business. Since being elected, Trump has been mum on the Paris deal and the executive order does not address it. Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change who helped broker the Paris accord, lamented Trump's order. "Trying to make fossil fuels remain competitive in the face of a booming clean renewable power sector, with the clean air and plentiful jobs it continues to generate, is going against the flow of economics," she said. The order directs the EPA to start a formal process to undo the Clean Power Plan, which was introduced by Obama in 2014 but was never implemented in part because of legal challenges brought by Republican-controlled states. The Clean Power Plan required states to collectively cut carbon emissions from power plants by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Some 85 percent of U.S. states are on track to meet the targets despite the fact the rule has not been implemented, according to Bill Becker, director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, a group of state and local air pollution control agencies. Trumps order also lifts the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management's temporary ban on coal leasing on federal property put in place by Obama in 2016 as part of a review to study the program's impact on climate change and ensure royalty revenues were fair to taxpayers. It also asks federal agencies to discount the cost of carbon in policy decisions and the weight of climate change considerations in infrastructure permitting, and it reverses rules limiting methane leakage from oil and gas facilities. (Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner)
By Elena Fabrichnaya, Steve Holland and Patricia Zengerle

MOSCOW/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Russian bank under Western economic sanctions over Russia's incursion into Ukraine disclosed on Monday that its executives had met Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a top White House adviser, in December.

A U.S. Senate committee investigating suspected Russian interference in the election wants to interview Trump associates, including Kushner, 36, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and has agreed to testify.

Kushner previously acknowledged meeting the Russian ambassador to Washington last December and only on Monday did it emerge that executives of Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) had talks with Kushner during a bank roadshow last year.

The bank said in an emailed statement that as part of its preparing a new strategy, its executives met representatives of financial institutes in Europe, Asia and America.

It said roadshow meetings took place "with a number of representatives of the largest banks and business establishments of the United States, including Jared Kushner, the head of Kushner Companies." VEB declined to say where the meetings took place or the dates.

There was no immediate comment from Kushner.

Allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russian actors were behind hacking of senior Democratic Party operatives and spreading disinformation linger over Trump's young presidency. Democrats charge the Russians wanted to tilt the election toward the Republican, a claim dismissed by Trump. Russia denies the allegations.

But there has been no doubt that the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, developed contacts among the Trump team. Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign on Feb. 13 after revelations that he had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with Kislyak and misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations.

U.S. officials said that after meeting with Russian Kislyak at Trump Tower last December, a meeting also attended by Flynn, Kushner met later in December with Sergei Gorkov, chairman of Vnesheconombank.

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White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks confirmed the meetings, saying nothing of consequence was discussed.

Gorkov was appointed head of VEB in early 2016 by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He graduated from the Federal Security Service, or FSB, Russias internal security agency. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Merit for Services to the Fatherland, according to the bank's website.

According to two congressional staffers, some Senate investigators want to question Kushner and Flynn about whether they discussed with Gorkov or other Russian officials or financial executives the possibility of investing in 666 Fifth Avenue in New York or other Kushner Co or Trump properties if the new administration lifted the sanctions.

VEB, aside from being under sanctions, has been grappling with bad debt after financing politically expedient projects such as construction for the Sochi Winter Olympics.

It received 150 billion rubles ($2.6 billion) in support from the Russian budget in 2016, when its senior management was sacked and replaced by a team of executives from Russia's biggest lender Sberbank.

In an article posted on Dec. 18, Forbes estimated that Jared Kushner, his brother Josh and his parents, Charles and Seryl, have a fortune of at least $1.8 billion, more than half of which Forbes estimates is held in real estate.

Forbes did not provide a specific estimate for Jared Kushners net worth on his own.

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.

FOREIGN CONTACTS

On Monday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters that Kushner is willing to testify to the Senate Intelligence Committee chaired by U.S. Senator Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican.

Throughout the campaign and the transition, Jared served as the official primary point of contact with foreign governments and officials ... and so, given this role, he volunteered to speak with Chairman Burr's committee," Spicer told reporters at his daily briefing.

The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate panel also said Kushner had agreed to be interviewed but no date had yet been scheduled.

Simply meeting with representatives of a U.S.-sanctioned entity is not a violation of sanctions or against the law.

Evgeny Buryakov, 41, a Russian citizen who worked at Vnesheconombank and whom U.S. authorities accused of posing as a banker while participating in a New York spy ring, pleaded guilty to a criminal conspiracy charge in March 2016. Buryakov admitted in federal court in Manhattan to acting as an agent for the Russian government without notifying U.S. authorities.

He was prosecuted by the office of the U.S. attorney in Manhattan under Preet Bharara, who was among several chief prosecutors fired or asked to resign earlier this month by the new administration.

CLASSIFIED INFORMATION

Also on Monday, a mystery rooted in Trump's claim that he was wiretapped by then President Barack Obama during the election campaign deepened with the disclosure that a top congressional Republican reviewed classified information on the White House grounds about potential surveillance of some Trump campaign associates.

U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, visited the White House the night before he announced on Wednesday that he had information that indicated some Trump associates may have been subjected to some level of intelligence activity before Trump took office on Jan. 20.

Democrats have said Nunes, who was a member of Trump's transition team, can no longer run a credible investigation of Russian hacking, the U.S. election and any potential involvement by Trump associates.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, have urged Nunes to recuse himself from the Russia probe.

Nunes told CNN on Monday that he went to the White House grounds because the intelligence information was not available to Congress. He said he did not meet with Trump or his aides at that time and did not coordinate the release of information with the Trump administration.

Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said in a statement that Nunes "met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source."

White House spokesman Spicer did not shed any light on who at the White House helped Nunes gain access to a secure location.

It was the latest twist in a saga that began on March 4 when Trump said on Twitter without providing evidence that he "just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory."

FBI Director James Comey told Congress last Monday he had seen no evidence to support the claim.

(This version of the story corrects paragraph 1 to show that meeting was in December, not during 2016 presidential campaign. Paragraph 22 has also been corrected to show Buryakov pleaded guilty in March 2016, not Friday.)

(Reporting by Elena Fabrichnaya and Polina Devitt in Moscow and Patricia Zengerle, Steve Holland, Mark Hosenball, John Walcott, Arshad Mohammed, Eric Beech and Warren Strobel in Washington; editing by Yara Bayoumy and Grant McCool)
((Refiles March 23 story to fix spelling of Renaissance in first subhead)) By Richard Valdmanis BOSTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trumps White House has said his plans to slash environmental regulations will trigger a new energy boom and help the United States drill its way to independence from foreign oil. But the top U.S. oil and gas companies have been telling their shareholders that regulations have little impact on their business, according to a Reuters review of U.S. securities filings from the top producers. In annual reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 13 of the 15 biggest U.S. oil and gas producers said that compliance with current regulations is not impacting their operations or their financial condition. The other two made no comment about whether their businesses were materially affected by regulation, but reported spending on compliance with environmental regulations at less than 3 percent of revenue. The dissonance raises questions about whether Trumps war on regulation can increase domestic oil and gas output, as he has promised, or boost profits and share prices of oil and gas companies, as some investors have hoped. According to the SEC, a publicly traded company must deem a matter "material" and report it to the agency if there is a substantial likelihood that a reasonable investor would consider it important. "Materiality is a fairly low bar," said Cary Coglianese, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania who runs the universitys research program on regulation. "Despite exaggerated claims, regulatory costs are usually a very small portion of many companies cost of doing business." The oil majors annual filings come after the industry and its political allies have spent years criticizing the Obama administration for policies aimed at reducing fossil-fuel consumption, curtailing drilling on federal lands and subsidizing renewable energy. Trump promised during the campaign that a rollback of the Democratic administrations policies would help free the nation from reliance on imported oil. "Under my presidency, we will accomplish complete American energy independence," said Trump, describing regulation as a "self-inflicted wound." The Trump administration is now preparing an executive order - dubbed the "Energy Independence" executive order - to roll back Obama-era regulations, which could be signed as early as this month, according to administration officials. U.S. presidents have aimed to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil since the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, which triggered soaring prices. But the United States still imports about 7.9 million barrels of crude oil a day - almost enough meet total oil demand in Japan and India combined. "ENERGY RENAISSANCE" The Trump administrations attacks on regulation have been applauded by the oil industry. "We havent seen 3 percent growth in the economy for eight years, and I think part of the reason is that weve had a heavy dose of regulation," Chevron Corp. CEO John Watson said at CERAWeek, a global energy conference in Houston this month. Continental Resources CEO, Harold Hamm, who advised Trump on energy issues during his campaign for the White House, told the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July that stripping regulation could allow the country to double its production of oil and gas, triggering a new "American energy renaissance." Yet Continental's annual report, filed last month with the SEC, says environmental regulation - after eight years under the Obama administration - does not have a "material adverse effect on our operations to any greater degree than other similarly situated competitors." Continental's competitors who reported actual spending on environmental compliance told investors that such expenses amount to a small percentage of operating revenues. Fourteen of the 15 companies whose filings were reviewed by Reuters declined to comment on their statements to investors or the impact of regulation on their profits. A spokesman for ConocoPhillips acknowledged that regulatory compliance has not had a material adverse impact on the company's liquidity or financial position. But red tape can be an unwelcome burden nonetheless. "Changing, excessive, overlapping, duplicative and potentially conflicting regulations increase costs, cause potential delays and negatively impact investment decisions, with great cost to consumers of energy," the spokesman, Daren Beaudo, said in a written statement. The American Petroleum Institute - which represents the U.S. oil and gas industry - also declined to comment. Last month, before the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, API President Jack Gerard said that the oil and gas industry has surged forward despite onerous regulations under the Obama administration. "Technological innovations and industry leadership have propelled the oil and gas industry forward despite the unprecedented onslaught of 145 new and pending federal regulatory actions targeting our industry." Though the industry saw a staunch opponent in Obama, oil and gas production soared more than 50 percent during his presidency. That was mainly because of high oil prices and improved hydraulic fracturing, a drilling technology that has allowed producers to access new reserves in previously tough-to -reach shale formations. The rush of production ultimately contributed to a global glut that dropped crude oil prices from a high of over $100 a barrel in early 2014 to a low of nearly $25 by 2016. Current prices hover near $50 a barrel. NO "MATERIAL" IMPACT Four of the 15 companies reviewed by Reuters reported that spending on environmental matters - including new equipment or facilities, as well as fines and compliance staffing - amounted to a small fraction of revenues. Exxon Mobil reported spending $4.9 billion worldwide in 2016, or about 2.24 percent of gross revenue. Occidental Petroleum, a much smaller company, reported spending $285 million, or about 2.82 percent of revenue. Neither addressed whether the spending was "material" in their filings. Two other companies, ConocoPhillips and Chevron, also broke out their environmental spending while reporting that regulation had no material impact on their business. Conoco spent $627 million in 2016, or about 2.57 percent of gross revenue, while Chevron spent $2.1 billion, or 1.91 percent of gross revenue. The other 11 companies did not break out spending, but all of them told the SEC that environmental regulation did not have a material impact on their business. In one typical statement, EOG Resources, one of the biggest U.S. producers, told investors in a report filed last month: "Compliance with environmental laws and regulations increases EOG's overall cost of business, but has not had, to date, a material adverse effect on EOG's operations, financial condition or results of operations." Devon Energy Corp, Anadarko Petroleum Corp, Pioneer Natural Resources Co, Apache Corp, and other large U.S.-focused oil and gas drillers used similar wording. "ABSENCE OF A NEGATIVE" Still, Obama's exit - and Trump's win over Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in November - has been enough to brighten the outlook of some big investors. "I believe the absence of a negative is a positive," John Dowd, who manages several energy funds at Fidelity Investments, wrote in his 2017 energy outlook. "The market has been concerned with the sustainability of fracking, and particularly to what extent it might have been regulated into obscurity by a different election outcome." Clinton had said during her campaign that she planned to increase regulation on fracking. Other segments of the energy industry, such as coal mining and oil refining, were harder hit by environmental protection measures during Obama's presidency. Several coal companies went bankrupt in recent years and blamed Obamas climate change initiatives for raising costs and hurting demand. Refiners have also long complained that environmental regulations have stymied attempts to build new refineries and that they have borne the brunt of costly rules requiring them to blend biofuels into their gasoline. Still, some energy analysts and regulation experts point out that the biggest drivers for these industries, too, tend to be supply and demand  not regulation. The abundance of cheap natural gas is seen as the biggest obstacle to reviving coal country, since both fuels compete for space in the furnaces of U.S. power plants. For refiners, the key driver for profitability is the differential between the price of their raw material, crude oil, and the fuels they make with it. "Supply and demand are the fundamental forces driving markets," said Coglianese, the University of Pennsylvania law professor. "Regulation is relatively trivial." (Editing by Brian Thevenot)
Donald Trump will restore pride of the United States and he will be remembered as one of the greatest presidents of the country, Trumps daughter-in-law Lara Trump said in an interview to Hello magazine Sunday. Lara, wife of Eric Trump, also criticized the media saying the presidential election campaign time was difficult for the Trump family.

I think that, ultimately, my father-in-law will change the United States for the better, restore pride to our country and go down in history as one of the greatest presidents, Lara told Hello. The light that was shed on the dishonesty of the media during the campaign was significant."

Lara Trump was of the opinion that criticism against Donald Trump during the presidential campaign only brought their family together.

Obviously the past two years were not all easy for our family. We took a lot of hits and continue to, but overall this has made us closer and stronger, she said.

Throughout his campaign, Donald Trump was criticized for his verbal attacks against Muslims and Mexicans. He was also termed as racist and misogynist. However, according to his daughter-in-law, he is kind and generous.

He is a man who, first and foremost, loves his family. He is a wonderful storyteller and loves large family dinners. We have such great times together and laugh a lot. He is gracious with his time and has a tremendous heart. He is an incredibly loyal person and never forgets those who are loyal to him. I feel very lucky to have a man like Donald Trump as my father-in-law, the 33-year-old told Hello.

Apart from this, Lara Trump also shared what it was being like the president's daughter-in-law. She noted she and her husband Eric Trump live a pretty normal life.

Our favorite place to be is our home outside of New York City. Its quiet and relaxing  just the two of us and our dogs. The Secret Service is made up of absolutely wonderful people. We couldnt ask for more patriotic, selfless people to be around us, she told the magazine.

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On March 20, Lara and Eric Trump announced they are expecting their first baby  a boy. The couple exchanged vows in October 2014 at the presidents Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. The two got engaged in July 2013 after dating for five years.

Lara Trump, who hails from Wilmington, North Carolina, previously worked as a personal trainer before joining CBS as associate producer for Inside Edition in October 2013, according to her LinkedIn profile.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's call for $1.5 billion this year to help build a wall along the border with Mexico could be in jeopardy as fellow Republicans in Congress weigh delaying a decision on the request. Republican Senator Roy Blunt, a member of his party's leadership, told reporters on Tuesday that money for the wall likely would not be coupled with a spending bill that must pass by April 28 to avoid shutting down federal agencies whose funding expires then. Blunt said the must-do funding "comes together better" without Trump's additional request for the border wall and military programs and could be considered "at a later time." Democrats are threatening to block the bill funding federal agencies from April 29 to Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year, if money for the border wall is included. They object to one of Trump's premier 2016 campaign promises, saying it is poorly planned and that there are other border security measures already constructed or under consideration. When he ran for president, Trump pledged Mexico would pay to build the wall, designed to keep illegal immigrants and drugs from entering the United States. The Mexican government has said it will not do so. The initiative has also faced resistance among Republicans, including lawmakers representing some border towns. The federal government would have to purchase land in many locations in order to construct the edifice, which could make construction costs soar. Reuters reported the wall could end up costing as much as $21.6 billion, far more than the $12 billion Trump cited. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart also expressed skepticism about Congress' ability to approve funds for the wall, given the super-majority vote needed in the Senate for most major legislation. Asked about the wall, Diaz-Balart, a senior member of the House of Representatives' Appropriations Committee and a leading voice on immigration policy, said: "I'm always willing to look at other things we can do to try to get that 60-vote threshold" on border and interior security. Lawmakers said progress was being made on legislation to keep the government running beyond April 28. House Speaker Paul Ryan removed another potential land mine on Tuesday when he said a Republican drive to end federal funding for women's healthcare provider Planned Parenthood would be best accomplished on legislation other than the upcoming funding bill. Democrats have vowed to stop the must-do money bill if it ended Planned Parenthood's federal funds. (Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Peter Cooney)
President Donald Trumps plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border has been criticized by some and lauded by others, but everyone knew it was going to be expensive. Exactly how expensive, though, was partially revealed Monday when a report showed the Trump administration wants $1 billion in funds to cover 62 miles of the border.

The White House asked for $999 million to build 48 miles of the new wall, in addition to replacing about 14 miles of the already existing border fence, according to CNN, which cited documents obtained from the Department of Homeland Security.

Read: Donald Trumps Border Plan Is Outdated, Costly And Ineffective, Researchers Say

The justification documents for the project, which lay the plans for the first installment of funding for the border wall, showed that the money will be spent on building 14 miles of the new wall in San Diego, California, and 28 miles of new levee wall barriers and six miles of new border wall in the Rio Grande Valley region, Texas, the report said. In addition to this, money will also be spent on 14 miles of replacement fencing in San Diego, which would likely include concrete elements.

One of Trumps biggest critics, California Gov. Jerry Brown, compared the idea to the Berlin Wall and said the state will fight against the presidents plans for the border wall.

Were not going to sit around and just play patsy and say, Hey, go ahead. Lock us in. Do whatever the hell you want. Export  deport 2 billion, 2 million people. Brown told NBCs Meet the Press on Sunday. No, were going to fight, and were going to fight very hard.

Soon after taking office, Trump signed an executive order authorizing the walls creation. The time period for construction, however, is yet to be set. The administration requested $1 billion in funding for 2017. In 2018, however, the requested amount increases to $2.6 billion, for border infrastructure and technology.

According to various estimates, the wall may cost anything between from $12 billion to over $20 billion, CNN reported. The burgeoning costs, however, may be cut down if the administration opts for a fence instead of the concrete wall, many former officials say.

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Ankara (AFP) - Turkey sent a team of experts to Britain Tuesday to try to pursuade London to lift a ban on passengers carrying large electronic devices on flights from Istanbul, the Turkish transport minister said.

Britain issued a ban last week on laptops and tablet computers in the passenger compartment of flights from five countries from the Middle East and northern Africa as well as Turkey.

Ahmet Arslan told CNN Turk he "felt" Britain would shortly lift the ban "because our meetings suggest this" but said talks with the US would likely be "longer-running."

"What I expect from the UK especially is for the ban to be lifted as soon as possible," Arslan said.

The British move came after Washington banned electronic devices larger than mobile phones on direct flights to the US from 10 airports in seven Middle Eastern countries and Turkey, allowing them only in hold luggage.

The UK ban affects 14 airlines including British Airways, EasyJet and flag carrier Turkish Airlines, whose profits have already been hit by a slew of terror attacks in 2016.

In a bid to make passengers "more comfortable" after the bans, the airline said passengers could use their laptops until they board.

The devices would then be placed in a special area in the cargo hold of the aircraft and returned to their owners upon arrival at the destination, Turkish Airlines said.
By Julia Edwards Ainsley and Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attorney General Jeff Sessions threatened on Monday to cut off U.S. Justice Department grants to cities that fail to assist federal immigration authorities, moving the Trump administration closer to a potential clash with leaders of America's largest urban centers.

Sessions' statements were aimed at a dozens of cities and other local governments, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, that have joined a growing "sanctuary" movement aimed at shielding illegal immigrants from stepped-up deportation efforts.

Police agencies in those jurisdictions have barred their officers from routinely checking on immigration status when making arrests or traffic stops. And they have refused to lock up individuals longer than otherwise warranted at the request of federal agents seeking to deport them.

Trump administration officials says the deportation crackdown is focused on illegal immigrants convicted of serious crimes. They insist public safety is jeopardized when police refuse to notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement of plans to release such a person from local custody.

"Failure to deport aliens who are convicted of criminal offenses puts whole communities at risk, especially immigrant communities in the very sanctuary jurisdictions that seek to protect the perpetrators," Sessions said at a White House news briefing.

His threat to withhold grants as punishment drew swift condemnation from California and New York officials.

California Senate leader Kevin de Leon, a Los Angeles Democrat, called Sessions threat "nothing short of blackmail, accusing of race-based scapegoating in its crackdown on immigrants.

Critics also argue that enlisting police cooperation in rounding up immigrants for removal undermines communities' trust in local police, particularly among Latinos. And they question whether the administration is really targeting dangerous criminals.

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President Donald Trump, who made tougher immigration enforcement a cornerstone of his campaign, directed the government to cut off funding to sanctuary jurisdictions in a Jan. 25 executive order. That order has yet to be put into effect, but Sessions' announcement seemed to be the first step in doing so.

The Justice Department grants typically are used to help police improve crime-fighting techniques, buy new equipment and assist victims of crime.

Sessions may find his ability to sway local decision-making through the Justice Department's purse is limited, because only a fraction of its grant dollars flow directly to city and county governments.

Federal records show the Justice Department doled out $1 billion to state governments and $430 million to nonprofits, but only $136 million directly to cities and counties last year.

New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said his office would continue helping local governments "have the tools they need to protect their immigrant communities."

LOCAL DEFIANCE

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, whose city is home to one of the largest U.S. immigrant communities, also denounced Sessions' threat to use funding as a form of coercion.

L.A.s values are not for sale," Garcetti said. "Slashing funds for first responders, for our port and airport, for counterterrorism, crime-fighting and community-building serves no one."

So far no state has adopted policies barring cooperation with immigration authorities, though Maryland's Democratic-controlled House of Delegates approved such legislation last week. The state's Republican governor, Larry Hogan, has said he would veto the bill.

California's De Leon is backing a bill that would essentially make all of the most populous U.S. state a sanctuary, but he does not currently have the votes to pass it.

Sessions sought to frame the debate as a public-safety issue, citing the case of a woman shot to death in San Francisco two years ago by illegal immigrant who had already been deported five times and had seven felony convictions.

San Francisco may not be affected by the new restrictions, as the city and county received no funding from the department in the most recent fiscal year.

However, Sessions' order could impact other jurisdictions. New Orleans, Philadelphia, Chicago and New York City - all singled out as possibly noncompliant by an inspector general's report last year - collectively received $15 million in Justice Department grants.

According to Trumps executive order, Sessions would have to wait until the Homeland Security Department determines what constitutes a "sanctuary city" before funding is restricted. DHS last week reported roughly 120 cities and counties that it deems uncooperative, though the agency has not finalized the list.

Sal Tinajero, council member of the California sanctuary city of Santa Ana, questioned whether Sessions even had the authority to make good on his threat.

"How do you take money away that Congress has already voted to allocate? You can't. Congress has to take another vote," he said.

(Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe in Washington, Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Alan Devall in Santa Ana and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Bill Trott and Mary Milliken)
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has appointed former South Carolina Governor David Beasley to run the Rome-based World Food Programme (WFP), at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump has proposed slashing funding for the world body and its agencies. Beasley will replace another American, Ertharin Cousin, who has been the WFP executive director since 2012. Washington was the top contributor to WFP in 2016 with $2 billion, a third of the agency's budget. Trump has proposed an unspecified cut in funding for the United Nations and its agencies. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, like Beasley, is also a former governor of South Carolina. "Mr. Beasley has a wealth of experience that would greatly benefit WFP, the United Nations and the international community at large," Guterres wrote in a letter, seen by Reuters, notifying the WFP executive board of the appointment. Guterres said Beasley, who served as South Carolina governor from 1995 to 1999, was among 23 applications/nominations for the job. The WFP executive board noted his appointment in a letter to Guterres on Tuesday. (This story corrects spelling of first name of current WFP chief in 2nd paragraph to "Ertharin" instead of "Etharin") (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by David Gregorio)
By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Tuesday faulted Texas, the U.S. leader in executions, in a death penalty case for the second time in a month and again ruled in favor of a black inmate, finding the state used an obsolete standard to assess whether he is intellectually disabled and exempt from capital punishment. The justices, in a 5-3 decision, threw out a Texas court's ruling upholding the death sentence of Bobby Moore, 57, who was convicted at age 20 of fatally shooting an elderly grocery store clerk during a 1980 robbery in Houston. Moore's lawyers argue he is intellectually disabled and thus not eligible for the death penalty, and now get another chance to show that in court. "Today, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that all persons with intellectual disability are exempt from execution, and that current medical standards must be used to determine whether a person is intellectually disabled," said Cliff Sloan, Moore's lawyer. The Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that the execution of people who are intellectually disabled violates the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which bans cruel and unusual punishment. In Moore's case, in a ruling authored by liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the court held that the Texas system for gauging the intellect of defendants is deficient. On Feb. 22, the court gave another Texas death row inmate, Duane Buck, a chance to avoid execution because his trial was tainted by testimony from a psychologist who stated Buck was more likely to commit future crimes because he is black. Chief Justice John Roberts denounced the "noxious strain of racial prejudice" seen in that Texas case. Since the resumption of capital punishment in the United States four decades ago, Texas has carried out 542 executions, far more than any other state. Texas has executed four inmates so far this year, more than every other state combined. Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office said he was disappointed in the ruling on Moore but offered no further comment. The lower court that upheld Moore's sentence wrongly used a quarter-century old definition employed in Texas when it determined Moore was not intellectually disabled, the court ruled. Moore's lawyers said a lower court found that Moore's IQ of 70 was "within the range of mild mental retardation." 'DIMINISH THE FORCE' Ginsburg noted that the Supreme Court had previously said consideration of intellectual disability must be guided by the views of medical experts. "That instruction cannot sensibly be read to give courts leave to diminish the force of the medical community's consensus," Ginsburg wrote. Conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the court's four liberals in the ruling. Three of the court's conservatives, Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito, dissented. Roberts wrote in dissent that court precedent did not compel a ruling favoring Moore. "The court instead crafts a constitutional holding based solely on what it deems to be medical consensus about intellectual disability. But clinicians, not judges, should determine clinical standards; and judges, not clinicians, should determine the content of the Eighth Amendment," he wrote. Moore, a repeat offender at the time of the murder, shot store clerk James McCarble in the head with a shotgun after entering the Birdsall Super Market with two other robbers wearing a wig and sunglasses, according to prosecutors. Authorities apprehended him in Louisiana 10 days later. More death row inmates from Harris County, where Moore was prosecuted, have been executed since the resumption of the death penalty than any other county. In fact, the number of inmates executed from that single county exceeds the total of any other whole state other than Texas. U.S. executions are becoming less common, with opinion polls showing rising opposition to the death penalty. Twenty executions were carried out in 2016, the lowest total since 1991, and they took place in only five of the 50 states. The Supreme Court's justices have differed among themselves over capital punishment but the court has shown no indication it will take up the broader question of the whether the death penalty itself violates the Constitution. In 2015, they upheld Oklahoma's lethal injection process in a 5-4 ruling. But Ginsburg and fellow liberal Justice Stephen Breyer asserted that the way the death penalty is implemented may be unconstitutional in part because of state-to-state differences. On Feb. 21, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor faulted the court for declining to consider whether Alabama's lethal injection procedures amounted to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Will Dunham)
Zaatari refugee camp (Jordan) (AFP) - UN chief Antonio Guterres called on Arab leaders Tuesday to set aside their differences to confront Syria's six-year conflict, as he toured a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan.

"Arab unity is a very important element in order to allow this region to be stabilised and for... the Syrian refugees to find again a future that corresponds to their aspirations," Guterres said.

Speaking on the eve of an Arab League summit hosted by Jordan, the UN chief said: "When Arab countries are divided, it has allowed others to intervene and to manipulate situations, creating instability, breeding conflict and facilitating the lives of terrorist organisations."

Guterres met with women and girls living in Zaatari, home to some 80,000 Syrian refugees.

Syria's conflict began with protests against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011 but has turned into a brutal war pitting government forces, jihadists, rebels, and Kurds against each other.

The war has killed more than 320,000 people and forced 4.9 million people to flee their country.

In Jordan, where the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says it has registered 630,000 Syrians, the government says it is hosting 1.4 million.

Jordan says the influx has strained its resources and has insisted it must screen newcomers to ensure they are genuine refugees and not jihadists seeking to infiltrate the country.

Guterres, who headed the UNHCR when the Syrian war broke out, said he remembered the first Syrian refugees arriving in Zaatari when it opened.

"How sad it is, how terrible it is, that today we still have Zaatari camp... and that the tragedy of Syrians is going on and on and on," he said.

He urged the international community to step up humanitarian aid to the refugees in Jordan and other regional countries that are hosting them.

"I hope that if all countries that have an influence on the Syrian situation are able to come together these refugees that are living here artificially now for more than four years in this camp will be able to restart their lives again, to find jobs, to work, to have a normal life."
If you enjoyed the US edition of the CRISPR patent dispute, get ready for the European one: with the announcement last week that the European Patent Office intends to grant a patent to the University of California, Berkeley, and its partners covering a broad range of uses of the revolutionary genome editing technology, expect a similar plot to unfold on that side of the Atlantic.

In particular, now we go through opposition proceedings in Europe, where third parties can challenge the patent, patent expert Jacob Sherkow of New York Law School tweeted. And that could take a while.

Although the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard prevailed (so far) in the United States, persuading a patent court that it is entitled to the dozen or so patents it received on the use of CRISPR in plant and animal cells, UCs important first-round win in Europe shows that patent examiners there saw the dispute quite differently.

UCs claims are based on inventions by its biochemist Jennifer Doudna, working with Emmanuelle Charpentier, who was at Swedens University of Umea when the breakthrough 2012 work was done, showing that CRISPR-Cas9 can be used to cut and possibly edit DNA in a test tube. The US patent office decided last month that extending that accomplishment to the editing of genomes in advanced, or eukaryotic, cells, as scientists led by the Broads Feng Zhang did, was not obvious; the Broad therefore got to keep the patent it has won for Zhangs work.

Companies associated with the UC side welcomed the win. Were very pleased with the decision by the European Patent Office recognizing the broad applicability of our foundational IP, said Rodger Novak, CEO of CRISPR Therapeutics, which was co-founded by Charpentier and licenses her and Doudnas CRISPR inventions. We look forward to pursuing additional cases to grant in other jurisdictions globally. Important countries in Asia, notably China and Japan, have yet to render CRISPR patent decisions.

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The European patent would cover the use of CRISPR-Cas9, an ingenious genome-editing system based on an ancient bacterial immune system, in all kinds of cells, including those of humans and other mammals. Those uses would cover the hoped-for therapeutic applications that CRISPR Therapeutics, Editas Medicine, and Intellia, among others, are pursuing.

We are excited that this patent will issue based on the foundational research we published with Emmanuelle Charpentier and the rest of our team, Doudna said in a statement. We look forward to the continued applications of gene-editing technology to solve problems in human health and agriculture.

The Broad, which did not immediately reply to a request for comment, has nine months to file its opposition to the European patent office decision.

Edward Penhoet, a special advisor on CRISPR to the UC president and cofounder and former CEO of Chiron Corp., said the university is thrilled with the decision, emphasizing that UCs original patent application  based on the same work that fell short with US patent judges  covers a broad range of cell types, including human cells.

Before issuing its decision, the European patent office considered nine third-party observations, filed as early as 2014 by the Broad and others, essentially registering objections to the granting of the patent. The office said those objections were found not to be relevant or are no longer considered to be relevant.

The winning side in Europe suggested it might well still prevail in the United States, where it still has several weeks to appeal the patent court decision. Despite the objections that the Broad filed in Europe, Tyler Dylan-Hyde, chief legal officer of CRISPR Therapeutics, said in a statement, patent offices are beginning to recognize both the fundamental significance of the Doudna and Charpentier work and their wide applicability to CRISPR/Cas gene editing. The company, he said, will continue to press its case in the U.S.  [and] 80 other countries.
Washington (AFP) - The commander of US forces in Europe said Tuesday that United States should consider arming Ukraine with defensive weapons as it fights Russian-backed rebels in the country's east.

Ukraine has long sought supplies of US weapons, but was rebuffed by former president Barack Obama's administration, which sent US military personnel to train Ukrainian forces instead.

"I personally believe we need to consider lethal defensive weapons for Ukraine," Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, who is NATO's supreme allied commander and head of the US European Command, said.

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Scaparrotti described the rebels as a "lethal tough enemy."

"The Russians provide some of their newest equipment in order to test it," he told the lawmakers.

The Russians notably have tested the use of drones to provide lethal targeting data to artillery units, he said.

Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of masterminding the rebellion, a charge that Moscow denies. Nearly 10,000 people have been killed since the conflict began in April 2014.

Scaparrotti's remarks came ahead of a meeting in Brussels Thursday between NATO ambassadors and the Russian envoy in a new bid to ease tensions, including over the crisis in Ukraine.

NATO has suspended all practical cooperation with Russia over its role in Ukraine.

On Friday, the foreign ministers of the 28-nation NATO alliance are scheduled to meet in Brussels, marking the first time US President Donald Trump's secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, will attend the talks.
The United States launched an anti-dumping investigation against imports of Chinese aluminum foil on Tuesday, the latest in a series of cases against the country that could result in the imposition of punitive duties.

"The Trump Administration is unequivocally committed to the vigorous enforcement of America's trade laws and will ensure US businesses and workers are treated fairly," US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement.

US companies filed a complaint early this month saying Chinese aluminum foil imports are dumped into the American market at prices lower than the cost of production, and unfairly subsidized. They name 230 Chinese companies in the complaint.

Aluminum foil imports from China amounted to $390 million last year, the Commerce Department said.

"The Department of Commerce intends to act swiftly to halt any unfair trade practices and will render our decisions at the earliest opportunity, while also assuring a full and fair assessment of the facts," Ross said.

The US International Trade Commission will review the case by April 24 and if it determines that US companies have been harmed, the Commerce Department could decide this summer to impose punitive tariffs on those goods based on the dumping rate of between 38.4 percent and 140.2 percent.

The previous administration of Democratic president Barack Obama, just before leaving office in January, filed a complaint against China in the World Trade Organization (WTO) over its aluminum imports, saying subsidies granted by Beijing are illegal under WTO rules.

In the first step in the WTO dispute settlement process, Washington called for consultations with Beijing.

In the absence of negotiated compromise, the United States could be allowed by the WTO to impose tariffs on certain Chinese imports.
The Donald Trump administration will not allow Palestinian officials to take on top positions in the United Nations until the Palestinian Authority cooperates in peace talks with Israel, Nikki Haley, the U.S. envoy to the U.N., said Monday at the annual Policy Conference of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Last month, Washington blocked the appointment of Salam Fayyad  the Palestinian Authority's prime minister from 2007 to 2013  to lead the U.N. political mission in Libya. At the time, Haley accused the U.N. for being unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel. She also said the Trump administration was disappointed over U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres move to appoint Fayyad as the next U.N. special representative to Libya.

On Monday, Haley used Fayyads example to state the U.S. opposition to Palestinian officials being given top posts in the U.N.

So when they [U.N.] decided to try and put a Palestinian [Fayyad] in one of the highest positions that had ever been given at the UN, we said no, and we had him booted out. That doesnt mean he wasnt a nice man. That doesnt mean he wasnt good to America, Haley said at AIPAC.

What it means is until the Palestinian Authority comes to the table, until the U.N. responds the way theyre supposed to, there are no freebies for the Palestinian Authority anymore, she added.

Moreover, Haley also said that the U.S. would not allow "Israel-bashing" at the U.N.

"And I wanted to let them to know that, look, that happened but it will never happen again. The days of Israel-bashing are over," she said.

Peace talks to settle the Israel-Palestine conflict have been hampered on several occasions. Last month, Trump said the two-state solution, which has been backed by European allies (and previously by Washington) was not the only way to resolve the conflict.

"Looking at two-state or one-state, I like the one that both parties like. I'm very happy with the one both parties like. I can live with either one," Trump said at the time.

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Washington (AFP) - The US Senate on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to approve Montenegro as NATO's 29th member, a move backed by President Donald Trump while seen as a rebuke to Russia's intervention in Eastern Europe.

After a procedural vote earlier in the week, the accession treaty for the small Balkan nation to join the transatlantic alliance sailed through on a 97-2 vote.

The measure now goes to the White House for Trump's formal ratification.

To date, 25 other NATO members have ratified Montenegro's accession, a country of 620,000 people seen as a geostrategic ally. The Netherlands and Spain have yet to do so.

"I'm convinced that our alliance will be stronger if Montenegro joins," Senate Democrat Chris Murphy said on the Senate floor before the vote, noting that the country, once a part of Yugoslavia, "occupies an incredibly important space on the world map."

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization holds its summit on May 25 in Brussels, where Trump will use the opportunity to reaffirm Washington's strong commitment to the alliance, according to the White House.

The Kremlin is opposed to Montenegro's accession, calling it a "provocation" that would reinforce the pro-Western military alliance's presence in the Balkans.

The US vote comes days after a Montenegrin special prosecutor accused "Russian state bodies" of involvement in an alleged coup plot during Montenegro's October election.

Moscow branded the accusation as "absurd."

Russia also stands accused of interfering in the US presidential election last year, when US intelligence agencies say it leaked hacked emails that damaged Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Several senators have framed Montenegro's accession as nothing less than a test of resolve against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Republican Senator Susan Collins said she was "very happy that the Russian campaign to try to dissuade the people of Montenegro from joining NATO, and the disinformation that Russia disseminated, was not successful."

Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Montenegro's membership sends "a strong message of resolve to Russia as it invades its neighbors and seeks to upend the international order."

Republicans Rand Paul and Mike Lee voted against the measure.
The US has emerged an early leader in the World's 50 Best Restaurants awards, taking nine spots on the second half of the list which ranks the top 51-100 restaurants.

In advance of the 2017 edition of the awards set to take place in Melbourne next week, organizers of one of the world's most influential gastronomy rankings released the bottom half of the list, which represents 24 countries.

After the US, Spain and France tied with the second-highest number of restaurants with four addresses each.

Notable movers and shakers this year include chef David Chang's New York hotspot Momofuku Ko, which leapfrogged 39 spots to No. 58 --the highest-ranking US restaurant on the list so far.

The highest new entry, and also the recipient of the "One to Watch" award which was previously announced, is Barcelona restaurant Disfrutar, where El Bulli alumni Mateu Casanas, Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatruch serve unexpected dishes like transparent, gelatine penne pasta and deconstructed whisky tart, which invites guests to wash their hands in whisky and inhale the scent as they eat.

A total of 11 new restaurants managed to crack the top 100 list, including Atelier Crenn in the US by chef Dominique Crenn (No. 83), Mingles in South Korea (No. 89), Kadeau in Denmark (No. 94) along with Sushi Saito and Florilege in Japan (No. 97 and No. 99).

Likewise, Hisa Franko in Kobarid, Slovenia made its debut this year at No. 69, while chef Ana Ros bagged the title of world's best female chef 2017.

This year, 1,040 food writers, critics, chefs, restaurateurs and "gastronomes" cast their votes for their favorite dining destinations.

Next Wednesday, all eyes will be on Italian chef Massimo Bottura, whose Modena restaurant Osteria Francescana is currently the titleholder of the world's best restaurant.

For the full list of 51-100 restaurants, visit http://www.theworlds50best.com/blog/News/everything-about-the-worlds-50-best-restaurants-51-100-list.html.

The results will be announced out of Melbourne April 5, and the event livestreamed beginning at 11 am GMT at https://www.finedininglovers.com/tag/50-best-restaurants.
Washington (AFP) - The US Supreme Court overturned Tuesday a death sentence for a Texas man, saying he was not properly sentenced because of his mental disability.

The five-to-three Supreme Court decision offered a reprieve to Bobby Moore, a 57-year-old prisoner who fatally shot a clerk at a Houston grocery store during a botched holdup in 1980. His case now goes back to lower courts in Texas.

The Supreme Court said that Texas had violated the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment by using an outdated standard for mental disability.

The ruling dealt a blow to Texas, the southwestern state that leads the nation in the number of executions it carries out.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in reading the decision, said that Texas cannot use outdated standards for mental disability in sentencing a prisoner to death.

"Texas cannot satisfactorily explain why it applies current medical standards for diagnosing intellectual disability in other contexts, yet clings to superseded standards when an individual's life is at stake," she said.

John Blume, director of the Cornell Law School Death Penalty Project, welcomed the decision.

"The Court made clear that states are not free to adopt standards that deviate from the medical community's diagnostic framework," he said.

The three most conservative members of the high court -- John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito -- dissented.

According to his lawyers, Moore at age 13 was unable to tell time, discern the days of the week or discern addition from subtraction.

The Texan judges disputed that Moore had intellectual disabilities, noting he could play pool and mow the lawn.

Texas insisted that he warranted the death penalty, basing its evaluation of his mental capacity on a 1992 medical manual and controversial criteria.

In other states, courts refer to a series of current medical standards to determine whether a murderer should be considered as having a mental disability.

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The techniques allowing for an evaluation of a person's mental state, however, have evolved over time. An individual's intelligence quotient (IQ) has lost its predominance as a standard in favor of practical aptitude tests.

In 2014, a judge sided with Moore and removed him from death row, but that ruling was overturned in 2015 on appeal.

The appellate judges noted that he wore a wig on the day of the murder, saying that such an act showed he was mentally capable of understanding his actions.

They also noted that as a teen, he adapted to life on the streets when his father threw him out of the house.
Photo credit: Facebook / NCS Designs

From Road & Track

How do you get within kissing distance of 300 mph? You can strap into a Top Fuel dragster, or any of a number of midsize aircraft. Or you can send this twin-turbo Ford GT down a mile-long stretch of pavement. From a halt, it'll get to nearly 300 by the end of that mile.

NCS Designs just uploaded this video of M2K Motorsports' heavily-modified Ford GT obliterating the standing-mile world record at the Texas Mile on March 26th. The Ford, running a fire-breathing 5.4-liter V8 but appearing nearly stock from the outside, hit the end of the mile doing an astounding 293.6 mph.

Watch for yourself:

M2K Motorsports' decisive standing-mile performance smashes the Guinness World Record set by Johnny Bohmer, whose similar Ford GT hit 283.232 in the standing mile in October of 2012.

The Texas Mile, run on a 1.5-mile-long airstrip at Victoria Regional Airport in Victoria, Texas, hosts standing-mile competitions for street cars, race cars, motorcycles, and land-speed vehicles.

We've got just one question: If this GT can knock on the door of 300 mph in the span of a mile, what could it do on the wide-open 5.4-mile straightaway of Volkswagen's Ehra-Lessien track, the 12-mile loop where the automaker proved the top speed of the various Bugatti Veyron variants?

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Fresh off the party's failure to pass a bill repealing and replacing a 7-year-old health care law after years of preparations, the GOP planned to take a new approach to giving the nation its first major tax reform in more than three decades.

I would say that we will probably start going very, very strongly for the big tax cuts and tax reform, President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House after the health care bills fallout Friday. That will be next.

Read: What Is The Net Investment Income Tax? Trump Could Save Millions If It's Repealed

But while Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin once called the task, which he hoped to accomplish by August, a lot simpler than health care legislation, Republicans in Congress faced likely skirmishes not only with Democrats likely to balk at proposed income tax cuts for the wealthy, but the White House, fiscal conservatives within their ranks and business owners reliant on imports.

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, for example, said on Fox News Sunday that the administration planned to bypass stubborn conservatives blamed for the health care debacle on future legislative efforts.

Suggesting that Democrats are going to come on board with the presidents vision on lowering taxes, Priebus added that, if certain measures are incompatible with some members of the Republican House, then its going to be incompatible, and then we need to work with moderate Democrats to make sure that happens.

As Stephen Moore, an economist at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, told the New York Times, this route may entail some compromise in order to end successfully.

They have to have a victory here, said Moore, who served as an adviser to Trump during the reality TV stars campaign, of the Republicans. But it is going to have to be a bit less ambitious rather than going for the big bang.

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Plans for steep tax cuts could also face resistance from budget conservatives who dont want to drive up the government deficit by slashing its main source of revenue. While some Republicans in the past have promised a revenue neutral fiscal plan, meaning it would rake in the same amount of revenue as under the current structure, House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R-North Carolina) said otherwise Sunday.

Does it have to be what they would say 'revenue neutral,' or do you have to have an offset like with the border adjustment tax? Meadows said in an ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos. I think there has been a lot of flexibility in terms of some of my contacts and conservatives in terms of not making it totally offset But does it have to be fully offset? My personal response is no.

Read: What's Next For Obamacare? Earlier Reports Hint At Republicans Plan B

The proposed border adjustment tax Meadows mentioned could also be a sticking point. A tax on imports sold domestically, it could harm corporations in the apparel, petroleum, electronics and textile industries, all of which are heavily reliant on imported goods, as Quartz pointed out in February.

Although Trump has pledged to lower the corporate tax rate to 15 percent from 35 percentthe third-highest in the world, when the 3.9 percent average state levy is brought into the picturethe business community may also be alarmed at the GOPs plans to close corporate tax loopholes. As the Wall Street Journal found, using data from the Congressional Budget Office, the effective corporate tax rate, when taking loopholes into account, was 18.6 percent in 201220.5 percentage points below the statutory rate that year.

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The White House didnt have a clear message for states looking to potentially expand Medicaid in the wake of the American Health Care Acts (AHCA) failure, implying that the bill would have saved the program for low-income and disabled Americans by cutting nearly a trillion dollars from its funding.

Press secretary Sean Spicer was asked during Tuesdays briefing about possible expansions of Medicaid coverage in Kansas, Georgia and Virginia. The three states are in varying stages of moving toward joining the 31 states that have already opted in to Obamacares expansion of the decades-old program, which covers 74 million Americans. The AHCA would have closed the door on expansion as of March 1.

I think theres a reason [President Trump] explained to Congress and especially members who have talked about entitlement expansion why we should have passed this bill last week and why we need to address it now, said Spicer. This is a major issue. Its one of our talking points, so I hope they listen.

Spicer then went more in-depth, mentioning changes that were made to the AHCA in an attempt to appease more conservative members of the Republican caucus, specifically a work requirement for able-bodied enrollees, and an effort to push the money and a lot of the authority back to the states. The bill, he said, made it a much more states rights program and a much more states right decision making process in terms of how to care for the populations that they had to address.

Critics of the Medicaid expansion say that too many able-bodied but low-income Americans are choosing to enroll in the program over working, an issue that would have been addressed by the able-bodied provision Spicer mentioned. The last-minute managers amendments added to make the bill more attractive to right-wing Freedom Caucus members would have set a work requirement for able-bodied Americans without children, a policy that hasnt produced results in studies at the state level. It also would have cut matching funds to states for anyone making over 133 percent of the poverty line, likely forcing some states to reduce coverage or eliminate people from their rolls.

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The proposed legislation would have run counter to one of Trumps campaign promises. Under the AHCA, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that Medicaid funding would be cut by $880 billion over 10 years, with 14 million recipients losing coverage. Other effects of the legislation, per the CBO:

Roughly 9 million fewer people would enroll in Medicaid in 2020; that figure would rise to 14 million in 2026, as states that expanded eligibility for Medicaid discontinued doing so, as states projected to expand Medicaid in the future chose not to do so, and as the cap on per-enrollee spending took effect.

This is contrast to a statement made by Trump the candidate, who said he would save Medicaid  along with Medicare and Social Security  without cuts. Trump also promised that his program would mean insurance for everybody, something the cutting of Medicaid funding would render impossible without a replacement.

Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government offered a deal to states that offered coverage to anyone making up to 138 percent of the poverty level ($16,400 for a single person): Washington promised to cover a minimum of 90 percent of the states costs. Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia have taken the federal government up on that offer, although some states modified programs for their citizens. Medicaid is the main reason that some Republican governors  such as John Kasich of Ohio and Rick Snyder of Michigan  came out against any GOP plan to replace Obamacare that didnt protect the expansion.

A Supreme Court decision in 2012 gave states the choice to opt out of the program. Currently 19 states havent joined, but there is movement. In Maine, there were enough petition signatures to ensure a ballot measure on expansion this November. In Kansas, legislators in the state House and Senate passed a bill to expand the program, although Republican Gov. Sam Brownback could still veto the legislation. The governors of Virginia and Georgia are said to be considering expanding the program.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Washington (AFP) - The White House announced Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will make an "official visit" to Washington on April 3, ending years in which the Egyptian president had been kept at arm's length amid rights concerns.

"President Trump and President Al-Sisi will use the visit to build on the positive momentum they have built for the United States-Egypt relationship," the White House said in a statement Tuesday.

Sisi's visit to Washington would be the first to the White House since the former army chief became president in 2014.

His relations with former president Barack Obama's administration were strained by Sisi's role in ousting then-president Mohamed Morsi.

In response, the US had briefly suspended $1.3 billion in military aid, which was fully reinstated in 2015.

From the outset, Trump has shown more willingness to engage the former general, despite repeated reports of human rights violations under his rule.

He met the Egyptian leader in September, and Sisi was reportedly the first to call Trump to offer his congratulations on his November election win.
Every one of President Donald Trump's weekend trips to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida has cost taxpayers an estimated $3 million and created what one former Secret Service agent called a "logistical nightmare." But in spite of all the resources the federal government has devoted to making sure the president can visit his properties every weekend, it hasn't kept track of the names of who else is coming and going from Trump properties.

Last week, Democrats introduced legislation that would require the Trump administration to create a public database of anyone who visits the White House or "any other location at which the President or the Vice President regularly conducts official business." The bill is not so subtly called the "Making Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness Act"  the MAR-A-LAGO Act. But the bill's namesake can't provide the information because the resort doesn't keep visitor logs, Politico reported Tuesday.

Read: Trump Vacation Costs: Mar-A-Lago Trips A Major Financial Burden On Florida District, Democrats Say

Although Trump himself has called Mar-a-Lago the Southern White House, the resort has none of the security apparatus present at the presidents Washington, D.C., residence. Politico reported the resort doesnt require guests to submit details like a middle initial, birthdate or Social Security number  standard features for visitor logs.

The Secret Service also doesnt conduct weapon screenings or use bomb-sniffing dogs to check vehicles at the resort, even when the president is present, Politico reported.

The lax security presented concerns for not only the physical safety of the president and his family but also the nation. In February, Trump was having dinner with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the Mar-a-Lago dining room when news reached the leaders that North Korea had conducted a ballistic missile test. Instead of retreating to a secure area, the dining room became an impromptu situation room, in full view of dozens of diners.

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Due to these concerns, the Government Accountability Office agreed Monday to investigate security procedures at the resort after prodding by Democrats. The office said it will also examine expenses incurred by government staff who travel with the president to Mar-a-Lago and determine whether Trump has sent the profits from his hotels to the U.S. treasury, as he promised he would.

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Paris (AFP) - The wife of France's conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon was charged Tuesday with complicity in the abuse of public funds in a scandal that has engulfed her husband's campaign.

He has already been charged in the case involving allegedly fictitious jobs as a parliamentary aide for which the Welsh-born Penelope Fillon was paid hundreds of thousands of euros.

The 61-year-old Penelope was also charged over a salary she received from a literary magazine owned by a billionaire friend of her husband's, Marc Ladreit de Lacharriere.

She has told police she never stepped foot in the offices of the Revue des Deux Mondes, according to a report in the Journal du Dimanche weekly.

The new blow comes less than four weeks before French voters go to the polls in a two-stage election on April 23 and May 7.

Francois Fillon, whose legal woes have snowballed since "Penelopegate" broke in January, once described his wife as a stalwart companion who "has been with me in political life for 30 years... but always in the shadows."

Revelations by the satirical and investigative newspaper Le Canard Enchaine turned a harsh media glare on a woman that no one could recall seeing at work in the halls of parliament.

Though a lawmaker employing a family member is not illegal in France, Penelope is accused of doing little for the 680,000 euros ($725,000) she received in salary over a number of years.

Fillon, 63, has repeatedly claimed that he is the victim of a "political assassination".

Last week he accused Socialist President Francois Hollande of using the finance ministry to collect information on politicians, including his former prime minister Manuel Valls, which was then leaked to the press.

- Man of integrity -

Fillon, who overcame intense pressure to quit the presidential race early this month, was once the clear favourite, but opinion polls now show him failing to get past the first round.

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If the election were held today, the May 7 runoff would pit far-right leader Marine Le Pen against centrist Emmanuel Macron, polls show.

The 39-year-old Macron is currently tipped to defeat Le Pen, 48, by a wide margin.

Last week "Penelopegate" took a new twist when financial prosecutors said they were expanding the fake jobs probe to include suspicions of forgery.

Investigators are looking at whether the Fillons forged documents to try to justify Penelope's salary, an allegation angrily rejected by her lawyer Pierre Cornut-Gentille.

"When this case is approached calmly and with respect for the principles of law, I am convinced the innocence of Penelope and Francois Fillon will be recognised," Cornut-Gentille said in a statement released by the office of the presidential candidate.

Penelope had been charged with "unusual speed," the lawyer said.

The silver-haired mother of five is now a local councillor in Solesmes, a village of 1,000 people in the Sarthe area where the couple live in the turreted manor house.

Francois Fillon, a staunch Catholic who had campaigned as a man of integrity, has also been charged for failing to declare a 2013 interest-free loan of 50,000 euros from Ladreit to a state transparency watchdog.

But a potentially even more embarrassing revelation emerged this month when the Canard Enchaine reported that Fillon had introduced a Lebanese oil pipeline builder -- with whom he signed a $50,000 lobbying contract -- to Russian President Vladimir Putin at a business forum in St. Petersburg in 2015.

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Conservationists on Tuesday hailed the discovery of a new breeding population of tigers in Thailand as a "miraculous" victory for a sub-species nearly wiped out by poaching.

Images of some tigers including six cubs, captured by camera traps in an eastern Thai jungle throughout 2016, confirm the presence of what is only the world's second known breeding population of the endangered Indochinese tiger.

The only other growing population -- the largest in the world with about three dozen tigers -- is based in a western forest corridor in Thailand near the border with Myanmar.

"The extraordinary rebound of eastern Thailand's tigers is nothing short of miraculous," said John Goodrich, the tiger program director at Panthera, a wild cat preservation group that backed the survey.

The camera trap footage, which shows female tigers and their cubs traipsing through the leafy jungle, was captured with help from the anti-trafficking group Freeland and Thai park authorities.

Indochinese tigers, which are generally smaller than their Bengal and Siberian counterparts, once roamed across much of Asia.

But today only an estimated 221 remain, with the vast majority in Thailand and a handful in neighbouring Myanmar.

Aggressive poaching, weak law enforcement and habitat loss has rendered the animals all but extinct in southern China, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, according to scientists.

Tiger farms around the region have also boosted the trafficking trade by propping up demand for tiger parts, which are treasured as talismans and used in traditional medicines popular in China.

Conservationists and park officials attributed Thailand's success story to a rise in counter-poaching efforts over the past few decades.

But they warned that the breeding populations remained vulnerable and would not thrive without a sustained commitment to busting poachers and taking down the lucrative trafficking trade.

The Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai forest complex, where the latest young cubs were caught on some of the 156 cameras, still hosts a only modest tiger density of 0.63 tigers per 100 square kilometres.

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It is a ratio on par with some of the world's most threatened tiger habitats, according to Freeland, but still means there is a population of at least 23 of the big beasts roaming wild.

"It's crucial to continue the great progress made by the Thai government to bolster protection for tigers at the frontlines," said Kraisak Choonhavan, the group's board chairman.

"As long as the illegal trade in tigers continues, they will need protection."
A prominent Texas veterinarian accused with her live-in boyfriend of trying to have their exes killed was found dead in an apparent suicide one day before she was set to appear in court, officials said.

Valerie McDaniel, 48, is believed to have jumped from her seventh floor home at Willowick Condominiums in Houston Monday.

Her body was discovered in a courtyard between the building and its pool, the Houston Chronicle reported.

The Harris County District Attorney's Office confirmed McDaniels death to InsideEdition.com Tuesday, but declined to comment further.

There were no witnesses and no one else was home at the time of the apparent suicide, police said. No foul play is suspected.

McDaniel was out on bond after she and her boyfriend, Leon Jacob, 39, were charged with solicitation of capital murder for allegedly hiring a hitman to kill her ex-husband and his ex-girlfriend, authorities said.

Read: Cops: Celebrity Baker and Former Marine Tried to Hire Hit Man to Kill Her Ex Over Child Visitation

But cops said the pair unwittingly hired out an undercover officer with the Houston Police Department, after the facilitator they contacted to find the hitman called police, the Chronicle reported.

The couple allegedly offered the undercover officer $20,000 in cash and two Cartier watches to have their former partners murdered.

McDaniel allegedly wanted her ex-husband, with whom she had an 8-year-old daughter, to be killed in a shooting that would be staged to look like a carjacking.

Jacobs ex-girlfriend was the complainant in a stalking case against him, which investigators said was what led to the hiring of who he thought was a hit man, KPRC-TV reported.

"The co-defendant says he was looking for somebody to kill a witness for his pending stalking charge," according to probable cause statement reportedly read by a judge Saturday in court.

McDaniel posted $50,000 bond days after her arrest and was due in court Tuesday.

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Jacob had been denied bail because of the existing charges he faces.

Read: Father Kills Daughter in Apparent Murder-Suicide at Shopping Mall

Jacob reportedly received the news of McDaniels death Monday.

When asked how his client took the news, attorney George Parnham told KTRK-TV that Jacob was, "Devastated, devastated."

Parnham asked the judge if Jacob could be released from jail to attend McDaniels funeral, but the judge refused, the television station reported.

Houston police reportedly found notes inside McDaniel's home that detailed her final wishes, including sealed letters addressed to family members.

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So-called organs on a chip  small blobs of tissue growing in lab dishes that mimic the function of their human counterparts  have promise for basic science and drug development. And those efforts are scaling up. On Tuesday scientists unveiled a five-organ female reproductive system on a chip small enough to hold in your hand, and showed that it could simulate a 28-day menstrual cycle.

The chip is part of an effort funded by the National Institutes of Health to build an entire human body-on-a-chip  a creation that would involve all of the organ systems and allow researchers to run unprecedentedly precise experiments on human tissue. Other research groups are also working on chips that mimic multiple organs, for instance the liver, heart, and blood vessels.

In this case, the chip is about the size of a hardcover book and studded with Lego-like blocks, each of which is hollowed-out and holds bits of tissue growing on plastic scaffolding: ovary, fallopian tube, uterus, cervix, liver. (The ovary samples come from mice  ovaries are rarely removed from healthy women  while the tissue for the fallopian tubes, uterus, and cervix comes from women who had hysterectomies.) The blocks are connected by minuscule tubes to simulate how the real organs communicate with each other in the human body.

Those tubes allow hormones to flow between the miniature organs. By feeding the right cocktail of hormones into the ovary block, the researchers were able to coax the miniature organ to release an egg, and to produce hormones that flowed into each organ downstream, causing them to behave similarly to how they do in the human body.

Read more: From ovary to uterus: studying the overlooked transport in between

This is the first menstrual cycle on-a-chip, said Teresa Woodruff, the studys primary investigator and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

The results were published Tuesday in Nature Communications.

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All about EVATAR

The chip  dubbed EVATAR, a portmanteau of the biblical Eve and a representative avatar  could someday be used to test the effects of drugs on human tissues before putting them into the human body. Right now, animals play that role  but scientists wonder if animals different physiology might be one reason that so many drugs never make it into the clinic.

Building the EVATAR was a team effort, with multiple groups working to build the organ systems and a crack team of biomedical engineers in Cambridge, Mass., handling the design of the chip itself.

Jonathan Coppeta, a biomedical engineer at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, was part of that team, which built the piping system that moves fluid between the organ blocks. Its controlled by 62 pumps that can be turned on and off independently. Each of those pumps uses a pinky-sized electromagnet to move about a millionth of a liter of fluid at a time.

Such a precisely controllable system allows scientists to do things that wouldnt be possible to do in a real person, like change the rate at which hormones flow from one organ to another, to study the effect of that hormone on the organs.

Read more: Inside the sci-fi world of growing human tissue and organs in the lab

But because its still early days in the organ on-a-chip development, there are lots of unknowns. Researchers will inevitably face the question: If it doesnt kill the chip, does that mean its safe in a person?

Could it potentially be better than an animal model? said Jeffrey Borenstein, a biomedical engineer at Draper. Yes, because youre using human cells. Is it perfect? No, because there are always going to be limitations.

Reproductive biology researchers unaffiliated with the project noticed one particular limitation in the teams model of a uterus. The lining of a human uterus consists mainly of two types of cells  but on the chip its primarily one type of cell, pointed out Warren Nothnick, vice chairman of the department of molecular and integrative physiology at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Nothnick said that could hinder the systems human veracity, because the underrepresented cell type gives rise to endometrial cancer. But altogether, he said, the paper is really groundbreaking.

Dr. Julie Kim, a Northwestern professor who led the team that built the uterus block, said that encouraging this particular type of cells  known as endometrial cells  to grow properly in lab-built organs is an open challenge. She hopes to build more life-like uteri in the future: My dream is to create a menstruating uterus in a dish.

Pharma showing interest

One of Woodruffs next steps is building personalized EVATARs, whose miniature organs are grown out of stem cells from individual people. That could allow researchers to test how a drug would impact a particular person, based on their biology.

Men have to wait, but perhaps not long  within a year, Woodruff hopes to have more results to share about the male version of the project, nicknamed ADATAR.

Already pharmaceutical companies are starting to show interest  Woodruff said that she has tested some AstraZeneca drug candidates to gauge their impact on the female reproductive system.

Drapers chip can support up to 12 organs, so researchers could use this chip to simulate different organ systems. The lab is also using similar technology to build custom chips for pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer.

Meanwhile, Woodruff is looking for participants to provide stem cells that could be used to make custom organ systems, which she said should happen over the next year.
By Joel Schectman WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Commerce will remove Chinese telecommunications equipment maker ZTE Corp <000063.SZ> from a trade blacklist on Wednesday after the company pleaded guilty to violating sanctions on Iran and agreed to pay nearly $900 million, the agency said in a notice. [nL2N1GZ224] Removal from the list marks the end of a tense period for ZTE, which faced trade restrictions that could have severed its ties to critical U.S. suppliers. "By acknowledging the mistakes we made, taking responsibility for them ... we are committed to a ZTE that is fully compliant, healthy and trustworthy," said ZTE Chief Executive Zhao Xianming said in an emailed statement. Last year, the U.S. Commerce Department placed export restrictions on ZTE as punishment for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran. The restrictions would have prevented restricted suppliers from providing ZTE any U.S.-made equipment, potentially freezing the Chinese handset maker's supply chain. Over the past 12 months, as ZTE cooperated with U.S. authorities, the U.S. Commerce Department temporarily suspended the trade restrictions with a series of three-month reprieves, allowing the company to maintain ties to U.S. suppliers. Earlier this month, ZTE agreed to pay a total of $892.4 million and pleaded guilty to violating U.S. sanctions by sending American-made technology to Iran and lying to investigators. The Commerce Department said on Tuesday it would impose severe restrictions on former ZTE CEO Shi Lirong, whom the agency accused of approving efforts to skirt sanctions and ship equipment to Iran. The Commerce Department said Shi approved a systematic, written business plan to use shell companies to secretly export U.S. technology to Iran. Reuters could not immediately reach Shi for comment. The U.S. investigation followed reports by Reuters in 2012 that ZTE had signed contracts with Iran to ship millions of dollars' worth of hardware and software from some of America's best-known technology companies. U.S. authorities have said the size of the financial penalty against ZTE also reflects the fact that the company lied to investigators when executives were approached about the allegations. As part of the deal, ZTE will be under probation for three years and agreed to cooperate in the continuing investigation. (Reporting by Joel Schectman; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Bill Rigby)
Photo credit: Albert Whitman & Company

From Cosmopolitan

Photo credit: Albert Whitman & Company





As part of an anti-bullying curriculum, a school district in North Carolina planned to teach Jacob's New Dress - a picture book about a boy who wears a dress to school one day - to first grade students. But after facing complaints from teachers and even state lawmakers, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools have pulled the book from the curriculum, replacing it instead with one about a crayon.

The book, which is about a boy who gets teased by classmates after electing to dress "like a girl" at school one day, sounds like it would've been a great addition to an anti-bullying program for 7-year-old kids. Unfortunately, angry teachers and conservative groups have ensured that message won't be disseminated to young students.

"The purpose of our elementary schools is to teach writing, reading and arithmetic, not to encourage boys to wear dresses," Tami Fitzgerald of the conservative group North Carolina Values Coalition told the Charlotte Observer. "These lessons found in the Jacobs New Dress and My Princess Boy and other transgender curriculum are not appropriate for any child whose parents support traditional family values."

According to the Charlotte Observer, Charles Jeter, the districts government liaison and former Republican state representative, listened to "both sides" after hearing complaints about the book from teachers. On March 21, he emailed "about two dozen Republican legislators" to say his district would be pulling Jacob's New Dress from its curriculum.

To be clear, the book's protagonist, Jacob, never identifies himself as transgender. But amid the backlash over an illustrated book for kids, the authors of Jacob's New Dress - Sarah and Ian Hoffman - have been forced to clarify that reading a book can't "turn someone gay."

The idea that a book can turn someone gay or transgender is bizarre to us," Sarah Hoffman told the Charlotte Observer. "Reading a book cant turn you gay."

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All the calamity over this children's book comes at an incredibly divisive time for North Carolina. Just a year ago, the state voted to pass the controversial bathroom bill, House Bill 2, which strips protections from people who use public restrooms based on their gender identity. The bill undid a previously standing ordinance in Charlotte (where Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is based) that protected transgender residents who chose to use public restrooms based on gender identity.

The Hoffmans told the Charlotte Observer they find it ironic that a book about "love and acceptance" is being met in North Carolina with "hate and discrimination."

"North Carolina seems like a very divided state. And I sense a lot of fear, Sarah Hoffman said. "We like that this conversation is being had. Its why we wrote the book. In this case, its a forced conversation."

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Josh Begley has been trying to get his app onto Apples App Store for about five years now. Its not a crazy, violent game or a risque hookup app, its just a very simple notification tool that delivers an alert to the users phone whenever a drone flown by the United States military attacks a target. It scrapes news feeds for the information and then pushes an alert along with a map marker and any confirmed details about the strike, including things like the target, how many people were killed, and sometimes a bit of additional context. Its been rejected a total of 12 times. Today, it got accepted. Four hours later, it got rejected.

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The app, called Metadata+, is a free download and does nothing other than its primary function of reporting news about US drone strikes. Its creator, Begley, wrote about the apps status for The Intercept, where it asks Do we want to be as connected to our foreign policy as we are to our smartphones? Begley argues that the answer is no, and given the apps long road its easy to see how hes come to that conclusion.

Metadata+ has actually been accepted to the App Store before, in 2014, where it resided for about a year and amassed something in the neighborhood of 50,000 downloads, according to Begley. However, the app then fell victim to the same rejection that plagued Begleys first several submissions, with Apple deeming the app excessively objectionable or crude.

Today, Begley scored a long awaited approval for the app once again. It lasted all of about four and a half hours on the App Store before Apple pulled it again. If anything about the app is excessively objectionable or crude, perhaps its the airstrikes themselves, Begley says.

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See the original version of this article on BGR.com
Teslas Autopilot feature certainly gives us a glimpse into the future of transportation, but were still a ways off from a time when we can confidently get behind the wheel and ignore the road while letting Teslas suite of hardware sensors and software do all of the heavy lifting. If anything, relying on Teslas Autopilot feature as a replacement for fully paying attention to ones surroundings can easily lead to a serious crash. Indeed, a Model X driver recently learned this the hard way after his Model X rammed into the back of a semi-truck.

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In the latest instance of a Tesla on Autopilot gone wild, a Model X driver based out of Arizona recently crashed into a police motorcycle, albeit at a relatively low speed of 3 MPH.

According to a report from AZ Central, the Model X in question cruised into a police motorcycle that had come to a stop at a red light.

The Tesla driver told police that he had the car in autopilot mode at the time of the incident, the report states, but Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Alan Pfohl said investigators were unable to corroborate that statement.

To be fair, because weve seen instances of Tesla drivers quickly shift the blame for an accident to their cars Autopilot software as a means to diminish their own responsibility, well have to wait and see if Tesla issues an official statement on the crash. Tesla, remember, keeps logs of all this stuff that it can access as part of any crash investigation.

That said, Pfohl added that there will be no official police investigation because there wasnt really any damage to speak of. It wasnt even a reportable collision, Pfohl said. If it wasnt involving an officer, we would not have even investigated it.

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In a vote today, House Republicans passed a bill that would undo FCC privacy rules surrounding how internet service providers can collect and use customers data. In essence, it gives a green light for ISPs like Comcast and Time Warner to collect all kinds of data from your internet browsing, analyze it, use it to target ads, or just sell it to the highest bidder.

The vote today in Congress follows a similar vote last week in the Senate, and was the last major obstacle for the bill. The President still has to sign the bill, but the White House has already voiced strong support for removing the privacy rules.

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The bill strikes down privacy rules passed by the Federal Communications Commission, the government agency charged with regulating the telecoms industry, in October last year. Those rules would have prevented ISPs from collecting and selling customer data without explicit customer consent, in much the same way that Facebook and Google do currently.

The difference is that your ISP is harder to avoid, and knows much more. Whereas you can easily enough avoid Google and Facebook and still be a full user of the internet, its much harder (thanks to the monopoly over internet service in large parts of this country) to avoid an ISP that wants to sell your data.

The information that ISPs collect is also far more invasive. Your browsing data might not sound like much, but for many people, its an intimate snapshot of your financial, medical, relationship, and lifestyle information  details you probably dont share with your closest friends, let alone an anonymous highest bidder.

Internet providers, scrambling to enter the multi-billion-dollar world of online advertising, argue that the FCC regulations would have been unnecessarily intrusive and that existing privacy policies were enough. But thanks to the ISPs classification as a common carrier (the same as airlines or railways), they are exempt from the Federal Trade Commissions privacy rules, which apply to most other industries. Without privacy restrictions from either the FCC or FTC, ISPs are left basically promising that theyll be good, with no teeth to enforce any standards.

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Its not just your privacy you should be concerned with, either. The FTC privacy rules would also have governed the standards by which ISPs would have to store your data, and protect it from hacking. Given that leaks of customer information are near-daily affairs these days, rules that enforced strong encryption and careful storage would have gone a long way to protecting sensitive information from the wrong eyes.

Sadly, customer privacy and data security arent good arguments in the face of multi-million-dollar campaign contributions from the telecoms industry.

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Theres no shortage of theories about what Mars was like billions of years ago. The prevailing guess is that water was abundant, and there may have even been enough to form huge oceans. New research into an existing geographical feature on the red planet could provide new evidence of not only the existence of a massive body of water, but also an astroid impact that could have generated multiple devastating tsunamis.

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Evidence that water existed on Mars is ample, and many researchers believe that telltale signs of tsunamis are also present. In an effort to explain how a tsunami might have been generated, scientists have been looking for the spot (or spots) on the Martian surface where an astroid or other celestial object could have come crashing down.

One particularly interesting spot on the planet, which NASA describes as thumbprint-looking, was long thought to be the result of mud or other debris sliding downward after being pushed up by a glacier or other geographical shift. Its called the Lomonosov crater, and new research supports a very different theory as to how it got there.

Instead of being simply the result of gravity pulling dirt downhill, scientists now believe it could very well be the last remaining mark of an astroid that violently struck Mars billions of years ago. Whats more, the characteristics of the crater support the idea that when the rock struck the planet, the spot it hit was actually an ocean, leading to multiple huge tidal waves as the displaced water was pushed from and pulled into resulting crater.

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By Hadeel Al Sayegh and Alexander Cornwell

DUBAI (Reuters) - Souq.com will expand its workforce and operations after Amazon <AMZN.O> clinched a deal to buy 100 percent of the Middle East online retailer, executives from both firms said.

Amazon and Souq.com said earlier on Tuesday they had agreed on the takeover, despite an eleventh-hour bid by Dubai billionaire Mohamed Alabbars Emaar Malls <EMAA.DU> to cut in with an offer it said was worth $800 million.

Executives have not disclosed the value of the Amazon deal, which adviser Goldman Sachs called "the biggest-ever technology M&A transaction in the Arab world".

Sources with knowledge of the takeover said Amazon was paying less than Emaar's offer, making it lower than Souq.com's $1 billion valuation when it sought funding last year.

One source said Souq.com would have broken an exclusivity agreement with Amazon if it accepted Emaar's bid at this stage.

"Amazon is a great fit with us. We have a lot of common values and it is all about innovation, technology and the type of customer experience and thinking that Amazon has," Souq.com Co-Founder and Chief Executive Ronaldo Mouchawar told Reuters.

Souq.com, founded in 2005, stocks 8.5 million items on its website and generates about 50 million monthly visits, Mouchawar said. It delivers to the six Gulf Arab states and Egypt.

Mouchawar said there was scope to expand the business with Amazon and to increase the 3,000-strong workforce to boost Souq.com's reach, without saying by how many it would rise.

"We will continue to invest in our segment and grow our markets," he said at Souq.com's Dubai headquarters.

Despite its young, tech-savvy population, shoppers in the Middle East still prefer to shop in stores. Online retail accounts for less than 1 per cent of total sales in the Middle East, according to market researcher Euromonitor International.

"We want to figure out how to grow the team here. If we're going to grow the business we have to grow logistics, we have to grow technical development," Amazon Senior Vice President Russ Grandinetti said.

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In a deal document seen by Reuters, Goldman said the acquisition would accelerate Amazon's entry into "attractive Middle East countries with significant growth potential."

After the Amazon takeover, Middle East consumers will be able to buy products available on Amazon.com through Souq.com, and Middle East merchants will have access to a wider market via Amazon's network.

The acquisition is expected to close later this year.

Souq.com's current shareholders include South Africa's Naspers Ltd <NPNJn.J> and Tiger Global Management.

The Amazon deal was welcomed by the Dubai government, which is increasingly focusing on technology, as the emirate expands its retail footprint in the region.

Dubai's Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum said in a statement it showed the city state's position "as a regional and global hub for the world's biggest and leading organizations."

Amazon's acquisition of Souq.com is seen as significant for the Middle East's nascent tech sector.

"This is effectively a vote of confidence in the region. You have a major American company going into a digital company in the region," said Fadi Ghandour, founder Dubai-listed logistics firm Aramex <ARMX.DU> and a prominent venture capitalist in the Middle East.

(This story was refiled to clarify in paragraph 16 the government welcoming the deal)

(Editing by Edmund Blair and David Evans)
A Libyan traveller packs his laptop in his suitcase before boarding his flight for London at Tunis-Carthage International Airport on March 25, 2017 (AFP Photo/FETHI BELAID) (AFP/File)

Montreal (AFP) - British and US bans on laptops and tablet computers in flight cabins are not sustainable in the long term, the head of the association representing airlines said Tuesday.

"The current measures are not acceptable as a long-term solution to whatever threat they are trying to mitigate," said Alexandre de Juniac, director general of the International Air Transport Association.

"Even in the short term, it is difficult to understand their effectiveness. And the commercial distortions they create are severe," he said in a speech in Montreal.

"We call on governments to work with the industry to find a way to keep flying secure without separating passengers from their personal electronics."

Last week, Washington banned electronic devices bigger than mobile phones on direct flights to the United States from 10 airports in seven Middle Eastern countries and Turkey.

Britain followed with a similar ban from five countries from the Middle East and North Africa, and Turkey.

US officials said the measure was intended to thwart possible attacks on airliners with small explosive devices hidden in consumer electronics.

In theory, it would be harder to hide a bomb in checked luggage because these are usually scanned with more sophisticated equipment.

De Juniac lamented a lack of advance consultation with the airline industry and "little coordination by governments" in the measure's rollout.

He pointed to pushback from airlines and their passengers who are questioning the security measure, especially after other Western nations chose not to impose a ban.

"Why don't the US and the UK have a common list of airports?" he asked. "How can laptops be secure in the cabin on some flights and not others (from the same airport)?

"And surely there must be a way to screen electronic equipment effectively at airport checkpoints," de Juniac concluded.

All of the countries impacted by the ban are allies or partners of the United States: Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.

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The British ban targeted Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia.

Airlines and airports acted quickly to put the new restrictions in place, after they were announced.

But, de Juniac told a press conference, they would have appreciated "a bit more information" from the US and British governments.

The ban will have a "significant impact" on airline revenues, he said, as it would lead some passengers to bypass the airports in question in order to avoid any inconvenience.

Nine airlines in total are affected by the ban.

Laptops and other electronic equipment in large numbers may pose an additional risk because of their lithium-ion batteries, de Juniac noted.

In February 2016, the batteries were banned in checked bags on flights by the ICAO for safety reasons, at the request of airlines and pilot associations. That policy will be reviewed in 2018.
Elon Musk muses at SpaceXs Mission Control. (SpaceX Photo)

Billionaire brainiac Elon Musk is following up on his interest in (and wariness about) artificial intelligence by backing Neuralink Corp., a company devoted to developing neural implants, The Wall Street Journal says.

Business filings suggest that Neuralink would build devices designed to treat or diagnose neurological conditions, and conceivably augment human cognitive powers.

The Journal quoted entrepreneur-futurist Max Hodak as confirming Musks involvement in Neuralink, which Hodak said was still an embryonic venture.

Musk, 45, is the CEO of SpaceX, a venture thats launching reusable rockets, working on communication satellites and setting its sights on Mars settlement. Hes also the CEO of Tesla Motors, which sells electric cars, battery storage systems and solar panels.

In addition to those formal business roles, hes worked on innovations such as the Hyperloop high-speed transit scheme and concepts for underground tunneling. But hes always reserved mental and financial bandwidth for the issues surrounding artificial intelligence.

More than a year ago, he joined in a $1 billion commitment to support OpenAI, a nonprofit venture which conducts research into applications of AI tech. And in a series of pronouncements, he has voiced concern about the possibility that AI could supplant humanity sometime in the decades ahead.

Last August, Musk told one questioner on Twitter that he was making progress on an idea that would incorporate a system for plugging tiny electrodes into the brain, known as neural lace.

Maybe something to announce in a few months, he said.

Musk also tweeted about the topic in January, saying that the development of human augmentation devices incorporating artificial intelligence was critical to ensure a good future for humanity.

In a Vanity Fair article published online today, Musk once again touted the idea of merging biological intelligence with machine intelligence. For a meaningful partial-brain interface, I think were roughly four or five years away, he said.

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Neuralink has been taking shape as a commercial venture over the course of the past year. It was registered in California as a medical research company in July, and a trademark application was filed in October.

Citing unnamed sources familiar with the venture, the Journal reported that Musk has discussed financing Neuralink primarily by himself, with the possibility of bringing in other investors such as Peter Thiels Founders Fund.

The Journal also quoted a source as saying that Neuralink already has hired several leading researchers  including Vanessa Tolosa of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Philip Sabes of the University of California at San Francisco and Timothy Gardner of Boston University.

For what its worth, the researchers LinkedIn pages dont yet reflect that, but Gardner confirmed to the Journal that hes working for Neuralink.

Also for what its worth, the Neuralink.com webpage  which was once associated with a different venture that had the same name  now provides an email address for job applications, and nothing else.

Update for 10:30 p.m. PT March 27: Musk confirmed that he was involved with Neuralink in the usual way: by tweeting about it.

Long Neuralink piece coming out on @waitbutwhy in about a week. Difficult to dedicate the time, but existential risk is too high not to.  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 28, 2017

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Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the wait is almost over. We are less than 24 hours away from seeing Samsung take the wraps off of its new Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ smartphones. Look, lets not beat around the bush: no other Android phones that launch anytime soon will be able to touch Samsungs new flagship phones. They feature bold new designs that are nothing short of stunning, and they pack specs that blow every other smartphone out of the water. How do we know all this if the Galaxy S8 and S8+ havent even been announced yet? These new phones also just so happen to be the worst kept secrets in the industry.

Weve seen dozens upon dozens of leaks at this point, and we know practically everything there is to know about Samsungs next-generation flagship smartphones. In this post, well round up all of the most important info out there so you know exactly what to expect on Wednesday when Samsung finally makes its new Galaxy S phones official.

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Design

Samsungs new Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ will indeed be the most powerful Android phones on the planet when theyre released next month, but thats not what everyone will be talking about tomorrow following the companys press conference. Thats right, the phones gorgeous new design will be the first things on everyones minds.

We dont have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times photos of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ have leaked at this point. BGR was one of the first sites in the world to post real photos of a functioning Galaxy S8 handset, and the floodgates opened from there.

In a nutshell, Samsungs new Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ feature a sleek new design that removes the home button from the phones face and narrows the bezels above and below the display. The sides are still curved, as they have been on the Galaxy S7 edge and Galaxy Note 7. The result is a design that is almost all screen on the front.

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The back of the S8 and S8+ are still glass, and theyre also curved on the sides like the Note 7 so that the phones fit more comfortably in the hand. The fingerprint scanner as been moved to the back as well, but not the home button  Samsung has chosen to go with a virtual home button at the bottom of the display, as you can see in the photo above.

Specs

Samsungs Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ are clear market leaders when it comes to design, and the same holds true for the handsets specs. Heres a quick rundown of the key specs that have leaked:

Galaxy S8

5.8-inch Super AMOLED QHD+ display

18:9 aspect ratio

Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor in the US model

Samsung Exynos 8895 processor in the global model (42.45GHz + 41.9GHz)

12-megapixel rear camera

8-megapixel front-facing camera

3,000 mAh battery

64GB of storage

Iris Scanner

USB-C

Android 7.1.1 Nougat

Galaxy S8+

6.2-inch Super AMOLED QHD+ display

18:9 aspect ratio

Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor in the US model

Samsung Exynos 8895 processor in the global model (42.45GHz + 41.9GHz)

12-megapixel rear camera

8-megapixel front-facing camera

3,500 mAh battery

128GB of storage

Iris Scanner

USB-C

Android 7.1.1 Nougat

Both phones are expected to be available in five colors: Black, coral blue, gold, silver, and gray.

Performance

All those specs sure look nice on paper, but far more important is the experience all of those components combine to deliver. According to leaked benchmarks, that experience is going to be beyond impressive.

Nothing can touch Apples iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus when it comes to single-core performance, but the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ set new records for multi-core benchmark scores. In fact, they dont just break Apples old multi-core record, they obliterate it.

Key features

Beyond the design and specs, Samsung is also expected to introduce a number of exciting new features on the Galaxy S8. The biggest one is Bixby, which is Samsungs answer to Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Siri. Another awesome addition is the new DeX Station accessory, which will enable a Desktop Experience. In a nutshell, this nifty new feature will transform the Galaxy S8 from a smartphone into a powerful Android-powered desktop computer.

Find out more about the Galaxy S8s key features in this post.

Release date and pricing

Last but certainly not least is the release date and pricing. Curiously, these are the only two areas where there is still any mystery left. There are conflicting surrounding the release date, but it looks like its either going to be April 21st or April 28th. As for pricing, US prices have yet to leak but in Europe it looks like the Galaxy S8 will cost 799 while the Galaxy S8+ retails for 899.

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A Florida man has been arrested after allegedly stealing a cell phone from a 4-year-old girl and then taunting her father in text messages, authorities said.

Nelson Quiles and his little girl, Angela, were shopping at Walmart earlier this month, when she accidentally left her phone on the floor, according to Volusia County Sheriffs deputies.

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They went back to look for it, aided by Walmart employees, but were unable to locate the phone.

The father sent a text to his daughters phone, asking for it to be returned and explaining that it belonged to a 4-year-old girl.

The thief sent back "LMAO," according to a charging affidavit filed against Mykhal Henderson, 30, of Deltona. He also wrote, OK, well, the Walmart floor said I can have it, the document said.

The child was "visibly upset and crying," according to the affidavit.

Surveillance video shows a male shopper picking up the phone and leaving the store, authorities said. Twenty seconds later, he comes back in, goes to the online pick-up counter and collects a purchase he made via computer, the document said.

Read: 6-Year-Old Boy Seriously Hurt by Cell Phone That Burst Into Flames

Detectives identified the shopper as Henderson, based on his receipt and phone number, which could be seen on the stores footage, deputies said.

Henderson was later arrested during a traffic stop, and charged with petty theft. He admitted stealing the phone, and handed it over to detectives, according to the affidavit.

He has six previous convictions for theft, the document said. Henderson has not commented publicly about the incident.

Watch: Mom Turned In Son to Police After Catching Him With Stolen Cell Phone

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Tomorrow is shaping up to be one of the most exciting days of the year for Android fans, but today is the most exciting day of the year for us. Why? Because today is the last day we have to worry about Galaxy S8 leaks. Tomorrow the S8 and S8+ will finally become official when Samsung unveils them on stage during its big Unpacked press conference in New York City. Of course at this point, it seems highly unlikely that there will be any surprises left.

Weve seen the leaks, weve read the rumors, we know the specs, and weve watched the videos. As a result, theres probably almost nothing Samsung can tell us that we havent already heard before. In fact, the only questions left relate to the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ launch, since there are conflicting reports on the exact release date and pricing. We still have another 24 hours and change before those blanks are filled in, but we have two final Galaxy S8 leaks to tide you over in the meantime.

Don't Miss: Its probably time to admit the Galaxy S8 design is better than Apples iPhone 7 design

With just one day to go until Samsungs new flagship phones are announced, search traffic for the Galaxy S8 has climbed to an all-time high compared to search traffic for the iPhone 8. In fact, this might be the biggest margin by which any Samsung flagship has ever had a lead over an upcoming new iPhone. The reason, of course, is that people have seen all the leaks and they know just how impressive Samsungs upcoming new Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ are.

Of course, it cant hurt to take one last look, right?

We have just one day left before Samsungs big event, but the Galaxy S8 has been photographed in the wild yet again. The first new leak comes from Slashleaks user Dimitri12, who has dug up number of Galaxy S8 leaks over the past few weeks. This one comes from Instagram originally, though the two photos have since been deleted from the photo sharing site. Of course, nothing is ever truly deleted once it hits the internet  here are the two images in question:

Story continues

Next up, we have a photo that was pulled from Weibo, though the Slashleaks user who posted it didnt bother to link the original source. In the photo, we get a great look at how the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ compare in terms of sizing.

Samsung will unveil the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ on Wednesday during its press conference in New York City, and the phones are expected to be released next month on either April 21st or April 28th.

Trending right now:

See the original version of this article on BGR.com
Samsung just cant catch a break when it comes to fire. After Galaxy Note 7 battery fires forced the company to discontinue the handset shortly after it was released, a Samsung factory caught on fire a few weeks ago, with batteries being partly to blame. Now, just one day before the Galaxy S8 is set to be unveiled so Samsung can finally put the Note 7 behind it, news coming from Singapore reveals that a Samsung store caught on fire in the middle of the night.

Don't Miss: Galaxy S8: Specs, release info, and everything else we know right now

The fire broke out in the storeroom of the Samsung Experience Store in the AMK Hub mall in the early hours on Thursday morning, Channel News Asia explains.

The fire occurred in basement one at 1:25 AM local time and was put out by the fire sprinkler in the room within minutes, AMK Hub general manager Andy Ka explained. However, the fire involved contents measuring 2 square meters in the shops storeroom, the report notes.

The Singapore Civil Defense Force was alerted seven minutes after the fire started, deploying two fire engines and additional support vehicles to the scene. Samsung confirmed the fire and said its investigating the cause.

We are currently assessing the property damage and working closely with the authorities to determine the cause of the fire, Samsung said. The store will remain temporarily closed during this period. We sincerely regret any inconvenience caused.

Samsung is set to debut the Galaxy S8 on Wednesday, at which point we would expect the Korean giant to go into great detail concerning the battery safety features put in place during the manufacturing process for the brand new handset.

Trending right now:

See the original version of this article on BGR.com
The Galaxy S8 looks like it will be very sleek, but Samsung will need to convince shoppers that its new handset is safer than its Galaxy Note 7, which was recalled last year following reports that nearly 100 devices overheated.

All Galaxy S8 phones will undergo a 8-point battery safety check. Credit: Slash Leaks

All Galaxy S8 phones will undergo a 8-point battery safety check. Credit: Slash Leaks

On Friday (March 24), Samsung reiterated that it has implemented an eight-point battery safety inspection, which it described in January as including a visual inspection, durability testing, an x-ray inspection, a battery charge and discharge test, a disassembling test, an "accelerated use" test, a voltage test and a check for possible chemical compound leaks.

Last fall, 700 researchers tried to replicate the Note 7 overheating problem and found different problems in the two types of batteries used in the devices, according to the company. In one battery, electrodes weren't positioned correctly, making them susceptible to overheating. The other battery was welded incorrectly, which could cause a short circuit in the device.

MORE: Galaxy S8 Looks Gorgeous in Last-Minute Leak

"As always, our commitment to innovation will never stop, and we will continue to put safety first and deliver the innovative experience our customers deserve, because innovation is our legacy and quality is our priority," a Samsung spokesperson said in a video posted on the official Samsung Mobile YouTube page in January.



The first Note 7 recall, which involved a million devices, was issued this past September, after dozens of reports of the smartphones overheating. At that time, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said that Samsung received 92 reports of the batteries overheating in the U.S., including 26 reports of burns and 55 reports of property damage. Users had the option of getting a refund or exchanging their device for a new Note 7.



By the following month, Samsung recalled all Note 7 devices, including replacement models that were supposed to be safer. By then, there were a total of 96 reports of Note 7 phones overheating in the U.S., including 23 new reports since the September 15 recall announcement. Worldwide, 4.3 million Note 7 devices ended up being recalled.



As of January 22, 96 percent of the 3 million Note 7 devices sold in the United States were returned, according to Samsung, but its reputation is still recovering.

Story continues

MORE: Best Galaxy S6 and S7 Trade-In Deals

According to an independent survey by marketing firm Fluent, 41 percent of U.S. consumers say that the Note 7 battery explosions had a slight or major negative impact on Samsung's reputation. About 30 percent said that they had no impact on the brand's reputation at all. Fluent's survey was conducted online and involved 1,541 U.S. consumers, 27 percent of whom owned a Samsung phone.



About 40 percent of those who owned Note 7 devices, 78 people surveyed, said they were concerned about the safety of the Galaxy S8. Of Samsung phone owners overall, only 14 percent said they were concerned with the S8 phone's safety. Note that Fluent's study was not funded by Samsung.



"We are creatures of habit and do tend to trust technology companies quite a bit, unless our own ear was accidentally burned by a faulty device." says Fluent Director of Research Tanya Levina.



The Fluent survey found that cost, not safety, was the ultimate factor in deciding whether or not to buy a Galaxy S8.

See also : Best Galaxy S8 Alternatives




FILE - This Sunday, Oct. 9, 2016, file photo shows a damaged Samsung Galaxy Note 7 on a table in Richmond, Va., after it caught fire earlier in the day. On Tuesday, March 28, 2017, Samsung said it's considering bringing the recalled, fire-prone Note 7 smartphone back to market as a refurbished or rental phone after consulting with regulatory authorities and carriers and assessing local demands. Samsung killed the Note 7 after dozens of phones overheated and caught fire. Samsung conducted extensive tests since then and has blamed multiple design and manufacturing defects in batteries made by two different companies. (Shawn L. Minter via AP, File)

NEW YORK (AP)  Samsung's fire-prone Galaxy Note 7 phone might come back as refurbished or rental phones.

Samsung says it's considering bringing the recalled units back to market. The company says it will first consult regulatory authorities and carriers and assess local demand. It's not yet known when and which countries such phones would be sold.

Samsung killed the Note 7 phone after dozens overheated and caught on fire. Samsung recalled one set, but found problems with the replacements as well. The spontaneous fires, many chronicled in videos circulated on YouTube, prompted Samsung to recall millions of phones and take a $5.3 billion hit on its earnings.

Samsung conducted extensive tests since then and has blamed multiple design and manufacturing defects in batteries made by two different companies. That means Samsung could replace phones with safer batteries.

For phones that aren't returning to the market, Samsung says it will reuse components and recycle what's left.

Samsung revealed its plans late Monday, just two days before it is schedule to announce a new flagship phone, the Galaxy S8, at an event in New York.
By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House voted on Tuesday 215-205 to repeal regulations requiring internet service providers to do more to protect customers' privacy than websites like Alphabet Inc's Google or Facebook Inc. The White House said earlier Tuesday that President Donald Trump strongly supports the repeal of the rules approved by the Federal Communications Commission in October under then-President Barack Obama. Under the rules, internet providers would need to obtain consumer consent before using precise geolocation, financial information, health information, children's information and web browsing history for advertising and marketing. Last week, the Senate voted 50-48 to reverse the rules in a win for AT&T Inc, Comcast Corp and Verizon Communications Inc. The White House in its statement said internet providers would need to obtain affirmative "opt-in" consent from consumers to use and share certain information, but noted that websites are not required to get the same consent. "This results in rules that apply very different regulatory regimes based on the identity of the online actor," the White House said. Websites are governed by a less restrictive set of privacy rules overseen by the Federal Trade Commission. FCC chairman Ajit Pai in a statement praised the decision of Congress to overturn "privacy regulations designed to benefit one group of favored companies over another group of disfavored companies." Last week, Pai said consumers would have privacy protections even without the Obama internet provider rules, but critics say they will weaker. The American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes the measure, said companies "should not be able to use and sell the sensitive data they collect from you without your permission." An Internet & Television Association statement called the repeal "an important step toward restoring consumer privacy protections that apply consistently." One critic of the repeal, Craig Aaron, president of Free Press advocacy group, said major Silicon Valley companies shied away from the fight over the rules because they profit from consumer data. "There are a lot of companies that are very concerned about drawing attention to themselves and being regulated on privacy issues, and are sitting this out in a way that they havent sat out previous privacy issues," Aaron said. Representative Michael Capuano, a Massachusetts Democrat, said Tuesday that Comcast could know his personal information because he looked up his mother's medical condition and his purchase history. "Just last week I bought underwear on the internet. Why should you know what size I take? Or the color?" Capuano asked. "They are going to sell it to the underwear companies." Comcast declined to comment. Representative Michael Burgess, a Texas Republican, said the rules "unfairly skews the market in favor" of websites that are free to collect data without consent. Republican commissioners, including Pai, said in October that the rules would unfairly give websites like Facebook, Twitter Inc or Google the ability to harvest more data than internet service providers and thus further dominate digital advertising. The FCC earlier this month delayed the data rules from taking effect. (Reporting by David Shepardson. Additional reporting by David Ingram and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Grant McCool)
Killeen, TX (76540)

Today

Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low near 65F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low near 65F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.
Kendallville, IN (46755)

Today

Some clouds. Low around 35F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. Low around 35F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph.
Colleen Holman, right, gives a copy of The Kid Who Changed the World by Andy Andrews to Carlin Park Elementary School Principal Sabrina Fritz along with Steuben County Extension Educator Crystal Van Pelt, left. Based on his book The Butterfly Effect, Andrews timeless tale shows children that even the smallest of actions can make a difference in someones life. PHOTO CONTRIBUTED
WASHINGTON  Women in their 30s are having babies at the highest rate since the 1960s, providing a rare bright spot in whats an otherwise stagnating U.S. population.

For women in their early 30s, the birthrate in 2015 was the highest its been since 1964, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report this year. And the rate for women age 35 to 39 was the highest since 1962, when families were larger and births hit near all-time highs in the baby-boom years.

At the same time, the total number of births to women age 30 to 39 has increased in all states except Connecticut, New Hampshire and New Jersey from 2007 to 2015, according to a Stateline analysis of National Center for Health Statistics data. And births to 30-somethings accounted for the majority of all births in three states  Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey  and Washington, D.C.

Although hardly a baby boomlet, the higher birthrates among older women help offset a decline in births among younger women age 15 to 24. And they suggest that younger women who are putting off parenthood now may embrace it as they get older, finish their education, establish careers, and become more financially secure.

Fertility is being displaced later and later into the lives of women, especially educated women, and more and more women are educated, said Herbert Smith, director of the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

If the trend of more women having babies in their 30s continues, it also holds out hope that the nation can partly replenish its workforce  especially if President Donald Trump follows through on his campaign promises to limit immigration.

As the baby-boom generation ages out of the workplace, the U.S. has depended on immigration to keep its population growing and to maintain its workforce amid declining birthrates. Without a steady supply of new immigrants, who have higher fertility rates than native-born women, the nations workforce will start shrinking and could drop over the next 20 years, according to a report this month from the Pew Research Center. (The Pew Charitable Trusts funds the center and Stateline).

A shrinking workforce could be part of a downward spiral affecting state economies, according to some projections, if states are unable to get people to fill jobs and pay taxes.

Overall fertility rates in the U.S. are at a historic low of 62.5 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age, 15 to 44, despite the high rates for women in their 30s. There were about 4 million births in 2014 and in 2015, still well below a 2007 peak of 4.3 million and an earlier peak in 1991, when about 4.2 million millennials  the generation born between 1981 and 1997  were born.

Fertility rates for teenagers and women in their early 20s were at historic lows in 2015. And babies born to 25- to 29-year-olds decreased every year between 2008 and 2013, although they increased by 25,000 in 2014 and by 7,000 in 2015.

The spike in births to older women may help temporarily, if immigration falls off under the Trump administration, said Jennifer Dabbs Sciubba, an associate professor of international studies at Rhodes College in Memphis. But postponing childbirth will not add to the population long term because U.S. women are not having enough babies over the course of their lifetimes, she said.

The low overall fertility rate has spread concern that the nations population could stagnate without ongoing immigration.

If we see continued declines in immigration, in the long run well run into the same types of labor shortages other countries have had, said Mark Mather, an associate vice president at the Population Reference Bureau.

Some of the drop in childbirths among younger women in the U.S. may be the result of a drop in unauthorized immigration. Since 2007, the number of babies born to unauthorized immigrants in a given year has declined by almost 100,000, a number that likely will continue to drop if immigration enforcement is stepped up.

Despite worries that less immigration would result in a smaller working-age population, some advocates of limiting immigration see that outcome as more desirable.

Americas problem is not a low working-age population, said Steven Camarota, research director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates less immigration and endorses Trumps promised crackdown. Its the number of working-age people who arent working.

Everybody agrees that a lot of blue-collar workers have lost jobs and their wages are dropping. In that context, does it make sense to keep bringing in more immigrants? he said.

Some population analysts see a generational change among millennials, who they say are not just putting off childbirth but choosing not to do it at all.

Stewart Friedman, author of the 2013 book Baby Bust, surveyed 2012 and 1992 graduates of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he is a professor, and found that many more millennials than Gen Xers were planning not to have children.

He blamed the change partly on career pressures brought on by the aftermath of the Great Recession, forcing delays in marriage and childbirth. Women are more interested in establishing careers for their own independent financial security and achievement, Friedman said.

However, the continued increase in rates for women in their 30s suggests that starting families might have been delayed by the economy rather than ruled out entirely.

(EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)

As the economy picks up, it could well be that 30-something millennials will finally begin having children after their recession-related delays, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. This would continue to prop up later-age fertility rates and contribute to family-related consumerism.

Female millennials already account for 1.3 million births a year, and 16 million of them are already mothers. And Samuel Sturgeon, president of Demographic Intelligence, a demographics forecasting firm, said theres a strong urge among millennial women in their 30s to have two children.

If millennial women who are now in their 20s have more children later in life, the number of births could keep rising until at least 2024, when the largest group of them turns 35.

(END OPTIONAL TRIM)

Tia Francis, 33, is somewhat typical of women postponing childbirth until their 30s.

Francis said she didnt feel prepared for children until she was married and settled into a house in a city she loves, Washington, D.C. It took years of preparation and overcoming a high cost of living for her and her husband, Kwesi, also 33, to get a house.

After Kwesi found the right job as a supervisor for the national passenger train service Amtrak and Tia trained as a real estate agent so her work hours would be more flexible, the couple bought a house in an affordable neighborhood. And they had a son, Jeremiah, who is nearing his first birthday.

I guess its really the age that made me think, its time to get going, Francis said. I want more than one, so at some point you just have to say, OK, I really have to get a move on if I want to do this.

Fertility is being displaced later and later into the lives of women, especially educated women, and more and more women are educated. Herbert Smith, director of the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Overall fertility rates in the U.S. are at a historic low of 62.5 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age, 15 to 44, despite the high rates for women in their 30s.
TOMAH  Theres nothing like being born and raised on a cranberry marsh to know what kind of technology the cranberry industry needs.

More than 400 cranberry operations use CranTrak software developed by Paul Potter, who was raised on a cranberry marsh near Warrens.

CranTrak is everything from the field to the consumer, Potter said.

Potter is director of technology for the Tomah Area School District. He maintains and updates his CranTrak business separate from his day job along with his wife, Michelle, who handles the accounting. Most of Potters CranTrak clients are cranberry growers in Wisconsin, but his clients include growers on the east coast and Canada and blueberry farms in Mexico.

Among his local clients is the Copper Road Receiving Station near Wyeville. Owner Kurt Rutlin processes cranberries from 43 local growers and said the user-friendly program is a result of Potters cranberry background.

Paul has been right there in the trenches with us, Rutlin said. He clearly understands all the different procedures of growing the crop. Its a huge asset.

Potter conceived the idea of CranTrak as a software engineering student at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in 1994. At the time, Potter said there wasnt a computer record-keeping program specific to cranberry production.

I had some family and friends in the cranberry industry say, Why dont you write something for us? he said.

He developed the software just as the internet was becoming commercially viable. Once his system was online, it empowered growers, receiving stations and buyers to track almost every facet of their business. The program gives growers a tool to manage their water and pesticide usage, measure soil moisture and maintain their equipment.

It also tracks cranberries through the production process.

Traceability is very important to anyone buying fruit, Potter said. People want to know exactly where that fruit comes from. Tracing from beginning to end has become a complex process.

That starts at the receiving station, where Rutlin uses CranTrak to monitor every load that comes in.

Part of the binning operation ... is to track the fruit effectively so that we are able to follow the fruit from the marsh all the way through our cleaning facility into the bin, Rutlin said. They know exactly whats in that bin and everything thats applied to that fruit.

A big part of tracing fruit involves fertilizer and pesticide applications. Rutlin said CranTrak is indispensable in tracking the chemical history of a cranberry load, complying with government regulations and ensuring the fruit is safe to eat.

Some compounds are very toxic, and you have to wait 60 to 90 days before you can consume that fruit, Rutlin said. Other compounds are soft and gentle and a more organic product where you can eat the fruit immediately.

Rutlin remembers when Potters technology was first developed.

At that point, it was pretty basic  like a database, he recalled. It was helpful, but it wasnt quite what I as a grower truly needed. From there it evolved into a web-based application, and once it did that, it opened up the doors. Then we were able to access it from any computer  from your Smartphone, from a tractor while youre applying the fertilizers to the marsh.

It seems like every year, Paul takes CranTrak to the next level and improves on it.

Because Potter lives in the heart of cranberry country and still has family in the cranberry business, he gets face-to-face feedback on how the software is working. He said the feedback is mostly positive and always honest.

When your family and friends are giving you feedback, its pretty blunt, he said.

Rutlin also operates a cranberry marsh, where he uses CranTrak to measure soil moisture and nutrient inputs. He said programs like CranTrak have become an indispensable part of agriculture.

I embrace technology, he said. In order to be effective and operate your business effectively, you have to be up with the times. Without a doubt, Pauls software makes my life a lot easier.
SEATTLE (TNS)  For a couple of minutes in a small, nondescript T-Mobile US conference room, the future of wireless is here.

Two phone-book sized pieces of equipment stand about 8 feet apart, one representing a cell tower, the other the smartphone of the future. A nearby screen shows the transceiver is beaming download speeds that peak at 2,208 megabits per second  fast enough to grab a high-definition film in about 10 seconds  and much faster than the 12 megabits-per-second standard for LTE smartphones now.

The breakthrough is brief, though. An engineer holds up a pane of glass, positioning it between the receivers while keeping out of the way himself. The download speeds on the screen dial drop significantly; much of the signal cant pierce modern reflective, double-paned glass.

Wireless carriers and their suppliers will likely spend billions to develop fifth generation, or 5G, wireless technology, a coming update to cellular standards thats designed for superfast delivery of internet data. The technology will let users stream video to their hearts content and experience virtual reality from their phones.

Early signs are promising, T-Mobile is finding from extensive testing in its Innovation Lab tucked in an office park outside Seattle. But its also clear how far 5G has yet to go.

T-Mobile, the third-largest U.S. wireless carrier by subscribers, is a cornerstone of the wireless industry in the Seattle area, which decades ago was home to pioneering companies that went on to form components of all four major U.S. wireless carriers. T-Mobile employs about 5,500 people in the region.

The company is growing its business, pairing an aggressive marketing campaign with a build out of current-generation 4G LTE wireless technologies that have helped the wireless carrier come closer to the service quality of its larger rivals. Thats important in the mature cellphone market, where the primary way for a carrier to expand is by drawing subscribers away from competitors.

To spur even more growth, T-Mobile is expanding the size and head count of its technology lab, hosting 5G trials, doing more device testing, and also setting up office space to relieve some of the crunch at the companys crowded campus down the road.

T-Mobile kept its lab, about 4 miles from its headquarters, largely closed to outside eyes over the years  and only recently added a sign to mark that the lab was there at all.

Little old T-Mobile has actually produced and launched some global firsts, said Neville Ray, the companys chief technology officer since 2010.

With the pace of growth thats coming from our success, were driving capabilities that two to three years ago I think folks would have thought would be very, very difficult to achieve.

T-Mobile in February said it would aim to be the first U.S. carrier to deploy cell service relying on LTE-U  technology that uses broadcast frequencies typically meant for Wi-Fi signals.

Another of T-Mobiles recent lab inventions is the Digits feature, which allows a single phone number to ring across many devices. It also lets one phone hold multiple phone numbers.

Inside the labs 78,000 square feet are a series of server rooms and testing pods where more than 100 employees run trials on every technology that makes its way to T-Mobiles network, from phone calls to upcoming gigabit (1,000 megabits) download speeds.

At the 5G demonstration lab, tightly controlled behind three layers of doors that require key-card entry, T-Mobile engineers and counterparts from Nokia  the builders of the hardware  test the interference created by various materials.

Drywall? The large display dial opposite the engineer holding the piece of material shows a slight dip, but the download speeds hold strong.

Less so when the engineer steps between the two receivers himself. The radio waves are almost entirely absorbed by his body.

Theres a lot to learn, said David Jones, T-Mobiles director of 5G systems architecture, including how to keep the connection strong through any material.

5G likely wont become a widespread reality until after 2020, said CTO Ray. Hurdles remain, from radio-wave spectrum allocation to 5G-capable hardware to the consistent performance of the technology.

AT&T will test a version of 5G technology, without the promised peak speeds, in Austin, Texas, and Indianapolis this year.

Verizon has also moved into the testing phase, and recently announced it will conduct 5G field trials in a few cities, including Seattle, this year. The tests will be for fixed wireless  essentially a replacement for home broadband internet.

T-Mobile is taking a different approach. Fixed wireless and 5G, Ray said, are not a match made in heaven. Its too limited, he said, and 5G could be better used to transform how people use their mobile phones.

Were far more excited about what 5G can do for mobile consumers, he said. The company envisions people experiencing virtual reality and other applications that require superfast data speeds on the go.

That vision is partly a result of T-Mobiles status as a wireless-only firm. In contrast, Verizon and AT&T, the top two U.S. wireless network operators, also have invested in areas such as home broadband as well as television and original content.

T-Mobile, majority owned by Germanys Deutsche Telekom, can be more focused in its 5G trials, but it also has less cash to work with. U.S. wireless companies dont break out their outlays for research and development initiatives, but spending on buildings, machinery and other assets offers a clue.

T-Mobile shelled out $4.7 billion in such capital expenditures in 2016. AT&T spent $22 billion, and Verizon laid out $17 billion.

Grant Castle, a vice president at T-Mobile who oversees the lab, says the company has built a reputation as a fast follower, quickly latching onto promising new technologies developed by others and helping bring them to market.

Often that requires troubleshooting and software work with the likes of Nokia and Ericsson, the Nordic companies that build much of the hardware that makes up the backbone of wireless networks.

A lot of these technologies that companies bring to us dont work at all  we co-develop a lot of it, Castle said. We push it forward as quickly as we can.

Ray emphasizes theres still a lot of progress to be made with current LTE technology.

Gigabit download speeds over LTE could be coming in a limited fashion later this year, when upgraded phones are released.

Its already working in one of T-Mobiles testing pods, which resembles a large walk-in refrigerator without the chill.

Principal engineer Dinesh Kumar controls the signals being beamed into a handset locked inside a metal box. The shielding protects against extraneous radio signals that might interfere with the lab tests, as well as prying eyes. The smartphone model inside hasnt been revealed to consumers.

Slowly turning knobs, he activates four antennas, transmitting a signal to four antennas within the phone. A screen indicates that download speeds have reached 996 megabits per second, just short of a gigabit.

Were not sitting around crunching numbers, Ray said. Were pushing forward.
YongSun Sue Stephen, 77, of Viroqua passed away peacefully surrounded by family Saturday, March 18, 2017, at the Bland-Bekkedal Center for Hospice in Viroqua, after a courageous battle with cancer.

Sue was born Feb. 12, 1939, in Iri City, South Korea. She married Michael Stephen Dec. 9, 1974, in Seoul, South Korea. They adopted their daughter, Susan Kay, while stationed at Osan AFB in Korea. After retiring from the Air Force and returning to Wisconsin, Sue worked at the La Crosse Garment Co. as a sewing machine operator from 1977 to 1980. She worked at Jack Winters from 1993 to 1999. She worked at ORC from 1999 to 2004, making military clothing. Sue loved people and was always willing to help others in whatever way she could. Sue loved working with her flowers, cooking for family and friends, knitting, crocheting and playing cards.

Sue leaves to mourn her husband, Michael; daughter, Susan; grandson, Robby; brother-in-law, Larry (Helen) Stephen; sister-in-law, Joan Stephen. She is also survived by many nieces, nephews, and friends.

She was preceded in death by her parents; brothers-in-law, Fredrick (Gerda) Stephen, John Stephen; and sister-in-law, Patricia (Norman) Biggs. Sue also leaves behind two special friends, who were like sisters to her; Kachewska (Kay) Johnson and Soung Sook Ryu.

The family wishes to express their gratitude to the Bland-Bekkedal Center for Hospice for their wonderful caring service and to Dr. William Calkins.

Funeral services were held at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 25, at the Thorson Funeral Home in Viroqua, with Pastor Kathy Ingbritsen officiating. Burial took place in the Viroqua Cemetery.

The family suggests memorials to the Bland-Bekkdal Center for Hospice or a charity of donors choice. Online condolences may be left at www.thorsonfuneralhome.com. The Thorson Funeral Home of Viroqua.
The U.S. led coalition in Iraq says it is investigating reports that coalition airstrikes killed as many as 100 civilians in western Mosul this month.

Military officials called the death of civilians in Iraq's northern city of Mosul "a terrible tragedy."

The U.S. Defense Department has said an early examination showed coalition warplanes attacked at the place where civilians reportedly were killed on March 17.

Iraqi forces, with coalition air support, are working to capture western Mosul from Islamic State fighters. The Islamic State group has controlled the area since 2014.

The head of U.S. Central Command said Sunday that coalition forces will continue taking what he called "extraordinary measures to avoid harming civilians."

General Joseph Votel said, "While Iraq's security forces are making measurable progress, the fight in Mosul is a difficult one, and particularly because the enemy operates amongst the civilian population.

The Iraqi military has suggested that Islamic State fighters were responsible for the deaths on March 17. It said new evidence suggests that Islamic State fighters placed explosives at the site.

The Iraqi militarys Joint Command said, "All of [the building's] walls were rigged with bombs and there is no hole or signs that it was an airstrike target."

More than 500,000 civilians are believed to be living in Islamic State-held areas of Mosul. Reports say Islamic State extremists use civilians as human shields against Iraqi forces.

VOA spoke Sunday to 28-year-old Ammar Hazzim who had just arrived at a refugee camp near Mosul.

He said, We tried to run the day before yesterday, but Islamic State militants executed 21 people that day for fleeing, including women. Today, we decided we had to go.

Hazzim said there had been much violence in his neighborhood, called New Mosul, in the past month. He said an airstrike there 40 days ago killed his brother and his brothers three children.

Hazzims family said the airstrikes, car bombings, executions and suicide attacks have turned the area into a disaster zone. Other families fleeing western Mosul this week agree.

Hazzims brother Lazem added, The militants gather families into small areas. The families hide in the basements and the airplanes dont see them. They are hidden.

In western Mosul, there is no place to strike without hitting families, he said.

Caty Weaver adapted this for Learning English from VOANews reports. Mario Ritter was the editor.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

particularly  adv. more than usually

rig  v. to put something secretly in (a place)  usually + with

shield  n. something that defends or protects someone or something

casualty  n. a person who is hurt or killed during an accident, war, etc.

zone  n. an area that is different from other areas in a particular way

basement  n. the part of a building that is entirely or partly below the ground


A German scientist working for Royal Dutch Shell believes the oil companys businesses in Nigeria fiercely opposed environmental testing.

The scientist, Kay Holtzmann, also accused the businesses of hiding information. He said it shows that thousands of Nigerians are being exposed to health dangers because of a delay in efforts to clean-up the worst oil spills in Nigerias history.

Holtzmann noted that an environmental study found extremely high pollution levels with soil full of hydrocarbons. The people of Bodo in the Niger Delta should get urgent medical tests, he added.

The Associated Press, or AP, says his comments were in a letter written to the Bodo Mediation Initiative. The group was set up to make sure the cleanup follows international requirements.

Shell had no immediate reaction when asked by the AP for comment.

The cleanup operation stopped 17 months ago. Those efforts were part of a British settlement requiring the company to pay $83.5 million to 15,600 fishermen and farmers for damages.

The court ruled that old pipes were to blame for oil spills in 2008 and 2009. The oil damaged thousands of hectares of coastal plant life and waterways.

Lawyers claimed that as much as 500,000 barrels of oil polluted the area. Shell officials said it was only 1,640 barrels. The company initially offered the community $50,000 for the damage.

The settlement was reached through the British law office Leigh Day. The office said on Friday it has received no reaction to a January letter it wrote to Shell requesting more information from Kay Holtzmann. The Dutch-British oil company was paying him to direct the cleanup operations.

"Leigh Day has been pushing for the cleanup of Bodo, the letter said. The letter also stated Leigh Day has requested health exams for the population and tests of the water supply since 2011.

Leigh Days letter also noted that the Holztmann letter proves even people working for Shell are concerned about its behavior.

The letter warns that children washing up in creeks are risking harm from dangerous substances. People who drink from hand-dug wells are also at risk, it said.

In a statement, rights group Amnesty International called Shell "deeply irresponsible. It added: Shell has a responsibility to share this information with the community to ensure they can take steps to protect themselves and their children.

The Dutch government began supervising cleanup efforts in June 2015, but community disagreements and labor problems stopped the efforts.

Holtzmann's letter urges a representative of the Bodo Mediation Initiative to publish the information. The letter notes that the initiative wanted the tests  against strong opposition from the Shell Petroleum Development Company, or SPDC.

Nigeria is one of Africa's largest oil producers. The Nigerian government is the majority owner of SPDC.

The environmental tests were done in August 2015 with support from Royal Dutch Shell's headquarters in The Hague, the letter said.

Holtzmann said he wanted to publish the study findings in a scientific magazine last year, but Shell stopped him. Shell officials said his work agreement with the company did not permit publication.

An official from the Bodo Mediation Initiative said that the local populations health will be better served by restarting the cleanup work.

Bodo is part of Ogoniland, where the failure to clean up oil spills was called an environmental scandal in 2011 by the United Nations Environment Program. The U.N. agency reported pollution levels so high that it could take 30 years to renew the land.

Im Alice Bryant.

The Associated Press reported this story. Alice Bryant adapted the report for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

hydrocarbon - n. a substance, such as coal or natural gas, that contains only carbon and hydrogen

creek - n. a small waterway

scandal - n. an incident in which people are shocked because of behavior that is morally or legally wrong

expose - v. to make known; to make public

barrel - n. the amount of oil in a large container (160 liters or 42 gallons of petroleum)
Last week was a bad one for President Donald Trump.

On Monday, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey told Congress he had no information to support Trumps claims of being wiretapped by former President Barack Obama. The FBI chief also confirmed that his agency is investigating the Trump-Russian connection.

Then, a bill to replace the 2010 health care law known as Obamacare failed. A scheduled congressional vote on the bill to replace the law was cancelled to avoid an embarrassing defeat.

As a candidate, Trump promised to replace Obamacare with something much better. Congressional Republicans have promised to kill the law since the day it was passed by a Democratic president and Democratic Congress seven years ago.

It is not unusual for a president to suffer a defeat in Congress. But some experts said his presidency is off to a bad start since very few lose on their first major bill.

Larry Sabato is director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. He said, Its early in his presidency, and there are plenty of days and ways to recover from this. But Trumps administration has started out worse than any in my lifetime.

After the bills defeat, Trump said he will focus on other campaign promises like tax reform to encourage businesses to produce more products in the U.S.

Follow through on campaign promises

The president has had some successes with his campaign promises for the first 100 days -- mainly those he could do on his own.

Five days into his presidency, he nominated a conservative judge, Neil Gorsuch, to the U.S. Supreme Court. Gorsuch is likely to be confirmed by the Senate, despite Democratic opposition.

Trump has also issued a series of promised executive orders. He ordered federal agencies to cancel two regulations for every new one. He issued two executive orders to temporarily ban travel to the U.S. from some Muslim-majority nations. Federal courts, however, blocked both travel ban orders.

In his proposed budget, Trump also added money to start building a wall along Americas southern border with Mexico.

Early defeat raises questions about future programs

As a candidate, Trump said he would negotiate successfully with Congress and world leaders -- just as he did for many years as a successful businessman.

Were going to win so much, youre going to be so sick and tired of winning, he said as a candidate.

The defeat of the bill to replace Obamacare raises questions whether Trump will have enough support among members of his own party in Congress.

On Friday, House Speaker Paul Ryan said the president gave his all, but still could not win enough Republican votes to pass it.

I don't know what else to say other than Obamacare's the law of the land, Ryan said.

Jack Rackove is a history and political science professor at Stanford University in California. He said Trump appeared uninformed about the complex American health care system. Trump left everything to the House Republicans who were too divided to govern effectively, he said.

Trump's chief of staff, Reince Preibus, Sunday blamed conservative Republicans for opposing the bill even after Trump agreed to changes they had requested. Preibus said on Fox News that the president is now willing to work around those conservative Republicans, and negotiate with moderate Democrats.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said that Democrats are willing to work with Trump. But he needs to learn from his mistakes, Schumer said on ABC.

You cannot run the presidency like you run a real estate deal, he said. You can't tweet your way through it.

I'm Anne Ball.

Bruce Alpert reported on this story for VOA Learning English based on reports from AP, Reuters, VOA News and other sources. 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

replace - v. to be used instead of something

wiretapping - n. to place a device on (someone's phone) in order to secretly listen to telephone calls

embarrassing -- adj. to make someone look foolish

executive - adj. carried out by a leader -- in this case the president

real estate - n. property consisting of buildings and land

effectively - adv. - to do something well
An Albany man was arraigned on attempted murder and second-degree assault charges on Monday afternoon in Linn County Circuit Court.
Two area high school graduates were each inducted into two collegiate national honor societies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on Sunday.

Joelly Anderson, daughter of Rob and Natalie Anderson of rural Lexington, and Bricen Margritz, son of Dave and Alisa Margritz also of rural Lexington, were inducted in Phi Eta Sigma and Alpha Lambda Delta.

Anderson is a 2016 Lexington High School graduate studying speech language pathology at UNL.

Margritz is a 2016 Overton High School graduate studying mechanical engineering at UNL.

Phi Eta Sigma recognizes first year students with a grade point average of at least 3.75 on a 4.0 scale and who rank in the upper 20 percent of their class while carrying a normal academic load acceptable toward a bachelors degree. The societys mission is to encourage and reward academic excellence among freshman in institutions of higher learning.

Alpha Lambda Delta recognizes first year students maintaining a 3.75 or higher GPA or who are in the top 20 percent of their class. Its mission is to encourage superior academic achievement, to promote intelligent living and a continued high standard of living, and to assist students in recognizing and developing meaningful goals for their unique roles in society.
Access to the internet is fast becoming a human right in the eyes of millions of people from around the world. This is because the internet has evolved to a point where people see internet access as vital for them to exercise and enjoy their rights to the freedom of expression and other fundamental human rights such as education.

 Matthias Ziegler via 123RF

This view however is one that is enjoyed by people in first world countries where internet access is cheap and readily available.

On the African continent however, we face many challenges that need to be overcome before this dream can become a reality. Cost, scalability, power outages and education barriers are just some of the many challenges facing the mass roll out of internet on the continent.

These challenges, combined with other economical and sociological barriers, see that Africa makes up just 9.1% of the worlds total internet usage according to Internet World Stats. Although this 9.1% might look like a lot when compared to the 8.7% of North America or the 0.3% of the Middle East, the fact that there is almost a billion more people living on the African continent than in the Middle East and North America, shows just how poor the internet penetration is.

Out of an estimated 1,246,504,865 people living in Africa, just 335,453,374 have access to the internet. This leaves Africa with a 26.9% penetration rate according to Internet World Stats, which, when compared to the penetration rates of North America 88.1%), Europe (76.7%) or even the Middle East at 56.5%, and Latin America/Caribbean at 59.4%, it is clear that internet access is far from becoming a human right in Africa.

Although these statistics may paint a bleak picture, there are still many African countries who are on the right path and make up the bulk of the internet usage.

Here are Africas top seven internet using countries:

1. Nigeria

West African country Nigeria is Africas most populated country with an estimated 191,835,936 living in Nigeria. The country has an internet penetration rate of 47.9% as 91,880,032 of the countrys population has access to the internet. Nigeria is ranked as Africans highest internet using country, making up 27.4% of the continents total usage.

2. Egypt

North African country Egypt has an estimated population of 95,215,102. Out of this total population just 34,800,000 have access to the internet, leaving the country with an internet penetration rate of 36.5%. Egypt is Africas 2nd highest internet using country making up 10.4% of the continents total.

3. Kenya

Kenya is in East Africa, with a coastline on the Indian Ocean. There is an estimated 48,466,928 million people living in Kenya, with 31,985,048 of countrys population being able to access the internet, Kenya has a internet penetration rate of 66%. This leads Kenya to contribute 9.5% of the continents total internet usage, thus making it Africas 3rd highest internet using country.

4. South Africa

Located on the Southern tip of the continent, South Africa has an estimated population of 55,436,360. Out of this total population, 28,580,290 have access to the internet leaving the country with an internet penetration rate of 51.6%. South Africa contributes 8.5% to Africas total internet usage, making the it Africas 4th highest internet using country.

5. Morocco

This North African country borders both the Mediterranean sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Morocco has an estimated population of 35,241,418, with an internet penetration rate of 57.3%, meaning 20,207,154 people in Morocco have internet access. The country is Africas 5th highest internet using country, making up 4.5% of the continents total.

6. Algeria

Algeria is a North African country which is located on the Mediterranean coast line. There is an estimated 41,063,753 people in Algeria but with just 15,000,000 of those people having access to internet, the country has an internet penetration rate of 36.5%. Algeria makes up 4.5% of Africas total internet usage making it the 6th highest internet using country on the continent.

7. Uganda

Uganda is a landlocked country in East Africa and is the worlds second most populous landlocked country, with an estimated 41,652,938 people. Uganda has an internet penetration rate of 28.6% with just 11,924,927 people having access to the internet. The country is Africas 7th highest internet using country making up 3.6% of the continents total usage.
Thousands of people began evacuating low-lying areas of Australias tropical northeast yesterday as a powerful cyclone bore down on the coast.

Cyclone Debbie was expected to cross the Queensland state coast along a sparsely populated 100-kilometer stretch between the towns of Ayr and Bowen early today, Australian Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Michael Paech said.

The cyclone was churning over the Pacific Ocean as a Category 3 storm, with wind gusts up to 165 kilometers per hour. It was expected to intensify to a Category 4 storm with wind gusts up to 260 kph per hour when it crosses on to land, Paech said.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk urged people in the most vulnerable areas to evacuate yesterday before conditions deteriorate.

She said the farming region had never experienced a storm stronger than Category 2, which packs wind gusts of between 125 and 164 kph. Older homes would not withstand a Category 4 storm, Palaszczuk said.

This window of opportunity to leave is drastically closing, Palaszczuk told reporters. I am just pleading to everyone, please, listen to authorities. I do, you must as well. This is about your safety, it is about the safety of your family and the safety of your children.

People were being bused out of low-lying areas ahead of a tidal surge that could be as high as 4 meters, Palaszczuk said.

The storm yesterday morning was about 375 kilometers east of Townsville, a coastal city 90 kilometers north of Ayr. AP
MGM provided an opportunity for the Macau creative community to travel to Art Basel this month through the sponsorship of its parent Company, MGM Resorts International.

From March 23 to 25, MGM has invited Macau community members to join three separate tours to Art Basel Hong Kong.

Participants in the tours included 27 members of the Cultural Industries Fund and the Committee of Cultural Industries, as well as a group of 18 students and professors from the Visual Arts and Design bachelors degree programs of the Macau Polytechnic Institute.

The tours began in the morning with a ride on the MGMRI Sponsored Tram Project, Twenty-Five Minutes Older by Hong Kong artist Kingsley Ng, followed by a journey through Wan Chai and its revamp of Lei Tung street through creative initiatives, and concluded with a tour at Art Basel.

The gaming operator added in a statement that the tour groups were given the opportunity to interact with Ng, who is known for creating conceptual art projects that are community-engaging.

CESL Asia cooperates with spin.works

CESL Asia is set to showcase its association with Spin. Works at the upcoming 2017 Macau International Environmental Co-operation Forum & Exhibition.

Spin.Works is a Portuguese technology company that applies proprietary space technology to unmanned craft equipped with high-tech intelligence, resulting in a wide variety of applications.

According to a statement issued by CESL Asia, the firm is also working to foster Sino-Luso economic and social development with investments and operations in both markets, specifically in terms of advancing the use of sustainable energy and technology solutions.

The local company has so far invested in two Concentration Photovoltaic Power Plants in Southern Portugal.

The company pledged to further its investments into seed to table programs and into applying state-of-the-art technologies in energy and agriculture projects.
At first blush, the plight of former Chinese police official Zhao Liping might not win much sympathy.

When a court sentenced Zhao, whod wielded enormous power over his fellow citizens, to death for murder and corruption, state media hailed the ruling as evidence of equality before the law. Reports called it a milestone in the countrys crackdown on misbehaving officials.

Yet Zhaos brother is now questioning the verdict, saying the ex-official was abused in police custody and sentenced in a show trial  raising issues of justice that are rarely aired in politically sensitive, often tightly scripted cases.

They want to execute my brother based on evidence that is too problematic, Zhao Yifeng, a history professor at a university in the eastern city of Changchun, told The Associated Press.

Zhao, who had enjoyed broad powers as head of public security in the northern Chinese region of Inner Mongolia, was sentenced to death in November for murder, accepting bribes and the possession of firearms. Zhao, who has denied the charges, appealed the sentence. The appeal was rejected by a higher court in Shanxi province in February.

Chinas highest court, the Supreme Peoples Court, is now reviewing his death sentence, as it does for all capital punishment cases.

Zhaos brother has written a detailed letter appealing for a fair trial and submitted it to the court through its letters and petitions department, the office that is designated to hear citizens complaints.

This concerns my brothers life and whether the facts of this case have been made clear, Zhao Yifeng said in a recent interview. Equally important, he added, It also concerns how the countrys current judicial system is actually functioning.

The case has drawn a high level of public interest because Zhao is the first ministerial-level official to be sentenced to death in President Xi Jinpings hallmark crackdown on corruption that started in late 2012.

Zhao, now 66, was found guilty of murdering a 27-year-old woman said to have had an intimate relationship with him by shooting her on March 20, 2015, in the Inner Mongolian city of Chifeng, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) northeast of Beijing. Chinese media reports said Zhao had burned and buried the body of his mistress, identified only by her surname, Li, outside the city. They speculated that Zhao feared Li would expose him for some unspecified corruption.

The court also said Zhao, who rose through the ranks of the police in the sparsely populated but resource-rich region over a three-decade career, used his leadership position from 2008 to 2010 to seek benefits when promoting people and taking 24 million yuan (USD3.5 million) in bribes. He was also convicted of illegally owning guns, bullets and detonators.

Zhaos brother disputes only the murder charge, saying he does not know enough about the other charges to challenge the prosecutions arguments. He also points to violations of due process in the overall handling of the case.

Zhao Yifeng said his brother was denied access to a lawyer in his first six months of custody despite his and his familys attempts to hire one for him.

Interrogators used torture to extort a confession from Zhao, his brother said, citing a lawyers record from reviewing the prosecutions case files and an interrogation video. In one session, Zhao was put through 22 hours of questioning with his chest, arms and legs strapped and cuffed to a chair in order to immobilize him, kept awake throughout and denied medication for a heart condition, according to his brother.

Even after two years, Zhao has deep scars on his wrists, his brother said. He cites his brother as saying in court that the injuries were inflicted by interrogators who pressed down hard on his

handcuffed wrists. In photos Zhaos brother hopes to submit to Chinas highest court, the former official is seen in a prison uniform extending his scarred wrists before him.

He also says the courts ignored serious flaws in the prosecutions argument, including that none of the prosecutions three key witnesses identified Zhao as the killer in a police lineup.

Zhaos defense lawyers raised these issues in their arguments. Yet, his brother says, they dont appear to have figured into the verdict, issued just days after the trial.

This is a terrible thing, because what then is the point of the trial? Its all just a big performance, Zhao Yifeng said.

The Supreme Peoples Court, the two courts in Shanxi province where the case was tried, and police and prosecutors in Chifeng, where Zhao was interrogated, did not respond to repeated requests for comment sent by fax and phone.

Zhaos appeal comes amid greater scrutiny of complaints of police abuse in China and problems with its judicial system, where courts have a 99 percent conviction rate  one of the highest in the world.

Maya Wang, a researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch, said it wouldnt be surprising if Zhao had been tortured while in police custody.

The government doesnt give any statistics on the use of torture, but it is striking that such fate can befall almost anyone in China  whether were talking about powerful former government officials or petty thieves, Wang said.

In recent months, Chinese activists have been drawing attention to the plight of a rights lawyer, Xie Yang, who told his attorneys that he had been subjected to sleep deprivation, punched, kicked and otherwise tortured during interrogations. Xie has been held since July 2015 in a crackdown on legal activism.

Interrogators find it easy to sidestep government requirements aimed at curbing abuse because the police, prosecutors and judiciary are ultimately controlled by the Communist Party. They are required to work together to send suspects to jail, while the defense lawyer and the suspect have few rights and little power, Wang said.

Yet public pressure to curb abuses has grown following a string of wrongful convictions that recently came to light. Chinas highest court has pledged to do more to prevent the use of torture to obtain confessions, requiring interrogations to be videotaped, for example.

But while the torture of ordinary people in police custody might trigger an outcry, there is little public sympathy for officials subjected to the same practices, part of a widespread perception that officials enjoy better treatment by police than ordinary suspects.

The Supreme Peoples Courts verdict on Zhaos sentence is expected within weeks.

In the meantime, Zhao Yifeng has been traveling regularly to Beijing seeking to win his brother a retrial.

Sitting in his hotel room in Beijing, Zhao recalled how he and his older brother had been close as children but drifted apart in their adult years, separated by distance as well as differing views.

Im an academic and more of a liberal, which is unlike him, he said. But if I could live this life again, I would stop my brother from getting into politics. AP
A Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesperson said yesterday that the force is currently looking for the ringleader of a criminal organization based in Malaysia which has reportedly been targeting Macau with scams involving fake credit cards.

During a press conference yesterday, the spokesperson revealed that more cases related to the use of fake credit cards by Malaysian nationals have been found over the last couple of days.

Two individuals hired by the criminal organization to buy goods using the fake credit cards were detained on Friday. The PJ said it received complaints of three different cases involving four Malaysians who were found with a total of 59 forged credit cards in their possession.

One of the detainees, a 19-year- old, was caught in possession of 10 cards, and another 11 cards were found in his hotel room.

The PJ said that he was operating with a partner, still at large, and that together between March 6 and 8 they managed to buy products amounting to approximately MOP180,000.

A further enquiry and an investigation into the suspect revealed that he had been hired for the job and he would get a reward equivalent to MOP4,000.

In another case, it was found that another Malaysian had bought bags, wallets and sneakers and paid for hotel rooms with some of the fake credit cards.

In his possession were 21 of these cards and it was found that three of them had been used successfully to purchase products to the value of MOP37,000 in different shops across Macau.

In a third case, a 31-year-old male had been detained, said to be a taxi driver in Malaysia.

The hotel alerted the police after discovering that the man had paid his hotel bill with one of the fake cards.

The PJ were called to the hotel by hotel management where they found the man around 5 p.m. on March 24. In the mans possession were 17 forged credit cards as well as leather bags and accessories he allegedly bought using the cards.

The man claimed to be acting alone but also informed the police that he would get a 10 percent reward based on the value of the items he managed to buy.

In four successful transactions in different shops he spent a total of MOP102,108.

Fake diamond ring used as bait for swindle

T

he Judiciary Police detained a man from mainland China who had been allegedly involved in at least four different cases of swindling. According to the PJ report the man was caught after his last scam which was conducted on March 20.

The police received a complaint from a victim who said that a man approached him in the NAPE area claiming to have lost all his money gambling. He asked for some money to purchase food and to return back home.

The man then told him another story claiming that he needed more money to buy a mobile phone for his boss back in the mainland. In exchange, he gave as a deposit a diamond ring allegedly valued at HKD120,000.

After obtaining money from the victim, the man said that he would seek return of the ring upon payment of the loan the following day.

The victim handed over a total of MOP23,400 to the man who vanished, without trace. The victim took the ring to a pawnshop only to learn it was worthless.

The PJ noted the similarities in the story to another three last year which occurred between May and July in the peninsula central area and believed all to have been performed by the same person. Upon further investigation, the PJ found and arrested the man on the evening of March 22 in the NAPE area.

Upon being questioned he admitted the four crimes, saying that the rings had been bought in Zhuhai for around RMB2,300 each. In total the swindler took from the four victims a sum of around MOP84,000 which he said he lost at the gaming tables.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday celebrated an encouraging win for her conservatives in a state election, declaring that her party has every chance in upcoming votes. Her center-left challenger in Germanys national election later this year vowed not to be put off his stride by a deflating result.

Merkels Christian Democrats easily beat challenger Martin Schulzs center-left Social Democrats in Saarland state on Sunday. A much tighter race had been expected after the Social Democrats were boosted in polls by nominating Schulz, a former European Parliament president but a newcomer to national politics, in January.

The popularity of Saarlands conservative governor, Annegret Kramp-

Karrenbauer, apparently trumped what has become known as the Schulz effect in this years first electoral test.

A satisfied Merkel, who has largely ignored Schulz so far, brushed off a question about the Schulz effect.

Sundays outcome showed we shouldnt worry permanently about polls. We should work toward convincing people, she told reporters. Im simply happy about the result, and thats what counts. I dont permanently occupy myself with effects.

Two more state elections in May will be followed by a national parliamentary election on Sept. 24 in which Merkel is seeking a fourth term as chancellor.

It will be a difficult election campaign and we have every chance, she added. We have it in our hands.

Schulz was keen to highlight regional factors in explaining Sundays disappointing vote in Saarland, a region of nearly 1 million people on the French border.

We have picked up support in the last few weeks, in Saarland too, and we are looking ahead, he said, promising to draw the necessary consequences for the two next two state elections in May.

Were in it for the long haul  that message goes to those who are celebrating today, understandably from their point of view, but should not celebrate too early, he said.

Saarland is run by a grand coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, Germanys biggest parties and traditional rivals, the same combination that Merkel leads at the national level.

In Saarland, the Social Democrats failed to win enough support for a new coalition with the hard-left opposition Left Party.

A similar national alliance adding another left-leaning party might be Schulzs best hope for becoming chancellor, but the prospect may also have turned off Saarland voters.

The Social Democrats had ruled out working with the Left Party in previous national elections, although they do have regional alliances in the opposition partys eastern heartland. They have left the possibility open this time, but any combination would be complicated by foreign policy differences, including the Left Partys opposition to military missions abroad. AP
A day after Hong Kong picked a new pro-Beijing leader, police are planning to arrest student leaders and other prominent figures involved with the huge 2014 Umbrella Movement pro-democracy protests, activists said yesterday.

Police have informed nine people that they will be charged with committing a public nuisance, according to the Demosisto political party, which sent a list of those being targeted to the media.

Hong Kong police, who have arrested more than 200 people for their involvement in the protests, did not reply to inquiries. The Department of Justice said police would prosecute nine people based on its legal advice, but did not identify them.

The arrests, which would come more than two years after the end of the massive protests, could reignite political tensions in Hong Kong as the city prepares for its leadership transfer.

Beijing loyalist Carrie Lam promised to mend political divisions after she was named Hong Kongs next leader on Sunday, but the impending arrests have fueled fears of a wider crackdown on pro-democracy supporters amid rising concerns about mainland Chinas tightening grip on the semiautonomous city.

We expect a large-scale political prosecution, tweeted Joshua Wong, the young activist who helped lead the 2014 protests and co-founded Demosisto, one of a new wave of pro-democracy parties that advocate self-determination or even independence from China. Wong has already been taken to court several times for his part in the protests, but is not among those being targeted this time.

Those targeted for arrest include two university professors, Benny Tai and Chan Kin-man, and the Rev. Chu Yiu-ming. They founded a civil disobedience campaign that helped spark the 79-day protests demanding free elections for Hong Kongs leader.

Others informed about their impending arrests include former student leaders Eason Chung and Tommy Cheung; a political activist; and three current and former pro-democracy lawmakers, according to Demosisto.

One of the lawmakers, Tanya Chan, who said she was called by police, said that after all these years, first of all the timing, its very strange. It seems to be a well-designed plan of C.Y., referring to Hong Kongs current leader, Leung Chun-

ying, who is highly unpopular because of his hard-line stance against the protesters.

He will be replaced in July by Lam, who will take over a city split by political divisions and fears that Beijing is undermining the one country, two systems framework that promises Hong Kong high autonomy from the mainland.

The arrests appear to have been timed to protect Lam, who was Beijings preferred candidate, from facing tough questions about the governments crackdown during her leadership campaign, Amnesty International Hong Kong director Mabel Au said.

The authorities have had plenty of time to make this decision, so it does raise questions, she said.

Lam pledged to heal the divide and to ease the frustrations and to unite our society to move forward. But Tanya Chan said the arrests would make that more difficult. Kelvin Chan, Hong Kong, AP
The remains of Kim Jong Nam, the deceased half-brother of North Korean despot Kim Jong Un, was released from the Kuala Lumpur Hospital yesterday, reported Malaysias The Sun Daily, and will repatriated to his family in Macau today.

The repatriation is thought to have been organized by the Malaysian Foreign Ministry, which is in communication with his immediate family in Macau. It will ultimately invalidate Pyongyangs demands to have the body immediately returned to North Korea.

According to various reports, Kims remains were transported from the National Forensic Institute at the hospital in the early afternoon and taken to an unknown location for what was understood to be religious rites. The remains will later be brought to the MSAR, according to the reports.

Several Malaysian police officers visited the embassy yesterday morning, according to Malaysian media reports, to brief embassy officials, before transporting the body and preparing it for repatriation to Macau.

The successful entry of the authorities comes after more than a month of having police officers stationed outside the embassy.

Jong Nam was assassinated at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 13, poisoned with the banned VX nerve agent by two young women  one from Vietnam and the other from Indonesia  who claim to have believed they were participating in a television prank.

North Korean officials say that the man who died at the airport was Kim Chol, as per the name on the passport carried by the man, and that he died of a heart attack. Pyongyang has accused Malaysia of operating under the influence of its bitter rivals, South Korea and the U.S.

Malaysian authorities maintain that they identified Jong Nams body based on a DNA sample obtained from one of his children.

One of Jong Nams sons, the 21-year-old Kim Han Sol, is believed to be based in Macau, though some reports have speculated that he may be residing in Beijing since his fathers assassination, out of a fear for his safety.

Aside from the two young women, eight North Koreans are suspected of having some involvement in the assassination, including diplomat Hyon Kwang-song and two others who are thought be hiding in the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur.
New Zealand and China announced yesterday they would open talks soon to expand a successful free-trade deal in place for nearly a decade.

The announcement came during a visit by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English said the 9-year-old deal had been a huge success and resulted in trade between the countries tripling. He said an upgrade to the agreement would expand trade further, and that talks would begin next month.

Li also praised the deal, saying it was the first that China had signed with a developed nation and remained the most advanced. He said the deal helps send a signal to the world.

Its important to the peace and stability of the region and beyond, he said.

New Zealand hopes that a renegotiated agreement would allow it to sell more dairy products to China, while China also hopes to sell more goods in New Zealand and erase a small trade deficit.

The original deal imposes tariffs on certain New Zealand products sold in China after limits are reached.

One of the issues from New Zealands point of view is that the growth in trade has been so strong that some of the safeguard levels set back in 2008 are quite low levels, and the dairy industry has raised this issue with us, English said.

The countries announced several other agreements, including one that allows chilled New Zealand meat to be exported to China under a six-month trial. China already accepts frozen sheep and beef meat.

This agreement has the potential to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars for our farmers, exporters and the wider economy, said New Zealand Trade Minister Todd McClay in a statement.

Other agreements include an increase in the maximum number of direct flights allowed between the countries, a joint climate action plan, and strengthened cooperation on Chinas One Belt, One Road program.

The approach from China and New Zealand to free trade stands in contrast to that of the U.S., where President Donald Trump has pulled out of a planned Pacific free-trade agreement and has expressed skepticism about other such agreements.

Li traveled to New Zealand after visiting Australia and is scheduled to stay until tomorrow. AP
Two teenage girls were barred by a gate agent from boarding a United Airlines flight from Denver to Minneapolis on Sunday because they were wearing leggings, according to a spokesman for the airline.

The girls, whose ages were not specified, were not allowed onto the morning flight because they were traveling under an employee travel pass that includes a dress code, United spokesman Jonathan Guerin said.

The dress code bars pass travelers from wearing spandex or Lycra pants such as leggings. The teenagers agreed to change their clothing and take a later flight, Guerin said, but the airlines actions sparked a quick backlash on Twitter.

Activist Shannon Watts of Denver tweeted that she witnessed Sundays events and questioned Uniteds decision to police womens clothing.

Watts said the girls father was allowed to board while wearing shorts and called the airlines policy sexist.

Regularly ticketed passengers are not subject to the same dress code and can wear leggings, Guerin said. But the airline was standing by its policy for pass travelers because they are essentially representing the company, he said.

We would ask the same of pass riders who were wearing flip-flops or who were wearing clothing that revealed their undergarments or torn, tattered jeans, Guerin said.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who organized a wave of nationwide protests against government corruption that rattled authorities, was jailed for 15 days yesterday by a Moscow court for resisting police orders.

Navalny was arrested Sunday as he walked to a protest in Moscow and spent the night in jail before appearing in court.

Tens of thousands of anti-corruption protesters took to the streets across Russia on Sunday in the biggest show of defiance since 2011-2012 anti-government protests. President Vladimir Putins spokesman yesterday chided opposition organizers for putting peoples lives at risk in the unauthorized protests and defended the actions of Russias helmeted riot police, which critics called heavy-handed.

The 40-year-old Navalny, Russias most popular, charismatic opposition leader, has been twice convicted on fraud and embezzlement charges that he has dismissed as politically motivated. Navalny, who is currently serving a suspended sentence, has also recently announced his bid to run in Russias 2018 presidential election.

Even the slightest illusion of fair justice is absent here, Navalny told reporters yesterday at the defendants bench, complaining about the judge striking down one motion after another. Yesterdays events have shown that quite a large number of voters in Russia support the program of a candidate who stands for fighting corruption. These people demand political representation  and I strive to be their political representative.

The Kremlin has dismissed the opposition as a Westernized urban elite disconnected from the issues faced by the poor in Russias far-flung regions. Yet Sundays protests included demonstrations in the areas that typically produce a high vote for President Vladimir Putin, from the far western city of Chita in Siberia to southern Dagestans capital of Makhachkala.

Russian police say about 500 people were arrested in the protests Sunday, but a human rights group published a list of detainees that has more than 1,000 names. Yesterday, the European Union called on Russian authorities to release the demonstrators.

Putins spokesman chided the organizers for inciting illegal acts.

The Kremlin respects peoples civic stance and their right to voice their position, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. We cant express the same respect to those who consciously misled people and who consciously did it yesterday and provoked illegal actions.

Asked about the Kremlins reaction to the wide geography of the protests, something that has not been seen at least since 2012, Peskov said the Kremlin is quite sober about the scale of yesterdays protests, and are not inclined to diminish them or push them out of proportion. Nataliya Vasilyeva, Moscow, AP
South Korean prosecutors said yesterday that they want to arrest former President Park Geun-hye over the corruption allegations that triggered a huge political scandal and toppled her from power.

The move comes after prosecutors grilled Park for 14 hours last week over suspicions that she colluded with a jailed confidante to extort from companies and committed other wrongdoing when she was in office.

The Seoul prosecutors office said in a statement that it asked a local court to issue an arrest warrant for Park. The Seoul Central District Court said it would hold a hearing Thursday to decide on the prosecutors request.

The court is expected to ask Park to attend the hearing, and its decision on her fate will likely come by Friday, according to court officials.

An arrest is the next step before Park can be formally charged with crimes such as extortion, bribery and abuse of power. A bribery conviction alone is punishable by up to life in prison.

Park has denied any legal wrongdoing.

Even if the court dismisses the request, prosecutors can still indict and charge her. Prosecutors said Parks alleged crimes were grave, and that she should also be arrested because her alleged accomplice, confidante Choi Soon-sil, and other suspects in the scandal have been arrested.

Political analysts have said that arresting Park would also boost tensions and create a backlash from her conservative supporters ahead of an election in May to choose her successor.

While in office, Park had presidential immunity from prosecution and had refused to meet with prosecutors.

Prosecutors accuse Park of conspiring with Choi and a top presidential adviser to pressure 16 business groups, including Samsung, to donate 77.4 billion won (USD69 million) to two nonprofits that Choi controlled and allegedly used for personal profit. The companies told investigators that they couldnt refuse because they feared business disadvantages such as government tax investigations.

Prosecutors believe the money Samsung gave Choi could qualify as bribes provided to Park. Prosecutors also accuse Park of conspiring with Choi and top officials to blacklist artists critical of her policies and deny them state financial support.

Park has apologized for putting trust in Choi, but said she only let her edit some of her presidential speeches and provide the president with some public relations help.

The opposition-controlled parliament in December impeached Park over the allegations and suspended her presidential powers and responsibilities before the Constitutional Court ruled on March 10 to dismiss her as president.

The allegations plunged the country into political turmoil, with both Parks opponents and supporters staging massive street rallies. Three of her supporters, mostly elderly conservative citizens, died during clashes with the police after the March 10 court ruling.

Park, South Koreas first female president, is a daughter of late dictator Park Chung-

hee, one of the most divisive figures in the countrys history. Conservative supporters revere him as a hero who lifted a war-torn nation from poverty, while liberal critics remember him as a horrible human rights abuser who tortured and imprisoned his political rivals. Hyung-Jin Kim, Seoul, AP
Westminster Bridge attacker Khalid Masood sent a WhatsApp message that cannot be accessed because it was encrypted by the popular messaging service, a top British security official said yesterday [Macau time].

British press reports suggest Masood used the messaging service owned by Facebook just minutes before the Wednesday rampage that left three pedestrians and one police officer dead and dozens more wounded.

As controversy swirled over the encrypted messages, police made another arrest in Birmingham, England, where Masood had lived. The 30-year-old is one of two men now in custody over possible links to the attack. Neither has been charged or publicly named.

Masood was shot dead on the grounds of Parliament.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd used appearances on BBC and Sky News to urge WhatsApp and other encrypted services to make their platforms accessible to intelligence services and police trying to carrying out lawful eavesdropping.

We need to make sure that organizations like WhatsApp  and there are plenty of others like that  dont provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other, she said.

Rudd did not provide any details about Masoods use of WhatsApp, saying only this terrorist sent a WhatsApp message and it cant be accessed.

But her call for a back door system to allow authorities to retrieve information is likely to meet resistance from the tech industry, which has faced previous law enforcement demands for access to data after major attacks.

In the United States, Apple fought the FBIs request for the passcodes needed to unlock an iPhone that had been used by one of the perpetrators in the 2015 extremist attack in San Bernardino, California.

The FBI initially claimed it could obtain the data only with Apples help, but ultimately found another way to hack into the locked phone.

Masood drove a rented SUV into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before smashing it into Parliaments gates and rushing onto the grounds, where he fatally stabbed a policeman and was shot by other officers. A detailed police reconstruction has found the entire attack lasted 82 seconds.

Police are trying to pinpoint his motive and identify any possible accomplices, making the WhatsApp message a potential clue to his state of mind and his social media contacts.

Rudd said attacks like Masoods would be easier to prevent if authorities could penetrate encrypted services after obtaining warrants similar to the ones used to listen in on telephone calls or  in snail mail days  to steam open letters and read their contents.

Without a change in the system, she said terrorists would be able to communicate with each other without fear of being overheard even in cases where a legal warrant has been obtained.

Rudd also urged technology companies to do a better job at preventing the publication of material that promotes extremism. She plans to meet with firms Thursday about setting up an industry board that would take steps to make the web less useful to extremists.

British police investigating the attack say they still believe Masood, a 52-year-old Briton, acted alone and say they have no indications that further attacks are planned.

Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said it may never be possible to fully determine Masoods motives.

That understanding may have died with him, Basu said Saturday night as police appealed for people who knew Masood or saw him to contact investigators. Even if he acted alone in the preparation, we need to establish with absolute clarity why he did these unspeakable acts, to bring reassurance to Londoners.

The Islamic State group, which is losing territory in Iraq and Syria but still has radical followers in other parts of the world, has claimed Masood was a soldier carrying out its wishes to attack Western countries.

Masood had convictions for violent crimes in the U.K. and spent time in prison. He also worked in Saudi Arabia teaching English for two years and traveled there again in 2015 on a visa designed for religious pilgrimages.

Along with the man arrested Sunday, a 58-year-old man detained in Birmingham several days ago remains in custody in the case. Nine others arrested after the attack have been freed without charges, while one person was released on bail.

The family of slain police officer Keith Palmer, meanwhile, released a statement thanking those who tried to save his life.

There was nothing more you could have done. You did your best and we are just grateful he was not alone, the statement said. Gregory Katz, London, AP
COEUR DALENE  The Idaho Transportation Department and Associated General Contractors of America will offer a free heavy equipment operator program this summer.

ITD ran a similar program two years ago, and later received a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Transportation to recreate the school  this time targeting veterans and disabled veterans.

The program is open to anyone, but we hope that we can give back to our nations heroes, ITD compliance officer Russ Rivera said in a statement.

Applications are due Saturday.

Unemployment rates for young veterans in the U.S. increased to 6.3 percent in January, ITD reported, compared to the national unemployment rate of 4.8 percent.

There are 20 slots available for the three-week intensive program June 8-30 in Coeur dAlene. Participants will learn how to use a skid steer, backhoe, loader, excavator, mini-excavator, roller, haul truck, dozer and forklift. They will earn flagger certification, OSHA-10, CPR-First Aid and training in signaling and crane rigging.

Weve seen an alarming decline in the number of people working in the skilled trades, Rivera said. We created this program in partnership with our Idaho contractors and the AGC to help increase the skills and employability of Idaho Residents on Federal-aid construction projects.

The skilled trade industry is still growing. Associated General Contractors of America reported construction employment grew by 36,000 jobs in January, reaching its highest level since November 2008. The average hourly pay grew 3.2 percent over the year to $28.52 per hour.

Anyone interested in applying for the program can visit apps.itd.idaho.gov/apps/ocr/training.aspx or contact Connie Haggerty at Connie.Haggerty@itd.idaho.gov or 208-772-1234.
Many of you have asked about an email saying you were part of a data breach at the Idaho Department of Labor, wondering if it was legitimate. Sadly, if youve received this email, you are likely part of a data breach at IdahoWorks, Idaho Department of Labors job-seeker program.

Earlier this week, the agency reported 170,000 current and former profiles were hacked. It was part of an incident involving Americas Job Link, a Kansas-based, multi-state system that operates the departments IdahoWorks job search engine.

The Department of Labor is sending a direct notification, via email or regular mail, to all IdahoWorks customers whose accounts may have been compromised.

The account information that may have been viewed includes customers name, Social Security number and date of birth.

A friend of mine, Elizabeth Peace, is one of the thousands affected by the hack. While she moved away from Idaho three years ago, she had used the service in the past.

At first I was irritated, Peace said of receiving the email. Were working on our credit scores right now because we want to a buy a house next year. Im a little worried about how they could really mess things up for us after the identity theft horror stories Ive heard from other people.

Its a valid concern: with Social Security numbers potentially compromised, bad guys could make life difficult for victims, from opening fraudulent accounts to filing taxes in their names.

Better Business Bureau recommends the following tips any time your information may be included in a data breach.

Place a fraud alert. This is one of the tips the Department of Labor recommends as well. Contact the credit reporting bureaus: Experian, Transunion and Equifax. Let them know you suspect your identity has been stolen. This will make it more difficult to for thieves to use your information.

Check your credit. Each credit reporting bureau is required to give you a free look at your credit once a year. You can do this at no cost at annualcreditreport.com. Access this site from a secure connection, not public Wifi, as you will have to enter your Social Security number. Note that you do not have to enter payment information. If you are asked for a card, double check you are on the correct website.

If thieves are using your information, file a report with your local police. This starts a paper trail on your road to recovery. Keep a copy of the police report and make note of the date of your report, in case your bank, credit card company or other company needs proof of the crime.

Watch for scammers who want to piggyback on data breaches. Be suspicious of emails claiming your data has been compromised and you need to verify information. Remember, its easy to impersonate logos, so even if an email looks official, be wary of clicking on links or downloading attachments.


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TWIN FALLS  The city is thrilled with the number of people showing up to Shoshone Falls and Auger Falls this spring.

But not so thrilled about those squishy brown masses left behind by pets of careless owners.

There is unfortunately a large amount of dog feces in our parks right now, City Manager Travis Rothweiler said at the City Council meeting Monday.

City staff will remove whats accumulated, he said, but pet owners are asked to take responsibility if they bring their four-legged friends to city parks.

If youre going to bring a dog, bring a leash and bring a bag, he said.

Council member Nikki Boyd said some parks have containers available for people to donate or take plastic grocery or bread bags.

Shoshone Falls is expected to continue to see an influx of visitors, with nearly a million acre feet of water being removed from the system over the next month to prepare for snow-melt.

Also at the meeting:

Vice Mayor Suzanne Hawkins read a proclamation declaring 2017 the Year of the Lions, recognizing local members of Lions Club International as it celebrates 100 years. She also declared April Fair Housing Month, which is required for the city to receive certain Community Development Block Grants.

Fashion 15 Below owner Erin Rigel raised her concerns about construction vehicles taking up parking downtown. Rothweiler said the city would reach out to contractors.

The Council approved zoning district changes and zoning map amendments for a residential business at 383 Filer Ave and a parking lot at 415 Addison Ave.

The Council approved annexing the former Grand-Vu Drive-in Theater property, 403 Grandview Drive, from the area of impact. The annexation comes with a zoning district change and zoning map amendment that will allow Muni Storage to expand its business onto the parcel, with conditions.

The Council discussed an automatic impact fee increase of about 3.5 percent. Councilman Chris Talkington asked that it come forward as a lesser amount, but other Council members supported letting it go through.
TWIN FALLS  A Twin Falls district judge denied a bond request Monday by Gerardo Raul Chavez  one of two men accused of gunning down a 15-year-old Canyon Ridge High School student in May  after Chavezs defense attorney described him as a mamas boy who wouldnt flee without his mother.

The denial of bond for Chavez, 19, of Buhl came after Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs announced he has yet to decide whether to seek the death penalty against Chavez and his co-defendant, 20-year-old Jose Daniel Alvarez, both accused of the May 7 drive-by slaying of Vason Lee Widaman.

That decision is due in mid-April, Loebs told District Judge Richard Bevan at Mondays status conference. We should have a decision before then.

The status conference and bond hearing revealed several new details about the case.

Separate trials?

As of now, Chavez and Alvarez are set to stand trial together starting July 11. They had a joint preliminary hearing, appeared the same day to be arraigned in district court and both appeared Monday for the status conference.

But a defense attorney for Alvarez said his office is still researching the case and may seek separate trials because of recent developments. The attorney, Guy Zimmerman, did not elaborate on those developments.

Meanwhile, the attorney for Chavez, Doug Nelson, said Loebs death penalty decision will determine if he and his client are ready to go to trial in July and what experts they might need to hire.

If the state elects to seek the death penalty, it changes all the math, Nelson said.

Motion to suppress

Nelson filed a motion last week to suppress evidence against his client that he says was obtained illegally.

Nelson wrote that on Feb. 20, Twin Falls Police Detective Ken Rivers interviewed Chavez at the Twin Falls County Jail without an attorney present, thus violating both the Idaho and U.S. Constitutions, which all prohibit law enforcement from questioning a criminal defendant who has expressed his right to remain silent and his right to have counsel present during any questioning.

Nelson said Rivers would have known Chavez has an attorney because the detective testified at the preliminary hearing and was questioned by Nelson.

The defense attorney is seeking to have all evidence obtained as a result of the interview be ruled inadmissible in court. A hearing to argue the motion is set for April 11.

Bond denied

Chavezs criminal history, which includes misdemeanors and two juvenile cases for tobacco and drug paraphernalia, is not anything to worry about, Nelson argued during the bond hearing. He said Chavez would live with his mother and be offered a job at her company if he was released, noting his client has a special connection with his mother.

This is a mamas boy, Nelson told the court. Him and his mother have this bond where all he wants to do is see his mother, and all his mother wants to do is see him. There is nothing thats going to tear that apart. The only way that he would not come to court is if both his mom and him fled the jurisdiction. Its so unlikely to occur.

Nelson acknowledged Chavezs case is as serious a case as there is, but argued Chavez is presumed innocent and bond shouldnt be used to ensure pre-judgement incarceration.

Loebs made his own arguments  like Chavez could pose a threat to the witness hes charged with intimidating  but his winning argument was that by binding the case over to district court, a magistrate judge already ruled there is substantial evidence against Chavez.

The Idaho Constitution allows murder suspects to be held without bond where the proof is evident or the presumption great.

Bevan agreed with the prosecutor. At this juncture, proof is evident, presumption being great based on the probable cause finding (of the magistrate judge), Bevan said.

New details of investigation

Court documents filed in other cases against both Chavez and Alvarez have shed new light on the investigation and the months that passed between the shooting and the arrest.

As the Times-News previously reported, police identified both men as suspects the day of the shooting, and both were in and out of police custody in the following months. But court documents revealed that the month before his arrest, Chavez was involved in a skirmish with Twin Falls officers who likely would have known he was the central suspect in the Widaman murder investigation.

The incident Nov. 5 happened when Chavez was riding in a car with another man who was stopped on suspicion of drunk driving, court documents said. Officers said Chavez gave them a fake name while they questioned him and later struggled with police in an aggressive manner as they tried to place him in handcuffs.

Two officers wrestled Chavez to the ground while a family member who arrived to pick him up advanced toward the struggle without listening to commands to stop, court documents said. Chavez was eventually corralled into the back of a police car, arrested, booked into jail and released on his own recognizance.

Alvarez, meanwhile, found out about the evidence police had against him when he was arrested June 27. Thats when police served a warrant to collect his DNA and arrested him on drug charges for drugs found in his car.

Alvarez and his attorney later contested the drug charges successfully, arguing the warrant didnt allow police to search his car, and the evidence found inside it was inadmissible. A judge dismissed the charges in a finding that could have affected the DNA evidence in the murder case.

But Loebs said police obtained a corrected second warrant to collect Alvarezs DNA, which they say connects him to the bullets used in Widamans murder.

There wasnt any way to fix the drug search, Loebs told the Times-News. But the DNA, we just did another warrant and collected it a second time.
JEROME  Baby announcements are all about statistics: What time? What date? How long? How heavy? Alyssa Ruiz and Thomas Turner can go one statistic further when they announce the birth of Anderson Paul Turner.

The healthy baby boy with a full head of hair was born at 1:03 a.m. Monday, March 27, 2017. He weighed six pounds and 11 ounces, measured 18 inches long and was born at mile marker 172.

Ruiz, 25, and Turner, 23, of Twin Falls were on their way to Jerome early Monday where Ruiz planned to give birth to the couples third child with the help of a midwife. Little Anderson had other plans, though, and was in a rush to meet his parents. As Turner pointed the couples Dodge Durango west toward Jerome on Interstate 84, Ruiz grabbed him by the arm.

Pull over, she told him. My body is pushing, I cant help it.

Turner told Ruiz to calm down and take deep breaths.

I was panicking a little bit, Turner remembered Tuesday. I trusted her because shes had two kids before, but I was also wondering if I should trust a woman in labor. Maybe she was just being irrational from the pain.

But as Turner slowed the SUV, he looked toward Ruiz.

Shes not joking, he remembered thinking, This is for real.

The giveaway? Their babys head was already out.

Turners first thought was to slow down quickly but not slam on the breaks. She was practically squatting at this point, I didnt want her flying through the windshield, Turner said. As he jumped out of the vehicle, raced around and reached the passenger door, Ruiz gave one last push.

I opened the door, and out came the baby, Turner said. He kind of just plopped on the seat of our car.

Ruiz was the calmer of the two. Shes tough, having given birth without epidurals to the couples first two children. After delivering her baby on the side of the interstate, she kept cool as Turner went into a mental block.

I grabbed him and I didnt know what to do, Turner said. Alyssa said hand him to me. She was calming me down.

They wrapped mother and son in a blanket and towels and Turner called 911.

She asked, whats my emergency? I said, Im on the side of I-84, my wife just gave birth to our baby.

Turner credited the dispatcher with helping calm him, though he balked at her suggestion that he cut the umbilical cord before paramedics arrived. Jerome sheriffs deputies and Idaho State Police troopers were first on scene, and Magic Valley Paramedics arrived about 15 minutes after the birth. The paramedics helped Turner cut the cord before taking Ruiz and her newborn to the hospital.

Both of them turned out great, Turner said from his home Tuesday where Ruiz and baby Anderson were resting. Absolutely nothing was wrong, the baby came out perfectly fine.

It was an eye-opening experience, Turner said, to see Ruiz give birth outside a hospital without any assistance.

Its also one theyll never forget, not when they get in their Durango, and especially not when they pass mile marker 172.
TWIN FALLS  Police are still searching for the man who fled Twin Falls officers the night of Saturday, March 25 and escaped after running from his vehicle near Hollister.

Romeo Rolando Trevino, 34, is a fugitive of the Idaho Department of Correction after absconding from parole a year ago, an IDOC spokesman said.

Police dont know whether Trevino is armed but are asking anyone who comes across him to treat him as if he might be, Twin Falls Police Lt. Terry Thueson said. Hollister residents reported seeing a man trying to break into vehicles in the Hollister area after the chase.

There were a number of cautions attached to the warrant sent from IDOC, Thueson said. We dont know if hes armed at this time, but its best to call 911 as opposed to trying to confront him.

Twin Falls officers dispatched to the report of a suspicious vehicle about 8 p.m. Saturday spotted Trevino and recognized him from his warrant, police said in a statement. The officers chased him outside of city limits where Filer Police and Twin Falls County sheriffs deputies joined the pursuit.

Trevino abandoned his vehicle in the Hollister area and fled on foot, police said. He was able to avoid detection despite a search that included police canine units.

The TFPD statement released Sunday said Trevino was wanted for violating parole on an original charge of armed robbery, but court records show Trevino has never been convicted in Idaho of armed robbery. He was convicted in Twin Falls County District Court in at least three drug cases and one count of grand theft by possession of stolen property.

Thueson and Jeff Ray, the IDOC spokesman, were unable to confirm the armed robbery charge.

Our records show he has convictions for possession of a controlled substance and grand theft by possession, Ray said in an email. We wanted him because he absconded from parole. He was declared an absconder on March 8, 2016.

Both Ray and Thueson said its possible the armed robbery charge happened in another state, but Ray said there was no reference to anything like that in his IDOC file.
GOODING  Police detained 150 people and 80 roosters were euthanized when a cockfight was discovered March 25 north of Gooding.

It was the first cockfight discovered by Idaho law enforcement in 10 years, and will be the first test of a 2012 state law that made organizing a cockfight a felony crime when drugs or gambling are involved.

Cockfights are not uncovered very often, said Allison Maier, a spokeswoman for the Idaho Humane Society. Our head of animal control said theres been only three in the past 15 years. Its been awhile since anything like this.

Authorities last found a cockfighting ring in February 2007 in Kuna when Ada County deputies followed a suspected drunken driver to a fight, according to Associated Press reports from the time. When the deputies arrived, about 50 people fled, but authorities detained 15 people and discovered 19 roosters.

Gooding County sheriffs deputies discovered Saturdays fight after a noise complaint was called in about 9:30 p.m., Sheriff Shawn Gough said in a statement. When deputies arrived, they found about 100 cars parked outside a shop at the residence.

Deputies took the names and addresses of all the attendees before releasing them, and the organizer of the event is under investigation, Gough said. Deputies seized narcotics, firearms and equipment used in cockfighting.

Anyone who organizes, promotes or advertises a cockfight where drugs and gambling are present can be charged with a felony, according to the state statute passed in 2012. Anyone who participates can be charged with a misdemeanor.

The roosters seized Saturday were taken to the Gooding County Fairgrounds where the Idaho Humane Society euthanized them Sunday.

Though there were some injured roosters, most werent externally in bad condition, Maier said, but cockfighting roosters are often given various drugs such as strychnine, caffeine, amphetamines and epinephrine to make them more aggressive and increase their endurance.

This is one of the main reasons why they cant be adopted out or used for other purposes, Maier said. The most humane option is euthanasia.

Another reason cockfighting roosters cant be kept alive: Their natural spurs are often sawed off and replaced by razor sharp steel blades.

The roosters were euthanized by injections, Maier said, administered humanely by a Humane Society veterinarian.
GOODING COUNTY  As water from Magic Reservoir is released into the Big Wood River, residents near the rivers banks north of Gooding are asked to prepare for flooding immediately.

The Gooding County Office of Emergency Management expects at least as much, if not more, water than the flood of 2006, Coordinator Missy Shurtz said.

The best way to prepare is if you have animals, move them, she said. If you have anything of value, you should move them.

Sand is available at the Gooding Highway District 234 Second Ave. W., she said.

The Big Wood Canal Company reports Magic Reservoir has an inflow of 4,497 cubic-feet-per-second, and 1,990 cfs is being released. At this rate, melting snow is expected to cause water to go over the spillway sometime Tuesday.

Flooding could occur anytime over the next week, depending on how quickly snowpack is melting in Camas and Blaine counties Shurtz said. Camas County is already experiencing flooding.
BOISE  The Idaho Legislature took major steps toward ending the session Monday by sending a bill repealing the sales tax on groceries to the governors desk and introducing a new transportation funding bill.

Legislators had hoped to adjourn Friday but extended the session into this week as several major pieces of business were still undone. It is possible the Legislature could wrap up for the year on Tuesday.

At the moment, repealing the 6 percent sales tax on groceries and the accompanying grocery tax credit is the only legislation cutting taxes, a major goal of many Republicans heading into this years session. Another bill that would cut income taxes and also cut the unemployment insurance tax employers pay is being held in the House for now.

The repeal bill originated in and passed the House as an even bigger income tax cut, only for the Senate to amend it into an entirely new bill repealing the grocery sales tax. Monday it passed out of the House Revenue and Taxation Committee unanimously, although a couple of lawmakers who voted in favor in committee voted against it when it hit the House floor.

The important part to me here is it would provide some real tax relief, said Rep. Stephen Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, who is on the committee.

Hartgen noted that with the legislative session drawing to a close, this may be our only opportunity to provide some significant tax relief.

The vote split both the Democratic and Republican caucuses  several Magic Valley Republicans voted against it. Rep. Fred Wood, R-Burley, said his constituents have told him they are more interested in funding infrastructure repair than tax cuts, and he worries the lost revenue could mean less money for transportation in the future.

Look at old Highway 30, he said. You cant even drive trucks down old Highway 30 between Twin Falls and Burley anymore. There are too many potholes. That has to be fixed.

Gov. C.L. Butch Otter has said he opposes repealing the sales tax on groceries, although he hasnt explicitly said he would veto the bill.

Leadership in both chambers have said they dont want to end the session without taking some major steps to increase road funding, and Monday afternoon the Senate rushed through committee a bill that would authorize $300 million in bonds that the state would repay with federal highway payments. Much of this would likely be spent on repairing and expanding Interstate 84 in Canyon County.

It would also extend, for another two years, the surplus eliminator that directs some excess state revenues into transportation, with 60 percent of that money going to the state and 40 percent to local governments, and it would create a Transportation Congestion and Expansion Mitigation Fund, which would fund projects to expand the states road system and would be paid for with 1 percent of the states sales tax revenue (about $15 million a year) plus some cigarette tax monies.

The bill was printed Monday afternoon and then taken up by the Senate Transportation Committee, which sent it to the full Senate on a 5-4 vote.

Also Monday, freshmen Reps. Bryan Zollinger, R-Idaho Falls, and Mike Kingsley, R-Lewiston, held the first meeting of the Idaho Freedom Caucus, an organization they hope will be a vehicle to advance more conservative bills that have sometimes struggled to get a hearing from leadership.

We love what theyre doing in Washington, D.C., with their Freedom Caucus, Kingsley said, referring to the House Freedom Caucus that has won major battles with the congressional GOP leadership in recent years, most recently helping scuttle the American Health Care Act. Even though theyre not huge, theyre able to make some impact.

Kingsley said uniting and deciding as a group which ideas they would like to push would give them more clout.

We want it to be a sounding board for conservative ideas, Zollinger told the group.

About 20 Republican lawmakers attended, including some who have clashed with leadership over the course of this session. A few people at the meeting didnt sound like they were on board, though. Rep. Janet Trujillo, R-Idaho Falls, said she worried the group would split the party even more.

I guess my fear in doing something like this ... is that what we are doing is dividing our caucus, she said.

House Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, who attended the meeting and who has often been at odds with the farther-right wing of his caucus, spoke at length about his own frustrations as a younger legislator when he couldnt wield the influence he thought he should. He recalled being a member of a group called the 6 percenters, because they voted against any budget that hiked spending more than six percent.

Your concerns have been heard and like Ive told several of you ... in any organization you end up developing sacred cows through the years, he said. And its only fitting and proper that every now and then you skewer a cow and barbecue it.

Bedke said their frustrations are valid and indicated a willingness to work with them.

We have way more that unites us than divides us and I can match my  wait for it  conservative Republican credentials with anyone in this room over time, he said.
The two compromise routes to run the Gateway West Transmission Line through the Morley Nelson-Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area, long supported by most of the parties, finally has a path to approval.

A deal struck between Idaho Power and the Conservation Lands Foundation would use routes next to existing power lines that already cross the conservation area south of Kuna. Those routes have long had consensus among local officials, the utility, Idaho and conservation groups.

To make the deal work, the land under the power lines would be removed from the conservation area. In exchange, another 4,800 acres near Interstate 84 would be added to the national conservation area, and given enhanced restoration work.

Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson brokered the deal that will come in the form of legislation co-sponsored by the entire Idaho congressional delegation and expected to be introduced Monday.

I applaud the Conservation Lands Foundation and Idaho Power for their pragmatic approach to a complex issue which will result in both savings for Idaho ratepayers and conservation benefits to the Birds of Prey National Conservation Area, said Simpson.

The Conservation Lands Foundation had first opposed the routes across the Birds of Prey area, fearing that approving infrastructure construction there would set a bad precedence for the protection of other lands within the Bureau of Land Managements National Conservation Area system established in 2009.

Local BLM officials already had brought counties, conservationists, Idaho and others together behind the two routes, and the local BLM resource advisory committee made the two routes its preferred alternative.

But in the last days of Obamas presidency, the administration and the BLM instead identified as its preference and decision two routes south of the Birds of Prey that go through critical sage grouse habitat opposed by nearly everyone.

Idaho Power and the Conservation Lands Foundation already had been talking about this compromise.

Danielle Murray, senior director at the Conservation Lands Foundation, thanked Simpson, Idaho Power and the BLM. This legislation expands protections for raptors and eagles while allowing for the development of much-needed energy infrastructure, Murray said. We thank BLM for all their work to protect this region and to Rep. Mike Simpson and Idaho Power for their willingness to engage with stakeholders to develop a sensible solution to a complex problem.

Idaho Power Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Jeff Malmen pointed to the previous work of Idaho, local officials, ranchers, environmental interests and project supporters for laying the groundwork.

The folks from the Conservation Lands Foundation have also been great partners and their work has been extremely valuable, he said.

This is the last stretch of Gateway West, jointly proposed by Idaho Power and Rocky Mountain Power, that needs federal approval. The two utilities hope to construct and operate 1,000 miles of high-voltage transmission line across Wyoming and Idaho.

If built, the powerline would create more than 1,200 jobs and entail a $3.5 billion in economic investment, Simpson said. It could deliver to western energy markets up to 1,500 megawatts of transmission capacity in southern Wyoming and Southern Idaho  enough to power 975,000 homes.

Simpson said he appreciated BLM efforts. They agency helped create this vision and will ultimately be tasked with the heavy lifting of implementation.

The bill must go through the House Natural Resources Committee, where Idaho Republican Rep. Raul Labrador sits. He said he was looking forward to working with Simpson and the Idaho two senators to see this project to the finish line.

The bill could be attached to the funding bill that must be done by April 28, or perhaps to a future infrastructure bill.

Gateway West also must still get approval from each Idaho county it crosses, a challenge because Power and Cassia counties have balked at the routes through their counties.

At the end of the process, the Idaho Public Utilities Commission also will have a decision-making role. The PUC will determine if ratepayers will shoulder the burden of paying for the transmission line construction. The Gateway project route could be approved, with hundreds of millions of dollars spent on studies and plans, and yet never get built.
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For the last few days, much of Washington has been obsessed with what Rep. Devin Nunes did last Tuesday evening. That was the night before Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, made the explosive allegation that he had viewed dozens of intelligence reports, obtained through government eavesdropping that inappropriately included details about the Trump transition team.

According to a Daily Beast report later over the weekend, Nunes went off the grid that night to meet a source and view dozens of intelligence reports, including accounts of meetings involving President Donald Trump's advisers.

Then it gets weirder. CNN is now reporting that Nunes had in fact slipped off to the White House grounds last Tuesday to view the documents. And then on Wednesday, after briefing reporters on what he had found in those intelligence reports, he went back to the White House to inform the president.

On the surface, none of this looks good for Nunes, who is in charge of his committee's bipartisan investigation into all things Trump and Russia. Why would Nunes need to brief the president on documents he viewed at a facility on White House grounds?

In an interview Monday, Nunes told me that he ended up meeting his source on the White House grounds because it was the most convenient secure location with a computer connected to the system that included the reports, which are only distributed within the executive branch. "We don't have networked access to these kinds of reports in Congress," Nunes said. He added that his source was not a White House staffer and was an intelligence official.

Nunes, it should be said, has a history of cultivating independent sources inside the intelligence community. He made contact, for example, with the U.S. intelligence contractors who ended up saving most of the Americans stuck in the Benghazi outpost when it was attacked on Sept. 11, 2012. More recently, Nunes has reached out to his network of whistleblowers to learn about pressure inside the military's Central Command on analysts to write positive reports on the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State.

In this case, Nunes had been hearing for more than a month about intelligence reports that included details on the Trump transition team, and had been trying to view them himself. He told me that when he finally saw the documents last Tuesday evening, he made sure to copy down their identifying numbers so he could request access to them formally for the rest of the committee.

So let's look at the bigger picture. Trump has claimed that what Nunes found out vindicates his tweets from more than three weeks ago accusing Barack Obama of illegally tapping his wires at Trump Tower. Nunes has repeatedly said this claim is literally false. Yet Nunes has also said the reports he viewed included information that should not have been widely distributed inside the government. In some cases, he said the names of Trump advisers caught up incidentally in the eavesdropping were not expunged from surveillance reports as those of U.S. persons should have been.

Most important, Nunes told me these reports were sent to the Obama White House among other executive branch agencies. Nunes until now had only said the reports he viewed were widely distributed inside the government. "The reports included details about the Trump transition, meetings of Trump and senior advisers, they were distributed throughout the intelligence community and to the White House," Nunes said. "In some cases, there was additional unmasking of Trump transition team officials."

This is suggestive, though not yet proof, that White House officials privy to the Russia investigation wanted keep tabs on Trump and his advisers in the period after the election and before his inauguration. It also fits together with other facts in this story as well. For example, on March 1, the New York Times reported that Obama White House officials sought to preserve intelligence in the final days and weeks of his presidency on Team Trump's connections to Russia and Russia's campaign to influence the election. Though Nunes says the reports he viewed had nothing to do with Russia.

In addition, we know that details about communications between Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, were leaked to news outlets by several current and former officials. That leak ended up forcing Flynn to resign last month.

Before getting too excited about oversharing intelligence, however, let's remember that Nunes is the only member of his committee to actually read these documents. It's possible that other people could have a different interpretation of what they mean or their pertinence to foreign intelligence collection, the legal standard that must be met to unmask the names of U.S. persons incidentally collected by the intelligence community.

The good news is that we will soon get a second and third opinion. Nunes told me that he expects that his committee's members, including Democrats, will be able to read these documents themselves at secure locations outside of Congress as soon as this week.

If it turns out that intelligence about the Trump transition was included in dozens of reports that were sent to the White House, then the House Intelligence Committee really has two investigations. The first is of course a probe into how the Russian state meddled in the election and whether it did so with the aid of Trump's associates or campaign. The second is about whether the Obama White House inappropriately spied on Trump and his advisers during the transition to power.
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The Lebanese cabinet approved a budget plan for 2017 and the draft will be forwarded to the parliament for ratification.

Details of the draft budget will be revealed by the Finance Minister on Thursday but Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil hinted that new elements to promote tax justice and abolish protected monopolies were introduced.

Tax reforms have been a dividing issue especially among the populations lower and working classes but Bassil explained that three old demands of the bloc namely the tax on real estate profits, raising taxes on bank profits and bank interests are affected.

The last time Lebanon had a budget ratified by the parliament was 12 years ago. The latest approval by the cabinet is considered as a major step by observers and there is optimism that it will be supported by the Parliament, which has not passed a budget since 2005.

The budget deficit is forecast at $5.2 billion, or 9.54% of gross domestic product, on spending of $15.8 billion, according to the draft released last year. However, it seems as if it has been reduced after Information Minister Melhem Riachi said the deficit was greatly decreased through the debate that took place today (Monday).

The budget draft is being hailed by Bassil as the first foundation for reform and financial regulation in the country.

Political differences between the political parties have kept the country in a political impasse for years. The cabinets approval of the draft budget has been welcomed as another achievement by political commentator, Rosanna Bou Monseh. Nevertheless, she noted that the draft falls short in terms of proposing structural reforms to limit corruption, to address growing debt, and place restriction on spending.
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.
Algeria has voiced its support for the extension of the oil production freeze agreement between OPEC and non-OPEC members as it believes that stocks in Europe and Asia as well as in the US are diminishing and that will reassure the market.

Energy Minister Noureddine Boutarfa is optimistic that a clear impact of the deal will be noticed in the next couple of weeks and hopes that the ministerial monitoring committee will recommend the extension of the freeze for at least three or four months.

The committee monitoring the agreement, which became effective in April 2016, is meeting for the second time in Kuwait City. It is made up of Algeria, Kuwait, Venezuela, Russia and Oman. Several countries such as Angola, Iraq, Kuwait, Russia and Saudi Arabia have made positive statements supporting the extension ahead of the May 25th meeting in Vienna where a final decision will be made.

Boutarfa stated that the compliance of OPEC member states to the agreement is at levels we have never seen because it has reached 100% while acknowledging that the stand of non-OPEC members is the scenario we expected although their compliance rate of around 40% will be gradual rather than instant.

OPEC and 11 other major producers including Russia agreed last year to slash production, spurring a 20 percent increase in Brent crude prices during the last five weeks of 2016. Boutarfa said they are making progress in balancing the market despite the shortcomings as he commended Iraqs good efforts amid the criticism directed towards it.

Algeria is determined to be exemplary in the implementation of the agreement and Bouterfa renewed his governments commitment to reduce daily output by 50,000 barrels.
National Food Agency warns

By Messenger Staff

Georgias National Food Agency calls on citizens to refrain from buying food in places where appropriate standards of storage are not protected.The statement came before spring and summer warm days started, when many vendors in Georgia sell products under the burning sun, without protecting even minimal food keeping standards.The agency statement reads it is especially dangerous to buy high risk products - meat, fish, milk and eggs at unorganized trade places."The National Food Agency calls on the population to refrain from buying food in places where there is no proper storage conditions. The risk of food poisoning increases as temperatures rises.The National Food Agency warns you that the food stored in improper conditions poses a threat to your health," says the statement. But this is akin to the writing on cigarette boxes which clearly indicates that the product is dangerous, however smokers still smoke regardless of it.The fact is that products at disorganized vending areas are generally cheaper then inside the regulated areas.In a country where the vast majority of people live in poverty, settling the problem wont be easy, especially as food in street markets remains relatively affordable even for low-income households.The state agencies should control on such areas very accurately and consequently.The government launched various clean-up projects in a number of areas to help street vending become safer.However, the government must also ensure other vending areas for such people, as many of them are the only breadwinners for their families.Yet overall, everything relates to the country's poor economic condition. Unfortunately, there are still no obvious signs that the economic situation will improve in the country anytime soon. The heritage of the former ruling UNM power left unsolved problems for the current leadership of Georgian Dream. On one hand the GD has to step forward, and on the other to catch up with the current moves.
The News in Brief

Three Candidates to Run for S. Ossetia Leadership



Three candidates will run in the South Ossetian presidential elections scheduled for April 9, the local election administration reported.



Among them are incumbent leader of the breakaway region, Leonid Tibilov, Parliamentary Chairman Anatoly Bibilov, and State Security Committee officer Alan Gagloev.



On March 14, the breakaway regions Supreme Court rejected former South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoitys challenge against the local election administration, which earlier turned down Kokoitys application to run.



Kokoity held series of protest rallies before and after the Supreme Court decision, accusing the breakaway regions government of acting under the guidance of external forces, referring to the recent visit of Vladislav Surkov, Russian Presidents aide overseeing Moscows relations with breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.



We support Russia; we support Putin and we will not allow people like Surkov to discredit Putin in Donetsk, Lugansk and especially in South Ossetia, Kokoity told his supporters in Tskhinvali.



We are the masters at home, but it appears that Surkov, Filatov and a few others [Oleg Govorun, Kremlin official, who heads the unit for social and economic cooperation with the CIS-member countries, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Also a pun on his last name talker] think otherwise. They think that we are the tenants and they are the owners of this house as they arrive and tell us who will run in the elections and who will not, Kokoity said.



The regions election administration rejected the presidential bids of two more applicants: Alan Kozonov and Amiran Bagaev, citing problems with voter signatures required for registration.



Simultaneously with the presidential elections, Tskhinvali will also hold a referendum on renaming the region to the South Ossetia  the State of Alania.



Elections in the region are denounced as illegitimate by Tbilisi and the international community, except for Russia and three other countries (Nicaragua, Venezuela and Nauru), which have recognized the region as an independent state.

(Civil.ge)







Eight more detained as blame game continues after parking fine riot



Police detained eight more people on criminal charges on Saturday as the blame game continues for last weekends violent riot in Batumi.



Altogether, the number of detainees has now reached 100, all of them men, the local newspaper Batumelebi reports.



Most of the detainees have been charged with administrative offenses and released from custody. But the city court in Batumi placed six in pre-trial detention, and has still to decide on the fate of two.



Meanwhile, politicians are blaming each other. The ruling Georgian Dream has not let go of its theory that the largest opposition party UNM was behind the unrest. Irakli Chkhvirkia, an activist from the UNM-linked youth group Free Zone (Tavisupali Zona), was expelled from that party a week ago after appearing on TV among the crowd of rioters and demanding the police chiefs resignation within half an hour.



But although some UNM members and others expressing solidarity with the protest early on, they distanced themselves from the riot when it turned violent. The UNM denied the accusations of having organized the protest and in turn blamed the authorities for mismanaging the problem.

(DF watch)







Head of Georgian Dream faction denies PM has said goodbye to team



Georgian Dream faction head Mamuka Mdinaradze has denied information spread in the media that the Prime Minister has 'said goodbye' to his team during a meeting held at the Kachreti Ambassador hotel on March 19.



As Mamuka Mdinaradze has told IPN, unofficial reports which state that the PM has informed his team members of his resignation are not true.



According to him, this issue has not been discussed by the government at all.

(IPN)




Numbers don't lie and Florida's private prisons are not saving money as promised, according to an investigation by legislator and retired forensic auditor Rep. David Richardson.

Part of the reason, he believes, is that the agency in charge of monitoring the contracts has no experience in prisons so the private prison vendors have for years "hoodwinked" the Department of Management Services, which supervises their contracts

After nearly two years investigating and auditing state prisons, Richardson, D-Miami Beach, won a small victory Tuesday and persuaded a House committee to shift oversight of the seven private prisons in Florida into a single agency to increase accountability and end what he says is a culture of finger-pointing when troubles emerge.

"I want one agency accountable and we will call them when things go wrong,'' said Richardson, as the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee voted 7-6 to move oversight of the state's seven private prison from the Department of Management Services to the Department of Corrections.

In the audience sat lobbyists for the private prison companies the Geo Group, Management Training Corp. and Corrections Corporation of America. None of them spoke to oppose the bill but had been urging members of the committee to reject it for days.

"I understand why the private prison operators wouldn't want it because for years they have had DMS hoodwinked,'' Richardson said after the meeting. "We have found inflated pricing, tremendous performance problems and cost-cutting measures that were unsafe and wasting taxpayer money."

Since 2004, when the Florida Legislature was moving aggressively to privatize prisons and prison programs, DMS has been charged with managing and enforcing private prison contracts while the job of inmate discipline, gain-time and release was left to the Florida Department of Corrections.

After spending more than 700 hours interviewing more than 300 inmates at dozens of facilities across the state, Richardson, a retired forensic accountant, discovered that the bifurcated oversight worked to the advantage of the three private prison companies and to the disadvantage of taxpayers.

He found that contracts that had been signed by DMS employees had used inflated measures to achieve the cost savings. The state not only guaranteed more education, substance abuse and transition programming at the private prisons than the state-run prisons but it also gave the private prisons the lowest risk inmate populations and, when he reviewed the contract with Lake City Correctional Facility, a youthful offender prison, he discovered the state had overpaid the contractor more than $16 million.

"I asked a very basic question: How do we pay these people?,'' he told the committee Tuesday. "Being an accountant and auditor, some of the numbers started jumping off the page for me, and raised a lot of questions."

For example, he concluded that although state law requires the private prisons to operate at seven percent savings over what it would cost for the state to maintain the same operation, when he looked at the numbers used to justify the savings, he found questionable numbers.

"There were some escalating factors within those calculations that pumped up the price in a way that caused the final number to be inflated and, when you take 7 percent off of that, the number is higher than what it should be,'' he said.

He said he next tried to see who was responsible for that but "trying to get to an answer was very difficult because the Department of Corrections point out to me that the Department of Management Services is the one that managed the contracts and DMS told me that it was the Department of Corrections that was responsible."

"No one wants to take accountability for this issue,'' Richardson said. "We need to have one agency responsible for those contracts so that we can hold it accountable."

In the last month, Richardson has exposed so many financial, as well as health and safety violations at the Gadsden Correctional Facility in North Florida that he has asked the governor to use his emergency powers to replace the management and take state control of the 1544-inmate facility. On Tuesday, Richardson learned that the facility's warden, Shelly Sonberg, is retiring.

But several of the members of the House committee were skeptical of Richardson's plan.

The private prison industry has been one of the most generous contributors to legislative political committees for the last decade and legislators have harbored doubts about the ability of the Department of Corrections to police itself in the wake of scandals that include the indictment of the resignation and arrest of the former secretary of the department in 2006 for accepting kickbacks, and more recent stories about abuse and cover-ups at the agency.

"Are you suggesting there was collusion" between the contractors and the agency? asked Rep. Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart.

Richardson responded, "I certainly would not use the word collusion. I have concerns about the way these contracts have been awarded and monitored."

Rep. Thad Altman, R-Melbourne, said he couldn't support the change because it created a conflict of interest to have FDC managing contracts in competition with its own operations.

Harrell also voted against it. "I think this merits an in-depth audit before we make significant changes of uprooting departments,'' she said.

Richardson said he was pleased with the vote but acknowledged the uphill climb he has to get the change through this year.

"If nothing else, I have put the issue front and center for discussion purposes,'' he said.

Photo: Rep. David Richardson at a visit to the private prison, Gadsden Correctional Facility. Courtesy of David Richardson.
Despite opposition from Miami and Miami-Dade and a group of beach communities, a Florida House subcommittee on Tuesday passed a bill that prevents cities and counties from passing any new ordinances that restrict vacation rentals of private homes.

The 9 to 6 vote by the Careers & Competition Subcommittee sends the controversial bill to the 30-member Commerce Committee, which is top-heavy with lawmakers from South Florida where opposition to short-term vacation rentals has been most intense.

The bill (HB 425), sponsored by Rep. Mike LaRosa, R-St. Cloud, prevents local governments from imposing new restrictions on vacation homes. Local ordinances that were in effect on June 1, 2011, could remain, but restrictions adopted after that date, including laws based on a 2014 legislative compromise, would be declared "void and unenforceable" by the state and wiped off the books.

"This industry has been under attack," LaRosa testified. "Individuals' private property rights have been violated."

LaRosa noted that homeowners have filed claims for damages under a state property rights law known as the Bert Harris Act. He also cited a Miami Beach ordinance that imposes fines of up to $20,000 for violations.

But what LaRosa calls property rights, cities and counties defend as their home rule power to safeguard public safety and protect property values. They cited cases of all-night parties, excessive noise, parking problems and other quality-of-life issues.

"We view it as an attack on home rule," said Kerri McNulty, an assistant city attorney for Miami. "We are being inundated with calls from our residential neighborhoods who are complaining about these short-term rentals which are essentially businesses ... We need to be able to regulate them."

The parade of opponents included the Florida Association of Counties, Florida League of Cities, Flagler County, the Greater Miami and the Beaches Hotel Association, and the cities of Bradenton Beach, Daytona Beach, Holmes Beach and Lake Worth.

Supporters included the Florida Association of Realtors, Florida Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Prosperity and HomeAway, a nationwide online vacation booking platform seeking to expand its market in Florida, one of the world's hottest tourist destinations.

One of the strongest supporters of the bill was Marcie Mascaro (in photo), who drove to Tallahassee from Miami and complained of efforts by the city to levy steep fines on short-term rental properties. A single mother of two sons, she said she has hosted hundreds of guests in her home and has never had a nuisance complaint.

"Hosts like me want legitimacy," Maascaro said. "Let us give our guests a temp place to call home that tramscends a traditional stay. Let us decide how we keep our home including who, when, for how long and for how much."

Opponent Ruth Uecker of Anna Maria, an island tourism community in Manatee County, told lawmakers: "We do not want to overly regulate usage nor interfere with property rights, but we do want to retain the tools we have to solve local problems."

Three Republicans voted against the bill Tuesday, all of them in areas of growing tension between residents and rentals: Reps. Larry Ahern of Seminole, Paul Renner of Palm Coast and Randy Fine of Palm Bay.

Tuesday's debate centered in part on whether vacation rentals are homes or businesses. LaRosa and other supporters of the bill said they are homes, but opponents noted they are regulated, the same as hotels, by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

"They are called public lodging establishments in statute," said Eric Poole of the Florida Association of Counties.

The bill's next and final stop before the House floor will be the Commerce Committee chaired by Rep. Jose Felix Diaz, R-Miami, and includes four other members from Miami-Dade, four from Broward and five Tampa Bay lawmakers: Democrats Sean Shaw and Republicans Jamie Grant, Jackie Toledo, Blaise Ingoglia and Kathleen Peters.

Peters, of Treasure Island, represents a group of North Pinellas coastal communities and is an ardent supporter of the cities who says she would be voted out of office if she supported LaRosa's bill.

Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, a Democrat, said the rentals bill is one of a number of examples of the Republican Legislature's contempt for home rule.

"It's an all-out assault on local government and our ability to self-govern," Buckhorn said, "and this is coming from the same people who say the government that's closest to the people is most effective. That would be us."
The Florida House Subcommittee on Energy and Utilities on Tuesday will hear the proposal sought by Florida Power & Light to allow the company to expand its rate base by charging customers for investments in natural gas fracking operations in other states.

It's the only bill on the agenda for the committee's three-hour time slot and it's sudden appearance on the committee calendar surprised even the committee's chair, Rep. Kathleen Peters, R-South Pasadena, who had been told by House leaders that the bill was not going to get a hearing.

"This is a jump ball bill, is what I'm told,'' said Peters said, who opposes the bill. "There are so many freshman on that committee that I'm not sure they'll know what a jump ball is."

Rep. Jose Felix Diaz, R-Miami, the chairman of the Commerce Committee which will hear the bill if it's approved -- as expected -- by the subcommittee, also deflected responsibility for putting the industry-sought bill on the agenda. He would not explain who added it.

"I did not ask for that to be on the agenda,'' he said. "I reviewed the agenda that had it on it. Nobody forces anybody to hear any bill."

The bill, HB 1043 by Rep. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, would give the Florida Public Service Commission the authority to allow utilities that generate at least 65 percent of their electricity using natural gas to invest in oil and natural gas exploration, including fracking.

Although FPL is the only utility that could meet the criteria to qualify today, Duke Energy Florida, Inc., and Gulf Power Company are expected to qualify in the near future, if the bill is approved, according to an analysis by the House staff. It would also be the first time in the nation that a utility company would be allowed to shift the risk of an exploratory drilling to customers, instead of shareholders, without determining whether the investment is prudent, the analysis said.

The bill is aggressively opposed by environmental advocates, large utility users, and the AARP, which has urged its members to call committee and write legislators and voice their opposition.
@MichaelAuslen

Florida state lawmakers on Tuesday proposed cuts to Medicaid that could take as much as $621.8 million away from hospitals next year.

The proposals, put forward by the House and Senate health care budget subcommittees are meant to reduce the state budget, but they have hospitals on edge.

In the House, Rep. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, recommended cutting the states share of Medicaid by $238.6 million. However, Medicaid is mostly funded by the federal government, so every dollar the state cuts has more than double the impact. The House proposal would take $621.8 million total from hospitals.

Sen. Anitere Flores, R-Miami, recommended more modest cuts in the Senate: $99.3 million from the state budget, or a $258.6 million total hit.

A ray of hope that the Senate is counting on but which the House is not: That the federal government might reinstate a pool of money meant to reimburse hospitals for unpaid care given to people who have no health coverage. Flores said she thinks it is more likely than not that the feds will give Florida $607 million for the Low Income Pool.

Flores said she believes the Donald Trump administration might be willing to negotiate with the state, and said that she has heard negotiations with Gov. Rick Scotts office, state agencies and the hospitals have been productive.

Brodeur does not expect that money.

Hospitals and other care providers have been sounding the alarm about possible cuts for weeks. Earlier this week, the Times/Herald published a story explaining the impact on hospitals.

Its early, but we know we have a lot of support in both chambers, and we hope it all works out in the end, said Lindy Kennedy, executive vice president of the Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida, which represents the states public, teaching and specialty childrens hospitals, after the House had released its proposal but before the Senate did.

The impact on local hospitals will not be clear until the budget writing process moves forward.

Both chambers broke with an approach put forward by Scotts office that would have cut Medicaid funding based on a profitability formula.

I dont think principally you can penalize somebody for being profitable, Brodeur said. Thats not where were at. What we want to do is have the money follow the patient.

The House also proposed cutting 428 positions in the Department of Health, continuing a trend of significant reductions to the departments staffing base for years. Most of those are vacant, or phantom positions that were authorized in the state budget but were never filled by the department.

The Senate offered the reduction of just one position, though that includes reducing a handful of vacant jobs and adding several new ones.

Budget negotiations begin in earnest in the coming weeks, and the House and Senate still must agree on the state budget, including cuts to any programs.

Photo: Sens. Tom Lee, R-Brandon, and Anitere Flores, R-Miami. (Scott Keeler | Tampa Bay Times)
A House committee overlooked opposition by residential and commercial utility customers Tuesday and approved a proposal sought by Florida Power & Light to allow the company to expand its rate base by charging customers for investments in natural gas fracking operations in other states.

The bill, HB 1043 by Rep. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, would give the Florida Public Service Commission the authority to allow utilities that generate at least 65 percent of their electricity using natural gas to invest in oil and natural gas exploration, including fracking. It was approved by the Florida House Subcommittee on Energy and Utilities.

Although FPL is the only utility that could meet the criteria to qualify for the program this year, Duke Energy Florida, Inc., and Gulf Power Company are expected to qualify in the near future, if the bill is approved, according to an analysis by the House staff.

It would also be the first time in the nation that a utility company would be allowed to shift the risk of an exploratory drilling to customers, instead of shareholders, without determining whether each investment is prudent, the analysis said.

The uncertainty of the risk and the burden on customers drew opposition from the Florida Retail Federation, the Florida Industrial Power Users Group, the AARP, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups.

"Consumers could be on the hook for potentially large programs that produce no natural gas,'' said Jack McRay, lobbyist for AARP. He said FPL receives "among the highest rate of return of any utility in this country" so the company should have the capital needed to make the investment without charging customers up front.

Sam Forrest, vice president of energy marketing and trade for FPL, said utilities currently purchase natural gas at market prices and fuel markets are volatile and "while we hope natural gas prices will remain low, hope is not a strategy" and "customers are not protected by the risk of rising prices."

He suggested the project was a good investment for customers because the company currently spends about $3.6 billion on natural gas investment and "instead of being fully beholden to out of state corporations, we'd be able to take control of a small portion of our gas."

He called it a "common sense" proposal that removes the middle man in terms of natural gas investments, and that opponents are cherry-picking the facts.

Rep. Lori Berman, D-West Palm Beach, asked Forrest if the investment was so solid for the company, why it wasn't willing to do it without charging ratepayers.

Forrest said the program is operating now on behalf of the shareholders "which we're thrilled with" but the company wouldn't make the $180 million to $190 million investment on behalf of ratepayers without approval of PSC.

Rep. Eric Eisnaugle, R-Orlando, said that response "struck a bad cord to me" because it demonstrated FPL has already decided to hedge its fuel costs by investing in natural gas fracking but it wants its customers, not shareholders, to pay for it.

"The folks paying the bill are against it and that's a pretty good argument,'' he said, before voting against the bill. "In 15 to 20 years, are we even going to be using more natural gas? I don't think anybody knows. But we'll still be paying for it."

The bill overturns a court ruling that rejected FPL's attempt to get the fracking investment approved by the Florida Public Service Commission.
@ByKristenMClark

Florida parents seeking more recess time for their children suffered a setback Tuesday, when state lawmakers significantly watered down a proposal that was supposed to require 20 minutes of daily recess for all public elementary students.

Members of a House subcommittee were willing to give students more recess time during the school week  but not nearly to the extent that parents have fought for for more than a year and that many lawmakers previously supported.

The original bill  which remains intact in the Senate  called for at least 100 minutes of supervised, safe, and unstructured free-play recess each week, 20 minutes per day, for the nearly 1.3 million Florida children in kindergarten through fifth grade.

But under the Houses amended bill, recess would be legally required at most two days a week, and a third of all elementary students  430,000 fourth- and fifth-graders statewide  wont have any guarantees of recess.

The changes to HB 67 by the Pre-K-12 Innovation Subcommittee drew immediate criticism from recess moms and opposition from health and wellness experts because it clashes with research-based recommendations that endorse daily recess, separate from physical education classes.

Although 56 House members  or roughly half of the 120-member chamber  had signed on to co-sponsor the original version, bill sponsor and Orlando Republican Rep. Rene Plasencia said Tuesday the revisions were necessary to ensure the bill would be considered in committee.

Full details here.

Photo credit: Kindergarten students head out to the playground for recess at Citrus Grove Elementary School on Thursday, February 9, 2017. Florida lawmakers are again considering a statewide mandate for daily recess in public elementary schools. Patrick Farrell / Miami Herald


@PatriciaMazzei

A left-leaning political group is attacking Miami Republican Anitere Flores, the No. 2 in the Florida Senate, over potential state budget cuts moving through her legislative subcommittee.

Florida Strong, a nonprofit that went after Flores and other Republicans during last year's election, mailed some of Flores' constituents, urging them to call Flores' office and oppose the cuts. It's Florida Strong's first flier of the annual lawmaking session, spokesman Charly Norton said.

"We are focusing on legislators' priorities this session and plan to continue shedding light on misplaced priorities that run counter to Floridians' best interest," Norton said in an email. "Instead of wasting tax dollars on more corporate handouts with no clear return on investment, we need to create an environment that will ensure a thriving, stable economy across the state for future generations. This includes investments in critical programs like the ones Flores wants to cut."

Flores chairs an appropriations subcommittee that considers budget proposals -- in some cases, even if Flores isn't the one behind them or doesn't agree with them.

"It's pretty funny how this group fears my power in the legislative process," she said in a statement. "I guess they're still upset that my constituents saw through the hundreds of thousands they spent on attacking me with lies.

"It's pretty funny how this group fears my power in the legislative process. I guess they're still upset that my constituents saw through the hundreds of thousands they spent on attacking me with lies."
@ByKristenMClark

Dozens of immigrant advocates, including many from South Florida, descended on the Florida Capitol on Tuesday to send a message to the Republican-led Legislature: Back off.

We are tired of having the same conversation with our legislators, as if we  as immigrants  do not contribute to the state of Florida, said Francesca Menes, policy and advocacy director for the Florida Immigrant Coalition. We contribute economically to the state of Florida. Our families are here, and we are here to stay.

Representatives from the coalition and several other immigrant advocacy groups came together at a press conference, where they were joined by dozens of supporters, including Democratic lawmakers.

[We are] standing here, demanding that we stop all of this, because our families are sick and tired of being threatened of being separated, Menes said.

More here.

Photo credit: Kristen M. Clark / Herald/Times Tallahassee bureau
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HELENA  A Montana Senate committee on Tuesday added money to the state budget for nursing homes, special education and other government programs, relenting somewhat on the hard line that Republican legislative leaders had been taking to close a shortfall in the 2018-2019 spending plan.

But to keep the budget balanced, the Senate Finance and Claims Committee looked to cut funding in other areas, and the panel denied many other requests that were made.

"I feel like the Grinch who steals Christmas," said committee chairman Llew Jones, R-Conrad, after rejecting a proposal to reinstate a scholarship program. "I believe we must take care of the base programs we have before expanding into new areas."

Some of the funding additions made on Tuesday were previously rejected by the House earlier this month over concerns of balancing the budget and leaving enough cash in reserve to absorb unexpected changes in spending and revenue before the Legislature meets again in 2019.

The Republican-led Legislature had been seeking to close a budget shortfall caused by the downturn in energy production by spending cuts alone. However, a new revenue estimate forecasts the state will take in about $100 million more than previously expected by 2019.

Also, bills to hike taxes on tobacco products and increase the state's fuel tax appear to be gaining traction, which would further boost state revenue, though Republicans said they would resist all new taxes.

The Senate panel inserted $10 million for nursing home programs in the state, $1.2 million for special education programs and $1 million for a youth suicide prevention grant program. Money was also added to start a psychiatry residency program, to fund the Montana Digital Academy's online classes for rural students, for high school vocational education programs and to increase state payments for community colleges.

The panel also partially restored some of the cuts proposed for some agencies, such as the Montana National Guard, the Public Service Commission and even the small state Division of Architecture and Engineering. Other agencies, such as the state Department of Public Health and Human Services, will be allowed to fill some of the open positions that had previously been slated to remain vacant to save money.

To pay for the additions in education programs, the committee voted to temporarily eliminate funding for school district block grants. The effect would be a $40 million decrease in state money going to school districts' general funds over the next two years.

Many funding requests were also denied. They included proposals to give child protection workers a raise, to cut down the waiting list for residential services for the elderly and disabled, and $12 million for a new statewide preschool program.

A request to add $20 million to the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education's budget over the next two years was also rejected. Republican majority lawmakers said they would not go above the $11 million that had been restored to the commissioner's budget in the House.

Commissioner Clayton Christian previously told the Senate panel that the cuts proposed could mean catastrophic tuition hikes for some colleges and universities, even with the $11 million restored.

"The Legislature still has opportunity to help fund affordable education for the people and employers of Montana," commissioner spokesman Kevin McRae said after the hearing. "We look forward to working with legislators in the days ahead to explore all possibilities."

The Senate committee advanced the budget bill Tuesday afternoon. It next goes to the Senate floor for more potential amendments and a vote.

The differences between the House and Senate versions will be worked out in a conference committee.
HELENA  With the state facing a cash flow pinch, Gov. Steve Bullocks budget director told Superintendent Elsie Arntzen spring payments to schools might be delayed one week. She protested.

Arntzen's opposition to the daily budget decision from Bullock is notable, in part, because she is the first Republican to be superintendent in decades, which has shifted the dynamic between the Office of Public Instruction and the governor, a Democrat.

As Superintendent, I prioritize schools. I have an obligation to schools and I will not delay their payments. The Board of Public Education has had an approved payment schedule since May of 2016, she said in a written statement. This state funding is crucial to schools because they budget with the assumption that they will receive this money on time. Schools have bills to pay, too."

Rather than the state distributing about $55 million to districts on March 24, the date set by the Board of Public Education under guidance from the Office of Public Instruction, Budget Director Dan Villa told Arntzen on Tuesday schools might instead be paid March 31, the last day allowable under state law.

Previous Superintendent Denise Juneau had supported similar, short-term delays in November and December as revenues came in slower than expected.

Villa described the move as a simple way to manage the states cash flow needs that would not have any effect on schools. District advocates did not express any concerns with such short-term delays.

When the state runs into cash flow crunches  which are common this time of the year as Montana waits for income taxes to come in  the first option is to time payments to be as late as allowable under law or contracts, buying a few more weeks or days for additional revenue to arrive.

School payments are just one example of that. Without such delays, the state might have to consider borrowing cash from other accounts, such as the fire fund, or issuing short-term bonds called Tax Revenue Anticipatory Notes.

Last week the states cash balance was $111 million. On Tuesday, after those payments were made to schools in addition to other money coming in or out, the balance sat at $51 million. Higher-than-expected Medicaid collections, among other shifts, meant the state did not have to delay school payments, borrow from other accounts or seek loans this time around.

It is very common practice for the State of Montana to align payments with revenues. The Budget Office has worked with OPI and the Department of Administration to do this numerous times in the past, Villa said. Its disappointing the Superintendent is attempting to politicize something so routine.

Montana School Boards Association Director of Government Relations Bob Vogel said he had never heard of a school having a problem with those kinds of short-term delays.

Its not a concern as long as we know (the payments) are coming. Thats never really been in doubt, he said. If the delays were more substantial and something other than a cash flow issue, then we might have concerns.

The Board of Public Education is likely to discuss the timing question at a future meeting. Executive Director Peter Donovan said he had talked about the need to clarify the payments with the chairwoman and staff attorney, wondering why the boards duties include setting payment dates if state law already sets deadlines.

Theres a pretty good schedule in statute already, he said.

Chairwoman Sharon Carol, an Ekalaka teacher, did not return a request for comment by press time.
More than eight months after holding a three-day hearing on the matter, the Montana Human Rights Bureau has issued a decision denying former Missoula County undersheriff Josh Clark's claims that he was discriminated against by Sheriff T.J. McDermott.

We have always acted within the law and this HRB hearing decision backs that up. However, we do find ourselves disappointed with the time, money and resources that are spent on these types of complaints, McDermott said in a statement about the decision.

In September 2015, Clark filed the complaint alleging he had been retaliated against after McDermott defeated him in the 2014 election for sheriff. Clark was assigned to a night patrol shift instead of being made a captain after the election.

An initial Human Rights Bureau investigation found probable cause to believe discrimination had occurred. In June, the agency held a three-day hearing in Missoula during which each side presented evidence.

Clark asked to be awarded $750,000 for the alleged discrimination. He resigned from the department in February 2015.

McDermott said in his statement that Clark seems unwilling to accept the results of an election held over two years ago" and that Clark had retained his salary and would have been the highest paid deputy on patrol.

The final Human Rights Bureau report released Tuesday said that the sheriff's office was able to substantiate legitimate reasons for moving Clark to the night shift.

"Clearly, there were and still are hard feelings between the two men. It cannot be said that McDermott was unreasonable in his assessment that Clark could not or would not faithfully serve as a captain in his administration," hearing officer Caroline Holien wrote in her report.

Clark has 14 days in which to appeal the agency's decision. He could also choose to continue to pursue a separate lawsuit filed in Missoula County District Court.

Clark's attorney Nicole Siefert said Tuesday they plan to appeal the Human Rights Bureau's decision first. "I thought that we proved our case so I'm disappointed," she said.
The questions posed by kids at the Montana Science Fair are as varied as they are fascinating: Does whole wheat flour contain more gluten than processed white flour? What is the best way to cook cauliflower and broccoli to preserve the vitamin C? Does adding antimicrobial silver to a filtration cloth kill bacteria in stream water? Do earthworms in the soil help plants grow?

For the record, according to research from students, the respective answers to the above questions are no, steaming, not really and yes.

A total of 547 kids, 400 of them middle school students, presented their research findings Monday at the 62nd annual Montana Science Fair at the Adams Center on the University of Montana campus. More than 300 judges spent the day interviewing the students, and the awards ceremony is scheduled at 10 a.m. Tuesday in the George and Jane Dennison Theatre. More than $15,000 in prizes will be awarded to the participants, including cash, scholarships and all-expense paid trips.

Colton Noyes, a seventh-grader from Townsend, spent three months experimenting with earthworms and barley plants to determine if the worms helped add nitrogen and other nutrients to the soil that would benefit plant growth. Sporting a tie and casually dropping terms like microbial activity, Noyes delivered a polished presentation, explaining how he used a control plot of soil to make sure his results werent skewed.

I always wondered, what is the point of worms? he explained. He found that there is a notable increase in nitrogen as the number of worms in a given area of soil increases.

Worms are a big part of our agricultural life, and we need them to help us grow healthy plants and keep soils nourished, he told a judge.

The benefit of hosting the science fair on the UM campus is the kids get to explore an institution where they may consider applying to when they graduate, according to Montana Science Fair director Earle Adams.

Its a good thing, he said. They get to come to campus and check things out. At the gym next door, they can check out some of the research going on at UM.

Adams said many of the kids will spend between 9-12 months working on their projects.

***

McKenzie Mitchell and Morgan Nicholson, two middle-school students from Kalispell, spent months testing two varieties of corn chips from the same company. One of the company's products was labeled as containing genetically modified organisms  the corn from which the chips were made. The other product, made with a different type of corn, did not have the GMO labeling.

However, Mitchell and Nicholson found that the product without the GMO labeling contained just as much GMO corn as the labeled product. They collaborated with scientists at Flathead Valley Community College to test the corn DNA in each chip bag to determine the presence of GMOs.

During the course of their research, they discovered there is no law saying companies have to disclose whether their products contain GMOs, even if only some of their products are labeled with the GMO tag. Some people might assume, if they see one bag with a GMO label on it next to a bag without the label, that the unlabeled bag might not contain GMOs. The hard work of Mitchell and Nicholson proved that isnt the case.

***

Ciara Gorman works at Providence St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula but volunteers her time to judge the science fair every year.

I did a science fair when I was a kid, and I think its really cool to see all these kids and their ideas and know that they are going to be in college and working on stuff, she said. Its fun to see the same kids go from sixth grade to eighth grade bio. Its the same kids, but its fun to see their ideas get bigger and bigger.

The University of Montana, UMs College of Humanities and Sciences, UM Health and Medicine and a variety of other campus, community and individuals sponsor the Montana Science Fair.
Bears have started showing up all over social media this spring, and at least one has its own laptop.

Whitefish resident Mike Potter caught a cinnamon-phase black bear on video near Arlee with a computer in its mouth as it grazed along U.S. Highway 93 on Sunday. Apparently awakened early when its culvert den flooded in the early snowmelt, the big male has become something of a roadside hazard.

He would come up and go down like a magic show, Potter said. Ive lived in Montana all my life, and these moments still impress me.

Video courtesy of Mike Potter of Whitefish. Potter spotted this mature black bear with what appears to be a laptop in its mouth near Arlee on March 26, 2017.

The bear also caught the attention of Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribal wildlife biologist Stacy Courville, who set a culvert trap for it soon after it appeared about three weeks ago.

When it gets nice out, he pops up and starts grazing on grass, Courville said. Hes causing bear jams when hes out, and were afraid hes going to get hit by a car. But hes not interested in the bait at all. Weve had the trap out for two weeks and nothing.

Both black and grizzly bears have started leaving their dens as spring weather has taken hold in western Montana. After a long winter hibernation, their digestive tracts have virtually stopped working. Although both species are meat-eaters, they typically seek out new grass and other vegetation to get their systems moving again.

Thats important for homeowners near the forest to consider. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials warn that both bears and mountain lions will follow deer and elk as they move to the valley bottoms in search of new grass.

By April 1st, residents should take down bird feeders, secure garbage inside a closed garage or secure shed, feed pets inside, clean up chicken and livestock feed, and in general remove all odorous substances that can draw bears, FWP spokesman John Fraley said. Instead of putting out hummingbird feeders we recommend putting up hanging baskets of flowers. In Montana, it is illegal to intentionally feed ungulates, mountain lions and bears. This includes putting out grain, deer blocks, mineral blocks, sunflower seeds, garbage, meat scraps, bread, doughnuts, brownies and other food.

Bears can live for years near people without ever getting in conflict, but an introduction to human food almost always means tragedy. Predators habituated to human food may lose their natural fear of humans and often have to be killed.

FWP wildlife specialist Jamie Jonkel added that early spring tends to see increases in mountain lion activity at the edge of cities and towns. Residents in Missoulas Grant Creek and Rattlesnake neighborhoods had several lion incidents over the winter, including the removal of at least seven adult or subadult lions.

With the snow melted off, people arent seeing the lion tracks as much, Jonkel said. But Missoula Valley is a mountain lion factory, like Swan Valley. Its both primo lion habitat and primo big-game habitat, so we see a lot more hands-on interaction between all the species. Throw our own behaviors into the mix, and it always gets interesting.
As the president of the Associated Students of the University of Montana, it is my privilege and responsibility to represent over 11,000 University of Montana students. Unfortunately, the fight for affordable, accessible higher education for Montanas families is becoming more challenging.

The Legislature has proposed an $11.8 million cut to the Montana University System that our students and our campuses simply cannot afford. Whether you attend UM or Dawson Community College, Montana State University or Montana Tech, these cuts make higher education less accessible and add to the significant financial burden students and families already face.

An $11.8 million shortfall would likely mean slashing courses and cutting staff and instructors. This will mean added time to graduation and added expense for students before they can earn a degree. It would also result in double-digit tuition increases for every college and university student across Montana. At a time when students are working multiple jobs and graduating with an average of $27,504 in student loan debt, Montana families and students simply cant afford a cut this drastic.

According to the Montana Bureau of Business and Economic Research, every dollar spent on higher education leads to three dollars generated in state tax revenue. Furthermore, over 80 percent of students in our university system will be working and living in Montana a year after graduation. Every single state dollar that goes to higher education is a smart investment in Montanas economic future.

As we look for sensible solutions to balancing the states budget, such a blow to Montanas system of higher education threatens to have an impact that stretches far into the future.

There is another option. Rather than eviscerating the budget for higher education and shifting the cost onto students, our legislators should ensure that we have adequate revenue sources. The governor has proposed a means to do so by adding a top tax rate for incomes over $500,000 (the top 1 percent of households), which would raise $37 million over the biennium. With this much-needed revenue, we can protect state investments that are critical for our future.

Currently, someone making $18,000 a year pays the same top tax rate as someone making $1 million a year. Continuing to provide big tax breaks for corporations and the super wealthy costs our state millions in lost revenue, and comes at the expense our students, our infrastructure and our states long-term prosperity.

Keeping tuition affordable is critical to ensuring that Montana students can afford to finish school and achieve their potential. We want to be able to stay in Montana after graduation. We want to be able to contribute to our local economies, to buy a house, to start small businesses and to contribute to our states success.

In the next 10 years, Montana will face a worker shortage of more than 100,000 workers. The Montana University System supplies our state with trained, quality workers. Montana needs nurses and scientists, educators and accountants, writers and computer programmers. Limiting access to higher education is a step backward that harms Montanas workforce and economy, gives Montana students less opportunity for in-state employment, and narrows the hiring pipeline for Montana businesses.

There are better options. It is not fair to students, families or our states economy to make deep, debilitating cuts to higher education while the super wealthy and large out-of-state corporations get tax breaks.

We hope that the Legislature will seriously consider solutions that bring more revenue into Montana as they contemplate cuts. That is the responsible way to balance our budget.
You would think Montanas legislators would have an especially keen interest in preserving state history. After all, they carry the weight of that history with them every day of every legislative session.

Also, the states premiere historical museum is located just across the street from the Capitol in Helena. There, they can view the hundreds of priceless historical artifacts that help tell the story of Montana.

Well, the ones that arent in storage, anyway. In storage or not, the deteriorating condition of the building leaves these items in continual danger of damage or destruction.

For years now, the Montana Historical Society has been sounding the alarm about the museums dilapidated condition and need for more space. They propose to renovate the original 93,000-square-foot building and build an underground concourse connecting it to a new Montana Heritage Center just across a nearby street. The cost is estimated at $44 million, and guaranteed to grow higher every year legislators put it off.

Considered by many to be the Smithsonian of the West, the museum boasts an exceptional collection of treasures in an embarrassingly cramped and outdated old building that doesnt provide nearly enough display room, leaving the vast majority of pieces in storage. In fact, the historical society estimates that only 6 percent of its collection can be exhibited at any given time.

The historical society has been in existence since 1865, collecting artifacts with a direct connection to Montana history. The museum now includes some 60,000 individual pieces, from artwork to historical documents to clothing and much more.

As reported in Sundays Missoulian, the storage area holds 232 works of art by C.M. Russell, as well as appointment documents bearing the signature of Abraham Lincoln, a sacred white buffalo from the National Bison Range that died in 1959, Tommy Cruses electric bathrobe, the diary of schoolteacher Mary Frances Benton Connor and many more priceless, irreplaceable items that help tell the story of our state.

The current facilities were built in 1950 and include the museum, a research center, state archives and the State Historic Preservation Office. It is also the base of operations for education and outreach programs that reach into every corner of the state.

History buffs, experts, researchers and tourists already flock to the museum by the thousands every year. An economic impact study requested by the Montana Historical Society calculates that the Montana Heritage Center would see an additional 78,000 visitors a year, generating $7.5 million in additional spending.

Really, the question is not whether to approve the project, because it so obviously should be approved, but how best to pay for it. Gov. Steve Bullocks infrastructure proposal recommended that the costs be covered by $27.6 million in bonding. Supporters of the museum are in the process of raising $10 million in private funding, and existing bonding authority would cover an additional $6.7 million.

Some legislators are so averse to bonding, however, that they would rather find other ways to pay for the project. One bill, thankfully tabled last Friday, would have directed the historical society to raise the money by selling some of its collection  essentially requiring it to violate both its mission and the public trust, and jeopardize its accreditation to boot.

Another proposal, still in the Senate Finance and Claims Committee, would increase the state lodging tax and siphon off the new revenue for the new museum. Unfortunately, Senate Bill 376 leaves open the question of how long it might take to collect enough money to pay for construction.

It appears the Heritage Center, like other building projects in Montanas urban areas, including Romney Hall at Montana State University and a new veterans home in Butte, has once again fallen unfortunate victim to legislators debate over what counts as infrastructure. In the previous legislative session, these projects were included in a comprehensive infrastructure bill that failed by a single vote on the final day of the session.

Bonding bills, remember, require a two-thirds majority to pass. Legislators from urban and rural districts alike must come together to support these projects. Whether they call it infrastructure or not, these facilities are sorely needed, and will benefit not just their surrounding communities, but the entire state.

Whether these projects are approved in individual bills or as part of a package of infrastructure projects, they deserve passage. Montana's legislators should not allow another session to go by without a plan to preserve the state's most exceptional bits of history, and the lessons they hold for all who care to listen to the stories they tell. That would be a needless shame  and a disservice to Montanans past, present and future.
Where, oh where, has Greg Gianforte gone? While Rob Quist is traveling all over Montana, holding town hall meetings on important issues like public lands and health care reform, Gianforte is nowhere to be seen.

Maybe he thinks paying for big TV ad campaigns is enough to buy the election. That works in New Jersey, where Gianforte came from, but here in Montana we like to actually meet the people who want to represent us in Congress.
BILLINGS  A nurse in the Billings Clinic Cath Lab has been dismissed from the hospital for stealing narcotics intended for catheter lab patients.

The nurse is accused of swapping out fentanyl, a narcotic used in a sedative mixture prescribed to patients before they undergo a procedure. The nurse was replacing the fentanyl with saline.

The letter informs patients that the fentanyl charge on their bill will be reimbursed. It also lets patients know they're at no risk for contracting hepatitus C and HIV. The hospital tested the nurse for the two diseases and then let patients know that the nurse was not infected.

The Clinic terminated the nurse after the discovery was made, informed law enforcement agencies, and conducted their own internal investigation.

In the letter, the hospital also informs patients that they've set up a dedicated phone line for people to call in with concerns and questions. The number is 406-657-4355 or toll free at 844-830-3590.
...

"We have a referendum on 16 April. After that we may hold a Brexit-like referendum on the [EU] negotiations," ErdoAYan told a Turkish-UK forum attended by the British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson. "No matter what our nation decides we will obey it. It should be known that our patience, tested in the face of attitudes displayed by some European countries, has limits."

The animus -- reinforced last week when the leader said he would continue labelling European politicians "Nazis" if they continued calling him a dictator -- has also animated tensions between Greece and Turkey, and ErdoAYan's comments came hours after the Greek defence minister said armed forces were ready to respond in the event of the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity being threatened.

...

Turkey's EU negotiations have long been hindered by Cyprus, and talks aimed at reuniting its estranged Greek and Turkish communities are at a critical juncture but have stalled and are unlikely to move until after the referendum.

But it is in the Aegean where tensions, matched by an increasingly ugly war of words, have been at their worst. After a tense standoff over eight military officers who escaped to Greece after the abortive coup against ErdoAYan last July -- an impasse exacerbated when the Greek supreme court rejected a request for their extradition -- hostility has been measured in almost daily dogfights between armed jets and naval incursions of Greek waters by Turkish research vessels.

Related, see Erdogan Races Against the Dollar in Campaign for Unrivaled Power.
The 2017 national Attendance Awareness Campaign kicks off today, continuing an effort to educate parents and others throughout the country about just how important school attendance is.

The issue has caught fire in Butte-Silver Bow, with an Attendance Matters campaign being one of the top four priorities of the Community Action Team (CAT), which believes that kids who attend school today will achieve tomorrow.

CAT members include Butte School District No. 1 Superintendent Judy Jonart, Curriculum Director Jim O'Neill, and School Trustee Tom Billteen, who work to convey to lay CAT members what good school attendance means  elementary students with good attendance will read well by the end of third grade, middle school students will pass important courses, and high-schoolers will stay on track to graduate. And this: good attendance goes even beyond the K-12 realm; college students with good attendance will earn degrees, and adults with good attendance at work will succeed in their jobs.

CAT has learned the important difference between the terms "truancy" and "chronic absenteeism." According to the Attendance Works website (www.attendanceworks.org), truancy generally refers to unexcused absences; truants are students who miss school without an excuse, skip school, and violate mandatory attendance requirements. "Fixing the problem becomes a question of ensuring compliance, often left to front-office administrators, and in the most severe cases, to the legal system," says the website, adding that policy varies from state to state, with some policymakers recommending punitive consequences such as school suspensions.

Chronic absenteeism, according to the site, incorporates all absences  both excused and unexcused. "The focus is on the academic consequences of this lost instructional time and on preventing absences before students miss so much school that they fall behind," says the website. "It recognizes that students miss school for many understandable issues such as asthma or homelessness or unreliable transportation, for which a punitive response is not appropriate. But what helps is working with families to share the importance of attendance and to fix the underlying problems that lead to absenteeism."

And thus, the national campaign (and the local campaign) to reduce chronic absenteeism.

The Butte School District says chronic absentees are those students who miss two school days or more per month (Montana law mandates a 180-day school year, so missing two days per month in our nine-month school year equates to 10 percent of the school year). National statistics relay that 5 million to 7.5 million students are chronic absentees and therefore are academically at risk.

Starting as early as pre-kindergarten and kindergarten, says the website, "chronic absence can have adverse consequences for academic achievement," adding that, "by third grade, chronically absent students, especially those who have experienced multiple years of poor attendance, are less likely to read on grade level."

Curriculum Director O'Neill has relayed to CAT in the past this startling statistic: the state of California conducts long-term projections on how many jail cells to build by studying the state's third-grade reading scores.

For this particular column, let's talk sniffle. Part of the local Attendance Matters campaign  "All Day, Every Day"  is to talk and educate about when a student is too ill to attend school. The Attendance Works website adapted the following school attendance guidelines from the Baltimore County Public Schools:

Kids should stay home from school if they have a temperature higher than 100 degrees, even after taking medicine, or if they're vomiting or having diarrhea. They should also stay home if their eyes are pink and crusty. (A provider should be consulted when children have a temperature higher than 100 degrees for more than two days or if they've been vomiting or having diarrhea for more than two days. Children should also see a provider if they've had a runny nose for more than a week, and aren't getting better.)

But kids can be sent to school if they have "the sniffles"  a runny nose or a little cough with no other symptoms. They can go to school if they haven't taken any fever-reducing medicine for 24 hours and haven't had a fever during that time. And they can go to school if they haven't vomited or had any diarrhea for 24 hours.

CAT members have committed to talk very much over the next year about how school attendance matters. We'll be asking for community involvement  for example, educating retailers that working a high school student until midnight might have adverse consequences for that young employee and asking merchants to display on their reader boards "Attendance Matters  All Day, Every Day." Butte School District No. 1 has a variety of initiatives planned, and the CAT group intends to assist.

This campaign is all about our kids and the fact that they need to be in school.
HELENA  Online travel companies might have to remit a few more dimes in state taxes for hotel rooms booked in Montana if the Taxation Committee on Tuesday signs off on Senate Bill 373.

Sen. Dick Barrett, D-Missoula, said his proposal would close a loophole that allows online travel companies to only collect and remit one of the states two lodging taxes even though it might appear to customers that they are paying both. Montana charges a 4 percent use tax and a 3 percent sales tax on lodging facilities. In 2010, the Montana Department of Revenue sued Priceline, Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity and others for failing to follow the law. The Montana Supreme Court ultimately ruled that only the sales tax applies because only owners and operators are required to remit the use tax.

There were a number of things that happened that really nobody had thought of (when they created the taxes) in 1987 and 2001, Department of Revenue Director Mike Kadas said, talking about the boom of internet services. This gets us back to the original intent of that bill in 1987 before any of us had any idea of what an online travel company was.

As an example, a booking site might show customers a charge of $100 per night for a room. The actual hotel and its operators might only receive $80 with the online company pocketing the rest as a service fee for marketing the room. Under existing law, the booking company would remit 7 percent  both the use and sales taxes  to the state on the $80 and only the 3 percent sales tax on their $20 service fee. The state says that amounts to a loss of 80 cents per room in this example.

Nearly all sites also charge customers taxes and fees, although those amounts typically are not detailed for customers and frequently do not match the actual taxes collected for the state. For instance, two booking sites listed different taxes and fees for the same Dillon hotel room on Tuesday. One charged 7.2 percent while the other charged 8.2 percent on the room rate.

Barretts bill would clarify the definitions in state law to make sure that tax is collected on the full amount charged customers rather than just the partial value charged on behalf of the hotel operator.

Lobbyists for online travel companies opposed the bill.

Increasingly, its close to 30 percent now, customers are shopping for hotels on online travel sites, said Steve Shur, president of The Travel Technology Association based in Washington, DC.

He argued that any increase in what customers pay, even a minor one, leads to a decrease in bookings. He pointed to Minnesota, which started charging a tax on online bookings, and noted its tourism declined the following year while neighbor Wisconsin, which does not have such a tax, saw the number of visitors increase.

Barrett questioned whether millions of visitors changed their vacation plans because of a minor tax change, saying the single-year change in tourism numbers could have been influenced by a number of unrelated factors and there is no clear proof showing people choose Wisconsin instead to avoid a few extra dimes.

No action was taken on the bill Tuesday, but it will die if the committee does not approve it Wednesday so it has enough time to clear the House by the transmittal deadline at the end of the week.
Thank goodness Montana nursing homes haven't managed their businesses the way state leaders are creating the biennial budget.

For years, Montana Medicaid payments have fallen short of the actual costs of caring 24/7 for the 60 percent of nursing home residents who are indigent and rely on Medicaid to pay their bills. In recent guest opinions, Billings area nursing home administrators described widening gaps in Medicaid reimbursement that now range above $50 per day per resident. With around 2,600 Medicaid nursing home residents statewide, that loss adds up to millions of dollars.

The surest way to cut costs would be to reduce staff caring for frail elders and other adults with disabilities. But that would mean lowering care quality to dangerously unacceptable levels.

Gov. Steve Bullock's austere budget plan has zero increase in rates for nursing homes and all other Medicaid providers for the next two years.

Nursing homes and other senior service providers are in a catch-22. The governor's budget for Senior and Long Term Care in the coming biennium is $17.3 million less than what was appropriated for the current biennium. That reduction roughly reflects the amount of money appropriated, but not expected to be spent. Why is it "left over"? Largely because some Medicaid reimbursement rates are so low that community services aren't available to many Montana seniors who need them.

That's a terrible way to control costs.

Then the Montana House cut the governor's proposal for Senior and Long Term Care.

Earlier this month, AARP Montana raised alarm in a letter to the House Appropriations Committee, saying that their budget "contains a devastating $84 million of cuts to services through the Senior and Long Term Care Division over the next two years."

That's a huge problem for nursing homes that are already losing money and needing to be competitive on wages in tight labor markets like Billings.

Montana nursing homes cover their Medicaid loss in several ways -- charging non-Medicaid patients more, getting local taxpayer subsidies for county and hospital district nursing homes, using revenue from other services and burning through reserves.

These strategies aren't sustainable.

The governor's office and Senate Finance Committee members must dig deeper into the SLTC budget and insist that it adequately compensate Montana caregivers who serve needy elders.

Where can the state get money for fair and adequate reimbursement?

Bullock's budget proposed a 1 percentage point tax increase on personal income above $500,000. Other general fund revenue proposals floated this session include increases in taxes for alcoholic beverages, tobacco products and e-cigarettes.

Is rejecting all these tax ideas more important than taking good care of Montanans who have paid taxes for most of a century and now need help to stay safe in their own homes or to pay for nursing home care? Absolutely not!

The Legislature and the governor must find a way to spare Montana seniors from the consequences of severely underfunded services for our fast-growing elderly population.

 The Billings Gazette
Authorities have identified a body found in the Missouri River, but can't say for certain if it's the same man reported to have jumped into the river from a bridge more than a month ago.
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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 []
A Catholic church in Molo sub-county in Nakuru has rejected a seat donated by a popular businessman because Governor Kinuthia Mbugua sat on it.

The chair that cost Sh30,000 was donated by area businessman Joseph Kahuria who presented it on Sunday during a thanksgiving service at the church.

The businessman, who was accompanied by his family members, had called on Governor Kinuthia to test how comfortable the chair was before handing it to the clerics.

However, the presiding priest Fr Anthony Kinuthia, declined the donation because allowing the governor to sit on it is sacrilege.

It is very wrong for you to allow a person to sit on a gift meant for the church at the pulpit. It is not acceptable to the church, Fr Kinuthia said before ordering the seat be taken outside immediately.

Mr Kahuria told journalists that he gave the governor that opportunity not knowing it was against the church law.

All I wanted was the governor to assure the believers that the seat was very comfortable before it could be blessed. I was not aware that it was going against the church rules, Kahuria said.

He added that the seat was purchased from a local store where other customers are likely to have sat on it, hence a prayer was not enough to sanctify it.

After the mass, Fr Kinuthia called the governor and had a brief chat when the county boss apologized on his behalf and that of his supporters.

I did not know that Kahuria would call me to the pulpit. Receive my apologies and those of my supporters, Mr Mbugua said.

Fr Kinuthia has maintained that the seat will not be accepted into the church or used at the pulpit as intended by the donor.
There was drama at the Chief Magistrates court on Monday when controversial businessman Paul Kobia lost his temper and threw a tantrum demanding to be freed to seek treatment.

Mr Kobia, who was scheduled to plead to a charge of kidnapping a Congolese national Blanchard Condole alongside his four bodyguards, shocked the court and interrupted proceedings as he attempted to attack the presiding magistrate from the bench before the court orderlies blocked him.

Listen to me your honour, this court is unfair to me. Why have I been taken out of a hospital bed to attend court? posed Kobia in the midst of crying and struggling with the court orderlies.

Chief magistrate demanded an explanation from the suspect why he was drawing unnecessary attention.

Mr Kobia replied: I was dragged out of hospital before I recuperated. I am sick and in great pain. I need treatment. I need to go home. Please allow me to seek medication.

The drama continued outside court cells when the wives of Kobias bodyguards blamed him for their troubles.

The four bodyguards -Alvin AnZaya, Nelson Muyi, John Mutwiri and Martin Mwangi  pleaded not guilty to kidnapping and assault charges on March 24th, 2016 and were granted Sh500,000 cash bail or Sh800,000 bond.

Kobia, however, did not take plea on the basis that he is not in stable health to understand the charges facing him and was ordered to rest for two weeks; he will return to court on April 20 should his health improve.

Heres a video of the Monday incident:


Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho has finally come clean on his KCSE grade amidst reports that he forged a certificate to get into campus.

Joho had earlier promised to reveal his actual grade, which he did yesterday at a press conference in his office. He said he was happy with what got, and that he had turned it into real success.

Failing Form Four exams is not the end of life and real leaders should tell that to the youth, he said.

The controversial governor sat for his exam in 1993 at Serani Secondary School in Mombasa.

A leaked letter from KNEC showed that the Directorate of Criminal Investigations had requested a verification of Johos real grade.

Read: KNEC: Joho C+ KCSE Certificate is Fake He Got a D-

Apparently, the Mombasa Governor had used a certificate showing he got a C+ (the minimum grade for a university degree) to enroll to the University of Nairobi. KNEC confirmed that the C+ certificate was indeed a forgery, stating that Joho got a D-.

Joho blamed his problems on his fight against privatization of Mombasa port, and his criticism of the Jubilee government.
Popular Tanzanian rapper Emmanuel Elibariki, who performs as Ney wa Mitego, has been released after he was held by police for releasing a song deemed insulting to the government.

Nay wa Mitego was arrested at a hotel in the city of Morogoro, on Sunday ( 26 March).

Morogoro police commander Ulrich Matei told local media that Elibariki was being held for releasing a song with words that malign the government.

He was released on Monday morning after a directive from Tanzanias Minister of Information Dkt Harrison Mwakyembe.

The minister, however, directed that Ney should improve his songs message.

Other sources claim he was released following a directive from President Magufuli.

In the song dubbed Wapo, Ney who is known for his political lyrics, criticizes the government for its alleged crackdown on freedom of speech.

Is there still freedom of expression in the country? the song, largely shared on Whatsapp over the weekend, says.

The song makes reference to a doctor who lances boils but cannot tolerate criticism. Some believe it is a reference to President John Magufuli, who has often spoken of lancing boils in reference to his no-nonsense approach to governing.

The rappers arrest and subsequent release comes just days after President John Magufuli warned media owners to be careful on how they use their press freedom.

Some photos of the rapper shortly after release
Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, on Tuesday announced Karen Cakebread as 2017 Woman of the Year for Napa County.

In addition to honoring Cakebread, Thompson announced Margrit Mondavi as the recipient of a special, posthumous Woman of the Year Award. In light of Mondavis lifelong devotion to our community and the arts, Thompson presented a special recognition to her daughter, Annie Roberts.

Margrit was known throughout our district as the First Lady of Napa, said Thompson. Her work at Mondavi Winery helped put us on the map and her Summer Concert Series attracted artists and musicians from around the world. As she and her husband made their business a tremendous success, Margrit always made a point to give back, endowing the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science and the Mondavi Center for Performing Arts at the University of California  Davis. Margrits lifelong passion for the arts will live on in the next generation of winemakers, chefs, and artists.

Mondavi was also known for organizing cooking classes that paired Mondavi wines with the finest in French and American food. She was the co-author of Annie and Margrit: Recipes and Stories from the Mondavi Kitchen, which she wrote with her daughter, Roberts. Margrit Mondavi passed away last September.

In February, Thompson accepted nominations from across the Fifth Congressional District for his annual awards honoring women in the community. Cakebread was selected for her work with the Napa Valley Vintners and her community service in the wake of the Valley Fire.

Ive often said that our charity and volunteerism define our community, and Karen is living proof, said Thompson. She has often been recognized for her leadership in the wine community, from her work with the Napa Valley Vintners to her stewardship of the annual Auction Napa Valley.

But Karen has also made it a point to always give back, serving on the boards of the St. Helena Hospital Foundation, Elaine Mackie Charitable Trust, and the Calistoga Chamber. Her defining moment, though, came in the wake of the Valley Fire where she helped direct meals and supplies to families who had been displaced. It is an honor to present her with this award.

Cakebread was also instrumental in ensuring the Calistoga Winegrowers received a rightful designation as an American Viticultural Area (AVA), and continues to help local businesses grow and find success.

This is the third annual Woman of the Year Awards, which Thompson created in honor of Womens History Month. Each year, one woman from the each of the counties in the Fifth Congressional District is recognized for her contributions to our community. Besides Cakebread, this years winners are:

Sylvia Villa-Serrano (Contra Costa County)

Madelene Lyon (Lake County)

Dr. Rhonda Renfro (Solano County)

Ronit Rubino (Sonoma County)
The grooming of the resting place for generations of Yountville residents, including the towns founder, may soon extend to its border and front gate, with an assist from the town itself.

A town award of $32,500 as early as next month would give directors of the George C. Yount Pioneer Cemetery and Ancient Indian Burial Grounds, the resting place of about 950 people, its largest boost toward erecting a wrought-iron fence around the graveyard. This wrought-iron would replace a chain-link fence erected five decades ago.

The Town Council last week instructed staff to write a funding motion, which would come up for its vote April 4. Installing the 335-foot barrier and three entryways along Jackson Street is expected to cost $75,000, with the Yountville Cemetery Association covering the balance through its own reserves and a fundraising drive, according to Liz Alessio, the volunteer groups board secretary.

Freshening the Pioneer Cemeterys appearance is becoming more important as more people visit the once-sleepy Upvalley town, and as descendants of those buried there come from longer distances to pay their respects, Alessio told the council.

The number of people (buried there) and the history of the cemetery is remarkable, and I want it to be something we can hold with a lot of pride, she said of the burial place, which is named for Napa Countys earliest Euro-American settler and opened in 1848, two years before California gained its statehood.

Previously, members of the Caymus, a sub-tribe of the Mishewal Wappo Tribe of Alexander Valley, scattered the cremated remains of their dead in the area, according to Lee Hart, the longtime president of the cemetery association.

George C. Yount came to the Napa Valley in 1836 after receiving the Rancho Caymus land grant from Gen. Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo. He came to own 16,341 acres and built a cabin, a sawmill and a grist mill. He died in 1865 at the age of 71.

The town was first called Sebastopol, but a Sebastopol in Sonoma County had already claimed the name. When Yount died, the town was renamed in his honor.

Cemetery directors would partner with Ray Custom Iron Works to create a 5 -foot-tall fence, with an arched main entrance about 12 feet high and two other portals for vehicle entry. The association will seek $35,000 from private donors and pay the remaining costs itself, Alessio wrote in a letter to the council.

Town funding would be necessary to replace the fence because the cemetery association dipped deeply into its reserves last year for pressing repairs, including the removal and replacement of aging trees and the repaving of a roadway cracked by bulging roots, said Hart, who oversaw the current fences installation in 1967 as a defense against litterbugs and trespassing shortcut-seekers.

The cemetery board has not yet agreed on raising the fence or scheduling work, Hart said Tuesday.

Councilwoman Margie Mohler praised the work of cemetery leaders keeping up a historic landmark on often-skimpy budgets, and stressed the importance of preserving a link to the valleys deepest roots.

Being in Yountville, we should be proud of the people who started the Napa Valley, said Councilwoman Margie Mohler, who has assisted in research efforts to track the burials of war veterans and others at the cemetery. Its not just Yountville; its the whole valley that started right here.
US President Donald Trump has vowed to wipe Islamist terrorism "from the face of the Earth" and says he wants the US to "start winning wars again" -- but he's gotten off to a rocky start in the Middle East.

The US and Iraq are investigating whether a US-led coalition airstrike in the city of Mosul was behind the deaths of more than 100 people on March 17. If it is, it could be one of the greatest losses of civilian life caused by the coalition since it began strikes on ISIS in 2014.

But Mosul isn't Trump's only worry in the region. More than 80 civilian deaths in Syria allegedly caused by the US-led coalition are also being probed. And a raid in Yemen that Trump approved was widely criticized for leaving at least 23 civilians and a US Navy SEAL dead.

All this in the nine weeks Trump has been in office.

The US is intensifying its operations in these conflicts and in Iraq and Syria, it has boosted its presence on the ground.

The Trump administration has already loosened the rules for counter-terrosim missions in parts of Yemen, allowing the Pentagon to carry more of them out without authorization from the White House. And they are discussing doing the same in Libya and Somalia.

There have been concerns that this relaxing of policy might remove a layer of checks and balances and in turn fuel a rise in civilian deaths.

Here's what's happened so far:

Iraq

In the past three days, 112 bodies have been pulled from the rubble of flattened homes in western Mosul, where Iraqi forces and a US-led coalition are in an intense stage of their fight to flush ISIS militants from the city. The dead are believed to be mostly civilians.

But confusion has swirled over what caused the homes to crumble.

At first, a civil defense group and local officials blamed the carnage on a March 17 coalition airstrike.

But several theories have since been floated.

The Iraqi military on first inspection of the site thought that ISIS had detonated a large vehicle bomb. Then the head of the Iraqi Counterterrorism Unit in Mosul claimed that the US-led airstrike had hit the vehicle bomb, causing it to explode.

Which version of events is true, if any, is still unknown, but the US and Iraq have both launched investigations into the incident.

The coalition has not denied or confirmed the Iraqi military's account, saying that deaths were still being investigated.

"I tell you, the death of innocent civilians in war is a terrible tragedy, no matter how many, and it weighs heavily on our hearts," Joe Scrocca, a coalition spokesman said on CNN's Amanpour on Monday.

The fight against ISIS is now at a critical stage, and even with great care, the number of civilian casualties is expected to rise, according to the Soufan Group, a risk consultancy firm.

"As the battlefield shrinks and the fighting intensifies, efforts to achieve the crucial objective of destroying the Islamic State in its current form ... and the moral imperative of protecting civilian life and property, will inevitably become increasingly imbalanced towards the former," it said in a note Monday.

Coalition forces are simultaneously targeting Mosul and ISIS' heartland of Raqqa in Syria, and the Trump administration is intensifying America's presence in both countries.

The number of coalition advisers supporting the Mosul offensive, for example, has risen in recent months. Last month, coalition spokesman Col. John Dorrian said around 450 US advisers were in Iraq. A US defense official told CNN recently that the number had since risen by further deployments in the "low hundreds."

Syria

The US military is also investigating reports of dozens of civilian deaths in Syria allegedly caused by coalition airstrikes.

Local reports said that more than 40 people were killed and dozens were injured in a March 16 airstrike in northern Syria that hit a mosque.

For days, the Pentagon said there were no civilian casualties in the incident, even as numerous social media reports showed images of bodies being carried out of the rubble.

The US military denies it targeted a place of worship, claiming that the strike along the border of Idlib and Aleppo provinces was aimed at a building a mere 40-50 feet (12-15 meters) away believed to be hosting an al Qaeda meeting.

And on March 22, according to local activists, dozens of people were killed when an airstrike hit a school that was sheltering refugees fleeing ISIS near Raqqa.

"That case is currently under an assessment right now," Scrocca told CNN. "We have not been able to determine yet the validity of the allegation."

In another sign of the America's greater presence in the conflict, the US-led coalition last week carried out an unprecedented air assault in Syria to retake a vital dam near Raqqa from ISIS.

The assault, which backed rebel fighters in Syria in a major ground offensive, involved flying about 500 local US allies and coalition military advisers to an area where they could attack the dam and neighboring town and airfield.

The attack was also backed by US Marines firing M777 howitzers along with airstrikes carried out by Apache helicopters.

Gen. Joseph Votel, the top US commander in the Middle East, told the New York Times last month that even more American troops may be needed in Syria.

"It could be that we take on a larger burden ourselves," he said. "That's an option."

Yemen

A US military raid in Yemen may have been the start of Trump's Middle East woes.

The President approved the operation that left at least 23 civilians, including women and children, dead. A US Navy SEAL also died in the operation. A $75 million helicopter was badly damaged during a hard landing and had to be destroyed.

The White House has maintained that the raid was successful and helped gather important intelligence on the Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula militant group.

But some analysts and Trump opponents said the raid was botched, and was a sign of the new government's reckless attitude to civilians.

Senator John McCain, who chairs the Senate Committee on Armed Services, said: "I would not describe any operation that results in the loss of American life as a success."

The Yemen raid and the decision to relax authorization requirements to carry out counter-terrosism missions there has raised concerns that the Trump administration might do the same in other countries.

A senior US military official told CNN that although the rules on how strikes are authorized were being reviewed, there was no greater tolerance or acceptance of civilian casualties, even if the target is rapidly decided upon and hit.

Afzal Ashraf, a visiting fellow at Nottingham University's Center of Conflict Security and Terrorism, said that this changes could be positive in some circumstances and negative in others.

"It's good that it allows for rapid decision making, so if the military and the CIA find a target, often these targets only show up for minutes. There is not the time to go to the President and ask permission to strike," he said.

"On the other hand, it prevents the scrutiny on decision making, and in most cases, it's good to have a detached view from outside the military to challenge the veracity of the intelligence. If you don't have that challenge, group think and other factors come into account."

What's next?

But there are other reasons the number of civilian casualties could increase.

In western Mosul, a historical enclave of small alleyways and old buildings, the fight is one of dense urban warfare. Avoiding civilians is all the more challenging here.

That is largely to do with some of the weapons the coalition is using, Many are designed for more conventional warfare in larger and less populated battlefields, not densely populated cities, he said.

"We shouldn't be using weapon in cities, like bombs or artillery weapons, because the chances of collateral damage are huge, especially in cases where Daesh are using civilians as human shields," Ashraf said, referring to ISIS by its Arabic acronym.

Scrocca from the coalition explained that officers take care to use munitions that are proportional to their targets.

"If we're trying to take out some ISIS snipers perhaps on a roof, we're not going to use a large bomb that's going to destroy a building. We're going to make sure that we use a proportionate munition that will kill the fighters but leave the buildings standing," he said.

"We want to return Mosul to the people of Mosul, you know, in one piece," he said.

CNN's Barbara Starr, Ryan Browne and Michael Callahan contributed to this story.
On the morning of Feb. 20, gang member Michael Mejia fatally shot Whittier Police Officer Keith Boyer and wounded his partner, Officer Patrick Hazell. Mejia had been released from jail nine days earlier.

Boyer and Hazell encountered Mejia while responding to a traffic collision. Mejia was driving a stolen car and had rear-ended another vehicle. When the officers arrived, they asked Mejia to exit his car so they could pat him down for weapons.

When Mejia got out, he drew a semiautomatic handgun from his waistband and shot the officers. They returned fire. Mejia was wounded in the close-range gun battle. Three hours earlier, Mejia had shot and killed his cousin, Roy Torres, and had stolen Torres car. When Officers Boyer and Hazell reached the accident scene, they had no idea they were confronting a murderer in a stolen car.

Mejia had a crime partner when he killed Torres and Boyer and wounded Hazell. That crime partner was Assembly Bill 109, the Public Safety Realignment Act. AB 109 was adopted by the State Legislature and signed by Governor Brown quickly and quietly in 2011. It relieved the state of responsibility for imprisoning felons convicted of most crimes and for supervising most paroled felons. Those responsibilities are now imposed on the counties. AB 109 is one of the most damaging pieces of legislation for public safety ever enacted in California.

AB 109 was the product of years of denial, dithering, and stonewalling by California governors and legislators of both political parties. In 1995, a California inmate filed a federal civil rights lawsuit arguing that medical and mental health care in prison was so inadequate that it violated the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment. The federal court agreed. (Coleman v. Brown (2013) 938 F.Supp.2d. 955).

In 2001, the state was again put on notice that its prison system was unconstitutional when another inmate filed a civil rights lawsuit claiming our prisons were so overcrowded that conditions of confinement were violated the Eighth Amendment. Rather than build new prisons, the state procrastinated by renting space in other states prisons and by dragging out the litigation.

In 1980, the state prison population was about 20,000. In 1995, it was about 150,000. In 2007, it was about 170,000. In 2011, the inmate finally won his case when the United States Supreme Court dropped the hammer and ordered California to reduce its prison population to 137 percent of capacity. (Brown v. Plata (2011) 563 U.S. 493).

Realignment was born. The prison break started.

Historically, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation reported that 61 percent of inmates released on parole were rearrested for committing new crimes and returned to prison as parole violators. That amounted to more than 60,000 parole revocations annually.

With the state no longer supervising or tracking most felon offenders, thousands of recidivists who would have been returned to prison now cannot be. The recidivists are no longer on parole or supervised by a state parole agent. Instead, they are placed on county probation.

It is no secret that several probation departments are so under-staffed that many re-offenders are not even assigned a probation officer. They are placed on unsupervised probation and simply computer banked. Rather than being returned to prison if their alleged violations are proven true, these re-offenders are sent to overcrowded county jails, most of which do not have the capacity, resources, or training to manage the influx of older, more hardcore criminals. Due to lack of cell and bed space, many offenders sentenced to jail serve only a small percentage of the sentence imposed. This is what happened with Michael Mejia.

In 2010, Mejia was sentenced to four years in prison for a gang-related robbery. He was paroled in 2014. While on parole, he was convicted again for grand theft auto and was sentenced to two years in state prison. He was released in April 2016.

Since then, Mejia was jailed four times within eight months while under supervision of county probation authorities. In July 2016, he received 10 days in jail. In September 2016, he was jailed again. In January 2017, he received a 40-day sentence for another probation violation but was released after 10 days. Mejia was arrested on February 11, 2017, and, once again, received a 10-day sentence.

He committed his murders less than 10 days later.

The FBI Preliminary Crime Report for 2016 found that violent crime has increased in two-thirds of California cities with populations of at least 100,000, including Los Angeles, Burbank, Fremont, and Santa Maria. Among the 2016 murder victims were a Los Angeles police officer and two police officers from Palm Springs.

The murder of Officer Boyer was the second California officer death of 2017. Some of the blame for this murder must rest with the ill-conceived Realignment Act.
Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, on Tuesday announced Karen Cakebread as 2017 Woman of the Year for Napa County.

In February, Thompson accepted nominations from across the Fifth Congressional District for his annual awards honoring women in the community. Cakebread was selected for her work with the Napa Valley Vintners and her community service in the wake of the Valley Fire.

Ive often said that our charity and volunteerism define our community, and Karen is living proof, said Thompson. She has often been recognized for her leadership in the wine community, from her work with the Napa Valley Vintners to her stewardship of the annual Auction Napa Valley. But Karen has also made it a point to always give back, serving on the boards of the St. Helena Hospital Foundation, Elaine Mackie Charitable Trust, and the Calistoga Chamber. Her defining moment, though, came in the wake of the Valley Fire where she helped direct meals and supplies to families who had been displaced. It is an honor to present her with this award.

Cakebread was also instrumental in ensuring the Calistoga Winegrowers received a rightful designation as an American Viticultural Area (AVA), and continues to help local businesses grow and find success.

Thompson honors Mondavi

In addition to honoring Karen Cakebread, Thompson formally announced Margrit Mondavi as the recipient of a special, posthumous Woman of the Year Award. In light of Mondavis lifelong devotion to our community and the arts, Thompson presented a special recognition to her daughter, Annie Roberts.

Margrit was known throughout our district as the First Lady of Napa, said Thompson. Her work at Mondavi Winery helped put us on the map and her Summer Concert Series attracted artists and musicians from around the world. As she and her husband made their business a tremendous success, Margrit always made a point to give back, endowing the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science and the Mondavi Center for Performing Arts at the University of California  Davis. Margrits lifelong passion for the arts will live on in the next generation of winemakers, chefs, and artists.

Mondavi was also known for organizing cooking classes that paired Mondavi wines with the finest in French and American food. She was the co-author of Annie and Margrit: Recipes and Stories from the Mondavi Kitchen, which she wrote with her daughter, Roberts. She passed away last September.

This is the third annual Woman of the Year Awards, which Thompson created in honor of Womens History Month. Each year, one woman from the each of the counties in the Fifth Congressional District is recognized for her contributions to our community. Besides Cakebread, this years winners are:

Sylvia Villa-Serrano (Contra Costa County)

Madelene Lyon (Lake County)

Dr. Rhonda Renfro (Solano County)

Ronit Rubino (Sonoma County)
Officials and experts from NATO Allies and partners will discuss improving national resilience against evolving security challenges at a seminar in Bucharest on 28 and 29 March 2017. NATO Heads of State and Government pledged to increase Allied resilience at the Warsaw Summit in July 2016.

We can only confront todays security challenges effectively if we strengthen our civil preparedness alongside our military preparedness, said Patrick Turner, NATOs Assistant Secretary General for Operations. Resilience requires a long-term effort. Putting the right plans and capabilities in place is a national responsibility, but NATO stands ready to support our Allies in increasing their resilience.

The Seminar is organized jointly by NATO and Romania and will be opened by the Romanian Ministers of Defence and Internal Affairs. Hosted in the spectacular setting of the Romanian Parliament, the event brings together more than 280 government representatives, civil servants and civil preparedness experts from Allied nations, partner countries Finland, Georgia, Montenegro, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine, as well as representatives from the European Union and industry.
This is the first time the three chiefs have held such an event. The importance of such collaboration can't be overstated given the increase in maritime competition worldwide and recent geo-political events.



As a result of the half-day session, the three chiefs of Navy affirmed their commitment to increased interoperability in a signed agreement that stated, "We believe this increased trilateral cooperation will help secure a future that is not only in the interests of our three nations, but in the common interests of our allies, partners, and all likeminded nations who are committed to peace, prosperity, and maritime security."



The U.S., U.K. and French navies have regularly operated together around the world. During this trilateral event, the three chiefs agreed there is room for more joint operations and for enhanced cooperation in the undersea domain and power projection.



Each navy is committed to an open and free maritime system based on respect for international law. Continued trilateral engagement and cooperation is in the interest of each individual country, NATO and the overall maritime community.
"The second submarine is planned to be delivered to the customer in 2019. As for the third submarine, everything will depend on financing," Buzakov said.



It still remains unknown whether a contract for the construction of the fourth Project 677 submarine will be signed, the CEO said. "We hope for this but there is nothing yet," he added.



As it was reported earlier, the second and the third Project 677 submarines Kronstadt and Velikiye Luki were expected to be delivered to the Navy in 2018 and 2019 and the contract for the construction of the fourth submarine was planned to be signed in 2018.



The Lada-class submarine is a fourth-generation diesel-electric submarine. It has a surface displacement of about 1,750 tons, while the Varshavyanka-class submarines surface displacement is 2,300 tons.



The Lada-class submarine has an underwater speed of 21 knots.

The new-generation submarine features a low noise level and a high degree of automation.

The submarine is armed with Kalibr (NATO reporting name: SS-N-27 Sizzler) cruise missiles.

The Project 677 lead submarine St. Petersburg was built by the Admiralty Wharves Shipyard in St. Petersburg in northwest Russia in 1997. It joined the Navy in 2010 and is still operational.

The submarines Kronstadt and Velikiye Luki were laid down in 2005 and 2006, respectively.

Their construction was suspended and then resumed only in 2013.



 Copyright 2017 TASS. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
MERRITT ISLAND, Florida  The Florida Highway Patrol has identified the man who was killed in a crash that occurred on the westbound lanes of State Road 528 (Beachline Expressway) Monday morning on Merritt Island, Florida.



(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});





According to FHP, 38-year-old Thomas Murray of Cocoa, Florida was driving a 2003 Jeep westbound on State Road 528 approaching the interchange of State Road 3 around 10:15 a.m. on March 27, 2017.



Thats when the Jeep left the paved roadway, overturned, and ejected Murray. Murray was transported to Holmes Regional Medical Center where he was later pronounced deceased.



A passenger in the Jeep, 36-year-old Lyvonda Mason, also of Cocoa, suffered serious injuries and was transported to Wuestoff Hospital.



Murray was not wearing his seat belt at the time of the crash, according to FHP. Mason was wearing her seat belt.




Fast Facts  Total Emory University undergraduate applications: 24,114  Total Emory College applications: 23,694  Total Oxford College applications: 14,080  High School GPA (unweighted): Emory  3.83; Oxford  3.79  SAT overall score: Emory  1475; Oxford  1456 (Scores are on the new SAT scale)  ACT composite score: Emory  32.3; Oxford  31.7  Total number of admitted first-year students for the 2017-2018 academic year: Emory  5,172; Oxford  4,089  Admitted students who applied to both Emory and Oxford colleges: 2,047  Overall, admitted Emory University students represent high schools in all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.  Admitted students represent over 65 countries (by citizenship).  For both Emory and Oxford colleges, over 60 percent of admitted students are from public high schools; over half are women.

Applications for Emory Universitys undergraduate programs have hit an all-time high, with a record-breaking total applicant pool of 24,114 students seeking to join the Class of 2021, an increase of 19 percent over last year.

Were really seeing growth on all fronts, says John Latting, associate vice provost for enrollment and dean of admission.

Prospective students may choose between two paths when they apply to Emory University: They can enter Emory College of Arts and Sciences on the Atlanta campus, or study for their first two years at Oxford College on Emory's original campus in Oxford, Georgia. After sophomore year, students choose to complete their undergraduate degrees in Emory College, Goizueta Business School or the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing.

Both Emory College and Oxford College experienced double-digit increases in applications for this fall: Emory College applications were up 19 percent to 23,694 and Oxford College applications jumped 63 percent to 14,080. About 56 percent of applicants sought to be considered for admission to both colleges.

Applications were received from all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and from more than 65 countries, by citizenship. Emory also saw an increase in domestic diversity, with a rise in applications from African American and Latino/Hispanic students.

This strong upsurge in applications reflects Emorys outstanding reputation as a fiercely competitive, robustly collaborative and highly compassionate university, says President Claire E. Sterk. This pool of strong applicants symbolizes Emorys value on the world stage.

A rise in academic excellence

Beyond growth in overall applications, this years applicants also raised the standard for academic excellence, recording both higher grade point averages and overall test scores.

In all the ways we measure academic preparation, this is a very strong class, Latting says.

The mean unweighted high school GPA for admitted Emory College students rose to 3.83, up from 3.80 last year, he notes. The mean SAT is 1475 on the new 1600-point scale; the average ACT composite score is 32.3.

A larger overall applicant pool also provided admissions officers flexibility in shaping the Class of 2021, selecting applicants who demonstrate the potential to be the best students for Emory  bright, curious, engaged learners committed to thriving in the classroom and contributing to the campus community, he says.

More than ever, our decisions go beyond just scores and grades, Latting emphasizes. Were asking big questions about what the person would be like as a member of the larger Emory community, what would they be like as a roommate, and above all, how would they be valued by faculty in the classroom?

As a result, the admission rate for the Regular Decision applicant pool dropped to 22 percent, down from 25 percent last year, according to Latting.

Whats thrilling about this applicant pool is not only the increase in numbers, but the ways that the quality of the students match the aspirations of Emory as a liberal arts research university, says Michael A. Elliott, interim dean of Emory College of Arts and Sciences. "I am looking forward to the chance to convince the admitted students that Emory offers an undergraduate student experience that cannot be duplicated elsewhere.

At Oxford College, the rise in both the number and academic qualifications of applicants is being met with enthusiasm. "The admitted Emory University Class of 2021 is simply fabulous, with an array of talented students from across the nation and world, says Oxford College Dean Douglas A. Hicks.

To see the continuing rise in Emory's academic profile, at both Emory College and Oxford College, makes me look forward to welcoming this class in August, he says. My faculty colleagues look forward to teaching such a cohort of diverse and outstanding students. I encourage each of them, at this exciting moment of decision, to explore all that Emory and metro Atlanta have to offer."

Seeking the Emory difference

Latting attributes the record-breaking number of applications not only to the broad-based work this office does, but everything that Emory does in connecting and communicating with more people."

Its evident that the world really needs diverse liberal arts research institutions that are supportive of members of the community, open to differences and welcome diversity, he says. In that regard, I think that Emory resonated really well this year with prospective students.

Students were selected this year through a refined Committee-Based Evaluation (CBE) review process, which emphasizes the simultaneous evaluation of each application by two to three staff members. In addition, about 1,000 Emory alumni were engaged to help conduct face-to-face interviews.

More than ever, our decisions were about more than just scores and grades, Latting says. When you read these applications, you see an incredible range of experiences. Its great to see Emory connecting with so many different kinds of students from all over the world  to know that we have what theyre looking for and theyre seeking us out.

Kelley Lips, dean of enrollment services for Oxford College, says the academic quality and profile of admitted students is the strongest Oxford has ever seen.

She credits the rise in applications to Emorys broad reputation for academic excellence and a heightened awareness of all that a liberal arts research university has to offer  as well as the collaborative work of admissions offices on both campuses.

Were really feeling a sense of momentum, Lips says. The growth in the overall number of applicants was quite remarkable, but the growth in highly qualified candidates this year has been most impressive. The students selected for admission have demonstrated not only academic talents, but also co-curricular accomplishments that will greatly benefit the Oxford community.

Regular Decision notifications were released online March 23 through applicant portals. Admitted students have until May 1 to make their enrollment decisions.
Emory Law Dean Robert Schapiro has announced his decision to return to the faculty after his term as dean concludes this summer. Schapiro was appointed dean in 2012 after serving as interim dean during the previous academic year.

It has been my honor to lead Emory Law during a time of great change in legal education and in the profession, said Schapiro, During this, our Centennial year, I am acutely aware of the broader trajectory of Emory Laws history of which we are a part. As we look toward our next century, Emory Law is very well positioned to continue its tradition of academic excellence and its leadership in advancing the rule of law. Our success is ensured by our exceptional community of talented students, distinguished faculty, superb staff, and engaged alumni.

During his tenure as dean, Schapiro worked with the faculty to adopt a strategic plan to guide the priorities of the school. The plan, which was adopted in 2014, highlights four areas of focus  expanding academic and scholarly distinction, building an individualized educational experience that integrates theory and practice, extending the reach of legal education through global engagement and distinguished graduate programs, and ensuring the affordability, accessibility, and diversity of the Emory Law experience. Through the course of Dean Schapiros tenure, Emory Law added renowned scholars and expert practitioners to its faculty; enhanced experiential offerings and signature programs in advocacy, transactional law, and intellectual property/technological innovation; founded the Volunteer Clinic for Veterans; expanded the global reach of its community and its curriculum; and further diversified the faculty and the student body. Emory Law also has benefited from generous philanthropy, including major gifts to support student scholarships and programs in transactional law, civil rights, religious freedom, and other areas.

Dean Schapiro has demonstrated outstanding leadership in his role as dean, says Emory Interim Provost Stuart Zola, guiding the school through a pivotal time. He and the faculty have accomplished a great deal together, enhancing Emory Laws scholarly reputation, introducing curricular innovations to aid each students experience, expanding the schools global impact, diversifying the faculty and student body, and engaging alumni. As we look toward the next one hundred years, Emory Law is well positioned to continue its role as an influential and innovative voice in legal education.

Dean Schapiro has been on the faculty of Emory since 1995. His research focuses on federalism and state and federal constitutional law, and he teaches courses in constitutional law, federal courts, civil procedure, and legislation and regulation. Before becoming dean, he served as associate vice provost for academic affairs for Emory University, co-director of the Emory Laws Center on Federalism and Intersystemic Governance, associate dean of faculty for the Law School, and associate faculty director for Emorys Halle Institute for Global Learning.

A graduate of Yale Law School, Schapiro served as editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. He clerked for Judge Pierre N. Leval of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and for Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court. He worked with the law firm of Sidley & Austin in Washington, D.C., where he practiced general and appellate litigation. Prior to joining Emory Law, Schapiro taught for two years at Duke Law School. He earned his B.A. at Yale and his M.A. at Stanford University.

The process to identify an interim dean to be in place by Sept. 1, 2017, will begin immediately, while a search for a new dean will be conducted during the 2017-18 academic year. This search will be conducted by Emorys provost.
09:56

As Jammu and Kashmir is again facing turbulence after three civilians were killed by the security forces during a stone pelting incident, defence expert Uday Bhaskar on Wednesday urged the Centre to chalk out a political solution to end the current crisis in the valley.



Asserting that, pacifying the situation in Kashmir will prove to be a tough task for the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government, Bhaskar said absence of a quick political initiative would give Pakistan an opportunity to defame India.





"The Prime Minister Modi-led Government has very serious challenge. Because after the spectacular victory especially in Uttar Pradesh, I think there is a lot of expectation that certain political initiatives will again be pursued, because absence of such initiatives, we can see a familiar pattern, will give Pakistan opportunity to go to town and cite this example as a human rights violation," said Bhaskar.



Bhaskar also condemned the stone pelting incident stating that any Indian citizen, however aggrieved, should never engage in stone pelting.



Three stone pelters were killed in retaliatory firing by security forces near the Budgam encounter site in the Kashmir valley yesterday.



The stone pelters were seen attacking the forces while a gun-battle was underway with terrorists, during which they were killed.



At least 17 stone pelters have been injured in the firing by forces.



The security forces had launched a search operation following a tipoff about the presence of terrorists, which then became an encounter.



Meanwhile, railway services will remain suspended throughout Kashmir today in the wake of volatile situation.



The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has made a fervent appeal to the locals of the Valley to not pose as an obstruction in the path of security forces while they are combating terrorists.



Further briefing about the Budgam encounter, Kumar said that the obstruction by the locals made their operation even more difficult, as they were forced to divert their attention from the militants.



Sources have held Pakistan responsible for the Budgam violence. They said that Pakistan is to be blamed for the recent spree of encounters that are happening in the state.



The Kashmiri locals are being tormented and brain washed by the separatist leaders of Pakistan and Kashmir and it is the Army and the Paramilitary Force that are protecting and safeguarding the people there, while the Centre and state government are monitoring the situation, sources added.





Image: The body of one of the three men killed during clashes with security forces during the encounter at Budgam. Pic: Umar Ganie


SIU to celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage month

by Christi Mathis

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Southern Illinois University Carbondale will celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage month in April.

The observance begins with a kick-off event at 5 p.m. on April 3 at the Center for International Education, located in Woody Hall, 425 Clocktower Drive. Its a chance to get acquainted and learn more about the upcoming events.

One of those events will be a discussion of director Hayao Miyazakis impact on Japanese cinema and animation. During a career spanning more than 50 years, Miyazakis films have addressed war, feminism, environmentalism, pacifism and other issues. Satoshi Toyosaki, associate professor of communication studies, will lead Miyazaki Fans Get-together, a discussion of the famed directors work set for 5 p.m. on April 5 at the Student Centers Delta Room.

One way to think about the underlying theme for this years Asian Pacific American Heritage Month would be identity and belonging, Rene Francisco Poitevin, coordinator of the Hispanic/Latino Resource Center, said. What does it mean to belong in American society today if you are Asian? What if your identity includes more than one category? Where do you belong then?

Those thoughts and questions will be explored through various Asian Pacific American Heritage Month activities, including Identity, Belonging and Citizenship  Asian Bodies in the U.S. Nilanjana Bardhan, communication studies professor, will facilitate the panel discussion from 5 to 7 p.m. on April 12 in the University Museum Auditorium at Faner Hall. The focus will be on an examination from national and international perspectives of the multitudes of ways that political and cultural processes socially construct the Asian identidy. Participants will also explore how our perception of Asian identity in turn shapes our understanding and opinion of who belongs in society and who is an outsider.

You can learn to make sushi during a workshop at the Old Main Lounge of the Student Center from 4 to 6 p.m. on April 14. The cost of the sushi workshop is $17 for students or $22 for non-students.

Another highlight of the month is the screening of the short documentary film, In Gods House: Asian American Lesbian and Gay Families in the Church. Sponsored by the Queer People of Color, it will take place at 6 p.m. on April 20 in the lower level of Grinnell Hall. The movie examines the intersection between Asian and gay identities in terms of belonging and suggests different strategies to use in negotiating power and community, organizers said.

Find the complete schedule of events for Asian Pacific American Heritage month online at www.smrc.siu.edu. The Student Multicultural Resource Center organizes the activities and all are open to the public. Everything is also free, with the exception of the sushi workshop.
Freelance journalist to discuss war in South Sudan

by Pete Rosenbery

CARBONDALE, Ill.  A freelance journalist and producer who focuses on conflict, human rights, and migration will provide her insight into issues surrounding the war in South Sudan on Thursday, March 30.

Cassandra Vinograds presentation is part of a symposium on crisis reporting hosted by Southern Illinois University Carbondales College of Mass Communication and Media Arts. Vinograd will present Covering Conflict: Getting There and Getting It Right -- Putting a Human Face on South Sudans Escalating War.

Vinograds presentation is set for 11 a.m. in the Communications Building, Studio A. The symposium is free and open to the public. There will be a Q-and-A after Vinograds presentation. To RSVP, contact Sherida Evans at sherida@siu.edu.

Vinograds work on the issue is available on the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting website; visit http://pulitzercenter.org/projects/close-look-inside-south-sudans-bitter-war.

She previously worked for NBC News, The Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal.

In the afternoon session, in the Deans Conference Room, there will be a lunch and open house, and a discussion with students and faculty from 12:30 to 2 p.m. From 2 to 3:30 p.m., three students who have Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting International Reporting Fellowships will discuss their projects.

The students who will discuss their work are Jessica Edmond, a masters student in Mass Communication and Media Arts; Anna Spoerre, a senior in journalism; and Morgan Timms, a senior double major in photojournalism and psychology.

From 3:30 to 4 p.m., there will be a tours of the Daily Egyptian newspaper with student reporters and Bill Recktenwald, a senior lecturer and journalist-in-residence.

The universitys partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting gives students the opportunity to report on global issues through reporting fellowships. The School of Journalism has been part of the centers Campus Consortium since the launch in January 2009, but the relationship between the center and SIU students goes back farther with William Freivogel, a journalism professor and a member of the centers advisory committee. There are 30 universities and community colleges in the consortium. A total of 11 SIU students have participated in reporting in various countries.

The event is sponsored by the School of Journalism, Global Media Research Center and the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting.
Prasad was delivering the Keynote Address at the 10th South Asia Conference on 'Strengthening Connectivity in South Asia', organised by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).

Calling India the "home of aspirational population", Prasad said: "Growth is important, but equity is also equally important." Aspirations of the people in the South Asian region were the same, though they might differ in degree, he added.

Talking about the local mobile manufacturing, the Minister said: "In last two years, 72 new mobile manufacturing factories have come up in India."

More than ten million mobiles have been manufactured and India is becoming a big hub of electronics manufacturing, the minister said.

Indian companies can also export mobiles to the neighbouring and East Asian countries.

Speaking on how the recent digital initiatives are changing India, he said that the nation was at the cusp of a big transformation. "The aim is to spread digital services to provide people with good governance, as trusting them with digital technology can lead to awareness and empowerment."

Earlier, speaking at the inaugural session, IDSA Director General Jayant Prasad noted that connectivity is at the core of regional cooperation and integration, as its key enabler.

An effective roadmap for building the regional public goods (RPGs) of connectivity and infrastructure would require four core areas to be addressed -- institutional design, financing, sequencing and measurement, he added.

The two-day annual conference is being attended by a cross-section of policymakers, academics, diplomats and young professionals from the entire South Asian region.

--IANS rs/nir/bg

( 300 Words)

2017-03-28-21:44:08 (IANS)
The administration had ordered the closure of the meat shops three days ago after a new BJP government took office in Uttar Pradesh.

"As our families started starving for food and other necessary items, we decided to go on strike outside the Collector's office," said Yaad Ilahi Quereshi, President of the Meat Traders Association here.

Quereshi, who owns a shop outside New Ghaziabad railway station, said he has a license from the municipal corporation.

But two days ago, the Kavi Nagar police station in-charge ordered him to shut his shop.

He said while he complied with the order, no officer had come to verify his documents. And police had not allowed him to reopen the shop.

"Our demands are that those who posses valid license should be allowed to sell meat," he said.

Ghaziabad District Magistrate Nidhi Kesarwani said no shop would be allowed to sell meat in the open.

She said a mechanism was being put in place for a single window clearance for license seekers.

The official said the National Green Tribunal (NGT) ordered, three years ago, the closure of meat shops which violate rules. But these could not be enforced.

"The five mechanised slaughter houses in Ghaziabad are not being being closed but 21 illegal butcher houses have been closed," she said.

--IANS sps/mr/vd

( 248 Words)

2017-03-28-17:26:07 (IANS)
Mr Rao said the TRS would win 15 of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in the state,while the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) would bag one.

He predicted that there would be a stiff fight between the TRS and the BJP in the Secunderabad Lok Sabha constituency.

Mr Rao made these observations during a meeting of TRS elected representatives held at Pragathi Bhavan which was attended among others by ministers,MPs,MLAs and MLCs.

The meeting discussed the arrangements for various functions in connection with the party foundation day celebrations and plenary.The schedule for the election of TRS President to be held next month also came up for discussion.UNI SMS PY RJ 2108

-- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0298-1203500.Xml
Citing an order passed by the National Green Tribunal in 2015, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday defended its decision to ban slaughter houses in Uttar Pradesh and said the government has only been banning "illegal" slaughterhouses as per the guidelines of the order. "The Uttar Pradesh Government has made it very clear that they are only taking action on those slaughter houses which are illegal. There was a categorical guideline of national green tribunal 2015. The order was not implemented by previous Akhilesh Yadav government," BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi told ANI. Trivedi also assured that the government won't ban slaughter house which follows a proper guideline mentioned in the order and those who have proper license. "Those who are having proper license and following the proper guideline they don't need to fear. But there is also one thing which is to be considered that there should be no politics on this, because of our government is working objectively just to follow the law and we are not going to harsh anybody those who are having proper legitimate license and following the proper guidelines," he added. Earlier on Saturday Newly Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi said abattoirs operating legally will not be touched but action will be taken against those being run illegally. Meat sellers across UP are on an indefinite strike from Monday against the crackdown on illegal and mechanised slaughterhouses. Fish vendors were also claimed to have resolved to join the stir which has seen non-vegetarian delicacies go off the menu in several parts of the state. (ANI)
During the meeting, progress of different flagship schemes and development initiatives taken by the government are expected to come up for discussion.

This would be the first meeting of the full council after the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) massive victory in the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand Assembly elections. (ANI)
Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has said that she has spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath about the attack on four Nigerian students in Greater Noida and he has assured fair and impartial probe into the matter.

"I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath ji Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh about attack on African students in Greater Noida. He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident," Swaraj tweeted.

Swaraj yesterday sought report from the Uttar Pradesh Government over the attack on four Nigerian students, who sustained severe injuries after being assaulted by a group of local residents in Greater Noida's Pari Chowk area.

"I have asked for a report from Government of Uttar Pradesh about the reported attack on African students in Noida," tweeted Swaraj.

The incident comes as locals protested following the death of a Class 12 student in Greater Noida's NSG Black Cats Enclave due to suspected drug overdose and five Nigerian students living in the neighbourhood were booked - and later detained - in connection with the case.

The students were later released for lack of evidence.

Over 100 locals held a protest at the busy junction demanding that all Africans living in residential colonies in Greater Noida be asked to vacate their rented houses immediately. (ANI)
Tamil Nadu Governor CH Vidyasagar Rao, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and leaders of various parties today greeted the Telugu and Kannada speaking people onthe occasion of Ugadi festival. In his message, the Governor said ''let us on the Telugu New Year 'Hevalambi' resolve to dedicate ourselves for our nation's progress and prosperity and unite to promote brotherhood, love and peace to achieve equitable growth.'' ''May we join hands to preserve forests, conserve water and promote green cover for posterity'', he said, according to a Raj Bhavan release. 'On the happy occasion of Ugadi, I extend my heartiest greetings and best wishes to the Telugu and Kannada people in our country and across the world'', Mr Rao added. In his greetings, the Chief Minister appreciated the telugu and kannada speaking people in Tamil Nadu, who, while maintaining their principles and tradition, had been united with the Tamil speaking people. The government, which is functioning under the guidance of Amma, has been implementing various welfare projects in an effective way to all sections of people without any language discrimination. ''Hence, Tamil Nadu has the pride of all language people living in brotherhood and harmony'', Mr Palaniswami said.UNI GV CS 1103 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-1206132.Xml
Madras High Court today relaxed some of itsrestrictions on registration of unapproved and unauthorised plots, providingthe much need relief for land owners and buyers. The Court, through an interim order, had on September nine, 2016 bannedsale, resale and registration of plots and houses in unapproved housing layouts as well as conversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural use in the State. Relaxing some of the restrictions today, the court said the properties thatwere registered before October 23, 2016 would be allowed for transfer ofownership and getting approvals for housing plots. However, it said no new unauthorised property could be registered, whilegranting time to rectify the plots that do not have proper facilities like road and drainage facilities. When the PIL came up for hearing, the First Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Huluvadi G Ramesh and Justice R M T Teekaraman, relaxed the ban after the State government submitted that a proper scheme would be formulated within a week. While relaxing some restrictions, the Bench also said the plots should not violate the rule of leaving 22 feet space for roads. Earlier, the counsels, appearing on behalf of the real estate developers, pleaded the court to at least vacate the ban pertaining to the lands and buildings that were registered before the interim order was passed onSeptember nine last year. After accepting their plea and relaxing certain restrictions, the Benchadjourned the matter to April seven for next hearing. It may be recalled that the Court, in its earlier hearing, had declined to lift the blanket ban on registration of buildings and unapproved layoutson agricultural land, waterways and bodies and directed the Stategovernment to formulate a comprehensive policy in the matter. The issue was raised in a PIL filed by advocate Elephant G Rajendranseeking a direction to the government to forebear giving approval or permission to convert agricultural lands into layouts, and consequently forebear the registration authorities from registering such properties.UNI GV CS 1502 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-1206545.Xml
On March 18, the Karnataka Anti Terror Squad (ATS) was given the 37-year-old's four-day transit remand by West Tripura District Magistrate and Collector Milind Ramteke, a day after his arrest in Agartala.

"Habib Mia was in police custody for 10 days. We handed him over for judicial custody after interrogating him. He confessed to helping Sabahuddin, the main accused in the IISc attack here," Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) S. Ravi told reporters.

The IISc was attacked on December 28, 2005, while a convention was underway. A scientist was killed and five persons injured as attackers lobbed hand grenades and opened fire at the gathering.

"Mia told police of his meeting with Sabahuddin at a mosque in Agartala for three days. Mia said he received Rs 800 from Sabahuddin for helping him cross into Bangladesh," said Ravi.

--IANS str/tsb/bg

( 177 Words)

2017-03-28-16:22:09 (IANS)
As many as 39 Left Wing Extremist(LWE) cadres have been neutralized, 35 arrested and 31 surrendered in anti-Maoist operation launched by the Odisha government during 2016. A white paper published by the state government and laid in the state assembly today said a large number of villagers including militias, supporters and sympathizers from Kalimela, Pedia and Maithili areas of Malkangiri district have distanced themselves from the Maoists, signalling a progressive turn around in the situation. The government, the white paper said have been focusing on both security and development measures to effectively counter the Left wing Extremist menace. It said 68 LWE related incidents were reported in the state in 2016 out of which 23 incidents were exchange of fire between the security forces and the Maoists in which 23 civilians and three security personnel lost their lives. There was a progressive improvement in the overall Left Wing Extremism situation in the state in 2016 in terms of decline in the intensity of Maoist activities, violence and its popular mass support at the ground level. There have been no underground LWE activity in Gajapati, Jajpur, Dhenkanal and Sonepur district.The LWE activity was significantly controlled in Sambalpur, Deogarh,Nabarangpur,Keonjhar, Mayurbhanja, Ganjam and Rourkela. However, the situation remained challenging in parts of Malkangiri, Koraput, Nuapada, Kalahandi, Kandhamal, Rayagada, Bolangir, Baragarha, Boudh, Angul and Nayagarha districts of the state.The recruitment of cadres in CPI (Maoist) organization and the mass support base of the outfit has declined, the white paper claimed. It said during 2016 police arrested five hard core SIMI operativesS K Mehboob alias Guddu, Amjad Khan alias Dawood, Zakir Hussein alias Sadique, Md Sadique alias Salu and Nazma Bibi mother of Sk Mehboob all of Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh from Rourkela. Later four of the five accused were killed in a police encounter in Bhopal on October 30 last year.UNI BD DP SJC -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-1206765.Xml
Andhra Pradesh Assembly was rocked on the leakage of 10th class science question paper as Opposition YSRCP demanded the removal of Higher Education Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao and Municipal Administration Minister P Narayana. As soon as the house assembled for the day, the Opposition YSRCP asked Speaker Kodela Siva Prasada Rao to accept the adjournment motion given by the party to discuss the question paper leakage issue. However, the Speaker disallowed the adjournment motion. The Speaker suggested to the Opposition that the issue could be discussed in another format and said the question hour should be taken up first. But the Opposition insisted that since the question paper leakage issue is very important, it should be discussed in this session itself. Leader of the Opposition Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy told the house that the question paper of 10th class Science examination was leaked at Narayana school in Nellore and the school owned by the Municipal Administration Minister P Narayana. Mr Reddy showed the members about the report, said to be given by the Director, School of Education. In the report it was mentioned that the question paper was leaked from the Centre No 4238, Mr.Reddy said. The vociferous YSRCP members rushed to the podium and raised slogans against the government. Bedlam continued for about 20 minutes with slogans from the Opposition members and objections from treasury benches. At this stage, sensing that the house was not in order, the Speaker adjourned the house for 10 minutes.MORE UNI DP CS 1621 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-1206657.Xml
The Indian Army has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) to identify and enhance the critical technological areas in the armed forces. The objective of the MoU, signed by IIT-M Director Prof Bhaskar Ramamurthi and Deputy Chief of Army Staff (P and S) Lt Gen Subrata Saha at the IIT Madras campushere, was to facilitate prestigious institutions like IITs achieve a better understanding of the critical technology requirements of the Indian Army through seamless interaction between the IIT-M faculty and the Army officers. They would identify areas that require Research and Development and student projects. Such projects would be initiated jointly by both the IIT-M and the Army. ''There are also plans to commercialize Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) achieved through this collaboration'', according to a IIT-M release today. Speaking on the occasion, Prof Bhaskar Ramamurthi said ''the IIT-M faculty will work closely with the Indian Army to identify areas where the Institute can contribute positively to enhancing the capabilities." The MoU also envisaged the Army sponsoring four officers for Doctoral programs, besides a five-day Technology Development Program for 15 officers on a biannual basis. Both the parties would also organize lectures to share their respective knowledge and experience, effectively linking IIT-M research community to the Indian Army as a resource to solve problems that require research and experimentation, the releasesaid. Observing that the Indian Army would gain immensely with this collaboration, Lt Gen Subrata Saha said the Indian Army will post a liaison officer at the IIT-Mcampus to coordinate this collaborative effort, the progress of which would be monitored by Dr Ravindra Gettu, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering. Specific projects would be taken up as a result of this collaboration on research topics of mutual interest, the release said .UNI GV CS 1603 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-1206668.Xml
BJP president Amit Shah, who will be on the first visit to his home-state post the grand victory of his party in UP and Uttrakhand Assembly polls, will also participate in the proceedings of Gujarat Assembly on March 30 after a period of around two years. State BJP president Jeetu Vaghani today said that Mr Shah was present in the house in the capacity of MLA from Naranpura constituency of Ahmedabad, on March 16, 2015 during the sixth session of the Assembly. Secretary of assembly D M Patel said that as per the rule an MLA can normally remain absent for maximum period of 6 months 'But if he/she takes permission from the leave related committee of the house then he/she can remain absent for longer periods with valid reason. "Mr Shah had taken permission for leave,'' he added. Mr Vaghani said that Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and all his cabinet colleagues along with senior leaders of ruling BJP including him would remain present at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport here tomorrow to accord a grand welcome to Mr Shah, who is coming on the first visit of his home state Gujarat after the grand win of his party in UP and Uttrakhand Assembly polls. ''He will also be accorded grand welcome when he visits the assembly on March 30. All the party MLAs will come out to take him in,'' Mr Vaghani said. Mr Shah who is likely to attend the last two days of the ongoing budget session of the Assembly which commenced on February 20, will address a party meet (Vijay Vishwas Sammelan) at the Sabarmati Riverfront here tomorrow on the very first day of his 3-day visit, Mr Vaghani said. Chief Minister Rupani will also remain present on the occasion. Mr Shah is also expected to hold meetings with key party leaders during his stay in the view of the crucial poll preparations of the ruling party for the Gujarat Assembly elections due to be held in December this year. He will also participate in some other events and inaugurations in his constituency.UNI RAJ SHS SHK 1656 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1206773.Xml
A government official had lodged a complaint with the Director General of Police stating that there is a threat to his life from an AIADMK legislator. AIADMK legislator A Bhaskar had recently taken up a privilege issue with speaker V Vaithilingam that Municipal commissioner Chandrasekaran is intervening into the rights of the legislator. He informed the speaker that the developmental works in his constituency is being implemented by the commissioner without inviting him. He also alleged that such a situation arises only after Kiran Bedi assumed office as the Lt Governor. Meanwhile, Mr Chandrasekeran lodged a complaint with the DGP that there is a threat for his life from Bhaskaran.He also sent a copy of his complaint to the Lt Governor.UNI PAB SHS SHK 1700 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1206806.Xml
Banks are treading carefully, enacting two-stage contingency plans, to avoid losing nervous London-based staff as they work out how many jobs will have to move to continental Europe as Britain exits the European Union.British Prime Minister Theresa May will trigger formal EU divorce proceedings on Wednesday, launching two years of negotiations that will shape the future of Britain and Europe as well as London's place as a global financial centre.The move will also mark the point when investment banks, whose priority will be to ensure they can continue servicing their clients across Europe after March 29, 2019, begin taking concrete steps to prepare for Britain being outside the bloc."Everybody is prepared for a cliff edge scenario, which means you need to more or less have, in a very short period of time, people on the ground making sure whatever happens you are set," Hubertus Vaeth, head of Frankfurt Main Finance, a group backed by local government to promote the city, said.This first phase involves relatively small numbers to make sure the requisite licences, technology and infrastructure are in place, while the next requires longer term thinking on what the their European business will look like in the future, which is when bigger moves might take place."We see a very short term dispersal of a small number of people ... in the next couple of months," Vaeth said.Brexit is making many of Britain's 2.2 million financial industry workers anxious about whether they risk losing their jobs or will have to consider relocating to Frankfurt, Dublin, Paris, Luxembourg or even Malta."If I ... stand up in front of my staff in London and say 'I'm moving 1,000 of you to Frankfurt', how many do you think will stick around?" a senior executive at a global bank said.Employers must decide whether to try to move London-based staff or pay them off and hire again where any foreign operation is set up. This means they need to identify which roles will be impacted, which is likely to take some time.Bank executives say moving significant numbers of jobs will likely form part of the final phase of adaptation to Brexit, but will not happen before any final deal is struck."Don't look for a 'big bang' the day after Brexit in March 2019," another senior executive at an international bank said."Banks will be looking to use what they have to be able to continue operating and servicing clients in the EU. The jobs that will move, the impact will be known in 2025 and 2030 not 2019," the executive addedIn this so-called initial phase, staff moves are expected to be in the low hundreds, with the majority not taking place until at least 2018, banking sources told Reuters."It's not staff moving, it's jobs moving," said one source."There will also be some natural attrition whereby roles will not filled in London. It won't really be so noticeable and there likely won't be any big announcement."Stuart Gulliver, chief executive of HSBC, has softened his tone on his bank's plan to move 1,000 staff to Paris, saying that half are French people who would be returning home and the bank is nowhere near talking to staff about the move."Within one to two years, the City of London will have completely replaced the jobs that will have moved," he said.Banks only need around 30 people to get a subsidiary in Europe up and running, including setting up the infrastructure, legal and technology systems, the Association of Foreign Banks in Germany says.While Europe's financial centres are fighting for the spoils of Brexit, banks are unlikely to converge on a single city at first and are likely to want to retain some flexibility."There won't be a single location country teams will likely be based more in situ," another banking source familiar with contingency plans said.Goldman Sachs International, the European arm of the Wall Street bank, said last week it would begin by moving hundreds of people out of London in what its chief Richard Gnodde called "contingency plans" for the first phase.Meanwhile, U.S. rival Morgan Stanley, which one source told Reuters will ultimately have to move up to 1,000 jobs out of London, but may initially shift just 300 staff, according to reports in February.And although Dublin is Bank of America's default destination for a new base within the EU because it already has a fully licensed operation there, others are being examined."We are playing through all the scenarios. Nothing has been decided. Dublin is an option, just as Frankfurt or Amsterdam," Nikolaus Naerger, Bank of America's head of corporate banking in Germany said.REUTERS SDR PR1757 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1206900.Xml
Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat (COAS) today began his visit of Nepal which will be followed by one to Bangladesh, both his first foreign visits after assuming office. Gen Rawat will be taken to important military installations and meeting high ranking dignitaries including the Prime Minister, Defence Minister and the Chief of Army Staff. The delegation will also visit Nepalese Army Mountain Warfare School at Jomsom and the Pension Paying office at Pokhra where he will address the Indian Army ex-servicemen of Nepalese origin. The visit to Nepal assumes importance as the President of Nepal will confer the title of "Honorary General of the Nepalese Army" to the Army Chief at a special investiture ceremony tomorrow. This historic tradition is a reciprocal arrangement that is continuing uninterrupted since its inception in 1969 and has been a hallmark of the special relationship between the Indian and the Nepalese Army. General Rajendra Chettri, the Chief of Army Staff of Nepalese Army was conferred the title of "Honorary General of the Indian Army" on February 3 2016, during his first visit to India after assuming office. After Nepal, the Army Chief will head for Bangladesh, where he will be meeting the President, the Prime Minister and the Chief of Army Staff of Bangladesh Army. The delegation will also visit Headquarters of an Infantry Division and Armoured Corps Centre at Bogra. ''This visit will help strengthen mutual trust with immediate neighbourhood particularly in the field of defence cooperation,'' the Defence Ministry said in a statement here.UNI NAZ ADG SHK 2004 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0091-1207222.Xml
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu expressed anguish over wasting the valuable time of Assembly by the Opposition YSRCP by stalling the proceedings continuously. Participating in the debate on AP Appropriation bill 2017 today, the Chief Minister deplored that the Opposition is stalling the house without any major reason. They are rushing towards podium, raising slogans and disrupting the proceedings, he lamented. If the Opposition wanted to demand for anything, they should do in a proper manner but they did not have extra privilege to stall the House on their will, Mr Naidu said. The Chief Minister said "Rs 144 crore is spent to run the Legislative Assembly and Council per annum. Rs.31 lakh is spent to run both the houses for a day. Rs 6,27,670 is spent to run the house per hour and Rs.10,446 is spent to run the houses for minutes" and added that the actions of leaders would remain alive even if they have died. Mr Naidu said when the Speaker of the house stood from the chair to take oath on World Water Day, the Opposition members were seen remain seated, insulting the Speaker and the House. Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu while tabling the AP Appropriation Bill 2017 in the house, said the state government had bagged 35 best performance awards and ridiculed that the Opposition leader bagged 11 chargesheets in corruption cases. He said that Opposition leader Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy had ostrich mentality and always thinks in a negative angle. UNI DP CS 1928 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-1207137.Xml
Union Petroleum minister, Dharmendra Pradhan today asserted that the Hydrocarbon project is not exactly in Karaikal region of the union territory but ten kilometers away from it in the north east direction. According to an official statement, Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayansamy today met union Petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan in New Delhi when he brought the newspaper report on the allocation of the Hydrocarbon project to the notice of Mr Pradhan saying that the Karaikal farmers are opposing this scheme vehemently and requested not to set up the project in the region. As a reply to Mr.Narayanasamy's request, Mr Pradhan said the allocation of Hydro Carbon project in Karaikal field covering an area of about 10.38 Sq.Kilometers has been allocated to public sector Bharath Petro Resources Ltd.He added that the field falls in the undulating lower delta plain of Cauvery river basin and there are three well falls in the contract area awarded.Mr.Pradhan also showed proof of the exact location of the project situated in Nagapatinam district of Tamilnadu,the release said. When Mr Narayansamy pointed out the objections raised by the farmers of Tamilnadu,Mr.Pradhan replied that wherever it is implemented it will be done with the consent of the people and if there is any stiff resistance from people,no project will be done against their wishes. Mr Narayanasamy further reminded the minister about the allocation of Rs 60 crore by ONGC for Puducherry under Corporate Social Responsibility scheme and requested to release the same for reconstruction and upgradation of Karaikal hospital and school buildings. Mr Pradhan replied to that," Rs 30 crore was allocated in the past and the former government has not taken any initiative to get the funds and since,the present government is insisting the sum will be released forthwith."UNI PAB SDR SHK 1929 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1207076.Xml
The existing Deoghar Airport will be developed for operations of A-320 and C-130 Aircraft, the Civil Aviation Ministry said in a statement. The Jharkhand government has acquired 600.34 acres of land which will be handed over to AAI apart from the existing 53.41 acres Deoghar Airport land.

DRDO, the state government and AAI will provide Rs 200 crore, Rs 50 crore respectively to develop, operationalize and maintain the airport. The time frame given to develop and operationalize the Deoghar Airport is two years. UNI ASH SHK 1948

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The farmers are demanding among other things a drought relief package of Rs 40,000 crore from the Centre and waiving of farm loans.

Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker M Thambidurai, who visited the farmers sitting on agitation at Jantar Mantar here for the past 15 days, for the second time today and assured them that the issue would be raised before Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the earliest.

Among the state politicians who called on the protesting farmers were Tamil Nadu Agriculture Minister R Doraikkannu, Rajya Sabha MPs T K S Elangovan and R S Bharathi belonging to the DMK, G K Vasan, Tamil Manila Congress chief and Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy who extended their support to the farmers protesting here.UNI SD ADG 2048

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The police has transferred the case to the Income Tax department, who will take actions on the duo and an investigation has been launched into the matter.

Earlier today, the Telangana Police arrested a 10-member gang and seized Rs three crore in demonetised currency.

Police personnel seized the demonetised notes from Saifabad district in Telangana.

Large amounts of old and new currency notes have been seized in the Income Tax (IT) raids across the country post demonetisation.

In the recent past, new currency worth Rs 2.25 crore was seized during raids in Bengaluru and over Rs 3 crore in banned currency was found in a hotel in Delhi.

Yet another raid was carried out in Chandigarh, where over Rs 2 crores, mostly in new notes, have been seized.

Five people were caught with Rs 3.25 crore in old notes in Delhi's Karol Bagh. The money was to be flown to Mumbai and allegedly belonged to Hawala operators.

In another incident, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) seized Rs 1.04 crore in new Rs 2000 notes from a local businessman on from Thane. Likewise IT department seized around Rs 32 crore new notes in various raids. (ANI)
A delegation of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Embassy in Delhi visited Shimla on Tuesday after the students from Afghanistan were attacked in the city by local tourist guides. A delegation led by Sediqullah Sahar, education attache with the embassy of Afghanistan in New Delhi met the Superintendent of Police (SP) of Shimla and with the vice-chancellor of the university. He also held a meeting with the students from Afghanistan studying in Himachal Pradesh University (HPU). These students are now demanding safety and security in the campus. "Today we met the police with our embassy delegates, our students were beaten. We were ensured by the SP of safety and security here. We are looking forward for a compromise, if those who accused who have beaten our students apologise publically, we are ready for compromise as we are here for studies," said one of the student. Five students from Afghanistan got injured in a scuffle with local tourist guides in Shimla and which had spread a sense of fear among these students. Now today after meeting with the embassy delegate, these students are hopeful about the safety and security in the campus. "Our embassy delegates visited today. We were feeling scared after the recent incident which was horrible. We shared it with the delegate and now we are feeling safe as police have assured that this kind of incident will not happen again and our embassy delegates are also taking care of this issue," said Basira a BBA student of HPU. Superintendent of Police D.W. Negi said that the case is under investigation and all nine accused have been arrested. "A delegation of Afghan embassy led by education attache second in command in the embassy at Delhi met with me early this morning with three important demands for students of Afghanistan to have a cordial relation with locals in Shimla therefore they are interested in compromise in the present case," he said. He added that the delegation is also concerned about the security of students coming from Afghanistan. "I have briefed them about the updates of the case and assured future security case. We have registered the case and are taking the issue seriously," Negi said. (ANI)
Reportedly the incident took place on Saturday late night at around 12.30 am.

The victim was raped and then murdered, following which the perpetrator proceeded to dump her body in a bathroom of discarded house.

The student left her house after she received a call from a 'known person' and did not return home thereafter.

The police found the body of the deceased on the following day with multiple wounds from an abandoned house on Link Road.

Dharmanagar Sub-divisional Police Officer (SDPO), Jyotishman Das Choudhury informed that police arrested a suspect, identified as Rajat Tanti, who "admitted" to police that he raped and murdered the girl.

He was produced in a local court under tight security as large number of people including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters had gathered there and demanded death penalty of the culprit.

According to the BJP, the victim was an active member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPIM youth organization Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI).

The victim families' lawyer Ajit Das informed that it was a heinous crime and the punishment for which is death penalty.

Tripura is among the states that records the highest crime against women in India.(ANI)
Serbia is committed to European Union membership but it will work hard to improve relations with its traditional ally Russia, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic told Reuters ahead of a presidential election.The poll will test the popularity of Vucic, a frontrunner in the race, as well as his center-right Serbian Progressive Party, economic reforms and a bid to bring the country closer to the EU."Serbia is on the European path and that is our strategic goal. We want our society to be modelled after most developed Western European countries," Vucic said at the weekend.But, he said he would work hard as president to maintain good relations with fellow Christian Orthodox Russia as well.Powers in Serbia are strictly divided between the president and prime minister. Under the constitution the president signs bills into laws, commands the military, presides over the national security council and represents country abroad, but economic and foreign policy is in hands of prime minister.Serbia, which in the 1990s was seen as pariah of Western Balkans for its central role in wars that followed the collapse of Yugoslavia, expects to complete negotiations on EU membership by 2019.Many Serbs remain sceptical about joining the bloc and view Western European countries as outspoken advocates of the 1999 NATO bombing to halt the killing and expulsion of ethnic Albanians in the former province of Kosovo, in which thousands of civilians had been killed."We have to show ordinary people what are we doing together (with the EU)," Vucic once a firebrand nationalist, said. "We have to show concrete roads and concrete projects."The West sees integration of Western Balkan countries as a way to stabilise a region recovering from a decade of wars and economic turmoil.Russia opposes the integration of Western Balkan countries, including Serbia, into NATO and the EU and is trying to extend its influence.Today, Vucic travelled to Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin for talks on trade and military cooperation.Last year, Russia donated six MIG-29 fighter jets, and Vucic said he now plans to negotiate a purchase of surface-to-air missiles with Putin."We are also discussing economic cooperation with Russia, we would like to attract more investors," Vucic said, adding investors could profit on trade deals with EU member states. Vucic said his country is also looking to build economic cooperation with China. He said he expected a Chinese private company to start flights between Beijing and Belgrade.REUTERS SDR PR1611 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1205134.Xml
British officials have demanded tech firms do much more to give police access to smartphone communications following last week's Westminster attack, just months after new laws gave security services broader powers.However, they have yet to spell out clearly whether the government wants them to weaken encrypted services such as WhatsApp or are simply asking for ways to gain access to phones in their possession to recover suspects' communications.British media have reported that shortly before launching the attack last Wednesday, Khalid Masood used encrypted messaging via WhatsApp which investigators cannot read.Police have been trying to determine whether Masood - who killed four people including a policeman near parliament in London before being shot dead - acted alone.Neil Basu, a top counter-terrorism policeman, said his communications on the day of the attack are the main line of inquiry and said he had a clear interest in jihadist armed struggle.A spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said today she wanted tech firms such as Facebook, Apple and Google to find ways to give security services access to messages on phones, but was leaving it up to companies to sort out how.British officials plan to meet US tech executives on Thursday to insist they do more to crack down on extremist content on websites such as Google's YouTube, following a revolt over the issue by major advertisers, including British government agencies. They also plan to press Silicon Valley leaders to help monitor communications by potential attackers."If there are circumstances where law enforcement agencies need to be able to access the contents, they should be able to do so. How that is achieved, I think, is a matter for the talks later in the week," May's spokesman said.The criticisms are the latest moves by European countries to rein in US tech giants, pressing them do more to stop hate speech and extremist activities online. Germany is planning a new law calling for social networks like Facebook and Twitter to remove hate speech quickly or face fines of up to 50 million euros ($54 million). POLITICS, OR SOMETHING NEW?The government has so far stopped short of seeking fresh laws that would make tech firms create back doors to privacy protections enabled by encryption.Instead, the Investigatory Powers Act, which came into force in November, forced tech firms to help law enforcement agencies bypass encryption, when possible, and keep records of sites their customers visit, updating decades-old surveillance laws.On Sunday Home Secretary (interior minister) Amber Rudd called for the tech companies to give security services access to encrypted messaging systems, then later qualified her stronger statements, saying she supported user privacy."We need to make sure that organisations like WhatsApp - and there are plenty of others like that - don't provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other," Rudd first told BBC TV.Later, when speaking to Sky News, she appeared to pull back on calling on tech firms to undermine encryption protections and focused instead on demanding lawful access to phones."You can have a system whereby they can build it so we can have access to it when it is absolutely necessary," Rudd said. "But I want to draw a very clear distinction here I support end-to-end encryption as part of cyber security, for families, for banking, for businesses," she said.A Home Office spokeswoman reinforced Rudd's comments on Monday, saying it is "irresponsible to give terrorists a way to plot online which cannot be intercepted by the police".A spokeswoman for WhatsApp, a unit of Silicon Valley social media giant Facebook, said the company was horrified by the attack and cooperating with law enforcement agencies in their inquiries. WhatsApp introduced end-to-end encryptions by default a year ago this month for its 1.2 billion users worldwide, joining other services such as Signal and Apple's iMessage.Facebook is likely to comply with a subpoena for data on what numbers Masood called, and when, using WhatsApp, based on how it has responded in prior cases. Alternately, police may demand help in unlocking his phone, which raises thornier issues, depending on what device he was using.Britain could also press Facebook and other internet services to provide a way to monitor or record encrypted conversations - akin to wiretapping traditional voice calls - which would move the debate into uncharted legal territory.One former top British military official said forcing tech companies to weaken encryption would simply make the problem mutate and lead extremists to find other ways to communicate."There is a lot of politics at play here," Major General Jonathan Shaw, who was in charge of cyber security at the Ministry of Defence, told BBC Radio 4 today."What they (the government) are trying to do is use this moment to nudge the debate more in their line," said Shaw, who retired from the army in 2012 as assistant chief of the defence staff.REUTERS PS AN2330 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-1205967.Xml
The officials on Monday said the latest engine trial is the third such test using similar technology.

The initial assessment indicates that the engine technology could possibly be used in an eventual intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

However, it was not clear whether the engine would require some adjustment to be used in an ICBM, if it can indeed be used that way at all.

Possession of an ICBM could allow North Korea to threaten the continental US, the officials said.

Meanwhile, Washington announced on Monday that the US Marines have deployed F-35Bs to South Korea for the first time as part of an exercise that began on March 24.

"This is the first time we have operated the F-35B in South Korea," CNN quoted Pentagon spokesman US Navy Captain Jeff Davis as saying.

The new short takeoff and vertical landing capable stealth strike fighter was only first declared operational in July of 2015.

The deployment is part of a training exercise with the South Korean military, an exercise Davis called "defensive in nature".

--IANS ksk

( 199 Words)

2017-03-28-08:34:07 (IANS)
The storm is lashing the Queensland coast with torrential rain, bringing about a significant flooding risk, CNN quoted meteorologists as saying.

The Category 4 cyclone is the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane and is very slow-moving.

"With the very, very strong winds if they just sit there and twirl, it's like a battering ram," Queensland police commissioner Ian Stewart told 7 News Australia.

It has already left a path of destruction through outlying islands.

The storm has already ripped trees from the ground and brought significant rainfall to the region.

Residents reported their apartments shaking and windows breaking. Pristine beaches that were bright and sunny on Monday were completely flooded on Tuesday, weather officials said.

In the span of an hour, 211 mm of rain hit the area, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said.

It was a "once-in-a-hundred year" event, she said.

The severe weather has claimed the life of a 31-year-old woman in a car crash on Monday near the town of Proserpine.

--IANS ksk

( 193 Words)

2017-03-28-08:56:08 (IANS)
China's One Belt, One Road is the brainchild of President Xi Jinping, a concept he floated in 2013. It includes the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. China definitely has the wherewithal to make a huge splash. It is now the world's second largest cross-border investor, having overtaken Japan. According to Chinese data, it contributed 9.9 percent of global direct investment in 2015, an annual increase of 18.3 percent, to reach USD145.7 billion. Arguably, the Belt can be viewed as China's most ambitious foreign policy program since the country was formed in 1949. Even the Asian Infrastructure International Bank (AIIB) launched by China is an arm of this initiative. The Belt is framed as an altruistic endeavour based on the principles of mutual benefit and win-win. However, is that the case? There is little discourse on the geopolitical drivers behind it, all of which emanate from China. One of those drivers was greater friction with neighbours on China's eastern periphery, including Japan and the U.S. pivot. This encouraged China to look west, where there was more strategic space to boost ties, especially as the USA does not have as much influence in Central Asia. It is difficult to keep track of the Belt's many tentacles, but undeniably its reach is spreading. On March 27, New Zealand became the first Western country to get on board when it signed a cooperative memorandum of understanding in the presence of visiting Premier Li Keqiang. As another example, a USD9.8 billion harbor in Malacca, Malaysia, aims to overtake Singapore as the largest port in the region. China is backing this Melaka Gateway joint venture, and the entire project is due for completion in 2025 although a deep-water port should be operational by 2019. With Chinese money flowing into this venture, it is likely the majority of Chinese-flagged vessels that ply the Malacca Strait will be encouraged to call into the Melaka Gateway. Beijing has long been concerned that most of its trade passes through the Malacca Strait chokepoint, including 80 percent of its energy needs. Kuala Lumpur has already granted the port a generous 99-year concession. Elsewhere, after travelling through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, a Chinese train loaded with freight arrived in Afghanistan last August. China's ambassador to Afghanistan was there to greet it, describing its symbolic 13-day journey as reflecting Beijing's and Kabul's goal to deepen their "strategic" partnership. Railway lines, roads and pipelines are all tools to bring countries into security and economic dependence upon China. Pipelines are reducing Chinese dependence on traditional energy suppliers too. The construction of pipelines carrying oil from Kazakhstan and natural gas from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan over the past few years has, in relative terms, reduced Beijing's dependence on maritime imports. Yet another project is the Myanmar-China pipeline. Set to open soon, it will deliver 23 million tons of oil and 12 billion cubic meters of gas to China annually. Pakistan is a major recipient of Chinese attention, including a USD5.5 billion concessionary loan to expand and refurbish the country's main north-south rail linkfrom Peshawar to Karachi. This project, due for completion in the next five to six years, will double rail traffic speed to some 180km/h. Further line extensions will follow. China's USD46 billion investment in Pakistan falls under the banner of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Pakistan is a key ally in Beijing's plan to grow strategically, for Beijing covets the access it affords to the Indian Ocean via the port of Gwadar. Roads and railways provide a direct link to China's own Xinjiang Province. It will be all too easy for money-starved countries to fall under China's orbit. While it may seem cynical, a readily apparent pattern is emerging as follows in many places. Beijing loans money to a foreign government and Chinese firms perform the infrastructure work. However, the new asset may prove unprofitable, leaving the host country unable to pay its debt. As a result, the debtor nation agrees to an equity swap to escape its financial debt. China then agrees to forgive the debt, gratuitouslyending up with a strategically located outpost somewhere in Asia. One very example of this is in Sri Lanka, where a Chinese state-owned enterprise received a 99-year port lease and 15,000 acres of land at Hambantota. China likes to trumpet that it does not attach political conditions to its investments, but this is patently untrue. Just look at China's treatment of the Lotte retail group within its own borders after Seoul decided to allow deployment of the THAAD missile system on South Korean territory. Incidentally, the dangers with which the initiative is fraught were recently revealed at the Mongolian border. China closed a key border crossing in retaliation for the Dalai Lama's visit to Ulaan Bator, causing hundreds of trucks to back up for miles in overnight temperatures as low as -20C. This shows the danger for countries signing up for One Belt, One Road. If they anger China, they face retaliation. China will willingly bring economic and diplomatic pressure to bear so that others act as Beijing desires. Make no mistake, if China refuses to grant true freedom to its own citizens, it certainly will not do so to others outside its borders. The Belt is a way for China to dominate regionalism, as opposed to being forced to align with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping instigated by the USA in 1989, and the ASEAN Regional Forum established by Southeast Asia in 1994. This scheme will make Chinese influence stronger within a region dominated by geostrategic competition. It also made a viable alternative to the now effectively defunct Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). A new report entitled 'The Silk Road Economic Belt: Considering Security Implications and EU-China Cooperation Prospects', by Richard Ghiasy and JiayiZhou from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), discussed the initiative in some depth. The authors said, ".China's expanding overseas economic footprint through the Belt will, over the long term, serve as additional impetus for it to take leadership in global governance and regional and local state security affairs. Indeed, the Belt corresponds with China's increasingly proactive security concepts, which stress common security through development and economic cooperation. The initiative may become one of the cornerstones of Asian economic growth and integration, and eventually of closer political and security cooperation among states, but the pathway to this scenario is long and fraught with obstacles. Without clearly defined targets it is difficult to assess the Belt in terms of success, or failure, over time." Chinese scholars and think tanks made the scheme the most studied subject in 2015 amidst an enthusiastic wave of euphoria when Xi launched it. However, as with external countries, a number in China itself are now displaying skepticism. Even until now, there has been little serious study about the benefits and viability of the scheme. Indeed, China may well have overestimated its institutional and economic governance and clout. At the same time it may have underestimated the geopolitical difficulties it is encountering in diverse countries, including looming security threats and political turmoil in participating states. The SIPRI report noted that, in Central Asia and Pakistan, the Belt could, if not used to foster economic growth, "exacerbate governance problems, primarily economic accountability and corruption. It could also potentially help to keep regimes in place that have a poor democratic or developmental track record and exacerbate structural elements of instability". It particularly noted: "In South Asia, the Belt's CPEC has raised political temperatures between India and Pakistan. India strictly opposes CPEC, and while the Belt is not a harbinger of new conflict, it has so far intensified historic competition over influence in South Asia. Furthermore, at this stage, the Belt has little potential to help thaw relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, but there may be prospects for this over the medium to long term. On the other hand, in Central Asia, the Belt "could potentially stimulate greater cooperative efforts and political will among states to effectively address underlying regional hazards in the interest of mutual economic benefit". Certainly the scheme has the potential to improve local security. The authors added this caveat though: "However, positive developmental spillovers of the Belt will also very much depend on the practical details of implementation: the distribution of spoils and benefits, both between Chinese stakeholders and local states, as well as between the ruling elite in those states and other sections of the population. It will require a more comprehensive commitment to policies that foster human security, rather than only regime- and state-centric security, both by China and, particularly, local actors." China remains very concerned about security of its investments in places like Pakistan, despite the latter setting up a dedicated Special Security Division of some 15,000 personnel. Indeed, such far-flung interests increase the risk that Chinese people and investments are exposed to, especially since they are in some of the most turbulent places in the world. This concern is already seen in therecently revealed decision to enlarge the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy Marine Corps to four or five times its current size. Such an expeditionary force would be the first to defend Chinese interests under threat overseas. The report muses that "there remains a lack of clarity over whether the Belt falls into China's evolving security frameworks more by accident than design". Nevertheless, the One Belt, One Road will inevitably form an impetus of its own to reform security thinking and activity. China is already adopting a more holistic national security approach, which embraces non-traditional threats such as crime and terrorism. The SIPRI report speculated that "the Belt may force unprecedented activities from China's security apparatus, which to date remains relatively limited in its experience of either targeted military or complex operations abroad. That China is already preparing for contingencies can be seen in its 2015 Counterterrorism Law, Article 71 of which allows overseas counterterrorism missions to be conducted by the PLA and People's Armed Police force". Xi announced Beijing will host a forum regarding international cooperation in May, over which the Chinese president will officiate. Despite misgivings, numerous countries are expected to flock there in a case of "belting up". (ANI)
The body of Kim Jong Nam, who was murdered in Malaysia last month, is still in Kuala Lumpur, health minister Health Minister Subramaniam Sathasivam said on Tuesday, amid reports the remains of the estranged half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will soon leave the country."We have to check with the forensics department if there was any requirement to bring the body out, but as far as we are concerned there is no change in status quo," Subramaniam told reporters.He said the next of kin have not come forward to provide assistance on how the body is to be treated.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.Media reports on Monday said the body was moved out of the hospital to a funeral parlour, and later was being prepared to go on a flight to Beijing.Malaysia's New Straits Times newspaper reported on Tuesday that the body was expected to go from Beijing to North Korea, without disclosing its source for the information.REUTERS CJ PM0957 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1206074.Xml
A Japanese high court today overturned a lower court's order to shut down two reactors operated by Kansai Electric Power, national broadcaster NHK reported, potentially ending a drawn-out legal battle and helping the utility to cut fuel costs.REUTERS CJ PR1207 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1206192.Xml
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told Reuters today that Russia could use Iranian military bases to fight terrorists in Syria on a "case by case basis."Zarif said that regional issues, including Syria, would be discussed at a meeting in the Kremlin later on Tuesday. An Iranian delegation, including President Hassan Rouhani, arrived in Moscow on Monday.REUTERS CJ PR1233 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1206257.Xml
China's Foreign Ministry said today it has summoned in a French diplomat after police shot dead a Chinese national in Paris, in an incident that sparked a protest by scores of Chinese in front of a police station in the French capital.State news agency Xinhua said the Chinese national was killed on Sunday night after a "conflict" with police, with about 100 people from the Chinese community joining the protest yesterday evening.Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China asked France to thoroughly investigate the incident and take effective measures to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens on France.The ministry has summoned in a French diplomat to lodge representations and will continue to pay attention to developments and protect the safety and rights of Chinese people in France, she told a daily news briefing.China hopes Chinese people in France can make their feelings known in a reasonable, legal way, Hua added.REUTERS SDR VP1420 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1206447.Xml
This is the second time the species have been spotted since 2015, when footage of a leopard and its cubs was captured in Zadoi county in Yushu Tibetan prefecture, Xinhua news agency reported.

Researchers from the forest bureau in Yushu city recently collected photos and video footage of leopards along the Tongtian river at an altitude of 3,500-3,600 metres in Sanjiangyuan Nature Reserve.

They deduced that two or more leopards live in the region.

They also found sambar deer, white-eared pheasants and some other rare species, which could be the leopard's prey in the area.

The improved environment and increased forest coverage has resulted in better habitat for wild animals in Qinghai, according to the forest department.

--IANS py/vt

( 155 Words)

2017-03-28-17:56:08 (IANS)
Britain's relationship with the United States has not been harmed by unproven claims made on a US television station that it helped eavesdrop on Donald Trump, foreign minister Boris Johnson said today."It has certainly done no lasting damage to our relationship, certainly not to the special relationship, and certainly not to intelligence sharing, which of course will carry on between our countries," Johnson told parliament.Earlier this month, Britain's GCHQ intelligence agency dismissed the allegations, made by Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano, as "utterly ridiculous". REUTERS SDR PR1717 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1206790.Xml
The European Union peacekeeping force (EUFOR) in Bosnia warned its political leaders today it was prepared to intervene at short notice should violence resume two decades after the end of its ethnic war that killed 100,000 people.Concerns are rising about increasing instability in the historically volatile Balkans including secessionist pressures in Bosnia, a parliamentary boycott in Montenegro and renewed tensions between Serbia and its former province of Kosovo."A lot has been achieved but a lot can be lost again," Major General Anton Waldner said at a ceremony in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo marking his takeover of the command of EUFOR, which has 800 troops deployed in Bosnia."There is still an executive mandate which allows significant reinforcement at short notice of (EUFOR). I will not hesitate to call (on) these reserve forces if needed," Waldner, an Austrian, said. "You, political leaders, have the most powerful key in your hands."EUFOR's new operations chief, General James Everard, said there were "external influences at play in the wider Western Balkans region, and in Bosnia, (that) have the potential to challenge progress.Western leaders have accused Russia of seeking to exploit diminishing EU leverage in the Balkans by manipulating political events in the region. Russia, which denies such allegations, is a historical ally of the Serbs."In the face of such challenges it is essential that we persevere together," added Everard, a Briton.Last year, Montenegro's authorities accused a group of Serb and Russian nationalists of planning a coup during elections to get an opposition alliance into power.Russia strongly opposes the former Yugoslav republic becoming a member of NATO, but rejected the accusations.EUFOR first deployed in Bosnia in 2004, replacing the 60,000-strong NATO Stabilisation Force (SFOR).For its part, NATO had said that in case of any violent flare-up in Bosnia, it could quickly deploy military assets, mainly from Italy and Germany.Fears of fresh conflict in Bosnia have risen amid calls from Serbs for the secession of their post-war autonomous entity from Bosnia and their overwhelming vote to keep a national holiday that Bosnia's central top court has ruled unconstitutional.Post-war Bosnia's two highly autonomous regions, the Serb Republic and the Bosniak-Croat Federation, largely eclipse a weak central cabinet in Sarajevo. This has meant that economic reforms and development often become hostage to ethnic politicking and conflicting visions of the nation's future. REUTERS PS GC2055 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1207350.Xml
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) and his New Zealand's counterpart Bill English attend a joint press conference after talks in Wellington, New Zealand, March 27, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Tao)

BEIJING, March 27 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand on Monday became the first developed Western country to sign a cooperation agreement with China on the Belt and Road Initiative.

As a signature initiative of China's blueprint for economic globalization, the Belt and Road has the participation of more than 100 countries and international organizations, with over 40 signing cooperation agreements with China, outstripping global expectations

The initiative has reaped an early harvest as it has helped stimulate economic growth, create jobs and improve quality of life in countries along the routes.

People cannot help but wondering how the China approach has achieved such an effect despite a sluggish economic recovery, flagging international trade and a degree of backsliding on globalization.

The key lies in abandoning the law of the jungle, hegemonism and power politics as a zero-sum game, while replacing them with cooperation, partnerships and sharing.

Wisdom, responsibility and genuine pursuit of common development are embodied in the initiative, which has been recognized by more economic players and has even transcended ideology and traditional geopolitics.

For instance, China have been working with Australia and New Zealand to transcend differences in national conditions, culture and tradition to achieve successful outcomes on the basis of respect and equality.

Instead of merely emphasizing trade like the old days, China's Belt and Road Initiative is more about investment, infrastructure, shared opportunity and interconnectivity for a shared future, evident in China's cooperation with Saudi Arabia and Israel, two important countries along the Silk Road economic belt.

China and Saudi Arabia signed 14 cooperative agreements during a visit by Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to Beijing earlier this month, including projects involving production capacity and investment cooperation worth about 65 billion U.S. dollars.

During Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to China in March, the two sides announced an innovative comprehensive partnership and signed agreements for cooperation in economy, science and technology, commerce and civil aviation.

China hopes to boost Belt and Road cooperation with Middle Eastern countries as development is both the root and solution to solving thorny issues in the conflict-torn region.

Opening-up has been a driving force to lift China to become the world's second largest economy during the recent decades.

The country has long been a staunch champion of free trade, as it knows all too well that the benefits outweigh the costs for countries at either end of the balance sheet.

Despite its trade deficit with Australia and New Zealand, for instance, China remains committed to greater mutual openness in both markets.

In the global reality that seems to be tilting towards protectionism and anti-globalization, the Belt and Road Initiative brings hope that openness, shared development and cooperation will cross walls and barriers.

In hard times, the world needs wisdom and unity to move forward. The early harvest of the Belt and Road Initiative has proved it is a good choice.
GUANGZHOU, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Police in south China's Guangdong Province said Monday that they had captured more than 2,000 migrants who illegally crossed the border this year, up 47 percent year on year.

The police handled more than 120 illegal immigration cases in collaboration with counterparts in neighboring regions, up 20 percent compared with the same period last year, according to Jiang Mingxiang, deputy chief of the province's border police.

"Over 1,800 of the illegal migrants were foreigners, mostly from Southeast Asian countries," Jiang said, adding that they attempted to sneak into coastal areas of Guangdong or Hong Kong to work.

"Most foreign stowaways are young or middle-aged people who attempted to seek jobs in factories in the Pearl River Delta or western Guangdong," said Sun Huiyuan, another border police officer.

"Most of the factories are labor-intensive plants that feel the pressure to cut labor costs amid a labor shortage," said Sun.

"The main purpose of the illegal workers is to earn money, but they could also commit crimes such as theft, robbery and drug trafficking to disrupt border management and social order," said Zhao Quanhong, another senior official with the province's border police.

The human smuggling rings were highly organized, with foreign brokers recruiting immigrants and their Chinese accomplices transferring and securing jobs for them.

In one case, Guangdong and Guangxi police busted a gang helping Southeast Asians illegally work in the two regions, capturing eight brokers, two factory managers and over 80 illegal migrants.

Local border police have stepped up cooperation with counterparts in Hong Kong, Macao and several other neighboring regions in cracking down on human trafficking.

Border areas between Southeast Asian countries and China's Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan lack natural barriers to fend off illegal immigrants, Jiang said, pledging more crackdowns to safeguard public security.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (2nd R) and his wife Peng Liyuan (1st R) pose for a photo with Hery Rajaonarimampianina (2nd L), president of Madagascar, and his wife in Beijing, capital of China, March 27, 2017. Xi held a welcome ceremony for Hery Rajaonarimampianina, president of Madagascar here on Monday. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

BEIJING, March 27 (Xinhua) -- China and Madagascar on Monday agreed to synergize development strategies under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative and ten major plans for China-Africa cooperation.

The pledge came out of the talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President of Madagascar Hery Rajaonarimampianina in Beijing.

China and Madagascar enjoy great potential for mutually beneficial cooperation, said Xi, welcoming Madagascar to participate in the Belt and Road construction.

He said China supports Madagascar in playing its role as a bridge between the Belt and Road and the African continent.

China is ready to establish a comprehensive partnership of cooperation with Madagascar, said Xi, calling on the two sides to deepen cooperation in agriculture, fisheries, people-to-people exchanges, security, police affairs, justice and law-enforcement.

China supports Madagascar to play a bigger role in international and regional affairs, and is willing to enhance communication and coordination with the country on climate change, the UN 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development as well as peace and security of Africa.

Xi said China will comprehensively implement the results of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in December 2015, held in South Africa's Johannesburg, to achieve common development with Africa.

Rajaonarimampianina said he was delighted to visit China as the two nations were celebrating the 45th anniversary of the establishment of ties.

Madagascar supports the Belt and Road Initiative and is willing to beef up cooperation with China in energy, aviation, transportation, ports and airport construction, he said.

After the talks, the two leaders witnessed the signing of a number of cooperative documents, including a memorandum of understanding on jointly advancing the Belt and Road Initiative.

Rajaonarimampianina just attended the annual conference of the Boao Forum for Asia, held in south China's Hainan Province.
PARIS, March 27 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese embassy in France confirmed Monday that a Chinese national was dead on Sunday night in a conflict with the police in the 19th arrondissement of Paris.

According to the website of the Chinese embassy in France, after being informed of the incident, the consular section of the Chinese embassy in France contacted the French police, asking them to find out the cause of this incident.

The French police authorities said that the police investigators were making investigation into the death of the Chinese national in Paris, according to the source of the embassy.

The Chinese embassy also sent its condolences to the victim's family and asked the French authorities to find out the true situation as soon as possible.
Demonstrators and police force are seen in front of a police station in Paris, France, March 27, 2017. About 100 people from the Chinese community held a demonstration Monday evening in front of a police station in the 19th arrondissement of Paris to protest against police killing of a Chinese national in a conflict Sunday night. (Xinhua/Chen Yichen)

PARIS, March 27 (Xinhua) -- About a hundred people from the Chinese community held a demonstration on Monday evening in front of a police station in the 19th arrondissement of Paris to protest against the death of a Chinese national who was killed Sunday night in a conflict with the police.

The Chinese embassy in France confirmed Monday that a Chinese national was killed Sunday night in a conflict with the police in the 19th arrondissement of Paris.

According to the website of the Chinese embassy in France, after being informed of the incident, the consular section of the Chinese embassy in France contacted the French police, asking them to find out the cause of this incident.

The French police authorities said that the police investigators were making investigation into the death of the Chinese national in Paris, according to the source of the embassy.

The Chinese embassy also sent its condolences to the victim's family and asked the French authorities to find out the true situation as soon as possible.

Related:

Chinese embassy in France confirms one Chinese national dead in conflict with police

PARIS, March 27 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese embassy in France confirmed Monday that a Chinese national was dead on Sunday night in a conflict with the police in the 19th arrondissement of Paris.
TIRANA, March 27 (Xinhua) -- The fight against drug cultivation and trafficking as well as the preparation of a normal electoral process are the two priorities of Albania's newly-appointed interior minister, he said Monday.

Fatmir Xhafaj told reporters his challenge was to take Albania once and for all off the list of countries which cultivates cannabis, warning that there would be no compromise with traffickers, offenders and corrupt police officers.

former interior minister Sajmir Tahiri was dismissed days ago following Albanian opposition allegations over police involvement in drugs trafficking. Over the last three years, the Interior Ministry and state police in particular have been often accused of defending drug dealers and traffickers.

As Albania holds general elections on June 18, Xhafaj said he would do everything to make sure all procedures concerning the elections were followed in accordance with the law.

"The elections belong to the people and police is at their service. We will not allow police to interfere in this process. We aspire to hold free and fair elections," he declared.

Opposition parties have declared that they will not participate in the elections if Prime Minister Edi Rama will still be in office. However, the majority has made it clear that elections will be held with or without opposition.
Turks living in Germany queue to cast their votes on the constitutional referendum at the Turkish consulate in Berlin, capital of Germany, on March 27, 2017. (Xinhua/Shan Yuqi)

BERLIN, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Turks living in Germany on Monday began voting in a referendum that proposes amending Turkish constitution.

The referendum, if approved, will change Turkey's parliamentarism into a presidential regime, which will grant Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan more decisive power.

Polling stations were open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. till April 7 in several German cities like Berlin and Cologne. About 1.4 million eligible voters residing in Germany were called on by Turkish officials to turn out.

The ballot boxes are to brought back to Turkey where ballots will be counted together with the Turkish domestic vote which is set on April 16.

Some European local media saw the vote as a tool for Erdogan to enforce a one-man rule, fearing the country will be put under "dictatorship." However, many Turks said their decision was not related with Erdogan, but about a future functional mechanism.

Ahead of the crucial vote, several Turkish officials attempted to address the Turkish community at some German cities to rally support, but most of the events were blocked by local governments, citing security concerns.

The moves strained the already tense ties between Ankara and Berlin.

Erdogan criticized Germany sharply, accusing Berlin of "acting like Nazi," while German Chancellor Angela Merkel responded calling his remarks "absurd."
HAVANA, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Cuban is preparing to send a medical brigade specialized in natural disasters to help flood victims in Peru, state daily Granma reported on Monday.

"The group, including 11 doctors, 10 healthcare professionals, an administrator and a lead doctor, will stay for one month, and is equipped with sufficient medicine and supplies to treat thousands of people," said Granma.

The brigade, experienced in providing emergency medical attention and containing post-disaster epidemics, is part of an international medical contingent, called Henry Reeve, that was created by late President Fidel Castro in 2003, after Hurricane Katrina devastated the U.S. city of New Orleans.

Since December, Peru has been lashed by torrential rains sparked by the so-called Coastal El Nino phenomenon caused by unusually high sea temperatures.

Flooding and mudslides have claimed 90 lives and left more than 120,000 people homeless.

Cuba has come to Peru's aid before, mainly following strong earthquakes in 1970 and in 2007.
LAGOS, March 27 (Xinhua) -- The Nigerian government has concluded plans to borrow 6.1 billion U.S. dollars from Chinese Exim Bank to complete all rail projects in the country by 2019.

Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi made the remarks during the Ministry's 2017 budget proposal defense at the National Assembly in Abuja, the nation's capital city on Monday.

Amaechi said the government had targeted the construction of Lagos - Ibadan, Kano - Kaduna rail projects and the first phase of the Coastal Rail (Lagos-Calabar) in the 2017 budget.

The minister told lawmakers that President Muhammadu Buhari insisted that all rail projects in the country that had been awarded by previous administrations must be resuscitated and completed on or before December 2019.

Amaechi said rail projects needed to be completed due to the economic importance of these projects and the benefits to be derived by the generality of Nigerians.
CARACAS, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela's government on Monday called on the Organization of American States (OAS) to suspend an upcoming session, citing an "interventionist plan" by a minority faction within the group.

Its Foreign Affairs Ministry submitted a statement to the hemispheric bloc, denouncing that a small group of countries, led by the United States, aimed to use the regional platform to undermine Venezuela's independence.

The letter asks "the Chair of the Permanent Council to suspend the session convened for March 28 by a group of countries without having the due consent of the Venezuelan Government, as envisaged in the norms governing this regional organization."

Venezuela "categorically rejects the interventionist plan of a minority faction of countries within the OAS to attack our homeland," the letter adds.

The session on Tuesday is expected to see OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, who has often accused the South American country of violating democratic principles, propose sanctions or other measures against the government of President Nicolas Maduro.

The Venezuelan News Agency (AVN) published an article on Monday criticizing Almagro for serving as "international spokesman for Venezuela's political opposition," which has been campaigning to cut short Maduro's socialist government.
Demonstrators and police force are seen in front of a police station in Paris, France, March 27, 2017. About 100 people from the Chinese community held a demonstration Monday evening in front of a police station in the 19th arrondissement of Paris to protest against police killing of a Chinese national in a conflict Sunday night. (Xinhua/Chen Yichen)

PARIS, March 27 (Xinhua) -- French police officers used batons and tear gas as around one hundred people from local Chinese community Monday evening staged a protest against the killing of a Chinese national at his home by police in a reported clash Sunday.

At least one man of Chinese origin was injured, according to witnesses, as police officers intervened with batons and tear gas at around 8:40 p.m. local time to disperse protesters outside a police station on the Erik Satie street of the 19th arrondissement.

The protesters had set up candles on the ground in the shape of words "Opposition to violence" in French and "Dying with injustice unredressed" in Chinese. Some of them chanted slogans "Murderers! Murderers!"

"We're here to commemorate our compatriot, and we do not want to die of police violence," a protester said. "That's equality?" questioned another protester, a Chinese who has lived for ten years in France.

A Chinese national was shot dead at his home in Paris by a policeman on Sunday night. Some French media reports described the killing as a "legitimate defense" against "an assailant with scissors." However, local Chinese media reports, quoting a daughter of the man, said the 160-cm-tall man, a father of five children, did not attack the policeman at all.

The Chinese embassy in France in a statement on Monday confirmed the death of the Chinese national, urging the French authorities to ascertain the truth in a quick manner and handle the case fairly.

Related:

Chinese embassy in France confirms one Chinese national dead in conflict with police

PARIS, March 27 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese embassy in France confirmed Monday that a Chinese national was dead on Sunday night in a conflict with the police in the 19th arrondissement of Paris.
SYDNEY, March 28 (Xinhua) -- A report on the housing markets in two major Australian cities of Sydney and Melbourne has revealed that foreign investors are investing over 8 billion Australian dollars (6.09 billion U.S. dollars) per year into the sector.

The Credit Suisse report, released on Friday, said that the 8 billion dollar figure is indicative of 25 percent of new housing made available in New South Wales, and 16 percent of new housing in Victoria over the past year.

The authors of the report, Credit Suisse analysts Hasan Tevfik and Peter Liu, made clear that when they mention foreign buyers, they really have one particular nation in mind.

"When we talk about foreign buyers we are really talking about Chinese buyers. The Chinese have accounted for almost 80 percent of foreign demand in NSW. The second biggest group, the Indonesians, account for just 1.7 percent of foreign demand," Tevfik and Liu said.

"The taxes collected imply foreigners are currently purchasing an annualised 4.9 billion dollars of New South Wales housing, and 3.1 billion dollars in Victoria."

Charles Pittar, chief executive officer of Juwai.com, told Xinhua on Tuesday that the report clearly indicates that any negative sentiment about foreign buyers should now be quashed.

Pittar went on to explain his sentiment that the data within the report does not take into account when the transactions were begun, rather only when they were closed, which could lead to misinterpreted data sets.

"The scale of the construction boom in Australian cities proves the power of foreign investment to provide new housing for local buyers. It's no coincidence that the construction boom was simultaneous with the surge in Chinese buying," Pittar said.

"Chinese are more likely to buy new property in the preconstruction phase, giving developers the commitments and they need to start construction and offer the remaining completed units to local buyers."

Furthermore, the Credit Suisse report stressed that Australia should "expect more, not less, Chinese demand for Aussie housing," with the influx of foreign capital serving as a buttress against any likely downturn in the property market.

"The severity, and pace of the slowdown (in the Australian market) will be cushioned by Chinese demand." Tevfik and Liu said.
by Will Koulouris

SYDNEY, March 28 (Xinhua) -- In the wake of the the landmark visit to Australia by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, the robust relationship between the two nations has been strengthened even further, said the chief executive of one of Australia's largest companies.

Jean-Sebastien Jacques, chief executive officer of mining giant Rio Tinto, spoke to Xinhua on Tuesday, saying Li's visit, one which marked the 45 year relationship between Australia and China, demonstrates a "strong commitment" to the bilateral relationship.

"Australia and China have solid foundations for continued and sustained cooperation due to their common economic interests," Jacques said.

The mining chief pointed to his own company's successful ties to China, as a model for what other companies could achieve if they took advantage of developing a strong connection, particularly in the resources sector.

"Our Channar Iron Ore Joint Venture with Sinosteel and our BaoHi Range Joint Venture with Baosteel are models for Australia-China partnership in the resources sector," Jacques said.

"We would like to pursue more mutually-beneficial opportunities like Channar and BaoHi Range. Premier Li's visit brought government, business and other partners together to discuss and pursue win-win benefits for all."

The trade cooperation between Australia and China has been pivotal in the success of the two nations over the years. This strong relationship has seen Australia be one of the largest providers of resources to China, resources that have helped drive China's own infrastructure boom.

Rio Tinto has long played their own role in this trade relationship according to Jacques, who said China is now the largest customer for the mining giant, who accounts for over 43 percent of their yearly gross sales.

"Rio Tinto has shipped more than 2 billion tons of iron ore into China since 1973, helping build China's modern cities and providing enormous benefits to the people of Australia through export revenue and taxes," Jacques said.

Jacques highlighted his company's "one hundred year trading ties with China" and expressed his belief that it is these partnerships and their constant development that ensure for a stronger bilateral and global economic and political outlook.

"These enduring relationships can only be made stronger by a strengthened relationship between the two countries to make sure the region is peaceful and prosperous," Jacques said.

One of the big drivers of not only China's future economic outlook, but the global outlook, will be the development of the Belt and Road Initiative over the coming years.

The Belt and Road Initiative is set to redefine the boundaries for global trade, providing the necessary infrastructure and framework to not only bring even more of China's population into prosperity, but to empower prosperity across the globe.

The mining boss is excited about the progress of the Belt and Road Initiative, saying the fact that it will cover 65 percent of the world's population, one third of the global GDP and a quarter of all goods and services demonstrates the "heart of its vision", open trade and cooperation.

"I had the privilege to chair the Belt and Road panel at the 2017 China Development Forum in Beijing, to discuss with international business leaders how the initiative will help build strategic partnerships and enhance regional trade," Jacques said.

"Infrastructure is the key to supporting global growth. It underpins communities and builds nations."

"This is very important not only to China but also to the many countries that will directly benefit from the vision of the Belt and Road Initiative, including Australia."

In terms of the future, the mining chief is clear that his company Rio Tinto would develop even closer ties with their largest customer China.

"We view the China relationship as a mutual partnership," Jacques said.

"At Rio Tinto, we want to be China's preferred supplier, preferred customer and preferred partner in the resources sector."
Aerial photo taken on March 28, 2017 shows the accident site after a scaffold collapsed in the construction site of an amusement park in Macheng city, central China's Hubei Province. Two of the eight workers rescued from the accident, which occurred on Monday afternoon, died in hospital, and rescuers are still searching for another seven buried in debris. (Xinhua/Xiong Qi)

WUHAN, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Two of the eight workers rescued from a scaffold collapse in central China's Hubei Province died in hospital on Tuesday morning.

Rescuers, with life detectors and sniffer dogs, are still searching for another seven buried in debris, the local government said.

The accident occurred in the construction site of an amusement park in Macheng city at 2:35 p.m. Monday.

"The collapsed part includes supporting scaffolds for building templates of the complex vault," said Huang Guoyuan, a government official with the rescue work.

Scaffolds to the size of 30 square meters fell down, said Huang.

Li Yifang, the rescue commander, said they worked carefully to avoid hurting the trapped workers when dismantling and removing the heavy stuff.

Police detained eight people allegedly responsible for the construction project.
WELLINGTON, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The New Zealand military is to deploy a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft to the Middle East to help in operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries, Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee said Tuesday.

The aircraft was deploying in response to a request from the Australian Defence Force to provide additional capacity during a period of high operational tempo, Brownlee said in a statement.

"I am pleased the New Zealand Defence Force can provide this assistance, considering the significant support we receive from the Australian Defence Force in Iraq and New Zealand's other deployments in the region," Brownlee said.

"The aircraft will carry out logistics flights in support of New Zealand and Australian operations, including carrying people, equipment and supplies to Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan and the Sinai Peninsula," he said.

"The deployment will involve up to 30 personnel from early May to late June 2017 and is the fourth time a New Zealand Defence Force C-130 Hercules has been deployed to the region to carry out logistics support flights."

New Zealand and Australian forces together operate a camp to train Iraqi troops at Taji, just north of Baghdad.
PHNOM PENH, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia has banned the import of fungicide Tricyclazole after the European Commission required the country's milled rice industry to eradicate the use of the pesticide by June.

"All companies trading agricultural chemicals must stop importing the agricultural chemicals that contain Tricyclazole," said a directive signed by Agriculture Minister Veng Sakhon late Monday, adding all distributions of fungicide Tricyclazole were prohibited.

"Using fungicide Tricyclazole on rice crops must be stopped because the chemical can leave pesticide waste in milled rice," the directive said.

The ban came after the European Commission last month gave Cambodian producers of white rice until June and fragrant rice until December to eliminate the use of fungicide Tricyclazole.

Milled rice containing more than 0.01 milligram of the chemical per kilogram of the grain will be banned from importing to the European Union.

EU is the Cambodia's largest market for milled rice. According to government figures, the Southeast Asian nation exported 341,066 tons of milled rice to EU, accounting for 63 percent of the total milled rice export in 2016.
SYDNEY, March 28 (Xinhua) -- A brown tree snake has managed to find its way onto a private jet and fly from Brisbane airport in Australia to Auckland airport in New Zealand.

The snake with expensive taste is believed to have boarded the luxury aircraft on Sunday by slithering inside a wheel when the plane was parked in a remote hanger bay.

On Monday afternoon, the flight took off unaware that it had and extra passenger on board.

Crew were made aware of the international traveler when the reptile was found on the runway after the plane landed.

Although Australia is home to 18 of the world's 20 most deadliest snakes, New Zealand has no snakes at all.

"This is clearly a one-off hitchhiker," a spokesperson from New Zealand's Ministry for Primary Industries told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Sadly the snake is likely to be euthanased as the stress of the trip left it in poor condition.
JAKARTA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Authorities shut the international airport in Bali resort island, the center of Indonesia's tourism industry, on Tuesday for commemoration of Hindu's day of silence, a senior official of transport ministry said.

"Ngurah Rai airport in Bali is closed from 06:00 a.m. today (Tuesday) to 06:00 a.m. tomorrow (Wednesday) morning. This is because of the day of silence," J.A. Barata, spokesman of Indonesian transport ministry told Xinhua by phone.

The day of silence is a public holiday in Indonesia and mainly commemorated in the Bali island. During the day Balineses perform fasting and meditation.

Over 200,000 foreign holiday makers visit the resort island located in central parts of Indonesia every month, according to the national statistic bureau.
ISLAMABAD, March 28 (Xinhua) -- At least two people were killed and 10 others injured when a passenger train hit into an oil tanker in Sheikhupura district of eastern Pakistan's Punjab province late on Monday, local Urdu media and officials said Tuesday.

Khwaja Saad Rafique, federal minister for railways, said the oil tanker got stuck at a railway crossing as its axle broke down while crossing the track, adding that the tanker could not move when the train approached, resulting in the collision.

Najam Khan, spokesperson for the Pakistan Railways, said huge fire erupted after the collision, which engulfed the train's engine and its three compartments.

The train driver and assistant driver were killed in the accident while six passengers injured. Other passengers of the affected bogies jumped out of windows of the burning train.

Deputy Police Officer Sarfraz Khan Virk said the driver of the oil tanker has been arrested and investigation was underway.

The passenger train was on its way to the country's southern port city of Karachi from eastern Lahore city.

The injured have been shifted to a nearby hospital where two of them are said to be in critical condition.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, March 28 (Xinhua) -- At least four Afghan army soldiers were killed and five others injured in an overnight attack by Taliban militants on an army base in the country's southern province of Kandahar, a local official said on Tuesday.

"Unknown number of militants stormed an army camp in Taik locality, Khakrez district late on Monday. The troops fought back the attackers and four army soldiers were martyred and five others wounded during the clash which lasted for hours," Samim Khpalwak, the provincial government spokesman, told Xinhua.

He said several militants were also killed and wounded during the gun battle, but their number could not be exactly specified as the militants evacuated their casualties after the fightings in the district, which is located in the northern part of provincial capital Kandahar city.

The province, some 450 km south of national capital of Kabul, has been the scene of clashes between Taliban and security forces over the past years.

The Taliban has intensified attacks around the country recently, as spring and summer known as fighting season, are drawing near in the Central Asian country.
Representatives of the Cambodian Defense Ministry lay a wreath at the memorial monument of two Chinese UN peacekeepers in Skun town, southeastern Cambodia's Kampong Cham province, March 28, 2017. As the annual Tomb-Sweeping Day approaches, Cambodia and China on Tuesday jointly commemorated two Chinese UN peacekeepers who were killed in a blast in Cambodia 24 years ago. (Xinhua/Xue Lei)

KAMPONG CHAM, Cambodia, March 28 (Xinhua) -- As the annual Tomb-Sweeping Day approaches, Cambodia and China on Tuesday jointly commemorated two Chinese UN peacekeepers who were killed in a blast here 24 years ago.

Held at a memorial monument in Skun town in southeastern Cambodia's Kampong Cham province, the ceremony was attended by more than 100 people.

After laying wreaths at the monument, Li Ningya, military attache of the Chinese Embassy, said nearly 800 Chinese UN soldiers were deployed in Cambodia on a peacekeeping mission in 1992, and a mid-night explosion killed two soldiers - Chen Zhiguo and Yu Shili - on May 21, 1993.

"They lost their lives for the cause of peace in Cambodia," he said, adding that "their great sacrifices will be in our memories forever."

Cambodian Defense Ministry Undersecretary of State Gen. Khun Vuth said Cambodia and China have held such a ceremony every year to commemorate their great sacrifices for the cause of peace and happiness of the Cambodian people.

"We will never forget their courage and sacrifices," he said at the ceremony. "Their sacrifices have further deepened the fraternal sentiment between Cambodia and China."
DHAKA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- At least three women have been killed and dozens are missing after a jam-packed ferry capsized in the river of Panguchi in Bangladesh's Bagerhat district, some 178 km southwest of capital Dhaka, on Tuesday morning.

Masud Sarder, a deputy assistant director of Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence, told Xinhua over mobile phone from the district that the ferry carrying some 40-50 passengers sank at about 10.30 a.m. (local time) Tuesday.

"The bodies of three women have already been recovered."

Sarder said rescue efforts and a search for the missing are under way by the Fire Service and Civil Defence authorities.

He said the ferry sank due to overloading. According to official, many passengers managed to swim ashore after the ferry capsized.

He said rescuers have been struggling against a strong current and choppy river waters.

Ferry and boat disasters are common in Bangladesh, which is crisscrossed by about 250 rivers.

Ferry is still a key means of transport in the country, most of them are often overcrowded.
SUVA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Seven armored military vehicles purchased for Fiji's military have been delivered to the Middle East from Australia for Fiji's United Nations peacekeepers, the government-owned Fiji Boradcasting Corporation (FBC) reported Tuesday.

The Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicles have been taken from Lebanon to the Golan Heights, said Viliame Naupoto, commander of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces.

"They have survived IEDs - improvised explosive devices. They have used this sort of vehicles in Afghanistan and it has been a very credible vehicle and we are very happy that our soldiers will now be covered," Naupoto told the FBC.

Fiji formalized the purchase of 10 Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicles from Australia earlier this month. Three of the vehicles are set to be based in Fiji for upskilling Fijian military officers.

There are over 800 Fijians serving on UN or non-UN peacekeeping missions across seven countries, including Syria, Egypt, Iraq and South Sudan, official statistics showed.
BEIJING, March 28 (Xinhua) -- A survey of 2,003 respondents aged 20-40 found that over half were dissatisfied with the over-commercialization of many Chinese "festivals."

The survey results, published by China Youth Daily on Tuesday, showed that of 2,003 respondents, 63.1 percent said they were "tired" of many of today's so-called festivals.

Over 70 percent of respondents voiced frustration with the social pressure to attend parties or dinners or engage in commercial promotions.

Gao Yufei, 23, who works for a media company, said too many new festivals -- such as the online shopping spree "Double Eleven," so called because it occurs on Nov. 11 -- are merely "traps" to make people spend money.

Gao said she prefers traditional festivals like Spring Festival or Dragon Boat Festival.

During many festive periods it is common to send electronic "hongbao" -- red envelopes containing gift money -- on messaging apps or social media, according to the survey.

Zhou Yaping, associate professor with Lanzhou University, said people today are more concerned with the material side of festivities.

Many celebrations have little more to offer than shopping or partying, which reflects a shift away from spiritual and cultural celebrations, Zhou said.

Zhou suggested that people should "visit relatives or old friends."
HAVANA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- A brand new assembly plant on the outskirts of Havana is helping propel the digitalization of the long-languishing Caribbean country, aiding it to catch up and keep pace with a technology-centered 21st century.

Inaugurated in December 2016, the plant assembles laptops and tablets using Chinese-made components and technologies, which is the first of its kind in Cuba.

COOPERATING WITH CHINESE FIRM

Liena Herman is one of the young employees at the plant operated by Cuba's Industrial Company for Computers, Communications and Electronics (GEDEME).

"I saw an ad in the newspaper that they were looking for young people to train for this project. I had nothing to do with computer science before, but I was enthusiastic about being part of something new and important for the country. So I applied and was chosen," Herman told Xinhua.

The former social worker has already been promoted to head one of the two production lines at the plant.

The innovative project was conceived by GEDEME in partnership with Chinese firm Haier and Cuba's University of Computer Sciences (UCI).

"This project arose from cooperation with Chinese company Haier based on an agreement over the next three years, with raw materials supplied by that corporation," Fernando Fernandez, head of IT solutions at GEDEME, told Xinhua.

To date, the plant has rolled out more than 3,500 laptops and 3,580 tablets, mainly to supply state-run companies and government agencies. In the future, the products will probably be sold at stores.

The production line features Core i3, Core i5 and Celeron laptops installed with the sixth-generation processors.

"In addition, we are assembling two models of tablets, an 8-inch and a 10-inch equipped with accessories, (protective) cover and a keyboard that make them very useful and modern products for our nation," said Fernandez.

Jose Antonio Sanchez, who heads the assembly line, said he believes the plant's products will make a significant contribution to the Cuban society.

"I think the laptops and tablets produced in this plant will give young people, schools, doctors and other professionals an important work tool made with good quality, services and properties at an affordable price," the 21-year-old said.

LEARNING FROM CHINESE TECHNOLOGY

Significantly, the products' operating systems and applications are produced by Cuba's UCI.

"That decision was due to the current global scenario of spying and cyber security. For us to be able to guarantee that our products are Cuban designed and that the operating systems are 100 percent Cuban, (we have to) endow them with a higher degree of security," said Fernandez.

While the raw materials are imported from China, the software and the assembly line make the laptops truly "national" products, according to Fernandez.

"We assemble laptops and tablets adjusted to the current conditions of our country...and we also personalize the units with applications and configurations most suitable to each sector," he said.

Herman and Sanchez, along with some 20 fellow employees, assemble and test each unit before it is packaged.

"The line where I work is where the first part of the laptop is assembled by installing the RAM memory, hard disk, Wi-Fi card and other accessories, as well as its serial number," said Sanchez.

Herman carries out technical tests on the products to make sure the Ethernet, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity all work as planned.

She began working at the plant in January. "Chinese training personnel taught us how to assemble tablets and laptops. I started as an operative, but they noted my skills and sense of responsibility. And that's why I was promoted to head the line," she said.

The 230,000 U.S.-dollar facility has the capacity to assemble 120,000 laptops and tablets a year, or 500 per day, and is designed to eventually have 80 emloyees.

Haier will hand over the facility to GEDEME once the agreement terminates.

EXPANSION FOR WIDER CONNECTIVITY

In the meantime, the plant's products have been very popular, with high demand from the state sector.

"This year we plan to assemble around 50,000 units whose components are already in Cuba. We'll continue working on expansion for 2018 to inaugurate a plant similar to this one for PCs and servers," said Fernandez.

Cuba has one of the lowest Internet penetration rates in Latin America. In 2015, the number of computers registered in Cuba stood at 1,071,600, of which only about half were connected to the Internet, according to the National Bureau of Statistics and Information (ONEI).

The state-owned Telecommunications Company of Cuba (ETECSA) has strived to increase connectivitiy on the island. Currently, there are more than 1,000 public Wi-Fi hotspots around the country and another 180 will be added this year.

ETECSA has recently began offering home Internet access with a pilot program launched in Havana's historic center in December 2016. So far, 358 clients have signed up for the service.

With China's help, Cuba is poised to boost connectivity, which will be key to the country's future development.
It's late March, and Turpan is always the first place to meet spring in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

In an oasis village in Tuyu Valley, grape vines have crept out of earth, and apricot trees are already in full bloom, marking the beginning of the annual Apricot Flower Festival, a local carnival to bid farewell to the five-month long winter and embrace spring.

Local villagers are dressed in colorful silk clothes. They play the Naqara drum and dance to the traditional Muqum music.

The lush Tuyu Valley has the best preserved ancient Uygur residences in Xinjiang. It is 46 kilometers from Turpan City and is seldom visited by tourists.

(All photos by Zhao Ge)
WUHAN, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Four finless porpoises from Poyang Lake in east China's Jiangxi Province have been relocated to waters in a nature reserve in Hubei Province.

The four finless porpoises, two males and two females, were transferred Monday to Hewangmiao nature reserve along traffic-free sections of the Yangtze River in Hubei, according to sources with the Institute of Hydrobiology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The reserve has a vast body of water, which is clean and rich in aquatic bio diversity due to limitations on fishing, the sources said.

A project was launched in 2017 by the Ministry of Agriculture, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and three provincial governments to relocate 22 porpoises, which are facing extinction, this year.

"Our plan is to move them to areas free from human activities, so they can flourish," said Wang Ding, a porpoise expert.

The finless porpoises, known for their "grins," live in the Yangtze River and two lakes linked to the busy waterway.

There are only around 1,000 porpoises left as their natural habitat is threatened by pollution, over fishing and river traffic.

China started a porpoise relocation program in 1992 after concerns were raised that the population of the species had shrunk by an average of 13.7 percent every year despite preservation measures.

"At first, the relocation was floated to protect the Yangtz River Dolphin, but they were 'functionally extinct' before we acted," said Wang Kexiong, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

China has established three finless porpoise nature reserves in Hubei, Hunan and Anhui provinces.

"It has been an effective measure. We have recorded three to five births each year. Tian'ezhou reserve in Anhui has already had more than 70 porpoises," Wang Ding said.

There are plans for more in the middle and lower reaches of the river.

The Yangtze, China's longest waterway, is known for its aquatic bio diversity. A decade ago, it was the only river in the world that had two kinds of aquatic mammal living in it at the same time -- the finless porpoise and the white-flag dolphin.

However, a 2006 survey found no white-flag dolphins in the river, suggesting they were "functionally extinct," which means the population is too small for the species to reproduce.

Scientists predict that without efficient protection the finless porpoise will also disappear in five to ten years.

Wang said an overemphasis on the Yangtze's economic value and the ignorance of its natural attributes has resulted in the deterioration of habitat for the river's endangered species.

Many porpoises have been found wounded or dead as a result of starvation, pollution-induced disease or injuries inflicted by ship propellers.

In 2016, China released a guideline to increase traffic along the Yangtze, part of efforts to build an economic belt along the river. It emphasized that development should not be at the cost of environmental protection measures.

"We are working on more comprehensive measures to protect the environment along the Yangtze River," said Li Yanliang, a Ministry of Agriculture official.
WELLINGTON, March 28 (Xinhua) -- To many in New Zealand, the Oceanian state looks like an isolated outpost with economic powerhouses far, far away in another hemisphere.

It's at the end of a trail that snakes through Southeast Asia before a three-hour flight from Australia lands you in one of its handful of international airports.

Small wonder that the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, a massive economic and trade project for common development and prosperity in countries along its routes in Europe, Africa and Asia, is little talked about here.

However, New Zealanders are now starting to realize that while their country might be a terminal on the Initiative's 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, it won't be left out, surely after signing on Tuesday an agreement on the Initiative with China.

CLEAR OPPORTUNITY

The initiation of a business network by important figures including president of the ruling National Party Peter Goodfellow and National legislator, China-born scholar turned politician Yang Jian, coincided with an official visit here by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang starting Sunday.

The Oceania Silk Road Network (OSRN) is being forged by New Zealand business interests, headed by William Zhao, director and CEO of the China-owned Yashili New Zealand Dairy Company.

"There's a group of us exploring setting up this mechanism and it's in an environment where there's a growing interest among organizations focused on China to explore ways that New Zealand can engage more in China's very important initiative," said Martin Thomson, head of New Zealand-China Trade Association and one of the four OSRN initiators.

The OSRN will be in link with China's think tanks and industrial alliances to seek opportunities for Belt and Road Initiative projects.

"It's a recognition among those interested in China that collectively we need to learn a bit more about how we can engage in relation to it," Thomson told Xinhua by phone.

"There's clearly opportunity for us to do that and the starting point is for people to engage and start thinking about how" he said.

Thomson also sees the Initiative as facilitating infrastructure development in New Zealand, while serving markets in the region.

"New Zealand's a trading country. We sell a lot of products offshore and the opportunity to open up markets with greater infrastructure in regions that we don't currently sell a lot to is a great opportunity," he said.

Others are keen to interpret signals Li gave in regard to New Zealand's inclusion in the Belt and Road Initiative during his visit this week.

"There's a range of ways in which New Zealand companies could participate," said Stephen Jacobi, acting executive director of New Zealand-China Council.

"For example, we could supply goods or services into construction projects into Eurasia, the countries around China that they're targeting for infrastructure development," Jacobi told Xinhua by phone.

Another sector to tap potential would be how goods and services move along the Initiative's routes.

"This is an area where New Zealand has an expertise around trade facilitation, around supply chain integrity and optimization," he said.

BRAINSTORMING NEEDED

Meanwhile, China-born legislator Raymond Huo believed the Belt and Road Initiative can help solve the problem of infrastructure development facing many developed nations.

"There is a dilemma. New Zealand, Australia and other developed countries including the U.S. and Canada are all facing the same problem," Huo told Xinhua.

"We haven't done much upgrading, so we need money, we need capital, and we need the construction capacity. China has both," he said.

Huo said he first realized the potential of Belt and Road Initiative when he attended two high-level conferences in China, and he believed New Zealand should seize the opportunities it offers.

Along with other experts on China and leading business people, he has established a think tank and foundation on the Initiative.

The think tank aims to tackle issues including a possibly prevailing protectionist trend around the world, and public perceptions of and attitudes towards global trade, among others.

The foundation is expected to focus on financing, joining in efforts by such institutions as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and Silk Road Fund to work for infrastructure projects.

"We need a think tank to get involved in brainstorming to find a way to benefit the New Zealand economy," including an infrastructure upgrade, Huo, the think tank's co-chair, said in a telephone interview.

Huo believed the think tank will also help New Zealanders to better understand the Belt and Road Initiative as well as the Chinese people and culture.

It has already established links with China's National Development and Reform Commission, construction companies and private equity firms to seek opportunities.

In addition, it plans to convene a high-level conference on New Zealand-based Initiative projects after the New Zealand general elections to be held in September.

"We will bring together and coordinate a network of business leaders and organizations across the board to develop effective, efficient and environmentally sustainable economy while maintaining peace and harmony in our region," said Huo.

Simon Draper, executive director of Asia-New Zealand Foundation, described the Belt and Road Initiative as "organic".

"It's going to develop over time," he said. "It seems to me that it's potentially a train coming down the track and we have to understand it better."

Trade Minister Todd McClay said the Initiative itself is to endure the test of time while stressing that New Zealand saw itself as a partner of China in its implementation.

"You could almost suggest that the road starts in New Zealand, but we'll be looking for ways to enhance our relationship through this substantial and worthwhile initiative," McClay said.

"It's an ongoing conversation we're having and I don't think it's about just what we might think today. The Initiative itself is to endure the test of time and it's about enhancing opportunities for citizens of those countries through growth and a stronger economy," he said.
MANILA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines has revived plans to remove jeepneys that are older than 10 years from Manila's gridlocked streets, stirring a fresh debate on the fate of the iconic vehicles that have been chugging along the streets since the 1950s.

The Philippine government and society have been talking about the "jeepney phaseout" for decades and the new "jeepney modernization" plan is an attempt to cut traffic emissions and ease the ever-worsening traffic congestion currently gripping the Philippine capital.

However, jeepney operators and drivers are up in arms over the planned measure, saying it is meant to kill off small transport operators in the country.

Last month, several transport groups took to the streets to protest the plan. Another group is mulling holding a similar demonstration in the coming days.

The jeepney, which traces its roots to the U.S. Willys jeep used by the U.S. army during World War ll, are elongated, flatbed passenger vehicles that have been plying the Philippine streets for more than five decades. It remains the main form of transport for millions of Filipinos across the archipelago.

Filipinos modified the Army Jeep, making it artsy by customizing the vehicle with Filipino touches such as chrome horses, banks of colored headlights, radio antennae, paintings of the Virgin Mary and unique artwork inspired by rustic scenes.

Indeed, the jeepney has become the symbol of Filipino creativity, ingenuity and innovativeness, making it one of the most recognizable icons of Filipino pop culture.

But critics say the jeepney has become a tarnished icon that has acquired a rather unsavory reputation, symbolizing the country's technological backwardness and inability to adapt to changing times.

The jeepney was often called the "King of the Road" because of their sheer numbers on the city streets or rural roads, but Jeepney drivers are notorious for never following traffic regulations.

The smoke-belching jeepneys that ply Manila's traffic-choked streets around the clock are blamed for clogging the roads, compounding the dismal traffic problem and dirtying the city's air.

Jeepneys are also being blamed for increasing road accidents, due in part to their wild drivers' notoriously reckless ways on Manila's streets. At night, jeepney drivers often don't use their headlights, making it dangerous for other motorists.

Ousted President Joseph Estrada, now the mayor of Manila City, made the jeepney his personal motif to symbolize his being "pro-poor" when he campaigned for president in 1998. He even named his showcase jeepney "Jeep ni Erap." Erap is Estrada's popular nickname.

The government wants to have the number of jeepneys pared down, if not phased out totally.

But the ubiquitous jeepneys have survived despite the rising popularity of the Japanese-made air conditioned Toyota Tamaraw FX, the Mitsubishi "mega taxis' on the streets and the elevated trains that run throughout the metropolis.

An estimated 220,000 to 230,000 jeepneys are on the streets of Metro Manila and other provinces on any given day, according to government statistics.

George San Mateo, the national president of a militant transport group, said the planned "jeepney phaseout" would affect at least 162,500 jeepney drivers and 45,000 operators.

Rather than making a business out of modernization, he said the government should extend support to drivers and operators to allow them to rehabilitate their aging units.

The Philippine Star, one of the leading English newspapers in the Philippines, ran an editorial recently saying the campaign of the Duterte administration to phase out jeepneys "will end up as another exercise in futility unless concerns are sufficiently addressed."

"One is livelihood for the drivers who will be displaced as well as the operators, most of whom are small-scale transport owners," the editorial said.

It said that so far the government has not come up with an alternative to the jeepney. "More buses must be fielded and the light rail and commuter train services substantially upgraded if the administration wants the jeepney phaseout to enjoy mass support," it said.

"Unless these concerns are addressed, the latest effort to phase out jeepneys will go the way of previous efforts -- straight to the wastebasket," the editorial said.
Visiting French President Francois Hollande (L) shakes hands with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in Putrajaya, Malaysia, on March 28, 2017. (Xinhua/Chong Voon Chung)

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Visiting French President Francois Hollande pitched the sale of French-made fighter jets to Malaysia during his brief stay in Malaysia on Tuesday, but Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said they are "not ready to make a decision."

In a joint press conference after an one-hour bilateral meeting, Najib acknowledged that Malaysia is a big procurer of French equipment, adding Malaysia is aware of French-made aircraft Rafale's success in several countries.

Since Malaysia proposed to replace its outdated Mig-29N fighter jets with the so-called multi-role combat aircraft, major defense companies including Dassault Aviation from France, BAE Systems from Britain and Saab from Sweden have proposed their products.

During the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition in Malaysia last week, Dassault Aviation, the maker of Rafale, signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Defense University of Malaysia, part of their lobbying efforts to push the deal. Aerial display using the Rafale F3b was also staged during the exhibition.

Hollande, the second French president to visit Malaysia since Jacques Chirac, said at the press conference that "Rafale is the best jet in this category, but of course we have to discuss the prices and specifications." "I trust the decision you make when the time comes," he said via a on-site interpreter.

It is not sure when the Malaysian government will make the final decision, but Malaysia has a long history of defense cooperation with France. The delivery of the fourth Airbus A400m transport aircraft recently makes Malaysia the largest non-NATO customer of the plane. Malaysia also bought French-made submarines in the early 2000s.

At the press conference, Najib said defense and security cooperation with France is "the mainstay" and "the most significant part" of their bilateral relations.

The two leaders also talked about French car maker Peugeot's interest in buying stakes from Malaysia's Proton, which is seeking a foreign partner after years of losing money.

Najib said Peugeot is conducting serious negotiations with Proton. "It's not concluded yet, but that's something which could be a possibility," he said.

Malaysia is the second stop of Hollande's three-nation tour in the Southeast Asian region, which also include Singapore and Indonesia.
PYONGYANG, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Tuesday accused the United States of trying to form an Asian version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) through a U.S.-Japan-South Korea military alliance.

The official daily Rodong Sinmun (Labor News) said in an article that the U.S.-Japan-South Korea triangular military alliance has "reached the phase of full-scale activation."

"The U.S. aggressor forces, the 'Self-Defense Forces' of Japan and the South Korean puppet army recently conducted a large-scale drill for intercepting missiles from the DPRK," it said.

"The U.S. is claiming that the drill and the naval joint drill with Japan are independent of Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military drills. But this is no more than a lame excuse," said the article.

The daily claimed the missile intercepting drill is directly related to the drill being staged under the simulated conditions of executing "Operation 4D" and deploying Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), the key phase of Key Resolve and Foal Eagle."

"The same can be said of the joint drill conducted by a U.S. nuclear aircraft carrier task force and warships of the Japan Self Defense Forces," it said.

The United States and South Korea have been conducting since early this month a large scale joint military exercise "Foal Eagle," which was condemned by the DPRK as aimed at staging precision strikes against targets in the DPRK, including hitting its supreme leadership and military installations.
MANAMA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Bahrain denied on Tuesday that the oil production in Bahrain will deplete within the next fifteen years, Al Wasat local online news reported.

The Minister of Oil Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa confirmed in the parliament session that the oil reserves will continue for the decades.

He was responding to a remark by MP Majeed Al Asfoor who claimed that Bahrain has only years for its oil production to end.

The minister said that the Bahrain Oil Company will face a major expansion in the coming phase as well as plans to create diversity of oil resources.

He announced earlier plans to invest in excess of 7 billion U.S. dollars across several separate ventures in the next five years

In 2016 the government of Bahrain increased the prices of fuel in the local market.

It has increased the regular gasoline grade from 80 fils per litre to 125 fils per litre and the premium grade from 100 fils per litre to 160 fils per litre.

The decision to increase the price of the local gasoline product has always been part of the government plan to cutback the subsidies from certain services and commodities such as fuel, electricity and water.
HANOI, March 28 (Xinhua) -- China is seen as the most important market for Vietnamese tourism, said the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) on Tuesday.

According to the VNAT, in March alone, Vietnam is expected to welcome some 297.915 Chinese tourists, up 39.2 percent year-on-year.

Last year, Vietnam also saw high growth in Chinese arrivals, with 2.7 million person-times and up 51 percent year-on-year. In 2010-2016 period, Vietnam witnessed average annual growth of 20 percent in the number of Chinese tourists.

Other cooperation areas between Vietnam and China have yielded crucial outcomes as Chinese companies have offered chartered flights bringing Chinese tourists to Vietnam and two countries' airlines continue to launch new air routes and increase flight frequency between their localities, assessed the VNAT on Vietnam's state-run news agency VNA.

In January-March period, Vietnam is forecast to receive over 3.2 million person-times of international tourists, up 29 percent year-on-year.

The administration attributes the growth to numerous tourism promotion activities that Vietnam has implemented since the beginning of 2017, including participation in 2017 ASEAN-China Year of Tourism Cooperation and Moscow International Travel and Tourism Exhibition, one of the world's five biggest travel fairs, among others.
NAIROBI, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The Kenya Red Cross Society and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) on Tuesday appealed for 25 million U.S. dollars to help 1 million Kenyans in need of food assistance.

The IFRC warned that the number of people now in need of food assistance has reached 3 million -- well over double the number recorded in December 2016.

Abbas Gullet, Secretary General of the Kenya Red Cross Society and Vice President of the IFRC said the drought situation is getting worse every day, warning that malnutrition rates among children are steadily climbing.

"Children are getting sick, and livelihoods of families have been decimated following the loss of thousands of their livestock," Gullet said in a statement issued in Nairobi.

The charity said the escalation of the number of people in need of food aid shows no sign of slowing down, with the government indicating that this figure could climb to 4 million in the coming weeks.

The Kenya Red Cross Society and the IFRC have announced a dramatic revision of their emergency relief efforts that will now target just over 1 million people.

The previous version of the operation sought 9.1 million Swiss francs (around 9.2 million U.S. dollars) to support approximately 340,000 people.

"It is more and more difficult for people to access water -- people are having to travel for up to three times as long just to get water for their family.

"This is an emergency that will not improve without help. We are calling on our partners to urgently support." Gullet said.

Half of the East African nation is affected by the drought brought on by a third consecutive year of unreliable rains.

Below average rains are "causing thirst and hunger, decimating livestock, destroying livelihoods, spreading disease, and causing large movements of people," according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The latest appeal is a complement to Kenya's ongoing nine-month response plan which faces a funding gap of 108 million dollars.

The situation in Kenya forms part of what has become a historic food crisis in East Africa where an estimated 22.9 million people have been classified by the UN as critically food insecure in Somalia, South Sudan, Kenya and Ethiopia, as well as in north-east Nigeria.

"We are running out of words to describe the situation in affected parts of Kenya, and across the region," said Fatoumata Nafo-Traore, IFRC Regional Director for Africa.

"Our message is simple: humanitarian organizations need resources to respond at the scale that is needed. If we don't, then thousands of people may die, and children will be affected for the rest of their lives. And we won't be able to say "we didn't know"."

Latest surveys from the areas worst-affected by the drought show that there are more than 340,000 children under the age of five who are acutely malnourished and in need of immediate support.

Malnutrition rates are above the emergency threshold of 15 per cent in many parts of the country, climbing as catastrophically high as 32 per cent in Mandera in the north-east. There are also 37,000 pregnant and lactating women who are not getting the nutrition they desperately need.

The expanded Kenya Red Cross Society/IFRC operation focuses on cash transfers; health and nutrition; livelihoods strengthening; water, sanitation and hygiene and food security.

It will build on work that has been underway for months. So far, the Red Cross has provided more than 13,000 families in areas hit hard by the drought with unconditional cash transfers, a response mechanism that empowers recipients to address their needs in the most efficient and dignified way possible.
Chinese Ambassador to Kenya Liu Xianfa (1st L) and Kenya's Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich (2nd L) shake hands during a donation ceremony in Nairobi, capital of Kenya, March 27, 2017. The Chinese government on Monday announced donation of 21,366 tonnes of rice, worth 21.8 million U.S. dollars, to alleviate hunger and malnutrition among Kenya's drought victims. (Xinhua/Li Baishun)

NAIROBI, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese government has announced donation of 21,366 tonnes of rice, worth 21.8 million U.S. dollars, to alleviate hunger and malnutrition among Kenya's drought victims.

Speaking at a ceremony in Nairobi on Monday, Kenya's Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich lauded Beijing for responding to a presidential appeal for emergency food aid.

"The food donation is obviously a good gesture from a friendly country," said Rotich, adding that Kenya also appreciates China's assistance in infrastructure development, agriculture and health sectors.

Chinese Ambassador to Kenya Liu Xianfa said the rice would be shipped to Kenya soon and would support 1.4 million drought-affected people for one month.

"China is always paying attention to the drought situation in Kenya," Liu said, noting the Chinese community in Kenya has also rallied behind efforts to support Kenya's drought victims through donation of food and clean water.

The East African nation has been grappling with drought that has affected an estimated 3 million people in 23 counties.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta in February declared the drought a national disaster and made an emergency appeal for food aid from the international community.

Rotich said the government has set aside funds to support mitigation measures that include distribution of food rations, water and medicine to drought victims.
KUNMING, March 28 (Xinhua) -- A pregnant woman from Myanmar was detained in southwest China's Yunnan Province on Monday on suspicion of transporting drugs.

Frontier police in Mangshi City, Dehong Prefecture, intercepted the woman at 4:25 p.m. in front of a hotel in the city and confiscated 6.12 kg of heroin from her.

The woman said another woman from Myanmar had asked her to transport the drugs from Myanmar to Mangshi, and promised to give her 3,000 yuan in return, according to the police.

The investigation continues.
SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, March 28 (Xinhua) -- At least two youth were killed and several others wounded Tuesday after government forces fired upon protesters near a gunfight site in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said.

The clashes broke out at village Durbugh in Chadoora of Budgam district, about 22 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

"Two young men were brought dead to hospital today. Both had bullet wounds (one in neck and another in chest) and it seemed they had succumbed on way to hospital," Nazir Hussain Chowdary, medical superintendent at Srinagar's SMHS hospital, told Xinhua. "Two others who were received in wounded condition are being treated."

Clashes erupted in the village immediately after a gunfight between militants and Indian army broke out. Police officials said locals, mostly youth, took to roads and attacked policemen and Indian army troopers in an apparent bid to end cordon.

"The locals threw stones and brickbats on contingents of police and army and even targeted the paramilitary reinforcements with the motive to disrupt the cordon and help besieged militants to escape," a senior police official posted in the area said.

Reports said over a dozen people were injured in the clashes.

According to the police official, the village was cordoned off following specific intelligence information about presence of militants in the area.

"We believe two militants are holed up inside a house and that has been encircled," the police official said. "Intermittent exchange of fire is going on between the two sides since morning."

Meanwhile, the civilian killings have intensified protests in the area with people pouring in large numbers to participate.

"We are trying to ascertain the details from gunfight site. The moment we have full details, we will share it with you," Indian army spokesman Col Rajesh Kalia said.

On Sunday, two militants belonging to Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) outfit were killed in a gunfight with police in Pulwama district. Thousands of people participated in the funeral prayers of the slain militants on Monday.

Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan, is claimed by both in full. Since their independence from Britain, the two countries have fought three wars, two exclusively over Kashmir.
SOFIA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The number of trips Bulgarians made abroad in February this year grew by 30.4 percent year-on-year, while arrivals from abroad rose by about 20.4 percent, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) said Tuesday.

In comparison with that in February 2016, the most significant increase was registered in the number of Bulgarians trips to Austria, Romania and France, by 54.8 percent, 52.5 percent, and 45.1 percent respectively.

At the same time, the number of the trips of Bulgarians to Russia was reduced by 6.0 percent, to Britain fell by 4.6 percent, and the United States by 2.6 percent, the NSI said.

As regards to the inbound tourism, the share of visits of European Union citizens was 46.9 percent of the total foreigners' visits to Bulgaria. It was a rise of 42.4 percent year-on-year, and the most significant increases were seen in the visits of citizens from Poland, Spain and Greece, the NSI said.
DHAKA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- At least 4 people have been killed and 14 still missing after a jam-packed boat capsized in the river of Panguchi in Bangladesh's Bagerhat district, some 178 km southwest of capital Dhaka, on Tuesday morning.

The district's police chief Pankaj Chandra Roy told Xinhua over mobile phone that the boat carrying some 70 passengers sank at about 10:30 a.m. local time Tuesday.

"The bodies of three women and a child have already been recovered," he said.

Roy said rescue efforts and a search for the missing are under way by divers of Fire Service and Civil Defence and Bangladesh Navy.

"At least 14 people are still missing," he said

Police and rescue officials said about 50 people swam to shore as the jam-packed boat capsized in a strong current and choppy river waters.

Masud Sarder, a deputy assistant director of Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence, said the rescuers have been struggling against a strong current and choppy river waters.

He said the boat has been salvaged and brought into shore. The boat sank due to overloading, he added.

Ferry and boat disasters are common in Bangladesh, which is crisscrossed by about 250 rivers. Ferry is still a key means of transport in the country, most of them are often overcrowded.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Security forces have captured 13 suspected terrorists in Taliban former stronghold Kandahar province of southern Afghanistan, said a statement of National Directorate of Security (NDS) or intelligence agency released here Tuesday.

"Thirteen terrorists who were involved in target killing and attacking security checkpoints, military bases and logistic convoys have been arrested in Kandahar," the statement asserted.

The intelligence agency also released the photos of the suspected terrorists and all of them are Afghans and have confessed to their affiliation with the Taliban group, the statement added.

Taliban militants who are active in parts of Kandahar and the neighboring Helmand and Zabul provinces are yet to make comment.
Photo shows one of eye-tracking systems of Irisbond, an leading Spanish company in applied artificial vision research. (Photo courtesy of Irisbond)

SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The Spanish company, Irisbond, based in Spain's northern city of San Sebastian, has enbaleed users to control the mouse of a computer and write by moving their eyes so as to communicate with those around them.

The new technology aimed at helping persons with disabilities and illnesses.

Eduardo Jauregui, co-founder and CEO of Irisbond, told Xinhua that "the technology is an infrared device that is connected to the computer and through software, enables you to control with maximum accuracy the computer with your eyes."

The technology allows users to send emails and communicate with family members through a rectangular device connected to the computer. There is a keyboard on the screen. With a blink, users can select the letters thanks to an eye-tracking software.

According to Jauregui, there are 700 people using this technology nowadays and they expect that one million people can use it in the future.

They are working on applying this technology on tablets and mobile phones, which is expected to be ready by the end of the year.

"We are working to remove the device from the computer and in the future enable people to control mobile phones with the eyes without any kind of additional hardware," Jauregui explained.

Controlling mobile phones with eyes would open a wide range of possibilities for persons with disabilities, he said, enable them to move and communicate easily.

Innovation, technology and science are very important for the city of San Sebastian, where 2.37 percent of the city's GDP was linked to R&D in 2015, surpassing the Spanish and European average which stood at 1.21 percent and 2.1 percent respectively.
Ousted South Korean President Park Geun-hye leaves the prosecutors' office in Seoul, South Korea, March 22, 2017. (Xinhua/Lee Sang-ho/ File photo)

SEOUL, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Former President Park Geun-hye of South Korea on Tuesday decided to appear in a Seoul court to avoid arrest, which is being sought by prosecutors over a corruption scandal embroiling her.

The special investigation headquarters of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, tasked with the probe into the scandal, said Tuesday via text message that Park's legal team informed the prosecutors of Park's decision to appear in the Seoul Central District Court on Thursday.

The court would decide whether to take Park into custody after studying evidence provided by prosecutors and testimonies offered by Park who was grilled by prosecutors last week.

Prosecutors sought an arrest warrant for Park Monday for multiple charges including bribery, abuse of power and the leakage of state secrets. The court's decision is forecast to be made late Thursday or early Friday.

If the court decides to issue the warrant, Park would become the third South Korean former leader to be detained. Two former military strongmen were arrested in 1995 for charges of mutiny and corruption.

A total of 13 charges were levied by both state and special prosecutors against Park. Prosecutors already branded Park as a criminal accomplice to her longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil.

Park was charged with receiving tens of millions of U.S. dollars in bribes from Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, who is now in custody, in return for offering assistance in Lee's inheritance of management control of Samsung Group from his ailing father Chairman Lee Kun-hee.

The younger Lee had effectively taken the helm of the country's biggest family-controlled conglomerate after his father was hospitalized for heart attack almost three years ago.

Choi was accused of extorting tens of millions of dollars from scores of conglomerates to establish two nonprofit foundations she used for personal gains.

One of Park's former secretaries, who is detained, is suspected of providing secret government documents to Choi on a regular basis to enable Choi to meddle in state affairs behind the scenes.
SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, March 28 (Xinhua) -- At least three youth were killed and 13 others wounded Tuesday after government forces fired upon protesters near a gunfight site in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said.

The clashes broke out at village Durbugh in Chadoora of Budgam district, about 22 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

"One more civilian has succumbed and the death toll has risen to three. Earlier two young men were brought dead to hospital today," Nazir Hussain Chowdary, medical superintendent at Srinagar's SMHS hospital, told Xinhua. "We have also received 13 wounded people and they are undergoing treatment."

Doctors said all the victims have firearm wounds.

Clashes erupted in the village immediately after a gunfight between militants and Indian army broke out. Police officials said the locals, mostly youth, took to roads and attacked policemen and Indian army troopers in an apparent bid to end a cordon.

"The locals threw stones and brickbats on contingents of police and army, and even targeted the paramilitary reinforcements with the motive to disrupt the cordon and help besieged militants to escape," a senior police official posted in the area said.

Meanwhile, local media reports put the number of wounded in the clashes beyond 13.

According to the police official, the village was cordoned off early Tuesday following specific intelligence information about presence of militants in the area.

"A heavy exchange of fire is going on between the two sides," the official said.

The civilian killings have intensified protests in the area, with people pouring in large numbers to participate.

On Sunday, two militants belonging to Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) outfit were killed in a gunfight with police in adjacent Pulwama district. Thousands of people participated in the funeral prayers of the slain militants on Monday.

Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan, is claimed by both in full. Since their independence from Britain, the two countries have fought three wars, two exclusively over Kashmir.
Fan Changlong (R), vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, meets with Cuban Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces Leopoldo Cintra Frias in Beijing, capital of China, March 28, 2017. (Xinhua/Liu Fang)

BEIJING, March 28 (Xinhua)-- Fan Changlong, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, met with Cuban Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces Leopoldo Cintra Frias at the Diaoyutai State Guest House in Beijing on Tuesday.

Fan said China is willing to work with Cuba in implementing the consensus on deepening bilateral relations reached by the presidents of the two nations, and promote the development of China-Cuba relations.

China attaches great importance to developing the friendly and cooperative relation with Cuba's military and will continue to support its army building, Fan said.

Fan added that China will also boost the comprehensive development of exchange and cooperation so that a new situation will be created in military-to-military relations.

Cuba cherishes its traditional friendship with China, Cintra said, adding that Cuba hopes that the two sides will deepen pragmatic cooperation in various fields and push military-to-military relations to a new level.
NAIROBI, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Kenya plans to intensify efforts to address child neglect cases in order to eliminate child abuse in the country, officials said on Tuesday.

Ministry of East African Community, Labour and Social Services Director of Children Services Noah Sanganyi told journalists in Nairobi that Kenya has designed parenting programmes to empower parents with skills to keep their children safe and thus reduce their vulnerability to abuse.

"Child neglect is now the most common type of child abuse in the country. Apart from being a criminal offence in itself, it also exposes the child to all other forms of abuse," Sanganyi said during the launch of Child Protection Report.

The report was conducted jointly by the government and Childline Kenya. According to the findings, child neglect and abandonment are the highest reported form of abuse.

Some of the major forms of child abuse include parents not taking their children to school, refusing to get their children medical attention when they are not well or denying them food for days as a form of punishment.

Sanganyi said that the ministry is currently developing standards of child abuse in order to improve the level of child welfare in the country.

He added that child neglect is a gateway to other cases of abuse such as physical abuse. "Our studies indicate that whenever child neglect went up, other abuse cases also increased," he noted.

The ministry of social services said that the least reported forms of abuse were child trafficking, female genital mutilation and kidnapping.
PARIS, March 28 (Xinhua) -- France on Tuesday affirmed that ensuring Chinese community's security remained the state's priority, after French police shot dead a Chinese national at his home in Paris, the French Foreign Ministry said.

"The security of all Chinese nationals in France is a priority of the (local) authorities," Romain Nadal, the ministry's spokesperson said at e-press briefing.

"Reinforced measures have been taken in recent months and all the arrangements are made to provide them with the best welcome and security conditions," he added.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry called on the French government to protect its citizens who live in France and to shed "all the light on this affair."

On Sunday night, a police officer shot dead a Chinese national at his home in Paris after a neighbour called the police to report a domestic dispute.

According to French media, the policeman opened fire against "an assailant with scissors," who attacked the officer and injured him.

However, local Chinese reports, quoting a daughter of the man, said the 160-cm-tall man, a father of five children, did not attack the policeman at all.

"The (victim's ) family totally disputes this version of events. He didn't injure anyone, " Calvin Job, the defense lawyer was quoted as saying by local media.

The shooting on Sunday, triggered a protest of 100 members of the French-Chinese community who gathered outside a police station on the Erik Satie street of the 19th arrondissement to protest against the killing and demand reinforced security.
NAIROBI, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Kenya plans to collect an additional 3 billion U.S. dollars in tax revenues for the 2017/2018 financial year from its tax amnesty law, officials said on Tuesday.

Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) Deputy Commissioner in Charge of Policy Unit James Ojee told a media briefing in Nairobi that the tax amnesty covers Kenyan residents with Foreign Sourced Income as well as withholding tax on rental income.

"We are hoping to increase our tax collection to 17 billion dollars for the 2017/2018 financial year, up from the current 14 billion dollars from our tax amnesty law," Ojee said during a media tax sensitization forum.

In 2016, Kenya passed a tax law that gave amnesty to all Kenya residents with foreign income.

To take advantage of the amnesty, Kenyans have up to Dec. 31, 2017, to declare their foreign sourced income and wealth and will be required to begin paying taxes from January 2018.

Ojee said that Kenyans who have already paid taxes in foreign jurisdictions will receive a tax credit to prevent them from paying tax twice for the same income.

The taxman said that Kenya is currently cooperating with many nations in the enforcement of tax laws.

"We have signed a number of agreements with friendly nations to ensure that Kenyans can't evade paying their rightful share of taxes by concealing their property abroad," the deputy commissioner added.

The tax amnesty was enacted in order to expand the East African nation's tax base.

According to KRA, approximately only two million Kenyans pay income taxes out of an active labor force of about 15 million people.
File photo shows Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) wait to be airlifted to the South Sudanese Northern State of Eastern Nile, in Juba, capital of South Sudan, Janl. 7, 2017. (Xinhua/Gale Julius)

JUBA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the UN World Food Program (WFP) in collaboration with other partners have delivered life-saving assistance to 145,000 people, including 33,000 children under the age of five in South Sudan.

The agencies said 13 mobile emergency teams, known as the Integrated Rapid Response Mechanism (IRRM), have been deployed to areas of Unity State where more than 100,000 people are living in two famine-affected counties, a month since famine was declared in parts of South Sudan.

"Through these missions, we are able to provide critical assistance to large numbers of children who we would not otherwise be able to reach," Jeremy Hopkins, acting UNICEF Representative in South Sudan said in a statement issued in Juba on Tuesday.

"With more than a quarter of a million children estimated to be severely malnourished in South Sudan, the scale of this crisis requires us to respond as quickly and as robustly as possible if we are to prevent children from dying," Hopkins said.

He said the missions go deep into South Sudan, another reminder of the need for full, unimpeded and safe access for all humanitarian workers in the country.

Through the rapid response missions, UNICEF teams have screened more than 5,700 children under five years of age for malnutrition; vaccinated more than 25,000 children against polio and measles; provided 11,500 households with access to safe water, and a further 15,800 with hygiene supplies.

Over 40 separated or unaccompanied children have also been registered so as to begin the family reunification process.

UNICEF and WFP designed the Integrated Rapid Response Mechanism in early 2014 to bring urgent assistance by air and river to desperate families. Since then, rapid response teams have provided aid to more than one million people.

The move came after nearly 1.9 million people -- half of them children -- have been displaced by violence in South Sudan to often inaccessible areas.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks at a news conference near the United Nations General Assembly in New York, U.S., September 22, 2016. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

TEHRAN, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday dismissed the U.S. vice president's claim that Tehran is destabilizing the region, Tasnim news agency reported.

It is Washington's support for Israel that causes insecurity and instability in the region, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said.

"Unfortunately, the United States' polices in support of the Zionist regime (of Israel) and its aggressive measures have worsened insecurity in the Middle East," Qassemi was quoted as saying.

As long as such policies continue, the region and the world will not witness peace and stability, he said.

On Sunday, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said the United States will no longer tolerate what he called "Iran's efforts to destabilize the region and jeopardize Israel's security."

"They've gone to great lengths to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles," he said, adding that "Under President Donald Trump, the United States of America will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. This is our solemn promise to you, to Israel, and to the world."

Qasemi described the toward the Iranian nation and government. He said Iran's nuclear program has been fully peaceful.
BUDAPEST, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The issues of migration and security are global challenges, no country can deal with them on their own, European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said here Tuesday.

Speaking to journalists after meeting with Hungarian Interior Minister Sandor Pinter and Justice Minister Laszlo Trocsanyi, Avramopoulos said: "We are not where we were two years ago, but are using a comprehensive approach, and Hungary is part of it... Only through this joint and coordinated approach can we address the upcoming challenges," he added.

The European Union (EU) and Hungary, an EU member state, have been in a long-running dispute over migrant policy.

"What happens in Syria is not only felt in Turkey or Greece, but also in Hungary and Germany," Avramopoulos explained.

Pinter told reporters that there was an understanding between Hungary and the EU regarding the need to defend EU borders. "We understand that it is necessary to control the citizens of the EU coming in and going out through the borders, and also those coming from third countries," he explained.

"On the issue of passing through the natural border, we had differences, but this difference between the EU and Hungary will be resolved by the beginning of this summer," Pinter said, adding that a joint working group between Hungary and the experts of the EU would be set up to overcome the matter.

Trocsanyi said he briefed Avramopoulos on the necessity of the new Hungarian anti-migration regulations, and that the Hungarian government was ready to continue the dialogue.

Hungary further tightened its anti-migrant legislation on March 7 concerning the treatment of asylum seekers. The reinforced closure of the borders came into effect on Tuesday.

According to the new conditions, asylum seekers can only present their claims in person at one of the transit zones operating on the border, where the applicants must wait until receiving an assessment of their demands. During the evaluation of their claims, the applicants can leave the transit zone only towards Serbia.

Hungarian police will bring back to the transit zones every illegal alien found inside the territory of Hungary. Prior to the modification, the police had the right to transport the illegal aliens from only an 8-km-wide band from the Hungarian border.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) meets with New Zealand Governor-General Patsy Reddy in Auckland, New Zealand, March 28, 2017. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Tuesday met with New Zealand Governor-General Patsy Reddy in Auckland.

China and New Zealand enjoy deep political mutual trust and bilateral relations have the support of both peoples, said Li.

Thanks to joint efforts, China-New Zealand relations have long led in China's ties with developed countries and bilateral cooperation has been fruitful, Li said.

The good relations have promoted common interests of the two countries and are conducive to the peace, stability and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region, he said.

China is willing to work with New Zealand to promote exchanges in education, tourism and culture so as to lift China-New Zealand friendship and cooperation to a higher level, said Li.

Reddy said that her country attaches great importance to its relations with China, and that New Zealand's future is closely related to China's development.

New Zealand is willing to enhance exchanges and deepen cooperation with China for the benefits of the two countries and peoples, Reddy added.

The New Zealand governor-general is the official representative of the New Zealand monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, who resides in Britain.
BRUSSELS, March 28 (Xinhua) -- NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday announced in a statement that NATO would hold a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council this week.

The meeting will take place on March 30 at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, one day ahead of NATO's foreign ministers meeting.

"Following consultations with the members of the NATO-Russia Council, I have invited them to a meeting at ambassadorial level," said the NATO chief.

NATO suspended practical cooperation with Russia in April 2014 in response to the Ukraine crisis, and the NATO-Russia Council was the only channel left open.

The NATO-Russia Council, which was established in 2002, was conceived as a mechanism for consultation, consensus-building, cooperation, joint decision and joint action.
CAPE TOWN, March 28 (Xinhua) -- South Africans on Tuesday mourned the passing of anti-apartheid stalwart Ahmed Kathrada who dedicated his life to the struggle for a free, democratic and non-racial South Africa.

Kathrada died in the early hours of Tuesday morning at the age of 87, the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation said confirmed.

Kathrada passed away peacefully after a short period of illness, following surgery to the brain at the Donald Gordon Hospital in Johannesburg, the foundation said.

President Jacob Zuma has declared a Special Official Funeral for Kathrada.

Under Zuma's instructions, the National Flag flew at half-mast at every station in the country from March 28 until the evening of the official memorial service.

The government is deeply saddened by the death of struggle stalwart Kathrada and joins the millions of South African in extending its deepest condolences to his friends and family, government spokesperson Donald Liphoko said.

The passing of the revolutionary was a great loss for South Africa, said Liphoko.

"Although we are saddened today, we must celebrate the role he played and the sacrifices he made for our country," Liphoko said.

In his last days, he continued to work towards promoting the values and principles enshrined in the Freedom Charter and the Constitution of South Africa, Liphoko said.

The ruling African National Congress (ANC) also issued a statement, saying that with the passing of Kathrada, the nation has lost a titan, an outstanding leader and a great patriot - a man who stands apart for his service to the people of South Africa, and to the country.

"His life is a lesson in humility, tolerance, resilience and a steadfast commitment to principle, even when taking a principled stance would place him at odds with his comrades," ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe said.

Kathrada Foundation Chairperson, Derek Hanekom, was overcome with emotion, saying he has lost a "revolutionary mentor and dear friend."

"Comrade Kathy (Kathrada) was a gentle, humane and humble soul. He was a determined revolutionary who gave his entire life to the liberation struggle in our country," he added.

Neeshan Balton, Executive Director of the foundation, described Kathrada's death as "a great loss to the ANC, the broader liberation movement and South Africa as a whole."

Laloo Chiba, 86, who was imprisoned together with Kathrada on Robben Island by the apartheid regime, said his comrade's death has left a deep vacuum in his life.

"I have worked with Kathy for over 60 years. He has been my strength in prison, my guide in political life and my pillar of strength in the most difficult moments of my life. Now he is gone," said Chiba.

Born on August 21, 1929, Kathrada was introduced to politics as a young boy when he joined a non-racial youth club run by the Young Communist League.

At 17, Kathrada participated in the 1946 Passive Resistance Campaign led by the South African Indian Congress. He was part of 2,000 resisters who were arrested and imprisoned for defying a law that discriminated against Indian South Africans.

He was one of the famous eight Rivonia Trialists of 1963, after being netted in a police swoop of the Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, Johannesburg and was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island.

Kathrada spent 26 years and three months in prison, 18 of which were on Robben Island where Nelson Mandela, who later became South Africa's first black president, was also imprisoned.

Kathrada has had an illustrious political career having served between 1994 and 1999 as the parliamentary counsellor to then President Mandela.

Kathrada is survived by his wife, Barbara Hogan, also an ANC stalwart and veteran.

Kathrada will be buried according to Muslim religious rights, details of which will be made publicly available in due course, according to the Kathrada Foundation.
Kashmiri people gather near the body of a civilian who was killed in government forces firing during his funeral procession in Rangreth, on the outskirts of Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, on March 28, 2017. (Xinhua/Javed Dar)

by Peerzada Arshad Hamid

SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, March 28 (Xinhua) -- At least three civilians and a militant were killed Tuesday in daylong clashes and gunfight respectively with government forces in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said.

The gunfight and clashes broke out at village Durbugh in Chadoora of Budgam district, about 22 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

According to officials a trooper was wounded fighting the holed up militant, while as over two dozen civilians were wounded after police and Indian troops fired upon civilian protesters in the village.

"One militant was killed during a gunfight with troops today in Chadoora," Indian army spokesman, Col Rajesh Kalia told Xinhua. "The gunfight has ended and operation called off."

Clashes erupted in the village immediately after the gunfight broke out. Police officials said the locals mostly youth took to roads shouting anti-India slogans and attacked policemen and Indian army troopers in an apparent bid to end the cordon and help besieged militant to escape. The government forces fired bullets, pellets and dozens of tear smoke shells to chase the protesters, which killed three young men besides wounding several others.

"Three civilians were brought dead to our hospital and 17 others having fire arm wounds have been hospitalised here," Nazir Hussain Chowdary medical superintendent at Srinagar's SMHS hospital said.

Health officials said five others have been admitted at Srinagar's Bone and Joint hospital, besides others at district hospital Budgam. Local media reports put the number of wounded in the clashes beyond 22.

According to Kalia, the village was cordoned off early Tuesday following specific intelligence information about presence of militants in the area.

Locals said the house from where the militant was firing on army and police positions has been damaged fully due to mortar shelling and bomb blasts.

"The gunfight was going on through out the day and the entire area reverberated with sound of blasts and gunfire," Mussaib Hussain said in a telephonic interview from the village. "Several other houses in the neighborhood have also suffered damages."

The slain militant has been identified as a local cadre of Lashkar-e-Toiba.

Meanwhile, the civilian killings have intensified protests in the area and outskirts with people pouring in large numbers to participate in the demonstrations.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep in the psyche of majority of Kashmiris. Irate residents threw stones and brickbats on contingents of police and paramilitary during protests, who respond by firing tear smoke shells, pellets and bullets, which often proves fatal.

The region's separatist leaders have jointly condemned the civilian killings, describing it "brazen state terrorism" and called for a complete shutdown on Wednesday in protest.

A separatist movement and guerilla war challenging New Delhi's rule is going on in Indian-controlled Kashmir since 1989.

People assembling at gunfight sites in support of militants and attacking government forces with stones has evolved as a new phenomenon of resistance in the region. Last month, the Indian army chief General Bipin Rawat warned that "tough action" would be taken against youth throwing stones during counterinsurgency operations. But the anti-India protests and clashes have continued. Despite reprimand from police and army to stay away from gunfight sites, people continue to ignore calls and readily defy restrictions.

On Sunday, two militants belonging to Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) outfit were killed in a gunfight with police in adjacent Pulwama district. Thousands of people participated in the funeral prayers of these slain militants on Monday.

Meanwhile, region's Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti has described the killings "highly unfortunate" and expressed deep anguish and grief.

"It is highly painful to see the young boys losing their lives," she said. "We know there are issues that need to be addressed and resolved but no one will be able to do anything at a point when violence becomes a norm. There is a need for restrain from all sides so that conducive atmosphere is created and dissent is addressed in a peaceful way."

Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan is claimed by both in full. Since their independence from Britain, the two countries have fought three wars, two exclusively over Kashmir.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (R) meets with his Georgian counterpart Giorgi Kvirikashvili in Athens, capital of Greece, on March 28, 2017. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras welcomed his Georgian counterpart Giorgi Kvirikashvili in Athens on Tuesday, on a historic day for Georgian citizens as they are now allowed to travel to the Schengen zone without a visa. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)

by Maria Spiliopoulou

ATHENS, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras welcomed his Georgian counterpart Giorgi Kvirikashvili in Athens on Tuesday, on a historic day for Georgian citizens as they are now allowed to travel to the Schengen zone without a visa.

Both leaders hailed the development which came after nine years of negotiations. The signing ceremony took place in Brussels on March 1 and the regulation came into full effect on Tuesday.

Georgians holding biometric passports can now travel to Schengen members without a visa for a period of 90 days for purposes other than working.

Kvirikasvili is the first Georgian making use of his right to travel to Greece without a visa.

"The opportunity given to Georgian citizens to travel without visa to the Schengen countries is a milestone for the relations of Georgia with the European Union," Tsipras said, according to Greek national news agency AMNA.

The Greek prime minister expressed certainty that it will also help to "strengthen the bilateral relations."

Tsipras stressed that Greece's government and the EU Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos contributed significantly to this development.

On his part, the Georgian leader expressed his gratitude for Greece's support to his country, underlining the "historic value" of his visit to Athens.

"The liberalisation of the visa regime for citizens of Georgia" will give a boost to the number of tourists who will visit Greece and support business cooperation, Kvirikasvili said.
MOSCOW, March 28 (Xinhua) -- All sanctions imposed on Russian companies, including the country's oil and gas giant Rosneft, are illegal, a senior Russian diplomat said Tuesday.

"I would propose to this court to familiarize itself with the UN Charter. Only the UN Security Council has the political right to announce sanctions against countries and foreign companies," Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksey Meshkov was quoted as saying by Sputnik.

He was referring to a ruling of the European Court of Justice.

Earlier in the day, the court in Luxembourg ruled that economic sanctions adopted by the EU on Russian undertakings over the Ukrainian crisis are valid, rejecting Rosneft's request to remove EU sanctions against it.

"The Court of Justice has jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings on the legality of restrictive measures against individuals or entities in the context of the common foreign and security policy," the court said in its ruling.

It said that strengthening sanctions against Russia was also proportionate to "the interference with Rosneft's freedom to conduct a business and its right to property."

Rosneft, a major party to the dispute, said it was disappointed by the court's decision.

"Rosneft considers the decision of the EU Court of Justice ... illegal, groundless and politicized," Rosneft said in a press release.

"Rosneft continues to insist that it has not committed any illegal actions in any jurisdiction of the company's activities, including Ukraine, and has no link to the Ukrainian crisis," the company said.

Rosneft filed a legal challenge against EU's decision in July 2014 to restrict certain financial transactions and sensitive exports of Rosneft.
President of the African Development Bank Akinwumi Adesina delivers a speech during the opening ceremony of the second international conference on the emergence of Africa in Cote d'Ivoire's commercial capital Abidjan on March 28, 2017. (Xinhua/Ivan)

ABIDJAN, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The second international conference on the emergence of Africa opened Tuesday in Abidjan to discuss the practices which will lead the development of the African continent.

The conference brings together some 400 participants, including Heads of state from countries including Senegal, Guinea, Liberia, and Cote d'Ivoire, leading figures from international and regional development institutions and academic research centers as well as experts from around the world.

At the opening of the meeting, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) administrator, Helen Clark, welcomed the progress made by African economies.

The conference ends on Thursday. The previous conference was held in Abidjan in 2015.
BANGKOK, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Thai Airways International's (THAI) first Beijing-Phuket direct flight has touched down at Phuket International Airport in southern Thailand, according to Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) on Tuesday.

THAI has launched four-times weekly direct flights between China's capital Beijing and southern Thailand's famous beach destination Phuket. The flights will be carried out with 264-seat Dreamliner B787 planes.

The flight time is about five hours and 35 minutes. With flights incoming from Beijing on Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and outgoing flights on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday, the service will allow travelers from Beijing to fly to Phuket for long weekend visits.

Bangornrat Chinaprayoon, Director of TAT Beijing Office said this new air access will allow Chinese tourists to fly to Phuket directly with no hassles and start enjoying the beach and local culture as soon as they touch down.

Before the launch of direct flights, Chinese tourists from Beijing have to fly to Bangkok first and take a transfer there to get to the island.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and his New Zealand counterpart Bill English visit a Chinese-owned research and development (R&D) center in Auckland, New Zealand, March 28, 2017. The R&D center was established in 2014 by Chinese household appliance giant Haier and New Zealand-based Fisher & Paykel, which was bought by Haier Group in 2012. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited a Chinese-owned research and development (R&D) center here Tuesday, and called for closer bilateral innovation cooperation.

The R&D center was established in 2014 by Chinese household appliance giant Haier and New Zealand-based Fisher & Paykel, which was bought by Haier Group in 2012. The center mainly focuses on developing cutting-edge technology in household appliances.

Li encouraged the technicians of both sides to enhance innovation cooperation, so as to create more innovative technology and high-quality products.

Noting that China regards innovation as the top driving force of development, Li said that China and New Zealand should make use of each other's complementary advantages to develop some world-leading products.

Li noted that the two countries should work together to explore third-party markets, so as to realize common benefits for each party.

Li arrived in Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, on Monday afternoon to continue his visit to the country. He is scheduled to wrap up his whole trip on Wednesday.
NEW DELHI, March 28 (Xinhua) -- India Tuesday described Monday's mob attack on Nigerian students in the northern city of Greatern Noida near Delhi as "deplorable," vowing to ensure the safety and security of all foreigners in this country.

India's junior foreign minister M.J. Akbar has spoken to the Acting High Commissioner of Nigeria, explaining the steps that are being taken by local authorities for the "safety and security of Nigerian nationals," the Indian External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry's response came hours after Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj assured a thorough probe into the mob attack on the Nigerian students even as police claimed to have arrested seven people in connection with the incident.

Swaraj said she has spoken to the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath about the incident in Greater Noida and sought a report from the state government.

"He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident," the minister tweeted.

The Minister's response came after a Nigerian student in Greater Noida took to Twitter and pleaded with her for swift action, saying that living in the area has become "a life threatening issue."

The attack on the Nigerian students took place Monday evening and it coincided with a protest that was organized by online groups who blamed the unexplained death of a teenage student on the African community.

The protesters alleged that the student, identified as Manish Khari, was supplied drugs by Africans who live in the area. However, doctors have not yet confirmed if the death was due to overdose of drugs.

Local TV channels beamed footage of a video apparently shot on a mobile phone that showed a large group of people, mostly local residents, thrashing one of the African students and hitting him with steel dustbins at a shopping mall.

"This is not expected from a country which says athithi devo bhavo (a guest is God). There is much hue and cry if Indians are attacked abroad, but why are we being treated like animals," one of the students told the media.

Police in Greater Noida said they have so far arrested seven persons, mostly local residents, in connection with the incident.

"We have also identified 300 other local residents who were involved in the incident from closed-circuit TV cameras installed in the area. All the perpetrators will soon be arrested and booked for attempt to murder," a senior police official said.

Attacks on Africans in and around Delhi is not uncommon. Last year, some Nigerians were beaten up in Delhi's Chhatarpur area.
Syrian government forces advance on the eastern outskirts of Aleppo on March 8, 2017 near the town of Al-Khafsah, where regime forces retook a key water pumping station the day before. (AFP PHOTO)

MOSCOW, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Syrian government troops supported by Russian air force have scored a number of victories in the west and the center of the war-torn country, the Russian General Staff said Tuesday.

"A total of 115 settlements and over 1,100 square kilometers of territory have been liberated from Islamic State terrorists since the beginning of March," Col. Gen. Sergey Rudskoy, chief of the General Staff's Main Operations Department, told a news briefing.

Syrian troops have launched a counteroffensive operation in the west of the country, where a group numbering 10,000 militants had managed to seize several settlements, he said.

More than 2,100 militants, 55 armored vehicles and more than 100 cars with heavy weapons were destroyed in the four days of fighting in this region, said Rudskoy.

He said the Syrian army also conducted successful operations against terrorists near the country's capital of Damascus, and in the northeast of Aleppo province and in the vicinity of the recently liberated ancient city of Palmyra.

Meanwhile, the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties continued providing medical assistance and distributing food to civilians throughout Syria, Rudskoy said.

He said a detachment of Russian sappers had conducted mine clearing in 18 areas of Palmyra, including 940 buildings on the territory of more than 445 hectares, 46 km of roads, neutralizing more than 1,800 explosive items and improvised explosive devices.

In another development, the fifth and latest round of UN-mediated political talks resumed Friday in a bid to broker a political deal to end the six-year-old Syrian conflict, which has killed over 310,000 people and displaced millions more.
LUSAKA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Authorities in Zambia on Tuesday said they had arrested 55 foreign nationals for staying illegally in the country.

The foreign nationals were arrested after operations conducted in two suburbs of Lusaka, the country's capital, the Immigration Department said in a statement.

The arrested included 51 female Zimbabweans, two female Malawians, one female from Botswana and one male from South Africa, said the statement.

The foreigners were arrested from two separate lodges in the two suburbs, it added.

According to the statement, half of those arrested were undocumented while the rest had overstayed in the country.
ISLAMABAD, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The Pakistani senate on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment to revive military courts for trials of terrorism-related cases.

The two-year term of the military courts expired in January and both the treasury and opposition benches joined hands to pass a constitutional amendment for a two-year extension.

During the voting, 78 members in the 104-member house supported the bill while only three senators from the Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party opposed the amendment. The Islamic party Jamiat ulema-e-islam (JUI-F) did not attend the session.

The National Assembly, or the lower house of the parliament, already approved the amendment last week. The law will be a part of the constitution with the president's signature.

The military courts were established for the speedy trial of the terrorists after the deadliest attack on an army public school in Peshawar in December 2014. Nearly 150 people, mostly students, were killed in the Taliban claimed attack.

The army said this month that the military courts have so far awarded death sentence to a total of 161 terrorists and 21 of them have been executed.

Speaking on the occasion, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said that extension in the military courts is a need of the hour to eradicate terrorism from the country.

"We should not be apologetic on extending the term of military courts for another two years as it is a right decision," the minister said, adding terrorists have no religion, sect, ethnicity or country and they always pursue an agenda of destruction.

Leader of an opposition party Aitzaz Ahsan said that his Pakistan Peoples Party supported the move as the party supports the move to root out terrorism.
LONDON, March 28 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday braces herself to trigger what she has described as one of the most important historic events in British history.

She will dispatch a letter to Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, formally telling him that Britain is exiting the European bloc.

May is reported to have told her cabinet of ministers in a Downing Street meeting last week that her long-awaited note to Tusk would be a substantial statement of Britain's intentions after Brexit and set the tone for the country's new relationship with Europe and the world.

After sending her letter, May will make a statement to members of parliament in the House of Commons as she paves the way for her next move.

Downing Street confirmed Tuesday that May will make a speech in the chamber at the end of her weekly 30-minute Prime Minister's Questions.

Tusk is expected to respond quite quickly to May, acknowledging receipt of her letter, but it will be April 29 when the leaders of the remaining 27 EU member states hold a special session to debate Brexit.

A day later May's government will publish a white paper setting out details of a proposed Great Repeal Bill. This bill will absorb into British law the thousands of pieces of legislation agreed by the EU during the past years of the country's membership of the bloc.

Article 50 is a requirement under the EU's Treaty of Lisbon, setting out the process for a member state to leave. Once Article 50 is triggered, it kick-starts a two-year process for talks on a future relationship between the EU and the departing member.

That would mean Britain provisionally expected to complete its exit on March 29, 2019. But political experts have that time limit could be extended by mutual consent.

The final deal laying out Britain's new relationship with the EU will have to be okayed by the 27 member states.

The triggering of Article 50 came after Britain voted in a referendum to leave the EU by a margin of 52 to 48, with more than 33 million people voting, the biggest turnout in history in Britain.

The day after the June 23 vote result was announced, then shocked prime minister David Cameron resigned, and was succeeded just a few days later by his then home secretary Theresa May.

Although May had supported Britain remaining a member of the EU, she said: "Brexit means Brexit."

Pro-EU politicians from across the political spectrum attempted measures aimed at reversing the decision, with calls for a second vote. But May stood firm, backed by her Brexit Secretary David Davis.

Addressing her cabinet at Downing Street earlier, May said the triggering of Article 50 on Wednesday would open a bold new chapter for Britain as a prosperous, open and global nation.
ABUJA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The Nigerian government forces on Tuesday opened an investigation on a 17-year-old terror suspect, who was nabbed while on a mission to spy on two crowded markets in the northeastern state of Borno.

The boy was sent on the mission by a commander of the terror group Boko Haram, said Ibrahim Abdullahi, head of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps in Borno State.

According to the security commander, the boy had during confession said he was forced to kill 13 people held captive by Boko Haram.

The suspect was held captive for three years by Boko Haram in a forest at Kalabalge district of Borno State.

He has already told investigators that more than 500 children of his age were initiated as child soldiers in the forest by the terror group.

During the period, they were trained to dismantle and repair AK-47 rifles, he added.

The suspect's parents have been identified by security forces as internally displaced persons taking refuge at a camp.

The suspect will be handed over to the military for further investigation and profiling, Abdullahi told Xinhua.

Boko Haram has been blamed for more than 20,000 deaths and displacement of 2.3 million people in Nigeria since 2009.

The Nigerian government has made a considerable gain on the Boko Haram front, with its security forces operating in the restive region dislodging the fighters from the Sambisa Forest, the group's largest training camp in the country, last December.

Government forces are intensifying aerial and ground patrols in the country's northeast.
BEIJING, March 28 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) on Tuesday jointly announced the launch of a strategic plan in a bid to reduce hunger in China and other developing countries.

As a collaboration among the MOA, WFP and other partners, the five-year plan lasting from 2017 to 2021 aims to help realize the goal of ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture, one of the 17 goals raised by the UN for its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, according to the launch event.

By implementing the plan, China and WFP hope to bring about several outcomes, including reducing the stunting rate among Chinese children, providing smallholder farmers with better conditions and access to markets, as well as improving South-South cooperation between China and other developing countries.

The plan will not only help people in remote and poor areas in China, but also serve as an example for other developing countries to reduce poverty and hunger, said Sui Pengfei, director-general of International Cooperation of the MOA.

He added that this will be a new starting point for cooperation between China and the WFP.

More than 30 million Chinese people were assisted by WFP's projects from 1979 to 2005. China, for its part, lifted 700 million people out of poverty over the past 30 years and has vowed to eradicate poverty in the country by 2020, making its experience in reducing hunger an example for countries seeking to replicate such success.

In 2005, the year it stopped receiving food aid from WFP, China became the world's third-largest food aid donor, following the United States and the European Union.

As China is a source of inspiration for other developing countries and cooperation with them, as well as an increasingly important donor, the partnership between China and WFP is especially meaningful, said Stanlake Samkange, Policy and Programme Director of WFP.

"China has transformed itself over the past three decades, reducing hunger and improving the livelihood for millions of people," said Qu Sixi, country director of WFP China. "WFP could help the Chinese people and share China's rich experience in an innovative way."
VIENTIANE, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Isuzu has an ambitious plan to increase its market share to 30 percent both in Laos and Cambodia over the years to come using success-proven marketing technique of Tri Petch Isuzu Sales, a partnership between Mitsubishi Corporation and Isuzu Motors (Japan), Lao News Agency (KPL) reported on Tuesday.

"In the second half of last year we applied marketing strategy and we could increase our pickup market share to 5 percent in Laos and after this time onward our target would be placed higher as we want to achieve a 30 percent market share in five years," said Akira Odagaki, General Manager in Charge of Laos and Cambodia Markets, Tri Petch Isuzu Sales.

ISUZU plans to conduct more marketing activities not only in Lao capital Vientiane but also in other major provinces in Laos.

Though dominating Thai pickup market for several decades, Isuzu shares a smaller portion of Lao market than Toyota hilux models which currently seizes 80 percent of pickup market in the country.

The management of Tri Petch Isuzu Sales have attributed the small market share held by Isuzu to the fact that Isuzu has just entered Lao market fewer years back while its biggest competitor Toyota has its local distributors authorised in Laos for decades.

Yet Tri Petch Isuzu Sales managers view Laos as a promising market for Isuzu brand, especially its D-Max models.

"Located among many countries, Laos stands in good location and the export from Thailand to Laos and to other enamouring countries can make at ease and Isuzu has many customers doing business with Lao counterparts and those in other neighboring countries. Therefore, we are going to open a service center in Savannakhet next month to provide service to Isuzu customers travelling to these countries," said Odagaki.

The management of the company also are optimistic that the development of many national basic infrastructure projects, either on going or planned, would result in increase in demand for pickup trucks among Lao people.
Nigerian troops dismantle Boko Haram flag in Sambisa.(Photo courtesy of Nigerian Army)

ABUJA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Nigerian troops have defeated terror group Boko Haram and its spiritual leader Abubakar Shekau "is on the run," the country's defense minister Mansur Dan-Ali said Tuesday.

"The (Boko Haram) spiritual headquarters has been ransacked and vandalized. He (Shekau) is on the run, so he may be hiding in one of the enclaves of Sambisa forest that we are dominating," the minister told reporters in Abuja.

He said Shekau, who was twice declared dead by the Nigerian military authorities in 2014, would soon be captured as the troops are now combing the forest for his whereabouts.

Shekau had purportedly released many videos claiming to be alive and threatening to carry out more deadly attacks in the country.

The military said those videos proved to have been doctored following forensic analysis.

"We have dominated the whole stronghold where they used to be. There is where we call 'camp zero', their spiritual and their strong headquarters that they were using as communication base. It was destroyed and as at this same time occupied by our men of the armed forces," the minister said.

The official said the Nigerian military had opened up the Sambisa Forest, which was Boko Haram's largest training camp and has now become a training camp for troops in the northeast region.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has urged the military establishments to redouble their efforts in ensuring peace and stability in the northeast region, Dan-Ali told reporters.

Boko Haram has been blamed for more than 20,000 deaths and displacement of 2.3 million people in Nigeria since 2009. It has also spread its tentacles to countries in the Lake Chad region.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang speaks at a welcoming luncheon organized by the political, business and academic circles of New Zealand in Auckland, New Zealand, March 28, 2017. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and his New Zealand counterpart Bill English on Tuesday here vowed to deepen the relations between the two countries for increased mutual benefits.

Li made the remarks at a welcoming luncheon organized by the political, business and academic circles of New Zealand.

Speaking to more than 500 people present, Li said China-New Zealand ties are experiencing a historic high and cooperation in various areas has reached unprecedented levels.

New Zealand has always been leading among developed countries in developing relations with China, and has created many "firsts," Li said.

New Zealand was among the first countries to acknowledge China's full market economy status, and it was the first developed country that concluded a bilateral free trade agreement with China, among others.

During this visit, the two countries signed a ground-breaking memorandum of understanding on the Belt and Road Initiative, the first such document China has inked with a developed Western country.

The many "firsts" demonstrate that China-New Zealand relations are pioneering, special and exemplary, and have brought about real benefits to the two countries, Li said.

The friendship between China and New Zealand shows that all countries can definitely seek common ground while reserving differences, and become good friends and partners as long as they respect each other, treat each other as equals, and believe the development of the other side is an opportunity rather than a challenge, he said.

Economic globalization, represented by trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, is a major driving force for rapid world economic development, Li said.

The development processes of China and New Zealand show that only through opening-up and inclusiveness can a country prosper, he added.

China is willing to work together with New Zealand and other countries to build a community of shared future for all humankind and improve the global economic governance system so as to let more countries and people benefit from economic globalization, said Li.

To maintain the authority and effectiveness of the multilateral trade system, the premier urged the two countries to jointly promote the setup of open and transparent regional free trade arrangements, which will be conducive to regional and world peace, development and cooperation.

Stressing that China would continue to push forward its supply-side structural reform and steadfastly expand its opening-up, Li said China adopts an open attitude toward any free trade arrangement that promotes regional economic integration.

The Chinese premier also called on the two countries to deepen political mutual trust, work for synergy between the two countries' economic development strategies, expand and upgrade bilateral trade relations, and deepen people-to-people and cultural exchanges.

For his part, English said that Premier Li's visit vigorously advances the development of China-New Zealand relations and pragmatic cooperation in various areas.

The booming Chinese economy provides major opportunities for New Zealand, and the two peoples both benefit from the development of bilateral relations, English said.

New Zealand is willing to continuously develop its special relations with China and make unremitting efforts for the future of the two countries and the peace, stability, development and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region, English said.
LUSAKA, March 28 (Xinhua ) -- Zambian police on Tuesday blocked a hotel where opposition leaders were supposed to hold a press conference.

The press conference, organized by Hakainde Hichilema and other opposition leaders, was scheduled for a hotel in Lusaka, which was however sealed off by the police.

It forced the opposition leaders to shift to the main opposition party's secretariat in another part of the city.

Television footage showed police officers manning the entrance to the hotel while others were stationed around various points. The gate was closed and heavily guarded.

A Zambian police spokesperson said the press conference was stopped as the organizers did not inform the police.

However, the main opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) said they issued a notice last week to inform the police about the planned event.

On Sunday, a youth leader from the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) warned that there would be "war" if the opposition party were allowed to hold its rally.

Meanwhile, former Zambian Vice President Nevers Mumba asked Zambian President Edgar Lungu to seek a path of peace and reconciliation instead of attempting to stop citizens from speaking and congregating.

He said opposition leaders would not be intimidated and would continue speaking out against the deeds of the current government.

Main opposition leader Hichilema also said they would not sit idle and allow the police to continue blocking their peaceful gatherings, adding that the opposition leaders would come up with a strategy to deal with the current situation.

Tensions have been high in Zambia following the disputed August 11 general elections, which the main opposition felt was stolen.

On Sunday, Lungu maintained that he was the duly elected leader of the country and that all those thinking otherwise would have to live with it. Enditem
VILNIUS, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Lithuanian police detained a suspect who allegedly shot to death four members of his family during a shocking attack in the country's Kaunas region on Monday.

Twenty-six-year-old Egidijus Anupraitis fled the crime scene and was detained in the Lithuanian town of Marijampole, around 50 km from where the crime was committed.

The suspect was apprehended following information provided by residents to the police, Darius Pliavga, deputy chief of Kaunas police headquarters, told reporters in a press conference on Tuesday.

"The man had a firearm and ammunition tray with him," Pliavga was quoted as saying by local website 15min.lt. According to Pliavga, Anupraitis had bought the weapon at a shop earlier in March and had passed all necessary medical tests in order to keep it.

According to the police, the motives of the crime remain unclear.

"The crime is extremely cruel, both in terms of the way it was conducted and its scope," Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis, who is also the country's former head of police, said in an interview with local broadcaster LRT.

In a separate meeting with reporters on Tuesday, Skvernelis suggested creating a centralized database for storing data on people who intend to acquire a weapon.

On Monday afternoon, the police received a report that four dead had been shot in Gaizenai village: a man, his wife, the man's mother, and the man's brother. Police officers also found at the scene the suspect's grandfather who was injured in the leg and in shock. The married couple was the suspect's parents, police said.
by Chris Mgidu

NAIROBI, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Four Kenyans are among six aid workers who were killed when their convoy was ambushed last Saturday in South Sudan, Kenya's foreign minister said Tuesday.

Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed said the four Kenyans were working for GREDO, a local NGO funded by UNICEF to build youth centers in Pibor.

"Efforts are currently underway by South Sudan security agents in conjunction with officials from GREDO and UNICEF to recover the bodies of the victims," Mohamed said in a statement issued in Nairobi.

She said the ministry is actively engaging all stakeholders to ascertain the exact circumstances leading to this tragedy.

The attack, the single worst incident targeting aid workers in South Sudan since the outbreak of hostilities in December 2013, came at a time when humanitarian needs have reached unprecedented levels in the African country.

According to the UN, at least 79 aid workers have been killed in South Sudan since the beginning of the December 2013 crisis, including at least 12 killed in 2017, and at least eight humanitarian convoys have been attacked already this year.

Under International Humanitarian Law, intentional attacks against humanitarian relief personnel may constitute war crimes.
by Christine Lagat

NAIROBI, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Kilimall, one of the largest online retail firms in Kenya, plans to enlarge its footprint in the East African nation known for its vibrant e-commerce, the company said Tuesday.

Victor Ma, Managing Director of Kilimall Kenya, said his company intends to expand operations in rural parts of the country while diversifying products sold on its online platforms in order to stay afloat amid fierce competition.

"We are positioning ourselves to reap from the gains of a rapidly expanding online retail market in Kenya by diversifying products range and geographical reach," Ma said at a media briefing in Nairobi.

Kilimall has provided an online market place for electronic goods, home appliances and clothes since its launch in Kenya two and a half years ago.

Ma said the company intends to focus on locally made products in future while expanding its presence in rural towns, where internet connectivity has improved.

Kenya has one of the most vibrant e-commerce sector in sub-Saharan Africa thanks to friendly regulations and higher internet connectivity.

An internal survey conducted by Kilimall between September to November 2016 indicated that 37 percent of Nairobi residents purchased goods through online platforms.

Ma however said that frequent power outages and erratic internet connection in small towns have inhibited growth of Kenya's e-commerce sector.

Meanwhile, Kilimall said it had put in place deterrent measures to curb proliferation of counterfeit products on its online platforms.

Gladys Liu, Marketing Manager at Kilimall Kenya, said the company had been coordinating directly with products' manufacturers to detect and weed out sub-standard goods.
JUBA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said Tuesday that it appealed for about 255 million U.S. dollars to respond to immediate needs of 22 million children in northeast Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen.

In a statement, UNICEF said nearly 1.4 million children are at imminent risk of death from severe acute malnutrition this year.

"We learned from Somalia in 2011 that by the time famine was announced, untold numbers of children had already died. That can't happen again," said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF Director of Emergency Programmes.

Famine was declared a month ago in South Sudan, and will likely be declared soon in Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen where fighting has pushed people off their farmland and droughts have destroyed their animals and crops, according to UNICEF.

"And the risk of famine is not limited to these four countries. As violence, hunger and thirst force people to move within and across borders, malnutrition rates will continue to soar in neighbouring countries as well," warned UNICEF.

It said the crisis is largely human-made, noting that scorched earth tactics by conflicting parties are destroying crops and critical infrastructure like health facilities.

Heavy fighting is forcing farmers to abandon their fields, while also blocking humanitarian those in need, aid agencies have said.

UNICEF said diseases are spreading rapidly in crowded sites for displaced people. And drought is further exacerbating food crises in parts of Africa.

"Children cannot wait for yet another famine declaration -- the time for action is now. We must reverse famine where it exists, and prevent famine where it looms," Fontaine said.
ARUSHA, Tanzania, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Tanzania's small and medium agro-enterprises are going to benefit from a joint project by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Trade Centre (ITC), which aims at equipping them with packaging skills.

The project titled "Improving Food Packaging for Small and Medium Agro-Enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa" aims to train producers in proper packaging to add value to their products and also to ensure their competitiveness in the market. It will be implemented in Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania and Zambia

Fred Kafeero, FAO Tanzania Country Representative, said Tuesday that the project has come at the right time for Tanzania that aims to be and industrial economy.

"The project provides guidance to food chain actors and stakeholders in sub-Saharan Africa including governments and private sector on appropriate food packaging systems including food packaging material, equipment, technologies, knowledge, regulation, services and practices," he said.

According to him, poor packaging is a main reason in most sub-Saharan countries for the failure of locally manufactured food products to compete favorably with imported ones.

"Overcoming the packaging constraints of small and medium agro-enterprises which manufacture the bulk of locally processed food products, will contribute to strengthen the entire food supply chain, improve the competitiveness of SMAEs and benefit all food chain actors and consumers.

The FAO official also said that besides the above benefits, the project is expected to reduce post-harvest losses and contribute to environmental protection.

Joyce Meru, Director of Training and Regional Administration at the Tanzania's Small Industries Development Organization (SIDO), described the project as an impetus to the country's efforts to start sourcing packaging materials locally.

"Most producers are forced to import packaging materials from abroad hence make their products expensive and less competitive in the market," she said.

SIDO has started a center for designing and producing packaging materials to ensure producers get cheap but quality packaging materials to cut costs, according to Meru.
PARIS, March 28 (Xinhua) -- French Interior Minister Matthias Fekl on Tuesday said an inquiry has been opened after a Chinese national was shot dead by a police officer, promising full respect of the law "to establish the facts."

The Paris prosecutor opened an inquiry into the killing of a Chinese man on Sunday night after police had been called to the victim's home in Paris 19th district following reports saying he was armed with a knife and strolling around the building where he was living, according to the minister.

"Investigations will continue and will establish the facts," he said in a statement.

Fekl also called for calm "to allow the current judicial proceedings to pass with the necessary serenity," after a protest by the French-Chinese community on Monday evening turned violent.

Three policemen were injured and a police vehicle was torched during a stand-off between riot police and protesters, the minister said.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry called on the French government to ascertain the truth in a quick manner and effectively protect safety and legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens residing in France.

On Sunday night, a police officer shot dead a Chinese national at his home in Paris after a neighbor called the police to report a domestic dispute.

According to some French media, the policeman opened fire against "an assailant with scissors," who attacked the officer and injured him.

However, local Chinese reports, quoting a daughter of the man, said the 160-cm-tall man, a father of five children, did not attack the policeman at all.

"The (victim's) family totally disputes this version of events. He didn't injure anyone," Calvin Job, a lawyer of the man's family was quoted as saying by local media.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres meets with Syrian refugees at Al Zaatari refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq on March 28, 2017. (Reuters photo)

AMMAN, March 28 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday called for continued support to Jordan to help provide aid and service to Syrian refugees, the state-run Petra news agency reported.

During a visit to the Zatari camp, the UN chief voiced appreciation for Jordan's continued support to Syrian refugees, stressing the need that international organizations extend all support to reduce the pressure of Jordan, which hosts some 1.2 million Syrian refugees.

King Abdullah II of Jordan also met with Guterres and discussed developments in the Middle East and regional efforts to attain Mideast peace.

Discussions also focused on the situation in Syria and the need for a political solution that preserves the security and unity of the country.
BUJUMBURA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Burundi and Belgium have vowed to rehabilitate bilateral relations that had faced "turbulences" since 2015, the Belgian ambassador to Burundi said Tuesday.

"We went through a period of turbulences. Luckily for us, turbulences can not last forever ... What is important is that there is willingness on both sides to improve them," Belgian Ambassador to Burundi Bernard Quintin said after meeting with Burundian National Assembly Speaker Pascal Nyabenda.

"We (Belgium) are willing to resume full cooperation with Burundi, but this will be done step by step," said Quintin.

Relations between Burundi and Belgium, Burundi's former colonial power, have deteriorated since April 2015 when Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza decided to run his controversial third term, which he won in July 2015.

Opponents to Nkurunziza's third term accused him of violating the national constitution and the 2000 Arusha Agreement that ended a decade-long civil war.

Belgium has been accused of hosting some Burundian citizens who staged a failed coup on May 13, 2015 and who are destabilizing the Burundian government by supporting "insurgents".

The Burundian government also accused Belgian authorities of "influencing all decisions" taken by the European Union (EU) against the Burundian government and Burundian citizens.

More than 500 people in Burundi have been killed and some 300,000 people fled to neighboring countries, mostly Tanzania, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) since the outbreak of the crisis.

In December 2016, the Burundian government recalled the Burundian ambassador to Belgium over deteriorating relations between two countries.
VIENNA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern on Tuesday announced plans to make an appeal to the EU so that Austria does not have to take part in the refugee relocation program, local media reported.

The chancellor intends to make the case in written form that Austria be given an exemption from the plan, according to which Austria must accept about 1,900 refugees from Greece and Italy. He claims that as a result of illegal entries, Austria has in effect already fulfilled this quota.

He noted that he does not wish to act as an "agent provocateur" within the EU, or to bring about a legal case against Austria for breaching the agreement.

Kern further conceded that having the appeal approved will be difficult.

The issue has recently been subject to considerable debate within the coalition government.

Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Sobotka from the center-right People's Party had openly admitted he was not happy with the program but acknowledged Austria had to honor the agreement it made. He had just last week also given his Italian counterpart Marco Minniti an assurance it would go ahead.

In response, however, Minister of Defence Hans Peter Doskozil from Kern's Social Democrats spoke out against the move, arguing that Austria already takes in a high number of refugees per capita, and that efforts to shut down illegal migration must be intensified.

On Tuesday, the debate continued with Doskozil reiterating that while the agreement does foresee a fair distribution of refugees, his country is overburdened.

Social Democrats party whip Andreas Schieder said it is time for other countries to step up and take in refugees. Vice-Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner from the People's Party was more pessimistic, stating he did not believe the appeal would be successful.
WINDHOEK, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Namibia is set to lose about 5,000 tonnes of maize to pest outbreak, Eddie Hasheela, Chief Agricultural Scientist in the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry, said Tuesday.

According to Hasheela, it is estimated that this year, the northern and northeastern regions, the country's main maize producers, will produce about a quarter less than their annual production, which is estimated at about 20,000 tonnes.

Fall armyworms and American bollworms have invaded maize fields in regions including Zambezi, Omusati, Kavango West and Kavango East since early this year.

More losses are expected, with the damage and pests impact still hard to assess, Hasheela said.

Meanwhile, containing the pests has been difficult, despite farmers having received government assistance to spray the crops to control the insects, he said.

"The biggest challenge is the big moles flying in the air, and would reproduce once the temperature become favorable. And the chemicals would only work once sprayed by all farmers at the same time, in the right quantity and way, which is when the pests are still young and haven't entered the plants," he added.

Outbreak of the worms was also reported in other SADC countries like Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mozambique.
KIEV, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The explosions at an ammunition warehouse in Ukraine's eastern Kharkov region are endangering the environment in the area, Ukrainian Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Ostap Semerak said on Tuesday.

"After this accident, the area will require environmental rehabilitation," Semerak said in an interview to local media.

He said that the explosions of shells and mines have affected the water, soil and air in the territories surrounding the depot, which contains about 138,000 tons of ammunition.

In the same time, Semerak noted that the area will be completely suitable for habitation after elimination of accident's consequences as there were no chemical weapons at the warehouse.

The explosions started at artillery storage sites at the military base near the town of Balakleya on March 23, triggering a massive fire and the subsequent detonation of the ammunition.

The fire at the base had been already extinguished, but sporadic blasts of the shells and mines which were scattered around the ammunition depot still happen. The operation to clear the area from the unexploded ordnance is underway.
HARARE, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The World Food Programme (WFP) said Tuesday it urgently required 2.3 million U.S. dollars to provide food assistance to refugees in Zimbabwe for the next nine months.

The WFP said in a statement the funding would allow it to provide cash transfers for the general refugee population.

In view of the increased energy and nutrient requirements of chronically ill people in the Tongogara Camp, the WFP would provide such persons with an additional food transfer, it added.

The appeal by the UN agency came at a time when there has been an influx of refugees from Mozambique into Tongogara Camp, with 3,500 Mozambicans fleeing political unrest having been documented in Zimbabwe last year alone.

This follows Zimbabwe's decision to allow asylum seekers settled in the buffer zone along the border between Zimbabwe and Mozambique to be moved either further to relatives in land or to Tongogara Refugee Camp.

Tongogara Refugee Camp is currently home to a total of 8,100 refugees from DR Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and recently Mozambique.

The populations are largely comprised of groups such as single women, single men, the elderly, chronically ill people, and unaccompanied minors with some 5 percent of assisted families being child-headed households.
RIGA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- After hours of debating, the Latvian government decided on Tuesday to close Riga Teacher Training and Educational Management Academy while its students and teaching staff staged a protest outside the Cabinet of Ministers house.

Latvian Education and Science Minister Karlis Sadurskis argued in support of the teacher academy's closure saying that "effectively, it is a reorganization," because the academy's study programs will be transferred to the University of Latvia and the Latvian Academy of Music, and that practically nothing will change for the students.

Supporters of Riga Training and Educational Management Academy said they were considering a lawsuit to stop the reform.

The teacher academy's rector Daina Voita pledged to "stand like a rock" for her students and employees and claimed that the public were being misled about financial gains from the academy's closure.
Visitors walk past by an earthenware named "Strongman" during a media preview of the Exhibition of Civilization of the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B.C.-220 A.D.) in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the United States. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

by Yuan Yue, Li Ming

NEW YORK, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Imagine a pottery male figure with his upper body naked, revealing his natural and astonishingly accurate anatomy. He wears only a short loincloth, imposing his muscles as a strong man.

Statues like this would probably remind people of Greek or Roman civilization. Yet this figure, dating back to over 2,000 years ago, was unearthed in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, in a pit near the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, or the First Emperor of Qin (259 b.c.-210 b.c.).

Now, people in New York have a chance to observe the difference between this "Strongman", as it is called, and famous European sculptures, as Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) opens to public this year's blockbuster show, Exhibition of Civilization of the Qin (221 b.c.-207 b.c.) and Han (202 bc-220 a.d.) Dynasties, from April 3 to July 16 this year.

Featuring more than 160 objects of ancient Chinese art, this international loan exhibition tells the role of art in creating a new and lasting Chinese cultural identity at the beginning of China's feudal society, stretching back to 221 b.c.

"It probably owes some of its inspiration to the Greco-Roman tradition that would have been introduced into Asia by Alexander the Great in the 4th century b.c.," Mike Hearn, the Met's Douglas Dillon Curator in Charge of the Department of Asian Art, commented on the statue.

Photo taken on March 27, 2017 shows a modern replica of bronze Chariot Model during a media preview of the Exhibition of Civilization of the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B.C.-220 A.D.) in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the United States.(Xinhua/Wang Ying)

That was cultural communication way back in the past. And it is also due to cultural communication, this time between China and the U.S. in the present day, a dazzling array of some extremely rare ceramics, metalwork, textiles, sculpture, painting, calligraphy, and architectural models are drawn from 32 museums and archaeological institutions in China to go on display here.

Alongside the seminude Strongman, visitors can get a direct sense of China's old days. The exhibition not only lets you immerse in a terra-cotta army replica and gives you examples of how rulers of that time tried to bring standard measurement to the whole nation, but also tells the longstanding Chinese philosophy of caring for the old, and aristocracy's persistent pursuit of a happy afterlife.

Thomas P. Campbell, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, talks to media during a media preview of the Exhibition of Civilization of the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B.C.-220 A.D.) in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the United States, on March 27, 2017. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

"It takes you back 2,000 years ago, to the foundation of modern China," says Thomas Campbell, director of the Met.

The Qin and Han Dynasties saw an increase of wealth, a leap in craftsmanship, and blossoming art forms. But of all the achievements in the Qin-Han era, the most significant is probably the emergence of national identity, said Jason Sun, Met's Curator of Chinese Art.

"It is during this time of unprecedented change that people began to see themselves as one," he said. Until this day, the Chinese still call themselves the "Han" people.

Many of the works on display have never been seen in the West before, and they deliver a transformational era of the Chinese civilization to a global audience, as well as the influence of foreign culture thereon.

Photo taken on March 27, 2017 shows Burial Ensemble of Dou Wan, including jade with gold wire, pillow of gilt bronze and jade, and jade orifice plugs during a media preview of the Exhibition of Civilization of the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B.C.-220 A.D.) in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the United States.(Xinhua/Wang Ying)

Take the rarely-seen hanging lamp on the shape of a man for example. If you look closer, you can tell that the face of the man belongs to a foreigner, probably from Southeast Asia. The hanging design points directly to the ancient Mediterranean culture, where hanging lamps are prevalent.

China witnessed increasing maritime trade during the Han Dynasty. The influence is easily reflected on artworks' aesthetics and techniques.

"This landmark exhibition, the largest and most important display of Chinese art in the United States this year, establishes a new milestone in the U.S-China cultural exchange," said Campbell.

"We hope the Chinese and American peoples could come even closer to each other through the bonds of culture," said Chinese Culture Minister Luo Shugang, who was there for the exhibition's opening ceremony.

"We hope it can build a strong ground work for all-range cooperation between the two nations, and the development of China-U.S. relationship," he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a news conference at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, January 17, 2017. (REUTERS PHOTO)

MOSCOW, March 28 (Xinhua) -- All sanctions imposed on Russian companies, including the country's oil and gas giant Rosneft, are illegal, a senior Russian diplomat said Tuesday.

"I would propose to this court to familiarize itself with the UN Charter. Only the UN Security Council has the political right to announce sanctions against countries and foreign companies," Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksey Meshkov was quoted as saying by Sputnik.

He was referring to a ruling of the European Court of Justice.

Earlier in the day, the court in Luxembourg ruled that economic sanctions adopted by the EU on Russian undertakings over the Ukrainian crisis are valid, rejecting Rosneft's request to remove EU sanctions against it.

"The Court of Justice has jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings on the legality of restrictive measures against individuals or entities in the context of the common foreign and security policy," the court said in its ruling.

It said that strengthening sanctions against Russia was also proportionate to "the interference with Rosneft's freedom to conduct a business and its right to property."

Rosneft, a major party to the dispute, said it was disappointed by the court's decision.

"Rosneft considers the decision of the EU Court of Justice ... illegal, groundless and politicized," Rosneft said in a press release.

"Rosneft continues to insist that it has not committed any illegal actions in any jurisdiction of the company's activities, including Ukraine, and has no link to the Ukrainian crisis," the company said.

Rosneft filed a legal challenge against EU's decision in July 2014 to restrict certain financial transactions and sensitive exports of Rosneft.
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 28, 2017. (AFP PHOTO)

MOSCOW, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Russia and Iran signed Tuesday a string of cooperation agreements in various fields including the energy sector as President Vladimir Putin hosted his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani for his official visit to Moscow.

The two leaders discussed during the meeting prospects for expanding bilateral trade, economic and investment ties and agreed to deepen Russian-Iranian cooperation in various areas, primarily the economy.

"We noted with satisfaction that trade between Russia and Iran grew by more than 70 percent in 2016. This is a truly good result, since we managed to achieve it amid an unstable global economy and persisting volatility on the commodity and currency markets," Putin said.

According to a joint statement published by the Kremlin, with a consensus of accelerating the implementation of the Roadmap for Cooperation in Trade and Industry, both sides expressed their support for facilitating bilateral product deliveries and developing interbank ties, as well as welcomed an early completion of the preparation work for signing an interim agreement between the Eurasian Economic Union and Iran with regard to the formation of a free trade zone.

The two countries are set to expand cooperation in multiple energy sectors and continue coordinated efforts to stabilize international markets, with "particular attention" being paid to bilateral projects in the nuclear power industry, the statement said.

Russia's Rosatom state nuclear corporation and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) signed a memorandum of understanding on transport of nuclear materials following the meeting between the two leaders.

Other agreements signed on the day include documents on cooperation in railway transport, oil and gas, information technologies and communications, construction, sport, tourism and the legal sphere.

"We are at a new stage in our economic relations, and our overall links have graduated from ordinary to major long-term projects," said Rouhani, "we are making the right decisions serving the long-term strategy of our relations."

In addition to enhancing bilateral cooperation, Putin and Rouhani also toughed upon important current issues on the global and regional agenda, underling the importance of fighting international terrorism. The two leaders pledged to further strengthen cooperation in pushing forward a peaceful political settlement in Syria and the national reconciliation in Afghanistan.

Rouhani's two-day trip to Moscow, which started on Monday, was considered as one of his important and historical official visits to Russia, as bilateral ties in various fields have been flourishing over the past years. The Middle East conflicts, particularly the Syrian issue, have recently brought the tow neighbors closer for cooperation, experts say.
BERLIN, March 28 (Xinhua) -- German federal prosecutor's office on Tuesday launched an investigation into suspected spying by Turkish intelligence service.

On suspicion of espionage in Germany, the Karlsruhe-based procuratorate will target the "unnamed entity", said its spokesman.

Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA) reported that the probe might be directed at Turkish secret service MIT, since it has allegedly watched closely on Gulen movement supporters.

The German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere on the same day said Germany would not tolerate foreign espionage on its territory, responding to media reports alleging that the MIT was spying on supporters of Fethullah Gulen, exiled spiritual leader living in the United States.

Germany's spy chief, Bruno Kahl, claimed to have received a list of 300 people from his Turkish counterpart -- whom the Turkish government believes are followers of the exiled Gulen.

The list -- which was handed over at a security conference in Munich -- is said to contain surveillance photographs and personal data, the BBC has reported. The MIT had hoped for Germany's assistance in tracking the individuals on the list.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insists that Gulen -- who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania in the United States -- was behind an attempted coup to unseat Erdogan, in July last year.

"No matter what position someone may have on the Gulen movement, here German jurisdiction applies and citizens will not be spied on by foreign countries," said Maziere, according to the BBC.

Following the revelation of Turkish spying, German authorities informed all 300 individuals on the list and the federal prosecutor confirmed to local newspaper, Der Spiegel, that they would proceed with investigations of alleged members of the MIT operating in Germany.

Relations between Berlin and Ankara are at perhaps their lowest levels following orders to ban Turkish politicians from campaigning in Germany for a controversial referendum, set for April 16, which would considerably strengthen Erdogan's powers.

Allegations of Turkish spying in Germany dated back at least the end of last year and have also focused on members of the Kurdish diaspora -- whom Ankara suspects of sympathizing with a separatist movement.

Last month, German police raided apartments of four clerics suspected of being spies for the Turkish government.
ALGIERS, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Congolese President Denis Sassou N'Guesso said here on Tuesday that his visit to Algeria was a success, as he was received by Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

After the meeting, Sassou N'Guesso told reporters that his talks with Bouteflika focused on bilateral cooperation and issues of common interest.

The Congolese president hailed the meeting with Bouteflika, saying that they have agreed to give the "bilateral relations a new impetus."

The two sides have signed 15 cooperation agreements and memorandum of understandings (MoUs) in different fields, he added.

They also discussed regional and international issues of common interest, including the Libyan crisis, as Algeria and Congo are part of the 10 states commission of the African Union aiming at helping Libyan warrant parties to reach peaceful solution, Sassou N'Guesso said.

The signing ceremony, co-chaired by Sassou N'Guesso and Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal, promoted agreements relating to different sectors, including diplomacy, information and communication technologies, culture, higher education, trade, water resources, agriculture and environment.

Sassou N'Guesso on Monday kicked off a four-day visit to the North African nation at the invitation of his counterpart.
TSHOLOTSHO, ZIMBABWE, March 28 (Xinhua) -- For 65-year-old Elizabeth Nyoni, bitter emotions aroused whenever she pondered how she would rebuild her life after recent floods destroyed her homestead, livestock and property.

Sitting in a tent with five other grannies at Sipepa transit camp, Nyoni represents the hardest-hit group by the Cyclone Dineo in February.

She is among the 859 people who are accommodated at Sipepa in Tsholotsho, 200 km north west of the second largest city of Bulawayo, after Dineo induced-floods destroyed their mainly pole and mud houses.

Nyoni said her life had been very difficult after she lost her husband and all her five children. She is looking after the grandchildren and stayed with five of them at the transit camp.

"Now, the floods have worsened my situation as I have lost the only home that I had as well as livestock. I do not know how I will be able to look after my grandchildren," she said.

Bessi Ndlovu, 68, who is staying with her eight grandchildren at the transit camp, said she did not know how she would rebuild life destroyed by flood.

"I am now old and no longer have the strength to rebuild. I appeal to our government and donors to help us to rebuild our homesteads," she said.

Studying at Lupane University in Matabeleland North Province, 20-year-old Lorraine Nkala will have to join her mother at the transit camp when school closes in May.

Her family house was destroyed by the floods and her mother, Silindile Nkala, 51, is staying at the camp where living conditions are poor.

Silindile Nkala said she had not only lost a homestead and property, but a grocery shop that was her source of livelihood.

"As I sit here, my greatest worry is losing that grocery shop. We earned money from the shop for our family upkeep and now I do not know how I will be able to pay school fees for my daughter at university," she said.

Sixty-seven year-old Jesilina Masuku, staying with her nine grandchildren at the transit camp, has only one request.

"My appeal is for the government to urgently relocate us to an identified new site that is safe from floods. While we appreciate the assistance that has been rendered to us by government, donors and well-wishers so far, we feel this camp is becoming a heath time bomb due to poor living conditions," she said.

Masuku's sentiments were echoed by many flood victims at the transit camp.

The victims interviewed by Xinhua said they could no longer wait to be relocated as they feared disease outbreaks and also wanted to be free so they could re-start normal lives.

The flood victims started to settle at the camp on February 19 after being airlifted from their flooded homes, and are expected to stay there until mid May.

The government has promised to permanently relocate 298 households to higher ground approximately 10 km from the flood-prone area at an estimated cost of 3.6 million U.S. dollars.

"We feel restricted in this camp. The food that we are getting is not enough, we don't have enough clothes and blankets and the communal toilets we are using are dirty. Most children are also now suffering from diarrhea," said Masuku.

Masuku also had an appeal to the Chinese government to assist with building homesteads for flood victims, hailing China's efficient low-cost house construction technologies.

Poor living conditions are palpable at the transit camp, where as many as 25 people from several families are living in one small tent.

Women and children appear to have been the worst affected. In one case, Getrude Sibanda, 57, had to leave her husband and children in Hurungwe more than 200 km away to come and stay with her 81-year-old injured mother at the transit camp.

Sibanda's mother, after being rescued 12 hours after the house in which she was sleeping collapsed on her, was diagnosed with mental problems.

"I am having problems getting medication for my mother. The doctors confirmed that she suffered some brain damage and I can't get her medication at Sipepa Clinic," she said.

There is not only a shortage of tents for accommodation but of medicines at the nearby Sipepa Clinic, said Never Nkomo, a 50 year-old grandmother who was now plagued by frequent nightmares after the horrific experience of the floods.

According to the Civil Protection Unit (CPU), there is need to support health and nutrition for families who lost their food stuffs in the district. It added that the affected children also need micro nutrients to prevent malnutrition.

"There is a shortage of essential drugs due to increased demand especially in Tsholotsho," the CPU said, adding there is potential for the outbreak of common diarrheal, dysentery, typhoid and cholera in Tsholotsho and other flood-hit areas.

To ensure school children have uninterrupted access to education, the government with the assistance of UNICEF has erected a makeshift primary school.

Voluntary organization Childline Zimbabwe has also moved onto the camp site where it has established a play center for the children to keep them busy. The center also provides counseling and support services to the children, according to the organization's social worker and counselor Duduzile Moyo.

For the families that were lucky to remain with a few livestock, their men have to stay in the village to look after the livestock.

Tsholotsho district is one of the areas worst affected by the Dineo-induced floods that hit mostly southern parts of Zimbabwe in February.

The heavy rains received in Zimbabwe since January have left 271 people dead, 128 injured and nearly 2,000 homeless.

According to the Civil Protection Unit, nearly 2,600 homesteads were also damaged in varying degrees. Many roads, schools, health and water infrastructure were also destroyed.

The Zimbabwe National Water Authority has said over 100,000 people are without safe drinking water following the damage to water supply infrastructure.

President Robert Mugabe on March 2 declared the floods to be a national disaster, leading to the launching of a domestic and international appeal for nearly 189 million dollars to help victims and repair infrastructure.

The Chinese government has announced that it will donate 1 million U.S. dollars in cash transfer to help the flood victims.
TALLINN, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Estonia welcomed Georgians' status to travel to the EU and the Schengen Area for short stays without a visa starting from Tuesday.

"Estonia is delighted to welcome Georgians in Estonia. It is an important step in EU-Georgia relations. The visa liberalization will increase people-to-people contacts, promote tourism and strengthen business ties," said Paul Teesalu, Political Director of Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Teesalu said Georgia expressed its firm commitment to EU integration by fulfilling necessary conditions for visa liberalization.

Coming into force on Tuesday, the Decision gives Georgian citizens holding biometric passports the right to stay for a period of 90 days within any 180-day period without a visa in 30 countries in the EU and the Schengen Area.

In 2016, Estonia issued short-term Schengen visas to 1,713 Georgian citizens. During first three months of this year, Estonian Embassy in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia, has issued 437 short-term visas, according to the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
ZAGREB, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the European Union (EU) and Canada would respect EU standards and values, visiting EU commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said here Tuesday.

CETA would not lower existing standards for the protection of labor rights, environment and food safety, she said in her address to the Croatian parliament.

The treaty would bring many advantages, including lower customs duties and simplified procedures, she said, adding it would make Croatian companies more competitive.

Croatia will CETA this summer, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said after discussing EU's common trade policy with Malmstrom.

The EU's common trade policy has contributed to economic growth, he added.

Croatia annually exported 200 million kuna (about 29 million U.S. dollars) worth of commodities to Canada, as well as 450 million kuna in transport, telecommunications and tourism services, according to local media.
RABAT, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Morocco's Competition Council and China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) have agreed to reinforce cooperation in regulating commerce, the Moroccan council said in a statement on Tuesday.

During a recent meeting in the Moroccan capital Rabat, the head of the council, Abdelali Benamour, the head of SAIC, Zhang Mao, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the exchange of know-how and training of executives in regulating commerce, the statement pointed out.

The meeting was also an opportunity to discuss issues related to the examination of competition law and policy in China and Morocco, and means to boost cooperation between the two countries, it added.

On Friday, Zhang Mao and the Moroccan Minister of Industry, Trade, Investment and the Digital Economy, Moulay Hafid Elalamy, inked another MoU aimed at developing bilateral cooperation in the field of consumer protection.

The agreement is meant to strengthen the exchange of experience and expertise in consumer protection as well as to promote the effective enforcement of consumer protection laws and regulations in the two countries in order to strengthen bilateral trade relations.
U.S. President Donald Trump holds up an executive order on "energy independence" during a signing ceremony at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters in Washington, U.S., March 28, 2017. (Xinhua/REUTERS)

WASHINGTON, March 28 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order aimed at reversing his predecessor Barack Obama's climate policies, a move that sparked praise from energy industry, criticism from environmentalists and, almost certainly, legal challenges in the future.

Trump, who once called climate change a "hoax," signed the Energy Independence Executive Order, during his first visit to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which would see a 31 percent reduction in funding and 3,200 jobs cut under Trump's 2018 fiscal year budget request.

Flanked by coal miners invited to attend the signing, the president hailed the order as "the start of a new era" in American energy production that he said would put an end to the "war on coal."

"With today's executive action, I am taking historic steps to lift the restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion and to cancel job-killing regulations," Trump said.

It will "allow our companies and our workers to thrive, compete, and succeed on a level playing field for the first time in a long time," he said.

The main target of the order is the so-called Clean Power Plan, a signature effort by Obama to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants in keeping with promises of the 2015 landmark global climate deal known as Paris Agreement.

The order directed the EPA to "suspend, revise, or rescind" actions related to the Obama-era rule, which it said "would stifle the American energy industry" but actually has been put on hold by the U.S. Supreme Court in February 2016.

The decree also lifted a ban on coal leasing on public lands and restrictions on the production of oil, natural gas, and shale energy, disbanded an interagency working group on the social cost of greenhouse gases, and revoked Obama's memorandums such as the one that addressed climate change and national security.

In addition, it directed all agencies to conduct a review of existing actions that "harm domestic energy production and suspend, revise, or rescind actions that are not mandated by law."

Trump has threatened to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement during his presidential campaign, but the order did not address this issue.

"In terms of the Paris agreement, whether we stay in or not is still under discussion," a senior White House official told reporters during a background briefing.

When further asked how to describe the fight against climate change, the official said: "I think it's an issue that deserves attention, but, again, I think the president has been very clear that he's not going to pursue climate or environmental policies that put the U.S. economy at risk. It's very simple."

Trump's move came one day after a Gallup poll showed that the share of the U.S. population concerned about climate change has reached a new high of 50 percent.

The number is up slightly from 47 percent in 2016 but a whopping 13 percentage points above the 37 percent recorded only two years ago, according to Gallup.

Some energy companies are celebrating the executive order as a step forward in advancing the U.S. energy renaissance.

"We look forward to working with the Trump administration and Congress on forward-looking energy policies that will help ensure the United States continues leading the world in the production and refining of oil and natural gas, and in the reduction of carbon emissions," American Petroleum Institute president and CEO Jack Gerard said in a statement.

Gina McCarthy, who served as EPA chief under Obama, however, said the order wants "us to travel back to when smokestacks damaged our health and polluted our air, instead of taking every opportunity to support clean jobs of the future."

"This is not just dangerous," McCarthy said in a statement. "It's embarrassing to us and our businesses on a global scale to be dismissing opportunities for new technologies, economic growth, and U.S. leadership."

Michael Brune, executive director of Sierra Club, a U.S. environmental organization, described Trump's order as "the single biggest attack on climate action in U.S. history" and vowed to fight it "in the courts, in the streets, and at the state and local level across America to protect the health of every community."

Experts also questioned Trump's statement that the order will eventually help boost economic growth and job creation.

"The order will likely have limited impact on U.S. employment and economic growth," Jake Schmidt, international program director for the U.S.-based Natural Resources Defense Council, told Xinhua.

"If anything it may slow employment growth and economic development as one of the fastest growing sectors in the U.S. is the clean energy sector."
LONDON, March 28 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Theresa May made telephone calls Tuesday night to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Downing Street said.

A Downing Street spokesperson said the phone calls were aimed to "update them ahead of the letter giving notification of the UK's intention to withdraw from the European Union being delivered tomorrow.

"In separate calls, they agreed that a strong EU was in everyone's interests and that the UK would remain a close and committed ally.

"They also agreed on the importance of entering into negotiations in a constructive and positive spirit, and of ensuring a smooth and orderly exit process," the spokesperson said.

After the phone calls, May signed the Article 50 notification letter which will officially begin Britain's exit from the European Union (EU), local media said.

May will officially trigger Article 50 in the letter that will be hand delivered to Tusk at 1:30 p.m. Brussels time on Wednesday, the BBC reported.
PARIS, March 28 (Xinhua) -- French presidential hopeful Emmanual Macron on Tuesday defended his "method of real shifts in power" and specified the manner in which he plans to run the country if he gets elected.

The founder of the "En Marche!" movement has entered into the fray to respond to his detractors who claim that, if he is elected, he will not be able to govern, for lack of a coherent parliamentary majority.

"Our objective is to turn the page on the last five years, and more broadly the last 20 years, with the political practices which accompanied them," Macron, the former Economy Minister of sitting President Francois Hollande, told a press conference, at his campaign headquarters.

"I wanted to present the method of real changes in power that we are in the process of constructing, that between powerlessness and efficiency, between the world of yesterday and the new world," said Macron.

He said his objective is "to make work together those who share our project, regardless of the camp from which they come," "to change customs, and also faces, because we cannot make something new with the old."

The "En Marche!" founder denounced the "tick-tock of the right and left," "the ministers chosen for their supposed political weight and without any other legitimacy than the fact to be apparatchiks," as well as the political class "still too made up of men over 50 years-old."

Macron, shoulder to shoulder in polls with the president of the far-right National Front (FN) Marine Le Pen in the race for the presidency, clearly wanted to cut short the recurring critiques which call into doubt his ability to govern and to dispose of a parliamentary majority.

The presidential hopeful first traced the contours of his government which he says will not be run by a newcomer but by an experienced political manager, "chosen by their skills."

The government will be cut back and only contain 15 ministers, appointed for their strengths and not "for their political weight," he said.

Half will be women, "including ministries in the foreground," he said. A "consequential part" of the minsters will come from civil society, continued Macron.

The candidate for "En Marche!" also committed himself to putting an end to the "hyper-management" of the President of the Republic. Ministers will work under the authority of the first among them, "with a clear roadmap" and "according to the objectives (which will be) fixed," he declared.

The former economy minister also made it clear that despite having support from both the right and the left, he would not be taken hostage by the different political sensibilities who backed him. "All the sponsorships are welcome, but no sponsorship will stop me from reforming and advancing," he insisted.

As the first round of voting in presidential elections draws near, the question of June legislative elections has begun to become more pressing. If the candidates of "En Marche!" aren't carried by the wave of presidential elections, a Macron presidency would be constrained to form a parliamentary coalition, even to form a cohabitation government from the start of his term, according to his detractors.

Macron swept the hypothesis aside, by saying, "My government will be able to rely on a parliamentary majority which will be obtained thanks to the coherence the French have always demonstrated."

"The movement will be open but coherent, it will be a majority of efficiency. We will invest 577 candidates under the banner of the presidential majority. There will be one half made up of female candidates and they will be irreproachable from a legal point of view," he said. "There will be no agreement of political machinery."

Macron also indicated that the naming of candidates for the legislative elections would be done "by successive waves" starting "the day after the second round of presidential elections" scheduled for May 7.

The presidential candidate ended his statement by evoking the numerous undecided voters who, according to several surveys, confirm that they still haven't chosen who they will vote for on April 23, during the first round of the elections. According to those polls, close to half of Macron's potential voters would still be particularly unstable.
U.S. President Donald Trump holds up an executive order on "energy independence" during a signing ceremony at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters in Washington, U.S., March 28, 2017. (Xinhua/REUTERS)

WASHINGTON, March 28 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order aimed at reversing his predecessor Barack Obama's climate policies, a move that sparked praise from energy industry, criticism from environmentalists and, almost certainly, legal challenges in the future.

Trump, who once called climate change a "hoax," signed the Energy Independence Executive Order, during his first visit to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which would see a 31 percent reduction in funding and 3,200 jobs cut under Trump's 2018 fiscal year budget request.

Flanked by coal miners invited to attend the signing, the president hailed the order as "the start of a new era" in American energy production that he said would put an end to the "war on coal."

"With today's executive action, I am taking historic steps to lift the restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion and to cancel job-killing regulations," Trump said.

It will "allow our companies and our workers to thrive, compete, and succeed on a level playing field for the first time in a long time," he said.

The main target of the order is the so-called Clean Power Plan, a signature effort by Obama to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants in keeping with promises of the 2015 landmark global climate deal known as Paris Agreement.

The order directed the EPA to "suspend, revise, or rescind" actions related to the Obama-era rule, which it said "would stifle the American energy industry" but actually has been put on hold by the U.S. Supreme Court in February 2016.

The decree also lifted a ban on coal leasing on public lands and restrictions on the production of oil, natural gas, and shale energy, disbanded an interagency working group on the social cost of greenhouse gases, and revoked Obama's memorandums such as the one that addressed climate change and national security.

In addition, it directed all agencies to conduct a review of existing actions that "harm domestic energy production and suspend, revise, or rescind actions that are not mandated by law."

Trump has threatened to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement during his presidential campaign, but the order did not address this issue.

"In terms of the Paris agreement, whether we stay in or not is still under discussion," a senior White House official told reporters during a background briefing.

When further asked how to describe the fight against climate change, the official said: "I think it's an issue that deserves attention, but, again, I think the president has been very clear that he's not going to pursue climate or environmental policies that put the U.S. economy at risk. It's very simple."

Protesters display signs in support of the environment during a rally against climate change in San Diego, California on February 21, 2017. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

Trump's move came one day after a Gallup poll showed that the share of the U.S. population concerned about climate change has reached a new high of 50 percent.

The number is up slightly from 47 percent in 2016 but a whopping 13 percentage points above the 37 percent recorded only two years ago, according to Gallup.

Some energy companies are celebrating the executive order as a step forward in advancing the U.S. energy renaissance.

"We look forward to working with the Trump administration and Congress on forward-looking energy policies that will help ensure the United States continues leading the world in the production and refining of oil and natural gas, and in the reduction of carbon emissions," American Petroleum Institute president and CEO Jack Gerard said in a statement.

Gina McCarthy, who served as EPA chief under Obama, however, said the order wants "us to travel back to when smokestacks damaged our health and polluted our air, instead of taking every opportunity to support clean jobs of the future."

"This is not just dangerous," McCarthy said in a statement. "It's embarrassing to us and our businesses on a global scale to be dismissing opportunities for new technologies, economic growth, and U.S. leadership."

Michael Brune, executive director of Sierra Club, a U.S. environmental organization, described Trump's order as "the single biggest attack on climate action in U.S. history" and vowed to fight it "in the courts, in the streets, and at the state and local level across America to protect the health of every community."

Experts also questioned Trump's statement that the order will eventually help boost economic growth and job creation.

"The order will likely have limited impact on U.S. employment and economic growth," Jake Schmidt, international program director for the U.S.-based Natural Resources Defense Council, told Xinhua.

"If anything it may slow employment growth and economic development as one of the fastest growing sectors in the U.S. is the clean energy sector."
SKOPJE, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The parliament of Macedonia was engulfed by strong debates and trade of barbs Tuesday as the two main political camps, namely the conservative VMRO-DPMNE and SDSM, holding parliamentary majority, have different views regarding the election of new Speaker.

The Macedonian Social Democratic Union (SDSM) has proposed the Democratic Union of Macedonia (DUI) MP, Talat Xhaferi for the post of the speaker of Parliament.

The election of the speaker of Parliament requires 61 votes out of the 120-seat parliament. However, the coalition led by head of SDSM Zoran Zaev has failed to approve this candidacy after one of the coalition allies, the party of ethnic Albanians BESA, said no.

According to officials of BESA, the candidate proposed by DUI has been part of the governing cabinet of Nikola Gruevski so he couldn't carry out reforms that the country needs.

However, the social democrat MP, Petre Silegov, declared Tuesday that SDSM-led coalition had collected the 20 signatures that are required to propose a candidate for this post. According to Silegaov, SDSM would exploit any legal possibility to unblock work in parliament.

On the other hand, VMRO-DPMNE led by Nikola Gruevski said SDSM's attempt to introduce the election of the speaker of Parliament in the agenda was a breach of the regulation of parliament.

VMRO-DPMNE officials said that the members of the Parliamentary Commission for Nominations must be elected first and then the speaker.

VMRO-DPMNE MPs reiterated the demand for fresh general elections, while they called on SDSM to reject the platform of ethnic Albanian parties.

While addressing MPs, SDSM MP Petre Silegov said that Macedonia would have soon a new, reform -oriented government focused on bringing a "good life" to citizens here and on advancing Euro-Atlantic agenda.

He called on VMRO-DPMNE to accept the fact that it is an opposition party while he asked the party representatives to stop obstructing the democratic processes and start respecting the citizens' agreement, media here reported.

But, on its part, VMRO-DPMNE official Antonio Milososki told a press conference that VMRO-DPMNE had prepared a roadmap for lessons to be learned and a solution to be offered to the current political crisis and a way out of other political crises.

VMRO-DPMNE proposes the establishment of a nonpartisan agreement laying the groundwork for principled settlement of internal differences in the future solely in the frameworks of state institutions without foreign agendas or representatives and exclusively by legitimately elected representatives of the citizens in Macedonia, he said.

He added that VMRO-DPMNE roadmap condemns the foreigners' interference into Macedonia's internal affairs as well as general denouncement of plans and platforms or agendas that are against Macedonia's strategic and state interests.

Thus, although the Tuesday plenary session aimed at continuing with the procedures to appoint the new Speaker, the session was closed with no agreement in this regard.

Therefore, Parliament is expected to resume Wednesday the constitutive session and the debate on election of the Committee on Election and Appointment Issues.
MINSK, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Belarus counts on expanding its cooperation with the World Bank, First Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Vasily Matyushevsky said during the meeting with Senior Vice President for Operations of the World Bank Kyle Peters.

Matyushevsky noted the positive dynamics of cooperation between Belarus and the World Bank in recent years.

As part of the World Bank partnership strategy for 2014-2017, seven new projects have been launched for a total of about 650 million U.S. dollars in Belarus, including projects in healthcare and education, the Belarusian official said.

"In more than 25 years of mutual cooperation, the World Bank has invested over 1.6 billion U.S. dollars within the framework of joint projects in Belarus", he added.

In turn, Kyle Peters stressed that the World Bank has increased the amount of support provided to Belarus in the last few years. He said that the World Bank has started developing a new strategy to support Belarus for 2018-2021.

"Compared with many other countries, the portfolio of projects in Belarus can be implemented more effectively", Kyle Peters said.
Salem Abdullah Musabih, 6, sits on a bed at a malnutrition intensive care unit at a hospital in the Red Sea port city of Hodaida, Yemen,September 11, 2016. (Xinhua/REUTERS)

UNITED NATIONS, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Some seven million of people in Yemen could be put at risk by famine in 2017, Jamie McGoldrick, UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen warned on Tuesday.

McGoldrick said that an alarming 18.8 million of Yemeni people -- almost two thirds of the population -- need some kind of humanitarian or protection support, UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq told a daily briefing.

In March 2015, Saudi Arabia led a mostly Arab military coalition to fight the dominant Houthi fighters, who seized most of northern Yemen including the capital Sanaa and Red Sea port city of Hodeidah.

Two years of relentless conflict have devastated the lives of millions of people. Over 50,000 civilians have been killed, injured or maimed in the conflict, including at least 1,540 children killed and 2,450 children injured, according to McGoldrick.

In addition, over 1,550 children have been recruited to fight or to perform military related duties, said McGoldrick.

In this regard, he called on all parties to the conflict to return to the negotiating table and end the fighting.

"The time has come for the warring parties to place the very people they claim to be fighting for at the center of their concerns and end the fighting," said McGoldrick in a statement.
LJUBLJANA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised its 2017 forecast for Slovenia's economic growth, from 1.8 percent projected last fall to 3 percent.

The Head of the IMF mission, Nikolay Kirov Gueorguiev assessed during the IMF's regular annual visit to Slovenia that the country is on the right track, according to the Slovenian Press Agency (STA) on Tuesday.

Kirov said private consumption has increased, the investments remain above the forecast level and the growth of exports is good. Nevertheless, Slovenia is encouraged to continue the reform process.
GENEVA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- A National People's Congress (NPC) delegation of legislators from southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region Tuesday night arrived in Zurich and kicked off an official visit to Switzerland after a 4-day visit in Britain.

The delegation, headed by Padma Choling, who is also a senior member of China's NPC Standing Committee, aims to introduce the latest information regarding Tibet's social and economic development, environmental protection, as well as cultural inheritance.

The delegation will meet Swiss media and local inhabitants from Tibet and will head to the Swiss capital city of Bern to meet officials from the parliament and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
TALLINN, March 28 (Xinhua) -- British Airways on Tuesday launched direct flights between Tallinn and London.

The flights will take place twice a week during the summer season, on Tuesdays and Saturdays. The Tuesday flight will depart London at 8 a.m. and Tallinn at 1:55 p.m., the Saturday flight will leave London at 3:45 p.m. and Tallinn at 9:35 p.m., said Tallinn Airport in a statement.

London is one of the key destinations for Estonia, with the overall passenger number with direct and connecting flights combined reaching 150,000 passengers per year, according to Tallinn Airport.
Visiting Belgian King Philippe (C) and Queen Mathilde are greeted by Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen in Copenhagen, Denmark, on March 28, 2017. The Belgian royal couple King Philippe and Queen Mathilde kicked off their three-day state visit to Denmark on Tuesday. (Xinhua/Hasse Ferrold)

COPENHAGEN, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The Belgian royal couple King Philippe and Queen Mathilde kicked off their three-day state visit to Denmark on Tuesday.

The couple were received by Danish royal families led by Queen Margrethe II at Amalienborg Palaces.

Accompanied by an official delegation and representatives of 37 companies, the royal couple's visit aims to further strengthen bilateral ties.

The visit will focus on themes including sustainable development, renewable energy, health and transport logistics.

King Philippe was sworn in as the new Belgian king in 2013 after the abdication of his father Albert II.
A detainee of Libya's former government officials reunites with his family members in Tripoli, capital of Libya, on March 28, 2017. Altogether 14 detainees of Libya's former government officials were released on Tuesday, ministry of justice of the UN-backed government said. (Xinhua/Hamza Turkia)

TRIPOLI, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Altogether 14 detainees of Libya's former government officials were released on Tuesday, ministry of justice of the UN-backed government said.

The 14 former officials were detained in Al-Hadba prison in the capital Tripoli for charges that include financial corruption and suppression of protests during the 2011 uprising.

The release of the detainees was based on orders of the attorney general, the ministry said, after completion of legal procedures.

Libya has witnessed an uprising in 2011 that toppled former leader Muammar Gaddafi. Some officials of Gaddafi's government fled the country and others, including some of his sons, were detained on charges of murder and embezzlement of public funds.

A Libyan court released 13 detained former officials in June 2016 after the Criminal Justice Department accepted their appeal.
Horses jump through fire rings during the Ghode Jatra, a horse racing festival at Army Pavilion, Tundikhel in Kathmandu, Nepal, March 27, 2017. (Xinhua/Sunil Sharma)
Police arrests a man during an anti-corruption protest in Moscow, Russia, on March 26, 2017. Russian law enforcement agencies acted properly during Sunday's "unauthorized" protest, during which hundreds of participants were detained, the Kremlin said Monday. Official data showed that about 7,000-8,000 people took to the street in downtown Moscow on Sunday in a protest against corruption. Police detained some 500 people during the demonstration. (Xinhua/Evgeny Sinitsyn)
Chinese mergansers fly northwards after wintering in Weishui reservoir in Songzi, central China's Hubei Province, March 27, 2017. Under state class-one protection, these endangered birds have a history of more than 10 million years. No more than 3,000 pairs of them were spotted worldwide. (Xinhua/Du Huaju)
The First Sunshine Week of the New Administration



March is a busy month for those who are committed to open government. March 4 was Open Data Day , a global effort to bring together individuals interested in increasing access to information online. Sunshine Week ( @SunshineWeek #SunshineWeek ), held March 1218, is a nationwide education initiative to promote open government. Government agencies, news organizations, universities, and libraries celebrated with public events designed to raise awareness about the importance of open and transparent government as an essential element for a democratic society. March 16, the birthday of James Madison (who is known as the father of the Constitution), was Freedom of Information Day , which is dedicated to the concept that everyone has the right to access information from federal agency records, with only a few exemptions.

Journalists look to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) as their tool of last resort when ferreting out information from government agencies for use in their publications. The American Society of News Editors (ASNE) and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press supported the work of journalists during Sunshine Week by creating a free package of stories, columns, and cartoons.

Open Data Day Celebrations

There were four themes for Open Data Day events around the world this year: open research data, tracking public money flows, open data for environment, and open data for human rights. Open Knowledge International designed a website that includes links to data repositories and resources for tracking and understanding U.S. data sharing policies, clinical trials, and text and data mining. Canadas Open Data Exchange (ODX) released an infographic highlighting eight ways to leverage open data.

Social media, municipalities, and advocacy groups around the world created events and resources to engage citizenry in various efforts to learn about open data and actively improve access to data. The following are some examples:

A Google Group helped sponsors publicize events.

helped sponsors publicize events. Open Data Day city hackathons were displayed on a wiki .

. New York commemorated the 5-year anniversary of the citys Open Data Law with a weeklong celebration .

. Italy also had a weeklong celebration .

. Open Knowledge International provided a profile of events receiving International Open Data Day mini-grants.

of events receiving International Open Data Day mini-grants. Storify offered tweets from international events.

Public expectations are that government informationpaid for with tax dollarsshould be freely accessible online. The Guardian identifies five countries with promising open data initiatives set to make big impacts in 2017: Argentina, Burkina Faso, Indonesia, Mexico, and Nigeria.

According to a March 2017 Knight Foundation report, Nearly 9 out of 10 [experts] predicted that access to government will worsen because of the new presidential administration. Initial days of the administration gave rise to concerns, as data was removed from federal websites without explanation as to how temporary this might be. OpenTheGovernment.org has begun to track information being removed, and DataRefuge is bringing together archivists and hackers to harvest data from government websites. Since January, 158 complete data sets have been downloaded, labeled, and re-uploaded to DataRefuge.org, a growing repository of scraped government science, according to Quartz.

Three localities are involved with open data initiatives:

Boston launched its Analyze Boston open data hub in beta.

open data hub in beta. Through the OpenDataVote project, Philadelphias citizens are encouraged to vote on the datasets that are not currently available to the public but might be useful.

project, Philadelphias citizens are encouraged to that are not currently available to the public but might be useful. Reclaim New York issued the Online Transparency Index, which asks state citizens to evaluate government accessibility and transparency for nearly 2,300 government entities.

Celebrating Sunshine Week at NARA

At the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero and Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden opened their event by stressing the importance of their cooperative programming. NARA and the Library of Congress, along with the Smithsonian Institute, connect people to information and primary documents, making access to (and preserving) the nations treasures possible.

Thomas Susman, director of governmental affairs for the American Bar Association (ABA), moderated the first panel of the afternoon, FOIA After 50. He said that the U.S. FOIA law stands as an inspiration to other nations as a model for developing enforceable rights to government information, even as some have improved on our system.

Since passing FOIA in 1966, Congress has continued to strengthen the publics right of access and the institutions and processes that give rise to the publics ability to get information from government, according to Susman. More than 700,000 FOIA requests were filed in FY2015; fewer than 8% were denied in full. For a look at who makes these requests, FOIA Mapper analyzed 229,000 FOIA requests to 85 government agencies, summarized in a graphic.

The president has rolled back dozens of mandates and executive orders from the previous administration. According to Susman, two he has let stand so far are the 2009 memorandum calling for greater transparency and openness in government and an executive order lowering barriers to public access of presidential records.

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader believes that knowing how to file a FOIA request is a basic skill of citizenship and should be part of the high school curriculum. Nader weighed in on three major barriers to FOIA requests: unnecessary fees that intimidate requesters, deterring FOIA filings; the increasing use of FOIA exemptions by federal agencies; and the inability of the government to harness technology to process the requests.

National Security Archive director Tom Blanton highlighted the findings of his organizations annual FOIA audit: Only 38 out of 99 agencies made changes to their FOIA regulations as required by the FOIA Improvement Act. Noting that the U.S. is now ranked 57 out of 111 nations with some form of a statutory right of access to government information, Blanton pointed out that its ordinary, routine openness is better than that of many of those nations ranked ahead of it. According to Blanton, there are two problems with current law: The Office of Government Information Service (OGIS) lacks the power to overrule a federal agency stonewalling a requester, and FOIA lacks a public interest or human rights override option.

The final panel of the day, Government at Your Fingertips, was moderated by Miriam Nisbet, the first director of OGIS. Seamus Kraft, executive director of the OpenGov Foundation, began by reminding the audience that the best ways for the public to engage with their representatives in Congress are in person or via telephone, which are methods from the 1950s. He said the legislative branch needs 21st-century technology to better facilitate this contact. Congressional offices are experiencing increased constituent correspondence while member office budgets endure cuts.

The House of Representatives spent more than $200 million last year on technology, so its not the amount spent, but the technology itself that is woefully inadequate. The OpenGov Foundations solution is a Congressional Digital Service, similar to the executive branchs U.S. Digital Service, to diagnose the problems. No one knows the appropriate response time to a constituent correspondence made via social media or the telephone. Kraft believes that well see a Congressional Digital Service in this Congress and recommends that it sit outside partisan politicsfor example, in the Library of Congress.

Adam Marshall, Knight Foundation Litigation Attorney at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, introduced his agencys FOIA wiki, which allows everyone to contribute what they know about FOIA, with introductory pages describing the law and how it works, detailed topic-specific legal information, and a discussion board where people can ask questions and receive answers from the community. The wiki partners with other groups to pull in relevant FOIA information. For example, each agency and sub-agency page includes basic FOIA contact information for that (sub-)agency, how records are organized in that (sub-)agency, FOIA statistics, and cases involving the (sub-)agency from FOIAproject.org.
More police eyes, ears in Enterprise

On Friday, when Sylvan Alexis was shot dead, police officers were taken from every station in Central Division to quell lawlessness and fiery rioting which ensued.

Fire officers were also called to the area to remove burning debris while officers of the Defence Force arrived. The presence of police on Friday resulted in the seizure of three pistols, two army camouflage vests and a quantity of marijuana and ammunition.

Police maintained a heavy presence in the area of John Street on Saturday but on Sunday, shortly after 6 am, a 36-year-old man identified as Marvin Alan of Caroni Savannah Road, Chaguanas was gunned down at John Street in Enterprise. Once again additional police resources were placed in the area.

Police yesterday blamed members of the Unruly Isis gang for the murders of Alexis and Alan.

They believe a war between the Unruly Isis known as Bopee and a faction comprising associates of Robocop is responsible for the chaos and bloody mayhem in Enterprise.

Yesterday, Assistant Commissioner of Police Surujdeen Persad, who is in charge of Central Division, said the police will be working around the clock using additional resources and utilising up to date surveillance technique to ensure law and order in Enterprise.
3 officers for trials

President of the Police Social Welfare Association (PSWA) Inspector Michael Seales and former Beyond the Tape co-host and former vice president of the PSWA Inspector Roger Alexander will each have their cases begin on May 2, so too Constable Sheldon Mires.

Alexander and Mires are before the Chief Magistrate on allegations that they assaulted a man in Santa Cruz last year, while Seales is accused of making seditious comments on June 24, 2015 on Independence Square in Port-of-Spain. Alexander is charged with assaulting Christopher Charles occasioning actual bodily harm on July 12, 2016.

Mires is charged with assaulting Charles by beating him and committing common assault against him. Alexander is represented by attorneys Gilbert Peterson SC, and Lee Merry while Mires is represented by attorney John Heath. A state prosecutor is yet to be appointed to prosecute at the preliminary inquiry.

Appearing immediately after was Seales who is charged under Chapter 11:04 Section 4 (1) (B) of the Sedition Act. The prosecutions five witnesses were present in court and were told to return to May 2, when Seales trial is expected to begin.

Seales was sent off duty for alleging, in a television interview on June 24, 2015, a conspiracy by the then Peoples Partnership Government to provoke police officers and call a state of emergency (SoE) as a means of delaying the general election held later that year. Attorney Nigel Pilgrim of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions is prosecuting.
Brother may miss brothers funeral

This is because the brother, up to yesterday, remained in the custody of Eastern Division police officers. Police are giving us any information, said the siblings 70-year-old father Andrew.

We (relatives) cannot say what charges police are going to give him. Later tonight we will know for sure when is Shakas funeral. On Sunday afternoon, police arrested the 34-year-old brother at the familys home. He was not charged up to late yesterday.

Smith went to rescue the now detained brother from gunmen in a forested area in Rio Claro on Thursday night but was instead shot and killed by police. He died en-route to the Rio Claro Health Facility.

Relatives said that while at his home at Piparo Road, Tabaquite, the younger brother telephoned Smith saying he was hiding in a forested area from gunmen who ambushed him.

Smith, a father of two, went in search of his brother and was shot and killed. Hours after the fatal shooting, the brother told Newsday that he was driving along Tabaquite Road near Brickfield Junction when an unmarked van drove in front of his station- wagon.

Another vehicle drove up behind causing him to stop. The occupants opened fire and he fled by running into the forested area.

He subsequently telephoned Smith asking to be rescued.

Sometime later, he spotted his brothers car but heard several gunshots.

But while relatives accused police of killing an innocent hardworking family man, police claimed Smith shot at them and officers returned fire.
Classy Neha Dawar in her own creation designs

Lavish ornamentation, exotic imagery and regal styling are the words that describe Neha Karina, she declared.

NK is a one-stop shop that manufactures garments locally from start to finish with a touch of modern and Indian mix, with a middle eastern twist. NK also comprises two jewelry lines, one basic and the other is bridal. Theres also a ready-to-wear line, mens line, resort wear, a princess clothing line and a bridal line. Dawar also manufactures from the classic white bridal dress to the traditional red Hindu dress. Fabrics, beads and trimmings all come from various parts of the world, including Europe, the USA, the Middle East and India, she said.

Dawar, 25, holds a degree in marketing and is also a graduate from University of Trinidad and Tobago with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fashion Design. She qualified and trained in Indian classical arts and dance (kathak) in Delhi, India. I have done many short courses in India on various topics such as styling, dyeing, hand embroidery and much more. she said. Her fashion dream was in the making for five years, however, NK began operations one year ago, after seeing the need for a different market within our little shores. She explained: We live in a small country with limitations, where we may see things and may want to look different.

Out there we have to compromise and maybe have the same thing someone else has, but shopping at NK we do timeless pieces that no one will have. So my inspiration came from always seeing women looking at magazines, movies and always wondering and trying to look a certain way and never achieve that look. Neha Karina offers that holistic change by offering value, styling and quality to our customers.

If something does not look good on a client we tell them and suggest what would look good on them. Our brand connects with the client. What makes her stand out? I see myself as new and different to all the others, as I am a different aesthetic altogether, being the first of the brand in Trinidad. My ultimate goal is to create the brand on an international level. She is also aiming to create a charitable foundation for children in the near future as well as give back to the community.

her designs, Dawar said in the beginning the public was confused as the brand itself is new.

People tend to view Indian wear as something complicated. But to be honest, clothing and style comes from inside. If you having that particular expertise and knowledge you can achieve anything, I invested in my studies to be a designer and never stopped the growth. As such there is only room for improvement. I am happy with the growth Ive had within the year. It has opened a lot of doors for me. The young entrepreneur who started her career growth and planning from age 14 is also encouraging other youth to never give up on their dreams but to also save toward their goal.

She I created goals and 90 percent of my life is work, she said. Neha Karina started from nothing and has been building up steadily. I have saved my earnings to build this dream, and I encourage my fellow youth dont give up, save, save, save, even if its $1 TT, It will turn into $100 TT in no time.

That $1 may have no value sitting in the car but at the end of the day it can make you successful.
$.5M missing after Ma Pau fire

The shocking discovery of the missing cash was made by John Wallis, owner of Ma Pau Casino at 4.15 pm on Sunday. The money, said to be the weekend take of the casino could not be found where it was left in two fire-proof vaults and a third vault in a caged area at the Casino.

Wallis together with Fire Officer John Phillip who is also the safety officer at Ma Pau discovered the fire proof vaults opened and the large sums of cash missing. Only $166,000 was left behind in two of the three vaults.

Wallis also discovered a quantity of $100 notes in the corridor suggesting that the person or persons who stole the cash dropped some of the money in their haste to leave the building.

A report of the missing cash was made to police constable Gosine of the Woodbrook police.

All employees who were in the building when the fire started were able to escape unhurt and the fire proof vaults which contained the cash were locked.

However, the investigators are working on a theory that the locks were prised open by persons who then removed the majority of the cash.

Yesterday, workers met with management and were relocated with immediate effect to two other Ma Pau branches. One of the Directors, Sherry Persad confirmed the larceny of the cash but said the issue is now a police matter and she is not at liberty to disclose any information.

(See Page 11A)
Ramesh provides fast-tracking hanging plan

Maharaj prepared a comprehensive plan free of charge for the Dr Keith Rowley administration and yesterday he announced at a press conference that government must also have the will-power to implement the death penalty. Maharaj said, They have to make up their minds to do it. They must have a dedicated team to track the cases but, most importantly, they have to put their minds to it. Maharaj managed the trials of Dole Chadee and his gang who murdered four members of a Williamsville family which resulted in Chadee and eight men being hanged in 1999 and yesterday, the former attorney general announced that he had recommended the same fast-tracking mechanism in which government must first examine the cases of those Death Row prisoners who are close to the five-year Pratt and Morgan limitation period.

The last two people who were hanged after the Chadee gang, were Anthony Briggs and Wenceslaus James on July 28, 1999. The events sparked major controversy locally and abroad with criticisms from several international agencies and individuals lobbying for abolition of the death penalty.

There are approximately 36 convicted people on Death Row and Newsday learned yesterday that staff at the office of Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi have begun to implement the plan provided by Maharaj.

Maharaj said yesterday that he has recommended to government that a Case Management Unit (CMU) be set up which must be all-embracing, in which it must comprise representatives from the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Commissioner of Prisons, Supreme Court Registry, Ministry of National Security and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The respective members must be responsible for ensuring that all departments which fall under those ministries, provide all the information requested by the CMU in a timely manner to ensure all necessary documents are made available for appeals and applications by convicted killers before international human rights bodies.

Citing his own experience as a former attorney general, Maharaj said if there were any delays or stumbling blocks which the CMU could not overcome, he was requested to intervene as attorney general to have the process expedited.

Convicted killers who have exhausted appeals to the Privy Council have a right to petition the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights with an appeal from the commission to the Inter-American Court on Human Rights. They also have the right to petition the United Nations Committee on Human Rights. When those fail, the convicted prisoner petitions the Mercy Committee requesting that his death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment.

Maharaj reiterated that a good plan is as good as its implementation, adding that one must recognise the work of a government minister is indeed a heavy task.

Asked how long could it take for the first person to be hanged in Trinidad if his plan is effected efficiently, Maharaj said that it all depended on the status of the appeals of Death Row prisoners.
Biker dies in crash

Mc Intyre was last seen leaving the bar in an angry mood.

He then rode his bike along Tumpuna Road and crashed at the corner near the bar causing him to be thrown several feet into the air.

When fellow bikers rushed to the scene Mc Intyre was already dead.

A report was made to the Arima Police Station and the body was viewed by a District Medical Officer who ordered it removed to the Forensic Science Centre. Investigations are continuing.
Imam: Only Bakr can bring peace to Enterprise

They (warring criminal factions) respect and fraid him, Imam Morland Lynch, of the Al Ahmad Masjid in Crowne Trace, Enterprise said yesterday.

Speaking in the aftermath of two murders on the weekend including that of Sylvan Alexis, 60, the older brother of Selwyn Robocop Alexis. The latter was gunned down last July.

Following the killing of Alexis last Friday evening, fiery protests erupted in the area and there is now a fear of reprisal killings.

The place tense. The place in a mess, people are just going about their business and then hustling home, Imam Lynch said. At any minute it could be bang, bang. Right now they (Alexis associates) are just waiting to strike, he stated.

Imam Lynch whose own son was shot dead in Enterprise a year ago said he would not leave the area because one cannot run from death. He believes the solution to the gang warfare is to have joint army and police foot patrols and, not them drive through thing...that doesnt work. He added that a visit from Jamaat Al Muslimeen leader Bakr would be the catalyst to bring peace among warring gangs in the area. Doh care how bad you is when the Imam (Bakr) call they does listen, Lynch said. He revealed a call he got from Bakr who promised to come to the area soon.

Asked whether a curfew could assist in quelling violence Lynch said No and added that this would only hurt business and shift workers from the area.

Lynch who the owner of Abus Grill House in Enterprise, said businesses are closing down as people outside of Enterprise are no longer coming into the area.
TTUTA and JTUM team up

The protest action, held yesterday morning outside the Minister of Education on St Vincent Street, Port-of-Spain, also included JTUM members, members of the newly formed Early Childhood Care Workers Union, and parents of the Mamoral Early Childhood Centre.

They all held placards supporting different causes.

Minister in the Ministry of Education, Dr Lovell Francis, who stood on the sidelines, was largely ignored by the protestors.

As the protestors chanted, Garcia, hiding from workers, Francis said the minister was at the time attending a meeting of the Cabinets Finance and General Purposes Committee.

Responding to the call for disciplinary action to be taken against the school official, Francis reiterated, the ministry does not discipline teachers as that is a function of the Teaching Service Commission.

You cannot arbitrarily determine that someone is guilty of something.

There has to be a thorough investigation. That investigation was partially done by a school supervisor and is still ongoing. That issue has not come to rest yet, he said.

TTUTA President Lynsley Doodhai told the media that the union has been very vocal in the call to remove the senior teacher to facilitate a proper and independent investigation into concerns that many of its members have in terms of governance and leadership at the school.

In the same way that Education Minister Anthony Garcia could announce a week after teachers picketed outside the school on March 6, during their lunch break, that recommendations were going to be made to the TSC to take disciplinary action against teachers, the ministry can recommend to the TSC that action be taken against the school official.

There is evidence that the school official has transgressed the code of conduct under which teachers are governed, he said.

Teachers at the school, he said, feel victimised, abused and intimidated because of the actions of the school official and the working environment was toxic.

The quality of work at the school is affected.

We have a member of staff who has been unable to attend school since the beginning of the year because of stress related diseases, he said.

In reaction to Garcias statement that the teachers who protested were setting a poor example to the students, Doodhai said, as far as we are concerned, he is being hypocritical and disingenuous in his remarks. As a former TTUTA president, he said, Garcia would have led many picketing exercises.

We reject his statement outright that teachers are setting a bad example.

In fact his statement has incensed the entire trade union movement, he said.

He said he had to be careful about what he says, because we have a lawsuit from an official of the school. Francis said that he was not aware of any lawsuit being taken by a SMSS school official.

Told that it was being said that the protest was due to the fact that he has a relative working at the school, Doodhai acknowledged that he has a relative working at the school and has relatives working at many schools because he comes from a family of educators.

The protest, he said, was not a one-man call but an action taken by TTUTAs general council.
Lifeguards protest working conditions

Augustus Sylvester, Health and Safety Officer with the Lifeguard Service, Ministry of National Security told Newsday they took to the picket line because their superiors were not dealing with their issues.

During the picket, he said Dillon met with them. He told them he was not aware of their concerns and promised to meet with them next week Monday. Also present on the picket line was James Lambert, President General of the National Union of Government and Federated Workers Union.

The NUGFWU represents the lifeguards.

Since the Lifeguard Service was transferred to the ministry 18 months ago, Sylvester said, the working conditions and services now being offered have retrogressed.

Apart from being understaffed, he said, the lifeguards were underpaid and have not had new equipment, including uniforms, for over five years.

We are in the 21st century and we are working with 1942 equipment.

We have no motorised equipment to do our duties, he said.

The 120 lifeguards across the country manage the beaches at Salybia, Toco, Mayaro, Manzanilla, Quinam, Vessigny, Los Iros, Maracas, Tyrico and Las Cuevas.

One lifeguard told Newsday that in the past, they were equipped with jet skis, ATVs (all terrain vehicles) and boats, but now they have none.

We have one or two canoes at Maracas Bay and a rescue can (flotation device that can support the lifeguards and the victims weight).

That is all we have, he said. Noting that even their first aid kits were lacking, he said, that they are embarrassed when tourists seek first aid and they cannot help.

There are many pieces of equipment that they do not have such as duck fins which would help the lifeguard to manouevre faster through currents while swimming to do a rescue.

In addition, he said, lifeguards do not have proper beach footwear.

We go to the hospitals with victims. We have to go bare feet. That is not right, he said.

He said lifeguards have no pension plan and no job security.
Law Association being called to account

A petition has been signed by 35 members of the association, including five senior counsel, calling for answers on the payment without informing them or proper consideration of legal authorities.

The petition also called for two senior executive members of the last council, led by former president Reginald Armour, SC, to withdraw their nominations for positions in the council which was voted in on March 17.

Senior Counsel Douglas Mendes was installed as president after the position was unopposed.

According to the petition, payment of an undisclosed sum was approved and paid to the Board of Inland Revenue (BIR) as arrears of VAT on subscription fees paid by members.

The lawyers complained that no report has been made available to them on the quantum of the payments made as well as an alleged outstanding sum.

The petition also noted that the issue of the payment of VAT on subscription fees came up at a council meeting in 1999 and a decision was taken to deregister for the payment of VAT after that council received advice on whether VAT was payable on membership subscription fees.
Bartlett says businesses grinding to a halt

We are very concerned about the slowing of businesses in the whole country but more so in the City of San Fernando, Bartlett said, adding, I can tell you today that business is extremely slow and many of the business owners are saying that we do not need to open on a Saturday. That does not auger well for any country when a business wants to close an additional day, she said.

We all know that business drives the economy and if things are slowing to the point where you do not want to do business again or you are losing business owners because they cannot ply their trade or business is so slow, I think the government needs to sit down with a team of economists and good financial advisors and plan for the country and see what can be done, she said.

She also called for a reduction of national expenditure from its present position of $53 billion to between $49 to $47 billion dollars.

Bartlett was addressing a business seminar at the Canton Palace restaurant, Cross Crossing Shopping Centre, San Fernando on Saturday night. She said business owners are also concerned about the escalating crime rate as peope are afraid to leave their homes and patronise those businesses which opened at night.

Crime is a big problem, people are not leaving their homes as they used to and when they dont leave their homes and they dont go and participate in things that are happening, that also is grinding things to a halt and you do not want that in your country, she said.

Meanwhile, UWI economist Dr Roger Hosein agreed that expenditure has to be sliced to approximately $45 billion saying the economy was in need of change and observed that one suggestion was the devaluation of the TT dollar.

He urged the population to support the implementation of the property tax.

We need to find novel ways to help increase the non-energy sector, export revenues and we need to find ways to reduce the burden on the private sector which is the engine of any society, he said.

He too agreed that the runaway crime rate was an obstacle to growth in the economy as investors were wary of investing in a volatile environment.
Sturge wants report on children handling high-powered guns

In the letter dated March 27, Sturge said he was exercising his right, conferred by Section 11 of the Freedom of Information Act Chapter 22:02, to make the request for the report. He said the matter was of grave and serious concern and a matter of public interest.

It raises serious concerns about whether persons belonging to the Defence Force were complicit in the execution of their duties. Whether persons in the Defence Force were coerced into breaching settled practice and procedures because of the individuals involved. Sturge said there have been conflicting reports in the media of the findings of the board of inquiry in this matter.

This has led to speculation and conjecture by members of the public and already public sentiments have been expressed that there is an attempt at a cover-up by the TT Defence Force. The Defence Force is too important an institution to our democracy to be allowed to be subjected to this type of public criticism. It is an institution in which the public must have confidence and all must be done to instil and restore that confidence. Disclosure of the report of the inquiry will surely achieve this, he said.

He added that there can be no justifiable and sufficiently essential public interest considerations of type or degree to support non-disclosure of the report in this matter.
Indarsingh: No job safe under PNM government

He called on both Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Labour Minister Jennifer Baptiste-Primus to say if they supported Minister of Social Development Cherrie-Ann Crichlow-Cockburns stance that TTs unemployment aligns to world figures and is not too bad .

Indarsingh said, While the Government may believe the unemployment rate is not that bad, hundreds of workers are being dismissed in both the public and private sectors on a monthly basis. He recalled Public Services Association (PSA) president Watson Duke last weekend say the Government was planning another round of retrenchment .

Fifty monthly paid employees, some with over twenty years of service including middle and upper management, technical and administrative staff of the Chaguaramas Development Authority (CDA) are to be retrenched from next month. Indarsingh also recalled the Governments recent disclosure of the closure of three State enterprises  the Tourism Development Company (TDC), Caroni Green Ltd and the Government Human Resource Services Company Limited (GHRSC) .

These three companies employ hundreds of workers who will now join thousands more on the breadline. Indarsingh said Baptiste-Primus had not yet produced any figures to rebuff his claim that 25,000 persons had lost their jobs under this Government since September 2015 .

He said the Central Statistical Office (CSO) 2016 2nd Quarter Report said 16,200 persons have lost their jobs since September 2015, when the Rowley regime took office .

He reiterated the Oppositions position that no job is safe under the Rowley-led administration, saying that unemployment continues to rise and this Government is demonstrating that the care and compassion for citizens have been lost .

Indarsingh said that by contrast, statistics show the former Peoples Partnership (PP) government created 66,000 new jobs and unemployment remained under five percent. The PP administration raised the minimum wage more than once and over 130 wage negotiations were settled .

The PNM continues to manipulate the countrys workers to satisfy its own selfish and political agenda; their industrial labour practices show the utter contempt that this Government has for the working class despite their mantra that they are a caring party, he said .
Former U.S. lawmaker: Deep State putting republic at risk in bid to end Trump presidency

A former U.S. congressman from Colorado and one-time GOP presidential contender says the Deep State is putting the republic at risk by routinely undermining President Donald J. Trump in a bid to unseat him.

Former Rep. Tom Tancredo, in a column for Breitbart, wrote that the incessant leaking of information and top secret intercepts is contributing to the unraveling of the fabric of constitutional government, and only a fool can believe it will end well.

Tancredo, who ran unsuccessfully for the presidency in 2008, then twice for the governorship of Colorado, adamantly suggests that the leaking by the Deep State is being done purposely to harm Trump and his administration, with the end goal being his dismissal from office. Those in and out of government, feel justified in using any means necessary to meet and defeat Trumps agenda, while removing him from office.

Every day sees more evidence of a desire not only to block his policies but to drive him from office, Tancredo wrote. While it does not yet rise to the level of an organized conspiracy, it does raise serious issues of constitutional fidelity. (RELATED: Deep State: Obama Loyalists Continue To Thwart Trump Administration From The Shadows)

Tancredo noted that the Deep State began undermining Trump almost immediately following the November election. Protests and street marches were organized quickly, followed by a series of lawsuits that continue to this day, as well as leaks from inside government. Also, there was talk of impeaching Trump even before he took office, though there is no evidence Trump has committed any high crimes or misdemeanors, which are the primary constitutional standards to begin impeachment proceedings.

The former GOP lawmaker and author of the book, In Mortal Danger: The Battle for Americas Border and Security, clicked off the oppositions actions since the Nov. 8 election:

 Just as in the 2000 election after Vice President Al Gore won the popular vote but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, based on available ballot data, George W. Bush won the electoral vote, the Alt-Left, aided by the Deep State, began to claim Trumps victory was not legitimate. Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, though only because of the state of California otherwise, Trumps victory would have been overwhelming. Because of this, the narrative became, Trumps victory is illegitimate, though the Constitution recognizes electoral vote majorities, not simple majorities (for the very reason that one or two large states should not decide the outcome of presidential contests).

 When that narrative began to falter, the Deep State and its allies in Washington and in the media began to push another false narrative, one that claimed: Russia hacked the election to help Trump and hurt Clinton, after Team Trump colluded with Moscow. Elements of that bogus claim continue to be echoed today.

 Next followed the organized legal resistance to Trumps very constitutional and very legal travel ban executive orders, with the opposition judge-and-court shopping, filing their suits to stop the orders from taking effect in politically friendly jurisdictions (like those where Obama-selected judges preside).

These efforts are born mostly from shock and disbelief that Trump actually beat Clinton, after the discredited Washington media told the country for a year he couldnt win. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

But Tancredo also notes a much more dangerous element to all of this: The active, wanton effort to subvert legitimate presidential orders and actions, which will have long-term negative effects on our country if allowed to continue.

Most dangerous of all is the U.S. intelligence communitys involvement in this Deep State activity. Tancredo notes that when the Russia-Trump collusion narrative first began, it was based in large part on intelligence, though as we have since learned, the leaked information was intended to sow doubts about Trumps legitimacy, not prove he did anything wrong (because there is no evidence to suggest he did). (RELATED: The intelligence communitys spy revolt with the Trump administration is a PSYOP designed to perpetuate the military-industrial complex)

This involvement of intelligence agencies and the FBI in politically-inspired investigations  and the subsequent leaking of information gathered in the surveillance  puts into question the Presidents ability to trust the information provided to him by those agencies, Tancredo wrote. And THAT, my friends, can seriously impair his ability to manage national security policy and any international or terrorism-related crisis that occurs.

Without a doubt, Trumps rise and ascension to the White House has upended the globalist order, and they are not amused by it. As similar movements percolate and gain more traction in Europe, expect even more desperation on the part of the Deep State to take out Trump and destroy the populism that brought him to power.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources:

Breitbart.com

Uprising.news

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Radha Mohan Singh inaugurates Digidhan Fair organised in Motihari, Bihar

New Delhi, Tue, 28 Mar 2017 NI Wire

Promotion of Digidhan and cashless transactions are part of New India Mission: Radha Mohan Singh

Objective of Digidhan Fair to create awareness about cashless transaction & promote the usage of new technology: Singh

The Union Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Minister, Radha Mohan Singh said that Honble Prime Minister Narender Modi has dreamt of a New India, which will be free of black money and corruption. Promotion of Digidhan and cashless transactions are part of the mission. Singh stated it while inaugurating Digidhan Fair in Motihari, Bihar. The fair continued throughout the day where banks, Common Service Centres (CSC), private digital payment service providers etc. informed the consumers as well as traders about the new technology.

Radha Mohan Singh said that the Government has taken several initiatives to promote cashless transactions. Keeping cashless transaction and increasing population of educated youth under consideration, the government has launched Bheem App, which is quite popular. So far 1.25 crore people have been linked to the App and a transaction of Rs. 361 crore has been made.

Singh said that there are more than 100 crore phones and out of them 30-40 crore is smartphones. There are about 50 crore internet users. And if these are utilised properly, credit cards wont be required. Banks have devised UPI cards under which if the mobile app is downloaded, people can do the transaction through any bank on the basis of their phone numbers.

Singh further stated that 2.15 crore railway tickets are booed out of which 1.30 crore tickets are booked online. He informed that there is 144 crore bank accounts by and large, out of them 117 are the savings account. A total number of Jhandhan account is 28.02 crore. So far 40 crore bank accounts are linked to Aadhaar Cards. Agriculture Minister informed that the total number of Aadhaar cards is 113 crore and there is 20.13 crore POS machines in the country and by the end of this month 10 lakh new machines will be added. Apart from this, there is 5.7 crore e-wallet users and 110.6 crore credit/debit cards. So far 21.9 crore consumers have got Rupay cards and its usage has increased up to 40% in the recent time. He further opined that Minister of Agriculture is promoting the cashless system in every sort of transaction linked with the agriculture sector.

Singh said that to promote cashless transaction, the Ministry of Agriculture is providing all kind of facility. The Minister said that the government of India has waged a war against black money by initiating demonization. In 500 cities awareness programs are being run. Every year Rs. 10 lakh crore transactions take place in the country, only 32% transaction is made online.

Agriculture Minister informed that in the last two years the government has taken following steps to combat black money:

a) Special Investigation Team (SIT) was constituted.

b) A law was made to tackle undeclared foreign assets and deposits.

c) India revised the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) with Mauritius and Cyprus

d) A treaty was signed with Switzerland to obtain information about the bank accounts of Indians in HSBC bank.

e) Cashless and digital payments have to be promoted

f) Benami Transaction act will be modified.

g) Income declaration scheme 2016

Source: PIB
Minister of Railways inaugurates Conference on Digital Railways for Digital India

New Delhi, Tue, 28 Mar 2017 NI Wire

A conference under the theme "IR-One ICT (One Information and Communication Technology) Building Digital Railway for Digital India" was organized on 27.03.2017 at National Rail Museum Auditorium, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi.

The conference was inaugurated by Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu. Rajen Gohain, Minister of state for Railways, was specially present on the occasion. A.K. Mital, Chairman, Railway Board, Pradeep Kumar, Member Staff, Railway Board along with other Board Members, Officers of Indian Railways and delegates from NASSCOM and IT industry also attended the conference.

Speaking on the occasion, Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, Minister of Railways said, It's a very interesting program. Over a period of time, huge growth is observed in IT Sector. There are huge opportunities in IT sector. IT industry looks around for business all around; they don't look for business next door. IT industry has done well and there are lot of opportunities in India.

Indian Railways offers a mammoth opportunity. Indian Railways is not only about operation. Indian Railways does lot of activities in different spheres like medical, education, social, environmental. In the budget speech, it was announced that Indian Railways needs integrated and holistic approach for digitalization. It was explored how Indian Railways can partner with IT industry through NASSCOM. Through this enterprise, Vendor and Railway should benefit mutually. It'll be a turnaround situation. It will be a game changer if Railway can save 6 Billion dollar by investing 2 billion dollar. There are two models for Digital Platform. One is Capex Platform, another is Opex model. There can be the third model where Cris and vendor may partner together. The figure of 6 Billion dollar does not include Non Fare Revenue. Non Fare Revenue can be beneficial as soft assets of Railway can be monetized. Lot of Non Fare Revenue can result in significant improvement in revenue. This Digital Platform shall be the biggest Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Cyber Security should be kept in mind. Precautions should be taken. It should be explored how line functions can be achieved through ICT, how future goals may be realised through ICT. This roundtable can be immensely helpful to realise these goals in less time.

Leading speakers on various subjects from India and abroad spoke on spectrum of topics including Dr. Rainer Lukhaup from Deutsche Bahn and Ms. Salana McElory from G. E. During the conference the panel discussion on Special Purpose Vehicle for ICT deployment was chaired by Sh. Rentala Chandrashkher, President of NASSCOM.It also covered the achievements and present status of IT initiatives done by Indian Railways .There were stalls for showcasing Information technology.

IR-OneICT or Indian Railways One Information and Communication Technology Platform is an initiative to enable Indian Railways to deliver goods and services in tune with the demands of the fast growing economy by creation of logistics & transport capacity enabled by Digital platform. It shall involve use of digital technology to better connect the goods and services with the market and efficient internal management leading to higher customer satisfaction. The better capacity and asset utilization would mean helping Indian Railways in running more trains, carrying more freight, providing better and reliable services to the passenger, increased revenues, safe operations which would be ensured by IR-OneICT platform by using best in class technology, world class business analytics, state of the art software solutions available and use of automated data collection from single source with real time availability.

Source: PIB
This Easter, Nick Jr. UK & Ireland/HD will be taking viewers on egg-citing Easter Adventures with brand-new episodesandNick Jr.'s Easter Adventures starts Monday 3rd April 2017 with brand-new tail wagging adventures of, including the all-new episodes "Pups Raise the Paw Patroller" and "Pups Save the Crows", weekdays at 5:00pm!Then, Blaze and his pals will continue the fast-paced Easter Adventures with the debut ofseason three weekdays at 6:00pm from Monday 10th April 2017! The all-new episodes featured during Nick Jr.'spremiere week are "The Hundred Mile Race", "Dinocoaster", "Light Riders", "The Bouncing Bull Racetrack", "Catch That Cake!"Closing the Easter holidays will be twin genie sisters Shimmer and Shine, who will be taking fans on brand-new magical adventures weekdays at 6:30pm and 6:45pm from Monday 17th April 2017! Nick Jr.'spremiere week will include the all-new episodes "Potion Control", "Feel Better", "Trick or Treasure", "Easy as Pie", "The Mysterious Tower", "Bungle in the Jungle", "The Pirate Genie (Part 1)", "The Pirate Genie (Part 2)"!PLUS, to celebrate thepups,andtaking on brand new adventures in all new episodes this Easter, Nick Jr. is giving viewers the chance to be on TV and cracking Nick Jr. goodies with the "Nick Jr. Easter Adventures Competition"! 15 winners (five winners per week) will have their photos shown in on-air promos on Nick Jr. during April 2017, plus a egg-cellent prize bundle, which will include:- 1 xPup Pal Soft Toy*;- 1 xDoll*;- 1 xDie Cast Vehicle*;- 1 x Nick Jr. Squeezy Shape StationTo enter, parents can simply take a snap of their little one on their Easter adventures and upload it to www.nickjr.co.uk/adventure ! Photos can as fun and creative as you like!Fans can also egg-splore NickJr.co.uk's egg-cellent Easter page to find egg-citing Easter video clips, games and activities!
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Libyas eastern military commander Khalifa Haftar has ignored an invitation by Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi because of the latters support for the Tripoli-based Presidency Council (PC) and Muslim Brotherhood, reports say.

The Field Marshal has spurned Essebsis formal invitation to attend Libyan talks in Tunisia, according to Tunisian local media Alchourouk.

Haftar reportedly ignored the invitation due to the Tunisian leaders supposed support for the PC and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt have initiated efforts to bring together Libyan rival brothers.

The Libyan protagonists travelled to Tunis in February in an attempt to bridge differences. Haftar was invited to the gathering but did not show up.

Libya has descended in chaos since the fall of former ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The UN-backed PC born in December 2015 has been unable to impose itself. The PCs efforts have been dogged by rival Beida-based government supported by Haftar forces.

Insecurity has festered in the country and spilled in other neighboring countries including Tunisia.
Several Moroccan media outlets reported that King Mohammed VI would attend the 28th Arab Summit, to be held in Jordans capital Amman.

The participation of the Moroccan monarch in the Arab summit comes after Morocco made a diplomatic breakthrough in the African continent culminating with a triumphal return to the African Union, bolstered ties with several countries and a bid with promising prospects to join Africas west economic community (ECOWAS).

The news about the Kings participation in the Arab Summit also came after the visit by King Abdullah II of Jordan to Morocco. Moroccos foreign minister is already in Amman where he took part in a preparatory meeting of Arab foreign ministers for the summit.

Moroccos foreign policy pivot to Africa came after frustration with Arab common action and the paralysis in the Maghreb integration. In 2016, Moroccos foreign ministry issued a statement explaining the reasons for Moroccos refusal to host the Arab Summit. Amid the lack of important decisions and concrete initiatives to submit to the heads of states, this summit will be just another occasion to approve ordinary resolutions and to pronounce speeches that give a false impression of unity, the statement had said.

Arab leaders cannot confine themselves, once more, to simply analyzing the bitter situation of divergences and divisions without giving decisive responses, it added.

The same conditions prevailing in 2016 continue to persist. The Middle East continues to be plagued by sectarian strife and civil war along with the surge of terrorism in the Levant and Iraq, while Libya is mired in an endless bloody civil war.
After the breakthrough made by Morocco in Africa, neighboring rival Algeria tries to no avail to follow suit, by announcing a $ 360 million investment in Ethiopia, a risky move that will likely deepen further the countrys budget deficit already worsening since the fall of oil prices.

The Algerian private group Cevital said Tuesday that it was looking for partners to fund its projects in Ethiopia. Cevital is planning to build in this African country two plants, one specialized in oilseeds crushing, while the other is for the sugar industry.

These projects were unveiled Tuesday by Issad Rebrab, CEO of Cevital, during a forum held in Geneva but prompted no interests from foreign investors due to the issue of corruption plaguing Algerian businesses besides lack of transparence and good governance.

Algerian decision-makers and authorities are also trying hard to mimic Morocco in solar energy by announcing big projects in this sector. But according to Mr. Mourad Louadah, president of the renewable energy division of local trade industry association Forum des Chefs dEntreprise (CFE), the 4 GW tender for solar projects unveiled lately by the Algerian government is doomed to fail.

In an interview with a local radio station, Louadah said the tender might not even be launched, noting that some requirements will make it impossible for project developers to offer low bids and make the investments to set up solar manufacturing facilities across the country.

Furthermore, Louadah said that Algeria has not the expertise to manage the three 1.35 GW tenders announced for the 4 GW plan and that tenders allocating up to 500 MW of PV capacity would have been a more feasible solution.

On the contrary, Morocco is becoming a vanguard of solar revolution in the region thanks to its huge investments in renewable energy. The countrys Noor Ouarzazate solar complex  one of the worlds largest  uses concentrated solar power (CSP) to produce clean energy.

The first phase of this 9 billion dollar solar-power project that has been under construction opened in 2016, making use of vast arrays of mirrors, rather than the more widely used photovoltaic panels, to produce electricity from sunlight.

When it is finished in 2018, the Noor Solar Power station will cover more than 5,000 acres and have a generating capacity of 580 megawatts, enough to meet the electricity needs of 1.1 million Moroccans.

The Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN) has increased its target to set up 4 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2020 up to 10 gigawatts by 2030.

The North African country plans to generate 42 pc of its energy from renewables by 2020, with one-third of that total coming from solar, wind and hydropower.
Photo: Rob Kim/Getty Images

Trump pal and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, whos kept a low profile since inadvertently contributing to the failure of the presidents Muslim ban, has a new gig. The New York Times reports that Giuliani has been retained by Reza Zarrab, a 33-year-old gold trader accused of violating United States sanctions against Iran. Another Trump ally, former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, has also joined the defense team.

Zarrab, a citizen of both Turkey and Iran, was arrested in Miami in 2016. From the Times:

Mr. Zarrab has been charged with facilitating millions of dollars in illicit transactions on behalf of Iran and other sanctioned entities through the use of front companies and false documentation. Prosecutors have said he allegedly tricked numerous U.S. financial institutions into processing barred transactions. Mr. Zarrab has also been charged with conspiracies to commit money laundering and bank fraud. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and was ordered detained without bond.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has questioned the charges against Zarrab, with whom he seems to have a friendly relationship. Per Bloomberg News, in 2013, Turkish prosecutors accused Zarrab of bribing the countrys cabinet ministers in a gold-trading operation worth at least $12 billion, a charge he denied. Erdogan called the investigation a coup attempt, and all charges against Zarrab and members of his administration were eventually dropped. Giuliani and Mukasey reportedly traveled to Turkey last month to discuss Zarrabs case with Erdogan.

According to lead defense attorney Benjamin Brafman, Giuliani and Mukasey will not have any involvement in the trial preparation or trial in this case, nor will they appear in court, making it difficult to avoid the assumption that Zarrab hired the two in the hopes of benefiting from their ties to Trump. After all, this administration has demonstrated an openness to unseemly associations with Turkey.
Ian Grillot. Photo: Orlin Wagner/AP

In February, a 51-year-old veteran opened fire on two Indian men, killing one, in an Olathe, Kansas, bar after after allegedly shouting slurs and warning them to get out of my country. Another man, 24-year-old Ian Grillot, tried to intervene, and was injured in the hand and chest. After the shooting, which federal authorities are investigating as a possible hate crime, Grillot said from his hospital bed: I was just doing what anyone shouldve done for another human being. Its not about where hes from or his ethnicity. Were all humans.

Grillots bravery is now being honored as far away as India, the New York Times reports. Indian officials invited him to visit the country, and the Indian-American community here in the U.S. has helped raise money for him. India House Houston, a Texas nonprofit, gifted him a $100,000 check over the weekend to help him buy a house. Jiten Agarwal, who chaired the charitys gala, said of Grillot: This is the real America.

It is not every day that one meets a genuine hero  a person who risks his life for another, and takes a bullet for a complete stranger, Agarwal said in a statement. Ian Grillot is a man who reminds us of the promise of America and its greatness.
James Harris Jackson is an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan. Photo: James Keivom/NY Daily News via Getty Images

James Harris Jackson, a 28-year-old military veteran from Baltimore, is accused of fatally stabbing a 66-year-old black homeless man in Hells Kitchen with a miniature sword last week. The attack was captured on surveillance footage, and two days later Jackson turned himself in, telling police that he had come to New York City to harm black males.

On Monday, Manhattan prosecutors upgraded the charges against Jackson to include murder as an act of terrorism, an addition to the hate-crime murder charge he had already been facing. The Manhattan district attorneys office said Jackson intended to launch a campaign of terrorism. The charge of terrorism as murder carries a mandatory life sentence.

Jackson described the murder of his victim, Timothy Caughman, as a practice run to the New York Daily News for a bigger attack against black men. (In surveillance footage, Jackson appeared to stalk another black man after he killed Caughman, but he said he got spooked.) Jackson said he had harbored racist thoughts since his youth, but he was particularly incensed by interracial relationships. Jackson said he regretted targeting his elderly victim, and wished he had killed a young thug or a successful older black man with blonds  people you see in Midtown. These younger guys that put white girls on the wrong path.
Sally Yates. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Sally Yatess tenure as the Trump administrations acting attorney general was short-lived but eventful. A holdover from the Obama Justice Department, Yates didnt make it two weeks before she was dismissed for refusing to defend Trumps first travel ban. But before she departed, she warned White House counsel Donald McGahn that National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had misled his superiors about his preelection conversation with the Russian ambassador to the United States. Weeks later, word of that warning leaked to the press  and Flynn promptly resigned.

Earlier this month, the House Intelligence Committee invited Yates to share her account of those developments, in an open hearing on the Putin governments alleged interference in the 2016 election. Such testimony might conceivably touch on why the Trump administration waited weeks after Yatess warning to oust Flynn.

Yates accepted the committees invitation.

Then, the Trump administration informed her that she would need to clear her testimony with the president, according to documents obtained by the Washington Post.

The Department of Justice has advised that it believes there are further constraints on the testimony Ms. Yates may provide at the hearing, Yatess attorney David ONeil wrote in a March 23 letter to Acting Assistant Attorney General Samuel Ramer. Generally, we understand that the department takes the position that all information Ms. Yates received or actions she took in her capacity as Deputy Attorney General and acting Attorney General are client confidences that she may not disclose absent written consent of the department.

ONeil rejected this assessment as overbroad, incorrect, and inconsistent with the departments historical approach to the congressional testimony of current and former officials.

In particular, we believe that Ms. Yates should not be obligated to refuse to provide non-classified facts about the departments notification to the White House of concerns about the conduct of a senior official, the letter continued. Requiring Ms. Yates to refuse to provide such information is particularly untenable given that multiple senior administration officials have publicly described the same events.

Heres how the Justice Department responded, according to the Post:

Scott Schools, another Justice Department official, replied in a letter the following day, saying the conversations with the White House are likely covered by the presidential communications privilege and possibly the deliberative process privilege. The president owns those privileges. Therefore, to the extent Ms. Yates needs consent to disclose the details of those communications to [the intelligence panel], she needs to consult with the White House. She need not obtain separate consent from the department.

National security blogger Marcy Wheeler argues the Justice Department has no case here  unless Trump was involved in some shady business:

[T]he claim that Yates conversations with McGahn should be covered by Executive Privilege is a stretch. Just by way of precedent, in 2007, Jim Comey testified about his conversations with White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales while serving as Acting Attorney General.



That is, Yates conversation should not be covered by Executive Privilege unless Trump is claiming he was involved in hiding this information from Mike Pence.

Last Friday, Yatess attorney reiterated her rejection of the DOJs analysis, and affirmed that she intended to testify at an open hearing scheduled for this Tuesday. By that point, Yates had also informed government officials that her testimony would probably contradict some statements made by the Trump administration.

That same day, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes canceled Yatess hearing.

On Tuesday, the White House denied that it had taken any action to prevent Sally Yates from testifying. Ostensibly, the White House does not consider warning Yates that her testimony would be illegal  absent the presidents consent  as such an action.

Statement from White House on Washington Post story concerning Sally Yates: pic.twitter.com/tur7D06vLS  Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) March 28, 2017

Regardless, the Trump administration appears to have discouraged Yates from testifying. Yates insisted on doing so, anyway. And then Nunes canceled the hearing where she was scheduled to speak.

When Nunes made that decision last week, his committees ranking Democrat accused him of trying to choke off public info.

BREAKING: Chairman just cancelled open Intelligence Committee hearing with Clapper, Brennan and Yates in attempt to choke off public info.  Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) March 24, 2017

Earlier that week, James Comey had testified that the FBI was investigating potential ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. The following night Nunes met with an anonymous source on White House grounds, where he reviewed intelligence reports that allegedly included the unmasked names of Trump transition officials who had been incidentally surveilled. Nunes went public with those findings the next day  before briefing his fellow committee members on the intelligence hed discovered. He proceeded to personally brief the president  an ostensible subject of his House investigation  on the intelligence reports that he had seen.

These actions spurred calls for Nunes to recuse himself from the Russia investigation on Monday.

The fact that Nunes appears to have canceled a hearing  that the White House wished to prevent  has further undermined the GOP lawmakers standing with Democratic committee members.

Was today's open hearing cancelled because WH did not want Sally Yates to testify re Gen Flynn's deception? Didn't want to assert privilege? pic.twitter.com/qO63IfPtAP  Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) March 28, 2017

Since the White House has no interest in blocking Yatess testimony, surely the House Intelligence Committee will reschedule its hearing, posthaste.
Trump and his health-care advisers probably cannot avoid a decision over abandoning or continuing a challenge to a House GOP lawsuit that could make Obamacare unsustainable. Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

After the House vote on the doomed American Health Care Act was canceled last week, both President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan predicted disaster for the Obamacare program that had escaped an outright repeal. The GOP line was that as Obamacare struggled Democrats would eventually come, hat in hand, with an offer to cooperate in enacting repeal-and-replace legislation, thus liberating Republicans from bondage to the House Freedom Caucus and the strictures of the budget process that made it difficult, if not impossible, to entirely repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The big question surrounding post-Trumpcare Obamacare was whether the administration and the GOP congressional leadership would wait for Obamacare to die of natural causes, or would give it a good firm push into the hereafter.

There are a variety of small administrative actions the Department of Health and Human Services can take  or refuse to take  that could stabilize insurance markets or make Obamacare coverage more attractive both to consumers and providers. And there is one big action the administration has threatened to pursue that would in the long run prove disastrous to basic functioning of the program: a loud refusal to enforce the tax penalties underlying the individual mandate, thus encouraging younger and healthier people to stay out of the system  making it more and more expensive for the people (increasingly old and sick) who remain.

The administration wont have much time to think about it either thats because its hand will be forced by a case currently in federal court.

Last May, a federal district court judge struck down payments the Obama administration was making to insurers to help them cushion the impact of out-of-pocket costs for lower-income customers. Under the ruling, in order for the subsidy payments to be constitutional, Congress would be required to pass annual appropriations to cover the subsidies cost.

The ruling was placed on hold pending an appeal by the Obama administration. Now the Trump administration must decide whether to abandon that appeal, which would have the effect of killing an estimated $10 billion in subsidies insurers were counting on, just as they are deciding whether to participate in the purchasing exchanges in 2018. If the administration decides to side with the House GOP lawsuit, it will then have to decide whether to ask that same House GOP to appropriate the money for the lost subsidies to avoid a market meltdown. And the only opportunity to do so will be in the current-year omnibus appropriations bill due up next month, which is already loaded with political problems. Heres how Caitlin Owens of Axios sums up the dilemma:

[T]heir next chance is the short-term spending bill due at the end of April  which is already almost certain to be mired in a fight over Planned Parenthood funding and money to build a wall along the southern border. The subsidies could get added to that spending bill, but only if insurers agree not to abandon the market in the next couple weeks, a senior GOP aide told me. And the payments could lead to a fight among Republicans, in addition to their likely battles over Planned Parenthood and the wall.

Indeed, appropriating $10 billion to keep an Obama promise to insurance companies as part of a broader effort to keep his legacy program alive sounds not only like a tall order for Republicans but certified grade-A demagogue bait for conservatives. It could very easily revive the defund Obamacare battle cry that led to the last actual government shutdown in 2013. But the alternative path isnt easy, either, as Owens notes:

If Republicans want to make sure the Obamacare markets explode, as President Trump has predicted they will, their best course of action would be to leave the payments unfunded. But this is politically risky: People have a tendency to blame their problems on those in charge, and many people would surely lose coverage or see massive premium increases if the GOP goes this route.

So theres Team Trumps choice: risk a health-care bloodbath in hopes that Americans will blame it on a powerless minority party, or increase the already high risk of a government shutdown as members of Trumps own party refuse to bail out Obamacare and Democrats refuse to let it (along with Planned Parenthood) die.

Speedy and shrewdly strategic decision-making has not been a signature characteristic of the Trump administration so far. But they may not be able to dodge this decision, and its many consequences.
Working-class zero. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

Six days after taking the oath of office, President Trump announced the hour of justice for the American worker has arrived.

Its time to restore the civil rights of Americans to protect their jobs, their hopes, and their dreams for a much better future, Trump told congressional Republicans at their annual retreat.

Congressional Republicans applauded Trumps sentiment  and, shortly thereafter, voted to allow companies that routinely violate their workers rights to receive federal contracts again. On Monday, Trump signed that measure into law.

Specifically, Republicans voted to repeal the Obama administrations Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order. That rule discouraged the General Services Administration from awarding federal contracts to companies with a history of stealing their employees wages, violating workplace safety standards, and/or illegally discriminating in hiring or pay. The order also required contractors to provide their employees with the necessary information each pay period to make sure they are getting paid what they are owed.

Now, companies will once again be free to underpay their workers, or evade safety regulations without fear of losing access to Uncle Sams deep pockets.

Republicans struck down the rule by deploying the Congressional Review Act (CRA)  a law that gives Congress the power to fast-track the reversal of regulations. Before Trump took office, the CRA had only been used to strike down one federal regulation in its 21-year history. Congress has, historically, been reluctant to use the CRA because regulations overturned through the law can never be reinstated by the executive branch, barring the approval of Congress.

On Monday, Trump struck down three other Obama-era regulations via the CRA. One gave the federal government more discretion in land-use decisions (a move despised by the energy industry), while two others were concerned with ensuring the quality of teacher-training programs and the enforcement of public-school performance standards. Trump and the GOP have now permanently eliminated seven Obama-era rules using the CRA.

While the presidents gift to labor-law violators may be out of step with his populist rhetoric, its perfectly consistent with his pledge to run the country like a business. After all, the idea that you dont really need to pay workers what theyre owed has long been a core tenet of Trumps corporate philosophy.
If at first you dont succeed, try something way more ambitious. Photo: Andrew Harrer - Pool/Getty Images

Shortly before the first major bill of his presidency died without a vote, Donald Trump infamously declared, Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.

Of course, that statement only rang true if one assumed that nobody was the presidents nickname for himself. But at least Trump is learning. After campaigning on the idea that his success in business would make him uniquely qualified to enact change in Washington from day one, Trump and his defenders in Congress have argued that he needs some time to get a feel for his new gig  but fear not, hes a fast learner.

The trouble is, Trump seems to have taken a very narrow lesson from the health-care debacle. Like a child who has learned not to touch hot pans after burning his fingers  but remains eager to play with his mothers hot iron  the president now knows that health care is complicated, but has gained little humility about the legislative process more broadly.

By April 29, Republicans need to pass a spending bill to avert a government shutdown. That bill is going to need Democratic support in the Senate. But it also may very well need the support of tea-party hard-liners in the House. And the latter arent keen on voting for spending bills that dont defund Planned Parenthood. When Obama was president, the House GOP relied on Democratic votes to keep the government open. But now, with the donkey party out of the White House  and Republicans likely to be blamed for any government failure under their watch  Democrats might be willing to force a shutdown over Trumps border wall.

Then, the GOP needs to come to agreement on a 2018 budget proposal, raise the debt ceiling, and, according to Trump and Paul Ryan, pass some kind of tax reform.

That seems like a rather full plate for a party that couldnt even get a vote on a bill it had seven years to write. But Trump is pretty sure he can walk, chew gum, and freestyle rap at the same time.

Per Axioss Jonathan Swan:

The Trump administration is looking at driving tax reform and infrastructure concurrently, according to a White House source with direct knowledge.



Its a major strategic shift  infrastructure was likely going to be parked until next year  and is only possible because of last weeks healthcare debacle. President Trump feels burned by the ultra conservative House Freedom Caucus and is ready to deal with Democrats. Dangling infrastructure spending is an obvious way to buy the support of potentially dozens of Dems, meaning he wouldnt have to bargain with the hardliners.

Pennylvania Republican Bill Shuster, who will lead the push for the infrastructure plan in the House, told Axios that, Infrastructure is always something, you can see it, you can feel it, you can taste it.

He also told the outlet that there is no solid plan for how to fund and build that tasty something.

The administration may have made some progress on that front Monday, when it received a list of 26 requested projects from North Americas Building Trades Unions. More than half of those projects are privately financed, according to McClatchy, and many are looking merely for regulatory measures to expedite the permitting process. The one project seeking taxpayer funding is the $20 billion Gateway project, which would add new rail capacity between New Jersey and New York.

Regardless, trying to build an infrastructure plan from scratch, while refining a tax-reform plan  and then pass them both, simultaneously, seems a bit hubristic.

Although, a lot depends on how liberally Trump is using the phrase tax reform. Right now, American corporations are hoarding $2 trillion overseas. Theres already a modicum of bipartisan support for allowing those companies to repatriate that money at a reduced rate, and then plowing the onetime windfall into infrastructure spending.

But even then, Trump will have little guarantee of Democratic support. Team Blue has internalized Mitch McConnells infamous insight  in American politics, the opposition party derives little electoral benefit from helping the other sides president secure bipartisan accomplishments.

Thus, to gain enough Democratic votes to compensate for the House Freedom Caucuss allergy to government spending, Trump will probably need to put forward a good deal of direct public investment, not merely targeted tax credits and regulatory reforms.

And even if he makes a real effort to reach across the aisle, hes already given the Democrats plenty of pretexts for slapping his hand away. To name just one: Democrats could refuse to play ball until he released his tax returns.

Nearly four years ago, President Obama proposed a grand bargain combining corporate tax reform and infrastructure spending. The opposition party sat on its hands.

Trumps bet is that a president with less legislative experience  and a long history of insulting and defaming the opposition party  will have more success. Granted, Trump has some big advantages over his predecessor. His party controls both houses of Congress, and a lot of vulnerable red-state Senate Democrats are up for reelection in 2018.

Still, its hard not to suspect that Trump is setting himself up for another, bitter learning experience.
Photo: Aude Guerrucci - Pool/Getty Images

President Donald Trump appeared to have returned to the 2016 campaign trail on Monday night, when he complained about the lack of investigation into the Clintons connections to Russia:

Why isn't the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2017

...money to Bill, the Hillary Russian "reset," praise of Russia by Hillary, or Podesta Russian Company. Trump Russia story is a hoax. #MAGA!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2017

The big uranium deal refers to a Russian state-run corporations takeover of a company that owned a significant portion of the United States uranium assets. Last summer and fall, Trump repeatedly alleged that Hillary Clinton was personally responsible for the deal, which took place when she was secretary of State. That claim has been widely dismissed: While the State Department signed off on the takeover, it was also subject to approval by nine other federal agencies and President Obama.

Trumps tweets came as House Intelligence Committee chair Devin Nunes faced increasing scrutiny over his handling of the investigation into Russias interference in the presidential election. On Monday afternoon, the California Republican admitted that hed secretly visited the White House just before his questionable announcement that members of Trumps transition team had been caught up in some legal, routine surveillance. Democrats then called for him to recuse himself from the investigation, citing concerns that he might be attempting to undermine the inquiry on Trumps behalf. Hes refused to step down, but demands that he do so arent going to stop. Whatever happens with Nunes, the Intelligence Committee isnt likely to indulge Trumps Clinton fixation anytime soon.
Trump. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

The failure of Trumpcare was the product of a crusade to destroy Obamacare that had outlived any factual predicate  Republicans decided Obamacare was a socialist monstrosity that would collapse, and when it failed to collapse, tried to destroy it anyway. Many of the same characteristics can be seen in Donald Trumps plans to destroy Barack Obamas climate legacy. It is an angry reflex in search of an idea.

To see the vacuousness of Trumps proposal, you dont need to go any farther than its name: the Energy Independence Executive Order. It would make sense if Trump were proposing to replace imported energy with domestic sources. But the entire goal of Trumps panoply of executive orders  enabling more oil and gas development and weakening regulations on carbon emissions  is to prioritize dirty domestic energy sources (oil and coal) over clean domestic energy sources (natural gas, wind and solar). Whatever reasons Trump may have to favor carbon-intensive energy sources over cleaner ones, energy independence has literally nothing to do with it whatsoever.

Trumps plan will slow the decline of the coal sector, but it will not stop it. The economic and political momentum behind the green-energy revolution is strong enough that Trump could not possibly hope to reverse it. In the power sector, coal plants are wildly expensive to run, even without Obamas regulations. The only factor keeping coal in place is that its often cheaper to continue running an old energy plant than to incur the costs of building new ones. Even so, coal plants continue to shut down and new ones will not replace them. Whats more, energy firms make decisions based on long time horizons. A four- or possible eight-year presidency run by dirty-energy enthusiasts is not a sufficiently strong incentive to make investment decisions that will play out over decades. Going forward, we anticipate an increase in renewable generation capacity and declining utilization of coal, one utility executive tells The Wall Street Journal today.

The Trump administration has previously announced its intent to weaken auto-emissions standards. But that may not make much difference if California and other states keep their stringent standards in place  automakers have to sell cars in California, so theyll meet the tougher state standards even if the federals standards are looser. And the states are going to fight to keep their standards.

Meanwhile, as green energy continues to come down in price, developing countries are meeting their energy needs with wind and solar rather than coal. For the last decade, Republicans have insisted that any domestic reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions would make no difference to climate change, since China and India would simply continue to ramp up their emissions regardless. Every 18 months, its emissions grow enough to replace the emissions savings the United States will accomplish by hitting the presidents 15-year target, argued one very typical example of the conservative movement line. Simply, without Chinas cooperation, U.S. efforts are futile.

This prediction has proven utterly false. Last year, according to the International Energy Agency, renewables accounted for two-thirds of new energy in China. Overall, Chinese emissions dropped by 1 percent even as its electricity use rose by 5.4 percent. Global climate-change efforts have reached a milestone. For the first time in recorded history, carbon dioxide emissions actually dropped without a recession having caused it:

Can Trump do damage to the environment? Yes, he can do a lot of damage. Merely continuing the pace of the green-energy revolution will not be enough to protect the planet from dire effects of climate change. We need to accelerate the pace of decarbonization. Trumps policies will make it difficult, perhaps even impossible, for the world to wring carbon out of its economy at a fast enough pace.

At the same time, he has no plan or policy vision that can displace the one Obama left behind. Wind turbines and solar panels are still going up, coal is declining. The Tesla Model 3, an electric car with a $35,000 sticker price, begins production this summer. Trumps irritable gestures against environmentalists and promises to restore the glories of coal will do more damage to the world than his failed crusade to kill Obamacare. What the two policies have in common is that they are the ultimately doomed effort by a brain-dead party to ignore a problem with which their dogma cannot grapple.
Bill OReilly came for Maxine Waters. Photo: Getty Images

California Congresswoman Maxine Waters was an outspoken opponent of Donald Trump well before he was inaugurated, and in a recent speech on the House floor, Waters explained why she was motivated to fight his agenda.

We stand up for America oftentimes when others who think they are more patriotic, who say they are more patriotic, do not, she said. When we fight against this president, and we point out how dangerous he is for this society and for this country, were fighting for the democracy.

But Fox News host Bill OReilly didnt hear a word of Waters speech  he was too busy staring at her hair. I was looking at the James Brown wig, OReilly told the hosts of Fox & Friends on Tuesday. If we have a picture of James Brown, its the same one.

African-American woman in Congress speaks up against the president, Bill O'Reilly says he won't listen because of her hair. pic.twitter.com/GVOkZNBNX9  Media Matters (@mmfa) March 28, 2017

Co-host Ainsley Earhardt defended Waters: You cant go after a womans looks, she pointed out. But OReilly didnt back down. I didnt say she wasnt attractive, he said. I love James Brown! He proceeded to invite Waters to appear on his show, The OReilly Factor, although its unclear how theyll hold a conversation if hes too busy mocking her hair to listen to whats coming out of her mouth.

This isnt the first time a Fox News host has made an incredibly offensive remark to Congresswoman Waters  back in 2012, Eric Bolling told her to step away from the crack pipe.

In response to the backlash, OReilly issued the following statement:

As I have said many times, I respect Congresswoman Maxine Waters for being sincere in her beliefs. I said that again today on Fox & Friends calling her old school. Unfortunately, I also made a jest about her hair which was dumb. I apologize.

According to a Fox News spokesperson, hell address his comments on tonights edition of The OReilly Factor.

This post has been updated with a statement from Bill OReilly.
Were just finding out whats going on in our city, Pastor Timothy McLean is saying. Its Sunday morning, and Pastor McLean, dressed in a crisp, blue suit, is pacing in front of the congregants of the Liberty Christian Church, a predominantly black church that meets in the auditorium of a Maryland high school just outside of Washington, D.C. Were going to come up with strategies, were going to come up with a plan of action, he says. If they take one of our children, theyve taken all of our children.

Conversations like this have been happening all over Washington in recent days, in press conferences, in community forums, and on social media. While official Washington was debating health care last week, the people that live in and around the city were demanding answers to a different question: Whats happening to D.C.s missing black children?

It started on Twitter in mid-March, when users who follow the citys official police account began noticing what seemed like an unusually high number of black teenagers being reported as missing persons. Seven black girls have been reported as missing in DC in the last 72 hours, wrote one user. It takes 3.2 secs to retweet and help find these 8 BLACK GIRLS reported missing in Washington, D.C. during the past three days, wrote another. Both tweets went viral, and soon D.C. officials were moving to tamp down the concerns.

First on social media and later at a press conference, the mayor and police clarified that the number of missing teens wasnt actually any higher than usual  the police were just trying to make better use of social media to help track them down. So far this year, they said, 708 people had been reported missing in Washington, 462 of them children. Nearly 200 juveniles have been reported missing in D.C. each month since 2012. In 2017, around 190 had been reported missing each month so far. The overwhelming majority of our missing persons return home or are located quickly, D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said.

Their efforts have done little to ease peoples fears. Last week, hundreds of residents packed a high-school auditorium in Southeast D.C. for an emotional community forum with local politicians and police, demanding to know what they were doing to bring down the numbers of missing children. The Congressional Black Caucus sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, demanding that the FBI devote the resources necessary to determine whether these developments are an anomaly or whether they are indicative of an underlying trend that must be addressed. Meanwhile, the social-media awareness campaign exploded. On Instagram, Tina Knowles and Nicki Minaj posted about it; on Twitter, LL Cool J, Sean Diddy Combs, and Viola Davis helped make #MissingDCGirls go viral.

The viral campaign kicked off a wave of speculation about everything from a possible serial killer to organ harvesters. One viral post claimed, incorrectly, that 14 girls had gone missing in one day. Pizzagate conspiracy theorists tried to hijack the conversation for their fake cause. But the misinformation cant overwhelm the broader truth: Ten kids going missing in a week is too many, and black teenagers are largely overrepresented in the ranks of missing youth in America. Black Americans make up only 13 percent of the overall population, but black teens totaled nearly 37 percent of people under the age of 17 reported missing in 2016. Cities dont publish this data uniformly, so it can be difficult to get a full picture of the problem, but there is good evidence that Washington isnt the only city where black youth go missing at alarming rates: a Chicago Reader analysis of police data last year found that black people of all ages were two-thirds of missing-persons cases in the city, despite being one-third of the citys population (the majority of those cases were for kids and young adults ages 11 to 21). The vast majority of missing-children cases involve endangered runaways (who are counted each time they run away), according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. But the fact that missing black children are generally undercovered by the media has the effect of minimizing the urgency of their cases.

Thats why Pastor McLean invited Derrica and Natalie Wilson, the co-founders of the Black and Missing Foundation, to services Sunday morning. Derrica, a law-enforcement veteran who was the first female African-American police officer in Falls Church, Virginia, and her sister-in-law Natalie, who has a background in media relations, founded the organization in 2008. They got the idea when watching how differently the media treated the case of Natalee Holloway, the white teenager whose 2005 disappearance on a school trip to Aruba became an international news-media juggernaut, to that of Tamika Huston, a South Carolina woman who disappeared a year earlier and whose case received comparatively little coverage, until her boyfriend at the time confessed to killing her.

Were helping to bridge that gap, says Derrica, describing how the organization has helped families spread word about their missing loved ones to the media and filed police reports on their behalf. The group works with D.C. police on missing-persons cases, and they said social media has been useful in tracking down missing children. (In one recent case in Baltimore, police lauded keyboard crime fighters for helping them locate a missing girl after a woman recognized her from a post on Facebook.)

When they first started looking at the statistics of missing people of color in the United States, Natalie said, they were shocked by what they found. We were very surprised. At the time I think it was a little under 200,000 people [of color] that were reported missing, Natalie said. What about the ones who arent reported missing? The number could be much higher.

In recent years, activists in Canada have forced the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women to the center of the political conversation, resulting in a government inquiry that began last year. According to one report, there were as many as 1,200 cases there. Though the population of Canada is much smaller than that of the U.S., activists argue that the scale of the missing people of color here  more than 240,000 people of color were reported missing in 2016, out of 647,000 cases  warrants a similar political movement. Its long overdue here, Natalie said. Weve been saying it for a while. Were glad the conversation has started, but it cant stop. We all have a role to play.

At the services Sunday, Natalie and Derrica encouraged parents to create social-media accounts to watch their children online, and volunteers demonstrated self-defense techniques for kids. We must have uncomfortable conversations with our children, Derrica said.

Natalie stressed that there isnt a single easy solution. People go missing for a number of reasons, she said. Some of the missing were kids with special needs, others were fleeing domestic violence, others are being forced into sex trafficking. We are trying to change the narrative where our missing people are overlooked. People dont see these individuals as real people  they have names, families who love them, and we want to ensure that theyre not forgotten.

After the service, I talked with Derrick Butler and Brandi Martin. Both spoke on the panel at the church, and both have missing family members: Brandis mother disappeared after breaking things off with an abusive partner in 1992, when Brandi was a little girl. Derricks sister Pamela was last seen entering her house in Northwest Washington on her home-surveillance system in 2009. Her boyfriend was seen entering and exiting her home several more times, but Pam never left and wasnt seen again. Butler and Martin told me that they dont hold out hope of finding their loved ones alive. But they volunteer with the organization to try to help find other missing people of color.

For Martin, the newfound awareness on social media is a good thing  but it ultimately wont mean a lot unless people start organizing and volunteering to help find the missing kids. I would love it if the people who are reposting and have so much to say about it get out and do something about it, she said. Butler agreed. I dont want us to talk about it, and have this big blowout, and then have it die down and go back to business as usual, he said.

Additional reporting by Lindsay Peoples.
Rihanna on Bates Motel. Photo: A&E

Last night concluded Rihannas two-episode stint as Marion Crane (the role played by Janet Leigh in the original Psycho) on A&Es Bates Motel, and if you had Marion survives notorious killer and subverts classic horror scene in spectacular fashion on your RiRi-inspired Bates Motel drinking game, I hope youre enjoying your hangover.

In the previous episode, Rihanna/Marion checked in to the eponymous motel to hide out after stealing $400,000 from her boss, and it was assumed that this week wed finally get a reenactment of the iconic shower murder scene from the 1960 horror classic. But this is RiRi were talking about, and you can be damn sure shes not about to get murdered by some taxidermy-loving mamas boy while shes washing her hair.

While we do see Rihanna/Marion showering while Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) spies on her through a peephole, before he can try anything, she declares screw this shit! and steps out to go track down her boyfriend, Sam (Austin Nichols). But when Rihanna/Marion finds out that Sam has been cheating on her, she flees with her cash in hand  leaving him to be shower-stabbed in her place.

In hindsight, we were fools to expect anything less.
This is my first time seeing it. But I haven't sorted /r/politics via new yet. I've got it on /top by the hour and /rising. DAMNIT ADMIN!

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Also, NOOO LEGO BATMAN!

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If KellyHag Conman can plug Ivanka with no repercussions, I'm sure this dude will be fine.

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"We're going to have clean coal. Really clean coal." #Trump rolls back #Obama's record on climate change with a series of executive orders pic.twitter.com/Ff4FvcZTjL  Sky News (@SkyNews) March 28, 2017





Clean coal doesn't exist. The coal industry is never coming back. Say hello to even more pollution, dirty water and dirty air. I remember Clinton's coal comments in WV really upsetting people but at least she was honest. Those jobs in WV are never coming back and there's an opioid crisis that Trump will do fuck all about. The con job was unbelievable.



Edited at 2017-03-28 06:56 pm (UTC) Clean coal doesn't exist. The coal industry is never coming back. Say hello to even more pollution, dirty water and dirty air. I remember Clinton's coal comments in WV really upsetting people but at least she was honest. Those jobs in WV are never coming back and there's an opioid crisis that Trump will do fuck all about. The con job was unbelievable.

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it's amazing how they don't realise (i know why they don't they want $$$) there are jobs in green energy and lasting jobs, not just construction jobs. fuck everything

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Right? Why would you spend the money and resources trying to revive a dying industry? The world is moving ahead with clean energy and those people who are hoping to have those jobs in the coal industry are going to be in the exact same fucking spot 10 years from now. So short-sighted and idiotic.



Edited at 2017-03-28 07:21 pm (UTC)

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my best friend's husband started out as a solar panel installer four years ago and is now a regional manager for the company. the company is growing like wildfire. there are so many jobs in clean energy!

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From an article I was reading:



According to an Energy Department analysis released in January, coal mining now accounts for fewer than 75,000 U.S. jobs. By contrast, renewable energy  including wind, solar and biofuels  now accounts for more than 650,000 U.S. jobs.

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What next? Are you going to try to bring back the horse and carriage industry?

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I'm in once upon a time coal country. And ever since it left, this place has been a shit hole. And so many people here voted for him because he was going to bring back the coal jobs.



ohmygod you people/. first of all, no. second of all most of our mines have collapsed! third, no!

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im so tired of coal miners being treated like the most important people in the country



fuck coal and fuck them

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Yea coal is done, people need to move on.

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North Dakota is SUPER DUPER EXCITED because the coal industry pimps said that they will be able to open new coal plants!!!! JERBS!!!

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This is what I don't understand. Isn't coal mining a miserable fucking job? Aren't there hundreds of health and safety violations every year, which can lead to mine collapses and miners' deaths? Why fight so hard to keep a job like that? I wish they would understand that what they need is a stable, unionized job in a industry that is set to grow, not perish.

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this news is incredibly depressing considering this past year the US and China combined almost doubled the amount of solar power being used and there have been so many leaps in terms of renewable energy technology.



also fuck my PM for being so cavalier about this news, drink from a pipeline, Justin

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same sis, hopefully, when the shit hits the fan they're also taken out too lbr

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DON'T DO IT KARLIE!

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Swim away Karlie!

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i just read her name as amabella and immediately thought of laura dern's BLL character lmao

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That's what I don't understand either, why aren't they converting to cleaner energy? Long term there is more money to be made that way.

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Because they don't want to invest in it aka spend money.

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IA and this comment is killing me lmao

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I watched this episode last week! It was glorious still.

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A+ gif usage!

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did anyone see what that fox news asshole said to maxine waters? he said she needs to put the crack pipe down because look what happened to whitney houston. but fox news is legitimate news right? i hope cnn and everyone else is regretting standing up for them when obama tried to run them out. lawrence o'donnell asked them how much they paid out for bill o'reilley's sexual harrassment suits though lol i love him more than jake tapper i think

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in any case i wanted to edit my comment to include the tweet but my computer is so slow and you responded so i'll just leave the embed here





Vile. "You saw what happened to Whitney Houston. Step away from the crack pipe..." - @EricBolling to @MaxineWaters pic.twitter.com/CWMcJbQNIm  Rob Bennett (@rob_bennett) March 28, 2017 i don't get why you are telling me to shut the fuck up, i'm so confused right now lolin any case i wanted to edit my comment to include the tweet but my computer is so slow and you responded so i'll just leave the embed here

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Here's Sean Spicer telling April Ryan not to shake her head. pic.twitter.com/ojHnkt7MVW  Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) March 28, 2017





WM are the absolute fucking worst.



Bill O'Reilly:



-Nonexistent hairline

-Fox News having to pay out this sexual harassment cases

-Does not have custody of his children bc they witnessed him physically abusing their mother

-Die Sean Spicer also just did this to April Ryan. No surprise how Fox News trash treats Black women.WM are the absolute fucking worst.Bill O'Reilly:-Nonexistent hairline-Fox News having to pay out this sexual harassment cases-Does not have custody of his children bc they witnessed him physically abusing their mother-Die

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I saw so many deplorables on twitter falsely comparing the black hair comment to comments made about 45's "hair" as if they held the same weight.

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WHAT

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Oh yeah and then Bill O Reilly said something like he wasn't going to listen to her because her hair looked like a James Brown wig????



I fucking can't with these half brained racists.

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Our environment is so fucked.



Coal is never coming back and people have to stop lying to the people in West Virginia or wherever. People also have to stop lying about factory jobs coming back, they're not, unless you wanna work for a penny and have no benefits.

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yeah but if you keep lying and then promising that you're the ONLY ones who are going to bring those jobs back, then you've got yourself a reliable voting bloc!

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I try to be sympathetic to those who feel like they're losing their livelihood in the coal industry but I hate how we have to coddle people at the expense of our literal survival on this planet + for the generations once we're all dead and gone. Instead Trump and the GOP lies, deregulates and will kill the environment. lbr we're sort of already fucked as it is but the Trump presidency will kill any chance of fixing things. Other job prospects exist but instead politicians would rather lie and say stupid shit like "clean coal."

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Even if factory jobs come back they'll mostly be automated, they're not going to be employing a bunch of people.

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this! like, are people that stupid as to think they are going to hire a labor force to do what machines can do for a fraction of the cost in a fraction of the time? it's not happening.

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Exactly. There's a new survey just came out that basically said a lot of the service jobs are getting chopped in the next 20 years. Jobs like office support, you know...my field. It's scary as fuck, yes. But after the fear leaves, you have to readjust. It's not just coal and factory workers being targeted. We need to do, as suggested by the panel, and bring back job training programs to help us transition easier.

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Coal has been dying for decades and it's not an Obama effect. Natural gas is cheaper, there is a ton of automation, plus solar and wind costs are plummeting. Move on.

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It makes me so mad people use the "we need more jobs" excuse for pulling back EPA regulations. If people are too sick to work because their water and air is being polluted more jobs are useless.

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I hate everything.

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The jobs are gone, coal is dead. We need to invest in training these people to do other things that don't destroy our environment or their lungs. Like, fuck, this is so fucking frustrating.



Edited at 2017-03-28 07:09 pm (UTC)

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Also can we talk about the Sally Yates stuff? WaPo set an excellent trap for the White House and they fell for it. WaPo reported that Yates was blocked from testifying to Congress re: Flynn. White House denied it. WaPo produced letters that said otherwise.



LMAO

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I'm so embarrassed that Nunes I said my rep. I wish someone that people would vote for would run against him.

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Me too, I was about to make this exact comment. This asshole, I want to vote him out so badly but the people who live around me are stupid enough to vote him in again.

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OMG I hadn't seen the whole thing. I am ENRAGED.

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LMFAOOOOOOOO RUSSIAN SALAD DRESSING



I hope to God Melissa McCarthy does another skit.



SPICEY!!!!!!!!!!



Edited at 2017-03-28 09:18 pm (UTC)

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coal country can rot.



Edited at 2017-03-28 07:19 pm (UTC)

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So disgusting. Wtf is wrong with these people...

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can someone explain what this means? sell it to who? what would the information be used for? what's the argument that this is a good idea?

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Nice but they need to cast Astrid already!

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Y'all, I feel it in my SOUL that it's Gemma Chan. I need it

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Oh wow she's so beautiful

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Better fuucking be!!

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Holy moly she's a STUNNER. Yes please.

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it has to be. she's the only one.

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I'm just so excited this movie is happening!

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I cannot fucking wait to see this movie!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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i love constance, i hope she gets all the success!

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Me too. Especially since I fear that Hollywood will stonewall her because she's so vocal about whitewashing and hollywood bullshit re: race

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NUT IN ME TBH NUT IN ME TBH

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Hmm, in this pic he looks more how I imagined Nick's friend who gets married in the first book to be. But he's appropriately dreamy either way, so.

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I think Godfrey Gao would make a great Colin Khoo tbh

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y'know I know what you mean. he does come off as more Colin.

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Yeah I'd agree that he feels more like a Colin but I'm hoping he and Constance have chemistry.

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oh wow he's qt

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Raw me!

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He's not what I imagined Nick to look like, but damn I approve.

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Hawt

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I will fight you for him.

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He cute

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he was one of my friend's fuck buddy hahahahah

i dunno if theyre still seeing each other



Edited at 2017-03-29 05:27 am (UTC)

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Okay okay okay

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The beauty bar for this cast is set so high, I love it.



I think Michelle Yeoh is a great choice for Eleanor

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this cast is ridiculously beautiful, lololol. omg I hope they do a TON of premieres so we can see them slay the red carpet. ahhhhh.

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A Cannes premiere would be fitting imo. That giant ass carpet and lots of media

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Also, cast Ludi Lin as Oliver

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You have flawless taste in this post.

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I hope in the third book they go into [ spoiler ] how/why Oliver chose to help Kitty get those scrolls. Is he doing it because he loves how horrified all of them are by her? Does he feel bad for pushing her onto Kristen Bell? omg yasss!!!!I hope in the third book they go into

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i will never get over the kristen bell thing lmaoooo

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My guess would be $$$$. Oliver would have gotten a fat commission from Kitty.

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um you are so on point, i bow

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Also I literally just finished reading this book yesterday. I didn't really like the pacing and it felt kinda rushed towards the end, but I think it'll make such an awesome movie omg I can just imagine how amazing everything will look if they do it correctly. And some of the characters lend themselves so well to a movie adaptation tbh, I can't wait to see how they portray Astrid and fucking Eddie lmao.



Edited at 2017-03-28 10:50 pm (UTC)

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Eddie will probably be the highlight of the damn movie..I'm calling it now.

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MTE just watch

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ia about eddie. seeing him on screen will be...something lol

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I knew a guy with a Malay roots would be cast. It's perfect since Henry is from the UK and is based in Singapore right now. My sigh of relief that it's not Godfrey Gao! Nick and Rachel are the Mary-Sue couple but hey at least they've been cast.



I'm waiting on Astrid, Michael and Charlie since they give the books life anyways. Same with Kitty Pong.





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Lol I'm ready for the portrayal of Kitty Pong on screen tbh. So many possibilities.

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IKR? I'm hope they don't disappoint me on Queen Kitty's casting.

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I wonder if they will copy Kitty's dress with the stripes EXACTLY

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Godfrey Gao would be too typical and as fine as hell as he is, he'd make Nick blander than he already is IMO.

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I wonder if they are trying to court Daniel Wu..would he play Michael or Charlie?

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He's cute so I approve!

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gorl he's hot





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DED @ his British accent.

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i knew i recognized him

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OMG now I remember him. I used to watch little bits of this all the time. Lol

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oh wow

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Well hello there

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He is fucking hot af

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Where's his audition tape, though?

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In the ten years since the release of her sex tape, @KimKardashian has transformed American culture https://t.co/RfNtRvPtDh  Page Six (@PageSix) March 27, 2017

 10 years after the release of Kim's sex tape, Page Six talks to some of the ~key players~ in this MONUMENTAL MOMENT of pop culture history. They spoke to(former editor at In Touch) and Vivid's Dickson says he befriended Kim prior to the tape and that she had been feeding him stories in her attempt to make it in Hollywood. He told her to get on TV somehow so they could cover her, which led to her 90-second stint on The Simple Life. He also says that Kim called the paparazzi on herself while dating Nick Lachey immediately after his divorce from Jessica Simpson; Dickson says he told her to fuck Nick Lachey so she could be a famous girlfriend, and thus get more play in tabloids. (Through her lawyer, Kim denies these claims) Dickson recalls hearing about Kim's sex tape and immediately called Kim (he describes her as "mousy") in a panic. Kim was with Paris Hilton in Australia and initially denied the woman in the video was her, saying instead that it was Karrine "Superhead" Steffans. Dickson said Kim was crying while he was on the phone w/Paris. (Through her lawyer, Kim denies denying it was her in the video), Paris' publicist, said he didn't pursue her as a client & nobody was interested in Kim K and that he assumed she'd be a flash in the pan. Hirsch says he went back & forth with Kim's attorney, trying to work out a deal; the video was released March 21st 2007 while Kim didn't settle with Vivid until April 27th. Hirsch says he had no contact w/Kris & that the people shopping the video weren't working on Kim's behalf. Kim's lawyer says Kim never provided proof of age, which should have legally prohibited Vivid from distributing the video. (There's a lot more detail at the source but it's hard to summarize) Karrine Steffans, who dated Ray J, told him not to sign a deal with Vivid because, being a black man, porn wouldn't benefit him the way it would Kim; she says that if Kim were a black woman, she'd have the same advice for her. She says Ray J thought the video would make him white famous. Dickson says that Paris & Kim's friendship fell apart immediately after Kim became famous but Kardashian & Dickson maintained a professional relationship. He says the Kardashians provided In Touch w/6 yrs worth of cover stories with Kim as a source. KUWTK was in production prior to the video's release. This article is long as fuck.
The Dakota Access pipeline is ready to start shipping crude oil from North Dakotas Bakken play south to Illinois, project operator Energy Transfer Partners said in a regulatory filing yesterday. The company said that it had put crude in a reservoir under the Missouri River, and that full-scale flow will begin soon. The reservoir is in the section of the pipeline under Lake Oahe that sparked protests from local Native American tribes and environmentalists.

The news comes a couple of days after media reported that the FBI is investigating a case of vandalism of the pipeline. According to the reports, the Dakota Access was vandalized at two locations in Sioux County, Iowa. The perpetrators had reportedly tried to burn holes in some sections of the pipeline where it is above ground, at valve sights. Energy Transfer Partners said that attacks have been carried out in South Dakota, too, which was later confirmed by local authorities.

More such acts are a possibility since the protesters failed to put a stop to the pipeline despite the protests, which lasted for months, and despite challenging the project in court. Arguments such as the pipeline would threaten local communities drinking water and affect religious practices by desecrating holy grounds and, again, the lakes water, failed to convince judges. Related: Pro-Extension Voices In OPEC Become Louder

Environmental reviews concluded that the pipeline will be safe, while Energy Transfer Partners itself noted that there are already several pipelines passing through Lake Oahe, all of them older and potentially more dangerous. After President Trump signed an executive order for the project to continue, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers last month granted the last permit that Energy Transfer needed to proceed with the contested section of the pipeline.

Yet opponents are not giving up. The Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes and their supporters are still determined to continue the legal battle against the Dakota Access project.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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The first three months of this year have made one thing crystal clear: Big Oil is set on expanding in shalehardened by the lessons the oil price crisis taught itand leveraging the experience of oil and gas independents.

Shale has lower production costs, at least in the U.S. and possibly in Argentina, and returns come sooner than those from conventional oil and gas projects. That combination is irresistible for Shell, Exxon, and Chevron, who have suffered to varying degrees from their traditional focus on big projects.

Shell, for instance, had to write off several billion dollars after it dropped its Arctic endeavors, pressured by plummeting oil prices. Exxon recently wrote down its total reserves thanks to its assets in Canadas oil sands becoming commercially unviable at current price levels. Chevron is in the middle of a three-year divestment program in an attempt to slim down and streamline its operations.

Meanwhile, all three are investing heavily in shale. Shell is boasting breakeven levels of $20 per barrel in its Permian acreage. Exxon is spending a third of its drilling budget on shale. Chevron plans to double its spending on shale this year to $3 billion, despite curbs elsewhere in its budget. Related: OPEC Out Of Moves As Goldman Sachs Expects Another Oil Glut In 2018

Combined, the three majors plan to splash around $10 billion on shale projects this year, Bloombergs Javier Blas writes, noting that just a few years ago, oil majors couldnt have cared less about unconventional oil.

But things have changed for everyone, and Big Oil is better placed than independents to make the most of what shale can offer. It simply has greater flexibility thanks to the financial resources at its disposal, which it seems more than ready to utilize to the fullest.

Shell, for instance, is drilling multiple wells in a single oil pad, saving on the costs of moving a rig from pad to pad. It is also using three times the amount of fracking sand and fluid it used four years ago, cutting its costs per well to $5.5 million. Efficiency is the new mantra of Big Oil.

Chevron has boasted a 35-percent drop in operating costs in its Permian acreage for this year, with plans to further raise the number of its drilling rigs there. Going forward, CEO John Watson said that shale production could reach a quarter of Chevrons overall output by the middle of the 2020s.

Exxon, which earlier this year struck a deal with the Bass family to buy Permian assets for $6.6 billion, said it is eyeing a 20-percent annual increase in its shale production in the period until 2025.

Independents have pumped from the shale patch for years. And while Big Oil is a relative newcomer, it has watched what the independents do, and is now doing the samebut on a much bigger scale. Some are still worried that this rush to the shale patch will end badly, because unlike Big Oils traditional projects, it requires constant spending; quick returns are, after all, part of the much shorter lifecycle of shale wells. The majors are not used to this business model, and could end up on the losing side.

Related: The Upcoming Surge In U.S. Oil Demand Explained In One Chart

Others are hailing Big Oils entry into shale as a way for the U.S. to gain the upper hand in the race with Saudi Arabia on whos the biggest  and most energy independent  of them all. Thats where the main advantage of Big Oil lies: unlike independents that have limited resources and regularly overspend to keep the pumps going, Exxon, Shell, and Chevron have more robust cash flows that provide them with more space for maneuvering.

The big guys in oil are not just focusing on U.S. shale, either. They all have big plans for Argentinas Vaca Muerta giant shale formation. Shale exploration is firmly a top priority for Big Oil, balancing the other top priority: deepwater projects. These are the traditional kind, with large upfront investments and then years and years of exploitations. Big Oil is keeping the balance between conventional and unconventional.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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Oil prices inched higher on Tuesday morning as buyers joined the fray, aided by a more positive OPEC attitude towards a deal extension.

(Click to enlarge)

 The U.S exported an average of 520,000 bpd of crude oil in 2015, up 12 percent from the year before. That came even as domestic production declined.

 The number of destinations also grew sharply, with exports going to 26 different countries last year, compared to just 10 in 2015.

 In 2015, over 90 percent of crude exports went to Canada, but only 58 percent in 2016.

 The top destinations after Canada last year were: the Netherlands, Curacao, China, Italy, the UK, South Korea, Singapore and Colombia, to name a few.

Market Movers

 Chevron (NYSE: CVX) started production at a third LNG train at its Gorgon export facility in Australia. The startup could exacerbate the glut in LNG markets because some of the new supply is not contracted out for buyers. The excess could flood the spot market.

 Energy Transfer Partners (NYSE: ETP) says that oil is beginning to flow through its Dakota Access pipeline. Once at full capacity the $3.8 billion project will carry 570,000 bpd from North Dakota to the Midwest and Gulf Coast.

 Tesla (NYSE: TSLA) announced that it will begin taking orders for its new solar roof in April. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has not revealed pricing information yet, but the solar roof, the company has said in the past, will generate electricity while appearing to look like a conventional roof. Related: Dakota Access Pipeline Loaded And Ready For Business

Tuesday March 28, 2017

Oil prices dipped on Monday on concerns about OPECs resolve and its intention to extend its production cuts for another six months. However, prices moved up on Tuesday on a weaker dollar and some bargain buying.

OPEC to weigh deal extension. OPECs monitoring committee met over the weekend to assess the status of the production cuts. Several members voiced their support for an extension of the deal for another six months beyond June. It seems that most of the OPEC and non-OPEC (countries) are going to extend the agreement, but time is needed to evaluate the situation and to have face-to-face meetings and discussions with others," Irans oil minister Biajn Zanganeh said from Moscow. However, no formal recommendation will come until the group meets again in April.

Saudi Arabia lowers tax rate for Aramco. The Saudi government cut its taxes on Saudi Aramco this week, a move seen as boosting the value of the company when it launches its IPO. The tax rate will fall from 85 percent to just 50 percent, bringing the company in line with international benchmarks, the government says. The government hopes to raise somewhere on the order of $100 billion from the partial IPO of Aramco.

Goldman warns against OPEC extension. Goldman Sachs says that an extension of the OPEC deal is not needed, given that the market is adjusting. Inventories are coming down, and that is exactly what OPEC aimed for with its deal. An extension in the hopes of higher oil prices would backfire, Goldman says, because if prices rose above $60 per barrel, U.S. shale would come back much stronger.

Libya oil production cut by 252,000 bpd. Production at Libyan oil fields fell by 252,000 bpd this week because armed factions forced the shutdown of a few oil fields. Libyas output continues to seesaw amid political deadlock and war between rival factions.

Shale companies step up hedging. The shale industry is increasing its hedging as a way to protect themselves from a downfall in prices. Shale producers have hedged roughly 27 percent of their production this year, compared to just 17 percent at this point a year ago, according to Wood Mackenzie. The average strike price for the hedges is $54 per barrel, compared to just $42 per barrel last year.

Trump begins process of undoing Clean Power Plan. President Trump today signed an executive order that calls for scrapping the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administrations signature achievement to address climate change. The program places caps on carbon emissions from power plants aimed at cutting CO2 emissions by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. President Trump is hoping to undo this program, but as an official rule, it will be a lengthy and arduous process and will certainly lead to legal fights. The executive order will also not lead to a sudden construction wave of coal-fired power plants, which are investments with time horizons stretching out decades. Utilities have all but moved on from coal when planning new investments, and Trumps moves are unlikely to change that.

Maryland to ban fracking. The state of Maryland is moving close to banning fracking within its borders. The state senate approved the measure, and the ban surprisingly has the support of Marylands Republican Governor. Maryland will become the second state within the Marcellus Shale to ban fracking, after New York. The state has only a small slice of territory along its western border that is seen as viable for natural gas drilling.

Shell and Anadarko split joint venture. Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS.A) and Anadarko Petroleum Corp (NYSE: APC) are set to let a 10-year joint venture in the Permian Basin expire so that they can split their properties and go it alone. They believe that a breakup will both of them to accelerate development.

Cheap oil strains Middle East governments. Middle East oil producers are seeing their debt levels rise as they try to paper over holes in their budgets, according to the WSJ. Oman recently took out a $4 billion loan from banks in exchange for future oil production over a five-year period. Saudi Arabia is also looking at various financing arrangements to provide immediate injections of cash. Related: Oil Companies Bet Big On This Mature Oil Play

Shale drillers leaving uncompleted wells. Reuters reports that the shale industry is back to drilling hundreds of new wells every month, but they are leaving a sizable portion of those wells uncompleted. The backlog of drilled but uncompleted wells (DUCs) became a feature of the oil bust. But DUCs are actually on the rise even though the shale industry is in the midst of a rebound. Reuters finds that many companies are drilling anew because of the terms of their lease agreements, which require drilling activity within a certain timeframe or else the companies forfeit the land. The DUC backlog in the Permian Basin alone amounts to roughly 300,000 bpd of fresh supply.



Chinese oil demand softens. If oil prices are to take another downturn, weak Chinese demand could be one of the culprits. The Chinese economy has slowed so far this year, and the rush to fill Chinas SPR in recent years was a sort of one-off shot in the arm for demand. With large portions of the SPR filled up, Chinas oil imports are slowing.

Hedge funds liquidate bullish bets. The unwinding of bullish bets by hedge funds and other money managers continues. Instead of the one-sided bet that we have seen in recent months, the faltering sentiment has forced many investors to close out their long positions. The rush for the exits is putting downward pressure on crude prices.

Hurricane Energy makes North Sea discovery. Hurricane Energy (LON: HUR), a small oil E&P in the UK, made a large discovery west of the Shetland Islands this week. The discovery is billed as one of the largest undeveloped finds in the North Sea recorded this century. The North Sea has been suffering from years of decline, but the less developed areas west of the Shetlands could provide a new lease on life for the region.

By Tom Kool for Oilprice.com

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Saudi Aramcos IPO future looks a bit more bleak than was expected. U.S. lawsuits by American insurance companies and the continuing threat of low oil prices are pushing Saudi Arabia into a corner.

On 23rd of March, a long list of U.S. based insurance companies, including Safeco, Wausau and many Lloyds syndicates, have joined hundreds of families of 9/11 victims in filing lawsuits in the U.S. District Court of Manhattan. The parties are slated to be seeking more than $2 billion in damages. Some reports even state financial damages of up to $11 billion, but no confirmation until now has been given. Families of 9/11 victims and insurers are claiming that the attacks by Osama Bin Ladens Al Qaeda are an act of international terrorism, that falls under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which was approved by the U.S. Congress in September 2016. As the main party in this law suit, the victims and insurers are claiming that Saudi Arabia and a number of its charities have supported the Al Qaeda organization via financial and material support, enabling the latter to carry out the attacks. Former U.S. president Obama even tried to block JASTA via a veto, but Congress was able to override the veto.

The impact of the JASTA lawsuits could be much larger for U.S.-Saudi relations than currently has been assessed. The still fragile relationship between the Kingdom and Washington, largely due to 8 years of Obamas strategy in the Middle East, where Washington has been on a confrontation course with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and several other main Arab allies with regards to the Arab Spring and Syria. Saudi Arabias minister of foreign affairs Al Jubeir and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) recently visited the U.S. in an attempt to revamp the bilateral cooperation. Officially the strategic relationship between Riyadh and Washington has improved significantly, as Mohammed bin Salman and Trump seem to have been cozying up. On the surface, the Trump Administration has been willing to reset relations with Saudi Arabia. Main driver for this seems however to be the offer made by the Kingdom to instigate a $200 billion investment program, as MBS openly stated during his visit to Washington earlier this month.

Saudi officials have called it a "historical turning point" in U.S.-Saudi relations, but facts on the ground show that there are more threats to this relationship than positive developments. During all meetings, the impact and possible threat of JASTA has been on the table, but no real measures have been taken it seems. Looking at upcoming Saudi Aramco IPO and its listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), a continuation of JASTA law suits could be seen as a potential financial threat for Saudi Arabia.

The JASTA lawsuits have come at the same time that Saudi minister of foreign affairs Al Jubeir stated in the press that Saudi Arabia is having "serious discussions" with the New York Stock Exchange about having the NYSE as one of the exchanges for state oil giant Saudi Aramco's IPO. He reiterated on Friday, March 24, that our objective is to try to complete the IPO sometime in 2018. There are serious discussions with the New York Stock Exchange about having the NYSE be one of the exchanges for the Aramco IPO and I believe the decision will be made on the financial merits". Looking however at the lawsuits, this could become doubtful soon. For U.S. investors and Washington pundits, the threat is also real as Aramco and MBS could decide not to list it on NYSE but choose major listings in London (LSE), Hong Kong or Tokyo. Such a decision could be another major slap in the face to Trump, as part of his ongoing economic strategy would be increased investments in the U.S. infrastructure sector. Saudi Arabia, via MBS, has been promising vast investments in these sectors, in addition to Saudi high-tech investments already done or projected. The lawsuits against the Kingdom currently pursued will not be taken lightly by Saudi royalty. Possible reactions could be a reconsideration of existing and future investments of Aramco, SABIC, Saudis SWF Public Investment Fund (which will be having revenues of Aramco IPO) and others. Related: 4 Factors Driving Oil Prices This Summer

At the same time that lawsuits are threatening Saudi assets in the U.S., and possibly the IPO position of NYSE, Saudi officials will be worried about the impact of the 2nd shale revolution in the U.S. and the effects of the OPEC and non-OPEC export cuts. Global crude oil prices are again showing a roller-coaster ride, prices are very volatile, based on emotions and a lack of confidence in OPEC and non-OPEC producers. Last weekends joint committee meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC members in Kuwait reviewed the impact of the December 2016 agreement to cut their combined output by almost 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first six month of 2017. The original deal was to last six months, with the possibility of a six-month extension. No decision has been taken during the Kuwait meeting. Officials now stated that the committee had requested a technical group and for the OPEC Secretariat to "review the oil market conditions and revert ... in April, 2017 regarding the extension of the voluntary production adjustments". The latter is seen by the market as not enough to stabilize crude oil prices. A potential further liquidation of long positions is to be expected, if no other signs of improvement are seen soon. As Kuwaits minister of oil Essam Al Marzouqi stated, unless we have conformity with everybody, we cannot go ahead with the extension of the deal. Others reiterated however that the data in the market shows that there is a high level of conformity by members (OPEC and non-OPEC) to participate fully with the December 2016 decision.

For Saudi Arabia, Aramco, deputy crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman, and minister of oil Khalid Al Falih, the signs are however put on red-orange. The threats of higher crude price volatility, combined with increased U.S. shale oil and a production increase of Iran, Iraq, Libya and others, doesnt bode well for a full success of the intended Aramco IPO at the start of 2018. The overall picture of Saudi Arabia looks gloomy, if you believe the international media. As Saudi Arabia is heavily reliant on hydrocarbon revenues, its government income has fallen by around 64 percent. Saudis Department of Finance reported in the Saudi Arabia 2017 budget, that revenues have fallen to around SR329 billion at the end of 2016, 64 percent lower than in 2014. Hydrocarbon income as a percentage of the Saudis government budget has shrunk to 62.3 percent in 2016, in comparison to 87.9 percent in 2014. The Saudi government had to enter the international financial markets during that time to borrow money to fund expenses. This has caused it to incur hefty budget deficits. On March 22, Fitch Ratings shocked the market when it downgraded Saudi Arabias long-term foreign and local currency issuer default ratings to A+ and a stable outlook. As Fitch stated, the downgrade reflects the continued deterioration of public and external balance sheets, the significantly wider than expected fiscal deficit in 2016 and continued doubts about the extent to which the governments ambitious reform program can be implemented. Related: Will The Oil Price Slide Lead To A Credit Crunch For U.S. Drillers?

The impact of the Saudi-led OPEC crude oil production cut has hit the Kingdom severely. Saudis cut commitment already has been put in place, taking 486,000 bpd of crude out of the market. The financial impact is clear, but when looking at current market developments could even be harsher than expected. In contrast to what was expected, overall crude prices have shown a tendency to decline even further. For Saudis economic positon the current situation is a nightmare scenario. Not only as government revenues are directly hit, but the possible value of the Aramco IPO will be also under pressure. It will be clear that crude oil prices hovering between $55-65 per barrel will attract a higher interest of institutional investors than at current price levels. The targeted $100-200 billion for the 5 percent stake of Aramco now seems to be farfetched. A much lower result will not only put pressure on the Saudi Vision 2030 plans, but also will possibly be a threat to the liberal economic ideas and strategies currently proponed by Mohammed Bin Salman.

Still, Saudi rulers seem already to be taking precautionary measures to mitigate the possible onslaught of shale oil, lower oil prices and a lower than expected Aramco IPO outcome. The Asia Tour of Saudi King Salman should be seen as a major offensive to increase the position of the Kingdom worldwide, largely by increasing Saud investments and asset portfolios in its future markets, China, India, Malaysia and Indonesia. In addition to confirm Saudi Arabias commitment to these major economic giants, another issue is also supported. As possible legal issues could block a full listing of Aramco on NYSE, Asian financial centers have become very attractive. The Kingdoms willingness to sign multibillion agreements with all, as consolidation of already existing economic relations, largely downstream, is also an instrument to seek possible listings in Hong Kong or Tokyo. Discussions on the latter have been held in China and Japan, the Saudi ministry of foreign affairs stated. Some others have stated that European financial centers are also still on the short-list, especially London (LSE) and Frankfurt. If NYSE will be seen as a possible threat to Saudi interests, Asia and Europe could be targeted in full, while another part will be listed on the Saudi stock exchange TADAWUL.

By Cyril Widdershoven for Oilprice.com

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Forbes has published the latest edition of its global list of billionaires, featuring 565 from the U.S., which made the country the top generator of billionaires again. Figures from the IT and finance industries took the tops spots, as has become usual, but the oil and gas industry seems to be doing well, too, with more than a dozen entries from Texas alone.

The top-100 of this years more than 2000-name list saw three entries from the U.S. oil and gas industry  Continental Resources Harold Hamm with a net worth estimated at $13 billion, at #87; and brothers Charles and David Koch, each worth $48.3 billion and sharing the number 8 spot.

Among the Texan entries, the highest place was occupied by Richard Kinder of Kinder Morgan, who ranked 194th, with his net worth up 33 percent from last year to $7.1 billion. Kinder Morgan also did pretty well in 2016, reporting a healthy increase in net profits to $721 million from $208 million in 2016.

At #261, Forbes ranked the heirs of another pipeline mogul, Dan Duncan of Enterprise Pipeline Partners. The four siblings saw their net worth rise to $5.7 billion this year, while the company their father founded reported a slight decline in net profit for 2016 at $2.553 billion, from $2.558 billion for 2015.

Ray Lee Hunt, the heir of H. L. Hunt, ranked $339th, with a net worth of $4.7 billion. Hunt is the chairman of Hunt Consolidated, which spans across industries including oil, utilities, real estate, and investment. The oil business, Hunt Oil, is among the largest private energy companies in the U.S.

Kelcy Warren, the co-founder of Energy Transfer Partners, was another entry from the pipeline industry, at #367 with a net worth of $4.3 billion. Energy Transfer Partners has been in the media spotlight recently because of its Dakota Access project, which led to months of protests. The pipeline has already started transporting oil from Bakken.

Jeffery Hildbrand of Hilcorp Energy ranked 402nd, with a net worth of $4.3 billion. The company itself ranked 41st on Fortunes list of best employers this year. Related: OPEC Weighs Extension As Oil Markets Start To Lose Their Nerve

The next entry from Houston, John Arnold from Centaurus Energy Advisors, came in at #660 with a net worth of $3 billion. Arnold, a legend in energy trading, warned back in 2015 that half the U.S. oil and gas industry could go bankrupt in 2016 if oil prices did not recover.

George Bishop, the low-profile CEO of GeoSouthern Energy, ranked 814th with a net worth of $2.5 billion on Forbes list. The company is an independent shale player, which in 2013 struck a $6-billion deal in cash to sell its Eagle Ford assets to Devon Energy  one of the biggest deals in shale oil. According to Forbes, Bishop alone took home $1.5 billion.

Outside Houston, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, ten out of 22 billionaires on the Forbes list had ties to the oil industry.

Overall, the average net worth of the 2,000+ billionaires on the Forbes list was $3.75 billion. Most of the oil industry entries saw their net worth rise last year, too, with the Texan entries having an average net worth of $4.1 billion.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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To extend or not extend?

Officials from OPEC and a select few non-OPEC countries met over the weekend to review the state of the oil market, monitor their progress and discuss what to do next regarding their collective production cut deal.

The group offered a glimmer of hope for an extension of the cuts, with several countries stating their support for such a move. However, there was no formal position from the members. Instead they said that they will consider an extension when they meet in April and issue a recommendation ahead of the official ministerial summit on May 25.

The monitoring meeting this past weekend comes amid increasing skepticism in the oil market regarding the odds of a six-month extension, JBC Energy said in a recent report. U.S. oil production is rebounding strongly, with output back up to 9.1 million barrels per day, roughly 600,000 bpd higher than last summer. The rig count continues to rise as well, portending further production increases in the weeks and months ahead.

With prices retracing all of the gains made since the OPEC deal was announced back in November, the cartel faces the prospect of losing market share without any meaningful effect on prices. And with inventories still breaking new records in the U.S., the supply picture looks pretty dismal as well.

But if OPEC is starting to lose its resolve, Kuwaits oil minister is doing his best to keep everyone on board. More has to be done, Kuwaits oil minister Issam Al-Marzouq said in a speech at the meeting on March 26. We need to see conformity across the board. We assured ourselvesand the worldthat we would. Related: Shells New Permian Play Profitable At $20 A Barrel

Al-Marzouq also implied that an extension would be necessary. We are not surprised right now that the prices have fallen backThe prices have fallen down because the storage has not moved yet, said on Bloomberg TV. What we were hoping actually at the beginning that U.S. inventories would slowly come down. Not drastically, but slowly come downWhat we are looking for is a five-year average of inventories. And that stands right now at 285 [million barrels] above that five-year average. So once the inventories start going down, hopefully we will go to the five-year average, of which we hope to reach around the end of the third quarter, hopefully.

That last comment is key: if the inventories are to come back to more reasonable levels by the third quarter, as he expects, it would assume an extension of the deal. Al-Marzouq also warned his fellow OPEC members against cheating, saying that unless they work towards a common objectivethis date may be pushed further out.

However, nothing concrete will be agreed to until they meet in April. At that meeting, a formal recommendation will be proposed on whether or not the cuts should be extended. Then, the agreement will be finalized at the May 25 meeting.

Oil analysts are looking for clues on whether or not OPEC will succeed in keeping everyone on the same page for an extension. Related: Why Are Shell And Toyota Backing Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles?

Suresh Sivanandam, Wood Mackenzies senior manager for Asia Refining, thinks that it is highly likely that OPEC will roll over the production cuts for another six months, and the news from the latest OPEC monitoring meeting bolstered his prediction for two reasons. First, February data shows high levels of compliance with the cuts. Second, the OPEC committee said that it would consider the pros and cons of extending their deal for another six months ahead of the April meeting. Sivanandam told Bloomberg TV that the deliberations are a sign that they are serious about an extension.

However, not everyone is as optimistic. Goldman Sachs says that despite the recent fall in oil prices, and despite elevated inventories, our assessment of oil fundamentals and the rationale behind the production cuts do not warrant, in our view, such an extension barring either a sharp deceleration of demand growth or a sharp rebound in Libya/Nigeria production. Trying to drain inventories in order to boost prices could backfire on OPEC. "Oil prices above $60 per barrel would prove self-defeating in our view given the flattening of the oil cost curve and the unprecedented velocity of the shale supply response," Goldman said.

All of these dynamics are starting to unnerve oil speculators, who find themselves trying to unwind bets that got too far ahead of the fundamentals. After building up bullish bets at an unprecedented pace since the November deal was announced, investors found themselves left in a lurch. The net-long position by hedge funds and other money managers has plunged 37 percent since hitting a peak last month.

"These are troubling times for oil bulls," Stephen Brennock, an oil broker PVM, told Reuters. "Against a backdrop of rising U.S. crude output and underwhelming OPEC-led efforts to normalize bulging global oil inventories, positives are in short supply."

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

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Unnamed armed factions have blocked production at the Sharara and Wafa fields in western Libya, cutting the countrys total output by 252,000 bpd, Reuters reported today, citing a source from the National Oil Corporation.

Sharara alone produced 220,000 bpd before the shutdown, accounting for a large chunk of Libyas overall 700,000 bpd production. It started pumping oil after a two-year pause last December. Later this week, a tanker commissioned by Austrias OMV is supposed to load 600,000 barrels of Sharara crude from the Zawyia port. According to sources, the loading can still take place from crude stored at the port.

The news sent Brent crude back above $50 to $51.l2 a barrel in European trading, while WTI jumped to $48.10 in electronic trade.

Yesterday, another tanker, a Suezmax, reportedly loaded crude from Es Sider, the biggest oil port in Libyas Oil Crescent. This was the first shipment after clashes erupted between the Libyan National Army and the Benghazi Defense Brigades over control of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf ports. The tanker was bound for China after loading.

Earlier this week, the National Oil Corporation warned against illegal sales of crude, at significant discount to official selling prices, threatening the countrys revenues from its only marketable commodity. NOC is the only one who is authorized to export oil from the country as per UN resolutions following the civil war, and it can only sell it to 16 companies with which it is in contractual relations.



Related: Oil Prices Spike As Traders Anticipate Bullish Inventory Data

Meanwhile, tensions between NOC and the UN-backed Government of National Accord are heating up after the GNA issued a decree that is supposed to give it more control over oil production contracts and sales. NOC condemned the decree, saying the GNA overstepped its boundaries and that only the House of Representatives, Libyas legislative body and effectively a rival government to the GNA, has the powers to decree a change in its exclusive grip on Libyas oil wealth.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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Brazil has invited Turkish oil and gas companies to invest in the South American countrys energy sector revitalization process in 2017 and 2018, according to new reporting from Anadolu Agency.

Milton Cosa Filho, of the Brazilian Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels Institute (OBP) said his country has developed the technological capability to extract fossil fuels as far as 300 kilometers offshore in ultra-deep waters.

"I think that 90 percent of the oil and gas production in Brazil comes from offshore. Brazil is doing a good job, but we need to transform our industry and we need to attract companies to invest in Brazil," Filho said.

New tenders over the course of the next two years will operate under frameworks that Brazilian regulatory agencies are currently overhauling.

"In Brazil right now, we are going to relaunch our industry, Filho said. In 2017, we are going to have four bid rounds and in 2018 we will have three bid rounds. We are going to need lots of construction companies, and this is a good opportunity. Now is the perfect time to jump into the Brazilian market.

More than half of the $150 billion in investments for the next four years tracked by the National Development Bank will be in the oil and gas sectors, according to official data cited by Filho.

"The country needs lots of investments in logistics, infrastructure, terminals, pipes and in other things. I really see good opportunities for Turkish companies and this is the right time because we are ending three consecutive years of economic crises, he added.



Related: Mexico Sees Its First International Offshore Drilling Success

Brazils oil exports jumped by 94 percent on the year in February, beating the previous record from January, as new offshore production is consistently coming on stream, according to data by the Brazilian trade ministry. The surge in oil exports was a function of higher production from the offshore areas in Brazilian waters, where huge oil finds were made in the pre-salt and sub-salt layers in the past few years.

By Zainab Calcuttawala for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The European Court of Justice, Europes top court, on Tuesday ruled that sanctions imposed by the UK and the EU on Russias oil giant Rosneft are valid, in a ruling that also asserts the courts jurisdiction over the common policy of the European Union (EU).

The EU imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014 over Moscows annexation of Crimea, with economic sanctions slapped in July 2014 and reinforced in September 2014, including against certain Russian companies that include Rosneft.

Rosneft had challenged before the High Court of Justice (England & Wales) the validity, in the light of EU law, of the restrictive measures imposed by the European Council on it and the implementing measures adopted by the United Kingdom that are based on the Council acts. The European Court of Justice was asked to rule, in essence, if the acts of the Council and the United Kingdom are valid.



In its ruling published today, the court said that The restrictive measures adopted by the Council in response to the crisis in Ukraine against certain Russian undertakings, including Rosneft, are valid.

The Court holds that the importance of the objectives pursued by the contested acts is such as to justify certain operators being adversely affected. Having regard to the fact that the restrictive measures adopted by the Council in reaction to the crisis in Ukraine have become progressively more severe, interference with Rosnefts freedom to conduct a business and its right to property cannot be considered to be disproportionate, the court said.



Related: Oil Companies Bet Big On This Mature Oil Play

Following the court ruling, Rosneft issued a statement in which it said it was disappointed by the ruling, and that it considers the court decision illegal, groundless and politicized.

This decision proves that in Europe the rule of law is being substituted with the rule of politics, said Rosneft, whose chief executive Igor Sechin is a close ally of Vladimir Putin.



By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Taiwan has begun purchasing high sulfur crude oil from Kurdistan to replace grades out of production due to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) recent output cuts, according to a new report by Reuters.

Government-run CPC Corp purchased one million barrels of KBT from the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) for the first time in 2017 Q2. In addition, Formosa Petrochemical Corp. bought crude of the same grade after a nine-month pause, according to company officials.

Formosa is set to receive the cargo shipped through the Ceyhan port in Turkey in April. More shipments will arrive in the following months.

"Kurdish? Yes, we bought quite a lot," Formosa Petrochemical spokesman KY Lin told Reuters.

Kurdistans KBT has been key in combatting the reduced availability of heavy crudes from countries that have pledged to cut 1.8 million barrels of output per day. Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of OPEC, which negotiated the deal, is one of the most prolific providers of heavy crude. The Gulf giant has cut output by twice as much as it had promised in November.

In December, a KRG official told Reuters that he did not expect to see the OPEC deal affect the regions production, even though the Baghdad government agreed to downsize production during the agreements six-month term.

Related: The Upcoming Surge In U.S. Oil Demand Explained In One Chart

"Exports look similar to February," an industry source who monitors shipments from southern, non-Kurdish Iraq, told Reuters. "To be fair, the market wasn't expecting them to cut."

Iraqs oil minister said this month that his country plans on boosting oil production capacity to 5 million barrels per day this year, up from around 4.5 million barrels per day in November. The comments could affect OPECs ability to rollover the production cuts to the second half of 2017.

By Zainab Calcuttawala for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Pakistani-American trauma surgeon awarded Ellis Island Medal of Honour in UN

A Pakistani-American trauma surgeon in the United States has been awarded one of the country's most prestigious awards for immigrants  the Ellis Island Medal of Honour  in recognition for his expertise in the field and his service to those "less fortunate".



The Ellis Island Medal of Honour is "presented annually to American citizens who have distinguished themselves within their own ethnic groups while exemplifying the values of the American way of life". Past medallists include seven US presidents, several world leaders and two Nobel Prize winners.



Dr Adil Haider  a second generation American  was born in Zanesville, Ohio in 1973 to Pakistani parents who had moved to the US in 1960s.



However, the family returned to Pakistan in the early 1980s as Haider's parents wanted to "give back" to the country, the surgeon said while speaking to media men.



Haider completed his early education in Karachi and went on to attend the Aga Khan University (AKU) to become a medical doctor in 1998.



He moved to the US the following year to pursue a master's degree in public health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore Maryland, following which he applied for a residency and started a journey that has seen him become one of the best acute trauma surgeons in his field.



In a Facebook post on Monday, the award-winning scientist and doctor said he was "humbled" to receive the honour as he believed there were "many others who deserved" it more than him.



"Only in America is this possible," he added, saying the "medal reminds [him] that the American dream is alive". "It is our job to protect it and ensure that it remains for all to come, generation after generation," he added.



Haider also thanked his mentors, supporters, peers and friends and family at home. Currently, he is working as the Kessler Director of the Center for Surgery and Public Health at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He is also the principal investigator on extra-mural grants worth more than $7m and has authored more than 190 peer-reviewed papers.



The award-winning surgeon has also formally mentored more than 100 researchers over the last 15 years, with many of his medical graduates coming from Pakistan.



While speaking to reporters Haider said he spent his formative years, specifically his teenage and early adulthood, in Pakistan where he learned the value of hard work and equality.



"I was privileged enough to attend AKU where at least 20 per cent of the curriculum is focused on community health care," the surgeon said, adding it was during this time that he realised how important it was for everyone to have an equal chance at accessing quality health care.



"I realised that [by working in] public health, we could transform the ideals we learn in clinical medicine and impact a larger number of people," Haider said.



The surgeon added that conducting community clinics in low-income areas and slums of Karachi allowed him to learn how to maximise treatment using limited resources.



When asked whether medicine was something he always wanted to practice, he said, "I was fortunate enough to never be pressured into choosing this profession. I always wanted to become a trauma surgeon."



Sharing a childhood memory, Haider said he was first drawn to the profession when he was six years old.



"I used to watch an American drama series called 'Trapper John, M.D.' where the protagonist is a trauma surgeon and treats patients who had just been shot or had got caught in a fire, among other emergency situations," he added.
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...
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With the Parallel App, available for Android, users can "clone" the messenger and use two different accounts on the same device; Check step by step Using two WhatsApp accounts on the same phone is something that can be done on Android devices . With different phone numbers, it is possible to use two applications for this: Dual Messenger, in the case of Samsung devices , or the Parallel...
Credit: Mikael Eriksson/Infernal DeathGhost has announced a batch of U.S. headlining shows in between their dates opening for Iron Maiden this summer. The headlining run will go on sale this Friday, March 31 at 10 a.m. local time via Ghost-Official.com.

The Iron Maiden trek kicks off June 3 in Bristow, Virginia and concludes July 22 in Brooklyn, New York. Meanwhile, Ghost's headlining dates will run from June 6 in Albany, New York to July 20 in Philadelphia.

Ghost will be touring in continued support of their album Meliora, which boasts the Grammy-winning song "Cirice," and their new single "Square Hammer."

Here are Ghost's headlining tour dates:

6/6 -- Albany, NY, The Palace Theatre

6/8 -- Norfolk, VA, The NorVa

6/10 -- Atlanta, GA, Tabernacle

6/14 -- Louisville, KY, The Palace Theater

6/17 -- Fargo, ND, Fargo Civic Center

6/22 -- Corpus Christi, TX, The Pavilion at Concrete Street

6/26 -- Midland, TX, La Hacienda

6/30 -- Fresno, CA, Rainbow Ballroom

7/8 -- Denver, CO, The Fillmore

7/13 -- Indianapolis, IN, Egyptian Room at Old National Centre

7/14 -- Fort Wayne, IN, Embassy Theater

7/18 -- New Haven, CT, College Street Music Hall

7/20 -- Philadelphia, PA, The Fillmore

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Douglas V. Gibbs is a proud member of the American Authors Association

Douglas V. Gibbs is a proud member of the Military Writers Society of America.
A newly-formed local political coalition will stand in silence for 30 minutes out side the Glens Falls district office of U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro, at noon on April 8.

The "Silent Stand" demonstration is intended to call attention to Stefanik's reluctance to hold a public town hall forum with constituents, said Agata Stanford, an organizer with The New Resistance USA, the new coalition.

"We'll meet her silence with silence," Stanford said.

Stefanik has said she prefers to hold small group meetings and telephone conference calls instead of large group public forums.

The group is asking that participants not bring signs to the demonstration, other than basic signs that identify participating organizations, which include Planned Parenthood, the Green Party, Saratoga Unites, Indivisible, Unitarian Universalist Church, Working Families Party, and more than 30 other regional political advocacy groups.

After the demonstration, participants will walk on the sidewalk along Glen Street to Glens Falls City Park for a reading of Stefanik's congressional voting record and performance of folk singer Neal Herr of original music and sing-along songs.

New Resistance USA started as a local Facebook page which now has more than 820 members nationwide and a team of volunteer contributing editors.

"We have had this in the works for about two months," Sanford said.
WHITEHALL  Weeks of frustration were resolved in about five minutes Tuesday.

Village officials met with village resident Allan Mears following a budget workshop and told him he could remain in his two trailers on Skenesborough Drive until June 1. The board had originally planned to begin enforcing the villages trailer ordinance against Mears this week.

Youve got to be gone by June 1 or there is going to be problems, Mayor Ken Bartholomew told Mears. Every day after June 1 will be a punishable offense.

Village law prohibits anyone from parking a trailer, house car or house trailer and using it as a living quarters for more than 72 hours without obtaining consent from the Village Board of Trustees. Mears has been in his trailers since May.

He is currently waiting on the opening of a trailer park in the town of Hampton, but the owner of the property, who also owns the property Mears is currently living on, is in Florida until mid-May.

The Hampton property was supposed to be ready seven months ago, Mears said, but issues with National Grid slowed the process.

Thats why the Village Board decided to give Mears some extra time before citing him.

Id like the board to work with them, Bartholomew said, gesturing toward Mears and his girlfriend. But he better not be there on June 2.

Bartholomew said he has been in contact with Mayor-elect Phil Smith, and while Smith wants to fully take over certain issues, hes allowing Bartholomew to finish this particular one.

Mears was grateful to the board for the decision, simply saying thank you, after the board voted 4-0 to allow him to stay through May. Trustee Dave Chaplin was absent from the meeting.

Trustee-elect Teresa Austin, who brought Mears trailers to the villages attention during her campaign, calling them an eyesore and saying something needed to be done about them, was also happy with the result of Tuesdays sit-down.

Im very satisfied with that, she said. I think its more than fair.

During an interview last week, Mears said he plans to be off the property by mid-May, when the property owner is back from Florida.

I wish we could solve all problems that easy, joked Trustee Marge Mohn at the end of the discussion.
The family of Kevin Jenks will have to wait a couple of weeks longer to find out how long the men who killed Jenks will spend in state prison.

For the second time since the February murder trial over Jenks death, the sentencings of killers Robert M. Henry and Kevin S. Chapman have been postponed. The two were supposed to be sentenced this Thursday, but Warren County Judge John Hall rescheduled the proceedings for April 13.

The latest adjournment occurred because of a court scheduling conflict with one of the defendants defense lawyers. Henrys lawyer, Tucker Stanclift, will not be available on Thursday.

Henry, 46, of Ilion, was found guilty last month of second-degree murder, robbery and lesser charges for the strangulation death of Jenks in his Glens Falls home last July 6.

Testimony showed that Henry, a four-time felon and former Glens Falls resident, hatched a plan to rob Jenks in his home.

Chapman, 50, drove with him from central New York and took part in the thefts. He pleaded guilty and testified against Henry, telling the jury that Henry choked Jenks as the two men looted his home of electronics, a car and other valuables.

He cut a plea deal, but Warren County prosecutors have been weighing whether Chapmans apparent perjury when pleading guilty should result in his plea agreement being undone. Chapman told Hall that Henry brought a pellet gun with him to Glens Falls, but authorities later determined, and Chapman admitted, that he had brought the gun.

Chapman had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder with the understanding he receive a 15- to 18-year life sentence in state prison if he testified truthfully at Henrys trial. Prosecutors have been debating whether his false version of events justified seeking a lengthier sentence.

Chapmans lawyer, Greg Teresi, had no comment on that aspect of the case Tuesday, saying he had not heard any indications from the District Attorneys Office that it would seek a longer sentence, though he said he understood Stanclift had raised the issue.

Warren County District Attorney Kate Hogan said her office had no comment on the possible sentence range for Chapman.

Henry faces up to 25 years to life in prison on the murder charge, with possible consecutive sentences for the lesser crimes, and sentencing as a persistent felon because of his lengthy criminal record.

Jenks, 58, was a well-liked manager at C.R. Bard Inc. and a former Glens Falls bar owner.
The fervor over the state tests may be dying down, at least in this region, as the number of students opting out of taking the exams has decreased in some local districts.

On Tuesday, students in grades three through eight across the state were taking the first of three days of tests in English language arts.

In Queensbury, a total of 196 students sat out the test, which is a decrease of 19 percent from last years 242 students who opted out.

Superintendent of Schools Douglas Huntley attributed the decrease to the work that teachers have done to encourage students to take the test. The results help the district tweak its curriculum to address any weaknesses.

The teachers value the information. It helps students in the long run and the tests have been changed over the last couple of years. I think its more palatable for parents to allow students to take the test, he said.

Last year, the state shortened the tests and allowed students to have unlimited time during the school day to complete them as long as they were working productively. State education officials made the change to try to reduce the opt-out rate. However, about 20 percent of students statewide sat out the test in 2016  about the same as the year before.

The number of opt-outs is higher in Queensburys middle school grades. Huntley said that students at that age tend to assert their independence. One of the administrators cited an anecdotal example of one student talking to another student, asking if the student was going to skip the tests, and the student said Yes.

I think peer pressure has a little bit more influence on middle school students and I do think they can be influential on their parents, too, if they dont want to take the test, he said.

In Glens Falls, the opt-out rate increased slightly, from 10 percent to 12 percent. A total of 115 students skipped the tests this year, according to district spokeswoman Skye Heritage.

South Glens Falls saw a trend of fewer students opting out. Superintendent Michael Patton said a total of 147 students refused to take the test, about 10 percent, which is down from the 12 percent last year.

Patton also attributed the increase in test participation to communication home to the parents. School officials stressed that the tests are just one piece of data.

Its just another way for us to gather information about how our kids are performing academically, he said.

Patton also believes the changes to the tests have helped.

I think the extended time has been a good thing. It kind of relieves some of the test anxiety that kids have, he said. Obviously, theyre not rushed anymore.

Other changes the state Education Department has made in recent years include releasing 75 percent of the test questions online last June, which allowed teachers to review them and talk with their colleagues about what material was missed. Also, the test scores are not being used to evaluate teachers. A moratorium put in place in December 2015 continues through the 2018-19 school year.

State education officials pointed out that hundreds of educators were involved in creating and reviewing the 2017 tests. Teachers will be writing the questions for the 2018 tests, according to a fact sheet.

Patton added that he believes the issue has had a lower profile this year.

I think overall we have not seen as much attention being brought to the opt-out movement, from at least the social media perspective, or print media, he said.

North Warren Superintendent Michele French also cited decreased media attention as the reason why the number of students opting out decreased from 70 last year to 27 this year, which is a little under 12 percent of the total students in grades three through eight.

Theres been a lot less out there this year about the testing and opting out. It seems a little quieter, she said.

Like many districts, North Warren put materials on its website from the state about frequently asked questions regarding the tests.

The education advocacy group High Achievement New York had an advertising campaign on Facebook and Pandora internet radio encouraging parents to have students take the test.

The organization was encouraged by student participation in the test.

Day one reports show a continued trend against opt-outs and toward even greater participation, and thats good for students and for New Yorks future, Executive Director Steve Sigmund said in a news release. These assessments provide an annual check-up for students, identify achievement gaps so they can be closed, and have gotten better through listening to the concerns of parents and educators.

The New York State PTA on Friday issued a statement reaffirming its support for parents rights to make educational decisions for their children. New York State United Teachers also issued a fact sheet, stating it supports the rights of parents to make educational decisions for their children.
European court of justice allows hijabs to be banned at the workplace

President Donald J. Trump and his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, as well as members of his staff have all been called bigots. A recent ruling by the European Unions highest court could certainly be considered bigoted.

As reported by The Guardian, the court just issued a ruling that will allow companies throughout the continent to prevent their workers from wearing any visible religious symbols, a judgment that is likely to have at least some impact on the upcoming elections in France and the Netherlands.

Conservative politicians have welcomed the ruling, which they say was necessary to jibe with laws in some countries like France that have enacted bans on hijabs  traditional headwear for Muslim women that largely obscures their faces and, hence, hides their identities. France, in particular, has been hit with a number of high-profile attacks by Islamic extremists loyal to the Islamic State. Germany has had trouble as well. (RELATED: Read about the deadly attack by suspected Islamist terrorists that killed 100+ in Paris, as unarmed citizens were held hostage.)

The European Court of Justices ruling in Luxembourg allows for bans of religious garments, but only as part of a larger, general policy that bans all religious and political symbols, The Guardian noted. It was the courts first ruling pertaining to Islamic headscarves at work. (RELATED: Marine La Pen Refuses Headscarf, Cancels Meeting With Top Cleric For Sunni Muslims.)

The ruling also noted that customers cannot demand that workers remove their headscarves if the particular company has not adopted a policy banning religious symbols and wear.

The Guardian noted further:

The long-awaited ruling came on the eve of Dutch elections, where Muslim immigration has been a contentious issue. In France, where the race to succeed President Francois Hollande remains wide open, politicians on the right seized on the issue.

French presidential candidate Francois Fillon, who opposes the rising presence of Islam throughout his country, spoke favorably of the ruling. In a statement, Fillon said the ruling was an immense relief, not just for thousands of companies but also for their workers. He added that the judgment would also become a factor in cohesion and social peace, especially in France, where 5 to 7 percent of the population is Muslim, the largest in Western Europe. Germany has the second-largest Muslim population, according to the Pew Research Center.

Rassemblement Bleu Marine MP Gilbert Collard, who supports Right-leaning French presidential contender Marine Le Pens Front National, said the ruling was an endorsement. Even the ECJ votes Marine, he tweeted.

The German conservative party Alternative fur Deutschland, also praised the decision. The ECJs ruling sends out the right signal, especially for Germany, said the political partys leader, Georg Pazderski. Of course companies have to be allowed to ban the wearing of headscarves.

The courts joint ruling in two separate cases of women  one from France and the other from Belgium  were dismissed from jobs after they refused to remove their headscarves when asked.

An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination, the ruling noted. The court also noted that a company had a right to adopt policies that make it appear neutral, and banning all religious and political symbols appears to be about as noncommittal as a firm could get. (Related: Keep up with with more conservative happenings around the globe at Conservative.news.)

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 court noted. 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.

In the U.S., the political Left supports any and all things Muslim, but has a major problem with public and personal displays of Christian religious paraphernalia and support for President Donald J. Trump. Thats the only way to explain its opposition to a Trump-ordered travel ban to the U.S. from countries rife with Islamic terrorism that also gave asylum preference to persecuted Christians in those countries.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources:

CNN.com

PewResearch.org

TheGuardian.com

NaturalNews.com
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Schiff's statement followed news reports that Nunes, the committee's chairman, was on White House grounds with a source who showed him secret intelligence reports. The day after that meeting, Nunes briefed Trump that he and his advisers may have had their communications picked up "incidentally" as part of American surveillance of foreign leaders.

"After much consideration, and in light of the Chairman's admission that he met with his source of information at the White House, I believe that the Chairman should recuse himself from any further involvement in the Russia investigation, as well as any involvement in oversight of matters pertaining to any incidental collection of the Trump transition, as he was also a key member of the transition team," Schiff said in a statement posted to Twitter.

Schiff said he worried the public is losing faith in Nunes's ability to conduct an unbiased investigation.

"I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the President's campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the Chairman," Schiff said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi echoed Schiff's sentiments and those of other Democrats who are urging Nunes to step aside. saying: "The Chair of the House Intelligence has a serious responsibility to the Congress and to the Country. Chairman Nunes' discredited behavior has tarnished that office."

"Speaker Ryan must insist that Chairman Nunes at least recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation immediately. That leadership is long overdue," Pelosi said.

Nunes defended his White House visit by saying he wanted "to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source." The Trump administration was not aware of his visit, he said.

Democrats have seized on Nunes's announcement, accusing the Republican of attempting to give political cover for Trump, who claimed in a series of shocking tweets this month that his predecessor, President Barack Obama, had wiretapped his phones during the 2016 election.

Last week, Schiff said Nuness actions had thrown "great doubt" on the committees ability to conduct a fair investigation.

Numerous lawmakers have called for a select committee to carry out the investigation, and the effort received bipartisan support when Republican John McCain questioned Nunes's credibility in an interview on Wednesday.

Trump appeared to complain about controversy surrounding Nunes on Monday night. In a series of tweets, the president said, "Why isn't the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech ... money to Bill," the tweet read in part. The Washington Post reported in October last year that there was no evidence Clinton was personally involved in the uranium deal.
The space agency just launched a new multimedia search engine called the NASA Image and Video Library: a collection of more than 140,000 of the NASA's most popular photos, illustrations, videos, and audio files.

The new site echoes previous (now-defunct) NASA image search tools, but with some 21st-century improvements.

The library shows you results in a Flickr-like presentation, which notes the format, file size, credit, and creation date. You can also narrow a query to a range of years, from 1920 all the way to the present.

The pages for individual files offer a download link (for scaled versions and the high-resolution original), a permanent link to the multimedia, and a tool to embed the content on other sites.

There are also tabs that show the newest additions to the library and most popular items in it.

The "most popular" results change based on how many people look at different entries, but a photo of an aurora over New Zealand as seen from space (pictured at the top of this article) and an image of the sun (below) both caught our eyes as top results.

NASA wants you to know that this vast collection "is not comprehensive, but rather provides the best of what NASA makes publicly available," according to the space agency's press release about the new tool. In other words, this doesn't include all of NASA's millions upon millions of files. (We recommend a Google site-specific search to find those.)

But NASA says this "is a living website, where new and archival images, video and audio files continually will be added."
Sberbank, whose controlling stake is owned by the Russian state, said in a statement Tuesday that it had signed a deal with a "consortium of investors" including Latvia's Norvik Banka and a Belarusian private company.

"The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2017," the statement said.

The bank has faced difficulties since 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea while pro-Russian separatists declared independence in parts of eastern Ukraine, sparking a conflict that has killed thousands.

Ukrainian activists have viewed Sberbank as a symbol of Russia's unwelcome presence in the country, with many incidents of vandalism over the past three years.

On March 16, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko slapped one-year sanctions on a number of Russian state-owned banks in the country, including Sberbank, blocking them from taking money out of the country.

As part of a campaign to strip Russian banks of licenses to operate in Ukraine, Ukrainian activists earlier this month completely mured the entrance to one of Sberbank's branches in Kiev with bricks and mortar.

"We hope that the decision... will help to unblock its offices and to renew normal work," the Sberbank statement said.
The media said that she rose to fame in Germany at the age of 9, when she starred in Rose-Girl Resli, a 1954 West German drama directed by Harald Reinl.

It added that she gained international recognition five years later when she starred in The Last Days of Pompeii, an Italian sword-and-sandal film.

Kaufmann won a Golden Globe award for the 1961 film Town without Pity, in which she starred with Kirk Douglas and played a girl allegedly raped by four U.S. soldiers.

At the age of 18, Kaufmann married Hollywood star Tony Curtis,a man 20 years her senior whom she had met during the filming of Taras Bulba in 1962.

However, she divorced him five years later, while she then returned to Germany with her two children to continue her acting career.
The accused are facing a four-count charge of criminal conspiracy, breach of trust, cheating and unlawful possession of locally made gun.

The accused persons, however, pleaded not guilty and requested for bail.

Earlier, the prosecutor, Mr Donatus Abah told the court that Daniel Chukwukelu of Hammer Smith Company, Garki reported the case to the Area Commander Metro, Abuja on Nov.18, 2016.

Abah said the matter was later transferred to the Federal Capital Territory Police Command.

The prosecutor said the first defendant, Ikechukwu was a sales man at Hammer Smith Company and was entrusted with the companys goods valued at N9.9 million for sale.

It was for him to make sales and remit the proceeds to the company.

Instead, he sold the goods and converted the proceeds to his personal use,Abah said.

Abah said when he was later apprehended over the matter, he said he gave the proceeds to Nwogha to keep for him.

He also said that on Dec.12, 2016, the police traced the second defendant, Nwogha, to No. 44 Church Street, Jos, Plateau and executed a search warrant on him.

The prosecutor said one locally made gun and two live cartridges were recovered from him.

He said the second defendant, Nwogha, could not give a satisfactory account of the items discovered in his house.

Abah said the offence was contrary to Sections 97, 312, 322 and 309 of the Penal Code.

The Upper Area Court judge, Mr Umar Kagarko admitted the defendants to bail in the sum of N300, 000 each.

Kagarko also ordered that each defendant should produce a reliable surety, who must reside within the jurisdiction of the court.
The accused, a businessman, who resides at Oshodi, a suburb of Lagos, is being tried for fraud and stealing.

The prosecutor, Insp. Simeon Inuoha, told the court that the offences were committed between 2014 and May 2016 at Oshodi, Lagos.

Inuoha said that the accused collected N4.5 million from the complainant, one Mrs Emen, on the pretext of getting her a United Kingdom visa.

Thereafter, the accused disappeared and all efforts to find him failed, he said.

Inuoha said that the accused was, however, apprehended after being sighted by the complainant at Ikeja.

According to the prosecutor, the offences contravene Sections 285 and 312(a) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the accused, however, entered a not-guilty plea.

The Chief Magistrate, Mrs B. O. Osunsanmi, admitted the accused to bail in the sum of N500,000 with two sureties in like sum.
The offences were allegedly committed 11 years ago.

Also charged with him is a member of House of Representatives, Mr Thaddeus Aina. He was absent in court.

The two men were charged with the murders of the then Holland-based Mr Tunde Omojola and a World Bank Consultant, Dr Ayodeji Daramola.

The trial was however stalled because of the absence of Aina, said to have gone abroad for medical treatment.

The two murder cases were consolidated at the request of the lawyers to both parties.

Omojola was killed in Ifaki Ekiti in 2006 during a councillorship election while Daramola was murdered in Ijan Ekiti on August 14, 2006.

Both murders were committed under the first term Governor Fayose.

When the case was brought before Justice Adewale Fowe, on Tuesday,the prosecuting counsel, Mr Adekunle Adetowubo, told the court that Aina, who is currently representing Ekiti North Federal Constituency II , had been flown abroad for medical treatment over undisclosed ailment.

Both Adetowubo and counsel to the defendants, Mr Adedayo Adewumi, sought a brief adjournment and also prayed the court to issue a Witness summon, so that all the witnesses can be brought to court atthe next adjournment date.

Adetowubo said: My lord, the counsel to the 2nd respondent had told me that he was sick

The purpose of this case is to prosecute and not to persecute. Again, only the living can be tried and not the dead

We pray that he recover soon and by the time he will appear, the trial can be heard expeditiously

We cant continue with this case until the 2nd defendant appears in court, because this is a criminal case

Ordinarily, we would have requested for a Bench Warrant to bring him to court, but we have doneour own findings and we found out that he was truly flown abroad for treatment

My lord, this adjournment does not mean we are withdrawing the charges against him, we are not even ready for that.

Some of those granted bail in this case could not be found now, but the 2nd respondent has consistently been coming to court. So we want him granted this opportunity to appear when his health is restored

What we intended to do today is to mention the case, but under this circumstance, we oblige your lordship to give us a new date so that we can come with our witnesses

We know that this case has a chequered history but we still need patience since the defendant was only exercising his fundamental rights, he added.

The Counsel to the respondent aligned with the submission of the prosecuting counsel that a brief adjournment is needed under this circumstance, urging them to tidy up their case for speedy trial ofthe accused persons.

In his ruling, Justice Fowe, who had earlier objected to adjournment said: This matter has stayed for long and I wish we continue now

But since both parties had sought for this adjournment under the circumstance, I hereby adjourn the case to April 27, 2017 for hearing.
The accused, who could not meet his bail conditions, was, however, remanded in prison pending when he would perfect his bail conditions.

Magistrate Risikat Olayemi, who gave the ruling, also granted the accused one surety in like sum.

Olayemi said the surety, who must swear to an affidavit of means, should also reside within the courts jurisdiction and present two recent passport-size photographs of himself and that of the accused.

Nobody showed up as surety for Udor and he was taken to Ile-Ife Prison.

The accused is facing charges of fraud and conspiracy.

Earlier, the Prosecutor, Insp. Monday Ojiezele told the court that Udor and five others now at large conspired and collected the money on Feb. 15 at about 1.30 a.m. at Alapadi Village near Ile-Ife.

According to Ojiezele, the accused obtained N86,000 from the complainants  Lateef Raji and Raufu Olajide  with a promise to work for them as yearly labourer on their farms but he refused to do so.

The offences contravened Sections 419 and 517 of the Criminal Code, Laws of Osun, 2002.

Counsel to the accused, Mrs Module Olufemi, urged the court to grant him bail, promising he will not jump bail.
Leader of the group, James Aguri said: We completed school in February 2015 and we have finished our national service in August 2016, but its been eight months after our service and we have not been posted.

READ ALSO: Aggrieved nurses picket at MoH over suspended posting

We have served the government and the Ministry of Health with five petitions but they have not responded to them, he told Accra FM.

He said that Anytime we come to see the Minister, he refuses to meet us. Anytime we come he dodges us, he doesnt want to meet us. We are now tired, we have sat home for long and we are losing our skills.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the screening was organised by the United State Embassy in Nigeria.

The film, directed by American filmmaker Lesley Chilcott, features the story of five Nigerian girls who won the Technovation Challenge in 2015.

Technovation Challenge is an American initiative that offers girls around the world the opportunity to learn the skills they need to emerge as tech entrepreneurs and leaders.

It invites girls annually to identify a problem in their community, and then challenge them to solve it, supported by mentors and guided by a curriculum.

The new United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Stuart Symington, who spoke at the event, said the screening was to expose young Nigerian girls to the importance of pursuing innovative careers.

The screening is to reinforce the U.S Missions support for increased participation by Nigerias youth, especially girls, in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

Our hope is for this film to inspire young high school girls to pursue a career in science education for them to develop applications that improve their communities, he said.
The 17-member ministerial committee inaugurated to probe the agreement said the previous government through sole-sourcing questionably procured the power deal and has concluded that it was not only grossly unfair to the interest of Ghana, but could also be considered as fraud.

The committee chaired by lawyer Philip Addison recommended to the NPP government that it should call back owners of the company for renegotiation.

The chairman also recommended that the "government of Ghana should repudiate the agreement on the grounds of fraud" since Ameri Energy refused to come to the negotiation table.

But Edward Omane Boamah stated that claims of overpricing "cannot hold because plants are not sold at ex-factory prices. Moreover, in Ghana thermal plants are normally not procured directly from the manufacturers. Eg. KTPP, TT1PP, Tico etc."

READ ALSO: NPP reveals more fishy deal on AMERI

He said "Per the agreement with AMERI, the government of Ghana through the Volta River Authority (VRA) will only make payments to AMERI for power produced and supplied to the VRA just like any other Independent Power Producer (IPP)."

He added that the findings of the committee, "chaired by a known NPP fanatic were not surprising since "it is well-known the NPP made it clear before the elections that they were determined to find faults with the AMERI deal at all cost."

Read below the full statement from Dr. Edward Omane Boamah:

AMERI AGREEMENT WAS CLEAN AND HELPED SOLVE DUMSOR

The agreement with AMERI is a Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (BOOT) agreement and not an outright purchase of generating plants by the government of Ghana.

Government of Ghana made no payments to AMERI prior to the Procurement, Installations and delivery of power by Ameri.

Per the agreement with AMERI, the Government of Ghana through the Volta River Authority (VRA) will only make payments to Ameri for power produced and supplied to the VRA just like any other Independent Power Producer (IPP).

Indeed VRA will pay through tariffs charged on the end consumer.

Also, per the agreement, Government was required to provide a standby Letter of Credit (LC) for an amount of US$51 million, which LC has been raised.

The committee set up by the Minister of Energy was chaired by a known NPP fanatic, Mr. Phillip Addison.

It is well-known the NPP made it clear before the elections that they were determined to find faults with the Ameri deal at all cost. Hence one is not surprised by their conduct.

The committee never contacted or spoke to any former minister or appointee of the NDC for clarification, thereby making the report one-sided. At least natural justice demands that!

***When compared to seven (7) comparable plants in Ghana, the composite generation tariff for the AMERI project of about USc14.59kWh is lower than the average approved composite tariff for the seven plants at USc14.94kWh.

5years versus 20years compared (levelised)

***The levelised tariff for AMERI is the lowest (USc11.46kWh) compared to the tariffs for seven (7) comparable plants.

Levelised tariff is the approved tariff adjusted over the concession/contract period. In other words, when comparing the AMERI project (contract period of 5 years) to the other plants that have a concession or contract period of twenty (20) years, you either have to spread AMERIs cost over a 20-year period.

Or, compact the other plants cost into a five-year period, to be able to make an acceptable comparison.

The 3 options: namely, Outright purchase, Rental and BOOT.

Nominal costs for the 3 options are US$438.9m, US$477.3m and US$516.3m respectively.

 GoG could not choose the option of outright purchase because we did not have the funds.

 For the rental option, it meant GoG will not own the plant.

 BOOT will result in GoG owning the plant at the end of five years. This would help develop the capacity of the countrys power generation company and increase the portfolio of generating plants in the country.

The thermal generation plants are not sold off the shelves and could take up to a lead time of 2 years to procure these plants. This certainly defeats the emergency solution for dumsor envisaged.

The Deputy Attorney general was part of the negotiation team and even witnessed the agreement so there was no need for another legal opinion.

Engineers and Planners was awarded a contract to prepare the site for the installation of the plants. GoG has paid E&P for all works undertaken to date by Engineers and Planners. It is therefore not true they have been paid for no work done.

Ameri has so far performed above the guaranteed performance at site conditions. The power outputs of the 10 units were between 26,322kW and 27,222kW, the net of which is higher than the Guaranteed Net Power Output of 256,347kW in the agreement.

The Ameri technology is well-proven with more than 1,800 units deployed worldwide and almost 69 million hours of operation. Its modular concept and factory-tested components allow for fast installation. This technology therefore lends itself to emergency applications.

AMERI has successfully provided the 250MW fast track power generation solution via the installation of ten (10) GE TM 2500 aero derivative gas turbines in Ghana (the Project or the AMERI Project) which has impacted positively on the generation capacity in the country.

The NPP and Philip Addison concocted 150 million dollar overpricing allegation cannot hold because plants are not sold at ex-factory prices, moreover in Ghana thermal plants are normally not procured directly from the manufacturers. Eg. KTPP, TT1PP, Tico etc.

Ameri took the decision to assume the risk by procuring, installing, operating and maintaining these plants with the hope of recovering their investment through tariffs over five years after which Ghana takes delivery and ownership of these plants. Government of Ghana took no such risk.
The swearing ceremony took place by the president, Nana Akufo-Addo on Tuesday, March 28, 2017.

Mr. Owusu-Agyemang takes over from the immediate-past Board Chairman of COCOBOD, Daniel Ohene Agyekum, who served as Ashanti Regional Minister and Ghanas Ambassador to the United States of America under the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration.

Swearing in the new appointees, President Nana Addo expressed worry that the interest in cocoa farming has waned in recent years.

The government and I have made a commitment to raising production levels of cocoa to at least 1 million tonnes, and to process more than 50 percent of our cocoa beans. We have committed ourselves to finding new markets and improving our cocoa value chain. We are determined to make it a lucrative industry again. We are going to need your cooperation and full involvement, he said.

Other members who were appointed to serve on the Board including Kwame Sarpong, Carlos Ahenkorah, Nana Johnson Mensah, among others.
This was contained in a letter written by the Chief of Staff, Akosua Frema Osei-Opare, dated March 21, 2017.

The letter asked that MDAs use the existing fleet of vehicles in their respective transport pools.

READ ALSO: 234 state vehicles still missing at Flagstaff House

However, in exceptional cases, MDAs that need to procure new vehicles shall seek for and obtain the prior express written authorisation.

The Deputy Chief of Staff Samuel Abu Jinapor in an interview with Accra-based Joy FM said the ban is to ensure that available resources are used in implementing the governments agenda instead of purchasing vehicles.

Capital expenditure is used for purchasing vehicles, but in this budget, the President wants to spend it on the productive sector of the economy.

He added that these are not normal times, and the President want things done differently.

He further stated that since he was sworn in, the President is using a vehicle which was purchased in 2007 and has not found the need to purchase a new one.

"Thats what he has been riding in [and] he is working to ensure that we manage the resources of the country judiciously.

Meanwhile, President of the policy think-tank, IMANI-Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe, has described the development as good news.

He added that the government does not need over 700 vehicles before if=t can function properly.
Addressing the media, Mr Blair said: Its a pleasure to be back in Ghana. Im delighted to come back with you as President of Ghana. I congratulate you not just on your election but for your vision for Ghana. I think this is a very important moment for the country.

"You come at a time of great expectation, you have assumed this great responsibility of office and as is very apparent when anyone spends time with you, they realise that they are with someone who has the interest of the country in his heart and the right spirit with which to approach the challenges.

READ ALSO: Tony Blair meets Akufo Addo

He further promised that he will assist Ghana to achieve its goals.

I know the challenges are formidable and what we were discussing is trying to use my experience in my time in office to do what I can to help countries in their process of change for development. Our initiative is in eight different countries in Africa. Today, we just focus on helping countries to deliver their priorities to their people. We do it in a nonpartisan, political way. We do it because if the countries can develop and their people prosper, I think this is not just good for Ghana but good for the region, good for Africa, and good for the world, he noted.

Im actually delighted to come here at this moment in time. When you first come into office it is a moment of huge opportunity. You are always aware of the weight of responsibility that sits on your shoulders and one thing that is absolutely clear about you and your administration is that you are determined to do your very best for the country and for its people and you are fully aware of both the responsibility and the opportunity, he said.
Kwadwo Bamba, 37, an auto mechanic is suspected to have led a group of men from the governing New Patriotic Partys Delta Force on Friday and stormed the office of the recently appointed Ashanti regional security coordinator to stop him from performing his functions.

The group said it cannot work with the regional security coordinator, Mr Adjei since he is not a native of the region.

The suspect, Bamba, who has since been granted bail, has subsequently apologised to the president, Nana Akufo-Addo for his actions.

Many Ghanaians have asked that such vigilante groups be dealt with by the government.

But Mr Agyapong has argued that the NPPs private security forces are still recognised by the party and hence should be recruited into national security.

The vigilante groups are recognized in the party and so I will personally make sure they are recruited into national security. If it is work that they need, we will gladly employ them to continue working for Ghana, he noted.
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The meeting  which had not previously been disclosed and came on the heels of Kushner's meeting with Russia's ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, at Trump Tower  recently caught the eye of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 election and whether any members of Trump's campaign were complicit.

Kislyak reportedly orchestrated the meeting between Kushner and Vnesheconombank CEO Sergey N. Gorkov, who was appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in January 2016 as part of a restructuring of the bank's management team, Bloomberg reported last year.

Gorkov, who graduated from the Federal Security Service (FSB) Academy of Russia in 1994, was the vice-president of Russia's state-controlled Sberbank before coming on to Vnesheconombank.

Putin first revamped Vnesheconombank, known as Russia's bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs, in 2007. The Russian leader turned it into "a pillar of his Kremlin-driven economy at the height of the oil boom" and took "personal control over key lending decisions," according to Bloomberg, which characterized it as "the bank that financed Vladimir Putins grandest ambitions."

"When oil prices were high, VEB lent huge sums to politically expedient but financially questionable initiatives such as infrastructure projects for the 2014 Winter Sochi Olympics," Reuters reported last year.

The bank had huge success between 2007 and 2014, but it all came crashing down when oil prices tanked and President Barack Obama levied sanctions on Kremlin officials and entities over Russia's annexation of Crimea.

By February 2016, the bank, which says its official mission is to "take efforts to make the Russian economy more competitive, diversify it, and foster investment, was struggling to find enough cash to stay afloat. Its bailout needs had increased to $16 billion between 2016 and 2020, Reuters reported.

Kushner's meeting with Gorkov, the struggling bank's CEO, came as Kushner was trying to find investors for a Fifth Avenue office building in Manhattan that is set to be heavily financed by Anbang Insurance Group, a firm with ties to the Chinese government. White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks told The Times on Monday that the "Kushner Tower" project wasn't discussed during his meeting with Gorkov.

The meeting did not appear to break any rules, and Hicks said it was "not much of a conversation" so didn't warrant a disclosure to the rest of the Trump transition team.

News of the meeting comes less than two months after former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was asked to resign after "misleading" Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Kislyak. It also comes as the FBI and Congress are trying to determine whether any favors were exchanged between Trump associates and Russia during the 2016 campaign.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, which has asked to interview Kushner about his meeting with Gorkov, has also requested the cooperation of Carter Page  an early foreign-policy adviser to the Trump campaign. In dossier presented to Trump by top intelligence officials in January, Page was accused of traveling to Moscow in July 2016 to discuss a deal with the CEO of Russia's state oil company to lift US sanctions on Russia.

Kushner is the closest person to Trump to be swept up in either the Senate or the House Intelligence Committees' investigation so far.
But its own spokesman seemed to confirm last month it did exactly that.

Previously, American advisors on the ground were required to go through an approval process with a command center in Baghdad before strikes were carried out. But in February, the AP reported the military had dropped this requirement to speed up strikes, with some advisors operating on the ground being "empowered" and no longer required to coordinate with Baghdad.

From the AP:

The spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, Air Force Col. John Dorrian, confirmed to The Associated Press the rules of engagement in the fight against IS in Iraq were adjusted by the December directive, explaining that some coalition troops were given the "ability to call in airstrikes without going through a strike cell."

More coalition forces have been "empowered" to have the ability to call in strikes in the Mosul operation, Col. Dorrian told a Pentagon press briefing on Wednesday.

Now contrast that with reporting from The New York Times, in which spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said rules had not been loosened. Besides its easing of the process, advisors were embedded at lower echelons of Iraqi security forces at the brigade and battalion level, rather than division  meaning that US forces have increasingly gotten closer to direct combat.

Davis told The Times the strike that killed hundreds in Mosul was "at the request of Iraqi security forces," and did not mention American advisors. This seems to suggest that US military planners may have received a direct request for air support from Iraqi troops, which may not have attempted to minimize collateral damage.

The idea of putting Iraqi troops in the driver seat with the ability to call in American air strikes seems a result of the "adjustment" of rules the AP had reported. In that story, published on Feb. 24, an Iraqi Army general is able to call an American lieutenant colonel to report a mortar attack and request support directly, something that had not been possible last year.

Col. Dorrian did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Pentagon may be technically accurate when it says rules of engagement have not changed. Rules of engagement guidelines help troops understand when they can and cannot fire at an opposing force. Typically, troops are required to get positive identification of a target, only fire when under threat, and are required to minimize collateral damage when calling in air strikes.

While the overarching guidelines may not have changed, the process for carrying out air strikes certainly has  and it may be the reason why Mosul could be the site of the largest loss of civilian life since the start of the Iraq war in 2003.

The Pentagon acknowledged on Friday that it would investigate the March 17 strike, according to The New York Times. The process is expected to take at least a few weeks.
The "Pathetic" producer in an interview with Pulse talked about celebrity bullying, Iyabo Ojo and Apostle Suleman sex allegations and others.

According to her, "Kemi Olunloyo as far as I am concerned, she is not someone I know before I had an encounter with her.

I just saw a tweet she tweeted and I felt irritated. That was what started the whole drama then but then I guess everybody needs a second chance."

Adding, "I see her as someone that needs prayer. I'm sorry but then I don't know sometimes I read what she puts out there and I'm like for real.

But then I cannot crucify her for her opinion. Everybody has rights to his or her own opinion."

This comes after Dayo Amusa called out Olunloyo for tagging Jide Kosoko a ritualist.

Amusa called out the social media queen, tagging her a psycho who is frustrated.

Olunloyo not going down without a fight took to Facebook to reply and drag the actress labelling her a prostitute, diabolical bitch and whore.

Also speaking about the Iyabo Ojo and Apostle Suleman sex allegations, Amusa said,

"He that wears the shoes knows where it hurts. I just pray that God grants her the wisdom to know how to deal with it."

Recall that Iyabo Ojo was accused of having a threesome with Apostle Johnson Suleman by a lady named Stephanie Ogbonna.

In an Instagram comment posted on Saturday, March 18, 2017, Stephanie gave an explicit detail of her sexual encounter with Suleman at the actress' Lagos residence.

According to Ogbonna, her first meeting with the Omega Fire Ministries overseer was at an airport in Kenya.
Showing off prints on tees, print maxi skirts, pants, scarfs, slinky dresses, cape tops, jackets, blouses, pocket squares prints, tent dresses, shirt and more, the brand did a playful, fun and stylish twist on street style.

The shoot done "with a vision to capture the edgy, eclectic mood on the vibrant streets of London in our luxurious prints" the brand did just that with the rich shots.

"Eki Orleans is a transparent sustainable fashion brand that dresses you up in soft luxurious African printed silks. We selected models who captivated the true essence of Eki Orleans and oozed a fun, relaxed and earthy personality.

Being an Eki girl is about being strong within yourself no matter what life throws at you. An Eki girl commands the centre of attraction. Some may choose to do this quietly, whilst others are bolder but always with grace.

The images portray a mood and tells a visual story of an Eki girl who is reflective in her thoughts, yet commands the centre of attraction when she owns her stage. She is fun, loving and always ignited around people. Her romantic evenings with her partner are gentle and sophisticated, yet always with a spark of mischief in her eyes. Shes fierce and sexy. Shes Eki!" the brand reveals in a side note about the shoot.
John, whose address was not provided in the charge sheet, was arraigned on Tuesday, March 28, 2016, and is standing trial on a two-count charge of being in possession of counterfeit notes with intent to cheat and cause wrongful loss.

ALSO READ: Brothers nabbed for producing fake Naira notes

According to the prosecutor, Sgt. Kehinde Olatunde told the court that the offenses were committed on March 22 at about 8.50 a.m at Costain Bus Stop in Lagos.

Punch reports that the court heard how the accused had tried to use one of the fake N1,000 notes to buy apples from the complainant, Joy Samuel.

Olatunde said the vendor, identified the N1,000 note as fake and raised the alarm which led to the arrest of the accused.

He said that the offenses contravened sections 134 and 372 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.

ALSO READ: Fake currency dealer arrested by Lagos police
The ladies who have been identified as Chidi Sample, aka Prince Parpistud who is the alpha male in the relationship and Lawrencia Aligasi, have been flaunting their relationship and romantic photos all over the social media and they do not care what anyone says about them.

The couple who are based in Warri, have, daily, been posting their loved-up photos on their social media accounts not minding the fact that same-sex relationship is frowned upon by many in the country and attracts a 14-year jail term.

The loved-up Delta lesbians

Photo Credit: Facebook

Accompanying the photos are words of endearments they put up to express their unalloyed love and commitment to one another.

Under the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act signed into law by then President Goodluck Jonathan in 2014, it is a crime to have a meeting of gays, to operate or go to a gay club, society or organization, or make any public show of affection.

Chidi Sample and Lawrencia Aligasi

Photo Credit: Facebook

The law states inter-alia:

"A person who registers, operates or participates in gay clubs, societies or organizations, or directly or indirectly makes a public show of same-sex amorous relationship in Nigeria commits an offense and is liable on conviction to a term of 10 years.

Chidi Sample and Lawrencia Aligasi are so much in love

Photo Credit: Facebook

Anyone convicted of entering into a same-sex marriage contract or civil union faces up to 14 years imprisonment."

Chidi Sample and Lawrencia Aligasi do not care what anyone thinks of them

Photo Credit: Facebook
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Though Idowu pleaded not guilty, the Magistrate, Mr M.A.Etti, ordered that he should be remanded in prison custody.

Etti ordered that Idowu should be remanded in prison due to the critical condition of the complainant.

The prosecutor, Sgt. Olusegun Kokoye, told the court that the defendant, who resides at Ajegunle area of Lagos, committed the offence on March 14 around 4.30 p.m. at Railway Line, Ijora Badia, Lagos.

He said the accused assaulted Idowu with a sharp stick.

Kokoye alleged that the two were coming back from school when an argument ensued between them.

The prosecutor said the complainant was rushed to the hospital by pedestrians, who were at the scene of the incident.

Kokoye said that Idowu tried to escape after the incident, but was apprehended by witnesses and taken to the police station.

He said the offence contravened Section 244 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Section 244 prescribes three-year jail term for wounding and similar acts.
Joined in the suit as reported by the man of God's media team, is an online media publication, Sahara Reporters who first reported the case and has been in the forefront of publishing interviews by the Canada-based stripper who keeps maintaining her stance of being romantically involved with the Apostle Suleman.

Now, he has decided to deal with the situation by dragging Otobo and the media outfit to court for defamation of character over the sex scandal story.

In the suit filed at the Ikeja High Court, Lagos, Apostle Suleman is also asking N1 billion from each for damages done to his reputation and has hired four lawyers, Chief Efe Akpofure (SAN ), Erhabour O.I, Victor Idiapho and Emmanuel Usoh to represent him.
Punch reports that the duo had connived with Peter Okechwukwu, a security man guarding the home of the businessman, Mike Ogbuachara, to abduct his 15-year-old daughter in the Ilasamaja area of the state but they were arrested while still perfecting their plans.

The suspects were arrested by operatives attached to the Zone 2 Police Command, Onikan, Lagos, while plotting to kidnap the girl.

It was gathered that Dado, a 26-year-old mother of two, had contacted Mohammed, a factory worker in Ogbuachara's sachet water company on the deal and Mohammed in turn, co-opted Okechwkwu into the plot.

The gang had reportedly planned to demand N10 million as ransom from the businessman for the return of his daughter but Okechukwu was said to have leaked the secret to his boss, who alerted the police.

The two suspects who were paraded before journalists at the Zone 2 Command headquarters, were said to have confessed to the plan.

Okechukwu narrated that Dado had promised to give him N2 million if the plan succeeded.

Dado came to meet me on March 8, 2017 and asked if I was close to my boss daughter and I said yes. She said she had a business for me and asked if I was ready for it.

She said she would come back the following day so we could discuss the business. The following day, she said she wanted us to kidnap my boss daughter.

She said she planned to demand N10 million as ransom and if my boss refused to pay the money, we would kill the girl and sell her body parts.

Because I was not comfortable with the idea, I went to tell my boss and he asked me to play along and videotape the discussion.

I went back to meet her and agreed to the idea. When I asked what my share would be, she said she had a gang and we would be five.

She said we would share the money N2 million each. I told her to introduce me to other members. She said one of them was working with my boss in the factory.

She didnt tell me his name. She promised to call me later so we could all meet in a hotel to perfect the plan.

Okechukwu who said that he continued to update his boss every time he spoke with Dado, added that he was surprised when the suspect suddenly cut off communication with him.

I went to see her and asked about the meeting. She began to threaten me, saying if I ever leaked the secret, she would kill me. I was scared, he added.

The guard said he started monitoring the moves of Dado who lived beside the factory, adding that he advised his boss to report to the police before it was too late.

While confessing to the crime, Mohammed said he was deceived by Dado because they both were of Togolese descent.

My mother is a Togolese, while my father is a Chadian. I met Dado after joining the factory three months ago.

We only talk once in a while. She called me sometime in March and said she wanted us to kidnap my boss daughter.

She said I should not bother myself much because she would arrange two other boys to join us and after doing the business, we could return to Togo to enjoy our loot.

She said each of us would get N2.5 million. She promised to involve the factorys security man. I did not see her again until I was arrested.

The prime suspect, Dado, however, denied the allegations, saying Mohammed was the leader of the gang.

Mohammed came to meet me and said they delivered over N800,000 to his boss every day and asked if the man would feel any pain if we removed N10 million from his account. I said I did not know.

He suggested that we should kidnap the mans daughter and I agreed. He promised to arrange boys to do the job. I went to meet the security man to seek his opinion and he agreed to join us.

When Mohammed learned that I had informed the security man, he became angry and said the man didnt know how to keep secrets.

I am a hairdresser and I had planned to start a business with my share of the ransom money.

Confirming the arrest of the suspects, the spokesperson for the Zone 2 Police Command, SP Dolapo Badmos, said investigations revealed that Dado was the leader of the gang.

It is a case of attempted kidnap. While Mohammed is a Chadian, Dado, the brains behind the kidnap, is from Togo. Mohammed lied that he was a Nigerian and used fake names until his real identity was uncovered."
The Secretary to the State Government, Alhaji Isiaka Gold, made the appeal in a statement in Ilorin on Monday.

The government condemned the clash and vowed that those involved in the incident would be apprehended and made to face the law.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that no fewer than four persons died recently in the clash between some Fulani herdsmen and members of Yashikira community in Baruten Local Government Area of the state.

Members of the community allegedly killed the three herdsmen in retaliation for the death of a man whose corpse was found on his farmland.

But Gold said government was backing the state police command and other security agencies to apprehend and prosecute the perpetrators.

The state government remains committed to protecting lives and property in line with the rule of law.

Government will not hesitate to prosecute anyone or group found to have instigated or taken part in any act of violence, he said.
Dan-Ali, who had a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja, also reassured Nigerians that the army would soon apprehend the sects leader, Abubakar Shekau.

If you have had the opportunity to go to Sambisa (forest in Borno), you will know that Boko Haram has been defeated, go and see what is happening in Sambisa.

We have dominated the whole stronghold where they used to be, there is where we call `camp zero where their spiritual and their strong headquarters that they were using as communication base was destroyed and as at the same time occupied by our men of the armed forces.

So, I believe its just a matter of time, it took America about seven to 10 years to get bin laden so we will get Shekau as soon as possible.

I told you before now, the spiritual headquarters has been ransacked and vandalized. He (Shekau) is on the run, so he may be hiding in one of the enclaves of Sambisa forest that we are dominating.

We have opened up the place; we are using it as a training area whereby the army engineers will open roads. We shall be patrolling and be ransacking that forest for the whereabouts of Shekau, he said.

On the outcome of the meeting with Buhari, he said the president was impressed with the operational successes of the armed force.

ALSO READ: Shekau says Buhari is a cow worshipper

Generally, we spoke about the security situation across the nation and I believe we had a fruitful discussion and he was impressed with the performance of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Security situation is something that you cannot get 100 per cent and remember that Nigeria has been having these turbulences for a very long time.

We are trying to manage it and we are trying to make it solvable whereby every Nigeria will have peace and tranquillity and do his normal business, he said.
This followed an application by Mr Adeola Adedipe, Yakubus counsel, to withdraw the suit.

Adedipe told the court that his application was due to the prevailing circumstances, particularly since his client had been charged to court and admitted to bail.

He said We consider it necessary to discontinue with this suit, we have served the notice on all the parties and they are not opposed to our application.

Mrs Rita Ogar and Mr T.A. Agbe, counsel to the EFCC and Attorney-General of the Federation, who are first and second respondents in the suit respectively did not oppose the application.

The judge, Justice Ahmed Mohammed said since none of the parties opposed the application, the prayer was granted as prayed and he struck out the suit.

Yakubu had been detained by the EFCC over allegations of non-disclosure of assets, fraud and money laundering to the tune of $9.7 million.

ALSO READ: Court grants

He approached the court with a breach of fundamental human rights suit, challenging his continued detention without being charged to court.

But before the matter could be determined, the EFCC arraigned him on a six-count charge bordering on non-disclosure of assets, money laundering and fraud charges to which he pleaded not guilty.
Abdullahi told the News Agency of Nigeria(NAN) in Maiduguri on Tuesday that the insurgents had also invaded Mittiri, Akalli and Arribbari villages in the same Konduga local government area.

Our intelligence report had indicated that the insurgents are now operating in Dalla Fatimiri on about 10 motorcycles."

Our men of Anti-vandalism and Intelligence Unit of the Command on Friday reported the kidnapping of four youths in Kalari village in Konduga local government area, he said.

He explained that the remnants of the insurgents were desperately recruiting more youths to sustain their fight in the state, having been effectively decimated and degraded by the Nigerian Military.

This is a clarion call to Nigerians to be on the alert at all times and always report any suspicious activities around them to the security agencies."

who are desperate to return to their librated communities should desist from living in areas that are not properly secured by armed personnel, the commandant said.
Sani, who is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign and Domestic Debts, made the remark in a chat with newsmen after a meeting with community leaders in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna state.

I will say it well; no governor in Nigeria has any moral right to call President Muhammadu Buhari a failure.

You collect Federal allocation and local government allocation every month, so you cannot call President Buhari a failure.

 You collect Ecology fund, Paris Club fund and Bail-Out fund so you cannot call Mr President a failure, Sani said.

According to him, Buhari has achieved a lot in government better than most state governors.

He said If you dont want Buhari to have a cabal, you should dissolve the cabal in your own houses; and if you want Buhari to have listening ears of Nigerians, you must perform.

I want to call on the President, as we gear up towards 2019, he should never recommend anybody for election again to the public; he should allow people to decide who they want to vote-in and who they want to vote-out.

President Buhari should forget the culture of raising the hands of people; we are supporting him to contest 2019, but he should stop the culture of raising Mr A or Mr Bs hand; most of the time he is raising the hands of people who betrayed him and Nigeria.

Earlier during the meeting, the Senator said he was in the area to aggregate the opinion of the statekeholders on the Kaduna Eastern by-pass proad project.

He criticised recent hike in the cost of the contract to N42 billion without consulting the stakeholders.

I am here to listen to your request over the Eastern by-pass contract, which the Federal Government has now jacked up to over N40 billion.

I must be very clear to you that none of the federal legislators, especially those from Kaduna Central, was consulted when the issue was to be discussed.

I knew very well that in 2016-2017 budget, I insisted that Kaduna Eastern by-pass must be included in the budget, but I read in the pages of newspapers like any one of you that the contract was jacked up to N42 billion.

I dont know how the Federal Ministry of Works arrived at such amount of money, but I believe for a project like this, there could have been the need to consult the communities where this road passed through and also the elected representatives of the people, he said.

NAN recalls that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) recently approved the resuscitation and completion of the 50 kilometre dual carriage highway.

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, had said that the road has nine bridges over rivers and rail crossings.

It was first awarded in 2002 at the cost of N12 billion, to be completed within three years.

The minister explained that already the government had paid N11 billion to the contractor since the project was initiated, adding that N32 billion was approved to complete the road.

However, Sani said he would present a request on behalf of the community and the people of his senatorial zone to the Senate Committee Chairman on Works, Sen. Kabiru Gaya, for details of the contract review.

He said I am going to demand from the minister of works to brief the senate on how such a project arrived at over N40 billion, in this era of anti corruption and transparency, since it is the tax payers money that is involved.
According to Punch, Kachikwu was invited by the lawmakers to shed some light on the gas flaring penalty in the 2017 revenue profile.

The minister however asked a director in the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to represent him at the meeting.

What angered the Senators was that the DPR director then asked one of his aides, Mrs. Folashade Odunuga to appear before the Senators.

The Chairman of the committee, Senator John Enoh, who refused to speak with Odunuga, also wondered why Kachikwu did not inform them that he will not be in the meeting.

Enoh said You mean we invited the Minister of State to come here and the Minister of State asked a director to represent him and the director, in his wisdom, asked you to represent him? This is unacceptable and we will not have you to represent any body.

It will be difficult to have you. The invitation to the minister was based on a directive of the Senate President for this important interaction, which is necessary for the 2017 budget.

(We) Wrote the Minister of State, there was no communication from him that a director will represent him. That simple courtesy was absent and lacking. Communicate to your director to communicate to the minister that we refused to take you.

ALSO READ:

The Nigerian Senate has been on a war path recently with most of President Buharis cabinet members.

Notable, was the blatant refusal of the Customs boss, Hameed Ali to appear before the lawmakers in uniform.
The flight from the Bavarian capital of Munich brought the number of rejected Afghan asylum seekers to be flown out of Germany since December to 92.

The Bavarian Interior Ministry said the rejected asylum seekers included single unmarried men, some of whom had committed a criminal offence in Germany.

Report says Germany has for years been slow to deport failed asylum seekers.

However, the nation has tightened its deportation laws in the wake of a political backlash after it admitted about 890,000 refugees, mainly people fleeing wars in the Middle East and Africa, in 2015.

A series of high-profile crimes involving migrants, including terrorist attacks, has also boosted demand for deportations.

In addition to Bavaria, six other German states, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Rhineland-Palatinate, have also stepped up moves to send home failed asylum seekers.

I have no idea why they stopped my asylum application, Obaid Ros, who was on Tuesdays flight to Kabul said, saying that he had lived in Germany for seven years, repairing computers.

According to the 24-year-old Ros, there is no security, no work, no life in Afghanistan, adding that he would try again to go back to Germany.
The incident occurred in the Delhi suburb of Noida late Monday when locals staging a protest about the death of a teenage boy turned violent, leading to attacks on African students, mostly Nigerians, shopping in the area.

The attackers alleged the dead boy, Manish Khari, 16, was drugged by Africans who live in the area. He died of a cardiac arrest on the weekend after a suspected drug overdose.

Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj promised immediate action after a Nigerian student begged her for help, saying living in the area had become a life-threatening issue.

I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh about the attack.

"He has assured that there will be fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident, she said on Twitter, referring to the state in which the incident occurred.

Noida police chief Dharmendra Singh said four Nigerians were admitted to hospitals and seven locals were

arrested for the mob violence.

Some people tried to give the incident a racial twist and there has been hate-mongering over the social media.

Three hundred people are listed in the police complaint and more arrests are likely soon in raids, he said.

Attacks on Africans have been reported at regular intervals in India in recent years.

Last May, a Congolese student was beaten to death in Delhi.
Bala Dole, task force zonal commander, made this known on Monday, revealing that the vehicles were 12 new Toyota Hilux and one Land Cruiser Jeep.

He said 210 other vehicles were seized, alongside other items, including foodstuff worth N269.5 million in Kano and Jigawa states, within eight months.

Based on the intelligence report, the vehicles were 30 in number but we were able to trail 13 of them 12 of which were hidden in the senators compound, he said.

We sealed the house and retrieved the vehicles and they are now in our custody.

He said the other items the task force confiscated during special operations include; 9,757 bags of rice, 2,916 of foreign spargetti, 2,770 cartons of foreign vegetable oil and 999 cartons of macaroni.

Dole said others were; 889 veils of second hand clothes, 50 used school bags, 110 cartons of new foreign shoes, 956 bags of mosquito coil and six fairly used cars.

The total value of the seizure made by the task force since it was established in July 2016, excluding the 13 Senators vehicles, is N269.5 million, he said.
In a report by TheCable, Oshiomhole was quoted as saying Magus job is more tasking than those of President Muhammadu Buhari and Senate President Bukola Saraki.

You have the most difficult and challenging job in this country today; more challenging than the job of a governor, the job of a President, the job of a Senate President or any other person because those ones are clearly defined and the values are there but this one is really problematic.

Continuing, he said: In the past we were made to believe that you could not probe the armed forces because of security reasons because they could overthrow; so, army accounts were never touched. But we are beginning to see changes. Today, even former service chiefs are being made to account for fighting the money that was meant for insurgency but diverted and kept in pit latrines.

I can see both people in opposition and government being made to give account.

He called for synergy between anti-corruption agencies, urging them to endeavour to share intelligence.

We are all witnesses to the fact that individualistic approach has not taken us anywhere.

ALSO READ: Magu is a man of integrity - Ozekhome

How can we win the fight against corruption without casualties? There has to be collaboration among anti-corruption agencies, all the agencies involved in the fight against corruption must have to share intelligence, Oshiomhole said.
The lawmakers also complained that President Buharis cabinet members have shown to respect for the Senate.

Speaking on the issue, the Senate liaison officer to Buhari, Ita Enang said the Senate is an independent arm of govt and its decision will be respected.

According to Premium Times, Enang also said We will not question the power of the senators to take decision on how they want to conduct nomination hearings."

We will not go fighting with them. We will listen to their grievances and reason along with them, he added.
When the matter was called up, Mr Joseph Daudu (SAN), counsel to Suswam told the court that his client was absent in court on account of his detention.

The absence of the defendant in court is due to no fault of his. On Feb. 24, over a month ago, he was invited by the DSS and since that day he has been kept in detention without trial.

Also, no effort has been made to take him to court irrespective of the allegation they have against him.

If the prosecutor is not aware of the reason for his absence in court, I am by this statement from the bar, making him aware so that he can find out why he (Suswam) is being kept in detention without trial.

The lawyer maintained that Suswams absence was not out of disrespect for the court, but only because he was being held against his will and prayed the court for an adjournment.

The prosecuting counsel , Mr A.O. Atolagbe , had wondered why the defendant was not in court even though he was on bail.

Atolagbe further told the court that he was prosecuting for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and not for the DSS who is currently detaining the defendant.

He said an adjournment was inevitable so as to ensure that the defendant was present in court.

In his ruling, the judge, Justice Ahmed Mohammed, said that since it was a criminal matter, it could not go on in the absence of Suswam, the first defendant.

He adjourned the matter till May 9.

Suswam and his former Commissioner for Finance, Mr Omadachi Oklobia , are standing trial for allegedly diverting about N3.1 billion belonging to the government of Benue.

They are also being tried for alleged money laundering and breach of public trust while in office.

The Federal Government had on Jan. 25, asked the court to adjourn indefinitely, the fresh N7 billion alleged criminal misappropriation charges filed against Suswam from the office of the Inspector-General of Police (I-G).
Schlagheck, gave this indication when he led officials of the embassy on a courtesy visit to Brig.-Gen. Paul Boroh (rtd), the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Coordinator of the programme in Abuja.

He said that Nigeria was a country with great potentials, which needed a peaceful and secure environment for it to be realised.

Nigeria is a country of endless potential and we will assist in attracting more investment to the country.

The basic issue about the Niger Delta region is employment and this can only be realised in an environment that is conducive for investment.

Our areas of collaboration with the PAP will be for sustainable peace and development in the region, he said.

Earlier, Boroh said PAP was committed to collaborate with The German embassy that would lead to gainful employment of ex-agitators after the programme.

He said that training and provision of jobs for ex- agitators after their training in Nigeria and in diaspora required functional collaboration with the international community.

He, however, used the visit to seek more practical support from The German embassy to the amnesty programme.

The coordinator gave an assurance that Federal Government was committed to developing the Niger Delta region and ensuring sustainability of the amnesty programme.

He also assured the visiting ambassador that adequate steps would be taken to strengthen the partnership between the PAP and the embassy.
In a statement issued on Monday, Abdulrazque Barkindo, NGF spokesman, said there was no illegality in the transaction, TheCable reports.

Saraki, his aides and Robert Mbonu, had been reportedly indicted for money laundering to the tune N3.5billion. Mbonu, Saraki and others were alleged to have diverted a part of the fund.

Barkindon said Mbonus Melrose General Services Limited was duly hired as a consultant and that it was paid an amount commensurate to its services.

Our attention has been drawn to publications in the media which are believed to have emanated from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) about a purported report the anti-graft agency submitted to President Muhammadu Buhari, on March 10, 2016, he said.

The report is said to have indicted the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki and imputed illegal dealings in the disbursement of the Paris Club refund payment to states of the federation as handled by the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF).

While the NGF will not want to repeatedly join issues with the EFCC on the disbursement of the first tranche of the Paris Club refund, particularly after its officials have been interrogated by the anti-corruption agency and we provided all necessary and required details and documents regarding disbursement to states, including harmonising the number of consultants and payment made to them, we are constrained to once again state the following for the benefit of members of the public:

It is true that Melrose General Services Limited was one of the consultants that was duly engaged and documented to facilitate the disbursement of the Paris Club Refund. The consultant was also paid an amount commensurate to the services it provided, among other numerous consultants that were involved in the process.

It is not in the NGFs purview to determine how Melrose or other consultants disburse or utilise the consultancy fee paid to them. The NGF should therefore not be dragged into how its suppliers, lawyers, contractors and consultants spend their legitimate incomes and revenues.

It may interest the public to know that the NGF is still being inundated with claims from many other consultants from all over the country who had earlier been engaged and promised commission by the respective states.

The NGF maintains its earlier position that it has done nothing illegal as far as the disbursement of the Paris Club Refund to states and the consultants are concerned. The Forum has all necessary approvals to act in the manner it did. Therefore, the misinformation in the media about the disbursement and insinuations being made concerning some governors that are being mentioned is outright mischief.

Barkindo said it was not the business of the forum to investigate how money genuinely paid to its service providers was spent.

ALSO READ: 7 Governors reportedly under investigation by EFCC over Paris Club Refund

The NGF would like to once again place it on record that it played an altruistic and patriotic role in ensuring that it aided, as directed, approved and authorised by the presidency, federal ministry of finance, office of the accountant general of the federation, debt management office (DMO) and all other necessary agencies of government, the disbursement of the funds to entities and individuals lawfully entitled to it. All approvals, authorisation, terms of engagements and disbursement were properly documented and are verifiable by anyone, including the general public, Barkindo added.
The President of the Senate, Dr Bukola Saraki, who made this known at plenary, said the lawmakers deliberated on issues bordering on the integrity of the National Assembly, particularly the Senate.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Saraki, who did not give details of the intimidation the institution is facing, said that the senate, at the executive session, resolved to defend its integrity.

We cannot be intimidated from carrying out our constitutional duties at all times.

Nothing will stop the National Assembly, especially the Senate, from performing its duties, he said.

Meanwhile, committees that were yet to submit reports of budget defence of the various MDAs were asked to do so by Thursday.

The president of the senate warned that committees that failed to meet the deadline risked not being considered.

If by Thursday, any committee did not send its report to the Appropriation Committee, we will have no alternative than to make do with what we have on ground.

This is the last time I am making the announcement, he said.
Bagobiri made the call in a statement during a visit by Most Rev Ignatius Kaigama who led a delegation of the Bishops Conference on an official visit to the diocese, recently.

The statement was signed by Rev Fr. Chris Anyanwu, Director of Communications, Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (CSN), and made available to newsmen on Tuesday in Abuja.

Also, Most Rev. Ignatius Kaigama, President, Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), urged the Federal Government to be more proactive in resolving crisis in the country.

Bishop Bagobiri explained the circumstances responsible for the persistent crisis in the area.

He said that the Kanfanchan and Southern Kaduna people had lived peacefully and also noted that the crisis persisted because some herdsmen constantly provoked the people.

It is important to put on record that the insecurity situation we experience as a Diocese in Kafanchan and Southern Kaduna has not stopped despite the presence of Security Agents.

The crisis here has persisted because of the way and manner the Federal and State governments, as well as the Security Agents are handling it.

"Many of us are disappointed that is why they are fast losing the support and trust of the people.

The root cause of this crisis is the institutionalization of what can be regarded as structural injustice, Most Rev Joseph Bagobiri stated.

Perhap the only solution out of the present predicament was the creation of another state out of the present Kaduna comprising mainly of Southern Kaduna, he said.

Kaigama decried the wanton destruction of human lives and properties and the lukewarm attitude of both the Federal and State Governments in addressing the situation in Southern Kaduna.

We appeal to the government to be more proactive in handling the matters of security of its citizens and to look into the root causes of persistent crisis in parts of the country.

Since the beginning of the crisis in Southern Kaduna, you have displayed good spirit of love. You have equally remained resilient even in the face of challenges and difficulties.

We are particularly saddened by the constant and wanton destruction of lives and property in Southern Kaduna.

In our plenary sessions the CBCN and other fora have expressed our views and condemned this mayhem that had become a common feature in Nigeria, he said.

Kaigama expressed concern on the unending crisis in the country, saying First, it was Southern Kaduna, recently, it was Zaki-Biam in Benue and Ile-Ife crisis in Osun.

No one knows which community will be the next victim, he said.

Kaigama said that Nigerians had enjoyed living together as a united country. He, however, stressed the need for the political leaders in their policies and decisions to respect the multi-ethnic and multi-religious nature of corporate existence.

We live in a country that is multi-ethnic, multi-religious and complex in nature. We must constantly appeal to the sensibilities of our political leaders.

They should not be seen to be promoting the interest of any particular group but to be neutral and seek the common things that will promote unity, fairness and equity in the country, he said.

ALSO READ:10 things

We pray that they will take the responsibilities of governance more seriously, which is providing the basic social amenities for the people, securing the people and promoting unity and fairness.

If a government is seen or perceived to be protecting sectional or ethnic interest, such a government is certainty seeking for the disintegration of the country, the bishop added.
Akinmolayan has requested for five different teams from all over the country, which will consist of a writer/researcher, director and cinematographer. Also, each team must also have at least one female member to qualify.

Each team is expected to create a one-minute video pitch, introducing themselves and their respective roles. The video should also be created around the location of the subject they wish to work on.

Akinmolayan will make his choices largely based on importance of subject matter, clarity of video pitch and also number of likes on the repost.

The teams will be invited to a boot camp in Lagos, where they would learn how to make documentaries, write proposals for documentaries, plan documentary budgets and film documentaries.

At the end, each team will receive 200 thousand naira grant to make their own documentary. But, the process will be live streamed to enable the "Falling" director offer guidance.

Once they are done, the documentaries will be brought to Anthill Studios where they will be edited.

There will be a premiere in the states where each team is from, and a grand premiere will also hold in Lagos State.

On December 15, 2017, a short film written by Abosi Ogba, who won the scriptwriting competition held by Akinmolayan in July, 2016, was premiered.

Shooting of "Room 315," which was aimed at teaching the art of filmmaking, was streamed live on Facebook/Room315.
Buhari also said that Tinubus understanding of politics helped the APC defeat the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2015 elections.

The president made the comments while congratulating Tinubu over his 65th birthday which will hold on March 29.

President Muhammadu Buhari warmly felicitates with former Lagos state governor and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Sen Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on his 65th birthday, a statement released by Buharis spokesman, Femi Adesina read.

President Buhari joins all members of the APC, political and business associates of the Asiwaju of Lagos, his friends and family, in celebrating another milestone in the life of the great leader, whose foray into politics ushered in a better understanding of building consensus to achieve historical feats, like unseating an incumbent government.

As he turns 65 years, the president believes the Asiwaju raised the bar for many political leaders across the country as a two-term governor of Lagos State, and also bequeathed a style of leadership that completely altered the landscape of the commercial capital.

President Buhari prays that the almighty God will grant the Asiwaju good health, longer life and more wisdom to serve his country and humanity, the statement added.

ALSO READ: Tinubu is settling with his political enemies
The Lagos State House of Assembly members spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in separate interviews while congratulating Tinubu, who turns 65 on Wednesday.

According to them, the APC national leader is a true leader with passion for the welfare of the ordinary people.

Tinubu is a democrat that has changed the political and economic landscape of Lagos; he has been a colossus, and has made an indelible mark in Lagos and Nigeria.

When the history of Lagos would be written, it would not be complete without a mention of this charismatic enigma,  Mr Tunde Braimoh, the Chairman, House Committee on Information, Strategy and Publicity, said.

The lawmaker said that the state would be eternally grateful to Tinubu, one of its former governors, for laying a solid foundation for it.

Braimoh, representing Kosofe Constituency II in the House, described Tinubu as a good listener and somebody God had endowed with so many gifts.

Tinubu is very witty and gifted with spontaneous response to issues. He is someone we adore a lot because God created him specially.

He has empathy, believes in welfarism, live and let live. To his wife, he is one of the best husbands; you see a passionate leader in him.

He knows what you are going through once he sees you. You dont need to talk once you get to him. Tinubu knows what is good for everybody, he said.

Mr Victor Akande (PDP-Ojo I) lauded Tinubu for being a genuine leader with uncommon interest in the down trodden and less privileged

Akande said that Tinubus doggedness and courage in politics remained an inspiration for him.

He is a courageous and fearless leader, a patriot and a motivator, a builder of men and women and a strategic thinker, he said.

Mr David Setonji (APC-Badagry II) said that Tinubu would continue to be relevant in the political sphere because of his numerous achievements.

Setonji said that Tinubu remained an exemplary leader whose main concern was the people.

According to Mr Gbolahan Yishawu, representing Eti/Osa Constituency II at the Assembly, Asiwaju Tinubu is a father, a visionary leader and a mentor.

Yishawu said: It is a thing of joy that Tinubu has turned 65; through him, God has blessed Nigeria, he (Tinubu) is a leading light of Nigerian modern politics.

He is the pillar of Nigerian modern democracy. He is a tenacious man, his upbeat spirit has helped him to carve a niche for himself in the society. His policy is to liberate the people from oppression.

Today, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has become a household name because of his passion for the grassroots. He is a man with dignity and vision. He is a divine leader.

ALSO READ: Dogara says Tinubu is a dogged fighter for democracy

He is a humanist, those of us that are close to him know that he never wants to see anybody suffer or leave anybody behind.

 Tinubu is a crusader of change that brought President Muhammadu Buhari into office. Tinubu is a crusader of progress, good governance and development.

According to him, Tinubu uses power to benefit mankind, Nigerians and the people of Lagos.
The students say they have been living is deplorable conditions on campus as sources of water and electricity have been turned off by the staff who are on strike.

ALSO READ: Institution confers business mogul with honorary degree

Punch reports that academic and administrative activities have been halted at the university since March 20, 2017, when the staff declared indefinite strike due to what the union has described as illegal deductions of pension money from their salaries.

Apart from the deduction issue, the workers have been demanding for their unpaid promotion arrears, the shortfall in salary payment, as well as better welfare for staff, among other things.

Punch correspondents were able to speak with some of the students on Monday, March 27, 2017, and they complained of the lack of water and electricity in the hostels as well as the classrooms.

Each time there is a crisis between the school administration and the staff, the students are always at the receiving end, said Kayode Onifade, a 300 level student of the Faculty of Arts.

Our lecturers now combine their work with that of non-academic staff because they get the keys to open the classrooms for lectures to hold and lock them after.

In the hostel, we sleep in darkness. Many of us attend classes without taking our bath because there is no water. Both parties must reach an agreement for the sake of the students. The living condition is terrible, added Onifade.

Punch reports that the institution has been locked since the strike began weeks ago and that lectures only resumed on Monday.

ALSO READ: The untold story of the murdered University of Ibadan student

Meanwhile, efforts to reach the chairman of the institution's branch of Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, Wale Akinremi, have proved abortive.
Spokesman of the company, Gabriel Gab-Umoden, said Abuja is now the fourth city to get the municipal Wi-Fi network in Africa.

He noted that public services like CCTV security systems, access to emergency services and online city directories can 'ride on the back' of the municipal Wi-Fi network, ensuring the security and safety of citizens.

ALSO READ: Tecno launches the Phonepad 3 at a glamorous event in Lagos

The Wi-Fi access ranges from free to as low as N3,400 per month, for unlimited access, any time of the day," he said.

"This represents significant value for money and relieves the citizens from huge monthly Internet Service Provider fees.

With such a widespread network, citizens can now have ubiquitous access to a high quality, affordable network and can be more flexible in their subscription plans, not having to tie themselves down to bulky contracts or monthly service fees, he added.

Gab-Umoden said that there are currently 50 Legend zones located in strategic locations across the Abuja metropolis.

He revealed plans to deploy 1,000 hotspots by June 2017, thereby creating a widespread and contiguous municipal Wi-Fi network in Abuja.
Courtesy of Acoustic-4-a-Cure

Sarah McLachlan and Pat Benatar will provide some girl power at the fourth annual Acoustic-4-a-Cure benefit concert, scheduled for May 15 in San Francisco.

The concert is the brainchild of rockers Sammy Hagar and James Hetfield of Metallica, and raises money for pediatric cancer research at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital. The show historically has featured artists performing acoustically, and includes unique duets, jams and surprise guest appearances.

Other acts on this year's bill include Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac, former Eagles guitarist Don Felder, Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead and more. Tickets go on sale Friday, March 31 at 10 a.m. PT at LiveNation.com.

Sarah will perform at the Juno Awards -- the Canadian equivalent of the Grammys -- this weekend. In addition to being a nominee this year -- for her holiday album Wonderland -- she's also being inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. As for Pat, she and her husband and guitarist Neil Giraldo will be touring with with Toto starting in August.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.




Widodo declared an anti-drugs campaign soon after coming to power in 2014 and refused all requests for pardons from death-row drug convicts, ending a four-year moratorium.

But in recent months he has softened his position.

Asked in an interview with AFP on Monday whether he would consider a moratorium, Widodo said: "Why not? But I must ask my people.

"If my people say OK, they say yes, I will start to prepare," he said.

A moratorium could be the first step towards abolishing the death penalty, a move which needs approval in parliament which has been discussing the issue for the past year.

However, Widodo said it would be difficult to secure parliamentary backing without clear public support in a conservative, Muslim-majority country where voters are deeply concerned about high levels of addiction.

Jungle killings

Since Widodo came to power, Indonesia has hauled 18 people -- 15 of them foreigners -- before the firing squad for drug trafficking.

They include a group of eight -- two Australians, a Brazilian, an Indonesian and four Nigerians -- who were put to death in a single night in April 2015 on the prison island of Nusakambangan.

The convicts were taken to a jungle clearing on the island, which houses several high-security prisons, and tied to stakes before being shot, in an move that triggered global revulsion.

The executions of Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in particular caused tensions, with Indonesia's neighbour Australia temporarily recalling its ambassador from Jakarta.

Among the foreigners currently on death row are Frenchman Serge Atlaoui and Filipina Mary Jane Veloso, who were both pulled from the April 2015 round of executions.

A British grandmother, Lindsay Sandiford, is also on death row in Bali after she was caught smuggling a huge stash of cocaine into the resort island which attracts millions of visitors to its palm-fringed beaches every year.

Widodo has insisted that the death penalty is part of Indonesia's law and serves as deterrent against drug trafficking.

However, last November he said he was "open for options" to abolish it. In another concession, only drug convicts from countries that implement the death penalty were executed last year.

'Good sign'

International and domestic rights groups have appealed to Indonesia to put a stop to capital punishment, arguing that miscarriages of justice are inevitable in a judicial system deeply compromised by corruption.

Ricky Gunawan from Community Legal Aid Foundation, a group calling for the abolition of the death penalty, said Widodo's latest comments were "a good sign that he is shifting from his stubbornness".

"But the downside is he leaves it to the people to decide, and a good leader should make a stance instead of leaving to the people to decide," he told AFP.

Gunawan urged President Francois Hollande, who will visit Indonesia this week, to press the issue during their talks. France scrapped the death penalty at a time when public support for it was high.

Some analysts have said that since Widodo is the first Indonesian president from outside the establishment -- he was not in the military nor part of the elites -- he needed to show a strong hand on law enforcement.

Halfway into his term, Widodo is faced with rising religious intolerance in a country that has always prided itself as a moderate Muslim nation.

In a case seen as a major test for pluralism, the governor of Jakarta -- an ethnic Chinese Christian - is currently on trial on allegations of blasphemy against Islam.

Widodo said that extensive freedoms have opened the way for hate speech, but played down the extent of intolerance, saying that a "small" number of incidents was "normal" in a nation that embraces many religions and ethnicities.
Foreign ministers of the 10-country group will hold a preparatory meeting Tuesday.

Mexican President Enrique Penas Nieto, whose country is directly impacted by Trump's proposed border wall and renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), will be present at the summit.

Also attending is Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, whose country for the past 17 years has received billions in US funds to fight drug cartels and leftwing guerrillas. While drug production is said to have increased recently in Colombia, a peace deal with FARC rebels has been struck.

The official agenda speaks of public-private partnerships to spur road transport, communications and electricity networks in the region.

But the leaders will hold a closed-door, open-agenda meeting ahead of the formal sessions, in which they likely "will talk of other topics such as migration, security and the relationship with other important partners," Costa Rican Foreign Minister Manuel Gonzalez said in a recent news conference.

Common position on Trump

Some, such as Santos, for instance, have scheduled bilateral meetings with other leaders.

Carlos Murillo, a political analyst at the University of Costa Rica, said: "There are issues that cannot be tackled only locally. They need regional policies, such as the position on the Trump administration."

He added that there was little consensus, for example, between Mexico and Central America -- especially Guatemala and Honduras -- over migration.

Free-trade agreements with the United States were another source of divergence. Mexico comes under NAFTA, while Central America has its own, separate CAFTA pact that does not appear to be threatened.

With Central America supplying most of the migrants now illegally crossing the Mexico-US border, two presidents -- Costa Rica's Luis Guillermo Solis and Honduras's Juan Orlando Hernandez -- this month separately traveled to Washington to meet Trump's Homeland Security chief, John Kelly.

On his return, Solis last week hinted at concerns about deported or thwarted migrants to the US turning to relatively prosperous Costa Rica as their next option.

"There are limits" to how many migrants his country can absorb, he said, singling out problematic flows from Venezuela and the poorer Central American countries -- El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

Hernandez in his meeting with Kelly highlighted progress made to improve security and employment opportunities in Honduras, according to a Department of Homeland Security statement.

Those goals are part of the conditions under a $750 million US fund called the Alliance for Prosperity Plan for Central America launched under former US president Barack Obama.

Some leaders unconfirmed

The Tuxtla summits over the years have broadened to include all Central American countries as well as the Caribbean nation of the Dominican Republic.

The leaders who have confirmed their attendance at the San Jose summit are presidents Pena Nieto of Mexico, Santos of Colombia, Hernandez of Honduras, Solis of Costa Rica, and Juan Carlos Varela of Panama.
The move was part of policies by hardline anti-immigration Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a strong admirer of US President Donald Trump.

From Tuesday, asylum-seekers entering Hungary as well as those currently in the country will be confined in camps at the its southern borders while their applications are processed.

"The border protection agencies are fully prepared for the entry into force of the reinforced legal border closure on March 28," said a statement by the interior ministry.

"The police, the defence forces and the Immigration and Asylum Office have made the necessary preparations for the implementation of the required measure," said the statement.

The ministry said the purpose of the restrictions is to "prevent migrants with an unclear status from moving freely around the territory of the country and the European Union, and to thereby reduce the security risk of migration".

According to the government 324 shipping container homes have been installed at two separate locations called "transit zones" built into a fence that Hungary erected along the 175-kilometre-(110-mile)-long border in 2015.

EU member Hungary previously systematically detained all asylum applicants but suspended the practise in 2013 under pressure from Brussels, the UN refugee agency and the European Court of Human Rights.

Rights groups like Amnesty International have condemned the new rules for failing to meet Hungary's international obligations to asylum-seekers.

The UNHCR also said that systematic detention will "have a terrible physical and psychological impact on women, children and men who have already greatly suffered".

According to refugee rights group the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) some 400 asylum-seekers are currently housed in the country's internal camp network, and now face relocation to the border camps.
After more than four decades at the helm of Crawford Co., Bob Frink will retire as company president on Friday, the Rock Island company announced.

Frink has been with Crawford for 45 years, beginning his career as an estimator and project manager in 1972. He has served the past 43 years as president, helping to lead the company through its growth and diversification.

"The company had a number of benchmarks we felt were important. We hit them and it's time for me to move on," he said Tuesday. "All the way along there has been people willing to help in a number of ways. Our responsibility is to provide them with the tools they needed to be successful."

Frink co-owns the business with his son, Ian Frink, and Jim Maynard Jr., who eventually will become the company's two owners. They will serve as president and vice president, respectively. Larry Anderson will continue on the management team as chief financial officer.

Frink, who turns 74 next month, will be honored at a retirement reception from 2:30-5 p.m. April 21 at Crawford's headquarters at 1306 Mill St. The company has been located there since 1965.

Frink became president in 1974 after the death of Harvey Crawford, who founded the company in 1952 in Rock Island. Under Frink's leadership, Crawford has grown from fewer than 10 employees in the early 1970s to 180 today.

Frink recalled how he and Jim Maynard Sr., who retired in 1996, put the company on its first path toward diversification. "We had a couple economic downturns in the '80s and '90s and we looked at that and realized being completely dependent on one market is tough," he said. "We were just HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) then."

They helped the company evolve into commercial and industrial markets in 1985 and a year later added a weld shop to grow its fabrication division. Today, the company specializes in HVAC, plumbing, laser cutting, welding, fabrication, micro-brew equipment, Monoxivent Source Capture Products, and Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic Products.

In 1990, Crawford completed the first of many building expansion. Shortly after, Jim Maynard Jr. joined the management team. In 2000, Crawford expanded into laser cutting and purchased Monoxivent Source Capture Products. Ian Frink also was brought into the company.

In 2008, the company added Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic Products, and two years later added a plumbing division. By 2013, it opened a second facility, Crawford North, in Dubuque, which now employs 12. It also began its Brewing Equipment division.

Frink credited the company's success to "a willingness to look at new opportunities and to be willing to put profits aside to let (them) become strong enough to be on their own  and it's worked."

Ian Frink said his his father and Jim Maynard Sr. were the driving forces for diversification and growth. "It's been smart, calculated growth."

Of his father, he said "His big picture philosophy is to get the right people on board and let them do their job... and not hit the panic button. Jim (Maynard Jr.) and I will continue to strategically grow our company based on the solid foundation that has been built."

Bob Frink said his retirement is part of a succession plan that has been in the works four or five years ago since he began splitting his time between his Rock Island home and northern Minnesota. "I've stayed so long (at Crawford) because I've had fun."
A Bettendorf woman was sentenced Thursday to nine years in federal prison after police and prosecutors say she mailed herself approximately two pounds of crystal ice methamphetamine in May.

Kendra Watson Tromp, 38, must serve two years of supervised release once she completes her prison sentence. There is no parole in the federal system.

She was charged with in U.S. District Court, Rock Island, to possession of at least 50 grams of actual methamphetamine with intent to distribute in late August and pleaded guilty to the charge in October, according to court records.

She initially was charged with drug offenses in Scott County District Court; prosecutors there dismissed those charges once she was charged in federal court.

According to court documents filed in the state and federal cases:

On May 9, 2016, a confidential source bought about a half gram of crystal ice methamphetamine from a suspect who lives in Bettendorf.

Ten days later, agents with the Quad-City Metropolitan Enforcement Group searched the suspects house and located approximately one gram of suspected crystal methamphetamine.

The suspect told agents that he bought gram quantities from Tromp every one to two weeks for $100-$120 a gram.

On May 20, agents intercepted a package, which contained approximately a pound of crystal methamphetamine, at the Federal Express distribution facility in Moline. The package was addressed to Tromp in Bettendorf.

The package was mailed from Arizona. A drug detection canine alerted agents to the presence of drugs inside the package.

Agents, while maintaining constant surveillance of Tromps home, conducted a controlled delivery. The package was accepted and taken inside the residence.

Agents searched Tromps home and found the package. They found the methamphetamine separated into smaller plastic bags in a safe in her bedroom.

Tromp told agents that while she was in Arizona, she sent the package to herself, accepted it and took it to her bedroom to break it down into smaller bags to sell it, according to court documents.

She said she had taken four other trips to Arizona to buy methamphetamine and mailed the drugs to herself each time.

On May 24, 2016, a family member whom Tromp lived with called Bettendorf police and reported that another package had arrived for her. Inside the package, officers found a black pillow that contained a pound of suspected ice methamphetamine, according to court documents.
A Davenport felon this week admitted he sold heroin to a confidential informant and was in possession of a gun last year.

Anthony McKinley Harris, 27, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court, Davenport, to conspiracy to distribute heroin and felon in possession of a firearm.

The conspiracy charge is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, and the gun possession charge is punishable by 15 years to life in prison. He will be sentenced Aug. 23.

According to the plea agreement filed Monday:

Between February and April 6, 2016, Harris and at least one other person reached an agreement to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute heroin and other controlled substances.

Between February and March 2016, the Davenport Police Department utilized a confidential source to buy heroin from Harris on three occasions. He sold about 1.94 grams worth $600 to the informant.

On April 6, 2016, officers found that Harris was staying a hotel in Davenport. A search of his hotel room led to the recovery of a backpack, earlier seen in his possession, that contained 22 individual aluminum foil bundles of heroin that had a net weight of 6.53 grams.

Police also searched his home and found $1,193 in cash, a loaded Lorcin L380 semi-automatic handgun, 40 rounds of Remington ammunition, 48 rounds of Winchester ammunition, pieces of foil and a working digital scale that had suspected heroin residue.

Harris has multiple felony burglary convictions in Iowa, which prohibit him from possessing a firearm.

In later calls from the jail, Harris referred to the gun that was found by police, according to the plea agreement.

Harris initially was charged in Scott County District Court with a controlled substance violation, failure to affix drug tax stamp and possession of a firearm or offensive weapon by a felon. Those charges were dismissed in July after he was charged in federal court.
A roundup of legislative and Capitol news items of interest for Monday:

WIND STRONG: Iowa, which produces 36 percent of its electricity from wind energy, could see an increase of thousands of jobs and $9 billion in investment in wind energy by 2020, according to a report highlighted Monday by Gov. Terry Branstad.

Perhaps the most important impact wind has had on our state are the high-quality, good-paying jobs that are helping grow family incomes in Iowa, Branstad said. But wind has also helped us reduce our dependence on foreign oil  something that Iowa was almost exclusively reliant upon in the 1980s when I was first governor.

The industry today supports about 8,000 direct and indirect jobs and is at $11.8 billion in project investment. Its projected the number of jobs could grow to 17,300 by 2020.when jobs in the communities surrounding wind farms and factories are included, according to Navigant Consulting.

Iowa is projected to contain the third most wind-related jobs in 2020, trailing only Texas and Colorado by 2020.

Only Texas is expected to experience more economic activity from wind than the $9 billion investment projected in Iowa, Navigant said. That includes investments in new wind projects, turbine operations and maintenance, land lease payments, and sales, income, and property tax payments.

The Navigant analysis can be found at http://www.awea.org/windbenefits.

ALL TALK, NO TEXT: The Iowa House Transportation Committee is likely to take up Senate File 234, a bill to limit drivers use of hand-held communications devices to make phone calls and use global positioning system software to get travel directions. Texting, emailing and reading would be prohibited under the bill that was approved Monday by a Transportation subcommittee.

The Senate approved the bill, 43-6, last week despite some senators wanting to go further and ban the use of all hand-held communications devices.

The same sentiment is present in the House, said Rep. Gary Worthan, R-Storm Lake, a member of the subcommittee. He doubts there will be an attempt to amend the bill because of the opposition to an outright ban on cellphone use by drivers.

The bill also makes texting while driving a primary offense, meaning law enforcement is prohibited from stopping or detaining a person solely for a violation which relates to texting while driving. The new primary offense would carry a $30 fine.

The bill could see committee action today.

MINIMUM WAGE: Gov. Terry Branstad is continuing to call for a modest increase in Iowas state minimum wage, despite disinterest by the Legislatures majority Republicans.

Although he agrees with legislative action to pre-empt local governments authority to set minimum wages higher than the states $7.25 minimum, Branstad called for a modest increase over time in the minimum wage as some of our neighboring states have done.

Asked last Thursday about the governors interest in an increase, House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, said she and the governor have not discussed the topic.

Oh, yeah, weve had discussions about this, Branstad said Monday, and Ive expressed my support for a modest increase over time. Weve had those discussions with the legislative leaders.

Upmeyers office on Monday clarified that Branstad has expressed that sentiment to leaders but said there has been no discussion. Upmeyer said the House GOP caucus hasnt expressed an interest in a minimum-wage increase this year.

The sentiment is the same in the Senate, where Majority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, said he would anticipate no separate minimum wage bill.

The last time Iowas minimum wage was increased was with bipartisan support in 2007.

STORMY WEATHER: Its Severe Weather Awareness Week, and the states annual tornado drill will take place between 10 and 11 a.m. Wednesday. Gov. Terry Branstad and the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, National Weather Service and local emergency management agencies encourage schools, businesses, state and local governments and individuals to participate in the drill.

For more information, visit beready.iowa.gov and follow Homeland Security and the NWS on Twitter at #IASWAW.

IPERS CHANGES: Gov. Terry Branstad applauded a decision by the IPERS investment board to lower a key investment target as thoughtful and prudent, even though it will increase the systems unfunded liabilities by about $1.3 billion and could require larger contributions by state and local governments and workers.

The governor told his weekly news conference Monday that too many states have overestimated the revenue in their pension funds, and the result is theyre in big trouble.

The Iowa Public Employees Retirement System, which has more than 350,000 members, cut its assumed annual rate of return on investments from 7.5 percent to 7 percent on Friday, reflecting concerns that returns will cover less of the cost of retirees pensions than in the past.

Using the new assumptions with the 2016 data, IPERS funded ratio has dropped from 84 percent to 80 percent, according to the plans administrators. IPERS has about $28 billion in assets and has unfunded liabilities of nearly $5.6 billion.

Branstad noted that the return on investment for the IPERS fund has slowed, so its important that Iowa officials track long-term benefits and review the system to protect more than 114,000 retirees who rely on IPERS and ensure changes arent going to impact them or the commitment that have been made to them.

He said the Legislature should follow reforms enacted in 2010 relating to benefits and contributions or consider changes that may be the subject of a state task force review.

HOLIDAY FIREWORKS: A bill allowing the sale and use of fireworks at the Fourth of July and over the Christmas-New Years Day holidays was sent to the full House Ways and Means Committee on Monday.

Senate File 489 would allow licensed retailers or community groups in permanent structures to sell consumer-grade fireworks to adults between June 1 and July 8 and between Dec. 10 and Jan. 3.

A similar provision would apply to conforming temporary structures, such as tents, from June 13 through July 8 each year. It also places time restrictions for the display of fireworks.

In a meeting that lasted less than five minutes, a three-member subcommittee heard from a veterans group that wants to shorten the time frame for fireworks sales and use, so as to protect the thousands of PTSD-affected Iowa veterans.

Were resigned to the fact it will pass, said Robert Beeston of the Veterans National Recovery Center, but the group would like the time fireworks are permitted to be limited to only the Fourth of July holiday. We oppose New Years (fireworks) but recognize tradition around Fourth of July.

Jim Henter of the Iowa Retail Federation called for a longer time frame to make it more appealing for retailers to invest in selling fireworks in their stores rather than selling from tents and other temporary structures.

Subcommittee member Rep. Jane Bloomingdale, R-Northwood, thought Iowans should have to be older than 18  out of high school, she said  to buy fireworks.

OBAMACARE AFTERMATH: Gov. Terry Branstad expressed disappointment Monday that Congress and President Donald Trump were unable to move forward last week with plans to repeal and replace the federal Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

Ive said from the beginning that Obamacare is unaffordable and unsustainable. I think thats becoming more and more obvious in state after state, the governor told his weekly news conference.

He said he hopes Iowa will continue to receive federal waivers and flexibility in dealing with health insurance-related matters and that the president and congressional leaders will revisit the topic in the future with better results.

TOUGH STATE BUDGETING: Gov. Terry Branstad said Monday he and the GOP-led Legislature face some tough choices in formulating a new fiscal 2018 spending plan.

The governor declined to share what revisions he will offer by Wednesday to the two-year budget plan he sent to legislators in January. But he told reporters at his weekly news conference the outlook for the budget taking effect on July 1 is not an easy situation, given the state will have to use $131 million from the cash reserve and repay the full amount over the next two fiscal years.

That means that the 2018 fiscal year budget is going to be a very difficult and tight budget, he said.

Branstad said the fiscal 2019 spending plan should have more flexibility since he anticipated a significant ending balance in the two-year budget he proposed in January.

SCHOOL HOME RULE: Republicans on a Senate Education subcommittee on Monday approved House-passed legislation that would give school boards limited home rule authority allowing them to liberally construe Iowa Code and administrative rules in overseeing school operations.

Sen. Mark Lofgren, R-Muscatine, said several other states have adopted similar flexibility that was supported by representatives of Iowa school boards and administrators during Mondays subcommittee meeting.

However, Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, said House File 533 would open the state to legal challenges unless the Legislature agreed to seek voter approval to grant constitutional home rule similar to what cities and counties in Iowa currently have.

Local governments have the authority to raise revenue to fund their initiatives, while K-12 schools rely on a massive involvement of state funds, he said.

For 149 years, Iowa school boards have operated under Dillons Rule. Under the rule, school boards are allowed to use only those powers and abilities that are specifically allowed by law. Uses of funds and applications of programs are subject to strict interpretations based on Iowa Code and administrative rules, and school districts are bound by the narrowest interpretation of the law, according to the Legislative Services Agency.

Brad Hudson of the Iowa State Education Association, which opposed the bill, called it Dillons Rule on steroids. The bill now goes to the full Senate Education Committee for consideration.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: I say fireworks are more fun when theyre illegal.  Rep. Dave Jacoby, D-Coralville, on the bill that would legalize the sale and use of fireworks in Iowa on a limited basis.

 Times Bureau
The windows from the Bettendorf City Hall are a good vantage point for watching cars zooming along State Street.

High speed limits and one-way traffic are characteristics prohibitive to the vision city officials have to redevelop the downtown area into a more intimate, pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use area that other municipalities regularly enjoy.

A feasibility study conducted by Snyder & Associates is two-thirds of the way complete and will assess the options the city has to reach this goal by coming up different options for how State and Grant streets can be turned into two-way thoroughfares between 15th and 26th streets.

The goal is to see the feasibility, assess the costs and see if it is a timetable that could work with redevelopment and growth of the downtown, Economic Development Director Jeff Reiter said.

The idea is to transfer control of State Street from the Iowa Department of the Transportation into the city's hands, allowing for the city to lower the speed limit.

The bulk of through traffic would be routed onto Grant Street, which would need to expanded to handle the increased traffic load.

Transportation Group Leader Wade Greiman said four alternatives have been contemplated so far, including two options for widening Grant Street, one option for State Street and another for extending 23rd Street, which would serve the area east of the Isle Casino Hotel.

The estimated cost of the project options could run between $28.5 million and $30.8 million, including road construction, streetscaping, right of way acquisitions and professional services.

The question, however, is whether this kind of project would be a good long-term investment and whether businesses would be supportive of the endeavor.

A market analysis of the Quad-Cities and Bettendorf found that new retail and office spaces could succeed in the area without pulling from other areas.

Its not competing with other areas in the metro, Greiman said. Were not looking to take jobs or retail but supplement that with the downtown feel of shopping and restaurants. We have this understanding they will generate something once the development is done and revitalization efforts are made.

Among existing businesses, Greiman said the feedback he has received has been fairly favorable and the suggestions and concerns voiced have been an integral part in developing the different plans.

Greiman presented the design concepts and options during the city's second open house for the study Tuesday night, and prior to that event, a stakeholder meeting was held with the Bettendorf Development Corp.

Reiter said the city actively promoted Tuesday's events by emailing downtown owners in the directory, using the Discover Bettendorf micro-site and through communication with both the Bettendorf Business Network and Bettendorf Development Corp.

From these meetings, Greiman said Snyder & Associates will once again take feedback to help the firm with drafting its initial report and defining concepts, which he said would begin next month.

Although some businesses are supportive of changes, others, especially on Grant Street, still need more information.

"They're still in the planning stages, so I haven't come to an opinion whether I like it or dislike it," K&K True Value Hardware owner Don Keller said. "We're going to have to see more of it to see what happens."

Sports Fans Pizza owner Debbie Trumbo also was waiting on more information, but if Grant Street takes on more traffic and needs to be widened, she foresees complications.

"The only problem that I know is that if they make this the highway, it's going to make the traffic loud and fast," Trumbo said. "(If) they're going to try and take my patio, they're going to have to pay me some money for that."

Although the city would like to find out whether it's a feasible project, Reiter said Bettendorf is willing to wait through the summer to make sure a concept is fine tuned and incorporates what businesses want.

If it takes more time, were going to continue to work on it, he said. We wont sell their goals and objectives short, and this is being done with the best interest of downtown businesses in mind.
Its yellow paint job made it stick out like a sore thumb last summer in downtown Davenport.

The RV, parked in a private lot at 730 W. 3rd St., first nabbed our attention in June during a search for food trucks in the Quad-Cities.

This spring, however, the 32-foot-long rig has a brand new look, and barbeque specialist Willie Williams hopes people stop by when they smell his cooking.

When you taste my meat, youre going to notice something different, said Williams, who coined his mobile business, Can Ds Rolling Smoke. People brag about my food.

The 50-something Williams, who was born, bred and fed in Clarksdale, Mississippi, talked up his pulled pork and slow-cooked baby back ribs. He prepares each batch in a smoker, separate from the RV, with hickory wood logs.

In addition to the fresh artwork that adorns the exterior of the 1976 motorhome, Williams has a pair of new Puerto Rican cooks on board, ready to expand his menu.

Mother-daughter duo Mayra Rodriguez and Xiomara Zio Correa are excited to unveil a collection of their homemade favorites.

One dish that sticks out is their Puerto Rican-style chicken and vegetable stew called, "pollo guisado."

"Everybody whos tried it so far likes it," Williams said.

Unless she cooks for her family, Rodriguez said she has to travel to Chicago to find quality Puerto Rican food.

"It's delicious and we don't have it around here," she said.

Can "D's" will introduce their full menu to customers next month at WaterPark Car Wash in Davenport and Moline.

Lee Calabria, who helps manage both of WaterPark's locations, said the crew's wide range of offerings caught his eye.

Were looking for variety and diversity and I think they provide a bit of both, Calabria said.
No details were available about the fire, which remains under investigation.

After a home fire, Red Cross volunteers ensure that everyone affected has a safe place to stay, food, clothing and emotional support. Red Cross volunteers on the scene were members of a Disaster Action Team, a group of specially trained volunteers who respond to the scene of a disaster when called upon at any time of the day or night.
Davenport School Board members on Monday heard emotional pleas from parents, district alumni and a student about proposed curriculum changes.

Level One Spanish or French no longer will be offered to seventh graders, which would eliminate Level Two in eighth grade, said Sudlow parent Betzy McLeland. "Students can take Level One in eighth grade, she said. The problem is that students can now only pick two of the following electives: Spanish, French, band/orchestra or choir, she said.

Most students take a language as well as both band and choir in seventh and eighth grades, McLeland said. In the past, choir was offered every other day with gym, and wasnt considered an elective, she said. That will change because of a state mandate requiring all students to take health and visual art with gym.

Additionally, Creative Arts Academy students elective credits will be used only for academy classes, and students will not be able to select choir, band or orchestra, she said.

Student Gage McCalester said he was at Monday's meeting to represent a cause: To get the music sessions/periods we have this year back as a choice for us (academy) students next year.

We deserve the right to listen to and perform music, not only for fun, but to enhance our skills and represent Sudlow and the CAA in district concerts, he said.

Without band, orchestra and choir choices, we will fall behind in our musical education, an important part of a true arts basics program, which will negatively affect us when we get to do it again in high school.

Gage's impassioned plea was met with applause.

His mother, Trianna McCalester, also asked the board to reconsider curriculum offerings. She is willing to have her son take a health class in the summer if that could fulfill the requirement and free up another quarter for music.

The board did not make a decision about the curriculum Monday night.

After the meeting, board president Ralph Johanson said he will discuss with Superintendent Art Tate what approach the board should take with the curriculum concerns. He said a number of factors may be involved in the proposed curriculum change, which normally would be an administrative issue rather than a board issue.

In another presentation to the board, Peter Roudebush of Davenport, a former district music teacher, presented Tate with two American flags in a salute (to) two individuals who have proudly served their country with distinction.

The first flag was in recognition of Staff Sgt. Nathan Cox, a Central High School student who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he died in combat Sept. 20, 2008. Roudebush taught at Central with Coxs mother, Jane Cox.

The second flag was for Tate who, Roudebush said, has fought for our students since he came. He has fought to secure funding on an equal basis with other school districts in Iowa.

He also mentioned that Tate is a retired colonel in the U.S. Army who served three tours in Vietnam and taught math at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.

Board discussion included the budget and tax levy, which will be discussed again at the boards April 3 committee-of-the-whole meeting.
The Rock Island Public Library will offer a second workshop in a three-part "Employment 101" job-hunting series to help job seekers learn how to ace a job interview. The session will be 2 p.m. Tuesday at the main library's Community Room, 401 19th St. For more information, visit https://www.rockislandlibrary.org, call 309-732-READ or follow the library on Facebook or Twitter.

Anita Hatalsky of the Illinois Department of Employment Security will discuss how to prepare for a job interview, what questions to expect and what you should ask to determine whether the job is a good fit. The workshop is free and no registration is required.

The final workshop in the series, "Employment Basics," will be 2 p.m. Tuesday, May 2, also at the main library. It will feature what participants need to know to be successful when starting a new job. Time will be allowed at each session for questions.
Next time youre at the grocery store, take a minute to study the options. How many brands of soup? Of cereal? Of soda pop?

Then, walk down the alcohol aisles. Beer, wine and spirits of national, regional and local origin abound. Alcohol selections enjoyed by your grandfather, your mother and your friends are easy to find. In fact, Iowa consumers have access to thousands of different labels.

This selection is brought to you by Iowas brand of alcohol market regulation, primarily known as the three-tier distribution system and its cornerstone anti-corruption and anti-monopoly component, tied house protection.

A key contributor to the buy-local movement, Iowas alcohol policy encourages locally-owned alcohol operations. Its no accident there are nearly 800 eastern Iowans employed in beer distribution alone.

The law provides protections for each tier  retailers, distributors and manufacturers  from undue influence by any other tier. Distributors buy only what can be reasonably sold and have market-based incentives to merchandise whats popular. Bars and restaurants that sell only one manufacturers soft drinks can offer hundreds of beers, wines and spirits without fear of targeted price hikes or lackluster service.

Tied-house protections also contain exceptions for manufacturers to establish brands with taprooms or cocktail rooms at the manufacturing site to promote their products and provide a consumer experience. The net result is that Iowans are hard-pressed to find a deficiency in choice and availability.

During Iowas recent alcohol policy review, we heard from nearly every segment of the industry that Iowas laws are generally good for commerce. A chain retailer operating in several states said Iowas laws are retailer-friendly. Some of Iowas biggest liquor suppliers submitted that Iowa is a forward-thinking place to do business while some brewers said aspects of Iowa law are too liberal.

Iowas chief alcohol regulator paid lip service supporting the three-tier system but recently advocated publicly to weaken tied-house protections. Logically, a robust three-tier system and a weak tied-house law are mutually exclusive. Its impossible to have both.

With more consumer choice than ever, more retail space dedicated to alcohol than ever and more Iowa manufacturers than ever, who are the victims of Iowas tied-house protections? Specifics are light.

Rather than advocating seismic shifts in an orderly marketplace that is clearly working for Iowa industry, consumers and the public interest, alcohol regulators should focus on enforcing laws that ensure a level playing field and industry-wide compliance with regard to excise taxes, fair trade practices and safe, responsible and legal sales.

So what if Iowa abandoned tied-house protections?

Consumers would be the first losers. Favorite beers, wines and spirits  big and small  could be excluded from aisles, tap lines, refrigerated spaces or entire stores altogether.

Increasingly, money would undermine merit-based shelf and tap access. Exclusive agreements and inducements would give retailers incentives to hit volume targets, nudging up consumption. Absentee-manufacturers calling shots at the retail level become more likely to disregard contemporary community standards and norms. Precisely the practice tied-house protections are designed to prevent.

Wide market access and consumer choice in this industry is because of Iowas three-tier system and its tied-house protections, not despite them. Lets maintain Iowas free houses and keep the tied house a pre-Prohibition relic.
Jon Alexander Editorial Page Editor Editorial Page Editor, Quad-City Times Follow Jon Alexander Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

So much winning.

Obviously, President Donald Trump's brand of victory is so above a lowly plebe like me, that I can't even identify it for what it is. Clearly, last week's monumental collapse of the GOP's health care bill was, somehow, an incredible victory. What else could it be? Trump's a winner.

We'd win so much under a Trump administration that we'd get sick of it, he boasted on the campaign trail. Legislation to "repeal and replace" President Barack Obama's defining domestic policy would be in the works "immediately" after he took office. Not day 64. Not day 100.

Day one.

Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the White House. If they can't govern in this environment, they can't govern at all.

Nearly 70 days into Trump's presidency and that nebulous "plan" to defeat the Islamic State is little more than a ramp-up of Obama's policy. His Muslim ban -- er, travel ban -- can't survive a courtroom. Recently, the president blamed Fox News for his outright lie that asserted Obama employed British intelligence to spy on his campaign. Yes, the man whose words carry more weight -- at least they did -- than just about anyone else on the planet is pointing fingers at a friendly news network because he can't be bothered to do any real research.

Trump has accomplished essentially nil aside from a few executive orders that gut environmental regulations. That and, well, offending ally after ally in record time.

Man, isn't winning awesome?

Earlier this month, Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann told a pro-Trump crowd that the president is "doing exactly what he said he would." It's become a common refrain. And many now saying it are the very same people who cautioned voters prior to the election to "not take Trump literally."

This cognitive dissonance continues to persist. Trump's tweets shouldn't be "taken literally," Republicans say. And yet, the president "means what he says."

Don't forget that, recently, the head of the FBI, under oath, told Congress that, if "taken literally," Trump's claims were bogus. How's that a win, exactly?

Trump's draft federal budget probably won't be much of a win, either, since its all but DOA. For example, it takes aim at the Midwesterners who helped him upset Hillary Clinton in Michigan and Wisconsin. The health of the Great Lakes and its fisheries are of huge importance. And, yet, programs to combat invasive species would be gutted by Trump's non-starter of a wishlist.

The same is true for the failed health care bill. It was Trump's white, working class base that would have borne the brunt of bill championed by Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan, said reports by the Congressional Budget Office and Kaiser Foundation.

Trump never bothered to learn the issue. He left the real work to his merry band of warring advisers. The harder they worked to placate the GOP's right flank, namely the House Freedom Caucus, the more they agitated Trump's center. The legislation was doomed in the Senate, even if it had survived the House.

It's a damning sign of weakness from the self-described world's best deal-maker, a man whose entire political persona hinges on twisted machismo.

Immediately upon the bill's demise on Friday, Trump, true to form, lashed out at Democrats, until now a feckless group.

Over the weekend, he turned his wrath on the Freedom Caucus, which includes Iowa's Rod Blum. Interesting strategy. While small, the Freedom Caucus wields outsized power. And, in its opposition, Freedom Caucus members proclaimed a total lack of fear of Trump.

Politico and The Washington Post reported over the weekend that, internally, Trump's scorn was focused on Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.

Nowhere has Trump accepted any personal responsibility for an objectively devastating defeat. Not once has he indicated that, just maybe, he underestimated the complexity of the politics at play.

I guess winners blame everyone but themselves.
DEADWOOD | More than three years after city officials began discussing upping the ante with a new visitor welcome center in this gambling and tourism town, crews Monday were putting the finishing touches on a $6.5 million project that goes well beyond a place to collect Black Hills attraction brochures.

In a comprehensive approach to the redevelopment of the northerly entrance to Deadwood, the city has created not only an impressive visitor information center housing the offices of its chamber of commerce. It has reshaped what was a barren, paved parking lot into a visitor experience, complete with interactive exhibits, a trolley stop, community meeting space, convenient parking and easy access to hiking and biking trails and future interpretive offerings along what had been an overgrown stretch of Whitewood Creek.

This project is an investment in the future of Deadwood, Mayor Chuck Turbiville said Monday. Its an investment showing the people of South Dakota that Deadwood is alive and well, that were growing, and that were ready and able to serve the 2 million visitors who come here every year.

The focal point of the project remains the 9,300-square-foot welcome center with its exterior facade of stone, steel and plank siding. Jim Heilman, the Ainsworth-Benning Construction project superintendent overseeing the work, said that his crews had completed 85 percent of the work on the $3.2 million structure.

But the real magic may be found on the inside.

A northern entrance from the adjacent parking lot will house a 24-hour area, complete with a 20-foot mural of early-day Deadwood, customary brochures and public restrooms. That portion of the building also will contain the new offices of the Deadwood Area Chamber of Commerce and an 850-square-foot public conference room, available to local organizations.

There are always growing pains with any move, but were really excited to get in that building and be the first stop in Deadwood and encourage visitors to stay here for multiple days, said Chamber Director Lee Harstad. We want to give them a taste of Deadwood, give them a little bait, and then get them out there to explore the community.

Harstad said his seven-member staff was eagerly anticipating a mid-May move to the chambers new home. Two staffers will be added to assist visitors in planning their itineraries, exploring options for hotels, gambling halls, restaurants and attractions, he said. With creekside enhancements, Harstad said he expected to see gold-panning demonstrations and anglers in the future.

This is going to give us a highly visible welcome center location with ample parking, plenty of information, and immediate access to the trolley and downtown Deadwood, Harstad said. The goal is to educate visitors enough to spend an extra night or two in Deadwood. Theyll be able to pull in, ride the trolley or walk right downtown. It should be a successful venture for both the city and visitors.

City Historic Preservation Officer Kevin Kuchenbecker, who has been charged with overseeing the center's $680,000 in interactive exhibits, a dozen mounts of local wildlife and establishing a scene straight out of Deadwoods gold mining glory days, said visitors and locals should expect the unexpected in the new facility.

An elk head will find its place above a massive stone fireplace in the 37-foot-tall great room, while motion detectors hidden in a tent will trigger the sounds of the gold rush and silhouettes on the exterior of the tent depicting a miner and his mule, among other figures, heading for the mother lode. Mounts of bighorn sheep, pine martins and mountain lions will complete the scene, and a map kiosk will point visitors to local attractions, Kuchenbecker said.

A new pedestrian bridge now spans a cleaned up Whitewood Creek behind the visitor center, where new biking and hiking trails connect the facility to the nearby Days of 76 rodeo grounds and museum. On the structures south end, an indoor area will allow visitors to avoid the elements while waiting for the next trolley, noted Public Works Director Ron Green. That area also will feature a massive mural depicting the various methods of transportation used since the towns founding, including the first airplane that landed in 1912, Kuchenbecker said.

The city, which paid for half the project with general funds and the remainder from its historic preservation budget, expects to conduct a grand opening ceremony before Memorial Day weekend, the traditional start of the Black Hills tourism season, said City Planner Bob Nelson Jr. And even after it opens, Nelson said residents and visitors should anticipate future improvements.

Weve tried to give more exposure to the asset of Whitewood Creek, not just for the visitor, but for the everyday people who live here, he said. It will even get better this summer because well be fine-tuning the stream banks and the waterway and eventually, well add another pedestrian bridge.

This facility provides us with an opportunity to not just showcase all that Deadwood has to offer, but what lies an hour or two away. Well be able to provide itineraries where Deadwood can serve as headquarters for hub and spoke tours of the surrounding Black Hills and Badlands.
A Rapid City mother said she is thankful for the thousands of dollars in donations that helped bring home her daughter's remains after she died while hiking in South America.

Whitney Stevens, 24, was hiking in Peru with a friend on March 1 when the ground beneath her gave way. Stevens fell more than 100 feet into a river, and her body was recovered that same day by a search and rescue team. Steven's friend, Molly Goin of Portland, Ore., was not injured.

Stevens' body was cremated in Peru, and her remains were flown to Rapid City on March 15. More than $12,000 was raised through a GoFundMe campaign to cover the cost of transporting her remains to Rapid City, Steven's mother, Roberta Ellis-Stevens, said in a phone interview Monday.

A separate fundraising event at Five Guys Burgers and Fries raised around $7,000, and more money was raised through a memorial fund at the Black Hills Federal Credit Union where Stevens worked.

Any money that's leftover after paying for the transportation costs will be used to cover day care and education expenses for Stevens' 4-year-old daughter, Marley, Ellis-Stevens said.

Ellis-Stevens said her family is "devastated over our loss of Whitney, but were also thankful that Molly was saved and were thankful for the community and the outreach and the outpouring ... were just blessed.

Those who reached out to the family include Iris Huezo, a friend of Ellis-Stevens from San Diego. Huezo, who speaks Spanish, flew to Cusco, Peru, to arrange for the transportation, preparation, funeral services and cremation of Stevens' body. In Quillabamba, Peru, local villagers held a service and three blessings for Stevens' body, and funeral workers prepared her body as if it were to be buried before taking pictures for anyone who may need that form of closure, Ellis-Stevens said.

Once the remains were cremated and placed in an urn, Huezo took it to the base of Machu Picchu, where Stevens and Goin had hoped to complete their trek.

After her remains were flown home, a funeral service was held March 17 at the Black Hills National Cemetery in Sturgis, with the Stevens family and a group of close friends in attendance. Stevens' remains were carried in an urn by her brother, Nathaniel, and one of her friends from the National Guard, Rorie Greger, presented the Stevens' family with an American flag.

Stevens served in the National Guard and spent time in Iraq and Kuwait in 2011 and 2012.

The support from the community was so overwhelming ... so I really want to be sure to let people know how thankful and appreciative we are for the entire community support, Ellis-Stevens said.

I think that we all anticipate that our parents will be gone someday, but I dont think we anticipate that your child will be gone before you. I tell people all the time, 'Hug your kids.' Its such a finalization, but were so thankful to have her home.
Lawmakers, officials and watchdog groups have all offered their takes on how best to investigate Russia's attempts to influence the US presidential election.

Some have argued for the appointment of a special prosecutor, while others promote the formation of a congressional "select committee" and a third group suggests the launch of a new bipartisan commission. While none of these options are mutually exclusive, there are, however, significant differences in the purpose, scope and viability of these approaches.

"This is not comparing apples to oranges," said Benjamin Wittes, senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. "It's apples to orangutans."

Here's a breakdown of the various paths available and how they differ:

Special counsel

US Attorney General Jeff Sessions decided earlier this month to recuse himself from any existing or future investigations related to Donald Trump's presidential campaign (or transition) after reports surfaced that Sessions had met with a Russian diplomat last year. As a result of Sessions' recusal, Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente (or Trump's nominee Rod Rosenstein, if confirmed by the Senate), would now oversee any FBI investigation into whether there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia's purported meddling in the presidential election.

Yet Sessions' recusal hasn't stopped Democrats from continuing to call for a "special prosecutor" to investigate.

The attorney general's regulations provide for appointment of outside "special counsel" by the acting attorney general in certain circumstances, including if handling by the Justice Department would "present a conflict of interest for the department or other extraordinary circumstances," and if "it would be in the public interest to appoint an outside special counsel to assume responsibility for the matter."

Experts say the main purpose of special prosecutor in the Russia situation would be the pursuit of an independently driven criminal investigation.

"They can utilize a grand jury, they can ask to return indictments, they would be empowered to pick staff (of their choosing), and provided with a budget to carry out responsibilities," said attorney Richard Ben-Veniste, who served as the former chief of the Watergate Special Prosecutor's Watergate Task Force and on the bipartisan 9/11 Commission.

In other words, the goal of an investigation conducted by a special prosecutor "is not to answer public questions about what happened or what may still be happening," as Wittes wrote in a recent post on Lawfare, but rather to conduct "a set of foreign intelligence and counterintelligence investigations that may (or may not) have criminal investigative elements."

Select committee

While a number of House and Senate committees are currently examining Russian interference in the election, Arizona Sen. John McCain and other outside experts have specifically called for a "select committee," with new members hand-picked by current congressional leadership.

Advantages of using such a select committee include newly dedicated staff with sufficient expertise and time, subpoena power to compel testimony and documents, and ideally, implementation without the arguable taint of influence by the White House -- an accusation that has besieged existing structures like the House Intelligence Committee's investigation.

While both a special counsel and a select committee could employ certain investigative functions, Wittes cautions that they serve different purposes: The special prosecutor function is "designed to prosecute crimes," whereas a select committee is "designed to do an investigation so that Congress would know how to pursue it's constitutional functions."

But Caroline Fredrickson, president of the American Constitution Society, said the choice between a special prosecutor and a select committee "shouldn't be either/or," despite the fact that "there are somewhat different interests being protected" -- both approaches are useful "given that the stakes are so high here."

Bipartisan commission

On the other end of the spectrum, some have called for a new bipartisan commission to investigate Russia, much in the same vein as the 9/11 Commission.

For instance, Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, accused the White House Monday of "obstructing" the panel's investigation, and called for an independent commission to review the matter.

The purpose of such a commission is distinct from a criminal investigation, as its goal would be "inform the legislature or the public about something that happened," Wittes said. "The purpose of the 9/11 Commission was to tell the story of how we got to this point."

"The advantage is that it's flashy and very independent," but it's "not well-positioned to litigate" without certain investigative powers, Wittes added.

The other downside of an independent commission is that it would require legislation to enact, which could prove challenging in the current political climate.

If used, "it would no doubt be the result of substantial public pressure on Congress and the President, but it seems unlikely at this point," Ben-Veniste said.
In the 1990s, Gov. George S. Mickelson started a new tradition in South Dakota called Capital for a Day. Gov. Mickelson would travel to a community and issue an executive proclamation declaring that town as South Dakotas Capital for a Day. He would spend the day touring the town, talking with people of the community and getting input from local leaders.

When I took office, I decided to continue the Capital for a Day tradition because it gives me the opportunity to hear from South Dakotans. Now that warmer weather isnt too far away, I am extending an invitation to communities across the state to apply.

Activities for the day typically include a main street walk, business tours and a community social. We also hold roundtable meetings with community leaders to discuss prominent local issues. I typically give an update on state government and learn from local citizens what they think.

Since 2011, Capital for a Day has been hosted by Mitchell, Canton, Onida, Volga, Hill City, Britton, De Smet, Viborg, Aberdeen, Lead-Deadwood, Flandreau, Wall, Parkston, Faulkton, Wessington Springs, Milbank, Kimball, Madison, Spearfish, Lake Norden, Lemmon and Yankton.

We often talk about how Washington, D.C., can be like an island. The federal government at times seems to lack common sense, and sometimes national officials forget their roots. Well, I dont want Pierre to be that way. I dont want state government to be isolated from South Dakotans or oblivious to local situations.

Thats why events like this are so important. In order to be of, by and for the people, we must take the time to listen. We need to hear about problems that exist and better understand the impact government decisions are having on peoples lives.

If your town has never been Capital for a Day, I hope you will urge your local leaders to apply. Interested communities can find out more by going to sd.gov/governor and clicking on Initiatives.
European Court of Justice upholds sanctions against Rosneft

MOSCOW, March 28 (RAPSI)  The Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg (ECJ) held on Tuesday that sanctions imposed by the EU against Russian companies, including Rosneft oil and gas giant, are valid.

The ECJ considered that it had jurisdiction to issue preliminary rulings on the legality of an act adopted on the basis of provisions relating to the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), such as the Council decision, according to the press release for the courts judgment obtained by RAPSI.

The court in particular ruled that the restrictive measures ban the issuance of Global Depositary Receipts representing shares floated before introducing sanctions.

However, the court ruled that the sanctions do not relate to the processing of payments by banks, the statement reads.

Rosneft characterized the ECJ ruling as illegal, unjustified and politically motivated. This ruling proves that the supremacy of political enviroment is appearing to replace the supremacy of law in Europe, the statement released on the oil company's website reads.

Earlier, in May 2016, Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union presented an opinion proposing the court to confirm the lawfulness of actions the British authorities had undertaken with regard to sanctions against Rosneft.

Yet in February 2015, the High Court of Justice of England and Wales referred a number of questions concerning a Rosneft lawsuit against Her Majestys Treasury, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, and the Financial Conduct Authority to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. Rosneft challenged the interpretation and implementation of sectoral sanctions the EU had imposed on Russia. In particular, the Russian corporation maintains that UK has too broadly defined the term financial assistance by including the processing of payments by banks and other financial institutions and prohibiting the issuing of, or other dealings with, Global Depositary Receipts in respect of shares which were issued before September 12, 2014, and raises the question of correct interpretation of the terms shale and waters deeper than 150 meters in the EU documents.

In its turn, the High Court turned to the EU Court of Justice seeking its guidance with regard to the question if the EU Court has jurisdiction to give a preliminary ruling on the validity of EU legislation concerning sanctions and to the extent that it has jurisdiction, if it is contrary to the principles of legal certainty for Britain to impose criminal penalties for infringements on the sanctions, as well as the validity of interpretation of the EU restrictive measures in UK.

In the summer of 2014, the U.S. banned the supply of offshore hydrocarbon production equipment to Russia, including for oil production in the Arctic. The European Union later banned their manufacturers from exporting oil industry technology and equipment to Russia, specifically for deep seabed mining, Arctic production and shale oil projects.

In October 2014, Rosneft lodged a separate application with the ECJ along with four other Russian companies, in which it contested the legality of sanctions under European law.
One step forward and one step back, or one step back and one step forward. In either case, you end up in the same place where you started. Thats a look at the spring wheat market in recent weeks.The Minneapolis futures saw some upside this last week, but that followed a week of downward pressure on prices, so were basically in the same spot we were two weeks ago, said Erica Olson, marketing specialist for the North Dakota Wheat Commission on March 22 as she described the market.As of March 22, the Minneapolis May futures were at $5.40 and that put cash prices at $4.40-$4.80.Putting some pressure on the market was a forecast that showed a pretty good possibility of precipitation in the winter wheat region, according to Olson, adding that pressured the Kansas City futures prices.That chance of precipitation has lessened worries about a drought affected crop down there, she said. Only time will tell if we actually get the rain or how much it may help, because crop conditions down there have been on the decline due to the dry conditions, the warm temperatures and high winds.In Texas, only 34 percent of the winter wheat crop was rated in good/excellent condition while in Kansas, the mark was 38 percent and Oklahoma was at 40 percent.Other than that, the market is a little bit lost right now waiting for the planting intentions report to see what acreage will be, she said.Practically all estimates forecasted a decline in spring wheat acres, she added. In 2016, the U.S. had 11.6 million acres of spring wheat and that was a decline of almost 2 million acres from the previous year.The longer-term average for spring wheat is closer to 13 million acres.So that was a pretty drastic decline to begin with. Most estimates now are projecting 2017 spring wheat at 11-11.4 million acres, Olson said. I would lean more toward the higher end of that range. For example, in South Dakota and Montana, they saw a decline in winter wheat acres so its possible that their spring wheat acres could be a bit higher. But in North Dakota and Minnesota, were mostly looking at a decline.The final number will depend on price movement in the next month and, of course, conditions at planting time.Last year, even with that decline in acreage, the U.S. ended up with very strong yields and didnt see a tremendous drop in production, but Olson doesnt expect that to happen again.So, weve seen spring wheat stocks tighten this year, and with the possible forecast for 2017 we could see that continue, she said.Looking at possible planting conditions, Olson noted that some areas of the southern spring wheat region could see timely planting, but then in the very northern tier region, where a lot of spring wheat is grown, there was still considerable snow cover.The main supportive factor continues to be strong demand for spring wheat and were not seeing that slow down. USDA is projecting spring wheat exports to reach 320 million bushels by the end of the crop year, which is May 31, and were already at 296 million bushels, Olson said.The previous week the U.S. did report some larger sales to China, which totaled about 4 mb. There were also sales to Japan at 3.5 million and Indonesia of just under 3 mb. There was also an unusual sale to Cameroon of a little over 1 mb.Looking at exports by region, sales to Asia were up 21 percent; Central and South America was up 23 percent; and Africa up 27 percent. Export sales to Europe were about even.Overall U.S. wheat export sales, including all classes, remained about 30 percent ahead of last year. USDA also reported on March 22 a sale of over 4 million bushels of HRW to Saudi Arabia, indicating that U.S. wheat is becoming more competitive on the world market.So, there is some price potential for spring wheat, especially our strong demand base and the potential for lower acreage. But the overall large world supplies will still pressure some of that price potential for the time being, Olson concluded.
Aimee Kelly, a realtor with ERA Laplante Real Estate in South Hadley, has sold hundreds of homes in Western Massachusetts. She served as both realtor and buyer this year while looking for a home for her family and was joined in the search by a camera crew from "House Hunters" on HGTV.

Kelly and her family viewed three homes on camera: one on Main Street in Westhampton, another on Kimberly Drive in South Hadley and a third along the Connecticut River in South Hadley.

This was not her first expierence with HGTV. The network's show "Hunting Vintage" featured her showing historic homes in Western Massachusetts to a couple that eventually purchased in Holyoke.

House Hunters debuted on HGTV in 1999. Now in its 126th season, the show draws 25 million viewers each month and the network has produced more than a dozen spin-off shows.

Episodes are typically filmed in three days and more than 1,700 episodes have aired.

The episode featuring Kelly is expected to air this spring.

While Kelly can't share which home her family purchased, one of the houses is currently on the market. The owner of the antique farmhouse Kelly toured decided to list the home with her this year.

One of the oldest homes in South Hadley, the house at 315 River Rd. is believed to have been built around 1800. The house, known as the Lock Tender's House, was sold by the proprietors of the canal along with 12 acres of land for $450 in 1859. It's now on the market for just under $300,000.
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Guwahati : At least 19 people were killed and 30 others injured in three road mishaps in north eastern Indian state of Manipur on Monday.

According to the reports, eight persons were killed and six others injured while a vehicle where they were travelling in rolled down and fell into a 300 meters deep gorge at Khongsang in Tamenglong district in Manipur on Monday.

The vehicle on its way to Imphal fell into a deep gorge in Jiribam-Imphal National Highway on Monday evening.

The injured persons had rushed to the nearest hospital.

Earlier, at least 10 people were died and 24 others injured after a tourist bus fell into a stream in Senapati district on Monday wee hours, officials said.

The incident took place between Chakumei and Makhan Tabio bridge under Mao police station in Senapati district at around 3-15 am on Monday.

A top official of Manipur police said that, the driver of the tourist bus bearing the registration MN-014-A-9503 came from Dimapur heading to Imphal had lost his control over the vehicle and the bus went off the road and fell into a stream.

The top Police official said that, eight persons died on spot and two others succumbed their injuries at hospital.

The injured persons had rushed to nearest Assam Rifles Maram Hospital and other hospitals in the vicinity.

According to the reports, 34 Assam Rifles are helping the victims.

The police official said that, the death toll is likely to increase as many of the injured persons are in serious condition.

In the third road mishap took place at Lairouching in Senapati district where a truck driver was died on spot.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Guwahati: ANGEEKAR Films on Monday launched the Official Teaser of the first full-length Assamese feature film on witch hunting problem AEI MAATITE.

At a sober function held at Guwahati Press Club, the film's Director Dr Sitanath Lahkar, Editor Dr A Nagraj and Sound Designer-cum-Mixer Devabrot Chaliha released the Official Teaser.

The Official Teaser has been edited by Hiranya Kalita, who is a faculty of Dr Bhupen Hazarika Regional Government Film and Television Institute.

The length of the video clip, which gives the first motion view of the film, is one minute and three seconds.

The 'action-drama' film has some very critical scenes, shooting of which were done with utmost care and precision. Such type of rustic action scenes are hardly seen in Assamese films. The film cinematically showcases some of the inhuman killings in the name of witch hunting.

AEI MAATITE is directed by independent filmmaker and eminent theatre personality Dr Sitanath Lahkar and it is an adaptation of his famous stage play TAMASAA on the burning problem of witch hunting.

The Story, Screenplay, Dialogues and Lyrics have also been penned by Dr Lahkar, a retired Principal of Cotton College.

'It is indeed a matter of immense joy to launch the Official Teaser for the movie lovers. Through this video clip, the public will get the first glimpse of the film. I sincerely hope that movie enthusiasts will appreciate this promotional clip, which will increase their inquisitiveness about AEI MAATITE manifold,'A Dr Lahkar said after releasing the Teaser.

An experienced Editor of a number of documentary films Dr A Nagraj, who is from Hyderabad, worked on the film's various aspects for almost three months.

AEI MAATITE is his first Assamese feature film and he took extra care in treating the subject matter considering its seriousness.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Nagraj said that it has been a good experience for me, especially because it is on such an important social problem. Looking into the good speed of the film, we took extra care in treating some elements. We wanted to portray the society in the best possible way, but at the same time we were conscious that the film does well commercially as well.

AEI MAATITE's sound is Designed and Mixed by Devabrot Chaliha, a well-known face in Bollywood.

For over two months, he did intensive research and added attractive sound flavours to the film. The entire sound design and re-recording mixing were done in Mumbai.

Commenting on his experience, Chaliha said that at the time of working on the film, we had to be very sensitive and careful while dealing with the sound as the theme of the film is quite heart touching. We have tried our best to create the real feel of the places and surroundings so that unfortunate incidents of witch hunting get expressed in realistic way. We hope, the people will surely love the sound quality of AEI MAATITE.

ANGEEKAR Films received the clearance from the Central Board of Film Certification (Censor Board) for AEI MAATITE with a U/A certificate without any cut or modification.

AEI MAATITE has a very strong message against witchcraft, upholding the value of scientific temperament and human life. The film mainly talks about the witch hunting problem in Assam and how a section of people are using witchcraft for their own interest. Witchcraft has no reason at all and is shrouded with darkness of superstition, which is to be overcome by the society 'this is the say of the film.'

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Guwahati : Renowned Assamese playwright and litterateur Arun Sarma passed away at Medanta-The Medicity hospital in New Delhi on Monday.

85-year old Arun Sarma was undergoing treatment at the hospital for age-related ailments.

Sarma was one of the Assamese contemporary writer and particularly known as his unconventional plays with some elements of drama.

He was awarded fourth highest civilian award of the country Padma Shri in 2010 in recognition for his contributions to the Assamese literature.

Sarma also had been awarded Sahitya Akademi Award in 1998 for his novel Ashirbadar Rong (The Hues of Blessing).

He was also the recipient of Assam Valley Literary Award in 2005.

For his contribution to the drama, Sarma won the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2003.

Assam on Monday mourned with the death of the famous Assamese litterateur, playwright.

Assam Cheif Minister Sarbananda Sonowal condoled the death of Arun Sarma and said that the state will memorise his contribution for the Assamese literature, modern drama.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Guwahati, March 27 : While protests mounted in Assam following the statement made by NSCN (IM)'s General Secretary Thuingaleng Muivah regarding Greater Nagalim, former Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Monday demanded the Union government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to clear their stand over the Framework Agreement signed with the Naga outfit group in 2015.

In a press conference held in Guwahati, the former Assam CM said that, the statement of NSCN (IM) General Secretary Thuingaleng Muivah regarding Greater Nagalim has created a lot of confusion and exposes the government's

double-standard policy.

'We strongly demand that PM Modi should make it clear about the Framework Agreement and whether he accepted, what Muivah has stated,' Gogoi said.

People of Assam will never accept any extension of boundary and we will oppose it tooth and nail if it harms state's interest,'A Gogoi said.

The former Assam CM criticising the both BJP-led Union and state government for their double-standard policy over the issue and questioned, if Muivah's statement was wrong, then why the government would not clear their stand.

On the other hand, Tarun Gogoi also criticised the state government on the Namami Brahmaputra festival and said that, the government has organised the festival in the name of the mighty river Brahmaputra, but they used the festival name as Namami on the lines of Namami Gange.

The former Assam CM also said that, his stand will always being against the alliance between Congress and AIUDF.

I was opposed alliance with AIUDF and will do it in future also, Gogoi

said.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
KATHMANDU: The Free Students Union (FSU) election at Ratna Rajya Laxmi Campus is underway as it was postponed for two times due to the disputes seen among the student organisations.

According to the Campus Chief Dr Nirmala Kumari Suwal, the election was held as per the order of the Supreme Court.

Around 1,000 votes have been cast and the voting is underway peacefully.

The student wing All Nepal National Free Student Union (ANNFSU) close to CPN -UML and Nepal Students Union (NSU) close to Nepali Congress are in the election race while ANNISU-R has boycotted the election.

ANNISU-R chair Narendra Neupane shared that they boycotted the election as it was held against the local poll code of conduct.

Meanwhile, two petrol bombs were found on the premises of campus but no injuries were reported.

Senior Superintendent of Police Chhabi Joshi of Metropolitan Police Range, Kathmandu , the police have beefed up security for the student union election.RSS
London, March 27, 2017) a Attacks by the Taliban and other militant groups are having a devastating impact on education in Pakistan, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released a day before the Second International Conference on Safe Schools in Buenos Aires, Argentina. ... The 71-page report, aDreams Turned into Nightmares: Attacks on Students, Teachers, and Schools in Pakistan,a is based on 48 interviews with teachers, students, parents, and school administrators in the Pakistani provinces of Punjab, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). It documents attacks by militants from January 2007 to October 2016 that have destroyed school buildings, targeted teachers and students, and terrorized parents into keeping their children out of school. These attacks have often been directed at female students and their teachers and schools, blocking girlsa access to education. The report also examines occupation of educational institutions by security forces, political groups, and criminal gangs.

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Flickering Shadow ProductionsAndy Summers has just released a new solo instrumental album titled Triboluminescence, which finds the founding Police guitarist delving into a variety of exotic sonic landscapes and musical genres.

Summers tells ABC Radio that his album's unusual title is "a scientific word [that] means 'striking something to create light from dark,' which I thought was a very good metaphor for making music or any creative act."

Andy says that on the new album, he moved deeper into the direction he explored on his previous record, 2015's Metal Dog, incorporating such influences as jazz, West African and Indonesian music.

"I'm always trying to push on a bit rather than just resting on old sounds that certainly to my ear are becoming a bit cliche and a bit overdone," he explains about his solo work. "So, I personally feel my mission as a composer and as a creative musician is to search for new sounds."

"In my case, maybe it has been influenced by exotic sounds [I've heard while] traveling all over the world, including Africa, Southeast Asia, China."

Regarding his approach to creating his solo album, Summers notes, "In a way, I regard the studio as sort of a giant paintbox -- or you could call it a kitchen if you like -- where you mix all sorts of things together."

He says many of his solo pieces begin with him using devices and instruments to create interesting sounds that "tickle your ear in a different way."

Summers says he feels that a solo project like Triboluminescence, on which he played almost every instrument, is more personal than an album made with a variety of musicians.

Summers will support Triboluminescence with a brief South American tour that kicks off Friday in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Updating a much loved anime classic like Ghost in the Shell was never going to be an easy task. There are fans to worry about, but also a general audience - warranted by the price tag of an ambitious sci-fi production - who may not have warmed to the didactic chill of the Japanese original. Visual stylist Rupert Sanders rises to the occasion with a live action Ghost in the Shell boasting stellar set pieces and design, but which also streamlines and humanizes the original's story and themes without completely dumbing them down. Unavoidably, something is lost in the translation from Japanese anime to Hollywood commercialism, but it's a worthy effort that shouldn't give diehard purists much to scoff about.

The Major is an elite fighter in Section 9, a government counter-terrorism group funded by robotics company Hanka. She's a cyborg who's been on the team since her brain was plucked from a left-for-dead refugee and hardwired into her current form. Her agency is after a powerful and mysterious hacker who is targeting Hanka scientists but various glitches in her system are splicing strange apparitions into her sight.

The story in Hollywood's Ghost in the Shell doesn't stray far from what happens in Mamoru Oshii's film aside from a few scenes or characters being switched around, a greater focus on the evil corporation behind the affair and backstories for some of the protagonists. Whether the new elements were written for this or sourced from other iterations of Ghost in the Shell I couldn't say (I've only seen the first two Oshii films), but the memorable set pieces are all there, almost completely intact and recreated with often eye-popping technical wizardry. Among the new imagery that gets thrown into the mix are a number of bizarre and welcome tableaux, particularly when the Major goes on a cyborg headtrip when she 'deep dives' a downed robot.

Like the original, New Port City is modeled on Hong Kong rather than Tokyo. Given a kaleidoscopic makeover, the Asian city state, with its dense urban jungle and vibrant street life, becomes as much a character in the film than anyone else. Alas, what the new version does lose is the memorable Kenji Kawaii score, which did feature in some of the trailers. The new soundtrack does little more than blend in.

While Ghost in the Shell is a very faithful adaptation of the 1995 anime classic, the update is also inspired by several Hollywood sci-fi classics, most clearly Blade Runner and The Matrix. Blade Runner was of course a major influence on the original, but Sanders' take goes further, particularly in the neon-drenched design of the futuristic New Port City. The nods to The Matrix, primarily evident through the Major's balletic gun routines, are fitting, as the Wachowskis' film was itself heavily indebted to Ghost in the Shell.

Many column inches have been devoted to the whitewashing controversy surround the casting of Scarlett Johansson as the Major but there's no doubt that the role finds the star in very comfortable territory. Following her enhanced fighting machine in Lucy and eerie alien in Under the Skin, she's carved an impressive niche playing threatening woman with far richer characteristics than the average femme fatale. Ghost in the Shell is another win for Johansson as she nails the physical demands of the role and convincingly balances the robotic-ness and burgeoning emotional spectrum of a cyborg with an identity crisis.

No one else in the cast really stands out, save for Takeshi Kitano, playing the head of Section 9, who comes off more as a show of reverence to the film's Japanese origins than a well-integrated piece of the puzzle. Given the world the film takes place in, it's not far-fetched for him to speak exclusively in Japanese while everyone understands him and responds in English, but it's a little jarring all the same.

With enough meat connecting it to the original, Sanders' film may pass the test with fans, but how about the rest of the auditorium? Its impressive visual flair and strong action quotient should satisfy a number of viewers, but given the amount of titles with similar themes that have appeared in the last two decades, the new Ghost in the Shell is unlikely to have the same impact on viewers, one that goes past the 3D glasses and lodges itself into the brain as food for thought. ScarJo and Sanders have brought us a visual treat showing a great deal of reverence to its source, yet it's a shame it didn't try to push its ideas further.
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 Dynamic SCOTUS week for criminal law fans | Main | Federal prosecutors seeking 3-year prison terms for "Bridgegate" defendants 

March 28, 2017

After Hurst brought down Delaware death penalty, state legislators seek to bring it back

As reported in this lengthy local article, "legislators from both parties say they will try to re-institute the death penalty in Delaware this year with a measure expected to be introduced next week." Here is more:

Delaware has a long history of applying capital punishment cautiously, judiciously, and infrequently, said State Sen. Dave Lawson. These proposed changes would raise the imposition of such a sentence to a new level, removing what the court found objectionable and strengthening protections afforded defendants. The state Supreme Court last year ruled the capital punishment law unconstitutional because it allowed a judge, not a jury, to determine that "aggravating circumstances" made a crime heinous enough to deserve a death sentence. There are 22 of those aggravating factors, such as crime committed against a police officer, crimes in which hostages are taken or if the crimes that are "outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that it involved torture or depravity of mind." The Court's 4-1 decision also faulted the law for allowing juries to find those aggravating circumstances without a unanimous vote, using a standard of proof that was too low. On Monday, a bipartisan group of legislators unveiled the "Extreme Crimes Prevention Act," which would change the law to address those concerns, effectively reinstating the punishment. It would require that juries unanimously decide that the aggravating circumstances merited a death sentence, and requires proof of those circumstances "beyond a reasonable doubt." It also would require the judge and jury to weigh "mitigating factors," which would suggest the death penalty was unjust, against the "aggravating factors."... In a news release, six legislators said they would co-sponsor the bill, including three Democrats and three Republicans. The release says the bill will be introduced in the House of Representatives next week. It is impossible to quantify a crime not committed, but I believe the threat of capital punishment has altered criminal behavior and saved lives, said State Rep. Steve Smyk, R-Milton, also a former police officer. The reforms our bill will apply will restore an aspect of the Delaware Code that I believe deters crimes and protects the public. Brendan O'Neill, Delaware's chief public defender, immediately criticized the proposal. History has proven us wrong every time we have passed a law authorizing state-sponsored execution of Delawareans," O'Neill said. "The current nationwide trend in criminal justice is to move away from the death penalty. Delaware should not once again put itself on the wrong side of history." O'Neill argued capital punishment is not proven to be a deterrent, has a history of racial disparities and has proven expensive to prosecute and defend.... Rep. Sean Lynn, D-Dover and one of the death penalty's most vocal opponents, said he thinks the bill could make headway, but hopes it will be defeated. "I think it passes the House based solely upon the vote count from the repeal effort last year," Lynn said. "The mystery is, the question is, what happens in the Senate."

March 28, 2017 at 09:01 AM | Permalink

Comments

The states may ignore all out of control Supreme Court decisions. They are all lawless, biased, stupid, and prohibited by the constitution. If any federal official arrives to try to enforce one, taser him, and expel him from the state by the collar.

Posted by: David Behar | Mar 28, 2017 6:39:26 PM

Doug, I recall that Supremacy Claus said that Bill requested that he come back to your outstanding and helpful blog, but he would leave if a "certain specific person" asked him to leave. I assume he is referring to you.

I would respectfully ask you to consider requesting that S.C. leave. His posts have gotten so tiresome that it reminds me of the old joke about the six fishing buddies who were out on a charter boat and one would blurt out, "three!" and they would all laugh. A little later another one would say "six" and they would all laugh again. The captain of the fishing boat finally asked what was so funny about the number "six". One of the buddies responded that the group had told the same jokes so many times, they just gave the jokes a number to save the time of retelling it.

Supremacy Clause has about a half dozen positions. If he won't leave, maybe you could ask him to number his predictable comments and then he could just post a number and we would all know what to ignore.

thanks, Bruce

Posted by: bruce cunningham | Mar 28, 2017 9:40:58 PM

The Delaware law was created specifically because they didn't think juries would give enough death sentences. I don't have the statistics in front of me, but I think it was about three verdicts in the past 15-20 years that called for death by unanimous vote. Now they're reaping what they sew. If they want a unanimous verdict, the death penalty won't go away, but it will certainly be much more limited and less effective. Then they would have to decide whether it's worth the cost.

Posted by: Erik M | Mar 29, 2017 8:41:38 AM

Post a comment
 After Hurst brought down Delaware death penalty, state legislators seek to bring it back | Main | Ruling 5-3, SCOTUS rejects Texas effort to limit definition of intellectual disability for death penalty application 

I have covered in a few prior posts the convictions and coming sentencing of Gov Chris Christie staffers who are now felons thanks to federal prosecutions in the wake of the so-called Briedgegate scandal. This local article, headlined "Bridgegate: Feds seek 'meaningful' jail term for former Christie allies," reports on final filings as sentencing approaches:

Calling their crimes a "stunningly brazen and vindictive abuse of power," federal prosecutors urged a federal judge to sentence both Bill Baroni and Bridget Kelly, convicted last year in the Bridgegate scandal, to a "meaningful term of imprisonment."

But in a pre-sentence report filed Monday, the U.S. Attorney's office did not ask for the maximum term. Instead, they recommended a sentence for the two Bridgegate defendants to be "at the bottom or modestly below" the federal sentencing guidelines of between 37 to 46 months in prison.

Such a term, though, would still stand in stark sentence to the year of home confinement handed down earlier this month to David Samson, the former chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, after he pleaded guilty to bribery in connection with the shakedown of United Airlines so he could get a more convenient flight to his country estate in South Carolina. Facing two years in jail, the former Port Authority chairman, David Samson, instead was sentenced to probation after attorneys, calling his actions a one-time lapse in judgment, asked the court to grant leniency for the ailing 77-year-old attorney, who was Christie's mentor.

Indirectly referencing the Samson ruling, the prosecutors said a sentence that could be perceived as a mere "slap on the wrist" would "send precisely the wrong message to the public, as well as to thousands and thousands of New Jersey public officials, elected and appointed."

Defense attorneys challenged the sentencing guidelines, which call for far longer prison terms than the typical corruption case, in large part because the Bridgegate convictions included charges of civil rights violations. "This sentencing is not about how much hyperbole the government can use in its sentencing brief," said Baroni's attorneys in a brief, also filed Monday. "Indeed, Bill accepts full responsibility for his actions and failure to act at a critically significant moment in his life. He will bear that cross forever, no matter (how) the court impose(s) sentence." But they asked the judge as well to "exercise the most leniency possible when tailoring a sentence based upon Bill's dedication to the altruistic service of others."

Both Baroni and Kelly are seeking a probationary sentences. "A non-custodial sentence including probation, home confinement and community service as punishment, is an appropriate sentence for Bridget Kelly," said her attorney, Michael Critchley.

Prosecutors said the defense challenges should be denied. "Defendants like Baroni and Kelly, who have had the opportunity to do good work and build relationships with influential people, are not entitled to a get-out-of-jail-free card, particularly for serious crimes," they wrote.

The two former members of Gov. Chris Christie's inner circle are scheduled to be sentenced on Wednesday....

"Baroni and Kelly took all of these actions for the pettiest of reasons: to punish a local mayor and send him a nasty political message because he did not endorse Gov. Christie for re-election," wrote assistant U.S. attorneys Vikas Khanna, Lee Cortes Jr. and David Feder in a 55-page brief. "Nothing about Baroni's and Kelly's actions or motivations in committing these crimes mitigates their conduct." At the same time, they cited the "complete lack of remorse for their wrongful conduct."

The self-admitted architect of the scheme, David Wildstein, a former political blogger and friend of the governor who landed a patronage job at the Port Authority, testified against Baroni and Kelly. He pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.
This well-established Blog is worth visiting on a regular basis for a wealth of information of interest to Armenian nationals and to the Armenian Diaspora world-wide. Although it has a particular role in promoting international recognition of the Genocide, the Blog encompasses much more and includes many articles of general appeal to all those concerned with Armenian affairs. Much of the content is difficult or impossible to find elsewhere and the long list of links provided gives easy access to a plethora of material on social, political, religious, educational and cultural matters, and many news items from around the world.




Some strange dirt on PG&E dug up by the Chronicle: For the last four years, the utility has been buying out multi-million dollar homes in the Marina to remove chemical contamination from toxic waste in their yards, the result of fuel manufacturing plants from almost 100 years ago.

"For a number of months, they would systematically shovel out 8 feet of soil and then bring in new soil, a neighbor recalls to the paper. In total, PG&E has bought eight homes, one which has two-units, and is in the process of buying a ninth. Two of the homes were resold after the dirt-laundering was done, and others were rented back to their former owners. From nine other nearby houses that didn't want to sell to PG&E, the company still went through the process of swapping their yard soil, and the utility did the same at a former Bay Street gas station, pictured above.

Regulators overseeing the work say the chemicals pose no danger to public health, buried as they are underground. However, there's concern that future development could expose them, hence the laborious steps taken by PG&E. The gas station site, for example, is being developed for 28 condos, as Hoodline reports.

PG&E once had 41 similar fuel plants in California, and as it's performed tests at sites elsewhere, it's clear the company thinks some sort of action at these locations is necessary. All the homes are in the area of two small plants that manufactured gas in the late 1800s, operations that were damaged in the 1906 quake and demolished. Residual chemicals such as benzene and naphthalene, which can cause cancer, were buried with their remains.

One former Alhambra Street property owner who sold his home to PG&E, Dick Frisbie, thinks the utility downplayed the presence of the chemicals. Workers on his property recovered a serious haul of coal from just three feet below ground, he claims, while PG&E had told residents the contamination was much deeper, at 18 feet below the surface. PG&E disputes this, telling the Chronicle that Frisbie is wrong and that they've always told residents the contamination is within the top 10 feet of soil.

You could just smell them by holding them up, Frisbie told the Chronicle. That changed everything with PG&E, because it turned out all the information they had given us was bogus.

Another homeowner who sold to PG&E, Dan Clarke, joined forces with the San Francisco Herring Association  who believe the fish could be affected through groundwater entering the Bay  to sue PG&E. An interim settlement was reached in 2015, and PG&E will continue testing in the area with a report due within the year. Other homeowners are also irritated that, after PG&E's work is done, their homes will lose value  the contamination history will be added to their deeds.

Elsewhere, in a much less hush-hush episode involving PG&E, the utility is debuting court-ordered TV ads that recall the San Bruno gas pipe explosion of 2010 and apologize for the incident, in which it was convicted last summer. On Sept. 9, 2010, PG&E learned a tragic lesson we can never forget," go the short, contrite TV spots. Here's KRON 4 with those.

Related: Now PG&E Wants Its Conviction Thrown Out In San Bruno Blast Case
Downstairs from Che Fico, the big and ambitious Italian spot headed to 838 Divisadero that we first learned about a year and a half ago, there will be a second, casual to-go spot, we now hear via Eater. It's going to be called Theorita, and Che Fico chef David Nayfeld says it's going to be a showcase for his talented pastry chef partner, Angela Pinkerton.

Nayfeld tells Eater, "Angelas talent was too great to be only utilized on a five item menu," referring apparently to the eventual dessert menu at Che Fico, which is expected to open in September after some predictable delays.

Che Fico, a 115-seat project on which Nayfeld has partnered with Matt Brewer (of L20 in Chicago), will occupy the second-floor space of what was formerly an auto body shop on the same block as Little Star Pizza. Nayfeld, who previously worked at New York spots like Eleven Madison Park, is planning a menu of pizza, handmade pasta, in-house charcuterie, and seasonal dishes.

At Theorita, Nayfeld will contribute some savory dishes, like a pot roast, a patty melt, and a fried chicken sandwich, but Pinkerton will be doing savory and sweet pies, including, she tells Eater, things like roast chicken pot pie with sweet potato and thyme; and a Meyer lemon pie with black sugar meringue. Also, they're planning to feature the DNA burger they served at popular Mission DNA pop-ups last year, but only while tomatoes are in season.

The idea, they say, is a luncheonette with a retro vibe, to be done by former Ken Fulk studio designer Jon de la Cruz, who worked on Leo's Oyster Bar downtown. And the space will have seating for 50, including about a dozen at the counter, and will offer full service at dinner. The plan is to be open seven days a week, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

They're aiming for an end-of-year opening, two to three months after Che Fico debuts.

Theorita - 838 Divisadero Street near McAllister
San Francisco police are hunting for a teen girl suspect today, after she went into an area mall and discharged pepper spray, injuring 16 patrons.

San Francisco Police Department spokesperson Officer Giselle Talkoff says that calls reporting the incident started rolling in at 8:06 p.m. Monday, with "Multiple people complaining of an unknown mass pepper spray or 'chemical spray' being released in [the] air" at a store at the Stonestown Mall, located on the 3200 block of 20th Avenue.

Police say that the suspect, a girl aged 15-17, walked into a store in the mall, then "took out a canister and sprayed an orange-colored mist in the store."

According to CBS 5, SFPD Captain Mark Osuna "said a female juvenile went into a Forever 21 store at the mall and sprayed pepper spray into the air and at 'nobody specifically.'"

San Francisco Fire Department spokesperson Jonathan Baxter tells the Chron that "The 911 caller reported that it was pepper spray" and that "and officers believe it was either pepper spray or something similar."

After she released the spray, police say the suspect fled on foot. According to CBS 5, she "was followed by other juveniles" who Osuna says "she may or may not have known" out of the store.

Sixteen people in the area of the spray began coughing and experienced "eye irritation," police say. Of those, 13 were treated at the scene, and three were transported to the hospital. All are expected to survive, according to the SFPD.

NBC Bay Area reports that the mall was not evacuated as a result of the spraying, but some stores closed during the incident.

As of Tuesday morning, police say that the pepper-spraying teen remains at large, and no arrests have been made in the case.

Related: Man Randomly Pepper-Sprays Powell And Market Pedestrian
From February through June, hundreds of harbor seals sleep, mate, sleep, give birth, and then sleep some more on beaches like one at the center of the Monterey Bay national marine sanctuary, Hopkins Beach. Maybe you thought this was months ago  those were elephant seals, harbor seals' uglier cousins. The time is a delicate one for the harbor seals, and experts at the Marine Mammal Center encourage humans to give them plenty of room. This year, for the first time according to a report by KQED, the Sausalito-based center has received complaints about drone hobbyists flying their aircrafts near seals. That's added a new layer of concern to the stressful time period.

"Drones are totally foreign to these animals," Laura Chapman, a rescue coordinator with the Marine Mammal Center, tells KQED Science. "They make a sound that they [the animals] dont expect."

It's not just interrupted mating sessions that experts want to avoid  although presumably that, too. Mostly, pups need to be safely kept with their mothers. In the past decade, the center has handled 140 cases in which humans caused harm to seals or sea lions, KQED reports. Disturbances can cause seals to abandon their pups  or people can separate them by "rescuing" pups they see, as has too often occurred.

Humans are required by the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act to give the creatures 150 feet of space, and those flying drones should heed that rule too, Chapman seems to say. What we want people to be aware of is that if an animal is looking at you, if theyre looking at the drone, that animal is being harassed.

A Hopkins Beach docent, Thom Akeman, tells KQED he's had to shoo away drone pilots. About half the time theyre very cooperative, says Akeman. Other times theyre very belligerent because they think they have a right to fly anywhere.

Not exactly: Federal Aviation Administration rules ban drones within five miles of airports, and there's one 3.5 nautical miles from the Monterey Bay Aquariums harbor seal rookery, for example. If you're headed there, leave the drone at home. The marine sanctuary, for its part, is monitoring drone use.

Related: Where To Watch Elephant Seals Doing Their Annual Mating And Birthing Thing Along The NorCal And Central Coast
Uber has been forced to take a long, hard look in the mirror after a series of scandals that mostly boil down to reflections of the company's aggressive attitude and corporate culture. At least in terms of demographics, Uber vowed to share what it sees with the public, a promise made after launching an investigation prompted by a public account from a former engineer at the company that detailed an environment where her supervisor was kept on despite allegedly harassing her and others. She, meanwhile, was held back for reporting the problem. Issues related to the company's male-dominated workforce went deep, according to her account: Engineers bought leather "team jackets" for men, but claimed that not enough women on the team meant it was too expensive to place an order for women's jackets, too.

Now Uber has shared its demographic and diversity stats online, a common tech industry practice launched in response to criticism and in order to foster accountability. Uber had previously avoided the practice, but it's not entirely clear why, as the ride-hailing giant's numbers are more flattering than those of peers like Apple, Google, and Facebook, according to a comparison by the New York Times.

Uber is 63.9 percent male and 36.1 percent female, but in technical roles the contrast is starker, with women occupying just 15.4 percent of those. It's better than Apple and Facebook's divide: Those workforces are just 32 percent female.

"This report is a first step in showing that diversity and inclusion is a priority at Uber, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said in a statement. I know that we have been too slow in publishing our numbers  and that the best way to demonstrate our commitment to change is through transparency. And to make progress, its important we measure what matters.

Parsing the numbers, TechCrunch writer Megan Rose Dickey says "the TL;DR is that Uber, like many other tech companies, is predominantly white and male." That said, the longtime industry observer found that "Uber also has pretty solid representation of people of color, in comparison to other tech companies."

Uber is 8.8 percent black, 5.6 percent Latino/a, and 4.3 percent two or more races in the US, although in technical roles, black Uber employees make up just 1 percent of the team, Latino/a 2.1 percent, and two or more races 2.4 percent. Uber also disclosed that 15 percent of its employees have a work visa and hail from 71 different countries, implicitly defending its global workforce at a time when the US executive branch has mounted assaults on non-US citizens in the country. Finally, the company drew attention to its internal "employee resource groups," from "Women of Uber," to "UberVETERANS" to "Shalom" whose stated goal is to connect "Uberettos and Jewbers from all backgrounds."

The New York Times traces Uber's cultural climate to a cult of individualism, built moslty around godhead CEO Travis Kalanick That approach has been favored due to unusual fast-growth, launching inexperienced but talented employees into management roles unlike positions they've held before.

"For the first several years, we had to just focus on executing our operational goals, and that was kind of the be-all, end-all, Nicole Cuellar, an operations and logistics manager at Uber who has served with the company for almost four years, tells the times. There was never the need to think about our culture like that. And I dont think it sunk in until we all had this really gut-wrenching experience.

Related: That Was Fast! Self-Driving Ubers Are Back On The Road, Everything Fine Now
The congressional team of U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, is encouraging people to write letters to newspapers in support of work the 15-year lawmaker is doing.

A representative of King's district office in Sioux City recently sent an email with the subject line "Letters to support Steve King."

The email, a copy of which was obtained by the Journal, begins, "Congressman King is being accused of not being effective for his district. Unfortunately, the media seldom publish the good work done by Steve King. You can use the following points in your support letters to the editor. Let me know when and where you send your support letter so we can track it. This year alone Steve King has promoted the following issues," then 15 bills are cited as examples to use.

The email seeking supportive letters comes on the heels of a period where King, who represents Iowa's 4th congressional district, was high in the national news cycle two weeks ago.

King on March 12 tweeted that America "can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies." The tweet was in support of a Dutch politician who opposes immigration and has spoken against Islam. King tweeted that Geert Wilders "understands that culture and demographics are our destiny."

King followed the controversial social media post with several interviews on national outlets where he defended his comments. Critics accused King of racism and condemned the support the tweet received from some white nationalist leaders. Many also renewed charges that King was an ineffective congressman who should be focusing more on his district and less on national wedge issues like immigration.

An inquiry about the email to King's main office in Washington was not returned midday Tuesday.

The content of the email notes the congressman has introduced bills in the U.S. House involving issues in education, immigration and health.

Here are some of the bills King is touted for introducing, from the email:

-- "Congressman Steve King introduced the Choices in Education Act of 2017. This bill would both promote and protect school choice by ensuring States the ability to carry out their education voucher program and by giving parents the ability to choose the best form of education for their children."

-- "January 3: Washington, D.C.  Congressman Steve King introduced, in conjunction with his 100% repeal Obamacare Act also introduced today, a bill to prohibit the Supreme Court from Citing Obamacare in future decisions."

-- "January 3: Congressman Steve King re-introduced four immigration bills at the start of the 115th Congress: Sarahs Law, Birthright Citizenship Act of 2017, Religious Worker Visa Reciprocity Act of 2017 and New IDEA Act."

-- "January 12: Congressman Steve King introduced The Heartbeat Bill, that would require physicians to detect the heartbeat and prohibit the abortion of a baby with a beating heart."
SIOUX CITY | A Sioux City apartment building has been red-tagged after the electrical system caused a fire in the building's attic early Tuesday.

Firefighters responded to the fire call at 12:49 a.m. at 2515 Court St. to a three-story, two-unit structure.

A Sioux City Fire Rescue news release said that light smoke was visible upon arrival, and firefighters encountered very little smoke inside the building. The fire was located in the attic insulation and extinguished quickly.

The building had moderate smoke and fire damage, and city inspectors red-tagged it as being uninhabitable.

A breakdown in the building's electrical system caused the fire, according to the news release.

Six occupants in the upstairs unit and one in the downstairs unit had left the building safely prior to the firefighters' arrival. The American Red Cross is assisting the residents displaced by the fire.
SIOUX CITY | A week after Mayor Bob Scott questioned plans for a key piece of Sioux City's Reinvestment District project, City Council members said they wanted to see a staff presentation on the proposed project.

Councilman Dan Moore said having a discussion among the council, staff and the community would help get "everyone on the same page," as well as help taxpayers understand how it works together.

"I think there's some common misunderstanding ... of what the facts are," Moore said. "I think what we really need to do is start to talk about it and talk about what the numbers are, how it all comes into play."

Scott had left the meeting early and was not present for the discussion.

The council's discussion Monday came after Tim Seaman, president of Sioux City's Events Facilities Advisory Board, which makes recommendations on operations of the city's events venues, told the council there was "sound support" for the hotel project on the city panel.

Seaman said the council may not be hearing a lot of public support because the hotel is an amenity that will draw in non-residents.

"You have to remember, it's not a school you're closing, it's not the corner grocery store that I'm not going to be able to buy my milk at," Seaman said. "It's a hotel that out-of-town people come to."

City manager Bob Padmore suggested a presentation, showing what the project is and how it works together.

Sioux City's bid for $14 million in future state hotel and sales taxes through the Iowa Economic Development Authority's Reinvestment District program includes three projects: Ho-Chunk Inc.'s Virginia Square, a $21 million Courtyard by Marriott hotel built next to the Sioux City Convention Center, and an ag expo and learning center on the site of the former John Morrell pork plant. The project has been in the works for two years.

Scott during last week's council meeting had said he favored turning the Convention Center into a recreation center for kids, saying the hotel project "makes absolutely no sense whatsoever."

The city currently plans to assist a private developer with a proposed $21 million Courtyard by Marriott that would connect to the center at 801 Fourth St. Backers say the project, which also includes building a parking ramp, would help the city book more conventions and other meetings.

The council is set to approve the purchase of land and agreements with the developer during its April 17 meeting.

The Events Facilities Advisory Board had discussed the project during its Friday meeting, with Seaman telling members that several people had called, concerned about their future bookings for conventions at the venue.
LYONS, Neb. | One man was killed and another wounded in a shooting Sunday at a Lyons residence.

Police responded at 8:35 a.m. to reports of a shooting at 665 State St.

Police Chief James Buck said in a news release that upon arrival, officers found Kevin Hayes, 49, who lived at the house, dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. His brother, Charles Hayes, 53, of Okinawa, Japan, was critically injured with gunshot wounds.

He was transported to Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, where he was listed in critical condition Tuesday morning.

Buck said Tuesday that Kevin and Charles Hayes' mother was in the home at the time of the shooting, but she was not injured.

The incident remains under investigation, and Buck did not say what may have caused the shooting.
SIOUX CITY | A Sioux City man plans to build a new rural residential development on Sioux City's east side.

Jay Layman plans to construct 11 homes on a 32-acre portion of land at 701 and 801 South Roswell Street, which lies east of Western Iowa Tech Community College.

The existing property was most recently occupied by a single residential structure and multiple outbuildings, which have since been demolished. The development is accessed by South Roswell Street, a gravel road.

As part of the project, Layman will extend South Roswell with more gravel road.

The Sioux City Council on Monday deferred a vote on a development agreement in order to consider granting Layman $8,500 per home, instead of the city's customary $7,000. Layman said the increased request will help him improve the existing South Roswell Street to slightly widen it and complete drainage improvements.

Layman will also need to rezone the property from agricultural to rural residential and submit a preliminary plat for approval.

Pierce Street reconstruction

In other action, the Sioux City Council approved two items related to a comprehensive reconstruction of a five-block area of Pierce Street.

The council voted 5-0 to pass plans and specifications for the proposed $3.4 million reconstruction project, as well as a developmental services agreement with UnityPoint Health -- St. Luke's to cover a portion of the improvements along the hospital campus's corridor.

The reconstruction project will bring new street paving, sidewalks, landscaping, lighting, storm sewers, sanitary sewers and water line improvements to Pierce Street between 24th and 29th streets, an area of the city with infrastructure dating back to the early 1900s.

At St. Luke's request, the project will include a road realignment between 27th and 29th streets, which will allow some parking close to the hospital. St. Luke's will put approximately $765,000 toward the project.

Bridgeport West properties

The council also voted 5-0 to approve the sale of a 21.4-acre parcel of land in Sioux City's Bridgeport West Business Park to a pallet company and a logistics company.

Tritz Pallet Inc. plans to build a new industrial and manufacturing facility on approximately 12 acres of the property, an investment of $6 million.

Monterey Management LLC plans to construct a four-building logistics complex to service inbound and outbound hog trucks on an approximately 9.5-acre portion of the property, an investment of $11.7 million.

Both businesses would support the Seaboard Triumph Foods pork plant under construction at an adjacent site and are expected to create at least 63 direct jobs combined.
SIOUX CITY | A Sioux City man was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison for his role in two home invasions.

Tykell Robinson, 20, pleaded guilty last week in Woodbury County District Court to two counts of second-degree robbery.

District Judge Jeffrey Poulson sentenced Robinson to 10 years in prison on each count and ordered the sentences to be served concurrently, or at the same time. Robinson must serve at least five years before he's eligible for parole.

Robinson was involved in a March 7, 2016, robbery in which he and Michael Williams entered a home in the 800 block of 15th Street and demanded money from the residents at gunpoint before leaving with $32 in cash and a pack of cigarettes. Williams, 21, of Sioux City, was sentenced in August to 35 years in prison.

On Jan. 25, 2016, Robinson and Deloyd Fields forced their way into a home in the 4300 block of Springfield Street, threatened the occupants and took an AR-15 rifle, ammunition and electronics. Fields, 39, of Sioux City, was placed on probation after pleading guilty to second-degree burglary.

Robinson faces a first-degree robbery charge in connection with a Feb. 10 robbery in which another man is accused of shooting a juvenile male near downtown Sioux City.
Lawmakers, officials and watchdog groups have all offered their takes on how best to investigate Russia's attempts to influence the US presidential election.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is seeking information from a political opposition research firm as he continues to dig into the origins of a dossier that made controversial but unsubstantiated allegations about President Donald Trump.

Grassley's office announced Monday that he had sent the letter to a company called Fusion GPS asking a series of questions.

Earlier this month, Grassley had contacted the FBI seeking information from the agency after The Washington Post reported that last fall the bureau had agreed to pay a former spy who had compiled the dossier to continue his work. The payments were never made, the Post reported, but Grassley said the agreement was still troubling. The former spy was hired by Fusion, at first at the behest of a Republican critic, according to reports. Later, Democratic allies of Hillary Clinton's paid for the work.

In the new letter, dated Friday, Grassley asked a series of questions about arrangements between Fusion and its clients  as well as about the company's contacts with the FBI. Among the questions: Whether any of Fusion's clients suggested that the dossier be supplied to the FBI.

"When political opposition research becomes the basis for law enforcement or intelligence efforts, it raises substantial questions about the independence of law enforcement and intelligence from politics. The Committee requires additional information to evaluate this situation," Grassley wrote in the letter. He asked for a reply by April 7.

The senator's letter comes amid an FBI investigation into Russia's influence on the U.S. presidential election.

In January, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded the Russians meddled in the election and had a preference for Trump. But the former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said the dossier, which contained allegations regarding Trump campaign contacts with Russian operatives, did not contribute to its conclusion.

The intelligence agencies' report contained no evidence of collusion with the Trump campaign, and the president has dismissed the story of Russian influence as "fake news."
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.
West Palm Beach has declared itself a Welcoming City for immigrants.

West Palm city commissioners on Monday unanimously passed a resolution intended to reduce undocumented immigrants fears of local police.

The resolution states that city employees -- including police -- cannot investigate someones citizenship status. Nor may local authorities disclose someones citizenship status to others, unless the law or a warrant requires it. And when West Palm police ask for proof of identification from an immigrant with no state-issued ID, they may use ID from their home country instead. Since the election of President Donald Trump, immigrants without papers have become nervous as the new president has pledged to increase deportations.

We wanna make sure people know that they are safe here in West Palm Beach, said Mayor Jeri Muio, This is a place where we want them to be.

Two pro-immigrant-rights groups originally planned to protest the commissions decision to vote on a resolution instead of an ordinance. A resolution states the rules city employees must follow, while an ordinance is city law. Members of Womens March Floridas West Palm Beach chapter and South Florida Activism did not protest outside city hall. They instead joined dozens of residents to tell city officials they support the resolution, and hope the commission will pass an ordinance in the future.

We believe that the city of West Palm Beach can and should lead the way with the passing of this resolution, said Alex Newell Taylor, captain of the West Palm chapter of the Womens March. Speaking for her chapter, she added we would like to see this become an ordinance eventually if possible.

Most of the 100 or so people in the audience cheered Newell Taylor. At least eight booed.

One of those who booed was Lake Worth resident Mary Kelly. She later told SFGN that her problem is not with all immigrants, just those who move here without getting the right papers. When asked to elaborate on her views, she mentioned, Ive had a home invasion by three Hispanic men. I didnt have the chance to get their ID cards, so she does not know if they lived in the U.S. illegally. She said she employs a foreign yard worker, who she would not report to law enforcement if she found out he was here illegally.

When someone is arrested by city police, they are booked into Palm Beach County jail, which is run by Palm Beach County Sheriffs Office. If ICE asks PBSO, without a court order or warrant, to hold a detainee longer than local police need to, PBSO does not have to honor that request. But if sheriffs deputies arrest an undocumented immigrant, PBSO reports it to ICE.

Commissioner Sylvia Moffett hopes other South Florida cities would follow West Palms example. I think this is a great first step, she said, And I hope that other cities will take up the challenge and take up their own resolutions and realize that its not our police peoples job to go out and round up people.
Star Birth From A Supermassive Black Hole ESO

Observations using ESOs Very Large Telescope have revealed stars forming within powerful outflows of material blasted out from supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies.

These are the first confirmed observations of stars forming in this kind of extreme environment. The discovery has many consequences for understanding galaxy properties and evolution. The results are published in the journal Nature.

A UK-led group of European astronomers used the MUSE and X-shooter instruments on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at ESOs Paranal Observatory in Chile to study an ongoing collision between two galaxies, known collectively as IRAS F23128-5919, that lie around 600 million light-years from Earth. The group observed the colossal winds of material  or outflows  that originate near the supermassive black hole at the heart of the pairs southern galaxy, and have found the first clear evidence that stars are being born within them [1].

Such galactic outflows are driven by the huge energy output from the active and turbulent centres of galaxies. Supermassive black holes lurk in the cores of most galaxies, and when they gobble up matter they also heat the surrounding gas and expel it from the host galaxy in powerful, dense winds [2].

Astronomers have thought for a while that conditions within these outflows could be right for star formation, but no one has seen it actually happening as its a very difficult observation, comments team leader Roberto Maiolino from the University of Cambridge. Our results are exciting because they show unambiguously that stars are being created inside these outflows.

The group set out to study stars in the outflow directly, as well as the gas that surrounds them. By using two of the world-leading VLT spectroscopic instruments, MUSE and X-shooter, they could carry out a very detailed study of the properties of the emitted light to determine its source.

Radiation from young stars is known to cause nearby gas clouds to glow in a particular way. The extreme sensitivity of X-shooter allowed the team to rule out other possible causes of this illumination, including gas shocks or the active nucleus of the galaxy.

The group then made an unmistakable direct detection of an infant stellar population in the outflow [3]. These stars are thought to be less than a few tens of millions of years old, and preliminary analysis suggests that they are hotter and brighter than stars formed in less extreme environments such as the galactic disc.

As further evidence, the astronomers also determined the motion and velocity of these stars. The light from most of the regions stars indicates that they are travelling at very large velocities away from the galaxy centre  as would make sense for objects caught in a stream of fast-moving material.

Co-author Helen Russell (Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK) expands: The stars that form in the wind close to the galaxy centre might slow down and even start heading back inwards, but the stars that form further out in the flow experience less deceleration and can even fly off out of the galaxy altogether.

The discovery provides new and exciting information that could better our understanding of some astrophysics, including how certain galaxies obtain their shapes [4]; how intergalactic space becomes enriched with heavy elements [5]; and even from where unexplained cosmic infrared background radiation may arise [6].

Maiolino is excited for the future: If star formation is really occurring in most galactic outflows, as some theories predict, then this would provide a completely new scenario for our understanding of galaxy evolution.

###

Notes

[1] Stars are forming in the outflows at a very rapid rate; the astronomers say that stars totalling around 30 times the mass of the Sun are being created every year. This accounts for over a quarter of the total star formation in the entire merging galaxy system.

[2] The expulsion of gas through galactic outflows leads to a gas-poor environment within the galaxy, which could be why some galaxies cease forming new stars as they age. Although these outflows are most likely to be driven by massive central black holes, it is also possible that the winds are powered by supernovae in a starburst nucleus undergoing vigorous star formation.

[3] This was achieved through the detection of signatures characteristic of young stellar populations and with a velocity pattern consistent with that expected from stars formed at high velocity in the outflow.

[4] Spiral galaxies have an obvious disc structure, with a distended bulge of stars in the centre and surrounded by a diffuse cloud of stars called a halo. Elliptical galaxies are composed mostly of these spheroidal components. Outflow stars that are ejected from the main disc could give rise to these galactic features.

[5] How the space between galaxies  the intergalactic medium  becomes enriched with heavy elements is still an open issue, but outflow stars could provide an answer. If they are jettisoned out of the galaxy and then explode as supernovae, the heavy elements they contain could be released into this medium.

[6] Cosmic-infrared background radiation, similar to the more famous cosmic microwave background, is a faint glow in the infrared part of the spectrum that appears to come from all directions in space. Its origin in the near-infrared bands, however, has never been satisfactorily ascertained. A population of outflow stars shot out into intergalactic space may contribute to this light.

More information

This research was presented in a paper entitled Star formation in a galactic outflow by Maiolino et al., to appear in the journal Nature on 27 March 2017.

The team is composed of R. Maiolino (Cavendish Laboratory; Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, UK), H.R. Russell (Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK), A.C. Fabian (Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK), S. Carniani (Cavendish Laboratory; Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, UK), R. Gallagher (Cavendish Laboratory; Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, UK), S. Cazzoli (Departamento de Astrofisica-Centro de Astrobiologia, Madrid, Spain), S. Arribas (Departamento de Astrofisica-Centro de Astrobiologia, Madrid, Spain), F. Belfiore ((Cavendish Laboratory; Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, UK), E. Bellocchi (Departamento de Astrofisica-Centro de Astrobiologia, Madrid, Spain), L. Colina (Departamento de Astrofisica-Centro de Astrobiologia, Madrid, Spain), G. Cresci (Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Firenze, Italy), W. Ishibashi (Universitat Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland), A. Marconi (Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Firenze, Italy), F. Mannucci (Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Firenze, Italy), E. Oliva (Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Firenze, Italy), and E. Sturm (Max-Planck-Institut fur Extraterrestrische Physik, Garching, Germany).
For a long time, the idea of a good cup of coffee has been synonymous with beans just arrived from the farm, roasted during the last few days, and ground right before preparation. In the coffee market, freshness has always been essential to good beverages. But now, in a nation itself synonymous with coffee, the aphorism that preaches the fresher the better is being questioned.

One of the questioners is Brazilian farmer Mariano Martins, founder of Martins Cafe. He has been experimenting with fermentation since 2006, when he quit his job at a bank to dedicate himself to his familys coffee farm Fazenda Margarida, in the interior state of Sao Paulo. The techniques evolved as a way to face the excess of humidity in his arearains are constant in the region of Sao Manuel city, where his familys crops are planted.

In the last decade, Martins has learned to dominate the world of microbial yeast and bacteria. His journey began with a visit to farms in the Huila region of Colombia to understand how their farmers could produce good coffee in harvest conditions even more humid than the ones he usually had in Brazil. And today, Martins employs both a biologist and a chemistry engineer in his studies at the farm. After extensive analysis, together they came up with an interesting fact: many beans submitted to fermentation processes could benefit from long-term agingeven after roasting.

The microorganisms used in the fermentation processes (specific wild yeasts and bacteria that they isolated after many trials) can prevent the beans from oxidizing over time, Martins explains. In the lab we built in the farm, we could create an environment 90% isolated, which allowed us to test the more resistant varieties, he says. Even three months later, according to their tests, the beans keep developing sensory notes that they couldnt before.

Martins is now releasing small batches of fermented, aged Yellow Bourbon coffee to the market to prove his point, so customers can literally taste his theory. The small, psychedelic-looking tins with roasted beans (250 grams, around US$12) can be kept for at least two months on customers shelves to reach their peak, according to the producer.

Called Ketonico (in reference to the ketone compounds found in the beans after fermentation processes), this coffee can be gritty, slightly soft, and very astringent before aging. Its quite a shy guy, who takes some time to let itself loose, Martins says.

This is attributed to the tannins retained in the coffee beans, which were macerated and fermented for 72 hours with the coffee fruit, where the tannins are presentas with grapes. Through the aging process, the coffee evolves and becomes more round and soft, and one can even taste more complex notesand secondary and even tertiary ones, says Martins. The process, he explains, is really similar to wine, which passes through maturation and aging processes to become more pleasant to the palate.

By having the aromas of ketones, which are more stable molecules, [the flavor profile] starts lightly with caramel, but if you [age] it, the reactions of these molecules with the air will evolve, generating aromas of tutti frutti and even dehydrated bananas, Martins continues. Ketonico has a slightly emollient but sweet body and a light aciditya mixture of citric and lactic acid.

I am really excited to test all the limits of tannins in coffee production, Martins says. On a 0 to 100 scale, I would say we got 20 with this coffee. We know there are many boundaries we can bypass, he says. Martins is now conducting seven experiments with coffee tannins. I believe in the near future we farmers will be able to store our coffee to sell even when the harvest goes bad, for a longer time. And in the future, who knows, we could taste coffee by harvests, like we do for wines, he points out.

This future may not be so far away, one might say. The market seems to be increasingly aware of the possibilities of aged coffee. Nespresso has just released its Vintage 2014 limited edition, made with freshly harvested Arabica beans from the Colombian Highlands in 2014 and then stored for three years under controlled conditions in a storehouse at more than 3,700 meters altitude to create a new sensory experience. According to the company, the aging process not only gives the coffee a greater density and intensifies its aromas, but also allows for a more acidic, full-bodied coffee.

We are finding out that it is possible to go beyond the concept of freshness related to coffee, says Martins. Of course, we will still look for the freshest beans to prepare an espresso, for instance. But for all other methods, we can go further in search of more complex notes that go far beyond the standards, he continues.

In five years, we will probably have the chance to taste the different notes from a coffee harvested in my farm in 2016, 2017, and 2018, says the farmer. I believe we will soon drink coffee as we drink wine or even some teasand this will take all the market to a higher level.

Rafael Tonon is a freelance journalist based in Brazil. This is Rafael Tonons first feature for Sprudge.
Oldfriendskentucky was treated to a pocket ride by driver J Harris in the Monday evening finale at The Raceway at Western Fair District, and the pacer rewarded his reinsman with the 1,000th win of his career.

Harris left alertly from the rail with Oldfriendskentucky, and together they managed to stalk the pacesetting Stoney Durkin through panels of :29, :59.4 and 1:28.1. Harris revved up the engine on Oldfriendskentucky when room opened up in the lane, and the gelding kicked home in :29.3 to win by a head over race favourite Canadian Edition in 1:58.1.

The milestone win comes for Harris in the midst of a season in which hes racked up 57 wins and more than $350,000 in purse earnings. The Hagersville, Ont. horseman celebrated career-best numbers last season thanks to 244 trips to victory lane and a purse haul in excess of $1.4 million.

They Call Me Gordy and Champagne Phil bolstered their resumes thanks to victories in their respective Preferred assignments during Mondays card at The Raceway at Western Fair District.

They Call Me Gordy took home the lions share of the $7,500 offered up in his Preferred 3 tilt for horse and gelding pacers. Scott Young fired the gelding to the front from Post 3 and together they sliced out splits of :28.4, :59.4 and 1:28.1 before kicking home in :28.2 to win by 3-1/4 lengths over Rock N Roll Legacy in 1:56.3. Don Mcwhite took home the show dough.

Sent off as the even-money favourite, the six-year-old son of Arizona Liar-Its All The Rave improved his 2017 record to 3-1-2 from 10 starts for owner/trainer Kyle Bossence of Arthur, Ont. The 15-time winner pushed his lifetime earnings over $100,000 with the triumph.

Champagne Phil used the same tactical approach to capture the second division of the class in 1:55 for driver Scott Coulter and trainer Dean Nixon.

Bet down to odds of 1-5, the seven-year-old son of Shanghai Phil-Champagne Gal hustled the field through fractions of :27.3, :57.4 and 1:26.2 and then sealed the deal with a final quarter clocked in :28.3. He won by three lengths over Good Friday Three. Adore Him rounded out the top three finishers.

ICR Racing of Pefferlaw, Ont. owns the 29-time winner who is 3-for-12 this year. The speedster, who owns a mark of 1:49.4, is closing in on $370,000 in career earnings.

To view results for Monday's card of harness racing, click the following link: Monday Results  The Raceway at Western Fair District.
If you have been following the progress of the racehorse President Trump youll now have to switch over to Fake News, which is apparently the geldings new handle.

Racing Post has been following the story of the South African Thoroughbred, and according to an earlier report, trainer Justin Snaith had been forced to geld President Trump. "President Trump was very vocal and would not focus on his work, Snaith was quoted as saying, I found him to be extremely stubborn. I considered blinkers and a tongue-tie but he was so unmanageable that I had no option but to geld him."



The former President Trump, who apparently now goes by the handle Fake News.

Now, according to a follow-up article by Racing Post, President Trump is now apparently going by the name Fake News.

The National Horseracing Authority has forced the geldings name to be changed. An official with the NHA emailed Snaith Racing and said, Unfortunately, with Donald Trump being president, the opinion of the NHA is that the name has now become problematic.

Snaith Racings response was to submit the name Fake News for the unraced gelding, and, according to Racing Post, the name is going to be approved.



The 45th President of the United States of America, Donald Trump

(With files from Racing Post)
Dr. David A. Meirs, II (DOC), who established Walnridge Equine Clinic, passed away on Monday, March 27 at the age of 87.

Dr. Meirs established the clinic in 1965. With the advent of the New Jersey Sire Stakes program in 1972, he decided to become active in New Jerseys Standardbred Industry. The first stallion to stand at Walnridge was Peerswick, a horse imported from New Zealand and acquired through Stanley Dancer.

The equine clinic is known worldwide and truly serves as a lasting legacy to Doc.

Besides having started the equine clinic, Dr. Meirs served on numerous veterinary and agricultural boards to support, most importantly, the young veterinarians he helped to become the professionals they are today.

Walnridge is now recognized throughout the Standardbred world as a pre-eminent breeding farm and an excellent veterinary facility.

Services will be held on Saturday, April 1. More details to follow.

Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the family and friends of Dr. David Meirs, II.

(With files from Geoff Dubrowsky)
What's So Bad About Pornography?

Contact: Kevin Wandra, 404-788-1276, KWandra@CarmelCommunications.com SAN FRANCISCO, March 28, 2017 / Standard Newswire / -- Virginia, Utah and South Dakota have declared pornography a public health crisis. And notable figures in Hollywood, including former Playboy model Pamela Anderson and actors Terry Crews and Russell Brand, have spoken out against the dangers of pornography, a big business that generates $10 billion to $12 billion in the United States alone, according to NBC News. But the commonly held belief is that pornography is a harmless and even beneficial pastime. Author Matt Fradd separates the myths from the facts about porn, drawing on the experience of porn performers and users, and the expertise of neurologists, sociologists and psychologists, to demonstrate that pornography is destructive to individuals, relationships and society in his new book, THE PORN MYTH: Exposing the Reality Behind the Fantasy of Pornography.Fradd provides insightful (and nonreligious) arguments, supported by the latest scientific research, to discredit the fanciful claims used to defend and promote pornography in THE PORN MYTH. He explains the neurological reasons porn is addictive, helps individuals learn how to be free of porn and offers real help to the parents and the spouses of porn users. Backed by recent research on pornography's harmful effects on the brain, Fradd is part of the growing wave of passionate individuals trying to change the pro-porn cultural norm by inspiring others to pursue real love and to avoid its hollow counterfeit.Fradd aims to challenge our mentalities about porn, laying out a framework for exposing the negative impact of pornography and rethinking our passive consumption of digital sexuality. THE PORN MYTH is an invitation to love more purely, connect with others more authentically and experience joy more fully."Matt Fradd provides insightful arguments, with the latest research, on nearly every subject relevant to porn  from the dangers of the porn industry to the negative effects porn has on the brain," Dawn Hawkins, vice president and executive director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, says of THE PORN MYTH. "He equips you to discuss the real harm of pornography and to dispel its myths."All of the royalties from THE PORN MYTH will go to help Children of the Immaculate Heart, a non-profit corporation operating in San Diego, California, whose mission is to serve survivors of human trafficking.For more information, to request a review copy, or to schedule an interview with Matt Fradd, please contact Kevin Wandra (404-788-1276 or KWandra@CarmelCommunications.com ) of Carmel Communications.
Terrorist in London Followed Sharia Law -- (References Included for Journalists) -- Law Enforcement Miss Clues, Says Randall Terry

Journalists may go to www.WWMD-TV.com to view segment 8, which explains Jihad, with extensive references for reporters. Also, references below.



Contact: 904-826-9989



WASHINGTON, March 28, 2017 /Standard Newswire/ -- Law enforcement often miss the evidence: Muslim terrorists are reading "sacred" Islamic texts to get their inspiration, and justify their attacks. These texts include Sharia Law, Haddith, Sirah's, and the Quran.



From Islamic Sharia Law:

"Jihad is a communal obligationfor every able bodied man who has reached puberty...) -- (Sharia Law, Reliance of the Traveler, o9.1- o9.4, Pg 600, 601)



"If none of those concerned perform jihad, and it does not happen at all, then everyone who is aware that it is obligatory is guilty of sin, if there was a possibility of having performed it." -- (Sharia Law, Reliance of the Traveler, o9.1- o9.4, Pg 600)



"I [Muhammad] have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah...If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me..." -- (Sharia Law, Reliance of the Traveler, o9.1- o9.4, Pg 599)

From the Haddith:

"The person who participates in (Holy battles) in Allah's cause and nothing compels him to do so except belief in Allah and His Apostles, will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to Paradise (if he is killed in the battle as a martyr).Had I not found it difficult for my followers, then I would not remain behind any army unit going for Jihad and I would have loved to be martyred in Allah's cause and then made alive, and then martyred and then made alive, and then again martyred in His cause." -- Muhammad (Bukhari Book #2, Hadith #36; See also Bukhari Book #90, Hadith 332; Hadith 333)



"One who died but did not fight in the way of Allah nor did he express any desire (or determination) for Jihad died the death of a hypocrite." -- (Sahih Muslim, Book #20, Hadith #4696



"If a person gets wounded in the way of Allah, he will come on the Day of Judgment with his wound in the same condition as it was when it was first inflicted; its colour being the colour of blood but its smell will be the smell of musk..." -- (Bukhari, Book $67, Hadith #441)

Available for interview: Randall Terry, Author and Producer of "What Would Muhammad Do: Islamic Terrorism Explained"



(More quotes and references available for press at www.WWMD-TV.com)
Africa Study Bible Launches Worldwide: Celebratory Events Planned throughout Africa and in the United States

Contact: Debbie Lykins, 224-234-6699; deb@sidedoorcom.net WHEATON, Ill., March 28, 2017 / Standard Newswire / -- After a seven-year, cross-continental effort, Oasis International, in partnership with several major Christian organizations, is launching the Africa Study Bible: the first study Bible developed by Africans, with over 2,600 notes written by 350 contributors from 50 countries. Oasis is working with local leaders throughout Africa and the United States to host dedication events. Leaders of some of the largest denominations in Africa as well as Christian government officials are expected to be in attendance.The first event is in Nairobi, Kenya on March 30, followed by Accra, Ghana on April 3, Chicago, USA on April 10-12, Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa on June 4-11, and Abuja and Lagos, Nigeria on June 29-July 1. The President of Kenya, His Excellency Uhuru Kenyatta, has already recorded his video blessing the project, as churches prepare to display national Christian unity at the launch event preceding national elections."Africans are bringing the power of Scripture to their own people in a new and culturally relevant way," says Dr. Matthew Elliott, president of Oasis. "Under the leadership of an 11-member editorial board of scholars from across Africa, we've brought together 350 writers and editors from 50 countries, representing 50 denominations. This is an unprecedented project that will impact the global church."To celebrate the launch in the United States, Oasis will host the African Voices Conference, in partnership with Tyndale House Publishers and Urban Ministries, Inc. (UMI), at Moody Bible Institute in downtown Chicago. The conference opens Monday, April 10 with an evening of thanksgiving and dedication of the ASB, hosted by UMI at the DuSable Museum of African American History. Over the next two days, April 11-12, distinguished leaders and scholars from Africa will offer 30 lectures on topics ranging from missional theology to the roots of Christianity in Africa. The conference also includes an ASB-focused Moody chapel, a Moody faculty development forum, a luncheon with the African guest speakers, and a dinner with Dr. Paul Nyquist, president of Moody, Dr. Mark Taylor, chairman and CEO of Tyndale, and C. Jeff Wright, CEO of UMI. Special musical guest Aaron Shust will also be participating in the conference events."The event at Moody will be a wonderful opportunity for both students and guests to learn more about the tremendous ways that God is building his church in Africa," says Elliott. "More Christians live in Africa than any other continent and by 2050 nearly 40 percent of the world's Christians will live in sub-Saharan Africa. Five of the ten countries with the largest number of Christians will be in Africa. The ASB highlights the growing impact of African leadership on the global church."With nearly every evangelical study Bible written from the viewpoint of the United States or the United Kingdom, Africans have lacked a resource that connects with their experience, hindering discipleship. Designed to grow the faith of church members in Africa and teach them to apply a biblical worldview to their culture and society, the ASB uses the New Living Translation and includes over 2,600 features such as application notes, stories and proverbs, touchpoints that link Africa and the Bible, learn notes that explain basic values and theology, and major theme articles that apply the Bible to key issues. The ASB brings unique African perspectives to the global Church and allows Christians around to the world to better understand Gods Word through African Eyes. Tyndale House Publishers will release the ASB in English in the United States in early May and a freestanding app is available April 1 in iOS and Android. French and Portuguese translations are already in development.Oasis partnered with Tyndale House Publishers and Tyndale House Foundation to create the Bible. Other participants and supporters include Wycliffe, Willow Creek and Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit, IFES (International Fellowship of Evangelical Students), Scripture Union, Center for Early African Christianity, PJA (Publications pour la Jeunesse Africane), SIM, UMI, Association of Evangelicals in Africa, and Moody Bible Institute.**Press passes for the Moody event are available. Please email for further information.**
MINISTRY OF FINANCE

(Department of Revenue)

NOTIFICATION No. 18/2017



New Delhi, the 23rd March, 2017

(Income Tax)

.Whereas, a Third Protocol amending the Agreement between the Government of the Republic of India and the Government of the Republic of Singapore for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income was signed at New Delhi on the 30th day of December, 2016 (hereinafter referred to as the Third Protocol);

And whereas, the Third Protocol entered into force on the 27th day of February, 2017, being the date of the later of the notifications of the completion of the procedures as required by the respective laws for the entry into force of the Third Protocol, in accordance with Article 6 of the Third Protocol;

Now, therefore, in exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) of section 90 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (43 of 1961), the Central Government hereby notifies that all the provisions of the Third Protocol, as annexed hereto, shall be given effect to in the Union of India.

[Notification No. 18/2017/ 500/139/2002-FTD-II]

RAJAT BANSAL, Jt. Secy.

Annexure

THIRD PROTOCOL

AMENDING THE AGREEMENT

BETWEEN

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF INDIA

AND

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE

FOR THE AVOIDANCE OF DOUBLE TAXATION

AND THE PREVENTION OF FISCAL EVASION

WITH RESPECT TO TAXES ON INCOME

The Government of the Republic of India and the Government of the Republic of Singapore,

Desiring to conclude a Third Protocol to amend the Agreement between the Government of the Republic of India and the Government of the Republic of Singapore for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with respect to Taxes on Income, signed at India on 24 January 1994, as amended by the Protocol signed at India on 29 June 2005 (hereinafter referred to as the 2005 Protocol) and by the Second Protocol signed at India on 24 June 2011 (the Agreement so amended hereinafter referred to as the Agreement),

Have agreed as follows:

Article 1

1. The existing paragraph of Article 9  Associated Enterprises of the Agreement shall be numbered as paragraph 1; and

2. After the said paragraph 1, the following paragraph shall be inserted:

2. Where a Contracting State includes in the profits of an enterprise of that State  and taxes accordingly  profits on which an enterprise of the other Contracting State has been charged to tax in that other State and the profits so included are profits which would have accrued to the enterprise of the first-mentioned State if the conditions made between the two enterprises had been those which would have been made between independent enterprises, then that other State shall make an appropriate adjustment to the amount of the tax charged therein on those profits. In determining such adjustment, due regard shall be had to the other provisions of this Agreement and the competent authorities of the Contracting States shall if necessary consult each other.

Article 2

Article 13  Capital Gains of the Agreement shall be amended, with effect from 1 April 2017:

(i) by deleting paragraph 4; and

(ii) by inserting the following paragraphs:

4A. Gains from the alienation of shares acquired before 1 April 2017 in a company which is a resident of a Contracting State shall be taxable only in the Contracting State in which the alienator is a resident.

4B. Gains from the alienation of shares acquired on or after 1 April 2017 in a company which is a resident of a Contracting State may be taxed in that State.

4C. However, the gains referred to in paragraph 4B of this Article which arise during the period beginning on 1 April 2017 and ending on 31 March 2019 may be taxed in the State of which the company whose shares are being alienated is a resident at a tax rate that shall not exceed 50% of the tax rate applicable on such gains in that State.

5. Gains from the alienation of any property other than that referred to in paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4A and 4B of this Article shall be taxable only in the Contracting State of which the alienator is a resident.

Article 3

The Agreement is amended by adding after Article 24, the following Article, with effect from 1 April 2017:

Article 24A

1. A resident of a Contracting State shall not be entitled to the benefits of paragraph 4A or paragraph 4C of Article 13 of this Agreement if its affairs were arranged with the primary purpose to take advantage of the benefits in the said paragraph 4A or paragraph 4C of Article 13 of this Agreement, as the case may be.

2. A shell or conduit company that claims it is a resident of a Contracting State shall not be entitled to the benefits of paragraph 4A or paragraph 4C of Article 13 of this Agreement. A shell or conduit company is any legal entity falling within the definition of resident with negligible or nil business operations or with no real and continuous business activities carried out in that Contracting State.

3. A resident of a Contracting State is deemed to be a shell or conduit company if its annual expenditure on operations in that Contracting State is less than S$ 200,000 in Singapore or Indian Rs. 5,000,000 in India, as the case may be:

(a) in the case of paragraph 4A of Article 13 of this Agreement, for each of the 12-month periods in the immediately preceding period of 24 months from the date on which the gains arise;

(b) in the case of paragraph 4C of Article 13 of this Agreement, for the immediately preceding period of 12 months from the date on which the gains arise.

4. A resident of a Contracting State is deemed not to be a shell or conduit company if:

(a) it is listed on a recognised stock exchange of the Contracting State; or

(b) its annual expenditure on operations in that Contracting State is equal to or more than S$ 200,000 in Singapore or Indian Rs. 5,000,000 in India, as the case may be:

(i) in the case of paragraph 4A of Article 13 of this Agreement, for each of the 12-month periods in the immediately preceding period of 24 months from the date on which the gains arise;

(ii) in the case of paragraph 4C of Article 13 of this Agreement, for the immediately preceding period of 12 months from the date on which the gains arise.

5. For the purpose of paragraph 4(a) of this Article, a recognised stock exchange means:

(a) in the case of Singapore, the securities market operated by the Singapore Exchange Limited, Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited and The Central Depository (Pte) Limited; and

(b) in the case of India, a stock exchange recognised by the Securities and Exchange Board of

Explanation: The cases of legal entities not having bona fide business activities shall be covered by paragraph 1 of this Article.

Article 4

Articles 1, 3, 5 and 6 of the 2005 Protocol shall be deleted, with effect from 1 April 2017.

Article 5

The Agreement is amended by adding after Article 28, the following Article:

Article 28A

MISCELLANEOUS

This Agreement shall not prevent a Contracting State from applying its domestic law and measures concerning the prevention of tax avoidance or tax evasion.

Article 6

Each of the Contracting States shall complete the procedures required by its law for the bringing into force of this Protocol and notify the other State about such completion of the procedures. This Protocol shall enter into force on the date of the later of these notifications. If this Protocol does not enter into force as at 31 March 2017 due to either of the aforesaid notifications remaining pending, this Protocol shall enter into force on 1 April 2017.

Article 7

This Protocol, which shall form an integral part of the Agreement, shall remain in force as long as the Agreement remains in force and shall apply as long as the Agreement itself is applicable.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the undersigned, duly authorised thereto by their respective Governments, have signed this Protocol.

DONE in duplicate at New Delhi on this 30th day of December, 2016, in the English and Hindi languages, both texts being equally authentic. In the case of divergence between the two texts, the English text shall be the operative one.

FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF INDIA

(Sushil Chandra)

Chairman, Central Board of Direct Taxes

FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE

(Lim Thuan Kuan)

High Commissioner of Singapore to India.
Northwest Innovation Works was formed just this year, but it has deep pockets and rich experience in trade across the Pacific, its officials s
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By Pavan Duggal

Indian authorities and agencies have been collecting information much before Aadhaar came into the picture. But most of the time, the information has been located in silos. For instance, the passport agency will only have your data for passport-related purposes, the local RTO will have your driving license information for their own need and so on. For the first time, we are coming across Aadhaar which is providing an interconnected ecosystem. That, from a consumer standpoint, is going to present a huge amount of data privacy issues.

Aadhaar is an executive order which only got legalised last year in the form of an Aadhaar Act. Also the Aadhaar Act does not do adequate justice to the issue of privacy. There are no distinctive provisions and safeguards that the consumer expects. It is weak when it comes to data privacy and personal privacy. Further, issues pertaining to cybersecurity have not been clearly addressed in the Aadhaar Act. So the perception that Aadhaar is safe is not completely true.

Where does the buck stop with the Aadhaar database

Take the fact that Aadhaar databases are getting increasingly compromised. You cannot bisect Aadhaar between the central registry and the ecosystem. So in a case where you ecosystem is getting compromised, you cannot say that your central registry is safe, but the issue is with the third party agencies who store Aadhaar data locally. That argument does not fly. Far more needs to be done as far as cybersecurity is concerned, than what is currently available.

Unfortunately, a lot of people are defending Aadhaar for the sake of defending it. For instance, last month UIDAI lodged complaints against Axis Bank Ltd, business correspondent Suvidhaa Inforserve and e-sign provider eMudhra, stating that they had allegedly attempted unauthorised authentication and impersonation by means of illegally storing Aadhaar biometrics. Similarly, last week there was a report which talked about how Aadhaar numbers were searchable on Google. So the Aadhaar numbers are floating in the open, which does not augur very well when it comes to increasing the confidence of the populace. If you have the Aadhaar number easily available with a Google search, the chances of potentially misusing it do exist.

The fears pertaining to misuse of Aadhaar data are real, because the concerns have not been adequately addressed. Another factor to consider is that since the Aadhaar Act was passed, there have been massive developments that have taken place in the field of cybersecurity. And we constantly need to relook at Aadhaar from the perspective of evolving the cybersecurity paradigm.

More significantly, Aadhaar constitutes a critical information infrastructure of our country. Aadhaar is linked to many services. So all it needs for criminals or non-state actors is to destabilise Aadhaar data and everything associated with it comes crumbling down.

Aadhaar is part of your life now, whether you like it or not

We have to accept the fact that Aadhaar is now a part of our life, so there is no point avoiding it. There are over 110 crore verified Aadhaar accounts. But at the same time, the information contained with Aadhaar isnt regular information, but biometric information. The other thing to take into consideration is that a lot of these third-party service providers are now retaining a lot of your personal data, biometric data on their own systems, under the garb of Aadhaar authentication. Couple of these third party service providers are exploiting some loopholes in the Aadhaar Act 2016, and storing biometric information on their private systems. Once that happens, it will be a huge blow to the credibility of Aadhaar. This will also start eroding peoples confidence.

Aadhaar Act does not touch concretely on issues pertaining to data privacy, personal privacy. Consequently India does not even have a law on privacy. Under the current circumstances, if your Aadhaar information is misused, the law is very clear - you are the person who is responsible if you dont report the issue. Now say if you are not aware that your Aadhaar data is being misused or wake up only after it is too late - according to the law, you are still liable as you have not reported the issue.

Interfacing with the IT Act

There is definite need to strengthen the Aadhar ecosystem. The concept of Aadhaar is very good, and good work is being done with benefits transfer for instance, no doubt about that. But at the same time, there is no clarity about how Aadhaar complies with the IT Act, because at the end of the day Aadhaar via the UIDAI has become an intermediary.

Everybody is harping on the central repository. But the repository is not Aadhaar, but just a core kernel of the Aadhaar ecosystem. The entire ecosystem needs to be more safe and secure and there isnt any effective protection as such. So if your Aadhaar is compromised today, you dont have effective remedies as a consumer. The offences under Aadhaar can only be registered after UIDAI reports. So people have been rendered remedy-less.

For instance, if you are one of those thousand people whose Aadhaar number is visible on Google, what option do you have? There is no effective remedy. Users want concrete effective remedies, which the Aadhaar Act does not provide.

Its time we acknowledged the shortcomings in Aadhaar and work towards creating an effective framework around Aadhaar rather than saying it is the best. We need to adopt a more proactive approach. The law never envisaged that private parties are going to create their own databases of user data, under the garb of Aadhaar verification. So there are huge problems we need to acknowledge.

We need to revisit the Aadhaar Act 2016. The interplay between the IT Act and Aadhaar Act is a huge grey area. Aadhaar Act is only a subset of the IT Act, which is the mother legislation. There are many kinds of cybercrimes that have emerged post demonetisation, that need to be taken into account in the Aadhaar Act. The linking of Aadhaar with various government schemes without having done the legal homework could land India into a huge e-governance disaster. We should work on strengthening the ecosystem.

Need to avoid a repeat of the mistakes with IT Act

The current state of affairs shows a conflict between the executive and judiciary, which could go into a confrontational approach, which should be avoided. The Supreme Court had reiterated the order that Aadhaar should not be made mandatory after the notification of the Aadhaar Act.

Making it mandatory can effectively deprive people of their fundamental rights and could ultimately be unconstitutional. When you make Aadhaar mandatory, you are making a distinction between those who have it and those who dont. This amounts to violation of rights to equality.

We should learn from the mistakes we did with the formulating and later amending the IT Act. It was first launched in 2000, and for years the government said that it was adequate. But eventually, we had to make a lot of amendments to it.

As told to Nimish Sawant

The author Pavan Duggal, Advocate, Supreme Court of India, is Asias & Indias leading expert and authority on Cyberlaw, Cyber Security Law & Mobile Law and has been acknowledged as one of the top four cyber-lawyers in the world.
tech2 News Staff

Boom has raised $33 million (roughly Rs 214 crore) in funding, bringing its total funding to $41 million (roughly Rs 266 crore). The amount is sufficient to build the first prototype of its XB-1 supersonic aircraft, which has been dubbed as the "Baby Boom."

Boom will be the first successful commercial aircraft startup in over 95 years if the venture is a success. Boom has been backed by angel investors as well as 8VC, Caffeinated Capital, Palm Drive Ventures and RRE Ventures.

Boom will be able to fly the technology demonstrator Boom XB-1 because of the funding, the first step in the ambitious plans of the company to make supersonic travel an everyday experience. The first flight program will allow the company to set a new speed record for civil aircraft, essentially making the XB-1 the fastest civilian aircraft in aviation history. The company says they are building the aircraft out of the love for engineering, what really excites them is the human benefits of supersonic travel.

Eventually, the Boom plans to build the bigger Boom Jet. The Boom Jet is a Mach 2.2 aircraft, which hurtles across the skies at 2,335 kilometres per hour, which is 2.6 times as fast as other commercial aircraft. The Concorde, a discontinued commercial supersonic aircraft flew at Mach 2.0. Travellers are expected to pay only business class fares on the aircraft, and the Boom Jet can fly from the US to the UK in three and a half hours, from the US to Japan in five and a half hours, and from the US to Australia in six hours and forty five minutes.

The experienced team has previously developed technologies used in over forty aircraft and spacecraft around the world, including vehicles for Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Nasa, SpaceX, Amazon and Gulfstream. The company hopes to make supersonic flight viable and efficient enough for routine travel. The company is using cutting edge technologies such as composite fuselages made out of carbon fibre, turbofan engines and high temperature materials systems that can withstand the stresses of supersonic flight.

The XB-1 Supersonic Demonstrator is scheduled for a test flight in 2018, and Boom hopes to carry its first commercial passengers in the early 2020s. The company is also working on the Boom Jet. There are forty five seats in each Boom Jet, with a dedicated window and direct access to the aisle. The company has confirmed that the Boom Jet will be available as a private jet with ultra VIP and business aircraft configurations.

The transition to supersonic flight will be smooth and inaudible, and the aircraft will fly at an altitude of 60,000 feet, where passengers will experience a smoother ride and a lot less turbulence as compared to conventional passenger aircraft.
tech2 News Staff

Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is completely funding a startup known as Neuralink, that hopes to connect human brains to advanced computers, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. It is unclear what kind of products the company will be developing. Musk had previously indicated on Twitter that a "Neural Lace" technology is what humans need to attain "symbiosis" with machines.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/739006012749799424

Neuralink was registered in California as a medical research company in July last year. There is no public presence of the company. Neuralink is in the process of developing a Neural Lace, a device that will allow brains to interface with machines. Tiny electrodes implanted in the brain could allow for uploading and downloading of thoughts and information to and from brains. This type of technology falls squarely in the realm of science fiction as of now. The Matrix had a neural lace of a kind, that allowed humans to plug into machines, but for the most part the machines were using the lace to keep humans in a sedated state.

Eventually the goal of the company is to boost the prowess of the human mind, by providing a seamless link to computers with artificial intelligence technologies.

However, the near time goal of Neuralink will be to make safe brain implants, and use them for treating neurological disorders. Brain surgery and implants are extremely risky operations, and are not considered unless there are absolutely no other options available. Completely backing up the contents of a human brain digitally, is one of the paths to immortality available for humans.

The outrageous technological undertakings by Elon Musk are can be explored here.

Last year, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed highly flexible and stretchable optical fibre, which is ideal for use for technologically advanced implants within the body, and can also be placed in the brain without harming the soft tissue. An Israeli company called Israel Brain Technologies have developed a brain implant that allows amputees or paralysed people to operate prosthetic limbs, and even control computers. Researchers have already warned of potential security threats of brain implants, including the possibility of "brainjacking."
IANS

Scientists at Nasa's Kennedy Space Center in Florida are developing a system that acts like a sensory skin to help astronauts to know exactly when the outside of their spacecraft has been damaged. The "Flexible Damage Detection System" technology may offer a possible solution to Nasa's problem of figuring out in real-time where a spacecraft is damaged and how seriously. "I kind of look at it like a sensory skin," said Martha Williams, the scientist leading the development team.

"It's a sensory system that tells us where we are damaged and the level of intensity," Williams said in a statement. Micrometeoroids and orbital debris pose threats to spacecraft as they move at speeds of 17,500 mph or 28,000 km per hour in low-Earth orbit, and at over 24,000 mph or 38,400 kmph on trips to the Moon and deep space. As space shuttle windows revealed, something as small as a paint chip moving at that velocity can punch through several layers of glass.

If something pierces a spacecraft's hull  or the first layer or two  there are very limited ways for astronauts aboard a spacecraft to know there might be damage. An impact that goes all the way through and causes a leak would set off alarms, but otherwise the current methods to detect damage require either a camera inspection or a spacewalking astronaut. Nor is there a precise way to pinpoint exactly in real-time where the damage occurred if not visible to the eye or camera so that astronauts can assess it.

The new invention uses a series of several technologies to create circuits printed on thin layers and that can be embedded in a spacecraft's structure, scientists behind the invention said. The researchers believe that if successfully incorporated, the innovation could also be applied to a host of satellites and aircraft.
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Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer Quanta Computer Inc has acknowledged that its name was used as part of an email fraud scheme that bilked two U.S.-based internet companies out of more than $100 million. U.S. prosecutors last week indicted a Lithuanian man, Evaldas Rimasauskas, for the fraud.

He was arrested this month in Lithuania at the request of U.S. authorities and is currently in jail there. Rimasauskas' alleged scheme involved sending emails to employees of the two unnamed companies asking them to wire money that they actually owed to the Asian hardware vendor to the accounts of companies in Latvia and Cyprus that carried the name Quanta.

In order to conceal his fraud from banks that handled the transfers, Rimasaukas forged invoices, contracts and letters purportedly signed by executives of the two victim companies, according to prosecutors. In a statement on Monday to Reuters, Quanta spokeswoman Carol Hu said the company had been "impersonated" as part of the fraud.

"Quanta did not suffer from any financial harm from this incident," she added, calling the matter "unfortunate." Quanta, with a market capitalization of $8.4 billion, is a supplier of servers and other hardware to major technology companies. It is part of the Open Compute Project, an initiative launched by Facebook Inc to share server design technology. In 2011 Amazon.com Inc outsourced the assembly of its Kindle Fire tablet to Quanta.

It is not known who the two victims of the alleged $100 million fraud were. U.S. prosecutors referred to them in a statement as a "multinational technology company" and a "multinational online social media company." Representatives of Amazon and Facebook have had no comment on whether they were possible victims of the scheme.

Rimasauskas, through his lawyer, confirmed he was the owner of a Latvian company with the same name as Quanta from 2013 to 2016, the time frame in which the fraud occurred, according to the indictment. "Rimasauskas did buy the Latvian company, because he was going to develop a business," the lawyer, Linas Kuprusevicius, told Reuters in an email.

Rimasauskas strongly contests the charges presented by U.S. authorities, the lawyer said. He has a construction engineering degree and was working at a construction business in Lithuania prior to his arrest, he said. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation said last year that U.S. and foreign victims had made 22,143 complaints since October 2013 about so-called business email compromise scams involving requests for more than $3 billion in transfers.

A U.S. extradition request for Rimasauskas is expected by late May, Lithuanian prosecutors told Reuters. He is charged with wire fraud and money laundering, which each carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, and identity theft, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of two years.
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Chinese technology company Xiaomi's founder and CEO Lei Jun met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday and said the company was committed to creating more jobs in India.

The chairman of the Chinese tech giant told Modi how smartphones are changing the lives of Indian consumers, said a statement from Xiaomi.

They discussed Xiaomi India's manufacturing and growth plans, and Lei reaffirmed his commitment to create more jobs in India.

Lei presented Modi a Made-In-India Redmi 4A smartphone with all its components displayed in a glass box.

He also met Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

On Monday, Lei said India was one of the important markets for the company and it aims to create 20,000 jobs in the next three years.

As a part of his visit, which started on Sunday, Lei spoke at the Economic Times Global Business Summit 2017, and said the company has made major strides in a very short time.

Lei also spoke about China's "Internet Plus" policy which Chinese Premier Li Keqiang started in 2015.

"Internet Plus action plan is a new form of economic plan where internet is integrated with traditional industries encouraging to the spirit of excellence in these industries and drive economic growth," he said.

Xiaomi entered India in July 2014. Last year, the company logged $1 billion in revenue in the country.

After entering India, the company opened its first plant in August 2015 and by March 2016, over 75 per cent of its phones were being manufactured in India.

Riding on its success, last week Xiaomi announced its second manufacturing unit in partnership with Taiwanese electronics major Foxconn in Andhra Pradesh.

The plant has also helped create employment for more than 5,000 people from over 100 surrounding villages. More than 90 per cent of the workforce employed are women.

IANS
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BD-India deal likely for essentials supply ahead of Ramzan

Kamruzzaman Bablu :

Bangladesh will sign a deal with India to get supplies of essential commodities especially during Ramadan when the demand suddenly surges.

The government has also planned to extend and expand border haats along the Bangladesh-India borders.

The Ministry of Commerce has prepared two memorandums of understanding on the matters to be signed during the upcoming visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to India, said officials.

Trading Corporation of Bangladesh and State Trading Corporation of India will sign the two MoUs - one on getting supplies of essential commodities during sudden crisis and another on extension of border haats.

The ministry officials said amendments will be made to the existing Bangladesh-India border haat policy.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will be visiting India for four days from April 7.

According to the extended border haat policy, duration of border haats is three years, which is now being planned to increase to five years.

The number of sellers will also be increased to 50 from 25 now, the areas of border haat will be 5-km radius and the limit of sale will be raised to $200 from $100 now.

Officials, quoting Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed, said due to shortage of areas and religious sentiment, the idea of introducing cow trading in the border haats has been dropped.

Bangladesh and India signed a MoU on October 23, 2010 for setting up border haats for the benefits of people living in the border areas of both neighbouring countries.

A total of four border haats are now operating along the Bangladesh-India borders. There will be four more border haats at Megalaya of Bangladesh -India frontier in near future, according to the government plan.

Commerce minister Tofail Ahmed said: "Border haats are popular among both Bangladeshis and Indians living near borders. We will seek to discuss the matter further to extend the operation of the border haats during the prime minister's visit."

Subhashree Basu, Secretary In-Charge of Commerce Ministry, believes that the MoUs will "definitely benefit peoples of both nations."
WELLINGTON  To many in New Zealand, the Oceanian state looks like an isolated outpost with economic powerhouses far, far away in another hemisphere.

It's at the end of a trail that snakes through Southeast Asia before a three-hour flight from Australia lands you in one of its handful of international airports.

Small wonder that the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, a massive economic and trade project for common development and prosperity in countries along its routes in Europe, Africa and Asia, is little talked about here.

However, New Zealanders are now starting to realize that while their country might be a terminal on the Initiative's 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, it won't be left out, surely after signing on Tuesday an agreement on the initiative with China.

Clear opportunity

The initiation of a business network by important figures including president of the ruling National Party Peter Goodfellow and National legislator, China-born scholar turned politician Yang Jian, coincided with an official visit here by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang starting Sunday.

The Oceania Silk Road Network (OSRN) is being forged by New Zealand business interests, headed by William Zhao, director and CEO of the China-owned Yashili New Zealand Dairy Company.

"There's a group of us exploring setting up this mechanism and it's in an environment where there's a growing interest among organizations focused on China to explore ways that New Zealand can engage more in China's very important initiative," said Martin Thomson, head of New Zealand-China Trade Association and one of the four OSRN initiators.

The OSRN will be in link with China's think tanks and industrial alliances to seek opportunities for Belt and Road Initiative projects.

"It's a recognition among those interested in China that collectively we need to learn a bit more about how we can engage in relation to it," Thomson told Xinhua by phone.

"There's clearly opportunity for us to do that and the starting point is for people to engage and start thinking about how" he said.

Thomson also sees the initiative as facilitating infrastructure development in New Zealand, while serving markets in the region.

"New Zealand's a trading country. We sell a lot of products offshore and the opportunity to open up markets with greater infrastructure in regions that we don't currently sell a lot to is a great opportunity," he said.

Others are keen to interpret signals Li gave in regard to New Zealand's inclusion in the Belt and Road Initiative during his visit this week.

"There's a range of ways in which New Zealand companies could participate," said Stephen Jacobi, acting executive director of New Zealand-China Council.

"For example, we could supply goods or services into construction projects into Eurasia, the countries around China that they're targeting for infrastructure development," Jacobi told Xinhua by phone.

Another sector to tap potential would be how goods and services move along the initiative's routes.

"This is an area where New Zealand has an expertise around trade facilitation, around supply chain integrity and optimization," he said.

Brainstorming needed

Meanwhile, China-born legislator Raymond Huo believed the Belt and Road Initiative can help solve the problem of infrastructure development facing many developed nations.

"There is a dilemma. New Zealand, Australia and other developed countries including the US and Canada are all facing the same problem," Huo told Xinhua.

"We haven't done much upgrading, so we need money, we need capital, and we need the construction capacity. China has both," he said.

Huo said he first realized the potential of Belt and Road Initiative when he attended two high-level conferences in China, and he believed New Zealand should seize the opportunities it offers.

Along with other experts on China and leading business people, he has established a think tank and foundation on the Initiative.

The think tank aims to tackle issues including a possibly prevailing protectionist trend around the world, and public perceptions of and attitudes towards global trade, among others.

The foundation is expected to focus on financing, joining in efforts by such institutions as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and Silk Road Fund to work for infrastructure projects.

"We need a think tank to get involved in brainstorming to find a way to benefit the New Zealand economy," including an infrastructure upgrade, Huo, the think tank's co-chair, said in a telephone interview.

Huo believed the think tank will also help New Zealanders to better understand the Belt and Road Initiative as well as the Chinese people and culture.

It has already established links with China's National Development and Reform Commission, construction companies and private equity firms to seek opportunities.

In addition, it plans to convene a high-level conference on New Zealand-based Initiative projects after the New Zealand general elections to be held in September.

"We will bring together and coordinate a network of business leaders and organizations across the board to develop effective, efficient and environmentally sustainable economy while maintaining peace and harmony in our region," said Huo.

Simon Draper, executive director of Asia-New Zealand Foundation, described the Belt and Road Initiative as "organic".

"It's going to develop over time," he said. "It seems to me that it's potentially a train coming down the track and we have to understand it better."

Trade Minister Todd McClay said the initiative itself is to endure the test of time while stressing that New Zealand saw itself as a partner of China in its implementation.

"You could almost suggest that the road starts in New Zealand, but we'll be looking for ways to enhance our relationship through this substantial and worthwhile initiative," McClay said.

"It's an ongoing conversation we're having and I don't think it's about just what we might think today. The initiative itself is to endure the test of time and it's about enhancing opportunities for citizens of those countries through growth and a stronger economy," he said.
Putin, Rouhani meet to discuss ways to end Syrian conflict

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani\'s first official visit to Russia comes as the two Syrian regime supporters push for ways to end the six-year conflict.

AFP, Moscow :

Russian President Vladimir Putin was Tuesday to host Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani for talks that will be closely watched for signs of their next moves in Syria.

Rouhani's first official visit to Russia comes as the two Syrian regime supporters push for ways to end the six-year conflict, having done much to marginalise US influence in peace talks.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said ahead of the trip that the leaders would discuss "regional issues especially the Syrian crisis, solutions to end it quickly," as well as ways to counter "terrorism and extremism."

Rouhani-accompanied by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh and other high-ranking officials-is expected to sign a slew of economic cooperation agreements with Russia, according to Iranian state media.

The Kremlin said in a statement this month that Rouhani's trip would focus in part on "the prospects of expanding trade, economic and investment ties."

It said that a "variety of bilateral documents" will be signed at the end of the meeting but did not specify in which fields.

After arriving on Monday Rouhani met Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, with the Iranian president saying he hoped his visit would mark a "new turning point" in relations, Russian state media reported.

In addition to cooperation on Syria, energy and defence ties between Iran and Russia have grown despite meagre trade relations.

Russia is to build nine of Iran's 20 proposed nuclear reactors and has emerged as a long-term arms partner, supplying Tehran with the S-300 air defence system.

The relationship has blossomed under Rouhani despite the countries having a complicated history over territory, oil, and communism.

Rouhani is looking to boost Iran's economy ahead of elections in May in which he is expected to stand for a second term.

Iran and Russia have become increasingly allied in Syria, providing support that has propped up President Bashar al-Assad.

They helped Assad's forces gain ground in recent months, including in the Syrian army's major offensive last year to retake rebel-held eastern Aleppo.
US-led coalition not protecting Mosul civilians: Amnesty

AP, Baghdad :

A recent spike in civilian casualties in Mosul suggests the U.S.-led coalition is not taking adequate precautions to prevent civilian deaths as it battles the Islamic State militants alongside Iraqi ground forces, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

The human rights group's report follows acknowledgement from the coalition that the U.S. military was behind a March 17 strike in a western Mosul neighborhood that residents have said killed more than a hundred civilians.

U.S. officials did not confirm there were civilian casualties but opened an investigation.

Amnesty's report also cites a second strike on Saturday that it said killed "up to 150 people." The U.S.-led coalition said in a statement that it was investigating multiple strikes in western Mosul that allegedly resulted in civilian deaths.

Evidence gathered on the ground in Mosul "points to an alarming pattern of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes which have destroyed whole houses with entire families inside," the report stated.

It said any failure to take precautions to prevent civilian casualties would be "in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law."

In Baghdad, visiting U.S. army chief of staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, said on Monday that what caused the explosion was still unkown and added that "some degree of certainty will be known in the coming days following the investigation."

"It is very possible that Daesh blew up that building to blame it on the collation in order to cause a delay in the offensive into Mosul and cause a delay in the use of collation airstrikes, that is very possible," Milley told reporters after meetings at the Iraqi Defense Ministry.

Daesh is an Arabic language acronym for the Islamic State group.

"And it is possible the collation airstrike did it," he added.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, the spokesman of the U.N. human rights office called on the international coalition fighting in Iraq to work to "minimize the impact" on civilians. Rupert Colville said IS militants are brazenly employing human shields, urging the coalition forces to "avoid this trap."

Colville added that the rights office has tallied the deaths of at least 307 people between Feb. 17 and March 22, including 140 from a single March 17 airstrike incident on a house in al-Jadida neighborhood on March 17.

Iraqi forces began the assault on IS-held Mosul in October, after months of preparation and buildup. In January, Iraq declared the eastern half of Mosul - the Tigris River divides the city into an eastern and western sector - "fully liberated." Iraqi government forces are now battling to retake the city's western half.
Journalist assaulted by criminals

Jamalpur Correspondent :



A local journalist of a national daily was assaulted allegedly by a gang of hired criminals in front of Jamalpur Rab Camp at Beltia area in the town on Friday night.

The victim is identified as Anwarul Islam Milon of old Bus Stand area of the town. He is a Jamalpur Correspondent of the daily News Today.

Milon gave Tk. 11 lakh to a local Bharosa Brick Kiln owner Mohammad Ali,40, of the town's Chhantia area for purchasing bricks in March, 2016.

But the owner neither gave him the bricks nor returned the money in due time, said police quoting the victim.

As Milon put pressure on him to return the money, he returned Tk. five lakh to him (Milon) in installments.

Later Mohammad Ali gave a cheque of Tk.3 lakh which was dishonoured by the Dutch Bangla Bank, Jamalpur branch on February 27, 2017.

As Milon got a legal notice served to the cheque defaulter, he became hostile to Milon and hired a gang of criminals to hit him so that he (Milon) could not take any legal steps against the ill practice. said officer-in-charge of sadar police station Nasimul Islam.

Subsequently, the hired gang of 10/12 led by Monuarul Islam Cornel,44, and Monu Miah,43 of old bus stand area swooped on Milon and assaulted him at Beltia area around 10.00pm, said the OC.

The victim lodged a general diary (GD) accusing four including Cornel and Monu with the police station .




Cottage industries involving rural women entrepreneurs stressed





Engagement of rural women entrepreneurs in the growing handloom and cottage industry has been enhancing rural economy by cutting poverty through increasing production of quality products. The opinion came at the inaugural ceremony of a three-day 'Textile and Cottage Industries Fair-2017' held on the 'Unmukto Mancha' premises in Nilphamari district town on Monday afternoon.

Bangladesh Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BWCCI) has been organized the fair under the Rural Women Entrepreneurs Skill Development Training Programme with assistance of the Department of Women Affairs under the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs.

Rural women entrepreneurs have set up 20 stalls displaying handicraft and handloom garment products produced in their cottage industries, handloom garment factories and small-scale enterprises at the fair. The main objective of arranging the fair is to exhibit and create opportunity for selling of the products being produced by the rural women entrepreneurs and creating their linkage with traders and market operators.

Additional Deputy Commissioner (General) of Nilphamari AJM Ershad Ahsan Habib inaugurated the fair at a colourful ceremony as the chief guest with Nilphamari Pourasabha Mayor Dewan Kamal Ahmed in the chair.

Programme officer of BWCCI Sumanta Kumar Mohanato, District Women Affairs Officer Nurun Nahar Shahajadi, representative of Nilphamari Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry Ummey Kulsum Munni and women entrepreneur Shakila Akhter, addressed.

The speakers said the rural women entrepreneurs have been playing a vital role in creating job opportunities for the local unemployed female workforce to improve livelihoods and accelerate national development.

The chief guest said the fair would help exploring the brighter prospect of rural women entrepreneurship and called upon the rural female entrepreneurs for availing assistance being provided by the government departments, banks and other financial institutions.

Dewan Kamal Ahmed highly appreciated BWCCI for arranging the fair to introduce the locally produced handloom garments, handcrafts and other products for expanding trade, business and commerce to flourishentrepreneurship of rural women.

Proper coordination for building middle income nation stressed: Proper coordination among the local government, government and non-governmental organisations is crucial for building a middle income nation by 2021 through successful implementation of development activities. The opinion came at a views-sharing meeting organised by Rangpur City Corporation (RpCC) on Monday at its conference room.

The meeting focused on properly coordinating development activities being conducted by different NGOs for backward communities in the city.

City Councilors and officials of different NGOs working in the city took part in the event to assess the NGO activities for further strengthening those to attain the sustainable development goals.

Mayor of Rangpur Sarfuddin Ahmed Jhantu attended the meeting as the chief guest, with Chief Executive Officer of RpCC Akhter Hossain Azad in the chair, District representative of BRAC Abu Sayeed, AKM Feroz Alam of Deep Eye Care Foundation, Coordinator of the CLEAR Project of ESDO Mahbubul Haque, Manager of Merry Stopes Jahangir Alam, Zonal Manager of TMSS Sanaul Haque addressed it.

City Councilors Jahurul Haque Azabbar, Mahbubar Rahman Manju, Jahangir Alam Tota, Hasna Banu and Jafrin Islam Ripa and Superintending Engineer of RpCC Emdad Hossain also spoke.

The speakers laid importance on ensuring transparency and accountability in NGO activities and selecting particular working area by each of those to avoid overlapping problem and ensure real development of the backward people.

The chief guest stressed on expanding RpCC-NGO collaboration to ensure services to the backward people, enhancing women participation in decision making by creating income generation scopes for empowering them to build a middle income nation.

"The NGOs should come forward to work with local government institutions and law enforcement agencies to root out militancy for smooth development of socially backward and slum dwellers in the city," he said.

City Councilor Jahurul Haque Azabbar stressed on ensuring proper

coordination of the NGOs with RpCC and following the rules and regulations in conducting activities by the NGOs to further speed up development process in

the city.

Akhter Hossain Azad called upon the NGO authorities for innovation of effective planning and methods to ensure quality service deliveries to the socially backward people for attaining their sustainable development.




National Day reception held at BD's New Delhi mission



The Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi wrapped the Independence and National Day celebrations with a huge reception held on Monday evening.

Indian State Minister for External Affairs Gen (retd) VK Singh attended the reception as the guest of honour.

High Commissioner Syed Muazzem Ali received Gen Singh at the reception held at Bangladesh House, said a press release on Tuesday.

A smart military band from Dhaka played the national anthems of Bangladesh and India as the two stood at a tastefully decorated podium. Gen Singh also joined the High Commissioner and his wife Tuhfa Zaman Ali in cutting a cake celebrating Bangladesh's 47th Independence Day.

Among the guests were members of parliament, politicians, diplomats, war veterans, including those who took part in Bangladesh's 1971 liberation war, high civil and military officials, journalists, business people and city elite.


NGO Tahzingdong wins Energy Globe Award

Bandarban Correspondent :



Tahzingdong, a non-governmental voluntary organisation working on issues of the environment and socio-economic development in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), has won the Energy Globe Award in Earth category at the COP22.

Tahzingdong has won the award for its project on the restoration and conservation of community-managed forest resources in the Bandarban hill district. The award was declared on November 10, 2016 in Marrakech, Morocco, at COP22-the 22nd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Founder of Energy Globe Foundation Wolfgang Neumann handed over the award to the Tahzingdong authority at a programme on March 17 this year.

To inform people about winning of the award and the project, the organisation held a press conference at a local hotel on Sunday with CHT Affairs Secretary Nabo Bikram Kishor Tripura as chief guest. Vice-Chairman of CHT Development Board Tarun Kumar Ghosh, Executive Director of Aranyak Foundation of Bangladesh Farid Uddin Ahmed, Executive Director of Tahzingdong Ching Shing Pru and journalists of electronic and print media were present there.

Sources said that Tahzingdong supported by Aranyak Foundation of Bangladesh, has been implementing this project since 2009. The project covers 12,919.64 hectares of nine community-conserved areas, which are commonly called 'village common forests', and includes more than 1,000 indigenous forest-dependent families. Tahzingdong has built two community houses as part of institutional capacity building, and installed two water supply technologies that capture more than 387,000 litres of clean water in a month from the forests using a gravitational flow system. This system has reduced water scarcity within the community and 70 per cent of waterborne diseases.

Moreover, the organisation has planted 28,545 seedlings in the community-managed forests, including bamboo, cane, and endangered species, sources also said.

Many fruit seedlings have been planted in homesteads to increase forest and biodiversity conservation, as well as to prevent soil erosion of the water bodies. Three hundred sets of improved cooking stoves and 20 sets of solar panels have been provided to help maintain a clean and green environment. Fifty per cent of household-based biomass and the resulting carbon dioxide emissions have gone down in the villages and improved women's health condition. Alternative livelihood-generating support initiatives have been started, which have increased the income of vulnerable communities.

It is mentionable that the Energy Globe Award was founded in 1999 by the Austrian energy pioneer Wolfgang Neumann and is one of the most prestigious environmental awards today. The two other finalists for the award this year were the Inga Foundation of Honduras and AMSED of Morocco.




USTC students block Jakir Hossain Road



The students of University of Science and Technology, Chittagong (USTC) blocked the Jakir Hossain road on Monday demanding registration of BMDC for the students.

As a result, the movement of vehicles on Jakir Hossain road remained suspended and traffic congestion made the life of the city dwellers miserable in the port city.

The agitated students of USTC were demanding for BMDC registration since last several months. They brought out processions, held rallies and other programs against USTC authority and demanded registration of BMDC for the students. But, the USTC authority is yet to pay Tk 10 crore including previous dues for BMDC registration to the government. So, the students of MBBS are passing their days with high tension as they are yet to get the registration after appearing the examination of MBBS.

Earlier, the agitated students compelled the patients of the Bangabandhu Memorial Hospital to make the hospital vacant on March 23. The agitated students said they would continue the movement until realization of their demand.




13 pirates arrested, 7 crew rescued



Bangladesh Coast Guard (BCG) has arrested 13 pirates and claimed seizing huge lethal weapons from the possession of pirates in a raid conducted in the deep sea area of Bay of Bengal on Sunday night. BCG has intensified raids against pirates on the waterways in the country and Bay of Bengal.

The BCG team also rescued seven abducted crews of fishing trawlers, recovered the looted two fishing trawlers from Kutubdia -Matarbari Channel of the, according to sources. Sources said, incidents of piracy and attacking on seamen in the cargo and fishing trawlers and engine boats on the sea route are increasing day by day.

Earlier, on November 11 last, the gang of armed pirates looted eight fishing trawlers on the Bay of Bengal at Cox's Bazar. They looted the goods worth around Tk one crore from the trawlers and attacked the fishermen causing injuries to 11 fishermen at that time.

Sources said, crews, boatmen, fishermen and owners of cargo trawlers and engine boats are not safe in the water territory of Bangladesh as the pirates are attacking on them at the offshore areas on the sea. Particularly, the fishermen cannot go to the sea due to rampant incidents of attack of pirates on the fishermen. So, fishermen of Chittagong, Cox's Bazar are suffering a lot.

Sources said, the crews, boatmen and owners of cargo trawlers and engine boats are suffering due to looting goods and torturing of armed pirates. Meanwhile, BCG, BN and Water Transport Monitoring Cell (WTMC) have taken special measures to control the piracy on the river-way recently.

After rampant incidents of piracy, BCG intensified the raids on the waterway as well as the coastal areas. Officials of BCG said, "The authority intensified the patrolling on the sea and river way. One ship and two speed boats are continuing patrolling on the outer anchorage of Bay of Bengal 24 hours. Besides, several ships and speed boats were deployed at the river-way to nab the pirates."

BCG sources said, as per directive of the higher authority, the BCG intensified the patrolling and has taken several measures to curb the piracy on sea and rivers. Besides, the BN has also intensified the patrolling in the same regard now.

Meanwhile, the government is going to strength vigilance on its water territory especially on the coastal areas and outer anchorage of Chittagong port with a view to check all shorts of piracy. The authorities including BN, BCG and WTMC and Bangladesh Cargo Trawlers Owners Association are taking special security measure to resist the piracy on the Bay of Bengal.

The government has allowed the ocean going ships to take protection from the members of BCG if they feel necessary while leaving the water territory of Bangladesh. Meanwhile, Chittagong port, the prime sea port of the country is excluded the list of high risky port in the world for piracy as the authorities made the port and outer anchorage free from piracy recently.

Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) declared in the yearly report of 2012 that the Chittagong the authority successfully reduced the piracy at Chittagong sea port in 2012. Following the report, nternational Maritime Berau (IMB) declared the Chittagong sea port safe for ships.

Sources said, BCG has started special operation to nab the pirates from the rive-way of Bangladesh recently. Following the operations rescued four fishermen from the pirates den after one hour long gun fight from Chaprakhali in Bagerhat on July 12. The rescued fishermen are identified as Babul Hossain (20), Md Jakir Khan (27), Md Shah Alam (35) and MD Jafar Meah (42).
BD link with trilateral highway may remain a dream

Myanmar has role to play: Delhi may propose connectivity from Sylhet, Belonia and Thegamukh thru' NE India

Badrul Ahsan :

The country's long waited intent to be connected with South-East Asia initially by road and then railway in the long run may remain as dream due to the strained bilateral relations with Myanmar over prolonged Rohingya crisis, officials said.

The government with a view to boosting export of local goods has long been trying for its connection with the South-East Asia through highway by signing a multilateral agreement with India-Myanmar-Thailand,

but the cool relation with the next door neighbour Myanmar becomes the main hindrance to the issue.

"Although the matter is likely to be discussed with the Indian Premier during the Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to India in the second week of April, we are in doubt about the progress of the matter because of Rohingya crisis," a high official of Foreign Ministry told The New Nation preferring anonymity.

'We do not see any quick solution to the Rohingya crisis. So regional connectivity issue might be delayed," the senior official said.

Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque said that seeking India's help for Bangladesh's inclusion in trilateral highway connectivity would be a major focus' of the discussion during Prime Minister's visit to India.

"At a meeting with Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Dhaka on February 22, we have expressed our intent to be a part of the India-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral highway for connection with the rest of Southeast Asia. They have assured us their utmost support to the issue," he added.

Meanwhile, another high official of Foreign Ministry preferring not to be named said, Indian officials are trying to convince BD's officials of the road and the railway ministries in Dhaka that Bangladesh might be connected with South-East Asia from Sylhet, Belonia in Feni and Thegamukh in Rangamati (in Bangladesh) through north-east Indian states as an alternative to the trilateral highway connection.

Indian railway will soon conduct a survey to obtain basic details to lay a new railway connection from Belonia in Tripura to Chittagong Sea Port, Indian Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain said in Agartala on March 24.

The UNESCAP has been working on a plan for setting road and rail connections among countries in different regions and continents.

The acting head of the south and south-west Asia Office of UNESCAP, Matthew Hammill, said in New Delhi on March 24 that the organisation was working on the identification of a rail corridor which would link south and South-West Asia with Central Asia and Europe. 'This includes a proposal for seamless rail connectivity' by extending the Istanbul-Tehran-Islamabad container train to Delhi-Kolkata-Dhaka routes, he said.

This corridor could further extend to Yangon in Myanmar, he added. However, apart from Rohingya crisis, Bangladesh has no major dispute with neighbouring Myanmar as the two countries peacefully settled the land and maritime borders.

Out of 92,000 minority Muslims fled indiscriminate killing, rape, arson and violence by Myanmar security forces in Rakhine State, at least 69,000 entered Bangladesh since military crackdown that began on October 9, 2016, and living in makeshift shelters in Cox's Bazar, according to the UN.

About 33,000 registered refugees of Myanmar and about three lakh undocumented Myanmar nationals have leading living shoddy life in camp houses, in registered camps, in Cox's Bazar for years.


MP Salim Osman to face trial

bdnews24.com :

Narayanganj MP Salim Osman will be sued in court after a judicial inquiry found his involvement in the public humiliation of a school teacher. A Dhaka court has already initiated the process to lodge a case

on the issue after a Narayanganj court forwarded the police complaint (general diary) and other legal documents following a High Court order.

Chief Judicial Magistrate Jesmin Ara Begum has already ordered the Narayanganj police chief to submit the details of MP Salim and one Apu Pradhan by Wednesday. The court issued the order on Mar 19, but it was not reported in the media. After getting the details, Magistrate Jesmin Ara Begum will take cognizance of the case and nominate a plaintiff. Lawyer Aminul Gani Tito, an expert in criminal procedure, told bdnews24.com that according to the regulations, a staffer of the concerned High Court bench or a court police's officer will be the plaintiff. Public Prosecutor Anwarul Kabir Babul said, "The court is authorised to nominate anyone related to matter as its representative, which means the plaintiff in such cases."

A 2016 video showing a May 13 incident of local high school Principal Shyamal Kanti Bhakta being assaulted and publicly humiliated by MP Salim Osman sparked intense outrage across the country.

A complaint was filed at the Narayanganj Port Police Station, but police said that an investigation had found 'no incidence of wrongdoing' and claimed the story was fake. But the High Court, saying police had failed to identify the main suspects, ordered a judicial inquiry on the matter on Jan 19 of this year. The report was delivered on Jan 19 and, on Jan 22, the High Court ordered the case to be transferred to a Dhaka court.

The general diary and other case documents were then provided to the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Jesmin Ara Begum on February 28.


Tight security at HSIA ahead of IPU assembly

UNB, Dhaka :

Security at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport has been tightened ahead of the 136th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), which will formally begin here on April 2.

As part of the tight security measures, the entry of visitors to the arrivals and departure concourse halls of the airport has been

banned. From Tuesday, no one was being allowed inside the concourse halls where a person could usually enter buying tickets. Earlier on March 17, security in and around at the airport intensified soon after a youth blew himself up at a forces barrack of Rab at Ashkona near the airport.

Security was further beefed up when another youth was killed in an explosion near the Airport police outpost at Airport road, some 150 yards off the Rab forces barrack, on March 24.

Contacted, pubic relations officer of Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh (CAAB) AKM Rezaul Karim told UNB that no one was being allowed inside the concourse halls of the airport from yesterday even with tickets to avoid any unpleasant incident ahead of the IPU assembly which will end on April 5.

The CAAB authorities in a meeting decided to restrict the entry of visitors with tickets until April 10, he said.

Commanding Officer (CO) of Airport Armed Police (AAP) Rashidul Islam told UNB that people, who are coming to airport to see off their near and dear ones, were being barred from entering the airport at check-post set up at the entrance at Airport Road. Only a companion is being allowed with a female or elderly passenger up to the departure gate, he said, adding that vigilance in and around the airport was also increased.

At least 650 parliamentarians, including 53 Parliament Speakers, from 132 countries are expected to attend the 136th IPU Assembly. The 136th IPU Assembly will host the 25th Session of the Forum of Women Parliamentarians (#womenMPs). Over 207 women MPs are due to attend the Dhaka meeting, which among other things, will focus on ending the gender gap in access to financial services.
Atia Mahal now under police control

Top militant Musa among 4 killed

Staff Reporter :

The Army has declared the conclusion of the 'Operation Twilight' at the militant hideout Atia Mahal at Shibbari of Sylhet city and the police raid will continue till the further announcement on behalf of the law enforcers.

The charge of the five-storied building was handed over to the police on Tuesday evening after five days of cordoned off the militant den by law enforcers.

Brigadier General Fakhrul Ahsan, spokesperson and director of the Intelligence unit of Bangladesh Army, told reporters in a press conference at Jalalabad Army Cantonment at 7:30pm yesterday.

The Army Commando Personnel conducted raid at the den and identified the explosive materials which were spearing at different floors of the building since Tuesday, the Army spokesman said.

Fakhrul said, "We concluded the operation as the Criminal Investigation Department's Crime Scene Unit took crime scene and sample from the den."

The Army has also started to withdraw arms and other equipments from the spot - Atia Mahal, he said.

The army-led operation, 'Operation Twilight', began 0on Saturday morning, although police launched the raid on the militant den early Friday, according to him.

The army, leading an ongoing anti-militant raid in Sylhet, used an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) made by Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) students to locate explosives, he added.

It was being used to take pictures of the

interior of the green-colored Atia Mahal where militants had planted improvised explosive devices, report our local correspondent quoting a source with direct knowledge of the matter.

The army is analysing the pictures to identify and locate the explosives devices on the stairwell, entrance and floors.

Earlier, the army had said the presence of huge amount of IEDs in the house was prolonging their operation.

Meanwhile, Sylhet Metropolitan Police (SMP) Additional Commissioner SM Rokonddin said that police took the charge of Atia Mahal around 5:30pm of Tuesday.

The bomb disposal experts visited the building and its adjacent area while the another team of law enforcing agencies collected crime scene, the police official said.

He said that they heard seven to eight sounds of explosion from the militants' hideout since yesterday afternoon.

The law enforcers also issued restriction for people around three squire kilometers area considering the security measurements and it will be continued till further declaration, the Additional Commissioner said.

It is to be noted that, two of the militants rented the house introducing themselves as Morjina and Kawser. Morjina also submitted a copy of his national ID card. However, police are now verifying their identities.

The Counterterrorism unit of police on Tuesday said that one of the four militants killed in the army operation in Sylhet is believed to be Maynul Islam Musa, a key leader of the militant outfit "Neo-JMB". He is trying to reorganise the outfit and is carrying out targeted attacks.

Police claimed that they identified Musa with the picture he showed while renting out the house.

On Monday evening, the Army said commandoes recovered two of the four bodies of suspected militants found inside Atia Mahal.

Musa has become a key leader of "Neo-JMB" following the killing of its top leaders, including Tamim, Major (retd) Jahid and Tanvir Kaderi, in separate operations in Dhaka and Narayanganj, CTTC unit chief Monirul Islam, said on January 7, 2017.

Basudev Banik, Deputy Commissioner (south) of SMP, acknowledged the blasts and said Bangladesh Army commandos were inside disposing bombs and recovering bodies.

However, the law enforcers raid at the den was not declared to an end in the five day on Tuesday, the DC said.

Some residents of Pathanpara, an area just 250 yards away from the operation site Atia Mahal, have begun returning to their homes feeling secured and safe, he said.

The raid will remain effective there until the raid ends completely, said Jedan Al-Musa, additional deputy commissioner (media) of Sylhet Metropolitan Police.

The unidentified bodies-one of a woman and another of a man-were taken inside the morgueon Tuesday evening, Officer-in-Charge of Sylhet Kotwali Police Station.

A medical board led by Dr Shamsul Alam was conducting postmortems on the bodies of the militants, aged between 25 and 33.

During the autopsies, DNA samples will be collected for different chemical tests, OC Sohel said adding that the bodies will be kept at the hospital morgue until those are identified.

A family from Bandarban is en route to Sylhet to trace whether their "missing daughter" is the dead female militant who was killed in "Operation Twilight" at Atia Mahal.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, second left, visits the U.N.-run Zaatari camp for Syrian refugees, in northern Jordan on Tuesday.
Russian interference in US polls may be 'an act of war': Cheney

Raw Story :

Former Vice President Dick Cheney described Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election as "an act of war." Cheney gave a speech Monday at Economic Times' Global Business Summit, where he discussed "the rising number of threats" facing the world, reported Business Insider.

The former vice president said some of those threats - and Russian President Vladimir Putin - threatened "globalization movements."

"Not long ago, Gorbachev was in power and the Soviets went out of business  but the situation has changed dramatically under Putin," he said. "I think he has designs on the Baltics  We know he wanted Crimea - he took it." Cheney said Putin had interfered with the U.S. election as part of his worldwide destabilization efforts.

"There's no question that there was a very serious effort made by Mr. Putin and his government, his organization, to interfere in major ways with our basic fundamental democratic processes," Cheney said. "In some quarters, that could be considered an act of war."

Cheney took what appeared to be a shot at President Donald Trump and his Republican congressional allies, who have disputed the intelligence showing Russian efforts to influence the election.

"I would not underestimate the weight that we as Americans assign to Russian attempts to interfere with our process," Cheney said.
How transparency can lead to peace

Maria Paula Correa :

In many ways, Colombia is a modern success story in the implementation of democracy. The nation is a strong emerging market and a beacon of light in Latin America, a region currently gripped by political instability. For decades, the Colombian political establishment has proven quite resilient, and the nation stands as a model for neighboring countries seeking to follow its lead. However, in negotiations over the peace deal recently approved by the Colombian Congress, the country has been forced to confront its divisive, often violent history, and is on the verge of a pivotal moment as it seeks to implement the deal's terms.

The nature of the deal and its approval process has raised many concerns that certainly have merit. These reservations were the reason the deal was rejected in Colombia's popular vote. However, the fact is that the revised agreement has been approved, so Colombians should pivot their focus toward initiatives that will help ensure the continued, effective implementation of the deal and protect Colombia's democracy. An aggressive crackdown on cocaine production and the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals are good places to start. However, above all else, Colombia must begin the implementation process by eradicating corruption from both the public and private sectors if the peace deal is to succeed.

For Colombia, this is easier said than done, as corruption in the country runs deeper than bribery and surface-level collusion between government officials and private sector representatives. The nation's struggle with corruption is a longstanding area of concern; one that began decades ago and has permeated nearly every aspect of society. Impunity, a concentration of power at the executive level, and a lack of transparency have given rise to widespread corruption in government, and urgent structural changes are needed to achieve lasting reform.

To eradicate corruption, Colombia should start by increasing the investigative powers of its National Electoral Council, ensuring the financial independence of all oversight committees, and reviewing legislation governing campaign finance.

In Colombia's fight for peace and transparency, it would do well to remember that corruption is not exclusive to the public sector. Recently, more than 40 people were implicated in a corruption scandal involving Odebrecht, a multinational corporation accused of contributing millions of U.S. dollars to political campaigns across Latin America in exchange for project contracts. In addition to current public officials, Odebrecht's transgressions involved numerous C-suite executives and companies in line for construction projects under Colombia's 4th Generation infrastructure plan.

Such scandals undermine the integrity of democracy and can lead to serious disillusionment between governments and their people. In fact, the Concordia Research Index shows that corruption of this nature impedes civic engagement and the health of democracy in developing countries. Unless Colombia enacts clear, concise, and hyper-aggressive legislation combating corruption, its people will remain divided and skeptical of those in power, and peace will continue to prove elusive.

Of course, the Colombian government cannot effectively implement the peace deal or eradicate corruption on its own. Support from the United States and other regional actors in these processes will be crucial to lasting peace in Colombia. However, the country must take charge of its own future, and oversight of the implementation process must arise organically and of its own accord.

Here, the public-private partnership model is quite applicable. Colombia should consider creating an independent, impartial body comprised of leaders from the public and private sectors to oversee the implementation process and prevent corruption. Such an institution could leverage the leadership of the public sector with the resources of the private sector, and might prove valuable in creating consensus and approval among social groups concerned with how the peace deal will affect the nation going forward.

In the wake of one of the biggest corruption scandals in history, Colombia has a unique opportunity to seize this moment and reject business as usual. Through partnership and substantive reform, it can make major progress in eradicating corruption. Forums like the Concordia Americas Summit in Bogota on Feb. 21 represent a unique opportunity to develop meaningful partnerships, and we look forward to fostering collaboration for a better future in Colombia and beyond at the summit in Bogota.



(Maria Paula Correa is the senior director of strategic engagement for Concordia, a nonprofit organization that enables public-private partnerships to create a more prosperous and sustainable future).
"We cannot simply suspend or restrict civil liberties until the War of Terror is over, because the War on Terror is unlikely ever to be truly over... September 11, 2001, already a day of immeasurable tragedy, cannot be the day liberty perished in this country."



Judge Gerald Tjoflat


The Undead Archives

I have finally salvaged my pre-Blogger TDR archives and added them into Blogger. They are almost totally in the form of one giant post for each month. And the formatting strayed from the originals. Sorry. But historians everywhere can rejoice that this treasure trove of my thoughts is restored to the world.
If you are looking for the new Immoral Minority posts, you should know that they can be found here at our new home Please stop by to get caught up on politics, join the conversations, or simply check out the new digs.
For a while there, it looked like the marshal might be headed to jail.

Marshal Brian Pope Photo by Robin May

If youre a defendant facing potential contempt of court in 15th Judicial District Court Judge Jules Edwards' courtroom, a flushed feeling might start to overwhelm you about the time the judge glances upward for a few seconds and then lowers his head to rest on his fist. That approximately 45-second pause  today it felt much longer  is his contemplation of either a second chance or, in the case of Lafayette City Marshal Brian Pope, a 23-day jail sentence.

Pope was back before Edwards today to explain why hed not taken any steps to satisfy the community service requirements of Edwards' contempt of court finding. In March 2016 Edwards ruled that Pope had willfully violated his court order to turn over public records documents to The IND  records the paper was seeking in connection with Popes abuse of his office to boost Chad Legers failed campaign for sheriff in 2015  and handed down unprecedented penalties for criminal contempt of court in a public records lawsuit.

Pope was sentenced to 30 days of jail time with all but seven days suspended, a sentence he has since served under house arrest, and ordered to pay The INDs attorneys' fees, court costs and penalties.

In January he and the paper settled those costs for $205,467  $184,170 of which was paid by check from his insurance company. Pope signed a personal promissory note for the $21,297 balance, pledging to pay it from personal funds within a 90-day period that commenced Jan. 17.

While that civil matter between Pope and the paper will be resolved when (if) Pope pays the balance, the marshal still faces seven felony counts of perjury and malfeasance that grew out of the public records battle following his indictment by a Lafayette Parish grand jury last August.

And, as Monday proved, Pope still hasnt settled up with Judge Edwards.

Besides the jail time and fees, the court ordered him to serve 173 hours of community service by giving public presentations on the states public records law. Thats 173 hours for 173 days of non-compliance with The INDs two public records requests.

Edwards also imposed two years of unsupervised probation, making it clear that if Pope violated his probation, he would serve the remaining 23 days of suspended imprisonment.

And the judge appeared to be thinking long and hard about potential repercussions today, not happy that he had been forced to order Pope back to his courtroom to explain why he hadn't lifted a finger to comply with the court-ordered community service or face sanctions.

Im struggling with how to respond to this, Edwards said, before suggesting it might be beneficial for Pope to come back to court when the judge hears probation violations so he can see the lame excuses the judge hears from defendants who drag their feet under the false assumption he wont send them to jail. Edwards said he was troubled by Popes justification, which he hears all the time from criminal defendants: If I had known you wanted me to do it this way.

I expected more from the marshal, Edwards said.

In the end, however, Edwards gave Pope a break. Im not going to find the marshal guilty of contempt today, he said.

The judge shot down the sample plan Pope and his attorney had presented to the court (a program submitted after Edwards had scheduled this hearing), though the judge called it a decent start. The clock started on Popes two years of probation in November, after he lost his appeal of Edwards contempt ruling, and Edwards is giving him until November 2018 to complete the community service requirements.

That wont be easy, Popes attorney Joy Rabalais acknowledged. Many of the groups Pope would likely present to  associations for sheriffs, city marshals or school boards were among those discussed  have probably already scheduled their annual meetings this year, she said.

Pope has 14 days to come up with his program of instruction, target audiences, a plan for how he will present it  hell get credit for his preparation time (but not if Rabalais does it for him, the judge stressed)  and schedule for where and when he will deliver the program. Pope wont get any credit for travel time (which he asked for) and must either make the presentations in person or via video conferencing (the judge denied his request to make some presentations over the phone).

The judge suggested Pope set as a goal getting the presentations completed and all necessary validations from the recipient groups back to the court 60 days before his probation ends to avoid any problems. I need you to know I have revoked people on the last day of probation, Edwards said.

Marshal Popes ability to get meet these requirements is sure to be hampered by his ongoing criminal case.

On March 9 his pretrial hearing was continued to July 27 after his legal team explained to District Judge David Smith that they had only received discovery items that morning. The district attorneys office also told the judge that it was awaiting approval from him to hand over select grand jury testimony to Popes defense.

For each perjury count, Pope faces a fine of up to $10,000 or imprisonment at hard labor for up to five years, or both. He faces up to five years at hard labor and a $5,000 fine, or both, on the malfeasance charges. His trial is scheduled for Sept. 25.
Detail from photo by Alfred T. Palmer/Wikimedia

President Donald Trumps recent proposal to cut the Environmental Protection Agencys budget by 31 percent was met with approval by many Louisiana residents. The EPA has long been a sore spot for conservatives: a federal agency that many think does less to protect the environment than it does to harm the economy. This perception continues despite the fact that Louisiana is a state where environmental laxity is measured in shortened lifetimes and high cancer rates, and where most citizens can name two or three environmental calamities without even particularly trying. While this laissez-faire attitude towards industrial pollution may be de rigueur inside Louisiana, outside observers wonder why we and other red-state citizens dont elect officials who would do more to protect our environment.

The latest of these observers is Berkeley sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild, who recently published Strangers in their own Land (2016), an in-depth look at the lives and attitudes of citizens in and around Lake Charles. In particular, Hochschilds book seeks to explain the phenomenon of strong support for anti-environment Republican candidates in areas that have suffered decades of toxic spills and environmental debasement.

Hochschild asks why the people who live in these polluted areas are often those most opposed to regulating polluting industries or most likely to elect politicians who give such industries a pass. Although she could have chosen a number of places in the Deep South for her research, she chose Southwest Louisiana for three reasons: because white voters here gave Barack Obama less than half the support (14 percent) that other Southern states did (29 percent), because of the conservatism of the states Republican congressmen and because Calcasieu Parish is one of the most polluted counties in the United States. (The EPA ranks Calcasieu Parish 60th out of 2,303 ranked counties for levels of pollution based on RESI scores).

Hochschild visited and lived in the region off and on for five years, gaining, in the process, an entree usually reserved for friends and families. The 60 or so middle-income and working-class people that she interviewed in depth confirmed her suspicions that emotional truth plays a strong role in political support. Most of those Hochschild talked to placed their feelings above their thoughts, valued their place in the world more than their analysis of it and voted based on their identity rather than on their interests.

Active oil and gas wells are shown in gray; abandoned or \"orphaned\" wells are in red. Source: Louisiana Legislative Auditor

Her argument, in a brisk 260 pages, does not rely on quantitative or statistical data; instead she focuses on how people feel  what she calls the deep story  believing that the role of peoples emotions and feelings in politics has been neglected. As she puts it, [W]hat, I wanted to know, do people want to feel, what do they think they should or shouldnt feel, and what do they feel about a range of issues. Her goal was to know others from the inside, to see reality through their eyes. It is her belief that our polarization, and the increasing reality that we simply dont know each other, makes it too easy to settle for dislike and contempt.

The analogy that Hochschild created to describe the emotional reality of her interviewees is particularly compelling. In her analogy, Americans, like those she interviewed, are standing in a line leading up to the promised American Dream, which is just out of sight over a hill. They are waiting patiently even though it often seems to them that the line is moving very slowly, or not at all. Then, they notice that some people are cheating, cutting into line ahead of them. Who are these line-cutters? Mostly, they are minorities, women, immigrants, refugees, gays and public-sector workers taking advantage of programs and financial supports not offered to others in line. These groups  minorities, women, immigrants, gays  are the new favored people.

Their leader, Barack Obama, is a good example: How did he rise so high, so fast? It couldnt have been fair; he must have had help! But who helped him? The federal government elites, those people in power who put their thumbs on the fairness scale and change the odds. They must have advanced him over other more deserving people. And now, Obama is helping his people get ahead the same way. But these people are actually less deserving than those Americans who have been waiting in line for their turn. Theyve played by the rules, but the rules dont seem to work for them.

This felt story of emotions told by Hochschild, reverberates through red-state anti-government voting. Coupled with the diminished economic chances of Americans caught in the middle and lower tiers, this deep story inclines red-state voters to see government intervention as part of the problem, not the solution. It predisposes them to see the regulatory state, epitomized by the EPA, as designed to help the undeserving and to disadvantage everyone who works hard, plays by the rules and takes their turn.

Republicans have understood and responded to this emotional narrative by championing, at least rhetorically, the white middle and lower class voters to whom this narrative has the most appeal. Trump, in particular, understands the importance of making an emotional connection, reveling in the vociferous approval he gets at his rallies for telling it like it is and ridiculing the PC police who want to tell us what we should say and think. Democrats, meanwhile, rely on appeals to the head, trying to sway voters with facts and statistics, charts and graphs, and where that fails, to guilt voters into feeling sorry for those in need.

But these appeals are doomed from the beginning, unable to compete with the engaged emotions on the other side. Republicans understand that the head follows the heart, not the other way around. Until the Democrats learn this lesson and find a way to appeal to the hearts of those standing in line, funding the EPA and saving the coast will have to wait.

Pearson Cross is an associate professor in the Political Science Department at UL Lafayette. He holds a Ph.D. from Brandeis University (1997), and his principal areas of teaching are state and local politics, and Southern politics. Cross interviews local politicians and newsmakers on his radio show, Bayou to the Beltway, which airs on KRVS 88.7 FM at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesdays and 5:30 p.m. on Saturdays. Contact him at [email protected]
Paris, TX (75460)

Today

Thunderstorms during the evening will give way to cloudy skies after midnight. Low 63F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms during the evening will give way to cloudy skies after midnight. Low 63F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
MURPHYSBORO  Police are asking for help identifying a man who robbed the Huck's convenience store on Walnut Street around 1:20 a.m. Tuesday.

The man was wearing a grey hoodie, with the hood covering his face, and dark cargo pants, according to a news release from the Murphysboro Police Department. He is described as a black man with a light to medium complexion, about 6 feet tall and weighing 190 pounds.

The man pointed his hand, which was wrapped in a paper bag, at the clerk and demanded that the clerk empty the register of all the cash, according to the news release.

The clerk, who believed that the man had a weapon, complied, giving an undisclosed amount of money to the man, according to the report.

The suspect then ran from the scene.

No one else was in the store at the time, and the clerk was not injured, police said.

Law enforcement officers from Murphysboro Police Department, Jackson County Sheriff's Office and Illinois State Police arrived at the scene about 1:23 a.m. and searched the area, but were unable to locate the suspect.

Anyone with information about this incident or the suspect is encouraged to call the Murphysboro Police Department at 618-684-2121 or the Murphysboro/Jackson County Crime Stoppers anonymous tip line at 618-687-2677.
A Marion man was arrested on suspicion of selling more than 5 grams of meth.

On March 28, Southern Illinois Enforcement Group (SIEG) and Williamson County SWAT executed a search warrant in the 800 block of South Russell Street in Marion, according to a news release from SIEG.

Shaundale J. Johnson, 35, was arrested for delivery of methamphetamine over 5 grams. Johnson was transported to the Williamson County Jail. Bond has not been set at this time.

The Southern Illinois Enforcement Group is multi-jurisdictional unit which is comprised of agents from the Illinois State Police, Herrin Police Department and Williamson County Sheriffs Office. SIEG contributing members include Cambria, Carterville, Crainville, Creal Springs, Johnston City and Pittsburg police departments.

This post was updated to remove that Johnson was arrested for delivery of meth near a school. The SIEG sent an updated news release later Tuesday that had omitted that specific charge.
Lawmakers in Washington are moving at a faster pace than they have been for several years. And while it is encouraging to see some progress, it is also problematic that there is movement to bring back earmarks.

Congress banned earmarks in 2011 after Republicans gained control of the House. And now, six years later, with their full control of the legislative and executive branches, the threat of earmarks shouldnt be a problem. Not so fast.

The fiscal year 2017 Defense Appropriations Bill that passed the House contained 406 earmarks worth $14.5 billion. None of the earmarks listed were requested by the Pentagon, and instead inserted by one or more members of Congress.

Even though they were officially banned in 2011, Congress has continued to rely on earmarking for some of the most expensive and wasteful pet projects in the budget. And, there is no better breeding ground for earmarks than the massive Defense Appropriations bills.

The 406 earmarks is an 11 percent increase in the number of projects and just a 1 percent decrease in total dollars from fiscal year 2016. This is inexcusable, but it is exactly the kind of thing that Congress has been doing with the Defense Appropriations bills for years.

Earmarking is an irresponsible way to spend money. In addition to the chaos it causes during the appropriations process, earmarks are funding wasteful programs and projects. For example, one of the earmarks in the recent Pentagon spending bill is $475 million for the Littoral Combat Ship. A recent report from the Government Accountability Office looked at the LCS and pressed Congress on the future of the program noting, A more basic oversight question today is whether a ship that costs twice as much yet delivers less capability than planned warrants an additional investment of nearly $14 billion.

The F-35, another earmark in the fiscal year 2017 bill, has become a poster child for a program that is over budget and underperforming. According to one report, The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has been hailed as the most expensive weapon in history, costing $400 billion. However, according to Aviation Week, the planes laser targeting system has one slight flaw  it can only target stationary or slow-moving objects.

Despite the unpopularity of earmarks by taxpayers and taxpayer advocates, there is still movement in Congress to return to the days of full on earmarking that gave us such duds like the Bridge to Nowhere.

Shockingly, the plan to resurrect earmarks is coming from Republicans. In particular, Reps. John Culberson of Texas, Mike Rogers of Alabama and Tom Rooney of Florida introduced a proposal to bring back earmarks and called for a vote on their proposal. House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin thankfully delayed the vote. This attempt is troubling because it shows that some in Washington still just dont understand that people are frustrated with Congress and Washington.

The threat of earmarks returning may be a real concern this year with a potential $1 trillion infrastructure bill. That amount of spending has many government watchdog groups worried that wasteful spending projects will be put into the bill. The infrastructure bill could be the perfect storm for appropriators and earmark champions.

Earmarking is not an insignificant problem. Members of Congress and a lobbyist went to jail because of earmarks.

The current Defense Appropriations bill should be a stark reminder that earmarks are far from being eliminated. The $20 trillion debt is a reminder that Congress needs to get serious about spending reform. If Congress cant forgo its earmarks, it is unlikely that it will have the courage to tackle tougher spending issues such as entitlement reform.

Taxpayers are fed up with the wastefulness and inaction in Washington. They want real and meaningful reform on taxes, spending and regulation. The best way to achieve that reform (particularly on spending) is for Congress to return to regular order, not a return to earmarking.
DENMARK  A request by a group of citizens that the city consider renovating the old Denmark City Hall instead of building a brand new $600,000 facility was rejected earlier this month by Denmark City Council.

According to the minutes from a March 2 work session obtained by The T&D at the March 20 regular Denmark City Council meeting, council opted to continue with construction of the new facility.

More than 20 citizens at a public hearing in February voiced concerns about building a new facility instead of renovating the existing city hall.

Mayor Gerald Wright has said the cost of the new facility will be paid for from the city's general fund and the water and sewer fund.

"We will not have any special funding and we will not have a loan. We will have a grant for some of the costs. In fact, we currently have a grant for some of the furnishings and equipment," Wright said after the February public hearing. "That will take care of a significant portion of it. We will fund it through our regular revenue sources.

Also according to the minutes of the March 2 work session, council agreed not to assist the Community Rural Arts Work League (CRAWL) with creation of a park on Hagood Avenue, Wright reported.

During public comments at council's regular February meeting, Cindy Hurst of the S.C. Arts Commissions CRAWL discussed a lot at 927 Hagood Ave. from which her group had cleared debris to make a park as part of its community improvement initiatives. Several community arts activities had already been held there, she said.

Hurst asked the city to enter into a long-term agreement with Pastor Alice Hicks, the property owner, to rent it for use as a park.

Councilwoman Hope Weldon asked Hurst at the February meeting if Hicks had considered the issue of liability if someone got hurt on the property.

Hurst said that was one of the reasons CRAWL wanted Denmark involved with the property because of the city's insurance.

CRAWL specifically requested that the city:

Enter into a long-term (20-year) rental agreement with Hicks for the property.

Enact an ordinance designating the road directly in front of the property a No Parking Zone so cars cannot park in front of it.

Provide garbage collection service at the park once it is established.

Inform Dr. Yvette McDaniel of CRAWL if council members decide not to enter into the long-term rental agreement with Hicks so the committees attention can be re-directed to projects in other areas of Bamberg County.

Council agreed in its March 2 work session not to enter into the rental agreement.

In other business at the March 20 meeting:

City Administrator Heyward Robinson reported the city applied for $634,797 in grant funds to upgrade undersized water lines in the western portion of Denmark, with the city to provide a 10 percent, or $63,480, match on the total cost of the project.

The project will increase flow and allow for the installation of additional fire hydrants, and it will include upgrades to water lines along South Holly Avenue, Mulberry Lane, Peach Street, South Laurel Street, West Coker Street and Cedar Street.

Sometimes its not the size of the line, but to make sure that the system is looped," Robinson noted. He said the city wants to make sure there are no dead ends in the system.

Robinson reported the general fund had total revenues in excess of expenses of $18,222.30 and the water and sewer fund had total revenue in excess of expenses of $6,584.10.

The mayor recognized the Denmark Technical College Lady Panthers basketball team, players and coaches for their 2017 Region X Conference Tournament Championship.

Police Chief Leroy Grimes reported the department last month filed 38 new cases.

Betty Wilson, executive director of Community Connect, announced the annual Health and Wellness Fair at Voorhees College will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesday, April 5, in the Dawson Health and Human Resources Center, 5573 Voorhees Road. Screenings for diabetes, mammograms, hearing tests, free smoothies and information about healthy living will be available. Approximately 25 vendors will be in attendance.
Orangeburg County Sheriffs Office deputies responded to more than a dozen vehicle break-ins over the weekend, with several of the incidents clustered in specific areas.

The break-ins include:

Three residents of Carrington Apartments, located on Corona Drive, reported vehicle break-ins on Friday morning.

At about 7:45 a.m., two residents reported that someone tampered with their vehicles: one person said someone stole $90 from the center console of her unlocked car and another person said that someone shattered the drivers side window of her locked vehicle, but didnt take anything.

At 10:11 p.m., another resident called deputies after noticing that someone shattered a passenger-side window and stole a book bag that contained $300.

At 6 a.m. Saturday, a Kennerly Road resident reported that someone shattered the drivers side window of her vehicle and stole $165 in cash, a 9mm semi-automatic pistol and a 50-round box of 9mm ammunition.

Deputies responded to another Kennerly Road home at 8:25 a.m. after a woman reported that someone shattered the front passenger window of her vehicle and rummaged through it. Nothing was missing.

Two Harleywood Drive residents reported break-ins in two their vehicles just after noon Sunday, but no one took anything from the vehicles.

Other break-ins of vehicles include: Sifly Road, reported 10:57 a.m. Friday, someone stole two shotguns valued at $1,100; Usha Court, 11:39 a.m. Sunday, $200 cash stolen; Sharpe Road in North, 1:44 p.m. Sunday, two cellphones stolen, valued at $1,000; Pond Bluff Road in North, 2:10 p.m. Sunday, someone plundered a vehicle but didnt take anything; Farmhill Road, Norway, 2:32 p.m. Sunday, someone stole a .380-caliber Glock pistol; Cannon Bridge Road in Cordova, 3:51 a.m. Monday, someone broke into a vehicle; Podium Road in Cordova, 5:39 a.m. Monday, someone broke into a vehicle and stole $80.

In an unrelated matter, a nurse at Palmetto Health Richland in Columbia called Orangeburg County deputies on Saturday night to report an injured child.

The baby girl, who is less than a year old, arrived first at the Regional Medical Center. She was bleeding with two broken legs, according to a sheriffs office incident report.

She was later transported to Palmetto Health Richland.

The parents told deputies that the baby fell out of a stroller, the report said.

The deputy also notified an investigator and the S.C. Department of Social Services.
Denmark Technical Colleges Area Commission voted Monday to reinstate its interim president and replace the chairman who had him removed.

The actions came after a boisterous round of discussion in both open and closed sessions at a special called meeting.

Thomas Williams tried to convince his fellow commissioners that he was acting in the best interests of the university in removing Dr. Christopher Hall as interim president last week.

After criticizing Williams, the commission reinstated Hall as interim president. The commission also voted to remove Williams as the commissions chairman and appoint Commissioner Dewayne Ennis as the new chairman.

Hall was named interim president at the college following the commission's removal of former President Dr. Leonard McIntyre in January. Hall is the dean of business and public service at Sumter's Central Carolina Technical College.

Acting as the chair of the executive committee, Williams had Hall escorted off campus on March 23.

Williams -- along with fellow members of the executive committee James Hayes and Peggy Faust -- had asked Hall to reinstate a suspended employee and Hall refused.

During Mondays meeting, Williams said I see some of the faces, I see Mr. Ennis over there smiling, and you talk about why we cant come together ... theres no continuity.

But theres some things thats happening thats critical to the survival of the college, he said. When the whole incident with Dr. Hall took place, what we asked Dr. Hall for was -- and well get into some of this in executive session because we cant talk about it in open session - theres an employee whos been suspended for two months.

He was interrupted by Commissioner Gwendolyn Bright.

We cant even discuss that. Im sorry, we cant discuss that, she said. Youll have to do that in executive session.

Ennis called for order so that we can stop this and go ahead and move forward with the agenda.

Commissioner Brenda Williams said she had contacted Thomas Williams a week ago, and I asked you to call a special meeting so we could get on the same page and talk about what were going to do.

You told me you thought it was too late, and I realized the next day why you thought that, she said. You had no interest in us getting on the same page. ... You do not have any more care or concern about Denmark Tech than anybody else.

Thomas Williams said there are critical issues that need to be addressed at the college.

It is sad that the only way that we could get together is that Mr. Hall had to be ... relieved of his duties. At least its got us together so we can start talking about some things that we need to talk about, he said.

Brenda Williams said, "I specifically asked to you to call a meeting. The only reason we didnt get together, Mr. Chairman, is because you would not call a meeting.

And you didnt try to get with us before you took action on Mr. Hall, which is another major problem, she said.

Commissioner Calvin Wright said to Thomas Williams Did you realize thats what you were setting us up for -- a big, fat lawsuit, by what you were saying?

You said you relieved him (Hall) of his duties, but then you said you didnt have a meeting. ... That was an illegal act.

Thomas Williams said hes not the one setting up the institution.

As we go through these issues, youll see that theres some things going on at Denmark Tech right now where were being set up for lawsuits, Thomas Williams said. Youve got one lawsuit thats already been filed, youve got two lawsuits ...

Bright said, We shouldnt even be discussing this. We should be in executive session.

This is not anything that the public cant know, Thomas Williams said. This is not calling any names.

Thomas Williams agreed to wait until closed session, and the commission moved on to public comments.

Denmark Techs National Alumni Association President James W. Bowden said he was present to voice the associations dissatisfaction with Thomas Williams actions in removing Hall.

We, the alumni, feel that it is time to stop all the negative rhetoric targeted at our school, he said. Especially when it is initiated by the people that have been placed into position to rule, to govern and support this college.

He said that the alumni found Thomas Williams actions to be without merit, premature, lack of judgment and a poor display of leadership.

He said the alumni demand that Hall be reinstated.

Alumna Catherine McTeer Chisholm said that she originally wasnt going to address the commission. She said that she had other options as a young high school graduate but chose to come to Denmark Tech.

I have not missed a homecoming since I left this place. Im here all the time, she said, her voice breaking with emotion. And to see what you are doing to try to destroy this school, it is hurting us! Its killing us! But were going to come back strong.

Im really surprised at what happened, alumna Deloris Frazier said. She criticized Thomas Williams choice to replace Hall as interim president.

Thomas Williams said, I understand what you guys are saying because a lot of what I know, you all do not know.

Where have I heard that before? Wright said.

At some point in time, a lot of this stuff will come out, and yall will know more, Thomas Williams said.

I dont mind taking the heat. Ill take the heat, he said. But theres no reason for him to go through what he has and to take ridicule if there wasnt something there, if what Im talking about wasnt true.

The commissioners voted to enter closed session to discuss personnel and legal matters.

After returning to open session, Thomas Williams said that he and the other commissioners were unable to come to agreement.

Commissioners approved a motion by Ennis to reinstate Hall as interim president and to re-establish a working relationship with the State Board of Technical and Comprehensive Education.

They then approved a motion by Bright to remove Thomas Williams as commission chairman. In her motion, Bright said that Williams has acted in a manner that brings embarrassment to this institution.

She said he publicly discussed a confidential personnel matter, took action on a personnel matter without a vote of the commission, and involved himself in pending legal matters and in the operation of the college.

Of Thomas Williams actions, Wright said, Rarely have I seen such a display of arrogant ignorance.

Wright also criticized state representatives Lonnie Hosey and Justin Bamberg for their comments in news reports. He said they have expressed opinions on Denmark Tech after admitting they dont have all the facts.

Basically, to put it succinctly, shut the hell up until you do have the facts, he said.

He also criticized the State Tech Board for information in news reports written as if Denmark Tech blew a $9 million (surplus) in the last few years.

That is patently false, he said. The apparent difference in the surplus is due to a change in accounting rules regarding underfunded pension obligations.

This school and its history and what it has to offer this community is larger than any one of us, Brenda Williams said. She said that the commission has failed to provide leadership that ensures that this colleges future is never in question.

Ennis commented on an earlier remark by Thomas Williams about Ennis just smiling. Ennis said that he is the only commissioner with a child who attends the college.

There are a lot of things that we can do that are positive here at this college, and we have a lot of smart, young people in our area, Ennis said. Me smiling has nothing to do with this meeting, and I will not let anyone erase that smile off of my face.

It is a great day at Denmark Tech, and we do need to move forward, he said. If were going to move forward, we have to be transparent in every way.

He said that Thomas Williams had usurped the authority of this commission.

I am not ashamed of Denmark Tech, Ennis said. This is not a game for me, its not about power, its not about authority. Its about building a better life.

Thomas Williams said, I just want everybody to understand where Im coming from.

Im a black-and-white kind of guy. Its either right or its wrong. ... When I see something is wrong, I take that responsibility and try to do something about it.

He asserted that the State Tech Boards goal is to close Denmark Tech.

Hopefully, somebody will come along thatll say it in the right way, thatll show it in the right way, and you guys can see whats happening and then youll do something about it before its too late, he said.

The State Tech Board says it does not plan to close Denmark Tech.

Finally, the commission approved a motion by Brenda Williams to make Ennis the new commission chairman.

She asked Ennis not to try to govern the commission without involving the rest of the commission in the manner that Thomas Williams did.

Local lawmakers have asked the governor to replace the commission. The only member who would remain under their plan is Thomas Williams.
Local lawmakers are happy to see more money for rural schools in the House version of South Carolinas budget, but they hope the Senate will make some changes.

Things can and do change. This is kind of just a preliminary that were going through at this point, Rep. Jerry Govan said. It still has a ways to go.

This is just the beginning of the process and not the final version, the Orangeburg Democrat added.

The House approved its version of next years $8 billion state budget two weeks ago. The full Senate Finance Committee will work on the budget Tuesday.

The budget includes $10 million for school buses and an additional $38 million for an increase in the base student cost. The base student cost was increased by $50 to $2,400 per student.

Sen. John Matthews, D-Bowman, was glad to see the House budget includes $100 million for the poor, rural districts involved in the Abbeville school lawsuit and similar districts with a poverty index of 80 percent or higher.

If you dont give the schools the fair amount, youre going to put pressure on property taxes, Matthews said.

He said the schools have several issues, including retaining teachers and facility needs.

The money that has been given to them in the past was designated for specific areas, leaving them with no creativity in how to use the funds, he said.

Matthews said hes concerned the House version of the budget changed some lottery funding which, in turn, will cost South Carolina State University and other institutions.

Matthews said will push to restore all those and the Senate should be adding several millions to the budget for that purpose.

Additional money was not specifically allocated for Denmark Technical College, but Matthews said there should be some way for the legislature to help.

At this point, though, lawmakers are not sure what problems the college is facing, he said.

Rep. Russell Ott, D-St. Matthews, said he was proud of the work the House Democratic Caucus did despite it being a tight year money-wise, but issues were still left on the table.

I think weve got some other priorities, core functions of government, that we havent met yet, Ott said. The roads continue to be an issue.

He said if the state does not put the effort toward repairing roads, it will be a cloud thats going to hang over us.

Govan said he also wants to find a way to make a difference in the problem with our roads and bridges.

Govan added that allocating money for schools in poverty-stricken areas was needed.

We have to do something to improve our rural schools that are struggling, he said.

The $50 increase to the base student cost was a good addition but Govan felt it should have been more.

State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman had requested an increase of $150 per student.

Govan said, I thought that was a reasonable amount to ask for.

Ott also said it was unfortunate that there was no pay increase for state employees.

Govan said it was a result of low funds.

Hopefully well have a better year next year for our state employees to receive pay increases, he said.

The budget sets aside $19 million for growth in the states public charter schools. Charter schools are independently run state schools.

Govan hopes lawmakers take a closer look at that to be sure that were getting the bang for our buck.
The South Carolina State University School of Business is observing its 45th annual Business Week this week.

As part of the observance, the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Hub in the School of Business is hosting the inaugural Bulldog Big Business Idea Challenge at 3 p.m. Wednesday in Belcher Hall.

Students will pitch their business idea to a panel of judges to compete for investment funds from the Fulton Family Foundation, founded by Sidney and Jacquelyn Fulton. They established an investment fund of $50,000 to assist students in launching a viable business.

Students began the process of developing a business concept and preparing a business plan in December.

The competition consists of two rounds. In the first round, business plans were reviewed by a panel of judges to determine which plans will be pitched to the investor on Wednesday.

Seven plans made it through the elimination round. Participants will make their pitch to the Fultons and three other judges.

In addition to investment funds and mentoring, the top winner will be provided office space in The Incubator.

This competition was open to undergraduate and graduate students attending S.C. State, Claflin University and Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College.

On Tuesday, the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Hub, which was launched to support the entrepreneurial spirit in students, will host two other entrepreneurial competitions  The Ag Innovation and S.T.E.A.M competitions beginning at 2 p.m. in Belcher Hall.

The Ag Innovation Competition requires students to pitch an idea for a product, service or technology related to the agribusiness industry. Three awards will be given: first place, $3,000; second place, $1,500 and third place, $750.

The S.T.E.A.M. Competition is designed for students with project ideas that utilize science, technology, engineering, art or mathematics. Two awards will be given: first place, $1,000 and runner-up, $500.

Participants do not have to prepare a business plan for either of these competitions, but must demonstrate that they have a marketable idea that solves a problem that someone is willing to pay for. Both competitions are funded through a USDA Capacity Building grant.
Democrats are wrong to gloat about the Republican failure to advance the promised repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act. But it's hard to blame them. As much as they are part of the problem in Washington every bit as much as the GOP, it is Democrats' turn to watch while Republicans get the challenge of governing.

For the entire eight years of Democratic President Barack Obama, the Republicans were united in a common objective of undoing Obamacare. They approved repeal of the ACA time and time again, knowing that the president would reject their action.

Now that the GOP holds the majority in both houses of Congress and with a Republican in the White House, the problem is graduating from opposition to governance.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said as much after the GOP leadership decided Friday not to hold a vote on legislation that would replace Obamacare because they did not have enough support within the GOP ranks for passage. And no Democrat was going to help.

Ryan should know by now that the Freedom Caucus (they were formerly called tea party supporters) is not going to go along with any moderation of their hard-line conservative-libertarian approaches. They have been blocking any efforts by GOP leadership to work with Democrats for years and that appears destined to continue. They do not accept compromise as a key ingredient of representative government.

So where do we go from here? Back to the White House.

If media pundits and Democrats will get beyond obsession with painting the health care scenario as a failure by President Donald Trump, they will see there may be hope now for what needs to happen.

Trump is right about Obamacare problems coming home to roost. Even supporters acknowledge fixes to the ACA are badly needed. But because Democrats have no power to make changes, they will have to wait on the GOP -- or play the obstructionist game in hopes of regaining control of one or both houses of Congress in 2018.

Trump says the Obamacare problems will become acute in a year. So he will wait on health care reform while pursuing other priorities. That's a smart strategy as even the Freedom Caucus is likely to be receptive to tax reform. (Not so much on infrastructure spending.)

Then if ACA problems are bad enough, Trump can blame both Democrats and Republicans in calling for the sides to come to him with a compromise that works. Could that have been the deal maker's plan all along? It may end up being one that keeps the expanses of coverage that Obama wrote into law and which have become a standard for health insurance that Americans are not ready to give up. And, remember, Trump assured Americans there would be a better plan than Obamacare -- not just one that offers the conservative buzz word of "access" to better care.

The end result is going to be accepting what former House Speaker John Boehner has said. The Ohio Republican forced from office in 2015 by Freedom Caucus opposition to his efforts to make government work said last month that while Republicans could fix problems with the ACA, repeal and replacement are "not going to happen."

And with Freedom Caucus demands alienating others in the GOP, Boehner is right: "Republicans never ever agree on health care."

The Freedom Caucus has no chance of getting its approach to health care through Congress, and if if they did, Trump would be betraying his supporters to back it. He is a populist not sworn to undo everything "government."

Trump should move ahead seeking compromise. Forget all the rhetoric about repeal and replacement. Address the ACA problems. The Freedom Caucus will not go along but supporters of those lawmakers are likely more concerned with truly affordable health care than ideology.

Trump is not bound to conservatism. He won votes from the same people who elected Freedom Caucus members. When the time comes, hopefully sooner rather than later, he will get a chance to prove his deal-making skills in building a health care consensus that includes votes from both parties -- as it should and arguably must.
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Jaxport CEO Eric Green said the $23.5 million grant marks a milestone in our initiatives to build the port of the future and move cargo in the most efficient and eco-friendly way possible.
By Azernews





By Amina Nazarli

The first cargo has arrived at the Baku International Sea Trade Port from Kazakhstans new port Kuryk, Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping CJSC reported.

Freight cars were sent from the Kuryk port on March 24 on the Barda ferry, belonging to the Azerbaijani company, and they arrived at the Baku International Sea Trade Port in Alat the next day.

The company reported that management of the Kuryk port observed the mooring of the Barda ferry and the process of loading of the cars, both of which proceeded successfully.

The Kuryk port with a total area of 40 hectares is located on the Trans-Caspian international transport route, which is of great importance for handling the cargo going via this route. The construction of the ferry complex in the Kazakh port of Kuryk is planned to be fully completed in 2017.

The port is expected to allow transporting goods to neighboring countries without unloading cars and is focused on handling wide range of goods. The new ferry terminal is expected to allow Kazakhstan to export oil, polyethylene, iron ore and concentrates to world markets through Baku.

The role of the Kuryk ferry complex will significantly increase in the future. Infrastructure work is ongoing in the ports territory. Currently, construction of another berth for Ro-Ro and Ro-Pax vessels is underway there, reads the message.

The new complex is located closer to the Baku port, than the Aktau port, through which transit was carried out previously. The Aktau terminal which is currently considered to be the main gate of Kazakhstan in the Caspian Sea implements its operations at the breaking point of its carrying capacity.

Voyage from Kuryk to Baku takes 18 hours, while from Aktau it takes 22 hours.

Experience of Azerbaijani seamen and the Baku International Sea Trade Port was taken as a basis during the construction of the Kuryk port. It is also noteworthy that the first vessel sent from Kuryk was the Azerbaijani ferry Shahdag, which was sent in the test mode on December 7, 2016.

Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping is the sole operator of ferries in the Caspian Sea.

Kazakh Ministry of Investments and Development earlier reported that by 2020 the country aims to increase the volume of container transportation to two million containers, according to the ministry.








By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan have signed a protocol on expansion of bilateral cooperation in the railway sector.

The document was signed following the meeting of Chairman of Azerbaijan Railways Javid Gurbanov and First Deputy Chairman of the Senate of Uzbekistans Parliament Sodiq Safoyev.

During the meeting, Gurbanov elaborated on the reforms carried out in Azerbaijans railway sector, the work aimed at increasing transit capacity and future goals.

He also informed about the BTK railway project, which is being constructed on the basis of the Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement.

Its peak capacity will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At the initial stage, this figure will be one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.

During the meeting, the sides also discussed the bilateral cooperation between Azerbaijan Railways and Uzbekistan Railways.

Besides, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan agreed to create a joint working group on development of transit freight traffic.

The agreement was reached during the trilateral meeting of leadership of the Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping, Azerbaijan Railways CJSC and Uzbekistan Railways JSC, held in Baku on March 27.

The main task of the working group will be the analysis of the cargo market, the study of transportation technologies, preparation and implementation of marketing strategy and others.

The sides also signed a tripartite memorandum on development of freight traffic from Europe to Central Asia and Afghanistan and vice versa. The document also says that the parties have identified the products that will be transported via this route.
















By Azernews





By Gulgiz Muradova

Despite how deep the oil prices fell over the past two years, the prospects for higher prices in the mid-term seem much more real than most people may guess. Although to rebalance the oil market is uneasy and requires more time and effort, but is still possible.

More experts agree that the results of the deal agreed by OPEC and non-OPEC members had been very positive so far and would bear the expected fruit in the upcoming months.

The Cartel and other exporters including Russia agreed to cut output by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) to reduce a price-sapping glut. The deal came in effect on January 1 and lasts six months.

Most OPEC members appear to be sticking to the deal so far. As of February 2017, the OPEC and participating non-OPEC countries achieved a conformity level of 94 percent, an increase of 8 percentage points over the January 2017 performance.

OPEC's cuts - and surprisingly high level of adherence to those production reductions - allowed the prices to partly regain the lost heights. However, the agreed period for those reductions was the first half of this year, leaving uncertainty for the second half-year.

Stressing that once will not be enough, experts urge that in case, the major exporters dont continue with this trend, then the oil price could drop back to where it was two years ago - the low $30s.

Meanwhile, the price gains from the OPEC deal have been capped by resurging U.S. shale output at the higher oil prices. Crude production in the U.S. has been rising steadily since the beginning of the year.

Data shows production there has stayed above the 9-million-barrel mark for the past four weeks. Future production also appears to be well on track. In the week ended March 24, U.S. drillers activated 21 more oil rigs, marking the 10th straight week they have increased, to a total of 652.

Due to this, global benchmark Brent crude has fallen towards $50 a barrel, having started the year at $57.

The supply pact could be extended in May if all major producers showed effective cooperation.

Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih told Bloomberg Television that OPEC would extend the deal beyond June if stockpiles were still above the five-year average.

According to OPECs own estimates from earlier this month, OECD commercial oil stocks in January were 278 million barrels above the five-year average.

Kuwait and several other states signaled a push towards an extension of the supply cut deal beyond the first six months of this year, but it depends on the backing of non-OPEC producers such as Russia, which have yet to fully meet their pledge on reductions.

Russias oil companies have cut their total oil production by 161,000 b/d since October, Tass reported earlier, while Russia's energy minister Aleksandr Novak has said that the country will meet its pledged 300,000 barrel/day (b/d) cut by end April.

Novak also announced that it is too early to talk about the expediency of extending the OPEC oil output cut deal.

Additional time and first of all, additional analysis of the market situation is needed for making a decision on more cuts, Novak told RT following the Joint OPEC/Non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) meeting in Kuwait.

Over the weekend, a monitoring committee that oversees the OPEC's compliance with a deal to cut global production by 1.2 million barrels a day issued a statement directing oil producers to "review the oil market conditions," regarding the possible extension of the cuts. Several OPEC members announced support for an extension.

The committee will reconvene again in late April to complete their recommendation for a possible extension of OPEC's supply action. The final decision will be taken by the oil cartel on May 25.

Azerbaijans Energy Ministry is also optimistic on the outcome of the OPEC output cut deal struck in late 2016 and supports extending the current deal beyond its June deadline.

Ministrys spokesperson Zamina Aliyeva told APA that Azerbaijan considers acceptable the decision on the extension of the Vienna Agreement.

"The execution of the oil cut deal is accompanied by a positive trend  the rising oil prices in the market. If at a regular meeting of OPEC, it will be decided to extend the agreement on the reduction of oil production, Azerbaijan is ready to take appropriate steps, Aliyeva said.

The spokesperson reminded that Azerbaijan has fully fulfilled its obligations since January. The participation of Azerbaijan in joint oil production cuts is defined at 35,000 barrels per day.

The volume of daily production last month amounted to some 776,400 barrels, while the volume of daily export at 604,100 barrels of oil with some 50,000 barrels accounting for condensate and 26,800 barrels fall to a share of oil products. This January, the volume of daily production amounted to some 793,900 barrels, while the daily export was 617,000 barrels.

Prior to the landmark deal, the volume of production in the country was at the level of 37.72 million tons of oil, while daily output stood at 829,100 barrels. Oil production of the country in 2017 is forecasted to stand at 39.797 million, while average daily oil production will amount to 800,000-807,000 barrels.
By Laman Ismayilova

Baku will host the Third Japanese Culture Festival aimed at bringing the two nations closer.

The colorful festival that will feature several events will be held at Baku State University on April 22.

Guests will enjoy traditional Japanese culture through music, dances, games, competitions, as well as delicious Japanese cuisine.

Workshops on origami (paper folding), ikebana (flower arrangement) and other Japanese fine arts will also be organized, Report.az reported.

Besides, guests of the event will be able to watch the theatricalized performance of Azerbaijan's fairytale Tiq-Tiq Hanim in Japanese language.

This year, Baku has already hosted a colorful Japanese Film Festival aimed at promoting the Japanese culture in the country.

The three-day festival featured five Japanese films such as "You're a good kid", "Letter", "Around Us", "The meeting with the mother of Pekoros" and "Tales of the city Kaytan".

Japanese Ambassador to Baku Tsuquo Takahashi attended the event.

Diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Japan were established in 1992. Relations between the two countries have continued to develop steadily. Japan was one of the first countries to support Azerbaijan's forward-looking oil strategy.

Japan has a fascinating and multifaceted culture; on the one hand it is steeped in the deepest of traditions dating back thousands of years; on the other it is a society in a continual state of rapid flux, with continually shifting fads and fashions and technological development that constantly pushes back the boundaries of the possible.
China said on Monday that the recent visit of a high-level Japanese official to Taiwan has caused a "serious disturbance" to the improvement of China-Japan relations. Beijing strongly objected, lodging "solemn representations" with the Japanese.

Jiro Akama, deputy minister of Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, visited Taiwan on Saturday to attend a Japanese culture and tourism promotion event, according to Kyodo News Agency. The visit made him the most senior government official to visit the island since "diplomatic" ties were severed with Chinese Taipei in 1972.

"China is resolutely opposed to the visit and has lodged solemn representations with Japan," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily news conference in Beijing.

Hua said the Taiwan question is a major matter of principle that concerns the political foundation of China-Japan relations.

"The visit of an incumbent Japanese deputy minister to Taiwan obviously went against Japan's promises to maintain only nongovernmental and local levels of exchange with Taiwan," she said.

She also noted that while Japan said it respects its promises on the Taiwan question, it has been provocative in its practical actions, and "this has caused serious disturbance to the improvement of bilateral relations".

"The Taiwan question concerns China's core interests and cannot be challenged," Hua said. "Japan should recognize its seriousness and stop being two-faced and not go further on the wrong path."

Hua also asked the Japanese to face up to history and stop making trouble on territorial issues.

According to recently updated Japanese high school textbooks, China's Diaoyu Islands are repeatedly labeled as Japanese territory.

"No matter what the Japanese say or do, it cannot change the fact that the Diaoyu Islands belong to China," she said, adding that the Diaoyu and its associated islands are China's inherent territory, and China's resolution to safeguard territorial sovereignty is unshakable.

"We ask the Japanese side to face up to history and reality, educate the younger generation with a right view on history, and stop making trouble," she added.
By Azernews





By Rashid Shirinov

Azerbaijan has appealed to the OSCE Minsk Group member countries, OSCE Permanent Council chairperson and other OSCE institutions with regard to the military drills of Armenia in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, the illegal visit of Armenias president to those territories and the statements made by him.

The appeal letter was sent by Azerbaijans Permanent Mission to the OSCE upon instruction from Azerbaijans Government, to inform that in blatant violation of norms and principles of international law, relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council, documents and decisions of the OSCE, the armed forces of the Republic of Armenia conducted regiment level military exercises in the occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry told Trend on March 27.

The letter reads:

The President of Armenia personally attended the final phase of the exercises on March 25. On that occasion, he illegally visited the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, awarded military servicemen who excelled in the combat duty and made belligerent provocative statements threatening sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

The President of Armenia attempted to introduce a religious dimension to the conflict as he praised the Armenian armed forces as upholders of Christianity. He, inter alia, admitted involvement of the armed forces of Armenia in occupation of the Azerbaijani territories and his own personal responsibility in this regard. He declared that in the course of military hostilities in April 2016, I gave a new order to strike back. He further praised his own role in occupation of territories of Azerbaijan saying that: only a strong one could give the order to stop [April operations], to spare those lives and to take upon himself the future hollow blows of populism, realizing all too well how much territory had been gained before that silently and how much would be taken next time.

The statement of the President of Armenia is a clear manifestation that Armenia violates the Bishkek Protocol of 1994, which is a basis for ceasefire, through entrenching and building-up military positions, transferring military equipment and hardware to the occupied territories and, thus, takes advantage of cessation of military operations to consolidate the status-quo of occupation.

In this regard, the statement of the President of Armenia is self-explanatory: In one year [after April 2016], we fortified our border and armed our troops to the extent that today our frontline is simply unrecognizable. Today, our guys are following the movements of the enemy in the depth of its own territory. Today, super modern, devastating striking power aims at the entire territory of our belligerent neighbor, including its vital infrastructure. And today, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armenia without batting an eyelid will give if needed the order to strike with the Iskander. In the neighboring country they know it all too well. The military exercises and the statement of the President of Armenia are illustrative as to the real intentions of Armenia and its unwillingness to settle the conflict through negotiations.

It is notable that the President of Armenia delivered his speech in Azerbaijans occupied district of Aghdam, the seizure of which was condemned and the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal from which was demanded by the UN Security Council in its resolution 853. This demand by the international community remains unimplemented for 24 years.

Instead, Armenia uses the ceasefire to exercise and train its armed forces for renewed hostilities, as it was vividly demonstrated by Armenian tanks during the recent live fire exercises targeting ruined houses of expelled Azerbaijani population.

This is a clear testimony of mindset of the senior leadership of Armenia built upon series of crimes against humanity, war crimes, acts of genocide committed against Azerbaijan and its civilian population. This is the understanding of peace, tolerance and co-existence by the Armenian leadership.

Provocative warlike gesture of Armenia and bellicose rhetoric of its high-ranking officials obviously run counter to this countrys stated commitments both under international law and within the ongoing political process towards the resolution of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. This is a clear manifestation of continued illegal use of force by Armenia against Azerbaijan, and the OSCE should act in unity to reverse such a flagrant violation of basic principles of inter-State relations as enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act.

The Azerbaijani side strongly urges the OSCE, in particular, the OSCE Minsk Group and its Co-Chairmen and the Austrian OSCE Chairmanship to publicly condemn Armenias flagrant violations of relevant provisions of UN SC Resolutions and the ceasefire regime, demand from Armenia to put an end to its aggression against Azerbaijan, withdraw its forces and engage in good faith in substantive negotiations with a view to finding lasting political solution to the conflict.

Failure to properly react to such blatant and repeated violations by Armenia will be a serious blow to the peace process with unpredictable consequences, for which the Armenian senior political-military leadership bears full responsibility.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia still controls fifth part of Azerbaijan's territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.
By Azernews





By Kamila Aliyeva

The Senate of the Oliy Majlis of Uzbekistan (the upper house of parliament) has ratified the agreement with Russia on the development of military-technical cooperation at a plenary meeting on March 28, Trend reported.

During the discussion, MPs noted that the Russian Federation has been and remains one of the main partners of Uzbekistan, including in the military-technical sphere.

The senators voted unanimously for the adoption of the law.

Uzbekistan and Russia intend to exchange ratification instruments on the entry into force of the treaty on military-technical cooperation in early April during the visit of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to Moscow.

The agreement on military-technical cooperation between Russia and Uzbekistan and the plan of bilateral cooperation between the defenses ministries were signed in Moscow in November 2016. The document was earlier passed and introduced to the Senate by the legislative chamber of the country.

The agreement aims at deepening cooperation as well as joining efforts to improve each other's military hardware and technology and working on both countries' scientific, technical and industrial capacities related to military, security, law enforcement and special forces applications.












By Azernews





By Kamila Aliyeva

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov discussed with UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura the issues of promoting negotiations on the settlement of the Syrian crisis in Astana and Geneva, RIA Novosti reported citing the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The meeting took place in Jordan on March 27, where preparations for the next Arab League summit are being finalized.

"In the course of a detailed conversation, a range of issues stemmed from the task of promoting the negotiation processes in Astana and Geneva, aimed at strengthening the ceasefire in Syria, an effective fight against terrorism and the earliest possible political settlement of the Syrian crisis in accordance with UN Security Council resolution 2254 was discussed," the Russian Foreign Ministry 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, third round of Astana talks which took place on March 14-16 focused on the separation of positions of terrorists and moderate opposition in the war-torn country.

Meanwhile, Chief of the Russian General Staff Main Operational Directorate Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy said that cases of open ceasefire breaches continue in Syria.

"The number of violations of the cessation of hostilities is not decreasing, moreover, there are cases of open breaches of the existing ceasefire, Sputnik reported citing Rudskoy as saying.

He noted that a total number of truce participants has reached 1,397 after 116 settlements joined it in a month.

"The number of opposition units declaring adherence to its observance increased to 200," Rudskoy added.

Rudskoy added that more than 600 militants have "returned to peaceful life using the amnesty announced by the government of the Syrian Arab Republic."

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.
The Big 5 Saudi, the largest and fastest growing construction show in the kingdom, will be offering a record 48 free-to-attend CPD (Continuous Professional Development)-certified workshops this year, said the event organisers.



Starting from March 27 to 30 at the Jeddah Centre for Forums & Events, Saudi construction professionals will have the opportunity to network, develop their skills and knowledge, and stay up to date with the latest technologies and industry best practices shared by regional experts.



This year, the education agenda of the largest and fastest growing construction show in the country will focus on some of the industrys most compelling topics: Project Management, Innovation & Technology, and Sustainability, said the organisers.



Saudi Arabias vested interest to diversify its economy as part of the Vision 2030, along with its commitment to becoming one of the regions premier tourist destinations, fuels the need to further enhance the prowess of its industry professionals.



According to the organisers, the Big 5 Saudi 2017 will address this need by bringing to Jeddah a leading edge educational offer, which has been one of the key drivers for the shows repeated success year after year.



At the start of every project or concept, applying effective project management skills is paramount in ensuring positive results. As one of the lead topics at The Big 5 Saudi 2017, industry leaders will be sharing cutting-edge insights into project management best practices and approaches across the three days of the show.



Frank Wiesse, the director at Drees & Sommer Consulting Engineering in Saudi Arabia, will open the Project Management agenda on March 27 with a presentation on Efficiency Improvements in Construction Projects, while The art of delivering before time and within budget will be the focus of the presentation by Nagib-Guy El-Alam, vice-president of construction at Satco, on the following day.



The list of prominent project management speakers at The Big 5 Saudi this year includes Tarik Al Hraki, business and project management consultant and trainer; Wael Khalil, project management officer and training consultant at Counselors Consultancy House Company; Joseph MJ, vice president planning and cost control at Meydan - Sobha Construction; and Jamil Hassan Ghaznawi, JLL national director and country head in Saudi Arabia.



"A cornerstone of The Big 5 brand, our CPD workshops are a unique platform for the build and construction community to gather, learn and develop their skills," remarked Nathan Waugh, dmg events portfolio event director.



With new technology for the construction industry progressively getting better each day, there is a heavy value placed on staying up to date on the latest trends that can streamline efficiency, he stated.



Founder and chief executive of Value Innovation Management Consultancy, Mohammed Bin Saleh said: "Developing your business along technology trends is essential to not disappearing within the market. Knowledge is power as it helps to work smarter, not harder."



As the construction industry sees a shift in different solutions for its varying needs, one that has emerged with much promise is 3D printing.



Having numerous applications in any stage of construction, 3D printing identifies the amount of material required with a high level of accuracy, helping reduce both completion time and waste.



Saleh, who will be speaking at The Big 5 Saudi 2017 on March 28 on Innovation & Technology within the Construction Industry and 3D applications present and future, said: "I see 3D design and modelling spreading across several sectors, planning stages, material estimation, and virtual tours, and giving way to better visualisation."



As technology progresses, so does the need for a more sustainable future in the industry, he noted.



At The Big 5 Saudi this year, engineers, architects, and project managers will be able to advance their knowledge in all things surrounding effective sustainable methods within the construction industry.



Since its inception in 2011, The Big 5 Saudi has been a long-running leader in the construction industry and globally recognised as the premier B2B tradeshow in the kingdom, said the organisers.



The seventh edition of the event will be a must-attend platform for all construction industry professionals to do business, network, and source thousands of innovative products and solutions for the built environment, they added.-TradeArabia News Service
Smart Dubai Office (SDO), the government office charged with overseeing Dubais transformation into a smart city, hosted a one-day workshop for executives and technical teams from various government agencies to raise awareness on Dubais artificial intelligence service, Saad and outline a development roadmap for artificial intelligence.



It was organised by the SDO's technology arm Smart Dubai Government Establishment.



In October 2016, Smart Dubai Government Establishment and Dubais Department of Economic Development (DED), in collaboration with IBM, launched Saad, the citys first government service utilising artificial intelligence, powered by IBM Watson.



It was aimed at allowing entrepreneurs and investors to ask questions related to setting up a business in Dubai, and to get real-time responses on various topics, including business licensing requirements and registration processes.



Saad is designed to understand natural language and ingest and comprehend massive amounts of data, learn and reason from its interactions, and provide responses that will aid users in deciding on correct courses of action.



Speaking at the workshop, Dr Aisha Bint Butti Bin Bishr, the director general of Smart Dubai Office, emphasized the power of artificial intelligence for increasing peoples happiness in Dubai, and the value of public-private partnerships for contributing smart services to the city.



"We believe that by harnessing the latest in technology we can offer innovative services to enhance citizen experiences in Dubai. The impact of Saad, which we delivered in partnership with IBM, is an example of a successful collaboration and we look forward to working side by side as we continue to transform Dubai into a Smart City," she stated.



According to Dr Aisha, the Smart Dubai would soon announce its plans around the launch of a-first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence roadmap.



Working with a network of partners from the public and private sector, Smart Dubai is continually exploring innovative technological solutions to improve quality of life in Dubai and make Dubai a more efficient, seamless, safe and impactful city experience. The vision of Smart Dubai is to make Dubai the happiest city on earth, she added.



Amr Refaat, the general manager, IBM Middle East and Pakistan, said: "IBM and Smart Dubai Office plan to work hand in hand to equip Dubai Government Agencies with the skills necessary to accelerate their AI journey."



Wesam Lootah, CEO of Smart Dubai Government Establishment, said: "Acquiring the latest technology has become nowadays the easiest part but not the most essential element of preparing for the future."



"In contrast, employing and humanizing technology is the most crucial element in preparing for the future and a goal that we have put before our eyes since the first day the Smart Dubai Government Establishment was launched," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Digitalisation will have massive impact on the future of the commercial and package printing sectors, according to some of the biggest names in the industry attending the ongoing Gulf Print and Pack event in Dubai, UAE.



The event which opened on March 26 will conclude tomorrow (March 29), and is being held at the Dubai World Trade Centre.



Flexo and digital are the new market trends. Packaging printers are looking for digital options to cope with short runs, Roger Nicodeme, general manager-sales of Heidelberg, a well-known global player in the printing industry who is keen on developing their digital business in the next two years.



Digital packaging technologies are still developing and new technologies will come soon, he said.



Many industry stakeholders have noted a major shift in the Middle East at both customer and service provider levels.



Nayyar Ansari, business development manager, Konica Minolta, said: We have seen more technology acquisitions in the past four years than ever before.



The change to digitalisation ratio is large and there is a lot of space that needs to be filled. Short run concept is no more limited to production print, it is rather building a need in the label and packaging industry and value added print market, he said.



We hope and will surely see an aggressive digitalisation drive in the Middle East, he added.



Customised printing and value additions will also be a key trend in the coming years, according to Giffin Graphics Alexandre Najem, machinery division manager; while G Jayaprakash, general manager for sales and marketing of Ali Alhashemi Trading, says that 3D will continue to be an exciting printing and packaging trend with wide-format and massive scale applications.



Globally, the commercial and package printing industries are changing at a rapid pace, and the Middle East is no exception.



Some of the developments include decreasing print run lengths. Conventional printers have all moved to digitised technologies. This era offers more in the field of value-added finishing, where the printers can really rake in the money, added Vinay Krishnan, general manager, Afra who also says that 3d/textured UV varnishing on different substances is the latest technology that is reshaping the industry landscape.



Gulf Print and Pack 2017 is still ongoing with more than 200 exhibitors showcasing the very latest solutions for the commercial and package printing industry through live product demonstrations.



Aimed at printers, brand owners and designers and for local businesses seeking to adopt the latest innovations from leading global suppliers, it stated.  TradeArabia News Service
DuBox, a UAE-based specialist in off-site construction and modular, single- or multi-storey building designs, is showcasing the countrys first locally 3D-printed concrete element.



The 3D printed part is on display at the inaugural Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit, GMIS 2017, which opened on Monday in Abu Dhabi, said a statement from the company.



GMIS 2017 was organised by the UAE Ministry of Economy and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (Unido), and co-hosted by the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development. The event, which runs to March 30, marks the UAEs first global gathering for the manufacturing community.



DuBox realised the 3D-printed concrete element in partnership with the University of Eindhoven and Witteveen+Bos, a Dutch engineering consultancy firm.



3D printing is primed to help the company achieve efficient building processes, as well as its goal of providing "simpler-safer" construction.



DuBox founder Chebel Bsaibes, said: "Since 2009, the company has handed over 150,000 sq m of built-up environment introducing new technologies and techniques besides disrupting conventional processes of the construction industry."



"It has also heldped pave the way for the construction industry to embrace the new smart industrial age, the fourth Industrial Revolution, by rapidly prototyping, testing, and commercialising innovative solutions," he remarked.



The organisers of GMIS 2017 said the event is aimed at determining the manufacturing sectors role in the reconstruction of the global economy and the restoration of global prosperity.



By bringing together some of the key players in the industry, GMIS ultimately wants to open a productive dialogue about the future of manufacturing, they stated.



3D printing technologies, a trending topic at GMIS, could mark a crucial step forwards for Dubais announced goal of having 25 per cent of its buildings 3D printed by 2030, they added.-TradeArabia News Service
At least two people were killed and dozens injured in a major terror incident outside the British Parliament, said a Reuters report.

An assailant stabbed a policeman and was shot by police just outside Britain's parliament building in London on Wednesday in what police described as a "terrorist incident".



Amid confusing scenes, it appeared the incident may have unfolded in several locations, including on the nearby Westminster bridge where eyewitnesses said a car had crashed into pedestrians, sad the report.



Two people died in the incident, according to Sky News, but the total number of casualties was unclear.

A parliamentary official earlier said two people had been shot outside parliament and the building was in lockdown.

The House of Commons session was suspended and members of parliament who were in the chamber were told to remain there, Reuters said.



Police said they had been called to an incident at Westminster Bridge, officers were on the scene and it was being treated as a firearms incident.

The incident took place on the first anniversary of attacks by Islamist militants that killed 32 people in Brussels.



Reuters reporters inside the parliament building heard loud bangs and shortly afterwards saw two people lying on the ground in a courtyard just outside, within the perimeter of the parliamentary estate.
Batelco, Bahrains leading ICT business solutions provider, has enhanced its business services by introducing Sophos' wireless security appliance as part of its extensive portfolio.



Sophos and Batelco earlier signed a platinum partnership agreement at Gitex 2016.



The Sophos wireless firewall solution is designed to meet the specific requirements of small businesses. It supports a multitude of virtual access points that create independent, segregated networks in the same physical area for separate teams such as sales, marketing, guest users, and more. It also offers secure authentication and prevents rogue clients from connecting to networks, said a Batelco statement.

The wireless networks in organisations face big risks of information theft due to their inability to trace users, especially guest users within the network. Additionally, lack of IT security staff and limited budgets can make it difficult for the small business segment to find security solutions that are adequate, cost-effective and easy to manage. Furthermore, organizations with distributed networks, remote and branch offices, especially in sectors such as retail stores, logistics and transportation, and utility distribution centres, demand mobility within the network and need network security, secure remote access, and secure Wi-Fi for walk-in customers, it said.

The solution based on Sophos patented Layer 8 technology, allows administrators to apply user identity-based security policies to gain visibility over user activity and also manage Guest Internet access in the network, it added.

The Sophos wireless security appliance is designed for small and branch offices to offer secure Wi-Fi on par with wired security. It enables a leaner Wi-Fi security infrastructure to organisations by replacing both Wi-Fi router and firewall with a single appliance. For remote offices with limited connectivity options, the solution also offers 3G/4G USB support.

Batelco Bahrain CEO Eng Muna Al Hashemi said Batelco is constantly on the quest to expand its cyber security services portfolio in order to support the increasing requirements for organisations of all sizes.



Our aim is to provide relevant security solutions for Bahrains businesses whether home or small businesses or large enterprises. Better network security ensures peace of mind and a more efficiently run operation, Eng Al Hashemi said.



Sophos VP MEA Harish Chib said: "As Bahrain moves towards a new technology era, there has been great demand for innovative, easy-to-deploy and cost-effective security solutions by SMBs in the market. The inclusion of this Sophos solution by Batelco will be beneficial to SMBs as it will strengthen their IT infrastructure and build a secure environment that combats complex and sophisticated threats.  TradeArabia News Service
I was born in 1956 in Madison, Tennessee, while my parents were attending Madison College. I grew up along the Front Range in Colorado, attending schools in Longmont, Brighton, Boulder and Loveland, Colorado. Two years after graduating from Campion Academy, I married my sweetheart, Regina. We lived in Loveland, Colorado for six years before moving to Mena in western Arkansas.





I love the people of Mena and the friendly easy going way of life here. I have owned and operated my own business since moving to Mena. I enjoy the natural beauty of western Arkansas and being out of doors.




Strategic investments will play a pivotal role in enabling the recovery of a widely abundant yet complex energy resource that can potentially extend the life expectancy of hydrocarbon supplies, according to an oil industry expert.

Speaking ahead of the upcoming Middle East Heavy Oil Congress (MEHOC) in Bahrain, Badria Ali Abdul Rahman, deputy chief executive officer at the Kuwait Oil Company, said finding ways to efficiently extract and refine heavy oil is fundamental to truly leveraging the potential of the Gulfs rich reserves.

MEHOC will take place on April 11 and 12 at the Gulf Hotel. The event is expected to welcome more than 20 exhibiting companies, 40 speakers, and 200 professionals from over 15 countries.

In Kuwait and across the region, heavy oil reserves are challenging targets waiting to be extracted, Abdul Rahman said.

This makes it crucial that we continue to make strategic investments in technologies and solutions that will enable the efficient recovery of heavy oil. The discussions at MEHOC will pave the way to sustainable heavy oil extraction and production, which can significantly extend the estimated lifespan of hydrocarbon supplies  the worlds future energy source.

Kuwait is squarely focused on tapping into its enormous heavy oil reserves, with the Kuwait Oil Company planning to start oil production end of 2018 at roughly 10,000 to 15,000 barrels of heavy oil per day in the countrys field of South Ratqa. Production is then expected to gradually increase to 60,000 barrels per day six months after production starts.

Recent research and exploration activities confirmed the presence of vast heavy oil resources overlaying conventional reservoirs in the countrys northern fields of Raudhatain, Sabriya, Abdali,Um Niqqa, and South Ratqa, as well as the Partitioned Neutral Zone (PNZ). Developing the heavy oil reservoirs in the northern area of the country aims to contribute in achieving Kuwaits target capacity of 4 million barrels per day by 2020.

Yet the complex nature of heavy oil makes it exceptionally difficult to process, therefore developing advanced refineries is central to reaping the benefit of this highly complex resource. The Al Zour Refinery is one of Kuwaits biggest projects currently in the pipeline that is being designed to address the challenge of heavy oil production. The government is expected to invest over $15 billion in the new facility, according to the Oxford Business Group report, which will eventually be one of the largest oil refining plants globally. The project is an integral part of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporations broader strategy to develop its downstream capabilities.

The Kuwait Oil Company will be among other major oil industry players at MEHOC, the largest gathering of heavy oil professionals in the region.

Hosted under the patronage of Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Minister of Oil for the Kingdom of Bahrain, supported by the National Oil and Gas Authority (NOGA), and organised by the Global Energy division of dmg events, MEHOC 2017 will offer two days of unparalleled networking and knowledge exchange opportunities for heavy oil professionals from across the globe through a dedicated conference and an international exhibition.

Building on the remarkable success of the inaugural edition in 2015, the second edition of MEHOC will offer attendees exclusive industry insight through both strategic and technical conference sessions that will focus on upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors of the heavy oil value chain. This year, the conference Call for Papers saw a submission of 150 abstracts across 5 technical categories, covering the entire heavy oil value chain. After meticulous evaluation by the technical committee, 25 abstracts were selected for presentation at the conference, said a statement.

Key participating companies this year also include Bapco, the Kuwait National Petroleum Company, Lukoil Engineering, Petroleum Development Oman, Schlumberger, and Tatweer Petroleum among others. - TradeArabia News Service
Saudi Aramco's upstream portfolio has increased by about $1 trillion following Saudi Arabias announced tax rate reduction, Rystad Energy, an oil and gas consulting service, has said.

Yesterday, Saudi Arabia announced that the tax rate for the petroleum industry would be reduced from 85 per cent to 50 per cent. This change implies that more money is left for the Saudi Aramco, which makes the company more attractive for investors, it said in an analysis.

Aramco is preparing to launch an IPO next year, which would sell as much as 5 percent of the company. Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who leads economic reforms, has said the IPO will value Aramco at a minimum of $2 trillion.

This tax change has a huge impact on the valuation of Saudi Aramco. By drastically reducing the tax rate, more cash will go to the potential owners of the Saudi Aramco compared to the government," said says Espen Erlingsen, VP Analysis at Rystad Energy.

"Assuming long-term oil prices averaging $75 per barrel, the valuation of the company increases from $0.4 trillion to $1.4 trillion, he said.

Rystad Energy estimates the valuation of Saudi Aramco based on discounted free cash for each individual field. The valuation of Saudi Aramco heavily depends on the tax regime, and how the profit is being split between the government (through taxes and royalties) and the owners, it said.

The total value of Saudi Aramcos revenue after costs is around $3.4 trillion. With the old tax system, around 88 per cent of the value went to the government through taxes and royalties, while with the new system around 60 per cent of the profit goes the government. Oil price should be reaching $75 by the time of the public offering; this is also close to the long-term oil price needed to justify the share price of other large global oil companies, commented Erlingsen. - TradeArabia News Service
Over the last year or more, destinations around the world have been witnessing a new phenomenon - Overtourism - a situation where either there are too many tourists, or where the impact of tourist development is negatively affecting local lives without providing enough benefits in return.



World Travel Market London has announced that the two key responsible tourism themes this November will be what the travel industry should do about the emerging phenomenon of Overtourism; and how it should set about meeting the United Nationss Sustainable Development Goals.



With overtourism, places from Barcelona to Thailand, Venice to Berlin, and cities and regions are now beginning to take matters into their own hands, regulating against shared economy providers like airbnb, protesting against cruise ships, limiting the number of people allowed into certain fragile areas. As tourism continues to grow by around 4 per cent each year, such responses are a direct challenge to its ongoing expansion.



This years event will gather representatives from some of the destinations most affected and those who have actively sought to address the issue, to explore a range of challenges and responses, such as whether more regulation is needed, how to involve local people more collaboratively into development that directly affects them, or if it is time to set limits to growth.



As the Secretary Tourism, India, Vinod Zutshi said at WTM London 2016: We have to study carrying capacity of destinations and ensure there is not too much tourism for a destination to bear.



Secondly, to mark 2017 being declared by the UN as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development, several sessions during the Responsible Tourism Programme will focus on how the industry meets the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which were agreed in 2015. In particular, the event will look at the three goals in which sustainable tourism is explicitly mentioned - 8,12 and 14.



Goal 8 looks to Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all. Goal 12 is to Ensure sustainable Consumption and Production patterns. And Goal 13 looks to Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development. Leading experts from industry and civil society will meet to discuss these and the other goals, to explore examples of best practice from across the sector and discuss whether the industry is doing enough to meet its commitments.



WTM London responsible tourism expert Professor Harold Godwin said: Overtourism is becoming a critical issue in the travel industry. Many destinations are employing a variety of different strategies to limit tourism to improve the experience for both tourist, locals and the environment. - TradeArabia News Service


Oman Air is continuing its expansion across Europe and North America by signing a new partnership agreement with Lufthansa.



Under the new agreement, guests on Oman Air can connect to 59 destinations across Europe and North America from Lufthansas Frankfurt and Munich hubs on an interline basis.



At the same time, Lufthansa will codeshare with Oman Air on Oman Air operated services from both Frankfurt and Munich to Muscat, allowing their guests to experience the hospitality and outstanding service of Oman Air.



In order to provide Oman Airs guests with a seamless travel experience whilst connecting in Frankfurt and Munich, Oman Air will be moving terminals in Frankfurt to the Lufthansa operated terminals in Frankfurt terminal 1 and Munich terminal 2.



Oman Air will also be re-timing its current services to Frankfurt to arrive and depart Frankfurt during the morning to facilitate connections in Frankfurt to Europe and North America in under three hours.



Furthermore, as a commitment to the new opportunities open to Oman Airs guests with this partnership, Oman Air will be operating its brand new Boeing Dreamliner 787-9 between Muscat and Frankfurt.



Chief executive officer of Oman Air, Paul Gregorowitsch, said: Strategic codeshares are a crucial way for us to broaden customer choice. Our relationship with Lufthansa is a very important development for Oman Air allowing us to offer even better connectivity in Europe and the North Atlantic and we are delighted to be operating one of newest additions to the fleet, the Boeing Dreamliner on the Muscat to Frankfurt route.



This latest agreement, in addition to the new routes already announced in 2017, demonstrates Oman Airs unwavering progress to becoming a successful, sustainable company of the highest quality. - TradeArabia News Service
Minor Hotels, a hotel owner, operator and investor, has signed a management agreement for a new Avani property in the UAE  Avani Al Marjan Island Ras Al Khaimah Resort.



Al Marjan is a collection of four pristine man-made islands in Ras Al Khaimah, set against the backdrop of the Arabian Peninsula, only 30 minutes from Ras Al Khaimah International Airport and 50 minutes from Dubai International Airport. Al Marjan is set to redefine the RAK hospitality sector with large-scale, world-class developments planned for the future, including a range of accommodation options comprising hotels, villas and residential units, in addition to marinas, retail and recreational facilities. The new property is to be developed by leading real estate developer Crowngate International and is scheduled to open in late 2019.



The 225-key Avani Al Marjan Island will be located on View Island, a tranquil island which is home to a unique blend of retail destinations, hotels and resorts. Facilities at the purpose-built resort will include a selection of King, Twin and Disabled Access guest rooms and Avani Suites, an Avani Living Space and Pantry. The resort will also host all day dining and poolside restaurants, meeting and event facilities with a capacity of 200 people, a kids club and a spa. In addition, the new resort will have an outdoor swimming pool and beachfront access with 360 degree views.



Ras Al Khaimah offers a rich history and culture, along with diverse landscapes including mountains, desert and stunning coastline. Tourism in the emirate is experiencing strong growth and has become a leading lifestyle and tourist destination within the UAE, on the back of improved direct air connectivity and a host of Government infrastructure developments. Minor Hotels luxury Anantara brand already has a new resort under development in the emirate  the 225-key Anantara Mina Al Arab Ras Al Khaimah Resort is scheduled to open in 2019.



Minor Hotels currently operates 10 properties across four of its brands in the UAE, in the emirates of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The groups pipeline for Avani hotels includes two other upcoming properties in the UAE  the 372-key Avani Ibn Battuta Dubai Hotel and the 230-key Avani Jebel Dhanna Resort in the coastal area of the Al Gharbia region of Abu Dhabi, both scheduled to open in 2019.



Ramzy Fenianos, vice president development, Minor Hotels Europe, Middle East and Africa, said: We are delighted to announce the signing of this management agreement with Crowngate International to bring Avani to the fast developing tourism destination of Ras Al Khaimah. We see a lot of potential in the emirate, both for our upscale Avani brand and in the luxury segment, where we already have an Anantara resort under development.



Joe McCormack, founding partner, Crowngate International, said: Crowngate is thrilled to be announcing our new Al Marjan hotel resort in Ras Al Khaimah, which is fast becoming the emirate of tomorrow. In a very short period, Al Marjan Island has become a leading luxury lifestyle and tourist destination for visitors not just from the GCC, but internationally. To be in partnership with such a prominent global hotel management company as Minor Hotels, brings global recognition, unrivalled expertise, as well as a proven, luxury hotel brand portfolio. The Avani brand will bring a unique and refreshing blend of style and comfort to our hotel that will leave a lasting impression on all who visit.



Launched by Minor Hotels in 2011, Acani Hotels & Resorts is an upscale, contemporary brand appealing to millennial minded travellers who appreciate quality and value. Avani currently has 17 properties in operation in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Seychelles, Mozambique, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Zambia and the UAE and the group has plans to grow the brand across its global footprint. - TradeArabia News Service
Jannah Hotels & Resorts has appointed Houssine El Quaroui as resort mayor of Jannah Resort & Villas Ras Al Khaimah.



Houssine will oversee all operations of the first Jannah property in Ras Al Khaimah, in addition to his present executive role as group director of opening.



A Moroccan national, Houssine brings a wealth of knowledge from a decade of extensive hospitality experience. He started his career in food and beverage service of a five-star property in Morocco and ultimately set off for greater opportunities in Abu Dhabi. He was a butler of an ultra-luxury hotel in the emirate and was eventually promoted to assistant head butler and head butler successively within a span of two years.



With Jannah Hotels & Resorts at the conceptualisation stage, Houssine joined the group, making him one of the very few pre-opening members of the growing luxury brand of hotels, resorts and serviced apartments; thus earning him the role of director of opening. In addition, he took Jannah Place Abu Dhabi and all its operations under his wing as a hotel mayor prior to taking on the Ras Al Khaimah property with 100 well-appointed suites and 24 spacious villas.



Houssine said: I have always been delighted to be part of Jannah Hotels & Resorts wherever it takes me. The group has been my family ever since I joined and the pleasure of working with them is growing each day.



Education is indeed a life-long process and it does not stop after one graduates. It gives me great satisfaction that I continue learning with and from Jannah Hotels & Resorts as I grow in experience and as the group expands, he added. - TradeArabia News Service
President Donald Trump ordered regulators Tuesday to rewrite the Clean Power Plan in an attempt to rescind some of the defining climate policies of the previous administration.

Billed as a solution to coals woes, the presidents executive order will also end a moratorium on new coal leases on public land and retract a number of executive orders signed by former President Barack Obama instructing federal agencies to reduce their contribution to climate change.

With close to $1 billion in coal revenue coming to Wyoming on an average year, danger to the coal industry is a serious concern in the state. Hundreds of miners and many more related businesses depend on a healthy coal industry for their livelihoods in the Cowboy State.

For many in Wyoming, Trumps executive order is a long desired retreat from anti-coal rhetoric, while those in favor of reducing carbon pollution view Trumps decision as an attack on progressive climate policy. But most experts say these executive mandates wont matter, not for climate change, and not for the economics of Wyoming coal.

I dont think it will actually do a lot for increasing coal production, said Sen. Michael Von Flatern, R-Gillette, who supports the repeal. We are still a market-driven commodity and our customer base is shrinking.

Questionable boon for Wyoming coal

Wyomings coal industry is the largest thermal coal producer in the country, and it feeds coal-fired power plants from Wyoming to the western edge of the Appalachia. Many of those plants are near the end of their life cycles. With natural gas a growing low-cost competitor in the electricity market, more restrictions on coal-fired emissions would further decrease demand for Wyomings resource.

The CPPs goal was to reduce carbon pollution by 32 percent relative to 2005 levels. As the most carbon dioxide heavy of the fuels burned for electricity, coal producers would be disproportionately impacted by the rules implementation.

However, the Clean Power Plan wasnt responsible for coals current troubles, and its repeal wont solve them, said Rob Godby, director of Center for Energy Economics and Public Policy at the University of Wyoming.

Closing your eyes and covering your ears doesnt change reality, he said. Market sentiments are completely diverging from market reality and market data. Weve seen this since the Trump Administration was elected. A lot of people have a lot of hopes, but nothing has changed in regard to the economics of the energy sector.

The CPP wasnt ideal, he explained. It was forced through by the last administration because there was little support in Congress. And it is not currently in effect because the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the rule until it was heard in the lower courts. It now sits in the tenth circuit court in D.C. with a decision pending.

No matter the rules ultimate fate, pressure to find a low carbon solution for electricity generation will only increase despite changing political rhetoric.

Until the president says otherwise, the U.S. is committed to the Paris Climate Agreement, a multi-national accord to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Von Flatern, the senator from Gillette, was also concerned that the CPP repeal didnt include information on other obligations to reduce carbon dioxide output.

When you take (the CPP) away you are thumbing your nose at the Paris Treaty that we signed, he said. So Im not sure how (the president) is going to still comply, or if hes divorcing himself from that.

There are advantages to the CPP repeal, he said.

Dismantling the rule means less Wyoming money spent in compliance, and more time to improve clean coal technology before cleaner burning, cheaper natural gas destroys coal, Von Flatern added.

Addressing coal emissions should have been an active goal for the last 20 years, he said. Now, Wyoming and the coal industry have a reprieve of four to eight years.

It can be done, he said, citing Wyomings $15 million investment at the Integrated Testing Center in Gillette to research carbon capture technology and work at the University of Wyoming.

I think well have a product that will be as clean out of the stack as any natural gas plant could ever be, he said.

Those in the coal industry are widely supportive of repealing the CPP, but they, too, express a commitment to finding a clean coal solution for long-term challenges.

Todays orders overturning many Obama-era rules provide an opportunity to find a workable solution to address carbon emissions concerns while creating family-wage jobs and putting the U.S. back in a leadership position on energy and the environment, said Rick Curtsinger, spokesman for Cloud Peak Energy in an email.

Cloud Peaks CEO has acknowledged coals contribution to climate change for many years and the Gillette-based company has lobbied on Capitol Hill for more investment in clean coal research and development.

As technology advances, utilities will be willing to invest again in coal and that will extend the life of the Powder River Basin industry for decades, Curtsinger said.

Concern, and praise

Not everyone is taking the presidents decision lightly. Advocates for climate change policy were alarmed by the presidents decision.

An administration that doesnt understand basic climate science has no business playing around with vital efforts to protect America from power-plant pollution, said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity.

The temporary stay on new coal leases also concerned Wyoming advocates. The stay was put in place to allow the Department of the Interior to review how coal is leased on public lands, they argue. The last full-scale review was three decades ago.

Whats the hurry in opening up more public land to mining before weve fixed the system to properly compensate Wyoming taxpayers? said Connie Wilbert, chairwoman of the Wyoming Sierra Club.

The executive order is accepting a bad deal for taxpayers when it comes to coal leases, said Jesse Prentice-Dunn, advocacy director for the Center for Western Priorities, in a statement Tuesday.

This order wont bring the coal industry back, but it will ensure coal companies rip off American taxpayers for years to come, he said. It seems President Trump is looking out for coal executives, not negotiating for American taxpayers.

However, economic experts say the coal lease moratorium or its repeal means little for the coal industry, as the sector has not been in a position to invest in new leases for many years.

Wyoming delegations spoke in favor of Trumps actions Tuesday. In response to a question about the need for continued environmental policy to address climate issues in Wyoming, Sen. Mike Enzis spokesman said the previous administration had simply gone too far and had an express goal of shrinking fossil fuel industries.

Senator Enzi believes in taking reasonable and practical steps to protect the environment, said spokesman Max DOnofrio. There wasnt much that was reasonable or practical about the last Administrations energy policies.

Sen. John Barrasso praised Trumps decision, saying in an email that: It is an important day for energy-producing states like Wyoming. The Obama administrations punishing regulations have done far more harm to our economy than good for the environment.

Tuesdays executive order may be a defining gesture in line with Trumps campaign promises, but the fate of Wyomings coal is still a matter of markets and technology. What Tuesday may have done, is buy Wyoming time.
BILLINGS, Mont.  A new study disputes a widely held view that livestock grazing is largely incompatible with a ground-dwelling bird that has suffered a dramatic population decline across its 11-state range in the U.S. West.

Researchers said some grazing, particularly later in the growing season, could actually benefit the chicken-sized greater sage grouse.

Late-season grazing leaves in place for longer the grasses and other vegetation that sage grouse nest in, increasing their breeding success, researchers concluded. It also can stimulate the growth of vegetation that sage grouse eat, according to scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, Colorado State University and Utah State University.

The study was published in the scientific journal Ecological Applications. It focused on more than 700 breeding sites for sage grouse in Wyoming, one of the birds last remaining strongholds.

An estimated 200,000 to 500,000 grouse remain in the U.S., down from a peak population of about 16 million.

Grazing on land occupied by greater sage grouse is frequently cited by biologists as one of the causes of the birds decline, along with disease, oil and gas drilling and other factors.

The latest findings dont reject that claim outright, saying higher levels of grazing early in the growing season have been closely related to grouse population declines.

The new research could give land managers another tool to help assess grazings impacts on a local level, said Adrian Monroe, a research scientist at Colorado State and the studys lead author.

There could be benefits to both grouse and producers in terms of management, Monroe said. Up until now, we really lacked studies that directly linked the status and trends of sage grouse populations to management of livestock.

Monroe added that the researchers conclusions were not meant to provide a one-size fits all approach. The work is most relevant to Wyoming, because thats where the study was centered, and areas with similar arid landscapes in neighboring states such as Colorado and Montana.

Jim Magagna with the Wyoming Stockgrowers Association welcomed the studys conclusions. But he cautioned against using the findings to dictate where and when grazing can occur.

I dont think it lends itself to a simple formula saying, This is the right way to graze,  Magagna said.

The U.S. Interior Department in 2015 rejected federal protections for sage grouse, saying conservation efforts by government agencies and the private sector were helping turn around the birds declining fortunes.
Thomas M. Beecham

Services for Thomas M. Beecham, 82, were held Thursday, March 23, 2017, at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church. He died Friday, March 17, 2017, in Casper. Mr. Beecham served in the U. S. Army. Bustards Funeral Home is assisting the family.

Joseph Patrick Dillon

Memorial services for Joseph Patrick Dillon, 78, were held Saturday, March 25, 2017, at First Southern Baptist Chapel in Glenrock with the Reverend Jim Ritter officiating, with military honors conferred by Jessie Martin American Legion Post No. 9 and the United States Navy Funeral Honors. Inurnment followed at the Dell View Cemetery near Manville. He died Sunday, March 19, 2017, at his home north of Glenrock. Mr. Dillon served in the U.S. Navy. Gorman Funeral Homes-Converse Chapel is assisting the family. Memorial contributions may be made to the Helping Hearts Food Bank, P.O. Box 1827, Glenrock, WY 82637.

Herbert E. Carter

Private services for Herbert E. Carter, 92, will be held at a later date. He died Thursday, March 16, 2017, at the Poplar Living Center in Casper. Mr. Carter served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Newcomer Funeral Home is assisting the family.

Deklyn Dean Lemp

Memorial services for Deklyn Dean Lemp, 14 months, were held Friday, March 24, 2017, at Newcomer Funeral Home. He died Sunday, March 19, 2017, at the Wyoming Medical Center. Newcomer Funeral Home is assisting the family.

Donna Lee Bray

No services for Donna Lee Bray, 73, will be held. She died Sunday, March 19, 2017, in Casper. Bustards Funeral Home is assisting the family.

Terry B. Duffey

No services for Terry B. Duffey, 67, will be held at this time. He died Monday, March 20, 2017, at Central Wyoming Hospice in Casper. Mr. Duffey served in the U. S. Marines and the U. S. Army during Vietnam and Desert Storm. Newcomer Funeral Home is assisting the family.

Richard I. Haataja

Memorial services for Richard I. Haataja, 62, were held Friday, March 24, 2017, at Newcomer Funeral Home Chapel. He died Monday, March 20, 2017, at the Shepherd of the Valley Care Center in Casper. Memorial contributions may be made to Central Wyoming Hospice. Newcomer Funeral Home is assisting the family.

William Jake Jones

Memorial services for William Jake Jones, 64, were held Sunday, March 26, 2017, at the Black Gold Grille, with military honors accorded by the Wyoming Army National Guard and the Natrona County United Veterans Council. He died Thursday, March 9, 2017, in Casper. Mr. Jones served in the U. S. Army. Bustards Funeral Home is assisting the family.

Amber Rose Mestas

Private services for Amber Rose Mestas, 36, will be held. She died Monday, March 20, 2017, at Wyoming Medical Center in Casper. Newcomer Funeral Home is assisting the family.

James Jim Roy Kirby

Services for James Jim Roy Kirby, 75, are pending. He died Wednesday, March 22, 2017. Bustards Funeral Home is assisting the family.

Linda B. Raymond

A private celebration of life for Linda B. Raymond, 76, will be held at a later date. She died Tuesday, March 21, 2017, at her home in Casper. Newcomer Funeral Home is assisting the family.

James Jim A. Witten

No services for James Jim A. Witten, 74, are planned at this time. He died Tuesday, March 21, 2017, in Casper. Bustards Funeral Home is assisting the family.

Barbara J. Bailey

Private memorial services for Barbara J. Bailey, 72, will be held at a later date. She died Thursday, March 23, 2017, at the Central Wyoming Hospice in Casper. Newcomer Funeral Home is assisting the family. Memorials contributions may be made to the Central Wyoming Hospice and Transitions.
The Daniels Fund has announced the names of 33 Wyoming high school seniors among 240 from the region who received Daniels Fund scholarships.

The 33 represent 21 Wyoming high schools that range in size from Natrona County High School in Casper to Southeast High in Yoder.

Recipients may attend any accredited nonprofit college or university in the United States. The program covers the expenses that remain after other scholarships and financial aid have been applied.

The awards are based on exceptional character, leadership and commitment to the community, according to a news release issued Tuesday.

We provide Daniels Scholars with resources, encouragement, and support far beyond financial assistance to help them earn a four-year college degree, explained Linda Childears, president and CEO of the Daniels Fund. Our goal is to help each Daniels Scholar succeed in college and ultimately become independent, successful in a rewarding career, and actively engaged in their community.

Childears was in Casper last week to preside over a surprise announcement to scholarship finalists in attendance. While thinking they were invited because they were finalists, all of those in attendance were told they were scholarship recipients at a ceremony held at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Wyoming. A similar ceremony was held in Cheyenne.

Nearly 2,000 students applied for the Daniels Scholarship Program this year. In addition to the 33 from Wyoming, 156 are from Colorado, 30 are from New Mexico and 21 are from Utah.

Motivated high school seniors graduating in 2018 are encouraged to visit DanielsFund.org this fall to apply for the Daniels Scholarship Program.

The Daniels Fund, established by cable television pioneer Bill Daniels, is a private charitable foundation dedicated to making life better for the people of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming through its grants program, scholarship program and ethics initiative.

2017 Wyoming Daniels Scholars

Campbell County High School, Gillette: Ryley Drew Constable

Douglas High School: Shaylene Chantel Connolly, Dairon Andrew Mooran

Dubois High School: Case Gardiner Neale, Jaycie Kay Wells

East High School, Cheyenne: Tyler Christopher Clark, Charlotte Jaymie Hecht

Encampment High School: Justin Cole Bonner, Bailey Rae Miller

Glenrock High School: Raina Marie Cedarburg

Green River High School: Anna Marinda Harris

Hot Springs County High School, Thermopolis: Shayna Dru Bauer

Jackson Hole Community School: Azusena Garcia

Lovell High School: Kade Arthur Gifford

Lyman High School: Samantha Ann Davis

Natrona County High School, Casper: Trey Stuart Campbell, Michael Howard Nading Jr., Sarah Christina Rohde

Pinedale High School: Lynora Kalani Anderson

Powell High School: Mallory Austin Triplett

Saratoga High School: Alicia Renee Zaragoza

Sheridan High School: Zachary Boyd Gale, Behley Marie Malkuch, Anna Noel Miech

Southeast High School, Yoder: Mary Anne Ridenour, Colter Shea Wyse, Emily Lois Zavorka

Star Valley High School, Afton: Dylan Elias Greenwald, Niles Gordon Southam, Austin Avery Young

Torrington High School: Daniel Joseph Hall

Wheatland High School: Jacob Joshua Ward

Worland High School: Emiliano Vega
Jack Tracy Turnell

Meeteetse, Wyoming

November 13, 1945 - March 19, 2017

Jack Tracy Turnell's wife, daughters, and grandchildren all gathered as he danced his way to Heaven from A Wonderful World on March 19, 2017. He was born in Riverton, WY, November 13, 1945 to Ralph and Emogene Turnell. After his father's death, his mother married Marsh, who raised Jack as his own. Jack spent his younger years in Meeteetse and Grass Creek, graduating from Meeteetse High School in 1964. He met his lifelong dancing partner, Lili Abarr, and they were married in 1965. Jack attended NWC and the University of Wyoming School of Ag, graduating in 1970, and taught ag in Encampment for one year. In the summer of 1971, Lili's grandmother, Frances Phelps Belden, asked him to come home to manage the family's Pitchfork Ranch.

Jack and Lili were blessed with three daughters: Tracy, Cindy, and Tammy. They loved spending time at Jack Creek Cabin and Haymaker Cabin, putting cows on the mountain with friends and family, and working the cattle at branding and weaning time. He will be fondly remembered going out to gather cattle, atop his horse, Skipper, and with his dog, Dixie, following behind. In the manner that he taught his children and grandchildren to strive to do their best, he worked to do the same for the ranch and the ag industry. As a progressive cattleman, he was on the cutting edge; using DNA testing and carcass data. He enjoyed putting together a successful Quarter Horse breeding program.

Jack had a great passion for the land and worked with the UW range department to improve the range, watershed, and riparian areas for the benefit of cattle, wildlife, and multiple use. After the sale of the Pitchfork in 1999, he retained ownership of the lower ranches, forming Turnell Cattle Company and leasing back the Pitchfork for ten years.

Throughout his life, he served on numerous bank boards and was an agricultural representative to the Federal Reserve Advisory Board of Kansas City. Conservation was always at the forefront of his mind and he served on the Black Footed Ferret Advisory Board and was the first recipient of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association Environmental Stewardship Award in 1991 for his work with the black footed ferrets. A few of his many accolades include: Chevron International Conservation Award, Riparian Stewardship Award (BLM), Guardian of the Grasslands Award (WY Stockgrowers), Take Pride in America Award, WY Game and Fish Landowner of the Year, Outstanding Man of the Range (Society of Range Management), US Fish and Wildlife Service and Department of the Interior Award. He was recognized by Senator Malcolm Wallop on the floor of the Senate in Washington D.C. for his conservation efforts. He was honored as a UW Outstanding Ag Alumni. Jack enjoyed politics and was a Wyoming Delegate to the Republican National convention in 1988.

Many lifelong friendships were made while serving on the following boards: American Salers Association (President), International Salers Association (VP), NCBA (National Cattlemen's' Beef Association) Board of Directors, WY Stockgrowers Association (President), UW Environmental and Natural Resources Board, WY 4-H Foundation, Northwest College Board and Foundation, and UW Cowboy Joe Club Director.

Having a great love for history, he co-authored Brand of a Legend, marking the 100th anniversary of the Pitchfork Ranch, and the following year again co-authored Lady of a Legend with Bob Edgar. They received the Wyoming State Historical Award for Brand of a Legend in 1979. In order to preserve the history of the Pitchfork Ranch and the photography of Charles Belden, he was instrumental in starting the Belden Museum in 1992. With others, he helped form the Meeteetse Museum District and combine the Meeteetse Museum and Belden Museum.

Jack always loved dancing, hosting and attending parties, traveling (along with planning where to have the next great meal), deep sea fishing, showing off his 57 Chevy, and Christmas lights. He took great pride in his family. He could be a man of few words, UNLESS given the opportunity to give a speech! He believed in giving back to the community. It was important to him to stay in touch with family and friends (near and far).

His family has very fond memories of him singing Louis Armstrong's, What a Wonderful World, his imitation of a chicken cackling, talking like Donald Duck, whistling Reveille, and cooking a mean fried egg or a GIGANTIC pot of ham and beans.

Jack was preceded in death by his parents; brother, Von; and sister, Sandy Roussan.

He is survived by his wife, Lili; daughters, Tracy (Joe) Thomas, Cindy (Jeremy) Cox, Tammy (Neil) Schlenker; and grandchildren, Stormi Thomas, Tanner Thomas, Austin Cox, Kaili Cox, and Darbi Schlenker; soon-to-be great-grandaughter, Zariaya; sister, Verna (Don) Deitchler; sister, Marsha (Craig) Skillicorn; and many nieces and nephews.

We would like to invite you to attend a celebration of life to be held on Saturday, June 3 at 2 PM at the Whit Ranch (75 RD 4EU, Meeteetse, WY).

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be made to: Wyoming Stockgrowers Endowment Trust (PO Box 206, Cheyenne, WY, 82003), The Meeteetse Museum Foundation Endowment Fund (PO Box 183, Meeteetse, WY 82433), or The Meeteetse Senior Center (PO Box 461, Meeteetse, WY 82433).
BASIN  A health care provider in northern Wyoming is cooperating with an investigation by the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation.

South Big Horn Hospital District Board of Trustees Chief Executive Officer John Adlesich declined to provide details, including what was being investigated.

But he says the hospital in Basin is not the target of the investigation.

The Northern Wyoming Daily News reports the South Big Horn Hospital District board became aware of possible violations of state and federal regulations in February and notified law enforcement.

News of the investigation comes as the South Big Horn Hospital District undergoes administrative changes, which have attracted some public criticism.
Laramie resident Aimee Van Cleave visited her doctor in January  shortly before the inauguration of President Donald Trump  and received an IUD, which will nearly guarantee she wont become pregnant in the next three years, she said.

Van Cleave has been married almost five years. She and her husband have decided they dont want children anytime soon, she said.

Shes also the executive director of the Wyoming Democratic Party.

Van Cleave said shes worried about promises by Trump and Republicans in Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare, which requires that insurance plans and employers generally cover birth control with low or no co-payments.

I was on the pill before but decided to switch to the IUD for something more long-term, she said.

On Friday, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan announced he didnt have the support to pass a GOP repeal-and-replace plan. But observers say there could be other proposals before Congress in the future.

While the ACA had its share of problems  for instance, Van Cleave said she and her husband spend more on their insurance policies each month than they do on rent  some health care advocates worry its provisions for women will be stripped in future legislation.

Obamacare has requirements related to maternal, new mother, abortion and contraceptive care. Additionally, plans cannot charge women higher premiums than men for the same coverage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies health care policy.

Other provisions in the ACA helped women, such as barring insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Examples are depression, which affects one in 10 women, and cervical cancer, the Kaiser Family Foundation states.

The Republican repeal bill included cuts to Planned Parenthood. Funding for the organization is expected to become an issue again as Congress votes this spring on federal spending.

The Wyoming Republican Party released a statement a couple of weeks ago in which chairman Matt Micheli emphasized the ACAs failures, including that only one insurer was offering plans on the federal marketplace.

On Monday, the Star-Tribune reached out to Micheli about womens health care provisions in the ACA and whether the party had any opinions on what a replacement plan should include.

He didnt respond directly about womens health care.

What we know is that Obamacare is broken, he said. It is not working and is on a path to implosion.

Maternity and mother care

The repeal-and-replace bill was called the American Health Care Act. In its original form, it maintained provisions that required individual health plans to provide for maternity and mother care.

This includes maternity care, no-cost prenatal visits and screenings, as well as breastfeeding support services, including breast pumps, said Alina Salganicoff, vice president and director of womens health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

However, during negotiations among Ryan and hardline conservatives, that benefit was stripped.

Its unknown what any future legislation would look like for maternity care. Republicans earlier this year had envisioned a three-pronged approach to repealing Obamacare: the AHCA, executive actions and future legislation.

Contraceptives

Under Obamacare, contraceptives are covered without a co-pay for women on private insurance and Medicaid. There are exemptions for companies and groups on religious grounds, Salganicoff said.

Birth control is technically considered a preventive service, along with well-women visits and screenings for cervical cancer and osteoporosis.

Preventive services were not in the GOP replacement bill, since it was a measure dealing specifically with the federal budget, Salganicoff said.

However, Ryan and Health and Human Services Secretary Price Tom Price each had proposals that would have repealed the contraceptive provision, she said.

Abortions

The Republican proposal banned abortion coverage for all insurance plans on and off the federal marketplace. The bill barred small employers from receiving tax credits if their plans had abortion services.

The Republican Party platform echoes a sentiment concerning abortion that wound up in the GOP replacement bill that died last week.

We will not fund or subsidize healthcare that includes abortion coverage, the platform states.

The best way to end abortions is to continue offering women the contraceptive benefit, said Sharon Breitweiser, executive director of NARAL-Pro Choice Wyoming. Under Obamacare, the abortion rate has fallen to the lowest levels since 1973, when it became legal.

Experts told the Los Angeles Times in January it wasnt because people were having less sex, but because more were using contraceptives.

Planned Parenthood

Under the AHCA, Planned Parenthood couldnt obtain federal Medicaid reimbursement for health services for at least one year.

There is only one Planned Parenthood location in Wyoming  in Casper, said Ashley Wheeland, senior policy and political director for Denver-based Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.

The clinic provides reproductive health care for about 500 people  mostly women but also some men, she said.

Wyoming lawmakers chose not to expand Medicaid to a group of about 20,000 adults who fall into a gap in which they are too poor to receive tax credits on the exchange. Many of those women visit Planned Parenthood, she said.

We dont provide abortion care in Wyoming, she said.

The clinic tests patients for sexually transmitted diseases, provides birth control counseling and prescriptions and screens for breast cancer, Wheeland said.

Title X

More Wyomingites  about 8,000  receive health care from family planning clinics than Planned Parenthood. Most are low-income, said Susie Markus, executive director of the Cheyenne-based Wyoming Health Council, which distributes an $872,000 Title X grant among nine agencies throughout the state.

Its unclear what would happen to Title X grant recipients if Trump or Congress stops the money, Markus said.

If our funding doesnt come through, what would happen to those people? she asked. I think some of our clinics could keep going without Title X.

The clinics accept private insurance and bill Medicaid. But the glitch is that women who use Title X clinics obtain discounted birth control, Markus said.

In a state where 18 of 23 counties are designated primary care shortage areas and the entire state is designated a mental health shortage area, then we really fill some gaps, she said. A lot of clients will say, Youre my only source of health care.
In 2016, at least 60 rapes were reported in Yellowstone County, Montana.

Law enforcement sent 18 of the cases they investigated to the County Attorneys office to be reviewed for charges and prosecution.

Not a single case was charged.

Rape cases are tough. Both police and prosecutors struggle getting the cases to trial. Once the case is filed, the public becomes the last hurdle, and jurors bring their own biases into the courtroom.

During the last five years, Yellowstone County has prosecuted about 15 percent of the adult rape cases investigated and forwarded for possible charges.

In about half the rape cases referred to Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito, he declined to press charges because he didnt think they were strong enough to take to trial.

This reluctance to charge rape cases became an issue for officials in Missoula County, Montana. In 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice rebuked the Missoula County Attorneys office for prosecuting just 17 percent of the rape cases referred to the office by police investigators between January 2008 and May 2012.

Between 2012 and 2016, Missoula County, with a population of about 111,000, charged 32 cases of rape with adult victims. During that same period, Yellowstone County, with its larger population of about 154,000, charged 17 cases.

When Yellowstone County officials are asked why so few cases go to court, they say the problem lies with the hesitation of some victims to go forward and the reluctance of juries to convict people of a rape charge.

Rape cases

Rape victims are often hesitant to proceed with investigations and trials. They may be scared they wont be believed. They may feel re-traumatized by the rape kit exam, in which evidence gathered may include photos of their genitals. They may also be scared of telling a room full of strangers about the intimacy of the assault.

Victims are also often frightened of sitting in a courtroom within a few feet of the rape suspect. The majority of suspects are known to the victim, often friends, ex-partners or an acquaintance.

Missoula police

After the DOJ forced changes in the way Missoula County handled rape allegations, Missoula Police Detective Capt. Michael Colyer played a large role in bringing his department into compliance with the DOJs policies on investigating sexual assault cases.

Police there began training in a trauma-informed approach to victims, Colyer said. Before that, investigators had treated adult victims of sexual crimes like any other crime victim. That hurt the victims and stymied the investigations, he said.

We didnt know what we didnt know, Colyer said.

An important part of the training was understanding what happens to a victims memory when they experience a traumatic event, Colyer said.

Colyer offered an analogy from Dr. Rebecca Campbell, who helped train some of the Missoula police: Imagine the way a person stores memories during the day is by using sticky notes. All day long, the person is writing down a memory and then sticking the note to a wall. A traumatic event can cause those notes to blow away, leaving them scattered on the floor. As investigators ask questions, the victim is trying, sometimes under pressure, to sort through that pile.

Officers relying on traditional indicators of deception may see the victim struggling to recall details as fishy, Colyer said. Police had to shift from viewing reports of sexual assault with suspicion toward understanding the signs of a traumatized mind.

All Missoula police are now trained in a trauma-informed and victim-centered approach to investigations, Colyer said. To help make sure the sex assault cases are a priority, Missoula police established a Special Victims Unit in its detectives division. Detectives get more training and work with advocate Erin Shreder, who was hired to help victims through the process. She has her own office in the police department and sits in on police interviews with the victims.

Victim interviews are no longer done in the sterile investigation rooms used to question suspects, Colyer said. Instead theyre brought into a soft room, a room with a couch and maybe a plant.

A big success of the DOJ-enforced policies has been data collection. Because the Missoula police are tracking these reports, Colyer was able to determine that the number of false reports was much lower than suspected. A previous Missoula police chief had cited two studies suggesting as many as 45 percent of rape cases were based on false accusations, according to an article in the Missoulian.

The actual number of false reports, at least in Missoula, is between 3 and 6 percent, Colyer said. Thats close to the rate other national studies have suggested, at 2 to 8 percent.

The only way to determine what happened in a case is through a thorough and objective investigation, he said.

Tom Tremblay is the former Burlington, Vermont, police chief who monitored Missoulas DOJ compliance. Police have some control over the number of victims who stay connected with the process, Tremblay said. Missoula police have seen a reduction in the number of victims not following through with cases since the department implemented new policies.

Victims can sense when someone doesnt believe them, Tremblay said. When that happens, they might either recant or walk out of the process, he said.

The training the Missoula Police Department had is something police are only now learning about and wasnt available 10 years ago, Tremblay said.

The changes didnt come easily for anyone after the DOJ investigation, Colyer said. When the Missoula Police Department entered into an agreement with the DOJ, the report included harsh language. Phrases like biased police and anti-women were thrown around.

It made it sound like we set out on purpose to devastate these victims lives, Colyer said.

What Colyer saw was a lack of education, not a malicious police force bent on discrediting rape victims.

Billings police

The Billings Police Department doesnt have a soft room. They dont have advocates in the office, and even if they did, they wouldnt have a place to put them. As it is, detectives are working out of storage closets.

There arent enough detectives in the department to have a dedicated unit to investigate adult sex crimes, said Billings police Capt. Jeremy House. The Billings Police lost two grant-funded detective positions in the past five years, House said. In 2014, Billings voters rejected a public safety levy that would have given the department additional funding to add staff.

I could easily keep another five full-time detectives busy up here, House said.

Compared with other cities in Montana, Billings has the fewest officers per 1,000 residents, according to the departments 2016 budget presentation. In addition, the citys population swells during the day with commuters and visitors, said Billings police Chief Rich St. John.

St. John said he hasnt heard complaints about how his department handles rape cases. Investigators at the BPD are trained and compassionate, St. John said. Officers encourage victims to be brave and to stick with the cases. Patrol officers are all trained in investigative skills, which is critical to the initial rape investigation, the chief said.

Billings police had 46 adults report being raped during 2016, according to initial reports filed by the office.

The department does not have policies on how to handle these cases, though the International Association of Chiefs of Police recommends all departments have procedures in place.

The Yellowstone County Sheriffs Office had 14 initial reports of adult rape in 2016.

In total, at least 60 adult rapes were reported to the Billings Police Department and Yellowstone County Sheriffs Office in 2016.

None of these agencies tracks the cases statistically to monitor victim retention and completion of investigations.

You see a lot of departments not analyzing data, said Tremblay, the DOJ monitor. Police departments need to know their numbers, he said. It is about making these cases a priority, Tremblay said.

In 2015, law enforcement agencies in Yellowstone County referred about 22 rape cases to prosecutors for charges, with the majority coming from BPD. That is more than double the number of cases referred by Missoula police to prosecutors that year.

Yellowstone County

The Yellowstone County Attorneys Office has talked to the state Attorney Generals office about procedures. All of the offices policies are the best practices known to prosecutors, Twito said  except that it takes about 45 days from receiving a complete investigation for prosecutors in Yellowstone County to make a charging decision.

Victim-witness coordinators in the office will now make contact with the victim within at least five days of receiving the file.

In response to the DOJ investigation, Missoula tries to make a charging decision within a week.

In a five-year period from 2012 through 2016, Yellowstone County charged 15 fewer cases than Missoula. But when Yellowstone County gets a conviction, the sentences appear to be longer.

In the six adult victim rape cases, Yellowstone County prosecutors obtained a conviction on during that period, the average sentence was close to 24 years. Missoulas average sentence is five years, due mostly to pretrial plea agreements.

Yellowstone County takes the strongest cases it can to trial, said Twito, making it more probable there will be a conviction and later, a harsh sentence.

In total, law enforcement agencies in Yellowstone County referred 112 cases involving the alleged rape of an adult to Twitos office between 2012 and the end of 2016. Twitos office has charged 17 of those cases.

In as many as 43 cases, victims either did not cooperate or attorneys could not contact them. There are 10 cases waiting for a charging decision, one dating back to 2013.

In about 42 cases, the prosecutors chose not to prosecute because they either didnt believe they would be successful at trial or didnt have probable cause to make an arrest.

Lack of evidence can be a factor in choosing not to charge. Victim credibility can also be a factor in these cases, Twito said.

Twito doesnt have an explanation for why no cases were charged in 2016, saying his offices practices havent changed from the year before. In 2015 the office charged four cases involving the rape of an adult.
If weve learned any lessons during the past few decades, perhaps the most important is that preservation of our environment is not a partisan challenge; its common sense.

 Ronald Reagan

Our nations foundational environmental laws are part of what makes America great. Laws such as the Clean Air Act and the Safe Water Drinking Act signed into law by President Richard Nixon have perhaps come to be taken for granted as part of our heritage, part of the public trust and part of what it means to be an American.

But in announcing his proposed budget and its cuts to environmental protections, President Trump has made it clear to every American that we can no longer be complacent.

All around the country and especially in Wyoming, people depend on healthy lands and waters for jobs, food, economic security and prosperity. Stewardship of these irreplaceable natural resources is indeed part of Wyomings way of life, reflected in our long agricultural and outdoor traditions. And we count on our elected officials to make sure funding is in place to meet these obligations. President Ronald Reagan understood this. In his State of the Union speech in January of 1984, he called for increased funding to reduce the threat of hazardous waste sites, money to clean up Chesapeake Bay, and resources to find the cause of acid rain (a scientific effort that resulted in the nation turning to low Sulphur coal from Wyomings Powder River Basin which in turn heralded an economic boom for the state).

Unfortunately, President Trumps recent budget proposal doesnt begin to match the vision of President Reagan. Mr. Trumps budget would reduce funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by 31 percent, and reduce staffing by more than 3,000 people. What this means in Wyoming is that our states environment could be at risk Wyoming relies on EPA grants and standards to help protect our lands and water. And there are more radical cuts to other agencies, too. The presidents budget reduces funding for the United States Department of Agriculture by 21 percent and includes cuts to forest management, rural development programs, county farm service agencies, and conservation planning. It would reduce the Department of Interior by 12 percent, including reductions in payments to states for abandoned mine land cleanup and wildlife conservation grants. It would also turn funding away from our nations signature conservation achievement  the Land Water Conservation Fund. Conserving our nations natural resources is not optional  it is an obligation we have to our own and future generations. Nature is essential to everyones well-beingit offers solutions to some of the greatest economic and security challenges we face.

Congress should prioritize investments in nature and encourage partnerships with the private sector to leverage those investments.

As a full budget is proposed and as Congress works to fund government, here are four ideas that we at The Nature Conservancy offer:

1) Strong funding for conservation and science programs, which make up only about 1 percent of the federal budget, so will do little to trim the overall budget but represent a massive return on investment for the health and economic well-being of Americans.

2) Infrastructure investments that are practical and cost-effective including proven natural infrastructure solutions, such as restoring floodplains and wetlands that shield communities from storms and provide clean water, clean air and wildlife habitat.

3) Adequate funding for the Farm Bill and continued support for voluntary efforts by farmers, ranchers and foresters to improve the health and productivity of the land they steward.

4) Tax Reform. Congress can and should enact tax credits or other fiscal incentives to stimulate cost-effective private investments in built and natural infrastructure that create public benefits.

At The Nature Conservancy, we believe Congress and the administration  by working together and with the engaged and informed stakeholders  will have significant opportunities to invest in nature to provide cost-effective solutions to some of our biggest national challenges in the months ahead. We are ready to roll up our sleeves to work with the Congress and our President to help craft a budget that represents the best of Americas commitment to conservation.

We invite everyone in Wyoming to speak up for our nations proud heritage of conserving nature by encouraging our elected officials to take advantage of these promising opportunities to invest in our nations lands and waters  investments that bring benefits home to all of us. Go to www.nature.org/act to help.
WILLIAMS, Ariz.  A suspected car thief who allegedly fired shots at law enforcement officers in northern Arizona was arrested Monday evening after an hourslong search, authorities said.

John Freeman, 31, was arrested without incident around 5:30 p.m., Yavapai County Sheriff's officials said.

He was found in a culvert about a half-mile south of Interstate 40 near the Bearizona Wildlife Park, which was evacuated around noon so authorities could search for Freeman.

Authorities said Freeman had a warrant for his arrest out of Kingman and was considered armed and dangerous. But he wasn't armed when arrested, and authorities were searching for the firearm.

Two other men who were in the car with Freeman earlier Monday during a chase that reached 100 mph also were in custody, but their names weren't immediately released.

A sheriff's deputy tried to stop Freeman's vehicle for a traffic violation on Interstate 40 near Ash Fork around 10:45 a.m. Monday. The vehicle kept going, and a man who was thrown from the car was detained, authorities said.

A chase that reached 100 mph ensued until the suspect's vehicle became disabled and crashed into a culvert near the wildlife park, according to sheriff's officials.

They said Freeman exited the car and fired at least one shot at the deputy before disappearing into the forest.

A third man found near the vehicle after it crashed also was detained, sheriff's officials said.

It took more than three hours to evacuate about 200 people from the wildlife park after it was placed on lockdown and motorists in the area were warned not to pick up any hitchhikers.
Cinderellas hideous stepsisters are going full-press to stop their step from going to the ball, meeting the prince and living happily ever after.

But dont tell soprano Katrina Galka or mezzo-soprano Mariya Kaganskaya that their characters are evil.

We dont think were evil; we think were great, said Kaganskaya, who sings the role of Tisbe in Arizona Operas production of Rossinis Cinderella this weekend at Tucson Music Hall. Thats been a topic of discussion in the process of whether were evil or we dont know better, based on whos been raising us this whole time.

I think in the end we do have moments where we find out that Cinderella is the woman that Don Ramiro is in love with. We are actually quite cool, but its really only at the end, added Galka, singing role of evil sister Clorinda. Until then we are just very ignorant, in a way naive in a kind of buffoonish way.

The naivite comes naturally when it comes to sisterly love, or the lack thereof. Neither Galka or Kaganskaya have sisters in real life, so this is all new to them.

I have a brother, Galka volunteered, and while the two were close growing up, its not the same. No giggly gossiping or sharing clothes and secrets like sisters are known to do.

Kaganskaya was an only child, so she gets her characters jealousy toward her beautiful stepsister, who could easily steal the spotlight if given a chance. Growing up, Kaganskaya was used to being spoiled, she confessed with a laugh.

Rossinis version of the classic fairytale takes place in Italy in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and loosely follows the original, with some notable differences. Instead of an evil stepmother, theres a wicked stepfather. The fairy godmother is out, replaced by a philosopher and dreamer named Alidoro, and no glass slippers here: Cinderella leaves behind a bracelet as the only clue for Prince Romiro to find her.

There are no weird creatures or a pumpkin turning into a carriage, added Galka.

Were having a blast, Kaganskaya said. The director (Crystal Manich) is fantastic, the conductor (Dean Williamson from Nashville Opera) is awesome. Its perfectly cast, I think.

But true to the fairytale, Rossinis Cinderella mixes two parts evil with one part sweet in the stepsisters. Some of their antics to trip up their stepsister include having her fetch exciting jewelry and feather boas to wear to the princes ball.

Naturally we have to ask Cinderella to get us all our clothes to prepare for this. And we dont give her much time to do it. We just sort of yell at her a lot, Kaganskaya said.

Theres a lot of yelling, a lot of ordering, Galka chimed in during a call last week from a break in rehearsing. Shes really like our personal servant, and thats how we treat her.

Even as they come around to the reality that Cinderella has won the princes heart, they still cant stop themselves from final digs, like arriving fashionably late for the royal wedding. Of course, they apologize and come to the conclusion that poor Cinderella is worthy of the throne shes about to marry into.

I think we see the error of our ways, Galka said. We see that she is good-hearted, and thats where we shift from that place of ignorance to being more enlightened.
A new fundraiser offers Tucsonans an easy way to salute the local educators who make a daily difference to students.

Stand Up 4 Teachers will be at 5:30 p.m. April 6 at the Westin La Paloma Resort & Spa, 3800 E. Sunrise Drive.

The celebration of education champions is hosted by Tucson Values Teachers, a regional initiative created to retain, recruit and reward teachers. Jim Click Automotive and ORielly Chevrolet are presenting sponsors of the event.

This is really a fun way for the community to turn out and help make Tucson Values Teachers a true statement, said Katie Rogerson, chief operating officer of the initiative.

The evening features the presentation of the 2017 Raytheon Leaders in Education Awards honoring Pima County teachers Jessica Howell, Lauren Marlatt and Steven Uyeda as well as Spirit of Education Awards honorees Cox Communications and the Thomas R. Brown Foundations.

Rogerson said the fundraiser is also a call to action for the community about the serious challenges facing local teachers.

We have a serious teacher workforce crisis in the state of Arizona and we want to do all we can to attract and retain quality teachers for the region. The primary reason for the crisis is pay: Teacher pay is a huge part of why we have nearly one in four teachers leaving the profession after the first year and more than half gone by five years.

Teachers cite lack of respect for the profession, long hours and low pay for the key reasons they leave, Rogerson said.

Rogerson emphasized that Arizona teachers are paid less than teachers in nearly every other state and that wages for Tucson teachers dont compare with those in similar metro areas such as El Paso, Albuquerque and Phoenix.

Tucson Values Teachers works to offset the wage gap through various programs and services such as Tucson Supplies Teachers, which has provided more than $880,000 in school supplies to educators in public, charter and parochial schools in Pima County since its inception in 2009.

Tucson Values Teachers and more than 90 community partners also offer significant year-round discounts on goods and services including automotive, financial, health and wellness, home and furnishings, recreation, restaurants and retail. More than 10,000 local teachers have utilized the services.

The support with supplies and discounts has been extremely helpful to Howell, who teaches third grade at J. Robert Hendricks Elementary School in the Flowing Wells School District. Howell said there is an increasing need among the students at the Title I school and that the supplies makes a big difference for childrens projects .

She is also extremely gratified about the $5,000 cash prize  $2,500 for each recipients school and $2,500 for each recipient  that accompanies each Raytheon Leaders in Education Award. She hopes to put the funds for Hendricks toward technology.

TVT also offers support with real-world experience through the Teachers in Industry Program. The business-education partnership, which was developed in collaboration with the UA College of Education, offers professional development and/or a UA masters degree program for full-time science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) teachers. The professional development often translates into salary increases .

Marlatt, who teaches science and engineering/robotics to middle schoolers at Coronado K-8 in the Amphitheater Public School District, participated in the Teachers in Industry Program for the past three summers. She said her experience with the renewable energy department at Tucson Electric Power was invaluable.

It was really good for me not because I am teaching my students about renewable energy, but more in terms of learning about what kids need to be able to do in jobs today: They need to know what collaboration looks like and what asking questions looks like so they can figure out how to solve problems in the workforce. They need to be able to use a sense of discovery to come up with ideas that people have never thought of before, said Marlatt.

Rogerson hopes the community will rally behind the fundraiser, which seeks to raise $150,000.

TVT is the only nonprofit  not just in Tucson, but in the state  that is focused solely on teachers. We do that because decades of research have shown that a high- quality teacher at the head of the classroom is the single most important factor for student success. Teachers matter more than class size, curriculum and standards, Rogerson said.
PHOENIX  Not content to make gathering signatures more difficult, Republican lawmakers are now moving to impose new procedural requirements on voters who want to propose their own laws.

The measure being pushed by Sen. Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, would allow a court to keep an initiative off the ballot if backers are not in strict compliance with all election laws. That would overturn a series of existing court rulings that have erred on the side of giving voters their say and letting measures remain on the ballot if there is substantial compliance with the law.

Lesko said she is particularly miffed that Arizonans were allowed to vote in 2012 on a proposal that would have made permanent the states 1-cent sales tax surcharge.

It is undisputed that a copy of the initiative filed electronically with the Secretary of States Office differed from the one filed on paper and was actually circulated. But courts concluded the circulators had been in substantial compliance and allowed the vote to go forward.

That annoyed Lesko.

Whats the point of having laws? she asked.

As it turns out, the measure was defeated.

But the wording of HB 2244, set for debate Tuesday in the Senate Appropriations Committee, is far more sweeping than the kind of situation that occurred in 2012. It even would disqualify an initiative because of the use of the wrong text size or incorrect margins printed on petitions.

Lesko is unapologetic.

I think that if the law says there has to be certain things, the law should be followed, she told Capitol Media Services.

She conceded the change does not apply to candidates.

But I measure and make sure that it definitely follows the law, Lesko said of her own petitions. And if people follow the law, there shouldnt be other people not follow the law.

Its not just the 2012 measure that would never have made it to the ballot under the standard that Lesko wants to impose.

In 2008, homebuilders sought to keep voters from considering a homeowner bill of rights simply because some of the proposed changes in law were not in capital letters. That is the standard format for having whats new stand out.

But the Court of Appeals said voters should be given a chance to decide the issue, concluding the petitions substantially complied with the legal requirements. The initiative was later defeated.

And just last year, foes of legalizing the recreational use of marijuana sought to block a vote, charging that the summary of the measure and the text itself were too flawed to go to voters.

But Supreme Court Chief Justice Scott Bales said Arizona law requires only that ballot measures be in substantial compliance with legal requirements. And he said Proposition 205 fit within that definition.

Leskos move comes less than a week after Gov. Doug Ducey signed legislation making it illegal to pay petition circulators on a per-signature basis. Foes of that measure said that bar, by itself, will make it far more difficult, if not impossible, to gather the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed to propose new laws and constitutional amendments.

That did not go unnoticed by Sen. Steve Farley, D-Tucson.

This is yet another in a series of measures by the majority to try to quash the voice of the people of Arizona, he told Capitol Media Services.

If youre trying to make it harder to get an initiative through, then youre making it harder for people to have their voice heard.

Farley said hes concerned that otherwise valid and popular measures will be thwarted for technical reasons.

Arizona law requires petitions to be printed in at least eight-point type. There are 72 points to an inch.

They also must be printed in black ink on white or recycled paper, 14 inches wide and 8 inches in length with a margin of at least one-half inch at the top and one-fourth inch at the bottom of each page.

If you are able to throw out something because a margin is an eighth of an inch too short on one side, that is not relevant to the peoples will, Farley said. Thats relevant to your desire to throw the thing off the ballot without allowing people to vote on it.

Lesko said while she believes there is a need for strict compliance with petition drives, she does not see that as necessary for politicians like herself.

Candidates can be elected out every two years, she said. An initiative, once its in, its in. Its almost virtually impossible to change it.

Thats because of the Voter Protection Act, itself an initiative drive in 1998, which forbids lawmakers from repealing what has been enacted at the ballot and sharply restricts changes.

As it turns out, though, the House already has approved a measure to ask voters to repeal that provision, with action awaiting in the Senate. But Lesko said shes not sure that would undermine her reasoning of why strict compliance with initiatives is necessary.

I havent thought that through, she said.
While Arizona has one of the nations highest child-poverty rates, federal money intended to help the poorest families is instead being spent here on foster care, adoptions and services to children who have been removed from their families.

Arizona spent $469 million in 2015 in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or TANF funds, says the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Of that total, 8 percent went to the three objectives established for the federal program: child-care help, job training and direct cash assistance to families.

By contrast, 49 percent of the funding went to the Department of Child Safety, primarily for services rendered once a child has been removed from his or her home after allegations of neglect or abuse. (The remainder went to state agency operating costs and other programs such as domestic violence prevention and services for the elderly.)

Most states spend some TANF money on child abuse and neglect cases, but the average is about 7 percent, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis of the federal records.

There is a yawning gap when it comes to Arizonas practices, said Joshua Oehler, economic policy analyst with the Childrens Action Alliance.

This definitely is concerning for us. If you want people to go from welfare to work, they need to have child care, he said. Its vitally important for families to receive this help.

While its legal and within the states wide discretion to use the funds on cases related to child abuse and neglect, thats not what the TANF funds are for, said Karen McLaughlin, director of budget and research for Arizonas Childrens Action Alliance. We think both programs need to be funded adequately, she said, referring to direct help for impoverished families as well as money for child neglect or abuse cases.

Arizona removes children from their homes due to allegations of abuse or neglect at one of the highest rates in the nation. As of mid-March, there were 17,200 children in out-of-home care.

Thats one of the primary reasons the state has shifted so much TANF funding to DCS, said Daniel Scarpinato, spokesman for Gov. Doug Ducey. This spending is reflective of a need that exists in child safety, he said.

We are starting to see some success in terms of reducing backlog and the number of kids in out-of-home care, Scarpinato added. The number of children in state care now is significantly lower, down from nearly 20,000 just a couple of years ago, he said.

Those investments in the Department of Child Safety mean less for other families.

Arizona State Universitys Morrison Institute for Public Policy examined whether focusing on DCS cases is actually compounding the crisis by leaving too many families  the ones that dont face allegations of child neglect or abuse  without help early on.

Morrison Institute Director Thom Reilly concluded that while prioritizing the competing demands of moving parents into the workforce, preserving families and protecting children is not an easy balance for states, he found these needs to be interrelated.

Such policy and fiscal decisions are making it more challenging for poor families with children to enter the workforce, Reilly wrote in a 2015 report. So, what on the surface may seem to be a solution for the states underfunded and underperforming child welfare system  cutting benefits to poor families and shifting TANF funds to the child welfare system  may very well be exacerbating Arizonas child welfare problem.

During fiscal year 2015, roughly 23 out of every 100 families living in poverty received cash assistance through TANF nationwide. In Arizona, 10 or fewer out of every 100 families received that help.

In Arizona, TANF hasnt done its job, largely as a result of the lack of investment through child care support, work activity supports and training people to get good paying, stable jobs, Childrens Action Alliances Oehler said. It really takes a lot of resources and were not devoting those dollars to that.

The number of children living in poverty in Pima County grew from 22 percent in 2009 to 27 percent in 2014, the Annie E. Casey Foundation reports. Statewide, 25 percent of children lived in poverty as of 2015, a Kids Count report shows, ranking Arizona 43rd highest in child-poverty rates.

Two years ago, Arizona became the nations strictest state in the length of time a family can get TANF benefits, reducing help from two years to one.

There is a current legislative proposal that would reinstate the two-year plan. We do have some exceptions in there, including requiring people to comply with job searches and getting your kids to school, Scarpinato said. The school attendance rate, a controversial part of the measure, is expected to be 90 percent.

The reason for that is we should be rewarding good behavior and incentivize people to find work, he said. The best way to break the cycle of poverty is to make sure your children are getting an education and getting to school.

He said that as the number of children in out-of-home care due to allegations of neglect or abuse or continues to decrease, Arizona will re-evaluate how it spends TANF dollars.

Long waiting list

As of Feb. 3, there were 4,190 families and 7,369 children on the waiting list for TANF-subsidized child care statewide, Department of Economic Security data shows. In Pima County, there were 983 families and 1,669 children.

Yadell Urreas name is on that waiting list.

As her daughter approached her first birthday, and the babys father struggled to find full-time employment, Urrea knew the trio needed more income.

She secured a job at a nursery school more than a month ago, and prior to that contacted DES, wondering if she could get some help with child-care costs. She takes her 18-month-old with her to her workplace, where she receives child care that her parents pay for.

We were barely making it paycheck to paycheck with the bills, Urrea said. Theres never money left over to buy clothing or other things that inevitably come up and help with child care would ease that tremendously, she said, until her partner can find more work.

Urrea said she even had to wait to preregister to get on the waiting list. Recently, she was able to get her name listed and now, shes been told, shell need to wait about a year.

Their priorities are to help the families that are involved in DCS, but they should also help the families that are working hard as well, she said.

When there is a family, the idea is that No, you could do it on your own,  she said. What theyve told us in the past is that, if youre not in a DCS case, theres no point in applying.

Families referred for child care assistance through DCS are not subject to the waiting list.

An estimated $49 million will be spent on child care subsidies for DCS-involved families in 2017, with funding coming from the states general fund, the federal Child Care and Development Fund and other federal funds.

Less cash assistance

As poverty numbers climbed, the number of Pima County children receiving help through TANF cash assistance dropped from 17,552 in 2009 to 6,329 in 2015.

Child-care subsidies, according to DES records, were at their highest in 2009 when $15 million was earmarked for that help. Its been down to $2.7 million for the last few fiscal years and is projected to be the same in fiscal year 2016. It hit its lowest point in nearly 10 years in 2012, at $717,800.

Eligibility for TANF is so low, were talking about the most vulnerable people in our state, said Angie Rodgers, president of Arizona Food Banks.

Initially, when TANF was created in 1996, very little of the funding was going to cases involving child abuse and neglect, she said, but now, its completely flipped around.

The DCS definitely needs a lot of help, Rodgers said, but it doesnt have to be on the backs of poor kids.
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Who Is Arsenio Hall, What Happened To His Talk Show and Why Do Fans Think He Is Gay? He is one of the funniest beings to have graced the comedy constituent of the American entertainment industry. Arsenio Hall has a reputation for the rib-cracking disposition always portrayed in his comedy roles. He is not just a comedian; he is also an actor and a former talk show host for his popular show, The ...

What Is Woah Vicky Famous For and Who Are Her Family Members? Like most social media celebrities in this digital era, Woah Vicky is one of those stars that have utilized the internet as a powerful tool to propel themselves to instant fame. The social media space, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc., offers lots of people the right opportunities and potentials to become superstars overnight. Not everyone achieves ...

Where Is Michael Strahan Since His Retirement From The NFL and Who Is His Partner? Michael Strahan is a retired American football player turned media personality. He played the defensive lineman position and holds the record for most sacks in a single NFL season. He also only played for the New York Giants throughout the entire 15-year professional career that saw him win a Super Bowl ring. In February 2014, ...

How Wendy Williams Went From Being a College DJ to Having Her Own Talk Show and More About Her Divorce Wendy Williams is a former radio personality, now talk show host, who is known for her outspokenness and brash no-nonsense attitude. She gained fame and notoriety for her on-air clashes with celebrities before moving on to host her own talk show. Since 2008, Williams has hosted the nationally syndicated television talk show, The Wendy Williams Show. ...

Who is Sunny Hostin? Her Husband, Family & Net Worth Sunny Hostin is no ordinary Latina  American lawyer but also a successful columnist, multi-platform journalist, and social commentator. A happily married woman and mother of two, Hostin is the Senior Legal Correspondent and Analyst for ABC News and co-host of ABCs popular morning talk show, The View. She is a legal expert popularly known as a former ...

Who Is Robert Costa and Is He Married, Who Is His Wife? Robert Costa is a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC who is regarded as being part of Americas next generation of journalists. The University of Notre Dame graduate, who is of Italian/Portuguese descent, has been lauded for his fresh political perspectives in an industry full of old heads. In addition to his work listed above, Costa ...

Team Valor Pokemon Go  7 Key Facts You Need To Know Team Valor Pokemon Go  The craze of the new game Pokemon Go is one that took the gaming world by storm sending teenagers and adults alike into a frenzy and one of its teams Team Valor, has proven to be instrumental in making it so. Before the game was created, Pokemon was a cartoon ...

Sheryl Underwood  Husband, Family & Net Worth She is known for her trademark smile which can be described as the brightest and broadest smile ever seen on planet earth. She is none other than Sheryl Underwood the comedian, actress, and TV host whose funny wits has left America in great awe. Although Sheryl has risen to become an important personality in the industry, ...

Team Mystic Pokemon Go: 7 Facts You Need To Know And Signs You Are One Team Mystic of the break out game Pokemon Go is a team that is full of sass and chivalry. With an enchanting monicker, Team Mystic stands out from the rest of its counterparts and deserves to take the crown as champion in the Pokemon gaming-verse. To be a member of this exceptional team of Pokemon battle ...

Exploring Guy Beahms Dr Disrespect Persona, Wife and Why He was Banned Permanently From Twitch Guy Beahm who is popularly known by his online alias  Dr DisRespect, is an award-winning Twitch.tv streamer. He has leveraged on the Twitch platform to become an internet personality that is quite widely known. His online success is just more proof that anyone who is good at what they do can attain celebrity status ...

Critical Facts About Lee Ann McAdoo  The Infowars Anchor Lee Ann Mcadoo is a conservative journalist and television host whose interests in conspiracies and astrology has established her as a famous American reporter. Often referred to as Wonder Woman, McAdoo is a reporter who works for InfoWars.com, a controversial right-wing website run by radio show host, Alex Jones. Who Is Lee Ann McAdoo? Lee Ann McAdoo was born on 7 ...

Millie Weaver  Age, Husband & Infowars Career Millie Weaver is an American model, journalist, political activist, and social commentator. The young and beautiful journalist rose to fame working as a reporter for a controversial right-wing website InfoWars.com. Also known as Millennial Millie, Weaver is a social media influencer with over 100,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel and over 35,000 followers on Twitter. Who Is Millie Weaver and What Is ...

Is Jessica Tarlov Married? What Are Her Height & Weight? Jessica Tarlov is an American political consultant, strategist, and analyst whose influential and regular TV presence has made a popular figure. A good example of beauty with brains, Tarlov has appeared on various TV networks, mostly the FOX News Network where she is known for her liberal views on political analysis and insights. She is also the senior director ...

Who Is Kelly Rebecca Nichols  Alex Jones Ex-Wife? Kelly Rebecca Nichols is the ex-wife of controversial American radio show host, Alex Jones. She got nationwide attention following her divorce and subsequent custody battle with her estranged husband. Nichols, who worked with PETAs public relations department, was herself no stranger to controversies as she was involved in several publicity stunts of the non-profit animal rights ...

Who Is Bree Morgan  Cole Sprouse Ex-Girlfriend And What Is She Up To Now? Although Bree Morgan became famous through the Instagram, she also sapped some dose of popularity from Disneys sweetheart, Cole Sprouse of the Sprouse brothers. She is not only an Instagram star but also a YouTube vlogger whose popularity has long exceeded the ordinary level. Bree is conspicuously prominent on the internet and has her digital savviness ...

Does Vanna White Have Husband or Children, What Is Her Net Worth / Salary? For over three decades, Vanna White has been a household name, famous as the co-host and letter turner of the iconic NBC game show Wheel of Fortune. The talented and beautiful television personality is also an actress with several TV series and films to her credit. Since making her Wheel of Fortune debut in 1982, she has become one ...

Liz Wheeler  Biography, Husband & Net Worth Liz Wheeler is the kind of girl who sets the room on fire whenever she comes around. In this situation, however, she sets our screens on fire each time she appears as the host of One America News Tipping Point. She is, therefore, a presenter, publisher, consultant and a member of the Board of Zoning ...

Betty White  Net Worth, Children & Husband The entertainment industry will remain indebted to personalities like Betty White who brought something extra to the table and kept the world entertained for donkey years. The comedienne, actress, and writer graced the big screens in the early 50s as a show host and has been a delight since then. She is the queen of ...

Is Bill Nye (The Science Guy) Dead or Alive, What Are His Net Worth & Education? Everyone will always remember Bill Nye as the Science Guy. Besides his TV show Bill Nye the Science Guy, he is well-known for his Netflix show Bill Nye Saves the World which started airing in 2017 as well as his appearances in many famous media projects as a science educator. The star studied mechanical engineering ...

Is Cesar Millan Dead, Who Is The Wife & What Is His Net Worth? Cesar Millan is the famous dog whisperer who often stirs up mixed emotions. The Mexican-American is precisely speaking, a dog behaviorist; he has been in the game for over 25 years. His Emmy-nominated television series, Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan further pushed his method and tactics into the limelight. The series was produced from 2004 ...

Is Thomas Sanders Gay and Does He Have A Boyfriend? By the time Vine was shut down in January 2017, Thomas Sanders was already popular within and beyond the internet community for his heavy involvements on the online video hosting platform. After the tragic shutdown of Vine impacted on the growing career of the multi-talented personality, he immediately switched over to YouTube where he continued to upload ...

Is Shepard Smith Gay, Who Is The Boyfriend & What Is His Net Worth? There are only a few media personalities who are as bold and confident as Shepard Smith. Apart from his impressive stint at Fox News Channel which includes but not limited to his classic news delivery, upfront stance on virtually every issue and much more; he loves his job as much as he loves his personality. Smith ...

Is Milo Yiannopoulos Gay? His Husband and Net Worth Milo Yiannopoulos is a popular writer, journalist, polemicist, public speaker, and political commentator who is also known as the founder of The Kernel, an online blog. He has been said to be among the list of 100 weird and influential people in the United Kingdom. He appeared on this list as a result of personal beliefs and ...

Does Ryan Seacrest Have A Wife Or Girlfriend, What Is His Net Worth? From radio to television, Ryan Seacrest is a household name and a force to be reckoned with in showbiz. The radio personality, television host, and producer is best recognized as the host of the popular TV talent search contest American Idol. Heres how the media personality who always knew what his lifes ambition was and diligently pursued ...

Is Anderson Cooper Gay, Who is The Boyfriend or Husband? For many, the thought of becoming a millionaire by writing and talking about other people appears unachievable but this is the reality of the prominent American journalist Anderson Cooper who gathered millions of dollars for conducting accurate political analysis and other vital reports on TV. He is the main anchor of the CNN news show Anderson ...

Is David Muir Gay or Does He Have A Wife, What Is His Salary? David Muir is an Emmy Award-winning journalist who works for the ABC broadcast-television network and anchors the ABC World News Tonight with David Muir program while also co-anchoring the magazine program 20/20. The Ithaca College graduate, whose show has become the most-watched newscast in America, has covered stories from all across America and the world; reporting ...

Joel Osteen  Divorce Rumors, Net Worth & Family Members Joel Osteen is an American Televangelist, Senior Pastor of Lakewood Church based in Houston, Texas, a husband and a father of two. He is an author of many books, seven of which are New York Times Best Sellers and his televised sermons capture more than 7 million viewers per week and 20 million every month ...

Who Is Todd Chrisley? What To Know About His Children, Gay Rumors & Net Worth Premiered on the USA network in 2014, Chrisley Knows Best is one of the most watched family reality TV shows in the U.S. The series which is currently in its sixth season is centered around U.S real estate mogul Todd Chrisley and his family. The show reveals Todd the patriarch of the Chrisley family as a strict dad who rules ...

Who Is Shannon Bream Of Fox News? Her Husband, Children & Net Worth Shannon Bream who hosts the iconic primetime program started her journalism career in the late 1990s debuting as the evening and late-night news reporter for the CBS affiliate, WBTV. The beauty from America currently works for the Fox News Channel and she is best known for anchoring the primetime program. She also hosts Americas News ...

Is Troye Sivan Gay, Who Is His Boyfriend and What Is His Net Worth? Troye Sivan is an Australian singer and songwriter best known for songs like Happy Little Pill, Youth, Heaven (with Betty Who) and The Boyfriend Tag (with Tyler Oakley) which have all garnered him different awards and ranked on the Billboard Charts. Sivan, who was born in South Africa but now resides in the United States, is ...

Did iDubbbz Have Cancer, Is He Gay and Who Is His Girlfriend Now? iDubbbz is one YouTuber who has made a career out of courting controversy. Renowned for his absurdist channels and comedy video series, the Los Angeles based personality is the owner of two channels, iDubbzTV, and iDubbzTV2, as well as the brains behind comedy video series such as Content Cop, Kickstarter Crap, Gaming News Crap, and ...

Inside Greg Gutfelds Love Story With Wife Elena Moussa and Why Fans Thought He Was Gay Greg Gutfeld is a seasoned American television producer whose career in the media industry has spanned over a decade. He is a man of many talents who makes extra income through comedy, journalism, and editorial works. Gutfeld regularly appears on Fox News Channel as a panellist and co-host of the political talk show The Five ...

Works That Made Bo Burnham A Household Name and How Much He Is Worth Now One of YouTubes first viral stars and the worlds most exciting young comedian, Bo Burnham, has always amazed critics and comedy aficionados alike. Often regarded as the Justin Bieber of comedy, thanks to his fresh looks, floppy blond hair and hoodies, he has a multi-faceted career bigger than many comedians twice his age. It wouldnt ...

Is Louie Anderson Gay And What Is His Net Worth? Louie Anderson has one of the most abstract faces in the industry and equally knows how to use it to his advantage. He is not only a stand-up comedian but also an actor and television host who is known for his distinctive comic wits. Some of his notable projects include Family Feud, where he was ...

Is Don Lemon of CNN Gay, Who is His Partner and What Is His Salary? Don Lemon has risen to become one of the most recognizable faces on CNN over the past few years. The fiery journalist, who anchors CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, is liked and somewhat disliked for his strong and candid opinions on a variety of matters that do not just include politics but also race, significantly, matters that ...

Is Rachel Maddow Gay, Who is the Wife and How Much Does She Earn in Salary? Rachel Maddow is an award-winning American journalist, political commentator, and television news anchor. She is best known for hosting the popular nightly TV show The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. Prior to this, she hosted a talk radio program on Air America Radio from 2005 to 2010. As of now, the TV sensation co-anchors MSNBCs ...

Demystifying Pokimane  Her Real Name, Ethnicity & Boyfriend Like most social media celebrities in this digital era, Pokimane Thicc is one of those stars who took advantage of the internet to make a name for herself. Given the unlimited potentials which the social media space offers, many people have been instantly propelled to fame just by posting creative online contents. Not only has ...

A Breakdown of Kris Jenners Net Worth, Sources Of Income and Relationships Over The Years Standing outside and looking in, Kris Jenner looks like the oil that greases the wheels of the entire Kardashian/Jenner machine. She has been dubbed a momager and rightfully so because she seems to have had a part to play in the trajectory of each and every one of her daughters individually and the Kardashian brand ...

Pursuits That Brought Liza Koshys Fame To its Zenith and Her Love Life Since David Dobrik Liza Koshy is an American actress who has leveraged YouTube as a platform to promote her comedy while also serving as a television host on occasions. She is talented and funny and has gathered a lot of fans from around the world. Koshy started on Vine in high school and was able to get millions of ...

Alex Aiono Biography  Inside The Life Of The American Singer Not everyone who started from the streets has attained the heights where Alex Aiono is currently. His story could be referred to as the perfect definition of rising from Grass to Grace. He came into the limelight after he started out as a YouTuber, singer, and producer. One fascinating thing about the young YouTuber is ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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BOISE, Idaho (AP)  An Idaho Maximum Security Institution inmate who has spent more than 25 years on death row was found dead in his prison cell on Monday morning, of apparent natural causes.

Zane Jack Fields, 58, was found unresponsive in his cell about 7 a.m., the Idaho Department of Corrections said. Prison staff initiated first aid, but Fields was pronounced dead an hour later, the agency said.

Fields was one of nine people awaiting execution in Idaho.

As in all cases of unattended deaths at the prison, the Ada County Sheriff's Office processed Fields' cell as a crime scene. The Ada County Coroner's Office will determine the cause of death.

Fields was sentenced to death in 1991 in Ada County for the 1988 stabbing of Mary Catherine Vanderford, 69, while robbing her gift shop in Boise. He got away with $50.

Vanderford was stabbed repeatedly in the back, chest, arm, head and throat with a large knife.

Fields was charged more than a year later after telling a fellow jail inmate that he killed Vanderford. Fields was in jail at the time on an aggravated assault conviction.

Fourth District Judge Gerald Schroeder sentenced him to death in 1991, saying Fields showed "utter disregard for human life."

Fields could have escaped without killing Vanderford, the judge said.

But the number and savagery of the wounds made it clear "he wanted to silence her forever," the judge said.

Fields had a history of increasingly violent crimes and had been diagnosed by psychologists as a sociopath who viewed people as objects, Schroeder said.

The number of death row inmates in Idaho has been dwindling. Of the more than 40 people sentenced of death since capital punishment was reinstated in the 1970s, only three have been executed, the last in 2012. Eight people remain on death row.

Many others have had their sentences reduced to life imprisonment. Two were released after their convictions were overturned. Two previously died in prison.

Death row inmates are kept in solitary confinement. They remain inside their 12-foot by seven-foot cells for 23 hours a day, and they can spend one hour outside in a similarly sized cage. They are escorted out of their cells for showers, medical appointments and meetings with attorneys.
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. Armenian-US security cooperation is something the US Embassy in Armenia is proud of, Armenpress reports Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the USA to Armenia Richard Mills announced at a photo exhibition at the MFA Armenia dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Armenia and the USA.

We have significant cooperation in the military sphere, the Ambassador said, adding that the joint efforts are aimed at capacity building in military medical sphere and carrying out defense reforms in Armenia. In the sidelines of this partnership the USA has allocated 48 million USD worth equipment to Armenia, particularly, medical devices, portable radio communication equipment and other non-lethal weapons.

Richard Mills also referred to Armenias participation in peacekeeping missions. As I always state, Armenia deserves very high appreciation for becoming a security exporting country. The US Government solutes Armenia for its significant contribution to peacekeeping missions in the world, the US Ambassador concluded.
Help India!

By Manzar Imam for Twocircles.net

New Delhi: The Centre for Studies in International Relations and Development (CSIRD), Kolkata and the Academy of International Studies (AIS), Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI), in collaboration with the Institute of Foreign Policy Studies (IFPS), University of Calcutta and the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), Eastern Regional Centre Kolkata, organised a two-day international conference on Indo-Afghan Relations: Evaluating the Development and Strategic Partnership on 21-22 March, 2017 at AIS, JMI. Members of academia, government representatives including diplomats and other policy practitioners of the two countries dwelt on a range of bilateral and multilateral issues related to India and Afghanistan and the region.

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Speaking at the inaugural session, Shaida Mohammad Abdali, Ambassador of Afghanistan to India said that Afghanistan and India shared centuries-old civilisational links and Afghanistan valued India and the assistance that it gets from India. He said that Afghanistans partnership with India was transitioning from dependency to a strategic one. He informed that presently over 1,60,000 Afghan students were studying in India.

At the Special Session on Indo-Afghan Relations, Mr Asraf Haidari, Director General of Policy & Strategy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan highlighted Afghanistans engagement with India calling it a shared interest. In a lighter note he mentioned that about $75 million was being spent every month by Afghans into medical treatments in India. Haidari underscored Afghanistans importance in giving India opportunities in our markets and connecting India with the markets of Central Asia.

He took exception to some neighbouring countries selective use of terrorism as good or bad stating that There should be no distinction between good terrorists and bad terrorists. We are a region and Asia can prosper only through peaceful manner. Haidari asked the regional stakeholders to focus on cooperation against confrontation to ensure peace, security and stability throughout Asia at the centre of which is located Afghanistan.

While examining the strategic relationship between Afghanistan and India, Shah Mahmood Miakhel, Director of the United States Institute of Peace, Kabul maintained that the partnership between the two countries was on broader development policies and the Indian aid was mainly used in three activities: Line of credits, capacity building activities and Grants Assistance projects, all of which had certain political influence as well certain economic, diplomatic and strategic objectives.

Prof. Gulshan Sachdeva of Jawaharlal Nehru University ruled out a comeback of the Russian factor. The fact that geostrategically a new dynamic has been added and new actors are emerging needs to be considered. In order to achieve the desired objectives, India needs to do much more, he noted.

Ms Palwasha Hassan, Executive Director of Afghan Womens Education Centre viewed Indias symbolic and strategic interventions as helping for the development in Afghanistan. She however was disappointed with the fact that whenever the two countries got closer it was perceived negatively and therefore, she suggested that the development interventions cannot be separated from strategic partnership. She also stressed on the need for exploring relations between India and Russia for the kind of role India should be playing in Afghanistan. About Indias role in furthering the cause of gender justice and womens participation in peace processes, Ms Hassan, who is also the founding member of Afghan Womens Network, said that India wasnt doing that well despite its limited role though SEWA and also because India itself stood among the low raking countries for the same reason for which Afghanistan stood at among the lowest in the world.

So far as womens participation is concerned, Ms Hassan said that women in Afghanistan have come a long way from the time of Taliban with total social exclusion. We are one year after Britain and one year before America in giving women the right to vote. Continuous conflict had exacerbated the condition of women though, she said.

Basing his arguments on historian Ibn Khalduns notion of Asabiya, Dr Mohammad Sohrab considered the presence of the US in Afghanistan unjustifiable whereas other participants viewed it differently. He described Afghanistan as the Heart of Asia which was full of natural resources. Prof. Sanjay Pandey of JNU discussed Indias ambivalence about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) stating that Indias unwillingness to join CEPC was due to the fact that that the route that China is building India claims it to be its own.

The Afghanistan of 2017 is a lot more different from the Afghanistan of the past, most of the Afghan panelists noted. They maintained that the present Afghanistan was a transformed one. Mohammad Musa, Executive Director, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said Afghanistan has transformed as we have good connectivity, 3G network and freedom of assembly, association and movement which was earlier either denied or restricted. What we dont have is the power transition as we are still facing a very difficult situation in terms of political stability.

He drew attention to the fact that some of the international forces were not respecting human values, Islamic values. He said that a dirty game was being played to link ISIS with Afghanistan, something which is a threat to the progress and stability of peace in the country. ISIS dont have any roots in Afghanistan, said he. In her paper on Chinas Interest in the Economic Initiatives around Afghanistan, Saheli Chattaraj said that China shared border as well as concerns of terrorism and it was interested in its untapped resources.

Earlier in his keynote address, Amb. Jayant Prasad, Director General of Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses talked about Indias strategic partnership with Afghanistan through short-term objectives to ensuring long-term stability. JMI Vice Chancellor Prof. Talat Ahmad hoped that the outcome of the conference would be useful for policy makers.

Indias engagement during the last two decades has been very serious, said Shakti Sinha, director of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Afghanistan is a very young country, physically exposed to the world. In his valedictory address, Sinha suggested not to stereotype Afghanistan. There is ethnicity, but dont overplay it. It has been a gateway, traditionally, economically and politically.

Sinha also tried to demystify certain myths like calling Kandahar as Gandahar. He called not to confuse soft power with hard power. Indias interest comes from the convergence of strategy whereas the greatest fear of Pakistan is two flourishing democracies in its two sides.

Prof. Tasneem Meenai, Dean, Students Welfare, Prof H.S. Vasudevan, Lt. Gen.(Retd) Dr B.S. Malik, President, CSIRD, Dr Binoda K Mishara, Director, CSIRD, Prof. J.K. Ray chaired different sessions and shared their insights. Amb. I.P. Khosla, Dr D. K. Giri, Brig Gurmeet Kanwal, Dr. Sabiha Alam, Dr Angira Sen Sarma, Dr Aliva Mishra, Chayanika Saxena, Dr Munir Alam, Dr Safia Mehdi, Dr Raghav Sharma, K.N. Tennyson also presented papers on different aspects.

Prof. Rashmi Doraiswamy, Director, AIS and Dr Arpita Basu Roy of CSIRD thanked the participating institutes especially the Afghan delegates for their contribution.

The author is a Ph.D. student at the Academy of International Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia and is also doing an online research program on Advancing scientific and theological literacy in madrasa discourses of the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA
Help India!

By Raqib Hameed Naik, TwoCircle.net

New Delhi: In the second week of March, Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) drafted a constitution to hold an election for Jamia Student Council (JSC) instead of Jamia Student union, which was banned way back in 2006.

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The draft mooted for a council of students, which would include only class representatives (CR), one elected and one selected from each course and who will only have the power to nominate the office bearers and vote.

The university had even issued the schedule for the election in the third week of March according to which polling was supposed to take place on March 30.

However, as the news of council spread in the campus, hundreds of students started protesting against the move and termed it as the dummy body. The student instead demanded a democratic student union instead of the proposed student council. The protest reached the corridors of Vice Chancellor of the university after which he was forced to postpone the proposed elections.

The protesting students even put graffiti, Right to union, Long Live on the student union hall outside the central canteen.

The protests have ensued a silent debate among students on the campus who termed the move of university authorities as anti-democratic.

The class representative will themselves be fighting elections and voting, while common students havent been given the right to vote. The university is only trying to stifle voices of the students by not giving them freedom to fight and participate in the elections, said Sameer Hussain, who is studying in Department of Urdu, Jamia Millia Islamia.

There should be a student union which can independently communicate student grievances with the university authorities, he added.

As per the drafted constitution, for organizing any activity, the student council has to take permission from the university officials and will have vice chancellor as patron. The patron has been given enormous power, even to dissolve the council revealing the level of administrative interference in the work of the council.

The administrative interference in the working of Council will make it ineffective and giving the voting rights to CRs is discriminatory. Every student of Jamia should have a say in who should represent them, said Jamal Ahmed, who is studying in Department of Political Science, JMI.

Until 2006, JMI used to have student union which the university dissolved without giving a reason. Later the ban was attributed to undue interference of the union in the administrative affairs of the university.

In the year 2011, a former student of JMI had moved to the Delhi High Court seeking to quash the 2006 decision of the central university to ban elections to the students union. Petitioner Ikrar Khan had alleged that it was unreasonable on the part of the university to ban the election from March 2006.

He had said that the authorities had continued to collect a union fee of Rs.50 per student despite there being no elections in the last few years.

Later in 2012, the JMI informed the Delhi High Court that an experimental attempt could be made for holding elections to the students union, but it was never attempted.

As the already issued notification for the student council stays in limbo, the protesting students have also submitted a memorandum with 3, 500 students signature seeking the holding of union elections instead of the council one.

Dr. Saima Saeed, the Media spokesperson of JMI told TwoCircles.net, It is a matter of sub judice. The students have made their representations and we are already looking into it.

Everything is not under the control of the university, she added.
Help India!

New Delhi, (IANS): The Congress on Tuesday said that there was no question of it backing the Shiv Senas suggestion to consider RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for the post of President and said it will spell out its stance on a candidate at the right time.

Party leader Gaurav Gogoi told reporters here that the partys views about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were well known.

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It is very clear that we do not support RSS ideology and when it comes to appointing our President, at the right time, we will, of course, have our own internal discussion first and then share, Gogoi said in response to a query.

President Pranab Mukherjees present term in office will end on July 24.

The Shiv Sena had on Monday urged the Modi government to consider Bhagwat for the post.

Sena MP and Saamana Executive Editor Sanjay Raut said the National Democratic Alliance  of which Sena is a member  and the BJP in particular should think of the RSS Sarsanghchalak if it wanted to fulfil its dream of achieving a Hindu Rashtra.
A legal battle is underway to claw back the criminal fortune of sneaky cocaine baron Johnny Kock and prosecutors are seeking 93m. The pensioner is serving a 25-year prison sentence for running an international cocaine trafficking pipeline  at one stage importing an estimated 7m worth of the drug into the UK per month.

Jailed for importing Class A drugs

The now 70-year-old Dutch national, who flew under he radar for years by living in a nondescript semi-detached house in Willow Road, Wavertree, was jailed in October 2014 after admitting importing Class A drugs.

At the time he sentenced him, Judge Mark Brown said Kock literally flooded the streets with cocaine - hidden in shipments of detergent from continental Europe which always ended up at his pond liner business, Aquaries Ltd, based in Binns Road industrial estate, Old Swan.

The total amount of cocaine seized during a National Crime Agency (NCA) operation was valued at 26m, but investigators estimated Kock may have imported up to 6,000kg of the drug in total  potentially worth up to a billion pounds.

Criminal fortune to be reclaimed

Now judge David Aubrey, QC, is set to determine how much of Kocks criminal fortune can be reclaimed by the state following a five day Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) hearing at Liverpool Crown Court.

Alexander Leach, prosecuting, told the court that the Crown Prosecution Service placed the benefit figure  the amount Kock allegedly earned from his criminal empire  at 93m. However the figure is yet to be agreed with the defence team, led by Johan Grefstad, and the case will continue on Tuesday.

Kocks operation was brought down only after border agents at the Channel Tunnel entrance in France uncovered 23kg of cocaine  with a purity of up to 88%  in a shipment of soap powder.

German customs officers were then made aware of a second shipment, found to contain 107kg of cocaine. The drugs were replaced with dummy packages by NCA detectives and sent on their way to their destination in Kirkby. Kock and his then partner Deborah Fagan, 48, were observed waiting of the packages.

Steve Baldwin, then regional head of investigations at the NCA, said at the time: There arent many who get 25 years for drug trafficking.

He has got connections and he played on them. He is a serious drug dealer. We have had many serious drugs barons put behind bars over the last few years but this guy is right up there. He is definitely right at the top  he sits alongside many of the more infamous drug barons that are well-known in the North West.

Fagan, also of Willow Road, was jailed for 12 months in 2014 after admitting charges related to the drugs money. She was ordered to repay 27,000 of ill-gotten gains in an uncontested POCA hearing in August last year.
WhatsApp have been accused of giving terrorists a secret place to hide after they refuse to hand over the details of the Westminster attackers messages. But what are the implications if they were to cooperate overall. The privacy protections of the messenger app have been called into question but as a liberal society are we at risk of losing that identity if we hand extreme monitoring powers to the authorities?

Amber Rudd told Andrew Marr that the authorities must have access to WhatsApp and other encrypted messaging services that apply end-to-end encryptions.

Abuse of power

A liberal society must allow citizens that freedom to privacy from the government. It is vital for a society that baes itself on liberal principles to grow and thrive but the government have echoed those calls from Amber Rudd, that the police and intelligent services should be able to access messages with Rudd declaring It is completely unacceptable. There should be no place for terrorists to hide.

The issue with allowing that kind of power to organisations, irrespective of the intentions, there always a chance that it could be abused. Whilst not everyone who works in those organisations would, there will be a few that would and it could also be abused by the government itself.

Opposition and civil liberties groups have spoken out against the government.

Policing society itself?

It does look as though the government are looking for any excuse to further monitor society because as far as authorities can tell, he acted alone, with the investigations ongoing. To propose and place stricter monitoring on encrypted messaging services would prove to be difficult because it would be using UK domestic legislation on global internet companies, largely based in the US.

The is little practicality to it.

Furthermore, to try and curb these kinds of privacies after an incident, that had little impact on London and the world., is over the top. If the government allow one man to dictate what policy they should enact to further security, it shows that they are becoming afraid. If you begin to monitor the internet in anyway, it risks opening an assortment of problems and could in the future cause further policing to the internet.

Of course, this is just an extreme scenario but it would open the possibility up and with The Great Repeal Bill after Brexit, that has a clause allowing the government to change any law for a set period. This would open several risks to what we call a liberal society. With any attempt at law to police internet privacy is a direct contradiction to the core British values of freedom of speech.
US President Donald Trump is gunning against his predecessor Barack Obamas legacy once again. It begs the question whether hes just doing it to spite Obama at this point, its getting a tad excessive to just be a coincidence. Anyway, this time hes undermining everything Obama did on the climate change issue during his second term by downplaying the United States commitment to the Paris agreement.

Republicans have had a hard time accepting climate change

GOP politicians have always struggled to accept the science behind global warming. They simply deny it and call it a big conspiracy, despite science.

A senior White House official was asked if Trump accepts the science and he said, Sure, yeah, I guess. But this contradicts what Trump has said in the past, and it doesnt even sound very certain at all. He added that Trump understands the disagreement over the policy response (or so he thinks; he wasnt very clear on that either), and he promised that youll see that...tomorrow as Trumps white house is taking a different path with climate change than previous Presidential administrations have.

Trump is going to do his favourite thing ever and sign an executive order (basically a Do as I command you kind of document) that will indefinitely block, put under reconsideration, or otherwise hinder all of Obamas climate change measures.

So, all of his hard work against global warming (as it used to be referred to in the Bush era) will be tossed out the window into the fray. His plan for clean power that would cut back on emissions of greenhouse gases at power plants powered by burning coal will be put under review by Trumps White House and probably destroyed like every other scrap of the old liberal government.

Trump says global warming is a hoax

In the past, Trump has referred to global warming/climate change as a hoax. Hes spoken out against the power plant clear power plan (thats a mouthful) and also spoken critically of Obamas other plans, since they place a hindrance on what he claims to be his number one priority (the priority that got him the majority vote): the average, everyday working American, the labourers, especially in the dwindling coal industry of the United States.

These people are a valuable asset. Sure, Hillary had the high society liberal Hamptons cocktail party attendees votes secured, but Trump cornered the workers and told them hed fight for their rights and listen to their plight, and look whos President of the United States now. Is it Hillary? Dont think so.

Trump is actually one of the high society cocktail partygoers, by the way, but he managed to convince the workers he was just an average joe, just like them, thus manipulating them into voting him into office so he could ban Muslims from the country and destroy Obamas legacy and get caught in all his lies that no one can do anything about because hes the President and they chose him.

Hes been found in another lie today because his staffer says he understands and accepts the science behind climate change whereas he once said it was just a big conspiracy. So, which is it?

Trump will sign more than one executive order

The unnamed White House official said that the effects of Trumps executive orders would not be immediate. At least hes learning some lessons from his mistakes, if not all of them, since immediate effect is one of the many, many reasons his Muslim travel ban failed. However, he is certain of one thing: therell be litigation. He offered a pretty loose timeframe of three years, two years or one year, but does know that it is going to take some time.
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. President of Artsakh Republic Bako Sahakyan received the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, personal representative of the OSCE chairman-in-office and accompanying them officials on March 28.

As Armenpress was informed from the pres service of the Artsakh Presidents Office, at the beginning of the meeting President Sahakyan congratulated newly-appointed French and American co-chairmen Stephane Visconti and Richard Hoagland on taking the responsible positions, wishing them success in their mission.

Issues related to Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement and recent developments were discussed during the meeting.

President Sahakyan noted that Azerbaijan kept maintaining its unconstructive stance violating the ceasefire regime and continued to pursue anti-Armenian policy.

The Head of the State highlighted the necessity of elaborating the mechanisms of maintaining ceasefire regime and revealing violations considering it among pivotal components of the peace process.

Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan reaffirmed the commitment of the official Stepanakert to the peaceful settlement of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict within the frameworks of OSCE Minsk group.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson touched down in Asia recently to announce the White Houses new approach to dealing with North Korea, although he avoided mentioning anything specific about said approach (a bit of a pattern with the Trump administration).

In his pep talk, Tillerson said he was gunning for a different result than previous administrations had gotten from the nuke-toting dictator-ruled nation, complaining about years of unsuccessful diplomatic and other efforts, and agreeing with the Japanese foreign ministers claim that their nuclear arms situation is totally unacceptable. He advised Kim Jong-un to change your path because Trump was coming for him.

He headed back to the States, and Kim went straight to missile launch mode.

New approach is exactly like the old approach

Tillerson didnt mention what the new approach to North Korea was, and now its been discovered that this new approach is actually really just the old approach. Its like Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Its basically just A New Hope rehashed. Past Presidential administrations have used the exact words about North Koreas unacceptable behaviour and directing them to a new path.

Barack Obama said he wanted to break that pattern of North Korea getting away with murder and George W. Bush branded Kim Jong-il (who was in power at the time, and is dead now) a whiny little kid who acts out and throws food on the floor.

But America can only ever seem to talk the talk, it cant walk the walk. Presidents always clean up the food and continue to feed the little brat. If Trump and Tillerson and the rest of the administration are taking the same approach with them (as is suggested by the use of the same words), then theyll keep picking up the food too, and North Korea will keep getting away with it.

North Koreas nukes developing rapidly

Kim Jong-un has better nukes and better missiles every single day. He keeps developing them and testing them, and we know hes got a missile capable of reaching American soil  just imagine what we dont know. The North Korea situation is very delicate. Kim Jong-un is just sitting at home with his finger on the launch button, just waiting for Donald Trump to give him a reason.

If Trump kicks off at Kim Jong-un, Americas allies will freak out, its enemies will have a good laugh and then retaliate, and World War III will quickly ensue. Thanks, Tillerson, for absolutely nothing.
President Donald Trump is keen to make America great again. But he doesnt seem to mind doing that at the cost of the environment. He sees the Paris agreement as a bit of an inconvenience to the workers in the struggling coal industry, so hed rather make their lives a little bit easier than make the state of the planet a lot worse.

Greenhouse gas emissions will not be cut down

This is partly because he and his party do not accept the science that blames humankind for global warming. In fact, Trump thinks global warming itself is just a hoax. So, Trump is now undermining the US commitment to the Paris agreement, which was signed by the UN just last year.

Under the Paris agreement, Obamas America pledged to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases by a figure in the realm of 26% to 28% by the year 2025, the percentages being that much below 2005s statistics, not the day the agreement was signed (strangely).

However, Trump is slyly backing away and downplaying Americas commitment to the agreement, suggesting those emissions wont be lowered by 2025. This was seen as the strongest action taken by a US President against climate change at the time Obama signed it, but its useless now that Trumps getting cold feet about it.
Is your computer protected by McAfee cybersecurity software? Chances are, it is. And its easy to picture the guy who started the company, John McAfee (especially with that name), as some quiet, softly spoken, weedy little nerd, plugging away with his coding or whatever and raking in millions. But thats far from the truth, as Johnny Depp is hoping to expose in his next movie, in which hes playing McAfee as he really is.

The movie will be called King of the Jungle

Johnny Depps John McAfee movie will bear the title King of the Jungle, and thats no joke.

The story, inspired by Francis Ford Coppolas seminal, epic, psychedelic Vietnam War head-trip Apocalypse Now, will follow McAfee (himself not only an icon of the cybersecurity world, but also an accused murderer) as he invites a journalist from Wired magazine to his compound in the wilderness of Belize and gives him a tour.

True to Depps style, the McAfee movie will be rife with humour in a very dark tone (which sounds increasingly like his Hunter S. Thompson-inspired acid-fuelled road trip flick Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas directed by Terry Gilliam) as it portrays the guys insane lifestyle: murder, depraved sex acts, mind-blowing paranoid conspiracy theories about the NSA and such, the whole shabam.

Director and writing team set

King of the Jungle will be directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, and while wrangling Depps performance as McAfee will be their first time working with him, the directors are no strangers to working with big-name stars: Tina Fey in another comedy based on another controversial and uncomfortable subject of humour, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (which was once titled The Taliban Shuffle, to give you an idea of what theyre into); Will Smith and Margot Robbie in con artist drama Focus (or whatever the messy piece of cr*p was trying to be); and (brace yourself) Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, Marisa Tomei, and Kevin Bacon in Crazy, Stupid, Love.

The script will be provided by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the pair of writers behind the highly acclaimed magnet of prestige and awards, The People vs OJ Simpson, the first season of Ryan Murphys lucrative anthology series American Crime Story, which is already in production up to season 4 (meaning these two writers are going to be making a lot of money).

The release date for King of the Jungle has yet to be confirmed, as does the casting of the Wired journalist who will be starring alongside Depps McAfee.

While he works on his best John McAfee impression, Depp has his return to his most famous role (whether its his best is up for debate) as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, for which hes being paid a ridiculous amount. The Film will be released on 26 May later this year.
The UAE is an oasis of prosperity in the Middle East. The oil boom of the sixties has translated the economy of this region to an advanced level, The local population is too small and hence the UAE has to rely on a large expatriate workforce. This expatriate workforce is mainly from the sub -continent and presently make up more than 80% of the total population. Muslims and Sikhs / Hindus work side by side and there is no animosity. The law of the land is a mixture of British jurisprudence and the Sharia and crimes are judged by a combination of British era laws and the Sharia.

In 2015 Mohammed Farhan of Pakistan was killed by 10 Indian workers from Indian Punjab after an altercation. The 10 men were arrested and tried for the crime and sentenced to death. In the UAE death sentence can be commuted in case the accused are pardoned by the victim's near relation, by giving "blood money".

Giving " Blood Money"

The relations of the 10 accused approached Sardar SP Singh Oberoi a Dubai-based businessman, who also hails from Punjab. SP Singh also heads the Sarbat Da Bhala Charitable trust. This is a non-profit organisation that helps people who are arrested. SP Singh contacted the father of the victim in Pakistan and arranged for him to come to Dubai. Singh has arranged AED 200,000 as " Blood Money" about $ 50,000.

This was offered to the father and him accepted it in a spirit of reconciliation and has pardoned the 10 accused. This is as per the Sharia.

Pardon

Now the father and the accused have to appear before the Sharia court which will decide on acceptance of the compromise. In case, the Sharia court accepts the compromise, the accused will be pardoned, but deported from Dubai. The father Mohammed Riaz, in a statement to the press, said" It is unfortunate that I lost my son.

I appeal to young generation not to indulge in such fights. I have forgiven these 10 individuals. In fact, Allah has saved their lives..."

Presently Riaz is in Dubai and arrangements are being worked out. He came to Dubai at the request of Sardar SP Singh, who has made all arrangements for his stay and ticket.
Pakistani political scenario has been changing since the beginning of the judicial trial on Panama gate. Opposition leader Imran Khan has been criticising the government for lack of transparency due to offshore companies and absence of money trail in Panama scandal. Pakistani democracy will witness the second ever smooth democratic transition of power in 2018.

pakistan has been a sandwich between military rule and weak democratic governance since the independence of the country in 1947. According to political analysts in Pakistan, judicial decision of Panama gate will determine the political future of Sharif family in the country.

After the judicial intervention in Panama scandal, political parties agreed to solve the crisis in Supreme Court because capital lockdown call by opposition leader had posed serious threats to fragile democracy of the country.

Ruling party vows to gain public support

All the political parties have to compete in 2018 elections because elections will determine the political stake and capital of all political parties in parliament. After the public criticism and satirical judicial remarks, Pakistan Muslim League (N) has initiated massive campaign to mobilise public in strongholds of the party. As part of the partys policy to conduct public rallies in support of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, thousands of protesters gathered in Lahore and chanted slogans in favour of party leadership.

Rally was organised by the youth leader of party Hamza Mustafawho is also profound national orator of countryin the Gulshan-e-Ravi area of Lahore City. Opposition party Pakistan Tehreek Insaf allegedly enjoys popular youth support in Pakistan, but youth mobilisation campaign of ruling party can turn the tide before the important electoral contest.

Chief Minister of Punjab promulgated youth-oriented schemesincluding laptop distribution initiativebefore the 2013 general elections in Pakistan and gained political leverage.

Political dynamics are changing in Pakistan

Future political dynamics and a judicial decision will prove as an effective matrix to measure the success of such youth-oriented rallies in the country. As per the words of one of the leading political analyst of country, Pakistani political scenario has always been the aggregation of unpredictable circumstances for the past seventy years
President invites Nepal, Madagascar and Micronesia to join trade initiative

Chinese PresidentXi Jinping(R) meets with Nepali Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal in Beijing, capital of China, March 27, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

Nepal, Micronesia and Madagascar are welcome to take part in the Belt and Road Initiative, President Xi Jinping separately told leaders of the three countries on Monday.

While meeting with Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Xi said that the two countries should seize the opportunities to work together on the Belt and Road Initiative to push forward cooperation in such areas as interconnection, free trade, agriculture, production capacity, energy and earthquake reconstruction.

The Belt and Road Initiative, put forward by Xi in 2013, aims to revive the ancient land and sea trade routes of the Silk Road with a focus on infrastructure.

Mentioning that China and Nepal have maintained close contacts in all levels of government and political parties, Xi called for ongoing efforts to further develop friendly ties between the two countries.

China and Nepal should continue to build upon political trust and support each other on major issues related to shared interests, Xi said. The two countries should expand two-way investment and promote fair bilateral trade, he added.

The Nepalese prime minister expressed gratitude for China's long-term support, especially the assistance with reconstruction following Nepal's deadly 2015 earthquake.

Dahal also affirmed his nation's commitment to the one-China policy and said the country will never allow any force to engage in anti-China activities in Nepalese territory.

Nepal supports the Belt and Road Initiative, and it is willing to cooperate with China in areas including trade, investment, transportation, infrastructure, tourism and aviation, he said.

Also on Monday, President Xi told Madagascan President Hery Rajaonarimampianina that China supports Madagascar's participation in the Belt and Road Initiative and the nation can help bridge a link to Africa.

China is willing to establish a comprehensive cooperative partnership with Madagascar, Xi said.

In the past 45 years, the two countries have respected each other and supported each other on issues of key interests and concerns, Xi said.

China will support Madagascar in infrastructure construction, human resources and investment and trade efforts, he said, adding the two countries should cooperate in fields such as agriculture, fisheries and security and legal affairs.

The Madagascan president said his country expects to promote economic and social development through deepening cooperation with China.

After the meeting, the two presidents were on hand as cooperative documents were signed, including a memorandum of understanding on jointly working on the Belt and Road Initiative and others related to trade and infrastructure.

Xi also said on Monday that China and Micronesia should fully tap into their potential and press ahead with two-way cooperation in fields including tourism, agriculture, fisheries and infrastructure.

He told Micronesian President Peter M. Christian the two countries enjoy common or similar views on international and regional issues and explained China is ready to strengthen coordination on key issues such as climate change.

China supports Micronesia to further play a role in regional affairs and is ready to step up dialogue and communication on issues involving Pacific island countries, Xi added.

Christian said his country staunchly upholds the one-China policy and stands with China regarding major issues such as climate change and globalization.

Xi noted that, after the two countries established a strategic partnership of mutual respect and common development in 2014, they have deepened political trust and strengthened cooperation and have made important progress.

China views Micronesia as a good friend and a good partner among Pacific island countries, Xi said. He said China is willing to continue with high-level communication.

Christian said Micronesia's relationship with China has achieved robust development since the diplomatic ties were established 28 years ago.

Following their talks, the two presidents witnessed the signing of bilateral agreements on economic and technological cooperation.
Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan has arrived in Turkmenistan on an official visit, and he was received by President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov.

March 28, 2017, 13:23 Armenias Prime Minister and Turkmenistans President discuss economic cooperation in Ashgabat

STEPANAKERT, MARCH 28, ARTSAKHPRESS: The president of Turkmenistan noted that Armenian-Turkmen relations stand out with their progress, and added that such official mutual visits contribute to the development of relations, the press office of the government of Armenia informed.

Our peoples have historical warm relations and ties, Berdimuhamedov noted, in particular.

In turn, PM Karapetyan lauded the level of Armenian-Turkmen relations, but stated that these relations do not correspond to the level of present-day cooperation in the economic sector.

The objective of the visit is to thoroughly discuss a variety of matters and projects of economic cooperation, noted the Armenian PM. Also, he expressed confidence that the friendship between the two peoples is a good foundation for the further development of Armenia-Turkmenistan cooperation.

Subsequently, the interlocutors discussed economic issues.
GENBAND Powers Vodafone Fiji UC Deployment

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By Paula Bernier

Executive Editor, TMC By Paula BernierExecutive Editor, TMC

Vodafone (News - Alert) Fiji has tapped GENBAND to provide an array of solutions to enhance what it can offer in the way of unified communications to customers in a remote part of the world. The carrier will deliver these services in the Republic of Kiribati in collaboration with local provider Amalgamated Telecoms Holdings Kiribati Ltd.





Remote areas have been at a disadvantage when aiming to access next-generation services, said David O'Connor, GENBAND's senior vice president for APAC Sales. Until now that access has required massive investment. This unprecedented solution is an important step forward in extending advanced capabilities to these underserved locations while providing a model for cost-efficient delivery of hosted UC solutions.

The deal includes the GENBAND Application Server, which allows for local hosted billing, and Kandy (News - Alert) Business Solutions, which delivers auto attendant, voicemail and WebRTC applications, and Web collaboration capabilities.

Enhanced SIP trunking, local media anchoring, PRI gateways, and voice over satellite are also in the mix with this hosted cloud-based solution.

Our new Kandy Business SIP Trunk service allows enterprises, SIs, resellers and service providers to simplify enterprise transformation to SIP and accelerate time-to-market by leveraging three critical areas of need for modern enterprises  cloud, mobility and contextual communications, said Patrick Joggerst (News - Alert), Executive Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing at GENBAND. It bolsters existing enterprise PBX investments by delivering enhanced business continuity, user-centric session management, advanced mobility, a wide array of SIP and WebRTC-based overlay services and an API platform for contextual communications.

In the first quarter issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine, Phil Edholm of PKE Consulting LLC talks about what he calls CPaaS 2.0. And he says GENBAND is among the key companies delivering solutions in this important new market.

New companies like Temasys (News - Alert) and Tokbox are in this space, as is GENBAND with its Kandy platform, Edholm says. A CPaaS 2.0 solution delivers all the elements to deploy, including simple APIs, infrastructure, TURN servers, media servers, and even IP transport management.

If youd like to learn more about WebRTC and APIs, be sure to check out TMC (News - Alert) and Crossfire Medias newest conference and expo, Communications 20/20, happening July 18-20 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The event will focus on the next wave of technology and innovations that will transcend the importance of person to person contact, disrupting the future of the entire communications industry. Find out more HERE.
President Donald Trump has made a habit of bypassing the mainstream news media and using his Twitter account to get his message across. In his latest social media attack, Trump targeted the Democratic National Committee over their new chairman.

Trump on Twitter

After Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz stepped down as Chair of the Democratic National Committee last year following controversy surrounding the primary election, it was only a matter of time before a new individual was elected to lead the party. Heading into the vote for a new chairman, it came down to Rep.

Keith Ellison, a favorite of progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders, and tom perez, the former Secretary of Labor under former President Barack Obama. In a vote of 235-200, Perez edged out Ellison to become the new chairman, but not before his progressive opponent was quickly named deputy chair in a show of apparent unity. In response, Donald Trump pushed a conspiracy on the issue as seen on his Twitter account on February 26.

The race for DNC Chairman was, of course, totally "rigged." Bernie's guy, like Bernie himself, never had a chance. Clinton demanded Perez!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 26, 2017

"The race for DNC Chairman was, of course, totally 'rigged,'" Donald Trump wrote on his Twitter on Sunday morning.

Not stopping there, the former host of "The Apprentice" continued his conspiracy theory. "Bernie's guy, like Bernie himself, never had a chance," Trump tweeted, before adding, "Clinton demanded Perez!" Despite his claim that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "demanded" that Perez become the new chair, the president provided no evidence to back up his allegations.

Tom Perez was elected Saturday as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, becoming 1st Latino to lead party https://t.co/3wf4d3gReY pic.twitter.com/VizssePIly  CBS News (@CBSNews) February 25, 2017

Donald Trump's tweet comes less than 24 hours after he sent out his first comment on the issue. Taking to his Twitter account on Saturday, the billionaire real estate mogul mockingly congratulated Tom Perez on his victory, before adding, "I could not be happier for him, or for the Republican Party!" Backlash quickly followed Trump's tweet, with many accusing the president of sarcasm in his response to the new chair.

Congratulations to Thomas Perez, who has just been named Chairman of the DNC. I could not be happier for him, or for the Republican Party!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017

Next up

With the Democratic National Committee electing its new chairman, the party can finally put behind them the questions surrounding the primary election involving Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. As the Democratic Party looks to regroup and move forward, it appears that Donald Trump is still looking to dig up old memories and keep the party divided.
The Russian bogey refuses to die away. It keeps resurfacing at awkward moments and Donald Trump must be wondering how he can rid himself of this bogey. Russia and America have been antagonists since the end of World War II and most Americans are suspicious of Russian intentions. Now it is learned that the Senate Intelligence Committee will question jared kushner. This is part of the ongoing probe into the supposed Russian interference in the last presidential election. Kushner is a close aide and the right-hand man of the president. The Intelligence committee is keen to question the son-in-law of Trump about some meetings which he had arranged with the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

This was reported by the Times.

White House confirms meetings

The White House has confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that Kushner has agreed to slot a meeting with the committee. Kushner is pretty confident and has volunteered to provide information to the committee. The White House has already acknowledged that Jared was part of a meeting in December last year along with security advisor Micheal Flynn with the Russian Ambassador. It is reported that the only point on the agenda was better relations between Russia and the USA.

The Russian ambassador had requested a second meeting, but Kushner sent his deputy to attend. The Ambassador wanted Kushner to meet with Sergey Gorkov the chief of Vnesheconomnank, a Russian bank against which sanctions are imposed.

Kushner did meet Gorkov sometime later. It is claimed that Kushner met with dozens of foreign officials during this period. He has no hesitation to speak about it.

FBI investigation

The FBI Director James Comey has already confirmed that investigations are underway on possible links between Trump's team and the Russians. They are investigating attempts by Russia to interfere in the 2016 election in support of Trump.This won't be happy news for Trump whose presidency seems to be bedeviled with problems from day 1. He also has the lowest approval ratings for a president at the start of his term in US history.
Senate members want to question #jared kushner, son-in-law of President Trump and his close adviser, for their ongoing investigation into ties between Russian officials  and those with links to the Kremlin  and Trump associates.

This, according to congressional officials, will take place in the next few days, as the Senate Intelligence Committee looks closer at meetings that Kushner had with the Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Kislyak has been featured in many reports lately, since he was the Russian official that both disgraced national security advisor Mcihael Flynn as well as attorney general #Jeff Sessions met with, and whom they failed to mention to when first questioned.

The meetings between Kushner and #Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak eventuated during the transition, and the meeting also featured a previously unreported head-to-head with a key head of Russias state-owned development bank. Until the last few days, the White House had acknowledged only the Kislyak meeting in December, which had occurred at Trump Tower and also featured the disgraced national security advisor Michael Flynn.

More meetings and tangled webs

Within a month, however, Kislyak had asked for another meeting with Kushner, yet Kushner sent one of his deputies to attend, according to #White House officials. Then, as per Kislyaks request, Kushner then met a few weeks later with Sergey Gorkov, the chief of the bank in question, named Vnesheconombank.

This bank has been placed by the United States on a sanctions list ever since Russia's President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and began intrusions into Ukraine.

#Hope Hicks, a White House spokeswoman established that these meetings did in fact happen but that nothing of any value of significance was discussed. Gorkov has said nothing on the matter on or off record, and it is interesting to note that he also served previously as the deputy chairman of the board of #Sberbank, Russias largest nation-owned bank.

Normal conduct during transition

During times of incoming presidents, members of the president's transition team will often sit down with all sorts of foreign dignitaries and officials. By sitting down with Kislyak, Mr Kushner certainly did not break any laws or impinge upon proper conduct in the #White House.

The Senate panels preference for meeting with Kushner to discuss his Russian meetings will make him the most intimate of Trump's associates to be questioned.

He is also the only one currently serving in the White House.

Also, Kushner's role during the #Trump election campaign was to reach out to various foreign governments and officials. Indeed, Hicks claims that Kushner did of course met with many dozens of officials and foreign dignitaries from a diverse spread of countries. She also told the press that of course Kushner is happy to talk to Senate investigators about the conferences with Kislyak and Gorkov. He isnt trying to hide anything and wants to be transparent, Hicks said on his behalf.

And yet, meetings with any #Russian officials and Trump allies are going to be of consequence since several congressional committees and the FBI are attempting to determine the seriousness and scale of Russian intervention in the election and apparent links between various Russians and Presient Trump's team.
Nebraska teen antonia lopez may have killed her newborn baby, but she won't be spending any time behind bars. Instead, she has been sentenced to community service -- and ordered to delete her Facebook account.

According to a report by the Omaha World Herald, the 16-year-old gave birth in her apartment in the early morning hours of Sept. 30 of last year and later told her mother about what she had done. However, despite the mother's efforts to save the baby, the child was pronounced dead at the hospital on account of the injuries the baby sustained.

Antonia Lopez's baby was alive when she threw it out

Although Lopez initially told authorities that she believed the child was stillborn, she ultimately admitted to the crime once her case was transferred to the juvenile court. The report also claimed Lopez had attempted to convince authorities that she was completely unaware of her pregnancy, but her boyfriend later refuted the claims and said he had tried to get her to tell her mother and see a doctor.

Antonia Lopez's baby was deemed to have been alive at the time of the incident. Medics made this determination after witnessing blood in the baby's head and abdomen.

"Douglas County Juvenile Court Judge Christopher Kelly ordered Antonia Lopez to be placed on probation, live in a group home, take part in individual and family therapy, delete her Facebook account and perform 50 hours of community service," the Omaha World Herald confirmed to readers this week.

Antonia Lopez was initially charged as an adult

Lopez received one count of felony child abuse resulting in death after the incident and faced two decades behind bars if convicted. However, attorney Don Kleine later agreed to move the case from district court due to her mental state and lack of prior incidents.

As for Lopez's Facebook account, Judge Kelly ordered that the page be deleted not as punishment, but as protection.

As the report explained, Lopez has received thousands of negative comments from Facebook users around the world.

After giving birth, Antonia Lopez sent her boyfriend a message on Snapchat. The message read, It was a girl by the way.
The Republicans had their chance to repeal and replace the affordable care act but were unable to unify and get on the same page. House Speaker Paul Ryan reportedly did everything he could to get enough support for the bill, including getting down on one knee to plead with a high-ranking member of Congress.

Ryan's last chance

The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, has been the law of the land for just over seven years. The historic health care reform was signed by former President Barack Obama and resulted in a dramatic shift in how the United States handles its health care system.

Since that time, Republicans have made opposition the law their top talking point, which was evident during the 2016 presidential election and the campaign of Donald Trump. With Trump in the White House and Republicans in majority-control of Congress, most thought that Obamacare had no chance at survival, but the GOP fumbled their chance by putting together a much-criticized alternative. As reported by the Washington Post, and later The Hill, on March 26, Paul Ryan unsuccessfully begged a top Republican Congressman to support the bill.

Republican Rep. Don Young of Alaska is the longest serving conservative member of Congress, and his support or opposition could've have the impact to sway enough votes to make the GOP Health Care Bill a success or failure.

Young opposed the bill, but that didn't stop Paul Ryan from doing whatever he could to change the congressman's mind. According to the Washington Post, Ryan "got down on one knee" and begged Young to support the bill, humiliating himself in the process, but was still denied.

Moving forward

After blowing their chance at health care reform, Donald Trump and Republicans are forced to regroup and decide what their next course of action will be.

While the president has signaled that he wants to move forward with tax reform, he's not done playing the blame game. Trump first blamed Democrats for the GOP failure on health care, which Vice President Mike Pence has also doubled down on.

After pointing his finger at Democrats for fall of GOP health care bill, Pres. Trump shifts blame to conservatives https://t.co/fZ63NDzjaK pic.twitter.com/4SNnoXl6ea  ABC News (@ABC) March 26, 2017

However, the billionaire real estate mogul expressed his frustration with the House Freedom Caucus for refusing to support the bill, tweeting out that they are to blame for keeping Obamacare and Planned Parenthood alive. At this point, it's unknown when, or if, the White House will make another push for health care reform, but it doesn't appear like they are even ready to stop pointing the finger of blame.
Following his pulling of the American Health Care Act from Congress, late Friday, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan spoke about the party's stance toward health care reform going forward, calling the issue "too important" to ignore. Speaker Ryan described the Affordable Care Act as a "collapsing law." Also known as Obamacare, the ACA was signed into law by former President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010.

President Donald Trump campaigned on a platform of repealing and replacing Obamacare as soon as he took office. The author of "The Art of the Deal," who once stated, "I alone can fix it," with regard to the nation's problems, was described breaking his own deal-making rules by an adviser to U.S.

Senator from Kentucky Rand Paul when he called for a vote on the AHCA in Congress last week, possibly appearing "too eager" to make a deal.

House speaker: 'coverage for everyone' versus 24-26 million losing coverage

At his press conference, Paul Ryan stated that the goal of the Republican Party was to "advance the cause of freedom, and limited government," and to make it "easier for families to pay their bills." He professed a desire for a health care system that provides "affordable coverage" for everyone, and a belief that this would result from more competition and choice. "We don't want a government-run health care system," Ryan underlined. It has been noted that his proposed legislation, the AHCA, would have resulted in 24-26 million Americans losing insurance coverage.

The speaker of the House detailed a "Congressional review act measure" aimed at striking "bad regulations." The Insurance Journal reports that an order scheduled to be presented to President Trump Tuesday will roll back a "raft of rules and directives to combat climate change." Ryan stated that the Republican-controlled Congress has sent 10 such measures to the president for approval.

He continued that the conservatives were "committed" to revamping the armed forces, securing the borders, tax reform, and rebuilding America's infrastructure.

Bernie Sanders proposes 'Medicare for all'

Stating his view that Obamacare is damaging families, Speaker Ryan insisted that Republicans would, with time, get health care legislation "right," and while that work continues, the party is going to move ahead with other initiatives "we came here to do." Following Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, the Republican majority leader, stated that the party had been tasked to "repeal and replace Obamacare, and that's exactly what we're going to do."

On Sunday, U.S.

Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders announced his intention to introduce legislation he described as a "single-payer Medicare-for-all" program. Research from the Kaiser Family Foundation and Pew Research shows over 60 percent of Americans holding a positive view of government-run healthcare. Alex Lawson, the executive director with Social Security Works, has suggested that the government take small steps, first lowering the qualifying Medicare age to 62, and eventually "down to zero."
The Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia recalls him as a particularly colourful litigant in the 1930s and as the first person with a wooden leg to be granted a flying licence - who delighted in stunt-flying under Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The remarkable thing about the old Papua New Guinea was that you were given the opportunity to meet people like Goya.

I strongly suspect that he was  but, for me, more than that he was a truly outstanding man and a friend.

WAS GOYA HENRY (1901-74) the first person to fly a plane under the Sydney Harbour Bridge?

Even more provocative was his habit of taking members of the public for short joyrides in a light plane along the perimeter of Mascot airport, his pilot's licence being suspended many times between 1934 and 1938, when the High Court finally clamped down on him altogether and brought an end to the joy flights.

Goya later quit Sydney and became captain of a trawler in New Guinea.

Ill never forget the times travelling with him on the MV Thetis to Manam and other islands, and the wonderful conversations we had about pre-war Australian aviation, Territory characters, classical literature and matters medical (both our fathers were country doctors), the sinking of the Titanic, the law, and numerous other topics.

When he volunteered for the RAAF at the start of World War II, a senior officer, previously trained to fly by Goya, said to him: Theyll never take you, Goya. Youre not a Mason, youre not a Catholic and you can fly a plane.

The official reason why he was not accepted, of course, was that hed lost a leg.

In conversation Goya continually made classical and Shakespearean references. In a letter to me in 1967, obviously in the dumps, comparing himself to Hamlet.

He loved a reference I made to Achilles sulking in his tent, a state in which I never found Goya.

The Achilles more to his taste would have been found in Tennysons Ulysses: It maybe we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Im sure that in the afterlife, Goya, you have touched the Happy Isles and the prospect of me seeing you and Achilles in the future is very sustaining to me in the here and now.

I hope Im not being too presumptive if, as did the famous author Frank Clune, I claim you as an old pal.
With the ongoing investigation into #Russian meddling in the US election this week, Mr Kushner, Trump's son in law, is being interviewed by The Senate Committee. There is no indication at this point that Kushner is the focus of this investigation, and he has not yet spoken to The Fbi or questioned by any of their officials.

Kushner did in fact meet with Sergey Kislyak, a Russian ambassador, who has become a leading figure in the controversy over Russian communications with Trump's team. There has been a trend with Kislyaks meetings proving problematic with Trump administration officials.

Even though many in the press are wondering about the scope of Kushner's conferences with Kislyak, the #FBI are not at this point stepping in to lead proceedings or to make a judgment about the issue.

Jared Kushner has just returned from a holiday with his wife Ivanka Trump, during which they escaped the healthcare melee that was taking place in Washington, and which he had no interest of pursuing as a political issue.
The Washington Post reports that the United States Senate has approved by 97 to 2 procedural vote that will lead the way for the approval of Montenegro, a republic on the Adriatic coast that was once part of Yugoslavia, to join NATO. The inclusion of one of Europes smallest and newest countries will not add much to the alliances combat power as its entire military establishment, Army. Navy, and Air Force, numbers less than 2,000 personnel. But Montenegro joining NATO will represent a slap in the face of Vladimir Putins Russia, which has been keen to add that country to its sphere of influence and gain basing rights to its navy.

The sole voice raised against the vote belonged to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, who was perhaps channeling his father former Congressman Ron Pauls isolationist tendencies. He claimed that the move to admit Montenegro would unnecessarily antagonize Russia and would constitute a burden upon the American taxpayer. However, his views were countered by Russia hawks such as Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona.

However, Putins aggressive moves in the Ukraine and Syria, not to mention his casting a covetous eye on Poland and the Baltic States, have motivated even the Trump administration to move to beef up NATO. President Trump is pushing for NATO countries such as Germany to live up to their treaty obligations and devote at least two percent of their GDP to their military.

Even as Trump seeks to establish a rapprochement with Russia with a view toward making it an ally in the war on terror, strengthening NATO sends a message that being overly aggressive against the United States and her allies has consequences.

Montenegro has already participated in a number of operations in tandem with NATO and the United Nations, contributing a small number of troops to Afghanistan and participating in peacekeeping operations in Liberia, Cyprus, and Somalia as military observers.

Its troops, all professional, are trained by the German Bundeswehr.

Montenegros membership in NATO has been pending since 2015. All of the alliance member states have to approve for the country to be admitted to the alliance.
Who is #Sergey Kislyak? He's the Russian Ambassador at the Center of allegations that Team Trump has been consorting with Russian officials, and those close to the Kremlin, for political or financial gain.

#Michael Flynn was fired as the national security advisor for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the conferences and the dialog he had with Kislyak, and instead insisted that he had not talked about any sanctions against Russia when indeed communication intercepts illustrated that he had in fact done so.

Attorney General #Jeff Sessions was a few weeks later made to recuse himself from all the #Russian inquiries that were being led by the Justice Department after he did not reveal that he had met with Sergey Kislyak (during the campaign), at at his Senate confirmation.

That Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump's husband, met with Mr Kislyak in December, during the transition, is of interest to those on the Senate Committee's researching the matter.

Kushner went to the first meeting with #Kislyak to negotiate ways the Russian government and the incoming administration could improve their soured relations, according to Hope Hicks, a White House official.
Two months into his presidency and meeting with world leaders, there haven't been many aggressively negative responses directed at Donald Trump by world leaders, due to their effort to give him a chance to lead. As these months have passed, however, it's quite clear that the Trump administration is determined to take a hard stance on everything at the cost of creating tension. The White House's claim in March that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower phones over the last year, sent politicians into a frenzy to try and either help the Trump administration spin the accusation or use their powers to force him to prove it.

A reaction from British intelligence over a week ago evolved from the President's wiretapping conspiracy suggesting that the UK Surveillance Agency GCHQ was involved. GCHQ responded to the accusation in a statement saying, "recent allegations made by (Fox News) media commentator judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct 'wiretapping' against the then president-elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored," according to one report by the Guardian titled: "GCHQ dismisses 'utterly ridiculous' claim it helped wiretap Trump".

Peddling falsehoods

A more recent criticism came from former British ambassador to the United States Sir Peter Westmacott who said in an op-ed published by The Guardian, that the accusation against British intelligence "could damage close ties between the two countries.

The reason the Guardian takes his criticism seriously is that Westmacott was the British ambassador to the United States until January of this year. In the months since Donald Trump became president, there is no indication that the White House is going to try and stop peddling falsehoods. Although, it has been reported that the White House spoke with GCHQ after the President made the false accusation to apologized saying that they would not press the matter anymore.

Despite this, the opposition -- or at least some who feel their credibility has taken a hit -- have not had a problem sorting out "soft" targets such as Andrew Napolitano, who was "benched" by Fox News for making the statement. But Napolitano has apparently been creating other "fictions" as he has said that he's likely to be picked for a Supreme Court nomination by Trump according to Politico, even though judge Neil Gorsuch is already having hearings.

No one else has promoted Napolitano as an option. Napolitano has been saying since December that he was being considered and even his friends have told him that he shouldn't take Trump seriously. But with the Trump White House, there is always room for fictions to become reality as many people who have been considered not credible, inexperienced or even controversial have already been given positions of power just for being loyal to Donald Trump.

White House's credibility issue

After Republicans failed to pass their repeal law against the Affordable Care Act (ACA), they were considered "losers" by all sides for not being able to do away with something that they have been after for almost a decade.

President Trump did what he does best and turned the entire issue against the Democrats, who were not involved in the repeal effort saying that they were the losers and it was their responsibility now. While Democrats feel that the ACA does have some problems, it's not at the apocalyptic level that Republicans have been pitching, so the "threat" is strange. It's only the latest of fictions that Trump is pushing, the kind he was asked about this week in an interview with Time where he said he wasn't lying, he was creating his own reality. The writer of the article Michael Scherer said on Washington Week that Trump maneuvers facts as if he were negotiating and that facts don't matter because he knows what's going on. Most feel that the White House and its president have lost all credibility.
A worker assembles an auto engine at a SAIC-GM-Wuling Automotive Co Ltd plant in Qingdao, Shandong province. The government will increase financial support for the development of the manufacturing sector. [Photo/China Daily]

Govt says lenders and investors can help move sector up the value chain

The central authorities said on Tuesday that more financing will be made available to manufacturers, as the country aims to move the sector up the value chain.

The move is expected to help manufacturers with technological advantages and good market prospects to secure long-term, lower-cost funding through various channels.

More financial support will be provided to technological and manufacturing upgrades, said a guideline released by the People's Bank of China, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the China Banking Regulatory Commission, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission and the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

Banks and institutional investors will play various roles, and agencies will be established to offer more professional services and support to the industry, the guideline said.

Banks will be required to appropriately conduct pilot programs to securitize nonperforming loans related to manufacturers in a bid to proactively reduce lending risk. The sector has been facing overcapacity burdens, affecting companies' ability to pay off their debts.

The guideline encourages insurers to expand their investments in the sector to ease their access to stable and long-term funding.

China will also encourage manufacturers to accelerate progress in listing on domestic or overseas stock markets, or raise funds through bond issuance, the guideline said.

Collaboration procedures between manufacturers and providers of financial services will be streamlined, and information disclosure will be transparent and prompt, according to the guideline.

The country introduced its Made in China 2025 initiative in 2015, targeting a shift to high value-added manufacturing in place of low-end production. The initiative's objectives focus on developing internal capacity and competencies in 10 key sectors, including new energy vehicles, automation, robotics and power equipment.

"These moves in the guideline, if implemented, will help manufacturers with strong competence and technological advantages to grow stronger in a steady manner," said a research note from China Fortune Securities Co.

Support is to be provided in a market-oriented manner, meaning that capital will be directed to aid competent companies in real economy sectors that are likely to yield returns to investors: it is a move within a broader picture of refocusing on the real economy, said the research note.

"Enterprises focusing on high-tech business and top players in their fields are more likely to get listed on various boards across the multi-pronged capital market in China, said a research note from Guoyuan Securities Co.
NEW YORK  Forty-six dogs were flown to New York from South Korea after being rescued at a farm where they were to be slaughtered for human consumption, animal advocates said Sunday.

The Humane Society International is responsible for saving the dogs that were fed barely enough to survive.

The animals arrived at Kennedy International Airport late Saturday and were headed to emergency shelters in New York, Maryland and Pennsylvania on Sunday.

The farm in Goyang, a city just north of Seoul, "was more like a dungeon, where there's very little light, little to no ventilation, so the stench of ammonia would bring tears to your eyes when you walk through," said Kelly O'Meara, who oversees the society's companion animal-related international projects. "You'd see eyes peering at you, but it was hard to actually see the dogs themselves in the dark."

An estimated 17,000 other such farms still operate in South Korea, said O'Meara. However, she said, it's a diminishing industry in a society where demand for dog meat has been plummeting. Meat from about 2 million dogs still is eaten there each year.

In the United States, the rescued dogs will be available for adoption after the shelters evaluate their behavior and medical needs and make sure each one is ready for a new life in someone's home.

In South Korea, O'Meara said, the dogs receive no veterinary care of any kind.

"They either get through it or they die in their cage and they receive just enough food to get by," she said.

At the seven farms from which the Humane Society rescued more than 800 dogs since 2015, those to be slaughtered included both mixed breed dogs and purebred ones  from a Chihuahua and a Maltese to various spaniels and a Saint Bernard.

A German shorthaired pointer and a miniature pinscher came from the latest farm.

The Washington-based Humane Society International, which relies on private donations, deals directly with farmers to close down and demolish dog meat businesses and help owners financially to transition to other work.

The animals must be taken abroad, O'Meara said, because they're generally not wanted in South Korea as pets or companion dogs. Some had been abandoned pets, and others were raised to be sold as pets but given to the meat industry if that failed.

AP
More than 100 people from China's film industry will bring 33 films to the 50th WorldFest - Houston International Independent Film Festival, organizers of the event announced on Friday.

The festival will begin on April 21 and end April 30, with the AMC 30 on Dunvale Road serving as the screening venue.

"We will screen more than 80 feature films from over 30 countries, about 800 international filmmakers are expected to attend this event," said Hunter Todd, founder and president of WorldFest. "Panorama China will premiere 33 new films from China, which are all North America premieres, and at least eight world premieres."

Todd said that other events include film/video production classes on the use of drones in filmmaking, investing in feature films and how to obtain free stock footage from NASA.

Festival clubs will be held every night for people to network at the Marriott Westchase Hotel, festival headquarters.

Kathleen Haney, director of WorldFest, said this year's entries are less tragic and more humorous.

Of all the Chinese films, she was especially struck by three: A Paper Marriage - how a fake marriage to buy a house turned into a real marriage; Special Encounter - casual online role play games turn complicated; and Being a Cop - a son embarks on a path to become a chef against the wishes of his father, who is a police officer.

"WorldFest's focus on China is very exciting. I am delighted and fortunate to be part of it," said Haney.

Ray Jiang, chair of Panorama China, said that the US China Film and Cultural Forum and China's Film Project Promotion Summit will also be held during the festival.

"We want to make it into a platform for the world to know Chinese film, and provide opportunities for people with dreams of film to realize their potential. In the last two years, we have helped some Chinese films get aired in theaters in North America, enabled copyright sales and brought together film projects," Jiang said.

Actress Lily Chen Foster, festival honorary chair, has worked with actors Wang Luoyong and Sun Chun. "I was here when Ang Lee's Pushing Hands was first screened at the festival. Panorama China gives us an opportunity to connect Houston and China on a new level," said Foster.

mayzhou@chinadailyusa.com
China can play a constructive or even a leading role in world climate governance, a senior government adviser said.

Coping with global climate change in a concerted effort has been a trend worldwide, though the new US approach derived from its "America First" stance could increase uncertainties and possibly set back the cause, He Jiankun, deputy president of China's National Expert Committee on Climate Change, said on Monday in Beijing.

US President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order on Tuesday rolling back former President Barack Obama's policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions, according to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.

"Whatever Trump's attitude is, or whatever a certain country will do, the global trend of countering climate change would not be reversed," He said at Opportunities and Challenges of Global Climate Governance in New Age, a discussion hosted by the Brookings-Tsinghua Center and World Wild Fund for Nature in Beijing.

His remarks echoed those by Liu Jieyi, Chinese ambassador to the UN, at a General Assembly high-level climate change meeting at the UN headquarters in New York last Thursday. Liu said the vision of global green and low-carbon development envisaged by the Paris Agreement corresponds with China's strategic choice of building an ecological civilization.

"Whatever the vicissitudes of the international situation, China will remain committed to its development concepts of innovation, coordination, green, openness and sharing and actively respond to climate change," Liu said.

US policies are expected to compound implementation of the 2015 Paris pact, particularly nationally determined contributions (NDCs), and the funding and transfer of relevant high technology, He said.

The US said it intended to achieve a reduction in emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent below its 2005 level in 2025 and to make its best efforts to reduce emissions by 28 percent.

China intends to achieve peak CO2 emissions around 2030, according to the US-China Joint Announcement on Climate Change in November 2014.

"China remains steadfast in its promises and actions in dealing with climate change, and in the global arena, pushing for the implementation of the Paris pact," He said. "The country will play an active, constructive and even leading role in the global climate change governance."

"With its ramped-up efforts, chances are China would meet its NDC ahead of time," He said.

Qi Ye, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center and moderator of Monday's discussion, earlier said that the decision of the US was not expected to affect the policy or actions of China on climate change.

"It is time that the international community considers a new global climate governance that works in the Trump era and beyond, no matter what the president decides," Qi told the London-based website chinadalouge last month.

huanxinzhao@chinadailyusa.com
Warning: May contain traces of soy, wheat, lecithin and tree nuts. That you are here

strongly suggests that you are either omnivorous, or a glutton.

And that you might like cheese-doodles.

Please form a caseophilic line to the right. Thank you.
A coalition of nine economic development agencies is asking New York State Electric & Gas and Rochester Gas & Electric to improve energy infrastructure and better communicate with businesses.

The entities, including the Cayuga Economic Development Agency, have requested that the state Public Service Commission intervene and address several issues outlined in a five-page memorandum of understanding.

Some of the issues include the need for energy master plans, which would identify energy infrastructure needs in the regions covered by NYSEG and RG&E, and improved communication about energy availability from the utility companies.

Joining the Cayuga Economic Development Agency in signing the memorandum of understanding were representatives from the Broome County Industrial Development Agency, Chenango County Planning and Development, Cortland Business Development Corporation and IDA, Delaware County Office of Economic Development, Otsego Now and the County of Otsego IDA, Schoharie County, Sullivan County Partnership and the Tioga County Office of Economic Development and Planning.

State Sen. Jim Seward, who spearheaded the effort, said NYSEG must "step up and help improve our economic development outlook before the lights go out for good."

"When employers assembly a checklist of needs, reliable, affordable and modern energy infrastructure is at the top of the list. Companies will not grow or locate here in our part of the state if there is no guarantee that their power needs will be met," Seward, R-Milford, said.

"Unfortunately, confidence in NYSEG is eroding every day and after discussing this situation with my Senate colleagues, local government officials and economic development leaders it is clear that PSC intervention is needed."

Tracy Verrier, executive director of the Cayuga Economic Development Agency, said the agency she leads has a good relationship with the local NYSEG office.

Outside of Cayuga County, however, economic development agencies have reported issues with NYSEG.

One of the challenges, Verrier said, is getting information about the capacity of service, whether it's electrical or natural gas, that's available in certain areas.

Not knowing the capacity available can pose problems, especially for businesses looking to set up in an industrial park.

"It's really more of a communication issue," Verrier said. "A lot of economic developers are frustrated with trying to get the information they need for development projects."

The agencies' memorandum of understanding was released one day after the Public Service Commission announced hearings in western New York to review NYSEG and RG&E's response to a recent windstorm.

While Verrier and other economic development leaders didn't refer to storm response in the memorandum of understanding, it's a concern.

During the windstorm that mostly affected Buffalo and Rochester, some NYSEG and RG&E customers were without electricity for several days. The slow restoration effort was criticized by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who demanded the Public Service Commission investigate the utility companies' response.

Verrier said having any business without power for an extended period "is not an ideal situation."

"That's money out of their pocket," she said. "It's a ripple effect because it affects everyone at a company when they're not able to operate. It affects deadlines. It affects the bottom line. It really ripples through the entire system."
Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered flags on state government buildings to fly at half-staff Tuesday in honor of a U.S. Air Force airman from New York who died of noncombat injuries in the Middle East last week.

Press reports indicate Staff Sgt. Alexandria Mae Morrow, 25, was killed when a bomb she was loading onto a plane in Jordan slipped and struck her in the head.

Morrow was a native of Dansville, a village in Livingston County. She was a 2009 graduate of Dansville High School.

She is survived by her husband and two children.

"On behalf of all New Yorkers, I extend my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Staff Sgt. Morrow and join in honoring her service to our nation," Cuomo said in a statement. "I am directing flags to be flown at half-staff tomorrow at all state buildings to pay tribute to her courage and sacrifice in defending the freedoms this state and this nation were founded upon."

Cuomo usually directs flags on state buildings to fly at half-staff in honor of New York service members and those based in New York who are killed in action or die in a combat zone, his office said.

Morrow was conducting maintenance on the plane as part of the military's Operation Inherent Resolve combat operations in the Middle East. The operation targets the Islamic State terrorism network in the region.

It was Morrow's second deployment to the region. She had been serving in Jordan since October.

"We mourn for Alexandria Mae Morrow because she was one of the kindest people many of us have ever known," said Air Force Lt. Col. Paul Tower, commander of Morrow's unit, in a statement. " She was a loving wife to her husband, an amazing mother to her children and our fellow warrior and friend  a friend who could be trusted in the toughest of times."
An aide at a psychiatric center in central New York is accused of submitting a fake doctor's note to get extended medical leave from his job.

Jeovonnie Jackson, 44, of Deborah Drive in Utica, was arrested and charged with first-degree offering a false instrument for filing and second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument.

Catherine Leahy Scott, the state inspector general, said Jackson's arrest followed an investigation by her office.

Jackson, a secure care treatment aide at the Central New York Psychiatric Center in Marcy, allegedly submitted a forged medical form  a certification of health care provider for employee's serious health condition  to the center's human resources office.

The inspector general's investigation revealed that the doctor's signature on the form was forged. Authorities said this was part of Jackson's attempt to receive extended medical leave from his position without losing his job.

"This defendant manipulated and abused vital protections meant for employees who are truly in need of extended leave to care for themselves or a loved one," Scott said. "His actions violated the public trust and I will use the resources of my office to help ensure the integrity of critical and compassionate employment protections in our laws."

Jackson was arraigned and released. He's scheduled to reappear in Marcy Town Court Wednesday.
As state budget negotiations heat up, several advocacy groups hope Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York legislative leaders address their pet issues.

Phil Prehn, a statewide systems advocate for ARISE in Syracuse, thinks disability rights should be at the top of the leaders' to-do list.

Prehn traveled to Albany earlier this month for a rally with other advocates. A major focus of the rally was the state's failure to adopt the Community First Choice option, which was established under the Affordable Care Act and allows states to provide community- and home-based services to Medicaid recipients.

According to the advocates, the Cuomo administration committed to implementing the option. So far, though, the state hasn't followed through on its pledge.

The state is receiving approximately $265 million in funding for the Community First Choice program. If it fully implemented the services required by the option, the state could receive up to $430 million in additional funding from the federal government. The aid could be used to increase pay for home health attendants  another issue being discussed in this year's budget.

Advocates for those with disabilities have other concerns. They want the state to reinstate the Office for the Advocate for People with Disabilities and increase wages for consumer directed personal attendants and home care.

Boosting funding for independent living services and independent living centers are also a priority. So, too, is ensuring accessibility in ride-sharing  if the state allows companies like Uber and Lyft to operate in New York.

Prehn highlighted the need for a visitability tax credit, which has been proposed in the past. The tax credit would help support residential modifications, which could help people with disabilities remain in their homes instead of having to move into a facility.

Examples of potential modifications include having one no step entrance to a home and a bathroom on the first floor. The tax credit could offset some of the costs of the improvements, Prehn said.

"It's a way to deal with a lot of the housing that's already in existence that would be very hard to retrofit entirely, but at least gives people the basics," Prehn said in an interview.

The visitability tax credit has received support from legislators, including Senate Deputy Majority Leader John DeFrancisco, Central New York legislators, Prehn said, have signed on as cosponsors.

What concerns Prehn and other advocates is that the visitability tax credit wasn't in Cuomo's executive budget proposal. The same is true for a tax credit that would encourage businesses to hire people with disabilities.

Prehn said the Employment First policy would help address the "astronomically high" rate of unemployment among people with disabilities.

Advocates are also focused on the ride-sharing debate. Cuomo and state Senate Republicans support allowing ride-sharing in upstate New York. Assembly Democrats haven't backed the plan.

For Prehn and others, they're closely following the discussions to determine what, if any, accessibility requirements will be adopted.

"We're not reflexively against this service, but no one is talking about how to make on-demand transportation more accessible," Prehn said.

Uber and Lyft could be helpful for those with disabilities. Now, Prehn said there are medical transports with regular fixed routes that people can arrange days in advance. And it's difficult, if not impossible to find accessible transportation to airports.

Existing public transportation options are available in some areas, but not all.

"How do people get around?" Prehn said. "Our legislators have started to talk about that."

But the main issue for people with disabilities is funding, particularly for independent living centers. Prehn said there are 40 such centers across the state that share $12 million in funding. The funding levels haven't increased in more than a decade.

This year, advocates, with the state Board of Regents' endorsement, are hoping to increase funding by $5 million.

The funding is important, Prehn said, because it can help in many areas. One example he cited is employment. Centers don't give raises often and many workers have been in their positions for years without a raise.

Most times when workers leave, they aren't replaced because the centers need to make budget cuts.

"Like many, many other organizations in many different fields, we're all being asked to do more with less," Prehn said. "There comes a time when any more (cuts) can't be done."

Prehn and other advocates are encouraging lawmakers  and Cuomo  to hear their concerns.

"We just want this discussion to continue on a realistic basis," he said. "Give us a seat at the table where they talk about accessibility in a serious manner."
Cayuga Centers, headquartered in Auburn, is celebrating the expansion of its Unaccompanied Children program.

The agency recently held a reception at its new West 125th Street office in New York City to share news of the expansion, which has seen the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement increase its grant from 300 to 600 short-term transitional foster care beds. A second contract with the office will see Cayuga Centers house 12 youth in long-term foster care homes.

"Many of these children have family members in the U.S. and are fleeing dangers in their home countries," Cayuga Centers President/CEO Edward Myers Hayes said in a news release. "That includes violence, gang warfare, sex trafficking, and forced labor."

At the reception, Hayes also invited guests to watch the premiere of "This is Cayuga Centers," a film highlighting the agency's growth from an upstate New York orphanage in 1852 into a provider of evidence-based programs, residential and foster care treatment, and services for people with developmental disabilities in New York, Delaware and Florida.

Guests at the reception contributed more than $5,000 to Cayuga Centers' capital campaign, which will support continued program expansion.

For more information, visit cayugacenters.org.
The mission of the American Red Cross is to prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors. 

The Red Cross is always there in times of need. We aspire to turn compassion into action so that:

 All people affected by disasters receive care, shelter and hope

 Our communities are ready and prepared for disasters;

 Everyone has access to safe, lifesaving blood and blood products;

 All members of our armed services and their families find support and comfort whenever needed;

 And in an emergency, there are always trained individuals nearby, ready to use their Red Cross skills to save lives.

We are fortunate to have a strong network of community partners. Collaboration is the key to effectively serving local residents. That is clearly demonstrated with the Human Services Coalition of Cayuga County, which is made up of a gamut of agencies, professionals, consumers and citizens of the county. Representatives of the Red Cross participate in ongoing strategies to address the needs of the community through coordination and information-sharing.

At the May meeting, Ill be making a presentation for our coalition partners to discuss Red Cross programs and services, particularly our preparedness programs. They include:

 Citizen Preparedness Corps is a free program delivered by the Red Cross in partnership with New York state. The program seeks to improve community resilience by teaching citizens valuable life skills on how to prepare for, respond to and recover from natural or manmade disasters.

 The Pillowcase Project, sponsored by Disney, is a preparedness education program for grades three through five that teaches students about personal and family preparedness and safety skills, local skills and basic coping skills. Red Cross volunteers lead students through a "learn, practice, share" framework to engage them in disaster preparedness and survival skills. Upon completion, students receive a pillowcase to build their personal emergency supplies kit.

 The Home Fire Campaign is an initiative to reduce the number of deaths and injuries caused by home fires by 25 percent over five years. The Red Cross is asking every household to take two simple steps: check their existing smoke alarms and practice fire drills at home. As part of the Home Fire Campaign, the Red Cross is joining with fire departments and community groups to install free smoke alarms in homes that need them.

As disaster program manager, I also participated in the recent County Emergency Preparedness Assessment. Its a periodic review of the interagency services available in Cayuga County, highlighting the wide array of services and how to work collaboratively to improve them. We are pleased to be at the table and look forward to serving the community in the years to come.

I am immensely proud of the work we do. I am especially appreciative of our volunteers who carry out 90 percent of the humanitarian work of the Red Cross. Our vital work is only possible because of them. Whether helping one displaced family or thousands, or teaching others how to respond in emergencies, its through the efforts of ordinary people that we can do extraordinary things.
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An Auburn man who spent more than 12 years in prison for sex offenses has been arrested for attempting to engage a 13-year-old girl in sexual contact, New York State Police said.

Jack O. Douglas, 52, was arrested Monday in Seneca Falls and charged with two felonies: attempted use of a child in a sexual performance and first-degree attempted disseminating indecent material to minors.

In a press release Tuesday, state police said Douglas  a level 3 sex offender  was arrested prior to having any contact with the teen. Douglas was arraigned in the Town of Seneca Falls Court and was remanded to the Seneca County Jail without bail.

Douglas was sent to state prison in 2003 after being convicted of two counts of first-degree sodomy. He was released on parole March 2, 2016.
HAVANA - It is difficult to imagine that the modern plant of the San Jose rum company was just 20 hectares of largely obsolete land twenty years ago, some 30 kilometers southeast of Havana.

In the Cuban province of Mayabeque stands the world's largest rum processing plant. It churns out rum commercialized under the Havana Club brand for sale in over 120 countries including China. It is one of Cuba's main sources of exports.

With an investment of 60 million US dollars, the plant was built and opened in January 1997. It is now run by the joint venture Havana Club International SA, founded four years ago as an association between the state-run Cuba Ron and France's Pernod Ricard.

The plant contains a distillery, areas for aging and mixing, as well as a bottling section, creating a fully equipped and modern plant capable of processing 30,000 liters a day of Cuba's most emblematic drink.

Eight types of rum are produced here, classified according to the type of mixing and length of aging. These decisions are made by master rum-makers, a dwindling group of experts with its number no more than 10 nationwide now, who hold their secrets close to their hearts.

Back in 1995, the Havana Club only produced around 500,000 nine-liter boxes of rum, but it has grown at a steady pace to 4.2 million boxes in 2016.

Currently, the plant is seeking to continue growing through another heavy investment, which will add two new aging areas, a third bottling assembly line, and the expansion of storage for raw materials and finished products.

"We are the cradle of light rum," the plant's communications expert Yaima Rodriguez told Xinhua. She has been in charge of promoting different types of rum to the world for seven years.

Thousands of barrels line the sides of the plant, placed with exquisite symmetry, for the drink to age and blend naturally, with no chemical additives to speed up the process, change the taste or alter its color.

All types of rum have a strong alcohol base, of between 74-76 degrees. They are then mixed successively with water and distilled sugarcane, before being aged in barrels of American white oak.

However, the final say rests with the master rum-makers, who are uniquely capable of coming up with new brands, although their recipes are kept sealed away.

According to the specialized Drinks International magazine, the Havana Club rum ranks 21st among the top 100 producers of spirits, while being unable to access the US market, which accounts for 40 percent of international demand.

For a few years now, the company has developed its Habanista brand, with the intention of selling it to the US market once the country lifts its economic embargo against Cuba.

Executives believe that the open-up of the US market would represent a true explosion for the Cuban rum sector.
The Seward House Museum in Auburn will continue celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Alaska purchase  and partnering with the state to do so  Saturday, May 13.

The day will kick off with "A Most Fortunate Folly: Alaska at 150." Officials from Alaska and New York will be on hand as David Rubin unveils a new statue of William H. Seward, who negotiated the United States' purchase of Alaska as the country's secretary of state in 1867. The statue will eventually be installed on the grounds of Alaska's Capitol in Juneau.

Seward House loaning painting to Alaska, showcasing history of its purchase on 150th anniversary The Seward House Museum has long been the home of what one professor has called "the most im

After the unveiling, guests are invited to listen to Rubin tell stories behind the statue, including its westward voyage from the Hudson River Valley. The event is free and open to the public.

The Seward House will host its signature fundraiser, the Glacier Gala, later in the evening the same day at the 1840 Dulles Inn on South Street. In celebration of "the grand acquisition of the territory," there will be Alaska-inspired cuisine, live music, dancing, special guests and more. Tickets for the gala go on sale April 1.

For more information about either event, call (315) 252-1283 or email sewardhouse.org.
HA NOI  Nearly 26,500 enterprises were created in the first quarter of this year with a total registered capital of over VN270 trillion (US$11.8 billion), according to preliminary data reported yesterday in Ha Noi by the Ministry of Planning and Investments Enterprises Development Department.

The number of newly-established firms rose 11.4 per cent and 45.8 per cent in capital value compared to the same period last year, the department reported. In March alone, the number of newly-registered firms is estimated at over 12,000, the highest level in six years.

But in the first quarter, some 9,900 enterprises temporarily ceased operations, 10,700 enterprises are in the process of filing for dissolution, nearly 3,700 enterprises have completed procedures for dissolution or termination, up 12 per cent year-on-year. The majority of businesses that withdrew from the market are small firms.

Many firms suspended their activities in order to find new directions or prepare new business plans, said Tran Ngoc Nam, deputy director of the Ha Noi Department of Planning and Investment.

According to the Enterprises Development Department, the average registered capital per enterprise in the first quarter of 2017 reached VN10.2 billion, up 30.9 per cent over the same period of 2016.

Existing businesses have registered to increase their capital to over VN320 trillion, bringing total capital poured into the economy in the first quarter of 2017 to nearly VN600 trillion, up 8 per cent year-on-year.

The number of businesses resuming operations exceeded 9,200 in the first quarter of 2017, double the number in the first quarter of 2014. More than 90 per cent out of some 110,000 businesses registered in 2016 declared and paid taxes, indicating that they were already in operation, the department said.  VNS
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) receives President and CEO of CapitaLand Lim Ming Yan during a reception in Ha Noi yesterday.  VNA/VNS Photo Thong Nhat

HA NOI  Viet Nam will create favourable conditions for investors, including Singapores CapitaLand Group, to operate successfully in Viet Nam, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told President and CEO of CapitaLand Lim Ming Yan during a reception in Ha Noi yesterday.

The Vietnamese leader voiced his appreciation for CapitaLands investment in building new urban developments in Vietnam, and he hopes the firm will consider developing new urban projects regarding the demand and long-term interests of local communities.

He suggested CapitaLand implement green, clean and beautiful urban projects in Viet Nam like those carried out successfully by the firm in many areas in Asia, helping the country realise sustainable development goals and stabilise its real estate market.

The PM hoped the group will reap more successes in Vietnam, thus contributing to the countrys socio-economic development.

For his part, Lim Ming Yan said that his firm has invested in many great projects in Viet Nam over the last 22 years and plans to build new urban development models in Ha Noi and HCM City.

Projects implemented by CapitaLand in Viet Nam will always be linked the community and ensure social responsibility with smart control systems toward sustainable development. VNS
NEW DELHI  Viet Nam will welcome and create favourable conditions for Indian firms to join programmes and projects on information technology in Viet Nam, Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan said.

The minister said this during talks with Indian Minister of Communications Manoj Sinha in New Delhi on Monday during his visit to India.

He asserted that "Viet Nam and India have high potential to promote partnership through increasing exchange of information and experiences at all levels", thus implementing co-operation activities in a sustainable and effective manner.

He lauded Indias credit package of US$1 billion for digital connectivity projects in ASEAN member countries, including Viet Nam, while expressing his hope to learn more from Indias experience in designing policies and legal regulations in management of post and telecommunication, 4G and 5G services, public and rural communications, and digital connectivity.

For his part, Sinha stated that the Indian government has focused on programmes connecting people, especially in rural areas, and was ready to share its experience on this issue with Viet Nam.

He said he hoped talks with his Vietnamese counterpart as well as meetings between businesses of both sides would create momentum for the two countries to boost ties, especially in post and telecommunications.

During the talks, Tuan said, over the past years, Viet Nams communication sector enjoyed rapid and sustainable growth, significantly contributing to the countrys socio-economic development.

The Viet Nam-Indian relationship had been growing in all fields and had become deeper since the two sides lifted their ties following a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2016, with stronger co-operation in information and communication technology (ICT), he said.

Since Viet Nam began its reform 30 years ago, Indian ICT firms had invested in Viet Nam, including large businesses such as APTECH and NIIT, he said. "Indian enterprises are strong in capital, technology and international trade experience, thus they will continue achieving more success in Viet Nam."

The two ministers affirmed that the two sides would continue discussing the publishing of a joint stamp collection to mark the 45th anniversary of Viet Nam-India diplomatic relations, while increasing delegation exchanges to boost bilateral co-operation in post and telecommunication.

Earlier, the two ministers attend the opening of a business workshop on Viet Nam-India digital technology connectivity projects, during which participants discussed potential and opportunities of co-operation in areas of shared interest.  VNS
HA NOI  Viet Nam will submit dossiers asking UNESCO to recognise the Tay and Nung ethnic peoples Then Singing Practice as a world intangible cultural heritage before March 31, according to the government offices official document.

The UNESCO committee requires that the participants be local people. However, as no northern mountainous art forms have been recognised by UNESCO, the filing process has faced many challenges, according to Rector of the National Academy of Music, Nguyen Binh inh.

One of the advantages of the filing process is that several local thay then (then master), religious rituals related to then singing are still practiced; artifacts and documents in Tay-Han language are still preserved in families with then singing tradition, said inh.

Besides, translating then songs from Tay ethnic language to Viet language also poses a difficulty, because even those who can speak Tay language can hardly translate these songs. Many lyrics use old Tay language while translation also requires certain level of understanding and knowledge of religion, ritual, ethnicity, said inh.

Then singing is a form of art combining literature, music and dancing that has long been a religious and cultural practice of Tay, Nung, Thai ethnic groups in the northern mountainous area of Viet Nam.

The form of singing is practiced in five northern provinces of Cao Bang, Bac Kan, Lang Son, Tuyen Quang and Ha Giang. The Tay, Nung and Thai ethnic groups sing then in special occasions, such as village festival days.

It is said to have first appeared in the late 15th century Mac Dynasty. Legend has it that, in Mac Dynasty, there were two kings named e Phung and e ang who had special love for music and singing. The two kings invented a handmade gourd lute called an tinh or tinh tau and established two singing troupes to serve royal court. Ordinary people found it interesting and started learning it. Eversince, this form of singing has been preserved till today. VNS
HA NOI  Vietnamese bestselling female writer Phan Viet has released the third volume in her successful nonfiction series titled Bat Hanh La Mot Tai San (Unhappiness is a Fortune).

Following the success of the two previous volumes -- Mot Minh O Chau Au (Alone in Europe, 2013) and Xuyen My (Journey Through America, 2014) -- the third installment, Ve Nha (Coming Home), continues to lead readers into the writers world of inner feelings as she continues her journey of rediscovering herself.

The writer describes her anxiety, eagerness, as well as her loneliness, in the first volume of the series, and then her great struggle to overcome many of lifes challenges in Xuyen My. In Ve Nha, Viet portrays a tireless character seeking reasons for both happiness and misfortune. The book is similar to an autobiography of a person who wishes to revisit her wounded soul to peacefully move forward after experiencing a lot of unhappiness.

The series, to me, is the journey of rediscovering myself, Phan Viet writes in her new book.

The narrative is written in such a manner so that the reader is immersed in the details of the story rather than reading it as a review of something that has happened previously  no matter how crazy, sorrowful or silly the details. To me, it is the greatest dedication of an autobiography writer to the readers.

I just hope it (the series) will help some readers get more information and be braver during their own journey.

Viets other works include Phu Phiem Truyen (The Book of Vanity, 2005), Nuoc My, Nuoc My (America, America, 2009) and novel Tieng Nguoi (Voices, 2008).

Viet received her BA in economics from Foreign Trade University in 2000, a masters degree in communication from the United States University of Nebraska at Omaha in 2002 and another masters degree and a PhD in social work from University of Chicago in 2010.

She is currently an assistant professor of social work at the University of South Carolina (US).

She also writes regularly for national newspapers and magazines, edits books and organises translation projects. With Fields Medalist Ngo Bao Chau and Tre Publishing House, she co-founded translation project "An Open Door," which translates often thought-provoking books into Vietnamese.  VNS
Viet Nam will host the ASEM (Asia-Europe Meeting) Conference on Innovative Education and Human Resource Building this week in Hue City.  Photo baodautu.vn

HA NOI  Viet Nam will host the ASEM (Asia-Europe Meeting) Conference on Innovative Education and Human Resource Building this week in Hue City, said Tran Ngoc An, head of the Foreign Ministrys Multilateral Economic Deparment.

The conference will provide a platform for ASEM partners to present best practices in promoting quality and innovative education for human resource development. it will also consolidate proposals for ASEMs new Vision for Education, including ASEMs new skills agenda, and concrete measures to equip the young generation with 21st-century skills and qualities needed to achieve an adaptable and professional workforce in the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution, An said.

The two-day meeting will enhance collaboration among policy-makers, government officials, businesses, youths and other stakeholders in Asia and Europe to support the integration of 21st cntury skills into the existing eduction system.

The conference aims at promoting regional and inter-regional co-operation on best pratices and experiences among ASEM members and relevant institutions in quality and innovative education and human resource development, especially in ICT application, transnational education, technical vocational education and training, and creative talents.

The outcomes of the event will be reflected in a summary report, which will be presented at the 6th ASEM Education Ministers Meeting in Seoul this May, the 13th ASEM Foreign Ministers Meeting in Myanmar this November, and the 12th ASEM Summit in Belgium next year.

This years conference is expected to draw approximately 200 participants, including Government officials, senior policy-makers, researchers, educators, practitioners, universities, businesses, related regional and international organisations, and other stakeholders.

The conference was initiated by Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc at the 11th ASEM Summit held in 2016 in Mongolia under the sponsorship of Finland, India, Indonesia, Japan and Korea, said An.

Viet Nams role as a founding member and active player in the organisation is highly appreciated, said An. In the 20 years since joining the institution, Viet Nam had contributed more than 20 initiatives.  VNS
The Surpreme Peoples Procuracy, the nations premier prosecuting agency, has requested changes in the Penal Code to facilitate investigations into and legal proceedings against child sex abuse suspects. Photo daibieunhandan.vn

HA NOI  The Surpreme Peoples Procuracy, the nations premier prosecuting agency, has requested changes in the Penal Code to facilitate investigations into and legal proceedings against child sex abuse suspects.

The request was made yesterday at a meeting of the National Assemblys Justice Committee and the Committee for Culture, Education, Youth, Adolescents and Children in Ha Noi.

The meeting dealt with the recent exposes of several cases where children were sexually abused in different parts of the country, denoting a serious, growing problem.

The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) estimates that around 2,000 Vietnamese children face violence and abuse annually, of whom 1,200 suffer sexual abuse. Among these, more than 13 per cent are girls below the age of six.

But the real number of Vietnamese children being sexually abused may be much higher, said MoLISA deputy minister ao Hong Lan.

Lan said that in Viet Nam, sexual abuse, especially of children, was such a culturally sensitive issue that the families of both victims and offenders do not want such incidents to be publicly revealed. The victims family fears that public exposure would affect the future of their children.

Furthermore, there were loopholes in the legal protection that children are entitled to, Lan said.

Representatives from the Surpreme Peoples Procuracy said that in order to handle sexual abuse of children, forensic examinations and other evidence are required by law. However, in reality, victims families cannot obtain all the necessary evidence because it is very difficult to collect. In many cases, they approach the police long after the abuse has happened, which makes follow-up action even more difficult.

Therefore, the Supreme Peoples Procuracy is proposing special investigation methods be applied in cases were a child is sexually abused, the representatives said.

They also proposed that some methods applied in foreign countries be considered as reference to ensure the collection of adequate traces and evidence of sexual abuse of children.

Nguyen Thu Ha, Chairwoman of the Viet Nam Womens Union, said media needs to be required to keep victims information confidential, and schools should take sex education very seriously. --VNS
UPDATE: The charge against David A. Rautenberg was dismissed April 18, 2018, under terms of an Oct. 18, 2017, Waterloo Village Court adjournment in contemplation of dismissal order that required Rautenberg to avoid violations of law and avoid any contact with the alleged victim.

A teacher at Waterloo High School has been arrested by the New York State Police for allegedly engaging in inappropriate conversations with a female student.

David A. Rautenberg, 44, of Liverpool, was arrested following a state police investigation. The state police said it received a report of "odd remarks" made by Rautenberg, a Waterloo High School technology teacher, to the student while at the school.

Rautenberg was charged with endangering the welfare of a child, a class A misdemeanor. He was released and is scheduled to return to Waterloo Village Court at a later date.

Rautenberg, who has been employed by the Waterloo Central School District for 14 years, has been placed on administrative leave.
HA NOI  A soaring number of methanol poisoning cases from bad-quality methanol-laced alcohol have substantially harmed the reputation of traditional alcohol-making villages, the Nong Thon Ngay Nay (Countryside Today) newspaper reported.

Nguyen Thi Huong from ai Lam hamlet, a well-known alcohol-making village in Yen Phong District in the northern province of Bac Ninh, learned the technique from her parents generation and has been using the traditional alcohol-making method for years.

But one day two women who introduced themselves as reporters came to her house and later reported on TV that her family was making methanol-laced alcohol, which distorted the fact. Since then, customers no longer buy alcohol at her house.

The pipes that supply water to clean pigsties were mistakenly reported as being used to provide water for mixing with alcohol and methanol, Huong said. My family has preserved the traditional alcohol making method by fermenting herbal powder and medicine. It takes over 10 days to brew herbs and obtain the final product, Huongs son Nguyen Van Hai said.

These are the cookers to make alcohol, but the media reported that my family does not have any, said Nguyen Thi ong, Hais wife.

o Danh Thom, deputy chairman of the Van village alcohol production and consumption association in Viet Yen Commune of Bac Giang Province, was also saddened by misleading information published about his villages alcohol making.

He said the village has 400 alcohol-making households that follow traditional methods. The alcohol production and consumption association was established in order to create a local brand, and 70 members had their product brands registered.

Thom said that the association occasionally conducts training on food safety for households in the hamlet. The Bac Giang Province Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has subsidised eight alcohol-purifying machines to ensure the safety of the alcohol production process.

However, it is challenging to bring products to the market as they arouse customer suspicions due to falsely reported media information, he said.

Mixing fermentation agents and rice in the alcohol making process. - Photo danviet.vn

Evidence needed

Nguyen Van Ton, chairman of the Tam a Communes Peoples Committee told Nong Thon Ngay Nay that the media reports were untrue. ai Lam village used to have more than 1,000 alcohol-making households, now it has only 200, which make only a few dozen litres of rice liquor to supply local demand.

To check the information reported in the media, provincial authorities have set up an inter-disciplinary team including market surveillance, food safety, standards and environmental officials to assess alcohol samples in ai Lam village. All samples tested negative for methanol, he said.

It is great when the media raises its voice against fake and methanol alcohol. But we need objective and evidence-based information, he said.

False reports affect the prestige of both the manufacturers and the locality. Local authorities will ask for the information to be corrected, he said.  VNS
CAN THO  Some 200 firefighters from the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho and seven neighbouring provinces and cities worked themselves into exhaustion to extinguish a fire that broke out last week at a Taiwanese garment factory.

Tran uc inh, deputy director of the citys Fire Prevention and Fighting Police Department, told Vietnamnet that this is the biggest fire that ever occurred in the city.

The fire started last Thursday morning on the top floor of a five-storey building inside the Tra Noc Industrial Park where the garment firm Kwong Lung-Meko stores fabric. By Thursday evening it was under control, but flared up twice, last Friday and Sunday, and was completely extinguished by yesterday morning.

The fire was so big that the firefighters did not have time to eat and rest, Viet Nam Television (VTV) reported. They couldnt have done their job without the food and water brought by local citizens, the firefighters were reported as saying.

Tran Van Hai, a resident living near the fire scene, was reported by VTV to have given dumplings, bread and iced tea to every single firefighter several times.

I might spend the day selling food and drink and make some VN100-200,000 (US$4-9), he said. But I chose to do [this] to help fire fighters maintain their health.

Several firefighters vomited and fainted due to asphyxiation and smoke poisoning despite having worn masks, Vietnamnet reported. Some sustained burns and were treated at the site.

Many firefighters were reported to be resting and eating by the walls of the buildings near the fire scene. Four fire trucks and hundreds of firefighters were reported by the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper to be spraying water on the 5th floor of the Kwong Lung Meko Company, when the fire re-ignited on Sunday evening. Hot weather was identified as the factor fanning the smoldering fire, the newspaper reported.

Resident Pham Thi Dung said that she and other local residents halted their workdays to help prepare food and water for fire fighters.

Seeing firefighters rush into the fire made me worry so much. Their job is too dangerous, she said.

People living in Can Tho Citys Residential Block 586 cooked meals and packed them into plastic boxes to deliver to firefighters after seeing them eat dry bread.

We made some soup for them. They worked so hard, said a woman named Yen, who is a member of voluntary group from Residential Block 586.

Meanwhile, a member of the Hau Giang Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company carried dozens of big water bottles and vitamin tablets and 300 medical boxes to aid exhausted firefighters.

Young volunteers delivered fruit and water. As soon as the fire was extinguished, they went back to clean up and help people carry things home.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc yesterday ordered the Ministry of Public Security to investigate the cause of the fire and examine areas with high risk of fire to avoid similar accidents.

No casualties were reported, but Le Thanh Dung, deputy director of the Kwong Lung Meko Company, told the newspaper property damage is estimated at some US$6 million, not including damage to equipment and facilities.

Kwong LungMeko specialises in feather processing and garment production. Its factory covers about 17,000sq.m and has more than 1,300 workers in the Tra Noc Industrial Zone, about 15km from downtown Can Tho.  VNS
HA NOI  Ha Noi police on Monday reported they had detained a suspect for investigation into a cheating case related to property appropriation.

According to the initial investigation, Nguyen Van iep, 23, from Cam Khe Districts Phuong Xa in Phu Tho Province, lived in a rented house on Ha Nois Lang Ha Street.

In September 2015, through associations in Ha Noi, iep introduced himself to some acquaintances, saying he worked at a bank in ong a District and had many connections who could assist with good jobs in the Police Agency and other important State agencies.

Many people imposed their trust in him and gave him money and their job applications.

To make the scam appear more credible, iep searched for recruitment information on the internet and gave those seeking jobs fake appointment papers of employee recruitment agents and their phone numbers.

But in reality, the phone number he gave out was his own number, which he used to ask victims to come to a State office for a job interview.

However, when the victims arrived, iep told them the State staff was busy or made up some other reason, and were therefore unable to conduct the interview.

iep immediately collected the appointment papers to avoid detection by the police and cut off all contact with the victims.

According to the investigation agency, iep was involved in nearly 40 cases of cheating with amount of money equal to over VN7 billion (US$311,000).

He later returned VN4 million (over $177,700) to the victims he had defrauded.

Lieutenant Colonel Vo Nam Hung told An Ninh Thu o newspaper that very few people came to the police station to report the incident, causing additional difficulties for the investigation.

He urged victims to report the incident to the police to help them swiftly investigate, prosecute and get a judgement in accordance with the law and also to ensure the rights and interests of the victims of the fraud.  VNS
HOA BINH  One foreign tourist was killed and another injured in a traffic accident on National Highway 6 through northern mountainous Hoa Binh Province.

The accident occurred at around 4pm on Monday on the highway section through ong Bang Commune, Mai Chau District, Hoa Binh Province.

The two US tourists - a woman and a man - were traveling on their three-wheeled motorbike from Ha Noi to Son La Province when they tried to overtake a car travelling in the same direction.

Both the car and the motorbike were travelling at high speed. The motorbike driver lost control and crashed into a truck moving in the opposite direction, online newspaper zing.vn reported.

The female tourist died on the spot while the man suffered injuries to his legs and was taken to a hospital nearby for emergency care, the paper said.

The motorbike and the truck were seriously damaged in the collision, which saw both vehicles being thrown to one side of the highway.

Colonel Pham Van Su, deputy director of Hoa Binh Police Department, told online Dan tri newspaper that the department had co-operated with the provincial Department of Foreign Affairs and the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to deal with the case.

The accident also caused a traffic jam, but by 7pm the same day, the highway was completely cleared.  VNS
HAI PHONG  The Hai Phong City police have decided to initiate criminal proceedings against three journalists from Kinh Doanh and Phap Luat (Business and Law) newspaper for extortion.

Colonel Nguyen uc Cuong, head of Hai Phongs Hong Bang District Police, said the trio had abused their position as journalists.

They are Pham Van Tan, 27, Phan Thanh Long, 26, both residents of An Lao District and reporters at the newspaper, and Van Thuong, 43, head of the branch office of the newspaper in Hai Phong City.

The two reporters were caught red-handed on March 24 while taking money from ao Thi ai, a resident of Ngo Quyen District.

Tan and Long had extorted money from ai earlier too. They were blackmailing her by threatening to publish a report in the newspaper about her violating construction rules while building her house.

After arresting the duo, the police conducted an urgent search at the newspaper office, seized many documents linked to their criminal activities and arrested Thuong, the leader of the extortion racket.

At the police station, the three accused confessed to the crime.

Thuong said he studied and supplied information to the two reporters and other accomplices about local families that have violated construction rules. They would then approach their victims, present the evidence and extort money from them. Each gang member would get 10 per cent of the money collected.

In March alone, Thuong had extorted VN20 million (around US$900), the police said, adding that this had been going on for a long time and that they had blackmailed many people.

Investigations are on to build a strong case and prosecute the accused.  VNS
EDINBURGH  Just a day before Britain kick-starts Brexit proceedings, the Scottish parliament is on Tuesday expected to dismiss Prime Minister Theresa Mays overtures and back calls for a fresh independence referendum.

Lawmakers in Edinburgh are due to vote on Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeons bid for a new referendum, despite the prime ministers last-minute appeals.

The Scottish vote had been scheduled for last Wednesday but was postponed after the terror attack near the British parliament in London, the same day, in which four people were killed and dozens more injured.

The attack has not, however, put the brakes on Britains EU divorce, with May vowing to stick to her timetable of invoking Article 50 of the European Unions Lisbon Treaty on Wednesday and thus triggering two years of Brexit negotiations.

The Brexit vote last year has spurred the independence campaign of Sturgeon, head of the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP), who argues that Scotland is being forced out of the European bloc against its will.

Both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU, but they were outnumbered by voters in England and Wales who backed Brexit.

UK an unstoppable force

Sturgeon and May met in Scotland on Monday, with the prime minister reiterating that "now is not the time" for a referendum and describing the four nations of the United Kingdom as an "unstoppable force".

The SNP leader has suggested an independence vote should be held by spring 2019 at the latest -- before Britain leaves the EU -- although after winning the backing of Scottish parliament she needs approval from London for a referendum to take place.

Rejecting such a request would be politically risky for May, whose government is also trying to prevent the collapse of the power-sharing arrangement which governs Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland executive collapsed in January following a dispute between the two main parties, the Democratic Unionist Party and Irish nationalists Sinn Fein, which failed to reach a new power-sharing deal by a 1500 GMT Monday deadline.

The British government has extended the talks and, if a resolution is not reached, fresh elections could be called or London could resume direct rule over Northern Ireland.

The fate of the province is one of the priorities set by the EUs chief Brexit negotiator. "We will not stand for anything that weakens dialogue and peace in Northern Ireland," he wrote in the Financial Times on Monday.

Pulling together

Despite Mays assertion that she will seek the best Brexit deal for all of Britain -- including Scotland -- she has failed to convince the SNP which has warned of the negative consequences of leaving the EU.

The economic uncertainty of Scotland outside the United Kingdom was a factor in voters rejecting independence in a 2014 referendum, but the SNP claims breaking away from the European single market would cost Scotland tens of thousands of jobs.

Scotlands economic hand was strengthened on Monday when exploration firm Hurricane Energy announced the "largest undeveloped discovery" of oil in British waters, located west of the Scottish Shetland Islands.

But May also won a financial boost, with Qatar committing to invest 5 billion (US$6.23 billion) in the UK economy within five years.

The announcement will allay fears of investors abandoning Britain when it leaves the EU and the European single market, which May has said is a necessary step to control immigration.

Both May and Sturgeon said they were not ready to compromise and the rift is unlikely to end before Article 50 is triggered.

The prime minister made a plea for unity ahead of Britains historic EU departure.

"Now is the time when we should be pulling together, not hanging apart. Pulling together to make sure we get the best possible deal for the whole of the UK," she told reporters.  AFP
WASHINGTON  The US Senate voted overwhelmingly Monday to advance the approval of Montenegro as the newest member of NATO, in what supporters of the alliances expansion argue would send a stern message to Russia.

The procedural step, which advanced on a 97-2 vote, sets up a final approval in the chamber in the coming days.

President Donald Trumps administration has encouraged lawmakers to back the small Balkan nations bid.

"It is strongly in the interests of the United States that Montenegros membership in NATO be ratified," Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Senate leaders in a March 7 letter.

To date, 25 of NATOs 28 members have ratified Montenegros accession, a country of 620,000 people seen as a geostrategic ally.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation holds its summit on May 25 in Brussels, where Trump will use the opportunity to reaffirm Washingtons strong commitment to the alliance, according to the White House.

The Kremlin is opposed to Montenegros accession, calling it a "provocation" that would reinforce the pro-Western military alliances presence in the Balkans.

The US vote comes days after a Montenegrin special prosecutor accused "Russian state bodies" of involvement in an alleged coup plot during Montenegros election last October.

Moscow branded the accusation "absurd".

As with all international treaties, a two-thirds majority is required for final Senate approval. Success is highly likely.

Republicans Rand Paul and Mike Lee voted against the measure.

Paul warned Washington against spreading itself too thinly when its military is involved in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen, and said Montenegro in NATO will antagonise Russia while doing "nothing" to advance US national security.

"Most Americans cant find Montenegro on a map," Paul said in a sharply worded Senate speech. "Are you willing to send your kids there to fight?"

Besides the United States, the Netherlands and Spain have yet to ratify Montenegros membership.  AFP
Infrastructure-as-a-service (IAAS) provider HIAG in Switzerland is adding U.S. company Cloudian to its data centers. The company is deploying a two petabyte Cloudian HyperStore cluster in two data centers as its hybrid cloud storage solution.



The Cloudian storage solution will optimize the Switzerland-based service for enterprise requirements and enable compatibility with Amazon S3 cloud storage. The arrangement will enable customers to use both HIAG Data storage and Amazon S3 storage in a single management environment.



In Switzerland, compliance regulations require that certain types of data be kept within the country. With this service, those data types may be kept on-premises in HIAG Data's two Swiss data centers, while other types may be stored on Amazon S3.

A carrier-independent L2 private optical fiber network enables secure communication between the customer site and the data center. The company also offers access to global peering with a direct connection to peering points in Frankfurt and Milan.



Hanspeter Tinner, chief operations officer at HIAG Data said, "Our customers now have options to store their data where they need it, while they capitalize on our private network to ensure secure communications."
WATERLOO  Waterloo police arrested two men after they allegedly tried to enter parked vehicles early Monday.

Justin Huey, 20, and Andrew John Thompson, 20, both of Waterloo, were arrested for third-degree burglary and nine counts of attempted burglary. They also were arrested for interference.

The two allegedly entered an attached garage at 145 W. Park Lane and attempted to enter numerous vehicles parked in the 3200 block of Darlene Court.

Officers were called to suspicious activity in the area around 12:40 a.m. Monday, and the suspects were detained following a brief foot chase, said Capt. David Mohlis with the Waterloo Police Department.

Three arrested

on gun charges

WATERLOO Waterloo police arrested three people after finding two handguns during a traffic stop early Saturday.

Officers pulled over a 2002 Ford Focus for a bad brake light in the area of East First and Lafayette streets around 1:30 a.m. Saturday and noticed the odor of marijuana, said Capt. David Mohlis with the Waterloo Police Department.

During the stop, police noticed a loaded .38-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver on the floor by the front passenger seat and a .38-caliber Colt revolver under the front passenger seat, court records state.

Arrested for felon in possession of a firearm and carrying weapons were driver Keylynn Landon Goldsmith, 31, of 1118 W. Second St.; and passengers Melvin Maurice Grubbs, 34, of 2221 E. Fourth St.; and Stephon Christopher Samuels, 29, of Bloomington, Minn.

Grubbs also was arrested for possession of crack cocaine after police found crack in his shoe after he was arrested.

Waterloo fire

under investigation

WATERLOO  Authorities are investigating an attempt to set fire to a Waterloo house overnight.

Details werent available, but firefighters were called to 155 Monroe St. about 2:10 a.m. Monday after someone threw an object through a window at the single-family home, fire officials said.

A small fire started burning outside in leaves next to the house, and residents extinguished the blaze with water before firefighters arrived, said Battalion Chief Mike Jenn.

No injuries were reported, the city fire marshal said.

Man hit, killed

in Tama County

TAMA A Tama man is dead after he was struck by a van while crossing the street on Friday night.

The Iowa State Patrol identified the deceased as Randolph L. Papakee Jr., 41.

The collision happened at about 7:51 p.m. Friday on U.S. Highway 30 near the Meskwaki Travel Plaza.

A 2005 Chrysler Town and County driven by Bryan R. Sorensen, 37, of Toledo, was traveling east on Highway 30 when a man and woman attempted to cross the roadway, according to the Iowa State Patrol. The woman made it across, but the man was struck by the van, state troopers said.
This blog is written solely by John Ray, who has a Ph.D. degree in psychology and 200+ papers published in the academic journals of the social sciences. It does occasionally comment on issues in psychology but is mainly aimed at giving a conservative psychologist's view on a broad range of topics. There are very few conservative psychologists.The blog originated in Australia and many (but not most) posts discuss Australian matters. Australians have an unusually good awareness of events outside their own country. Australian newspapers feature news from Britain and the USA not as an afterthought but as a major part of their coverage. So Australians do tend to have a truly Western heart, which is the reason behind the old name for this blog. So events in Australia, Britain and the USA all feature frequently here, plus occasional coverage of other places, particularly Israel.SCOTUS is the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court in the landThe "GOP" stands for "Grand Old Party" and refers to the Republican party. The GOP is at present center/Right, while the Democrats have been undergoing a steady drift Leftwards and now have policies similar to mainstream European Leftist parties.The ideological identity of both parties has however been very fluid -- almost reversing itself over time. In the mid 19th century, the GOP was the party of big government and concern for minorities while the Democrats advertised themselves as "The party of the white man" -- an orientation that lasted into the mid 20th century in the South. The Democrats are still obsessed with race but have now flipped into support for discrimination AGAINST whites.Was Pope Urban VIII the first Warmist? Below we see him refusing to look through Galileo's telescope. People tend to refuse to consider evidence if what they might discover contradicts what they believe.Climate scientist Lennart Bengtsson said. The warming we have had the last 100 years is so small that if we didnt have meteorologists and climatologists to measure it we wouldnt have noticed it at all.The term "Fascism" is mostly used by the Left as a brainless term of abuse. But when they do make a serious attempt to define it, they produce very complex and elaborate definitions -- e.g. here and here . In fact, Fascism is simply extreme socialism plus nationalism. But great gyrations are needed to avoid mentioning the first part of that recipe, of course.Beatrice Webb, a founder of the London School of Economics and the Fabian Society, and married to a Labour MP, mused in 1922 on whether when English children were "dying from lack of milk", one should extend "the charitable impulse" to Russian and Chinese children who, if saved this year, might anyway die next. Besides, she continued, there was "the larger question of whether those races are desirable inhabitants" and "obviously" one wouldn't "spend one's available income" on "a Central African negro".Hugh Dalton, offered the Colonial Office during Attlee's 1945-51 Labour government, turned it down because "I had a horrid vision of pullulating, poverty stricken, diseased nigger communities, for whom one can do nothing in the short run and who, the more one tries to help them, are querulous and ungrateful."The book,, authored by T.W. Adorno et al. in 1950, has been massively popular among psychologists. It claims that a set of ideas that were popular in the "Progressive"-dominated America of the prewar era were "authoritarian". Leftist regimes always are authoritarian so that claim was not a big problem. What was quite amazing however is that Adorno et al. identified such ideas as "conservative". They were in fact simply popular ideas of the day but ones that had been most heavily promoted by the Left right up until the then-recent WWII. See here for details of prewar "Progressive" thinking.R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reasonFranklin Delano Roosevelt was a war criminal. Both British and American codebreakers had cracked the Japanese naval code so FDR knew what was coming at Pearl Harbor. But for his own political reasons he warned no-one there. So responsibility for the civilian and military deaths at Pearl Harbor lies with FDR as well as with the Japanese. The huge firepower available at Pearl Harbor, both aboard ship and on land, could have largely neutered the attack. Can you imagine 8 battleships and various lesser craft firing all their AA batteries as the Japanese came in? The Japanese naval airforce would have been annihilated and the war would have been over before it began. FDR prolonged the Depression . He certainly didn't cure it. WWII did NOT end the Great Depression . It just concealed it. It in fact made living standards worse Joe McCarthy was eventually proved right after the fall of the Soviet Union. To accuse anyone of McCarthyism is to accuse them of accuracy! The KKK was intimately associated with the Democratic party . They ATTACKED Republicans!People who mention differences in black vs. white IQ are these days almost universally howled down and subjected to the most extreme abuse. I am a psychometrician, however, so I feel obliged to defend the scientific truth of the matter:The average African adult has about the same IQ as an average white 11-year-old and African Americans (who are partly white in ancestry) average out at a mental age of 14. The American Psychological Association is generally Left-leaning but it is the world's most prestigious body of academic psychologists. And even they have had to concede that sort of gap (one SD) in black vs. white average IQ. 11-year olds can do a lot of things but they also have their limits and there are times when such limits need to be allowed for. America's uncivil war was caused by trade protectionism . The slavery issue was just camouflage, as Abraham Lincoln himself admitted . See also here Leftist psychologists have an amusingly simplistic conception of military organizations and military men. They seem to base it on occasions they have seen troops marching together on parade rather than any real knowledge of military men and the military life. They think that military men are "rigid" -- automatons who are unable to adjust to new challenges or think for themselves. What is incomprehensible to them is that being(to use the extreme Prussian term for following orders) actually requires great flexibility -- enough flexibility to put your own ideas and wishes aside and do something very difficult. Ask any soldier if all commands are easy to obey.
DES MOINES  Some opponents of traffic cameras have taken a if you cant ban em, regulate em attitude to a Sente-passed bill now in the House Transportation Committee.

After leading a successful effort four years ago to persuade the House to pass legislation banning the cameras, Rep. Walt Rogers, R-Cedar Falls, now sees regulation as the best option.

Ive come to realize that curtailing them is better if I cant ban them, he said Monday.

Senate File 220 must win House Transportation Committee approval this week to remain eligible this year.

House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, said the 59-member GOP caucus has not discussed the bill this year.

The House had discussions over the last many years about this issue, she said. There are many opinions. We havent caucused, so I dont know where  especially our new members  are on that topic.

Transportation Committee Chairman Gary Carlson, R-Muscatine, and Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Marion, a member of a subcommittee that will have a hearing on the bill, are among the new members who werent in the House when it voted to ban the cameras.

Neither of them have counted votes on the committee or in the full House, but think there is support  perhaps grudgingly  for the bill.

Rep. Greg Heartsill, R-Melcher-Dallas, wants to see the devices go away and expects hell try to amend SF 220 back to the original ban. He had hoped the bill would have been assigned to the Judiciary Committee, as it was in the Senate, and he would be the subcommittee chairman.

I dont believe the Transportation Committee chairman is receptive to a ban, Heartsill said.

He isnt sure if a majority of House members support a ban, either. He thinks the House is divided into four factions  those who want a ban; those who oppose a ban; those who want to ban red-light but not speed cameras; and those who want to ban speed but not red-light cameras.

SF 220 would place stricter regulations on the devices to curb concerns associated with the 79 cameras statewide.

The Senate amended a bill that would have banned the cameras with what Sen. Dan Zumbach, R-Ryan, called a common-sense, logical approach. That approach would keep in place systems that promote safety and protect law officers in dangerous enforcement situations.

It would subject fixed and mobile camera deployments to state approval in high-crash, high-risk highway locations and direct profits from tickets they issue to infrastructure improvements and public safety efforts within the jurisdictions. It also would require signage at approved camera locations, justification reports, weekly calibration of the monitoring equipment and police review of citations issued. It also caps civil penalties so they do not exceed the existing fine schedule for speeding violations under state law and would grandfather cameras at locations approved by the state Department of Transportation before Jan. 1 of this year.
WAVERLY A federal prisoner who died after being found unconscious in his cell at the Bremer County Jail committed suicide, according to the pathologist who conducted his autopsy.

Daniel Alan Wildman, 27, was pronounced dead at a Waverly Health Center after he was found in his cell March 20.

A March 23 autopsy determined Wildmans death was suicide by hanging, said Dr. Dennis Klein, state medical examiner. Further details werent available.

The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation is assisting in the investigation into Wildmans death.

Wildman, formerly of Cresco, had been detained at the Bremer County Jail where he was waiting to be returned to federal prison after he was found to have violated the terms of his supervised release following an earlier prison stint for firearm charges.

The order returning Wildman to the Federal Bureau of Prisons for 14 months was issued March 7 following a February hearing where he was found to have used drugs, failed to comply with drug testing and failed to comply residential reentry center rules while on supervised release.

Wildman hadnt challenged the violations, but his attorney had filed papers indicating he planned to appeal the sentence.

This wasnt the first time Wildman had been accused of violating supervised release. In August 2016, a judge ordered he undergo inpatient drug treatment and serve up to 180 days at a residential re-entry center in Cedar Rapids following allegations he had violated release conditions.

Wildman was initially arrested in October 2012 after he allegedly fired a shotgun during an argument in Calmar. He was sentenced to three years and 10 months in prison for federal weapons charges and was placed on supervised release following his prison time.
WATERLOO  One person was injured in a Monday night shooting in Waterloo.

The identity and condition of the injured person wasnt immediately available, but police said he was taken to UnityPoint-Allen Hospital by private vehicle with serious wounds.

The injured person was dropped off at the hospital shortly before 9:20 p.m. Monday.

Patrol officers and investigators later went to a home at 639 Wallgate Ave. They blocked the house and yard with crime scene tape and were canvassing the neighborhood. A pickup truck with it headlights on and the engine running was parked behind the house off an alley.

One neighbor said he heard a pickup truck speeding away from the home shortly before authorities arrived.
CEDAR FALLS  Superintendent Andy Pattee was evaluated Monday by the Board of Education.

The board is pleased with Dr. Pattees performance, said president Joyce Coil. He met with members in closed session, as allowed under Iowa Code.

They reviewed his goals for the 2016-17 school year, said Coil. Theres no formal action that comes out of this review.

Pattee has been superintendent of Cedar Falls Community Schools since July 2013. The board will go through further evaluation of the superintendent in June or July to talk about where we are on the goals and the future of the district, said Coil.

The review will be used in the process of determining Pattees salary package for the next year and extending his contract.
CEDAR FALLS  Students involved with the University of Northern Iowa Veterans Association thought they had a good idea in holding an event on campus that would help raise awareness about post-traumatic stress disorder.

But they had no idea just how much interest there would be in the first-time event.

The PTSD awareness event, put on by UNI Military and Veteran Student Services, will be on campus Wednesday, but the 125 seats available have already been filled and have been for some time.

I would like to think that every single organization that puts on a first-year event (and) fills it to capacity thinks thats a good thing, said Chris Kennedy, president of UNI Veterans Association.

The awareness event, which coincides with the theme of mental health awareness that Northern Iowa Student Government has highlighted this year, expands on a combat-focused PTSD event the UNI Veterans Association held last year.

While they said last years military-centered event was a success, they were not prepared for the interest this year. They attribute it in part to the expanded scope of PTSD to focus on those who have suffered other traumas. But only in part.

The student panel drew a lot of interest because youre learning the information directly from the students themselves, that first-person perspective, Kennedy said.

The event also offers some continuing education credits for social workers, which also drew interest from outside the campus.

I dont think (the interest is) an understanding of PTSD. I think its a curiosity of PTSD is what it is, and the fact that when you hear PTSD, you think strictly military, combat fatigue  now, when we add the fact that were not just talking about that  but also natural disasters, sexual assault, assault as a young child, said Wesley Negus, with UNI Veterans Association. Any trauma experience causes PTSD.

The event starts with a keynote address from Scott Dickinson, a mental health counselor, who will give an overview of what post-traumatic stress disorder is and how to treat it.

Breakout sessions throughout the day will cover ways to access support, treatment through art and music, specific groups who experience PTSD and the student panel. There also is a quiet room on site in case anyone is inadvertently triggered by the discussion.

Because there has been so much interest this year, the students at UNI Veterans Association have already planned on making this conference an annual event and plan to secure additional space next year.

The more people we have at the event, the more the information gets out, Negus said. Everyone is different. Everyones triggers are different, and trying to find out how to help them is the main thing.

Kennedy said he hopes people leave with not just a greater understanding of PTSD but also how organizations, like offices or schools, can implement policies and procedures to help those affected by the disorder.

Anyone who wants to know more about resources available to veterans or has concerns can contact Norman Ferguson, coordinator of the Military and Veteran Students Services at UNI, at 273-3040 or norman.ferguson@uni.edu.
WATERLOO  Waterloo Community Schools will contract with a private company to help students who have dropped out earn a diploma.

The Board of Education on Monday unanimously approved a three-year agreement with the drop-out recovery program Graduation Alliance Inc. The district will be charged $550 a month per student who enrolls, with a maximum cost of $6,600 for each student annually. It will not be charged for those who dont achieve agreed-upon progress.

The company, based in Salt Lake City, is just starting to work with Iowa school districts.

We feel very confident we have done everything to make sure a student doesnt drop out, said Superintendent Jane Lindaman, noting the program employs some very unique strategies. It would join other options the district will continue using to reach students who have dropped out of school. Students who havent turned 21 by Sept. 15 can enroll in the program for that school year.

Its an online program that they have 24/7 access to a teacher that is hired by this company, she explained. Students will use wireless-enabled laptop computers for greater flexibility in completing classes and work with highly qualified teachers licensed in Iowa. The program is set up that (students) would not come back onto our campus.

Officials have estimated a small enrollment initially. We think there is a possibility of having 10 students with the strategies that are employed, said Lindaman.

The agreement will continue through Aug. 31, 2020. I asked them to add a clause that we would have a one-year out, which could be utilized next summer if needed.

District at-risk funding will be used to pay for the program. Students can enroll during the current school year.

Were investing in these kids, said Michael Coughlin, the districts chief financial officer. It may cost us a bit upfront.

Board member Sue Flynn was optimistic about the expense. What an opportunity to put money into that if we can affect someones future, she said.

Lindaman promised to look at the programs effectiveness once its implemented.

Well monitor along the way and see if it works, she said. Even if it only helps a few kids get their high school diploma, its worth it.
WATERLOO  The city has been asked to turn Park Avenue into a downtown bicycle corridor.

The Waterloo Complete Streets Committee is asking city leaders to approve the Park to Park project for protected bicycle lanes along both sides of the street from South Street at Washington Park to Franklin Street at Lincoln Park.

The plan presented to City Council members Monday would narrow Park Avenue from four lanes to two lanes, creating room for the bike lanes next to the curb. Parking spaces would be moved about eight feet to the center of the street, essentially creating a barrier between the bike lane and vehicular traffic.

Theres nothing preventing a biker from riding on Park Avenue today, said Felicia Cass, who chairs the Complete Streets Committee.  Were just trying to create the most inviting, cost-effective and safe environment  for that to happen.

The projected cost of the project, which essentially involves removing existing paint and installing new pavement markings, is $40,000.

Codie Leseman, a transportation planner for the Iowa Northland Regional Council of Governments, said Cedar Rapids installed a similar protected bicycle lane between the parked cars and curb nearly four years ago. Its increasingly common in other communities.

This has been talked about for at least four years now, Leseman said of Park Avenue. The goal is to create a safe bike facility for riders of nearly all ages and abilities, something that any one of us here in the room would feel comfortable using.

Park Avenue has a lower traffic volume than many other two-lane roads in the city, so narrowing it shouldnt create issues, Leseman said.

Trails on Park Avenue also would connect to the metropolitan trail system, including the RiverLoop trails on both sides of the Cedar River and the U.S. Highway 218 trail, and could easily be extended north to connect to both the U.S. Highway 63 and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive trails.

The Main Street Waterloo downtown revitalization group has endorsed the project. Its director, Tavis Hall, said planned bicycle rides between SingleSpeed Brewings Waterloo and Cedar Falls locations will flood the central business district with cyclists this summer.

Several council members voiced support for the proposal, including Pat Morrissey and Tom Powers.

This is something thats going to improve our downtown  and people coming into downtown will see us as a community on the grow, Morrissey said.

Councilman Steve Schmitt said he has long wanted to turn Park Avenue into a pedestrian-only bridge but did not voice an opinion on the bike lanes.

But Councilman Tom Lind tapped the brakes.

I want funding in place before we even start talking about something like this, Lind said.

The proposal was to use existing road use tax revenue in the citys Traffic Operations Department, which would paint the bike lanes in house. But Mayor Quentin Hart said more funding options would be explored before the measure is brought back for a vote.
Iowa, which produces 36 percent of its electricity from wind energy, could see an increase of thousands of jobs and $9 billion in investment in wind energy by 2020, according to a report highlighted by Gov. Terry Branstad Monday.

Perhaps the most important impact wind has had on our state are the high-quality, good-paying jobs that are helping grow family incomes in Iowa, Branstad said. But wind has also helped us reduce our dependence on foreign oil  something that Iowa was almost exclusively reliant upon in the 1980s when I was first governor.

The industry today supports about 8,000 direct and indirect jobs and is at $11.8 billion in project investment. Its projected the number of jobs could grow to 17,300 by 2020 when jobs in the communities surrounding wind farms and factories are included, according to Navigant Consulting.

Iowa is projected to contain the third most wind-related jobs in 2020, trailing only Texas and Colorado.

Only Texas is expected to experience more economic activity from wind than the $9 billion investment projected in Iowa, Navigant said. That includes investments in new wind projects, turbine operations and maintenance, land lease payments, and sales, income, and property tax payments.

The Navigant analysis can be found at http://www.awea.org/windbenefits.

ALL TALK, NO TEXT: The Iowa House Transportation Committee is likely to take up Senate File 234, a bill to limit drivers use of hand-held communications devices to make phone calls and use global positioning system software to get travel directions. Texting, emailing and reading would be prohibited under the bill approved by a transportation subcommittee Monday.

The Senate approved the bill, 43-6, last week despite some senators wanting to go further and ban the use of all hand-held communications devices.

The same sentiment is present in the House, said Rep. Gary Worthan, R-Storm Lake, a member of the subcommittee. He doubts there will be an attempt to amend the bill because of the opposition to an outright ban on cellphone use by drivers.

The bill also makes texting while driving a primary offense, meaning law enforcement is prohibited from stopping or detaining a person solely for texting while driving. The new primary offense would carry a $30 fine.

MINIMUM WAGE: Gov. Terry Branstad is continuing to call for a modest increase in Iowas minimum wage, despite disinterest by the Legislatures majority Republicans.

Although he agrees with legislative action to pre-empt local minimum wages higher than the states $7.25 minimum, Branstad called for a modest increase over time in the minimum wage as some of our neighboring states have done.

House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, said while Branstad has expressed that sentiment to leaders, the House GOP caucus hasnt expressed an interest in a minimum-wage increase this year.

The sentiment is the same in the Senate, where Majority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, said he would anticipate no separate minimum wage bill.

The last time Iowas minimum wage was increased was with bipartisan support in 2007.

STORMY WEATHER: Its Severe Weather Awareness Week, and the states annual tornado drill will take place between 10 and 11 a.m. Wednesday. Gov. Terry Branstad and the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, National Weather Service and local emergency management agencies encourage schools, businesses, state and local governments and individuals to participate in the drill.

For more information, visit beready.iowa.gov and follow Homeland Security and the NWS on Twitter at #IASWAW.

IPERS CHANGES: Gov. Terry Branstad applauded a decision by the IPERS investment board to lower a key investment target as thoughtful and prudent, even though it will increase the systems unfunded liabilities by about $1.3 billion and could require larger contributions by state and local governments and workers.

The governor told his weekly news conference Monday too many states have overestimated the revenue in their pension funds, and the result is theyre in big trouble.

The Iowa Public Employees Retirement System, which has more than 350,000 members, cut its assumed annual rate of return on investments from 7.5 percent to 7 percent Friday, reflecting concerns returns will cover less of the cost of retirees pensions than in the past.

Using the new assumptions with the 2016 data, IPERS funded ratio has dropped from 84 percent to 80 percent, according to the plans administrators. IPERS has about $28 billion in assets and has unfunded liabilities of nearly $5.6 billion.

Branstad noted the return on investment for the IPERS fund has slowed, so its important Iowa officials track long-term benefits and review the system to protect more than 114,000 retirees who rely on IPERS.

He said the Legislature should follow reforms enacted in 2010 relating to benefits and contributions or consider changes that may be the subject of a state task force review.

HOLIDAY FIREWORKS: A bill allowing the sale and use of fireworks at the Fourth of July and over the Christmas-New Years Day holidays was sent to the full House Ways and Means Committee on Monday.

Senate File 489 would allow licensed retailers or community groups in permanent structures to sell consumer-grade fireworks to adults between June 1 and July 8 and between Dec. 10 and Jan. 3.

A similar provision would apply to conforming temporary structures, such as tents, from June 13 through July 8 each year. It also places time restrictions for the display of fireworks.

In a meeting that lasted less than five minutes, a three-member subcommittee heard from a veterans group that wants to shorten the time frame for fireworks sales and use, so as to protect the thousands of PTSD-affected Iowa veterans.

Were resigned to the fact it will pass, said Robert Beeston of the Veterans National Recovery Center, but the group would like the time fireworks are permitted to be limited to only the Fourth of July holiday. We oppose New Years (fireworks) but recognize tradition around Fourth of July.

Jim Henter of the Iowa Retail Federation called for a longer time frame to make it more appealing for retailers.

OBAMACARE AFTERMATH: Gov. Terry Branstad expressed disappointment Monday that Congress and President Donald Trump were unable to move forward last week with plans to repeal and replace the federal Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

Ive said from the beginning that Obamacare is unaffordable and unsustainable. I think thats becoming more and more obvious in state after state, the governor said.

He said he hopes Iowa will continue to receive federal waivers and flexibility in dealing with health insurance-related matters and that the president and congressional leaders will revisit the topic in the future with better results.

TOUGH BUDGETING: Branstad said Monday he and the GOP-led Legislature face some tough choices in formulating a new fiscal 2018 spending plan.

The governor declined to share what revisions he will offer by Wednesday to the two-year budget plan he sent to legislators in January. But he told reporters the outlook for the budget taking effect July 1 is not an easy situation, given the state will have to use $131 million from the cash reserve and repay the full amount over the next two fiscal years.

That means that the 2018 fiscal year budget is going to be a very difficult and tight budget, he said.

Branstad said the fiscal 2019 spending plan should have more flexibility since he anticipated a significant ending balance in the two-year budget he proposed in January.

SCHOOL HOME RULE: Republicans on a Senate Education subcommittee Monday approved House-passed legislation that would give school boards limited home rule authority allowing them to liberally construe Iowa Code and administrative rules in overseeing school operations.

Sen. Mark Lofgren, R-Muscatine, said several other states have adopted similar flexibility that was supported by representatives of Iowa school boards and administrators during Mondays subcommittee meeting.

However, Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, said House File 533 would open the state to legal challenges unless the Legislature agreed to seek voter approval to grant constitutional home rule similar to what cities and counties in Iowa currently have.

Local governments have the authority to raise revenue to fund their initiatives, while K-12 schools rely on a massive involvement of state funds, he said.

For 149 years, Iowa school boards have operated under Dillons Rule. Under the rule, school boards are allowed to use only those powers specifically allowed by law. Uses of funds and applications of programs are subject to strict interpretations based on Iowa Code and administrative rules, and school districts are bound by the narrowest interpretation of the law, according to the Legislative Services Agency.

Brad Hudson of the Iowa State Education Association, which opposed the bill, called it Dillons Rule on steroids. The bill now goes to the full Senate Education Committee for consideration.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: I say fireworks are more fun when theyre illegal.  Rep. Dave Jacoby, D-Coralville, on the bill that would legalize the sale and use of fireworks in Iowa on a limited basis.
WATERLOO  A financial officer with more than 30 years in the health care industry has been selected to head the philanthropic foundation named for a local hospitals founder.

Shelli Panicucci, chief financial officer for Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare-Iowa, will become chief executive officer of the Otto Schoitz Foundation on April 17. She was with Wheaton-Iowa  which includes Covenant Medical Center, Sartori Memorial Hospital in Cedar Falls and Mercy Hospital in Oelwein  since 1984.

The Otto Schoitz Foundation, announced last May, was created with $50 million as the result of Wheaton Franciscan Healthcares May 1 transfer of its Iowa facilities to the Mercy Health Network in Des Moines.

Otto Schoitz donated $500,000 that helped open the Charlotte Lee Schoitz Memorial Hospital in 1951. That and St. Francis Hospital merged to form Covenant in 1986.

The foundation will provide charitable grants with revenues from the investment of that $50 million, and the grants wont be limited to health care projects. Application procedures and other guidelines will be developed over the coming year.

Im extremely honored to join the foundation, Panicucci said. To ensure that the legacy of our philanthropic leaders is respected and sustained is reward within itself, but to be the conduit for re-investment of their charitable contributions into worthy programs and organizations is exponentially rewarding.

Her last day with Wheaton-Iowa is April 7. Her current and future employers praised her.

I think shes probably the best thing that could happen to us, said Dennis D. Clark, Schoitz Foundation board chairman. Shes an extremely competent person and I have a lot of respect for her. ... Myself and my board are all really excited about Shelli coming on the foundation.

This is the communitys money, Clark said, and its our job to make sure were looking out for it. And I think weve got the right person.

Wheaton-Iowa CEO Jack Dusenbery said, Shes a very smart, competent person, competitive and a lot of fun. Weve shared a lot of laughs through two very stressful jobs. Shes been a joy to work with.

I could write a book on the accomplishments and contributions attributed to Shelli, including becoming one of the few debt-free health systems in the U.S., Dusenbery added. Our audits are always flawless, we are always current with governmental and regulatory changes. We have allocated capital to make sure we provide exceptional care, we are respected throughout the state of Iowa, we do not lose sight of our overriding mission. And Shelli guided us though the consolidation into our present ownership structure.

Panicucci began working with the St. Francis side of the Wheaton Iowa/Covenant organization but also helped out on the Schoitz side of the mid-1980s merger. She succeeded a counterpart on the Schoitz side, Mike Schneiders, in becoming chief financial officer for the entire Covenant/Wheaton Iowa organization in 1998.

Ive had a wonderful career working with the Wheaton system and been given a lot of opportunities, Panicucci said. Im just really looking forward to this new role. Its a whole new world for me. There are a lot of great community leaders on the board. Im fortunate to have the board that I have.

And Im kind of excited about the mission of the foundation, she said. It really kind of carries on the Wheaton sisters mission. Ive done a little research on Otto Schoitz. His goals were to improve the community he shared with others. Real simply stated.

Foundation offices will be in the US Bank building on Cedar Street downtown, between the Waterloo Public Library and the Cedar River.
Q: How hot does it need to be outside before it is not a good idea to leave my dog in the car for short periods of time with the windows open?

A: It may seem that on a relatively cool day your dog will be fine sitting in your car with the windows open for a short period of time. However, this can be very deceiving as the interior of the car can increase in temperature drastically compared to the ambient temperature outside.

In 10 minutes time, the interior temperature of a car can increase by 20 degrees and in one hour the temperature can increase by 40 degrees. That means if it is 65 degrees outside, the interior of the car can be 105 degrees within one hour.

Research has shown that having the windows open has very little impact on the interior temperature of the car. Even parking in the shade does not affect the interior temperature of a car.

The other issue with animals is that they are not able to dissipate heat very effectively. Dogs do not sweat, so they must pant to cool their bodies. Unfortunately, panting is not a very effective way to dissipate internal heat and dogs will overheat very quickly in mild temperatures.

Brachycephalic breeds such as pugs, bulldogs and boxers have an even harder time panting due to the anatomic abnormalities associated with their facial structure so these dogs can overheat even more quickly than other breeds.

Even a very mild heat stroke can be devastating to a dog and can lead to seizures, organ failure and death. It is never recommended to leave a dog in a car in the summer  or spring  for even a few minutes due to the risk of overheating!

Q: What type of paperwork do I need to take with me to travel to Mexico with my dog?

A: This is a good question because the rules have changed for taking an animal into Mexico.

It used to be a very simple process and you could just travel across the border with your pets rabies certificate and there were very rarely any problems. However, now the rules have become much more stringent so it is very important that you are aware of the new changes before you attempt to take your pet across the border.

Mexico is now requiring either an International Health certificate, which needs to be signed by a USDA Certified veterinarian and the USDA, or a Mexico-specific health certificate that can be downloaded from the USDA-APHIS website.

The Mexico-specific health certificate needs to be signed by a USDA certified veterinarian but does not need USDA approval. Both certificates must be type written and obtained within 10 days of travel into Mexico. (No handwritten certificates are allowed.)

The Mexico-specific health certificate requires that the animal be up to date on vaccines and be checked for intestinal parasites. The pet also must be treated for ticks and fleas prior to traveling to Mexico. The health certificate can only be obtained from a USDA-certified veterinarian and not all veterinarians have the certification so it is important to verify this certification prior to setting up an appointment.

Whenever an animal travels to Mexico, it is highly recommended that they are on a monthly flea and tick prevention and on monthly heartworm prevention that includes an intestinal dewormer.

It is also recommended that you take your pets rabies certificate as well as the health certificate with you just in case there are any issues. These new rules are making travel to Mexico with a pet more complicated and more expensive!

Please check the USDA website to get more information. Go to www.aphis.USDA.gov and research under the header Pet Travel.
Winning is everything, Donald Trump often said as he campaigned for president. Nothing is presidential except victory.

Last week, Trump suffered a major defeat when he couldnt force a House vote for the health care bill he endorsed. But, Trump being Trump, he said it wasnt really a defeat; it was a success in disguise.

Heres the good news, he told the Washington Post. Health care is now totally the property of the Democrats.  Ive been saying for years that the best thing is to let Obamacare explode and then go make a deal.

Thats not how the presidency is supposed to work, of course. Voters arent likely to blame Democrats for the fact Republicans couldnt get their act together. Nor should they. Besides, only a month ago, Trump renewed his pledge to replace Obamacare immediately  with something great. His failure isnt just a broken promise; it means hes abandoning, at least temporarily, one of his partys central goals.

The way Trumps effort failed raises a larger question with consequences for the rest of his agenda: Does the president understand his own job description? Although hes gloried in the showy, imperial parts of the presidency  speaking at rallies, signing executive orders  a big part of any presidents job consists of steering his agenda through Congress. And many of Trumps priorities, including tax reform, will require legislation. That means persuading members of Congress to vote yes, a task that should be easier when the presidents party controls both houses.

But on his first time out, it didnt work. The great marketer wasnt very persuasive  even among his putative allies.

What went wrong?

First, Trump never bothered to learn the details of the bill he was trying to sell. Nobody knew health care could be so complicated, he declared last month.

Second, Trump signaled repeatedly his heart wasnt in the effort  hed be just as happy, maybe happier, if the bill didnt pass. His aides insisted it not be called Trumpcare; they preferred Ryancare, implicitly assigning blame to the Speaker of the House. What congressman would be eager to vote for a flawed bill if the president wasnt fully committed?

Third, Trump never sold the bill to the public. His spokesman claimed last week he left everything on the field, but that didnt include something as simple as giving a speech to the nation. Polls showed the bill winning the support of as few as 17 percent of voters, another reason for members of Congress to flee.

Fourth, he couldnt strong-arm wavering lawmakers.

Trumps main argument was anyone who voted against the bill would suffer when they ran for reelection. But the members of Congress, most of whom have run more times than the president, didnt believe him.

One reason is the lawmakers most opposed to the bill, the far-right Freedom Caucus, dont need Trump to raise money for their campaigns. Powerful conservative organizations, including the constellation of groups around Charles and David Koch, promised millions of dollars to underwrite them if they voted no.

Meanwhile, moderate Republicans from the Northeast deserted the president for a simpler reason: They fear their voters more than they fear him. Trump isnt very popular right now, especially in the New York and California districts many of those moderates are clinging to.

Power is cumulative; it rests on what the late presidential scholar Richard E. Neustadt called reputation.

The greatest danger to a presidents influence, he wrote, is whether other politicians expect him to succeed or fail. If his failures seem to form a pattern, the consequence is bound to be a loss of faith in his effectiveness next time.

Thats why Trump has even more on the line in his next battle over tax reform  an issue hell find thats every bit as complicated as health care.

Im going to make a wild guess here and bet Trump never read Neustadts Presidential Power. Aides have said hes not much of a reader. He is, however, listed as the author of 18 books, and he may find some useful lessons in those works. In The Art of the Deal, for example, he weighs the pros and cons of punishing his enemies.

When people treat me badly  my general attitude, all my life, has been to fight back very hard. The risk is youll make a bad situation worse.

Or he could simply ask for a briefing on how his predecessors have coped with setbacks.

Both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton had rough first years. Both had a hard time persuading their own party to enact their agendas, including health care bills. Both saw their standing sag in the polls.

But their presidencies had different outcomes. Carter never quite mastered the art of congressional persuasion; his tenure ended after a single term. Clinton did better, with bipartisan deal-making (on welfare reform) and brinkmanship (on the budget).

Trump hasnt tried either of those techniques yet. Is he willing to learn from his mistakes?
Democrats saved Obamacare from the Republicans but will not be able to save it from itself. The health plan is so badly misconceived it will now become ever more distorted until finally it just wont be there. In the meantime, it will continue to do ruinous damage to the budget and economy. The Democrats will blame the Republicans, and the press just might let them get away with it.

The Republicans, whose House leadership has given up the ghost on repeal and replacement, had failed over the years to develop a viable, alternate plan, it is said. Thats not entirely true. There were many plans but little agreement within a party more diverse than critics admit. It is true the GOP came together when passing repeal bills during the Obama years, obviously confident vetoes would let them off the hook of something unworkable coming up.

This time around, House Speaker Paul Ryan had a plan that was in many ways reasonable, although it needed renovations that could have come through Senate amendments and compromise the Democrats disallowed. Because the Democrats would have offered up a legislation-stopping filibuster for any ordinary bill, House Republicans stuck to so-called reconciliation legislation that was focused on budgetary issues. A majority vote is enough to act on and pass reconciliation legislation, but this approach offers far less opportunity to delve into non-budgetary issues.

So now we are left with Obamacare with all its misconceptions and absurdities intact. This act essentially redefined insurance in such a way it was not insurance anymore. Instead of guaranteeing compensation for unforeseen health mishaps through premiums adjusted by risk, insurance was now a system of paying for health bills after the mishaps had already occurred with the people most at risk often paying the least money. It was as if you could buy fire insurance after your house had already burned down, or to use another comparison, as if a life insurance company charged sick people at age 89 less than healthy people at age 21.

The intentions were good  insurance for one and all that covered every conceivable ailment  but the consequences were a path to hell. To pay for those at high risk, those at small risk had to fork up big bucks through penalties they would otherwise suffer. It did not work well, and insurance firms kept raising premiums and deductibles to the point of people paying more than they could afford with the prospect of getting nothing back. Many decided the penalties were more comfortable, and major health insurance companies dropped out of the program.

Meanwhile there were governmental subsidies left and right requiring taxes right and left along with budget deficits worsening the possibilities of a debt crisis. A favorite leftist solution was to convert to a single-payer system, which is to say government would foot far more of the bill. Our threatening entitlement conglomeration would then reach a point where possibilities of a debt crisis would be converted into probabilities of a debt crisis, maybe even assurance of a debt crisis.

So here we are with a Republican plan down in the dirt and smiles on the faces of Democrats because they had salvaged a disaster of their making that at the moment is in fact doing good for large numbers of people. Thats temporarily the blessing of all kinds of ill-conceived governmental solutions that then turn sour and require ever more hurt to supposedly stop the hurt.

Maybe, a few months down the road, Republicans will aim for a real legislative solution again, but maybe that will meet the same fate of disagreement and Democratic blockades. Maybe we will later see Obamacare combustion with millions of the once-insured uninsured and spending of a calamitous sort. Perhaps the Republicans will be held responsible, leading to Democratic victories at the polls and worse calamity. We will see.
ARLINGTON  A gas station owner has been arrested for allegedly improperly transporting fuel.

Fayette County sheriffs deputies arrested Zachary James Less, 22, for 23 charges, including no placards when required, no shipping papers, no markings on holding tanks, load not secure in vehicle, operating a commercial vehicle without a commercial drivers license, driving without proper endorsements, improper transport of hazardous material, no breakaway device connected to towing unit and expired registration on vehicle.

Less co-owns the Pit Lane in Waverly, Arlington and Volga, deputies said. He is accused of transporting thousands of gallons of fuel from store to store only using a trailer and plastic tanks.

Fayette County investigators received a tip about the allegations earlier this month, and he was stopped Friday and found to be carrying more than 1,000 gallons of fuel hidden in a trailer that was being pulled by his personal vehicle, deputies said. Authorities obtained a warrant to search the Arlington Pit Lane to gather evidence.

The Iowa Department of Transportation Motor vehicle Enforcement units assisted in the investigation, which is ongoing.
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PHOENIX  Tempers flared at Wednesdays public hearing over a proposed rate hike for Arizona Public Service customers.

The Arizona Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities, held the hearing in preparation for a vote in the coming months. The proposed hike would raise monthly bills by about $6 a month for a typical user.

APS serves more than 2 million customers, according to its website, and provides power to people in 11 out of the states 15 counties.

Doris Freeman, an APS customer for 40 years, said shes been opposed to every rate increase APS has proposed.

APS is incredibly wealthy  and they treat their customers terribly, Freeman said. They cut my service off. I was working two low-wage jobs, until I could find a better job, and I was getting behind on bills. I was $30 short on my bill, and they refused to work with me, and they cut my service.

In January, the company proposed an increase that would work out to $11 a month for a typical customer, according to azcentral.com. The company sought to increase revenue by $166 million.

In early March, APS and other groups settled on a compromise and lowered its requested increase.

Wednesdays meeting was the second public hearing on the issue. The commission has a third hearing planned for Yuma in April.

Commissioner Bob Burns expressed disappointment the commission did not plan meetings for Flagstaff because residents there had asked for a hearing.

Nearly two dozen people testified Wednesday.

One woman noted that her energy consumption had gone down almost a third, but her bill increased by the same amount.

At one point, Freeman questioned the relationship between the commissioners and APS.

This is not how this works. There is no back and forth, Commission Tom Forese said.

Patti Sills-Trausch, the director of outreach at the Franciscan Renewal Center in Scottsdale, spoke on behalf of herself and the people her nonprofit serves.

We know through working with them, that when utilities go up, they have to make a difficult choice  between utilities, food, between paying their rent, Sills-Trausch said. When these things happen, they come to us for more help.

The APS proposal would increase monthly service fees, alter the rate for peak usage and lower compensation rates for excess energy produced by solar panels, among other things.

The Franciscan Renewal Center also has solar, and she fears the changes could affect them if they add more panels.

Were trying to do the right thing for the environment, Sills-Trausch said. These kinds of changes to the incentives will affect our ability to install more panels  (and) where we can save money, we can pour that back into our programs.

Diane Brown, executive director of Arizona Public Interest Research Group, had encouraged customers to attend the meeting and voice their opinions.

This proposal will create a loss of control for customers, she said. These provisions are unjustified.

An APS spokeswoman said the increase will help the company meet customer needs.

The last time we had a formal review was five years ago, spokeswoman Anna Stewart said in an email statement. Our proposed rate increase and modernized pricing model are necessary to support new technologies while maintaining safe and reliable energy customers expect.

The Corporation Commission is set to vote on the rate increase this summer.
PHOENIX -- Not content to make gathering signatures more difficult, Republican lawmakers are now moving to impose new procedural requirements on voters who want to propose their own laws.

The measure being pushed by Sen. Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, would allow a court to keep an initiative off the ballot if backers are not in "strict compliance'' with all election laws. That would overturn a series of existing court ruling which have erred on the side of giving voters their say and measures to remain on the ballot if there is "substantial compliance'' with the law.

Lesko said she is particularly miffed that Arizonans were allowed to vote in 2012 on a proposal which would have made permanent the state's one-cent sales tax surcharge.

It is undisputed that a copy of the initiative filed electronically with the secretary of state's office differed from the one filed on paper and was actually circulated. But courts concluded the circulators had been in "substantial compliance'' and allowed the vote to go forward.

That annoyed Lesko.

"What's the point of having laws,'' she said.

As it turns out, it was defeated.

But the wording of HB 2244, set for debate today in the Senate Appropriations Committee, is far more sweeping than the kind of situation that occurred in 2012. It even would disqualify an initiative because of the use of the wrong type size or incorrect margins.

Lesko is unapologetic.

"I think that if the law says there has to be certain things, the law should be followed,'' she told Capitol Media Services.

She conceded the change does not apply to candidates.

"But I measure and make sure that it definitely follows the law,'' Lesko said of her own petitions. "And if people follow the law there shouldn't be other people not follow the law.''

It's not just the 2012 measure that would never have made it to the ballot under the standard that Lesko wants to impose.

In 2008 homebuilders sought to keep voters from considering a "homeowner bill of rights'' simply because some of the proposed changes in law were not in capital letters. That is the standard format for having what's new stand out.

But the Court of Appeals said voters should be given a chance to decide the issue, concluding the petitions substantially complied with the legal requirements, The initiative was later defeated.

And just last year foes of legalizing the recreational use of marijuana sought to block a vote, charging charged that the summary of the measure and the text itself were too flawed to go to voters.

But Supreme Court Chief Justice Scott Bales said Arizona law requires only that ballot measures be in "substantial compliance'' with legal requirements. And he said Proposition 205 fits within that definition.

Lesko's move comes less than a week after Gov. Doug Ducey signed legislation making it illegal to pay petition circulators on a per-signature basis. Foes of that measure said that bar, by itself, will make it far more difficult, if not impossible, to gather the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed to propose new laws and constitutional amendments.

That did not go unnoticed by Sen. Steve Farley, D-Tucson.

"This is yet another in a series of measures by the majority to try to quash the voice of of the people of Arizona,'' he told Capitol Media Services. "If you're trying to make it harder to get an initiative through, then you're making it harder for people to have their voice heard.''

Farley said he's concerned that otherwise valid and popular measures will be thwarted for technical reasons.

Arizona law requires petitions to be printed in at least eight-point type. There are 72 points to an inch.

They also must be printed in black ink on white or recycled paper, 14 inches wide and 8 1/2 inches in length "with a margin of at least one-half inch at the top and one-fourth inch at the bottom of each page.''

"If you are able to throw out something because a margin is an eighth of an inch too short on one side, that that is not relevant to the people's will,'' Farley said. "That's relevant to your desire to throw the thing off the ballot without allowing people to vote on it.''

Lesko said while she believes there is a need for strict compliance with petition drives, she does not see that as necessary for politicians like herself.

"Candidates can be elected out every two years,'' she said.

"An initiative, once it's in, it's in,'' Lesko continued. "It's almost virtually impossible to change it.''

That's because of the Voter Protection Act, itself an initiative drive in 1998, which forbids lawmakers from repealing what has been enacted at the ballot and sharply restricts changes.

As it turns out, though, the House already has approved a measure to ask voters to repeal that provision, with action awaiting in the Senate. But Lesko said she's not sure that would undermine her reasoning of why strict compliance with initiatives is necessary.

"I haven't thought that through,'' she said.

Arizona law already requires strict compliance -- but only referenda petitions.

The distinction has been interpreted by the court to deal with the fact that a referendum seeks to block enactment of something already approved by lawmakers until voters get a chance to have their say. In that case, a petition drive specifically seeks to thwart the will of the elected legislators.

By contrast, an initiative proposes something entirely new, often because lawmakers refuse to take up the matter. Prior successful efforts range from banning leghold traps and outlawing gestation pens for pigs and cattle to imposing new taxes on tobacco to pay for early childhood education and smoking-cessation programs.
A structural concern in the Flagstaff City Council chambers has forced meetings scheduled there to be postponed or change locations through at least the end of the week, city officials said.

Public Works Director Andy Bertelsen said city officials noticed some buckling in a truss on the southeast side of the room, possibly due to significant rain and snow over the winter.

City workers have installed a beam to hold the truss in place, but Bertelsen said he wants to have the truss looked at by a professional before reopening the room for meetings. In the meantime, meetings scheduled in the room will be rescheduled or moved to other locations. Bertelsen said he hoped to have a temporary fix in by next week, and said a permanent solution will be planned for over the summer while the City Council is on a break.

The City Council chambers are part of a separate roof structure than the rest of City Hall, so other areas of the building are not threatened, he said.

The trusses and beams in the chambers are part of the building's original design, Bertelsen said. The building opened in 1983.

Tuesday evening's work session of the council was canceled due to the concern.

Tuesday's agenda would have included a discussion about APS rates and a cable license agreement renewal.

Arizona Corporation Commission spokeswoman Angie Holdsworth said the commission's public comment session, which was scheduled to be held in the chambers next week, will be moved to the Coconino County Administrative Building at 219 E. Cherry Ave. That meeting will take place April 3 at 6 p.m.
Mar 28, 2017 | By Tess

Mecuris, a Munich-based manufacturer of bespoke 3D printed prosthetics, recently announced that it has shipped and delivered the worlds first CE-certified 3D printed prosthetic feet. The prosthetic in question, called NexStep, has been in development for some time, and with the CE mark (an important European medical certification), it is now ready for market.

Mecuris NexStep prosthetic (as well as its FirStep, for children) is one of the first 3D printed foot prosthetic available freely on the market. Importantly, the innovative orthopaedic aid can be customized to the patient in a matter of minutes using Mecuris cloud-based digital design platform. The cloud-based solution is currently in its beta stage, as a number of medical professionals are in the process of testing and providing feedback for it.

Having achieved CE certification for its 3D printed foot prosthetic, Mecuris is one (big) step closer towards making high-quality, tailored 3D printed prosthetics more accessible and more efficient. Jannis Breuninger, Mecuris head of product development, explains what the impact of the NexStep prosthetic could be:

We digitally tailored two NexSteps to a patient only a week ago. The resulting CAD models were then 3D printed in a certified printing hub in Germany and delivered to us for final inspection. The feet will now be sent to a medical professional practicing in Eastern Europe. He will treat a young and active double-amputee with two NexStep provided by Mecuris. The patient was surprised that we already deliver, as he usually has to wait two to three months for an individual prosthesis. Our long-term goal is to ship custom prosthetics within 48 hours days.

To obtain CE certification, the 3D printed NexStep prosthetic had to undergo a number of tests, which included a mechanical long-term durability test, load enduring tests, and more. In the end, the prosthetic foot demonstrated its strength and resilience, enduring a toe load of up to 8,000 N, and passing a test that simulated a patient wearing the prosthetic for over three years and then jumping down a number of stairs. We passed these tests at the first go, thanks to our extensive computer simulation activities with a 3D model of the foot, explained Carolin Taubmann, Quality Management & Simulation at Mecuris.

Impressively, the NexStep prosthetic foot managed to pass its CE certification tests in under four months, a feat which shows the potential and promise of the 3D printed aid. According to Mecuris CEO Manuel Opitz, his company is the first manufacturer in the world to achieve CE certification for a 3D printed prosthetic foot. I have not heard yet of any other company having achieved CE-certification of an individual prosthetic foot. We will therefore leverage our advantage with further products, co-developed with experienced professionals from the industry, he said.

The German startup will be showcasing its innovative NexStep prosthetic at the ISPO World Congress in Cape Town, South Africa between May 8 and 11. There, two runners will test the 3D printed prosthetic feet. Mecuris has also said its cloud-based digital tailoring platform, and other surprises will be unveiled at the event.

Currently, the Munich-based company is working on certifying a water-proof version of its NexStep prosthetic, which was initiated thanks to popular demand. Mecuris is hopeful that it will achieve the certification within a few months.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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Barrett Swanson at Dissent:

Though few contemporary Christians would likely admit it, many of the American colonies were built upon the idea of redistribution. Those dour Puritans who first populated the territories of New England were not lured by the promise of windfall profits. Nor had they endured months of seasickness and disease for the chance to start a small business. Instead, they were hopeless utopians, runaway apostates of the established church who yearned to embrace a higher manner of being, one founded upon a system of communitarian ethics. John Winthrop, the Puritan governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, sketched the tenets of this new society in a sermon called A Model of Christian Charity, which he delivered in 1630 while on board a British ship headed across the Atlantic. A gusty ode to American exceptionalism, the homily christened the new continent The City Upon a Hill, a metaphor that Ronald Reagan would make a watchword for Republicans some three-hundred-and-fifty years later. But in Winthrops eyes what gave the New World its luster were the egalitarian principles of the Protestant gospel, central among them the commitment to redistributing wealth on the basis of individual need. We must be willing, Winthrop said, to abridge ourselves of our superfluities for the sakes of others necessities . . . we must bear one anothers burdens.

It is stupefying to consider how, over the course of four centuries, American Christianity would forsake these humble sentiments for the telegenic hucksterism of preachers like Joel Osteen. This Pentecostal quack with a garish smile doesnt tout the spiritual benefits of communal interdependence. Nor does he acknowledge the ethical requirements of the Christian social contract. Instead, like so many stewards of the prosperity gospel, Osteen thinks individual wealth is a hallmark of Christian virtue and urges his followers to reach inside themselves to unlock their hidden potential.

more here.
On the eve of the San Francisco Symphony's East Coast tour, which was supposed to include two concerts in North Carolina but were cancelled in response to the state's discriminatory legislation, the orchestra is bringing a little Pride to Davies Symphony Hall.

On April 4th, music director Michael Tilson Thomas and Broadway star Audra McDonald (Ragtime, A Raisin in the Sun, Private Practice) are joining forces to celebrate the Bay Area's unique spirit of inclusion and diversity with a special concert recognizing and supporting the local LGBTQ community.

"This special evening honors the essential contributions that LGBTQ composers have made in shaping the American musical sound," said Thomas. "This concert also offers me the opportunity to express my appreciation for the generous welcome extended to me and my husband Joshua Robison since our arrival here over 20 years ago."

The wide-ranging concert program features the voices of many LGBTQ musical mavericks including Lou Harrison, Henry Cowell, Meredith Monk, and John Cage. Audra McDonald will perform a selection of songs by Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and Kander and Ebb as well as narrate Aaron Copland's iconic Lincoln Portrait. Concluding the concert is the extraordinary final movement of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 1, a work the orchestra will perform in Carnegie Hall later in the week.

Proceeds from Symphony Pride will support organizations that provide services to the Bay Area LGBT communty, including the SF LGBT Center, Larkin Street Youth Services, Transgender Law Center, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and The Trevor Project.





// Symphony Pride takes place on Tuesday, April 4th, 8 p.m. at Davies Symphony Hall (Civic Center), Get tickets ($25 or $50) here.
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Why would Congress try to undermine bipartisan state solutions to the retirement savings deficit faced by many Americans? But thats whats at stake as the Senate considers two resolutions already approved by the House. If they pass, they will not only cut off a way for the country to save money, they will void the Labor Departments attempt to allow the states to serve as the laboratories of innovation that our Founders intended.

Today, 55 million working Americans do not have a way to save for retirement out of their regular paycheck. The lack of employer-sponsored savings opportunities has a direct impact on the retirement security of American workers. Social Security is only a foundation for retirement income  not the whole house. Yet, as an AARP study showed, they are 15 times more likely to save if they have access to a payroll deduction savings plan at work.

Subscribe to the AARP Money Newsletter for more on work, retirement and finances

The states are closer to the people, and they are often more willing and able to test creative solutions. More than 30 states, among them Arkansas, California, Connecticut, New York and Utah, have taken or are considering steps to remove regulatory barriers for small businesses that want to offer workers a retirement savings vehicle. Work and Save plans work like the successful 529 college savings plans. In 20 years, Americans have used them to put away more than $253.2 billion in pretax dollars.

Work and Save is a market-based approach. Neither the state nor the employer is responsible for a persons gains or losses. Employees can opt out if they do not want to contribute, and they can choose how much they want to put away and what they want to invest in. These retirement saving plans will mean less reliance on the government safety nets. In fact, if states were to take action today, according to a Segal study, they could save taxpayers as much as $4.8 billion in the next 10 years. As for small business owners, their only involvement is to give employees information and provide the payroll deduction, which they are already doing for things like taxes and health care.
Phone lines to Brown County offices down, 911 still works

The telephone lines to Brown County offices are down. Emergencies can still be reported to 911.
He Clinic for Men Pairs French, Thai aesthetic surgeons in discreet, luxurious Thonglor setting

Leading doctors from France and Thailand have joined forces to open a unique aesthetic-treatment center for men He Clinic Bangkok.

Dr. Richard Diacakis, a 20-year plastic surgeon from Paris, and his former student, leading Thai plastic surgeon Dr. Chayut Fungtongjararoen, head the luxurious, comfortable and discreet male health facility in the Thonglor section of the Thai capital that opened March 14.

The He Clinic for Him is dedicated to enhancing your life, inside and out, through aesthetic treatments and procedures developed exclusively for men. The clinics holistic approach employs techniques perfected over two decades and has been are enhanced by the expert staffs thorough knowledge and use of the highest-quality products.

Come and experience a full makeover of mind and body through a variety of facial procedures, anti-aging and nutrition programs, and intimacy enhancement. Options range from blepharoplasty and rhinoplasty to blood, allergy and hormone-level checks, to hyaluronic acid injections to augment intimacy.

From my first years as a doctor, I felt there was a need for top-quality aesthetic procedures to enhance the well-being of the modern man, Dr. Chayut said. Now we have realized this dream and are ready to offer the best in mens intimacy enhancments, aesthetic, nutrition and hair services. We are happy to serve all your specific needs,

A cornerstone of He Clinic for Mens approach is 100% confidentiality. Most men prefer to keep their personal health issues and sex lives private. At the He Clinic for Men, appointments are limited so each patient proceeds immediately to a private suite where they meet with an individual medical counselor who helps select the best-possible solutions to various mens health issues.

Counselors thoroughly answer all patient questions on mens health problems, issues and challenges. And all personal information is kept in digital form in a secure database.

The He Clinics philosophy is your satisfaction is our goal. We work directly with leading authorities at our new, modern clinic in Bangkok and provide a discreet location where you can feel comfortable for a full makeover of mind and body. Our mission is to help you, as a successful man, be the best you can be.

About the Doctors

Dr. Diacakis, He Clinic for Mens founder, earned successive degrees in microsurgery, hand surgery, anatomy, general surgery, plastic, reconstructive and aesthetic surgeries from 1997 through 2000. He worked as clinic-assistant chief of Paris hospitals before joining the famed Chirurgie Esthetique a Paris aesthetic-surgery clinic in Paris where he perfected his techniques over the next decade. He is committed to what he calls surgery of well-being, which has culminated in his newest total lifestyle clinic in Bangkok, the He Clinic for Him.

Dr. Chayut was already one of Thailands leading aesthetic surgeons when he began his studies under Dr. Diacakis in 2014. After doing his residency in a public hospital, Dr. Chayut spent the next six years mastering the arts of rhinoplasty, alarplasty, mentoplasty, blephaloplasty, lip reduction, buccal fat removal, and penoplasty.

Location and Contact Info

The He Clinic for men is located in the second floor of the Fifty-Fitth Thonglor building at 90 Thonglor Soi 2 in Khlong Tan Nuea, Watthana, Bangkok. They are open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Call them at +66(0)2-381-5155.

Visit He Clinic for Mens websites or follow its social-media pages for more life-changing stories on the web at HeClinics.com on Facebook at HeClinics and on Instagram at HeClinicFor_Men.

Media Contact

Company Name: He Clinic

Contact Person: Public Relations

Email: info@heclinics.com

Phone: 087 804 9542

Address:Fifty-Fifth Thonglor 2nd Flr, 90 Thonglor Soi 2, Khlong Tan Nuea

City: Watthana

State: Bangkok

Country: Thailand

Website: www.Heclinics.com


Signs Agreement with Leading e-Commerce Provider Wjike to Open Specialist e-Commerce Store in China

Sydney, Mar 28, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - SmartTrans Holdings Limited ( ASX:SMA ) (SmartTrans or the Company) is pleased to announce it has taken another major step in expanding its e-commerce operations in China by signing a major partnership agreement with leading Chinese ecommerce company Wjike (http://www.wjike.com).



- SmartTrans partners with leading Chinese e-commerce company Wjike to establish a specialist online retail store to sell Australian products to consumers in China



- Online store selling Australian products to be established on Wjike's ecommerce platform, as well as established outlets on Tmall.com and JD.com



- Second major e-commerce partnership established with others being pursued



- SmartTrans continues to evaluate additional distribution points in the Chinese market



- New brands to be added to Dodoca RooLife platform very shortly



Wjike is a privately-held online retailer in China and sells products to consumers both through its highly-regarded Wjike.com e-commerce platform (www.wjike.com), as well as through leading Chinese online marketplaces Tmall.com and JD.com.



Under the agreement, Wjike will add a new online specialist store selling Australian products to its customer base via its well-established online shopping platform with profits to be shared between the two companies.



Wjike will source all products from SmartTrans' portfolio and meet all costs associated with marketing these products through its store. Both parties will share in profits from sales generated.



The new Australian products store will be similar to SmartTrans' recently-launched WeChat-based 'Dodoca RooLife' marketplace, which is run in conjunction with Shanghai Stock Exchange-listed Shanghai Information Technology Co., Ltd (Dodoca) (Refer ASX Announcement 27 March).



This latest agreement extends SmartTrans' e-commerce strategy to build multiple channels into the Chinese on-line market for the Australian brands we represent.



Each online channel appeals to a slightly different consumer segment and when coupled with the Smartpay financial gateway, provides the additional value of allowing purchases in Chinese Yuan by consumers and payment to suppliers in Australian Dollars. This benefits both Chinese consumers and Australian brand owners.



Wjike's focus on selling high-quality mother and baby products, cosmetics, food, home and household items provides significant overlap and opportunity for growth leveraging SmartTrans' growing reach via partnerships with leading Australian brands for the RooLife marketplace.



Wjike has a track record of successfully selling Korean and Japanese brands through its online platforms and has been actively searching for an Australian partner to fill growing consumer demand. SmartTrans delivers this.



Australian-made products have a well-earned reputation for quality in the Chinese market and the new store will allow Wjike to meet growing demand for premium-quality goods from discerning consumers in China's rapidly-growing middle class.



The partnership with Wjike is expected to add to SmartTrans' revenue base for minimal additional investment, strengthening the Company's position in the Chinese e-commerce market by further leveraging its established e-commerce infrastructure and relationships.



For Wjike, the partnership represents a significant opportunity to sell and distribute leading Australian brands.



The agreement sees SmartTrans deliver on its strategy of securing additional leading online retail distribution partners in China to help it fast track sales growth and access large, established consumer databases.



SmartTrans Managing Director Bryan Carr said: "We are honoured to enter into a partnership with a highly regarded e-commerce industry leader like Wjike."



"This agreement demonstrates the confidence of another established and successful online business in China to partner with SmartTrans. The partnership adds another revenue channel for SmartTrans as we expand our range of e-commerce platforms and distribution points in China. After Dodoca, this represents our second partnership and we are on the hunt for more."



Following the official launch of the Dodoca RooLife platform late last week, SmartTrans expects to very shortly provide an update on a pending major category distribution agreement on the platform.



About SmartTrans Holdings Limited





SmartTrans Holdings Limited (ASX:SMA) is a leading Australian technology and software provider that has developed a mobile and online billing and payment platform for the China market The company has agreements in place with China Mobile, China Unicorn, China Telecom CMPay, UnionPay and Alipay. With the growing use of the smartphone as a billing device in China, the company is experiencing significant uptake of its technology in that market. SmartTrans has also developed cutting-edge proprietary logistics software which is used by some of Australia's leading blue-chip organisations who have long term contracts in place with the company. SmartTrans is assessing growth opportunities for its logistic offering in China to complement its mobile and online payments platform.
Belfast International Airport has reported its sixth successive month of record passenger figures.





The news coincides with the start of the Ryanair service to the major Catalan city of Girona, which is the airlines eleventh international route from the main Northern Ireland airport.



In the twenty-eight days of February, it recorded over 400,000 passengers for the first time ever, up 27% on last years performance.



The airports Managing Director, Graham Keddie, said that even with a short month, the passenger figure was an outstanding achievement.



Mr Keddie said: Were seeing a major upswing in business through the airport. Records are tumbling every month and thats good for South Antrim and the Northern Ireland economy.



We remain firmly on track to have a record year of 5.4 million passengers. The summer surge will be like no other ever experienced at the airport.



In February, we had more than 4,000 arriving and departing aircraft and that will rise steadily in coming months.



Within the UK, our London Gatwick service is the busiest domestic route, and thats an amazing achievement for us. More people are flying with easyJet and Ryanair on their twelve daily flights than any other service from Northern Ireland.



Thousands of people are using our airlines to come and visit Northern Ireland, whether Its for a weekend or longer stay. There has never been a better time to market Northern Ireland within the UK.



We have the big plus of a common currency. Theres no euro-pound disadvantage so, in fact, visitors from GB have a much better deal than if they fly into the Republic of Ireland.



Our airlines are adding significant capacity to meet demand. More will follow.



Trade figures for our retail and food and beverage outlets are at record levels, and that will continue. All of our units are let and we are creating three additional outlets to meet passenger expectations.


AETC names top performers for 2016

Air Education and Training Command senior leaders recently recognized nine Airmen as the commands best for 2016.

The awards distinguish AETCs enlisted Airmen for their leadership, job performance, community involvement and personal achievements.



"America's Air Force is an extraordinary blend of the finest our nation has to offer," Lt. Gen. Darryl Roberson, AETC commander, said. "What sets us apart and makes us the greatest Air Force on the planet is our Airmen  they are truly remarkable. These nine enlisted Airmen represent the best of the best in AETC. Each one plays a critical role in our mission to recruit,

train and educate the world's finest Airmen."

Chief Master Sgt. David Staton, AETC command chief, also praised the winners for their accomplishments.



"I am continually amazed that an Airman can do so much in a single year!" Staton said. "These nine Airmen are deserving of the honors bestowed upon them and much more."



The 2016 AETC Outstanding Airmen of the Year are:



AETC Airman Category

Senior Airman Nicole Moore is an aerospace medical service technician for the 59th Medical Operations Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas. Moores accomplishments include being a first responder on scene during a terror attack at Bagram Airfield who was directly credited with saving 12 people. Moore managed U.S. Air Forces Central Commands largest transitional patient ward with 16 service members caring for 51 patients daily. She also augmented the air transport flight on two missions, contributing to that flights 98 percent battle injury survival rate. At JBSA-Lackland, Moore aided in provider clinic operations supporting 4,000 patients and 25, 000 appointments, accounting for about $2 million in medical services for military members and their families.



AETC NCO Category

Staff Sgt. Zachary Bartlett is a military training leader from the 334th Training Squadron at Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi. Bartlett led 10 Airman leaders and 75 Airmen daily. He mentored more than 1,000 Airmen from eight Air Force specialties, who achieved a 96 percent pass rate in technical training. He also managed the charge of quarters program for two $38 million dormitories that house 1,600 Airmen.



AETC SNCO Category

Senior Master Sgt. Jeremy Pickett is the base deputy fire chief at the 47th Civil Engineering Squadron at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas. In his role as base deputy fire chief, Pickett directed 106 members at two fire stations. During the year, the team handled 350 emergencies and protected 216 aircraft flying 46,000 sorties. Pickett liaised with two local fire departments, the FBI and Val Verde Regional Medical Center as he provided incident command and control during a successful active shooter training exercise. He oversaw 215 fire prevention visits ensuring the safety of 5,100 members across the base.



AETC First Sergeant Category

Senior Master Sgt. Aaron Drain is the first sergeant for the 364th Training Squadron at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas. Drain provided leadership to a squadron of four flights and 175 joint service members. Drain mentored 25 senior NCOs and four officers. He also taught seven Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Courses, training 200 Airmen.



AETC Military Training Instructor Category

Master Sgt. Babatunji Akande is a military training instructor for the 324th Training Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas. Akandes accomplishments include serving as an acting first sergeant and providing guidance for 1,000 Airmen and 60 military training instructors during the 2016 surge to train 5,000 more Airman. He is a DOD-certified Sexual Assault Prevention and Response volunteer victim advocate and used his training to partner with 21 military psychologists to establish a year-round schedule of visits for basic trainees.



AETC Military Training Leader Category

Staff Sgt. Robinson Divert is a military training leader for the 334th Training Squadron at Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi. Divert is responsible for 85 Airmen and a 97 percent technical training graduation rate for the Airmen under his care. Diverts dormitory charge of quarters program, including a five-page checklist he developed, was instrumental in the proactive protection of two $38 million dorms and 1,600 Airmen. He is also responsible for the squadron drill and ceremony program and prepared 800 Airmen and nine MTLs for the 2nd Air Force change of command ceremony and six wing retreat ceremonies.



AETC Recruiter Category

Master Sgt. Thomas Kazmierski is an enlisted accessions recruiter for the 369th Recruiting Squadron, in Aiea, Hawaii. He is the Air Force Recruiting Services Top Enlisted Accessions Recruiter for 2016. Kazmierski produced 175 percent of his assigned recruiting goal for enlistees and 200 percent of his goal for officers-select during the past year. He also was responsible for 60 percent of the squadrons prior-service enlistments. Kazmierski managed the flights physical fitness program and led the flight to a 100 percent pass rate.



AETC Honor Guard Member Category

Airman 1st Class Michael Paiz is assigned to the 57th Intelligence Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland and serves as a member of the 502nd Air Base Wing Honor Guard for Joint Base San Antonio. As a member of AETCs honor guard with the busiest area of responsibility, Paiz was part 112 funeral ceremonies Paiz led 12 POW/MIA table ceremonies for 12 separate formal events. He also volunteered 400 hours instructing 67 new Honor Guard Airmen on 25 different tasks. Paiz also personally recruited 12 new honor guard members.



AETC Honor Guard Program Manager Category

Master Sgt. Donald Reynolds is the honor guard program manager for the 502nd Air Base Wing at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas. Reynolds provided oversight for the busiest honor guard in AETC, managing 145 Airmen who conducted 1,745 funerals across five geographically separated locations. Reynolds led seven active-duty funerals and six dignified arrivals. Reynolds authored the 502 ABW Honor Guard training and ammunition standard operating procedures, which were rated excellent during a unit effectiveness inspection. He also authored the Honor Guard 101 Course which includes 18 lessons. The course was identified as an Air Force best practice.



These top nine enlisted Airmen were recognized for their awards this month. Moore, Bartlett, Pickett and Drain advance to 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year Competition.


-- On this look around the Air Force, the Air Force has a dedicated website to commemorate the Air Forces 70th birthday and coating booths are in the works for F-35 sustainment. Hosted by Airman 1st Class Cory Kuttler.For previous episodes, click here Related stories:
Get AfricaFocus Bulletin by e-mail! Format for print or mobile Liberia: Mining, Displacement, and the World Bank AfricaFocus Bulletin

March 28, 2017 (170328)

(Reposted from sources cited below) Editor's Note "The roots of the New Liberty Gold project stretch back before 1995, when a resource extraction license was issued by former warlord turned president Charles Taylor to a mysterious company called KAFCO. The permit changed hands a few times and, today, Avesoro holds its permit via a wholly-owned subsidiary, Bea Mountain Mining Corp  a company created in 1996 by Keikurah B. Kpoto, one of Taylor's closest associates. In 1998, foreign interests bought Bea Mountain Mining. The beneficiaries of the sale were well hidden. According to a document IRIN procured, three quarters of its capital belonged to a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. The rest was held by owners of bearer shares." - IRIN investigative report, March 21, 2017 This investigative report on the largest gold mine in Liberia begins with the mining company's failure to reimburse displaced Liberians, and the World Bank's failure to hold them to account. But the lack of accountability extends to basic questions about the ownership of the company and the use of tax havens. As such, it is one striking illustration of what seem to be pervasive characteristics of projects financed by the IFC, the World Bank's arm for working with private sector companies. This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains two short articles by journalists who have been investigating the project, and a short press release from Oxfam on a study of IFC projects last year. For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Liberia, visit http://www.africafocus.org/country/liberia.php For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on economic development issues, visit http://www.africafocus.org/econexp.php ++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++ A Tip for AfricaFocus Bulletin If you appreciate AfricaFocus Bulletin, you can help support this work by leaving a small tip. For example, 10 cents per issue for the last 50 issues would be $5. Every contribution helps no matter how small. You can give a tip on your computer or smartphone at these two secure sites: https://cash.me/$africafocus - to pay with debit card from a U.S.- based bank. https://paypal.me/AfricaFocusBulletin - to pay with PayPal account ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ How a gold mine has brought only misery in Liberia Emmanuel Freudenthal and Alloycious David Kinjor, Liberia, 21 March 2017 http://tinyurl.com/mzgdjcb (This investigative report is being jointly published by 100Reporters, IRIN and Le Monde Afrique. 100Reporters is an awardwinning investigative news organisation based in Washington, DC. Its objective is to reveal untold stories on corruption, transparency and accountability. IRIN delivers unique, authoritative and independent reporting from the front lines of crises to inspire and produce a more effective humanitarian response. Le Monde Afrique is a pan-African francophone media for news, reporting, analysis and debates.) [Article in French available at http://tinyurl.com/m72pjnd] The maths was merciless. Siah (name changed) had the equivalent of $5 in her pocket but needed $15 to treat her youngest son Joseph's malaria. She had travelled an hour to the nearest clinic only to discover she couldn't afford the medicine. Joseph died that day, as she cradled him in her arms. Siah lives in Kinjor, a small town in the lush forests of western Liberia. Just a few steps from her home, Liberia's largest commercial gold mine, New Liberty Gold, plans to dig out a billion dollars-worth of the precious metal. The Liberian government and its multilateral funding partners see commercial mining as a path to development in a country still recovering from the impact of 11 years of civil war. Under the law, communities are obliged to give up their land rights and move, in return for compensation. But IRIN's months-long investigation can reveal that financial reward isn't always forthcoming from the foreign mining operations. To make way for New Liberty Gold, 325 families in two villages, Kinjor and Larjor, had to abandon their homes, farms, and artisanal mines that had provided some income. In return for their move to a new village, also named Kinjor, and carved out of the forest near the mine, the company promised to make life better: new houses, a school, hand pumps  and what could have made all the difference to Joseph  a clinic. Construction began on the mine in 2014, and the first gold sales came a year later. Even though the company describes the operation as a "key asset", the promised better amenities are yet to materialise years later, and there has already been one major chemical spill that has polluted the environment. New Liberty Gold has the backing of the World Bank's International Finance Corporation, which since 2014 invested $19 million and became a key shareholder. That support was predicated on a 155-page Resettlement Action Plan by the company, which listed its planned $3.9 million investments in the new Kinjor. During the IFC board meeting that approved the mining project, the US delegate formally raised "serious concerns" regarding "the environmental and social risks posed". The US urged the IFC "to work with the company to ensure that all appropriate funds are set aside for this [resettlement] plan". A history of displacement Projects funded by the World Bank have displaced more than three million people between 2004 and 2013 in 124 countries, according to data published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (https://www.icij.org/project/world-bank). Those shortcomings were acknowledged by Bank president Jim Yong Kim in 2015, after an internal review found "major problems" that caused him "deep concern". But the Bank and the IFC do not appear to have held New Liberty Gold accountable for failing to meet its basic obligations, despite a commitment made by the IFC on its website to help the company "implement best practice standards" in Kinjor. "I'm really disappointed to say that [this case] is one amongst many," said Jessica Evans, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. "We've seen time after time serious failings by the World Bank and the IFC when it comes to resettlement." That is little comfort for Siah. Outside a neighbour's house in Kinjor, she fought back the tears to speak about her son's death. Her voice rose in anger when she listed the failings of New Liberty Gold: "no hospital here, no safe drinking water". "There are toilets right next to the water pump. It makes us sick," she added. "We are suffering." The owner of the mine, Avesoro Resources Inc. (previously called Aureus Mining), has built a school and installed some water pumps. But the rest of the action plan, the compensation due for uprooting people against their will, remains little more than a wish list. Still waiting Controversy at mining projects like New Liberty Gold is not new in Liberia. For nearly 100 years, natural resource extraction  from rubber to minerals  has been steeped in violence and corruption. Opaque investments carry a tremendous risk in the context of such a fragile state as Liberia. In one of Kinjor's narrow alleys flanked by mud huts, Yarpawolo Gblan, an old man in a faded black polo shirt, stepped forward: "Are you a journalist? Come and see my house!" We sat on a bench, our backs to the wooden wall of a hut scrawled with the phone numbers of Gblan's children. Three years ago, Avesoro had forced him to move from what had been his home for a decade, into "temporary" accommodation, to make way for the mining project. The huts the company provided have just two small rooms: not nearly big enough to house Gblan's family of eight. He extended the original structure as best he could, using his own resources. The huts were meant to be a stopgap measure, until the displaced families could move into 325 "improved houses" promised by the company. The unfinished shells of those houses stand in ordered rows, just a few hundred metres away. But construction stopped longer than a year ago. Weeds now grow between the brick walls, and slimy bright-green algae thrive in puddles fed by rain falling through where roofs should be. The company man Half a day's drive from Kinjor, in a wealthy suburb of Liberia's capital, Monrovia, a striking white-walled villa serves as the headquarters of New Liberty Gold. Debar Allen is the company's general manager, a physically imposing man who fills his generously appointed office. From behind a large wooden desk, he explained in a calm baritone that people like Gblan, who were supposed to have been resettled, "do not want to move from where they are". He offered two reasons for the construction delay: the need "to get going with the mining project because we were running out of funds", and the desire of those being resettled to build their own permanent houses where they are now. "Rather than bringing contractors from Monrovia, we have to team up with them," he said. The World Bank, via email, offered a different explanation. With "the Ebola outbreak, the company faced significant construction delays. As a consequence, the project experienced some significant challenges that impacted its financial/cash flow position." The result was that "the full implementation of several aspects of the project had to be postponed, and some of the permanent houses have not yet been completed." But in February 2015, the IFC provided a $5.3 million cash injection for New Liberty Gold to help the company "cope with additional costs" as a result of the Ebola outbreak, and to "support the company's ongoing work in Liberia". In reality, the company should have finished the resettlement houses several months before Ebola hit Liberia. Moreover, the outbreak was brought under control more than 18 months ago, yet the new housing construction will not be completed any time soon. Allen explained: "We signed with the [local] leaders a memorandum of understanding that postpones the completion to the end of next year". That means December 2017. Community representatives told IRIN that the company had asked them to sign numerous times, accepting the new deadline, and that they eventually gave in. They had reasoned that whether they signed or not, the houses would not be built any faster. The World Bank did not reply to IRIN's requests for more details on the resettlement timeline and the mine's failure to make good on its promises to the community. Dead fish and rashes In March 2016, an accident at New Liberty Gold mine released cyanide and arsenic, byproducts of the mining process, into a nearby river that serves villages downstream. In Jikando, where people use its water to fish, bath and wash clothes, they began to see dead fish floating. Soon, they started developing skin rashes themselves. A slim teenager lifted his t-shirt to show a rash he has had since shortly after the spill. He told IRIN it still itched but said: "it doesn't worry me all the time". Several mothers confirmed their children were still afflicted by similar rashes. No medical tests have been conducted on villagers who've reported similar effects. Avesoro's Allen said the company found out about the leak in April, after a phone call from the local chief in Jikando. He noted that the company now regularly delivers frozen fish to replace the poisoned ones, as the community's "source of protein was from the creek". On 14 April, shortly after the leak, the Liberian Environmental Protection Agency fined the company. On 10 May, Avesoro publicly disclosed the spill to shareholders, stating that its "investigations to date indicate no adverse impact on any human settlement". It's difficult to pin responsibility for the mine's failures on any individual because it's hard to identify the successive true owners of New Liberty Gold. Aureus is part of a long list of shell companies named in the Panama Papers leak, many of them registered in opaque jurisdictions. The latest twist in the ownership trail came at the end of 2016 when MNG Gold, headquartered in Turkey, took over Aureus and changed its name to Avesoro Resources Inc. The warlord Investing in companies with complex ownership is not unusual for the IFC. A recent report by Oxfam found that 84 percent of the IFC's investments in sub-Saharan Africa in 2015 used "secrecy" jurisdictions. But the roots of the New Liberty Gold project stretch back before 1995, when a resource extraction license was issued by former warlord turned president Charles Taylor to a mysterious company called KAFCO. The permit changed hands a few times and, today, Avesoro holds its permit via a wholly-owned subsidiary, Bea Mountain Mining Corp  a company created in 1996 by Keikurah B. Kpoto, one of Taylor's closest associates. The exploitation of Liberia's gold and diamonds allowed Taylor, convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in 2012 and now serving a 50-year prison sentence in the UK, to fund his war effort. In 1998, foreign interests bought Bea Mountain Mining. The beneficiaries of the sale were well hidden. According to a document IRIN procured, three quarters of its capital belonged to a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. The rest was held by owners of bearer shares. Bearer shares are the vehicles of choice for the corrupt because they are owned by whoever holds the paper certificates, just like cash. There is no trace of their owner in company records and they can easily become covert payments for pretty much anything. The World Bank nevertheless wrote that it had undertaken due diligence on New Liberty Gold, an investigation that included "desktop reviews, several meetings with Aureus management and a site visit". Over the past decade, the IFC has spent more than $200 million on projects like New Liberty Gold. It has a seemingly unshakable faith that commercial mining can deliver development that will trickle down to communities like Kinjor. As for Siah: Her last-born is now buried. If she once believed the promises of New Liberty Gold, that is certainly no longer the case. "The company is doing nothing for us," she told IRIN. "If the company had built a hospital here, [his death] would not have happened." Aureus Mining: A Promise Betrayed; World Bank Funded Project Dashed Hopes Monrovia - Liberia's first industrial gold mine failed to hold its promises, dashing the hopes of local residents of Cape Mount County. Report by Alloycious David and Emmanuel Freudenthal FrontPage Africa, March 20, 2017 http://tinyurl.com/lyxoff3 [Emmanuel Freudenthal is a freelance reporter investigating businesses in Africa, while Alloycious David is an award winning Liberian investigative journalist] Contrary to President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's assurance that the New Liberty Gold Mine will positively impact the lives of Liberians, the 325 families displaced by the mine have not yet moved into the houses they had been promised. The World Bank injected over US$ 19 million into the project with the aim of bettering the lives of Liberians. The houses should have been finished three years ago and now lie in ruins, overtaken by grass. In the resettled town, called Kinjor, residents still live in the inadequate structures that were meant to host them temporarily. There is no sign that their construction works will resume soon. The company in charge of the project, Aureus Mining, now renamed Avesoro, has also failed to construct a health post in Kinjor, as required in an agreement between local residents and the company, known as the 'Resettlement Action Plan'. Residents claimed that the absence of a health center is contributing to untimely deaths. Residents also complained that they did not receive adequate compensation for the crops they lost when their farms were destroyed to make way for the mine. Gbaley Dorley, 32, alleged that his farm was completely destroyed by the company. In exchange, he got less than a hundred United States dollars in compensation for the cassava, coconut, and pineapple he cultivated. Another problem being experienced in Kinjor is safe drinking water. Residents said the community, has less than five functional hand pumps and that many of them do not work during the dry season. The company's operations, according to some residents poses health hazard. Kulah Dassin, a 36-year-old mother of eight explained that in March 2015, the company polluted their river with cyanide, which killed all the fish. The children, who usually bath and wash in the river, suffered from rashes, which look like ringworm, she said. Dassin disclosed that the application of traditional medicine has helped to cure the rash, but that it is still visible on children. The Town Chief of Jikandoh, called Pa Jimmy, corroborated that hundreds of fish died, and related "I immediately placed a call to the company's management when we noticed that the fish were dying." Pa Jimmy explained that Debar Allen, the company's manager, and a team came quickly to collect water samples in the river and took some of the dead fish back to their office. Debar Allen, admitted that the company accidentally dumped cyanide in the river but said the company has taken action to advert the situation. The company's General Manager instructed them to stop using the water. In restitution for the pollution of their river, Aureus Mining constructed two hand pumps to provide community members with safe drinking water. The company is compensating residents by providing them with cartons of fish. Although, the company or the Liberia Ministry of Health has not provided official statement on the safety of the river, and no one was examined by a doctor, community members have resumed bathing and washing their clothes in the river. The Liberia Environmental Protection Agency attempted to investigate the leak, but said that the company obstructed its investigation, which led to a US$ 10,000 fine for the company. Allen further stated that construction work on the houses were halted to focus more on the mining, because the company was running out of funding, but contradicted himself and said individuals resettled in new Kinjor were satisfied with where they staying and that the company was thinking about what to do with the units when they are completed. The company's ownership remains sealed in secrecy, Aureus Mining is part of several shell companies registered in secrecy jurisdictions and named in the Panama Papers. The NEWS also unearthed that it has links to former President Charles Taylor, who is currently serving a 50 year jail sentence for war crimes committed in neighboring Sierra Leone. Taylor's former associate, the late Senator Keikurah B. Kpoto created the Liberian subsidiary of Aureus Mining, the Bea Mountain Mining Corp. This company was given a mining license under Taylor's government. The World Bank and Aureus Mining failed to provide information on inquire whether Taylor's associates or some of his ex-officials still hold shares in New Liberty Gold Mine and whether they are aware that the project had link with Taylor. Aureus Mining has not only failed to meet the aims for which the World Bank infused over US$ 19 million into New Liberty Gold Mine, but has created more sufferings, inflict pains and enriched shareholders at the detriment of Liberia. Via email, the bank disclosed that it conducted desktop review of the project and held several meeting with Aureus Mining, but refused to provide further information, because it entered a confidentiality agreement with the company that prevents it from providing more information on the project. 84% of World Bank's private investments in Sub-Saharan Africa go to companies using tax havens Oxfam International 11th Apr 2016 http://tinyurl.com/n2rpthk Fifty-one of the 68 companies that were lent money by the World Bank's private lending arm in 2015 to finance investments in subSaharan Africa use tax havens, Oxfam revealed today. Oxfam's new analysis focused on International Finance Corporation's (IFC) investments in Sub-Saharan Africa. It shows that together these 51 companies, whose use of tax havens has no apparent link with their core business, received 84 percent of IFC investments in that region in 2015. It also reveals that the IFC has more than doubled its investments in companies that use tax havens in just five years - from $1.2billion in 2010 to $2.87billion in 2015. The findings come ahead of the annual IMF-World Bank Spring meetings starting on Wednesday in Washington DC, and in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal which revealed how powerful individuals and companies are using tax havens to hide wealth and dodge taxes. The issue of tax havens is also expected to be high on the agenda at the UK government's Anti-Corruption Summit in London next month. In Oxfam's study, the most popular haven for IFC's corporate clients was Mauritius; 40 percent of IFC's clients investing in Sub-Saharan Africa have links there. Mauritius is known to facilitate "roundtripping." This is where a company shifts money offshore before returning it disguised as foreign direct investment, which attracts tax breaks and other financial incentives. Sub-Saharan Africa is the poorest region in the world. It desperately needs corporate tax revenues to invest in public services and infrastructure. For example, the region lacks money to provide enough skilled birth attendants, clean water or mosquito nets, resulting in high rates of child mortality; one child in 12 dies before their fifth birthday. Oxfam's Head of Inequality, Nick Bryer, said: "It's crazy to be giving with one hand and taking away with another - the UK government donates to the World Bank to encourage development, but by allowing investments in tax havens the World Bank's lending arm is ultimately depriving poor countries of much-needed revenues to fight poverty and inequality." "The World Bank Group should not risk funding companies that are dodging taxes in Sub-Saharan Africa and across the globe. It needs to put safeguards in place to ensure that its clients can prove they are paying their fair share of tax." The IFC invested more than $86billion of public money in developing countries between 2010 and 2015; 18.6 percent of it spent in SubSaharan Africa. The IFC has a significant focus on financial markets, infrastructure, agribusiness and forestry, among other sectors. While the IFC arguably leads the private sector with its disclosure, environmental and social standards, the public still has no access to information about where over half of the institution's financing ends up, because it is done through opaque financial intermediaries. It also continues to face major challenges in measuring its overall development impact, and ensuring that the projects it funds do not harm local communities. This latest Oxfam research shows that the organisation also has a long way to go in ensuring that its clients are responsible tax payers. Oxfam is calling for the IFC to develop new standards to ensure it only invests in companies that have responsible corporate tax practices. For example, companies should be transparent about their economic activities so it is clear if they are paying their fair share of tax where they do business. The international agency is also calling on David Cameron to show strong leadership in tackling tax havens, beginning by intervening to ensure that the UK's Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies publish public registers revealing the true owners of companies based there, ahead of the Anti-Corruption Summit in May. Oxfam is urging the World Bank and IMF to work with governments around the world to further reform the international tax system and help prevent tax dodging by wealthy individuals and companies, including action to end the era of tax havens. Tax dodging using tax havens is estimated to cost poor countries $100billion in lost revenues every year. 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
US defense officials have claimed that recently North Korea conducted another ballistic missile engine test.

According to officials, the engine trial which was carried out on Friday was the third such test in recent weeks using similar technology.

CNN quoted one official as saying that engine technology could possibly be used in a eventual intercontinental ballistic missile.

In a reaction indicating show of force following the increased provocations from North Korea, the US Marines have deployed F-35Bs to South Korea for the first time as part of an exercise that began Friday.

This is the first time we have operated the F-35B in the Republic of Korea, said Pentagon spokesman US Navy Capt. Jeff Davis.

North Korea had last week conducted a ground jet test of a newly developed high-thrust missile engine at its Tongchang-ri rocket launch station.

Although North Korea has never flight-tested an intercontinental ballistic missile, it has recently demonstrated significant progress in its missile programs with new engines that could potentially deliver a nuclear warhead as far away as the United States.
A disturbing video has emerged on a social media platform, which shows a group of people thrashing an African-origin man with a steel dustbin. Several instances of racist attacks on Africans in Greater Noida have been reported earlier.

On Monday evening, an angry mob brutally beat up a Nigerian man and roughed up two more near Greater Noidas Pari Chowk. The mob, which started out as a candle-light march for Manish Khari, a 17-year-old student who allegedly dies of a drug overdose.

After someone claimed that the boy had last been seen with five Nigerian students who lived two doors away, the crowd barged into the house. Khari wasnt there. But it set off a horrifying rumour: that the Nigerians had eaten up the young man.

The footage, apparently filmed on a mobile phone at the Ansal Plaza in Greater Noida, has been posted on Facebook by the Association of African Students in India.

In the footage, no one tries to help the man or stop the attack.

Fearing attacks the Nigerian youths are staying indoors, and not risking any outing  not even their visit to the campuses  where they are pursuing higher education.

This comes at a time when the Association of African Students in India requested all African students residing in Greater Noida-Uttar Pradesh to remain indoor at their home and abstain from the lectures of Tuesday, March 27, 2017.

African students in Greater Noida say they face prejudice every day and are now living in fear following a mob attack on some members of their community after the mysterious death of a local youth. Following the attack Sushma Swaraj also tweeted on speaking to the chief minister Yogi Adityanath regarding this situation.

I have asked for a report from Government of Uttar Pradesh about the reported attack on African students in Noida, EAM Sushma Swaraj had tweeted.

Responding to several tweets from African students based in Greater Noida, Swaraj assured them not to panic as the Government of India is seized of the matte and is taking immediate action in the case.

In the wake of the attacks, police has beefed up security, deploying at least 200 additional police personnel in Greater Noida, especially residential societies with African population.

Kasna SHO, Avnish Dixit said, Following the scuffle that took place last evening, we have taken all necessary steps to ensure safety of African nationals. The police has kept vigil all night to control the situation.

Suspected Nigerian students were booked for murder, kidnapping and using drugs; however, they were later released for lack of evidence.

Over 100 locals had earlier protested at the busy junction demanding that all Africans living in residential colonies in Greater Noida be asked to vacate their rented houses immediately.
RSS activist Kundan Chandrawat, who stirred a hornets nest by announcing a bounty of Rs. 1 crore for beheading Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, has been arrested, police said on Tuesday.

Chandrawat was arrested on Monday and later produced before the chief judicial magistrates court which sent him to judicial custody for a fortnight, they said.

In a video that went viral on social media early this month, Chandrawat was purportedly seen announcing a bounty of Rs. 1 crore for beheading Vijayan, whom he held responsible for the killing of RSS workers in Kerala.

He later retracted his statement which drew widespread condemnation from various quarters, including the Sangh, and expressed regret.

The RSS had distanced itself from its functionarys remark and promptly removed him from the post of Sah Prachar Pramukh (joint publicity chief) of Ujjain district.

We yesterday(on Monday) arrested Kundan Chandrawat over his alleged statement. He was produced before the chief judicial magistrates court which remanded him in judicial custody, Superintendent of Police Manohar Verma said.

On March 2, Madhav Nagar police had registered an FIR against Chandrawat under IPC section 505(1)(B).
Nobody knows whose fault was there and why Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad had manhandled Air India staff. Its the minister who has confessed that he had assaulted the staff. After domestic airlines unitedly banned him from flying on their aircraft for assaulting an Air India officer, one video surfaced on a Marathi channel showing how minister was assaulted by Air India team. Emphasizing that Air India was trying to misguide everyone as to what actually caused the altercation on board the aircraft. Gaikwad stated that he had never demanded a Business Class seat, but had instead requested a complaint book to address his grievance about substandard service. Gaikwad submitted a complaint against Air India before the Delhi Police alleging that he was pushed and yelled on. In his complaint, Gaikwad, who manhandled Air India staffer, said he was made to travel by Air India on economy class even as he had business class ticket.

There are many normal people like me at time get so frustrated with Air India staff that they actually feel like thrashing them. The staff is not only arrogant but irresponsible and inefficient too. The airhostesses are at times in their old age nearing retirement, men have typical attitude, may be because they know they are government servants and need not bother about the business.

Air India was listed as the third worst performing airline in the world in a recent survey by flight data firm FlightStats, the national carrier has responded with indignation. The Portland-headquartered firms survey highlighted issues over cabins, service quality and flight delays. According to a Bloomberg report, taking a wrong carrier can delay travel by 55%, and the right one can reduce travel time by 11%  a good reason to choose one airline over the other. Air India has been struggling to get back to profitability. It is already chasing an unattainable operating profit target of Rs. 1,086 crore by March 2017, which means that the company will have to make Rs. 11 crore of daily operating profits. The airlines operating loss was Rs. 161 crore in the first three quarters of 2016-17  reducing the daily loss from Rs. 4 crore every day to Rs. 58 lakh. The company also has been set a target to earn its first net profit by 2022.

The MP also said the same thing that while travelling in the flight. He noticed carelessness and substandard service of Air India and requested for a complaint book, but despite his frequent requests, he was not provided with it and instead the staff member misbehaved with him. If we carefully look at the video published by Zee Marathi news channel, he was literally dragged, pulled and hit by the crew members. One senior airhostess was yelling at him by doing all sorts of moral policing. If this is the attitude of Air India staff, how one can expect decency from everyone travelling on the plane. One day one will lose his mind, yes this time it was a MP, who is teacher by profession and he has disciplined many students all his life.

He was demanding proper facilities not the business class seat. Moreover, he paid for the services. He was not travelling for free. But just to hide their careless attitude and cheating towards lakhs of Air India passengers, they tried to create a picture that he was continuously demanding for a business class seat.

There were many passengers in the flight who were equally bugged by the staff and their attitude, they also agreed that Gaikwad was ill-treated and there were many passengers who were fuming with anger but did not interfere in the matter as they felt happy when MP acted upon them. Violence of any kind can be a disaster for airlines. Humiliation and misbehaviour to traveller is just not justified. Instead of resolving the matter, it is illogical to impose a ban on his air travel. If this kind of behaviour is encouraged then tomorrow it will become really difficult for common man to travel in these airlines. It is illogical that the other four airlines have also put Gaikwad on a no-fly list. He is not a criminal.

Gaikwad is not some unruly passenger or doesnt have track record of such behaviour. The way he is being framed by the media, he is not an illegitimate. Authorities should have called for a thorough inquiry in to the whole matter, instead of giving matter for media trial. No one should subscribe to such behaviour by an elected representative. But at the same time, there should be a thorough inquiry into this whole matter as to what actually instigated him, many things are surfacing. The only fault of Gaikwad is that he himself has proudly and openly admitted of having slapped the Air India staff 25 times with his footwear. It is media who played with words by instigating him to make such statements.

Ravindra Gaikwad was a two time MLA from Osmanabad constituency. He has also been the Chairman of Killari Sugar Factory. His major work has been construction of lakes to overcome the drought problem in the area. He has also contributed majorly in setting up numerous substations in the constituency to overcome the electricity problems. He is a director on the agriculture board committee in the Central Government of India. When Osmanabad was witnessing severe drought and farmer suicides were on high, he voluntarily went door to door helping people of his constituency to a large extent. He defeated sitting MP Padamsinha Bajirao Patil who contested from Nationalist Congress Party by 235325 votes by securing 607699 votes against 373374. He is one of the leaders who are known for his humanity and sincere work for his people. Being a professor, he has mentored generations of students who today hold responsible positions in India.

(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com)
Kennedy has said that he is pro-vaccine, but he believes more research should be done to investigate potential health risks and is critical of the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions handling of the issue. 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will deliver the keynote address March 31 at the Revolution for Truth rally in Washington, D.C., organized by the Vaccination Injury Awareness League to call for more transparency in the research and government approval process of an ever-expanding schedule of vaccines.

The media will not elaborate on this issue, says Kennedy, founder of the environmental group World Mercury Project. Part of it is the money that they are making from the industry through advertising, $5.4 billion annually. But most reporters and editors are more concerned that raising any questions about vaccine safety will reduce vaccination coverage, and they believe that will endanger the public health.

He accuses the media of failing their role as watchdog of American society by refusing to challenge pronouncements of vaccine safety by the CDC, pharmaceutical companies, and others, many of which he claims reference flawed studies.

The media censorship doesnt strengthen the vaccine program, but rather emboldens the most reckless and irresponsible behavior by the regulators and the $25 billion-a-year vaccine industry, says Kennedy.

This is absolutely stunning. In a world where mainstream news reports on the vaccine controversy are typically an all-out denial of any problems, and where reporters sound more like they work for PR firms hired by the drug companies, its hard to believe this is an actual news story.

First of all, look at the headline. When was the last time anyone in the press called this issue vaccine safety? If this were from the Washington Post or the News York Times, wed never see quotes from Robert Kennedy, Jr. like those Gary Greenberg included. Kennedys actual words would never be in the story, and the title would be: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to Lead Anti-Vaccine Rally.

Kennedy lays the much of the blame for this medical nightmare squarely on the shoulders of the media for their years of shameful and dishonest coverage. This will be their journalistic legacy, one that will haunt the major papers and networks when the full truth about their cover-up is made public.
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Western Global Airlines has joined forces with Network Airline Management and the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) to fly relief into cyclone-hit Madagascar. On March 17, the carrier, based at Estero in Southwest Florida, airlifted 175,000 pounds of humanitarian supplies from Liege, Belgium, to Ivato International Airport in the capital Antananarivo, for UNICEF aboard one of its MD-11 freighters.

Cyclone Enawo caused significant damage along the islands northeastern coast on March 7 and over 5,000 people are still unable to return to their homes following the storm. The cargo consisted of medical emergency supplies, educational material and other essential items.

The airlines president and chief executive, Jim Neff, commented: Our fleet of planes and team of dedicated professionals are standing by 24/7 to do the impossible, in order to bring a positive outcome to those in need.

Western Global operates a freighter fleet of 16 wide-body aircraft, and routinely provides flights and assistance during natural disasters or other crises. It recently delivered life-critical medicines and supplies to Haiti in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew and flew more missions than any other airline to support the global effort to fight Ebola in West Africa.

Chief Innovation Officer Sunny Neff added: Our goal at Western Global Airlines is to set the standard in the global airfreight industry, and this mission goes beyond just business. There is a great need for humanitarian flying around the world, and our team is proud to advocate worldwide for our fellow neighbors everywhere. It is a top priority for us.

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Last year was a milestone for the Dubai airports. In January that year, Dubai International (DXB) took over from London Heathrow as the busiest airport in the world for international passengers, a title it looks likely to hold on to.

In May, all non-express freighter operations were transferred from DXB to neighbouring Dubai World Central (aka Al Maktoum Inter-national Airport).

DWC, which has been open for cargo since 2010 and passengers since 2013, also had a first hint of its future as Dubais main international hub during 2014, when one runway at DXB was closed for maintenance from May 1 to July 20.

During this time a number of passenger flights were transferred to the new airport.

The shift of freighter operations and the runway closure contributed to a 3.1% fall in cargo tonnage at DXB during the year, reducing it to 2.3m tonnes.

There was a similar drop in the first quarter of 2015. By contrast, cargo traffic at DWC grew 256% to 519,851 tonnes during 2014, and by 177% year on year to 213,006 tonnes in the first quarter of 2015, a performance good enough to propel it into the top twenty cargo airports in the world.

But to assume that cargo traffic will henceforth decline at DXB while it grows at DWC would be a bit simplistic.

Bernd Struck, senior vice president cargo UAE for dnata, the Dubai ground handler, points to such carriers as IAG, Martinair/KLM and Cathay reducing freighter operations, while the IATA forecast for cargo growth in the region is 2.5% to 4.5%.

That suggests there could be a good deal more belly cargo growth to come and for the next decade that will largely be accommodated at DXB.

Dnata is, in fact, planning on the assumption that it will be handling 50% more volume at DXB in ten years time, and  as so often in the airports history  that could be a bit of a squeeze.

That might sound a bit surprising, given all the freighter operations that have switched to DWC, but in fact the rampant growth of Emirates is ensuring that DXB cargo facilities also remain fully utilised.

To accommodate this growth, dnata handed its original Dubai cargo facility  the Dubai Cargo Village as it used to be known  over to Emirates in 2013 to supplement its existing Megaterminal.

The carrier is currently re-configuring the terminal and will reopen it later this year.

Emirates thus has all the major facilities on the south side of the airport, while dnata handles third party carriers out of the three facilities it has on the north side, in the Dubai Airport Freezone.

These northern facilities were already pretty full in 2013 and so, in the two years since, dnata has been implementing a number of initiatives to improve efficiency, including streamlining handling pro-cesses, installing extra material handling systems, speeding up truck processing, and developing IT functionality. For the first time it has also split operations between import and export.

In addition, dnata operates the 150,000 tonne per annum courier centre on the south side of the airport and uses the 250,000 tonne former Dubai Flower Centre as a facility to handle food imports. Adding that to the 400,000 tonnes of its three north side facilities, Struck is confident that it has the capacity to meet growth over the next decade.

After this things will start to change. In September 2014, the Dubai government announced a $32bn masterplan for developing DWC into Dubais main hub.

Two new passenger terminals are to be built to supplement the existing one, each capable of dealing with 100 A380s.

These will be completed by the mid-2020s and enable Emirates to move its passenger hub to DWC. Whether DXB will then close has not been specified, but the eventual plan is for DWC to be a five runway hub, as big as Atlanta is today.

Emirates is already getting used to having its freighters at the airport and, as at DXB, has its own cargo facility at the airport, though with ramp handling provided by dnata.

For other freighter operators dnata operates a facility, whose capacity has recently been upgraded to 400,000 tonnes per annum by the addition of an Elevating Transfer Vehicle system.

Planning is also underway for the next dnata facility, which is due to open in the first quarter of 2018.

Struck says it will initially be configured to cope with 200,000-300,000 tonnes but will ultimately be able to handle 800,000 tonnes.

That will give dnata 1.2m tonnes of capacity at DWC within ten years.

Freighter movements at DWC are now about 200 a week, of which half are accounted for by Emirates. It is adding another 777F shortly, but third party airlines have also been increasing operations.

On April 1, China Airlines made DWC its Middle Eastern freighter hub, switching traffic from Abu Dhabi, and Malaysian Airlines has also moved freighter calls to the airport, from Baku and Bahrain.

Struck says that the presence of many new forwarder facilities in DWC (in Dubai Logistics City) is a particular draw.

We see new forwarder warehouses opening on a more or less daily basis, he says.

The Dubai government has made lots of efforts to provide facilities and easy connectivity for them.

Just recently, Customs opened a virtual corridor for seafreight to both airports, not just from the Jebel Ali Freezone but for seafreight arrivals that have nothing to do with Jebel Ali.

Struck also says that road feeder services are continuing to develop. Customs issues still prevent effective feeders from Saudi Arabia and beyond  a big potential market  but are increasing within the UAE and, to a limited extent, to Oman.

Etihad now trucks daily from Abu Dhabi and has some charter flights to DWC, he says. Overall, the airport gets 15-20 charter flights a week from various carriers.

The use of the airport as a regional distribution hub is growing too. For example, it is used for launches of new models of mobile phones.

We can make use of our time difference to deliver to Hong Kong while they are still asleep, says Struck.

Dnata obviously continues to try to attract other freighter operators to the airport, and one service it offers here is a complete package for carriers that dont want to have their own personnel in Dubai.

We can provide them with station management and the complete range of services, says Struck.

For forwarders it offers transport from their DLC warehouses and direct delivery to customers if required.

New freighter customers apart, the next big boost to DWC will come in October 2017 when the integrators will be required to relocate from DWC. Currently, operators such as FedEx and DHL still fly 10-15 flights a day into DXB.

DWC also has a small number of passenger flights, both charter and scheduled. Passenger numbers were 143,374 in the first quarter, up 40% on the previous year.

These are all regional flights but some  for example services operated by Gulf Air and Qatar Airways  are widebodies, carrying connecting cargo.

FlyDubai, a low cost airline operating 47 B737s and with 75 on order, is also scheduled to base some aircraft at DWC during 2015, probably from the winter schedule.

Despite being narrowbody services, Struck does expect these to carry some cargo.

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March 28, 2017

One of Turkeys most promising young Kurdish politicians was sentenced to eight years and nine months in prison for a questionable terrorism conviction today. A court in the mainly Kurdish southeast region pronounced Kamuran Yuksek, the charismatic co-chair of the Democratic Regions Party (DBP), a member of a terrorist organization.

The official was referring to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the militant group that has been fighting for Kurdish self-rule since 1984.

The DBPs deputy chairman, Ramazan Tunc, claimed the verdict was reached without amassing sufficient evidence against Yuksek. No witnesses were even heard. The verdict was rushed; the trial is purely political, Tunc told Al-Monitor in a telephone interview.

Yuksek, who is facing trial in three other cases, was not present at the hearing. Party officials said the 37-year-old was in Europe and may not return to Turkey to avoid joining thousands of fellow Kurdish politicians who are behind bars on similar charges. At least 3,850 of them are DBP members, including 85 elected mayors and his co-chair Sebahat Tuncel. Thousands of other detainees belong to the DBPs sister party, the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP).

HDPs co-chairs Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag are in prison together with 11 fellow HDP members of parliament. In a related development, prosecutors convicted and handed down sentences totaling 1109 years for 121 Kurdish politicians, lawyers and other activists today. Yuksek was among a majority who received 21 years in a long running case claiming the defendants were seeking to establish an independent Kurdish state under the guidance of the PKK.

With that sentencing, the decapitation of the Kurdish leadership in Turkey is complete.

In a recent interview, Yuksek protested the absurdity of his case. A prosecutor pointed to his joking references to avocados in wiretapped conversations with Demirtas. The prosecutor opined that the pair was really talking about hand grenades.

Emma Sinclair-Webb, the Turkey program director for Human Rights Watch, called Yuksek's conviction the latest episode in a pattern of removing or jailing Kurdish politicians at the national and local levels. Webb told Al-Monitor, These are effective organizers who are running a 'no' campaign, and they are being prevented from doing so. Webb was alluding to the April 16 referendum on constitutional amendments that would formalize the vast powers being exercised by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Both Kurdish groups are loud opponents of the measures that critics say will result in one-man rule. They have vowed to mobilize their base at the ballot box.

Tunc angrily dismissed persistent rumors that the Kurdish parties were in secret talks with Erdogan to boycott the referendum in exchange for the resumption of peace talks with the PKK. A boycott would tip the balance in favor of the ayes. Why would we hand rope to our executioners? The claims are disgusting lies, Tunc fumed.

Hopes that US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will comment on Turkeys authoritarian turn evaporated following news that he would not be meeting with any members of the opposition during a March 30 visit to Ankara. The purpose of the trip is to defuse Turkish fury over the US plans to capture Raqqa from the Islamic State with the help of Syrian Kurdish forces with close links to the PKK. Sinclair-Webb said, You would expect the secretary to show the United States is even-handed in advance of a referendum on the future of the country. It's extraordinary that he isnt making time for the opposition on what will be his first visit to Turkey as secretary of state.

If anything, the government is likely to spin Tillersons trip as support for Erdogan.

Editor's note: This article has been updated since its initial publication.
March 27, 2017

Egypt's Minister of Communications and Information Technology Yasser El Kady paid an official visit to the United States this month, heading a high-level delegation for talks on Egypt-US cooperation in information and communications technology as well as promoting investments in these industries. From March 13-23, the Egyptian delegation held several meetings with senior officials at multinational companies such as Dell, Teleperformance, Cisco, Oracle, Honeywell and MasterCard in addition to touring Silicon Valley, the hub of US technology.

Egypt is focusing on digital transformation and setting up technology zones across the country. According to the ministry's statement, the trip came as part of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's directives to create a globally competitive electronics industry in Egypt through establishing a training program that is to initially include 16,000 trainees. In May 2016, Kady paid a visit to China on a mission to build strategic partnerships in technical domains.

Asmaa Hosni, the CEO of Egypt's Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) and a member of the delegation, told Al-Monitor, "Such visits are of a paramount importance to further expand dialogue with the countries that have taken great strides in hi-tech sectors. We need to turn Egypt into a digital society. Regarding the recent visit, it was highly fruitful and resulted in multiple cooperation protocols. These protocols will go into effect in the upcoming weeks. There are fixed schedules and action plans, not just ministerial talks. But not all projects are to be implemented within the year."

Hosni said that Kady toured 15 leading American companies, inviting them to invest in Egypt. Many companies agreed to establish branches in Egypt's technology areas and take part in establishing Egypt's "Knowledge City" in the new administrative capital, she added. This project, which is to be an educational and cultural center, was given the green light last year within the framework of the government's strategy to turn Egypt into a regional hub for information technology and outsourcing services.

The Egyptian delegation visited Orange Silicon Valley, one of the top telecommunications operators worldwide, and Orange Fab Lab, an accelerator program that promotes innovation and helps startups reach global markets. Kady met with Orange Silicon Valley CEO Georges Nahon to exchange ideas and to discuss cloud computing and the Internet of Things. Both parties agreed to select promising Egyptian startups to join the Silicon Valley Innovation Center.

"ITIDA also managed to sign cooperation agreements to train young Egyptians in modern technologies so as to meet international standards. The American software companies expressed their appreciation of the innovative skills of Egypt's young people. Such training programs will help them find many job opportunities in the hi-tech industry and prepare them for the global labor market," Hosni said.

Dell EMC agreed to include the presidential initiative for e-learning, "Egypt's Future Scientists," among its global Dell for Entrepreneurs initiative. Trainees will participate in a six-month training program at one of the company's labs before setting up similar labs in Egypt's technology zones.

Kady also met with Teleperformance CEO Brian Johnson. The leading outsourcing company agreed to increase the number of its Egyptian employees to 10,000 by 2020 in addition to establishing a language academy.

Hosni said companies, including Honeywell, agreed to participate in the ITIDA's Technology Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center, which seeks to promote an innovation-based economy. "Senior officials at Honeywell greatly praised the work of Egyptian designers. They decided to assist the center by exposing those designers to the latest techniques and keep them abreast of up-to-the-minute technology developments," Hosni said.

Parliament member John Talaat, a communications engineer, told Al-Monitor that Egypt's communications sector is still suffering from infrastructure problems. "Problems related to network efficiency are among the key challenges facing this area. However, these partnerships will help improve conditions and overhaul the whole system," he explained.

Speaking at a meeting with Cisco officials, Kady pointed out that the growth rate of Egypt's information and communications technology sector reached 11.2% during the first quarter of the current fiscal year, ranking first among the country's sectors.

In an effort to boost electronic financial services in Egypt, the Egyptian delegation concluded its visit by developing partnerships with MasterCard. The two sides decided to organize a workshop in Cairo to discuss how to move ahead with the country's digital economy strategy. "This workshop is to be held soon. It is also worth mentioning that the company agreed to establish a branch in one of the country's technology zones. Since we've returned to Egypt, MasterCard officials are still communicating with me through video conferences, since the company is keen to expand its activities in Egypt," Hosni said.

While the Egyptian delegation worked to promote investment in the information technology (IT) sector, many economics commentators in the media argued that the parliament should stimulate investment through legislation that offers investors incentives and facilitates investment procedures. Mai el-Batran, a senior member of the parliament's communications committee, told Al-Monitor that the country's political leadership is serious about attracting investors back to the country to invest not only in the IT domains but in other development projects as well.

"There is no legislation addressing IT investment. The new investment law regulates issues surrounding investment in all sectors. And such a law will certainly adhere to the country's plan to attract investors. So there should be no worries about legal procedures. We will all exert our efforts to achieve the country's sustainable development strategy: Egypt 2030," Batran said.

Hosni said the recent visit forged closer technical ties with the United States. ''There is no current plan to visit another country in the upcoming period. But we will definitely reach out to everyone and knock on all the doors to revive the country's IT sector, which is the mainstay of any progress," she said.
March 27, 2017

Marisa Matias, a member of the European Parliament, has stressed that Europes goal in Syria should be to preserve the unity of that country.

Matias, who is based in Brussels, is the chair of the European Parliament's delegation for relations with the Mashreq countries (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria). In an email interview with Al-Monitor, Matias referred to a widespread misunderstanding within the EU that the Syrian conflict is of an ethnic and religious nature. She warned that such a view risks undermining the goal of a united Syria.

Matias said that a Syrian-led political process involving all counterparts was the only way to bring about a stable post-war period in Syria, and she called for the European Parliament to play its part in achieving this end. She also said that Europe should not issue judgments or evaluations on Middle Eastern countries like Syria. She voiced her support for a stronger EU role in promoting direct talks between the various parties to the Syrian conflict, saying that the EU still only plays a minor role in the Middle East as a whole.

Matias further expressed her firm belief that the EU needs to do much more when it comes to easing the burden of refugees who have fled to countries that neighbor Syria, like Lebanon and Jordan.

The text of the interview follows.

Al-Monitor: Are there any major initiatives or steps we can expect soon from the European Parliament related to the conflict in Syria. And if yes, what exactly are they?

Matias: The European Parliament has very limited powers [in terms of] foreign policy. It mostly works [in the political sphere] to reach a political solution for the conflict. Only a Syrian-led political process, where all counterparts are at the same level, could bring a stable post-war period to Syria. And the European Parliament should raise this voice on all the possible resolutions or [tools at its disposal].

Al-Monitor: How do you evaluate the policy of the EU toward the Syrian crisis since it erupted in 2011?

Matias: I think mainly the EU focused on the humanitarian aid in the conflict, while using political leverage toward a political solution. But I am afraid [that] the EU is only playing a minor role as a distant mediator in the Middle East in general. The EU should engage more to promote direct talks among the different parties in the conflict. Additionally, the EU has a very widespread misunderstanding whereby it considers the Syrian conflict as having an ethnic and religious origin. Our goal should be preserving the unity of Syria in all its entity, and we would only undermine this if we consider it possible to envisage a division of the country based on ethnicities or religious groupings.

Al-Monitor: What is your view regarding the reason behind the turmoil in Syria? Do you believe the Syrian official line that the Syrian government is fighting terrorism, or do you stand by the view that President Bashar al-Assad is waging war on his own people?

Matias: My role as chair of the delegation for relations with the Mashreq countries is based on my deep belief that we should never judge our partners. No lessons should be given, as well as no evaluation. The only thing that counts is that all counterparts must be involved in the process, in order to reach a sustainable political solution.

Al-Monitor: Is there any communication between the EU and the Assad government, or does the EU intend to do so in the near future?

Matias: Since the [Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union] conclusions on Syria on May 2011, The EU has decided to suspend all preparations in relation to new bilateral cooperation programs and to suspend the ongoing bilateral programs with the Syrian authorities under ENPI [Euro-Mediterranean Information System] and MEDA [Mediterranean Cooperation Fund] instruments. The latest EU position is stated in the Foreign Affairs Council Conclusions of May 23, 2016. No changes appear in the strategy adopted toward Syria in this sense.

Al-Monitor: Do you support an EU "closed-door" policy for refugees who are fleeing the conflict zones in the region, or do you think that Europe should take some of the burden from countries, like Lebanon and Jordan, who are suffering from a huge influx of refugees, and take in some of the refugees who are in these countries?

Matias: As I had the opportunity to say on several occasions, my personal position on the refugee crisis is very critical toward the EU policy. The EU should not let the burden of the refugees influx on the neighboring countries increase and should do more  much more  on this. It is public that I personally voted against the EU-Turkey deal [which stipulates that migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey are now expected to be sent back to Turkey if they do not apply for asylum or their claim is rejected], while I am extremely worried about what is prepared with Libya.

Al-Monitor: Do you think that the EU has provided sufficient financial support to Lebanon and Jordan in order to deal with the refugee influx?

Matias: Referring to my previous answer, I think the EU should step up its role, also on the financial side. I personally find questionable the recent financial package agreed to with Jordan [in December 2016 which amounts to a maximum of 200 million euros ($216 million)], both for the limited amount of money provided, but also related to the conditionality clause that has been applied.

Al-Monitor: Is the EU providing any form of political assistance to help Lebanon in particular deal with the refugee situation?

Matias: The renewed political agreement between Lebanon and the EU was adopted less than a year ago. The new partnership priorities set for the upcoming four years aim at improving the living conditions both of refugees temporarily staying in Lebanon and of vulnerable host communities.

In addition to the partnership priorities, a compact has been agreed to as well [on Nov. 15, 2016], providing an EU allocation of a minimum of 400 million euros [$432 million] in 2016-2017, in addition to the bilateral assistance of more than 80 million euros [$86 million] for those two years. Through this, the EU and Lebanon committed in a mutual way to improve the situation of refugees in the country but also in helping Lebanon as a whole and its local communities.

Al-Monitor: Are there any new initiatives we can expect from the European Parliament regarding the assistance provided to Lebanon and Jordan in order to tackle the refugee influx?

Matias: Lebanon is the country hosting the highest number of displaced persons and refugees, both per capita and per square kilometer. Jordan as well is hosting a total amount of Syrian refugees equal to at least 10% of its own population, on top of Iraqi and Palestinian refugees. As in the case of Lebanon, the EU has agreed to a set of partnership priorities and a compact with Jordan. In addition to that, an agreement was reached in July 2016 on simplifying rules of origin requirements to Jordanian exports to the EU, provided job opportunities are offered to Syrian refugees, alongside Jordanians. Jordan committed as well to providing access to education to over 165,000 Syrian children and increasing opportunities for Syrian youth to receive vocational training.

Al-Monitor: How do you evaluate the current situation in Egypt and the policies of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi? Do you believe that Sisi must carry out certain reforms, particularly when it comes to human rights? And do you think his policies contribute positively to stability in Egypt?

Matias: As expressed in the report following the last official visit in Egypt [the visit by the European parliamentary delegation headed by Matias between Oct. 30 and Nov. 3, 2016], concerns are expressed [by members of that delegation] over the shrinking of the political and public space in Egypt. It is without saying that a strong civil society is the backbone of a pluralistic and democratic system, where human rights and fundamental freedoms need to be carefully protected.

Al-Monitor: What kind of projects, if any, are being discussed regarding EU support for Egypt, especially given its dire economic situation?

Matias: In December [2016], the EU and Egypt signed two EU assistance programs aimed at strengthening social safety nets and fostering inclusiveness and sustainable economic development in the country. In particular, the new EU Facility for Inclusive Growth and Job Creation is meant to be a mechanism of support by the EU to Egypt in its process of reforms imposed by the IMF [International Monetary Fund]. This is supposed to improve the environment or business creation and economic development, as well as to facilitate access to finance for SMEs [small- and medium-sized enterprises], which play a key role in the Egyptian economy.
March 28, 2017

Irans President Hassan Rouhani arrived in Moscow on March 27 for a two-day state visit on the official invitation of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The government-run Iran daily on March 28 placed the landmark trip within the context of regional developments, writing, Syria has faced important developments following Iran and Russias cooperation, and terrorist groups have been forced to retreat from Aleppo. Iraqi military forces are advancing toward the last stronghold of Daesh [the Islamic State], and Mosul is close to being fully liberated. Turkey is dealing with political crises, an important referendum in April is being held in some European cities for [expatriate] Turks, and Turkey has triggered new challenges against Iran and Russia. The Yemeni crisis has not only not abated, but it has been exacerbated. [Meanwhile], Iran and Saudi Arabias relationship is facing tension."

Rouhani first met with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Following the meeting, Rouhani said, There is no doubt that cooperation between [our] two countries positively impacts stability and security in the region and in the world. Medvedev described the Iranian presidents visit as a significant step in the development of relations and said it can aid the development of deeper bilateral ties.

On March 28, Rouhani received an honorary degree from Moscow State University and addressed professors and students at a ceremony. "Resolving the issues of today's world requires cooperation among scientists and governments," Rouhani said, adding, The decline of the West's dominance and the end of the monopoly on wealth is a historic opportunity to build a new world.

Noting that there should be a global consensus to root out extremism and violence, Irans president emphasized, Islamophobia, racism and takfiri [jihadi] ideas have common roots."

Noting the progress made against militants in Syria due to cooperation between Moscow and Tehran, Rouhani said, Now the time has arrived to provide a situation for the return of refugees to their homeland with the help of all countries of the region.

Also on March 28, Rouhani and Putin held important and intensive negotiations about regional and global issues as well as about the bilateral relationship. Referring to the 515 years of diplomatic ties between Tehran and Moscow, Putin said, Iran is a good neighbor and a stable and reliable partner.

On his part, Rouhani said, The cooperation between Tehran and Moscow is not targeted at a third country." He added, Iran and Russias relations are being conducted to enhance stability in the region, and the main intention of the two countries is to strengthen regional peace and tranquility.

Iranian and Russian officials signed 14 documents on cooperation in the political, economic, scientific, legal and cultural fields on March 27 and 28. The two sides also signed other documents in the fields of information and communications technology, mining, railroad construction, extradition of criminals, nuclear energy, electricity, exports and tourism.

Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is accompanying Rouhani, said March 28, Russia doesn't have a military base [in Iran], we have good cooperation, and on a case by case basis, when it is necessary for Russians fighting terrorism to use Iranian facilities, we will make a decision. In August, Russia used Shahid Nojeh air base in northwestern Iran to conduct airstrikes in Syria. However, use of the base turned out to be short-lived, given a strong domestic backlash in Iran over a foreign countrys use of local military facilities.
March 28, 2017

Al-Quds, the leading Palestinian daily, used bright red ink to highlight its March 17 headline. The Palestinian newspaper of record, published in East Jerusalem since 1951, did so to celebrate the March 16 decision by the Israeli High Court of Justice recognizing the special status of East Jerusalem Palestinians. Jerusalemites citizens by birth, not immigrants, blared the headline.

The article that followed included extensive quotes from the court's unanimous decision requiring the reissuing of permanent residency to Akram Abdel Haqq, a 59-year-old Palestinian from Jerusalem who had left for the US decades prior. Upon returning to his hometown, he was told that he would have the same status as a tourist; that is, he no longer had residency rights.

Abdel Haqq had been 9 years old when Israel captured and occupied East Jerusalem, in 1967. Three years later, in 1970, his family emigrated to the US. Abdel Haqq returned to Jerusalem in 1989 to discover his residency rights revoked.

Adi Lustigman, the Israeli lawyer who defended Abdel Haqq, told Al-Monitor that the case will guide Israeli Interior Ministry officials for years. It is a precedent that Palestinians who have had their residency revoked or are worried about losing their residency should be very pleased with, she said.

Lustigman noted, however, that Palestinians wishing to regain their residency will need to resettle in Jerusalem before applying to regain their rights. But they will not have to live there for a long time, she said.

Lustigman added that the decision should provide more security to many Palestinians from Jerusalem now living elsewhere on the West Bank. She said, Israeli Interior officials can no longer easily revoke the residency rights of East Jerusalemites, and this for sure includes Palestinians who are living in the West Bank. Between 1967 and 2014, Israel revoked the residency permits of more than 14,000 Palestinians from East Jerusalem for not continually living in the city or for living elsewhere for more than seven years, regardless of the reason.

Sani Khoury, a Palestinian lawyer specializing in Jerusalem citizenship issues, told Al-Monitor that the decision is a step forward, but also warned against prematurely celebrating. We have to wait and see whether this will be followed up by any changes in guidelines or dealings with the problems facing Jerusalemites, he said.

Khoury shared that he was worried about a note the chief justice of the Supreme Court attached to the ruling. He wrote, Miriam Naor, the Supreme Court president noted that in the future, similar petitions will be treated on a case-by-case basis, which means that this is not necessarily a major precedent. Khoury did, however, concede that the ruling is a much stronger commitment than the one made by former Interior Minister Natan Sharansky.

In March 2000, Sharansky submitted an affidavit to the High Court about Israeli policy on residency for Palestinians. The Israeli human rights organization B'tselem reported the gist of it as, All East Jerusalem Palestinians who return to extend their permits on time and maintain a proper affiliation with the State of Israel would retain their status as permanent residents, even those living in Jordan or in other countries.

One possible reason for Khoury's cautioning against celebrating could be his knowledge about newly appointed members of the Israeli Supreme Court. Israel's right-wing justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, announced the appointment of four new justices Feb. 23. One was David Mintz, a Jerusalem District Court judge who lives in an Etzion bloc settlement, south of Bethlehem. The Israeli journalist Amira Hass pointed out in a March 20 column for Haaretz that the ruling in Abdel Haqqs case reversed a ruling by none other than Mintz, the settler just sworn in as a Supreme Court justice.

Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer specializing in issues related to Jerusalem and its residents, told Al-Monitor that the residency issue for Palestinians in East Jerusalem has been left vague by a collective Israeli decision-making process. In 1967, Israel neither offered nor imposed its citizenship on Palestinian East Jerusalemites," Seidemann explained. "Instead, they were deemed permanent residents under the Entry into Israel Law, as if they were alien residents newly arrived rather than an indigenous population with roots thousands of years old.

The Israeli lawyer called the high court's ruling courageous, but of limited impact. It acknowledges for the first time the absurdity of viewing the Palestinians as newcomers, and the devastating impact such a view has, Seidemann remarked. It makes the thread by which the residency rights of Palestinians hang somewhat thicker. It will help an indeterminate number of vulnerable individuals. It will make occupation more bearable at times, but it in no way makes Israel less of an occupier.

While the Palestinians of East Jerusalem have no political rights, they are not without other rights, including rights to property, residency, health care, and so on. Seidemann argued, These are not the inalienable rights of the citizen, but the alienable rights extended by the magnanimity of an occupier. These rights always hang by a thread.

The Israeli High Court decision providing some relief to Palestinians in East Jerusalem deals with a reality that is too little acknowledged in the rest of the world, namely, that East Jerusalem is an occupied city. As such, Palestinians can never be considered immigrants in their own city. Palestinians did not immigrate to Israel. Rather, Israel, with its military occupation, came to the Palestinians in Jerusalem.

While the final status of Jerusalem must be resolved in negotiations, after 50 years of occupation, it is important that basic rights, such as the Palestinians' right to live in the city of their birth and of their ancestors, not be considered a gift from a benevolent occupier but an inalienable right that cannot and should not be taken away.
March 23, 2017

Lebanon's parliamentary elections are languishing after being postponed for the third time since 2013. Officials estimate it could be months, or even a year, before they will be held.

The elections were to take place between May 20 and June 21. But because of a dispute over a proposed new law regarding the elections, the country missed a critical deadline. Lebanese law states voters must be informed 90 days before an election so they can prepare for the polls. March 21 came and went with no official announcement.

Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk and Prime Minister Saad Hariri of the Future Movement signed the decree in time, but President Michel Aoun refused twice, on Feb. 21 and March 20. Aoun declined because the elections would have been held based on the contested 1960 majoritarian (winner-take-all) law. In fact, Aoun, of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), said he would prefer a vacuum to holding elections based on the default 1960 law, which was used in the 2009 elections. The law allows Muslim leaders to choose Christian members of parliament in some constituencies.

Aoun, Hezbollah and the Amal Movement are insisting on the "total proportionality" system. Hariri, Democratic Gathering leader Walid Jumblatt and the Lebanese Forces want either a hybrid law or the majoritarian system, which would yield the same results as before, granting their alliance  the March 14 Coalition  the majority of seats in parliament.

Rabih Barakat, a lecturer in journalism and digital media at the American University of Beirut, told Al-Monitor, Since the Taif Agreement, the electoral laws have been tailored to the whims of some political forces that were in power post-Taif. There were no common criteria to divide constituencies and determine the size of electorates in each. Following the Doha Agreement in 2008, the political parties agreed to return to the 1960 law, which still did not reflect the real balance of power. Perhaps for that reason, Hariri and Jumblatt are refusing proportionality today because it would reduce their parliamentary blocs."

This impasse prompted Foreign Minister and FPM head Gebran Bassil to propose on March 13 yet another option suggesting the equal distribution of seats between the proportional and majoritarian systems. This would mean voting according to the majoritarian system based on 14 hybrid constituencies, provided that each sect elects its members of parliament, and adopting the proportional representation system based on five constituencies, which are the five historical governorates (Beirut, Mount Lebanon, Bekaa, and the South and North governorates).

However, most parties turned down Bassils proposal. His allies, including Marada Movement leader Suleiman Franjieh, parliament member Talal Arslan and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, slammed the proposal because they believe it would tarnish proportionality and fuel sectarianism. Hezbollah and the Amal Movement implicitly rejected the proposal, and so did Jumblatt and Phalangist Party Leader Sami Gemayel. The Lebanese Forces were the only ones to support Bassils proposal, while the Future Movement has kept mum about its stance.

Independent political analyst Yasser Hariri told Al-Monitor that most parties frowned upon Bassils proposal because it caters to the Christian representation of the FPM and the Lebanese Forces and deprives other Christian forces of the possibility to win electoral seats, meaning it excludes others from fair representation. It also goes against the principle of equality, which makes it subject to appeal before the constitutional council. Besides, this proposal does not obey the rule of fair distribution of electoral constituencies, as it corners the Christian and Sunni allies of the Amal Movement and Hezbollah.

Lebanons system is based on sectarianism and national consensus rather than a democratic vote, and all sects and parties seek to guarantee their parliamentary seats before approving an electoral law. The majoritarian system grants the large parties the possibility of gaining all of the seats, while the smaller parties and independent candidates suffer from lack of representation in the parliament. For that reason, the proportional system would grant all parties and independents proportional representation, but the large blocs would lose some seats.

Mohammad Raad, leader of the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc, announced on March 17 that his party rejects electoral laws that do not ensure coexistence and fair, comprehensive representation, which he said can only be accomplished through a law based on total proportionality.

The Progressive Socialist Party and its parliamentary bloc, led by Jumblatt, expressed their fears regarding the proportionality system and Bassils recent proposal, and they dismissed them as attempts to marginalize the Druze minority and undermine his bloc.

Bassil also suggested establishing a Senate, as was mentioned in the Taif Agreement, as a council representing all religious sects, provided it has a Christian leader on a 50-50 basis: The speaker of parliament and prime minister are both Muslims, so if the Senate leadership goes to the Druze instead of Christians, there would be three Muslim leaders and one Christian leader: Aoun, the president of the republic. This added insult to injury, especially as the Druze were promised the Senates chairmanship when the Taif Agreement was signed in 1989.

There are fears of a legislative vacuum if parliament members do not extend their mandate for six months or a year. Aoun threatened on Jan. 24 to reject a potential extension and challenge its legitimacy, which could result in a political and constitutional crisis.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah warned March 18 that there is no time to bicker over a new electoral law, and he advised against playing with fire. He noted that the available options are vacuum, extension or the 1960 law, and they are all bad and dangerous for the country. He said a solution will require all parties to make concessions.

Future Movement Secretary-General Ahmad Hariri said March 18 that his party will refuse any law that jeopardizes national partnership and that a parliamentary vacuum will have dire consequences on the country.

To avoid such a vacuum, Machnouk said March 20 that there would be a technical delay of the elections for a few months to prepare for the implementation of a new electoral law. Machnouk did not set a date for the elections because it is still unclear if or when parliament might reach an agreement on a new law.

Aoun responded to Machnouk that the elections should not be delayed for more than a few months after an agreement is reached. Machnouk said he expects an agreement by April and warned of a political crisis if the parties fail to give voters a three-month window before the parliament's current term ends June 21.

Also, parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said last week that a "technical extension" of the parliament is inescapable, and he expects to resort to this option in April. He said an extension will require the existence of an election law, or at least an agreement among the concerned parties, even if it's not complete, so parliament can approve the extension along with the new law.

It seems inevitable now that parliament will have to extend its mandate. If the political parties reach an agreement on the election law, elections would then probably be held in the fall, or in spring 2018, since it would be difficult to hold them during the winter in some mountainous villages.

However, if Aoun continues to reject the current election law or refuses to extend parliaments mandate, Lebanon could be facing a constitutional crisis. However, the government does have the authority to hold the elections in case the president does not respond to the decree within a month of receiving it, and parliament could thus extend its term. Aoun would consider it an illegal parliament, as he already described it before its previous extension  although it is the same parliament that elected him in the first place.
March 24, 2017

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip  A controversial move designed to combat monopolies is about to take effect in the Gaza Strip. Proponents say the change will cut prices for consumers, while opponents warn it will open the door to commercial fraud and counterfeit goods.

In October, the Ministry of National Economy in the Gaza Strip gave traders six months to sell their goods as a preliminary step toward abolishing all exclusive commercial trading licenses. The law, which takes effect April 1, is designed to level the playing field for all importers, open the door to market competition and curb rising prices in favor of consumers.

Tariq Labad, the spokesman for the Hamas-run Ministry of National Economy, explained that prices are expected to fall 20-50% on many consumer goods.

There are 40-50 commercial licenses in the Gaza Strip and their holders import goods from abroad, while some of them manipulate prices in light of the Israeli siege imposed on Gaza, he said, stressing that his ministrys main objective is to protect the consumer.

However, Ahmed Abu Shaaban, exclusive agent of Israel's Tambour paints in Gaza, said the ministrys decision will hurt his business, which he has been developing for years. He told Al-Monitor he provides all goods related to paints at suitable prices for the consumer.

He warned that canceling exclusive contracts would allow small traders to buy goods from any dealer around the world at prices lower than those set by the brand-name supplier. Small traders could also fly under the radar, evading taxes or customs duties by filing forged statements, or not filing statements at all. They are also able to manipulate prices temporarily to make a quick profit, he said.

Exclusive commercial licenses were abolished in the West Bank in 2012. The Ministry of Economy in Gaza said that move reduced the prices of consumer goods by opening the way for many traders to import goods and creating competition in the markets. The ministry expects the same results in Gaza.

Trader Nabil Yazigi, who holds a commercial license to import batteries for cars and trucks in Gaza, told Al-Monitor the biggest loss will be felt mainly by consumers and then by commercial agents because commercial fraud will plague Gaza markets.

Yazigi explained that owners of exclusive commercial licenses are responsible for the goods they import, but once those licenses are canceled, it will be much more difficult for the Ministry of National Economy to identify traders who import counterfeit goods.

Maher Tabbaa, the director of public relations and media at the Gaza Chamber of Commerce and Industry, called on Gaza's Ministry of National Economy to find solutions that take into account the interests of both commercial agents and consumers. He warned that the decision taking effect April 1 will require strict control by the ministry and other concerned parties to keep out counterfeit goods.

He told Al-Monitor the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip, which has been in place 10 years, is causing many traders to lose their work permits, in addition to the licenses they had obtained from Arab and international companies, which narrowed the number of traders in Gaza with commercial licenses to about 50.

Tabbaa refused to describe exclusive commercial brokerages as monopolies, saying traders import consumer products from suppliers under agreements that take everyone's interests into account.

Mouin Rajab, an economics professor at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, disagrees. He said the exclusive contracts have resulted in monopolies over some consumer goods. However, he also believes abolishing these contracts will allow some brands to be counterfeited. He said consumers will wind up with some poor-quality goods, which could also harm brand names as a result.

He noted that some suppliers might refuse to provide goods to anyone other than their exclusive agents because of the nature of their long-term relationships, not to mention suppliers' conviction that working with an agent is safer than working with small traders who could be unreliable and unable to absorb even small losses. Also, competition among traders  which leads to lower prices  will still remain limited in light of the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip.
March 27, 2017

The Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), which is mainly comprised of Arab and Kurdish political forces along with others from the Kurdish region in northern Syria, concluded Feb. 25 its second congress in the Syrian northern city of al-Malikiyah, with the election of Riad Darar and Ilham Ahmed as co-chairmen.

Darar is a Syrian opposition figure living in Germany. He is an Arab and moderate Islamist. Born in Deir ez-Zor in 1954, he has a bachelor's degree in Arabic language and was a preacher and teacher at a mosque in Deir ez-Zor. He was a political activist from 2000 onward, working with civil society groups. He was imprisoned by President Bashar al-Assads regime for five years (2005-10) for his political views and accused of supporting the Kurdish cause.

Darar is an author and researcher on Islamic religious issues and has been publishing his writings on social media since the start of the Syrian uprising. He was a founding member of the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change established in June 2011, from which he later resigned in August 2014. He is a prominent member of the democratic Islamist current and is known for his writings on his personal blog, supporting the concepts of democracy and secularism.

Darars election to jointly head the SDC came after strongly pro-revolution Syrians demanded that an Arab be on the presidency of the council in the Kurdish areas.

The SDC covers large areas of northern Syria controlled by the Kurds. The Kurds represent the Movement for a Democratic Society (TEV-DEM), which includes various parties and is headed by the Democratic Union Party (PYD). Noteworthy is that Darar is an independent opposition figure who has no affiliation with any political party.

While Kurdish forces are receiving international military support, on the political level, they have no clear backing from the West  in particular the United States. This is in light of accusations by Kurdish parties  including the Kurdish National Council (a group of parties opposed to the policies of TEV-DEM, the de facto authority in the region)  that the self-rule administration there is operating undemocratically. Most recently, the administration closed the offices of Kurdish National Council members and other parties because those parties had not received official licenses from the autonomous government.

Al-Monitor spoke to Darar via Facebook on his ascension to the chairmanship and on the military and political changes the Kurdish region is currently going through.

The text of the interview follows:

Al-Monitor: Syrian Kurds have been accused of calling for a federal system that could be the start of the countrys partition. Today, what does the election of an Arab as joint president of the areas under the Kurdish self-administration (the Democratic Federal System of Northern Syria) mean?

Darar: There are two political projects. [First is] the nation-state project with all the intractability manifested during wars and fighting across the region and within the borders of single states. This left us with oppression and totalitarianism and achieved neither development nor democracy. Second is the democratic nation project, which is what we are proposing. It calls for democratic modernism through autonomous administrations, aiming to build a new, political, moral and organized society on the basis of democratic principles (freedom, equality, social justice, natural development, voluntary participation and resolution of problems through dialogue and debate, criticism and self-criticism).

The concept of the democratic nation rests on the idea of unity in diversity, meaning that multiple and varied cultures, religions, languages, nationalities, ethnicities and confessions can live together as part of a union in which nobody denies the presence of the other. Rather, everyone accepts each other with all their differences and colors in a single framework. An example is Switzerland, which includes German-, French-, Italian- and Romansh-speaking communities, each of which speaks its own language, practices its own culture; each language is official and has a presence in the framework of the democratic institutions, and the state plays a coordinating role between them.

The Syrian nation could be a democratic nation, a name that gathers all Syrians regardless of their national, sectarian, religious or ethnic differences. Pluralism and acceptance of difference are the basis of the unity of such a nation. Setting up local administrations and distributing centralized power to regions are among the requirements of pluralism and democracy in the democratic nation.

On top of that, the ability of each social component to express itself and its demands through political parties and organizations is a basic feature of peaceful democracy, meaning that the democratic nation guarantees representation of all parts of society, cultures and communities, reflecting the mentality and the morale of the democratic system.

Al-Monitor: The SDC supports the creation of a federation including Hasakah, Kobani and Afrin [that is, northern Syria, as that regions federal alternative to the autonomous region]. Meanwhile, both the opposition [the High Negotiating Committee, including the National Coalition for Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, the National Coordination Committee and others] and the Syrian regime have rejected the federal project. How will you deal with that?

Darar: The federal project is a project of decentralization designed to establish a genuine democratic system and valid citizenship. It is based on autonomous, democratic administrations that translate policies into practice and [allows the participation] of the masses in regions, areas, districts and neighborhoods. It is an organizational framework for communal life, which aims to give society a will, a voice, decision-making power and an existence.

Instead of a central authority, powers would be distributed to each region and city of Syria. That is to say, each city and region would become a theater of democratic politics through local councils and municipalities, where the people would directly express their needs, and policies would be formed to address their issues and push competent authorities so they become able to manage themselves. In this way, democratic self-government means self-government by the people and society, with that society able to direct itself and solve its own issues.

Democratic self-government as a project is urgently needed due to the acute need for it in these circumstances, because in line with this project, different parts of Syrian society [the Arabs, the Kurds, the Armenians, the Syriacs, the Assyrians, the Turkmens and all the other confessions] are able to live together, side by side, in peace, brotherhood and social harmony.

Al-Monitor: You believe in change and democracy. How will that affect northern Syria given the accusations that the region is being controlled by the PYD?

Darar: We are working for a change of mentality. We are not trying to examine the backgrounds of organizations or dig into history. The PYD is a Syrian party that is working for a unified Syria and the outputs of the SDC conference. All our documents emphasize the democratic path in our relationships and decisions.

The PYD is a part of these agreements, which view the continuation of the current system of government in Syria as impossible and see the Syrian regime as suffering from a structural crisis, meaning it cannot be rebuilt or reformed. Rescuing the nation is a task in the hands of Syrians, their administration and their national, democratic forces.

Al-Monitor: What are the obstacles that you might face in your position, particularly since you may face criticism and attacks from Syrians given that you hold a position in a Kurdish area?

Darar: I am not used to giving up in the face of obstacles. But I believe there is a valid ideological basis in the vision of the SDC and a desire and insistence upon democratic change, as well as an honest tendency toward unity among Syrians and a gathering of their forces behind a practical vision.

People are living with the results of an upbringing based on oppression and marginalization, selfishness and envy. I dont need to respond to the criticisms of some, because time will tell. I have walked alone many times without being distracted by those who tried to discourage me. Many of those who tried to make my ideas fail have adopted them today, so their criticism is harmless. I could recite the words of the Prophet: O Allah, guide my people for they do not know.

Al-Monitor: The US Defense Department announced in February a plan for defeating the Islamic State [IS] without specifying who its partners will be. Is there a fear that the Syrian Democratic Forces [SDF] will be ignored after Ankaras demands that Turkish-backed forces enter Raqqa?

Darar: Manbij is a liberated city, free of IS, and it is run by its residents and the Manbij military council. Turkeys show of force and its threats to enter Manbij have no meaning. To prevent a confrontation, the Manbij military council came to an understanding with Russia [the guarantor partner, along with Turkey, in the Astana talks between the factions and the Syrian regime].

For their part, the Russians gave up the villages around Manbij to avoid any clashes between the SDF and the factions under Turkish command [Operation Euphrates Shield] to protect civilians from the airstrikes that had been threatened by Turkish high command.

America sees the SDF as a warhead against IS in Raqqa. It is true that the United States has its interests with Turkey, and we respect that  we are not trying to enter into clashes with Turkey. Major powers have their calculations and their interests; we must follow their movements to see where to stand and with whom to form alliances. I believe that we need an alliance with the US, as it also wants a partner originally from the region to fight terrorism.

Al-Monitor: You always defend the concept of a federal entity in Syria and even now the Kurds alone have put forward the idea of a federal project. Do you not fear that Syrians will accuse you of favoritism toward the Kurds?

Darar: Syrians have lived through a long era of oppression that made many adopt the same positions. The nation-state took control of their minds and still influences their policies and their ideological references. Even the elites share similar views. Therefore, they dig in behind their imaginations of the state and its traditional political system. In the absence of a democratic experience, there is no dialogue, but rather authoritarian, patronizing ways of thinking  whoever opposes me is my enemy, a traitor, an agent, favoritist. In this way, they accuse me of favoritism toward the Kurds.

The educated, political and media activities speak of threats to the identity. They deal with opposing opinions in language full of ideological fervor, or with a sense of panic toward anything new. They dont try to respond to any question or challenge, but use demagogic discourse about resistance, defense, fighting, identity and culture. This expresses arrogance and a lack of willingness to change reality, preferring to sleep in the honey of memories, heritage and history. Federalism is an expression of the culture of participation, moving from the narrow context to the cultures of identity, and from a backward-looking culture that rips away to a sense of living outside the age.

So do ideas like these need favoritism? Does anyone who believes in them need to fear?

Al-Monitor: You left the National Coordination Committee after you liked a post on Facebook, criticizing the committee. This reflects how easy it is to split with a group. Do you expect to stay on the current council, especially given that Haytham Manna, the Syrian opposition figure previously appointed president of the SDC in the Kurdish areas who later resigned, protested against the federalism announced by the council and resigned?

Darar: I left the committee over a like because it revealed the brittleness of a politician when he loses his self-control and threatens your life and your livelihood because of a like you put on an important article  regardless of the article. The issue is not in how easy it is to leave, but in the weakness of the agreement and the democracy if its falsity can be revealed by a like.

But Mannas position and his withdrawal from the SDC, as he expressed in his statement, was that the decision to declare the autonomous region was taken without consultation, not because he rejects the idea itself.

Al-Monitor: Given your experience in the opposition before the revolution and today, how would you describe the current situation in Syria and where is it going? What will be the results?

Darar: There is no solution for Syria except for a political solution. Everyone must work toward that. The situation has become more complex with Turkeys entry as an armed force in support for new factions it established to fight IS. I think Turkeys strategy is guided by its position on the Kurds, and that complicates things. It would have been more successful if it had continued to be a guarantor of the political solution, pushing the factions it supports toward the negotiating table, leaving them to fight alongside Syrians as allies to defeat IS, without imposing conditions on any side. Turkey can coordinate with both the Russians and the Americans in the coalition forces that are supporting the Syrians to destroy IS, rather than sidelining any party. In any case, today Syrians are divided between two major powers  the Americans and the Russians. The rest of the regions states are following. Syrians need to understand their interests in this international game, to prevent the partition of the country and to build a new system that is more flexible in responding to change.
March 28, 2017

Fethullah Gulen, the self-exiled Islamic cleric residing in Pennsylvania who Ankara accuses of masterminding Julys failed coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has become one of the main obstacles to improving Turkeys ties with the United States and Europe.

The perception that Washington is harboring Gulen while European countries are deliberately providing refuge to his followers is increasing Erdogan's fury toward the West. It is also intensifying virulent anti-Western sentiment among his followers.

Bruno Kahl, the head of Germanys Federal Intelligence Agency (BND), poured fuel on Erdogans anger recently when he said he doubted that Gulen was behind the coup attempt.

"Turkey has tried to convince us [about Gulen] at every level, but so far it has not succeeded," Kahl told the news magazine Der Spiegel. He added that the Gulen movement, which has a wide international network of schools, was a "civil association that aims to provide further religious and secular education."

These remarks were promptly scorned by Erdogan.

"He says, We don't see FETO [Fethullah Gulen Terror Organization, Ankara's acronym for the Gulen movement] behind these incidents. You should first ask this to your opposite number, chief of Turkeys national intelligence organization. Who do you think you are? You have to know your limits, Erdogan railed in an address to followers in the western city of Denizli.

Defense Minister Fikri Isik also weighed in. If the German intelligence chief says We are not convinced that FETO is behind the coup attempt, then he must be either blind or deaf, or he needs to hide the plotters as they failed in what they wished to achieve, Isik said, according to the semi-official Anadolu Agency.

Erdogan spokesman Ibrahim Kalin claims Berlin is harboring Gulen supporters deliberately. They are protecting them because these are useful instruments  to use against Turkey," Kalin said in a recent interview.

Ankara says 4,000 FETO members have been provided a safe haven by Germany, where the Gulen movement reportedly has over 170 schools and 300 associations.

Germany's Minister of State for Europe Michael Roth said in November that German officials were open to all those who are politically persecuted as a matter of principle," and he added that anyone from Turkey could apply for asylum in Germany.

Gulen and his followers are not a thorn only in the side of Turkish-German ties. Norway was also put on notice by Ankara recently when it granted asylum to four Turkish officers and military attaches on duty with NATO after they requested refuge on the grounds that they were likely to be persecuted in Turkey for allegedly being members of FETO.

In January, the Greek Supreme Court refused to extradite eight Turkish soldiers who had taken refuge in Greece after the failed coup attempt.

This pattern is expected to be repeated across Europe, where the widespread view is that Erdogan  who also supports a reinstatement of the death penalty  is out to establish a dictatorship in Turkey.

Meanwhile, Erdogans Nazi and fascist jibes aimed initially at Germany and the Netherlands, but which now target other European countries, are further aggravating the situation.

The Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament also cast doubts on Ankaras claim about Gulens involvement in the coup attempt in a report it issued March 21.

While there is evidence to indicate that some individual Gulenists were involved, it is mostly anecdotal or circumstantial, sometimes premised on information from confessions or informants, and is  so far  inconclusive in relation to the organization as a whole or its leadership, the report said.

EU minister Omer Celik expressed Ankaras displeasure with the report. What proof are they waiting for? Celik asked during a panel discussion in the Mediterranean resort of Antalya. No one can know the details as well as we do. ... They dont ask our views when preparing these reports, or they discard them if they do ask and write only the views of one side, he said.

The continuing reluctance of the United States to extradite Gulen, despite the ample proof Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag claims to have furnished his US counterpart, is also adding to Erdogans anger. Devin Nunes, a California Republican who chairs the US House Intelligence Committee, told Fox News recently that he found it hard to believe that Gulen was the architect of the coup attempt against Erdogan.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is expected in Ankara this week, and although Syria will be the priority topic, Ankara will demand the extradition of Gulen again.

Even if there was the slightest possibility that the Trump administration would do that, remarks by former CIA Director James Woolsey suggesting that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn may have been concocting a plan with Turkey to remove Gulen will probably have put an end to any such plan.

Bozdag is now warning Washington that Gulen has bought a ranch in Canada where he is allegedly preparing to flee.

Anger with the West over Gulen has also resulted in a slew of conspiracy theories among Erdogan supporters in the media. Mahmut Ovur, a columnist for pro-government Sabah daily, wrote that the protection given to Gulen and his following by the West is the result of a plan put in force in 2010.

Ovur claimed that the intention is to stop Erdogan in his tracks because of his independent ways and the convincing manner in which he is highlighting the double standards of the West, especially with regard to Islamophobia.

In a piece for the pro-government Turkiye daily, columnist Fuat Ugur took the matter to a different level. The BND, which protected FETO and used it as a tool, planned the July 15 coup attempt and put [it] into practice. It did this for its American bosses, Ugur alleged.

Ugur added that if the coup had succeeded, the person who was to become Turkeys new leader would have been welcomed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel with a red carpet, the way Egypts Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was.

Erdogan is promising to retaliate against Europe for "supporting terrorism after Turkey's April 16 referendum that could increase the powers of the presidency.

Once April 16 is over, we will sit at the table. This cannot continue this way. We, as Turkey, will do what is necessary, he told a gathering in Ankara.

He added that Turkey would no longer allow Europe to threaten Ankara with ending its EU membership bid.

This Europe, like before World War II, is a racist, fascist, cruel Europe ... an anti-Muslim and anti-Turkish Europe, he said.

It is not clear what Erdogan can do, though, to hit back, given Turkeys continuing economic and military dependence on the West, where millions of Turks  ironically many of them his supporters  also live.

He says Turkey might hold a referendum to unilaterally end its EU bid, but this attempt at Trexit is being derided by some diplomats. Its like trying to punish a girl who is reluctant to marry you by telling her I have decided not to marry you, said one diplomat who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.

What is certain is that the Gulen issue will continue to cast a large shadow over Turkeys ties with the West for the foreseeable future, given that Erdogan will remain at the helm, regardless of what the upcoming referendum produces.
Amazon logo on box

Online retailer Amazon is about to start collecting sales taxes in the few states where it doesn't already. (Amazon)

Here are the top business stories on AL.com for Monday, March 27, 2017. Follow all of Alabama's business news here anytime.

No fooling - Amazon will begin collecting sales tax nationwide on April 1. The online retailer already collects the tax in Alabama.

Georgia-based Arby's restaurant chain failed to prevent hackers from stealing customer information at hundreds of its stores, a Connecticut couple said in a new federal lawsuit. Since early February, eight credit unions and banks from Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Montana have filed seven other federal lawsuits.

Aerospace company Continental Motors has doubled down on Mobile, announcing Monday afternoon that it will spend more than $60 million dollars on a new facility at the Brookley Aeroplex.

Several movie theaters in Alabama are transitioning to the AMC brand following the successful acquisition of Carmike Cinemas in 2016. Buying Carmike in December made AMC the largest theater exhibitor in the U.S., Europe and the world with 661 theaters and more than 8,200 screens domestically.

They'll each have around five weeks to make their beers. But before these Alabama breweries do so, Free the Hops and Downtown Huntsville Inc. are giving AL.com readers the chance to decide exactly what style of beer those brewers will make to compete in the Rocket City Brewfest's People's Choice Award.

Changes are on the way at Donatos Pizza in Huntsville. The chain said James Weinberger is the new franchise partner and owner for Donatos on 7500 Memorial Parkway S.W. Weinberger, who spent his career working on government defense projects, will work closely with former Donatos Huntsville franchise partner and owner Ben Wheeler during the transition.
The University of Alabama in Huntsville has tapped Rigved Joshi as its new director of the Dorothy S. Davidson Innovation to Invention Center.

Rigved Joshi. (Courtesy of UAH)

Joshi, an MBA holder who recently managed new ventures, strategy and innovation at Vanderbilt University, has a wide range of business experience, ranging from venture capital and private equity to startup incubation and intellectual property monetization.

"The D.S. Davidson I2C presents a dynamic opportunity to serve as a platform to launch and develop hi-tech startups into sustainable, scalable and investable businesses," Joshi said in a statement. "It's the first of its kind for Huntsville, and to be able to lead this initiative and leverage the intellectual bandwidth that exists within the ecosystem is tremendously exciting."

UAH expects to break ground on the D.S. Davidson I2C this summer and complete the project by 2019 near the College of Business Administration building, which will be connected to the incubator by an enclosed walkway. The 45,000-square-foot D.S. Davidson I2C will provide startup office and lab space for up to 40 businesses from a 15-county region.

Davidson, whom the facility is named after, gifted $5 million to the incubator. The U.S. Economic Development Association presented a $3 million grant, while the UAH Foundation, state and local entities and the Alabama Innovation Fund offered other funding.

Joshi's role with the nearly $14 million D.S. Davidson I2C will include establishing policies, networking, developing processes and recruiting tenants.

"The D.S. Davidson I2C is all about delivering a positive impact on accelerating technology development and new venture creation for students, founders, investors, mentors and other related parties," he said.
S-Town Promo Graphic_Credit - Artwork by Valero Doval.jpg

'S-Town,' a new podcast from the creators of 'This American Life' and 'Serial', focuses on the life of an eccentric man in a small town in Alabama. Artwork by Valero Doval.

A new podcast from the creators of the hit 'Serial' podcast and the 'This American Life' radio show launches today. The podcast, called 'S-Town,' focuses on a rural Alabama town in Bibb County and the life of an eccentric man who asked a reporter to investigate an incident in his small town.

A synopsis of the non-fiction storyline appears on the podcast's website and reads: "John despises his Alabama town and decides to do something about it. He asks a reporter to investigate the son of a wealthy family who's allegedly been bragging that he got away with murder. But then someone else ends up dead, sparking a nasty feud, a hunt for hidden treasure, and an unearthing of the mysteries of one man's life."

All seven episodes of the podcast will be available to listen to today.

But how, you ask, can you hear it? Here are several ways:

To stream episodes, it's pretty simple: Just visit the show's website at Stownpodcast.org and click play on the episodes you want to enjoy.

If you'd like to download the episodes to your device to listen to later, you can do that, too.

On Android phones, you want to download a free podcasts app such as Stitcher from the Google Play store. Once you've installed the app and opened it, search for S-Town, select the plus sign to add it to your favorites. On your favorites tab, click the gear button and tell the app to download new episodes. Another option: visit the Stitcher page for 'S-Town.'

On Apple devices, you can use Apple's Podcasts app. It may already be installed on your device, but if not, you can download it for free in the App Store. In the Podcasts app, just search for S-Town and hit subscribe. Another option: You can visit the iTunes page for S-Town and play it from there.
Weekend drug operations in Cullman County led to the arrests of seven people, the seizure of guns, drugs, motorcycles and cash and bonds of $1 million for many of the suspects.

The Cullman Narcotics Enforcement Team and Cullman County sheriff's deputies charged those taken into custody with a variety of crimes including chemical endangerment of a child, unlawful manufacturing of a controlled substance, unlawful possession of a controlled substance, unlawful possession of marijuana, and unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia, said Cullman County Sheriff Matt Gentry.

Arrested for unlawful possession of a controlled substance and unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia was 42-year-old Roy Wesley Roach of Hanceville. He is already out of jail on bond.

Those charged with chemical endangerment of a child, unlawful manufacturing of a controlled substance, unlawful possession of a controlled substance, unlawful possession of marijuana and unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia are:

-Christin Cheri Ayers, 31, Cullman, $1 million bond

-Jesse Gene Golden, 21, Cullman, $1 million bond

-Shelton Wayne Ramey, 41, Cullman, $1 million bond

-Bobby Dale Wilson, 45, Cullman, $1 million bond

Those charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance, unlawful possession of marijuana, unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia are:

-Jammy Lee Guthery, 43, Cullman, out on bond

-Kyle James Shaw, 34, Cullman, out on bond

The Cullman Narcotics Enforcement Team carried out a search warrant on County Road 607 in the Phelan community over the weekend that lead to the arrest of Roach. While at the home, investigators and deputies found multiple motor cycles with altered vin numbers. Also seized was $3,400 cash, a gram of meth, two pistols and other drug paraphernalia, the sheriff said.

In a separate search warrant on County Road 1606 in the Berlin community, lawmen uncovered a meth lab, two grams of meth and a small amount of marijuana. At the time the search warrant was carried out, two young children were at the home where the meth lab was found. DHR was contacted and the children were removed. Ayers, Golden, Ramey, and Wilson were arrested at that scene.

The final search warrant was carried out on County Road 397 in the Valley Gove community. Guthery and Shaw were arrested at that scene, and authorities seized a gram of meth, a small amount of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

In all, Gentry said, they seized a meth lab, 4 grams of meth, $3,400 cash, four motorcycles, two pistols, marijuana, and other drug paraphernalia. "I am most thankful we were able to get those two children out of that home with a meth lab,'' Gentry said. "It breaks your heart to see children in that kind of environment."
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Brieyonna Pierson

(youcaring.com)

As the investigation continues into a Sunday morning traffic crash that killed a Birmingham teen, school officials say they are mourning the loss of the girl who had just turned 16 two days before her death.

"It is with great sadness that we mourn the loss of Huffman High School sophomore Brieyonna Pierson. She was a wonderful student and a great young lady. She will be missed,'' said Principal John Lyons Jr. "She participated in our concert choir, and she was part of the school's new engineering classes. She was a model student.''

The crash happened about 4:45 a.m. Sunday. Jefferson County sheriff's deputies responded to a report of a traffic accident on Center Point Parkway at Polly Reed Road. When they arrived on the scene, they found Brieyonna dead. Two other people suffered minor injuries and were transported to an area hospital, said Chief Deputy Randy Christian.

Information at the scene, Christian said, indicates Brieyonna was a passenger in a car traveling north on Center Point Parkway when it was involved in an accident with a second vehicle. The driver of the second car parked in a parking lot and fled on foot before deputies arrived. A third vehicle stopped to offer assistance.

When the occupants got out of the damaged car, the third vehicle and Brieyonna were struck by a fourth car that then overturned in a nearby parking lot.

"She was a very good student, academically. She was respected by her teachers and peers. She had a good personality,'' Lyons said. "She always assisted you when you needed it, and she did so with a smile.''

Students are out of school this week for Spring Break. But when classes resume on Monday, the school will have counselors available to help students and staff cope with this loss. Not only will Huffman High's on-site counselors help, but so will counselors from area feeder schools.

"We've already received calls from counselors at our feeder schools in our area. They've offered assistance, as well,'' Lyons said.

Also upon their return to school, students will be able to sign cards in Brieyonna's memory, Lyons said. On Tuesday, April 11, the Board of Education will have its regular monthly meeting at Huffman High. During that time, a moment of silence will be taken in honor of Brieyonna.

The sophomore was part of the Class of 2019. When her classmates graduate in 2019, Huffman High will honor her that day. They will also recognize her during Class Day and Honors and Awards Day for the Class of 2019. Whenever Huffman High loses a student, remembering the student during senior events is one of their ways of honoring the student, Lyons said.

Family members have set up an online fundraising account to help pay for her burial.

"Any time you lose a student, it's hard,'' the principal said. "This loss is difficult.''
Storms Monday night in central Alabama left dozens without power and high-winds downed trees across the state.

At approximately 5 a.m. Tuesday, Alabama Power said there were about 3,800 outages in the Birmingham area. Eastern outages were down to 260. That's an improvement from 11 p.m. Monday when the company said there were around 6,600 power outages statewide, with 4,700 in metro Birmingham and 1,500 in eastern counties.

A severe thunderstorm watch that was in effect for north and central Alabama expired at 9 p.m. by the National Weather Service.

During the storms, people across the state reported seeing up to ping pong ball-sized hail and quarter-sized hail.

In Birmingham there were reports of downed trees and power lines. One person was injured in the south Kingston neighborhood, when a tree fell onto the person's car. There were also reports of trees falling into homes in Roebuck and in Leeds, but no injuries were reported.

The National Weather Service in Birmingham had reports of wind and fallen trees that caused damage to barns, carports, and roofs in Blount, Cherokee, DeKalb, Etowah, Marshall, and St. Clair counties.

All reports of wind and hail damage were reported in the central and northern parts of the state.

Scattered thunderstorms were possible Tuesday morning.

The Storm Prediction Center has placed a large part of the state under increased probabilities for severe weather on Thursday -- possibly coming in Thursday afternoon and into the evening.

Computer models in the last 24 hours show the system of storms coming in Thursday has lost some consistency. Models also show a secondary area of low pressure could develop along the Gulf Coast, which would cut off the moisture supply to areas to the north and limit the risk of storms.
A downtown Beatrice business is closing in April after nearly two decades in operation.

Fast Cash of Nebraska, located at Sixth and Court streets in the heart of downtown, plans to close on April 28.

Owner Lance Kolb said a variety of factors contributed to his decision, including changing government regulations from the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB).

They can regulate my industry, Kolb said. Currently, they have on paper 300 pages of new regulations to be imposed in the near future and 90 percent of them would just wipe out the mom and pop shops.

My business license ends on May 1. I would have to spend quite a bit of money to renew and to maybe only go a few months into the new license, it just economically didnt make sense for my family to stay invested in it.

Kolb has been with the company for 17 years. Fast Cash offers cash advances, 10 cent money orders and check chasing services. Kolb also offers personal income tax services out of the building, a service he plans to continue providing from a new location.

In addition to changing regulations, Kolb said society has also evolved and check cashing services arent as popular as they once were.

Everybody used to get a payroll check, he said. Nowadays, even the government has gone to mandatory direct deposit, corporations have gone to direct deposit and the days of check cashers is just pretty limited to make a living. You need to evolve, and with more business structure it was just hard to evolve and stay going.

Kolb, who rents the downtown building, stressed that despite Fast Cash closing, there is a lot to be proud of in downtown Beatrice and asked that people support their local businesses.

One of the first things people say is, Oh great, another downtown business thats closed, he said. We have a lot of things downtown that are growing. We cant as a society focus on what we dont have. Look what we do have downtown. We have a lot of family-run businesses downtown. We need to try to take care of our local families that are trying to evolve and stay in business.
Israels most committed activists in the US, the members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, have flexed their lobbying might once again at its annual Washington meeting.

After the 18,000 who gathered for this years conference heard the speeches and the usual talking points, they spread across Capitol Hill to remind their senators and representatives why AIPAC is considered one of the most effective pressure groups in Washington.

But the past year has been wrenching for AIPAC.

The ascension of Donald Trump forced a group whose power lay in carefully refusing to choose sides between Democrats and Republicans to recalibrate.

When Trump as a presidential candidate told last years meeting that Barack Obama may be the worst thing that ever happened to Israel, winning cheers from the crowd, he violated that bipartisan understanding and forced a tearful apology by AIPACs president.





AIPAC had its differences with Obama  standing awkwardly aside over his feud with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Jewish settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank and fighting against Obamas nuclear deal with Iran.

But while AIPACs leadership has been mockingly described as the American chapter of Netanyahus Likud party (and Likud the Israeli wing of the US Republican party), it is also aware that Obama drew overwhelming support from Jewish voters.

And last year Hillary Clinton won 71 percent of the Jewish vote against Trump, slightly more than the 69 percent who voted for Obama in 2012.

Exceptionally warm

Speaking to the conference this year from Jerusalem, Netanyahu described his meeting with Trump in March as exceptionally warm, in unspoken contrast to his relations with Obama.

He expressed appreciation for Trumps increased funding request for military aid in keeping with the 10-year, $38bn commitment Obama signed with Israel last year, the single largest pledge of military assistance in US history.

But the claim by Israeli ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer that for the first time in many years, perhaps in many decades, there is no daylight between our two governments may be a bit premature.

Trump may have heartened those in Israel who oppose a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by straying from that long-standing US position and declaring he would be happy with whatever deal he could broker between them.

But in a interview last month, the president said that Jewish settlements in occupied territory dont help the process and did not think that going forward with these settlements is a good thing for peace.

READ MORE: US-Israel relations  Is Trump backing down?

And after Trump promised AIPAC last year to relocate the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, his Vice President, Mike Pence, pulled back.

He told this years assembly that Trump was only giving serious consideration to a move that would damage US relations with Jordan and other Arab states now currying favour with the new administration.

That followed the reaction to Trumps choice for ambassador to Israel, his former bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman, an outspoken opponent of a Palestinian state who is a financial backer of a Jewish settlement.

Even after Friedman fell back to the two-state solution and apologised for having once called liberal Jews worse than collaborators with the Nazis, his nomination was opposed by Reform Jewish congregations, the largest denomination in America.

But amid unconfirmed reports that the president may meet soon in Washington with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, theres no assurance that Trump has been only paying lip service to reviving the negotiation process, as hes promised.

As for Iran, AIPAC and Trump still oppose the nuclear deal rhetorically but seem to have settled on ratcheting up sanctions to assure its enforcement rather than its undoing.

There is no indication that AIPAC has lost its clout in Washington.

But it may have tougher challenges maintaining a precarious political balance under Trumps volatile reign.
On Friday, a senior member of Hamass military wing, Mazen Faqha, was assassinated in the Gaza Strip by armed gunmen. It was an assassination tactic not seen in Gaza for at least a decade.

Faqha was a leading member of Hamas al-Qassam Brigades in the West Bank. In 2003, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in Israel for his role in planning attacks following Israels assassination of Salah Shehadeh, then al-Qassams leader.

Faqha was set free in the prisoner-exchange deal that released Gilad Shalit in return for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in 2011. He was delivered from prison straight to the Gaza Strip, where he resided until his death.

The timing and the tactic of Faqhas killing raise questions about the possibility of another conflagration between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian factions in Gaza agree unanimously that Israel was behind the assassination. Israel had accused Faqha of planning attacks against it from the occupied West Bank while he lived in the coastal enclave. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

READ MORE: Gaza-Israel border shut after Mazen Faqha killing

Faqhas assassination comes at a critical time.

Hamas recently elected Yahya Sinwar as its leader within the Gaza Strip. Sinwar is a senior military figure within Hamas, and is often described as a hardliner and an ideologue. Having replaced Ismail Haniyeh, Hamass soft-spoken Gaza-based political leader, analysts began speaking of a shift in power within Hamas.

Faqhas seniority would justify retaliation, and Hamas may respond to maintain its legitimacy among its constituents.

They speculated that Hamas military wing and its constituency in Gaza was strengthening its influence on the groups decision-making at the expense of the seemingly more pragmatic political wing as well as its external constituency.

Concluding that Sinwars election has moved Hamas towards a more intransigent military stance is premature. For one thing, the movement-wide elections are still ongoing. Ismail Haniyeh and Musa Abu Marzouk are both competing for the top job to replace Khaled Meshaal. Both these leaders are likely to maintain Meshaals track record of diplomatic engagement.

Hamas still operates a Shura (consultative) system, which ensures there is room to counterbalance intransigent voices. Moreover, Hamas has been actively promoting speculation that it is on the cusp of issuing an updated charter. This document, allegedly, will commit Hamas to an official recognition of the 1967 borders, while withholding recognition of Israel.

This is not a new development.

Nonetheless, this gesture  and the mere act of revising its charter  can be interpreted as a significant sign that Hamas is shifting direction. Most importantly, however, is that Sinwar himself cannot be dismissed as an intransigent ideologue. For many who know him and have engaged with him directly, he is a calculating strategist and a pragmatic thinker.

He is more likely to be the figure to lead Hamas military wing towards a calculated strategy for reaching the movements political goals than to pursue fruitless conflagrations with Israel. Improved relations with Egypt and the prospect of reviving ties with Iran, following Sinwars election, indicate that under his leadership, Hamas in Gaza does not currently desire any major operations that could undermine this trajectory.

This does not mean that a conflagration might not happen. Faqhas seniority would justify retaliation, and Hamas may respond to maintain its legitimacy among its constituents. Concurrently, the opaque manner in which Faqha was assassinated presents Hamas with some flexibility, in terms of how, when and whether to retaliate.





Given Faqhas origins, an attack might well be forthcoming from the West Bank, rather than the Gaza Strip. Similarly, Hamas might choose to focus instead internally and to wage a war on collaborators with Israel who presumably made this attack possible, and who represent a security breach within Hamas.

Hamas reluctance to move towards an all-out escalation is not shared by Israel. Whether or not Israel was responsible for Faqhas assassination, the government has been actively threatening the ceasefire that has been holding in the Gaza Strip since 2014.

Measures to ease the blockade on Gaza, agreed upon in that ceasefire discussion, are yet to be fully implemented. While some aspects of the blockade have been eased, the number of Gazans allowed to cross the border into or out of Gaza has, in reality, dropped.

The recently released State Comptroller report investigating Israels actions in Gaza in 2014 has offered a scathing assessment of the countrys conduct in the war. It has outlined an absence of any strategy on Israels part regarding Gaza, an absence of efforts to prevent a war, and the states lack of preparedness to address the certainty of Gazas imminent collapse into a humanitarian catastrophe.

OPINION: How factionalism is killing the Palestinian struggle

Israels approach towards Gaza remains a dangerous and reactionary stance rooted in the collective punishment of two million Palestinians. Despite warnings from Israels military establishment about the need to stabilise Gaza or engage with Hamas, Israeli politicians remain committed to their mowing the lawn approach.

Rather than lifting the Israeli blockade, they [Israeli politicians] engage in intermittent warfare to maintain Gaza as an isolated and defeated territory. Reminiscent of the months before the 2014 assault, Israeli war drums have been getting louder. Last month, Israel arrested Rafat Nasif, a senior Hamas member, in the West Bank, ostensibly to pressure the movement to enter prisoner exchange negotiations.

Projectiles from Gaza fired in response to such provocations are described as hostile acts that necessitate Israeli self-defence. Hamas has assumed no responsibility for projectiles from Gaza and has taken significant steps to limit rocket fire. Nonetheless, over the past few months, Israel has been responding with increased ferocity as well as with more provocations. Avigdor Lieberman, Israels defence minister, has asserted that another war with Gaza is now a certainty.

While an escalation at this point would not benefit Hamas, the same cannot be said for Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing legal and political challenges at home, most obviously from other reinvigorated right-wing politicians such as Naftali Bennett.

An operation in Gaza would allow Israels politicians to test the limits of the Trump administrations support for Israeli military operations.

A show of force in the Gaza Strip would assuage some of Netanyahus critics and deflect from their insistence on pursuing Israeli annexationist policies in the West Bank. These calls for annexation have surged now that a friendly American administration is in office.

An assault on Gaza would allow Israels politicians to test the limits of the Trump administrations support for Israeli military operations in Gaza as well as in its northern borders. It will also elucidate the impact of Sinwars recent election on Hamas and effectively force Hamass military wing to be less strategic and more reactionary.

Israeli military actions would undermine any reorientation within Hamas towards a revised charter or other efforts that might indicate pragmatism, a self-fulfilling policy that enables Israel to continue justifying its blockade on the Gaza Strip.

Mowing the lawn is not just a euphemism, and it is clear that Israel is entertaining another round of fighting on the besieged strip. Such a showdown would be catastrophic for the Gaza Strip. Nothing short of lifting the blockade and moving beyond a military prism for dealing with Gaza would end this cycle of violence, which appears to be rearing its ugly head once more.

Tareq Baconi is the US-based fellow for al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. His book, Hamas: The Politics of Resistance, Entrenchment in Gaza, is forthcoming with Stanford University Press.
The outcome of US Secretary of State Tillersons first visit to Ankara may determine the future of Turkey-US relations.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is to visit Turkey on March 30, undoubtedly with a briefcase full of thick files dedicated to major issues the United States and Turkey are struggling to settle.

Tillersons visit will be the highest-level meeting between Turkish and American officials since President Donald Trump moved in to the White House in January and it will most certainly be dominated by three major issues that are currently shaping the political dynamics of the Middle East.

First of all, even though the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is reaching its final phase, it is nowhere close to ending and all global, regional and even local actors in the wider Middle East are now taking revisionist stances and making it clear that they do not want to return to the pre-ISIL status quo.

Secondly, Iran is becoming a very capable security actor in the Middle East by filling the gaps in its conventional military deterrence capabilities by unconventional means, such as supporting Shia militias in Iraq, Syria and Yemen and maintaining ambitious arms programmes.

And finally the US is gradually withdrawing from the Middle East  particularly in the domain of security and defence  and this withdrawal is allowing Russia to raise its profile in the region.





We can confidently assume that all of these three issues are going to be discussed during Tillersons visit to Turkey. But the outcome of this important visit is going to be shaped by Washigntons top priorities.

So, lets dive in to the suitcase Tillerson prepared for his Turkey visit and try to understand which one of these three major issues is likely to occupy a thicker file  or has priority in the US agenda.

Choosing a primary enemy in the region

First and foremost, Turkey would like to know if Tillerson is going to be focusing on the fight against ISIL or if the US plans to contain Irans regional influence.

This question is extremely significant for Ankara because if the Trump administration decides to prioritise confronting Irans rise in the region  with military force if necessary  Turkey is undoubtedly going to be one of its major allies in this fight, and consequently Turkey-US relations are going to prosper.

READ MORE: What is behind the hostility between Iran and Turkey?

But if the US decides to pursue an ISIL-first approach in the Middle East and Tillerson shows up in Ankara with a suitcase full of plans to eradicate radical Islam at any cost, Turkey-US relations may come under further strain.

The YPG problem

The perplexing question is how long Turkey will be able to manage the divergent interests of the US and Russia. by

Recently, a visible rift has formed between the US and Turkey as a result of Washingtons apparent support for the Peoples Protection Units (YPG) in the fight against ISIL.

The YPG is a Kurdish armed group dominating the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is the US major local partner against ISIL.

Turkey wants the US to scrap its ties with the YPG completely, because the YPG is linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is on Tillersons department list of terrorist organisations, and has been leading a four-decade long bloody insurgency inside Turkey.

Turkey made it clear time and time again that it would not allow the YPG to take the lead during the anticipated Raqqa offensive against ISIL.

All signs on the ground, however, indicate that Ankara could not provide Washington with a workable plan excluding the YPG from the anticipated battle for Raqqa.

READ MORE: The battle for Raqqa explained

Tillersons visit will thus be Ankaras last chance to persuade the US to drop the YPG and focus on working on an alternative plan to defeat ISIL  that includes different interlocutors and local allies  which satisfies Turkey.

Turkeys unexpected alliance with Russia

Another file that is expected to be in Tillersons briefcase  and is causing concern for Ankara  is the one on Russia. Will the Trump administration peacefully welcome Russias ascendancy in the region or is a confrontation between the two powers unavoidable?

Ankara, as a result of a deepening mistrust in its traditional Western allies, seeks to institutionalise its unexpected alliance with Russia. But Moscow, in order to strengthen this newly formed and fragile alliance, may ask Turkey to change its traditional geopolitical (NATO) and geo-economic (EU) orientation. Such a drastic change in Turkeys international standing would push the European Union and NATO into a crisis marked by uncertainty and Washington is clearly aware of this risk.

READ MORE: CIA chief in Ankara  A security partnership?

The important question is how long will Turkey be able to manage the divergent interests of the US and Russia? Whether Turkey will opt for close cooperation with Russia or the US in northern Syria is not a routine foreign policy decision, but a major one that will certainly determine the path Turkey will be following in years to come.

Difficult compromise





Overall, both Ankara and Washington seem to be solely focusing on their own immediate interests and are somewhat oblivious to the massive changes that are currently taking place in the Middle East.

As far as we can see, they are not working towards forming a joint mechanism to manage and coordinate the new reality in the region based on actions on the ground rather than words.

This obliviousness will naturally cause more crises, more confusion and maybe something worse  a total disintegration of confidence in US-Turkey relations.

The paradigm in the wider Middle East is currently more complicated than ever before, with multiple actors operating on multiple levels, based on their conflicting interests. This causes confusion and problems  both for the US and Turkey  in identifying proper interlocutors.

I think neither Tillerson, nor his Turkish counterpart has prepared a file entitled How to identify a proper interlocutor? for their upcoming meeting and both parties seem to be slowly losing an appetite for working towards a compromise that may satisfy both the US and Turkish interests in the region.

OPINION: The Turkey-EU fallout

So all we can do at the moment is hope that before coming to Turkey, Tillerson will remember to pack a couple of appetite stimulating pills in his suitcase, alongside the thick  and highly problematic  files on ISIL, Iran and Russia. It is up to Tillerson to enhance its allys appetite for cooperation, because I am pretty sure that Ankara has no appetite stimulating pills left to offer to the US.

Dr Metin Gurcan is a Turkish security analyst and research fellow at the Istanbul Policy Centre (IPC), Sabanc University.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Warrens Table is a long-standing, weekly ecumenical effort to provide a nutritious meal to the less fortunate of Beatrice. However on March 7, the regular guests at Christ Episcopal Churchs fellowship hall were treated to an evening meal far beyond their expectations.

Unlike most Tuesday evenings, this dinner was not prepared by local church groups, but instead, the entire menu was developed and made by students from the Pro-Start Culinary Arts program at Beatrice High School. The meal featured Windsor loins, green beans, scalloped potatoes, salad, cake and homemade strawberry lemonade.

Thanks to a $3,800 grant from the local Beatrice Rotary Club to purchase new equipment, the Culinary Arts students are now using a host of new items such as infrared thermometers, Panini grills, storage containers and a commercial mixer. The Rotary Club worked with Chelesy Walters, BHS culinary instructor, to determine what equipment was needed that was not covered by the school budget. The new items have generated a great deal of enthusiasm on the part of the students.

The equipment that the Rotary Club provided was top of the line, commercial grade items. These items are used by all 60 students but especially help those in the advanced culinary classes get a feel for working in a real kitchen. Warren's Table was a great opportunity for the students to help the community and feel like they have a place in the community. The students and I have enjoyed this journey and we truly appreciate what the Rotary Club has provided us with, said Walters enthusiastically.

The grant also came with the expectation the Pro-Start students would do something special for the community. Warrens Table seemed like the perfect setting for the students to demonstrate their cooking prowess, said Deanne Caspers-Moon, who helped coordinate the grant request. They were wonderful! Not only did they prepare a delicious meal, they also interacted with guests and helped about a dozen members of the Rotary Club serve the food and clean up afterward.

It was also a learning experience. Perhaps their biggest lesson came earlier in the day when Walters discovered the refrigerator at the high school had failed, and much of the food students had prepared for the meal had to be thrown out and new items created. It was a little chaotic, explained one of the students. We didnt find out about the spoiled food until around 10:00 a.m., and we had to scramble to put another plan together before 5 p.m.

All in all, they did just fine and none of the guests had any notion of the earlier problems.

The grant program has allowed the Beatrice Rotary Club to fund a number of local projects the past few years. They have purchased storage tubs and backpacks for the local Backpack program, beds and bedding for Teen Challenge of the Midlands, and last year, paid for a new refrigerator for the Beatrice Community Food Pantry.

Buying equipment for the Pro-Start Culinary program has been equally satisfying for members of the Rotary Club. Offered Club President Gary Berke, Those kids did an amazing job at Warrens Table.

For more information, contact Deanne Caspers-Moon, Beatrice Rotary Club at: deanne@caspersconstruction.com
Iraqi families with relatives affiliated to ISIL are struggling to find a place for themselves in their own country.

Across Iraq, as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) loses its territorial footholds, it is leaving behind entire populations terrorised by its fighters, but also a community of families tainted by their relatives affiliation with the group. These families are among the most vulnerable people in the areas the Iraqi military have retaken, with many of their neighbours apparently eager to take revenge for the past two years of brutal suffering.

There is considerable discussion going on in Baghdad about the need for reconciliation, but no one seems to want to take up the families cause.

ISIL families





A family of 14 in the town of Qayyarah, 60km south of Mosul, which was retaken by Iraqi forces in August, told me in early March that even though they had kicked their son out of their home after he joined ISIL, locals see them as an ISIL family. As a result, on three nights in February, unknown attackers had hurled grenades over the walls surrounding their home, shattering their windows and breaking their door frames.

Another family of 12 in the neighbourhood whose son joined ISIL said they were the target of two grenade attacks in February. A fighter in the area recently told one of their young children who was playing on the street that because of their links to ISIL, the family should leave town for a camp for displaced people. They interpreted this as a threat. A third family of eight a few streets away said their home had been targeted with a grenade two nights before I visited them in March. A month earlier they caught someone trying to set their car on fire with petrol.

OPINION: Iraqs displaced in another prison after fleeing ISIL

All three families told me that they filed complaints with the local police, but that the police had not done anything to search for or punish the attackers, as far as they knew.

After I interviewed these three families, I was stopped by officials stationed in the town by the National Security Service, which is under the command of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. They warned me that Human Rights Watch should not be paying any visits to so-called ISIL families as the security officials were watching the families with suspicion, though they conceded that no one in those homes was implicated in any crimes.

If the families are further marginalised, and their children kept out of school, it is hard to see how effective reconciliation can ever take place. by

Punishing families

In some places, local authorities have gone a step further. In July, the Babylon provincial council approved a decree calling on authorities to demolish the homes of anyone proved to have participated in terrorist activities, to deport their families from the province, and to authorise legal procedures against the families proved to have concealed their ISIL-affiliated relatives.

In August, the Salah al-Din provincial council passed a similar decree, stating that anyone proved to have been complicit or affiliated with ISIL, including relatives of ISIL members, has no right to return to the province. The decree establishes a committee to seize ISIS-affiliates property and suspend their, and their families, provision cards. Families that kill or hand over their ISIL-affiliated relatives are exempted.

In January, Sunni tribal units  Hashad al-Ashari  within the Popular Mobilization Forces, armed forces under the control of the prime minister, and Iraqi soldiers forcibly displaced at least 125 families said to have ties through family members to ISIL affiliates, sending them to a camp being used as an open-air prison. The fighters destroyed some of the families homes. The camp has no school for the hundreds of children living there.

Families from Anbar province who live in areas that ISIL had occupied face similar difficulties. In July, local leaders said that people who promoted ISIL are not allowed to return until their charges are reviewed.

People who did not renounce relatives who supported ISIL are only allowed to return home when this situation stabilises. No one knows when that will be. But returning home is a basic right and should not be subject to denouncing relatives or making other declarations.

OPINION: Planning for Iraqs refugees and their future

In Baghdad, government officials and members of the international community have been discussing reconciliation, and some efforts to ensure access to justice for victims of ISIL abuses are under way. But these discussions have yet to engage with the developments on the ground, and critically with the steps that local leaders and other community members are taking to punish these families. If the families are further marginalised, and their children kept out of school, it is hard to see how effective reconciliation can ever take place.

Belkis Wille is the senior Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
So far, the French electoral season has offered nothing more than a sorry display of politics. Instead of being presented with an educated debate on policy options and electoral programmes, the French population has been forced to watch its politicians wade around in the mud of legal troubles.

After weeks of French media obsessing about corruption scandals surrounding Marine Le Pen and Francois Fillon, French voters finally got a glimpse of a comprehensive political exchange during the first presidential TV debate. Unfortunately after this single night of discussion between the five leading candidates over their visions for the countrys future, the campaign went back to the gutter the very next day.

On Thursday, yet another distraction occupied public attention, as the Republican candidate Francois Fillon accused President Francois Hollande of leading a covert operation from a black cabinet in the Elysee Palace to influence the judicial investigation against him.

This populist drift is a shame, as the coming weeks are important. France is at a crossroads and political decisions that have to be made by the next government will determine not only its future but severely affect the European Union and the balance of its alliances.

Communist-backed Jean Luc Melenchon is a stubborn revolutionary who wants to draw France close to Russia. Benoit Hamon, the socialist, is a young  almost naive  politician with idealistic dreams of providing a minimum income to everyone without demanding any work in return. Emmanuel Macron, the quintessential centrist, agrees with almost everyone. Francois Fillon, the pro-market republican, fancies himself as the gravedigger of public services and wants to slash civil service jobs to fill the pockets of the wealthy, starting with his own. Finally far-right Marine Le Pen barks out xenophobic arguments as soon as one mentions refugees or Islam and worships both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin while dreaming of a Frexit.

Inaudible hubbub





Despite the sad show the candidates put up last week, expectations remain high. More than 10 million people watched the lengthy televised debate, knowing that the outcome of this election will have serious consequences and could mean the end of the European Union.

If the embezzlement practices under investigation morally disqualify the right-wing candidates, the voters deserve to hear the other alternatives to the Hollande administration, widely perceived as disappointing.

Unfortunately, as both Fillon and Le Pen try to escape corruption charges by claiming to be the scapegoats of both French and European justice, they have turned their economic and political programmes into an inaudible hubbub and taken attention away from the other candidates.

The strategies adopted by Fillon and Le Pen are blindingly obvious and do not hold water. Stealing a page of Donald Trumps playbook, they hope that by pointing fingers at a made-up conspiracy, they will rally their supporters and turn the voters eyes away from the fact that they used family members or party representatives to funnel public money through fictitious employment.

Hiding in plain sight

Yet what is more troublesome is that Fillon and Le Pens populist distraction strategies, by making sure that the media is solely focused on conspiracy claims, allow them to keep their dangerous propositions hidden from scrutiny.

By jamming media airwaves with false claims of conspiracy, both Le Pen and Fillon manage to avoid being held accountable for their proposals. by

Whether in the field of foreign policy, economy or societal structure, what Fillon and Le Pen propose would raise eyebrows if voters were made aware.

In regards to economic policy, Le Pen wants to pull out of the eurozone, a decision that would immediately lead to a colossal monetary depreciation like the one the United Kingdom recently experienced. For France, the consequences of leaving the EU would be far more severe due to the current level of integration of the country into the union. In case of a Frexit, lower and middle classes would inevitably lose a sizeable share of their purchasing power.

Fillon, on the other hand, wants to slash 500,000 jobs in hospitals, schools and security forces, privatising most of these services, without mentioning that such a privatisation surge would make these services unaffordable for the poor. He also wants a fiscal reform that would vastly benefit the top 1 percent, to which he belongs.

Regarding societal development, Fillon and Le Pen want to counteract liberal advances  same-sex marriage, secularism, social blending. Both candidates are heavily supported by traditional Catholic circles that would welcome a return to the times when individual differences and cultural mixing were frowned upon.

The Putin factor





Not surprisingly, both Fillon and Le Pen have long been cultivating close relationships with Putin.

Le Pen was in Moscow on Friday and Fillon has always been a regular presence at the Kremlins social gatherings. As a result, the foreign policy platform of both candidates seems to have been dictated by Moscow. Le Pen is saying there is nothing wrong with the annexation of Crimea by Russia. Fillon, on the other hand, called for an intervention of the French army in favour of Bashar al-Assads forces and Iran.

These issues cannot be adequately explained to the public in debates that last a few mere hours. But by jamming media airwaves with false claims of conspiracy, both Le Pen and Fillon manage to avoid being held accountable for their proposals.

OPINION: Why the French elections will change the face of Europe

Fillon and Le Pen are both trying to gain support by attacking an unpopular president. If they can continue to implement this strategy successfully, one of them would be able to step in the Elysee Palace without their policy programme being challenged.

It already worked in Washington, but hopefully it will not work in Paris.

Remi Piet is a research associate on political economy and foreign policy at the Florida International University.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
The man known affectionately as Uncle Kathy is no more.

Ahmed Kathrada, anti-apartheid activist, politician, and community leader best known for his close relationship with former South African president Nelson Mandela, passed away in Johannesburg in the early hours of Tuesday.

The 87-year-old, who spent 26 years as a political prisoner on Robben Island and then Pollsmore prison, struggled with a brief illness following brain surgery, his foundation said.

READ MORE: Anti-apartheid icon Ahmed Kathrada dies

South African leaders across the political spectrum rallied behind his legacy, and paid tribute to the anti-apartheid icon known for his fierce opposition to racism and steadfast commitment to social justice.

Despite being eligible for state burial as one the countrys foremost anti-apartheid icons, the foundation said Kathrada had requested a simple burial as per Islamic tradition.

Ari Sitas, head of school at the Department of Sociology at the University of Cape Town, said humility was Kathradas trademark.

He was emblematic of that generation of leadership in the ANC  a generation that sacrificed everything, came out humble, came out proud and without hatred. I am highly respectful of him and the role he played.

He was the consistent moralist; humble and fearless, Sitas told Al Jazeera.

History of activism

Born in 1929, Kathrada became involved in politics at an early age, enduring a series of arrests as a young activist.

In 1952, he was sentenced to nine months imprisonment with Mandela for organising the Defiance Campaign, considered one of the first large-scale political mobilisations against apartheid laws. In 1956, he was put on trial for high treason, again with Mandela and Walter Sisulu. They were subsequently acquitted.

He by Ari

moral integrity had to win out in his imagination.]

In 1963, Kathrada was arrested at Liliesleaf farm, an ANC safe house in Rivonia, and was accused of attempting to overthrow the government. In 1964, he was found guilty along with 10 other ANC members as part of the now-infamous Rivonia trial and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

He was released from prison in 1989 and served on the ANC committee, eventually elected as a member of parliament following South Africas first democratic elections in 1994.

Between 1997-2006, he was chairperson of the Robben Island Museum Council. The following year, he launched the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation focusing on deepening his life-long mission of fighting racism and building a more socially cohesive South Africa.

Neeshan Balton, executive director of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, said it was a  great loss to the ANC, the broader liberation movement and South Africa as a whole.

Internationally, he was staunch in his support for the Palestinian struggle. Kathy was an inspiration to millions in different parts of the world, said Balton.

Kathrada remained a close confidant of Mandela until his passing in 2013, an event that Kathrada said left him bereft and lonely.

On Tuesday, it was the Mandela family who spoke of Kathradas death as a tremendous loss to their family. His daughter, Zenani Mandela, speaking at the Nelson Mandela Foundation, cried as she described Kathrada as her second father.

Despite retiring from government in 1997, Kathrada was still seen as a flag bearer of the larger project of a more equitable country.

Ayanda Kota, or ganiser for the Unemployed Peoples Movement, s aid Kathradas death comes at a time when the vultures are fighting viciously over the countrys resources.

But it was his ability to step out in his old age and speak against corruption that made him a towering figure who was true to his generational mission, Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, spokesperson for the Economic Freedom Fighters political party (EFF), said.

Its important to remember that he never felt entitled, Ndlozi told Al Jazeera.

Following a series of corruption scandals in government, and rising discontent with President Jacob Zumas administration, Kathrada wrote an open letter to Zuma asking him to step down.

I am not a political analyst, but I am now driven to ask: Dear Comrade President, dont you think your continued stay as President will only serve to deepen the crisis of confidence in the government of the country? he wrote.

It was his ability to put moral integrity at the top of his agenda that drew people to Kathrada.

He was aware that problems could exist during a transition period [but] moral integrity had to win out in his imagination, Sitas said. He showed that there were people in the movement who could still put that first.

Section 27, the public interest law centre based in Johannesburg, said in its tribute to Kathrada that it was this gentle resolve that distinguished this freedom fighter.

Winner among youth

Kathrada was an extremely popular figure among young South Africans.

Yazeed Kamaldien, a Cape-Town based journalist who accompanied Kathrada to Robben Island a number of times, said his popularity stemmed from a genuine attempt to engage and listen to everyone.

He never asserted his ego. You never felt that he was trying to impose his experience or knowledge, Kamaldien said.

In an interview in 2015, Kathrada said after more 300 trips to Robben Island since his release from prison  in which he conducted guided tours for global leaders, including former US President Barack Obama and celebrities like pop star Beyonce  he chose to highlight taking a 13-year-old Afrikaner girl suffering from leukemia as his most memorable excursion back.

It was precisely because she was a child whose dying wish was to visit Robben Island and meet Madiba [Nelson Mandela] that stood out for me, Kathrada said at the time.

Kathrada was also a source of support to the Fees Must Fall (FMF) movement that began in 2015 across South African universities, calling for the end of tuition fees and better access to higher education.

Every time we lose someone like this, its like we lose another guide. It feels as if another light has gone off, Kamaldien said.
Kathrada, beloved by millions of South Africans, spent 26 years in jail, many of them alongside Nelson Mandela.

Anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, who spent 26 years in jail  many of them alongside Nelson Mandela  for acts of sabotage against South Africas white minority government, died in Johannesburg on Tuesday morning at the age of 87.

He had been admitted to hospital with blood clotting in his brain earlier this month.

Kathrada was born on August 21, 1929, to Indian immigrant parents in a small town in northwestern South Africa .

He was among those tried and jailed alongside Mandela in the Rivonia trial in 1964, which drew worldwide attention and highlighted the brutal legal system under the apartheid regime.

READ MORE: Ahmed Kathradas Robben Island Diaries

Kathrada was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964 and spent 26 years and three months in prison, 18 of which were on Robben Island.

After the end of apartheid, he served from 1994 and 1999 as parliamentary counsellor to President Mandela in the first African National Congress (ANC) government.

Al Jazeeras Tania Page, reporting from Johannesburg, said that it was a sad day in South Africa  where Kathrada was affectionately known as Uncle Kathy  as tributes poured in about his widely perceived kindness, humility, and honesty.

He had been a major part of many South Africans memories over decades of anti-apartheid struggle, Page said.

I think his passing is sort of signalling to South Africans, yet again, the ending of an era, of these great giants of apartheid [resistance] as they pass on, she added.

Kathrada gave an emotional speech at Mandelas funeral, in which he said he had lost a brother.

Kathrada was, until recently, still active in public life. He formed his own foundation and advocated strongly for human rights causes such as youth development, anti-racism, and freedom of speech.

Last year, he joined a movement of veteran figures who were critical of the governing ANC and its current crop of leaders  particularly President Jacob Zuma , who has been mired in mounting allegations of corruption . Kathrada penned an open letter to the president and called on him to step down.

Right to the very end he kept himself relevant, he was a newsmaker, he was honest and true to his values and his beliefs, Page said. And thats why so many millions of South Africans will be very sad at his passing today.

INSIDE STORY: Will South Africas Jacob Zuma hang on to power?

This is a great loss to the ANC, the broader liberation movement and South Africa as a whole, Neeshan Balton, head of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, said in a statement.

Kathy was an inspiration to millions in different parts of the world.

Kathradas activism against the white-minority apartheid regime started at the age of 17, when he was one of 2,000 passive resisters arrested in 1946 for defying a law that discriminated against Indian South Africans.

In July 1963, the police swooped on Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, a Johannesburg suburb where Kathrada and other senior activists had been meeting in secret.

At the famous Rivonia trial, eight of the accused were sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour on Robben Island.

His fellow prisoners included Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Denis Goldberg.
Three bodies discovered  including a decapitated womans  during search for Congolese, American, and Swedish UN staff.

The remains of two UN investigators and their Congolese interpreter who went missing two weeks ago have been found in Democratic Republic of Congos Kasai-Central province, the government and the UN said.

American Michael Sharp, Swede Zaida Catalan, interpreter Betu Tshintela, driver Isaac Kabuayi, and two motorcycle drivers disappeared in the restive province on March 12.

In a statement issued in New York, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres confirmed that the remains of the two investigators had been found and said the world body would conduct an inquiry.

Michael and Zaida lost their lives seeking to understand the causes of conflict and insecurity in the DRC in order to help bring peace to the country and its people, the UN chief said.

The UN researchers were looking into recent large-scale violence and alleged human rights violations by the Congolese army and local militia groups when they went missing.

Guterres said the United Nations would cooperate with Congolese authorities in searching for the four Congolese nationals who accompanied the UN officials.

In case of criminal acts, the United Nations will do everything possible to ensure that justice is done, the UN chief said.

READ MORE: Soldiers kill 101 in clashes in DRC

Government spokesman Lambert Mende said one of the bodies, that of the woman, had been beheaded.

The confirmation came a day after Sharps father, John Sharp, wrote on his Facebook page that the bodies of two Caucasians had been found in shallow graves in the search area, saying there was a high probability the dead were his son and his sons colleague.

Political instability

The disappearance is the first time UN experts have been reported missing in Congo, Human Rights Watch said.





Parts of Congo, particularly the east, have experienced insecurity for decades, but violence in the Kasai region in central Congo represents a new expansion of tensions.

The Kamwina Nsapu militia has been fighting security forces since last year, with the violence increasing after security forces killed the militias leader in August.

More than 400 people have been killed and more than 200,000 displaced since then, according to the UN.

Militias have been blamed for atrocities and government forces are accused of attacking civilians.

The militia reportedly killed more than 40 police officers in an ambush on Saturday and only spared those who spoke their local language. They were reportedly beheaded.

The UN has almost 19,000 troops deployed in Congo, its largest and costliest peacekeeping mission.
Thirty-five protesters arrested and 3 police injured in protests that come just days after march against police abuse.

Clashes in Paris between police and protesters angry over the killing of a Chinese man in his home by police have left three police officers injured and 35 protesters arrested, authorities said on Tuesday.

Demonstrators gathered on Monday evening in the multicultural 19th district on the French capitals northeastern edge.

With candles spelling violence lining the road, scores of protesters broke down barricades, threw projectiles and set fire to a car during violence that lasted several hours.

Police sources told the AFP agency that officers were called to the mans house on Sunday after reports of a domestic dispute. An officer shot the man after being attacked with a knife, according to the official account.

The mans family, though, has disputed this and said there was no domestic dispute. They say the man was shot without warning after a neighbour called the police about shouting.

READ MORE: Justice for Theo  Police abuse is an everyday thing

On Tuesday, China urged France to guarantee the safety and legal rights and interests of Chinese citizens in France and to treat the reaction of Chinese people to this incident in a rational way, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular press briefing, adding that the government had filed an official complaint.





After learning of the incident, China immediately ordered its embassy in France to activate an emergency response mechanism [and] made representations with the French side, asking them to get to the bottom of the incident, she said.

Meanwhile, we hope that our citizens  in France can express their wishes and demands in a lawful and reasonable way.

The violence comes just days after several thousand people marched in Paris in a show of anger sparked by the alleged rape in February of a young black man with a police baton, and other alleged police abuse.

Protesters chanted no justice, no peace and police everywhere, justice nowhere to call for an end to what they say is the use of excessive police force, especially against black and other minority groups.

The 22-year-old man, identified only as Theo, was allegedly raped with the baton when officers stopped him in the northern Paris suburb Aulnay-sous-Bois. He was hospitalised for two weeks.

READ MORE: In France, Black Lives Matter has become a rallying cry

One officer has been charged with rape, while three others have been accused of aggravated assault. A lawyer for the officer charged with rape said that any injury inflicted was done accidentally. All have denied any intentional wrongdoing.

Theo has become a symbol of minority victims of police brutality, prompting widespread protests that have sometimes descended into riots.





Anarchists faced off with riot police at the end of that march and tear gas was fired. But clashes remained limited in scope and violence.

On the same night that Theo was allegedly raped, a sold-out concert took place to support the family of Traore who died in police custody in July 2016.

It was his case that propelled the issue of police brutality into the spotlight across France last year. Police originally said he died of a heart attack, but a second autopsy found Adama passed away due to asphyxiation. An investigation is still ongoing.

A 2009 study found that a person of African or Caribbean background is six times more likely to be stopped by French police than a white person.
Hundreds go on a violent rampage wounding eight in Greater Noida after teens drug death blamed on Nigerian man.

Hundreds of residents of an Indian city where a teenage boy died of a suspected drug overdose went on a violent rampage against Africans, using steel chairs to attack shoppers in a local shopping centre.

The riots broke out late on Monday after police in Greater Noida, a satellite city of New Delhi, released five African students detained over the youths death, saying they had no evidence against them.

One television station showed an angry mob hitting a car with sticks, while another showed dozens of attackers using steel chairs to hit shoppers in a mall.

Police said 10 people had been wounded, while Indias foreign minister said authorities were investigating the attacks.

There will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident, Sushma Swaraj tweeted.

In a Facebook post, the Association of African Students in India told its members to stay indoors and not attend lectures on Tuesday for fear of possible attacks.

Africans living in India frequently face discrimination and even violence, and are often accused of involvement in the illegal drug trade.

READ MORE: Being African in India  We are seen as demons

The issue was thrown into the spotlight after the stoning to death of a Congolese national in a dispute over an auto-rickshaw last year.

After that, African ambassadors in New Delhi threatened to advise students from their countries to avoid universities in the capital for their own safety.

The latest attack stemmed from the death of a 16-year-old from an apparent drug overdose.

Police detained five Nigerian students in connection with the case after a group of local people went to their home and accused them of murder.

The students were later released without charge after police failed to find any evidence against them.

African student leader Samuel Jack said Mondays attack was just the latest example of racist violence against Africans.

We are targeted because of our colour, Jack told AFP news agency, adding that many African students were leaving the area out of fear.
High winds and heavy rainfall batter resorts along Great Barrier Reef, with some damage reported.

Cyclone Debbie has made landfall in northeast Australia, with lashing rain and howling winds battering the area and towns going into lockdown.

The category four storm  on a scale of five  began crossing the Queensland state coast on Tuesday, packing destructive wind gusts of up to 270 kilometres per hour near its wide core, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

Authorities urged some 30,000 people to evacuate before the storm hit island resorts along the Great Barrier Reef.

Before hitting the shore, the storm swept the Whitsunday Islands, where tourists waited out the storm in hotel rooms.

Were getting some reports already of roofs starting to lift, including at some of our own facilities in the Whitsundays, Queensland Police Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski told Australian Broadcasting Corporation television.

Authorities stockpiled food and fuel, and the army was on standby to deal with the aftermath.

However, as winds cut power to about 23,000 people, emergency response crews were also hunkered down until the storm blew over.

Authorities urged thousands of people in low-lying areas at risk from tidal surges and strong winds to flee their homes on Monday, in what would be the biggest evacuation seen in Australia since Cyclone Tracy devastated the northern city of Darwin in 1974.

However, police told Reuters they were not sure how many people had heeded that advice.

Ports at Abbot Point, Mackay and Hay Point were shut, Townsville airport was closed and airlines Qantas, Jetstar, Rex and Virgin Australia cancelled several flights to and from the region.

BHP Billiton and Glencore halted work at their coal mines in the storms path.
Police and demonstrators battle in Kinshasa as talks between President Kabilas government and opposition fall apart.

Congolese police fired rounds into the air and launched tear gas canisters to disperse hundreds of opposition supporters in Kinshasa on Tuesday after talks between the opposition and President Joseph Kabilas government fizzled out.

Unrest broke out in the Democratic Republic of Congos capital after Catholic bishops withdrew from their role as mediators between the government and opposition in talks aimed at paving the way for delayed elections later this year.

Demonstrators, some burning tyres at city crossroads, took to the streets in several areas in Kinshasa.

A Reuters news agency witness saw opposition members gathering at the home of the late Etienne Tshisekedi, the main opposition partys former leader, during a news conference with his son, the new Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UPDS) party leader, Felix Tshisekedi.





Many shops remained closed and some schools called parents to collect their children

Kabilas mandate ran out in December but polls were not held because of what the government said were budgetary constraints, sparking violent protests at the end of last year in which security forces killed at least 40 people.

DRCs conference of Catholic bishops (CENCO) helped negotiate a December 31 deal aimed at avoiding a political crisis by ensuring an election this year to elect Kabilas successor.

In January, the bishops warned the deal was at risk of unravelling if politicians did not act quickly to reach compromises and implement it.

The bishops stepped aside on Tuesday after progress on the deal stalled, raising the prospect of renewed violence in a country that has suffered a succession of wars and rebellions.

READ MORE  UN says soldiers kill 101 in clashes with Kamwina Nsapu

We think that theres no longer anything to do, Donatien Nshole, secretary-general of CENCO, told Reuters. We have given all our time and all our energy, and in the meantime, pastoral work suffers.

Kabila has ruled the mineral-rich central African nation since his fathers assassination in 2001. His critics accuse him of deliberately delaying elections in order to remain in power.

Grave concern

DRC has never experienced a peaceful transition of power and millions have died in conflicts in the countrys east since 1996, most from hunger and disease.

Meanwhile, the UN, EU, and African Union expressed grave concern on Tuesday over violence in the Kasai region, including the reported killing of 40 police officers on Saturday.

The organisations condemn this despicable act and express their condolences to the families of the victims, they said, after Congolese national police accused rebels of killing the officers in an ambush.

Together with the International Organisation of Francophonie, they express deep concern over the grave situation in the Kasai provinces in central DR Congo.
Israeli police arrest Palestinian guards after they try to stop archaeologist from removing ancient stone from compound.

Jerusalem  The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem says Israels detention of Palestinian security guards working at the al-Aqsa compound is unacceptable and Israeli police are trying to change the status quo at the holy site.

Israeli police detained several guards working at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem earlier this week after they prevented an Israeli archaeologist from trying to remove a stone from the religious compound.





I believe the Israeli police are trying to impose a new reality and are trying to intimidate the al-Aqsa guards and to stop them from carrying out their duty, Mufti Muhammad Hussein told Al Jazeera.

That is unacceptable.

The initial confrontation happened on Monday morning after the guards at al-Aqsa intervened when Yuval Baruch, employed by the Israeli Antiquities Authority and escorted by Israeli police, entered the compound and tried to take a stone from a pillar in an underground section of the al-Qibli mosque.

A heated argument ensued when one of the guards allegedly noticed Baruch remove a small piece of stone from the pillar and place it in his pocket. Baruch has denied trying to remove it.

The antiquities employee was removed from the area by police, but later tried to re-enter the underground Marwani prayer hall. Al-Aqsa guards quickly refused him entry.

Israeli police returned to the compound and arrested three guards, according to the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, a religious trust tasked with managing the al-Aqsa compound.

The police later raided the homes of four other guards and arrested them, before detaining another guard on Tuesday.

Six guards remained in Israeli police custody as of Tuesday night.

Qasem Kamal, Khalil Terhoni, Arafat Najeeb, Osama Siam, Samer Qabbani and Emad Abdeen were expected to appear before a judge in Jerusalem on Wednesday, the Waqf said.

Israeli police told Al Jazeera in a brief statement only five people had been detained for attacking police officers and the incident was under investigation.

READ MORE: Palestinians in East Jerusalem battle for their homes

Mufti Hussein demanded that Israel respect the status quo that has prevailed since before Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967.

While Jews and non-Muslims are allowed to visit the compound, non-Muslim worship is prohibited according to an agreement signed between Jordan and Israel shortly after Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967.

The agreement put Islamic Waqf in charge of the compounds administration.

The Mufti added that maintenance and renovation work at the compound are matters dealt with only by the Waqf and Israel has no right to intervene.

Tensions at al-Aqsa Mosque were a significant contributor to the wave of unrest that began in October 2015, after right-wing Israelis made frequent visits to the compound during the Jewish high holidays.

The al-Aqsa compound, also known as the Noble Sanctuary, is the third holiest site in Islam. Jews, who refer to the area as the Temple Mount, also see it as a venerated holy site and believe it sits where the First and Second Temples once stood.





Sheikh Omar Keswani, a senior Waqf official, told Al Jazeera the Israeli authority had no business in the al-Aqsa compound, but that it frequently breaks in with a police force.

Israeli police routinely escort Jewish visitors around the compound, and they often facilitate the visits of right-wing Israeli politicians who have been charged with attempting to change the status quo at the holy site.

Right-wing activist and member of parliament, Yehuda Glick petitioned Israels high court on Tuesday to repeal a ban barring members of Israels parliament  or Knesset  into the compound.

Glick was shot and wounded in October 2014 in an assassination attempt.

He is a member of the Temple Mount Faithful, a group that calls for liberating the Temple Mount from Arab occupation.

The group advocates rebuilding a Jewish temple at the religiously important site, including the area containing the mosque.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday the prohibition on Knesset members and ministers visiting the al-Aqsa compound  in place since tensions erupted in December 2015  would gradually be phased out over the course of three months, if security conditions permit it.
Archived Results for Tuesday, March 28th, 2017

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Fair chance that coalition bombing had role in killing scores of people, says top US commander in Iraq.

The top US commander in Iraq on Tuesday acknowledged the likelihood that the US-led coalition played a role in blasts in Mosul that killed many civilians this month, but said an investigation was under way and ISIL may also be to blame.

My initial assessment is that we probably had a role in these casualties  What I dont know is were they [the civilians] gathered there by the enemy? We still have some assessments to do, Lieutenant-General Steve Townsend told a Pentagon news briefing, speaking from Iraq.

I would say this, that it sure looks like they were.





Conflicting accounts have emerged since the March 17 explosion in al-Jadida district in west Mosul, where Iraqi forces, backed by US-led coalition air strikes, are fighting to clear Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters from Iraqs second city.

Investigators are in Mosul to determine whether a US-led coalition strike or ISIL-rigged explosives caused a blast that destroyed buildings and may have killed more than 200 people.

My initial impression is the enemy had a hand in this. And theres also a fair chance that our strike had some role in it, Townsend said.

I think its probably going to play out to be some sort of combination. But you know what, I cant really say for sure and we just have to let the investigation play out.

More than 300 civilians have been killed in west Mosul since Iraqi forces and the US-led coalition began an offensive last month to push ISIL out of its last stronghold in Iraq, the UN said on Tuesday, adding the toll could exceed 400 if new killings are verified.

This is an enemy that ruthlessly exploits civilians to serve its own ends, and clearly has not even the faintest qualm about deliberately placing them in danger, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad al-Hussein said in a statement.

[ISILs] strategy of using children, men and women to shield themselves from attack is cowardly and disgraceful. It breaches the most basic standards of human dignity and morality, he said.

OPINION: Iraqs new marginalised population

Hundreds of thousands more civilians are still trapped inside west Mosul after Iraqi forces and the US-coalition recaptured the citys east from ISIL in January.

West Mosul is both smaller and more densely populated than the citys east, meaning this stage of the battle poses a greater danger to civilians than those that came before.

Amnesty Internationals Donatella Rovera said field research in east Mosul showed an alarming pattern of US-led coalition air strikes, which have destroyed whole houses with entire families inside.





The high civilian toll suggests that coalition forces  have failed to take adequate precautions to prevent civilian deaths, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, she said.

In the east, the Iraqi forces adopted a strategy of encouraging civilians to stay at home, dropping leaflets into the city with safety instructions for residents.

The fact that Iraqi authorities repeatedly advised civilians to remain at home instead of fleeing the area indicates that coalition forces should have known that these strikes were likely to result in a significant numbers of civilian casualties, Rovera told Al Jazeera.

Witnesses told Amnesty that people were killed in their own homes after heeding government advice not to flee the city.

The UN said it also received reports of another 95 people killed in four western Mosul neighbourhoods between March 23 and 26.

The rights office said it was not in a position to provide a breakdown of the deaths caused by ISIL violence and air strikes by the international anti-ISIL coalition.
Deadly standoff between rebels and police sparks protests in Chadoora town, leaving three people dead and 28 injured.

At least three civilians have been killed during protests in India-administered Kashmir after police targeted a home where a suspected rebel was holed up.

About 28 people were also injured in Tuesdays demonstration that followed a gun battle at the home in the southern town of Chadoora, where the suspected fighter was killed, police and witnesses said.

The firefight began after police and soldiers cordoned off Chadoora after a tip-off that at least one gunman was hiding in the house, said police Inspector-General Syed Javaid Mujtaba Gillani.

Army spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia said one rebel was killed in the operation and a weapon was recovered from the site. Residents said Indian troops blasted the house with explosives.

As the fighting raged, hundreds of residents chanting anti-India slogans marched to the area.

IN PICTURES: Kashmir  At a tipping point?

Witnesses said intense clashes between rock-throwing protesters and government forces erupted just a few hundred metres from the besieged house, with police and paramilitary soldiers firing shotgun pellets and tear gas to stop the demonstration. Violence quickly spread to multiple areas.

Later, government forces fired into the crowd, killing three civilians, including a teenager, and injuring at least 20 others, police said, adding that eight police and soldiers were also hurt in the clashes.

Arshad Hussain, a 22-year-old resident of Chadoora who witnessed the clashes, said that government forces deliberately fired at people.

Today, I dodged bullets for the first time [in my life] and it was very scary. Blood and pieces of flesh were visible in the corridor of the house where the rebel had taken his position, he said.

Al Jazeera was unable to immediately reach the Jammu and Kashmir state government or the ruling Peoples Democratic Party for comment.

In Srinagar, the main city in India-administered Kashmir, police stopped an ambulance and took custody of the body of a 23-year-old student killed in the protests.

The man had been brought to a Srinagar hospital where doctors declared him dead.

Police fired tear gas and swung batons after the dead mans relatives pleaded to be allowed to take the body back to Chadoora.

A police officer, speaking on a customary condition of anonymity, said the body was taken to avoid more protests in Chadoora and it would be handed to relatives for burial later on Tuesday.

Disputed land

Nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the Himalayan territory in its entirety. Most people in Indias portion favour independence or a merger with Pakistan.

Separatist leaders who challenge Indias sovereignty over Kashmir called for a shutdown and further protests on Wednesday against the killing of the three civilians.

Three key leaders  Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and Yasin Malik  said in a statement that the killings were brazen state terrorism.

Last month, Indias army chief warned tough action would be taken against stone-throwers during counter-insurgency operations. But the anti-India protests and clashes have continued.

Rebels have fought against Indian rule in Kashmir since 1989. More than 68,000 people have been killed in the armed uprising and ensuing Indian military crackdown.

Additional reporting by Fahad Shah
Prosecutors say Jadranko Prlic should get 40-year sentence for his role in the deaths of Bosnian Muslims during the war.

Prosecutors have urged UN war crimes judges to impose a 40-year jail term on a former Bosnian Croat politician, denouncing his initial 25-year sentence as inadequate for massive crimes committed in the Bosnian war.

In imposing its original sentence on Jadranko Prlic in 2013, the chamber abused its discretion, prosecutor Barbara Goy told the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on Tuesday.

The crimes were massive in scale, she said. Tens of thousands of Muslims were evicted from their homes  Thousands were arrested and detained in awful conditions during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, she said.

OPINION: Commemorating Srebrenica

Muslims were killed during attacks or when forced to work on the front lines. They were raped, they were sexually assaulted. Muslim houses and mosques were destroyed, said Goy.

In an appeal launched last week at the tribunal based in The Hague, Prlic, who denied all the charges, is seeking to overturn the 25-year jail term.

It was imposed after he was convicted of murdering and deporting Muslims during the conflict, which erupted as part of the wars that tore the Balkans apart and killed more than 100,000 people and left 2.2 million displaced.

After the war, Prlic served as the defence minister and foreign minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

His five co-defendants in the case have also been sentenced to terms of 10 to 20 years in prison  which Goy slammed as unreasonable.

Croat domination

Goy also called for 40 years in prison for three of the men: former Defence Minister Bruno Stojic and senior military officials Slobodan Praljak and Milivoj Petkovic.

They all played key roles in the joint criminal enterprise to create Croat domination, Goy said.





Defence lawyer Michael Karnavas said the prosecutions appeal was ludicrous.

We do not accept the notion that Dr Prlic was  involved in any capacity through any of those events, he said.

The appeals court is set to deliver its sentence in November as the special court winds down more than 20 years after it was set up to prosecute the worst crimes of the Balkans wars.

It has said the Prlic case is one of the tribunals largest and most complicated.

A total of 326 witnesses took the stand during a trial that opened in 2006. The first sentencing ran to more than 2,600 pages.

The special court is also due to deliver in November a highly anticipated sentence in the case of former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic, the last person still on trial at the court.

In March 2016, the special court found former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic guilty of genocide and he was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

The UN has set up another tribunal to deal with any cases not completely ended at the special court.
Body of estranged half-brother of North Korean leader has not left the country, health minister says.

The body of Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, murdered in Malaysia last month, is still in Kuala Lumpur, health minister Health Minister Subramaniam Sathasivam said on Tuesday, after reports the remains would soon leave the country.

Kim was murdered on February 13 after two women  an Indonesian and a Vietnamese  smeared supremely toxic VX nerve agent on his face at the budget terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport, according to Malaysian police.

READ MORE: Court charges two women with Kim Jong-nam murder

We have to check with the forensics department if there was any requirement to bring the body out, but as far as we are concerned there is no change in status quo, Subramaniam told reporters.

He said the next of kin have not come forward to provide assistance on how the body is to be treated.

Media reports on Monday said the body was moved out of the hospital to a funeral parlour and was later being prepared to go on a flight to Beijing.

Malaysias New Straits Times newspaper reported on Tuesday that the body was expected to go from Beijing to North Korea, without disclosing its source.

Earlier this month, Interpol issued a red notice, the closest mechanism it has to an international arrest warrant, for four North Koreans wanted in connection with the death.

The death has resulted in a fierce diplomatic dispute between two countries that once had strong ties.

North Korea has questioned the Malaysian investigation into the death and refused to acknowledge that the dead man is Kim Jong-nam.
Africans were attacked with sticks and metal chairs in Greater Noida after teens drug death was blamed on Nigerian man.

Indian police arrested five men after hundreds of people went on a violent rampage targeting Africans outside New Delhi where a teenage boy died of a suspected drug overdose.

Senior police officer Sujata Singh told AFP news agency on Tuesday that four other suspects were on the run. He added that about 300 people were involved in the riots in Greater Noida city that started on Monday

One television station showed an angry mob hitting a car with sticks, while another showed dozens of attackers using steel chairs to hit shoppers in a mall.

Rumours were being spread that Africans were behind the youths death and racist comments were made on social media. It looks racially motivated, Singh said.

The unrest came after police in Greater Noida released five Nigerian students detained over the youths death, saying they had no evidence against them.

Africans living in India frequently face discrimination and even violence and are often accused of involvement in the illegal drug trade.

READ MORE: Crowds attack Africans in India after teens death

Endurance Amalawa, one of the attacked students, said he was outside a mall with his brother when they saw the mob running towards them.

We kept crying for help, but no one came, not even the security marshals. I was running but they followed me and attacked me, he said on NDTV television.

Some people were hitting us, pushing us out  They dragged my brother outside and start hitting him.

Indias foreign ministry condemned the incident as deplorable and said it had assured the Nigerian ambassador that all steps were being taken to protect the countrys nationals.

The government is committed to ensuring safety and security of all foreigners in India. People from Africa, including students and youth, remain our valued partners, said a ministry statement.

READ MORE: Being African in India  We are seen as demons

In a Facebook post, the Association of African Students in India told its members to stay indoors and not attend lectures on Tuesday for fear of possible attacks.

The issue was thrown into the spotlight after the stoning to death of a Congolese national in a dispute over an auto-rickshaw last year.

After that, African ambassadors in New Delhi threatened to advise students from their countries to avoid universities in the capital for their own safety.
Lee Ming-che disappeared after clearing immigration in Macau on March 19, but China remains mum about his whereabouts.

A Taiwanese human rights advocate who went missing last week in China has been arrested by mainland authorities, according to his wife.

Lee Ching-yu, the wife of non-governmental activist Lee Ming-che, said in a statement on Tuesday that reliable government sources suggest her husband has been detained by Chinese security officials.

I want the government of China to act like a civilised country and tell me what theyre doing with my husband on what legal grounds and  what they plan to do with him, Lee said.

The Taiwan Association for Human Rights said Lee disappeared after clearing immigration on March 19 in Macau, and never showed up for a planned meeting later that day with a friend across the border in Chinas city of Zhuhai.

READ MORE: China cuts communication channel with Taiwan

On Tuesday, Lees wife visited the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), a semi-official organisation handling business matters involving China.

She said her husband might need more money to get food and hypertension medicine.

SEF spokeswoman Lee Li-jen said her organisation has twice contacted its counterpart in China, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, but received no response.

We will contact them later today again, hoping to get more details, she told AP news agency.

Police and government officials in southern China either could not be reached or said they had no information about Lee. Chinas foreign ministry said it was unaware of his case.

One China dispute

Cheng Hsiu-chuan, president of a Taipei college where Lee worked, told AP the 42-year-old may have attracted the attention of Chinese security after using the Chinese social media service WeChat to teach China-Taiwan relations to an unknown number of people.

For China, the material he was teaching would be seen as sensitive, Cheng said.

Cheng said Beijing should release public records about his entry, such as CCTV images.

The Mainland Affairs Council has engaged. Well do our best, Taiwans presidential spokesman Alex Huang said late on Tuesday.

In June, China halted communications with Taiwan, a move triggered by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wens failure to endorse the one China principle, which requires countries that seek diplomatic relations with China to break official relations with Taiwan.

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949. China insists the two sides must eventually unify  by force, if necessary.
Prime Minister Theresa May hails joint economic and trade committee with Gulf state as Britain prepares for Brexit.

Britain is establishing a joint economic and trade committee to pave the way for a post-Brexit trade agreement with Gulf states, Prime Minister Theresa May said, as her government announced that Qatar has pledged to invest $6.28bn in the country.

May, who is due to begin the formal process of leaving the European Union, said on Tuesday that Britain was seeking to deepen its relationship with Qatar in areas including defence, education, healthcare, energy and financial services.

Im delighted that we are also establishing a new joint economic and trade committee, she told a Qatar-UK investment conference in Birmingham, central England.

READ MORE: Britain to deepen security cooperation with the GCC

She is due to meet Qatari investors later on Tuesday.

I hope we can pave the way for an ambitious trade agreement for when the UK has left the EU including exploring whether we can forge a new trade agreement for the whole of the Gulf area, she added.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Nasser al-Thani told the conference that the planned $6.26bn of investment would be across all parts of the country, including Scotland.

British Trade Minister Liam Fox said the investment shows Qatars faith in the British economy.

Qatars emir has given a strong vote of confidence and faith in our economy, he said.

Al Jazeeras Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Birmingham, said that despite Brexit, Qatar is delivering a message that Britain will continue to be a primary business destination.

Business ties between Qatar and the UK have been long established. So it is really not a surprise that they will continue to investment more. What is interesting is that Qatar is expressing such confidence at a time when there is less confidence as to how the British economy will perform going forward, he said.

Post-Brexit economy

Qatar, the worlds biggest exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG), announced the investment on Monday.





The Gulf state currently has about $50bn worth of investments in Britain and delivers 90 percent of Britains imports of liquefied natural gas.

Qatar sees Britains exit from the European Union as an opportunity to boost supplies of liquefied natural gas to the worlds fifth-largest economy and is open to investing in British energy assets, Qatars energy minister said.

The UK will have a new era post-Brexit  The negotiations will start among Europeans and nobody is extremely clear about where the negotiations will lead to, Energy Minister Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada said in an interview with the Reuters news agency late on Monday.

Britain started receiving LNG from Qatar in 2008 via ships that dock at South Hook, in Kent, one of Europes largest LNG terminals, which is owned by Qatar.

Europe is an important market. The UK is a very important market, Sada said.

Like other Gulf economies, Qatar is trying to restructure its economy to rely less on hydrocarbons. It faces rising competition in Asia from other LNG producers as new projects in the US and Australia come online in the next few years, and Doha has said it will focus on expanding contracts in Europe.
Motion passed 69 votes to 59 and comes a day before the UK takes the formal step towards Brexit.

Scotlands parliament has voted in favour of a call by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon for a second referendum on Scottish independence within two years, but the British government has refused to discuss it.

The motion passed 69 votes to 59 on Tuesday and paves the way for the opening of formal talks between Scotland and the British government on the new referendum, coming just three years after Scottish voters rejected independence.





Al Jazeeras Neave Barker, reporting from London, said it was a significant step forward for supporters of Scottish independence in bringing about something that was essentially scuppered back in 2014.

For Brexit supporters, it means a massive headache, he said.

On Wednesday, British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to trigger Article 50 of the European Unions Lisbon Treaty, the first formal step towards Brexit that Scotland opposes.

Sturgeon, who leads the Scottish National Party (SNP), has complained that her efforts to seek a compromise on Britains exit from the EU met intransigence from Mays Conservative government.

Scotlands future should be in Scotlands hands, Sturgeon told lawmakers in the Edinburgh-based parliament.

She told Scottish legislators she would seek to negotiate with the British government in good faith and with a willingness to compromise.

Should that fail, she promised to inform the parliament of the next steps next month.

Londons response

Shortly after the parliaments approval, the British government said on Tuesday it would not be entering into negotiations on the referendum.

It would be unfair to the people of Scotland to ask them to make a crucial decision without the necessary information about our future relationship with Europe, or what an independent Scotland would look like, it said.

Al Jazeeras Nadim Baba, reporting from Edinburgh, said the current public opinion in Scotland on the issue was divided in the middle.

What people in Scotland want to know is what exactly the relationship with the EU would be in future and whether its worth prioritising staying in the EU over the trade union with the rest of the UK, he said.

The UKs vote last year to exit the EU has strained ties between its four constituent parts because England and Wales voted to leave while Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain.
Heavy clashes between rebels and government forces in past week have displaced thousands, mostly women and children.

Nearly 40,000 people, mostly women and children, have been displaced over the past week by fighting northwest of Syrias Hama city, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Since the rebel offensive began in the area a week ago, people have fled south and west to Hama city and neighbouring districts in Homs, Latakia and Tartous, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement.

Some internally displaced people are at risk of further displacement as the front lines continue to shift, it said.





Rebels led by the hardline Tahrir al-Sham alliance  formed by a group that once fought as al-Qaedas affiliate in Syria  launched attacks on March 21 with the aim of retaking areas captured by government forces in 2016 and pushed into Hama city.

At least 10 rebel groups battling as part of the Free Syrian Army are also engaged in heavy fighting in northern Hama.

The Ahrar al-Sham rebel group, once the strongest in Syrias north, announced on Tuesday that it too had begun an offensive in Hama.

Ahrar al-Sham military spokesman Omar Khittab announced in a video posted to YouTube the beginning of a new stage of fighting against this criminal regime and against its sectarian militias.

Ahrar al-Sham appears to have entered the fight in Hama as part of a separate operation because of recent clashes between it and Tahrir al-Sham in Syrias north.

READ MORE: US-backed Syria forces resume fighting near Tabqa dam

The Russian Defence Ministry said on Tuesday that Syrian government forces with Russian air support had eliminated more than 2,100 rebel fighters over the past four days, the state-run TASS news agency reported.

Colonel-General Sergey Rudskoy told the press that Tahrir al-Sham had deployed 10,000 fighters to Hama.

The numbers provided by the Russian Defence Ministry could not be independently verified by Al Jazeera.

The Syrian army announced on Monday that it had retaken several villages initially captured by rebels at the beginning of the offensive.

Additional reporting by Dylan Collins: @collinsdyl
An executive order on Tuesday will seek to boost fossil fuels by unravelling Obama measures to combat climate change.

US President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday to undo several Barack Obama-era climate change measures in what his government says is an effort to boost domestic energy production.

As part of the rollback, Trump will initiate a review of the Clean Power Plan, which restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants. The regulation, Obamas signature effort to curb carbon emissions, has been the subject of long-running legal challenges by Republican-led states and those who profit from burning oil, coal and gas.

Trump, who has called global warming a hoax invented by the Chinese, has repeatedly criticised the power-plant rule and others as an attack on workers and the struggling coal industry.

OPINION: Science doesnt care if you believe in it or not

The contents of the order were outlined to reporters in a sometimes tense briefing with a senior White House official, whom aides insisted speak without attribution.

The official at one point appeared to break with mainstream climate science, denying familiarity with widely publicised concerns about the potential adverse economic impacts of climate change, such as rising sea levels and more extreme weather.

In addition to pulling back from the Clean Power Plan, the administration will also lift a 14-month-old moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands.





The Obama administration had imposed a three-year moratorium on new federal coal leases in January 2016, arguing that the $1bn-a-year programme must be modernised to ensure a fair financial return to taxpayers and address climate change.

Trump accused his predecessor of waging a war on coal and boasted in a speech to congress that he had made a historic effort to massively reduce job-crushing regulations, including some that threaten the future and livelihoods of our great coal miners.

The order will also chip away at other regulations, including scrapping language on the social cost of greenhouse gases. It will initiate a review of efforts to reduce the emission of methane in oil and natural gas production, as well as a Bureau of Land Management hydraulic fracturing rule, to determine whether those reflect the presidents policy priorities.

It will also rescind Obama-era executive orders and memoranda, including one that addressed climate change and national security and one that sought to prepare the country for the impacts of climate change.

The administration is still considering whether it should withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change. But the moves to be announced on Tuesday will make it more difficult for the US to achieve its goals under the agreement.

READ MORE: The Paris climate agreement and why it matters

Trumps Environmental Protection Agency chief, Scott Pruitt, alarmed environmental groups and scientists earlier this month when he said he does not believe carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming.

The statement is at odds with mainstream scientific consensus and Pruitts own agency.

The overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed studies and climate scientists agree that the planet is warming, mostly due to man-made sources, including carbon dioxide, methane, halocarbons and nitrogen oxide.

The official who briefed reporters said the president does believe in man-made climate change.

The issue of jobs

The power-plant rule Trump is set to address in his order has been on hold since last year as a federal appeals court considers a challenge by coal-friendly states and more than 100 companies who call the plan an unconstitutional power grab.

Opponents say the plan will kill coal-mining jobs and drive up electricity costs. The Obama administration, some Democratic-led states and environmental groups countered that it will spur thousands of clean-energy jobs and help the US meet ambitious goals to reduce carbon pollution set by the international agreement signed in Paris.

Trumps order on coal-fired power plants follows an executive order he signed last month mandating a review of an Obama-era rule aimed at protecting small streams and wetlands from development and pollution.





The order instructs the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers to review a rule that redefined waters of the United States protected under the Clean Water Act to include smaller creeks and wetlands.

While Republicans have blamed Obama-era environmental regulations for the loss of coal jobs, federal data shows that US mines have been shedding jobs for decades under presidents from both parties as a result of increasing automation and competition from cheaper natural gas.

Another factor is the plummeting cost of solar panels and wind turbines, which now can produce emissions-free electricity cheaper than burning coal.

According to an Energy Department analysis released in January, coal mining now accounts for fewer than 70,000 US jobs.

By contrast, renewable energy  including wind, solar and biofuels  now accounts for more than 650,000 US jobs.

Praise and condemnation

The Trump administrations plans drew praise from business groups and condemnation from environmental groups.

US Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J Donohue praised the president for taking bold steps to make regulatory relief and energy security a top priority.

These executive actions are a welcome departure from the previous administrations strategy of making energy more expensive through costly, job-killing regulations that choked our economy, he said.

OPINION: The case for collaborating on climate change

Former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy accused the Trump administration of wanting us to travel back to when smokestacks damaged our health and polluted our air, instead of taking every opportunity to support clean jobs of the future.

This is not just dangerous; its embarrassing to us and our businesses on a global scale to be dismissing opportunities for new technologies, economic growth, and US leadership, she said in a statement.
With the Midterm Elections less than one week away: What do you consider the top issues that you will be voting on to be corrected by your better representation?

Education Crime Big Government getting Bigger Biden /Democrat controlled Spike in Energy Cost Inflation created by Legislation of Majority in Power Gender Reassignment Corrupted Bureaucratic /Service (DOJ, FBI, etc.) Institutions Abortion Discredited Legacy Media Ending the Corruption of Dishonest Politicians Corruptive Influence of Social Media Wide Open Southern Border
Dozens of academics sign letter condemning the University of Manchester for action against pro-Palestinian activists.

Academics at a British university have condemned ongoing disciplinary action against two students accused of unfurling a banner in support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS).

The banner, which was dropped from the student union building at the University of Manchester earlier in March, read Stop Arming Israel and was targeted at the institutions ties to companies involved in producing equipment for the Israeli army.

In the letter published on Monday, 44 academics in Manchester, backed by their trade unions, said the university should applaud the students activism instead of punishing them.

The academics also criticised the universitys ties to Caterpillar, which produces bulldozers used by the Israeli army to destroy homes belonging to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The students drew attention to the University of Manchesters contravention of its own Policy for Socially Responsible Investment in investing in companies, such as Caterpillar, the statement read.

Such investments and collaborations by the University lend credibility and infrastructural support to Israels occupation, it added.

READ MORE: Are British universities silencing critics of Israel?

University of Manchester professor Mona Baker, one of the signatories of the letter, told Al Jazeera the institutions actions were inconsistent with its ethical responsibilities.

The [university] cannot pretend to be a caring institution with a sense of social responsibility while investing in the Israeli apartheid regime and threatening students with disciplinary measures for merely engaging in peaceful action against the continued repression of Palestinians, she said.

The two students at the centre of the action said they did not want to disclose their names pending the outcome of the disciplinary measure, which is due next week.

In a statement, they accused the university of censoring pro-Palestinian activism.

Not only is the universitys action here hypocritical and unjust but it shows there is at stake something far more fundamental  our democratic right to protest and express ourselves freely on issues of our concern, it said.

A university spokesperson would not comment on internal student conduct matters, but added: The University recognises that freedom of speech and expression within the law is of fundamental importance for universities, and has facilitated several events recently around this issue.

Accusations of censorship

The move by the university is the latest in an ongoing controversy over the place of Palestinian activism on British campuses.

Manchester was one of several institutions accused of censoring events organised by Palestinian activists by either vetoing speakers or cancelling events outright.

It is extremely important to offer solidarity to students who are active in the BDS movement at this time, as they are being targeted across UK campuses and not just in Manchester. by Mona Baker, professor, University of Manchester

Baker said the issue was more widespread than just Manchester.

It is extremely important to offer solidarity to students who are active in the BDS movement at this time, as they are being targeted across UK campuses and not just in Manchester.

The University of Manchester Students Union, one of the largest in the UK, passed a motion backing BDS in December.

Just last week, the students union at Queens University in Belfast, the largest in Northern Ireland, passed a similar motion.

Huda Ammori, a prominent pro-Palestinian activist in Manchester, said she and other campaigners would not be put off by any perceived censorship.

Pro-Palestinian students in the UK, we face continuous obstacles, but we will continue to fight until Palestinians are given basic human rights, she said.

The university community, including students, academics and trade unions, has united for freedom of speech: an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us.
After her sister was sexually assaulted as a teenager, UF alumna Jacqueline Ros created a product to make notifying friends of unsafe situations easier.

Her company, Revolar, will release its newest wearable safety device April 4 on the crowdfunding website Indiegogo.

Her new product, Revolar Instinct, will be smaller than the original Revolar, which came out in May 2016.

When people are in suspicious situations or walking alone, they can clip the device on their clothing and tap it to alert friends if they feel unsafe.

The upgraded device also tracks users' steps and vibrates to let the user know when someone received their message, which is sent through a mobile app.

We want to empower someone in those little moments, not just the big ones, said Ros, who graduated from UF in 2012 with a bachelors degree in international studies and Spanish. Sometimes you just need your friends to come and get you.

The 26-year-old said when her sister was assaulted, she couldnt unlock her phone or call for help. Ros wants to help others in similar situations.

Indiegogo users can buy the Instinct for $59 before its sold in stores for $79, she said.

The upcoming launch will offer a community package to college organizations to test the devices reverse notification feature, which warns organization members of danger. If triggered by a member, everyone in the organization will be notified of that persons location, Ros said.

Taylor Nicole Clark, a UF biology sophomore, said she bought a stun gun her first year at UF for walking home from the library late at night. She said she would use the Revolar device so her friends can track her if her phone dies.

It sounds genius, the 20-year- old said.

Ros said Revolar is the Spanish word for to take flight again. The company is named after her sister and other survivors of sexual assault.

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We want to honor those who pick themselves up repeatedly, she said.
Two years after its suspension from campus, UFs chapter of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity is back with a new class of brothers.

In mid-February, 60 brothers were initiated, said Matt Redler, the president of UFs chapter of the fraternity. They narrowed down the group from more than 800 applications and referral letters, which include men recommended to the fraternity from sororities.

Its really exciting to see the letters of ZBT around campus again, Redler said. I think weve been undeniably missed from the university for some time.

The chapter was suspended from UF in April 2015 after members reportedly spat, urinated and poured beer on veterans in Panama City, CNN reported at the time. No members of the fraternity faced criminal charges, according to Alligator archives.

The earliest the chapter could return to campus was Spring 2017, and they were required to recruit all new members, according to archives.

Laurence Bolotin, the executive director of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity, said staff members from ZBT were on campus since Summer recruiting new members.

Our expectation is that this group becomes the strongest fraternity on campus as well as the strongest within ZBT, Bolotin wrote in an email.

Redler said he was drawn to ZBT for its message and unique no-pledging system. He said in the Fall, he was formerly involved with another fraternity, which he declined to mention, but didnt like how it handled things.

Instead of having pledges, Redler said ZBT initiates new members 72 hours after receiving an invitation to join the fraternity. He said the no-pledging system is used to ensure that members uphold the fraternitys standards every day.

Redler said ZBT was the first fraternity to eliminate the pledge program.

We believe that members of our organization should earn their membership every single day they call themselves a ZBT, rather than just go through a tough education process as a pledge and never have to worry about earning the membership of the organization afterward, he said.

Redler said hes looking forward to expanding the chapter. He said after ZBTs suspension, he thinks they can rebuild its reputation by excelling academically and giving back to the community.

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I think just by sticking to our message we can be one of the strongest fraternities on campus in just a few years, he said.

Contact Romy Ellenbogen at rellenbogen@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @romyellenbogen

University Police officer, Henri Belleville, 43, signs a large beach volleyball during Zeta Beta Tau's grand debut philanthropy event. Every signature raises money for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals thanks to their sponsors.
Three UF students were among more than a dozen men arrested earlier this month for attempting to solicit sex with minors in a five-day undercover operation, officials said Tuesday.

Quinton Marcus Reddick

Hongyan Huang

Siddhartha Jain

Fifteen Florida men, including the students, were arrested during the sting, dubbed Operation Resilient, which was carried out by 46 law enforcement agents from seven agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Gainesville Police, said GPD spokesperson Officer Ben Tobias.

During the operation, which ran from March 15 to March 20, undercover officers posed as teenagers between the ages of 13 and 14, or as guardians of the children, and met with the men on an unknown social networking site, according to arrest reports.

The men  seven of whom live in Gainesville  all traveled within the states borders with the intent of meeting the teenagers for sexual acts, according to the reports.

Police arrested three UF students: Hongyan Huang, 22, Siddhartha Jain, 27, and Quinton Marcus Reddick, 22.

Authorities arrested Reddick at a Kangaroo Express gas station on Southwest 34th Street on March 17 and Huang on March 19 at a Winn-Dixie supermarket, located at 2002 SW 34th St., after they reportedly contacted officers who were posing as 14-year-old boys. Reddick is a computer science junior in Innovation Academy and Huang is a masters student studying information systems and operations management in the Warrington College of Business Administration, said UF spokesperson John Hines. Reddick traveled nearly three miles to meet with who he thought was a young boy after exchanging texts, according to an arrest report.

After his arrest, Reddick told police he wasnt going to have sex with the boy, and he only wanted to talk to him, according to the report.

At the same Southwest 34th Street Kangaroo gas station, police arrested Jain on March 16 after he reportedly told an undercover officer posing as a 14-year-old girl he wanted to engage in oral sex, according to an arrest report. Jain is also a UF masters student studying information systems and operations management at Warrington, Hines said.

Police arrested Huang after he told an undercover officer online who was posing as a 14-year-old boy that he wanted to perform oral sex on him, according to an arrest report.

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Hines said the three student suspects have trespass warnings against them on campus.

The other men arrested are as follows: German Daniel Varela, 36; Zachery Reid Page, 22; Darren Gene Lunbery, 47; Jack Denby Bergstresser Jr., 59; Edwin Cantero Hernandez, 56; Ray Steven Wood, 43; Cristian Omar Torres-Vega, 22; Joshua Tyler Gillen, 25; Jackie Lamar Bush II, 24; Doe Doe, 39; Scott Terry Kravatz, 38; and Toddrick Lavonne Speights, 20.

All of the men were arrested on charges of soliciting a child to commit a sexual act, traveling to meet a minor for unlawful sexual contact and unlawful use of a phone, according to the reports. Lunbery was also charged with resisting an officer after he pulled away as officers tried to arrest him, according to the report. In the struggle, he pulled the trigger of an officers taser, which was attached to the officers vest.

Lunbery, Reddick, Bergstresser, Hernandez, Wood, Gillen, Huang, Bush, Kravatz and Speights remain in Alachua County Jail in lieu of bonds ranging from $45,000 to $450,000.

Varela, Jain, Page and Torres-Vega were released from jail on bonds ranging from $45,000 to $90,000.

Contact Meryl Kornfield at mkornfield@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @MerylKornfield
University Police arrested two Florida men on Sunday after they were seen trying to steal bicycles in a UF parking garage behind Hume Hall.

George Bill Black

Jerome Lee Dunn

George Bill Black, 59, and Jerome Lee Dunn, 53, were found in the parking garage next to the Commuter Lot on Gale Lemerand Drive at about 7:45 p.m. after a 911 caller told police they were pulling bicycle locks in the garage, according to an arrest report.

After their arrest, Black and Dunn told police they were drinking in the garage until a ride came and picked them up, according to the report.

The witness who saw Black and Dunn pulling bicycle locks identified the men in a lineup, police said. He said he saw them trying to steal bicycles.

Police arrested Black and Dunn on a charge of loitering and prowling. The men were taken to Alachua County Jail where Black remains, as of press time, in lieu of a $25,000 bond. Dunn was released on his own recognizance on Monday afternoon.

Dunn could not be reached for comment.

Contact Meryl Kornfield at mkornfield@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @MerylKornfield

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Florida Highway Patrol arrested a Trenton, Florida, man Saturday on a charge of drinking and driving when he drove a car into a utility pole.

Matthew Edward Connelly

Matthew Edward Connelly, 57, was driving east near the 28000 block of W. Newberry Road at about 10:30 p.m. when traffic in front of him began to slow down, according to an arrest report. FHP said Connelly didnt see the traffic halting and swerved to avoid crashing into the car in front of him.

He drove off the road and into the other lane of traffic, hitting a utility pole in the right shoulder, according to the report.

A responding trooper noticed Connelly smelled like alcohol and had red, watery eyes, according to the report. He also performed poorly on field sobriety exercises, according to the responding officer.

When asked, he refused to give a sample of his breath, FHP said.

While being taken to jail, Connelly complained of neck pain and breathing problems, according to the report, and he banged his head against the back of his seat in the patrol car as he gasped for air.

When Alachua Fire Rescue arrived, Connelly would not cooperate with the paramedics, according to the report. FHP and paramedics had to pull him from the back of the patrol car.

He was taken to North Florida Regional Medical Center before he was taken to the Alachua County Jail.

Police arrested Connelly on charges of driving under the influence and causing damage. He was released from jail on his own recognizance Monday afternoon.

Connelly could not be reached for comment.

Contact Meryl Kornfield at mkornfield@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @MerylKornfield

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Ive always been an anime fan, and Ive never been too keen on hiding it. Thats not to say I go around wearing metal head covers or writing names in my black journal, but if anyone asks me, Im never shy. In fact, it hypes me up. I love talking about new anime or what will happen in the next episodes of unfinished shows. However, what I want to talk about today is not which anime I think are worth watching, but how I got into anime, and why you should, too.

To start, an anime is a Japanese cartoon. Anime can be any kind of genre, ranging the gamut of comedy, sci-fi, mystery, action, fantasy, etc. They are usually shown in one of three versions: the original which is unedited and in Japanese, a subbed (short for subtitle) version where the characters dialogues are subtitled at the bottom of the video and dubbed, where the voice acting is replaced with English or American voice acting. Personally, I like subbed the best because once you get used to reading subtitles, then the entire show flows much better. I dont like dubbed because its hard to find a good dub, and most of the time you get horrid voice acting  which completely ruins an anime.

Now that you know all of this, you know much more than I did when I first started watching anime. I started at a young age when Naruto first started appearing on the late-night Saturday version of Cartoon Network, called Toonami. It was a special late-night treat as occasionally the characters would curse, and you can imagine how excited that made a little kid like I was at the time.

Naruto is a story of a young, lonely orphan boy, Naruto, who endures everything to become the greatest ninja in his village, the Hokage. At the time of his birth, Narutos parents sacrificed themselves to protect him, but in doing so ended up cursing Naruto, in a way. This curse causes the entire village to outcast Naruto and essentially wish he was dead. Despite his endeavors, Narutos way of ninja, or life philosophy, is to never go back on his word, that he will become the next and greatest Hokage  an aspiration that was previously achieved by four other ninjas who completely outclass Naruto.

So, how do I connect to this whole story? Well, Im not a ninja, Im not an orphan, and I dont think I aspire to become the strongest person in my village or college town. I share nothing with Naruto, but at certain points in my life, I really looked up to him. When my drug addict of a father and I would fight, when he and my mom would scream at the top of their lungs arguing over bills, when Id hear of friends who didnt make it out of the terrible neighborhood we all grew up in and were either in gangs selling or robbing other people or when Id go through some even worse stuff I just dont feel like sharing with strangers, I really wished I had Narutos poise and mentality. I understand hes a fictional character and all that, but sometimes we need to look to fiction for inspiration. Naruto went through everything and continues (as the series continues) to experience more hardships, but he sticks to his word. He stays optimistic, determined and constantly pushes towards his goal. Hes respectable, and he got me through some tough times.

Maybe you wont connect with a character like I did, but that doesnt mean you shouldnt try. There are a ton of anime out there that Im sure youll connect to somehow. I wouldnt recommend Naruto to a new viewer as its around 400 episodes total, but a shorter more timeless anime that almost anyone can get into is Code Geass. Look it up, maybe youll find something with which you connect.

James Hardison is a UF English sophomore. His column appears on Tuesdays.
In my time at this university, Ive found the college experience often presents a fascinating intersection of tastes. Some of us consider ourselves full-blown adults, while others lean more towards an adult-lite classification, resulting in a hilariously wide variety of hedonistic preferences.

I have one friend who would happily eat day-old Little Caesars pizza every day. I have another who speaks of charcuterie boards in hushed, reverent tones. Similarly, many of my friends are perfectly content slugging well vodka Sprites while they fight to the death for their personal space at Midtown. Others wouldnt step foot on that God-forsaken strip of dilapidated college bars if I paid them, and the rest lay somewhere in between these two camps (including myself).

Thats the thing about preferences, its impossible for them to be right or wrong, simply based on the premise that theyre preferences. The New York Times published an opinion piece earlier this month titled Ignore the Snobs, Drink the Cheap, Delicious Wine, a wonderfully inconsequential analysis of the false assumption that cheap wine is fundamentally bad simply because its cheap.

Despite the increasing demand for so-called natural wines that are created with organic ingredients and minimal chemical intervention, Bosker points out that the winemaking process has always been a scientific one. The inevitable hesitation towards wine manufactured with chemical additives is often unwarranted, as these additives correct flaws and replicate the taste that consumers want, thereby democratizing the wine industry.

The piece made several interesting points about the shrinking gap in quality between commercial and high-end wine, but the conclusion that truly stuck with me pointed out that the classification of wine as good or bad is irrelevant to someone who truly enjoys it. To them, their enjoyment makes it good. As someone who has drank box wine straight out of the spigot, I really dont feel qualified to make any profound conclusions about wine quality, but I do believe that this can be extrapolated and applied to the notion of taste in general.

Practically every time I find myself at any bar in Midtown, Ill think about how objectively terrible it is. Since youre reading this column, Ill just assume you can come up with plenty of reasons on your own for why that is. Yet, after this thought crosses my mind, I quickly realize that it doesnt matter since apparently some part of me gets enjoyment out of its sticky floors, cramped bars and stupidly cheap drinks.

Im sure a large portion of this enjoyment stems from its fleeting nature, as Im almost constantly aware that the college bar phase of my life will soon be over. Ill have my whole life to drink quality drinks and pretend like I never stepped foot in Balls bar, so why rush the inevitable? However, thats the paradox of senior year: we cherish our last moments as undergrads and the inherently undergrad experiences that accompany them but simultaneously yearn for the next stage of our lives.

As graduation looms closer, Ive started to make note of the advice I would give some of my younger friends (even though absolutely no ones asked for it). One of the points I wrote down was to experience all that Gainesville has to offer in terms of nightlife, but never think youre too good for Midtown. Its as stereotypically collegiate as ramen, free T-shirts and twin XL sheets. One day youll think back on it at least somewhat fondly. Besides, no college kid is too good for $2 doubles.

Marisa Papenfuss is a UF English senior. Her column appears on Tuesdays.

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There was a form of torture and eventual execution employed by Chinese authorities from about 900-1905. The formal name is lingchi, meaning death by a thousand cuts. The victim being put to death did not expire immediately, but instead bled to death very slowly and excruciatingly.

Lingchi describes what is happening to Western European nations. They are slowly dying because of Islamist terrorists thousand cuts.

But it is clear that, although the nations of Europe receive cut after cut, most of the leaders of those nations, as well as the leaders of the European Union, still will not acknowledge that Europe is being bled to death. That is because they will not or cannot diagnose, much less get rid of, the ideological disease that causes internal bleeding.

They do not comprehend that importing surgeons of death hidden among millions of immigrants is a recipe for national suicide. They also dont realize that dealing with one wound at a time wont staunch the hemorrhaging. Examining the latest wound and waiting for it to scab over while the next one is being inflicted will not heal the bleeding body politic.

Nor will the same, tired and futile political placebos offered as palliatives for the latest wound -- like the attack in Great Britain -- actually deal with the underlying problems. Candlelight vigils, lighting up landmarks with the colors of the flag, speechifying and rationalizing terrorist behavior will never, ever deal effectively with the knife wielding inflictors of death and destruction.

Tragically, the European nations just have not exhibited the will to do what needs to be done.

But they must. They simply must.

It was Viktor Orban of Hungary, who in a fiery speech just last year, eloquently defined the problem and the malaise of Europes leaders. He realized Europes (and thus Hungarys) national identities would be erased by the influx of foreigners whose ideology was adamantly opposed to the still largely Christian character and identity of Europe. He also recognized that the bureaucracy of the European Union was committed to the eradication of national boundaries and histories, wanting instead a cosmopolitan immigration policy that reinforced an ideology of internationalism.

Orban pointed the finger directly at Brussels:

If we want to halt this mass migration, first we must curb Brussels. The main danger to Europes future does not come from those who want to come here, but from Brussels fanatical internationalism. We should not allow Brussels to place itself above the law. We shall not allow it to force upon us the bitter fruit of its cosmopolitan immigration policy. We shall not import to Hungary crime, terrorism, homophobia and synagogue-burning anti-Semitism. There shall be no urban districts beyond the reach of the law, there shall be no mass disorder, no immigrant riots here, and there shall be no gangs hunting down our women and daughters. We shall not allow others to tell us whom we can let into our home and country, whom we will live alongside, and with whom we will share our country. We know how these things go. First, we allow them to tell us whom we must take in, then they force us to serve foreigners in our own country. In the end, we find ourselves being told to pack up and leave our own land. Therefore, we reject the forced resettlement scheme, and we shall tolerate neither blackmail, nor threats.

Orban made it clear that the Hungarian people have a right to retain their national identity, which was bought with the treasure of blood and revolution in 1848 and once again in 1956. Doubtless recalling the defeat of Hungary by the Ottomans at Varna in 1444 and the subsequent Islamization of the Balkans, he stood up for the Christian inheritance of the Hungarian people. He stated the heritage of Hungary and Europe are worth preserving:

We adhere to the ancient law, and also measure our deeds by universal standards. We teach our children that their horizon should be eternity. Whether we shall succeed, whether finally we see the building of a homeland which is free, independent, worthy and respected the world over -- one which was raised high by our forebears from 1848, and for which they sacrificed their lives -- we cannot yet know. We do know, however, that the current European constellation is an unstable one, and so we have some testing times ahead. The times in which we live press us with this question, which is like a hussars sabre held to our chest: Shall we live in slavery or in freedom? The destiny of the Hungarians has become intertwined with that of Europes nations and has grown to be so much a part of the union that today not a single people -- including the Hungarian people -- can be free if Europe is not free. And today Europe is as fragile, weak and sickly as a flower being eaten away by a hidden worm.

In what was probably the most important part of his speech, he pointed out Brussels had a politically correct list of forbidden sentiments. He said that speaking the truth about what is happening in Europe is stifled:

Europe is not free. Because freedom begins with speaking the truth. Today in Europe it is forbidden to speak the truth It is forbidden to say that those arriving are not refugees, but that Europe is threatened by migration. It is forbidden to say that tens of millions are ready to set out in our direction. It is forbidden to say that immigration brings crime and terror to our countries. It is forbidden to point out that the masses arriving from other civilizations endanger our way of life, our culture, our customs and our Christian traditions. It is forbidden to point out that those who arrived earlier have already built up their own new, separate world for themselves, with its own laws and ideals, which is forcing apart the thousand-year-old structure of Europe. It is forbidden to point out that this is not an accidental and unintentional chain of consequences, but a preplanned and orchestrated operation; a mass of people directed towards us. It is forbidden to say that in Brussels they are concocting schemes to transport foreigners here as quickly as possible and to settle them here among us. It is forbidden to point out that the purpose of settling people here is to reshape the religious and cultural landscape of Europe, and to reengineer its ethnic foundations.  thereby eliminating the last barrier to internationalism: the nation-states. It is forbidden to say that Brussels is now stealthily devouring more and more slices of our national sovereignty, and that in Brussels many are now making a plan for a United States of Europe  for which no one has ever given authorization.

Could one find a more succinct summary of what is happening because of Brussels commitment to globalism, which is essentially a supranational order that encourages and even requires the extinction of individual nations such as Hungary and other nations within the EU?

He concludes nations must fight for their identities:

The question upon which the future of Europe stand or falls is this: Shall we be slaves or men set free -- That is the question. Answer me! Go for it, Hungary; go for it Hungarians!

As for the nation most recently afflicted by yet another deep terrorist cut; namely, Great Britain, she would be wise to take Orbans advice. She should regain the British lions roar.

Perhaps Prime Minister Theresa May could start by calling out the Muslim mayor of London for saying that Britain must get used to terrorism as a regular part of daily life. Perhaps she could advise deporting imams and others who are advocating death and destruction for British infidels. Maybe a new political agenda could include surveillance of mosques whose leaders believe all non-Muslims deserve death. Certainly, she could advocate beefing up police and armed forces and push for severe penalties for those who would dare to attempt to take down her and the entire British government.

Maybe words like treason and sedition could come back into use and the penalties for such behavior enacted swiftly and promptly. Certainly, the evil people intent on inflicting yet more cuts to the body of England should be dealt with severely.

Meanwhile, the British must strengthen their resolve to retain their national identity and history -- a history that was shaped by Christianity in a thousand beneficial ways. Britain was and still largely is a Christian nation. The battle she faces in order to retain her identity is largely spiritual in nature.

Unless Britain and other oppressed and afflicted European nations take strong steps to preserve their identities and are willing to strike back with force against radical Islamist terrorism, they will continue to be tortured and eventually bleed to death -- just as Orban predicted.

Fay Voshell holds a M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, which awarded her a prize for excellence in systematic theology. She is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. Her thoughts and opinions also have appeared in numerous online magazines, including National Review, CNS, RealClearReligion, Fox News, The Christian Post and Russia Insider. She may be reached at fvoshell@yahoo.com
The 2500-year-old Chinese code of conduct handed down from Confucius includes the advice to three monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Amazingly, this counsel has sometimes been misapplied in cases of Islamist terrorism in European countries.

This obtuseness may be ended with the terrorist attack in London on March 22, 2017 when a man sometimes known as Khalid Masood killed four people, including a police officer, and injured 40 others using a rented Hyundai car to plow into pedestrians near Westminster Bridge before stabbing the policeman outside the Houses of Parliament. Masood chose one of Britains most well-known and iconic buildings, indeed one of the most popular sites in the world for tourists who believe, as Wordsworth did, that earth has not anything to show more fair.

The London attacker Masood, killed by police, was a 52-year-old man, born in England to a 17-year-old single white mother and a not recorded black father. Though he had a middle-class upbringing in affluent towns in Southern England, went to good schools, and became father of three, he turned violent and criminal. From the age of 18 and between 1983 and 2003 he was convicted and imprisoned for a number of violent crimes and weapons possessions, and had converted to Islam at some point while in prison.

Masood used various aliases during his life, had been investigated by MI5, but was considered a peripheral figure, not immediately dangerous. He has made several trips to Saudi Arabia, to where he moved in 2005 purportedly to teach English for four years, though he was not an officially accredited teacher in Britain.

His allegiance to the Islamist cause is evident. The crucial issue being investigated is whether he was a lone wolf operator, acting alone, or was he part of a larger plot, encouraged, supported, and directed by others. Though much discussed, the concept of a lone wolf operation is highly questionable, since there always seems to contact with Islamic activists.

Within a day of the attack ISIS claimed he was one of the soldiers for the Islamic State. The validity of this remains open, but British authorities so far have found two items that suggest complicity. One are messages in Telegram encryptions with lists of proposed victims, politicians, Jewish schools, pubs, and clubs. One of them referred to a fireball around Big Ben in Westminster. Masood used Whatsapp messaging service just before smashing his Hyundai car into the railings at Parliament.

The other item is that Masood is believed to have had links to both the banned Al-Muhajiroun group and to a notorious extremist mosque in East London. According to police reports, 23 of the 51 terrorist plots foiled by police are traced to this AM group. Masood also attended the mosque, based on extreme Wahhabism, that was frequented by Anjem Choudary, leader of AM and spokesman for Islam4UK, who has been in jail since September 2016 for organizing support for ISIS.

It is pertinent to consider the relevance of the three Chinese monkeys to the London terrorism. It may have been true a century ago that, as a new book, The Islamic Enlightenment by Christopher de Bellaigue holds, that some intellectual Muslims reacted to European influence in the 19th century in benign fashion, embracing various aspects of Western thought and technology, transport, and communications. Nevertheless, in spite of the activity of progressive Muslims, this is at best only part of the story of the differences, if not always the war, between the crescent and the cross.

No sensible person would argue for hatred of all Muslims, or condemn the religion of Islam. But equally no one should excuse Muslims for violence and terrorism against others. More pertinent and meaningful for the present is the perversion of Islam by Islamist convictions: living under the rule of Allah according to the Koran, forcing people to live under Sharia law, and striking terror into the enemies of Allah. The injunction is to pursue liberation through Jihad, whether it is defined in moderate fashion as personal moral struggle, or as obligation to conduct militancy against non-believers.

Attacks on Western targets are therefore to be expected as Sadiq Khan, Londons first Muslim mayor, and indeed the first Muslim to head the capital of a major Western country, is quoted as having said in 2016. Since his remarks after a terrorist attack in New York were misunderstood or misinterpreted by Donald Trump Jr. in a tweet on March 22 it is useful to quote them: Part and parcel of living in a great global city is youve got to be prepared for these things. Youve got to be vigilant.

Trump Jr. had tweeted, You have to be kidding me? Terror attacks are part of living in big city says Londons Mayor Sadiq Khan. Many in British politics criticized Trump Jr. and defended the mayor, insisting that his Muslim identity would not be a factor in his response to the terrorism. Lord Jones, Digby Jones, businessman, resident of Birmingham, and former government minister of trade and investment, 2007-8, said the fact that the mayor is a Muslim is utterly and completely irrelevant.

Trump Jr. was unfairly criticized for condemning the mayor. The mayors statement to a degree was insensitive. The director of MI5 said the UK had foiled 12 attempted terrorist attacks since June 2013. But the county has suffered from previous successful attacks. The 25-year-old fusilier Lee Rigby was brutally murdered on May 22, 2013 by two Islamist extremists in Woolwich, London using a car and a knife. Former Prime Minister David Cameron in 2014 told fellow citizens they faced the greatest and deepest treat in the countrys history. Even accepting that the Islamic terrorists may be misfits, thieves, drug abusers, and violent criminals, there is still concern that insufficient lessons have been learned from the Rigby case about the radicalization that drives people to commit violent acts.

It is not coincidental that Masood had connections in Birmingham, Britains second largest city with a distinguished history but more recently the locale of extreme Islamic activity, both violent and nonviolent. now with a mixed population, as well as a reputation as a breeding ground for British-born terrorist suicide bombers. In addition, at least 30% of Birminghams population were not born in the UK, coming mostly from Kashmir, the center of the territorial dispute between India and Pakistan. The city has 22 mosques and a virtual segregated ghetto marked by a high crime rate and unemployment, and which contains a number of suspected potential jihadists.

Birmingham is already controversial for the Trojan Horse event in November 2013 when allegations were made and two reports that differed on the extent of extremism in Birmingham schools and whether a number of the schools had been taken over to be run on strictly Islamic principles, and the imposition of an Islamist intolerant and aggressive agenda.

Some children were forced to take part in Muslim worship. Among other facts, a four-year-old Catholic girl was pressured to wear an Islamic veil in class. Even some of the governors of the schools, instead of displaying integrity, honesty, and objectivity, took part in bullying and harassment of teachers. Critics of the council were accused of tolerating extremism in the schools out of political expediency because most Muslims vote for the Labour Party, or because the governors feared they might be accused of being racist or Islamophobic.

London has experienced the same horror as have other countries with cars being used as weapons against innocent pedestrians and the use of knives to kill people. This has been the scenario on October 20, 2014 in Quebec, July 14, 2016, in Nice, in Brussels, Berlin, and in Israel on many occasions.

Control and ending this terrorist activity should be a high priority for politicians in the democratic countries who are not Chinese monkeys. These countries, like authorities in London, are becoming ready to respond to attacks, afford special protection to tourist and more general spots, create barriers to prevent attacks by cars, and have an enhanced presence in the streets. All this is desirable but even more important is the determination to deal with Radical Islam, the source of the terrorism. It is not racist to exercise wisdom and courage in dealing with the enemies of civilization.
Demonstrators from the Asian community face police officers outside Paris' 19th district police station on Tuesday. [Photo by Michel Euler/AP]

The Foreign Ministry held an urgent meeting with officials of the French embassy in Beijing on Tuesday over the death of a Chinese man in Paris, and called for Chinese people in France who express their demands to do so in a reasonable and legal manner.

Some Chinese clashed with French police as they went to a police station to petition over the killing of the man, who was shot dead at his home by plainclothes police on Sunday evening, the ministry confirmed.

The ministry instructed the Chinese embassy in France to request that French authorities conclude an investigation as soon as possible, ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Tuesday.

It also asked France to take effective measures to guarantee the safety and legal interests of Chinese there, and "reasonably treat" their reaction over the man's death, Hua said.

French police used batons and tear gas to disperse about 100 people from the local Chinese community who staged a protest on Monday against the killing of the man.

At least one man of Chinese descent was injured, according to witnesses, as police officers intervened to disperse protesters outside a police station in Paris.

Some French media reports described the killing of the man on Sunday as a "legitimate defense" against "an assailant with scissors". However, local Chinese media reports, quoting a daughter of the man, reported the father of five did not attack police.

Hua said the Foreign Ministry will work with the Chinese embassy in France to closely follow the case's development and safeguard the security and legal interests of Chinese citizens and organizations in France.

French police arrested 35 people after the demonstration on Monday turned violent, Agence France-Presse reported. Three officers were slightly injured in the clashes, and one police vehicle was damaged by an incendiary device, it said. Xinhua contributed to this story.
Contact: Attila Nemecz

Attila Nemecz Attila.Nemecz@beaufortccc.edu

WASHINGTON, NC Students who would like to receive a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Education from North Carolina A&T State University can now start their coursework at Beaufort County Community College. The two colleges entered into an articulation agreement on Friday, March 24 to help students in this program seamlessly transfer their coursework.Colleges around the state often have slightly different required coursework tied to a major. An articulation agreement acknowledges that the college where the student will finish their coursework, in this case NC A&T State University in Greensboro, will accept all of the classes taken at BCCC. The "2+2" arrangement gives students in the agribusiness technology program the option to complete a bachelor's degree online through a four-year institution.Billy Askew, agribusiness technology instructor, said,said Dr. Crystal Ange, vice president of academics at BCCC.said Askew.The agribusiness technology curriculum is designed to provide knowledge of the financial and technical aspects of modern agricultural operations. Students can find careers in a variety of local, state and federal agencies, businesses or research and educational institutions. A four-year degree can yield careers in education, NC Cooperative Extension Services, US Department of Agriculture, or in private industries such as Cargill or ADM.said Dr. Antoine Alston, professor and associate dean of academic studies at NC A&T.From its roots as an 1890 land-grant university, NC A&T has adapted to become a school for the 21st century and beyond. N.C. A&T has award-winning faculty, intensive research programs and community-focused initiatives with a diverse campus, a curriculum that even includes nanoengineering and a dedication to public service to Greensboro and the world.They believe in the power of our students to solve problems, both local and global, through technology, business, engineering, the arts and other endeavors. Through exemplary instruction and interdisciplinary studies, through scholarly and creative research, and through courage and community service, N.C. A&T prepares students to enhance the quality of life for themselves, the citizens of North Carolina, the nation, and the world.Beaufort County Community College provides accessible and affordable quality education, effective teaching, relevant training and lifelong learning opportunities to the people of Beaufort, Hyde, Tyrrell and Washington Counties.For more information about the agribusiness technology program, contact Billy Askew at 252-940-6304 or billy.askew@beaufortccc.edu.
James Boswell wrote that Samuel Johnson said, [p]atriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. When mainstream media (MSM) denizens wrap themselves in the First Amendment, one wonders if Johnsons assertion needs to be broadened.

No sooner had Trump won the 2016 election than some MSM types began claiming his criticisms of the media threatened First Amendment freedoms, a drumbeat that continues.

Barely a week goes by without more evidence of the war between the MSM and Trump. Watch, for example, Trumps comments at CPACs 2017 conference, in which he stated that fake news is the enemy-of-the-people, and then contrast that with how the MSM reported that facet of his speech. In MSM reports, fake news became the media. Another recent example of MSM hyperventilation about Trump is how the replacement of assistant U.S. attorneys is being treated -- as a scandal -- compared to the way the same action by the Clinton and Obama administrations was covered.

To understand whats going on between Trump, the MSM, and the American public, we must look at how the MSM and its audience have changed over the years. First, lets focus on the MSM.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the prevailing pattern of press coverage of politics was through the lens of partisanship. The Richmond (VA) Junto, which flourished in the early 19th century, and facilitated the elections of Thomas Jefferson (1800, 1804), James Madison (1808, 1812), and James Monroe (1816, 1820), sponsored -- under Jefferson -- its own newspaper: Philip Freneaus Gazette of the United States. Somewhat earlier (1791), while George Washington was president, John Fennos National Gazette was established in Philadelphia, and was generally friendly to the Federalist Party. The two papers seldom agreed on how to report political news. Throughout the 19th century, there were Republican news outlets and Democrat ones; one could still find such papers in the early 20th century. Frank Luther Motts American Journalism (1941), describes this style of news reportage.

During the first half of the 20th century, the norm of objectivity shaped how most print, and later electronic, reporters tried to cover the news. Just the facts is a phrase associated with Jack Webbs "Dragnet," but the same principle underpinned the way most journalists believed how they should cover the news.

To get a sense of what happened after the objectivity norm receded, read two books by former reporter Bernard Goldberg, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News (2001), and Arrogance: Rescuing America from the Media Elite (2004).

Changing fashions in how the MSM have covered the news have been accompanied by changes in American journalists, especially in their politics. Today, most in the MSM lean decisively to the left.

In 2014, Mollie Hemingway, for example, presented evidence on American journalists turn to the left since the early 1970s, by juxtaposing findings on the American public from a Gallup poll in 2014 with data on American journalists compiled the year before by Indiana University journalism professors David H. Weaver and Lars Willnat. In 2014, according to Gallup, 43% of the American public called themselves Democrats or independents who lean Democrat, while 41% said they were Republicans or independents who lean to the GOP. One-sixth (16%) remained in the Independent category. By contrast, in 2013, 28.1% of journalists identified with the Democrat Party, 7.1% admitted they were Republicans, 50.2% said they were Independents, and 14.6% identified with some other party. Compare the 2013 data on journalists with the results of a 1971 poll, which found that 35.5% said they were Democrats, 25.7% identified with the GOP, 32.5% claimed to be Independents, and 6.3% identified with another party. In other words, in 42 years, the percentage of American journalists identifying with the Democrats sagged 7.4 percentage points, the percentage admitting to GOP inclinations dropped 18.6 points, while the percentage claiming to be Independents surged 17.7 points, and the percentage identifying with some other party increased 8.3 points. (This says nothing about how the MSM vote, which is almost always overwhelmingly for Democrats.)

Journalists left-wing proclivities might not be so bad if the norm of objectivity still shaped the way they report the news. Sadly, many journalists, especially the younger ones, believe that objective journalism is a myth. Goldbergs books provide insights into this style of reporting. To see how MSM bias influenced coverage of Barack Obama, read Goldbergs A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (and Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media (2009). I have already mentioned the bitter struggle between Trump and the MSM.

We must also look at how the medias audiences habits and opinions have changed.

The Pew Research Center for The People & The Presss most recent report of Americans news habits was The Modern News Consumer (2016).

That report found that 57% of Americans said they often got their news from TV, including cable telecasts, local outlets, and the networks nightly programs, 38% said they often turned to social media (websites, apps, etc.), 25% said radio, and 20% reported reading print newspapers.

Those figures, however, masked an age-related disparity in news consumption. Among Americans aged 18-29, for example, only about a quarter said they often got their news from TV, but 50% often went online. Just about one-fifth of the young turned to either radio or newspapers. Among Americans over 50, on the other hand, over 70% often relied on TV, roughly a quarter turned to online sources, and about a third relied on either newspapers or radio.

More important are changes in Americans confidence in news outlets. The Gallup Poll has asked the same question tapping confidence in news outlets on several occasions. In early May 1973, for example, 39% of the public had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in newspapers, compared to 18% who expressed very little or none. By early June 2016, on the other hand, only 20% of the public had either a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in newspapers, while 36% had either very little or none. Early May 1973 found that 46% of the public had either a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in TV news, compared with 18% who had either very little or none. By early June 2016, only 21% of the public said they had either a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in TV news, compared with 40% who said they had either very little or none. In short, Americans have lost confidence in the two major sources of political news.

Perhaps its because large portions of the public perceive the media as biased to the left. Although leftists, such as Eric Alterman, try to deny the MSMs liberal bias, the academic Tim Grosecloses Left Turn not only documents the MSMs left-wing bias, but how that bias distorts American public opinion.

The MSM have lost connection with sizable portions of the American public and have declared war on the new Trump administration. The MSM will not voluntarily change course. The time has come for more Americans to tune them out.
After chasing the Obamacare car for years, Republican dogs finally caught it and have no idea what to do next. Seven years of anticipation and endless promises of repeal and replace have been replaced with remain and recriminate. So, they did nothing, instead sitting on their haunches and barking at the moon. Obamacare remains the law of the land and blame is flying back and forth faster than Trumps tweets.

When lost, its helpful to look backwards and retrace your steps. How did we get here?

Obamacare passed on a strictly party line vote. As an aside, Ill offer a rare compliment to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. As despicable as they might be, as leaders of the Democratic Party they were brilliant. They took advantage of a political opportunity. Controlling Congress and the White House was their best and only chance to fundamentally transform healthcare.

Their bill was ready to go and supported by all Democrats. No disperate factions as we see on the Republican side. No Socialism Caucus holding out for single-payer. No Tuesday (or Wednesday or Thursday) group pushing for more moderate reforms. Harry and Nancy herded their cats, all supporting their party and president, taking political advantage of their once-in-a-generation opportunity.

Ironically the Democrats were Reagan disciples when it came to Obamacare. They didnt get all that they wanted in Obamacare, such as universal coverage or single payer, but they heeded Reagan's wisdom, I have always figured that a half a loaf is better than none, and I know that in the democratic process youre not going to always get everything you want.

Not so for Paul and Mitch. Why not? They have been chasing the repeal and replace car for years, passing legislation which at least went to the White House, even if it was ultimately vetoed. After all those years, why didnt they have a bill ready to go, built on consensus among the various Republican congressional factions? As the Democrats did in 2008. Its not like they only regained control of Congress this year.

And why wasnt their caucus willing to take half a loaf when the full loaf was virtually impossible?

Several reasons come to mind. The House leadership wasnt serious about repeal and replace. Its easy to pass bills that are certain to be vetoed. Much like a high school kid inviting a Victorias Secret model to be his prom date, then not knowing what to do if she says yes.

Many in Congress didnt expect or want Donald Trump to win the presidency. After all, many Congressional Republicans were part of the #NeverTrump brigade, including Paul and Mitch at many points during the campaign. Presumably they drank the beltway and media Kool-Aid, believing until about 9 PM on election night that Clinton would win the presidency in a landslide. Meaning that they could continue to send repeal legislation crashing into Clintons veto pen.

Conservatives in the Freedom Caucus wanted more of a full repeal, which would not make it through the Senate. Id like that too, along with a flat income tax and term limits for Congress, but politically those ideas are going nowhere. Half a loaf versus a full loaf.

As of now, 7 years of promises turned out to be a big nothing burger. Not even a vote. But lots of recrimination and blame. Whos fault? Trumps? Ryans? Both?

For President Trump, surely a disappointment, but Im sure this isnt the first deal he worked hard for, felt confident in, but at the moment of truth had to walk away from as it was a loser. In his most famous book, Trump wrote,

"I never get too attached to one deal or one approach. For starters, I keep a lot of balls in the air, because most deals fall out, no matter how promising they seem at first."

Despite being one of his major campaign promises, Obamacare repeal isnt the only promise. Immigration reform, tax and regulatory relief, fair trade deals, and jobs, are other initiatives he can pivot to. And despite the desires of the President, legislation begins in Congress. Trump himself cant repeal or replace Obamacare.

What now? Several options going forward.

They can certainly leave Obamacare alone and let it follow its current trajectory toward implosion. Will the Democrats be begging for help as Trump predicts? Or will they, with ample help from the media, blame the Obamacare demise on the GOP? I predict the latter. The Republicans will be blamed for not fixing it when they had the chance. Great campaign message for the 2018 midterms. Broken promises. Squandered opportunities.

The House can craft a repeal and replace bill satisfying to their coalition. All of it. If the Democrats could do this, why cant the Republicans? The Democrats will likely filibuster the bill and it will go nowhere. Then they can at least be rightly blamed for perpetuating the failing Obamacare law. Except the Democrats and their media fanboys will spin it as the GOPs fault.

They can overrule the Senate Parliamentarian, allowing the bill to be passed under reconciliation, or blow up the filibuster. Would all of the Republican Senators go along with this? Would #NeverTrump Senators McCain, Flake, Gardner, Collins and a few others vote against these rule changes simply to spite President Trump? Is their hatred of Trump greater than their political principles and campaign promises? Answer that yourself.

Or will Trump-the-deal-maker bypass political partisanship and work with willing Democrats, assuming there are any. In his speech after the cancelled House vote, he said of the Democrats, If they got together with us and got a real health care bill, I'd be totally open to it, and I think that's going to happen.

Trump is not a political ideologue; instead I suspect he will cross political lines to keep his campaign promises and advance his agenda. He is more about fixing problems than political posturing. How could he work with the Democrats?

Give them something they want, a limited form of universal coverage, catastrophic coverage for everyone. I have written about this as has Benjamin Domenech in a recent and rare conservative NY Times op-ed piece. I called it Medicaid-for-all, as Medicaid provides the necessary infrastructure for such insurance. But limited and catastrophic coverate, not simply an expansion of existing Medicaid. For conservatives, provide a totally free-market based private insurance market without mandates, essential benefits and other onerous regulations. Something for everyone, even if not ideal for all. Maybe this would garner enough votes for a full repeal of Obamacare with a more practical replacement alternative.

But wait! Are you suggesting another entitlement? Sorry but that ship sailed long ago. From the New Deal to the Great Society, we are now the Entitlement Society, cemented in law and culture. Want to eliminate health care as one of our many entitlements? Good luck. Try running for national office on that platform.

Like most other developed countries, we have both a public and private health care system. But unlike these other countries, we are trying to mix both together, and its not working. We get the worst of both systems and the best of neither. What I described above at least attempts to separate the two existing systems so each can serve its purpose.

Short of getting Democrats to vote to repeal Obamacare (wont happen) or getting Republicans to blow up the filibuster (good luck getting majority support), repeal isnt going anywhere in the current Congress. Trump likely realizes this and may choose pragmatism over politics, doing an end run around political gridlock to deliver on his campaign promise.

Brian C Joondeph, MD, MPS, a Denver based physician and writer. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
Make no mistake: the failure to repeal and replace ObamaCare, which President Trump had so often promised to do, was a major defeat for his administration.

The beginning of his administration is when President Trump had the chance to accomplish the most. But its not looking that way. He has certainly tried, but is being thwarted at every turn by leftist activist judges and the RINO establishment.

According to The Hill, Trump became heavily involved in selling and negotiating the plan, holding at least 17 meetings on overhauling the healthcare system. Those included arm-twisting sessions (in person and on Twitter) with conservative and moderate factions that opposed the plan, as well as invites to the White House bowling alley and a rare personal trip to Capitol Hill. His aides were more than eager to tout The Art of the Deal authors abilities to get people to come to an agreement. He is the closer, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday.

So what happened? Trump has to take control. Take a page from Obama and clean house. With regard to ObamaCare, Trump should take decisive action to salvage the situation now. He should call every GOP congressman into his office and just hammer out a deal.

Heres the thing: he talks about being a great negotiator, and that may be true. But throughout his career until now, he has been negotiating not with politicians, but with businessmen. We know their motive: profit. Money.

Its not the same with politicians. Politics is a twisted world, in which power and reelection are the currency in which they trade. The bottom line in business is money, and while money talks for politicians also, the bottom line with these corrupt clowns is not always so easy to discern.

Breitbart News reminded us recently that House Speaker Paul Ryan was caught on an audio file from October -- obtained by Breitbart News and published a couple weeks ago -- saying he is not going to defend Donald Trump -- not now, not in the future.

And Trump was relying on him to repeal and replace ObamaCare?

Paul Ryan is also out of his depth. Love him or hate him, former House majority leader Tom DeLay knew how to herd those cats. Thats why the left had to destroy him. Ryan lacks what DeLay had: bold aggressiveness and quiet maneuvering.

Ryan has got to go. James Comey, too. Whats with all the Obama holdovers throughout the Trump administration? The Justice Departments civil rights division must be purged. Whats Eric Treene still doing there? In January 2012, after receiving a huge box (in response to my Freedom of Information Act request) full of documents relating to the Justice Departments interactions with Muslim groups linked to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, I wrote:

Even more striking was the servile demeanor of the Civil Rights Division official Eric Treene, Special Counsel for the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, and the demanding condescension of Muslim Brotherhood operatives. Muslim and Arab operatives treat Treene and Co. like an errand boy, asking them for email addresses of other contacts and setting them to perform the most menial gofer duties. The DOJ even takes lunch orders and picks up the tab, and in some cases asks them how much money they need for a little soiree theyre holding. It is astonishing.

Yet Treene is still there, and doubtless still kowtowing. And he is not the only one. A senior Trump administration official said last week: We have members of the former administration at the highest levels who through their actions after January 20 have demonstrated their refusal to recognize the results of the general election. They have pursued, organized, and managed a comprehensive subversion of the new administration.

The Washington Free Beacon reports that in one instance, Trump administration officials found evidence that the administrations executive order banning travel from certain Muslim-majority nations had been selectively altered to bring it more in line with Obama-era talking points. Several hours before the orders were set to be signed by Trump, officials noticed that language concerning radical Islamic terrorism had been stripped from the order and replaced with Obama-era language about countering violent extremism. West Wing staffers quickly scrambled to rewrite the order to bring it back in line with Trumps rhetoric.

Thats unconscionable. Whoever did that should have been immediately identified and fired.

Its not too late for Trump. But it will be soon, if he doesnt remember what got him elected in the first place, and drain the swamp.

Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of PamelaGeller.com and author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administrations War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter here. Like her on Facebook here.
Immigration enforcement authorities have arrested the Guatemalan father of one of the young adults who raped a 14-year-old Maryland girl in the bathroom of her school.

Federal authorities arrested Adolfo Sanchez-Reyes, 43, for being in the U.S. illegally. He was issued a summons to appear in immigration court and is being held at the Howard County Detention Center in Jessup.

New York Daily News:

The teen joined waves of immigrants fleeing gang violence in Central America. He trekked for four weeks and was picked up by the U.S. Border Patrol along the Mexico border in Texas, the Washington Post reported Sanchez-Milian's lawyer as saying. He was released and flew to Maryland to move in with his father. Then teen's attorney, Andrew Jezic, said the sexual encounter between the teen girl and Sanchez-Milian was consensual. News that Sanchez-Milian was not a U.S. citizen sparked a whirlwind of outrage. Hundreds of racist and xenophobic phone calls inundated the high school. The school district noted that Sanchez-Milian never shared a class with the victim. He placed in the 9th grade and was in a program for non-English speakers. He and the second suspect, Jose Montano, 17, each face a rape charge following the alleged assault.

There's a chance that Sanchez-Milian and his family will be allowed to stay in the U.S., even though his son is accused of a heinous crime. Most illegals from Guatemala apply for asylum, citing the violence and poverty in their country. While I think this is a poor case for allowing someone to stay in the U.S., you never know with immigration judges.

This is the way the system should work: once authorities discover someone is here illegally, they set in motion the process to deport him. It really isn't that complicated. Advocates for illegal aliens try to generate sympathy for them by claiming that detaining them is inhumane, but if someone is a flight risk or a good bet not to show up at his immigration hearing, he should be held over until his case is settled.
It is a new era in the Middle East, with Arab anti-Israel solidarity a thing of the past. Arab potentates have discovered that Persian Shiites are an actual offensive threat, while Israel's desire for peaceful existence is not. While it is common knowledge in the Middle East that on a de facto basis, Israel is cooperating with Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, in addition to existing and open relations with Egypt and Jordan, until now, there has been little overt acknowledgment and recognition.

But this military patch for the INIOHOS 2017 joint training exercise underway in Greece openly and tangibly displays Israel's flag next to those of the U.S., Greece, Italy, and the United Arab Emirates.

Haaretz reports:

The Israel Air Force began a joint exercise on Monday in Greece that included dozens of aircraft from foreign armies. Dubbed Iniohos 2017, an official report for the Greek air force noted that the air forces of Israel, the United States, the United Arab Emirates and Italy participated in the exercise. The training patch for the exercise includes the flags of the countries along with the slogan "Act with Awareness." The Iniohos 2017 exercise is due to be wrapped up next Thursday. Photos from the past several days show F-16 aircraft from the United Arab Emirates alongside an American Air Force transport plane at the Greek air force base. The American army reported that it had dispatched 12 F-16C airplanes and close to 220 crew members to participate in the exercise. The joint exercise, according to a U.S. army report, is strengthening ties among the participating countries, maintain[ing] joint readiness and interoperability," the news release stated.

The Mad Mullahs of Tehran have managed to supercharge the process of reconciliation between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors, a process that is now robust enough that it can be openly acknowledged and commemorated.

This isn't the first time for joint Israeli-Emirati exercises. Last August's Red Flag training mission was an "aerial combat training exercise in Nevada which [had] the participation of the air forces of Israel, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Spain, in addition to the United States." But this time around, it is a step more open and officially recognized.

Hat tip: Tom Gross
Memo to Britain: You've got bad manners. Bad form. No class.

At least, that's what the London terrorist's moll, or wife, or whatever would have us believe...you know, given her claimed right to 'privacy.'

I am saddened and shocked by what Khalid has done. I totally condemn his actions. I express my condolences to the families of the victims that have died, and wish a speedy recovery to all the injured. I would like to request privacy for our family, especially the children, at this difficult time.

Yeah, yeah, the pro forma "condolences" and "condemnations" sound a lot like the condolences and condemnations that came out of the mouths of all the other terrorist wives with terrorist husbands. These burkaed babes are all "shocked, shocked."

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize that the last part of that statement, the "request privacy for our family, especially the children, at this difficult time."

Bringing up "the chillldrrrrrren" is an old manipulation to tug at the heartstrings...so touching!

But the bulk of these "lone wolf" terrorist events have always had the full backing of the Little Woman, in fact. They did in Orlando, where the shooter's wife keeps slipping from the accountability of the authorities, and they certainly did in San Bernardino, where the His 'n' Hers terror team shot up a government lunchroom Christmas party and a lot of other places in California. The Boston Bomber had the Little Woman's backing, too.

That someone could claim a "right to privacy" when every other terrorist wife has been caught enabling her vile husband can only be a plea for avoidance of legal scrutiny. Are the kids dancing in the streets over Pop's killing spree? If it's at that level, don't tell us about privacy; the public has a right to know what kind of talk went on in that home. Did the wife give her full backing to hubby's murder impulses on the West? That too needs to be known  and prosecuted. Too many of these killers' wives have proven themselves loyal partners in crime for all these terror sprees.

Behind every great man, there is a woman, and behind every dirtbag terrorist, there seems to be an equally appalling woman whose barbarism is later called to escape accountability by appealing to the niceties and good manners of the very civilized that they too would gladly kill.
The vote that never occurred may very well be long regretted by conservatives.

When Trump won, many of us thought there'd be swift, substantial change. We were pleased with the executive orders. Then  surprise, surprise  Paul Ryan and team created a legislative blitzkrieg. The initial attack began a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. Built in was a "block granting" of Medicaid  the first time an out-of-control entitlement had seriously been up for constraint. The tax savings from the repeal and the Medicaid reform were designed to help offset the spending we need for infrastructure and a tax cut. Brilliant!

The Ryan and company plan to connect the dots  health care reform, a tax cut, and an infrastructure program  would have gone a long way to Making America Great Again. The plan was bold. Conservative. Trump signed off. Was it perfect? Of course not. But the Gipper would have gone along.

Who could have imagined that a small group of House conservatives would actually go wobbly at game time? Lawmakers never vote on the perfect. If you've ever wondered why Democrats always seem to prevail, a lot has to do with taking a long-term approach and building on small incremental victories. Conservatives cannot simply scheme for scalps  Boehner and on to Ryan and an interview on conservative talk radio, blah, blah, blah. That isn't accomplishing anything.

It's time to forge some alliances, work with the leadership and the president, and stop talking and start doing. And at least one conservative has got the message  Tom Poe has quit the House Freedom Caucus.

Poe said on CNN's New Day that the conservative caucus "continues to be the opposition caucus against anything in the Republican Party."

The Texas congressman said that while Republican leadership had attempted to ignore the concerns of its most conservative members in the past, caucus members were key players in the negotiation of the American Health Care Act, which Trump and Ryan pulled before a scheduled vote in the House on Friday.

"There's nothing that could be added to the bill that the Freedom Caucus would ever vote yes on," Poe said. "I got the opinion that there are some members of the Freedom Caucus  they'd vote no against the Ten Commandments if it came up for a vote."

Poe said that although the AHCA was "not a perfect bill," Republicans "promised for years" that they would repeal President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, the health care law better known as Obamacare, if they held the White House.

"We voted 60 times to repeal Obamacare," Poe said. "Then when it came down to repealing it, when it actually counted, people just said, 'Nah, I'm not going to vote to repeal the bill.'"

The folks at Conservative HQ link President Trump's declining poll numbers to cuts in Medicaid. Well duh. Does any fiscal conservative think cutting anything is easy? Do conservatives genuinely believe in free markets?

I'm hoping more Freedom Caucus members eat some humble pie as Representative Poe has and work their way back to the Ryan-Trump strategy of cutting health care costs, tax cuts, and infrastructure. This was a "go big or go home" play. The conservatives went home  too chicken even to vote. Victory  Obama and Obamacare.
The religious fanatics of the left have taken on masculinity itself as an enemy of their utopian vision and have an ongoing campaign to stigmatize it, with the eventual aim of suppressing it entirely. Christina Hoff-Sommers identified it as "The War Against Boys" almost a generation ago. Those boys have now grown up and are attending college, where, as adults they are now being asked to confess the sins of their masculinity.

Rob Shimshock writes in the Daily Caller:

A university will be hosting a "Masculinity Confession Booth" along with a number of other workshops and screenings to combat "hypermasculinity." "We have all reinforced hypermasculinity one way or another regardless of our gender!!" explains the University of Regina event description. "Come and share your sins so we can begin to discuss how to identify and change our ways !!!" The "Man Up Against Violence" initiative will be hosting these events at the University of Regina in Canada during the present week. The Masculinity Confession Booth will be making its debut Monday, but is also listed on the schedule for Tuesday through Thursday  days on which students can also attend a "Healthy Relationships and Healthy Masculinity Workshop." Yet another event will seek to redefine the phrase, "man up."

This is more evidence that Progressivism is a religion, and a rather totalitarian one at heart. It denies the existence of human nature, especially the inevitability of sin, and assumes that the institutions of society can shape men and women into anything they want. This is why so much institutional firepower has been mobilized to press the concept of "transgenderism" into law and custom. Once you can change that to your recipe, the reproduction of the species comes under control, and you can change anything. That's an intoxicating spiritual vision for a certain kind of people.

Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit
When Muslims are in the minority, they complain about being oppressed. But the minute they become the majority, they become real oppressors because of the inherent intolerance of their culture. Nowhere is this more evident than in many parts of Birmingham, England.

Khalid Masood, 52, the Briton responsible for the deadly attack outside Parliament last week ... had a connection to Birmingham, having moved almost a year ago to this city of 1.1 million, where more than than [sic] one in five residents declare Islam as their religion. ... [T]he police also announced Sunday that they had arrested an unidentified man in Birmingham as part of the investigation of Mr. Masood. Birmingham was the birthplace of Britain's first suicide bomber, the residence of a financier of the Sept. 11 attacks, and the place where Al Qaeda hatched a plot to blow up a commercial airliner in 2006. When a masked member of the Shabab, the Somali extremist group, celebrated the murder of the soldier Lee Rigby in a 2013 video, he listed Birmingham as the first source of its fighters. So many Islamist militants have been born in Birmingham  or have passed through  that the Birmingham Mail newspaper once lamented that the city had the dubious distinction of "Terror Central." Members of Birmingham's Muslim communities acknowledged the linkage between their city and Islamist extremism, which many attribute to poverty and drug abuse that make youths vulnerable to jihadist recruiters.

But poverty and drug abuse don't usually make non-Muslims "vulnerable" to wanting to commit mass murder, do they? It's funny how only Muslims are "vulnerable" to becoming mass murderers, 99 times out of 100.

Part of Birmingham's allure to prospective militants is its diverse sprawl of Muslim neighborhoods where they can blend in easily, local activists said.

"Blend in easily" is a coded acknowledgment that Muslims generally will not turn in radical Muslims to the police.

In the neighborhoods of Sparkbrook, Washwood Heath and Alum Rock, where many of Birmingham's Muslims live, mosques dot the cityscape, some offering Shariah councils for family matters. After-school madrassas serve a growing demand for parents who want their children to study the Quran. Even state-funded schools often accommodate religious demands, allowing for lunchtime prayer.

This is England! Also, parts of France, Germany, the Netherlands, and other places that are being colonized.

Birmingham's Green Lane Mosque, a red brick building with a clock tower that was formerly a public library, once had a reputation as an "incubator" of militants, Khalid Mahmood, a local lawmaker, said. Now the mosque seeks to counter them.

Sure.

When Muslims are admitted in large numbers, the idea of "vetting" them becomes useless; in numbers this large, they take over society and make it their own. They come fleeing a failing culture and then promptly impose that culture on their new home when their numbers become large enough. Their new territories become no-go zones for non-Muslims, and they effectively become self-governing with sharia law.

Stop Muslim immigration now.

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.
According to a report, the White House wants $1 billion to fund 62 miles of construction for a border wall. The money would be used to pay for 48 miles of new construction and upgrade another 14 miles of the barrier already in existence.

The original plan was to fund the wall through a budget resolution that will keep the government operating beyond April 28. But Democrats are vowing to prevent any spending on the wall by blowing up the budget resolution and shutting down the government.

Politico:

With the GOP consumed by its own divisions, the White House and Hill Republicans will have to rely on Democratic votes to avoid a government shutdown next month in what would be another disaster for Trump's fledgling presidency. Republican leaders, wary of this, are considering a plan that would not directly tie the border wall money to the April 28 government funding deadline. Some Republican insiders worry that the president cannot afford another major legislative setback  and they believe a shutdown showdown would result in just that. While no decision has been made by GOP leadership, Republican lawmakers may decide to decouple the two to avoid a confrontation with Democrats. If they do, the chances of getting Trump's wall funding passed this spring become slim. "It remains to be seen," said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) in an interview. "What I would like to see is a plan for how the money would be spent and a good faith discussion about what border security is really composed of. We haven't had that." Asked about the prospects for a lapse in government funding, Cornyn was definitive: "There's not going to be a shutdown."

Cornyn's certainty that there won't be a shutdown means that the GOP won't even try to confront the Democrats and dare them to shut down the government over one of the president's more popular proposals. Republicans are terrified that the Democrat-media monopoly will be successful in blaming them for any shutdown.

Democrats have a laundry list of issues they will refuse to fund.

Washington Times:

Congressional Democrats signaled Monday that they're ready to block spending bills over President Trump's planned border wall, raising the risks of a new government shutdown early in the new administration. Adding more immigration agents to Homeland Security's deportation agency, making Planned Parenthood ineligible for federal cash and changing former President Barack Obama's policies on the environment, labor, veterans or consumer protections would also invite a shutdown, Senate Democrats said in a letter to GOP leaders. Democrats are confident Republicans would shoulder the blame for a shutdown  though it's a bigger risk for the minority party this year, when they have little control over the process other than the power of a filibuster in the Senate. "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," the Democrats argued in their letter. Republicans waved the warning aside, saying they're focused on trying to write the bills needed to keep the government open beyond April 28, when current stopgap funding expires.

Republicans hold the upper hand in this fight but refuse to realize it. Sure, the media are against them, but what else is new? If the GOP is going to base policy on what the media think, the party will never achieve any of its conservative goals. The Democrat-media conglomerate will win every time.

Both the media and the Democrats are oblivious to their own hypocrisy. Democrats who will employ exactly the same strategy to refuse to fund the wall that the GOP used not to fund Obamacare will get a pass from the media, who will seek to blame the GOP for any government shutdown.
DILLON  One Montana company is hoping to harness the power of big data to become more competitive on the national stage.

Months after announcing its intention to compete against Panera by adding more bakeries to its franchised locations, Dillon-based Great Harvest Bread Co. has tapped analytics firm Buxton to study the growth potential of its new bakery model.

Mike Ferretti  company chairman and chief executive officer  told The Montana Standard Wednesday that Great Harvest launched the initiative with the Texas-based firm to zero in on areas where adding new locations makes the most sense.

And Great Harvest could use the knowledge that Buxton says it can deliver.

The Dillon-based company, which boasts more than 220 locations nationwide, plans to expand in the Northeast, which Ferretti said represents just 5 percent of the Great Harvest footprint.

To find out which areas have the most potential for growth, Buxton will study what makes a Great Harvest great.

According to Buxton Senior Vice President Stephen Polanski, a study from the Texas-based firm involves more than just conjecture. Instead it involves looking at massive amounts of consumer data the company acquires from debit- and credit-card companies and companies that collect information on web-browsing habits, among other providers.

Like it or not, your cellphone may know more about you than you do.

Consumers leave a data trail on a daily basis, Polanski explained, noting that consumer data can come from everything from browsing the web to making a purchase at your local grocery store.

Polanski described the amount of data available today as through the roof, and noted that Buxton is the largest aggregator of data in the country.

But data isnt worth much unless you know what to do with it, and thats where the analytics comes in.

Its basically a big data model, Polanski said, explaining that Buxton uses the data to look for correlations between successful business locations and thousands of variables, ranging from psychographic data  which includes things like the age, lifestyle and gender of nearby consumers  to the impact of nearby businesses.

The company zeros in on the most statistically significant variables for each client and generates a custom model that their clients can access on a data-visualization platform called SCOUT. Polanski added that the model is dynamic and can accommodate variables that change over time, such as consumer behavior.

As for Great Harvest, company leaders will be able to view a SCOUT map that displays areas of the greatest growth potential, in addition to other kinds of information. Polanski said the tool will allow the Dillon-based company to better understand who the Great Harvest customer is and zero in on places where look-alike customers reside. Franchise owners will also be given an LSMx tool  a new marketing platform from Buxton  to execute marketing campaigns and drive traffic to stores based on analytics.

With consumer analytics in hand and the launching of the companys new bakery cafe concept, Great Harvest hopes it can expand in a knowledgeable way.

But having a cafe in your local Great Harvest may not sound like a groundbreaking concept to most Montanans.

Ferretti said most Big Sky locations already have cafes, including the Butte location, which he said was the first Great Harvest to have seating and offer sandwiches.

Its as much a restaurant as it is a bakery, said Ferretti.

But now, he said, the company plans to take the cafe concept to a more formal level.

As Great Harvest expands into the Northeast, Ferretti said, the company will be branching out into areas that tend to have more expensive real estate, requiring the company to get more bang for its buck with each new location.

The more we go into bigger cities  the more efficient we have to be with our layout, Ferretti explained. We have to be able to get more sales dollars per square foot than weve been able to get in the past.

In other words, locations can draw more dollars per square foot if they have cafes in them.

Great Harvest has been known as a company that encourages franchisees to personalize their business and cater to local tastes. The Montana Standard asked if this culture would continue and, more importantly, whether the Butte location will still have povitica during the holidays.

We still want individual locations to be able to reflect the look and feel of their individual owners, said Ferretti.

(But) what were trying to do is do that in a way thats efficient and profitable, he continued, noting that the company will take much tighter control over the production side of the business.

And yes, Ferretti said, the Butte location will still offer povitica during the holidays.

Although the Buxton study isnt underway yet, Ferretti gave a sneak preview of what he believes makes a successful Great Harvest.

Ferretti said having quality product is key, but what is perhaps just as important is the ability of business owners to connect with the community.

Its a matter of how you present yourself, how you market yourself, said Ferretti. What further differentiates (locations) is a fun, happy atmosphere  its service and advertising.

Polanski, meanwhile, advocated for a more nuanced perspective of location, location, location.

In the past its always been spoken about as number one, said Polanski, explaining that its more important to find the right type of customers and seek them out than focusing just on location.

Where they live, where they work, where they play, he said.

As for Ferretti, he said that his advice for business owners is to understand their strengths and weaknesses and to use this knowledge to concentrate on what they do well and to hire individuals to fill in the gaps.

He added that people should expect to see more Great Harvest locations in the Northeast starting in 2018.
CEDAR CITY, Utah  Simon William Brennan Bronson, 72, of Cedar City, Utah, passed from this life on Sunday, March 19, 2017, surrounded by friends, relatives, and his children. Simon will always be a beloved father, grandfather, and uncle. He was born to George William Bronson and Louella Jones Bronson in 1945. He grew up on the family farm near the City of Rocks in Idaho before moving with his family to Salt Lake City, Utah.

Simon courageously battled cancer for many years. He was an accomplished actor, gymnast, Spanish speaker, and outdoorsman.

Simon graduated from South High School in Salt Lake City and later attended the University of Utah and Southern Utah University. Simon loved flying and spent the majority of his professional career as an air ambulance pilot in Billings, Montana, where he flew thousands of missions that saved many lives. Simon being an avid traveler, geography, and astronomy enthusiast, could point out nearly every mountain range and constellation on his many journeys.

Simon also played many instruments, including the violin, harmonica, concertina, and recorder, but he is probably best known for his voice and amazing fluency on guitar, which he perfected on his two year mission in Chile. His music touched many lives and will live on in his friends, family, students and children.

He was an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, having served in many callings throughout his life.

Simon is survived by his children, daughter, Chelsea (James) McMurdo, Afton, Wyoming; son, Jesse (Ashley) Bronson, Kirkland, Washington; daughter, Olivia Bronson, Seattle, Washington; five grandchildren; brother, Larry Randal; and sister, Ethel Ficks. He is preceded in death by both of his parents; and sisters, VaLois Dallimore, Laura Pearl Lyman, Mary Lou Salter, and Georgie Gay Bateman.

A memorial service for Simon will be forthcoming and announced to family and friends at a later date.
HELENA  A bill to make Montana compliant with federal driver's license rules would cost the state more than $2 million a year for the next four years.

But if it doesn't pass, Montana residents won't be able to use their state-issued licenses to board airplanes starting in January.

State lawmakers have resisted complying with the 2005 federal REAL ID Act over concerns of privacy. The Legislature passed a law in 2007 forbidding the state from issuing the enhanced identification cards.

The proposal by Democratic Sen. Jill Cohenour of East Helena would give Montanans the option of choosing a license that meets the federal requirements.

Cohenour told the Senate State Administration Committee on Monday it would cost the state $2.6 million to implement in the first year, and go down after that.
Dozens of students, teachers and parents offered impassioned support for Laurel High School principal Edward Norman, but school trustees still voted 5-2 not to renew his contract Monday night.

Montana law gives trustees the option not to renew some employees without cause; because trustees went that route, they were prohibited from discussing Norman's job performance or personality, good or bad.

By law, that prohibition extended to public comment, but several comments seemed to push the limit at the meeting, where more than 100 people lined walls and crowded doorways at the Laurel schools administrative building.

"Without a doubt, he is all about the kids," said Laurel social studies teacher Dan Gatley.

One student held up a petition of more than 400 signatures supporting Norman, flipping through each page while showing it to an applauding crowd.

Another choked up halfway through her comment.

"I have never had a principal that cares about us more than Mr. Norman does," she said.

Two people said they supported the non-renewal, and another man said he supported the board's decision.

But dozens of supporting comments didn't sway the board.

"Knowing the support that's been here ... It's just been phenomenal," said Norman after the meeting. "I've got a couple more months here to make a difference with these kids."

For much of the non-renewal process, board chair Doug LeBrun read from a script provided by the state school board association detailing state laws about what could and couldn't be said. If the board had pursued for-cause non-renewal, it would have had to offer proof of cause.

Several commenters expressed dissatisfaction, both with limits on their comments and on board discussion.

"There obviously is something we're not seeing here," said community member Tricia Johnson.

Several people called the Laurel administrative position a "revolving door."

Norman was hired in 2014, after the school had turned over a pair of previous administrators.

"We've got to keep starting over and over and over again," said Laurel High School teacher Jim O'Neil.

During the final vote, which was initially verbal before totals were double-checked, several people in the audience shouted "no" when LeBrun asked if there were any nays. The crowd, murmuring, began to file out after the vote.
(ANSA) - Melendugno, March 28 - Police on Tuesday clashed with protestors aiming to prevent the removal of 200 olive trees in Melendugno, in the southern Puglia region, for a tunnel for the TranAdriatic Pipeline (TAP) gas pipeline project. Police charged twice in order to move protestors away from gates to the work site and a number of people were injured.

Some of the protestors suffered bruising and others felt ill after the clashes, union sources said. The removal of the olive trees was suspended, but later resumed.

Tension remained high later in the day and demonstrators threw stones at police was trucks entered the site, hurting two officers.

The police baton-charged the protesters again to stop them getting into the site.

Mayors and councillors from 'No TAP' towns and villages took part in the protest, as did two regional councillors, Cosimo Borracino of the Italian Left (SI) and Antonio Trevisi of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S), along with M5S MP Daniela Donno. The TranAdriatic Pipeline, which was recently approved by the environment ministry and by the Council of State, Italy's highest administrative court, aims to bring Caspian gas to Europe. Puglia Governor Michele Emiliano said the regional government had decided to appeal against yesterday's decision by the environment ministry to give the project the go-ahead.

He said he had called the first "technical talks" between the regional government and affected mayors to discuss a pending appeal to the Constitutional Court.

Emiliano said he deplored the clashes, saying "the government has proved incapable of listening to Puglia".

"Using the massive deployment of forces that was set up today, the government shows its incapacity to listen and politically process the requests of an entire region which has in its ruling programme, elaborated from the bottom and voted for by hundreds of thousands of Puglians, the transfer of the TAP link to another area".

Emiliano said earlier this month that uprooting olive trees to make way for the TAP was "illegal".

Voicing his support for farmers who clashed with police, Emiliano however added: "the regional government does not have instruments to stop a project that the government has told police to protect, an operation considered absolutely strategic". Before he became Italian premier, then Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said last year that "The creation of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline is strategic for the diversification of provision sources" not just for "the EU and the Balkans" but also "for Italy".

Speaking in June at the foreign ministry in Rome during the fourth session of the inter-governmental commission on economic cooperation between Italy and Azerbaijan, Gentiloni said "after the inauguration of the project in Thessaloniki, about one month ago, a challenge has opened: seeing Azeri gas reach Italy by 2020" .

"Now we can look at new horizons", he said. The objective, recalled Gentiloni, is to boost economic and political relations between Rome and Baku, considered a "strategic regional partner".

The TAP consortium is made up of the following companies: BP (20%), SOCAR (20%), Snam (20%), Fluxys (19%), Enags (16%) and Axpo (5%). It is set to invest 5.6 billion euros in the gas pipeline in the next few years.


(ANSA) - Melendugno, March 28 - Police on Tuesday clashed with protestors aiming to prevent the removal of 200 olive trees in Melendugno, in the southern Puglia region, for a tunnel for the TranAdriatic Pipeline (TAP) gas pipeline project. Police charged twice in order to move protestors away from gates to the work site and a number of people were injured.

Some of the protestors suffered bruising and others felt ill after the clashes, union sources said. The removal of the olive trees was suspended, but later resumed.

Tension remained high later in the day and demonstrators threw stones at police was trucks entered the site, hurting two officers.

The police baton-charged the protesters again to stop them getting into the site.

Mayors and councillors from 'No TAP' towns and villages took part in the protest, as did two regional councillors, Cosimo Borracino of the Italian Left (SI) and Antonio Trevisi of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S), along with M5S MP Daniela Donno. The TranAdriatic Pipeline, which was recently approved by the environment ministry and by the Council of State, Italy's highest administrative court, aims to bring Caspian gas to Europe. Puglia Governor Michele Emiliano said the regional government had decided to appeal against yesterday's decision by the environment ministry to give the project the go-ahead.

He said he had called the first "technical talks" between the regional government and affected mayors to discuss a pending appeal to the Constitutional Court.

Emiliano said he deplored the clashes, saying "the government has proved incapable of listening to Puglia".

"Using the massive deployment of forces that was set up today, the government shows its incapacity to listen and politically process the requests of an entire region which has in its ruling programme, elaborated from the bottom and voted for by hundreds of thousands of Puglians, the transfer of the TAP link to another area".

Anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) leader Beppe Grillo attacked Emiliano for allegedly seeking to boost his campaign to become leader of the ruling centre-left Democratic Party (PD), in a race where Emiliano is lagging far behind favourite and former PD leader Matteo Renzi.

"He should wake up or resign, not try to be a showman," said Grillo.

Emiliano said earlier this month that uprooting olive trees to make way for the TAP was "illegal".

Voicing his support for farmers who clashed with police, Emiliano however added: "the regional government does not have instruments to stop a project that the government has told police to protect, an operation considered absolutely strategic". Before he became Italian premier, then Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said last year that "The creation of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline is strategic for the diversification of provision sources" not just for "the EU and the Balkans" but also "for Italy".

Speaking in June at the foreign ministry in Rome during the fourth session of the inter-governmental commission on economic cooperation between Italy and Azerbaijan, Gentiloni said "after the inauguration of the project in Thessaloniki, about one month ago, a challenge has opened: seeing Azeri gas reach Italy by 2020" .

"Now we can look at new horizons", he said. The objective, recalled Gentiloni, is to boost economic and political relations between Rome and Baku, considered a "strategic regional partner".

The TAP consortium is made up of the following companies: BP (20%), SOCAR (20%), Snam (20%), Fluxys (19%), Enags (16%) and Axpo (5%). It is set to invest 5.6 billion euros in the gas pipeline in the next few years.


(ANSA) - Melendugno, March 28 - Police on Tuesday clashed with protestors aiming to prevent the removal of olive trees in Melendugno, in the southern Puglia region, for a tunnel for the TranAdriatic Pipeline (TAP) gas pipeline project. Police charged twice in order to move protestors away from gates to the work site and a number of people were injured.

Some of the protestors suffered bruising and others felt ill after the clashes, union sources said. The removal of the olive trees was suspended.

The TranAdriatic Pipeline, which was recently approved by the environment ministry and by the Council of State, Italy's highest administrative court, aims to bring Caspian gas to Europe. Puglia Governor Michele Emiliano deplored the clashes and said "the government has proved incapable of listening to Puglia".

"Using the massive deployment of forces that was set up today, the government shows its incapacity to listen and politically process the requests of an entire region which has in its ruling programme, elaborated from the bottom and voted for by hundreds of thousands of Puglians, the transfer of the TAP link to another area".

Emiliano said earlier this month that uprooting olive trees to make way for the TAP was "illegal".

Voicing his support for farmers who clashed with police, Emiliano however added: "the regional government does not have instruments to stop a project that the government has told police to protect, an operation considered absolutely strategic". Before he became Italian premier, then Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said last year that "The creation of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline is strategic for the diversification of provision sources" not just for "the EU and the Balkans" but also "for Italy".

Speaking in June at the foreign ministry in Rome during the fourth session of the inter-governmental commission on economic cooperation between Italy and Azerbaijan, Gentiloni said "after the inauguration of the project in Thessaloniki, about one month ago, a challenge has opened: seeing Azeri gas reach Italy by 2020" .

"Now we can look at new horizons", he said. The objective, recalled Gentiloni, is to boost economic and political relations between Rome and Baku, considered a "strategic regional partner".

The TAP consortium is made up of the following companies: BP (20%), SOCAR (20%), Snam (20%), Fluxys (19%), Enags (16%) and Axpo (5%). It is set to invest 5.6 billion euros in the gas pipeline in the next few years.


(ANSA) - Milan, March 28 - A preliminary investigations judge on Tuesday dismissed a probe into a suspected alternative killer of Chiara Poggi, the 26-year-old killed in the Italian town of Garlasco in 2007.

The new probe, which started last year, looked at the possibility that Poggi's killer may have been a friend of her brother's, Andrea Sempio and not her boyfriend at the time Alberto Stasi, who was convicted of the crime.

Stasi's defence team presented DNA evidence allegedly linking Sempio to the murder.

But the judge, Fabio Lambertucci, on Tuesday dismissed the team's work as "insubstantial".

When Stasi's team pout forward Sempio as the 'real' killer last year, Poggi's family rejected the idea that Stasi was not the man who had killed their daughter.

"The only person (responsible) has already been convicted by an irrevocable sentence issued in the name of the Italian people," the Poggi family lawyers said.

In the case dismissed Tuesday, the Pavia prosecutor's office upheld a request from Stasi's mother to reopen the murder case.

Sempio was put under investigation in the fresh probe after traces of his DNA were, according to an analysis ordered by the defence team, found under the victim's nails.

The Poggi family lawyers, Gian Luigi Tizzoni and Francesco Compagna, said in a statement that Italy's supreme Court of Cassation acknowledged that expert analysis during the trial regarding DNA under the victim's fingernails showed that "it wasn't possible to make any consideration on the topic of identity or of exclusion, as the defendant's defense team has acknowledged several times".


EU warns Austria of 'consequences' of migrant plan U-turn Vienna asks for 'understanding', denies provocation

(ANSAmed) - BRUSSELS, MARCH 28 - No country can withdraw "unilaterally" from the "legally binding" mandatory EU asylum seeker redistribution plan, European Commission spokesperson for migration Natasha Bertaud said on Tuesday. "If they did they would be outside the law and this would be deeply deplorable and not without consequences," she added in reference to Austria's intention to withdraw from the 2015 plan to relieve pressure on front-line countries such as Italy and Greece. Austria's Social Democrat Chancellor Christian Kern said earlier the country wanted to consult Brussels concerning its intentions and asked for "understanding". Kern said Vienna did not want to be provocative and was not seeking an infraction procedure from Brussels. "The commitments, made on a European level, must be respected for the good of the community," he added, while also recalling the number of migrants and asylum seekers already present in Austria. Deputy Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner (People's Party) has however told reporters that he is not convinced that Kern's initiative in Brussels will be successful, suggesting that the SPO coalition partners are divided on the issue. (ANSAmed).




Migrants: Libyan coast guard rescues 60 Bangladeshi Spokesperson, they were brought to Zawiya on Sunday

(ANSAmed) - CAIRO, MARCH 28 - Libya's coastguard has rescued 60 migrants as they tried to reach Italy by boat, navy spokesperson general Ayoub Omar Qassem said.



"They are all Bangladeshi, there are no casualties", the official told ANSA by phone.



The migrants were on an inflatable boat off Sabratha, west of Tripoli, at dawn on Sunday when the coastguard intercepted them, Qassem said, as quoted by MENA news agency. "The migrants were brought back to shore, to the port of Zawiya, and handed over to authorities in charge of illegal migration after being seen by medics," he said. Six years after a revolution that toppled dictator Muammar Gadaffi, Libya has become a key departure point for migrants making perilous attempts to cross the Mediterranean to Europe, MENA said. Most board boats operated by people traffickers in the country's west, heading for the Italian island of Lampedusa 300km away. Despite rough winter seas, in recent months departures have surged from already record levels. More than half a million migrants, mostly from Africa, made it to Italy between late 2013 and the end of 2016. (ANSAmed).




About 100 Laurel High School students skipped school Tuesday to protest the school board's decision Monday night not to renew high school principal Edward Norman's contract for next school year.

Students started at Laurel High at about 7:45 before marching down First Avenue to Main Street and looping around the Laurel schools administration building, then returning to school.

"He's the best principal we've had ... he's, like, strict, but he's also cool with us," said senior Kobe Cox.

Students brandished signs like "Free Norman," "Why doesn't our opinion matter?" "#Not Our Board" and "Student Lives Matter."

At one point outside the administrative building, they chanted, "We want the reason."

Because trustees, following the recommendation of district Superintendent Linda Filpula, decided to non-renew Norman without cause, the reason was legally off-limits to discuss at Monday's meeting. Montana law lets schools let some employees go without cause.

"I feel like we didn't really get any of the representation we wanted from the board," said senior Callie Lindse. "This is all we can do now ... I don't know if it's going to change anything."

When students circled back to the high school, they opened the school's back doors at the end of first period and changed to pro-Norman slogans. They were allowed to file into school and greet Norman, and several exited after. Some students said they intended to skip the full school day.

Norman was hired by trustees in 2014 after a pair of high school principals turned over quickly. At Monday's meeting several supporters cited the need for consistency at the position.

At Tuesday's protest, it was clear that students were most invested in personal connections with Norman.

"My brother wanted to drop out of school at one point," said sophomore Zoe Salverson. "(Norman) literally got my brother's (phone) number and went to talk to him at his work to come back to school."
ANSAmed - Today's events in the Mediterranean

(ANSAmed) - ROME, MARCH 28 - The following are some of the main events scheduled for today in the Euro-Mediterranean area.



AMMAN - Arab League summit with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini (also 29/3).



BARCELONA - UfM High Level Working Group on Employment and Labor meeting (also 29/3). ROME - III edition of the International Biagio Agnes Tourism and Culture Forum.



BEIRUT (LEBANON) - visit by EU Commissioner or European Neighbourhood Policy & Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn.



(ANSAmed).




Strasbourg condemns Russia for treatment of asylum seekers Court says detention in Moscow airport illegal and inhuman

(ANSAMed) - STRASBOURG, 28 MAR - The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Russia for the ill treatment inflicted to 4 asylum seekers coming from Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Somalia and Syria. The Strasbourg judges have defined their detention in the transit area of Moscow's airport that in one case lasted almost 2 years, illegal, inhuman and degrading. The 4 men, travelling independently from each other, landed in Moscow in 2015 and the authorities, having denied them entry into the country due to irregularities with their documents, closed them up in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo airport. In the judgement the Court says Russia has inflicted them an inhuman and degrading treatment having detained them for "extended periods of time in unacceptable conditions" since the men had to sleep on a mattress in the constantly-lit and noisy boarding area of the airport, with no possibility to shower, and live on emergency rations provided by the Unhcr. The judges have also condemned Russia for illegal detention since the country does not have a law regulating the question. Russia has to pay the 4 men a total of 81 thousand euro in respect of pecuniary damage. (ANSAMed)
ANSAmed - Tomorrow's events in the Mediterranean

(ANSAmed) - ROME, MARCH 28 - The following are some of the main events scheduled for tomorrow in the Euro-Mediterranean area.



DEAD SEA (JORDAN) - Arab League summit on the war in Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Summit will be attended also by leaders from UN, Russia, US and EU. BARCELONA - UfM High Level Working Group on Employment and Labor meeting (also on March 30). ROME - III edition of the International Biagio Agnes Tourism and Culture Forum.



BEIRUT (LEBANON) - visit by EU Commissioner or European Neighbourhood Policy & Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn.



TUNIS - Workshop for Tunisian businessmen willing to export their products into the Italian market.



(ANSAmed).




Austria to pull out of EU relocation scheme Interior, defence ministers concur

(ANSAmed) - Bolzano, March 27 - Austria is set to decide Tuesday to pull out of the EU's migrant relocation scheme, sources said Monday after Defence Minister Hanz Doskozil's proposal was welcomed by Interior Minister Wolfgag Sobotka.



Doskozil said Vienna had "more than respected" its European obligations.



Vienna has been threatening to pull out of the scheme for some time citing "uncontrolled" migration into Italy. Doskozil said Thursday Austria would not take in refugees from Italy. "As long as there is illegal and uncontrolled immigration, and Austria is strongly hit, there can be no further legal away for asylum seekers," he told the APA news agency. There were some 36,000 asylum applications in Austria in 2016 compared to Italy's 120,000 or so, making Austria doubly affected compared to Italy in terms of population size.




STRASBOURG - The States of the Council of Europe are under the obligation to investigate and condemn as hate crimes not only those committed against people that belong to certain groups but also those against a person that is victim of an attack because associated to someone belonging to a minority. The principle has been established by the European Court of Human Rights that has condemned Croatia for having failed to investigate as a hate crime the attack against the partner of a man of Roma origins, himself attacked by 2 men because he belongs to this minority.

The two assailants were prosecuted and convicted on charges that included a hate crime against the man of Roma origins, but the authorities rejected the woman's complaint of a hate crime, finding that there was no indication that the men had attacked her because of hatred towards Roma, as she is not of Roma origin. But the Strasbourg judges have established that by so doing the authorities have violated the woman's rights.

In the judgement it is underlined that "under the European Convention of Human Rights case law, a person may be a victim of a violent hate crime not only when they have been attacked because they themselves have a certain characteristic - but also when they are attacked because they have an actual or presumed association with another person, who has (or is perceived to have) that characteristic". Therefore, says the Court, States have an obligation to recognize both types as hate crimes, and investigate them accordingly.
In a statement posted on the Federal Opportunities Register, the Department of Defense said the contract, worth US$14.4 million, will be performed in Germany, Honduras and Kuwait. The estimated completion date is December 31, 2017.

Egypt is the only African country that falls within the responsibility of the US Central Command (CENT-COMM), which is based in Stuttgart, Germany. The other 55 African countries are within the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) Area of Responsibility (AOR).

In January, the US Army Central Command awarded Dyncorp International another Foreign Military Sales (FMS) contracts which catered for the provision of maintenance engineering services for its aircraft stationed at bases in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan.
President Donald Trump has proposed elimination of funding for public broadcasting. Yet, compared with other western nations, the U.S. already provides less than anyone else.

A 2016 study of 18 western nations for Canadian public broadcasting showed that the state funding leader was Norway, at more than $134 per person. Less than half of that, and you have approximately Frances $54 per capita. At less than a fourth of what Norway pays, Italy spends $28, while our neighbors to the north commit $21. How much does the U.S. spend? Around $2 per person per year  lowest of all countries studied. In fact, the U.S. spent less than 4 percent of the average of the 18 Western nations studied.

Lets be clear: U.S. government support of public broadcasting funds less than one-fifth of the total budget. The vast majority of funds come from other sources, notably corporate underwriting and private member contributions. But the stations most likely to suffer the most from cuts will be those in small markets, where federal funding makes up a greater percentage of the total operating budget. The greatest risk is in the very places with the fewest free, over-the-air media choices.

It does no good to note that the federal government spent more on vacations for employees on administrative leave, or a single F-35 fighter jet, since the argument is not that public broadcasting is less wasteful than other government programs. The argument is that public broadcasting improves the quality of life for Americans in ways commercial service do not.

Public broadcasting has faced budget cuts before, and the argument is always the same: the marketplace will provide the things that government-supported broadcasting provides. That ignores reality. The trend in America today is fewer households paying for cable or satellite. Certainly the poor are less likely to have paid television services, so all the variety purported by marketplace proponents is not available to those who dont pay a subscription fee.

The Smithsonian has billions of dollars of art and history in its collections, yet we dont look to sell off the artifacts to balance the budget. You dont destroy a national treasure for a few million dollars, or even a few billion. Its an asset youll never be able to duplicate. That would be short-sighted. Public broadcasting is also a national treasure.

Dom Caristi is a Ball State University professor of telecommunications.
When Libyas globally-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) was signed into existence in December 2015, the United Nations hailed its clear plan for rebuilding a strong, united and peaceful Libya after five years of unrest split the country down the middle with two competing governments.

The 12 months that followed saw the Misrata brigades, a band of militias loyal to the GNA, drive Daesh from its strongholds in Libya  liberating thousands from the ultra-hardline terrorists and securing a key victory for the fledgling government.

But, beyond that all-important military success, there are few reasons to look back on 2016 as an encouraging year for Libya.

Hopes for unity have unravelled in the face of continued opposition from power-brokers in the east of the country, who flexed their muscles this summer by voting against the GNAs mandate and seizing oil terminals. One western group responded by seizing premises in Tripoli and trying to restore executive powers to Khalifa Al-Ghwell, the former prime minister.

The reality is that todays Libya is a deeply divided country  as it has been since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011  with power spread thinly between myriad armed groups, who shift allegiances regularly and show no deference to the democratic process.

For the countrys two state-owned carriers, Libyan Airlines and Afriqiyah Airways, survival comes at a cost. Their shared home base, Tripoli International Airport, was all but destroyed in 2014 when western Islamists drove the then UN-backed government from power. More recently, both parastatals have been targeted by militiamen apparently eager to settle scores: Fathi Al-Shatti, the chairman of Libyan Airlines, was held by kidnappers for 47 days last year; while one of Afriqiyahs A330s has been impounded by gunmen operating with impunity at Tripolis surrogate gateway, Mitiga International Airport.

With few Libyans splashing out on air travel, and still fewer foreigners willing to visit the country, Afriqiyah is now deploying just six of the 16 aircraft under its ownership.

There are still difficulties. Its no easier, chairman Abubaker Elfortia told me during the annual meeting of the Arab Air Carriers Organisation (AACO) in Casablanca in November. Why? Because the government is not completely formed  we dont have ministers yet  and this is not helping at all. And the other thing which is affecting Afriqiyah and the airlines is the cost of hard currency.

The Mitiga-based carrier currently flies to four domestic points (Misrata and Zintan in the west, Bayda in the east, and Sebha in the south west) plus six regional destinations (Alexandria in Egypt, Amman in Jordan, Istanbul in Turkey, Khartoum in Sudan, and Tunis and Sfax in Tunisia). It also operates west African charter flights to Accra in Ghana, and Niamey in Niger.

Elfortia insisted that Afriqiyah is welcomed in all corners of the country, irrespective of tribal allegiances. The political [situation] has no effect [on our domestic network], he said, highlighting plans to begin serving Kufrah in the south east. We are flying all the time from west to east to south, regardless of any political situation.

Nonetheless, the fragmented state of the fleet speaks volumes about the airlines day-to-day troubles. Alongside its six operational units  three Airbus A320s, two A319s and one A300F  Afriqiyah has five aircraft in storage, most of which are damaged (two A330-200s, two A320s and one A319); two A320s leased out to Lithuanias Small Planet Airlines; and one A330-300 leased out to Turkish Airlines.

It also owns the A330-300 blockaded by militiamen in Mitiga, plus the infamously extravagant A340 that Gaddafi acquired as a private jet for use on his diplomatic trips.

With one damaged A330-200 (5A-ONP) now undergoing repairs in Hamburg, and the A340 sitting on the tarmac of Perpignan Airport in southern France, almost one-third of the fleet is currently stationed outside of Libya.

There is also no guarantee that the damaged A320-family jets will be returned to service. [We have to decide] is it feasible to fix them or not, Elfortia said, adding that engineers are still inspecting the aircraft  more than two years after they were riddled with bullets during the Islamist assault on Tripoli. Three additional planes were destroyed by aerial bombardments in 2011 and 2014 (one A300, one A320 and one A330-200).

Asked about the A330-300 impounded in Mitiga, the chairman admitted that some stakeholders in the country object to the strategy of leasing out metal to foreign operators. Afriqiyah managed to transfer one of its wide-bodies to Turkish Airlines in 2015 under an eight-year lease (5A-ONQ / TC-JOM), but attempts to relocate the second unit (5A-ONR / TC-JON) were unsuccessful.

The contract was for the two aircraft, and the other one has been stopped from going, Elfortia said, confirming that vehicles are being used to physically block the plane. Of course, leasing the aircraft is the proper solution for the time being. The A330 is a big aircraft. Its supposed to be operated for long distances. And what makes it even more urgent now is the need for hard currency, which the airline needs [in order] to keep operating.

Dismissing calls by some parties for the wide-body to be deployed within Afriqiyahs network, he stressed: Theres no embassies in Libya! Really you cannot fly [it]. Theres no routes that are suitable for it.

An order for 10 next-generation A350-900s, meanwhile, remains active with Airbus, though deliveries are inconceivable in the current climate.

On the narrow-body side, the two A320s placed with Small Planet are the same units that Afriqiyah deployed under an Irish flag of convenience in 2014 to bypass the EUs blacklisting of Libyan carriers. Those aircraft have been re-registered with a Lithuanian licence (LY-ONJ and LY-ONL) and are now being flown by the charter and wet-lease specialist within Europe. Because they are Europe-registered they are easy to lease out, Elfortia said, describing the income they generate as compensation for low activity within Libya.

While there are no plans for Small Planet to operate the aircraft between Europe and Libya  as Irelands Air Contractors did, briefly, in 2014  they may help build connectivity in a more roundabout way.

Afriqiyah last year set up a subsidiary airline, PanAfriqiyah, in the nearby Mediterranean island of Malta, appointing former Air Malta boss Louis Giordimaina as a non-executive director. Though he was cautious about discussing the business model, Elfortia made clear that the subsidiary  which is seeking a European air operators certificate (AOC)  would take over responsibility for its parents long-held hub aspirations.

Our model as Afriqiyah Airways is to bring passengers from Europe and have the hub and then distribute them to Africa, he explained, recalling the companys glory days before the Arab Spring, when it served 18 destinations in Africa and eight in Europe. We see that our model is being disturbed due to the recent trouble, so really we are changing the hub from Tripoli to Malta. We are focused on starting [PanAfriqiyah] with two aircraft, and in three years we should have about six aircraft.

We will be leasing. If the situation in Libya stays the same way as it is now, and we still have the two aircraft registered outside with Small Planet, we could start with them.

Elfortia denied that the subsidiary is an attempt to get around the EU ban, which Brussels imposed in 2012 amid concerns about Libyas post-war oversight capabilities. To the contrary, he said, Afriqiyah wants to restore its north-to-south hub in a stable environment, while also enhancing training opportunities for staff. The target is to upgrade Afriqiyah and the employees of Afriqiyah, he reiterated. This means that they can come and do on-the-job Training in Malta. Long-term, the subsidiary may even deploy wide-bodies for flying from Malta across the Atlantic.

Whatever the strategic motivation, it seems inevitable that PanAfriqiyah will include Libyan points in its African network  thereby improving the experience of Libyans, who must presently self-connect to Europe over hubs in Tunisia and Turkey.

There are no foreign airlines serving Libya today. Although several carriers restored flights after the overthrow of Gaddafi  among them British Airways, Lufthansa, Alitalia, Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways and Etihad  all withdrew due to security concerns.

In October, Elfortias outward-looking investment strategy also saw Afriqiyah acquire 20% of the Aviation Training Centre of Tunisia (ATCT). The chairman said the move would cut costs at the airline by allowing its pilots to obtain European-standard simulator training without travelling to Germany. It should further provide a new revenue stream for the cash-strapped company.

Turning to the stalled merger between Afriqiyah and Libyan Airlines  which had been nearing completion around the end of Gaddafis rule  Elfortia said consolidation remains the target but is not considered an immediate priority. At the moment, to merge the two airlines means we are merging the problems of the two airlines, he explained, pointing to staffing issues at the sister carrier. Merging definitely is coming, but it will not be very soon. First of all we have to have a government, because this needs government support and its a government decision  It will not be before three years.

With cultural differences hampering efforts to form a true alliance, the chairman said joint network planning should be the first step. We fly to the same destinations, he noted. We are trying now to organise more  at least to have our flights to the one destination on separate days.

Eighteen months ago, when Arabian Aerospace reported from the burned-out shell of Tripoli International Airport, officials spoke hopefully about the prospects for reconstruction and a long-overdue return to stability. Neither has come to pass.

There is nothing going on there yet, to be honest. There is no repair work, Elfortia said of the once-bustling gateway. Admitting that his company can no longer even provide safe passage for journalists, he repeated: Everything needs the government, and the government is not there yet.


Harward shared candid lessons learned from his forty-year national security career, including the challenges and sacrifices necessary to answer professional calls of duty to make the world a safer place.



The Interpol forum, organised in partnership with the United Arab Emirates and the Interpol Foundation for a Safer World, is a platform for participants to discuss how to implement a global framework to combat future security threats, and best practices in tackling counter-terrorism, organised and emerging crime, and cybercrime.



Harward said: This Forum and its theme: Unity for Security, come at a very critical time for us here in the region. We are witnessing one of the most dynamic geopolitical threat landscapes that we have ever seen before. I am honoured to be a part of this forum and share my story, which I hope will benefit the individuals and nations gathered together with common purpose and determination to serve and protect what matters most."
Under the new agreement starting 26th March 2017, guests on Oman Air can connect to 59 destinations across Europe and North America from Lufthansas Frankfurt and Munich hubs on an interline basis.



At the same time, Lufthansa will codeshare with Oman Air on Oman Air operated services from both Frankfurt and Munich to Muscat, allowing their guests to experience the hospitality and outstanding service of Oman Air.



Oman Air will be moving terminals in Frankfurt to the Lufthansa operated terminals in Frankfurt terminal 1 and Munich terminal 2.



Oman Air will also be re-timing its current services to Frankfurt to arrive and depart Frankfurt during the morning to facilitate connections in Frankfurt to Europe and North America in under three hours.



Oman Air will be operating its brand new Boeing Dreamliner 787-9 between Muscat and Frankfurt.



Chief executive officer of Oman Air, Paul Gregorowitsch, said: Strategic codeshares are a crucial way for us to broaden customer choice. Our relationship with Lufthansa is a very important development for Oman Air allowing us to offer even better connectivity in Europe and the North Atlantic and we are delighted to be operating one of newest additions to the fleet, the Boeing Dreamliner on the Muscat to Frankfurt route.
The terminal will provide service to five million passengers per annum.

TAV Airports President & CEO Sani Sener said: The new passenger terminal, the biggest infrastructure investment in the last decade in Croatia, will make Zagreb one of the leading airports in the region thanks to its modern architecture and the latest infrastructure technology. Having become one of the world's highly-preferred brands in airport construction and operation, TAV is glad to partake in this project. Zagreb is the first project of our consortium, including our international partners Group ADP and Bouygues in Europe; Cuba Havana Airport will follow. We believe, this project will contribute to the development of a good relationship and cooperation between Turkey and Croatia".

The new terminal, which was established over an area of 65,000 sqm and with an investment of 330 mln, consists of eight passenger boarding bridges, 30 check-in counters and a car park having a capacity of 1,100 vehicles. In the following periods, the annual capacity of the terminal is expected to be increased to eight million passengers. TAV will be the operator of Zagreb Airport until 2042.

TAV Airports holds 15 per cent shares of a consortium that was awarded the project. The consortium took over the operation of Zagreb Airport in December 2013. The construction works of the new terminal started in May 2014.
Formerly director of regional product & strategy for Northern Europe, Kaur is now responsible for providing product support & technical solutions and consultancy to the commercial teams across EMEA. With a focus on product prioritisation and delivery of product development and planning for future customer needs, Kaur will also work with and deliver on customer expectations.



With over twenty years of professional experience in the travel industry, she has held several senior management positions and joined Travelport in 2012. Prior to joining Travelport, Jasmeen was director of revenue generation of EMEA at Pegasus and her professional experiences have made her a seasoned travel industry professional focused on building and developing result focused teams.



Kaur said: I am thrilled to have been given this fantastic opportunity to join the Travelport EMEA leadership team; to lead a passionate and resourceful team with a customer centric drive. Travelport has demonstrated real leadership and innovation in the industry in transforming the traditional distribution platform into a Travel Commerce Platform for online and offline travel agencies. Product, partnerships, consultancy and development are key strategic areas of focus for Travelport to offer a tailored service to meet the consumer business requirements and optimise the platform to maximize return on investment with higher conversion and yield.



Rabih Saab, President and managing director for Europe, Africa, Middle East and South Asia at Travelport said: We are delighted with Jasmeen Kaurs appointment to the role of Head of Product & Solutions for EMEA. With her strong, exemplary performance, I am confident that Jasmeen will further drive Travelports vision to connect our customers to a world of travel choice while supporting the growth of our businesses in EMEA.
Last Thursday, the Montana House gave preliminary approval to the Bridge and Road Safety Accountability Act, voting 56-44 for House Bill 473, sponsored by Rep. Frank Garner, R-Kalispell. But this long-term solution for Montanas deteriorating city and rural roads has a bigger hurdle this week: HB473 is now before the House Appropriations Committee, whose members split 11-11 in the House floor vote last week.

Members of the committee must consider the ongoing benefit to their constituents from investing in public safety starting this year. Montana roads are deteriorating faster than they are being repaired or rebuilt. We have one of the highest rates of highway deaths, 900 deficient or obsolete bridges and 30 percent of the states roads are in poor condition, according to a recent transportation assessment.

The hard part of HB473 is the increase of 8 cents per gallon in the state gas tax, which has not been raised in 23 years. Nobody is gung ho to raise taxes, but that 8 cents will bring huge returns to all Montanans:

Nearly 40 percent of the tax will be paid by the 11 million people who visit our state every year.

Every 13 cents in state taxes used for Montana highway projects is matched by 87 cents in federal funds.

In the first year, the proposed gas and diesel tax increase would provide $35 million for state highway projects, $23.5 million for city and county road projects and $2.75 million to sustain Montana Highway Patrol staffing levels, according to the bills fiscal note. Money from this tax increase could not be used for anything other than specified transportation safety purposes.

Updating Montanas fuel tax means that motorists will pay for highway safety. The state wont have to cut health, human services, corrections or education to construct roads.

The fuel tax money will be spent in Montana creating jobs and boosting the states economy, particularly transportation and tourism businesses.

The affect at the local level will be significant. City and county governments that now mostly rely on property taxpayers to fund streets will have fuel tax funds to build and improve transportation for everyone in their communities  without raising property taxes.

Thanks to the representatives who have supported the highway safety act, including these Yellowstone County lawmakers: Virginia Court, Geraldine Custer, Jessica Karjala, Kathy Kelker, Kelly McCarthy, Vince Ricci, Sharon Stewart-Peregoy and Sue Vinton.

Voting no from Yellowstone County Thursday were Jeff Essmann, Don Jones, Dennis Lenz, Dale Mortensen, Jimmy Patelis, Adam Rosendale, Barry Usher, Peggy Webb and Daniel Zolnikov. Its time for these no voters to get behind HB473.

McCarthy, Jones and Patelis, serve on Appropriations Committee. Our vast, populous county needs all three of them to back HB473 in committee and on the final floor vote.

Montanans who want better, safer roads need to speak up now. Phone the Legislature at 406-444-4800 and leave your message of support for HB473. You may leave a message for individual lawmakers or for the entire Appropriations Committee. This bill must pass the House yet this week to stay alive.

The city of Billings, Yellowstone County, local and state chambers of commerce have endorsed this infrastructure legislation. Our lawmakers need to support it, too.
A worldwide unique visitors-, study and congress center will open its doors in September 2016 in the core of the Alpine space. The World Nature Forum (WNF) in Naters (Valais) will be the base camp of the UNESCO World Heritage Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch. In the interactive exhibitions the visitor will experience with all its senses the property and immerse into the thrilling and varying sceneries of the Alps.

The World Nature Forum will host beside the visitors center a study center including an UNESCO Chair. Researchers will dedicate their projects to topics related to the high alpine area, and study how natural and cultural heritage could contribute to the sustainable development of mountain areas.
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Minister of Justice of Armenia Suren Krmoyan on March 28 took part in the Law and Technology conference organized within the framework of Lets develop Armenia together program by Luys Foundation, press service of the Ministry told Armenpress.

Suren Krmoyan thanked Executive Director of Luys Education Jacqueline Karaaslanian, stating that the conference will enable to reveal the problems faced by IT and technological companies and added that the Justice Ministry and the Government are ready to discuss and propose solutions for the problems hindering the technological development.

The Deputy Minister stated that this is one of the unique cases when the Justice Ministry, being informed on the event, expressed a wish to assist the initiative.

In recent years being one of the leaders of management and installation of innovative ideas and tools in the justice field, the Justice Ministry tries to not only invest innovative online management tools in the field of justice, but also to create favorable conditions for the activity of small and medium entrepreneurship and start-ups within the frames of anti-corruption strategy, by ensuring a proper legal base for installation and development of new technologies, the Deputy Minister said.

He highly appreciated Luys foundations such initiative and added that it is unique since it combines the law and technology.

During the conference issues related to copyright and intellectual property, data protection, availability of tax privileges and financial resources for technological companies were discussed.
On Day 65 of the Montana Legislature, theres just one bipartisan infrastructure bonding bill still alive.

At the start of the session in January, Rep. Jim Keane, D-Butte, introduced House Bill 14, Gov. Steve Bullocks proposal for cash-funded infrastructure projects along with bonding for Romney Hall renovation on the Montana State University campus in Bozeman, construction of a state veterans nursing home near Butte and the expansion of the Montana Historical Society museum and archives across the street from the Capitol. Last week, Rep. Mike Cuffe, R-Eureka, introduced House Bill 645, which excluded bonding for state buildings, but would have authorized $33 million in bonds to pay for local water and sewer projects, along with $15 million in cash for public school facility projects. The House Appropriations Committee on Monday killed both of those bills. On Tuesday, the same committee untabled and passed Cuffe's bill.

The bipartisan bill is Senate Bill 367, introduced last week by Sen. Eric Moore, R-Miles City, and signed by 23 other lawmakers, including Sens. Duane Ankney, Margie MacDonald, Mary McNally, Jason Small and Nels Swandal; and Rep. Tom Richmond. Gov. Steve Bullock is supporting this bill.

Its a group effort by people who have worked on bonding for several years, Moore told The Gazette Tuesday. Most of the infrastructure projects in the bill have been proposed in previous sessions that ended with no bonding program at all.

SB367 doesnt give everyone everything they want. A proposed $27 million appropriation for the Montana Heritage Center, the long-planned expansion and renovation of the states 67-year-old museum building, is excluded.

Education upgrades

On the other hand, the bill includes $5 million for the Yellowstone Science Building at Montana State University Billings, an appropriation not in the governor's initial bill.

SB367 also would do more to shore up local school infrastructure than any other legislation introduced this session. Moores bill would provide $30 million for priority school upgrades. Projects to be funded include schools in Miles City, Grass Range, Ashland, Livingston, Wolf Point, Rosebud, Shields Valley, Park City and Billings Senior High.

The bill would require local school districts to pay between 10 percent and 20 percent of the project costs, with a lower local contribution required for projects higher on the state priority list. The bill also limits the amount of state grants to $1.25 million per project. The projects, ranked by the Department of Commerce, would be funded in priority order till all $30 million in bond proceeds was allocated.

Because Moores bill would authorize the creation of state general obligation debt, it can only become law with the support of two-thirds of the Senate, two-thirds of the House. Both Republicans and Democrats will have to agree for it to pass.

Moore pointed out that although SB376 is the only remaining bonding bill, other pending legislation appropriates cash to sewer, water and rural water projects totaling more than $80 million for the biennium.

Low debt service

Montana presently ranks 47th among the 50 states for having the lowest per capita bonded debt. The state's debt service won't increase if it borrows as proposed by Moores bill. Because the state will be retiring old debt, the new bonds would keep the states debt service fairly level in coming years, Moore said.

We call on all lawmakers  especially those representing parts of Yellowstone County: You went on record in support of the MSU Billings science building funds. You have the opportunity to provide long-needed funds for basic infrastructure needs at Billings, Lockwood and Laurel schools.

SB367 in a good compromise, and it must pass the Senate by the Friday transmittal deadline. Yellowstone County senators, dont miss this opportunity to build up Montana. Vote for SB367.
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS. In the sidelines of the working visit to Ararat Province, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan attended Vedi reservoirs groundbreaking ceremony which was also attended by the Deputy Premier and Minister of International Economic Integration and Reforms, Ararat Governor, Chairman of the Water Resources State Committee, Ambassadors of France and Iran, Chairman of the South Caucasus Office of the French Development Agency (AFD) and other officials.

As Armenpress was informed from the press service of the Armenian Presidents Office, President Sargsyan familiarized himself with the construction projects, talked to those responsible for the construction and construction workers who assured that the Vedi reservoir construction project was prepared by the application of the modern scientific experience which guarantees high productivity and safety of the reservoir. The construction of the reservoir is an important step for ensuring the good irrigation of the 7500 hectares of Ararat Province during the coming decades and for ensuring agricultural development, as well as for supporting the restoration of Lake Sevans ecological balance. The construction project of the reservoir was developed by French ARTELIA EAU & ENVIRONMENT and Belgian SHER Ingenieurs-Conseils companies in collaboration with Jrtuk LLC. The construction was carried out by Armenian "Sahakyanshin" CJSC and Iranian Pegah Construction consortium.

The Vedi reservoir will be the first in the years of Armenias independence that will be constructed from the fundament.

Experts briefed the President that the reservoirs capacity will be 29.4 million cubic meters.

The 90 million Euro project is being implemented by the credit allocated by the French Development Agency and co-funding of the Armenian Government. The construction works will be finished in March, 2021.

The President was also briefed that during the 4 years of the implementation of the project 250 new jobs will be created with 220-250 thousand AMD average salary.
The state Legislature is currently considering the SAVE Act, a bill which proposes a $1.50 tax increase per pack of cigarettes. Raising taxes on tobacco products is one of the most effective ways to reduce use and improve health, and yet, Montana has not raised the tax on tobacco since 2005. The $1.50 tax increase is expected to reduce youth smoking rates in Montana by 16 percent.

What many do not realize is that everyone pays for the cost of tobacco, whether they use it or not.

Health care costs related to smoking reach $440 million in our state every year, and this number does not include the cost of secondhand smoke, smokeless tobacco, or cigar and pipe smoking.

According to the U.S. Surgeon General, increasing the price on cigarettes results in fewer kids starting to smoke and more adults quitting. Low-income adults, youth and pregnant women are especially likely to quit or reduce their smoking when prices go up.

The SAVE Act also proposes taxing e-cigarettes, which are currently not taxed in Montana. E-cigarettes have become popular among Montana teens with 30 percent of Montana's high-school students using e-cigarettes regularly. A 2017 study published in Tobacco Control found that teens using e-cigarettes in 12th grade are four times more likely to start smoking regular cigarettes in the next year.

This is our opportunity to protect Billings' kids, improve health, and save money. Let's act.

Dan Albrecht, Ph.D.

Holly Basta, Ph.D.

Cristi Hunnes, Ph.D.

Billings
The actor took to Instagram to share a screenshot of the profile which was using his pictures on the app.

Mumbai: There have been reports that Hollywood stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Britney Spears have their profiles on the dating app Tinder, but we have not yet found any of our Bollywood superstars on the platform yet.

However, we finally thought we had the first Bollywood celebrity on the app when reports of Varun Dhawan being on the platform surfaced.

Varun has often been linked with a couple of his co-stars but the actor has been in a relationship with his girlfriend of many years, Natasha Dalal. Though the actor has never openly affirmed the same, he's never denied it either.

Varun, who's been basking in the success of his latest 100-crore venture, 'Badrintah Ki Dulhania,' took to Instagram to ensure people know that he's on no dating website.

Recently, the news of a woman being duped by a man passing Saif Ali Khan's pictures as his own had gone viral.

Actors must have become doubly cautious since their pictures are anyway plastered across the internet.

We feel you, Varun.
Pakistans well-known musician Shafqat Amanat Ali who has recorded some of his most popular Bollywood songs.

Pakistans well-known musician Shafqat Amanat Ali who has recorded some of his most popular Bollywood songs, including Mitwa (Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna), Yeh hausla (Dor), Ter naina (My Name Is Khan) among others, is keen to end the cultural cold war between India and Pakistan. So much so, that he has decided to sing free of cost for an Indo-Pak play by Mahesh Bhatt. Edited excerpts from an interview:

What makes you feel so enthused about renewing the ties between the two countries?

The relationship between the two countries has been strained for too long and if the peace dialogue and initiatives resume, that is a great reason to be enthusiastic.

Recently Pakistani actors like Fawad Khan and Mahira Khan were stopped from visiting India. How did you and the Pakistani artistic fraternity respond to it?

Well, this was the first time that anything like this happened. In the past, there were a few sad incidents that derailed the peace process and strained relations, but this is the first time that such an extreme thing was seen. It was sad because it takes years of work to reach a certain point in the peace process. Not just artistes in Pakistan, even artistes in India expressed their sadness and shock.

What do you think is the solution to the deadlock between the two countries?

Unfortunately the solution to this is only at a political level. But these strained relations affect common people in both the countries. They need to understand that there are certain forces or external powers that ruin this peace between the two nations as they dont want the two to co-exist in harmony and peace.

Why did you agree to join hands with Mahesh Bhatt?

Because he is taking the initiative to re-start the peace process. He has always spoken of harmonious relations between the two neighbours and his play comes at an important point in time. It is a much-needed initiative to resume cultural exchange.

Is this a new beginning for Indo-Pak ties?

Well, hopefully yes. I am sure this project will be an important step in resolving issues.

When do you hope to come back to India?

As soon as things start moving in a positive direction.
The search operation launched in Durbugh area of Chadoora turned into a gunbattle after militants opened fire on security forces.

Srinagar: At least two persons were killed and 17 injured in clashes between security forces and protesters near an encounter site in Jammu & Kashmir's Budgam district. One militant was also killed in the encounter, the Army said.

Security forces launched a cordon and search operation in Durbugh area of Chadoora in the wee hours following information about the presence of militants in the area, a police official said.

He said the search operation turned into a gunbattle after militants opened fire on security forces.

As the security forces were engaged in the exchange of firing with holed-up militants, a large number of protesters started pelting stones at the law enforcing agencies, the official said.

He said one person was hit by a bullet in the neck and rushed to a hospital here. He succumbed to injuries on way to the hospital.

Four others suffered injuries as security forces fired pellet guns and tear smoke shells in a bid to disperse the protesters, the official said.

The gunbattle between security forces and militants was going on till last reports came in, the official said.
The step was taken keeping in view the overall public order, safety and health of the general public, an official release said.

Ranchi: Following Uttar Pradesh government's action against illegal slaughterhouses, Jharkhand government on Monday ordered closure of illegal abattoirs within 72 hours.

The step was taken keeping in view the overall public order, safety and health of the general public, an official release said in Ranchi.

Principal Secretary (Home) S K G Rahate wrote to all deputy commissioners, senior superintendents of police, superintendents of police, municipalities and notified area committees to take steps for closure of illegal abattoirs.

Stating that notice must be issued to all illegal slaughter houses for closing operations within 72 hours, the letter asked the officials not to allow any illegal abattoirs to operate within their jurisdictions.

Rahate also said that valid slaughter houses must ensure compliance of the rules and regulations laid down by the Animal Husbandry Department and Health Department.
The MP had purchased an open ticket prior to the ban, which his staff had booked for Wednesday morning to travel to Delhi from Mumbai.

New Delhi: Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad has booked another ticket with Air India but it was cancelled on Tuesday by the airline, days after all domestic carriers banned him from flying for assaulting a staff of the national carrier.

Sources said that the MP had purchased an open ticket prior to the ban, which his staff had booked for Wednesday morning to travel to Delhi from Mumbai.

The ticket "has been cancelled", an Air India (AI) statement said.

The Shiv Sena MP, who is at the centre of a raging storm for assaulting an elderly Air India employee last Thursday , was earlier barred from flying by all major domestic airlines in an unprecedented step in Indian aviation history.

A day after the incident, the national carrier had cancelled a return ticket of the MP while IndiGo too had followed suit, forcing him to take a train to Maharashtra.

The MP from Maharashtra's Osmanabad, however, has continued to brazen it out and remained unapologetic about his conduct.

An FIR has been registered against him on the basis of the complaint lodged by Air India for repeatedly hitting 62-year-old Duty Manager R Sukumar with sandals on a Pune-Delhi flight after it landed. The MP was angry at not being given a business class seat though he had boarded an all-economy flight.
BASIN, Wyo.  A health care provider in northern Wyoming is cooperating with an investigation by the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation.

South Big Horn Hospital District Board of Trustees Chief Executive Officer John Adlesich declined to provide details, including what was being investigated.

But he said the hospital in Basin is not the target of the investigation.

The Northern Wyoming Daily News reports the South Big Horn Hospital District board became aware of possible violations of state and federal regulations in February and notified law enforcement.

News of the investigation comes as the South Big Horn Hospital District undergoes administrative changes, which have attracted some public criticism.

___

This story has been corrected to show that the hospital district is not a target of the investigation.

___

Information from: Northern Wyoming Daily News, http://www.wyodaily.com
Mr Naidu said that the recommendations of Shyam Benegal and Mudgal Committee were under consideration of the ministry.

New Delhi: Union information and broadcasting minister M.Venkaiah Naidu on Monday launched the online certification process for films, e-cinepramaan, and promised the revamp of controversy ridden Censor Board after wide ranging consultations with stakeholders.

Mr Naidu said that the recommendations of Shyam Benegal and Mudgal Committee were under consideration of the ministry. Consultation with former I&B ministers had been held to elicit their views on critical issues of certification. It was also proposed to have further consultations with stakeholders in the film and media sector. Thereafter, necessary changes would be brought about in the certification process, Mr Naidu added.

The minister said that the online film certification system of CBFC would facilitate Prime Minister Narendra Modis vision of ease of doing business and Digital India. The complete automation of the Film Certification Process would enable good governance making the entire process transparent and efficient. The objective is to eliminate the need for human interface to the extent possible, the minister added.

The new online certification system would enable effective monitoring and real-time progress tracking for both CBFC officials and the applicants, he added.

As per the new online application mechanism, the status of each application would be visible online in the dashboard of the producer and respective CBFC official. While in case of short films or trailers or less than 10 minutes, even for examination purposes also, the producer need not visit the office or theatre and will be allowed to submit their creations online.

Sources stated that for films longer than 10 minutes, the applicant will only have to show the film at the Examining theatre and will not have to visit the CBFC Offices at all except to collect their certificates. The producer would be informed by SMS/e-mail of the status of their application and any action needed, beginning from the receipt of application to the certificate collection.
Militant killed in encounter; tensions rise as separatists call for Valley shutdown today.

Smoke rises from the site of an encounter between militants and the security forces at Chadoora in Jammu and Kashmirs Budgam district. (Photo: H.U. Naqash)

Srinagar: Tensions have heightened in Kashmir after three civilians were killed and 16 others injured in security forces action against stone-pelting crowds near the site of an encounter at Chadoora in Budgam district on Tuesday.

While the encounter and clashes were on, chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said that it was highly painful to see young boys lose their lives, and appealed to local militants to shun violence and return to mainstream as nothing can be achieved through violence and gun.

An alliance of key separatist leaders has called for a one-day strike in Kashmir on Wednesday to mourn and protest the civilian killings.

The slain youth were identified as Zahid Rashid Ganaie, Saqib Ahmed Butt and Ashfaq Ahmed.

Witnesses and hospital sources said that Ganaie and Butt were hit by bullets as security forces fired live ammunition to disperse surging crowds chanting slogans and hurling stones at them in their attempt to help the lone militant to escape. They were shifted to hospital where they died.

Six other youth injured in shotgun pellet firing and teargas shelling were brought to Srinagar for specialisd treatment. However, Ahmed succumbed at the citys government-run Sri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital.

The militant, identified as Tauseef Ahmed Magray of Kulgam district, was killed and a paratrooper was injured in the encounter, which lasted for nearly ten hours.

Police sources said that security forces fired mortars and also used explosives to blow up a private house to neutralize the heavily-armed holed up militant who had earlier made an abortive attempt to flee. The body of the terrorist along with a weapon has been recovered, said defence spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia.

The encounter started on Tuesday morning hours after the members of J&K polices counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG), troops from the Armys 53 Rashtriya Rifles and the CRPF had overnight laid siege to Durbugh village of Chadoora, about 25-km west of Srinagar, to flush out the militant from the newly built 3-storey private house. The operation was launched following specific inputs about the presence of a militant involved in a number of militancy-related incidents.

Police and Army sources said that the militant targeted security forces with a barrage of gunfire. Security forces returned fire, triggering the encounter.

Unofficial reports talked about the presence of more than one militant in the house and said that the other may have fled the area during night.
He asked the PM to direct Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia in this regard and initiate prosecution under the new Black Money Act.

New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to prosecute former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and his family members under the new Black money Act and Benami Act.

In his complaint, Swamy while citing the findings of the Income Tax's Chennai investigation team said that it was necessary to persecute them under the new law apart from charging them under Prevention of Corruption Act, Disproportionate Asset (DA) case and Money Laundering Act.

"Report also shows the illegal assets and properties of P Chidambaram and his family across the globe. The IT report finds that these huge assets were acquired by corruption and bribes taken when Chidambaram was the finance and home ministers during 2004 to 2014," the complaint read.

"The huge properties, vine yards, hotels, farm houses were bought in London, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Spain, France and Greece like 14 countries, all acquired by black money by abuse of power," it added.

He asked Prime Minister Modi to direct Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia in this regard and initiate prosecution under the new Black Money Act.

In response, Prime Minister acknowledged the March 20 complaint.
Leader of opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said the issue was important and required a discussion as members have already given notices.

New Delhi: Relentless protests and ruckus created by opposition members of Parliament forced a washout of Rajya Sabha proceedings on Tuesday.

They were protesting over vacancies in commissions for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, other backward classes and minorities.

The pandemonium continued even after the Narendra Modi government tried to address the concerns by saying the process was underway for filling up these vacancies.

However, MPs from the Congress, the Samajwadi Party, the JD(U) and the BSP kept demanding a commitment that it will be done within a week.

The House was repeatedly adjourned and finally for the day at 3.10 pm as the opposition parties insisted on an immediate discussion on the issue.

The Chair clarified that notices for a discussion under an adjournment motion have been disallowed.

Speaking amid the continuous din, social justice and empowerment minister Thawar Chand Gehlot said the delay in appointments to the statutory commissions was due to the model code of conduct enforced during the recent Assembly polls in five states.

The process of filling up the vacancies has started and the chairmen for the SC commission and the Safai Karamchari Ayog have been appointed, the minister said. He added that it was not for the first time that there have been delays in filling up such vacancies.

He said that in 2007 and 2010, when the Congress-led government was in power, there was a delay of three and five months, respectively, in filling up such vacancies.

Leader of opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said the issue was important and required a discussion as members have already given notices.

He sought to know whether the government would commit itself to appointing the chairmen and members in all the commissions within a week, and whether an immediate discussion on the issue was allowed or not. Never has it happened in the country that all three commissions are headless and they are without members too. The SCs, STs, OBCs and minorities account for 80 to 85 per cent of total population, he said.
Digvijaya Singh says on Twitter that ex-Congress MP Rajkumari Ratna Singh was a Cabinet minister in Rahul Gandhi Cabinet.

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has yet again managed to grab the limelight, and its because of his gaffe on social media.

At a time when many leaders of the grand old party want Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to take over, Mr Singh posted a video on Twitter which was originally produced by ex-Congress member of Parliament Rajkumari Ratna Singh.

Using the available 140 characters, Mr Singh explained that the ex-Congress MP is the daughter of late Dinesh Singh, who was a Cabinet minister in former Prime Minister Indira Gandhis Cabinet and in the Rahul Gandhi Cabinet. The Congress leader meant to write former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

When comments started pouring in, he immediately changed the name from Rahul Gandhi to Rajiv Gandhi. Instant trolling started as soon as the first tweet was uploaded.

Mr Singh is no stranger to controversy on the microblogging site. Last year, he drew flak when he called Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as Indian-occupied Kashmir when he was talking about the militant Burhan Wani.

In the past, Mr Singh famously referred to terrorists Osama bin Laden as Osamaji and Hafiz Saeed as saheb.

After the dismal performance in the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, Mr Singh had urged the Congress vice-president to take over as party president. Despite going for an alliance with the SP in Uttar Pradesh, the party did not perform well.

Many in the Congress are expecting a rejig in the organisation structure as there is growing criticism from within the party.
A modern take on the traditional kamarband, belts are increasingly being used to add style and verve to the Indian sari.

Since time immemorial, ornaments and jewels have been fascinating the world, with the oldest among all the adornments being the kamarband or waistband. Usually made of gold, silver, precious stones and diamonds, they are generally seen on brides, royals and pictures of goddesses. Although kamarbands are not regularly used these days, modern-day fashionistas have found a contemporary counterpart  belts.

From actresses Shilpa Shetty to Sonam Kapoor and Shruti Hassan among several others, belted saris are a growing rage among the fashion-conscious brigade.

Model show us different ways of experimenting with a belt and a sari.

Experts say that the style is here to stay. Designer Shruti Sancheti says, Indian ladies have beautiful waistlines and a kamarband was used to accentuate that feature. However, in this present day, a kamarband would be restrictive and reserved just for traditional engagements. Belts have replaced their traditional counterparts as they are modern, versatile, easy to maintain and cost effective. Whether it is a normal belt, an obi belt, judo, embellished or even a sharp leather/suede belt, there are various styles, patterns and thicknesses to add drama and definition. Plain or printed saris look great with embellished belts, while woven saris look perfect with an obi belt.

Designer Urvashi Kaur agrees. Belts give a modern edge to the sari. It brings in an element of peppiness and is an interesting way of styling a sari. We have seen saris paired with shirts and kurtas, and a belt just adds the edge. It gives a very young vibe to the whole idea.

Designer Rocky S says, Designers have consistently been giving the good old sari a modern twist. Depending on ones personality, one can adapt various trends and versions of this ever-evolving humble six-yard drape. Like kamarbands, belts help maintain a womans figure while bringing versatility. They perfectly complement the Indian body type and are a trendy way to spruce up a traditional get-up. They are also super-functional and give lots of room to experiment. One can personalise, depending on the occasion, body-type and personality.

However, designers caution that one should analyse the occasion before using a belt for your sari. Designer Sayantan Sarkar suggests, Belts add a lot of style but can also make you look like a fashion disaster. Always go for belts and drapes which enhance your beauty and your body. If you have a slim waist, then put on a waist chain or a pearl belt. Do not go for big embellished belts, as it will cover up your beauty and make you look heavier. If you are overweight or have a bulging stomach, then opt for an obi belt, as it covers up the problem areas and helps create an illusionary curvy figure. And lastly, go for belts which match the sari in colour or pattern. While saris can be worn just the way you want, it is best to drape it in a traditional way and add a style statement with a chic belt.

Suggesting different ways to wear the belt, designer Aashima Behl says, To create a smart look, you can wear your sari in the pleated pallu style and tie a belt around the waist. Studded and leather belts will give you an indo-western look while belting up your designer lehenga choli can give you a whole new makeover for a wedding. Create a boho-chic look by donning a kurti and accessorise it with a metallic belt.

Urvashi adds, A belt over an off-shoulder corset blouse with the pallu tucked in, or a belt over a pleated sari with a structured jacket and just a single accessory like a cuff, are ways to go on the dramatic side. The idea is to keep it simple and clean, and not go overboard.
It is done in an effort to attract more German tourists into the country

The Mexican Tourism Board along with an ad agency called Lapiz has created a technology for an artificial cloud that would rain tequila. (Photo: Pixabay)

Tourists often detest going to a particular country because of the weather and most people hate the rains. Mexico has created a unique method to attract tourists and it will make many tequila drinkers or people who like having shots happy.

According to a media report, the Mexican Tourism Board has come up with a unique method to lure tourists to the country. The board along with an ad agency called Lapiz has created a technology for an artificial cloud that would rain tequila. The agency used ultrasonic humidifiers to vapourize tequila into mist, which is then condensed into liquid to fall as raindrops.

The invention was put on display at a recent exhibit in Berlin and is also correctly synched with the local weather patterns. It has been created to mostly attract Germans who hate the rains but love tequila the most.
In reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, this information was shared by Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj Gangaram Ahir.

New Delhi: As many as 73 cases of thefts were reported at residences of MPs and MLAs in the last 3 years in the city and 26 people were arrested in this connection, the government said on Tuesday.

In reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, this information was shared by Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj Gangaram Ahir.

According to the Delhi Police data, 25 cases of thefts in the houses of Members of Parliament (MPs) and Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) were registered in 2014 and nine persons were arrested in connection with them, he said.

In 2015 and 2016, 29 and 19 cases of thefts were registered respectively. Twelve and five persons were arrested in connection with these cases in 2015 and 2016 respectively, Ahir said.

In 2017, two cases have been registered so far, he said.

The minister said two full-fledged police stations in North and South Avenue have been set up especially for the residences of the MPs.

He also said there is deployment of police pickets, regular patrolling by PCR vans and verification of servants are carried out in order to strengthen the security of VIP areas.
Student union president says India not a safe student destination.

New Delhi: After a spate of alleged racial violence against African students in Greater Noida, an association of African students on Tuesday demanded that they be provided adequate security.

They (locals) say that they dont want Africans to be here anymore. These are actually hate crimes towards the African community. Africans are not secure in this country, Samuel Jack, the president of Association of African Students in India, said.

In the aftermath of the death of a 17-year-old boy in the Delhi suburbs, four Nigerian students were beaten up inside a local mall on Monday. The boy had died last week due to suspected drug overdose.

Earlier on Monday, the African student group had issued an advisory, asking its members to stay indoors and abstain from going to their colleges. Mr Jack said that Africans may not come to India for studying due to safety concerns in the wake of such incidents. I urge them (Africans), wherever they are, to stop making India their destination of study until and unless there is proper security, he said.

The student leader claimed that the alleged attack on the African students on Monday night was mobilised by local youth. The police has arrested six of them while two others are absconding. One of the injured Nigerians alleged that he was assaulted for no reason. I dont go to any club in this country. I dont drink. They assaulted me for no reason. I dont know what to say. They do not want us to be in this country, he claimed.

The four Nigerian students were allegedly attacked by residents who took out a candle-light march over the death of the teenager. The boys parents had alleged that the foreigners had kidnapped him and given him drugs that led to his death.

All African students studying in Greater Noida are hereby instructed to stay home until proper security is provided to secure our lives. Also, you are advised not to attend any lecture until we are granted maximum security, the association said on Facebook.
Demand for a separate law had first come to the floor in 2006.

The Doctors Protection Act was passed in 2010, but is plagued by weak implementation.

Mumbai: In the wake of resident doctors going on mass leave Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has said in the House there would be total protection for doctors.

There already exits, however, a law to protect all medical professionals from any kind of violence in the state. The Maharashtra Legislature had passed it way back in 2010, but its weak implementation is a persistent problem.

Demand for a separate law had first come to the floor in 2006. There were incidents in Mumbai as well as other parts of the state where patients relatives attacked doctors. To prevent this, a delegation of doctors had met then home minister R.R. Patil. In response, the state government initiated an ordinance on March 30, 2009. It reads, For the prevention of the violence against Medicare service persons and prevention of the damage or loss of medical property. The ordinance was passed as an Act in 2010.

This law protects all doctors, nurses, medical students, nursing students, para-medical workers, and other workers who directly or indirectly work under medical institutions. It also covers damage to property of medical institutions, medical colleges, laboratories, pathologies, mobile medical units and other related properties, which comes under medical service criteria.

This Act also defines the nature of violence. It reads, Any harm, an injury, endangering the life or intimidation, obstruction, hindrance will be prohibited.

Causing physical harm to a medical professional is a punishable offence and offenders face a jail sentence of up to three years and a fine of Rs 50,000 under the Act. The fine varies on the nature of the harm done.

However, some doctors feel the law has been proven a failure In the last three years alone a total of 45 cases have been registered under the Doctors Protection Act, but not a single case has reached the final stage, said Dr Yash Kabra, president of Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD).

Dr Kabra also demanded an increase in offenders prison sentence to seven years.
Guards will be from State Security Force; CCTV cameras, emergency bells also to be installed.

Mumbai: The Maharashtra government  in the wake of a spate of attacks on doctors by relatives of patients  conducted a security audit of 16 government hospitals in the state last week and has decided to deploy 1,100 security guards from the state-run State Security Force there. Nearly 700 of them will be deployed by Saturday, while the others would be roped in by April 15. Meanwhile, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials claim that alarm systems have been installed at three major civic hospitals following the resident doctors strike.

Medical education minister Girish Mahajan said that the security personnel are not only trained to handle untoward incidents but also to speak sensitively to patients relatives during emergencies. The installation of CCTVs and an emergency bell is on the cards to bring about a foolproof security arrangement. The system will be installed at places where doctor assaults are frequent, they said.

In the past one week, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Mr Mahajan held several meetings with miffed resident doctors. An audit was conducted by government agencies after which it was decided that 1,100 personnel should be enlisted. We have spoken to the state security force, which will provide trained guards. Meanwhile, we have told nearby police stations to beef up security, which they did, Mr Mahajan said.

Mr Mahajan also said hospitals would soon be equipped with CCTVs. We have instructed hospitals to install an emergency bell to prevent untoward incidents. We have taken every step to ensure that doctors are protected and can work without any pressure, Mr Mahajan said.

Read: Doctors revisit terrifying assaults by patients kin

The minister has also given his nod to offering health insurance to doctors. About 410 CCTV cameras have been installed in all state-run hospitals, while there are 450 CCTV cameras in civic-run hospitals. The state government has roped in 794 private security guards in the past two years. The government has also instructed all hospitals to keep only one gate open and allow two relatives of patients inside in order to control crowds, Mr Mahajan said. The minister has told doctors to cooperate to avoid any scuffle or untoward incident with the relatives of the patients.

Meanwhile, following mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwars directives, the BMC has installed instant alarm system at the three major civic hospitals to raise an alarm in case of attacks on doctors. Deputy municipal commissioner (health) Sunil Dhamane said, An instant alarm system has been set up at KEM, Sion and Nair hospitals. It has been installed at places like the operation theatre and intensive care unit where doctors usually get assaulted. Whenever there is a possibility of an attack, they can raise an alarm and immediately alert security. The securities have been asked to reach the spot urgently and help doctors on such occasions. This alarm will go off in the deans office and the police post on the hospital campus.

Dr Prakash Wakode, joint director, Directorate of Medical Education and Research, has issued the orders for the deployment of the security force and asked the police to arm its personnel in all staterun and civic-run hospitals especially medical colleges.

Read: A law protects doctors, but medicos say not enough

As per the existing arrangements, 1,750 guards will be posted in all state-run hospitals in the city while all four state-run hospitals will have three police sub-inspectors each. There are 1,685 security guards in all the 16 civic-run hospitals, he said.

Workshop soon to boost doctor-patient relationship

The Directorate of Medical Education & Research Mumbai (DMER) will soon hold a three-month long workshop for city-based resident doctors providing tips for improving patient-doctor relationship.

The recent instances of violence against doctors and subsequent protests by medical practitioners have emphasised the need for a different mode of the doctor-patient relationship. However, it is important to acknowledge the root cause of the increasing assaults on medical practitioners, which is stress, an influx of patients handled by one doctor and the inability to explain the ailments to patients relatives.

Dr Prakash Wakode, joint director, DMER, said, An effective communication skill workshop will be held for the medicos to deal with the their stress as well as to explain and talk in a better way with patients. The workshop would be of three months, in which all the residents medicos will participate as it is compulsory, he said.

This will help the doctors give fine service to rediscover the spirit of selfless examination that define their skills. Only then will people start respecting doctors again and make the doctor patient relationship a positive equation, he added.

Ground rules

Many compounders and doctors in state and civic-run hospitals violate basic health rules while inside hospitals. Many of them eat inside the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and even wear their regular shoes inside the ICU. Health officials say there are certain rules that have to be followed in hospitals, such as hand washing, cleaning, sterilisation, disinfection and operation theatre sterilisation.
Ambani joins Rupert Murdoch, Jose Maria Aznar, Thomas Enders and Kevin Rudd in advisory board.

New Delhi: Reliance Group Chairman Anil Ambani has been inducted into the international advisory board of global think-tank The Atlantic Council. He joins News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch, former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar, Airbus CEO Thomas Enders and former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, among others, on the board.

"The Atlantic Council today announced the induction of Anil Ambani, one of India's best-known business leaders, to its international advisory board ? a prominent group of global corporate and political leaders," a company statement said.

Welcoming Ambani, former Utah governor and Chairman of the Atlantic Council, Jon M Huntsman, said: "The Atlantic Council's presence in South Asia and in particular India is

growing at a rapid pace and Anil's presence on our board could not be more timely. We look forward to working with him to make a difference."

Other notable members of the board include Dr Zbigniew K Brzezinski, former US national security advisor; P.M. Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden; Lord Robertson, former secretary general of NATO. The business leaders include Hakan Buskhe, President and CEO, SAAB; Stephen A Schwarzman, CEO of the Blackstone Group and Marillyn A Hewson, Chairman, Lockheed Martin Corporation.

Ambani said, "I am delighted to accept Jon's invitation to join the advisory board of the Atlantic Council, which is undoubtedly America's leading and most influential think-tank on global strategic affairs.This is a clear recognition by the Council of India's growing geopolitical influence under

Prime Minister Modi's visionary and transformational leadership." The Atlantic Council is a foreign policy think-tank headquartered in Washington, DC.

Through the work of its 10 programmes and centres, the Atlantic Council promotes constructive US leadership and engagement in the world based on the central role of the Atlantic community, working with its allies and partners, to meet global challenges.

The Atlantic Council aims to shape policy choices and strategies and provide an essential forum for navigating the dramatic, economic and political changes that define the 21st century.

Among the 10 regional and thematic centers, the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center manages sustainable and innovative programmes that are focused on fostering development and cooperation in South Asia and its neighbourhood.

Bharath Gopalaswamy, Director of South Asia Center, said, "We are eager to draw on his (Ambani's) expertise as a business leader and service to the government of India, and he will be an invaluable addition to the Council as we look to deepen our programming on India, the subcontinent, and beyond."
The images went viral, with anti-Islam blogs sharing the photographs as proof of the callousness of Muslims.

Karachi: Moments after the attack on Westminster Bridge, a woman was photographed walking past a small group of people attending to an injured victim. In sequential images, she looks past the victim, and then down at her phone. Her hand cradles her face. She is wearing a hijab.

The images went viral, with anti-Islam blogs sharing the photographs as proof of the callousness of Muslims. Some sites compared the image of the woman glancing at her phone with that of an MP performing CPR on a victim to highlight the main difference between Muslims and Christians. The online abuse mounted to the extent that the photographer issued a clarifying statement emphasising that the woman was clearly distraught. The woman then approached Tell Mama, an advocacy group that monitors anti-Muslim incidents in the UK, to circulate a statement on her behalf in which she reiterates that she was devastated by the attack and speaks out against the viral campaign.

This womans experience neatly summarises the flawed Western response to terrorist attacks. Each incident has become an excuse to shore up a narrative that isnt actually true. According to the consensus narrative, immigrants are flooding the West and carrying out terrorist attacks because they hate Judeo-Christian values, democracy and Western freedoms. This was the narrative assigned to Khalid Masood until he was revealed to be Adrian Elms, a 52-year-old born in Kent with a history of violent crime, and a late-life conversion to Islam, indicating that longstanding mental and social issues rather than exposure to the faith may have driven his actions on March 22.

Elms profile is typical of many attackers in the West, who tend to be natives of the country in which they act, often live within an hours distance of the attack location, and have a history of petty or serious criminal activity. But who needs facts when theres a more compelling narrative that can be peddled for cynical political purposes? As Nesrine Malik put it in the Guardian, an infrastructure of hate promotion has been established and incorporated within the mainstream. This is exemplified by Nigel Farages immigrant-bashing hours after the Westminster attack, and Donald Trump Jrs attempts to criticise London mayor Sadiq Khan after this attack for sensible comments he made last year about terrorist incidents being a part of life in major cities. These narratives have enabled political coups ranging from Brexit to Trump to Le Pen.

As attacks in western cities increase, people will cling more desperately to the established narrative, no matter how often it is disproved. This is because it is too terrifying to contemplate a world in which everyday objects like knives and cars can be weaponised by anyone who bears a grudge, had a difficult or abusive childhood, or struggles with addiction.

Public debate about violent extremism in the West has long made the mistake of treating radicalisation as a product of demography rather than biography. The assumption is that radicalised individuals must fit a particular type: Muslim, male, young, immigrant, unemployed, internet-savvy. But we have repeatedly seen that these stereotypes dont hold true, and that it remains unclear what causes someone to become radicalised and take the step of committing an extremist act. In most cases, perpetrators have histories like Masoods, rooted in personal experiences, traumas and failures, that are harder to generalise, typify and predict. More importantly, individual experience is harder to convert into sweeping policies or regulations than stereotype.

Since the launch of Raddul Fasaad, the security forces in Pakistan have increasingly resorted to demography, arresting Afghans and Pakhtuns, and stirring ethnic resentment. It is true that generalisations about the types of people who join violent extremist organisations may work better in a context like ours where militant groups are prevalent, operate openly, run social welfare programmes, and have at some point benefitted from state patronage. When we resort to generalisations, we are not blurring the boundaries between demography and biography; rather, we are denying the roots of violent extremism, which is largely the consequence of strategic policies gone awry, and not an organic process.

In either case, the failure to acknowledge the drivers of extremist violence in a particular context means that publics and politicians rely on ill-conceived narratives that ultimately cause more societal damage, rather than address the underlying issues that could help stem radicalisation. Irrespective of where terrorism takes place, it should not be exploited for short-term political gain  we owe at least that much to its victims.

By arrangement with Dawn
The BJP returned to power in the politically-crucial state of Uttar Pradesh after a gap of 15 years.

Washington: US President Donald Trump has called Prime Minister Narendra Modi to congratulate him on his party's recent electoral success in state elections, the third telephonic conversation between the two leaders since the new administration took over in Washington.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump congratulated Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday on their electoral victories.

"The president spoke with German Chancellor Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Modi earlier on Tuesday to congratulate them on their parties' success in recent elections," Spicer said.

The two leaders are expected to meet on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Germany in July. Following the elections, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party formed the government in four states: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.

It, however, lost Punjab to main rival Congress. Merkel's Christian Democrat party easily won an election in the Saarland state on Sunday, dealing an early blow to centre-left hopes of ending her more than decade-long reign.

Previously, Modi and Trump talked by phone on January 24, when they had resolved to stand "shoulder-to-shoulder" in the global fight against terrorism and for defence and security.

According to a White House statement then, Trump had "emphasised that the US considers India a true friend and partner in addressing challenges around the world."

The two leaders had also exchanged invitations for visits. Prime Minister Modi was the fifth foreign leader Trump had spoken to on phone after he was sworn-in as the US President on January 20.

He had by then spoken to British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canada's Justin Trudeau, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

After Trump's surprise victory in the November 8 elections, Modi was among the first world leaders to congratulate him.
The job, which has a closing date of April 6, requires extensive experience with soft furnishings and curtain projects.

St James's Palace is also part of the advertisement that seeks a furnishings manager. (Photo: AP)

London: Britains Queen Elizabeth II has advertised for a new furnishings manager who will be responsible for around 1,000 rooms at her various palaces.

The UKs royal household is looking for a Curtain Maker and Soft Furnishing Upholsterer to take care of furnishings at Buckingham Palace and St Jamess Palace in London and Windsor Castle in Berkshire in southeast England.

The successful applicant will earn 22,000 pounds a year, plus pension and benefits.

Its knowing your curtains add the finishing touch to the state rooms. Its protecting heritage by leaving your own legacy. And its furnishing some of the most famous houses in the world. This is what makes working for the Royal Household exceptional, the advertisement reads.

The job, which has a closing date of April 6, requires extensive experience with soft furnishings and curtain projects.

Working with numerous historic items, youll survey and evaluate the condition of furnishings, prioritising work to both repair and preserve items, whilst also meeting the operational needs of working Royal residences, the advert notes.

The range of projects will stretch you. And knowing that youre conserving and creating magnificent items that will be enjoyed by future generations will give you the greatest sense of reward, it added.
The engine trial which was carried out on Friday was the third such test in recent weeks using similar technology.

One one official said that engine technology could possibly be used in a eventual intercontinental ballistic missile.(Representational Image/ AP)

New York: US defense officials have claimed that recently North Korea conducted another ballistic missile engine test.

According to officials, the engine trial which was carried out on Friday was the third such test in recent weeks using similar technology.

CNN quoted one official as saying that engine technology could possibly be used in a eventual intercontinental ballistic missile.

In a reaction indicating show of force following the increased provocations from North Korea, the US Marines have deployed F-35Bs to South Korea for the first time as part of an exercise that began Friday.

"This is the first time we have operated the F-35B in the Republic of Korea," said Pentagon spokesman US Navy Capt. Jeff Davis.

North Korea had last week conducted a ground jet test of a newly developed high-thrust missile engine at its Tongchang-ri rocket launch station.

Although North Korea has never flight-tested an intercontinental ballistic missile, it has recently demonstrated significant progress in its missile programs with new engines that could potentially deliver a nuclear warhead as far away as the United States.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had said earlier during his visit to South East Asia that Washington would consider military action against North Korea if it was provoked.
Moscow claims many young people were paid to take part in the demonstrations. Navalny: "More than a thousand people were arrested yesterday, but it is impossible to stop millions." For EU and the US: an "affront to democracy."

Moscow (AsiaNews) - Alexei Navalny, a lawyer and leader of an anti-corruption and anti-Putin movement, was sentenced to 15 days in prison and to pay a fine for having organized unauthorized demonstrations two days ago, among the most successful in the last few years.

The Kremlin has branded the events as a "provocation" and arrested more than a thousand people. The United States and the European Union have expressed concern about the arrests, denouncing them as an "affront to democracy."

Navalny was arrested while trying to reach the demonstration in Moscow. The city's district court sentenced him to a fine of 20 thousand rubles (about $ 350 US) and to serve 15 days in jail. Navalny had called for demonstrations after publishing a video that accuses the Prime Minister Dimitri Medvedev of corruption. The video was seen by at least 11 million people.

During the trial yesterday, the 40-year old lawyer has claimed responsibility for the rallies. "The authorities are accused of stealing several million, but remain silent," he said. "More than a thousand people were arrested yesterday, but it is impossible to stop millions."

The Kremlin spokesman has called the protest "a lie and a provocation" and said that many young people had been promised a "financial reward" if they attended and were arrested.

"I'm happy - said Navalny  I was born in a generation and nation [of people] who want to be citizens, who are not fearful."

For Moscow, 500 were arrested and have been released; for some NGOs there were over a thousand arrests and 120 of these still remain in jail.

The European Union has asked Russia to release the demonstrators and expressed concern at the fact that the police have "hampered the exercise of basic freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly."

The spokesman of the US State Department said that the detention of "peaceful demonstrators, human rights defenders and journalists is an affront to the heart of democratic values. "
by Paul Wang

Hong Kongs new chief executive will make a courtesy call, not a visit of gratitude for the mainlands support. She pledged to uphold the principle of "one country, two systems". Beijing's influence is worrisome.

Hong Kong (AsiaNews)  Three days after her victory, Hong Kongs Chief Executive-elect Carrie Lam is set to visit mainland Chinas bodies in the city, namely the Liaison Office, the Commissioners Office of Chinas Foreign Ministry in Hong Kong and the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA).

Ms Lam, who worked for the Hong Kong government for several years, was considered by many as Beijings candidate and was backed by the mainland in the election.

According to several Hong Kong newspapers, the Liaison Office put strong pressure on the Election Committee to ensure Lams victory.

In an interview with local radio, Lam said that her visit is not a token of gratitude towards China, but a courtesy call.

Lam pledged that her government would respect the principle of "one country, two systems", which gives Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy and a different system from that of China.

Under the high degree of autonomy, SAR* government officials should be in charge of their own work, she said. I will see that as the guiding principle of the new cabinet.

Since Hong Kongs return to China in 1997, its successive administrations have often relied on the mainland as in the case of citizenship for the children of Honk Kongers living in China (denied by Beijing), or the degree of local democracy.

According to several legal experts, Beijing's influence in the territory has become worrisome.

* SAR: Special administrative region
by Shafique Khokhar

The bishop of Faisalabad issues a message on our preparation for Easter. He addresses young people who are hardest pressed in finding jobs, facing the economic crisis, and integrating into society. He calls on people to follow Christs example: his death and resurrection gave meaning to "our daily crosses".

Faisalabad (AsiaNews)  Mgr Joseph Arshad, bishop of Faisalabad and president of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Pakistani Bishops' Conference, issued his Lent message, a period of penitence and reflection.

At this time, Jesus invites us to take up our cross, or rather, the crosses of every day, without seeking easy solutions, the bishop writes. The Lord invites us to accept the crosses in a spirit of faith, offering Him our crosses. Jesus' words also remind us that, by embracing our crosses, we can be closer to Him on the cross."

Addressing young people "who carry many crosses, of various kinds: the difficulty of finding a job, the economic crisis, the bitterness of not being fully taken into account in society, etc., he explains that these daily "crosses" do not mean passive giving in the face of difficulties."

On the contrary, for him, " the cross of Jesus is certainly the light and strength to support our efforts [. . .] It means that with the hope that He who rose, we too shall experience a new dawn of light and resurrection."

For Mgr Arshad, the holy period of Lent is the "right time to make the right decisions. [. . .] the Word of God helps us carry and understand our crosses in daily life. These find meaning in the death and resurrection of Christ.

Therefore, along with our daily crosses we are invited to convert and make a new beginning by doing good deeds through acts of almsgiving, fasting and prayer because they help us carry out our daily crosses and grow in our spiritual life.

The president of the Justice and Peace Commission goes on to say that in today's world "evil forces are vibrant and sin everywhere is weakening the soul of every human being." This is visible in Pakistan, "where the devil wants to shorten the lives of people through terrorism and various addictions that are a great threat to human life."

People, he notes, "are scared to go to public places due to bombings. It seems that human beings are slowly removing God from their lives and forgetting his immense love and goodness.

In view of this, the bishop notes that Jesus provides the example to overcome courageously temptations and evil.

Jesus, he writes, spent 40 days in desert in order to overcome the devil and faced his temptation with great courage. Jesus has shown us how to fight ungodly forces and worldly temptations and we as Christians must not compromise anything when it comes to Gospel values.

Lastly, Lent is the time to renounce all evil forces [. . .]. May God lead us to a conversion of the heart so that this Lenten season is all of us a time of growth in our faith, worthily preparing ourselves for the Feast of Easter.
Huang Yunmin was to set to accompany farmers to Beijing to file petitions. He could get up to ten years in prison. He had criticised the judicial bureaucracy and exposed court corruption. Because of this, he was forced out of his job.

Beijing (AsiaNews/CHRD)  Xinjiang police detained a retired judge, Huang Yunmin (), on 12 March for helping local residents file complaints against government officials. The formal charge was inciting ethnic hatred and ethnic discrimination.

People familiar with the case said the detention is retaliation against Huang for helping people prepare and pursue legal complaints over what they view as unjust court verdicts and rights violations.

Police in the city of Tumxuk (), Kashgar Prefecture, reportedly took Huang into custody when they suspected that he was going to accompany farmers to Beijing to present grievances during the major legislatives Two sessions in early March.

It is unclear why Huang, 58, is facing such a serious criminal charge (Criminal Law, Article 249), which carries a maximum sentence of ten years.

In recent years, Xinjiang authorities have charged several activists and dissidents and imposed harsh sentences, especially against Ilham Tohti (   .  ) and Zhang Haitao ().

Huang, who has also been accused of having pornographic images on his cellphone, is being held at Tumxuk City Detention Centre in the Third Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps brigade.

He served a five-day administrative detention just prior to being criminally detained. For years, he has helped disenfranchised groups, particularly agricultural workers and retired military personnel, file complaints against the local government.

In the early 1990s, Huang began serving as a judge on the Third Agricultural Army Brigade Peoples Court in Tumxuk, and rose to head its human resources department before he was reportedly pushed out of office in 2006.

According to his family, higher-level officials had pressured him to quit his job after he had criticised judicial bureaucracy and exposed court corruption.
North Dakota's coal industry applauded an executive order starting a roll back of climate regulation signed by President Donald Trump on Tuesday.

Lignite Energy Council President Jason Bohrer said the order's energy independence focus "will help preserve, protect and enhance the lignite coal industry, as well as strengthen research and development efforts to develop an abundant supply of electricity for American businesses and families. The presidents initiative is good news for the nation and good news for the North Dakota coal industry, in particular."

The order alone does not put an end to the Obama Administration's Clean Power Plan, which was enacted to help curb climate change by limiting carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, but directs U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt to begin the process of rewriting agency rules.

"Now, with a pro-job, pro-energy president in the driver seat, were about to see what our country can really accomplish from a job-growth, wage-growth, and economic-growth perspective," said Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D.

Pulling the regulations is likely to be a long, drawn-out battle with legal challenges from environmentalists.

Since the regulations were introduced, industry has said the implementation timeline moved too fast for the development of clean coal technologies. But companies say, just because the new administration appears unlikely to push for carbon reduction, doesnt mean they will stop trying to reduce emissions.

President Trumps announcement today is a positive step forward in our efforts to seek time and flexibility when it comes to developing a carbon management plan, hopefully, in the context of a national energy policy, said Basin Electric Power Cooperative CEO Paul Sukut. President Trumps action today does not, however, impact Basin Electrics efforts to seek a viable path forward in a carbon-constrained future. We are actively seeking solutions that reduce our carbon footprint while keeping coal as part of our energy portfolio.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., echoed Basins sentiments, saying regulations should be made with realistic goals and achievable timelines.

We also need strong investments that spur innovation and lower emissions, she said.

Basin has made investments in wind and natural gas power and is a participant in a number of clean coal technology research projects, including the recently announced CarbonSAFE program to sequester carbon in saline aquifers.

The presidents order also takes on several other energy industry regulations, such as the moratorium on new coal mining leases on federal land and limits on methane emissions in oil and gas extraction.

Sen. John Hoeven was on hand when Trump signed the executive order.

These costly EPA rules for both new and existing power plants would have forced the closure of power plants in North Dakota, and halted the progress of companies that have invested billions of dollars to develop new technologies to produce more energy with better environmental stewardship, Hoeven said. The presidents order ensures that our coal industry can grow and innovate.
by Purushottam Nayak

Prison Ministry India has worked with detainees for over 30 years. Now it is running a recruitment campaign to bring relief to 1,382 in Indian jails. "Nearly 400 thousand people languish without love, hope and help." Membership is open to all; training will last two weeks from May 8 to 23.

Bangalore (AsiaNews) - "We invite you to spend a year as a volunteer or take on full-time jobs in our community, is the invitation launched by Prison Ministry India (PMI), a Karnataka Catholic organization that has brought relief to prisoners being held in jails across India for over 30 years.

Fr. Sebastian Vadkumpadan, national coordinator of the association, explains: "Almost 400 thousand people languish without love, hope and help 1,382 detention houses throughout the country. Prison Ministry India offers a chance to get involved in the reform from within and without, in a course of rehabilitation for prisoners. "

The initiative comes from an incident last year at Easter time, during one of many corporal works of mercy promoted during the extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy. On Holy Thursday Msgr. Kuriakose Bharanikulangara, Archbishop of Faridabad (Haryana), attended the ceremony of the washing of the feet in the Tihar jail in Delhi. On that occasion, he washed the feet of 12 prisoners. At the end of the liturgy another prisoner approached the altar and asked: "Your Excellency, can you also wash my feet?".

For the bishop and those present that request was a real surprise. The prelate was delighted at the question of the 13th prisoner. Msgr. Peter Remigius, President of PMI, said: "We should all go in search of the 13th prisoner, willing to accept our help and support. It is possible that they are not open to welcoming us, but we must always have a loving space for them. "

Thanks to the support of dioceses, congregations and church institutions, last year hundreds of prisoners regained their freedom. In the wake of the Year of Mercy, the organization decided to open up to the recruitment of volunteers across India to "contribute to search for the 13th prisoner."

Registration is now open and will end on 21 April. The training period will take place between May 8 and 23. In these two weeks anyone who wants to present - priests, nuns, lay people - will be trained full-time to "extend their compassion and care for our brothers behind bars." Anyone who wants to make a donation, may send their contribution to "Prison Ministry India, IFSC SIBL 0000416, Ac. No. 0416053000001419, South Indian Bank, Branch Koramangala, Bangalore-34, Pan AAATP No. 7433J. "
Sloth is a "bad sin", it means living just because oxygen is free," is "by watching others who are happier than me"; it is full of "sadness", it makes you forget joy. "Sloth - said the Pope - is a shame that paralyzes us, we become paralytics. It stops us from walking. Even today the Lord looks at each of us, we all sin, we are all sinners but he is watching this sin, "he says," Get up. "

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Following Jesus, accepting his invitation to the joy of taking life as it comes, going forward without being paralyzed by the "ugly sin" of sloth. This was what Pope Francis spoke of at Mass this morning at Casa Santa Marta, taking a cue from the evangelical episode of the paralytic healed by Jesus.

The Gospel story at the heart of Pope Francis reflection tells of a man who had been ill for thirty-eight years. He was lying at the side of a pool called Bethesda with a large number of ill, blind, lame and crippled who believed that when an angel came down and stirred up the waters the first to bathe in the pool would be healed. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him: Do you want to be well?

Its what Jesus repeatedly says to us as well the Pope said: do you want to be well? Do you want to be happy? Do you want to improve your life? Do you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit? When Jesus, the Pope pointed out, asked that strange man if he wanted to be well, instead of saying yes he complained there was on one to put him in the pool while the water is stirred up and that someone else always got there before him. His answer, Francis said, was a complaint, he was implying that life had been unjust with him.

This man, the Pope noted, was like the tree planted along the bank of the rivers, mentioned in the first Reading, but it had arid roots, roots that did not reach the water, could not take nourishment from the water. The Pope said this is clear from his attitude of always complaining and trying to blame the other. This is an ugly sin: the sin of sloth he said. Pope Francis said this mans disease was not so much his paralysis but sloth, which is worse than having a lukewarm heart. It causes one to live without the desire to move forward, to do something in life, it causes one to lose the memory of joy, he explained, saying the man had lost all of this. Jesus, the Pope continued, did not rebuke him but said: Take up your mat, and walk.

The man was healed but since it was a Sabbath, the doctors of the law said it was not lawful to carry a mat on that day and they asked him who was the man who told him to do so.

The sick man, the Pope noted, had not even thanked Jesus or asked for his name: he rose and walked with that slothful attitude living his life because oxygen is free, always looking to others who are happier and forgetting joy. "Sloth, he said, is a sin that paralyzes us, stops us from walking.

Even today, the Pope said, the Lord looks to each of us sinners - we are all sinners - and says Rise.

The Lord tells each of us, Pope Francis concluded, to take hold of our life, be it beautiful or difficult and move on: Do not be afraid, go ahead carrying your mat and remember to come to the waters and quench your thirst with joy and ask the Lord to help you get up and know the joy of salvation.
In a message to the United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, leading towards their Total Elimination, Francis said that dialogue must boost trust. Humanity has the ability to work together in building up our common home; we have the freedom, intelligence and capacity to lead and direct technology, to place limits on our power, and to put all this at the service of another type of progress.

Vatican City (AsiaNews)  Pope Francis has sent a message to the United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, leading towards their Total Elimination, the first part of which is taking place in New York on 27-31 March.

In it, the Holy Father notes that international peace and stability cannot be based on the threat of destruction or simply maintaining a balance of power. Peace must be built on justice, on integral human development, on respect for fundamental human rights, on the protection of creation, on the participation of all in public life, on trust between peoples, on the support of peaceful institutions, on access to education and health, on dialogue and solidarity.:

In his message, the pontiff says that An ethics and a law based on the threat of mutual destruction  and possibly the destruction of all mankind  are contradictory to the very spirit of the United Nations. We must therefore commit ourselves to a world without nuclear weapons, by fully implementing the Non-Proliferation Treaty, both in letter and spirit (cf. Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations, 25 September 2015).

In the current international context characterised by instability and conflict as well as threats to peace and security like terrorism, asymmetrical conflicts, cybersecurity, environmental problems, poverty, not a few doubts arise regarding the inadequacy of nuclear deterrence as an effective response to such challenges. These concerns are even greater when we consider the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences that would follow from any use of nuclear weapons, with devastating, indiscriminate and uncontainable effects, over time and space.

Similar cause for concern arises when examining the waste of resources spent on nuclear issues for military purposes, which could instead be used for worthy priorities like the promotion of peace and integral human development, as well as the fight against poverty, and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

We need also to ask ourselves how sustainable is a stability based on fear, when it actually increases fear and undermines relationships of trust between peoples.

International peace and stability cannot be based on a false sense of security, on the threat of mutual destruction or total annihilation, or on simply maintaining a balance of power. Peace must be built on justice, on integral human development, on respect for fundamental human rights, on the protection of creation, on the participation of all in public life, on trust between peoples, on the support of peaceful institutions, on access to education and health, on dialogue and solidarity.

From this perspective, we need to go beyond nuclear deterrence: the international community is called upon to adopt forward-looking strategies to promote the goal of peace and stability and to avoid short-sighted approaches to the problems surrounding national and international security.

In this context, the ultimate goal of the total elimination of nuclear weapons becomes both a challenge and a moral and humanitarian imperative. A concrete approach should promote a reflection on an ethics of peace and multilateral and cooperative security that goes beyond the fear and isolationism that prevail in many debates today.

Achieving a world without nuclear weapons involves a long-term process, based on the awareness that everything is connected within the perspective of an integral ecology (cf. Laudato Si, 117, 138). The common destiny of mankind demands the pragmatic strengthening of dialogue and the building and consolidating of mechanisms of trust and cooperation, capable of creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons.

Growing interdependence and globalization mean that any response to the threat of nuclear weapons should be collective and concerted, based on mutual trust. This trust can be built only through dialogue that is truly directed to the common good and not to the protection of veiled or particular interests; such dialogue, as far as possible, should include all: nuclear states, countries which do not possess nuclear weapons, the military and private sectors, religious communities, civil societies, and international organizations. And in this endeavour we must avoid those forms of mutual recrimination and polarization which hinder dialogue rather than encourage it.

Humanity has the ability to work together in building up our common home; we have the freedom, intelligence and capacity to lead and direct technology, to place limits on our power, and to put all this at the service of another type of progress: one that is more human, social and integral (cf. ibid., 13, 78, 112; Message for the 22nd Meeting of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Agreement on Climate Change (COP22), 10 November 2016).

This Conference intends to negotiate a Treaty inspired by ethical and moral arguments. It is an exercise in hope and it is my wish that it may also constitute a decisive step along the road towards a world without nuclear weapons. Although this is a significantly complex and long-term goal, it is not beyond our reach.

I sincerely wish that the efforts of this Conference may be fruitful and provide an effective contribution to advancing an ethic of peace and of multilateral and cooperative security, which humanity very much needs today.
On 8 September 2016, the police seized the protesters outside of the people's court in Suzhou. Eight are under "residential surveillance at a designated place" (RSDL), while another has been formally arrested. Those arrested were protesting the conviction of Fan Mugen. Some of the detainees are accused of having sent "politically sensitive" online messages. In November, other police arrests. The UN Committee against Torture: "The extent to which RSDL is widely abused illicit and open to interpretation and application." Eleven countries have called for an end to the practice.

Beijing (AsiaNews / CHRD) - Nine people remain in custody of the authorities of Suzhou, in the eastern province of Jiangsu: they were arrested as a result of a prolonged police operation that began last September. Of these, eight are under "residential surveillance at a designated place" (RSDL), including a man arrested this week, while another has been formally arrested. The crackdown against activists began on September 8, 2016, when police blocked the protesters outside of the intermediate people's court of the city of Suzhou. They were protesting against the alleged mismanagement of the case of Fan Mugen (  ), whom the local court had sentenced to eight years in prison in May 2015 for killing two members of a demolition team that destroyed his house.

Some of the detainees are accused of sending "politically sensitive" online messages during the G20 summit, which was held in early September 2016 in the nearby Hangzhou and which coincided with a period of harsh repression by Chinese police. Since November, the police have arrested other people, supporters of Fan Mugen or other victims of forced demolitions.

Below are details on the nine cases, listed in reverse chronological order of detention date:

Xu Wenshi () was placed under RSDL on March 20, 2017, after he was detained by police in Suzhou, and accused of picking quarrels and provoking trouble. Police who searched his home reportedly confiscated many items, including materials on Fan Mugens case and protest banners. Police also took away Xus wife, Wen Yuxia (), accusing her of obstructing the execution of duties after she tried to prevent them from taking a laptop computer. Wen was released after several hours, following police interrogation.

Gu Xiaofeng () was detained by Suzhou police on February 6, and his residence was also searched. His wife received a notice the next day indicating Gu had been put under RSDL on a charge of picking quarrels and provoking trouble. Police denied a visit by his lawyer, Sui Muqing (), on February 23, and the local procuratorate refused to investigate Suis complaint about denied access to his client.

Hu Cheng () was seized on November 8 and put under RSDL the next day, on suspicion of picking quarrels and provoking trouble. In late November, police told Hus lawyer, Peng Yonghe (), that Hu was suspected of an endangering state security crime, though picking quarrels and provoking trouble does not fall under that crime category. Authorities have used this as a pretext to prevent Peng and another lawyer, Zhang Jinwu (), from meeting with him, claiming it would hinder investigation and possibly lead to a leaking of state secrets. In December, police reportedly warned Hus wife not to make any public statements about Hus detention or seek legal assistance from a rights lawyer, and to instead cooperate with police to persuade Hu to confess to criminal wrongdoing.

Ni Jinfang () was taken into custody on November 8 and placed under RSDL the following day, on suspicion of disrupting court order.

Xing Jia (, aka Xing Jiezhong, ) was taken into custody on November 8 on suspicion of disrupting court order and put under RSDL that same day.

Ge Jueping (, screen name Benbo, ) was put under RSDL on November 4, and accused of inciting subversion of state power. Late that month, police denied his lawyers request for bail, citing that releasing Ge, who has health problems, may endanger society. Police have blocked Ges lawyer from meeting with him, claiming that, due to the criminal charge he is facing, a visit may hinder investigation or lead to a leaking of state secrets. On January 25, police informed Ges lawyer, Yu Wensheng (), that his client had dismissed him, though Yu has been blocked from meeting Ge to verify this claim.

Lu Guoying (), who is married to Ge Jueping, has been under RSDL since November 5, after she was taken into custody for disrupting court order. Police also claimed that she dismissed her lawyer, Huang Zhiqiang (), on January 9. However, the lawyer has been have prevented from meeting with Lu to confirm such a claim. In December, police informed another attorney for Lu that visits would not be possible since Lu was now being held on an endangering state security offense, and that a visit might hinder investigation or result in the leaking of state secrets.

Wang Mingxian () has been under RSDL since September, after he was detained during the protest in front of the Suzhou courthouse. On February 24, police informed Wangs lawyer, Sui Muqing, that his client had signed a form stating that he did not need a lawyer while he was being investigated for disrupting court order. Police did not allow lawyer Sui to photograph the document, however, thus preventing any attempt to verify its authenticity.

Wu Qihe () was taken into custody on September 8, after participating in the demonstration in front of the Suzhou courthouse. Police told his family on March 8 that he had been arrested for disrupting court order and sent to a detention center after being held for six months under RSDL. However, his family has not yet received an arrest notice, nor formal confirmation of the charge against Wu or his place of detention.

In addition, the three individuals below have been released following periods of RSDL, having been detained after taking part in the protest outside the Suzhou courthouse in September 2016.

Activist Gu Yimin () was released on bail pending further investigation on January 27, after having been held on suspicion of inciting subversion of state power from September 9. Police had previously refused to release Gu, claiming it would pose a danger to society due to the serious nature of the charge against him.

Xu Chunling (), who was detained on suspicion of disrupting court order, was released by early March and has returned home.

Wang Wanping () was reportedly released in early March after being held for disrupting court order, but she reportedly remains out of contact and has not returned home.

These cases involve tactics that authorities have commonly employed against rights defenders in China, such as in the 709 Crackdown against human rights lawyers: extensive use of residential surveillance at a designated location to forcibly disappear detainees; an absence of official notification to families of detention status and criminal charges; suspected forced dismissals of defense lawyers; and denial of lawyers visits to their clients on grounds that detainees are accused of endangering state security crimes. There is reason to fear that individuals being secretly detained in these cases are at risk of torture and mistreatment.

Few of the detainees in Suzhou are known to have been accused of endangering state security crimes, such as subversion and inciting subversion. As such, the use of RSDL and denial of lawyers visits clearly represent an abuse of police power. Many of the detainees instead have been held on suspicion of disrupting court order, a charge that was amended in 2015 in the 9th Amendment to the Criminal Law. The UN Committee on Torture has called the altered provision overbroad and open to abusive interpretation and application. RSDL, which is stipulated under Article 73 of the Criminal Procedure Law, has been widely criticized as constituting enforced disappearance. Most recently, 11 countries described it as incommunicado detention in secret places in a letter sent to the Chinese government on February 27, 2017, and called for an end to the practice.
In a video in Farsi faction of the "province of Diyala" threatens Tehran over its involvement in ongoing regional conflicts. Iran's support for Iraqi government and Syrian leadership targeted. Its openness and tolerance towards Jews also criticized.

Tehran (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The Islamic State is threatening to strike Iran and the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, over its role in ongoing regional conflicts. The threats were contained in a video in Farsi - a rarity compared to traditional Arabic or English used by jihadists  was posted yesterday on one of the many propaganda sites used by militants.

The footage, which lasts about 36 minutes, is titled " The Farsi Land: from Yesterday till Today" and is the work of members of the Islamic State "in the province of Diyala," in neighboring Iraq. In the images you see a masked man who addressed his message directly to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic.

" "O, Khamenei, you cursed person who controls the so-called Islamic Iranian regime, rest assured that soon we will destroy your house like this," he says, pointing to ruins behind him.

The videos also shows several executions of soldiers by beheading, a gruesome tradition in popular Daesh propaganda [Arabic acronym for IS]. One of the slaughtered soldiers wears a badge with the image of Imam Hussein, testifying to the fact that he is a Shiite fighter.

Iran, an overwhelmingly Shiite Islamic Republic (minority confession in the religion of Mohammed, in which over 75% are Sunni), is an important military and financial ally for Syria and its president Bashar al-Assad. Since 2011 a bloody conflict has enveloped the Arab nation involving in addition to government soldiers and rebel groups supported by the West, even jihadist militias such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Tehran is also an ally of the Iraqi government, which has launched a massive offensive in recent months against the Islamic State in the north and in Mosul, the capital of the so-called "Islamic Caliphate" the men of al-Baghdadi. The Iranian government in recent years has sent thousands of fighters to both Syria and Iraq to fight the Sunni jihadist militias.

The IS and other fighters movements consider Shiites as heretics and apostates. The video accuses the Iranians of having persecuted Sunnis over the centuries: "We will conquer Iran and restore it to the Sunni Muslim nation as it was before".

The video also chastises Iran for its tolerance towards Jews. "Iran raised its slogans against the U.S. and Israel to deceive the Sunnis while Iranian Jews live safely in Iran under its protection, and it has provided them with temples and churches as seen in Tehran and Isfahan.
Chase Iron Eyes pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to a felony charge of inciting a riot, and his attorney indicated he would argue at trial that Iron Eyes was not the leader nor did he encourage people to act out.

"Going to that camp to take a stand is not asking people to riot," his Bismarck attorney Michael Hoffman said. "Maybe he's guilty of criminal trespass and maybe he's guilty of actually being part of the group that's taking a stand, but there's no evidence that this man did anything (to incite) a riot."

Iron Eyes, 39, is charged along with 28-year-old Vanessa Castle with directing people to set up camp across from the main Oceti Sakowin protest camp on Feb. 1. The land, which some protesters saw as rightfully theirs by treaty, is owned by the Dakota Access Pipeline company.

At issue in the case is whether the day-long demonstration, in which pipeline protesters set up teepees in a new "Last Child Camp," was a riot and what role Iron Eyes played.

During a preliminary hearing on Tuesday, Morton County Sheriff's Deputy Dion Bitz testified the protest that day was a riot.

More than 100 people gathered atop a hill and, after two rounds of failed negotiations with law enforcement, police drove down Highway 1806 and removed people from the camp, he said. As police headed southbound through barricades on Backwater Bridge, they encountered obstacles to entering the new camp, including some protesters blocking the road, two vehicles on fire, straw bales on fire and loose wood. When they came atop the hill, protesters were standing arm-in-arm and 74 people were arrested.

Among the cars on fire that day was one owned by Iron Eyes, Bitz said.

Bitz concluded that Iron Eyes was a leader in part due to a post on his Facebook page from around 9:30 a.m. Feb. 1 saying that "we are asking all frontliners in camp to come to the high ground west of the Oceti camps to put out a call for others to join this stand." In previous days, Iron Eyes had also put up Facebook posts such as, "Shut the whole place down. Let's obliterate this tyranny. Show them where we draw the line," which were presented to the judge as evidence.

Two others, including Mike Fasig, who Bitz identified as a member of camp security and who is charged in state and federal court with protest-related crimes, also apparently identified Iron Eyes as a leader on videos posted to social media.

Bitz said Iron Eyes was also involved with two sets of negotiations with law enforcement about taking down the camp and relayed information that people would not leave.

In cross-examining Bitz, Hoffman argued that the prosecution's evidence boiled down to a Facebook post, and that Iron Eyes did not tell people to start fires or block the camp. He said Iron Eyes was in the back of a crowd during the first negotiation and was called up by law enforcement to discuss the camp. He also suggested Iron Eyes thought the new camp was on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers land.

Hoffman also questioned whether the scene was not a riot, but a matter of people taking a stand on an issue. He noted that some did not resist being arrested.

South Central District Judge Sonna Anderson ruled there was probable cause against Iron Eyes. A trial date has not yet been scheduled. If convicted, Iron Eyes could face a maximum of five years in prison.

Iron Eyes is also charged with misdemeanor criminal trespass, to which he pleaded not guilty.

Castle has not yet entered a plea.
The British government will formally begin the process of exiting the European Union today (Wednesday) when Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty is triggered.Among the challenges ahead is the huge task of converting existing EU laws and regulations into domestic law. The UK governments planned Great Repeal Act will be at the centre of the move but is proving controversial.Thats because it is proposing to use a 500-year-old power which will allow the government to convert the laws without the full approval of parliament.The Henry VIII clauses date back to the Statute of Proclamations of 1539 which gave the iconic king additional powers. However, it is likely the government of 2017 will promise to limit the scope of the clauses.Meanwhile, while uncertainty lies ahead, a study by Herbert Smith Freehills shows optimism among the UKs large corporates.The law firm says that there have been no knee-jerk reactions to Brexit so far and year-on-year increases in spending is focussed on acquisitions. Corporates are prepared for an increased price of debt in the short to medium term.A New Law startup which aims to reduce costs and headcount for in-house legal teams has received a high-profile investor.International law firm Pinsent Masons has taken a 20 per cent stake in Yuzu, a UK-based business founded by two award-winning general counsel; Robin Saphra, former GC of BTG plc, Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company PJSC and Colt Group SA; and Reinhard Schu, former GC to KVH, a Fidelity-owned technology business in Tokyo, and later a subsidiary of Colt.Yuzu offers its clients the opportunity to transfer parts of their legal function out of the business yet retain the best features of an in-house service. On its website the firm says that part of a clients in-house team will transfer to Yuzu and work either at its customer service centre or at the clients premises.The client benefits from reduced costs which are also predictable.Thousands of lawyers in India will strike this Friday in protest over plans by the Law Commission to prevent them from striking.The proposal of the Commission is included in amendments to the Advocates Act and would mean lawyers facing penalties if they were to strike.The Law Council of India says that the change would also mean that non-lawyers would face disciplinary procedures decided by people not connected to the legal profession.This Fridays strikes will follow last weeks action which saw 6,000 lawyers walk out in Delhi.
Four firms have advised on the project financing and sale of the Manildra Solar Farm located in regional New South Wales, the latest to reach financial close as part of Australian Renewable Energy Agencys (ARENA) large-scale solar competitive funding round.Hebert Smith Freehills and Pinsent Masons acted for First Solar, which acquired the project from developer Infigen, which was advised by Gilbert + Tobin, at financial close. Norton Rose Fulbright advised ARENA, and Allens acted for Societe Generale and the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, which provided project financing.HSF advised First Solar on the funding agreement and all other aspects of the funding for the 48.5 MW Manildra project. NRF advised ARENA including on the $9.81 funding provided by the organisation. The deal is worth approximately $109m, NRF said.The project, which will utilise more than 466,000 of First Solars single axis tracking advanced thin film PV modules, involves RCR ODonnell Griffin Pty Ltd as the engineering, procurement, and construction contractor, with construction scheduled for completion mid-2018.Set to produce enough energy to power 14,000 homes and displace more than 91,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per annum, the project is also supported by a 13-year power purchase agreement with EnergyAustralia for 100% of the generated power and large-scale generation certificates.The HSF team was led by project finance partner Elizabeth Charlesworth, who was supported by partners Jinny Chaimungkalanont and Laura Sheridan-Mouton, senior associate Emma Zarb, and solicitors Yun Yong, Elise Bulla, Arnica Mullins, and Hiroko Ito.

The Pinsent Masons Finance & Projects team was led by partners Anthony Arrow and Margaret Cole, who were supported by partners Ewan Robertson and David Rennick; senior associates Kate Terry, James Moor, Louisa Wallace, and Alexis Coleman; associate Tanvir Ahmed; and lawyers Julian Grant and Stanley Wang.

The NRF team was led by global head of energy, Simon Currie, who was supported by lead associate Tom Bramah, and partners Noni Shannon, Emanuel Confos, and Michael McKee; senior associates Kelly Davies and Steven Choi; associate Catherine Ding; and lawyer Jacqueline Fetchet.
A Kentucky lawyer, known for his extravagant marketing and his self-styled title of Mr Social Security, faces up to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to conning the US government out of more than US$550m in disability payments.Eric C. Conn, 56, admitted last Friday that he submitted fake medical documents and bribed an administrative law judge and various doctors in more than 1,700 cases to obligate the Social Security Administration (SSA) to pay the millions in lifetime benefits for claimants he represented.In his plea, Conn said he colluded with former SSA administrative law judge David B. Daugherty and multiple doctors on the scheme, which ran from October 2004 to 6 April 2016, according to the Justice Department Conn said that from December 2004 to April 2011, he paid the judge about US$8,000 to US$14,000 a month to award disability benefits to claimants for whom the lawyer submitted falsified medical documents. Conn said in the plea that he paid medical professionals, such as clinical psychologist Alfred Bradley Adkins, to sign fabricated medical forms even before evaluations of claimants took place.The lawyer said he made at least US$5.7m representing claimants and agreed to pay that amount to the government. He also agreed to pay US$46.5m to the SSA as part of his plea, according to the Lexington Herald Leader . Conn will sell his house and forfeit his office complex, which includes a 19-foot-tall statue of Abraham Lincoln out front, to help with his payments.Conn, who will be sentenced by 14 July, faces up to 12 years in prison. Charges are pending against Daugherty and Adkins.The SSA is said to be reconsidering the benefits for about 1,500 of the lawyers former clients, while about 700 have been allowed to keep their benefits.
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Offshore investors last year poured capital into private mergers and acquisitions biggest deals, which also accounted for a larger share of the market.Of mega deals, or deals valued at more than $500m, 80% were cross-border deals, according to King & Wood Mallesonss sixth annual DealTrends report, which looked at 78 private M&A deals in Australia in fiscal 2016.Across the private M&A landscape, there was only a slight dip in cross-border activity at 53%, compared to 2015s 54%. However, foreign investors were involved in bigger deals, as cross-border deals had a higher median value than domestic deals.Mega deals accounted for 13% of the market, a marked increase from 5% the preceding year, which offset a decrease to 14% from 19% in deals valued from more than $200m to $500m.Of all cross-border transactions, 68% involved the US, the UK, or China. US investors rained money onto Australian assets, with 34% cross-border deals involving the US, compared to 17% in 2015. The UK was involved in just as many deals, an increase from an even smaller 11%. Chinese investors were involved in 22% of deals, compared to 14% in 2015.2016 was another strong year for Chinese outbound investment with Chinese bidders diversifying their investment strategies and improving their deal execution capabilities. Equally, as Australian sellers and their advisors become more accustomed to dealing with Chinese bidders, funding and execution certainty is becoming less of a concern, said Ros Anderson, KWM partner.However, the report warns of possible headwinds for Chinese outbound investment as PRC regulators tighten control over outbound capital and more strictly scrutinise deals, which could lead to delayed clearances and additional requirements.Investors are taking more risk though, with the report finding that other than an increase in required regulatory approvals, significantly fewer deals (40% in 2016 compared to 52% in 2015) included a material adverse change condition. Cross-border deals were more likely to include a MAC condition than domestic deals.Private equity involvement also remained strong, with 37% of deals involving PE outfits -- an increase from 22% the previous year.Private equity sponsors remain very active in Australias M&A landscape, in terms of both new investments and exits. Health-related deals stood out as a growth area generally, including for private equity activity, and we expect this to continue in 2017, said Matthew Coull, KWM partner.The report also found an increase in locked box, or fixed-price deals. There was also a steady increase in the use of warranty and indemnity insurance, rising to 40% of deals in 2016 from 37% in 2015 and 11% in 2011.
The new Creta variant to be based on SX+ trim; 7.0 inch infotainment system will be updated.

Hyundai has plans to launch a new dual-tone variant of the Creta along with updating the SUVs 7.0-inch touchscreen system in the other variants. The base diesel E variant will be discontinued.

As per the brochure, the SUV is set to be offered with a dual-tone red and black or a white and black exterior colour option. The new variant though, is likely to be offered on the SX+ trim level and be available with either the 1.6-litre petrol or 1.6-litre diesel engine mated to the six-speed manual only. The automatic will not be offered in the new variant.

As per details, the dual-tone Creta is expected to get upholstery that's different from the other variants, along with offering added equipment over the standard SX+ manual such as 17-inch diamond cut alloy wheels (currently offered only on the SX+ automatic and SX(O) as standard).

Apart from introducing the new variant, Hyundai plans on updating the SUV's 7.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto MirrorLink connectivity, and an Arkamys Sound Mood audio system.

Another interesting update is that the 1.4-litre diesel is not expected to be offered on the base E variant and instead will be offered from the E+ trim level. The E+ diesel though will miss out on some of the equipment such as the 5.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system, Bluetooth and steering-mounted controls offered on the petrol model.

Currently, a dual-tone black-and-white Creta is available as the '1st anniversary edition'. Also based on the same SX+ trim, with near identical equipment on offer, this version is likely to be discontinued with the introduction of the new dual-tone model.


The Bismarck Salvation Army will host an Emergency Disaster Services training session in April.

There are two, roughly eight hour classes," said Jim Daly, EDS volunteer administrator. Youll get a hands-on lesson in disaster training and walk through what you can expect if youre deployed to help.

The classes are from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and April 8 at the Bismarck Salvation Army, 601 S. Washington St. The course is designed for new disaster workers who would like to help with food service.

The first class on Saturday will focus on what you can expect if you get the call to help during a disaster. It covers how to plan, prepare and be ready to help at a moments notice.

The second class on April 8 is a hands-on training in how to safely run a mobile kitchen. During disasters The Salvation Army can serve hundreds, even thousands of meals per day.

I try to give people a sense of what it would be like in an actual disaster, explained Daly.

For more information or to register, call 701-223-1889.
Photo courtesy of Ford.

Ford will invest $1.2 billion in three Michigan facilities to support production of the Bronco and Ranger, build an advanced data center, and add jobs for autonomous and electrified vehicles, the company announced. About $350 million of that is new investment.

Ford will invest $850 million in the Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne to retool the plant to build the Ranger mid-size pickup and Bronco SUV. Ford will begin building the Ranger at the end of 2018 and the Bronco in 2020. The plant now builds the Focus and C-Max.

Ford will begin transforming the plant in May of 2018. The plant will be shut down for four weeks to remove and reinstall tooling needed to build the Ranger and Bronco.

Ford will also invest $150 million in the Romeo Engine Plant to expand capacity to support the Ranger and Bronco. The plant produces 6.2L V-8 engines for Super Duty trucks and the E-450 cutaway van.

Ford is also investing $200 million to develop an advanced data center at the Flat Rock Assembly Plant to support the company's expansion to an auto and mobility company. It would be the second Ford data center in Michigan. Ford has already announced it will invest $700 million in the Flat Rock plant and add 700 jobs. The plant now builds the Mustang and Lincoln Continental.
Photo courtesy of EveryCarListed via Flickr.

New-vehicle sales are expected to increase 3% year over year to 1.63 million units retailed in March 2017, resulting in an estimated 17.4 million seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR), according to Kelley Blue Book. There were 27 selling days in March, the same as last year.

If the vehicle valuation site is correct, Marchs sales total brings first quarter total to 4.1 million units, a slight 0.3% year-over-year increase. This would also be the second highest first quarter on record, surpassed only by the first quarter of 2000, when the industry sold 1.66 million units.

Kelley Blue Book expects manufacturers to report mostly positive sales numbers this month, capping a steady first quarter with an average SAAR of 17.4 million, said Tim Fleming, analyst for Kelley Blue Book. Despite considerably higher discounts and incentives, first quarter sales totals will likely only finish flat versus last year, a signal of weakening consumer demand for new vehicles.

As sales cool after years of robust growth, adjusting production accordingly and managing supply, especially in car segments, should be top priorities for automakers, Fleming added.

After record sales in 2016 and seven consecutive year-over-year sales increases, Kelley Blue Books forecast for 2017 calls for sales in the range of 16.8 million to 17.3 million units, a 1% to 4% decrease from last year.

General Motors is expected to gain the most market share this month, up nearly a full percentage point. In particular, the automakers SUV lineup could grow sales by 25%, led by three all-new models introduced last year, including the Chevrolet Equinox, Buick Envision and GMC Acadia. GM trucks, especially the Silverado, could have a strong month as well, with sales likely growing 10% on heavier incentives.

Ford Motor Co. could post the greatest sales declines of all major manufacturers; although a large drop in fleet volume is responsible. Retail sales should be flat or slightly up. As a result, Fusion and Focus could report declines of more than 20% in March 2017. Similarly, Transit and other Ford vans, which are popular in commercial fleets, could fall 20%.

The significant shift from cars to SUVs shows no sign of slowing, with double-digit growth projected for the popular compact and mid-size SUV/crossover segments. This month, analysts expect an overall light truck mix of 63%, up from 58% last March.

Mid-size cars continue to suffer as a result of shifting consumer preference toward utility vehicles, and Kelley Blue Book anticipates the segment will lose nearly 3 percentage points of market share, said Fleming. This segment, which was the top-selling category in the industry as recently as 2013, is in a rapid decline, which does not bode well for the upcoming redesigns for the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord, due later this year.
Photo of Opel Astra courtesy of Opel.

The Opel Astra was named the 2017 South Africa Car of the Year by the South African Guild of Motoring Journalist.

The Astra and nine other contenders were judged by a jury made up of automotive journalists in South Africa, according to Opel. In the competition, the Opel Astra amassed 2,370 points to claim first place. Meanwhile, the Audi A4 (2,339 points) and the VW Passat (2,337 points) placed in second and third, respectively.

The jury noted the Astra's driving behavior and handling qualities, according to the automaker.

As a company, Opel has always been at the forefront of innovation, embracing new challenges by offering unique solutions to the motoring needs of a diverse customer base, said Ian Nicholls, president and managing director, General Motors Sub-Saharan Africa.

This is the 13th time that the Astra has earned a national Car of the Year award, according to the company.

The Astra is one of the bestselling models in the Opel portfolio and has been ordered around 400,000 times since its market launch in 2015. The compact car is also available as the Holden Astra in New Zealand and Australia where it recently joined the Insignia VXR, Cascada and GTC in the Holden portfolio.
Photo of the Peugeot Expert courtesy of Peugeot.

PSA Group is rolling out its light commercial vehicle (LCV) sales offering in Latin America. The Group will launch 16 new models in the region by 2021, including several commercial vehicles, such as the new Peugeot Expert and Citroen Jumpy.

The LCV segment in these markets  with a potential of one million vehicles per year  represents an opportunity to boost the Groups growth in Latin America, according to PSA Group.

In 2016, PSA Group implemented a regional structure dedicated to the LCV segment to offer competitive products adapted to uses as well as services for its professional customers, both during and after the sale, the company said.

PSA Group has achieved an impressive recovery in the region over the last few years and this partnership fits into the Core Model Strategy of the Push to Pass Plan. It illustrates the relevant business model that the Group has developed in Latin America for profitable growth," said Carlos Tavares, president du directoire, PSA Group.

PSA Group and its partners, EASA and Nordex, signed an assembly contract, that will allow the group to roll out the LCVs.
The NTSB should conduct an internal review to determine why several recent reports regarding general aviation accidents included speculative conclusions that arent supported by factual data, AOPA said on Tuesday. In a letter to the safety boards acting chairman, Bella Dinh-Zarr, AOPAs government affairs vice-president Jim Coon objected to reports that cited medical incapacitation of the pilot contrary to other compelling evidence. AOPA said it is concerned that in some cases the NTSB is relying less on facts and more on speculation.

The problem has persisted despite a meeting on the issue between then-NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart and AOPA President Mark Baker in 2016, Coon wrote. AOPA cited two cases in which the pilot lost control, leading to a fatal crash. Medical examiners attributed death of a pilot in Wisconsin to blunt-force injuries, after a crash while in the landing pattern flying a Quad City Challenger II. Yet the NTSB report concludes the pilot lost control because of a cardiovascular event. The pilot had a history of heart problems, but AOPA says there is no evidence that was a factor in the crash. Another crash, in Ohio, killed a pilot with a history of coronary artery disease, flying as a sport pilot in a homebuilt Europa XL. The airplane impacted terrain about a half-mile from the airport. The NTSB report concludes it is likely the pilot experienced incapacitation due to a cardiovascular event, but AOPA says there is no evidence to support that.

Personally, after having worked with the NTSB for decades, it is disheartening that the Board is now allowing someone at the staff level to approve these academic probable-cause determinations, Coon wrote. Moreover, I am dismayed that the Boards Chief Medical Examiner allows this speculative practice to continue. A spokesman for the NTSB told AVweb on Tuesday the board will issue a response to the AOPA letter within the next few days.
The FAA banned jets from Floridas Lantana/Palm Beach County Airport in 1973, but that ban is now lifted, the Palm Beach Post reported on Tuesday. Errol Forman, a retired Eastern Air Lines pilot, had landed his newly acquired 1983 Cessna Citation I/SP jet there in May, and a neighbor reported the violation to authorities. Forman then challenged the restriction and filed a formal complaint with the FAA, with the argument that the county was violating conditions of its federal grants. It looks like the FAA made a reasonable decision, Forman told the Post on Monday.

Deandra Brooks, the FAAs airport compliance specialist for the region, wrote in a Dec. 6 letter that while her agency had declared no objections in 1973, she was unable to find any documentation or analysis showing why previous FAA reviewers believed this discriminatory restriction was just or reasonable. She said the ban has denied a class of aeronautical users the benefits of federal funded improvements at the airport. An airport neighbor, William Coakley, told the Post in December that the community wouldnt be happy to see the ban lifted. We fear for our lives over here, Coakley said. It was already saturated before the helicopters got here. Now they want jet traffic?  There will be a storm of protest.
Conservatives have rightly taken pride in Neil Gorsuch's calm and cerebral performance at his Senate confirmation hearings. Many commentators, along with Republican senators, have mocked Democrats for presuming to evaluate Gorsuch based on the outcomes of his cases. Did he "side with the little guy" or with big corporations? The right answer, conservatives have correctly chided, is that justice is supposed to be blind. A good judge makes determinations based upon the facts and the law without regard to whether he personally prefers one party to another and without some social-justice agenda to equalize the fortunes of little guys and big guys. It's not little versus big or sympathetic versus unsympathetic in a courtroom, but facts and law.

It's a shame, then, that so many conservatives are disregarding the virtues they laud in Gorsuch -- prudence, careful weighing of facts, refusal to be swayed by emotional appeals -- when it comes to a disturbing story of a rape in Maryland.

Reports indicate that a 14-year-old high school student in Rockville, Maryland (a suburb of Washington, D.C.), may have been sodomized and raped in the boys' bathroom by two suspects. At least one of the suspects, according to Fox 5 in Baltimore, is an 18-year-old who recently entered the country illegally and was enrolled in the school as a freshman. The other, also an immigrant, is 17.

Emotional reactions to heinous crimes are completely understandable, but as Judge Gorsuch has properly reminded us, our feelings are not a good guide to justice. Neither are they a prescription for sensible policy. Quite the opposite.

If the evidence shows that the victim's account is correct -- that she was pushed into the bathroom by the two suspects and raped by both of them in a stall -- the young men could be facing many years in prison and deserve to.

But many are rushing to link this inflammatory case -- before we know the facts -- to the larger cause of immigration restriction. White House press secretary Sean Spicer drew the link: "Part of the reason the president has made illegal immigration such an issue is because of tragedies like this. ... This is why he's passionate about this. Because people are victims of these crimes. Immigration pays its toll on our people." That is exploiting people's anger, which is bad enough, and it's false, which is worse.

There are good and bad arguments against immigration. I am sympathetic to some restrictionist points, but smearing immigrants as out-of-control criminals is shameful. High rates of immigration, legal and illegal, are not associated with spikes in crime. In our recent history, between 1990 and 2013, the illegal immigrant population in the U.S. more than tripled to 11.2 million. Yet FBI data indicates that the violent crime rate declined by 48 percent during those years. This included violent crimes, such as aggravated assault, robbery, rape and murder. Rates of property crime fell by 41 percent, including declining rates of motor vehicle theft, larceny/robbery and burglary.

As a survey by the CATO Institute shows, immigrants -- both legal and illegal -- are less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans. And when you exclude those illegal immigrants who are jailed for immigration offenses (i.e., just for being here illegally), the numbers really plunge. Looking at the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, CATO notes that illegal immigrants are 44 percent less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans. Legal immigrants are 69 percent less likely to be jailed than natives. White native-born Americans are more likely to be imprisoned than black immigrants, legal or illegal. The Wall Street Journal's Jason Riley cites a Public Policy Institute study showing that while the foreign-born comprise 35 percent of California's population, they represent 17 percent of the state prison population.

Some immigrants commit crimes. But as the data shows, most keep their noses clean. About 7 percent of our population is comprised of non-citizens, yet they account for only 5 percent of the prison population.

We don't yet know the facts of the rape case in Maryland. But even if they turn out to be every bit as brutal as first reports indicate, the attempt to tar all immigrants with this brush -- or to let emotional appeals dictate policy -- is exactly what fair-minded admirers of Judge Gorsuch will resist.
28 March 2017 13:23 (UTC+04:00)

By Jeremy Adelman and Anne-Laure Delatte

America first, thumps Donald Trump. Britain first, say the advocates of Brexit. France first, crows Marine Le Pen and her National Front. Russia first, proclaims Vladimir Putins Kremlin. With so much emphasis on national sovereignty nowadays, globalization appears doomed.

Its not. The struggle playing out today is not one of globalism versus anti-globalism. Rather, the world is poised between two models of integration: one is multilateral and internationalist; the other is bilateral and imperialist. Throughout the modern age, the world has seesawed between them.

Since 1945, internationalists have had the upper hand. They advocate cooperation and multilateral institutions to promote global public goods like peace, security, financial stability, and environmental sustainability. Theirs is a model that constrains national sovereignty by binding states to shared norms, conventions, and treaties.

The year 2016 tipped the scales toward bilateralists, who regard national sovereignty as an end in itself. The fewer external constraints, the better: peace and security result from a balance of great powers. Theirs is a model that favors the strong and punishes the weak, and that rewards competitors at the expense of cooperators.

For most of the nineteenth century, integration was a hybrid of internationalism and imperialism. Free trade became gospel, mass migration was welcomed, and countries embraced new global norms, like the First Geneva Convention, concluded in 1864 to cover the treatment of the sick and wounded on the battlefield. Globalizers could also be bullies: the 1842 Treaty of Nanking between Britain and China subordinated the Middle Kingdom to the West. And bilateral imperialisms ugliest face was reflected in Europeans carve-up of Africa into exclusive possessions.

In the most horrific period in human history, bilateralism had the upper hand. Between 1914 and 1945, the pursuit of national grandeur led to ruinous economic rivalry and mass violence. The Wall Street crash of 1929 kicked the legs out from under a struggling international order. Country after country turned inward; by 1933, world trade collapsed to one-third its 1929 level.

Fueled by racism and fears of overcrowding, globalism turned predatory: powerful countries imposed uneven trade pacts on neighbors and partners, or simply overran them. Japan set its sights on Manchuria in 1931 to create a puppet state, and invaded China in 1937. The Soviets dealt with Russian borderlands in the same spirit. The Nazis forced treaties on weaker neighbors and seized others, then sought to depopulate Slavic lands to make way for Teutonic settlers.

The brutality of bilateralism prompted US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to draft the Atlantic Charter in 1941. A blueprint for a post-war order, it declared that freedom was the cornerstone of peace and that bilateralism had to be curbed. No more grabbing. No more tariff bullying. Freedom of the seas.

What came of the Allies victory in World War II and the Atlantic Charter was a Global New Deal: by agreeing to play by international rules and institutions, countries could participate in the post-war bonanza. European integration was at the core of this experiment in multilateral globalism; with Franco-German reconciliation, Europe, a chronic conflict zone, became a region of exemplary cooperators.

Restraining national sovereignty allowed global trade, investment, and migration to buoy post-war prosperity. Billions escaped poverty. Relative peace was maintained.

But the Global New Deal seems to have run its course. For too many people, the world became messy, risky, stultifying, and threatening  the opposite of what the Atlantic Charter envisioned. After 1980, global integration was accompanied by rising domestic inequality. While the horizon of opportunities widened for educated cosmopolitans in big cities, the bonds between citizens weakened as national social contracts were dismantled.

As the blurring of global divides deepened domestic cleavages, the stage was set for bilateralists to come storming back. In the wings, leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin yearned for a return to a world of muscular sovereignty, unrestrained by multilateral niceties. They now have more company in key countries.

Two days after his inauguration, Trump announced that the US would have another chance to seize Iraqi oil. He then withdrew the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and vowed to re-negotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. The future of the hard-won Paris climate agreement is now in doubt. Charges of currency manipulation and threats of protectionist measures have intensified. With the UK, which gave the world free trade in the 1840s, having now decided to go it alone, the old Atlantic Charter allies are putting national sovereignty ahead of global public goods.

Now the global spotlight turns to France and its looming presidential election. At stake is the sputtering Franco-German engine that has driven European integration and kept it at the center of the post-war multilateral system. A victory for Le Pen in early May would spell the end of the EU, leaving German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the final pillar of a crumbling world order. The country most refashioned by post-1945 internationalism would be its last bastion, surrounded by bilateralists in France, the UK, and Russia, with its main patron, the US, in the hands of nativists.

Imagine the scene a few weeks after a Le Pen victory, when the G7 leaders gather in a gilded hotel in Taormina, Sicily. The US and Canada are feuding over NAFTA. The UK is squabbling with France and Germany over Brexit. Japan is reeling from the demise of the TPP. And, as they turn their backs on global commitments, refugees, drowning by the boatload in the surrounding sea, provide an epitaph for a bygone era.

Copyright: Project Syndicate: A More Dangerous Globalism

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28 March 2017 11:30 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan have signed a protocol on expansion of bilateral cooperation in the railway sector.

The document was signed following the meeting of Chairman of Azerbaijan Railways Javid Gurbanov and First Deputy Chairman of the Senate of Uzbekistans Parliament Sodiq Safoyev.

During the meeting, Gurbanov elaborated on the reforms carried out in Azerbaijans railway sector, the work aimed at increasing transit capacity and future goals.

He also informed about the BTK railway project, which is being constructed on the basis of the Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement.

Its peak capacity will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At the initial stage, this figure will be one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.

During the meeting, the sides also discussed the bilateral cooperation between Azerbaijan Railways and Uzbekistan Railways.

Besides, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan agreed to create a joint working group on development of transit freight traffic.

The agreement was reached during the trilateral meeting of leadership of the Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping, Azerbaijan Railways CJSC and Uzbekistan Railways JSC, held in Baku on March 27.

The main task of the working group will be the analysis of the cargo market, the study of transportation technologies, preparation and implementation of marketing strategy and others.

The sides also signed a tripartite memorandum on development of freight traffic from Europe to Central Asia and Afghanistan and vice versa. The document also says that the parties have identified the products that will be transported via this route.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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28 March 2017 12:35 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

The first cargo has arrived at the Baku International Sea Trade Port from Kazakhstans new port Kuryk, Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping CJSC reported.

Freight cars were sent from the Kuryk port on March 24 on the Barda ferry, belonging to the Azerbaijani company, and they arrived at the Baku International Sea Trade Port in Alat the next day.

The company reported that management of the Kuryk port observed the mooring of the Barda ferry and the process of loading of the cars, both of which proceeded successfully.

The Kuryk port with a total area of 40 hectares is located on the Trans-Caspian international transport route, which is of great importance for handling the cargo going via this route. The construction of the ferry complex in the Kazakh port of Kuryk is planned to be fully completed in 2017.

The port is expected to allow transporting goods to neighboring countries without unloading cars and is focused on handling wide range of goods. The new ferry terminal is expected to allow Kazakhstan to export oil, polyethylene, iron ore and concentrates to world markets through Baku.

The role of the Kuryk ferry complex will significantly increase in the future. Infrastructure work is ongoing in the ports territory. Currently, construction of another berth for Ro-Ro and Ro-Pax vessels is underway there, reads the message.

The new complex is located closer to the Baku port, than the Aktau port, through which transit was carried out previously. The Aktau terminal which is currently considered to be the main gate of Kazakhstan in the Caspian Sea implements its operations at the breaking point of its carrying capacity.

Voyage from Kuryk to Baku takes 18 hours, while from Aktau it takes 22 hours.

Experience of Azerbaijani seamen and the Baku International Sea Trade Port was taken as a basis during the construction of the Kuryk port. It is also noteworthy that the first vessel sent from Kuryk was the Azerbaijani ferry Shahdag, which was sent in the test mode on December 7, 2016.

Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping is the sole operator of ferries in the Caspian Sea.

Kazakh Ministry of Investments and Development earlier reported that by 2020 the country aims to increase the volume of container transportation to two million containers, according to the ministry.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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28 March 2017 13:40 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

The 2017-state budget of Azerbaijan maybe revised given the rising crude prices on the world market, where the figure is above $50 a barrel.

The budget for 2017 predicted $40 oil, $10 less the average price in the first months of the year. In 2016, the Azerbaijani government originally based its budget on an average price of $50 oil, and later revised it given the price of oil at $25 per barrel.

Ziyad Samadzade, Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission on Economic Policy, Industry and Entrepreneurship said that the budget maybe revised up, as todays real oil prices exceed the budgeted price.

"I think that if this situation [the price over $50] continues, it will be necessary to review the state budget," Samadzade told Trend.

He added that the draft on amendments to the state budget can be considered at a parliamentary session in May.

Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani Finance Ministry reported that the issue of adjusting the 2017-budget forecasts is not on the agenda.

The Ministry told Trend that currently, it is not working on the state budget adjustments.

The fact that oil prices are higher than the budgeted price increases revenues of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ). Transfers to the state budget remain at the planned level, the ministry said.

The Law on 2017 State Budget projects the state budget revenues for 2017 at 16.255 billion manats ($9.537billion) and expenses at 16.9 billion manats ($9.91 billion).

The upper limit of the budget deficit is expected at the level of 645 million manats (1.05% of the GDP) in 2017. Main sources of deficit coverage are revenues from privatization, internal and external loans, foreign grants and the remainder on the single treasury account of the state budget as of January 1, 2017.

The income of the state budget will be formed by revenues from the Ministry of Taxes (7.51 billion manats), the State Customs Committee (2.2 billion manats), the State Committee on Property Issues (8 million manats), paid services of government-financed organizations (353 million manats), transfers of SOFAZ (6.1 billion manats) and other sources.

In 2017, expenditures of the state budget will be distributed as follows: defense (2.8 billion manats), science (118.5 million manats), education (1,733.4 million manats), healthcare (745.4 million manats), social protection and social security (2,053.1 million manats) and others.

Overusing the possible risks, the budget figures were previously forecasted in three scenarios - pessimistic (with an oil price of $35 per barrel), a base ($40 per barrel) and an optimistic ($45 per barrel).

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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28 March 2017 15:02 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The State Committee on Property Issues held another auction for privatization of state property on March 28.

The committee announced that 14 state objects were privatized at the auction.

Among the state property put up for privatization were small state enterprises and facilities, and residential areas. Moreover, several vehicles were privatized at the auction.

The privatized properties are located both in Baku and in other cities and regions of the country.

The third stage of privatization in Azerbaijan started in the framework of the presidential decree dated May 19, 2016. Under the decree, the acceleration of the state property privatization process has been defined as an important direction of the economic policy.

The portal for privatization  privatization.az, launched in July 2016, reflects all necessary information about the facilities, their addresses, location, and even initial cost and aims at facilitation of the process. The website is available in two languages - Azerbaijani and English. Why Azerbaijan is special section available on the website explains the reasons and advantages of investing in the country.

The privatization process is designed to attract both foreign and local investors, as well as improve the business environment of Azerbaijan.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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28 March 2017 18:43 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Russia will organize the work of experts at the Samur border crossing point in order to reduce the time spent on the examination of agricultural products exported from Azerbaijan, the State Customs Committee said on March 28.

This agreement was reached within the framework of today's meeting of the Khachmaz Customs Administration of the State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan with the representatives of the North Caucasus Customs Department of the Federal Customs Service of Russia at the Samur border crossing point located on the Azerbaijani-Russian border.

The Azerbaijani side drew the attention of Russian colleagues to the delays in obtaining the results of the examination of Azerbaijani agricultural products in Russia, noting that this, consequently, leads to a transport delay at the border, additional costs, products damage and non-fulfillment of deliveries on time.

The Russian side, in turn, promised to inform the relevant structures about this issue. In addition, the work of special experts will be organized at the border checkpoint, which will speed up the examination.

The parties also stressed the importance of the primary exchange of information and the synchronization of the border crossing process.

The agricultural sector is of significant importance for Azerbaijan, which is keen to diminish its dependence on the oil sector. Azerbaijan, being engaged in increasing its export potential and boosting and protecting the population's food security, sees the agricultural sector as a central direction in a bid to diversify the national economy.

Azerbaijan entered the top 3 suppliers of agricultural products to Russia among the CIS countries, after Moscow imposed anti-Turkish sanctions.

Russia currently ranks the second among foreign trade partners of Azerbaijan. The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Russia exceeded $2.05 billion, with $1.6 billion falling to a share of the import of Russian production.

Some 170 agreements, with 50 being in the sphere of economy have been so far concluded between the two countries.

The government of Azerbaijan earlier took a decision to appoint trade representatives in the Azerbaijani embassies and consulates abroad to facilitate business ties and increase the effectiveness of export promotion measures, represent and fully protect the trade and economic interests of the country.

Ruslan Aliyev has been appointed trade representative of Azerbaijan to Russia.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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28 March 2017 14:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Baku will host the Third Japanese Culture Festival aimed at bringing the two nations closer.

The colorful festival that will feature several events will be held at Baku State University on April 22.

Guests will enjoy traditional Japanese culture through music, dances, games, competitions, as well as delicious Japanese cuisine.

Workshops on origami (paper folding), ikebana (flower arrangement) and other Japanese fine arts will also be organized, Report.az reported.

Besides, guests of the event will be able to watch the theatricalized performance of Azerbaijan's fairytale Tiq-Tiq Hanim in Japanese language.

This year, Baku has already hosted a colorful Japanese Film Festival aimed at promoting the Japanese culture in the country.

The three-day festival featured five Japanese films such as "You're a good kid", "Letter", "Around Us", "The meeting with the mother of Pekoros" and "Tales of the city Kaytan".

Japanese Ambassador to Baku Tsuquo Takahashi attended the event.

Diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Japan were established in 1992. Relations between the two countries have continued to develop steadily. Japan was one of the first countries to support Azerbaijan's forward-looking oil strategy.

Japan has a fascinating and multifaceted culture; on the one hand it is steeped in the deepest of traditions dating back thousands of years; on the other it is a society in a continual state of rapid flux, with continually shifting fads and fashions and technological development that constantly pushes back the boundaries of the possible.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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28 March 2017 10:17 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The United Nations, which reflects the will of international community, never was and never can be apart from the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts resolution process.

Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev made the remark in an interview with Trend on March 27, adding that international peace and security are the priority tasks of the UN according to its charter.

Use of force against the territorial integrity and sovereignty of states and acts of aggression are prohibited according to the Charter of the UN, he said.

Armenia, as a state which is committing occupation and aggression against Azerbaijan by the use of force, continues flagrantly violating the Article 2 (Paragraph 4) of the UN Charter, he noted. Armenia refuses to abide by the demands of the UN Security Council resolutions No. 822, 853, 874 and 884 and by maintaining its illegal military presence in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan undermines the regional and international peace and security.

Armenias pretending to be committed to the UN Charter at the level of foreign minister is nothing but hypocrisy and an attempt to mislead the international community, Hajiyev added.

In a press statement Feb. 27, 2017, the UN secretary general urged the resumption of substantive negotiations leading to a peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict without delay, Hajiyev said.

Azerbaijan commends and supports this statement of the UN secretary general, he noted. We have repeatedly stated that the substantive negotiations for the resolution of the conflict launched during the Saint Petersburg meeting of the presidents should be continued.

At the same time, we support the UN secretary generals Jan. 1 appeal for peace and his initiative of declaring 2017 the year of peace, Hajiyev said.

In his appeal, the UN secretary general also called for ceasefire and compromise in the negotiations for the conflicts peaceful settlement, Hajiyev added.

It is regrettable that as a result of Armenias policy of maintaining the status quo of occupation and continuing annexation of Azerbaijans territories, the ceasefire regime since 1994 has not been transformed into the political solution and sustainable peace, he said.

Armenia continues to misuse the ceasefire regime for consolidating occupation and by all means undermines the efforts to achieve progress in the negotiations, he noted.

Armenias deviation from the substantive talks and its policy of boycotting and putting pre-conditions to the negotiations over the conflicts peaceful settlement is proceeding from this fact, Hajiyev said.

Armenia understands well that the essence and end-goal of substantive talks is to change the status quo of the occupation on a step-by-step basis, he noted.

In 1993, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted four resolutions (No. 822, 853, 874 and 884), condemning the occupation of the territories of Azerbaijan, reaffirming respect for its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the inviolability of international borders and the inadmissibility of the use of force for the acquisition of territory, Hajiyev said.

In response to Armenias territorial claims and actions, the Council reconfirmed that the Nagorno-Karabakh region is an integral part of Azerbaijan and demanded an immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of the occupying forces from all the occupied territories, he added. No country is authorized to misinterpret or downgrade significance of UN Security Council resolutions.

In the resolution No. 873, the Council welcomed and commended the Adjusted timetable of urgent steps to implement Security Council resolutions 822 and 853, he said.

The adjusted timetable prepared under the mandate of resolution No. 853 envisaged withdrawal of armed forces of Armenia within concrete timeframe from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, he noted.

The UN Security Council also tasked the OSCE to ensure the implementation of the resolutions when performing its mediation efforts towards the settlement of the conflict, Hajiyev added.

The final paragraph of the resolution No. 884 of the UN Security Council reiterates that the secretary general continues to report to the Council on the progress of the Minsk process and on all aspects of the situation on the ground, Hajiyev said.

The OSCE Budapest document of 1995 on mandate of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs also confirms that the mandate of the co-chairs is based on the principles of international law, the Helsinki Final Act and the UN Security Council resolutions, he noted.

The UN secretary general in the press release dated Oct. 31, 1994, made it crystal clear that the position of the United Nations is based on four principles which have been mentioned in the different resolutions of the Security Council, Hajiyev added.

The first principle is the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, the second principle is the inviolability of the international boundaries, the third principle is the inadmissibility of the use of force for the acquisition of territory, and the fourth principle is the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all foreign troops from occupied territories of Azerbaijan, he said.

It is also worth noting the resolution of the UN General Assembly on the situation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan of Mar. 14, 2008, he noted. We should also bear in mind that the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs are the permanent members of the UN Security Council.

The UN and specialized agencies were also actively involved to support Azerbaijan in overcoming the consequences of humanitarian catastrophe which Azerbaijan faced as a result of the conflict, he said.

In this regard, we particularly appreciate the role and support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in alleviating the humanitarian situation of more than one million Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs, Hajiyev added.

Based on the UN Security Council resolutions, the efforts of OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs must be redoubled, Armenia must be urged to return to the substantive talks and must be demanded to abide by its obligations under the international law and the UN Security Council resolutions for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, he said.

We are hopeful that 2017, as declared the year of peace by the UN secretary general, will be the end of the continuing occupation of Azerbaijans territories by Armenia and will also be the beginning of the lasting peace in the region through substantive negotiations, 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.

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28 March 2017 12:04 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Azerbaijan has appealed to the OSCE Minsk Group member countries, OSCE Permanent Council chairperson and other OSCE institutions with regard to the military drills of Armenia in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, the illegal visit of Armenias president to those territories and the statements made by him.

The appeal letter was sent by Azerbaijans Permanent Mission to the OSCE upon instruction from Azerbaijans Government, to inform that in blatant violation of norms and principles of international law, relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council, documents and decisions of the OSCE, the armed forces of the Republic of Armenia conducted regiment level military exercises in the occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry told Trend on March 27.

The letter reads:

The President of Armenia personally attended the final phase of the exercises on March 25. On that occasion, he illegally visited the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, awarded military servicemen who excelled in the combat duty and made belligerent provocative statements threatening sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

The President of Armenia attempted to introduce a religious dimension to the conflict as he praised the Armenian armed forces as upholders of Christianity. He, inter alia, admitted involvement of the armed forces of Armenia in occupation of the Azerbaijani territories and his own personal responsibility in this regard. He declared that in the course of military hostilities in April 2016, I gave a new order to strike back. He further praised his own role in occupation of territories of Azerbaijan saying that: only a strong one could give the order to stop [April operations], to spare those lives and to take upon himself the future hollow blows of populism, realizing all too well how much territory had been gained before that silently and how much would be taken next time.

The statement of the President of Armenia is a clear manifestation that Armenia violates the Bishkek Protocol of 1994, which is a basis for ceasefire, through entrenching and building-up military positions, transferring military equipment and hardware to the occupied territories and, thus, takes advantage of cessation of military operations to consolidate the status-quo of occupation.

In this regard, the statement of the President of Armenia is self-explanatory: In one year [after April 2016], we fortified our border and armed our troops to the extent that today our frontline is simply unrecognizable. Today, our guys are following the movements of the enemy in the depth of its own territory. Today, super modern, devastating striking power aims at the entire territory of our belligerent neighbor, including its vital infrastructure. And today, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armenia without batting an eyelid will give if needed the order to strike with the Iskander. In the neighboring country they know it all too well. The military exercises and the statement of the President of Armenia are illustrative as to the real intentions of Armenia and its unwillingness to settle the conflict through negotiations.

It is notable that the President of Armenia delivered his speech in Azerbaijans occupied district of Aghdam, the seizure of which was condemned and the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal from which was demanded by the UN Security Council in its resolution 853. This demand by the international community remains unimplemented for 24 years.

Instead, Armenia uses the ceasefire to exercise and train its armed forces for renewed hostilities, as it was vividly demonstrated by Armenian tanks during the recent live fire exercises targeting ruined houses of expelled Azerbaijani population.

This is a clear testimony of mindset of the senior leadership of Armenia built upon series of crimes against humanity, war crimes, acts of genocide committed against Azerbaijan and its civilian population. This is the understanding of peace, tolerance and co-existence by the Armenian leadership.

Provocative warlike gesture of Armenia and bellicose rhetoric of its high-ranking officials obviously run counter to this countrys stated commitments both under international law and within the ongoing political process towards the resolution of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. This is a clear manifestation of continued illegal use of force by Armenia against Azerbaijan, and the OSCE should act in unity to reverse such a flagrant violation of basic principles of inter-State relations as enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act.

The Azerbaijani side strongly urges the OSCE, in particular, the OSCE Minsk Group and its Co-Chairmen and the Austrian OSCE Chairmanship to publicly condemn Armenias flagrant violations of relevant provisions of UN SC Resolutions and the ceasefire regime, demand from Armenia to put an end to its aggression against Azerbaijan, withdraw its forces and engage in good faith in substantive negotiations with a view to finding lasting political solution to the conflict.

Failure to properly react to such blatant and repeated violations by Armenia will be a serious blow to the peace process with unpredictable consequences, for which the Armenian senior political-military leadership bears full responsibility.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia still controls fifth part of Azerbaijan's territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

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28 March 2017 18:32 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Inadequate and provocative statements made by the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan during his recent visit to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan were quickly replicated and disseminated by the Armenian government and media.

On March 26, Sargsyan, addressing the Armenian soldiers in Nagorno-Karabakh, tried to threaten Azerbaijan by speaking about fictional possibilities of the Armenian armed forces.

Another incomprehensible statement by Sargsyan was that if needed, he will give an order to strike with Iskander missiles.

It is obvious what these statements by the Armenian president were aimed at. That is a usual behavior for Armenian officials to speak loudly and promisingly. They act so in two cases  if they want to placate the Armenian population or if they need the support of the people.

Sargsyans recent statement falls under the second category. Armenia will hold parliamentary elections and the Armenian president is trying to gain sympathy of the Armenian population for his Republican Party in these elections.

Russian expert on international conflicts Evgeniy Mikhailov made remarks on Sargsyans statement in Nagorno-Karabakh. He said in an interview with Day.az that Serzh Sargsyan is not quite aware of the realities.

The expert noted it is impossible to speak about the use of such a powerful weapon as Iskander to defend the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. Russia, as a guarantor of peace in the Caucasus, will take all measures in order to cool the ardor of the President of Armenia, the expert noted.

It is clear that Sargsyan have nothing to do but maneuver between the nationalists and other parties in the run-up to elections. But these statements seem more likely blackmailing the guarantors of security in the region, Mikhailov said.

The expert also added that for Armenians Iskander is like an expensive toy that they can't control.

In any case, combative statements will remain just words. We have to understand that Azerbaijan has no less powerful weapons, and the answer will be tough, Mikhailov noted.

The expert said that by making such statements Sargsyan hastens his political demise.

Another expert, political scientist Ilgar Velizade also accused Sargsyan in powerlessness and lying.

Another bravado from Sargsyan, who before the parliamentary elections makes bellicose statements, is demonstration of the impotence of Armenia before the overwhelming superiority of the Azerbaijani army, Velizade said.

The expert noted that Sargsyan, who is in a state of impotent despair, did not hesitate to admit that civilian objects in the interior of Azerbaijan are targeted by Armenian weapons.

This means that the Armenian leadership tries to threaten peaceful residents of the Azerbaijani villages and towns.

The Armenian leadership, which lose hope to scare soldiers defending the frontline, is trying to sow fear among the population of Azerbaijan. This is the use of weapons with considerable destructive effect not to suppress the military power of the enemy, but to destroy the civilian population, Velizade said.

All this reveals the essence of the aggressive policy of the Armenian leadership, who instead of withdrawing its armed forces from the occupied Azerbaijani lands and letting Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs return to their homes, continues attempts to threaten Azerbaijani people.

Velizade said it is doubtful that Sargsyan or anyone else in Armenia will dare to use Iskander complexes, which are likely on the balance of the joint Armenian-Russian grouping.

It is one thing to supply weapons to Armenia, and another to allow to apply it against the state which is considered by Moscow at least as a strategic partner, the expert noted.

Indeed, the Armenian leader has no understanding of his statements, but he yet needs to realize that continuous threats and provocations towards Azerbaijan promises him and his power no political dividend.

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North Dakota is the latest state to adopt a new gun rights law making it easier for law-abiding citizens to protect and defend themselves. North Dakotas new permitless carry law means law-abiding gun owners who wish to exercise their Second Amendment freedoms can now do so without the burden of government fees and mandates.

North Dakotans, like Americans all across the country, are increasingly taking protection and safety into their own hands. Recognizing that, House Bill 1169 simply gives gun owners another option for self-defense.

Acknowledging this new reality, the National Rifle Association backed HB1169 in the Legislature this year to give gun owners greater flexibility when it comes to defending their homes and families. While this new law allows gun owners to carry a concealed handgun without a permit, the states existing permitting system remains in place for those citizens to obtain permits and take advantage of reciprocity agreements with other states.

Permitless carry, sometimes called constitutional carry, is not new. Vermont has never required any kind of permit for citizens to carry concealed. Over the years, more and more states have adopted that same approach for exercising our fundamental, constitutional right to self-protection. Including North Dakota, 12 states allow their citizens to carry a concealed handgun without a permit. Our neighbor Montana allows permitless carry for all areas outside city limits  99.4 percent of the state. Thirty-one states have allowed permitless open carry throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Permitless carry simply recognizes that it is often more convenient and socially acceptable to carry discretely in todays society.

Its important for people to know the facts about permitless carry.

 Permitless carry does not change prohibited person laws or any law governing the misuse of a firearm (illegal brandishing, discharge, threatening, etc.).

 Permitless carry does not change prohibited places where a firearm cannot be carried.

 Permitless carry does not change the laws relating to when force may be used in self-defense.

 Private property owners still maintain discretion over their own property, including whether and on what terms to allow firearms.

We know from publicly available records that permitless carry laws do not lead to a wild, wild West scenario depicted by critics. The NRA reviewed all the states that have enacted a relevant law and for which sufficient public data is available for both the pre- and post-law periods. Three states that meet both requirements: Alaska, Arizona, and Wyoming.

 After Alaska adopted permitless carry in 2003, there was no spike in the number of murders, including those committed with guns  and with handguns explicitly.

 After Arizona adopted permitless carry in 2010, the percent of murders committed with a handgun decreased from an average of 60 percent per year to less than 50 percent. The percentage of murders that were committed with a gun of any type declined after permitless carry.

 Wyoming has historically had few murders and that trend continued after permitless carry took effect in 2011.

The National Rifle Association thanks the bill sponsor, Rep. Rick Becker, R-Bismarck, and Gov. Doug Burgum for making our Second Amendment freedoms a priority in North Dakota. Their support, along with the thousands of phone calls and emails from grassroots activists across the state, will ensure law-abiding North Dakotans have greater flexibility in defending themselves, their homes, and the families. Criminals carry guns, regardless of the laws. Permitless carry simply puts the law-abiding North Dakotans on equal footing.
28 March 2017 18:56 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Armenia and Azerbaijan should sit at the negotiations table and solve the Karabakh problem without any strong or weak mediators, said Alexander Lukashenko, the President of Belarus.

He made the remarks at the meeting with Armenia's Ambassador to Belarus Armen Khachatryan, who is completing his mission in Minsk on March 28.

If they want to use someone as a guarantor, they must make this decision together, he said, stressing that it is the right time to solve this issue today.

Azerbaijan and Armenia for over two decades have been locked in conflict, which emerged over Armenian territorial claims to Azerbaijan. Since the 1990s war, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions.

The UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal from the occupied lands of Azerbaijan, but they have not been enforced to this day.

While the OSCE Minsk Group acted as the only mediator in resolution of the conflict, the occupation of the territory of the sovereign State with its internationally recognized boundaries has been left out of due attention of the international community for years.

People should have a decent life and I don't believe that people in Nagorno-Karabakh have a decent life today, Lukashenko further continued.

Is this a decent life when you feel that you can be wounded or killed every day? Therefore, we have a univocal position: Armenia and Azerbaijan should sit at the negotiations table and solve this problem without any strong or weak mediators, Lukashenko noted.

Lukashenko also spoke about the extradition of blogger Alexander Lapshin who violated Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012. He was extradited from Minsk to Baku in February to stand trial for his violations.

The detention of the blogger in Belarus and his extradition to Azerbaijan were the subject of heated debate and protests in Armenia. President Lukashenko responded to these allegations:

Does Armenia have anything to do with it? Armenia has never told me anything about Lapshin. Only one country, Azerbaijan, put him on the wanted list... Interpol knew about it. We had to report and we did it as law-abiding people, Lukashenko said. We had to extradite him to the country which had put him on the wanted list, the Belarusian president added.

The blogger illegally visited Azerbaijan`s Armenia-occupied lands and now is charged under the articles 281.2 (appeals directed against state) and 318.2 (illegal border crossing) articles of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. He violated Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012.

Helped by his accomplices in the occupied territories, Lapshin paid a number of visits to Azerbaijan`s occupied lands, where he voiced support for "independence" of the illegal regime, and made public calls against Azerbaijan`s internationally recognized territorial integrity on April 6 and June 29, 2016.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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28 March 2017 11:50 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijan is an important strategic partner of Ukraine, said President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko as he met with heads of delegations of the Summit of the heads of government of the member-states of the GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development in Kiev on March 27.

The delegation included Deputy Prime Minister of Azerbaijan Ismat Abasov, Prime Minister of Georgia Giorgi Kvirikashvili and Prime Minister of Moldova Pavel Filip, Azertac reported.

The Ukrainian president praised the results of the Summit that have a significant importance for the launch of the GUAM free trade area.

The parties praised the signature of the documents that will promote the development of the GUAM transport corridor as an important communication link between Europe and Asia, as well as open broad opportunities for the enhancement of economic ties between the countries of the organization.

The parties noted the necessity of enhancing cooperation with the international partners as a precondition for the intensification of economic dimension within the GUAM.

They also discussed the intensification of cooperation in the sphere of security, in the format of both the GUAM and the Eastern Partnership.

They particularly touched upon the establishment of the Regional Center of Eastern Partnership for the struggle against cybercrimes and coordination of interaction in the sphere of fighting terrorism.

The parties confirmed mutual support for sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of the internationally recognized borders of the states-participants of the GUAM.

The GUAM format was created by four post-Soviet states in 1997 during the summit of heads of states of the EU in Strasbourg. The member states of the organization are Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova. In 1999, Uzbekistan joined the format and four years later withdrew.

In 2006, Ukraine and Azerbaijan announced plans to further increase the GUAM member relations and established its headquarters in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.

The GUAM plays an important role in ensuring regional security, as it contributes significantly to the development and strengthening of dialogue between the countries of the region.

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28 March 2017 14:50 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

An Azerbaijani delegation led by Parliamentary Speaker Ogtay Asadov participated in the spring session of the Inter-parliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States (IPA CIS).

The session opened in Saint Petersburg on March 27, where participants discussed a question of establishment of the International Day of Parliamentarism, results of monitoring of the last year's referendum in Kyrgyzstan, and also the organization of monitoring groups in election campaigns held in 2017 in the CIS member countries, Azertac reported.

Heads of parliaments of the CIS member countries adopted the statement on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Inter-parliamentary Assembly. In the statement, it is noted that the IPA CIS has the considerable potential for expansion of the international parliamentary cooperation, actively acting as the platform for bilateral and multilateral interaction both between the member countries and with the international organizations.

At the meeting, Ogtay Asadov was awarded medal of the organization devoted to the 25th anniversary of IPA CIS.

On the same day, the 46th plenary session of Inter-parliamentary Assembly of the CIS took place.

Asadov, addressing the meeting, noted that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev attaches special significance to deepening of cooperation between the CIS countries.

Interaction within the Commonwealth plays an important role in strengthening of inter-parliamentary relations of member countries, expansion of economic partnership, he said.

Asadov also spoke of the prospects of multilateral cooperation in cultural, humanitarian, scientific, trade and other spheres. He emphasized that for further improvement of activity of the organization it is necessary to resolve the conflicts existing in the post-Soviet space.

Besides, Asadov met with Speaker of Russias Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko on the sidelines of the IPA CIS spring session.

The development of Russian-Azerbaijani relations is a result of hard work and we may be proud of that, Matviyenko said at the meeting.

She also spoke of the economic, cultural, humanitarian relations between Russia and Azerbaijan, further highlighting the importance of the annual Baku International Humanitarian Forum.

Asadov, in turn, said that a solid legal basis existing between the two countries contributes to the development of relations in all areas, including trade, economy, agriculture, energy and culture. He said the two countries have signed more than 200 documents covering different areas.

Asadov highlighted the Azerbaijani government`s attention to Russian language, saying there are more than 340 Russian language schools in the country.

The sides also exchanged views over the prospects for inter-parliamentary relations between the two countries.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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28 March 2017 16:18 (UTC+04:00)

By Gulgiz Muradova

Despite how deep the oil prices fell over the past two years, the prospects for higher prices in the mid-term seem much more real than most people may guess. Although to rebalance the oil market is uneasy and requires more time and effort, but is still possible.

More experts agree that the results of the deal agreed by OPEC and non-OPEC members had been very positive so far and would bear the expected fruit in the upcoming months.

The Cartel and other exporters including Russia agreed to cut output by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) to reduce a price-sapping glut. The deal came in effect on January 1 and lasts six months.

Most OPEC members appear to be sticking to the deal so far. As of February 2017, the OPEC and participating non-OPEC countries achieved a conformity level of 94 percent, an increase of 8 percentage points over the January 2017 performance.

OPEC's cuts - and surprisingly high level of adherence to those production reductions - allowed the prices to partly regain the lost heights. However, the agreed period for those reductions was the first half of this year, leaving uncertainty for the second half-year.

Stressing that once will not be enough, experts urge that in case, the major exporters dont continue with this trend, then the oil price could drop back to where it was two years ago - the low $30s.

Meanwhile, the price gains from the OPEC deal have been capped by resurging U.S. shale output at the higher oil prices. Crude production in the U.S. has been rising steadily since the beginning of the year.

Data shows production there has stayed above the 9-million-barrel mark for the past four weeks. Future production also appears to be well on track. In the week ended March 24, U.S. drillers activated 21 more oil rigs, marking the 10th straight week they have increased, to a total of 652.

Due to this, global benchmark Brent crude has fallen towards $50 a barrel, having started the year at $57.

The supply pact could be extended in May if all major producers showed effective cooperation.

Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih told Bloomberg Television that OPEC would extend the deal beyond June if stockpiles were still above the five-year average.

According to OPECs own estimates from earlier this month, OECD commercial oil stocks in January were 278 million barrels above the five-year average.

Kuwait and several other states signaled a push towards an extension of the supply cut deal beyond the first six months of this year, but it depends on the backing of non-OPEC producers such as Russia, which have yet to fully meet their pledge on reductions.

Russias oil companies have cut their total oil production by 161,000 b/d since October, Tass reported earlier, while Russia's energy minister Aleksandr Novak has said that the country will meet its pledged 300,000 barrel/day (b/d) cut by end April.

Novak also announced that it is too early to talk about the expediency of extending the OPEC oil output cut deal.

Additional time and first of all, additional analysis of the market situation is needed for making a decision on more cuts, Novak told RT following the Joint OPEC/Non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) meeting in Kuwait.

Over the weekend, a monitoring committee that oversees the OPEC's compliance with a deal to cut global production by 1.2 million barrels a day issued a statement directing oil producers to "review the oil market conditions," regarding the possible extension of the cuts. Several OPEC members announced support for an extension.

The committee will reconvene again in late April to complete their recommendation for a possible extension of OPEC's supply action. The final decision will be taken by the oil cartel on May 25.

Azerbaijans Energy Ministry is also optimistic on the outcome of the OPEC output cut deal struck in late 2016 and supports extending the current deal beyond its June deadline.

Ministrys spokesperson Zamina Aliyeva told APA that Azerbaijan considers acceptable the decision on the extension of the Vienna Agreement.

"The execution of the oil cut deal is accompanied by a positive trend  the rising oil prices in the market. If at a regular meeting of OPEC, it will be decided to extend the agreement on the reduction of oil production, Azerbaijan is ready to take appropriate steps, Aliyeva said.

The spokesperson reminded that Azerbaijan has fully fulfilled its obligations since January. The participation of Azerbaijan in joint oil production cuts is defined at 35,000 barrels per day.

The volume of daily production last month amounted to some 776,400 barrels, while the volume of daily export at 604,100 barrels of oil with some 50,000 barrels accounting for condensate and 26,800 barrels fall to a share of oil products. This January, the volume of daily production amounted to some 793,900 barrels, while the daily export was 617,000 barrels.

Prior to the landmark deal, the volume of production in the country was at the level of 37.72 million tons of oil, while daily output stood at 829,100 barrels. Oil production of the country in 2017 is forecasted to stand at 39.797 million, while average daily oil production will amount to 800,000-807,000 barrels.

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28 March 2017 11:11 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Turkmenistan will hold a parliamentary election on May 21, the countrys Central Election Commission said on March 27.

New MPs will be elected to replace the ones who discontinued their office terms early, according to the Turkmen CEC.

Turkmenistan will also elect members of local governing bodies on the same day due to changes in administrative and territorial structures of the countrys regions.

Ensuring transparency and wide choice at the election were set as priorities in a meeting of the Turkmen Central Election Commission held on March 27.

Representatives of the Democratic Party, the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the Agrarian Party, as well as public organizations and associations of Turkmenistan took part in the meeting.

In accordance with the constitution of Turkmenistan, the countrys parliament adopts laws, makes changes and additions to the basic law, approves the state budget, addresses issues of holding a national referendum, appoints the president election, the parliamentary election, as well as members of representative bodies.

The Turkmen parliament also ratifies and denounces international treaties, decides on changing of the state border and the administrative-territorial division of the country.

MPs are elected for a period of 5 years on the basis of universal, equal and direct voting by secret ballot. The number of MPs in the parliament is 125.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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28 March 2017 12:10 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Iranian President Hassan Rouhanis current visit to Russia will open a new page in relations between the two countries and be as productive as possible, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at the meeting held on March 27, TASS reported.

"At the moment, very cordial, advanced relations have been established between our countries, and your visit provides the opportunity to make them even deeper and more cooperative," Medvedev said at the meeting with the Iranian president.

The Russian PM expressed his intention to discuss with the Iranian president both economic issues and international affairs.

Rouhani, in turn, said that the relations between the two countries "are not limited to one area, but are successfully developing in politics, economy, culture and international and regional affairs."

Rouhani stressed that joint steps by Iran and Russia in the international arena would contribute to the strengthening of peace and stability in the region.

He also noted "positive dynamics" in relations between his country and Russia in the recent years.

"The visit of President Vladimir Putin to Tehran has become a new starting point in the development of bilateral relations, and I hope that during this visit to Moscow we will witness another turning point in the development of relations," Rouhani added.

The talks of the two presidents are scheduled for the second day of the visit. Putin and Rouhani are expected to sign a package of bilateral documents. The Iranian side said earlier the documents cover the areas of telecommunications, technologies, energy, roads, urban development, standardizing, and sports.

"Special attention will be given to the promulgation of trade and investment, particularly in the context of large joint projects in the energy sector and transport infrastructures," the Kremlin press service stated.

According to the Federal Customs Service, the volume of Russian-Iranian trade turnover in 2016 increased by 70.1 percent and amounted to more than $2.18 billion. At the same time, Russian exports grew by 85.1 percent to more than $1.88 billion, imports - by 13.2 percent to more than $302 million.

Exports from Russia to Iran are dominated by shipments of machinery and equipment, food products, metals, timber and chemical products. The main imports from Iran in 2016 were food and agricultural raw materials (77%), chemical products (more than 16%), machinery and equipment, mineral products and textiles.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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28 March 2017 14:31 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Citizens of Georgia holding biometric passports will be able to travel to EU member countries without obtaining a visa for a short visit from March 28.

The visa-free regime implies free movement in the Schengen area, which includes 22 EU member states and four non-EU states (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland), as well as four candidate countries to Schengen (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Romania, Croatia), RIA Novosti reported.

Rules for visiting EU member states

Georgian citizens are allowed to stay in Schengen zone for not more than 90 days within any 180-day period for purposes other than working and they can use approved days both continuously or with redistribution.

The purpose of the short-term visit may be tourism, business meetings, trainings, participation in cultural events or visits to family and relatives.

In the case of a working and long-term study visit, a Georgian citizen will need to obtain a visa at the consulate of the country in question.

The immigration officer has the right to ask the citizen at the border of the Schengen area the following documents: proof of financial security - an extract from the bank with sufficient money or cash, a certificate from work and most importantly - confirmation of the purpose of the trip: return tickets, passenger insurance and hotel bookings, and in case tourists intend to see relatives, then it is necessary to have an invitation from them.

The amount for financial security must be at least 50 Euros per day, in addition to the cost of living in a hotel.

"The main thing is that the citizen of Georgia, if necessary, could prove at the border point the purpose of his short-term visit and explain where he is going, why and when he intends to return," Georgian Foreign Minister Mikhail Janelidze told reporters.

Since the visa-free regimes entry into force, the passengers will be checked to provide all necessary documents required for entry into the Schengen area on the state border of Georgia in international airports.

Violators of the regulations to be punished

Simultaneously with the visa-free regime, the mechanism for suspending the visa-free regime will come into effect. The agreement on this mechanism for third countries in case of migration crisis in one or several EU member states was put forward by the EU Council as a precondition for the abolition of visas for citizens of Ukraine and Georgia.

Based on the most widespread problem in Georgia - lack of jobs, some experts and analysts suggest that after the enactment of the visa-free regime, the flow of illegal migrants from Georgia may increase.

In order to prevent and suppress such risks, the government of the country has developed a special mechanism at the border points to control the time of stay of its citizens in Europe.

When the stay of a Georgian citizen in the EU member states exceeds three months, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia will be informed and, consequently, begin searching for the offender to start the readmission procedure. At the initial stage, all the search costs will be covered by the government, but after a while, they will fall on the offenders.

Georgia celebrates the historic day

Solemn events in honor of the celebration of the entry into force of the visa-free regime began in the capital and in major cities of Georgia on Sunday. International airports of Georgia have also prepared for the important event.

Airports are preparing to accept an increased flow of passengers, according to the head of the Georgian Airports Association Ketevan Aleksidze.

Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili will be the first to visit the EU after the visa-free regime comes into force, together with representatives of the authorities, students, representatives of national minorities, scientists and researchers, he will travel to Athens and then to Brussels.

"The historic day for modern Georgia has come, the chairman of the parliamentary committee for European integration Tamara Khulordava said at a briefing adding that this decision is the concrete result of all Georgia's reforms and efforts which Europe has appreciated."

The Council of the European Union on February 27 approved a mechanism to suspend visa-free liberalization and liberalization of the visa regime for Georgia, and Brussels officially signed on March 1 a decision on the abolition of visas for Georgia.

On March 9, 2016, the European Commission submitted to the European Parliament and the Council a legislative proposal on visa liberalization for Georgia. In late 2016, the EU approved the completion of the legislative process of providing the citizens of Georgia with the visa-free regime with the EU member states.

The prospect of easier travel to Europe has been used by the pro-Western government in Tbilisi to win popular backing for EU-sponsored reforms.

Negotiations on visa liberalization for Georgia began back in 2008 as part of the Eastern Partnership Program. Georgia entered the practical phase of those talks in 2012 as it prepared for associate EU membership. Georgia abolished visa requirements for EU citizens back in 2006.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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28 March 2017 14:20 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Russia and Iran plan to sign a memorandum on the development of peaceful nuclear cooperation following Iranian President Hassan Rouhanis meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 28, a source from the Russian Foreign Ministry told Sputnik.

The document is aimed solely at the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

The source noted that the memorandum, among other aspects, would relate to "understanding on the transportation of nuclear materials, coordination of joint activities, rules."

"We are talking about signing of a document that defines a number of aspects of bilateral cooperation in the field of the purely peaceful use of nuclear energy, in the context of the construction of the second and third units in Bushehr as well," the source said, referring to Iran's nuclear power plant.

This is a working document, not the first one between Rosatom (Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation) and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, the source said.

The two countries signed a historic $20 billion energy deal in Moscow in November 2014. This agreement has extended the cooperation of the parties in the field of peaceful use of nuclear energy and creating the possibility of building of eight units of nuclear power plant in Iran with Russian technologies.

Iran and Russia cooperate both politically and economically. Although mostly two countries cooperate in the energy sphere, they have also expanded trade ties in many non-energy sectors of economy, including a large agriculture agreement in January 2009 and a telecommunications contract in December 2008.

Currently, Iranian president is in Moscow on an official visit during which it is planned to sign a package of bilateral agreements. The Iranian side said earlier the documents cover the areas of telecommunications, technologies, energy, roads, urban development, standardizing, and sports.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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28 March 2017 17:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov discussed with UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura the issues of promoting negotiations on the settlement of the Syrian crisis in Astana and Geneva, RIA Novosti reported citing the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The meeting took place in Jordan on March 27, where preparations for the next Arab League summit are being finalized.

"In the course of a detailed conversation, a range of issues stemmed from the task of promoting the negotiation processes in Astana and Geneva, aimed at strengthening the ceasefire in Syria, an effective fight against terrorism and the earliest possible political settlement of the Syrian crisis in accordance with UN Security Council resolution 2254 was discussed," the Russian Foreign Ministry 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, third round of Astana talks which took place on March 14-16 focused on the separation of positions of terrorists and moderate opposition in the war-torn country.

Meanwhile, Chief of the Russian General Staff Main Operational Directorate Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy said that cases of open ceasefire breaches continue in Syria.

"The number of violations of the cessation of hostilities is not decreasing, moreover, there are cases of open breaches of the existing ceasefire, Sputnik reported citing Rudskoy as saying.

He noted that a total number of truce participants has reached 1,397 after 116 settlements joined it in a month.

"The number of opposition units declaring adherence to its observance increased to 200," Rudskoy added.

Rudskoy added that more than 600 militants have "returned to peaceful life using the amnesty announced by the government of the Syrian Arab Republic."

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.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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28 March 2017 16:34 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

The Senate of the Oliy Majlis of Uzbekistan (the upper house of parliament) has ratified the agreement with Russia on the development of military-technical cooperation at a plenary meeting on March 28, Trend reported.

During the discussion, MPs noted that the Russian Federation has been and remains one of the main partners of Uzbekistan, including in the military-technical sphere.

The senators voted unanimously for the adoption of the law.

Uzbekistan and Russia intend to exchange ratification instruments on the entry into force of the treaty on military-technical cooperation in early April during the visit of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to Moscow.

The agreement on military-technical cooperation between Russia and Uzbekistan and the plan of bilateral cooperation between the defenses ministries were signed in Moscow in November 2016. The document was earlier passed and introduced to the Senate by the legislative chamber of the country.

The agreement aims at deepening cooperation as well as joining efforts to improve each other's military hardware and technology and working on both countries' scientific, technical and industrial capacities related to military, security, law enforcement and special forces applications.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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Proponents of a bill to carve out a portion of the state health department to create a separate cabinet-level agency are optimistic about its chances on the House floor this week.

Amendments to Senate Bill 2327 were set to be voted on by the full House today, with a final vote expected sometime this week.

SB2327 would take the responsibilities involving environmental quality from the North Dakota Department of Health. and move them to a newly created Department of Environmental Quality. The transfer would occur over the interim prior to the 2019 Legislature.

A key amendment made in the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee was changing the makeup of the agencys advisory council to include three ex-officio members. It would also include 10 members appointed by the governor from such industries as energy and agriculture as well as conservation and government representatives.

It sounds to me like theres a lot of support in the House, said SB2327 primary bill sponsor Sen. Jessica Unruh, R-Beulah, adding shell likely have some final talks with House members to rally support for it.

Under SB2327, the health department would be required to attain all necessary federal approvals and whatever is needed from other public and private entities to ensure the department meets all required duties under federal law by Jan. 1, 2019.

Until the transfer is complete, the head of the environmental health section would be responsible for oversight of the existing programs.

SB2327 passed the Senate 27-17 in February. Soon after, the bill began seeing some opposition from farm groups, House Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Todd Porter, R-Mandan, said.

The advisory board membership was added to provide agricultural groups more of a seat at the table, Porter said.

SB2327 received a 12-1 do pass recommendation in Porters committee on Monday.

Porter, also a SB2327 cosponsor, said elevating the head of a newly created DEQ to a cabinet position illustrates the importance of environmental protection by the state and residents.

SB2327 would impact the nearly 170 staff in the environmental health section, nearly half of the 365 authorized staff positions for the full health department authorized for the 2015-17 biennium.

Supporters of the legislation have said its passage could create efficiencies and cost savings with time.

Dave Glatt, head of the health departments environmental health section, has previously told the Tribune hed be willing to oversee the transition and remain in the lead post for a DEQ.
28 March 2017 17:36 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Irans President Hassan Rouhani continues his official visit to Moscow, meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to discuss a range of bilateral and regional issues.

Rouhanis visit is taking place during one of the most important periods in Iran and Russia's relationship, with the Syrian crisis having become a showcase of the growing partnership between the two countries.

In Moscow, Rouhani and Putin meet for the first time within a purely bilateral framework, as their previous meetings were held either on the sidelines of international events or in the context of multilateral initiatives.

"Russia and Iran share many years, if not centuries, of bilateral cooperation and we have maintained diplomatic relations for more than 500 years," Vladimir Putin said at the meeting with Rouhani, TASS reported.

"Iran is our good neighbor and reliable and stable partner," Putin said, stressing that Moscow and Tehran "work together effectively along all lines."

"This concerns international activity and the solution of major and very acute international problems. Also, we work in the economic field," he said. "Lately we achieved considerable results in all these realms of activity."

The president mentioned growth in bilateral turnover, which was up 70% in 2016 as an example.

"This is a unique phenomenon in the current complicated economic conditions," he said, adding that it was largely an achievement of Irans president and government.

Rouhani, in turn, noted that cooperation between Russia and the Islamic Republic is not directed against third countries, but is aimed at strengthening stability in the region.

Rouhani said relations between the two countries have developed positively in recent years, further voicing hope that during the talks new steps will be made to develop relations.

"We have a good experience in the fight against terrorism, international terrorism, the fight against the drug threat. Our ultimate goal is to strengthen peace and stability in the region. The development of our relations is not directed against third countries," he said.

A total of 14 cooperation documents in consular, tourism, economy, communications, legal and judicial fields were inked on the sidelines of the meeting between Iranian and Russian Presidents.

The documents include a MOU on extradition of criminals, MOU on visa-free travel for Russian and Iranian citizens within tourist groups, a cooperation document between the energy ministries for electricity trade, a document on cooperation in sports, as well as MOUs on cooperation in the fields of housing, transportation, railways, ICT, trade, oil and gas, and transportation of nuclear materials.

Earlier, at the meeting with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev which took place on March 27, Rouhani said that during his current visit to Moscow the sides may witness a new turning point in the development of bilateral relations.

According to the Federal Customs Service, the volume of Russian-Iranian trade turnover in 2016 increased by 70.1 percent and amounted to more than $2.18 billion. At the same time, Russian exports grew by 85.1 percent to more than $1.88 billion, imports - by 13.2 percent to more than $302 million.

Exports from Russia to Iran are dominated by shipments of machinery and equipment, food products, metals, timber and chemical products. The main imports from Iran in 2016 were food and agricultural raw materials (77 percent), chemical products (more than 16 percent), machinery and equipment, mineral products and textiles.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
He will probably most stand out to Ward 5 voters as the one listed as Stay-At-Home Father on their special election ballot for June 6.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem described the U.S. border with Mexico as a war zone last year when she sent dozens of state National Guard troops there. Noem said theyd be on the front lines of stopping drug smugglers and human traffickers. But newly released records from the National Guard show that in their two-month deployment, the South Dakota troops didnt seize any drugs and sometimes went days without encountering any migrants at all. Noem justified the deployment and a widely criticized private donation to fund as a state emergency because of drugs making their way across the southern border to South Dakota. But the records cast doubt on whether the deployment was effective in addressing that.
The state director for the AARP said Monday he was disappointed the North Dakota House voted down a bill aimed at including caregivers in hospital discharge plans, but the organization has hope for another piece of legislation.

The House defeated Senate Bill 2215 in a 23-66 vote Friday, with one lawmaker saying it would duplicate existing rules.

Under the bill, a hospitals policy for releasing patients must include an opportunity for a patient and a designated caregiver to participate in discharge planning. It also required discharge policies to include opportunities for instruction and training for the caregiver to assist with daily living, medical and nursing tasks.

The bill focused on uncompensated caregivers who agree to assist patients in their home after theyve been released from the hospital.

We were obviously very disappointed the House against the bill, known as the Care Act, Askvig said. It was introduced by Sen. Nicole Poolman, R-Bismarck, and passed the Senate in a 27-16 vote last month.

But Jerry Jurena, president of the North Dakota Hospital Association, said hospitals already provide patients and caregivers with instructions on post-hospital care and discharge planners cover the most likely scenarios.

Making the patient or caregiver understand the vast variety of situations that can and will occur after one leaves the hospital is going to be a challenge, he said in an email, adding that patients and caregivers are given a number to call for unexpected situations. It is in the best interest of all involved to ensure the patient and caregiver understand post-discharge care properly.

Jurena added that the bill would make the caregiver part of patients record, and a hospital could be open to litigation if theres a problem with the patients recovery.

But Askvig, in prepared testimony to lawmakers, pointed to polling conducted by the AARP late last year indicating a third of current and former caregivers said they didnt receive instruction or demonstration of any medical tasks theyd be asked to perform once the patient was discharged.

While the Senate bill was defeated, the AARP is eyeing another caregiver-related bill making its way through the Legislature. House Bill 1038 would appropriate $200,000 for the state Department of Human Services to administer a lifespan respite care program during the next two-year funding cycle.

That would fill in the gaps in the current program for giving caregivers a break from their duties, Askvig said. The states existing program includes certain requirements that a wide number of caregivers dont fall into, Askvig said.

It would provide resources to the department to be able to find people to come in and watch their loved one while they had a break, Askvig said. A recent study from North Dakota State University cited lack of a sufficient respite as a common challenge of caregiving.

Askvig said the $200,000 would come from the federal government and not through the states general fund.

To us, it does not make sense why the state wouldnt take advantage of that, he said.

House Bill 1038 also requires the Department of Human Services to establish a caregiver resource center website.

Its a complex web of disconnected supports, Askvig said. Trying to put it all in one place where they click and easily find those supports is critical.

House Bill 1038 is awaiting action from the Senate Appropriations Committee.
NOME -- The last pastor to serve at the former Zion Lutheran Church in Nome said he and former members are glad white supremacist Craig Cobb wont be living in the building after all.

The 108-year-old church in rural Barnes County burned to the ground in the middle of the afternoon on Wednesday, the same day a story on the church and its possible new owner was featured on The Forum's front page.

The Rev. Bradley Edin presides over several Lutheran congregations in the area and served at Zion for 15 years before it closed in the summer of 2012.

Everyone is relieved that this building that meant so much is not going to be used by him, Edin said, referring to Cobb.

But Cobb, who believes the fire was intentionally set, said hes not necessarily done with the town of about 60 people 70 miles southwest of Fargo.

If an arsonist turns himself or herself in, Cobb said he will give up his efforts to remain in Nome and will continue living in Sherwood, about 50 miles northwest of Minot.

If not, hell press on.

"If they want to keep pushing I just may very well retain the lot and build a building there and still make The President Donald J. Trump Creativity Church of Rome, not Nome. Thats not a misprint," said Cobb, who has previously tried to establish white supremacist enclaves in two other North Dakota towns, including Leith, southwest of Bismarck.

Im really, really interested in getting even with people, he added.

Like a funeral

The Zion church building was built in 1908; one of a foursome of churches in Nome and nearby Fingal, according to History of the Zion Lutheran Church, published in 1981 and on file at North Dakota State University Archives.

The Rev. H.O. Nordby, who came to America in 1868 from Norway, was Zions first pastor.

Confirmation classes at Zion were conducted in both Norwegian and English until 1922, when the Norwegian language in class was discontinued.

To outfit the church, the Ladies Aid organization purchased pews at a cost of $200 and a new organ for $70. A furnace was installed in 1918, followed by electric fixtures the year after.

Later, the school in Nome built a barn so those attending services in Zion could keep their horses there.

According to Edin, Zion celebrated its 100th anniversary on June 18, 2006.

But as the building aged and membership declined, it became clear the congregation wouldnt last. The congregation, described by Edin as tightly connected and pragmatic, decided it would be poor stewardship to put money into something that may only be around a few more years.

Zions final service was on June 24, 2012, and the contents of the building were sold at auction a few weeks later.

It was like a funeral for me, personally, Edin said.

Jerome Jankowski, who lives next door, said the church was a landmark in Nome.

Its a shame, he said.

Zions altar cross, communion ware, Bible and altar book are stored in the sanctuary at St. Petri Lutheran Church, a few miles southwest of Nome, as a remembrance.

After Zion closed, most church members didnt hesitate to join the St. Petri parish.

They were small, but were always fully aware that a church is far more than a building, Edin said.

Jankowski was a member of Zion for 14 years.

Its sad when you look out there, he said.

Cobbs suspicions

According to the Barnes County Recorders office, Cobbs name is listed on a recent deed as an owner of the property at 295 3rd Ave. in Nome. However, the name of a previous owner is also listed, so its unclear whether Cobb owns it outright.

Jankowski said last week there were rumors circulating about some people wanting to burn the church so they wouldnt have to deal with Cobb, but that it might have been an offhand comment.

The state fire marshals office is still investigating the cause of the fire, which Cobb has said he believes is 100 percent arson. He said m in an interview late last week that there was no insurance on the building in Nome and that he did not start the fire.

Cobb is involved in the Creativity Movement, a nontheistic religion that believes in the superiority of white people.

He said he thinks homegrown arsonists from Nome are responsible for the fire, not out-of-town anarchists.

His message to the people of Nome was to turn over the arsonist before something really bad might happen," though he said he had no knowledge of any revenge efforts.

Calls requesting information about the investigation to the State Fire Marshals office and the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms division in St. Paul were not returned Monday.

Barnes County Sheriff Randy McClaflin said he hasnt heard of any possible suspects and that those investigating agencies havent called him for help.

Forum News Service reporter Kim Hyatt contributed to this report.
Early years and primary school teachers: we need you!

BMS World Mission families in Afghanistan and northern Uganda need teachers to come and educate their young children. Can you help?

You feel called to use your skills and experience to serve God in overseas mission. You also feel called to give the children God has blessed you with a good education. The problem: there are no schools to send your children to where you live. So, what do you do?

This is the dilemma some of our wonderful families living and serving in northern Uganda and rural Afghanistan are facing. If you are an early years or primary school teacher, or if you know someone who is, you could help.

Watch this video to meet Linda and Tim Darby  one of the families who would love a teacher to join them in Gulu, northern Uganda. (Joshua, Annabelle and Elsa  your future students  make a very cute appearance 45 seconds in!)



Linda and Tim Darby need a teacher from BMS World Mission on Vimeo.



Who we need

We are looking for early years and primary school teachers who can commit to serve with us for at least one year. Youll be a flexible, experienced practitioner who is excited by the opportunity of starting a small cluster group for young ex-pat children. Youll be teaching up to ten children of a range of ages, in either Uganda or Afghanistan, and will have the opportunity to stimulate their learning abilities.

This is not an ordinary classroom job  but its a very exciting chance to help young children learn and develop. Youll help them with their reading and writing, and their maths. And youll equip them to develop their knowledge and curiosity, too.

They are absolutely amazing kids who we are sure will be a pleasure to teach (most of the time)!

On top of that, youll be helping mission workers like Joe and Lois keep doing their work.



By teaching the children of our mission workers, and of other ex-pat workers in these countries, youll be playing a vital part in the work of BMS in Afghanistan or Uganda. Youll be enabling our workers to stay and serve with all the gifts God has given them.





In Afghanistan: youll be helping mothers and babies survive labour in a country with some of the worst infant and maternal mortality rates in the world. And youll be enabling rural communities to access clean water and prevent the spread of fatal diseases.



In Uganda: youll be helping to stop gender based violence in schools. Youll be playing your part in equipping farmers in the post-conflict north of the country to grow fruitful harvests for their struggling families. Youll be providing people with job opportunities and clean toilets. And youll be helping children with disabilities learn to communicate with their loved ones.







Tim* and Jenny* are BMS workers in Afghanistan with their two children Katie* and Robert*. They would love to have a primary school teacher join them and the other families serving in the area.



We believe that God has called us all here as a family  not just Jenny and me, says Tim. And we feel that a teacher will really help our children to thrive here.



A teacher also frees us up to get more involved in our work, and the lives of local people.







If you or someone you know is interested in joining BMS as a teacher in Afghanistan or Uganda, please do get in touch with! You can fill in this form, drop an email at opportunities@bmsworldmission.org or phone on 01235 517651.



BMS also has a range of other opportunities available for educators at all levels. Check out our vacancies today.



*names changed





This story originally appeared on the BMS World Mission website and is used with permission.

BMS World Mission, 28/03/2017
The mother of one of the three teen girls that died after a stolen vehicle plunged into a St. Petersburg retention pond is filing a lawsuit.

Lawsuit to be announced Friday in death of three girls who crashed stolen car in 2016

Mother of Dominique Battle will file her intent to sue the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office

Previous story: Deputies: Stolen vehicle ends up in St. Pete cemetery pond

Previous story: Friends, family mourn St. Petersburg teens who drove stolen car into pond

The mother of Dominique Battle will file her intent to sue the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office on Friday, the one-year anniversary of the girls' deaths.

According to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, the three teenage girls stole the car and were trying to avoid deputies when they drove into the pond early March 31, 2016, at the Royal Palm Cemetery.

According to Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, the girls stole the 1998 gold Honda Accord from a Walmart in the area of 18th Street and 18th Avenue S. A friend of the car's owner had been asked to give the girls a ride, but he made a quick stop at the Walmart to buy a TV and left the girls in the car with the engine running.

Multiple deputies spotted the car, eventually following it to the cemetery where it crashed into the pond at about 30-35 mph.

Laniya Miller, 15, Ashaunti Butler, 15, and Dominique Battle, 16, died after the car crashed into the pond.

Attorneys representing Yashica Clemmons and her family are filing the lawsuit because his client believes negligence caused the girls to crash into this retention pond and drown.

According to the lawsuit, the girls' deaths could have been prevented and list a number of reasons why. They believe deputies illegally attempted to stop the car claiming the headlights were off although lawyers claim video shows the lights were on.

Attorneys also claim dispatch told the deputies not to pursue the car but they did anyway at speeds of more than 90 miles per hour.

Another accusation states that at least 14 deputies responded to the crash scene and none went into the pond to attempt to rescue the girls.

Gualtieri has argued against that point, saying his deputies did everything possible to save the girls, adding that deputies took off gun belts and clothes before getting in the pond. Gualtieri said deputies immediately began sinking in the muck and had to retreat.

Dashcam video does not show rescue attempts but does show deputies getting into and out of the pond.

"The deputies did nothing wrong," Gualtieri said. "And there was nothing improperly done here and they acted to try and stop three girls who were engaged in criminal conduct.

"That's something we can't lose sight of with this. And I feel for the families, I really do. I'm very sympathetic to the situation."

Clemmons and her attorneys are holding a news conference Friday morning and a vigil that evening at Campbell Park in remembrance of the girls.

The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office has not responded to any pending lawsuit.
A 50-year-old man was arrested and charged after two anonymous complaints of illegal dumping at a Tampa property.

Arrest after illegal dumping at east Tampa property

Robert Rogan, owner of American Waste Services and Payless Waste Services, arrested

Dump site has more than six acres of tires, propane and oxygen tanks, construction materials

According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, deputies received two anonymous complaints of illegal dumping at 10716 Broadway Ave. in Tampa in December.

The tipsters said there has been dumping at the site for about six months. There is more than six acres of tires, propane and oxygen tanks, construction materials and other materials that will require removal.

During an investigation, detectives conducted surveillance at the location and learned American Waste Services brought in 40 yard large metal trash bins onto the property and dumped debris 39 times.

In January, detectives initiated a traffic stop on a truck pulling out of the property after a dumping. The driver was identified as Robert Rogan, the owner of American Waste Services and Payless Waste Services.

Further investigation revealed Rogan made a deal to bring the debris onto the property for $100 a load and the debris would later be burned.

Detectives met with prosecutors with the Hillsborough County State Attorney's Office to review their findings and a decision was made by the state attorney's office to not file charges until the site was clean due to speedy trial concerns and that Rogan may cease the clean up.

If the clean up was to cease the county would need a court order to enter the private property for the clean up, which would cost in excess of $175,000.

In February, detectives and investigators with Hillsborough County Code Enforcement went back out to the site to check the status of the clean up. The area was not clean and no progress had been made.

Rogan has been charged with felony illegal dumping and has been booked in the Hillsborough County Jail where he is being held without bail.
Proposed school boundary changes in Hillsborough County could mean big changes for students.

Potential boundary changes for school zones in New Tampa and North Tampa

New Tampa elementary schools near capacity and multiple North Tampa schools overcrowded

Meetings scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday

A series of meetings is scheduled, starting tonight, to discuss the proposed changes, which would impact some New Tampa and North Tampa area schools.

With some New Tampa elementary schools near capacity and multiple North Tampa schools overcrowded, the Hillsborough school district is looking at making changes in school boundaries.

On top of that, one school in North Tampa is set to close permanently at the end of the 2018 school year. The school district's lease at the MOSI Partnership School expires at the end of the next year as MOSI preps to relocate to downtown Tampa.

Meeting dates, times and locations:

Tuesday

Van Buren Middle School, 8715 N. 22nd St, Tampa

6-7:30 pm

Meeting in school cafeteria

Thursday

Benito Elementary School, 10101 Cross Creek Blvd, Tampa

6-7:30 pm

Meeting in school cafeteria

That means after next school year, the 300 students that attend the MOSI school, as well as 500 others assigned there will get shuffled to other North Tampa schools that are already at or near capacity.

The schools impacted are Forest Hills, Mort, Pizzo, Shaw and Witter elementaries as well as Van Buren and Greco middle schools.

Although the boundary change is a year-plus away, school districts want a plan in place,

"This is all for the 2018/19 school year," said school district spokesperson Tanya Arja. "But we want to make sure parents know the plan and have everything in place, so that's why we're doing the community meetings now.

"We want to make sure that they have what they need, and can do choice for next year if they want to do that. They can look at those choice options."

District officials also will discuss changes on Thursday for New Tampa schools. The schools involved in that community are Heritage, Hunters Green and Pride elementaries.

Those schools have hundreds of students bussed in from outside neighborhoods but there is simply no longer any room for that now as a housing boom continues in New Tampa.
A Chamberlain High student was injured in a stabbing on campus Tuesday in Tampa.

Sudent stabbed by another student at Chamberlain High

Two females involved in altercation

Non-life threatening injuries to stabbed student; one person in custody

According to Tampa police, the stabbing happened during an altercation between two 15-year-old, 9th grade female students. The altercation occurred during a change of classes.



The injured student -- who was stabbed with a steak knife -- was transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. One person is in custody.

Police said it is unclear what the confrontation was about. Other students pulled the two girls apart.

The suspect fled briefly and the school was placed on modified lockdown for less than 10 minutes. The suspect was quickly apprehended.

The school has resumed the regular schedule while police and school officials investigate.
This story was last updated on: 11:21 a.m., Tuesday, March 28, 2017.

A judge denied State Attorney Aramis Ayala's request to stay on the Markeith Loyd case during a status hearing on Tuesday.

Judge Frederick J. Lauten said that State Attorney Brad King will be the prosecutor for the case, denying Ayala's request for a stay to determine who should try the case after Gov. Rick Scott assigned King to the case. Ayala had been removed because of her stance against the death penalty.

However, Lauten also said that if Ayala challenges the order through a special civil action and a court sides in her favor, then things may change.

King said his office will announce this week whether Loyd will face the death penalty.

During the court hearing Tuesday, Ayala's lawyer asked for Loyd's trial to be stalled until the court determines which state attorney will prosecute the case.

King argued that the governor's order stands, and he should prosecute this case. He said Ayala's request should be dismissed, and the case should move forward.

"What the governor has tried to do is unconstitutional and illegal," Ayala's attorney said.

Lauten pointed out that the attorney representing Ayala is not licensed to practice law in Florida.

Ayala told Lauten that the governor's order does not stand, and it is her position that Scott's order is unlawful and unconstitutional.

Loyd interrupted Ayala and said Scott's motivation to remove her was to get someone who is in favor of the death penalty.

Ayala says she spoke with Gov. after he passed order to take her off case. Says conversation lasted 25 sec.& he asked her to recuse herself  Bailey Myers (@BaileyMyers_) March 28, 2017

Ayala asked the judge to grant a stay until it can be determined who would prosecute the case, but King countered that Ayala has "no right" to ask for that request.

In a statement issued after the hearing, Ayala said she would "move forward to expose the governor's action."

"By inserting his personal politics into this case, Governor Scotts unprecedented action is dangerous and could compromise the prosecution of Markeith Loyd and threatens the integrity of Floridas judicial system. As the Judge found today, what has been done is unheard of.

Lauten said he wants Loyd to have a professional analyze his competency to stand trial and represent himself.

In addition, Lauten appointed Roger Weeden as Loyd's standby attorney.

Loyd is accused of fatally shooting Orlando Police Lt. Debra Clayton and killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend, Sade Dixon.

Loyd is being charged with a list of felonies in Dixon's death, including first-degree murder with a firearm, killing of an unborn child by injury to the mother and attempted first-degree murder.

Loyd is also facing five charges in the killing of Clayton.
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday that lays out a new plan for the Environmental Protection Agency.

The White House says the plan will put the economy above climate change issues. However many Democrats and environmental groups are taking serious issue with the idea.

A White House official says protecting American Jobs is more important than regulating climate change and this is what the executive order addresses.

The president is expected to pass the order on Tuesday.

It will address former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan initiative, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt says.

"His clean power plant is something that the Supreme Court has said is likely unlawful. There has been a stay against this clean power plant. Our action starting on Tuesday, shortly after the executive order, will make sure that whatever steps we take in the future will be pro-growth, pro-environment. Within the framework of the clean air act. And it will be legal," Pruitt said.

Trump, who has called global warming a "hoax" invented by the Chinese, has repeatedly criticized the power-plant rule and others as an attack on American workers and the struggling U.S. coal industry. The contents of the order were outlined to reporters in a sometimes tense briefing with a senior White House official, whom aides insisted speak without attribution despite Trump's criticism of the use of unnamed sources in the news media.

Trump has been vocal in the past about his views on climate change, such as this tweet from 2012.

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012

Democrat politicians aren't happy about the idea of backing off on climate change issues.

California Senator Kamala Harris tweeted:

As Trump denies the threat of climate change, California and our people are tackling this challenge head on.  Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) March 28, 2017

Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy accused the Trump administration of wanting "us to travel back to when smokestacks damaged our health and polluted our air, instead of taking every opportunity to support clean jobs of the future."

"This is not just dangerous; it's embarrassing to us and our businesses on a global scale to be dismissing opportunities for new technologies, economic growth, and U.S. leadership," she said in a statement.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Authorities used news footage and social media, but did not interview protester witnesses, when they charged three men with endangering and terrorizing an armed pipeline security worker on Oct. 27.

During a preliminary hearing on Monday, Bureau of Criminal Investigations Special Agent Scott Betz repeatedly referenced a KX News video and Facebook posts as he testified in support of charges against Brennon Nastacio, 36, and Michael Fasig, 46.

Fasig and Israel Hernandez, 22, who waived his hearing Monday, are charged with felony reckless endangerment and criminal mischief. Nastacio is charged with felony terrorizing. The men pleaded not guilty, and the case was set for trial in October.

Authorities say Fasig and Hernandez crashed their cars into the security worker's vehicle in order to get him off the road. Nastacio allegedly walked toward the man with a knife. The incident took place on Highway 1806 as protesters were cleared from a northern "front line" camp.

No charges have been filed against the security worker, Kyle Thompson, who disguised himself as a protester with a bandanna over his face in order to take photos of burning equipment and carried a loaded assault rifle and handgun in his unmarked truck, according to Betz.

During the hearing, Betz said he found posts of Fasig online saying he had a "good day" because he got to "ram" into a DAPL security guard's truck. He also apparently tried to raise money on a GoFundMe account for repairs.

After he was charged, Betz interviewed Fasig over the phone. Fasig allegedly told him that he was not the one driving the car.

Betz said he identified Nastacio from the KX News video, where he apparently holds a knife up by his head for one to three seconds as he walks toward Thompson.

One protester sent in a statement about what he witnessed just north of the main Oceti Sakowin camp, but Betz said he was unable to reach him when he left one phone message.

Though Betz did not interview any protesters about the incident, he talked to Thompson, who indicated he feared for his life.

Thompson said he drove to Highway 1806 to check on burning equipment. He approached a gate and asked if he could take photos, and the crowd became "riled up" and angry, leading him to drive through the ditch to get away. During this time, two vehicles struck his car, disabling it. He got out of the vehicle with an assault rifle he had in the truck and walked toward the water where he was surrounded by some protesters with knives, he told Betz.

Betz said Thompson had the gun pointed down and did not fire it, though a crime lab investigation could not be certain. The pickup was set on fire  potentially by a flare gun.

Betz said Thompson did not indicate why he fled the protesters or walked into the water.

Defense attorneys Tyrone Turner and Bruce Nestor indicated in their cross-examination of Betz that they would argue at trial that the men feared for their lives and the lives of others near them.

Asked by Turner if he believed that Fasig showed "manifest indifference for the value of human life," Betz answered "yes."

"And Mr. Thompson's didn't?" Turner asked.

"From the information I have, no," Betz said.
By Tony Bartelme

Happy Publication Day to Tony Bartelme and his book A Surgeon in the Village: An American Doctor Teaches Brain Surgery in Africa! In A Surgeon in the Village, Bartelme chronicles the inspiring story of the doctors who helped cultivate medical sustainability in Tanzania, a country with just three practicing neurosurgeons for a population of forty million people. He follows the journeys of accomplished neurosurgeon Dr. Dilan Ellegala, born in Sri Lanka and raised in South Dakota, who took it upon himself to establish a train-forward method of teaching surgery that transformed the countrys healthcare system. Tanzanian farmer Emmanuel Mayegga became Dr. Ellegalas first student, who then taught another Tanzanian how to perform the surgery.

Bartelme also chronicles the budding relationship and eventual marriage of Ellegala and Carin Hoek, a pediatrician from the Netherlands with whom Ellegala founds Madaktari (doctors in Swahili) Africa, a nonprofit organization that incorporates his train-forward method for other Tanzanians. The following passage describes Hoeks first day of rounds as a pediatrician at Haydom Lutheran Hospital in the Lena childrens ward. While watching children receive treatment for severe burns, she comes to terms with her expectations from being trained and educated in the Netherlands and how she would need to adjust them in her new post.

***

To Carins eyes, some of the children looked as if they wouldnt last the night; rail thin, they had the faraway gazes of prison inmates. A few children did indeed look well, but Sakweli made no move to discharge them. Odd. The ward was full; shouldnt they discharge these healthy children to make more room?

A voice in her mind said, Wait, Ca. Just wait.

OK, Ill wait. She would keep her hands behind her back, ask [her mentor] Sakweli basic questions: What steps do you take to diagnose a patient with malaria? How do you decide whether a patient has TB? Happy questions, ones that told Sakweli Im here to learn, not lecture you about how I did things in the Netherlands.

In the next room the children had bloated bellies and terrible edemas. If you are wondering whether this is a kidney edema or malnutrition, look at their expressions, Sakweli said. If their eyes show despair, it is malnutrition, kwashiorkor.

Carin stared at a baby girl with big brown eyes, a swollen belly, and patches of hair; her brows were shaped in two pleading squiggles. Sakweli moved to another room with more starving children. Sometimes Sakweli spoke so softly that she could barely hear him. Her legs began to ache; her muscles grew stiff when she observed others; and her mind mimicked her hair in the wind, scattering even as she tried to move it back in place. Yes, the cottage needs work; I need to mend the holes in the mosquito net. What about Emma? Shes leaving soon. What do you give someone who leaves Haydom? When the tasks grew too numerous to remember, she took out a pen and scribbled notes on her arm. Soon her arm was full of temporary tattoos.

Aaaieeee! A childs scream brought her back. They rushed to an open door. Carin smelled decay and soap. Two nurses were next to a galvanized tub that contained a girl who looked to be about eight years old. She had the same swooping eyebrows as Angelas. The girls eyes were full of tears. She had bandages around her torso, shoulder, and left arm. Her legs were missing from her knees down; the stumps were wrapped in gauze.

Pole sana, basi, pole sana (sorry, all right then, sorry), the nurses said as they unwrapped another bandage. The girls scream rose like a wave, then broke into a foam of sobs and shallow breaths. Her exposed flesh was black and pink. A few feet away, her brother watched with wide eyes. His back was charred from his buttocks to his neck. He was next.

Oh, what happened? Carin asked.

Burns, Nurse Angela said. A pot of boiling oil fell on them. The girl lost her legs, but they were both on a list to get skin grafts. A plastic surgeon from California sometimes visited and did grafts. And the AMO named Mayegga also knew how to do them.

Angela, this suffering breaks my heart. Do these children get any pain medication?

Oh, yes, we give them acetaminophen.

Carin smiled back, but this one was forced. Acetaminophen? Tylenol? Thats for fevers and headaches. In the Netherlands, they put patients under when dressing severe burns. She moved her hands from behind her back to the front. Painkillers, where are the painkillers?

Wait, Ca, wait. Put it on the list.

Still shaken, Carin followed Sakweli and Angela to neonatology, which doubled as the orphanage. By the wall, a high table contained a row of babies. A few of their faces had bluish-gray tints. Theyre hypoxic!

Another table of babies was across the room, the orphans. Some had rolled onto each others blankets. They looked healthy. Trying to be positive, Carin said to an older nurse named Mama Kidogo, The orphans look very happy.

Their tears run inside, Mama Kidogo replied.

Carin looked at the premature babies struggling for oxygen, and then back at the orphans who had equally uncertain futures. Like divorcing parents, the arguments in her mind grew louder. Make changes, she thought. Immediately. Then the voice again, that damn voice. Wait, Ca, wait. For at least six months. But how could she wait? Even for a minute? Dont these children deserve the best care possible? Now?

Please excuse me, she said. When her mind overflowed like this in the Netherlands, she fled to the beach, especially if the weather was gray and windy. Then the beach would be empty and she could face the wind and sing and scream into it, and because the ripping wind drowned everything but her own voice, it was just her and her thoughts. She could sort through the ones that mattered. Was there a place like this in Haydom?

She left through the double doors, passing Lenas photograph. She marched back to her cottage, thinking about the children and then the Flying Medical Service plane shed arrived in the day before. Yes, the airstrip.

She exchanged her clogs for running shoes and followed the dirt driveway to the hospital gates. Was it right to stand by and let a child suffer? I could have done something. Her mentors voice again: No, dear, they managed for decades without you. Arent you really trying to comfort yourself?

When she reached the airstrip, she pulled out a pink moleskin notebook and crouched on one knee. She used her knee as a desk and jotted notes about procedures and protocols she wanted to change. In a few moments, she filled several pages with scribbles and arrows and underlined words. Then she walked briskly back to her cottage, tore the pages from the notebook, and stuffed them in a wooden nightstand. She sealed the drawer with duct tape, then stood straight, took a deep breath, and burst into laughter.

Her mentor had been right all along.

About the Author

Tony Bartelme has received numerous national awards for his investigative reports, including honors by the Scripps Foundation, Sigma Delta Chi, and Gerald Loeb Foundation. He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize three times, including the series that is the basis for A Surgeon in the Village, which he spent four years researching and writing. He was the recipient of a 2011 Harvard University Nieman Fellowship and is a graduate of Northwestern Universitys Medill School of Journalism. He is senior projects reporter for the Post and Courier, in Charleston, South Carolina, where he lives. Follow him on Twitter at @tbartelme and visit his website.
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Flatbed trucks pulled up to a conveyor belt at Beaumont Rice Mills to load 60,000 bags of USA Milled Rice bound for Bangkok, Thailand.

Thailand is the fifth-largest nation in the world in land available for rice production with more than 22 million acres. It's also the second-largest exporter in the world.

A drought in 2016 dropped production by more than 20 percent, so Uncle Sam stepped in with its food export program and Beaumont Rice Mills responded.

Workers at the mill on Pecos Street last week guided 3,000 tons' worth of the 110-pound bags onto the trailers headed for the Port of Lake Charles. From there, the rice will be shipped to Bangkok.

For Beaumont Rice Mills president Louis Broussard, the export program makes up perhaps 30 percent of his overall business, which this year is celebrating its 125th year of operation.

Broussard, 56, represents the fourth generation of Broussards running Beaumont Rice Mills. In 1892, Joseph Eloi Broussard Sr. acquired an interest in a grist mill, which grinds grain into flour, and converted it into a rice mill. It became the first commercially successful one in Texas.

On April 15, more than 300 Broussard family members from across the country will convene in Beaumont to observe the mill's 125th year.

State Rep. Dade Phelan secured a state House of Representatives resolution recognizing April 15 as Beaumont Rice Mills Day.

Broussard and his brother, Ben, are president and vice president.

Joe E. Polk, 40, is quality control supervisor. His great-great grandfather was Joseph E. Broussard Sr. Jacob Broussard, 24, also traces his lineage to the founder, his great-great grandfather, too. Jacob's dad is Louis Broussard.

On Wednesday, Jacob climbed a ladder with a broom to sweep rough rice from the roof over the conveyor belt to prevent grains from falling onto the bags loaded onto the trucks.

"To this day, local farmers are our customers," Louis Broussard said, commenting on what's in those 110-pound bags.

He estimated that 75 percent of what is bagged at the mill is from local farmers in Jefferson, Liberty and Chambers counties, a large swath of the Texas rice belt that swings west and south of Houston.

Beaumont Rice Mills' reach is global, with markets in Panama, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Mexico and Haiti, for example.

The mill sold rice in Iraq before it stopped U.S. imports, and the mill sent rice to Iran. Cuba was a major customer, particularly for the mill's label, Sunset Rice, before the U.S. embargo in 1962 closed that market.

"Eventually, we'll get back into Cuba," he said. "Maybe not in my lifetime."

The Beaumont Rice Mills building at 1800 Pecos St. is as old as it looks, dating to 1892. Louis Broussard and everyone else who works in the third-floor offices climbs two narrow and steep flights of time-worn stairs to get there, the same ones Joseph E. Broussard Sr. climbed 125 years ago.

In agriculture, uncertainty is ever-present. Farmers contend with drought, flood, pests, weeds and prices, low or high and government policy that is outside an individual's control.

"If our business model remains viable in the rice industry, we will build a new facility," Broussard said. "Expansion is the only way that we can carry the mill into the next generations."

DWallach@BeaumontEnterprise.comTwitter.com/DWallach
Diversity Group Beaumont will hold four forums for Beaumont ISD board of trustees candidates over the next three weeks, the group announced Monday.

"We are are currently working to educate the community on the BISD transition plan, the roles of parents, educators, trustees in helping our school district excel, and to prepare the community for an election of a new Board of Trustees," group member and NAACP Beaumont president Paul Jones said.
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Jacob Pauda, 31, on Monday was sentenced to 15 years in prison for a third-degree felony count of domestic assault with a 2003 conviction of aggravated assault.

He was accused of attacking his pregnant girlfriend, Mercedes Ramirez, on Feb. 8, 2016. The prosecution said that he beat her, kicked her in the stomach and chased her with a knife while she was pregnant, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reports.

GANG ACTIVITY: Four gang members charged in home invasions, sex assault

Ramirez remained in contact with Pauda while he was in prison. She told the court that she is still in a relationship with him. She said he became enraged when a relative provoked him by teasing that she was having an affair.

On a 911 call from the night of the incident, she told the operator that he was intoxicated and had taken cocaine that night. According to a police report obtained by the Lubbock outlet, Ramirez told investigators that he chased her with a knife. Since it's considered a deadly weapon, Pauda will have to serve at least half of his sentence before he is eligible for parole.

Pauda's heavily tattooed body was a central focus during the sentencing phase of the trial. An agent at the Lubbock County Sheriff's Office told the court that the tattoos were directly linked to notorious prison gang Tango Blast. "Certified Gangsta" and other tattoos indicated an association with the group. However, Pauda said in court that he was no longer affiliated with Tango Blast.

SATANIC KILLING: MS-13 gang members charged with 'satanic' killing, kidnapping appear in court

"He wants you to know who he is," Assistant District Attorney Laura Beth Fossett told 137th District Court Judge John McClendon.

In court, Ramirez said that she could not remember if he threatened her with a knife, but a jail phone call revealed that she accused him of doing so. When he denied it, she told him it was because he couldn't remember.

"You don't treat the mother of your children this way. You don't treat your family this way," Fossett said.

While the third-degree felony in this instance carries a sentence of two to 10 years, Pauda's 2003 conviction upgraded the charges.

>>See the video above for a look at another alleged gang member's story.
Greenville (S.C.) Memorial Hospital, part of Greenville Health System, is at risk of losing its Medicare contract following a CMS survey that found the hospital was not in compliance with some Medicare requirements.

CMS' contract with Greenville Memorial is slated to be terminated next month, according to a public notice the agency ran in the Greenville News. The notice, which was posted by Linda Smith, acting associate regional administrator division of survey and certification at CMS Region IV office in Atlanta, said Greenville Memorial is not in compliance with conditions of coverage, and Medicare will not make payment to the hospital for services provided to patients who are admitted after April 16.

In a statement on its website, Greenville Memorial said CMS surveyed the hospital after it notified CMS that it had identified "potential areas for improvement in the emergency department." The hospital said CMS determined it was not in compliance with Medicare rules related to nursing services, patient rights and governing body.

Scott M. Sasser, MD, chair of emergency medicine at Greenville Health System, said, "Nearly all action plan items have already been initiated, and we feel confident that CMS will find our plan  and its implementation  satisfactory."

The hospital said its action plan for its emergency department includes increasing staffing, providing more intensive training and improving clinical documentation processes around patient care.

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North Kansas City, Mo.-based Cerner Corp. is collaborating with the town of Nevada, Mo., the seat of Vernon County, to establish a prescription drug monitoring program, according to a Kansas City Business Journal report.

Part of Cerner's Healthy Nevada initiative, the program allows providers to see if patients have prescriptions filled in Vernon County. Additionally, the Vernon County Health Department will receive aggregate data on prescription drug usage and trends. St. Louis County, which already has a prescription drug monitoring program, will build the secure database.

Cerner helped create the Healthy Nevada program five years ago. It also helps fund the program that aims to improve healthcare in Vernon County, according to the report.
Hospital operational inefficiencies can be difficult to overcome and can have a negative effect on employee satisfaction and patient experience. However, with the right data and tools, hospitals can take a proactive approach to defeating these issues.

To overcome operational inefficiencies, such as long wait times in the emergency department, innovative hospital leaders are looking to real-time platforms that reveal trends and factors that contribute to such issues. While these solutions can provide healthcare organizations with retrospective insight for understanding past trends, hospitals and health systems are using them to act in real-time to improve efficiency, meaningfully impact the patient and clinician experience, and sustain results.

How Mercy Fort Smith transformed its ED

Before being named COO of Mercy Hospital Springfield (Mo.) last year, Brent Hubbard served as COO of Mercy Fort Smith (Ark.), a role he began in 2013. "When I joined Fort Smith, we [encountered] several challenges," said Mr. Hubbard during a March 22 webinar sponsored by Qventus and hosted by Becker's Hospital Review. He said patient satisfaction was suffering, the hospital's left-without-being-seen rate was too high, and its discharge length of stay and admitted length of stay exceeded national averages.

To address these challenges, hospital leadership knew they had to start by fixing the root of the hospital's operational inefficiency issues  the emergency department. Mr. Hubbard said many of the hospital's challenges, including those in the ED, were attributable to only having access to retrospective data analysis. The hospital had data and analytics, but insights derived from such systems were not available in real time. "Every day we were being reactive rather than proactive," he said. "We were always looking in the rear-view mirror."

The hospital decided to partner with Qventus, which offers a software platform that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to help hospital teams make better operational decisions in real-time. The Qventus platform enables hospital leaders to monitor data in real time, predict potential issues, identify course corrections and communicate them to frontline teams in the form of "nudges." The platform uses the hospitals preferred form of communication, including text messages, to share those course corrections with decision-makers.

Within a few months of using the real-time solution, Mercy Fort Smith significantly improved patient satisfaction and achieved a 30 percent reduction in its left-without-being-seen rate, a 14 percent reduction in length of stay, a 20 percent reduction in door-to-doc time and a 40 percent reduction in unnecessary testing. The hospital produced these results while experiencing an 18 percent increase in patient volume.

Mr. Hubbard said the hospital has sustained the results since implementing the Qventus system and has rose in patient satisfaction from 29th of 33 hospitals in the Mercy system to number three. "I couldn't be prouder of what my team accomplished," he said.

How Mercy Ardmore improved ED throughput

Mercy Ardmore (Okla.) is a 190-bed hospital in rural Oklahoma that is also part of the St. Louis-based Mercy system. The hospital had high performance with many ED-specific metrics, but the hospital's nursing staff was frustrated with the transition process from ED to inpatient floor.

To assess the level of the hospital's ED throughput problem, Jennifer Bramlett, RN, director of nursing and emergency services at Mercy Hospital Ardmore, looked to CMS Core Measures disposition to admit data. The data revealed that the top 10 percent of hospitals move patients from ED to bed in 42 minutes. Mercy Hospital Ardmore's disposition to admit time was nearly 89 minutes, on average.

To overcome its inefficiencies, Mercy Hospital Ardmore partnered with Qventus. The hospital began using Qventus Mission Control to manage the ED in real time. "I can see when metrics are deviating from our goals," said Ms. Bramlett. "It highlights areas where we need to respond immediately and provides us insight into areas that are likely to be problems so we can get ahead of the issues." Ms. Bramlett said she can also monitor how the team is responding to system recommendations and how well they're collaborating to solve the problems.

The hospital set a goal of reducing disposition to admit time to 42 minutes and worked with Qventus to develop a play focused on reaching this target. When a patient waits more than 42 minutes, each team member receives a nudge via their phone, encouraging them to take action. Ms. Bramlett said the system provides her with real-time data she can use to understand what team or person is having issues and what day and time those issues typically occur. "I'm also able to see where we are being successful so we can replicate best practices," said Ms. Bramlett.

Ms. Bramlett said she was blown away with the results the hospital achieved. After using the system for five months, the hospital reduced its disposition to admit time by 10 percent. The hospital also experienced other ED improvements, including a 19 percent reduction in arrival-to-room time, a 55 percent reduction in the left-without-being-seen rate and a 17 percent reduction in door-to-doc time.

"I am passionate about improving our ED," said Ms. Bramlett. "I love that everyone is coming to the table to own their piece of the problem and solution so it raises ownership and accountability."

Operational improvements created better patient and staff experience

By applying AI and machine learning to the terabytes of data that Mercy hospitals were already generating, the care teams at Mercy Fort Smith and Mercy Ardmore where able to make better operational decisions in real-time. The result was improvement across all measurable performance metrics and improved cross functional communication.
A former Philadelphia physician was charged with identity theft and invasion of privacy for allegedly hacking into the cell phones, email and social media accounts of former Delran (N.J.) High School classmates, Philly.com reports.

Upon gaining access to former female classmates' accounts, Dr. Peter Grossman allegedly made digital copies of more than 2,000 photos, the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office said Monday. In some cases, he guessed their passwords using information they had posted on social media.

The Burlington County Prosecutor's Office did not explain how it identified Dr. Grossman as a suspect, however, investigators found photos of 25 different women in his home. Investigators are still working to identify 13 of the women.

Dr. Grossman, who graduated from Delran High School in 2005, served as a physician at Philadelphia-based Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, according to Philly.com. Hospital officials on Monday confirmed with Philly.com that Dr. Grossman was a former employee, but did not offer additional details.

Authorities said his case will be presented to a grand jury, according to Philly.com.
Catholic Health's Sisters of Charity Hospital tapped Martin Boryszak to serve as president and CEO, according to a Buffalo News report. Both organizations are based in Buffalo, N.Y.

Here are four notes:

1. Most recently, Mr. Boryszak served as COO of the hospital.

2. He joined the health system in 2009, initially serving as director of finance and then, vice president of operations at St. Joseph Campus, a Catholic Health hospital in Cheektowaga, N.Y.

3. He holds an MBA degree from St. Bonaventure (N.Y.) University.

4. He succeeds Peter U. Bergmann, who left to serve as president of Cleveland-based University Hospitals Parma Medical Center.
Greensburg, Ind.-based Decatur County Memorial Hospital President and CEO Linda Simmons is leaving her post, effective April 3, according to the Greensburg Daily News. Her replacement is yet to be selected.

Here are three takeaways:

1. Ms. Simmons is moving on "to future endeavors," the report notes.

2. She served at the helm of the hospital since 2011.

3. She previously worked at Memorial Hospital Sweetwater County in Rock Springs, Wyo.
The American Health Care Act is out and the ACA is here to stay for now  though likely in a more conservative form. Because Obama administration used considerable executive authority in interpreting the ACA, the Trump administration will have the same power to interpret the law.

Here are 10 ways HHS can shape healthcare policy without relying on a vote in Congress.

1. Actuarial value of plans on the exchange. CMS issued proposed regulations in February to adjust the actuarial value of plans on the exchanges, according to Politico. This change gives payers the flexibility to offer cheaper plans by lowering the minimum standards for coverage. This could increase the amount consumers have to pay out of pocket on deductibles and co-pays, but could ultimately "help stabilize premiums, increase issuer participation and ultimately provide some offsetting benefit to consumers," according to a filing with the Federal Register.

2. Authorization of subsidies. During the Obama administration, the House questioned the constitutionality of the funding for the subsidies provided under the ACA to low-income enrollees,If the Trump administration sides with the House and does not back the subsidy funding in court, payers risk losing considerable funding, according to The New York Times.

3. Individual mandate. On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that could effectively end the ACA's individual mandate. Politico called this move "symbolic" of the president's intent to reform healthcare. The mandate allows HHS to create additional hardship exemptions from the penalty, paving the way for looser enforcement of the mandate. Reports in February indicated the Internal Revenue Service has already begun to reduce enforcement of the individual mandate on tax returns.

4. Enrollment periods. As part of the regulations proposed mid-February, CMS suggested constricting the enrollment period for ACA signups to align dates with the employer-sponsored market and Medicare. The proposal would cut down the enrollment period by half a month.

5. Marketing. HHS also decided to dial back some spending on television and digital ads plugging ACA enrollment deadlines, according to Politico. While most of the major cuts were reversed, the decline in ads may have had an effect on enrollment this year, which garnered 1.6 million fewer signups than projected, according to the Politico report.

6. Verification requirements for special enrollment. In February, the Trump administration proposed changes to special enrollment, adding extra verification requirements, according to Politico. The proposal expands the documentation required of people who enroll in marketplace coverage outside of normal enrollment periods.

7. Benefit requirements. Under the Obama administration, all health plans were required to cover 10 essential health benefits. In the final hours before a vote on the AHCA, Republicans targeted this requirement for repeal to help sway conservative members of the House to vote for the bill. While these requirements cannot be entirely eliminated without Congress, they can be adjusted, according to The New York Times. Contraceptive coverage is a likely target, Politico reports.

8. Medicaid waivers. Shortly after Seema Verma was sworn into office as administrator of CMS, she coauthored a letter with her boss, HHS Secretary Tom Price, MD, calling for states to submit more Medicaid waivers. In the letter, she made it clear the new administration would approve waivers with work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries  which the Obama administration denied. Based on her work on Medicaid in Indiana, The New York Times also noted she will be likely to approve Medicaid waivers that include small premiums and cost sharing provisions for beneficiaries.



9. Medicare demonstrations. Through the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, which was created under the ACA, HHS can use mandatory demonstration projects to change Medicare, according to The New York Times. How Dr. Price chooses to use this authority remains to be seen  he may focus on dialing back demonstration projects launched under the ACA due to his opposition to CMMI. During the Senate health committee hearing on his nomination, he voiced his opposition to CMMI, saying, "Because it carries the full force of the federal government and the payment for those services, it means we are answering the question of who decides about what kind of care patients receive, by saying the answer on that ought to be Washington, D.C. I simply reject that that is where those decisions ought to be made."

CMS has already begun to exercise some of this power  delaying the implementation of the cardiac care bundled payment program and the expansion of the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement model.

10. State innovation waivers. Earlier this month, Dr. Price sent a letter to governors calling for Section 1332 waiver submissions, according to The New York Times. This waiver allows states exemption from "the law's burdens" if they can propose a five-year plan that provides residents with similar coverage options without increasing the federal deficit. HHS is currently reviewing a 1332 waiver for Alaska, which seeks to expand a reinsurance program for 2018.

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President Donald Trump participated in a roundtable with female small business owners on March 27.

President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Small Business Administration Administrator Linda McMahon, Ivanka Trump and female entrepreneurs convened in the White House's Roosevelt Room to discuss how to encourage women's involvement in business.

"Empowering and promoting women in business is an absolute priority in the Trump administration because I know how crucial women are as job creators, role models and leaders all throughout our communities," President Trump said.

"Today, women are the primary source of income in 40 percent of American households with children under the age of 15," he continued. "We also know that companies that promote women to senior leadership roles realize significantly better profits, according to statistics, than their competitors."

Here are four commitments President Trump, Vice President Pence and Ms. McMahon made during the roundtable.

1. Access to capital, markets and networks. "We must ensure that our economy is a place where women can work and thrive. We will continue to address the barriers faced by women professionals and entrepreneurs, including access to capital, access to markets and access to networks. We will make it very easy. It's going to be a lot easier. You do an amazing job. And for a while it was a very, very tough  almost impossible  job," President Trump said.

2. Affordable and accessible childcare. "My administration will also continue to advocate for policies that support working families, including making childcare more affordable and accessible. That's something that Ivanka Trump  now Ivanka Trump Kushner  that you really have been working on and feel so strongly about ... I actually talked about it a lot during the campaign, and Ivanka was right up front," Mr. Trump said.

3. Policies that favor business owners. "Women business owners and women-owned enterprises are an enormous force in the American economy, and I know this president is committed to continuing to promote the kinds of policies that will make it possible for your firms to grow, and for more women-led businesses to be born and to thrive all across America. The president is advancing an agenda of less regulation, less taxes, [making] investments in infrastructure, fair trade and addressing healthcare costs to make healthcare affordable," Vice President Pence said.

4. Support through the Small Business Administration. "I'm really excited to be at SBA because we do have our Women's Business Centers. We do have those centers to help guide, to help and advise, to help them do business plans. And we have them all over the country. So we welcome you to come in ... sometimes you just need a little wind beneath your wings. So we're going to help provide hard information, but also a little wind beneath your wings," Ms. McMahon said.

Click here to view the full transcript.
Atul Gawande, MD, a cancer surgeon at Boston-based Brigham and Women's Hospital, said surgeons have unwittingly contributed to the opioid overdose crisis.

In an article published in the April 2017 issue of the Annals of Surgery, Dr. Gawande writes surgeons overprescribe opioids for pain relief to avoid situations in which patients must suffer because their physicians prescribed an insufficient dosage.

"Surgeons may often intentionally overprescribe narcotic pain relievers to meet the needs of 99 percent of patients (if not 100 percent). Why? Because, under federal regulations, patients stranded with an insufficient supply for their pain have no straightforward way to get a refill without a written prescription. I once had a patient arrive home out of state after surgery only to find he'd been inadvertently discharged without his script for pain medication. By then, he was miserable with pain. His pharmacy would not accept an emergency prescription by phone. A family member therefore had to drive back to the hospital two hours in the middle of the night to pick up a written prescription. It is the kind of experience patients and surgeons are both eager to avoid."

Click here to view the full article.

If you would like to contribute a quote for this series, please email Alyssa Rege at arege@beckershealthcare.com to be featured in "Word from the C-suite."
77-year-old C. David Stringfield, the former CEO of Nashville, Tenn.-based Baptist Hospital, now Saint Thomas Midtown Hospital, was reportedly killed in a collision with an Amtrack train in Oakland Park, Fla., March 24, according to The Tennessean.

The collision occurred around 1:10 p.m. March 24. Police said Mr. Stringfield reportedly drove his vehicle into the path of an oncoming train as it began to go through the crossing, according to a Sun Sentinel report. The train allegedly struck the passenger side of the vehicle and spun the car into a metal pole.

The Oakland Park Fire Rescue department reportedly pronounced Mr. Stringfield dead at the scene, according to the Sentinel report.

Mr. Stringfield joined the hospital in 1968, eventually becoming president and CEO from 1982 until 1998, according to The Tennessean.
Healthcare experts have warned of an impending physician shortage for decades, with many suggesting certain provisions of the ACA  including the individual mandate and Medicaid expansion  have exacerbated the problem. But is the U.S. really on the brink of a serious physician shortage?

Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, PhD, a professor and chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, would say no.

The latest projection from the Association of American Medical Colleges, released in March, says the U.S. could face a physician shortage of between 40,800 to 104,900 physicians by 2030. Although the "ominous" projections of a physician shortage have already motivated significant reforms, they don't add up, according to a recently published article in JAMA by Dr. Emanuel and undergraduate students Emily Gudbranson and Aaron Glickman of the University of Pennsylvania.

In the article, Dr. Emanuel, Ms. Gudbranson and Mr. Glickman argue there is reason to reassess the data on whether a physician shortage really exists.

1. While the number of insured patients has increased under the ACA, so has the number of physicians. Some 22 million previously uninsured U.S. residents gained coverage through Medicaid expansion under the ACA, while the individual mandate incentivized many others who previously skipped out on coverage to purchase plans on the individual market. Meanwhile, the number of medical schools in the U.S. has increased from 125 to 145 over the last 15 years, according to the report. Medical school enrollment has increased 28 percent from 16,488 in 2002 to 21,030 in 2017, and the number of active residents currently enrolled in Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education programs has increased 7.9 percent from 115,293 to 123,409 during the same timeframe.

2. Wait times are not measurably longer since the advent of the ACA. Many patients and experts worried that the coverage expansions under the ACA would lead to longer wait times. A 2013 Commonwealth Fund survey cited by Dr. Emanuel and his colleagues found that 52 percent of adults could not get a same-day or next-day appointment with their physician.

However, long physician wait times existed before the ACA was enacted. In 2009, the average time to wait for an appointment with a family physician was 20 days. Today the average time is 19.5 days, according to the report. Data suggests wait times have also improved for Medicaid beneficiaries. A study of 295 primary care practices in Michigan found appointment availability for new Medicaid enrollees increased from 49 percent before the state expanded Medicaid to 55 percent after expansion.

3. The U.S. has enough physicians. Dr. Emanuel and his colleagues arrived at this conclusion from a simple calculation to estimate the number of physicians required to care for all U.S. residents.

The U.S. currently has more than 900,000 active physicians, including 441,735 primary care physicians, 80,000 pediatricians and 484,384 specialists. Of the total number of primary care physicians, about 12 percent work part time, leaving about 388,000 full-time primary care physicians.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality recommends the average physician provide care to between 1,500 and 2,000 patients per year. A survey from the Medical Group Management Association found that the median physician panel size was 1,906 and the average was 2,184, according to the report. Dr. Emanuel reasoned that if each of the 388,000 full-time primary care physicians cares for an average of 1,500 patients, they could care for about 583 million people. There are 240 million adults currently living in the U.S. Similarly, if each of 49,000 pediatricians cared for 1,500 children, they could provide care for the 73 million U.S. children. By these calculations, there is a surplus, not a shortage, of physicians in the U.S.

Why does the AAMC forecast a physician shortage?

Given Dr. Emanuel's calculations, one might wonder where the projected physician shortage comes from. The AAMC predicts a shortage will occur because of three main reasons, according to the report: reduced physician work hours, upcoming physician retirements and an aging population.

The AAMC's projection report suggests that physicians under 35 years work 13 percent fewer hours per week than previous generations. But even if younger physicians work fewer hours, Dr. Emanuel says there are still enough physicians because the 388,000 full-time primary care physicians are more than enough to cover all patients in the U.S.

Although it is true that about one-third of all currently active physicians will reach the age of retirement within the next decade, Dr. Emanuel says most older U.S. adults are delaying retirement. Moreover, he argues that even if one-third of all current physicians retire, the approximately 260,000 remaining full-time primary care physicians would be enough to care for Americans.

Dr. Emanuel says the growing aging population is likely to increase volume of care, but there are more efficient ways to address their health needs than simply expanding the supply of physicians. Annual wellness checkups, follow-up appointments and support for medication adherence are all important aspects of maintaining health and can be administered by nurse practitioners, care coordinators and medical assistants.

For the full article and expanded commentary on the physician shortage projection, click here.
Lewis Rowland, MD, a neurologist and former chairman of neurology at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, died March 16 at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, according to The New York Times.

Here are seven things to know about Dr. Rowland.

1. His son told The New York Times Dr. Rowland died of a stroke March 16.

2. Dr. Rowland's research focused on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. He and his team discovered the disease was linked to lymphoma in a subgroup of ALS patients, according to the report.

3. He founded and became co-director of the Eleanor and Lou Gehrig MDA/ALS Center at New York City-based Columbia University Medical Center. He also founded and became co-director of the H. Houston Merritt Clinical Research Center for Muscular Dystrophy and Related Diseases at CUMC.

4. He was born Lewis Phillip Rosenthal in August 1925 in Brooklyn, N.Y. His father later changed the family's surname to Rowland to help his son get accepted into an Ivy League school, all of which held quotas for Jewish students at the time, according to the report.

5. Dr. Rowland attended New Haven, Conn.-based Yale University as an undergraduate student and later received his medical degree from the Yale University School of Medicine.

6. Dr. Rowland worked at the National Institutes of Health during the 1950s, but was later fired after refusing to be interrogated in connection with his alleged involvement in a pro-Communist organization, according to the report.

7. He served as chairman of neurology at Columbia from 1973 until his retirement in 1998. During his tenure at Columbia, he also served as president of the American Neurological Association and the AmericanAcademy of Neurology.
Eleanor Slater Hospital, a state psychiatric institution with locations in Cranston, R.I., and Pascoag, R.I., will join the Hospital Association of Rhode Island April 1.

As a member of HARI, the hospital will have access to a number of services provided by the association, including peer-to-peer learning, quality and patient safety initiatives and data analysis and reports.

Cynthia Huether, CEO of Eleanor Slater Hospital, will serve as an ex-officio, non-voting member of HARI's board of trustees, according to the report.

"Our Eleanor Slater Hospital team is pleased to work with HARI," said Ms. Huether. "Having the opportunity to partner with professional organizations across Rhode Island helps the state hospital provide the best possible care to our patients. We look forward to collaborating with all members of HARI to allow for new ideas and energy within our system."
CMS conducted an unannounced inspection at three Detroit Medical Center hospitals in January following reports of trouble in DMC's central sterile processing department, and the federal inspectors found Children's Hospital of Michigan was out of compliance with federal regulations and cited two others  Harper University Hospital and Detroit Receiving Hospital  for deficiencies.

During inspections on Jan. 30 and 31, investigators said Children's Hospital of Michigan was "not in compliance with federal certification requirements." There, inspectors found disorganized and dirty surgical equipment  for instance, during one observed observation, a staff member found discoloration on an instrument in the OR  and failure to follow proper personal protective equipment protocol, among other deficiencies.

The other two hospitals were found to be "in substantial compliance" with federal certification requirements, but deficiencies included failure to follow personal protective equipment protocol, insufficient surgical instrumentation during busy times, failure to maintain a sanitary environment in an operating room and failure to adequately sterilize surgical instruments in two of 20 random observations of sterilized instrument packs.

CMS accepted all three plans of correction submitted by the hospitals, according to DMC. Children's Hospital of Michigan needs to pass another surprise inspection by May 23 or it could lose its Medicare contract, according to The Detroit News.

"As part of the process, CMS will conduct a follow-up survey to ensure DMC is in compliance with the Medicare Conditions of Participation for hospitals. We will continue to work collaboratively with CMS until all matters are resolved," according to a DMC statement.

The corrective actions plans involve reorganizing DMC's central sterile processing department, implementing an instrument assessment and inventory process and investing in new instruments and equipment, as well as continuing enhanced staff training and education.

This was the second time CMS has inspected DMC's central sterile process in six months  the federal agency dropped by for a surprise inspection in August after The Detroit News published an investigation detailing years of problems with the medical center's sterilization unit. The state also conducted its own investigation.

DMC had to issue a corrective plan then, as well, and passed a surprise inspection in November. However, CMS launched the most recent inspection after reports surfaced that a dirty surgical instrument was delivered to a DMC operating room just one day after the state wrapped up its investigation into the unit.

"While recent findings have shown areas for additional improvement in our CSP department, I have seen a consistent effort on the part of our DMC team members to ensure that our surgical services continue to be safely delivered with the highest quality of care," said Joseph Lelli, MD, Children's Hospital of Michigan's surgeon-in-chief, said in a March statement. "I'm encouraged by the changes made thus far and look forward to being a part of the positive efforts moving forward to create a world-class CSP department."

Copies of all three hospitals' plans of correction are available for download here, via DMC.
A new bill under consideration by lawmakers in Maine would force Maine Medical Center in Portland to alter its organ transplant policy, which prohibits medical marijuana users from receiving donor organs, according to a report from the Portland Press Herald.

Here are eight things to know about the issue.

1. The current hospital rule bars medical marijuana users from receiving an organ transplant due to the risk of patients contracting aspergillosis from a type of black mold that can sometimes cultivate on marijuana buds.

2. The proposed legislation would only affect Maine Medical Center as it is the only transplant center in the state.

3. The proposed bill "prohibits the medical use of marijuana from being the sole disqualifying factor in determining a person's suitability for receiving an anatomical gift," according to the bill's summary.

4. The namesake and inspiration for the bill is Milford resident Gary Godfrey. Mr. Godfrey suffers from Alport syndrome, a hereditary disease that causes kidney failure. Mr. Godfrey began using medical marijuana  which was legalized in the state in 1999  after prescription medications failed to treat his symptoms.

5. In 2012, Mr. Godfrey was bumped from the transplant list at Maine Medical Center due to his marijuana use. Mr. Godfrey was faced with the decision to either quit using the only medication that had provided relief from his symptoms, or continue to use marijuana and receive dialysis until his kidneys ultimately failed him. Mr. Godfrey would have had to give up marijuana use for a year before returning to the bottom of the transplant list, according to his testimony on Monday.

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6. Caregivers and patients testified Monday that other states like New Hampshire and California have passed legislation to keep medical marijuana users on organ transplant lists. Also, speakers testified that while marijuana buds can be contaminated by mold, the risk of infection can be eliminated in carefully made medical marijuana products like the liquid form of the drug called cannabis tinctures. Speakers also highlighted the fact that organ donors in Maine are not screened for medical marijuana use.

7. "Our drug use policy currently prohibits transplant candidates from the use of prescribed or recreational marijuana by any route (inhaled, oral) due to the risk of an invasive fungal infection known as aspergillosis, which has been documented by numerous medical journals," said Maine Medical Center in a statement provided to the Portland Press Herald. "The Maine transplant program conducts a periodic review of its policies and makes revisions that are based on clear, evidence-based standards that take into account patient safety and the viability of transplant success."

8. If the policy is changed, Mr. Godfrey will not likely benefit as he would be placed at the bottom of the transplant list and face a years-long wait for a new kidney. "It could make a difference in somebody else's life, and that's what matters," said Mr. Godfrey on Monday, according to the report.

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Charlotte, N.C.-based Novant Health donated $10,000 in cash and an additional $10,000 in supplies to Charlotte-based Operation Walk Carolinas to help the medical team offer high-quality orthopedic care to people in Cuba.

Here's what you need to know:

1. Funds from the Novant Health Foundation and Novant Health's employee giving campaign "Giving. Serving. Together." make up the $10,000 cash gift.

2. Novant Health employees raised money through four bake sales and individual donations and Novant Health Foundation chipped in, as well. Novant Health then ordered an additional $10,000-worth of supplies and shipped them to Cuba for the May trip.

3. Novant Charlotte Orthopedic Hospital Vice President Jason Bernd said, "Our hospital is excited to be able to partner with this outstanding mission-oriented organization to provide specialty orthopedic care to this underserved population."

4. Nearly 40 surgeons, internists, physical therapists and other specialists plan to travel to Cuba with Operation Walk Carolinas in May to provide care for Cuban people lacking high-quality orthopedic services.

5. Operation Walk Carolinas was founded by Charlotte, N.C.-based OrthoCarolina orthopedic surgeons Bryan Springer, MD, and Walter Beaver, MD, and is made up of members of OrthoCarolina, Charlotte-based Novant Health and Charlotte-based Carolinas Healthcare System.

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Unite said closure of the BMW occupational pension scheme by the end of May could see some workers lose up to 160,000 in retirement income

Workers at car giant BMW are to stage a protest in Germany as part of a campaign against plans to close their final salary pension scheme.

Members of Unite will hold a demonstration in Munich on Wednesday, with the union warning that industrial action was a "very real possibility".

The union said closure of the BMW occupational pension scheme by the end of May could see some workers lose up to 160,000 in retirement income.

A ballot for industrial action is being held, with the result due on Friday.

Unite national officer Tony Murphy said: "BMW bosses in Munich need to wake up to the anger their plans to close the occupational pension scheme has generated among loyal UK workers.

"Industrial action is a very real possibility by a workforce which has contributed significantly to the BMW Group's record-breaking profits and sales.

"UK workers feel as though they are being taken for a ride. BMW bosses say, on the one hand, they want to negotiate seriously, but on the other, refuse to talk about affordable options which would keep the scheme open.

"We urge BMW to stop its pension robbery which could see UK workers lose tens of thousands of pounds in retirement income and negotiate a settlement which is good for the business and good for the workforce."

A BMW statement said: "BMW Group has always prided itself in providing excellent pensions for all its staff and wants to act now to protect future pension provision."
Ciaran Devine says his company's proposed huge 280m gas-fired power plant in Belfast could produce up to half of Northern Ireland's electricity at peak times.

He's one half of Evermore, alongside brother Stephen. It's an energy company which has already built an 83m biomass-fuelled power station in Londonderry - the first of its kind in Northern Ireland.

In just six years, the 32-year-old former stockbroker has managed to build and complete one power station, with planning due to be submitted soon for what would be the biggest energy investment in Northern Ireland in two decades.

"I'm from Londonderry and attended Limavady Grammar. My brother Stephen and I were able to develop a business and a project so close to home," he said.

"It was formed in 2011, and over a 24-month period, we put together all the licences for Lisahally power station.

"We successfully raised 83m to go ahead and start the project at the port - it was the first of its kind in Northern Ireland."

The 15.8MW biomass station sells directly into the grid, and provides power for around 30,000 homes and businesses across Northern Ireland.

Already up and running for a year, it created 200 jobs during construction, and it's "something we are proud of", said Ciaran.

But Evermore is already planning its most ambitious project yet - a 280m gas plant based at Belfast Harbour.

Ciaran said the 480MW station will be able to power up to 500,000 homes and businesses, and, at its peak, provide between 40-50% of Northern Ireland's power needs.

"It's Northern Ireland's largest private investment for over 20 years," he said.

"It's a conventional power station, and will run off a conventional gas line that comes into Northern Ireland. It's the cleanest way of producing that sort of energy.

"There is a lot of wind (power) on the system which is essential in making renewable energy targets, but Northern Ireland will also need some conventional generation on the system to balance the grid.

"We have realised you need to do it in the cleanest and lowest carbon way possible.

"You need a traditional thermal plant to balance the grid. It can complement the wind, and we efficiently can ramp up and ramp down, depending on what the requirements for the grid are, as dictated by SONI (System Operator for Northern Ireland).

"We see the opportunity to go further in addressing the country's long-term energy needs, and overall efficiency in how it is generated."

Ciaran said the construction of the station will create 700 jobs, with around 50 "skilled operators" being hired to run it, once completed.

Evermore has partnered with Siemens in Germany to develop the project, and says the "aim is to have the most efficient power station in the UK and Ireland".

Two of Northern Ireland's major existing power stations will have to reduce their capacity in the next few years, in order to comply with rules around pollution - including those still fuelled by coal and oil.

Following his time at Limavady Grammar School, Ciaran undertook management studies at Ulster University at Jordanstown.

He then moved to London, where he studied to become a stockbroker and financial adviser. His brother Stephen formerly worked for accountancy firm KPMG.

"I was selling investments and offering financial advice to people, and that gave me some insight into the corporate world," Ciaran said.

After his spell in London for two or three years, the pair began working on Evermore.

Ciaran says it took around 12 months to secure finance, and a further two years to get the business up and running.

"It snowballed from a small interest in the renewable energy.

"No one had been looking at addressing (energy) from non-wind sources and that sort of grew arms and legs.

"The project was started from the kitchen table, and started slowly to get planning permits. As we gathered more permits we were able to raise private investment, and once we had everything, it was then finding suitable funders."

But finding the tens of millions needed to develop the company's first power station didn't come easy, especially in the middle of a recession.

"To attract people into Northern Ireland was tough - trying to attract investment out of London was incredibly difficult.

"We had to try and find a group of investors who could work together and see the opportunity in Northern Ireland. That was challenging. We really persevered and kept working at it."

Speaking about his co-founder and younger brother Stephen (31), he said: "We complement each other. He would be in the technical and financial side of things, and I would be more on the business development and management side."

Evermore has grown to a core team of eight staff, along with a wider team of consultants, which Ciaran said can grow to up to 25.

He said plans will be submitted in the coming weeks, with work to get under way next year.

"It's a 30-month building period. We are selecting our utility partner to jointly develop the project. The funding for the project is at an advanced stage and we have been overwhelmed by the interest.

"Our company, it moves fast and innovates and make a real difference. Speed is important for us - we have to take great pride in the quality of our projects."

Both brothers were inspired by the success of some of the world's best-known entrepreneurs. Ciaran said the pair were always encouraged to grow and achieve by their father, Vincent, a quantity surveyor, and mum Deirdre, a retired teacher.

"We always grew up and looked at all sorts of people, such as Richard Branson. I always knew I wanted to work for myself.

"Over the years we would have contact with successful local business people, and would have been inspired by what they were doing."

Speaking about Brexit, he said there will be a number of different issues coming to light as a result of the UK's exit from the EU.

"We see it is a challenge for everyone, and uncertainty in the market is not good, whether it's raising finance or developing (projects)."

Ciaran is married, and has two children, Anna (2) and Michael (1).

"My wife and myself are very work-focused, but we have a good balance to make sure we have family time," he said.

"We like to do lots of travelling, and get holidays away. I've a keen interest in motorsports, especially Formula One."

And he said spending time with his young family is a great way to de-stress following a busy day at work.

Evermore is also developing a new 'data centre' at Giant's Park in Belfast.

"And we also have our energy storage project across Northern Ireland, providing energy storage systems alongside the grid, allowing more wind energy to get on the system," Ciaran said.

Ciaran is also exploring further opportunities across the UK, and into France.

"It's an exciting time for our company.

"We are looking at opportunities where we can make a real difference in the energy sector."

Q. Whats the best piece of business (or life) advice youve ever been given?

A. Whether you think you can or cant, youre probably right, by Felix Denis. And as Richard Branson said: The brave may not live forever  but the cautious do not live at all.

Q. What piece of advice would you pass on to someone starting out in business?

A. You have to be prepared to get knocked down time and time again, but remembering to keep going is key. Success rarely comes to those who play it safe.

Q. What was your best business decision?

A. Other than taking a leap of faith to start the business in the first place, it has to have been to form the business with my brother Stephen  I couldnt work with anyone else.

Q. If you werent doing this job, what would be your other career?

A. It would have to be working in the fintech sector. Its exploding at the moment with new disruptive start-ups.

Q. What are your hobbies/interests?

A. Anything fast on four wheels.

Q. What was your last holiday? Where are you going next?

A. Nice in the south of France, and my next will be to Lake Como in Italy.

Q. What is your favourite sport and team?

A. Boxing. I support Manchester United.

Q. If you enjoy reading, can you recommend a book?

A. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.

Q. How would you describe your early life?

A. Fun, full of opportunities and well advised.

Q. Have you any economic predictions?

A. The markets will do what the markets will do  businesses will always find a way to create opportunities within the challenging conditions.

Q. How would you assess your time in business with your company?

A. Were really only getting started and the journey to date has been incredible. I look forward with optimism to the next 20 years.

Q. How do you sum up working in the sector?

A. Challenging, exhilarating, exhausting, frustrating but rewarding. Throughout the energy sector you get to meet some incredible people and thats what makes it so enjoyable.
The Square Mile is bracing itself for a jobs exodus and the potential loss of European trading rights following Brexit

London's powerhouse financial sector finds itself at a critical juncture with Article 50 about to be triggered, as the Square Mile braces itself for a jobs exodus and the potential loss of European trading rights following Brexit.

City bosses and politicians have called on the Government to secure a transitional deal for the industry to prevent companies pre-empting uncertainty by upping sticks to rival financial centres across the globe.

The European Central Bank has made it clear that Britain cannot access the passporting system, which allows financial firms to trade freely across the EU, without remaining a member of the European single market and abiding by its rules, including the free movement of people.

Theresa May cast doubt over firms retaining access through the current system after pledging to pull the UK out of the single market through a so-called hard Brexit, instead pledging to strike a "bold and ambitious" free trade agreement.

Such a move would cost Britain's financial services sector 38 billion, deal a 10 billion blow to Treasury's coffers and place 75,000 jobs in the firing line, according to think tank TheCityUK.

Banks have issued the lion's share of the warnings over job losses, claiming the loss of passporting rights would force them to set up new operations on the continent and migrate staff out of the capital.

US banking giant JP Morgan said 4,000 jobs would leave the UK, Goldman Sachs threatened to move 2,000 roles and HSBC said it would transfer 1,000 positions from London to Paris following the Brexit vote.

It comes as AIG looks to move a string of London-based executives to Luxembourg to head up a new EU subsidiary, while Lloyd's of London is thought to have also picked Luxembourg as the frontrunner on a shortlist of five sites for a potential a EU operation.

A whole host of other businesses such easyJet, Ryanair and Next have also warned that Brexit could have repercussions.

However, one of the most gloomy assessments of post-Brexit Britain without passporting rights has come from the chief executive of London Stock Exchange Group, Xavier Rolet.

Speaking to MPs in January, he said 232,000 jobs could be lost across the country, including two-thirds outside of London, if Britain was to lose its euro-clearing operation to a rival financial centre.

The EU is said to be mounting a push to try to repatriate euro-clearing to a financial hub on the continent.

However, key financial services, such as euro clearing, are said to be more likely to shift to New York rather than Dublin, Frankfurt or Paris, according to a report by the House of Lords EU financial affairs sub-committee.

Mr Rolet wants the industry to be handed a five-year transition period following the activation of Article 50.

HSBC chairman Douglas Flint is calling for a two to three-year transition period to ensure London's position as a global financial centre remains intact.

The Government's Brexit secretary David Davis said in December he would accept a transitional arrangement "if it's necessary and only if it's necessary".
A new 280m power station - the largest such investment here in two decades - could power up to 50% of Northern Ireland's homes and businesses, it's been claimed.

Evermore is developing a huge gas-fired plant at Belfast Harbour, and co-founder Ciaran Devine says the company hopes to submit plans for it in the next few weeks.

Mr Devine has said the construction of the station will create 700 jobs, with around 50 "skilled operators" being hired to run it, once completed.
From left: Bradfor MD Patricia Clements with Kelly Murphy of Invest NI and Joanne Liddle, MD of IPC Mouldings

Two Northern Ireland firms have joined with companies in England to produce a one-off aeroplane seat.

Seat cover manufacturer Bradfor from Rostrevor and plastic injection moulding company IPC in Carrickfergus joined Tangerine in London and Magnesium Elektron in Manchester to create Poise.

While the seat will never be manufactured, it was crafted in eight weeks to demonstrate the advantages of a ready-made supply chain in aviation.

It will be on display at the Invest NI stand at next month's Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg.
FROM ITV STRICT EMBARGO - NO USE BEFORE TUESDAY 4 OCOTBER 2016 Emmerdale - Ep 7642 Friday 14th October 2016 Laurel Thomas [CHARLOTTE BELLAMY] is busy at home oblivious to Ashley Thomas [JOHN MIDDLETON] struggling to stand up in the next door room. Picture contact: david.crook@itv.com on 0161 952 6214 This photograph is (C) ITV Plc and can only be reproduced for editorial purposes directly in connection with the programme or event mentioned above, or ITV plc. Once made available by ITV plc Picture Desk, this photograph can be reproduced once only up until the transmission [TX] date and no reproduction fee will be charged. Any subsequent usage may incur a fee. This photograph must not be manipulated [excluding basic cropping] in a manner which alters the visual appearance of the person photographed deemed detrimental or inappropriate by ITV plc Picture Desk. This photograph must not be syndicated to any other company, publication or website, or permanently archived, without the express written permission of ITV Plc Picture Desk. Full Terms and conditions are available on the website www.itvpictures.com

John Middleton is saying goodbye to his Emmerdale character Ashley.

Emmerdales John Middleton has said it was tough filming the death of his dementia-stricken character but that he hopes the plot helped to embed the issue into the publics consciousness.

The actors alter ego Ashley Thomas suffers from stroke-related early onset vascular dementia and viewers will soon see him leave his care facility and return home to die among his loved ones.

John, 63, told Radio Times: On the day we filmed Ashleys death, Charlotte (Bellamy) and I rehearsed it a few times before we did the take.

And as costume and make-up came on to do their checks, they were all crying. To the point where their tears were dripping down onto my face.

The actor confessed it was very hard when the director called cut on his final scene as Ashley, who he has played since 1996.

There was this huge hit-you-over-the-head feeling of, thats it. Its done, he said.

Im institutionalised in ways Im only now starting to understand.

Almost 80% of the time is spent having a chat with friends and I havent got that any more.

I keep storing up information for conversations at work and then realise that the only person Ill be sharing that with is my dog.

But the actor said he hopes the emotional climax to the story will now lead to real change.

He said: My hope is that Emmerdale has at least been able to embed the issue of dementia into the publics consciousness.

Were all guilty of looking the other way, but we ignore this at our cost. It could well happen to each and every one of us.

Its possible that we could find a cure, but we need more money going into research to turn that possibility into a probability.

The good news is that were all living longer, but because of that, were more likely to die of this disease. And theres no point in living longer if we cant live well.

The story of Ashleys dementia has been a huge hit with viewers of the ITV soap and John said he is stopped in the street every day to talk about it.

The programme also broke new ground with the storyline in December, screening an entire episode through Ashleys eyes to show his confused point of view.

John said: It had never been done before and we werent sure the audience would get it. But they did.

And now that episode is being used as a training video by the Alzheimers Society, so that people can see how bewildering the condition can be.

This weeks Radio Times is on sale on Tuesday.
Actons Director of Research, Samuel Gregg, recently addressed the myth of national sovereignty being a relic of the past and global governance being the singular solution for the West to move forward. In a new article for Public Discourse, he calls out recent reactions to global governance, namely Brexit, as long over-due and something to be expected in opposition to global governance that violates national sovereignty:

Twenty sixteen was not a happy year for globalism. In different ways, Donald Trumps election and Britains decision to exit the European Union represented a rejection of those who view nation-states as a relic of the past and believe that the future belongs to supranational and global institutions. To be sure, people voted for Trump and Brexit for many reasons. Some, however, mattered more than others. One major factor was surely the sense that the political classincluding some who identify as conservative, neoconservative, or classical liberal, and many who live in cities such as Washington DC, London, and Brusselslong ago lost touch with millions of the people they ostensibly serve and represent. The visible disdain with which figures like the European Commissions outgoing president Jean-Claude Juncker viewed anyone who questioned the wisdom of diminishing national sovereignty only compounded that sense of disconnection. In retrospect, the only surprise is that such a widespread popular reaction against global governance didnt come sooner. Precisely how these developments will play out remains unclear. They are, however, an occasion to highlight the deep problems underlying the various ambitions for global governance that have long marked progressive opinion in America and Europe.

As Gregg notes, the political classes in the West have lost the support of the common people due to their failures to listen. In order to better understand the trends of modern globalist thought, Gregg looks back to the roots of global governance thought; tracing them back to the time of the enlightenment:

Modern global governance projects have manifested themselves in Western thought at least since the eighteenth-century. In 1713, a Catholic priest, the Abbe de Saint-Pierre, published a book entitled Projet pour rendre la paix perpetuelle en Europe (A Project for Bringing about Perpetual Peace in Europe). Saint-Pierre was the first modern thinker to make a substantive intellectual case for a type of universal federation of states. This federation, he proposed, would be governed by a Congress and vested with many of the characteristics of sovereignty in order to promote and maintain universal peace among European nations. Saint-Pierres vision was further developed by that most influential of continental late-Enlightenment thinkers, Immanuel Kant. In Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay (1795), Kant called for the establishment of a league of peace (foedus pacificum). This federation, Kant held, would extend gradually over all states and thus lead to perpetual peace. In this regard, Kant was intent on transforming the law of nations that had hitherto regulated relations between states. In Kants view, the law of nations served only to circumscribe rather than abolish war. It was also, he claimed, unenforceable in a world of nation-states. Hence it needed to be grounded upon and reshaped by new political arrangements.

Additionally, Gregg makes an argument in support of free trade in the West calling for global cooperation rather than global governance. He concludes with his support of national sovereignty asserting it as a check to global governance and affirming its necessity in standing up against centralization of power.

Arguments about free trade are part of the contemporary debate about global governance. But the focus of contemporary globalist ideologies and their advocates has never been upon stimulating free trade per se. They are more concerned with promoting trade deals. These are very different from free trade. Moreover, the primary focus of global governance advocates remains the supranational and global centralization of political power, the diminution of national sovereignty, the top-down regulation of all spheres of life across the globe, and the rule of experts. Good examples of this are the numerous institutions and agencies associated with the most advanced contemporary prototype of global governance: the EU. It has its own parliament, two Presidents (one for the European Council and one for the European Commission), a High Representative for Foreign Policy, a Commission, a Council, a High Court, and a Central Bank. Their activities are supplemented by a Court of Auditors, an Ombudsman, an Investment Bank, and a Committee for Regions. The EU even has its own Economic and Social Committee that purports to represent the views of civil society, employers and employees to the rest of EU officialdom. There are also no fewer than five different groups of assorted EU agencies, which address questions ranging from energy regulation to banking supervision and vocational training. Opposing these ideas and the globalist schemes in which they are increasingly embedded doesnt imply opposition in principle to cooperation between countries. Nor does it involve exaltation of the nation as the only community that matters. To the extent, however, that national sovereignty puts a powerful check on global governance ambitions and the reign of those who have imbibed deeply of such aspirations, it is surely a very good thing.

To read the full article, visit Public Discourse here.

Image: CC0
Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May, signs the official letter to European Council President Donald Tusk, invoking Article 50 and signalling the United Kingdom's intention to leave the EU, in the cabinet office inside 10 Downing Street on March 28, 2017. AFP/Getty Images

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May, sits below a painting of Britain's first Prime Minister Robert Walpole, as she signs the official letter to European Council President Donald Tusk, invoking Article 50 and signalling the United Kingdom's intention to leave the EU, in the cabinet office inside 10 Downing Street on March 28, 2017. AFP/Getty Images

British Prime Minister Theresa May in the cabinet office signs the official letter to European Council President Donald Tusk invoking Article 50 and the United Kingdom's intention to leave the EU on March 28, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Christopher Furlong - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

British Prime Minister Theresa May in the cabinet office signs the official letter to European Council President Donald Tusk invoking Article 50 and the United Kingdom's intention to leave the EU on March 28, 2017 in London, England. (Photo WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Theresa May has signed the official letter to European Council president Donald Tusk that will formally begin the UK's departure from the European Union.

Mrs May will chair a meeting of the Cabinet on Wednesday morning as the letter formally invoking Article 50 is dispatched to Brussels.

Over the next two years, the terms of the settlement will be thrashed out between Britain and its 27 counterparts.

The PM will tell MPs she will represent "every person in the UK", including EU nationals, when she takes to the negotiating table.

"It is my fierce determination to get the right deal for every single person in this country," she will say.

"For, as we face the opportunities ahead of us on this momentous journey, our shared values, interests and ambitions can, and must, bring us together.

"We all want to see a Britain that is stronger than it is today.

"We all want a country that is fairer so that everyone has the chance to succeed.

"We all want a nation that is safe and secure for our children and grandchildren.

"We all want to live in a truly global Britain that gets out and builds relationships with old friends and new allies around the world.

"These are the ambitions of this Government's plan for Britain.

"Ambitions that unite us, so that we are no longer defined by the vote we cast, but by our determination to make a success of the result.

"We are one great union of people and nations with a proud history and a bright future.

"And, now that the decision has been made to leave the EU, it is time to come together."

Signed personally by Mrs May, a so-called "wet signature" in Civil Service jargon, the exit letter will be delivered to Mr Tusk by the British ambassador to the EU, Sir Tim Barrow, at around 12.30pm UK time.

At roughly the same time, the Prime Minister will rise in the House of Commons to make the statement confirming the two-year countdown to Britain's departure from the EU is finally under way.

Within the following 48 hours, the European Commission is expected to issue "draft negotiation guidelines", which will be sent to the 27 remaining states for consultation.

Their leaders will meet on April 29 at an extraordinary European Council summit to agree a mandate for chief negotiator Michel Barnier and clear the way for talks to begin in earnest in May.

The key point of contention as soon as Article 50 is triggered is the order in which different aspects of Brexit are approached.

Effectively, there are two issues to be settled - the terms of Britain's withdrawal from the EU and arrangements for future trade relations.

On top of that is a possible third negotiation on a "transitional arrangement" covering the period between the moment of departure and new trade rules taking effect.

On Thursday, a white paper will be produced on the Great Repeal Bill, the legislation that will turn more than 40 years of EU regulations into domestic laws.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: "The British people made the decision to leave the European Union and Labour respects that decision.

"Britain is going to change as a result. The question is how.

"The Conservatives want to use Brexit to turn our country into a low wage tax haven.

"Labour is determined to ensure we can rebuild and transform Britain, so no one and no community is left behind.

"It will be a national failure of historic proportions if the Prime Minister comes back from Brussels without having secured protection for jobs and living standards.

"That's why Labour has set the clear priorities of full access to the European market, rights at work and environmental protection.

Expand Close Theresa May will trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty by sending a seven-page letter to Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, on Wednesday. Graphic shows dates of key events in the two-year divorce process. The credit GRAPHIC NEWS mu / Facebook

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Whatsapp Theresa May will trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty by sending a seven-page letter to Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, on Wednesday. Graphic shows dates of key events in the two-year divorce process.

"And we will hold the Government to account every step of the way."

Mrs May spoke to Mr Tusk and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker by telephone on Tuesday evening.

Mr Juncker said his conversation had been " good and constructive".

Key moments

Here are the key moments expected on the day Prime Minister Theresa May triggers Article 50:

:: At 08:00 The Prime Minister's top team will gather round the Cabinet table in No 10 Downing Street to discuss the contents of the letter that starts Britain's exit from the European Union.

:: 12:00 Mrs May will appear at the Commons despatch box for the regular weekly session of Prime Minister's Questions. Once that finishes, sometime around 12:30, she will make a statement to MPs confirming the start of the two-year extraction process. At around the same time British ambassador to the EU Sir Tim Barrow will deliver the letter to European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels. Once it has been accepted, Article 50 has been officially triggered.

:: 12:45 As Mrs May finishes her formal statement, a text of the letter will be released. Mr Tusk will make a statement in the Europa Building to reporters soon after. Copies of the letter will be sent to the leaders of all other 27 EU member states.

:: 16:15 European Parliament Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt and its president, Antonio Tajani, will hold a press conference.

:: 16:30 European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker will take questions from reporters on other EU issues during a visit to Malta but is likely to be asked about the start of Britain's departure from the bloc.
The father of an 11-year-old boy who was hit by a car on a busy road in Belfast as he waited for a bus has hit out at Translink for refusing to provide a direct bus service to take students into their school grounds.

John Eppleston (47) said the hit-and-run incident in which his son Jay suffered three broken bones was an "accident waiting to happen".

Jay is one of 50 students from the Rathcoole area who are forced to walk almost a mile from a public bus stop to Hazelwood College every morning and evening.

Parents have to fork out 28 a month for the service which they say is putting children's lives at risk.

A campaign was launched last September to have a dedicated bus service to take students directly from Rathcoole to the college.

Mr Eppleston said that Jay, who is a first year pupil, has had to take a week off school to recovery from his injuries.

"He was also devastated because he missed out on playing in his school cup final," he said.

"He went to cross the road but spotted the car coming so he stepped back, but it went across his foot and then the car didn't stop for him.

"We took him to hospital and he has three broken bones in his foot. We had to bring him back up and they did a CT scan on him where they found more broken bones. They were worried because it was a hit-and-run.

"The injuries have highlighted the dangers of crossing that road. We knew something like this was going to happen.

"If there was a dedicated bus service he wouldn't have to try and cross the road, he would be on the bus and go straight home."

Students are having to cross four lanes of traffic through a main arterial route on the Shore Road, then across two smaller two lane busy roads before they can gain access to the school.

Roberta Neely, whose 12-year-old son attends the school, launched the campaign last September. She said: "We just want a bus that will take the children from Rathcoole and onto the school grounds because it's horrendous what they have to do.

"Translink is putting profit before a child's life. No one has come from Translink to witness what these children have to do to get to school.

"They are putting our children's lives at risk and we are no longer standing for it.

"We will go to court if we have to."

Maurice Fitzsimons, deputy principal of the school, said parents have the backing of the school.

"I have had three meetings with Translink to try and put this case forward," he said.

"I told them it's not adequate service and that it's leaving our children vulnerable in terms of health and safety.

"That incident was an accident waiting to happen and it could be very easily prevented."

A Translink spokeswoman said that the safety of passengers and staff was its "main priority".

"We continue to work closely with the Education Authority and schools on providing routes and services for school transport, based on demand," the spokeswoman added.

"As with all requests for additional or dedicated school services, existing service provision, passenger safety and accessibility are all taken into account when assessing these requests."
The horrific neck and back wounds inflicted on Gillian McCann Johnston by her ex-partner

The horrific neck and back wounds inflicted on Gillian McCann Johnston by her ex-partner

A Co Antrim woman who survived a horror stabbing in the US has told how she begged her ex-partner for her life as he plunged a kitchen knife into her neck.

Gillian McCann Johnston (50) described how crazed Dublin man Martin Mahon (59) knifed her multiple times, despite her cries for her children back home in Lisburn.

The mum-of-two only survived after playing dead on the floor of her Florida home.

Mahon, originally from the Walkinstown area, then turned the kitchen knife on himself, slitting his own throat.

Last week, he was sentenced to 30 years behind bars for the October 2014 murder bid.

Recalling the horror, brave Gillian, who has now found love again with retired Florida firefighter Jack, said: "As I was lying on the floor and the blood was pumping out I just thought, I'm going to die. Then I thought of my kids and I imagined someone calling my daughter in Ireland to tell her I was dead. That's when I started to fight back.

"I was begging him, what about my children, your children? My grandkids, your grandkids? You can't do this to them. He didn't care. He said that he had nothing to live for and that if he couldn't have me, no one could."

Mahon set upon his ex-girlfriend, who runs a successful cleaning business, after sneaking into her Fort Lauderdale home as she left out the rubbish.

"I remember coming back inside the apartment and thinking I'd seen something move," she said. "The next thing I knew I had a hand over my mouth and I was stabbed in the neck. He didn't say a word. Then he spoke and I knew it was him. He said he was going to kill me, then himself."

In an attempt to raise the alarm Gillian pushed over a drinks cabinet in her living room.

"Thankfully my next door neighbour Penny heard the crash. The day before she'd been giving off to me because I'd been vacuuming from 7am.

"She came out, again thinking I was cleaning. He had his hand over my mouth at that stage and I bit into his hand and screamed, 'Penny, he's trying to kill me!'

"Then he hit me up the face, pulled me to the ground by my hair and stabbed me in the back.

"I knew Penny was calling 911 so I lay back and pretended I was dead. I looked straight at him and started to make gurgling noises. That's when he cut his own throat. And even after he cut his own throat he still had the knife in his hand. I reached up, grabbed it by the blade, threw it into the kitchen and ran out the door."

Emergency services were on the scene within minutes and both Gillian and Mahon were rushed to hospital.

"They thought he wouldn't make it," she said. "I was wishing he wouldn't pull through because then it would have been over. The doctors told me how the knife just missed my spinal cord and my main artery in my neck. I was lucky to be alive."

However, Mahon survived and days later appeared at Broward County Court on an attempted murder charge. He denied the attack, claiming Gillian had attacked him.

During a five-day trial Gillian was forced to relive the horror, with the court shown images of her wounds.

Jurors heard how the attack happened after the Irish couple split following a two year relationship after meeting in Dublin in 2012.

Mahon had been visiting family in the Walkinstown area when he met the single mother in a pub. After a whirlwind romance Ms McCann Johnston left Ireland and returned to Florida with Mahon. However, the "charmer" soon became abusive and the couple split in 2014.

In September of the same year, she was forced to obtain a restraining order after Mahon threatened to kill her. A month later, the attack happened.

In December, a jury convicted him of second degree attempted murder and violation of a restraining order.

Last week, he was handed the maximum 30-year sentence.

"His attorney wanted him deported back to Ireland with time served," said Gillian.

"Thankfully he was given the maximum sentence. In Florida you don't even have a chance of parole until you serve 85% of it, so that's over 25 years. Even if he does get parole, he will be 85."

Gillian says she now plans to use the horrific experience to help others. She said: "My family wanted me to come home but I've made a life for myself here.

"I decided I'm going to college to become a victims' advocate to help support people who have gone through what I did.

"I believe it wasn't my time to go and there's a reason I am still here."
It was a picture perfect day outside Stormont yesterday as sunbathers and tourists enjoyed the unseasonably hot weather under cloud-free blue skies.

Unfortunately, the mood inside failed to match the idyllic surroundings.

The Great Hall was a hive of media activity as, one by one, the parties trooped down the stairs to blame each other, blame Secretary of State James Brokenshire, or blame the talks process.

The faces of the party leaders were as hard as the marble on the surrounding pillars.

Had you been watching proceedings on TV and accidentally pressed the 'mute' button, you would still have got the gist: there's little hope left in the last chance saloon.

First into the fray was former First Minister Arlene Foster.

Any vestiges of hope that her high-profile handshake with Michelle O'Neill at Martin McGuinness's funeral might signal a sea change proved unfounded.

With North Belfast MP Nigel Dodds at her right-hand, and flanked by three rows of DUP MLAs, she accused Sinn Fein of not being "in agreement-finding mode".

She also slammed Sinn Fein's non-support for Mr Brokenshire's chairing of the talks, saying that this had led to a "total lack of structure".

Declaring that her party would be meeting with the Secretary of State to discuss a way forward, Mrs Foster fired a thinly-veiled broadside at republicans, saying that "negotiations can only ever be successful when parties are prepared to be flexible in order to secure an outcome".

For the avoidance of doubt, she added: "This process did not fail because it ran out of time."

If Mrs Foster was on a war footing, Sinn Fein's Mrs O'Neill left onlookers in no doubt that she too was ready to do battle.

With party president Gerry Adams as her right-hand man, she assured those assembled that "Sinn Fein remains standing firm".

"We came at the negotiation with the right attitude, wanting to make the institutions work, wanting to deliver for all citizens," she insisted.

"Unfortunately the DUP retained their position in relation to blocking equality, delivering equality for citizens."

Mrs O'Neill claimed that the DUP hadn't approached the talks with "the right attitude" and that "the British Government didn't play their role." Calling for the delivery of equality issues, an Irish Language Act and legacy issues, she also declared that Sinn Fein would be "relaxed" about bringing in an outside, independent chair for the talks, a move that would effectively marginalise Mr Brokenshire.

Meanwhile, former Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt was flanked by heir apparent Robin Swann as he damningly described the talks process as a "complete shambles".

"An unelected civil servant is about to become arguably the most important man in Northern Ireland, taking over the purse-strings of our devolved government," he declared.

Mr Nesbitt queried why Mr Brokenshire had not called a "round table meeting" in the last three weeks, warning that this had left many parties in the dark.

"Some of the parties said there would be no return to the status quo and they were right, because we didn't hit the status quo in the talks over the last three weeks, they were much worse than previously and there was less regard for smaller parties and less attempts to make the process inclusive, and the Secretary of State has a question or two to answer in that regard," he said.

Mr Nesbitt's sentiments were echoed by Alliance leader Naomi Long.

She may have had a smaller entourage, but Mrs Long was no less strident in condemning what she called the "unthinkable" potential failure of "a project which has been 25 years of investment of time and energy and hope for this community".

As former party leader David Ford looked on, she made an impassioned plea for an extension to the talks deadline, saying that an election would "not resolve the problems" and that direct rule was "not a good option for Northern Ireland".

"We need devolution to work," she stated, conviction evident in every word.

"I don't want to give in to the counsel of despair." SDLP leader Colum Eastwood and his party colleagues were grim-faced as he also called for the Secretary of State to step aside in favour of an independent chairperson as part of a new process.

He also issued a rallying cry, calling for a power-sharing Executive that "isn't about dominating the other, it's about working together".

"So, let's refocus ourselves, let's have the space to do it, but let's not accept that this can't be done. This can be done, and this can be done quickly," he said.

It was left to Mr Brokenshire to hammer the final nail into the current talks' coffin as he belatedly emerged from Stormont House for his afternoon summing-up. His arrival coincided with a protest at Parliament Buildings in favour of an Irish Language Act, which resulted in the strains of activists's loudspeakers providing the backing track to his speech.

It was a surreal end to a sadly predictable day.
Colum Eastwood has welcomed confirmation from Brexit Secretary David Davis that Northern Ireland would have an "automatic route" back into the EU if it were part of a united Ireland.

Unlike Scotland, which has been told it could be forced to join a queue for membership of the bloc if the country votes for independence, the province would not have to reapply for EU membership, as the Republic is already one of the existing member states, Tory minister said.

In a letter to SDLP MP Mark Durkan, David Davis wrote: If a majority of the people of Northern Ireland were ever to vote to become part of a united Ireland the UK Government will honour its commitment to enable that to happen.

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He added: In that event, Northern Ireland would be in a position of becoming part of an existing EU member state, rather than seeking to join the EU as a new independent state.

"It would of course be for the EU Commission to respond to any specific questions about the procedural requirements for that to happen."

Mr Davis stressed that the UK Government was committed to the current constitutional settlement with Northern Ireland remaining "a strong member of the United Kingdom with strong North-South and British-Irish relationships".

Brexit has shaken the tectonic plates of our constitutional landscape. Colum Eastwood

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said: In successive referenda, the people of Ireland have voted for a constitutional settlement in the north based on common membership of the European Union across this island. That was the basis of securing the consent and confidence of nationalism for the Good Friday Agreement.

The current British Governments Brexit juggernaut threatens to smash through the fragile complexities of the Irish political dispensation.

Over the course of the last number of weeks, SDLP MPs and negotiators have pressed the British Government to concede that unlike any other part of these islands, we have an automatic route back into the European Union. The principle of consent and provisions for a unity referendum in the Good Friday Agreement allow people here to make the decision to join a sovereign united Ireland and, in doing so, rejoin the European Union.

It is welcome that the Brexit Secretary has now conceded that argument.

Brexit has shaken the tectonic plates of our constitutional landscape. People in Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU. The people of Ireland voted for the Good Friday Agreement underpinned by Europe. If that context is to be ripped apart and our political foundations thrown into flux, then the time will be right for people here to begin to explore our constitutional future.
A major split has erupted between two republican groupings in Maghaberry Prison.

Continuity IRA supporters say that its prisoners are being shadowed by members of the New IRA, who demand to see legal documents and follow CIRA inmates to meetings with their solicitors.

Republican Sinn Fein, the political wing of the CIRA, said that Gabriel Mackle, a former Royal Irish Regiment soldier turned dissident paramilitary, is being forced out of the republican wing.

It said this was because he refused to be under the control of the Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association (IRPWA), which supports New IRA inmates.

It said Mackle had only returned from temporary release on Sunday night when he was approached by three IRPWA-supported inmates who informed him that he had to hand over all legal papers to them and have one of their prisoners accompany him on legal visits.

It said Mackle refused, and said he was represented by Cabhair, the CIRA representative group.

"Gabriel rightly refused to be bullied in this manner, stating he was not an IRPWA PoW, that he was a Cabhair-supported prisoner and would work under Cabhair-supported structures as he has been since being incarcerated," Republican Sinn Fein said in a statement.

High security Maghaberry, near Lisburn, houses the majority of Northern Ireland's paramilitary prisoners and keeps them in specially designated landings.

Mackle (42), of Tandragee, Co Armagh, is serving eight years for possession of equipment used for making mercury tilt switch bombs.

Republican Sinn Fein said that warders then told him that he should leave the republican wing, but he refused.

"Later, IRPWA PoWs came to his cell and ordered him from the landing, issuing threats, to which Gabriel said he would remain on the landings as he is a Republican PoW," Republican Sinn Fein added.

Republican Sinn Fein said the incident came on top of what it claimed was membership poaching by the IRPWA, and that former prisoners were being told that the IRPWA wanted to control all republican inmates by the end of the year.

"It is not so long since the dirty protest when fellow Cabhair-supported PoWs took the lead in that protest and welcomed newly incarcerated PoWs.

"It seems the old saying 'Eaten bread is soon forgotten' never rang so true," it said.

One dissident republican group in Munster also claimed that it was placed under pressure to only represent IRPWA prisoners.

The IRPWA has not responded to a request for comment.
Captain Sinton was born in Canada but was brought by his parents to live in Northern Ireland

A soldier who braved heavy gunfire to aid wounded troops in the Middle East during the First World War will be honoured today.

John Alexander Sinton was a highly distinguished figure in the medical world, as an army doctor who saw service in both world wars and also a medical researcher.

He is the only person to achieve the Victoria Cross and be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, which is composed of many of the world's top scientists.

His remarkable life will be marked today with the unveiling of the Ulster History Circle's latest Blue Plaque at Lissan Parish Church, near Cookstown.

It will be unveiled by the Brigadier's grandson, Nial Watson, 61 years to the date of his grandfather's funeral with full military honours, on March 28, 1956.

Captain Sinton was born in Canada but was brought by his parents to live in Northern Ireland. He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and at Queen's University, Belfast where he studied medicine.

Later he joined the Medical Service of the Indian Army.

Captain Sinton was awarded the VC for bravery and devotion to duty on January 21, 1916 in Mesopotamia - now Iraq - where he tended the wounded under heavy fire, whilst injured himself.

Although shot through both arms and the side, he refused to go to hospital, attending to his duties under heavy fire.

He briefly retired again with the rank of Honorary Brigadier in 1943, but only for two weeks.

He was re-employed by the War Office as a consultant malariologist to advise on malaria.

A member of the Senate of Queen's University, he also served as a JP, High Sheriff and Deputy Lieutenant of Co Tyrone.

He died at his home at Slaghtfreedan Lodge in Cookstown.

In an obituary in the British Medical Journal, Col HW Mulligan observed that "Sinton had an exceptionally quick, receptive and retentive brain, and his greatness sprang not so much from his unusual intellectual gifts as from the simple qualities of absolute integrity and tremendous industry".

The Ulster History Circle is a charity which puts up blue plaques in public places to celebrate people of achievement.

Its chairman Chris Spurr said: "John Alexander Sinton VC, FRS is the only person ever to have received the highest award for gallantry, the Victoria Cross, and also to be elected Fellow of the Royal Society. The Ulster History Circle is delighted to commemorate this distinguished soldier and physician with a Blue Plaque to his unique achievements."
Prime Minister Theresa May and Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon meet at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Glasgow

Downing Street has not ruled out the possibility Theresa May could visit Northern Ireland, however, she is unlikely to do so ahead of the triggering of Article 50 on Wednesday.

On Monday evening RTE reported that there were no plans for a visit from the Prime Minister before she formally begins the process of leaving the European Union, scheduled for 12.30pm on Wednesday.

Mrs May had planned to visit the devolved regions ahead of the historic move and was in Scotland on Monday.

However, asked on Tuesday morning if there would be a visit either before or after Wednesday, a Downing Street spokesman said there were no plans for a visit on Tuesday. He would not disclose if there were plans for a future visit.

Alliance leader Naomi Long has said it would be bizarre if Theresa May visited Northern Ireland in her Brexit tour and did not get involved in the current political deadlock which saw the parties fail to resurrect the Executive ahead of Monday's deadline.

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"It is quite surreal to think Theresa May would visit at a time when the very future of power-sharing hangs in the balance, yet not feel compelled to actively participate in the current talks process," Mrs Long said.

"It suggests a Prime Minister who is either oblivious to the perilous state of devolution, or simply doesn't care."

James Brokenshire is to update the Commons on the situation in Northern Ireland on Tuesday. He has said there is a "short window" of opportunity for a deal to be made.

Expand Close Prime Minister Theresa May and Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon meet at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Glasgow PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Prime Minister Theresa May and Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon meet at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Glasgow
Politicians were criticised by a doctors' union for "walking out the door" and leaving behind a health service in crisis

A leading doctors' union has warned that the failed political talks at Stormont is causing the "uncontrolled collapse" of GP services, with 20 surgeries expected to close in the next year.

The Northern Ireland General Practitioners Committee also launched a strong attack on politicians for "walking out the door" and leaving behind a health service in crisis.

Following the collapse of the powersharing negotiations and lack of agreed budget, the future of the region's healthcare system has been left shrouded in uncertainty.

"We want someone to make the decisions and take the action that will save any semblance of the NHS in Northern Ireland," a spokesman for the GP committee said.

"It is critical now. This isn't about GPs trying to create a fuss, this is about patient safety. It is about trying to sustain a service that is safe and effective for patients and at the moment, that is proving almost impossible.

"You look for strong leadership and inspiration from a leader. We have leaders who have just walked out the door and left the whole thing behind. In terms of messages and morale, you can't underestimate the effect that will have."

In the past few months, at least three GP surgeries have been forced to close due to increasing demand on services.

The GP Committee has predicted that "as many as 20 will close over the next year or so", the spokesman warned.

"This will be due to a combination of pressure and retirement of GPs with nobody to replace them," he said.

"The biggest problem we have is that if one practice collapses in an area, the knock-on effect on practices struggling already is extremely significant.

"We are seeing an uncontrolled collapse of GP services. We are seeing waiting times in general practice extending, we are seeing pressure, we are seeing demand increasing and all of which to the detriment of patients."

Three significant health policies around the future of GP services, the elective care plan and population health models were agreed by the Department of Health before the powersharing executive broke down. However, there is now no health minister to bring the plans forward.

"We have got the policy, but we don't have the politics and that is currently creating, and is going to create, massive, massive problems," he warned.

The spokesman said GPs do not want to be forced to "step outside" the NHS and into private healthcare.

But he said: "We need a politician there to actually deal with something that will make sure we can remain within the health service. That is ultimately what everybody wants."

He warned that in the absence of any sort of political leadership or political decision-making, GPs may have to take matters into their own hands "simply for the sake of delivering any sort of a service to patients in Northern Ireland".

"Every doctor will continue to do their best, but it is a real struggle and we are just moving into complete crisis management at the moment.

"The contingency plans are that we see acute episodic illness because that is all we can see, with no forward planning and with no preventative or proactive management because the ability to do that just isn't there," the spokesman said.

Dr John D Woods, chair of the British Medical Association's Northern Ireland Council, said the problems in the health service have reached "a critical point".

He said: "In hospitals, we see profound pressure on acute care and spiralling waiting lists due to poor workforce planning and rising demand on services.

"The crisis in primary care, with GP practices facing closure across the country, is well-documented and will not improve without additional resources.

"Last October, we welcomed the publication of the then-health minister's vision for health, which we felt laid out a solid roadmap for improvement.

"However, without a minister in post, a functioning Assembly and an agreed budget no progress will be made on transforming health here, which in turn impacts negatively on both the medical profession and patients."
Leaders of the 27 nations soon to comprise the European Union gathered in Rome on Saturday to celebrate the Treaty of Romes 60th anniversary. The compact, signed by just six nations, created a European Economic Community (EEC) that gradually evolved into the EU. Among those present inside the Sala Degli Orazi e Curiazi of Romes Palazzo dei Conservatori was Pope Francis, who told the heads of state that a successful union must uphold the importance of development and employment, the principle of subsidiarity, the perils of populism, and traditional notions of human dignity rooted in the Judeo-Christian worldview.

Pope Francis, the first pope born outside Europe in 1,300 years, showed his keen grasp of the continents destiny, saying that its fate is inextricably tied up with the Christian faith. The EUs founders, he said, shared a common consciousness that at the origin of European civilization there is Christianity, without which the Western values of dignity, freedom, and justice would prove largely incomprehensible. Increasingly out-of-place in secularist Europe, people of faith have noted the Christian roots of modern human rights, as well as the potential for the EU to end up adrift by forsaking them. Pope Francis intensified that warning. When a body loses its sense of direction, he said, it experiences a regression and, in the long run, risks dying.

Emphasizing faith was particularly appropriate, given that the Treaty of Rome was signed on March 25, 1957. March 25 was formerly New Years Day in much of Europe (including in the United States, until 1752), because, as the Feast of the Annunciation, it marked the first moment of Christs Incarnation and the salvation of the world. The EU flag of 12 stars on a blue field  adopted on December 8, 1955  is said to have been inspired by Marian imagery. Yet four decades later, the EU agonized over whether to acknowledge Christianity as a part of its history.

Due to the historic influence of Christianity, Pope Francis said, the founders built the EEC upon the pillars of the centrality of man, effective solidarity, openness to the world, the pursuit of peace and development, [and] openness to the future.

It was clear, then, from the outset, that the heart of the European political project could only be man himself.  The founding fathers remind us that Europe isa way of understanding man based on his transcendent and inalienable dignity, as something more than simply a sum of rights to defend or claims to advance.

The pope made a welcome appeal for EU leaders to devolve power to the lowest practicable level, urging them to embrace a spirit of solidarity and subsidiarity, which alone can make the Union as a whole develop harmoniously. The absence of subsidiarity accounts for the sense that there is a growing split between the citizenry and the European institutions, which are often perceived as distant and inattentive. He also presented it as the antidote to rising tide of populism  which he described as mere egotism  currently cresting over the transatlantic sphere, from Donald Trump and Brexit, to the popularity of Geert Wilders and Marine LePen.

He then turned to a series of economic themes:

Europe finds new hope when she invests in development and in peace. Development is not the result of a combination of various systems of production. It has to do with the whole human being: the dignity of labour, decent living conditions, access to education and necessary medical care. Development is the new name of peace, said Pope Paul VI, for there is no true peace whenever people are cast aside or forced to live in dire poverty. There is no peace without employment and the prospect of earning a dignified wage. There is no peace in the peripheries of our cities, with their rampant drug abuse and violence.

Europe finds new hope when she is open to the future. When she is open to young people, offering them serious prospects for education and real possibilities for entering the work force. When she invests in the family, which is the first and fundamental cell of society. When she respects the consciences and the ideals of her citizens. When she makes it possible to have children without the fear of being unable to support them. When she defends life in all its sacredness. (Emphases in original.)

Touching on each briefly:

Development: References to a supranational government that invests in development recalls the tone of Populorum Progressio, the encyclical signed by Pope Paul VI 50 years ago that advocated higher taxation to fund government-to-government wealth transfers in the name of development. But as the producers of Poverty Inc. note, no nation has ever grown wealthy from foreign aid. The Catechism of the Catholic Church restricts [d]irect aid to immediate, extraordinary needs caused by natural catastrophes, epidemics, and the like; it cannot provide a lasting solution to a countrys needs. True development multiplies material goods, it says. Nations have prospered as investment allowed domestic industries to flourish and engage in international trade, a process that has allowed more than one billion people to escape poverty in just 20 years. Nations have prospered as investment allowed domestic industries to engage in international trade, a process that has allowed more than one billion people to escape poverty in just 20 years.

Employment: There is no peace without employment, the pope said, which requires that European youth be given real possibilities for entering the work force. To accomplish this, EU leaders must confront an economic culture that emphasizes security at the price of growth and dynamism. As a result of their social assistance state policies, the Eurozones unemployment rate fell below 10 percent for the first time in seven years just last October, and an increasing number of young people  including 80 percent of new hires in France  can find only temporary jobs, delaying family formation.

Tariffs and trade barriers: Pope Francis approvingly quoted one of the founders of the EEC (French Minister of Foreign Affairs C. Pineau), who said: Surely the countries about to unite  do not have the intention of isolating themselves from the rest of the world and surrounding themselves with insurmountable barriers. Although not in an explicitly economic context, one must wonder how that phrase applies to the Treaty of Rome, which fashioned the EEC into a customs union that now imposes tariffs as high as 18 percent on imported food. The same day, the 27 EU leaders signed the Rome Declaration that listed the unprecedented challenges posed by protectionism, while promoting free and fair trade. (They further vowed to provide unparalleled levels of social protection and welfare in order to combat social and economic inequalities.) Ironically, it is UK Prime Minister Theresa May  who did not attend the ceremony  who is now focusing on expanded free trade agreements and lower barriers possible through WTO membership, as British free market think tanks encourage the UK to rid itself of tariff and regulatory burdens imposed by EU membership. Paradoxically, it is the post-Brexit UK that holds itself out as a more global Britain.

If the popes remarks stimulate critical thought on these issues, it will be a blessing to all the people of Europe. You can read his full speech here.

(Photo  European Union, 2017.)
The Government should stop MLAs' salaries and expenses if the parties can't reach a deal within three months, a member of the panel that set Stormont pay has declared.

Former PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Alan McQuillan, who sat on the Independent Financial Review Panel (IFRP), last night said there would be public fury if politicians continued to be paid indefinitely in the absence of a working Executive.

"The political vacuum means that jobs and public services are under threat in the wider community. For MLAs to continue merrily on full pay and expenses would anger people feeling the pain of the failure to reach a deal," he said.

"MLAs' salaries and expenses cost us 13.5m a year - that's about the same as the Renewable Heating Incentive is costing. The public want a functioning Executive but they don't want to pay for one that doesn't exist.

"They certainly don't want to see the politicians, who have caused the chaos, still getting rewarded handsomely."

Mr McQuillan was speaking as Secretary of State James Brokenshire ruled out calling a second election and said there remained "a short few weeks" to strike a deal.

The former senior policeman was one of three members of the now defunct IFRP that set MLAs' pay.

Mr McQuillan said that when devolution was suspended in 2002 MLAs continued to receive 70% of their salaries and expenses for the next five years. "No way should that be allowed to happen again," he insisted.

"The Secretary of State must set a timetable of three months to reach a deal and to stop MLAs' pay totally if there is no agreement."

Mr Brokenshire will today make a full statement to the House of Commons on the way forward for Northern Ireland after the collapse of talks plunged Stormont into even deeper crisis.

With the DUP and Sinn Fein blaming each other for the failure, the Secretary of State said there was still a window of opportunity to reach a deal.

However, there were few signs last night of any willingness to compromise by the two main parties. Yesterday's Assembly meeting was cancelled after it became clear that a government couldn't be formed by the 4pm deadline.

Without an Executive or agreed budget in place for the new financial year, control of Stormont's finances will now pass to David Sterling, the permanent secretary at the Department of Finance.

Mr Brokenshire said that while there had been progress in the talks on a "number of issues", there were "significant gaps between the parties" on culture and identity issues.

In a significant climbdown from his position in January, the Secretary of State, who has been accused of weak leadership, said there was no "appetite for any further immediate snap election. I believe there remains an overwhelming desire among the political parties and the public here for strong and stable devolved government".

But sources last night said that despite Mr Brokenshire's upbeat message, London was moving inexorably toward introducing emergency legislation next month to allow for a limited return to "soft" direct rule. Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill blamed the UK Government and the DUP for the political logjam.

"We came at the negotiations with the right attitude, wanting to make the institutions work, wanting to deliver for all citizens. Unfortunately, the DUP maintained their position in relation to blocking equality," she said.

"The British Government is a player and part of the problem.

"Their approach in the talks meant that no agreement was possible. James Brokenshire cannot wash (his) hands of responsibilities and obligations to implement the commitments made in previous agreements."

But DUP leader Arlene Foster insisted Sinn Fein's "inflexible" approach to the talks was to blame for their failure.

"We wonder whether Sinn Fein were serious about reaching agreement at this time," she said.

"We are disappointed that Sinn Fein did not come to the talks in the same spirit as we came to the talks.

"The government of Northern Ireland is not a game, it is actually very serious and the fact we do not have an Executive being formed today is very regrettable."

Ulster Unionist chief negotiator Tom Elliott rounded on both the DUP and Sinn Fein for "this shambolic process", and also accused Mr Brokenshire of weakness.

"The DUP and Sinn Fein are incapable of doing a deal on their own, although that shouldn't surprise anyone," he said. "The Secretary of State was weak in letting the talks drift along and appears to have seen his role as a facilitator rather than as a convenor.

"He needs to take a grip of the situation which now confronts us and should not allow the largest parties to dictate the agenda or timing of progress."

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood called for "immediate refreshed dialogue" with an independent chairperson.

"Over the last few weeks we reached common ground on a number of key issues and closed gaps on others. Even on issues which seemed intractable, like Brexit, significant progress was possible," he said.

"We must all seek to occupy and expand that common ground, not see it scorched."

Alliance leader Naomi Long urged the parties to "get serious" and end the political drift. "There still exists an opportunity if people are committed to the talks," she said. "It is unthinkable a project made up of 25 years of hope, time and effort from many quarters could be thrown away so lightly."

TUV leader Jim Allister described proceedings at Stormont yesterday as "comical" and said it was time to "close this farce down".
The head of the Civil Service in Northern Ireland, Sir Malcolm McKibbin, has written to his staff telling them that their job is to ensure "business as usual".

His colleague David Sterling - the permanent secretary of the Department of Finance - takes control over how Northern Ireland spends its budget tomorrow.

Now Sir Malcolm has reminded the thousands of other civil servants across Northern Ireland that it is their duty to "keep the lights on" while Stormont is in limbo.

"Our aim is to ensure 'business as usual' as far as possible though, as I said in my last letter, there will be some things we will not be able to do," he wrote.

"For example, we will not be able to launch any new programmes, projects or policies which would require ministerial or Executive endorsement.

"Departmental accounting officers will also have to be prudent and aim to avoid committing to new patterns of expenditure which would go beyond what they might reasonably expect to be allocated in a budget for 2017/18 once this is agreed."

Meanwhile, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan said the context of Brexit made it all the more imperative that a new Executive was formed as soon as possible.

"The absence of agreement on the establishment of an Executive is, for many reasons, deeply regrettable," he said.

"However, it is particularly concerning that a vacuum in devolved government in Northern Ireland should now be occurring just as the island of Ireland faces up to the many serious challenges represented by the UK exit from the EU.

"In these circumstances, all concerned must redouble efforts to achieve the re-establishment of power-sharing government in Northern Ireland, which is so plainly in the interests of all its citizens.

"The Irish Government will continue to advocate very strongly for Northern Ireland's interests to be protected.

"However, there is no substitute for an Executive speaking with one voice on these critical issues."

Talks collapsed after Sinn Fein announced it would not be nominating a Deputy First Minister in the Assembly before the deadline.

Without both First and Deputy First Ministers, it is impossible to form an Executive. Sinn Fein has said it will not share power with Mrs Foster as First Minister until a public inquiry into the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) is concluded.

Republicans have also been seeking movement on issues such as legislation to protect the Irish language, a hugely symbolic measure but problematic for some unionists.

New mechanisms for dealing with the legacy of the Troubles also remain a source of vexed dispute.

During the ill-fated negotiations, it is understood the DUP sought progress on implementing the Military Covenant in Northern Ireland, a framework that defines the State's obligations to serving and former members of the Armed Forces, as part of potential new legislation that would also offer more protections for both Irish and Ulster Scots speakers.

A voting surge by Sinn Fein in the snap Assembly election earlier this month saw the party come within one seat of the DUP at Stormont.

Secretary of State James Brokenshire claimed the talks had made progress on some issues - namely around the proposed budget and Programme for Government; moves to improve governmental transparency and accountability, and steps to implement stalled legacy mechanisms.

He said there were also moves on how Northern Ireland's interests could be best represented in Brexit negotiations. However, he said "significant gaps" between the parties on "culture and identity" issues meant an overall deal had proved elusive.
The Secretary of State, James Brokenshire, has a decision to make. The current legal position requires him to call an election to the Assembly within a reasonable time, but there are strong reasons why he might not want to do that.

It would be a message to the electorate that their last election result wasn't good enough, a way of telling them to go back and think again.

That would make a certain amount of sense if the electorate was in a mood to agree that they should vote differently this time. Maybe he thinks they would shift to the middle ground parties in the hope that they would be more likely to agree with each other and run this place more efficiently.

But Brokenshire, if he knows anything bout Northern Ireland, knows that that is not going to happen.

Instead, the big parties, Sinn Fein and the DUP, will rally their forces for a race to the lead position over the other.

At present unionism and nationalism are level-pegging, but for one unionist seat. And since one of those seats is actually opposed to the whole power-sharing project, there are grounds for saying it does not really count in the balance between the two major communal blocks,

Sinn Fein would, I suspect, gleefully fight another election in the hope of overtaking the DUP and taking the First Minister's position.

Already, the logic of their being in a secondary position as deputy is stretched beyond tenability.

And the DUP would see an election as a prospect of recovering ground and firmly eclipsing the major advance that Sinn Fein made three weeks ago.

About 40% of the electorate does not vote, but some might be rallied in a spirit of urgency, responding to a call to secure the pre-eminence of unionism or to firmly slap it back and establish a nationalist lead for the first time in Northern Ireland's history.

That tells you that another election now would be an intercommunal contest like none we have had before.

Brokenshire's legacy then would be that he had left Northern Ireland even more deeply divided than he found it.

Without an election, the parties themselves have varied prospects.

Alliance and the other 'middle ground' forces would be able to argue that they are not the problem and that increased support for them would make this place more viable.

They would point to the economic erosion and the depletion of pubic services at a time when the budget would be managed by the civil service or even direct rule ministers.

The unionists would blame Sinn Fein for the practical problems that would arise and for the denial of full democracy here, but they would be strapped for any clear project to get themselves back into power if they could not persuade republicans to make a deal for them.

And Sinn Fein may like a long stand off.

Their vote tends to increase through periods of deadlock, like the long stalemate over decommissioning and the recognition of policing, which ended in 2007 with the St Andrews Agreement.

So long as they can persuade their followers that the real problem is British power and unionist intransigence, they might carry this off.

The prize would be the eradication of the SDLP, if not the prospect of actually overtaking the DUP.

The DUP, in the same deadlock, as before, might swallow up the frail and failing Ulster Unionist Party.

Sinn Fein have a constellation of issues to campaign and protest over, but the chief of these will be Brexit. They argue that Northern Ireland - 'the North' - is being taken out of the EU against its will. They have a credible case to make there and will hope that their umbrage will reach the ears of the 27 European countries which will be negotiating Brexit with Britain. When those countries get round the table, the status of the Irish border will be high on their agenda.

And Sinn Fein will have the ear of the Irish government, one of the parties to those negotiations.

The DUP will similarly have the ear of the British government, but Britain will be one against 27.

Who knows what effect instability here might have on those discussions; it might be enough to tilt several countries away from considering moves that they think would disgruntle the locals. And much will depend on how they read those prospects.

This crisis started over a badly managed heating scheme. It is now about the central issue of concern to republicans, the border and the chances of a further inching towards a united Ireland.

Their history is one of grasping opportunities when Britain was disadvantaged and they are doing it again.

Or it may be that someone will whisper in the ear of Gerry Adams that the elected MLAs aren't really up for sacrificing their jobs and their salaries for the big project, that they risk a pasting from the electorate if voters begin to doubt that Sinn Fein can govern and protect services.

Maybe James Brokenshire will think that if the parties are left to think through all the implications of their deadlock they will find a way out of it.

Maybe they will.
Environmentalist Chris Murphy loses his case against the development of the A6 dual carriageway at Toomebridge, in Northern Ireland.

Environmentalist Chris Murphy loses his case against the development of the A6 dual carriageway at Toomebridge, in Northern Ireland.

Environmentalist Chris Murphy loses his case against the development of the A6 dual carriageway at Toomebridge, in Northern Ireland.

An environmentalist has lost a High Court battle to stop a planned new 160 million dual carriageway going through landscape made famous by poet Seamus Heaney.

Chris Murphy was challenging plans to build a section of the A6 Belfast to Derry upgrade close to wetland where migratory birds forage.

But a judge rejected claims that the proposals breach a habitats directive on specially protected areas.

Dismissing his case, Mrs Justice Keegan said: "The decision reached was lawful and rational."

Mr Murphy, who represented himself in the judicial review challenge, is now considering whether to appeal the verdict.

The ornithologist took legal action in an attempt to halt construction of the part of the road near Moosbawn, Co Derry - the childhood home of the former Nobel laureate poet.

The route was identified following a public inquiry nearly a decade ago.

With commuters regularly facing rush-hour gridlock, former Infrastructure Minister Chris Hazzard gave the green light to the scheme last year in a bid to significantly improve a major transport corridor.

Proceedings centred on ecological checks made to potential disturbance to whooper swans on Lough Neagh and Lough Beg from the disputed Toome to Castledawson stretch.

Mr Murphy claimed the plans will cause irreparable harm to an area worthy of word heritage status.

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In impassioned submissions he compared building a road through the site to cutting away at a Rembrandt masterpiece.

Further assessments have been carried out since the Department first made checks on the presence of nesting birds, badgers and bats.

But the court had to determine whether these actions were part of a fulfillment of obligations under the relevant habitats directive.

Mr Murphy argued that it was "ridiculous" to contend that only 2% of the 41,000 hectare site could be impacted by the road.

Counsel for the Department responded that he dual carriageway would have minimal impact on fields where the migratory birds feed.

He also contended that swans foraging on the wetland close to the route are more disturbed by people than roads or cars.

Mrs Justice McBride was also told that the legal challenge could have a "severe public prejudice" in a case where vesting has already taken place.

Ruling on the case, the judge rejected all arguments advanced by the bird watcher.

"I find no breach of the habitats directive," she said.

"I do not consider the decision making is procedurally flawed."

Praising Mr Murphy on how he had acted, she added: "He conducted his case impeccably, with the assistance of his wife.

"I know he will be disappointed by this decision, but I commend him for the care and attention he has applied to this case and for raising environmental awareness of this important issue."

The Department is to seek costs against the environmentalist.

But before leaving court Mr Murphy indicated he will be considering an appeal against the judgment.

He told Mrs Justice Keegan: "We are talking today about one of the most important sites in Europe, not just Northern Ireland."
The man is due in court on Tuesday.

A 36-year-old man has been charged with a series of drugs offences in Northern Ireland.

Detectives in Belfast charged the man with importing a controlled drug, possession of a class B controlled drug, possessing a class B controlled drug with intent to supply and using a motor vehicle without insurance.

He is expected to appear before Belfast Magistrates Court on Tuesday.

The charges are in connection with the arrest of a man on Monday in the Ainsworth Avenue area of Belfast.

His arrest followed the seizure of cannabis with an estimated street value of 140,000 from a nearby vehicle.
Sinn Fein leader Michelle O'Neill has said the only option Secretary of State James Brokenshire is entitled to take, is to call an election.

Northern Ireland Secretary of State James Brokenshire on Tuesday outlined his plan to save power-sharing at Stormont and said all options will be considered if talks to form an Executive fail after Easter.

Responding to Mr Brokenshire's statement to the House of Commons Mrs O'Neill said: "There is only one option which the British Secretary of State is entitled to take and that is to call an election. There is no legal basis for any other course of action.

"And while parties may or may not want an election the fact is if the British Secretary of State brings in new legislation to restore Direct Rule that will be an act of bad faith and a clear breach of an agreement between the Irish and British governments in 2006.

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Sinn Fein has made it clear that all of the outstanding issues can be resolved. There can be no return to the status quo.

We have no objection to the British Secretary of State leaving some time for that to be done but we are totally opposed and we would look to the Irish government to oppose, any new legislation to bring back Direct Rule.

Sinn Fein walked away from crisis talks on Sunday saying they had "run their course" which led to the 4pm Monday deadline to form an Executive not being met.

Mr Brokenshire said he did not want to see a return to direct rule but if talks fail, he made clear the Government would consider it.
Environmentalist Chris Murphy loses his case against the development of the A6 dual carriageway at Toomebridge, in Northern Ireland.

Environmentalist Chris Murphy loses his case against the development of the A6 dual carriageway at Toomebridge, in Northern Ireland.

Environmentalist Chris Murphy loses his case against the development of the A6 dual carriageway at Toomebridge, in Northern Ireland.

Michelle O'Neill has welcomed a court ruling paving the way for a 160 million dual carriageway going through landscape made famous by poet Seamus Heaney.

Meanwhile the green campaigner behind the legal challenge has vowed to continue his fight.

Chris Murphy was challenging plans to build a section of the A6 Belfast to Derry upgrade close to wetland where migratory birds forage. But a judge rejected claims that the proposals breach a habitats directive on specially protected areas.

The ornithologist took legal action in an attempt to halt construction of the part of the road near Moosbawn, Co Derry - the childhood home of the former Nobel laureate poet.

The route was identified following a public inquiry nearly a decade ago.

With commuters regularly facing rush-hour gridlock, former Infrastructure Minister Chris Hazzard gave the green light to the scheme last year in a bid to significantly improve a major transport corridor.

Proceedings centred on ecological checks made to potential disturbance to whooper swans on Lough Neagh and Lough Beg from the disputed Toome to Castledawson stretch.

Mr Murphy claimed the plans will cause irreparable harm to an area worthy of word heritage status.

Dismissing his case, Mrs Justice Keegan said: "The decision reached was lawful and rational."

Sinn Fein's Michelle O'Neill welcomed the development.

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"The A6 upgrade represents an investment of over 160m and has long been a key priority for Sinn Fein," the Mid-Ulster MLA said.

"It is a key infrastructure project to help redress regional balance and was significantly moved forward by Sinn Fein Minister Chris Hazzard when preparatory work began last year.

"Today's court ruling is an endorsement of the minister's approach and clears the way for the work to move onto the next stage.

"When the project is completed in 2019, it will greatly reduce travel times between Derry and Belfast, a development which will be greatly welcomed by the many thousands of people who make that journey every day."

In impassioned submissions in court Mr Murphy compared building a road through the site to cutting away at a Rembrandt masterpiece.

Further assessments have been carried out since the Department first made checks on the presence of nesting birds, badgers and bats.

But the court had to determine whether these actions were part of a fulfillment of obligations under the relevant habitats directive.

He also contended that swans foraging on the wetland close to the route are more disturbed by people than roads or cars.

Following the ruling, Mr Murphy said he would appeal the decision and move to put in place an injunction to stop any further work.

"I will lodge an appeal and seek an injunction to prevent further damage to the priceless wetlands. They are of equal importance to man and nature and were so loved by Irelands greatest poet, Seamus Heaney.

Ruling on the case, Mrs Justice Keegan rejected all arguments advanced by the bird watcher.

"I find no breach of the habitats directive," she said.

"I do not consider the decision making is procedurally flawed."

Praising Mr Murphy on how he had acted, she added: "He conducted his case impeccably, with the assistance of his wife.

"I know he will be disappointed by this decision, but I commend him for the care and attention he has applied to this case and for raising environmental awareness of this important issue."

The Department for Infrastructure is to seek costs against the environmentalist. It said 18,000 road users and the local community would benefit from the decision and when the work is complete.

A spokesperson said: The new dual carriageway will reduce journey times and improve road safety. The scheme is predicted to result in a saving of almost 600 collisions over its 60 year economic life. The ruling has also recognised the care and attention we take, with the statutory environmental bodies, to preserve, protect and develop environmentally sensitive areas under consideration for road development.

The local construction industry will also see a considerable benefit with this 160million scheme delivering local jobs and investment. The department has committed to introducing Buy Social clauses into this contract which will generate new entrant trainee employment in the form of apprenticeships and graduate jobs. The works will specifically create between 15-20 new paid employment and training opportunities over the construction period.

Preliminary works on the project have continued to be progressed in accordance with the environmental commitments given and the objective is to complete the scheme in 2021. It is the Departments intention to commence major construction works on the scheme as soon as possible.
James Brokenshire said the intensity of negotiations needed to increase in the days and weeks ahead

Reintroducing direct rule in Northern Ireland would be an act of bad faith by the UK government, Sinn Fein has warned.

The republican party made clear it would not accept a return to Westminster rule after Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire told the Commons that it was one option under consideration.

He said the Government would countenance suspending devolution if extended talks to restore powersharing in Belfast fail.

Mr Brokenshire said the intensity of negotiations needed to increase in the weeks ahead after a statutory deadline to form a new Stormont executive passed on Monday without agreement.

Under current legislation, the Government is obliged to call another Assembly election if such a deadline elapses.

Reintroducing direct rule would require emergency legislation at Westminster, as London's power to suspend was removed in the 2006 St Andrews agreement.

Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill said: "Direct rule is not an option.

"James Brokenshire has legislation, there is legislation in place that he should follow which clearly says he must call an election if there is no agreement here.

"We are working to achieve an agreement, we remain focused on that, we want these institutions to work on the basis of equality, respect and integrity. But direct rule is not an option."

Addressing MPs in Westminster, Mr Brokenshire said if there was a successful resolution he would move to amend the standing legislation to enable an administration to be formed without the need for another snap election.

However, if talks fail, he made clear the Government would also consider legislating for direct rule.

"In the absence of devolved government, it is ultimately for the United Kingdom Government to provide for political stability and good governance," he said.

"We do not want to see a return to direct rule.

"As our manifesto at the last election stated, 'local policies and local services should be determined by locally-elected politicians through locally-accountable institutions'.

"But should the talks fail in their objectives, the Government will have to consider all options."

The Democratic Unionist/Sinn Fein administration collapsed in January amid a bitter row over a botched green energy scheme.

The subsequent snap election campaign laid bare a range of other contentious issues dividing the parties.

DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds questioned whether Sinn Fein was interested in finding a resolution to the Stormont impasse.

The North Belfast MP told the Commons: "Whilst we are determined to create the conditions for devolution and want devolution to work in partnership with Sinn Fein and others, we need a willing partner, who's willing to work realistically within the parameters of a Northern Ireland with devolved government, within the United Kingdom, within the institutions as agreed, and with Brexit a reality.

"Some of us fear that Sinn Fein have now decided that the time for devolution is over, and they're moving on to a different phase where their main ambitions lie southwards."

Earlier this month, Irish premier Enda Kenny claimed he and Prime Minister Theresa May had agreed there would be no return to direct rule.

During parliamentary exchanges following his statement, Mr Brokenshire faced repeated questions from the opposition benches on why Mrs May had not directly intervened in the process.

He rejected the characterisation she had adopted a "laissez faire" approach.

"The Prime Minister has been actively engaged in this process and will continue to do so," he said.

Asked if he would stop the salaries of Stormont MLAs if the situation drifts on, Mr Brokenshire replied: "All options are under consideration."

Without a ruling executive or agreed budget for the upcoming financial year, control of Stormont's finances will be handed to a senior civil servant on Wednesday.

Mr Brokenshire reiterated his view the situation was "not sustainable" in the long term.

He said he had spoken with the main political leaders and the Irish government since Monday and had detected a "strong willingness" to continue engaging in dialogue with a view to resolving the outstanding issues.

"But the window of opportunity is short," he stressed.

"It is essential, therefore, that the intensity of discussions is stepped up, with renewed intent and focus."

Talks to form an executive in the wake of this month's election collapsed on Sunday amid bitter recriminations between the DUP and Sinn Fein, which blamed each other for the failure.

Proposed legislation to protect Irish language speakers and new mechanisms to deal with the legacy of the Troubles remain logjams in the way of consensus.

Mr Brokenshire said if resolution cannot be attained he would, at the very minimum, legislate after the Easter recess to ensure rates bills could be issued in Northern Ireland so district councils could carry out their functions.

He said he would also "provide further assurance" around the budget position in the region.

The Secretary of State said he was determined to take forward the stalled legacy bodies.
 CBS Article is Not Objective on Israels Security Barrier | Main | Terrorism Justifier Welcomed on NYT Pages 

March 27, 2017

Head of Turkish Humanitarian Group Financed Hamas



Shin Bet, Israels security agency, has arrested the Gaza-based head of a Turkish humanitarian agency, a man named Muhammad Murtaja, and charged him with providing funds to Hamas, The Jerusalem Post reported (Israel arrests head of Turkish humanitarian group in Gaza for financing Hamas,? March 21, 2017). Hamas is the U.S.-designated terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip.

Murtaja, who is the Gaza coordinator for the Turkish Cooperation and Development Agency was arrested in February while he was attempting to depart Israel on a work-related trip. The Shin Bet have provided some details as to what exactly Murtajas work entailed. The Jerusalem Post noted:

Investigations reveal that Murtaja was recruited by Hamas in late 2008, and that his activity with the Palestinian terror group included funneling funds earmarked for humanitarian projects to Hamas.?

According to the Shin Bet, he was also involved in Hamas militant training and exercises, manufacturing weapons and explosive devices and digging terror tunnels. Murtaja was said to have stored weapons, such as hand grenades and guns, in his home on behalf of Hamas.?

In addition to Murtaja, the Shin Bet named another suspect, Mehmet Kaya, the head of the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Fund (IHH). Kaya has not, as of this writing, been apprehended (Shin Bet: Hamas Stealing Turkish Aid Money to Fund Terror, The Tower, March 21, 2017).

As CAMERA has noted, the press frequently misidentifies the IHH as simply a charity.? However, according to a 2011 report by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, an Israeli think tank that studies terrorism, the Turkish IHHhas a record of supporting terrorist groups? and has close relations with Turkeys AKP government (see, for example Washington Post Fails to Identify Terrorist Charity, Feb. 16, 2016).?

The Turkish Cooperation and Development Agency is a government-run agency that operates on five continents. The agency is a department of the Prime Minister of Turkey and is tasked with providing development assistance to select countries and regions.

In their statement about Murtajas arrest, the Turkish agency claimed that they had employed the alleged Hamas member since 2012a full four years after he reportedly joined the terror group. The agency claimed that it will continue in the future as in the past, its projects with diligence and devotion in order to alleviate the plight of the Palestinian people, including in Gaza?

This is not the first time in recent months that a non-profit humanitarian group was charged with having ties with Hamas, a genocidal terrorist group with a history of using Palestinian people as human shields while indiscriminately targeting Israelis. In August 2016, Mohammed El-Halabi, an employee of the Christian non-profit World Vision, was accused of being both a Hamas member and of diverting charitable funds to the terror group (Five Things You Need to Know About World Vision,? CAMERA, Aug. 18, 2016).

Posted by SD at March 27, 2017 05:36 PM

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Northern Ireland Secretary of State James Brokenshire has outlined his plan to save power-sharing at Stormont and said all options will be considered if talks to form an Executive fail after Easter.

Mr Brokenshire addressed the House of Commons on Tuesday after parties failed to form a new Executive before Monday's 4pm deadline.

The Secretary of State said the intensity of negotiations between the parties needed to increase in the days and weeks ahead as he said the "window of opportunity is short".

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He said after the Westminster Easter recess, if there is no deal, he will seek legislation to set a regional rate for Northern Ireland.

Mr Brokenshire said he did not want to see a return to direct rule but if talks fail, he made clear the Government would consider it.

In the absence of devolved government, it is ultimately for the United Kingdom Government to provide for political stability and good governance. Secretary of State James Brokenshire

Without a ruling executive or agreed budget for the upcoming financial year, control of Stormont's finances will be handed to a senior civil servant on Wednesday.

Mr Brokenshire reiterated that the current "situation was not sustainable" and hospitals and schools will feel the brunt of the political breakdown.

Under current legislation, the Government is required to call another snap election if a deadline for forming an executive passes.

However, Mr Brokenshire said he would seek to amend that law to avoid a new election if a deal can be made in the time ahead.

He again stated that there was "no appetite" for an election with the Northern Ireland public having just gone to the polls last month and that the focus must be on "getting agreement".

He said: "If these talks are successful, it would be my intention quickly to bring forward legislation after the Easter recess to allow an executive to be formed, avoiding a second Assembly election, for which I detect little public appetite."

When asked if he would consider suspending MLAs salary if no Executive was formed after a reasonable period of time, Mr Brokenshire said "all options are under consideration".

Mr Brokenshire told the House of Commons that Prime Minister Theresa May was "fully engaged and remains so".

He said there is "no hands-off role by this Government in relation to Northern Ireland".

The Secretary of State said it was "vital" that devolved government was returned to Northern Ireland.

He added: "It is vital that devolved government, and all of the institutions under the successive agreements, is returned to Northern Ireland as soon as possible.

"And the Government's unrelenting focus is on achieving that objective. Northern Ireland needs strong devolved government.

"To deliver for teachers, doctors and nurses, business, industry and the wider community.

"To ensure that it plays a full role in the affairs of our United Kingdom, while retaining its strong relationship with Ireland.

"And to continue the work of the past two decades to build a stronger, peaceful and prosperous future for all.

"That needs to be the focus of everyone as we approach the crucial next few days and weeks."

Speaking on Monday afternoon, he said a "short window of opportunity" existed to strike a deal on the current political deadlock.

Outlining a time-frame for cross-party talks, he said: "On timing, there are a short few weeks in order to resolve matters.
A woman in her 80s from Forkhill was targeted in a burglary on Mother's Day when two men in their 20s searched her property while she was at home.

The shocking incident follows at least three other burglaries this month against Northern Ireland pensioners.

The latest burglary on Sunday saw two men enter the house on the rural Church Road which links the Co Armagh villages of Forkhill and Mullaghbawn.

Police said the pair entered the woman's home around 5pm. Once inside, one man talked to the woman while the other man went through several rooms looking through drawers and cupboards.

They stayed in the house for around five minutes before leaving through the front door. Nothing is believed to have been taken and the woman was not injured. Both men were described as being aged in their 20s and around 5ft 10ins tall.

Sinn Fein councillor for the area Mickey Larkin said he was disgusted by the crime. "I'm sure the lady is deeply shocked by it and I would encourage the community to report any suspicious activity to the police," he said.

"There's obviously people out there who would go to any depths to line their own pockets. To have strangers invade her home and disrupt a special day in the calendar for our mothers and grandmothers is disgusting."

Last Thursday, another woman in her 80s was held down by an intruder in her north Belfast home while a second man ransacked her bedroom and stole a small sum of money.

The attackers claimed to be police officers to gain entry to the property on Mountainhill Walk just before 12pm.

Both men, reported to have southern accents, fled the scene in a black Vauxhall Vectra.

The victim was not injured during the ordeal but was left badly shaken.

On March 12, a woman from west Belfast in her 70s was treated for shock and a cut to her head after she confronted an armed intruder in her home, forcing him and an accomplice to flee empty-handed.

It was reported to police that the two men, one armed with a screwdriver, had entered the Springfield Park house by the rear door and gained access to a utility room just before 2am.

On March 8, a married couple in their 70s from Tandragee were left tied up in their bathroom by a gang of five masked men.

The grandparents, a retired businessman and teacher, suffered cuts and bruises to their hands and wrists.

Describing the ordeal, the grandmother said: "They were roaring and shouting and I said to them, 'have you not got a mother or father, would you do this to them?'"

"One of them said, 'shut up or you'll get worse'. It was horrendous, he started waving the poker in my face."

She added: "We feared for our lives, it was very scary. I was shaking."

Detectives are investigating the gang who were also described as having southern accents.
The PSNI took possession of more than 100 packets of illegal abortion pills in recent raids, it has been reported.

It's understood police are using the addresses on seized packages to track down those suspected of ordering the pills or assisting in their delivery.

The Times newspaper revealed that, in some cases, the parents of young women who attempted to procure the medication only found out when police arrived at their home.

The PSNI was contacted for a comment on the matter yesterday, but is yet to respond.

The newspaper said that police have interviewed a "small number of people" in the past six months, with 15 cases in the first two weeks of March alone.

Earlier this month Detective Superintendent Bobby Singleton confirmed that two raids had taken place on March 4, which was International Women's Day.

The Belfast Telegraph also reported that police swooped on the workshop of activist and artist Helen Crickard after intercepting a package addressed to the property that contained abortion pills. At least a dozen other activists were invited to attend a PSNI interview.

The seized drugs - mifepristone and misoprostol - induce abortion and have been ordered online by women who cannot afford to travel to England to procure a legal termination. The medication in question causes cramping and bleeding similar to a miscarriage.

A spokeswoman for the Belfast Feminist Network condemned the seizures.

"The failure of our government to legislate for Northern Ireland does not stop people from having abortions.

"Those who can afford it travel to the UK, which is perfectly legal.

"Our laws therefore target the less wealthy and more vulnerable.

"The criminalisation of pregnant people who are seeking healthcare that is freely available to other UK citizens is also dangerous; the fact that police called to people's homes endangers young people whose families may not be supportive and those in abusive relationships."

Although the pills are NHS-approved in the rest of the UK, they are supposed to be taken under supervision. Concerns have been raised about the safety of women from Northern Ireland taking them at home and, as they are bought online, guaranteeing they are genuine.

Abortion remains illegal in Northern Ireland except in limited circumstances, such as if the woman's life is in danger or there is a serious risk to her long-term health.

Efforts by Alliance MLA David Ford to relax the law in cases of fatal foetal abnormality have stalled since the collapse of the Assembly.
Police are seeking an American man who was seen drinking in a Belfast pub as part of their investigation into a sexual assault in the city's university area.

Detectives are investigating the alleged sexual assault of a woman in the Agincourt area of Belfast on 21 March.

As part of their enquiries, they are particularly keen to speak to a man who was in licensed premises in the Ann Street area of the city from approximately 7.30pm on this date as they believe he may be able to assist them with their enquiries.

He is described as being 6ft tall and of average build with a shaved head. He was wearing a grey hooded top, a jacket and jeans and spoke with a North American accent.

This man, or anyone else who was in the area at the time and witnessed any suspicious activity, is asked to contact police on 101, quoting reference number 929 24/03/2017.
With James Brokenshire giving the parties a "short window of opportunity" to hammer out a deal, one of Sinn Fein's talks negotiators Conor Murphy has admitted he does not know if talks are continuing.

Sinn Fein walked out of the talks on Sunday evening saying they had run their course. It meant first ministers were not nominated by the 4pm Monday deadline forcing the secretary of state to act.

Speaking on BBC's Stephen Nolan show, Mr Murphy was asked if his party had compromised over the past three weeks of talks.

"Perhaps we are still in the middle of negotiations so I am not going to get into the detail of the give and take," he said.

Pressed on if his party was in the middle of talks or not, he added: "Well I don't know. We will ascertain that in the next couple of days and are waiting on responses from the other parties to see if there is a mood for negotiations.

"If that proves to be the case we are ready and willing to get into dialogue. We spoke yesterday with all the party leaders and the British and Irish governments and I believe that there is a will. We will test that today or tomorrow and we will see if people want to get back to dialogue and if they do we will put together a team and go to Stormont to do just that."

Mr Murphy said he and his party had no desire to return to the ballot box, as the legislation says should happen following the breakdown of the talks, but "if that's what has to happen, that's what has to happen".

He added: "There is opportunity to continue to talk in the days and weeks ahead. The talks deadline was on Monday so that phase of the talks had run its course.

"If other parties are willing to try and crunch on these issues in the next period we are certainly up for doing that.

"We have no desire for an election, that's where the legislation takes us and if that's what has to happen, that's what has to happen but we would like to see these issues resolved and and an Executive in place."

Asked if there were talks ongoing, a DUP spokesman said: "Our position throughout the talks was that we wanted to see a successful outcome based on recognition of all mandates.

"The decision by Sinn Fein to block the creation of an Executive is regrettable and damaging to the public of Northern Ireland.

"We have made clear our desire to secure the restoration of devolution and we continue to be available to try to reach agreement."

Speaking at Stormont on Monday afternoon, James Brokenshire said: "There are a short few weeks in order to resolve matters."

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Anthony McErlain, who was found dead at a house in Ballycastle in 2016

Police at the scene of the killing

An uncle of a man accused of murder in Ballycastle is also now facing the same charge, a court has heard.

Christopher Patrick Keenan (35), of Broombeg View in the Co Antrim town, is charged with murdering former labourer Anthony McErlain on January 28 last year.

Coleraine Magistrates Court yesterday heard Keenan's uncle - John Paul Patrick Keenan (51), whose address was given as Victoria Street in Belfast - is now also being accused of murdering Mr McErlain.

District Judge Liam McNally was told by John Keenan's defence solicitor Derwin Harvey that the accused was in a homeless hostel in London and a summons has been served.

John Keenan's case has been adjourned until April 24.

Meanwhile, a preliminary enquiry - the legal step to send a case to the Crown Court - was held for Christopher Keenan at yesterday's court.

Christopher Keenan, who was wearing a blue tracksuit top and grey tracksuit bottoms, had his case sent to Antrim Crown Court for arraignment on May 9.

Flanked in the dock by prison officers, he confirmed his name and age.

He said he understood the charge and had no objections to a preliminary enquiry being held.

A prosecutor said she believed she could connect the accused to the charge, and a defence lawyer said he had no contrary submissions.

Judge McNally held there was sufficient evidence to return the case to the Crown Court.

Keenan indicated he did not wish to say anything in answer to the charge.

The body of 48-year-old Mr McErlain was found at a house in Broombeg View in January last year.

The father-of-two was a former labourer who had spent many years living over the border in the Republic.

He also worked on the Channel Tunnel, and had previously been employed with McKeague's Concrete in Dunloy.

Meanwhile, in a separate case at yesterday's court, Christopher Keenan pleaded guilty to the theft of a 8.99 bottle of wine on January 8, 2016.

Jailing him for two months on that charge, Judge McNally said the defendant had a number of matters regarding theft on his record.
Prime Minister Theresa May delivers a speech at the Department for International Development's office at Abercrombie House on March 27, 2017 in East Kilbride, Scotland. (Photo by Jane Barlow - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Theresa May has been urged by former Northern Ireland Secretary Lord Hain to take a direct role in breaking the political deadlock at Stormont.

The Labour peer said nothing was more important than ensuring the peace process in Northern Ireland kept moving forward.

He said any break in the peace could be "very dangerous indeed".

Minister Lord Dunlop said the Prime Minister was actively involved in discussions to restore power to the Northern Ireland executive.

But Tory and DUP peers echoed the calls from Lord Hain for Mrs May to intervene, with no sign of talks to restore power sharing reaching a breakthrough.

The comments came as peers heard a statement from Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire, which he had delivered in the Commons earlier on Tuesday.

Lord Hain, who served as Northern Ireland secretary from 2005 to 2007, said he was "puzzled" why there had been no direct Prime Ministerial involvement in the impasse so far.

He said: "At times in the past, a Prime Minister's direct involvement, calling a summit in Hillsborough Castle or wherever it may be, together with the Taoiseach, has been crucial in breaking the gridlock, in bringing parties together and enabling them to find a solution that they were not able to do on their own.

"The Prime Minister may be busy on other things, like Brexit, but there's nothing more important, I would suggest, on her agenda than keeping the peace process in Northern Ireland moving forward.

"If it stalls and if it goes in any sense into reverse, that could be very dangerous indeed."

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Lord Hain said a return to direct rule would be "a massive and possibly irreversible setback", while a second election would also "solve absolutely nothing".

Northern Ireland minister Lord Dunlop said: "She (Mrs May), as I have already said, is actively involved and engaged, dealing directly with the Taoiseach, and she and the Taoiseach have mandated the Northern Ireland Secretary and the Irish foreign minister to take forward the support and facilitation of the discussions with the parties.

"That will happen over the coming hours and days, as we seek to get a resolution to these issues."
The Irish government is planning a "Patten-like commission" to overhaul its scandal-ridden police force, Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald has confirmed.

In the strongest indication to date that the Garda is facing unprecedented root-and-branch reforms amid scandal after scandal, Ms Fitzgerald evoked the commission that heralded the end of the RUC in Northern Ireland.

"Because of the range of issues that have emerged in relation to An Garda Siochana, we should establish an independent Patten-like commission to analyse precisely the future of An Garda Siochana," she said.

The Patten commission was an independent body set up under the Good Friday Agreement peace deal, chaired by former Conservative politician Chris Patten, which radically altered policing in Northern Ireland.

Sweeping reforms saw the Police Service of Northern Ireland replace the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

In the Republic, the Garda has been mired in countless controversies in recent years, despite the long-running Morris Tribunal into police corruption a decade ago promising a new beginning to policing, openness and accountability.

Calls have been made in the past by Opposition parties, including minority government party Fine Gael when it was out of power, for Patten-style reforms.

But Ms Fitzgerald is the first serving Justice Minister to openly signal in the Dail, the Irish parliament, an imminent overhaul on the scale of Northern Ireland's.

She is also facing questions about how long she knew about the latest controversies to beset the Garda, including the gross exaggeration of drink-driving statistics and thousands of drivers being wrongly prosecuted for motoring offences.

In response, Taoiseach Enda Kenny promised a "thorough, independent and comprehensive" review including a "root-and-branch" examination of the force.

In a statement, the Government said the recent revelations were so unacceptable and public concerns so profound it was opening talks with the Opposition on how it would carry out the review.

"I'm very unhappy about this situation," Mr Kenny said.

Last week an audit revealed almost one million fewer drink-driving breath tests were carried out from 2012 to 2016 than gardai had claimed.

The Garda also admitted 146,000 people were taken to court and 14,700 people were wrongly convicted of motoring offences because of issues with the fixed penalty system.

One of the force's official watchdogs, the Policing Authority, said the discrepancies raised widespread concern about how gardai go about their work.

It said it was not just a statistical matter but "an ethical one".

Embattled Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan, the country's police chief, is clinging on to her job despite the Government's avowed confidence in her.

Fianna Fail, the chief Opposition party which props up the minority government in a supply and confidence deal, as well as Sinn Fein have both announced they no longer have confidence in Ms O'Sullivan.

"We continue to see a list of unacceptable revelations about the operation of An Garda Siochana," Mr Kenny said.

"The Government believes that the level of public concern is now so profound that it's now time to conduct a thorough, comprehensive and independent, root-and-branch review of An Garda Siochana."

Exact details of the imminent shake-up of the force are to be decided by the Government next week.

In the meantime, an external inquiry is being set up into the erroneous garda statistics and prosecutions.

The Garda Commissioner has been called before a parliamentary committee on Thursday over the affair and she is also due to meet the chairwoman of the Policing Authority, one of the force's watchdogs, over her handling of the scandal before the end of the week.

Sinn Fein deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said the bogus statistics showed there was a "rotten management culture" in the force.

"Anyone who thinks the dysfunctional culture in An Garda Siochana will change while the current commissioner remains is, frankly, living in cloud cuckoo land," she said.

"The game is up. This is an absolute mess."

In a statement, the Policing Authority vented its disappointment at not being told "in a timely manner" that an internal audit into the breath test debacle had been launched.

"Despite questioning over several months, the authority has not yet been provided with the full internal reports or indeed a clear sense of how these matters have been handled to date within the Garda Siochana or the status and content of the audits which have been undertaken," it said.

It has demanded a copy of all existing reports, including audits and current investigations.

"The importance of supplying this additional information in a timely manner was emphasised to the Garda Commissioner," the authority said.
The remains of an Irish woman who was sexually assaulted before being murdered in India have been returned to her grief-stricken family.

Yesterday evening a hearse brought the body of Danielle McLaughlin from Dublin to the Donegal seaside town of Buncrana where she grew up and where her mother Andrea, sisters and friends were waiting.

It followed the conclusion of a second post-mortem, carried out in Dublin at the family's request to compare with one performed in India following the discovery of her body in Canacona in the tourist destination of Goa. Requiem Mass for Ms McLaughlin will take place at St Mary's Church, Cockhill, at 11am on Thursday.

Her family have endured a long and difficult wait to get Danielle's body home after the horrific news of her death reached them on March 14.

Sinn Fein Senator Padraigh McLoughlin, who has been working closely with the family and the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust to bring Ms McLaughlin back from India, said the relief felt by her family was huge.

He said: "This has been such a horrendous time for Andrea and the girls but at last she has Danielle home, which will give them all time to say their final goodbyes before the town gathers on Thursday for her funeral.

"The family have been overwhelmed with grief and have struggled with the long wait to have her home, which was made possible by the incredible work done by the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust."

A candlelit vigil last week in Buncrana drew hundreds of people together to pay tribute and to call for justice.

One man is in custody in India over the 28-year-old's murder.
The injuries are not thought to be life-threatening

Two inmates have been taken to hospital after a stabbing incident at Mountjoy Prison.

A 29-year-old prisoner suffered head injuries in the attack, while a second man, thought to be in his 30s, was stabbed in the abdomen.

Both have been taken to the nearby Mater Hospital where their conditions have been described as non-life-threatening.

Authorities are investigating whether the attack is linked to the gangland Kinahan-Hutch feud.

The incident happened in the prison's A division, which houses "general population" inmates, the Prison Service said.

Gardai have been called to the scene and are expected to launch an investigation.

The attack, involving an as yet undetermined weapon, happened at around 10.30am on Tuesday morning.

It is believed one inmate attacked another, and went on to attack a second inmate who had come to the initial victim's aid.

Authorities have yet to determine the exact number of people involved in the disorder.

A Prison Service spokesman said: "Two prisoners were injured in an incident at Mountjoy Prison this morning.

"The prisoners are receiving medical attention for their injuries, which are serious but not life-threatening.

"The matter is being investigated by the Irish Prison Service and An Garda Siochana."
The Duchess of Cambridge has been asked to visit Luxembourg events by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The Duchess of Cambridge has joked with parents that she will see them "at the school gates" when Prince George starts his education in September.

Kate was chatting to guests at the 2017 Portrait Gala in the National Portrait Gallery in London when the subject of George's school came up.

It was announced last week that the young prince will attend Thomas's Battersea School from September.

As she toured around the gallery on Tuesday evening, Kate met parents from the school and told them she may see them there in future, adding: "I'm not sure George has any idea what's going to hit him."

She spoke with Richard Found, who runs an architecture and design practice, and his wife Jane Suitor, an art consultant and collector.

Before moving on, Kate said: "I may see you at the school gates."

Day fees cost 6,110, according to last year's Tatler Schools Guide.

George will be four years old when he starts at the private co-educational day school, which proudly states its most important rule is to "be kind".

Kate viewed the latest exhibitions and met guests at the gala, before having dinner at the London attraction.

The Duchess, who has been patron of the gallery since 2012, dazzled in a full length, lace green gown by Temperley, and hailed the "amazing" work on display.

She wore her hair loose and carried a gold sparkly clutch, finishing off her look with glittering drop earrings.

Among those she met as she made her way through the gallery were fashion designer Erdem and fashionista Alexa Chung who is chair of the 2017 gala committee.

She viewed two exhibitions - Howard Hodgkin: Absent Friends, and Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun: Behind The Mask, Another Mask.

To help raise funds, a range of artwork has been especially created, including 10 masks by the likes of Dame Vivienne Westwood and Philip Treacy, and 100 postcard-sized works of art for a mystery portrait postcard sale.

Kate had the chance to view both of these collections during the evening and said of the postcards: "Well, they're all amazing."

This is the second gala that Kate has attended and, as in previous years, the funds raised will support the National Portrait Gallery's work in delivering exhibitions and displays, offering learning opportunities and undertaking research.

The 2017 gala is fundraising for Coming Home, a project that will make it possible for portraits of people to return to places that are special to them for a loan period of over three years.

Coming Home will enable sitters such as Sir Walter Raleigh to return to Dorset, the Bronte sisters to Yorkshire and David Beckham to Essex.

Earlier on Tuesday, it was announced that Kate will visit Luxembourg to attend commemorations marking the 150th anniversary of a treaty that confirmed the country's independence and neutrality.

She will travel to the country on May 11 to attend events celebrating the 1867 Treaty of London, at the request of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The visit is likely to be interpreted as another trip being made by a member of the Royal Family in their role as "Brexit Ambassadors", as they have been dubbed by the press.
The mother of Westminster terrorist Khalid Masood has said she is "deeply shocked, saddened and numbed" by the actions of her son.

Janet Ajao said she did not condone the attack or the beliefs which had led Masood to commit the "atrocity".

In a statement released through the Metropolitan Police, she said: "I am so deeply shocked, saddened and numbed by the actions my son has taken that have killed and injured innocent people in Westminster.

"Since discovering that it was my son that was responsible I have shed many tears for the people caught up in this horrendous incident.

"I wish to make it absolutely clear, so there can be no doubt, I do not condone his actions nor support the beliefs he held that led to him committing this atrocity.

"I wish to thank my friends, family and community from the bottom of my heart for the love and support given to us."

Muslim convert Masood killed four people in an 82-second rampage in Westminster on Wednesday.

He was shot dead by armed police after fatally knifing PC Keith Palmer in the Palace of Westminster's cobbled forecourt.

Scotland Yard said it had found "no evidence" Masood was linked to Islamic State or al Qaida but said he "clearly" had an interest in jihad.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack and called Masood "a soldier of the Islamic State".

But the announcement was greeted with scepticism by commentators who noted the terror group has a record of opportunistically claiming attacks.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, the senior national coordinator for UK counter-terrorism policing, said: "His attack method appears to be based on low sophistication, low tech, low cost techniques copied from other attacks, and echo the rhetoric of IS (Islamic State) leaders in terms of methodology and attacking police and civilians, but at this stage I have no evidence he discussed this with others.

"There is no evidence that Masood was radicalised in prison in 2003, as has been suggested; this is pure speculation at this time.

"Whilst I have found no evidence of an association with IS or AQ (al Qaida), there is clearly an interest in jihad."

Masood was born as Adrian Russell Elms in Dartford on Christmas Day 1964.

His mother Janet Elms is believed to have married Phillip Ajao in 1966 and the killer used Adrian Russell Ajao as one of his many identities over the years.

He changed his name to Khalid Masood in 2005, Scotland Yard said. Reports have claimed that Masood's phone connected with encrypted messaging app WhatsApp just before the atrocity, sparking debate over authorities' capacity to intercept suspects' communications.

WhatsApp has said it is "co-operating with law enforcement as they continue their investigations."

Earlier, the family of an American tourist who was killed in the attack said they bear no ill-will over the incident.

Kurt and Melissa Cochran, who are from Utah, were on the final day of a trip to London to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary when they were mown down on Westminster Bridge by a car that was driven by Masood.

Mr Cochran (54) was killed and his 46-year-old wife was hospitalised with a broken leg, rib and cut head.

Speaking at Scotland Yard, Mrs Cochran's sister-in-law Shantell Payne said it was "awful, horrible, (and) gut-wrenching" that the attack was carried out in the name of religion. Sara McFarland, Mrs Cochran's sister, said: "Last night we were speaking as a family about this and it was deeply unanimous that none of us harbour any ill-will or harsh feelings towards this."
The wife of Royal Marine Alexander Blackman, who fatally shot an injured Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, has spoken of her joy at the prospect of him coming home in a few weeks.

Claire Blackman said she was "overjoyed" after judges sentenced her husband to seven years for diminished responsibility manslaughter - meaning that because of time already served he could be freed next month.

Surrounded by scores of veterans outside the Court Martial Appeal Court in London, she said: "We are overjoyed at the judges' decision to significantly reduce Al's sentence, such that he can be released imminently.

"This is the moment that we have all been fighting hard for. It is hard to believe that this day is finally here."

A panel of five judges, headed by Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas, sentenced Blackman, 42, from Taunton in Somerset, to the term of seven years following the recent quashing of his murder conviction for the 2011 killing.

Announcing the decision, Lord Thomas said: "As with any person sentenced to a determinate term, his release will ordinarily be at the halfway point of the sentence."

Blackman, who watched Tuesday's proceedings via video link, has already spent almost three-and-a-half years in prison following his original conviction in November 2013 after the death of the insurgent.

Expand Close Supporters of Alexander Blackman celebrate outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London as the Royal Marine could be freed from prison within weeks after the Court Martial Appeal Court sentenced him to seven years for the manslaughter of an injured Taliban fighter in Afghanistan. PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Supporters of Alexander Blackman celebrate outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London as the Royal Marine could be freed from prison within weeks after the Court Martial Appeal Court sentenced him to seven years for the manslaughter of an injured Taliban fighter in Afghanistan.

One of Blackman's legal team indicated he would probably be released in about two weeks, but the decision on the exact date was for the Prison Service to determine.

The Court Martial Appeal Court ruled previously that Blackman was suffering from an "abnormality of mental functioning" at the time of the 2011 killing when he was serving with Plymouth-based 42 Commando.

The court found the incident was not a "cold-blooded execution" as a court martial had earlier concluded, but the result of a mental illness, an "adjustment disorder".

The judges said Blackman had been "an exemplary soldier before his deployment to Afghanistan in March 2011", but had "suffered from quite exceptional stressors" during that deployment.

They found his ability to "form a rational judgment" was "substantially impaired".

Blackman shot the insurgent, who had been seriously injured in an attack by an Apache helicopter, in the chest at close range with a 9mm pistol before quoting a phrase from Shakespeare as the man convulsed and died in front of him.

Expand Close Claire Blackman, the wife of Alexander Blackman, outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London as the Royal Marine could be freed from prison within weeks after the Court Martial Appeal Court sentenced him to seven years for the manslaughter of an injured Taliban fighter in Afghanistan. PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Claire Blackman, the wife of Alexander Blackman, outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London as the Royal Marine could be freed from prison within weeks after the Court Martial Appeal Court sentenced him to seven years for the manslaughter of an injured Taliban fighter in Afghanistan.

The judges said in their sentencing remarks that "this was a deliberate killing of a wounded man".

Although Blackman's responsibility was diminished, he "still retained a substantial responsibility for the deliberate killing".

They listed a number of "aggravating" factors, including "the effect of the appellant's actions on the reputation and safety of HM Armed Forces".

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Whatsapp Supporters of former British soldier Alexander Blackman, Marine A, react outside the The Royal Courts of Justice in London on March 28, 2017, after learning the result of his sentence.

They said: "There can be no doubt that the way in which the appellant acted, knowingly in contravention of the Geneva Conventions, in deliberately killing by shooting an injured insurgent in the circumstances recorded on the video clips ... has had a material adverse effect on the views many hold about the conduct of HM Armed Forces.

"The appellant's actions can be used by the insurgency and others as evidence that the killing of the insurgent was in breach of the values proclaimed for which the International Security Force and HM Armed Forces had been sent to Afghanistan."

Turning to the mitigating factors, these included "the appellant's outstanding service record, together with the very impressive statements that have been placed before us attesting to acts of conspicuous bravery".

Expand Close Supporters of former British soldier Alexander Blackman, Marine A, react outside the The Royal Courts of Justice in London on March 28, 2017, after learning the result of his sentence. AFP/Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Supporters of former British soldier Alexander Blackman, Marine A, react outside the The Royal Courts of Justice in London on March 28, 2017, after learning the result of his sentence.

The judges also concluded that Blackman should be dismissed from the service, but not with disgrace.

They said: "We were told by the appellant's wife that the cruellest punishment that the appellant had considered he had suffered was the dismissal with disgrace.

"That punishment has fallen away. In the light of the appellant's outstanding service prior to the killing of the insurgent and the finding we have made of diminished responsibility, we accept the submission that there should be no question of dismissal with disgrace."

The court said the conviction for the offence of manslaughter "remains a very serious matter".

The judges added: "It is inevitable that his continuation in service is out of the question not only because of the length of the inevitable custodial sentence but also because of the severe damage to the reputation of HM Armed Forces..."

During a hearing last week, Mrs Blackman, giving evidence on her husband's behalf, said if he could find a role within the Royal Marines it would be a "real positive" for him.

If not, they had already received "numerous offers" of employment for him.
Brexit Secretary David Davis has said Northern Ireland could rejoin the EU as part of a united Ireland

If Northern Ireland opts for reunification it would have the ability to join the European Union as part of the Republic after Brexit, a ministerial letter has indicated.

Unlike Scotland, which has been told it could be forced to join a queue for membership of the bloc if the country votes for independence, the province would not have to reapply for EU membership, as the Republic is already one of the existing member states.

According to The Times in a letter to an SDLP MP, David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, wrote: If a majority of the people of Northern Ireland were ever to vote to become part of a united Ireland the UK Government will honour its commitment to enable that to happen.

He added: In that event, Northern Ireland would be in a position of becoming part of an existing EU member state, rather than seeking to join the EU as a new independent state.

But he said there was no appetite for another round of devolved assembly elections, adding there was still a narrow wind of a short few weeks in which a government could be formed. In the meantime, the provinces civil servants are preparing to take over the budget and allocation of resources to public services.

We are rapidly approaching the point at which Northern Ireland will not have an agreed budget, he added. This is not sustainable.

Under the rule of power sharing if the deadlock is not broken and new elections results are inconclusive the UK Government would be expected to take Northern Ireland back under direct rule. But this move would likely require emergency legislation at Westminster and looks unlikely at this stage at least.

Mr Brokenshire is expected to make a further statement in the Commons on Tuesday, outlining details of how the UK Government intends to foster an agreement to save power sharing at Stormont.
Tycoon Fergus Wilson faced a backlash after banning 'coloured' tenants from renting his homes saying they make them smell of curry but denied being racist

A property tycoon who banned "coloured" tenants from renting his homes because he claims they make them smell of curry faces the prospect of legal action.

Fergus Wilson, 69, insisted he was not racist and that it was an "economic decision" made after he was left thousands of pounds out of pocket from ridding a home of curry smells.

Mr Wilson, long regarded as Britain's biggest buy-to-let investor with hundreds of properties in Kent, faced a backlash after an email surfaced setting out his ban to a letting agent.

The email, leaked to The Sun newspaper, listed his requirements for potential tenants, including: "No coloured people because of the curry smell at the end of the tenancy."

Now the Equality and Human Rights Commission has pledged to investigate and ask Mr Wilson to explain his actions amid comparisons to the "Alf Garnett era" of 1960s Britain.

Its chief executive Rebecca Hilsenrath described Mr Wilson's remarks as "truly disgusting" and added: "Unless we are satisfied that he will not commit unlawful acts in the future we will take legal action."

But Mr Wilson was defiant. He said he "probably must have" sent the email, and that he would send it again to avoid being saddled with the cost of removing curry smells from one of his homes.

He said: "The problem is the smell gets in the carpets, particularly the bloody carpets. It's the cost of re-carpeting, which in a decent detached house can be rather expensive.

"So all your profits for maybe a year or more is now going on new carpets."

He added: "If that makes me racist, that makes 99% of people who buy houses racist.

"How many white people are going to go into a house that smells of curry and are going to buy the house? They are just going to walk away like me and not make an offer."

Mr Wilson, who has also banned plumbers from renting his homes after claiming he had been ripped off in the past, said he was happy to rent to "negros" as "they haven't generated a curry smell at the end of the tenancy".

But he was "wary" of letting to Indians after losing more than 12,000 in rent and re-carpeting costs over a six-month period because one of his properties smelled of curry.

Mr Wilson added: "I have taken an economic view, not a racist view. And I'm saying I believe 99% of other British people would do precisely the same."

In a competitive housing market where demand for rental properties outstrips supply, Mr Wilson said: "There are more people that want the properties, so why have the headache of this afterwards?"

He added it was difficult to recoup the cost of ridding a property of curry smells.

He said: "The other thing is when you start pursuing people through the courts, the judge will say to you, 'Right, where's the photograph?'

"You can't take a photograph of a smell, can you?" Mr Wilson said.

The Hope Not Hate group said Mr Wilson should face legal action.

A Hope Not Hate spokesman said: "You simply cannot treat people like this and deny them a place to live due to their skin colour.

"This is the unacceptable face of the housing crisis. There is something broken in the system when such a powerful figure can get away with such an appalling policy.

"Fergus Wilson's comments would seem laughably offensive, a throwback to the Alf Garnett era, if they weren't so serious in their implication."
Hitler almost died from a cocaine overdose during the last days of the Second World War, a controversial new book has claimed.

German author Norman Ohler said that the Nazi leader almost stopped breathing after receiving an injection of the drug through his nose in September 1944.

His book, Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich, will be released in paperback this month.

It claims Hitler suffered a burst eardrum after a failed military plot to assassinate him inside his Wolfs Lair headquarters in what is now Poland in July 1944.

In order to alleviate the pain he got his personal physician, Dr Theodor Morell, to give him cocaine injections  despite the Nazis publicly denouncing the drug as a symptom of moral decay.

One account, written by his assistant physician Dr Erwin Giesing, said that he administered the drug to Hitler at least 50 times between July and September in the form of nose and throat dabs.

But after becoming concerned that the dictator was becoming dependent and it was affecting his decision making, on 1 October, it said Dr Morell refused to give him anymore until he had a full medical check up.

During the examination Hitler is reported to have said: Look in my nose again and put that cocaine thing in to get rid of the pressure in my head. I have important things to do today.

The subsequent dose was then apparently so strong Hitler lost consciousness and was briefly at risk of respiratory paralysis.

In an extract of the book published by Vice News, Mr Ohler wrote that this if this was true, it meant that "the self-described abstainer almost died of an overdose.

Published in Germany last year, the book has drawn criticism from some historians who said it was crass and overstated its central argument that the Nazis drugged the German public into compliance using a type of methamphetamine (crystal meth) called Pervitin.

A review by Cambridge historian, Professor Richard J Evans, said the claims implied the German people were not really responsible for the atrocities committed by the Nazis.

He rejected the notion that Hitler was in a state of chemically induced confidence which made him less likely to listen to generals advocating tactical withdrawals on several fronts when the war went against them.

Professor Evans also dismissed the idea that the euphoria brought on by the drug, fuelled his genocidal aggression which led to the mass extermination of Jewish people and vulnerable minorities in the death camps.

Mr Ohler does state the drugs did not exonerate Hitler from his decisions and he concluded that the Nazi leader was anything but insane.

But Professor Evans said the book read too much like a revisionist account of Nazi history.

Similarly Birbeck College Professor Nikolaus Wachsmann, in a review for the Financial Times, said that Mr Ohler, a former journalist and novelist, had sexed up his research and it was not true that the German public had easy access to drugs.

But one of the worlds leading experts on the Third Reich, Professor Sir Ian Kershaw, said the book was "a serious work of scholarship".
Canada would the largest developed country to completely legalise the drug

Canadians are expected to be able to smoke cannabis legally by July 1 2018.

Prime minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government will introduce legislation to legalise recreational cannabis on the week of April 10, and officials expect it to be law by July next year, an official said.

Mr Trudeau has long promised to legalise recreational cannabis use and sales.

Canada would be the largest developed country to end a nationwide prohibition of recreational cannabis.

In the US, voters in California, Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada voted last year to approve the recreational use of the drug, joining Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska.

Uruguay in South America is the only nation to have legalised recreational cannabis.

Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould declined to confirm the dates provided by the official, but said in a statement the government is committed to introducing legislation this spring that would "legalise, strictly regulate, and restrict access to cannabis".

"This will be done in a careful way to keep it out of the hands of children and youth, and to stop criminals from profiting," the statement said.

"In order to meet our commitment to legalise, the legislation will need to pass through the parliamentary process in a timely fashion."

The news was noticed online by Snoop Dogg , who tweeted "Oh Canada!"

The Canadian government is expected to follow the advice of a marijuana task force headed by former Liberal Health Minister Anne McLellan as well as the advice of former Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, who is the parliamentary secretary to the justice minister.

Mr Blair has been visiting police departments across the country.

The task force recommended adults be allowed to carry up to 30g of cannabis for recreational purpose and grow up to four plants.

It also recommended that higher-potency cannabis be taxed at a higher rate than weaker strains. It also said recreational marijuana should not be sold in the same location as alcohol or tobacco. Under the task force proposals, alcohol-free cannabis lounges would be allowed.

The panel's report noted public health experts tend to favour a minimum age of 21 as the brain continues to develop to about 25, but said setting the minimum age too high would preserve the illicit market.

Canadian youth have higher rates of cannabis use than their peers worldwide.

While the government moves to legalise cannabis, retail outlets selling cannabis for recreational use have already been set up. Mr Trudeau has emphasised current laws should be respected. Police in Toronto, Vancouver and other cities raided stores earlier this month and made arrests.

AP
Secretary of State James Brokenshire has few options as he picks through the debris of the talks

The widely anticipated failure of the post-election negotiations has come to pass and, predictably, the blame game is well under way.

As parties engage in mutual recrimination and, in some cases, point an accusing finger at either or both the UK and Irish Governments as failing to lend clarity, purpose and leadership at the talks, the atmosphere will further deteriorate.

The change in mood and tone that attended Martin McGuinness's funeral has proven to be short-lived and decidedly personal in its scope. It did not spill over into the final days of discussions as the red lines of the parties became increasingly indelible.

Whether the presence of a fully healthy former Deputy First Minister would have made a difference is unknowable, though it seems unlikely if not improbable. It was Mr McGuinness who pulled the plug on devolution and now the Sinn Fein leadership have walked away from the talks on terms set down by their former chief negotiator. So, we are now even more firmly locked into a situation where irresistible forces meet immovable objects.

The options now available lie most immediately in the hands of Secretary of State James Brokenshire, whose legitimacy as chair of the talks was never accepted by either Sinn Fein or the SDLP. And, it has to be said, Mr Brokenshire has failed his first serious test as Secretary of State.

By common consent among the parties, the structures adopted during the negotiations were ill-suited to the task and primary responsibility for that must lie at the door of the UK Government, though its Irish partner emerges from this impasse with little credit.

That said, the five largest parties are not, of course, guiltless. Our model of government rests firmly on the principle and practice of accommodation, expressed through our power-sharing institutions. But accommodation was evidently not the moving spirit of the talks.

Can that spirit be rekindled? To pose the question is to answer it: it has to be, or devolution for the foreseeable future will be as inert as Monty Python's parrot.

And some may, perhaps justifiably, ask whether the current Sinn Fein leadership actually want devolution to be restored. I think they do, not least because they need to demonstrate to the southern electorate that they can be reliable, effective and efficient partners in government.

But what of the short-run? What are the options available to Mr Brokenshire as he picks through the debris of the talks? There are few.

The first, as provided for in legislation, is to call another Assembly election, probably in early May. This is an unappealing prospect. The existential threat to unionism produced by our recent election may well forge a concerted pact between the DUP and the UUP - "vote unionist down the ticket" - designed to maximise their combined vote and seat count.

On the other hand, buoyed by its electoral surge and, perhaps, calculating some electoral benefit from Mr McGuinness's demise, Sinn Fein will be confident that it can thereby advance its insistent calls for Irish unity via a border poll.

In short, the scene would be set for an even more brutish contest than the one we have just witnessed. It would put Sinn Fein very much on the offensive and the DUP and UUP very much at bay.

More broadly, for nationalism a new election holds relatively few risks, whereas for unionism they are immense. Such a prospect, if it was to materialise, confronts the incoming leader of the UUP Robin Swann with a clear strategic choice.

Does he take the first steps towards unionist unity, or seek to fashion a new kind of unionism distinctively different from the DUP and one that remedies the lack of coherence that characterised his predecessor's term in office? In a context that invites a binary choice for electors - the Union or unity - the smaller parties will find it difficult, though not impossible, to articulate their cases.

The SDLP's creditable electoral performance in holding onto its dozen seats did, however, also witness its worst-ever vote share, while the Alliance Party, which saw its total vote increase by 50%, has yet to extend its electoral reach beyond greater Belfast.

There were some green shoots, true, but it is extremely unlikely that they would mature into a harvest of seats in the very short-run.

At this juncture, with the atmosphere so sour, I think the Secretary of State would be ill-advised to set another election: the political risks are too high.

That leads to the second option: extend the period for a further round of talks, with perhaps an independent chair, though the latter is no guarantee of success, as the Haass episode demonstrated. Indeed, would the Trump White House wish to enter the fray? More, would we be content to see a Trump emissary take up the role? This, surely, is a rhetorical question. But if the talks are to be extended, whoever chairs them, could they yield an agreed outcome?

Herein lies the key. It depends entirely on the readiness of the parties - primarily the DUP and Sinn Fein - to engage in pragmatism, not obduracy. But how pragmatic can they be when both seem to have boxed themselves in?

Whereas politics should be a positive-sum activity, it has deteriorated to a zero-sum stasis: if "they" win, "we" lose. If that condition prevails for the immediate future then a further round of negotiations would be an idle undertaking.

That leaves Mr Brokenshire with the third option, namely the restoration of direct rule, unless there is direct intervention by Enda Kenny and Theresa May, each prepared to engage in a diplomatic version of knocking our politicians' heads together.

To date Mrs May has demonstrated a clear hands-off approach to the politics of Northern Ireland, notwithstanding the baleful consequences of Brexit for the island of Ireland. Short of a Pauline conversion on her part, direct rule beckons - even though it is an unappetising prospect for Number 10, whose collective hands are already full and likely to come under increasing pressure following the triggering of Article 50 tomorrow.

If direct rule is reintroduced, will it take on a greener hue, a la the joint stewardship essayed by Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern in 2006? I think not. The slender working majority enjoyed by the UK Government means that the eight DUP MPs, all Brexiteers, exert a disproportionate influence in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister is loath to anger them as the terms of our departure from the EU are negotiated, because she needs all the support she can muster.

So, it looks like orthodox direct rule, not joint authority, nor even joint stewardship. It means an expanded team of British ministers in the NIO, who will set our budget, devise some sort of Programme for Government and perhaps exert some forms of fiscal discipline that a devolved Executive would not readily entertain.

Access to those ministers will not be as readily available to wider civic society and the level of accountability for their actions will be severely depleted, channelled through one select committee at Westminster rather than nine statutory committees and half-a-dozen standing committees at Stormont.

Direct rule is a blunt and diminished form of governance, which will be found increasingly wanting as the Brexit process unfolds. To avoid it means that some parties will need to blink first.

Dr Rick Wilford is Professor of Politics at the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, Queen's University, Belfast
Alderman Chris McGimpsey is an old friend of mine whom I value for many reasons, including his thorough decency, his passionate desire to help people at the bottom of the heap, his complete lack of any kind of sectarianism and his black humour.

"Martin McGuinness was buried today," he wrote on Facebook. "He is survived by his wife, four children and hundreds of widows."

I cheered that, for I shared his concern for the suffering the eulogising of McGuinness would cause victims of that pitiless serial killer and - like him - thought the least we could all do was remind people of the truth.

But I was rather concerned about the implicit criticism of unionists who attended the funeral that was evident in some of the posts that followed from, for instance, Aileen Quinton, a fine woman who has spent 30 years fighting for justice for her mother Alberta, slaughtered on Remembrance Day 1987 in Enniskillen.

I know it's been a sickening week, but I would just say to anyone angry with Arlene Foster and other elected unionist politicians for attending that event - if you've ever voted for a party committed to sharing power with Sinn Fein, you have to accept that this was bound to involve many upsetting compromises.

I can't imagine how hard it was for Mrs Foster to go to Derry last week with the image of her badly injured father in her memory along with so many other terrible events she witnessed in her Fermanagh childhood and listen to sickening praise from the likes of the cynical Bill Clinton and the naive Reverend David Latimer, but she's a professional politician and she did her duty.

And she did it with grace - as when she grasped the outstretched hand of Michelle O'Neill, who only a few weeks ago eulogised four young men who had died trying to murder for Ireland.

There were many people who were no fans of Mrs Foster who felt that she had redeemed recent clumsinesses in dealing with nationalists and had managed to set the negotiations back on track.

But they had been over-sentimentalising McGuinness and reckoning without the hidden agenda of Gerry Adams.

President Clinton told the gathering that "our friend earned... the right to ask us to honour his legacy by our living", and the Rev Latimer said he had "finished well (and) has offered us a basis for continuing to build a foundation that is going to help this little fragile peace process of ours if we pay attention to the way he did things and the way he conducted himself as a politician".

They seemed to have forgotten that McGuinness always put party before anything else.

His last act had been to pull down the Stormont Executive on a pretext that suited Mr Adams, who clearly has been determined over the past few weeks to wreck any attempt to put the Executive back together in the foreseeable future. My guess is that he was very annoyed that Mrs Foster attended the funeral and took Mrs O'Neill's hand, since this made it more difficult to represent the DUP as being in the wrong.

Adams is never happier than in a crisis.

His mind is now on Brexit, Brexit, Brexit, and how he can use it to Sinn Fein's electoral advantage in the Republic by stoking up Anglophobia, staging angry border protests and forcing direct confrontations with the British Government.

He chose his words deliberately in that oration at McGuinness's graveside, to perform the twin tasks of feeding the prejudices of hardline republicans while simultaneously infuriating unionists.

Having described McGuinness as a freedom fighter, he instructed his audience: "Stand against bigotry. Against sectarianism. But respect our unionist neighbours."

I read that paragraph over the phone to a unionist friend who has carried many coffins of people murdered by the IRA.

"The b******," he said, instantly recognising that Mr Adams had carefully framed it to indicate that only unionists were sectarian and bigoted.

This is no time for good people to fall out with each other.

If, as it seems, Mr Adams is hell-bent on destruction, those who want politics to work in Northern Ireland should make sure he gets the blame.
Disclosure note: I provided an expert report in this now-dismissed case, so you might consider my comments to be advocacy. Ill explain my expert role in a bit.

The Court Opinion

Susan Larsen practices business law in the Denver, Colorado metro area under the name Larsen Law Offices. She claims shes been using the name since 2003, though she did not register the name as a trademark (and would need to address the obvious secondary meaning issues to do so). David Larson practices estate planning law (and more) in the Denver metro area as well. In 2013, Larson set up a website at the domain name davidlarsonlawoffice.com, and he used the domain name larsonlawoffice.com starting in 2016. In 2016, Larsen sued Larson for trademark infringement, ACPA and more. After the complaint, Larsons website removed references to Larson Law Offices, adopting the name David M. Larson, PLLC. Larson partially moved to dismiss.

Cybersquatting. The court says Plaintiff does not allege that Mr. Larson had actual knowledge of Larsen Law Offices existence in 2013, or that he has ever conducted a Google search that returned plaintiffs name. Further (cites omitted):

davidlarsonlawoffice.com and larsonlawoffice.com both consist of a descriptive component (law office) and Mr. Larsons name. And Mr. Larson has apparently used these marks for years in connection with his legitimate business. Plaintiff does not allege, for example, that Mr. Larson has offered to sell these websites to plaintiff for profit or that he falsified registration information in obtaining the domain names.

The court grants the motion to dismiss the ACPA claim.

Protective order. Larson sought a protective order against discovery into his financial affairs. In theory, such information would be relevant to damages. The judge isnt willing to allow it (cites omitted):

I am not going to let plaintiff go digging in the books of what plaintiff asserts is a competitor when its case is hanging by a thread. Plaintiff has already obtained most of the relief it seeks: Mr. Larson has changed his businesss name and removed all potentially infringing language from his websites. But plaintiff forges ahead simply because defendants continue to use the websites davidlarsonlawoffice.com and larsonlawoffice.com. The former domain name uses Mr. David Larsons first and last name, casting doubt on the claim that this website could be confused with the site for Ms. Susan Larsens firm. And plaintiff did not notice this website for the first three years of the sites existence, suggesting that Mr. Larsons legitimate business activities did not actually harm plaintiff. As for the latter domain name, plaintiffs exhibit shows that while Mr. Larson began using this website in 2016, the site has been used by others since 2001, if not earlierat least two years before Larsen Law Offices was formed. Furthermore, plaintiff uses the plural offices in its name and website despite having only one office, possibly because larsenlawoffice.com is used by yet another attorney whose last name is Larsen. Thus, plaintiff might have some issues of its own.

To sidestep the discovery request, the court bifurcates liability and damages:

I cannot say that it is completely inconceivable that plaintiff could prevail in the end. However, plaintiff is going to have to show me that defendant is liable for disgorgement of profits before his books become fair game.

The plaintiff internalized the judges doubts about the case. The parties settled a week later, the plaintiff dismissed the case, and she wrote a check to the defendant.

My Role as an Expert

Nowadays, Im careful about undertaking new outside professional activities because of my personal obligations, but I couldnt say no here. The plaintiffs trademark claim basically asserted that Larsons website appearing in search results for Larsen Law Offices created initial interest confusion. Regular readers know how I feel about the initial interest confusion doctrine (hint: I think its bullshit), and I couldnt believe that a putative trademark owner (of a dubious mark, no less) in 2017 was willing to go to court claiming that organic search results create initial interest confusion. Recall my tip to plaintiffs from yesterday: If success in your case depends on establishing initial interest confusion, DONT BRING THE CASE. So I decided I couldnt watch this case from the sidelines.

To support the initial interest confusion claim, the plaintiff procured an expert report from a technologist, Peter Kent. Read his report. I was asked to prepare a report rebutting Kents report (rather than prepare my own standalone expert report). Read my rebuttal report. As you know, expert reports become publicly available relatively rarely, but both reports were filed in PACER without redactions, so Im sharing them here. As much as was possible within the scope of a rebuttal report, my expert report lays out some of my latest thinking about the initial interest confusion doctrine (especially as applied to organic search results), so I encourage you to take a look.

Case citation: Larsen Law Offices v. David Larson, 2017 WL 1131885 (D. Colo. Mar. 14, 2017). The complaint.
Photo issued by Northwestern Medicine of Evatar, a palm-sized recreation of the female reproductive tract which could change the future of research into gynaecological problems affecting millions of women, scientists claim. PA

A palm-sized recreation of the female reproductive tract could change the future of research into gynaecological problems affecting millions of women, scientists claim.

The cube-shaped device, called Evatar, is made with human tissue and contains 3D models of ovaries, fallopian tubes, and the womb, cervix and vagina, as well as the liver.

It is part of a larger US project aimed at producing an entire "body on a chip".

Scientists plan to use the device to investigate conditions such as endometriosis, fibroids, reproductive organ cancers, and infertility.

Dr Teresa Woodruff, director of the Women's Health Research Institute at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in the US, where Evatar was developed, said: "This is nothing short of a revolutionary technology.

"This will help us develop individualised treatments and see how females may metabolise drugs differently from males."

The device has a "circulation" consisting of artificial blood that is pumped around its different compartments.

Organ models communicate with one another using hormones and other secreted substances to mimic the way they work together in the body.

A liver model is included because it is the liver that processes and breaks down drugs.

The device is designed to identify effective and ineffective drugs early in the process of medicine development, thereby cutting costs.

A key element of the technology is the "universal medium" that takes the place of blood, said the researchers writing in the journal Nature Communications.

"One of the reasons this technology has not advanced in the past is no one had solved the universal media problem," Dr Woodruff said.

"We reasoned that organs in the body are in one medium - the blood - so we created a simple version of the blood and allowed the tissues to communicate via the medium."

The team used ovarian tissue taken from laboratory mice because healthy ovaries are never removed from women unless in exceptional circumstances. Other tissues were human-derived.

Dr Channa Jayasena, consultant in reproductive endocrinology at Imperial College London, said: "The results are exciting and represent an important innovation.

"However, we must remember that the rodent and human reproductive systems have important differences."

Professor Jan Brosens, from the University of Warwick, said: "This is genuinely a remarkable technical achievement that - for the first time - enables integrated analysis of reproductive hormones on different target tissues in a dynamic system.

"I am entirely confident that this novel technology represents a step-change in our ability to pinpoint defects that cause infertility and early pregnancy loss.

"However, it is not a system that can recapitulate all the specialised functions of the reproductive tract or replace IVF."
Boris Johnson says he is furious over internet giants' failure to remove extremist material

Encrypted messaging services like WhatsApp should build back doors into their systems so intelligence agencies can read suspected terrorists' messages during investigations, the Home Secretary has said.

Amber Rudd said she supports end-to-end encryption, offered by the likes of WhatsApp, but said security services must be able to eavesdrop on messages when they have a warrant.

It comes amid reports that Westminster terrorist Khalid Masood used WhatsApp seconds before launching Wednesday's attack, but agencies are unable to see what was communicated.

Ms Rudd also insisted the likes of Google, which runs the social video sharing platform YouTube, and smaller sites such as WordPress must realise that they are now publishing - rather than technology - companies and take more responsibility for taking down extreme material.

The Home Secretary left the door open to changing the law if necessary.

But she said she would rather see an industry-wide board doing it independently, as the best people to take action are those who understand the technology and the "necessary hashtags".

On encrypted messaging services, she told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show: "It is completely unacceptable, there should be no place for terrorists to hide.

"We need to make sure that organisations like WhatsApp, and there are plenty of others like that, don't provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other.

"It used to be that people would steam-open envelopes or just listen in on phones when they wanted to find out what people were doing, legally, through warrantry.

"But on this situation we need to make sure that our intelligence services have the ability to get into situations like encrypted WhatsApp."

Asked if she opposed end-to-end encryption on Sky News's Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Ms Rudd said: "End-to-end encryption has a place, cyber security is really important and getting it wrong costs the economy and costs people money.

"So I support end-to-end encryption, it has its place to play.

"But we also need to have a system whereby when the police have an investigation, where the security services have put forward a warrant signed off by the Home Secretary, we can get that information when a terrorist is involved."

She denied what she was describing was incompatible with end-to-end encryption, adding: "You can have a system whereby they can build it so that we can have access to it when it is absolutely necessary."

Ms Rudd said she was calling in a "fairly long list" of relevant organisations for a meeting on the issue on Thursday, including social media platforms.

"I would rather get a situation where we get all these people around the table agreeing to do it," she told Marr.

"I know it sounds a bit like we're stepping away from legislation but we're not.

"What I'm saying is the best people - who understand the technology, who understand the necessary hashtags to stop this stuff even being put up, not just taking it down, but stopping it being put up in the first place - are going to be them."

Europol, the EU's law enforcement agency, backed Ms Rudd's call for messaging services to build back doors into end-to-end encryption.

Its director Rob Wainwright told BBC Sunday Politics: "There is no doubt that encryption, encrypted communications are becoming a more and more prominent feature in the way that terrorists communicate, more and more of a problem therefore, a real challenge for investigators.

"And at the heart of this is a stark inconsistency between the ability of the police to lawfully intercept telephone calls but not when those messages are exchanged by a social media messaging board for example.

"That's an inconsistency in society, it surely is, and we have to find a solution through the appropriate legislation, through perhaps the technology companies and law enforcement working maybe in a slightly more constructive way."

Commons Home Affairs Committee chairwoman Yvette Cooper said the Government should consider German-style laws to fine companies that fail to remove extreme material, although Ms Rudd distanced herself from the idea.

Ms Cooper told Sky News's Sophy Ridge on Sunday: "I think we're going to have to have much more pressure on them to act because I know that Amber Rudd wants to have another summit with them and another meeting with them. I'm sure that's very good.

"But David Cameron had lots and lots of meetings with them that kind of went around these issues again and again.

"I think they have to act."

Former Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner Lord Paddick branded Ms Rudd's proposals "draconian" and said they would not have saved lives in Wednesday's attack.

The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman said: "These terrorists want to destroy our freedoms and undermine our democratic society.

"By implementing draconian laws that limit our civil liberties, we would be playing into their hands.

"My understanding is there are ways security services could view the content of suspected terrorists' encrypted messages and establish who they are communicating with.

"Having the power to read everyone's text messages is neither a proportionate nor an effective response.

"The real question is, could lives have been saved in London last week if end-to-end encryption had been banned?

"All the evidence suggests that the answer is no."
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was one of the most important spiritual leaders in history, a man who was once eulogized as the spokesman for the conscience of man. Gandhi, given the title Mahatma, which is similar to the Western term, Saint, is credited with legitimizing Indias quest for freedom from the British Empire, easing the transfer of power that would later occur.

But it wasnt so much the result of Mahatma Gandhis activism that led to his reputationhe wisely embraced a strategy of non-violent civil disobedience that spiritually and politically removed the yoke of British rule from his country.

People like Gandhi, those who inspire millions and change nations, are often fonts of wisdomthey know things that most people do not, and are willing to go to lengths that others would not dream of.

We have much to learn from such people.

Fortunately, Arun Gandhis book, The Gift of Anger, distills Mahatma Gandhis wisdom down into a collection of life lessons we can all benefit from. Arun is the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, and recalls his time with the Indian leader with clarity and insight.

Lets take a look at 6 of the greatest lessons we can take from Gandhis life, as given by his own grandson.
Shutterstock.com

The world as we know it was supposed to end in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015 and now in 2017.

European outlets reported that the eclipse will plunge countries into darkness and spark the end of the world. The rumor was the Christian website Unsealed was hedging its bets that the end of the world could happen on Aug. 21 or Sept. 23. This would happen when the Western part of Europe will experience a partial eclipse while American will experience a total eclipse. This will mark the first time history that an eclipse will be seen coast to coast.



The site responded they were not predicting that the solar eclipse "Suggesting we are is ridiculous," Unsealed responded. "The solar eclipse will have no causative effect on anything. We have made mention of the total solar eclipse that will occur on that day but only as a sign of coming judgment. Our focus has always been on the following month when the Revelation 12 sign possibly occurs."

According to Revelation 12, a pregnant woman will be hunted by a satanic seven-headed dragon eager to eat her unborn child. The woman will be clothed with the "sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God and to his throne. The Scripture continues to explain that the "woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent."

Gary Ray, who writes for Unsealed, believes that the end is coming. But the pending eclipse is another astronomical sign the end is near and that the Rapture is fast approaching. He told the Washington Post that the image will be created in the sky on Sept. 23. He explained that Virgo represents the woman in Revelations 12 who will be clothed in sunlight. She will be in position over the moon and under the nine stars and three planets. Ray said that image will be created in the sky on Sept. 23.



My number one encouragement to people would be to just trust God. More importantly, to trust the right God, he reported to the publication. If people want to be ready, the one thing you can do is accept what He has offered, which is the gift of grace and forgiveness. Thats all we have to do to be ready.

An eclipse is also expected to travel across the country in 2024. With the 2017 and 2024 eclipse, this would make an "X" across the nation and "could be the starting and ending signs bookmarking a seven-year period of awful tribulations," Ray added.

All of this is speculation as Jesus said He didnt know the date or hour when the Almighty would close the final chapter on mankind. Scripture clearly states in Mathew 24:36 that no one knows when the end will be. But of that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.

Many false prophets and other false teachers said that the world was going to end and failed to deliver. In 1669, people in Russia proclaimed that the end of the world will occur within the year. These believers were so scared that they burned themselves to death to protect themselves from the Antichrist.



Meteorologist Albert Porta predicted that an enormous sunspot would destroy Earth in 1919. Let's not forget the Mayans. They predicted an asteroid or another object would destroy the earth in 2012 and would mark the end of the time period in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar that was used before the invasion of Europeans. Edgar C. Whisenant predicted the Rapture in 1988 during the month of September and wrote 88 reasons why the Rapture would happen and the Christian community embraced this as truth. Obviously, this didn't happen and he changed the dates to 1989 and 1994. Christian preacher Lester Sumrall predicted the world was coming to an end in 2000.

"Things like wars, earthquakes, famine and technology all point that we are moving toward Jesus' return."

Another website, which follows Biblical prophecy, is Signs of the End Times. They explained that they are not in the business of predicting dates of when Jesus will return, only that the signs are already here. Things like wars, earthquakes, famine and technology (implanted microchips in our bodies already have been tested by BioNyfiken in Sweden) all point that we are moving toward Jesus' return.

"The prophecy of Daniel 2 alone shows we are in the time of the end and all the other evidence proves we are in the very end times," the site reported. They indicated that the world was going to a 100 percent cashless system and how the "powers of this world are now trying to make cash obsolete, and are actively pushing pure electronic forms of payment, like PayPal and Google Wallet for instance. Take a look at the news and you will see this being reported in different countries of the world."

It is no surprise that we will continue to hear news of the world ending.



The Bible said to test the prophetic words, go to the Bible first. Test it and dont be deceived. No one will know how the world will exactly end or know the year.

If someone claims this, they are false. When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follows not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him," Deuteronomy 18:22 revealed.

Corine Gatti-Santillo is a freelance digital journalist, editor, and content producer. She is also the The Christian Post Voices Editor. She is also a former editor at Beliefnet.com.
Bozo's 1.jpg

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Mississippi District Office announced that Keith Delcambre, owner of Bozo's Grocery in Pascagoula, Miss. has been awarded the 2017 SBA Generational Family-Owned Business of the Year. (courtesy photo)

PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- When you listen to Bozo's Grocery and Grill owner Keith Delcambre talk about his business, there's no secret why they have been so wildly successful.

Popular among locals and visitors alike for mountainous fish sandwiches, bulging po-boys, massive cheeseburgers and heaping platters of spicy boiled crawfish, it is a haven for folks hankering for good food served with homemade flair.

Its fame is spreading, however, because it was recently named the 2017 Generational Family-Owned Business of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The SBA Mississippi District Office will honor Delcambre and other Small Business award winners at an awards ceremony in early May during National Small Business Week.

"It truly is an honor and I am very humbled by this award," Delcambre said.

Bozo's has been in business for 61 years according to Decalmbre, but he says he learned everything he knew from those who came before him -- his grandfather and father.

"The business began with my grandfather E.J. Delcambre and then my dad, Russell Paul Delcambre. Not many kids get to work with their mom and dad, but I did, and just the thought of that has me walking on cloud nine," he said.

Bozo's presents a unique setup as it holds a seafood market at the back of the establishment, but also provides the customer with grilled and fried options to appease the taste buds.

Brothers Keith Delcambre, left, and Paul Delcambre, right, pose inside Bozoas Seafood Market in Pascagoula on Jan. 23, 2014. (April Havens/ahavens@al.com)

"When my grandfather purchased the property, it was originally a grocery store with a meat market and he took the meat out and turned it into a seafood market," said Keith. "I took the groceries out and put in a table and grill because I wanted to do more cooking and it evolved into what you see today."

With crawfish season in full swing, Bozo's rarely can keep any in stock, but Keith said he recalled a time in the 70s where it took weeks to sell.

"My grandfather was resilient," Delcambre said. "I probably would've given it up, but he kept at it and I'm glad that he did."

It wasn't until he was 10 years old until Keith began working with his grandfather and parents. Many life lessons were learned working in the family business and even afforded him the opportunity to buy his first motorbike.

"At the end of every Saturday night, my grandfather would give me a $50 bill and a $10 bill and it was then that I learned if I worked hard and saved my money that I could have anything I wanted," Delcambre said.

Delcambre chuckled saying, "I remember calling the Honda shop every couple of days asking them if that motorbike was still in the window because I was coming to get it once I saved enough money."

When he was asked what it meant to win the SBA of the year award, Keith circled back to what he was taught by his grandfather and father and became emotional.

"They taught me everything I know and they were good people," he said. "My grandfather was a little rough and my dad was a little mild and I tried to take a little of both of their personalities and treat customers like I wanted to be treated. With 30 employees, i'm only as good as they are. I love it -- I love Bozo's."

"It's still hard to believe something like this is happening," Delcambre said. "Never in my wildest dreams did I expect this. I'm get choked up talking about it. I'm just thankful for my grandfather, grandmother, and parents."
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Author: Mars Garrett Pop culture staff writer that has been on the BoLS team since 2010. Contributor on the One of Us podcast. Marvel, Vertigo, and dystopian sci-fi fan. Enjoys bad movies, amazing stunt performances, and the internet. Hates rom-coms. (she/they)

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The apparent leader of Bangladesh militant faction Neo-JMB has been identified as one of four suspected extremists killed during a 72-hour raid by army commandos in the countrys northeast, police officials said Tuesday.

Mainul Islam (alias Musa) who took over Neo-JMB, an offshoot of Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh, was killed during the operation that began over the weekend as commandoes moved in on a militant hide-out inside a five-story apartment building in Sylhet district, police said.

Musa was an associate of Neo-JMB leader Tamim Chowdhury, a Canadian of Bangladeshi origin and suspected mastermind of an overnight siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe in Dhaka in July 2016, during which 20 hostages were killed in Bangladeshs deadliest terror attack.

Matching the photos, we assume that Musa is one of the four militants killed in the operation, but the identities of other three militants, including a woman, are yet to be determined, a counter-terrorism official told BenarNews on the condition of anonymity. Police collected DNA evidence from the militants to confirm their identities.

Officials told BenarNews that they learned of Musas role as the key organizer of Neo-JMB following the killings of leaders Chowdhury, Tanvir Quadri and Major Zahidul Islam during an anti-militant crackdown by police and security forces in the months after the cafe attack.

Apart from the militants, two police officers and four civilians were killed and about 50 others injured Saturday night when two bombs exploded among a crowd of onlookers near the building.

Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Fakhrul Ahsan told reporters that commandos killed all four militants who were holed up inside the apartment building during Operation Twilight, the code-name for the raid that began Saturday morning. He said the army ended its operation at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday and turned the building over to police to conduct their investigation.

Ahsan said the four extremists were well-trained and armed.

All of them wore suicide vests, he said, adding they planted explosives throughout the building to harm commandoes.

Police said the raid was the longest in Bangladesh history. A raid by security forces that broke the terrorist siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery lasted about 20 minutes.

Our aim was to save peoples lives. The whole situation was under our control. Our forces carried out the operation with maximum safety as the building was risky, Ahsan said.

Mainul Islam (alias Musa) [Star Mail file photo]

Operation began Thursday

Police surrounded the building early Thursday after receiving a tip about the militant den. They were joined by SWAT members and army commandos on Friday.

At one point on Friday, the extremists challenged police. A witness told BenarNews they shouted send in SWAT, why wait?

The militants had a plan to commit suicide by killing the security forces, so they urged us to send in SWAT members, Abdul Mannan, an additional deputy commissioner of the polices counter-terrorism unit, told BenarNews.

We had information that they planted bomb on a motorcycle full of petrol. If the blast occurred, the whole building would blow away.

The commandos launched the raid on Saturday while police and SWAT continued to hold their posts. Two of the militants were killed by Sunday.

Mohammad Moniruzzaman, an assistant inspector general of police, told BenarNews that officers had been tracking the militants.

Many of them had been trying to carry out some attacks, but they do not have the capability to launch big coordinated attacks, he said. The aim of such stray attacks is they want to show that they are not finished.

Safqat Munir, a fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies, said law enforcement agencies should be praised for their efforts in taking down the extremists.

But the overall situation is alarming. The area where the Atia Mahal is located is densely populated. Setting up a den at such a place is really alarming, he told BenarNews.

Since the Holey Artisan attack on July 1-2, 2016, security forces have carried out 13 raids in different parts of the country. At least 53 militants have been killed in raids, gunfights and suicide attacks since then, according to officials.
The body of the assassinated half-brother of North Koreas leader remains at a Kuala Lumpur hospital, Malaysias health minister said Tuesday as he responded to reporters questions about whether the corpse had been removed.

Minister S. Subramaniam dismissed Malaysian news reports that Kim Jong Nams body was taken away from the morgue at Kuala Lumpur Hospital (HKL) over the weekend. Kims remains have not been cremated or claimed by his next-of-kin, Subramaniam told reporters.

According to a report by the New Straits Times newspaper, his body had been taken to a local funeral parlor from the National Forensic Institute at Kuala Lumpur Hospital for a religious rite.

There has been so much speculation on the whereabouts of the body ... as far as I know, the body has always been in HKL, the health minister said.



Whether it was given to another group, the answer is no, he added.



Questions about what will happen with Kims body appear to be at the center of a bilateral row between North Korea and Malaysia that has flared since his death six weeks ago.



The dispute began when Malaysia refused to hand over his remains to North Korean officials without a post-mortem. Both countries have expelled their respective ambassadors and imposed exit bans on each others citizens.



Officials from both countries were now trying to negotiate a solution to the impasse, Subramaniam indicated. A source close to the talks, but who declined to be identified, told BenarNews that negotiations were under way in Kuala Lumpur.



Malaysia is trying to secure the release of nine Malaysian citizens, including three staffers at Kuala Lumpurs embassy in Pyongyang, who have been stuck in North Korea as a result of the exit ban.



Back on March 15, Malaysias deputy prime minister said Malaysia was looking at all possibilities, including handing over Kims body to North Korea in exchange for the release of the nine citizens in Pyongyang.



Subramaniam said Tuesday that his ministry was awaiting instructions from Malaysias Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Ministers Office.



We need to wait for the results from the discussions before we can make any decision on what to do with the body, he told reporters.



When they conclude the discussions and come to a decision, we will make an announcement, he said.



Subramaniam denied that Kims body had been cremated on Sunday, saying this could only have been done with the agreement of involved parties after the ministry had waited for Kims next-of-kin to claim the remains.



But, unfortunately, they have not come forward to provide any assistance on how the body should be treated, and now the Foreign Ministry is trying to find a solution how to move forward, Subramaniam said, referring to Kims next-of-kin.



Cops visit embassy



Kim Jong Nam, the older half-sibling of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, was fatally poisoned with a banned nerve agent while preparing to board a flight at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 on Feb. 13, according to police.



Two Southeast Asian women have been arrested and charged with his murder as co-assassins, and at least seven North Korean nationals have been identified by Malaysian police as wanted for questioning in the case. Malaysias prime minister has accused North Korean government agents of being behind the assassination.



Four of the North Korean suspects, who were spotted by a CCTV camera at the airport on the day of the assassination, fled Malaysia later on Feb. 13, police said. Three other suspects, including a second secretary at the North Korean embassy, are still believed to be hiding out there.



On Sunday, four plainclothes officers from the Malaysian polices Special Branch entered the embassys compound for the first time since the dispute began last month, according to a report by the state-run Bernama news service.



However, the report did not specify what the officers did during their three hours inside the compound. Efforts by BenarNews on Tuesday to contact officials for an explanation of the weekend visit by the Special Branch officers were unsuccessful.
Voice TV 21, a station linked to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, has had its broadcasting license suspended for a week.

Local and international journalism groups Tuesday asked Thailands national broadcast regulator to reverse the suspension of a TV license for a station linked to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra over allegations that it aired biased and seditious programs.

The Thai Journalists Association (TJA) and the Thai Broadcast Journalists Association released a joint statement detailing three objections to a National Broadcast and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) order forcing Voice TV 21 to go dark for a week.

The Thai associations said the order should not have covered all broadcasting by the station because that action hurt all station employees, not just those involved in the questionable programs. They also stated that the governments action reflected outside interference and a lack of the professional integrity, as well as violated the Thai constitutions guarantee of press freedom.

With those reasons, we two associations demand the NBTC to urgently revise the television broadcast committees decision. In the case of any programs breaking a law, they should be dealt with under regular law and not a blanket suspension of the entire organization, they said in the statement.

This issue must be addressed in the junta reconciliation forum that said any TV channel that commits a crime must be dealt with under the law, TJA President Pramas Lekpetch told BenarNews, referring to the juntas endeavor to pursue reconciliation among political parties.

International groups Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) also issued protests against the decision.

The military came to power in a coup that deposed Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra  Thaksins sister  in May 2014. He himself was ousted from office in a coup in 2006.

Since seizing power, the military government led by retired army general Prayuth Chan-o-cha has clamped down on media outlets, including those aligned with the Shinawatras. On Monday, the television broadcast committee adopted a resolution to take Voice TV 21 off the air for seven days, beginning Tuesday.

The television broadcast committee said it had received a petition from the governments media monitoring body saying the station aired biased programs about the militarys recent killing of a Lahu tribe activist and on the seizure of a cache of weapons allegedly linked to Ko Tee, an activist with the Shinawatra-aligned Red Shirts. Ko Tee, who lives in self-imposed exile in neighboring Laos, has been accused of plotting to assassinate Thai leaders.

The junta determined that four programs were biased and seditious and could cause social turbulence, the petition noted.

NBTC Commissioner Lt. Gen. Peerapong Manakij said the station faced 10 suspensions last year and two already in 2017 over its programming.

It kept repeating the same mistakes, without standard improvement.  The committee viewed the petition as valid and a majority of the committee agreed to suspend the broadcast license, Peerapong said Monday.

Station CEO Mekin Petchplai told reporters he would appeal the order or sue the NBTC.

Over time, we have been cooperative and performed our duty duly, but that is what we got. We need to protect our rights, he said, adding the stations online site remains live.

Family ties

Voice TV was established in 2003 with two of Thaksins children holding a 44 percent stake in the station. Since then, it has been seen as a mouthpiece for Thaksin, who served as prime minister from 2001 to September 2006.

Responding to the suspension, Thaksins youngest daughter, Paethongthan Shinawatra, who is not one of the major stakeholders, posted an Instagram message: Oh, dear. Just do whatever you well please.

In 2008, Thaksin, who made a fortune in Thailands telecommunications industry and stock trading, fled the country but was sentenced to two years in jail for abuse of power. He faces a series of lawsuits in Thailand and received a 17 billion baht (U.S. $494 million) tax bill over the sale of shares of a telecommunications company in 2006.

SEAPA and CPJ both condemned the governments action.

The decision demonstrates the enormous power given to the NBTC by the military regime in July 2016. Considering all previous suspensions of programs and TV anchors, the decision is a demonstration of the NBTCs control powers, SEAPA said Tuesday.

Thailands military government has consistently said it is preparing to restore democracy but it continues to censor the media in a crude, authoritarian fashion, Shawn Crispin, CPJs senior Southeast Asia representative, said in a statement issued Monday.

We call on regulators to reverse the week-long suspension of Voice TV and to stop censoring and harassing the media.
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PORTLAND, Oregon -- Thomas Elliot Stafford, the suspect in a Latimer capital murder, was arrested Saturday in Oregon, Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell said.

Stafford, 40, was taken into custody without incident about noon outside a residence in Portland. He is being held in the Multnomah County Detention Center. He waived extradition in a Portland courtroom Monday afternoon, but Ezell says it will be still several days before Stafford is returned to Mississippi.

He is due back in court Thursday for a probation violation hearing. Last September, Stafford pleaded no contest to possession of methamphetamine and sentenced to 12 months probation. On Oct. 5, a warrant for probation violation was issued, although the nature of that violation is unknown.

Stafford is accused of the murder of 65-year-old Jerry Floyd Kirkendall, with whom he shared a rental home in Latimer. Kirkendall's decomposed body was found in a freezer inside the home March 20.

Investigators located Kirkendall's 2001 Cadillac at the home of a cousin of Stafford's in Mt. Vernon, Ala. The cousin said he purchased the car from Stafford for cash and a 9mm handgun.

The U.S. Marshals Service assisted the Jackson County Sheriff's Department in the search for Stafford.
Walter, above, was among 55 dogs rescued by HSI from a South Korean dog meat farm. While the turnaround in the lives of these dogs is head-spinning, there are still so many animals caught up in the dog meat trade in Asia. Photo by Andrew Kelly/AP Images for The HSUS

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This week, we celebrated the transport of 55 dogs from South Korea to the United States, rescued just before they were splayed on a butchers block and destined for the pot. Its our seventh major rescue in South Korea, where we help transition the farmers to other professions or welcome them into retirement. While the turnaround in the lives of these dogs is head-spinning, were quick to remind people that the problem remains immense and there are still so many left behind. We have so much work to do.

That continuing problem was highlighted in an article from Joe Cochrane in Sundays New York Times, about the growing demand in Indonesia  the fourth largest country in the world by population  for dog meat.

The dog meat trade in Indonesia is unregulated and operates for the most part in breach of national and local laws focused on animal disease control, but it is thriving because more Indonesians can now afford to eat dog meat. Misconceptions about dog meat are widespread: some believe it warms the body, or increases virility. Dog meat is often regarded, mistakenly, as having medicinal properties, although all the evidence actually points to the contrary: dogs involved in the trade carry a high risk of rabies, and of transmitting the disease to humans.

Dogs are not covered by Indonesias animal cruelty law, and the way the animals caught up in this trade are slaughtered is brutal and inhumane. Cochrane describes one slaughterhouse: One by one, they are taken down a flight of steps to an open room with a concrete pig sty in the back. The dogs are beaten over the head with a wooden club, then stabbed through the throat as they lie unconscious. The blood is drained into buckets and sold to restaurants along with the meat, for cooking purposes.

Humane Society International started to combat the trade in Indonesia years ago with the support of local groups, and has now developed partnerships with local and international groups to take it on in a much more direct and powerful way.

A recent report commissioned by the Asia Canine Protection Alliance, which includes HSI, Soi Dog Foundation, and Change for Animals Foundation, found various methods of slaughter being practiced in different parts of the country, each more cruel than the other, including poisoning the dogs with potassium cyanide. The dogs in the meat market are often pet dogs or guard dogs stolen from their families.

With the HSI/ACPA report, we hope to learn more about the inner workings of the dog meat trade in Indonesia, including the origin of the dogs, methods of slaughter, consumer demographic, and demand. We also hope to identify hot spots where the trade is most prevalent. HSI local partners have met with local authorities to understand their knowledge of the trade, and their perception in addressing the many problems that exist within the trade. Very recently, HSI had a strategy meeting with relevant local stakeholders, sharing the report findings and discussing ways to address the dog meat issue on a nationwide and provincial level, while gaining political and public support for ending the trade.

More broadly, on this blog, I have shared news of the progress made by HSI in ending the dog meat trade in countries like China, Vietnam, and South Korea. Through consistent campaigning, educating, on-the-ground rescues, and by working with Chinese partners, police, and government officials, we have succeeded in bringing down significantly the number of dogs and cats slaughtered at Chinas annual Yulin dog meat festival. In Vietnam, we have worked with local groups and authorities to train them in confiscating illegal transports of dogs and caring for them, bringing that country one step closer to slowing the trade.

Besides the progress in these countries, several more areas, including Hong Kong, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Singapore, now have dog meat bans in place. But an estimated 30 million dogs are still slaughtered for meat in Asia, and our work to end the dog meat trade continues in earnest. As HSI expands around the globe, we hope to open an office in Indonesia where we are already working to stem an increase in the consumption of dog meat.

If we are asking these countries to stop the trade in dog meat, we want to be sure weve taken action here at home. Thats why we are behind legislation in Congress, from U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., who introduced H.R. 1406 with a bipartisan leadership team of Reps. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., Dave Trott, R-Mich., and Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., to ban the dog and cat meat trade in the United States.

We can only take on a multi-national campaign, where we must reach more than 1.5 billion people, with your help. We look forward to your support to keep up and increase the momentum to end the dog meat trade in Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia.
Aaron Hernandez

Shayanna Jenkins, fiancee of former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, sits in the courtroom at Hernandez's double murder trial at Suffolk Superior Court on Tuesday, March 28, 2017. Hernandez is standing trial for the July 2012 killings of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado who he encountered in a Boston nightclub. The former NFL player is already serving a life sentence in the 2013 killing of semi-professional football player Odin Lloyd. (Nancy Lane/The Boston Herald via AP, Pool)

(Nancy Lane)

BOSTON -- Shayanna Jenkins is expected to testify Wednesday in the double-homicide trial of her boyfriend, former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez.

Jenkins would have been called Tuesday, but Judge Jeffrey A. Locke opted to hold her testimony because only seven minutes remained until court adjourned.

Jenkins' account proved to be crucial in 2015 when Hernandez was convicted of murdering Odin Lloyd. Operating with immunity, Jenkins presented a generally unbelievable testimony about the removal of a box from her home the day after Lloyd's murder. Jenkins testified that she was unsure of the box's contents, and that she did not remember where she dumped it.

As the jury indicated on the afternoon of the conviction, her testimony did not help Hernandez.

On Tuesday, she watched as Hernandez's former personal assistant and childhood friend, Ryan McDonnell, took the stand.

Hernandez is accused of shooting Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in the early morning hours of July 16.

According to the testimony of Alexander Bradley, Hernandez opened fire on de Abreu and Furtado at a stoplight. Bradley claimed to have been driving Hernandez's Toyota 4Runner.

The most important part of McDonnell's testimony centered on the 4Runner, which was given to Hernandez as a promotion with a local dealership. McDonnell recalled that Hernandez had two cars in 2011-12: a black Range Rover and the Toyota 4Runner.

During the testimony, First Assistant Suffolk District Attorney Patrick Haggan asked McDonnell, "Did there become a point that you no longer saw (the 4Runner?)" McDonnell replied, "Yes."

Police recovered the 4Runner from the garage of Hernandez's uncle in June 2013 shortly after the star tight end was charged with Lloyd's murder. Authorities had been seeking a silver SUV with Rhode Island plates. The discovery of the vehicle in the garage is what first linked Hernandez to the double homicide. He was later charged.

The trial resumes Wednesday at noon, but could be cancelled for the day if jurors are sick. Judge Locke said Tuesday that several jurors were feeling under the weather.
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For Immediate Release, March 28, 2017 Contact: Randi Spivak, (310) 779-4894, rspivak@biologicaldiversity.org After EPA Chief Denies Climate Science, Trump Attacks Clean Power Plan, Ramps Up Coal WASHINGTON President Donald Trump is issuing an executive order today that takes aim at the Clean Power Plan and overturns a federal moratorium on coal leasing across tens of thousands of acres of public land  two disastrous decisions that would worsen the climate crisis, sicken and endanger people, and hurt wildlife, clean air and clean water. Trump just took his war against our climate to a terrifying new level, said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. With these massive giveaways to the fossil fuel industry, he proves that his first loyalty is to polluters, not the American public. Anyone who values wildlife, clean air and clean water will be hurt by this plan to let dirty companies pollute our climate and exploit our beautiful public lands. Trump's executive order comes after EPA administrator Scott Pruitt recently denied fundamental scientific facts about climate change. I would not agree that [carbon dioxide is] a primary contributor to the global warming that we see, Pruitt said in a CNBC interview. Part of today's order directs the EPA to review the Clean Power Plan. The administration apparently intends to rescind or water down this landmark effort to reduce planet-warming pollution from coal-fired power plants and other sources. An administration that doesn't understand basic climate science has no business playing around with vital efforts to protect America from power-plant pollution, Suckling said. Cutting emissions from power plants is mandated by the Clean Air Act, and Trump can't undo science and law with the stroke of a pen. We'll fight in court to defend this critical effort to protect our planet from global warming. Today's order also turns back the Obama administration's coal moratorium, put in place while the Department of the Interior examines the 1970s-era leasing program for potential reform, including the costs to taxpayers and accounting for the impact on a livable climate. The federal coal program, which is a major source of U.S. carbon emission and chronically shortchanges taxpayers by selling for far below market rates, hasn't been reexamined since earlier Nixon- and Reagan-era moratoriums. But the federal government recently recognized the need for fundamental reform  including the possibility of setting a carbon budget limit for federal coal, or ending the program entirely. Scientists have called on the United States to stop new coal leasing to help prevent the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. Coal mined from public lands contributes more than 40 percent of the United States' coal and approximately 10 percent of its greenhouse gas pollution. Coal mining and combustion also impose heavy air-quality and public-health costs through emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter and mercury. The Interior Department's preliminary report last month recognized that modernization of the Federal coal program is warranted. While energy markets, communities, environmental conditions, and national priorities have changed dramatically, the program has remained fairly static in its administration over the last thirty years. We can't meet our climate goals  which are critical to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change  if we lease any more public land for coal mining, said Suckling. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.2 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
For Immediate Release, March 28, 2017 Contact: Noah Greenwald, (503) 484-7495, ngreenwald@biologicaldiversity.org

Greg Loarie, Earthjustice, (415) 217-2000, gloarie@earthjustice.org

Rob DiPerna, EPIC, (707) 822-7711, rob@wildcalifornia.org Court Overturns Government Refusal to Protect Rare Coastal Marten Mink-like Marten Threatened by Logging, Pesticides, Climate Change SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. In response to a lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity and Environmental Protection Information Center, a federal judge today overturned an April 2014 decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denying endangered species protection to coastal martens. Coastal martens were believed extinct until 1996 because of historic fur trapping and loss of their old-growth forest habitats, but are now known to occur in three small, isolated populations in California and Oregon. The groups were represented by the public-interest law firm Earthjustice. We're thrilled the elusive coastal marten is back on track to getting the endangered species protection it so badly needs, said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. The science is clear that these fascinating and beautiful animals have been reduced to small, isolated populations and face a host of threats that place them at risk of extinction. Small carnivores related to minks and otters, coastal martens are found only in old-growth forest and dense coastal shrub in Northern California and southern and central coastal Oregon. Once extensively trapped for their fur, the cat-like animals were once common; now fewer than 100 of them survive in California, while an unknown but very small number are still found in Oregon. The magic of the Endangered Species Act is that it puts scientific facts over political games, said Earthjustice attorney Greg Loarie, who represented the groups. No amount of spin will change the fact that coastal martens are already gone from over 80 percent of their historic range and at serious risk of extinction unless the Fish and Wildlife Service steps up." The martens' historic range extends from Sonoma County in coastal California north through the coastal mountains of Oregon. Humboldt martens were rediscovered on the Six Rivers National Forest in 1996. Since then researchers have continued to detect martens using track plates and hair snares. In 2009 a marten was detected in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park by remote-sensing camera, the first to be photographed in recent times. Martens are typically 2 feet long and have large triangular ears and a long tail; they eat small mammals, berries and birds and are eaten by larger mammals and raptors. This decision is a win for science and common sense, said Rob DiPerna, California forest and wildlife advocate at the Environmental Protection Information Center. We thought we'd lost the marten due to bad human decision-making once before, and we could not stand by and watch that happen again.
For Immediate Release, March 28, 2017



Contact: Loyal Mehrhoff, (808) 351-3200, lmehrhoff@biologicaldiversity.org Air Force Lowers Lights, Funds Conservation Efforts for Endangered Hawaiian Seabirds Kokee Air Force Station Operations Shift to Save Shearwaters, Petrels HONOLULU The Center for Biological Diversity Monday withdrew a notice of intent to sue after the U.S. Air Force agreed to reduce light pollution from a Kauai facility to reduce seabird deaths and offset future harm to endangered Hawaiian petrels, endangered band-rumped storm-petrels and threatened Newell's shearwaters. We're glad to see the Air Force take solid action to avoid the tragic deaths of more endangered seabirds, said Loyal Mehrhoff, the Center's endangered species recovery director. Air Force officials have started doing what's needed, but there are still many other sources of light on Kauai that are killing these seabirds, as well as highly lethal powerlines that must be addressed. The Center filed its legal notice in June 2016 after lights at the Kokee Air Force Station caused the death or fallout of more than 130 of the endangered seabirds in 2015. In response the Air Force re-initiated consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and agreed to reduce lighting at the facility that disorients the seabirds, causing them to circle and eventually drop out of the sky with exhaustion. The new Air Force procedures are expected to reduce the downing or take of seabirds to approximately four birds per year. To offset these losses, the Air Force also agreed to fund predator control at existing seabird colonies. The 2015 event at the Kokee Air Force Station was both unique and especially damaging because most of the protected seabirds that were killed or downed were adult Newell's shearwaters and Hawaiian petrels, birds that take six years to reach reproductive age. There are an estimated 21,000 of the rapidly declining Newell's shearwaters and 19,000 Hawaiian petrels remaining on Earth. Band-rumped storm-petrels are thought to have just 170 to 220 breeding pairs on Kauai. Seabirds in Hawaii are primarily threatened by introduced predators like cats, rats, pigs and barn owls, as well as by fatal collisions with power lines and downing associated with nighttime lights. All three of these seabird species spend most of their time foraging at sea, but they return to Kauai's mountains and forests to breed. They excavate narrow burrows into the hillsides and lay a single egg each year. When the young fledgling birds leave the nest for the first time, they fly downhill to the ocean. These fledglings are easily distracted by bright lights along highways or other human structures and can become disoriented or exhausted, crashing into the ground or buildings. Many die on impact or are later killed by cats or cars before they can recover and fly to the ocean. Kauai's Save Our Shearwaters (SOS) program tries to rescue downed birds and release them back into the wild. The Endangered Species Act is one of America's most successful environmental laws, said Mehrhoff. Hawaiian species like the nene  otherwise known as the Hawaiian goose  and the alala, or Hawaiian crow, as well as hundreds of endemic plants have benefited from protections and conservation funding. More information on endangered species recovery trends can be found at http://www.esasuccess.org. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.2 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
For Immediate Release, March 28, 2017 Contact: Erik Molvar, Western Watersheds Project, (307) 399-7910

Brooks Fahy, Predator Defense, (541) 520-6003

Gary Macfarlane, Friends of the Clearwater, (208) 882-9755

Andrea Santarsiere, Center for Biological Diversity, (303) 854-7748

Michelle Lute, WildEarth Guardians, (406) 848-4910

Natalia Lima, Animal Legal Defense Fund, (201) 679-7088 Immediate Ban Sought on Use of M-44 'Cyanide Bombs' in Idaho HAILEY, Idaho In the wake of the poisoning death of a family dog near Pocatello and the hospitalization of the dog's 14-year-old owner, a coalition of conservation and wildlife organizations today formally petitioned the highly secretive arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture known as Wildlife Services for an immediate ban on the use of M-44 devices in Idaho. The petition also asked for the immediate removal of all existing devices from the state. M-44s, also known as cyanide bombs and coyote getters, lead to the agonizing death of thousands of animals every year, many of them nontarget animals. Clearly, it is unsafe and immoral for Wildlife Services to use these poisonous land mines to target native wildlife for killing on lands of any ownership, said Erik Molvar, executive director of Western Watersheds Project. Our petition calls upon Wildlife Services to take action to eliminate these brutal and indiscriminate chemical weapons before more kids and pets get hurt. In November Wildlife Services responded to pressure from conservation groups by publishing a decision that supposedly prevented the use of M-44s on public lands. Even so, the device that killed the Mansfield family dog Casey and injured young Canyon Mansfield had been installed on Bureau of Land Management land in February. This incident is exactly why extremely dangerous M-44 cyanide bombs, or other indiscriminate killing tools like traps and poisons, should not be placed on our public lands, said Michelle Lute, wildlife coexistence campaigner for WildEarth Guardians. It would be a mistake to call this tragedy an accident. It's not an accident if federal employees are knowingly placing deadly devices where children and companion animals play; that's extreme and inexcusable negligence. The groups were united in calling the killing of native wildlife morally reprehensible, and pointed to the absence of any scientific basis for lethal control of native predators. Cyanide bombs are indiscriminate killers that must be banned, said Andrea Santarsiere, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. Any animal that might pull on the baited trigger is at risk, including endangered wildlife like Canada lynx and grizzlies, as well as people and pets. And in just the past few weeks these cruel devices have injured a child and killed an endangered wolf and several family dogs. Enough is enough. Taxpayers should not be expected to continue funding the cruel slaughter of wildlife at the behest of livestock producers, said Animal Legal Defense Fund Executive Director Stephen Wells. Cyanide bombs are an indiscriminate and inhumane method of predator control,' and given their proven danger to humans and companion animals, these devices have no rightful place in wildlife policy. The groups also pointed out the long history of unintentional killing of pets and injuries to people that have resulted from the accidental triggering of M-44s in residential areas and on public lands. And in a recent documentary, former Wildlife Services employees made public statements regarding the agency's repeated and habitual flouting of regulations and common-sense safety practices. The fact that Wildlife Services continues to state that incidents of M-44s killing domestic dogs and exposing people to poison are rare' is an outrage, said Brooks Fahy, executive director of the national wildlife advocacy group Predator Defense. Those of us involved with this issue know these incidents are commonplace and that countless more will never be known because of Wildlife Services' repeated coverups. Federal law requires the agencies petitioned, the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the ironically named Wildlife Services, provide a final decision in writing to the petitioners. Petitioning for the statewide M-44 ban were Western Watersheds Project, Predator Defense, WildEarth Guardians, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Clearwater, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Western Wildlife Conservancy, Nevada Wildlife Alliance, Gallatin Wildlife Association, Environmental Protection Information Center, the Wolf Conservation Center, Wilderness Watch, Klamath Forest Alliance, Northeast Oregon Ecosystems, Yellowstone to Uintas Connection, Footloose Montana, Animal Legal Defense Fund, Project Coyote, Voices of Wildlife and the Mountain Lion Foundation.
For Immediate Release, March 28, 2017 Contact: Marc Fink, (218) 464-0539, mfink@biologicaldiversity.org

Lori Andresen, (218) 340-2451, andres01@charter.net Lawsuit Filed to Protect Wolves, Lynx From PolyMet Copper Mine in Minnesota DULUTH, Minn. The Center for Biological Diversity, Earthworks and Save Our Sky Blue Waters today filed suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service under the Endangered Species Act for their approval of the PolyMet open-pit copper mine in the Superior National Forest in northeastern Minnesota. The 528-acre open-pit mine would destroy important habitat for gray wolves and Canada lynx, both listed as threatened with extinction under the Endangered Species Act. The Fish and Wildlife Service issued its biological opinion on the mine proposal in February 2016; the Forest Service issued its decision on the related land exchange in January 2017. A separate lawsuit was filed earlier this week on the proposed land exchange for illegally undervaluing Superior National Forest land. This massive mine would destroy public forest that's critical to the survival and recovery of wolves and lynx, said Marc Fink, an attorney with the Center. By approving this destructive and dangerous project, the Forest Service violated its own rules against open pit copper mining. The agency's attempt to trade away part of our national forest to a foreign corporation poses a major threat to Minnesota's water and wildlife. The PolyMet mine would directly destroy nearly 4,000 acres of habitat for wolves and lynx  including 1,719 acres at the proposed mine site  with open-pit mines, waste rock stockpiles and mining infrastructure. Most of the destruction would be permanent. Open-pit copper mining is not allowed on the Superior National Forest under the Weeks Act, in recognition of the significant destruction of irreplaceable natural resources. Rather than saying no to the mine and protecting these irreplaceable values, the Forest Service instead seeks to trade this publicly owned land to PolyMet so that the mine can proceed. In addition to destroying lynx and wolf habitat, the mine would destroy high quality wetlands and risk long-term, toxic water pollution in the Lake Superior watershed. The U.S. Forest Service is trying to sell part of our national forests to a foreign company to build an open-pit copper mine in the headwaters of Lake Superior, said Lori Andresen, a local member of Earthworks and director of Save Our Sky Blue Waters. Great Lakes communities and endangered species don't want and don't deserve the fragmentation and toxic sulfide mine waste that this mine would generate. The Endangered Species Act requires federal agencies to ensure that proposed actions will not destroy or adversely modify critical habitat for threatened and endangered species. The Fish and Wildlife Service determined in its biological opinion for PolyMet that the mine would destroy more than 1,700 acres of critical habitat for Canada lynx, with 1,500 acres permanently destroyed. Despite this admission the Service arbitrarily determined that this large-scale, permanent habitat destruction would somehow not adversely modify the critical habitat. The Fish and Wildlife Service has designated Minnesota as one of the few core areas for Canada lynx, and most lynx habitat in the state is on the Superior National Forest. Northeastern Minnesota is the only area in the Great Lakes region for which there is evidence of recent lynx reproduction. Lynx tracks have been observed on the proposed PolyMet mine site. The population of lynx in the state is estimated to be between 190 and 250 individuals. Minnesota is the only state in the contiguous United States that has always supported a viable gray wolf population. There have been numerous signs of wolves at the PolyMet mine site, and there are an estimated 484 wolves on the Superior National Forest. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with 1.2 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Jem's Birding & Ringing Exploits in the Eastern Province and elsewhere in Saudi Arabia
In a recent paper, delivered at the Seamless Pay Conference in Cape Town, entitled The Future of Authentication', Steven Jackets, examined some of the issues retailers and online merchants face to provide a seamless transaction experience for their customers.

Jackets, the Underwriters Laboratories (UL) operations manager of transactional security for the Middle East and Africa, is an expert in the field of smartcards, mobile payments and e-commerce. He analyses the ways in which the e-payment landscape is evolving and emphasises the importance of developing sound authentication strategies in order to unlock new and expanded business models.

Balancing convenience with security

In the electronic payments value chain, new technologies being introduced are rapidly reshaping the entire e-payments landscape. The biggest challenge is one of balancing convenience with security, partly because these are sometimes conflicting goals. Banking and payment systems are also becoming more complex all the time, which adds to the nature and scope of the challenge, says Jackets.

At the heart of the matter is the fact that e-payment systems incorporate multiple technologies and offer increasingly diverse applications, which requires strict compliance with an ever-growing number of technical standards and payment scheme requirements. This can sometimes be in conflict with the goal of providing a seamless transaction experience. Highly publicised breaches of consumer account data nevertheless underscore the importance of data security and risk management, which are essential in order to protect both user privacy and brand reputation, concludes Jackets.

The ability to authenticate customers and transactions is essential to the e-payments value chain, so UL is tracking and evaluating some of the latest developments in the field, including Facebook and Amazon authentication APIs, Samsung ventures in biometrics and trends in risk-based authentication.

E-commerce is essential to a successful business in the retail and online space, continues UL South Africa MD, Kennedy Nzimande. With technology developing as rapidly as it is, it is vital for companies of all sizes to be able to use the technology in a way that is efficient and safe for both them and their customers. This is where the company has a role to play, particularly in the developing markets of Africa.

Cobus Nigrini, a sales executive who also works in the Africa and Middle East region, has overseen multiple brand certification projects throughout Africa and specialises in bridging the divide between technology and business. He says, On a tactical level, reducing the costs of terminal EMV certification projects is an on-going focus. Technologies such as NFC tags, eSE, UICC, mSD and smart wearables, which are all taking retailing into a whole new era, are also set to reduce the costs associated with implementing and upgrading e-payment systems.
BUDAPEST, Hungary - A row between Heineken and a small Romanian brewer backed by the Hungarian government looked to be over on Monday, just days after Budapest threatened to ban the Dutch giant's famous red star logo.

lawrence2014ben via Pixabay

Heineken and Lixid Project, based in Transylvania, a region in Romania with a large ethnic Hungarian population, said in a joint statement that their dispute had been settled out of court. "Both companies now look forward to (focusing) on what they do best and enjoy most: brewing beer," said the statement seen by AFP.

The deal appears to have ended a bitter dispute framed by the Hungarian government as a "David and Goliath" battle against a multinational firm "abusing its power" over a small company run by ethnic Hungarians.

The dispute escalated after the Dutch firm's Romanian subsidiary won a brand-name dispute against Lixid Project in January. A court ruled that their Hungarian-language "Csiki" beer was too similar to Heineken's Romanian-language "Ciuc" range and infringed trademark rights.

Budapest slammed the decision as "undignified, unjust and anti-Hungarian" and supported calls to boycott Heineken products. Then draft legislation brought to parliament by senior government officials this month proposed a ban on the commercial use of "symbols of totalitarian dictatorships" like the red star.

Heineken insisted its logo had "no political meaning whatsoever" and that it dated back to medieval European brewers. When the symbol became associated with communism after World War II, the brewer swapped it for a white star before reverting back to the original following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In a separate statement sent to AFP, Heineken said it "recognises the importance and emotional value of the Csiki brand-name to its brewers and consumers," as well as to its "stakeholders in both Romania and Hungary".

"Rest assured that similarly Heineken will always, everywhere and with all means defend what is at its own core since the early days of the company: the Heineken trademark, including its iconic red star," it said.

Nandor Csepreghy, a senior Hungarian government official, said that the case shows "that where there is a will, then David can defeat Goliath".

Lixid Project thanked its supporters, consumers, the local community "and last but not least, the Hungarian government".

Source: AFP
Christine Ramon, CEO of the Chief Financial Officers Forum, says mandatory audit firm rotation, as espoused by the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (Irba), undermines the rights of shareholders and disregards existing legislation that already safeguards the independence of audit firms.

Bernard Agulhas, CEO, Irba

Legislation such as the Companies Act enforces rotation of audit partners and imposes various limitations on audit firms concerning the companies they audit, Ramon says.

Meanwhile, shareholders are able to vote on the re-election of a company's audit committee at annual general meetings and can vote against reappointment if they have any concerns.

Independent research is needed on the effect that mandatory rotation will have on the economy, particularly as it has been implemented and then later repealed in a number of countries, Ramon says.

Her comments on Friday came amid Irba plans to require listed companies to change external audit firms every 10 years by 2023 to strengthen their independence from clients. Irba's 2016 inspections report shows three out of 20 firms and 33 out of 275 audit partners were referred to its investigating committee over issues such as incorrect audit opinion and independence breaches.

Irba CEO Bernard Agulhas said on Friday the board was concerned long audit tenures held by the big four accounting firms concerning listed companies they audited compromised their "professional scepticism". This undermined audit quality and investor protection. To this end, a far greater proportion of shareholders had voted against the reappointment of audit firms following compulsory audit tenure disclosure, Agulhas said.

Ramon said Parliament's standing committee on finance had urged Irba not to rush the process and to focus on quality consultation. Consultation had thus far centred on how best to implement mandatory audit firm rotation and not whether it was appropriate, she said.

Leon Campher, CEO of the Association for Savings and Investment SA, said last week Irba had provided no firm evidence indicating that a lack of independence among major audit firms was widespread. If Irba found instances of a lack of independence among auditors, it was "entirely within its rights as regulator to deal with it firmly".

Company nomination committees were required by corporate governance rules to ensure that audit committees had the requisite skills, independence and knowledge to work effectively, he said.

The World Economic Forum ranks SA third out of 138 countries for the efficacy of its company boards. The nation's auditing and reporting standards are ranked number one globally.

Parties opposed to Irba's move want the statutory Specialist Committee on Company Law to take over the process of improving audit independence, replacing Irba.
President Jacob Zuma's recalling the finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, from an overseas trip has nothing to do with the African National Congress, secretary general, Gwede Mantashe said.

The ANC knew nothing about the decision as it was a government matter, he told reporters at a briefing about the ANC's national executive committee meeting.

Earlier, the Presidency said both Gordhan and his deputy, Mcebisi Jonas, had been instructed to return from an investor roadshow trip to London, Boston and New York. No reason was given.

Finance minister, Pravin Gordhan

The move fuelled speculation that Zuma was preparing to reshuffle his cabinet.

Mantashe said they had yet to have their weekly meeting with the ANC's top six officials to get a briefing from Zuma.

Mantashe said the party would not fuel speculation about a reshuffle or that claims that Gordhan was summoned back over a court case involving the Gupta family.

Concern over capacity

Gordhan is seeking a declaratory order to protect the Treasury's executive from having to intervene in the decision by the country's top four banks to close the Gupta family's bank accounts.

Zuma appointed Gordhan after he made the disastrous decision to replace Nhlanhla Nene with Des van Rooyen in December 2015.

The rand weakened against the US dollar in reaction to Monday's news. It fell 40c and later recovered to R12.60.

"The real impact will be seen when there are any other steps," Mantashe said.

The ANC's executive was critical of the capacity of its deployees in cabinet.

This followed the Constitutional Court ruling on March 17 about the distribution of social grants, after social development minister, Bathabile Dlamini, failed to find a new service provider to take over from Cash Paymaster Services.

"The capacity of the state to deliver against the resolutions of the ANC was raised as a matter of serious concern by the NEC. It is the view of the NEC that many challenges currently experienced are a direct consequence of the glaring lack of capacity within the state," Mantashe said.

Mantashe said the NEC had decided to develop an accountability framework for all ANC members in government, to ensure stronger oversight of the implementation of ANC resolutions.

"The very fact that the courts are playing a more interventionist role in governance is reflective of our role in abdicating our governance responsibilities to the judiciary. Judicial overreach occurs in instances where the executive and the legislature fail to deal adequately with matters before them," Mantashe said.

This did not mean the ANC had a negative attitude toward the courts.

"If a particular minister has not done what she should do and that case ends up in court, the outcome of that process will be respected by the ANC and its government," he said.
When you walk into any office building, one of the first things you'll notice is the decor. Be it pristine white-minimalist or lavish gold-accented a la Trump-era Whitehouse, the colour scheme, type of furnishings, and artworks that a company chooses is rarely an afterthought, but rather a deliberate signifier of company's ideals and vision. Bringing fine art into your workplace  whether original paintings and photographs or prints and sculptures  can have wide-ranging and often unexpected effects.

The most common areas where youll find artworks are public areas, including the lobby, reception, and meeting spaces. These spaces are often thoughtfully decorated with comfortable seating and decorative plants to provide a welcoming environment to host clients. Introducing a bright, bold art piece can provide a focal point in a common area, spark conversation amongst clients and employees, and serve as a visual reminder of a creative and dynamic corporate culture.

Not just a pretty picture

In addition to its aesthetic effect, artwork can also serve a more practical function, for example sound-dampening and echo reduction (textiles and sculptural works in large open areas, for example). Art can even be creatively incorporated into way-finding signage.

But dont get stuck in the habit of thinking of art as simply decorative or functional. A company chooses visual art that sends messages about key mission statements and corporate goals. For example, a company that places a high value on engaging with the community in which it operates can highlight this investment by displaying works from that community.

The opposite is also true  a company with a strong international focus might choose a more global approach and bring into its spaces artworks from the various countries it operates in.

Art can assist in other corporate goals as well: a dynamic and engaged art collection might comprise part of a companys corporate social responsibility (CSR) mandate through supporting local art and craft initiatives, or creating meaningful relationships with local artists, art collectives, galleries, and project spaces.

Inspiring productivity

And while the most obvious reason to bring art into the office is aesthetic, there are proven tangible productivity benefits as well. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but in the case of art in the workplace, a picture (or sculpture, or photograph) can be worth a whole lot more.

Studies have shown that art can enhance the work environment and increase productivity and creativity. A 2003 survey in the United States by the Business Committee for the Arts and the International Association of Professional Art Advisors found that 64% of surveyed businesses saw an increase in productivity of employees; the same study found a significant reduction in stress. And in terms of thinking outside the box, a 2013 study in the UK by the British Council for Offices found that 61% of workers believed that the presence of artwork in their workspace inspired them to think and work more creativity.

Last but not least, did you know environments with an artistic touch can also help with staff retention? A study by psychologist Dr. Craig Night at the University of Exeter showed that artwork can not only help with staff retention but, in an era when many people choose to work remotely, can also encourage employees to come in to the office.

So if your company is looking to create an inviting, productive, creative environment that employees want to come to, take a look around at your walls and consider replacing your worn out, dusty prints or inspirational posters with new and invigorating works of original art.
Employers often rely on clauses within contracts of employment as being a watertight basis for taking what it perceives to be lawful action against employees. This may not always be the case.

In the case of EWN v Pharmaco Distribution in the Labour Court, the employee suffering from bipolar disorder refused to undergo medical testing despite her contract of employment containing a clause that provided that she had to undergo medical testing whenever the employer deemed it to be necessary. The employer ultimately dismissed the employee for disobeying this instruction and the court found that her dismissal was automatically unfair.

In this case, senior management of the employer became aware of the employees bipolar condition after she disclosed her bipolar status to the employer during disciplinary proceedings. The employer then required her to undergo medical testing to determine whether she was fit to perform her tasks because of her bipolar status.

Refusal to undergo medical testing

The employee refused to undergo medical testing and was later charged for a particularly serious and/or repeated wilful refusal to carry out lawful instructions or perform duties. The instruction she failed to perform, and which ultimately led to her dismissal, was to present herself to a psychiatrist, for a medical examination. The employee claimed that the instruction was unlawful, while the employer contended that the instruction was reasonable and lawful in terms of her contract of employment.

A clause in the employees contract provided, The employee will, whenever the company deems necessary, undergo a specialist medical examination at the expense of the company, by a medical practitioner nominated and appointed by the company. The employee gives his/her irrevocable consent to any such medical practitioner making the results and record of any medical examination available to the company and to discuss same with such medical practitioner. The above shall include and apply to psychological evaluations.

EE Act prohibits medical testing

The main issues the court had to decide on were whether the provision was enforceable; and whether her dismissal for failing to submit to a medical examination was automatically unfair in terms of s187(1)(f) of the Labour Relations Act.

In its decision, the court found that the clause in the employees contract of employment was in breach of the provisions of s7 of the Employment Equity Act (EEA) and found that the clause was of no legal force or effect.

Section 7(1) of the EEA prohibits the medical testing of an employee and aims to prevent unfair discrimination on the grounds of an employees medical condition. Subsection (a) and (b) however provides that medical testing will be permitted when legislation permits or requires medical testing or when the testing of an employee can be justified in the light of medical facts, employment conditions, social policy, the fair distribution of employee benefits or the inherent requirements of the job.

Unfair discrimination

The court held that the section provides no exception based on the consent of the employee in an employment contract and that medical testing will only be permitted in the circumstances set out in paragraphs (a) and (b) which ultimately did not find application in this case. The court also found that the instruction to undergo psychiatric testing because of the employees bipolar condition amounted to unfair discrimination in terms of s6 of the EEA. The dismissal of the employee for refusing to undergo a psychiatric evaluation to determine her fitness to work was found to be an automatically unfair dismissal in terms of s187(1)(f) of the LRA.

Employers are advised to note that where an employees contract of employment contains clauses pertaining to the consent by the employee to undergo medical testing, that those clauses will not necessarily protect the employer. It is important for employers to bear in mind that medical testing will only be permitted in the circumstances as set out in subparagraphs (a) and (b) of s7 of the EEA as exceptions.
When one thinks of law firms, the first image that usually comes to mind is of attorneys in power suits, meeting with clients or on their way to and from court. Rarely is it considered that there is more to a well-run law firm than just its legal team. But as the old saying goes "Behind every great man is a great woman", so it's apparent that behind every great law firm is a great brand manager.

Andrea Collocott, now the marketing and business development manager at Baker McKenzie South Africa, has spent the last nine years working 'behind the scenes' in the marketing and communications department some of South Africa's major law firms, including Bowmans, Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr and Werksmans Attorneys. Here she gives us some insight about how she got into the legal industry and what goes into handling a law firm as a 'brand'.

You've carved quite a niche for yourself in the brand management of law firms. Tell us a little about how you got into it?

Some would say luck! I moved into marketing when a role became available at HSBC Investment Bank in South Africa. It was a seven year massive growth trajectory but I landed as the brand manager for the Africa region and I knew I had found the thing I loved.

When I left HSBC, I was fortunate enough to find another brand management role at an insurance company in London and the global experience proved invaluable. On my return, I joined my first law firm.

Law firms have only recently been able to market and brand themselves so it was a huge mind shift for the legal industry. They were also bound by certain regulations about what they could and could not do. All of that made branding them more of a challenge, something I clearly thrive on.

I have moved around the legal industry over the past nine years and am happy to say that I have found my home at Baker McKenzie.

What is it you love about the legal industry and your role in it?

I love the challenge of the industry. There is never a quiet moment, something is always happening or changing. The law affects all aspects of our lives and businesses, how could one not be interested in developments in this sector?

I also really thrive on the my relationships with the lawyers themselves. They are expected to be the best at what they do, and in return they expect the very best from those providing a service to them. They push me to perform at the very highest standard and I relish that.

I dont have a typical 'product' to market or brand. In the case of the legal industry, the lawyers themselves are the 'product', the partners are the firm owners and my immediate stakeholders. We all have a vested interest in the brand and how it is perceived in the market.

Baker McKenzie offers me the entrepreneurial freedom to put the necessary processes in place to ensure the brand/product and profiles are received by the market in the best way possible.

What are some of the biggest lessons you've learned from your experience in the industry?

You need to love your 'product', if not you will never successfully be able to market it. I work with some of the brightest minds in the South African legal market and that makes me immensely proud. Because I believe so strongly in the service we offer, it makes me passionate about what I do and I find it easy to take this 'product' to market.

Other lessons I have learned are to work hard and have a good attitude; and never stop growing or learning. I learn something new every single day  and very often something new about myself and my abilities. Also important to remember is that the one constant is change  be willing to adapt!

Whats on your wish-list for brand objectives for 2017?

I want the stakeholders to see the value that my team and I are adding. I want the firm name to be top of mind for big local corporates and multinationals and I want the firm's partners to be seen as the thought leaders and the experts in their field of law.

How do you plan on building on the Baker McKenzie brand going forward?

We have a number of plans including exciting, comprehensive marketing and strategic communications plans - watch this space! A business development offering which focuses on understanding our clients' needs first is a very important part of our plans.
Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti says the department will soon table a Bill that will enable the establishment of a Land Commission that will help the state to conduct a comprehensive land audit.

The Minister said this when he briefed the media at the Imbizo Centre in Parliament on Tuesday, 28 March 2017.

He said the Regulation of Agricultural Land Holdings Bill has been put out for public comment and will soon  in the course of the current financial year  be introduced in Parliament.

The Bill introduces a Land Commission because people who own land in South Africa must register with that Land Commission ... so that we know who owns South Africa so that we can use that as a measure to determine the extent to which land is being redistributed in the country, he said.

The Minister said the Land Commission would be able to assist the state to determine the true extent of land ownership in the country.

He said land audits by the department have not been able to reveal the actual ownership and uses of land in South Africa as several parcels of land are administered by different departments.

For example, some parcels of land are owned by Trusts, which he said were administered by the Department of Justice, while land that is under the ownership of commercial companies is overseen by the Department of Trade and Industry under the Companies Act.

So we dont know a lot of the shareholders. In terms of this law, all of them will have to register with the Commission so that we will know who owns South Africa ... so that we have a regime that even those people who are foreign nationals in South Africa will lease land.

The Minister said the Land Commission will serve as the primary structure to oversee the collection, maintenance and dissemination of all information regarding public agricultural land and private agricultural land (land owned by South Africans, and that is held by foreign persons).

He said once the Bill is passed into law, key instruments of the Land Commission will include:

A register of agricultural land holdings;



Disclosures in respect of the present ownership of private agricultural landholdings, including the race, gender and nationality of the owner, the use and size of the agricultural land holding and any real right registered against and licence allocated to the agricultural land holding;



Prohibition on the acquisition of agricultural land holding by a foreign person;



Lease of agricultural land holding by a foreign person;



Disposal of agricultural land holding by a foreign person;



Determination of categories of ceilings of agricultural land holdings for each district, by the Minister by notice in the Gazette, after consultation with the Commission and having regard to such criteria and factors as may be prescribed;



Redistribution of agricultural land which is all agricultural land holdings that fall between or exceeds any category of agricultural land holding, and



First right of refusal by the state in respect of redistribution agricultural land.

[What the Bill] seeks to do in terms of pursuing that objective of the ANC resolution is that irrespective of the colour of the skin of the owner of the land, what it seeks to achieve is setting ceilings in terms of small scale, medium scale commercial viable farm and large scale, so that our people must then participate in this debate.. so that they have a voice to determining the extent to which a large scale commercial viable farm should be given the various pragmatic conditions across the country, he said.

The Minister said, meanwhile, that Bills that will undergo Parliamentary processes during the course of the current financial year will include Extension of Security of Tenure Amendment Bill; the Communal Land Tenure Bill; the Communal Property Association Amendment Bill; the Land Valuation Regulations under the Property Valuation Act of 2014 and the Common Property Associations Amendment Bill.
The Competition Commission has conducted a search and seizure operation at the premises of fresh produce market agents in Cape Town and Durban.

This follows a search and seizure operation carried out at premises of nine fruit and veg agents in Pretoria and Johannesburg fresh produce markets on Thursday, 23 March.

The raid in Cape Town was conducted on Friday at the premises of Subtropico (Pty) Ltd (Subtropico); RSA Group (Pty) Ltd and Fine Bros (Pty) Ltd (Fine Bros). In Durban, the Commission also conducted a search and seizure operation at premises of RSA Group, Wenpro KZN (Pty) Ltd and Delta Market Agents (Pty) Ltd (Delta).

The search and seizure operations are part of an investigation into alleged cartel conduct, which was reported by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The agents, which serve as intermediaries between farmers and buyers of freshly produced fruits and vegetables in South Africa, are suspected of being involved in cartel conduct in contravention of the Competition Act.

The commission has reasonable grounds to believe that the agents entered into an agreement and/or engaged in a concerted practice to fix the price and trading conditions for the supply of freshly produced fruits and vegetables in South Africa.

This conduct is alleged to be ongoing and is in contravention of the provisions of section 4(1)(b)(i) of the Competition Act, said the Commission.
After almost a decade in the marketing and publishing industry, Greg Mason shares the common mistakes publishers make and how they can sustainably grow their audience...

For most publishers, increasing the number of their website visitors is a key priority. This is not an easy task and I have seen several publishers fail to take really important steps to do this sustainably. They end up with volatile numbers and fail to nurture a loyal readership.

The tips I'm about to share are best practice and they'll help you increase your website visitors that keep coming back to your site.

1. Consistently produce quality content

As a blog you ideally need to be posting a minimum of five articles a day of relevant and valuable content for your target audience. Online publishing is like driving a car, when you take your foot off the gas it will slow down.

Doing this consistently will encourage your readers to come back regularly and trust that you will have fresh content for them.

A great way to make this easier for your team is to manage your content with a content strategy and content calendar, so you know what and who you're publishing for and when.

2. Make sure you have a good mix of content

You should have a mix of longer, more in-depth articles, short easy reading articles and videos and pictures. This keeps your website fresh, interesting and engaging.

Try including more pictures and videos in your content and see how they perform. Take a look at Canva for simple graphic design software.

3. Distribute your content across your social media channels

If you aren't already, share all content using social media. The trick to this is to prioritise social media channels that your target audience use regularly, and to use scheduling tools such as Hootsuite or Buffer to make the distribution easier and timely.

4. Push social media followers to your site

Give teasers on social media and link that to the full articles on your site. Your social media channels should act as pathways for people to ultimately land on your website. The same goes with your email marketing and paid advertising.

5. Actively acquire social media followers

Increase the reach of your content by having more social media followers, but don't just focus on the numbers increasing. There is no point having thousands of followers if most of them aren't your target audience.

Start by adding social sharing buttons to all your content and promoting your social presence everywhere from your blog to your email signature. If you've got connections with other websites or brands with similar target audiences, collaborate with them.

6. Create an email subscriber base

Subscribers are loyal to your website and they are more likely to consume more of your content than non-subscribers. Keep them engaged with targeted, relevant, weekly mailers.

Make it easy for your visitors to subscribe to your content, and check out Campaign Monitor or MailChimp for simple and cost-effective email marketing software.

7. Try push website visitors around your site as much as possible

At the end of articles, recommend other relevant articles on your site that readers might enjoy. Include links throughout your content to encourage them to explore more and spend more time on your website.

8. Make sure your SEO is in order

Organic traffic is still a major contributor to website traffic and if you neglect this you will be swimming upstream. Spend the money and get a professional to do your SEO properly.

Take a look at the Moz Blog for some great SEO best practice tips.

9. Have a clean and simple site.

Keep your layout tidy with neat columns and good flow. I know this sounds basic but it is astounding how many websites get this wrong. An appealing user experience will keep readers coming back to your site.

10. Engage with your readers

People love to share their opinion. Run polls, get their comments on articles and make the tone of your site approachable and engaging.

Last but not least, the Effective Measure dashboard is an industry standard tool for publishers in the Middle East and South Africa. It helps you understand how your site is performing compared to your competitors and detailed demographic data of your website visitors.
Legal notices

1) The material on this blog has been created by W. Blake Gray, is protected under US copyright law and cannot be used without his permission.



2) To the FTC: In the course of my work, I accept free samples, meals and other considerations. I do not trade positive reviews or coverage for money or any financial considerations, unlike certain famous print publications which have for-profit wine clubs but, because they are not classified as "bloggers," are not required by the FTC to post a notice like this.


Once an offer to purchase has been signed by both the buyer and seller, it immediately becomes a legal and binding sale agreement. In fact, the buyer will generally have already signed the contract before it is presented to the seller, which means that buyers need to be certain that they want to purchase the property before they sign the agreement.

Many people are under the misconception that the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) gives them a cooling-off period when entering into a sales agreement. However, this is only applicable in certain instances. Sometimes buyers will sign offers on several homes in the hope that one of the sellers will accept, but if more than one offer is accepted they could find themselves in some hot water. It is best to submit one offer at a time and work from there.

R250,000 threshold

The Alienation of Land Act states that residential property transactions of R250,000 or less are subject to a cooling-off period of five working days from the signature of the offer to purchase. The cooling-off period does not apply to residential homes that are sold for more than the R250,000 threshold. Considering that this provision is still in place and not impacted by the CPA, only a very small percentage of property sales will be subject to the applicable cooling-off period.

Regarding the CPA, a purchaser has the right to cancel the purchase of a property within five business days  only if the sale is a result of direct marketing. Direct marketing means that the person has been approached directly either in person, by mail, or by electronic communication for the purpose of promoting or offering to supply goods or services. The cooling-off period will not apply to any sales that are a result of any other type of marketing, such as print advertising and show houses. It will also not apply if the purchase is made by a client that the estate agent is already working with.

The Act offers consumers protection if they enter into a transaction with a supplier in the ordinary course of the suppliers business. However, this excludes regular property sellers who do not earn a living from selling or buying property.

Cancellation extremely problematic

The CPA states that if the cooling-off period does apply, the five days do not start from the date that the offer is signed, but rather the day the property is transferred into the buyers name. Considering that transfer can take between three and six months after the offer is signed, cancellation of the agreement at this point could prove to be extremely problematic for all parties involved.

If a buyer has signed an agreement, but would no longer like to purchase the property, it is best for them to be upfront with the seller and let them know as soon as possible, rather than breaching the contract. The seller might be willing to let the buyer of the hook and look for another buyer, rather than drawing out the situation longer than necessary. It is possible for the seller to pursue the matter legally, which could leave the buyer with a very expensive impulse purchase on their hands. Buyers need to be 100% sure that they want the property before signing any contract.
The Department of Tourism recently hosted its annual Research Seminar, an interactive platform for tertiary institutions to share tourism research finds and obtain constructive feedback from industry stakeholders and other academics, under the theme Advancing Tourism Growth and Development through Research.

Over the years, research in hospitality and tourism has provided insights into areas, such as management, human behaviour, nance, planning, and marketing. Initially, tourism research focused on economic benefits. However, due to the growing importance of this industry in both developed and emerging economies, the shift of tourism research has been seen, currently focusing on the nature of the tourist, tourist experiences, socio-cultural, environmental and economic impacts, training and education needs, and the demand and the supply sides of tourism.

The Department of Tourism identified research as a critical area for the development and growth of the tourism sector in its 2011 National Tourism Sector Strategy. The strategy highlighted among other, the lack of research capacity to conduct high-quality research that meets the needs of the various stakeholders in the tourism sector.

More emphasis on policy-relevant research

In his opening remarks, Minister of Tourism Derek Hanekom highlighted the importance of putting more emphasis on policy-relevant research and its value to the tourism sector. As the tourism department, we attach great value to research so that our decisions are evidence based, therefore, the role of researchers must never be undermined. We need research to guide us on the gaps that exist in our offerings to tell us, for example, on what components of our visitors experience we need to be improved, said Hanekom.

He encouraged researchers to prioritise the public understanding of tourism. All of us here are in the tourism field and, therefore, we are tourism ambassadors. We need to play a role in educating the public about the industry and how they can contribute or even benefit from it. We need you to assist us in presenting a case for tourism. We also need to know what opportunities are created by the tourism growth and how that contributes to transformation of our country, concluded Hanekom.

Fiveve research studies were presented during the seminar:

 The potential of creative industry for destination development in South Africa - University of Pretoria

 Destination development through understanding tourists expectations and memorable tourist experiences at major tourist attractions - University of Pretoria

 Interventions and incentives needed to improve the number of enterprises, including state-owned tourism attractions that embrace responsible tourism management practices - University of Venda

 Tourism value chain and opportunities for transformation in South Africa - University of Johannesburg

 Development of a framework to assess the economic impact of coastal and marine tourism in South Africa - Cape Peninsula University of Technology

The Department views these research studies as crucial as they will inform future planning, policy and decision-making. Moreover, these studies are aligned to the proposed five strategic pillars of the revised National Tourism Sector Strategy (NTSS), which aims to advance inclusive tourism economic growth and job creation. For instance, both the destination development studies by the University of Pretoria support the NTSS pillars of Destination Management Practices and the Visitor Experience; and the University of Johannesburg study is aligned to the Broad-based Benefits strategic objective of this revised strategy.

All the research papers will be available on the Department of Tourism website from mid-April 2017.
South Africans can prepare for an influx of foreign visitors over the Easter week with data pulled by Cheapflights showing a 61% surge in searches for travel into South Africa over this period compared to the previous period. Cheapflights Managing Director, Andrew Shelton, says: We attribute this to a number of factors, including the continued relative affordability of vacationing in South Africa, the great weather this time of year, and a general trend that we've witnessed since the beginning of this year of consumers looking at emerging or alternative destinations, over those that have had a near monopoly on the travel market in recent years - like the US.

RyanMcGuire via pixabay

Americans and Brits a real opportunity for tourism businesses

The data shows that South Africa continues to be a desirable destination for Europeans, with searches from Germany for the Easter week going up 90% versus the four weeks leading up to the holiday; with Sweden up 97% and Spain up 123%. A surprise result from the data shows that Romanians as are looking to escape to the south for Easter, with searches from that country up a staggering 335% on previous weeks.

Despite that, however, our data shows once again that the highest amount of inbound travel over the Easter period will be from the United States and the UK  countries that continually see South Africa as a popular destination. Americans and Brits massively dwarf the numbers searching for travel here from other countries, and that itself represents a real opportunity for tourism businesses here who should be focusing their marketing accordingly, explained Shelton.

Travellers from around the continent are also looking to flock into South Africa over the Easter holidays. Searches from Nigeria are up 144%, from Namibia 189% and from Tanzania, an impressive 250%, compared to previous weeks.

South Africans flock to international destinations

The data from Cheapflights also shows that South Africans are continuing to travel overseas in droves. Beach holidays are in the biggest demand, with Mauritius, Phuket, Zanzibar and Bangkok taking up the top four places of destinations searched for by South Africans over the Easter period.

London still features in the top five destinations South Africans are looking to visit, which is likely due to South Africans taking advantage of the slightly stronger Rand and weakening Pound, explains Shelton.

The data also shows that many expats from African countries residing in South Africa are planning on taking advantage of the Easter break to go home and visit families. Searches for travel from South Africa to Malawi are up 105% over Easter compared to previous weeks, with searches to Namibia up 163% and Zimbabwe 103%.

When to travel

There are still some good deals to be found for those wanting to book last minute getaways. The cheapest day to fly over the Easter period is Thursday 13 April, with the most expensive being on Easter Sunday, 16 April.

Despite being the cheapest day to travel, Thursday 13 April will also, unusually, be the busiest day for that period.
PARIS - France's advertising regulator has ordered fashion house Saint Laurent to remove posters of extremely thin models in "degrading" poses after an outcry over their appearance around Paris.

Image via Twitter

The campaign features a reclining woman in a fur coat and fishnet tights opening her legs and another of a model in a leotard and roller skate stilettos bending over a stool.

Stephane Martin, head of advertising regulator ARPP, told AFP on Tuesday that his organisation had received 120 complaints over the way the posters depicted women. The authority bars all "degrading and humiliating" representations of people. It has written to Saint Laurent asking them to "stop the use of these images, to withdraw them or to change them," Martin said, explaining that a more detailed assessment of the campaign would be made on Friday.

Britain's advertising watchdog banned a Saint Laurent advert two years ago that featured an overly thin model whose ribcage was showing. The latest campaign was created in-house by Saint Laurent, which is under new young Belgian designer Anthony Vaccarello whose debut collection featured a dress that exposes one breast.

Saint Laurent has declined to comment. Ironically, the label made its name by putting women in men's tuxedos, a gesture that chimed with the rising feminist wave of the 1970s.

The poster campaign "ticks all the sexist boxes. The women are objectified, hypersexualised and put in submissive positions," Raphaelle Remy-Leleu from French women's group, Osez le feminisme ('Dare to be Feminist'), told AFP.

Source: AFP
Despite the Trump administrations strong preference for more school choice, its possible that both charter schools and private schools could take a hit in the presidents proposed spending plan for K-12 education .

Even with his pitch to spend $1.4 billion on school choice, including an infusion of new spending on charters and an as yet undefined private school choice program, President Trumps so-called skinny budget would not spare charters and private schools from cuts to major K-12 programs in ways that are similar to traditional public schools.

The two areas most likely to sting: Trumps proposed elimination of the $2.3 billion Title II programwhich provides money for teacher training and principal professional developmentand his bid to get rid of $1.1 billion funding for after-school and enrichment programs.

Alyson Klein reports at Politics K-12 that getting rid of Title II would hit some charters hard. Some of that money also makes its way to private schools.

At Eagle Academy, a District of Columbia charter school where more than $80,000 a year in Title II funding is used to train teachers to use technology effectively in their classrooms and to teach social-emotional learning, the loss would not be inconsequential.

As the schools chief financial officer told Alyson:

If this was taken away from us, that would hurt, said Joe Smith, the schools chief financial officer. And he doesnt think the new funding for charters would necessarily make up for it. I dont know what the new money is for. But I know what Title II is for. Its for any school that serves poor children, to help their students.

For a detailed explanation of how the presidents budget could harm charter schools and private schools, read the story at Politics K-12 .

Photo: President Donald Trump listens as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos speaks during a meeting with parents and teachers on Feb. 14 at the White House. --Evan Vucci/AP
A bill approved by the Georgia Senate on Friday will give the state more power to intervene in schools whose achievement ranks them in the states lowest-performing 5 percent.

The First Priority Act will create a new position of chief turnaround officer, who will work with local districts to boost student achievement in struggling schools. It still needs the approval of the House and a signature from Gov. Nathan Deal to become law.

If the bill becomes law, it will be a shift to a more collaborative approach on how the state can work with districts to improve low-performing schools. It would also mark a move away from last years unsuccessful referendum to create an Opportunity School District, a statewide district that would have had the authority to take over chronically failing schools. The Opportunity School District proposal, which was championed by Gov. Deal, was rejected at the polls in November.

Under the new legislation, if a low-performing school does not improve in three years, the staff can be fired, the school can be turned into a charter, or the district can be required to send students to higher-performing schools, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The turnaround officer will report to the state board of education.

Last year the state school boards association, the teachers union, and the Georgia Parent Teacher Association all opposed Deals school takeover plan.

According to the Associated Press, the biggest education groups have remained neutral on the legislation this time around. They attempted, however, to get legislators to make changes to the bill so that the chief turnaround officer would be appointed by the state superintendent of education, an elected position in Georgia, and not by the Board of Education, whose members are appointed by the governor. That effort was not successful, the AP reported.

Legislators have also approved $1 million in start-up funds for the turnaround office.
John Moffatts opinions on school safety are informed by his own experience as a survivor of the 1986 school shooting at Fergus High School in Lewistown, Montana.

Moffatt was an assistant principal there when a 14-year-old student who had just shot and killed a substitute teacher met him unexpectedly in the hallway. The student shot him twice. The first shot went into Moffatts abdomen and the secondaimed toward his headgrazed his hand.

Moffatt is one of many educators whove joined new efforts to organize against state legislation that would relax gun laws, allowing more teachers and staff to arm themselves in schools . Having a gun that day would not have made his students any safer, he says.

Supporters of such bills, which I covered in a recent story , say they would give willing teachers and staff members another tool to protect students, particularly in rural areas with slow law enforcement response times.

Education Weeks video team dives deeper into Moffatts story in this video piece.

Related reading on school shootings and school safety:

Follow @evieblad on Twitter or subscribe to Rules for Engagement to get blog posts delivered directly to your inbox.
Nai Oak Sar has repeatedly violated the Partys rules so we have decided to remove him from not only the committee but also the party, said Nai San Tin, Joint-Secretary-1 of AMDP.

Among his violations was the decision to attend the August 2016 Mon National Conference as an AMDP representative. The AMDP had already announced its decision not to attend because the conference was being held in an area controlled by the New Mon State Party (NMSP), an armed group with territory in Mon and Karen States. Nai San Tin also accused Nai Aok Sar of undermining the party and publicly disparaging its leaders.

Reached for comment by the Mon News Agency on March 25, Nai Oak Sar said that he could not offer any details about the removal because he had not been officially notified yet. He did say that he had been made aware of the decision through informal channels.

According to Nai San Tin, the joint secretary, only 12 of the Central Executive Committees 24 members were present for the March 24 decision to remove Nai Oak Sar, which the latter said was inappropriate.

If they are removing me from the party, it is not acceptable for the decision to be made in this way. The people need to know who was part of this decision, Nai Oak Sar said.

Nai Oak Sar, also known by his Burmese name Nai Aung Ba, was a vocal advocate of unifying AMDP with its main rival in Mon politics, the Mon National Party (MNP). Though many in Mon State want to see a united front, the AMDP leadership has not embraced the political union.

Nai Oak Sar is from Taung-pyin Village, Lamaing Sub-Township, Mon State. He helped create the AMDP in 2010 after Myanmar (Burma) adopted a new constitution and ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the Union parliament in 2015.
The Panghsang-led political alliance includes the seven EAOs, United Wa State Party/Army (UWSP/UWSA), United League of Arakan/Arakan Army (ULA/AA), Kachin Independence Organization/Army (KIO/KIA), Palaung State Liberation Front/Taang National Liberation Army (PSLF/TNLA), Myanmar National Truth and Justice Party/Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNTJP/MNDAA), Peace and Solidarity Committee/National Democratic Alliance Army (PSC/NDAA) and Shan State Progress Party/Shan State Army (SSPP/SSA) held a meeting from February 22 to 24, with New Mon State Party (NMSP) and Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) absence, although the two sent in position papers to the gathering.

Recently, the NMSP made public, its intention not to be part of the Panghsang-led coalition and instead would opt for the signing of the NCA. But KNPP still has not come up with any clarification on its part.

Panghsang rejection of the NCA

The main argument of Panghsang alliance is that the NCA is based on replacing the Panglong Agreement of 1947, which is the main political legacy and the sole legal bond between the Bamar and the non-Bamar ethnic nationalities territories that has led to the emergence of the Union of Burma in 1948.

In a nutshell, its take on Panglong Agreement and the interpretation of Panglong Spirit as the ethnic rights of self-determination, democracy and equality of building a multi-ethnic society, meaning: genuine federal union, where there is no place for ideology of ethnocentrism.

Earlier, surprisingly enough, the UWSA has taken a radical stand on Panglong Agreement, which now seems to be the Panghsang alliance line of basic political thinking, as never before in the past. In addition, it was convinced that Aung San Suu Kyi and the Military or Tatmadaw were on the same page where subjugation of the non-Bamar ethnic nationalities were concerned, according to its position paper of January 15, 2017, distributed on the eve of the Panghsang non-signatory EAOs leadership meeting last month in February.

Thus, the Panghsang alliance take is to work out a new ceasefire agreement, rejecting and bypassing the NCA, and enter the peace negotiation process.

Governments rebuttal

After weeks of silence on Panghsangs NCA position, the governments spokesman Zaw Htay finally made a rebuttal, when he according to 7 Day Daily report of March 25 said: Some put out statement that the NCA is the replacement of Panglong Agreement, which is totally untrue. We have to go to 21st Century Panglong through the NCA. Sign the NCA and after that enter political negotiation, followed by signing the formation of union agreement, Union Accord. Then the materialization (implementation) of the Union Accord.

He further stressed: The main thing that I wanted to say is that the negotiation of NCA between the government and the EAOs is not the end goal. The governments goal is to achieve union agreement (Union Accord) from the 21st Century Panglong Convention.

NMSP to sign the NCA

Lately, the New Mon State Party (NMSP), a junior partner in terms of military might but vocal and staunch supporter of the UNFC, began to wary and came up with a decision that it might be opting to sign the NCA, which it has so far refused to do so, toeing the UNFCs line of all-inclusive signing of it by all EAOs.

Recently, Mon political parties, monks and members of civil society in the southeastern state are urging the NMSP, a Mon ethnic armed group, to sign NCA.

At first, it was about signing together with the members of the Northern Alliance such as the KIA [Kachin Independence Army], MNDAA [Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army] and TNLA [Taang National Liberation Army]  as all-inclusive, said Mon National Party Central Executive Committee member Nai San Hlaing, who attended a meeting on March 22 in Moulmein involving representatives from the NMSP, political parties and civil society organizations, according to the report of DVB on March 23.

However, the [Burma Army] commander-in-chief doesnt accept them [members of the Northern Alliance]  and it cannot be all inclusive. Because the New Mon State Party is a comparatively small organization, it is advised to sign the NCA, he elaborated further.

Furthermore, NMSP spokesman Nai Win Hla on March 22 told the media that its central committee members have decided to go the way of NCA.

He said: As (some of) the groups that have been waiting for all-inclusive participation (of all the EAOs) opinion changed to opt for approach that is not NCA, we also have to review (our position). We will go according to the NCA line. Since we have different line of approach, it is impossible to go together and that has changed the stance and opinion (of all-inclusiveness participation).

However, attempts by media to contact the NMSP spokesperson to discuss the armed groups thinking on the issue were said to be unsuccessful.

Thus, the rationalization of opting to sign the NCA seems to be based on the fact of the Panghsang decision not to sign the NCA and instead to tread a new alternative approach, which in turn makes the commitment of the remaining EAOs within the UNFC clinging to all-inclusive participation demand meaningless.

What about the UNFCs 9 point proposal?

And with the bargaining power of the UNFC on the wane, due to the KIO and SSPP abandoning the ethnic alliance mother organization, the doubtfulness of whether the remaining members of the UNFC would be able to cut a better deal regarding its 9 point proposal become apparent.

Particularly, it is questionable if the number one nationwide ceasefire declaration of the Tatmadaw within 24 hours, followed by the UNFC members ceasefire announcement within 48 hours; the number three, tripartite dialogue composition  government, parliament, military; EAOs; and political parties  on all level of the peace process talks; the number six, formation of military Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC) with representatives from the government, EAOs and international figures acceptable to both parties; and number seven, formation of a neutral, enforcement tribunal for NCA involving domestic and international law experts and judges that are acceptable to both parties; would be heeded by the government that has earlier indicated that they are in agreement principally.

In a logical sense, since the NMSP is already committed to tread the part of the NCA from the outset, there is no incentive left for the government to yield to the UNFC demand anymore. To put it differently, the NMSP is going to sign anyway.

Outlook

For now, the NMSP has officially havent concretely take up the position in relation to the signing of the NCA. Likewise, the KIO and SSPP havent also make any official statement, saying that they still have to call central Committee meeting to come up with an official decision on the issue.

Looking at the situation, the government-military side could boost its peace process approach for any additional party signing the NCA, but whether the UNFC members that are left could make any progress on its 9 point proposal is also an open question, as it has no more bargaining chip left to swing the government-military establishment, to make the peace process more equal and balance in creating a level playing-field, which is basically the aim.

From the point of the Panghsang and northern alliance, the war in the north of the country would likely go on and their demand for a new ceasefire deal leading to a new peace process looks quite remote. At the most, the intensity of the war in the north could deescalate, depending on how Chinas mediation and pressure are going to work out on both warring parties.

The recent Chinas closing of one of the MNDAA banking account and directive to disarm Kokang people entering China that might be armed, giving incentive even to buy the weapons, could be seen as a good will message to the Burmese government and at the same time pressuring the MNDAA.

Inside sources, although as yet officially unconfirmed, according to the UWSA information department on March 26 translation, regarding the Minutes of the March 14 meeting between Sun Guoxiang, Special Envoy of Asian Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, and the UWSA wrote that the MNDAA is solely responsible for the recent Kokang conflict; urgently demand MNDAAs unilateral ceasefire announcement; requested the UWSA to release a position statement as well as to mediate and stop the conflicts; mentioned Aung San Suu Kyis repeatedly stressing of an inclusive peace process and the Tatmadaw supportive attitude in the peace process; suggested signing the NCA would be beneficial to all stakeholders including all the EAOs; and finally, urged the UWSA to sign the NCA, while keeping reservations on some terms.

As it is, the UNFC most likely is programmed to disintegrate, the war in the north would continue, the peace process or 21st Century Panglong Conference would move further on with partial ceasefire arrangement, without ever been all-inclusive, if there is no radical change in the current prevailing political situation and atmosphere.

Meanwhile, the Chinese would continue to play the role of a mediator without much success, while the West, particularly the European Union would continue to fund the peace process, dubbed peace industrial complex by some disgruntled Burma observers and watchers.

As for the United States, it would continue to be in the waiting mode, until the Trump administration decided to do something on Burma, as it is still more consumed by pressing issues in the home front.

But while stakeholders continue to angle and re-position themselves with intensive political maneuvering, in an attempt to out do one another, one political outfall is programmed to take place, which is the disintegration of the UNFC.

The NMSP has now started the first move and it may be only a matter of time, before the KNPP chip in to the signing of NCA, that would spell the end of UNFC as a formidable ethnic front, repeating the disintegration of National Democratic Front (NDF) and the Democratic Alliance of Burma (DAB), its predecessor organizations.

It might be history is repeating itself.
Hundreds of religious schools and their employees are watching with intense interest a case the U.S. Supreme Court took up on Monday about whether certain church-affiliated institutionshospitals, soup kitchens, and daycare centers in addition to schools and collegesare subject to the main federal law that regulates private pension plans.

A wide range of church-affiliated groups, including schools and education associations, has told the high court that it has been settled law for more than 30 years that the pension plans of qualifying church-affiliated organizations are exempt from the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, the federal law that governs employers that offer pensions to their workers.

But three recent federal appeals court decisions have held that ERISAs exemption for church pension plans applies only if a church established the pension plan. The rulings have prompted dozens of class-action lawsuits against religious organizations, including schools, that have relied on the church plan exemption for decades. The lawsuits seek billions of dollars in retroactive liability for noncompliance with ERISAs recordkeeping and other procedural requirements, from which church plans are exempt.

In Advocate Health Care Network v. Stapleton (Case No. 16-74) and related cases, the Supreme Court is taking up appeals from three religiously affiliated hospitals, but its decision will have implications for schools, colleges, and many other church affiliates.

There is a litany of charitable ministries affiliated with but not necessarily established by the parish or diocese, ranging from hospitals and healthcare clinics, to soup kitchens and homeless shelters, to parochial schools, colleges, and universities, and countless others, says a friend-of-the-court brief in the case in support of the religious hospitals filed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Catholic Educational Association, and other Roman Catholic groups.

If the high court were to affirm the appeals courts rulings, that limiting of the ERISA exemption would impact not just Catholic hospitals, but Catholic charities of all shapes and sizes, the brief says.

Meanwhile, many Protestant churches and organizations joined a brief , also in support of the hospitals, that points out that their churches are not as hierarchical as the Catholic Church, so even if the court rules that the retirement plans of Catholic church affiliates are held to be established by the larger church, it would be hard for most Protestant churches to meet that because they are chiefly based on local congregations.

The notion that there is some umbrella church for the Jews and the Protestants is justits fantastical that they could possibly establish these plans, Lisa S. Blatt, a Washington lawyer representing the church-affiliated hospitals, told the justices during oral arguments on March 27. Her clients in the case are hospital networks affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Church of Christ, and the Catholic Church.

Blatt said that Congress had amended ERISA in 1980 in response to a 1977 ruling by the Internal Revenue Service that two orders of Catholic nuns were not the church when they were caring for the sick and their pension plan was not exempt as a church plan.

The language added by the 1980 amendment was intended to keep the federal government from having to decide what constituted a church, she said. And since the early 1980s, the three federal agencies charged with interpreting ERISAthe IRS, Department of Labor, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporationhave agreed that such plans of church affiliates qualify for ERISAs church plan exemption, she said.

The governments consistent view, over three decades, has generated enormous reliance interests, Blatt said, meaning that church affiliates have relied on that view as they made pension decisions during that time period.

James A. Feldman, a Washington lawyer representing workers and retirees who have challenged the hospital systems church exemptions under ERISA, argued in his brief and at oral argument that large hospital networks in the case are run like big business enterprises.

No one would mistake [the three] hospital systems for churches, Feldman said in a brief. Their operations are in all significant respects identical to the operations of their nonprofit (and, to a great degree, for-profit) competitors. They impose no religious test or requirements on their patients or employees. There is no indication that churches provide them with financial support or guarantee their debts.

The explosion of unregulated and uninsured church plans has led to threat to pensions and even failures, resulting in reduced benefits for pensioners, Feldman argued.

Asked during oral argument by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. about the long-held view of the IRS, the Labor Department, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. that the church-affiliated plans were exempt from ERISA, Feldman said, They took this view in the early 1980s at a time when they were facing one or two [such plans].

Im not sure they knew at the time when they started down this road what it was going to lead to in terms of the hundreds of hospitals and other businesses that were going to be able to just deprive their employees of ERISA benefits, Feldman said.

The Pension Rights Center, a Philadelphia-based workers rights organization that filed a friend-of-the-court brief on the workers side in the high court case, cites at least one school-related case in which pension benefits were reduced in a church plan for school workers.

In 2016, the school system of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Juan, Puerto Rico, terminated its pension plan, then retroactively claimed a church plan exemption so it did not have to follow obligations under ERISA, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of the workers.

Unless the decisions below are upheld, not only will the pensions of [hospital] participants and those of current and future retirees in hundreds of other plans sponsored by church-related hospitals, nursing homes, schools, and community centers that have received church plan rulings be at risk, but countless others also will be in danger of losing their hard-earned and long-promised benefits, says the Pension Rights Center brief.

The justices had tough questions for both sides in the hospitals case before them.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Blatt, Do you think Congress had in mind [exempting] corporations that are essentially like every other corporation except theyre not for profit? I mean, these hospitals, some of them, like Dignity, the Catholic Church has disavowed any formal affiliation with it.

She was referring to information in court papers that in 2011, when the Dignity network was formed, the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco said publicly that the name of the new health system [i.e., Dignity] will not suggest a direct association with the Catholic Church or its apostolic works and that the restructured corporation will not be recognized as Catholic.

Blatt said Dignity was established by orders of nuns and has some six orders of nuns running its mission integrity committee.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy suggested to Feldman that church affiliates have been proceeding in good faith for more than 30 years with the assurance of the IRS that what they were doing was lawful.

We do know that the climate, the culture, the economic problem after 30 years was that many of these [church-affiliated] associations, which proceeded in good faith based on the IRS, were at risk of tremendous liability if they were suddenly found subject to ERISAs requirements, Kennedy said.

A decision in the case is expected by late June.
Ezekiel 37:1-14 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

37 The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, Mortal, can these bones live? I answered, O Lord God, you know. 4 Then he said to me, Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.

7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. 10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

11 Then he said to me, Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely. 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.

********





The Babylonian exile was a tragic, and yet fruitful event in the life of the people of Israel. It was tragic, because the nation was torn apart. Yet, the exile also gave Judah an opportunity to rediscover its identity as a people. Much of what we know as the Old Testament emerged in the context of the exile. While, it was a challenging time for the people of Judah, who found it difficult to live in hope of a new and better day.

Ezekiel was a prophet who arose in the context of the exile, and he spoke words that chided the people when they were unfaithful, but he also shared words that offed hope of a new day, when the people of Israel would experience restoration. One of the most powerful words of hope to be found in Ezekiel, if not all of scripture, is this passage from Ezekiel 37. Can dry bones live? That is the question of the hour. It is the question that YHWH asked of the prophet after delivering him to a plain covered with dry, lifeless bones. Can these bones live? All that Ezekiel can answer is: you know. That is, Ezekiel has no idea how dry, lifeless bones could ever be restored to life. Only God knows, and its possible that as the conversation started, Ezekiel had his doubts.





If Ezekiel has doubts, God has a plan. Theres a reason why God brought Ezekiel out to this plain covered with dry bones. God wanted Ezekiel to better understand his prophetic calling. God wanted him to preach, to share the word, so that Israel might once again live. This is the word given to Ezekiel: say to the bones: hear the word of the Lord. I think we should let that phrase sink into our hearts and minds. Hear the Word of the Lord. Remember the message of Johns prologue, which declared that the Word (Logos) was in the beginning with God and was God, and that all things came into being through him, and in him was life ( Jn. 1:1-4 ). The Word of the Lord is life, and if Ezekiel will preach to the bones, then God will breathe life into them, so that the bones will know who the LORD is.





ruach/pneuma). In the biblical story, life isnt separate from the presence of Gods spirit. Ezekiel does as God asks, and then witnesses Gods fulfillment of the promise made to Ezekiel. The bones begin to rattle and come together to form skeletons (we could use a bit of Disney animation here). On these skeletons flesh appears. But, the text of Ezekiel says that to this point there was no breath in them. It would be fitting to go back to Genesis 2, the second creation story, where God forms the first human from the dust of the earth. The basic building blocks are there, but life isnt yet present. Life awaits the breath of God. As we read in Genesis, God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being ( Gen. 2:7 ). In Ezekiel, God tells the prophet to prophesy to the breath, saying: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live ( Ez. 37:9 ). When Ezekiel complied, the winds came forth, and filled the lifeless bodies with breath. Of course, the Hebrew word, like the Greek word, for breath is also the word for Spirit (). In the biblical story, life isnt separate from the presence of Gods spirit.





It is important that we recognize that Ezekiel isnt speaking about individuals. He has in mind a people, the people of Israel, who have experienced the devastation of conquest and the humiliation of exile. Not everyone in the nation of Judah found themselves in Babylon, but whether in Babylon or in the land of Israel, the people of Judah had lost their sense of identity. It was as if they had died. The Spirit of God seemed absent from the people. Now, it needs to be said that the Spirit of God wasnt truly absent, but the people seemed disconnected from the life-giving Spirit of God. The presence of the Spirit can be seen in the work of the prophets, including Ezekiel.





st century, a church that is beginning to see itself in terms of exile. We seem to be a collection of dry, lifeless bones scattered across the plain. I hear it all the time. I hear it from colleagues who bemoan what appears to be the prolonged death of the church. I hear it from church members, who remember the glory days, when Sunday was marked by church attendance. Churches were full. The congregation I now serve is relatively small, but once it was a grand and powerful congregation. Its pastor was nationally recognized (he served as President of the Federal Council of Churches). The church sat on Detroits Piety Row. Times changed, the church began a slow decline, and it eventually moved to the suburbs. For a long time, it clung to its former heritage, but the reality is that the congregation had gone into exile. This congregation isnt alone in this, even if a congregation hasnt moved from its original space. The promise here, of course, is that the exiles will return to the Land, to the soil, upon which the people had once been a nation of some importance. Its not likely that our congregations will return to their original glory, but the spirit of exile can give way to a new spirit of hope and service. We can take root in our new realities, and be witnesses to Gods gracious presence. The dry bones can hear the Word of God and come to life, filled with the Spirit, so as to become signs of Gods presence in the world. This is a well-known passage of scripture. Its vivid in its descriptiveness. The valley of dry bones coming back to life; its a powerful image. But what does it have to do with us? What word does God have for the church in the 21century, a church that is beginning to see itself in terms of exile. We seem to be a collection of dry, lifeless bones scattered across the plain. I hear it all the time. I hear it from colleagues who bemoan what appears to be the prolonged death of the church. I hear it from church members, who remember the glory days, when Sunday was marked by church attendance. Churches were full. The congregation I now serve is relatively small, but once it was a grand and powerful congregation. Its pastor was nationally recognized (he served as President of the Federal Council of Churches). The church sat on Detroits Piety Row. Times changed, the church began a slow decline, and it eventually moved to the suburbs. For a long time, it clung to its former heritage, but the reality is that the congregation had gone into exile. This congregation isnt alone in this, even if a congregation hasnt moved from its original space. The promise here, of course, is that the exiles will return to the Land, to the soil, upon which the people had once been a nation of some importance. Its not likely that our congregations will return to their original glory, but the spirit of exile can give way to a new spirit of hope and service. We can take root in our new realities, and be witnesses to Gods gracious presence. The dry bones can hear the Word of God and come to life, filled with the Spirit, so as to become signs of Gods presence in the world.





Rebuilding the Foundations, p. 193]. With that in mind we can get a sense of the overarching message of this narrative. Kelton Cobb writes that at the core of the biblical narrative is the story of displacementof having wandered a long way from home, and longing to return. This is the underlying plot of being cast out of Eden, of being foreigners in Egypt, of the journey to the promised land, of the long of exiles in Babylon to return to the land of their fathers [Feasting on the Word, 126]. Perhaps the key to restoration is attending to the Word of God. I speak here to my more progressive/liberal colleagues, who often struggle with Scripture. Yes, Scripture can be difficult to navigate. It says things that we may find problematic. After all, it emerged in a very different world, and yet it does have something powerful to say, if were willing to listen. While critical scholarship is essential to getting the context straight, if we begin and end there, we may end up missing a Word from God. Walter Brueggemann suggests that we would be better of moving on from focusing our attention on questions of historicity, and focus more on the overarching narrative that is Scripture. He speaks of the Exodus story here, but I think it holds for other conversations. Of the biblical narrative, he writes that we might see it as a script that is waiting to be performed; it is always being given new performance, even in our own time . . . [p. 193]. With that in mind we can get a sense of the overarching message of this narrative. Kelton Cobb writes that at the core of the biblical narrative is the story of displacementof having wandered a long way from home, and longing to return. This is the underlying plot of being cast out of Eden, of being foreigners in Egypt, of the journey to the promised land, of the long of exiles in Babylon to return to the land of their fathers [, 126].





The Confessions, the restless heart will not find rest until it rests in God. Is this not our own desire? Do we not want to find our homeland? For Judah, it was the Land, for us, it is the realm of God. It is this narrative of exile and return that defines our own realities, including as churches. When we feel as if were in exile, we long to return home. That might be why there is such interest in genealogies. We want to know where we belong, so we can return to our homeland. When I went to England, during my sabbatical, I had this feeling of connecting to my roots. This was my homeland. When I went to Christ Church Cathedral and experienced Evensong, it was as if I had come home. So, I understand this longing for home. It is a longing that defines salvation. As Augustine wrote inthe restless heart will not find rest until it rests in God. Is this not our own desire? Do we not want to find our homeland? For Judah, it was the Land, for us, it is the realm of God.





Preaching the Old Testament, p. 37]. So, what do we make of this powerful story? What word does it have for us? At one level this might be a good word about the power of preaching, even if our culture doesnt seem to value preaching in the same way it once did, there is her a call to bring the Word so that the Spirit might move. When we hear the word prophesy, a number images might come to mind, most of which dont seem to apply to those of us who enter pulpits to preach. But, in many ways that is what were called to do. Were asked to bring a Word from God to a community. Ron Allen and Clark Williamson write that preaching her is the means of restoration. Through preaching the breath of God enters the bones. An implication is that pastorally sensitive prophetic preaching can play a key role in revitalizing community [p. 37].





This is the word given to Israel, and by extension to the Church: I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act, says the LORD. The church in the West is experiencing a reality that it hasnt faced in centuries. No longer supported by government or even cultural establishment, it must fend for itself, or depend on the Spirit of God. Many congregations feel as if their bones are very dry. They feel as life has been drained from them, but here is a word of hope. Say to the bones  Live. Call for the wind of the Spirit to breathe life into the bones of our congregations. We may be in exile, but the realm of God is there in front of us.
Surprising Facts About Nelson Mandela Life oi-Syeda Farah

Nelson Mandela is the name that does not need any introduction. He is the man who almost single-handedly led to the demise of the apartheid practice in South Africa.

Though he won a Noble Peace Prize, he actually resorted to violent means for getting freedom. He almost spent 3 decades in prison, as he was fighting for the rights of Africans, and while he was in prison, he graduated in law.

Also Read: Things About Jayalalitha All Indians Should Know

There is a lot about Nelson Mandela that the world does not know of. Here, in this article, we are about to share some of the most surprising facts about Nelson Mandela that you should know of.

Find out more about this legendary man - Nelson Mandela!

Fact #1 Nelson Mandela is not his original name. His original name was "Rolihlahla Mandela", which means "to pull the branch off a tree" in Xhosa language. It also meant "troublemaker". Despite the fact that his name was changed, he continued to create troubles for the English people. Fact #2 He spent 27 years of his life in prison and was an ace in disguising himself. He was in a chauffeur's disguise when he was arrested in 1962. Fact #3 His main motive as a president was to improve the relations between whites and blacks, forming a brand-new image of South Africa to the world. Fact #4 He started many organisations like the Nelson Mandela Foundation and The Elders (an independent group of famous people who address global problems and human suffering). Fact #5 He regretted that he didn't devote his time to solving the AIDS issue when he was the president. Later, he established 46664 (which was his prison number - he was the 466th prisoner in the year 1964 and so, 46664) - a non-profit organization that completely dedicated itself to spread awareness and prevent AIDS. Fact #6 After getting the treatment for prostate cancer in 2001, he became weak with other ailments and this decreased his public appearances. 18th July was declared as the "Nelson Mandela International Day" by the United Nations for his contributions to democracy, social justice, freedom and human rights. Fact #7 He was listed in USA's terror watch list till 2008, with his ANC (African National Congress) members because of their armed rebellion against apartheid. Fact #8 Mandela was the co-author of the book "How Far We Slaves Have Come" along with Fidel Castro (Cuban Revolutionist and Politician who became the Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976). Fact #9 Did you know that Mandela's handprint resembles the shape of the African continent? Well, it does! Fact #10 He once called the Queen of Britain, Queen Elizabeth II, by her name and passed a few comments on her weight and her dressing style. If you wish to know more such facts about interesting legends, then do share the list with us in the comment section below.

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 28, 2017, 17:16 [IST]
Ugadi 2021: Interesting Facts That You Must Know About This Festival Festivals oi-Staff

Ugadi is also known as "Yugadi" and "Samvatsaradi". The festival marks the start of a new year and the beginning of the spring season. The day is important for all the people who live in the area that falls in between the Vindhya and Kaveri rivers. The people in this area follow the lunar calendar of south India. The people of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa are the ones who celebrate Ugadi with much pomp and show.

The other states also celebrate this day, but by different names. When the people of Andhra Pradesh, Telengana and Karnataka call the festival as Ugadi or Yugadi, the Marathi people know the festival as Gudi Padwa. The Marvadi community of Rajasthan calls the festival Thapna. This year the festival will be celebrated on 13 April.

Also Read: Ways to celebrate the Ugadi festival

The Sindhis celebrate the festival as Cheti Chand. Sajibu Nongma Panba is the name that the Manipuris use for the day. The Hindu community of Indonesia, who are centered around Bali, celebrate their new year on the same day, but call it as Nyepi.

Whatever the name be, the 'Chaitra Shuddha Paadyami' or the day of Ugadi is the reason for celebration for a large sect of the Hindu people. Read on to know more about this festival of the new beginnings.

The festival of Ugadi or Yugadi is derived from the Sanskrit words, 'Yuga' which is a measure of time (a Year in this case) and 'Adi' means a start or a beginning. Therefore, the word ugadi means the start of a new year.

The people that celebrate this festival are the Kannadigas, Telugu, Marathi, Konkani and Kodavas. It is said that this celebration is spread over three states, which could be the result of the common rulers during the Satavahana Dynasty.

The festival of Ugadi celebrates the six tastes of a human life. Sweet, bitter, sour, spicy, salty and tangy, which are all a part of the festival and can be found in the dishes prepared on this day.

The legend goes that Ugadi is the day when Lord Brahma started the work of creation. It is said that he woke up early in the morning and his yawn created the four vedas. With that he started his creation.

Another legend that ties Lord Brahma to Ugadi is the story where it is said that one day of Lord Brahma's life equals a year for the humans. So, every year, Lord Brahma writes new fates for the people of the world. Therefore, it is considered auspicious to pray Lord Brahma on this day. Praying to Lord Brahma will bring you good luck and fortune during the rest of the year.

It is said that the wicked demon Somakasura stole the Vedas from Lord Brahma and hid them in the ocean. Without the Vedas, Lord Brahma couldn't continue with the creation. It was then that Lord Maha Vishnu took the Matsya Avatara and killed the Demon Somakasura. Lord Vishnu, then, restored the Vedas to Lord Brahma, enabling him to continue with the creation. This day is said to be commemorated as Ugadi.

It is a traditional practice to take oil bath on Ugadi day. The reason behind this is, it is believed that Goddess Lakshmi dwells in oil and Goddess Ganga dwells in the water on Ugadi. When you take an oil bath on Ugadi, you receive the blessings of both - Goddess Ganga and Goddess Lakshmi.

Also Read: Significance of neem and jaggery for Ugadi!

Sri Sahasra Nama Stotra extols Lord Maha Vishnu as 'Yugadi Krit' - the creator of Yugadi or the reason behind Yugadi. He is also called 'Yugaavarto', which means the one who causes the repetition of yugas.

"Yugadi-krit Yugaavarto Naikamaayo Mahashanah

Adeishyo Vyaktaroopashcha Sahasrajid Anandajit"

It is therefore, important to worship Lord Maha Vishnu on Ugadi day.

According to the solar-lunar calendar that the majority of South Indians follow, the day of "Chaitra Shuddha Paadyami" is celebrated as Ugadi. It is also notable that according to Telugu Panchangam or astrology, each era is a cycle of 60 years. Each year is given a name and it has some characteristic features specific to it. After a cycle of 60 years, the years repeat themselves. The Ugadi of 2017 is called Hevalambi. 2016 Ugadi was Durmukhi and 2018 will be called Vilambi.
A party member from National League for Democracy (NLD) party in Myitkyina told Mizzima on condition of anonymity that in her first ever visit to Kachin State since the new government took power she would visit the camps and hospitals in Kachin State.

In her visit, she will go to refugee camps and hospitals but I dont know yet about any other programmes. She will arrive in Myitkyina at about 9 a.m. Since this an official trip there will be government officials and people to welcome her, he said.

Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC) Secretary Dr.Khalam Sum Son told Mizzima that Aung San Suu Kyi would meet religious leaders and Kachin social organizations in Myitikyina on March 28 and he thought that the main purpose of the meeting would be confidence building with ethnic Kachin people.

Our ethnic Kachin people, Kachin social organizations and religious leaders will meet Aung San Suu Kyi. I see this visit as friendship and confidence building with Kachin people and for the realization of a democratic system in the country, he said.

Last week, Speaker of the House of Representatives Win Myint visited refugee camps in Ingyandon Ward, Myitkyina and donated 30 million kyats towards rice and clothes.

The Union Government has also recently donated 300 million to Kachin refugees.
In 2014, IKEA, the Swedish-based global furniture company, sent a cease-and-desist letter to a blogger by the name of Jules Yap. Yap ran the extremely popular website IKEAhackers.net, which helped people hack IKEA furniture into new, creative, and unexpected designs. The site was already almost a decade old when IKEAs lawyers demanded that Yap hand over the URL. What follows is a case study from Superfandom: How Our Obsessions are Changing What We Buy and Who We Are .

When fans act in unexpected, uncontrollable ways, such as using the brand name for their own purposes, the proactive solution is often the same as IKEA's: to file a legal claim to protect intellectual property. It isn't a wrong thing to do per se  the legal side of brand management is a serious business  but US trademark and copyright regulations aren't especially helpful when it comes to managing fan expectations.

"I don't have an issue with them protecting their trademark but I think they could have handled it better," Yap told the Washington Post. "I am a person, not a corporation. A blogger who obviously is on their side."

Fans don't need to be treated with kid gloves, but they do need to be treated differently than people who are trying to make a quick buck. Sending a cease-and-desist to someone squatting on a domain name like IKEA-furniture.com makes sense. In the case of a blogger running a fan site, even one making money off the site, a polite letter opening a conversation might be a better option. Yap's lawyer was able to negotiate a deal with IKEA allowing her to continue operating the site in a noncommercial fashion, without on-site advertising to support her efforts. As soon as the agreement was made public, fans of the site exploded.

Cory Doctorow, an author and co-editor of Boing Boing, tore into IKEA: "Ikea's C&D is, as a matter of law, steaming bullshit. There's no trademark violation here: the use of Ikea's name is purely factual. The fact that money changes hands on Ikeahackers (which Ikea's lawyers seem most upset about) has no bearing on the trademark analysis. There is no chance of confusion or dilution from Ikeahackers' use of the mark. This is pure bullying, an attempt at censorship. . . ."

Brand hijacking is such a terrifying phenomenon that the smallest possibility is often enough to send brand owners running to their legal departments. Overreactions to completely innocent, or even helpful, fan behavior are a common cause for a fandom to rebel. Many a fan meltdown could have been avoided by a deep breath and five minutes of introspection on the part of the fan object.

Doctorow, today an advocate for copyright and trademark legal reform, points out what is obvious to everyone except, it appears, corporate lawyers: "You can get the same benefit from offering a royalty-free license as you get from threatening a lawsuit."

Many organizations have begun to replace the cease-and- desist approach to fan management with one that brings fans into the fold: if the organization is largely happy with the fan's activities, it always has the option of making the fan's activity official. Sometimes giving fans permission to use the trademark, with proper controls and oversight, lets everyone win. If that seems too daring for corporate counsel to accept, there's always the old fallback: good old-fashioned disclaimers. They might seem boring in a world where dramatic cease-and-desist orders are the norm, but they do get the job done. Asking a fan group to make it clear that they aren't affiliated with or funded by, or have anything at all to do with, the company may make a lot of concerns go away.

Fear is a terrible reason to lash out at the people who love something. And fear also robs the brand owners of the fruits of their labors. And it pisses everyone off.

#doingitright

Fighting for a cause is exciting and romantic, and it's even more true when, as in many cases of cease-and-desists, one side does indeed have the moral high ground. When a fan group truly has an axe to grind, there is no good way to head it off. Techniques of appeasement, such as giving something and then taking it away, will only further fuel an "us vs. them" mentality.

It's important to note that, in many cases, simply acquiescing to fan demands isn't foolproof either. Despite all of their knowledge, fans don't know what's best for their fan object. They only know what's best for its audience. Often the two are the same, but occasionally they're not. When a brand placates its fan group by giving in to a demand, everyone will feel really excited and powerful and good about what they've done together . . . briefly. Then the fans will lose interest and move on to other exciting issues, while the fan object tries to cope with the long-term consequences of its decision.

In situations where fan dictates simply can't be met, the best course of action for fan-object owners might be to humanize the situation. To remind fans that there are real human people involved, that they and the fans are all on the same side, that they understand the fans' concerns, and to explain why they've made their decision. It's important for people to be reminded that both sides of the discussion are made up of fellow fans, wanting to do what's best for their shared passion.

If fans are able to view the fan-object owner as another member of their fan group instead of a corporate overlord, there's much less to fear from transparency. As Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams put it in their classic book Wikinomics, "If you trust your customers, you don't have to control them." Fan groups may wobble, but they do tend to right themselves in the end. If an organization has instilled the right social norms into its superfans, it should be able to explain itself as best it can and allow the community to handle it from there. That's what it's there for.

The best course in every potentially explosive situation is to think carefully about what that transparency is going to reveal. Owners should decide if it aligns with what they know about their fans' feelings and motivations. It requires being deliberate. It means considering who these fans are, where they sit within their fan group's hierarchy, what aspect of their identity is caught up in the fan object, and what they feel they're getting out of their fanlike activities.

Will this transparency make fans feel like insiders? Or will it make them feel betrayed by the insiders?

Less than a week after Yap went public, IKEA was forced to backpedal. "We want to clarify that we deeply regret the situation at hand with IKEAhackers," IKEA told a reporter at Yahoo. Yap was invited to visit the company's home offices, and, in a meeting with the CEO  the CEO!  of Inter IKEA Systems B.V., they ultimately forged an agreement allowing Yap to continuing operating the site, ads and all.

"Yay! Pop the lingonberry juice," Yap wrote.



Adapted from 'Superfandom: How Our Obsessions are Changing What We Buy and Who We Are' by Zoe Fraade-Blanar and Aaron M. Glazer. Copyright  2017 by Zoe Fraade-Blanar and Aaron M. Glazer. Reprinted with permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
In 2011, the Canadian Conservative government rammed through Bill C-11, Canada's answer to the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, in which the property rights of Canadians were gutted in order to ensure that corporations could use DRM to control how they used their property  like its US cousin, the Canadian law banned breaking DRM, even for legitimate purposes, like effecting repairs or using third party parts.

So it's no surprise that all the bad stuff that Americans are having to deal with is also turning up in Canada.

Case in point: in America, desperate farmers are downloading illegal Ukrainian firmware hacks that deke out John Deere's software, which tries to stop you from fixing your own tractor.

In Canada, farmers are doing the same, with the same furtive shame, because Canada's idiotic DRM law says that they must not break John Deere's DRM, even at the cost of letting their crops rot in their fields.

F: Well, pretty much every farmer runs into the same problem. The big problem is logistics. What they've basically done is try to create a new revenue stream for their service departments without thinking about the logistics of trying to support a huge number of farmers that are geographically spread out with limited dealer resources. When you phone your dealer and they say, "Well, we can be there the next day." I mean, in a 12-hour day a modern combine will take off $50,000 or $60,000 of grain. So, I mean, that's revenue that might be sitting under the snow because the dealer couldn't come out to spend 10 minutes with a laptop to unlock a new part.

Saskatchewan farmer hacks his 'smart' tractor to avoid costly dealer fees

[As It Happens/CBC]
The operators of the ocean-floor exploring vehicle E/V Nautilus chanced across this absolutely adorable googly-eyed purple cuttlefish, so what they they do? They spent the next five minutes making fun of it! [via Reddit]

The team spotted this Stubby Squid off the coast of California at a depth of 900 meters (2,950 feet). The stubby squid (Rossia pacifica) looks like a cross between an octopus and squid, but is more closely related to cuttlefish. This species spends life on the seafloor, activating a sticky mucus jacket and burrowing into the sediment to camouflage, leaving their eyes poking out to spot prey like shrimp and small fish. Rossia pacifica is found in the Northern Pacific from Japan to Southern California, most commonly seen up to 300m deep, but specimens have been collected at 1000m depth. E/V Nautilus is exploring the ocean studying biology, geology, archeology, and more. Watch http://www.nautiluslive.org for live video from the ocean floor. For live dive updates follow along on social media at http://www.facebook.com/nautiluslive and http://www.twitter.com/evnautilus on Twitter. For more photos from our dives, check out our Instagram @nautiluslive.

Someone should remix this so that when the scientists are mocking it ("it looks like a child's toy!") the camera lurches up to see a giant purple Cthulhu looking in the murk above them. Cthulhu booms: "don't talk to me or my son ever again."
Connecticut, home to the richest hedge-fund managers in America, is going broke, cutting services and gutting pension plans to try and fill its $1.8B budget hole  a hole it plans on filling by taking away $1.5B from the state's workers.



It's one of the most unequal states in America; at the bottom is the opiod-plagued town of Bridgeport, where one in five residents lives below the poverty line; at the top is nearby Greenwich, where the super-wealthy hedge-fund managers have seen their incomes rise by more than 17% since the financial crisis.





Last Saturday, protesters went from mansion to mansion in Greenwich, leaving outsized novelty tax-bills on the doorsteps of the outsized novelty homes occupied by financiers who pay a lower income-tax rate than the state's teachers, janitors and road-workers.





The protesters are pinning their hopes on a state bill that would close the notorious carried interest tax loophole (decried by Trump during the 2016 campaign); parallel initiatives in other NYC commuter states would throw a net over the entire region. Anywhere within a helicopter commute of Wall Street would be ensnared in it.



In the meantime, Farrell and co have taken to the (least) mean streets of Connecticut, to take action at the local level. Greenwich police, who are facing cuts too, let them leave a $446m bill outside the 35,000 sq ft mansion of Steve Cohen, founder of Point72 Asset Management and SAC Capital Advisors. Cohen's net worth is an estimated $13bn; his $1bn art collection could almost plug Connecticut's budget hole on its own. At Hill Road, close to Alpha Drive (a dead end, the sign informs us), protesters left a $1bn bill for William Macaulay, boss of energy investor First Reserve Corporation, and another $837m-plus bill at the guardhouse of Ray Dalio's mansion. Dalio, boss of Bridgewater Associates  which owns bits of many of the US's low-wage employers, including Walmart and Yum Brands, which owns Kentucky Fried Chicken and Taco Bell  lives in a gated community. His guard seemed less amused with the protest than the local police.

Protesters target Connecticut's uber wealthy with 'tax bills' in bid to end loophole

[Dominic Rushe/The Guardian]





(Image: Dominic Rushe for the Guardian)





(via Naked Capitalism)
Penneys/Primark have denied "taking inspiration" from Irish designer, Zoel Carol Wong.

Dublin based designer, Zoe Carol Wong founded contemporary womenswear brand, Zoe Carol back in 2012.

Since its launch, the brand has gone from strength to strength and is currently stocked high profile stores such as the Kilkenny Shop, Atelier 27 and So Collective.

Earlier this week, Carol received a photograph of a top in Penneys from a friend.

A top that she claims looks exactly like a top featured in her 2016 spring/summer collection.

See for yourself:

The image on the left is Carols design, the image on the right is the top currently stocked in Penneys.

Since then, the Galway-raised designer penned an open letter to the store claiming they clearly robbed her intellectual property.

She went on to say there is no law against what they did as there is no law protecting designers and makers from this kind of thing.

I saw the ugly side of fashion.

Although angry and upset over the fiasco, Zoe did say that it has made her feel more determined to create and design things that people of all incomes want to buy.

Moral of the story?, she signed the letter off.

FUCK YOU PENNEYS but also you do you Penneys because this is life and lifes not fair.

When contacted Penneys/Primark released this statement: Primarks team of designers take great pride in bringing its customers the latest trends at affordable prices.

The Primark buyers responsible for commissioning and developing the product in question were not familiar with Ms Wongs company, or with its designs, and at no time took inspiration from them".
Update 3.30pm: It was revealed today that Unite has amassed a 40 million strike fund to support members during industrial disputes.

The news comes as workers in Bus Eireann are on a fifth day of industrial action in protest at the unilateral imposition of a cuts package.

"As our members spend another day on the picket lines, they need to know that they have the full support of 1.4 million Unite members across Britain and Ireland,"said Unite general secretary Len McCluskey.

"Over a number of years, Unite has amassed a 40 million strike fund to support members during industrial disputes. I am sending a clear message to employers: when our members are in dispute, they not only have right on their side  they also have financial might on their side.

"I hope that the Irish Government will see sense, start treating Bus Eireann as the vital strategic asset it is, and invest in its services accordingly. But our members will not be bullied to the table by threats.

"They are fighting not only for their own futures, but for the right of communities throughout Ireland to a decent public transport system that provides a quality service and quality jobs. They have my full support in that battle - and the backing of a 40 million strike fund."

Update 1.30pm: Irish Rail has said they will not be affected by strike action tomorrow.

Earlier we reported that all three transport bodies, Irish Rail, Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus will be taking part in a group demonstration outside Leinster House.

However, Irish Rail has contacted our publication via Twitter to confirm there will be no disruption to their services tomorrow.

We have no indication of any disruption. We will update customers if this changes.  Iarnrod Eireann (@IrishRail) March 28, 2017

Update: 1pm: The head of the National Bus and Rail Union says he may not be able to stop his members at Irish Rail and Dublin Bus from going on a 'wild cat' strike.

Bus Eireann workers are into day five of an all-out, indefinite strike.

SIPTU is to ballot its members in Irish Rail and Dublin Bus, following a threat yesterday by Bus Eireann that compulsory redundancies may be unavoidable.

But Dermot O'Leary from the NBRU won't be balloting his members on legal advice.

And he says the longer the strike continues, the more likely it is that others in the sector will join the picket lines: "My members in Irish Rail and Dublin Bus are extremely angry that we have now gone into five days.

"I'm trying to hold the line with those members, now five days, six days, seven days, I dont know how long I will be able to hold that.

"But it would be remiss of me not to explain to the public, at least, and the politicians that are listening to this, that I won't be able to hold that line forever.

"There is a moral obligation on me here, and I will come under pressure from that moral obligation alone."

Latest 12pm: Siptu has confirmed it is legal for staff in Irish Rail and Dublin Bus to go on sympathy strike with Bus Eireann staff.

All three CIE firms will be disrupted tomorrow as workers join a group demonstration outside Leinster House.

Protests could become more permanent as union colleagues across the industry are balloted on the possibility of properly joining the dispute and cancelling services.

Siptu's Willie Noone says all transport workers have a right to take part.

We wouldn't have gone down this road with it.

We're getting an unusual reaction to an unusual situation," said Noone.

"They're not willing to stand by and let Bus Eireann just be sold off to the lowest bidder."

Update: 9.22am: Siptu has warned there is a level of anger in the transport sector that has not been seen in decades.

The trade union says Irish Rail and Dublin Bus workers are demanding to show their support for their Bus Eireann colleagues whose strike has entered its fifth day.

Staff from all three CIE firms will join together for a demonstration outside Leinster House tomorrow while the Transport Minister discusses the issue inside.

Siptu's Willie Noone says it reflects a feeling of solidarity among workers.

Earlier: The Bus Eireann strike has entered its fifth day, amid fears it could spread to Dublin Bus and Irish Rail.

Bus Eireann management is suggesting it may be forced to make compulsory redundancies if unions do not agree to cost cutting measures.

The NBRU says "all bets are off" if the company tries to axe jobs in the troubled company.

SIPTU is balloting its members at Dublin Bus and Irish Rail on taking industrial action in support of Bus Eireann workers.

Dermot O'Leary of the NBRU says he is also exploring that option: "If I'm honest, I'm unsure of the legalities around such a ballot in the first place.

"I am seeking legal advice at the moment from our legal people to see if we are able to even do that."
A car linked to an alleged tiger kidnapper was spotted by gardai near the scene of the crime shortly beforehand, a trial has heard.

Jonathan Gill (35) is accused of a kidnapping a Drogheda postal worker, his partner and their 10-week-old baby daughter before robbing over 600,000 from the man's workplace.

It is the state's case that Mr Gill was one of a group of five who together 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 Road, Swords, Dublin, has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to falsely imprisoning Warren Nawn, Jean Marie Nawn and their ten-week-old baby in Drogheda between August 1 and August 2, 2011.

Today the jury heard details of the garda Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system which picked up a car linked to Mr Gill at 6pm on the N51 road, north of Drogheda on August 1, 2011.

The supervisor of the ANPR system, Garda Mark Murphy, told Lorcan Staines BL, prosecuting, it consists of three cameras fitted to garda patrol cars which can detect licence plate numbers of passing vehicles.

These numbers are then compared to several databases and the garda Pulse system and a warning is displayed on patrol car's computer screen if the car is of interest. Gda Murphy said a car could be of interest if it was suspected of involvement in a crime or if did not have valid insurance or a valid NCT.

All registration numbers as well as the GPS location and time they were recorded at are then uploaded via a secure connection to Garda Headquarters where they are kept for a year before being automatically destroyed. Numbers that register a hit can be kept indefinitely.

Several garda witnesses gave evidence that in the aftermath of the kidnapping, detectives sent two registration numbers to the ANPR division so they could be checked against recorded licence plates in the Drogheda area on August 1st.

A match was found for an silver Renault Clio with registration 06d10959 which was recorded by an ANPR car on the N51 north of Drogheda. This car did not generate a warning when it was picked up by the cameras.

Sgt Keith Heffernan of Clontarf Garda Station gave evidence that four months previously in April 2011 Mr Gill came to the station to present his driving licence and insurance after being stopped by a garda two days before.

The accused filled out a form stating he had produced his licence. In the part of the form requiring the car registration number he wrote 06d1095, the garda said.

The trial continues before Judge Elma Sheahan and a jury of seven men and five women.
Update 6.30pm: The Northern Ireland secretary has not ruled out stopping the salaries of assembly members if the current political deadlock is not broken.

He has been updating MPs after a deadline to setup a power-sharing executive was missed yesterday.

James Brokenshire also said he would consider a return to direct rule if there is no progress.

However, he is hopeful of an eventual deal.

"It is essential therefore, that the intensity of discussions is stepped up with renewed intent and focus and I believe that a positive outcome remains possible."

Earlier: The British government will countenance the reintroduction of direct rule in Northern Ireland if extended talks to restore powersharing fail, the British Secretary of State James Brokenshire has warned.

Mr Brokenshire said the intensity of negotiations needed to increase in the days and weeks ahead after a statutory deadline to form a new Stormont executive passed on Monday without agreement.

Addressing MPs in Westminster, he said if there was a successful resolution he would move legislation to enable an administration to be formed without the need for another snap election.

However, if talks fail, he made clear the Government would consider direct rule.

"In the absence of devolved government, it is ultimately for the United Kingdom Government to provide for political stability and good governance," he told the House of Commons.

"We do not want to see a return to direct rule.

"As our manifesto at the last election stated, local policies and local services should be determined by locally-elected politicians through locally-accountable institutions.

"But should the talks fail in their objectives, the Government will have to consider all options."

The Democratic Unionist/Sinn Fein administration collapsed in January amid a bitter row over a botched green energy scheme.

The subsequent snap election campaign laid bare a range of other contentious issues dividing the parties.

Under current legislation, the Government is required to call another snap election if a deadline for forming an executive passes.

Mr Brokenshire said he would seek to amend that law to avoid a new election if a deal can be forged in the time ahead.

- PA
Gardai are appealing for witnesses to a crash in which a female cyclist died after being struck by a lorry in Dublin.

She is the third cyclist to be killed on Irish roads in the past four days.
Police in the North are appealing for information in connection with an alleged sexual assault of a woman in Belfast.

It is understood the alleged incident happened near the Agincourt area of the city on Tuesday March 21.
Police in the North are investigating reports of human waste being found in a shipment delivered to a Coca Cola factory in County Antrim.

The PSNI were called to the premises in Lisburn where the suspected contaminated tins were found last week.

It is believed the cans were transported from Germany and there is no evidence they have reached the public.

The soft drinks company has said the production was immediately seized and does not affect any products on sale.

When contacted a spokesperson for Coca Cola said: "At Coca-Cola, we take the safety and quality of our products extremely seriously.

"We are aware of an incident involving empty cans at our plant in Knockmore Hill, Lisburn. We are treating this matter extremely seriously and are conducting a thorough investigation in cooperation with the PSNI.

"The problem was identified immediately through our robust quality procedures and all of the product from the affected batch was immediately impounded and will not be sold.

"This is an isolated incident and does not affect any products currently on sale.
The sentencing of a young man whose dangerous driving caused the death of his best friend has been delayed because gardai do not have a full record of his previous convictions.

Kevin McCarthy (23) of Rossfield Park, Tallaght, Dublin pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to one count of dangerous driving causing the death of 21-year-old Thomas Carroll on the N81 near Brittas, Co Wicklow on May 29, 2014.

Mr Carroll was a passenger in a car which McCarthy, then aged 20, was driving at up to twice the speed limit.

Last week the court heard McCarthy has 73 previous convictions including 14 counts of failing to produce proof of insurance and 18 counts of failing to produce a licence. He was convicted of driving without insurance in September 2015, over a year after the death of his friend.

However today, Diarmuid Collins BL, prosecuting, said it was possible an incomplete or inaccurate account of his previous convictions was given to the court.

He asked for time to gather a full record of McCarthy's convictions and said this may involve having to speak to gardai in other cases and accessing court records.

Hugh Harnett SC, defending, said he wanted the hearing to proceed and that his client had turned up to answer the case laid against him.

Judge Pauline Codd said it was very unfortunate that the issue wasn't addressed last week. She said it was very distressing for the victim's and accused's families.

I think everyone wants closure and to heal from this, she said before putting the matter back to next Monday.

Garda Maria Dolan told the sentencing hearing that a paper delivery driver was driving along the road by the Blue Gardenia pub near Brittas around 2.40am in the morning when he came across an upturned car in the middle of the road and four young men who were hysterical and asking for help for their friend.

Mr Carroll, a father-of-one, was lying at the scene with massive head injuries. He was pronounced dead shortly afterwards.

McCarthy told gardai he had been hanging out with his group of friends that evening like they usually did. He said he was driving the group back to Tallaght and Mr Carroll was sitting in the back passenger seat when the car spun out of control into some trees.

It flipped over twice and spun around about 10 times before coming to rest on the wrong side of the road.

McCarthy told gardai he was travelling at around 100-120 km/h at the time, which he said was the speed limit on the road. However, the court heard the speed limit was 60km/h and this was signposted on the road about 300 metres before the crash site.

I never went out that night planning on hurting anyone, McCarthy told gardai. Tom was one of my best friends. I miss him terribly.

McCarthy sat with his head bowed and wiped his eyes several times during the sentence hearing. He wears a necklace with a picture of his friend to remind him every day, Gda Dolan said.

Family members of the dead man also wept in court and several had to leave as details of the young man's death were heard in court. A forensic report stated he was partially ejected from the car when it flipped and was dragged along the road.

In victim impact statements read out in court, Mr Carroll's mother, brother and two sisters described the pain of losing their son and brother in such horrific circumstances that they were advised to hold his funeral in a closed casket.

The funeral directors worked for 12 hours to ensure they could see his body and hold his hand one last time, the court heard.

His mother, Nicola Carroll, said she was distraught at how he died and often thinks of how terrified he must have been in his final moments in the car. She said her son Glen, who was called to the scene by Carroll's friends, was still traumatised by what he saw that night.

The court heard 'Tom' was a devoted father, son and sibling, who was always laughing and had a smile that could light up a room.

His partner Mairead described her devastation at losing her childhood sweetheart and future husband. She said their daughter, who was three when Mr Carroll was killed, still struggled with his death.

It's hard bringing up a child alone and harder when I have to answer her little questions about how daddy died and why daddy died, she wrote.

The court heard McCarthy had not been drinking on the night of the crash. He tested positive for smoking cannabis in the days before the crash but this was not a factor in the incident, Gda Dolan said.

Mr Hartnett, defending, said it was a tragedy and his client was hugely remorseful and devastated at the death of his friend. He submitted McCarthy had co-operated fully with gardai and immediately admitted to being the driver. This was significant, as none of the other men in the car gave statements to gardai, the court heard.
There is concern about a smartphone app that is proving hugely popular among young people in Ireland.

A number of schools have already urged parents to discuss the use, and abuse, of SimSimi with their kids.
A former BBC employee carried out a "persistent, repeated and unwanted sexual harassment" of a woman while he worked for the company more than 30 years ago, a British court has been told.

Geoffrey Wheeler, 70, is alleged to have indecently assaulted the woman at the BBC's studio in Milton Keynes in the early 1980s while he worked at the Open University for the corporation.

Wheeler, of Hopkins Close, Milton Keynes, allegedly put his hand up the woman's top to try and touch her breast, London's Southwark Crown Court heard.

He is also charged with having, on at least 10 occasions, rubbed her shoulders and tried to touch her breasts. He is also said to have repeatedly grabbed her and tried to kiss her.

He also allegedly tried to push his groin into her bottom, and is charged with touching her while they were in a car together on at least three occasions, when he also allegedly tried to touch her pubic area.

Wheeler - not to be confused with the BBC broadcaster and former Songs Of Praise presenter of the same name who died in December 2013 - was charged under Operation Yewtree, the police investigation into historical sexual abuse in the aftermath of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

Wheeler denies five counts of indecent assault dating from May 1 1981 to September 1 1982.

Prosecutor Sally-Anne Hales QC told the jury that the 1980s were "a different time when perhaps sexual flirtation and sexual harassment" may have been more commonplace and women may have felt unable to complain.

She said this case is about "persistent, repeated, unwanted sexual harassment" and "frequent indecent assault which made the complainant's life miserable".

Miss Hales told the jury: "Whilst none of the touching taken in isolation is of the most serious nature the fact that it was persist and most importantly unwanted means it is worthy of your consideration."

Miss Hales said: "Even in the 1980s, it was unacceptable for a man to sexually touch a woman who is not consenting to it."

She said the alleged victim, who cannot be named, tried to get Wheeler to stop but his behaviour did not change.

The alleged incidents were not encouraged and only happened when they were alone, the court heard.

The alleged victim later told the court she had felt "devastated", "worthless" and "intimidated" at various times about what had happened.

It was all "very anxiety-producing, frustrating and stressful", she recalled.
Theresa May has been urged to strip George Osborne of the Tory whip to avoid a conflict of interest between his new role as a newspaper editor and being an MP.

Labour said it was "intolerable" for the operation of a free press that a Fleet Street boss should also be subject to the control of party enforcers.

Deputy leader Tom Watson said the former chancellor should either quit his Westminster seat or sit as an independent and called on the Prime Minister to remove the whip if he refused.

In a letter to the PM, he said the demands of the London Evening Standard editorship are "simply not compatible with an expectation of party loyalty".

He wrote: "It is intolerable for the operation of a free press for the editor of a major newspaper to be subject to the whip of a political party, in particular the governing party.

"I have said before that I believe the best solution would be for Mr Osborne to step down as an MP and trigger a by-election, enabling at least some of the conflicts of interest created by his appointment to be removed (not all of them, of course - the question of whether a newspaper's business coverage can really be trusted when its editor is paid 650,000 a year by a major investment management company is a serious one, but not one that has anything to do with Mr Osborne's political role).

"However, if he refuses to do that, and as things stand, that appears to be his position, I would urge you to withdraw the Conservative whip from him, enabling him to sit as an independent, or perhaps as an independent conservative.

"This is not because of any breach of party discipline that I am aware of, but because as a newspaper editor he should not have to worry about whether he is breaking party discipline.

"We cannot be said to have a free press when a major newspaper editor is subject to the discipline of any political party, let alone the governing party.

"By pre-emptively removing the whip, even perhaps against his will, you will release him from any obligation, and any perceived obligation, towards the government in his editorial decisions."

Most of Mr Osborne's constituents believe he must quit as an MP if he goes ahead with the new job, according to polling.

More than half, 57%, said the editorship would harm his ability to represent Tatton voters and four in 10 Tories said they would now be less likely to vote for him in the future, Survation found.

But Mr Osborne has claimed he has the ''overwhelming support'' of his local Conservative Party.

The Evening Standard job is one of a string of new posts he has taken up since leaving the Tory frontbench last year. He earns 650,000 a year as an adviser to US investment firm BlackRock, chairs the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, is a Kissinger Fellow and has become a face on the lucrative after-dinner speech circuit.
The boss of Twitter insists the company is helping prevent extremism in the wake of the Westminster attack in London.

The site's chief executive Jack Dorsey has been speaking as social media companies face pressure from the UK government to share extremists' messages.
The wife of British Royal Marine Alexander Blackman, who fatally shot an injured Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, has spoken of her joy at the prospect of him coming home in a few weeks.

Claire Blackman said she was "overjoyed" after judges sentenced her husband to seven years for diminished responsibility manslaughter - meaning that because of time already served he could be freed next month.

Surrounded by scores of veterans outside the Court Martial Appeal Court in London, she said: "We are overjoyed at the judges' decision to significantly reduce Al's sentence, such that he can be released imminently.

"This is the moment that we have all been fighting hard for. It is hard to believe that this day is finally here."

Claire Blackman.

A panel of five judges, headed by Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas, sentenced Blackman, 42, from Taunton in Somerset, to the term of seven years following the recent quashing of his murder conviction for the 2011 killing.

Announcing the decision, Lord Thomas said: "As with any person sentenced to a determinate term, his release will ordinarily be at the halfway point of the sentence."

Blackman, who watched Tuesday's proceedings via video link, has already spent almost three-and-a-half years in prison following his original conviction in November 2013 after the death of the insurgent.

One of Blackman's legal team indicated he would probably be released in about two weeks, but the decision on the exact date was for the Prison Service to determine.

The Court Martial Appeal Court ruled previously that Blackman was suffering from an "abnormality of mental functioning" at the time of the 2011 killing when he was serving with Plymouth-based 42 Commando.

The court found the incident was not a "cold-blooded execution" as a court martial had earlier concluded, but the result of a mental illness, an "adjustment disorder".

The judges said Blackman had been "an exemplary soldier before his deployment to Afghanistan in March 2011", but had "suffered from quite exceptional stressors" during that deployment.

They found his ability to "form a rational judgment" was "substantially impaired".

Blackman shot the insurgent, who had been seriously injured in an attack by an Apache helicopter, in the chest at close range with a 9mm pistol before quoting a phrase from Shakespeare as the man convulsed and died in front of him.

The judges said in their sentencing remarks that "this was a deliberate killing of a wounded man".

Although Blackman's responsibility was diminished, he "still retained a substantial responsibility for the deliberate killing".

They listed a number of "aggravating" factors, including "the effect of the appellant's actions on the reputation and safety of HM Armed Forces".

They said: "There can be no doubt that the way in which the appellant acted, knowingly in contravention of the Geneva Conventions, in deliberately killing by shooting an injured insurgent in the circumstances recorded on the video clips ... has had a material adverse effect on the views many hold about the conduct of HM Armed Forces.

"The appellant's actions can be used by the insurgency and others as evidence that the killing of the insurgent was in breach of the values proclaimed for which the International Security Force and HM Armed Forces had been sent to Afghanistan."

Turning to the mitigating factors, these included "the appellant's outstanding service record, together with the very impressive statements that have been placed before us attesting to acts of conspicuous bravery".

The judges also concluded that Blackman should be dismissed from the service, but not with disgrace.

They said: "We were told by the appellant's wife that the cruellest punishment that the appellant had considered he had suffered was the dismissal with disgrace.

"That punishment has fallen away. In the light of the appellant's outstanding service prior to the killing of the insurgent and the finding we have made of diminished responsibility, we accept the submission that there should be no question of dismissal with disgrace."

The court said the conviction for the offence of manslaughter "remains a very serious matter".

The judges added: "It is inevitable that his continuation in service is out of the question not only because of the length of the inevitable custodial sentence but also because of the severe damage to the reputation of HM Armed Forces..."

During a hearing last week, Mrs Blackman, giving evidence on her husband's behalf, said if he could find a role within the Royal Marines it would be a "real positive" for him.

If not, they had already received "numerous offers" of employment for him.
ACT Liberal parliamentarian Elizabeth Kikkert has revealed a childhood marred by a violent father who beat and abused her mother and the five children before and after school.

"My father would regularly hurl abuse at, as well as beat me, my mother and my four siblings," she told the ACT parliament. "He would use belts and slippers and he would beat us often before and after school.

ACT Liberal Elizabeth Kikkert, speaking about her violent father during a debate in the ACT parliament on new laws to cover protection orders. Credit:ACT Parliament

"He would often spend his pay on alcohol instead of allowing it to be spent on much-needed food, and when he was not satisfied with the dinner our mum provided, he would beat her and us if we tried to stop him."

Mrs Kikkert was speaking during debate on new family violence laws that strengthen rules for people applying for protection orders from domestic violence, including for children.
A Chinese apartment builder is paying just over $8.5 million for a tired low-rise office at one of Melbourne's most valuable intersections, following an off-market negotiation.

The Schwarzkopf building, which is occupied by numerous tenants for varying lease periods, is on 1300 square metres at 1133 Malvern Road, Malvern, one lot east from the corner of Glenferrie Road.

The Schwarzkopf building is on 1300 square metres at 1133 Malvern Road, Malvern.

This intersection is where Malvern connects with two of Melbourne's most prestigious suburbs: Armadale and Toorak, the latter which has a median house price of about $4 million, according to Domain Group data.

GormanKelly director Mario Nobrega confirmed the sale of the 1980s glass building to BHC Property, which has a local office, but is financed by Chinese capital. Based on the investment's annual rental return, it is exchanging on a yield of 4.6 per cent.
Billionaire retailer Solomon Lew has a plan for department store group Myer but it's one that is not likely to involve making a takeover bid anytime soon - he just needs a stake to ensure someone else can't buy the company. That someone is the South African giant Woolworths Holdings, that owns Myer rival, David Jones.

It is more likely Lew will sit on the 10 per cent stake he is understood to have acquired in a late Monday afternoon raid on Myer stock, and wait it out.

Sources close to the situation say that Woolworths (SA) has been running the ruler over Myer with an eye to a takeover but wasn't in a position to move yet because it was too busy working on the transformation of David Jones which it bought in 2014.

If Lew's ambition to use the 10 per cent stake as leverage to force Woolworths to ultimately pay a higher price for Myer it would be a corporate deja vu moment.
Insurers and industry are braced for costs running into the billions of dollars as Cyclone Debbie hit land on Tuesday afternoon around Bowen, in Queensland's north, with losses likely to exceed that of Cyclone Yasi five years ago.

Cyclone Yasi, which struck less populated areas of Queensland further north in February 2011 as a category 5 cyclone, caused insured losses of $1.4 billion, according to general insurers peak body, the Insurance Council of Australia. It declared Cyclone Debbie a catastrophe on Tuesday.

Insurance council chief executive Rob Whelan said it was too early to gauge the extent of Cyclone Debbie's damage.

"Insurers are already taking calls from policyholders, and many have teams standing by to enter the impact zone, assess claims and deliver assistance to their customers," Mr Whelan said.
As a "virtual lawyer", Leonie Chapman provides in-house legal services for half the price of a top-tier law firm.

After having three children, her IT specialist husband Craig Chapman designed software that allowed her to do her job from home. It gives her and five senior consultants who have joined her the flexibility many traditional law firms do not offer.

Work-from-home mum and freelance lawyer Leonie Chapman with her three sons. Credit:Steven Siewert

The reduction in overheads means the freelancers can provide the same service to corporations, including banking and finance institutions, at a lower cost.

"They get the partner-level expertise at almost half the hourly rate," Mrs Chapman said.
Union-dominated super funds would lose their special status under a draft Productivity Commission recommendation that would delink superannuation from awards and allocate new workers to default funds only once.

Two-thirds of Australian workers stick with the default fund chosen by their employer or industrial agreement, and many end up with multiple accounts after being put into new default funds each time they change jobs.

The commission believes that 40 per cent of workers have more than one account, meaning that many have multiple life insurance policies and multiple sets of administrative costs.

The combined administrative and unnecessary insurance costs amount to $150 million for every 500,000 to 600,000 duplicated accounts.
After seasons of fashion shows and billions of dollars worth of sales, it's time to wake up and smell the cold pressed juice, leggings in 2017 are considered pants.

The debate is back in the zeitgeist again after two teenagers were refused from flying by United Airlines for wearing tights. The offenders were flying on discounted or free tickets where the dress code for such passengers states they must be "well-groomed, neat, clean and in good taste".

Fair shake of the sauce bottle if the young women had just smashed out a CrossFit session and boarded the plane in fabric still wet from wicking sweat away from their bodies, instead they were wearing the most inoffensive covering known to modern man. Some tights these days, save for the popular 7/8 style, even cover a lady's ankles, just as King George III intended.

The "rules" surrounding what people can and can't wear are fracturing. Cargo pants, the uniform of white men on European holiday, are even back in vogue after being reclaimed by the new Lara Croft, a plethora of "off-duty" models like the Gigis and Kendalls and the Jennifer Lopez's of the world (who actually never let them go).
The cost to taxpayers of reforming the NSW greyhound racing industry instead of closing it will be at least $41 million after the government agreed to fund reforms including the establishment of a new independent integrity agency.

On Tuesday, Racing Minister Paul Toole said the government had accepted all but one of the recommendations of an expert panel established last year to advise how to reform greyhound racing in NSW after former premier Mike Baird's reversal of an industry ban.

Mr Toole said $30 million would be spent to implement the recommendations, which include a new enforceable code of conduct on greyhound welfare, CCTV cameras at all public and some private tracks and tougher penalties for live baiting and other animal welfare offences.

A further $11 million will fund the establishment of a Greyhound Welfare and Integrity Commission and operational funding for five years, after which the industry will be required to fund the agency.
A push for smokers to be banned from King George Square, the "ashtray of the CBD", has not been met with support from Brisbane City Council.

A 35-signature petition calling for the smoking ban was first presented at the March 21 Lifestyle and Community Service Committee and brought forward for debate in the chamber on Tuesday.

Brisbane City Council has ruled out a smoking ban in King George Square. Credit:Michelle Smith

ALP Councillor Jared Cassidy (Deagon) said all Labor councillors supported the ban of smoking in King George Square.

"It's effectively been banned in a lot streets surrounding King George Square now with the rules around five metres around the entrance to buildings, which has essentially made King George Square the ash tray of the CBD - as the last place in which people can come and smoke," he said.
On Monday afternoon, as the residents of Ayr were sandbagging, taping windows and preparing for the worst Cyclone Debbie may bring, Shane Borgas went fishing.

It was a good catch too, crayfish and a couple of mullet for dinner in the 1981 converted school bus he calls home, along with his young wife, nine-month old son, two pythons and a great dane.

The windows are taped now, the 44-year-old's family evacuated to Townsville while he and the animals stay behind in the Alva Beach Tourist Park, a flood zone police tried to get him to leave almost half a dozen times.

"If it comes to it I'll go down with the ship," he said.
Shute Harbour at Airlie Beach after Cyclone Debbie. Credit:Twitter/@JessMillward9 Path of the storm Airlie Beach, Proserpine and Hamilton Island felt the full brunt of Cyclone Debbie the day before, with late winds threatening homes late on Tuesday, keeping the region in lock down, and the Bruce Highway was blocked north and south of Airlie Beach. The cyclone moved inland before it was downgraded to a category 2. Late on Tuesday it was heading for the small town of Collinsville. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told ABC News she was concerned about the 1500 residents in the town. "We are now telling all Collinsville residents that it is no time to move. They now have to stay in their place of refuge, in their house," she said.

The Premier slammed the actions of some residents during the cyclone as "appalling" after people were spotted driving and surfing. "I cannot believe this sort of behaviour," she told ABC News. "To go out there into the treacherous surf is simply irresponsible. Honestly, why do you want to put your own life at risk and put the lives of others at risk?" In Bowen, SES controller David Thicker said it was still unsafe for people to be outside. "We won't let our people out there yet, we'll get out first light in the morning." Newlywed south-east Queensland couple Kurt and Sophie Moore were stuck on Hamilton Island and evacuated to an auditorium. "Every now and then there must be a bit of wind gets under the roof sheets and the tiles start lifting and flying around," Mr Moore said.

"So you see a bit of daylight which gets a bit scary. "I'm so glad we got evacuated out of the place we were staying in, I think we'd be pooping watermelons right now, to be honest." Chrissie Yee said she could not sleep due to the terrifying noise generated by the cyclone on Hamilton Island, wedging furniture against the doors to stop them from shaking. "It sounds like someone is crying and bashing against the door," she said. Whitsunday councillor Jan Clifford watched trees take flight from her backyard at Airlie Beach.

"A huge tree in my backyard has been uprooted and has taken out our fence," Cr Clifford said. "That was a rainforest tree pushing a metre in diameter. It should have been OK. Another tree has landed on my roof. The wind is so loud." Bowen missed being in the eye of the storm but still copped a lashing, with gusts of up to 148km/h recorded at 1.35pm and 108mm of rain in the six hours to 3pm, and the weather bureau's radar being knocked out of action. In Bowen, a motel lost its wall and there were reports of another property losing its roof. The 270 people in Bowen's cyclone shelter, which was locked down at 3am, would likely be bunkered down till Wednesday morning.

Proserpine-based Whitsundays councillor John Collins said the wind sounded "like a jumbo jet is parked on my roof". "I've been through a few cyclones that are quick and nasty but this one is going to go all day," he told AAP. "This is going to be a terrible disaster when it is all over and done with." A Proserpine resident described the moment her neighbour's roof slammed into her house, smashing three windows and causing water to flood in. "The doors are shaking, the interior doors to those rooms," she told the ABC.

But Burdekin Mayor Lyn McLaughlin said Ayr "dodged a bullet". Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk urged north Queenslanders to stay inside and off the roads to allow emergency services to assess the damage. "Once this eye is passing over, people will feel the opportunity to go out and have a look and they should not do that," she said. Ms Palaszczuk said the impact of the cyclone would be felt for the next three to five days as it travelled down the coast. The weather bureau said the cyclone's later than expected arrival meant the feared storm surge did not coincide with the high tide in Mackay, after 25,000 people were urged to evacuate on Monday.

But a flood watch was issued for coastal catchments from Ayr down to the New South Wales border, with widespread falls of 150-200mm expected over the coming days. Several schools will remain closed on Wednesday. Medical, counselling and search and rescue teams have been deployed along with army engineers ready to clear roads and other Navy personnel to clear debris from harbours. The federal government has activated its disaster response plan, working with the Queensland government. Townsville-based Australian Army Brigadier Christopher Field will co-ordinate Queensland's recovery efforts following the cyclone, being appointed State Recovery Co-ordinator.

Ms Palaszczuk said he had extensive experience in the Australian Army and was pivotal following the 2011 floods and Cyclone Yasi. Brigadier Field said the Australian defence force had helicopters and disaster relief vessel HMAS Choules ready to go once access to affected areas could be worked out. "We'll assess the damage in the morning ... And make sure we can get people to the area as quickly as possible," he said. The Insurance Council of Australia declared Cyclone Debbie as a "catastrophe". Chief executive officer Rob Whelan said it was too early to estimate the cost of the damage but said insurers were expecting thousands of claims in the coming weeks.
One of Melbourne's oldest artist clubs is calling for Australian impressionists Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin to be immortalised in bronze.

The Victorian Artists' Society wants the statues to stand outside its headquarters in Albert Street, East Melbourne but have yet to secure any funding.

Victoria Artists' Society's David McCubbin and president Eileen Mackley. Credit:Simon Schluter

"These men had the capacity to see landscape for the first time from Australian eyes," said David McCubbin the great grandson of Frederick McCubbin.

The artists from the Heidelberg School are internationally recognised for being among the first to realistically depict the harsh beauty of the Australian landscape.
A 25-year-old man has been charged with culpable driving and other offences following the death of New Gisborne man Hayden Kloppers.

The 22-year-old was a passenger in a ute that crashed into a tree and then a shed at Bacchus Marsh about 2am on Saturday.

Hayden Kloppers

Mr Kloppers, described as a "gentle giant" by his friends, died at the scene before paramedics arrived.

The driver, a 25-year-old from Bacchus Marsh was taken to hospital with serious injuries.
Four teenagers have been arrested after a dramatic police chase through Melbourne's south-eastern suburbs on Tuesday afternoon.

A suspected stolen car was first spotted as it sped past police on Heatherton Road in Dandenong about 2.30pm, before it crashed in Hawthorn an hour later.

Police on scene. Credit:Twitter / @booksbagshaw

Witnesses said the car sped down the wrong side of the road, terrifying onlookers and other drivers.

One witness named Claire told radio station 3AW it was "the most terrifying thing I've ever seen in my life".
Bowalley Road Rules



The blogosphere tends to be a very noisy, and all-too-often a very abusive, place. I intend Bowalley Road to be a much quieter, and certainly a more respectful, place.

So, if you wish your comments to survive the moderation process, you will have to follow the Bowalley Road Rules.

These are based on two very simple principles:

Courtesy and Respect.

Comments which are defamatory, vituperative, snide or hurtful will be removed, and the commentators responsible permanently banned.

Anonymous comments will not be published. Real names are preferred. If this is not possible, however, commentators are asked to use a consistent pseudonym.

Comments which are thoughtful, witty, creative and stimulating will be most welcome, becoming a permanent part of the Bowalley Road discourse.

However, I do add this warning. If the blog seems in danger of being over-run by the usual far-Right suspects, I reserve the right to simply disable the Comments function, and will keep it that way until the perpetrators find somewhere more appropriate to vent their collective spleen.


Arson Squad detectives are appealing for information after a car was deliberately set on fire in Alkimos in Perth's northern suburbs last month.

Police say between 12:20am and 12:45am on Wednesday February 15 two people set fire to a vehicle parked in the driveway of a home in Myrlea Tail, destroying the vehicle.

The incident was caught on CCTV.
Bangkok: An 18-year-old woman whose case focussed attention on the poor state of medical care in Cambodia has died after contracting necrosis, a rare form of cell degeneration.

Soth Rey was working in a massage parlour to support her three younger siblings and parents in the north-west Cambodian town of Siem Reap when she fell ill with a sinus infection in December.

Soth Rey

A doctor diagnosed her with the flu and sent her home. Weeks later she developed ulcers in her nose and a doctor decided to pull out some of her teeth.

When that didn't solve the problem, she went to a traditional Khmer healer who spat and blew on the ulcers for a month.
Paris: French authorities have opened an inquiry after a Chinese man was shot dead by police at his Paris home, triggering rioting in the French capital by members of the Chinese community and a sharp reaction from Beijing.

The shooting on Sunday, which led China's Foreign Ministry to call in a French diplomat, brought about a 100 members of the French-Chinese community on to the streets in Paris' main Chinatown district in the 19th arrondissement on Monday night.

Demonstrators from the Asian community face riot police officers outside Paris' 19th district police station on Tuesday. Credit:AP

Some protesters threw projectiles outside the local police headquarters and a number of vehicles were torched in a confrontation with riot police.

The 56-year-old man of Chinese origin was shot dead at his home after police were called to investigate an altercation.
Washington: The Trump administration sought to block former acting Attorney-General Sally Yates from testifying to Congress in the House investigation of links between Russian officials and Donald Trump's presidential campaign, The Washington Post has learned, a position that is likely to further anger Democrats who have accused Republicans of trying to damage the inquiry.

According to letters The Post reviewed, the Justice Department notified Yates earlier this month that the administration considers a great deal of her possible testimony to be barred from discussion in a congressional hearing because the topics are covered by the presidential communication privilege.

Yates and other former intelligence officials had been asked to testify before the House Intelligence Committee this week, a hearing that Chairman Devin Nunes abruptly cancelled. Yates was the deputy attorney-general in the final years of the Obama administration, and served as the acting attorney-general in the first days of the Trump administration.

President Trump fired Yates in January after she ordered Justice Department lawyers not to defend his first immigration order temporarily banning entry to United States for citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries and refugees from around the world.
Latest News Why are property buyers taking so long to purchase? Here are five factors at play

Industrial property growing stronger New report reveals market trends

Despite Chinese government restrictions on cash outflow and tighter criteria by Australian banks on foreign investment lending, momentum among Chinese buyers does not seem to be slowing down when it comes to demand for Australian property.Our view is that its full steam ahead, Gavin Norris , head of Australia at Chinese international property portal Juwai.com, told Australian Broker. Were not seeing any slowdown in material transfers in terms of the volume of enquiries coming through Juwai and our platform.While changes in capital controls, regulations, debt finance, availability, etc., have slowed transaction time down, the overall drivers behind Chinese interest in Australian property have far outweighed these minor blips, Norris said.Theyre all long-term sustainable motivations as to why these guys are buying real estate.The primary driver behind Chinese interest is education, he said. Melbourne is by far the most popular for buyers through Juwai.com who see the city as having a stronger educational offering.For every three enquiries that we get for Melbourne, we get two for Sydney. The ratio is roughly the same again from Sydney to Brisbane.The second strongest driver for Chinese buyers is safety, followed by migration and tourism.Tthe market has responded to these changes with more and more private lenders coming out to fill any gaps that the big banks have left behind, Norris said.Of course, the majority of Chinese were cash buyers originally. Theyve increasingly become financially savvy. Theyve used onshore debt where it was available. Thats started to erode again and I think were seeing the emergence back to cash buyers. Theres always ways and means for the Chinese to get around the issues that are happening.The main effect felt by these changes has been a certain nervousness around developers exposed to these issues, Norris said.I think you had offshore foreign buyers  the majority of Chinese  relying on finance that in some instances was no longer there. So theyve had to take other means finding either a finance replacement or cash.Luckily, since Chinese have been traditionally cash buyers anyway, there was no need for a massive structural change within the market, he said.Norris will appear on a panel discussion around whether the Chinese are abandoning the Australian property market at Cross Border Managements Australia-China Property Finance Conference in Sydney this Thursday (30 March).
Latest News Why are property buyers taking so long to purchase? Here are five factors at play

Industrial property growing stronger New report reveals market trends

1st Street Financial has announced the appointment of Ofer Greenberg, former sales head of ANZ , as its chief operating officer.Greenberg started in the position three weeks ago and brings more than 20 years of experience to the role. He has previously worked in both domestic and international banks in the fields of investments and lending.In his most recent role, he worked as head of private banks & external advisers sales at ANZ Bank dealing with both wholesale and corporate clients.I ran sales teams both in markets products and in private banking, he told Australian Broker. Ive got a good track record of growth and building teams.Greenberg also held a position at Macquarie Bank looking after retail clients. During his career, he has worked closely with financial planners and different dealer groups which also offered mortgages.He will now be focusing on the expansion of 1st Street Financial in both its national footprint and its product range. He will use his experience to work with new brokers seeking to join the team, establishing new strategic referral partnerships and enhancing the firms connection with existing referral partners.The plan is to establish new offices and bring on new brokers around the country, he said.At the moment, we have a national book. We have clients in different states, he said. This expansion will thus involve offices in Sydney, Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane.As for the product range, Greenberg said 1st Street Financial wanted to expand its existing insurance arm while completing strategic alliances with a number of other market players.1st Street Financial also has plans to expand its commercial and financial planning divisions.In his new role, he will work closely with founder and managing director Jeremy Fisher on developing strategic opportunities, acquiring new brokers and growing the companys footprint.This is a really exciting opportunity and I look forward to the challenges and opportunities ahead. I think the current lending environment is ripe for growth in the broking industry and 1st Street is a leader in the independent space, Greenberg said.Personally I am looking forward to working with the banks rather than for the banks as I did previously. Jeremy has built an amazing business with great culture and people. I am proud to join the team.Moving from a banking institution to a private business, Greenberg told Australian Broker that this was the right time in the current lending environment for growth in the industry.Thats what makes me excited to be on 1st Street.
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The Feds charged a former prosecutor in the District Attorneys office with forging judges signatures in order to illegally wiretap the phone conversations and text messages of two people for more than a year, said a spokesman for the Department of Justice on Monday.

Former assistant district attorney Tara Lenich  who supervised other assistant district attorneys in the office  allegedly cut out the signatures of various Supreme Court Judges from legit documents and taped them onto fabricated orders authorizing the DAs office to intercept the phone records of a detective and another assistant district attorney in the same office, a source said.

Lenich was reportedly romantically involved with the detective before he dumped her and started hitting it off with the other prosecutor, according to the New York Post.

And whats more, Lenich allegedly told her colleagues that she was engaged in a confidential investigation and warned them not to read any of the phone records of the calls she had illegally tapped and recorded, according to court documents.

Lenich  charged with two counts of illegal wiretapping  allegedly took advantage of her job as a public prosecutor and her superior position in the District Attorneys office in order to spy on the two people, said acting U.S. Attorney Bridget Rohde in a statement.

Tara Lenich violated her duty to the public when she engaged in a long-running scheme to forge judicial documents in order to illegally wiretap telephones, said Rohde.

Lenich pleaded not guilty to the charges on March 27 and was released on a $500,000 bond. She faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of both counts, the court spokesman said.

Lenichs lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.
Election Day 2022: What you need to know to vote in Bucks County
State Senator Steve Santarsiero (D-10) presented a check to Yardley Borough Police Chief Joseph Kelly for $68,600 for the purchase of a new police vehicle and motorcycle during a visit to the station. Our police put themselves on the line every day to keep our community safe, said Sen. Santarsiero. Dating back to when I was a Lower Makefield Township Supervisor more than...
Its been a while since Quantico has had an episode this good. From beginning to end, its actually easier to follow than a few previous episodes and almost brings a nostalgic feeling from the first season.

The episode, titled MOCKINGBIRD, starts with an attack in Virginia. And Owen and Clayton quickly differ on how to handle it and the team. Owen points out that Clayton doesnt know the team very well, and he agrees.

Quantico Showrunner Discusses the Trump Shift >>>





Getting to Know the Agents  Again



The episode starts off by describing the different agents, from Alex Parrishs tendency to be the reckless hero to her connection with Ryan Booth, who is described as a good soldier who follows the rules until Alex steps in his way. I have to say that is a perfect way to describe both Ryan and Alex. Hes definitely her Achilles heel.

Owen also shares Dayanas dark past with Clayton as well as Nimah and her strong-willed, determined and righteous nature. Clayton then cuts him and says Nimah is simply a glorified mascot and not a real member of the team. They move on to Shelby, and Clayton says, Im pretty well-versed on her weak points. He is considering that his father cheated on his mom with Shelby despite her past relationship with his brother, Caleb Haas. It doesnt look like that is going away anytime soon. As for Owen, he admits he has weak points but commends himself for knowing how to call the shots. But he hits too close to home when he tries to find out Claytons weak spots.



The agents enter the room to none other than a video of Owens descriptions of them. It turns out Clayton was recording the entire time without him knowing. The agents are definitely interested in what he has to say, but Clayton reminds them that they need to know what their opponents and peers think of them.

The Virginia Explosion Takes Precedence  But Its Fake



Clayton briefs them on the Virginia explosion from the beginning of the episode that resulted in a chemical spill. The team is assigned to find out who would benefit the most from the spill. While they try to figure that out, Owen says he is convinced its all a hoax. Owen points out that all of the townspeople were evacuated in the hope that they wouldnt know the truth. Their assignment then changes to trying to find out what it is.

Clayton reveals that all of the residents have been told that they cant return home until every water source is tested for contamination, even though organizations like the EPA and FEMA have said there is no threat. Clayton tells the agents to find out who the Internet trolls are who are spreading the news; if they find them, they could likely find who they are working for.

As the team heads to work, Clayton and Shelby have a really weird vibe going on. She mentions her boyfriend, and Clayton is clearly intrigued. This storyline would be really too much if they end up becoming more than friends. Keep in mind that Shelby really doesnt have a boyfriend after her and Leons split.

Shelby still tries to convince Nimah that she belongs on the team, while Clayton reminds Owen that hes not in charge for this rodeo.

They trace the story back to a troll farm in Norfolk. The FBI is going to pay them a visit to find out who hired them to plant the story. They find out that the farm has a connection to none other than Harry. He pops in and lets them know of his access after doing undercover work. He simply wants the credit after the troll farm is busted. They decide to head out, and Clayton lets Nimah know that shes not welcome to come as hes still convinced she was a terrorist in previous episodes.

Alex Has Competition



Despite his connection with Alex, Ryan meets up with the journalist he met in the previous episode. She fishes to find out more about him, and Ryan keeps up his act, but shes not buying it. She outs him as being a part of the CIA and reveals that she has eyes on him and the agents. The question is, who is she and who does she work for?

Quiz: Which TV Scooby Gang Do You Belong To? >>>

The Agents Get in Formation

Harry and Alex meet with the hackers undercover, and he tells them about their work with the chemical spill. The guys suddenly realize that Alex and Harry are up to no good and pull out their guns on them. Harry sticks to his story about wanting to offer the guys a job, and theyre clearly convinced because they put their armor away. They then give the agents the who they are looking for without knowing it. But the team still needs the what.

Dayana and Harry head to the emergency center, and a worker tells them what ground theyve covered so far. They relay the message to Alex, Ryan and Shelby, who go out to search for whatever the attackers are looking for. They see fake EPA agents there too. Nimah pops up and reveals she was doing research back at the farm. She says the attackers arent looking for a what but rather a person instead. Ryan and Alex quickly find the person, who is armed herself and immediately asks them who they are and what they want.

Alex reveals who they really are and that theyre here to save her. The woman recognizes Alex from the FBI, and they try to get an exit strategy. Meanwhile, Nimah saves the day again after a police officer tries to catch Shelby.

The woman introduces herself as Mallory, a former employee of the senator. She says she created fake stories until one of them went too far and ended with nearly a dozen people dead. So they started searching for her to kill her and save his election. The fake EPA officers go into the home where the girl is, only to be met with Harry and Dayana, who pretend its their home to try to get the bad guys out. Alex and Ryan get the girl out, but there are more fake EPA workers outside waiting with gunfire. And the ones inside attack Dayana and Harry. But its clear they werent expecting them to put up such a fight. They are able to rescue the woman and get Dayana and Harry back into the van safely too.

Back at the control center, the agents disagree on how to handle the woman, Melanie, who Ryan says isnt completely innocent after writing fake stories to make the senator look better, especially since it killed 11 people.

Nimah reveals that she still has regrets about her past. Shelby encourages her to leave it there and move on with them. Clayton and Owen have moments of their own, as Clayton tells Owen to back down so he can do his job and learn lessons himself as a trainer. Owen doesnt mind at all and agrees. This is definitely a turning point for them. Harry and Alex also have a chat, and Alex tries to convince Harry to stay.

Ryan meets with the journalist, who threatens to blow his cover. He gives her something else she can report on that he is definitely intrigued by. Its not clear what it is, but its enough for the journalist to take her eyes off of Ryan for the moment.

Mallorys Future is Uncertain



The agents decide they cant protect Mallory but offer for her to get out of town. They give her cash and a burner phone. The DOJ also catches up with the senator and tells her that Mallory is in witness protection until she testifies against him. Things are looking up for the agents, and Alex uses the vibe to let her feelings for Ryan be known. And Ryan keeps the ball in his court, which is really something that makes her uncomfortable. But it looks like hes already moved on with the journalist, as he asks her out to dinner. I definitely didnt see that coming!

Shelby and Clayton also have an awkward moment, in which they both admit that they dont hate one another. Clayton then moves to officially welcome Nimah to the team. Harry also asks if he can join in, and of course the answer is yes. Shelby tries to call Leon, and of course he doesnt answer because he was kidnapped in the previous episode. The end of this one makes it look as if hes been killed.



What do you think about Owen and Claytons choice to put Mallory in witness protection? Do you like the direction Shelby and Clayton seem to be going? How do you feel about Ryan possibly playing Alex and the journalist? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Quantico season 2 airs Mondays at 10/9c on ABC. Want more news? Like our Facebook page.

(Image courtesy of ABC)
Is personal adversity contributing to political polarization?

These feelings of uncertainly can have us adopting more extreme attitudes as a way of coping with that uncertainty. 

BUFFALO, N.Y.  Unexpected life events ranging from illness to relationship stress can lead to political polarization, pushing moderates toward the spectrums extremes, according to a recently published study thats breaking new ground on personally-experienced adversity and its effect on political attitudes.

Though a handful of studies have explored the effect of community-wide tragedies on personal beliefs, this current research, which appears in the latest issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, looks exclusively at self-reported personal experience, a phenomenon that can produce different responses than what happens in the wake of collective events, such as reaction to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The paper is among the first to take research on uncertainty theory outside of the laboratory in favor of examining personal, real-world situations.

Were talking about peoples experience with adversity broadly construed, says Michael Poulin, an associate professor of psychology at the University at Buffalo and co-author of the study led by Daniel Randles, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto.

Its the cumulative effect of adversity. These feelings of uncertainly can have us adopting more extreme attitudes as a way of coping with that uncertainty, adds Poulin.

What we found isnt like a light switch, says Randles. Most people experience occasional adversity and it doesnt drive them to extreme positions. But repeated events seem to add up, nudging someone closer to their preferred view.

To test their hypothesis, the research team used a representative sample of about 1,600 Americans and asked them to complete surveys toward the end of 2006, 2007 and 2008. The researchers asked participants about their political attitudes and personal adversity experiences to learn if those attitudes changed following these stressors.

There were about 37 negative events in the questionnaire, such as injury, bereavement or assault. The idea was to acquire a big picture of adversity and consider the different situations that could have upset people.

Our results suggest increased polarization towards both the left and the right, with a slightly greater tilt toward conservative attitudes, says Poulin. Our surveys were done toward the end of the second George W. Bush administration, so supporting the War on Terror was considered a conservative policy, but Im not sure in a vacuum thats the right label.

The polarization piece was much stronger, he says.

Because of that possible limitation, Poulin says future directions might consider a broader sampling of attitudes that arent necessarily time and situation specific.

I also think it would be interesting to see this idea applied to a wider swath of political attitudes, says Poulin. Name a social issue and ask if it works the same way. Id hypothesize, yes. But we dont know.
Election Day in New Jersey: Who's running for the House, how to vote

elections
Business / Economy

by Staff reporter

ZIMBABWE recorded $14.2 million trade surplus against its major trading partner, South Africa, after exporting goods worth $185.4 million to the neighbouring country in February compared to $171.2 million imports.Latest data from the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstat) show that during the period under review, the country's exports included scrap metal, agricultural produce, beef, minerals as well as wines.Last month, Zimbabwe's imports from South Africa included vehicles, fish, sausage casings, biscuits, electrical energy, chemicals, disposable napkins, incontinence pads, and wooden furniture.Zimstat indicated that the country's trade deficit in the first two months of the year was at $309.7 million as exports fell by about seven percent to $240.5 million from $258.7 million in January.On the other hand, imports increased by 10 percent in February to $424 million compared to the previous month's figure of $385 million.In the first two months, the agency has indicated that the country had a trade deficit amounting to about $309.7 million as imports during the period under review stood at $808.8 million against exports of $499.1 million.Since the liberalisation of the economy in February 2009, the country has been importing various goods across the globe as the economy was on a recovery path.Over the years, the Government has been working on trying to reduce negative trade balance through a number of policy interventions including Statutory Instrument 64 of 2016, which was introduced last June.And through SI 64/2016, which removes several goods from the Open General Import Licence, the Government has been able to restrict imports.In the 2017 national budget, Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa announced that the introduction of the five percent bond note export incentive through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe also proffers benefits for improved domestic production this year.
When you think of Italian beer, only one brand has managed to bottle the spirit of Italy

It's hard not to associate the Italians with a certain way of life. Connoisseurs (or should we say, experts) in the art of food, wine, coffee and siestas, it's no exaggeration to say the Italians take the edible things in life very, very seriously. And even though the concept of la dolce vita has become, shall we say, something of a cliche - it's also shorthand for explaining why Italy's national dishes have not just been perfected over the years, but also disseminated to every corner of the globe. Are Italians proud of their culture? You bet your espresso they are.

So while we have Vespa, Ferrari and bolognese to thank the Italians for, we also have classics like the clean, crisp-tasting lager Peroni. Synonymous with seaside holidays, stylish men and women (have you seen their latest campaign star?) and a specific (read: the best) kind of Italian chic, many people don't realise the Peroni brand dates all the way back to 1846, when founder Francesco Peroni established the very first brewery in the northern town of Vigevano.

By 1864, high demand for Peroni's lager established the need for a second brewery to be built in Rome, and by the time Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn were gallivanting around the capital in the 1953 classic Roman Holiday, Peroni had established itself as the biggest brewer in Italy. Fast forward to 1963 and Francesco's descendant Carlo Peroni had launched the product Nastro Azzurro, which is the very same beer Peroni aficionados sip on today.

Enjoying the status of Italy's number one premium beer (one that is stocked in bars from Amalfi to Adelaide), Peroni Nastro Azzurro is crafted with 25% Nostrano dell'Isola maize and malted barley, which gives the lager its distinctive Italian flavour. Also included in the brand's premium stable is the lower carb Peroni Leggera, a draught that manages to pack less carbs and a lower alcohol content into one helluva refreshing beer - which is no mean feat. Of course, with an Italian heritage that spans over 170 years, you would only expect the best from Peroni, really.
News / Africa

by News24

Johannesburg - The three men who raped two women and killed their husbands in Rhodes Park, Johannesburg were found guilty in the North Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Tuesday, News24 reported.Admore Ndlovu, 23, Thabo Nkala, 25, and Mduduzi Mathibela Lawrence, 32, were found guilty of robbery, two counts of rape and two counts of murder.They were allegedly part of a 12-man gang who attacked two couples who had gone to the park in Kensington on the evening of Saturday, October 17, 2015, after a church service.The four were reportedly forced to lie on the ground. A knife was used to cut off the underwear of both women before they were raped.Their husbands, Zukisa Khela and Sizwe Tyeke, were forced to strip and were ordered into the lake, where they drowned. Police divers found the bodies.The gang allegedly stole their clothes, jewellery, and cellphones.
The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has sought steps to address the aggressive pricing strategy of Reliance Jio and the prospect of the government losing out on revenue.



The association wanted remedial action before banks stopped lending to the sector.



In an interaction with Business Standard, Rajan S Mathews, director-general of the COAI, said domestic banks had 80 per cent of the Rs 4.6 lakh crore exposure to the and they were becoming nervous in the current situation.



He said the issue raised by Telecom Secretary JS Deepak should be viewed from the perspective of the Telecom Commission and not that of the department of telecommunications (DoT).



He (Deepak) did not write the letter, the Telecom Commission chairman did. The members include the information technology secretary, a secretary-level official from the finance ministry and other government representatives and unless he takes the majority view, the telecom secretary suo motu cannot write a letter to the Trai complaining about the telecom industry, Mathews said.



Unlike Deepak, who had suggested annual auctions for the industry, Mathews said spectrum sales should be conducted once in three years.



We are at a stage where there is no spectrum constraint and consolidation is happening, which means spectrum usage will be more efficient. A three-year cycle between auctions would make sense, he said.



He said the base price of the 700 MHz band should be benchmarked with the reserve price of the 800 MHz band. The 700 MHz band went unsold in the previous auction because of its high base price.



Asked who stood to gain more from the Idea Cellular-Vodafone merger, Mathews said it was difficult to say but the ultimate aim was to have a winning entity.



The merger could not be termed as a slow exit by Vodafone, as hinted by some analysts, he added. If Vodafone wanted to exit it would have found a quicker way, Mathews said.



It was more of a financial positioning for Vodafone as it had invested $ 25 billion and had not seen a dime come back to the stockholders, he added.



The COAI has written to the TRAI and DoT seeking intervention in the problem with 4G-enabled, dual-SIM smartphones using MediaTeks chipset. It has asked the government to phase out devices with 2G SIM slots in six months.
US-based hedge fund Tiger Global is in talks with Japanese investor SoftBank to sell a part of its stake in in exchange for a merger of struggling rival Snapdeal with Indias largest e-commerce company.
Temperatures are soaring this summer in the icecreams versus frozen desserts battle between the countrys two behemoths: Dairy major Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) that markets Amul branded ice creams and FMCG major Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), which owns the Kwality Walls brand. The two have sparred earlier too, but this time, the stakes are bigger given that both are fighting not just for a bigger slice of the summer pie, but are also battling customer perceptions about health and nutrition.
The Singh brothers are serial entrepreneurs known for pulling off one of the best-timed exits in the annals of Indian business.
Britain's biggest retailer has agreed to pay 214 million pounds ($269 million) in fines and compensation for investors to settle a probe over a 2014 accounting fraud that sparked the biggest crisis in its near 100-year history.

The 85 million pounds in compensation earmarked for investors is the first time that Britain's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has enforced such a payout for market abuse.

will also pay a 129 million pound fine after an agreement with Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO).

"What happened is a huge source of regret to all of us at but we are a different business now," Chief Executive Dave Lewis, who had to deal with the scandal after taking charge in September 2014, told reporters on Tuesday.

Tesco, which has been rebuilding since the crisis and a price war that hammered the supermarket sector as a whole, said it would take a one-off charge of 235 million pounds in its 2016-17 results, due on April 12.

Shares in Tesco were down 0.1 per cent at 190.2 pence at 0950 GMT, also influenced by on Monday that two big shareholders oppose its proposed 3.7 billion pound takeover of wholesaler Booker.

"The overall exceptional charge of 235 million pounds is worth 2.9 pence to the share price," said Bernstein analyst Bruno Monteyne, who rates Tesco "outperform".

Deferred prosecution agreement

The deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) between the SFO and Tesco's UK subsidiary Tesco Stores Limited enables the firm to avoid a criminal conviction provided it meets certain conditions and pays the fine.

The DPA relates to false accounting by Tesco's UK business between February 2014 and September 2014.

In a parallel deal with the FCA, Tesco agreed to a finding of market abuse in relation to a trading update published on August 29, 2014 which overstated expected first half profits by 250 million pounds, mainly because it booked commercial deals with suppliers too early.

No penalty is being levied by the FCA directly on Tesco.

The DPA does not address whether liability of any sort attaches to Tesco Plc or any employee of Tesco Plc or Tesco Stores Limited.

The profit overstatement, identified three weeks after Lewis took over as CEO, was later raised to 263 million pounds.

Lewis has since worked to simplify Tesco's business and has transformed its relationship with suppliers to ensure there is no repeat of the scandal.

The DPA with Tesco is the second struck by the SFO in three months. In January aero engines maker Rolls-Royce agreed to pay 497 million pounds to settle a lengthy bribery investigation.

Compensation

Tesco's compensation scheme for investors will cover those who bought shares or bonds for cash between August 29, 2014, and September 19, 2014, giving 24.5 pence per share plus varying rates of interest depending on whether the investor was institutional or retail.

The DPA was the subject of a preliminary court ruling on Monday. The SFO and Tesco will seek final judicial approval for the DPA from the court on April 10.

Lewis told reporters Tesco would contest outstanding civil claims relating to the scandal.

The company is facing a more a claim of more than 100 million pounds from a group of 125 institutional investors filed last October. A source familiar with the lawsuit said claimants were closely examining Tesco's compensation scheme.

The retailer is also facing a claim filed by Manning & Napier, the US fund manager.

"The short period of time covered by both the SFO ruling and the FCA ruling seems to imply very limited opportunity for these cases to extract large compensation," said Bernstein's Monteyne.

For 2016-17 Tesco is forecasting group operating profit before exceptional items of "at least" 1.2 billion pounds, up from 944 million pounds in 2015-16.
Escorts, the tractor maker which has seen a robust performance in recent quarters, will launch a series of initiatives to expand market, bring down costs and improve margins. A key initiative to cost control could come by way of a voluntary retirement scheme for a few hundreds.
News / Health

by Staff reporter

THE country has no capacity to train psychiatric doctors at a time when the number of people suffering from mental illness is on the increase, the Deputy Minister of Health and Child Care, Dr Aldrin Musiiwa, has said.The Deputy Minister said the number of Zimbabweans suffering from mental illness was now higher than a few years ago.Responding to questions from The Chronicle yesterday, Dr Musiiwa said the country has 12 psychiatrists only.He said Government was working to provide mental patients with drugs and necessary services they need."It's true that we have about 12 psychiatrists for our public health institutions which is not so much of a shortage though we could do with more. The problem we have as a country is that we only have the capacity of training psychiatric nurses and not doctors which has affected us a lot," said Dr Musiiwa."We have always relied on other countries for training and as we know Government salary scales are lower than other countries so it's very difficult to retain them. However, we have many psychiatric nurses in all our institutions to help contain the situation."He said Government was working on programming for mental cases to strengthen its six mental institutions.Dr Musiiwa said mental cases were on the increase.He said mental problems were caused by a numbers of factors.The use of illicit drugs and alcohol have been cited as some of the causes of mental illness.Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) director Mr Itai Rusike said there was a need to mobilise resources to address the shortfall in specialist health workers."Poor wages and working conditions, the increased diseases burden and high demand for services as well as low staff motivation have exacerbated the situation," he said.
The successful initial public offering (IPO) of D-Mart has managed to inspire one of the biggest marketplaces in the country, which is in dire need of a morale boost.

After months of trials, tribulations and criticism, an upbeat Kunal Bahl, the co-founder of Gurgaon-based online marketplace Snapdeal, told his employees in a mail the company should follow by example of the hypermarket chain.

The co-founder of the third largest marketplace not only met people associated with D-Mart, but also went to one of the stores to understand the reasons behind the blockbuster IPO launch.

While not saying it in as many words, Bahl indicated that Snapdeal might also take the IPO route.

According to sources close to the company, Snapdeal plans to launch an IPO by 2019. Bahl also indicated that while investors perceptions might change, a company can launch a blockbuster IPO if it stuck to the plan and focused on the core audience.

The company has managed to cut down its costs by 60 per cent, he said in the mail. The latest email was more optimistic that his previous one to employees where he had admitted to making mistakes. Bahl said they were on the path to profitability.

Many of you would have seen the wildly successful IPO of D-Mart. It is incredible the clarity of thought the company has and the focus it has on efficiency and profitability. While investors in the ecosystem may keep changing their point of view on what ecommerce should do  from conserving cash at times to driving top line growth at other times  it is clear from the D-Mart story that having a consistent strategy, building thoughtfully and for the long term creates an incredible outcome, Bahl said in the mail.

Over the past week, Bahl said, he met people who have been either closely watching the company or have been associated with it and has learnt a few things. Bahl said the two main takeaways from D-Mart were focus on unit-level profitability and core audience. While many other retailers were growing stores rapidly, D-Mart was ensuring that each store is profitable so that their growth is sustainable and well thought through. In their business, too, like ours, Im sure there would have been differing voices in 2005-2010 on whether rapid expansion of stores and top line is the right strategy or focusing on unit economics. Clearly, in spite of the external pressure they may have faced, they stuck to their principles and the results are phenomenal, he said.

Snapdeal  which in the past one year has let go of more than a third of its workforce to cut costs so that it could reach profitability faster  was going for another pivot in its business to concentrate more on customers, said sources. It would be the fourth pivot or change in business plans the company has taken in its lifetime.

Sources said the company would take a targeted approach and concentrate on a core set of audience instead of trying to grow in multiple directions.
founder, chairman and CEO Lei Jun met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday to discuss the Chinese smartphone giant's plans to manufacture in India under the government's flagship 'Make in India' initiative and create jobs in the country.
Chinese technology major Xiaomi's founder Lei Jun on Monday said the company aims to create 20,000 jobs in India, which he said was one of the most important markets for the company, the next three years.
Claiming that the Greater Noida incident was a "hate crime", an association of Tuesday demanded that they be provided adequate security in the country.

"In Greater Noida, they (locals) say that Africans 'we don't want you to be here anymore'. These are actually hate crimes towards African community. Africans are not secure in this country," Association of President Samuel Jack said.

He said Africans may not come to India for studies due to safety concerns in the wake of such incidents.

"I urge them (Africans), wherever they are, to stop making India their destination of study until and unless there is proper security," he added.

Jack claimed that the alleged attack on last night was mobilised by local youths and police have arrested six of them while two others were absconding.

Four Nigerian students were allegedly attacked by residents who took out a candle-light march for a 17-year-old boy who had died last week due to suspected drug overdose.

The boy's parents had alleged that the foreigners had kidnapped him and given him drugs which led to his death.

One of the injured Nigerians alleged that he was assaulted for no reason.

"I don't go to club in this country. I don't drink. They assaulted me for no reason. I don't know what to say. They do not want us to be in this country," he claimed.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said the central government was taking immediate action and that she had spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who had assured her of a fair and impartial investigation into this "unfortunate" incident.
Shiv Sena MP altercation with an Air India staffer and the subsequent action by six airlines to bar him from flying with them has prompted the Civil Aviation Ministry to look into the subject of a no-fly list with renewed vigour.



While Shiv Sena MPs on Monday demanded lifting of the ban imposed by various airlines on party lawmaker Ravindra Gaikwad, the government said airlines had the right to refuse a passenger if they found his "demeanour" to be incorrect.
Nashik Police has booked a woman journalist of a news portal for allegedly doing a sting on the abuse of the "buddy" system in the Army by videographing a jawan from Kerala, who was found dead here earlier this month.

The case was registered at Deolali camp police station last night against Poonam Agrawal under Sections 3 (spying) and 7 (interfering with officers of the police or members of the armed forces of Union) of the Official Secrets Act.

She was booked for violating Army rules by entering prohibited areas and conducting a shoot there, Vinayak Lokare, the station in-charge told PTI today.

The scribe from Delhi was also booked under sections 306 (Abetment of suicide), 451(criminal trespass), 500(defamation) and 34(common intention) of the IPC, after a complaint was made by Army officials.

Agrawal is accused of entering Heig Lines in Deolali camp without the permission of the authorities and filming the premises besides carrying out a sting operation on Roy Mathew and other jawans on February 24 in which she is said to have asked leading questions, the police official said.

Mathew (33) was found hanging from the ceiling of a room in an abandoned barrack in Deolali cantonment here on March 2. Police had also recovered a diary from his barrack with some scribblings in his mother tongue fearing possible action from his superiors.

A case of accidental death was then registered by Nashik Police under section 174 (Police to enquire and report on suicide) of CrPC.

The jawan went missing on February 25 after he purportedly figured in the expose by the portal.

The video showed soldiers walking dogs of senior army officials or taking their children to school.

Mathew, a native of Karuvelil in Ezhukon in Kollam district, joined the Army 13 years ago and was working as artillery gunner with the Rocket Regiment 214 in Nashik camp since the last one year.

According to his family in Kerala, Mathew made his last phone call to them on February 25 and from the way he talked it appeared that he was in a frightened state.

He told them that he had recently spoken to a mediaperson about the woes of the soldiers in the Army and of the menial tasks which they were asked to do.

He, according to family members, said these things after ensuring that he was not being recorded. But later, to his shock, the video went viral as his interview was secretly recorded.

Roy had told his kin that he feared that he would lose his job and would have to face consequences for the act.

The jawan was laid to rest in Kollam on March 4 after a fresh autopsy was conducted following insistence of his family, who raised doubts over this death.

Alleging that there were marks of beating on his feet and blood had clotted in some parts, his relatives, including wife Finy, had refused to accept the body until a fresh post-mortem was conducted in Kerala.
Canadian national John Szlazak, who has gone missing last evening in Naxal-infested Sukma district, is reported to be held captive by the rebel-backed Jan Militia.
A team of Delhi Police today recorded statements of 15 AirIndia staffers, including the 60-year-old airline official, who was allegedly assaulted by Shiv Sena MP at IGI airport here last week.

The team supervised by Crime Branch DCP Ram Gopal Naik reached the Indira Gandhi International airport and recorded the statements of the AirIndia staff. They also took possession of the CCTV footage and videos capturing the incident.

"The statements of around 15 AirIndia staffers who witnessed the assault on Sukumar were recorded. The CCTV footage and other videos capturing the incident were also obtained," said a senior police officer.

The 57-year-old first-term MP had repeatedly hit the Air India staffer on March 23 after the Pune-Delhi flight landed in the capital. He was furious at having to fly economy on an all-economy flight despite having a business class coupon.

A case was registered by the Delhi police in connection with the incident on Friday. Later, the case was transferred to the Crime Branch.

The incident had led to widespread condemnation and outrage as a purported video clip of the episode went viral on social media.

The officer added that the possibility of arrest of the MP could not be commented upon as the matter was under investigation.
The Supreme Court implemented a stay on a Bombay High Court verdict that allowed the levy of stamp duty by the Maharashtra government on in print and electronic media, calling it a debatable issue. The apex court also directed that each of the members of the petitioner, Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), shall give a summary of revenue earned through advertisement.
Tania Tauro, 27, has just started her new job at Tata Trusts. The young Vedica scholar who was clear that she wanted to remain in the development sector worked for two NGOs  both in Mumbai - in the past but left as she felt she needed to hone her business knowledge and understanding.
News / Local

by Staff Reporter

Zanu-PF Women's League leadership on Monday sanctioned the sacking of Eunice Sandi Moyo and Sarah Mahoka in a latest purge drive.Both Sandi Moyo and Mahoka boycotted Monday's meeting.Last week, the women's wing held demonstrations countrywide against the pair as they where accused of undermining Grace Mugabe.According to the Herald, the top leadership on Monday deliberated on the demonstrations and accepted the concerns raised by party women."But it was agreed that the final decision would be made by the national executive when it meets in Harare tomorrow (today)," said a source."The (Women's League) national executive is the one that must come up with the final say when it comes to disciplinary issues concerning the League."The Women's League national executive is made up of top 40 members of the wing, with 20 heads and 20 deputies.It is understood that Women's League provincial chairpersons were likely to present petitions from their respective provinces soon to the national executive.During last Wednesday's demonstrations, the organ's lower structures presented petitions to the Women's League provincial chairpersons for onward submission to the organ's national executive.The provincial chairpersons and members of the Youth League also joined members of the Women's League and their provincial chairpersons in Bulawayo on Friday and reaffirmed calls for the duo's ouster.
The Congress is wary of the Universal Basic Income proposal mentioned in the Economic Survey 2016-17, as the grand old party thinks the concept could dent the various social security nets created by the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime to provide cushion to the poor.
India's exports must be in line with demands from trade partners, a report looking at the nation's current trade deal with Singapore has pointed out.
The Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) has turned to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take up the cudgels on behalf of India's industry in the face of US President Donald Trump's policies.
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Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar  two of the most under developed states in the country  have been similar in a lot many ways. Be it the slow pace of development, subsequent populist governments and, for years, being treated as a ground for just political gains. The two states also delivered electoral verdicts surpassing the imagination of the best political pundits.
Jan Dhan deposits, whose spike after demonetisation to more than Rs 74,000 crore at the end of November last year had created surprise, are shrinking.

In about three-and-a-half months between November 30, 2016, and March 15, 2017, close to Rs 10,500 crore was withdrawn from .

According to the data on the Jan Dhan website, as on March 15, deposits in stood at around Rs 63,836 crore, against Rs 74,321 crore at the end of November.

 have almost reached a level of saturation. Also, as withdrawal limits in banks are getting eased, deposits are coming down.

Now, the focus has shifted to the Aadhaar card linkage, Rupay Card and Atal Pension Yojana, said a senior banker at a public sector bank.

Notably, Jan Dhan was a mission-mode plan. Launched on August 28, 2014, the target to open an account per household was achieved by January 26, 2015.

Jan Dhan accounts had seen an almost 45 per cent surge in deposits in about 23 days between November 8, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation, and November 30, when the deposits had peaked. Deposits had swelled from around Rs 45,000 crore to close to Rs 74,000 crore in the period. Doubts were expressed if unaccounted money was being diverted to Jan Dhan accounts.

Banks were asked to provide details to the government on high-value deposits in Jan-Dhan accounts after demonetisation.

We will have to wait for the data after March 13, when caps on withdrawals were removed, to assess the extent of withdrawals, said Pawan Bajaj, managing director and chief executive officer, United Bank of India.

R K Takkar, managing director and chief executive officer, UCO Bank, said: We have seen some withdrawals in Jan Dhan accounts in the past two months. However, so far, it is not something alarming.

Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal had been the leading states in terms of deposits in Jan Dhan accounts. After demonetisation, in about one month, between November and December, while Uttar Pradesh received more than Rs 4,500 crore, in the case of West Bengal the addition was over Rs 2,900 crore.

Deposits in West Bengal had increased from about Rs 6,286 crore to Rs 9,193 crore, while in the case of Uttar Pradesh, it increased from about Rs 7,493 crore to Rs 12,021 crore in one month between November 8, 2016, and December 8, 2016.

Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal continue to lead in terms of deposits. As on March 15, Jan Dhan deposits in the states stood at Rs 10,154 crore and Rs 8,213 crore, respectively.

So far, about 65 per cent of Jan Dhan accounts have been linked to Aadhaar, or unique identification numbers. Of nearly 280-million accounts, nearly 178-million have been Aadhaar-seeded.

Low-cost deposits from Jan Dhan accounts had improved liquidity in banks. However, much of the gain of low-cost deposits has been offset by the huge cost of maintaining the accounts.




Four Bills for the proposed goods and services tax (GST) regime, which were introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, did not mention cab aggregators such as Ola and Uber, but experts say these may draw up to one per cent tax collected at source (TCS) under the definition of e-commerce marketplaces. The exact nature of taxing these cab aggregators is likely to be detailed in the rules.
With Swedish luxury car maker evaluating possibilities of setting up its assembly plant in India, Odisha has thrown its hat in the ring. The state government has invited Auto India to explore Odisha as a destination for its assembling facility by dangling an array of incentives the state offers.

"We are given to understand that Auto India is exploring to set up an assembly unit in India. We invite you to consider setting up the unit in Odisha. The state's existing Industrial Policy Resolution (IPR) provides very competitive incentives for automobile manufacturers. In addition, a new dedicated policy for auto and auto components sector is on the anvil which will ensure unmatched competitive advantage for companies setting up units in the state", Sanjeev Chopra, Odisha industries secretary stated in a letter to Tom Von Bonsdorff, managing director, Auto India Ltd.
India and Bavaria to Set up Joint Group to Identify Areas of Co-Operation in Water Sector

Union Minister of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Sushri Uma Bharti has suggested formation of a joint group to identify areas of co-operation in water sector. This was stated that by the Minister, when Minister of Environment and Consumer Protection of the Free State of Bavaria, Federal Republic of Germany, Ms. Ulrike Scharf called on her in New Delhi today. Both the leaders discussed various others probable areas of co-operation in water resources sector.

Sushri Bharti said that Bavaria has a rich experience of successfully cleaning the river Danube in Germany and India may benefit from their experience. She gave an overview of the Namami Gange programme to the visiting dignitary and sought her co-operation for the same. The Bavarian Minister appreciated the work of Union Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation and said that Bavaria and India would like to exchange their experience and knowledge in water resources sector. Ms. Ulrike Scharf extended an invitation to Sushri Bharti to visit Bavaria.

Samir/JKD/jk
Ministry of AYUSH gives full support to AYUSH Industry to enable them to market products in international markets: Shri Shripad Yesso Naik .

AYUSH products are exported as a medicine to some countries and as food supplements to other countries depending upon prevailing regulations of the concerned country. Ministry of AYUSH had conducted studies through Indian Institute of Foreign Trade and International Trade Centre / WTO Geneva etc. to improve the export potential of Indian Traditional Medicines. On the basis of the recommendations, AYUSH Ministrys Central Sector Scheme for International Cooperation (IC) in AYUSH has been expanded in its ambit and scope merging the existing components and new initiatives have been introduced so that promotion of AYUSH products could be facilitated across the globe and international commitments and demands are fulfilled in an effective manner. .

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The Ministry of AYUSH offers incentives to the AYUSH industry under its Central Sector Scheme for International Cooperation (i) to get market authorization/ registration for their product(s) at regulatory bodies of different countries such as USFDA/EMEA/UK-MHRA/ NHPD/ TGA etc. to enhance their exports (ii) for participation in international exhibitions, trade fairs, road shows etc. to create awareness about the efficacy of their products. .

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In addition to the above, for facilitating exports, Ministry of AYUSH encourages following certifications of AYUSH products as per details below:- .

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(i) Voluntary Quality Certification of Pharmaceutical Products (CoPP) under WHO Guidelines. .

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(ii) Quality Certifications Scheme implemented by the Quality Council of India (QCI) for grant of AYUSH Premium mark to Ayurvedic, Siddha and Unani products on the basis of third party evaluation of quality in accordance with the status of compliance to international standards. .

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This information was given by the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for AYUSH, Shri Shripad Yesso Naik in reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today. .

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News / Local

by Staff Reporter

A HIGH Court judge based in Bukawayo - Justice Nicholas Mathonsi slammed bosses of loss-making parastatals for continuously stealing large sums of money from the State-owned entities for personal aggrandisement.Mathonsi's anger was directed at former Grain Marketing Board (GMB) Bulawayo's Kelvin West depot manager, Tapiwa Musvazvi who had approached the High Court challenging his conviction and sentence for fleecing the parastatal of $16 000."If there is any reason why struggling parastatals in this country will never extricate themselves from the financial malady, the incongruous state of financial decay they currently find themselves in, it is because of senior management in the mould of the present appellant who have constituted themselves as middlemen, trading with the same parastatals they are assigned to superintend, for their own person aggrandisement," said Mathonsi.Musvazvi and his five subordinates defrauded GMB of more than $16 000 by forging receipts for fictitious grain deliveries of about 61 tonnes on two different occasions. He used the money to buy a residential flat.He was sentenced to eight years in jail of which two years were suspended for five years on condition of good behaviour. Three years were further suspended on condition Musvazvi restituted the stolen money leaving him with an effective three year imprisonment.The aggrieved Musvazvi, through his lawyers, R Ndlovu and Company, then launched an appeal against both conviction and sentence.Justice Mathonsi said Musvazvi acted out of greed and abused his position to steal the money."This was one of those bad cases. The appellant fleeced a struggling state enterprise of large sums of money propelled only by greed." He bought an immovable property directly from money siphoned from his employer. He held a position of trust as a senior official but abused his position not only by stealing from his employer, but recruiting subordinates to achieve his nefarious goal, and therefore imprisonment was unavoidable in the circumstances," said the judge.Justice Mathonsi dismissed the appeal and upheld the sentence."This is a person who had fallen from grace and although he benefited from the offence, there was need to tamper justice with mercy. The two counts should have been treated as one for the purposes of sentence. In the result, it is ordered that the appeal against conviction is dismissed and the appeal against sentence is hereby upheld," ruled the judge.He quashed the sentence and substituted it with a five year imprisonment of which one year is suspended for five years on condition Musvazvi does not within that period commit a similar crime."Of the remaining four years, two years is suspended on condition the appellant restitutes the complainant the sum of $16 711,20 on or before June 30, 2017. Effective sentence is two years," said Justice Mathonsi.The State, through Ms Nokuthaba Ngwenya, opposed the application, arguing that both conviction and sentence were proper and met the justice of the case.The court heard that on November 10 in 2010, Musvazvi and his five subordinates misrepresented to GMB by making fictitious transactions purportedly made between the company and one Abson Chinho. Through his actions, Musvazvi deceived GMB into paying Chinho $8 119,10.Two weeks later, Musvazvi used the same modus operandi to fleece GMB of $8 592,10 which was again paid to Chinho as purchase price for a flat.In December 2011, GMB's loss control officers were assigned to investigate some suspicious grain deliveries and payments during which they uncovered the two anomalous transactions.The records showed that between November 10 and November 26, 2010, Chinho delivered 60 768 tonnes of maize to GMB and he was paid $16 711,20 ostensibly for the maize delivery.However, in actual fact, the money was a purchase price for a flat Chinho sold to Musvazvi.Musvazvi signed the grain receipts and instructed his subordinates to pay Chinho the money from the GMB account.The money went to the credit of Musvazvi in settlement of a debt he owed Chinho towards the purchase price of the flat.
National Biodiversity Congress

A conference on Mainstreaming Biodiversity for Sustainable Development" was held at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, as part of the National Biodiversity Congress on February 23-24. The issues discussed in the conference included: mainstreaming biodiversity for nutritional security and well being, sustainable utilization and benefit sharing, landscape approaches to biodiversity conservation, empowering Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs), conservation of indigenous breeds and varieties, Peoples Biodiversity Registers, control of invasive species etc. The major outcomes were prioritizing the major threats to biodiversity, and mainstreaming biodiversity for nutritional security and well-being. The conference has brought out about 40 recommendations.An open forum conducted on February 22, 2017 during the National Biodiversity Congress discussed about local actions being taken for conservation of biodiversity, wherein several practical regional efforts for biodiversity conservation were identified.The National Biodiversity Congress 2017 was attended by about 230 BMC members from Kerala, 30 Technical Support Group members, 100 farmers and NGOs.

Around 118 institutes participated in the biodiversity exhibition, which included eight Central research institutes, 24 State research institutes, 12 NGOs and 25 individuals. The 9th Childrens Biodiversity Congress held on February 25, 2017, was attended by 100 students from Government and Government aided schools. The conference was attended by 253 delegates, including officials from seven State Biodiversity Boards and the National Biodiversity Authority, and students. The participation of delegates was supported through funds from National Biodiversity Authority." This information was given by Minister of State (Independent Charge) of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Shri Anil Madhav Dave, in reply to a written question in Lok Sabha today.
As on 01.01.2016, the representation of women police personnel is 7.10 % at all India level. .

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As Police is a State subject falling in List-II of seventh schedule of the Constitution of India, it is primarily the responsibility of the State Governments/UT Administrations to make adequate representation of women in the State Police Forces. However, Ministry of Home Affairs has issued advisories dated 04.09.2009 and 22.4.2013 to all the State Governments/UT Administrations to increase the strength of women police upto 33% of the total strength. .

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All the State Governments have been requested to create additional posts of women constables/SIs by converting the vacant posts of male constables into the posts of women constables. It has also been aimed that each police station should have at least 3 women sub-inspectors and 10 women police constables. .

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Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs has envisaged engagement of Mahila Police Volunteers (MPV) in States/UTs who will act as a link between police and community and help women in distress. All the Chief Secretaries of States/UTs were requested to adopt this initiative in their respective States. The MPV will encourage women to come forward with complaints of violence and discrimination, provide information to them on remedies for this and assist them in taking their cases to police authorities. MPV will serve as an example to the village and encourage a woman friendly environment both within and outside the police station. Any empowered woman from the community, who is of 21 years of age and is at least 12th pass can be selected to be a MPV. .

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Haryana has become the first state to operationalise the Mahila Police Volunteer scheme. It was launched jointly by the Ministry of WCD and Government of Haryana at Karnal on 14th December, 2016 for the districts of Karnal and Mahendragarh. A Proposal from Andhra Pradesh has also been sanctioned for implementation of Mahila Police Volunteers (MPVs) in two districts namely Anantapur and Kadapa on pilot basis under Nirbhaya Fund. .

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This was stated by the Minister of State for Home Affairs, Shri Hansraj Gangaram Ahir in a written reply to question by Dr. Kambhampati Haribabu in the Lok Sabha today. .

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.com has agreed to buy the Middle East online retailer Souq.com, thwarting a last-minute bid by Dubai billionaire Mohamed Alabbar's Emaar Malls.

The value and terms of the agreement, which deal adviser Goldman Sachs called "the biggest-ever technology M&A transaction in the Arab world", were not disclosed.

But sources with knowledge of the matter said was paying less than Emaar's $800 million offer, making it lower than the $1 billion valuation at the time of a Souq.com funding round last year.

One of the sources said on Monday Souq.com would have had to break an exclusivity agreement with if it had accepted the Emaar Malls offer at this stage.

Reuters reported last week that Amazon had agreed in principle to buy Souq.com, which was co-founded 12 years ago by Syrian-born entrepreneur Ronaldo Mouchawar.

"By becoming part of the Amazon family, we'll be able to vastly expand our delivery capabilities and customer selection much faster, as well as continue Amazon's great track record of empowering sellers," Mouchawar said in a statement on Tuesday.

In a deal document seen by Reuters, Goldman said the acquisition would accelerate Amazon's entry into "attractive Middle East countries with significant growth potential given e-commerce only represents (roughly) 2 percent of retail sales".

The deal was endorsed by the Dubai government, which is increasingly focusing on technology, as the emirate expands its retail footprint in the region.

Dubai's Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum said it showed the city state's position "as a regional and global hub for the world's biggest and leading organisations".

The acquisition is expected to close later this year, according to the joint statement on Tuesday.

For Alabbar, who made his name as chairman of Emaar Properties, the Dubai government-linked developer of the world's tallest building, losing out on Souq.com is unlikely to crimp his ambitions to move into e-commerce.

He announced last year he planned to launch his own e-commerce firm Noon in partnership with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, a sovereign wealth fund.

Emaar Malls, the retail unit of Emaar Properties, is the operator of the Dubai Mall, which accounts for around 50 per cent of the emirate's luxury goods spending and is one of the Middle East's largest shopping centres.

South Africa's Naspers Ltd, which has a 36.4 per cent stake in Souq.com, has declined to comment on the Amazon deal. Tiger Global Management also has a stake in Souq.com.
Inc will seek bids from global insurers keen to sell general insurance products across the US bank's Asia-Pacific markets, in a deal that could be worth at least $500 million, a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Citi's move underscores how banks are leveraging their network of branches and customer base to generate assured revenue over many years, as demand for insurance grows in the region, the source said.

The multi-year, bancassurance deal for products such as motor, property and travel insurance, will be one of the largest of its kind in the region, and give insurers access to 15 million customers of Citibank in 12 markets including Singapore, Hong Kong, China, India and Australia.

Citi will kick off the process for the 15-year deal in a few days, and expects to choose a partner in a few months, said the person who declined to be identified as the information was not public.

The deal is expected to be pitched to a number of insurers including AIG and Allianz, two sources said.

The exact value of the non-life insurance deal will depend on various issues including how bidders structure upfront payments and calculate net present value of future commissions and deferred payments, the first source said.

A spokesman at Citi declined to comment. AIG and Allianz also declined to comment.

Citi's plan to seek partners follows the bank's move to allow insurer AIA in 2013 to sell life insurance through its Asia network in a multi-year deal.

"The bank has invested a lot to grow its technology platform and digital engagement over several years. The idea now is to complement the life insurance partnership with another one for general insurance," said the source.

Global insurers are increasingly relying on bank distribution tie-ups to help generate billions of dollars in revenue in Asia, where rising personal incomes are enabling individuals and families to afford insurance.

"You are bound to see participation across-the-board, from Japanese insurers to Europeans and others for this kind of a deal," said the second person, who has dealt with bank distribution transactions, referring to the Citi deal.

"More and more banks are monetising their distribution networks as this doesn't cost them much and the fees goes straight to the bottom line," he said.

The first source said Citi has an initial preference for one partner for all markets but is open to considering more than one, given the range and scale of the bank's retail platform.

Asia has seen a spate of bank distribution deals for life insurance in the last five years and transactions for non-life insurance are also heating up.

In January, Standard Chartered and Allianz announced a 15-year deal that enabled the German insurer to sell its general insurance products to StanChart's customers in five Asia markets.
President Donald Trump's childhood home in the New York borough of Queens has sold for $2.14 million - a premium price for the neighborhood -- to an unknown buyer.

Built by his father Fred in 1940 in the upmarket enclave of Jamaica Estates, the building served as the president's home for the first four years of his life. The address is listed on his birth certificate.

The two-story mock Tudor-style house embellished with red brick sold at auction in January for 54 percent more than its selling price in December, when a real estate investor paid $1.39 million for it. The latest sale closed last week.

Fred Trump, a real estate developer who made his fortune building low-cost housing, also helped develop Jamaica Estates.

He moved his family to a colonnaded nine-bathroom mansion he built nearby in 1951.

Asked about the house when he appeared on NBC's "The Tonight Show" in September, then-candidate said it was "sad" the building was on sale at the time. "I want to buy it," he said.

Misha Haghani, a principal of the agency that organized the auction, Paramount Realty USA, would not comment about the buyer's identity, saying that did not mean it wasn't Trump himself.

He also declined to reveal the number of offers received for the five-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom, 2,000-square-foot (186-square-meter) house.

Although other comparable buildings in the neighborhood are valued at roughly $ 1.6 million, the former Trump residence's final price came in lower than the agency had hoped.

Haghani had estimated Trump's fame could push the value above $3 million.

The previous inhabitants -- estranged husband-and-wife Manhattan restaurateurs -- originally aimed to auction the house in mid-October, but withdrew it from the market on the chance Trump's victory in the November election would push up the price.

Positively humble by the lavishly gilded standards of Trump's current penthouse in the Fifth Avenue skyscraper bearing his name, his first home is now nevertheless part of American presidential history.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that he is committed to working with US President to achieve peace with the Palestinians and all of the Jewish state's neighbours.

"Israel's hand and my hand is extended to all of our neighbours in peace," EFE news quoted Netanyahu as saying in a video conference address to the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the main pro-Israeli pressure group in the US, in Washington.

"I believe that the common dangers faced by Israel and many of our Arab neighbours now offer a rare opportunity to build bridges towards a better future -- a future more prosperous, more secure, more peaceful," he said.

Netanyahu urged the Palestinian National Authority to "stop teaching hatred to its children. It must stop paying terrorists. It must stop denying our legitimacy and our history. It must above all, once and for all, recognise the Jewish state."

The Israeli leader said that "Israel has no greater friend than America and America has no greater friend than Israel", and he added that he was certain that the alliance between the two nations will grow even closer in the coming years.

He also referred to Iran as the greatest threat to Israel and appealed to the Trump administration to prevent "Iran from ever ... developing nuclear weapons. That ... will always be our policy."

The premier said that "our partnership (with the US) means also confronting Iran's aggression in the region and its terrorism around the world" and he added that "it means utterly vanquishing ISIS" and "building alliances with ... those moderates who seek to build a better future and embrace modernity and peace."

"In this battle between modernity and medievalism, more and more countries in the region and outside the region, around the world, realise that Israel is on their side," the premier said.

Netanyahu delivered his speech after US Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday spoke on the first day of the conference, reaffirming Trump's commitment to achieving "lasting" peace in the Middle East.

Trump welcomed the Israeli premier to the White House in February.
More than 100 countries launched the first United Nations talks on a global ban today in New York over objections from the major nuclear powers.
A powerful cyclone lashed islands, damaged roofs and cut power as it edged toward Australia's tropical northeast coast, officials said.

Category 4 brought winds gusting to 250 kilometers per hour (155 miles per hour) and torrential rain to the Whitsunday Islands, a popular tourist destination off the Queensland state coast southeast of the city of Bowen, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said in a statement.

The Space Station (@Space_Station) has captured the full force of Tropical Cyclone Debbie from above. https://t.co/NQ01bUPtTr pic.twitter.com/0N21DYVB5I  HuffPost Australia (@HuffPostAU) March 27, 2017

The eye of the storm was expected to cross the coast later on Tuesday.

Deputy Police Commissioner Stephan Gollschewski said reports of damage were starting to come in.

Thousands shelter as 'screaming, howling' hits north Australia https://t.co/ZWc6sz4OtM pic.twitter.com/3PyiILunjW  Reuters Science News (@ReutersScience) March 28, 2017

"We're getting some reports already of roofs starting to lift, including at some of our own facilities in the Whitsundays," Gollschewski told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television.

Powerful cyclone slams Australia's tropical northeast coast, tearing down trees, knocking out power to thousands. https://t.co/LwXSyorejV  The Associated Press (@AP) March 28, 2017

He warned people in Debbie's path that they would be holed up for the entire day on Tuesday and could expect significant flooding in inland areas.

Whitsundays Regional Council Mayor Andrew Willcox said authorities had received 98 requests for help and had responded to most of them. He said 10,000 premises had lost electricity.

Violent damaging gusts regularly hitting Airlie Beach now as #Cyclonedebbie edges ever closer #cyclone #Australia pic.twitter.com/hk2YNU20B8  James Reynolds (@EarthUncutTV) March 28, 2017

"The cyclone is impacting across the whole region, not just the islands," Willcox said. "The severity of Debbie, unfortunately, hasn't been felt yet."Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said communities along more than 300 kilometers (200 miles) of coastline would be impacted from Ayr to south of Mackay.

Thousands of people began evacuating low-lying areas in Debbie's path yesterday.
Shares of rose nearly 3% after the private sector bank informed the bourses that it has raised senior notes in the international market.
News / Local

by Staff Reporter

Opposition National People's Party (NPP) leader Joice Mujuru has said her rival President Robert Mugabe is being kept in power by "power-hungry looters".The former VP  who served under Mugabe for over 34 years before she was unceremoniously kicked out of Zanu PF and government on allegations of plotting a coup  said the decay of Zimbabwe's health delivery system was a sign the President cared less about the plight of citizens."At 93, what do you expect from him? He just does not care anymore and I doubt he still understands what is expected of him in terms of providing solutions to address the economic rot which is causing this decay of social service delivery," Mujuru said as quoted by NewsDay."Mugabe has always said if Zimbabweans tell me to go, I will go, so he is there because we have not told him to go. I believe we should tell him to go  he is being kept in office by people who have looted this country and they think the only way to escape is by keeping the old man hostage in office," the NPP leader said.Mujuru accused top government officials of abandoning their posts to engage in political mudslinging and the power scrap currently engulfing Zanu PF.Mugabe frequently flies out of the country mainly to the Far East for what officials claim "routine medical check-up".
Days before the Centre begins its annual wheat procurement in full steam, it re-imposed an import duty of 10 per cent on the commodity and levied duty of a similar duty on tur (pigeon peas).
exports from India routed through West Asia are being adversely affected because of two reasons: First, because of the 10 per cent import duty levied on imported gold used in making jewellery, and, second, by the 5 per cent import duty on jewellery levied by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) effective January 1.
The benchmark indices settled higher tracking positive trend seen in Asian and global after investors dismissed concerns over US President Donald Trump's ability to ability to push his agenda.
The benchmark indices on Tuesday continued to trade higher as sentiment improved after Asian recovered as some of the anxiety about US President Donald Trump's ability to push his agenda subsided.
Company Date Agenda

Acrow India 08-11-2022 ACROW INDIA LTD.has informed BSE that the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Company is scheduled on 08/11/2022 inter alia to consider and approve Pursuant to Regulation 29 of SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations 2015 we wish to inform that a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Company will be held on Tuesday November 08 2022 inter alia to consider and take on record the unaudited financial results for the quarter and half year ended on September 30 2022.

ADF Foods 08-11-2022 ADF FOODS LTD.-has informed BSE that the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Company is scheduled on 08/11/2022 inter alia to consider and approve the Unaudited Standalone and Consolidated Financial Results for the Second Quarter and Half Year Ended September 30 2022.

Aegis Logistics 08-11-2022 AEGIS LOGISTICS LTD.has informed BSE that the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Company is scheduled on 08/11/2022 inter alia to consider and approve We hereby inform you that pursuant to regulations 29 33 & 42 of the SEBI (LODR) Regulations 2015 a meeting of Board of Directors of the Company is scheduled to be held on Tuesday November 08 2022 to consider and approve inter-alia the following:1. To consider and approve Unaudited Financial Results (Standalone & Consolidated) for the quarter & six months ended September 30 2022. 2. To consider and declare 3rd Interim Dividend if any during the financial year 2022-23 (The Record Date for the purpose of determining the entitlement of the shareholders for the Interim Dividend if declared at the Board Meeting will be Wednesday November 16 2022).Further the Company confirms that the trading window for dealing in the securities of the Company which was closed for the Companys Directors/designated persons associated with the Company from Saturday October 1 2022 will remain closed till end of business hours on Thursday November 10 2022.

Allied Digital 08-11-2022 ALLIED DIGITAL SERVICES LTD.has informed BSE that the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Company is scheduled on 08/11/2022 inter alia to consider and approve the Un-audited Standalone & Consolidated Financial Results of the Company for the quarter and half year ended on September 30 2022 along with the other matters. Further the Trading Window for dealing in the securities of the Company was already closed for all Designated/Connected Persons from October 01 2022 till the end of 48 hours after declaration of Un-audited Standalone and Consolidated Financial Results for the quarter and half year ended September 30 2022. The above notice will be available on the website of the Company i.e. www.allieddigital.net
A delegation of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Embassy in Delhi visited Shimla on Tuesday after the students from Afghanistan were attacked in the city by local tourist guides.

A delegation led by Sediqullah Sahar, education attache with the embassy of Afghanistan in New Delhi met the Superintendent of Police (SP) of Shimla and with the vice-chancellor of the university.

He also held a meeting with the students from Afghanistan studying in Himachal Pradesh University (HPU).

These students are now demanding safety and security in the campus.

"Today we met the police with our embassy delegates, our students were beaten. We were ensured by the SP of safety and security here. We are looking forward for a compromise, if those who accused who have beaten our students apologise publically, we are ready for compromise as we are here for studies," said one of the student.

Five students from Afghanistan got injured in a scuffle with local tourist guides in Shimla and which had spread a sense of fear among these students.

Now today after meeting with the embassy delegate, these students are hopeful about the safety and security in the campus.

"Our embassy delegates visited today. We were feeling scared after the recent incident which was horrible. We shared it with the delegate and now we are feeling safe as police have assured that this kind of incident will not happen again and our embassy delegates are also taking care of this issue," said Basira a BBA student of HPU.

Superintendent of Police D.W. Negi said that the case is under investigation and all nine accused have been arrested.

"A delegation of Afghan embassy led by education attache second in command in the embassy at Delhi met with me early this morning with three important demands for students of Afghanistan to have a cordial relation with locals in Shimla therefore they are interested in compromise in the present case," he said.

He added that the delegation is also concerned about the security of students coming from Afghanistan.

"I have briefed them about the updates of the case and assured future security case. We have registered the case and are taking the issue seriously," Negi said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Supreme Court will on Tuesday hear the plea filed by noted environmentalist, M.C. Mehta in connection with the air pollution case.

The apex court earlier on January 17 warned that the problem of air pollution was very serious and it is important to find a solution for the same, on an urgent basis.

The observation was made by the court after amicus curiae and senior advocate Harish Salve said there was a need to ensure 100 percent compliance of Pollution Under Certificate (PUC) and linking them with the insurance of vehicles.

The bench of judges questioned Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, who was appearing for the Centre, to specify the number of PUC centres in Delhi.

Following which, Kumar said there were 962 such centres in Delhi and each of them inspects around 5,000 vehicles every three months.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Mangal Prabhat Lodha has demanded the demolition of Jinnah House, the erstwhile residence of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and has sought the construction of a cultural centre in its place.

"I am struggling for this for the last 15 years. I have raised this issue twice in the Vidhan Sabha. Jinnah House is an enemy property. The Government of India should hand it over to the Maharashtra Government. The Maharashtra Government should establish a culture centre there which projects Maharashtra's glory," Lodha told ANI.

Lodha earlier on March 25 raised this issue in the Legislative Assembly and said the Jinnah House is a symbol of partition and it needs to be demolished.

The BJP MLA said this after the Parliament passed the Enemy Property Act, Jinnah House became the property of the Indian government.

The historic European-style building was designed by architect Claude Batley, construction for which commenced in 1936. Located in Malabar Hill, it was Jinnah's residence before the formation of Pakistan.

The property is currently under the possession of the Ministry of External Affairs and there has been a long-standing proposal to set up a South Asian Centre for Arts and Culture within the premises.

Both the Pakistan Government and Jinnah's legal heirs have put up claims on the said property.

The Enemy Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2016, which amends the Enemy Property Act, 1968, was passed by a voice vote in the Lok Sabha on March 14, incorporating the amendments made by the Rajya Sabha last week.

As per the Act, successors of those who had migrated to Pakistan and China during partition will have no claim over the properties left behind in India.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson postponed his Russia visit following the rescheduling of the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has informed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that his visit to Moscow was postponed, a spokesman for the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office told TASS news agency on Monday.

"We have unfortunately had to postpone the Foreign Secretary's visit to Russia planned this month due to rescheduling of the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting. The Foreign Secretary has spoken to Foreign Minister Lavrov, and looks forward to reinstating his visit as soon as possible," TASS quoted the spokesman as saying.

Meanwhile, the press service of the British embassy in Moscow said that the visit had been postponed indefinitely due to the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting scheduled to be held in Brussels on March 31. At the same time, the embassy's press service expressed hope that Boris Johnson would visit Moscow in the nearest future.

Johnson was to visit Moscow upon the invitation of Russian top diplomat Sergey Lavrov. On March 10, a meeting between Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov and British Minister of State for Europe and the Americas Alan Duncan took place in London as part of the preparations for the visit.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Beijing and Kathmandu agreed to cooperate more in jointly building the Belt and Road initiative during Chinese President Xi Jinping's meeting with Nepali Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Monday.

During the meeting, Xi said friendly ties between China and Nepal are in the fundamental interests of the two countries and two peoples, reports Xinhua.

At present, China-Nepal ties are developing soundly and the two countries maintain close exchanges between governments, parties and other levels, Xi added.

The Chinese President called on the two sides to strengthen political trust, have more close exchanges and support each other on issues concerning their core interests and major concerns.

Both sides are expected to promote cooperation in connectivity, free trade arrangements, agriculture, industrial capacity, energy and post-disaster reconstruction, taking advantage of the opportunity provided by jointly building the Belt and Road Initiative, Xi said.

He said that China and Nepal need to expand two-way investment and trade and promote balanced and sustainable development of bilateral trade.

Calling China a friendly neighbor, Dahal said Nepal appreciates China's long-time support, especially its help after Nepal's earthquake in 2015.

Nepal adheres to the one-China policy and it will not allow any force to conduct anti-China activities in Nepal's territory, Dahal said, adding that Nepal supports China's Belt and Road and that it is willing to work with China to cooperate more in trade, investment, transportation, infrastructure, tourism, aviation and people-to-people exchanges to benefit the two peoples.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
China has expressed firm opposition and lodged representations over a Japanese official's visit to Taiwan saying the visit breaches the commitment made by Tokyo to interacting with Taiwan only at non-governmental level.

"An incumbent senior vice minister visiting Taiwan obviously breaches the commitment made by Japan to interacting with Taiwan only at non-governmental and local levels and seriously counters the spirit of the four political documents between China and Japan," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a press briefing.

According to a Kyodo News report, Japanese Senior Vice Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Jiro Akama visited Taiwan on Saturday, becoming the highest-level Japanese government official to visit the island in an official capacity since 1972.

"The Taiwan question is a major matter of principle concerning the political foundation of China-Japan relations. China is firmly opposed to the visit and has lodged serious representations with Japan," she added.

The spokesperson further noted that since earlier this year, Japan has repeatedly taken provocative actions with regard to the Taiwan question while it has verbally promised to honor its commitment saying this has already caused grave disturbances to the improvement of China-Japan relations.

Warning that Japan should be aware of the consequences, she urged Tokyo to "stop its duplicity approach to Taiwan-related issues and not go further down the wrong path.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tamil Nadu Agriculture Minister R. Doraikkannu, on Tuesday apprised the agitating farmers, who have been protesting at Jantar Mantar for the past 15 days demanding a drought relief package from the Centre and farm loan waive, that steps has been taken by the government to address their problems.

"We have put demands of the farmers for creation of Cauvery management board and waiver of bank loans before the Centre," Doraikkannu told the media.

M. Thambidurai, who visited the agitating farmers today for a second time, assured them that the issue would be placed before Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the earliest.

"We heard their demands. Requested time for meeting with the Home Minister and Agricultural Minister," said Thambidurai after meeting protesting farmers.

Cutting across the political spectrum political leaders from the state have offered their support to the farmers who have been protesting at Jantar Mantar for the past 15 days.

The farmers are expected to meet Union Minister for Agriculture Radha Mohan Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the evening. DMK MP Tiruchi Siva is expected to accompany the farmers.

Meanwhile, Farmers from Tamil Nadu stage a protest at Jantar Mantar by holding living mice in their mouths to demonstrate that they will have to feed on them if the government fails to declare drought relief packages and waiver loans for the farmers from the state.

A farmer dressed up as a corpse, while the others, dressed in green loin cloth or green petticoats, mourned his "death" and blew conches.

The farmers have been in the capital for over two weeks, demanding that their loans from nationalised banks be forgiven, fair and just prices be set for their produce and to come up with realistic solutions to the water scarcity in the state.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As many as five persons were on Tuesday arrested in connection with the assault on four Nigerian nationals in Greater Noida.

Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has said that she has spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath about the attack on four Nigerian students in Greater Noida and he has assured fair and impartial probe into the matter.

"I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath ji Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh about attack on African students in Greater Noida. He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident," Swaraj tweeted.

Swaraj yesterday sought report from the Uttar Pradesh Government over the attack on four Nigerian students, who sustained severe injuries after being assaulted by a group of local residents in Greater Noida's Pari Chowk area.

"I have asked for a report from Government of Uttar Pradesh about the reported attack on African students in Noida," tweeted Swaraj.

The incident comes as locals protested following the death of a Class 12 student in Greater Noida's NSG Black Cats Enclave due to suspected drug overdose and five Nigerian students living in the neighbourhood were booked - and later detained - in connection with the case.

The students were later released for lack of evidence.

Over 100 locals held a protest at the busy junction demanding that all Africans living in residential colonies in Greater Noida be asked to vacate their rented houses immediately.

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Greater Noida District Magistrate Nagendra Prasad Singh today refused to declare the attack on Nigerian nationals as a hate crime.

"It is absolutely not a hate crime, not is it some kind of anger against a race. A few people have spread rumours regarding the death of a youth which gave rise to anger. The incident happened in continuity of that," Singh claimed.

He said the district administration will ensure that such incidents do not get repeated in the future and that harmony prevails.

"We will not let the nation's image get hampered," he asserted.

The incident comes as locals protested following the death of a Class 12 student in Greater Noida's NSG Black Cats Enclave due to the suspected drug overdose and five Nigerian students living in the neighbourhood were booked - and later detained - in connection with the case.

The students were later released for lack of evidence.

Over 100 locals held a protest at the busy junction demanding that all Africans living in residential colonies in Greater Noida be asked to vacate their rented houses immediately.

"Nobody tried to assist us or tried to help. Earlier also in my society people used to say that we should leave this country. I have no words for people like this," said another Nigerian .

"I think this is barbaric and highly racial motivated attack towards the African students in India. What has happened is false perception and false ideology about African people. We are accused of abductions and murder. It is a hate crime towards us. We are going to give a detail report and also in touch with the local African media so that we can give information," president of the Association of African students Samuel Jack said.

Meanwhile, as many as five persons were arrested in connection with the assault on four Nigerian nationals in Greater Noida.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has said that she has spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath about the attack on four Nigerian students in Greater Noida and he has assured fair and impartial probe into the matter.

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The Meteorology Department of Gujarat on Tuesday issued a yellow warning due to rise in temperature in the state for the next 48 hours.

Managing Director, India Meteorological Department, M. Mohanty informed that the department issued a yellow warning for the next 48 hours following a heat wave condition which has prevailed in entire Gujarat.

"The department has issued yellow warning following high temperature since last two days. It is forecasted that the heat wave condition in the state would continue to remain for next 48 hours," M. Mohanty told ANI.

She further said there might be fall in temperature in Sourashtra from Wednesday while the temperature in Kutch started dropping from today.

Mohanty asserted that yellow warning is issued when the department forecasts temperature between 41-43 degree Celsius, adding that Gujarat is likely to witness the same temperature till tomorrow.

"We issue yellow warning when we forecast temperature between 41-43 degree celcius. Ahmedabad is forecasted to continue under this temperature till Wednesday," the IMD, MD added.

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Two people were arrested in Surat in connection with the seizure of Rs 42 lakhs in demonetized notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000.

The police has transferred the case to the Income Tax department, who will take actions on the duo and an investigation has been launched into the matter.

Earlier today, the Telangana Police arrested a 10-member gang and seized Rs three crore in demonetised currency.

Police personnel seized the demonetised notes from Saifabad district in Telangana.

Large amounts of old and new currency notes have been seized in the Income Tax (IT) raids across the country post demonetisation.

In the recent past, new currency worth Rs 2.25 crore was seized during raids in Bengaluru and over Rs 3 crore in banned currency was found in a hotel in Delhi.

Yet another raid was carried out in Chandigarh, where over Rs 2 crores, mostly in new notes, have been seized.

Five people were caught with Rs 3.25 crore in old notes in Delhi's Karol Bagh. The money was to be flown to Mumbai and allegedly belonged to Hawala operators.

In another incident, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) seized Rs 1.04 crore in new Rs 2000 notes from a local businessman on from Thane. Likewise IT department seized around Rs 32 crore new notes in various raids.

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Minister of Jharkhand, Ramchandra Chandravanshi has recently claimed that the state has come a long way from the day when Jharkhand was on 18th number among states as far as their healthcare services were concerned. It now stands third in the country, according to an independent survey.

"We have come a long way from the day not far ago when Jharkhand was placed 18 among states as far as healthcare services was concerned to 3rd now in country. Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) has been only last month awarded as the most promising medical colleges in eastern India. But we in government believe that we have to do a lot to provide quality healthcare to all and I want to urge the industry to come forward and do things on Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode in which Government is ready to offer whatever it can," said Chandravanshi on the occasion of ASSOCHAM and Wellness Summit - Awards 2017, held at Ranchi.

However, he admitted that a lot needs to be done in the State in order to provide quality healthcare to the poorest of the poor, which according to him was not possible by government alone.

"Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) has been only last month awarded as the most promising medical colleges in eastern India. But we in government believe that we have to do a lot to provide quality healthcare to all and I want to urge the industry to come forward and do things on Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode in which Government is ready to offer whatever it can," Chandravanshi was speaking to ANI from Ranchi.

Jharkhand is going to be the second State in country to offer 'free services' to all the minors in the government-run hospitals, if things go in line with what Health Department of the State has been working on since last few months, Health Minister said.

He continued saying that it was planning to introduce free health services for all the minors in the State across income groups, adding that the proposal was in advance stages and it could be introduced for discussions in any of the cabinet meetings in near future.

Health Minister of Jharkhand, Ramchandra Chandravanshi felicitated a 12-year old Jamshedpur girl Mondrita Chatterjee for constructing two toilets in a village of over 250 families with no toilets at all while giving awards to hospitals and entrepreneurs of healthcare sector on the occasion of ASSOCHAM Health and Wellness Summit - Awards 2017.

The girl, inspired by Swachchha Bharat Campaign used her piggy bank money, collected in over two years of time, to get the toilet constructed. Assocham Health and Wellness Awards 2017 for best hospital in North India was given to Sharda Hospital, Greater Noida which was received by Director Marketing Gaurav Pandey, for outstanding research and philanthropic health care work.

On the occasion, State's Health, Medical Education and Family Welfare Department Additional Chief Secretary Sudhir Tripathi mentioned about a short and long term goals the Government was working on to improve healthcare services in the State.

"We are going to launch 108-ambulances in 300 plus numbers within three months. We are also going to start Sadar Hospital without wasting any time, as this hospital has turned as a symbol of inefficiencies of the system. The Government has also planned to provide health check-ups worth Rs. 250 free for all, which might claim around Rs.500 Crores to the government on yearly basis," Tripathi said.

ASSOCHAM Regional Director SK Singh, Jharkhand Start Up Council of ASSOCHAM Rajeev Gupta, Health Services Director Praveen Chandra, Medica Group of Hospitals Vice President Sanjay Kumar and others were also present during inaugural session of the event, followed by two technical sessions by health and wellness experts.

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At least one person was killed during a clash with the security forces at the encounter site in Jammu and Kashmir's Budgam.

Some stone pelters tried to disrupt the army operation against terrorists.

An encounter is currently underway between the security forces and terrorists in Budgam.

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Terrorists barged into the residence of an Assistant Sub-Inspector of police and a Constable in Kashmir's Shopian district and ransacked their houses in Jammu and late on Monday night.

The terrorists fired gunshots in air before fleeing from the spot.

No injuries or casualties have been reported so far.

The recent incident comes just two days after terrorists in Budgam district abducted Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Abdul Bhat's two sons on Sunday, who were later released.

Bhat's vehicle was also set ablaze by the terrorists, who threatened his kin and later fled in a car after firing few rounds.

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At least two persons were killed during a clash with the security forces at the encounter site in Jammu and Kashmir's Budgam.

Meanwhile, some stone pelters tried to disrupt the army operation against terrorists.

An encounter is currently underway between the security forces and terrorists in Budgam.

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News / Local

by Staff Reporter

The planned installation of new Headman Nemanwa billed to have taken place on March 1, 2017 was stopped after members of the clan protested the imposition of a candidate.Bothwell Mushayi who led a family delegation in an interview with The Mirror accused the president of the Chiefs Council, Chief Fortune Charumbira of trying to impose his own man as the next Headman Nemanwa following the death of the last headman.Mushayi said Charumbira must not be involved in the succession process of Nemanwa as he was not a member of the family. He said Charumbira was trying to impose Wilson Vengesa by virtue of him having produced a birth certificate which showed that he was the oldest among those vying for the position.He said Masvingo District Administrator's office had planned the installation of Vengesa for March 1, but Mushayi who is the secretary for Nemanwa Headmanship said his committee wrote a petition to the new District Administrator, Roy Hove protesting against the move and the event was stopped.Hove claimed he was busy when contacted for comment but later switched off his mobile phone.Efforts to get comment from Chief Charumbira were fruitless as his mobile phone was not being answered up to the time of going to press.Mushayi said Charumbira influenced the former District Administrator James Mazvidza not to accept and recognise the acting Headman Nemanwa born Paul Masvireka who is the grandson of the late headman. He said Masvireka has been acting for the past three years in accordance with accepted tradition of materera but three years on he still gets no Government recognition because Charumbira does not want him."Our succession process has been frustrated by Chief Charumbira who was using former DA Mazvidza who is his close relative. Mazvidza is an uncle to Charumbira and was appointed as DA through the influence of Charumbira who was then Deputy Minister of Local Government."It must be remembered that Nemanwa is the one who appointed Charumbira as headman a century back and now it is Fortune Charumbira who wants to play the superior. We are not answerable to Charumbira. History has it that we were in this area from as early as 758AD and yet Charumbira only arrived around 1865 and he married in our family hence we gave him some land," said Mushayi.Mazvidza refused to comment saying he is now retired and nolonger in the office.\Mushayi also accused the then acting DA Peacemaker Muzenda of siding with Charumbira.Muzenda did not pick-up her phone when reached for comment.
Three stone pelters were killed in retaliatory firing by security forces near the site of the Budgam encounter in Jammu and Kashmir.

The stone pelters could be seen attacking the forces while a gunbattle was underway with terrorists, during which they were killed.

At least 17 stone pelters have been injured in the firing by forces.

The security forces had launched a search operation following a tipoff about the presence of terrorists, which then became an encounter.

Last month, the army had warned stone pelters against helping terrorists flee from the security forces

Army Chief General Bipin Rawat had said that those who disrupt operations during encounters and are not supportive will be treated as 'overground workers of terrorists'.

People creating hurdles during anti-terror operations and displaying flags of Pakistan and ISIS in Jammu and Kashmir will be dealt as anti-nationals and will face "harsh" actions, the Army Chief said.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has asked the Centre to explore an alternative to pellet guns to control protesters in Kashmir and also take action against parents of minors used as shields by militants during attacks on security forces.

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Former Australian pacer Mitchell Johnson has indirectly launched a verbal volley against injured skipper Virat Kohli, saying that batsman Ajinkya Rahane should continue as the Indian captain.

Johnson's comments came after stand-in skipper Rahane led the side to an eight-wicket win against Australia in the final Test in Dharamsala and eventually to the four-match series win 2-1.

Rahane was asked to lead the side after Kohli was ruled out of the fourth and the final Test due to a shoulder injury, which he sustained while putting in a dive on the first day of the drawn third Test in Ranchi.

Following the match, Johnson took to his Twitter account and wrote, "Rahane should stay captain! It was a tough series but I believe it should stay on the field with the players".

Johnson did not stop there and also hit back over Kohli's recent comments about friendship with Australian players.

"Clear difference in class. Smith apologised in the post match interview, Kohli keeps going in press conference," he retweeted.

Prior to the opening Test at Pune, Kohli had said that regardless of what is said and done in the heat of moment is invariably forgotten when the teams vacate the combat zone.

However, after what all happened between and during Tests, the Indian captain has declared those friendships irretrievably broken, and the relationship and trust he thought he had with the Australian players has been tarnished.

"No, it has changed. I thought that was the case, but it has changed for sure. As I said, in the heat of the battle you want to be competitive but I've been proven wrong. The thing I said before the first Test, that has certainly changed and you won't hear me say that ever again," Kohli told in a post-match media conference.

Earlier, Australia captain Steve Smith, ahead of the start of fourth Test, said that the team would be in fine hands if led by Rahane.

He further went on to say to that the Mumbai batsman was "calmer, chilled out and doesn't get too emotional".

Kohli's shoulder injury was mocked by Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell during the third Test in Ranchi, while skipper Steve Smith had also accused the Indian skipper of telling lies after the latter had said his Australian counterpart had, more than once, sought help from the dressing room for DRS.

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Dozens of members states including the United States on Monday boycotted United Nations talks for a treaty that would ban nuclear weapons saying the time was not right to outlaw nuclear arms.

"There is nothing I want more for my family than a with no nuclear weapons. But we have to be realistic. Is there anyone who thinks that North Korea would ban nuclear weapons?" The New York Times reported U.S Ambassador Nikki R. Haley as saying to reports outside the General Assembly as the talks were getting underway.

The talks, supported by more than 120 countries, were first announced in October and are led by Austria, Brazil, Ireland, Mexico, South Africa and Sweden.

Last October, Britain, France, Israel, Russia and US all voted against the UN's proposal to create a legally binding treaty banning nuclear weapons. The remaining nuclear powers - China, India and Pakistan - all abstained and also intend to boycott the talks. More than 30 other countries have announced plans to skip the negotiations, including Japan, the only country to have suffered a nuclear attack, in 1945.

The talks come against the backdrop of increasing worries over the intentions of a reclusive North Korea, which has tested nuclear weapons and missiles that could conceivably carry them.

According to the New York Times, Haley and Ambassador Matthew Rycroft of Britain emphasized that their countries had vastly reduced the size of their nuclear arsenals since the height of the Cold War.

Rycroft said his country was not participating in the talks "because we do not believe that those negotiations will lead to effective progress on global nuclear disarmament."

If a sufficient number of countries were to ratify a nuclear weapons ban, supporters contend, it would create political and moral pressure on holdouts, including the big nuclear powers.

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The Shiv Sena on Tuesday said Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat will be a good choice for the post of a President to make India a 'Hindu Rashtra'.

"If his name is being discussed for the presidential post, the there is nothing more satisfying than this. It is a very good thing to make India a 'Hindu Rashtra'. It is the highest post in the country. Somebody with a clean image should occupy it," Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut told ANI.

The Presidential elections will be held in July when President Pranab Mukherjee will complete his term.

According to reports, the names of Sushma Swaraj, Sumitra Mahajan and L K Advani are also being considered by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

President Mukherjee's term comes to an end in July and there are speculations that the Narendra Modi government will look for a fresh face for the nation's highest office.

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Chaos ensued in Noida Sector 63 when a Chinese origin worker, working in the factory of Chinese mobile company Oppo, threw the Indian tricolor out of the shop late night.

This enraged the Indian employees working there, leading to a frenzy outside the company.

The protestors are demanding strong action against the accused.

The police force reached on the spot to calm the situation. The company has immediately expelled the accused employee.

"The investigation is underway and if the allegation against the accused comes out, strict action will be taken," the police officials said.

Nationalism has always been a sensitive issue in the country.

Earlier this year, Amazon India was spotted selling door mats with the flag pattern on them, which provoked a lot of friction.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj took the matter in her hands.

She had asked Amazon to tender an unconditional apology and withdraw all products insulting the tricolor, otherwise no Amazon official will be granted an Indian visa.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a meeting with full Council of Ministers on Tuesday.

During the meeting, progress of different flagship schemes and development initiatives taken by the government are expected to come up for discussion.

This would be the first meeting of the full council after the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) massive victory in the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand Assembly elections.

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Union Minister Of State Human Resources Development Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey told Shimla Member Parliament Virender Kashyap that seven languages spoken in higher hills of Himachal Pradesh are on the verge of extinction.

These languages are Baghati, Handuri, Kului,Kinnauri,Pangvalli, Sirmauri and Spiti spoken mainly in Sirmour, Solan, Chamba and Kullu districts and tribal higher hills and tribal snow bound areas of Pangi, Spiti and Kinnaur areas of Himachal Pradesh.

Pandey further revealed that a total of 197 languages have been classified as critically endangered by the Centre.

The Government of India has initiated a Scheme known as "Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages of India" (SPPEL). Under this scheme, the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore works on protection, preservation and documentation of all the mother tongues/languages of India spoken by less than 10,000 people.

The government has also initiated a project known as "Bharatavani" implemented by the CIIL for all languages, especially the languages spoken by more than ten thousand persons, in the cyberspace.

This project aims to build a searchable knowledge repository in and about all the languages in India in multimedia (text, audio, video, images) formats through an online portal.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has launched a scheme 'Study and Research in Indigenous and Endangered language in India' and approved grants to the nine Central Universities and six State Universities for Establishment of Centres for Endangered Language in these Universities during 12th Plan.

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In the wake of the civilian casualties and injuries during the stone pelting that occurred on the sidelines of the Budgam encounter in Jammu and Kashmir today, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has made a fervent appeal to the locals of the Valley to not pose as an obstruction in the path of security forces while they are combating terrorists.

"I believe that the people of Kashmir should let law take its own course and not obstruct the operation as the operations are against militants. They should let us do our duty. We appeal to the people of Kashmir to stay away from the area of operations," CRPF Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Dr. Sanjay Kumar told ANI.

Further briefing about the Budgam encounter, Kumar said that the obstruction by the locals made their operation even more difficult, as they were forced to divert their attention from the militants.

"The operation was really difficult because, we had to fight it on two different platforms. One was against the militants and other was the local people. Out of them, few people really made our day difficult. Lot of commotions, stone pelting, abusing and injuring our people, this made the operation really difficult," Kumar said.

Informing that 43 CRPF jawans were injured and police reported that 20 of their men were injured in the stone pelting today, the DIG called on the locals of the Valley to steer clear of their operations and not pose as an obstruction.

Meanwhile, sources have said that Pakistan was responsible for the violence in Budgam today, which witnessed an encounter as well as a major incident of stone-pelting in which three civilians were killed and 60 security personnel sustained injuries.

Pakistan is to be blamed for the recent spree of encounters that are happening in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Kashmiri locals are being tormented and brain washed by the separatist leaders of Pakistan and Kashmir and it is the Army and the Paramilitary Force that are protecting and safeguarding the people there, while the Centre and state government are monitoring the situation, sources added.

Earlier in the day, three stone pelters were killed in retaliatory firing by security forces near the site of the Budgam encounter in Jammu and Kashmir.

The stone pelters could be seen attacking the forces while a gunbattle was underway with terrorists, during which they were killed.

At least 17 stone pelters have been injured in the firing by forces.

The security forces had launched a search operation following a tipoff about the presence of terrorists, which then became an encounter.

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Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to prosecute former finance minister P Chidambaram and his family members under the new Black money Act and Benami Act.

In his complaint, Swamy while citing the findings of the Income Tax's Chennai investigation team said that it was necessary to persecute them under the new law apart from charging them under Prevention of Corruption Act, Disproportionate Asset (DA) case and money laundering act.

"Report also shows the illegal assets and properties of P Chidambaram and his family across the globe. The IT report finds that these huge assets were acquired by corruption and bribes taken when Chidambaram was the finance and home ministers during 2004 to 2014," the complaint read.

"The huge properties, vine yards, hotels, farm houses were bought in London, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Spain, France and Greece like 14 countries, all acquired by black money by abuse of power," it added.

He asked Prime Minister Modi to direct Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia in this regard and initiate prosecution under the new Black Money Act.

In response, Prime Minister acknowledged the March 20 complaint.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday called Prime Minister Narendra Modi and congratulated him on his recent electoral success.

"US President HE Mr. @realDonaldTrump called PM @narendramodi to convey his felicitations on the electoral results. @POTUS," the Prime Minister's Office tweeted.

Following the elections held in five states that begun on February 4 and ended on March 9 after polling was rescheduled in some constituencies, Prime Minister Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed the government in four states: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.

It, however, lost Punjab to the Congress in the results announced on March 11.

The BJP returned to power in the politically-crucial state of Uttar Pradesh after a gap of 15 years during which regional parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) held sway.

Goa and Manipur had hung assemblies after the polls, but the BJP managed to form the government with support from other regional parties.

Prime Minister Modi was the fifth foreign leader Trump had spoken to on phone after he was sworn-in as the U.S. President on January 20.

He had by then spoken to British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canada's Justin Trudeau, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

After his surprise victory in the November 8 elections in the U.S., Prime Minister Modi was among the first world leaders to congratulate Trump.

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News / National

by Stephen Jakes

The Zimbabwe Peace Project has condemned the political and economic violence against opposition party members who are working at Mbare Msika Market.ZANU PF youths on Monday visited Ngaritutwe Bottle Store in Mbare and forced the proprietors to close down the bar accusing them of holding MDC-T meetings at the bar.ZPP reported that the youths went on to burn sofas that were in the building and locked the gate of the premises ordering the proprietors to stop their business operations."The youths created boundaries where they said MDC-T members were operating and made it clear that Koffman Plot where the business operations are located is ZANU PF territory. Anti-riot police were called but they did not intervene and were ordered off the scene by the ZANU PF youths. The matter was reported to the police under RRB number 3030122," said ZPP."The youths were also looking for an MDC-T supporter identified as Jeff and they went on to prepare a mock grave for him making their intentions to harm him known.He stands accused of refusing to attend ZANU PF meetings and convening MDC-T meetings in Mbare. Another citizen Fambisai Muchineripi was assaulted by the ZANU PF youths and he said many other people were assaulted and victimised but fear coming out in the open about their ordeals."ZPP said ZANU PF youths have imposed an economic embargo against members of other political parties in Mbare and are carrying out these activities with impunity as police officers seem reluctant to deal with the known perpetrators ."All citizens have the right to personal security and this means they must not be assaulted or have their property destroyed. The police have failed these citizens by failing to arrest known perpetrators of violence,"said ZPP."Citizens also have a right to freedom of association and assembly and their access to economic opportunities must not be based on their political affiliations. Police and relevant human rights bodies must investigate the terror gangs in Mbare who are preventing other people from carrying out their economic activities."
U. S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, has volunteered to speak to the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of its investigation into Russian meddling in the US election.

"Throughout the campaign and transition, Jared Kushner served as the official primary point of contact with foreign governments and officials. Given this role, he has volunteered to speak with Chairman Burr's Committee, but has not yet received confirmation," the CNN reported a White House spokesman as saying on Monday.

The Senate committee sought Kushner, who is a key adviser to the President, as part of its investigation, according to sources. The timing is still being determined, a Senate aide said.

The New York Times first reported the Senate committee's request, because of his role in arranging meetings between campaign advisers and Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak, along with other foreign leaders.

Last week FBI Director James Comey confirmed that federal investigators are investigating ties between Trump's top campaign aides and Russian officials. Comey also shot down Trump's claims he was wiretapped in Trump Tower by former president Barack Obama.

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Airports Authority of India, Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and Govt. of Jharkhand signed a tripartite MoU for development of Deoghar Airport in Deoghar district of Jharkhand. The existing Deoghar Airport will be developed for operations of A-320 and C-130 Aircraft. Signing of MoU took place in a ceremony held at the CM Residence.

The Govt. of Jharkhand has acquired 600.34 acres of land which will be handed over to AAI apart from the existing 53.41 acres Deoghar Airport land. D.

R. D. O, Govt. of Jharkhand and AAI will provide Rs. 200 Crores, Rs. 50 Crores respectively to develop, operationalize and maintain the airport. The time frame given to develop and operationalize the Deoghar Airport is two years.

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To produce and sell ready to eat long life filled croissants and other products

Britannia Industries has signed a joint venture agreement with Chipita S A, a Greek Company for purpose of developing, producing and selling ready to eat long life filled croissants and any other product as may be agreed between the parties through a joint venture company in India, namely, Britchip Foods.

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Two Indian-American men were sentenced by a US court for a $200 million credit card fraud, one of the largest-ever exposed by federal authorities, said officials.

Vijay Verma and Tarsem Lal, both of Iselin, New Jersey, were sentenced to 14 months in prison and a year of house arrest, respectively, after previously pleading guilty to their roles in the scheme, according to a statement from the US Attorney for the District of New Jersey, news website NJ.com reported.

US District Judge Anne E. Thompson issued the sentence in Trenton federal court on Monday.

Verma and Lal, both owners of a Jersey City jewellery store, were indicted in October 2013 for fabricating more than 7,000 false identities to obtain tens of thousands of credit cards.

The scheme involved an "elaborate network of false identities" and thousands of "drop addresses" across the country -- including houses, apartments and P.O. boxes -- which were used as mailing addresses for the false identities, according to the report.

Credit reports were doctored, according to officials, to "pump up the spending and borrowing power associated with the cards".

The men borrowed or spent as much as they could without repaying the debts, causing more than $200 million in losses to businesses and financial institutions, said officials.

Verma and Lal both admitted to allowing people to come into their store to use credit cards they knew did not legitimately belong to them.

The two men would then split the proceeds of the phony transactions with these other conspirators, said the report.

Along with the jail terms, Verma was sentenced to three years of supervision upon release.

Lal was also sentenced to three years of probation. They were both fined $5,000 and were ordered to pay a forfeiture of nearly $500,000.
At least four persons were drowned and 14 went missing when a boat capsized in Panguchi river in Bangladesh on Tuesday.

The boat carrying about 70 passengers sank in Bagerhat district, 178 km from here, Xinhua news agency quoted police chief Pankaj Chandra Roy as saying.

"The bodies of three women and a child have been recovered," he said.

Roy said rescue efforts and search operations continued.

About 50 people swam to shore as the overloaded boat capsized in a strong current and choppy river waters, said Masud Sarder, a deputy assistant director of the Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence.

Ferry and boat disasters are common in Bangladesh, which is crisscrossed by about 250 rivers.

Ferries are still a key means of transport in the country, most of them often overcrowded.

--IANS

py/bg

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An Afghanistan national has been booked on the charge of smuggling heroin into the country, Delhi Police said on Tuesday.

Mahammadi Hamid, 19, was booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act after doctors at Safdarjung Hospital here recovered seven capsules of heroin from his rectum on Monday.

Hamid had arrived on an Air India flight from Kabul but was found unconscious when it landed at the Indira Gandhi International airport here.

Hamid was taken to the Indian Spinal Injuries Centre and later shifted to the Safdarjung Hospital where 68 gm of the contraband was seized.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Sanjay Bhatia said Hamid has not been arrested since he is yet to regain consciousness.

--IANS

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A day after an attack on African students in Greater Noida, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday said Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi had promised a "fair and impartial" probe.

"I have spoken to Adityanathji about (the) attack on African students in Greater Noida. He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident," Sushma Swaraj tweeted.

Sushma Swaraj spoke to Adityanath on Tuesday morning after an African student, Sadiq Bello, tweeted her to "act fast" as living in Noida, he said, was becoming a "life threatening issue" for Africans.

According to police, three African students were attacked by a group of residents in Greater Noida's Pari Chowk area in Uttar Pradesh on Monday.

"The attack took place in Ansal Plaza Mall in Greater Noida. The African students were attacked after protests over the death of Manish Khatri, a Class 12 student in Greater Noida's NSG Society," Superintendent of Police Sujata Singh told IANS.

Khatri reportedly died of cardiac arrest due to suspected drug overdose on Saturday.

Singh said three FIRs had been registered against seven people for rioting. "A few of them have been detained while a hunt is on for the others."

She added the deceased may have been depressed.
With a view to boost bilateral relations with Cyprus, Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar will pay an official visit to that country from March 30 to April 1, an official release said on Tuesday.

"The visit will provide an excellent opportunity to exchange views on bilateral matters as well as on regional and international developments of mutual interest," the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

India has received over US$ 9 billion worth of foreign investment from Cyprus, a leading foreign direct investor to India.

On November 18 last year, India and Cyprus signed a revised double taxation avoidance agreement (DTAA), which replaces the existing agreement signed in June 1994.

During his visit, Akbar would be meeting President of the Republic of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and other dignitaries.

The Minister will also deliver a keynote address titled "A new era for business between Cyprus and India" to the business community at the Cyprus Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Nicosia on March 30," the release said.

He will also inaugurate the "Konark Wheel", a sculpture gifted by India to Cyprus and installed at the Open Air Museum of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nicosia.

In the last financial year, bilateral trade between the two nations has grown 40 per cent.

--IANS

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Actor Akshay Kumar attended the screening of the forthcoming film "Naam Shabana" with women police officers here, and enjoyed the experience.

Akshay on Mondy morning said that he enjoyed the first screening of the the film, which is the second installment of the 2015 film "Baby". The actor also shares a photograph of himself along with actress Taapsee Pannu in a theatre full of female police officers in uniform.

"Enjoyed my first screening of 'Naam Shabana' with these brave female police officers of Delhi last night. Nothing but respect," Akshay captioned the image on Tuesday morning.

Taapsee's character in "Baby" is what has resulted in its spin-off "Naam Shabana", produced by Neeraj Pandey and directed by Shivam Nair.

The film, which also stars Anupam Kher and Danny Denzongpa along with Akshay and Taapsee, is releasing on Friday.

--IANS

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Natural resources major Vedanta said on Tuesday it has received all approvals for its merger with subsidiary energy firm Cairn India, except the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) permission for issuing redeemable preference shares to the non-resident shareholders of Cairn.

"The company has now received all the required approvals in relation to the Scheme of Arrangement between Vedanta and Cairn India, and their respective shareholders and creditors (Scheme) save and except the approval of the RBI for issuance of redeemable preference shares to the non-resident shareholders of Cairn India," a Vedanta and Cairn India joint statement said.

"The Scheme will be made effective upon receipt of the said approval of the RBI," it said.

Vedanta said on Monday that its board will meet on March 30 to consider payment of interim dividend to shareholders of Cairn India following the merger of the oil and gas major with itself.

"In view of the National Company Law Tribunal order approving the merger scheme, the board will also consider payment of said interim dividend to the shareholders of Cairn India, who will become shareholders of the company pursuant to the Scheme of Arrangement between Cairn India Ltd and the company," Vedanta said in a stock exchange filing.

Shareholders of both Vedanta and Cairn India had in separate meetings held last year approved the merger.

Under the merger scheme, a Cairn India shareholder will get one Vedanta equity share and 7.5 preference shares for every Cairn India share.

State-run Life Insurance Corp. (LIC), as the single-largest domestic minority shareholder, owns 9.06 per cent in Cairn India and 3.9 per cent stake in Vedanta.

The Anil Agarwal led-Vedanta received approvals in September 2016 from both the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the NSE on the company's proposal to merge with Cairn India.

Merging Cairn India with itself would provide Vedanta access to the oil explorer's cash and help reduce its debt burden. Vedanta took majority control of Cairn India for $8.67 billion in 2011 and holds 59.9 per cent in it through its various units.
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

The People's Democratic Party has said it learnt with deep shock and sadness of the callous attack by rogue soldiers on defenseless MSU students.In a statement Harare Provincial Spokesperson Nqobizitha Dumakude Khumalo said they hope the report is not true and lf it indeed is true then it is indeed very sad and unfortunate.He said the image of a soldier as a rugged brute belongs to the paleolithic age."The policy of collective punishment is primitive and reminiscent of Adolph Hitler's holocaust mentality out of place in the Cyberspace age. We understand the soldiers were on a revenge mission after one them had been involved in a brouhaha with one of the students. Indeed soldiers should be respected but so should students," said Khumalo."That a soldier even out of uniform should be privileged to respond to issues of a personal nature by involving army personnel is a microcosm of the general abuse of the army as a personal militia for certain individuals and institutions. lt reminds one of the Willow gate days when Mark Dube and Enos Nkala tried to use uniformed forces to thwart Investigations into their rotten deals."He said they have had incidents of soldiers closing bars and beating up patrons in revenge for one of them having been assaulted over a mug of opaque beer or a cheap prostitute."On most cases the culprits would have long gone and it is only innocent drinkers who would be victimized. We remember the days when brutal police and soldiers would wage running battles with rioting students with the latter shouting, "grade sevens give way to intellectuals." We can say perhaps, "ah! those were the days," That was an unfortunate residue of the war and the average soldier was a primary school drop out. Not now when the average soldier is a holder of an O'level certificate with many now proud holders of university degrees who should sympathize more with students. We do not expect such behavior from our chivalrous soldiers," he said."We therefore appeal to the responsible authorities to launch a thorough investigation into this diabolic action and take appropriate action. We love our dear soldiers and would not like a situation whereby a few thugs among them spoil the image of the entire force. Our service chiefs are on record as saying that our uniformed forces are known the world over for their professionalism. lt is unfortunate that in this scenario charity does not seem to begin at home. That professionalism should also be shown within our borders. Zanu(Pf) has always complained that the private media tarnish the image of the country."Khumalo said MSU is an open facility and there could be foreign students among the students."The incident occurred in broad daylight and any foreign journalist or diplomat has access to the hospital where the children are treated. This action by rogue soldiers is a public relations disaster. The investigations into the incident should be open and thorough and not attempts to cover up or to issue Jonathan Moyo type denials replete with accusations of western sponsored conspiracies. The children involved belong to the nation and have parents of diverse political backgrounds. For anyone to defend this callous act would be to be misguided and myopic," he said."PDP, a value based organization says no to such an outrage. We call upon all progressive elements to say no with the loudest voices. We challenge churches to join us in chanting down this Babylonian act. We challenge parents of university students to condemn the act in the strongest of terms. Students throughout the country should also join the chorus for tomorrow it could be them.Such Genghis Khan acts should not be allowed to continue.Let us value our students."
Reliance Group Chairman Anil Ambani has been inducted on the international advisory board of global think-tank Atlantic Council that has among its members former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew K. Brzezinski and former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the company said on Tuesday.

"The Atlantic Council today (March 28) announced the induction of Anil Ambani to its International Advisory Board -- a prominent group of global corporate and political leaders," the Reliance Group said in a statement.

"I am delighted to welcome my good friend and colleague Anil formally to join our team. The Atlantic Council's presence in South Asia and in particular India is growing at a rapid pace and Anil's presence on our board could not be more timely," former Utah Governor and Chairman of the Atlantic Council Jon M. Huntsman said.

"I am delighted to accept Jon's invitation to join the Advisory Board of Atlantic Council, which is undoubtedly America's leading and most influential think tank on global strategic affairs. This is a clear recognition by the Council of India's growing geopolitical influence under Prime Minister Modi's visionary and transformational leadership," Ambani said.

The Atlantic Council is a foreign policy think-tank headquartered in Washington, DC.

Among the 10 regional and thematic centres, the Atlantic Council's South Asia Centre manages sustainable and innovative programmes that are focused on fostering development and cooperation.

Other members of the Board include former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt and former NATO Secretary General Geoge Robertson.

Among business leaders, the Board includes Airbus Group CEO Thomas Enders, 21st Century Fox Ceo Rupert Murdoch, Blackstone Group CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman and Lockheed Martin Corporation Chairman Marillyn A. Hewson.

-IANS

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Indian Army Chief Bipin Rawat on Tuesday began a visit to Nepal and Bangladesh, the Indian Army said.

This is his first foreign visit after assuming office.

In Nepal, Rawat will be visiting important military installations and meeting high ranking dignitaries including Prime Minister Pushpa Kumar Dahal 'Prachanda', Defence Minister Balkrishna Khand and his counterpart, Gen. Rajendra Chettri.

The delegation will also visit Nepalese Army Mountain Warfare School at Jomsom and the Pension Paying office at Pokhra where the Indian Army chief, who is a Gorkha Rifles officer, will address the Indian Army ex-servicemen of Nepalese origin.

During his Nepal visit, President Bidya Devi Bhandari will confer the title of "Honorary General of the Nepalese Army" to Rawat at a special investiture ceremony on March 29.

This is as per a historic tradition as per which Indian Army Chief is the Honorary Chief of the Nepalese Army, and vice versa.

The reciprocal arrangement is continuing uninterrupted since its inception in 1969 and has been a hallmark of the special relationship between the Indian and the Nepalese Army.

Chettri was conferred the title of "Honorary General of the Indian Army" on February 3, 2016, during his first visit to India after assuming office.

The Nepal visit will be followed by a visit to Bangladesh, where the Army Chief will be meeting President Abdul Hamid, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and his counterpart, Gen. Abu Belal Muhammad Shafiul Huq. The delegation will also visit headquarters of an Infantry Division and the Armoured Corps Centre at Bogra.

"This visit will help strengthen mutual trust with immediate neighbourhood particularly in the field of defence cooperation," an army statement said.

Rawat will return on April 2.

--IANS

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Assam will soon start water taxis between Guwahati city and the airport near here, a state minister said on Tuesday.

Assam Industry Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary said this while addressing a press conference and added that the government has decided to bring in 50 water taxis soon. The introduction of water taxis will reduce travel time between Guwahati city and the airport to a mere 18 minutes.

"A jetty will be developed near the Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport (LGBI). The water taxis will take the visitors from the jetty in the city to the proposed jetty near the airport. From there, air conditioned buses of the Assam State Transport Corporation (ASTC) will take the visitors to the airport in absolute comfort," Patowary said.

He said the government has also taken up several steps to revitalise inland water transport in Assam, and added that the Central government has also notified nine new national waterways in Assam, apart from the Brahmaputra and Barak national waterways.

"We are planning to improve and upgrade all the jetties in Assam, the number of which is 101 at this moment. Most of them are in dilapidated condition. If needed, we are going to set up some more jetties with modern technologies to make the waterways vibrant. The use of waterways will reduce the transportation cost in the landlocked state to a great extent," the minister said.

The minister added that the government is also in the process of bringing back the government barges which are in Kolkata now. "Of 18 such barges, seven have already been brought back to Assam and the process is on to bring back the 11 others to make the waterways very effective in Assam."

The Assam government has already decided to dredge the Brahmaputra river and other national waterways to make the river transport effective.

"We are going to sign an MoU with the central government soon for dredging the Brahmaputtra river from Sadiya to Dhubri," Patowary said, adding that the government also plans to dredge the Brahmaputra river from Dhubri to neighbouring Bangladesh, which will make river transport easier with ports in Bangladesh.

--IANS

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A Canadian citizen has been abducted in Chhattisgarh, police said on Tuesday.

John Schlazak is said to have disappeared from Singamdagu village in Sukma district, a Maoist den, Sukma Assistant Superintendent of Police Jitendra Shukla said.

Schlazak had left Mumbai on a bike on March 14. He reached Bastar two days ago and was last seen in Singamdagu village in Sukma district, the officer said.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, however, said Schlazak was kidnapped from Koraput district in Odisha and she sought a report from the state government.

Sushma Swaraj tweeted that she had spoken to Odisha Chief Minister Navin Patnaik.

Police officials in Chhattisgarh said that they were trying to find out when Schlazak reached Bastar and who all he was in touch with.

--IANS

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Dozens of aircraft hangars and high-end radar capabilities on China's man-made islands in the South China Sea are almost operational, according to new satellite imagery released by a US-based think tank.

The new facilities will further establish China's military dominance over the highly-contested region, experts said, and could help China establish a controversial Air Defence Identification Zone in the area, reported CNN on Tuesday.

Images released by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), taken in early March, show nearly-completed defence infrastructure on three of China's largest artificial islands in the disputed Spratly chain: Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi reefs.

Each of the islands has new aircraft hangers, capable of holding 24 military aircraft, as well as several larger hangars that can hold bombers or surveillance planes, said the report.

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Tuesday she wasn't aware of the report's details but reiterated the Spratly Islands were Chinese territory.

"Whether we decide to deploy or not deploy relevant military equipment, it is within our scope of sovereignty. It's our right to self-defence and self-preservation as recognised by international law," Hua said.

Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi reefs are the largest of seven artificial islands built by China in the Spratlys.

China claims most of the South China Sea as its territory, despite overlapping claims by a number of other Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines and Vietnam.

Four bigger hangars have already been completed on Subi Reef, AMTI said, as well as four more on Fiery Cross Reef.

Hangars to accommodate five larger planes, such as bombers, were in the final stages of construction on Mischief Reef, reported CNN.

"China's three military bases in the Spratlys and another on Woody Island in the Paracels will allow Chinese military aircraft to operate over nearly the entire South China Sea," AMTI said in a statement.

In addition to the hangars, new radar domes are in various stages of construction on each artificial island, about three arrays on each reef. Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief reefs now all also have shelters for mobile missiles launchers, according to AMTI.

Though the infrastructure is almost completed, no military aircraft has been deployed to the islands yet, said Carl Thayer, a regional security analyst and emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales, and Ian Storey, an expert at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Yusof Ishak Institute.

If China deploys aircraft, "there will be pro forma protests from certain countries, Vietnam in particular. There will be grumbling from certain ASEAN members," Storey said, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

--IANS

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China has its own vision, and given its issues with the US and India, Beijing would never own Islamabad's problems, a former envoy has said, adding that Pakistan needs to address its issues.

Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, a former ambassador to the US, India and China, said this while speaking at a seminar titled "US Foreign Policy and Trump Presidency: A Review and Outlook" on Monday.

Qazi said that since 1979 China has been progressing. Initially, it emerged as regional power as well as second largest economy, and by 2030 it would become the largest economy of the world, "but the US and Europe, collectively, would remain the biggest economy of the world".

"Though it (China) is emerging as significant player in the entire region and Indian Ocean, it has not challenged any country. Let's see how Trump deals with China," he said.

Former Foreign Minister Inamul Haq said US President Donald Trump wished to restore the US supremacy, bring back jobs for the people and protect the economy from the onslaught of globalisation, but it was very difficult for him to achieve all these tasks.

According to senior journalist Zahid Hussain, Trump policies towards South Asia are ambiguous, although the President spoke in a very positive manner during his telephonic talk with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

"One thing is clear that India and Pakistan will be dealt separately, though Pakistan doesn't like it."

"Trump's position on China will make things more complicated and pressure will increase on Pakistan to take action against militant groups against India," he said.

--IANS

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Violence in Paris over the police killing of a Chinese man has left three police officers injured with more than 30 people detained.

Demonstrators gathered outside a police station on Monday to pay homage to the slain man, the BBC reported.

His family denies police reports that he attacked an officer with a pair of scissors as they responded to reports of a domestic violence at his home.

China has formally complained, calling on France to protect its nationals.

"The foreign ministry pays special attention to the incident. Just after the case, the ministry demanded the Chinese Embassy in France to launch a mechanism of actions in case of emergencies and filed a protest to the French side," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeperson Hua Chunying was quoted as saying by Sputnik.

The 56-year-old Liu Shaoyo, father of five, was shot dead on Sunday night in Paris's 19th arrondissement (district).

The police say he attacked an officer with a sharp object as soon as he came to the door and the officer was only saved by his bullet-proof vest. Another officer then shot him dead.

But the family lawyer says it "totally disputes" this account.

One of the man's daughters told French media that her father, who spoke little French, had gone to the door holding a pair of scissors he had been using to prepare fish.

"They smashed the door in, the shot went off and my father ended up on the floor," she told the Parisian newspaper.

China's Foreign Affairs Ministry has lodged an official protest, urging French authorities to do all they can to shed light on the incident and to protect its nationals' "security and rights".

China's intervention is unusual, says the BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris. The government in Beijing has spoken out in the past about the threat to Chinese tourists in Paris from criminal gangs, but this is the first time it has implicitly criticised an action by the French police.

The police watchdog is due to interview the family later on Tuesday.

At least 150 people took part in Monday's protest, some shouting "Murderers!"

There were accusations of police brutality last month, after a young black man said the police had sodomised him with a truncheon.

--IANS

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The price of coking coal will stabilise between $140-150 per tonne in the next 3-5 years, an official said here on Tuesday.

"My prediction is coking coal price will stabilise between $140-150 per tonne of coking coal in the coming 3-5 years," Steel Authority of India (SAIL) Executive Director (Collieries division) S.K. Basak said here.

He said international coking coal price was at peak at $308.8 a tonne in 2016 and it now cooled to $151 a tonne. In the last month, the coking coal price slightly rose to $160 per tonne due to the Chinese ban on coal import from North Korea. The steel producer is looking forward to acquisition of new coal blocks, he said at an event organised by Bharat Chamber of Commerce.

Given the scarcity of indigenous coking coal availability, the imports will continue unless ash content is reduced to 13 per cent, Basak said.

"The government is talking about supplying coking coal with 13 per cent ash content while we were habituated with 18 per cent ash content of coal for the last 40 years. Imports will continue unless, ash content is reduced to 13 per cent," he said.

He said about 20 years back, Coal India was providing 10 million tonnes of coking coal to the steel sector while the supply came down to just over 7 million tonnes at the beginning of the 21st century.

"The supply is now hovering at 2.1 million tonnes. This is mainly because in stead of beneficiation, we are diverting the costly coking coal to power sector," he added.

--IANS

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Explaining New Delhi's decision to boycott the UN conference on negotiations for a total ban on nuclear weapons in New York, India said on Tuesday that the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament (CD) is the "right" forum for the endeavour.

"CD is the right place for pursuing nuclear disarmament in all its essential elements.," Amandeep Singh Gill, India's Permanent Representative to the CD, told a meeting of the organisation in Geneva. "It has the mandate, the membership and the rules for embarking on the path to nuclear disarmament."

He said the decision to stay away from the General Assembly conference that began in New York on Monday "has not been easy for India".

However, Gill said that India supported the establishment of a subsidiary body of the CD to achieve the goals set out by the General Assembly and would work with it.

The creation of such a body "with an agreed mandate of a universal prohibition, complete elimination and international verification of nuclear weapons" would have to be a "part of a comprehensive and balanced programme of work,a he said.

The New York conference called by the General Assembly effectively seeks to take the main role in nuclear disarmament away from the CD and make itself the prime mover with a forum where non-nuclear-armed nations could use their majority to try to promote their agenda.

All the five nuclear powers in the UN Security Council are also boycotting the New York conference that began on Monday.

United States Permanent Representative Nikki Haley led the boycott by her country, Britain, France and some of their allies with a different rationale from India, instead citing the development of nuclear weapons by North Korea in defiance of the UN and the potential for terrorists to get them.

A total ban would leave the rest of the world vulnerable when it can't be enforced on international outlaws, she said on Monday. "In this day and age we can't say honestly that we can protect our people by allowing the bad actors to have them."

Gill touched on this aspect without making it the central reason for India staying away. "Nuclear disarmament requires a universal commitment and an agreed multilateral framework," he said.

Making separate decisions, Russia and China are also staying away from the conference.

When the General Assembly voted last year to call the conference last year, Britain, France, Russia, United States and 34 other countries opposed it; India, China, Pakistan and 13 others abstained, and 123 voted for it.

The New York meeting formally known as Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards their Total Elimination has been thrown into disarray by the boycott of at least 40 countries, among them nuclear-armed nations.

Even as the meeting proceeded, the General Assembly could not produce a list of participants by Tuesday morning.

The boycott and the participation also exposed a split among various alliances and groupings, with Sweden and Ireland among its key supporters along with several developing and non-aligned nations.

Gill told the CD meeting in Geneva that India, however, appreciated "the sincere effort behind the initiative" in calling the conference in New York.

India will "remain willing to work with the sponsors to reduce the role and military utility of nuclear weapons, to prohibit their use under any circumstances and to eliminate them globally," he said.

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)

--IANS

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Congress leader Deepender Singh Hooda on Tuesday urged the government to bring a new legislation on data privacy, pointing out that people are facing the risk of data theft, especially with a system like Aadhaar in place.

Participating in a debate on the Collection of Statistics (Amendment) Bill, 2017, Hooda pointed out that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had to go to police to file a complaint against data misuse by Axis Bank, business correspondent Suvidhaa Infoserve and e-sign provider eMudhra.

"You are making Aadhaar mandatory. You are collecting so much data and last month the UIDAI authorities had to go to police and report three companies that used the data for unauthorised transaction by bank employees," Hooda said.

"People don't have the right to know how much donation a political party gets and from whom, but you want all information about people," the Congress member said.

He pointed out that hearing was on in a case in the Supreme Court where the Attorney General had taken a position that data privacy was a right, but not a fundamental right.

"Ultimately the Supreme Court will decide. But the government must study data privacy policy in other countries. The European Union has declared data protection a fundamental right," he said.

The MP went on to ask why the government was collecting all the data, but added that he did not doubt their intention.

"Bring a new legislation on data privacy," he said.

Talking about the Collection of Statistics (Amendment) Bill, 2017, Hooda said the bill had a provision under which refusal to give government details for the National Sample Survey Organisation would invite fine and punishment.

"This is a finance bill-like story. You are compelling people to give information," Hooda said.

The bill amends the Collection of Statistics Act, 2008.

The 2008 Act provides that the information collected under it can only be used for statistical purposes. The bill removes this provision and allows the central government to determine the manner in which such information collected would be used for statistical purposes.

The 2008 Act was not applicable to Jammu and Kashmir, but now the bill seeks to extend its jurisdiction to Jammu and Kashmir for collection of statistics pertaining to subjects under the Union or the Concurrent list of the Constitution, as applicable to the state. These subjects would include citizenship, education, banking, labour and forests.

--IANS

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News / Regional

by Staff reporter

Former vice president Joice Mujuru has reportedly blamed Zimbabweans for "allowing [President Robert] Mugabe to hold them 'hostage'", as the southern African country's economic situation continued to deteriorate."Mugabe has always said if Zimbabweans tell me to go, I will go, so he is there because we have not told him to go. I believe we should tell him to go  he is being kept in office by people who have looted this country and they think the only way to escape is by keeping the old man hostage in office," News Day quoted Mujuru as saying.The leader of the opposition National People's Party said this while visiting party officials admitted at a hospital in Harare after being involved in a car accident.She said that the decay of Zimbabwe's health delivery system was a sign the president did not care about the plight of citizens."At 93, what do you expect from him? He just does not care anymore and I doubt he still understands what is expected of him in terms of providing solutions to address the economic rot which is causing this decay of social service delivery," Mujuru said.Mujuru's utterances came a few weeks after she claimed that she was a "clear" successor to Mugabe just before she was expelled from both the ruling Zanu-PF party and government.She was kicked out after Mugabe's wife Grace, launched a campaign against her, accusing her of instigating factional fighting and plotting to topple the veteran leader.Mujuru, however, denied the charges and formed her own party, along with other former Zanu-PF members.Mujuru said the "nation had fully endorsed my candidature" when Zanu-PF decided to expel her from government.She said this during a presentation at the London School of Economics in the United Kingdom."When it became apparent that I was the clear successor to President Robert Mugabe, men seemed not ready for that although the nation had fully endorsed my candidature," Mujuru was quoted as saying at the time.
The Congress on Tuesday said that there was no question of it backing the Shiv Sena's suggestion to consider RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for the post of President and said it will spell out its stance on a candidate at the right time.

Party leader Gaurav Gogoi told reporters here that the party's views about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were well known.

"It is very clear that we do not support RSS ideology and when it comes to appointing our President, at the right time, we will, of course, have our own internal discussion first and then share," Gogoi said in response to a query.

President Pranab Mukherjee's present term in office will end on July 24.

The Shiv Sena had on Monday urged the Modi government to consider Bhagwat for the post.

Sena MP and Saamana Executive Editor Sanjay Raut said the National Democratic Alliance - of which Sena is a member - and the BJP in particular should think of the RSS Sarsanghchalak if it wanted to fulfil its dream of achieving a "Hindu Rashtra".

--IANS

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Reiterating her pro-Israel stance, Indian-American Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, has asserted that the United States will continue to support Israel.

Haley, during her speech at the 2017 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference on Monday, said: "For anyone who says you can't get anything done at the UN, they need to know there is a new sheriff in town."

Haley also said that she would not allow a repeat of an anti-Israel resolution passing at the UNSC, which happened last December when the US, under the Barack Obama administration, chose not to utilise its veto power, the Washington Examiner magazine reported.

"The days of Israel-bashing are over. You're not going to take our number one democratic friend in the Middle East and beat up on them. And I think what you're seeing is, they're all backing up a little bit. The Israel-bashing is not as loud," she said.

The former South Carolina governor said she is taken aback by the "bizarre" level of vitriol she has witnessed levelled against Israel in UN bodies, according to the report.

She spoke of having prevented the appointment of a Palestinian official, former Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad, to a senior UN position, and noted that he may well be a nice man.

But "until the Palestinians come to the table" to negotiate peace with Israel, "there are no freebies for the Palestinian Authority any more," she said.

When asked how the US can help change the culture at the UN, Haley said: "The US tells them what we're not going to put up with."

"We start to change the culture to what we should be talking about and then we actually act on what we say."

"I wear heels. It's not for a fashion statement. It's because if I see something wrong, we're going to kick them every single time," Haley added.

US House Speaker Paul Ryan praised Haley for her tough stance, and took his own swipe at the UN as well for "obsessing" over the Jewish state.

He accused the Obama administration of "damaging trust" with Israel and promised a new day under US President Donald Trump -- a line which earned him applause from the crowd.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
DMK Working President M.K. Stalin on Tuesday asked the Tamil Nadu government to disclose the contents of the central government's letter on the hydrocarbon project in Pudukottai district.

Stalin in a statement demanded that Chief Minister K. Palaniswami should disclose contents of the letter in a transparent manner.

Stalin also urged the Centre to drop the project, taking into consideration that it would impact the farming activity in Neduvasal village.

The central government on Monday signed contracts for the fields awarded under the Discovered Small Field (DSF) Bid Round 2016.

One of the signed contracts was with Gem Laboratories, which has been allotted the field in Neduvasal in Pudukottai, around 390 km from here.

The people of Neduvasal are opposed to the project and held protest for several days.

Palaniswami had said the state government would not accord sanction for the project.

The ministers assured the delegation that the work on the field will start when the state government addresses the local concerns in consultation with the Centre.

The central government had assured a delegation of Neduvasal people that work on the field will start when the Tamil Nadu government addresses the local concerns.

Stalin said the signing of the contract by the central government with the companies was shocking.

--IANS

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Rome, March 28 (IANS/AKI) Police on Tuesday arrested a suspected drug dealer who allegedly had Whatsapp chats on his smartphone containing orders from his clients and appointments for the delivery of narcotics.

Police said they discovered the incriminating messages on the 21-year-old suspect's mobile during a routine patrol in Rome's southern Portuense district.

During a subsequent search of the suspect's flat, police uncovered two 200 gramme loaves of hashish, a plastic bag containing "numerous" marijuana doses, a precision weighing-machine and equipment to cut up the drugs, as well as 2,300 euros in cash.

Police found the haul in a cavity inside the suspect's bathroom wall, hidden behind two loose bricks.

The suspect was put under house arrest and was due to appear before magistrates on drug-dealing charges.

--IANS/AKI

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As Nepal continues to be in political ferment with the Madhes-based parties upset over their demand for amending the Constitution not being met, some prominent Nepali politicians feel the entire situation is due to the "mischief" of former Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli who is acting as a "stumbling block" and pushing the country towards unrest.

"Oli is still acting as a stumbling block to amending the Constitution, and though he is out of power he continues to follow his old game plan. Right now in Nepal, all political exits have been blocked by the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) of which K.P. Oli is president," Sarvendra Nath Shukla, General Secretary of Terai Madhesh Democratic Party, told IANS on the sidelines of an international conference in Morocco.

Anand Prasad Dhungana, an MP of the Nepali Congress, which is part of the ruling coalition, says "Oli is doing mischief".

"Like Germany was divided, there is now an attempt to break Nepal by the ugra rashtrawad (ultra nationalists)... We want that in the constituent assembly the constitution made be accepted and the country is taken to the path of progress. But the UML (Oli's party) wants to play the divisive card," the Nepali politician said on the sidelines of the Crans Montana Forum on Africa and South-South Cooperation.

According to both Nepali politicians, it was Oli's party that had put forward the proposal for two provinces for Madhes in the Terai region and his party had signed on it. "But now they are totally opposing it, and did not allow the amendment bill to enter Parliament for six weeks even for discussion," said Shukla, a former Nepal minister.

"His aim is to oppose India... The proposals (for Madhes) he supported four times earlier, now he is opposing them, and calling it India's agenda," said Shukla, whose party is part of the United Democratic Madheshi Front (UDMF) alliance.

Earlier this month, the UDMF pulled out of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal's government, accusing it of failing to fulfil the party's demands, including endorsement for a revised Constitution amendment bill, and has threatened a fresh agitation in Nepal.

Of the three parties that framed the Constitution in September 2015, two -- the Nepali Congress and Prachanda's Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist-Centre) -- have brought in amendment bills, while the UML has been opposing it. "We have accepted the amendments in the country's interest though they do not fit our requirements... But Oli is not thinking of the country's interest, only his own. And in the midst he is playing the China card and India card," said Shukla.

"Every day he wants to spit some venom, some poison, against India," he added.

According to him, Oli is creating a group that "keeps doubting India's intentions towards Nepal".

"But whenever there has been democracy in Nepal, and question of national interest arises, India has always supported. And this is realized by most people in Nepal.. But the people who shout (against India), they are continuing to shout, and now Oli is leading that group," said Shukla.

He said with the current tense political situation, there are chances of violence returning to the country that saw a five-month-long border blockade and violence in 2015 over the Constitution.

Earlier this month, five Madhesi activists were killed in alleged police firing during an election campaign launched by Oli's CPN-UML in Rajbiraj.

"If we are pushed to the corner and there is unrest again then we might sit at the border on protest, like in 2015, and it could lead to a blockade.. There are chances, but we hope the situation does not come to that," he added.

According to Dhungana, though Oli keeps playing the China card, Beijing is in favour of an established government in Nepal. "But the UML wants to play the divisive card, and play the China card and abuse India, and vice versa."

Madhesis, those who live in the Terai plains of Nepal bordering India and have close familial links with India, comprise 51 per cent of Nepal's population of 20 million. The region contributes 70 per cent of the agricultural production of Nepal and 65 per cent of the GDP. The Madhesis and tribal communities say the Constitution, promulgated by the Oli government in September 2015, discriminates against them and have demanded amendments to give them equal rights.

(Ranjana Narayan was in Morocco on the invite of the Crans Montana Forum. She can be reached at ranjana.n@ians.in)

--IANS

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German federal prosecutor's office on Tuesday launched an investigation into suspected spying by Turkish intelligence service.

On suspicion of espionage in Germany, the Karlsruhe-based procuratorate will target the "unnamed entity", said its spokesman, Xinhua reported.

Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA) reported that the probe might be directed at Turkish secret service MIT, since it has allegedly watched closely on Gulen movement supporters.

The German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere on the same day said Germany would not tolerate foreign espionage on its territory, responding to media reports alleging that the MIT was spying on supporters of Fethullah Gulen, exiled spiritual leader living in the United States.

Germany's spy chief, Bruno Kahl, claimed to have received a list of 300 people from his Turkish counterpart -- whom the Turkish government believes are followers of the exiled Gulen.

The list -- which was handed over at a security conference in Munich -- is said to contain surveillance photographs and personal data, the BBC has reported. The MIT had hoped for Germany's assistance in tracking the individuals on the list.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insists that Gulen -- who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania in the United States -- was behind an attempted coup to unseat Erdogan, in July last year.

"No matter what position someone may have on the Gulen movement, here German jurisdiction applies and citizens will not be spied on by foreign countries," said Maziere, according to the BBC.

Following the revelation of Turkish spying, German authorities informed all 300 individuals on the list and the federal prosecutor confirmed to local newspaper, Der Spiegel, that they would proceed with investigations of alleged members of the MIT operating in Germany.

Relations between Berlin and Ankara are at perhaps their lowest levels following orders to ban Turkish politicians from campaigning in Germany for a controversial referendum, set for April 16, which would considerably strengthen Erdogan's powers.

Allegations of Turkish spying in Germany dated back at least the end of last year and have also focused on members of the Kurdish diaspora -- whom Ankara suspects of sympathizing with a separatist movement.

Last month, German police raided apartments of four clerics suspected of being spies for the Turkish government.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Left with no options after Air India again cancelled his flight ticket, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad on Tuesday evening boarded the Rajdhani Express for Delhi, officials said.

He was booked this afternoon on a IInd AC sleeper compartment. The train left Mumbai Central at 5 p.m. and will reach Delhi around 8.30 a.m. on Wednesday.

The officials could not say if he was travelling alone or with some aides and security personnel.

Gaikwad's fresh travel plans for New Delhi came into effect on Tuesday afternoon after Air India cancelled his ticket for a Wednesday 8 a.m. flight from Mumbai.

This is the second time he has travelled by train in the past four days. Earlier, he reached here sometime on Saturday but remained incommunicado following a party diktat.

On March 23, Gaikwad abused and repeatedly assaulted with a slipper and even attempted to throw out a 60-year-old Air India staffer in Delhi after being forced to travel economy class on a Pune-Delhi flight though he held an open business class ticket.

Air India lodged two FIRs against him with Delhi Police. Subsequently, all Indian airlines blacklisted him from air travel following his unruly behaviour.

While the Shiv Sena has said it does not condone his conduct, it has accused Air India of poor services.

On Monday, the Sena sponsored a shutdown in Osmanabad, the Lok Sabha constituency in Maharashtra which Gaikwad represents.

The Sena has also served a privilege motion in the Lok Sabha over the ban imposed by airlines on an MP.

--IANS

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Himachal Pradesh is spending Rs 26,000 per capita on health, the highest in the country, and its budget allocation is 1.43 per cent of the State Gross Domestic Product, State Health Minister Kaul Singh said in the assembly on Tuesday.

"We are spending the highest amount of Rs 26,000 per capita on health services in the entire country," the minister said in reply to the debate on the demand for grants for health in the assembly.

He said Himachal is the only state after Delhi that is focusing on providing the best medical care facilities.

"1.43 per cent of the State Gross Domestic Product is our health budget," Kaul Singh said.

The minister's one-hour reply was marred by heated arguments between him and opposition BJP member Mohinder Singh Thakur. Later, the BJP staged a walkout.

Earlier, Thakur alleged the state was misusing the funds allocated by the Central government for providing healthcare.

Joining him, BJP member Suresh Bhardwaj said the government was focusing on opening six medical colleges in the state whereas it has disturbed the premier Indira Gandhi Medical College in Shimla.

The minister denied the opposition's allegations that National Health Mission funds were lapsing in the state.

"The infant mortality rate in the state has come down from 36 to 28 as per the recent sample registration survey," he said.

Leader of Opposition Prem Kumar Dhumal told reporters that the state was not properly utilising the funds allocated by the Central government to the health sector.

He said there was a huge shortfall of doctors and para-medical staff in most of the government hospitals and dispensaries.

"Rather than expressing gratitude to our (Union) Health Minister J.P. Nadda for allocating special funds to this hill state, the state is harping on the funds allocated by previous Health Minister Gulam Nabi Azad during the UPA regime," he said.

Dhumal said the walkout was staged to lodge their protest over deterioration in health services, including lack of dialysis centres in districts.

--IANS

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Actor Tom Holland says he didnt reach out to actors Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield to prepare for the role of Spider-Man in Marvel Cinematic Universe films.

Holland is currently gearing up for "Spider-Man: Homecoming". Maguire and Garfield have previously portrayed the superhero in different film franchises.

"I wasn't in touch with them (Maguire and Garfield). They both said some really lovely things about me online. I met Andrew at the BAFTAs the other day. It was cool. He's such a nice guy and we had a great chat and went our separate ways," Holland told variety.com.

Holland said that when he met Garfield, they mainly talked about their professional careers.

"We just talked about how fantastic he's been doing and all the brilliant movies he's been in lately. He talked to me about how excited I must be and how happy he was for me. It was all great," 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.)
The Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad's Center for Healthcare Entrepreneurship (CHE) is offering a one-year, fully-paid fellowship training programme.

This is a world-class programme for aspiring healthcare entrepreneurs and currently one of India's most competitive and coveted fellowships. The full-time in-residence fellowship and training will be strongly hands-on, the CHE said in a statement.

The fellowship is designed as a simulated entrepreneurial journey with clinical immersion, needs, analysis and design, ideation, business model development and culminates in the pitch to investors. In designing solutions, fellows avail the deep technological expertise of over 100 research labs at IIT Hyderabad.

The fellowship has been conceptualised, administered and mentored by a global team from India and the US, including entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley, academics from Stanford University, biomedical industry professionals, and some of India's well-known healthcare NGOs.

This fellowship comes with a stipend of Rs 50,000 per month, and is open to applicants from all backgrounds ranging from doctors, management graduates, engineers, designers, the statement said.

The final number of fellows will vary depending on the quality of applicants. The first batch of fellows will pass out by end of summer 2017.

Candidates can apply online at http://bit.do/che2017, on or before April 15. Shortlisted candidates have to appear for interview over video link from May 1 onwards. Selected candidates will be appearing for final interview in person during last week of May, the statement added.

--IANS

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Opinion / Columnist

I've just read a news article which reported Small and Medium Enterprises Minister, Sithembiso Nyoni, as having said that the government has dispatched a delegation to Nepal to study how to organise remittances inflow to improve the country's GDP'.This isn't the first policy-learning trip the government has embarked on, having visited other countries in the past including India, which has a large diaspora, notably in the United Kingdom. Several delegations have also been sent out to countries with large concentrations of Zimbabwean immigrants in what are usually very marginal, obscure tick-box diaspora consultation exercises'.The fact is, this government can go to Nepal and back, and still not grasp how to optimally leverage the diaspora's financial - and skills - potential. Many of us recently watched a viral video clip by Zimbabwean marketing guru, Gary Thompson, giving what I would say is the most eloquent, most precise breakdown of what needs to happen for Zimbabwe to rebuild its relationship with the diaspora and maximise economic benefits from it.The key word here, and in Gary's submission, is RELATIONSHIP. During the inclusive government, when the first draft diaspora engagement policy was first put together, the UNDP also published a study in which it recommended the implementation of confidence-building measures' between the government and the diaspora as a step towards developing this relationship.The toolkit of recommendations carried the obvious prescriptions of dual citizenship and the right to vote, among other measures. The former, thanks to the indefatigable efforts of campaigners and the MDC formations in the inclusive government, has now become a constitutional reality.However, the Zanu-PF government appears to condone the Registrar-General, Tobaiwa Mudede's ongoing unconstitutional efforts to stifle the enjoyment of dual citizenship. It raises the question: is Mudede on a frolic of his own, or is this symptomatic of the attitude and absence of political will at the top of this government?So, rather than send delegation after delegation of per diem-chowing government officials to one fact-finding or outreach mission after another, the government needs first to acknowledge its relationship with the diaspora, not through abstract policy-speak, but in practical actions that convey the spirit of oneness, recognising the inalienable citizenship of Zimbabweans currently living abroad.But with a President who routinely denigrates the diaspora, there is no prize for guessing that this government, at least under Robert Mugabe, will never get it. Mugabe's brittle ego is acutely sensitive to the accusation of having caused millions of his compatriots - including his own Zanu-PF supporters - to vote with their feet and flee from life under his disastrous rule.He is incapable of the solution that is required to create the kind of relationship that is necessary for Zimbabwe to benefit from its diaspora, as other nations with significant transnational communities currently do. That is why he speaks only in crude epithets and denigrations with respect to the diaspora, even as his government's national budgets sheepishly acknowledge the diaspora's contribution to the national economy by the billions!I'm encouraged by the likes of Tourism Minister Dr Walter Mzembi, and ZANU-PF's UK chairman Nick Mangwana who get it: a relationship with the diaspora is the sine qua non for leveraging financial benefit from it. It is necessary for establishment figures such as these to champion a rethink in their camp.The government of the day  from whichever party it may come - needs to appreciate the pre-requisites for building a strong and economically and culturally beneficial relationship with the diaspora. It is one that must be forged in the lifetime of the first generation of diasporans when the filial links with the homeland are stronger than they would be in subsequent generations.A strategy that sees the diaspora only as cash is futile and no different from the crudely animalistic instinct of the Madagascar cartoon movie character, Alex the Lion. In his extreme hunger, he began to see his herbivorous friends Marty the Zebra, Gloria the hippo and Melman the giraffe, as pieces of juicy, mouth-watering steak!Chofamba Sithole is former Assistant Editor of the London-based Pan-African Newsafrica Magazine and an ardent advocate of diaspora-home engagement. Email: chofamba@gmail.com.
Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna, a Democrat who represents the 17th Congressional District of California, known as the Silicon Valley, called US President Donald Trump a "devil" and his budget proposal "dumb".

"You talk to members of Congress and they don't agree with everything he says. Even Republicans. They are as embarrassed," Khanna -- a teacher, lawyer and a politician -- said in a video interview to news channel TYT Politics, published on Monday.

"Why aren't they speaking out? It's because he is helping achieve their vision which is the dismantling of the administrative state. The dismantling of the new deal, in a way that Ronald Reagan even didn't," he said.

"... So they are saying, OK, we are gonna make the bargain with the devil. He is giving us what we want. Let's ignore everything else."

Responding to a question on what bothers him the most about the Trump administration's budget proposal, which might get passed, too, Khanna said "foreign aid".

"I mean, I can't think of a more dumb proposal than, frankly, than cutting that [foreign aid]."

Khanna said that he is worried that the Republicans would not push back on cutting the US foreign aid. He said, on humanitarian grounds, the US should continue to extend help to other countries, reported the American Bazaar Online.

Questioning Trump's proposal to cut foreign aid, Khanna said that it is un-American. He said that America's foreign aid budget is less than one percent and it should be defended as it goes for "humanitarian causes".

The 40-year-old Khanna said that he felt "annoyed" after Trump commented that it is in "America's national interest" and advised other nations to follow their self-interest.

Citing former President George W. Bush, Khanna said that even Bush helped resuscitate people from the HIV in Africa.

"And here, you know, George Bush, I disagreed with him about everything Bush-Cheney did. The one thing he did, what we should all give him credit for is he helped save people in Africa with HIV," Khanna said.

"We put billions of dollars in foreign aid to help people with the anti-viral drugs."

Khanna said, "The whole idea about American exceptionalism is that we are not all nations... We care about morality. We care about humanity. That's what makes America exceptional. So, we should care about the moral case of what we are gonna do for other countries."

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Interpol has given a major reprieve to graft tainted former Indian Premier League (IPL) Chairman Lalit Modi denying a Red Notice against him.

"I just got off from a flight from Barcelona through which I sat completely numb. Just as I was boarding the flight I got the news that the Interpol had finally investigated and concluded and reached a verdict in my favour with a detailed letter of rejection of India's request for issuing of a Red Notice," Modi wrote on his Instagram account.

He also posted Interpol documents, which were not for public dissemination, at his Instagram and Twitter accounts.

"The sword that was hanging over my head has suddenly gone," Modi said.

The Interpol document dated March 24 said: "Lalit Kumar Modi... is not subject to an Interpol Red Notice or diffusion and not known in the Interpol's database."

The organisation however clarified that "in the past the individual (Lalit Modi) was subject of data record in Interpol's database, yet the data was later cancelled".

Lalit Modi had fled India in 2010, after facing charges of financial irregularity in IPL. He is currently living in Britain. His extradition process is still pending.

The authenticity of the documents could not be verified as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said they had no such information yet.

CBI spokesperson R.K. Gaur told IANS: "The agency is authenticating the Interpol documents."

--IANS

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Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani in the Kremlin on Tuesday and described Iran as a "good neighbour and a reliable partner."

"Russia and Iran share many years, if not centuries, of bilateral cooperation," Putin said as he welcomed the Iranian leader.

"We have maintained diplomatic relations for more than 500 years," he added.

Putin said that Moscow and Tehran have closely worked together in all fields and resolved difficult economic problems of the world, reported Efe news.

Rouhani said that he hoped that the new round of talks will lead to new strides in broadening relations between the two countries and and Iran's close cooperation with Moscow was not intended to be an aggressive stance directed against other countries.

"Our ultimate goal is to strengthen peace and stability in the region," said the head of Iran's government. "The development of our relations is not directed against third countries."

The two sides also signed at least 15 documents on various fields such as consulate, tourism, economic, telecommunications, legal and judiciary at the Kremlin Palace, IRNA news agency reported.

"We have good experience in the fight against terrorism, international terrorism, the fight against the drug threat," said Rouhani.

Rouhani had earlier laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier by the Kremlin wall.

"Russia and Iran were allied in the ongoing war in Syria -- both backing the embattled President Bashar al-Assad -- and commercial exchanges between the nations had increased by 70 per cent in 2016 compared to the previous year," Putin said.

This high-profile meeting between two regional powers came at a time when Tehran's relations with the United States had soured since the election of President Donald Trump, according to reports.

Moscow came out in defence of Iran's recent testing of ballistic missiles, but those actions were slammed by Washington, which responded with economic sanctions.

Iran and Russia insisted that the tests did not breach the internationally agreed Iranian nuclear deal that, under Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, had eased sanctions on Tehran in return for a gradual dismantling of its nuclear programme.

--IANS

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Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Tuesday that Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) got the best university award for its good work and not for the controversy last year during which the Vice Chancellor was taken "hostage".

"Recently JNU was given best university award. This was not given for making the Vice Chancellor hostage but for the good works done by the university. These good works don't come into the limelight," Javadekar said in the Lok Sabha while concluding the debate on the National Institutes of Technology, Science Education and Research (Second Amendment) Bill, 2016.

The Bill, which seeks to declare certain institutions of technology, science education and research as Institutes of National Importance, was passed by the lower house after an hour-long debate. It also adds two more institutes under National Institutes of Technology, Education and Research Act.

They are Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Tirupati, and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Berhampur (Odisha).

Javadekar's remarks came after Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge objected to the Minister's reference of vacancies in JNU.

Citing the vacancies of professors in JNU, Javadekar said: "There are over 100 vacancies for SCs/STs in JNU while around 25 posts of disabled professors are vacant since long ago."

Kharge objected to it saying, not only in JNU but several posts are lying vacant in Central Universities, and the minister should respond to such vacancies.

"I know why you are raking up JNU only," Kharge said.

JNU, which has been at the centre of controversies for over a year, has bagged the annual 'Visitor's Award' for the best varsity in the country.

Students of JNU had in October last year staged protests outside the administrative Block over the disappearance of student Najeeb Ahmed, forcibly confining Vice Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar and Rectors to remain inside.

Earlier, three of its students were arrested on sedition charges in connection with an event on the campus during which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised.

Responding to members' queries, Javadekar said that vacancies in universities are a serious issue and there are many reasons for it.

He said that for filling up the vacancies the government needs to create an atmosphere where students prefer to be teachers and professors.

"We need to create interest among students so they could prefer this profession," he said.

Javadekar said that whenever he visited any university, he always asked students: "Who wants to be a teacher? Who wants to be a professor?"

"Recently I visited an IIT where I asked the same question to students. I was very happy when majority of students said they want to join the teaching line," he said.

Javadekar said that to create research facilities, the government has set up Higher Education Financing Agency with a support of Rs 2,000 crore and later the agency would leverage Rs 20,000 crore for funding projects for higher education in three years.

Expressing concern over brain-drain, he said that to retain talent within the country, 500 best research scholars will be given scholarship of Rs 75,000 per month with better research environment.

He also expressed concern over the cases of suicides on campuses.

"Even a single case of suicide in campuses is unfortunate," the Minister said added that there is a need to introduce induction courses in Universities for students to make them familiar with each other.

Participating in the discussion, members from different parties raised concerns over issues like shortage of quality technical institutes, brain drain, suicide on campuses and lack of quality teachers.

Congress member Sushmita Dev said that the number of unemployed engineering graduates are increasing, which is a matter of concern.

"Every year around 8 lakh engineering graduate passed out but five lakh graduates remained unemployed and the government should also look into the concern of unemploybility,a she said.

--IANS

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Expressing disappointment over the Supreme Court order on linking the Aadhaar card with social welfare schemes, Union Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Babul Supriyo on Tuesday said the judiciary has over-reached.

"I am unhappy with the Supreme Court ruling over Aadhaar card. The apex court has objected to the use (linking with welfare schemes) of it. I think judiciary has over-reached. The government should be allowed to go ahead with its programme," he said.

The Supreme Court on Monday made it clear that the unique identification number -- Aadhaar -- cannot be made mandatory for availing benefits of social welfare schemes.

"Not only in India, over-reaching of judiciary in some cases is also observed around the world. The court has the right to protect the Constitution. But how does a bench consisting of single or two judges changes a decision taken by a democratic government which was formed after going through an electoral process?" said the BJP MP from West Bengal's Asansol.

"Time is ripe to think whether the court should interfere in the government's activities or not, acting on public interest litigations and applications," he said on the sidelines of "Digidhan Mela" in the city.

Incidentally, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee welcomed the Supreme Court ruling and opposed the Centre's move to link the Aadhaar card with the mid-day meal programme.

"There is corruption in the mid-day meal programme. I just do not understand the problem for not accepting Aadhaar card in the programme if the actual beneficiaries get the benefit after giving biometric identification.

"There is a gap between amount spent and amount received. Somewhere else, 'daal mein kuchh kaala hein' (there's some foul play)," Supriyo said.

Asked about the West Bengal government's non-cooperation for organising such fairs, the minister said: "The West Bengal government did not cooperate with us for organising such a programme and that is why Coal India had to step in. It would be unfortunate if it is treated politically."

He appealed to the state government to cooperate with the Digital India programme and digitise the financial transaction because the "state would be benefited with higher collection of taxes".

--IANS

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Malaysian Health Minister S. Subramaniam on Tuesday confirmed that the body of Kim Jong-nam, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's half-brother who was assassinated here last month, is still in Kuala Lumpur, the media reported.

According to the minister, the body is being kept at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital's National Forensic Institute, the New Straits Times reported.

He denied media reports that the remains have been cremated.

"There have been so much speculations on the whereabouts of the body, but we need to check that with our forensics team."

"As far as I know, the body is still at the hospital's mortuary," he said.

Subramaniam said Kim Jong-nam's body is still under the responsibility of the Health Ministry until it receives advice from the Foreign Ministry and Prime Minister's Office on the next course of action.

"The negotiations between Foreign Ministry and the North Korean government are still ongoing," the New Straits Times quoted him as saying.

"We need to wait for the results from the discussion before we can make any decision on what to do with the body," he added.

It was reported on Sunday that Kim Jong-nam's body had been taken out of the mortuary for a "religious rite".

There were also rumours that the body was taken to the Kuala Lumpur City Call Crematorium.

Kim Jong-nam, 45, was killed when two women smeared a VX nerve agent on his face at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 13.

He died while on way to the hospital.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Lok Sabha on Tuesday passed the National Institutes of Technology, Science Education and Research (Second Amendment) Bill, 2016.

The bill was introduced by Union Human Resources and Development Minister Prakash Javadekar in the lower house.

"Improvement in education quality is a top priority for this government and all necessary actions are being taken in this regard," Javadekar said while concluding the hour-long discussion on the bill.

Participating in the discussion, members from different parties raised concerns over issues like shortage of quality technical institutes, brain drain, suicide on campuses and lack of quality teachers.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan on Tuesday stepped up calls for the British government to offer a "cast-iron guarantee" to European Union (EU) nationals on their right to remain in the UK after Brexit, a media report said on Tuesday.

Speaking at an event in Brussels, Khan said an offer to 3.3 million EU nationals, one million of whom are Londoners, would be "the perfect gesture of goodwill" and urged the rest of the EU to make the same move, the Guardian said in the report.

Khan is visiting the Belgian capital a day before the British government plans to trigger the two-year process that will end Britain's EU membership in 2019.

"A bad Brexit deal that hurts London would hurt the European Union too," he said.

He evoked supply chain disruptions and businesses quitting London for New York or Singapore, rather than heading to Paris or Frankfurt.

"A hard Brexit really is a lose-lose situation," he added.

During his stay, Khan will meet Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, and Antonio Tajani, the President of the European parliament, the Guardian report said.

Speaking days after EU leaders, minus British Prime Minister Theresa May, celebrated 60 years of European unity, Khan praised the bloc, describing it as the foundation for peace and a symbol that countries could work together.

"In London, we will always consider ourselves part of the European family," he added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Millions of Maharashtrians here welcomed the Hindu New Year on Tuesday by celebrating Gudi Padva with joy, gaiety, dancing, music, and making huge rangolis of flowers.

At the crack of dawn, Maharashtrians erecting the traditional colourful 'Gudi' or a long bamboo stick draped with a new silken cloth, garlands, neem twigs topped off with a silver, copper or bronze pot, symbolizing victory, prosperity and spirituality, outside their homes, rooftops or balconies.

The auspicious day - a full public holiday - was marked with several inaugurations of public and private establishments and different types of 'muhurats' to bring in prosperity and good luck.

Large processions in which men and women of all ages danced gaily, in different parts of Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nagpur, Kolhapur, Aurangabad, Nashik and other towns and villages.

Thousands of men, women and youth clad in traditional attires and sporting the traditional Maharashtrian 'pheta' (head-gear) danced singly or in groups to the beating of drums, cymbals and lezims, leading colourful floats depicting highlights of the festival.

The revelers braved the scorching early-summer heat when temperatures have already crossed 40 degrees Celsius in several parts of the state and grim forecast of further rise in mercury in the next couple of months.

The Maharashtrian women whipped out the festival favourites like 'shrikhand' and 'puran-poli' savoured along with 'sunth paak' and 'aambe daal' and other goodies.

Several restaurants and eateries also offered these dishes as a 'special' item on the day's festival menu.

Greeting the people of the state, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said: "Wishing the people of Maharashtra on the special occasion of Gudi Padva. May the coming year bring happiness, good health and prosperity."

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi also conveyed his best wishes to the people of the country celebrating Gudi Padva, Ugadi and Cheti Chand.

"May these festivals marking a New Year bring happiness and prosperity for all," he said in a message.

Maharashtra Governor C.V. Rao and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis also greeted the people of the state on Gudi Padva marking the New Year.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Best Homebrew Equipment

Want To Brew Your Own Beer? Here's Everything You'll Need

The AskMen editorial team thoroughly researches & reviews the best gear, services and staples for life. AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service.

Home brewing beer is one of those things many think about but few accomplish. Even fewer make good beer. Back in the last century, when Americans especially mostly drank watery pale lagers, it was easy to get away with mediocre beers. But when even your gas station stocks sessions, sours and IPAs, its important to bring your A-game. Culled from a massive list of equipment and ingredients, these items are sure to have your next party hopping.

Weve also thrown in a few products for people who want to dip their feet in the waters, but arent ready to convert their garage into a brewery.

Bitter And Esters

There are brewing supply stores in almost every town, but there are very few like this Brooklyn-based imaginarium. Wherever you live, you can order kits, ingredients, bottles, and more, all of high design and top quality. The customer service, available by phone or email, is also a notch above. But if youre able to get yourself to Prospect Heights, youll see why this shop really shines. Here you can rent equipment (for parties, perhaps) or brew on the premises, take classes (from basic to advanced), and even host tastings for your friends and fans. Its a great way to start, and an even better way to take your game to the next level.

Find out more at BitterAndEsters.com

Brewers Best Deluxe Equipment Kit

Beer kits make for a great introduction into homebrewing, or an opportunity to try experimental flavors and techniques for the intermediate brewer. They also make great compact gifts. This kit includes equipment only (no ingredients), but its got all the hardware you need to brew a tasty batch. Includes a 6.5-gallon primary fermenter and bottling buckets, 5-gallon glass carboy, how-to book, and all the hoses, brushes, thermometers and cleaning equipment youll need to begin. Pair with any of the two dozen Brewers Best recipe kits, including American Pale Wheat, Belgian IPA, Chocolate Milk Stout and more.

From $120.00 at Amazon.com

Smarthub

One challenge for the casual brewer is the amount of real estate a setup takes and the potential gallons of bad beer you might be stuck with. For those dipping their toes in the DIY waters, consider this new appliance from hi-tech home goods brand Oliso. The SmartHub is a sort of all-inclusive slow cooker (think Instapot, but evolved). Oliso says it can do everything from the usual slow cooking and soup-making to sous vide. It can also create flavorful infusions, make yogurt and yes, even brew beer. Single-gallon, all-grain brewing, from boiling the mash to cooling the wort, is done in the machine, then transferred to a carboy for pitching the yeast and fermentation. Best of all, it looks way better on your kitchen counter than a couple of plastic buckets.

From $500.00 at Amazon.com

Maestro Beer-Making Equipment Kit

Once youve got a few batches under your belt, this complete hardware kit is a great next step. High-quality, straightforward buckets, spigots, fermometer, hydrometer, syphon and more make this a solid choice. An added bonus is the auto siphon/racking cane, which makes transferring cleaner, easier and tastier (by not tasting).

$70.00 at WineMakersDepot.com

15-Gallon Megapot 1.2 Brew Kettle

As your beer making starts to get serious, its time for your equipment to get serious. Give your mom back her canning pot and pick up this gleaming beauty from Northern Brewer, which can boil up to 12 gallons of wort at once. Its a component of the crafting process that deserves the best equipment you can afford as you get serious. Matt Brophy, CEO and founder of Flying Dog beers in Maryland (which celebrated its 25th anniversary last year), warns that striking a balance during production is key. Brewers can tend to put a disproportionate amount of time into wort production over yeast health. Focusing on good wort aeration and a good pitching rate, with a healthy yeast, will get you a short lag time.

$329.50 at Amazon.com

Ahtanum Hops

Washington States dry Yakima Valley has long been a nexus of American hops production. The advantage of shopping Yakima Valley Hops is that strains are bred, sourced and grown in the region, allowing for increased access to a wide variety of traditional and experimental strains  and their sales team is as knowledgeable as they come.

Ahtanum is a relatively new lower-acid aromatic variety developed by Select Botanical Groups. Though its fine for lighter IPAs, where it really shines is in nut browns and American Browns. The citrus and floral notes play off toast nicely, while earth notes work to bring even more depth and complexity to the finished product.

Pro tip: Hop pellets not only help with consistency and measurements, but are ideal for dry hopping (introducing hops into the carboy or keg following fermentation).

$6.49 at Amazon.com

Epicurean Mash Paddle

Once you step away from extracts into all-grain brewing, youre gonna need a mash paddle to break up the malt during the mashing process. Though you can make your own, and just about any big, slotted stick will do the trick, hardwood is generally favored for its strength, comfort, durability and resistance to harboring bacteria. But seriously: Why settle for good enough when you can put a little style into your brewing day? These two-toned, recycled wood paddles look as good not working as they do in the mash. Available in two sizes, depending on your needs.

Small  $55.00 at Amazon.com

Large  $200.00 at Amazon.com

Custom Tanks From Brewmation / Stout Tanks

Did you know you can brew beer in college? Well, it depends on the school you go to, of course. The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York  where people like Anthony Bourdain, Amanda Freitag and Todd English sharpened their knives  recently installed a small brewing facility in the student union building. Bachelors students take a course that covers the science and history of brewing, and craft four beers including a weird one. To encourage experimentation, head brewmaster Hutch Kugeman recently acquired a custom 20-gallon brew kettle through a new collaboration between New York-based Brewmation and Oregons Stout Tanks and Kettles.

The venture is designed to offer turnkey solutions to independent brewers seeking to increase and standardize production. Hutch views it as a great way to experiment in smaller batches. Our senior students take an event class, hosting a major event for the public with proceeds going to charity, says Kugeman. This year its Moroccan-themed, so they wanted to add apricot and coriander to the beer. Were going to do that.

The tanks are fully customizable and temperature controlled, and can be piped into a larger system. So if your homebrew is so good that even people beyond your girlfriend or boyfriend are complimenting it, this is the way to go.

Find out more at Brewmation.com

Nitrobrew

Nitrogenating  forcing nitrogen gas into a liquid  has become a popular trend the past couple of years for everything from beers to coffee. Unlike carbon dioxide, the tiny bubbles from nitrogen gas produce a silky, fluid low carbonation experience. The NitroBrew system is a stylish, straightforward system designed to be used at bars, or in individual glasses, and its become a staple at homebrewing conferences and meet-ups. Nitrogenating in the keg is hard, but in the glass when youre letting friends sample your hard work? So easy.

Starting at $350.00 at Nitrobrew.com

Air Still By Still Spirit

Distilling hard spirits is basically the act of boiling beer or wine and separating (or distilling) concentrated alcohol out from all the other flavoring agents and extra water. Until recently, DIY distilling (once called moonshinin) was HIGHLY illegal in most of the United States. In part it was a holdover from the moralistic blue laws of Prohibition, and in part its because it can be crazy dangerous. Increasingly, though, home production of distilled spirits is being made legit in many states. This Still Spirits Turbo Air Still looks something like the coffee urns found at hotel conventions, but it actually works. There are no hoses or tubes (which might seem less romantic, but is way safer), no water cooling is required (its air cooled), and youll have hooch in under two hours  all in a setup that sits discreetly on your kitchen counter, in case the Revenuers swing by.

$175.00 at Amazon.com

Picobrew

Maybe its the scrappy rebel nature in which home brewing first emerged in the 1970s and 80s. Maybe its all the beards and flannel. Whatever the case, most home brewing equipment seems needlessly cobbled together, complex and grunge-steampunk in character. Now, meet PicoBrew (pronounced pee-koh): a stylish, self-contained brewing system that fits neatly on the kitchen counter or loft workspace. A wide variety of recipe kits (the company has partnered with over 100 breweries globally) are available via a crisply designed mobile app. Hops, grains and botanicals are self-contained in Pico Pack Kits. The brewing cycle takes two hours, then you ferment for a couple days, and voila! Drink! Is this the Nespresso of DIY beer? Nah, its even cooler. Starting at $800

Starting at $800.00 at Picobrew.com

Johnson A421 Digital Temperature Controller

One challenge with home brewing is that youre not in a standardized, sterilized environment. Often working in a garage or bathtub or attic, youre exposed to the elements and the vagaries of the season. According to Jesse Morris, certified cicerone and Keeper of the House at Miamis massive brewery/taproom/pub Concrete Beach, this is the root cause of so many DIY fails. Having big, shiny equipment is great and all, but buy a chest freezer and Johnson temperature control unit to ferment your beers at a specific temperature. The A421 from Learn to Brew LLC features automatic heating and cooling across a massive temperature range, plug-and-play functionality and an easy-to-read LCD screen.

$76.99 at Amazon.com

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A militant was killed in a gunfight in Jammu and Kashmir's Budgam district on Tuesday while three local youth protesting the operation were also killed, officials said.

Defence ministry spokesman, Col. Rajesh Kalia told reporters here that the gunfight in Durbugh village of Budgam's Chadoora area ended in the afternoon when the lone militant holed up inside a house was killed.

"The body of the slain militant and his weapon have been recovered from the site of the gunfight which has ended," he said.

A soldier was also injured in the gunfight that lasted for nearly 10 hours.

Three youth identified as Zahid Rashid Ganai, Saqib Ahmed and Ishfaq Ahmed Wani were killed when security forces opened fire on local residents protesting the operation.

The three youth were seriously injured and shifted to hospital where they succumbed to their injuries.

Acting on specific information about presence of militants, security forces surrounded Durbugh village but as they closed in on the house where the militants were hiding, they were fired upon, sparking of the gunfight, the official said.

Protests erupted in the area during the gunfight.

Protesting youths also pelted stones at vehicles of the Central Reserve Police Force at Nagam village, three km away from Durbugh, as they were bringing troopers to augment the security forces engaged in the gunfight.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
North Korea on Tuesday accused the US of trying to form an Asian version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) through a US-Japan-South Korea military alliance.

The official daily Rodong Sinmun (Labor News) said the US-Japan-South Korea triangular military alliance had "reached the phase of full-scale activation", Xinhua news agency reported.

"The US aggressor forces, the 'Self-Defense Forces' of Japan and the South Korean puppet army recently conducted a large-scale drill for intercepting missiles from the DPRK," it said.

"The US is claiming the drill and the naval joint drill with Japan are independent of Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military drills. But this is no more than a lame excuse," it said.

The daily claimed that the missile intercepting drill is directly related to the drill being staged under the simulated conditions of executing "Operation 4D" and deploying Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD), "the key phase of Key Resolve and Foal Eagle."

"The same can be said of the joint drill conducted by a US nuclear aircraft carrier task force and warships of the Japan Self Defence Forces," it said.

The US and South Korea have been conducting a large scale joint military exercise "Foal Eagle", which was condemned by Pyongyang as aimed at staging precision strikes against targets in North Korea.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Pakistan India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) on Tuesday expressed "serious concern" over the arrests of around 100 Indian fisherfolk and seizure of 19 boats by Maritime Security Agency of Pakistan last week.

In a statement, PIPFPD spokesperson Jatin Desai said that "the number of arrests is extremely high and this has not happened in the recent past."

"In the Saurashtra (Gujarat) region, this is affecting the economy severely. Arrests of this kind create an atmosphere of fear within the community and hesitation to go to the sea, this ultimately affects the fishing industry as a whole," he said.

The PIPFPD feels that it is not only the fisherfolk and their families but the community suffers, the young children are deeply affected by family members getting arrested, it hits their upbringing, the rigour and support they need to carry on their education, he added.

"It is high time that the Indian Coast Guard and the MSA must dialogue on this issue specifically since it is a violation of human rights and also a violation of the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea. A meeting is scheduled next month and we urge both the governments to discuss this issue in detail," Desai said.

He sought a revival of various mechanisms like the India Pakistan Judicial Committee on Prisoners since it affords the arrested people an opportunity to put forward their case status, their grievances, health related issues etc.

"The people of both the countries have since years been demanding for a No Arrest Policy which has not even been considered for discussion till now," he noted.

Owing to this complete pause on the dialogue, the fishing community on both sides has borne the brunt as their life and livelihood are at stake.

The PIPFPD said that while the release of around 400 fishermen by Pakistan in December 2016-January 2017, was laudable, it is important for both neighbouring countries to main the policy of peace and dialogue so people do not become victims of the politically created hostilities.

Last Sunday, the Pakistan's MSA said it had detained 100 Indian fishermen for allegedly violating the country's maritime boundary and also seized 19 boats.

They were later handed over to the local police for legal proceedings and were due to be produced before a court.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Actor Rahul Bose hosted a special screening of his upcoming film "Poorna" for President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan here ahead of its commercial release.

"Poorna" is a biopic on Poorna Malavath, who at the age of 13, became the youngest girl to climb Mount Everest. A tribal girl, she fought social stigmas and achieved her dreams with true grit, determination and a never-give-up attitude.

President Mukherjee, who saw the film on March 25, was moved by the biopic, which spreads awareness about Poorna's journey, encourages women's empowerment and is an inspiration to women from every part of the country to dream big and accomplish their goals, read a statement issued on behalf of the movie's makers.

Directed and co-produced by Rahul, "Poorna" will release on Friday.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Amid high drama outside the office of Chinese mobile phone company Oppo here, an FIR was lodged on Tuesday against a company official who allegedly tore the national flag and threw it into a dustbin.

Police registered a case for showing disrespect to the national flag, based on a complaint filed by the company employees against the Chinese national who is a production manager in the company.

Gaurav Grover, Circle Officer, Noida told IANS that the incident took place on Monday when the Chinese official allegedly tore off the national flag pasted on a wall of the company's Noida Sector 63 office and threw it into a dustbin.

The flag was put up on the wall on January 26, when the company celebrated Republic Day.

Grover said the employees of the company were already sore over their grievances not being addressed by the executives.

After the act involving the national flag, hundreds of people, along with the employees, protested outside the office.

The situation turned volatile and several police personnel were deployed at the office to control the crowd. The protesters demanded the arrest of the Chinese official.

They also raised issues related to the labour laws being violated by the company. The area was cleared after senior officers of the district administration intervened.

Senior officials, including District Magistrate N.P. Singh and Superintendent of Police (City) Dinesh Yadav as well as the Labour Commissioner held a meeting with the executives from Oppo.

It was decided that the company would constitute a committee to probe the matter and address the demands of the employees.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday witnessed repeated disruptions as opposition members protested the delay in filling the vacancies in statutory commissions for different castes, tribes and minorities. The upper house was finally adjourned for the day around 3 p.m.

Soon after the house assembled in the morning, proceedings were adjourned first for 10 minutes till 11.25 a.m., and later till 12 noon as opposition members repeatedly raised the issue.

Samajwadi Party's Ram Gopal Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati raised the issue during the Zero Hour.

Yadav said the government idea behind renaming of the National Commission for Backward Classes was to "target certain castes by excluding them from the list of backward castes".

Mayawati asked the government whether it planned to wind up all the statutory commissions.

Ministers M. Venkaiah Naidu and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi stood up to defend the government.

"All commissions are functioning. All of them (vacanicies) are going to be filled up... it is wrong to question the government's intentions," Naidu said amid the din.

But opposition members continued their protest and the house was adjourned for 10 minutes.

When the house reconvened, the opposition members again created a ruckus and streamed near the Chairman's podium. The house was adjourned for the second time till noon.

Later, it was adjourned for the third time till 12.30 p.m, and again till 2 p.m.

During the Question Hour, Naqvi pointed out amid the din that the process of making appointments to the commissions was on and the delay occurred due to the Model Code of Conduct in force due to elections to five state assemblies.

"This is not the first time that appointments to these commissions have been delayed. There are too many earlier instances when appointments have been delayed by six months to a year," Naqvi said.

When the house met after lunch, the opposition members demanded a discussion under Rule 267 on the topic and sought an assurance from the government on filling the vacancies within a week.

However, the Chair did not accept any of the four notices given under Rule 267.

The opposition insisted on a discussion and again trooped near the Chairman's podium.

Deputy Chairman P.J. Kurien proposed to take up the discussion on Wednesday post-lunch but the members did not agree.

Kurien then adjourned the house for the day.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was scheduled to reply to the discussion on the Finance Bill, 2017, at 3.30 p.m.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday decided to appear in a court here to avoid arrest, which is being sought by prosecutors over a corruption scandal embroiling her.

The prosecutors' office here tasked with the probe into the scandal said Park's legal team informed the prosecutors of the former President's decision to appear in the court on Thursday.

The court would decide whether to take Park into custody after studying evidence provided by prosecutors and testimonies offered by her.

Prosecutors sought an arrest warrant for Park on Monday for multiple charges including bribery, abuse of power and the leakage of state secrets.

The court's decision is expected to be made late Thursday or early Friday.

If the court decides to issue the warrant, Park would become the third South Korean former leader to be detained. Two former military strongmen were arrested in 1995 on charges of mutiny and corruption.

A total of 13 charges were levelled by both state and special prosecutors against Park. Prosecutors have branded Park as a criminal accomplice to her long time confidante Choi Soon-sil.

Park was charged with receiving tens of millions of US dollars in bribes from Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, who is now in custody, in return for offering assistance in Lee's inheritance of management control of Samsung Group from his ailing father Chairman Lee Kun-hee.

The younger Lee had effectively taken the helm of the country's biggest family-controlled conglomerate after his father was hospitalised with a heart attack almost three years ago.

Choi was accused of extorting tens of millions of dollars from scores of conglomerates to establish two non-profit foundations she used for personal gains.

One of Park's former secretaries, who is now detained, is suspected of providing secret government documents to Choi on a regular basis to enable her to meddle in state affairs behind the scenes.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Saudi forces have destroyed four ballistic missiles launched from Yemen which targetted two border cities, media reported on Tuesday.

Abha and Khamis Mushait are among other border areas that have been targeted in such attacks since the beginning of the Saudi-led war against Houthi militias in Yemen that completed two years this week, Xinhua news agency reported.

Most of those missiles were destroyed before they could reach the ground, while tens of civilians died in such attacks.

Besides the interception, Saudi Arabia usually destroyed the launchers of those missiles through airstrikes.

The war shows no signs of ending, especially after the recent development of the planting of sea mines in the Red Sea by Houthis.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Tuesday said she was considering a privilege motion by the Shiv Sena on the ban by all airlines on party member Ravindra Gaikwad.

The issue was raised by Sena member Anandrao Adsul when Zero Hour started.

Adsul, who had raised the issue on Monday as well, was seen speaking even though his microphone was not working.

Mahajan said a privilege motion notice had been received. "I have received your notice of motion of privilege, it is under my consideration."

A Lok Sabha member from Osmanabad in Maharashtra, Gaikwad last week abused and assaulted a 60-year-old duty manager of Air India with a slipper.

Air India then refused to fly Gaikwad, after which other private airlines too blacklisted him. An FIR was also registered against him.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Singapore has convicted three men who attempted to smuggle a Bangladeshi man out of the country via Woodlands Checkpoint, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said on Tuesday.

The immigration offender Md Islam Md Haris Madbar, who overstayed in Singapore, was sentenced to six months' imprisonment and five strokes of the cane, Xinhua news agency reported.

Md Islam was found crouching on the floor of the rear passenger seat in a Malaysian-registered saloon car on February 14, 2016, said ICA.

Malaysian Chee Tian Hao who tried to convey Md Islam out of Singapore was arrested on the same day and was sentenced to two years' imprisonment and three strokes of the cane.

Following the arrests, another Malaysian and one Singaporean were arrested and convicted for assisting Md Islam to leave Singapore.

ICA said Malaysian Mohamed Haniffa Sawulmaid was sentenced to eight months in jail while Singaporean Jumali B Yusof was convicted and sentenced to two years and six weeks' imprisonment.

The authority stressed that it takes a serious view of attempts to overstay, enter or depart Singapore illegally.

"Our borders are our first line of defence in safeguarding Singapore's safety and security. The security checks are critical to our nation's security," ICA added.

Under Singapore's Immigration Act, the penalties for overstaying or illegal entry are a jail term of up to six months plus a minimum of three strokes of the cane.

The penalties for engaging in the business of conveying prohibited immigrants into and out of Singapore is a jail term of not less than two years and not more than five years and caning of at least three strokes.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Study Finds Porn Could Make You Unhappy

Trending News: Watching Porn Makes Men Unhappy -- But Not Women

Long Story Short

If youre determined to have a happy relationship, maybe cut down on the porn and watch a bit more Netflix instead. But dont worry if your girlfriend keeps her internet history closely guarded  a new study has found that watching porn affects men negatively, but not women.

Long Story

Yep, it isnt just that repetitive strain injury you need to worry about. Men who watch porn are also more likely to be unhappy in their relationships (but probably happier with their internet provider).

In contrast to some previous research, scientists from Indiana University and the University of Hawaii analysed 50 studies, involving more than 50,000 people across the world, that all examined the link between watching porn and relationship satisfaction. The study, Pornography Consumption and Satisfaction, looked at a range of studies, some that relied on participants self-reporting their porn-viewing habits, and others where they watched porn in a lab setting. Awkward.

RELATED: How To Watch Porn Ethically

They found that more porn equalled unhappier relationships, but only for men. Women didnt have any correlation between how much they watched porn and how satisfied they were in their relationship.

Not only did the researchers find a link with relationship satisfaction, but also that porn affected mens sexual satisfaction, too, and their overall happiness. Although, its not all bad news. There seemed to be no effect of porn-watching on body image, which suggests viewers are aware of the fantasy element of porn, and that it doesnt reflect real life.

Some of the studies they looked at had concluded that men are more likely to watch porn alone, so are missing out on the intimacy that comes from watching it with a partner.

Theres also a theory that men who watch more porn are more likely to be unhappy in their relationship in the first place. Whatever you need to tell yourself, buddy.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question

What if we watch porn with an upbeat soundtrack?

Drop This Fact

A study in 2012 found that porn viewing was positively related to infidelity.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday greeted the people on the occassion of the New Year as per the Hindu lunar calendar and 'Chaitra Navratri'.

The nine-day festival of Chaitra Navaratri begins on March 28 and ends with 'Ram Navami' on April 5.

It is held in honour of Goddess Durga in the Hindu lunar month of Chaitra -- the first month of Vikram Samvat 2074 -- which begins on Tuesday.

"Worshipping the three incarnations of the Goddess in Mahakali, Mahasaraswati and Mahalakshmi brings prosperity," Gandhi said in a statement.

She said by observing fast during the nine-day festival one can achieve triumph over anger and hubris.

"Revering all nine forms of the goddess during the festival gets one peace and comfort in life. May this festival bring peace and prosperity to the entire nation," she said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, once jailed for defying a law that discriminated against Indian South Africans, died early on Tuesday. He was 87.

The Ahmed Kathrada Foundation said he passed away peacefully after a short period of illness and following surgery to the brain at the Donald Gordon Hospital in Johannesburg, Africanews.com reported.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the passing away of Kathrada. On Twitter he posted: "Dr Ahmed Kathrada will be remembered as a remarkable personality, whose life was devoted to creating a just & equal society. RIP."

"I was honoured to have interacted with an inspiring personality like Dr Ahmed Kathrada during my South Africa visit last year," he said in another tweet.

Neeshan Balton, Executive Director of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, said, "This is a great loss to the ANC (African National Congress), the broader liberation movement and South Africa as a whole."

"Internationally, he was staunch in his support for the Palestinian struggle. 'Kathy' was an inspiration to millions in different parts of the world," Balton added.

The foundation said Kathrada will "be buried according to Muslim religious rights."

President Jacob Zuma sent his condolences to Kathrada's family and described him as a "stalwart of the liberation struggle for a free and democratic South Africa".

Zuma declared a special official funeral and instructed that the national flag fly at half-mast at every station in the country until the evening of the official memorial service for "Kathy".

The African National Congress (ANC) described him as an extraordinary leader whose service to South Africa will forever be inscribed.

"May Ahmed rest in peace and rise in glory," Desmond Tutu, the former Cape Town Archbishop, said on Facebook.

"May he rejoice in many heavenly cups of hot chocolate with his old friends and comrades, Mandela, Sisulu, Mbeki, Motsoaledi and Mahlaba, among them," he said.

Born on August 21, 1929, to Indian immigrant parents in a town of northwestern South Africa, Kathrada was introduced to when he joined a non-racial youth club run by the Young Communist League, Xinhua news agency reported.

At 17, Kathrada participated in the 1946 Passive Resistance Campaign led by the South African Indian Congress.

He was part of 2,000 persons arrested and imprisoned for defying a law that discriminated against Indian South Africans.

Kathrada spent 26 years and three months in prison, 18 of which were on Robben Island where Nelson Mandela, who later became South Africa's first black President, was also imprisoned. Kathrada was one of Mandela's closest colleagues in the struggle against the white rule.

He has had an illustrious political career, having served between 1994 and 1999 as the parliamentary counsellor to then President Mandela.

He is survived by his wife, Barbara Hogan, also an ANC stalwart.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Children can learn more with the help of technology, if the programme is well designed and implemented, and personalises content to the childs existing knowledge level, found a January 2017 study of an after-school intervention in Delhi.

Government upper primary and secondary school children (Grades VI to X), who were part of an intervention that used technology to improve learning, made twice the progress in mathematics, and 2.5 times the progress in Hindi, compared to students who were not part of the programme, according to the study, co-authored by Karthik Muralidharan from the University of California in San Diego, Abhijeet Singh from University College London, and Alejandro J. Ganimian from the Abdul Jameel Poverty Action Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"A well-designed intervention can have large impacts," Muralidharan, a development economist and professor, told IndiaSpend.

In mathematics, benefits from the programme ranged from a 12 per cent increase in questions answered correctly on the easiest type of questions, to a 36 per cent increase on harder topics, such as geometry and measurement. In Hindi, students who were part of the programme gained seven per cent on the easiest topics, such as sentence completion, and 19 per cent on the hardest questions, such as understanding and answering questions on a passage.

India has over 130 million primary-age children (between 6 and 10 years), and 120 million secondary school-age children (between 11 and 15), according to 2016 projections by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. But as few as 40.2 per cent of Grade VIII government school students surveyed in 2016 could divide, while 70 per cent could read a Grade II level text, according to the Annual Status of Report, 2016, a citizen-led assessment of learning in rural India.

Weaker students benefited more from the intervention mostly because weaker students who only attended regular school were less likely to make any progress during the school year, according to the study. This could be because weaker students are likely to be so far behind the curricular and text-book standards that the regular instruction in class that follows the textbook is unlikely to add much learning for them, the study said.

The study analysed the impact of "Mindspark", a software that customised material based on student answers to questions, on 314 students who attended three "Mindspark" centres in Delhi between September 2015 and February 2016, and compared the results to 305 students randomly selected to be part of the control group. All 619 students -- 97.5 per cent from Grades VI to IX -- were from government schools.

The "Mindspark" software delivered learning at the level of every student, and at pace with their progress. The software also analysed patterns in student errors and delivered content that targeted these conceptual bottlenecks, something that could be difficult for teachers to address in a classroom setting.

The cost per child could be about $2 (Rs 130) per child per month, excluding rent and utilities, if the programme is implemented on a large scale, the study estimated.

The programme has attracted the interest of several states, said Muralidharan. "There is enormous potential but a lot of work is needed for it to be implemented within the government school system."

The Mindspark programme in the study cost about Rs 1,000 ($15) per student per month, including infrastructure cost, hardware and software, which was cost-effective, in terms of learning outcomes, when compared to per-pupil monthly spending of Rs 1,500 ($22.5) in the schools the children belonged, the study said.

Students attended the centre six days a week, for four-and-a-half months, with 45 minutes of individual learning and 45 minutes of support from a teaching assistant in groups of 12-15 students. Average attendance at the centres was 58 per cent.

Programmes that provide computers at home or in schools mostly do not have a positive impact on learning, while computer-aided programmes that allow students to review grade-appropriate content at their own pace have modest, positive outcomes, the authors wrote in the study. An intervention that could deliver personalised content as per the learning level of the student (like "Mindspark") could provide much higher outcomes, the authors explained.

"For most politicians, technology is hardware," said Muralidharan, adding that the political impulse is to concentrate on laptops and computers which are tangible. "Hardware by itself has no impact."

For instance, the "One Laptop Per Child" programme in Peru increased the ratio of computers to students in schools, but there was no impact on test scores in math and language, an analysis found.

Similarly, a computer-aided instruction programme in Gujarat, which replaced some time spent on regular lessons in schools, led to lower test scores, suggesting that using computers in schools could even be harmful to learning, according to a 2008 study.

"Technology has enormous potential, but it is critical how it is integrated with pedagogy," Muralidharan explained.

Grade VI students part of the study were, on average, 2.5 grade levels below Grade VI mathematics standards, the study found.

Further, students in one grade typically spanned five to six grades in terms of their learning level, which could make it harder for teachers to teach at the level of every student. "We find that the bottom third of the class is not learning anything in school," said Muralidharan.

Teaching at the grade level could miss out weaker students, while a computer programme could help personalise content as per every child's grade level, the study suggests.

(In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform, with whom Shreya Shah is a writer/editor. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. Feedback at respond@indiaspend.org)

--IANS/IndiaSpend

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order rolling back Obama-era rules aimed at curbing climate change.

The President said this would put an end to the "war on coal" and "job-killing regulations".

The Energy Independence Executive Order suspends more than half a dozen measures enacted by the president's predecessor, and boosts fossil fuels, BBC reported.

Among the initiatives now rescinded is the Clean Power Plan, which required states to slash carbon emissions.

Business groups have praised the Trump administration's move but environmental campaigners have condemned it.

Flanked by coal miners as he signed the order, the President said: "My administration is putting an end to the war on coal.

"With today's executive action I am taking historic steps to lift the restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion and to cancel job-killing regulations."

During the campaign, he vowed to pull the US out of the Paris climate deal agreed in December 2015.

--IANS

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Abu Dhabi, March 28 (IANS/WAM) The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has pledged a contribution of $54 million to the Interpol Foundation for a Safer World to support seven projects designed to combat global crime and terrorism ahead of a security forum here.

The first Unity for Security Forum is being held in partnership with the UAE government from Tuesday to Thursday.

The forum will bring together ministers, senior government officials, and representatives from the private sector, to collectively discuss and address common issues and identify their responsibilities in combating future security threats.

The seven Interpol projects focus on counter-terrorism, cybercrime, cultural heritage, vulnerable communities, vehicle crime, drugs and illicit goods.

Brigadier Hamad Ajlan Al Amimi, Director-General of the Federal Criminal Police at the Ministry of Interior, stressed the importance of strengthening cooperation and partnership with all countries, institutions and international bodies in order to enhance the efforts of the UAE to ensure the safety and security of the international community.

"Building relations with relevant institutions in the fight against crime, including Interpol, its member countries and the Interpol Foundation for a Safer World, strengthens the fight against global crime through cooperation," he said a press conference on Monday.

Elias Murr, president of the Interpol Foundation for a Safer World, said: "We welcome the continued partnership and leadership demonstrated by the government of the UAE in sponsoring these seven projects, which deal with some of the complex threats we currently face."

"This funding will help to ensure we are able to build diverse collaborations that bring together technical expertise and knowledge of the issues that help us to ensure safety and security," he added.

Interpol Secretary-General Jurgen Stock said the contribution comes at a time when the world policing body is being encouraged to play a larger role in improving global security.

"The threats posed by terrorism, organised crime and cybercrime are more complex and global than ever, requiring Interpol to play an even stronger role in international police cooperation.

The UAE became an Interpol member country in October 1973.

--IANS/WAM

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The unlocking of the in 1986 that led to the "shilanyas" (groundbreaking) of the Ram Janambhoomi temple in Ayodhya and three decades of turmoil, were part of a deal between Muslim leaders and the Congress government, says Arif Mohammad Khan, a senior politician who was then in the thick of events. With the Supreme Court now calling for resolving the issue through dialogue, Khan feels that the government should take the initiative on this.

Khan said the unlocking of the was a balancing act to satisfy the demands of the Hindu community after the Rajiv Gandhi government succumbed to the demands of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) on the Shah Bano case in the Supreme Court on maintenance for divorced Muslim women.

"The announcement to reverse the SC judgement (Shah Bano case) and the removal of the locks happened within a span of two weeks. This to most people appeared as a balancing act and they hoped that now both the agitating parties would feel satisfied," Khan, author of "Text and Context -- Quran and Contemporary Challenges" who broke ranks with Rajiv Gandhi in 1985 on the government's capitulation to the Muslim clergy on implementing the Shah Bano judgement that ruled in favour of alimony to divorced Muslim women, told IANS in an interview.

"On the other hand, the removal of the lock practically accepted the disputed structure as a temple and consequently the demand to build a proper temple to carry out the functions that were already taking place inside the building gained more strength. Possibly that led the then government to agree to the shilanyas under the careful watch of the then Home Minister," he added.

Speaking on the politics that went behind the opening of the locks in 1986, Khan said :"AIMPLB asserted that the judgement of the Supreme Court in Shah Bano is a threat to 'Milli Tashakkhus' that is a separate and distinct community identity, and they used very aggressive and threatening language during the agitation... But the announcement to this effect on January 15, 1986, created a severe blowback and within a week the government felt the need to do something to divert attention from the Shah Bano case."

"At that stage, Ayodhya came in handy and the local administration -- that is, the District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police -- personally appeared before the District Court (Faizabad) and stated that removing the lock from the main gate of the disputed structure will not create any law and order problem," he said.

The locks of the Babri Majid were opened in February 1986 on the order of the District Court of Faizabad.

"This to most people appeared as a balancing act and they hoped that now both the agitating parties will feel satisfied."

Speaking on the role of Rajiv Gandhi in the entire dispute, Khan said: "After the removal of the locks, I met Rajiv Gandhi and he told me that before the lock was removed the Muslim leaders were informed about it."

Speaking on the role of senior Congress leaders like N.D. Tiwari, Buta Singh, Arjun Singh and P.V. Narasimha Rao (who was the Prime Minister when Hindu fundamentalists razed the in 2002), he said: "These leaders were of the view that the government cannot play the role of a social reformer, particularly of a minority community."

Without criticising them, Khan said: "From one viewpoint their stand was understandable as they did not want to take any risk of diluting their political constituency."

"In fact, I firmly hold that AIMPLB would never have succeeded in pressurising Rajiv Gandhi to do their bidding, but he was open to advice from his senior colleagues," he added.

Talking about the role of the Babri Masjid Action Committee (BMAC), Khan referred to his earlier statements on the baneful consequences of the actions of its leaders.

"In fact I was surprised to read the autobiography of the then Chairman of Personal Law Board, Maulana Ali Mian, who has used even stronger words to deprecate the leaders of BMAC and held them responsible for aggravating the communal situation by their 'excessive demagogy'."

"Maulana Ali Mian has squarely blamed the leaders of the BMAC for their intransigence and held them responsible for creating a situation for 'Hindu revivalism' which even the most radical Hindu leaders were not capable of doing," Khan said while referring to the autobiography.

Talking about the deal that had taken place between the government and the Muslim leadership, he said: "The fact that Muslim Personal Law Board kept itself away from Babri Masjid movement and action committee, and Ali Mian's criticism of BMAC confirms what Rajiv-ji had said. It was only after unfortunate assassination of Rajiv-ji (in 1991), that AIMPLB also jumped into the fray and joined ranks with BMAC."

When asked about the failure of talks during the Prime Ministership of V.P. Singh and Chandra Shekhar, he said: "During this period of time, two governors (Krishna Kant and Yunus Salim), the two Shankaracharyas of Kanchi and two AIMPLB functionaries (Ali Mian and Maulana Abdul Karim Parekh) were involved in negotiations. They met several times to find an amicable solution."

"And if we believe what Ali Mian has said in his autobiography, then some agreement was arrived at but it could not be implemented due to the inflexible attitude of BMAC leaders."

Asking the government to take initiative and the litigants to come to mediation, Khan said: "What we need is to be respectful to the sensitivities of ordinary people's beliefs, and the desire to create an atmosphere where we all can live in peace and harmony in our own country. Since I am not party to the litigation I shall not like to say more than this."
After successfully making its name in the Paris fashion scene, French Haute Couture house Lecoanet Hemant took an important step forward with the opening of its headquarters in India in 2008. But designer Hemant Sagar says he was in shock when he joined the Indian fashion industry as people here hardly appreciated clothes and were only interested in price points.

"It was very difficult when we entered the industry. I had a shock because there was no fashion market as there was just Karma and Ogaan (the multi-designer boutiques)... That's it, and I couldn't understand why no one was talking about style, the cut, the procedure and no one was interested either. It was so funny.

"I used to think, 'Are these people going to wear price tag or garment'. I still don't understand. What I am trying to say is that the appreciation of garment is really important, but things are changing now," Sagar told IANS.

Lecoanet Hemant ceased its activities in Paris in March 2000 to move into a totally new business of ready-to-wear in India. The decision was taken when Didier Lecoanet and Sagar opted to launch a new industrial couture line and saw Asia as the ideal launchpad for their registered fashion brand.

From their first fashion show held in Paris in 1981 to making space for their brand in India -- they have had a glorious journey. They have completed 38 years in the industry. To celebrate that, the designer duo curated an exhibition showcasing some of their finest pieces.

The exhibition highlighted the designers' creative work, their legacy and their efforts in contributing towards placing India on the global fashion map. On display at the exhibition were 30 to 40 creations, half of which were made in Paris (1984-2000) and the other half at their Gurgaon Atelier (2000-2017).

Sagar describes the journey as peaceful.

"It was like sitting in your compartment in a train and watching times go by, but (you) continue doing your work. We were very dedicated to our idea, which is based on a sari. I don't think there is anything more sexier in the whole world than the sari; so we have been having a love affair with what a sari could be, since our beginning. We talked about travel, India and sari and we are still doing that," he said.

"It was also based on the story of making the garment and giving it a twist of fusion wear," he added.

So what's the vision of brand Lecoanet Hemant?

"The vision is to become a lifestyle brand and this exhibition has been a big step towards the same. There is a cosmetic series, Ayurvedic collection, that is to come out. All these things are lifestyle products which will come together and I plan to make this all into a lifestyle space," Sagar told IANS.

(Nivedita can be contacted at Nivedita.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 Gujarat state Assembly elections will have one more star campaigner in newly-anointed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Aditya Nath Yogi to canvass for the ruling BJP, which is seeking a sixth re-election to power in a row since 1995.

Confirming that the firebrand Yogi will campaign in Gujarat, state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Jitu Vaghani said: "All chief ministers of our party across the country have been invited to campaign and Yogi ji will also be there."

State party spokesperson Bharat Pandya added that the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister campaigning in Gujarat would help the party immensely.

He said: "Yogi ji's work as Chief Minister is being discussed and appreciated not just at the national level but even at the international level. So, his coming to Gujarat for campaigning will definitely help the BJP."

Pandya said Uttar Pradesh is the largest state in the country in terms of population and developments there have massive impact in all other states.

The BJP spokesperson, however, was quick to add that there was no replacement of Modi. "Ever since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister, it has been a matter of pride for people in Gujarat and for us...Modi wave itself is enough," Pandya said.

The opposition Congress asserted that the BJP was trying to play its old game of communal polarisation by calling Yogi to canvass. Party spokesperson Himanshu Patel said it would not help the BJP this time around.

"People are fed up of the BJP rule and all issues like atrocities against Dalits, women, Patels, farmers and contract employees of the government will go against it," he said.
A youth was killed when he was hit by a bullet in Budgam district of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday where a gunfight is continuing between the security forces and militants.

"The youth identified as Zahid Rashid Ganai died when he was hit by a bullet near the Durbugh village gunfight site," a police official said.

"He was shifted to hospital for treatment following the bullet injury, but died later," he added.

Security forces on a specific information about presence of militants surrounded Durbugh village in Chadoora area of Budgam district early Tuesday.

As the security forces closed in on the house where the militants were hiding, they were fired upon, which triggered a gunfight, the official said.

Protests erupted in the area during the gunfight.

Protesting youths also pelted stones at a paramilitary CRPF vehicles at Nagam village, three km away from Durbugh village.

The CRPF vehicles were on their way to augment the strength of the security forces engaged in the gunfight.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Tuesday hosted a lunch for all members of Parliament (MP) on the occasion of Nutan Samvatsar, or what the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has come to call Hindu-Bharatiya New Year. No MP could remember if the Speaker, or any other occupant of a high constitutional post, had in the past ever officially marked the Vikram Samvat new year. A member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said the effort was to give official sanction to the Samvat calendar as a Hindu calendar, even when it does not find acceptance in several parts of India. Congress and Janata Dal (United) members, however, said there was little wrong if the Speaker wished to mark the occasion, but agreed that the acceptance of Vikram Samvat was limited and there were regional variations, depending on seasonal changes and harvest cycles, which have dictated the marking of Indian new years. They interpreted it more as an effort by the Speaker to reach out to members of all political parties in the run-up to the presidential election in July. Mahajan is being talked of as a possible contender. In 1957, India adopted the Saka calendar as its official calendar.
Elon Musk Launches Company To Merge Human Brains With AI

Trending News: Elon Musk's New Company Wants To Turn Us All Into Cyborgs

Long Story Short

It looks like Elon Musk now wants to interface our brains with AI. Seriously.

Long Story

If you think youre busy, try being Elon Musk. Because other than popularizing the electric car, designing reusable space rockets and attempting to sell an entire power system to Australia, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur now wants to basically turn us all into cyborgs.

This is not an April Fools joke. The Wall Street Journal reports that Musk has launched a new company, Neuralink, with the aim of interfacing brains with computers.

The startup has hardly any public presence, but Musk is said to have an active role in what has been listed in California as a medical research company. The first goal of Neuralink is to use implanted chips and tiny computers to treat cranial disease, with the glorious end game (for the company, not the world, hopefully) of a human-computer hybrid.

To that end it has already made several significant hires from the academic community. Among them are nano tech expert Venessa Tolosa, a principal investigator at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and UCSF professor Philip Sabes, who appeared at the Musk-sponsored Beneficial AI conference in January.

The plan is to prototype the technology before rolling it out for human trials. But how many (healthy) people are keen to sign up to have their skulls cracked open will be interesting to see  much of the inner workings of the brain are still a mystery to modern science.

For his part, Musk has hinted at his interest in human-computer link-ups a few times over the past year, including comments in Dubai in February that suggested that a brain-computer hybrid was the only way to ensure the future of the human race.

Its ambitious stuff. But then so was popularizing electric cars. And inventing reusable rockets. And developing the Hyperloop

Own The Conversation

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Musk reckons at least five years, but how far away are we actually from this technology becoming viable?

Drop This Fact

Elon Musk helped inspire director Jon Favreau in creating the film version of billionaire Tony Stark in the Iron Man films.
The central government has amended the provisions of the General (Central Service) Rules, 1960, to make it easier for employees to withdraw from their GPF. Changes have been brought about in the following categories: education, obligatory expenses, illnesses and purchase of consumer durables.
The Narendra Modi government is keen to ensure the passage of a Bill to grant constitutional status to its putative Commission for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes in the current session of Parliament.
On a day Parliament passed the Mental Healthcare Bill, Union Health Minister J P Nadda today thanked Congress leader for his "valuable" suggestions made during an earlier discussion on the legislation in the Lok Sabha.

Making a emotional speech during the discussion on the Bill in Lok Sabha on March 24, Tharoor had said he has lived with a victim of mental illness and knows the pain the person goes through while giving a host of suggestions.

"Thank you for valuable suggestions @ShashiTharoor Ji. As I said in Parliament budget will never be a issue. #MentalHealthcareBill," Nadda tweeted.

The Bill that seeks to decriminalise suicide attempts by mentally ill people and provides for the right to better healthcare for people suffering from mental illness was passed in the Lok Sabha today.

The Bill, which was passed by the House by a voice vote also has a provision to protect and restore property rights of mentally ill people.

Tharoor during his emotional speech had said that he knows from his personal experience that there is nothing sadder than witnessing a close and loved person with mental illness at close quarters.

Participating in the discussion on the bill, Tharoor had said if India wants a modern and progressive society, there is a need for this law while adding that people suffering from any mental disorder carry the stigma that "yeh toh pagal hai (he/she is mad)".

Explaining the grave situation, the Congress leader had said many people who are suffering from these problems live in a denial mode and "they are unwilling to seek help".

"Suicide is an issue," he had said, adding "there are so many things attached to this and one is unemployment. There is a need to make it mandatory for every educational institution to have counsellors and "this is the need of the hour," he had said.

"There are number of good things in the bill but there are also number of things out....Psychotherapists, psychoanalysts are not included in the bill. I request you to add these categories," he had said.
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Monday called for an amicable solution to the Shiv Sena's demand for removal of the blanket ban imposed by airlines on its MP after he allegedly assaulted an Air India Duty Manager last week.

Mahajan told reporters after a meeting with Shiv Sena MPs that the issue should be resolved through talks.

"MPs need to attend Parliament and they can't travel always by train. At times, they need to travel by plane also. I feel this issue should be resolved amicably through talks," she said.

Mahajan said she would not pass a judgment and was just trying to help resolve the issue.

"As of now, everybody is angry. It is time to calm down. How the ban could be lifted needs to be discussed and resolved amicably," she said.

She also noted that no one should misbehave with another person.

Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju also joined the meeting later.

Gaikwad, who represents Osmanabad in Maharashtra, on Thursday repeatedly beat up the Air India official with a slipper after he was made to travel in Economy Class from Pune to Delhi despite holding a Business Class ticket.

There was no Business Class in the flight. The incident happened when flight AI852 from Pune reached Delhi around 10.30 a.m.

Air India later refused to fly him and other airlines followed suit. An FIR was also registered against the Sena MP.
US President Donald Trump on Monday called Prime Minister and congratulated him on his recent electoral success, the White House said.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump congratulated Modi on his success in the assembly polls.

Following the elections held in five states that begun on February 4 and ended on March 9 after polling was rescheduled on some seats, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed the government in four states: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.

It, however, lost Punjab to main rival Congress after the results were announced on March 11.

Anchored mainly by Modi and his aide Amit Shah, the BJP juggernaut rolled on in UP and in the neighbouring state of Uttarakhand, bagging three-fourth majority.

The BJP returned to power in the politically-crucial state of UP after a gap of 15 years during which regional parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party held sway.

Goa and Manipur had hung assemblies after the polls, but the BJP managed to form the government with the support of other parties.

The elections in the five states had turned into a virtual referendum on Modi's popularity following his decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.
The Punjab police today recovered two balloons, two Pakistani coins and a piece of paper with coded words written on it from a field at Malian village in Sultanpurlodhi area in this district.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Sandeep Kumar Sharma said the police was trying to decode the words that appear to be in Arabic with the help of experts from Chandigarh to know the "conspiracy" behind it.

He said the coins bear the mark of Pakistan.

The balloons were recovered from the fields of a farmer who had informed the police, Sharma said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least two persons were killed today and 14 others injured after an express train collided with an oil tanker at a railway crossing in Pakistan's eastern province of Punjab, officials said.

The mishap occurred when the Karachi-bound Shalimar Express train collided with the tanker stuck on the railway crossing in Shaikhupura.

Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique confirmed the accident and toll, saying a probe has been launched to fix the responsibility for the tragedy in which the train driver and his assistant were killed.

"The driver of the tanker has been arrested," he said.

At least 14 passengers were injured but none of them fatally, officials said.

An eye-witness told the Geo TV that an oil tanker was crossing the railway line but it broke down in the middle, blocking the track.

Officials said that at least five carriages caught fire and fire engines battled the blaze for hours to control it.

A newly-wed couple were among the survivors, which also included women and children.

"There was a huge bang and then fire. We jumped out of the window to escape," a passenger told the local media.

Train accidents are common in Pakistan. Most of them are caused due to unmanned or ungated crossings in the country.

In January, a motorised rickshaw was hit by a train when it was trying to cross the track ahead of a speeding train.

At least seven school children were killed in the accident which occurred in Lodhran area of Punjab.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As many as 32 multinational companies listed on BSE paid royalties worth Rs 7,100 crore to their global parents in 2015-16, a surge of around 13 per cent from the preceding fiscal, says a report.

Proxy advisory firm IiAS said payout amount translates to around 21 per cent of the 32 companies pre-royalty pre-tax profits.

In contrast, pre-royalty pre-tax profits have grown at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.6 per cent and net sales have grown by 8.7 per cent.

In 2015-16, aggregate royalty payments of 32 MNCs in the BSE 500 aggregated Rs 7,100 crore, up from Rs 6,300 crore in 2014-15.

A total of five companies -- Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, Hindustan Unilever Ltd, ABB Ltd, Nestle India Ltd and Bosch -- paid royalty of Rs 5,540 crore in 2015-16, which is 78 per cent of the royalty paid by the 32 MNCs.

The report said that trend of increasing royalty payouts without commensurate improvement in revenues and profits continues.

"Companies must provide greater clarity regarding the basis on which royalty is paid out, given that it has outpaced both sales and profits in the past five years," IiAS said.

IiAS believes that the parent company needs to be compensated for brand and technical know-how. However, such payments need to be pegged at an appropriate level.

It further said that royalty is a legitimate payment, but its value must be evidenced in sales growth or higher pricing power.

According to IiAS, an over 7 per cent lowering of margins driven by royalty alone is significant, and deprives investors of the earning per share (EPS) upside of investing in a stronger business or brand proposition.

Boards need to be thoughtful while approving royalty agreements. They have a commitment to the local entity and its shareholders to be responsible, it added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As many as 73 cases of thefts were reported at residences of MPs and MLAs in the last three years in the city and 26 people were arrested in this connection, the government said today.

In reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, this information was shared by Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj Gangaram Ahir.

According to the Delhi Police data, 25 cases of thefts in the houses of Members of Parliament (MPs) and Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) were registered in 2014 and nine persons were arrested in connection with them, he said.

In 2015 and 2016, 29 and 19 cases of thefts were registered respectively. Twelve and five persons were arrested in connection with these cases in 2015 and 2016 respectively, Ahir said.

This year, two cases have been registered so far, he said.

The minister said two full-fledged police stations in North and South Avenue have been set up especially for the residences of the MPs.

He also said there is deployment of police pickets, regular patrolling by PCR vans and verification of servants are carried out in order to strengthen the security of VIP areas.

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Mizoram Tourism Minister John Rotluangliana informed the state assembly today that 770 tourists from abroad visited Mizoram in nine months from April, 2016 to January 2017.

In a written reply to a question from Mizo National Front (MNF) member K Beichhua, Rotluangliana said that efforts were being made to concentrate on eco tourism, adventure tourism and rural tourism to attract more tourists, both domestic and foreign.

He said Integrated Development of New Eco-Tourism under Swadesh Darshan - North East Circuit was being undertaken at Thenzawl and South Zote villages in Serchhip district and Reiek village in Mamit district.

Implementation of Rural Home Stay Scheme was being taken up in six villages in Champai district on Myanmar border with fund from the New Economic Development Policy (NEDP) of the state government, he added.

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Veteran CPI(M) leader V S Achuthanandan today asked the party-led LDF government in Kerala to take stern action against the "land mafia" indulging in encroachments at the tourist town of Munnar in the hilly Idukki District.

The encroachers should be evicted, Achuthanandan, who is the Chairman of the Administrative Reforms Commission, said in a statement here.

Apparently referring to the reported remarks by CPIM MLA S Rajendran against officials who took action against the encroachers, the nonagenarian leader said it was the state government's duty to control the 'land mafia'.

Officials who try to evacuate encroachers would have the support of the government and people, Achuthanandan, who had taken strong measures to retrieve public land in Munnar when he was the Chief Minister till 2011, said.

He also accused Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, Ramesh Chennithala, of adopting an 'anti-encroachment' stand and asked whether even an inch of encroached land had been recovered during the regime of Congress led UDF government.

"Congressmen were behind most of encroachments in that region", Achuthanandan alleged.

He said LDF government did not view the settlers and encroachers on similar lines. People who live in that region for decades were not encroachers, he said.

The Marxist leader said encroachment of public land was not limited to Munnar alone. "Water bodies, rivers and even sea sides" were encroached upon.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had yesterday said the government would bring restrictions on building tourist resorts in Munnar and take stringent action against encroachments.

Vijayan had also rejected allegation against Rajendran that the MLA had threatened the revenue officers concerned.

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CPI(M) leader V S Achuthanandan today asked the Kerala government to take stern action against those who were indulged in encroachments in Munnar in Idukki district.

The encroachers should be evacuated, he said in a statement here.

Apparently referring to the reported remarks by S Rajendran, MLA (CPI-M), against officials who take action against encroachers, Achuthanandan said it was LDF government's duty to control the 'land mafia'.

Officials who try to evacuate encroacher would have the support of the government and people, Achuthanandan, who had taken strong measures to retrieve public lands in Munnar when he was the Chief Minister, said.

Achuthanandan also criticised Opposition leader in the Kerala Assembly Ramesh Chennithala for his "anti-encroachment" stand and asked whether an inch of encroached land had been recovered during the previous Congress led UDF government's period.

"Congressmen were behind most of encroachments in that region", Achuthanandan alleged.

He said that LDF government did not view the settlers and encroachers on similar lines. People who live in that region for decades were not encroacher's, he said.

He said encroachment of public land was not limited to Munnar alone. Water bodies, rivers and even sea sides were also encroached upon. It was a serious matter that they were able to regularise this through court orders, he said.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had stated yesterday that the government would bring restrictions for building tourist resorts in Munnar and would take stringent action against encroachments.

Vijayan had also rejected allegation against Rajendran that the MLA had threatened revenue officers.

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Eight doctors including its Director Randeep Guleria from the AIIMS, and two from the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital were today awarded the prestigious Dr B C Roy Award for excellence in the field of medicine.

They received the honour from President Pranab Mukherjee at a function held at the Rashtrapati Bhawan here. The awards were announced last October.

Eight senior AIIMS faculty members were conferred the coveted honour, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences said.

"AIIMS Director and Head of Pulmonology Dr Randeep Guleria, Head of Orthopaedic Department Dr Rajesh Malhotra, Professor in Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Dr J B Sharma and Professor in Orthopaedic Department Dr C S Yadav are among the awardees," a senior official of AIIMS said.

Guleria was recently appointed the head of the premier institute.

"Head of Urology Department Dr P N Dogra, Professor in Urology Department Dr Amlesh Seth, Professor in Cardiology Department Dr Rakesh Yadav and Professor in Department of Nuclear Medicine Dr Rakesh Kumar today also received the award," he said.

From the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Chairman (Board of Management) & Department of Nephrology Dr D S Rana and Chairman of Department of Chest & Thoracic Surgery Dr Arvind Kumar received the honour.

"This award is dedicated to my teachers and gurus... My message to all upcoming medical professionals is that hard work, sincerity and dedication will always make you succeed," Rana said.

"Dr Rana was chosen in the category of 'recognising the best talents in encouraging the development of specialities in different branches in medicine' and Dr Kumar for the 'Eminent Medical Person' category," a senior official of SGRH said.

The Bidhan Chandra Roy Award was instituted in 1976 in the memory of renowned physician and freedom fighter B C Roy by Medical Council of India.

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A prominent Chinese-born academic at a Sydney university was stuck in southern China today after being prevented from flying home to Australia, according to his lawyer.

Police last Friday blocked Feng Chongyi, a permanent resident of Australia, from boarding a flight for Sydney from Guangzhou's international airport, lawyer Liu Hao told AFP.

"They told Feng that... He was suspected of harming national security and could not leave China," Liu said.

"They didn't show any ID or papers. They just held him for questioning at the airport before releasing him."



Feng teaches at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS).

Formerly he was head of Chinese Studies at UTS for 11 years and conducted research on China's pro-democracy groups.

More recently the former newspaper publisher has criticised Beijing's influence on Australia's Chinese-language media outlets.

Feng is staying in a hotel in Guangzhou and does not know when he will be able to return to Sydney, sources told AFP.

The impasse overshadowed a five-day visit by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to Australia, which ended yesterday, to promote economic ties.

Former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr, who leads the Australia-China Relations Institute at UTS, was in China attending the Boao economic forum over the weekend.

Carr said in a statement today that he was "making representations in Beijing and Canberra about the case" and "hoped Dr. Feng's return could be quickly resolved".

Australia is aware that a UTS professor has been prevented from leaving China but the government can provide consular assistance only to "citizens who have entered China on their Australian passport", the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told AFP.

Police in Guangzhou could not be reached for comment.

A Taiwanese NGO worker who sought to promote democracy in China went missing after entering the mainland earlier this month, according to Taiwan authorities.

Lawyers, activists and academics in China are often accused of being in cahoots with foreign organisations trying to undermine national security and stir up opposition to the communist government.

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Bangladesh's army today cleared a booby-trapped militant den in Sylhet and carried out controlled explosions of bombs in the building, a day after all four Islamist terrorists holed up there were killed in one of the country's longest anti-terror operations.

Several powerful blasts rocked the area as army's bomb disposal experts engaged in defusing the explosives laid out at different corners of the building by the militants before their deaths.

"The army's explosive experts are working inside to defuse the devices apparently through controlled explosions," an eye witness said.

An army spokesman said their assaults inside the militant hideout killed all Islamists but the 'Operation Twilight' is still underway secure the site.

"They (troops) are using drones to get a clearer picture before stepping inside different corners of the building to evade booby traps," an official told PTI.

Sylhet-based 17 Infantry Division's Major General Anwarul Momen is leading the operation, assisted by police's SWAT and counter-terrorism units.

Heavily-armed commandos yesterday neutralised all four "well-trained" Islamist militants, including a woman, who were holed up in a building, during four days of siege that saw powerful blasts claimed by the Islamic State that killed six people in northeastern Sylhet city.

Army's Brigadier General Fakhrul Ahsan told the media briefing powerful "improvised explosive devices" laid by "much trained militants" at its different corners exposed the building to vulnerability requiring the military to exhaust a process ahead of wrapping up the operation.

"The militants had kept a bucket filled with explosives at the collapsible gate at entrance of the building. When we detonated them from distance, the collapsible gate was blown out so vigorously, walls of another building several yards away were severely damaged," Ahsan said.

He earlier also described the militants as "well trained" referring to an example when they hurled back a live grenade thrown by the commandos as the assault was underway.

The operation was launched after a suicide bomber on Friday night blew himself up at the international airport in Dhaka in an attack claimed by the ISIS. It came a week after an identical attack on a RAB camp in Dhaka.

Authorities called out commandos on Saturday morning, two days after a security siege to the building.

On Saturday evening, two powerful bombs ripped through a crowd near the building, killing six people, two being police officers and injuring about 50, including two army officers.

(Reopens FGN13)



Elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) Intelligence Wing



chief Lt Col Abul Kalam was seriously wounded in blasts and flown to Dhaka for treatment. He was later flown to Singapore.

The attacks were carried out by the extremists from outside who were mixed up with onlookers, police said.

Hours later the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack through its propaganda agency 'Amaq'.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, however, rejected the ISIS claim, saying that there was no presence of any foreign terrorist group in the country.

The encounter continued into Sunday, when army commandos shot dead two militants at the building.

The commandos located the militants wearing suicide vests on the ground floor of the building and shot them dead.

The militants were equipped with small arms, explosives and grenades and laid out booby traps at different corners of the building, slowing down the military operation.

The commandos earlier evacuated 78 residents, including children from the building.

A militant couple lived for the past three months as tenants.

Residents who lived in the house as tenants said they were virtually taken to hostage with militants warning them of bombs implanted on their way out while the commandos brought them out from the top of the building making their way there from the rooftop of an adjacent structure.

Bangladesh has been witnessing a spate of attacks on secular activists, foreigners and religious minorities since 2013. The country launched a massive crackdown on militants specially after the Dhaka cafe attack.
Ripple effects of the crackdown on illegal abattoirs in Uttar Pradesh are being felt in West Bengal as the beef dealers here are complaining of a decline in business and exports.

The supply of meat, mostly buffalo meat, from Uttar Pradesh has come down to a great extent and as a result, the thriving beef-packaging industry here has been affected, Mohammed Ali, president of Calcutta Beef Dealers' Association, told PTI.

"In Bengal, we have a big industry where packaging of beef is done before exporting it to other countries. With the closure of the slaughterhouses, the entire beef chain has been badly hit," he said.

Ali also apprehended lay-offs in the near future as several people had become jobless in the last few days due to the dearth in supply of raw materials.

"Our dealers in Uttar Pradesh are unable to send buffaloes in trucks or trains as strict checking is going on, resulting in many small meat processing units in the state downing shutters. If this goes on for another week, there will be huge lay-offs in the meat processing and packaging sectors," he warned.

Ali said the beef dealers were contemplating meeting Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to seek her intervention in the matter.

The crackdown on illegal abattoirs was one of the first decisions taken by the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh, which was sworn-in on March 19 after the BJP swept the Assembly polls in that state.

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Three young men allegedly owing allegiance to the banned ISIS and suspected to be involved in the Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train blast, had shot dead a retired school principal in cold blood just to test their firing skill.

The shocking revelation was made during the interrogation of Mohammed Atif Muzzafar and Danish, who were arrested by the Madhya Pradesh police soon after the train blast on March 7, NIA officials said today.

The case is now being probed by the NIA.

Atif and Danish were claimed to have told their interrogators they had practised firing a pistol on the banks of the Ganga in Kanpur.

After the practice, the duo along with Saifullah, who was killed in a 12-hour encounter with Uttar Pradesh Police on March 8 at Thakurganj near Lucknow, rode a motorcycle in the lanes of Kanpur to look for a live target. It was there that they spotted 62-year-old Ramesh Shukla riding a bicycle.

Despite having retired two years ago, Shukla's passion for teaching continued and he used to take extra classes for students at a school.

Atif and Danish took out their pistols and fired a shot each at the unsuspecting victim, killing him on the spot. The 'practical test' accomplished, Saifullah dropped them out of Kanpur.

In their statement, the duo said they were "happy" the next day reading about the incident in newspapers and complimented each other for "successfully clearing" the practical test, the officials said.

The NIA has shared its investigation report with the UP police. One of the bullets lodged in the body of the deceased teacher has been preserved as evidence.

The central anti-terror probe agency has now asked the UP police to match the bullethead with the pistol recovered by the agency at the instance of Atif and Danish, they said.

Ten people were injured when a low-intensity IED exploded on board the Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train near Jabdi railway station in Shujapur district of Madhya Pradesh on March 7 this year.

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Brooklyn Beckham is reportedly set to leave home for university this year, in order to study photography.

The 18-year-old son of Victoria and David Beckham will leave their palatial London residence to move closer to his university, where he plans to study photography, reported Contactmusic.

"Brooklyn is already pretty independent so he has few qualms about living away from his family. He's obviously going to miss them all but he's ready for his next adventure," a source says.

"If he wants to achieve his dream job full time, having the extra learning behind him will be such an asset.

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The Calcutta High Court today denied bail to five suspected CPI(M) activists allegedly involved in gunning down nine villagers of Netai in Paschim Medinipur district over six years ago.

A division bench of justices Ashim Kumar Roy and S Prasad denied bail to the five - Umesh Pandey, Dalim Pandey, Phullora Mondal, Chandi Karan and Mohd Khalilulla on the CBI's plea that enlarging them on bail at this juncture would not be in the interest of the case.

The five, presently lodged in the district jail along with their 15 other accomplices, had moved the court for bail saying they have been in the custody for long, while there had been little progress in the trial of the case.

CBI counsel Ashraf Ali, however, opposed their plea saying the trial of the case has been stayed by the Supreme Court and enlarging the accused on the bail at this juncture would not be in the interest of the case after the apex court allows the trial.

After hearing the two sides, the bench turned down the bail pleas.

The incident dates back to January 7, 2011 when the nine villagers, said to be sympathisers of non-Left parties, were shot dead in indiscriminate firings from the house of a local CPI(M) leader Rathin Dandapat.

Following the killings, the then Left Front government of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had ordered a CID probe, but on a plea by the Calcutta High Court Bar Association, the state's high court had ordered a CBI probe on February 18, 2011.

The CBI probe had been ordered on the bar's fear that the state investigative agency may not conduct a fair probe due to the alleged role of the CPI(M) activists in the killings.

A total of 20 persons were accused in the case, of whom nine were arrested within weeks after the crime while the rest kept evading the arrest till the CBI filed its charge sheet in the Jhargram sub-divisional court in 2014.

All the 11 absconders later surrendered and are in the judicial custody along with the nine others.

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United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. TAULANT MANELLI, Petitioner, v. U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. No. 16-14418 Decided: March 27, 2017

Before MARCUS, JORDAN, and FAY, Circuit Judges.

Taulant Manelli, an Albanian national, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals' order adopting and affirming the immigration judge's denial of his application for asylum. Mr. Manelli argues that the BIA and immigration judge improperly concluded that he failed to show that his membership in a particular social groupconsisting of members of his familywas one central reason for any past or future persecution. Upon review of the record and consideration of the parties' briefs, we deny the petition.

I

In support of his asylum application, Mr. Manelli stated that his family was prominent in Albania and that members of his family were threatened by who he believed to be associates of an Albanian mafia. Specifically, in early 2015, Mr. Manelli's father was approached by two or three men who assaulted him and told him if he did not pay them a large sum of money, they would kill Mr. Manelli. Later that day, Mr. Manelli fled Albania.

Following Mr. Manelli's arrival in the United States, the unidentified individuals continued to pursue his family. During a recent attack, the individuals severed his father's left hand. Mr. Manelli alleges that the individuals had not been apprehended or punished and, due to pervasive corruption, the Albanian government would be unwilling and unable to protect him. He contends that he was targeted because of his relationship to his father, and if not for that relationship, he could safely return to Albania.

II

We review the BIA's decision as the final judgment unless the BIA expressly adopts the immigration judge's decision, in which case we will review the decisions of both the BIA and the immigration judge. See Kazemzadeh v. U.S. Atty. Gen., 577 F.3d 1341, 1350 (11th Cir. 2009). Factual determinations are reviewed under the highly deferential substantial evidence test, which requires us to view the record evidence in the light most favorable to the agency's decision and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of that decision. Adefemi v. Ashcroft, 386 F.3d 1022, 1027 (11th Cir. 2004). We must affirm the BIA's decision if it is supported by reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on the record considered as a whole. Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). To reverse factual findings, we must find that the record not only supports reversal, but compels it. Mendoza v. U.S. Atty. Gen., 327 F.3d 1283, 1287 (11th Cir. 2003).

III

An alien who arrives in or is present in the United States may apply for asylum, which the Attorney General has discretion to grant if the alien meets the [Immigration and Naturalization Act's] definition of a refugee.  Sepulveda v. U.S. Atty. Gen., 401 F.3d 1226, 1230 (11th Cir. 2005). Under the INA, a refugee is a person outside his country of nationality who is unable or unwilling to return to  that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular group, or political opinion. 8 U.S.C.  1101(a)(42)(A). To establish eligibility for asylum, the applicant must establish either (1) past persecution on account of  [one of these] protected ground[s], or (2) a well-founded fear that [his]  protected ground will cause future persecution. Sepulveda, 401 F.3d at 123031. Further, the applicant must demonstrate that one of the statutorily protected grounds was or will be at least one central reason for persecuting him. 8 U.S.C.  1158(b)(1)(B)(i).

Although Mr. Manelli presented evidence which could have supported a finding of persecution, substantial evidence supports the BIA's and immigration judge's determination that Mr. Manelli failed to show that his membership in a particular social group was or would be one central reason for any past or future persecution. Mr. Manelli testified that the attackers' intention was only money, and his cousin corroborated this assertion when he testified that the individuals targeted the Manelli family due to its wealth. The record does not compel a finding that the mafia had any animus toward the Manelli family itself. Rather, Mr. Manelli testified that if he did not leave, his family would have had to sell all their properties to pay the attackers off. This statement permitted the immigration judge and the BIA to conclude that the threats and attacks were about financial gain, and if the attackers received the money, they would no longer seek to harm Mr. Manelli or his family. Cf. Sanchez Jimenez v. U.S. Atty. Gen., 492 F.3d 1223, 123334 (11th Cir. 2007) (holding that petitioner demonstrated that his persecution was motivated at least in part by a protected ground because, although the FARC did demand financial support from him, it also targeted him because of his political activities).

The evidence permits a finding that Mr. Manelli was the victim of criminal activity, not that he was or will be persecuted on account of his relationship to his father or his family. See Ruiz v. U.S. Atty. Gen., 440 F.3d 1247, 1258 (11th Cir. 2006) ([E]vidence that either is consistent with acts of private violence  , or that merely shows that a person has been the victim of criminal activity, does not constitute evidence of persecution based on a statutorily protected ground.). The record does not compel the conclusion that Mr. Manelli's membership in a particular social group was or will be at least one central reason for any past or future persecution and, as such, the BIA and immigration judge properly determined that Mr. Manelli failed to show that he was eligible for asylum.

IV

For the reasons stated above, we deny Mr. Manelli's petition.

PETITION DENIED.

FOOTNOTES

. The petition also indicates that Mr. Manelli petitions for review of the BIA's denial of his applications for withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture. Because he failed to raise any argument concerning these claims, however, he has abandoned those issues. See Access Now, Inc. v. Sw. Airlines Co., 385 F.3d 1324, 1330 (11th Cir. 2004) ([A] legal claim or argument that has not been briefed before the court is deemed abandoned and its merits will not be addressed.).

. We thank Mr. Osorio for his pro bono representation of Mr. Manelli.

PER CURIAM:
The Centre waives off farmers' loans in a state only if it votes for the BJP, Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar today alleged after visiting Tamil Nadu farmers protesting at Jantar Mantar here.

The former Congress MP was speaking to the media after expressing solidarity with farmers from the drought-hit southern state who were protesting for the last 15 days demanding a drought relief package of Rs 40,000 crore from the Centre and a loan waiver.

"Centre waives off farmers' loans in a state only if it votes for BJP. What kind of politics is this?" Aiyar asked.

"How can the Centre say that they don't have enough funds to waive off loans in this situation? They waived off loans when they came to power in other states," Aiyar said, adding that he hopes the issues will get resolved in a few days.

Meanwhile, Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker M Thambidurai met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and submitted a letter of TN Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami requesting the Centre to fulfill the farmers' demand.

A delegation of OPS faction of AIADMK led by Member of Parliament V Maithreyan is also expected to visit the protesting farmers.

Cutting across party lines, leaders of various political parties today visited the farmers and offered their support.

DMK Rajya Sabha MPs T K S Elangovan and R S Bharathi and Pondicherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy had also visited the farmers and offered their support.

G K Vasan, the Tamil Manila Congress chief, is expected to meet President Pranab Mukherjee in the evening.

"We are planning to meet the President and apprise him about the difficulties faced by farmers," Vasan had said.

The farmers are expected to meet Union Minister for Agriculture Radha Mohan Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the evening. DMK MP Tiruchi Siva is expected to accompany the farmers during the meeting with Jaitley.

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Bonded by an air crash which killed 71 people in November, Brazilian club Chapecoense and Colombia's Atletico Nacional said they will play a South American cup final next week.

The first leg of the Recopa Sudamericana final, between the champions of the Copa Sudamericana and the Copa Libertadores, will be staged in the southern Brazil city of Chapeco on April 4.

The return leg will be in Medellin on May 10, the clubs said yesterday.

In November, 19 members of the Brazilian team died in the crash outside Medellin as they travelled to play Nacional in the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana final.

The tragedy made Atletico Nacional pronounce Chapecoense as champion, and the South American confederation agreed.

Out of 77 passengers, 71 died, including players, journalists, and club officials.

Chapecoense has been slowly rebuilding with new players and sponsors, but families of the victims are struggling without financial compensation for their loss.

The Brazilian club needed a special authorisation to host the home game at 22,000-seat Arena Conda, since confederation rules say a minimum of 40,000 seats must be available for continental finals.

In a statement, CONMEBOL said the 200,000 residents of Chapeco want to "pay in their own city a special tribute to Atletico Nacional for their actions of solidarity and support offered at the time of the air crash.

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The chief of the terror group blamed for Bangladesh's worst terror attack at a Dhaka cafe was among the four Islamist militants killed in one of the country's longest anti-terror operations in Sylhet, police said today.

"Our intelligence suggest one of the four is top neo-JMB (neo-Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh) leader Musa," Police's Assistant Inspector General M Moniruzzaman told PTI.

He, however, said forensic investigation was ordered to further confirm his identity as his face was mutilated in the fierce encounter.

Officials earlier identified the man only as Musa, saying he took the charge of the outfit as a massive anti-militancy operations killed several top neo-JMB leaders after the July 1 attack on Holey Artisan cafe.

The July 1 attack on Gulshan's Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's posh diplomatic area killed 23 people, including an Indian girl.

Musa was among four Islamist terrorists killed during 'Operation Twilight', one of the country's longest anti-terror operations launched after a suicide bomber on Friday night blew himself up at the international airport in Dhaka in an attack claimed by the ISIS. It came a week after an identical attack on a Rapid Action Battalion camp in Dhaka.

The four militants, including a woman, were holed up in a building that saw powerful blasts claimed by the Islamic State that killed six people in northeastern Sylhet city.

Bangladesh's army today cleared the booby-trapped militant den in Sylhet and carried out controlled explosions of bombs in the building.

Several powerful blasts rocked the area as army's bomb disposal experts engaged in defusing the explosives planted at different corners of the building by the militants before their deaths.

"The army's explosive experts are working inside to defuse the devices apparently through controlled explosions," a source said.

An army spokesman said their assaults inside the militant hideout killed all Islamists but the 'Operation Twilight' is still underway secure the site.

"They (troops) are using drones to get a clearer picture before stepping inside different corners of the building to evade booby traps," an official said.

Sylhet-based 17 Infantry Division's Major General Anwarul Momen is leading the operation, assisted by police's SWAT and counter-terrorism units.

Army's Brigadier General Fakhrul Ahsan told the media briefing powerful "improvised explosive devices" laid by "much trained militants" at its different corners exposed the building to vulnerability requiring the military to exhaust a process ahead of wrapping up the operation.

"The militants had kept a bucket filled with explosives at the collapsible gate at entrance of the building. When we detonated them from distance, the collapsible gate was blown out so vigorously, walls of another building several yards away were severely damaged," Ahsan said.

He earlier also described the militants as "well trained" referring to an example when they hurled back a live grenade thrown by the commandos as the assault was underway.

Authorities called out commandos on Saturday morning, two days after a security siege to the building.

On Saturday evening, two powerful bombs ripped through a crowd near the building, killing six people, two being police officers and injuring about 50, including two army officers.

RAB Intelligence Wing chief Lt Col Abul Kalam was seriously wounded in blasts and flown to Dhaka for treatment. He was later flown to Singapore.

The attacks were carried out by the extremists from outside who were mixed up with onlookers, police said.

Hours later the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack through its propaganda agency 'Amaq'.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, however, rejected the ISIS claim, saying that there was no presence of any foreign terrorist group in the country.

The encounter continued into Sunday, when army commandos shot dead two militants at the building.

The commandos located the militants wearing suicide vests on the ground floor of the building and shot them dead.

The militants were equipped with small arms, explosives and grenades and laid out booby traps at different corners of the building, slowing down the military operation.

The commandos earlier evacuated 78 residents, including children from the building.

A militant couple lived for the past three months as tenants.

Residents who lived in the house as tenants said they were virtually taken to hostage with militants warning them of bombs implanted on their way out while the commandos brought them out from the top of the building making their way there from the rooftop of an adjacent structure.

Bangladesh has been witnessing a spate of attacks on secular activists, foreigners and religious minorities since 2013. The country launched a massive crackdown on militants specially after the Dhaka cafe attack.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
China today urged France to protect the safety and rights of its citizens after police in Paris killed a Chinese national, sparking a violent protest.

French police arrested 35 people after a demonstration late yesterday by the capital's Asian community over the killing turned violent.

China calls on Paris to "guarantee the safety and legal rights and interests of Chinese citizens in France and to treat the reaction of Chinese people to this incident in a rational way," foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular press briefing, adding that the government had filed an official complaint over the events.

After learning of the incident, China "immediately ordered its embassy in France to activate an emergency response mechanism (and) made representations with the French side, asking them to get to the bottom of the incident," she said.

"Meanwhile, we hope that our citizens... In France can express their wishes and demands in a lawful and reasonable way."



Paris police said around 150 "members of the Asian community" gathered late Monday outside a police station in the northeast of the capital.

Three officers were slightly injured in the running clashes and one police vehicle was damaged by an incendiary device.

The angry demonstrators were protesting against police violence after an officer shot dead a Chinese man on Sunday night.

Police sources told AFP that officers were called to the man's house after reports of a domestic dispute. An officer shot the man after being attacked with a knife, according to the official account.

The family, however, disputes this version of the incident, saying there was no domestic dispute and the man was shot without warning after a neighbour called the police about shouting.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A group of lawyers today staged a demonstration in front of the District Court in Salem in support of some farmers protesting in New Delhi over the past two weeks to press their charter of demands, including crop loan waiver.

About 50 lawyers shouted slogans in support of the farmers' demand and wanted both the Centre and state government to implement their charter of demands, police said.

Meanwhile, a group of farmers staged picketing at Palladam in nearby Tirupur district and expressed solidarity with their agitating counterparts in Delhi.

They held placards seeking immediate constitution of Cauvery Management Board and also to link rivers in Southern states.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Farmers Association (apolitical), which met at Tirupur, expressed concern over the alarming situation in the agricultural sector in Tamil Nadu.

Stating that the drought relief announced by the Centre was very meagre to tide over the crisis, association president Ponnusamy said the state government should at least provide a compensation of Rs 25,000 per acre.

A delegation would soon meet chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami in this connection, he said.

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The United Liberation Front of Assam (Independent) has advised the Dalai Lama to desist from using "Assam's soil" to "propagate India's views on China" during the Buddhist leader's upcoming visit to the state.

ULFA(I) chairman Abhizeet Asom, in an email addressed to the Dalai Lama, said, "If your Holiness indeed decides to come to Assam...Nothing against China will be uttered by you in private or public. We won't tolerate India's view to be propagated from Assam's soil."



The e-mail was sent to various media organisations.

Maintaining that China had always been a "friendly neighbour", the separatist outfit pointed out that the relationship between that country and Assam was "truly very deep, linguistically and culturally".

The Buddhist leader is scheduled to attend the Namami Brahmaputra festival in Assam from April 1, on his way to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.

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Congolese national police accused rebels of massacring 39 of their officers in the violence-wracked Kasai region.

The victims were killed in an "ambush" early Friday and buried in a mass grave by supporters of late militia leader Kamwina Nsapu around 75 kilometres north of Tshikapa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo's central Kasai region, a police spokesman said.

The 39 massacred police officers had been travelling in two army transport trucks "with a substantial cargo" of materiel and law enforcement equipment, which their attackers hijacked, spokesman Colonel Pierre-Rombaut Mwanamputu added in a statement.

The national police "strongly condemns this massacre" and have taken urgent measures to boost security in that part of the country, the statement said.

The remote region has been plagued by violence since mid-August, when government forces killed Nsapu, a tribal chief and militia leader who had rebelled against President Joseph Kabila's central government.

Clashes between government forces and Nsapu supporters began in central Kasai, but the violence has since spilled over to the neighbouring provinces of Kasai-Oriental and Lomami, leaving at least 400 people dead.

The Kamwina Nsapu group is accused of numerous atrocities by the United Nations and of using child soldiers.

DR Congo security forces have also faced regular UN condemnation over the use of disproportional force against the militiamen, who are armed mainly with clubs and catapults.

Earlier this month, seven Congolese soldiers were arrested after the online release of a video implicating troops in an alleged massacre in Kasai-Oriental province.

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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached assets worth Rs 263 crore, including land and bank accounts of the Hyderabad-based Deccan Chronicle group, in connection with a money laundering case related to a bank fraud.

The agency said it has issued a provisional order for attaching "movable and immovable assets in the form of land, residential properties, shares, bank balance, foreign currency receivables and luxurious cars in a bank loan fraud case pertaining to Ms Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited (DCHL), Hyderabad for causing a total loss of Rs 1,161.93 crore to six public sector banks



"The banks are Canara Bank, Andhra Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Central Bank of India, Corporation Bank and IDBI Bank," it said.

The Enforcement Directorate had booked a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against the company and others based on a CBI FIR and chargesheet.

The agency said its investigation "revealed that DCHL had availed loans for working capital, purchase of capital goods and short-term loans by overstating the receivables, understating huge loan liabilities by furnishing fabricated financial statements and not disclosing the loans taken from other banks and non-banking financial companies.

"In total, DCHL availed 111 loans amounting to Rs 10,000 crore from 16 different banks between 2004-2012. Out of such loans, an amount of Rs 2,800 crore is outstanding to various banks as on September 30, 2012 excluding interest," it said.

The agency alleged, "Such loan amounts were used for other than the specified purposes such as investing in 20 group companies or firms, acquiring companies with huge premiums, payments to Airbus towards purchase of cargo aircrafts, payments to BCCI for Indian Premier League franchisee of Deccan Chargers, payments towards dividends declared by Ms DCHL, buy-back of shares, issue of bonus shares, purchase of luxurious cars in the name of associates/group companies, repayment of earlier loans taken, among others."



The group companies of DCHL, it said, acquired movable and immovable properties with the loan received from Ms DCHL and did not disclose the same in the audited balance sheet of the companies concerned with a view to obscuring the identity of such properties which amounted to money laundering.

"Investigation also revealed that the loan funds used for purchase of retail franchisee by name 'Odyssey' were received back by the promoters at a later date.

"To show a rosy picture in the eyes of investors/banks, DCHL had declared dividends, issued bonus shares, bought back shares by investing an amount of around Rs 230 crore and the promoters of DCHL also received Rs 143 crore as dividends by using loan proceeds which later became non performing assets to banks," it said.

The agency said the properties attached under its order



today are other than the properties pledged to banks, NBFCs by DCHL, which are under attachment or taken over under SARFAESI Act or Debts Recovery Tribunal (DRT) proceedings.

"Further investigation is under progress," it added.

The attachment of assets under PMLA is aimed at depriving the accused of taking benefits of their ill-gotten wealth and such an order gets confirmed after a directive is passed by the Adjudicating Authority of the said Act within 180 days.
Elderly people in Shanghai now make up 31.6 per cent of China's biggest metropolitan city, highlighting the country's fast-paced growth of ageing population which is expected to touch 255 million by 2020.

The city's registered population of people aged 60 and above was 4.58 million by the end of 2016, a year-on-year increase of five per cent, data released by the Shanghai Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau and Shanghai Statistics Bureau said.

China's biggest city has a total population of 24.5 million.

The statistics also revealed that the city's life expectancy remains above 83, and there were 796,600 residents aged 80 or above last year, up 16,100 from 2015.

In order to meet the various demands of its ageing population, Shanghai has established 702 nursing homes with 132,800 beds, 488 daytime elderly care centres and 633 community canteens for old people, state-run Xinhua agency reported today.

China's old age population above 60 yearswill reach 255 million by 2020 putting heavy stress on geriatric care services, China's planning body said recently.

A plan for elderly healthcare in the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) jointly issued National Development and Reform Commission said the ageing population will grow at an average rate of 6.4 million a year.

By 2020, there will be 255 million elders, representing at least 17.8 per cent of the entire Chinese population which will result in decline in China's labour numbers besides increasing health expenditure for geriatric care.

To cope up with the looming demographiccrisis, China last year relaxed over three decades old one-child-policy and permitted couples to have a second child.

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United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit. United States of America Plaintiff - Appellee v. Yahya Jawad Defendant - Appellant No. 16-1596 Decided: March 27, 2017

Before RILEY,1 Chief Judge, LOKEN and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

Yahya Jawad challenges his sentence of 41 months imprisonment for trafficking in counterfeit mark goods in violation of 18 U.S.C.  2320(a)(1), asserting the district court erred in calculating the value of the counterfeit goods and denying Jawad an acceptance-of-responsibility reduction, and abused its discretion by setting a substantively unreasonable sentence. Having appellate jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C.  1291, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

In April 2014, the Michigan Department of State Police executed a traffic stop of Jawad during which he consented to a search of his van and trailer. As a result of this search, police officers discovered and seized a variety of counterfeit property, including purses, shoes, and belt buckles. The total value of the counterfeit items was estimated to be approximately $140,060. Jawad was convicted of possession of counterfeit property in Michigan state court and was required to pay a fine.

Jawad again came to the attention of law enforcement approximately nine months later. Jawad ran a liquidation or Clearance Sale in an abandoned store in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in January 2015. Undercover agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) paid a $7 fee to gain entry to the event, where employees identified Jawad as the manager. Jawad admitted merchandise in his booth, such as knock-off Beats by Dr. Dre headphones and phony designer purses, was counterfeit. HSI agents seized all merchandise in Jawad's possession, valued at $156,650. On September 29, 2015, Jawad pled guilty to a one-count information charging him with trafficking in counterfeit goods in violation of 18 U.S.C.  2320(a)(1). The magistrate judge ordered Jawad released before sentencing on a personal recognizance bond with supervision.

While released on supervision, Jawad once again found himself violating the law. In December 2015, less than three months after Jawad pled guilty in Iowa federal court, Kansas law enforcement officers attended a Nationwide Liquidation event in Topeka, Kansas, to ensure the event complied with state regulations. A woman collecting a $6 membership fee at the doors to the abandoned grocery store told officers Jawad was in charge of the event. The officers verbally warned Jawad. Jawad assured the officers he would comply with all applicable regulations, including making sure vendors were not selling counterfeit goods. Undercover officers later returned to conduct a controlled buy. The undercover officers purchased hats and sunglasses that were determined to be counterfeit, including several pairs of counterfeit Ray-Ban sunglasses the undercover officers purchased directly from Jawad, along with caps bearing logo marks of Adidas, North Face, Nike, and Under Armour. Law enforcement then executed a search warrant and secured the entire premises. Only a portion of the merchandise at the sales event was seized because of the sheer amount of goods involved.

Jawad admitted the entrance fees collected went to him to offset some of the expenses that he has to pay in setting up and running the sales event. When asked where he obtained the merchandise, Jawad would only state the merchandise came from UPS. Boxes containing merchandise recovered at the sales event were addressed to Yahya Liquidation Sale, the name of Jawad's business, and other paperwork and business supplies such as credit card readers were registered to Yahya Jawad or Yahya Collections. The total value of the merchandise seized was estimated at $284,000.

Back in Iowa federal court, Jawad was sentenced on February 22, 2016. The government sought an enhancement pursuant to United States Sentencing Guidelines (U.S.S.G. or Guidelines)  1B1.3(a)(2) and 2B1.1, treating Jawad's Michigan conviction and the Kansas sale as relevant conduct in calculating the infringement amount of Jawad's offense of conviction. The government recognized the approximately $140,000 valuation from the Michigan conviction, the $156,000 valuation from the Iowa sale, and the $284,000 valuation from the Kansas sale would qualify Jawad for a fourteen-level enhancement, however, out of an abundance of caution, particularly related to the Michigan amount seized since we can't get our hands actually on it, the government only recommended a twelve-level enhancement. See id.  2B1.1(b)(1)(G)-(H). Jawad contended a ten-level enhancement was appropriate because only the merchandise Jawad was personally responsible for in the Kansas sale should be included in the total value because Jawad's involvement was limited to accepting the $6 entry fee and the items contained in only his booth. See id.  2B1.1(b)(1)(F).

The district court found the Kansas sale was relevant conduct to the offense of conviction and agreed with the government that the value of all merchandise seized at that event should be included in the total value of the infringement amount for purposes of U.S.S.G.  2B1.1. Because easily the amount fits within more than 250,000, but less than 550,000, the district court applied a twelve-level enhancement.

Jawad further argued for a two-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility pursuant to U.S.S.G.  3E1.1(a) because he pled guilty and was compliant and forthcoming with investigators. The government objected to the reduction, suggesting Jawad clearly did not accept responsibility for his actions because he persisted in a blatant re-offense of that which he had pled guilty to  in Iowa. The district court agreed with the government that Jawad did not accept responsibility. As the district court observed, [w]hen you are out on pretrial release, which is trusting someone to go out and remain free of crime and he goes and sets up another sale out of state, that argues very strongly against a break in sentencing for acceptance of responsibility. Accordingly, Jawad's total offense level was 20. With a criminal history category I, Jawad's advisory Guidelines sentencing range was 33 to 41 months imprisonment.

The district court then indicated it was inclined to sentence Jawad above his advisory Guidelines sentencing range and that the more appropriate sentence is around a five year sentence. The district court found Jawad's conduct exhibited a total and complete lack of respect for the laws of the United States and demonstrated Jawad is somebody who continually violates the same law or regulation time after time. Citing a need to reflect the seriousness of the offense and to deter Jawad from future crimes, the district court sentenced Jawad to 41 months imprisonment. Jawad filed this timely appeal, (1) contending the district court erred in calculating his advisory Guidelines sentencing range because it (a) applied a twelve-level increase for the amount of loss when it erroneously calculated the loss amount, and (b) failed to apply a two-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility, and (2) claiming his sentence is substantively unreasonable.

II. DISCUSSION

Though Jawad does not contend the Kansas sale itself should not be included as relevant conduct, Jawad asserts the district court should have only included the economic value of the goods for which he was personally responsible during the Kansas sale, instead of including the value of all merchandise seized from the event, when it calculated the infringement amount of his offense and relevant conduct pursuant to U.S.S.G.  1B1.3. We review the application of sentencing enhancements and reductions de novo, and review the underlying factual basis, such as the value of the infringement amount, for clear error. See United States v. Borders, 829 F.3d 558, 567 (8th Cir. 2016).

Specific offense characteristics, like the infringement amount, are determined by including all acts and omissions of others that were (i) within the scope of the jointly undertaken criminal activity, (ii) in furtherance of that criminal activity, and (iii) reasonably foreseeable in connection with that criminal activity. U.S.S.G.  1B1.3(a)(1)(B); see also id.  1B1.3(a)(2). Thus, in calculating a defendant's advisory Guidelines sentencing range for an economic offense involving theft, property damage, or counterfeit goods, the defendant can be held liable for any loss from activities reasonably foreseeable, within the scope, and in furtherance of, the criminal activity. Borders, 829 F.3d at 568.

By his own admission, Jawad was in charge of the Kansas sales event. At Jawad's sentencing hearing, the evidence demonstrated Jawad held the keys to the building where the sales event was held and used the entrance fees to offset his expenses in running the event. The investigators also found [c]hecks, card readers, business cards  national liquidation cards and connections to websites that were associated with some variation of Jawad's name or his Yahya business. The shipping labels on boxes of the counterfeit merchandise found throughout the event space were addressed to Yahya Liquidation Sale. It is clear from this evidence Jawad had a major role in organizing and arranging the Kansas sales event. As the organizer of an event specializing in the sale of knock-offs, and of similar events around the country, Jawad cannot claim other vendors' sales of counterfeit goods were not reasonably foreseeable or beyond the scope of his undertaking. See United States v. Adejumo, 772 F.3d 513, 533 (8th Cir. 2014) (In determining the individual defendant's relevant conduct, the district court must look at what the individual has agreed to do and whether the actions of others in the conspiracy were foreseeable from his vantage point.).

The main point of Jawad's argument against including all goods seized at the Kansas sale is that the district court valued the counterfeit goods [i]n a glaringly inconsistent manner by including only the counterfeit goods he personally held for sale in the valuation of goods for the Iowa sale. If anything, this argument points to a potential undervaluation of the infringement amount resulting from Jawad's criminal conductbecause Jawad was similarly in charge of the Iowa sales event, all counterfeit merchandise from that event reasonably could be included in calculating the amount of the infringement. The district court did not err in including the full value of the goods seized in the Kansas sale in Jawad's infringement amount and applying a twelve-level enhancement.

The district court similarly did not err in denying Jawad the requested two-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility. A district court can properly consider various factors in determining whether the defendant has accepted responsibility, including whether he truthfully admitt[ed] the conduct comprising the offense(s) of conviction and voluntar[il]y terminat[ed] or withdr[ew] from criminal conduct or associations. U.S.S.G.  3E1.1 cmt. n.1(A)-(B). [W]e will reverse the district court's denial of a reduction only if it is so clearly erroneous as to be without foundation.  United States v. Binkholder, 832 F.3d 923, 927 (8th Cir. 2016) (quoting Adejumo, 772 F.3d at 536). Here, the district court had a strong foundation upon which to base its denial of an acceptance-of-responsibility reduction. While Jawad did admit the conduct underlying his conviction, he did not voluntarily terminate or withdraw from his involvement in criminal conduct. [C]ontinued criminal conduct, even if minor and unrelated to the offense of conviction, can make a sentence reduction for acceptance of responsibility inappropriate. United States v. Ngo, 132 F.3d 1231, 1233 (8th Cir. 1997). Certainly, if subsequent minor, unrelated criminal conduct makes an acceptance-of-responsibility reduction inappropriate, so too does continued involvement in the same criminal conduct as the offense of conviction.

Finally, Jawad maintains his sentence was substantively unreasonable. While the district court did sentence Jawad at the top of his advisory Guidelines range,  it will be the unusual case when we reverse a district court sentencewhether within, above, or below the applicable Guidelines rangeas substantively unreasonable.  United States v. Feemster, 572 F.3d 455, 464 (8th Cir. 2009) (en banc) (quoting United States v. Gardellini, 545 F.3d 1089, 1090 (D.C. Cir. 2008)). Jawad's total and complete lack of respect for the laws of the United States, as the district court noted, and Jawad's disrespect for the rightful property rights of others, evidenced especially by Jawad's continued criminal conduct while on pretrial release, justify the district court's determination that Jawad is at high risk to recidivate because [he doesn't] care. While the district court recognized Jawad has no history of alcohol or substance abuse, the district court set a sentence it felt reflected the seriousness of Jawad stealing the mark of manufacturers who have expended consider[able] time and money to develop the mark and then deceiv[ing] the customer, which could have a potential impact on the American economy and the business people that work hard to produce responsible and respected goods. The district court did not fail to consider a relevant factor, give significant weight to an improper or irrelevant factor, or commit a clear error of judgment in weighing the appropriate factors, and thus did not abuse its discretion in sentencing Jawad. See United States v. Funke, 846 F.3d 998, 1000 (8th Cir. 2017).

III. CONCLUSION

We affirm in all respects.

FOOTNOTES

. The Honorable Linda R. Reade, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Iowa.

RILEY, Chief Judge.
Kerala-based Esaf Small Finance Bank, which was launched recently, hopes to double its balancesheet to Rs 5,000 crore by the end of fiscal 2018.

The company, as a microlender has a balancesheet of Rs 2,500 crore when it got converted itself into a small finance bank which began operations on March 20, thereby becoming the first private sector lender in Kerala after the Independence.

"We hope to double our business to Rs 5,000 crore by the end of next financial year. We did a business of Rs 2,500 crore by mid-March. By 2020, we hope our balancesheet can grow to Rs 10,000 crore," K Paul Thomas, founder and chief executive of the Thrissur-based Esaf Small Finance Bank told PTI over phone today.

As an MFI, the company is present in 11 states, which includes all the Southern states, barring Andhra Pradesh and Telengana; Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattishgrah, Jharkhand, Bihar and Bengal among others.

The bank began operations with 15 branches in Kerala, Thomas said, adding in Maharashtra the company will be focusing on the Vidharbha region. The first Mumbai branch will be opened in Andheri shortly, he said, adding in the first year of operations it plans to have 85 branches nation-wide.

When asked about the deposit pricing, Thomas said it varies from 5.75 to 9 per cent, with the term deposits attracting higher pricing.

"We are targeting Rs 500 crore in retail deposits in the first year. We are offering a savings rate of 6-7 per cent with up to Rs 1 lakh getting 6 per cent and above Rs 1 lakh getting 7 per cent. Senior citizens will get 50 bps more," he said, adding the bank already has 11.5 lakh customers.

Esaf, as an NGO and stands for Evangelical Social Action Forum, and owns 64 per cent in MFI which owns the bank.

The bank currently has Rs 350 crore in tier 1 capital and plans to raise Rs 200 crore in tier 2 capital some time this year and is already in talks with investors, Thomas said.

While Esaf MFI, which also functions as multi-state cooperative agri society, owns 64 per cent in the bank. Thomas own 5 per cent personally in the venture. Sidbi Venture owns 12 per cent, an Australian fund owns 19 per cent.

Thomas also said he is planning to divest stake in the bank by the end of fiscal 2018 and an IPO by 2020.

Esaf Small Finance Bank is among the first five out of the 10 licencees which got permission from RBI in August 2015.

Its urban plan includes entering Bengaluru, Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi and Hyderabad in the first year. Esaf MFI has 285 branches in 93 districts spread over 11 states all of which be converted into bank branches.

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The BJP in Goa would felicitate its national president Amit Shah on April 9 over the party securing power in four of the five states which went to polls recently.

"BJP Goa unit would be felicitating Amit Shah on April 9 for leading the party and forming the government in four states after the recently held assembly elections," party's Goa Unit President Vinay Tendulkar told PTI today.

A public meeting would be organised at Campal ground in the state capital, which will be attended by over 30,000 people, he said.

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, who played a key role in stitching up an alliance of regional outfits and independents paving the way for the BJP to form its government in Goa, will also be present at the meeting, he said.

This would be Shah's first visit to Goa after the February 4 Legislative Assembly elections.

The BJP, which finished second in Goa winning 13 seats, managed to form the government under Manohar Parrikar after cobbling together an alliance with regional parties like Goa Forward and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party besides getting three Independent MLAs to back them.

The BJP scored spectacular wins in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

In Goa and Manipur, where it fell short of a simple majority, the BJP managed to form ministries by securing the support of smaller groups and independents, frustrating the moves of rival Congress.

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The Delhi High Court today refused to interfere in the Aircel-Maxis case as the matter is pending before a special court set up by the Supreme Court.

A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal declined to entertain a PIL seeking directions to the CBI to move the trial court for "attachment and forfeiture of shares and all the assets of Aircel Ltd", as held by Maxis and its subsidiaries.

It said even if the allegations made in the petition were assumed to have any substance, appropriate steps need to be taken before the special court.

The judges said that if the directions sought in the PIL by a society were granted then it would not only interfere with the proceedings before the trial court, but would also defeat the purpose of the apex court's order by which the special court was set up to deal with the 2G spectrum scam cases.

"Hence, we are not inclined to entertain this petition and the same is dismissed accordingly," the bench said.

The petitioner, Society for Consumers and Investors Protection (SCIP), had alleged that the CBI was neither implementing the law nor going after some of the accused in the case.

SCIP had sought directions to the CBI to make several subsidiary companies of Maxis Communications as accused in the Aircel-Maxis case, which arose out of the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

The society had also sought directions to the Department of Telecommunications, SEBI, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and Foreign Investment Promotion Board to set aside the approvals granted to Reliance Communications Ltd for a merger of its wireless business with that of Aircel.

It had also asked for setting aside of the approvals granted to Bharti Airtel for acquisition of 4G spectrum of Aircel.

The society had urged the court to direct the authorities to not grant any further permission for transfer of any spectrum or shares held by Aircel or for change of its management or shareholding pattern till all accused in the case submit themselves before the special CBI court.

The petition had also demanded a probe by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in respect of the shares, all other valuable assets of Aircel and the property obtained as a result of the Aircel-Maxis deal.

It had alleged that "the accused persons are in the process of liquidating their holdings in Aircel Ltd and its subsidiaries by merging the same with Reliance Communications Ltd and selling its assets to Bharti Airtel and running away".

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Two men were arrested on drug charges after heroin was found hidden in the false bottom of a dog crate containing a Labrador retriever that had been shipped from Puerto Rico to New York.

Samuel Seabrooks, 35, of the Bronx, and Carlos Betancourt-Morales, 27, of Carmel, were arraigned on drug possession and conspiracy charges on Sunday, according to the Queens district attorney's office.

Prosecutors said Seabrook and Betancourt-Morales met up at a Bronx IHOP restaurant Friday night and traveled in separate vehicles to the American Airlines Priority Parcel Services at Kennedy Airport.

The two men had a brief conversation before Betancourt-Morales entered the cargo building and signed for a delivery receipt for the dog crate, prosecutors said. He was stopped by police as he pushed the crate on a rolling cart toward the building's exit.

After obtaining a search warrant, authorities recovered 10 plastic wrapped packages containing more than 22 pounds of heroin with a street value of more than $1 million. The packages were stamped with the Nike swoosh logo and a five-pointed star.

The two New York men face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Information on their attorneys was not immediately available.

"Statistics show that, unfortunately, heroin has made a comeback in New York City and its surrounding suburbs, with fatal overdoses outpacing homicides," said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

Animal rights activists condemned the use of a "helpless canine as a drug mule," said Jean Shafiroff of the American Human Society. She called for better animal control at New York City airports.

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Ian Chappell says India are lucky to have a stand-in captain like Ajinkya Rahane, who led the hosts to a series win in Dharamsala in the absence of injured Virat Kohli.

"India are very very lucky to have a stand in captain like Rahane. I thought he did a fantastic job," the former Australian captain told ESPNcricinfo.

"It is not easy to do the job of a fill in because you know the actual captain has a got a certain style. So (in that situation), you think 'what do I do? Do I try to copy that style or do I just be myself', and Rahane did the right thing. He captained in his own way," said Chappell.

Rahane performed the duties in his own quiet way, a contrast to the usually animated Kohli on the field.

"I would say Rahane is aggressive in his own quiet way. You know you don't have to be a gung ho captain to have the whole team behind you. You just need to do a good job and have the guys have faith in what you are doing.

"And if you are making the right moves, the aggressive field placing moves that Rahane was making, that sort of ting brings the right behind the captain.

"They (Kohli and Rahane) do it totally different. But I thought Rahane did a good job and had the team right behind him because of the way he captained," added Chappell.

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India and Vietnam today discussed a plan to strengthen bilateral cooperation in the field of information technology.

Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today met Truong Minh Tuan, Minister for Information and Communications of Vietnam, to discuss areas related to strengthening of bilateral cooperation in the field of IT, a release said.

"To carry forward the MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) signed in 2016 between India and Vietnam in the field of IT, a joint implementation plan has been signed between the two countries during the meeting," it said.

The meeting was held at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in New Delhi.

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Veteran Indian-origin South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, who was one of Nelson Mandela's closest aides, died today at a hospital here aged 87.

Kathrada died this morning at the Donald Gordon Hospital, his foundation said.

"This is great loss to the ANC (African National Congress), the broader liberation movement and South Africa as a whole. Internationally, he was staunch in his support for the Palestinian struggle," Neeshan Balton, Executive Director of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, said.

"'Kathy' was an inspiration to millions in different parts of the world," said Balton.

Kathrada, who frequently referred to Mandela as his 'elder brother', was among three political prisoners who were sentenced to life imprisonment together with the South African anti-apartheid icon after the infamous Rivonia Trial of 1964.

The two others were Andrew Mlangeni and Denis Goldberg.

They played major roles in shaping the country's policies after Mandela's election as the first democratic President of South Africa.

"We are deeply saddened to learn this morning of the passing on of our dear friend and founding trustee, Ahmed Kathrada," said the Nelson Mandela foundation on Twitter.

Kathrada was born on August 21, 1929 in Schweizer-Reneke, a town in the North West Province of South Africa, and introduced to politics as a young boy when he joined a non-racial youth club run by the Young Communist League.

At the tender age of 17, Kathrada participated in the 1946 Passive Resistance Campaign led by the South African Indian Congress.

He was among 2,000 people who were arrested and imprisoned for defying a law that discriminated against South African Indians.

In July 1963, the police swooped on Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, a Johannesburg suburb where Kathrada and other banned persons had been meeting secretly. This led to the famous Rivonia Trial in which eight accused were sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour on Robben Island.

Kathrada spent 26 years and 3 months in prison, including 18 years on Robben Island.

While in prison, he obtained four university degrees.

Kathrada also received the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award, India's highest honour for foreign nationals of Indian- origin, in 2005 from the President of India.

Despite having left the political arena, Kathrada has maintained a hectic schedule of local and international travel for the past few years in pursuit of the objectives of a non-racial society espoused by the Foundation that bears his name.

A prolific writer, Kathrada penned six books himself or with co-authors. He is survived by his wife Barbara Hogan, also an ANC stalwart and veteran.

Kathrada will be buried according to Muslim religious rites.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
: The Congress government in Karnataka today said it wasconsidering naming the subsidised food canteens proposed in the recent budget after former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

"There is a demand for naming it as Indira Canteens from the Congress legislature party...Will look into it and consider it while issuing order," Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said.

He informed this to the House while replying to the discussion on the budget that was presented on March 15.

As the Chief Minister made a reference about the canteens, calling it "Namma Canteens" as mentioned in the budget speech,some Congress MLAs said "it is Indira Canteens".

Taking the cue from the popular "Amma canteens" inTamil Nadu, introduced by former Chief Minister late Jayalalithaa, Siddaramaiah, who holds the Finance portfolio,had said while presenting the budget that he proposed to launch"Namma Canteens" in Bengaluru, where breakfast would beprovided at Rs five and lunch and dinner at Rs 10.

Trying to give a political touch to this "populist" announcement, the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) that met onMarch 22 had demanded that the canteens be named after formerPrime Minister Indira Gandhi, so that it can be better marketed to favour the party ahead of the 2018 assembly polls.

Siddaramaih said along with poor, the canteens wereaimed at catering to Bengaluru's floating population of about15 to 20 lakh people,as also to those who come to the city in search of jobs and as tourists.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Insurance regulator Irdai today slapped a penalty of Rs 20 lakh on ICICI Prudential Life for certain activities the largest private sector life insurer undertook in the past "in sheer violation" of regulatory norms.

"While a penalty of Rs 5,00,000 has been imposed on the insurer for sponsoring foreign trips for corporate agents in violation of regulatory norms, another Rs 5,00,000 penalty has been imposed on it for payouts made by it to group master policy holders (MPHs) in the name of marketing support fee for displaying its products in their premises in violation of norms," the regulator said a statement.

Similarly, the company has also been asked to pay Rs 10,00,000 penalty for arranging foreign trips to its corporate agents and employees of brokers under rewards and recognition programmes in violation of the regulatory norms.

The insurer had floated various sales campaigns under their rewards and recognition programmes to the employees other than specified persons of corporate agents also. Apart from the contests mentioned above, the insurer had arranged foreign trips to the employees of the corporate agents and incurred huge amounts towards the said trips, the regulator has found.

The regulator observed that arranging foreign trips and distribution of gift cards to employees of corporate agents directly by the insurer amounts to offering incentives to corporate agents and the same is in "gross violation" of Clause 21 of 2005 licensing guideliens of corporate agents.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das today said the state is progressing fast and will be made a developed one with its abundance of natural resources.

Remembering former MLA Bidesh Singh on his first death anniversary, Das said the state has signed MoUs with several companies during the Global Investors' meet in February and a cancer research centre and hospital was being constructed at Itki in Ranchi in partnership with the Tata company.

To develop local institutions, he said the Mukhyamantri Udyami Board (Chief Minister's Entrepreneur Board) has been set up through which small and medium companies would be set up to deal with lac, tasar and other raw material, a official release said.

Rs 700 crore has been earmarked in the budget for skill training and women would be imparted training to make blankets, towels and bed covers, the release quoting the Chief Minister said.

He said the next fiscal would be treated as Garib Kalyan Varsh under which fairs would be set up at villages and panchayats to elevate the poor.

In another function at the Mohrabadi ground in Ranchi, Das paid tributes to martyrs Nilamber and Pitamber and said the foundation stone for Nilamber-Pitamber University would be laid in July, the release said.

He said the process of starting an engineering and a polytechnic college at Lesliganj in Palamau has started.

Das unveiled statues of Nilamber Pitamber and inaugurated an Oxygen Park on the occasion.

Stating that the concept of development was incomplete without education, Das said the government has provisioned Rs 50 crore and started a fellowship for education of the poor and deprived people.

Libraries would be set up in all panchayats, the release quoting Das, said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit. Raul De La Rosa Plaintiff - Appellee v. Trooper Mark White Defendant - Appellant No. 15-3399 Decided: March 27, 2017

Before RILEY, Chief Judge,1BEAM and LOKEN, Circuit Judges.

In March 2012, Nebraska state trooper Mark White stopped a Ford Ranger pickup truck on Interstate 80 in Seward County, Nebraska for following another vehicle too closely. See Neb. Rev. Stat.  60-6, 140(1). After the driver, Raul De La Rosa, provided his Arizona license, Trooper White issued a warning and completed the traffic stop in less than fifteen minutes. However, when De La Rosa refused to consent to a search of the pickup, Trooper White called for a drug detection dog and detained De La Rosa for fifty minutes before the dog arrived from Omaha. The dog alerted to De La Rosa's vehicle; an interior search uncovered a small amount of marijuana and three concealed firearms. De La Rosa was arrested and charged in state court with carrying concealed firearms. The charges were dismissed after the state trial court granted De La Rosa's motion to suppress the firearms.

De La Rosa then filed this 42 U.S.C.  1983 damage action in state court, alleging that Trooper White unconstitutionally initiated a traffic stop and questioned, detained, and arrested De La Rosa without reasonable suspicion or probable cause. White removed the case to the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska and now appeals the district court's denial of his motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. An interlocutory order denying qualified immunity is immediately appealable to the extent that it turns on an issue of law. Aaron v. Shelley, 624 F.3d 882, 883 (8th Cir. 2010) (quotations omitted). Reviewing the denial of qualified immunity de novo, we reverse. See New v. Denver, 787 F.3d 895, 899 (8th Cir. 2015) (standard of review).

I.

A. Qualified immunity shields government officials from civil damage liability for discretionary action that does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). Qualified immunity is an immunity from suit, not a mere defense to liability. The Supreme Court has stressed the importance of resolving immunity questions at the earliest possible stage in litigation. Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 232 (2009) (quotation omitted). To avoid pretrial dismissal, a plaintiff must present facts showing the violation of a constitutional right that was clearly established at the time of the defendant's act. Id. at 232-33, 236.

B. The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. A traffic stop is constitutionally reasonable where the police have probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred. Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 809-10 (1996). A traffic stop may include inquiries incident to determining whether to issue a citation, and limited unrelated inquiries such as checking to determine if the vehicle occupants are wanted for prior offenses. See Rodriguez v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 1609, 1614-15 (2015). However, extending the detention beyond the time needed to complete the traffic-ticketing process is unlawful unless additional investigation, such as a dog sniff of the vehicle's exterior, is warranted by the officer's reasonable suspicion that other criminal activity may be afoot. See Rodriguez, 135 S. Ct. at 1616; United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 (1989). In this case, the district court granted Trooper White summary judgment to the extent that De La Rosa is claiming a constitutional violation based on the initial stop. De La Rosa does not challenge that ruling on appeal. Thus, the only issue before us is whether Trooper White is entitled to qualified immunity from the claim that he lacked reasonable suspicion warranting a fifty-minute extension of the traffic stop while he summoned a drug dog that alerted to De La Rosa's pickup.

C. Reasonable suspicion is a fact-specific determination: a reviewing court must look at the totality of the circumstances of each case to see whether the detaining officer has a particularized and objective basis for suspecting legal wrongdoing. United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 (2002) (quotations omitted). Reasonable suspicion requires that the officer possess at least some minimal level of objective justification. Sokolow, 490 U.S. at 7 (quotation omitted). Thus, courts must not uphold virtually random seizures based on circumstances [that] describe a very large category of presumably innocent travelers. Reid v. Georgia, 448 U.S. 438, 441 (1980). But in making determinations of probable cause and reasonable suspicion, the relevant inquiry is not whether particular conduct is innocent or guilty, but the degree of suspicion that attaches to particular types of noncriminal acts. Sokolow, 490 U.S. at 10 (quotation omitted).

II.

In this case, after initiating the traffic stop, Trooper White observed a spare tire in the bed of the pickup truck, obtained De La Rosa's Arizona driver's license, and asked De La Rosa about his travels and employment. De La Rosa said he was traveling from Phoenix, Arizona to visit family or friends in Peoria, Illinois. Though unemployed, De La Rosa said he performed odd jobs in Arizona to finance the trip. Trooper White asked if De La Rosa had been in trouble in the past with drugs, guns, or anything else. De La Rosa said no. Lincoln Dispatch advised that De La Rosa had a criminal history for destruction of property in 2005. Questioned further, De La Rosa explained that the charges were dropped, an explanation confirmed in the report dispatched to White's computer. Trooper White issued a warning ticket, returned De La Rosa's documentation, and told him that he was free to go. As De La Rosa exited the patrol car, White asked whether he had drugs or anything in the vehicle that shouldn't be there. De La Rosa said no. White asked for consent to search the vehicle; De La Rosa refused. White then told De La Rosa he was calling a drug detection canine unit to conduct an exterior sniff of the vehicle.

In denying Trooper White qualified immunity, the district court considered the uncontroverted facts in White's statement of undisputed material facts, supplemented by facts in De La Rosa's affidavit and exhibits that provided little additional substance. The court properly recognized that an officer needs reasonable suspicion to detain the motorist after completing a traffic stop, an inquiry based on the totality of the circumstances known to the officer at the time. The court then identified the following facts as the basis for Trooper White's suspicion of criminal activity:

De La Rosa allegedly lied about having a criminal history because he said he had not been in trouble with guns, drugs, or anything else but he had been charged, in 2005, with destruction of property.

De La Rosa said he was going from Phoenix to visit friends in Illinois; according to White, Arizona is a source state for contraband and Illinois is a destination site.

De La Rosa had a spare tire in the bed of his pickup truck, which White found interesting because it was not in a storage area under the bed of the truck, and sometimes contraband is transported in a spare tire.

De La Rosa stated that he was unemployed and had earned money for his trip by working odd jobs, which to White sounded like a cover story.

De La Rosa's demeanor was extremely laid back and relaxed, to the point that Trooper White felt like De La Rosa was being deceptive or stand offish. According to White, people that he contacts are usually conversational during the stop, but De La Rosa was closed off and non-conversational.

After carefully assessing each of these factors at length, the court concluded that the circumstances identified here, whether viewed individually or in combination, do not generate reasonable suspicion for De La Rosa's continued detention. The court denied Trooper White qualified immunity because two Eighth Circuit decisions, United States v. Jones, 269 F.3d 919 (8th Cir. 2001) and United States v. Beck, 140 F.3d 1129 (8th Cir. 1998), while not factually identical, are sufficiently on point to have placed that constitutional question beyond debate for purposes of qualified immunity. Focusing exclusively on whether Trooper White violated clearly established law in concluding that he had reasonable suspicion to detain De La Rosa until the drug dog arrived, we disagree.

III.

To be clearly established for qualified immunity purposes, [t]he contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987). A clearly established right is one that is sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right. We do not require a case directly on point, but existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate. Put simply, qualified immunity protects all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law. Mullenix v. Luna, 136 S. Ct. 305, 308 (2015) (citations and quotations omitted). Absent a case that is controlling authority in our jurisdiction, we look for a robust consensus of cases of persuasive authority. Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 742 (2011) (quotation omitted).

In the Fourth Amendment context, the Supreme Court has recognized that it is inevitable that law enforcement officials will in some cases reasonably but mistakenly conclude that probable cause is present, and [has] indicated that in such cases those officials  should not be held personally liable. Anderson, 483 U.S. at 641. Some years later, the Court further explained: Officers can have reasonable, but mistaken, beliefs as to the facts establishing the existence of probable cause or exigent circumstances  Yet, even if a court were to hold that the officer violated the Fourth Amendment by conducting an unreasonable, warrantless search, Anderson still operates to grant officers immunity for reasonable mistakes as to the legality of their actions. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 206 (2001). The same analysis applies when, as in this case, the Fourth Amendment issue is whether an officer had reasonable suspicion justifying a warrantless investigative detention, rather than probable cause to arrest or search. Thus, Trooper White is entitled to qualified immunity if a reasonable officer could have believed that he had a reasonable suspicion; in other words, if he had arguable reasonable suspicion. See New, 787 F.3d. at 899 (applying arguable probable cause standard in qualified immunity case); Jackson v. Sauls, 206 F.3d 1156, 1166 (11th Cir. 2000).

In this case, we find no controlling Eighth Circuit authority placing the question beyond debate, nor a robust consensus of cases of persuasive authority. More recent Eighth Circuit decisions have distinguished Jones and Beck, the cases on which the district court primarily relied, in finding no Fourth Amendment violations, let alone violations of clearly established Fourth Amendment law. See United States v. Riley, 684 F.3d 758, 764 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 133 S. Ct. 800 (2012) (distinguishing Jones and Beck); United States v. Fuse, 391 F.3d 924, 929-30 (8th Cir. 2004), cert. denied, 544 U.S. 990 (2005) (distinguishing Beck). Rather than a robust consensus of cases of persuasive authority favoring the district court's resolution of this difficult issue, our prior cases have found reasonable suspicion upholding the extension of traffic stops by officers relying on similar facts:

-- In Riley, 684 F.3d at 764, we concluded that a Missouri trooper acquired reasonable suspicion to extend a traffic stop pending arrival of a drug dog based on the traveler's undue nervousness, difficulty in answering basic questions about his itinerary, and failure to be forthright about his criminal history relating to drugs.

-- In United States v. Lyons, 486 F.3d 367, 372 (8th Cir. 2007), we concluded that an experienced [Nebraska trooper] trained in highway drug interdiction acquired reasonable suspicion to summon a drug dog when she learned, during the traffic stop, of the traveler's unusual travel itinerary between Phoenix and Chicago, the traveler gave contradictory descriptions of the friends that he had just visited, and the van contained a large amount of luggage for a short trip.

-- In Fuse, 391 F.3d at 929, we concluded that a Kansas trooper acquired reasonable suspicion to summon a drug dog from a number of factors including the driver's unusual explanation for traveling to Kansas City, and the travelers' continued, unusual nervousness even after being told only a warning citation would be issued. See also United States v. Lebrun, 261 F.3d 731, 733-34 (8th Cir. 2001).

-- In November 2009, after completing a traffic stop on I-80, an experienced Nebraska trooper detained the traveler an additional twenty minutes to summon a drug dog. Though the dog alerted, no criminal charges were filed, and the motorist filed a 42 U.S.C.  1983 damage action against the trooper and others. On March 9, 2012, the day after Trooper White stopped De La Rosa, a District of Nebraska district judge granted the trooper qualified immunity from the Fourth Amendment claim of extended detention, concluding the trooper had reasonable suspicion for further detention based on the officer's training and experience, the motorist's vague responses about his travel that did not make sense, and the officer's perception that the motorist appeared uncomfortable, stand-offish and would not maintain eye contact. Barton v. Heineman, 2012 WL 786347, at *6 (D. Neb. March 9, 2012), summarily aff'd, No. 13-2010 (8th Cir. Aug. 22, 2013). Inexplicably, White cited this prior decision on appeal but not to the district court. While Barton is not controlling authority, its timing and substantial factual similarity are strong evidence that, at the time Trooper White made the decision to extend his detention of De La Rosa, existing precedent [did not] place[ ] the  constitutional question beyond debate. Mullenix, 136 S. Ct. at 308 (quotation omitted).

In the district court, Trooper White pointed to objective, particular facts and explained why these facts led him to conclude he had reasonable suspicion to briefly extend De La Rosa's detention to determine if a drug dog would alert to the exterior of a pickup truck traveling from Arizona to Illinois on Interstate 80. To be sure, on the merits, the existence of reasonable suspicion was a close question, because the facts on which Trooper White relied, taken together, did not raise as strong a suspicion of interstate drug trafficking as in prior cases such as Riley and Lebrun. But White relied on facts presenting substantial similarities with prior cases in which reasonable suspicion of drug trafficking was found and extension of a traffic stop was upheld.

In recent years, the Supreme Court has repeatedly reversed decisions denying qualified immunity where lower courts misunderstood the clearly established analysis. White v. Pauly, 137 S. Ct. 548, 552 (2017). To avoid qualified immunity, De La Rosa must show a a robust consensus of cases of persuasive authority. Here, there is no consensus to be found in the prior decisions that have resolved a fact-intensive Fourth Amendment issue under a governing standard that requires judges to allow[ ] officers to draw on their own experience and specialized training to make inferences from and deductions about the cumulative information available to them that might well elude an untrained person. Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273 (quotation omitted). Trooper White is therefore entitled to qualified immunity from De La Rosa's damage claims.

The Memorandum and Order of the district court dated September 18, 2015, is reversed in part. The case is remanded with directions to enter summary judgment dismissing all claims against Trooper Mark White.

FOOTNOTES

. Trooper White averred that he did not notice that part of the report during the traffic stop. De La Rosa asserts that claim is hard to believe and unsupported in the record but does not argue this is a genuine issue of disputed material fact.

. [W]e have often held that nervousness and other subjective perceptions' are valid factors supporting reasonable suspicion. United States v. Bloomfield, 40 F.3d 910, 919 n.10 (8th Cir. 1994) (en banc), cert. denied, 514 U.S. 1113 (1995).

LOKEN, Circuit Judge.
Hundreds of students returned today to the elite American University in Kabul seven months after militants stormed the campus -- including those wounded in the bloody assault that killed 16 people.

Security has been increased at the campus in the Afghan capital after the attack last August, in which students trapped during the nearly 10-hour raid sent anguished pleas for help on social media.

"I don't think anything un-Islamic or against any group is taught here," said Rahmatullah, a returning student who was one of those wounded in the attack.

"It is just a centre to promote knowledge and that is going to succeed," he said.

The attack was one of the first major militant assaults on a prominent university in Afghanistan.

The university, which opened in 2006 and has more than 1,700 students, was long seen as a high-profile target for militants, partly because it attracts foreign faculty members.

The attack has cast a pall over the education sector, seen as a rare symbol of hope for the young at a time of rising insecurity.

"All our classes will resume today. We have worked on boosting the security of the university for the past seven months," Zubaida Akbar, the university's director of communication, told AFP.

President Ashraf Ghani has given special permission for a private foreign security company to fortify the campus with more concrete blast walls and bulletproof gates.

Private security companies were banned from operating independently in Afghanistan in 2010 in an attempt to control illegal weapons in the war-torn country, and must register with the government.

The raid began with a suicide bombing at the campus gates which paved the way for two gunmen to enter to compound at dusk, when it is usually packed with students.

No group claimed responsibility, but it occurred during a Taliban summer offensive against the Western-backed government.

About two weeks before the attack, two foreign professors of the university were seized from their vehicle and hauled them away at gunpoint.

Their whereabouts are still unknown and no group so far has publicly claimed responsibility for the abductions, the latest in a series of kidnappings of foreigners.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Kashmiri voters are determined to "defy the diktats" of terrorists, Union Minister Jitendra Singh today said, stressing that the terrorists tend to create volatile atmosphere ahead of polls.

South Kashmir will hold by-elections in two parliamentary constituencies - Srinagar and Anantnag - next month.

The minister's comments came as three civilians were killed in action by security forces against protesters near an encounter site in Budgam district in Kashmir.

The anti-militancy operation ended with the killing of the lone militant.

"On the eve of these by-elections, terorists and their supporters tend to create such kind of atmosphere but I am sure the common voters in Kashmir which comprise largely of the young voters are determined to defy the diktats of terrorists, the promoters of terrorism and become a part of India's mainstream healthy democracy," Singh said.

Three civilians - all young men in their twenties - were killed while 18 others were injured in security forces' action against a large number of protesters who pelted stones at the security personnel allegedly in a vain bid to help the holed up militant escape.

Security forces launched a cordon and search operation in Durbugh area of Chadoora in the early hours today following information about the presence of militants in the area.

The search operation turned into a gun battle after the militant opened fire on security forces.

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UK Parliament attacker Khalid Masood's wife today condemned his actions, saying she was "saddened and shocked" by what her husband did.

Reacting for the first time after the last week's attack, Rohey Hydara said: "I am saddened and shocked by what Khalid has done. I totally condemn his actions."



Hydara released the statement through Scotland Yard, a day after Masood's mother had similarly condemned the attack which claimed four lives and injured 50 others.

The 39-year-old expressed condolences to the families of the victims that have died, and wished a speedy recovery to all the injured.

"I would like to request privacy for our family, especially the children, at this difficult time," she said.

Masood's mother Janet Ajao yesterday said she had "shed many tears for the people caught up in this horrendous incident".

"I wish to make it absolutely clear, so there can be no doubt, I do not condone his actions nor support the beliefs he held that led to him committing this atrocity," she had said, in reference to her son born Adrian Russell Ajao before he converted to Islam.

The Metropolitan Police has said Masood had had a clear interest in jihad and his methods echoed the rhetoric ofthe Islamic State but there was no evidence he acted as part of the terrorist group.

The Metropolitan Police's Indian-origin deputy assistant commissioner, Neil Basu,said: "His attack method appears to be based on low sophistication, low tech, low cost techniques copied from other attacks, and echo the rhetoric of IS leaders in terms of methodology and attacking police and civilians, but at this stage I have no evidence he discussed this with others.

"There is no evidence that Masood was radicalised in prison in 2003, as has been suggested; this is pure speculation at this time. While I have found no evidence of an association with IS or AQ (Al Qaeda), there is clearly an interest in Jihad."



He added that there has been much speculation about who Masood was in contact with immediately prior to the attack and his communications that day remain a line of enquiry and called on the public to report if they heard from him on March 22, the day of the attack.

"I know when, where and how Masood committed his atrocities, but now I need to know why. Most importantly, so do the victims and families," he said.

The evidence into the deaths of the victims and the attacker has been presented by the Met at Westminster Coroner's Court yesterday.

"At this stage the Met will not confirm provisional cause of death," the Met Police said.

The inquest for the victims will open and adjourn tomorrow at Westminster's Coroner Court under the direction of the coroner, Fiona Wilcox.

Masood's inquest will open and adjourn at the same location on Thursday.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy pledged today to invest 4.2 billion euros (USD 4.6 billion) in Catalonia by 2020 as a battle for hearts and minds rages between Madrid and regional authorities that want independence.

At loggerheads with the separatist government in the northeastern region, which plans to hold a Scotland-style independence referendum against Madrid's will, Rajoy has launched a so-called "operation dialogue" in a bid to ease tensions and win over public opinion.

Criticised for inaction during his first term in office as independence fervour mounted in Catalonia, Rajoy promised to strive for a rapprochement when he took power again in November to solve what he has dubbed Spain's most serious problem.

Speaking in the seaside city of Barcelona, Rajoy promised "4.2 billion euros in investment in infrastructure, transport and housing between this year and 2020, which represents more than a billion a year."



Lack of investment in the wealthy but indebted region has long been a source of contention, pushing some weary Catalans to come out in support of independence, particularly as they see their tax money sent to Madrid and used to prop up other poorer regions.

The belated arrival of the high-speed train to Barcelona in 2008, 16 years after the first such link to Seville in the south, a lack of free highways, and delays in commuter trains are just some of the issues that have contributed to this weariness.

But polls show that many recently converted independence supporters would happily settle for more autonomy and better funding.

Hoping to lure them back, Rajoy pledged to pour money into the commuter train network, airports, roads and ports.

He also promised to finish by 2020 the Catalan section of a Mediterranean freight railway link due to go through coastal regions all the way down to Algeciras on Spain's southern tip.

In addition, Rajoy said he would address the long-time complaint about regional funding and taxes.

"This matters to me. I want Catalonia to be prosperous in a thriving Spain," he said, asking companies for "help in winning the battle for moderation".

But the regional government headed by Carles Puigdemont has reacted with a strong dose of scepticism to these overtures.

"Promises of investment in Catalonia made by the Spanish government have lost all credibility in the eyes of Catalan society," Puigdemont said in an article penned with his deputy Oriol Junqueras and published today in the regional daily El Periodico.

They said the central government's previous investment pledges had only been partially fulfilled.

"The state's investment in Catalonia represents 8.2 percent of total investment in regions," they said, arguing this was "way below" what it should be getting given the wealth it generates and how populous it is.

Catalonia is the region that contributes most to Spain's overall economy, accounting for just under a fifth of the total.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Newly-elected Chief Minister of Manipur N Biren Singh today met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju and apprised them about the prevailing security situation in the northeastern state.

During the 20-minute meeting, the Chief Minister briefed the Union Home Minister on law and order situation there and steps taken by the new BJP-led government to improve the security situation, official sources said.

The Home Minister assured the Chief Minister of all central help in ensuring peace in Manipur, they said.

This was the first meeting Biren Singh had with the Union Home Minister after he got elected as the Chief Minister of Manipur.

The Chief Minister also had a 30-minute meeting with Rijiju and discussed with him various issues concerning Manipur, sources said.

Singh is heading a BJP-led coalition government in Manipur. This is the first BJP-led government in the northeastern state.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Members in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday voiced concern over a Bill that proposes to amend the law on the end-use of data collected for statistical purposes, saying there is a possibility of misuse.

The government should say who will be using the data collected, the members said while participating in a debate on the Collection of Statistics (Amendment) Bill 2017 that proposes changes to the 2008 Act.

The Bill, introduced in the Lok Sabha on March 20, removes the provision under which the information collected could be used only for statistical purposes.

It allows the central government to determine the manner in which such information will be used. Also, the earlier Act is not applicable to Jammu & Kashmir and the Bill seeks to extend its jurisdiction to the state for the collection of statistics pertaining to subjects under the Union or the Concurrent list of the Constitution.

Criticising the legislation, BJD MP Tathagata Satapthy, said the bill deserves opposition as it gives arbitrary powers to the bureaucracy, which will get acess to sensitive data.

He said those supporting the legislation are unwilling to understand the dangers of the bill.

Satpathy then criticised the government on Aadhaar, saying it is being "dumped on the illiterates of the country".

Quoting an industrialist, he said, "data is the new oil" and by making Aadhaar compulsory, the government was "forcing people to give their data."

Congress member Deepinder Hooda said the government needs to clarify the intent on who will use the data.
A minor fire broke out this evening at Bapu Bhawan, the high-security building which houses offices of several ministers of the Uttar Pradesh government.

The fire was promptly brought under control with the timely intervention of fire tenders.

Minister Mohsin Raza was in his office when the fire broke out.

"We were in the office when we were informed about the fire but the security staff promptly guided us to safety by taking us to another wing of the building," the Minister of State for Minority Welfare told PTI.

Chief Fire Officer, Lucknow, AB Pandey said, "We were informed of the fire at 4.12 pm, and it was extinguished within 45 minutes.

He said the fire erupted in the air-handling room of the air-conditioning plant.

"The smoke got spread through the inter-connected ducts, but it was quickly brought under control," Pandey said.

He said nobody was injured in the incident.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi High Court today held as "prima facie illegal" the decision of US-based agro major Monsanto Technology to terminate its sub-licence given to three Indian companies for making and selling BT cotton seeds.

The court's ruling came while dismissing Monsanto's pleas against Nuziveedu Seeds Ltd, Prabhat Agri Biotech Ltd and Pravardhan Seeds Private Ltd for allegedly infringing on its patent and trademark in BT cotton, a genetically modified variant which resists bollworms.

The court, however, rejected the stand of the three companies that Monsanto was incorrectly granted the patent for its BT cotton seeds.

In his 96-page judgement, Justice R K Gauba said Monsanto "was duty bound" to consider the seed companies' request for modification of the terms of the sub-licence with regard to the trait fee, and since the US company "did not adhere to its obligation", its demand for a fee higher than what was permitted by law was "not lawful".

"As a sequitur (a logical conclusion), the termination of the sub-licence agreements by communications dated November 14, 2015 appears prima facie to be illegal and arbitrary," the court said and added the parties continue to be "locked with each other" in the arrangement under the 2015 sub-licence agreements prior to their termination.

The court also said since the termination of contract has been held to be prima facie illegal and the three companies having benefitted from the patented technology after entering into the agreements, they cannot now turn around and say they cannot be bound by the sub-licence terms.

It also made it clear that any trait fee chargeable would have to abide by the Cotton Seeds Price (Control) Order 2015 and the Licencing and Formats for GM Technology Agreement Guidelines of 2016.

The court further said that as long as the sub-licence agreements continue to be in force the three Indian companies "cannot be injuncted against the use of the suit patent or the trademarks", but the right to use the patent or trademarks would not be unconditional.

The court also dismissed Monsanto's plea seeking contempt



action against the Indian companies for alleged breach of an interim injunction by continuing to make seeds, saying that there was no order prohibiting the three from manufacturing seeds after November 30, 2015.

It said that the consent order of February 2016 only prohibited the three companies from sale of seeds which were made after November 30, 2015.

While dismissing the pleas of Monsanto, the court also issued a number of directions to be adhered to by the three Indian companies and the US agro major.

As per the court's directions, Monsanto has to inform the Indian companies about the modified terms with regard to the trait fee which would be chargeable as per the prevalent local laws.

The companies, thereafter, would be liable to pay the fee as per the prevalent local laws, and if the same is not accepted by Monsanto, it would be deposited in court from time to time.

It said if the Indian companies do not comply with the directions issued by the court, they would be "disentitled" from continued use of the patent or trademarks of Monsanto and "stand injuncted against continued use of patent and registered trademarks of the plaintiffs for the pendency of the suit".

If Monsanto does not withdraw the amounts within one month of deposit, the Registrar General has been asked to keep the money in fixed deposits for six months.
Mumbai Press Club has extended till March 31 the last date for inviting entries for the All India Redink Journalism awards 2017 in various categories.

The awards would be presented at a ceremony here on June 7, the Club said in a release today.

Entries are elicited in 11 categories that include politics, business, crime, science and innovation, and environment.

Entries from print/web and television will be judged separately by juries that are set up for each of the categories, it added.

This year a special drive is being made to elicit entries from regional media, and the response from Hindi publications has been especially encouraging, the release said.

Since the last 2 years a new category - Journalist of the Year - has been introduced, and it has witnessed a new spate of entries. Last year, NDTV India's Ravish Kumar won the award and in 2015, the award was conferred on Srinivasan Jain of NDTV.

The awards will be presented to winners at a function at Jamshed Bhaba Hall, NCPA, here.

The Redink awards have been created to raise the bar of and feature writing in India and to encourage fair play and high ethical standards in media, the release said.

In the past, doyens of journalism including Vinod Mehta, Kuldip Nayar, N.Ram, Mrinal Pande, Dr Prannoy Roy and last year T.N.Ninan have been honoured with the 'Redink Award for Lifetime Achievement' for their long and consistent service to the profession.

The presenting partner along with the Mumbai Press Club for the awards is Star India, while 'The Hindu Group' is the 'Print Media Partner'. Other associates include Glenmark Pharma, the Aditya Birla Group, Dr Reddy's Laboratories and Eros International, it said.

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The chief of the terror group blamed for Bangladesh's worst terror attack at a Dhaka cafe was among the four Islamist militants killed in one of the country's longest anti-terror operations in Sylhet, police said today.

"Our intelligence suggests one of the four is top neo-JMB (neo-Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh) leader Musa," Police's Assistant Inspector General M Moniruzzaman told PTI.

The army said they have wrapped up their assaults on the militant den by late evening.

"Accomplishing all (our army) actions, the building has been handed over to the police administration as a 'crime scene' this afternoon with announcement of the end of Operations Twilight," army spokesman Brigadier General Fakhrul Ahsan told a briefing at Sylhet's Jalalabad Cantonment.

The commandos main assault had ended yesterday with the killing of all four militants inside the five-storey building.

Military took one more day to accomplish the required procedures including further security searches and disposal of devices left by the slain extremists, he said.

"The entire operation was carried out in line with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's specific directives," Ahsan said.

The July 1 attack on Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's posh diplomatic area killed 23 people, including an Indian girl.

Meanwhile, Forensic investigation was ordered to further confirm Musa's identity as his face was mutilated in the fierce encounter. Officials earlier identified the man only as Musa, saying he took the charge of the outfit as a massive anti-militancy operations killed several top neo-JMB leaders after the July 1 attack on Holey Artisan cafe.

Musa was among four terrorists killed during 'Operation Twilight', one of the country's longest anti-terror operations launched after a suicide bomber on Friday night blew himself up at the international airport in Dhaka in an attack claimed by the ISIS. It came a week after an identical attack on a Rapid Action Battalion camp in Dhaka.

The four militants, including a woman, were holed up in a building that saw powerful blasts claimed by the Islamic State that killed six people in northeastern Sylhet city.

Bangladesh's army today cleared the booby-trapped militant den in Sylhet and carried out controlled explosions of bombs in the building.

Several powerful blasts rocked the area as army's bomb disposal experts engaged in defusing the explosives planted at different corners of the building by the militants.

"They (troops) are using drones to get a clearer picture before stepping inside different corners of the building to evade booby traps," an official said.

Sylhet-based 17 Infantry Division's Major General Anwarul Momen was leading the operation, assisted by police's SWAT and counter-terrorism units.

"The militants had kept a bucket filled with explosives at the collapsible gate at entrance of the building. When we detonated them from distance, the collapsible gate was blown out so vigorously, walls of another building several yards away were severely damaged," Ahsan said.

He earlier described the militants as "well trained" referring to an example when they hurled back a live grenade thrown by the commandos as the assault was underway.

Authorities called out commandos on Saturday morning, two days after a security siege to the building.

On Saturday evening, two powerful bombs ripped through a crowd near the building, killing six people, two being police officers and injuring about 50, including two army officers.

RAB Intelligence Wing chief Lt Col Abul Kalam was seriously wounded in blasts and flown to Dhaka for treatment. He was later flown to Singapore.

Hours later the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack through its propaganda agency 'Amaq'.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, however, rejected the ISIS claim, saying that there was no presence of any foreign terrorist group in the country.

The encounter continued into Sunday, when army commandos shot dead two militants at the building. The militants were equipped with small arms, explosives and grenades.

Residents who lived in the house as tenants said they were virtually taken to hostage with militants warning them of bombs implanted on their way out while the commandos brought them out from the top of the building making their way there from the rooftop of an adjacent structure.

Bangladesh has been witnessing a spate of attacks on secular activists, foreigners and religious minorities since 2013. The country launched a massive crackdown on militants specially after the Dhaka cafe attack.

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NATO ambassadors will meet the Russian envoy today in a new bid to ease tensions on the eve of the alliance's first talks with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

The ambassadors will discuss the crisis in Ukraine as well as Afghanistan's security, and terrorism in the region, a NATO official said.

"Following consultations with the members of the NATO-Russia Council (NRC), I have invited them to a meeting at ambassadorial level," NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.

"The meeting will take place on 30 March at NATO headquarters in Brussels," he added.

The NRC had met regularly until the Ukraine crisis plunged relations with Moscow into the deep freeze in 2014, though this will be the fourth meeting since the forum resumed nearly a year ago.

NATO was alarmed when Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 and has accused Russia since of fuelling a rebellion in eastern Ukraine against the pro-Western government in Kiev.

US-led NATO has suspended all practical cooperation with Russia over its role in Ukraine but Stoltenberg has said political channels of communication have always remained open.

Russia's ambassador to NATO Alexander Grushko and alliance counterparts will also discuss "military activities, reciprocal transparency and risk reduction in order to improve stability and security in the Euro-Atlantic area," the NATO official said on condition of anonymity.

The meeting comes on the eve of Tillerson's visit to Brussels for consultations with the other foreign ministers of the 28-nation alliance.

NATO rescheduled the meeting for Friday after Tillerson was unable to make the original date next week and sowed doubts about US President Donald Trump's commitment to an alliance he had dismissed as "obsolete."



Tillerson's decision to skip the initial NATO meeting and visit Moscow the same month instead also fuelled concerns among the alliance about Trump's admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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Government think-tank NITI Aayog is preparing a fresh cabinet note recommending closure of 7 more sick CPSEs as part of an excercise to tackle mounting losses incurred by these entities.

"Cabinet note is being prepared for closure of 7 more sick CPSEs," a senior government official told PTI.

The Aayog, tasked with preparing a roadmap for ailing public sector undertakings, had earlier identified 26 sick central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) for closure, of which 7 received cabinet nod.

These include Hindustan Cable, Tyre Corporation, HMT Watches, Birds Jute and Export Limited (BJEL) and Central Inland Water Transport Corporation.

The fresh list, the official said, would be in addition to the CPSEs which were approved for closure by Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA).

The official said the Aayog has also identified five CPSEs which can neither be revived nor sold, for liquidation.

He further said the Aayog, in a third tranche, has identified 12 more CPSEs for strategic sale.

Companies identified in the third tranche include National Textile Corporation, Hindustan Antibiotics, Scooters India and Hindustan Flurocarbons.

Last year, the NITI Aayog in two tranches had recommended strategic sale of 15 CPSEs, three units of SAIL and one unit of National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC).

For the next financial year, the government has budgeted to raise Rs 72,500 crore through disinvestment in CPSEs, of which Rs 15,000 crore is to come from strategic sale.

The government, in the current fiscal year, expects to raise close to Rs 45,500 crore from its disinvestment programme but so far has raised about Rs 30,000 crore through minority share sale by way of offer for sale (OFS), share buyback and CPSE ETF (exchange traded fund).

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State-run Engineers India Ltd today said that Shazia Ilmi Malik has been appointed as additional director (non-official part-time independent).

Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has approved the appointment of Ilmi from March 27, 2017 to January 30, 2020 or till further order, whichever is earlier, the company said in a BSE filing.

According to the statement, her inter-se relationship between the directors of Engineers India Ltd is NIL.

Earlier, Ilmi was appointed as a brand ambassador for the Prime Minister's Swachh Bharat Mission programme. She is also a member of the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal, it said.

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Japanese Consumer electronics maker Panasonic today said it is eying to corner around 10 per cent market share in the professional inter-changeable lens segment in FY 2017-18.

The company is expecting its high precision video recording facility would help create space in the segment which is largely dominated by other Japanese rivals such as Nikon and Canon.

The company today launched its hybrid camera Lumix GH5 here.

"We are looking for at least 10 per cent market share in FY 2017-18 in the high end camera segment, in which GH5 would be competing," Panasonic India Product Head- Digital Imaging, Gaurav Ghavri told PTI.

He further added: "The market which we are targeting is over Rs 1.40 lakh."



Presently, Nikon and Canon together control over 90 per cent of the professional inter-changeable lens market, which is estimated to be around 1.5 lakh units.

The company presently has three per cent market share in this segment and has sold around 4,000 to 5,000 units in last two years.

Lumix GH5, which can do 4K video recording, has been priced at Rs 1.43 lakh for the body and Rs 1.88 lakh with Kit that included 12-60 mm lens.

Moreover, Panasonic which is enhancing its manufacturing capacity to be more competitive in the domestic market, today laid the foundation stone of its first refrigerator plant in Jhajjar, Haryana.

The company, which plans to invest Rs 115 crore in the plant, will begin operations from January next year and sales will commence from April 2018 in India, Panasonic said in a statement.

The plant, spread across 10,000 sq meters, has an annual production capacity of approximately 5 lakh units.

"By further extending our manufacturing footprint in the country, we intent to ramp up our position as one of India's dominant consumer durable corporation," Panasonic India and South Asia President and CEO Manish Sharma said.

Panasonic currently imports fridges from Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam and has plans to continue import the large-capacity refrigerators.

The refrigerator plant will manufacture top and bottom-mounted refrigerators.

Last year, the company said it aims to double its market share and sales from the category in the next two years.

"We have around 1.5 per cent of the market share and we are looking to have 5 per cent market share in 2018. We are looking at doubling our this years revenue in 2018. We are looking at a revenue of Rs 600 crore coming from fridge in 2018," Sharma had said.

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The issue of arrest of MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav in Patna was today raised by his wife Ranjit Ranjan in the Lok Sabha who accused the Bihar police of violating the lawmaker's rights.

The Madhepura MP and Jan Adhikar Party leader was arrested yesterday from his residence in Patna's Mandiri locality in connection with an old case related to causing nuisance near the state capital's Kargil Chowk on January 24.

"One of the members of the House was arrested in Patna yesterday. He was arrested for staging a peaceful protest. Is it not violation of his democratic rights? He was wrongfully confined," Ranjan, a Congress MP, said during the Zero Hour.

The arrest of Yadav came after some of his party workers clashed with the police yesterday while they were staging a dharna over various issues including the proposed hike in power tariff.

Another Congress leader and Vadakara MP Mullappally Ramachandran spoke about "rising" cases of atrocities against women in Kerala and asked the Centre to seek a report on the issue from the state government.

"Kerala has been witnessing a sudden spurt in incidents of assaults on women. Even little girls aged 4 to 5 are not spared. The state government has miserably failed to contain the assaults," he said.

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Television star Nia Sharma says viewers do not easily accept actors from small screen in bold roles as they are used to watching them in the characters of 'bahu' or 'beti'.

The actress says the digital space gives more space to an artiste to experiment with roles as compared to TV.

"People find it difficult to fit actors in any role as they (actors) have done certain kind of parts on television and that is very degrading, demeaning and regressive. TV isn't a wide medium when it comes to boldness on the small screen because of the audience.

"It reaches out to the audience but keeping the traditions intact. The only medium where people are truly exploring themselves and going out to experiment is the digital space," Nia told PTI.

Nia rose to fame with the shows like "Ek Hazaaron Mein Meri Behna Hai" and "Jamaai Raja". She is now a part of a web series by Vikram Bhatt, called "Twisted".

The actress says she was a little apprehensive doing bold scenes in the web series due to the kinds of roles she has done in the small screen.

"People have played roles like these before and done bold scenes on-screen but just because my background is television, people will blow it out of proportion.

"Everything I am doing is normal, but just because I've played a role of 'bahu' and 'beti', people will not take it easily."



"Twisted" goes on air on March 30.

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President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted citizens on Gudi Padava and Navreh today.

"Let tolerance and mutual amity flourish amongst our people. May these festivals spread peace & friendship, inspiring our citizens to re-dedicate themselves to service of motherland," Mukherjee said.

Chaitra Sukladi, Ugadi, Gudi Padava, Cheti Chand, Navreh and Sajibu Cheiraoba are being celebrated in different parts of the country to mark the beginning of the New Year.

These auspicious festivals mark the onset of spring and promise fresh beginnings of growth, prosperity and well-being, the President said.

"Let the spirit of joy and happiness signified by these festivals pervade the heart of every Indian," Mukherjee said in a tweet.

Modi also wished citizens on the festivals.

"People across India are celebrating the start of the new year. New year greetings to everyone. May the year bring peace, joy & prosperity," the Prime Minister said.

(REOPENS DEL7)



Referring to the new year day of Kashmiri Pandits, Modi said, "On the auspicious occasion of Navreh, my greetings to everyone celebrating. May the year ahead be characterised by positivity & good health."



In another tweet, the Prime Minister said, "Sajibu Cheiraoba wishes to my sisters & brothers in Manipur. Have a cheerful & harmonious year ahead."



For the people of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, he said, "Ugadi greetings to all those celebrating. May the coming year fulfil all your wishes & may there be happiness all around."



In yet another tweet, the Prime Minister said, "Cheti Chand greetings to the Sindhi community. May Lord Jhulelal bless us and the year ahead be a happy as well as memorable one."



He also wished the people of Maharashtra on the special occasion of Gudi Padwa. "May the coming year bring happiness, good health & prosperity," he said.
A delegation of Tamil Nadu farmers protesting at Jantar Mantar here, today met President Pranab Mukherjee and put forth their demands, including waiver of farms loans and drought relief package.

The farmers delegation headed by P Ayyakannu along with Tamil Manila Congress president G K Vasan, who offered his support to the farmers at Jantar Mantar in the morning, met the president and submitted a memorandum in this regard.

At Jantar Mantar, Tamil youngsters residing in the national capital thronged to offer support to the farmers besides telecasting their interactions live on social media platforms.

Leaders from Tamil Nadu cutting across the political spectrum had offered their support to the state's farmers on the 15th day of their protest.

Earlier today, DMK MP Tiruchi Siva along with the farmers had met Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on the issue.

The Drought-hit peasants have been protesting in the national capital from March 21 with skulls of farmers who have allegedly committed suicide.

They were demanding that the Centre declare a drought relief package and loan waiver for peasants from the southern state.

Last Friday, they had submitted a memorandum to the Chief Justice of India demanding his intervention in their protest seeking relief to the drought-hit state.

On March 25, south Indian actors Vishal and Prakash Raj also visited TN farmers protesting at Jantar Mantar and offered their support.

Representatives of the farmers had met Jaitley on March 21 also and put forth their demands.

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Realty firm Puravankara has sold a 19 acre land parcel in Hyderabad for Rs 475 crore to pharma company Hetero group as part of strategy to monetise assets and cut debt.

Bengaluru-based developer had bought this land way back in 2007-08 for Rs 403 crore.

"We have completed the exit of investment in 19.19 acre of land asset held in our wholly owned subsidiaries for Rs 475 crore. This is in line with the company's strategy to monetise assets," Puravankara Ltd MD Ashish Puravankara told PTI.

The proceeds of this transaction would be largely utilised for reduction of net debt which is currently around Rs 2,300 crore, he added.

Puravankara said the company is in talks with land owners for forming partnership to develop projects in Hyderabad property market that has a huge potential.

The company has already launched housing projects on 20 acres of land parcel in Hyderabad and is also constructing a commercial projects on over 3-acres of land.

"We are targeting to launch projects on additional 50-100 acres through joint ventures (JVs) and joint development agreements (JDAs)," he said.

Puravankara Ltd is a leading real estate company in India, with presence in Bengaluru, Kochi, Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Mysore, Mumbai and Pune.

The company has over 20 million sq ft of projects under development with additional about 80 million sq ft in projected development over the next few years.

Puravankara posted 15 per cent increase in its net profit at Rs 20.09 crore for the quarter ended December as against Rs 17.43 crore in the year-ago period.

Revenues fell to Rs 277 crore in the third quarter of this fiscal from Rs 385 crore in the corresponding period of previous year.

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Permanent representatives of Tunisia and Romania, the co-chair of Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) at the United Nations, called on External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj here today during which reforms and working of the world body were discussed.

India's Permanent Representative at the UN Syed Akbaruddin was also present at the meeting.

"Working together on critical UN reforms. The Co-Chairs of Inter-Governmental Negotiations, Permanent Reps of Tunisia and Romania call on the external affairs minister," MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted.

In January, the permanent representatives of Tunisia and Romania were appointed as co-chair of the IGN on Security Council reform.

They recently co-chaired a discussion on how the UN- member states see the IGN process moving forward, including on the five key clusters -- categories of membership, the question of the veto, regional representation, size of an enlarged council and working methods, and relationship between the council and the General Assembly.

India, along with many other countries including Germany and Japan, is pressing for expansion and reforms in the global body.

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The more I think about it, the more I miss travel. To the point that it pits my soul. I remember getting on the plane to Sweden and I was in 7th heaven. Its as if my body and spirit were in line. Nothing in life puts a bigger smile on my face.I think it started when I was kid and my fathers damn travel agency. Damn you dad. I still have a book i made for him in 2nd grade and its a picture of me standing in front of the travel agency. I have a goofy smile on my face and for those of you that know me now, you will recognize it, because it rears its ugly (or cuteness) at this age often.It was my second grade class at Park Dale Lane in a galaxy far far away, in an age, well lets just say before cell phones, instagram and snappie. We had a bring your parent to school day, however, my dad arranged for a field trip. We went to his office. He showed all my classmates around and showed them the computers and they were all fascinated.He told them what he did and how it was that they were able to travel on a plane, train, or boat. After his speech, he took all the kids to right aid and bought them a single scoop ice cream. In one day I became the hero of the day. I remember kids talking about it for weeks. It left a major mark on me.Fast forward to 1992. I have finished my Associates Degree in college and had just started my Bachelors in business at the University of West Florida. I was working lots of hours plus picked up hours at the movie theatre and my schedule was jam packed. I was run down and not very enthused. I remember the rainy day I got a call from my dad checking in on me and I told him I was miserable. He said, "I may have the remedy for you". He asked me to come home and open a travel agency with him. I told him to give me a few weeks to think about it. He told me to take until the end of the month.After lots of thoughts and calculations, I finally decided to take the plunge and move home and help him with his new endeavor. I said goodbye to my florida friends and drove home in a Uhaul and within a week, we began building his dream agency. We finished everything in under a month and began to file the ARC application to become an agency. It was arduous and slow, but so worth it.I got to spend almost 2 years building a business from the ground up. I met amazing people, booked some great trips for people, and got to work with a legend in the business. He taught me so much in such a short period of time, there were times I thought my head was going to explode. My dad knew all the tricks and if I found a cheap fare, he normally found it cheaper. I remember a july day when a client came in and was looking for an emergency ticket to Amsterdam leaving the next day. My dad was out and I had started research into wholesalers (they would buy seats at a MUCH discounted price). I made a few calls and saved this guy like 60% over what he would have paid. My dad came in to help close the sale and let the guy know it was fully legit. 20 minutes later, the client is hugging my father and I and thanking us for such a wonderful service we offered and that he had been everywhere trying to save some money. When he walked out, I remember my dad saying, "You done good kid, you done real good"Apparently that client liked us and had connections and got us lots of business. He helped us get the three largest casinos corporate business along the coast. We became the exclusive agent for all three casinos and even worked in some travel packages for prizes. It was good for business. I traveled as much as I could. I got to go to DC for free on US Air because my dad sold so much business on US air in one quarter. A few months later I won a trip to Mexico city. I took advantage of as many of the trips as I could.2 years went by and I decided to go back to school. I needed to finish my degree and my dad really wanted me to, as I would be the first in the family to get my degree (of all my cousins). It was a tough thing to leave because I know my dad really loved having me there. After several years, my dad struggled with the business. Commissions got cut, I got a job in Denver in travel (when its in, it stays in the blood). My dad continued to struggle and remain relevant and eventually after giving his life to a profession that he loved, 42 years worth, He passed away.Years have come and gone and I have remained true to his words to me..."above all else travel and see the world". I miss him daily. I miss his inspiration and humor. In 2009 I had a channeling of him as my best bud Noah and I climbed Corcovado...it was as if I was in his body back in 1978 taking photos. In 2015, I went to india, chasing his footsteps. I got a pic in front of the Taj Mahal similar to what he had done. When I don't travel I feel complacent and a bit stale. I love getting on a plane and meeting new people. Its a drug that I never want to give up.I know that this next journey, wherever I go, I want to be involved with the airlines. I want to work for the business that put awe in my eyes every time I went to the airport. For me it isn't about the money now, its about doing what I have wanted to do since the 2nd grade. From now on, its about pursuing that passion. Who knows where this next journey will take me, but I breathe it in as if it is the fresh morning air. As I always say, live it like its your last day. Breathe it like its your last breath and make people smile along the way.Until next time...
A man who was allegedly involved in 12 cases of highway robbery in various places, including Delhi, and targeted cash vans of banks, has been arrested, police said today.

The accused, Venkat Rao alias Venky alias Raju and his gang mainly targeted vans carrying cash for filling up ATMs.

"He used to meticulously plan the heist. His gang used to first select the target van for robbery, then tail it to see its route and areas/ATMs which were to be covered by the cash van. Then the gang used to take a room on rent within five kilometres radius of the van's route," said DCP (Special Cell) Sanjeev Yadav.

The gang members, riding motorcycles, then waylaid the cash vans.

The armed gang looted the vans after overpowering the driver and guard. After the heist they used to stay in the rented accommodation for five days and not venture out. Once things calmed down, they escaped with the booty, he said.

The Special Cell received input about Venkat's presence in northwest Delhi's Swaroop Nagar area.

"He was wanted by police of different states in cases of cash van robberies in Delhi, West Bengal, Orissa and Chhattisgarh and was eluding arrest since 2014.

"On March 25, a specific input was received that he will be coming to Swaroop Nagar for meeting one of his associates to plan a robbery," said the officer.

A loaded pistol with three live cartridges was recovered from his possession, added the officer.

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Delay in filling up of vacancies in statutory commissions for SCs, STs, Backward Classes and Minorities rocked proceedings of Rajya Sabha for the second day today, with the proceedings being adjourned thrice before lunch.

Congress, SP, BSP and JD-U members repeatedly trooped into the Well of the House shouting slogans against the government for "misleading" by telling "lies" on the issue.

I&B Minister M Venkaiah Naidu tried to counter them, saying all the commissions were functioning and the process of filling up the vacancies was on.

Deputy Chairman P J Kurien tried to restore order in the House saying the minister has promised that vacancies will be filled up "immediately", but Naidu countered him saying the vacancies will be filled up in "due course" of time.

Kurien first adjourned the proceedings for 10 minutes and then till noon and opposition members were unrelenting. When the House assembled for Question Hour at noon, Chairman Hamid Ansari adjourned the proceedings for 30 minutes as the noisy scenes continued.

When the House assembled for the day, opposition members were up on their feet stating that multiple notices have been given under rule 267 seeking suspension of business to take up the issue.

Ramgopal Yadav (SP) said the posts of chairmen, vice chairmen and members were lying vacant in National Commission for Scheduled Castes, National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, National Commission for Backward Classes and National Commission for Minorities.

This has left people seeking relief for their difficulties from these commissions high-and-dry, he said, adding that the commission for backward classes was being renamed to take a fresh look at castes which should be categorised as OBCs.

He alleged that there was a conspiracy to remove certain castes from OBC category. He went on to question the vacancies against the reserved categories in government departments.

Mayawati (BSP) asked why the BJP government had left several posts at these constitutional commissions vacant for a long time and when these posts will be filled up.

Naidu rose to respond but the opposition wanted leaders from other parties to speak first before the minister had his say.

But Kurien said the minister has a right to respond and allowed Naidu to speak.

Anguished over this, opposition members trooped into the Well of the House shouting anti-government slogans.

Amid the din, Naidu said the backward class commission



chairman has welcomed the changes made and it was a political strategy of the opposition to convey a "wrong impression" to the people. "All commissions are functioning. Process of filling up vacancies is on. They will be filled up," he said.

With the opposition members continuing to shout slogans from the Well, Kurien adjourned the proceedings of the House for 10 minutes.

When it reassembled, opposition members were up on their feet again but Kurien said an important matter was raised and he knew that other members too wanted to speak but had allowed the minister to clarify after two members had spoken.

"I know the rules. I did not prevent (anyone from speaking). After the Minister's explanation some of your apprehensions will get over," he said. "Hon'ble minister has said all vacancies will be immediately filled up."



At this Naidu said, "vacancies will be filled up in due couse of time." He said the allegations against the government questioning its intention will not be allowed.

Kurien then allowed Sharad Yadav (JD-U), who too had given a rule 267 notice, to speak but this time, the BJP members from the treasury benches started raising slogans.

This prompted the opposition members to troop into the Well again.

Just as they entered the Well, a visiting Namibian parliamentary delegation took seat in the special gallery.

Kurien stopped the slogan-shouting members and then read out a statement welcoming the delegation, even as the opposition members remained in the Well.

As he finished the statement, slogan-shouting began again, forcing him to adjourn the House till noon.

The House witnessed similar scenes during Question Hour



again, as protersting Opposition MPs did not pay heed to the appeals by Chairman Hamid Ansari to restore order, forcing him to adjourn the proceedings till 1230 hours.

When the House reassembled, noisy scenes were again witnessed. JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav was heard saying it was very important that a discussion should be held.

Ansari again requested the agitated members that they should allow the Question Hour to proceed. "Don't make fun of the procedures," an anguished Chairman said.

However, opposition members insisted that the House wanted a discussion on the matter.

Members of the opposition parties then rushed to the Well of the House, shouting slogans like "Jumlebaazi nahi chalegi" (hollow statements will not do).

Amidst the din, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said there were elections to 5 states and appointments could not have been made then. He said the government was willing to provide details.

As the din continued and no solution appeared in sight, Ansari adjourned the House till 1400 hours.
Proceedings in the Rajya Sabha were washed out today due to relentless protests by the opposition members over vacancies in the commissions for SCs, STs, backward classes and minorities.

The government sought to address the concerns by saying the process was underway for filling up these vacancies but the parties like the Congress, the Samajwadi Party, the JD(U) and the BSP kept demanding a commitment that it will be done within a week.

The House was repeatedly adjourned and finally for the day at 3.10 pm as the opposition parties insisted on an immediate discussion on the issue.

The Chair, however, said that their notices for a discussion under an Adjournment Motion have been disallowed.

Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot, who spoke amid the din, said the delay in appointments to the statutory commissions was due to the Model Code enforced because of elections in five states recently.

He said the process of filling up the vacancies has started and the Chairmen for the SC Commission and the Safai Karamchari Ayog have been appointed.

He said the process to fill up other vacancies was also underway and would be completed soon. He added that it was not for the first time that there have been delays in filling up such vacancies.

"The appointments will be made and many such appointments have already been made. The delay was due to the enforcement of Model Code following assembly elections in five states," Gehlot said.

He said that in 2007 and 2010, when Congress-led government was in power, there was a delay of three and five months, respectively, in filling up such vacancies.

The SC Commission chairmanship fell vacant on October 31 last year, the minister said.

The unrelenting opposition members, however, did not allow the Minister to speak despite repeated requests by Deputy Chairman P J Kurien.

While the House saw three adjournments during pre-lunch, including two in the Question Hour, there were two more adjournments post lunch after which it was finally adjourned for the day at 3.10 pm.

Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said the issue was very important and required a discussion as members have already given notices.

He sought to know whether the government would commit itself to appoint the chairmen and members in all the commissions within a week and whether an immediate discussion on the issue is allowed or not.

"Never has it happened in the country that all three commissions are headless and they are without members too. The SCs, STs, OBCs and minorities account for 80 to 85 per cent of total population and the various commissions implement the schemes for their welfare and upliftment.

"If commissions are not formed for welfare of 85 per cent population, then who is the government representing? The leadership of the ruling party, both at the level of states and the Centre, are not interested in upliftment of SCs, STs, OBCs and minorities. This shows how much the BJP government cares for these classes," Azad said.

Earlier, I&B Minister M Venkaiah Naidu tried to counter



the opposition members, saying all the commissions were functioning and the process of filling up the vacancies was on.

"All commissions are functioning. The process of filling up the vacancies is on. They will be filled up," he said, adding that "vacancies will be filled up in due couse of time".

Kurien tried to restore order in the House by saying the minister has promised that vacancies will be filled up "immediately", but Naidu clarified that the vacancies will be filled up in "due course" of time.

Sharad Yadav (JDU) said the state of affairs in the country in last 70 years was such that there were a large number of vacancies of teachers in various educational institutions like IITs, Delhi University and JNU and asked by when the government would fill up the vacancies as well as the backlog.

"Why is there so much of backlog? This is not right given that 80 per cent population comprise these classes," he asked.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said, "we want to tell the Leader of Opposition that the Modi government was committed to the welfare and upliftment of dalits, SCs, STs and other oppressed classes."



He also told the Congress members to check their own track record during UPA a year before they were thrown out of power. "Those speaking like this should see their own track record 1.5 years before they were thrown out of power," he said.

However, an unrelenting opposition did not allow the Ministers to speak and kept raising slogans in the well. They repeatedly trooped into the Well alleging that the government was "misleading" by telling "lies" on the issue.

Slogans like "jumlebaazi ki yeh sarkar, nahin chalegi" rent the air as the House repeated adjournments.

(Reopen PAR27)



After the lunch break, the Deputy Chairman wanted to take up the resumed discussion on the Finance Bill which remained inconclusive yesterday.

He reminded the members that yesterday it was agreed in the House the debate on the Finance Bill will resume at 2 pm and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley would give a reply at 3.30 pm.

As the House continued to be in disorder, Kurien asked, "Is there no sanctity of that (agreement)?"



Naresh Agrawal (SP) asked the Deputy Chairman to take the sense of the House and hold a discussion on the issue of vacancies.

Kurien said the members would have to give proper notices for that.

Agrawal then said in that case, the House should be adjourned for the day and the issue can be taken up tomorrow by when the fate of such a notice would have been decided.

"You cannot misinterpret the Rule to your convenience. There will be no conditional adjournment. You cannot thrust upon such a decision on the chair," Kurien said.

Agrawal said, "the House will not work like this and the members will see tomorrow if the Chairman gives assent to their plea for a discussion or not."



The Opposition members then again trooped into the Well and shouted slogans, forcing Kurien to adjourn the House till 3 pm.

When the House met again, similar scenes prevailed.

Kurien again suggested to the agitating members that the House should take up the discussion on the Finance Bill today and debate on vacancies in Commissions could be taken up tomorrow at 2 pm.

Opposition members, however, did not pay heed to the suggestion and kept on raising slogans.

The ruling party members countered with slogans against the opposition.

Kurien then adjourned the House for the day.

Earlier, responding to the plea taken by the ruling party that states like Uttarakhand did not make appointments to such statutory commissions, Azad said he was talking about the commissions at the national level and states should not be brought in.

"In the state of Gujarat, there was no appointment of chairmen of SC/ST and OBC commissions as also of Lokayukta for last 15 years. It seems the state and central leadership is not interested in uplifting the SCs/STs, OBCs and minorities," he alleged.
A salesgirl working with a Patanjali store in Sector 21 here was shot dead by a stalker.

Police said the deceased, Gunjan Dutt, 18, a resident of Palam Vihar area, was shot late last evening.

She worked as a part time salesgirl in a Patanjali store since last six months.

"She was being stalked by Pawan for last few months. Pawan had been harassing her while on her way to work," ACP-PRO Gurgaon police, Manish Sehgal told PTI.

Dutt was pursuing her graduation from Delhi University School of Open Learning.

"Police on the complaint of her family members, registered a case of murder against Pawan in Palam Vihar Police Station," Sehgal said.

Pawan along with his accomplice late on Monday evening fired two rounds on Dutt after she left the shop, and after the crime he fled the spot on a bike.

Dutt was later declared dead at a nearby hospital.

"We are examining the CCTV footage and a manhunt is on to nab Pawan who is still on the run," the official said.

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The Supreme Court today said Bru refugees, lodged in relief camps in Tripura after being displaced from Mizoram, should be allowed to voluntarily return to their native state.

A bench comprising Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice S K Kaul referred to the February 6 order in which Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar had informed the court that he would convey to the authorities concerned that status quo be maintained on shifting back of displaced families to Mizoram.

"We accordingly hereby clarify that such Bru families that were displaced to Tripura and desiring to return to Mizoram voluntarily, shall be allowed to do so on their own will and such of the families, which desire such rehabilitation, will be provided the necessary pre-requisites as has been provided to others who have been rehabilitated," it said.

During the hearing, the solicitor general told the court that rehabilitation process of Bru families is going on and a joint monitoring group (JMG), headed by the Union home secretary, is looking after it.

He said that the petitioner, Mizoram Bru Displaced Peoples Forum, has participated in the JMG meetings with regard to rehabilitation process which has been undertaken by the Mizoram government with the help of the Centre and the Tripura government.

"When they (petitioner) have participated in the meeting of the joint monitoring group, they should not have presented their grievances here (before the apex court)," Kumar told the bench.

He said that the JMG is already seized of the matter and it is trying to find out the modalities and is also considering raising the compensation to be paid to displaced Bru families from Rs 80,000 to Rs 10 lakh each.

He also said, "What was happening on the ground was stopped due to the status quo order."



To this, the bench asked, "How many people have gone back (to Mizoram)?"



Responding to the query, the solicitor general said when the rehabilitation process had commenced, the number of such families was 3,455 which has increased to 5,407 and the total number of Bru refugees stand at 32,876.

He placed the minutes of meetings of JMG, which were held in 2016 and this year, before the court which posted the matter for hearing after three weeks.

The bench also said the meetings by the JMG on the issue of rehabilitation and repatriation of Bru refugees should continue.

The court is hearing a plea seeking rehabilitation and repatriation of Bru refugees, who were displaced from Mizoram due to various factors including violence, to their native state.

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The junior doctors of the SCB Medical College and Hospital here continued with their cease work for the second day today to protest the attack on a junior doctor by relatives of a patient.

Although, the Junior Doctor Association (JDA) claimed that the House Surgeons and Resident Doctors have also joined the cease work stir, hospital authorities refused to confirm this and maintained that health care facilities have not been affected yet due to the doctors' strike.

Trouble started on yesterday afternoon, when some attendants of a patient allegedly attacked junior doctor Samir Ranjan Behera after the patient died just hours after her admission in the Hospital.

Demanding safety measures and arrest of the culprits, the JDA launched an indefinite stir.

One of the person allegedly involved in the attack on Behera was arrested by police.

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A clinical India today regained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, beating Australia by eight wickets in the deciding fourth Test here to clinch one of the most controversial and hard-fought bilateral contests in recent times.

It was India's seventh Test series win in a row -- continuing the dominance that started in 2015 with Sri Lanka, South Africa, West Indies, New Zealand, England and Bangladesh being annihilated.

Needing 87 runs on the fourth day to reach a modest victory target of 106, opener Lokesh Rahul (51 not out) dominated from the start with a flurry of boundaries and finished with six half-centuries in the series.

The match ended in just three days and a session, a reflection of India's distinct upperhand in the 2-1 triumph.

There were some hiccups when Murali Vijay (8) and Cheteshwar Pujara (0) were out in quick succession but stand-in skipper Ajinkya Rahane (38 off 27 balls) came in with the intent of hammering the bowlers into submission.

Rahane and Rahul added 60 runs for a third wicket partnership which took the team to victory in 23.5 overs.

Fittingly, Rahul finished the match with a hard-run three and celebrated wildly. Regular skipper Virat Kohli, who sat out of the contest due to a shoulder injury, and the rest of the Indian team gave Rahul a standing ovation.

In fact, Rahul ran in towards the Australian dressing room before taking off his helmet and letting out a wild war cry -- an indication of how intensely the series had been fought.

But putting aside the hostilities that started with the infamous 'Brain Fade' of rival captain Steve Smith, the two teams shook hands at the end of an aggressively-fought series.

Rahul's innings of 76 balls had nine fours while Rahane hit four boundaries and two huge sixes of Pat Cummins.

It brought the curtains down on a very productive home season in which India won 10 out of the 13 Test matches with two draws and the only defeat coming on a Pune dust-bowl against Smith's side.

The victory was even more special as skipper and team's premier batsman Kohli was unavailable in the deciding contest.

A reticent Rahane, completely different in character from Kohli, marshalled his resources well in what could be termed as the best out of the 13 Test wins.

More so because the conditions were more Australian than Indian and the home team punted on rookie Chinaman Kuldeep Yadav, risking a batsman less in the playing XI.

The day started with a Rahul back cut off Josh Hazlewood followed by a square cut. A swept boundary off Steve O'Keefe set the tone for the day and an imperious pull shot off Hazlewood showed why Rahul is rated so highly.

Once India were 46 for 2, Rahane came in and showed uncharacteristic aggression, taking on the bowlers from word go.

Cummins was pulled and then slashed over the cover region for a couple of sixes, leaving the entire Australian team stunned.

A paddle sweep off Lyon by Rahane was a delicate one after the brutal assault he unleashed on the speed merchant.

(REOPENS DEL 10)



It was probably the most competitive series that India played at home in recent years with not an inch given by the visitors.

The Australians managed to surprise with their resolute performance given that they didn't have a lot of experience of playing in the sub-continent save skipper Steve Smith and opener David Warner, who was terribly out of form.

For India, a massive gain to be drawn from the victory is the team's resolve in the absence of batting mainstay Kohli.

Kohli's injury-forced ouster from the Dharamsala Test gave an opportunity to test how the side performs in an adverse situation and the home favourites did not disappoint.

That India won the series despite minimal contribution from Kohli's bat also speaks volumes of the temperament of some of the youngsters in the team.

The takeaway certainly would be Cheteshwar Pujara's lion-hearted batting. He scored 405 runs with a hundred and two half-centuries and averaged 57.85.

But Rahul stamped his authority as the most exciting Indian batsman of recent times with 393 runs at an average of 65.50.

"It was a fantastic series especially after the disappointment of the first Test," Pujara said at the end of the match.

"We probably wanted to win 3-1 but we are happy with 2-1. The way the fast bowlers bowled in the second innings was fabulous. We have been having good partnerships. I just told Rahul that we don't want to lose wickets in the first session on second day even if we didn't get runs.

"We knew if we didn't lose wickets, we could score big. The run rate was not that important. I would like to keep going if there were a few matches. I really enjoyed this home season, and hope to continue next season," Pujara added.

Rahul said that after the Pune Test, he curbed some of his natural instincts to go for expansive shots.

"After Pune, I knew I couldn't play my shots. It was a big restriction. I love to play my shots, dominate the spinners, but I had to play a different game. Pretty disappointed that I couldn't convert, but right now nothing else matters," an elated Rahul said.

Rahul did face a barrage of short balls from Pat Cummins, a few hitting his body but he is a content man.

"Here I took a few knocks on the body. All I was telling myself was to take a few hits for the team. I don't know what else was running in my mind.

"The way Jinks (Rahane's nickname) came out and started hitting Cummins for sixes was fantastic. He just came out and said 'I am going to dominate'," the opener said.
The Telangana government has resolved to take steps to get the bail of 2007 Mecca Masjid bomb blast accused Swami Aseemanand "cancelled", the state's Home Minister N Narasimha Reddy said today.

"We will definitely oppose (his bail) and make efforts in this regard. (MIM MLA) Akbaruddin Owaisi has already raised this matter in the Assembly," he reporters.

On March 23, a Hyderabad court had granted bail to Swami Aseemanand and Bharat Mohanlal Rateshwar alias Bharat Bhai, a co-accused in the case.

Though, Bharat Bhai walked out of the jail, Aseemanand continues to remain in the prison here as he is yet to complete some legal formalities. A warrant has also been issued seeking his presence in a case in Ambala.

MIM MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi had earlier demanded that the TRS government "pressurise" the NIA (National Investigation Agency), which is probing the case, to ensure that the bail granted to the Hindutva hardliner gets cancelled.

Reddy had then said the matter would be looked into as the MLA raised a "justifiable" concern.

Telangana BJP had slammed the TRS government for its to assurance to get Aseemanand's bail cancelled and termed the government's statement in this regard as an "insult to judiciary and the legal system".

Swami Aseemanand, whose real name is Naba Kumar Sarkar, was arrested on November 19, 2010, from Haridwar in connection with the blast at the historic Mecca Masjid here on May 18, 2007, which had claimed the lives of nine people.

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UK Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday signed the letter that will trigger Britain's exit from the European Union.

The letter, giving official notification to other 27 European Union (EU) members that Britain has invoked Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, will be delivered to European Council President Donald Tusk by British ambassador to the EU Sir Tim Barrow today.

It sets the clock for a two-year negotiation process for Britain's relationship with the EU as a non-member.

Unless that time-frame is extended, Britain will have left the economic bloc by March 29, 2019.

May is scheduled to chair a cabinet meeting today before making a statement in the House of Commons confirming the countdown to the UK's departure from the EU has begun.

She will promise to "represent every person in the whole United Kingdom" during the negotiations, including EU nationals, who are worried about their future following .

The UK has said it wants an "early agreement" to guarantee the rights of EU citizens living in the country and those of British nationals living abroad.

It follows a referendum in June 2016 in favour of .
: Tamil Nadu Governor CH Vidyasagar Rao and Chief Minister K Palaniswami today extended their greetings on the eve of Ugadhi, Telugu New Year's day.

In his message, Governor CH Vidyasagar Rao said, "On the occasion of Ugadi, I extend my heartiest greetings and best wishes to Telugu and Kannada people in our country and across the world."



"Let us on the Telugu New Year resolve to dedicate ourselves for our nation's progress and prosperity and unite to promote brotherhood, love and peace to achieve equitable growth," he said in a Raj Bhavan release.

"May we join hands to preserve forests, conserve water and promote green cover for posterity," he added.

Chief Minister K Palaniswami and AIADMK (AMMA), Deputy General Secretary, TTV Dinakaran also greeted Telugu and Kannada speaking people living in the State on the eve of Ugadhi.

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US President Donald Trump has called Prime Minister Narendra Modi to congratulate him on his party's recent electoral success in state elections, the third telephonic conversation between the two leaders since the new administration took over in Washington.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump congratulated Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday on their electoral victories.

"The president spoke with German Chancellor Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Modi earlier today to congratulate them on their parties' success in recent elections," Spicer said.

The two leaders are expected to meet on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Germany in July.

Following the elections, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party formed the government in four states: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.

It, however, lost Punjab to main rival Congress.

Merkel's Christian Democrat party easily won an election in the Saarland state on Sunday, dealing an early blow to centre-left hopes of ending her more than decade-long reign.

Previously, Modi and Trump talked by phone on January 24, when they had resolved to stand "shoulder-to-shoulder" in the global fight against terrorism and for defence and security.

According to a White House statement then, Trump had "emphasised that the US considers India a true friend and partner in addressing challenges around the world."



The two leaders had also exchanged invitations for visits.

Prime Minister Modi was the fifth foreign leader Trump had spoken to on phone after he was sworn-in as the US President on January 20.

He had by then spoken to British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canada's Justin Trudeau, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

After Trump's surprise victory in the November 8 elections, Modi was among the first world leaders to congratulate him.

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US President Donald Trump today described as a hoax the allegations about his campaign's connection to Russia and said that the intelligence panel should probe Bill and Hillary Clinton's ties to the country instead of his campaign advisers' links.

"Why isn't the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech...Money to Bill, the Hillary Russian 'reset', praise of Russia by Hillary, or Podesta Russian Company," Trump told his supporters over twitter.

Trump in his tweet claimed Clinton, who was his rival in the presidential race, allowed uranium to go to Russia while she was secretary of state. His allegations derive from Russia's nuclear power agency buying a controlling interest in a Toronto-based company, which has mines and mills in the US.

"Trump Russia story is a hoax. #MAGA!" he wrote.

The opposition Democratic leadership in the Congress seeking the resignation of the House Intelligence Committee David Nunes alleging that he briefed Trump on classified intelligence matters without sharing the information with other members of the committee.

Trump and his White House team have spent weeks fending off allegations of inappropriate connections between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence officials.

Critics have maintained that Trump or his top advisers colluded with Russian officials to steal and leak emails from the in-boxes of high-ranking Democrats in the Clinton campaign and on the Democratic National Committee. No evidence has emerged to support those allegations.

The White House said it has asked both the House and Senate intelligence committees to review the information and the allegations.

"What I can tell you through his public comments is that he has said that he had multiple sources that he came to a conclusion on. So to the degree to which any of those sources weighed on the ultimate outcome of what he came to a decision on, I don't know. And that's something that, frankly, I don't even know that he discussed with the President," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters.

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President Donald Trump declared the end of a "war on coal" today, as he moved to curb rules that underpin American emissions targets and a major global climate accord.

Following through on an election promise, Trump signed an order to review some of his predecessor Barack Obama's climate legacy, declaring an end to "job-killing regulations."



In a maiden trip to the Environmental Protection Agency, he ordered a review of emission limits for coal-fired power plants and eased up restrictions on federal leasing for coal production.

Trump said the measures herald "a new era in American energy and production and job creation."



Critics say that rolling back Obama's Clean Power Plan is unlikely to result in a boost to production or to create substantial numbers of jobs.

America's coal industry has long been in decline, with natural gas, cheap renewable energy, automation and tricky geology making the sooty fuel a less lucrative prospect.

In 2008 there were 88,000 coal miners in the United States, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Today, the number of coal miners has fallen around 25 percent. More people work in Whole Foods, an upscale supermarket chain.

But some experts and environmental groups warned Trump's order could be the opening salvo of an effort to undermine internationally agreed targets under the Paris Climate Accord.

Curbing emissions from coal-fired power plants was a pillar of America's commitment to cut carbon emissions by 26-28 per cent by 2025.

"It will make it virtually impossible" for the US to meet its target said Bob Ward, a climate specialist at the London School of Economics.

The Trump administration has not said whether it will pull out of the Paris deal. "Whether we stay in or not is still under discussion," a senior administration official told AFP.

Veterans of the Obama administration played down the impact of Trump's actions.

Obama's former chief environmental advisor described the executive order as "terrible" but said "it isn't the ball game."



He added that any damage can be mitigated in the courts and in states, which are tasked with coming up with emissions reduction plans.

Already the states of California and New York -- two of the most populous states -- have said they will press ahead with climate mitigation plans.

During the 2016 election campaign Trump donned a hard hat and embraced miners from Kentucky to West Virginia, promising to return jobs to long-ravaged communities. He won both states by a landslide.

Miners were by his side again today. "Our incredible coal miners, we love our coal miners, great people," he said.

Trump's words may have been less well received in the corridors of the EPA's imposing Washington headquarters.

His repeated questioning of humans' role in warming the planet had prompted environmentalist critics to charge the fox is guarding the hen house.

Trump has done little to assuage those fears, vowing to slash EPA funding by a third, appointing anti-climate litigator Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA and Exxon's CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State.

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The US Senate voted overwhelmingly to advance the approval of Montenegro as the newest member of NATO, in what supporters of the alliance's expansion argue would send a stern message to Russia.

The procedural step, which advanced on a 97-2 vote, sets up a final approval in the chamber in the coming days.

President Donald Trump's administration has encouraged lawmakers to back the small Balkan nation's bid.

"It is strongly in the interests of the United States that Montenegro's membership in NATO be ratified," Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Senate leaders in a March 7 letter.

To date, 25 of NATO's 28 members have ratified Montenegro's accession, a country of 620,000 people seen as a geostrategic ally.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization holds its summit on May 25 in Brussels, where Trump will use the opportunity to reaffirm Washington's strong commitment to the alliance, according to the White House.

The Kremlin is opposed to Montenegro's accession, calling it a "provocation" that would reinforce the pro-Western military alliance's presence in the Balkans.

The US vote comes days after a Montenegrin special prosecutor accused "Russian state bodies" of involvement in an alleged coup plot during Montenegro's election last October.

Moscow branded the accusation "absurd."



Russia also stands accused of interfering in the US presidential election last year, when US intelligence agencies say it leaked hacked emails that damaged Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Senator John McCain, among the move's strongest backers, framed Montenegro's accession as nothing less than a "test" of resolve against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"He attempted a coup" to overthrow the freely-elected Montenegro government," McCain told the Senate Monday.

"That coup failed. But I can assure that if we turn down Montenegro, it will not remain the democracy that it is today."



Senator Marco Rubio weighed in saying the Senate is "sending a clear message to Vladimir Putin that we will not accept the establishment of Russia's sphere of influence over countries that desire to ally themselves with the free and democratic community of nations."



As with all international treaties, a two-thirds majority is required for final Senate approval. Success is highly likely.

Republicans Rand Paul and Mike Lee voted against the measure.

Paul warned Washington against spreading itself too thinly when its military is involved in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen, and said Montenegro in NATO will antagonize Russia while doing "nothing" to advance US national security.

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A woman, who had been evading arrest in a two-year-old murder case, was arrested from Khatoli town of the district.

Police said the woman was arrested yesterday. Police had earlier announced a reward of Rs 5,000 on information leading to her arrest.

A police officer said the woman was an accused in the murder of a man, Mujahid.

Mujahid was abducted and murdered in Khatoli town on May 27, 2015. His body was then tied to a motorcycle and thrown into a water body.

Two other accused in the case had already been arrested, the police officer said.

In a separate case, the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force claimed to have arrested a notorious criminal from Matbhed village in the district last evening.

Deputy Superintendent of Police Anil Yadav said the arrested was involved in several cases of murder and loot in Bulandshahr, Shamli, Muzaffarnagar and Bijnor districts.

Police had announced a reward of Rs 12,000 on information leading to his arrest.

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Chinese handset vendor Xiaomi today said it plans to create more than 20,000 jobs in India in the next three years.

Xiaomi founder, chairman and CEO Lei Jun, who is on a week long visit to India, called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday to discuss the company's journey in the country so far and how smartphones are changing the lives of Indian consumers, a company statement said.

Lei Jun also discussed Xiaomi India's manufacturing and growth plans with the prime minister, and presented him with a Made-In-India 'Redmi 4A' with all its components displayed in a glass box.

He also met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Minister of Electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad, the statement added.

The company recently announced opening of a second manufacturing plant in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh. The company "plans to create more than 20,000 jobs in the country in the next three years", the statement added.

"India is now the most important market outside of China for Xiaomi, and is a harbinger of the company's global expansion plans," the statement added.

Xiaomi India achieved annual revenue of over USD 1 billion for calendar year 2016.

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In an act of filicide a



youth was bludgeoned to death allegedly by his father following an altercation at Uluberia in Howrah district today.

The father was later arrested.

Police said 28-year old Shyamal Patra was repeatedly hit with a blunt object following an argument with his father this afternoon.

Patra had protested after his 65-year old father allegedly abused his wife when she asked him not to enter home in a drunken state, the officer said.

The youth, who was lying in a pool of blood, was rushed by neighbours to a local hospital, where he was declared brought dead, he said.

The neighbours also tied the elderly man to a pole. He was later rescued by the police, who took him to custody.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Rod Nickel

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Canada's AGT Food and Ingredients Inc, one of the world's biggest exporters of peas and lentils, expects India to extend an exemption for Canada within days from a crop fumigation policy that threatened to jeopardize C$1.1 billion ($823 million) in annual trade of the food staples, Chief Executive Murad Al-Katib said on Tuesday.

India's current exemption for Canada from its requirement that pulse crops be fumigated in the country of origin with methyl bromide, an insect-killing gas, was due to expire on Friday.

But Al-Katib told that multiple sources in India have assured him a three- or six-month extension of the exemption for Canada was imminent, although no official announcement has been made.

A delegation from the Canadian government and pulse industry visited India earlier this month, and made a case that Canada's cold winter weather was enough to eliminate India's particular pest concerns.

"Minus-40 (degrees Celsius/Fahrenheit) is a very effective way to fumigate," Al-Katib said. "It's a very positive signal that the Indian government is recognising that they need more time to evaluate a science-based approach" to pest control.

Oliver Anderson, a spokesman for Canadian Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay, said he had nothing new to report on the situation.

An exemption would allow Canada to continue shipping pulse crops to India, where they could be fumigated upon arrival.

Canada is the world's biggest exporter of pulse crops, a popular protein source in India, the world's largest importer.

Methyl bromide, an ozone-depleting substance, is not made in Canada, and is allowed for use only in limited situations. Canadian exporters have said that sales to India dried up in the past month due to uncertainty.

AGT shares rose 1 percent to C$30.40 in early trade in Toronto.

Earlier on Tuesday, New Delhi imposed a 10 percent import tax on wheat, seeking to curb imports at a time when Indian farmers are starting to harvest crops.

($1 = 1.3367 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Marguerita Choy)

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India on Tuesday imposed a 10 percent import tax on wheat with immediate effect, government sources said, reinstating the tariff after a gap of nearly four months that saw large overseas purchases.

The government wants to curb imports when Indian farmers are starting to harvest their crops, said three sources directly involved in deciding on the issue. They declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak on the matter.

Earlier this month, government sources had said New Delhi could impose a 25 percent import tax on wheat.

India, the world's second-biggest wheat producer, lowered the import tax wheat to 10 percent from 25 percent last September and scrapped the duty on December 8.

On Tuesday, the government also imposed a 10 percent tax on Tur, a variety of pulse, after a crash in local prices.

Waves of farmers have stepped up local production of pulses to help the government cut a hefty import bill.

The permission for duty-free imports had encouraged private traders to buy more than 5 million tonnes of wheat since mid-2016 to meet a supply shortfall left by two years of drought.

Most flour millers and biscuit makers imported wheat from France, Ukraine and Australia.

Both large imports and forecasts of a bumper crop prompted the government to impose the tax, the sources said.

The farm ministry last month forecast wheat output at 96.64 million tonnes in 2017, up from 92.29 million tonnes last year.

(Reporting by Mayank Bhardwaj; Editing by Joseph Radford)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Building a mass-market electric vehicle and colonizing Mars arent ambitious enough for . The billionaire entrepreneur now wants to merge computers with human brains to help people keep up with machines.
The Galaxy S8, Samsung Electronics Co.s latest flagship phone that will be unveiled Wednesday, has a lot more at stake than sales targets: it must restore consumer trust and stabilize a brand dogged by political scandal, product recalls and privacy concerns.
In a bid to gain larger share in one of the world's biggest markets, Qatar Airways Ltd. may order 100 new jetliners in 2017. The Gulf-based carrier also plans to announce a couple of new routes in England, Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker said.

In a media interaction in London, Al Baker said that Qatar Airways is confident about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's aviation policies that might permit 100 per cent foreign ownership of a domestic airline.

Confirming the speculations about Qatar Airways launching a new airline in India, the CEO said, "It could happen this year".

Last June, liberalising the FDI regulations, the Government allowed foreign investors -- barring overseas airlines -- to own up to 100 per cent stake in local carriers. At present, foreign airlines are allowed to invest only up to 49 per cent in domestic carriers.

Qatar Airways is British Airways-owner IAG's biggest shareholder. It also has its stakes in South America's biggest carrier, Latam Airlines Group SA and Italy's second-largest airline, Meridiana Fly SpA.

The Gulf carrier has been trying to expand its presence in India but its growth has been limited because of limitation of traffic right.

Profitability

Qatar Air's announcement comes amid the sector going downhill due to rise in aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices, intensifying competition, and falling yields.

In fact, most players in recent months have been able to post profits only due to income from non-core areas, that is, activities other than selling tickets.

Market leader IndiGo, with 39.3 per cent passenger traffic share in 2016, reported a 26 per cent drop in net profit in the third quarter of 2016/17 compared with the corresponding period of the previous year. Revenues grew 16 per cent during the period.

Jet Airways, the second-largest player in terms of market share, reported a 69.5 per cent decline in (standalone) net profit; revenues grew just 0.6 per cent. Gurgaon-based SpiceJet reported a 24.5 per cent drop in net profit and 12.5 per cent increase in revenues.

The dip in profits has come in spite of the airlines earning higher revenues, albeit marginally, on account of the overall increase in passenger traffic, which grew 23.18 per cent in 2016. Still, bottom lines felt the pressure, as average fares fell for most carriers.

IndiGo's yield went down to Rs3.48 in the December 2016 quarter from Rs4.14 in the December 2015 quarter. Yield is average fare per passenger per kilometre. This means if IndiGo was charging Rs4,753 for a Delhi-to-Mumbai ticket in the December 2015 quarter, it charged Rs3,995 for the same flight in the December 2016 quarter.

Ratings agency ICRA, in a December 2016 report, said that "addition of capacity by new airlines and rapid expansion of capacity by existing ones have resulted in an intensely competitive market and prompted airlines to resort to a variety of fare promotions to improve PLFs [passenger load factors]." It is these fare wars that cost airlines dearly.










Tens of millions of dollars were within reach for M. Prabhakara Rao as he prepared in April 2015 to take his Indian cotton seed company public.

The Indian businessman already had $54 million in initial funding from an American private equity investor. Rao had also locked in a long-term licensing agreement with Monsanto Co, the world's largest seed company, for the technology used in genetically modified cotton seeds that made up the majority of his annual sales.

Two months after publishing his initial public offering plan, Rao gambled. He sent one of his executives to negotiate a 10 percent cut in royalties with Monsanto. The multinational said no.

The outcome of that meeting ignited a corporate battle that has left Rao's IPO plans in tatters and drawn in the Indian and U.S. governments. More ominously, the fight has disrupted India's $1.8 billion-a-year seed industry, with Monsanto saying it may abandon the market.

Monsanto's Indian joint venture last July withdrew its application to introduce a new generation of cotton seed technology to India. The existing version, in India for a decade, is losing effectiveness against bollworms, which can wipe out crops. If another company doesn't step into the breach, agricultural economists warn the dispute could damage India's cotton-growing sector - which recently surpassed China's as the world's biggest and last year accounted for more than a quarter of global output, with a value of over $8.5 billion.

To an outsider, Rao's decision to take on Monsanto in a David-and-Goliath battle may seem hard to fathom. But the rules of doing business in India have changed. With the rise to power of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014 on a groundswell of Hindu nationalism, newly assertive right-wing groups, suspicious of foreign influence and particularly outspoken against large multinationals like Monsanto, now hold sway in the government.

The leaders of these groups operate under the umbrella of the powerful Hindu nationalist group known as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, Hindi for "national volunteer organization." They speak of returning India to an ancient, Hindu glory that was ravaged by foreign imperial powers. More pragmatically, they're amassing power.

Modi himself first attended RSS meetings at the age of 8 and was propelled to power with the group's help. A series of crucial ministries, including agriculture, are now run by ministers who are members of the RSS and its affiliates. Members of these Hindu nationalist groups also form a network of influential mandarins who seldom surface in public. They have the ear of the prime minister and those around him.

A lean, moustachioed man, Rao denies seeking the support of the RSS or working in tandem with the group, which wants indigenous varieties of cotton seed to replace Monsanto's products. But RSS powerbrokers - including the agriculture minister himself - told Reuters that Rao approached them for help in his battle with Monsanto. And they say they were happy to weigh in.

The agriculture minister, longtime RSS member Radha Mohan Singh, says his decision to intervene in the dispute was driven by the need to serve the interests of all Indian farmers, not just Rao.

The timing of Singh's actions, though, was telling. In the months after the meeting between Monsanto and Rao's man in Mumbai, the agriculture ministry first challenged and then slashed the royalties Monsanto is able to charge in India. The ministry called for an antitrust investigation into alleged monopolistic practices by the company. It also floated the idea of a compulsory licensing regime that would all but force Monsanto and other firms to hand over their proprietary technology to major Indian seed companies that applied for licenses.

Prime Minister Modi hasn't publicly commented on the matter. After the U.S. ambassador intervened last year, according to two people familiar with the dispute, the Indian government suspended the compulsory licensing proposal. The other measures remain in place.

After years of seeking more leverage with Monsanto, Rao found in the rise of Modi and the RSS an opportunity to challenge the company's domination of the Indian market. It was against this backdrop that he dispatched senior company executive P. Sateesh Kumar, a Ph.D. in agricultural genetics, to Monsanto's Mumbai headquarters in 2015.

At the time, Rao's company, Nuziveedu Seeds Ltd, was behind on royalty payments to Monsanto and on its way to racking up, by Monsanto's calculations, more than $20 million in debt. And its American investor, Blackstone Group LP, was waiting for the IPO to go through. Nonetheless, Kumar sat down in a corner conference room on the fifth floor and conveyed Rao's demand for a reduction in royalties. Monsanto delivered its answer there and then: That wasn't going to happen.

Before Kumar left the meeting on that hot June day, he paused. He told the executives from Monsanto and its Indian joint venture that there would be "consequences" for refusing Rao a discount, according to a letter Monsanto sent to the government and which was reviewed by Reuters. Kumar says he did not use such language.

In an interview in which he let loose peals of laughter, Rao pointed out that the first item under "Risk Factors" in the IPO prospectus for his company, of which he controls more than 80 percent of shares, was the possibility of his contract with Monsanto being disrupted. Still, he said, Monsanto made a mistake in thinking it had the upper hand.

Monsanto declined to answer questions on the role of the RSS in Rao's campaign. "We conduct our business in an honest, transparent and respectful manner and continue to engage with stakeholders across the spectrum," the company said.

Monsanto is backed in the dispute by chemical giant Bayer AG, which is in the process of buying the seed company for $66 billion. It also has the support of the local units of other seed heavyweights, including Dow Chemical Co and Syngenta AG. In August, these multinationals held a news conference in which they called for transparency in government regulation and licensing. Failure to do so, they warned, would endanger future investment in India.

An RSS spokesman referred queries about Rao and Monsanto to the RSS farmers' union, the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh. Its vice president, a man named Prabhakar Kelkar, said the union was working with Rao, who had approached it to complain about Monsanto's seed pricing.

"It is important for all of us to unite to wage a war against Monsanto. No one can do it alone, be it Rao or the" farmers' union, Kelkar told Reuters. "We are cooperating with him because he is fighting a battle that is meant for greater good."

Monsanto and Rao are now locked in a series of government complaints, litigation and arbitration.

Citing an Indian law that excludes seeds from being patented, Rao says Monsanto should never have been allowed to collect royalties after an initial payment to use its technology. Or, at the very least, he adds, prices should have been set by the government.

The bollworm threat

After hitting a record high in 2014, cotton yields and output in India have declined due to a pest attack and two straight droughts. Farming experts say that yields from the current strain of Monsanto's modified cotton seed (Bollgard II) have hit a plateau as the seeds lose effectiveness against crop-eating bollworms. To maintain its position as the world's top cotton producer, say the experts, India needs to introduce Monsanto's next-generation Bollgard III. India's agriculture minister and the RSS say they prefer a homegrown alternative to Monsanto's seed technology.

The technology currently licensed out by Monsanto is known as Bollgard II. The company received a patent in 2009 in India for Bollgard II's ability to modify cotton seeds to include a microbe called Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which fortifies cotton plants against bollworms.

Monsanto says Rao and a small group of other seed companies demanding a reduction in royalties are simply trying to renege on contracts and money owed. Dhiraj Pant, who oversees tech development for Monsanto across Asia, said it would have been preferable if the Indian seed companies had not pushed for the government to step in. "It is unfortunate that these disputing companies sought policy interventions to address a bilateral matter," said Pant.

The RSS, which has its own farmer and labor unions, was formed in 1925 to campaign against British colonial rule. It seeks to instill a nationalist vision of India as a Hindu nation, despite large minority populations that include Muslims and Christians.

The group nurtured Modi's rise - in his early days in the RSS he cleaned floors at a local chapter office. And the RSS helped form the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

But Modi and his RSS backers have differing views about the role of foreign multinationals. In his 13 years as chief minister of the western state of Gujarat, Modi was an early supporter of genetically modified cotton. His administration there allowed farmers to plant Monsanto-modified seeds, known as Bt cotton, before the technology received official approval in New Delhi.

His approach contradicted the RSS stance against multinationals operating in the agricultural sector, particularly when it comes to genetically modified crops.

The tension simmered for years. After Modi's election in 2014, the RSS began its push.

A senior leader in the RSS farmers' union, a man named Mohini Mohan Mishra, began holding study sessions with leaders in the ruling party and the Modi administration to argue against genetically modified crops. One of Mishra's presentation slides pointed to the rise in popularity of organic food in the West. Another slide said of Monsanto: "It created seed monopoly, a threat to seed sovereignty."

Monsanto's mistake was that it did not approach the RSS to plead its case, said Mishra in an interview at his office in central Delhi, which has peeling paint, dirty rugs and, in summer months, mosquitoes buzzing inside.

"It was the overconfidence of Monsanto that has destroyed their chances to do business in India," said Mishra. "They failed to study and understand the RSS."

Rao, meanwhile, was lobbying Modi's government. Sometime in 2015, he met with Singh, the agriculture minister and RSS member.

The powerbrokers and officials of the Congress party that ruled India for most of its independent history tended to espouse secular ideology in clipped English accents that hinted at elite schooling at home and abroad. The RSS leadership speaks of rural roots and the virtues of the homegrown.

Singh is cut from that cloth. At the beginning of one interview he paused to fold a small wad of snuff in his left cheek as an attendant brought a metal spittoon. He was not hard to convince that Monsanto was in the wrong, said Rao.

"The truth is that Monsanto was dominating the market, and that is not good for India's farming practices," said Singh. "We should have our own seeds to compete with them."

After Monsanto declared Rao's company in breach of payment obligations and terminated its contract in November 2015, Singh's agriculture ministry moved swiftly.

The next month, the ministry established a panel to fix the price of genetically modified cotton seeds and the royalties Monsanto was allowed to collect.

Less than two weeks later, a junior minister under Singh's command told parliament that the ministry had asked India's antitrust regulator to consider investigating whether Monsanto abused its dominance in the marketplace. He said the National Seed Association of India, of which Rao is the president, had asked his ministry to intervene in the dispute. An antitrust investigation was formally launched in February last year.

On March 4, 2016, Monsanto's chief executive for India put out a statement threatening to leave the country. Four days later, Singh's ministry slashed the royalty paid by local firms to sellers of genetically modified cotton seed technology, a market dominated by Monsanto, by about 70 percent.

Two months later, the agriculture ministry proposed compulsory licensing for Monsanto's technology. It was this move that prompted the U.S. ambassador to India at the time, Richard Verma, to approach Modi's office. People familiar with the matter said Verma wrote to Modi's principal secretary, Nripendra Misra, after the agriculture ministry did not respond to two previous letters. After the ambassador and Misra met, the government suspended the licensing measure.

During a visit to India last year, the U.S. commerce secretary, Penny Pritzker, said she had raised the Monsanto dispute with the government. "Companies will look to see how this is resolved because it sends a message about the seriousness of the current government to protect intellectual property," said Pritzker, who stepped down this January.

An aide close to Modi declined to discuss whether the prime minister had personally intervened in the licensing dispute. He said the issue would "remain open" for the foreseeable future. "Sometimes the best decision is not to take a decision," the aide said. The prime minister's office did not answer questions from Reuters.

Asked about Rao and his fight with Monsanto, Singh denied granting the businessman any favors.

Kelkar, from the RSS farmers' union, said the RSS had pushed for Singh to act against Monsanto. "In the previous regime we had to stand on the streets to launch anti-Monsanto protests," Kelkar said. "But with this government we can sit and talk in a room - it's because we all believe in the same agenda."

The impact of the dispute on Monsanto's bottom line became clear late last year when the company released its results: Sales of seeds and genetic traits for cotton dropped 16 percent, or $83 million, in the fiscal year ending August. That was "primarily due to lower average net selling price in India as a result of new government pricing policies," the report said.

The dispute's fallout could have grave implications, says Ashok Gulati, an agricultural economist who has advised the government on crop support prices in the past.

"The whole fiasco will dissuade global seed or technology companies from investing in India," Gulati said. In the short term, he said, India might get by with a local alternative to genetically modified cotton. "But in the long-term, say beyond five years or so, we need a technology that can propel India's cotton output. But then, political masters don't look beyond immediate gains."

Rao says that Monsanto and others deserve a return on their investment. But he wants royalty rates to be determined by government rules. In an interview, he pointed to the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act, which gives the regulator the power to fix royalty rates. The government fails, however, to exercise that authority, enabling Monsanto to dictate terms, says Rao.

In October, the government announced a change in the board that oversees the plant varieties act. A new member had been added: M. Prabhakara Rao.



Timeline: How Monsanto got outplayed

The fight led by M. Prabhakara Rao, the head of Nuziveedu Seeds Ltd, against global seed giant Monsanto Co erupted in 2015. What at first looked like a David-and-Goliath showdown - Monsanto's $15 billion of sales that year were roughly 80 times that of the firm headquartered in the south India city of Hyderabad - quickly became an example of how the rules of doing business have changed under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

APRIL 2015 - Rao is poised to make tens of millions of dollars by taking his company public. In a prospectus for taking Nuziveedu Seeds public, the first item under risk factors is the possibility that his company could lose its agreements with Monsanto, brokered through its local joint venture. But there was something that wasn't spelled out in the prospectus: India's newly powerful right-wing factions, under the organizational umbrella of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or "national volunteer organization," are suspicious of foreign influence and voice particular disdain for large international corporations. Like Monsanto. That gives Rao an opening. Even with the risk to his IPO, Rao makes a decision: He is going to take on Monsanto.

JUNE 2015 - Only about three months after renewing his contract, Rao chooses to push his demand for a 10 percent cut in royalties he pays for Monsanto's technology. Monsanto representatives tell one of his executives at a meeting in Mumbai that the answer is no. According to a subsequent letter sent to India's agriculture ministry by Monsanto's joint venture, the executive threatened there would be "consequences" for that decision.

JULY 2015 - A group of nine seed companies, including Nuziveedu, writes to Monsanto's joint venture in India saying they want to renegotiate the fees they pay. Their reasoning: some state courts have set the amounts that can be charged for seeds. The companies, in turn, want to reduce the fees they pay Monsanto.

In August, the National Seed Association of India, an organization of which Rao is the president, writes to the director of Monsanto's joint venture in India and makes a similar argument. The director responds that such contracts are bilateral and that they should approach Monsanto directly. Among those he cc's: Rao.

NOVEMBER 2015 - As tensions increase, Monsanto's joint venture in India sends a notice to Rao's company that it is terminating their agreement. At the time, Monsanto says, Nuziveedu owes almost 1.4 billion rupees, or more than $20 million.

DECEMBER 2015 - With the relationship between Rao and Monsanto unraveling, India's agriculture ministry, headed by a lifelong RSS member, steps into the fray. The first big move is an announcement of a cotton seed price regime.

DECEMBER 2015 - The agriculture ministry then informs India's upper house of parliament that "allegations of monopolistic practices" by Monsanto's joint venture in India have been referred for investigation to the Competition Commission of India.

MARCH 2016 - With its setbacks mounting, in particular government recommendations to reduce the amount paid for its seed technology, Monsanto says it will have to "reevaluate every aspect of our position in India."

MARCH 2016 - India's junior agriculture minister at the time Sanjeev Balyan tells Reuters that Monsanto is free to leave India: "We're not scared if Monsanto leaves the country."

MAY 2016 - The Indian government passes a measure that will essentially force firms like Monsanto to hand over genetically modified crop technology to any qualified Indian firm that applies for it. After lobbying by the U.S. ambassador to India, the measure is frozen.

Late 2016 - The costs of the battle have shown up in Monsanto's bottom line. In its 2016 annual report, the company says its sales of seeds and genetic traits for cotton have dropped by 16 percent, or $83 million, in the fiscal year ending August.
In Gujarat's Surat, tax payers so far have deposited over Rs 160 crore under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojna (PMGKY),days before the window to disclose illegal assets under the scheme closes on March 31.

According to media reports, until now 60 surveys had been conducted on the people to collect information about their illegal deposits in banks.

Over 5,000 notices have also been sent to the individuals who have deposited more than Rs 10 lakh in banned notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.

Meanwhile, in Namakkal district of Tamil Nadu a man also deposited Rs 246 crore in old notes under PMGKY. There was another incident which came to light yesterday, where a 17-year-old wrote a letter to PM Narendra Modi after he found out Rs 96,000 stashed in his home in demonetised notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.



ALSO READ: 17-year-old boy writes to PM after he finds Rs 96,000 in banned currency notes



PMGKY is an amnesty scheme under which one can disclose unaccounted cash and deposits, and avoid punishment by paying 50 per cent of the disclosed amount as tax, and depositing 25 per cent in an interest-free scheme for four years.

The department has warned that those black money holders who do not declare their illegal assets under the PMGKY scheme will " regret later".

ALSO READ: Man in Tamil Nadu makes a deposit of Rs 246 cr in Indian Overseas Bank

However, the department has promised "confidentiality" for those who come forward to disclose their illegal wealth. The I-T department has warned that they have "information" about those who have stashed black money.

The tax and penalty against those who hide their black money and fail to avail the PMGKY could go as high as 137 per cent of the cash deposits made.

A person or entity that opts for PMGKY will have to pay 49.9 per cent tax on the income, whereas a person who does not opt for the scheme but offers his black income in his Income Tax Returns will face a tax and penalty rate of 77.25 per cent.

The one who does not offer his stash funds under the scheme but is caught with undisclosed income in scrutiny assessment will face 83.25 per cent tax rate.




Even 12 days before India withdrew the legal tender status of its Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes for nearly every transaction, the country's currency printing presses were churning out old Rs 500 notes. The final stage of production of Rs 1,000 notes, however, ended three months ago.

In a response to a query under the Right to Information Act, 2005, Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran (P) Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), informed that the last-stage production of Rs 500 note was on October 27, 2016.

On November 8, 2016, the Narendra Modi government and the RBI announced they had demonetised 86 per cent of the Indian currency in circulation, scrapping high-value Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

Questions over the readiness of the government and the RBI to handle the challenges post the high-value currency demonetisation have been arising from several quarters, including the parliamentary panels, although the government has not, so far, given the details of the planning that went behind the decision.

The RTI response hints while the government could have been contemplating the move for some time, the final decision came at a short notice.

The official position of the RBI is that its board had recommended the demonetisation move in a meeting held in New Delhi a couple of hours before the announcement.

Incidentally, in a notification on May 5, 2016, the RBI introduced an incentive scheme for the banks to encourage installation of ATMs dispensing lower-denomination notes (not bigger than Rs 100). The RBI promised to reimburse 50 per cent of the actual cost of the machine or Rs 200,000 (whichever is lower) for each such installation in urban areas. In rural areas, the amount was 60 per cent or Rs 2,50,000.

However, the scheme had few takers, which prompted the RBI to come out with another notification on November 2, just six days before the note ban. The directive had wanted banks to recalibrate 10 per cent of their ATM networks to dispense only Rs 100 notes and that, too, within a period of 15 days.

The directives also point to the last-minute attempts made by the government to ease the problems that were anticipated after the demonetisation announcement.

In a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha in February 2017, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Minister of State, Ministry of Finance, stated that the matter to demonetise currency was under discussion (in consultation with the RBI) for several months preceding November 8, 2016.

He explained that the government, in a letter dated November 7, 2016, requested the RBI to consider cancellation of legal tender character of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination with the objective to eliminate black money and to curb the infusion and circulation of fake Indian currency notes (FICN). The central board of the RBI, in its meeting the next day, deliberated the proposal in detail and recommended withdrawal of the legal tender status of such notes, he pointed out.



The reply also specified that the currency returned to the RBI as on December 10, 2016, amounted to Rs 12.44 lakh crore although the actual amount returned would be known only after the data is reconciled with the physical cash balances to eliminate counterfeit notes, accounting errors, possible double counts and so on.

That process is yet to be completed.
US President Donald Trump today called up Prime Minister Narendra Modi and congratulated him on his recent electoral success, the White House said.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump congratulated Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on their electoral victories.

The White House said the leaders spoke by phone.

"The president spoke with German Chancellor Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Modi earlier today to congratulate them on their parties' success in recent elections," Spicer said.

Following the elections held in five states that begun on February 4 and ended on March 9 after polling was rescheduled in some constituencies, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party formed the government in four states: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.

It, however, lost Punjab to main rival Congress in the results announced on March 11.

Anchored mainly by Modi and his aide Amit Shah, the BJP juggernaut rolled on in Uttar Pradesh and in the neighbouring state of Uttarakhand, bagging three-fourth majority.

The BJP returned to power in the politically-crucial state of UP after a gap of 15 years during which regional parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party held sway.

Goa and Manipur had hung assemblies after the polls, but the BJP managed to form the government with support from other regional parties.

The elections in the five states had turned into a virtual referendum on Modi's popularity following his much-debated decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.

Previously, Modi and Trump talked by phone on January 24, when they had resolved to stand "shoulder-to-shoulder" in the global fight against terrorism and for defence and security.

According to a White House statement then, Trump had "emphasised that the US considers India a true friend and partner in addressing challenges around the world." The two leaders had exchanged invitations for visits.

"President Trump looked forward to hosting Prime Minister Modi in the US later this year," the statement had said.

Prime Minister Modi was the fifth foreign leader Trump had spoken to on phone after he was sworn-in as the US president on January 20. He had by then spoken to British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canada's Justin Trudeau, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

After his surprise victory in the November 8 elections in the US, Modi was among the first world leaders to congratulate Trump. And during the gruelling election campaign, India and Israel were the two prominent countries Trump spoke of strengthening ties if he were to become the president.
The MRF stock hit its all-time high on Tuesday amid reports that the Commerce Ministry is likely to discuss anti-dumping duty on import of certain kind of radial tyres.

At 1513 hours, the stock was trading at Rs 58,300 level, down 1604 points or 2.68 percent on the BSE. It closed at Rs 58500 level, down 1404 points on the BSE.



The stock hit an all-time high of Rs 60,298 in early trade after crossing the 60,000 level first time ever yesterday.

It opened at Rs 59,905 level today.

It is the most expensive stock in terms of market value.

The stock has surged 2,529 percent since it was listed on bourses.

On September 28, 2016, MRF crossed the 50,000 milestone for the first time ever.



Anti-dumping duty case

Automotive Tyre Manufacturers' Association (ATMA) had filed the application on behalf of the domestic producers-Apollo Tyres, JK Tyre Industries and Ceat for investigations in dumping of the tyres.

The other major manufacturers of radial tyres in India include MRF and Goodyear.

The Directorate General of Anti dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD), in its investigation, had found sufficient prima facie evidence of dumping of the tyres by Chinese companies.



The Indian tyre industry claims that imports of truck and bus radials from China have gone up by 68 per cent from 780,000 units in April-October 2014/15 to 1.31 million units in the corresponding period of the current fiscal.



Allegations are also rife that radials from China have increased by a staggering 600 per cent in the past two years, largely due to a 67 per cent surplus capacity there.


Providing a major boost to the maritime securitycapabilities of the Navy and Coast Guard, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hascleared a proposal worth around `8,000 crore for acquiring 32 made in India ALHDhruv helicopters to be built by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.

"In a meeting ofthe Cabinet Committee on Security headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, theproposal to acquire these choppers meant for coastal and maritime securityworth around `8,000 crore was given clearance," Defence Ministry sourcestold MAILTODAY.

Of the 32 choppers tobe built by the HAL, 16 each would be shared by the two services. "Theproject will be under the make in India programme being spearheaded by thePrime Minister himself and state-owned HAL would not only provide thehelicopters but also develop the infrastructure for operations of thesehelicopters in both the services," the sources said.

Incidentally, theDefence Acquisition Council (DAC) clearance for the project had also come in2014 when Arun Jaitley was given the charge of Defence Ministry for the firsttime and the final approval has also come at a time when he is holding theoffice after Manohar Parrikar's departure to Goa.

At the moment, theIndian Navy has deployed its fleet of the ALH Dhruv helicopters in Kochi at itsbase INS Garuda but has now plans HAL to develop base for operations of 32copters of deploying the fresh fleet at different bases across the coast line.

The Coast Guard has these twin-engine helicopters at itsdifferent bases for carrying out search and rescue and coastal surveillancemissions. "The Navy is also planning to equip the choppers with some lowfrequency SONARs which would be developed by the force with the help of anadvanced DRDO laboratory," the sources said.

After the signing ofthe contract, the forces are scheduled to get their first machine in the year2020 and the last helicopter is scheduled to be provided to them by 2022, thesources said. The ALH is being employed for a variety of missions includingadvanced search and rescue, special heli-borne, armed patrol, VVIP ferrying andtransport operations by the Navy.

The 16 helicopters being provided to the Navy would help it inmeeting some of the operational gaps created due to the lack of new helicoptersas projects have either been retracted or are stuck at different levels.

The Navy requiresover 145 multirole helicopters (MRHs) with antisubmarine warfare capabilities,without which its warships are virtually defenceless against enemy submarines,and 110 twin-engine naval light utility helicopters (NUHs) to replace obsoletesingleengine Chetaks.

India is one of the largest importers of arms and militaryplatforms globally. The government has been focusing significantly on promotingdefence indigenisation by taking a slew of reform initiatives includingliberalising FDI in defence sector.

In assosiation with Mail Today Bureau
The Trump administration is expected to give its consent for major export of natural gas to energy-hungry India, a senior US official has said, underling that energy sector is likely to be a major area of bilateral co-operation.

"Watch for it," the official said.

His comments came as US President Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order to wipe out his predecessor Barack Obama's climate change legacy.

No decision yet has been taken on Trump administration's commitment to the Paris Agreement on climate change. And same is the case with the various co-cooperation that the US has been doing with other countries including India on clean energy and climate change issues, the official said on condition of anonymity.

The official, however, said that energy sector is likely to be a major area of co-operation between India and the US.

Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan, during his visit to the US this month, had discussed with new Energy Secretary Rick Perry the possibility of importing LNG from the US and Indian investment in the energy sector there.

Pradhan had also discussed with Perry energy cooperation between India and the US, Indian investment in Liquefied natural gas (LNG) and Shale sectors, and the possibility of the US exporting LNG to India from early next year.

Perry had said co-operation between India and the US in the energy sector is in mutual interest as India's energy need is set to see a rapid increase as the economy expands.

"The policy tomorrow will look back and look forward," the official told reporters on the eve of the signing of the clean energy executive order.

"Energy independence is the goal," the official said, adding that the new energy policy is driven by economy.

Trump, the senior administration official said, believes that there are many clean energy policies of the Obama administration that should be reviewed or should be "taken off the books to the extent we can".

The executive order would also provide a framework for Trump administration's strategy on energy such that each department and agency of the government will be responsible for identifying all regulations, all rules that serve as obstacle and impediments to domestic energy.

The executive order among other things will call for a review of the Clean Power Plan, and overturn limits on coal leasing on public lands, methane regulations, and requirements to include climate change as part of environmental assessments, as well as call for a re-examination of the social cost of carbon.

"When it comes to climate change, we want to take our own course and do it in our won fashion," the official said.

"In terms of the Paris Agreement whether we are staying or not is still under discussion. Paris Agreement is still under discussion," he said.

However, it will not address several major environmental rules issued during the Obama administration.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  Weather including rapid melts of heavy snowpack has a federal water manager warning Utah residents to watch for flooding in coming weeks.

Wayne Pullan, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Provo office manager, tells the Deseret News (http://bit.ly/2nJ9CCJ ) that Mother Nature has thrown the region what he called a knuckleball this year, and higher flows than usual are expected in Cache and Utah counties.

He says downstream water associations and conservancy districts are already releasing water from dams to make room for coming snowmelt.

Pullan says reservoirs are expected to fill and some dams are likely to spill, including East Canyon and Upper Stillwater.

He says the Ogden River below Pineview Dam is a particular concern.

Pullan says 30 major and 19 minor bureau dams in Utah, southwestern Wyoming and parts of Idaho and Nevada are routinely inspected for structural integrity.
Jeena Nilson, 58, arrested and charged with six counts of failing to register as a sex offender, a third-degree felony.

LOGAN  The four-day jury trial for Jeena Nilson is expected to go forward in May, after attorneys failed to reach a resolution in the case. The 60-year-old Providence woman who previously was sent to prison for sexually abusing a child, is accused of failing to update her sex offender registry.

Nilson appeared in 1st District Court Monday afternoon for a final pretrial conference. She was arrested in June and charged with four counts of failing to register as a sex-offender, a third-degree felony. She has pleaded not guilty.

Defense attorney Camille Neider told the court she was working out a few logistical matters and should be ready for trial, May 9-12.

In November 2002, Nilson was sentenced to one-to-15 years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of sex abuse of a child, a second-degree felony.

Prosecutors allege that after Nilson was released, she didnt disclose her social media accounts in her sex offender registry. She also didnt report a vehicle, and her employment or volunteer work at Altius Gymnastics Academy.

Rozann Moake, owner of the gymnastics school, has said her mother worked at the school but said the charges against her are false and spurred by peoples gossip.

During Mondays court appearance, Judge Kevin Allen told attorneys for both sides to have their lists of witnesses and exhibits submitted no later than 30-days before the trial begins.

<hr /><p style=text-align: center;>will@cvradio.com
LOGAN  A 38-year-old Hyrum woman accused of stealing money from her employer appeared in court, as attorneys asked for additional time to review evidence.

Hollie B. Shepherd was in 1st District Court Monday morning. She is charged with 23 felonies, including 17 counts of forgery, three counts of theft by deception, two counts of unlawful use of a credit card and one count of money laundering.

State attorney Aaron Jossie said Shepherd worked at a local screen printing company. While employed, she allegedly wrote several company checks to herself and then cashed them. The crimes are reported to have occurred between December 2015 and August 2016.

During Mondays court appearance, defense attorney Marlin Grant told the court he was still waiting for all of the evidence in Shepherds case. He asked for more time to determine whether they wished to have a preliminary hearing scheduled.

Judge Thomas Willmore said he would allow more time and ordered Shepherd to appear again April 17.

<hr /><p style=text-align: center;>will@cvradio.com
Chicago Police Union Head Was Very Happy With His Meeting With Donald Trump

By Stephen Gossett in News on Mar 28, 2017 7:31PM



Dean Angelo (left) and other FOP heads meet with Donald Trump on Tuesday morning in the Roosevelt Room

It always appeared that Chicago police union head Dean Angelo and President Donald Trump were simpatico when it comes to policing policy. After Angelo visited the president at the White House on Tuesday, that appears to be even more the case, as the Fraternal Order of Police head said Trump is "on our wavelength" following their meeting, according to the Sun-Times.

When speaking with reporters following his meeting with Trump, Angelo reportedly dodged the again-hot question about Chicago's sanctuary-city status and whether police support that position. But he offered some telling light when he addressed the media. "I just mentioned that these police officers want to work. We need people to support police officers to go back to work so they can work toward stemming the violence in our city," he said.

According to Sneed, Angelo said he didn't receive any guarantees about federal funding but he offered that the President "was truly supportive of us."

Angelo has recently been critical of attempts to reform some of the more controversial aspects of the police union contract. He has also lamented low morale among officerswhich Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in January was in part fueling crime in cities like Chicago. The union head has not officially commented as to whether the union supports a consent decree to enforce recommendations made by the Obama-era Department of Justicewhich found a pattern of unconstitutional abuses in the Chicago police department.

Angelo, whose reelection bid heads to a runoff in April, told Sneed, "We told him it is essential to support the rank and file on the front line of this nightmare. He noted all the support he constantly receives from law enforcement and the military no matter where he goes." He also reportedly told Trump that the ACLU-backed stop reports led to the overall decrease in investigatory stops in Chicago.

Trump returned to his Chicago refrain in the meeting, which brought together a host of FOP leaders from around the country.

The president told the police leaders in the Roosevelt Room:



"Last year, in Chicago, 4,368 people were shot. Nearly 700 more have already been shot since January of this year alone. I ask, whats going on in Chicago, right? What is going on there? Theres no excuse for it. Theres no excuse for it. Im sure youre asking the same question: Whats going on in Chicago?"
Poland is silently drifting towards authoritarianism

Published on March 21, 2017

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The Polish government is limiting the power of the Constitutional Court and the informational capacity of public media. However, these measures are going unnoticed among the international community, which is currently preoccupied with Donald Trump and Brexit. [OPINION]

Turn on the television, and youll see Donald Trump tweeting and angering half the worlds population with each statement. Then, almost certainly, Theresa May and a new confrontation with the European institutions will show up. The statements of these leaders make everyone shake their head in despair, but, while we focus on the US and UK, were forgetting what is happening in Eastern Europe.

In Poland, the ruling Law and Justice Party's (PiS) drift towards authoritarianism is going unnoticed by most of European citizens, let alone the rest of the world, probably because the news headlines are not as juicy as those written about May or Trump. Current media coverage is poor and superficial, and it seems that few care about the weakening of democratic institutions in Poland.

Take for example Jakub Wawrzonkowski, a 25-year-old student in Business Administration from the University of Gdansk, who is currently based in Seville. According to him, people are paying too little attention to the things that have been happening in his native country for months. The truth is that despite the silence the government, led by Beata Szydlo and maneuvered from the shadows by former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kackzynski, has been shaping laws that endanger Polish democracy.

Conquering the middle classes

Wawrzonkowski left Poland about four years ago. However, his entire family continues living there. "I think the PiS's absolute majority is the worst thing that could have happened to Poland," he says categorically, when asked about the party's strong support. He blames it on the advantageous connections between PiS and the Catholic Church, as well as the growing elderly population in the country; two factors that, he stressed, have allowed it to grow among the most conservative sector in Poland. However, this is not the only factor that has helped increase the support to Szydlos party almost continuously since 2001.

PiS has won over the middle classes, who in some cases had voted in previous elections for the Civic Platform  the party formerly led by the current European Council President Donald Tusk  through measures such as family allowances given in the "500+" Program, which hands out a monthly allowance of 500 zloty (115 euros) per child to all families with two or more children. Measures like this have led many to disregard the radical ideology of the ruling party and not show excessive rejection of some of the most controversial measures approved by PiS since it managed to win the 2015 elections with a large absolute majority.

Attacks to justice and public media

A few months after PiS  close to ultraconservative ideology  came into power, it launched its first decree: a law that dilutes the separation of powers and directly affects the Constitutional Court. The reform eliminates the paragraph that references the independence of the Constitutional Court from political power. In practice, the measure represents a limitation of the powers of the Constitutional Courts judges, changes its voting system and muddles the approval of certain decisions, since the levels of consensus required among judges are, in practice, too high.

This measured introduced by PiS has been justified by the current government because of the improper appointment of some judges in the previous administration. Just before the elections that resulted in the victory of Kaczynskis party, five judges were appointed by the previous government. Two of them, according to the Constitutional Court itself, were chosen incorrectly. However, Szydlos executive power has not been limited to the correction of the appointment of the two aforementioned judges but, based on the reform, the five judges appointed by the previous government have been replaced. This has allowed the Government to appoint five judges of their choice that will safeguard its ability to block decisions that could be issued against government action.

But there's more. The Constitutional Court reform occurred in December last 2015, and barely one month later came a new reform from the Polish Government. This time the dart was aimed at the public media, which are considered "institutions of national culture." It put them under the guidance of the Ministry of Culture, which will be responsible for appointing the boards.

According to Wawrzonkowski, the only thing that the Polish PiS government is achieving with its actions and speech is dividing Poles and creating an image of Poland that does not correspond to reality. "Kaczynski himself has created two groups and said that those who are against him are the worst; personally, I include myself in that group, and I'm very proud of it," he says emphatically while talking about the ruling party rather severely and with most evident rejection.

The European Commission (EC) has already expressed concern about these measures. In fact, it has already launched the procedure for the protection of the rule of law in Europe, approved in 2014. With it the EC has formulated various reports and studies to ascertain the situation in the country and has issued a series of recommendations to the Government for it to change its behavior. Poland's response was blunt: it has ignored the EU institution, the guarantor to ensure compliance with the Treaties, in which its stated that all Member States must respect the rule of law.

Desperate times, desperate measures?

With all this, if the situation persists in Europe and the Polish Government goes ahead with these kinds of measures, the EC may initiate the implementation of Article Seven of the Treaty on European Union  something that has never happened  and impose a series of sanctions on Poland that would ultimately lead to the loss of its voting rights in the European Council. Its a move that could serve as a precedent for penalizing the authoritarian bent of other European governments such as Hungary, and could show that its not enough to comply with the deficit and debt limits to be a member of the European club.

Wawrzonkowski is quite clear in this regard: "I think the EU should apply Article Seven and impose sanctions on Poland, because otherwise it will not get the Government to modify its reforms." He also notes that the Poles must show that they have politicians such as Tusk to be proud of, not just people that inspire rejection within the EU, as is the case with some of the representatives of PiS. As for the future of their country in the EU, if PiS not change his attitude and punishments under the Treaty are applied, the young Polish emphasizes that his country "needs a government to recover from the damages done by the PiS and that changes the perception of other Member States.

But if all of this happens and Poland is finally sanctioned, its unlikely well even hear about it, because we will all be too busy reading Trumps latest tweet.

Story by Celia Ruiz Alfonsea

Translated from Polonia y la silenciosa deriva del Estado de Derecho
"Yes, Bulgaria!": A new party brings hope after elections

Published on March 28, 2017

Story by Nevena Borisova

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For many observers, the outcome of Bulgarias elections this weekend only confirmed the status quo. However, there was a new phenomenon on the political scene: Yes, Bulgaria - led by a former minister - which won 2.88% of the vote. A tiny number, perhaps, but some see it as a promise for further political development.

Following Bulgaria's presidential vote last year and Prime Minister Boyko Borisov's subsequent decision to resign for the second time in four years, the country found itself in an uneasy political situation. However, even with Borisovs departure his party - Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) - managed to win 32.65% of the electoral support, placing it at a first place. The Bulgarian Socialist Party came second with 27.2%; lower than the polls predicted. The other parties to win seats were the nationalist coalition United Patriots (9.07%), the ethnic party Movement for Rights and Freedoms (8.99%) and the newly arisen Volya, or Will (4.15%); a populist party led by businessman Vesselin Mareshki which ran on a platform of strong immigration controls and closer ties to Russia.

The creation of new parties like Yes, Bulgaria and the right-wing New Republic mark a change in the political landscape, and a new hope for the electorate. One of Yes, Bulgarias main campaign promises was to fight against corruption, as well as implementing education and health reforms. Their leader, Hristo Ivanov, was as a former justice minister in Boyko Borisovs cabinet who resigned after the government failed to implement a draft of justice reform.

This is a time of political uncertainty in Bulgaria. According to Transparency International Bulgaria ranks as the most corrupt country in the European Union, and up to 50% of the population believe the Bulgarian authorities have made no significant impact in the fight against corruption; which may explain the appetite for new voices in politics.

There were more than 20 different parties and coalitions from across the political spectrum running in the election; something which is viewed by some as a positive sign that Bulgarian voters are searching for a different perspective.

When you cant find something you want, you create it

Mariyan Rumenov, 25-year-old law student, was among the candidates for Yes, Bulgaria in the northeastern city of Targovishte, where he grew up.

I had several reasons for participating, says Mariyan. As a young man with education who has chosen to stay in the country, my conscience does not allow me to stay passively while it destroys itself, says Mariyan. According to him, 18 years after the collapse of the Eastern bloc there is still need to limit the presence in power of remnants of the former communist regime, which makes any kind of meaningful reform nearly impossible.

Vladimir Ivanov, a 23-year old who works in finance, also agrees that young Bulgarians are becoming much more politically active: This is exactly what I and many others strive to be  young, politically active working people with Western attitudes, who want their country to be more like Germany.

Yes, Bulgarias supporters, who come from a variety of backgrounds, are largely concentrated in the capital. They include health sector workers, academics, lawyers, and IT specialists. But when you ask them why theyre now deciding to become more politically active, the answers are much the same.

When you cant find something you want, there comes a moment when you decide to create it yourself, said Hristo Ivanov, during a press conference prior to the vote. Ivanov has stated that the party is a centrist one, with a clear profile. According to him, people dont have any difficulties in understanding the illness that the Bulgarian state suffers from.

Yes, Bulgaria also aims to create a more united front, and during the elections they teamed up with two parties: the Greens  who have become famous thanks to their involvement in several protests in recent years  and the liberal Movement for European Unity and Solidarity, which was created by 2014 as a protest against the so called Oresharski cabinet, which appointed media mogul Delyan Peevski as the head of its national security agency.

Now there is a party for educated people

Yes, Bulgaria did not gather enough votes in order to enter Parliament, something which Ivan Bakalov, the editor of the online daily e-vestnik, believes may be the result of an unfocused campaign during the elections. Nevertheless, their success has given some people hope for the future.

For a long time, the Bulgarian political scene didnt have a party which represented educated people, says Vladimir, who seems ready to support Yes, Bulgaria in the future. These are people who work hard, education and the economy are of primary importance for them. Now, such a party exists.

Story by Nevena Borisova
MigSzol: Giving voice to the voiceless in Hungary

Published on March 28, 2017

Story by Kinga Lendeczki

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Aliz Pocsuvalszki is one of the exceptional individuals acknowledged by the New Europe 100, who bring new energies from Central and Eastern Europe. We met Aliz to find out what it takes to be a change-maker and to stand up for those in Hungary whose voices are hardly heard.

When we consider the events of 2016, or even the beginning of this year, the hope that a better future is possible is more needed than ever. This is exactly what the New Europe 100 aimed to provide, by finding outstanding individuals from the field of business, society, politics, science, media and culture, and bringing them together on a platform where new collaborations and innovative ideas can be born. Aliz Pocsuvalszki, an organiser and activist for the MigSzol group, was among them.

Aliz is a Hungarian teacher by profession, but she started working with people belonging to different minorities during her university studies. Her first major project was the development of a community center for low-income families living in the suburbs of Szeged, a city in south-east Hungary. "I still regard this project as the most successful one I ever participated in," says Aliz. "We started to work on the plans of the center together with locals from the very beginning. They were involved in the whole process, which I believe is of key importance in community projects."

Besides teaching in a state school she visited community centers or rural schools to teach children from disadvantaged minority families, and also worked with different Roma communities. A few years ago she moved to Budapest, where she started teaching Hungarian to foreigners in different civil organisations. However, the special experience of working together with others to achieve something collectively slightly disappeared due to the hierarchical structure of the organizations. Having a kind of client-helper relationship with her student was unfamiliar and uncomfortable for her. Looking for other options, Aliz came across an organization that offered her the perfect solution.

Together on the same platform

"I found MigSzol after reading an article about the struggles of Rakan, a Palestinian refugee from Syria who was fighting to see his family again," Aliz recalls. The man started a hunger strike to call attention on his case, and MigSzol supported him in his mission. The story of the man and the way how the group tried to help him impressed her: "I decided to visit one of their events and it convinced me that I had to join them. I found the idea of being part of a group where everyone is equal and able to work together for a common goal very appealing."

The story of MigSzol started in November 2012, when around 70 Afghani refugees started protesting for better living conditions and integration support in Hungary. The group lived in the refugee camp in Bicske, which at that time operated as a re-integration center. It meant that only recognized refugees could live there until they received their official papers. The group decided to do something against the poor conditions and raised their voice not just for themselves, but also for other refugees and migrants in Hungary. During the protests some locals and foreign nationals joined their initiative and established MigSzol.

The groups first crisis came a few months later, when the Afghans left for Germany. In spite of their continued struggles, nothing happened in their cases. The group had to start everything from scratch, and spent months brainstorming with other activist groups to define their basic principles. "We regard ourselves as political activists," says Aliz. "Were a grassroots group, independent from political parties and without hierarchies. We try to base every decision on a common consensus, which is not an easy task, and we are still practicing it. It is also important for us that we are not working for the refugees, but together with them."

As political activists, MigSzol advocate for social and political rights for migrants and refugees living in Hungary. It is crucial for them to inform Europe about the situation of refugees in the country with sharing news and writing reports in English and Hungarian. The group is composed from Hungarians, foreigners and refugees and through its members it is part of an extensive and strong international network of activists and volunteers, which helps them to spread information worldwide.

"Hungary is a transit country"

According to Aliz, "The present narrative is that Hungary is a transit country, which the government tries to underline with its actions." In the past year, the situation of refugees has gone from bad to worse. In May the integration contract for recognised refugees, their only financial support from the government, was cancelled. After the erection of a border fence, a transit zone is still in place where asylum seekers can legally enter Hungary, though the number of entries has decreased from 20 to five people per day. At the same time, the government started to close permanent refugee centers and move the rest of asylum seekers and refugees to temporary camps, located close to the border, which are badly equipped for the winter weather. All these acts by the government are designed to empty the country of refugees, and uphold a xenophobic stance against refugees and migrants.

One of MigSzols principal aims is to stop deportations to Hungary. According to the Dublin Regulation, the first EU member state where an asylum seeker enters and gets registered is ultimately responsible for that persons asylum claim. It also means that refugees can be deported back to their country of entry, even if living conditions and the possibility of integration are lower there. "We think that refugees should be allowed to ask for asylum in those countries where they would have a better chance to start a new life," explains Aliz. "A better chance can mean a lot of different things, from a better economic situation, to the language you speak and the wellbeing of family members. Using our international network to spread news about the conditions in Hungary, we hope that we can have an influence on these decisions."

The first step(s) towards integration

While the government tries to make it harder for refugees to settle in Hungary, civil organisations like MigSzol are making every possible effort to support them in their integration. The MigSzol School, launched in 2014, was Alizs first initiative. Visiting refugee camps with MigSzol, she saw that although people wanted to learn Hungarian, they had no means to do so. "The very first step to integration is learning the language of the country, at least on a very basic level," she says. With the help of native volunteers, MigSzol started giving free language courses. In the first year alone, they had over 40 students.

"We always say that the beginner course is a 'survival course,'" Aliz continues. "Our aim is to give people a basic knowledge of the language, help them to manage their everyday life in Budapest and give them more self-confidence in communication." However, the courses give more than the possibility to practice basic vocabulary. The school also created a community space, where people from similar backgrounds can meet and build new connections. Organised programs like picnics and dinners help to strengthen this network and provide occasion to talk about the problems the students currently struggle with.

How to become a change-maker?

Among the alarming tendencies that lately appeared in Europe it is encouraging and incredibly important to learn about the experiences and achievements of young change-makers like Aliz. "I have already been teaching for several years and I have seen there will always be young people who want to strive for a better future," she says. "At the same time, they need encouragement, from people who can bring more visibility to their work and support them. They need to know that they can make political change happen, and they should make their voices heard."

Understanding who you are, where you come from and what you have feelings for  these are the main questions that someone should answer first before becoming a change-maker. "I think that our feelings can motivate us the most to act for a change. It is better to focus on those matters that we are emotionally attached to, make us think or even make us really angry." At the same time, Aliz thinks that its important to pay attention where Europe is going now. "In Hungary people usually refer to 'European values', but what do we actually mean by them?"

The future change-makers of Europe could start by defining those values.

Story by Kinga Lendeczki
(Beijing)  Chinas third-largest brokerage by assets plans to raise HK$16.47 billion ($2.12 billion) via an initial public offering (IPO) on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Guotai Junan Securities Co. Ltd. said on Monday that it plans to issue 1.04 billion shares at HK$15.84 per share on the Hong Kong bourse. The IPO would be the largest since the $7.63 billion IPO of Postal Savings Bank of China in September.

While most companies seeking an IPO offer an indicative price range for their shares, Guotai Junan offered a fixed price, which was decided according to the closing prices of the top five Chinese brokerages listed in Hong Kong last week, company Chairman Yang Dehong said.

The subscription period for the offering started Tuesday and ends Thursday. The company hopes to begin trading on April 11.

Six cornerstone investors  including British private-equity firm Apaxs subsidiary, Shanghai-based Bank of Communications investment arm and Da Cheng Funds Hong Kong unit  have pledged to acquire 294 million shares together, according to a prospectus released on Tuesday.

The funds raised by Guotai Junan will be used to develop the brokerages financial institution business, improve services for individual clients, bolster investment management and explore the global market.

Wang Song, the companys vice chairman, said the IPO will help the securities company meet its domestic clients needs to invest overseas. Through the IPO, the company aims to make a further foray into the global market and strengthen its existing international business, Wang added.

Guotai Junan, which is already listed on the Shanghai bourse, reported a net profit of 15.7 billion yuan ($2.29 billion) in 2015 and 9.8 billion yuan in 2016. Its total assets reached 411.7 billion yuan by the end of last year.

The brokerage firm first revealed its plan to go public in Hong Kong earlier this year.

A number of Chinese brokerage firms have gone public by listing in Hong Kong in recent years as equity trading volume on the Chinese mainland has remained sluggish since the stock market meltdown in 2015. In August, Everbright Securities, controlled by state-owned financial conglomerate China Everbright Group, raised HK$8.6 billion via a Hong Kong IPO. China Merchants Securities Co., the investment banking and brokerage arm of state-owned conglomerate China Merchants Group, also went public in September, seeking to raise $1.47 billion.

Contact reporter Chen Na (nachen@caixin.com)
(Beijing)  German luxury carmaker Audi suspended its plan for a new joint venture with SAIC Motor Corp. amidst an escalated dispute with Chinese dealers.

Audi agreed to relaunch the SAIC joint venture plan when annual sales volume in China reaches 900,000 cars, roughly 50% more than current sales, according to Li Yanwei, an analyst at China Automobile Dealers Association. Audi also agreed not to establish a new sales network and to sell cars through Audis current China dealership network.

In 2016, Audi sold 591,600 vehicles in China. An Audi dealer told Caixin that it could take three to four years to achieve annual sales of 900,000.

The decisions came after Audi met Tuesday with dealers and its current joint venture partner, FAW Group, with which the current dealers are affiliated. The talks were to resolve a dispute over Audis plan to make and sell cars with SAIC.

The dealers attending the meeting declined to comment, citing confidentiality agreements. Audi disclosed to Caixin that it is discussing with dealers a proposal that Audi drafted with FAW.

In November Audi revealed a plan to set up a venture with SAIC in addition to its 22-year-old FAW joint venture to expand its production and sales network in China while reducing reliance on FAW. But the plan received vehement opposition from Audis FAW dealers because a new SAIC-affiliated dealer network might dent their long-term prospects with sales already in a sharp decline.

Despite its market-leading position, Audi has been losing sales as Mercedes-Benz and BMW play catch-up and new entrants such as General Motors Co.'s Cadillac roar into the luxury market. In the first two months of 2017, Audi's sales in China declined 24% while sales of Mercedes and BMW rose.

In February, dealers met in the resort town of Sanya, where they issued a statement opposing Audis plan to establish a second joint venture until the carmaker could exceed 1 million units in domestic sales. They also asked for payments to offset losses over the past three years and guarantee a profit margin of at least 3%. Audi and FAW havent agreed to all of the dealers demands.

According to sources at FAW, Audi Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rupert Stadler, who has been actively pushing the SAIC plan, flew to Changchun last week to meet with FAW Chairman Xu Ping. Details of their meeting were not disclosed.

With Stadlers role in the emissions-cheating scandal involving Audis parent company Volkswagen Group still not clear, FAW and SAIC are cautious about their next steps, according to people close to SAIC.

Earlier this month, German authorities raided Audis headquarters and two of its largest plants, raising questions whether Stadler was involved with the Volkswagen scandal.

Any changes in Audis top management could cast a cloud on the prospect of Audi-SAIC plan, the source said.
The Cost Of Chicago's Segregation (In Lives & Dollars) Is Staggering

By Stephen Gossett in News on Mar 28, 2017 4:26PM



John Ashley

We know that Chicago is one of the most segregated cities in Americaas high as third or second most segregated, in fact, according to recent gauges. But to what extent does that segregation cost the city? An extreme amount, according to a new study.

In "The Cost of Segregation," the Metropolitan Planning Council went through the data with a fine-tooth comb and found precipitous losses in income, potential and life itself due to Chicago's long-standing, entrenched segregation.

Income: If Chicago's level of segregation (economic and African American-to-white) were diminished down to the national median, additional income would jump up a staggering $4.4 billion. Among the region's black population, average annual income would shoot by $2,982, researchers found. Gross domestic product suffers to the tune of roughly $8 billion due to the Chicago area's well-above-average levels of segregation.

Lives: Similarly, a regression to the national segregation mean would mean more than 200 lives saved. The homicide rate would fall 30 percent, the study concluded. (Something officials would be wise to remember as federal and local leaders negotiate solutions for Chicago's violent crime struggles.) That decline in homicide would have also had the domino effect of $65 million in policing-cost savings, some $218 million in corrections-costs savings and a $6 billion home-and-apartment value increase, the MPC found.

Potential: Total lifetime earnings are $90 billion lower than they would be if black-to-white segregation in Chicago mirrored national averages; and an additional 83,000 more people in the area would have earned a bachelor's degree.

It's a sobering conclusion across the boardone that demands a host of prescriptions. In phase two of the study, MPC will next turn toward that challenge. "We will develop and model housing, transportation, economic, health, safety and education policy interventions that set us on the path toward less segregation, greater equity and a more productive economy," wrote researchers. "These policies will define a future city, county and regional advocacy agenda."
Rahm Scoffs At AG Sessions, Pledges To Keep Chicago A 'Welcoming City' For Immigrants

By Stephen Gossett in News on Mar 28, 2017 3:20PM



Rahm Emanuel / Getty Images / Photo: Scott Olson

Mayor Rahm Emanuel pushed back against the Trump administration's latest move to pressure so-called sanctuary cities, like Chicago, into abandoning those policies. After Attorney General Jeff Sessions threatened on Monday to cut off grants from the Department of Justice to cities that don't share information with immigration agencies, Emanuel said, I've always seen Chicago as a welcoming city, Emanuel said, vowing to keep it that way.

"In the city of Chicago, like New York, like Boston, like Philadelphia, like San Francisco, like Seattle, we welcome people to our cities from other shores who want to innovate, want to be entrepreneurs, who want to bring their families and give their children the chance at the American dream," Emanuel said in an interview on CNBC. Emanuel was speaking from the Nasaq stock exchange, where he rang the closing bell with Chicago Innovation Awards honorees.

Emanuel added, "It welcomed my grandfather 100 years ago, we continue to welcome entrepreneurs, immigrants, and I would just say think of it this way: Half the new businesses in Chicago and the state of Illinois come from immigrants, nearly half. Half the patents at the University of Illinois come from immigrants, and so we want to continue to welcome people, welcome their ideas, welcome their families to the city of Chicago, who want to build the American dream for their children and their grandchildren."

According to the latest number crunch from the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, Chicago received roughly $24.5 million from the Justice Department this fiscal year, which funded Chicago police programs, the COPS Hiring initiative and bodycam grants. "Not all of this money may be immediately threatened, however," the CTBA wrote. "Some grant programs, like COPS, are subject to Congressional appropriation, and may therefore require Congressional action to change."

One federal policy in particular, which involves forcing cities to use detainer orders, could also be a legal ball of wax. Detainers are notices sent from ICE to local law enforcement asking that an individual be held for an additional 48 hours beyond the time he or she would be released. Several municipalities have turned their backs on detainer requests for fear of exposing themselves to civil liability.

Sessions spoke at the White House briefing room on Tuesday, echoing a previous executive order from President Trump that called for defunding of sanctuary cities. "I urge the nation's states and cities to carefully consider the harm they are doing to their citizens by refusing to enforce our immigration laws," Sessions said, according to the New York Times.

The back-and-forth comes at a time when Emanuel and Supt. Eddie Johnson have now both spoken with the Trump administration about securing federal resources to help combat Chicago crime. Sessions is expected to meet with Chicago police union head Dean Angelo on Tuesday.
Joachim Arrey W. Musa

It is only five months since the unfortunate drama between the government and the Anglophone minority has been playing out and the adverse consequences are already far-reaching. When it all started, not many people thought it would last for more than a week, but five months after, the government is yet to reestablish its authority in the English-speaking part of Cameroon.

On the surface, it looks like a simple game, but when you scratch beyond the surface, the true cost of the conflict hits you like a ton of bricks. Government authority has been challenged in the Anglophone region and in places like Akwaya, one of the most impoverished sub-divisions of the country; the Nigerian flag is joyously flying above many government buildings.

Administrative officers in Akwaya have been fired by the people and government offices have either been burnt or come under attack by irate youths. The people of Akwaya are clearly demonstrating their anger against a government they claim has neglected them for more than five decades and, to make matters worse, it has arrested one of their prominent sons, Justice Paul Ayah.

In Eyumojock, the youths are clearly advising government officials of the end of their era. Last Friday, members of the ruling party were attacked by youths who hold that the ruling party has overstayed its welcome in West Cameroon following the outlawing of the Consortium. Many of the party officials had to flee the ceremonial grounds where they had planned to celebrate the thirty-second anniversary of their party, living behind their cars when stone-throwing youths invaded the venue of the event. From the actions playing out in West Cameroon, it is obvious that the ruling party has died a natural death. Many Anglophones are already asking ruling party parliamentarians in the Anglophone zone to start looking for new jobs as they will have to face the wrath of West Cameroonians in the 2018 parliamentary elections.

However, it is the killing of many innocent Anglophones during the strikes and demonstrations that is hard to swallow. Many Anglophones were brought down by the bullets of the forces of law and order and many more have died in detention either due to poor detention conditions or torture by some overzealous elements that erroneously hold that the country belongs to them and any attempt to challenge their God-given right must meet with a stiff response.

This is even one of the issues that are making genuine dialogue almost impossible, as the government cannot confidently account for all those who have been arrested. Information from government sources which have elected to be anonymous alleges that some of those arrested have been tortured to death and they claim to know where these victims have been buried in mass graves.

They have expressed their willingness to expose some of these human rights abuses when the right time comes  that is, if it will ever come. Some terrifying videos and pictures are already online and this explains, in part, why the government has rolled back the Anglophone region into the Dark Ages by disconnecting the Internet. Stories of gruesome arrests have been making the rounds, alleging that some people have been arrested while alone and nobody is aware of their whereabouts.

It will be hard to actually account for all those who have disappeared and many government officials have been working hard and long to ensure that the issue of those who have died or disappeared never gets included in the agenda of any dialogue whenever both parties agree to meet to thrash out their differences regarding the disaster that is still playing out in Cameroon; a disaster that has caused the countrys economy to be caught in a downward spiral.

However, the Anglophone minority holds that it has incontrovertible evidence in that regard and that those responsible for such abuses will be taken to the International Criminal Court where they could spend a long time reflecting on their atrocities; an idea that is causing many government officials to lose sleep and appetite. Their determination to take government officials to The Hague is being supported by prominent African and International human rights lawyers who are keeping a close eye on the situation and are documenting abuses committed by both sides.

Besides the killings that many Anglophones consider as worrisome, the countrys image has taken a serious beating. Cameroon has always been considered around the world as a peaceful country in a tough neighborhood. While many countries in the Central African sub-region have known either a civil war or a coup detat, Cameroon has, over the last fifty-six years, been enjoying some relative peace.

Though many consider the peace as unsettling because of the lack of genuine human rights and freedoms, the countrys government has successfully packaged the country as an oasis of peace in a desert of chaos, an image that has been bought by many investors and diplomats across the globe. But this image has suddenly vanished following the brutality government troops unleashed on Anglophone lawyers when they took to the streets to call for better working conditions and a return to a federal system of government that will guarantee the interest of the Anglophone minority in Cameroon.

Today, Barrister Felix Agbor Balla, Dr. Fontem Neba and Justice Paul Ayah have been robbed of their freedom for calling for a federal system of government; a request that has caused the countrys government to lose sleep and control of itself. Scenes like these are hurting the countrys image and scaring investors who are averse to uncertainty.

The countrys economy that was already on the ropes prior to the advent of the Anglophone crisis, has taken a dangerous nosedive. Poor policies and mismanagement over the last decades have sapped the countrys economy of its vitality. Corruption and embezzlement have caused many state-owned enterprises to collapse and, currently, many former ministers and corporate executives are languishing in jail for robbing the people of their scarce resources.

But this situation has been made worse by the crisis, especially in the English-speaking part of the country, where ghost towns are respected to the letter and the disconnection of the Internet has caused many start-ups to either shut down operations or relocate to where they can do business, albeit at exorbitant costs.

Banks and money transfer agencies are struggling to stay afloat, but the longer the Internet disconnection persists, the greater their pain. To cushion the impact of the governments ill-informed decision to disconnect the Internet, a tool that is vital for their operation, financial institutions and software companies have laid off many employees, pushing up the countrys unemployment rate to levels never witnessed before. The situation is very disturbing and it has already served as a death sentence to many small- and medium-sized enterprises. With students not going to school and many Cameroonians facing an uncertain future, the countrys crime rate is gradually heading for the sky.

In a country where there is no welfare and universal health coverage, death toll from preventable and curable diseases will surely reach alarming rates, especially in West Cameroon where many people have lost their jobs and sources of revenue. Though members of the Diaspora are reaching out financially to their family members for medical reasons, the countrys medical facilities still leave much to be desired. They are, at best, consultation clinics and, at worst, mortuaries for many Cameroonians who lack the resources to seek better healthcare abroad.

Also, one of the major costs that will be borne by the country as a result of this conflict is the academic year that has been messed up by the striking Anglophones. From the look of things, the 2016-2017 academic year is over and it is likely that end-of-year examinations will not take place. The entire Anglophone educational sub-system is in total chaos and pulling the system out of this pretty mess will take a lot of hard work and determination.

Schools have been closed for more than four months. The strike is still in effect and there is no end in sight, as the government is not willing to make any concessions and the Diaspora that is running the show remotely is not yielding an inch of its acquired territory to a government that is wont to speaking from both sides of its mouth.

Though the countrys officials have rolled out plans to make up for the lost time, it will be challenging to play catch-up in an environment of conflict and mistrust. Students of the Anglophone educational sub-system and their parents must have to pray long and hard for this unfortunate situation to be laid to rest.

Staying at home could be boring, but losing an entire academic year could be really unsettling, especially as many parents are out of work and the economy is in a tailspin.

If this unfortunate situation has to be a thing of the past, both the government and striking Anglophones have to make big concessions. The government has to listen to the people who have clearly stated that for any talks to take place, their leaders, the only people mandated to represent them in any discussions, and fellow Anglophones who are currently being detained in Yaounde must be released.

The Internet, a great research tool, must be restored and the arbitrary arrests that have become a daily occurrence must also stop. They insist that federalism must be on the agenda of any discussion with the government. The striking Anglophones are calling for a better Anglophone educational sub-system and an Anglophone section at the Supreme Court.

The government, for its part, has expressed its willingness to dialogue, but insists that the form of the state is not up for discussion. It considers those in jail as terrorists who must be dealt with according to the law. This appears to be a sticking point and neither the government nor the striking Anglophones are willing to make concessions. As both parties stick to their guns, they must understand that the country is suffering as a result of the conflict.

They must remember that students want to go to school, but they want to attend classes in a demilitarized and learning-friendly environment. Similarly, in this battle of the wills and egos, both parties must bear in mind that the true winner will be Cameroon, as a better country will emerge from the ashes of the old country that had been designed without the peoples interest at heart.

Joachim Arrey.

About the Author: The author of this piece is a keen observer of Cameroons political and economic landscape. He has published extensively on the countrys political and economic development, especially in the early 90s when the wind of change was blowing across the continent. He has served as a translator, technical writer, journalist and editor for several international organizations and corporations across the globe. He studied communication at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom and technical writing in George Brown College, Toronto, Canada. He is also a trained translator and holds a Ph.D

By Wilson MUSA
| BY Kim Shaw |

The Asia Pacific Tambuli Awards has released the partial list of jurors for the 2016 Overall Executive Jury led by overall jury chairman Charles Cadell, Regional President Asia Pacific and Japan, McCann Worldgroup (pictured left).

The members of the jury include Cheuk Chiang, CEO Asia Pacific, Omnicom Media Group (below left), Tom Doctoroff, CEO Asia Pacific (centre), J. Walter Thompson, and Dick Van Motman, CEO Southeast Asia, Dentsu Aegis Network (right).

Evaluating entries at the APAC Tambuli awards happens at two levels: the plenary jury evaluates entries online, and determines the bronze, silver, and gold winners, following a point system. All gold winners are then evaluated by the Overall Executive jury to determine which among them deserve to be elevated to grand prix. From among the grand prix, the platinum winner is chosen.

The APAC Tambuli Awards honors brands that do good and do well  showing the seamless integration of creativity + human good + results. Case study entries must demonstrate how brands uplift society, create positive change, and correlate purpose with purchase.

Deadline for entries is on March 28. Visit here for details and entry kit.




The Food At Midway Airport Might Be Getting Less Terrible Soon

By Anthony Todd in Food on Mar 28, 2017 1:40PM



Midway / Facebook

Midway Airport partisans may hate me for saying this, but the food at Midway sucks. Especially when compared with O'Hare International Airport, where travelers can enjoy tortas by Rick Bayless, snacks and drinks from The Publican and dinner at Lettuce Entertain You properties like Hub 51 and Big Bowl, Midway's pubs, Potbelly and Ben & Jerry's really can't compete. Even the Manny's Deli clone isn't enough to save them. That might be about to change.

We originally reported on this back in January, when the renovation plans were announced, though exactly what restaurants and bars were coming was a bit uncertain. Now, Eater Chicago reports that Midway's restaurant upgrade project is well underway, and plumbed the depths of the city's liquor license application database to find out for sure what outposts might be coming.

These really-for-real new spots include a new sushi spot from Chef Takashi Yagihashi, a White Sox-themed bar, a Goose Island-branded bar, and a location of Schallers Original Pump. Some of this matches the original announcement, though there's no mention of the location of Arami sushi that had us so excited when this project was initially announced.

It's still no Tortas Frontera, but at this point, anything has to be an improvement.
| BY Ricki Green |

Launch marketing agency Five by Five has today announced the appointment of Craig Bailey (left) as a shareholding creative partner in the role of ECD.

The integrated agency opened its Sydney doors in September 2015 bringing its launch proposition from the UK and US to Australia to great effect. Baileys appointment aims to build on this proposition, driving the agencys creative offering across key launch communication channels including TV, OOH, digital, social media, PR and experiential.

Following a successful spell at BMF, Bailey was creative director at Pusher for 4 years, winning a range of clients including Lorna Jane, Google Creative Labs, Goodman Fielder, Brisbane Heat, Natures Own and GSK/Panadol. As creative partner most recently at DDB/TRACK, he led CX, digital and direct for McDonalds, Westpac, BT and VW, winning a silver Effie and multiple ADMAs for Westpac. An 18 year career has brought recognition from Cannes, D&AD, One Show, Effies, Webbys, B&T Agency of the Year, AdNews, AIMIA, ADMA, AWARD, and Caples.

Bailey joins the Sydney leadership team alongside client director, Larissa Rembisz (above, centre), and managing director (above, right), Matt Lawton.

Says Lawton: Were thrilled to bring someone of Craigs calibre into the business. His well rounded experience, award winning pedigree and proven new business snaring history bodes well for the Australian arm of our network. Hes a great believer in the integration of marketing disciplines and that fits perfectly with the way we plan and execute launch campaigns across digital and traditional channels.
| BY Ricki Green |

Global media agency network Mindshare has appointed Aaron Achurch to the role of client leader across the IAG and IKEA business.

Achurch has over 14 years of media experience having spent 12 years of his career at Ikon Communications working across brands such as Diageo, Bankwest, Vodafone and ARU to name a few. Most recently Achurch was at Bohemia where he was working across the Lion account.

Mindshare won the IKEA account in a competitive pitch at the end of 2016. Mindshare have held the IAG account for 3 years and Aaron is replacing Melinda Walters on this part of the business.

Says Achurch: Im really excited to be joining the Mindshare team and working across two very dynamic and diverse clients like IAG and IKEA. Mindshare as an agency is very much on an upward trajectory and I am looking forward to being a part of that.

Says Katie Rigg-Smith, CEO, Mindshare Australasia: Aaron has such a great reputation in market as someone that really cares about how brands come to life in media and finding ways to collaborate with client, agency partners and media owners alike to make that happen. This type of collaboration is critical on brands such as IAG and IKEA that Aaron will now be leading for us and we are thrilled to have him join Mindshare.
| BY Lynchy |

Cambodia may be a small market, but its safe to say nearly all Cambodians (okay, men!) are beer lovers. And adding to the spirit of the industry, Carlsberg launched its bottles in the market earlier this year.

Carlsberg, known globally for their premium mild beer, is certainly not unknown to Cambodians, but the challenge ahead of the brand now is to see how well received it is by the local beer loving Cambodians.

Witnessing positive growth with the initial launch of cans, Carlsberg has now launched bottles aimed at becoming the preferred choice of premium beer drinkers in urban Cambodia. In a competitive landscape, with tough competition from strong and loved homegrown brands like Angkor Beer and Cambodia Beer, how Carlsberg carves a market for itself will be interesting to see.

Jessica Lim, Managing Director, Comzone Cambodia said, The Cambodia beer market offers a fair amount of choice. But Cambodian beer drinkers are not necessarily brand loyalists. We have seen this with new entrants in the beer industry take a sizable market share from the established leader in the past 2 years. Which is why with the Carlsberg launch, we have tried to stay away from a promo-based short term approach, we have laid emphasis on creating a genuine likeability for Carlsberg.

The real strong players (in Cambodia) are definitely the homegrown brands. These brands are well invested in and well in sync with the beer drinkers life style and preferences. There are varying shades of fun, friendship and good times promised by several brands, but there is a stark gap when it comes to the upfront promise of great taste and quality. Which is what Carlsberg brings and thats what the launch creatives celebrate, adds Daisy Hazra, Comzone about the strategic approach behind the entry campaign.

Comzone explains further that due to several linguistic and cultural reasons, they advised
| BY Lynchy |

Samsung has appointed ComZone to the creative account for its latest editions of Galaxy, one of the biggest selling brands in Cambodia.

The agency won the work after a rigorous pitch participated in by seven of the countrys top local, regional and international ad agencies. Agencies were selected based on their experience and success in handling previous smartphone campaigns and included Cambodias top two international agencies.

The ComZone team were very remarkable during the process and the exciting concepts they presented clearly prove that they know the creative strategy and tactics necessary to work on Cambodias leading smartphone brand.

ComZone Group Managing Director Jessica Lim expressed the agencys pride in the opportunity to manage Samsungs newest Galaxy products and said, The smartphone market is growing and so is the competition. Buyers are getting more and more sophisticated in their tastes and requirements. We believe that the Galaxy S8 and its bigger S8+ with their never-before seen features will be instant favorites among the young and hip buyers.
| BY Lynchy |

Coming off a fresh win with Australian investment firm, FAMI , GOVT Kuala Lumpur recently received news of another business win with Malaysia Airports Berhad for its latest brand film.

Emerging as the chosen agency in a 4-way pitch, GOVT Kuala Lumpur will be working closely with MAHBs Corporate Communications Department to create a film that will truly represent the airports brand and what it means to the people. The Brand Film will be launched around Q2 of 2017.
| BY Lynchy |

Permata Bank has appointed TBWA\Indonesia as its creative partner.

Established in 2002 with the vision of becoming the pioneer in delivering innovative financial solutions, Permata Bank now serves approximately two million consumers in 62 cities in Indonesia, with 331 branches, 22 mobile branches, 6 payment points, 1012 ATMs.

The decision to select TBWA\Indonesia as our brand agency was based on their strong understanding of our consumer segments, vast experience in the finance industry, and most importantly, breakthrough ideas that are relevant with our brand promise  Innovative Bank for you and your family, said Ivy Widjaja, EVP & Head of Customer Segmentation and Marketing at Permata Bank.

Were excited to partner with TBWA, whos role is to help challenge the convention of banking norm, and develop communications that will disrupt the market and deeply engage with Indonesians, said Amir Widjaya, Senior Vice President of Marketing Communication at Permata Bank. We hope to achieve our ambition to become the purpose-driven bank for Indonesian families, and provide access for the millions of unbanked citizens.
Supermodels celebrate at the opening ceremony of the first outlet of Victoria's Secret on the Chinese mainland in Shanghai on March 8, 2017. [Photo/China Daily]

Iconic pink glass facade. Dimly-lit den of mirrors and marble. A crystal-encrusted staircase. Enough to attract hordes of fashion-conscious, modern-minded women consumers into shopping for intimate bralettes.

US lingerie giant Victoria's Secret has finally made a full landing in China. Right under the corporate logo on its website, "Shanghai" sits beside "New York, London", indicating the global brand's three biggest centers on the planet now.

Shanghai women can buy the signature VS pushup bras and frilly panties from the four-story flagship store. The brand has also forayed into Chengdu, Sichuan province, in Southwest China.

News of the China operations of the mid-to-upper tier brand, a long-standing fashion barometer for intimate apparel, went viral over the country's digital space, thanks to its live-streamed annual catwalk show.

But cautious steps have marked VS' progress in the physical realm in the world's largest consumer market. The brand had reached China three years ago, selling only its accessories, fragrances and beauty products through concept stores.

After getting a hang of the market, the Columbus, Ohio-based retailer announced last year it will acquire all of the 26 shops from its franchise partner in China to build a wholly-owned model.

Market observers said that might be part of a turnaround plan of L Brands' Inc, the parent of VS, to prevent the lingerie chain from a continued downward trajectory.

With VS generating 70 percent of L Brand's total revenue, the company singled out "continued investment in China" as a key factor in its earnings forecast.

Sales were hit hard since late 2015 as the brand faced dramatic customer behavior changes, from the emergence of athleisure selections to better bra offerings. To this end, an overhaul plan was rolled out, ditching swimwear and dropping its iconic catalog.

But the efforts don't appear to have paid rich dividends yet. After recording a 2-percent sales drop in the third quarter of 2016, the company said in its annual report that comparable sales are predicted to slump by 20 percent in February. The worrisome figures are creating fear that the brand's turnaround attempt is unraveling.

As VS struggled to steady itself in North America, the opening of China stores could put a silver lining on its cloud, according to Neil Wang, Frost & Sullivan Greater China president. Frost & Sullivan is a marketing firm.

"Now is a good time for VS to march into China. Compared with five years ago, consumers now have demonstrated increasing brand awareness due to the rising average education level, living standards and income level," he said.

At the Shanghai store, each piece of brassiere costs between 300 yuan ($45) and 600 yuan, at a premium to price tags in the United States or Canada.

"The higher-end segment of lingerie is enjoying rapid growth in China. If VS can win certain market share in that niche, it will be a notable remedy to its global revenue," Wang said.

China's market for women's inner wear is expected to hit $25 billion by the end of this yeardouble that of the USand will grow to $33 billion by 2020, according to market research firm Euromonitor International.

Market observers say there's certainly room for more competition, given that lingerie is the least saturated segment of the Chinese retail landscape. But according to Shanghai-based business consultancy Daxue, the country's lingerie brands are highly fragmented.

For example, one can buy a bra at Cosmo Lady, a mass lingerie brand, from around 50 yuan, or spend 100 times that amount to purchase a bra set at Italian luxury brand La Perla.

Euromonitor International's research found that the country's top ten lingerie producers commanded just around 13 percent share of the market. The sector comprises thousands of little known players that sell low-priced items.

So, apart from a strong branding push, VS is less prepared than people would imagine to navigate through what is perhaps the world's most complicated consumer market, where shopping preferences differ from, and change faster than, their Western peers, said Benny Lam, chief executive officer of Emperor Textile Co Ltd, an industry veteran and a supplier of VS.

"One pain point is the lack of local designs. Buying a bra isn't all to do with size, given that the shapes of breasts are incredibly varied between women in the East and the West. So you can't just bring in whatever you sell in the USit won't work in the long run," he said.

Meanwhile, Chinese consumers tend to have a much more functional orientation toward lingerie and underwear, eclipsing blinged-out bras and lace undergarments that are popular in the US.

A bigger challenge, however, lies in redefining the traditional notion of beauty and sexiness, putting the brand in real danger of losing relevance among young Chinese women.

The millennials, already the big disruptors of other retail trends, lead the demand for athleisure, a casual comfort trend that has penetrated the underwear industry and appeals to all age groups, according to research group NPD.

The dazzling, over-the-top fantasy featured by VS might not be a perfect fit for sophisticated young women here in China, Lam said.

"They can be freer-spenders, but they can also pick up really cheap panties for fun. The right thing for VS is to choose the right raw materials for Chinese women and react fast to the market," he said.
"We don't regulate the wholesale market, that's outside of our control but it seems to be the uncertainty we're seeing in the market largely as we're seeing plants close, as we're seeing the price of fuel supply like gas go up , as the market restructures, we're seeing all of these uncertainties which has really driven the price up over the last 12 months," Mr Dimasi said.
Mr Purnell said the Crown had seen "obviously different [CCTV] footage", because all he saw in the evidence was a tail light. He said there was no evidence as to how many passengers were in the car.
Man and Woman by A Vase by Pablo Picasso.

Thomas Eller, a German artist who has lived in Beijing for three years, had a "strange yet sweet" feeling when he looked at some 50 works of modern and contemporary art displayed at the National Art Museum of China last week. They were donated to the museum by German art collector Irene Ludwig and her late husband, Peter Ludwig, more than two decades ago.

"The shown artists are all familiar to me and seeing their works reminds me of my work back in Germany's art circles," Eller says. "What a wonderful way to share our cultural experiences with a large audience in China."

He was among dozens of visitors who enjoyed a night tour of the Beijing museum on March 20. They were invited to Eternal Warmth, an exhibition that runs through Sunday, and shows selected works from the art donations the Ludwigs made. The exhibition also coincides with the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Germany this year.

China's current booming art scene is drawing international artists like Eller. He organized the Gallery Weekend Beijing over March 17-19, featuring a strong lineup of galleries and artists here.

When the Ludwigs donated art to the Chinese museum in 1996, Western modern art was little known to the public in China.

The couple parted with 117 artworks in their collection to make one of the most important donations the National Museum of China has received in its history. Featured artists include cultural icons from Europe and the United States such as Pablo Picasso, Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol.

When a grand exhibition to show the collection was unveiled at the museum in November 1996, only Irene Ludwig attended the opening ceremony. Her husband had died that July, two months after initiating a donation agreement with the museum in Beijing.

Yang Lizhou, then-deputy director of the museum, recalls telling Peter Ludwig that Chinese people would remember him and his wife for their generosity.

Over the years, the museum has exhibited the donated works a few times and has shown them on tours of cities such as Chengdu, Wuhan and Harbin. More Chinese have gotten to understand Western art from the decades following 1970.

The ongoing exhibition displays Picasso's Busts of Man and Woman by A Vase, a painting the Spanish master produced three years before his death in 1973. It shows people's fascination with love and also a fear of the burden it brings.

Yang says Peter Ludwig intended to donate one Picasso piece at first, but the museum hoped the list would include more, so he added three more works by the master. One is an ink painting that Picasso produced with a Chinese paintbrush on a piece of traditional rice paper. The painting used to adorn Irene Ludwig's bedroom.

Yang says Peter Ludwig told his wife that the "painting coming to China would have made Picasso happy".

Also on display is Cubist Still Life with Lemons, a work of 1975 by the late American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. Influenced by Picasso and Jackson Pollock, Lichtenstein adopted their styles of cubism and abstract expressionism to present a quietness in his collages. Yang says he managed to persuade the Ludwigs to give it to the Chinese museum.

Yang calls the donations "a window" through which more Chinese could understand international art, because other than Soviet realist art, foreign art wasn't available in China at the time.

An exhibition in 1996 caused a sensation, leading to further donations by many established artists, including Chinese artists Wu Guanzhong and Jin Shangyi.

Born in 1925, Peter Ludwig acquired a PhD in art history from Mainz University. He accumulated wealth and eminence with his chocolate-making business. Meanwhile, he also assembled what probably is one of the world's biggest art holdings in private hands. He donated and loaned his collections to museums around the world.

Wu Weishan, director of the National Art Museum of China, says as one of the Ludwig collection's beneficiaries, the museum has a duty to share the couple's generosity with more people through exhibitions and other public programs.

Yang believes exhibiting the Ludwigs' donation is meaningful today as art and antique collections are burgeoning in China.

"Peter Ludwig said his collection should serve everyone so that people can better understand art and further boost cultural development. He made donations to museums because he knew museums are capsules of history and bear an undertaking to accumulate cultural wealth from different times," he says.

"I often say that if one no longer wants to keep his or her collection, it should be donated to a well-established museum just like the Ludwigs did, setting an example for today's collectors."
Overall Internet penetration in Latin America is expected to jump from 56.1% in 2016 to 60.9% in 2019, according to Internet World Stats.

Brazil and Colombia registered among the top three Latin American countries for total Internet users in 2016, with the former recording 139 million users while Colombia had 28.5 million users.

GlobeNet said the expansion of its facility in Rio will be completed in June 2017, adding an additional 200 square meters of data centre white space to its footprint. It will include a fully redundant AC/DC power, with battery and generator backups and is connected to GlobeNets cable landing station in the Brazilian capital.

The new Tier III facility in Barranquilla will support GlobeNets full suite of IaaS services starting on July 2017. It includes 200 sqm of space holding 68 cabinets, with connections to GlobeNets landing station in Colombia that provides international access to the USA, Brazil and Venezuela.
China Southern Airlines Co said it is in talks to sell a stake to American Airlines Group Inc, betting big on the forecast of massive demand for travel between the two countries.

The negotiations are over "a possible major strategic cooperation with American Airlines Inc involving, among others, proposed issue of shares of the company and other business cooperation," China Southern said in an exchange filing on Sunday.

Share price of China Southern Airlines, which resumed trading on Monday, remained flat to close at HK$5.48 (70 cents), after hitting a three-month high at midday.

Trading in the Guangzhou-based operator had been suspended since March 23 after Bloomberg News reported that Fort Worth, Texas-based American Airlines will likely make an investment of about $200 million in China Southern's Hong Kong-listed shares through a private placement. American Airlines would nominate an observer without voting rights to the Chinese company's board, according to people familiar with the matter.

The companies have not reached a binding or definitive agreement, and the cooperation may or may not proceed, China Southern said in its statement.

American Airlines spokeswoman Polly Tracey declined to comment.

For American Airlines, a deal would strengthen its presence in the Chinese market after rival Delta Air Lines Inc acquired a minority stake in China Eastern Airlines Corp in 2015.

China Southern would be the last of the nation's top three airlines to bring in a non-Chinese mainland strategic investor. Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which is based in Hong Kong, owns about 18 percent of flag carrier Air China Ltd.

Geoffrey Cheng, head of transportation and industrial research at BOCOM International Holdings in Hong Kong, said the collaboration talks come as no surprise.

"Basically, given there are no slots left under the current bilateral air traffic rights agreement between China and the US, the strategic cooperation could enable China Southern Airlines to reach out to more second-tier US cities that it has no available routes to," Cheng said.

Jacob Zhou, a Hong Kong-based analyst with one of the "Big Four" accounting firms, believed the tie-up talks mark a bold move from China Southern Airlines to push for the mixed-ownership reform, which is highlighted as a critical pillar of State-owned enterprises' reform efforts in 2017.
Police in south China's Guangdong Province said Monday that they had captured more than 2,000 migrants who illegally crossed the border this year, up 47 percent year on year.

The police handled more than 120 illegal immigration cases in collaboration with counterparts in neighboring regions, up 20 percent compared with the same period last year, according to Jiang Mingxiang, deputy chief of the province's border police.

"Over 1,800 of the illegal migrants were foreigners, mostly from Southeast Asian countries," Jiang said, adding that they attempted to sneak into coastal areas of Guangdong or Hong Kong to work.

"Most foreign stowaways are young or middle-aged people who attempted to seek jobs in factories in the Pearl River Delta or western Guangdong," said Sun Huiyuan, another border police officer.

"Most of the factories are labor-intensive plants that feel the pressure to cut labor costs amid a labor shortage," said Sun.

"The main purpose of the illegal workers is to earn money, but they could also commit crimes such as theft, robbery and drug trafficking to disrupt border management and social order," said Zhao Quanhong, another senior official with the province's border police.

The human smuggling rings were highly organized, with foreign brokers recruiting immigrants and their Chinese accomplices transferring and securing jobs for them.

In one case, Guangdong and Guangxi police busted a gang helping Southeast Asians illegally work in the two regions, capturing eight brokers, two factory managers and over 80 illegal migrants.

Local border police have stepped up cooperation with counterparts in Hong Kong, Macao and several other neighboring regions in cracking down on human trafficking.

Border areas between Southeast Asian countries and China's Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan lack natural barriers to fend off illegal immigrants, Jiang said, pledging more crackdowns to safeguard public security.
Deng Guangyuan wrestles with the boar for nearly eight hours, leaving him with injuries all over his head. [Photo/Guiyang Evening News]

A 63-year-old man from a village in southern China's Guizhou Province recently wrestled a wild boar for nearly eight hours before killing it, creating a real-life version of the legend, "The old man and the boar," Guiyang Evening News reports.

Deng Guangyuan told reporters he was herding his cows back home on the evening of March 12, when he heard his hound squealing. Before realizing what had happened, Deng was attacked by a shadow that he eventually realized was a wild boar.

The boar bit Deng's right thumb and wouldn't let go. Despite the pain, Deng took the chance to take out his hatchet and began stabbing at the boar's head. The boar finally let go of Deng's thumb, but then attacked him even more fiercely around his ears and head.

"I was thinking that I would be bitten to death if I didn't fight it," Deng told reporters. He said his hatchet dropped during the tussle, but he picked up a wooden stick on the ground, seized the boar by its head and kept striking at it.

Deng and the boar kept fighting against each other for hours, during which the two gradually grew exhausted. Still, Deng seized the boar by its mane, while the boar stuck to his collar. Deng said he fell into unconsciousness three times that evening, but was each time awakened by the excruciating pain.

The last time Deng awoke, the night had already set in. He found himself lying beside the belly of the boar. The boar was still howling, but the sound was much fainter than before, indicating it had suffered severe injuries.

Under the moonlight, Deng found his hatchet on the ground and stabbed with all his strength on the boar's head. The boar growled, and then was motionless.

Deng then stumbled home after resting for a while. His wife, who thought he was out visiting family members, found Deng on the doorstep -- besmeared with blood and with injuries all over his head, ears, face and hands. His clothes were in rags.

Deng rested for an hour or so, until dawn. He was then taken to hospital for treatment, while his neighbors went to fetch the dead boar, which was weighed at 60 kilograms, almost the weight of an old man. His neighbors suggested the cash-strapped family sell the boar to cover his medical bills.
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Ma Fengzhen's newborn baby girl receives special medical care in a premature infant incubator in Yan'an Hospital of Kunming City. [Photo/www.kunming.cn]

A 41-year-old mentally-retarded woman, diagnosed with terminal gastric cancer 30 weeks after she becoming pregnant, has given birth to a baby girl, Kunming.cn reported on Wednesday.

Ma Fengzhen comes from Jijie Village, Xundian County of Yunnan Province. She vomited incessantly and was extremely weak after being diagnosed as pregnant. On March 9, her family members took her to the Yan'an Hospital of Kunming City where a lump was found in her stomach that proved to be diagnosed with terminal gastric cancer.

Further examinations showed Ma also suffered from a severe electrolyte disorder and malnutrition.

She weighed only 32 kilograms  a figure which shocked all the doctors and nurses in the obstetrics department.

"I have never seen such a skinny pregnant woman in the 30 years of my medical career," said Dr. Niu Zhaoyi, director of the obstetrics department.

Dr. Niu immediately suggested an abortion as a continued pregnancy could endanger her life. However, Ma and her family didn't agree.

"Ma's husband is already aged 45, and is very eager to have a child," said her elder sister.

The hospital then adopted careful surgical treatment procedures for Ma. A "green emergency channel for critically-ill pregnant women" started operating immediately.

On March 13, a baby girl was delivered eight weeks premature by caesarean section, weighing 1.56 kilograms. The newborn baby is receiving special medical care in an incubator.

While everybody heaved a sigh of relief for the baby's birth,the high medical cost for Ma's chemotherapy treatment and her baby's medical care is troubling the poor family.

Life is really hard for Ma with one trouble after another. She was born mentally retarded and cannot take good care of herself. She married three times and has a 16-year-old daughter by her first husband.

In Ma's first two marriages, she suffered severe domestic violence. Her ex-husband even hit her on the head with a stick. Ma's present husband is a kind and simple man, but is utterly destitute.

So far, Ma's family hasn't paid any medical expense for the surgery, medicine and hospitalization. Dr. Niu said the hospital would do everything possible to lighten the poor family's load.
Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact.

Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here.

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You are our people. You Care. We Care2.
Migrant workers checked in at a railway station. [File photo/www.hsw.cn]



Zhang Jianzhu, 59, has long worked as a bricklayer at construction sites in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province. This year, however, he feels his health is worsening.

The man lives in a room less than 10-square-meters in size. After a day's hard labor, he has a sore waist and an aching back.

"I'm too tired to move forward any more. I've made up my mind not to take any more jobs after this one is completed," he said.

Zhang came from a farming family in Heliu County of Weinan City in Shaanxi. Since 1977, he has toiled away at all kinds of odd jobs in various cities to support his family in the countryside. He is always too busy to go home to help his wife farming.

Like the fallen leaves that return to their roots, the old man has finally decided to go back to live in his hometown after 40 years spent outside working as a migrant laborer.

Statistics from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security show that migrant workers born in the 1980s now account for more than 70 percent of China's total migrant population, while those born in the 1950s are retiring from the countrys main labor force.

In Shaanxi Province, there were a total of 7.1 million migrant workers in 2016, an increase of 5.2 percent over the previous year. Migrant workers born in 1980s accounted for 53.7 percent of the provincial total.

Zhang is among the first generation of farmer-turned migrant worker that began emerging in the late 1970s when the country implemented the reform and opening up policy.These people have witnessed great changes in Chinas urban and rural areas in the past four decades.

Similar to Zhang, Liu Tianren had been away from home for 35 years working as a construction worker in cities until last year when he was persuaded to retire and was taken back home by his son.

Liu participated in many construction projects in cities such as residential buildings and supermarkets. Years of city life helped transform Liu from a peasant of few words to an experienced worker with good social skills. He knows well how to handle the relationship with his bosses and co-workers.

"It does me good to work in the cities and has widened my horizons," he said.

Liu has a good impression of city dwellers, saying they are warm-hearted and hospitable. "I get along well with them. They even invite me to visit their home and have dinner with them."

What makes Liu feel most proud is that the money he earned in cities has supported a big family in the countryside  his wife and three daughters.

All the migrant workers long for is a peaceful life in old age. However, the unexpected always happens in life as well as in nature.

Li Yanjiang, 50, was diagnosed with first-stage pneumoconiosis four years ago. He had to say goodbye to the mine where he had worked for 27 years. After a period of treatment in a local hospital, he returned to his home in Jiehe Village, Zhen'an County of Shangluo City to recuperate quietly.

Pneumoconiosis is one of the major occupational health problems in China affecting an increasing number of migrant workers working in a dusty environment like mines and construction sites for a few years.

Li was one of the 120 pneumoconiosis patients in his village where there are a total of 980 households. From 1986 to 1990, one after another the villagers flocked to work in gold mines in Sanmenxia City of Henan Province, coal mines in Jincheng, Datong and Linfen cities in Shanxi Province, and iron ore and coal mines in Hebei Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The proportion of migrant workers among pneumoconiosis patients was as high as 90 percent, according to an investigation on the health status of migrant workers in 2016. The investigation was conducted by the Love Save Pneumoconiosis, an organization under China Social Assistance Foundation (CSAF) and its sponsor is Wang Keqin.

In January 2016, the Opinions on Strengthening the Prevention and Treatment of Pneumoconiosis Among Migrant Workers was jointly issued by 10 ministries including the National Health and Family Planning Commission, National Development and Reform Commission, and the Ministry of Science and Technology. The document proposed that afflicted migrant workers be included in national medical care programs to enjoy subsistence allowances.

A new generation of migrant workers

As the Chinese saying goes, in the Yangtze River the waves behind drive on those before; so in migrant workers, the new generation excels the old.

He Mingliang, 26, came from a small village in Ankang. He runs a mobile phone repair shop in a community in downtown Xi'an. Due to his great skills, good service and reasonable price, his business is brisk and well received by locals.

He came to Xi'an seven years ago after graduation from a college in Ankang. Being diligent and eager to learn, the young man now has a successful career, a happy marriage and a sweet home in the provincial capital.

While elderly migrant workers are most concerned about money issues, the new generation of migrant workers is most concerned about whether they can share the same urban public service resources and the prospects of personal future development.

"It's not hard to find a job in the city. The hard part is to take root here," said He Mingliang. He hopes his children can have a better living environment and a better future in the city.

Luo Cheng, a researcher with the Shaanxi Academy of Social Sciences, believed that the issues of concern to young migrant workers will gradually be resolved with the reform of China's household registration system, equal urban and rural development, and the development of educational equality.
Uttar Pradesh once again bags its name for malpractice in board exams. The English exam yesterday, was postponed after incidents of mass copying were reported. According to an ANI report, students at UP were caught in the camera during a mass cheating session in the exams. Relatives and friends of examinees were seen helping them giving notes openly, as caught on the camera.

In a report by Times of India, two students in Munna Bhai style were caught after they were found writing exams in proxy of two students in Mainpuri.

Measures taken to curb malpractices

In a bid to prevent cheating in UP board exams, newly-formed Uttar Pradesh government under Adityanath Yogi has published helpline numbers today.

Helpline numbers

The state government has published two numbers--one, WhatsApp 9454457241--and another landline-0522 2236760-to report incidents of copying.

Initial conditions

Earlier, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma, who also has the education portfolio, expressed that all is well as far as the ongoing Uttar Pradesh board examinations are concerned.

Sharma made the assumption after he made surprise inspections of at least three examination centres in Lucknow and in neighbouring Barabaniki district in the wake of reports of 'mass copying' in the board examinations on March 25.

"Today, I conducted surprise inspections at three colleges, where students were appearing for the UP Board examinations. As far as the conduct of examinations is concerned, I am satisfied," the minister told PTI.

Karnataka II PUC Sanskrit Exam Paper Analysis
The Doon School, Uttarakhand has launched a summer camp on leadership, 'Summer @ Doon Leadership Programme'. The programme is open to all aspiring students in grades 9-12 who are passionate about making a positive impact on the world around them.

When

from 3rd June to 17th June, 2017

Deadline to apply

Application for this programme closes on April 15, 2017.

Key points covered

This dynamic and thought provoking leadership programme will be a cover of

Socratic dialogues

leadership case studies

design thinking

creative experiential learning

motivational lectures

outdoor adventures

self-reflection and

group interaction

The programme will allow students to expand their horizons across multiple disciplines and learn through the lenses of history, geography, philosophy and economics.

Why take up the summer camp on leadership?

A critically important element will be the relationship between leadership, social service as well as social and environmental responsibility. This programme will ensure that students receive a profound understanding of what successful leadership is all about and what is required to demonstrate it in the twenty-first century in the context to developing society in an increasingly globalized world. The programme will be taught by many of the school's experienced staff as well as by alumni and other special guests.

What The Doon School Management has to say?

"The Doon School has long been associated with innovative thinking and leadership and is passionate about being at the forefront of educational opportunity for its students", said Matthew Raggett, Headmaster. "Summer at Doon seeks to create a very special experience that will enable a wider student body of girls and boys to discover essential qualities within themselves that will help them on their journey of action, leadership, service and fulfillment."

"The two week long programme will be an adventure that promises to be challenging and intellectually demanding, enabling students to meet and make like-minded friends, and to learn from each other and the adults leading Summer at Doon", added Raggett.

How to Apply?

Email Abia Qezilbash at summer.doon@doonschool.com or Tel. +91-(0)135-2526516 or visit the website www.doonschool.com/summer.doon/leadership

Learn HR Management Through Paid Internship: Rs 8000 Stipend Guaranteed
Ferdinand Piechs career in the automotive industry is on the cusp of ending following confirmation that he is selling his near 15 per cent voting stake in Porsche SE, the family holding company that controls Volkswagen Group.



The 79-year-old has a long and almost unrivalled career in the car world. After all, his grandfather was none other than Ferdinand Porsche but since resigning as the chairman of the VW Groups advisory board in April 2015, the Austrian engineer is thought to have become disillusioned by the industry he helped shape.

In the wake of dieselgate, Piech has burned many bridges with key Volkswagen executives. As a matter of fact, he revealed in his testimony to prosecutors during the emissions cheating investigation that he told key VW directors about the scandal as early as February 2015, including his cousin Wolfgang Porsche.

However, top executives from Volkswagen Group have consistently denied these claims, asserting that they only knew about the issues when the scandal broke in September 2015.

Automotive News reports that after incriminating his cousin in dieselgate, Piechs relatives started to try and push him off the board of Porsche SE. Despite leaving the VW Group, Piech continued to attend Porsche SE board meetings but as of last week, the family revealed it intended to buy Piechs voting stake.

If this plan comes to fruition, it will end Piechs involvement in the industry which he has been a part of since 1963 when he first started working for Porsche, helping to develop some of its most iconic road and racing cars. During his time at Volkswagen AG, he also oversaw the purchase of Lamborghini, the creation of Bugatti Automobiles SAS (and therefore the Veyron) and the acquisition of Bentley.

PHOTO GALLERY
Its rare when an animated feature isnt discriminated against because of its technique and allowed to compete against live-action films. Its nearly unheard of when an animated feature actually wins in a film award category that also contains live-action films. The Swiss film community should be commended for recognizing animation for what it truly is  film  and judging it accordingly.

Zucchini also won for best film score at the Swiss Film Awards. Further, a Special Academy Award was presented to Marie-Eve Hildbrand, the casting director of Zucchini, who used an unusually immersive technique to record the voices of the children in the French version of the film. Clips from the voice record sessions can be seen below:

The best animated film was awarded to the short Au revoir Balthazar by Rafael Sommerhalder:

Adding to its winning weekend, Zucchini picked up two awards last Saturday at the Monstra animation festival in Lisbon, Portugal, including the grand prize in the feature film competition. It also won the audience award at the festival. The feature jury at Monstra consisted of Andrea Basilio, Claudia Bolshaw, Olivier Cotte, Pedro Brito, and Zsuzsanna Kreif.

My Life As A Zucchini is currently screening in theaters across the United States. After five weeks, it has has earned $261,881.

Distributor GKIDS is launching the film in new U.S. cities every weekend. This weekend, the film will open in Iowa City, Iowa; Durham, North Carolina; Providence, Rhode Island; Gainesville, Florida; Okemos, Michigan; Port Orchard, Washington; Spokane, Washington; Hartford, Connecticut; and Normal, Illinois. For a complete list of theaters where the film is screening, visit MyLifeAsAZucchini.com.
Ferdinand tells the story of a giant bull with a big heart. After being mistaken for a dangerous beast, he is captured and torn from his home. Determined to return to his family, he rallies a misfit team on the ultimate adventure. Set in Spain, Ferdinand proves you cant judge a bull by its cover.

Considering the short length of the original story (it was adapted as an animated short by Disney in 1938), a feature-length adaptation would require significant expansion of the original plot. That task fell to Ellen Martin, creator of the childrens series Blaze and the Monster Machines, who is credited with the films story. A host of writers followed her up on the screenplay: Erica Rivinoja (Trolls, The Last Man on Earth), Ian Southwood, and the veteran writing team of J. David Stem and David N. Weiss (The Rugrats Movie, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, Shrek 2, The Smurfs).

Wrestler John Cena voices the title character. Hes supported by vocal performances from Kate McKinnon, Gina Rodriguez, Daveed Diggs, Gabriel Iglesias, Bobby Cannavale, David Tennant, Anthony Anderson, Flula Borg, Sally Phillips, Boris Kodjoe, Jerrod Carmichael, Raul Esparza, Karla Martinez, and Miguel Angel Silvestre.

Ferdinand will be released in U.S. theaters on December 15, 2017, as counterprogramming to Disneys Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which opens on the same day.
Photo: Google

A volunteer stumbled across a gruesome discovery while cleaning up the backcountry near Kelowna.

Kane Blake, with the Okanagan Forest Task Force, said he was near Postil Lake Road in Ellison while on his way to the shooting range when he found a dead dog in the ditch.

It was big dog, I thought it was a wolf at first, but I walked closer and realized quick it was not and was a family pet at some point, maybe a big German shepherd, Blake explained.

Blake, who dedicates his time to cleaning up the woods, said he has never come across something like this.

Most people bury their pets on their property, or take them to the vet, so this was a shock, said Blake.

I am not sure how it got here, someone could have run it over and got scared and dumped it, or someone might have accidentally shot it thinking it was a wolf. It was a big animal.

Task force members also discovered garbage littered sporadically for nearly 14 kilometres along the road.

There is a burnt out car, a six-to-eight person hot tub that is cut in half, a giant TV with projector, there is probably enough garbage to fill two 40-yard bins, explained Blake. It will take a good handful of volunteers and at least half-a-day to clean this up."

The task force, regional district and local volunteers will work together to clean up the mess.

Find out how you can help the task force at okanaganforesttaskforce.com.
Photo: Contributed

City council gave its approval Monday to a new, two-storey marina service building at the Hotel Eldorado.

The building will replace two aging buildings that will be removed and replaced with the two-storey structure as part of an overall marina expansion.

The building is proposed to be situated at the end of the dock and provide marina services such as rentals, boat fueling, customer service and washrooms. The top floor would include staff space and a storage area.

Council had concerns about the height of the building, sight lines from the shore and the feasibility of a larger structure close to the high-water mark.

Peter Downward with Argus Properties said the reason for the location is to minimize silt erosion, which caused the boat launch to be closed for repairs.

"Part of the process in putting the building out into the deeper water is to try and stay away from putting impact on the foreshore. We have a lot of boat traffic coming in and out, and by having it farther from shore, it saves that wash and the turbulence in the shallower waters," he said.

And, while the new building is eight feet higher than the two previous structures, it's twice as far out from the shore, minimizing visual impact.
Photo: The Canadian Press

An initial report into the crash of a training plane says the instructor and student pilot had to eject after getting into trouble practising basic aerobatics.

Both Royal Canadian Air Force officers survived the Jan. 27 bailout in southern Saskatchewan, but the CT-156 Harvard II aircraft was destroyed.

The Department of National Defence report says the plane lost power as the student pilot was pulling out of a manoeuvre and the instructor took over.

The instructor couldn't get the plane to operate normally again, despite following checklists the military uses for aircraft problems.

The plane's instruments indicated that the engine was not working properly.

The instructor tried unsuccessfully to gain altitude, but determined the plane was too low to glide safely back to base at 15 Wing Moose Jaw for a forced landing.

"The attempt was unsuccessful, and the engine performance continued to degrade, leading the crew to carry out a controlled ejection," says the report released Monday.

"One crew members sustained minor injuries during the ejection, and the aircraft was destroyed in the subsequent ground impact."
Photo: The Canadian Press

A retired Ontario garbage worker has decided to spend his retirement in jail.

Bill Steele of Oshawa, Ont., recently bought a defunct New Brunswick jail with a history of hangings.

The 50-year-old man plans to sell his house and take up residence at the old Dorchester gaol  listed for $159,900  which was decommissioned more than 20 years ago and features 15 original jail cells.

Steele said he's always had a passion for collecting antiques and "morbid stuff," and wanted to retire somewhere unconventional, near where his father grew up in Pictou, N.S.

"Everybody lives in a house and I'm tired of playing house," said Steele in an interview.

Steele said he may start a museum in part of the historic building, where two infamous convicted murderers  19-year-old Arthur Bannister and his 20-year-old brother Daniel  were hanged. The brothers had killed a 30-year-old woodsman during the abduction of his infant daughter, who also died.

An article published in The New York Times at the time said on Sept. 24, 1936, the brothers walked silently to the gallows, "where they stood back-to-back as the nooses were placed over their heads."
Photo: Castanet Staff

The provincial government will contribute another $777,000 toward the Okanagan Rail Trail.

The money is earmarked specifically for the Kelowna portion of the trail between Dilworth Drive and Airport Way.

With our initial $7.2-million investment for acquisition and the Rural Dividend Fund grant of $500,000 announced in Coldstream last week, this investment of $777,435 through BikeBC brings our governments recent contribution on behalf of taxpayers to the important project to more than $8.45 million," said Kelowna-Lake Country MLA, Norm Letnick.

The rail trail stretches nearly 50 kilometres from Kelowna to Coldstream.

The City of Kelowna appreciates receiving grant funding that can be used to construct this key section of the Okanagan Rail Trail, connecting the airport and the university to downtown Kelowna, said Mayor Colin Basran.

With the city already investing $10.2 million in acquisition of the Kelowna and Lake Country portions of the corridor, this grant funding will let us develop more of the trail sooner, to benefit the region.
Photo: Contributed

A New Brunswick man says he was baffled when a letter from the Canada Revenue Agency arrived at his door  addressed to his estate rather than to the healthy, very much alive 64-year-old.

Peter Harwerth of Campobello Island says he had received a letter in the mail from the agency a few days ago.

Harwerth told Global News he was mystified by the letter, which was a regular tax reassessment.

The problem was that the couple had not yet received their original assessment after the taxes were filed last year.

Harwerth says he expected to receive a refund of about $1,100, but the assessment said he owed more than $500 and that he had already received the refund, even though he had not.

Harwerth says Revenue Canada told the couple their refund cheques had been cashed just days after they had been issued, but could not explain why he had been declared dead.

The agency is investigating.
Photo: Contributed

Calgary radio station CHQR says it has learned that sex offender John Francis Dionne will be staying behind bars for at least another couple of years.

The Parole Board of Canada has ordered his continued detention, as he serves out his sentence for kidnapping a 10-year-old girl from Calgary's Deerfoot Mall in February 2011.

Dionne posed as a police officer when he took the girl, saying he was arresting her for shoplifting and that he needed to ask her some questions.

They drove north and were pulled over by an RCMP officer for speeding.

But the girl had not been reported missing yet and she had been told by Dionne not to say anything during the traffic stop, which ended with him receiving a speeding ticket.

He later dropped the girl off at a restaurant in Airdrie, Alta., but not before he kissed her on the cheek and lips.

In September 2012, Dionne was sentenced to nine years behind bars and was deemed a dangerous offender," meaning he would be subject to 10 years of probationary supervision once he is released.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Conservative leadership hopefuls made some last-ditch pitches for support Monday in advance of a key campaign deadline  and stanching the flow of illegal migrants across the Canada-U.S. border played a prominent role.

Candidates only have until Tuesday to sign up new party members in order to buttress support for their leadership bids, so several  Kevin O'Leary, Maxime Bernier and Steven Blaney were doing their best to grab some Tory-friendly headlines.

In an early email blast, businessman and reality-TV star Kevin O'Leary suggested using the Constitution's veto power, known as the notwithstanding clause, to block refugee claims from people who enter Canada illegally.

Earlier Monday, former cabinet minister Bernier sent a basic solicitation, urging would-be supporters to sign up before 5 p.m. ET Tuesday.

But he later doubled down on O'Leary's message, saying not only would he use the notwithstanding clause, but he'd deploy the military as a "temporary" measure to backstop existing police and border resources.

Steven Blaney sent out an eyebrow-raising fundraising email of his own on the weekend, denouncing alleged anti-Semitic remarks by some Muslim leaders.

The email, containing the subject line "Should Allah kill all the Jews?", referenced individuals including an imam and former Ryerson University teaching assistant who was recently removed from his position over alleged anti-Jewish remarks.

As the deadline loomed, other would-be Tory leaders opted for the straightforward approach, highlighting the support they've already drummed up through new memberships or from within the party's office holder ranks.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Three out of four Canadians received a hip or knee replacement, cataract surgery, hip fracture repair or cancer radiation therapy within the recommended wait times for those priority procedures, although there was often wide variation from one province to another, researchers say.

A report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, released Tuesday, provides a snapshot of patient wait times for five priority medical procedures in 2016 and compares them to data for the previous four years.

Overall, wait times for hip fracture repair across the country continued to improve, with the percentage of patients receiving surgery within the 48-hour benchmark increasing to 86 per cent in 2016 from 81 per cent in 2012.

Nationally, wait times for joint replacement remained relatively unchanged last year, with 75 per cent of patients receiving hip or knee replacement surgery within the 182-day benchmark. Since 2012, the number of hip replacements rose 22 per cent, while knee replacements went up 18 per cent.

However, there was a significant drop in the proportion of Canadians who were able to get cataract surgery within the targeted wait time of 112 days: in 2016, 73 per cent of patients had the sight-restoring operation within that period, down from 83 per cent 2012.

When it came to cancer patients, CIHI found that about 97 per cent received radiation therapy within the 28-day benchmark in 2016. While there was some variation in wait times across provinces, overall 90 per cent of patients were able to access the treatment within 15 to 27 days.

Still, there were some marked differences among provinces for the four other priority procedures.

In British Columbia, for instance, 61 per cent of hip-replacement and 47 per cent of knee-replacement patients were able to get their surgery within the target time frame of 182 days. Across the country in Nova Scotia, the figures were 56 per cent and 38 per cent, respectively.

Meanwhile, 85 per cent of patients in Ontario and Quebec got hip replacements within the benchmark wait time, while about 80 per cent in both provinces received new knee joints within the period.
Photo: City of Vernon

The City of Vernon is moving ahead with efforts to improve access to Okanagan Lake.

The first of ten projects is getting underway at Delcliffe Road.

An estimated $83,000 is being spent on improvements that will include new parking stalls, a turnaround area, new fencing and signage. Work is expected to be completed in May.

Another $35,000 has been approved by council for additional parking, rockwork and archaeological work on the site.

The city hopes up to ten lake access sites will be upgraded by the end of 2018.

More information about the project, or the draft lake access plan can be found online or contact the community services building at 250-550-3634.
Photo: The Canadian Press

The U.S. Coast Guard, with the help of a Canadian navy vessel, says it has made a massive cocaine bust in international waters.

The American agency says it has seized about 14.5 tonnes of cocaine.

The drugs were seized along Central and South America by the U.S. Coast Guard and the HMCS Saskatoon, which joined the operation in February.

U.S. Coast Guard officials say the Canadian vessel was involved in one case, seizing an estimated one tonne of cocaine.

In a news conference this morning in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Mark Feder says 30 people were detained and will be prosecuted in the U.S.

The U.S. has increased its presence in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Basin, which officials say are known drug transit routes.
Photo: Contributed

The family of a Canadian filmmaker and conservationist who died during a shark filming excursion off the Florida Keys filed a wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday.

Rob Stewart, 37, of Toronto, died while diving in January off the coast of Islamorada, Florida, to film a follow-up to his 2006 documentary "Sharkwater," which examined the impact of shark hunting on the ocean's ecosystem. He also made a 2013 documentary "Revolution" about environmental collapse and was a wildlife photographer.

According to the lawsuit, Stewart and dive organizer Peter Sotis both surfaced at the same with apparent breathing difficulties, but Stewart didn't make it back on board the dive boat. While others were treating Sotis, they allowed Stewart to slip away.

Stewart's submerged body was found three days later, about 300 feet from where he was last spotted on the surface, following a massive search involving the Coast Guard and several other agencies.

Stewart's death "was a preventable tragedy that was going to happen to someone," his family's attorney, Michael Haggard said in an email.

The family "hopes the legal action will push out and/or change the ways of all irresponsibly operating diving businesses and help keep attention on Stewart's mission of ocean conservation," he added.

Unspecified damages are being sought in the negligence lawsuit filed in Broward County, Florida, Circuit Court. It names as defendants Horizon Dive Adventures of Key Largo, Florida, Add Helium LLC of Fort Lauderdale, Florida and dive organizers Peter and Claudia Sotis, who operate Add Helium.

An attorney for Sotis did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

According to the lawsuit, the dive was taking place at the wreck of the Queen of Nassau in about 230 feet of water and about six miles from the Islamorada coast. A grappling hook had been placed on the wreck that was attached to a surface buoy to mark the location of the dive. Stewart and Peter Sotis encountered difficulties when they went down a third time to remove the grappling hook.
Photo: Contributed

The coffers for construction of the Okanagan Rail Trail between Kelowna and Coldstream have grown  again.

The federal government, through its Canada 150 infrastructure program, has kicked in $471,500 toward the project.

"Communities along the trail are grateful to Community Futures and WD's (Western Diversification) Canada 150 program for supporting the development," said trail ambassador Brad Clements. "By working together, we will finish the trail."

To date, more than 25 kilometres of the 48.5-km trail has been funded.

Stages one and two have been completely funded. The third, which includes intersection control and testing, is 75 per cent funded.

"I want to congratulate all those who are working so hard to bring this legacy project to fruition," said Kelowna-Lake Country MP Stephen Fuhr in making the funding announcement.

"The Okanagan Rail Trail will connect our communities, allow us to explore the heritage and beauty of the Okanagan and provide an outstanding recreational and tourist destination for many generations to come."
Photo: The Canadian Press Li Feng Yang thanks CTrain operator Mesfin Tadese

A woman who left behind a purse with $1,300 in birthday cash on a Calgary light-rail train says she can barely believe someone was honest enough to return it.

Li Feng Yang had received the money for her 75th birthday and was planning to deposit it in the bank.

Yang says she felt a burning rush of anxiety when she realized her purse was missing.

Train operator Mesfin Tadese found the bag during a walk-through when the train was at the end of the line.

Yang says she was surprised and grateful when it was returned to her.

She thanked Tadese in person today, bringing him two bouquets of flowers and embracing him at a downtown train station.

"Is there really honest people that would return my lost bag with cash in it?" Yang, who does not speak English, said in a statement read by her grandson, Kai Huang.

"Well, the undeniable truth is in front of me."
Photo: Twitter

An education expert says it is "bizarre" how often Nova Scotia schools are closed because of weather  and the number of days lost this year amounts to a crisis.

Paul Bennett, director of Schoolhouse Consulting in Halifax, said there has been an average of 12 lost days this school year in the province due to inclement weather.

Bennett compared that figure to places like Winnipeg, which in some years has not had a single snow day.

Many schools across Nova Scotia were closed today, raising eyebrows from some parents who felt the weather was not severe enough to cancel class.

The Halifax Regional School Board, which has closed its schools 9.5 days this year, says the decision to cancel classes is never made lightly and is done in consultation with many, including a meteorologist and a bus company.

Bennett says Nova Scotia should follow the lead of some school boards in snowy U.S. states, where lost days are turned into e-learning days, with students attending class online.
A man was taken to Vernon Jubilee Hospital with serious injuries on Tuesday after a crash on 31st Avenue, near 34th Street.

Emergency crews responded to the scene at 11:33 a.m. and found the elderly man pinned between the two vehicles.

He was at the back of his parked pickup truck and was pinned by another vehicle, said Captain Doug Imrich of Vernon Fire Rescue. He has serious lower body injuries.

The pickup appeared to have been hit so hard that part of the front end had gone up onto the sidewalk.

Blood could be seen on the ground behind the truck and on the damaged bumper of the car.

Police blocked off the street and were seen talking to witnesses.

The RCMP said later that officers had spoken with the driver of the car but no charges had been laid yet and the investigation was ongoing.
Police in Vancouver are investigating one of their own after a video was posted to Facebook that appears to show a plainclothes officer punching a cyclist in the head during an arrest Tuesday night.

Vancouver police spokesperson Sgt. Randy Fincham says the cyclist was "allegedly confrontational with police" after being stopped at Robson and Beatty streets for apparently running a red light.

Cyclist Andishae Akhavan insists he was not resisting arrest, and says there was no reason for the officer to punch him in the face.

Akhavan says he was riding his bike without a helmet through Yaletown at around 10:45 p.m. PT when two officers stopped him to ask about having run a few red lights.

Akhavan got off his bike and says he started questioning the officers as one began writing him a ticket.

"At that point they decided to put cuffs on me," he said. "I was just speaking to them. I didn't raise my voice or anything, and they started putting the cuffs on me."

He says that's when the video, which shows Akhavan standing at the side of the road being restrained by two plainclothes officers, starts.

"What is this for?" he asks.

Akhavan's left arm moves as he turns his body to speak to one of the officers again.

"Relax," the officer orders.

Then Akhavan appears to get punched in the jaw.

"Relax your arm," the officer then says.

The incident was filmed by Akhavan's friend, Mike Schwarz, who says he happened to see his friend surrounded by the officers as he drove by, so he got out and started filming.

Schwarz says Akhavan did nothing before the camera started recording video to provoke such a reaction.

Schwarz told the officers the incident would go on TV. He posted it to Facebook, and in just a few hours the video received thousands of comments and shares.

Fincham said Akhavan was treated at the scene by Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services for a cut lip.

Akhavan was released but could still face charges, he said.

Fincham said the incident was reported by the officer to his supervisor shortly afterwards.

"The incident has also been reported to the Professional Standards Section of the Vancouver Police Department, who will in turn notify the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner," Fincham said in a written statement.

-- With files from the CBC
In events that are unfolding at a very fast pace, the island country of Maldives is witnessing an extraordinary revival of the peoples fight against the dictatorship of President Abdullah Gayoom Yameen. In a truly historic sense, a most improbable combination of leaders was launched as a united coalition on 24th March to form the Maldives United Opposition (MUO) to fight the tyranny and corruption of President Yameen.

Strange bedfellows

The fact that President Yameens elder brother Maumoon Abdul Gayoom (President of the Progressive Party), who was the longest ruling President, joined hands with former President Mohamed Nasheed (President of Maldivian Democratic Party) and a former coalition partner in Yameens government and a senior minister in his cabinet, Qasim Ibrahim (leader of Jumhoree Party) along with another former coalition partner  Sheikh Imran Abdulla (President of the Adhaalath Party), speaks volumes about the sense of desperation that prevails in the country.

They agreed to work together, with the express intention of restoring Maldivian democracy, ensuring free and fair elections, and protecting Maldivians Constitutional rights.

A common political vision

The declaration states, among other things, that the four leaders and their parties will work together in order to:

Safeguard the tenets of Islam, independence, sovereignty and nationalism

Protect ownership of the land, sea and natural resources belonging to the country

Find a resolution to the political discord afflicting the country

Safeguard civil and political rights abrogated from citizens

Ensure elections held in the Maldives are free and fair in which candidates of political parties choosing are allowed to contest; (this is a direct reference to Mohd. Nasheeds claim as he is the obvious choice for his party and that the false cases in which he is implicated shall not debar him)

Secure freedom for all individuals who have been arrested, under investigation, on trial, or convicted of politically motivated charges

Prevent corruption and embezzlement within the government

The four leaders signed a declaration setting out a common political vision for the Maldives and agreed to use their representation in parliament and in the political sphere to achieve the common objectives.

The provocation

What is the provocation for four such diverse leaders coming from such different political and ideological shades, who have had different linkages to and experiences in dealing with President Yameen, for coming together to overthrow him now?

Nasheed and Qasim Ibrahim have suffered directly in the hands of the capricious President who has always felt threatened by their popularity - which was manifestly much higher than his own in the elections of 2013.

It was former President Nasheed who decided to accept defeat in a repeatedly manipulated popular verdict in 2013 (by a partisan judiciary that kept nullifying the vote till it was in Yameens favour). He was then put behind bars on trumped up charges of terrorism in March 2015, till he managed to get out to London on medical grounds in early 2016.

He was later granted asylum in the UK and is presently coordinating events in the Maldives from neighbouring Sri Lanka.

Political vendetta

Qasim Ibrahim, who initially supported President Yameen after elder Maummon Abdul Gayoom beseeched him in 2013, joined the cabinet as Finance Minister and then deserted him within a year as he could not suffer the indignities heaped upon him by the haughty and power-crazed President.

Later when he came out in support of Nasheeds utterly untenable incarceration in early 2015, the home of his close friend and former defence minister was raided and the friend arrested as a sign of warning to Qasim Ibrahim.

Unable to quell his popularity, Yameen decided to hurt his enormous business empire and imposed a fine of $100 million for allegedly not developing some of the islands allotted to him for tourism purposes and thereby causing loss to the State.

The fact this fine had more to do with Qasim Ibrahims meeting with Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena was not lost on anyone. Qasim Ibrahim was finally let off when he made a deal with the then vice president (who was known to be the money bag for President Yameen) and gave an undertaking to quit politics.

Not content with this, the President introduced a legislation in Parliament fixing an upper age limit that would automatically debar Qasim Ibrahim from the next Presidential elections in 2018.

A series of arbitrary acts

Latest in the series of arbitrary acts was the report of proposed sale/lease of Fafu Atoll to the members of the Saudi Royal family which was to be inked during the visit of Saudi King Salman to Male on April 1.

The visit was suddenly postponed due to the unexpected intensity of protests led by the MDP and the United Opposition. It was an unguarded comment from a ruling party MP which leaked the deal that was negotiated without any discussion in the Parliament to the media.

Next was the repeated postponement of Local Council Elections (now postponed three times) that was scheduled for May 5.

On 27 March, several members of the Opposition were bodily lifted out of the House by the Army

The latest delay has been caused by the revolt within the ruling PPP family which has not been able to get enough councillors to contest now that the president of the party (PPM) has thrown his lot with the Opposition and his son Faaris Maumoon has moved the no-confidence motion against the Speaker of the House.

This motion, which taken up for vote on 27 March, saw the unprecedented sight of the Army men coming in plainclothes into the House and bodily lifting Opposition members out of the House. The No-Confidence Motion was defeated by brutal force.

The fact that President Yameen has lost all his coalition partners in the House and that he had to rely on the Army to throw out the Opposition shows how desperate the situation is.

Anti-India policies

From the day he took office in November 2013, President Yameen has been no friend of India.

One of his first acts was to cancel the airport construction contract awarded to the Indian Company, GMR, by the earlier government. The second was his declaration to join the Maritime Silk Route later christened as the One Belt One Road initiative of President Xi Jenping of China and his decision to allocate islands to China for building a naval base close to the southern tip of India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi showed his displeasure by cancelling his scheduled visit to Maldives in March 2015 (earlier in the month, former President Nasheed had been sentenced to 13 years imprisonment under the Anti-Terrorism Act), but repeated visits by our Foreign Secretary yielded precious little.

The Maldives was the first test for the much proclaimed muscular foreign policy of Prime Minister Modi and when the time came to demonstrate it, there was neither muscle in our movement nor teeth in our utterances.

And now when the Democracy Movement in Maldives looks to India for strength and support, will New Delhi act to assert its interests and principles (this is one of the rare cases where both collide) or will it simply shrug its shoulders and say its an internal matter and we dont interfere?

Ravi Joshi served as a diplomat in the Maldives.

Edited by Aleesha Matharu
Maya Grant had her first surgery when she was just 10 months old.

Since then, shes lost count. Now a senior at Chippewa Falls High School, she estimates shes had roughly 13 surgeries to fix the cleft lip and palate she was born with.

The last surgery, however, was different. Her twin sister, Mara, joined her at Shriners Hospital in Chicago to remove a growth in their jaw bones that caused the lower jaws to shift outward, each in opposite directions.

It is way harder than I thought it would be, Mara said of the surgery. Maya is a champ at it. Shed have surgery, be gone four days and go back to school. She doesnt let anything hold her back.

Maya and Mara Grant are Chi-His winners of the Chippewa Heralds fourth annual Extra Effort awards.

Making a plan

The Grants have been planning for the surgery since the girls were 13 years old, when Mayas surgeon told them the growth needed to be removed.

Knowing has helped them plan schooling  Maya has completed all her classes required to graduate, and Mara has just one to go  and has served as an endpoint for the constant drives to Chicago.

Since January alone, Maya, Mara and their mother, Jennifer, have made six trips to Shriners for progress checks and check-ups. Meanwhile, their father stays home with their two younger brothers.

You get caught up (with school work), and then the next day its like, here we go again, Mara said. Its frustrating, but our teachers have been really understanding.

On Feb. 16, the girls and their mom packed up once more and headed to Shriners. Mara prepped to experience her first surgery, thinking if her twin could do it so could she.

But it didnt prepare her for the anxiety of waiting for her sisters surgery to be completed, nor the pain that endured in the days and weeks following.

Ive only had to deal with this a few years, but this has been her whole life, Mara said of her sister. Shes always been able to get up and go right back to school. Thats probably what made it easier for me.

Hoping to finally have their faces return to normal, the girls were surprised to find it would take time for their jaws to set, and they also had to relearn how to speak, eat and drink with their new facial construction.

Weve been so excited for the change this surgery would bring about, but the swelling was so bad after surgery that it wasnt like those makeover shows you see on TV, Jennifer said.

In addition, the girls experienced headaches, pain in the middle of the night and lost quite a bit of weight.

We expected it to be a very difficult recovery, but its been harder than all of us anticipated, Jennifer said. Weve been through surgeries before, but this was a whole different ball game.One thing that didnt shock them much, though, was their physical appearance.

While Maya said she often felt the lingered gaze of others, most of her friends knew about the surgery via Facebook even before the girls returned to school.

Mara agreed, their friends were understanding, and having a mirror at her side 24/7 made things easier.

I look at Maya all day, every day, Mara said. Were going through the same thing, so its not as scary looking at yourself.

Adjusting

Just over a month after the surgery, both girls are back in school. Though one side of Mayas face remains numb, and both girls still have trouble eating and drinking  especially hot things  they have found a huge support system in their friends and teachers.

(Our friends) visited us, Facetimed us and brought us flowers, Mara said. They are not only supporting just us but our whole family.

They still have to go to Shriners Hospital, now biweekly, for checkups, but their grandparents, aunts and uncles have stepped in to take care of their two younger brothers.

They are still getting used to their new looks, and Maya attends speech therapy to get used to the new jaw, but instead of complaining, the girls have used their past as a learning experience.

On any given visit to Shriners, they meet children who are going through their own struggles.

How can we feel bad for ourselves? This is just a jaw, other kids have cancer, theyre going through so much more, Maya said. Yeah, were struggling, but it could be way worse. To respect those people we shouldnt pity ourselves.

Jennifer noticed the interactions have also acted as an opportunity for them to mentor other kids.

But Mara is quick to point out: Vice versa. Kids have done that for us, even if theyre younger.

Looking ahead

Both Mara and Maya will have at least one more surgery to realign some of their jaw and chin features, and Maya will have another done on her nose.

Though this will impact future plans, both girls plan to attend college this fall and are leaning toward UW-Stout.

Mara isnt entirely sure what she wants to go to school for yet, but she knows she wants to help families like her own, or other children, in some way. Right now she is considering being a pastor.

As for Maya, the many visits to Shriners have impacted her decision as well. She fell in love with the Windy City, and plans to pursue a degree in hospitality and tourism before, hopefully, working in the industry in Chicago.

They are big goals, and as such are likely to be accompanied by big failures, but perhaps no one understands overcoming failure quite like Mara and Maya Grant.

Seeing what theyve gone through all these years, that will give them that extra little grit not all kids have. And that will help them be more successful, Jennifer said.

While the girls are looking forward to developing identities separate from one another, a difficult thing for any set of twins to do, they also know they have a support system in each other.

Shes not really my best friend, Maya said. Shes my best sister.
If you have just started your journey in an online casino or are looking for a new site to play,...
China National Building Materials (CNBM) - March 2017

China National Building Materials (CNBM) has been in talks with the President of Tanzania regarding the construction by Sinoma International Engineering Co of a new cement plant in the country.

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Czech investment in west Afghanistan plant project

28 March 2017

A Czech company is reportedly set to invest US$70m in the establishment of a cement plant in west Afghanistan, according to Afghan local press.



The agreement will be inked in next two months with a Czech firm, according to Sirus Alaf, an Afghan presidential economic adviser. The 1600tpd plant, to be built in the Zenda Jan district, will also aim to attract investment from Afghanistans private sector, the report added.

It will transform the future of Afghanistan especially southwestern zone, Mr Alaf said.

Published under
WASHINGTON  I really miss liberal Republicans. People like Mitt Romney.

No doubt the former Massachusetts governor would be aghast at being called such a thing. Of course Romney is not a liberal in any conventional sense. But 11 years ago  it now seems like a lifetime  Romney acted in the great tradition of liberal Republicans. He saw a problem and tried to solve it in the most business-friendly way possible. The result was the Massachusetts health care plan.

At a celebration for the new law, as recounted in a 2011 New Yorker piece by Ryan Lizza, Romney tried to explain why his approach was in line with his partys history. Its a Republican way of reforming the market, he declared. Because, let me tell you, having 30 million people in this country without health insurance and having those people show up when they get sick, and expect someone else to pay, thats a Democratic approach.

A bit demagogic? Sure, especially when one of the politicians who helped Romney pass his bill was the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, for whom universal health coverage was the cause of his political life.

But Romneys definition of a plausible path for his party on health care was compelling. The Republican approach is to say, You know what? Everybody should have insurance. They should pay what they can afford to pay. If they need help, we will be there to help them, but no more free ride.

Yes, requiring everyone to buy health insurance on the private market and providing adequate subsidies so lower-income citizens could afford it really was a conservative idea. It was an alternative to liberal calls for a single-payer approach that would have the federal government take over the health-care system.

The mandate was seen not as oppressive, but as an endorsement of personal responsibility. If you can be required to buy car insurance (because everybody is at risk of getting into an accident), why not require people to buy health insurance (because everybody is at risk of getting sick)? But since health coverage is financially out of reach for so many, the fair thing is to ask them to pay what they can and have government fill in the rest.

The debacle that is Trumpcare, aka Ryancare  both President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan own this thing  is a reminder that conservatism has gone haywire. Romney looks like a liberal because conservative Republicans (with a few honorable dissenters) have largely abandoned trying to solve social problems, except for offering free-market bromides as if they are solutions.

Even Romney usually played down the greatest achievement of his governorship when he ran for president in 2012 because President Obama had the nerve to learn from the Massachusetts experience: The Affordable Care Act is rooted in the principles and policies of Romneycare.

We already know that any promise Trump makes is meaningless (my colleague Eugene Robinson memorably observed, He even lies about his own lies), but its worth remembering that Trump has consistently tried to cast himself as more 2006 Romney than 2017 Ryan. Were going to have insurance for everybody, Trump told The Washington Post in January. There was a philosophy in some circles that if you cant pay for it, you dont get it. Thats not going to happen with us.

Actually, that is exactly what happened when Trump found himself issuing ultimatums on behalf of a bill that deprives an estimated 24 million Americans of health coverage (while cutting taxes on the affluent). Thus has Trump betrayed the working-class supporters he hides behind while pursuing the interests of his rich friends  as well as his own.

The United States is the only wealthy democracy in the world that doesnt provide health coverage to all its people. Republicans used to recognize this as a problem. Now, their ideology forces them to pretend it doesnt exist.

In his definitive piece on Romneycare, Lizza noted that in the hardcover edition of Romneys book No Apology, he had said of his health plan: We can accomplish the same thing for everyone in the country. Lizza observed that in the paperback, that line had been deleted.

Many in the GOP seem ready to edit out part of its conscience. The Trump/Ryan health care bill crashed on Friday because at least some Republicans refused to acquiesce in desecrating their partys tradition.
I eat to survive  or do I survive to eat? Good question. My immediate answer is that I love food. My favorites include pea soup (and Im pretty good at making a batch), chili and a crumbly hamburger called the Henry Special when made at home or a Maid Rite when I prefer the works while traveling in this part of the country.

Corn on a cob is another of my desired treats. And you certainly cant live in Wisconsin without the weekly fish frys featured at local restaurants and churches. Lobster ranks right up there at the top of my seafood list; however, because of price, a dinner of lobster and a Caesar salad is an occasional treat.

How about Welsh rarebit? In the 20s and 30s, that concoction was one of the most expensive items in Chippewa Falls. It was featured at the Ideal Restaurant downtown on Bridge Street. Adolph Nicolai was the proprietor while he and his wife raised a family of 10 kids.

What is Welsh rarebit? It varies in content from melted cheese cooked in cream or milk and served hot over a layer of toast or crackers. In many cases, a touch of ale or beer was added. And yes, the concoction was often called Welsh rabbit minus the hare. It commanded a price of 30 cents.

The Ideal Restaurant was Open Day and Night. Just imagine, a nickel back then could get a customer a ham sandwich and a piece of pie or a doughnut. The menu featured a special category at the top of it: Fresh Oysters in Season. A dozen fried oysters cost 50 cents.

I admit that raw oysters never grabbed my attention except on one occasion. When I became eligible for our schools Lettermans Club, I was blindfolded and forced to open my mouth into which a raw oyster was dropped. So to this day, regardless of the menu price of oysters, please hold the oysters.

I must mention our familys Monday Special was generally hash. Pot roast, carrots and potatoes on Sunday followed by hash on Mondays. That made for a good hardy meal.

I did possess a like that didnt appeal to my high school buddies. There was a bar between school and home. Its featured sandwich was a hefty slice of cheese, an equally impressive slice of onion, a swab or two of mustard and all surrounded by two pieces of rye bread.

Should have had a beer to wash it all down, but the owners abided by the law as we were underage.

And to cap off any of the above foods, a chocolate malt or milk shake is recommended. I do like food. As the saying goes: I came into this world hungry, and I remain that way.

You cant turn back the clock. But you can wind it up again.

A clear conscience is often the result of a poor memory.

The only nice thing about being imperfect is the joy it brings to others.

A gentleman is one who holds the door open while his wife carries in the groceries.

Two bachelors were thinking of taking up cooking. I got a cookbook once, said one to the other, but all the recipes began the same way  take a clean dish. That settled it for me.
Transgender Advocates Target Most Vulnerable in California

Contact: Karen England, Privacy for All Students, 916-212-5607

SACRAMENTO, March 27, 2017 /Christian Newswire/ -- Transgender advocates in the California Legislature have introduced legislation that would require elderly residents in skilled nursing facilities to share rooms and bathrooms with biologically opposite individuals.

SB 219, sponsored by Senator Wiener, would allow a transgender individual to occupy a room and use restroom facilities based on gender identity as opposed to biological reality.

It is difficult if not impossible for elderly residents in care facilities to maintain bodily privacy in shared rooms. SB 219 proposes that a transgender individual could demand to be placed in a room with a biologically opposite person, or could alternatively request to be placed in a room with somebody of the same biological sex.

"This legislation strips privacy rights from vulnerable, elderly individuals while giving new rights to transgender individuals," said privacy advocate Karen England. "The proposed legislation specifically prohibits a non-transgender resident from objecting to a transgender person becoming their roommate, but allows the transgender person to select whether to room with a male or a female."

In 2013, California passed the first in the country transgender law that would allow kindergarten through 12th grade public school students to choose their bathroom, shower or locker room based on gender identity. As with this newly proposed legislation for the elderly, the 2013 legislation gave special rights to transgender individuals to use whichever facility they felt most comfortable in without concern for exposure to or from others.

"No female should have to expose herself to or view the exposure of a biological male against her will," said England. "This is the case whether the female is a 14-year-old in a junior high locker room or a grandmother in an elderly care facility."

Privacy advocates are pointing to the fact that the proposed legislation regarding the elderly and the previous legislation applying to students as young as kindergarten age, seem to target the most vulnerable of California residents.

"Those who are trying to eliminate sex separated facilities did not start with the bathrooms used by the Governor or members of the Legislature," said England. "They started with facilities used by little kids and the elderly. We should not tolerate such bullying."

Paid for by Privacy for All Students FPPC# 1359959
Africa Study Bible Launches Worldwide: Celebratory Events Planned throughout Africa and in the United States



WHEATON, Ill., March 28, 2017 /



The first event is in Nairobi, Kenya on March 30, followed by Accra, Ghana on April 3, Chicago, USA on April 10-12, Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa on June 4-11, and Abuja and Lagos, Nigeria on June 29-July 1. The President of Kenya, His Excellency Uhuru Kenyatta, has already recorded his video blessing the project, as churches prepare to display national Christian unity at the launch event preceding national elections.



"Africans are bringing the power of Scripture to their own people in a new and culturally relevant way," says Dr. Matthew Elliott, president of Oasis. "Under the leadership of an 11-member editorial board of scholars from across Africa, we've brought together 350 writers and editors from 50 countries, representing 50 denominations. This is an unprecedented project that will impact the global church."



To celebrate the launch in the United States, Oasis will host the African Voices Conference, in partnership with Tyndale House Publishers and Urban Ministries, Inc. (UMI), at Moody Bible Institute in downtown Chicago. The conference opens Monday, April 10 with an evening of thanksgiving and dedication of the ASB, hosted by UMI at the DuSable Museum of African American History. Over the next two days, April 11-12, distinguished leaders and scholars from Africa will offer 30 lectures on topics ranging from missional theology to the roots of Christianity in Africa. The conference also includes an ASB-focused Moody chapel, a Moody faculty development forum, a luncheon with the African guest speakers, and a dinner with Dr. Paul Nyquist, president of Moody, Dr. Mark Taylor, chairman and CEO of Tyndale, and C. Jeff Wright, CEO of UMI. Special musical guest Aaron Shust will also be participating in the conference events.



"The event at Moody will be a wonderful opportunity for both students and guests to learn more about the tremendous ways that God is building his church in Africa," says Elliott. "More Christians live in Africa than any other continent and by 2050 nearly 40 percent of the world's Christians will live in sub-Saharan Africa. Five of the ten countries with the largest number of Christians will be in Africa. The ASB highlights the growing impact of African leadership on the global church."



With nearly every evangelical study Bible written from the viewpoint of the United States or the United Kingdom, Africans have lacked a resource that connects with their experience, hindering discipleship. Designed to grow the faith of church members in Africa and teach them to apply a biblical worldview to their culture and society, the ASB uses the New Living Translation and includes over 2,600 features such as application notes, stories and proverbs, touchpoints that link Africa and the Bible, learn notes that explain basic values and theology, and major theme articles that apply the Bible to key issues. The ASB brings unique African perspectives to the global Church and allows Christians around to the world to better understand Gods Word through African Eyes. Tyndale House Publishers will release the ASB in English in the United States in early May and a freestanding app is available April 1 in iOS and Android. French and Portuguese translations are already in development.



Oasis partnered with Tyndale House Publishers and Tyndale House Foundation to create the Bible. Other participants and supporters include Wycliffe, Willow Creek and Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit, IFES (International Fellowship of Evangelical Students), Scripture Union, Center for Early African Christianity, PJA (Publications pour la Jeunesse Africane), SIM, UMI, Association of Evangelicals in Africa, and Moody Bible Institute.



**Press passes for the Moody event are available. Please email for further information.**

Share Tweet Contact: Debbie Lykins, 224-234-6699; deb@sidedoorcom.net WHEATON, Ill., March 28, 2017 / Christian Newswire / -- After a seven-year, cross-continental effort, Oasis International, in partnership with several major Christian organizations, is launching the Africa Study Bible: the first study Bible developed by Africans, with over 2,600 notes written by 350 contributors from 50 countries. Oasis is working with local leaders throughout Africa and the United States to host dedication events. Leaders of some of the largest denominations in Africa as well as Christian government officials are expected to be in attendance.The first event is in Nairobi, Kenya on March 30, followed by Accra, Ghana on April 3, Chicago, USA on April 10-12, Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa on June 4-11, and Abuja and Lagos, Nigeria on June 29-July 1. The President of Kenya, His Excellency Uhuru Kenyatta, has already recorded his video blessing the project, as churches prepare to display national Christian unity at the launch event preceding national elections."Africans are bringing the power of Scripture to their own people in a new and culturally relevant way," says Dr. Matthew Elliott, president of Oasis. "Under the leadership of an 11-member editorial board of scholars from across Africa, we've brought together 350 writers and editors from 50 countries, representing 50 denominations. This is an unprecedented project that will impact the global church."To celebrate the launch in the United States, Oasis will host the African Voices Conference, in partnership with Tyndale House Publishers and Urban Ministries, Inc. (UMI), at Moody Bible Institute in downtown Chicago. The conference opens Monday, April 10 with an evening of thanksgiving and dedication of the ASB, hosted by UMI at the DuSable Museum of African American History. Over the next two days, April 11-12, distinguished leaders and scholars from Africa will offer 30 lectures on topics ranging from missional theology to the roots of Christianity in Africa. The conference also includes an ASB-focused Moody chapel, a Moody faculty development forum, a luncheon with the African guest speakers, and a dinner with Dr. Paul Nyquist, president of Moody, Dr. Mark Taylor, chairman and CEO of Tyndale, and C. Jeff Wright, CEO of UMI. Special musical guest Aaron Shust will also be participating in the conference events."The event at Moody will be a wonderful opportunity for both students and guests to learn more about the tremendous ways that God is building his church in Africa," says Elliott. "More Christians live in Africa than any other continent and by 2050 nearly 40 percent of the world's Christians will live in sub-Saharan Africa. Five of the ten countries with the largest number of Christians will be in Africa. The ASB highlights the growing impact of African leadership on the global church."With nearly every evangelical study Bible written from the viewpoint of the United States or the United Kingdom, Africans have lacked a resource that connects with their experience, hindering discipleship. Designed to grow the faith of church members in Africa and teach them to apply a biblical worldview to their culture and society, the ASB uses the New Living Translation and includes over 2,600 features such as application notes, stories and proverbs, touchpoints that link Africa and the Bible, learn notes that explain basic values and theology, and major theme articles that apply the Bible to key issues. The ASB brings unique African perspectives to the global Church and allows Christians around to the world to better understand Gods Word through African Eyes. Tyndale House Publishers will release the ASB in English in the United States in early May and a freestanding app is available April 1 in iOS and Android. French and Portuguese translations are already in development.Oasis partnered with Tyndale House Publishers and Tyndale House Foundation to create the Bible. Other participants and supporters include Wycliffe, Willow Creek and Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit, IFES (International Fellowship of Evangelical Students), Scripture Union, Center for Early African Christianity, PJA (Publications pour la Jeunesse Africane), SIM, UMI, Association of Evangelicals in Africa, and Moody Bible Institute.**Press passes for the Moody event are available. Please email for further information.**
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The cloud is dead.

OK, maybe not dead. But definitely going out of style.

That, in effect, has been the subject of a spate of recent articles, at least a couple of which cite Peter Levine of Andreessen Horowitz as a key source.

The same week those pieces came out, Gartner (News - Alert) analyst Thomas Bittman authored a piece of a similar flavor titled The Edge Will Eat the Cloud. (This title is, of course, a reference to Mark Andreessens oft-cited 2011 Wall Street Journal article.)

A more recent Wall Street Journal piece, this one from March 7, 2017, quotes Levine commenting: I have this theory that cloud computing goes away in the not-too-distant future.

Levine has told various media outlets that cloud computing, in his mind, is analogous to mainframe computing. Both are centralized.

But the Internet of Things, Levine says, will call for decentralization  or computing at the edge.

No doubt. The IoT will absolutely require more edge computing.

But this should come as news to no one.

Cisco (News - Alert) Systems has been talking about fog computing since at least 2014.

And the ultra reliable low latency communications that 5G is expected to help enable, weve been told again and again, will help cellular service providers support applications like the connected car and remote surgery that require mobile edge computing for faster decision making.

I mentioned that in a story about 5G that ran in the first quarter 2017 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine. But Yun Chao Hu, Milan Patel, Dario Sabella, Nirit Sprecher, and Valerie Young authored a European Telecommunications Standards Institute white paper on mobile edge computing way back in September of 2015.

Mobile Edge (News - Alert) Computing provides an IT service environment and cloud-computing capabilities at the edge of the mobile network, within the Radio

Access Network and in close proximity to mobile subscribers, the 2015 paper explained. The aim is to reduce latency, ensure highly efficient network operation and service delivery, and offer an improved user experience.

As the paper explained, edge computing doesnt necessarily signal the end of the cloud. Instead, it can be viewed as an expansion of the cloud.

Bittman, however, argues that its more likely the edge will carry its own weight, driven more by consumers and consumer experiences than enterprises. Edge computing, he adds, entails a different kind of workload and will create some serious winners and losers, both in terms of vendors, and businesses.

Perhaps.

But I would argue that the idea that cloud computing is on its death bed is more than a little overstated. And it seems to me that the notion that expanding some computing to the edge will have earthshattering effects on cloud service providers is itself a shaky proposition.

Makes for a great headline though.

Instead, I think what well see is the continuation of a healthy cloud, paired with edge computing for select applications.

One more note: Some folks have tied the discussion about edge computing to the recent Amazon Web Services (News - Alert) outage. For example, this K4Connect blog says edge/fog architectures could be designed not only to eliminate latency, but to operate even when the internet is down.

That would be great.

But this piece also goes on to note that (although the cloud, like all computing platforms I might add, is not foolproof) in some instances  especially if the task requires significant computing power and there is no need for immediacy  the cloud is the more appropriate solution.

Edited by Stefania Viscusi
Advocate Lutheran General Hospital and Advocate Children's Hospital are seen April 4, 2016, in Park Ridge. The hospitals are part of Advocate Health Care, which is involved in a dispute over its pension plan that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

Questions asked by U.S. Supreme Court justices Monday stopped short of revealing exactly how they might rule in a case over whether Advocate Health Care's religious affiliation exempts it from having to follow a federal law designed to protect employee pensions.

It's a case that has the potential to affect the finances of hospitals and their employees across the country. A number of other hospitals and hospital systems, including Illinois' Presence Health, OSF HealthCare and Holy Cross Hospital in Chicago, have also been sued over the issue.

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Some of those cases are on hold pending a Supreme Court decision on the matter, in cases involving Advocate and two other hospital systems.

A federal law, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, requires that pension plans be insured and sufficiently funded, among other things. But Downers Grove-based Advocate, and the other two hospital systems argue they shouldn't have to follow that law because their pension plans are technically "church plans," and church plans are exempt from the law.

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But attorneys who brought the original lawsuits on behalf of employees say the exemption wasn't meant to extend to "giant businesses" such as Advocate, which has about 35,000 employees.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor seemed particularly sympathetic to that argument Monday.

"Do you believe that Congress' vision was to let what is essentially a corporate entity opt out of protecting all those employees?" Sotomayor asked a lawyer for the hospitals.

Still, Sotomayor also said, at one point, that she was "torn."

Advocate has said in court documents that if it loses the case, it could owe billions of dollars in retroactive penalties  a figure that would "come at the expense of destitute citizens of Illinois who rely on the free care and other free services that Advocate provides." The attorneys and employees behind the lawsuits, however, have said that figure is exaggerated and they mainly want Advocate and the two other systems involved in the cases to follow the law when it comes to protecting employee pensions.

Justice Samuel Alito asked a lawyer for the employees suing the systems whether the hospitals are correct to claim they could owe "billions of dollars" in retroactive penalties if they lose.

The attorney, James Feldman, said no court has ever imposed such high penalties for not following the law in question. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested that a court could even avoid imposing those retroactive penalties if it believes the systems acted in good faith during the years they didn't follow the law, thinking they were exempt from it.

Still, Feldman said he wasn't willing to take potential penalties off the table entirely.

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Alito also expressed skepticism over the argument that a pension plan must be established by a church  not just a church-affiliated entity  in order to be exempt from the law.

The law is "as simple as that, that read literally, it is not required that it be established by a church," Alito said.

The hospitals have said in court documents that Congress meant to exempt religiously affiliated hospitals from having to follow the law in the spirit of avoiding government entanglement in religious affairs. But those suing the hospitals say the exemptions leave employee pensions vulnerable to problems and give religiously affiliated hospital systems an unfair advantage over competitors.

Advocate said in a statement Monday that it has been operating and "responsibly funding" its pension plan as a church plan, with government approval, for more than 30 years. Advocate said it looks forward to a resolution of the issue "which affects thousands of religious ministries across the country."

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Advocate last year.

Attempts to reach an attorney for the employees, with Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, were not immediately successful Monday. Cohen Milstein is one of the law firms that has brought many of the cases against hospitals across the country over the issue.

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A decision in the matter is expected by the end of June.

Chicago's Holy Cross Hospital recently agreed to settle a lawsuit against it over the issue for $4 million, on top of $5 million left in its pension plan. The hospital denied all the allegations against it as part of the settlement agreement.

lschencker@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @lschencker
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the Los Angeles billionaire battling for control of Chicago Tribune owner Tronc,is pressuring the board of Tronc to allow him to buy more stock. (Danny Moloshok / AP)

Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the Los Angeles billionaire battling for control of Chicago Tribune owner Tronc, is pressuring the company's board to allow him to buy more stock now that Chairman Michael Ferro has been allowed to up his stake.

In a letter sent Monday to Tronc executives and obtained by the Los Angeles Times, John Quinn, an attorney for Soon-Shiong, said the company should immediately allow the biotech entrepreneur and his investment firm to own as much as 30 percent of Tronc stock. For now, he is limited to holding 25 percent under an agreement signed when he invested in the company last year.

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The letter was made public in a regulatory filing Tuesday afternoon.

Ferro, a Chicago entrepreneur who bought into Tronc last year through his firm Merrick Media, had also been limited to holding no more than 25 percent. But Tronc's board last week approved bumping that figure up to 30 percent in a move made public by a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

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The company did not offer an explanation as to why the terms of Ferro's deal were amended. Earlier this month, the company noted in a different filing that Soon-Shiong, who has been Tronc's vice chairman since last summer, had not been nominated to serve on the board in the coming year.

In Monday's letter, Quinn said that Tronc's treatment of the doctor and his investment firm, Nant Capital, has been "egregious" and demanded that the board allow Soon-Shiong to boost his stake in Tronc, which also owns the Los Angeles Times and seven other major newspapers.

Tronc spokeswoman Dana Meyer said the company rejects the claims in the letter.

"We have reviewed it, have found it to be filled with misstatements and baseless innuendo, and intend to respond to Nant Capital as promptly as possible," she said.

The letter lays out several corporate actions that Quinn said have unfairly benefited Ferro and represent poor corporate governance, including the board's decision to not renominate Soon-Shiong for his seat.

"We were therefore doubly surprised and troubled by recent actions by the company  all of which we believe are contrary to principles of good governance and to shareholders' best interests," the letter said.

Quinn also sent a demand for access to corporate documents, including communication between board members, management and company attorneys over Soon-Shiong's seat on the board, Ferro's increased stake in the company and the recently announced buyback of more than 3 million Tronc shares from investment firm Oaktree Capital Management.

james.koren@latimes.com

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Twitter @jrkoren
Over the past year, Cambridge Lakes Charter School in Community Unit School District 300 has seen its fair share of ups and downs, from the threat of its closure to the renewal of its charter back in the summer.

District 300 school board candidates largely supported the continued operations of the decade-old preK-12 school, but mostly stayed mum if the district deserved more charters and more school choice.

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It was one of several topics discussed at a Thursday night public forum in Carpentersville among the six candidates vying for three seats in the April 4 election  incumbents Kathleen Burley and Anne Miller, and challengers Nicole Beyer, Leslie LaMarca, Mary McNicholas, and David Scarpino.

"I would never want to take (Cambridge Lakes) away from my community," said Burley. "I believe in Cambridge Lakes."

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In May, both the District 300 school board and the Northern Kane Educational Corporation, the management firm of Cambridge Lakes, complained to each other in public over communications and cooperation. The school board wanted answers to concerns raised over special education, the English Language Learners program, the preschool, finances, vaccinations, and the school's contract with Illinois Central College in East Peoria.

Ultimately, the school board renewed the charter through 2020, with added provisions ensuring better documentation and access from the charter group for District 300.

Cambridge Lakes remains a topic of interest in the district as noted by Thursday's forum and its candidates.

While Burley said she supports Cambridge Lakes, she hesitated at suggesting another, calling herself a "proponent of public education." If school choice is an argument for another charter, she said current District 300 schools already provide choices for alternative student success, such as dual language programs and the district's Pathways college and career readiness track.

LaMarca is on the board for Northern Kane Educational Corporation, she told the audience. She sent her children through Cambridge Lakes for 9 years and said they "excelled" there, along with other classmates.

"That said, we've had some issues the last 10 years," she said. "Being a (Northern Kane) board member for the last four, I've had the opportunity to stand with the families, stand with the staff, to push toward changes... it wasn't without struggle, and it wasn't without tears and yelling and all of that, but we did it. Cambridge Lakes is on the right path."

"My priority would be to first protect our students and make sure Cambridge Lakes stays on that path," added Mary McNicholas, two years removed from graduating from Dundee Crown High School and looking to bring a student voice to the board. "If we were to look at additional charters, that remains the main priority  to make sure these charters have solid applications and proven success and bring in an opportunity to our school district that would serve all of the students."

Beyer said she supports Cambridge Lakes, as well as opening more charters, given taxpayers support school districts looking at other options for schooling. As a home schooled child at one point, Beyer said she understands not all students succeed under a traditional public school.

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Miller, a long-time board member who approved Cambridge Lakes, worked to protect the charter school over the past few years. She told those in attendance she is a supporter of not just charter schools but all forms of schooling, whether they be public or private.

When asked about additional charters, Miller said she would like "more choices" because it would benefit everyone involved within District 300  students, parents, homeowners and others.

Scarpino said he supports students but not necessarily a school building, especially if it's failing. The former District 300 associate superintendent-turned-candidate said District 300 did the right thing when looking into Cambridge Lakes' operations and offerings.

"I'm not going to sit here and tell all of you I will protect a school because I will not do that," he said. "I will make sure the teachers get what they need, get the services they need, and that children get what they need  that's what's important to me."

Moderators for the forum gave the six almost one hour to answer a multitude of questions, such as narrowing the achievement gap, the significance of a District 300 high school diploma, taxes, and staff/district relationship.

The question on District 300's relationship with staff conjured up memories from 2012, when more than 1,200 teachers waged a one-day strike in what was already a tumultuous year for several school districts and their respective teacher unions.

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"It was not one of my highlights," said Miller. "It was a day strike, but it was an eye opener that says we really needed to work on our relationships."

"The relationship right now (between the teachers and the administration) is very strong," added LaMarca. "I met with the lead representative, I met with (Superintendent Fred Heid) and both of them expressed that it is a really positive, collaborative relationship that they've grown into...that wasn't exactly the case where things were four or five years ago."

raguerrero@tribpub.com
Crab legs take center plate at the Easter brunch buffet at Indulge Show Kitchen Buffet in Elgin. (Photo by Shonda Talerico Dudlicek) (Shonda Talerico Dudlicek / The Courier-News)

If you're looking forward to Easter brunch, best make your reservations soon.

Atwater's  The Herrington Inn, 15 S. River Lane, Geneva; 630-208-8820; www.atwatersgeneva.com. Sunday brunch is from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Order off the menu or choose from holiday specials such as prime rib, ham, turkey and lamb. Cost ranges from $12 to $25 per selection. .

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Gaslite Manor Banquets  2485 Church Road, Aurora; 630-851-2300; www.gaslitemanor.com. Brunch is from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Cost starts at $13.95. Selections include scrambled eggs, waffles, Italian sausage with roasted peppers, roast sirloin of beef, fried chicken and roasted breast of turkey.

Hotel Baker  100 W. Main St., St. Charles; 630-584-2100; www.hotelbaker.com/easter-sunday-brunch. Brunch is from 9 a.m.-2:30 p.m. with costs ranging from $27 to $53. Highlights include omelets, a waffle bar, a carving station and a seafood station.

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Indulge Show Kitchen Buffet  Grand Victoria Casino, 250 S. Grove Ave., Elgin; 847-468-7000; www.grandvictoriacasino.com/dining.indulge. Brunch will be available from 11 a.m.-9 p.m. for $29.99. Selections include snow crab legs, barbecue smoke ribs, a carving station and roasted duck.

Maggiano's Little Italy  1847 Freedom Drive, Naperville; 630-536-2270; www.maggianos.com. Brunch is offered from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Order items off the brunch menu, with prices ranging from $5.95 to $19.95. Options include eggs Benedict, French toast, chicken and waffles, the Italian-American breakfast and an Italian sausage frittata.

Meson Sabika  1025 Aurora Ave., Naperville; 630-983-3000; www.mesonsabika.com. A taste of Spain is available from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. with costs ranging from $19.95 to $46.95. Selections include tapas and a carving station with prime rib and leg of lamb.

Morton Arboretum  Ginkgo Restaurant, 4100 Illinois Route 53, Lisle; 630-725-2066; www.mortonarb.org/events/easter-brunch. Seatings are at 9 a.m., noon and 3 p.m. Costs are from $27 to $52. Chef-carved prime rib, made-to-order omelets and pasta are on the menu. The Easter Bunny will visit each table and give children cookies.

Pheasant Run Resort  4051 E. Main St., St. Charles; 630-584-6300; www.pheasantrun.com/dining/seasonal-dining-options.aspx. Seatings are from 9:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Costs are $16.95 to $42.95. Brunch classics include made-to-order omelets and waffles, pork medallions, peel and eat shrimp and leg of lamb. Kids' meals available, too. Two Easter egg hunts, a petting zoo and family portrait studio are offered.

Shonda Talerico Dudlicek is a freelance reporter for the Courier-News.
The Naperville Public Works department budgets $15,000 annually for the cost of replacing mailboxes damaged by snow plows. When a mailbox is damaged, the city gives residents a temporary mailbox, anchored by concrete in a bucket, and reimburses the homeowner $75 toward the cost of a new mailbox. (Erin Hegarty / Naperville Sun)

While the recent mild winter proved beneficial for the city's road salt reserves, it was also good news for Naperville mailboxes.

As snow falls, the city of Naperville sends out plows to clear the streets of the white stuff, and residents' mailboxes can fall casualty to the plowing.

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The city's Public Works Department annually budgets enough money to reimburse residents for 200 damaged mailboxes at $75 a pop, said Christine Schwartzhoff, operations team leader for the Naperville Public Works Department. The $15,000 allotted for mailbox damages comes from the department's operating budget.

But it's often not the snow plow's direct contact with a mailbox that knocks it to the ground.

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"Generally they're knocked down when we have the really heavy, wet snow," Schwartzhoff said. "The weight of the heavy, wet snow is what knocks the mailboxes down."

Since 2012, the city has had to pay for more than 200 damaged mailboxes only once. That was in 2014 when, according to city documents, 257 mailboxes were damaged, costing the city $19,275. In the 2013-14 winter season, a reported 82 inches of snow  more than double the average  fell at O'Hare International Airport, according to the National Weather Service.

In 2015, when the Chicago-area saw heavy snowfall Jan. 31 through Feb. 2, 173 mailboxes were damaged, according to city documents. The city cut a total of $12,975 in checks to residents in 2015. A little more than 50 inches of snow fell at O'Hare in the 2014-15 winter season, according to the National Weather Service.

The city paid $3,375 in 2013 for 45 damaged mailboxes, and $4,125 in 2012 for 55 damaged mailboxes. Last year, the city paid for 89 damaged mailboxes, costing $6,675.

As of March 21, the city had paid $2,550 for damage to 34 mailboxes.

If the city can repair the mailbox, it will do so. Otherwise, the resident is mailed a $75 check from the city. Once a resident accepts the check, he or she waives the right to any additional compensation from the city, according to the letter the city sends with the check.

"Generally, residents will call and say their mailbox is damaged, and a field supervisor will go and check it out," Schwartzhoff said. "If it does in fact have to be replaced, the city will process that check for $75."

Many of the mailboxes that get knocked down have weak posts to begin with, or are installed too close to the curb, Schwartzhoff said. When the city sends residents reimbursement checks, it includes a letter specifying how far away from the curb the mailbox should be.

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Often the ground is frozen when the mailboxes have to be replaced, so the city gives residents temporary mailboxes in a concrete base bucket.

When mailboxes are damaged during the winter months, residents have until May 31 to install their new mailboxes. This year, the city will begin picking up temporary mailboxes June 3. Residents can request the temporary boxes be picked up early if necessary.

As far as the reimbursement cost, the city has paid residents with damaged mailboxes $75 for several years. "We went to local hardware stores and priced out new mailboxes and posts," Schwartzhoff said. "So it's a fair price."

ehegarty@tribpub.com
Perhaps one of the most depressing things that has ever happened to me occurred the other day when I was riding a crowded bus from an airport to a rental car place and a guy who looked way older than me stood up and offered me his seat.

Why is that depressing? Because it made me feel old, which let's be honest, I am.

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Like me, I think most women over 50 have insecurities about aging, especially when it comes to two things: the physical drawbacks that go along with getting older (think muffin top, varicose veins, wrinkles, etc.) and dating.

I can't count the number of emails I receive from women over 50 who tell me how hard it is to meet men, and how men our age and even older want to date younger women.

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So, when I got this email from a 53-year-old single guy, I was so excited, I felt like doing cartwheels around my kitchen!

I'm a 53-year-old man. My 23-year marriage ended in 2010. I find that women my age have so much more to offer. Most have a real sense of who they are and what they want in a relationship. They're open and dedicated to making this next part of their lives really amazing! They come to life, and revel in the freedom that comes with being single with so much waiting to be discovered. Some men are genuinely drawn to a younger woman's energy but from what I've seen most are looking for an ego boost. To all you women who might be wondering what this next stage holds, go out there and enjoy life. Your radiance will be more than enough to attract real men.

What makes this so inspiring is that it isn't coming from me, a 51-year-old female dating and relationships columnist, but rather from someone who represents our desired demographic. And by the way, he is right!

Like our new favorite guy explains, there are many, many advantages to being a woman over 50. To talk about them, I sat down with Judy Freedman, a 59-year-old New Jersey-based writer and the creator of her 9-year-old blog, "A Boomer's Life After 50."

According to Freedman, a retired corporate communications executive who is now a yoga instructor and meditation enthusiast, the two biggest reasons why being over 50 is fabulous: wisdom and confidence.

"Fifty is a turning point. It's when you say to yourself, 'Wow, so what do I want to do that I haven't done?'" said Freedman, a mom of two who became a widow at 49. "You have all this wisdom which comes from the experiences you've had personally and professionally, and if something doesn't go your way, you feel like it's OK."

Freedman said women over 50 are willing to take more risks, both from an adventure standpoint, and by being more vulnerable in relationships.

"You start to feel so much more comfortable in your inner self. It's not just about 'OK, I have a middle-aged middle,' but about feeling like this is who I am and people are proud of that," Freedman said. "Being confident and liking yourself isn't arrogant, but rather reveals healthy self-esteem."

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Like Freedman, I find myself a big fan of vulnerability. It's refreshing and inspiring to show your authentic self to someone and discover that they like you for who you really are. It fosters a deeper, more meaningful and fulfilling connection. Vulnerability is something I know I personally am more capable of as I've gotten older.

What else do women over 50 have more of than we did in our younger days? Freedman and I thought of two more things: independence and gratitude.

"It took a long time to get here, but I like being by myself," Freedman said. "I do have a companion and I enjoy being with him, but I also appreciate time I spend alone. The key is, you have to like yourself."

One and a half years into my 50s, I find myself feeling gratitude more and more. About six months ago, I began a ritual, which I would encourage anyone who wants to live a happier life to try. Every morning when I wake up, before I get out of bed, I spend a few minutes thinking about all the wonderful things I have in my life, and I name the people for whom I feel grateful. What does that do for me? It sets the tone for a beautiful, happy day, and makes all of my daily problems seem manageable.

Here's the thing about being in your 50s. It's a little scary and sad to think that you've lived most of your life, and it's a little depressing to see and experience the physical changes happening. But if you take the advice of our awesome 53-year-old friend  who writes, "Go out there and enjoy life"  not only will your radiance attract real men, as he states, but with or without a man, you will be radiant. In other words, you will be healthy and glowing and happy. That doesn't sound old to me.

Jackie Pilossoph is a freelance columnist for Chicago Tribune Media Group. She is also the creator of her divorce support website, Divorced Girl Smiling. Pilossoph lives in Chicago with her two children.
Brian Huston had no idea that his 2-month-old Evanston restaurant, Boltwood, would be so popular. Or so noisy.

The popularity he loves. Huston had made a name for himself as the opening chef de cuisine at The Publican, where he worked for six years, but the locals here have been treating the Evanston-born and -raised chef as a conquering hero.

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"I guess you'd call it a dream come true," Huston says. "All cooks love to cook for friends and family as much as anything, and literally every night, there's somebody here that I know and care about. Every night I'm cooking for my mom, or cousin or high school teacher or friend."

(Insider's tip: Boltwood used to be the name of the freshman wing of Evanston Township High School; the restaurant represents a homecoming on a couple of levels.)

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As to the noise issue, it's something Huston and partner John Kim (of Brothers K Coffeehouse, also in Evanston) worked quickly to address. Boltwood occupies the space that was home to Lulu's, which was divided into several small dining spaces. Turning that into a single-room restaurant with an open kitchen amped up the noise level.

"We had no idea it would get this loud," Huston says, "and pretty much since the opening party (in mid-June), we went into full-emergency mode to put in sound paneling. It's a party (in the dining room), and I love the vibe at Avec and Publican, but I want people to be able to talk."

Huston and Kim knew they had to move quickly, says Huston, "I joke that word of mouth in Evanston is bigger than Yelp."

Boltwood will never be a quiet restaurant, but with sound paneling now installed, it's more than tolerable. My first visit I had to raise my voice to be heard; on my return, my colleague and I could have a normal conversation with each other and the couple at the next table.

Boltwood's menu has a few echoes from Huston's work at The Publican, but they're faint ones, and Boltwood's menu is necessarily more focused. You'll find a couple of oyster varieties here, as opposed to Publican's half-dozen or so, and mussels, when available, are more likely to swim in a tomato and white-wine broth rather than the lambic bath the beef-focused Publican likes.

But Huston's cooking still evinces that comfort-food rusticity that turns even the simplest-sounding dishes into treasures. One of my favorites consists of grilled brun-uusto cheese (a Wisconsin product that tastes and chews like elongated cheese curds) with cooked treviso (a mild radicchio), and, yes, I realize I'm raving about toasted cheese and greens. But, matched to La Quercia prosciutto from Iowa and splashed with a blackberry-aigre doux, it's a little plate of Midwest perfection.

The closest thing to a signature dish on the menu is the crispy potatoes, an overflowing bowl of golden-brown potato nuggets, thrice cooked and finished with garlic schmaltz (chicken fat).

Crispy outside and creamy within, these potatoes are virtually intoxicating.

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"Funny thing is, that's the one dish I cook," Huston says. "I intended to work saute, but the way the (kitchen) layout worked, all I do all night is fry potatoes; I have become a glorified fry cook."

(Another thing that Huston loves about Evanston, he says, is that his servers never have to explain what schmaltz is.)

There are other mainstays, but Huston likes to "flop" them (switch up the ingredients) so they're never quite the same. There's always a toast topped with some spread; for instance, one time it was a very fava bean spread, with feta and a hint of mint, but a few weeks later, the thick bread was piled high with oxtail marmalade and some slightly spicy pickled veggies (when those meat juices soaked into the bread ... heaven).

I'd make room at the table for the crunchy salt-cod croquettas with nicoise olives and fresh tomato sauce (a very satisfying sweet-salty experience), and the eggplant, served in garlicky grilled strips with a just-spicy-enough chili-anchovy vinaigrette.

Among larger dishes, the whole fish, perhaps roasted loup de mer with a mustard-laced pancetta vinaigrette, is never a bad choice, and the Korean-style short ribs  cut thin on the bone, marinated and grilled, and piled high with fresh arugula, cooked plums and kissed with macerated-plum vinaigrette  is terrific. Soft, lengthy gnudi pillows, dusted with microplaned Wisconsin parmesan and plated with braised artichokes, is a terrific dish, but Huston changes his pastas with some frequency.

There's a small bar near the entrance, easily overlooked, but don't ignore its output, which includes some fine cocktails; I'm particularly fond of the barrel-aged Manhattan, but there's also a very good version of the sazerac cocktail (a splash of malort gives it an edge), and the tri-color, rum-based Queen's Park Swizzle is a nice summer refresher. The wine list offers a couple of dozen bottles, and it's a food-friendly, price-sensitive collection, and there are four dessert wines for those so inclined.

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Desserts are still developing; Huston lost his pastry chef a couple of weeks after Boltwood opened, and he's made do with house-made ice creams (his mint chocolate chip is quite good) and seasonal fruit pies made by friends of his mother. The recent addition of pastry chef Christina Morrone, returning to her North Shore roots after working at Eleven Madison Park and Blue Hill, both in New York, should amp up the sweet selection in a hurry.

Watch Phil Vettel's reviews weekends on WGN-Ch. 9's "News at Nine" and on CLTV.

pvettel@tribune.com

Twitter @philvettel

Boltwood

804 Davis St., Evanston

847-859-2880

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boltwoodevanston.com

Tribune rating: Two stars

Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

Open: Dinner Tuesday-Sunday

Prices: Large plates $18-$36

Credit cards: A, DC, DS, M. V

Reservations: Strongly recommended

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Noise: Conversation-friendly

Other. Wheelchair accessible

Ratings key. Four stars, outstanding; three stars, excellent; two stars, very good; one star, good; no stars: unsatisfactory. The reviewer makes every effort to remain anonymous. Meals are paid for by the Tribune.
For many, Easter morning wouldn't be complete without a golden braided loaf of sweet bread on the table. (Ed Suba Jr./Akron Beacon Journal/MCT)

Easter morning wouldn't be complete for many without a golden braided loaf of Easter bread on the table.

The rich egg bread is steeped in the culinary and religious traditions of various ethnic groups, each of which makes a unique version of this sweet bread.

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Italian recipes call for flavoring the loaves with anise or orange peel, while Greeks use two special spices native to their Mediterranean homeland for flavoring. Slovaks, Polish, Ukrainians and other Eastern European groups let vanilla and butter provide the flavoring for the raisin-studded bread they call paska.

"Paska is a sweet yeast bread, rich in eggs and butter, which is symbolic of Christ himself, who is our true bread," said Nickie Dornack of Akron, who bakes for her family and for her church family at St. Michael's Byzantine Catholic Church on Crouse Street in Akron, Ohio.

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Dornack follows a recipe she describes as Slovak for Easter bread that gets braided and then twisted into a wreath shape. Her recipe calls for two cups of golden raisins in the bread, which sometimes is left in unbraided round loaves.

"We always put a little cross of dough on top," she said, noting that the braided shape also represents the crown of thorns placed on the head of Jesus at his crucifixion.

It's not surprising that an egg bread is used to celebrate Easter. For Christians, the egg represents new life, and Christ's rising to new life, which is commemorated at Easter.

Greek immigrant Vasiliki "Vicki" Filippousis of Akron tucks hard-cooked eggs dyed red inside the braids of Easter bread she bakes, in the Greek Orthodox tradition.

"The red is the blood of Jesus," she said. "The whole egg means Jesus' resurrection."

Filippousis' bread is flavored with two specialty Greek spices: mahlepi and hiotiki mastika.

Mahlepi is the kernel of a wild cherry tree that grows in the Mediterranean region, while hiotiki mastika is the resinous gum of a small evergreen tree native to the island of Chios, Greece. Both spices, which can be found at specialty stores like Western Fruit Basket in Akron, must be ground before they are added to the dough mixture. Filippousis said that if mahlepi isn't available, nutmeg can be substituted.

Filippousis, who leads the Easter bread baking at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church on Union Street in Akron, also advocates using vanilla sugar, sometimes called vanilla powder, in her bread recipe instead of vanilla extract.

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Mike Pallotta, who operates Pallotta's Pastries in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, said traditionally, many Christians gave up sweets for the Lenten season, so Easter bread was sweet for celebrating the end of Lent.

Pallotta bakes Italian Easter bread flavored with traditional anise or the increasingly popular orange flavor. Pallotta said making Easter bread at home is still a tradition with older Italian-Americans, but younger generations prefer to buy it, as making the bread is time-consuming.

As with the Greek recipes, many Italians who make the bread at home will put colored eggs into their braids, and some will ice the bread with a simple white frosting and decorate it with colored sprinkles.

"We do not put the eggs in it when selling it commercially, but traditionally, everybody did put the egg on top," Pallotta said. He said the icing can become messy when the bread is bagged, so he sells his plain.

Pallotta's will sell several hundred loaves of the bread in the weeks leading up to Easter, with orange outselling anise about 2-to-1, he said.

Older customers still prefer the traditional anise, which is sold in a long braid, but younger customers opt for the orange bread, which is made in a round loaf studded with orange peel.

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"As generations go on, their tastes change," Pallotta said. "With the orange Easter bread, we always tell our customers it tastes really good toasted with a little bit of butter and a piece of ham on it."

Here are all three recipes for Easter bread.

Greek Easter bread

Ingredients:

8 packages (1/4 oz. each) active dry yeast (Red Star brand)

3 1/2 cups sugar

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1/4 tsp. vanilla powder

5 to 6 lbs. flour 1 tsp. ground mahlepi or 1 tsp. ground nutmeg

1 tsp. ground hiotiki mastika

2 tsp. salt

2 cups milk

1 lb. butter, softened

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1 cup cooking oil such as canola

1 dozen eggs

1 1/2 cups hot water

2 egg whites

Place the sugar and yeast together with 4 to 5 cups of the flour. Add the vanilla powder, spices and salt and mix.

Place the milk and butter in a saucepan and warm over low heat until the butter is almost melted. Add to the flour-yeast mixture. Add the eggs and water.

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Place the mixture in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix, using a dough hook attachment. Add the flour and oil alternately. You may not need all 6 pounds of flour. Continue to mix dough until it pulls away from the sides of the bowl and clings in a ball to the dough hook. The dough takes about 20 minutes to make.

Dough can be kneaded by hand, or recipe can be cut in half and made as two batches to accommodate a smaller stand mixer.

Allow dough to rise, covered, until it doubles in size.

Once doubled, punch the dough down and divide it into 9 portions.

Shape each dough ball into three strands to be braided and twisted into a wreath shape. Bread can be baked on baking sheets or in metal pie plates.

Cover braids with plastic wrap and allow them to rise again until almost doubled.

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Brush tops with beaten egg whites before placing in oven. Bread can be baked 3 loaves at a time.

Bake at 325 degrees for about 40 minutes. If the bread is getting too dark, cover it with foil and lower the oven temperature to 300 degrees to continue baking.

Makes about 9 loaves of bread, about 1 1/2 pounds each.

--Vasiliki "Vicki" Filippousis, Akron

Italian Easter bread

Ingredients:

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3 large oranges (see note on substituting anise flavoring)

4 oz. fresh cake yeast

2 1/2 cups water, room temperature

4 lbs. bread flour

1 oz. salt

1 1/4 cups sugar

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3 oz. powdered milk (generous 1/3 cup)

3 oz. shortening at room temperature (1/3 cup)

3 oz. butter at room temperature (1/3 cup)

4 large eggs

Egg wash made from 1 beaten egg and 2 tbsp. water

Zest the oranges and set zest aside. Then peel the oranges and discard the white pith. Place oranges in a blender or food processor and puree.

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Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.

Mix flour, salt, sugar and powdered milk together in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook.

Add shortening and butter and mix to combine. Add the eggs and mix in.

Add the orange puree and zest, and then add water-yeast mixture.

The dough will be on the softer side.

Continue to mix with the dough hook until the dough comes together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. If the dough is too wet and isn't coming together, add some flour 1/2 cup at a time.

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Turn the dough out onto a board or baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise until it doubles in size, 1 to 2 hours.

Once raised, punch the dough down again, divide it into three 1-pound pieces. Let the divided dough rest on a floured surface for about 15 minutes.

Then divide each piece into three portions, roll the portions into long strands and braid or twist the strands into loaves or wreaths. Or dough can simply be left in round balls.

Place shaped dough on baking sheets.

Cover loaves with a towel and let them rise again until they are almost doubled, about an hour to an hour and a half.

Brush tops with egg wash.

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Bake loaves at 375 degrees for about 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden brown.

Makes 3 loaves.

Note: For anise-flavored bread, omit the oranges and increase the water by 1 cup. Then add 1 teaspoon of anise oil or 1 tablespoon of anise extract with the eggs.

--Michael Pallotta, Pallotta's Pastries, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

Paska

Ingredients:

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2 cups milk

3/4 cup butter

6 to 8 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp. salt

2 1/2 tbsp. instant dry yeast

1 cup sugar

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5 eggs, beaten

2 cups golden raisins

1 tsp. vanilla, optional

Egg wash made from 1 beaten egg mixed with 2 tbsp. of water

Warm the milk and butter together for about 3 minutes on high in a microwave.

Mix flour, salt, yeast and sugar together in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add in the eggs and vanilla if using. Then add in the milk and butter mixture. Add in the raisins last.

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Allow dough to mix until it pulls away from the side of the bowl. It will be a soft dough.

Place dough in a large, oiled mixing bowl. Cover with a towel and leave in a warm spot to rise until doubled in size.

Once raised, punch dough down and divide into 3 balls.

Each ball can be divided into three strands and braided, then twisted into a wreath shape. Or loaves can be left plain. Reserve a small amount of dough to shape into a cross and top each loaf with a cross.

Place loaves in round bread pans or cake pans or on flat baking sheets.

Allow to rise a second time until the loaves nearly double again, about an hour.

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Brush loaves with egg wash.

Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes.

To test for doneness, stick a sharp knife in the middle of each loaf. If the knife comes out sticky, the bread needs to bake longer.

Makes 3 loaves.

--Nickie Dornack, Akron, Ohio.

--------------------------------------------

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Visit Akron Beacon Journal at http://www.ohio.com/.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
"Super Troopers" director Jay Chandrasekhar said a gig as an extra on the Navy Pier set of "The Color of Money" -- for which he was paid $1 -- sparked his interest in a career in show business.

"I watched (Martin) Scorsese, (Tom) Cruise, and (Paul) Newman standing in the center of the set, talking, joking, and laughing about shots and performance and whatever. They were in the most important conversation in the room, and I was dying to hear what they were saying. I wanted to be in that conversation," Chandrasekhar writes in his book "Mustache Shenanigans," published Tuesday.

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Chandrasekhar, 48, was a teenager attending Lake Forest Academy when he played the role of a pool tournament spectator in the 1986 movie. He went on to study at Colgate University in New York before returning to Chicago for seven months to perform stand-up.

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He formed the Broken Lizard comedy troupe with friends from college and began making movies, including the 2001 film "Super Troopers." He directed Jessica Simpson, Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville in 2005's "The Dukes of Hazzard." "Super Troopers 2" is due out this year.

In the meantime, Chandrasekhar is back in Chicago for a Tuesday book signing at the Music Box Theatre.

On a flight to Chicago. Reading and speaking at The Music Box Tuesday night. Come take a pic: https://t.co/7DAsdEnElL pic.twitter.com/Sdk2Ap1Gq7  Jay Chandrasekhar (@jaychandrasekha) March 28, 2017

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Aaron Sorkin apparently couldn't quite believe it.

The Oscar-winning writer and executive producer expressed shock when the topic of diversity and gender equity came up during the Writers Guild Festival in Hollywood over the weekend, according to Variety.

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"Are you saying that women and minorities have a more difficult time getting their stuff read than white men and you're also saying that get to make mediocre movies and can continue on?" Sorkin asked the audience during a moderated discussion.

According to Variety, "Sorkin asserted that Hollywood is a genuine meritocracy and that he was unaware of Hollywood's existing diversity problem."

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He kept returning to the topic during a question-and-answer session with the audience: "You're saying that if you are a woman or a person of color, you have to hit it out of the park in order to get another chance?" Then, after listing a handful of writers who are women and people of color - Lena Dunham, Ava DuVernay, Jordan Peele - he asked what he could do to help.

The lack of representation in front of the camera and behind the scenes has been one of the dominant questions looming over Hollywood in recent years. And it's especially difficult to square Sorkin's apparent ignorance of such disparities with his own body of work and all the criticism it's prompted - criticism that he's even directly addressed.

Sorkin, who has written shows and movies such as "The West Wing," "The Social Network" and "The American President," has been criticized as presenting narratives dominated by men and where women, as Salon wrote, are in "desperate need of rescue."

MOST READ ENTERTAINMENT NEWS THIS HOUR

When describing his forthcoming "Molly's Game," about a former skier-turned-underground poker master, Sorkin has said he writes his characters from his perspective, regardless of gender.

"Unless I'm actually writing about gender or unless it's a romantic scene between a man and a woman, I'm really not paying that much attention to the fact that it's a woman," he said in 2015.

Sorkin's HBO series "The Newsroom" was panned by many critics; Vulture described it as "incredibly hostile toward women."

"There is the Great Man, who is theoretically flawed, but really a primal truth-teller whom everyone should follow (or date)," wrote The New Yorker's Emily Nussbaum. "There are brilliant, accomplished women who are also irrational, high-strung lunatics - the dames and muses who pop their eyes and throw jealous fits when not urging the Great Man on."

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Sorkin said in 2012 that while he respected such opinions, "I 100 percent disagree with it," adding the women are "every bit the equals of the men, I think they are not just talked about as being good at their job, they are plainly good at their job."

A 2014 episode about campus rape drew intense scrutiny as some felt it discredited rape accusers. And one of the show's writers said Sorkin kicked her out of the writer's room for protesting the plotline. Sorkin responded with disappointment that she aired her grievance so publicly, and expressing surprise at her criticism of the episode, as she "gave the new pages her enthusiastic support."

"Most of the time the conflict on the show is about ideas, and frequently those conflicts stoke a lot of passionate debate in the days that follow a broadcast," Sorkin told the New York Times about the backlash.

Sorkin provided his analysis of Hollywood's woman problem in an email he wrote to a New York Times columnist that surfaced during the 2014 Sony hack. He took issue with "the idea that something like (the hit comedy film) Bridesmaids is seen as a fluke and that's why we don't see more movies like Bridesmaids. There's an implication that studio heads have a stack of Bridesmaids-quality scripts on their desk that they're not making and it's just not true. The scripts aren't there." He then went on to connect the lack of such scripts to why he believed women's roles in Hollywood have a lower "degree of difficulty" than men's.

In another surfaced email to then-Sony co-chair Amy Pascal, Sorkin explained his skepticism that the studio would develop an adaptation of "Flash Boys" about the Wall Street executive Bradley Katsuyama. "The protagonist is Asian-American (actually Asian-Canadian) and there aren't any Asian movie stars," Sorkin wrote - a comment that drew fire in a broader debate about limited roles offered to Asian-Americans.

Diversity on screen is far from the commercial risk that industry reluctance may indicate. Projects with gender and racial diversity more reflective of America's demographics actually perform better on average, according to a recent report from the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA.

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Still, according to that same report of top 2015 theatrical releases, only about 10 percent had nonwhite directors, and about 5 percent had nonwhite writers.

A different study from San Diego State University found that just 22 of the top 100 domestic-grossing films in 2015 had female protagonists, while 13 percent of all female characters in the top 2015 films were black.

And when films with female protagonists do get made, they tend to have smaller budgets and smaller distribution, according to Melissa Silverstein, founder and publisher of Women and Hollywood, a site specializing in women in movies.

So now Sorkin appears to be finally aware that Hollywood simply doesn't present as many opportunities to women and people of color. Better late than never?

Over the weekend, he said, "I do want to understand what someone like me can do. ... But my thing has always been: 'If you write it, they will come.'"

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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)
The British do big book awards better than we do.

For one, the Man Booker Prize for Fiction  their top literary competition  pays more than four times the amount in prize money than our Pulitzer Prize (nearly $63,000 vs. $15,000). For two, you can bet on the Man Booker Prize.

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Betting on the Pulitzer in this country isn't legal, but that's not going to stop me from crafting some odds in advance of the prize announcement April 10.

Good handicappers have to understand the full nature of the competition, and here it's handy to know that the Pulitzers have something of an odd process where a "jury" of three people from the literary field (critics, writers, academics) selects three finalists, with the ultimate winner being chosen by the Pulitzer board, which currently includes a single fiction writer, Junot Diaz, who won the Pulitzer in 2008 for "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao."

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So who are the favorites?

Colson Whitehead, author of "The Underground Railroad." (Madeline Whitehead)

Louise Erdrich has already won this year's National Book Critics Circle Award for her novel "LaRose." This isn't quite the equivalent of a Golden Globe in advance of the Oscars, but an NBCC win has preceded a Pulitzer several times in relatively recent years. Diaz won both for "Oscar Wao," as did Jennifer Egan in 2011 for "A Visit from the Goon Squad" and Marilynne Robinson in 2005 for "Gilead."

Two other Pulitzer-eligible authors on the NBCC finalists list, Michael Chabon ("Moonglow") and Ann Patchett ("Commonwealth"), are also strong contenders. Both have vied for many top prizes, and Chabon won the Pulitzer in 2001 for "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay."

Ann Patchett, author of Commonwealth. (Jesse Dittmar / The Washington Post)

The 2016 National Book Award winner, Colson Whitehead's "The Underground Railroad," has to be considered a favorite. It's also an Oprah Book Club pick; does that help or hurt? Only Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" was selected for the Book Club prior to winning the Pulitzer in 2007.

If we're looking for a debut novel to match the feat of last year's winner, "The Sympathizer" by Viet Thanh Nguyen, I'm looking toward "Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist" by Sunil Yapa, both a critical and reader favorite.

Since there's no official betting odds for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction, we might as well just accept mine:

"The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead: 3-1. Feels like a strong contender to me.

"LaRose" by Louise Erdrich: 6-1. She's been a Pulitzer finalist, and the NBCC award carries some weight. A win for her seems inevitable, but is this the year?

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Michael Chabon, author of Moonglow. (Benjamin Tice Smith)

"The Sport of Kings" by C.E. Morgan: 10-1. It won the relatively new Kirkus Prize, and it's a big, ambitious book that may impress the Pulitzer board if it makes it past the jury.

"The Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist" by Sunil Yapa: 15-1. I've got a feeling this book will be a finalist.

"Barkskins" by Annie Proulx: 20-1. Proulx won the Pulitzer for "The Shipping News," but "Barkskins" hasn't gotten as much play as one would expect.

"Commonwealth" by Ann Patchett and "Moonglow" by Michael Chabon: 50-1. Big authors, but maybe not their best books.

"What Belongs to You" by Garth Greenwell, "The Nix" by Nathan Hill and "The Queen of the Night" by Alexander Chee: All 99-1.

Some other book winning the prize: 1-1.

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Only fools try to predict these things.

John Warner is the author of "Tough Day for the Army." Follow him @biblioracle.

Book recommendations from the Biblioracle

John Warner tells you what to read next based on the last five books you've read.

1. "Love Warrior" by Glennon Doyle Melton

2. "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt

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3. "Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear" by Elizabeth Gilbert

4. "A Fighting Chance" by Elizabeth Warren

5. "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

 Lisa T., Urbana

Something inspiring for Lisa: "Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" by "The Daily Show" host, Trevor Noah. Not your typical celebrity memoir.

1. "What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions" by Randall Munroe

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2. "I'll Give You the Sun" by Jandy Nelson

3. "Eleanor & Park" by Rainbow Rowell

4. "The Rest of Us Just Live Here" by Patrick Ness

5. "All the Bright Places" by Jennifer Niven

 Maddie P., Syracuse, N.Y.

Lots of crossover young adult books, so I'm going with a putatively adult book that I think would have plenty of Y.A. appeal: "The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving" by Jonathan Evison.

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1. "Celine" by Peter Heller

2. "The Nix" by Nathan Hill

3. "Idaho" by Emily Ruskovich

4. "The Vegetarian" by Han Kang

5. "The Circle" by Dave Eggers

 Will R., Chicago

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I'm going with my gut, something involving and a little creepy, sort of like the last two novels on this list: "The Dinner" by Herman Koch.

Get a reading from the Biblioracle!

Send a list of the last five books you've read to printersrow@chicagotribune.com. Write "Biblioracle" in the subject line.






The meetings take place in unremarkable parking lots.

A woman arrives, sometimes with children in tow, unloading pet food, toys or a dog bed. She hands over the leash and signs some paperwork.

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The handoffs are part of Noah's Rest, a program that shelters pets for people fleeing dangerous situations.

The program was created in 2012 by Deana Noonan, a professional dog trainer who said she was troubled after reading that abused people stay in relationships longer because of their pets. The Domestic Violence Awareness Project reports that as many as 65 percent of domestic violence victims delay leaving a dangerous situation because they worry about their pets.

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"We've heard from some victims that they didn't leave for the fear that their abuser has either threatened to harm the pet or has harmed the pet," said Jill Verbrick, who works with victims at the Lake County State's Attorney's office, which refers people to Noah's Rest.

She added, "It's just another way of controlling and manipulating the victim."

So far, Noonan has helped six families with 12 pets in the Chicago area.

When Noah's Rest started, the first person she helped was a woman who wanted to escape an abusive relationship but didn't want to leave her two dogs.

"If there wasn't a place for the dogs, she didn't think she could leave," Noonan recalled. "She didn't know what she was going to do."

Domestic violence shelters might not accept pets. Friends or family who could keep the pet might be far away, or have children or allergies that limit their ability to help. People often can't afford a kennel.

"We want to make (the pets) as comfortable as possible," Noonan said.

After meeting the pet's owner in a neutral location, such as a police department or parking lot, Noonan finds out all about the pet, words it responds to and preferred food.

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Sometimes she finds that the pets have been abused too.

Noonan says she often keeps in contact with owners while they seek a safe location, housing and a new source of income.

"Many times they have children, and the children miss the pet," Noonan said.

So far, Noah's Rest has only handled dogs and cats, but Noonan said she's open to other animals.

Advocacy groups like Women and Children's Horizons in Kenosha and A Safe Place in Zion, along with the Lake County State's Attorney's Office, refer clients to Noah's Rest.

Everything is free. The pet owner signs paperwork assigning temporary custody to Noah's Rest, and the pet then sees a veterinarian for a basic exam. The pet is taken to one of Noah's partnering pet-care facilities. The owner doesn't know where, for his or her and the pet's safety.

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It is tough, Noonan said, for the owner to drive away.

"There is always that moment, and I think that we kind of get a catch in our throats, too, because we know that it's hard for these people," she said. "But at least they know that the goal is to be reunited."

The owners have 60 days to come back for their pet, however, Noah's Rest tries to be flexible in complex scenarios.

Noonan herself doesn't know the specifics of their situations. She doesn't need to, to help.

"They all take a piece of our hearts, these pets," she said.

Recently, Noonan reunited a domestic abuse victim with her cat.

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"The cat would not stop meowing," Noonan said of the domestic shorthair. "It was like, 'You're back, you're back.'"

abowen@chicagotribune

Twitter @byalisonbowen

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A cross-body bag has long been a popular, practical choice, but the style is high fashion, too  as exemplified by this look from the Paris 2017 runways. (Catwalking / Getty)

Dear Answer Angel Ellen: Are cross-body purses in or out?

 Patrice N.

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Dear Patrice: They're totally in! And, since fanny packs went out of style, the cross-body bag is the most convenient solution if you're carrying around a not-too-huge amount of stuff. I prefer microfiber to leather because they're usually cheaper and lighter in weight.

If you're concerned about purse snatchers on the street or on public transportation, wearing your purse across your torso makes it more of a challenge to the bad guys who would like to snag your bag. With luck, they'll move on to an easier target. (Make sure your purse is solidly closed and wear the opening against your body.)

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I think of my purses the way Goldilocks might. The Baby Bag is my cross-body. Of course, most of the time not everything I need for the day will fit in there, so I often add my Mama Bag. It isn't huge but will hold a laptop, charger and, say, a water bottle. But I switch out Mama for my massive Papa Bag tote on days I'm also hauling a folding umbrella, gym clothes, a couple of work folders, snacks and stuff to drop off at the dry cleaners. When you're hauling Papa around, be sure to alternate shoulders or you'll be logging precious leisure time at the physical therapist.

Discounters like T.J. Maxx, Nordstrom Rack, Marshalls and Ross Dress for Less are all good sources for bags like the ones I've described. And, if you were a fanny pack fan (I plead guilty  but it was the '80s), don't worry. They'll come back in style once Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and that crowd start showing them on the runway at $1,200 per.

Dear Answer Angel Ellen: You've made clear how you feel about leggings, and I agree with you. They're not pants. But when I tried to find boot-cut, no-cling yoga pants recently, they were discontinued. Apparently, the powers that be have decided we all need our butts and thighs squeezed and hanging out. Help!

 Not a Pretty Sight

Dear Not Pretty: More forgiving yoga pants aren't easy to find, that's for sure. And the skintight ones don't look good on most of us.

Check out Danskin at Walmart (www.walmart.com). For $12 for Dri-More Core Relaxed Pants, how can you go wrong? I visited my local Gap store, and way in the back in an obscure corner, I found what you're looking for under $60, but I can't find them at www.gap.com, so you're probably out of luck there. Discontinued, just as you said. Athleta (www.athleta.com) has a few options (not cheap) that could work like the Midtown Trouser, La Viva Pant, Trekkie Pant 2.0, Coaster Sweatpant and my favorite, Bettona Classic Pant.

Whatever you do, steer clear of those flared capri horrors I've seen in stores lately. They look terrible on everyone.

Dear Answer Angel Ellen: Are the Clarisonic and other heavily advertised pricey cleansing brushes worth the price? How do they compare with the drugstore brands of battery-operated rotating brushes that are substantially cheaper? Are they better at deep-pore cleaning for acne-prone skin?

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 Gabrielle F.

Dear Gabrielle: I couldn't bring myself to spend the $100 plus for the pricey model  like Clarisonic  when I could spend under $30 for a battery-operated Olay model online and at the drugstore. I liked the Olay fine, although it's not perfect.

I asked dermatologist Jeremy Fenton if he agreed with me. "I do think the Clarisonic outperforms the cheaper versions, and most of my patients who have tried both prefer the Clarisonic. However, if you aren't ready to shell out that kind of cash, a cheaper version such as the Olay is a great one to start with to see if you like it. You will still be getting some benefit."

For acne-prone skin, Fenton (www.schweigerderm.com) recommends the more expensive models because of the option of an array of different brush heads and a too-harsh brush "can lead to more breakouts."

Whichever you choose, Fenton has these tips for using facial brushes:

Change the brush head every three months.

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Clean the brush after every use.

Don't store the brush in the shower, especially not with the bristles down. Moisture creates a breeding ground for bacteria.

Dear Answer Angel Ellen: How much shoe should be visible under a long (promlike) dress?

 Margaret

Dear Margaret: Just the toe should peek out if it's floor length. Ankle length formal dresses are popular now, and the whole shoe shows. Google red carpet looks at the Oscars, etc., and you'll see what I mean.

Angelic readers

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From MPT: "I discovered, the last time I colored my hair, that the stubborn gray hairs near my temples and surrounding hairline didn't take the color as in the past. I discovered Ardell Gray Magic Color Additive (sold at Sally Beauty, www.sallybeauty.com) for $5.99. You add drops to your hair color, and Hello!!! Your grays are covered."

More angelic readers

Responding to my call for recommendations for Margaret B., who wants comfortable, cute ballet flats for travel, readers stepped up. I guess cute is in the eye of the beholder because some of the recommendations are so not my style and a little orthopedic looking. But here goes 

J.S. says Bzees (www.bzees.com) are "cushy and comfortable beyond belief." Lands' End Casual Bungee Ballet Flats (www.landsend.com) are Eileen T.'s comfy, casual favorite. Mary R. is crazy for Skechers. Jackie P. loves Born flats. (I've had good and bad experiences with them.) Jackie also likes Merrell clogs for negotiating cobblestone streets in Paris and Florence. Podiatrists recommend Vionic, and so does reader Adrienne.

Now it's your turn

Send your questions, rants, tips, favorite finds  on style, shopping, makeup, fashion and beauty  to answerangelellen@gmail.com.

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Tourists explore the Colosseum in Rome, one of the stops on a Great Value Vacations trip in Italy. (Phil Marty / Chicago Tribune)

Here are some of the more interesting events, deals, websites and other travel tidbits that have come across our desk recently:

The 10th Annual Dairy State Cheese & Beer Festival will be April 22 at the Brat Stop in Kenosha, Wis. Beer samples will be available from more than 50 breweries across the country, and Wisconsin cheesemakers will offer their products. There will be live music on three stages. The event is a fundraiser for the Boys & Girls Club of Kenosha. http://tinyurl.com/n6ueskm

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Indiana Dunes State Park in Chesterton, Ind., is having a themed weekend April 28-30 focused on glamping  a more luxurious spin on traditional camping. Check out sample glamping sites, jewelry making and beach yoga. You can taste camping recipes, too. There will also be vintage campers from across the country. http://tinyurl.com/mlvtl4f

Get out your dancing shoes and head to the 6th Annual Wisconsin Dells Polka Fest. Eight bands will be playing April 28-30, and there will be musician workshops and a jam room, dance lessons and vendors. Weekend packages are available, and you can book a weekend bus trip offered from Chicago. http://tinyurl.com/l64tcsb

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The Saint Paul Art Crawl on April 28-30 in St. Paul, Minn., features more than 300 artists opening their studios to the public. A list of artists and a map are available on the website. http://tinyurl.com/lxvbr6f

Order the 2017 Indiana Travel Guide or view it online at http://tinyurl.com/le3zg9u.

Missouri has more than 130 wineries, and you can find a listing of the state's wine trails at http://tinyurl.com/kavb4y2.

The John Deere Tractor & Engine Museum in Waterloo, Iowa, has eliminated admission fees and extended hours of operation. The museum is open Monday-Saturday from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday from 12-4 p.m. http://tinyurl.com/kolmg8w

The Mendel Center at Lake Michigan College in Benton Harbor will host two performances of "Erth's Dinosaur Zoo Live" on April 22. The touring theatrical performance is aimed at kids and uses performers and life-size dinosaur puppets to teach about prehistoric times in Australia. It was designed with the guidance of paleontologists. Performances are at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. http://tinyurl.com/ln8agyx

Great Value Vacations has a Rome and Florence package priced as low as $1,452 per person, double occupancy, including air from Chicago. The package, with October departures, also includes three nights' lodging each in both cities, a hop-on/hop-off sightseeing pass in Rome, rail from Rome to Florence, a half-day guided tour of Florence and private airport transfers in both cities. 800-896-4600, http://tinyurl.com/m9q66wa

CruiseCritic.com lists seven-night Alaska cruises aboard the Norwegian Sun that are as low as $949 per person, double occupancy, for June departures. Ports include Seward, Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan in Alaska, cruising the Inside Passage on the way to Vancouver, British Columbia. http://tinyurl.com/n5tlus7

The Avenue Plaza Resort in New Orleans has family suites up to 15 percent off if you book by May 31 and travel by June 30. We checked dates in June and found studio suites as low as $84 per night and one-bedroom suites at $101. http://tinyurl.com/k72bsjo

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The Montana tourism folks list six mountain-bike routes that can be ridden in any season at http://tinyurl.com/kmsdfjq.

Deals and websites have been checked for availability as of press time. Listings are not endorsements. Send tips at least a month in advance to ChicagoTribTravel@gmail.com.

Phil Marty is a freelancer.

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MAGDALENA BAY, Mexico  Just off the bow of our 22-foot open boat what Baja fishermen call a "panga" a whale spout erupts with an adrenalin-spiking "fwooosh." Seawater jets into the air, catching the brilliant Mexican sun in a fleeting rainbow.



"Woo-hoo!" I yelp. (Sometimes I can't help myself.)



As the gray whale's barnacle-armored back slices the water less than 20 feet away, in the near distance my eye takes in a scissor-sharp line of barren coastal peaks. A thought occurs: This is a bit like visiting another planet, where alien life-forms seem just as interested in us as we in them.



Indeed, for a visitor from Seattle, the burnt-sienna crags of coastal Baja seem like another world compared with the Pacific Northwest's emerald and gray coastline. And the whales that surround our boat not fleeing, often lolling just beneath us, sometimes surfacing so close they can look us in the eye are intriguing visitors from a watery world.

I was on a daylong adventure on this wide and wild 30-mile-long bay on the lower reaches of Baja California. To this coast, after one of the longest migrations of any mammal on Earth more than 5,000 miles each way as many as 20,000 gray whales from cold Alaska seas come every winter to mate and have their calves.



Magdalena Bay is one of the places where curious humans pay homage to them. And it seems the curiosity is mutual: It's common here for whales to come right up to boats, sometimes letting humans pat them on the head.



A refuge from the sea



I was last in Magdalena Bay 22 years ago when my family and I piloted our 32-foot sailboat from San Diego 850 miles down Baja's wild Pacific Coast and into the Sea of Cortez. Mag Bay, as it's known among sailors, offered us a few days of welcome refuge from capricious wind and waves.



Most of the huge bay was relatively untouched by human development then. It has changed little, still lined with sand dunes and mangroves, its skies filled with pelicans and frigate birds, its waters with sea lions and clams.





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Pelicans and gulls take to the air at the edge of Baja's Magdalena Bay as a fishing boat heads for far shores wreathed in morning mist. (Brian J. Cantwell / Seattle Times)

For this visit, I'd flown the previous (very long) day on Alaska Airlines via Los Angeles into the Sea of Cortez town of Loreto, then rented a car for the 2 1/2-hour drive across the peninsula to the small fishing town of Puerto San Carlos.



Something I'm pretty sure wasn't the case when last I was here: The highway was paved all the way. From the bay's outer reaches on my earlier visit I also hadn't seen the big diesel-powered electric plant on the inland edge of town. Luckily for the town and bay, prevailing winds blow its plumes of brown smoke inland.



But once you're out on the vast bay, there's a look and feel of wilderness.



Online research had led me to a locally run tour service, Magdalena Bay Whales, managed by 40-year-old "Captain Marco" (full name: Crispin Marco Antonio Mendoza Lopez). His fisherman father, Crispin Mendoza, 78, was the first local who started taking tourists out to see gray whales here in 1970. He got the job because gringo visitors had begun asking for whale-watching rides and he was the only fisherman in town who spoke good English.



He has come to be known as the Whale Whisperer.



"I feel like I can talk to the whales and I feel they can listen to me," he told me over dinner one night. "I talk to the whales like I talk to my little puppy at home: 'Come on, baby, let's play!' "



These days, his son is an affable and enterprising businessman. Book a whale-watching outing with his company online and he'll also book you into his family's little hotel, Hotel Isabela. Don't expect the Hilton. Just to find the place, you have to stop by the whale-tour office in town and someone will lead you through a maze of dirt streets and ragtag cinder-block homes typical of rural Mexico.



The hotel rooms are modern and well-furnished (except for the shortage of reading lamps). But don't anticipate more than a drizzle from the shower. And the best I could find on the TV was a fuzzy-picture tribute to Mexican boy bands (does anybody really miss Menudo?).



But put aside a few First World expectations. The friendly folks who run the place make up for all that, the food in the little palapa-style restaurant is tasty, and breakfast is included in your stay.



Out to sea



At 7 a.m. we meet in the restaurant before our day of whale-watching. I'll be in one boat and another will carry a family from Los Angeles: a mom, dad, their grown daughter (named Kia, like the car) and her husband (Dakota, like the states).



Kia and Dakota are adventure-tourism junkies. They've just come from La Paz, a few hours to the south, where they went diving with whale sharks. They've done a shark-cage encounter in Hawaii, with Galapagos sharks, and a dolphin encounter.





A barnacle-encrusted gray whale surfaces just ahead of a 22-foot whale-watching boat in Magdalena Bay, Mexico. (Brian J. Cantwell / Seattle Times)

"What we want to do next is off the coast of California, a shark-cage dive with great whites!" Dakota tells me as I munch my huevos rancheros.



I'm conflicted, hoping this outing goes beyond belt-notching. That it will be life-affirming, not exploitative.



Captain Marco sits and tells us about Mag Bay's whales.



"We started to see whales at the end of December, and this year we see a little bit more than the usual. In the area we can go, there are 25 to 30 whales right now."



It's late January when I visit. He says we're too early to see many calves, which usually appear more around mid-February. Around far-flung corners of the bay there might be as many as 250 whales, he says, but government regulations bar whale-watching boats from areas where mother whales typically take their calves to nurse.



I've chosen his outfit because online reviews said the boat captains respect the whales. But I'm also concerned about a reviewer who said she had seen whales bloodied by boat propellers on Mag Bay.



Captain Marco tells us that regulations require boats to stay 30 meters away from whales (about 98 feet). U.S. standards in areas such as the San Juan Islands require boats to stay 200 yards away (1,200 feet).



"If whales approach us or want to interact with us, that's allowed," Marco explains.



Currently in his area, 32 boats have permits to take tourists whale watching. Of every 10 tours, he says, maybe seven have whales come right up to the boat.



That's an adult whale of 35 to 45 feet, or a calf of 8 to 12 feet, getting friendly with a 22-foot skiff. Surprisingly, accidents are rare.



Diamonds on the water



Captain Juan is at the helm of my boat. Captain Marco's niece, 13-year-old Merary, accompanies us as we launch from the edge of a mangrove lagoon at 8:30 a.m.



The sun, still low in the east, glints diamonds off the serene bay. Far shores are lost in mist. Pelicans, a blue heron and a white egret perch among mangrove branches.



Captain Juan soon gooses the outboard to put the panga up on plane. We race the other boat across the bay in water shallow enough that I can see waves cast spidery shadows on the sandy bottom. The air is cool; I'm thankful I've been warned to wear layers.



We pause to inspect sandy Isla de Patos, with thousands of pelicans and cormorants clustered ashore, then circle a channel marker where we bark back and forth at tawny sea lions who bask on its base.



We see another tourist boat with visitors in orange life vests. No life vests are offered on my boat, nor is there any discussion of safety.



At 9:05, near the bay's entrance, Juan cries out. I spy a fluked tail breaking the water a half-mile ahead. Merary points to the spray of whale spouts off to our left. For the next three hours, we slowly cruise the mouth of the bay as whales appear, some in the distance, some right next to our boat. At one point around us I count six more pangas with tourists. None are chasing whales at high speed. Most maintain their distance unless the whales approach them.



We see myriad tale flips, we see lumbering giants loafing beneath our boat, we see a distant breach and for one dramatic moment a whale thrusts its colossal, barnacled beak up over the transom of our panga, as if to give Captain Juan a big wet kiss.



Whoa, did that just happen?



"Bonita! Bonita!" chants Merary, calling whales to us, using the Spanish word for "pretty."



When we're all getting a tiny bit jaded, Captain Juan gets out his iPod, holds it up to the microphone of his marine radio and broadcasts Mexican hip-hop to our partner boat. The Angelenos all start jiving and doing their version of a whale dance. We laugh across the water.



Very different species of Earthlings checking each other out? I'll come down on the side of life-affirming.



If you go



Where



Magdalena Bay can be reached by car in a few hours of driving on paved highways from airports at Loreto, La Paz or San Jose del Cabo, in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur. Puerto San Carlos, pop. 5,500, is the largest town on the bay.



Whale-watching guides



I went out with Magdalena Bay Whales (magdalenabaywhales.com), which charges $89.99-$99.99 U.S. per person for a 6-hour outing. Several other operators offer outings during whale season, January to April. Ask at any local hotel or look for signs around Puerto San Carlos.



Lodging



Lodging with breakfast at Hotel Isabela costs $59.99 U.S. a night. See magdalenabaywhales.com/hotel.html.



Among other options in Puerto San Carlos, with a pleasant location on the water's edge: Mar y Arena Hotel, villasmaryarena.com.



Also: Magdalena Bay Whales operates its remote, beachside Magdalena Whale Camp on the bay about a 30-minute boat ride from Puerto San Carlos. It features "comfort camping" in tents or yurts on raised wooden platforms. There's a dining palapa (where whale-watch boats stop for lunch), restrooms with flush toilets and hot showers. All-inclusive rates start at $495 U.S. per person, including two days of whale watching. magdalenabaywhales.com/magdalenawhalecamp.html
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has threatened to filibuster the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. (J. Scott Applewhite / AP)

New York's Charles Schumer, boss of the Democrat minority in the Senate, is clearly under great stress, allegedly having screamed at a woman in a New York restaurant.

But, hey, stress happens, especially when you start a partisan thermonuclear political war to kill the confirmation of a respected jurist like Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

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And all you have in your pockets is your charm.

Schumer erupted the other evening when he reportedly made a huge public scene at the Sette Mezzo restaurant, shouting at a well-known New York couple because the wife supported President Donald Trump.

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"She voted for Trump!" Schumer is said to have yelled at Hilary Califano. "He's a liar! He's a liar!"

Hilary Califano is the wife of Democrat Joseph Califano, a former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare who worked closely with Democratic Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter. And she's the daughter of William Paley, the late boss of CBS News.

"Schumer was really rude," Hilary Califano told the New York Post's "Page Six" column.

"He's our senator and I don't really like him," she was quoted as saying. "Yes, (I) voted for Trump. Schumer joined us outside and he told me Trump was a liar. I should have told him that Hillary Clinton was a liar, but I was so surprised I didn't say anything."

Hillary Clinton was a liar? Most politicians lie, Trump included, and Hillary Clinton lied about just about everything, from Benghazi to how she had to run from sniper fire in Bosnia to that homebrew email server of hers, which she could have cleaned, "like, with a cloth," and on and on.

A spokesman for Screaming Schumer insisted there was no "heated exchange" with the Califanos.

I don't usually like to take sides in restaurant arguments, but I'm going to have to go with Hilary Califano's Screaming Schumer version.

All she was trying to do was have a quiet Italian dinner with her husband. Linguine and clams are only $28.50 on the menu. Or, perhaps they had the veal. I don't know.

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But it's obvious that Schumer seems more pinched and stressed than he's ever been. And he should be, because if the "nuclear option"  an override of Senate rule or precedent by simple majority rather than 60 votes  comes to the U.S. Senate over Gorsuch, Schumer would be to blame.

Even before Gorsuch was nominated, Schumer made it clear that Democrats would try do everything they can to stop the Trump nominee on partisan grounds.

And just the other day Schumer threatened to filibuster the Gorsuch vote.

"If this nominee cannot earn 60 votes  a bar met by each of President (Barack) Obama's nominees and George Bush's last two nominees  the answer isn't to change the rules," Schumer said. "It's to change the nominee."

Sometimes politicians don't come out and lie. Sometimes they hold back part of the truth. And Schumer knows that the Democrats changed the rules a few years ago. That's where the nuclear option comes in.

For decades, the tradition in the Senate was that for any nomination to a post for life  like a federal, appellate or Supreme Court justice  60 votes were required to ensure consensus.

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But bipartisan consensus went out the window years ago, when Senate Democrats, led by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy  the self-professed protector of women and famed swimmer of Chappaquiddick  savaged the Supreme Court nomination of conservative Robert Bork.

Bork had the far superior intellect. Kennedy had the louder mouth. Then, like now, the Beltway media elites were in thrall to the Democrats, and Bork was destroyed.

In 2013, Democrats had the Senate majority but couldn't come up with 60 votes for the confirmation of liberal federal judges whom Obama wanted on the bench.

Republicans were blocking those nominations, much like Democrats are now blocking the nomination of Gorsuch.

Schumer's predecessor, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, changed the rules to require that only a simple majority of 51 senators  not 60  was required to cement a lifetime appointment to federal and appellate courts.

So the Democrats stuffed the federal courts with liberal jurists who would legislate from the bench. And Democrats didn't think that was unfair, did they?

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That's because Democratic politicians understand power and leverage, having built careers by using the force of government to compel behavior. They understand the use of force. And so, it was done.

Yet now, Democrats are worried that Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky would use the nuclear option to push the Gorsuch nomination through with only 51 votes. Republicans have 52.

There were many reasons for Republicans to have voted for or against Donald Trump for president. But there was one reason that bound them all:

He promised to nominate a stellar conservative to the Supreme Court to replace the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.

Gorsuch is that stellar jurist, a man who had the audacity to say during his recent confirmation hearings, "My job isn't to write the law, Senator, it's to apply the law."

There is no reason to block him except for partisanship's sake. So Democrats give the Republicans no choice but to use the nuclear option.

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You've heard that proverb, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander? I love Italian food and married a lovely Sicilian and have eaten many a fine Italian meal, but I've never had a plate of gander.

And I'd bet Sen. Schumer never had gander at Sette Mezzo, where he yelled at Hilary Califano.

But Chuck?

Put some sauce on that. And enjoy.

Listen to "The Chicago Way" podcast  with John Kass and Jeff Carlin.

jskass@chicagotribune.com

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Twitter @John_Kass
Alexander Calder's Universe, which has been in the Willis Tower lobby for more than 40 years, was being dismantled on Tuesday, March 28, 2017. (Jennifer Jerit Johnson photo)

A monumental mobile by Alexander Calder, one of the 20th century's great artists, began to disappear from its decades-old home in Willis Tower's lobby Monday, headed for an art storage facility and an uncertain future because of a legal dispute over ownership.

By 4 p.m., workmen for the Chicago company Methods & Materials. Inc. had removed a coiling, black piece of the playful mobile, which is called Universe and was installed in 1974. They said the complete removal would take 10 days.

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A spokeswoman for Equity Office  an affiliate of the tower's owner, New York-based Blackstone, which last month announced a $500 million renovation of Willis Tower  confirmed the removal is underway.

Equity Office is "taking every precaution to safely transfer the sculpture, which will be stored at a fine art handling company until its owners determine its next destination," the spokeswoman, Jennifer Little, wrote in an email.

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In 2015, Blackstone bought the 110-story skyscraper, once the world's tallest building, for $1.3 billion from a group led by New York investors Joseph Chetrit and Joseph Moinian and Skokie-based American Landmark Properties. But Universe was not included in the sale and when renderings of Willis' re-designed lobby were unveiled last month, the piece was notably absent.

Universe continues to be the subject of a legal dispute between the previous owners and Hoffman Estates-based Sears Holdings Corp., which was created by the 2005 merger of Kmart and Sears. Sears, Roebuck & Co. was the tower's original owner, chief occupant and namesake.

Sears Holdings has an option to buy the Calder piece, "but the former owner of Willis Tower has improperly rejected Sears' attempt to exercise its option," company spokesman Howard Riefs wrote in an emaill.

He said there is "active litigation" over control of the piece. Chetrit and officials at American Landmark Properties could not be reached for comment.

The removal of Universe is occurring at an embarrassing time for Chicago. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has designated 2017 the "Year of Public Art" in the city. In September, thousands of art lovers will descend upon the city for Expo Chicago, the modern and contemporary art fair at Navy Pier.

Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. >

Universe was unveiled Oct. 25, 1974, the same day that Calder's better-known Chicago sculpture, Flamingo, made its debut at Federal Plaza.

Born in 1898 and best known for his delicate, wind-driven mobiles, Calder died in 1976 at 78.

Displayed against a tall wall of travertine marble, the colorful, motor-driven pieces of Universe evoked the sun, moon and stars as well as leaves and flowers.

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Experts say that while Universe is privately-owned, its location in a lobby heavily used by office workers and tourists effectively makes it a significant part of Chicago's renowned collection of public art.

When news broke last month that Universe might be removed from the Willis Tower lobby, Lynne Warren, a Museum of Contemporary Art curator who organized a 2010 Calder exhibition, said of the work: "It's extremely important in Calder's, but also Chicago's, public art collection.  I think it's a serious loss."

bkamin@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @Blair Kamin
Construction equipment is seen on Friday, March 24, 2017 on Sheridan Road in Evanston as a $13 million project is set to get started. (Genevieve Bookwalter / Pioneer Press)

Work should begin next week to widen a 1.9 miles stretch of Sheridan Road and add bike lanes in front of Northwestern University in Evanston.

Work was scheduled to begin this week to widen nearly two miles of Chicago Avenue and Sheridan Road, and add bike lanes in front of Northwestern University in Evanston.

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The Sheridan Road-Chicago Avenue Improvement Project will stretch from Chicago Avenue and Grove Street up Sheridan Road to the Village of Wilmette, according to city and university reports.

Weather permitting, construction had been scheduled to start Monday on the southern end of the project, according to city reports.

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"It's been a long time in the works. It's desperately needed," said 1st Ward Alderman Judy Fiske.

The $13.3 million project will include rebuilding and widening the street and adding a two-way protected bike lane on the east side, according to city and university reports. It will also feature pull outs so buses can load and unload passengers without blocking traffic.

Fiske mentioned the NU freshman who was killed while riding her bike last year on Sheridan Road in an accident involving a cement truck as reason why the project is important. The City Council approved the new plans, including protected bicycle lanes, following her death.

A white "ghost bike" marks where the cyclist died in the 2000 block of Sheridan Road.

That white bicycle is "a really good reminder for everyone that this is a dangerous location," Fiske said.

The first stage of construction will focus on Chicago between Grove and Sheridan, according to city reports. Work will continue on to Sheridan between Chicago and Lincoln this summer.

Construction on Sheridan Road from Lincoln up to the Ridge Avenue and Isabella Street intersection will start in spring 2018, according to city reports.

On Friday heavy equipment, orange cones and gravel piles were stacking up on Sheridan Road between two fraternity houses in preparation of the start of the work.

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Northwestern University officials said they are happy to see construction begin.

"Northwestern is pleased that the Sheridan Road improvement project is getting under way, as Sheridan is an important route for people coming to campus and is used heavily by our students, faculty and staff," said spokesman Bob Rowley. "The new configuration of the street should improve safety for pedestrians and bicyclists, as well as improve traffic flow."

Evanston Police Cmdr. Joseph Dugan said about two pedestrians or cyclists are struck on Sheridan Road each year, according to police reports.

While the number might seem low, "all of them are relatively pretty serious," Dugan said.

He had not received reports of anyone being struck on Sheridan Road since the cyclist was killed last fall, he said.

Fiske said she would like the city to stripe Sheridan Road as a three-lane thoroughfare with a pedestrian safety median. She also would like stoplights timed along the route.

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In addition, Fiske said, she hopes the city will mark Sheridan Road in front of Northwestern as a school zone, potentially dropping the speed limit to 20 mph from the current 25 mph.

City Council dropped the speed limit from 30 to 25 mph last fall following the cyclist's death.

"If we slow traffic down a little bit and save a life, it's worth it," Fiske said.

"Sheridan Road has changed. It's not just a nice drive by campus anymore."

gbookwalter@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @GenevieveBook
The Woodland School District 50 board has referred an email a local teachers union official recently sent to district employees endorsing candidates in the April 4 school board elections to the Lake County State's Attorney's Office and the Illinois Attorney General's Office for review, records show.

The referral came a day after school board officials emerged from a closed-door meeting and announced they were referring an unspecified matter to those law enforcement agencies, records show.

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School board President Chris Schrantz sent emails to those agencies the day after the March 13 meeting requesting a review of an email sent out by a teachers union official, according to documents obtained by the Lake County News-Sun in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Schrantz wrote that the issue also was being addressed through the district's employee discipline process as a possible violation of board policy.

Repeated attempts to reach the union official were unsuccessful. Matt Beverly, a field service director for Lake County Federation of Teachers Local 504, which includes the Woodland Council, responded to an email sent to the official and said he would be commenting instead.

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While the union official met with district officials March 15 about the meeting, there was no mention of any law that might have been violated, Beverly said. The Woodland Council first learned about the district's referral after the News-Sun asked about it, Beverly said.

"Woodland Council is troubled by the fact that it was made aware of the involvement of the State's Attorney's Office and the Attorney General's Office by a local reporter and not by the school district or the Board of Education," Beverly said in a phone interview Monday.

District spokeswoman Carolyn Waller Gordon said the district is unaware of when the union official first learned of the referrals to the state's attorney and the attorney general. She said in an email the district did not notify the union official "because it did not want to interfere with the review of the State's Attorney or the Attorney General."

A call to the Attorney General's Office Monday was not returned, and a spokeswoman with the Lake County State's Attorney's Office wasn't able to provide an update Monday. It's unclear whether either agency has an ongoing review.

This marks the first time the district has sent such a referral to the state's attorney or the attorney general, Waller Gordon said.

State law on election-related use of public property  such as Woodland's electronic networks and equipment  is "murky," said Heather Kimmons, an attorney with the Illinois State Board of Elections. The most recent case law makes it "doubtful" such communication would be illegal as the courts very narrowly defined "public funds" as actual money.

District policy prohibits employees from engaging in political activity such as campaigning, soliciting votes or organizing a political event during compensated time, or using any district property or resources.

The union official sent the email that district officials referred to the state's attorney and the attorney general on the morning of March 9, records show. It listed three committees for which the union official was seeking volunteers, then asked residents to vote in the upcoming school board election and included a list of the union-backed candidates, according to a copy of the email.

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The email, which was sent to several staff lists, said in part, "If you live in District Vote April 4th!! This is a one-time outing that could make a huge difference. Five seats are open!"

Eleven candidates are running for the one two-year term and four four-year seats are up in next week's election.

In the email, the union official said the union is backing Elizabeth Helgren, Joyce Mason, Joseph De Rosa, Richard Payne and incumbent Carla Little. The union official also identifies Jennifer Haack and incumbent Bill Barnabee as "other great candidates."

The other candidates include incumbents Vince Juarez, Renea Amen and Anthony DeMonte as well as potential newcomer James Hurd.

The inclusion of the election-related material was "unintentional," Beverly said, adding that the union official told him the material had been cut and pasted from another email that had been sent using the union's email system.

The email was rescinded about a half an hour after it was sent, and the official sent apologies to both the superintendent using a district email account and to the union membership using non-district communication, Beverly said. The official also offered to send an apology through the district system, which would have reached more people, but never heard back from the superintendent, Beverly said.

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Waller Gordon said the union official did recall the email after it was sent to 918 district employees. She also confirmed that the official apologized to the superintendent.

The board was informed of those details, said Schrantz, who is not up for re-election this year. He declined to comment on whether they impacted the board's decision-making process but said the board requested outside legal review because the matter involves the election of five board members who will have an important role in the district's future.

The union official had received a notification from the district sometime on March 9 about a possible violation of board policy, Beverly said, though he added that he did not know if that was before or after the email was recalled.

Beverly questioned the timing of the board's decision to refer the matter, which came just weeks after two lengthy meetings centered on proposed staff cuts. The official had spoken at both meetings.

"Woodland Council wonders given the timing of events and given (the official's) elected council position and ... advocacy on behalf of the school community what would have happened if any other teacher or staff member unintentionally sent this email," he said. "Would there have been a similar reaction where the Board of Education expended the time and resources to forward the matter to the Lake County State's Attorney's Office and the Illinois Attorney General's Office?"

Schrantz denied Monday that the two were linked.

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"There is no correlation," he said. "This matter was referred to the state's attorney due to the nature of the email. There was no correlation."

emcoleman@tribpub.com

Twitter @mekcoleman
Motorists driving 153rd Avenue over Lake Dalecarlia in south Lake County are treated to a scenic view of the lake, with the water sparkling in the sunlight. The bridge itself, however, has the lowest rating in Lake and Porter counties, a state listing shows.

The deck of the bridge has deteriorated since it was built in 1955. Its edges are sown with debris with parts of the concrete crumbling forcing inspectors to recommend the bridge be replaced.

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A Post-Tribune analysis of more than 760 bridges in Lake and Porter counties in the federal National Bridge Inventory shows that 75 were classified as "structurally deficient" and 112 as "functionally obsolete."

Despite the ominous sounding titles, officials say that bridges with those classifications are still safe for motorists.

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"If there is a bridge that we feel has a serious problem we shut it down," said Marcus Malczewski, Lake County Highway Department superintendent said. "We never take any chances."

In 1999, the state Department of Transportation ordered the emergency closure of the Iron Bridge on U.S. 41 in Schererville for repairs and in 2009, the state shut down the Cline Avenue extension citing corrosion and weakened spots.

The bridge on over Lake Dalecarlia has a sufficiency rating of two, the lowest in Northwest Indiana and one of the 10 lowest ratings in the state.

Structurally deficient signifies that the bridge received a rating of "poor" or worse on one of its three primary components: the deck, superstructure or substructure. Functionally obsolete bridges are usually older structures that are too narrow for contemporary road traffic, said Duane Alverson, Lake County Highway Department engineer.

On any day, an average of about 3,500 vehicles traverse the bridge, officials said.

Despite the moderate traffic volume, the bridge is the first on the Lake County Highway Department priority list scheduled for replacement this year. It's estimated to cost $752,000.

Bridges are given a sufficiency rating on a 0-to-100 scale based on several factors including a safety evaluation, its ability to meet current traffic needs and how essential it is for public use.

A bridge with a sufficiency rating below 50 allows a structure to receive federal replacement funding. There are 37 bridges between Lake and Porter counties with a sufficiency rating lower than 50.

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"It isn't the only factor considered when making these priority lists, but it's definitely factored in," Alverson said. He added that they also take into consideration the daily traffic counts and how complicated the design plan is.

Even with a list of 20 Lake County bridges lined up for replacement in 2017, projects totaling more than $25 million, the likelihood of Lake County Highway Department officials acquiring the necessary funding to begin construction is slim to none, Malczewski said.

With a budget for typical bridge repair hovering around $1.5 million, Lake County relies on local funding and federal funding.

"When you get a bridge project these days, $500,000 is going to buy you an average bridge, Alverson said.

The Kennedy Avenue bridge over the Grand Calumet River in Hammond will cost an estimated $1.4 million, Alverson said. The project is scheduled to begin this week.

But struggling to find funding to repair roads and bridges is not unique to Lake County, Malzewski said.

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"It's always a struggle for funding, whether for bridges or for roads," he said. "The struggle for dollars is across the nation. We're struggling along with everyone else across the nation."

But even after acquiring the necessary money to begin a bridge project, the county must clear a number of hurdles before construction begins, Alverson said, adding that it can take up to 18 months before any work is started.

To start work, projects need to have an environmental assessment and five different permits from several state agencies, he said.

"No matter what, we keep working and do the best with the resources available to us."

jaanderson@tribpub.com

Twitter @JavonteA
The City of New Orleans, the train immortalized in the Steve Goodman song, could disappear under President Donald Trump's preliminary budget blueprint.

So could the California Zephyr, the Empire Builder and other storied long-distance Amtrak runs, along with the federal funding that could replace Metra's out-of-date rolling stock, unclog Chicago freight traffic and extend the CTA's Red Line from 95th Street to 130th Street, according to transit advocates and officials.

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Trump's 2018 "skinny budget" proposes a 13 percent cut on federal funding for transportation, which is directed entirely against nonroad spending. Trump's 2018 spending plan will start getting more attention in Congress since the bill to replace the Affordable Care Act has been pulled for lack of votes. A full budget release is expected in May.

The president's transportation budget proposal may ultimately get no further than did the Republican health care bill. But the transit cuts laid out in the proposal are still worrying local transit advocates and agency officials, since they show the administration's priorities.

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"I think the intent is clear in this proposal. If you drive, you deserve federal funds. If you don't drive, you don't deserve federal funds," said Rick Harnish, executive director of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, a train advocacy group.

Harnish said that Trump's proposals have little chance of passage as they now stand. "But the fact that this is the position of the Department of Transportation, that only driving has value to the federal government, is a really, really bad policy statement," Harnish said.

Transportation expert Yonah Freemark said that the Chicago area, with its large network of mass transit and freight rail, may be one of the worst hit in the nation in terms of cuts under the proposal.

Chicago Department of Transportation Commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld called the proposal "unnerving."

"It's far from being something that has enough detail for people to seriously consider, but it's a telltale  it's signaling what the intention is," Scheinfeld said.

The skinny budget proposes increasing defense spending by $52.3 billion and advocates increases for Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security while slashing almost everything else. In regard to transportation, the document proposes cutting spending by $2.4 billion, reducing or eliminating programs that are "inefficient, duplicative of other federal efforts or that are better delivered by states, localities or the private sector."

The administration proposes a multiyear plan to shift the air traffic control function of the Federal Aviation Administration to an independent, non-governmental organization  something that has the support of major airlines, according to Airlines for America, an industry trade group. The FAA would continue to provide oversight for the system.

The proposal would end federal support for Amtrak's long-distance train service and future funding for new transit projects. Future investments for new transit projects "would be funded by the localities that use and benefit from these localized projects," the budget blueprint states.

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Funding for highways, like federal money for maintenance received by the Illinois Department of Transportation, would be unaffected, said Freemark, who writes the blog the Transport Politic.

The budget proposal "terminates federal support for Amtrak's long-distance train services, which have long been inefficient and incur the vast majority of Amtrak's operating losses." The proposal said the Amtrak cuts would allow the agency to focus on better managing its state-supported and Northeast Corridor train services.

The effect of this cut would be to reduce by a quarter the number of Amtrak trains that come into Chicago's Union Station, according to Audrey Wennink, director of transportation for the Metropolitan Planning Council, a nonprofit research group. State-supported trains like the Hiawatha to Milwaukee and the Lincoln Service to Springfield would remain, though their ridership could get hurt by the loss of the long-distance trains with their connections.

"It's a network," said Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari. "Fewer trains in the network means lower ridership on all the trains."

For passengers going to places like St. Louis and Carbondale, the cut would mean fewer trains  for example, one of the three trains to Carbondale is the long-distance City of New Orleans, Wennink explained. But for passengers going to St. Paul, or Cleveland or San Francisco, there would be no trains at all, she said.

Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center, said the proposed cuts are ironic given Trump's talk about investing in transportation infrastructure and jobs.

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"His cutbacks to Amtrak go in exactly the opposite direction," Learner said. He said the cuts will particularly hurt people in rural communities and midsize cities, as well as seniors and students.

"People will have less mobility," said Learner. "That's not good for our society, and it's certainly not good for our economy."

U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Chicago, the senior Illinois member on the House transportation committee, said he doubts all the cuts will happen.

"We've had these fights before," Lipinski said.

He said while Amtrak may see some reduced funding, he thinks there are enough Republicans that support Amtrak service to keep reductions from going too deep.

The cuts to funding for new transit projects would not affect the first phase of the CTA's $2.1 billion Red-Purple Line modernization program. In the last weeks of the Obama administration, the city was able to pass a tax-increment financing bill to help match $1.1 billion in federal funding. The program, which starts at the end of next year, will rebuild century-old tracks and four stations while constructing a bypass north of the Belmont station to allow for more capacity.

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But the cuts would leave in doubt a proposal that has been discussed for decades to extend the Red Line into what advocates call a "transit desert" south of 95th Street.

To help fund past projects, the CTA has used federal grants under the New Starts and the TIGER grant programs, both at risk under the proposal, Freemark said. The Create program to unclog rail traffic with new underpasses, overpasses and other upgrades also has used TIGER money.

"Eliminating funding for transit projects, as the president's budget proposes, would cut jobs, decrease service, make commutes longer and create significant challenges for both transit agencies across the country and residents that rely on transit to get to work or school every day," the CTA said in a statement.

The cuts also would affect Metra's ability to spend on new capital projects, like new locomotives. The commuter rail agency needs $12 billion over the next 10 years to achieve and maintain the system in a state of good repair, and it anticipates getting about a fourth from federal sources, said Metra CEO Don Orseno. Metra is already hurting from the lack of a state capital bill, Orseno has said.

"As we have been saying for years, Metra needs more capital investment, not less, and that includes funding from the federal government," Orseno said. "Cutting federal capital funding is a serious and short-sighted step in the wrong direction."

The Regional Transportation Authority's executive director, Leanne Redden, said she knows it's just a proposal and hopes there would be no public transportation cuts.

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"With the current funding needs of our transit region and throughout the country, any discussion of cuts is not what we want to hear," Redden said.

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U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren, a suburban Republican, noted that Trump is required by law to submit his budget request to Congress, and that Trump had done what he promised during his campaign by making the top priority strengthening the military. Hultgren said his office has been working with local officials, getting their input on key transportation projects, and noted that budget-making authority ultimately rests with Congress.

"I support regional projects that will maintain Illinois' leadership as a global transportation hub and ensure our residents can get from A to B safely and efficiently," Hultgren said in an email.

U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, a Chicago Democrat and member of the House appropriations subcommittee on transportation, said he thinks the budget proposal is "dead on arrival," noting there is bipartisan support for transportation and infrastructure. But that doesn't mean he is not worried.

"Nothing this administration can do would surprise me," Quigley said. "They honestly don't know how to govern."

Quigley said the president's promised $1 trillion infrastructure proposal, a multiyear plan that is separate from the skinny budget proposal, is not expected to be released until this fall.

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mwisniewski@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @marywizchicago
A former city building inspector was sentenced to two years of probation and six months of home confinement Tuesday for trying to shake down a building owner for $300 in a clumsy extortion attempt that seemed ripped out some old-school handbook of Chicago graft.

Roberto Uribe solicited the cash bribe in November 2015 in exchange for allowing work on the undisclosed owner's two-story building to proceed without the required city permit, according to court records.

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"What's happening now is you're gonna give me some appreciation ... and that appreciation is gonna be $300," Uribe said to the owner, who was wearing a hidden wire for the FBI. "Now how quickly can you get me my money to keep my mouth shut?"

In asking for up to 16 months in prison, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker said Tuesday that Uribe's statements on the undercover recordings "are the words of someone who is comfortable with corruption."

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Uribe's lawyer, Donald Angelini Jr., argued Uribe had made a "snap decision" that already cost him his job, city pension, and the shame and embarrassment of a felony conviction. Adding prison on top of that would be piling on, he said.

In handing down the sentence, U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso said Uribe was aware his actions could endanger the people of Chicago but that he "chose to accept that risk to others in order to line his own pockets."

Still, the judge said it appeared to be a one-time offense in an otherwise law-abiding life. The judge also cited Uribe's health issues as well as the love and support of his family in deciding a prison term was unwarranted.

Before he was sentenced, Uribe, 55, issued a short apology saying he took "full responsibility" for his actions.

"I'm so sorry for what took place," Uribe said as more than a dozen relatives and supporters looked on from the courtroom gallery. "I don't know why I did it, but I don't have all the answers."

Uribe pleaded guilty in October to one count of attempted extortion. According to his plea agreement, Uribe initially approached workers performing renovations at the building and asked if they had a permit. The building owner then met with Uribe and was allegedly solicited for a bribe.

The owner went to the FBI and agreed to wear a hidden recorder, authorities said. In a recorded conversation Nov. 9, 2015, Uribe allegedly boasted of his ability to shut down the renovation work unless the owner paid him the bribe. Uribe allegedly told the owner that the bribe would save both of them time and money.

"What's going to happen is, if we put a stop on it, it's going to stop you for six months, seven months," Uribe told the owner, according to the charges. If work were halted, he warned, the owner would have to hire an architect and draft new plans that could cost as much as $3,500, the charges said.

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"I'm looking out for you. We're looking out for each other," Uribe allegedly said. "But you're doing me a favor by hurrying up and getting this closed off. Because the sooner this gets done, the better."

Uribe said that if another inspector asked about the work, the "story" would be that workers were only tuck-pointing the original parapet again and that no special permit was needed, according to the complaint. He said that if anyone asked, the $300 bribe was for the purchase of a table saw.

"You want to count it?" the owner said as he handed over the cash.

"No, this is a merit of trust," Uribe allegedly replied.

Uribe earned $78,000 a year as a building and construction inspector for the city's Department of Buildings, records showed. He resigned shortly after his arrest in April.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

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The Chicago skyline looms as seen from a suburban parking lot rooftop onSept. 1, 2016. A new study says segregation in the seven-county area is preventing the city and suburbs fromchurning out an additional $8 billion in goods and services each year. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

The Chicago region's deeply entrenched patterns of segregation extract a steep price in lost lives and unrealized economic growth, according to a study to be unveiled Tuesday.

The seven-county area's murder rate could be cut by 30 percent, its economy could churn out an additional $8 billion in goods and services and its African-American residents could earn another $3,000 a year if it could reduce racial and economic segregation to the median level for the nation's largest metro areas.

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And 83,000 more residents could have earned bachelor's degrees, spurring another $90 billion in collective lifetime earnings.

Those were the findings of a study by the Metropolitan Planning Council, a Chicago-based public policy research group, and the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank.

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"It's costing us billions to live as separately as we do," said Marisa Novara, vice president at MPC and a co-author of the study.

While the seven-county region has seen a slow reduction in racial and economic segregation between 1990 and 2010, it remained fifth-worst among the nation's 100 most populous metro areas in 2010, the most recent full census year, the study found. The region includes Cook, DuPage, Lake, Kane, Kendall, McHenry and Will counties.

The nation's four most segregated regions were Philadelphia; Bridgeport, Conn.; New York; and Milwaukee, in that order.

Unless the Chicago region can speed up desegregation, "we're just not going to be competitive as a region," said Joanna Trotter, senior program officer with The Chicago Community Trust, which funded the study along with the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation.

The study, launched in November 2015, will ultimately cost more than $500,000. A second phase this year will examine how cities such as Atlanta and Houston have managed to perform better, and what can be done here to quicken the pace of desegregation and economic growth.

The study comes as the region experienced a population loss in 2016, the second year in a row. Many of those leaving the area are African-Americans moving to warmer climates in search of stable jobs and safe neighborhoods as gun violence continues to scar Chicago's South and West Sides.

"Chicago has certain places and people and neighborhoods that are doing great and other ones that are being left out," said Robert Weissbourd, a Chicago-based urban strategist who was not involved in this study. "That is not a sustainable way to grow. Cities that bifurcate like that ultimately don't grow as fast."

The MPC study assessed segregation in three ways: African-American/white, Latino/white and by economic status for the 100 most populous regions in 1990, 2000 and 2010, measuring progress over that period. The researchers then analyzed how Chicago fared on income measures, life expectancy, college attainment and homicides relative to the other regions.

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"It's a study of correlation," Novara said. "We see a very clear relationship between changes in segregation and certain outcomes."

The city of Chicago and Cook County have taken steps since 2010 aimed at easing segregation, Novara said. Chicago strengthened affordable housing requirements for new developments, for instance, and Cook County made it illegal for landlords to discriminate against prospective tenants who have rent-subsidy vouchers.

But unless metro Chicago cranks up the pace of desegregation efforts, it will lag on African-American/white segregation until between 2060 and 2070, the study predicted.

"We are the absolute furthest from the median when it comes to black/white segregation," Novara said. "That's based in 100 years of racist policies since the Great Migration. There's just no way around that."

The region's historic rate of desegregation, she said, "is nowhere near fast enough based on the negative impacts we found."

kbergen@chicagotribune.com

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A DePaul University student was shot late Monday during an attempted robbery near the Lincoln Park campus, the fourth attack against a student of the North Side school in the past three months, according to officials.



In the latest attack, an 18-year-old man was walking in the area of the 2600 block of North Sheffield Avenue around 11:45 p.m. when he was approached by two men who demanded his belongings, Chicago police said. One of the robbers was armed with a gun.



The student was shot in the left leg as he tried to run away, police said. He went to Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was listed in good condition. He told police he had been drinking and wasn't sure where the shooting took place.



In an alert to students, DePaul said the attempted robbery happened in the 1100 block of West Lill Avenue, about half a mile from campus.



No one was in custody Tuesday morning.



This was the fourth time this year that a DePaul student was robbed at gunpoint near the campus, according to alerts from the university.



On March 1, two men approached a student who was walking in the 2200 block of North Halsted Street about 3 p.m., according to the alert. The men left with the student's cellphone.



On Jan. 27, another student was robbed at gunpoint about 3 a.m. in the 1200 block of West Fullerton Avenue, according to an alert.



About a week earlier, on Jan. 18, a student was robbed at gunpoint in the 2400 block of North Seminary Avenue, an alert stated.
Illinois state police are investigating two shootings that occurred on the Eisenhower Expressway within 10 hours Monday. No injuries were reported in either incident.

Around 10:30 p.m. Monday, a motorist swerved into a ditch on the Eisenhower in west suburban Maywood after someone shot at his car, state police said.

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A man driving a green Buick was heading east when someone in a dark-colored vehicle opened fire near 17th Avenue, state police said. The man swerved into a ditch but he was not injured. No one else was in his car, state police said.

Troopers temporarily closed off part of I-290 overnight while they canvassed the area and recovered shell casings. No one was in custody early Tuesday.

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It was the second reported shooting on the Eisenhower in less than 10 hours.

Earlier Monday, state police received a report of people in two vehicles shooting at each other in the inbound lanes near Kedzie Avenue in Chicago. No one was injured in the shooting.
"Pay-to-stay" was implemented in 1982 but for the most part has been abandoned. (Chicago Tribune)

The Illinois Department of Corrections appears to have shelved its widely criticized practice of suing prisoners to recover the costs of their incarceration in spite of Gov. Bruce Rauner's support for the strategy.

State prison officials have not referred a single case to the Illinois Attorney General's office for possible litigation for nearly 1 1/2 years. And the last case, submitted in December 2015, was rejected by Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office because it lacked key information about the prisoner's financial assets.

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By comparison, 11 so-called "pay to stay" lawsuits had been filed in the first 10 months of 2015, according to state figures.

"I'm hoping it means that Lisa Madigan won't file these anymore," said Alan Mills, the executive director of the Uptown People's Law Center, the not-for-profit that provides legal assistance and other services to prisoners.

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Guards arrive for work during a shift change at the Cook County Department of Corrections Division 11 on Nov. 15, 2016. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

The turnabout came after a Chicago Tribune story in late November 2015 highlighted the controversial practice, prompting calls for its end from state lawmakers and the passage of legislation vetoed by Rauner.

Nicole Wilson, spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections, acknowledged that the prison system has not recently referred any cases to the attorney general's office. But she said the department has not abandoned its policy of suing inmates for the cost of locking them up.

"The Illinois Department of Corrections continues to review offender assets for the recovery of expenses incurred during incarceration as the law authorizes," Wilson wrote in a recent email. "The law exists to ensure offenders do not profit from the crimes they commit."

The law was passed in 1982, Wilson said, after serial killer John Wayne Gacy began selling paintings from death row in Menard Correctional Center.

Illinois is one of at least 43 states that allows officials to try to recoup what often are called room-and-board fees from prisoners and parolees. The state Department of Corrections gathers information about prisoners' assets from their mail and other documents, and refers potential cases to the attorney general's office, which then decides whether to file a lawsuit to obtain a prisoner's money.

Critics say such lawsuits recover little money and are overly punitive. The Tribune story in 2015 pointed out that the lawsuits often targeted inmates with little money  $15,000 or $20,000 from an inheritance, say  and few job prospects.

After the Tribune reported on the spike in lawsuits, state Sen. Daniel Biss, D-Evanston, and Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, sponsored legislation to end the practice. The measures passed the General Assembly, but in August, Rauner issued an amendatory veto, saying that he wanted the option to sue inmates to prevent them from profiting from their crimes, even though a separate state law already bars them from doing so.

Rauner also cited Gacy, the killer of 33 young men and boys who was executed in 1994, and said that while he recognized that lawsuits make it more difficult for some prisoners to get back on their feet, he wanted to prevent offenders  particularly violent offenders with "significant assets"  from profiting from their crimes.

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"While I agree that this power should be used sparingly and judiciously, there are circumstances when it is warranted," he said.

Officials in Madigan's office had been critical of the lawsuits, saying they raised little money, added to already substantial obstacles for inmates re-entering society and raised moral questions. It is not clear if the office's position has discouraged prison officials from referring cases or if prison officials simply have not found any inmates with the sort of assets that make a lawsuit worth the time and money.

"We supported the Legislature's work to change this law that we believe raises questions about an inmate's ability to rebuild their life outside of prison," said Madigan's spokeswoman, Maura Possley. "We continue to think that the Department of Corrections should take a careful look at these cases, and it appears that is happening."

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Wilson, the corrections spokeswoman, said that the decision to recover the costs of incarceration is "made on a case-by-case basis" and involves a host of factors. She said "if and when" officials determine a prisoner has sufficient assets, the department will refer the case to Madigan's office.

Either way, Rep. Cassidy said she was pleased that prison officials no longer were aggressively targeting prisoners in the lawsuits.

"We have consistently and publicly urged both the department and the (attorney general) to use their discretion and end this practice," she said.

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tlighty@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @smmills1960

Twitter @tlighty
The Rev. Daniel Mallette, 80, talks briefly with reporters as he leaves the St. Margaret of Scotland Catholic Church rectory for a funeral Oct. 1, 2012. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

The Rev. Daniel Mallette, a retired South Side priest known for battling violence and poverty for decades, has died, according to his former parish.

"It is with a heavy heart that St. Margaret of Scotland announces the passing of Rev. Daniel Mallette. Funeral arrangements are pending. They will be posted as soon as we are informed,'' read a Facebook message posted by the church Monday morning.

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Mallette, who boxed as a young man, started at the parish in 1977, ministering to a diverse congregation and providing outreach to the poorer pockets of his community.

Over the years, the church had been the scene of several shootings, including in 1998 when four men were shot inside the church during a fundraiser hosted by an outside group.

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In December 2011, two masked men broke into the church rectory where Mallette, in his 80s, was sleeping around 12:30 a.m.

Mallette, who was pastor emeritus at the time, was dragged from his bed before the two men repeatedly struck him in the face with a blunt object, demanding to know "where the money was," according to a police report.

As one of the men stole $300 from the priest's bedroom safe, the suspect's half brother dragged Mallette to the basement and ordered him to open a larger safe. The robbers stole $600 from that safe, according to police.

The priest suffered two broken ribs. The attackers poured bleach inside the church, hoping to get rid of evidence, prosecutors said.

One of the attackers, Milek Harris, later pleaded guilty to home invasion and was sentenced last November to 14 years in prison, according to court and prison records.

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Harris, now 24, had been an altar boy at the church. He reportedly asked Mallette to pray for him during the attack.

Harris' half brother, Jerrell Harris, pleaded guilty to home invasion. He was sentenced in January to 9 years and 6 months in prison, according to court and prison records.

The attack prompted outrage from parishioners, including Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, who has attended Mass at the church in the 9800 block of South Throop Street for more than three decades, including after Mallette retired from St. Margaret in 2012.

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"It was a very vicious attack," Dart said at the time. Dart said he rushed to the emergency room at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn when he heard about the attack in 1998.

"The courage and strength he exhibited after being senselessly assaulted several years ago was nothing short of inspirational. And even into his mid-80s, he continued on a weekly basis to travel in and offer his spiritual wisdom to the staff and inmates of Cook County Jail," Dart wrote on his Facebook page Tuesday.

Dart said he was heartbroken by the news of the death of his friend and mentor.

"I could never possibly repay Father Mallette for everything he's done for my family and me. All I -- and we -- can do is is attempt to live our lives according to his model, with humility and grace. It brings me comfort to know that he is truly in a better place," he wrote.
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan pushed back Tuesday on Gov. Bruce Rauner's recent assertion that Democrats who control the General Assembly are holding up the sale of the state's Thompson Center in Chicago, calling the claim "disingenuous."

In a letter to the governor distributed to reporters by the speaker's staff, Madigan said he had "publicly acknowledged a desire to work" on Rauner's proposed sale of the Loop office building. The governor on Monday accused the speaker of blocking the plan.

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The speaker asserted that both Democratic and Republican legislative staff had agreed that legislation that would authorize the sale needs to be reworked and "does not adequately plan for the sale and inadvertently interferes with the zoning authority of the city of Chicago."

"I have directed my staff to provide any assistance necessary so that we may pass legislation advantageous to the state of Illinois, while providing the least disruption to CTA commuters utilizing the lines that feed into the Thompson Center," Madigan wrote in his letter. "I am advised (Central Management Services) is in negotiations with the city on issues related to the CTA station and the easement, as well as zoning matters, and it is these discussion that have led to the stalling of the legislation, not my actions or the actions of the House."

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Also according to the letter, Madigan's staff and members of the governor's administration had a "productive discussion" about the project Monday, about the same time Rauner was railing against the speaker for holding up the plan.

At a news conference intended to push for a Rauner-backed plan to build toll lanes along the Stevenson Expressway, the governor told reporters that they should ask the speaker why he was delaying that project as well as the Thompson Center sale.

"I think it's the time to ask the speaker why are we holding this up, what is the delay, why do we keep creating barricades to job creation? Same thing, why have we held up selling the Thompson Center?" Rauner said.

Madigan, whose public communications with the governor have been rare in recent months, used his letter to fire back.

"With all due respect, I believe it is disingenuous of you and beneath your office to make such false statements to the media when you know or should have known that I have pledged my cooperation, that our staffs are working together on this initiative, and that we are working toward the same goal with your administration in good faith," Madigan wrote. "Despite your inability to provide an accurate account of the facts or acknowledge my public and private comments, my staff will continue working cooperatively with your staff and CMS to develop a plan to maximize the ability of the state to sell the property, with a goal to passing legislation no later than May 31."

Just above his signature, Madigan closed the letter with: "With kindest personal regards, I remain Sincerely yours."

Rauner laughed when asked about Madigan's letter later Tuesday, saying, "Can we cut through the baloney here?" The governor said he first began pushing for the sale 18 months ago, contending Madigan has repeatedly stood in the way on a number of issues.

"This is not rocket science, ladies and gentlemen, this is very straightforward," Rauner said after an event in Springfield. "To say now in recent days, oh there is a negotiation going on, oh come on, let's get this done, this is not hard. There's no reason. And to come up with some spin other than this has been delayed and delayed by Speaker Madigan's majority, even though it's the overwhelmingly right thing to do."

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House Republican leader Jim Durkin also rejected Madigan's arguments, saying it was "news" to him that Republican legislative staffs had agreed that the legislation needs work.

"CMS has never told me that. But we filed this bill in October 2015, and I think the speaker now placing an objection on this bill is unfortunate, it's political," said Durkin, who is sponsoring the legislation.

Durkin noted that a day earlier Madigan objected to the governor's call to jump-start his plan to allow private companies to build toll lanes along portions of the Stevenson Expressway. Madigan said Rauner was trying to help his "wealthy friends."

The House Republican leader said Madigan was playing politics.

"You will have to ask him what his motivations are, but I don't buy what he has said in his brief press statement," Durkin said of Madigan. "It is more politically driven. It has nothing to do with substance. These are good bills. This is about taking this building and putting it back on the property tax rolls, which will help the city of Chicago and everyone else."

Rauner's office could choose to sell the property without legislative approval, but it would require the administration to go through a complicated process that it says would limit potential profits. That includes vacating the building, obtaining three separate appraisals and first offering the property at fair market value to local governments and nonprofits.

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Kim Geiger reported from Chicago and Monique Garcia reported from Springfield.

kgeiger@chicagotribune.com

mcgarcia@chicagotribune.com
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

Mayor Rahm Emanuel hasn't even said for sure that he'll seek a third term in 2019, but Gov. Bruce Rauner predicted Monday the mayor won't be around for a fourth.

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The governor's prognostication that "the current mayor is not going to be mayor in 2023" came at an event about the stalled effort to create a toll lane on the Stevenson Expressway, as Rauner talked about his veto last week of Emanuel's proposed changes to the city's pension funds for municipal workers and laborers.

The mayor's plan calls for a 3-percentage-point hike in what new city employees pay toward their retirement benefits, as well as ramped-up pension contributions from taxpayers.

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The city has adopted a new tax on water and sewer service that covers increased pension contributions to the municipal fund through 2023, when the contributions are set to spike by hundreds of millions of dollars. That means city taxpayers in 2024 would have to come up with an additional $278 million  an amount that would continue to grow each year until 2057.

"Who's not going to be mayor in 2023?" Rauner said. "The current mayor is not going to be mayor in 2023. That's why they did it. All this is, all this is a system to dump the problem into the next elected official, no change, no protection of taxpayers, no fundamental reform."

How the city would handle the need for $278 million more for the retirement plans would have to be decided in late 2023, under the city's budgeting schedule. If Emanuel is still in office, that would be at the start of his fourth term.

The response to Rauner from the mayor's campaign spokesman was characteristic of the recent harsh tone between the two leaders and onetime vacation pals.

"At the rate he's going, Bruce Rauner should be more concerned with who's governor in 2019 than he is with who's mayor in 2023," spokesman Pete Giangreco said.

And Molly Poppe, the city's financial spokeswoman, also took a dig at the governor, who has presided over the state during an historic budget impasse.

"Bizarre comments from the governor given the fact that the state's bill backlog has more than doubled since he's been in office," Poppe said. "The city has a plan to pay for every single one of our pensions, while he has yet to introduce a balanced budget."

Rauner also on Monday called the increased pension contributions from new employees, who would be allowed to retire two years earlier, "pretty much a wash."

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Poppe disagreed, saying the move would save $2 billion over the next 40 years.

She said city officials have acknowledged the contribution spike in 2023, while the mayor has contended that increasing taxes too quickly could harm the city's economy (though Emanuel has presided over a series of city tax and fee hikes in recent years).

Without the changes, the funds are at risk of going broke. That could force a massive all-at-once tax increase that dwarfs what the city has done so far. (Hal Dardick, Kim Geiger)

What's on tap

*Mayor Emanuel will announce the next milestone in the Smart Lighting program at 1:45 p.m.

*Gov. Rauner will talk about ethics during an afternoon event in Springfield.

*The Illinois House and Senate begin the week's session.

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*The city Finance and Budget and Government Operations committees meet.

*The Illinois Nurses Association will hold a Springfield news conference about layoffs of nurses in prisons.

From the notebook

*Burke vs. Arena: The tradition of Chicago City Council members enjoying near-complete control over property zoning questions within their wards took a hit Monday when a powerful Southwest Side alderman stepped in to at least temporarily halt a project favored by a colleague in a Northwest Side neighborhood.



Ald. John Arena, 45th, was ushering through the Zoning Committee a controversial plan to rezone a parcel in Jefferson Park for construction of a self-storage facility.



Dozens of people had spoken against the idea over several hours  and a smaller group in favor of it  when 14th Ward Ald. Edward Burke abruptly took the unusual step of asking whether a majority of the committee's 18 members were on hand. When a head count revealed just seven aldermen still in chambers, Burke said that lack of a quorum meant the body couldn't consider the proposal. The committee adjourned, leaving the measure in limbo at least until next month.



Arena has ruffled some feathers on the council since his 2011 election, serving as an outspoken member of the Progressive Caucus that opposes some of Mayor Emanuel's initiatives and occasionally calling into question whether his colleagues are too acquiescent to the mayor's agenda. Several aldermen suggested Burke butted into the Northwest Side zoning dispute in part because Arena had shown people up in the past and had failed to do other members of the Zoning Committee the courtesy of asking for their support for the change he was seeking.



Burke insisted he called for a quorum because the high level of resident interest deserved a majority of committee members on hand to hear it, and because he had questions about whether Arena followed the proper steps when settling a lawsuit about the property with the developer.



"Our rules say we have to have a quorum, and so be it," Burke said after the hearing, though council committees routinely take votes with fewer than half their members on hand. "There apparently is a huge amount of interest in this, so shouldn't we operate under our rules if there is this much interest?"



In 2015, Burke's Burnham Committee campaign fund contributed $1,000 to John Garrido, who ran unsuccessfully against Arena and who is now one of the organizers of the residents who oppose the zoning change. The project in Jefferson Park also is slated to include a 100-unit building with subsidized apartments, and many neighborhood homeowners are vehemently against that aspect of the plan.



Asked about Burke's motives, Arena declined comment, but said he was confident the zoning change would get approved soon. (John Byrne)

What we're writing

*Democratic governor hopefuls unified on Rauner attacks, divided on need for self-funding challenger.

*Rauner wants vote on new Stevenson toll lanes, Madigan quickly pushes back.

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*Chicago State Board huddles, fails to announce new gig for Vallas.

*U.S. Supreme Court weighs Advocate pension case.

*City to proceed with 41st Street pedestrian bridge project, without extra state funds.

*Chicago chooses vendor for massive streetlight replacement program.

What we're reading

*Emanuel to Trump: Try to hit singles, not home runs.

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*Man shot by ICE agent serving arrest warrant on Northwest Side.

*Chicago Blues Experience announces plan for Loop museum.

*Scientists convert spinach leaves into human heart tissue that can beat.

Follow the money

*Democrat Chris Kennedy reported $73,100 in contributions, shortly after his personal donation lifted contributions limits in the race.

*Track Illinois campaign contributions in real time here and here.

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Beyond Chicago

*Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions criticizes "sanctuary cities" but offers no new policies.

*Searching for the elusive first lady.

*GOP House intel chairman met source on White House grounds.

*Russian protest leader gets 15 days in jail.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump continued to spotlight violence in Chicago during a meeting Tuesday with police union officials including Dean Angelo Sr., the president of the union for Chicago's rank-and-file officers.

"I ask, 'What's going on in Chicago, right? What is going on?' " Trump asked early in the meeting. "There's no excuse for it. There's no excuse for it. I'm sure you're asking the same question, 'What's going on in Chicago?' "

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Angelo and the eight other participants from the Fraternal Order of Police met with media outside the White House after the session. They said issues covered with the president included gun violence, the opioid crisis, sanctuary cities and the uptick in "ambush-style" attacks on law enforcement officers in the last two or three years.

Angelo said he welcomed the opportunity to speak about Chicago. "I just mentioned that the police officers want to work, and that we they need people to support police officers to go back to work so they can work toward stemming the violence in our city," Angelo said.

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Trump styles himself as a law-and-order president, and at his swearing-in he pledged to "make America safe again." During Tuesday's meeting he continued with that theme, telling Angelo and others: "I made a crucial pledge: We will always support the incredible men and women of law enforcement. I will always have your back 100 percent.

"Sadly, our police are often prevented from doing their jobs. In too many of our communities, violent crime is on the rise. These are painful realities that many in Washington don't want to talk about. We have seen it all over."

He also noted the "violence in Chicago."

There were more than 760 homicides in Chicago last year, the most in 20 years. Homicides have jumped dramatically in the country's third-largest city and in some other cities over the last two years, breaking from America's decadeslong decline in violent crime.

Trump told the union officials that he had created an interagency task force to reduce violent crime and said the administration was at work to dismantle cartels, secure the country's borders and remove criminals.

"We will work every day to remove the gang members, drug dealers and violent criminals from your communities, and we already are," Trump said.

He said his highest duty as president is "the security of our people, the security of our nation."

Chuck Canterbury, the FOP's national president, told reporters after the meeting that the union agrees with Trump in opposing sanctuary cities  which include Chicago and Los Angeles  that don't cooperate with federal immigration officials.

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"We believe in enforcing the laws of the country of the United States," Canterbury said. "We believe that sanctuary city status is not a good thing for America. We support the president on his sanctuary city initiative."

The FOP especially wants to make sure that local law enforcement officers are not afraid to do their jobs and report people with criminal warrants or detainers to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, he said.

Canterbury also said the FOP was "very concerned" about the prospect of federal law enforcement funding to sanctuary cities being cut off, "but we'll be talking to the administration."

He added: "Those programs that are necessary to help reduce crime in Chicago, we feel certain the administration is going to work with us to help reduce, especially gun violence, in the city of Chicago."

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, one of the participants in the meeting, said Monday that the Justice Department planned to award $4.1 billion in grants this year through the Office of Justice Programs and the Community Oriented Policing Services program, but sanctuary cities risked having the funds taken away or denied.

Canterbury said rank-and-file officers want to have input on federal programs, especially in the area of gun violence.

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He said officer recruitment and retention also came up. "We're in a crisis in this country with being able to find qualified police applicants without reducing standards," he said, adding that the FOP did not want to lower standards and that recruits should have no criminal record and the mental fortitude for the job.

Canterbury said Trump wants to know what the issues confronting law enforcement are and about violent crime in major cities. "It's just a real pleasure to have a president in the White House that cares about law enforcement's major concerns," he said.

Last month, Trump held a White House listening session with county sheriffs and gave a speech in Washington to big-city police chiefs.

The FOP calls itself the world's largest organization for sworn law enforcement officers, with more than 330,000 members. The national group endorsed Trump's White House run.

Its Chicago affiliate says it has 8,202 members. Angelo, in a news release last week, said national officials of the Fraternal Order of Police had invited him to meet with "key members" of the Trump administration.

A lingering issue is the Justice Department's scathing report in January, in the waning days of President Barack Obama's term, that found Chicago police were poorly trained and quick to use excessive force, including deadly force.

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Sessions has publicly vowed to "pull back" on such federal civil rights probes of local police agencies.

But when Sessions met March 16 at the Justice Department with several police chiefs, including Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, one participant said the attorney general seemed supportive of his civil rights division's work.

On Tuesday, Sessions and Angelo spoke before Trump came into the room, and the exchange was captured by reporters and photographers. Sessions asked Angelo, "How's the Chicago world?"

"Oh, a little crazy, a little upside-down right now," Angelo replied.

Sessions then told Angelo that "we're gonna get back to the tried and true, proven principles. Sometimes I think we made it harder to do that."

Angelo agreed and told Sessions that "we have people that are afraid they're going to lose their job for doing their job."

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"It's not healthy," Sessions replied.

Angelo faces a runoff election April 12 to determine if he will remain president of the Fraternal Order of Police Chicago Lodge 7.

kskiba@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @KatherineSkiba
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump, who often has hammered Chicago for its violence, is meeting Tuesday with police union officials including Dean Angelo Sr., the president of the union for Chicago's rank-and-file officers.

About 10 a.m. Chicago time, Trump began a "listening session" with Angelo and others officials of the Fraternal Order of Police.

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Last month, Trump held a White House listening session with county sheriffs and gave a speech in Washington to big-city police chiefs.

Trump styles himself as a law-and-order president and at his swearing-in pledged to "make America safe again."

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There were more than 760 homicides in Chicago last year, the most in 20 years. Homicides have jumped dramatically in the country's third-largest city and in some other cities over the last two years, breaking from America's decades-long decline in violent crime.

The FOP calls itself the world's largest organization for sworn law enforcement officers, with more than 330,000 members. The national group endorsed Trump's White House run.

Its Chicago affiliate says it has 8,202 members. Angelo, in a news release last week, said national officials of the Fraternal Order of Police had invited him to meet with "key members" of the Trump administration.

"On more than one occasion, President Trump has referenced the bloodshed and shootings that seems (sic) to have Chicago in a death grip," Angelo said in the release.

He said he will carry to the White House the message of working police to ensure their voices are heard and that any federally supported solutions to have their input.

A lingering issue is the Justice Department's scathing report in January, in the waning days of President Barack Obama's term, that found Chicago police were poorly trained and quick to use excessive force, including deadly force.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was also in Tuesday's meeting, has publicly vowed to "pull back" on such federal civil rights probes of local police agencies.

But when Sessions met on March 16 at the Justice Department with several police chiefs, including Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, one participant said the attorney general seemed supportive of his civil rights division's work. The participant was J. Thomas Manger, president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association.

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At the Justice Department, spokesman Ian D. Prior declined to comment Monday on reports that Sessions may take part in Tuesday's listening session.

The White House on Monday did not confirm Trump's attendance or release any details of the meeting. Angelo did not respond to Tribune questions.

Angelo faces a run-off election on April 12 to determine if he will remain president of the Fraternal Order of Police Chicago Lodge 7.

kskiba@tribpub.com

Twitter @KatherineSkiba
A man overcome with grief cries out as he is escorted away after finding a loved one dead amid the rubble of a destroyed home following an airstrike in Mosul, Iraq. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

A sharp rise in the number of civilians reported killed in U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria is spreading panic, deepening mistrust and triggering accusations that the United States and its partners may be acting without sufficient regard for lives of noncombatants.

The escalation comes as local ground forces backed by air support from a U.S.-led coalition close in on the Islamic State's two main urban bastions - Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.

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In front-line neighborhoods in western Mosul, families described cowering in basements for weeks as bombs rained down around them and the Islamic State battled from their rooftops. Across the border in Raqqa, residents desperately trying to flee before an offensive begins are being blocked by the militants, who frequently use civilians as human shields.

Throughout his election campaign, President Donald Trump pledged to target Islamic State militants more aggressively, criticizing the U.S. air campaign for being too "gentle" and asking for a reassessment of battlefield rules. The United States has denied there has been any shift and defended the conduct of its campaign.

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But figures compiled by monitoring organizations and interviews with residents paint an increasingly bloody picture, with the number of casualties in March already surpassing records for a single month.

The worst alleged attack was in Mosul, where rescue teams are still digging out bodies after what residents describe as a hellish onslaught in the Mosul al-Jadida neighborhood during the battle to retake it two weeks ago. Iraqi officials and residents say as many as 200 died in U.S.-led strikes, with more than 100 bodies recovered from a single building. The wooden carts that residents use to carry vegetables and other wares in the once busy market area instead ferried out cadavers recovered from the rubble last week.

The U.S.-led coalition, which has acknowledged carrying out a strike against militants in the area, says it is investigating the reports. "If we did it, and I'd say there's at least a fair chance that we did, it was an unintentional accident of war," Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the top U.S. commander for Iraq and Syria, said Tuesday at the Pentagon.

Amnesty International on Tuesday said the coalition was not taking sufficient precautions to prevent civilian deaths in Mosul, in a "flagrant violation" of international humanitarian law.

It was just one of numerous incidents across Iraq and Syria in recent weeks that have raised concerns that the United States has flouted rules requiring it to protect civilians. In both countries, politicians and activists say the high numbers of deaths are spreading alarm among civilians and sowing distrust of the U.S.-backed campaign advancing toward their homes.

"People used to feel safe when the American planes were in the sky, because they knew they didn't hit civilians," said Hussam Essa, a founder of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, which monitors violence in Raqqa province. "They were only afraid of the Russian and regime planes. But now they are very afraid of the American airstrikes." American planes are "targeting everywhere," he said.

According to the U.K.-based organization Airwars, which tracks allegations of civilian deaths in airstrikes, out of 1,257 claims of deaths in U.S.-led coalition airstrikes this month, a record 337 have been assessed as being "fair," meaning that there is a reasonable level of public reporting of the alleged incident from two or more generally credible sources and that strikes have been confirmed in the vicinity on the day in question.

"The scale of the destruction is huge, and we are reeling from the number of alleged cases, not just in Mosul but in Raqqa, too," said Chris Woods, the director of Airwars. "Casualty numbers from western Mosul are absolutely shocking. In Syria it's a car here, a family there. It happens every day."

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The group said in a statement last week that it had stopped monitoring Russian strikes in Syria, in order to focus on accusations linked to the U.S.-led coalition, saying its organization is overwhelmed. In the first two months of the year, U.S. strikes were responsible for more civilian casualties than Russian strikes for the first time since Russia intervened in Syria's civil war in 2015, according to Airwars figures. Russian strikes are now climbing again as a partial cease-fire collapses.

Woods said the intensification began during the Obama administration but escalated under Trump. In December, the U.S.-led coalition delegated approval to battlefield commanders in Mosul, speeding up the responsiveness of strikes after a tough battle for the eastern part of the city. The coalition says strikes are subject to the same scrutiny.

"The death of innocent civilians in war is a terrible tragedy that weighs heavily on all of us," said Col. Joseph Scrocca, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Baghdad, adding that the United States works within the laws of armed conflict. "We set the highest standards for protecting civilians, and our dedication, diligence and discipline in prosecuting our combat operations, while protecting civilians, is without precedence in the history of warfare."

The escalation of U.S. strikes around the city of Raqqa occurred in February as the United States intensified efforts to train and equip a Syrian force in preparation for an offensive against the city, expected to begin in the coming months.

In March, the tempo increased further, with more sites being targeted that have no obvious military value, according to a Syrian living in Turkey who is from Raqqa and is in regular contact with his family and friends who are still there. "They are hitting everything that isn't a small house," including the barges that ferry passengers across the river dividing the city now that the bridges have been disabled, he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of concern for his family.

Among the bigger incidents was a strike last week on a school sheltering displaced people in the town of Mansoura, outside Raqqa, that killed at least 30 people, according to monitoring groups. An attack on a mosque in western Aleppo that the U.S. military said was aimed at known al-Qaida operatives also appears to have killed dozens of people attending prayers, according to witness accounts and monitoring groups.

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The U.S. military said after the Aleppo strike that it had hit a gathering of militants near a mosque but denied striking the mosque itself. The military is conducting an investigation into the incident.

Townsend said the initial indications were that the school strike was "clean" and did not kill civilians.

A wave of continued attacks in the past week in the small town of Tabqa has added to a record toll of 101 civilians killed by U.S. strikes from the beginning of the month to March 21, Essa said. He provided the names of 41 people alleged to have been killed in a three-day period last week in strikes that hit a bakery, a carwash, a slaughterhouse and other targets.

In Iraq and Syria, residents and activists say there has also been a discernible shift in the kinds of targets being hit - with infrastructure such as hospitals and schools coming under fire. The U.S.-led coalition contends that militants are increasingly using such protected buildings as bases for attack, knowing that there are restrictions on bombing them under U.S. rules of engagement.

Tabqa is a crucial step on the path to Raqqa, and it is the current focus of the battle. Reports that the Tabqa dam have also been hit by airstrikes during the fighting have further contributed to the sense of panic after the Islamic State issued a warning on Sunday that the dam could burst.

Townsend said the United States had not been targeting the Tabqa dam and had been using "non-cratering" munitions in that area to protect the site.

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Downstream from the dam, residents are terrified by the intensified bombing and of the risk of a dam breach, the Syrian said. His family is desperate to escape, but the Islamic State has erected checkpoints to prevent people from fleeing. "People don't know what to do," he said.

In Iraq, too, civilians are trapped as Iraqi forces push into the most densely packed areas of Mosul, including the Old City, where an estimated 400,000 people are trapped in old structures on narrow streets.

The United Nations said Tuesday that at least 307 civilians were killed in western Mosul between Feb. 17 and March 22, warning Iraqi security forces and the coalition to avoid falling into the Islamic State's "trap" as the group deliberately puts civilians in danger.

With a large amount of artillery and ordnance being fired into the city, though, it is hard to ascertain which deaths the coalition is responsible for, Woods said. Iraqi commanders, who call in airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition, say its difficult for them to know whether civilians are in houses when many are stuck inside for weeks at a time and it is not possible to see them through drone surveillance.

Lt. Gen. Abdul Ghani al-Asadi, commander of Iraq's counterterrorism units, said the troops are instead relying on tips from those fleeing as to which houses have civilians inside.

Still, Mosul Eye, a monitoring group in the city, said it had warned Iraqi forces that civilians were trapped in homes in Mosul al-Jadida days before the U.S. strike there and sent coordinates.

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Amnesty International said that because the government has told residents to stay in their homes, the U.S.-led coalition should have known that strikes would be likely to result in significant numbers of civilian casualties.

For civilians, many of whom are trapped, the situation is dire.

Nour Mohammed's family of 23 people hid in a basement in western Mosul for nearly two weeks as explosions rang out around them.

Islamic State militants forced the family to keep the front door open so that they could move in and out of the building freely and fend off the advancing Iraqi forces from the roof.

"We were terrified every time we'd hear the sound of an airplane that they'd bomb us all," she said as she fled the city last week.
MIAMI  In what police are calling an "ambush," two Miami-Dade police detectives were shot Monday night while conducting surveillance on gang activity.

The wounded officers are Terrence White, 47, and Charles Woods, 37, police announced Tuesday morning. White has been with the agency for 26 years and Woods for 11.

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According to police, at about 10 p.m. Monday White and Woods were inside an unmarked car at 1937 NW 60th Street when at least two people went up to their car an began shooting.

One of the detectives was shot in the arm. It's believe the other was hit in the leg. One of the two officers was able to return fire, but it's unknown if either of the two assailants were struck, police said.

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White remains hospitalized and his condition has stabilized. Woods was treated and released, police said.

Using an unmarked police pickup, another officer took the two detectives to the Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital. The conditions of both men have stabilized, police said.

Early Tuesday afternoon police said several people were detained and were being interviewed in connection with the shooting, but no arrests had yet been made.
Anastacio Hernandez's final screams had drawn a crowd.

The undocumented immigrant yelped "ayudame" and "no hice nada" - "help" and "I didn't do anything" in Spanish - as more than a dozen U.S. Border Patrol agents clobbered him with batons and shocked him with a Taser again and again.

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When the man was bloodied and unconscious, the Border Patrol agents turned their attention to a nearby pedestrian bridge, where shocked onlookers gawked and recorded with small cameras, a witness said.

"I heard someone passing say 'la imigra,'" Ashley Young, one of the people holding a camera that night, told The Washington Post, using the Spanish phrase for immigration agents. "I looked around, and two officers were coming across the bridge to shoo people away, to make sure people would stop watching."

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The immigration agents were grabbing people's cameras one by one, Young said, and asking, "What did you record? We're going to delete it."

Young made a quick decision before she got to the end of the line: "I slipped the SD card into my pants."

The story of Hernandez's 2010 death at the Tijuana-San Diego border, backed up by the video on that card, exemplified the brutality of the law enforcement officers who patrolled the border and the impunity with which they act, advocates for Border Patrol reform say.

The United States settled a lawsuit with Hernandez's estate last month, agreeing to dole out $1 million to his five children and his common-law wife, Maria Puga. The battle could have dragged on for years longer in court, the family's attorney said, but they were worried President Trump could make Hernandez's death a political issue amid efforts to beef up border security.

Still, none of the agents involved have been fired or disciplined or "lost a dime of pay," for a beating that broke five of Hernandez's ribs, damaged his spine and ultimately killed him, according to Eugene Iredale, the family's attorney, who claims the immigrant was handcuffed as he was beaten.

"In 90 minutes, this case exemplifies the range of deficiency and misconduct that typifies the action of law enforcement that handles immigration enforcement," Iredale told The Washington Post. "These agents are doing this in front of God and the world."

Hernandez crossed into the United States at age 15 and lived the next 27 years as an undocumented immigrant.

In May 2010, San Diego Police arrested the 42-year-old after he tried to shoplift steak and tequila from a grocery store, according to a PBS report, which said the items may have been for a Mother's Day celebration. The police department's computers showed that he was in the country illegally, and he was deported to Mexico without incident.

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But within days, he was on the phone with his wife. He missed her and their five young children, he said. He and his brother were going to try to cross back into the United States.

They didn't make it far. Sensors in the ground detected their footsteps on Memorial Day weekend, PBS said, and they were corralled by Border Patrol agents. For the second time in a month, Hernandez was processed for deportation.

When they got to the Border Patrol station, an agent told Hernandez to throw away a jug of water he'd been carrying. But Hernandez began to pour the water out, and the agent thought he was being disrespectful, Iredale told The Post. The agent "slapped the jug out of Anastacio's hands, spun him around, marched him to a wall, and there kicked his legs apart," the settlement agreement says, "striking, in the process metal screws implanted in Anastacio's ankle from an old accident. When Anastacio complained of pain, (the agent) pushed him back against the wall, and handcuffed him."

Inside the station, Hernandez complained about his leg and said he needed a doctor, the settlement documents say. Instead, a supervisor ordered Hernandez to be returned to Mexico immediately - in the custody of the same agent who'd kicked his leg, the settlement says.

They drove him to a drop-off point on the Mexican side of the border and began to take the handcuffs off, according to a statement from the Department of Justice.

"Supposedly because Anastacio put his hands down, instead of behind his head, the agent grabbed Anastacio from behind," the settlement said. Hernandez began to struggle with and kick the agents - and they struck back. Two agents started "whacking away with batons," according to the court documents. They were swinging so wildly that they struck other agents, Iredale said. Those were the only injuries to the Border Patrol agents.

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Hernandez lost consciousness and was brain dead when he arrived at the hospital. He was taken off life support a few days later.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, "the San Diego coroner classified Mr. Hernandez's death as a homicide." He had a heart attack during the confrontation with border agents, and there were signs that he had been beaten all over his body: He had "several loose teeth; bruising to his chest, stomach, hips, knees, back, lips, head and eyelids; five broken ribs; and a damaged spine."

Criminal and internal investigations ensued. Five years after Hernandez died, the Justice Department announced that it would not pursue federal criminal or civil rights charges against the agents involved in Hernandez's death. In clearing the agents, the Justice Department news release highlighted the fact that Hernandez had methamphetamine in his system and preexisting heart disease.

But a lawsuit against the government by Hernandez's family still loomed. And the brutality of Hernandez's death had shocked communities along the U. S-Mexico border.

Hernandez's death galvanized the immigrant community and shed a spotlight on claims of abuse by Border Patrol agents.

PBS aired a documentary called "Crossing the Line at the Border" that included a 23-minute segment on Hernandez's case. Protests made headlines. And the nation took notice that Hernandez's death was among a string of eight Border Patrol-related deaths in less than two years. No agents were charged in any of them.

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After Hernandez's case, "more families came forward, and we were able to bring those cases to D.C.," said Andrea Guerrero, of Equality Alliance, which advocates for immigrant rights. "It was the case that led to congressional inquiries, that led to agencywide reviews of use of force and prompted the release of new use-of-force guidelines."

Puga and her family emerged as advocates, calling on the U.S. government to change immigration policies and discipline procedures and to equip agents with body cameras.

"We, along with other families, have been struggling for more than five years in search of justice," Puga said in a video to Border Patrol in 2016 that was posted on YouTube. " . . . I've spoken with families and I know the great pain they feel, which is the same as mine, from having lost a loved one and being unable to find justice."

Critics say the Border Patrol had escaped scrutiny that other law enforcement agencies have faced during the nation's ongoing conversation about the use of force against racial minorities.

"Whether it's the result of an infusion of civility and gentility among police, of the fact that departments just don't want to get sued, most local police departments have made a concerted effort to improve the way they handle cases involving racial and ethnic minorities," Iredale said. "That's not the dynamic among the federal agencies that do federal immigration enforcement."

Immigration and Customers Enforcement referred questions about the case and its impact to the U.S. attorney's office in Phoenix. Cosme Lopez, a spokesman for the office, said, "I can confirm we are handling this case, but currently offer no comment."

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The settlement comes as Trump's administration has taken steps to build a wall on the Mexican border and increase the number of border patrol agents.

The administration has given immigration officials more power to apprehend and deport illegal immigrants. As The Post's David Nakamura wrote in February, the Department of Homeland Security had "plans for the agency to hire thousands of additional enforcement agents, expand the pool of immigrants who are prioritized for removal, speed up deportation hearings and enlist local law enforcement to help make arrests," plans that would "supersede nearly all of those issued under previous administrations."

Human rights groups and Democrats have called the expansion "xenophobic," Nakamura wrote, and have said the beefed-up enforcement could lead to increased racial profiling of minorities.

Hernadez's family's fear, Iredale said, is that the progress that's been made since the immigrant's death will be canceled out in the rush to build a border wall and expand Border Patrol.

"What we are seeing now is that the agents have the feeling that the restraints are off," Iredale said. "I think that, psychologically, that translated to a generalized sense that they can do whatever they want to do."

ICE does not need additional agents, Iredale said. "They need better training, proper training. They need better discipline."
DETROIT  Michigan and the city of Flint agreed Monday to replace thousands of home water lines under a sweeping deal to settle a lawsuit by residents over lead-contaminated water in the struggling community.



Flint will replace at least 18,000 lead or galvanized-steel water lines by 2020, and the state will pick up the bill with state and federal money, according to the settlement filed in federal court. It will be presented Tuesday to U.S. District Judge David Lawson for likely approval.



More than 700 water lines already have been replaced and work is ongoing, but the agreement would rid Flint's roughly 100,000 residents of uncertainty over how to pay for the enormous task. Under the settlement, the state will set aside $87 million and keep another $10 million in reserve if necessary.



"The proposed agreement is a win for the people of Flint," said Dimple Chaudhary, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is working with the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan to represent Flint residents.



"It provides a comprehensive framework to address lead in Flint tap water and covers a number of critical issues related to water safety," Chaudhary told The Associated Press.



Despite the development, some residents still feel discouraged. Reneta Richard, a 38-year-old teacher, said another few years for new pipes "compiles the despair that I see and feel." She heats bottled water for kitchen use because hot tap water can damage the filter.

"When I see someone on TV just turn on the water and wash their hands  I haven't been able to do that for years," Richard said.

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Flint's water was tainted with lead for at least 18 months, starting in spring 2014. The city, under the control of state-appointed financial managers, tapped the Flint River while a new pipeline was being built to Lake Huron, but the water wasn't treated to reduce corrosion. As a result, lead leached from old pipes and fixtures.

Gov. Rick Snyder finally acknowledged the disaster in fall 2015 after elevated lead levels were found in children. Water quality has improved since Flint returned to the Detroit regional system, but residents still are advised to use filters.



The agreement filed Monday was the result of negotiations involving a court-appointed mediator. In November, Lawson ordered the state to deliver bottled water to residents who have trouble with filters, although the state said that remedy would be extremely difficult to meet.

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Residents who get new water lines will be urged to continue using a filter for six months. There will be no cost for replacement cartridges or household testing kits.



There will be tests for lead in the Flint system every six months until one year after the replacement of water lines. An independent monitor also will check household water samples for lead, and the results will be posted online.



The agreement also includes ways for the state to begin closing the nine Flint water distribution sites, starting May 1, depending on demand. They all could be closed after Sept. 1, depending on tap water quality.






WASHINGTON  House intelligence chairman Devin Nunes rebuffed calls to step aside from the Russia investigation Tuesday as demands grew for him to recuse himself as head of that probe.

"Why would I?" Nunes said. The calls for him to resign came after revelations about his meeting with a secret source on White House grounds raised questions about his and the panel's independence.

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Nunes, R-Calif., said the pressure for him to resign was typical politics.

"It's the same thing as always around this place  a lot of politics, people get heated, but I'm not going to involve myself with that," he said.

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House Speaker Paul Ryan continued to express confidence in Nunes Tuesday, saying there is no need for the chairman to resign.

Nunes acknowledged Monday that he reviewed intelligence reports at the White House complex and met a secret source behind his statement that communications involving associates of President Donald Trump were caught up in "incidental" surveillance.

The Republican congressman's disclosure prompted the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, as well as the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, to call on Nunes to recuse himself from the committee's Russia probe.

Schiff said Nunes' connections to the White House have raised insurmountable public doubts about whether the committee can credibly investigate the president's campaign associates.

In this March 22, 2017, file photo, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., speaks with reporters outside the White House in Washington following a meeting with President Donald Trump. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP)

"I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the president's campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman," Schiff said in a statement Monday.

After reviewing the information last week, Nunes called a news conference to announce that U.S. spy agencies may have inadvertently captured Trump and his associates in the routine targeting of foreigners' communications. Trump quickly seized on the statements as at least partial vindication for his assertion that President Barack Obama tapped his phones at Trump Tower  though Nunes, Schiff and FBI Director James Comey have said there is no such evidence.

Nunes has denied coordinating with the president or his aides.

But Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., a member of the committee, said Tuesday that Nunes should step down "in the interest of our integrity." She said his actions raise questions about whether the panel's investigation can be unbiased and independent.

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"If you become a White House whisperer, you are not independent," she said on CNN.

The Senate intelligence committee is also conducting an investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible ties with the Trump campaign. On Monday, it announced that Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has agreed to be interviewed. The White House confirmed that Kushner, a senior Trump adviser, had volunteered to be interviewed about arranging meetings with the Russian ambassador and other officials.

Kushner is the fourth Trump associate to offer to be interviewed by the congressional committees looking into the murky Russia ties. Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, Trump adviser Carter Page and Trump associate Roger Stone last week volunteered to speak as well.

Meanwhile, a Russian state bank says it has met with Kushner as part of a series of meetings on future business strategies.

Vnesheconombank, or VEB, said in Monday's statement carried by state RIA Novosti news agency that it met with Kushner last year as part of 'road show' discussions with representatives of leading financial institutions in Europe, Asia and the United States. It said the meetings focused on global development banks' strategies. VEB provided no further details.

Trump suggested late Monday that the House panel should investigate Bill and Hillary Clinton's dealings with Russia. "Trump Russia story is a hoax," he tweeted.

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Besides the two congressional committees, the FBI is also investigating connections between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The House investigation has been hampered by partisan divisions.

The chairman did not tell the top Democrat on the committee about the meeting at the White House complex. It is highly unusual for a committee chairman and ranking member not to coordinate meetings related to an investigation.

Nunes argues he had to review classified, executive branch documents from a secure facility at the White House because the reports had not been provided to Congress and could not be transported to the secure facilities used by the House intelligence committee.

Nunes would not name the source of the information, nor would he disclose who invited him on the White House grounds for the meeting. He described the source as an intelligence official, not a White House official. In an interview on CNN, he suggested the president's aides were unaware of the meeting.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on House Speaker Ryan to replace Nunes as chairman of the intelligence committee.

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"He has not been operating like someone who is interested in getting to the unvarnished truth. His actions look like those of someone who is interested in protecting the president and his party," Schumer said.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said, "Chairman Nunes' discredited behavior has tarnished that office," and said Ryan should insist that Nunes "at least recuse himself" from the Russia probe.

AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Ryan, said Monday the speaker has "full confidence that Chairman Nunes is conducting a thorough, fair and credible investigation."

When Nunes disclosed the intelligence reports last week, he said what he reviewed had nothing to do with Russia, which could suggest that Trump associates were in touch with other foreign targets of U.S. intelligence surveillance in November, December or January.

Associated Press writers Stephen Ohlemacher, Vivian Salama and Jill Colvin contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON  A government watchdog agency, the Government Accountability Office, has agreed to review the costs and security precautions associated with President Donald Trump's travel and stays at Mar-a-Lago after a request for inquiry from leading Democrats on Capitol Hill.

On 17 days of his presidency, Trump has spent at least part of his time at Mar-a-Lago, his club in Palm Beach, Fla., flying down five times on Air Force One and requiring protection from the Secret Service, the U.S. Coast Guard and local police forces while in Florida. The government has not disclosed the costs.

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After Trump announced his third trip there last month, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Tom Udall, D-N.M., along with Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., wrote to GAO chief Gene L. Dodaro saying they were "deeply concerned" about the potential costs as well reports that Trump had met the Japanese Prime Minister in plain view of diners at the club.

The Democrats also questioned whether the president's company, which he still owns and which owns Mar-a-Lago, was charging the government "fair and appropriate" rates for use of the property while there at the service of the president.

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On Friday the GAO agreed to take up the inquiry, by looking into four areas:

1) What measures are being used to protect classified information and provide secure communications capabilities while the president is away from the White House, and whether a secure communications space as been created at Mar-a-Lago.

2) The type of security screening the Secret Service employs for guests and visitors of Mar-a-Lago.

3) What measures the Secret Service and Defense Department have taken to ensure the fees they are charged for Mar-a-Lago trips are "fair and reasonable."

4) Whether the U.S. Treasury has received any payments resulting from profits at hotels that are owned or operated by the president.

The final two items relate to the president's company, the Trump Organization, from which Trump has resigned his positions but where he is still owner. Trump's adult sons, Eric and Don Jr., run the company and to avoid conflicts of interest the firm pledged recently to donate any profits from foreign companies to the U.S. Treasury at the end of each calendar year while Trump is president.

Trump has called Mar-a-Lago his "Winter White House," and White House press secretary Sean Spicer recently countered criticism of Trump's travel there.

"The president is very clear that he works seven days a week. This is where he goes to see his family. He brings people down there. This is part of being president," he said.

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Though federal agencies have repeatedly declined to disclose the costs of the trips, in a previous report the GAO estimated that a similar trip Obama took to Florida cost about $3 million.

The Secret Service also requested $60 million extra for Trump-related costs and protection, according to internal agency documents, about half of that for security at Trump Tower, in New York, where First Lady Melania Trump and son Barron Trump live.

The Washington Post's Drew Harwell and Amy Brittain contributed.
President Donald Trump wants Congress to add defense funding and money for a new wall along the Mexican border in a near-term spending bill intended to keep the government open past April 28, but Capitol Hill Republicans signaled they will reject the idea to avoid a shutdown as well as the deep cuts that the new spending would require.

Trump's request, outlined in conversations with White House officials and in a memo from budget director Mick Mulvaney, calls for $33 billion in new defense and border spending  and $18 billion in cuts to other priorities, such as medical research and jobs programs.

But it appeared that few on the Hill shared the White House's appetite to flirt with a government shutdown over the border wall, which Democrats have pledged to oppose and which even some conservative Republicans object to on fiscal grounds.

Several senior Republicans said Tuesday that Trump's wall request is not likely to be included in the stopgap budget plan, which would merely authorize current spending levels to continue past April 28  but instead will be considered during separate negotiations later this year to add new spending to the current budget.

"Congress will decide what they want and what they don't want," said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., one of a half-dozen Republicans engaged in spending negotiations to reject the request. "I don't think we need a shutdown argument, period. I don't know any rational person who wants a shutdown."

Just days after the defeat of the American Health Care Act, the disagreement could set up yet another showdown between Hill Republicans and the White House as Trump attempts to take immediate action on some of his more controversial campaign pledges.

John Czwartacki, spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, said Tuesday that the defense funding cannot wait and the requested cuts were an attempt to maintain fiscal responsibility alongside Trump's pledge to dramatically increase military resources.

"The request for these resources is required to protect our citizens from America's enemies and to fight terrorism overseas before it comes to our shores," Czwartacki said. "We must also be mindful of our $20 trillion national debt crisis and how we spend every tax dollar."

The White House had already asked to jumpstart spending this year  including $30 billion for defense generally, in addition to $3 billion for border security, half of which would begin construction for the wall  but Mulvaney's effort to force the issue in the near-term bill was new.

So were the detailed spending cuts intended to offset the defense spending, including more than $7 billion from labor, health and education programs. Many of the cuts would be aimed at key priorities for Democrats, such as money for global reproductive health education, but they also take aim at more broadly popular agencies including the National Institutes of Health and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Mulvaney also outlined $3 billion in trims to education programs, including Pell Grants for low-income college students, and $1.2 billion in cuts to NIH research programs.

A partial government shutdown would begin April 29 if Congress doesn't pass the short-term spending bill. Democrats did not rule out some increases to war-related military spending, but they have signaled they will not support the White House's proposed spending cuts or the money for the border wall. Their support is necessary in the Senate, where the spending bill needs 60 votes and Republicans control just 52 seats.

"They are asking for something that is going to be deeply damaging," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wa., "We're going to fight back with everything we have."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and other senators avoided making any direct commitment on whether the border wall would be included in the upcoming spending bill.

"Democrats and Republicans ... are working together on this, and we fully anticipate getting an outcome prior to the end of April," McConnell said.

In addition, Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., told reporters Tuesday that he expects that there will be a bipartisan spending bill and that a vote to fund the wall would happen in a separate, supplemental bill sometime later this year.

"I would suspect the border wall is in the supplemental," Blunt said.

Democrats also scoffed at the idea that the White House would ask Congress to cut widely supported domestic programs to pay for the wall despite Trump's campaign pledge to make Mexico pay.

"Cutting cancer research, slashing affordable housing and programs to protect the environment, and making middle-class taxpayers pay for a wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for?" said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. "These may be the Trump Administration priorities, but they aren't the priorities of the American people."

Republicans in Congress had generally hoped to avoid any serious conflict over the must-pass spending bill and leave the bigger budget battle for later this year. GOP Senate leaders in particular had planned to speed through the spending votes quickly after confirming Judge Neil Gorsuch, Trump's Supreme Court nominee.

The White House proposal would almost certainly derail those plans. Even those who like the defense spending increases weren't interested in forcing a shutdown fight now.

"Ultimately I'm not sure that's the direction the Appropriations Committee is going to move," Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said. "In the end, the Congress is responsible for spending the money."

Some Republicans played down the conflict as a normal part of a negotiation between over spending priorities. It is common for White House budget officials to send Congress a list of proposed cuts to offset new spending priorities. But rarely do the cuts target popular programs such as medical research at the National Institutes of Health in exchange.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters Tuesday that Congress had just voted the previous year to increase funding for NIH and other research. Cornyn said the difference of priorities was to be expected but gave no suggestion that Trump's spending requests would be entertained.

"I think they're becoming very aware of how hard the legislative process is," Cornyn said. "I look at it as a conversation."
Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, may fall short of the votes needed for smooth passage in the Senate next week, potentially dashing Republican hopes for an easy victory after the stinging defeat of the American Health Care Act last week.

Gorsuch needs 60 votes to clear a procedural hurdle required of high-court confirmations in the Senate, but Republicans, who hold just 52 seats, may not have the votes in a chamber that is divided deeply along partisan lines.

Republicans do, however, have the votes to choose the "nuclear option" to change the rules and allow Gorsuch's confirmation  and others after it  to proceed on a simple majority vote. That would upend a long-standing Senate tradition that forces the governing party to seek bipartisan support.

"I think this is tragic,"said Sen. Christopher Coons, D-Del., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who added in an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that he doubts that Gorsuch will be able to get the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster threatened by some Democrats. But he also said Republicans will most certainly choose to end the practice.

With relations between Democrats and Republicans already strained, the brewing fight over Gorsuch's confirmation and how it could change the way the Senate does business is likely to make the partisan rancor even more intense in the coming days. While Republicans need at least eight Democrats to join with them to block a filibuster, no Democratic senator has announced plans to back Gorsuch.

Gorsuch, 49, has been on the Denver-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit for the past decade. Trump nominated him to fill the seat made vacant when Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016. Republicans say that Gorsuch will be confirmed despite Democratic opposition  a threat that suggests they are prepared to make the change allowing a simple majority vote.

A final vote on Gorsuch is still more than a week away. On Monday, the Judiciary Committee delayed a vote on Gorsuch for one week at the request of Democrats. Republican leaders are hoping to confirm him by April 7, when a two-week congressional recess is scheduled to begin, so that Gorsuch can join the court by late April for the final cases of its term that ends in June.

Democrats have called that timetable rushed, noting that since the 1980s it has taken 29 days on average between the start of a Supreme Court confirmation hearing and a final confirmation vote.

Coons's prediction came after consultations with senators in both parties about brokering a deal that would lead to Gorsuch's confirmation without upending current Senate traditions, according to multiple senators and aides familiar with his negotiations.

The hope was to find a bipartisan group of rank-and-file senators who could negotiate a deal that would again steer the Senate away from partisan brinkmanship on federal court vacancies. A group of 14 senators from both parties warded off a similar impasse in 2005  but just three members of that "Gang of 14" remain in office. And Coons signaled Monday that he has found little appetite for a new agreement.

"We've got a lot of senators concerned about where we're headed," he told MSNBC. "There's Republicans still very mad at us over the 2013 change to the filibuster rule. We're mad at them for shutting down the government, they're mad at us for Gorsuch, and we're not headed in a good direction."

Democrats used the nuclear option in 2013 to change how the Senate confirms executive-branch nominees and lower-level federal judges, against the strong objections of Republicans.

Four years later, Democrats are finding there is little upside to cooperating with Trump and Republicans. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., last week announced plans to filibuster Gorsuch. Others including Thomas Carper, D-Del., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Al Franken, D-Minn., and Tom Udall, D-N.M., followed suit. No Democrat has announced support for Gorsuch, and some moderates say they are still mulling a final decision.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said he is planning to meet with Gorsuch again before deciding. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., said in a statement that she is "in the process of reviewing" the nomination and will not make a final decision for several days. Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., had no comment about his plans when asked on Monday. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., also said that he had not decided but added that he would not be splitting his votes by voting to end a filibuster but then voting against Gorsuch's confirmation. "My cloture vote and vote for him will be the same," he told reporters.

The White House and Senate Republicans are hoping that a multimillion-dollar ad campaign bankrolled by conservative legal groups can help put pressure on Manchin, Heitkamp, Donnelly and seven other Democrats facing re-election next year in states that Trump won in November. Two of those 10 Democrats  Sens. Robert Casey, Pa., and Bill Nelson, Fla.  have said in recent days that they will vote against Gorsuch.

If the pressure campaign doesn't work, GOP aides privately hope that senior Democrats can prevail upon colleagues to at least help break a filibuster to preserve Senate tradition. White House press secretary Sean Spicer cited comments by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who has served on the Judiciary Committee since 1979 and told the Vermont political website VTDigger over the weekend that while he is opposed to Gorsuch, "I am not inclined to filibuster."

Many Democrats know that supporting Gorsuch would cost them support back home.

At a town hall meeting Sunday afternoon in Rhode Island, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., was welcomed with a standing ovation for his role in the Gorsuch hearings as a member of the judiciary panel.

The senator said Gorsuch had failed to win over any Democrats with evasive answers on issues such as campaign finance and gerrymandering. One constituent, holding a sign showing her support for Merrick Garland  President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee, who was blocked by Republicans last year  asked whether Republicans would really blow up the filibuster to get Gorsuch through.

"They can, but by all rights, 60 votes ought to be the standard," Whitehouse said. "When he doesn't get 60 votes, that's going to give Mitch McConnell a tough choice. He'll have to either change the candidate or change the rules. And it's not going to be easy for him to change the rules, because a lot of people in his caucus will push back. We have to have the vote, show this guy can't get 60, and see where it goes from there. In the crucible of the Senate, sometimes good things can emerge."

Over a few rounds of questions, Whitehouse raised the possibility that Gorsuch would be blocked and Republicans would start over with a more moderate nominee. In a short interview after the speech, Whitehouse said he was confident that more than 40 Democrats would hang together. "If four, or five, or two, or no Democrats want to support him, the result is the same  not 60," Whitehouse said. "This is a problem [Republicans] should have seen when they picked a nominee off of a list from special-interest groups."

Asked about the possibility that the filibuster would be "nuked," ripping it away from Democrats in future fights, Whitehouse chuckled. "To my mind, there's no reason to lose a fight in order to save yourself for a later fight," he said. "You just face the same fight later, plus you've already lost."

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said Monday: "The R's are going to do what the R's are going to do. I'm going to make my decision based on the merits. What we learned in the Garland case is that they're going to do whatever they want to do. The way I look at it is that the Supreme Court is the only office that requires a 60-vote threshold. That mandates that there be some bipartisanship."
WASHINGTON  From the perspective of impartiality, one of the problems with Congress investigating Russia's meddling in the U.S. election and whether President Donald Trump's circle had anything to do with it is Congress itself.

It's a political body made up of - well, politicians. That's not to say these politicians can't put on their impartial hats to undertake a large-scale investigation about the independence of U.S. democracy from foreign influence. But congressional investigations have a higher threshold of impartiality to meet than, say, an independent investigation outside the confines of Congress.

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In recent days, Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is making it very hard for his committee to meet those standards of impartiality.

On Monday, Washington was abuzz with news that Nunes, a Trump ally, was on the White House grounds viewing classified information related to the president's evidence-less claim that President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower during the campaign. A day later, Nunes, R-Calif., announced that he had information that revealed the president's conversations during the campaign may have been caught up in a broader, unrelated intelligence net. (The president said he felt "somewhat" vindicated by Nunes' claim even though Nunes flatly said the president's accusation that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower "never happened.")

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We still don't know who gave Nunes the surveillance information or its significance to the committee's broader investigation into Russia's meddling. Nunes publicly said if the president's name did show up in surveillance, it had nothing to do with Russia. He also told CNN that the president didn't even know Nunes was at the White House Tuesday.

But here's what anyone trying to follow the twists and turns of this Trump-Russia-wiretapping story is left with: A top Republican congressman and Trump ally was at the White House the day before he released information that appeared to somewhat defend the president on his defenseless wiretapping claims.

What's more, the congressman released this secret information to the president - whose circle is under investigation by the FBI for alleged ties to Russia - before sharing it with his own committee members.

From there, it's not a stretch for a reasonable person to consider whether Nunes, who served on Trump's transition team, wants to protect the president. And from there, it's not a stretch to question the impartiality of the investigation Nunes is leading in the House on Russia meddling in the U.S. election. ("It could very well be the case that Chairman Nunes was briefing members of the administration about an investigation of which they are the subject," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor on Monday as he became the top-ranking Democrat to request Nunes step down from his committee post.)

And that, say ethics and national security experts, is where the real damage in Nunes's White House trip lies.

"This is really unusual behavior of an oversight committee chairman," said Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow of governance studies at Brookings Institution and editor-in-chief of Lawfare. "And it's hard to understand what could possibly justify it."

"I guess you could say I was gobsmacked by this," said Norm Ornstein, a nonpartisan ethics scholar with the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute. "The integrity of the system is built on the independence of Congress from any investigation involving the executive branch.

"I just think this is so far over the line you can't even see the line anymore," he said.

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Ornstein's outrage isn't just about Nunes going to the White House to give the president a graceful out on his "wrong" wiretapping claim and overstepping norms to advise committee members first. ("Wrong" is how Nunes has described the president's claims.)

The U.S. national security apparatus is in the aftermath of a crisis: It is trying to figure out how to react and respond to the fact that a foreign nation got involved in a U.S. presidential election to try to influence it. Impartial investigations - there's one at the FBI, there's one in the GOP-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee, there's one in the GOP-controlled House - are the first step in that process.

"This is a challenge to the foundations of our democracy," Richard Ledgett, the No. 2 at the National Security Agency, recently told WaPo's Ellen Nakashima in an interview unrelated to Nunes. " . . . The idea that another nation state is interfering with that] is a pretty big deal and something we need to figure out. How do we counter that? How do we identify that it's happening - in real time as opposed to after the fact? And what do we do as a nation to make it stop?"

The lack of answers, Ledgett said, "as an American citizen . . . gives me a lot of heartburn."

In other words, the stakes could not be higher that impartial investigations into what Russia did actually stay impartial. Most intelligence officials agree that Russia will probably try to tinker with Western democratic elections again; maybe even that of the United States.

On Monday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said he didn't think Nunes had created a perception problem with all this: "You can't ask someone to do a review of the situation and then create an interference because they're reviewing the situation," he said, referring to the fact Nunes probably had help from a White House official to review the classified documents in a secret room.

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But Congress, by its nature, was already at risk of appearing motivated by partisanship as it looked into these very critical questions. At the very least, Nunes just opened up the door for people to believe the worst about Congress: that its members put politics above all else.

"If we issue a report where Democrats find one thing and Republicans find another, both sides retreat to their respective corners and nothing gets revealed," Rep. Adam Schiff, Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told The Fix before this Nunes wiretapping news broke.

As I outline here, there are other investigative options besides Congress that could be perceived as more impartial. The FBI confirmed it is looking into alleged Trump connections to Russia. Attorney General Jeff Sessions agreed to step aside from overseeing the investigation after news broke that he met with the Russian ambassador to the United States last year and didn't disclose it in his confirmation hearings before the Senate.

In addition to its Senate and House intelligence committees, Congress could set up a special congressional committee dedicated to investigating this, a la the Republican-majority Benghazi committee. Or it could set up a completely independent investigation outside of Congress, a la the 9/11 Commission. (The latter is what Schiff has called for.)

There's no immediate sign that Republican leaders would be on board with any of those investigative alternatives. They're already looking into something their president would rather they leave alone - Russia.

In a statement, AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said: "Speaker Ryan has full confidence that Chairman Nunes is conducting a thorough, fair, and credible investigation."

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But Nunes is making it that much harder for Republicans to argue that.
Obama Presidential Center architects Dina Griffin, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien make an appearance at the DuSable Museum of African American History on March 28, 2017. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune) (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

One of the co-designers of the Obama presidential library and museum revealed Tuesday how she reacted when she heard that she and her architectural partner husband had won the job.

"All I did was scream at the top of my lungs," New York architect Billie Tsien said. She then called her mother, who also let out a scream.

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"I feel like our entire lives, we've been working toward this project," Tsien said as her husband, Tod Williams, looked on.

But anyone expecting that the New York architects would reveal their design for the Obama library and museum  or even their concepts for the building  would have come away disappointed from the event at the DuSable Museum of African American History in Washington Park.

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It marked the architects' first public appearance in Chicago since Obama selected them in June.

"I know everybody wants to see the design," said Michael Strautmanis, vice president of civic engagement for the Obama Foundation, the not-for-profit in charge of developing the complex honoring the nation's first African-American president.

But, Strautmanis added, "the president is still exploring ideas."

So the waiting game for one of Chicago's most prestigious architectural projects goes on.

And it is expected to continue Wednesday when Williams and Tsien lecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology's Crown Hall, a renowned steel-and-glass structure designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

"The president and Mrs. Obama plan to share their vision this year," Strautmanis said in an interview after the first part of Tuesday's event, which lasted less than 30 minutes.

Construction will start in 2018  "let's make it late 2018," Strautmanis said to laughter from a crowd that included foundation Chairman Martin Nesbitt and Marian Robinson, Michelle Obama's mother.

He said the library and museum, officially known as the Obama Presidential Center and expected to cost at least $500 million, will open in 2021 in Jackson Park on the South Side.

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Williams and Tsien are highly regarded modernists whose best-known works include the Barnes Foundation art museum in Philadelphia and the University of Chicago's Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts. In 2014, Obama awarded them the National Medal of Arts.

During the event, images of their projects and those by their Chicago partner, Interactive Design Architects, flashed on a screen at the rear of the stage.

Potentially controversial issues  such as the hiring of local people for construction and how the project will (or won't) blend into the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed Jackson Park  were not aired.

And it was impossible to know if those issues came up at a reception for the architects that was held afterward. The reception was not open to members of the media.

"They keep saying there's going to be a community process, and there is none," said Margaret Schmid, a founder of the Jackson Park Watch group.

The meeting came six weeks after Ald. Leslie Hairston, whose 5th Ward includes the library site and portions of neighboring communities, criticized the Obama Foundation for not sharing enough information on how South Side residents will benefit from the project.

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Days later, Obama paid a surprise visit to Chicago, meeting with civic leaders, including Hairston, to discuss the library and museum.

Strautmanis said Tuesday's event, which was advertised as a "community meet-and-greet reception," was the first of many conversations.

"They have a big job to do," he said of the architects, adding that they are charged with creating more than just a building. "For them, it's about creating an experience."

Blair Kamin is a Tribune critic.

bkamin@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @BlairKamin
These have been a choice few days for aficionados of scandal. Washington hasn't seen their like since the heyday of Whitewater, Iran-Contra, and Watergate  in other words for nearly two decades. And in many ways "Kremlin-Gate," the burgeoning scandal over Team Trump's connections to Russia, is in a class by itself.

When, in the past, has an FBI director ever announced that his agents were investigating allegations that the president and his closest associates  including his senior  were guilty of collusion with a hostile foreign power? Never. Yet that's just what James Comey did on March 20 when he told the House Intelligence Committee that the G-men were looking into "the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts."

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To make the event even more surreal, Comey and his fellow witness, Adm. Michael Rogers of the National Security Agency, all but called their boss, the commander in chief, a liar by publicly dismissing his allegations that former President Barack Obama had wiretapped him. "I have no information that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI," Comey said. As for Donald Trump's desperate claim that Obama had asked Britain's GCHQ spy agency to wiretap him, Rogers said, "I've seen nothing on the NSA side that we engaged in any such activity nor that anyone ever asked us to engage in such activity."

It is impossible to conceive of J. Edgar Hoover publicly calling out any of the presidents that he served in such a fashion  and yet Comey had good cause to do so, because Trump has shown that he is prepared to smear the reputation of the intelligence community in order to save his own. And while Hoover was always paranoid about "subversives" worming their way into the government, not even he went so far as to hint at a possible conspiracy between the American president and the ruler in Moscow.

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Yet the jaw-dropping revelations were just beginning. Two days after the House hearing, on March 22, the Associated Press revealed that in 2005, Paul Manafort, Trump's erstwhile campaign manager, had signed a $10 million-a-year contract with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to "influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the United States, Europe and former Soviet republics to benefit President Vladimir Putin's government." This comes on top of Manafort's already disclosed work on behalf of Viktor Yanukovych, the deposed Ukrainian leader who is a close Kremlin ally. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's clumsy attempts to distance the president from Manafort  he claimed that Trump's former campaign manager played only a "very limited role for a very limited amount of time"  simply served to signal how serious this revelation actually is.

And, of course, Manafort is hardly the only current or former Trump associate with suspiciously close ties to Moscow. We have only recently learned that Michael Flynn, Trump's first national security advisor, made $68,000 while serving as a consultant to Russian firms in 2015. Campaign foreign-policy advisor Carter Page maintained close ties with the Kremlin and its state-owned oil companies. Longtime Trump advisor Roger Stone has admitted to communicating with "Guccifer 2.0," the moniker used by Russian intelligence to leak damaging information about Hillary Clinton, and with Julian Assange, the head of WikiLeaks, another Russian front organization. "Trust me, it will soon [be] the Podesta's time in the barrel," Stone tweeted on Aug. 21, 2016, weeks before WikiLeaks began leaking emails stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.

Even Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, it now emerges, met before the inauguration not just with Russia's ambassador to Washington but also with Sergey Gorkov, who is close to Putin, was trained by Russian intelligence, and runs a state-owned bank that has been placed on a U.S. sanctions list. No one knows what they discussed, but it's possible that Kushner, whose family real estate firm is desperate for foreign financing, was hoping to get an investment from this Russian bank to supplement the hundreds of millions of dollars it has sought from Chinese companies closely connected to the leadership in Beijing. (One wonders how Kushner has time to not only deal with Russia policy  but also to broker peace in the Middle East; advise on relations with China, Mexico, and Canada; and reorganize the whole U.S. government. Clearly Ivanka Trump married a man of prodigious and hitherto unsuspected talents.)

Perhaps there is an innocent explanation for all of these contacts between Trumpites and Putinites. Perhaps. But the sheer scale of the communication, and the efforts to conceal it, suggests the possibility of a nefarious connection that extends well beyond Trump's well-known admiration for Putin. If CNN's anonymous sources are to be believed, "The FBI has information that indicates associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign."

There is, to be sure, no proof that has yet been made public of such serious charges. They may well be false. But by now we do know enough to call for an energetic and impartial investigation  and it's doubtful that one will ever emerge from the House and Senate intelligence committees. Rep. Devin Nunes, the California Republican who chairs the House panel, has been particularly compromised not just by his service on Trump's transition team but also by his unbecoming eagerness to act as Trump's defender in this whole sordid business.

On March 22, Nunes went so far as to reveal classified information suggesting that either Trump himself or his aides might have been caught as "incidental" subjects of legally obtained surveillance. Having apparently acquired this information the previous day from an intelligence official in the White House, Nunes did not bother to notify his fellow committee members. Instead, he rushed out to try to buttress Trump's indefensible allegations of wrongdoing against former President Obama.

Trump predictably claimed vindication, but in fact Nunes' information was hardly exculpatory. In the first place, even Nunes did not allege that Obama did anything wrong or that Trump himself was the target of a wiretap. At most, Trump or his associates were caught chatting with someone else who was a target of lawful surveillance. This is a long, long way removed from "Nixon/Watergate" territory as Trump has tweeted, even if the intelligence community did not do a good enough job of completely "masking" the identity of the Trump officials. In any case, it is hardly reassuring to know that Trump or his aides were in regular contact with individuals whose communications were targeted as part of a criminal or counterintelligence investigation. Nunes' revelation raises far more questions than it answers: Just which unsavory characters were Trump and/or his aides talking to, and why? What were the motives of the intelligence official who was said to have leaked this information? And why are Nunes and Trump so selective in their outrage about leaking, only objecting when the resulting information hurts the president?

The only way we will begin to unravel this mystery is with the appointment of a special counsel to lead the Justice Department prosecution and of a bipartisan committee  either a House-Senate select committee or an outside panel like the one that investigated 9/11 to lead the public inquiry. Such an investigation will either clear Trump's name - or not. Either way, it will provide some relief from the nonstop drip of revelations.

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As New York Times columnist Charles Blow reminds us, on Nov. 3 the Trump campaign released a television ad claiming: "Hillary cannot lead a nation while crippled by a criminal investigation." The same is true of Trump: He cannot lead the nation while crippled by Kremlin-gate. It is thus in his own interest to facilitate a credible inquiry that will get to the bottom of this mess as soon as possible. Unless, of course, he has something to hide. In which case, his present conduct, designed to obfuscate and cover up, makes perfect sense.

Foreign Policy

Max Boot is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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Who's to blame for the failure of the Republican bill to repeal and replace Obamacare? Who cares? What matters now is that Democrats stop gloating, Republicans stop sulking and each party come to the table to improve a health care system that both parties agree needs work.

After the bill collapsed Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump accused the Democrats of obstruction, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused the president of incompetence, House Speaker Paul Ryan said health care was done and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi bragged that it was a great day. No one had the courage to pick up the pieces and point the way forward.

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The Affordable Care Act has provided health care coverage to millions more Americans, but there are still some 30 million with no insurance. Premiums are too high. The individual mandate isn't encouraging enough people to buy into the system. Some of its regulations and taxes make little sense. Insurance markets are too thin, providing consumers too little choice. Health care savings accounts do too little to encourage savings.

Republicans have viable ideas to address these issues, including high-risk insurance pools and capping the tax exclusion that companies get for providing employees with health insurance. It's regrettable that none of these ideas were seriously considered in the rush to repeal Obamacare.

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Equally regrettable is that Republicans appear to be giving up and moving on to other issues. If they can't get everything they want, they seem to have concluded, they'll take nothing. It's a bad strategy. As Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Saturday, Republicans need Democrats to reform health care. The art of governing is compromise  and not just within the majority party. The sooner Ryan accepts the fact that Democrats can be a cudgel to use against the Freedom Caucus, the more successful he and Congress will be.

Ronald Reagan was known to say that he would happily take 70 or 80 percent of what he wanted and come back for the rest later. Yet instead of living by Reagan's rule, Republicans are hung up on the Hastert Rule, named for Dennis Hastert, the former (and now disgraced) House speaker from Illinois: Generally speaking, only bills that can get through without Democratic votes are brought to the floor. This led the party to produce a deeply flawed health care bill that, ultimately, did not win strong support from the Republicans' moderate or tea party wings.

At the same time, Democrats steadfastly refused to reach across the aisle to produce a bipartisan alternative. Gloating only makes that more difficult.

On Friday, Schumer said that Democrats are ready to work with Republicans to improve the Affordable Care Act on one condition: that Republicans take repeal off the table. This is not an auspicious step. Democrats ought to allow Republicans to call a new bill whatever they want. The details are what matters, not the label.

Bloomberg

Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.

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A detained protester looks out of a police bus window March 26, 2017, in downtown Moscow. Russia's leading opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, and his supporters were aiming to hold anti-corruption demonstrations throughout Russia. But police have warned they won't be responsible for "negative consequences" or unsanctioned gatherings. (Denis Tyrin / AP)

The other day a man fell out of a fourth-floor Moscow apartment and suffered serious head injuries. The real surprise is not that Nikolai Gorokhov had an accident but that he survived. People who dare to challenge Russian President Vladimir Putin often don't. Gorokhov's fall came just a day before he was to appear in court on behalf of the family of Sergei Magnitsky  who died in a Russian prison cell where he languished after, yes, daring to challenge Putin.

Two days after Gorokhov's hard landing, a former Russian parliamentarian was shot to death in broad daylight in Kiev. It may not surprise you to learn that Denis Voronenkov had defected to Ukraine last year, had criticized Putin's seizure of Crimea and was planning to testify in a corruption case against a Putin ally. "This was the demonstrative murder of a witness, common for the Kremlin," charged Ukraine's prosecutor general, Yuri Lutsenko.

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Episodes like these are not rare: The Washington Post has counted 10 Putin critics who met sudden ends, often in mysterious or violent circumstances. The deaths make it appear someone wants to deter people from speaking out against the corruption, repression and brutality of the Russian president. They send the message that no dissenter is safe.

But on Sunday, Putin learned that some people are not easily cowed. In more than 90 cities, marchers turned out to protest corruption, with particular regard to Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev. He was the subject of an incriminating video put out by Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption crusader who has said he will run against Putin in 2018. Some protesters chanted "Shame!" and some brandished rubber ducks, a reference to the house for ducks Medvedev reportedly had built in a pond on one of his ill-gotten estates.

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A Moscow radio station estimated that more than 60,000 Russians had taken part in the demonstrations. In any case, they were reported to be the biggest unauthorized rallies in five years. Stiff sentences given to many protesters back then had discouraged dissent. But the revelations about Medvedev stirred new outrage that soon erupted into the streets.

This is not the only cause for Putin to worry. Hobbled by international sanctions, the economy is limping. Truckers are also planning a campaign of protests against new highway tolls.

These marches were notable for the large number of young people, who may have yet to absorb the full danger of defying the regime. Hundreds of protesters were arrested, others were beaten and Navalany got a 15-day sentence for supposedly resisting arrest. Worse may be in the offing, given Putin's brutal tendencies.

The West can't prevent Putin from dealing harshly with critics, but it can let him know his abuses won't be ignored or excused. In light of President Donald Trump's friendly attitude toward the Kremlin, it was a pleasant surprise to hear the U.S. State Department issue a statement condemning the mass arrests.

"Detaining peaceful protesters, human rights observers and journalists is an affront to core democratic values," said spokesman Mark Toner, who also decried the arrest of Navalny and the raid on his anti-corruption group's office.

Maybe Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and others in the administration are willing to judge Putin on the basis of his vicious record, not on Trump's foolish hopes. And it may be that the investigations and questions around the Trump campaign's contacts with Russian officials have left the president little room to cozy up to the Kremlin. Anything he might do to ingratiate himself with Putin would feed suspicions  particularly after the spectacle of Russian demonstrators being hauled off to jail

Amid his growing international isolation and signs of discontent at home, Putin may hope for sympathy or a show of support from the White House. He shouldn't get it.

Join the discussion on Twitter @Trib_Ed_Board and on Facebook.

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After reading the March 23 article in the Tribune about the couple from Chicago who plan to move to Colorado, I thought how different is the experience of visiting someplace and then living there.

The woman mentioned "how astonishingly clean and how fresh the air was." Once they move to Colorado, I wonder what they will think about what the fracking is doing to the ground water and how fracking is releasing so much poisonous methane gas into the air. And, once they try to find a home in the sprawling Denver area (I assume one of them will need a job  they'll need an urban area, unless they plan to buy a cattle ranch in the foothills) they'll discover the high cost of housing.

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My husband and I were born and raised in Chicago, but lived in other places for 19 years because of his job (military, transportation industry). Those places included Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Missouri, downstate Illinois and two Detroit suburbs. We were able to come back to the area where we have family and were thrilled to be able to live here again. The diversity, the many options for housing, the outstanding museums, the regional theater, the many music options, the outstanding universities and libraries, the lake and river all make Chicago a wonderful place to live and raise a family.

The current political standoff isn't just a Chicago problem; we've seen similar problems every place we've lived. We are staying.

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 Kaye Grabbe, Palatine
Scratch-off lottery tickets, some with handmade signs advertising unpaid prizes, are shown at Mare's Mini Mart & Deli on Chicago's Northwest Side. A Tribune investigation found the Illinois Lottery collected hundreds of millions of dollars from selling tickets to its biggest-prize instant games in which it did not award all of the grand prizes. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

Illinois taxpayers have funded about $2 million in "retention" bonuses for employees of a private firm managing the lottery despite the firm performing so poorly Illinois is working to replace it.

A Tribune investigation has found the state approved paying bonuses as part of a complicated deal it struck in 2015 with the firm, Northstar Lottery Group. Northstar agreed to end its 10-year deal early if the state met a host of conditions, including paying Northstar "disentanglement" fees, which included the bonuses.

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Records show Northstar offered an unspecified number of employees 30 to 50 percent of their base pay as a bonus for continuing to work through set periods. The bonus increased to 60 percent of base pay for those continuing to work the first half of this year.

While the bonuses made up the vast majority of disentanglement fees the state paid, those fees also included covering Northstar's additional travel and meeting expenses it says were related to the early breakup. Records show that ranged from one Northstar employee's $200 steakhouse dinner tab to nearly $800 to rent furniture for an empty apartment leased by Northstar.

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Exactly who's benefiting remains hidden from the public. Northstar won't name the employees receiving the bonuses and reimbursements. The lottery said it has no records of its own that identify them, won't push to get them and won't explain why.

The extra, taxpayer-borne fees helped boost state payments to Northstar and its owners higher than ever despite the lottery's tepid performance in recent years. Also helping Northstar: It no longer has to pay penalties for poor performance as it waits for the state to replace it  a process already delayed with no specific timetable.

The extra fees illustrate one more questionable action in Illinois' first-in-the-nation experiment to privatize its lottery.

In December, the Tribune documented how the lottery, under Northstar's management, failed to award many of the biggest prizes for scratch-off games and how state officials repeatedly missed warning signs of the practice. The findings spurred state lawmakers to say they planned to hold a legislative hearing this spring.

As for the latest findings, a government contracting expert told the Tribune it's not unusual for vendors that know they'll be replaced to force the government to pay them more to keep them on the job in the meantime.

"Oftentimes the government agency gets pinned in a corner because they have no 'out,'" said Adam Williams, an assistant professor of public administration at the University of Illinois at Springfield.

But, Williams said, he wondered why, in this case, the state would agree to specifically fund Northstar's retention bonuses.

"Was it a situation where (Northstar was) threatening to walk away from the table if they didn't do that?" he said.

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That's unclear. The lottery declined an interview request and also declined to answer in detail a set of written questions.

The disentanglement fees stemmed from an unusual evolution of an unusual contract.

In July 2011, Illinois became the first state to hire a private firm to manage its lottery; and to do so, it let two longtime lottery vendors form a firm that got a 10-year management deal. That management firm, Northstar, in turn awarded lucrative, no-bid subcontracts to the longtime vendors that formed it.

But Northstar struggled to make the lofty revenue projections it pitched in its bid, leading to years of disputes over who was to blame and how much in penalties Northstar should pay.

In 2014, aides to then-Gov. Pat Quinn brokered a deal to settle the disputes and end the contract early. That deal was invalidated, and Quinn lost to Bruce Rauner, whose aides then renegotiated the Quinn deal.

Both deals offered Northstar and its vendors to collectively be paid more money than ever, although they differed on specifics.

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Beyond waiving penalties and keeping a management allowance, both deals agreed to pay up to $17 million a year in disentanglement fees. The Quinn proposal made no mention of paying retention bonuses for Northstar employees, while the Rauner deal specifically mentioned them. Under the Rauner pact, those bonuses made up more than 80 percent of disentanglement fees paid to Northstar in the most recent fiscal year.

In a statement, Lottery spokesman Jason Schaumburg traced the idea of paying disentanglement fees to the Quinn administration.

"At no time did the Rauner administration agree to pay any additional amounts of disentanglement expenses beyond what had been previously negotiated and agreed to by the Quinn administration," he said.

The deals had another key difference: Quinn's deal had the state directly vetting expenses, while Rauner's assigned vetting to a third-party firm paid by the state and Northstar. That firm, StoneTurn Group, OK'd Northstar's disentanglement expenses and filed reports saying the bonuses appeared "reasonable" based on "market research of third-party sources."

Schaumburg said StoneTurn added "an extra layer of oversight," but there's no record the state independently vetted the expenses, and Schaumburg declined to answer how paying the bonuses for Northstar employees benefited taxpayers.

In a statement issued through one of its attorneys, David Dahlquist, Northstar said it is in "full compliance" with the new contract.

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It's unclear exactly who's getting these bonuses and how much each has gotten.

The Tribune filed a request under Illinois' open records law, which generally requires governments to spell out how taxpayer money is spent, even if they need to get the records from government vendors. The lottery said it lacked records of how the money was spent. It said it went to Northstar, and Northstar provided the state heavily redacted records, with the identities of recipients blackened out, that the state then provided to the Tribune.

State employees routinely have their names and pay released to the public. But another Northstar attorney, Kim Barker Lee, said in a letter to the state that Northstar won't identify publicly who got paid what.

"An employee of a private company should not be subject to the same scrutiny as a public employee merely because his or her employer chooses to do business with the state," Lee wrote.

The state won't say whether it has sought unredacted records from StoneTurn and, if so, why it hasn't provided them to the Tribune.

What's left are records of meetings and travel paid by the state, with names blacked out. Still, the remaining details raise questions.

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There was nearly $700 in hotel, food and mileage expenses for an employee to travel to Chicago and Springfield for no specified disentanglement purpose  only notations that there were Christmas parties to attend in each place.

The same employee fronted nearly $800 as an "initial payment" to rent furniture for an empty apartment Northstar still had under lease for its onetime CEO, saying it would be cheaper to furnish it than stay at a hotel the next time he was in town.

There was also a $360 dinner meeting for four that included steaks priced up to $49 each and $16 glasses of wine.

And there was another $200 spent on just one Northstar employee's tab for another steakhouse dinner meeting  with no receipt explaining how one employee racked up such an expense.

Northstar, in its statement, noted all of its invoices are reviewed by StoneTurn to ensure they comply with the agreement. It referred additional questions to the lottery.

The lottery declined to say if and how it thought such expenses were justified.

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The state policy governing travel doesn't list allowances for renting apartment furniture. But it does offer a limit for an in-state dinner for state employees, including those at the lottery: $17 per person.

jmahr@chicagotribune.com

mwalberg@chicagotribune.com

Twitter: @joemahr

Twitter: @mattwalberg1
In response to the Tribune's "Price of Pork" investigative series, state Sen. David Koehler, D-Peoria, and other lawmakers introduced four bills in Springfield regulating large livestock confinements. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune) (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

As pork producers exploit weak laws to build and expand large hog confinements across rural Illinois, neighboring farmers have complained their rights are being trampled while waste spills poison local streams and sickening gases ruin families' lives and property values.

But after years of frustration and legislative inaction, lawmakers on Tuesday announced four new bills that would tighten Illinois' lax environmental protections and give local citizens more input in the permitting process, as well as standing to challenge the massive facilities in court.

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The bills, proposed in response to the Tribune's August investigation, "The Price of Pork," would represent the first significant reforms to Illinois' 1996 Livestock Management Facilities Act, which has been criticized for failing to keep pace with the dramatic growth of swine confinements. Holding thousands of pigs and sometimes producing millions of gallons of manure annually, the operations now account for more than 90 percent of Illinois' $1.5 billion in annual hog sales.

"What is going on in our rural communities and to many of our farmers and farm families is wrong and unjust and we can do better than this for them," Fulton County farmer Craig Porter said Tuesday at a Springfield news conference held by Democratic state Sen. David Koehler of Peoria, a sponsor of two of the bills.

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Porter described his frustrating efforts to halt a proposed 20,000-head hog operation near his homestead  a facility planned by a Wall Street-traded real estate investment trust and an affiliate of leading pork producer Professional Swine Management.

"Repairing the lax rules, ambiguous siting criteria and other large loopholes in the (Illinois law) should have been done years ago to protect family farmers and residents," he said.

Flanked by several farm families from across Illinois, Koehler said he and other lawmakers modeled the new bills on existing laws in nearby livestock-producing states such as Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin. "This is a common-sense approach. This is not radical," Koehler said.

One bill would require all confinements to register with the state Environmental Protection Agency. Koehler said he was shocked to learn that state officials have no idea how many large hog confinements are operating in the state, or where many of them are located  a loophole that makes it nearly impossible to monitor and regulate the factorylike operations.

"That is something I found alarming. We're going to try and correct that," Koehler said. "We think the state of Illinois needs to have a record of who's doing business in this state. That's not unreasonable. People in rural areas need to know what's really going on in their communities."

A second bill would close a frequently used loophole in Illinois law that allows new confinements to be constructed without a permit when they can be deemed an expansion of previous livestock operations.

The third would require that facilities file waste management plans before they are constructed, and publicly disclose these plans if county officials and local residents request hearings on the proposed operations. Currently in Illinois, any facility housing up to 12,499 grown pigs can begin operations without disclosing that kind of information. The waste plans concern nearby farmers because the facilities apply stored manure to nearby cropland as fertilizer, and overapplication can lead to toxic runoff and devastate the surrounding environment.

And the final bill would give neighbors standing to challenge the Agriculture Department in court if they think mistakes were made in approving a construction permit. Citizens currently have no recourse once the permit is approved, even if they believe the department's decision was flawed. The bill also would double the amount of time local residents have to request an informational hearing and object to a proposed confinement. Such hearings are held if a local county board requests one or if at least 75 citizens petition. But many farmers and small-town residents told the Tribune they felt the meetings were meaningless and their concerns were ignored or ridiculed.

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Koehler said of the state's booming livestock industry: "We're seeing an increase in activity and an increase in frustration."

Both the Illinois Farm Bureau and the Illinois Pork Producers Association declined to comment Tuesday on the four proposed bills, saying they have not reviewed the details of the legislation.

The two organizations carry significant political weight in Springfield and in 2014 shot down a similar, ambitious effort to overhaul the livestock act. They, along with other agriculture groups, argue that large livestock confinements provide jobs in rural counties as well as a market for local grain farmers, and help hold down the market price of the most widely consumed meat in the world.

The Tribune series sparked calls for reform from lawmakers including U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin as well as local efforts to halt or slow the construction of new facilities. The series found that hog waste spills accounted for nearly half of the 1 million fish killed in Illinois water pollution incidents from 2005 to 2014 and impaired 67 miles of rivers and waterways during that time.

Neighboring farmers also said their lives and property values were ruined by noxious gases from the giant confinements. Hog waste releases hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, which can cause respiratory illness when mixed with airborne animal dander and fecal dust, public health studies have found.

"Small-town America here in Illinois along with rural families and businesses are being sold out due to the lack of adequate laws for industrial animal confinement operations," said Heidi Foil, whose home and animal care business are located roughly 2 miles from a pair of proposed 20,000-hog confinements in Vermilion County. Foil said at the news conference that she also fears that waste released from the underground storage pits will ruin a stream that runs through her property.

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She said of Illinois: "We've become a lax and cheap place for mass numbers of these factory farms to set up shop."

Matt Howe, an eighth-generation grain and livestock farmer, said he resigned from the Fulton County Farm Bureau's board of directors earlier this year to protest the group's apparent support of a proposed 20,000-head hog confinement about 3,000 feet from his farm and home.

"The land that we use is not just a tool to pad portfolios," Howe said. "It's a living, breathing thing rooted in my community."

After the news conference, Jennifer Walling, executive director of the Illinois Environmental Council, an advocacy group, said Koehler is working with a coalition of rural legislators to get the agricultural interests to negotiate.

She called the bills a solid first step. "There's more we'd like to do, but these are reforms we want to see enacted," Walling said.

dyjackson@chicagotribune.com

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gmarx@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @poolcar4

Twitter @GaryJMarx
A tribute to America's dad, Tom Hanks, an exploration of racial identity and a live recording of a podcast from some throwback friends all round out this week in local Chicago comedy.

Thursday, March 30

Fortune Feimster

Zanies

1548 N. Wells St. 312-337-4027

From her days as a semi-finalist on "Last Comic Standing" to her current gig as nurse Colette on "The Mindy Project," Fortune Feimster has been moving on up in the comedy world. She and her charming Southern drawl headline through Saturday. 8:30 p.m. $25 plus a two-item food or drink minimum. Tickets: zanies.com

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Jay and Silent Bob Get Old

The Vic Theatre

3145 N. Sheffield Ave. 773-472-0449

The stoner duo (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith) who spent the '90s and early 2000s making cameos in Smith's movies"Clerks," "Dogma," "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back," etc.record their popular podcast about growing up in the Hollywood spotlight live. 8 p.m. $39.50. Tickets: victheatre.com

Saturday, April 1

The Last Circus

The Revival

1160 E. 55th St.

Politics, current events and pop culture make up the three crazy rings in this new sketch comedy revue. 7:30 p.m. $15. $5 for students. Tickets: the-revival.com

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The 14th Annual International Tom Hanks Day

Lincoln Hall

2424 N. Lincoln Ave. 773-525-2501

If you've been looking for an excuse to celebrate the American treasure that is actor Tom Hanks, now's your chance. This nationwide April Fools' Day joke turned legit tribute features drink specials, movie screenings and an assortment of other Hanks-related surprises. Proceeds benefit educational programming group Lifeline Energy. Noon. $10 suggested donation gets you past the door to drink specials. More information: thetomhanksday.com

Wham City Comedy

The Hideout

1354 W. Wabansia Ave. 773-227-4433

The folks behind Baltimore-based comedy and video collective Wham City are known for their viral Adult Swim videos and absurdist style. 7 p.m. $8. Tickets: hideoutchicago.com

Tuesday, April 4

You Listen to White People Music?

The Playground Theater

3209 N. Halsted St. 773-871-3793

Allison Reese explores periods, cup-stacking and racial identity through song, stories and stand-up in this one woman show about her experiences as a "13-year-old closeted half black girl from Mesa, Ariz." 8 p.m. $5. Tickets: theplaygroundtheater.com

Gwendolyn Purdom is a freelance writer.
Arlington Heights police are investigating a report of two men, one of whom is pictured here in surveillance video, who are suspected of committing an armed robbery at a title loan business in the village. (Arlington Heights Police Department / HANDOUT)

Arlington Heights police are investigating a report of two men suspected of committing an armed robbery earlier this month at a title loan business in the village, police said.

After two men entered the Illinois Title Loan location at 822 W. Northwest Highway at around 10 a.m. March 18, one of them reportedly pointed a silver semi-automatic pistol at an employee and demanded cash, said Arlington Heights Police Sgt. Joe Pinnello.

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The employee complied, and the two men left the business, with one of them carrying an undisclosed amount of cash in a white bag, Pinnello said.

The first man suspected in the crime is described as having a medium build, around six feet tall, wearing a black ski mask with the eyes and mouth exposed, a black hoodie, dark colored jeans, tan boots and carrying a silver handgun, Pinnello said.

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The second man is described as having a thin build, around six feet tall, wearing a black ski mask with the eyes and mouth exposed, a black jacket, dark pants and white shoes, Pinnello said.

Anyone with information about this or any other crime in Arlington Heights can submit an anonymous tip through text message by texting the keyword 847AHPD, along with your message, to 847411.

Residents also can leave anonymous tips by calling Arlington Heights Crime Stoppers at (847) 590-STOP. Callers may qualify for a cash reward of up to $1,000, police said.

kcullotta@tribpub.com

Twitter @kcullotta
Students at South Middle School in Arlington Heights (pictured) teamed up with teens from nearby Prospect High School for the anti-bullying campaign "Dude. Be nice." (Karen Ann Cullotta / Pioneer Press)

Students at South Middle School in Arlington Heights teamed up with teens from nearby Prospect High School this month to spread kindness and compassion with the anti-bullying campaign "Dude. Be nice."

The week-long campaign also was a chance for Prospect students and South alumni, including Lili Schober, 17, to return to Cardinal country as mentors bringing an anti-bullying message to the middle school students.

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"I don't remember bullying being a huge problem when I went to South, but we all know people who have been bullied in their lives, and it's still a problem," said Lili, a junior at Prospect.

Schober worked with Prospect junior Hanna Walker, 16, to bring the national "Dude. Be nice" campaign to South for their project for the Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) 2017 competition.

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The pair recently took first place in a regional competition and will soon be headed to the state event in Springfield, said Lisa Curtin, a teacher at Prospect and the high school's FCCLA sponsor.

The campaign at South featured anti-bullying video messages during the morning announcements at the middle school, an all-school assembly and students donning spirit wear with a "Dude. Be Nice" message, Curtin said.

"I think for many students, high school can be better than middle school, which is a tough time for many kids because they're trying to find themselves," Curtin said. "You have all of these elementary schools coming together, and kids are trying to establish a friendship base, and they all want to be popular and known for something."

Jenna Hacker, a South Spanish teacher and student council sponsor, said that while bullying is not a major issue at the middle school, the recent campaign tried to reinforce to students the idea of treating others with kindness and respect.

"It's always a great thing to give the students a week-long reminder of what kind behavior looks like," Hacker said.

After all, more middle school students likely will take the message to heart when it's coming from an older student in high school, who they can relate to, rather than from their teachers, Hacker said.

Eighth grader Grace Martin, 14, South's student council president, said most middle school students have zero tolerance for bullying.

"I think it's different than it was a long time ago, and it's gotten a lot better," Grace said. "Bullying can start as saying something in a bad way or teasing, so we're letting people know that even if they think they're joking, some people might take what they're saying seriously."

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kcullotta@tribpub.com

Twitter @kcullotta
Seventh grader Toby Miles-Siemsen picks up his lunch at Thomas Middle School in Arlington Heights. Students at the school celebrated International Languages Week with a special lunch menu last week. (Brian O'Mahoney / Pioneer Press)

Students at Thomas Middle School in Arlington Heights recently expanded their palates with a lunch-time tasting menu that featured cuisine from China, France, Germany and Spain as part of International Languages Week.

The sampling of international foods, which was served alongside the regular daily lunch menu at the school, included everything from bratwurst, German potato salad, egg rolls and Chinese bubble tea to Spanish charcuterie meats, cheeses, olives, croissants, and lemon crepes, said Coletta Hines-Newell, the director of food services for Arlington Heights School District 25.

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"The language teachers asked if we could do something at lunch time to celebrate the four languages taught at Thomas, so we decided to offer a special menu for each country over four days," Hines-Newell said. "It looks like we've had about 35 percent of our students buying the international lunch each day, which is really good, considering that some kids can be pretty picky at this age."

The middle school's language teachers bolstered the international celebration by decorating the lunchroom and playing music corresponding to each of the countries represented from March 20 through March 23, Hines-Newell said.

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Spanish language teacher Amy DeLuca said she was excited that the district's food services staff decided to serve students a Spanish tapas-style menu, which was special ordered for the International Languages Week celebration at the school.

"The kids were willing to try the Spanish meats, cheeses and olives, and they got to see how these foods are very different from the dishes that are popular in Latin America," DeLuca said.

Seventh grader Spencer Sadler, 13, who studies German at Thomas Middle School, said he bought the international lunch entrees each of the four days.

"It was really good, and I enjoyed all of the different styles of food all week," said Spencer, who munched on a ham and cheese croissant, saving his lemon crepe for last on March 23, which featured French food.

"So far, I liked the German cheesecake the best, but I'm excited to try this French crepe," Spencer said.

Seventh grader Ashley Oiler, 13, who is enrolled in Spanish class at Thomas, said she liked trying the different menu options.

"It's a lot of fun because we don't get this kind of stuff every day, and it's nice to eat something different," she said.

kcullotta@tribpub.com

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A 38-year-old Aurora man charged with a slew of felonies in connection with a Monday pursuit and crash has fled the hospital where he was receiving treatment, authorities said.

The afternoon pursuit, initiated by a Kane County Sheriff's deputy, ended with the chased car crashing into a pole in Aurora.

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The passenger in the car, a 37-year-old Aurora man, was taken to Rush-Copley Medical Center in Aurora with potentially life-threatening injuries and has not been charged, according to the sheriff's office.

The driver, Billy J. Cole Jr., of the 2000 block of Greyhawk, Aurora, ran from the car and through a nearby cemetery, where officers eventually caught him and got him into handcuffs, said sheriff's spokesman Lt. Patrick Gengler.

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On Tuesday, Cole again eluded authorities by leaving the hospital where he was taken Monday after the crash, and a warrant has been issued for his arrest, sheriff's officials said.

Officials are investigating a one-car crash in Aurora Monday at Ashland Avenue and Route 25. (Paule Curtean / Handout)

The sheriff's office did not have anyone stationed at the hospital, and it was their understanding Cole was likely to be there for another day, Gengler said.

"I think he just walked out," Gengler said in an email. "We were literally in the process of getting the warrant ready to go to court when he fled."

In a news release Tuesday, Gengler announced the sheriff's office had concluded its preliminary investigation into the pursuit and crash.

At the time of the pursuit, deputies were unaware the ex-girlfriend of the passenger had reported the car "taken without her consent" on Sunday to the Aurora Police Department, according to the sheriff's office.

The chase started at 3:35 p.m. when a sheriff's deputy said he saw a black Ford Fusion traveling north on Lafayette Street in Aurora at a high rate of speed. The deputy activated his emergency lights and sirens, and attempted to stop the car, according to the sheriff's office.

Instead, the driver of the Fusion kept going, turning south on Route 25, officials said.

The speed of the car will be determined after Aurora police are done with their investigation, but the deputy called out 45 mph, Gengler said.

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About two minutes after the deputy first tried to stop the car, it struck a traffic signal pole on the southeast corner of Route 25 and Ashland Avenue, according to the sheriff's office.

Cole ran into a cemetery near the intersection, and continued to run although a deputy gave him several commands to stop, according to the sheriff's office. The deputy released his police dog, but Cole climbed a fence and avoided the dog, according to the sheriff's office. The deputy ordered his dog to stop and walked through an opening in the fence, then ordered Cole to the ground, officials said.

When at first Cole did not comply, the deputy drew his Taser and again ordered Cole to come down, at which point he complied and was taken into custody, Gengler said. Cole was transported to Rush-Copley Medical Center. His injuries are believed to be non-life-threatening, Gengler said.

While the foot chase was playing out, other responding officers went to the crashed car and discovered the passenger still inside, according to the sheriff's office. Officers did not recover any contraband from the men or the car, Gengler said.

At about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, sheriff's deputies were notified that Cole had fled the hospital, Gengler said in the news release.

Charges were filed Tuesday against Cole for alleged aggravated fleeing and attempting to elude a police officer, a class 3 felony; aggravated reckless driving causing great bodily harm, disability or disfigurement, a class 4 felony; leaving the scene of a personal injury accident, a class 4 felony; driving on a revoked license where two or more people were injured, a class 4 felony; driving on a license revoked for DUI, a class 4 felony; resisting or obstructing a peace officer, a class A misdemeanor; and disobeying a stop sign, a traffic offense. Cole also has an outstanding, unserved order of protection from Sangamon County.

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Cole may be wearing a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants, according to the news release.

Because of the nature of the passenger's injuries, in accordance with Illinois state statute, the investigation has been turned over to an independent agency, the Aurora Police Department, according to the sheriff's office.

Aurora police are handling the administrative portion and conducting crash reconstruction, said police spokesman Dan Ferrelli. Whether applicable protocol was followed during the pursuit and what factors caused the car to strike the pole are part of the ongoing investigation and have not been determined, Ferrelli said in an email.

The sheriff's office will also conduct its own administrative review of the chase.

Aurora police reports don't indicate what time the car was taken Sunday or where it was parked, but apparently it was in the 100 block of North Fourth, Ferrelli said. The passenger's ex-girlfriend gave him permission to drive the car when he took it, but he refused to return it to her when she asked for it back, Ferrelli said. No charges have been filed in that case pending further investigation, he said.

In December 2016, Cole was charged with two counts of aggravated DUI on a suspended or revoked license, both class 4 felonies; reckless driving, a class A misdemeanor; and driving with license revoked, a class A misdemeanor, according to Kane County court records.

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He also has pending charges including attempted murder, class 3 felony aggravated battery and misdemeanor DUI in connection with a December 2015 attack in Aurora while he was driving a Chevrolet Malibu with three passengers, according to court records. The four men were on their way back from a night of partying in Chicago on a Sunday morning when Cole began to argue with one of his back seat passengers, the Beacon-News reported. Police said Cole allegedly became enraged, pulled over to the side of the road and stabbed the man in the leg, then put the car back in gear and continued driving and arguing. When the car was stopped at a red light near the Aurora police station, the man who was stabbed ran out and the driver allegedly attempted to strike him with the car, the Beacon-News reported.

Cole subsequently crashed into several cars before stopping, causing non-life-threatening injuries to other people involved and sustaining injuries that required him to be airlifted to a hospital..

His attorney in that case did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment Tuesday. Court records indicate Cole is next to appear on the previous cases at 1 p.m. April 12 before Judge Donald M. Tegeler, Jr.

Cole's past felony convictions in Kane County have included manufacture or delivery of cannabis, aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, armed violence, reckless discharge of a firearm, disarming a peace officer, mob action and escape or violation of electronic monitoring, records show.

hleone@tribpub.com

Twitter @hannahmleone
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.
South Africa's Ministry of Trade and Industry on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on strategic cooperation with Bank of China in Johannesburg to strengthen the relations between the two entities.

The MOU will enable both parties to treat each other as a preferred partner and share information on investment opportunities.

It will also enable both parties to optimize their own advantages in initiating mutual investment promotion campaigns and to join hands in supporting enterprises of the two countries for more profound investments, as well as economic and trade cooperation.

Dr. Rob Davies, minister of trade and industry, said the signing of the MOU will enhance cooperation between the two countries. "The MOU will allow and strengthen the relations between the government of South Africa and Bank of China, joint sponsorship of seminars and marketing activities."

He also said that both parties will hold a joint investment seminar on May 8-11 in China to promote opportunities in the interests of both countries.

Davies said South Africa will use the opportunity to promote the Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and try to attract investment, noting that South Africa's relationship with China is bearing fruit with investments from Chinese companies.

He said that the MOU is also the "fruition" of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which was held in his country in 2015.

"This is a step forward in the bilateral relations, many of which are at different stages nearing fruition. The MOU will allow for joint promotion of the Special Economic Zones, important developmental projects critical to the realization of our shared dreams. Bank of China is critical in facilitating investment projects and industrial finance," he said.

He said they would need China's assistance to realize their dream of economic development through SEZ. South Africa will send 40 government officials this year to be trained for SEZ development in China.

"The MOU will enable both parties to establish much closer coordination scheme(s), focus on the plan of 10 major cooperation projects, and give full support to the mutual investment and market expansion of enterprises from (the) two countries," he said.

Bank of China chairperson, Tian Guoli, said Sino-South African cooperation is growing very fast. He agreed with Davies that the 2015 FOCAC promoted comprehensive development of the bilateral relations.

"Though geographically far apart from each other, the friendship between the peoples of China and South Africa has endured the test of time and has grown deeper and stronger."

The Sino-South African relations have great potential to grow, said Tian, adding that Bank of China has played a pivotal role in facilitating China's African strategies and building a bridge of friendship and economic and trade cooperation between the two countries.

The bank has established branches in seven African countries and has networks in Africa among Chinese commercial banks.

"Bank of China has confidence in Africa's development. Through the operation of these banks, we have constructed a financial service network covering mainly African regions to (use) China's financial strengths and contribute to the economic and social development of African countries," Tian said.
This year Beijing will continue to cut coal consumption by 30 percent in an effort to control total coal consumption within 7 million tons.

Since the program for reducing coal consumption began in 2013, Beijing has slashed the total volume burned by over 13 million tons from 23 million tons in 2012 to 10 million tons at the end of 2016.

Efforts this year will be intensified to cut coal-burning by industry, rural homes and heating systems. In the industrial sector, cement producers will be a particular focus as a large amount of coal ash is required for clinker filler in the production process.

On March 18, the last coal-fired thermal power plant in Beijing was shut down, allowing the capital to enter the coal-free era in local power generation.

Data shows that, last year, the plants coal-fired units actually burned about 1.76 million tons of coal. Closure will result in an annual reduction of more than 480 tons invarious emissions, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and dust.

All districts in Beijing have been allocated various tasks. A coal-free energy structure will be fulfilled in the six districts and the southern plains at the end of this year.

PetroChina will also speed up the construction of a natural gas pipeline to secure adequate supply to Beijing, with a target of beginning operations before the end of October.
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People place flowers on a lawn for the deceased in Chaoyang Districts Changqing Cemetery.

Beijing held a "natural burial" ceremony to inter ashes of 31 deceased persons on March 25, officially providing a free method of the burial for the first time.

The deceased would rest in the lawn of Chaoyang Districts Changqing Cemetery, with their ashes placed into a biodegradable container, which will dissolve in about six months. The ashes will become part of the soil. The public need not pay if choosing this method of interment.

The cemetery can house 15,000 caskets, equaling ten urns per square meter, which helps to restore hundreds and thousands of acres used for traditional cemeteries.

Relatives who choose the lawn burials can obtain bronze commemorative plaques engraved with the persons name and a QR code.

Upon scanning the code, one can view online the persons photos, videos, biography, family tree and leave condolences in a message section.

In 2016 Beijing organized 61 sea-burial funerals, which is also free, for the cremated remains of 2,456 deceased persons.
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China uncovered 1,481 drug-related cases involving foreign suspects in 2016, the National Narcotics Control Commission said Monday.

A total of 1,876 foreign suspects were caught for drug-related offenses and 6.6 tonnes of drugs were confiscated last year, the commission said, adding that online drug trafficking also grew last year.

In 2016, Chinese police caught 21,000 suspects in a campaign to crack down on online drug trafficking, confiscating 10.8 tonnes of drugs, it said.

China also handled 446 drug-dealing cases in 2016 involving guns, covering 29 provincial level regions, it said.

DRUG-MAKING

According to a report issued by the commission, Chinese police handled 583 cases related to drug production and busted 438 drug-production sites nationwide last year.

The report said police uncovered 33 cases that involved more than a tonne of drugs in 2016, more than double the previous year. There were also 78 cases involving more than 100 kilograms of drugs, a year-on-year increase of 32 percent.

Last year, police uncovered 444 cases of producing, transporting, selling and purchasing chemicals and equipment used in drug production, according to the report.

It also noted that China faces great challenges in controlling new psychoactive substances, saying that despite the country listing 116 psychoactive substances as controlled substances in October 2015, illegal drug producers continue to create new drugs.

COCAINE CASES

Chinese police confiscated 430.6 kg of cocaine in 64 smuggling cases in 2016, according to the report.

Cocaine mainly enters southern China's Guangdong Province and Hong Kong from South America, and by the end of 2016, China had 394 registered cocaine abusers.

The Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia remains the main source for methamphetamine consumed in China, it said.

It also said that the Golden Crescent, which overlaps parts of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, remains the world's largest area for growing opium and producing heroin.

In 2016, China handled 22 cases involving heroin being smuggled from the Golden Crescent, seizing 24 kg of heroin.

ADDICTION GROWING

According to the report, the number of drug addicts in China is still slowly growing, and there were about 2.51 million drug users in the country as of the end of 2016, an increase of 6.8 percent year on year.

Among them, about 22,000 people were under 18, and more than 1.46 million were aged from 18 to 35, said the report, adding that the percentage of new addicts belonging to these two groups dropped in 2016.

The growth in drug users addicted to heroin slowed in the year, while the number addicted to synthetic drugs, including methamphetamine and ketamine, increased faster, the report said.

About 1.52 million drug users were addicted to synthetic drugs in 2016.

China launched a project to promote community drug detoxification and rehabilitation in 2015. The project has focused on setting up local institutions and recruiting volunteers. About 81,000 staff and volunteers are now working for community-based rehab programs.

China's anti-drug efforts have also intensified. Chinese police arrested 168,000 suspects for drug production or trafficking and solved 140,000 drug-related criminal cases last year.
Lei Wenfeng, a 15-year-old with autism, was found dead after staying at a squalid care center three months after he wandered away from his father. [Photo/boyangcongpeople]

The investigation of the death of an autistic teenager at a care center in Guangdong province has led to the dismissal of four local officials and criminal detention of 13 people, and the central government called on Monday for better care of homeless people.

A joint investigation group formed by various authorities of Guangdong has found that some officials in the city of Shaoguan and its Xinfeng county failed to perform their duties.

The joint group decided to sack Chen Jinghui, Party chief of Xinfeng where the care center is located, and Lai Qixin, deputy director of Shaoguan's civil affairs bureau, which is supposed to review applications from such care agencies and supervise their operations.

The other two who were removed are Long Yongwen, former civil affairs bureau chief of Shaoguan and now head of the city's water bureau, and Liu Xiangtie, chief of Xinfeng's civil affairs bureau, Xinhua reported on Monday.

The probe was triggered by the death of Lei Wenfeng, a 15-year-old autistic boy who got lost and stayed more than a month in the Lianxi care center before dying in December. The center, which is privately operated under contract with local civil affairs authorities, cares for people of all ages.

Investigators have also found that some local officials gave irresponsible approval to the Lianxi care center project and earned money illegally from its operation.

Four officials, including former head of the Xinfeng civil affairs bureau Li Cuiqiong and former deputy head Pan Zhong'ai, are being investigated for abuse of power. Five other officials, including Yi Biheng, another former head of the county's civil affairs bureau, are being investigated for dereliction of duty.

All nine are under criminal coercive measures, a judicial term for restriction or denial of personal rights. Of them, Li, Pan and Yi have also been put in criminal detention, according to the release.

In addition, local police have put in criminal detention two executives and eight staff members of the care center. Investigators found that those who ran the care center misused government funds that were supposed to have been used to help the homeless and maltreated some of those being cared for in the center.

Also on Monday, the Ministry of Civil Affairs held a nationwide teleconference to strengthen inspection of all aid stations for the homeless across the country. Such stations, usually government-run, provide care to a person for three months, after which time the person is transferred to a care center.

The ministry required that those who need from 10 to 90 days' care should be cared for at the aid stations, rather than being transferred to a care center operated by a third party.

Local civil affairs officers should make serious efforts to help these people search for family members.
A Chinese official has used an unlikely networking method to get in contact with Lei Jun, CEO of China's tech giant Xiaomi, posting a notice on social media seeking business cooperation with the company.

Ji Xiang, vice mayor of Ma'anshan in Anhui Province, has come under the spotlight after his handwritten notice seeking contact with a tech mogul posted on his WeChat friends' circle went viral.

"If anyone in my 'omnipotent' friends' circle can reach Lei Jun, please introduce us as the city wants to work with him on a project," wrote the 47-year-old official.

Within 10 minutes, said Ji, 10 friends offered to help, out of his circle of over 5,000 friends, ranging from senior government leaders to blue-collar workers, on the social media platform.

"We are now communicating with senior executives in Xiaomi Inc. via a WeChat group to discuss potential cooperation," he said. Ji claimed social media had greatly boosted work efficiency and helped consolidate resources within a large circle of "friends."

The vice mayor publishes an average of up to 70 posts a day, including his updates as well as shared news and articles.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has told officials to heed public opinion using the internet and has encouraged them to make greater use of the internet to learn about the concerns and wishes of the people.
Ousted South Korean President Park Geun-hye leaves the prosecutors' office in Seoul, South Korea, March 22, 2017. (Xinhua/Lee Sang-ho)

South Korean President Park Guen-hye resigned on March 12, following her impeachment and huge public demonstrations. She is accused of bribery, influence peddling, and permitting shamanistic rituals in the Presidential palace.

Senior government officials and business interests are also implicated. For example, Samsung is accused of donating 43 billion Won ($40 million) to foundations run by the former president's confidant, Choi Soon-sil. Her father Choi Tae-min is a shamanistic-evangelical cult leader; and her ex-husband Chung Yoon-hoi is Park's former chief of staff.

Samsung is accused of funding Choi Soon-sil's daughter's equestrian training in Germany. The mother now sits in jail accused of forcing local firms to "donate" nearly $70 million (?60 million) to her non-profit foundations.

In the forthcoming presidential poll in May, Moon Jae-in, a former human rights lawyer and political veteran from the opposition Democratic Party, is expected to win. He is popular with youth and promises reforms to improve their employment prospects at a time of a high jobless rate (see chart).

South Korea's political turmoil is an after-effect of the Great Recession of 2008-9. From the 1960s to the 1980s Korean capitalism grew by an average of 8 percent a year and per capita GDP rose from $104 in 1962 to $5,438 in 1989. In 2012, Korea became the seventh member of the "20-50 club" - major capitalist economies with populations over 50 million and per capita incomes exceeding $20,000.

Succeeding rulers pursued a successful State-directed industrialization and export strategy for nearly 50 years. The country's manufacturing sector grew from 14.3 percent of GDP in 1962 to 30.3 percent in 1987. And, within two generations, Korea entered the OECD and its corporate national champions became global brands.

However, Karl Marx's law of profitability offers another plausible explanation for this period of success for Korean capitalism. The Korean rate of profit rose in the 1960s until the late 1970s. Then the rate of profit declined from its 1978 peak to reach a low in 2002. So, we can observe that the decline in the rate of profit during the 1980s and 1990s was an underlying factor behind the so-called Asian crisis and slump in 1997.

The Asian crisis led to a sharp devaluation of capital values in Korea as bankrupt companies were written off and unemployment rose. This was followed by neoliberal measures to boost profitability.

However, after a mild recession in 2001, Korean profitability continued to decline until the global financial collapse in 2008, since when, Korean capitalism has experienced a long depression.

Korean capitalism also faces major structural challenges. It has one of the lowest birth rates in the world and a rapidly aging society. The working age population will peak this year and then decline rapidly. And, after 2025, the population size is expected to shrink.

Korea's exports exceed 50 percent of GDP, but U.S. President Donald Trump's protectionist agenda will undermine this. Already, industrial sectors like shipbuilding, shipping, steel, and petrochemicals face stiff competition from China, as well as suffering from a slowdown in trade.

Korea's oligopolistic chaebols dominate its corporate landscape. However, they face competition at the low end from Chinese manufacturers, and at the high end from Japanese companies, which have benefited from a deliberately-weakened yen.

Exporters are creating fewer jobs in South Korea as the chaebol move production offshore, seeking cheaper labour. This left the domestic economy struggling as small and medium-sized businesses fail, and its high-value services sector lags behind other countries.

"This has raised concerns about Korea's traditional catch-up strategy led by exports produced by large chaebol companies," says a 2016 OECD report.

Korean capitalists employ 22 percent of their workers on casual and temporary contracts. Although labour productivity rose by 5.5 percent a year between 1990-2011, it has since stagnated, and is particularly low in the service sector.

Korean companies work their staff hard, with long hours, and try to avoid meeting their social security obligations. Basic welfare and pensions provision is very low by OECD standards, and household debt has risen as retirees open small businesses to supplement their meagre pensions.

Social spending is less than half the OECD average, and household debt has leapt from 40 percent of GDP in the early 1990s to nearly 90 percent today, while corporate debt remained at about 100 percent throughout the last decade. This indicates Korean capital can't find ways to raise the rate of profit, so have to grow by borrowing.

Meanwhile, economic polarization has increased over the last decade. A remarkable 73 percent of Seoul residents now identify themselves as members of the "lower class." The cleavage between workers has also grown. About a third of the workforce is now employed in insecure job conditions. They are paid only about 60 percent of regular workers' wages but without medical insurance, severance pay or company welfare.

South Korea's top 1 percent of income earners usually work for leading conglomerates, like Samsung, Hyundai and LG, which have grown into truly world-class companies and are very profitable. In 2012, the top 10 percent of the population possessed 46 percent of the country's total wealth. The bottom 50 percent possessed only 9.5 percent.

Much of the rise in inequality originated in the real estate market. However, more recently, the stock market and financial investments became the primary source of wealth accumulation.

The poverty rate for over 65 year olds is 48.5 percent, which is 3.4 times higher than the OECD average. This may partly explain why the country has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.

Should any new economic crisis erupt in the world, Korean capitalism will suffer hard.

Heiko Khoo is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/heikokhoo.htm

Michael Roberts is a London based Marxist economist. He published the "The Great Recession" in 2008 and "Essays on Inequality" in 2014

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn
"...king of the hate left..."--

"As my friend Capper -- the best Wisconsin blogger ever -- says, there will be more. There's always more." - karoli

"...the psychiatrically attuned Capper..."--

"This is really great of you! I'm so proud to know someone like you"--

"Capper, a reasonable (and maybe even likeable) Lefty..."--

"capper, the Sidney Freedman of the hate left..."--

"I love capper because, well, what's not to love. But I also hate capper for alerting me to nonsense like this."---

"Capper, you really have a knack for this kind of writing. Really."--

"Crap. I agree with capper. Can Armageddon be far behind?"--

"capper is right. OMG, did I actually say that?"--
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There was no evidence the Westminster assailant Khalid Masood had any links with the extremist group ISIL, the police in London said on Monday night.

In a briefing at New Scotland Yard, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, senior national coordinator for UK Counter Terrorism Policing, said there was also no evidence that Masood had been radicalized while serving a sentence in a British prison.

Basu said there has been much speculation about who Masood was in contact with prior to the attack last week which left four people, including a London police officer dead, and dozens more injured. Masood was shot dead by armed police at the Houses of Parliament.

The senior police chief added: "Masood's communications that day are a main line of enquiry. If you heard from him on March 22, please come forward now, the information you have may prove important to establishing his state of mind.

"His attack method appears to be based on low sophistication, low tech, low cost techniques copied from other attacks, and echo the rhetoric of IS leaders in terms of methodology and attacking police and civilians, but at this stage I have no evidence he discussed this with others.

"There is no evidence that Masood was radicalized in prison in 2003, as has been suggested; this is pure speculation at this time. Whilst I have found no evidence of an association with IS (the Islamic State) or AQ (Al-Qaida), there is clearly an interest in jihad."

Basu repeated the request to the public for their help, specifically to those who knew or talked to Masood in the months, weeks and days leading up to the attack.

"We are tracing these people, but I would ask you all to voluntarily come forward and help our investigation," said Basu.

Police said in 2005 the attacker changed his name to Khalid Masood.

"His last criminal offence was 2003 and he was not a current subject of interest or part of the current domestic or international threat picture for either the security service or Counter Terrorism Policing.

"I know when, where and how Masood committed his atrocities, but now I need to know why. Most importantly, so do the victims and families," added Basu.
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China said on Tuesday that it hoped Australia would ratify a bilateral extradition treaty after the antipodean nation rescinded a plan to push for the ratification of the deal.

"The early entry into force of the treaty will offer an institutional guarantee for China-Australia collaboration on counter cross-border crimes, and boost bilateral law enforcement and judicial cooperation," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a routine press briefing.

Hailing the sound momentum of China-Australia ties, Hua said China hoped Australia could accelerate its domestic ratification proceedings, so that the treaty can enter into force as early as possible.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said senior ministers on Tuesday decided not to proceed with the treaty after the opposition Labor Party declared it would block it in the Senate, according to reports.

The treaty was signed in 2007.
The visit to Taiwan by Japanese senior vice-minister of internal affairs and communications on Saturday was provocative and breaches the commitment made by Japan to interact with Taiwan only at nongovernmental and local levels.

It will definitely worsen relations between Beijing and Tokyo, which are already tense because of the Shinzo Abe administration's refusal to face up squarely to history and its previous provocative actions.

The one-day trip has set a bad precedent for bilateral ties. The fact that Jiro Akama became the highest-ranking Japanese government official to visit the island in an official capacity since 1972, when Beijing and Tokyo normalized their diplomatic relations, contradicted his claim that Japan's "relations with Taiwan are unchanged" despite the visit.

In fact, the visit represents a big step backward, as it goes against the spirit of the four political documents signed by China and Japan, and infringes on the one-China policy that is the foundation for relations.

Akama's visit will further freeze the already icy China-Japan relations, for which Tokyo, bent on participating in a US-led alliance to contain China, is fully to blame, as it has adopted a confrontational policy toward China, encouraged by the new administration in the United States.

Japan has already played an ugly role in the South China Sea disputes, even though it has no territorial claim in the region, by trying to drive a wedge between regional countries and China. On Monday, it delivered two military surveillance aircraft to help the Philippines patrol the South China Sea despite Manila's improving relations with Beijing.

This meddling, in addition to its announced plan to send its largest warship to the South China Sea, in its largest show of military power since the end of World War II, had already revealed its intention is to stir up trouble in the region.

But Japan must be careful in playing the Taiwan card. Since earlier this year, Japan has repeatedly taken provocative actions with regard to Taiwan, while verbally promising to honor its commitment to the one-China policy.

As the Taiwan question concerns China's core national interests, by uplifting the Japan-Taiwan relations to an unprecedentedly high level, Tokyo risks crossing Beijing's bottom line on the issue and it will have to bear any consequences that may arise from its duplicitous behavior. It should be aware that the one-China policy brooks no challenge.
The annual net profit of Hong Kong-listed COFCO Meat Holdings Ltd jumped by 530.8 percent year-on-year to 950 million yuan ($138.18 million) in 2016, thanks to the decline in China's population of sows and the rising price of hogs, the company announced on Monday.

COFCO Meat, a subsidiary of China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corpthe country's biggest food trader by sales revenuesaid an improvement in hog production efficiency helped lower costs and production volumes rose by 540,000 heads year-on-year.

Ma Jianping, chairman of COFCO Meat, said the company planned to raise annual hog production capacity from 3.5 million at the end of 2016 to 5.5 million in 2020.

"In late 2016, China's sow stocks remained at its lowest level in the past eight years while hog stocks were also at a low level, which should provide strong support for hog prices in 2017," Ma said.

Food consumption is usually a main indicator of an economy and the size of its population.

In China, meat consumption is rising and people are eating a broader variety of meat. Meat products have become more sophisticated and consumers now look more for healthy and convenient food.

COFCO Meat's businesses include feed production, hog production, abattoirs, and the production, distribution and sale of fresh pork and processed meat products.

It also includes the import and sale of frozen meat products, comprising pork, beef, poultry, mutton and lamb.

The company currently operates 47 pig farms, two slaughterhouses and two meat processing facilities in six provinces throughout the country.

Sales volumes of the company's meat import business performed strongly in 2016, with the unit's profit coming at 79.2 million yuan.

"As for the upstream business, we have expanded procurement channels in different countries to satisfy market demand and balanced procurement costs in 2016," said Xu Jianong, managing director of COFCO Meat.

"As Chinese consumers' incomes continue to rise, this sectormeat or animal proteinwill be perform strongly," said Ding Lixin, an analyst at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing.

"This is one of the reasons we see a lot of investment by both Chinese and international companies in all of these areas."
A worker refuels a car at a PetroChina gas station in Beijing. [Photo/Agencies]

With 2016 earnings seen falling 80% to $1b, focus shifts to possible year-end IPO

HONG KONGAs PetroChina Co, China's biggest oil and gas producer, prepares to report what may be its worst-ever earnings, investors are focused on billions of dollars that could be unlocked by a spinoff of its massive pipeline network.

PetroChina's natural gas and crude oil transportation system, stretching from the country's remote borders with Central Asia to major coastal cities, could be worth at least $85 billion, according to analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co and Jefferies Group LLC.

As China prepares to unveil long-awaited energy industry reforms, speculation has grown that the company and its parent, China National Petroleum Corp, may spin off the pipelines into an independent company as soon as this year.

"While the timing is unclear, there is a sense that management is in favor of such a spinoff," said Neil Beveridge, Bernstein's head of Asia-Pacific oil and gas research, who has a buy rating on the stock and estimates the assets are worth 585 billion yuan ($85 billion).

PetroChina's preferred option is an initial public offering that would leave it with a controlling stake, he said.

A Beijing-based spokesman for the company declined to comment.

The future of PetroChina's pipelines has been unclear since 2015.

The industrial authority originally planned to strip the company, as well as its domestic rival China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, known as Sinopec, of the assets to create a new State-owned entity.

That idea has since been scaled back, though regulators are still pushing for greater independence of the pipeline operations and easier access for all users.

Analysts said the spinoff of the country's oil and gas pipeline assets is a good policy but the execution may prove to be an uphill battle.

There is high chance the management is in favor of a spinoff of its massive pipeline network, Li Li, energy research director at ICIS China, a consulting company that provides analysis of China's energy market, said.

Li said the spinoff is considered as part of the wider reform in the oil and gas sector to increase competition and enhance operating transparency and efficiency.

The company may spin off the unit as soon as the end of this year, the Hong Kong Economic Journal reported in February, citing people it didn't identify.

Gordon Kwan, head of Asia-Pacific energy research at Nomura Holdings Inc, sees oil prices needing to rebound to $60 a barrel before any such move. Bernstein's Beveridge sees it delayed until the pipeline segment accounts for less than half PetroChina's revenue, which may not happen until next year.

Monetizing pipeline assets is one of the few options PetroChina still has to raise funds and attract investors under the current low oil price environment, according to Laban Yu, head of Asian oil and gas equities at Jefferies, who sees the pipelines worth 597 billion yuan.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, averaged about $45 a barrel last year, down almost 16 percent from 2015.

PetroChina holds a 71 percent market share of the country's oil and gas pipelines, analysts at Goldman Sachs wrote in a March 7 report. Its network stretches more than 77,600 kilometers, with almost two-thirds of that used for natural gas, according to its latest 20-F filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company, which barely broke even in the first half of 2016 although it booked a 24.5 billion yuan one-time gain from selling pipelines, warned in January that it expects full-year profit to fall by as much as 80 percent because of the slump in international oil prices and low domestic natural gas rates.

That means profit may decline to as low as 7.1 billion yuan, down for a third year to the weakest in data going back to 1996.

BLOOMBER-CHINA DAILY
A Chinese aircraft manufacturer said on Monday it will deliver one Y12E aircraft to Micronesia this year.

It is also Harbin Aircraft Industry Group Co Ltd's first aircraft export to the country, which would help explore the Oceania market, according to the company, a subsidiary of Aviation Industry Corporation of China or AVIC. HAIG is one of the nation's leading aircraft producers that started production and research since 1950s.

It has independently developed a variety of aircraft, including helicopters and light regional aircraft, besides providing components for world famous aviation enterprises such as Boeing and Airbus.

"With the increasing research and development input, our aviation equipment is gaining more popularity at home and abroad," said Zhang Jichao, HAIG chairman.

Micronesian President Peter Christian paid a visit to HAIG last week and said the Y12E model is comfortable and very suitable for inter-island passenger and cargo transport.

A company source said the Y12E is in line with China-built aircraft's highest level of airworthiness, large cargo volume and reliability. The high wing twin-engine aircraft is a light and general purpose plane, designed to serve in high altitudes and high temperature environments.

Sources close to HAIG said the company spared no efforts in R&D, as the central government launched the Made in China 2025 strategy in 2015 with the aim of transforming China from a big-scale manufacturing player into a top-end manufacturing power.

"The past years saw the booming of aircraft industry, including robust demand for regional aircraft, pilot training and even the construction of general airports and regional airports," said Song Kui, a researcher from the Heilongjiang Academy of Social Sciences.

AVIC data show that the number of general aviation aircraft in China may reach 9,000 with the market value expected to reach $60 billion by 2020.
Cabin crew of China Southern Airlines prepare to board a flight in Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province. [Photo/Xinhua]

Potential tie-up could signify SOE reform, parity with 2 top carriers

China Southern Airlines Co said it is in talks to sell a stake to American Airlines Group Inc, betting big on the forecast of massive demand for travel between the two countries.

The negotiations are over "a possible major strategic cooperation with American Airlines Inc involving, among others, proposed issue of shares of the company and other business cooperation," China Southern said in an exchange filing on Sunday.

Share price of China Southern Airlines, which resumed trading on Monday, remained flat to close at HK$5.48 (70 cents), after hitting a three-month high at midday.

Trading in the Guangzhou-based operator had been suspended since March 23 after Bloomberg News reported that Fort Worth, Texas-based American Airlines will likely make an investment of about $200 million in China Southern's Hong Kong-listed shares through a private placement. American Airlines would nominate an observer without voting rights to the Chinese company's board, according to people familiar with the matter.

The companies have not reached a binding or definitive agreement, and the cooperation may or may not proceed, China Southern said in its statement.

American Airlines spokeswoman Polly Tracey declined to comment.

For American Airlines, a deal would strengthen its presence in the Chinese market after rival Delta Air Lines Inc acquired a minority stake in China Eastern Airlines Corp in 2015.

China Southern would be the last of the nation's top three airlines to bring in a non-Chinese mainland strategic investor. Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which is based in Hong Kong, owns about 18 percent of flag carrier Air China Ltd.

Geoffrey Cheng, head of transportation and industrial research at BOCOM International Holdings in Hong Kong, said the collaboration talks come as no surprise.

"Basically, given there are no slots left under the current bilateral air traffic rights agreement between China and the US, the strategic cooperation could enable China Southern Airlines to reach out to more second-tier US cities that it has no available routes to," Cheng said.

Jacob Zhou, a Hong Kong-based analyst with one of the "Big Four" accounting firms, believed the tie-up talks mark a bold move from China Southern Airlines to push for the mixed-ownership reform, which is highlighted as a critical pillar of State-owned enterprises' reform efforts in 2017.

BLOOMBERG-CHINA DAILY
BEIJING - Six business apartment projects and 15 real estate agent offices in Beijing were punished Monday for violating a government ban aimed at cooling the red-hot housing market.

The six projects, including some belonging to China's top developers Vanke and Evergrande, were banned from sale, while the 15 real estate agent offices were ordered to close shop for overhauls, according to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

Authorities in Beijing stepped up restrictions on house purchases on Sunday, banning the sale of business apartments to individuals for residence.

The rule says developers shall only sell business apartments to qualified enterprises, public institutions and social organizations. For new business apartment projects yet to be built, the smallest unit for sale should not be less than 500 square meters.

Inspection teams were promptly dispatched on Monday to enforce the ban.

Officials with the city commission warned that real estate agents that mislead individual home buyers by falsely advertising business apartments for residence will be severely punished and can lose their licenses due to the violation.

The punishment addressed a long-held criticism that the housing commission's warnings generally have no teeth.

China has witnessed a property boom for more than a decade, with home prices in many big cities soaring sky high, triggering a fear of an enormous asset bubble that could eventually destabilize the economy.

The country's policymakers announced in December that "houses are for living in, not for speculating with," following a string of cooling measures from buying restrictions to increased down payments.

Beijing scaled up curbing measures in March after second-home prices continued their growth rally in the first few months of this year.
BEIJING - China will steadily liberalize the yuan's use on the capital account, which makes the currency convertible for investment purposes, as part of the country's strategy to make the yuan a global currency, the central bank said on Monday.

The yuan's globalization is a long-term strategy that demands consistent and steady efforts, Yi Gang, the deputy central bank governor, told participants at an insider meeting.

China's economy is still proceeding on a stable track, he said, adding the market forces that drive the yuan's global use remain.

Efforts should be made to enhance the yuan's role in investment, reserves and financial transactions. When pushing for the currency's use in cross-border transactions, steady efforts should be made to make it convertible on the capital account, he said.

The central bank also underlined the importance of enhancing risk prevention and vowed to step up market supervision.

China has been pushing for the yuan's global use, as the world's largest trading nation looks to lower transaction costs in international trade, which is mostly settled in US dollars at present.

Making the yuan convertible on the capital account is essential to reaching this target. China currently makes its currency fully convertible on the current account for trade purposes, but is yet to fully open its capital account for investment purposes.
BOAO - I came to Boao Forum for Asia 2017 with one main task, to understand what was meant by the theme -- Globalization and free trade: The Asian perspectives.

By choosing "perspectives" over "perspective" the organizers were already sending a clear message that there is not just one answer, and so I set out to find out what these answers were.

Same same, but different

It was not long until I found my first example. During the media leaders roundtable, the panel discussed "seeking common ground while preserving differences."

On the very first day of the forum, I found myself in a room full of people advocating cooperation over conformity, and it wouldn't be the last.

No matter the panel, the sentiment stood.

Patrick Low, former WTO economist, told a session on Hong Kong that rather than imposing binding agreements on nations, all partners should be in agreement. The systems that rule countries are as varied as the countries themselves, thus, we should use multilateral institutions for the very reason they were established -- to avoid conflict.

Many of the speakers here this weekend, as well as attendees I spoke to, see protectionism as a geopolitical issue. Development and politics were never meant to be happy bedfellows so we need constant reminding of the benefits of a more open world. Trade globalization is here to stay, whether you like it or not.

Is it better to flourish internationally or falter in isolation?

Better to live together than die alone

The world is going through a transition characterized by uncertainty about globalization.

While some look inward, China continues to look outward, championing the view that "globalization is a positive force for the world and free trade is important," according to Leslie Maasdorp, vice president and CFO of the New Development Bank, who spoke to me after the opening ceremony.

Without globalization there would be no free trade and without free trade there would be no innovation. For thousands of years multilateral interactions have meant the exchange of ideas, products and services. Globalization is nothing new, just a new terminology. It is a tried and tested model, and one made all the more powerful by evolution. Evolve or perish, the saying goes, and globalization has stood the test of time. Protectionism, on the other hand, time and time again, has only led to only one thing -- failure.

E. Allan Gabor, Merck Biopharma regional president for the Asia Pacific,said, "The world, for me, is actually getting smaller. I represent America and Asia, 14 countries in total, and I see the benefits of free trade among all of those countries, and even beyond. It's connecting all of us."

Asia is the growth center of the world. If nations outside the region attempt to reject globalization they will not benefit from the opportunities afforded by growth in Asia.

Healthy, smart, safe

It is important to acknowledge that the benefits of globalization are not yet universal. Who has been left behind and why?

Technology is both enabler and disrupter. It is fitting that new advances are referred to as "disruptive technology." While they offer new platforms and environments for interaction, they have resulted in winners and losers.

One such example is automation, which, in the manufacturing sector in particular, will lead to job losses.

During my discussion with Zhang Yaqin, president of Baidu, he acknowledged that new technology will make some jobs obsolete. He compared the situation with previous industrial revolutions. With every new technological innovation, from weaving looms to artificial intelligence, there is always a reactive period as people adjust to the shock of the new.

He suggests that rather than rejecting advances we should look forward to the ways they will change our lives.

Anthony Nightingale, Hong Kong representative to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Advisory Council, suggested three ways to cope. One, economies need to be healthy. Two, people must be retrained. Three, there must be a social safety net. In fact, he said, developed nations are in the best position to offer this support, and Asia should look to them for guidance.

Asia can only adjust to the changing landscape by continuing structural change and by pursuing innovation across all sectors. The unifying Asian ideal is that we all must believe in the power of openness. All countries should be prepared to offer maximum support with minimum intervention. It is only through this approach that can we ensure a healthy environment for trade growth and innovation.

Deleting the "S"

Asian countries will continue to oppose trade barriers. China will continue to defend globalization, and fight for a more open, connected world. It is China that will ensure that no one is left behind.

Is this attitude unique to China? It is not. This is the Asian perspective.
JOHANNESBURG - South Africa's Ministry of Trade and Industry on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on strategic cooperation with Bank of China in Johannesburg to strengthen the relations between the two entities.

The MOU will enable both parties to treat each other as a preferred partner and share information on investment opportunities.

It will also enable both parties to optimize their own advantages in initiating mutual investment promotion campaigns and to join hands in supporting enterprises of the two countries for more profound investments, as well as economic and trade cooperation.

Rob Davies, minister of trade and industry, said the signing of the MOU will enhance cooperation between the two countries. "The MOU will allow and strengthen the relations between the government of South Africa and Bank of China, joint sponsorship of seminars and marketing activities."

He also said that both parties will hold a joint investment seminar on May 8-11 in China to promote opportunities in the interests of both countries.

Davies said South Africa will use the opportunity to promote the Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and try to attract investment, noting that South Africa's relationship with China is bearing fruit with investments from Chinese companies.

He said that the MOU is also the "fruition" of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which was held in his country in 2015.

"This is a step forward in the bilateral relations, many of which are at different stages nearing fruition. The MOU will allow for joint promotion of the Special Economic Zones, important developmental projects critical to the realization of our shared dreams. Bank of China is critical in facilitating investment projects and industrial finance," he said.

He said they would need China's assistance to realize their dream of economic development through SEZ. South Africa will send 40 government officials this year to be trained for SEZ development in China.

"The MOU will enable both parties to establish much closer coordination scheme(s), focus on the plan of 10 major cooperation projects, and give full support to the mutual investment and market expansion of enterprises from (the) two countries," he said.

Bank of China chairperson, Tian Guoli, said Sino-South African cooperation is growing very fast. He agreed with Davies that the 2015 FOCAC promoted comprehensive development of the bilateral relations.

"Though geographically far apart from each other, the friendship between the peoples of China and South Africa has endured the test of time and has grown deeper and stronger."

The Sino-South African relations have great potential to grow, said Tian, adding that Bank of China has played a pivotal role in facilitating China's African strategies and building a bridge of friendship and economic and trade cooperation between the two countries.

The bank has established branches in seven African countries and has networks in Africa among Chinese commercial banks.

"Bank of China has confidence in Africa's development. Through the operation of these banks, we have constructed a financial service network covering mainly African regions to (use) China's financial strengths and contribute to the economic and social development of African countries," Tian said.
BEIJING  Chinese authorities on Tuesday promised "multi-pronged financial support" for the manufacturing sector as the government looks to shift the country away from low-end manufacturing to more value-added production.

In a guideline jointly released by several regulators including the central bank and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China pledged it would improve its support of the "Made in China 2025" strategy.

More financial support should be given to technology and manufacturing sector upgrades, the guideline said, underscoring the key fields and tasks in the Made in China 2025 blueprint.

China will allow banks and institutions to play differentiated roles in serving the manufacturing sector, and agencies will be set up to offer more professional services to the industry.

The regulators also pledged to foster a multi-layered capital market and speed up the listings of high-tech manufacturing firms.

Innovative bond and insurance products will cater to the financing needs of the advanced manufacturing industry, the guideline specified.

Although China's manufacturing sector is often labeled labor-intensive and outdated, the government is pursuing advanced technology and growth through innovation.

In 2015, China announced its Made in China 2025 plan would elevate the manufacturing sector up the value chain, and promote development in 10 key sectors such as medical devices and robotics.

China's industrial value added in the manufacturing sector expanded 6.8 percent year-on-year in 2016, with high-tech and equipment manufacturing posting about 10 percent year-on-year growth.
HANOI  China is seen as the most important market for Vietnamese tourism, said the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) on Tuesday.

According to the VNAT, in March alone, Vietnam is expected to welcome some 297.915 Chinese tourists, up 39.2 percent year-on-year.

Last year, Vietnam also saw high growth in Chinese arrivals, with 2.7 million person-times and up 51 percent year-on-year. In 2010-2016 period, Vietnam witnessed average annual growth of 20 percent in the number of Chinese tourists.

Other cooperation areas between Vietnam and China have yielded crucial outcomes as Chinese companies have offered chartered flights bringing Chinese tourists to Vietnam and two countries' airlines continue to launch new air routes and increase flight frequency between their localities, assessed the VNAT on Vietnam's state-run news agency VNA.

In January-March period, Vietnam is forecast to receive over 3.2 million person-times of international tourists, up 29 percent year-on-year.

The administration attributes the growth to numerous tourism promotion activities that Vietnam has implemented since the beginning of 2017, including participation in 2017 ASEAN-China Year of Tourism Cooperation and Moscow International Travel and Tourism Exhibition, one of the world's five biggest travel fairs, among others.
He Zhiqiang, president of Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group, Lenovo's global technology industry fund. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Computer giant Lenovo Group Ltd signed a strategic partnership agreement with Tianjin on Monday to gear up its expansion in the smart internet business.

To implement the partnership, Tianjin will offer Lenovo various resources, such as talent and supportive policies, while Lenovo is expected to build an entrepreneurship and innovation platform in Tianjin.

"A new era for smart internet has come. In the future, China's economy will be increasingly driven by technology," said He Zhiqiang, president of Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group, Lenovo's global technology industry fund.

He added that the fund will boost industrial development in terms of new energy, new tourism, new manufacturing and other fields in Tianjin.

"We take a rosy view of Tianjin's future development amid the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integration strategy. In terms of smart internet cooperation, we will build research, operations and manufacturing centers in Tianjin, generating jobs and boosting local economic growth."

According to the company, almost 10 subsidiaries and enterprises invested in by Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group will cooperate with the Binhai New Area of Tianjin on cloud computing, medical informatization, augmented reality and other new fields. Lenovo said the company will bring cooperation on more innovation business in the future.

Founded in 2016, Lenovo Capital aimed to seek new growth points as the world's biggest PC maker was confronting a declining global demand for PCs and fierce competition in the smartphone market. The fund was used to finance startups in cloud computing, augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and other emerging sectors.
Editor's note: Starting this year, May 10 has been earmarked as the "Chinese Brands Day" by the State Council to raise awareness about brands owned by Chinese companies.

Companies in the technology, banking and telecom industries have dominated a list of most valuable brands in China compiled based on a study by advertising research agency WPP and Millward Brown.

The total value of BrandZ Top 100 Chinese Brands hit record levels in 2017, growing 6 percent to reach $557.1 billion in brand value.

Here are the top 10.

No 10 Agricultural Bank of China

Category: Banks

Brand value: $14,848 million
A man rides an electric bike, carrying children, near apartment blocks in Beijing. [Photo/Agencies]

A young colleague of mine told me the other day that one thing he is most proud of is his decision to buy an apartment in Beijing in 2012, two years after his graduation from university.

"In hindsight, housing price really hit a trough then," he said, referring to his purchase of a second-hand, 50-square-meter apartment within the city's Fourth-Ring Road at 26,000 yuan ($3,790) per square meter.

It turned out to be the most pivotal decision he had ever made. In less than five years, the price has nearly tripled, and the gain, though on paper, has made him the happiest man in the world.

A right decision can save you a lifelong struggle for a better life.

Despite rounds after rounds of cooling measures by the local government, such as higher down payment and stricter mortgage restrictions to curb speculative buying, housing prices in Beijing have been on a wild run. Average housing prices in the city reached over 60,000 yuan in February from 45,000 yuan a year ago, according to the China Real Estate Association.

But these figures hardly tell the real story of the red-hot sellers' market. To understand it, you need to look no further than my neighborhood. A moment of hesitation in sewing up a deal could make a difference of more than 1 million yuan.

A friend of mine, who had planned to move to my neighborhood, saw the price of a 105-square-meter apartment he wanted to buy surge from 8 million yuan before Spring Festival to the jaw-dropping 9.3 million yuan after the holiday!

Given that China's average disposable personal income was less than 24,000 yuan last year, it could serve as the most costly lesson a homebuyer could learn for procrastination.

"It's just absolutely crazy," he said.

No doubt.

Property prices in Beijing are skyrocketing at a rate that defies economic laws.

For economists, a price-to-rent ratio of more than 500 signals a property bubble that may bust at any time. It means one can recover the cost of investment in a property only 500 months (or more than 40 years) after it is rented out, without taking into consideration interest on bank loans.

But in Beijing, that ratio has surged above 1,000, with no sign of a respite, despite years of warnings of a coming market collapse.

China's property market is a conundrum beyond rational explanation. It has created an unbridgeable wealth gap between homeowners and non-homeowners. It has also transformed my outlook on life and success.

Enthusiastic about higher pay and better career prospects, my wife decided in 2001 to quit a government agency, even though that meant she had to give up a 60-square-meter apartment that her employer had just allocated to her.

She had my full support. We were young then, and both believed a place to dwell should never be an impediment to the pursuit of new life experiences and better future. The average housing price was 5,000 yuan per square meter then, less than our monthly salaries combined.

The following decade, my wife worked in Hong Kong for several years, graduated with a master's degree from a prestigious university in the United Kingdom, and resettled in Beijing, working for foreign-funded agencies and drawing a decent salary she had never imagined was possible when she decided to quit her first job.

For many, hers was a success story, as we also thought. But in terms of wealth, we actually missed a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get richer. The apartment she had abandoned 16 years ago is now worth nearly 6 million yuan, which dwarfs what she has ever earned.

Of course, there is more to life than just money. But had we known that this is how things might or would pan out, would we still agree on her decision to quit her job 16 years ago? I'm not sure.

In life, ideals, it appears, would crumble easily when confronted with harsh reality.
Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi Corp, talks about his company's retail plan at a conference in Beijing on March 6, 2017. [Photo/China Daily]

BEIJING - China's "Internet Plus" model could help enterprises in emerging countries stand out in market competition, according to head of China's tech giant Xiaomi.

Companies able to offer the best products at the most affordable prices will emerge as market leaders, Lei Jun, founder and CEO of Xiaomi, said at the Global Business Summit in New Delhi on Monday, according to the company's press release.

China's "Internet Plus" action plan was unveiled in 2015. It proposed a new economic development model based on the integration of the internet with traditional sectors to improve products, service quality and efficiency.

Xiaomi was one of the earliest companies to apply the "Internet Plus" approach to improve its business model with innovative technologies, cutting edge products and efficient operations, according to Lei.

The smart device manufacturer started with organic, word-of-mouth marketing to accumulate a customer base and improved their products based on user feedback, while the internet, e-commerce in particular, helped remove the middlemen to price products close to cost.

"I believe that the power and unstoppable influence of the internet means information asymmetry will sooner or later come to an end," Lei said.

Xiaomi's presence in India is testament to the success of the "Internet Plus" model. In India, Xiaomi is now the top selling smartphone brand online and the second largest smartphone brand in India in Q4 2016, with annual revenue of over $1 billion for 2016.

Xiaomi opened its first overseas factory in India in 2015 and another one followed this year. More than 95 percent of Xiaomi's smartphones sold in India are now manufactured locally, creating over 7,500 jobs in India.

Lei said his company will create 20,000 jobs in India within three years.

To apply the "Internet Plus" model, Lei suggested enterprises in emerging markets should remain committed to innovation, focus on user experience and never sacrifice quality or efficiency.

"I believe that in the next decade or so products that enable lifestyle changes and offer more choices will rule the marketplace," Lei said.

Xiaomi launched its own chip, the Surge S1, last month, the fourth company in the world capable of producing both smartphones and chips, after Apple, Samsung, and Huawei.

The tech firm set up an "Explorer's Lab" last year to research artificial intelligence and will release an "exciting AI product" in the next six months, according to Lei.

"Companies in emerging markets need to offer their consumers a compelling vision so that they not only solve problems today, but even address problems on the horizon," Lei added.
Customers examine jewelry in Shuibei village, Guangdong province, once a leading production center in China. [Photo by Chen Yehua/Xinhua]

First-time visitors to Shuibei village in Shenzhen, southern Guangdong province, may be a little disconcerted by the sight that greets them. That's because the dilapidated six-story buildings that line both sides of its narrow street seem at odds with Shuibei's high-end reputation as "China's No 1 jewelry village".

For nearly three decades, this village-in-a-city has been a national hub of jewelry production, exhibition and trade. More than 50 percent of the high-end goods in the country's wholesale markets come from Shuibei.

However, over the past three years, business has plunged for local jewelers as the sluggish global economy undermines people's purchasing power and forces them to cut down on spending. Unsurprisingly, the luxury-goods sector was one of the first to suffer.

Last year, demand for jewelry dropped by 17 percent year-on-year to 629 metric tons.

As a result, a number of small businesses in Shuibei have been forced to close and others are looking for a way out.

"When people have less money, the first thing they consider is reducing their spending on jewelry," said Zheng Wenhong, deputy head of the Shenzhen Jewelry Designers Association. "This has made the lives of Shuibei's jewelers much harder because fewer customers come to them, and even when they come, they spend less."

According to Zheng, approximately 30 percent of the jewelry shops in the village have closed since the end of 2014.

Corruption crackdown

The slump in demand is also related to the central government's anti-corruption drive, which has prevented officials from accepting ostentatious gifts such as expensive jewelry, once a highly popular choice.

"In previous years, a number of jewelry products were bought as gifts for government officials, and they were usually very expensive. Now, that kind of consumption has disappeared, and that has contributed to the decline in Shuibei's jewelry business," Zheng said.

The development of the local jewelry industry began in the early 1990s, when the first group of outsiders settled in the village and started businesses. Most of them came from Guangdong's Chaoshan region, consisting of the cities of Chaozhou and Shantou, and neighboring Fujian province.

At the same time, a number of jewelers in Hong Kong took advantage of Shuibei's close proximity and low labor costs to build factories in the village. That led to jewelry-processing becoming the economic mainstay, even though there were only about 10 gold and jewelry businesses in Shuibei at the time.

Business grew rapidly and more players entered the market, hoping to share a piece of the pie in the booming sector. By 2003, the village was home to more than 300 jewelry-related enterprises and the number continued to rise at a fast pace.

"The heyday of the jewelry village was between 2005 and 2012, when business was at its peak. The monthly rent for a 50- to 100-square-meter shop was 200,000 yuan ($29,000) or higher at the time, and it was difficult to find vacant premises," Zheng recalled.

Instant millionaires

"Factories received a large number of orders from customers with voracious appetites for luxury goods, and new jewelry shops were always opening in the village. It's no exaggeration to say some people in the industry became millionaires overnight."

The sector's growth also brought considerable benefits to the villagers and people living nearby.

"More than 20 years ago, a large number of people were recruited to work in jewelry factories in the village. Therefore, rental demand was strong. Sometimes, apartments in the village were in short supply," said a 50-something villager, who only gave her surname as Zhang. "That's not the case anymore."

Things began to change in 2008, when the government began to pay greater attention to environmental protection, forcing many factories to close or relocate. That marked the start of the reincarnation of the village as a venue for jewelry exhibitions and trade shows rather than a manufacturing base. Some of the old factory buildings can still be seen, but they are no longer active.

Now, Shuibei is home to more than 3,800 jewelry stores and exhibition spaces, which generate a combined revenue of more than 100 billion yuan every year, according to statistics from the Economic Promotion Bureau of Luohu District, in which Shuibei is located. More than 80,000 people work in the local industry.

A number of well-known brands have their origins in Shuibei. Official data show that 44 percent of the Chinese brands in the sector come from the village. Dozens of businesses have extended their footprints to the majority of Chinese cities via chain stores.

For example, Chow Tai Seng Jewelry Co, which has applied to list on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, operates more than 2,300 stores across the country, making it one of China's biggest jewelry brands.
Shi Yu/China Daily

The central government has urged local authorities to tackle the outbreak of H7N9 avian influenza by taking more effective measures to prevent the virus from spreading.

The move was decided at an executive meeting of the State Council, China's Cabinet, which was presided over by Premier Li Keqiang on Feb 22.

Li was briefed on prevention and control measures against the lethal virus. He called for local governments to monitor the epidemic and punctually disclose relevant information to the public.

Since the first case of a human infected with the virus in China in 2013, it has killed thousands of people across the globe.

The number of patients infected with the H7N9 strain in China has increased rapidly since December and more than 16 provinces have reported an outbreak of the epidemic since the beginning of this year.

The virus claimed 79 lives in January, more than triple the death toll for December, and far surpassing the number of deaths in the same month over recent years, the National Heath and Family Planning Commission reported on Feb 15.

After the meeting, regions such as Beijing, Anhui and Guizhou provinces took swift action to control the disease and ensure public health. The number of those infected dropped to 160, with 61 fatalities in February, according to the commission.

According to a statement released after the meeting, live poultry markets where infected birds are detected will be immediately closed, as exposure to infected poultry is one of the main causes of human infection.

The meeting decided to upgrade the sector in areas where markets have been hit by the virus by ordering that poultry be raised in large factories, before being slaughtered in designated sites and transported via cold-chain logistics to supermarkets. By doing this, consumer safety will be further ensured as they will not be exposed to live infected poultry.

The statement said sufficient medical supplies and funds will be provided for all emergency and necessary treatment. Patients will get their medical bills reimbursed through the medical insurance system.

Shu Yuelong, director of the National Center for Influenza, said there was no evidence to show the virus can be easily transmitted among humans. He added that people should avoid touching infected poultry, or exposure to any live poultry markets, which are two of the most common reasons for human infection.

Prevention measures start with source-stringent control over live poultry so the meeting decided to impose stricter surveillance over the breeding and transporting of live poultry. Disinfection and quarantine measures will also be strengthened. Local markets that detect an outbreak must be closed as soon as possible and the animals destroyed, the statement said.

China has invested huge funds in surveillance and management of the virus since 2013, said a communique released by the World Organization for Animal Health and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations on March 17. However, obvious symptoms take time to become apparent after infection, making prevention and control measures more complicated, the document said.

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said on March 17 that the outbreak will not be large-scale as it is difficult for humans to pass it on.

The past four years have seen a new outbreak of the virus and each year saw fatalities, said Du Zhengyu, a disease-control doctor in Anqing, Anhui province.

"The government is taking market-management measures by shutting down live poultry markets that impose potential threats to people living nearby. More importantly, the public should be cautious themselves," he said.

Du suggested that individuals should be alert to any direct contact with live poultry and hesitant to buy live animals such as chickens. In addition, anyone who has cold-like symptoms should go to hospital for a checkup and treatment, he added.
Lawyer suggests that children's parents should also receive sentence for practice

A Shanghai court has jailed two women who "rented" village children as young as 7 years old and forced them to steal.

Song Yinxiu and Song Yincui, no relation, were sentenced to three and a half years for organizing juveniles to carry out activities that violate public security - the first time the charge has been applied in Shanghai since it was introduced in 2009.

Qingpu District People's Court heard that the duo, both from Yongzhou, Hunan province, had paid 50,000 yuan ($7,270) in "rent" to the parents of four children aged 7 to 10 in their native county, Daoxian.

The women then took the children to Shanghai and forced them to steal cash and goods totaling nearly 20,000 yuan from supermarkets and other stores between March and May last year.

Prosecutors said the parents were aware of the women's criminal intentions. The 7-year-old told police she had five siblings and that her two brothers, ages 6 and 8, had also been "loaned out" to gangs of thieves.

"In the past, people who committed such crimes were charged with theft," which carries a lighter sentence, according to Wei Guilian, a publicity officer with the district court. She said the tougher charge faced by the two Songs "means the children's rights were taken into consideration".

She did not explain why no Shanghai court had previously applied the charge of organizing juveniles to steal.

Shanghai police said suspects in such cases are often women from Daoxian and Jiangyong counties in Yongzhou. From September 2015 to the end of last year, police detained 120 female suspects from Daoxian and 30 from Jiangyong.

"Sometimes these people taught their children to steal and sometimes they borrowed other people's children," Wei said, adding that the court has handled several similar cases.

Children involved in such activities are sent to a care center in Jiading district until the police investigation is complete, at which point they are usually returned to their parents.

According to Shanghai police, 31 children under the age of 14 have been placed in care since 2014 and roughly 30 percent are reoffenders.

One way to better protect the children is to temporarily deprive their parents of custody, Wei said, but as yet, there is no suitable place to care for these children. The center only provides basic, short-term food and accommodation, she said.

"The court is in talks with the local civil affairs department and the All-China Women's Federation to find the best way to accommodate these children and provide them with schooling and psychological treatment," she added.

Yi Shenghua, a criminal attorney with Yingke Law Firm in Beijing, suggested the children's parents should be seen as accomplices and also receive jail terms.

"They already regard their children as a burden and make use of them as a way of making money," he said. "The punishment of being deprived of custody is too light. Their behavior equals abandonment and mistreatment in a broad sense."
A total of 4,885 members of the People's Liberation Army were punished last year for disciplinary violations, according to PLA Daily, the military's flagship newspaper.

Disciplinary watchdogs within the PLA investigated 445 cases last year, the newspaper said, adding that the Central Military Commission's Disciplinary Inspection Committee, the PLA's top anti-corruption body, focused on examining tip-offs about high-ranking officers.

In 2016, the committee also inspected several graft-prone sectors such as infrastructure construction, equipment procurement, research fund management and recruitment. The inspection led to probes into 819 problems in grassroots units, according to the report.

During the Spring Festival holiday in late January, the inspection committee sent inspectors to 452 units at regiment level or above to investigate misuse of official cars or public funds.

The report noted that there are still PLA members who continue to break regulations despite being clearly aware of the military's heavy-handed crackdown on disciplinary violations.

The PLA will examine dereliction of duty in military exercises and training to make sure every unit spares no effort in improving combat capability, the report said.

The article also called for stricter scrutiny of personnel work, especially in the promotion and selection of officials, and more rigorous investigation of minor misconducts that usually involve a small amount of money.

The military will start to make detailed guidelines for disciplinary watchdogs, the report said.

According to available information, at least seven high-ranking officers, including the former political commissar of the PLA Air Force and the former commander of the People's Armed Police Force, were placed under internal investigation in 2016 for corruption allegations.

So far, more than 50 senior officers with rank of major general or higher have been convicted or put under disciplinary probes since the new leadership was elected in November 2012.

They include Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, former vice-chairmen of the Central Military Commission.
By Li Yingqing in Kunming and Zhao Xinying in Beijing | China Daily | Updated: 2017-03-28 07:30

Yunnan province will introduce 22 measures to clean up the local tourism industry, the provincial tourism administrative authority said on Monday.

The measures, which will come into effect on April 15, include forbidding forced shopping and overly cheap tours, punishing fraud targeted at tourists, and strengthening regulation of tour guides via an online information and evaluation system.

Yu Fan, director of the Yunnan Tourism Development Commission, said the measures aim to eradicate the deep-rooted problems within the tourism industry.

Yunnan has been a popular destination for tourists both from China and abroad. However, in recent years, numerous incidents of tourists being swindled, abused, beaten or forced by tour guides to purchase overpriced commodities at designated stores have been reported by the media.

In August, several provincial authorities formed a task force and conducted inspections in cities known to be tourism hot spots, including Kunming, Dali and Lijiang.

The provincial government also released regulations aimed at improving the tourism industry, but they were largely ineffective.

Ruan Chengfa, the governor of Yunnan, said during the annual session of the top legislature earlier this month that the province would work to design a system that strengthens supervision to address problems within the tourism industry.

The new measures to regulate the tourism industry are "the strictest ever", according to industry insiders.

Yu said several authorities - including tourism administration, commerce, commodity prices, tax and public security - will work together to prevent travel agencies or tour guides from designating specific shopping venues for tourists or arranging activities with hidden payments.

"In addition, travel agencies luring tourists with prices lower than costs will be suspended from business for a set period, with those who continue to sell overly cheap tours after suspension losing their business licenses," he added.

Ren Jianzheng, chairman of the Yunnan Chamber of Tourism, welcomed the measures.

"A chaotic tourism industry harms all involved - travel agencies, tour guides and tourists," Ren said, adding that a transparent, orderly industry, which is expected to be brought about after the implementation of the new measures, will benefit all.
Xu Yachong, a resident in Lankao, Henan province, tunes a guqin, a seven-stringed Chinese instrument, in December. [Photo by Li Xiupeng/China Daily]

Folk instruments have helped lift families above poverty line

Fame doesn't always translate into wealth.

Few counties in China are as well-known as Lankao in Henan province. This is thanks to Jiao Yulu, the county's Party chief from 1962 until his death in 1965, who urged locals to plant paulownia - a deciduous tree with large, heart-shaped leaves - to guard against sandstorms and improve soil quality.

His story was featured on the front page of People's Daily when he died of liver cancer. Both he and the county have been household names ever since.

However, partly due to the harsh natural environment, Lankao's economy remained sluggish, and it was listed as an impoverished county in 2002.

With great attention from the central leadership - President Xi Jinping has visited three times - comprehensive policy support and the endeavors of local people, the poverty rate was reduced from 11.8 percent in 2014 to 1.27 percent now, Henan's poverty-alleviation authority announced on Monday.

As such, Lankao became the country's second county, after Jinggangshan in Jiangxi province, to be removed from the list of impoverished counties.

A household is considered poor if it has an average annual income of less than 3,000 yuan ($440) per person. A county can be removed from the list if its impoverished rate is less than 2 percent.

Data on Lankao was verified by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, which was authorized by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development to assess the statistics.

According to the UN Millennium Development Goals Report 2015, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty in China fell from 61 percent in 1990 to 4.2 percent in 2014.

Composers of destiny

The route out of poverty varies from region to region. For many households in Lankao, paulownia has turned out to be a source of wealth.

Located near the Yellow River, the soil in Lankao is fine, while the temperature varies greatly between day and night, which makes paulownia wood perfect for producing folk instruments.

Xu Wenxian, 60, is one of the beneficiaries. He used to work for the village head, who owns a small instrument-making business. However, his wage could not cover the medical expenses of his wife, Li Lanxiang, who has a chronic blood disease.

As a vastly experienced instrument maker, he was offered a 100,000 yuan interest-free loan by the county government and encouraged to start a family business making guzheng, a traditional stringed instrument.

"I knew I could make guzheng, but I was not sure whether I could handle the business. I was a bit intimidated at first," Xu said.

It took him less than a year to repay the loan, and now the business is a five-person team: Xu, his son and daughter-in-law,and two part-time workers. As the family has become more wealthy, Li's spiritual and physical condition has improved.

In Fanchang village, the most famous instrument-making neighborhood in Lankao, more than 50 families, many of which used to struggle financially, have started businesses and become the composers of their own destiny.

Targeted alleviation

In 2014, Xi stressed that targeted poverty-alleviation is crucial to helping people who remain below the poverty line. Like many poverty-stricken areas across the country, Lankao came up with comprehensive measures to implement the strategy.

Before offering favorable financial, education and health policies for poor families, the first and most important step is to accurately identify who qualifies for such benefits, according to Zhou Yunfeng, an official in charge of poverty-alleviation in Fanchang.

"We included families who hadn't registered originally, but had legitimate financial difficulties. Meanwhile, we also reviewed each submitted case carefully and those who had bought a house in the county or bought cars were all disqualified."

A total of 71 households applied to be recognized as poor, but 12 of them were rejected, Zhou said.

"Some families are well-off, but refuse to take care of their parents, which is also unacceptable. We are strict in rejecting anyone looking for a free ride."

Once recognized as poor families, they are entitled to a wide range of support, from student subsidies to reimbursement for migrant workers' travel costs.

With the implementation of targeted poverty-alleviation, China lifted 12.4 million people in rural areas above the poverty line last year alone. However, there were still 43.4 million people living in poverty as of December.

China plans to lift another 10 million people in rural areas out of poverty this year, according to the Government Work Report delivered by Premier Li Keqiang.

Returning home

The booming instrument-making industry in Lankao has not only lifted many people out of poverty, but also brought many people back home.

Xu Yushun, a villager in Fanchang, used to be a porter at an aquatics company in Yantai, Shandong province, while his wife worked as a cleaner in a supermarket. Their two sons worked in an electronics plant in Kunshan, Jiangsu province.

However, the youngest son, Xu Yachong, was interested in folk instruments and music. He worked as an apprentice for a year in 2010 and progressed quickly.

The family then reunited in 2011 to start their family workshop at home, producing guqin, another traditional stringed instrument.

"I still remember how excited we were when we successfully sold our first guqin. We transported it to Beijing and sold it for 10,000 yuan," said Xu Yachong.

Unlike the business owners, villager Liang Yingfeng is still employed by a local company as a guzheng maker.

Yet Liang, who used to be truck driver in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province, said it is much better to work in his hometown.

"The wage is higher than before and I can expect to earn more as I become more skilled. Most important is that we don't leave our children behind at home anymore," said Liang, a father of two.
A company accused of producing and distributing counterfeit baby formula has gone on trial in Shanghai.

Jining Jingu Packaging Co, of Jining, Shandong province, is accused of producing tins bearing the logos of baby-formula manufacturers Beingmate and Abbott that contained milk powder made by other companies, Shanghai No 3 Intermediate People's Court said in a statement on Monday.

Five defendants, including Jining Jingu Packaging representative Gu Chuansheng, have been charged with each selling up to 3.6 million yuan ($524,000) worth of fake baby formula between August 2014 and September 2015.

Four others stand accused of assisting with the production of the counterfeit tins and an additional two defendants have been charged with selling the formula despite knowing it was fake.

Five of the defendants, including Gu and Jining Jingu Packaging Co, allegedly produced more than 30,000 tins of baby formula bearing fraudulent Beingmate and Abbott trademarks, the court said.

The trial, which opened on Monday, is expected to last two days.
An appraiser assesses a piece of jewelry. [Photo provided to China Daily]

When Zhang Zhufu obtained the national certificate for jewelry appraisers in 1997, he felt proud of becoming a member of China's first group of professionals in the luxury-goods industry.

"At the time, jewelry appraisal was widely deemed a high-end profession. Although most people knew little about it, they respected it," said Zhang, who holds a doctorate in gemology.

"Now, appraisal has become a low-end segment of the jewelry trade that only plays a supporting role, similar to packaging. Some people even call us 'the ones who make certificates'. That is really disappointing."

In recent years, the sluggishness of the jewelry business in Shuibei, a village in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, has exerted a direct impact on the lives of local jewelry appraisers. What makes them more frustrated, according to some industry insiders, is the decline in their status as a result of the lack of a market-oriented system.

In years gone by, jewelry-appraisal organizations were mainly run by the government, though there were a small number of private outfits.

More private companies moved in as the government gradually opened-up the market, which caused problems, said Duan Xiaotong, general manager of Center Testing International, a jewelry-testing organization in Shenzhen.

"The arrival of private organizations affected the vested interests of certain groups, who fought to prevent their entry. The players competed fiercely with each other in an effort to gain a bigger slice of the market by launching price or brand wars. That led to vicious competition," he said.

"Meanwhile, the regulators have set so many standards for jewelry appraisal that a limited number of players are providing similar services, which has resulted in homogenization. Repetitive and tedious work has dampened the enthusiasm of jewelry appraisers, and it seems like they have become workers on an assembly line. As a result, many have quit."

At present, there are around 50 jewelry-appraisal organizations in Shuibei. The services they offer are often indistinguishable from one another, and the cost of a single appraisal can be as low as 2 yuan (29 cents).

Some of the organizations have even become certificate "producers", printing a large number of certificates every day, despite not conducting tests themselves.

"In many other countries, jewelry-testing organizations place technology and reputation as their top priorities. To ensure quality of service, professionals are allowed to appraise no more than 10 pieces of jewelry a day," Zhang said. "Here, the main thought of some organizations is how to beat their rivals."

The current chaos also means there are opportunities to explore, according to Duan: "The industry is in a period of flux during which uncompetitive players will gradually be washed out of the market. Meanwhile, with the increasing opening-up of government policies, those with new technology and a good reputation will stand out and be able to offer more quality services."
LONDON - MTR, the company that runs the Hong Kong metro system, was named on Monday as a partner in a new consortium to run one of the major inter-city rail franchises in Britain.

MTR and rail operator FirstGroup have been awarded a contract to operate one of the busiest rail routes in London, serving towns and cities in the southwest of England.

A new company, First MTR South Western Trains Limited, will use the experience of MTR to deliver smooth and rapid journeys for passengers travelling around London's suburban network, said the Department for Transport (DfT).

It is the first franchise awarded since Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling set out his vision for the future of the railways which involves the biggest investment in rail services across Britain since the Victoria era. The contract also marks a new era in work between train operators and Network Rail, said the DfT.

Currently, train operating companies work separately from Network Rail, which is responsible for track and rail infrastructure.

Grayling said: "First MTR South Western Trains Limited will deliver the improvements that people tell us they want right across the South Western franchise area."

"Faster journeys will be delivered through a consistent fleet of new suburban trains offering a regular, metro-style service. Passengers can look forward to more space, ensuring that the railway can support London's growth."

The company will oversee an investment of more than 1.5 billion U.S. dollars that will improve journeys for millions of train passengers, especially people using commuter routes into London's busy Waterloo station.

As well as thousands of extra seats, a fleet of 90 new trains will provide more space for passengers on routes into London from Reading and Windsor.

There will also be faster journey times from a number of major places such as Southampton, Salisbury and Portsmouth.

The new franchise will run for seven years from Aug. 20, 2017 when MTR and FirstGroup take over the route from the current operator. MTR is already involved in running the London Overland railway.

Jeremy Long, who is CEO of MTR's European operation, said: "MTR is known across the world for the excellent quality of its rail services, and we look forward to working with FirstGroup to provide a best-in-class travel experience for passengers in London and the South West. Together we will deliver a major program of upgrades, including improvements to both rail services and customer experience, for passengers travelling across the South Western network."
A tea promotion event was held in Beijing on March 26. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Twelve projects -- worth 4.074 billion yuan ($592 million) -- were signed at a tea promotion event in Beijing on March 26.

Chen Changxu, secretary of the municipal Party committee of Tongren city, in Southwest China's Guizhou province, attended the event and made a speech.

He said that Tongren, lying in the east of the province, is known as the hometown of tea because of its geographical conditions.

Both the region's Fanjing Mountain and Foding Mountain have dense vegetation and enjoy fresh air and abundant rainfall. They are part of the national nature reserves.

According to Chen, the tea grown here is up to EU standards and is tested against 500 indexes. It is graded as the top green tea.

Environmental, economic and social benefits have been achieved in the city following a path of coordinated development, noted Chen.

"We stick to the supply-side structural reform in the agriculture sector and promote the adjustment of industrial structure," said Chen.

"We also take brand-building into the strategy and let all the people in the region benefit more from the tea industry," he added.

Since 2006, over 30,000 hectares of tea plantation have been added in Guizhou province each year.

Boasting around 467,000 hectares of tea plantation, the province has become the largest tea plantation base in China.
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A total of 4 billion yuan ($581 million) is set to be invested in 12 projects in the Tibet autonomous region's Konggang New District this year.

Centered on Lhasa Gongkar International Airport, about 56 kilometers southwest of the region's capital, the new district was established in 2015 with the aim of becoming a modern logistics and service industry hub.

Projects to be undertaken include an expansion of the airport so that it can handle 9 million passengers and 80,000 metric tons of cargo by 2025; the construction of roads; sand stabilization; and quinoa planting and chicken breeding programs.

"Eventually, we will build the district into a subcenter of Lhasa," said Cui Jianyong, director of the Konggang New District Administrative Committee.

Du Qi, an official with the committee, said projects such as quinoa planting had already proven effective at generating more money for the area.

More than 60 hectares of quinoa were planted last year, helping the district's 23 poverty-stricken households earn 5,000 yuan each, according to the committee.

Another 25 hectares of quinoa are set to be planted this year, Du said.

In all, the government plans to invest more than 15 billion yuan in the district during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), the committee said.
A senior police officer in Guangdong province has vowed to introduce more effective and concrete measures to crack down on telephone fraud.

"Telephone fraud is something that really disgusts people," said Zhang Rui, political commissar of the province's criminal investigation bureau.

"It is threatening residents' safety and disrupting the social order. The police will continue to spare no effort to fight against such fraud."

Zhang made the remarks at a news conference in Guangzhou, the provincial capital, on Tuesday, as he announced the arrests of 450 suspects connected with telephone fraud in a special operation code-named Jufeng 3 that was launched earlier this month.

The operation, which was carried out jointly with police in 11 provinces, regions and municipalities, broke up eight criminal gangs and uncovered 90 illicit hideouts.

"The suspects detained during Jufeng 3 were involved in more than 800 telephone fraud cases, worth about 10 million yuan ($1.46 million), and had a large number of computers, bank cards, SIM cards, identity cards and mobile phones in their possession that were seized," Zhang said.

"Despite these achievements, more operations will be organized in the following months."

Since the beginning of this year, Guangdong police have dealt with 1,640 cases involving telephone fraud and detained more than 900 suspected fraudsters, according to Zhang.
URUMQI - Over 20,000 students in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Northwest China, who identify as ethnic minorities, will be accepted onto courses at inland schools and universities this year.



A total of 9,880 students from Xinjiang will go to study in inland high schools, 3,300 will attend inland vocational schools and 8,600 will study at inland universities, according to the Xinjiang inland student program office under the regional education department.



Ethnic minority students have been awarded places at schools and universities in inland regions since 1989, in a program designed to offer gifted students a better quality education and, subsequently, greater opportunities.



Statistics from the office show that more than 60,000 high school graduates in Xinjiang have been admitted by inland universities while more than 90,000 students from Xinjiang have been taught at inland high schools so far. Most of these students return to work in Xinjiang after graduation.
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Many Chinese are tired of festivals, which are bombarded with shopping spree, dining parties and red envelopes nowadays, according to a survey by China Youth Daily last week.

Of the 2,003 people surveyed, 63 percent said they were bored of festivals, while 64 percent said they would like to arrange more relaxing gatherings and set aside time for rest after a busy holiday.

Just over half of the respondents were born in the 1980s, 20 percent each in the 1990s and 1970s.

The survey revealed that dining with friends and shopping sprees heavily promoted by malls are widely accepted as the top two routine activities during festivals, with 73 percent and 64 percent of the respondents choosing them respectively.

About 57 percent of respondents also named sending red envelopes as a routine activity during festivals, while 45 percent used group SMS blessings.

It's these routine activities during the holidays that make 63 percent feel bored, though 20.7 percent disagreed.

"I enjoy shopping when the shopping malls tout big discounts during festivals, however, I feel bored if I just spend the festival days on shopping," said 28-year-old Li Xiaolu, who works at an information technology firm in Beijing.

"Cultural functions of the festivals have been gradually weakened with the social development," Zhou Yaping, an associate professor with Philosophy and Sociology School of Lanzhou University, said.

"Instead of traditional values and spiritual pursuits, people pay more attention to material demands. It seems as if people nowadays cannot find other adequate and memorable ways to spend the festivals instead of shopping, parties and sending envelopes."

When asked about the shopping-filled festivals, Zhou said: "The trend reflects the fact that most Chinese have no idea how to enjoy meaningful festivals, and the traffic jams during each festival also means many people give up the idea of going out. Besides, the burgeoning online shopping and attractive promotional activities at shopping malls during festivals both made the festivals more like shopping festivals."

Zhou added, this kind of shopping festival lessens the festivals' meaning and would not help younger generation inherit traditional Chinese culture.

Zhou advised people to try some new activities instead of shopping during festival days to relax their body and mind during their down time.

Almost 60 percent of respondents said they felt festival fatigue because of too many social activities during festival days.

"People who are busy on work days are used to strengthening relations with friends and relatives during festivals, which in turn makes people feel fatigue, let alone the shopping activities," said Li Hongzhen, who works at an administrative organ in North China's Hebei province.

Traffic jams, painstaking festival rituals, big spending and boring festival customs were respectively chosen by 52.0 percent, 46.4 percent, 42.8 percent and 32.3 percent of the respondents as reasons for festival fatigue.

However, it's noticeable that the most popular festivals are traditional festivals including Spring Festival and Mid-Autumn Day, which were approved of by 72 percent of respondents. International days, western holidays and new holidays including Singles' Day ranked second, third and fourth respectively.
The 9th Sino-Norwegian Social Policy Forum & 82nd International Forum opened in Haikou, capital of Hainan province, on Monday.

About 300 policy researchers from China, Norway, Finland, France and Canada attended its opening session of the two-day forum with the theme of "Enlarging the Size of the Middle Income Group: New Challenges and New Drivers for Economic Globalization".

Discussions were on topics such as establishing equitable social security, reforms and policies to expand the middle income group, and economic and social transformation of the group.

Vice Governor Li Guoliang of Hainan province met with the Norwegian Ambassador to China Svein O. Saether, and a number of policy researchers from both home and abroad before the opening ceremony. He then gave a welcome address at the opening ceremony, saying Hainan will develop modern service sectors, comprehensively raise the level of equitably shared public services, and make more efforts in targeted poverty alleviation to create better conditions for enlarging the size of the middle income group.

In his opening address, Saether said that since the establishment of their diplomatic relations in the early 1950s, Norway and China have been cooperating well. Next month, the Norwegian prime minister will head a large business delegation to visit China. This reflects the fact that the two countries are deepening their cooperation while also demonstrating the importance of China economically to Norway.

Liu Shijin, vice-chairman of China Development Research Foundation, believed that the key to enlarging the size of the middle income group is to form a framework that includes comprehensively sustainable continuous education, a full-coverage social security system and promotion of social mobility to break up social hierarchical consolidation.

The forum was jointly organized by the China Institute for Reform and Development and the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research.

mazhiping@chinadaily.com.cn
The Foreign Ministry held an urgent meeting on Tuesday with officials of the French embassy over the death of a Chinese man in Paris and called for Chinese people in France to express their demands in a reasonable and legal manner.

Chinese nationals had been involved in a clash with French police as they went to the local police department to submit a petition over the killing of Liu Shaoyao, a Chinese national who was shot dead at his home by plainclothes police on Sunday evening, the ministry confirmed.

The Chinese embassy in France was instructed to immediately lodge representations to French authorities over the killing. The ministry also requested French authorities to find out the exact details as soon as possible, ministry's spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Tuesday.

It also requested France to take effective measures to guarantee the safety and legal interests of Chinese people there, and "treat reasonably" their reaction over the man's death, Hua said.

According to Xinhua, some French media reports described the killing of the man as a "legitimate defense" against "an assailant with scissors", while Chinese media reports, quoting a daughter of the man, said the 160-cm-tall father of five children, did not pose a threat or attack the policeman.

Hua said the ministry will work with China's embassy in France to closely follow the case's development and safeguard the security and legal interests of Chinese citizens and organizations in France.
BEIJING -- The cremation of Wan Guoquan, former vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, was held Tuesday, with Chinese leaders paying their respects at the funeral in Beijing.

Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan, Zhang Gaoli, as well as Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao either visited Wan when he was in hospital or extended their condolences after his death.

Xi Jinping, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan, Zhang Gaoli, as well as Hu Jintao attended the funeral at Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery.

They stood in silent tribute and bowed three times in front of Wan's body. They also offered Wan's family their condolences.

Wan was also executive vice-chairman and honorary vice-chairman of the Central Committee of the China National Democratic Construction Association, one of China's eight non-communist parties.

Wan died on March 23 at the age of 99.
KUNMING -- The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA)forces on Tuesday staged an air-ground live-fire drill in South China, close to the border with Myanmar, military sources said.

The joint drill, carried out by the Southern Theater Command of the PLA according to an annual training schedule, was aimed at testing the troops' capabilities in rapid maneuver, precise destruction, vertical blockade and joint strike.

As required in a live-fire drill, the exercise sites and attack targets were randomly selected, the sources said, adding that armored infantry, artillery, air defense, army aviation, and air force units participated in the drill.

They coordinated closely and attacked targets precisely, the sources said. Under powerful fire support from air and ground, the armored infantry unit moved rapidly, forming a blockade of passage.

Colonel Fang Xin, who was with the the theater command, said the live-fire drill demonstrated the PLA's resolve and will in safeguarding national security in border area and air defense and protecting people's safety and their property.

It also showed the PLA's capability to win in these missions, Fang added.

The sources said Chinese authorities had informed Myanmar of the drill before it kicked off.
Doctors in China are expected to get a new aid in diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients  IBM's artificial intelligence platform, Watson.

Baheal Pharm, a Chinese company that focuses on e-health, signed a partnership agreement with IBM in Beijing on Tuesday to introduce Watson to medical institutions in China.

Through the deal, over the next three years, the company will become the sole agent on the Chinese mainland for Watson for Oncology, a cognitive computing platform designed to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of some commonly seen cancers, said Fu Gang, chairman of Baheal Pharm.

"We will also promote other products of IBM Watson Health in China, which will be customized to better meet the needs of Chinese," Fu said.

The company, which has connections with more than 120,000 hospitals in China, has selected some top comprehensive hospitals in China for application of Watson, he said.

In the long run, the artificial intelligence platform is expected to benefit hospitals and doctors at grassroots most, he added.

"Unlike doctors at big hospitals in big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, doctors at grassroots, in general, have less experience in diagnosis and treatment of cancer," Fu said. "Watson for Oncology may be of great help to them with its vast data resources."

Xu Xiaolin, vice-president of the Chinese Hospital Association, said he hopes promotion of the new technology will be expanded from big hospitals to medical institutions at grassroots, to contribute to the more even distribution of medical resources.

Cancer is a leading cause of death in China, and its incidence has been increasing. In 2015, there were 4.3 million new cancer cases, and more than 2.8 million deaths attributed to the disease, according to the National Cancer Institute.
It will help protect cultural items from world's conflict areas

China's national body overseeing protection of historical heritage has vowed to respond to the call for establishing "safe havens" for cultural properties from regions in conflict.

"Development of a network of safe havens will allow China to offer temporary asylum for endangered cultural heritage," said Liu Yuzhu, director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, during a seminar in Beijing.

"National-level museums and conservation institutions are encouraged to support international actions protecting these artifacts," he added.

China began considering taking action during Liu's attendance in December at an international conference in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, on the safeguarding of endangered cultural heritage items.

Liu also encouraged Chinese enterprises to donate more to international foundations involved in protecting cultural heritage.

China will expand its cultural heritage conservation efforts beyond the nation's borders and thus better serve China's overall diplomacy, he said. However, a timeline for the effort was not released, and the institution responsible for overseeing it has not been named.

Pan Shouyong, a museology professor at Minzu University of China in Beijing, said such a network was first advocated by UNESCO to respond to the endangerment of cultural relics created by wars and other threats in recent years.

"It's an international responsibility to aid the artifacts in danger," Pan said. "Now it is clear that China will accept the responsibility."

Huo Zhengxin, a professor of international law at China University of Political Science and Law, said there have been several successful examples of such protection in Europe, though the "safe haven" concept is relatively new.

For example, when the Taliban group effectively ruled Afghanistan, many cultural relics were secretly transported to a museum in Switzerland and were temporarily housed there until 2006, when they were taken back to the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul.

Additionally, Huo said, the British Museum once supported the maintenance of Iraqi museums' operations when the country's cultural heritage management system became paralyzed during the Iraq War in 2003.

He added that an international convention signed in The Hague in 1954 stipulates that cultural property temporarily stored in other countries due to conflict must be sent back after the conflict ends.

"China has a stable political and economic environment, which is an advantage for having such safe havens," Huo said. "China also has leading expertise and technology in relevant fields."

Liu said China is conducting cross-border joint archaeological projects in 15 countries. Major China-led restoration projects at such sites as Ta Keo Temple in Angkor Wat, Cambodia, and Bhimsen Tower in Kathmandu, Nepal, have provided much experience regarding efforts abroad to conserve cultural relics.

"Though international cooperation on cultural relics usually has a smaller scale and investment compared with other types of projects, the influence is much bigger," said Chai Xiaoming, head of the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage, which is in charge of the projects.

"They represent history and people's deep emotions," he said.

Huo, however, said more complete rules and laws are needed to aid the effort to set up safe havens for relics.
Visitors appreciate a marble statue of Mithras at the National Museum of China in Beijing on March 1, 2017. [Photo by Jiang Dong/Asianewsphoto]

Cultural relics exhibitions have become more important for China in improving cultural exchange, the head of the country's cultural heritage authority said Monday.

From 2011 to 2016, a total of 293 exhibitions were held abroad to display Chinese cultural items, and 116 foreign relics exhibitions were held in China, said Liu Yuzhu, director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, at a symposium on cultural relics and cultural exchange.

One of the most recent exhibitions was held in February in San Francisco. A collaboration between the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and China's Nanjing Museum, it brought more than 160 Chinese treasures, dating back thousands of years, to the United States for the first time.

At the beginning of this month, "A History of the World in 100 Objects," a travelling exhibition curated by the British Museum, arrived at the National Museum of China in Beijing. Running until May, it will later move to Shanghai.

Liu said China has deepened cooperation with other countries in the field, and more than 100 pieces or sets of Chinese cultural objects managed to return home from the countries, including the United States, France and Japan, from 2011 to 2016.

China will hold more exhibitions abroad to present items that showcase Chinese culture and will welcome more exhibitions of foreign objects in China, Liu said.

Related:

10 must-see items in British Museum show

Visitors flock to British Museum display in Beijing
The inauguration of the exhibition at the National Art Museum of China on March 20. [Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]

The National Art Museum of China displays pieces donated by a German collector couple in 1996, Lin Qi reports.

Thomas Eller, a German artist who has lived in Beijing for three years, had a "strange yet sweet" feeling when he looked at some 50 works of modern and contemporary art displayed at the National Art Museum of China last week. They were donated to the museum by German art collector Irene Ludwig and her late husband, Peter Ludwig, more than two decades ago.

"The shown artists are all familiar to me and seeing their works reminds me of my work back in Germany's art circles," Eller says. "What a wonderful way to share our cultural experiences with a large audience in China."

He was among dozens of visitors who enjoyed a night tour of the Beijing museum on March 20. They were invited to Eternal Warmth, an exhibition that runs through Sunday, and shows selected works from the art donations the Ludwigs made. The exhibition also coincides with the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Germany this year.

China's current booming art scene is drawing international artists like Eller. He organized the Gallery Weekend Beijing over March 17-19, featuring a strong lineup of galleries and artists here.

When the Ludwigs donated art to the Chinese museum in 1996, Western modern art was little known to the public in China.
The Cleveland Museum of Art (left) is one of the venues to host the triennial. Photos provided to China Daily

Emerging Chinese artists will be invited to take part in an art event being held in the industrial city of Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States in 2018, the organizers said during their visit to Beijing on Saturday.

The event, Front International: Cleveland Exhibition for Contemporary Art, is a three-month citywide triennial planned to open in July 2018.

It will display works by more than 55 artists across the world in various public spaces in the city, including art museums, churches and markets.

Preparations for the new triennial began in 2014 and the organizers then started to tour the world to meet artists and invite them to produce works for the Cleveland event.

Jens Hoffmann, an artistic director of the triennial, says that the invited artists will include both established and emerging ones from across the world.

Chinese artists are definitely on the list, he says.

"Chinese artists are playing a very important role on the global art scene. You would miss a part of the world if you don't include them, given that the triennial is global in scope," says Hoffmann, adding that the organizers plan to invite five or six emerging Chinese artists.
Artist Qiu Anxiong's latest ink animation New Classic of Mountains and Seas III creates a world that blurs the line between virtual and real. Provided To China Daily

In his latest 3-D animation work, Chinese artist Qiu Anxiong shows a man in a black suit and an octopus-shaped mask fall through a city of skyscrapers. Will he die? No one can tell because the lines between reality and the virtual world have blurred.

It's a future world created by the video and animation artist for the final episode of his ink animation trilogy New Classic of Mountains and Seas. The Shanghai-based artist spent three years producing his latest work of 25 minutes to discuss people's confusion and struggle living in a high-tech world, where reality is mixed with the virtual.

The video's two protagonists, a factory worker who is obsessed with computer games and a city-based designer, seem to live totally separated lives. However, their lives intertwine in the virtual world. In it, they build their own ideal land to avoid the real one - dull and full of glorious facades. In it, they can be immortal because they are reborn, again and again. Who is dead and who is not? The question remains open for the audiences.

"The high-tech aspect of our lives, such as virtual reality, has two sides. They offer us great conveniences but also have a negative side," says Qiu, 45.

For the young generations growing up in the internet era, the virtual world is their reality, says the artist.
Dragon-shaped patterns on bronze wares from different periods. [Photo/Artron.net]

Ink brush painting Six Dragons by Song Dynasty (960-1279) painter Chen Rong fetched $49 million at a New York auction not long ago, attracting the public's attention to dragon paintings.

Since ancient times, the dragon has been a symbol of imperial power, and its image has been portrayed in many paintings, as well as on bronze wares, copper mirrors, jade wares, porcelain and stone carvings.

Before the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), images of dragons in artworks were fairly abstract and mysterious-looking. It wasn't until the Song Dynasty that the dragon became a more concrete and vivid creature. One ancient book describes the dragon as "its horn resembles a deer, its head resembles a camel, its eyes resemble a ghost, its neck resembles a snake, its belly resembles a sea monster, its scales resembles a carp, its claws resemble an eagle, its palms resemble a tiger and its ears resemble a cow".

During the Song Dynasty, artists began to specialize in drawing dragons, such as Dong Yu, Wang Xiandao and Wu Huai from the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), and Chen Rong, Ai Shu, Seng Fachang from the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279). Among them, Chen Rong was the most famous.

The Southern Song Dynasty marks a transition in dragon painting history in China. Due to scholars' concerns about the nation during this period, they began to use the dragon, which is a symbol of the Chinese nation, as a vehicle to vent their emotions. They expressed their lofty ideals and spiritual pursuit through the imposing posture of dragon in paintings. Since then, dragon paintings that used to be done for the royal court, became a way to express personal emotion and ethnic sentiment.

It is said that Chen Rong always painted when drunk, and sometimes he just poured ink as clouds, sprayed water as fog, and smeared ink on paper with his scarf.
Blue Lobster Tail served raw with raw piglet head, cauliflower, couscous and caviar Photos provided to China Daily

Richard Ekkebus may be a bright star on Hong Kong's fine-dining scene, but the farm-raised Dutch chef believes that without flavor a pretty dish is nothing, Mike Peters and Xu Junqian report.

The Ebisu oyster was a last-minute menu addition by Richard Ekkebus, and his guest was agog: "This had been cooked in its shell at 67 degrees and was served with wilted tarragon, shallots, duck gizzard, pieds de moutons mushroom and vin jaune. It was truly a jaw-dropping dish that married European and Asian techniques."

It was the best dish of the night, the reviewer exclaimed in 2013. But Ekkebus, the culinary director of the Landmark Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong who has made Amber a two-Michelin-starred gem, is not one to rest on such laurels.

On a recent visit to Amber, the oyster was on the menu, but in completely different form: coagulated at 70 C with sake lees, lemon, Granny Smith apple and salicornia. Next came an out-of-this-world Normandy diver scallop seared with lime caviar, umami sabayon, crispy Camargue red rice and dried seafood.

Such menu items sound so posh that you might imagine Ekkebus to be one of those chefs who have gone off the molecular deep-end. No way. When his wagyu beef dish arrives at your table, you will not have to poke various piles of powder to guess which one was once a Japanese cow. His success may lie in his ability to be both so elegant and so elemental.

Ekkebus was raised in a fishermen's village in southwestern Netherlands.
CAI MENG/CHINA DAILY

On Tomb Sweeping Day which usually falls in early April, people pay respects to departed family members.

Paying homage to departed souls is a tradition, but some people indulge in unusual practices during the festival. Some read from Buddhist scriptures or burn incense sticks to invoke the Buddha to redeem the souls of their dead family members. A few even set off firecrackers to ward off evil spirits.

Besides, it is not uncommon to see people burning paper money on pavements and street corners, which pollute the environment and disturb pedestrians. And it is more than just paper money that they burn to "please" their ancestors. Villas, car and smartphone models made of paper are popular choices with some people, with a few even offering Viagra to the departed souls.

Such activities, which have even caused fires in some forested mountain slopes, in the name of paying respects to the departed souls are nothing but farce. They are not part of tradition, but cheap displays of living people's desires which they impose on the dead.

Of course, there are those who plant trees or flowering plants, or offer a bouquet of flowers, or play a piece of music on Tomb Sweeping Day to pay respects to their departed family members.

In the age of the internet, people have been finding new ways of paying homage to the dead. For instance, the first online memorial hall appeared in 2000, which helps preserve the voices of the departed souls. Whenever people want to pay homage to their ancestors, they just need to visit the online memorial site to offer flowers or candles, or play a piece of music. This is a new environmentally friendly and safe way to pay respect to the dead.

The Beijing municipal government recently started encouraging people to bury the ashes of their relatives in Evergreen Park, Chaoyang district. The first batch of voluntary registration has more than 30 families, which can be regarded as a new trend of sweeping tombs.

Tomb sweeping customs vary from place to place and family to family. But many practices are common across the country, and one can easily differentiate between tradition and vulgarity.

In today's market economy, demand determines supply even when it comes to funerals.

Although every Tomb Sweeping Day sees the growth of traditional practices, new trends continue to crop up. What people need to do therefore is to develop self-restraint and social governance and learn how not to be influenced by what others do. The more self-disciplined people are, the less lured they will be by farcical rituals.

And as the society develops, superstition and outdated customs will gradually lose their attraction for people. Therefore, it is important to expedite the development of social governance and market order to promote good traditions and discourage superstitious practices.

The author is a professor at the School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University of China.
Flowers are laid at the scene after an attack on Westminster Bridge in London, Britain, March 22, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

The London attack on March 22 in which five people, including the attacker and a policeman, were killed and 40 injured is another potent warning against terrorism.

The United Kingdom has been tightening its security measures after the 2005 terrorist attack in London that claimed more than 50 lives. The measures include sharing information with other countries, strengthening the police force, as well as providing professional training to counter-terrorism forces. But, as the March 22 attack showed, it is still difficult even for a country with the tightest security to prevent a terrorist attack.

Last week's London attack also showed new trends in terrorism, such as "lone wolf" attacks. These "lone wolves" are sometimes helped by one or two residents to launch attacks on unsuspecting innocent people. The number of lone wolf attacks has been rising since 2000. In May 2013, two terrorists killed a soldier in London; in March this year, a man, later identified as an extremist, was shot dead while trying to snatch the weapon of a female solider at Orly Airport in France. All those were so-called lone-wolf attacks.

With more countries imposing greater restrictions on possession of guns and explosives, terrorists are using easy-to-get tools to launch attacks. Driving vehicles into crowds and going on stabbing sprees have become their preferred methods to spread panic among the people.

Back in June 2007, terrorists tried to attack Glasgow International Airport with an SUV loaded with gas cannisters; in December last year, a terrorist drove a truck into Christmas shoppers in Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring over 50; five months before that, another man drove a truck into crowds celebrating Bastille Day on the Nice promenade, killing 86 people and leaving 434 injured. Even in the last week's London attack, the terrorist used a vehicle to attack pedestrians on Westminster Bridge meters away from the British parliament building.

Another striking feature of the recent terrorist attacks is the targets: landmark buildings where large numbers of people assemble. Westminster Palace in London is the latest example. Terrorists target such structures because they believe an attack on any one of them will deal a psychological blow to the government and the people.

In November 2015, terrorists struck outside the Stade de France and fired indiscriminately inside the Bataclan Theatre in Paris, both landmark structures. Some terrorists even attacked the Louvre Museum, another Paris landmark, on Feb 2 this year.

The "war on terror" has taught us that although it is relatively easy to physically eliminate terrorists it is hard to spiritually root out terrorism. Take the UK for example. After World War II, it welcomed hundreds of thousands of migrants from other countries due to shortage of labor. But despite spending decades in the UK, the children and grandchildren of many of those migrants are still poor compared with "native" residents. And even though British society is quite open and its government has adopted policies to suit all ethnic and religious groups, many among the migrant communities still find it difficult to melt into the British milieu.

Since many of the youths in the migrant communities do not identify themselves with British society, they do not consider the UK their homeland. And with easy dissemination of information on the internet, they may fall prey to terrorist propaganda.

The solution therefore lies in not only more strictly controlling the borders, but also helping the migrants and their children and grandchildren to improve their economic conditions and identify themselves with their countries of residence.

But this is easier said than done. So the UK and European leaderships need to find a way to balance the interests of migrants and "native" residents and build inclusive societies. Only in this way can terrorism be truly defeated.

The author is a professor at the International Politics Department of the University of International Relations in Beijing.
People attend the "I Love Europe" march which was called to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome in Warsaw, Poland, on Saturday.[Photo/Agencies]

Citing data, some Belgian media outlets have reported that Chinese investors in Belgium have created up to 18,500 jobs for local residents. And on average one Chinese investor has contributed 1 million ($1.08 million) in revenue, reflecting the high productivity and profit-making capability of Chinese investment.

Some Central and Eastern European countries are facing labor shortages partly because of growing Chinese investment in manufacturing and the end of European Union's economic stagnation. In the past five years, Huawei, for example, has created up to 12,000 jobs in the EU.

Last week, Belgium and Hungary became full-time members of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which means one-third of the bank's 70 members are from Europe. And the development path of the AIIB suggests cooperation among members will deepen to bring Asia, Europe and Africa closer.

But despite the EU marking its 60th anniversary, its leaders are in a somber mood, as European Commission President Jean-claude Juncker put it, because of the United Kingdom beginning the formal process to leave the EU and the uncertainties created by the United States administration under President Donald Trump.

After the EC's recent decision to assess China's investment activities in the EU more strictly, some members of the European Parliament have also proposed that foreign investment in Europe should be closely monitored in "strategic sectors" such as energy, water and telecommunications. Many observers say the move is targeted at China, where EU businesses, according to European politicians, don't have the same access that Chinese enterprises do in Europe. The politicians even claim that EU investment in China is falling.

The fact is, European investors, along with other foreign investors, are now being treated on par with domestic investors in China after having enjoyed preferential treatment for three decades since the beginning of reform and opening-up. And since the EU's accumulated investment in China is already huge, it is natural for it to maintain that level or even fall slightly. As far as expanding business and investment overseas is concerned, Europe is an old hand while China is a newcomer if one goes by the two sides' trading history.

Given the facts, perhaps this is the right time for China and the EU to discuss trade differences and make policy decisions. The understanding in Brussels now is that Beijing is promoting globalization and the world needs to support it. As part of its commitment to globalization, China has been encouraging overseas investment and offering public goods.

However, despite its history of strengthening regional integration, the EU, many suspect, is showing signs of resorting to protectionism ostensibly to protect European enterprises and products. It's another matter, though, that many European businesses and member states don't support it.

Advocating globalization is not the responsibility of China alone. The EU and the US and other global players should promote globalization more intensely than China.

The China-EU partnership is unique, as they work more cohesively during hard times, but not necessarily during normal times. A careful examination of the interactions and exchanges between Beijing and Brussels during the global financial and debt crises will prove the contention.

However true that may be, the priority for the EU now is to take swift, decisive and strategic measures to identify new areasChina's growing investment for exampleto help the Brussels-Beijing partnership to overcome the odds.

More importantly, the EU should realize that taking a hard line against Chinese products and investment at this critical time would be a big mistake. The reason is simple: more jobs and better livelihoods will make more Europeans, especially those youths struggling to earn a decent living, have more confidence in the EU as an economic union.

The author is deputy chief of China Daily European Bureau.

fujing@chinadaily.com.cn
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Australian counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull, speak at joint press conference after their annual talks in Canberra in Australia on March 24, 2017. [Photo/provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Visiting Premier Li Keqiang witnessed the signing of a cooperation agreement between China and New Zealand under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative on Monday. This is the first agreement of its kind China has inked with a developed Western economy, indicating China's initiative is gaining both popularity and substantial progress.

The initiative, put forward by President Xi Jinping in 2013, aims to revive the ancient overland and maritime Silk Road trade routes with a focus on infrastructure and trade. The initiative is increasingly looked upon as a way of resurrecting the globalization trend and achieving common development, and a growing number of countries are participating in it.

New Zealand has set many precedents for China's relations with developed Western economies: It was the first to conclude bilateral negotiations on China's accession to the World Trade Organization, the first to recognize China's full market-economy status, the first to sign and implement a bilateral free trade agreement with China and the first to join the China-initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as a founding member.

All these have helped lay a solid foundation for bilateral ties to prosper over the years and bring real benefits to both sides. Bilateral trade has increased nearly threefold over the past eight years since the China-New Zealand FTA came into force.

Li's ongoing visit to New Zealand will elevate bilateral interaction to a new height by fostering new growth points, unleashing new potential for common development and synergizing the two countries' development strategies.

Prior to New Zealand, Li visited Australia, which has also responded positively to the Belt and Road Initiative. During Li's visit last week, China and Australia signed a series of agreements on bilateral cooperation, including an eye-catching agreement on infrastructure.

The economies of China and Australia are highly complementary, and the two countries implemented a bilateral FTA agreement in 2015 that has anchored their reciprocal cooperation in trade and other fields. The two countries have now begun negotiations to further expand their FTA to other fields, especially services and investment, as Li revealed in Sydney.

The strides made in China's FTA arrangements with Australia and New Zealand show that free trade does not necessarily lead to tit-for-tat competition but generates gains for all participants.

With the world facing the challenge of slow economic recovery and the backlash of anti-globalization, the efforts of China and the two Oceania countries to further develop their ties should help build global confidence in free trade and open markets.
Pottery figurines from the Sixteen Kingdoms period (about 1,600 years ago) portraying women playing music are on display at the Tianjin Museum in Tianjin, March 18, 2017. [Photo/VCG]

Ten frescos that were later classified as cultural relics that should be under national level protection were stolen from Longtian Temple in North China's Shanxi province in October. When the police finally caught up with the gang responsible for the theft, after a half-year investigation, they unexpectedly discovered more than 400 stolen frescoes from other temples in the province. Guangming Daily comments:

It is estimated that Shanxi has about 70 percent of the country's ancient frescos, which are housed in a number of deserted or ill-managed Buddhist and Taoist temples in rural areas. Some temples that are county-level cultural relic protection sites are even visited by thieves repeatedly within a short period of time.

The local authorities invariably attribute the thefts to the lack of funds needed to protect these cultural artifacts. In fact, few local officials think the stolen frescoes are important. Different departments of the grassroots governments are jointly responsible for their protection according to law. Yet no one is held accountable when any cultural relics are damaged or stolen.

If the situation remains unchanged, the thieves and dealers will become increasingly unscrupulous and bold, grabbing the cultural artifacts from one temple after another, fattening their pockets with public assets.

Local governors need to come up with good plans to develop rural tourism, so the cultural treasures in the mountains and fields can be turned into tourism resources, which will help protect them by materializing their cultural and artistic value.
The mayor of the ancient town of Hule in East China's Anhui province has become an internet celebrity thanks to some beautiful photos of her posing with her female colleagues in picturesque spot in the town that were posted online. Yang Chunli told journalists in an interview that although she had been criticized by some, all she was doing was promoting the town as a tourist destination. China Youth Daily commented on Monday:

We don't know where the criticism mentioned by the mayor comes from, whether it is from other officials or the public, but no matter where it comes from, it is not necessary to care too much about it. It is not only because "tolerance is more valuable than freedom", but also because we know what officialdom is like.

The ecology of officialdom is made up of officials, but it is not determined by officials alone, but also by social awareness and social expectations.

We should be tolerant of especially those officials with innovative thinking, who initiate innovative ways of carrying out their work. Even if these ideas and methods do not always bear fruit, they should be tolerated.

A wise official strives to make a contribution and from that perspective the mayor's efforts are laudable as she has successfully raised the profile of the ancient town, which was her intention. And, from media reports, there is no hint of any corruption in either her work or her life.

Some people form an opinion that they cling to no matter what, and they are unwilling to embrace anything new. The mayor's initiative does not deserve any criticism simply because it is not what people expect of the mayor.
Wang Ming, member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference from Tsinghua University. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

All members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee, the country's top political advisory body, expect their proposals to play a role in policymaking. Over the past two decades, proposals from members of the National Committee of the CPPCC have tripled. Back in 1993, when the first session of the 8th CPPCC National Committee was held, the members submitted about 2,000 proposals; the figure increased to 5,000 in 2008 and has remained steady at around 6,000 since 2013.

This may prompt the public to ask the question: How many of these proposals evoke a response from the central government? And what kind of proposals are taken into consideration while making policies?

Most proposals from CPPCC National Committee members get responses from related executive government agencies, and some eventually lead to legislation.

Take my own experience for example. About 10 percent of my proposals in the past 15 years have been considered while formulating policies, some of which have already come into force. My proposal to allow all couples to have two children, which many other CPPCC National Committee members also voiced, eventually became a national policy.

Apart from being included in policymaking, such proposals can also affect public opinions and thus help reach a social consensus on a specific issue with the support of the media. This is a very important role proposals submitted to the CPPCC National Committee play, yet we don't pay enough attention to it.

One point needs to be made clear here: in most cases, it's not an individual's proposal that leads to a policy. Only when a proposal represents the needs of the majority of the people and promotes public interest will the CPPCC National Committee thoroughly discuss it. And only if the policymakers reach a consensus that the proposal enjoys enough support among the public can it be transformed into a policy. The agencies and departments of the State Council, China's Cabinet, for instance, realized the two-child-per-couple proposal enjoyed social consensus and only then gave a green light to the policy.

I always upload all my proposals, along with explanations, on my blog during the annual sessions of the CPPCC National Committee and the National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, so that journalists can better understand them and disseminate them among the public. It's important to explain the proposals and their applications to the people, because their response will help us better formulate our proposals.

Step by step, I have realized the process of formulating a proposal is more like carrying out a systematic project. First, you need to raise a pertinent issue at the CPPCC National Committee session. Then you conduct a survey to collect more data and analyze all the available information. Finally, you submit a written proposal to the relevant department and wait for its response. So the process is more like research work.

Some CPPCC members lack the art of using a proposal as an important tool, while some don't know how to raise issues that people actually care about. CPPCC members have the responsibility to take care of people's needs, by definition their position is political.

As the last annual session of the 12th CPPCC National Committee opens on Friday, it offers the CPPCC members the chance to summarize their proposals and ideas over the five years. They need to use this opportunity and see submitting proposals as a really valuable political, economic and social duty. Using the proposals as a powerful tool that influences policymaking is very important in these times when our country progresses toward comprehensive and deepening reforms.

The author is a member of the 12th National Committee of the CPPCC, and vice-dean of the School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University. This article is an excerpt from his interview with China Daily's Wu Zheyu.
Sun Ping, dean of the School of Art and Research of Beijing Foreign Studies University, and a highly-regarded Peking Opera artist well known to the international community,was doing exclusive interview with China Daily website.[Photo by Zhang Guangteng/chinadaily.com.cn]

Has Chinese culture's "going out" strategy really worked in global markets, especially in western ones? Compared to the presence and impact of western culture in China, from the point of view of its audiences, the capital volume it creates, and the number and variety of its expressions, it may even be concluded that China faces a "culture deficit".

That point was made by Sun Ping, dean of the School of Art and Research of Beijing Foreign Studies University, and a highly-regarded Peking Opera artist well known to the international community, in an exclusive interview with the China Daily website.

She has served as a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) for 15 years. Given her over two decades of overseas experience and remarkable accomplishments in art, she works in the Foreign Affairs Committee under the CPPCC, concentrating on matters of culture and foreign affairs.

"I gradually found out there exists a huge gap between just performing some traditional opera for the Chinese community and actually letting local residents know what your culture really is. In speaking about whether or not the strategy of moving Chinese culture into global markets has really worked, that might be my perspective," said Sun.

As an example to explain this "culture deficit", she cites the different situations faced by organizers when it came to using art activities to promote Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu, a great Chinese playwright, who both died in the same year. In 2016 the governments of China and Britain co-hosted a series of activities to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the two artists deaths. The concept was equal promotion, but the plays of Tang xianzu were performed abroad no more than 30 times, while Shakespeare dramas were staged over 300 times. Consequently, few people got to know this Chinese playwright who, like Shakespeare, wrote immortal romance stories.

Sun pointed out that, "The key problem behind this phenomenon is the way you tell the stories. More detailed descriptions and delicate changes to presentation may present the works in a way that caters to foreign tastes. She plans to submit more concrete proposals around this topic to the committee to help Chinas art market gain more international exposure."

Sun is also on the judges panel of the China National Arts Fund. The fund, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, plays various roles and has some flexibility in encouraging development of outstanding art. She would like to formulate a specific proposal around how to combine the experiences of other national funds such as those in Japan and the US to guide the work of Chinas national fund.

When asked how to make a good proposal as a CPPCC member, she emphasizes that a proposal should be gradually amended after gathering public responses. One of her previous proposals, to make Peking Opera part of the primary and secondary school curricula, caused something of a stir.

Many people, include some foreign media, mistook it as intending to put Model Operas into textbooks, or trying to increase students ability to perform Peking Opera by themselves. Sun organized a symposium during that years two sessions to hear suggestions from teachers and parents, and make adjustments: school programs would include material on Chinese traditional opera, and students would only need to learn to appreciate Peking Opera, and not to perform it themselves.

Sun concluded that more emphasis must be laid on promoting Chinese traditional culture, whether among students or as an export to other countries. "Our nation has already performed so greatly in various ways, including culturally. But for culture, more top-level policy design to facilitate it is critically needed."
Sun Jie,vice dean of the School of Insurance and Economics at the University of International Business and Economics,member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) committee, was doing interview with China Daily website.[Photo by Zhang Guangteng/chinadaily.com.cn]

Proposals nowadays have been responded and some of them are turned into force with a faster pace, according to Sun Jie , member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) committee, during an exclusive interview with China Daily website.

The Insurance and Economics professor with the the University of International Business and Economics said CPPCC committee responds quickly to proposals and adopts practical policies in a timely manner, her proposals this year would continue to focus on long term care insurance, maternity insurance and the development of a comprehensive social security system.

As a member of the 12th national committee of the CPPCC, this is the last year of his term.

"Its a good chance to summarize the proposals and ideas that had been gathered in the past five years." Sun said.

"The proposals now are getting more attention from related agencies of the government and thats the reason for the higher responsive quality." the professor explained.

For example, she initially presented the proposal a long term care insurance system in 2013. Three years later, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security launched the first pilot programme and are expanding it to 15 cities across the nation.

A good news comes out recently, according to the latest news from the State Council's official website, the five-year plan (2016-2020) on elderly care has been issued and pension and healthcare systems will be improved. One detailed section that has aroused public interest is that commercial insurance companies are encouraged to develop long term care insurance products and services, a response to Suns proposals to some degree.

Sun is also continuing to call for the inclusion of maternity insurance in the universal health care system. Due to its limited coverage, fewer than half of China's 360 million female employees participate and less than 3.6 percent of the total female working population enjoy the benefits. In recent years, the Maternity Insurance fund has amounted to more than 60 billion yuan. It uses a pay-as-you-go system which means the population it is supposed to benefit has not actually been taken care of.

"There are two parts of maternity insurance, one is the medicare reimbursement, which has been officially included in the universal health care system as of January this year. The other part is the maternity pay, which accounts for more than three quarters of the whole fund."

On this possible shortage, Sun suggests that from now on, maternity pay should no longer be paid out of the fund, but rather a fiscal appropriation should be made to shoulder the burden together with corporations.

Another issue she wants to raise this year, is delaying the age that people can access the full pension. Under the present policy, the mandatory age for retirement is 60. Sun has suggested raising the pension age limit by one or two years and those that choose to retire early would only get 85-90 per cent of the pension. This is a common practice in many western countries and has been proven to be effective to curb peoples intention to early retirement.

"When enterprises are not performing well for profits, they tend to let employees retire earlier--which is harmful both for the society and the individuals, especially for our pension system, that more residents get pension at early age while less people are paying for it. Our government should gradually delay the timing of permitting people to get the full pension. Let them get used to the postponed retirement step-by-step." Sun said.
CAI MENG/ CHINA DAILY

Has China's attempt to promote its culture abroad, particularly in the West, made enough impact? Compared with the prevalence of Western culture in China, both in terms of its influence and the money it generates, it appears China faces a "culture deficit".

There is a huge gap between performing a traditional opera for the Chinese community abroad and actually letting local residents know what our culture is really about. My observations are based on my studies and work experiences abroad over two decades.

A concrete example that can explain this "culture deficit" is the different nature of difficulties faced by organizers when it comes to using performances to promote the works of, say, William Shakespeare and eminent Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu, both of whom died in the same year.

Last year, for example, the governments of China and the United Kingdom co-hosted a series of activities to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the two playwrights' deaths. The idea was to equally promote the two dramatists' works, but the plays of Tang were performed abroad just about 30 times, while those of Shakespeare were staged more than 300 times in China. As a result, fewer people in the UK got to know about Tang and his works.

That was not an isolated case, for last year our plays and shows were performed less than 20 times in Russia, while more than 300 Russian shows were staged in China.

The cases with movies and books are similar.

The key problem behind this phenomenon may be the way we Chinese tell a story. The need therefore is to present Chinese works in a different, perhaps in a more detailed and delicate, way to draw foreign audiences. I plan to submit more concrete proposals on the subject to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee to help Chinese culture make a greater impact on the global stage.

The current policy can further facilitate the promotion of Chinese performing arts if applied more appropriately. But since I'm on the panel of judges of the China National Arts Fund, under the Ministry of Culture, which plays a big role in culture promotion, I might formulate a specific proposal this year on how to learn from the experiences of other countries, such as Japan and the United States, to use China's national fund to encourage better quality works to highlight Chinese culture abroad.

The fact is, not only foreign audiences are likely to be unaware about Tang, but also many in China have to be educated to truly appreciate his plays. Finding the best way to promote classic Chinese works and cultivating domestic audiences' taste remain critical tasks.

As a member of the CPPCC National Committee for the past 15 years, I have learned that a proposal should be gradually adjusted, depending on the public response it draws, as one of my proposalsto include Peking Opera in the primary and secondary school curriculacaused something of a stir. Many people, including some foreign journalists, mistook it as a proposal to introduce "model operas", which is definitely not part of traditional Chinese Peking Opera, in textbooks and an effort to teach students how to perform Peking Opera. I organized a symposium during that year's annual sessions of the CPPCC National Committee and the National People's Congress to hear the suggestions of teachers and parents. And my modified proposal said the school curricula should include materials on Chinese traditional opera, and students should learn only to appreciate Peking Opera, not to perform it.

The incident made me realize that more emphasis should be laid on promoting Chinese culture among students as well as among foreign audiences. China has performed wonderfully on many fronts. But it needs more top-level policies to promote its culture.

The author is a member of the 12th CPPCC National Committee and dean of the School of Art and Research, Beijing Foreign Studies University. This article is an excerpt from her interview with China Daily's Wu Zheyu.
Zhang, partner at Ruihua Certified Public Accountants, member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) committee, was doing interview with China Daily website.[Photo by Zhang Guangteng/chinadaily.com.cn]

Individual income tax reform is the priority in an overhaul of the countrys fiscal and tax system, top accountant Zhang Lianqi, who is a member of the 12th CPPCC National Committee says.

"A major breakthrough could be achieved this year," Zhang said in an exclusive interview with China Daily website.

Zhang, who is a partner at Ruihua Certified Public Accountants, suggested that most of his proposals submitted to the committee this year would focus on fiscal and tax reform, covering the budget, individual income tax and tax cuts.

"A principle that I followed through the formulation of all suggestions is hearing the needs of people to improve peoples livelihood," Zhang emphasized.

Since China's value-added tax (VAT) reform was officially launched last year, debate among the public has not stopped with doubts about whether it would really help corporations and individuals achieve the amount of tax savings it claimed.

Zhang was involved in the process of drafting the policy and has observed it in operation in various industries and believes it has brought solid benefits for corporations.

"If a company has business segments both in manufacturing and the service industries, a composite tax rate of 17 percent was applied before, while after the VAT reform, the two sectors are deducted as separate tax rate of 6 percent respectively, which is, in fact, equivalent to offering tax preference for this company."

"The crucial problem here is there needs to be a process for corporations to get familiar with the reformed tax system so they can make use of it and benefit from it," Zhang concluded.

As for individual income tax, the public wants to know whether the monthly income tax exemption threshold - the amount people can earn before paying tax - will be raised.

However, Zhang said they are more likely to adopt various exemption levels depending on individual financial burdens.

"The threshold in essence is a unified deduction. Simply indiscriminately raising the amount deducted is neither fair, nor the direction of our tax reform."

Trial programs allowing more expenses to be deducted, such as commercial health insurance, have been in place since last year. For individuals whose commercial health insurance premiums reached 2,400 yuan, the mean monthly tax exemption threshold would rise from 3,500 to 3700 yuan, under the new policy adopted in 31 pilot cities.

The expenses of raising a second child, supporting the elderly and getting professional training have also been named as possible deductible items from an individual's taxable income.

"Obviously, that's equivalent to offering incentives for people to better perform their responsibilities," Zhang said.

He was keen to point out that, in the long run, this move would not hit the governments tax revenue. He said it may in fact benefit both government and individuals.

"For example, if the employees are trained to obtain more professional skills, consequently he would get paid better in the future, the increased part of his salary is actually within our governments schedule of making the source of taxation more sufficient," Zhang said.

Zhang predicted major breakthroughs in the reform process would be achieved this year,,although he said it would be a gradual implementation due to unbalanced development among the regions and the need for supporting measures that are still being developed.

He said hearing opinions from experts and the public would help develop such comprehensive policy.
ZHAI HAIJUN/CHINA DAILY

Raising the individual income tax threshold is always in the public's interest. But since an indiscriminate increase in the threshold will neither be fair nor serve the purpose of China's tax reforms, the authorities have decided to adopt various exemption standards to ease different income groups' financial burdens.

The Government Work Report mentions applying different exemption standards for different sectors to charge individual income tax; the application also found mention at the finance minister's news conference during the just-concluded annual sessions of China's top legislature and top political advisory body.

The pace of the tax reforms, however, should be progressive, with the individual income tax reform leading the overall reform process. The reforms will ease the financial burdens of families and individuals if they can help improve people's livelihoods. That's why some have suggested that the expenses for raising a second child, supporting the elderly and acquiring professional training should be deducted from an individual's taxable income, because it will provide incentives for people to better fulfill their responsibilities.

Programs allowing certain types of expenses to be deducted from the taxable income were put on trial in some places last year. For example, the policy to exempt the premium paid for commercial health insurance from the taxable income, which was launched in 31 pilot cities, will raise the individual income tax threshold from 3,500 yuan ($506.4) per month to 3,700 yuan if the premium for commercial health insurance reaches 2,400 yuan a year, according to a document jointly released by the Ministry of Finance, the State Administration of Taxation and China Insurance Regulatory Commission.

However, this doesn't mean the government's tax revenues will reduce in the long run. Since "nothing is certain except death and taxes", the government will talk about tax reduction only if its overall tax revenues remain stable. For example, if employees are trained to acquire more professional skills, they will earn more in the future. And the more they earn, the higher the income tax they will pay.

The method of paying income tax could pose a problem, though. Private companies and government organizations now deduct the individual income tax from employees' salaries and deposit it with the tax authorities. With the deepening of the reform, people might have to report their personal incomes and provide the details of their exemptible or deductible expenses themselves, which will require a more comprehensive and stricter regulatory environment, especially for supervising the certification of taxpayers' deductible expenses.

The need, therefore, is to build a modern information tracking system across China, which will include all the information on personal incomes and property, and the entire process of tax collection, management and validation. Also, some sectors and groups of people require special supervision. For instance, specialized tax records and files should be put in place for professionals who manage cross-border investments and trade.

Another point I tried to make in my proposal to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee this year is to reduce the number of tax rate categories. At present, salaries and wages are classified into 11 types, so there is a different exemption threshold and tax rate for each type of income. Developed economies' experiences show simplified tax rates can be better managed. Besides, the tax rates at the primary stage should be lowered as the lower-income groups are not targeted to pay higher taxes.

The tax reforms can achieve major breakthroughs this year, though they should be initiated gradually across the country owing to the different levels of development and supportive measures in place in different regions. Also, to make the reforms more effective, we need a more comprehensive policy design based on the advice of experts and public opinions.

The author is a member of the 12th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee and partner of Ruihua Certified Public Accountants. This article is an excerpt from his interview with China Daily's Wu Zheyu.
Jia Qingguo, member of the 12th national standing committee of the CPPCC, dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University,was doing interview with China Daily website.[Photo by Wang Yuxi/chinadaily.com.cn]

China must re-define its national interests under the new circumstances it faces domestically and internationally, urges Jia Qingguo, dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University.

In an exclusive interview with the China Daily website, Jia explained that given that Chinas overall national strength is increasing, its foreign policy strategy will need to respond to new challenges. There has been unbalanced regional development with extraordinary achievements in some aspects, while other vulnerable areas need to be improved. This imbalance means China may face conflicts when defining what is really in the national interest and adjusting and managing foreign relations with other countries on that basis.

Jia suggested a thorough review of all previous foreign policies to retain the ones suitable for new circumstances and refine the outdated ones.

In that process all kinds of resources should be drawn on, especially advice from think tanks. Actively explaining and communicating Chinas foreign policies to the international community would also help, he said.

As for the development of think tanks, Jia was keen to make the point that its important to define the subject range and limits of these think tanks suggestions and advice so their experts and advisors can function better. Also, having clear lines of responsibility is vital; the institutes must be accountable for the authenticity and objectivity of the information and viewpoints they provide.

As a member of the 12th national standing committee of the CPPCC and a CPPCC member for 15 years, Jia has delivered numerous proposals that have influenced policy-making. He also reflected on some of his unsuccessful proposals.

He said that if implementation of a proposal requires efforts of several government departments its understandable to have to wait to see it realized. While some of his previous proposals were really practical and detailed-oriented, after years substantial progress still hasnt been achieved. Take one example. I once proposed that all the manufacturers that produce mobile phone data cables should make the cables meet one standard, so whatever brand and type of cellphone consumers use, they would use the same data cable, which would definitely make life much easier. It would also reduce environmental pollution. I referred to a report published years before, which predicted that China would produce 400 million cellphones every year in the near future. If the standardized data cables could be produced, obviously it would save wastage and pollution.

According to Jia, many European countries have already finished this standardization while in China it has not yet occurred.

When recalling a proposal about educational reform he submitted last year, Jia suggested that a better division of powers between the Ministry of Education and universities may help universities improve innovation. The authorities might think about how to better allocate funding for private and public universities. In some countries, funding from government is allocated based on how many students are enrolled at any given institution, so it doesnt matter if its public or private. Jia also believes that aside from adjustments to strategies and policies at a national level, universities should be given more freedom in such areas as discipline processes and teaching administration.
China and Nepal should seize the opportunities of jointly building the Belt and Road Initiative to push forward cooperation in such areas as interconnection, free trade, agriculture, production capacity, energy and earthquake reconstruction, President Xi Jinping said on Monday while meeting with Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal.

The initiative, put forward by Xi in 2013, aims to revive the ancient trade route of the Silk Road with a focus on infrastructure. Mentioning that China and Nepal have maintained close contacts at all levels of governmental organizations and political parties, Xi called for continuous efforts of both to keep the positive momentum in developing China-Nepal ties.

China and Nepal should continue to enhance political trust and support each other in major issues that are related to core interests, Xi said. The two countries should expand two-way investment and trade, and promote the balanced and sustainable development of bilateral trade, he added. The Nepalese prime minster expressed gratitude toward China's long-term support, especially its assistance for Nepal's reconstruction program after a devastating earthquake in 2015.

Nepal firmly sticks to the one-China policy, and it will never allow any forces to practice anti-China activities in Nepalese territory, he said. Nepal supports the Belt and Road Initiative, and the country is willing to cooperate with China in areas including trade, investment, transportation, infrastructure, tourism and aviation, he added.
Rescuers rush to the scene after an avalanche on a ski slope in Japan's Tochigi Prefecture on March 27, 2017. Seven senior high school students and a teacher were confirmed dead, and some 40 others were injured. [Photo/VCG]

TOKYO - Seven senior high school students and a teacher were confirmed dead after being hit on Monday morning by an avalanche on a ski slope in Japan's Tochigi Prefecture, and some 40 others were injured, local authorities said.

More than 60 students and teachers from seven high schools were on the slope taking part in a springtime climbing event when the avalanche occurred, local media reported.
Demonstrators and police force are seen in front of a police station in Paris, France, March 27, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

PARIS - About a hundred people from the Chinese community held a demonstration on Monday evening in front of a police station in the 19th arrondissement of Paris to protest against the death of a Chinese national who was killed Sunday night in a conflict with the police.

At least one man of Chinese origin was injured, according to witnesses, as police officers intervened with batons and tear gas at around 8:40 pm local time to disperse protesters outside a police station on the Erik Satie street of the 19th arrondissement.

The protesters had set up candles on the ground in the shape of words "Opposition to violence" in French and "Dying with injustice unredressed" in Chinese. Some of them chanted slogans "Murderers! Murderers!"

"We're here to commemorate our compatriot, and we do not want to die of police violence," a protester said. "That's equality?" questioned another protester, a Chinese who has lived for ten years in France.

A Chinese national was shot dead at his home in Paris by a policeman on Sunday night. Some French media reports described the killing as a "legitimate defense" against "an assailant with scissors." However, local Chinese media reports, quoting a daughter of the man, said the 160-cm-tall man, a father of five children, did not attack the policeman at all.

The Chinese embassy in France in a statement on Monday confirmed the death of the Chinese national, urging the French authorities to ascertain the truth in a quick manner and handle the case fairly.

According to the website of the Chinese embassy in France, after being informed of the incident, the consular section of the Chinese embassy in France contacted the French police, asking them to find out the cause of this incident.

The French police authorities said that the police investigators were making investigation into the death of the Chinese national in Paris, according to the source of the embassy.

The Chinese embassy also sent its condolences to the victim's family and asked the French authorities to find out the true situation as soon as possible.
Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May and Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon meet in a hotel in Glasgow, Scotland, March 27, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

LONDON - British Prime Minister Theresa May and Scotland's first minister Nicola Sturgeon met Monday, just 24 hours before the Scottish Parliament's scheduled vote for a second independence referendum.

The meeting in a Glasgow hotel room also came just 48 hours before May finally triggers the unstoppable process to signal Britain's departure from the European Union.

Sturgeon wants a second independence referendum before Britain's Brexit deal is agreed by Brussels. May says she doesn't want an independence referendum until a deal with Brussels is resolved.

Despite the smiles and friendliness of Monday's meeting, both leaders demonstrated they were not for changing their minds.

The private meeting between the pair lasted for an hour during a day trip to Scotland by May.

Later Sturgeon described their talks as cordial, adding she was frustrated by "a process that appears not to be listening."

In a media interview later, Sturgeon said she had wished the prime minister well for the forthcoming Brexit negotiations with the EU.

But she said she had been frustrated that May had not made any concessions over the first minister's demands for a distinctive Brexit deal for Scotland.

The Scotsman newspaper in Scotland reported that when asked about what would happen if Sturgeon's call for another referendum was formally rejected, the SNP leader replied: "I will set that out in due course. I actually have views in my mind around that. If their (May's government) position remains as it is right now, I will set out to parliament what I think the next steps should be."

Earlier, May addressed civil servants at a government office in East Kilbride, talking about the importance of the United Kingdom sticking together.
US President Donald Trump speaks during a bill signing event in the Roosevelt room of the White House in Washington, US, March 27, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday aimed at reversing his predecessor's efforts to address climate change, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Monday.

"Tomorrow, the president will sign an executive order to strengthen the nation's energy security by reducing unnecessary regulatory obstacles that restrict the responsible use of domestic energy resources," Spicer said at his White House press briefing.

"This order will help keep energy and electricity affordable, reliable and clean, in order to boot economic growth and job creation."

On Sunday, US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said the executive order will undo the Clean Power Plan, a major initiative of the Obama administration to deal with climate change by reducing carbon pollution from power plants.

Trump has called climate change a "hoax" and has threatened to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement that took effect last year.

Trump's first federal budget, released a week ago, also reiterated his intention to end former President Barack Obama's climate change policies, including eliminating funding for the Clean Power Plan.
WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, already a White House senior adviser, will take on the additional task of overseeing an effort to overhaul the federal government, the White House said on Monday.

Kushner, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump, will lead a White House Office of American Innovation to leverage business ideas and potentially privatize some government functions as the White House pushes to shrink government, cut federal employees and eliminate regulations.

"This office will bring together the best ideas from government, the private sector, and other thought leaders to ensure that America is ready to solve today's most intractable problems," Trump said in a memorandum creating the office that includes about a dozen White House officials.

Trump, who campaigned on a pledge to "drain the swamp," has enacted a hiring freeze for most civilian federal jobs and proposed massive cuts in US domestic agencies that could shrink the size of government by thousands of workers

The Republican president has also proposed sweeping cuts in government regulations and plans to sign an order on Tuesday rolling back some energy regulations.

"We have a lot more coming," he said on Monday at a ceremony signing bills to repeal four regulations, vowing to eliminate every "job-killing regulation that we can find."

A number of recent presidents including Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama had mixed success with their own initiatives to reinvent or streamline government using suggestions from the private sector.

Kushner has been a regular presence at his father-in-law's side and was earlier cleared by the Justice Department to serve as a White House senior adviser even as Democrats raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest.

He has been given a wide range of domestic and foreign policy responsibilities, including working on a Middle East peace deal. He will continue to serve in the other roles even as he takes up the new duties, the White House said.

Last week, Ivanka Trump received her own office in the White House along with access to classified information and a government-issued phone. Aides had said earlier she would not take on a role in her father's White House.

The Washington Post quoted aides as saying she would collaborate with Kushner's innovation office but would not have an official role.

Among past efforts to overhaul the way Washington works, Clinton in 1993 called for "reinventing government." His reforms led to a slower pace of federal hiring, reducing the federal workforce by 240,000 jobs and closing small offices. Congress did not agree to some of the more aggressive cuts.

Bush proposed government management reforms, but ended up focusing largely on restructuring national security agencies after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, folding many agencies into the new Department of Homeland Security.

Obama in 2012 proposed closing the Commerce Department and creating a new export agency, saving $3 billion over 10 years and cutting 1,000 plus jobs. His plans failed to get congressional approval.

Reuters
Turkish voters living in Germany cast their ballots on the constitutional referendum at the Postpalast in Munich, southern Germany, March 27, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

ANKARA - Turkey's political parties law and election procedure could be changed if Turkey adopts a presidential system after the April 16 referendum, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Monday.

If the constitutional amendment passes at the referendum, the 10 percent election threshold could be discussed and lowered, Yildirim said, cited by local Haber Turk channel.

"Because with the new model under the presidential system, the lawmakers rather than political parties will be at the forefront," he noted at a meeting in Ankara.

Under the present election threshold, in general elections a political party must receive 10 percent of the votes nationwide for any of its candidates to win a seat in parliament.

Ruling out any possibility of early elections after the referendum in the event the constitutional amendments are approved by the public, Yildirim said "The election will be held on Nov 3, 2019, as is planned."

The minister stressed that the constitutional amendment necessitated drastic changes to current laws, especially in the Election Law and Political Parties Act.

"We will make effort to regulate the legal infrastructure of Turkish law until 2019," he said.

The constitutional referendum will be hold on April 16, which will bring drastic changes to the country's political system, including a shift to an executive presidential system from the current parliamentary system.
US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA) briefs reporters at the US Capitol in Washington, US, March 24, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

WASHINGTON  US House intelligence chairman Devin Nunes acknowledges he went to the White House grounds to review intelligence reports and meet the secret source behind his claim that communications involving associates of President Donald Trump were caught up in "incidental" surveillance.

The Republican congressman's revelation Monday prompted the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, as well as the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, to call on Nunes to recuse himself from the committee's Russia probe.

Schiff said Nunes' connections to the White House have raised insurmountable public doubts about whether the committee could credibly investigate the president's campaign associates.

"I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the president's campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman," Schiff said in a statement Monday.

Nunes confirmed Monday that he met with the source at the White House complex, but he denied coordinating with the president's aides.

After reviewing the information last week, Nunes called a news conference to announce that US spy agencies may have inadvertently captured Trump and his associates in routine targeting of foreigners' communications. Trump quickly seized on the statements as at least partial vindication for his assertion that President Barack Obama tapped his phones at Trump Tower  though Nunes, Schiff and FBI Director James Comey have said there is no such evidence.

The Senate intelligence committee is also conducting an investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible ties with the Trump campaign. On Monday, it announced that Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has agreed to be interviewed. The White House confirmed that Kushner, a senior Trump adviser, had volunteered to be interviewed about arranging meetings with the Russian ambassador and other officials.

Kushner is the fourth Trump associate to offer to be interviewed by the congressional committees looking into the murky Russia ties. Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, Trump adviser Carter Page and Trump associate Roger Stone last week volunteered to speak as well.

A Russian state bank says it has met with Kushner as part of a series of meetings on future strategies.
Supporters of the Houthi movement and Yemen's former president Ali Abdullah Saleh shout slogans as they attend a joint rally to mark two years of the military intervention by the Saudi-led coalition, in Sanaa, Yemen March 26, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

SANAA -- Yemenis marked on Sunday the second year of war that erupted after Shiite Houthi fighters stormed the capital Sanaa and ousted Saudi-backed Sunni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

More than one hundred of thousand supporters of Houthi movement and former President Ali Abdullah Saleh crowded in Sabeen Square southern the capital Sanaa to show loyalty to Houthi leaders and Saleh, according to live footage from the scene and experts' estimations.

The crowds raised the country's national flags only and banners demanding "end of war, lifting economic siege, political peaceful settlement and equal share in the future presidency and government."

On the other corner of territory under control of the exiled internationally recognized government of President Hadi, live footage and pictures aired by pro-government satellite televisions from southern city of Taiz showed around hundreds of government supporters gathering at a hall to celebrate the anniversary of war, raising the national flags of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

No rallies or celebrations were reported from the government's temporary capital port city of Aden, nor other southern cities under government control.

Pro-Houthi rally lasted six hours, from early morning to noon, while pro-government celebration lasted one hour.

Pro-Houthi former President Saleh, the most wanted by Hadi's government and Saudi-led military coalition, was seen saluted by the demonstrators in Sabeen Square as he was walking among the crowds.

In his speech on the eve of the event, Saleh said "those who stand by Saudi aggression coalition do not dream to return back to Sanaa."

Rival leaders' remarks showed no sign of good intentions for peace solutions.

United Nations Envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said last week the Yemeni warring parties were refusing to discuss UN-brokered peace efforts.

Ould Cheikh said the refusal came amid an escalation in the war that he said was having a "dramatic impact on the civilians."

Two years on, Yemen now enters its third year of bloody war without achieving any progress on the ground on behalf of any warring force, and there is no good news about near peaceful political settlement either.

However, everything looms in sight is no more than starvation and beginning of famine spreading.

Nada Ahmed and her brother Omar are one family traced by Xinhua in the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa.
A rail company partly owned by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has won a competition to run a major British rail franchise.

First MTR was awarded the franchise to run South Western Trains by British Transport Minister Chris Grayling on Monday.

The South Western Trains franchise operates services out of London's Waterloo Station, serving the south and west of London and as far as Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Portsmouth.

First MTR is a consortium consisting of UK's First Groupwith 70 percent of the company, and Hong Kong's MTR Corpwith 30 percent. MTR runs the transport system in Hong Kong and other services on the Chinese mainland. It also runs TfL Rail in Britain and will run the trans-London underground service Crossrail when it opens in 2018.

MTR was founded in 1979 by the Hong Kong government but in 2000, roughly 25 percent of its stock was sold to private investors. The Hong Kong SAR retains the rest of the stock.

In an announcement to the British Parliament, Grayling said First MTR South Western Trains Limited will oversee a 1.2 billion ($1.5 billion) investment program and add 22,000 extra seats into London Waterloo each morning and 30,000 extra seats out of Waterloo each evening, as well as buying a fleet of 90 new trains.

He said: "First MTR South Western Trains Limited will use the experience of one of its major shareholders MTR, who operates the busy Hong Kong metro to deliver smooth and rapid journeys for passengers travelling around London's suburban network. Passengers can look forward to more space, ensuring that the railway can support London's growth."

MTR's head of European business, Jeremy Long, said in a statement: "MTR is known across the world for the excellent quality of its rail services, and we look forward to working with FirstGroup to provide a best-in-class travel experience for passengers in London and the South West."

Although First MTR only has a minority foreign stake, the transport minister's decision has led to anger among some trade unionists who oppose giving British railway franchises to entities with a foreign stake.

Mick Cash, general secretary of the RMT union, said the latest deal would leave 75 percent of UK rail routes in the hands of companies owned by foreign governments.
PYONGYANG -- The capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Pyongyang and Northeast China's city of Dandong Tuesday opened a twice weekly charter flight.

About 50 passengers, mostly Chinese tourists and businessmen, flew in here on an Air Koryo plane from Dandong to the warm welcome of Pyongyang International Airport staff.

The opening of the charter flight will facilitate visits by Chinese tourists and businessmen to the DPRK and connect Pyongyang with Chinese cities after a stopover in Dandong, said tourist officials here.

Air Koryo has regular flights to Beijing and Shenyang, which is also in Northeast China. The charter flight to Dandong is its third flight line to China.

Dandong, located at the border with Northwest DPRK along the Yalu River,is a booming border town mainly engaged in border trade with the DPRK.
China's railcars soon will be humming along both coasts of the United States.

In a deal worth up to $647 million, China Railway Rolling Stock Corp (CRRC), based in Beijing, is going to build 64 new railcars for the Los Angeles subway system, creating 50 jobs, according to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro).

"We are helping President Trump realize his infrastructure-rebuilding plan," said Yu Weiping, vice-president of CRRC. "It's a win-win collaboration."

The news coincided with CRRC's winning $137.5 million bid to assemble 45 railcars for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA), which was announced last Thursday in Philadelphia.

Earlier this month, CRRC Sifang America broke ground in Chicago for a $100 million plant to assemble railcars for the Windy City's transportation authority. The deal for the cars is worth $1.3 billion.

In 2015, construction began on a $95 million plant in Springfield, Massachusetts to build railcars for Boston's transit authority in a contract worth $547 million.

"We are thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with (Metro) to design and build a state-of-the-art vehicle for Los Angeles," said Jia Bo, vice-president for CRRC in Massachusetts, where the railcars for Los Angeles will be assembled.

CRRC is planning a facility in the Los Angeles area to manufacture major components for propulsion, heating, ventilation, air conditioning and lighting systems for the cars, creating 50 local jobs. More than 60 percent of component parts will be American-made.

"We will continue to engage the community and partner with organizations and institutions to stimulate the local economy through education, training and job creation," Jia said.

CRRC has committed to delivering the first pilot vehicle by the spring of 2020, and the entire base order of 64 subway cars by September 2021.

LA Metro also has options to buy an additional 218 subway cars. The base order with options is valued at $647 million.

The metro cars' exteriors will be manufactured in one of CRRC's factories in Northeast China, while the final assembly will be done in Massachusetts.

Tony Liu, assistant marketing director at CRRC's Qingdao Sifang unit, said that the company was focused on several other US projects, including San Francisco's transit project.

"The rolling stock market in the United States will come to another round of renewal for the existing fleet," Liu said. "We see great potential for the market in the United States in the coming decade."

Reuters contributed to this story.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will soon unveil a major loan exhibition of ancient Chinese art never before seen in the West.

The collection  Age of Empires: Chinese Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties  will feature 164 objects from 32 museums and archaeological institutions in China, with the exhibit's focus on the Qin and Han dynasties (221 BC-AD 220). The focus will be on the two dynasties' significance in establishing Chinese art, culture and politics in their time.

"If you want to know about the present and future of China, it is necessary for you to know about the past and history of China," said Wang Jun, director of Art Exhibitions China, an institution that is part of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China.

"The Qin and Han dynasties of China are the most important dynasties in Chinese history. The intellectual and political systems that were established during the Qin and Han dynasties have extended influence over China for more than 2,000 years," he said on Monday at a press preview of the exhibit.

The exhibit, which took five years to put together, was sponsored by China Merchants Bank, making it the first time a Chinese corporation has sponsored a Met museum exhibition.

"To have these ancient artifacts on display en masse is a great, major highlight for Sino-US cultural exchange," said Jiao Chengyue, general manager of China Merchants Bank's branch in New York.

Wang, whose institution coordinates and sponsors the exchange of Chinese cultural relics overseas, called Age of Empires one of the most important cultural relics exhibitions in China-US cultural exchange.

Maxwell Hearn, chairman of the Met's Department of Asian Art, said that the exhibit comes at a crucial time when understanding China is "becoming more and more important".

"I believe that American audiences understand that Asia represents a significant and growing part of their future, so the ability to understand the roots of Asian culture are terribly important, and the Han Dynasty represents the starting point of modern China," he said.

"It is the same kind of identity that the Roman Empire gave to the West, both in architecture, the rule of law," he added.

Jason Sun, curator of Chinese art at the Met's Department of Asian Art, said that the Han Empire represents the "classical" era of Chinese civilization, "coinciding in importance and in time with Greco-Roman civilization in the West".

"Like the Roman Empire, the Han state brought together people of diverse backgrounds under a centralized government that fostered a new Chinese' identity. Even today, most Chinese refer to themselves as the Han people'  the single largest ethnic group in the world," he said.

Sun said that the works cover the whole spectrum or art: gold, silver, bronzes, ceramics, paintings, calligraphy and architectural models.

The exhibit, which will be on display from April 3 to July 16, comprises three sections  one on Qin Dynasty art that was excavated from the mausoleum of the Qin Shi Huang (first Qin emperor), which unearthed an army of 7,000 Terracotta Warriors, and two on Han Dynasty relics that include a burial suit of a Han princess made of more than 2,000 pieces, and items that illustrate the robust level of trade between China and the rest of Asia and Europe at the time.

"Many of these spectacular works have never been seen in the West, offering visitors a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a fresh appraisal of the classical era of Chinese civilization," said Thomas Campbell, director of the museum.

"Indeed, in the last decades, citing new archaeological discoveries that have been tied to the Qin and Han dynasties have redefined our understanding of the formative years of the country we know today as China," he said.
BEIJING -- China and the Philippines will hold the first meeting of a bilateral consultation mechanism on the South China Sea issue in May, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Tuesday.

"Currently, the two sides are maintaining friendly negotiations on the issue," Hua said at a regular press conference.

During the 20th diplomatic consultation between the two countries in January, China and the Philippines agreed to set up a bilateral consultation mechanism on the South China Sea issue to discuss issues of common concern and foster maritime cooperation and security.

China is willing to strengthen dialogue with the Philippines to properly manage and control divergences and advance maritime cooperation to create a favorable atmosphere for pragmatic cooperation as well as the sound and stable development of ties, said Hua.

She said China has invited the delegation of the Philippine Coast Guard(PCG) to visit China at an early date.

At the founding conference of the Joint Coast Guard Committee on Maritime Cooperation in February, the two sides drew up a list of cooperative programs in 2017, including high-level visits, vessel visits, maritime operations and related exercises and capacity building, said Hua.

She said the cooperation between the coast guards will deepen mutual trust and friendship between the two sides, so as to inject new vitality into the development of ties.
BEIJING -- China said on Tuesday that it hoped Australia would ratify a bilateral extradition treaty after the antipodean nation rescinded a plan to push for the ratification of the deal.

"The early entry into force of the treaty will offer an institutional guarantee for China-Australia collaboration on counter cross-border crimes, and boost bilateral law enforcement and judicial cooperation," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a routine press briefing.

Hailing the sound momentum of China-Australia ties, Hua said China hoped Australia could accelerate its domestic ratification proceedings, so that the treaty can enter into force as early as possible.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said senior ministers on Tuesday decided not to proceed with the treaty after the opposition Labor Party declared it would block it in the Senate, according to reports.

The treaty was signed in 2007.
SEOUL -- Former President Park Geun-hye of South Korea on Tuesday decided to appear in a Seoul court to avoid arrest, which is being sought by prosecutors over a corruption scandal embroiling her.

The special investigation headquarters of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, tasked with the probe into the scandal, said Tuesday via text message that Park's legal team informed the prosecutors of Park's decision to appear in the Seoul Central District Court on Thursday.

The court would decide whether to take Park into custody after studying evidence provided by prosecutors and testimonies offered by Park who was grilled by prosecutors last week.

Prosecutors sought an arrest warrant for Park Monday for multiple charges including bribery, abuse of power and the leakage of state secrets. The court's decision is forecast to be made late Thursday or early Friday.

If the court decides to issue the warrant, Park would become the third South Korean former leader to be detained. Two former military strongmen were arrested in 1995 for charges of mutiny and corruption.

A total of 13 charges were levied by both state and special prosecutors against Park. Prosecutors already branded Park as a criminal accomplice to her longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil.

Park was charged with receiving tens of millions of US dollars in bribes from Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, who is now in custody, in return for offering assistance in Lee's inheritance of management control of Samsung Group from his ailing father Chairman Lee Kun-hee.

The younger Lee had effectively taken the helm of the country's biggest family-controlled conglomerate after his father was hospitalized for heart attack almost three years ago.

Choi was accused of extorting tens of millions of dollars from scores of conglomerates to establish two nonprofit foundations she used for personal gains.

One of Park's former secretaries, who is detained, is suspected of providing secret government documents to Choi on a regular basis to enable Choi to meddle in state affairs behind the scenes.
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and deputy John Swinney arrive to attend a debate on a second referendum on independence at Scotland's Parliament in Holyrood, Edinburgh, Britain, March 28, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

The Scottish Parliament has voted for a second referendum on independence, in the latest fallout from the UK's decision to leave the European Union.

The vote on Tuesday was won by the governing Scottish Nationalist Party with the support of the Scottish Green Party by 69 votes to 59 in favor of a second referendum. It was supposed to take place last Wednesday but was postponed after the attack on the British Parliament in London left five people dead.

Earlier on Tuesday, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told Parliament that the changes that Brexit would entail should not be imposed on the Scots.

She said: "We should have the right to decide the nature of that change.The people of Scotland should have the right to choose between Brexit - possibly a very hard Brexit - or becoming an independent country, able to chart our own course and create a true partnership of equals across these islands."

The result puts the Scottish government on a collision course with the UK government, which has said that an independence vote cannot take place until after the UK has left the European Union. The process of leaving the EU will start on Wednesday, when the UK government formally tells the European Commission of its intention to leave the EU. Under current procedures, the UK will leave the EU by March 29, 2019.

The vote followed a two-day debate in the Scottish Parliament over whether the first minister should seek permission from the UK government to hold another referendum between autumn next year and spring 2019.

Theresa May, the British prime minister, said that the time is not right for a referendum because of the complexity of the process of the UK's departure from the EU.

Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament last week it would be "wrong, unfair and utterly unsustainable"for the UK government to block her request for a vote although she said she was willing to negotiate on the date of the referendum.

Opposition parties claim thatthe Scottish people do not want another referendum - the last one in 2015 saw independence rejected by 55 percent to 45 percent.

The constitutional dilemma is a major consequence of the UK's decision to leave the EU but many others are likely to emerge, particularly in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

The positions held by Edinburgh and London appear contradictory. London is arguing that one union is bad while another is good and Edinburgh is arguing that London's decision to leave the European Union means it must leave the British union.

The political life of the UK is likely to be dominated by similar argument for at least the next two years.
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon attends a debate on a second referendum on independence at Scotland's Parliament in Holyrood, Edinburgh, Britain, March 28, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

LONDON - Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon won a major victory Tuesday in her demand for a new Scottish referendum.

Her governing Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP), supported by Green Party members of the Scottish Parliament, backed Sturgeon's bill for a referendum to take place between autumn 2018 and spring 2019.

Sturgeon wants the people of Scotland to have a say on the destiny of their region before a final deal is agreed on the terms of Brexit between the British government and Brussels.

The SNP leader welcomed the vote at Holyrood of 69 to 59 in support of her bill.

Scottish people held a first referendum in 2014, voting to remain as part of Britain.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has not ruled out a second referendum for Scotland but has insisted this will not happen until the end of the Brexit negotiations.

This point was emphasized by the Secretary of State for Scotland David Mundell, who said Westminster would not agree to give the legal authority needed to allow a second referendum.
Premier Li Keqiang is greeted by New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English (right) during a welcoming ceremony at Government House in Wellington on Monday. Li arrived on Sunday for a three-day visit.[Photo by Liu Zhen/China News Service]

New Zealand became on Monday the first Western developed economy to sign a memorandum of understanding to align with China's Belt and Road Initiative during Premier Li Keqiang's visit to the country.

Li and his New Zealand counterpart, Prime Minister Bill English, were on hand as the document was signed. It was one of 13 agreements the two countries signed to boost cooperation in fields such as customs clearance, education, fisheries and food exports.

The initiative, proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2013, comprises the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. It aims to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along and beyond the ancient Silk Road trade routes.

China and New Zealand will explore the possibilities of cooperation in various fields to promote interconnectivity between the two countries, Li said at a joint news conference.

Under two other agreements, China will start importing iced fresh beef and lamb from New Zealand in "a stable and orderly way" and exporting onions to the island country.

"We are willing to expand imports of iced-fresh beef to give Chinese consumers more choices for higher quality goods. New Zealand is also welcome to import Chinese onions," Li said.

Meanwhile, English said he exchanged views with the premier on regional stability and free trade, in addition to other topics such as culture and business. He also said the first round of negotiations on the upgrade of the China-New Zealand free trade agreement will be conducted on April 25 to 27.

The nine-year free trade agreement has boosted bilateral trade, English said. For example, half of China's imported dairy goods are from New Zealand. The negotiations will be beneficial to boosting bilateral trade and economic ties, he said. In addition, New Zealand will take effective actions to ensure food safety of exports to China.

"As protectionism and the sentiment against trade liberalization are rising around the world, we have to send a clear message with real actions of safeguarding free trade and economic globalization. The upgrade of China-New Zealand free trade agreement is crucial for both countries, the region and the international community," Li said.

Moreover, New Zealand will issue five-year multi-entry visas to eligible Chinese appliers, according to another agreement also signed on Monday. Immigration New Zealand said the visa holders can stay at most one month each time entering the country's boundary.

Li arrived in Wellington on Sunday for an official visit to the Oceanian country, the first such trip by a Chinese premier in 11 years. After meeting with the opposition Labor Party leader Andrew Little, Li flew to the country's biggest city, Auckland, on Monday afternoon to meet with business leaders and New Zealand's governor-general, Patsy Reddy.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) and his New Zealand's counterpart Bill English attend a joint press conference after talks in Wellington, New Zealand, March 27, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

WELLINGTON - China and New Zealand agreed to start talks on upgrading a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) in late April.

The consensus was reached during Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's ongoing visit to New Zealand, which puts upgrading the FTA that took effect in 2008 high on agenda.

At a joint press conference after talks with New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English, Li said upgrading the FTA will promote the development of bilateral economic and trade ties and better benefit the two peoples.

Negotiations will touch on investment, service trade, quarantine of animals and plants, the Principle of Original Production Place, economy and technology, e-commerce, and competition policies, according to Chinese Ambassador to New Zealand Wang Lutong.

"The China-New Zealand FTA is one of the highest-standard signed between China and developed countries. Both countries have established long-term good trade relations, with bilateral trade growth outpacing our economic growth," Li said.

Li also called on the two countries to jointly protect open economy and free trade as well as regional stability and global peace.

As one third of New Zealand's dairy products are exported to China, English said the dairy products and any other products going to China will be of the quality Chinese consumers would expect to be.

Under the FTA, a wide range of products, typically health-related products are much sought after by Chinese consumers, English said, adding that New Zealand will work with the Chinese authorities in food safety to ensure all the New Zealand products exported to China meet the standards required.

China and New Zealand signed a series of cooperation documents on Monday, including an action plan for cooperation on climate change, granting new access for New Zealand chilled beef and meat to the Chinese market and deepening cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative.

Li arrived in Wellington on Sunday for an official visit to New Zealand after wrapping up his Australia tour.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (3rd R) and his New Zealand's counterpart Bill English (3rd L) hold talks in Wellington, New Zealand, March 27, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

Premier Li Keqiang called for consensus over the ASEAN-initiated Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership to boost free trade when he met with New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English on Monday in Wellington.

In response to English's question on RCEP and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Li said China believes that free-trade arrangements, bilateral or multilateral, should comply with WTO rules on the basis of which multiple arrangements can work together and complete each other.

"The basis for consensus is there and conclusion of the RCEP negotiations is well within reach. We can prove it to the world that the Asia-Pacific region stands solid behind regional economic integration and free trade," Li said.

"We are open to all free-trade arrangements, including the TPP," the premier said. "Meanwhile we should throw out weight behind arrangements that promise tangible results to keep the momentum going, with options to go further if possible. The China-New Zealand FTA and its upgrading negotiations is a case that leads by example."
SYDNEY -- In the wake of the the landmark visit to Australia by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, the robust relationship between the two nations has been strengthened even further, said the chief executive of one of Australia's largest companies.

Jean-Sebastien Jacques, chief executive officer of mining giant Rio Tinto, spoke to Xinhua on Tuesday, saying Li's visit, one which marked the 45 year relationship between Australia and China, demonstrates a "strong commitment" to the bilateral relationship.

"Australia and China have solid foundations for continued and sustained cooperation due to their common economic interests," Jacques said.

The mining chief pointed to his own company's successful ties to China, as a model for what other companies could achieve if they took advantage of developing a strong connection, particularly in the resources sector.

"Our Channar Iron Ore Joint Venture with Sinosteel and our BaoHi Range Joint Venture with Baosteel are models for Australia-China partnership in the resources sector," Jacques said.

"We would like to pursue more mutually-beneficial opportunities like Channar and BaoHi Range. Premier Li's visit brought government, business and other partners together to discuss and pursue win-win benefits for all."

The trade cooperation between Australia and China has been pivotal in the success of the two nations over the years. This strong relationship has seen Australia be one of the largest providers of resources to China, resources that have helped drive China's own infrastructure boom.

Rio Tinto has long played their own role in this trade relationship according to Jacques, who said China is now the largest customer for the mining giant, who accounts for over 43 percent of their yearly gross sales.

"Rio Tinto has shipped more than 2 billion tons of iron ore into China since 1973, helping build China's modern cities and providing enormous benefits to the people of Australia through export revenue and taxes," Jacques said.

Jacques highlighted his company's "one hundred year trading ties with China" and expressed his belief that it is these partnerships and their constant development that ensure for a stronger bilateral and global economic and political outlook.

"These enduring relationships can only be made stronger by a strengthened relationship between the two countries to make sure the region is peaceful and prosperous," Jacques said.

One of the big drivers of not only China's future economic outlook, but the global outlook, will be the development of the Belt and Road Initiative over the coming years.

The Belt and Road Initiative is set to redefine the boundaries for global trade, providing the necessary infrastructure and framework to not only bring even more of China's population into prosperity, but to empower prosperity across the globe.

The mining boss is excited about the progress of the Belt and Road Initiative, saying the fact that it will cover 65 percent of the world's population, one third of the global GDP and a quarter of all goods and services demonstrates the "heart of its vision", open trade and cooperation.

"I had the privilege to chair the Belt and Road panel at the 2017 China Development Forum in Beijing, to discuss with international business leaders how the initiative will help build strategic partnerships and enhance regional trade," Jacques said.

"Infrastructure is the key to supporting global growth. It underpins communities and builds nations."

"This is very important not only to China but also to the many countries that will directly benefit from the vision of the Belt and Road Initiative, including Australia."

In terms of the future, the mining chief is clear that his company Rio Tinto would develop even closer ties with their largest customer China.

"We view the China relationship as a mutual partnership," Jacques said.

"At Rio Tinto, we want to be China's preferred supplier, preferred customer and preferred partner in the resources sector."
Premier Li Keqiang addresses a welcoming banquet with New Zealands Prime Minister Bill English on March 28. The Premier said there is no limit for China-New Zealand ties, adding that both countries should work together to bring benefits to the people of both countries and send a positive message to the region and the world. Before the banquet, the premier was greeted by a Chinese dragon dance and a performance of Maori warriors. [Photo/Xinhua]
(Photo : USAF) X-37B of the USAF.

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The U.S. Air Force's secret X-37B spaceplane on March 25 broke the world space endurance record by a spaceplane.



The X-37B, whose current mission is identified as OTV-4, exceeded the current record of 674 days in orbit to reach 675 days on March 25. The former record for the longest time spent orbiting the Earth by a spaceplane capable of a return flight was set by the OTV-3 mission.



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OTV-4 blasted-off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on May 20, 2015 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. As with the previous three OTV missions, the Air Force remained tight-lipped about the true purpose of the OTV-4 mission. Speculation abounds, however.



The previous X-37B record of 674 days in space was set by OTV-3, which launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on December 12, 2012 and landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base on October 17, 2014. The X-37B was originally designed for orbital missions lasting 270 days.



The U.S. Air Force left open the possibility of landing the X-37B on the space shuttle landing strip at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.



There are persistent reports the Air Force is testing a working version of the controversial EmDrive electromagnetic thruster aboard the OTV-4 mission.



If true, the report of an EmDrive aboard the X-37B might help explain why the spaceplane remains in orbit well past its announced mission life of 200 days.



Also called a radio frequency (RF) resonant cavity thruster, an EmDrive or Em Drive uses no reaction mass and emits no directional radiation to generate thrust. British aerospace engineer Roger Shawyer designed the EmDrive in 2001 and has promoted the idea through his company, Satellite Propulsion Research.



While the Air Force hasn't confirmed speculation an EmDrive is being tested aboard the spaceplane, what is certain is the X-37B is testing a prototype "Hall Effect Thruster" (HET) in support of the Air Force's Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) communications satellite program.



The U.S. Department of Defense said operational Hall Effect Thrusters or Hall Thrusters will propel military satellites (milsats) in Earth orbit or power future spacecraft on interplanetary voyages.



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(Photo : Getty Images) A cargo ship makes its way through the Miraflores locks as it crosses the Panama Canal on April 7, 2016 in Panama City, Panama.

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Chinese firms want to develop land around the Panama Canal, as Panama plans to open and build infrastructures on the currently unused locations.



"We have been talking to people here in China," Chief Executive Jorge Quijano told Reuters on Monday, adding that China Communications Construction Corp subsidiary China Harbour Engineering Company and China Railway Group have shown interest on the project.



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The Panama Canal Authority plans to turn about 1,200 hectares of land around the waterway into logistics park within the year. Quijano said the canal authority plans to parcel out the land and give concession agreements of up to 40 years. It also plans to grant operating deal for a roll-on, roll-off terminal near the canal; tendering will be put out mid-2017.



Quijano estimated that after the first five years of operation, the land and terminal would magnet an annual revenue of between $100 and $125 million. Overall, the Panama Canal is anticipated to bring in $2.8 billion in revenue this year.



Meanwhile, the move follows as China encourages its firms to invest more in infrastructure overseas as part of its plan to improve global trade links through the "One Belt, One Road" initiative, Asia Times reported.



"There are opportunities there, definitely for some of these Chinese companies to participate as a concessionaire, not just as a contractor to build something, but they can actually bid for the concession and then build," Quijano said.



Chinese firms have been highly investing in key logistics nodes like Piraeues in Greece and Bandar Malaysia. China's COSCO Shipping Corp. has also in the past expressed interest on the Panama Canal.



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Tagschina, Panama Canal, One Belt One Road, COSCO, China Communications Construction Corp, China Railway Group
(Photo : Getty Images. ) In a major blow to Turnbull government, Australia failed to ratify the China extradition treaty in parliament after the opposition parties vehemently opposed the treaty.

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Australian government was forced to withdraw the proposed extradition treaty with China from parliament on Tuesday, after members of opposition party and also few members of the government decided to unanimously oppose the treaty.



The move will come as a huge setback for Sino - Australian relationship that few days appeared to be robust and strong after Premier Li Keqiang concluded a successful five day visit to Canberra last week.



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Australia's opposition parties including Greens, Labor and former Liberal senator Cory Bernardi opposed the treaty on the grounds that China has a controversial track record on human right issues and the country's judicial system is not impartial and fair.



Australia's former Prime Minister and member of opposition Tony Abott publicly criticized China's judicial system as something that was not matured enough to receive support from his country's people



"In my judgment, China's legal system has to evolve further before the Australian government and people could be confident that those before it would receive justice according to law," Abott told The Australian newspaper.



Mr. Bernardi also led the charge to stall the treaty as he cited China's high conviction rates and "promised to vigilant that no such treaty should be ratified by the Australian Parliament until the rule of law improves in China."



The Malcolm Turnbull government needed the support of the opposition parties to ratify the treaty as it does not enjoy majority at the senate. Had the treaty been ratified on Tuesday, it would have joined France and Spain and become one of the few western countries to enter into an extradition treaty with China.



Canberra signed the extradition treaty with Beijing in 2007, with treaty containing special provisions against extraditing people at the risk of torture or execution.



Meanwhile, the Turnbull government immediately resorted to damage control, knowing very the implication the collapse of treaty would have on China - Australia relationship. The implications can be immediate considering that Beijing signed several lucrative trade deals with Canberra only few days back during Li's visit last week



"It has been in our national interest to have this agreement with China. We will speak with our Chinese friends in more detail and decide what to do," Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told a news conference.



Over the year Australia from time to time has slammed Beijing over human right issues and politically sensitive issues like South China Sea, which has put a considerable strain on their bilateral and trade relations.



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(Photo : OBRUM) Poland's PL-01 stealth tank.

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The world's first fifth-generation "stealth tank" practically invisible to infrared and radar detection won't come from either the United States or Russia but from Poland.



Poland's gently contoured and visually appealing PL-01 "main battle tank" (MBT) is being billed by its makers as a fifth-generation MBT because the advanced stealth features protecting it from electronic detection are found on no other MBT. That plus other advanced features such as an unmanned turret.



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In comparison, the U.S. M1A2 Abrams MBT and the Chinese Type-99 MBT are classified as third-generation MBTs. Russia's T-14 Armata is classified as either a third-generation or fourth-generation tank.



Developed by the Polish state-owned defense firm OBRUM with support from BAE Systems, plc for the Polish Army, the PL-01 is scheduled to enter production in 2018. A fully functional prototype should be completed this year.



The stealth tank was first revealed to the public in 2013 at the International Defense Industry Exhibition in Kielce, Poland.



OBRUM stands for "Osrodek Badawczo-Rozwojowy Urzadzen Mechanicznych," which translates into English as "Research and Development Center Mechanical Equipment." OBRUM develops and manufactures weapons systems for the Polish Armed Forces.



The primary weapon of the PL-01 will either be a 105 mm or 120 mm gun fed by an autoloader that ensures a rate of fire of six rounds a minute. The gun will fire both conventional anti-tank rounds and anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs).



PL-01 can carry 45 rounds for the main gun, 16 of which are located inside the robot turret with the remainder stored within the hull. The tank is also armed with a 7.62 mm caliber UKM-2000C machine gun with 1,000 rounds of ammunition.



A remote-controlled weapons station on the turret can accept a 7.62 mm or 12.7 mm machine gun or a 40 mm automatic grenade launcher. The turret will also house an active protection system (APS) to neutralize incoming ATGMs or RPGs.



OBRUM revealed the turret can be changed depending on the type of mission undertaken by the tank.



At the heart of the PL-01's 5th generation capabilities is its stealth technology.



PL-01 is covered with special "temperature controlled wafers" allowing it to blend with the infrared signature of its surroundings. This makes the tank invisible to infrared sensors.



And, more amazingly, these hexagon-shaped wafers can be manipulated to make the tank look like a smaller object such as a car. The tank's stealthiness also means that exhaust from its 940 bhp engine is cooled to lower the tank's infrared signature.



OBRUM also claims the entire tank will also be covered with a special material that absorbs radio waves.



The tank will be manned by a three-man crew: commander, gunner and driver. Information about the armor protecting the tank is classified.



There's also controversy as to what the PL-01 really is. Some media reports describe the futuristic-looking PL-01 as a light tank while others call it a Direct Support Vehicle.



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Tagsstealth tank, PL-01 main battle tank, Poland, fifth-generation MBT, OBRUM, Research and Development Center Mechanical Equipment, temperature controlled wafers
According to one Catholic Bishop, Christians in Nigeria are facing rising levels of persecution which threaten to undermine their place in both society and government.

A recent report from Vatican Radio has outlined harsh atrocities committed against Christians in rural Nigeria, which allegedly led to numerous deaths and widespread property destruction. Hoping to counter this violence, Bishop Joseph Bagobiri has called for greater cooperation among all Christian denominations within Nigeria. After receiving an official delegation of the Catholic Bishops of Nigeria, Bagobiri affirmed his peoples faith in God and their determination to endure despite government apathy,

Since we have no government that would listen to our plight, we have carried our case directly to God. It is only God that can save us from our present situation. Our hope in Him is never in vain since he knows our problem and He will deliver us one day just as he delivered the people of Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, Bishop Bagobiri said.

Aside from institutionalized violence, an itemized list of the current injustices include inequitable distribution of amenities, infrastructure, and discrimination within political offices. Nonetheless, Bishop Bagobiri is confident God will provide as Nigerian Christians continue to strive for greater public equality.

*Article Published 3/28/2017
AL-KOSHEH, Egypt (RNS) For decades, merchant Refaat El-Sayeh, a Coptic Christian, wanted to see the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and visit the Church of the Nativity in nearby Bethlehem. But mostly, he wanted to feel closer to God.

For years, those pilgrimages for Egypts Coptic Christians, like El-Sayeh, were discouraged.

To visit Jerusalem and the holy places was always my wish, El-Sayeh said. You feel the hand of God. This is the lifelong dream of every Christian in Al-Kosheh.

Now, it is a dream increasingly being realized. Last year, El-Sayeh and 25 others from this town 300 miles south of Cairo made an Easter pilgrimage to Jerusalem, part of a growing number of Egypts Coptic Christians doing the same.

Just as Muslims who make the pilgrimage to Mecca return with the honorific title hajji, Coptic Christians who return from Jerusalem are called muqadiseen, meaning one who has visited the sacred precincts mentioned in the Bible.

It is a coveted distinction. Yet because much of the Egyptian public views the Jewish state through the often negative lens of the Arab-Israeli conflict, many, including Copts, have stayed away.

That began to change after the 2012 death of Pope Shenouda III, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. An opponent of the Camp David peace accords with Israel, Shenouda banned travel to Israel as a sign of solidarity with Palestinian nationalism.

But just one year after Shenoudas death, applications for tourist visas at Cairos Israeli Embassy surged, jumping from under several hundred to nearly three thousand annually.

Meanwhile, in November 2015, Pope Tawadros II, the current head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, traveled to Israel to attend the funeral of Coptic Archbishop Abraham of Jerusalem and the Near East  the first visit by an Egyptian Orthodox cleric since Israel captured the eastern side of the city in the 1967 war.

Egypts Copts saw Tawadros visit as a signal that they could do the same.

Israeli officials dont track visitors by religion, but the number of Egyptian tourists to Israel nearly doubled from 4,428 to 7,450 between 2014 and 2016, said Sabin Haddad, a spokeswoman for Israels Population and Immigration Authority.

Sabry Ragheb, owner of Cardinal Tours Egypt, one of the largest operators of pilgrimage trips to Israel, said Christians make up the majority of those visitors.

This year about 80 percent of my pilgrimage clients hadnt ever obtained visas to anywhere else before, Ragheb said. It was their first time to go to a destination outside of Egypt.

Muqadis Baghat Moheb, a 62-year-old mattress maker who made a pilgrimage to Israel last Easter, fits this profile. He had never left Al-Kosheh for anywhere outside Egypt.

But now, I want to visit Jerusalem every year, he said.

Adding to the momentum: In February, Egypts Supreme Constitutional Court, its highest ruling body, ruled Christians have the right to a one-month paid leave to go on the pilgrimage, giving the trip to Jerusalem the same employment protection Muslims have for making the hajj.

The ruling reflects other moves by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi to accommodate the Coptic minority, including enacting laws to regularize church construction, an often-contentious issue in Egyptian countrysides where Muslim preachers and villagers often object to the size of Christian houses of worship.

Some Muslims resent church spires, known locally as lighthouses, for rivaling the height of the minarets, especially in poor towns where Muslims pray in storefront mosques.

Al-Koshehs lighthouses are visible for miles above surrounding fields of sugarcane, wheat and cotton.

Its like the lighthouse on the sea that gives direction and hope for lost ships, said Beshoy Elkomos, a 31-year-old physical therapist who came to the village from Chicago to spend Lent in his ancestral home.

Many of the towns far-flung Copts make similar journeys during the Lenten season. In the run-up to Easter, the towns nine churches are unable to accommodate the weekday worshippers and thousands of parishioners pray outside the structures in tented courtyards.

There are about 10 million Coptic Christians in Egypt, a majority-Muslim nation of 90 million. But Al-Koshehs 40,000 residents may be the most fervent Coptic stronghold, often nicknamed Little Jerusalem.

Al-Kosheh did not get renamed as Jerusalem in a vacuum, Moheb, the mattress maker, said. Theres no town like ours in all of Egypt where four churches are built at the same time and neighbors get jealous of each other because one has been on the pilgrimage (to Jerusalem) and the other has not.

Still, El-Sayeh says going to Israel is an imperative, a dream now within reach.

We will not allow anyone to stop us from visiting Jerusalem, he said. We see these places as our own property. What kind of farmer leaves his lands unattended?

Courtesy: Religion News Service

Photo courtesy: Religion News Service/Fady Hadny

Publication date: March 28, 2017
After over six hours of a hearing on Thursday, a federal district judge is considering the constitutionality of a Kentucky law that requires doctors to show the ultrasound of fetuses to their patients before performing an abortion.

The law, House Bill 2, was passed in January, and also requires doctors to let their patients hear the heartbeats of the fetuses before the abortion. Patients are allowed to look away from the ultrasound images and to ask to turn the volume down or completely off when the doctors let them hear the fetuses heartbeat.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the one remaining abortion provider in Kentucky EMW Womens Surgical Center, the law is unconstitutional because it violates the doctors First Amendment rights to free speech.

HB 2 compels doctors to deliver a government-mandated, ideological message to patients in violation of the First Amendment, all the while causing harm to their patients, the ACLU stated.

However, Steve Pitt, who is representing Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin and the states Cabinet for Health and Family Services, argued that there is nothing ideological about the law, and that it ensures women make a fully informed decision. He added that the law is not a violation of the First Amendment, referring to previous legal cases in which the government was allowed to require certain entities to make specific statements.

The law does not prohibit physicians from making any statement to the patients that they wish to make, said Pitt.

Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge David Hale did not make a decision right after the hearing on Thursday, and is accepting more written arguments from both sides as he continues to consider the case.
What's So Bad About Pornography? Author exposes one of the biggest (and most impactful) industries in the world



Contact: Kevin Wandra, 404-788-1276,



SAN FRANCISCO, March 28, 2017 /



Fradd provides insightful (and nonreligious) arguments, supported by the latest scientific research, to discredit the fanciful claims used to defend and promote pornography in THE PORN MYTH. He explains the neurological reasons porn is addictive, helps individuals learn how to be free of porn and offers real help to the parents and the spouses of porn users. Backed by recent research on pornography's harmful effects on the brain, Fradd is part of the growing wave of passionate individuals trying to change the pro-porn cultural norm by inspiring others to pursue real love and to avoid its hollow counterfeit.



Fradd aims to challenge our mentalities about porn, laying out a framework for exposing the negative impact of pornography and rethinking our passive consumption of digital sexuality. THE PORN MYTH is an invitation to love more purely, connect with others more authentically and experience joy more fully.



"Matt Fradd provides insightful arguments, with the latest research, on nearly every subject relevant to porn  from the dangers of the porn industry to the negative effects porn has on the brain," Dawn Hawkins, vice president and executive director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, says of THE PORN MYTH. "He equips you to discuss the real harm of pornography and to dispel its myths."



All of the royalties from THE PORN MYTH will go to help Children of the Immaculate Heart, a non-profit corporation operating in San Diego, California, whose mission is to serve survivors of human trafficking.



For more information, to request a review copy, or to schedule an interview with Matt Fradd, please contact Kevin Wandra (404-788-1276 or

Share Tweet Contact: Kevin Wandra, 404-788-1276, KWandra@CarmelCommunications.com SAN FRANCISCO, March 28, 2017 / Christian Newswire / -- Virginia, Utah and South Dakota have declared pornography a public health crisis. And notable figures in Hollywood, including former Playboy model Pamela Anderson and actors Terry Crews and Russell Brand, have spoken out against the dangers of pornography, a big business that generates $10 billion to $12 billion in the United States alone, according to NBC News. But the commonly held belief is that pornography is a harmless and even beneficial pastime. Author Matt Fradd separates the myths from the facts about porn, drawing on the experience of porn performers and users, and the expertise of neurologists, sociologists and psychologists, to demonstrate that pornography is destructive to individuals, relationships and society in his new book, THE PORN MYTH: Exposing the Reality Behind the Fantasy of Pornography.Fradd provides insightful (and nonreligious) arguments, supported by the latest scientific research, to discredit the fanciful claims used to defend and promote pornography in THE PORN MYTH. He explains the neurological reasons porn is addictive, helps individuals learn how to be free of porn and offers real help to the parents and the spouses of porn users. Backed by recent research on pornography's harmful effects on the brain, Fradd is part of the growing wave of passionate individuals trying to change the pro-porn cultural norm by inspiring others to pursue real love and to avoid its hollow counterfeit.Fradd aims to challenge our mentalities about porn, laying out a framework for exposing the negative impact of pornography and rethinking our passive consumption of digital sexuality. THE PORN MYTH is an invitation to love more purely, connect with others more authentically and experience joy more fully."Matt Fradd provides insightful arguments, with the latest research, on nearly every subject relevant to porn  from the dangers of the porn industry to the negative effects porn has on the brain," Dawn Hawkins, vice president and executive director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, says of THE PORN MYTH. "He equips you to discuss the real harm of pornography and to dispel its myths."All of the royalties from THE PORN MYTH will go to help Children of the Immaculate Heart, a non-profit corporation operating in San Diego, California, whose mission is to serve survivors of human trafficking.For more information, to request a review copy, or to schedule an interview with Matt Fradd, please contact Kevin Wandra (404-788-1276 or KWandra@CarmelCommunications.com ) of Carmel Communications.
Controversial Novel Explodes the Christian-Transgender Rift

"Forgotten Word" by Sam Jane Brown Attacks the Current Arguments about Christians and Transpeople



Contact: Sam Jane Brown, 00 44 787 8063263, samjanebrown76@gmail.com

MANCHESTER, England, March 27, 2017 /Christian Newswire/ -- "Forgotten Word," Sam Jane Brown's controversial and provocative, yet popular novel, injects passion, doubt and thought-provoking questions into the current Christian battle with transgenderism. The book, a murder mystery set in the shadows of the Catholic Church, illuminates the problems with many of today's Christian arguments about transsexuality.

"My book offers an entertaining way to have your assumptions challenged," said Brown said. "The issue of transgender rights versus religious rights is complex. I'm not sharing any easy answers. But, the book should shake up your mind on the topic."

The question of how Christians should react to the emergence of transgender rights as a powerful political movement has divided many Christian communities. On one side are seemingly punitive and angry voices, declaring that transgenderism is an affront to God Himself. A Christian student blog captured the sentiment well when it stated, "The desire to change one's biological sex not only denies reality, but also offends God. Nobody is born male or female by chance, but in accordance with a plan of Divine Providence: 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you (Jer. 1:5).' 'God created male and female (Gen. 1:27).' Therefore, to intentionally contradict the biological nature of mankind is an act of revolt against our Creator."

Opposing the punitive view is a more compassionate stance, as expressed by the Southern Baptist Conference, which said, "We extend love and compassion to those whose sexual self-understanding is shaped by a distressing conflict between their biological sex and their gender identity. We invite all transgender persons to trust in Christ and to experience renewal in the Gospel (1 Timothy 1:1516).

"Forgotten Word" website (www.samjanebrown.com)," presents the issue as an exciting, edge of your seat mystery. In the story, Zena McGrath is a detective working for an International Police Organization. A routine day is turned upside down when she receives a call from her boss in the New York office. A number of Catholic Priests have died in mysterious circumstances. Her pursuit of the truth will leave readers stunned with a revelation at the very heart of the Christian-transgender conflict.

For more information, visit www.samjanebrown.com.

Soon to be a feature movie, for investor enquiries please go to film website: www.forgottenwordmovie.com
Terrorist in London Followed Sharia Law -- (References Included for Journalists) -- Law Enforcement Miss Clues, Says Randall Terry Journalists may go to www.WWMD-TV.com to view segment 8, which explains Jihad, with extensive references for reporters. Also, references below.



Contact: 904-826-9989



WASHINGTON, March 28, 2017 /Christian Newswire/ -- Law enforcement often miss the evidence: Muslim terrorists are reading "sacred" Islamic texts to get their inspiration, and justify their attacks. These texts include Sharia Law, Haddith, Sirah's, and the Quran.



From Islamic Sharia Law: "Jihad is a communal obligationfor every able bodied man who has reached puberty...) -- (Sharia Law, Reliance of the Traveler, o9.1- o9.4, Pg 600, 601)



"If none of those concerned perform jihad, and it does not happen at all, then everyone who is aware that it is obligatory is guilty of sin, if there was a possibility of having performed it." -- (Sharia Law, Reliance of the Traveler, o9.1- o9.4, Pg 600)



"I [Muhammad] have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah...If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me..." -- (Sharia Law, Reliance of the Traveler, o9.1- o9.4, Pg 599) From the Haddith: "The person who participates in (Holy battles) in Allah's cause and nothing compels him to do so except belief in Allah and His Apostles, will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to Paradise (if he is killed in the battle as a martyr).Had I not found it difficult for my followers, then I would not remain behind any army unit going for Jihad and I would have loved to be martyred in Allah's cause and then made alive, and then martyred and then made alive, and then again martyred in His cause." -- Muhammad (Bukhari Book #2, Hadith #36; See also Bukhari Book #90, Hadith 332; Hadith 333)



"One who died but did not fight in the way of Allah nor did he express any desire (or determination) for Jihad died the death of a hypocrite." -- (Sahih Muslim, Book #20, Hadith #4696



"If a person gets wounded in the way of Allah, he will come on the Day of Judgment with his wound in the same condition as it was when it was first inflicted; its colour being the colour of blood but its smell will be the smell of musk..." -- (Bukhari, Book $67, Hadith #441) Available for interview: Randall Terry, Author and Producer of "What Would Muhammad Do: Islamic Terrorism Explained"



(More quotes and references available for press at www.WWMD-TV.com)

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Thomas Nelson Releases More than 40 New KJV Bibles, Now Available with Exclusive Thomas Nelson KJV Font

First Bibles Releasing to Showcase Thomas Nelson's Comfort Print



Contact: Trinity McFadden, Senior Publicity Manager, 616-698-3514, trinity.mcfadden@harpercollins.com



NASHVILLE, March 28, 2017 /Christian Newswire/ -- Thomas Nelson is excited today to announce the release of over 40 newly designed KJV Bibles. With branded packaging, beautiful covers, and a custom, translation-specific font specifically designed to increase the comfort and clarity of the reading experience, the new line of Thomas Nelson KJV Bibles meets high standards of beauty, durability, and functionality. These KJV Bibles are the first to be released under the exclusive brand of Thomas Nelson Comfort Print Bibles.



Continuing its legacy of King James Version stewardship since 1798, Thomas Nelson's latest editions are crafted for ultimate readability and serious Scripture study. Thanks to new, easy-to-read Comfort Print Bibles, readers are invited to linger, engage, and deeply explore God's Word as their eyes flow smoothly along the lines of text.



"Whatever format or print size they choose, readers will find our new KJV Bibles, featuring the Thomas Nelson KJV Font, an absolute delight to read," says Daniel Marrs, associate publisher, Thomas Nelson Bible Group. "All our new text Bibles use custom, translation-specific fonts for increased beauty and readability. The Comfort Print reading experience is matched by an exciting selection of cover designs, with durable, lay-flat bindings. These great new features are showcased by the updated packaging. And we're offering all of this at the same great prices."



The newly designed KJV Bibles feature the custom Thomas Nelson KJV Font, designed by 2K/DENMARK, a company renowned for their decades of experience in Bible typesetting and design. Their founder, Klaus Krogh, was inspired in his creation of the KJV font by the font used in one of the earliest Thomas Nelson Bibles from the 1840s, which he discovered in Edinburgh, Scotland. 2K/DENMARK's Bible typefaces "are designed to serve one purpose; to contain the message of the Word of God." (Learn more about 2K/DENMARK at www.2kdenmark.com.)



New Thomas Nelson KJV Bibles releasing today are represented in the following categories:

KJV Pew Bibles

KJV Gift and Award Bibles

KJV Thinline Standard Print Bibles

KJV Deluxe Gift Bibles

KJV Thinline Compact Bibles

KJV Thinline Large Print Bibles

The new KJV Deluxe Gift Bibles are enhanced with rich, bright, quality paper and a sewn binding. The new KJV Thinline Bibles include classic "old-world" cloth over board cover options. This is also the first time Thomas Nelson has released large print editions in the popular Thinline category. The standard Leathersoft editions feature two ribbon markers, foil stamping, and edge stitching, for a premium look and feel. Other KJV Bibles will be released in the summer and fall of 2017, including large print Pew Bibles and a full line of brand new KJV Reference Bibles.



To learn more about the new Comfort Print Bibles, the custom Thomas Nelson KJV Font, Thomas Nelson's new KJV line-up, and future Comfort Print Bibles releasing from Thomas Nelson, visit www.ComfortPrintBibles.com.



To request review or giveaway copies, contact John Andrade at john.andrade@harpercollins.com.



About Thomas Nelson: Thomas Nelson is a world leading publisher and provider of Christian content and has been providing readers with quality inspirational product for more than 200 years. As part of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc., the publishing group provides multiple formats of award-winning Bibles, books, gift books, cookbooks, curriculum and digital content, with distribution of its products in more than 100 countries. Thomas Nelson, is headquartered in Nashville, TN. For additional information visit www.thomasnelson.com.
A Christian ministry brings healing to Jewish children and seniors in Ukraine

Aliyah in the Jewish tradition refers to when a Jewish person 'rises up' to Israel  immigrates to Israel. Since the founding of the modern State of Israel in 1948, millions of Jews from around the world have made aliyah, helping to build Israel into the strong and vibrant democracy that it is today.

More than 1 million of these Jews made their way to Israel from the former Soviet Union (FSU) over the past several decades, yet more than a million more remain in the FSU. For those who remain, many face enduring anti-Semitism and discrimination, trapping them in a life of poverty and hopelessness.

Most affected by these harsh conditions are often the most vulnerable  children and the elderly. Tragically, many thousands of abused, neglected and abandoned children struggle to survive on the streets or in state run institutions, where they will never receive the type of care they need to have a better life.

Impoverished elderly Jews, many of whom survived the Holocaust, live isolated and alone, often having insufficient funds to buy both the food they need to eat and the medicines they need to treat their medical conditions.

Yet Christians from around the world have joined together to do something about the humanitarian crisis facing these vulnerable Jews and have blessed them with their love and support.

Christians Care International (CCI), the only Christian charitable organisation that provides a full continuum of direct support services to impoverished Jews in the FSU, is on the front lines, working every day on the ground to improve conditions and rescue these people in need from dire poverty. Since its founding, CCI has helped more than 87,000 Jews make aliyah to Israel and provides urgent humanitarian aid to Jews living in the FSU.

CCI's many programs include its Kalaniot Children's Home in Bila Tserkva, Ukraine, which houses and cares for severely abused, neglected and abandoned Jewish children. The home provides these children with what they need most  a safe and loving environment where they can begin to heal and regain trust in others, and in themselves. The CCI Children's Home provides advanced 24-hour therapeutic care, healthy meals, a quality education and Jewish religious observances like the Sabbath and holidays.

Not far from the Children's Home, CCI operates its recently opened senior care services center, where poor, elderly Jews, many of whom are Holocaust survivors, receive daily meals, psychological care, medical screening, social interaction, brain stimulating activities, humanitarian support and the chance to connect with their Jewish heritage.

To help the healing process for both children and seniors in our care, CCI recently launched its "Healing Hearts" program, an innovative new mentoring program that pairs elderly from the CCI senior center with Jewish children from the CCI Children's Home.

CCI's Healing Hearts mentoring program brings together children and senior citizens to share in Shabbat services, art and music projects, meals and other enriching activities to promote improved mental, physical and psychological health.

The children benefit by feeling loved, learning responsibility and building positive adult relationships. All of the visits are closely overseen and coordinated by CCI's team of neuropsychologists and create healthy environments where both children and seniors can grow and develop positive outlooks.

Anna Markova, a Holocaust survivor, is a perfect example of how this mentoring program helps lift the physical and emotional well-being of Jews who have faced so many hardships in their lives.

A regular visitor to the CCI Senior Center, Anna was recently paired with 10 year-old Andre, who was severely abused and neglected by his alcoholic father. The two have been seeing each other twice a week for the last month. Anna was lonely and struggled to survive before entering the Senior Center. Now, she gets daily meals, medical attention and perhaps most importantly, has a new, enriching social life.

Her social worker asked Anna if she would become a mentor in the Healing Hearts program to a boy named Andre. Though nervous at first at the thought of taking responsibility for mentoring a young boy who had been terribly abused, Anna and Andre quickly become very close. Anna says that Andre has become the grandson she never had and the pair have become an important part of each other's lives.

Thanks to the loving support of Christians around the world, Christians Care International has saved the lives of thousands of Jewish people just like Anna and Andre, helping them rise up from life-threatening poverty to a future filled with hope.

Don Horwitz is executive director of Christians Care International. The grandson of Russian Jewish immigrants, Don believes that God brought him to serve as Executive Director of Christians Care International (CCI). Through his work with CCI, Don has developed a global network of Christians united in fulfilling God's call to lift up the Jewish people. On Twitter @CCareInt.
As St Paul's Cathedral 'Diamond' Choir CD tops the classical charts, Anne Atkins sings a song of praise  and lament

I was brought up in an environment of immense privilege: of world-class musical and academic opportunities for children from the age of seven. Most of my playmates went on to win major music and academic scholarships to schools like King's Canterbury, Oundle, Uppingham and Eton. A sizeable handful eventually became internationally famous: composers, conductors, instrumentalists, academics, inventors, broadcasters and performers.

Alas: it was a privilege never open to me.

My father was Head Master of King's College Choir School in Cambridge. I looked up to the boys I grew up with almost as gods. Their voices surely came from Heaven... and television producers and national newspapers obviously thought so too.

It never occurred to anyone (let alone me) that I might have been given the same chance. For years I was so dedicated a tomboy that today I would have been transgender. It is only now that I realise why: girls couldn't even attend the school, let alone sing in the choir  required by Henry VI to train and educate 'sixteen boys'. No wonder I wanted to be one of them.

Thanks to my father's ideological convictions the school became co-ed, but this took all of his nineteen-year tenure and he had no jurisdiction over the choir.

When I had children of my own I didn't realise the world had changed  sadly, for our middle daughter: Salisbury Cathedral had just opened its doors to girl choristers, but even attuned as I was for such opportunities, the news hadn't reached me. Her life might have been so very different. Fiercely energetic, she would have thrived on the stimulation of such high standards and organisational demands... and might not have succumbed to the devastating anxiety disorder which instead has dominated her life.

Happily her sister Rose, younger by eighteen years, enjoyed three years' singing in Durham Cathedral, from nine to thirteen: an education which is already shaping her future. (Happily too her outstanding Head there, Yvette Day, is soon to inherit the job my father had and become the first woman Master Over the Choristers.)

As a result, she has recently been part of an initiative to make this extraordinary, uniquely British educational opportunity open to others, not just of both sexes but all backgrounds.

Last April, aged twelve, Rose travelled from Durham to St Paul's Cathedral for two days to sing with a choir of other choristers from around the UK: one from almost every Cathedral and College choir in the country. A rainbow of cassocked children in their dozens filled Wren's resounding vast bell with the immaculately-timed explosion of Zadok the Priest, after its relentlessly building suspense, to lift the hairs on the backs of the necks of everyone present.

What is striking, watching clips of interviews with these children made into a promotional video afterwards, is the buzz: here are eleven and twelve year olds as excited about getting Handel right as their peers are about Pokemon Go.

But at the fee-paying choir schools it is still a privilege open only to some. Indeed financially, it is less accessible than it was. My father was one of five clergy children; in the 1920s his chorister fees at King's Cambridge were only 8 a term, what the College deemed it would cost his parents to feed him at home. Now, even though the choristers' (sometimes boarding) fees are still heavily subsidised by the cathedrals and colleges they sing for (generally by between a quarter and a half) they are usually in their thousands: way beyond the reach of many, as they were to us living on a clergy stipend when our children were young.

The cathedrals too are struggling. Professional choirs can be extremely expensive to run, and for those cathedrals without legacy or foundation funding it can be a struggle. Our son was employed as a counter-tenor in one catheral, but came home early after he and others in the choir were told there was no longer the money to pay them.

Hence the get-together in St Paul's Cathedral last April. The event was to launch the Diamond Fund for Choristers (set up by the Friends of Cathedral Music) established with the aim of raising 10 million by 2020.

Not just to help cathedrals which might otherwise simply not have enough funds to support a choir, but to enable choristers of all backgrounds (as well as both sexes) to have the privilege denied to people such as me.

The resulting CD, released last week, is already top of the classical charts. I wish it could have been me singing on there. I wish it could have been all my children, not just my youngest. Indeed, I wish it could be every child with an ear and an inclination.

As perhaps now, one day it may be...

Anne Atkins is the author of three novels and has contributed to most of the UK's national newspapers. She is on Twitter @anne_atkins. The protagonist of Anne's second novel, On Our Own (a murder mystery) is an Aspergic and talented boy chorister at a world famous choir. Its sequel, An Elegant Solution, will be out next.
Christians are to the fore in efforts to find homes in the UK for thousands of Syrian refugees

Nearly nine out of every 10 Syrian refugees who applied for asylum in the UK last year were accepted.

Thousands of Syrians fleeing Islamic State, the Assad regime and other threats have come to Britain where Christians have played a central role in helping them stay and start a new life.

But it is not just Christians. Members of all faiths  Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and Zoroastrians  have been active in helping give hope to the thousands caught up in the Syrian refugee crisis.

The latest facts are set out in a report from the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees.

Among the most outspoken in their support of Syrian refugees is the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who arranged for a Syrian family to be housed on the grounds of his London residence, Lambeth Palace.

The London diocese has been active, as have other Anglican and Catholic dioceses, along with Jewish leaders and organisations, many of them remembering the legacy of World War II and the Kindertransport.

The late Lord Weidenfeld, a Holocaust survivor who was supported by a Christian group in the UK during the war, rescued 150 Syrian Christians from Islamic State territory and brought them to Poland. World Jewish Relief raised nearly 944,000, impacting 17,500 refugees, and started a pilot programme in Bradford to better integrate refugees into British society.

In September 2016, more than 200 faith leaders in the UK signed an open letter to the Prime Minister calling on the government to offer sanctuary to more refugees. They wrote, 'The best of this country is represented by the generosity, kindness, solidarity and decency that Britain has at many times shown those fleeing persecution.'

The Syrian crisis is considered by many to be the worst humanitarian disaster since World War II. There are an estimated 13.5 million people in Syria, more than half the country's pre-war population, including 6 million children, in urgent need of humanitarian assistance

Of these, about 5 million are in hard-to-reach areas, with close to 600,000 people in besieged areas. About 80 per cent of Syrians currently live in poverty, while life expectancy since the start of the crisis in 2011 has dropped by more than 20 years.

There are now nearly 5 million registered Syrian refugees  more than any single refugee population in the world  the majority of whom are currently living in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. Of these, nearly half are children.

The UK promised to take in 20,000 Syrian refugees over five years. In the year ending in September 2016, there were 33,380 total asylum applications in the UK and of these, 2,359 applications were from Syrians.

Of the Syrians that applied, 2,102 were granted asylum in that year  a grant rate of 86 per cent, the highest rate among the top six nationalities applying for asylum in the UK. However, many more asylum seekers go to countries such as Germany or Sweden. Britain received just three per cent of all asylum claims in the EU in 2015.

More than 4,000 Syrians have also arrived in the UK under the Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme, the scheme being used by local authorities to meet the 20,000 target.

Others are coming in through the new Home Office Community Sponsorship Scheme which involves faith communities such as the Salvation Army, local community groups, businesses and universities. Even individuals creating their own sponsoring groups can apply to be community sponsors.
Church investigates official complaints into homophobia against gay cleric

Insiders have lodged an official complaint after a gay cleric was barred from being appointed Bishop of Llandaff.

Five members of the Church in Wales' secretive electoral college that debates and votes for candidates have spoken of 'deeply inappropriate' references to Dr Jeffrey John's homosexuality when considering his nomination, Christian Today can reveal.

In a letter to the Church's most senior executive Simon Lloyd, the electors said the remarks against Dr John 'prejudiced' the process making it 'invalid'.

A formal investigation has now been launched into the process and a legal panel chaired by a judge will decide whether to scrap the decision not to take Dr John's nomination forward.

The complaint signed by five of the 47-strong body read: 'We object to the raising at electoral college of the matter of sexuality or civil partnership status, in direct contravention of the Church in Wales's own policy that sexuality or civil partnership status is not a bar to appointment as a Bishop.

'We consider that this action was deeply inappropriate, and prejudiced the electoral college proceedings so as to render them invalid.'

In response Mr Lloyd asked members of the electoral body to approve that normal rules of confidentiality should be waived to allow an investigation.

The appointment for a new bishop is now on hold and may be delayed until the investigation is complete.

Mr Lloyd told electors: 'The timescale is a matter for the Legal Sub-committee and is dependent upon the amount of analysis required and how many times they need to meet. The deliberations of the Committee cannot and should not be hurried.'

A statement from the Church in Wales read: 'Five members of the Electoral College, which was assembled to elect the Bishop of Llandaff in February, have now submitted a complaint to the Secretary of the Electoral College. Their complaint is in relation to certain aspects of the conduct of the College. This matter has now been referred to the Legal Sub-Committee, which is a body in the Church in Wales assembled to consider legal and governance matters.

'The responsibility of appointing the next Bishop of Llandaff has passed to the Bench of Bishops. It is too early to say whether the deliberations of the Legal Sub Committee will have any effect on the timing of an announcement.'

Dr John, currently Dean of St Albans Cathedral, was nominated to be Bishop of Llandaff and despite winning more than half the votes and unanimous support from local electors, he narrowly missed out on the two-thirds needed to be appointed.

The decision was then passed to the Welsh Bench of Bishops who refused to reconsider his nomination in a new shortlist.

But in a letter following his dismissal, Dr John said the only reason he was blocked was his sexuality.

'The only arguments adduced against my appointment  in particular by two of the bishops - were directly related to my homosexuality and/or civil partnership  namely that my appointment would bring unwelcome and unsettling publicity to the diocese, and that it might create difficulties for the future Archbishop in relation to the Anglican Communion,' he wrote in a highly unusual open letter to Bishop John Davies, the senior Church leader in Wales.

'To ride roughshod of the very clearly expressed, unanimous view of a diocese in this way is extraordinary, unprecedented and foolish,' he told Bishop Davies.

'You decided, arbitrarily, to ignore the submissions that you had asked for, and to declare that those who were discussed at the Electoral College were now, in fact, no longer to be considered. This is a clear and ludicrous breach of process, and a further insult to the people of the diocese, and very many others who took the trouble to contribute their view.'

The Church in Wales strongly denies allegations of homophobia.

A statement from the Church read: 'Neither homosexuality nor participation in a civil partnership are a bar to any candidate being either nominated or elected as a Bishop in the Church in Wales. Moreover, this was made clear to members of the Electoral College by its President, the Bishop of Swansea and Brecon.'
Evangelical Alliance hails Brexit 'historic moment' to speak out

The Evangelical Alliance is hailing Brexit as a vital chance to debate what sort of society the UK will be.

The day before the Prime Minister is set to trigger Article 50 and begin the process of leaving the European Union, an EA spokesman said Christians had a crucial role in the discussions.

'We speak out for a society that upholds freedom, maintains justice and pursues truth, in which we pursue the difficult task of loving our neighbour as ourselves,' the EA said today.

'We share the prime minister's desire for a fairer society for all. We look forward to engaging in that conversation in the months ahead.'

The alliance remained officially neutral during the referendum debate but on Tuesday referred to 'ongoing challenges for the EU' mean reform is essential if it is to survive.

It came as Brexiteer MPs allegedly walked out of a select committee meeting because a 155-page report on leaving was too 'gloomy', according to the BBC.

Hillary Benn's cross-party Brexit committee scrutinises the government's actions but pro-Leave MPs claimed they were not consulted on the downbeat report before it was pushed to a vote in the committee.

The EA said the upcoming negotiations were a vital chance to re-imagine the UK's future.

'This historic moment is a time to speak to each other about what we want our society to be as we leave the European Union,' the spokesman said. 'This is not a conversation for our leaders alone, nor is it the exclusive possession of those who took one side in the referendum campaign. It is for every person in the nations of the UK to contribute.'

The statement added: 'As Christians, we are commanded in the Bible to 'pray for all who have authority, that we may live peaceful lives'. We will be praying for the prime minister, her Cabinet, and all those involved in the negotiations around our withdrawal from the EU in the coming months.

'We pray that God would give His wisdom to those He has given authority and influence, and that the outcomes of the negotiations would be just.'

The Evangelical Alliance is hailing Brexit as a vital chance to debate what sort of society the UK will be.

The day before the Prime Minister is set to trigger Article 50 and begin the process of leaving the European Union, an EA spokesman said Christians had a crucial role in the discussions.

'We speak out for a society that upholds freedom, maintains justice and pursues truth, in which we pursue the difficult task of loving our neighbour as ourselves,' a statement on Tuesday read.

'We share the prime minister's desire for a fairer society for all. We look forward to engaging in that conversation in the months ahead.'

The alliance remained officially neutral during the referendum debate but on Tuesday referred to 'ongoing challenges for the EU' mean reform is essential if it is to survive.

It came as Brexiteer MPs allegedly walked out of a select committee meeting because a 155-page report on leaving was too 'gloomy', according to the BBC.

Hillary Benn's cross-party Brexit committee scrutinises the government's actions but pro-Leave MPs claimed they were not consulted on the downbeat report before it was pushed to a vote in the committee.

The EA said the upcoming negotiations were a vital chance to re-imagine the UK's future.

'This historic moment is a time to speak to each other about what we want our society to be as we leave the European Union,' the spokesman said. 'This is not a conversation for our leaders alone, nor is it the exclusive possession of those who took one side in the referendum campaign. It is for every person in the nations of the UK to contribute.'

The statement added: 'As Christians, we are commanded in the Bible to 'pray for all who have authority, that we may live peaceful lives'. We will be praying for the prime minister, her Cabinet, and all those involved in the negotiations around our withdrawal from the EU in the coming months.

'We pray that God would give His wisdom to those He has given authority and influence, and that the outcomes of the negotiations would be just.'
French 'Spotlight' investigation accuses Catholic bishops of sex abuse cover-up

A provocative French TV investigation has accused several Catholic bishops of protecting alleged clerical sex abusers in France in the past 50 years.

'Paedophilia in the Church: The Burden of Silence,' aired March 21, and accused 25 Catholic bishops of shielding 32 clerics who faced accusations of sex abuse, according to The National Catholic Reporter.

The France 2 programme has been described as 'a French Spotlight', comparing it to the famous Boston Globe investigation that unveiled a systemic clerical sex abuse scandal in 2002.

The French broadcast reported the findings of a year-long inquiry which found 339 victims of sex abuse by priests. 228 of the victims were under 15 at the time, and only 165 of the cases were reported to civil authorities.

The programme reported that 28 of the 32 alleged abusers were moved to new parishes or countries when the allegations were made. It also found that 16 of the alleged abusers were accused after 2000, when the bishops' conference had said abuse guidelines would be tightened and abusive clerics would be handed to the authorities. Five of the 25 accused bishops are still in office.

The French bishops' conference chose not to participate in the broadcast, and a conference spokesman said investigating journalists had tried to blackmail the Church. The programme followed the news magazine 'Cash Investigation', working with the online journal Mediapart, investigating the Church and interviewing abuse victims, using hidden cameras and popping questions at clerics including Pope Francis.

The bishops conference spokesman, Monsignor Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, said the Church would not participate in a post-broadcast debate, because of the 'the methods used for the interviews'.

He said: 'It seems that journalistic ethics were not respected and that this program was more concerned with accusing than with explaining'. A deputy conference spokesman accused the programme of 'scandal reporting'.

The editor-in-chief of 'Cash Investigation', Emmanuel Gagnier, hit back: 'We regret that the bishops' conference spokesman preferred to launch public polemics rather than come to a debate in our studio despite several invitations.'

The reform group Catholic Conference of the Francophone Baptized were critical of bishops' refusal to engage with the inquiry. It said: 'Our bishops are often prompt to express their disagreement with society or demonstrate very visibly on the streets or in the media about abortion, end-of-life issues or gay marriage.

'But when they're the ones being taken to task, they tend to slip away. It's too bad, because this gives the impression they have something to hide or feel ashamed of.'

After the programme, Msgr Dumas said on RMC radio that he watched it 'with a feeling of shame...We did not respect the victims and our approach was to first protect our institutions...Today, the guidelines are extremely clear.'
I'm glad Alexander Blackman is to be freed  and I'm glad he went to jail

Alexander Blackman  'Marine A'  has been sentenced to seven years for diminished responsibility manslaughter. He could be free in weeks.

The back story is well known in Britain. Blackman was convicted of murder in 2013 after he was tried on the basis of helmet camera footage showing him shooting dead a wounded Taliban fighter in Helmand in 2011. He was a highly experienced soldier who had seen fierce fighting over a prolonged period. The appeal court found he had been suffering from 'abnormality of mental function', a mental illness caused by combat stress.

It would be nice to say the case had divided opinion, but that's hardly true. Most commentators, and the vast weight of public opinion, was on his side. Most people seemed to think his original conviction for murder was just outrageous: the enemy's the enemy, the Taliban are truly bad people and one fewer of them makes the world a slightly better place. Manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility is a bit better, but he should still never have been sent to prison.

Well: I want to argue, in the fullest and most sympathetic awareness of his plight, that the law of the United Kingdom  belatedly  got it right, and that this reflects its Christian foundations.

Terrible things happen in war. It's only in recent years that there has been a thoroughgoing attempt to lay down rules about what soldiers can and can't do to their opponents. It's frustrating for them, but there it is. In the First or Second World Wars, what Blackman did would have been routine. Wounded enemies were treated where practicable, despatched where not. It's war, not a BBC Question Time discussion. And  obviously  the experience of being under fire, for weeks or months, facing a deadly enemy fighting without any of the moral or legal scruples of the soft and civilised West, is going to challenge those scruples. But that's what the law is for: to say, 'No'.

In a Panorama documentary about the case directed by Chris Terrill, who went through Royal Marines training himself in order to understand, as far as possible, their mindset, his colleagues supported him. One said: 'Everyone wanted that guy to be dead. I'm glad Al did what he did, because all my guys went home.

'And maybe just maybe if he hadn't of done that I'd have been going to a few more funerals or laying some more flowers on people's graves, for someone I have absolutely zilch respect for because he was trying to kill my friends and me.'

He also said: 'After that repetitive exposure to violence and different cultures, I'd changed.'

With testimonies like this  and the loyalty and commitment shown by Blackman's wife, the admiration for the courage shown by British soldiers and the widespread public perception that they shouldn't have been in Afghanistan in the first place  it's easy to slip into thinking Blackman was just, well, right. But he wasn't.

What's missing from this account is the voice of the victim  and someone has to speak for him. Christians resist the idea that there is only one side to a conflict, that the world is divided neatly into 'us' and 'them', with all goodness and righteousness on our side. We do this even in the context of warfare. Blackman  and his colleagues  were under huge strain, of a kind that can't be imagined by people who haven't experienced it. No one should quarrel with the appeal court's judgment or doubt the evidence of psychiatrists who have said Blackman was ill.

But what has decades of war done to the Afghan 'enemy'? There are no psychiatrists to diagnose battle fatigue or PTSD among the Taliban. They are simply assumed to be evil. The experiences that formed them are deemed irrelevant. But Christians want to say that they, too, are made in the image of God. They are not just targets, they are people  and if they do terrible things, we need to be willing to ask questions about why that might be, just as we do in the case of our own.

The law is a blunt instrument at best. Alexander Blackman's sentence will seem too harsh for some, too lenient for others. But the court sent a signal that it's wrong to kill  to kill anyone  when you don't have to, and in doing that it underlined a fundamental Christian truth. As the prophet Malachi says: 'Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us?' (2:10).

Follow Mark Woods on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods
Leading American evangelicals ask: 'How should the Church respond to Trump?'

Leading writers and thinkers of American evangelicalism will discuss how to respond to the Trump presidency in the next convention of the Evangelical Press Association (EPA) in April.

The panel titled 'The Trump Administration: How Should the Church Respond?' will take place on April 11, during the EPA's annual convention running from April 9-11 in Lombard, Illinois.

'While many Christians supported the candidacy of Donald Trump for President, many did not,' said EPA Executive Director Lamar Keener.

'However, what matters now, regardless of one's position or party, is to determine the most effective and productive way for Evangelicals to move forward.'

The panel will be moderated by Christianity Today editor Mark Galli, and will feature panellists Katelyn Beaty, Christianity Today's editor at large; Daniel Darling, vice president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty commission; and Julie Roys, the host of the Moody Radio Network talk show 'Up for Debate'.

The popular evangelical speaker Ed Stetzer will speak in a talk titled: 'Trends in Evangelicalism, Politics, and Culture: Navigating the New Landscape.' The convention's opening speaker will be Charlie Dates, senior pastor of Chicago's Progressive Baptist Church.

Steve Green, the president of Hobby Lobby Stores, will also make an address. Hobby Lobby was caught in controversy in 2014 when it challenged a requirement that family-owned for-profit corporations fund insurance coverage for contraception, in the Supreme Court case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. The Supreme Court ruled in favour of Hobby Lobby.

The EPA convention draws Christian media editorial staff and creative design professionals from across North America.
Contemporary South African designers to know and collect

An essential introduction to the names making South African design, in fields ranging form furniture to ceramics, one of the most exciting sectors for new collectors

In the landscape of international design, Africa is one of the richest and most rewarding regions  and yet also one of the least explored. Influenced by a rich mix of culture and tradition, fragmented and reforged over time, the works of its designers are as diverse as the continents many countries and cultures. On 5 April our First Open auction celebrates the best in contemporary African design, British craftsmanship and contemporary art, featuring an African design section that showcases a selection of works by designers represented by the celebrated Cape Town gallery Southern Guild. Here, gallery co-founder Trevyn McGowan introduces some of the hottest names in South African design today.





1

Porky Hefer

Trevyn McGowan: Porky Hefer has transcended the expectations applied to his field to forge a path that is new and inventive. Porkys work is design without boundaries  for him, a chair doesnt have to have four legs and a straight back. His seating is immersive, inviting you into a world that holds almost childlike fascination.

2

Dokter and Misses

Dokter and Misses is the brainchild of industrial designer Adriaan Hugo and graphic designer Katy Taplin  South Africas rockstar design couple. Their works take inspiration from traditional graphic designs, tribal body paint and forms of writing  as is the case with Kassena Isibheqe, above. Trevyn McGowan: Works by the husband-and-wife pair are often monumental in scale, and are sought after by the worlds leading museums, galleries and design institutions. They were recently recognised with a Southern Guild Design Foundation Award, South Africas most prestigious design accolade, and, in 2016, their work formed part of BeautyCooper Hewitt Design Triennial.

3

John Murray & Paco Pakdoust

Trevyn McGowan: To take an important artwork by one of the countrys top artists and turn it into a rug is no small feat  but Paco Pakdoust has done exactly that, transforming John Murrays painting Oust into wool and silk with incredible precision. Hand-knotted in Nepal, this rug is a work of art in its own right.

4

Adam Birch



Trevyn McGowan: Adam Birch is a tree surgeon. When he is unable to save a damaged or dying tree, he transforms them into beautiful pieces of furniture. Sculpted from fragrant camphor wood, this chair smells as delightful as it looks.

5

Chuma Maweni and Madoda Fani

Trevyn McGowan: Design duo Madoda and Chuma recently held a solo exhibition of their work in our Cape Town gallery, featuring almost 20 pieces of their smoke-fired ceramic pieces. The show was a testament to the collaborative spirit of their work, which is created using traditional pit-firing methods, imbuing pieces with cultural narrative. Madoda and Chuma are two big new talents worth keeping an eye on.

6

Conrad Hicks

Trevyn McGowan: To witness Conrad at work in his Cape Town forge is a spectacular sight. Formerly a cinema, the space comes alive as old machinery springs into life, and Conrad fires and hammers away at pieces of metal. His designs ooze personality, and his ability to render delicate textures in copper is exceptional.

7

Jesse Ede

Trevyn McGowan: Jesse is one of our new rising stars. He casts the aluminium used in works such as the bench above in sand, so that his process is completely organic. Its a brave way of working, and results in designs that demonstrate both innovation and mastery. Jesse showed with Southern Guild at Design Miami 2016.

8

Trevor Potter



Trevyn McGowan: Trevor is one of the most talented sculptors to have emerged in recent years. He approaches his work with passion and personality  its detail is remarkable, and each piece has an element of fun to it.

9



Xandre Kriel


If Marco Silvestrini gives you the cold shoulder, that's a good thing. He traffics in cold. Icy cold.

And soon his brand of frosty chill will satisfy Houston's appetite for sweet snow. Dolce Neve, the Austin-based gelato shop that Silvestrini operates with his sister, Francesca Silvestrini, and her fiance, Leopoldo Ferrarese, is set to open in the Heights this week, ushering in a new season of cold comfort in a city already feeling the heat.

Housed in a former laundromat in the strip mall at 4721 N. Main next to Morningstar (and the late great Foreign Correspondents and Canard bar), Dolce Neve is the gelato company's second shop, the first outside of Austin. The store, which will open March 30, serves Italian style gelato (all three Dolce Neve partners grew up in Italy) which can be had in a cup, in a waffle cone, as a gelato pop, or a gelato "ice cream" sandwich between two cookies.

NEW EATERY: Charming American bistro opens in the Heights

Silvestrini, who will manage the Houston location while his partners operate the Austin gelateria, said the company decided to open in Houston thanks largely to Morningstar owner David Buehrer, a fan of Dolce Neve gelato. Now they're neighbors in the same strip mall.

"We first wanted to expand in Austin but the real estate was so tight," Silvestrini said. "I really wasn't thinking of Houston but David convinced me to open here. Sometimes you have to capture the opportunity."

Silvestrini said he admires Buehrer's counter-intuitive approach to his businesses, which may not necessarily appear to be something the market is demanding at the time but succeed on their own unique merits.

And Dolce Neve, Silvestrini suggests, has particular merits (as well as an atypical approach to gelato slinging). To begin with, visitors will not see displays of fluffily groomed trays of colorful gelato as is the norm. Dolce Neve's gelatos are kept in cylinders (topped with conical silver lids) sunk into the service counter. "Gelato doesn't like air and light," Silvestrini explains. But servers will offer samples and customers can then choose which flavors they want and in what format.

While the company has a library of more than 300 flavors, inspired by Italian traditions and ingredients in the local farmers market, about a dozen flavors are available daily. Staple flavors include chocolate, Madagascar vanilla, salted caramel, stracciatella, organic pistachio, organic hazelnut, custard with lemon zest, and coconut milk with black raspberry jam. Rotating flavors are chocolate and candied orange peel, chocolate with Maldon sea salt, chocolate and hazelnut, almond custard, pecan and honey, whiskey and pecan, tiramisu, mascarpone and figs, mascarpone and lemon, cassata (Italian cake), ricotta with honey and pistachio, goat cheese and pecan, goat cheese and blueberry jam, and fromage blanc with apricot jam. Seasonal flavors include organic Meyer lemon sorbet, organic grapefruit sorbet, eggnog, and malted milk with milk chocolate chips.

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The gelato (all made in Austin and transported to Houston) have been the pursuit of Francesca Silvestrini who learned about the graft from the prestigious Carpigiani Gelato University in Bologna, Italy. She refined her skills while working at Gelateria De'Coltelli in Pisa, Italy, considered one of the most famous gelato shops in that country.

Marco Silvestrini said the company's path to each flavor is based on the high-quality ingredients and sometimes intense labor. The pistachio gelato, for example, starts with organic pistachios from California that are then roasted in-house and then made into a paste that is the colorful, flavorful, fragrant base for the gelato. That process just to get to the paste is about five hours. Add another three hours to get to a final product.

Silvestrini said what he's looking for in that final product is a concentration of flavor as well as the important considerations of mouthfeel and texture/density. "We want something that is very clear and you immediately understand the flavor you are eating," he said.

Houston can begin experiencing those sensations when Dolce Neve opens Thursday.

Dolce Neve, 4721 N. Main, 832-767-2183; dolcenevegelato.com. Opening day will be March 30 at 7 p.m. Regular hours begin March 31: Sunday through Thursday from noon to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday from noon to 11 p.m.

>>>Scroll through the gallery above for a look at Houston's latest restaurant addition
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A 4-year-old boy wound up at the hospital Monday night with a gash on his head after someone fired multiple bullets into the south Houston apartment where he lived.

Houston police headed around 11 p.m. to the Mainridge complex, near the intersection of Westridge Street and Hearst Drive, in response to a shooting.

When they arrived, the boy's head was bleeding heavily.

A suspect had fired several shots through the sliding glass door of the apartment where the child and his mother lived.

There were no signs of a car. The suspect likely walked up to the building, said Lt. W.L. Meeler with the Houston Police Department.

The shooting appeared to be random. Neighbors were unaware of any problems in the residence, Meeler said.

The boy was transported to an area hospital where he was in good condition Tuesday morning. It is not certain at this time whether his injury was caused by bullets or by the scuffle trying to escape the apartment.

Police have not identified a suspect or a motive at this time, but asked witnesses to come forward.

"It could have been anybody's apartment," Meeler said. "It could have been anybody's child who was in there."
A man died Tuesday morning on the front porch of a Heights home after a gunshot went off.

Houston police headed to the residence in the 3100 block of White Oak Drive around 1 a.m., where they found the man unresponsive and bleeding severely, detective S. Gromyko for the police department said.
LM Otero/STF

AUSTIN -- The Texas Senate on Monday approved changes to the state's controversial voter ID law to bring it into line with a federal appeals court ruling that declared it discriminatory toward minorities.

The Republican-led upper chamber voted 21-10 Monday for a bill that would allow people with a reasonable impediment to obtaining an applicable photo identification to sign an affidavit in order to vote. It also would impose a penalty of up to 10 years in prison for lying on the sworn document.
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Homelessness is a problem for many veterans.

They can be couch surfing with friends or family members, living in shelters or on the streets, or simply just don't have a place to stay beyond a month or two.

However, thanks to students at St. Pius X High School and St. Rose of Lima Catholic School, having the basic necessities of living is a problem that is being addressed.

On Thursday, students at St. Pius packed a van from the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program through Volunteers of America-Texas. After gathering so much stuff - including clothes, toiletries, sleeping bags, blankets and backpacks - a second van was needed to help with the overflow of collections.

TRUMP CONCERNS: Advocates of homeless vets fear president's budget could hurt them

Sophomore Nina Martinez is the president and founder of St. Pius X High School's Students Serving Soldiers group. Currently the group has about 55 members. It is the second such drive to collect items for veterans this year. The first ended in January, with those donations being taken to Killeen, home of Fort Hood.

"Our drive had just ended and Channel 13 did a story," Martinez said. "(Darryl Harper) heard about us  he wanted to team up with us."

Darryl Harper is the HVRP outreach coordinator in Houston.

"People just go through dressers and gather stuff," Martinez said. In the first drive this year, a Boy Scout member "went to his troop leader and they gave us a boatload of stuff."

Not all donations are second-hand goods.

"We had a lot of brand new clothes," Martinez said. "Someone brought in a bunch of jeans with tags still on them."

For its part, St. Pius supports the philanthropic efforts of its students.

"We are really open to student ideas for new organizations," said Principal Diane Larsen. "They find a sponsor interested in the organization."

The support offered by the school includes putting out notices and making announcements, but the students are the ones driving the needs of any particular group.

St. Pius supports numerous drives in the school - a food drive around Thanksgiving, a toy drive at Christmas and a diaper drive, to name a few.

For his part, Harper is happy to have the donated goods to help out local homeless veterans. There is a "returning home" event for the veteran population scheduled for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 1, at the United Way at 50 Waugh Dr, Houston, TX 77007.

For more information on the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program, go to www.voatx.org/houston.

For more information on St. Pius X High School, go to www.stpiusx.org. For info on St. Rose of Lima Catholic School, go to www.stroselima.org.
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A former classroom aide at Atascocita High School has been arrested and charged with sexual assault of a child aged 14 to 17, officials said.

Bill Daniels, the school principal, sent a letter to parents on Friday, stating that Kevin McCormick, 29, was arrested Thursday night by Humble school district police.

McCormick had been hired in August as an aide in three world geography classes, Daniels said in his letter.

STATEWIDE ISSUE: Teachers in 2 north Texas districts arrested for inappropriate relationships

On March 2, school officials became aware of some text messages that Daniels described as "concerning," but he didn't include any details and didn't specify that the texts were between McCormick and a student.

"We took immediate action by launching an investigation," the principal's letter stated, noting that McCormick resigned March 3.

The investigation continued, and Humble school district police presented evidence to the Harris County District Attorney's Office of a sexual relationship between McCormick and a former student at the school, Daniels said in the letter.

FAST FACTS: What you need to know about Sarah Fowlkes

District administrators had no evidence of an inappropriate relationship between McCormick and any other student, the letter stated.

McCormick, who has a Kingwood address, remained free Monday on bail. He appeared Monday in the 263rd State District Court and is scheduled to return to court April 25, according to online law enforcement records.
Unless Texas lawmakers agree to increase funding for public schools during the ongoing legislative session, Katy ISD's financial future will be more uncertain than it already is.

District funding sources have transformed drastically over time. With current laws, school administrators continue to feel increasingly strangled by a loss of revenue that has already led to budget changes, with more issues possibly ahead.

"The vast majority of my days are spent wondering, 'what kind of things can we do with our precious dollars to be able to provide for children in an environment that's full of obstacles and land mines?'" said Chris Smith, KISD's chief financial officer. "We try to put all of those resources in the classrooms."

Public schools are funded by two main sources: State funds and revenue from local property taxes.

One of the largest controversies in the state's funding system is the "Robin Hood" law, a rule also referred to as "recapture" that forces school districts with a certain amount of property wealth to give funds back to the state, which is then supposed to distribute them to property-poor districts.

In Katy, that possibility isn't too far off.

The threshold for districts to enter recapture is $514,000 per student in property wealth. As it stands, Katy ISD earns about $360,000 per student, according to its records. Smith said if nothing changes with the state's funding, the district could reach the threshold in the next five to six years if it maintains its tax rate because district property values continue to rise, creating more property wealth.

The district could enter recapture even sooner if raises its taxes by any amount more than two cents, since that would create enough wealth to push it over the threshold. But Katy ISD would need voters to approve any tax increase since the district has reached the maximum amount it can levy without a vote, Smith said. At a tax rate of $1.5166 per $100 of property valuation, Katy ISD already has one of the highest tax rates in the Houston area.

Because Katy ISD's revenue from property taxes has continued to increase, the state has provided less and less money.

Just three years ago, Katy tax payers were funding 51 percent of the district's revenue while the state funded 41 percent, according to Smith. Now, taxpayers fund 65 percent while the state funds 35 percent, a drop-off equal to about $102 million. The changes have affected the district's total revenue.

This school year alone, the district has operated with about $4 million less than in the 2015-2016 school year. The district removed more than $20 million of expenses for its 2016-17 general fund budget that had been in last year's budget, including money for technology and furniture renovations, as well as funds to pay for new school busses. It is instead funding those expenditures through 2014 bond money, according to Smith.

Inadequate funding is an issue school districts face statewide. Years ago, more than half of districts across Texas, including Katy ISD, sued the state contending that the finance system is unconstitutional by the way it distributes money, among other issues.

Last May, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the system, while deeply flawed, is constitutional. And during this legislative session, key government leaders such as Gov. Greg Abbott have pushed for laws that could potentially take away more money from public education in order to bolster private and home education.

Districts do have some hope, though. Public education funding has been a focus during the session. Weeks ago, State Rep. and Public Education Chairman Dan Huberty, R-Houston, unveiled House Bill 21, a $1.6 billion plan that would boost per-student funding for many public schools while making recapture districts pay less. The bill is pending in a House committee, and legislators are looking at other state budget changes.

"The state has a challenge on their hands," Smith said. "My hope is that the state, as they work through their challenges, will find a way to do the things that the future of the state needs, which is education for the children.

"Will they do that? I wish I knew."

Unless change comes, Smith said districts like Katy might have to start looking at expenses such as staff salaries, which make up the majority of the budget. A negative outcome could be salary freezes in a system that usually accounts for salary raises each year.

Smith's hopeful that consequences like that won't ever happen.

"That's what we manage real hard to try and avoid," he said.
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Just weeks after human bones were found in the walls of a bungalow on Allston Street in the Heights, the home is on the market for buyers and renters.

Listed at $439,900, the 1,161-square-foot house is also being marketed for lease at $1,600 per month. Included in the rental rate: Quite a grim story.

Residents were moving into the house when they discovered a pair of red eyeglasses and a pile of human bones in a gap in the wall. It's believed that the remains could belong to Mary Cerruti, the 61-year-old former homeowner who went missing in 2015.

GRIM DISCOVERY: Bones found in wall of Heights home of woman who disappeared in 2015

The Harris County Forensic Institute is analyzing the human remains, but has yet to reveal their findings.

The current homeowner, Michael Nassif, said he's tired of getting calls on this property and is done commenting on it. He's ready to sell it or lease it and move on. According to the Harris County Appraisal District's website, it's been in his name since 2015. Before then it still belonged to Cerruti.



CRIME: Man found dead in Heights home

Nassif is the listing agent of his property and is billing it as a newly renovated space for potential tenants or potential tear-down for developers.

"New construction all around and the house is surrounded by the new Alexan Heights Luxury Apartments," the Houston Association of Realtors listing reads. "Great development or investment opportunity for builders and/or developers. Perfect for immediate move-in or immediate rental and long term investment."

"I only bought it about a year ago, I hear the lady died two years ago and police hadn't found anything," Nassif said in mid-March. "I wish they would have discovered her body back then, I'm just an innocent bystander. I'm very sorry about that lady."

See the video above for a look at how to prepare your home to sell fast.
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A popular Montrose veterinarian accused in a murder-for-hire plot left a suicide note detailing her final wishes and sealed letters to family members before leaping off the seventh-floor condominium to her death, according to police.

Valerie Busick McDaniel, 48, died Monday morning after jumping from her River Oaks-area apartment in the 2200 block of Willowick Road.

The Harris County medical examiner's office formally confirmed McDaniel's death Tuesday, according to police.

"A note detailing instructions concerning her final wishes, as well as sealed letters addressed to family members, were found inside her apartment," according to a statement from the Houston Police Department.

From HoustonChronicle.com: Murder-for-hire suspect likened to 'angel on Earth'

A Houston judge on Tuesday denied the request of McDaniel's boyfriend - also charged with trying to hire a hitman - to get out of jail to go the funeral, his attorney said.

Leon P. Jacob, 39, was arrested with McDaniel earlier this month on a charge of solicitation of capital murder. The couple were accused of trying to hire a hitman to kill their exes, but the supposed hitman was an undercover officer with Houston Police Department's major offenders division.

FATAL ENDING: Vet charged in murder-for-hire plot dies by suicide

State District Judge Jim Wallace denied a request from Jacob to leave jail for the funeral, said attorney George Parnham.

"He's devastated," Parnham said of Jacob's mindset after the brief hearing.

Prosecutor Nathan Moss said the case against McDaniel would be dismissed when the office receives an official death certificate.

Jacob, who did not appear in court, is scheduled to appear Wednesday to ask for a bond. He is currently being held without bail in the Harris County Jail.

brian.rogers@chron.com

twitter.com/brianjrogers

>>>Scroll through the gallery to see Houston's headline crime from the past year
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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a Texas man condemned to die for a 1980 murder in Houston was not properly sentenced, sending his case back to Texas courts.

Bobby Moore was convicted of killing a clerk during a grocery-store robbery in April 1980, when he used a shotgun to shoot James "Jim" McCarble, an elderly store clerk in Houston.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 2015 rejected Moore's claim of intellectual disability, saying Moore didn't meet the state's "Briseno factors," a non-clinical, seven-pronged test which a judge compared to the character of Lennie Smalls from John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men."

CLOSED CASE: 3 decades after brutal killings, last inmate dies in Texas prison

The Supreme Court in 2002 ruled that executing the intellectually disabled violates the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Moore's lawyers challenged the state's standards for determining whether he is too intellectually disabled.

A five-justice majority sided with Moore, striking down Texas' "Briseno factors" and sending Moore's case back for new consideration.

"The several factors Briseno set out as indicators of intellectual disability are an invention of the (Court of Criminal Appeals) untied to any acknowledged source," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority. "Not aligned with the medical community's information, and drawing no strength from our precedent, the Briseno factors 'creat[e] an unacceptable risk that persons with intellectual disability will be executed.' "

EXECUTION DRUGS: Report: Texas bought lethal injection drugs from overseas

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who frequently acts as the court's swing vote, joined Ginsburg's majority opinion along with the justices who comprise the court's liberal wing, along with Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, Anthony Kennedy and Sonia Sotomayor.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a dissent that was joined by justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. However, the dissent agreed with the majority that Texas courts' Briseno test was an "unacceptable method" for deciding who is intellectually disabled.

"Clinicians, not judges, should determine clinical standards," Roberts wrote, "and judges, not clinicians, should determine the content of the Eighth Amendment. Today's opinion confuses those roles, and I respectfully dissent."

The Texas attorney general's office, which defended the state's standards before the Supreme Court, was "disappointed" by the ruling, spokeswoman Kayleigh Lovvorn told the Chronicle.

The lawyer who represented Moore before the Supreme Court praised the decision.

"The Supreme Court has made clear that no state may assess intellectual disability in a manner that would allow for the execution of someone who has intellectual disability under current medical standards," Cliff Sloan of the Skadden, Arps law firm said in a statement. "The Supreme Court has sensibly directed Texas courts to be informed by the medical community's current diagnostic framework before imposing our society's gravest sentence."

>>>Scroll through the gallery above to see the most controversial death sentences in Texas
A North Texas teacher was arrested earlier this month for an alleged affair with a student, the latest in a string of arrests for similar crimes so far this year.

Rebecca Goerdel, a special education inclusion teacher, was arrested Friday for allegedly participating in an improper relationship with a student at the Young Men's Leadership Academy, a school in Grand Prairie, according to a news release. The school was notified of possible misconduct on March 10.
Ironman Texas again is asking the Harris County Toll Road Authority to allow the use of the Hardy Toll Road for the bike portion of the Memorial Hermann Ironman Texas race for 2018.

The Woodlands Township Board of Directors agreed March 22 to send a letter of support to HCTRA for the use of the Hardy Toll Road in 2018.

While HCTRA and Harris County agreed to offer the toll road for the upcoming April 22, 2017, event, the agreement initially was to be just for this year's event while event organizers worked on other options for the bike race to reduce the impact on The Woodlands and surrounding areas.

However, according to John Powers, assistant general manager for community services for the township, the Texas Department of Transportation has yet to give approval to use the Grand Parkway and Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle's project to add pathways to the Spring Creek Greenway is still a couple of years away from completion.

"(Cagle) has committed to work with the township, but it is going to take a couple years for him to get all that done," Powers said.

Board Chairman Gordy Bunch said the pathway, when complete, will stretch about 40 miles connecting in The Woodlands. He said it will help get some races and events off public roads.

"It's a beautiful pathway," he said.

Harris County commissioners approved the recommendation from HCTRA in June last year to allow the closure of the southbound side of the Hardy Toll Road between the hours of 3 a.m. and 6 p.m. April 22 for the bike portion of the Ironman.

As part of the 2017 agreement, the Ironman event will reimburse the Harris County Toll Road Authority $135,000 for the lost toll revenue, law enforcement and closure of the road.

Route troubles for the popular event started last year when the 2016 course had to be changed due to the previous year's route being "riddled with construction." However, once a route was settled on, it eventually was reduced from the 112-mile route to 93 miles due to flooding in the area from heavy rains in May.

In previous events, the bike route took athletes north and west of The Woodlands. Last year, the winding route took the athletes south into Harris County, including Spring and Tomball.

The township entered the Ironman agreement in 2010 with the first race in 2011.

In 2014, the township extended the agreement through 2020. As part of the agreement, the event was moved from May to April to take advantage of cooler temperatures.

The Ironman event includes a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile run.
The Woodlands Township Board of Directors approved a cost-sharing agreement for a pathway along Kuykendahl Road to connect existing pathways.

According to information from the township, the pathway would stretch across the new Kuykendahl about 7,000 feet between Flintridge Drive and Timarron Drive.

The cost of the project is $429,830.50. The township would be responsible for $214,915.25. The fund will come from the township's capital reserve fund. Pathway funds were not included in the Comprehensive Community Services Agreement. However, The Woodlands Land Development Company will fund the other half of the project. This approach has been used in the past for the pathway connectors, according to John Powers, assistant general manager of Community Services for the township.

He said the bridge will have a pathway along it but that would create gaps in the pathway. Residents, he said, requested that the pathway connect to the bridge in conjunction with the Montgomery County Precinct 3 and Harris County Precinct 4 project to widen Kuykendahl Road.

The board previously approved this project to be included in the short list of projects to be submitted to the Houston Galveston Area Council for potential grant funding and authorized Jones and Carter to prepare a grant application for the project when H-GAC released the "call for projects." However, Powers said, the township learned H-GAC does not expect to release the call until fall 2017, and available funding will be limited to road projects, thereby leaving little opportunity to receive grant funds through H-GAC for this project in the near future.

Board Chairman Gordy Bunch asked whether the project fits the township's definition of a high-priority project. Powers said it does.

"It's very similar to the pathway on Gosling (Road) bridge," board member Bruce Rieser said.
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The Woodlands Township and elected officials honored the sacrifice and service of first responders who serve the area Saturday night.

For the sixth year, the township recognized the dedication and communication required to keep the community safe and executed by men and women of The Woodlands Fire Department, Montgomery County Hospital District, Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, Montgomery County Precinct 3 Constable's Office, Harris County Precinct 4 Constable's Office and the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Among those recognized included five representatives from the MCSO and The Woodlands Township Traffic Unit who conducted more than 4,400 traffic contacts and responded to over 100,000 crashes in 2016.

The representatives, who received the Meritorious Unit Award are MCSO Senior Sgt. Brice Herring, Deputy Thomas Epperson, Deputy Moamen Abdelbaky, Deputy Theo Pternis and Deputy Jonathan Combs, who were presented with a plaque by Sheriff Rand Henderson, superior officers and family members.

MCSO has about 800 staff members and responded to 27,000 service calls in 2016, according to Henderson, who described the occasion as an honor to celebrate the employees.

Epperson has eight years of law enforcement experience and began his position in The Woodlands Township Traffic Unit in 2013. Prior to his law enforcement career, he served as a captain for Needham Fire & Rescue, certified emergency care attendant and specialized in truck and pump operations. Today, he also serves as a specialist on MCSO's Crisis Negotiation Team.

"It's an honor to be recognized," Epperson said. "I don't feel like I deserve this more than any other cop out there."

The ceremony also applauded seconded-generation MCSO Deputy Brian Aguilar for the Community Policing Award, highlighting his relationship outside of his patrol vehicle with the community, such as with a widow whose closest relatives live in Galveston and a World War II veteran before he passed away.

Meritorious Service Awards commended DPS Trooper Kenneth Chapman, Montgomery County Precinct 3 Constable's Office Detective Adam Acosta and Paramedic Sara Horton.

Chapman is credited with stopping over 2,900 traffic law violators, handling 123 custody arrests (including 61 DWI arrests), and investigated 190 car crashes within his first year. He is now a field officer and also protects the border on a monthly basis.

As the first detective to be solely dedicated to the investigation of contact offenses against children within The Woodlands Township, Acosta filed 25 felony charges that were physical or sexual in nature in 2016 with the help of the District Attorney's Office, Children's Safe Harbor and Child Protective Services.

"While possibly one of the grievous types of investigations to be tasked with, Detective Acosta has consistently shown he is destined to be a part of this specialized group of dedicated men and women," information from the township stated. "With countless arrests and children rescued, Detective Acosta is heralded throughout the law enforcement community as a true leader in his field. Adam's work allows children to once again be children."

Horton is recognized for using her experience as a paramedic and her education in nursing to improve the lives of patients she sees through the Community Paramedic Program, which responds to homes of high-frequency 9-1-1 callers to help with needs before calling first responders.

"I think it is great to have first responders recognized by the community," Assistant EMS Director Kevin Nutt said. "It brings us together from being out on the streets to this setting. It's great for the families and it's an honor to be here (to support and celebrate)."

Life Saving Awards were presented to the TWFD Crew of Engine 101, including Lt. Chris Berg, Drive Operator Brett Eaton, Firefighter Michael de los Reyes and Firefighter Brian Holasek, for responding to an 88-year-old man's medical call on May 20, 2016. Family members were performing CPR on the man who did not have a pulse when the crews arrived, but through their quick decisions and medical support regained his pulse to be transported to the hospital.

TWFD crew of Truck 106, including Lt. Larry Grissom, Driver Operator Raymond Muse, Firefighter Paul Taylor and Firefighter T.J. Moore, was honored with a Life Saving Award for services performed on July 7, 2016. When Engine 102 received a dispatch for two calls in Harper's Landing, Truck 106 responded to one of the calls for a 58-year-old man who collapsed in front of his family when he returned home from work.

By administering CPR, defibrillation shocks and securing the patient's airways, the crew members were able to return the patient to spontaneous circulation for MCHD Medic Unit #24 that arrived on scene, assumed patient care and transported the man to the hospital with the Truck 106 crew on board.

TFWD has 164 firefighters who responded to 10,000 calls in 2016, according to TWFD Chief Alan B. Benson.

"I think I am blessed to work with great people who have so much gratitude to life and dedication," he said. "They are a great bunch of guys I have the pleasure to serve with."

State Rep. Mark Keough, R-The Woodlands, praised the efforts of the first responders, who he said stand out among other districts, and expressed gratitude for the families who support them. He read statements from several elected officials, including U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, state Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe; state Sen. Robert Nichols, R- Jacksonville; state Rep. Cecil Bell, R-Magnolia; and state Rep. Will Metcalf, R-Conroe.

"There's no one that compares to Montgomery County," said Keough, who observed the local responders stand out among other districts. "I got to tell you, you're awesome."
Former U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman and a former congressional aide were indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury on charges they stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from charitable foundations to fund campaigns and pay personal expenses.

Stockman, 60, and his former director of special projects, Jason Posey, 46, were charged with 28 criminal counts, including mail and wire fraud, conspiracy, making false statements to the Federal Election Commission, making excessive campaign contributions and money laundering.

Acting U.S. Attorney Abe Martinez in Houston called the indictment "a very significant case" for the office in a brief statement. "The indictment returned by the grand jury today is a significant case alleging serious violations involving use of official positions for personal gain. Violations of the public trust will not be tolerated," he said.

The case is being jointly prosecuted by the Southern District of Texas and the Washington DC-based Public Integrity Section.

Stockman also faces a charge of filing a false tax return, and Posey is charged with falsifying a sworn statement to obstruct an investigation by federal elections officials.

ICYMI: How former Congressman Steve Stockman ended up with federal charges

Stockman was arrested earlier this month on a federal complaint as he tried to board a plane for the United Arab Emirates. He maintains his innocence and says he will be vindicated.

Thomas Dodd, a former special assistant in Stockman's congressional office, pleaded guilty to his involvement in the scheme last week.

Federal investigators say in the indictment that between from May 2010 and October 2014, Stockman brought in about $1.25 million in donations based on false pretenses. He then diverted nearly $285,000 donated to charitable causes to pay for his and Dodd's personal expenses.

ACCUSED: Ex-Congressman Stockman accused of stealing $775,000 from foundations, federal courts say

Stockman and Dodd also are accused of receiving $165,000 in charitable donations, which Stockman largely spent to fund his 2012 congressional campaign.

When he took office in 2013, prosecutors say, Stockman and Dodd solicited a $350,000 charitable donation with Dodd's help and spent it on personal and campaign expenses. He funneled the money through conduits back into his campaign.

In support of Stockman's Senate campaign, Posey is accused of using a nonprofit entity to secure more than $450,000 donation to fund a mass-mailing to attack Stockman's opponent.

About half of the donation was spent on the mail campaign, and Posey used a part of the unspent balance to pay for expenses related to Stockman's unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign and to fund personal expenses, according to the charges.

Stockman served twice in the U.S. House, but lost a primary bid to unseat U.S. Sen. John Cornyn.

Posey and Dodd both served as Stockman's staff in Congress in 2013 but were fired that October after the office said they admitted to making illegal contributions to Stockman's campaign that were recorded under the names of parents.

As of Tuesday night, Posey was "not in custody on these charges at this time," said Jennifer Lowery, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's office.

PRESS RELEASE
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On March 30, 1967, ground was broken on One Shell Plaza in downtown Houston with developer Gerald Hines planning the 50-story tower to be Houstons tallest building. It would Hines first downtown development and the tallest building in Texas for just a little while.

The 1.6 million-square-foot One Shell Plaza began as a square block hole, about 60 feet deep, bounded by McKinney, Louisiana, Walker, and Smith streets.

IGNITION: Shell Oil helped ignite the growth of Houston's downtown skyline

The reinforced concrete tower at 910 Louisiana was completed in 1971, topping out at 715 feet. That made it, at the time, Houstons tallest building. The design by architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, along with the Wilson, Morris, Crain & Anderson firm, was seen as a major move into the future.

Shell Oil moved its headquarters from New York and into the building adjacent to the Allen Center and the Hyatt Regency Hotel. That move  announced in late 1969 -- not only vindicated Houston's claim as the world's oil capital, but also touched off a building boom that would transform the city's skyline as war and revolution in the Middle East launched oil prices and the industry to new heights.

(Hines also developed the 28-story Two Shell Plaza next door. It was re-branded as 811 Louisiana after an extensive renovation in 2014.)

GOIN OUT WEST: Energy Corridor District director: Shell Oil and ConocoPhillips moves will alter area

A large antenna at the top of the building, carrying television and radio signals for Houston broadcasters, brought the building to a height of 1,000 feet. A landscaped Italian marble plaza wowed visitors before the view of the Houston could.

The white, Italian Travertine marble was quarried from the same region as the marble in Rome's Colosseum, linking two empires across the centuries.

It was the tallest building in Texas until 1980 when Enterprise Plaza debuted just a few blocks away. Its still the 99th tallest building in the United States, although its been long-eclipsed by the likes of the JP Morgan Chase Tower and the Wells Fargo Bank Plaza. The Chase Tower is the tallest building in Texas at 1,002 feet and 75 floors.

SEPTEMBER 2016: Shell to leave bulk of its downtown Houston offices

Now if only we can get one of other tallest buildings in Houston to open up a public observation deck and appease Redditors sad about the Chase Tower closing its own a year ago.

The Houston Club, on the 49th floor of the building, is still a prime dining and meeting place for movers and shakers.

One Shell underwent an $80 million renovation in the early 1990s and once again at the end of the 2000s to modernize the structure inside and out.

Last fall Shell announced that it would vacate the bulk of its downtown offices, leaving behind nearly 900,000 square feet of space at One Shell.

Shell employees began relocating to the company's Woodcreek complex and Shell Technology Center on the west side of Houston earlier this year.
PASADENA - Pasadena Mayor Johnny Isbell, who is white, addressed Councilman Cody Ray Wheeler, who is Hispanic, as "boy" at a public council meeting Monday morning.

The exchange, during debate over a tax collection contract, crystallized an election season in which representatives of the predominantly Hispanic north side, who feel long neglected by city government, are pushing for change. Isbell's comment was especially jaw-dropping in the context of a federal voting rights lawsuit in which one judge has found that the mayor-backed change to voting districts in 2015 discriminated against Hispanics.

Isbell was rushing to take a vote on the contract when Wheeler interjected: "I haven't had an opportunity to speak yet."

"Well, you better speak up, boy," Isbell replied.

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When Wheeler took offense, saying he should be addressed respectfully as a member of the council, Isbell didn't back down.

"Well, act like it," Isbell said.

After Wheeler finished his comments about the contract, Isbell seemed to relent, saying, "You're right, council member, and that was a slip of the tongue on the 'boy.' "

Wheeler later said the mayor had not apologized since the meeting. Isbell did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Anger expressed

It was no mere slip of the tongue to Pat Gonzales, who said she and other Hispanics had been insulted by the mayor on numerous occasions.

She harkened back to a 2014 council meeting when she said Isbell forced a north-side constituent to deliver a grievance about flooding in broken English rather than let her translate for him. Councilman Ornaldo Ybarra recalled the episode, too.

The "boy" comment "was him being racist, being bold and being cocky," Gonzales said. "And he doesn't care."

She is among the plaintiffs in the voting rights lawsuit.

The term "boy" has been used historically to diminish the status of minorities, especially African Americans.

"There's some overtones there of an ugly past when you use that type of language," Wheeler said in an interview. "This is a mayor who has  pushed through discriminatory voting practices and now is using condescending language to minority council members. I don't know how else you take it, when you put it in context.

"I'm sure he didn't mean to say it. But that doesn't mean he didn't feel it."

Ybarra said after the meeting that Isbell came across as dictatorial.

"I never want to say someone meant it in a racial manner, because I don't know what their intent was," Ybarra said. "It's probably best that you apologize."

City Hall questions

The meeting laid bare other troubles at City Hall, including a tax collection contract that presents, at the least, the appearance of conflicts of interest, and a growing void of legal advice.

Lawyer Roy D. Mease, a longtime friend of Isbell's, has held the city's contract for delinquent tax collections for about a decade. He's also the board chair of the city's economic development agency, the Pasadena Second Century Corp., which is funded by sales tax revenue.

Wheeler and council members Pat Van Houte, Sammy Casados and Ybarra have repeatedly asked for more information about the law firm's qualifications and collection rate, and wanted Isbell to consider other firms.

They've questioned why Mease, as PSCC board chair, was allowed to have the contract, which says he can't be both a contractor and an agent of the city. The contract also says the work can't be assigned to anyone else, but Mease has employed the services of Linebarger, a national tax collection firm.

When Isbell brought the contract back to council Monday, both of those rules had been cut out with no explanation. It was approved on a split vote.

Ybarra voted for it, saying the city couldn't afford to skip any more tax collections. Isbell is term-limited, and the next mayor can cancel the contract, Ybarra said.

"They wait until the last minute to do things and then put council members in the position of are you going to shut the government down, or are you going to pass it," Wheeler said.

That was the sentiment with the other vote on Monday's agenda, for appointments to the PSCC board, Wheeler said. All seven board members' terms lapsed in early March. With the terms expired, the city had halted work on about a dozen projects funded by PSCC.

Little legal counsel

The same bloc of council members who questioned the tax contract also wanted to see new blood on the board. Isbell rushed to a vote on that item, too, quashing motions by Wheeler and Van Houte to change two of the mayor's appointments, who were incumbents. Then a dispute arose over conflicts between state law, the PSCC bylaws and city charter, which appear to differ on whether the mayor or council has the power of appointment to the PSCC.

City Attorney Lee Clark wasn't in the room, though Ybarra said he'd seen Clark in the building.

For several meetings now, the council has muddled through legal questions with no counsel. Ybarra called it an ongoing problem and said council members can never get Clark to give them a legal opinion in writing.

"It's as if we operate without a legal department," Wheeler said.

Clark, whose offices are behind locked doors in City Hall, did not respond to a request for comment.

Wheeler said the meeting was a symbol of widespread mismanagement at City Hall.

"We're the 16th-largest city in the state," he said. "We have over a $100 million budget.

"And it's run like I don't even know what, a Boy Scouts meeting or something."
A Houston man whose 6-year-old son was found wandering outside an adult movie store is being sought by police on a charge of endangering a child.

Darnell Washington, 38, is accused of leaving his son alone for hours March 1 in a white sport utility vehicle parked in a retail center in the 600 block of South Texas 6, according to court records.

About 7 p.m. that Wednesday, the owner of an adult film business said he found the boy wandering in his parking lot and went to a nearby tattoo shop to see if the boy's parents were in there. A man in the tattoo shop, who said he had noticed a parked SUV with a child inside it, decided to call the police.

BABY LEFT: Parents charged after allegedly abandoning infant in Katy center parking lot

The boy told officers his father had left him in the car alone for six hours without food or water, according to court documents. Since no adult came for the boy while police were at the tattoo shop, the officer turned him over to Texas Child Protective Services. An agency representative said Tuesday by email that the boy was not in temporary CPS custody and had been staying with friends.

In a voluntary interview March 9, Washington told police that on the day of the incident he had been drinking but was "not woozy" when he picked up his son from school. At that point, he went to a friend's house, where he had another four to five tequila shots while the boy waited in the car.

"The defendant stated his friend eventually told him to go home as he was starting to look bad," records state.

BIG SIGNS: Dad hoists signs at NBA games telling his son to improve his grades

On the way home, Washington said he stopped at the strip center on Texas 6 to use the restroom but was so "messed up" that he was turned away. To relieve himself, Washington said he went into an alley, where he also threw up and then passed out, records state.

When he regained consciousness, he discovered his child and car were gone. Police spoke with the defendant again on March 23. According to court records, Washington has not seen his son since March 1.

Washington is scheduled to appear April 11 in the 351st State District Court.
What goes on beneath the surface of someone's life is often little known to the outside world.

Now that Valerie Busick McDaniel has died while awaiting trial on charges that she and her boyfriend tried to hire a hit man to kill her ex-husband, there are things the public may never find out.
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The idea of red, sand-filled Martian beaches might sound like an enticing getaway, but think again.

A new study showcased at a science conference in The Woodlands argues that Mars may have once been filled with vast oceans and an enormous asteroid-caused tsunamis.

According to Cosmos Magazine, scientists were able to discover these oceans by studying ancient Martian shorelines and what they believe are the thumbprints of tsunamis that occurred billions of years ago.

MORE RED PLANET: Trump signs bill authorizing NASA funding, Mars exploration

In other words, Mars could have had a Northern ocean.

Researchers studied a specific 37-mile impact crater as well as a long-gone shoreline more than 600 miles away.

Scientists believe these waves could have reached 984 feet in height where the asteroid smashed into the ocean, and roughly 246 to 262 feet in height by the time they reached the shore.

"It indicates that there was a substantial amount of water in residence on the Martian surface at this time and that has likely implications for the total inventory of water on Mars," Francois Costard, the study's lead scientists, told the BBC.

Costard noted that there is still a lot of ambiguity, but evidence suggests "a very persuasive case for a water-rich planet."

PHOTO: What the Earth and moon look like from Mars

Click through above to see photos of Hollywood's go-to filming spot for Mars movies.
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A Texas mother is "livid" following a recent incident at DFW International Airport where she claims her family was "treated like dogs" by TSA agents.

Jennifer Williamson shared a video of her son getting a pat down by a TSA agent in the airport Sunday. In just two days, the video has gone viral with over 88,000 shares and 5.3 million views.

SEEN IN 2016: What the TSA found in travelers' bags in 2016

The Texas mother says she requested the TSA agents to "screen him other ways per TSA rules" because he has sensory processing disorder (SPD), which can cause a person's brain not to interpret sensory information correctly.

In the post, Williamson says that her son didn't trigger any alarms and the TSA agents held them for over an hour, which caused them to miss their original flight. She also claims one of the DFW Airport police officers joined in on the pat down at one point.

"Somehow these power-tripping TSA agents who are traumatizing children and doing whatever they feel like without any cause, need to be reined in," Williamson concluded her Facebook post.

Chron.com reached out to Williamson for additional comment, but she did not return our request before publication.

TSA issued the following statement to the press:

"TSA allows for a pat-down of a teenage passenger, and in this case, all approved procedures were followed to resolve an alarm of the passenger's laptop.

The video shows a male TSA officer explaining the procedure to the passenger, who fully cooperates. Afterward, the TSA officer was instructed by his supervisor, who was observing, to complete the final step of the screening process.

In total, the pat-down took approximately two minutes, and was observed by the mother and two police officers who were called to mitigate the concerns of the mother.

The passengers were at the checkpoint for approximately 45 minutes, which included the time it took to discuss screening procedures with the mother and to screen three carry-on items that required further inspection." Story continues below.

3D TECH: TSA stops passenger with 3D-printed gun loaded with live ammunition

The Facebook post generated an extensive conversation online with users around the world talking on the pat down.

"That looks more like a Pedophile than a TSA Agent doing his job," Samantha Smith commented on one of Williamson's posts. "Why did he have to repeatedly go over the same places multiple times? That is the most egregious thing I have seen lately. I'm so sorry that you and your son had to endure such horrible behavior from an adult."

But not everyone saw the same thing after viewing the video. Erica Jean commented, "I'm sorry, but I don't see anything wrong with this pat down... I realize he has sensory issues, I'm all too familiar, I have a kid in the spectrum. Special needs aside, I still have to explain to my son, the realities of daily life. Of you explain it to him in a way he can wrap his head around it, instead of ooohing and aaahing and videotaping and making him feel like a victim, of what I don't know."
It's been nearly 10 years since Linda Muegge entered her home alive for the last time.

Now, the Texas Department of Public Safety is asking for information surrounding her bizarre death which has never been solved. Muegge arrived home around 5:30 p.m. May 14, 2007, in Fredericksburg. By 7:50 p.m., her house was on fire and her neighbors were calling emergency personnel.
An Oklahoma couple was recently arrested in Central Texas for allegedly attempting to have sex with a child they had met online, according to authorities.

The Meridian Police Department said one of their sergeants made contact with Gregory Keesee, 21, and Claudia Kopacka, 19, via social media on March 25. They arranged to drive into the town, about an hour north of Waco, to "have sex with what they thought was an underage child," the department said in a Facebook post on Monday.
Authorities recovered a body of a man in his 20's after he they say drowned in the Guadalupe River Sunday afternoon, according to a release from the New Braunfels Police Department.

Emergency personnel were dispatched to the banks of the Guadalupe River near the 700 block of Interstate 35 North at about 4:45 p.m., Sunday, for reports of a man who had not resurfaced from the river.
Eric Kayne

WASHINGTON  Dyan Medina Gibbens, co-founder of Trumbull Unmanned, a Houston-based company that flies unmanned aerial vehicles for the oil and gas industry, was one of 10 female entrepreneurs to meet with President Donald Trump Monday to promote women's economic empowerment.

"The focus was women in business and how we can collectively work together," Gibbens, a former Air Force aviator, said in an interview. "To me, this came off as a priority from the president."
Last week, the Texas Legislature passed the halfway mark of its 85th session, leaving two months to get bills through both chambers and to the governor's desk before they leave Austin.

At the start of the session, in January, Gov. Greg Abbott listed four emergency items  ethics reform, a Child Protective Services overhaul, preparing Texas for a Constitutional convention, and banning so-called "sanctuary cities"  which lawmakers could consider in an expedited manner.
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.
Hyderabad, March 28 (IANS) South Indian stars Rana Daggubati, Nani and Raai Laxmi, among others, on Monday flagged off the second edition of IIFA Utsavam on Monday here.



The two-day event, backed by Fortune Sunflower Oil, celebrates and honours talent across the four southern film industries -- Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada.



"It's a great platform for all the four industries to come together," actor Pragya Jaiswal told reporters.



"Baahubali" fame Rana Daggubati, who will be hosting the Tamil and Telugu section of the award ceremonies, said he is excited to take up emceeing.



Veteran Tamil actor said award ceremonies are special moments in every artiste's life.



"No matter how much we earn, awards always make us feel special. They make some moments very special," he said.



Other popular stars who were present at the event included Shanvi Shrivastav, Rachita Ram, Kunchacko Boban, Ritika Singh and Akshara Haasan.
Actress Pallavi Sharda who started her career by playing a cameo in Karan Johar's My Name Is Khan, will be seen playing a ***** worker Gulabo in the upcoming much hyped Bollywood movie Begam Jaan. If ongoing buzz in media and film industry is to be believed, she is going to make her debut on Hollywood TV. The sources close to the industry reveal that Pallavi has been looking to do something different and exciting on TV and finally she got the opportunity. It is going to be an interesting series and the shoot will be commenced very soon.

The Australian born actress came to Mumbai with a dream to work in films. She was last seen in Hollywood film Lion in 2016, starring Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman under the direction of Garth Davis and now it will be very interesting to see how the actress strike a chord on the small screen with her Hollywood TV debut.

Begam Jaan starring Vidya Balan, Ila Arun, Gauhar Khan, Ridheema Tiwary, Flora Saini and others, directed by National award winning director Srijit Mukherji, is gearing up for grand release on 14th April 2017.
Mumbai, March 28 (IANS) Bollywood superstar Salman Khan will formally release veteran actress Asha Parekhs autobiography, "The Hit Girl", here on April 10.Asha, known as the hit girl' of the 1960s for her nearly-unbroken string of successful films, shares a very special history with Salman's family.



Salman's father writer Salim Khan's second wife Helen was a close friend of Asha Parekh and her girl gang of Waheeda Reman, Nanda, Sadhana and veteran character-actress Shammi.



The entire society of iconic sisterhood would often be seen at film previews organised by Salman's father.



"Now Sadhana and Nanda are gone. It's just Helen, Waheeda, Shammi Aunty and me," sighs Asha, not prone to succumb to defeatism or pessimism.



It is this never-say-die spirit that the autobiography titled "The Hit Girl" brings forward.



"This is something I wanted to do, but hadn't gotten down to doing for a very long time. My good friend and journalist Khalid Mohammed, whom I've known for years, helped me to do it. I hope the book is liked," she said.
A year has passed since our Panama Papers investigation shook the world and showed how enormous the impact of collaborative journalism can be. Minutes after we published the first articles online, the story was a trending topic in several countriesdespite its quite unlikely origin. No one could believe that a German newspaper, Suddeutsche Zeitung, the newspaper I work for, sparked such a massive international story. The name of the newspaper may still be hard to pronounce for most of the world, but the example it set has spurred important, industry changing questions about large-scale collaborations. Even with the undeniable impact of the story, I still hear the same simple question over and over: Why did you share?

I understand the skepticism behind this question (why would a journalist with a sane mind share a scoop like the Panama Papers?). But the truth is that journalismespecially investigative journalismneeds much more radical sharing to thrive in todays media environment where resources are strapped, distribution is disaggregated, and audiences are dispersed and distracted. We need much more collaboration to hold the powerful to account around the world and in the United States, a point that I wrote about here following the election of Donald Trump. Some stories are simply too big for one news outlet to tackle. We cannot let hubris and competitive paranoia keep us from going after stories with all of our might. Collaborative effort, when smartly considered and meticulously executed, more often than not produces results that far outpace what one organization could produce alone. Just look at the fallout from the Panama Papers.

By the end of 2016, no less than 79 investigations in roughly 150 countries had been started because of the Panama Papers. The prime minister of Iceland had stepped down, and his party had lost the following elections. Government figures had resigned in several countries, as well as bankers, a member of the FIFA ethics committee, a Chilean official of Transparency International. There were mass demonstrations in Iceland, England, Argentina, Malta, Pakistan, and other countries. In Pakistan the Supreme Court was dealing with the involvement of the first family as late as March 2017, while in Panama the authorities finally arrested Jurgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca, the founding partners of the law firm Mossack Fonseca, the firm whose internal data we had been given. New laws have been introduced around the world, the European Parliament has set up an inquiry committee into the Panama Papersand all thats only the fallout that fits in this paragraph. Heres more, and all indications suggest there will be more to come.

More than two years ago, when I received, from a still-anonymous leaker, the first documents of the huge data set which we later decided to call the Panama Papers, we instantly and nervously started looking for stories. Working with my fantastic colleague and yearlong investigation partner Frederik Obermaier (who is, by the way, not related to me in any way) we cross-referenced the data with words like search warrant or sanctions, we scrolled through Excel-Sheets and PDFs, we skimmed through emails and contracts hastily set up in Microsoft Word. And the first hits were stunning. The acting prime minister of Iceland. The best friend of Russias President Vladimir Putin. The cousin of Syrias dictator Bashar al Assad, cronies of Zimbabwes Robert Mugabe and Libyas Muammar Gadhafi.

With every single pass at the data, we found an international story. Not all fantastic stories, but good, solid stories. The data set we had obtained seemed to have tremendous potential. We gathered a small circle at Suddeutsche Zeitung and discussed our options. We could keep the data for ourselves and publish story after story for many months. Or we could share the data with other journalists.

For some in our newsroom, the first option seemed tempting. International news outlets would have had to report our stories and all of the credit and glory would come to Suddeutsche Zeitung. But it was clear that if we published alone, a great number of those solid international stories would disappear; our readers are not particularly interested in middle-sized scandals from, say, Angola or Venezuela, and so we wouldnt have reported on them. And we also knew that we, as German reporters, would inevitably have missed many many international stories, as we have no clue whos important, say, in Brazil, in Sweden, in India.

I had fallen in love with the heartwarming spirit of these investigations, in which colleagues from other news organizations had allowed us to work on their data.

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From Day One, we leaned toward sharing the data with the Washington DC-based International Consortium for Investigative Journalists. The simple reason was that the ICIJ, an organization Frederik and I had become members of in 2013, had invited us before to several large and highly acclaimed collaborative investigative cross border investigations like Offshore Leaks, Luxembourg Leaks, and Swiss Leaks. I had fallen in love with the heartwarming spirit of these investigations, in which colleagues from other news organizations had allowed us to work on their data. Suddenly, we were in the position to give something back. But you dont convince your editor in chief with idealism. Luckily we had impact on our side. These joint projects produced amazing results. The Luxembourg Leaks had become a widely known synonym for the tax dodging of multinational corporations in Germany, and earned us numerous awards. Now we were sitting on an even bigger story.

By the time we made the decision, we didnt even have to draft a list of pros and cons. The benefits of sharing what we knew with a great international team of devoted and excellent reporters just seemed obvious.

It wasnt until months after the story broke, during my time as a Knight-Wallace Fellow at University of Michigan, that I had time to really think through why we did what we did. Some of our reasons were simple and selfish; others were altruistic. Since Ive been in the US, Ive become convinced that most major US news outlets would have kept the scoop to themselves. They would have been wrong.

Here are few arguments in favor of collaborative investigations and data sharing:

The splash

The best reason may be the most obviousthe splash. On the evening of April 3 2016, 8 pm German time, the story which The New Yorkers Nicholas Lemann later would call the monster story of the Panama Papers launched in 78 countries. The carefully coordinated publication provided probably the biggest megaphone of any journalistic investigation in history. If we, Suddeutsche Zeitung, had published the Panama Papers on our own, or even teamed up with the Guardian or BBC, two of our papers regular partnersthe impact would have been ridiculously small compared to what we saw on April 3. Everybody was listening as our partners reported their stories from all over the world.

We had literally the ear of the world, if only for a short period of time. You cant beat that. And you should be careful with it. In the face of gigantomania, if you blow in this huge bullhorn you may have wished for, you better be sure your story is worth it.

Make the cake bigger

The counter argument to sharing information is that it results in less attention for an individual newsroom. That may be right. But the right collaboration with the right partners at the right time can make the cake so much bigger. Even a smaller piece of that cake is larger than the cake you could have baked alone.

Certainly, sharing doesnt bring the same advantages for each news outlet. For smaller outlets the gains are probably bigger, and larger news organizations have may have less to gain. But even The New York Times would not have been able to assign 400 reporters for a year on a single topic. Even The Wall Street Journal would not have had the capacity to publish nearly 5,000 storiesas our international team did from April to the end of 2016. Even The Washington Post would not have had specialized reporters on the ground in 78 countries. Sometimes more yields more. More stories, more impact.

More and better stories

Yet it is not enough to do simply more stories. When done well, collaborations lead to better stories. We had journalists on the ground almost everywhere we needed them; we had reporters for tedious background work; we had highly specialized reporters for the complex schemes we found; we talked to some of the leading experts in the fields we reported on. And because we had so much information coming in from so many places, we knew we needed especially rigorous systems for vetting and verifying information. We challenged our findings and our arguments until the last day. Collaboration forced us to work through strict internal controls, and that made for stronger journalism.

Share the work and the costs

On our most difficult story, about Putins inner circle, we assigned a team of 19 reporters. For months. Show me the outlet that could or would do that on its own. Our paper could only assign two reporters to that story, but sharing the story allowed us to share resources and put more boots on the ground. That held true around the world. When we needed someone in Montevideo, in Moscow, in Hong Kong, we made a call and one of our colleagues helped out. We asked for many such favors, and many colleagues asked us in returnand no one sent invoices. In a similar manner we shared costs on translations (many documents were originally in Spanish), software, game developers, legal assistance, and other parts of our investigation.

In the end, it didnt feel like 107 news outlets worked on their respective stories. It felt like there was a huge team with a common goal, a contagious enthusiasm and a die-hard collaborative spirit. Thats important, because it leads the way to the keyword of every joint investigation: trust.

Trust is possible

The most common counter argument to sharing leaks and data revolves around trust. Why would you trust another newsroom to stick to the rules of the investigation? How can you be sure that your colleagues will credit you if they use your work? Inevitably, wont some participant break the rules to scoop the othersespecially as there were no contracts involved with fines or something like that?

The answer to why strong collaborations work can be found in the realms of game theory, and especially in the construct of shadow of the future. Any reporter or news outlet that spoiled the party could be sure that was the last big party they would be invited to. And after the success of the first ICIJ investigations, no one wanted to be cast aside. At the same time all the reporters who already had taken part in a former investigations knew that they could rely on each other, some even became friendsI certainly gained new friends while doing the Panama Papers. One of the biggest achievements of ICIJ is to have built up an enormous trust among investigative reporters, to have created a new spirit in this competitive world.

Trust has its limits

In the midst of all that trust, participants were still fierce about their local territory. Thats the benefit of international collaboration: Direct competition is less of a concern. We love sharing, but we also love our newspaper. So we didnt invite other German papers or magazines, our main competitors. We did invite a German public broadcasting companyas we dont really compete with TV. Similar combinations emerged in other countries, with McClatchy newspapers, Fusion, and Univision collaborating in the US.

Did we invite The New York Times, The Washington Post, or The Wall Street Journal? We didnt. ICIJS past experiences with big American newspapers were too devastating. Some years back the Times would, for example, agree to receive interesting databut not to a collaborative model. This attitude changed immediately after we published the Panama Papers, and we granted reporters from the Times and the Post access to the data. Another one of the few newspapers of worldwide reputation tried the same one-way street model, with quite a bold explanation: We never collaboratenever did, never will. Not very surprisingly we didnt agree, and, surprisingly now, they changed their policy after all and agreed to share.

Ironically, some of the very news outlets that approached us after the Panama Papers were released had been first offered the leak of the first bunch of the Panama Papers, more than two years ago. They missed the opportunity and turned down the still anonymous leaker, for different reasons.



Protect the investigation; make it unstoppable

While government officials can try to interfere with or stop publishing of a story in their own country, theres literally no way of stopping a global enterprise that is publishing on multiple international platforms. Look at the Panama Papers: We published in 78 countries. How would one government ever stop that? How would even a coalition of governments be able to stop it? It is impossible.

In fact we did face several instances in which one of our reporters from a country in South America or the Middle East could not publish a story of public interest in his or her country, at least not without risking jail time. What happened was that another collaborative partner ran the story, and the restrained journalists actually could then report on that storyas its publication wasnt coming from the inside the country. The same would apply, by the way, for the United States, where we saw news outlets as strong as The New York Times holding back a story after government officials had pressured it to do so. This particular effect has been already discussed widely in the light of Edward Snowdens revelations, amongst others by Clay Shirkey, in CJR.

Protect the reporters

When my colleague Frederik Obermaier and I started to investigate the inner circle of the Russian president, and at the same time kept finding links to the hidden money of dictators and drug cartels, we found ourselves in a not-so-comfortable position. Many persons who showed up in the Panama Papers were exactly the type of persons you really dont want to mess with. We even feared for the lives of some of our colleagues, say in Turkey, Russia, or Africa. But we found the collaboration to be an invisible (while not invincible) shield. This shield was formed by a single sentence that we included in many of the almost 300 articles we published at Suddeutsche Zeitung.

The sentence is: Nearly 400 reporters from 78 countries have access to the data.

What sense does it make to take out two journalistsif more than 370 highly determined reporters with access to the same documents and knowledge about our story would stay alive? Reporters who would then want nothing more fiercely than to finish the work of their assaulted colleagues? The Streisand effect would multiply the public damage.

Given the current developments in countries like Turkey, where dozens of brave journalists are jailed, and even in the US, where President Donald J. Trump declared several highly respected media enemies of the American people, this seems to be an important reason to share a dataset with information that is potentially dangerous for an individual reporter.

Expect the favor back

The first journalist who shared a big data set with many journalists worldwide was, as far as I know, Gerald Ryle, the Irish born Australian journalist who is now director of ICIJ and received, some years back, vast amounts of data from an offshore providerand created Offshore Leaks, the first ICIJ mega project. The Luxembourg Leaks data were first seen by the French TV journalist Edouard Perrin of Premier Lignes. Two colleagues from Le Monde, Fabrice Lhomme and Gerard Davet, gave the data of the HSBC to the ICIJ and enabled the Swiss Leaks project.

All of them were involved in the Panama Papers, all of them harvested what they had sowed. We were thankful that they invited us in, and gave the favor back. We at Suddeutsche Zeitung expect the same, of course. And so should you, if you ever share meaningful data with others. Thats how it works. Thats also why it works.

So if you see a story too big for just one news outlet, tell your bosses that sharing is ultimately the most selfish thing to do.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Bastian Obermayer is deputy head of investigations at Suddeutsche Zeitung, and currently a Knight Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan. An updated version of his latest book, The Panama Papers: Breaking the Story of How the Rich and Powerful Hide Their Money, will be published on March 30. Follow him on Twitter @b_obermayer.
Because juries can be unpredictable, awarding large sums even in conservative jurisdictions, jury trials should be considered as a last resort, according to Nicole Whyte, founding partner at Bremer Whyte Brown & OMeara.

Whyte sat down with Claims Journal, during the annual Combined Claims Conference held recently in Orange County, California, to explain why resolution prior to a jury trial is the best way to control a case and settlement.

The real danger is that once you are in the hands of a jury, its somewhat of a crapshootas to what the jury is going to award, said Whyte.

Its better to gain control of the case through negotiation, she said, explaining the tactic allows control over what the settlement will be, the terms of the settlement and the outcome of the case.

Leaving a case to a jury means an insurer and its counsel are at the whim of individual bias, prejudices and emotions that may not be relevant to the case, she said.

That is often a dangerous place to be because juries can be unpredictable, said Whyte.

Because of that unpredictability, Whyte recommended jury trials as a last resort.

As a good defense lawyerclaims adjuster, you always want to try to control the outcome of your case by trying to resolve the case early on, for a good settlement value, Whyte said.

If a case has to be tried the key is to control as many elements as possible, she added.

By trying to know and understand your jury beforehand, Whyte explained, noting that can be done by doing a mock trial or using a focus group ahead of time.

In addition, Whyte said its wise to conduct research ahead of trial to be adequately prepared as well as to determine the optimal strategy that will result in the best possible outcome.
Four years ago, Fane Lozman won an improbable longshot victory when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with him that his floating home was a house, not a vessel subject to seizure by a Florida city.

The justices set a new national legal standard: Not everything that floats is a boat.

It was far from certain that the nations highest court would even take his case, and the verdict in January 2013 seemed a resounding victory for the little guy in battle with local officials. Now Lozman is asking the justices to enforce their ruling by forcing the city pay him legal fees and reimburse him for the homes value after it was seized and destroyed.

Lozmans 60-by-12-foot floating home had no engines, sails or rudder. It had to be towed to a Riviera Beach marina where Lozman took up residence in 2006 before becoming embroiled in a fight with that Florida city over its plans to turn the marina over to a developer. Lozman claimed the citys actions were in retaliation for his vocal opposition.

The city sought to evict him, and when that failed, they sued under maritime law in federal court to have the floating home seized as a vessel. After a federal judge sided with the city in 2010, it had the home destroyed  launching the legal battle all the way to the Supreme Court.

Lozman contends in his new filings with the court that the city should reimburse him the estimated $165,000 value of the floating home destroyed, plus $200,000 in legal fees. The same district judge and appeals court whose rulings were overturned by the Supreme Court justices have essentially told Lozman to take a long walk on a short pier.

To Lozman, the rulings rejecting reimbursement fly in the face of the original Supreme Court decision, forcing him to return for a second longshot.

When the Supreme Court says something, its not for the lower courts to blow off their mandate, said Lozman, 55, a former U.S. Marine Corps aviator and commodity trading entrepreneur. Thats what is happening. The lower courts are punishing me for winning the case.

I think Ive got a wonderful shot for the Supreme Court to say, you know what, were going to make things right.

Any case faces long odds to reach the Supreme Court, which hears only a fraction of the thousands of petitions it receives each year. Lozman is representing himself and wrote his own filing with the court, which might increase his odds, some legal experts say.

The Supreme Court takes very few cases. The court is looking for important cases involving key legal issues, said Michael Allan Wolf, a University of Florida law professor. But because Lozman has been before the high court before, it might give him an advantage.

The case has become famous, in part because of the colorful language Justice Stephen Breyer used in writing the 7-2 majority ruling in 2013.

Not every floating structure is a vessel,  Breyer wrote. To state the obvious, a wooden washtub, a plastic dishpan, a swimming platform on pontoons, a large fishing net, a door taken off its hinges, or Pinocchio (when inside the whale) are not vessels. 

The decision meant that federal maritime law could not be applied in disputes involving the estimated 10,000 floating homes nationwide plus hundreds of larger waterborne structures such as gambling casinos docked along rivers. Instead, such structures must be governed by state law that offers greater protection to homeowners and businesses, the Supreme Court ruled.

Riviera Beach officials didnt respond to emails seeking comment. In court papers, they have successfully argued that the city doesnt owe Lozman any money because it was not acting in bad faith when the home was seized and destroyed under the law at the time.

Lozman has failed to prove even a shred of bad faith on the citys part, its attorneys wrote in one filing.

The Supreme Court could decide any time whether to take up Lozmans latest appeal.

Meanwhile, he is planning to build a floating home community on 25 acres (10 hectares) of mostly submerged land he purchased along the Intracoastal Waterway north of West Palm Beach  a property he calls Renegade. A large sign on the property proclaims U.S. Supreme Court Winner and features a bald eagle wrapped in an American flag.

The Supreme Court case opened up a whole new world for floating homes, Lozman said during a recent visit to the property, watching as a pelican dove for fish nearby. I love living on the water  Its become a part of my life.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A judge says a lawsuit brought by victims of the Orlando, Fla., nightclub massacre against the gunmans employer and wife may be tossed out of federal court.

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra last week issued an order raising questions about whether federal court was the proper jurisdiction for the lawsuit. The judge gave the plaintiffs 10 days to file a revised lawsuit or he said he would dismiss the complaint.

Attorneys for the Pulse victims didnt immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Sunday.

Almost five dozen victims and families of the deceased filed the lawsuit last week in federal court in South Florida against security firm G4S and the wife of Omar Mateen, claiming they could have stopped the gunman before the attack last June but didnt.

Forty-nine people died in the worst mass shooting in recent U.S. history, and dozens more were injured.

The lawsuit was seeking an undisclosed amount of money.

The complaint said that G4S bosses knew Mateen was mentally unstable yet continued to employee him as a security guard and didnt seek to have his firearms license revoked, even after he was investigated by the FBI in 2013 for telling co-workers he had connections to terrorists and a mass shooter. He later told his bosses he had made that up to get his co-workers to stop teasing him about being Muslim and the FBI determined he was not a threat.

A spokeswoman for G4S last week said the lawsuit was without merit and that the company would vigorously defend itself. A company spokeswoman on Sunday didnt immediately respond to an email inquiry.

The lawsuit also said that Mateens wife, Noor Salman, knew her husband was going to carry out the killings ahead of time yet did nothing. Salman currently is in jail awaiting trial in a separate criminal case. She has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of aiding and abetting her husband, and obstruction of justice.

The federal judge said cases should be brought to federal court because of diversity jurisdiction only if the lawsuits are between residents of different states, U.S. residents and residents of a foreign nation or residents of different states in which other parties may be subjects of foreign countries.

Although G4S is a British company, its principal place of business is in Florida, the judge said. He added that Salman was a Florida resident, as were many of the Pulse victims and their families, raising question about whether federal court is the proper venue.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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An Akron man was stabbed in the back with a hunting knife after he complained of loud music coming from his neighbor's apartment, according to a police report.

(File photo)

AKRON, Ohio -- An Akron man was stabbed in the back with a hunting knife after he complained of loud music coming from his neighbor's apartment, police said.

Detectives are still searching for an unidentified man who stabbed the 54-year-old victim Friday at an apartment building on Brittain Road near Yorkshire Drive, according to a police report.

Paramedics treated the victim at the scene for minor injuries.

The victim was in his apartment just before 7 p.m. when he heard loud music coming from the apartment above his own. He went out to the balcony and yelled upstairs, demanding that his neighbor turn it down, the report says.

The victim heard a knock at his door several minutes later. He opened the door and was confronted by a man who began to yell at him.

The victim turned to walk toward his bedroom and felt a sharp pain in his back. When he turned around he saw the man holding a hunting knife, the report says.

The man threatened to kill the victim before he left the apartment, the report says.

No arrests have been made but the incident remains under investigation, police said Monday.
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Teachers and their supporters carried these signs to the Brecksville-Broadview Heights school board meeting Monday night.

(Bob Sandrick, special to cleveland.com)

BRECKSVILLE, Ohio - A former Brecksville-Broadview Heights school board member said the teachers' union started covertly planning a strike in January while negotiating a new contract with the board.

David Tryon made the announcement Monday during a school board meeting. Teachers in the audience shouted, "No, not true," as Tryon spoke.

Tryon said he saw an email about a possible strike weeks before teachers and the school district reached an impasse in contract negotiations in February. He asked teachers at Monday's board meeting to continue contract talks and said if teachers are not planning to strike, they should say so.

"If they do not do so, that will tell us something," Tryon told the board.

Bonnie Monteleone - president the Brecksville-Broadview Heights Education Association, the teachers' union - said teachers did not meet to vote on or plan a strike. She said union leadership, as required, only notified members of their rights to strike. She said the union is still negotiating with the district.

"I don't want to strike," Monteleone said. "But I hope I'm never put in a position where I have to say, 'What other choice do I have?'"

The exchange was the latest round in what has become a bitter battle over teacher compensation. Contract negotiations began in February 2016 but an agreement wasn't reached before the previous contract expired in July 2016. As a result, most terms in that contract are still in effect.

Last month, the union approved a resolution of no-confidence in the school board. The resolution stated that the union has no faith in the board to lead the district.

Due to the impasse, a federal mediator was called in. He met with both sides for the first time March 7. The next session is scheduled for April 27.

The acrimony over contract negotiations comes just a few weeks before district residents vote on a 5.99-mill levy that would raise $6 million annually for operations, including teacher salaries. It's the first tax increases the district has sought in 12 years.

On Monday, more than 200 teachers, parents and district residents, flashing signs saying, "Settle now!" blamed the board for the impasse, which they said would hurt the levy's chances.

Matt Auble, a middle-school math teacher, asked the board to settle quickly so teachers can devote full attention to the levy campaign.

"I fear waiting until the end of April will be way too late," Auble said.

Paul Kelly, a district resident whose teaches in Shaker Heights, suggested the board wants teachers to strike.

"They won't go on strike because if they do, they are the villains," Kelly said. "And they are not."

Teacher Karin Fiore said the district budget has enough money for raises that teachers want.

"You apparently have no regard for the jeopardy you're putting the levy in," Fiore said.

Teacher Christine Bartzis accused the board of waiting too many years to place a new tax on the ballot, while spending down the district's reserves. As a result, educational programs are in danger.

"If the levy fails, it will not be on the teachers," Bartzis said.

How it works

According to documents provided by the district, teacher salaries now range from $39,786-$90,434. The average salary is about $73,180.

Of the union's more than 260 members, 21 percent earn more than $90,000; 27 percent earn between $80,000-$89,999; 16 percent earn between $70,000-$79,999; 8 percent earn $60,000-$69,999; 14 percent earn between $50,000-$59,999; 9 percent earn between $40,000-$49,999; 3 percent earn between $30,000-$39,999; and 2 percent earn between $20,000-$29,999.

Normally, almost every year, teachers receive a 5-percent increase in longevity pay. That's in addition to any base-pay increase the board might give teachers resulting from contract negotiations.

"Longevity increases occur in all districts in Ohio of which I am aware, but not always at the 5-percent level," district Treasurer Richard Berdine said in an email to cleveland.com.

Teachers are on a 15-step salary schedule. Their exact salary depends on their level of education, experience and ongoing training. The schedule shows that almost every year teachers receive 5-percent longevity increases. After 15 years, however, they are no longer eligible for longevity raises.

The salary amounts on each step in the pay schedule change only if the board approves a base-pay increase. For example, if the board awards teachers a 1.5-percent base-pay increase, all step amounts in the pay schedule rise by 1.5 percent, with 5-percent increases in longevity pay in place nearly every year.

What teachers want

The problem for teachers is that a wage freeze was part of the contract that expired in July 2016. Teachers received no base-pay or longevity increases for four years, going back to July 2012.

That changed for the 2016-2017 school year. The contract that expired in July 2016 states that if a new collective-bargaining agreement is not signed, all teachers - except those at the top of the salary schedule - would start receiving 5-percent longevity increases again.

According to district officials, 46 percent of teachers were given 5-percent step increases in August 2016, due to the contract stipulations.

But Kelly Szell, a member of the union's Crisis Committee, said teachers at the top of the salary schedule haven't received raises for 6 1/2 years.

Teachers are asking for a 1.5-percent base-pay increase, which would involve raising each step in the salary schedule by 1.5 percent. They argue that it's the same 1.5-percent increase given to more than 250 unionized support-staff workers and nonunion administration workers in 2016.

The board counters that if it gives teachers a 1.5-percent base-pay increase, teachers not at the top of the salary scale would actually receive 6.5-percent raises - if longevity pay increases are included. In comparison, longevity-increase rates are 1.5 percent and 1 percent for support staff and administrators, respectively.

What the board wants

The board wants to create a new, 25-step salary schedule for newly hired teachers. The longevity increases would be 3 percent for the first 15 years of employment and 2 percent for the next 10 years.

The new 25-step schedule - instead of ranging from $39,786-$90,434 like the existing 15-step schedule - would start at $40,383 and top off at $93,818.

Teachers now with the district would have the option of staying on the existing salary schedule, which would not change, or switching to the new schedule at a pay rate equal to or more than their current salary. If teachers remain on the 15-step schedule, they would continue to receive 5-percent longevity increases annually. Teachers at the top of the scale and no longer eligible for a longevity increase would receive a 1.5-percent raise.

"Teachers would either earn a 5-percent step increase or a 1.5-percent raise but not both," the district says on its website.

"The new 25-step schedule spreads out the step increases over 25 years, easing the financial burden on the district and improving the opportunity for fiscal sustainability," the district website says.

But teachers don't like the idea of having two pay scales, one for new hires and another for veterans. Szell said the proposal would "sell out future hires" because it would take longer for them to reach the top of the pay scale.

"The compounding effect of this eventually adds up to close to $200,000 in lost income over the course of a 35-year career, the result of which will either fail to attract quality candidates or will drive them away after a few years to earn better salaries in surrounding school systems," Szell said in an email.

After Monday's board meeting, Monteleone acknowledged to cleveland.com that the 5-percent step increases are more than teachers receive in some districts. She said that's by design because the district wants to attract excellent, well-educated teachers.

Also, Monteleone said the board "has a history" of giving 0-percent base-pay increases to teachers.
BRUNSWICK --- Criminal mischief, Camden Lane: A woman called police at 11:29 p.m. March 24 after being awakened by an object striking her house and someone ringing her door bell. The woman found a cell phone in her driveway and a full water bottle that had been thrown at and struck the side of her house. A few minutes later, the victim said, the owner of the cell phone returned, asked for the phone back, and admitted to throwing the water bottle, ringing the door bell and running away. He was issued cited for criminal mischief and trespassing.

Criminal damaging, Clearwater Drive: Police responded to the area of Clearwater Drive at 5:44 a.m. March 26 in reference to several mailboxes found damaged and lying on the ground. The residences affected were at 25, 70 and 75 Clearwater Drive; 3594 and 3579 Berkeley Lane; and 3535 Malvern Drive. Police had no suspects at the time of the report.

Criminal trespassing, Pearl Road: Police cited two Rittman, Ohio, men at 1 a.m. March 27 when they were found garbage picking behind the Goodwill store on Pearl Road. The men were released at the scene.

Drunken driver, Center Road: Police responded to a call at 12:59 p.m. March 25 from Key Bank employees that an intoxicated man had just left the bank and was driving through the plaza. The driver was stopped by police and arrested after failing field sobriety tests. His car was towed from the scene and the man later registered a .215 percent blood-alcohol level, nearly three times the legal limit, on a breath test.

Drunken driver, Center Road/Industrial Parkway: A driver was pulled over at 9:29 p.m. March 25 for committing a traffic violation, then following too closely behind another car. He was later arrested for drunken driving after failing a field sobriety test and a breath test.

Drug possession, Center Road: Police pulled over a driver at 9:08 a.m. March 25 for having no visible registration on her car. The driver said he had recently purchased the vehicle from auction and did not have a license plate. While speaking with the driver, the officer smelled the odor of marijuana. The driver admitted to having pot inside the car and gave police a small baggie, which had been hidden in the rear passenger seat. He was cited and released.

If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A Bowling Green State University professor disseminated sexually explicit material from his work computer, a violation of university policy, the state's top watchdog concluded after an 18-month investigation.

Alan Atalah, associate dean in the BGSU college of technology, architecture and applied engineering, accessed and kept "erotic literature," investigators in the Ohio inspector general's office found.

Atalah had been conducting research for the Ohio Department of Transportation. After the department ended his contract in March 2015, he sent an external hard drive containing project files.

Months later, an ODOT employee going through the files found a document containing "a text narrative of sex acts with children," according to the investigators' report. The seven-page document described sex acts involving adults, children and animals.

The document and three other similar documents were found on Atalah's computer. Investigators also found evidence of deleted sexually explicit document and video files. The report did not describe the content of those materials.

Atalah told investigators he did not write erotic stories, but he did look at them occasionally.

"Is it possible that I copied it and put it in, it's possible, I probably did that a few times," Atalah said.

In a follow-up email, Atalah said he hadn't read the original story in question until after investigators interviewed him. While reading it, Atalah wrote, "I got sick to my stomach and I could not finish it. At this point, I understood what is the heart of the issue."

Atalah, a grandfather of two, wrote that he is not the kind of person who would do "anything awful like that."

The inspector general recommended the university review Atalah's actions for possible administrative action and its internet usage policies.

Attorneys for the inspector general reviewed the findings with federal authorities, who determined the erotic literature does not meet the criteria for criminal charges. The matter has been referred to the Wood County prosecutor for further review.

Mobile readers, click here to read the inspector general's report.
Jeff Lynne,Tom Petty,Dhani Harrison

Jeff Lynne, from left, Tom Petty and Dhani Harrison perform "I Won't Back Down" at the MusiCares Person of the Year tribute honoring Tom Petty at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday, Feb. 10, 2017.

(Chris Pizzello)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Electric Light Orchestra fans will finally have their chance to rejoice when the band gets inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in less than two weeks.

ELO will join Pearl Jam, Tupac Shakur, Joan Baez, Yes, Journey and Nile Rodgers as honorees at the April 7 ceremony in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The induction isn't just an acknowledgment of how great ELO was. It also serves as a reminder of everything frontman Jeff Lynne has done over the years. Though, it may not be the last time Lynne is honored on the Rock Hall stage.

There have been 22 artists inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame multiple times. Who's to say Lynne might not be the next?

From a musical standpoint, Traveling Wilburys probably aren't all that high up on your list of Rock Hall snubs. They released just two albums. One was great. The other was meh.

But the group consisting of Lynne, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty fostered connections and friendships that would elevate the later half of each artist's career, while establishing a new blueprint for what a supergroup could be.

Individual egos were set aside for the love of music. Other supergroups - Cream, CSNY, Bad Company - may have produced better music. But you'd be hard-pressed to find an act with such amazing parts.

Traveling Wilburys are the only band to have every member inducted into the Rock Hall individually without the band being inducted. If the band were inducted, Dylan, Petty and Orbison would also become two-time inductees, while Harrison would be only the second three-time inductee (along with Eric Clapton).

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation loves to put on a show with its annual ceremony, whether its decisions are justified or not.

When you think about Ringo Starr being inducted for his solo accomplishments in 2015, it's kind of absurd. But who was going to pass up an opportunity to reunite Ringo and Paul McCartney one more time?

A Dylan, Petty and Lynne reunion that pays homage to the late Harrison and Orbison is the kind of main event the Rock Hall Ceremony lives for.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- An 18-year-old admitted gang member has been charged in an October drive-by shooting that wounded two young girls.

A grand jury on Monday charged Jeron High, of Cleveland, with attempted murder, felonious assault and gang charges in the Oct. 4 shooting at a home on Dudley Avenue in the city's Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood.

Two girls, ages 3 and 9, were hurt in the shooting.

High pleaded guilty earlier this month in an unrelated burglary case to being a member of the Detroit Taking Over gang, which operates in the city's Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood and is centered along Detroit Avenue, just west of the Gordon Square Arts District.

High is in the Cuyahoga County Jail awaiting sentencing in the burglary case. He is set for a Thursday arraignment on the new charges.

The shooting happened about 10:20 p.m. at a house near West 73rd Street, where several women, children and a teenager who admitted that he had just robbed a woman were standing outside, according to a police report.

A car with tinted windows pulled up in front of the house and the back driver's side window rolled down, the report says.

Someone in the car stuck a gun out the window and opened fire, the report says.

A woman who was on the porch holding her 3-year-old daughter ran toward the back of the house to elude the gunfire, but she couldn't get in the house before a bullet stuck her daughter in the forehead, the report says.

The 9-year-old girl ran into the kitchen and said she was shot in the back.

Nine other children were inside the home at the time of the shooting and unharmed, the report says.

High was free on a personal bond at the time of the shooting on criminal gang and burglary charges stemming from a 2014 incident in Garfield Heights. Judge Carolyn Friedland ordered him to be placed on house arrest while he awaited trial, but High cut off his ankle monitor on Sept. 2, according to court records. Friedland signed an arrest warrant and High was arrested in December.

He pleaded guilty March 13 to participating in a criminal gang, burglary, receiving stolen property and failure to comply with police.

He is set to be sentenced on those charges on April 11.

To comment on this story, visit Tuesday's crime and courts comments page
Editor's note: This story has been updated with the latest indications about H-1B reform from the White House and the number of H-1B petitions for 2017. Columbia University alumnus Hongli Lan will have no choice but to leave the United States if he loses the H-1B visa lottery again this year. The young Chinese quantitative analyst, who says he graduated in 2014 with a master's degree in Mathematics of Finance and GPA of 3.9, was just ready to get his feet wet on Wall Street before a letter from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) notified him of the H-1B lottery rejection. "Certainly it's not fair," Lan told CNBC. "Chances of winning the lottery are too low for Chinese students and I don't see how the current system benefits high-skilled workers." The H-1B non-immigrant visa program is meant for specialized workers attached to local employers who say they cannot find enough American employees with the right skills. But because of the high interest in those passes, a lottery system chooses who gets a visa. And to further complicate matters for visa-seekers, President Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order asking agencies to look into changing the program so as to encourage more domestic hiring of American citizens. (For what it's worth, firms are required to attest that they pay H-1B recipients the same wages they would have for a similar American employee.)

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In 2016, as U.S. unemployment rates hit multi-year lows, the H-1B visa program was heavily oversubscribed: 236,000 petitions were received by the USCIS  about three times as much as the program's regular cap of 65,000 plus master's cap of 20,000. This year saw fewer petitions 199,000, according to USCIS  but that still means most petitioners did not win a visa, regardless of how promising their career future may have been in the U.S. Fortunately, an eligible STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) degree allows Lan to stay and work in the US for up to 3 years, so he still has a second chance. The 27-year-old, however, has pictured a plan B. "Going back to China right now is not my first choice due to the nature of the industry I'm working in [quantitative investment]," said Lan. "I might go to Singapore or Hong Kong instead."

Back to Asia: From plan B to plan A

Lan's picks might be shared by many unlucky Chinese elites who lose the H-1B lottery and have to be relocated to their companies' overseas offices. Among the young professionals returning to Asia was Georgetown University graduate Rui Deng. In 2014, Deng lost the visa lottery and had to leave the U.S. After carefully evaluating locations where her company had set up international offices, she picked Singapore. "I'm Chinese, so working in Singapore while covering our company's Greater China businesses is very relevant to my expertise," Deng told CNBC over email. However, Deng said she considers Singapore a temporary stop before moving back to Washington D.C., adding that she had always viewed the city-state as her plan B until the second H-1B lottery rejection letter came in 2015. "I was very excited when I first came to Singapore because I thought it would just be a short stay," said Deng. "I thought I could go back to the U.S. after the second lottery so I could be with my husband in D.C." "I wasn't prepared at all for the second lottery failure. But when it happened, I just realized I might never go back again," she added.

I wasn't prepared at all for the second lottery failure. But when it happened, I just realized I might never go back again. Rui Deng senior advisor at a corporate solutions company

Deng then decided not to further waste her time betting on the lottery system, but to start focusing her career and life plan in Singapore, making it her plan A. Three years after moving back to Asia, Deng, now 27, is a senior advisor at a corporate solutions company and says she enjoys her life in Southeast Asia. "My husband moved here too. We have traveled to quite some Southeast Asian countries, and it's very convenient to go back to China too," she said.

A returning trend

In addition to professionals like Deng, who are relocated back to Asia due to H-1B rejections, many high-skilled personnel with overseas education backgrounds are returning for the rising opportunities in the region. A report released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences showed that only 30 percent of Chinese students studying abroad between 1978 and 2006 chose to return to China after graduation.

It's easier to become a middle-class person in the U.S., but regarding greater opportunities, the U.S. market is becoming less appealing for Chinese students. Shun Hou HR manager at staffing and recruiting firm Wyser

That figure has jumped nearly a decade later: According to data provided by China's Ministry of Education, more than 500,000 Chinese students went overseas for education in 2015, and another 400,000 returned home. "In recent years, the connection between China's domestic job market and global talent market has established and strengthened," said Shun Hou, HR manager at Wyser, a staffing and recruiting company. "It's easier to become a middle-class person in the U.S., but regarding greater opportunities, the U.S. market is becoming less appealing for Chinese students." And China appears to be growing more attractive. A Chinese government survey conducted in 2016 found that nearly half of survey participants wanted to work in China's leading cities  Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. This survey result is in line with Hou's observation. "For positions at big companies, the salary gap between China and the U.S. is narrowing while career paths in China are more attractive," Hou told CNBC in a phone interview. "China's multinational companies are craving bilingual talents and Chinese students abroad see this trend."

Opportunity cost is getting higher

Low odds of winning the H-1B lottery and fears of tightening immigration policies under the Trump administration are both helping China lure more top talents back home, according to Hou. U.S. immigration authorities said the Premium Processing Service of H-1B visas, which allowed petitioners to pay extra $1,225 to request faster approval, will be not available this year. And to some, those extra few months could make a big difference.

It's a one-time shot: Win the lottery this year, or get out of here. Hongli Lan a quantitative investment analyst and H-1B lottery hopeful
Sean Conlon was born and raised in the small town of Rathangan in County Kildare, Ireland. His family of seven lived in a modest home of under 1,000 square feet. His parents struggled and, at one point during his childhood, a bank tried to repossess the house. The experience taught Conlon to value the security of owning a home and perhaps set into motion his future career in real estate. In 1990, he tells CNBC, he took the $500 he had saved and headed for the U.S. He landed in Chicago, where he took a role as an assistant janitor.

I was an ordinary person who did some fairly extraordinary things. It's America. You can still do those things. Sean Conlon real estate mogul

After a couple of years of cleaning during the day, painting apartments at night and stuffing his earnings in a shoe box for safe keeping, Conlon had saved enough money to buy his first apartment. "I understood fairly quickly that real estate is a tangible path to wealth," says Conlon, who is now 47 and the star of CNBC's "The Deed: Chicago." "I was an ordinary person who did some fairly extraordinary things. It's America. You can still do those things."

When Conlon started in real estate, the average sales price for a property he closed on was $20,000 or $30,000. But success motivated him. He says he sold an apartment for $230,000 and the $4,000 commission "was the most money I'd ever made in my life" in one shot. He was bringing in an annual salary of $14,000 at the time. Conlon started selling real estate at night, and in three years, he was one of the top brokers in North America. There was no secret to his success, he says: "That was through sheer work. I'd like to say I had some brilliant silver bullet. I didn't." He got up at 6:00 a.m., worked his day-job as a janitor and, in that pre-internet age, made cold calls in the real estate office until the wee hours.

Sean Conlon Photo by Brandon Ancil, CNBC

Conlon got a job in a brokerage in 1993 where his hustle again distinguished him. "I outworked all my competitors. I'd like to say I was smarter than my competitors, but I competed with guys who went to the Ivy League schools and they went to Harvard and Yale and Wharton over the years," he says. "They wanted to go home earlier in the evening. And I got an extra day's work done that night, so I was a day ahead of them the next week, and two days the following week." Conlon started by picking 1 square mile of a neighborhood and became a master of the zoning laws and lot sizes there. "And then suddenly the circus came to town!" says Conlon. When the zoning laws changed and the Chicago real estate market started to improve, he was prepared. "I dominated.  Your average broker was doing $2 million a year, I was like $100 million to $200 million. So I was in the stratosphere."

In 1996, Conlon became a millionaire. He attributes his success to his hard work, preparation and willingness to move quickly when he saw opportunity. And in 2000, he founded Conlon & Co., a boutique real estate investment firm, and launched Sussex & Reilly, a high-tech real-estate firm he grew to over 300 employees. Conlon eventually went back to school. He graduated from DePaul University with a Bachelor of Arts last June. And his success has made him fiercely optimistic about the opportunities in the U.S. "Kids growing up anywhere in the rest of the world, regardless of what you see in the news today, America still holds a place in most people's hearts and minds as the place where you can be anything," says Conlon. "And I believe after 26, 27 years in this country, it is still a country that rewards hard work. You can really make it here."
The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee on Monday defended his recent controversial visit to the White House, which has suggested that those close to President Donald Trump might have been caught up in intelligence activity.

"If I really wanted to I could've snuck onto the [White House] grounds, and nobody would've seen me," Rep. Devin Nunes told CNN in an interview on Monday, denying accusations he improperly reviewed classified information one evening, then visiting the Oval Office the following day.

"I wasn't sneaking out ... the sun was out," Nunes said. "I needed a place I could go and get access to what I needed to see," the Intelligence Committee chairman told CNN, because the information he received on White House grounds had not yet been provided to Congress.



Nunes, whose committee is investigating potential ties between Trump's campaign and Russia, visited the White House the day before announcing he had valuable information  signaling Trump's administration could have been subject to some level of intelligence activity before Trump even took office in January.

During a CNN interview on Monday, Nunes reiterated the fact that what he reviewed has "nothing to do with Russia," but everything to do with American citizens and their safety. "It bothered me that this level of information would be included in intelligence reports because it wasn't necessary, legal or not," he said.

"Chairman Nunes met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source," Nunes' spokesman Jack Langer has said. "The chairman is extremely concerned by the possible improper unmasking of names of U.S. citizens, and he began looking into this issue even before President Trump tweeted his assertion that Trump Tower had been wiretapped."
Senior Advisor Jared Kushner arrives for a joint press conference at the White House in Washington, on March 17, 2017. Samuel Corum | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

A Russian bank under Western economic sanctions over Russia's incursion into Ukraine disclosed on Monday that its executives had met Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a top White House adviser, during the 2016 election campaign. A U.S. Senate committee investigating suspected Russian interference in the election wants to interview Trump associates, including Kushner, 36, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and has agreed to testify. Kushner previously acknowledged meeting the Russian ambassador to Washington last December and only on Monday did it emerge that executives of Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) had talks with Kushner during a bank roadshow last year. The bank said in an emailed statement that as part of its preparing a new strategy, its executives met representatives of financial institutes in Europe, Asia and America. It said roadshow meetings took place "with a number of representatives of the largest banks and business establishments of the United States, including Jared Kushner, the head of Kushner Companies." VEB declined to say where the meetings took place or the dates. There was no immediate comment from Kushner.

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Allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russian actors were behind hacking of senior Democratic Party operatives and spreading disinformation linger over Trump's young presidency. Democrats charge the Russians wanted to tilt the election toward the Republican, a claim dismissed by Trump. Russia denies the allegations. But there has been no doubt that the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, developed contacts among the Trump team. Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign on Feb. 13 after revelations that he had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with Kislyak and misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations. U.S. officials said that after meeting with Russian Kislyak at Trump Tower last December, a meeting also attended by Flynn, Kushner met later in December with Sergei Gorkov, chairman of Vnesheconombank. White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks confirmed the meetings, saying nothing of consequence was discussed. Gorkov was appointed head of VEB in early 2016 by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He graduated from the Federal Security Service, or FSB, Russia's internal security agency. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Merit for Services to the Fatherland, according to the bank's website.

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According to two congressional staffers, some Senate investigators want to question Kushner and Flynn about whether they discussed with Gorkov or other Russian officials or financial executives the possibility of investing in 666 Fifth Avenue in New York or other Kushner Co or Trump properties if the new administration lifted the sanctions. VEB, aside from being under sanctions, has been grappling with bad debt after financing politically expedient projects such as construction for the Sochi Winter Olympics. It received 150 billion rubles ($2.6 billion) in support from the Russian budget in 2016, when its senior management was sacked and replaced by a team of executives from Russia's biggest lender Sberbank. In an article posted on Dec. 18, Forbes estimated that Jared Kushner, his brother Josh and his parents, Charles and Seryl, have a fortune of at least $1.8 billion, more than half of which Forbes estimates is held in real estate. Forbes did not provide a specific estimate for Jared Kushner's net worth on his own.

Foreign contacts

On Monday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters that Kushner is willing to testify to the Senate Intelligence Committee chaired by U.S. Senator Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican. "Throughout the campaign and the transition, Jared served as the official primary point of contact with foreign governments and officials ... and so, given this role, he volunteered to speak with Chairman Burr's committee," Spicer told reporters at his daily briefing. The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate panel also said Kushner had agreed to be interviewed but no date had yet been scheduled.

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Simply meeting with representatives of a U.S.-sanctioned entity is not a violation of sanctions or against the law. Evgeny Buryakov, 41, a Russian citizen who worked at Vnesheconombank and whom U.S. authorities accused of posing as a banker while participating in a New York spy ring, pleaded guilty to a criminal conspiracy charge on Friday. Buryakov admitted in federal court in Manhattan to acting as an agent for the Russian government without notifying U.S. authorities. He was prosecuted by the office of the U.S. attorney in Manhattan under Preet Bharara, who was among several chief prosecutors fired or asked to resign earlier this month by the new administration.

Classified information

Also on Monday, a mystery rooted in Trump's claim that he was wiretapped by then President Barack Obama during the election campaign deepened with the disclosure that a top congressional Republican reviewed classified information on the White House grounds about potential surveillance of some Trump campaign associates. U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, visited the White House the night before he announced on Wednesday that he had information that indicated some Trump associates may have been subjected to some level of intelligence activity before Trump took office on Jan. 20.

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China will be the world's second-largest wine import market, overtaking the U.K. by 2020, the CEO of international wine trade exhibitor Vinexpo, Guillaume Deglise, told "Squawk Box" on Tuesday.

"Wine is getting very trendy [in China]. There's a lot of actual consumption by the middle class in China, which is exactly what changed the market tremendously over the last two or three years," Deglise said. China is currently the world's fifth-largest in terms of consumption.

"Imports are booming in mainland China, as opposed to local wine which is slightly declining," Deglise said.

Demand for imported wine is set to grow by an average of 7 percent every year over the next four years. He added that locally produced wine is still a niche market and Chinese investors are realizing that making wine is difficult.

Vinexpo's research comes as Brexit fears loom large over the U.K., which is currently the second-largest wine importer.

Britain currently imports 2.8 billion pounds ($3.52 billion) in imported goods and exports 440 million pounds ($553 million), making it a crucial trading hub for wine, according to the U.K.'s Wine and Spirit Trade Association.

WSTA warned that European Union customs and duty laws would weigh on wine prices. New restrictions would also lead to delays at ports, meaning a hold up for large amounts of wine cargo.

When asked if Brexit threatens U.K.'s position as a hub, Deglise said that despite the uncertainty, he thinks the U.K. will remain important. He added, however, that it is threatened by other international wine hubs, including Hong Kong.
The U.S. workforce is about to undergo "unprecedented job destruction" as computers and robots get smarter, billionaire Jeff Greene told CNBC on Tuesday.

The founder of The Greene Institute, which holds an annual conference focusing on disruptive forces in the economy, took Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to task for recently saying he's not worried about artificial intelligence displacing jobs for at least 50 to 100 years.

On "Squawk Box," Greene said Mnuchin is "completely out of touch with reality."

Greene argued that AI has the potential decimate the white-collar workforce of the future in a similar way automated factories replaced blue-collar workers in recent decades.

Due to technological advances, there will be less work to go around in the decades to come, Greene predicted. He said society needs to come to grips with how people are going to live in this new paradigm.

"I think we will have a world with much less work. ... Who says both parents have to work 40 hours a week?" he said. "We're going to have to focus on the quality of life, which is sort of what a lot of the millennials are talking about now."



A new study backs up Greene's view on automation. The National Bureau of Economic Research said every new robot added to a U.S. factory in recent decades reduced employment in the surrounding area by 6.2 workers.

Critics of this theory counter that creative destruction has historically led to more jobs.

One of the ways to deal with the relentless rise of automation and machine learning, advocated by prominent futurists including billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, is a concept known as universal basic income  a guaranteed paycheck from the government. The idea is currently being tested in Finland.



Society has to weigh the "utopian" outcomes related to people working less against the "dystopian" consequences of idle hands, said Greene, whose $200 million oceanfront estate in Palm Beach, Florida, is across from President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago.

Greene, a Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton, is a member of Mar-a-Lago. He knows Trump and said he chatted with the president at the club about 2 weeks ago. He did not elaborate.

Greene acknowledged that Trump has surrounded himself with some "very capable" people, though he declined to name any names.

However, Greene said he does not agree with most of Trump's politics, including building a wall along the Mexican border, a sign of the president's protectionist views and desire to pull back from globalization.



Greene, who made his fortune in real estate, is known for making hundreds of millions of dollars shorting subprime mortgage-backed securities before the 2008 financial crisis.
Buffalo Wild Wings appears to be moving forward with its refranchising plan.

The restaurant disclosed on Tuesday that it has hired The Cypress Group, an investment banking firm that has previously worked with franchisors like Wendy's and TGI Fridays.

The chicken wing chain said that the firm will be working on the marketing of about 10 percent of Buffalo Wild Wings company-owned restaurants as part of its "portfolio optimization process."

"We are excited to partner with The Cypress Group, which has a notable breadth of franchise deal experience and an extensive network of valuable relationships," Sally Smith, CEO of Buffalo Wild Wings, said in a statement. "We anticipate engaging with successful, committed franchisees with the desire, experience and financial ability to build our brand and further strengthen the Buffalo Wild Wings system."

Cypress, which has more than 25 years of experience in mergers and acquisitions and refranchising, is slated to help Buffalo Wild Wings "facilitate the strategic sale of certain company-owned restaurants," the investment firm said.

The move by B-Dubs may not be enough to quell concerns posed by investor Marcato Capital Management, however  especially considering Marcato previously hired Cypress to try to persuade the chicken wing chain to franchise more of its restaurants.

"It is ironic that, despite spending the last nine months resisting all of Marcato's suggestions for financial and operational improvements, Buffalo Wild Wings has now chosen to engage the Cypress Group on its so-called 'portfolio optimization' process," the company wrote in a statement Tuesday. "Notably, Marcato retained the Cypress Group last year to study the feasibility of refranchising at Buffalo Wild Wings."

Marcato released Cypress' findings in October of last year which suggested that refranchising 90 percent of Buffalo Wild Wings chains could take 18 to 24 months to complete.

The hedge fund, which holds a 5.6 percent stake in the chicken wing chain, has been pushing since July for Buffalo Wild Wings to franchise more of its restaurants and even nominated four directors to the company's board in February.

"Even with the Cypress Group's support of the feasibility of Marcato's refranchising proposal, we remain concerned that Buffalo Wild Wings will continue to resist this plan," Marcato said.

In early March, McGuire took aim at Buffalo Wild Wings, publishing a presentation for investors that argued the executives' interests were not closely aligned with the wing chain's shareholders. McGuire noted that none of the Buffalo Wild Wings executives currently own shares in the company and only one director has ever executed an open-market purchase of the stock.

He also argued that B-Dubs management team has been using equity incentive plans to purchase shares at a lower price and then sell them on the market to make cash.

Shares of Buffalo Wild Wings were up about 1 percent during intraday trading on Tuesday.
WHEN: TODAY, TUESDAY, March 28, 2017

WHERE: CNBC'S BUSINESS DAY PROGRAMMING

Following are excerpts from the unofficial transcript of a CNBC EXCLUSIVE interview with Yum! Brands CEO Greg Creed. Excerpts of the interview will run throughout CNBC's Business Day programming today. Following is a link to video of the interview on CNBC.com: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000605206&play=1.

All references must be sourced to CNBC.

CREED ON TAX REFORM

OUR TAX RATES ARE AROUND 26, 27%, AND THAT IS PARTLY BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY WE'RE IN 135 COUNTRIES, WE'RE A GLOBAL BUSINESS. A LOWER TAX RATE I DO BELIEVE WOULD INCREASE INVESTMENT. I DON'T BELIEVE ANYONE AT MY LEVEL NEEDS A TAX CUT I WILL BE COMPLETELY STRAIGHT UP WITH YOU BUT IF WE COULD DELIVER TAX CUTS TO THEMIDDLE INCOME IN THE U.S., AND BELOW THAT PEOPLE WILL SPEND MONEY AND I THINK THAT WOULD BE A GOOD THING BECAUSE REMEMBER, OUR CORPORATE TAX RATE IS LOW BUT OUR FRANCHISEES LIVE IN INDIVIDUAL COUNTRIES SO OUR U.S. FRANCHISEES WOULD HAVE A HIGHER TAX RATE THAN WE HAVE. LOWERING THE TAX RATE PARTICULARLY AS WE MOVE TO BEING MORE FRANCHISE BUSINESS WOULD BE A GOOD THING FOR OUR INDUSTRY. IF YOU GET LOWER AND MIDDLE INCOME TAX CUTS, CORPORATE TAX CUTS, DEREGULATION, I DO THINK YOU WILL SEE A DRAMATIC INCREASE IN INVESTMENT AND DRAMATIC INCREASE IN JOB CREATION.

CREED ON YUM'S POST-SPLIT STRATEGY

CREED: WE'RE HERE THIS WEEK TO TALK ABOUT HOW DO WE GROW FROM GROWING LIKE 4% TO 5% TO HOW DO WE GET TO 7%. I THINK THERE'S A LOT OF DOUBT WE CAN DO IT, WHICH IS PROBABLY WHY THE STOCK IS IN THE SORT OF MID-60s WHERE IT IS. BUT I REMAIN ETERNALLY CONFIDENT THAT WE CAN ACTUALLY DO IT. AND IT IS BECAUSE I THINK WE HAVE GREAT INSIGHTS, WE HAVE GREAT PRODUCTS, BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS WE HAVE GREAT PEOPLE. AND WHEN YOU'VE GOT GREAT LEADERSHIP, AND I'VE GOT THE TOP 200 LEADERS AROUND YUM! HERE, THIS WEEK, TO TALK ABOUT HOW WE'RE GOING TO GROW FASTER, I AM REALLY CONFIDENT WE'RE GOING TO SURPRISE THE STREET AND DO REALLY WELL.

CREED ON PIZZA HUT

EISEN: IS 2017 GOING TO BE A COMEBACK STORY FOR PIZZA HUT?

CREED: I DON'T THINK IT WILL BE A FULL COMEBACK STORY FOR PIZZA HUT. I THINK WHAT WE ARE DOING IS WE'RE WORKING WITH OUR FRANCHISEES REALLY CLOSELY TO SAY LOOK, WE'VE GOT TO PUT A DIFFERENT PLAN IN PLACE AND WE'VE GOT TO PARTNER WITH OUR FRANCHISEES. I'M REALLY EXCITED ABOUT THE WORK THAT ARTIE STARRS IS DOING WITH THE U.S. FRANCHISEES. I THINK INTERNATIONALLY WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO SEE US REALLY IS SORT OF ACCELERATING OUR NET NEW UNIT GROWTH AND IMPROVING OUR SAME-STORE SALES GROWTH. SO I THINK 2017 INTERNATIONALLY FOR PIZZA HUT WILL BE AN IMPROVING YEAR AND I THINK WE'VE STILL GOT A LOT TO PROVE IN THE U.S. BUT WE'RE STARTING TO DO ALL THE RIGHT THINGS. YOU MAY NOT SEE IT AS EARLY AS THE END OF 2017.

EISEN: BECAUSE PEOPLE LOOK AT THOSEE 12% COMPS AT DOMINOS.

CREED: YEAH.

EISEN: THAT MUST BE A PRETTY STRONG COMPETITIVE FORCE.

CREED: YEAH IT IS VERY  LOOK, THEY'VE DONE A REALLY GOOD JOB. THEY'RE IMPRESSIVE RESULTS. AND I THINK THE KEY THING IS WE'RE GOING TO DOUBLE DOWN. I'M TOTALLY COMMITTED TO PIZZA HUT AS BEING A PART OF YUM!. WE CAN REALLY TURN THIS AROUND. I KNOW WHAT WE'VE GOT TO DO. I THINK WITH PARTNERSHIPS, WITH THE FRANCHISEES. WE PROVED IT WITH OUR KFC U.S. BUSINESS. IF I GO BACK THREE YEARS AGO, PEOPLE WERE LIKE THERE'S NO WAY YOU CAN TURN AROUND KFC U.S. AND WE'VE JUST HAD, WHAT, OUR TENTH QUARTER OF CONSECUTIVE SAME-STORE SALES GROWTH. THE BUSINESS IS REALLY GROWING. I WAS WITH THE FRANCHISEES LAST WEEK, THEY COULDN'T BE HAPPIER. WE'VE DONE IT ONCE, WE CAN DO IT AGAIN.

CREED ON TECHNOLOGY

EISEN: TECHNOLOGY. THEY HAVE REALLY BEEN OUT FRONT WHEN IT COMES TO DIGITAL PAYMENTS AND DELIVERY, PANERA, STARBUCKS. DO YOU FEEL LIKE YUM! HAS BEEN BEHIND ON THESE THINGS?

CREED: YEAH, I WOULD SAY WE HAVE BEEN. I THINK WE MISSED THE PLOT A FEW YEARS AGO THAT FOOD HAD GONE FROM SORT OF JUST FOOD AS FUEL TO FOOD AS AN EXPERIENCE. AND PART OF THE EXPERIENCE IS MAKING THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE EASIER. I MEAN THIS WHOLE SEAMLESS SOCIETY THAT WE NOW LIVE IN, WE WERE PROBABLY A LITTLE SLOW TO CATCH ONTO THAT. I THINK THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS WE'RE TRYING TO CATCH UP REALLY QUICKLY. NOT JUST ON PIZZA HUT, BUT ON KFC AND ON TACO BELL. WE NOW DELIVER 6,000 OF OUR 20,000 KFCs AROUND THE WORLD. TACO BELL NOW HAS DELIVERY IN 900 RESTAURANTS. SO I THINK THIS WHOLE CHANNEL GROWTH THROUGH DELIVERY BUT AN INVESTMENT IN TECHNOLOGY AND AN INVESTMENT IN PEOPLE BECAUSE WE HAD TO GET NEW PEOPLE INTO OUR ORGANIZATION TO HELP US ON THE TECHNOLOGY JOURNEY.

CREED ON HEALTH CARE

EISEN: IS THE FAILURE TO REPEAL AND REPLACE OBAMACARE A BLOW FOR YOUR FRANCHISES?

CREED: NO, I DON'T BELIEVE SO. I'VE SAID OFTEN THERE'S A LOT OF SPECULATION, WATCHING NOT MUCH LEGISLATION GOING ON IN WASHINGTON. I THINK THINGS LIKE TAX REFORM WILL STILL BE IMPORTANT. I THINK DEREGULATION WILL BE IMPORTANT FOR THE INDUSTRY. AND NO, LOOK, IT WAS A PART OF DOING BUSINESS. IT WILL REMAIN A PART OF DOING BUSINESS. IT IS NOT A CHANGE. I THINK THE KEY IS TO GIVE US CERTAINTY. IT'S WHAT BUSINESS DOESN'T LIKE AND IT DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER IT'S HEALTH CARE, DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER IT IS TAX, DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER IT'S DEREGULATION. BUSINESSES DON'T LIKE UNCERTAINTY.

CREED ON IMMIGRATION

EISEN: HAVE THE RECENT IMMIGRATION ORDERS FROM PRESIDENT TRUMP AFFECTED YOU AND THE INDUSTRY? VERY HEAVY IMMIGRANT LABOR FORCE.

CREED: YEAH, IT REALLY HASN'T. IN THE SENSE OF, YOU KNOW, WE DO I-9 VERIFICATIONS FOR EVERYBODY WHO WORKS AT A YUM! RESTAURANT.

EISEN: BUT WHAT ABOUT THE IMMIGRATION? WHAT IF THERE IS A FURTHER CRACKDOWN ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, WHAT WOULD IT DO TO THE INDUSTRY AT LARGE?

CREED: I THINK THERE'S ALSO  THE GOOD THING IS THERE'S STILL POPULATION GROWTH IN THE U.S., OBVIOUSLY IN A LOT OF PLACES. IT'S STUDENTS ALSO, THEIR FIRST JOB AS WELL. SO LOOK, I THINK IT WOULD BE DIFFICULT, BUT I DON'T THINK IT'S IMPOSSIBLE FOR US TO SURMOUNT. BUT WHAT IT MAKES YOU, IS YOU HAVE TO BE THE EMPLOYER OF CHOICE.

CREED ON AUTOMATION

I'M VERY IMPRESSED WITH IBM. I MEAN, THIS WHOLE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, THE WHOLE WATSON THING. I'M NOT SURE WE'RE GOING TO HAVE YOU KNOW, ROBOTS REPLACING PEOPLE SOON. THOUGH TO BE FAIR, I WAS IN SHANGHAI JUST RECENTLY AT NEW PIZZA HUT CONCEPT STORE AND I WAS GREETED BY A ROBOT. AND A ROBOT ACTUALLY GREETED ME AT THE DOOR, TOOK ME TO MY TABLE. AND SO, I THINK IT'S THE BEGINNING OF ROBOTICS, BUT I DON'T SEE IT WHOLESALING  THE WHOLESALE SENSE CHANGING PEOPLE'S JOBS IN THE SHORT-TERM. WE'RE NOT GOING TO BE DRIVING CARS. WE'RE NOT GOING TO BE  I MEAN, THINK ABOUT HOW AMAZON IS DEVELOPING AND HOW MACHINES ARE NOW TELLING AMAZON TO DELIVER THE GOODS. I THINK ONE OF THE KEY QUESTIONS IS WHAT ARE WE AS HUMANS GOING TO DO IN THE NEXT TEN OR 20 YEARS? WHAT WILL WE BE DOING AS HUMANS?

EISEN: OUR TREASURY SECRETARY STEVEN MNUCHIN JUST SAID ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WON'T THREATEN U.S. JOBS FOR 50 TO 100 YEARS. IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU WOULD DISAGREE WITH THAT.

CREED: YEAH, I WOULD DISAGREE WITH THAT. I BELIEVE, HAVING LISTENED TO THE PEOPLE IN THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AREA  AND WE'RE STARTING TO WORK WITH THEM IN THAT AREA  I THINK THAT IS WAY TOO LONG. I THINK IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN  I DON'T THINK IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT YEAR OR THE YEAR AFTER, BUT I DO BELIEVE THAT PROBABLY BY THE MID '20s TO THE LATE '20s, YOU'LL START TO SEE A DRAMATIC CHANGE IN SORT OF HOW MACHINES SORT OF RUN THE WORLD.

EISEN: AUTOMATED? FAST FOOD?

CREED: WELL, THAT WILL BE HARD. I THINK IT WILL BE VERY HARD TO AUTOMATE. I DON'T SEE HOW RUNNING DOWN A LINE AT TACO BELL WHERE  I DON'T THINK PEOPLE REALIZE, WE DON'T MAKE A LOT OF THE PRODUCTS UNTIL THE CUSTOMER ORDERS THEM. AND YOU KNOW, STANDING ON THE TACO BELL LINE, PUTTING ALL THE INGREDIENTS ON THE TACO  WELL, MAYBE THAT DAY WILL COME. I DON'T THINK THAT DAY WILL COME PARTICULARLY SOON. BUT IN TERMS OF ORDERING, USING KIOSKS, MOBILE ORDERING AND ALL THAT SORT OF STUFF, I THINK PART OF THE PROCESS WILL CHANGE. THE MANUFACTURING PART, I THINK WE'RE PROBABLY A LITTLE FURTHER AWAY.

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Internet providers now just need a signature from President Trump before they're free to take, share, and even sell your web browsing history without your permission.



The House of Representatives passed a resolution today overturning an Obama-era FCC rule that required internet providers to get customers' permission before sharing their browsing history with other companies. The rules also required internet providers to protect that data from hackers and inform customers of any breaches.

The resolution was first passed by the Senate last week and now heads to the president, who's expected to sign it. At that point, there'll only be a vague baseline of privacy rules governing internet providers and some promises from them not to misbehave.

MORE FROM THE VERGE

It's hard to see this as anything but a major loss for consumers. While reversing the FCC's privacy rules will technically just maintain the status quo  internet providers have actually been able to sell your web browsing data forever (it's just not a thing we think about all that much)  they were about to lose permission to keep doing it, unless they got explicit consent or anonymized the info.

This is an increasingly important issue as Americans spend more and more time online  and keep more and more devices with them at all times. Internet providers can see what sites you visit and what apps you use, and they can see how long you're using them for. That information is extremely revealing, and it's easy to imagine most people would prefer to keep their reading habits private.

"The consequences of passing this resolution are clear: broadband providers like AT&T, Comcast, and others will be able to sell your personal information to the highest bidder without your permission," said Representative Anna Eshoo (D-CA) on the House floor this afternoon. "And no one will be able to protect you, not even the Federal Trade Commission that our friends on the other side of the aisle keep talking about."

So why did Congress block the rules from being implemented? Republicans bought into internet providers' arguments that the rules discriminated against them and could confuse consumers. The rules would prevent internet providers from selling your web browsing history even though, the argument goes, websites like Google and Facebook would remain free to do the same thing. ISPs say that's unfair and makes it hard for consumers to understand who gets to see their browsing data.
The release follows on the heels of Amazon, which launched the Echo digital personal assistant in Europe in September. Google first unveiled the Home in October.

The Google Home is a hands-free smart device powered by the Google Assistant. Using voice commands, consumers can ask it questions, request music or news briefings, and use it to help schedule their personal life.

Google is releasing an artificial-intelligence powered, voice-activated device in the U.K. on April 6 to compete with the Amazon Echo.

"Google Home is a hands-free smart speaker powered by the Google Assistant that does just that. Whether you want to get answers from Google, turn up the music, sort out some everyday tasks or control compatible smart devices in your home, all you have to do is say 'Ok Google'," said Suveer Kothari, director of product partnerships and planning for Google Home, on a blog post.

Google promises the device, which costs 129 ($162), will work with other smart devices in your home, meaning users could control lights, switches and the temperature using voice commands and the Home.

Along with the device, the internet giant introduced Google Wifi, a new internet router intended to cope with the increasing number of connected devices in our homes which require high bandwidths.

"Google Wifi is a connected system that replaces your current router to bring smarts, security and simplicity to home Wi-Fi to give you consistently strong coverage in your home," said Kothari.

Google Wifi uses a technology called mesh Wi-Fi, which creates a network of connections throughout the home, allowing data to more easily between devices.
Last December, a single tweet from then-President-elect Donald Trump led aerospace firm Lockheed Martin to briefly lose about $4 billion in market value. The president's tweets, which are closely watched by markets, have demonstrated the kind of influence social media can wield over companies, politics and international relations.

In turn, companies need to develop deep, cultural understanding of the tools and technologies social media offers in order to prevent being caught unprepared, according to the chief of Canada-based Hootsuite.

Ryan Holmes, CEO at Hootsuite, told CNBC's "Capital Connection" that it was crucial for companies and their leadership to be able to respond to an escalating situation on social media with speed and transparency.

"Part of what I'm talking about, and talking with other leaders about, is if that does happen to you  your company and your brand  are you prepared? Have you built the DNA, the systems and the cultural understanding to understand social media?" he said.

Holmes reckoned the push for businesses to become more social media-savvy needs to come from the senior management, even as many companies employ personnel and teams to manage presences on the likes of Facebook , Twitter and other social networks.
Wally Skalij | Getty Images

8 things we learned from the World Happiness Report Now in its sixth year, the annual World Happiness Report strives to objectively measure happiness around the world, and analyze the root causes for that happiness. In its latest 2017 report, Norway's citizens topped the list as being the happiest in the world, which is attributed to high marks in the following categories: Income

Life expectancy

A close friend or relative

Generosity

Freedom

Trust Of these, income, freedom and trust all relate to professional responsibilities. The report delves into more specifics related to happiness at work, analyzing self-reported measures of happiness and well being (which are distinct concepts treated somewhat interchangeably in this report) that represent 98 percent of the global population. These are some of the key findings of the report: Employment is good. You may feel unsatisfied with your job at the moment, but you'd be far unhappier without one. The report shows, without variation, that unemployment increases unhappiness steadily over the course of the unemployment period. The longer you're out of work, the less satisfied you'll be with life.

You may feel unsatisfied with your job at the moment, but you'd be far unhappier without one. The report shows, without variation, that unemployment increases unhappiness steadily over the course of the unemployment period. The longer you're out of work, the less satisfied you'll be with life. More income is better. You won't be shocked to learn that higher income leads to higher feelings of happinessbut only up to a certain point. A study from Princeton confirmed this effect back in 2010, calculating that once you reach about $75,000 in annual income (as a single earnerthat's about $83,000 today), more income doesn't make you any happier.

You won't be shocked to learn that higher income leads to higher feelings of happinessbut only up to a certain point. A study from Princeton confirmed this effect back in 2010, calculating that once you reach about $75,000 in annual income (as a single earnerthat's about $83,000 today), more income doesn't make you any happier. Work-life balance is a strong predictor of happiness. Spending more time with family and less time in the office, with less demanding work is a good thingand with 24 percent of the American workforce working from home at least some of the time, we may be moving in a positive direction here.

Spending more time with family and less time in the office, with less demanding work is a good thingand with 24 percent of the American workforce working from home at least some of the time, we may be moving in a positive direction here. Variety and education are valuable. If you do the same thing every day, you're going to be unsatisfied. Workers with some variety in their work, and those who have the opportunity to learn new skills regularly report higher levels of happiness and well being.

If you do the same thing every day, you're going to be unsatisfied. Workers with some variety in their work, and those who have the opportunity to learn new skills regularly report higher levels of happiness and well being. Autonomy leads to satisfaction. For the most part, having more control over your actions can also make you happier at work. Being given autonomy gives people more freedom, one of the key factors for happiness overall.

For the most part, having more control over your actions can also make you happier at work. Being given autonomy gives people more freedom, one of the key factors for happiness overall. Job security and safety matter. If your job puts you in danger, or has significant consequences for your health, your happiness is going to decrease. Similarly, if you feel that your job is in jeopardy or that you'll be unemployed in the near future, you'll also feel less satisfied with your work. Stable, safe jobs are the ones that yield the most happiness.

If your job puts you in danger, or has significant consequences for your health, your happiness is going to decrease. Similarly, if you feel that your job is in jeopardy or that you'll be unemployed in the near future, you'll also feel less satisfied with your work. Stable, safe jobs are the ones that yield the most happiness. Social capital is a moderate predictor of happiness. Though less important than factors like income, work-life balance and variety, social capital can also influence your happiness at work; getting along with your co-workers and engaging in collaborative exercises can make you more satisfied.

Though less important than factors like income, work-life balance and variety, social capital can also influence your happiness at work; getting along with your co-workers and engaging in collaborative exercises can make you more satisfied. Not all types of employment are the same. The report also suggests that different types of employment yield different effects on happiness, mostly for reasons related to the above criteria; for example, self-employed people tend to report lower happiness, in part because of lower job security than full-time employees.

Being happy at work starts at home According to a recent study by Oregon University, a happy home life can result in an increase in immersion and productivity, leading to a happier work life. Specifically, they found that workers with an active sex life reported higher levels of engagement and satisfaction than those with strained relationships or other stressors at home. As much as we try to separate our personal and professional lives, there's no denying tha there's a correlation here. Failing to address your satisfaction in one area can cause a self-perpetuating spiral; dissatisfaction at home leads to dissatisfaction at work, which leads to even more stress at home, and so on. So, what about finding your passion? Do you need to follow your bliss to be satisfied with your work? The answer is a resounding "no." Ben Horowitz's commencement address to Columbia University in 2015 illustrates some of the main issues with this idea. Namely, passions are hard to prioritize, they tend to evolve over time (especially when you're working on them for 40 or more hours a week), it leads to self-centeredness, and your passions don't necessarily reflect what you're good ator what's in demand. What's even more important is that the overall appeal or industry of your work doesn't appear to modulate your satisfaction with that workinstead, it's factors like income, work-life balance, and autonomy that lead to satisfaction. Six ways to be happier at work, starting this week Do you want to be happier in your career? These are the key points you need to walk away with: Prioritize your personal life. Commit to finding happiness in your personal life, and preserve it with a healthy work-life balance.

Seek higher income. Ask for a raise, get a promotion, or find another line of work (at least until you're making $83,000 a year)

Accept and seek new challenges. Do something new in your job every day, and force yourself to learn new skills.

Demand autonomy. Set your own standardsif you can't, work up the ladder until you can.

Find safety and stability. Your health and job security are important.

Be social. Find a job with coworkers you relate toor work harder to build relationships with the ones you have.

There's no surefire recipe for happiness in any career, but if you can follow these tips and look for work that accommodates them, the science almost guarantees you'll feel happier. This article originally appeared on NBC News. Jayson DeMers is the founder & CEO of AudienceBloom, a Seattle-based content marketing & social media agency. You can contact him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
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Repealing Obama's Clean Power Plan will be a tricky, years-long process

When federal agencies like the EPA issue new regulations, they are required to go through a formal rulemaking process. First the EPA proposes a rule, laying out detailed legal and technical justifications for its actions. Next, the EPA solicits public comments on its proposal. Then the EPA has to read through all of the substantive comments and either take them into account or explain why it's ignoring them. Finally, that final rule is subject to judicial review. This whole process can take years. The Obama administration originally proposed its Clean Power Plan in June 2014 and received more than 4 million comments, many of them quite critical. The EPA didn't finish the final rule  which used a complex formula to set emissions targets for each state and gave utilities flexibility in how to meet them  until August 2015. Once that final rule came out, industry groups and red states challenged it in court, and the Supreme Court put the rule on hold. The DC Circuit Court is currently mulling the Clean Power Plan's legality and will issue a verdict at some point. If Pruitt wants to repeal and replace the Clean Power Plan, he'll have to go through this whole laborious process all over again. The EPA will have to write an entirely new power plant rule, along with a detailed and legally persuasive explanation of why it's changing its mind. It will have to respond to millions of comments. And environmental groups are certain to challenge any final rule in court. "The agency can't just ignore the previous rule," explains Richard Revesz, a law professor at New York University. "It has to make a sound argument for why its new approach is superior  and prove to the courts that it's not just acting in an arbitrary or capricious manner." Otherwise, the courts will knock down Pruitt's attempts to rewrite the rule. Making things even more complicated, we don't know yet what the DC Circuit Court has to say about the Obama Clean Power Plan's legality. That decision could come next week  or might not come for months. But the opinion handed down by that court will shape how Pruitt can proceed.

There are two big ways Pruitt may try to rewrite the Clean Power Plan

I asked legal experts across the political spectrum what Pruitt could do to roll back the Clean Power Plan, and the answers converged on two main options: 1) Don't regulate CO2 from existing power plants at all. The most drastic step Pruitt could take would be to repeal the Clean Power Plan and replace it with  nothing. The government wouldn't regulate carbon emissions from existing power plants at all. (The EPA would still regulate CO2 from other sources however.) This is a bit of a legal gamble, however, and it deserves more explanation. When Obama's EPA wrote the Clean Power Plan, it claimed authority to do so under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, which allows the agency to set standards for existing sources of pollution (as opposed to new sources). But there was a weird, troubling loophole here. See, back in 1990, the House and Senate each approved slightly different wordings of Section 111(d)  and, due to a clerical oversight, never reconciled them. According to critics, the House's version basically implies that the EPA can't regulate CO2 from existing power plants under 111(d) because it's already regulating mercury pollution from those same plants under a different section of the law, section 112. The Senate's version basically says it's fine. And it's not clear which version should prevail. This is one of the key legal disputes over the Clean Power Plan being heard before the DC Circuit Court right now  and we're still awaiting a decision. The court could either rule that a) the EPA definitely has the authority to regulate CO2 from existing plants under Section 111(d), b) it definitely does not, or c) the law is ambiguous and it's up to the agency to decide which interpretation is correct. So Pruitt could try to argue that the EPA has no authority to regulate CO2 from existing power plants  and just repeal the Clean Power Plan entirely. (The EPA's endangerment finding would stay intact and the agency would still be required to regulate CO2 from new power plants and cars, since those are separate legal issues.) But this only works if the courts agree with his interpretation of the underlying law. If they don't, Pruitt won't get very far with this approach and will have to try something more subtle. 2) Rewrite the Clean Power Plan to be much weaker. As an alternative, Pruitt could say, okay, the EPA has the authority to regulate CO2 from existing power plants. But the specific way Obama went about it was inappropriate  and EPA should scale it back. Here's how this would work. In order to regulate existing power plants, the EPA had to identify a "best system of emissions reduction," setting state targets based on what's technically feasible and cost-effective. Obama's EPA got creative with this and set emissions targets by assuming that states could a) improve the efficiency of their existing coal plants, b) shift from coal to cleaner natural gas, and c) add more renewable energy to their grids. This allowed Obama's EPA to require sweeping emission cuts. But it was also controversial, because the EPA was assuming that utilities could reduce emissions at individual power plants by taking actions outside of those power plants (e.g., reduce emissions at coal plants by replacing them with wind farms and gas turbines elsewhere). Opponents challenged this feature in court, arguing that the EPA should only look at measures that can be undertaken at the plants themselves (i.e., actions "within the fenceline"), which would lead to a much weaker rule. So Pruitt could try to replace Obama's Clean Power Plan with a more modest version that stays within the fenceline. This new rule might assume that utilities can upgrade the heat rate or efficiency of individual coal plants but wouldn't have to do anything else. This would allow the EPA to set much weaker CO2 targets for states  allowing them to make a few modest tweaks to their coal plants rather than embark on the wholesale shift away from coal envisioned by the Obama administration. Would this be legally defensible? That's unclear. Environmental groups and other opponents might argue that focusing solely on coal plant tweaks isn't actually the best system of emission reduction  and Obama's Clean Power Plan is a superior approach. It'd be up to the courts to decide. But if Pruitt wanted to scale back Obama's climate policy and slow the decline of the coal industry, this would be his best bet.

How much would repealing the Clean Power Plan matter for climate change?
"Ivanka Trump is all powerful," a source familiar with the inner workings of the White House told NBC News.

But two months into Trump's presidency, it's becoming clear that blood and family have trumped ambition on Pennsylvania Avenue with First Daughter Ivanka Trump emerging as a powerbroker in her own right, along with her husband Jared Kushner.

For a time it appeared that White House adviser Steve Bannon, memorably depicted as the Grim Reaper on "Saturday Night Live," was the power behind the throne. Another trusted aide, Kellyanne Conway, was also said to be an influential member of Trump's inner circle. And then there were Vice President Mike Pence, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Senior Policy Adviser Stephen Miller  all skilled and ambitious political animals vying for the boss' attention.

The speculation began almost immediately after Donald Trump was elected: Who would have the ear of the famously unpredictable 45th president?

Some of that influence was on display Monday as Ivanka chaired a roundtable meeting for female small business owners in the Roosevelt Room. The president's eldest daughter urged collaboration from the dozen women seated around the table, which included White House Director of Strategic Communications Hope Hicks, Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon, and newly appointed Deputy National Security Adviser for strategy Dina Powell.

Empowering women is not her father's issue, it's Ivanka's. And she's making the most of her opportunity.

"She has these issues that she's passionate about and has been for a long time, even before her dad started running for president, and she's excited about the opportunity to advocate for these issues," an administration official close to Ivanka told NBC News. "She is nothing but a positive influence on both the president, but also on the issue-set."

In some ways, Ivanka is a chip off the old block.

"She is not unlike her father in that she's a great negotiator," the official said. But she brings to the table a "certain finesse."

Consider the awkward first meeting between Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. While many fixated on the non-handshake between the world leaders, Merkel quietly invited Ivanka to attend the upcoming women's empowerment meeting next month in Berlin, NBC has learned.

Both Merkel and Ivanka are "deeply interested in increasing women's participation in STEM fields," a source told NBC, using the acronym for science, technology, engineering and math.

With Trump's third wife, Melania, opting to stay in Manhattan with their son Barron, Ivanka has also taken on some of the ceremonial duties typically filled by the First Lady. She often serves as Trump's "consigliere" and, in a White House filling with infighting, is "there to protect her father's interest," a source told NBC News.

Now with a West Wing office, she also has also been called on to serve as an adviser on issues not on her radar, most recently on Friday when the Trump-backed plan to replace Obamacare crashed and burned.

Meanwhile, the profile of Trump's son-in-law is also on the rise. On Monday, it was announced that Kushner was tapped to oversee a new office called the White House Office of American Administration, whose mission is to make the federal government run more like a business.

"We should have excellence in government," Kushner told The Washington Post, which broke the story on Sunday. "The government should be run like a great American company."

Not lost on White House watchers was this  Bannon has no formal role in the new, high-profile entity. Neither does Pence, or Priebus, or Miller.

But with a higher profile comes great exposure for Kushner, as it has for Ivanka, with ethics experts raising questions about how she can fully separate her business interests  she owns a jewelry and clothing line  from her service in her father's administration.

Kushner has agreed to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee and could face some tough questions from the panel looking into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russian spies. Among other things, Kushner will be asked about his meeting with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S., at Trump Tower.

Once fixtures on the Manhattan social scene, Ivanka and Jared have transformed themselves into a Washington "power couple" and they are using their clout and charm to push their own socially liberal but fiscally conservative agendas.

"They feed off one another," the source said.

How much clout do they have?

Last month, Ivanka and Jared reportedly helped kill a proposed executive order that would have rolled back Obama administration protections for the LGBTQ community  protections that cultural conservatives like Pence very much oppose.

Neither of them are Republicans. She is an independent and called Chelsea Clinton a friend. He is a Democrat whose dad, Charles, was a bigtime donor to the Democratic Party, including Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign.

By all accounts, 35-year-old Ivanka is a Daddy's Girl. Trump's daughter by first wife, Czech model Ivana Trump, little Ivanka clung to her father when her parents split. After graduating cum laude from her father's alma mater, the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania (and a brief modeling career of her own), she went into the family business  the Trump Organization.

Jared, 36, is the eldest son of a Jersey-based real estate tycoon who was prosecuted in 2004 by then-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie for making illegal campaign contributions  and for retaliating against his brother-in-law by hiring a prostitute to seduce him. Charles Kushner wound up serving 14 months in a federal prison camp.

When Charles Kushner got out, the family business decamped for Manhattan where young Jared found a foothold in the media scrum by buying the influential weekly newspaper, The New York Observer, and soon became fast friends with the likes of FOX News mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Jared and Ivanka met in 2005 and when the New York tabloids got wind of the romance they dubbed the handsome young couple J-Vanka. Three years later, the couple split over religion. She was Presbyterian. He's an Orthodox Jew. And his parents wanted him to marry in the faith.

But after Ivanka agreed to convert to Judaism, the couple tied the knot in 2009. They have three children whom they are raising Jewish.

During the presidential campaign, Ivanka became Trump's ambassador to a key voting block he alienated with his boorish behavior  women. She was also a calming influence on the often-volatile candidate, unflappable and unfailingly polite even as her dad waged a scorched earth campaign against Clinton.

Kushner also became a key figure in the campaign and was appointed senior adviser after the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel ruled that the president's "special hiring authority" allowed him to get around federal anti-nepotism rules.

After the election, the couple moved to Washington and rented a $5.5 million mansion in the tony Kalorama neighborhood where their new neighbors include former president Barack Obama and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

While Trump took the unprecedented step of seeking top-secret clearance for Kushner so he could attend Presidential Daily Briefings, Ivanka began testing the Washington waters.

One administration official close to her describes the First Daughter's first weeks as a sort of listening tour around the nation's capital, "meeting with people, listening, and just kind of getting a sense of what role she could play."

Watch: Kushner's new role
The impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on society will be "positive", Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey told CNBC on Tuesday, who also offered to help the U.S. government prepare for the impact of the technology if it wasn't prepared.

AI has received a mixed reception in the technology community even as companies strive towards developing it. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, for example, has warned of the need for humans to merge with AI in order not to become irrelevant in the future and has founded a company called Neuralink to do just that.

Even Google founder Sergey Brin noted recently that he was "surprised" by the pace of advancements in AI but ultimately welcomed it. Other leaders such as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has also backed the potential of AI.

Dorsey said that the impact of AI would be "positive" and "additive".

"I think it allows us to give back time to people and to focus on higher leverage jobs  And I think that's really important," Dorsey told CNBC in an interview on Tuesday while launching Square in the U.K.
If far right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen loses the election, it will spur a "significant" surge of inflows into European stocks, JPMorgan said in a note Monday.

How significant?

JPMorgan estimated that a Le Pen loss will see at least 10 percent of assets under management flow back into the region's stock markets.

It noted that since the beginning of 2016, around $100 billion has flowed out of the segment, according to EPFR data, marking up a loss of nearly 10 percent of assets under management.

"We believe that these flows at least could come back into the region, should political uncertainty fade, in addition to any potential new net inflows," JPMorgan said.

Some opinion polls have shown that Le Pen, leader of the far right, anti-European Union, anti-immigrant National Front party, could be a top pick in the first round of voting in France's presidential election on April 23.

A healthy majority of analysts and experts believe Le Pen, who wants to pull France out of the euro zone, won't win the second round of voting on May 7 if she makes it past the first.

But fears abound over a potential dark horse Le Pen victory, in line with political surprises such as Brexit and Donald Trump's U.S. presidential win. That's spurred concerns of a potential French exit from the euro zone, dubbed Frexit, and even a possible breakup of the bloc.

While JPMorgan noted that any "Le Pen loss" lap of inflows was likely to boost , it didn't expect that would weigh on European stocks, which have benefited from a weaker currency.

"We think a stronger euro would not be an impediment for regional equities and, in fact, believe the euro will turn positively correlated to euro zone equities, no matter the election outcome," it said.

It noted that the euro is typically seen as a vote of confidence in the region.

JPMorgan viewed a victory by either of the other two front-runners, Francois Fillon and Emmanuel Macron, as likely to spur a market rally.

"Both are in favor of lower taxes, reduced public spending, and improved EU integration and are supportive of free trade,' it said. "France ranks poorly on many fiscal and growth metrics and could benefit from ambitious structural reforms."

But the bank noted that while it considered a Le Pen victory unlikely, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility.

JPMorgan considered a Le Pen win and euro zone breakup fears would have a similar impact on markets as the 2011-12 European debt crisis, when around 20-25 percent of assets under management flowed out of European equities.

If Le Pen wins, JPMorgan estimated that Eurozone equities could potentially fall nearly 20 percent, with the potential for a 10 percent earnings projection downgrade from its base case.

It also estimated the euro would fall to $0.98, compared with current levels of around $1.0860 The bank's base case is for the euro to rise to $1.15 by year-end following a Macron or Fillon victory.

Craig Dale contributed to this article.

By CNBC.Com's Leslie Shaffer; Follow her on Twitter @LeslieShaffer1



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Jeremy Mack, Portland, working for Maine Peoples Alliance, gathers signatures for a referendum next year on MaineCare (Medicaid) expansion in Monument Square, Portland. Kristin Bingham, left, signs the petition.

The legislature of Kansas  a red state where President Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 20 percentage points  has voted to expand its Medicaid program under a key provision of Obamacare.



The 25 to 14 vote in the Kansas Senate on Tuesday comes a week after the state House passed Medicaid expansion, which would allow nearly all poor adults to receive health-care coverage under that joint state-federal program.

But lawmakers don't have enough votes as of now to overcome an expected veto of the measure from Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican.

"To expand Obamacare when the program is in a death spiral is not responsible policy," Melika Willoughby, Brownback's spokeswoman has said.

However, the Kansas legislature's move is striking, and just the latest in a series of steps by states to expand or change their Medicaid programs on the heels of a failed effort by GOP leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives last week to repeal and replace key parts of Obamacare.



In Maine, where Republican Gov. Paul LePage has vetoed Medicaid expansion efforts by the state legislature, voters are set to cast ballots next fall on a referendum that would authorize expansion.

On Monday, Virginia's Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe proposed amending language in the state budget to authorize him to move toward Medicaid expansion, which has been opposed by the Republican-led General Assembly.

Also Monday, Georgia's Republican Governor Nathan Deal said he is looking into making changes to the state's Medicaid program "as long as mandates under the basic Obamacare legislation remain in place."

Obamacare requires most Americans to have some form of health coverage or pay a fine. But the law only provides subsidies to help buy private health plans to people who earn 100 percent to 400 percent of the federal poverty.

People who earned below 138 percent of poverty were originally supposed to be made eligible for Medicaid under Obamacare, with the federal government picking up the bill for nearly all the costs of insurance the newly eligible.

But a Supreme Court decision made expansion optional for the states. As a result, in non-expansion states there are millions of people who earn too little to get Obamacare subsidies for private plans, but either earn too much for their state's Medicaid program or are not eligible because they don't have dependent children.

When Trump took office in January, 19 states had still refused to expand Medicaid.

Diane Rowland, executive vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health-care research group, noted that a number of strongly Republican states had, under President Barack Obama, adopted expansion after initially refusing to consider it.

And Rowland pointed out there has long been pressure within current non-expansion states to expand benefits from the health-care community, including hospitals that desire the revenue that would come from treating more people with insurance.

Hospitals in non-expansion states as a rule have higher levels of "bad debt," which is the cost of treating people who can't pay all or much of their bills because they lack insurance.

Rowland said the departure of President Barack Obama from office earlier this year could remove an inhibition that some legislators had in non-expansion states to approving expansion because it would have been seen as a victory for Obama.

She said that another reason that more states could move toward expansion is a realization by those states that "we would be better to a have expansion money locked in than being on the outside" in the event a Obamacare replacement bill is passed.

While such a bill might, as the failed bill last week would have done, scale back overall federal spending on Medicaid over time, a state that expands before such a bill becomes law would start off with a higher level of current federal funding than non-expansion states, Rowland said.

"Look at Louisiana," Rowland said, referring to Gov. John Bel Edwards' expansion earlier this year, which has led to Medicaid coverage for more than 400,000 Cajun State residents. "It was one of the ways he filled a budget hole."

Rowland said the Trump administration has indicated to states that it is "going to be much more willing to give them waivers" for their Medicaid programs than the Obama administration had been.

Those waivers could include allowing states to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients, or requiring recipients to pay premiums and some out-of-pocket health costs for their coverage.

Obtaining such waivers, Rowland said, could make Medicaid expansion more palatable to conservative lawmakers.

"Straight expansion is usually a lot easier" for states to implement and administer, Rowland said.



"Putting all these hoops" for Medicaid beneficiaries to jump through, she said, is "for the politics as much as it is for the utility of the program."

Watch: HHS Sec. Price says Medicaid doesn't work
The defeat of the Republican health-care bill removes some uncertainty for insurers as they prepare to determine rates for 2018, but there are still unresolved legal issues, which could pose big hurdles ahead.



Insurers are particularly concerned about what House Republicans and the Trump administration will do about cost-sharing reduction subsidies for low-income people on Obamacare exchange plans.



"We're helping them understand that the subsidies are very important," said Michael Neidorff, chairman and CEO of Centene , an insurance company that specializes in Medicaid and Obamacare plan health coverage.



"It really impacts low-income individuals who really would not have the means to covering all the deductibles, or the insurance premiums themselves," he said.



People who earn up to $29,000 not only get subsidies to pay for their Obamacare premiums, but also receive "cost-sharing reduction," or CSR, funds, to make out-of-pocket costs more affordable.



The subsidies are a big deal for insurers because they pay the CSR costs upfront, and during the Obama administration they were reimbursed for those costs. But Republicans in the House sued to stop those payments, arguing that the Affordable Care Act did not authorize the administration to make the payments and that the funding for those subsidies had not been approved by Congress.



Last year, a federal judge agreed, ruling in favor of the House. When President Donald Trump won, GOP congressional leaders put their lawsuit on hold until this spring.



The big question is what happens now?



"Now we are in the Trump administration and as best as I can tell, these payments are still being made," said Joshua Blackman, associate professor of constitutional law at South Texas College of Law in Houston, and author of "Unraveled: Obamacare, Religious Liberty, and Executive Power."



"This puts the Republicans in a very strange spot, as they are making the same illegal payments that they were saying the Obama administration was making," said Blackman, who also serves as an adjunct scholar with the conservative Cato Institute.



If the payments are stopped, insurers say it will destabilize the individual Obamacare market by making plans unaffordable for low-income enrollees.



"If Congress decides to keep going with that lawsuit, the insurers will sue or leave the markets and the markets will implode," said Abbe Gluck, a professor and director of the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School. Gluck was co-counsel on a Supreme Court brief defending the legality of Obamacare in the 2012 challenge to the ACA.



"Is it in their interest to destabilize the insurance markets now? Probably not," Gluck said.



Anthem CEO Joe Swedish told Trump in a private meeting at the White House that maintaining the CSR payments  which amount to $9 billion to insurers for 2017  is critical. Other CEOs have also pressed for a settlement of the case.

"We've said all along that one of the things that was important was to settle the issue of the cost-sharing reductions," said Dr. Mario Molina, CEO of Molina Healthcare . "Congress has the ability right now to appropriate the money. If they want to put this behind us, they can do it."



"I think they recognize it and individuals are talking. ... Come (this) May they need to deal with that," said Centene's Neidorff.



In addition to the CSR litigation, more than a dozen insurers have sued the government over payments they were originally promised to make up for big losses on high-cost enrollees during the first two years of Obamacare.



Congress fought funding for that program too, so the Obama administration only paid out a fraction of the claims, which helped contribute to some insurers leaving the exchanges due to losses.

"Now the Trump administration has inherited those lawsuits and they have to decide what they are going to do with them," said Gluck.



A federal claims court judge ruled in favor of insurers in one of the lawsuits last month. The court award would now be paid out of the federal judgment fund for legal claims.

"But there is already movement afoot amongst Republicans to amend the judgment fund, saying 'We don't want companies getting this money that was never appropriated,'" explained Blackman.

"That is to say, if Congress never agreed to fund something and the government then defaults on that debt, you can't get it through this judgment fund."



Still, one insurer said if the Trump administration could settle those cases now, it would buy a lot of goodwill from the industry.
The White House is preparing two executive orders that would put President Donald Trump's aggressive trade agenda into motion, according to a senior administration official, with one expected to be announced by the end of the week.

One of the orders calls for a sweeping review of America's existing trade deals, including the North American Free Trade Agreement and one with Central American countries, the person said. The other would focus on the president's pledge to encourage the production of goods in the United States.

The timing of the announcements is being debated, however, with one White House official suggesting that the administration might not get to it this week. The administration has also begun preparing a letter to Congress that would start a 90-day countdown to the beginning of NAFTA renegotiations, according to two people familiar with the process.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and other administration trade officials visited Capitol Hill on Tuesday morning to speak with members of the House Ways and Means committee ahead of the negotiations. Ross met with members of the informal House trade advisory committee last week, and he has spoken individually with senators of relevant committees.
Times are tough for nonproliferation advocates. As North Korea shows off its weapons arsenal, a global arms reduction and eventual disarmament  the two goals behind the decades-old Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty  appear increasingly unlikely. Nuclear-armed states demonstrated little to no progress on force reductions last year, according to U.S. think tank Arms Control Association, and some of the world's biggest economies have boycotted UN negotiations on a weapons ban. Despite the gloomy prospects, one Southeast Asian country offers a valuable success story.

Just like North Korea, Myanmar was once a pariah state with nuclear ambitions, bogged down by international sanctions But the Buddhist-majority nation has since changed tune and become a role model for non-proliferation, offering key insights into nuclear policy, as outlined in a new report. "Nonproliferation failures, like bad news, usually dominate the headlines and too often overshadow successes. Myanmar has been a success and offers a number of important lessons for nonproliferation more generally," said David Santoro, director and senior fellow of nuclear policy at Pacific Forum CSIS, in a paper released by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Myanmar's story

From the early 2000s to 2011, Myanmar's nuclear ambition were worrisome for the international community. As talks with Russia to build a nuclear research center and reactor came to an unsuccessful end in 2003, Naypyidaw turned to Pyongyang for assistance and the appearance of North Korean freighters with secret cargoes in Myanmar suggested the movement of arms and military equipment, Santoro said. "The late 2000s witnessed a sharp increase in allegations about ongoing nuclear-weapon work in Myanmar. While the evidence was not always clear, international concerns grew because it became obvious that something was going on. The fear was that Myanmar would become the next big proliferator."

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At the time, Myanmar was ruled by a military junta known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), who drew global criticism for its repressive political and human rights policies. The faction systematically denied the existence of nuclear-weapon-related work, which further fueled international suspicions, Santoro noted. Following the SPDC's dissolution in in 2011, a civilian government helmed by President Thein Sein from the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party took over and implemented democratic reforms to advance economic development  a move that eventually resulted in the lifting of U.S. sanctions and paved the way for the first free election in twenty-five years. Under Sein's rule, Naypyidaw abandoned its nuclear research program, embraced nonproliferation, and promised to roll back dealings with Pyongyang, Santoro explained. Sein's administration took concrete action to support these claims, including signing agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Santoro noted. "The nonproliferation U-turn needs to be understood as part of the broader reform agenda, which began when the military decided to open up their country to the world," he explained. "A key motivation behind these reforms was to reach out to the U.S, and because Washington made nonproliferation endorsement a non-negotiable condition of its engagement, Naypyidaw delivered." Myanmar is now a hotspot for foreign direct investment, home to American fast-food outlets and its own stock exchange.

Customers drink Myanmar Beer, manufactured by Myanmar Brewery, at a bar operated by City Mart, one of the country's leading supermarket chains. Brent Lewin / Bloomberg / Getty Images

Three key lessons
Someone needs to tell House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes to stop digging.

Nunes has faced sustained criticism for a bombshell announcement last Wednesday that an unnamed source had given him information that seemed to validate Donald Trump's baseless wiretapping allegations. Nunes later acknowledged he had no such evidence and apologized for personally briefing top White House officials about the supposed information before speaking to the rest of his committee.

On Monday, the saga got even stranger  and the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate bluntly said that Nunes couldn't be trusted to lead the congressional investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 elections. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for Nunes to be removed from his post, while House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, joined by Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, saidNunes should fully recuse himself from the probe.

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"The chair of the House Intelligence [Commitee] has a serious responsibility to the Congress and to the country," Pelosi said in a statement to CNN Monday evening. "Chairman Nunes's discredited behavior has tarnished that office. [House] Speaker [Paul] Ryan must insist that Chairman Nunes at least recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation immediately. That leadership is long overdue."

As of late Monday night, a spokeswoman for Ryan said the embattled House speaker was still standing by Nunes, a seven-term Republican congressman who was a member of the Trump transition team, and would not ask that he recuse himself. But as every new twist of the Trump wiretapping scandal has shown, that type of assurance can quickly change.

Things had begun to go off the rails for Nunes Monday morning after a strange statementfrom his spokesperson, Jack Langer. In the release, Langer acknowledged that Nunes paid an unannounced visit to the White House complex one day before personally telling Tump  and then the American public  that there were indications US spies had picked up communications involving Trump transition aides:

Chairman Nunes met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source. The Chairman is extremely concerned by the possible improper unmasking of names of U.S. citizens, and he began looking into this issue even before President Trump tweeted his assertion that the White House had been wiretapped.

There were three eyebrow-raising things that in that quote. First, Trump's wiretapping charge was about Trump Tower, not the White House (a point Langer later corrected). Second, Nunes has access to a highly secure facility on Capitol Hill, so there would be no reason for him to head to the White House to safely view the source's purported evidence. Finally, the wording raises an obvious question: Did Nunes go to the White House because the source was a member of the Trump administration?

Nunes added to the confusion during an interview with CNN later on Monday when he took pains to say he'd visited the White House grounds, but not the White House itself, and that he didn't believe Trump or top West Wing staffers even knew he was there. That seemed highly unlikely, since Nunes would have needed to be cleared into the complex  meaning that at least one senior White House staffer knew he was coming.

Democrats in both the House and Senate spent the day arguing that Nunes had shown himself to be incapable of leading an impartial investigation. Democrat Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut told CNN that Nunes's actions were "bizarre" and "loopy," while Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urged House Speaker Paul Ryan to remove Nunes from his post on the intelligence panel.

"Chairman Nunes is falling down on the job and seems to be more interested in protecting the president than in seeking the truth," Schumer said. "You cannot have the person in charge of an impartial investigation be partial to one side. It's an inherent contradiction."

The sharpest dagger came from Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence panel. A normally mild-mannered lawmaker, Schiff had worked hard in recent days to maintain a veneer of bipartisanship when it came to Nunes and the Trump wiretapping probe. That fell away Monday night, revealing a stark political divide about the future of the probe  and about Nunes's integrity and credibility.

"We've reached the point, after the events of this week, where it would be very difficult to maintain the credibility of the investigation if the chairman did not recuse himself from matters involving either the Trump campaign or the Trump transition team of which he was a member," Schiff told CNN.

One thing is clear: Nunes has spent more than a week trying to deflect attention from the FBI's bombshell announcement that it is formally investigating the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, but he's actually been making Trump's Russia problem even worse.

That's bad news for Trump, but it's even worse news for an ambitious lawmaker getting his first time on the national stage  and making so many missteps that he's now facing criticism from fellow Republicans, calls that he be replaced as head of the intelligence committee, and growing pressure for an independent probe that would bypass his committee entirely.
The board of Capital Area Transit will meet Thursday in what is expected to be another round of debate over the future of the local bus system.

Cumberland County Commissioners held a press session yesterday to reiterate their objections to CATs fiscal policies, again pointing to the agencys dual-pension system and the high cost of its recent management change as evidence of fiscal irresponsibly.

We feel that this is unethical and a waste of taxpayer dollars, Commissioner Vince DiFilippo said.

But CATs current administration, while acknowledging the issues regarding the agencys pension system, has questioned the efficacy of Cumberland Countys criticism as a means to achieve transit regionalization, over which CATs board has been in conflict.

As the new [CAT] management team implements improvements throughout the system, it doesnt benefit the riding public, particularly in Cumberland County, where service is rated very well by riders, to continually argue about past management short comings, even as the board has taken action to correct legacy management issues, CAT spokesman Robert Philbin said in a press statement.

CAT is jointly funded and governed by Cumberland and Dauphin counties and the City of Harrisburg, providing fixed-route bus service in the region.

For several years, PennDOT has pushed regionalization programs to wrap local transit authorities into one another, offering considerable financial incentives for local governments to do so  namely, five years forgiveness on local match funding requirements that would save CATs three sovereign bodies a collective $5 million.

The issue is how regionalization will be carried out, with Cumberland pushing to have CAT absorbed by RabbitTransit, a York-based public transit agency. Dauphin County officials have expressed interest in integrating CAT with Lebanons transit system, but in a less aggressive manner than Cumberland would prefer.

You have people going at different speeds, and one of those is reverse, Cumberland County Chief Clerk Larry Thomas said.

Cumberland County officials have become more vocal about their criticism of CATs organization, in an apparent attempt to create additional pressure to move forward with regionalization.

These costs, in our opinion, are excessive and do not improve service for customers, Cumberland Commissioner Jim Hertzler said. We should no longer hesitate to move forward with transit consolidation, given the carrot being provided by PennDOT.

Cumberlands bone of contention lies in CATs executive compensation. The agency maintains two pension funds  one for rank-and file-employees, and one for upper management.

Executives are eligible to receive benefits from both plans simultaneously. Further, the executive plan does not require an employee match, meaning executives pay nothing into the fund during their working lifetime, but still receive benefits equaling 40 percent of their salary after retirement.

CATs board does not plan to admit any new executives onto the second pension plan, Philbin has said, effectively freezing it.

Further, CATs former general manager, Bill Jones, resigned earlier this year. Jones received a $36,000 severance, plus two years health coverage, and CAT replaced him by hiring a consultant from Texas-based McDonald Transit Associates at an annualized cost of nearly a quarter-million dollars.

Mr. Jones is not the problem, its CATs overall management approach and the culture within that management, said Cumberland Commissioner Gary Eichelberger, describing the cost balloon due to Jones departure as obscene.

As an organization, CATs operating expenses are higher than RabbitTransit, which Cumberland would prefer to integrate with. CATs operating expenses per revenue-generating vehicle hour ran around $115 in fiscal year 2015, according to PennDOTs annual report, compared to around $85 for the York-Adams system.

CATs board consists of two representatives from Cumberland and Harrisburg, and three from Dauphin  although one of the Harrisburg seats is currently unfilled, leaving no clear majority to decide on the agencys direction.
It's understandable that President Donald Trump is still disappointed and angry that the GOP Obamacare replacement bill he pushed for never even made it onto the House floor for a vote. But so far, he's been directing his anger at exactly the wrong people at exactly the wrong time: courageous conservatives that he will ultimately need to achieve his political goals.

The 18 men from the House Freedom Caucus who refused to "just go along" and back the Republican replacement bill for the Affordable Care Act should be lauded for sticking to their principles and opposing a bill that did little to improve Obamacare. They did this despite extreme pressure from their own party and the White House, plus massive scrutiny from the news media. In other words, exactly the kind of people President Trump needs in his corner because they're just like the Donald Trump who beat the establishment and the news media to win the White House in the first place.

For now, President Trump is still lashing out at the Freedom Caucus like he did Monday night on Twitter:



Instead, the White House should be doing more to recognize and utilize the silver lining in this health-bill failure. We've now seen a stalwart group in Congress that won't wilt under the pressure as long as it believes in what it's doing. And the Freedom Caucus makes no secret of its support for the steep tax cuts President Trump wants as well as his proposed military buildup. The stalwart conservatives in Congress won't just vote for those plans, but they could also act as very strong lobbyists with their fellow House members.



Then there's the really big battle raging now where the White House needs more conservative support than ever: The Supreme Court. The Trump team needs Republicans to be ready to pull out all the stops to get Judge Neil Gorsuch confirmed over what's looking more and more like an inevitable Democratic filibuster in the Senate. It's true the 18 Freedom Caucus members are all in the House, but Senator Rand Paul was a major ally and inspiration for their fight against the health bill. And President Trump will need Senator Paul to buck up his fellow Republican and fellow Kentuckian Mitch McConnell, who, as Senate majority leader, will have to find the courage to use a "nuclear option" and put the Gorsuch confirmation up for a simple up or down vote. This is crucial because the pressure on McConnell to not do this will be extreme, and he's going to need plenty of support from those Freedom Caucus types to feel comfortable enough to break long-held Senate traditions.

The people President Trump should be attacking, perhaps not so publicly, are House Speaker Paul Ryan and the establishment Republicans who had seven years to come up with a better health policy and failed. The White House should actually be furious that the Congressional leadership produced a bill that conservative critics rightfully depicted as the biggest piece of Republican welfare of all time. It was Ryan and company that put President Trump in a bad position, not the Freedom Caucus.

A fan favorite line from "The Godfather, Part II" is "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." In this case, the Freedom Caucus really isn't President Trump's enemy. But he should keep them closer just the same.

Commentary by Jake Novak, CNBC.com senior columnist. Follow him on Twitter @jakejakeny.

For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.




In one of the largest efforts of its kind in Cumberland County in recent history, area police forces sought to arrest more than 40 people suspected of dealing drugs in the county Tuesday.

Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed said the effort was meant to help disrupt the flow of illicit drugs in the county.

Its all about disruption, Freed said Tuesday during a news conference. Its all about making it as difficult as we can for people to do business here.

Police began early Tuesday morning serving arrest warrants on 45 people believed to reside in Cumberland, Dauphin and Perry counties.

At least 31 people had been arrested by 2 p.m. Tuesday.

Freed said the arrests, coordinated through the Cumberland County Drug Task Force, are related to multiple unconnected drug operations and comprise largely street-level dealers.

Officers from Carlisle, East Pennsboro Township, Mechanicsburg, North Middleton Township, Middlesex Township, Silver Spring Township, Upper Allen Township, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania State Police, Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General and the Perry County Drug Task Force aided in the arrests.

Freed also thanked the Cumberland County Sheriffs Department, Cumberland County Prison and Magisterial District Judge Susan Day for their help in the operation.

He credited the gum shoe work done by police to use confidential informants and set up controlled buys that helped lead to the arrests Tuesday.

He said he hopes to use some of the information obtained during the sweep to target higher level dealers.

This isnt the end of anything, Freed said. This is ongoing ... We took a lot of dealers off the streets and were going to make it harder to get drugs in Cumberland County.

Many of the people named in the drug sweep are suspected of dealing heroin, Freed said.

He also said suspects are accused of selling a range of drugs from marijuana and prescription pills to LSD.

Roughly 116 grams of cocaine, 44 pounds of marijuana, 71 prescription pills, two grams of methamphetamines, 3,400 bags of heroin valued at $35,000 and $50,000 cash were seized during the operation.

Many people advocating so called criminal justice reform say drug dealing is non-violent activity, Freed said. I ask, what kind of non-violent activity carries the body count that heroin dealing does? Does retail theft have a body count? Does forgery have a body count? Does vandalism have a body count? Dealing heroin certainly does.

According to Cumberland County Coroner Charley Hall, 18 people have died of drug overdoses so far this year.

Of those, nine have been confirmed as a result of a heroin or fentanyl overdose and the other nine are currently awaiting toxicology.

Freed said Tuesday that there is a need to balance cutting off demand for drugs by getting people who are addicted into treatment while also attacking the supply through policing and arrests.

This operation did not target users, Freed said. ... We want users to get help. To the extent that any of the people arrested today were dealing to support a habit ... We will identify the people who are dealing to support a habit and find resolutions to their cases that prioritize treatment, but for dealers we want to lock them up.

At the end of last year Freed announced the Cumberland County Drug Task Force, which is comprised of full and part time officers from departments around the county, would increase from three full-time officers to seven.

Posted earlier on Cumberlink:

Update: As of 11:45 a.m., 30 people had been arrested as part of the drug operation Tuesday, according to Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed.

Reported earlier on Cumberlink

In one of the largest efforts of its kind in Cumberland County in recent history, area police forces are attempting today to arrest more than 40 people suspected of dealing drugs in the county.

Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed said the effort was meant to help disrupt the flow of illicit drugs in the county.

Freed said the arrests, coordinated through the Cumberland County Drug Task Force, are related to multiple drug operations and comprise largely street-level dealers.

Many of the people named in the drug sweep are suspected of dealing heroin, Freed said.

According to Cumberland County Coroner Charley Hall, 18 people have died of drug overdoses so far this year.

Of those, nine have been confirmed as a result of a heroin or fentanyl overdose and the other nine are currently awaiting toxicology.

At least 16 people had been arrested by 8:30 a.m. this morning.

Freed is expected to hold a news conference concerning the arrests this afternoon.

Police began early this morning serving arrest warrants on the following 45 people believed to reside in Cumberland, Dauphin and Perry counties:

 Niree Malcolm Holman, 19, of Harrisburg  felony possession with intent to deliver and felony criminal use of a communications device.

 Nela Balaban, 23, of Hershey  felony possession with intent to deliver, felony criminal use of a communications device and misdemeanor drug possession

 Shakur Aziz Tennant, 23, of Harrisburg  two counts each of felony criminal use of a communications device and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia

 Donald Landon Daquan Brown, 26, of Harrisburg  felony possession with intent to deliver, felony criminal use of a communications device and misdemeanor drug possession

 John Andrew Harpster, 25, of Shippensburg  felony possession with intent to deliver and felony criminal use of a communications device

 Felicia Suzanne Nelson, 24, of Shippensburg  felony possession with intent to deliver and felony conspiracy to commit possession with intent to deliver

 Tyler James Kendall, 29, of Shippensburg  felony possession with intent to deliver, felony conspiracy to commit possession with intent to deliver and summary driving with a suspended license

 Malik Christopher Bonds, 36, of Shippensburg  two counts of felony possession with intent to deliver

 Eric Andrew Chambers, 24, of Harrisburg  two counts of felony possession with intent to deliver

 Anthony Tarze Chadwick, 42, of Harrisburg  two counts each of felony possession with intent to deliver and criminal use of a communications device

 Renaldo Xavier Rodriquez, 26, of Harrisburg  two felony counts of possession with intent to deliver and felony criminal use of a communications device

 Kevin E Guider Jr., 24, of Camp Hill  felony possession with intent to deliver and felony controlled substance contraband

 Blake Thomas Barton, 33, of Mechanicsburg  three counts each of felony possession with intent to deliver, felony criminal use of a communications device and misdemeanor possession of a small amount of marijuana

 Stephanie Alyse Melhorn, 29, of Harrisburg  two felony counts each of possession with intent to deliver and criminal use of a communications device

 Brian Keith Walunas, 28, of Mechanicsburg  felony possession with intent to deliver, misdemeanor possession of a small amount of marijuana and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia

 Benjamin Roy Sobolewski, 25, of Mechanicsburg  three felony counts of possession with intent to deliver, felony criminal use of a communications device, misdemeanor possession of a small amount of marijuana and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia

 Calvin Glenn Garrett, 55, of Mechanicsburg  two felony counts each of possession with intent to deliver and conspiracy to commit possession with intent to deliver

 Oleathia Smith, 57, of Mechanicsburg  two felony counts each of possession with intent to deliver and conspiracy to commit possession with intent to deliver and three felony counts or criminal use of a communications device

 Kyle Alexander Myers, 23, of Dillsburg  felony possession with intent to deliver and felony criminal use of a communications device

 Joshua Michael Culley, 27, of Enola  two counts each of felony possession with intent to deliver, misdemeanor possession of a small amount of marijuana and felony criminal use of a communications device

 Darren Edward Ross, 27, of Camp Hill  three counts each of felony possession with intent to deliver, misdemeanor possession of a small amount of marijuana and felony criminal use of a communications device

 Lamar Terrell Artis, 28, of Mechanicsburg  two counts each of felony possession with intent to deliver, misdemeanor possession of a small amount of marijuana and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and one count of felony criminal use of a communications device

 Jeremy Ray Witmer, 32, of Carlisle  two counts of felony possession with intent to deliver, felony criminal use of a communications device, misdemeanor possession of a small amount of marijuana and misdemeanor possession of a small amount of marijuana

 Matthew Jose Roque, 26, of Mechanicsburg  three felony counts of possession with intent to deliver, felony criminal use of a communications device, misdemeanor drug possession and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia

 Reese Emerson Berdanier, 28, of Mechanicsburg  felony possession with intent to deliver

 Dustin Lee Jones, 21, of Elliotsburg  three felony counts of possession with intent to deliver, two felony criminal use of a communications device, misdemeanor drug possession and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia

 Justin Allen Trayer, 32, of Carlisle  felony possession with intent to deliver and felony criminal use of a communications device

 Travis Scott Milburn, 25, of Shippensburg  felony possession with intent to deliver and felony criminal use of a communications device

 Marvetta L Lander, 52, of Mount Holly Springs  four felony counts of possession with intent to deliver and felony criminal use of a communications device

 Rachel Marie Lander, 27, of Mount Holly Springs  felony possession with intent to deliver

 Jalil Edward Nickerson Greer, 28, of Carlisle  felony possession with intent to deliver and felony criminal use of a communications device

 Jordan Anthony Hoffman, 19, of Boiling Springs  six felony counts each of possession with intent to deliver and criminal use of a communications device

 Zachary Alan Kerr, 27, of Mount Holly Springs  felony possession with intent to deliver and felony conspiracy to commit possession with intent to deliver

 Sylvester Stallone Anderson, 31, of Carlisle  felony possession with intent to deliver and felony criminal use of a communication device

 Damion Glenroy Davis, 38, of Carlisle  two felony counts each of possession with intent to deliver and criminal use of a communications device

 Jermaine D. Allen, 29, of Carlisle  felony possession with intent to deliver and felony criminal use of a communication device

 Krystal May Wartluft, 28, of Carlisle  two felony counts each of possession with intent to deliver and felony criminal use of a communications device

 Lucion Morgan Snyder, 25, of Harrisburg  two felony counts of possession with intent to deliver, felony criminal use of a communications device, misdemeanor drug possession and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia

 Jerrel Maurice Thompson, 25, of Carlisle  two felony counts of possession with intent to deliver and felony criminal use of communications device

 Radi Adawi, 48, of Carlisle  two felony counts each of possession with intent to deliver and criminal use of a communications device

 Reginald Maurice Brown, 34, of Carlisle  two felony counts each of possession with intent to deliver and criminal use of a communications device

 Stacey Ann Hilliard, 21, Carlisle  felony possession with intent to deliver and felony criminal use of a communications device

 Brian Nathaniel Jones, 25, of Carlisle  felony possession with intent to deliver

 Todd Stephen Kingsborough, 30, of Carlisle  two felony counts each of possession with intent to deliver and criminal use of a communications device

 Andre Paris Smith, 37, of Carlisle  felony possession with intent to deliver and felony criminal use of a communications device
Can you believe it? Clint Eastwood is in his late 80s. Compared to him, Rodrigo Duterte, also known as "Duterte Harry," the controversial strongman president of the Philippines, is a spring chicken. He turns 72 Tuesday.

But nine months, 8,000 body bags (and counting) and billions of Chinese investment dollars into his term, there's still no sign of the one thing septuagenarians probably want most: peace.

Not in the desperate alleys of Manila's equivalent of favelas. Not in the south of the country, Mindanao, where Duterte's from, and where war still rages with insurgents of several stripes. Not in the hearts and minds of the country's nearly 100 million Filipinos.

Why? Richard Heydarian, one of a new breed of younger, more internationalist Philippine analysts, said a confluence of factors is keeping Duterte in power, perpetuating the situation.

First, Duterte's approval ratings are still very strong, he noted. Polls also show people are very much behind his war on drugs. They actually say they feel safer.

Second, Duterte and his supporters have a super-majority in congress, Heydarian explained. Moves to impeach the president aren't likely to succeed. The opposition, as always in the fractious Philippines, is fragmented and fragile.
Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called for its chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, to recuse himself from "any investigation" into President Donald Trump's campaign and transition team after news of the Republican's secret White House meeting on the issue emerged.

"This is not a recommendation I make lightly," Rep. Adam Schiff wrote in a statement of his counterpart on the committee investigating Russia's inference in the 2016 election. "I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the President's campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the Chairman."

More from NBC News:

Nunes Had Secret White House Meeting Before Trump Monitoring Claim

Give It to Me Straight, Doc: Is Obamacare Dying?

7 Ways the Trump Administration Could Make Obamacare 'Explode'

The call comes hours after Nunes acknowledged reports that he went to the White House the day before he made the explosive claim that Trump and his associates may have been "incidentally" swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies, offering what some said was a sliver of credence to the president's still unsubstantiated theory that he was wiretapped by his predecessor.

"Enough question has been raised in the public about whether he can lead a credible investigation in this, given the severity of the issues," Schiff told reporters Monday night.

Nunes would not say publicly who his source on the claim was, but he rankled the committee he leads by briefing the House Speaker Paul Ryan and the White House before telling the Democrats on his committee what he'd seen. Now, news that the source meeting was on the White House grounds has fueled suspicion that it could have been someone close to the president.

Nunes later walked back his claim that the president was monitored, saying he couldn't be sure that communications between the president and his team were captured, but not before the president said he felt "somewhat vindicated" by Nunes' announcement.




A Senate committee is investigating whether practices at five of the top makers of opioids in the United States fueled an epidemic of painkiller abuse that has led to the fatal overdoses of tens of thousands of Americans.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., on Tuesday sent letters to the companies seeking information about sales and marketing materials, internal studies on addictions, details on their compliance with legal settlements and donations to advocacy groups.

The companies are Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson 's Janssen division, Insys , Mylan and Depomed . McCaskill is the ranking Democrat on the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

By late morning, Depomed's stock was down 3.3 percent; Insy shares were down 1.8 percent and J&J was down about 0.5 percent. Mylan's price rose 0.6 percent.

Here's a link to the latest prices.

The companies targeted are the makers of the top five opioid products by sales.

"The investigation will explore whether pharmaceutical manufacturers  at the head of the opioids pipeline  have contributed to opioid over-utilization and over-prescription as overdose deaths in the last 15 years have approached nearly 200,000," said a press release announcing the probe.

The statement notes that in 2015 alone, more than 30,000 people died from overdoses of either prescription opioids or of heroin.

And since 1999, the release says, sales of prescription opioids have increased four-fold.



"This epidemic is the direct result of a calculated sales and marketing strategy major opioid manufacturers have allegedly pursued over the past 20 years to expand their market share and increase dependency on powerful  and often deadly  painkillers," McCaskill wrote in her letters to the companies.

"To achieve this goal, manufactures have reportedly sought, among other techniques, to downplay the risk of addiction to their products and encourage physicians to prescribe opioids for all cases of pain and in high doses," she wrote.

McCaskill said she often hears stories about "drug overdose deaths, the vast majority of them related to prescription opioids or heroin," which are "single-handedly destroying families and communities across Missouri and the country."

"And I refuse to just stand by and watch. We have an obligation to everyone devastated by this epidemic to find answers," McCaskill said. "All of this didn't happen overnight. It happened one prescription and marketing program at at time."

Her letters note that in 2007, Purdue Pharma paid $635 million in fines to settle criminal and civil charges related to the company's misrepresentation of the addictive qualities of its OxyContin painkiller medication, and that three executives of the firm pleaded guilty to criminal misbranding.

They also note that the city of Chicago sued Purdue Pharma, Janssen, and several other opioid makers in 2015, claiming the companies deceptively marketed their painkillers.

The Chicago lawsuit alleges that Purdue and Janssen have sponsored continuing medical education activities for doctors "that were delivered thousands of times promoting chronic opioid and supporting and disseminating ... deceptive and biased messages."

The sessions "inflate the benefits of opioids, and frequently omit or downplay their risks or adverse effects," the complaint claims.

Purdue Pharma and Janssen have denied the claims.

Purdue Pharma, in response to McCaskill's letter, told CNBC, "The opioid crisis is among our nation's top health challenges, which is why our company has dedicated itself for years to being part of the solution."

"OxyContin accounts for only 2 percent of the opioid analgesic prescription market nationally, but we are an industry leader in the development of abuse-deterrent technology and advocating for the use of prescription drug monitoring programs," the company said. "We are reviewing Senator McCaskill's letter and will respond accordingly."

Janssen spokeswoman Jessica Castles Smith said, "We received the letter from Senator McCaskill and we plan to address her request."

"We believe that we have acted appropriately, responsibly and in the best interests of patients regarding our opioid pain medications, which are FDA-approved and carry FDA-mandated warnings about the known risks of the medications on every product label," said Smith.

In response to the letter Mylan said: "We welcome the senator's interest in this important matter and we share her concerns regarding the misuse of prescription opioids. We very much hope that the senator expands her interest to include the top 10 suppliers of opioid drugs to the U.S. market. In 2016, Mylan ranked as the No. 17 supplier of opioids sold in the U.S., representing approximately 1 percent of the entire U.S. opioid market. Despite being a small player in this area, we are committed to helping find solutions to the issue of opioid abuse and misuse."

Depomed confirmed receipt of the letter from McCaskill, but had no immediate comment. Insys has not yet responded to CNBC for comment.

 Additional reporting by CNBC's Natalia Wojcik.
New American citizens take the Oath of Allegiance during a naturalization ceremony in Newark, New Jersey, March 1, 2017. Mike Segar | Reuters

Immigrants are responsible for nearly half the population growth of the United States, and by extension that also means they are a sizable part of the growth in the U.S. labor force. Statistics provided by the U.S. Census Bureau on assumptions about population growth and immigration are rolled into economists' forecasts for GDP. The economy is expected to grow at about 2 percent, and "what's behind that projection is the assumption of labor force growth and productivity growth ... that is a combination of assumptions about the participation rate and the growth of the population. Our assumptions of the population come from the Census Bureau," said Joel Prakken, senior managing director and co-founder of Macroeconomic Advisers.



Prakken said immigrants are probably a bigger portion of the growth in the labor force, since the U.S. population is aging, immigrants are generally younger and many come to the U.S. specifically to work. "Most people are totally shocked when they actually process the fact that immigrants are already almost half of the population growth, assumed in our 2 percent GDP projection and by the time you get to 2045, 80 percent of it is," he said. Prakken said the natural increase in the population, meaning those that are born in the U.S., is expected to come down due to aging of the population and fertility rates. Prakken said a proposed bill in the Senate would limit immigration, reducing it to roughly half the 1.1 million immigrants who arrived in 2015. He said over time, that could dent the secular growth rate of 2 percent by about a quarter point. "The effect gets bigger over time because the Census assumptions for immigration keep growing and and growing and growing, and the bill would not allow any growth," he said. In its forecast in future years, the Census Bureau shows immigration growth well above the current 1.1 million annual immigrants allowed entry for the past several years. Prakken shows in red the estimated difference between the current amount of immigrants allowed into the U.S. and the Census Bureau estimates.


The White House on Tuesday promoted a Ford investment in American plants, most of which was part of a plan the automaker first announced in 2015.



The U.S. auto giant on Tuesday outlined new details of its planned $9 billion in U.S. facility investments through 2019. The company said it planned to create or retain 8,500 jobs as part of its 2015 contract with the United Auto Workers.

Ford gave more specifics of its U.S. investment plan Tuesday, saying it will put $1.2 billion into three Michigan plants, planning to create or retain 130 jobs at one of those facilities. About $350 million of that total  including $200 million for a data center  is new, Joe Hinrichs, Ford's president for the Americas, told CNBC.

President Donald Trump trumpeted the "big announcement" before it happened in a Tuesday morning tweet, suggesting it related to his efforts to get American car companies to invest at home.

Trump tweet: Big announcement by Ford today. Major investment to be made in three Michigan plants. Car companies coming back to U.S. JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!

Advisor Kellyanne Conway also highlighted the Ford announcement, noting that it came "two weeks after" Trump met with auto executives.

Conway tweet: Two weeks after @POTUS met with auto execs...Ford plans 'significant' investments in 3 plants http://detne.ws/2nG5546 via @detroitnews #jobs

Hinrichs said in a statement the company was "proud to be going even further in our commitment to invest in manufacturing here at home."



Trump has pushed automakers and other companies to produce their products in the U.S., saying those efforts will boost American manufacturing and create jobs. He has repeatedly threatened backlash for American companies that make products abroad and try to sell them at home.

Ford, General Motors and Fiat-Chrysler have made U.S. jobs announcements since Trump won the presidential election in November, and he has repeatedly touted their plans. However, many of those projects were in the works well before Trump won the presidency.

Since taking office, Trump has met with Ford CEO Mark Fields, General Motors CEO Mary Barra and Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne.

As part of Ford's Tuesday announcement, the company will put $850 million into the Michigan Assembly Plant, which will build its new Ranger and Bronco models. It plans to invest $150 million in the Romeo Engine Plant, where it wants to create or retain 130 jobs, and put another $200 million into an advanced data center.



In January, Ford scrapped plans to build a $1.6 billion factory in Mexico and instead added 700 jobs in Michigan.
The Trump administration forcefully denied it tried to bar former acting Attorney General Sally Yates from testifying at a House Intelligence Committee hearing on its Russia investigation, after reports suggested it may have tried to do so.



The Washington Post first reported that the White House aimed to block Yates from testifying, and NBC News later obtained the letters that formed the basis of the newspaper's story. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer called the report "100 percent false." He said the White House never took action to stop her from testifying.

"I hope she testifies. I look forward to it," Spicer told reporters during his daily briefing.

The development has increased partisan tension over the neutrality of the House panel's Russia investigation amid concerns about Republican chairman Rep. Devin Nunes' independence from the White House. In a statement Tuesday, the committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, urged "that the open hearing be rescheduled without further delay and that Ms. Yates be permitted to testify freely and openly."

In a letter to White House counsel dated Friday, Yates' lawyer said she intended to testify at the hearing despite Trump administration concerns that the information she shared could be covered by executive privilege. The lawyer, David O'Neil, wrote that there may not be a reason for Yates to withhold information related to former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's contacts with Russia because top Trump administration officials have already discussed the situation publicly.

In a separate letter to O'Neil dated the same day, Associate Deputy Attorney General Scott Schools wrote that Yates' testimony is "likely covered by the presidential communications privilege and possibly the deliberative process privilege." He added, though, that Yates did not need the Justice Department's consent to testify, only the consent of the White House.

O'Neil's letter to the White House said Yates would still plan to testify if he did not hear from the White House by Monday morning that it was asserting executive privilege. Spicer said the White House never told Yates or her lawyer that it was invoking executive privilege.

Nunes, the California congressman, canceled the Russia hearing on Friday. It was originally set for Tuesday. Both Nunes and Spicer denied that the White House had any influence on the decision to cancel.
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President Donald Trump's plan to scrap a landmark rule to cut planet-warming emissions from power plants will likely be a drawn-out process and face a thicket of legal obstacles. Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday to overhaul the Clean Power Plan, a senior administration official told reporters. The plan regulates carbon emissions from fossil-fuel burning electricity plants  particularly those that burn coal  and gives states a framework for new standards. The rule has been challenged in court by a number of states and industry groups. It is fiercely opposed by Trump, who claims regulations put coal miners out of work, though market forces are likely more to blame for the industry's struggles. "While there's no political support in the administration for the Clean Power Plan, it's not the kind of thing you can just do away with quickly," said David Konisky, associate professor at Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

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The EPA will start a new rule-making process to replace the Clean Power Plan, the White House official confirmed. That would include issuing its intent to revisit the rule, taking comments, releasing the new rule and then taking additional comments  a process that typically takes a year or more. Any rule that Trump's EPA writes is certain to be less stringent than former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan. It will almost surely draw legal challenges from environmental groups and states. The administration official acknowledged as much to reporters on Monday.

How the legal fight could play out
New Hope Ministries announced Tuesday that Elaine Livas has joined the nonprofit organization as a grant writer with its fundraising team.

Livas will manage the grant planning, research, writing and reporting processes, as well as connect with corporations and businesses interested in committing to New Hopes annual Neighborhood Assistance Program tax credit program with the state of Pennsylvania, according to a news release from the nonprofit. She will focus on aligning New Hopes program opportunities with the interests of foundations and corporations seeking to support initiatives.

Elaine has been a mentor and role model to me in my work for the last 10 years, New Hope Executive Director Eric Saunders said. I am honored to have her on our team and look forward to having her help New Hope make an even bigger impact in our community.

Livas is the founder and former executive director of Project SHARE in Carlisle. In January, she parted ways with the nonprofit she built from scratch. Livas did not comment on the change, and a statement from the board of directors at Project SHARE in January said a strategic plan developed in cooperation with Strategic Consulting Partners of Mechanicsburg called for a strategic leadership reorganization and an in-depth organizational assessment.

I am grateful to be working with a dedicated team that anticipates and celebrates the transformation that comes with walking alongside those in crisis, Livas said in the news release. I look forward to that privilege.

She holds a masters degree in nonprofit management from Eastern University and received an honorary doctorate of public service from Dickinson College in May 2016.
The order also won't challenge the Environmental Protection Agency's fundamental authority to regulate greenhouse gases via the so-called "endangerment finding," a power that Obama used to craft climate policy after early attempts to pass legislation failed. That's important: If the EPA's regulatory authority survives the Trump era, then a future president could use it to write new rules to curb US emissions. That's what happens when climate policy is crafted through the executive branch, as it currently is in the United States  things can change drastically with a new president.

Trump's order, meanwhile, won't say anything about whether he wants the US to stay in or withdraw from the Paris climate deal , the key international treaty on global warming. Although Trump vowed to pull out of the accord during the campaign, some of his advisers, like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, have reportedly warned that he'd face immense diplomatic backlash if he did so. A White House official said that's "still under discussion."

Everyone knew this was coming: Trump has said repeatedly that he wants to repeal US climate regulations and unshackle the fossil fuel industry. But Tuesday's order is only a first step. Trump's administration will now spend years trying to rewrite rules and fend off legal challenges from environmentalists. And it's not clear they'll always prevail: Some of President Obama's climate policies may prove harder to uproot than thought.

In a sweeping new executive order, President Trump will order his Cabinet to start demolishing a wide array of Obama-era policies on global warming  including emissions rules for power plants, limits on methane leaks, a moratorium on federal coal leasing, and the use of the social cost of carbon to guide government actions.

There's a lot in Trump's order, so let's break down its key features. According to White House officials, Trump will tell the EPA and other relevant federal agencies to:

1) Start rolling back the Clean Power Plan. The Clean Power Plan was Obama's signature climate policy, a major EPA rule aiming to cut emissions from existing US power plants 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. This rule is currently on hold while the DC Circuit Court looks it over, and Trump's Department of Justice will ask the court to suspend the case until the EPA can review and write a new version of the rule. (It's unclear if the court will do so; it may still issue an opinion that will influence what can actually be done to rescind or rewrite the plan.)

As I explained at length here, Trump's new EPA head, Scott Pruitt, will now begin the laborious process of trying to write a new rule  either by insisting that the EPA doesn't need to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants (a legally risky approach) or by replacing Obama's rule with a more modest version that only requires incremental cuts at coal plants. No matter what approach Pruitt takes, he'll have to go through the formal rulemaking process, justify the change in court, and survive legal challenges from environmental groups. This could take years to resolve.

2) Reconsider carbon standards for new coal plants. In addition to regulating existing power plants, Obama's EPA also set CO2 standards for anyone who wants to build a new power plant. The Obama-era standards basically make it impossible to build a new coal-burning facility in the United States unless it can capture its carbon emissions and sequester them underground, a costly and still-nascent technology known as CCS.

By law, Pruitt likely needs to set some sort of standards for new plants, but he could try to rewrite Obama's rule so that new coal plants merely have to use ultra-supercritical technology, which is less effective at reducing emissions than CCS but is also somewhat cheaper. (Under the Clean Air Act, standards for new plants have to be based on the "best available control technology," and Pruitt could argue that CCS is not yet widely available.) No matter what approach the EPA takes, however, it's unlikely utilities will be building many new coal plants soon  especially since natural gas is so cheap.

3) Reconsider regulations on methane emissions from oil and gas operations. Carbon dioxide isn't the only major greenhouse gas  there's also methane, a key ingredient in natural gas that can seep into the atmosphere during oil and gas extraction. Obama set a goal of reducing these emissions 40 percent below 2012 levels by 2025, and both the EPA and the Bureau of Land Management set various rules forcing drillers to detect and plug their leaks. The Trump administration may now try to rewrite these rules, though, again, they'll have to justify any changes through the courts.

4) Revisit the "social cost of carbon" estimate used to justify climate regulations. Back in 2007, a federal judge ordered the Department of Transportation to take climate change into account when weighing the costs and benefits of new regulations.

So in 2009, Obama's White House gathered a dozen agencies together and tried to assign a dollar value to the cost of emitting a ton of carbon dioxide  taking into account scientific modeling on the damage caused by aspects of global warming, such as droughts and floods. They settled on a central estimate of around $36 per ton in 2015, rising over time. This "social cost of carbon" (SCC) can help justify regulations that reduce emissions  such as the Department of Energy's efficiency standards for appliances  since there's a clear way to quantify the benefits.

The Trump administration will now explore ways to redo and possibly lower the SCC estimate, which will make it harder for stringent climate rules to pass cost-benefit analysis  though, again, they may face court challenges. One route they may take: Take into account only the damages that climate change causes the United States, instead of the damage globally. That would produce a smaller SCC. Note, however, that the National Academy of Sciences disagrees with this approach, and many experts think the SCC should be higher, not lower.

5) Lift the moratorium on federal coal leasing. The federal government owns more than 570 million acres of land with coal reserves buried below, which it leases out to mining companies. Environmentalists and other critics have argued that the feds hand out these leases much too cheaply, which amounted to a backdoor taxpayer subsidy to fossil fuels. In 2016, Obama's Department of Interior put a moratorium on new federal coal leases until they could review and revamp the program.

In his executive order, Trump will tell the Interior Department to lift the moratorium, a fairly straightforward step that can be done with the stroke of a pen. In the short term, this won't have a huge practical impact, because there's currently a coal supply glut and mining companies aren't really pursuing new federal leases right now. The big question is how Trump handles the results of that review, and whether he alters the leasing program to try to get a better deal for taxpayers in the future.

6) Repeal guidance for factoring climate change into NEPA reviews. Under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), federal agencies are supposed to do formal environmental reviews of all major actions they take, like coal leasing or permitting new pipelines. And in many cases, the courts have ordered these agencies to take climate impacts into account. (The agencies don't necessarily have to do anything to mitigate these impacts, but they do have to account for them and post them publicly.)

Under Obama, the Council on Environmental Quality issued some guidance to the agencies on how to follow these legal guidelines when incorporating climate into their NEPA reviews. Trump is now rescinding this guidance, which can be done with a simple signature.

It's unclear how much practical impact this will have. Agencies will still be required to follow the law and consider greenhouse gas impacts when conducting environmental reviews of projects like coal leasing, says Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. If they don't, they can still get sued in court. If anything, the lack of guidance from Trump's White House may well cause more confusion around proper procedures to follow  leading to more litigation, not less. What this does signal, though, is that the federal government is going to be a little less diligent about thinking through climate impacts going forward.

7) Rescind a bunch of Obama's other executive orders on climate. The Obama White House issued a number of other executive orders and documents related to climate change, such as: the Climate Action Plan (basically laying out the administration's goals on global warming); an order urging federal agencies to reduce their CO2 output; and an orderurging federal agencies to help communities strengthen their resilience to climate impacts. Trump can and will undo all of these with a stroke of a pen.

8) Tell agencies to review all rules inhibiting energy production. Finally, under the auspices of promoting "energy independence," Trump will instruct all federal agencies to review all of their rules, policies, and guidances and see if there's anything that inhibits the development of domestic energy production  from coal to oil and gas to nuclear power and renewables. In the next 180 days, the agencies will send their findings to the White House, which will decide how to proceed from there.
A combination of tax cuts for working Americans and U.S. corporations as well as deregulation would unleash a wave of investment and job creation, Yum Brands CEO Greg Creed told CNBC on Tuesday from the sidelines of the fast food giant's meeting of global leaders in Jacksonville, Florida.



Creed estimated Yum's blended corporate tax rate  due to being in 135 countries with KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell locations  at about 26 to 27 percent.

The U.S. federal corporate tax rate stands at 35 percent, one of the highest among industrialized countries, though few companies actually pay that.

President Donald Trump and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill want to cut the corporate rate. The House plan calls for a reduction to 20 percent, with a border adjustment tax on imports to help pay for it. The White House has been rather noncommittal on the border tax provision, which has been a lightning rod. Critics say the border tax would lead to high prices for consumers.

Meanwhile, Trump and lawmakers also want to cut taxes for individuals. The blueprint from House Republicans boasts "unprecedented simplicity and fairness."

"I don't think anyone at my level needs a tax cut," Creed said. "But if we can deliver tax cuts to the middle income in the U.S. and below, people will spend money."

"If you have lower- and middle-income tax cuts, corporate tax cuts, degradation, I do think you will see a dramatic increase in investment and a dramatic increase in job creation," the Yum chief said.

Creed said he thinks U.S. economic growth could go to 3 percent. "You'll see a dramatic jump in growth." But he sees the 4 percent expansion that Trump has said he's hoped for as a stretch.

Yum Brands is in the midst of a transition after spinning off its China business in November 2016. Yum China trades as a separate stock on the New York Stock Exchange. As part of the separation, Yum China is a licensee of Yum Brands in mainland China.
OSWEGO, N.Y.  SUNY Oswego announced it has appointed Kristen Campbell Eichhorn as its dean of graduate studies, effective July 1.

She is a former presidential faculty fellow and chair of communication studies at the university. Eicchorn is currently completing an American Council on Education Fellowship at Cornell University.

Eichhorn succeeds Mary C. Toale, interim dean of SUNY Oswegos Division of Graduate Studies since December, who returns to her role as professor and chair of communication studies.

Promoted to full professor in 2014, Eichhorn has a distinguished record of teaching, research, and service in her nearly 10 years with the college, including serving as one of two senators to the SUNY-wide Faculty Senate, the university said in a news release.

In her role in SUNY Oswegos Presidents Office, Eichhorn has been involved with reviewing, devising, and implementing college-wide policies and procedures, including diversity and inclusion training, family leave and lactation rooms, faculty and staff search processes, and child-protection policies. She has served on the steering committee preparing the colleges next report to the Middle States Association accrediting body.

Serving as chair of communication studies at SUNY Oswego for four years, Eichhorn provided leadership for 43 full- and part-time faculty, support personnel, and professional staff, as well as more than 850 students in four undergraduate programs, the release stated.

Eichhorn received her bachelors degree in communication studies and Spanish from Canisius College, her masters degree in communication research from West Virginia University, and her doctorate in communication research from the University of Miami.

Contact The Business Journal New Network at news@cnybj.com
SYRACUSE, N.Y.  Le Moyne College students can pursue early admission to Syracuse Universitys College of Law under an agreement the two schools have announced.

Its one of two new academic agreements that the schools announced in a news release on the Syracuse website.

The schools also forged an agreement to expand curriculum offerings at Syracuses School of Information Studies (iSchool) and Le Moynes Madden School of Business to benefit students at both schools.

Early admission

The new law-school agreement, a program known in higher education as a 3+3, allows Le Moyne undergraduates to complete both their undergraduate degrees and their juris doctor (J.D.) degrees in six years.

This partnership will allow Syracuses College of Law to attract undergraduate students whose academic excellence positions them for great success in law school, Michele Wheatly, Syracuses vice chancellor and provost, said in the release. It will also encourage Le Moyne students to pursue a legal education here at Syracuse, where our rigorous and innovative curriculum prepares them for career success in the legal industry. This partnership is a win-win for Syracuse and Le Moyne, but, more importantly, an excellent and rare opportunity for Le Moyne students to have a jump start on achieving a legal education.

Curriculum modules

Under the iSchool-Madden agreement, Syracuse and Le Moyne are expanding their curriculum offerings so Madden students can learn about data science and information-security management from Syracuse faculty, while Syracuse students can learn about health-information systems and enterprise systems from Le Moyne faculty.

The fusion of complementary curricular offerings from both institutions will introduce students to graduate programs that prepare them for careers in high-demand fields, per the Syracuse release.

These curriculum modules include certificates of advanced study in specialty areas such as information-security management and data science, both Syracuse programs; along with enterprise systems and health-information systems, both Le Moyne programs.

The first students could begin exchanging curriculum modules in fall 2017.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

PHOTO CAPTION: Syracuse University and Le Moyne College have announced agreements involving the Syracuse College of Law, Syracuses School of Information Studies, and Le Moynes Madden School of Business. The photo includes the Syracuses Hall of Languages (left) and Le Moynes Grewen Hall, landmark building on their respective campuses. (Photo credit: Syracuse University News website)
ELIZABETHTOWN  Jonathan Groff has about 100 pastured chickens at Thousand Hills Farms.

Since his birds have easy access to the outdoors, the bird flu is always on his mind.

We always look for sick birds, Groff told ABC27 News.

Since the avian influenza has been found in four states, most of which are in the south, the fear is that birds like ducks and geese will carry the strain north as they migrate and pass it along to birds in the Midstate.

We keep the feeders inside and undercover and try to prevent wild birds from being attracted to the place, Groff said.

Dr. Gregory Martin, a poultry educator with Penn State Extension, said farmers are being told to keep their birds inside.

However, Martin said at a time when free range chickens are in demand, the advice is easier said than done.

The main thing is to make sure we practice good biosecurity for the time period we have now and hope for the best; that we dont have the flu appear in Pennsylvania, he said.

Martin said the current strain of avian flu doesnt have an impact on food safety-related issues.
The holidays are creeping up on us
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The case for an independent commission to investigate Russias interference in last years election, perhaps including wise men (and women) like Colin Powell, Sandra Day OConnor, George Mitchell, and Jimmy Carter, plus a special prosecutor, is getting stronger by the hour.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats are raising cain and Republicans are clearly unsettled by revelations that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-CA, paid a clandestine visit to the White House complex last week to discuss evidence  so far undisclosed  that FBI agents who were eavesdropping on suspected Russian operatives last year also overheard associates of then-candidate Donald Trump.

Nunes has apologized for going straight to the White House with the information rather than first sharing it with his Intelligence Committee colleagues. Democrats say the chairmans actions should disqualify him from further participation in the Russia investigation and perhaps from the committee chairmanship. Republicans are mostly staying mum, but on NBCs Today show this morning, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, said if Nunes is not willing to tell the Democrats and Republicans on the committee who he met with and what he was told, then I think hes lost his ability to lead.

Graham likened Nunes leadership to an Inspector Clouseau investigation. Another senior Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine, suggested that in the wake of the Nunes affair the Senate Intelligence Committee has more credibility than the House panel to pursue Russia-related investigations.

Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn issued a statement this morning calling on House Speaker Paul Ryan to remove Nunes as committee chairman. She also urged quick action in Congress to pass the Mar-A-Lago Act, legislation that would require the administration to disclose the identities of visitors to the White House complex and other facilities where the president and vice president routinely conduct official business.

In a related development, The Washington Post is reporting this morning that the Trump administration is claiming executive privilege in an attempt to prevent former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates from testifying to the Intelligence Committees investigation of possible Russia-Trump ties.

Nunes abruptly canceled a scheduled hearing this week in which Yates was to be a witness.

The Post said that Yates and another witness at the planned hearing, former CIA director John Brennan, had made clear to government officials by Thursday that their testimony to the committee probably would contradict some statements that White House officials had made The following day, when Yatess lawyer sent a letter to the White House indicating that she still wanted to testify, the hearing was canceled.

The White House insisted the Post report is unfounded and that it did nothing to discourage Yates testimony.

Yates, deputy attorney general at the end of the Obama administration, became acting attorney general when Trump took office on Jan. 20. She was fired abruptly 10 days later, after she instructed Justice Department lawyers not to defend the presidents executive order temporarily barring entry to the U.S. by travelers from seven mostly-Muslim countries. That order was overturned in court.

###
All the traditional enterprise system vendors (e.g., SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, IBM) have a cloud strategy and product offerings. But not all vendors have the same vision. Recently, Google and Microsoft announced enterprise-focused offerings to lure clients to their cloud-based suites. Google and Microsoft will be fierce competitors in this space, but coming from differing backgrounds, they have divergent offerings.

Google for its part has always been a massive cloud player. But its focus on the consumer -- even as it tried to lure businesses over the past couple of years to its web-based Office competing product, G-Suite, and its collaboration suite, Hangouts -- has been limited in success. This is primarily due to the fact that its enterprise-focused features and functions were modest at best, and the appeal for its solution was most notable in SMB. And Google lacked a true client app, relying instead on Chromebooks as a delivery mechanism.

But in the past 12-18 months, Google has focused on bringing about a transition in its enterprise solutions offerings. It has hired a number of execs with heavy enterprise solutions expertise, led by industry veteran Diane Greene. The company is transforming the "enterprise lite" offerings into full enterprise-class, mission-critical solutions. Although Google still has a way to go to make the full transition, the recent Google Next conference showed its new direction.

G-Suite (now called just Google Cloud) is built on Google's Cloud Platform. Google added key enterprise-friendly features with an emphasis on enhanced security and identity management, such as data loss prevention, multi-factor authentication, automatic data discovery and information redacting of sensitive data, key management, strongly encrypted Google Vault file synching, and e-discovery for compliance requirements.

Google is updating its collaboration features as well to be much more competitive with Slack and similar workgroup tools, with Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meets. It's even developed its own chip, called Titan, to allow an established root of trust in future cloud-based processing components, much like ARM does with its TrustZone technology.

While much of this expertise is built on Google's extensive experience in managing its own internal enterprise requirements for its 75,000-plus employees (including 700 internal engineers focused on security for its public and private offerings), a good deal of this new focus is being brought about by its maturing vision of what organizations need to take Google seriously as an enterprise provider. The maturity of its new enterprise management team is showing.

Microsoft has a different strategy. It has been and continues to be a primary provider of corporate infrastructure for the vast majority of enterprises, with a huge installed base of on-premises solutions in productivity (Office), servers (Windows Server), CRM (Dynamics/LinkedIn) and collaboration (Lync/Skype). As companies migrated to the cloud, Microsoft's Office 365 suite gave companies a feeling of comfort in knowing they were simply moving from on-prem to cloud deployment -- although Office 365 isn't quite equivalent to the end user device deployed version. And Azure was a relatively easy cloud migration of on-prem servers.

Microsoft has spent a good deal of time and effort in getting its installed base to adopt Azure as its cloud platform. Indeed, for corporate infrastructure needs, Azure leads both Google and Amazon AWS in presence in large companies (although it has a harder time competing in large cloud-oriented, consumer-focused solutions where AWS dominates). Microsoft has been focused on the enterprise for many years, so it knows well what organizations need in the way of security, manageability and services. This is one of its key competitive strengths.

Recently, Microsoft announced a new version of Azure Stack (TP3, which will be available later this year). What's important about this announcement is that it extends the ability of companies to make the choice to transparently place their cloud-based apps in the public or in a private cloud. Azure Stack offers compatibility in app development, tools and management capabilities, as well as ecosystem add-ons. And Microsoft has partnered with systems vendors like HP Enterprise, Lenovo and Cisco to offer turnkey on-prem turnkey solutions.

While competitors like Google, AWS and Salesforce concentrate on moving companies to full cloud deployment, the reality is that I expect 75%-85% of enterprises to have on-prem private cloud deployments in place for at least the next three to five years, often in parallel with public cloud solutions. Microsoft's ability to offer a hybrid solution, either hosted on-prem or in their Azure cloud, gives Microsoft a competitive advantage over pure public cloud providers like AWS and Google.

Where Google does have an advantage is in leveraging the vast cloud resources and solutions it has put in place and has been refining over many years, honed for consumer needs but now being updated and repurposed for enterprise. Further, many corporate end users are familiar with Google apps from using them as consumers.

Nevertheless, transitioning to Google Suite apps from an Office environment may be a hard sell to many companies that require consistency and full compatibility (and that's Office 365's key advantage even with some of its own incompatibilities). Further, the need for a hybrid cloud strategy by most enterprises provides Microsoft a key opportunity.

So what's the bottom line? I expect many more enterprises to consider Google Cloud as an alternative to Microsoft, given Google's expanding deployments/scale, new enterprise features, aggressive pricing and widespread adoption and familiarity by users on a personal basis. This will put increasing competitive pressure on Microsoft in pricing (which it has already started to react to) and functionality.

But not having an on-premises equivalent to Azure Stack puts Google (and others) at a competitive disadvantage that will be hard to overcome. While I am very positive on Google's new enterprise direction, and expect it to continue to expand, out-competing Microsoft at many companies will be a challenge.
While the headlines are dominated by the further misadventures of a clueless president who cant keep his Twitter tweeter shut, his Republican colleagues in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the U.S. Senate continue to destroy the internet. First, Trumps man in the FCC has set out to wreck net neurality. Now, the Republican-dominated Senate has screwed over your internet privacy.

The FCC had already voted to stay some rules requiring broadband providers to take reasonable steps to protect the security of customer data. But that wasnt good enough for the Republicans. They had to roll back earlier FCC rules requiring ISPs to ask your permission before selling your personal data to the highest bidder.

Republicans such as Sen. John Cornyn of Texas claim that the ISP privacy regulation were burdensome rules that hurt more than they help. My heart bleeds for AT&T, Comcast, Spectrum, Verizon and all those other poor companies

Now, you may think, Whats so bad about my ISP selling my information? Everyone already knows I live at 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield, Ore. Well, Homer, its like this: The ISPs wont be selling just your address, age and phone number.

As FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Commissioner Terrell McSweeny, two voices of sanity, said after the bill passed the Senate, it creates a massive gap in consumer protection law as broadband and cable companies now have no discernible privacy requirements.

Let me emphasize that last part: NO discernible privacy requirements.

What could the ISPs do with this? Well, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) looked at what theyve already done  before their hands got smacked by the FCC ruler  and came up with the following list.

First, it goes without saying they will sell your data. Thats a given.

Next, theyll hijack your searches. Oh, it will still look like youre searching on Bing or Google, but your ISP will grab your search first and check to see if it has any advertisers that match your search. If they do, guess which companies will show up first on your search? Hint: Its wont be the one with the highest Google PageRank.

And as long as your ISP is snooping through your traffic, it will also record your web-browsing history and inject its ads into your web traffic. Gee, just what we always wanted: more ads. If those ads come with auto-play audio and video, heads will roll!

It also seems likely that ISPs will pre-install bloatware on your devices. Why not? AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile have all done it before. Oh, and guess what those programs will do. Heres a clue: The late, unlamented Carrier IQ logged pretty much everything you did on your smartphone.

Oh, boy, Big Brother on my phone. I always wanted this!

Last, but never least, you can expect ISPs to inject undetectable, undeletable tracking super-cookies in all of your web traffic. What? No one would ever do that, you say? Oh, my poor, poor friend. AT&T and Verizon already did this in 2014. But, between, you know, privacy regulations and public opinion, they both pulled back.

Today? With no ISP privacy rules, were left with just public opinion. Will the ISPs respond to that any better than the Senate did? For that matter, will the House of Representatives stand up for consumers and keep this dangerous bill off of the presidents desk? Will Trump decline to sign it? I think the answer to all those questions is no.

What does this assault on privacy mean for you? It means you need not worry about the NSA tracking your every online move. Your ISP will do it for it, for a fee of course.

This story, "Internet privacy? Who needs that?" was originally published by Computerworld .
So you've heard the news, right? Google is officially pulling the plug on Hangouts' ability to handle SMS messages, just three years after ceremoniously adding that function into the app.

The goal back in 2013 was to turn Hangouts into a truly universal messaging solution -- a single spectacular standard that'd work across all platforms and types of devices.

Yeah. So much for that.

These days, Google is intent on converting Hangouts into an enterprise-targeted tool -- and at the same time, pushing regular consumer users toward its newer Allo and Duo chat apps. Unfortunately, both of those apps suffer from the same foundational problem. And neither is designed to handle SMS.

We could talk for days about the confusion and frustration caused by Google's ever-shifting vision for its mobile messaging products -- but we've done that plenty before (I'm particularly proud of the time I used an imaginary conversation to drive home the point earlier this year).

So instead, let's accept that an SMS-free Hangouts is the new reality -- and let's move on to discussing what that actually means and what we should all do next.

As it turns out, this latest pivot is pretty nuanced, so the answers really depend on your specific situation (yuuuup). Below is a piece-by-piece breakdown along with my advice for each scenario. Find the category and subcategory that applies to you, and get a move on.

(A quick heads-up: Regardless of when you make the move from Hangouts or where you go next, you're almost certainly going to have to leave your message history behind. This is due to an apparent annoying quirk with the way Hangouts stores its data; in short, Hangouts doesn't appear to store messages in the global Android SMS/MMS database, as most messaging apps do -- and as a result, there's no way for other apps to import said messages in the way they normally would. Google does offer a way to download all of your data out of Hangouts as a single file, but the file is formatted in a way that'll make it impossible to read and of little practical use. You can continue to access your archives as needed within the Hangouts app -- for now, at least. Beyond that, your best bet is to rely on Gmail as a way to view old Hangouts threads. You can find all of your Hangouts SMS and messaging conversations there by searching for the name or number of the person with whom you chatted.)

Category I: People who use Hangouts for SMS with a regular carrier-connected number (not with Google Voice or Project Fi)

If this description fits you, the clock is ticking. Starting May 22nd, you'll no longer be able to use Hangouts to handle your SMS text messages -- period, end of story.

So what to do? Choose your own adventure:

If all you want is basic texting -- and you don't care about keeping your messages backed up or available on multiple devices:

Get Android Messages. Google's new SMS-only texting app is clean, simple, and easy to use. It's now the default messaging app for Android as a platform, and it'll get the job done without any fuss or frills. (And yes, it's that same app. And yes, I know.)

Android Messages also supports the next-gen RCS messaging standard, so if/when any significant number of carriers and manufacturers gets on board with that system in the future, you'll be ready to roll.

Android Messages doesn't, however, back up and sync your messages so you can easily keep them when you change phones -- nor does it let you access your messages from multiple devices (e.g. a tablet) or platforms (via any sort of desktop or web app). And that's where our next option comes into play.

If you want to have your messages automatically backed up and restored on any device you use -- and/or want the ability to send and receive texts from multiple devices/platforms:

Get Pulse. There are plenty of good messaging apps on Android, but Pulse is the one I personally use post-Hangouts, and it's what I'd recommend for most people.

Why? It's intuitive, nicely designed, and simple to use right out of the box -- but it also has plenty of more advanced customization options for those who want 'em. And, crucially, it makes it dead-simple to sync your messages and access them from any device, anytime. (The app is developed by Luke Klinker, by the way -- the same guy behind Talon and EvolveSMS and someone I profiled as part of my How I Use Android series last fall.)

Pulse is basically like a better version of Hangouts, quite frankly -- at least, the SMS-specific side of the equation. It lets you do things like pin messages to the top of your messaging list, create custom color profiles for different conversations, search through your messages for a specific term (imagine that!), and use common-sense gestures to get around the app.

As for multidevice use, the main Pulse Android app works on phones, tablets, and even Android TV devices. It's optimized to work well with Android Wear watches. And for the desktop warriors among us, there's a companion Chrome extension, standalone Chrome app, Firefox extension, and regular web interface all waiting and available. (The Chrome extension and Chrome app are pretty similar, incidentally. The extension starts in your browser's toolbar and can be popped out into its own window from there, while the app operates as its own independent window from the get-go. The extension also has more options when it comes to things like notifications.)

The basic Pulse Android app is free, but you will have to pony up a few bucks if you want to sync messages and/or use the app in multiple places. You can choose from paying 99 cents a month, $1.99 every three months, $5.99 a year, or a flat one-time $10.99 fee for a lifetime subscription. That fee allows the developer to provide strong end-to-end encryption (more on that here) and also, y'know, to make a living.

Category II: People who use Hangouts for SMS with a Google Voice number

Congratulations! If you're using a Google Voice number, you can stick with Hangouts for now. That being said, it seems safe to say the writing's on the wall. Google may not be ready to pull the plug on Hangouts-Google Voice integration just yet, but it's likely only a matter of time until that happens.

So, you've got a few choices:

If you want to stick it out with Hangouts until Google actually forces you to jump ship:

Hey, go for it. As of now, there is no formal plan for removing GV support from the Hangouts app. Just don't get too comfy. Google's making it abundantly clear that it wants to free Hangouts from its previous consumer-centric purposes, and it's hard to see it as anything but inevitable that GV texting will come on the chopping block soon.

If you want go ahead and say so-long to Hangouts now:

Go back to the official Google Voice app. Google actually updated the thing for the first time in ages earlier this year, and it's pretty decent now. You can find refreshed versions of the Android app, iOS app, and web app. (The Chrome extension hasn't been updated since 2013, unfortunately, but its basic messaging feature still works. You'll just have to ignore the old voice calling option that's strangely still present as a nonfunctional option.)

Category III: People who use Hangouts for SMS with a Project Fi number

Fi folk are in the same boat as Google Voice users in that there's no immediate need to ditch Hangouts yet. Again, though, it's almost certainly just a matter of time until that axe falls.

So think about what you'd rather do:

If you want to stick it out with Hangouts until Google actually forces you to jump ship:

Then don't change a thing. The upcoming May 22 kill date for SMS support in Hangouts does not apply to Project Fi subscribers, and Google has yet to divulge any specifics about if/when Fi users will be forced out in the future. Just don't get too cozy, 'cause the safe bet is that your eviction notice will arrive before long.

If you want go ahead and say so-long to Hangouts now -- and you don't care about keeping your messages backed up or available on multiple devices:

Why put off the inevitable, right? If you're ready to move on and save yourself the trouble later -- and all you want to do is send messages from a single device -- Google's Android Messages app is the simplest way to do it. No frills, no fuss -- just a clean and simple app that gets the basics done, as I outlined above.

Just note that after you open up the new app and approve the prompt to make it your default SMS application, you'll need to take one further step: Go back into Hangouts, open its settings, and select your account on the screen that appears. Find the section labeled "Project Fi calls and SMS" and uncheck the toggle next to "Messages." That'll finish removing the link between Hangouts and your messages; if you don't do that, things will be noticeably funky.

If you want go ahead and say so-long to Hangouts now and want to have your messages automatically backed up and restored on any device you use -- and/or want the ability to send and receive texts from multiple devices/platforms:

Get Pulse. See my full explanation above for all the nitty-gritty.

Again, though: Note that after you open up the new app and approve the prompt to make it your default SMS application, you'll need to go back into your account's section of the Hangouts settings and uncheck the toggle next to "Messages" under the "Project Fi calls and SMS" header in order to complete the transition.

But wait! What about non-SMS chatting? Can I keep using Hangouts for that?

Yes! No matter which of the above categories you fall into, you can keep using Hangouts for IM-style "chat" messages as long as you'd like. At some point down the line, you'll be prompted to switch from the Hangouts app you know now to the newer Hangouts Chat app, but the basic functionality should remain the same.

Just note that without SMS support present, Hangouts will essentially just be another isolated chat service -- one that, in other words, will work only for communicating with people who are also actively signed in. And I'd argue that the pool of present people will diminish pretty quickly once the SMS switch gets turned off and folks start moving away from the app for day-to-day use. Particularly with the ongoing pivot to enterprise-oriented features and the fact that Google is no longer preloading Hangouts on Android phones as the default messaging app, the incentive for regular consumers to use Hangouts in any way is only going to keep decreasing over time.

So if you really want a chatting app beyond just basic SMS, take your pick. You can try out Google's Allo -- if, um, you know either of the other people who actively use it (and if you don't mind having an app that works only on a single phone, with no multidevice support or desktop interface). Or you can go with any of the more established chat platforms, like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or any of the other popular communication apps of the moment.

If none of those options sounds enticing, just stick with SMS for your text-based communication. Or you can always just wait a little while and see what other options show up in the foreseeable future. If history is any indication, it shouldn't be long before Google comes out with Yet Another New Messaging Service for you to consider.
Singtel partners Telkomsel to expand mobile money services to cash-out points in Indonesia

Singtel and Telkomsel today launched a real-time mobile remittance service to Indonesia. Offered by SingCash under the Singtel Dash brand, this service allows customers in Singapore to send money to 4,500 cash-out points across Indonesia.

This is an enhancement to the current facility that lets customers send money to Indonesian bank accounts. The service was launched at Festival Rising50, a concert celebrating 50 years of Singapore and Indonesia bilateral ties.

According to the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Singapore, there are 200,000 Indonesians living and working in Singapore. Outward remittance from Singapore to Indonesia total more than US$ 409 million yearly.

Yuen Kuan Moon, Chief Executive Officer, Consumer Singapore, Singtel, said, Indonesia is one of our main remittance corridors and we are pleased to partner Telkomsel to offer convenient and secure mobile remittance cash pick-up service for our Indonesian friends.

From left, His Excellency Ngurah Swajaya, Indonesian Ambassador to Singapore; Mr Yuen Kuan Moon, CEO, Consumer Singapore, Singtel; Pak Ririek Adriansyah, CEO, Telkomsel and Pak Gilarsi Wahju Setijono, President Director, PT POS Indonesia launch Singtel Dashs new mobile remittance service at Festival RISING50. Photo courtesy: Singtel

In line with their commitment to work together on smart money initiatives, the two leading telcos also announced future plans to offer mobile remittance to Telkomsels TCash, offering a complete mobile wallet-to-mobile wallet experience. They also plan to expand the number of cash pick-up points to GraPARI Telkomsel service centres, as well as PT Bank BRI branches in the second half of this year.

Ririek Adriansyah, Chief Executive Officer, Telkomsel, said, "Telkomsel's partnership in Singtel's remittance service is one effort to support our government in promoting financial inclusion for Indonesian people, especially the unbanked segment."

Singtel Dash is Singapores first all-in-one mobile payments app. It offers mobile remittance services, supports in-store and online retail payments, as well as transit payments. Singtel is a communications group providing voice and data solutions over fixed, wireless and Internet platforms as well as infocomm technology and pay TV.
India, Nepal renew petroleum supply agreement

Published: March 28, 2017

India and Nepal have signed an agreement to renew supply of petroleum to Nepal for a period of five years i.e. till 2022.

The renewed agreement, which was overseen by the Petroleum Ministers of both countries, was signed even as both sides pledged to build a new pipeline for LPG.

Key Facts

The agreement was signed between Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IOCL) and Nepal Oil Company (NOC) and was overseen by Petroleum Ministers of both countries.

The renewed agreement is an umbrella document between the two countries detailing the continued supply of petroleum, oil and lubricant products.

It also puts in place an institutional mechanism for cooperation in the areas of additional services and technical assistance between the two countries.

Under it IOC will supply about 1.3 million tonnes of fuel annually to Nepal with a promise to double the volume by 2020.

Background

Indian Oil has been supplying petroleum and petroleum products to Nepal since 1974. The renewing of the agreement is considered Indias continued support to Nepal in meeting its complete hydrocarbon requirement. It has pledged to continue supplies, though petroleum supply to Nepal was severely hit during 2015-16 due to the blockade on the border. Thus, the new agreement also maintains the fuel supply exclusivity to India.

Motihari-Amlekhgunj Pipeline

Both countries are also working to further deepen engagement in the oil and gas sector, including construction of petroleum product Motihari-Amlekhgunj Pipeline.

Once the pipeline completed, it will further ensure continuous and uninterrupted supply of products to Nepal.

India also agreed to extend the proposed Raxaul-Amlekhganj product pipeline to Chitwan and to start work on the pipeline in 2017-18.

Month: Current Affairs - March, 2017

Topics: India-International Relations  India-Nepal  National  Petroleum Supply Agreement

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Language and numbers are the basis of our world, we need both to make sense of things and to use our ability to process information to its full potential. The sciences are about discovery, the humanities are about originality and invention where creativity and innovation thrive.

When we lose the teaching of literary arts, we lose ingenuity and imagination. Even worse, without the core skills of what it takes to form and then write a thesis we're hardly equipped to bringing new ideas to life. The most general meaning of thesis is a proposition maintained by argument  many of us write to advance an original point of view, better yet when as a result of research.

Umberto Eco's How to Write a Thesis was first published in 1977 in Italy, where it has remained in print ever since. He originally wrote the book to give his students the answers to questions they asked frequently. The book has provided instruction and inspiration for generations of Italian students over the years and it's been translated into seventeen languages, including Persian (1996), Russian (2001), Chinese (2003) and English.

This book teaches a techie, in the Greek sense of applied and context-related knowledgea sort of craftsmanship, says Francesco Erspamer Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University in the forward. Networked knowledge rooted in context is valuable skill to acquire.

We're used to thinking about network effects when we talk about technology. Network effects create more value for more users, and they also make users more valuable to both the business and to each other. Media entrepreneur Tim O'Reilly coined a term to explain it:

A true Web 2.0 application is one that gets better the more people use it. [For example] Google gets smarter every time someone makes a link on the web. Google gets smarter every time someone makes a search. It gets smarter every time someone clicks on an ad. And it immediately acts on that information to improve the experience for everyone else.

The mechanism that drives the economics of Amazon, Netflix, AirBnB is also a driving force in networking our knowledge with sources and resources that can round it up. In the book Eco reviews how we build that core skill  starting with how to choose a topic, how to look for sources and prepare a bibliography, how to use a librarys research systems, how to organize and prioritize information, and concluding with how to write a captivating thesis.

Umberto Eco was professor of semiotics in one of the oldest departments at my Alma Mater, the University of Bologna, the very same where I attended classes, took notes and did research in exchange for access to the more expensive books that were required reading for exams. What he wrote about writing a thesis applied then as it applies now:

Writing a thesis requires a student to organize ideas and data, to work methodically, and to build an object that in principle will serve others. In reality, the research experience matters more than the topic.

It requires we work methodically to build something of value as we build our thinking skills by being open to new ideas and ordering the mind by training to be accurate and responsible. It's the kind of competence that never goes out of fashion, especially where he says we should, listen with respect to anyone, without this exempting us from pronouncing our value judgments.

Eco was a lifelong learner and a believer in the value of unread books as reference material. Caterina Mongiat Farina and Geoff Farina have approached the English translation with a high degree of care and thoughtfulness to make the book culturally relevant to an audience wired differently linguistically by making frequent references to the Chicago Manual of Style (also Eco's resource).

They say Ecos system though a bit rudimentary compared to today's available tools, demands critical thinking, resourcefulness, creativity, attention to detail, and academic pride and humility; these are precisely the skills that aid students overwhelmed by the ever-growing demands made on their time and resources, and confused by the seemingly endless torrents of information available to them.

We could say the same thing for the average business person. Access to information is not the same as ownership  we own something when we build it ourselves, when we do the work to construct arguments, find supporting and disproving data points, synthesize and elaborate what we've learned.

To illustrate how following a structured process helps our mid build bridges to new ideas, Eco tells a story in the introduction of the 1985 edition of How to Write a Thesis:

Here I would like to recount the most curious thing that happened to me. It regards a section of this book, specifically section 4.2.4 on the topic of Academic Humility. In this section I attempted to show that the best ideas do not always come from major authors, and that no intellectual contribution should be shunned because of the authors status. As an example, I recounted the writing of my own laurea thesis, during which I found a decisive idea that resolved a thorny theoretical problem, in a small book of little originality written in 1887 by a certain abbot Vallet, a book that I found by chance in a market stall. After the book you are reading appeared, Beniamino Placido wrote a charming review in La Repubblica (September 22, 1977). In it he likened this story of my research adventure with the abbot Vallet to the fairy tale in which a character becomes lost in the woods. As happens in fairy tales, and as has been theorized by the Soviet formalist V. Y. Propp, the lost character meets a donor who gives him a magic key. Placidos interpretation of my story was not that bizarre, considering that research is after all an adventure, but Placido implied that, to tell my fairy tale, I had invented the abbot Vallet. When I met Placido, I told him: You are wrong; the abbot Vallet exists, or rather he existed, and I still have his book at home. It has been more than twenty years since I have opened it, but since I have a good visual memory, to this day I remember the page on which I found that idea, and the red exclamation point that I wrote in the margin. Come to my home and I will show you the infamous book of the abbot Vallet. No sooner said than done: we go to my home, we pour our-selves two glasses of whiskey, I climb a small ladder to reach the high shelf where, as I remembered, the fated book had rested for twenty years. I find it, dust it, open it once again with a certain trepidation, look for the equally fated page, which I find with its beautiful exclamation point in the margin. I show the page to Placido, and then I read him the excerpt that had helped me so much. I read it, I read it again, and I am astonished. The abbot Vallet had never formulated the idea that I attributed to him; that is to say he had never made the connection that seemed so brilliant to me, a connection between the theory of judgment and the theory of beauty. Vallet wrote of something else. Stimulated in some mys-terious way by what he was saying, I made that connection myself and, and as I identified the idea with the text I was underlining, I attributed it to Vallet. And for more than twenty years I had been grateful to the old abbot for something he had never given me. I had produced the magic key on my own.

Humility is also admitting that without that inspiration Eco wouldn't have produced the same idea. The opposite also happens  we make an idea we discover ours and forget to attribute it. Ideas resemble jokes, they get better with circulation because they're part of our cultural experience.

The chapter on how to write (pp. 145-184) includes advice on the audience, writing with advice similar to Stephen King's translated in literary terms  as we're not Marcel Proust, nor are we e.e. cummings. He says, we should begin new paragraphs often, write everything that comes into our heads on the first draft only, and not to insist on beginning with the first chapter.

He then outlines ten rules of when an how to quote. At number ten, he says:

Quotes are like testimony in a trial, and you must always be able to track down the witnesses and demonstrate their reliability. For this reason, the reference must be exact and accurate (do not quote from an author without indicating the book and page number), and it must be verifiable.

When we paraphrase we use our own words to say what someone else is saying. Sometimes it's appropriate to add quotes within text we paraphrase. The two are distinct forms of citation. Footnotes also come in handy to reference material and add detail that didn't make it into the main copy. We use links for many of these references online, for example in Wikipedia entries.

Forty years after its original publication, How to Write a Thesis remains a handy guide for writers on how to structure an argument for a new idea and point of view.

We have more things in common than we'd like to believe, our decisions are highly influenced by culture and social circles. The splintering of reality into many apparently separate objects has created the illusion that we each have separate experiences and unique needs. Reason teaches us that we all participate of the same experience.

The humanities offer an opportunity for individuality and that is to work independently to form an opinion, to have a thesis.
the rights of EU citizens living and working in the UK

continuing funding for current beneficiaries of EU programmes

the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

If we cannot resolve these three significant uncertainties at an early stage, we run the risk of failure. Putting things in the right order maximises the chances of reaching an agreement. This means agreeing on the orderly withdrawal of the UK before negotiating any future trade deal.





The sooner we agree on these principles, the more time we will have to discuss our future partnership.

The EU has laid out its negotiating strategy for Brexit. Well, not officially yet, of course - the letter triggering Article 50 won't be delivered until tomorrow, 29th March. But as is its wont, it has made its intentions clear in the press.In an op-ed in the FT , Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, has stated in no uncertain terms how he expects the negotiations to proceed. He identifies three crucial issues that must be resolved before there can be any discussion of future trading arrangements between the EU and UK:The first of these responds to Theresa May's continued refusal to guarantee the rights of EU citizens currently living in the UK. Tellingly, Barnier makes no mention of UK citizens living in the EU. If May won't guarantee EU citizens' rights, he implies, the EU won't protect the thousands of UK pensioners living in Spain, France, Portugal and other sunny South European countries. It will be up to the governments of those countries to decide what happens to them. Nice.The second is code for "we want our money". This is the contentious 60bn Euros the European Commission says the UK must pay when it leaves the EU. According to the FT , the bill is for "unpaid budget commitments, pension liabilities, loan guarantees and spending on UK-based projects". Unsurprisingly, hardline Brexiters object to this: UKIP's Suzanne Evans told a BBC Question Time audience that Britain "should not pay a penny" when it leaves the EU, and prominent Tory Leaver Iain Duncan Smith outlined a UK claim to a share of EU assets that he suggested would be more than enough to eliminate any UK liability.It seems likely that the eventual bill will be significantly less than 60bn Euros, but well above zero. This is something of a problem for Brexiteers, who have already had to row back on their promise of an extra 350m per week for the NHS and are now faced with the likelihood that leaving the EU will actually cost the UK money. I'm not sure how they will explain this to the British people, but they will no doubt find someone to blame. Probably Theresa May.The first two negotiating conditions set by Barnier should come as no surprise. But the third is new. The UK government has so far treated the question of the Northern Ireland border and the Good Friday Agreement as entirely a domestic matter. Barnier, it seems, disagrees. And he has a point. After all, it is the EU's border too, and reneging on the Good Friday Agreement would threaten the security of one of its remaining member states. If the UK can demand control of its borders, so can the EU.Barnier makes it clear that trade is simply not on the table until the EU's priority issues are resolved:Note that although Barnier has specifically cited three issues, he has not limited the conditions to these three alone. The "orderly withdrawal of the UK" can mean whatever the EU wants it to mean.Keeping trade off the table until everything else is agreed puts the UK into the same negotiating position as Greece. Before it can have the debt relief it so desperately needs, Greece must comply with all the conditions set by its creditors. And every time Greece seems to be getting close to meeting conditions for debt relief, the creditors set more conditions, or find reasons to claim conditions have not been met. Similarly, we can expect that every time the UK gets close to agreeing terms that would enable trade negotiations to start, further issues will be raised. This is the Tantalus game - and the EU is an expert player.But why is the EU planning to play the Tantalus game? Well, it is all because of the attitude of the Brexit camp in the UK government. From the start, they have emphasised trade over everything else. They could hardly have made it clearer that for the UK, a new trade agreement is paramount. But the EU has much less need for a new trade agreement than the UK does.The Brexiteers have repeatedly claimed that the EU will be so desperate for a trade deal that it will give the UK special terms amounting to single market benefits without the costs. "Just think about all those German cars!" they cry. But the evidence is that the UK has far more to lose from departure without a trade agreement than the EU does. And the EU's negotiating stance, as laid out in Barnier's op-ed, confirms that view.There are overwhelming political reasons for the EU to be extremely unwilling to cut such a deal anyway. Giving a non-EU state the same access to EU markets as EU member states would strike a mortal blow to the EU political project. The Brexiteers cheerfully assume that for the EU, the economics of Brexit would trump the politics, even though their own Leave campaign was successful precisely because in the UK, politics trumped economics. But events in the last few years have demonstrated beyond any possible doubt that maintaining the EU project will be far more important for the EU negotiators than any amount of economic pain for the member states. Politically, allowing the UK to leave the EU with no trade deal is a much better outcome for the EU than giving the UK trade terms similar to those it enjoys now.By overemphasising trade, discounting political imperatives and overstating the UK's position, the Brexiteers have played right into Barnier's hands. Hello, Tantalus.Unfortunately, the UK cannot afford to play Tantalus.There was no end to his misery: but for the UK, there will be an end, and it is all too soon. Article 50's hard deadline means that the UK is negotiating with a gun to its head. It is more Tosca than Tantalus. Barnier (perhaps we should call him Scarpia?) spells this out:You only have two years, Theresa. If you wish to save the UK from the trade firing squad, just agree to our terms on everything else.But the firing squad might proceed with the execution anyway. Even if the EU could agree the terms of a new trade agreement within two years - which is doubtful, since getting EU member states to agree is like herding cats - enacting it on the UK's exit may be impossible for legal reasons . The EU is hoist by its own Treaties.Article 50 has not even been triggered yet, but the Brexit team has already managed to compromise the UK's negotiating position with its toxic combination of ignorance, arrogance and foolishness. This is a very bad start, Theresa.
CORNWALL, Ontario  Larry Bates, 41, Robert Ladouceur, 42 both of Cornwall as well as Jeffrey Sheltus, 40 of St.Faustin, QC. were arrested on March 24th, 2017.

It is alleged on March 24th, 2017 members of the Cornwall Street Crime Unit executed a drug warrant at a Cooper Street address and located a quantity of marijuana, Canadian currency and Nabilone pills. Charges are as follows:

Larry Bates:

Possession of marijuana

Possession for the purpose of trafficking marijuana

Robert Ladouceur:

Possession of marijuana

Possession for the purpose of trafficking marijuana

Property obtained by crime

Possession of Nabilone

Jeffrey Sheltus:

Possession of marijuana

Possession for the purpose of trafficking marijuana

Property obtained by crime

All were taken into custody, charged accordingly and released to appear in court on May 9th, 2017.
,      :  10     ,    ;     52 
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A study ranked the best and worst states in America to practice medicine in, with the best state to be a doctor is in Iowa and the worst is in New York. Iowa's standing came from high average annual wages for physicians and the cheapest annual malpractice liability insurance. New York, in contrast, has the toughest competition among physicians and is among the states offering the lowest average yearly wage for doctors.

Iowa got a total score of 68.67 percent on the study about the best states to practice medicine in, which came from finance website WalletHub. It was followed by Minnesota (66.40 percent), Idaho (66.31 percent), Wisconsin (65.66 percent) and Kansas (65.15 percent).

The other best states to practice medicine in are South Dakota in the tenth spot with 63.24 percent; Montana at 63.13 percent; Mississippi (62.40 percent); Alabama (61.05 percent) and Tennessee (59.56 percent).

New York only scored 28.49 percent. The states of District of Columbia (33.72 percent), New Jersey (34.48 percent), Maryland (36.45 percent), Rhode Island (36.84 percent) and Massachusetts (37.85 percent) are also considered as the worst places to become a physician in.

By 2024, New York is going to be crowded with physicians that newcomers are going to have a hard time squeezing themselves in. The state offers the most expensive annual malpractice liability insurance. New York has the priciest malpractice award payout amount per capita, too.

Ohio placed at the 39th spot in the best states to practice medicine in the list with its 44.61 percentage. The state is seeing problems in its health systems, specifically in recruiting physicians in specific specialties.

The state admitted that it is experiencing a widespread shortage of physicians that was blamed partially on President Donald Trump's stricter immigration policies. About 25 percent of doctors in the U.S. are foreign-born and recruiting them just got harder now, the Indie Online reported.

The state's rural areas experience the most shortage in primary care physicians. Iowa is also having trouble recruiting doctors specializing in the neurosciences, geriatrics and behavioral health.

The discrepancies are being taken over by nurses and physician assistants, while rural areas are satisfying themselves with specialists' care administered via telemedicine or telecommunications technology. Ohio is competing with other states for primary care physicians, who require less money than specialists.

They are also offering financial incentives to students so they will be convinced to practice their craft in the state's central part and rural areas after they graduate instead of moving to other places.

See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare
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Bowel cancer symptoms and signs can be confused with those of other illnesses in younger people. But a team of physicians in the United Kingdom have created a risk assessment tool that can catch the disease at an earlier stage to improve a patient's chances of survival.

Bowel cancer is a leading killer in both the UK and the United States among different kinds of cancer, especially in people younger than 50 years of age. Patients in the study in the UK usually did not display any bowel cancer symptoms and signs but they consulted their doctors for related "red flag" symptoms, reported the BBC.

The most common bowel cancer symptoms and signs include abdominal pain, diarrhea, rectal bleeding and a change in bowel habits. These red flag symptoms were the chief complaints of the patients leading up to the diagnosis of the disease. This highlights the fact that there could have been openings where the doctors could have identified the disease earlier.

To help in the early detection of bowel cancer and related diseases, the Charity Bowel Center UK, the University of Exeter, Durham University and the University Hospital of North Tees have developed a risk assessment tool. The tool analyzes the risk of the patient's symptoms which will allow their personal physician to request more tests or refer them to a specialist or schedule them for further testing, the Express reported.

Deborah Alsina of Bowel Cancer UK believes that delayed diagnosis is very common in younger people. Since the some of the symptoms displayed are not caused by cancer, they are often ignored or diagnosed as a symptom of a different disease. This delayed action often means that treatment options are limited and survival chances will dip.

While the researchers believe the risk assessment tool will help in the diagnosis, it will not take the place of sound clinical judgement by the physician. The tool though will arm them with enough information to base their decisions.

See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare
A gloomy, wet Saturday didnt dampen the spirits of members of the Turner Brigade who held their annual living history event at the Battle of Pilot Knob State Historic Site in Pilot Knob.

Although some members chose to sit this one out, brigade member Duncan Noack said, We have enough that we can at least service the units and drill.

The day began with muster and spring drill  spring was traditionally the time when military units would reorganize after a long winter to prepare themselves for battle campaigns through the summer and fall.

With the infantry we covered a little bit of skirmish drill, said Noack. Weve done School of the Soldier, Evolutions of Line and all the formational movements.

Part of the day was spent relaxing and catching up with friends around a campfire or under tents. Two young brigade members were seen enjoying a game of checkers on an old-fashioned game board, while nearby, adult members sat around laughing, smoking and drinking coffee brewed over an open fire.

Planned for the afternoon, Second Sgt. Aaron Gamble said they were likely to perform knapsack inspections.

We form up the company in all of our kit, said Gamble, who lives in Potosi, and theres a whole formal (process) that goes with it  then the captain gives a command to unsling knapsacks. We unsling our knapsacks and hold them out to show we all have one. Then (we) drop (the) knapsacks and set em down (and wait for the order to) open knapsacks.

So we have to open them, flip em over, open all the inside bags so the captain and first sergeant can inspect and make sure were not holding any contraband, such as liquor or stolen merchandise, and also to make sure we have everything that we were issued or that we were supposed to be issued but we dont have a report that it was. He makes a note of anything that needs to be fixed or replaced. Like if someone has a bullet hole through his hat, then they put it on the replacement list.

Gamble explained that knapsack inspections were typically done once a week by the Union Army during the Civil War.

Made up of infantry, artillery, cavalry, engineer and civilian units, the Turner Brigade is the largest Union reenacting group in eastern Missouri. A family-oriented group, its grown to more than 150 adult members in recent years. While most Turner Brigade re-enactors are from Missouri, the brigade has members from as far away as the state of California.

The event was made possible by Missouri State Parks, the Friends of Fort Davidson and the Turner Brigade. The Battle of Pilot Knob State Historic Site, formerly Fort Davidson State Historic Site, is located at the junction of Highways 21 and 221 in Pilot Knob.
Cloud News

Red Hat Intros New Channel Program Tailored For App Delivery Partners

Joseph Tsidulko

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Red Hat introduced a "partner program within a partner program" on Monday to better support a subset of its partners leveraging its application delivery portfolio to build custom solutions for enterprises undergoing digital transformations.

The Red Hat Application Platform Partner Program seeks to put partners with practices that leverage Red Hat's application delivery products on more solid footing. That business is still emerging, and much smaller than the Raleigh, N.C.-based vendor's core infrastructure business, but it's growing 40 percent year-over-year, John Bleuer, Red Hat's vice president of global ISVs, told CRN on the first day of the software vendor's North America partner conference in Las Vegas.

Partners on the "dev" side of DevOps, in rearchitecting enterprise applications for cloud-native environments, face different challenges from infrastructure resellers, and they require unique vendor support. While three-quarters of Red Hat's business historically goes through its channel, that segment has been underdeveloped, Bleuer told CRN.

[Related: Q&A: Red Hat's Jim Whitehurst Maps The Road To $5 Billion]

The new Application Platform program, embedded in Red Hat's larger channel structure, encompasses JBoss middleware, the OpenShift Platform-as-a-Service, Mobile Application Platform and the 3scale API management platform acquired last summer.

Red Hat's channel leaders plan to grow the program initially to a group of 10 to 20 "first-mover" partners, Bleuer said, many of whom worked with Red Hat over the last nine months to design the contours of the new program.

Enterprises focusing on digital transformation are increasingly turning to open source products, Bleuer said, and the number of solution providers, from global systems integrators to smaller regional players, leveraging Red Hat products to address the full solution lifecycle is growing.

Partners delivering those kinds of solutions have a far higher ratio of services revenue  typically upwards of 70 percent. The program will implement 'influence revenue' by which partners not directly reselling Red Hat's ongoing subscription services can see more earnings.

The program also adds more tiers than the traditional program, with a greater focus on enablement.

Joe Dickman, senior vice president of Vizuri, a Red Hat consultancy based in Virginia, said encouraging the Application Platform program was a priority of the Red Hat partner advisory council on which he sits. It will be a boon for a subset of highly skilled Red Hat partners that deliver solutions built on the back of emerging products, like OpenShift, that constitute the vendor's largest growth area.

"This program is the culmination of many years of efforts. It's something Red Hat for several years was moving to correct," Dickman said. Red Hat's standard program aligns with the purchasing relationship partners have with customers. That works well with infrastructure products like Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but those in the channel making the deal aren't always the best to do application implementations, he said. The new program recognizes that IT consultancies, like Vizuri, that specialize in high-end services sometimes might not be selected as a reseller. Those partners will now be compensated on the back end, rewarding their investments to sell Red Hat products in the course of their implementation engagements, even when the customer prefers to close the deal through their normal channel. "It's been long overdue, but this version of the program was well crafted," Dickman told CRN.

Paul Hinz, Red Hat's senior director of product marketing, told CRN the traditional program is opportunistic, but app development partners need a more prescriptive model.

Through the new program, Red Hat will define specific use cases, offer training in the technology and how to bring it to market.

"We picked some very good partners that we're best friends with," Hinz said. "We're not dating; we're married to them. These are long-term, large-scale revenue opportunities."

The program was unveiled to partners the same day Red Hat announced fourth-quarter revenue of $629 million, with $125 million of that generated by the application development portfolio.
ARM's DynamIQ Move

ARM on Tuesday unveiled a new DynamIQ chip design, which the company said will target artificial intelligence and machine learning applications for its Cortex-A processors.

According to ARM, 50 billion chips were shipped by its partners between 2013 and 2017, and the company expects its partners to ship the next 100 billion by 2021.

"These numbers further reinforce that ARM is the industrys architecture of choice today," said Nandan Nayampally, vice president of marketing and strategy at ARM, in a statement. "Naturally we see it as our responsibility to address the industry demand for ubiquitous AI, autonomous systems and accelerating the integration of virtual worlds toward a mixed reality experience."

Here's everything partners need to know about ARM's newest chip design.
St. Francois County 911 Communications Director Alan Wells started off the regular meeting of the Leadwood Board of Alderpersons Monday night with an update on the countys plans for expanding the 911 dispatch center.

He reminded everyone present that the original 2,200 square feet 911 center was built in 1992 in Park Hills and opened in May of 1993. Since that time, the county's population has grown significantly and the building has been outpaced by current technology. Wells said once the new addition is completed, tentatively scheduled for November, it will be the new home for the 911 center, while renovation of the existing facility  phase two, which is expected to be completed by next March  will be used as the Emergency Operating Center.

Wells described numerous planned features of the new 911 system and communications center, including updated technology, training for staff and the building itself, showing the board the architectural drawings he brought along with him.

Wells said its costing about $250,000 just to upgrade the communications infrastructure, but with the new system, communications with first responders will be much improved and will better equip them to deal with the multitude of calls received every day.

We average about 320 to 330 911 calls per day, he said, so thats a lot of calls to keep up with and track and monitor  The 911 system is so crucial because this is what your citizens are paying for  The 911 system itself was antiquated, so it is a crucial component that we must improve on and upgrade. Its very expensive but we also must meet the needs of our citizens for the future.

He said the original 911 system was based on a landline system, but now that the world has gone wireless, its vital to stay up-to-date with modern technology.

Wells said the new facility is expected to meet the needs of the community for the next 25 to 30 years.

Moving forward with the agenda, Mayor Dennis Parks reported that he expects to have a detailed update on the ongoing water and sewer system project by the next meeting. He also briefly mentioned the upcoming election on April 4 and that all of the candidates up for election are running unopposed.

Next, the board voted in favor of applying for a Sams Club card to purchase basic cleaning and other supplies; to set the date for a citywide yard sale on May 6; and to approve two business license applications.

Moving on to the street department, Alderman John Vickers wanted to clarify that the citywide cleanup day is only for bulk items that do not fit into trash cans and it is not for regular trash. The date for the cleanup will be set at the next regular public meeting.

In police department business, the board voted in favor of having the police chief research the cost of adding police department lettering and insignia to the citys police truck, which has remained unmarked since it was purchased early last year.

Board members also discussed the purchase of Office of State Court Administrator (OSCA)-compliant software for the citys municipal court computer system. The current system is out-of-date, as is the computer, and is not in compliance with state guidelines. Parks noted that the issue first needs to be discussed with the municipal judge and that the purchase of such software has not been budgeted so it cannot be purchased this budget year. The board voted to table any decision until a meeting with the judge can be scheduled. A work session will then be scheduled to work out the details in order to appropriately plan for the next budget.

In parks department business, the board voted to waive the fee for Our American Hero Foundation to use the city park for a fundraising event on July 15. Parks then announced the dates for several upcoming events, including the annual Easter Egg Hunt on April 15, the Christmas Angels Side-by-Side Poker Run on April 29, the Fall Festival Sept. 15-17 and the Blue Grass Festival on Oct. 7.

Alderman Charlie Lewis then announced that two park benches built by Director of Public Works Kevin Brooks have been added to the city park and that city employees have heard positive comments from residents. The addition of several more benches is planned.

Eventually there will be 11 benches total, said Alderman David Henry. And its costing the city less than $700.

Brooks also announced that Sarah Moyers family donated the cost of one of the park benches and planted a Thundercloud Red Leaf Plum tree in the park in memory of Greg and Sarah Moyers, who were killed in an automobile accident last September.

The next regular meeting was scheduled for May 2 at 6 p.m. at the Leadwood fire house.
A high school junior is suing his Boyertown, Pa., school district after administrators told him he could either tolerate having a biological female share his locker room or withdraw and be homeschooled.



The lawsuit filed March 21 in federal court calls on the district to rescind its secretly implemented policy granting transgender students access to the private facilities of their choice.



Without notifying parents or students, administrators at Boyertown Area School District initiated the policy midway through last semester. The complainant, cited as Joel Doe in court documents, knew nothing about the plan when he began changing clothes for PE class in October. Undressed to his underwear, Doe realized a female studentwearing only shorts and a brawas in the locker room with him.



Humiliated and embarrassed, he and several other classmates notified Assistant Principal Wayne Foley after class, according to the lawsuit. Foley allegedly told the male students to tolerate the situation and make changing in front of a female as natural as possible.



There is a level of egregious, callous disregard for the students, said Randy Wenger, the Alliance Defending Freedom-affiliated attorney representing the unidentified male student and his parents.



Does parents, listed as John and Jane Doe, filed the lawsuit on behalf of their minor child. Foley, Principal Brett Cooper, and Superintendent Richard Faidley are co-defendants in the case. The district has until April 4 to respond.



We are committed and confident that working together we can reach a satisfactory resolution that is consistent with our mission to enable all students to succeed in a changing world, Faidley said in a press release issued today.



Faidley reasserted the districts commitment to the transgender policy, which he claims complies with the law of the land, and said the district is seeking guidance from the State Department of Education, the administration, and school board.



In another recent Pennsylvania case, three male students who identify as female sued a school district for access to the girls restrooms. The judge ordered the district to allow open access to school restrooms while the lawsuit proceeds.



Wenger said that case is still pending, not precedent-setting, and not applicable to Boyertown, which involves locker rooms, not restrooms.



The Boyertown plaintiffs asked administrators to rescind their policy because it violated their sons privacy and Pennsylvania state law requiring sex-segregated facilities on all school campuses. According to the lawsuit, Cooper said he would not do anything because Joel Doe can simply change in the nurses office from now on if he does not want to change around people of the opposite sex.



Wenger did not know whether the transgender student had been offered the same accommodation in order to avoid any conflict associated with using the boys locker room. But transgender advocates have refused similar suggestions in other cases, calling them discriminatory and a violation of the transgender students rights.



Following the locker room incident, Doe avoided using the boys restrooms all day for fear of encountering the female student. He also took a failing grade in PE class for each day he refused to dress out. Changing clothes in the nurses office did not remedy the situation because he still had to enter the boys locker room to store his clothes.



Now he and the other boys are left without a boys room, Wenger said.



Following multiple meetings with district officials, the Doe family was told that the school was no longer going to discuss this issue with them or any parents, according to the lawsuit. And Faidley allegedly told the parents that if using the nurses bathroom was not acceptable to their son, he could just withdraw from school and be homeschooled.



And that, Wenger claims, is a violation of Title IX. Typically used to defend womens educational pursuits in publicly funded schools, the federal statute also protects teenage boys pushed from their designated sex-specific private spaces by a policy accommodating a student of the opposite sex. Last year, the Obama administration directed schools to interpret protections in Title IX to include gender identity. The Trump administration rescinded that directive last month.



Even without federal support, Wenger said local school districts continue to do the wrong thing by forcing students into untenable situations that push moral and social boundaries surrounding intimacy and personal privacy.



The adults are putting these kids in a place where standing up to this is awkward, he said, noting his client and the lawsuit are the talk of the school. Its hard enough to do school. Who wants to be that person everybody is talking about?

Courtesy: WORLD News Service

Photo courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com

Publication date: March 27, 2017
In commemoration of National Crime Victim Rights Week, April 2-8, the Farmington Correctional Center will host a special event to raise awareness about crime victims issues and the resources and services available.

A special ceremony will be held at 1 p.m. on April 6, in front of the administration building, featuring Sandy Self and Jacquie Castaneda, community organizers for SEMO Rescue and Restore Coalition. Self and Castaneda will speak on human trafficking, which is a growing problem in the area.

SEMO Rescue and Restore Coalition is a group of organizations and community members who provide education, public awareness and direct awareness to increase identification of trafficking victims in Missouri.

The ceremony will also feature the presentation of colors by the Farmington Correctional Center Honor Guard, and the presentation of money collected items from Employees and Restorative to several charities.

The office for Victims of Crime (OVC) of the U.S. Department of Justice leads communities throughout the country in their annual observance of National Crime Victims Rights Week by promoting victims rights an honoring crime victims and those who advocate on their behalf. This years theme  Strength, Resillience, Justice  emphasizes the importance of multidisciplinary responses and building the capacity of individuals, service providers and communities to respond to crime and support the ongoing healing of victims and survivors.

The theme also supports OVCs Vision 21 initiative to encourage research, address emerging issues and behalf the capacity of victims service organizations by increasing the use of technology and training.

For additional ideas on how to support victims of crime, visit the Office of Crime website at www.ovc.gov. or Tami Whit, Coordinator and Deputy Warden 573-518-7100, ext. 206.
Drew Angerer / Getty Images

After years of headcount gains, FactSet reported a slight contraction of its workforce in the first three months of 2017 following the sale of a business unit last year.

FactSet provides market feeds and analysis to financial advisors and traders, with the Norwalk-based company entering March with a workforce of 8,600 people, down by more than 100 from three months earlier. In its second fiscal quarter ending Feb. 28, FactSet earned $66.7 million, down 2 percent from a year ago, as revenues increased 4 percent to $294 million.
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A move by President Donald Trump on Tuesday to scrap federal rules that improve air quality and combat climate change drew swift opposition in Connecticut and threats of lawsuits to reverse the new course.

[Its] a dangerous detour from the progress our nation has made to protect the quality of the air we breathe and the health of the American public, said Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. The presidents latest executive order signifies a lack of leadership from Washington.

The order signed by Trump directs the federal Environmental Protection Agency to dismantle former President Barrack Obamas signature Clean Power Plan, which placed strict emission standards on power plants and factories that burn fossil fuels.

The standards helped convince the owners of a waterfront coal burning power plant in Bridgeport to switch to natural gas. The plant has long been blamed for health problems in the surrounding neighborhood.

Pollution from coal plants and factories in the Midwest routinely waft over Connecticut, causing summertime bad air days and warnings that vulnerable residents should stay inside. State officials have sued those states over slack enforcement of anti-pollution regulations and embraced Obamas Clean Power Plan as a victory in that battle.

The Clean Power Plan was one of the most important steps forward the federal government has made to address climate change and promote clean air in our nations history, said Louis Burch, program director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment.

Environmentalists cautioned Trumps executive order is only a first step in a lengthy process required to unravel the Clean Power Plan.

Its important to understand that Trumps action is symbolic and there is a long process involved to change a rule, said Claire Coleman, a climate and energy attorney for the Connecticut Fund for the Environment.

But Trump is sending a signal that profits matter more than health and we intend to fight that, Coleman said, adding opponents will likely file lawsuits to stop the Trump administration plan.

Jobs and air

Trump heavily criticized the Clean Power Plan during the presidential campaign, blaming it for killing coal mining jobs and other industries. He has declined to say that human activity  the burning of fossil fuels  is causing global climate change, despite scientists across the world who endorse that conclusion.

The president signed the executive order at the EPA while surrounded by coal miners.

With this executive action, I am taking steps to cancel job killing regulations, Trump said, while also pledging to maintain clean air and water.

The miners told me about the attacks on their jobs and efforts to shut down their mines, the president continued. I made them this promise: we will put our miners back to work. Today, Im taking bold action to follow through on that promise.

Trump said his order eliminates government overreach and allows our companies to thrive and succeed on a level playing field. We are ending the theft of prosperity.

Earlier in his term, Trump signed an executive order to dismantle Obama-era clean water rules adopted by EPA to prevent small waterways from sending pollution to larger bodies such as Long Island Sound.

The Clean Power Plan has been tied up in federal court for more than a year over challenges from opponents. The U.S. Supreme Court stayed the rule until those disputes are settled.

Opponents  including former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who now heads the EPA  claim the emission standards are too strict, kill jobs and exceed EPAs authority.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn, said Trumps move erodes commonsense rules that protect all citizens.

The Trump Administrations decision to undo the Clean Power Plan flies in the face of reality, threatens our safety and signals an utter disregard for the future of our planet, Blumenthal said.

Wrong time

Robert Klee, commissioner of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said now is the worse time to turn away from preventing climate change.

It is hard to pick a more inauspicious moment to beat a retreat, Klee said. When temperatures on our planet have now surpassed the previous record high three years in a row and weather patterns of severe storms and drought are more erratic than ever.

Klee noted Connecticut residents have been living for months in unprecedented drought conditions.

As a coastal state and a state with watersheds along several major rivers, the impacts of climate change are real and can be severe, Klee said, adding the state will continue its efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

Connecticut has already pledged to reduce emissions from all sectors to 80 percent below 2001 levels by 2050.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn, said Trump will be judged for his environmental stance.

This executive order aims to unravel years of progress weve made to curb pollution, protect our air and water and speed-up the adoption of clean energy technologies around the world, Murphy said. Future generations will judge President Trump for this attack on our health and our safety.

Chris Phelps, director of Environment Connecticut, said the only way to solve the climate crisis is to replace dirty power plants with solar and wind power and increased energy efficiency.

Thats exactly what the Clean Power Plan will help accomplish, Phelps said.The Clean Power Plan would slash that pollution by a full third by 2030. Along the way, the plan will also help reduce smog and soot pollution, resulting in fewer asthma attacks, fewer premature deaths and a more stable and habitable climate.
BRIDGEPORT - Fabian Fab Francis was back behind bars Tuesday.

The 20-year-old member of the Greene Home Boyz managed to dodge a murder conviction last year despite video that appeared to show him shooting a rival gang member. And Francis narrowly escaped two following attempts on his own life.

Then, caught with a gun in October behind the North End library  allegedly waiting to shoot someone else  he went on the lam after pleading guilty to gun charges and posting more than $300,000 in bonds. At one point, police said, he led them on a chase through the citys East Side.

But his nemesis, Police Sgt. Jason Amato of the departments gang task force, nabbed the Fab last week. In the meantime, police said, Francis had picked up two new cases, an armed robbery and another gun charge.

On Friday, he was sentenced in Superior Court to two years in prison in the October case. And on Tuesday he was back before another judge for arraignment on the new charges.

Standing before Judge Robert Devlin, his hair completely covering his face, the 5-foot-tall Francis pleaded not guilty to first-degree robbery, conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery, risk of injury to a minor, second-degree larceny, illegal possession of a weapon and violating the condition of his prior release on bond.

He requested a jury trial. Devlin continued the case to April 17 and Francis, who is now held in lieu of nearly $500,000 in bonds, was led away by judicial marshals.

Police said in January a local man complained he had been robbed at gunpoint by two men of $2,000 in cash, a Michael Korrs watch and a gold chain.Detectives subsequently viewed a photograph on Snapchat of Francis holding a large handful of cash fanned out, police said. They said the victim identified the photograph as one of the men who robbed him.

Police continued that on March 8, police pulled over a Kia sedan on reservoir Avenue that had been reported stolen. Francis was driving the car and there was a juvenile male in the passenger seat, police said. Inside the car, officers said, they found a loaded handgun.
A 53-year-old Bridgeport man, has been sentenced to 72 months in federal prison for possessing a stolen gun and silencer.

According to court documents and statements made in court, Roberto Vasquez held the gun and silencer to a womans head while he was raping her.

On Monday, Chief U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall in New Haven handed down the jail sentenced and three years of supervised release.

Federal prosecutors said Vasquez offered an 18-year-old woman, who had just left an abusive relationship, to move in with him.

After a few weeks, Vasquez became physically and sexually abusive toward the womanm  the U.S. Attorneys office said in a statemnet. The victim subsequently left Vasquez without taking her belongings.Vasquez then lured her back into his apartment. Once inside, Vasquez barricaded the door and closed the windows. He then choked and punched the victim, placed a sock in her mouth and raped her while holding a gun and silencer to her head.

On March 5, 2014, the victim reported the abuse to a Connecticut probation officer and stated that Vasquez kept a gun in a hutch in the dining room of the apartment, and a silencer in a closet.

Later that day, a Bridgeport police officer retrieved a loaded .22 caliber semiautomatic pistol from the hutch in Vasquezs apartment. On March 17, 2014, a search of the apartment revealed a .22 caliber silencer. Both the pistol and silencer had been reported stolen. Vasquez was then arrested.

Forensic analysis of Vasquezs cellphone revealed a recording of the rape and other recordings that confirmed Vasquezs abuse of the victim.

On May 3, 2016, he pleaded guilty to one count of possession of a stolen firearm and one count of possession of a stolen silencer. He also pleaded guilty in state court to unlawful restraint.
We face a decision with enormous consequences for everyone who pays an electric bill in Connecticut  whether to spend billions of dollars on a fracked gas pipeline or to continue our great progress in reducing our reliance on dirty fossil fuel through energy efficiency and clean technologies.

A new report by a highly respected research firm, Synapse Energy Economics, completely disproves the arguments that big utilities make to justify these pipelines.

The report, sponsored by the Connecticut Sierra Club, finds that building the pipelines will cost more than twice what the utilities claim  $6.6 billion versus $3.2 billion. And it finds that use of natural gas will decrease by 27 percent by 2023, compared to 2015, leaving us footing a bill for pipelines that we wont even need.

The utility companies cleverly only included the projected construction cost in their claims  $3.2 billion. But anyone who builds a new home knows that the construction costs are just the start. There are the inevitable cost overruns, maintenance and many other factors that make up the true cost. The secret $6.6 billion cost estimate isnt just some random guess  it comes from testimony from an expert witness for Eversource, one of the primary investors of the pipeline.

Here in Connecticut, we will be forced to pay at least $85 million more on our electric bills to cover the pipeline costs, and if other states dont join in to cover the cost, we could be saddled with as much as another $1.9 billion.

Consumers in Connecticut will cover the pipeline costs directly through our electric bills. We will pay for the construction and overruns through this highly unusual funding mechanism, not Eversource or its shareholders.

This pipeline tax was ruled unconstitutional by the Massachusetts Supreme Court and overruled by regulators in New Hampshire, but here in Connecticut, we are still paying this tax unless something is done.

What happens once the pipelines are built? According to the Synapse report, they will sit underused as we keep paying for them.

One of the great success stories in New England that gets little attention is that we are making extraordinary progress in shifting to clean energy thanks to increased energy efficiency, solar, wind and carbon dioxide emission caps. Connecticut was recently rated fifth in the country for its use of energy efficiency and ranks ninth for its installed solar power.

That means our dangerous reliance on natural gas will shrink, not only by 27 percent seven years from now compared to 2015, but a dramatic 41 percent by 2030. So we dont need these pipelines that will sit as symbols of the past if built.

Given that these pipelines dont make any sense at any level, why are the big utilities fighting for them?

Because like any company, they are driven by profit, and they stand to make a great deal. For any investment they make, they are granted an automatic return of five to fifteen percent. Who wouldnt like that deal  you take someone elses money and invest it with an automatic return. So they have every incentive to build the pipelines and no reason not to.

How can we stop this? One way is to stop the pipeline tax as other New England states have done. Connecticut Sierra Club supports House Bill 6546 that would do away with the pipeline tax. If these pipelines are such a good idea, let the utilities pay for them.

Lets look to the future and let Connecticut continue to be a leader in the fight against global warming. New technologies are working and are saving our state money right now. Lets invest in those, not the technology of a generation ago.

Martha Klein is chair of the Connecticut Sierra Club.
Milford Police Department

MILFORD - A 27 year-old Westerly, R.I. man has been arrested in the robbery of the the Chase Bank on Boston Post Road last December.

Police said they gathered evidence at the scene of the Dec. 2, 2016 robbery that led them to identify Ryan OFarrell as the suspect.
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The British Pound to Australian Dollar exchange rate traded near its weekly lows on Wednesday afternoon. As risk-sentiment improved, the Australian Dollar strengthened and was able to hold against a highly volatile Pound.Analysts predict Sterling movement will cool later in the week, as the first major developments in Brexit negotiations are unlikely to be made until May or June. This could see GBP/AUD recovering from lows if UK data impresses.[Previously updated 28/03/2017]The Pound Australian Dollar exchange rate struck a six-week high this morning as the UK government was rumoured to backing off its threat to leave the EU without a deal.The Pound Australian Dollar (GBP AUD) exchange rate rose this morning as a number of European diplomats have said that the UK government its backing down from earlier claims that it would be willing to leave the EU without a deal if negotiations broke down.The rumour is a significant U-turn from Prime Minister Theresa Mays pervious claim that no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal, with the government suggesting at the time that it would fall back on World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements if it could not come to an acceptable deal with the EU.Such a possibility drew concerns from investors as WTO rules would likely lead to higher tariffs for businesses, while also introducing a host of red tape that British firms would be forced to navigate.One EU Diplomat is reported to have said;They have realised that no deal is better than a bad deal wont fly. They are worried about people in this country who have an ideological and political intention of creating chaos. The civil service have told them it would create havoc.The news was welcomed by GBP investors as they hope that the government will be willing to bend a little more in negotiations, leading to a more harmonious split from the EU.The Australian Dollar was weakened overnight on Tuesday as it continued to be pressured by a decline commodity prices, with a fall in iron ore in particular weighing heavily on the Aussie.The spot price for benchmark 62% fines had tumbled 4.1% to $80.57 a tonne at the start of the session this morning according to Metal Bulletin.Prices for Australias largest export have now plummeted over 14% from a high of $94.86 a tonne that it struck on February 21st, almost completed eroding the commodities gains since the start of the year.The fall follows further weakness in Chinese steel prices, the price of which is tied closely to demand for the raw iron ore required to produce it.Metal Bulletin said;Chinas spot rebar prices fell on Monday after a sharp drop in the billet market over the weekend.Analysts predict that prices will continue to crumble as the week goes on as the weak demand coincides with high inventory levels at Chinese ports.The GBP AUD exchange rate may cede ground on Wednesday as the UK government finally begin the process to split from the EU, with Prime Minister Theresa May expected to send a letter to EU leaders triggering Article 50.Meanwhile AUD investors are likely to look closely at Australias New Home Sales figures on Thursday as the Reserve Bank of Australia previously suggested that housing remains a key economic issue for policymakers against tightening monetary policy.At the time of writing the GBP AUD exchange rate was trending around 1.65 and the AUD GBP exchange rate was trending around 0.60.

International Money Transfer? Ask our resident FX expert a money transfer question or try John's new, free, no-obligation personal service! ,where he helps every step of the way, ensuring you get the best exchange rates on your currency requirements.

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Kerrville, TX (78028)

Today

Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 63F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 63F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.
He has been cited by Rush Limbaugh, quoted in the New York Times, featured at Real Clear Politics and Lucianne.com and interviewed on radio, TV and in social media.





Inducted into the Philadelphia Public Relations Hall of Fame, for many years he served as a Lecturer in Corporate Communication at Penn State University. A former President of the Philadelphia Public Relations Association (PPRA) he has lectured at Rowan University, Temple University, The College of New Jersey and Arcadia University. He has conducted workshops on public relations for thousands of participants throughout the nation and has taught countless others the art of public speaking. He has also advised numerous lawyers, judges, public officials and political candidates.





Cirucci is a prolific writer and his op-ed pieces have appeared in the Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Courier-Post and other publications.



A native of Camden NJ, Cirucci is a former President of the Philadelphia chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators. Cirucci served as Associate Executive Director of the Philadelphia Bar Association for nearly 30 years. He served as Chair of Penn State University's Professional Advisory Board for the Corporate Communication major at Penn State Abington and on the Pennsylvania Bar Association's Judicial Selection Commission.



He received his MA degree from Rowan University and his BA from Villanova University. He has been named a Distinguished Alumnus of Rowan's public relations program and received the E. A. "Wally" Richter Leadership Award, the highest honor from the National Association of Bar Executives' Communications Section. He has also been honored by numerous other local, state and national groups.









Cirucci's passions include politics, the popular culture, books and authors, art, communication, music, theatre, movies, dining and travel. In his hometown of Camden, Cirucci taught fifth grade at the Ulysses Wiggins Elementary School named for the founder of the Camden NAACP. There he was one of the first teachers in the country to teach African-American history to inner city students. He later served as editor of a local weekly newspaper, as Assistant to the Township Manager of Cherry Hill Township and as Associate Director of Communications at the New Jersey State Bar Association.

He's Dan Cirucci, the founder and editor-in chief of the Dan Cirucci Blog, Matt Rooney's sidekick on Save Jersey's videocasts and one of the most widely honored public relations professionals in his field. He's also been a public relations consultant to numerous organizations and individuals and hosted The Advocates on RVN-TV.
What to do in Pennsylvania if you made an error on your mail-in ballot

The state Supreme Court recently ruled that undated or incorrectly dated mail ballots cannot be counted. Here's what voters can do about an error.
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Student government candidates answer audience questions at the 2017 SGA Candidate Forum. The candidates described their reasons for running for office and what they would like to change at the University of Memphis.

Hues of blue, gray and white covered a panel of six students promoting their parties and vying for student government leader positions. The forum took place in the University Center Theater Monday.

Three parties are in the running for student government: Elevate, More and the United Party of the People (UP).

Ashton Toone, a junior communications major with a minor in broadcast journalism, is running for president with the Elevate party, who plan to push for campus revitalization, to emphasize engagement to include all university students and to hold administrators and student leaders accountable to elevate the student experience.

Im running as SGA president because I believe that I am capable of leading SGA to reaching its maximum potential as a governing body that truly serves the students, Toone said. I want to empower students to know that they can make a change on campus and that we will fight for them.

Drew Gilmore, a junior finance and accounting major is running for president with the More party, which focuses on tuition costs, more school spirit, more inclusion and more civic responsibility.

We want to put together a committee that works with the Office of Multicultural Affairs to get students to feel included on campus, creating more traditions that get students excited to be a student and partnering with SAC and Blue Crew to have events that engage students, Gilmore said.

Blake Stayton, a junior double-majoring in political science and African American studies, is running for president with the UP party, whose platform is designed to help first generation and low income students excel during the first time at the university and plans to contain costs and tuition, improve health services and promote sexual assault awareness.

With health services, I want to bring five-day STD testing to the university because it will ensure that the student body is staying safe, Stayton said. I also want to advocate for low-income women to receive birth control, and I want to make a safer environment for students by lighting up the campus at night.

For opening statements, presidential candidates introduced themselves and informed the audience about their plans and party platform.

Next, the candidates were given two minutes to answer the election commissioners questions, which focused on the candidates integrity, plans for campus and the student issues they will present to the new Board of Trustees.

For the last segment, candidates answered the audiences questions, which focused on the candidates previous responses to certain questions and their opinions on certain topics.

Each candidate was asked about their experience with diverse initiatives, opinions on the current bill that will dismantle freshman senate and the qualities they looked for during the selection of their partys senators.

The vice president candidates were presented during the second half of the event.

Mitchell King, a junior accounting major, is running for vice president with the Elevate party, Kevyanna Rawls, an English and African American studies sophomore major, is running with the More party and Allison Nguyen, a sophomore biology major, is running with the UP party.

The vice president candidates were asked about the qualities and experiences that qualify them to be vice president, their personal and leadership values and their plans to improve the most important student priorities.

Next, each candidate received questions on how they effectively led other people, their ideas for single mothers and first generation students and the quality they admire about their running mates.

All U of M students are eligible to vote for candidates on Tiger Zone. Voting will open on Tuesday at 8 a.m. and will close at noon on Thursday.

Student government candidates answer audience questions at the 2017 SGA Candidate Forum. The candidates described their reasons for running for office and what they would like to change at the University of Memphis.
Vladimir Putins hold on Russia loosened a little this weekend when tens of thousands of people took to the streets in dozens of demonstrations across this vast country.

Hundreds were arrested amid a brutal police crackdown, prompting public outrage and international outcry.

The EU joined the U.S. yesterday in condemning the mass arrests as unacceptable and accused Putins government of denying its people basic freedom of expression.

Russian police officers were filmed getting violent with civilians during anti-corruption protests over Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday

Russian officials responded by claiming many protesters had been paid to take part in the protests as an act of deliberate provocation.

Optimists hope the protests might be the first tremor in an earthquake that will shake the tyrant from his perch.

Regime

Grounds for anger in the country are all too evident. Russia is still astonishingly ill-run and grotesquely corrupt. Only a gilded elite of Kremlin cronies reaps the real benefits of the trillion-pound windfall from gas and oil that has occurred under Putins reign.

Mineral wealth and a highly educated population should make Russia a rich country. Instead, it is stagnating. Most of its people endure a clapped-out infrastructure and poor public services, while Putins regime has utterly failed to diversify the economy away from natural resources.

The all-pervasive corruption throttles the small businesses that should be the bedrock of real prosperity. Russias most important currency is not the rouble, but political favours.

While most Russians live in fear of the arbitrary and often brutal police and courts, the elites looting binge goes unchecked.

The weekends protests were galvanised by a new documentary by the anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny  now jailed for his role in organising them  which laid bare the revoltingly privileged lifestyles of Russias ruling class. The film  downloaded 12 million times from the internet  used drone footage to highlight a sumptuous 340 million summer palace, complete with duck house, marina, ski slope, three helipads and a giant outdoor chess set, belonging to prime minister Dmitri Medvedev.

That 200-acre compound was just one of his many residences, the film claimed, adding that he had accepted up to 1 billion in bribes.

The PMs spokeswoman has dismissed the allegations, but few Russians believe this. They see that there is one law for those who run the country, another for everyone else.

Many of those who turned out this weekend were teenagers  who have known no other ruler than Putin

The films success is an encouraging sign that the largely uncensored internet has breached the Kremlins control of broadcast media. Another hopeful development is that many of those who turned out this weekend were teenagers  who have known no other ruler than Putin.

Moreover, the protests rippled outside the big cities of Moscow and St Petersburg. The regimes bombastic propaganda has clearly failed to convince all Russians that they are living in paradise.

Now, however, the police have cracked down hard on protesters. One of them was arrested merely for putting a tiny sign on his bike addressed to the countrys elite: Sell your villas, build roads.

Exact figures were unclear, but a human rights group yesterday said 1,030 people had been arrested in Moscow.

Mr Navlany was fined 280 and sentenced to 15 days in prison. Following the protests, police raided his office, where they seized computers and scoured through documents.

Writing on Twitter before his court appearance yesterday, however, he said: The time will come when we will have them on trial (only honestly).

Despite all this evident discontent across the nation, after 30 years of watching Russians struggle against their rulers, I doubt that these protests will be decisive.

The pro-democracy movement that helped topple the Soviet regime was led by political giants: the bear-like Boris Yeltsin and the saintly physicist-dissident Andrei Sakharov.

No one of that stature exists in the thinning ranks of the modern Russian opposition.

My friend Boris Nemtsov, a liberal and true statesman, could have perhaps filled that role. But he was gunned down outside the Kremlin two years ago. Another opposition leader and long-time critic of Putin, Vladimir Kara-Murza, has suffered two bouts of poisoning. Others are exiled.

One other factor in Putins favour is that while in its final years the Soviet Union was also plagued by catastrophic economic failure, today Russias capitalist economy, though deeply corrupt, is far more resilient.

For all the failures of the Putin regime, by Russias dismal historical standards, the past 17 years have been a time of unparalleled freedom, prosperity and stability. Many Russians cherish that. They want no return to what they remember as the chaos and humiliation of the Nineties.

Phoney

They have no illusions about the regimes corruption and incompetence  but they see little alternative. The overwhelming likelihood, therefore, is that Mr Putin will be re-elected to a second six-year presidential term next year.

The word election is hardly appropriate. It implies openness, fairness and competition  all of which are lacking.

A tightly controlled political system allows only phoney rivals  Communists and nationalists who pose no real threat to Mr Putin. For real opposition candidates, even getting on the ballot paper is hard. Campaigns are blocked, activists intimidated. Vote counting is shamefully opaque and open to rigging. A docile legal system offers no effective challenge to this.

A human rights group yesterday said 1,030 people had been arrested in Moscow

This leaves only public protest. This weekends demonstrations showed bravery and defiance. But they are not big enough to rattle the Kremlins windows.

This gives Mr Putin plenty of room for manoeuvre. He can crack down more brutally on the opposition. He can also use kompromat  blackmail.

Several leading opposition figures have been publicly humiliated by sex videos.

Threat

If he wants to blunt the edge of public discontent, Mr Putin can also change the faces around him. Unimpressive Mr Medvedev would be an obvious candidate for the chop. This could be accompanied by a high-profile anti- corruption investigation.

Mr Putin  as in the past  would doubtless pronounce himself shocked and outraged by the faithless and greedy behaviour of his now disgraced subordinate. He might even co-opt Mr Navalny.

But beneath the surface, nothing would change.

The only real threat to Mr Putins regime is from outside. If we in the West would stop laundering its ill-gotten gains, the Kremlins business model would collapse.

For the money stolen in Russia flows through the City of London and other financial centres. Our bankers, lawyers and accountants are the pin-striped accomplices in the Kremlins looting of Russia.

Russians have learned that for all our fine talk about Putin and his cronies, Britain is a place where they can buy respectability.

The U.S. and Estonia have started cracking down on this flow of corrupt cash. If we in Britain want to unsettle the sinister tyrant in the Kremlin, we should follow suit.

Otherwise all our talk of freedom and justice for the long-suffering Russian people will be seen for what it is: a hollow sham.

Edward Lucas writes for The Economist
The NHS spends 88million a year doling out paracetamol

Of all the many examples of public sector waste, among the most egregious is the 88million a year the NHS spends doling out paracetamol  at up to twenty times its high street cost.

GPs in England wrote a staggering 22.9million prescriptions for this cheap, easily available painkiller in 2015, mainly for minor ailments such as colds and flu.

Yet while a box of 16 tablets can be bought for 19p in supermarkets, each prescription cost the taxpayer an average of 3.83.

At any time this would be scandalous. In the midst of a major funding crisis, its positively criminal.

And its the same profligate story for a range of common remedies which can be purchased at minimal expense; indigestion pills, ibuprofen, vitamin supplements. Together, they cost the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds.

But could it be that common sense is finally about to prevail? In an interview in todays Mail, NHS chief Simon Stevens announces a crackdown on the routine prescribing of these everyday medicines.

He also has plans to claw back some of the estimated 300million annual cost of health tourism, help parents tackle the scourge of child obesity and bring together health and social care services to reduce the number of elderly patients stuck in hospital beds unnecessarily.

No doubt the Left will whine that making people pay for even the most basic medicines is privatisation by the back door. But Mr Stevens is simply recognising a harsh and inescapable reality.

The NHS  despite its great strengths  is creaking at the seams and its problems will not be solved by blithely pouring in more billions. Without radical reform this is a service in grave danger of collapse.

Uber questions grow

More evidence emerged yesterday of the highly intimate relationship between David Cameron and George Osborne and the tax-dodging Californian minicab technology firm Uber  of which their friend Rachel Whetstone is senior vice-president.

After allegations that Mr Camerons aides successfully killed off plans by then London mayor Boris Johnson to regulate the firm in 2015, it now seems Uber may have tried to help Mr Cameron in the EU referendum by urging young people to vote through pop-up windows on its app.

At the time, under-25s were expected to vote overwhelmingly to remain  supporting Mr Camerons position. Of course, Uber says it was merely encouraging the young to have their say, but its intervention adds to the cloud of suspicion.

For example, why did Downing Street reject a Freedom of Information request for correspondence concerning Uber? And how did Mr Osborne come by his lucrative job with BlackRock  the American investment corporation which is one of Ubers major backers?

Isnt it time a Parliamentary select committee demanded answers to these intriguing questions?

A silent epidemic

Today, the Mail exposes the deeply disturbing and largely hidden epidemic of addiction to prescription drugs.

A secret army of victims  hooked on pills prescribed to alleviate pain, anxiety, sleeplessness or depression  is believed to number in the hundreds of thousands. Yet they receive almost no specialist support.

Today, the Mail exposes the deeply disturbing and largely hidden epidemic of addiction to prescription drugs

We call today for a national 24-hour helpline, an inquiry into the extent and causes of over-prescription of these drugs by GPs and a recognition that treatment must be drastically improved.

With painkillers, tranquillisers and antidepressants being shelled out in record amounts and their misuse causing misery for so many innocent people, the need for official action could not be more urgent.
The cost of boarding school has soared in recent decades, with parents seeking an independent education for their children expected to cough up as much as 40,000 a year.

The good news for those prepared to spend a substantial sum on their little darlings is that the facilities at some of the more prestigious educational establishments are now akin to those you might expect at a luxury hotel.

Modern bedrooms created by interior designers, trendy relaxation areas with a sea view most tourists would die for and luxurious bathrooms are fast becoming par for the course in the private sector.

We'd never get board of this! A colourful themed room inspired by Dr Seuss at the The Pilgrims' School in Winchester

Scandi-chic: Students at the Roedean School in Sussex enjoy a designer dining room

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According to Tatler magazine, some of the swishest boarding schools in the country are introducing top-notch Scandinavian chic to areas used by students, and using upmarket paint company Farrow & Ball to spruce up rooms.

The magazine has published its annual Tatler Schools Guide 2017, a veritable bible for the well-heeled looking to educate their children in the most distinguished schools.

...AND, MUMMY, THE FOOD IS DIVINE! A TYPICAL DAY'S FOOD AT HANFORD SCHOOL, DORSET Pupils at Dorset's upmarket Hanford School for girl's enjoy a menu that wouldn't look out of place at a top hotel BREAKFAST: CHOICE OF CEREALS, BACON, TOAST WITH BUTTER AND A SELECTION OF CONSERVES, FRESH FRUIT, CHOICE OF FRUIT JUICE LUNCH: SALMON WITH HERB CRUST, NEW POTATOES AND SALAD PUDDING: GARDEN FRUITS CRUMBLE AND CREAM, FRESH FRUIT DINNER: WHOLEWHEAT AND WHITE PASTA WITH GARDEN TOMATO SAUCE OR PESTO AND GRATED CHEESE, SALAD BAR Advertisement

HANFORD SCHOOL, DORSET

Fees at historic Hanford School cost 7,050 a term for the 30 girls boarding at this Dorset pile

History abounds in the dorms of all-girls Hanford School (pictured above), which can feel more like a country pile than a school. There's a 16th-century stone fireplace with Roman soldiers carved into the frieze in the former Billiards room and a menu that includes such delights as salmon with herb crust, new potatoes and salad...how very refined...as you might expect for 7,050 a term.

CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL SCHOOL, OXFORD

The gleaming...tiles of Oxford! Gold taps greet the choirboys of The Christ Church Cathedral School

A recent make-over of the historic Oxford choir school has seen accommodation transformed into 'light and airy' digs

In the centre of Oxford, the choirboys at The Christ Church Cathedral School are enjoying a recent spruce up of their 19th-century digs. Alongside 'light and airy' accommodation, their bathrooms boast gold taps, there are pinboards above each bed and black-out blinds instead of fusty curtains. Only choristers can board; fees from 3,118 a term.

WESTONBIRT SCHOOL, GLOUCESTERSHIRE

No, it's not a National Trust property, it's your school: Westonbirt is a 19th-century, Grade I-listed country house set across 220 acres of grounds

At least half of the girls at this Gloucestershire retreat board...and any wonder when it feels like stepping into your own personal palace. Older students at the school can take a juice in the bar...or there's a newly installed yoga room for when the academia gets too much. Boarding currently costs 10,850 a term.

ROEDEAN SCHOOL, BRIGHTON

The 19th century honeyed exterior at Roedean in Brighton belies a thoroughly modern revamped interior

Not a bunk in sight: the girls at Roedean get to bed down in a minimalist bedroom reeking of Scandi chic

...and the sea views were already pretty brilliant: the revamped social areas do a good impression of an upmarket hotel

Could this be the smartest place to board in the land? Roedean, where fees cost a whopping 12,060 a term, overlooks the English Channel in Brighton and has just been transformed from 'grotty' to great via a 9million renovation. Architects Buckley Gray Yeoman have transformed the living quarters into the kind of cool hotel weekenders visiting the city might ordinarily expect for a princely sum. Scandi-style designer sofas are by cool brands Lyndon Design and Swedese. Pupil Sophie Sheaf says her educational establishment feels more 'like a spa' now.

THE PILGRIMS' SCHOOL, WINCHESTER

Kids love superheroes, right? So the boys (aged 4 - 13) at The Pilgrims' School in Winchester are particularly lucky, after one artistic parent redesigned their dorms with cartoon fun in mind. There's a Dr Seuss-inspired room, a Batman-style lair and even Banksy graffiti - not bad for 7,630 a term.

BEACHBOROUGH SCHOOL, NORTHANTS

The dorms at this Northamptonshire school get the Tatler seal of approval, with the upmarket magazine noting they are 'some of the most appealing we've seen'.

There's an in-house artist and the bedrooms come with a Spitfire over the boys' beds and a Narnia map for the girls. Day fees from 5,358 a night; flexi-boarding costs 30 a night.

TATLER'S SCHOOLS GUIDE 2017 IS AVAILABLE TO VIEW AT TATLER.CO.UK
She's no stranger to the spotlight and now Fiona Falkiner has opened up about how her own weight loss affected her self-esteem.

The host of Channel Ten's show The Biggest Loser: Transformed, plus-size model Fiona opened up about her struggle with gaining back the weight she fought to lose during the 2006 season of the show.

Speaking to lifestyle blogger Jules Sebastian in the latest episode of Tea with Jules, Fiona recalled being the 'chubby girl' and piling on weight during her teenage years.

'I was struggling with self-acceptance, low-esteem and I blamed all of that on my size. I thought that if I was skinny, life would be perfect,' Fiona told Jules.

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Plus-size model Fiona Falkiner (left) opened up about her weight loss journey with Jules Sebastian

'It's funny that what I thought was the bane of my existence, I now celebrate!' the 36-year-old said of her weight now

The 36-year-old said it was a trip to Thailand with her girlfriends that made her want to change her body after she was too embarrassed to wear a swimsuit.

Despite losing 30 kilos on The Biggest Loser in 2006, the Australian beauty said she regained the kilos after leaving the show because she 'hadn't dealt with the reasons why I was the way I was'.

During the interview, Fiona broke down when she recalls how 'miserable' she felt after putting the weight back on, and how dark her life became.

'I was just in such a miserable place. It was horrible. I got to a point where I was like "something's got to change". I'm so unhappy... and life shouldn't be about being this unhappy,' she said.

'It makes me emotional,' went on, as tears welled in her eyes. 'It was just a really bad place and no one should ever feel like that.'

Now the host of The Biggest Loser: Transformed, Fiona is the happiest and healthiest she's ever been. Pictured here with trainers Shannan Ponton (right) and Libby Babet (left)

The blonde beauty credits her struggles and dark times for making her the person she is today

Fiona Falkiner lost 30 kilos while on the Biggest Loser in 2006 but put it all back on after the show ended

Instead of focusing on just her weight, Fiona decided to take the pressure off herself and practice positive affirmations and doing things that made her happy.

She said she would take five minutes out of her day to remind herself of all she has accomplished.

Fiona Falkiner's top tips for a healthier and happier you Change your mindset - 'You have to learn to love who you are, respect your body and practice self-acceptance.' Make small changes - Cutting out sugar can work for some, or taking the stairs where possible. Make a commitment to yourself - Take an hour out of each day for yourself. Go for a walk, do Yoga or mediate. Stay active to feel good - Exercising doesn't have to be about weight loss. It can be about feeling good and getting some fresh air. Advertisement

'I would give myself a pat on the back for everything I've achieved in life, be grateful and thankful for everything I have,' she said.

'I'd tell myself that I was strong, incredible and that I could achieve anything. It's still something I practice because it sets me up for a good day.'

As someone who is constantly in the spotlight, Fiona said she has learnt to not give in to the how others see her.

'When I used to open a magazine and see photos of myself in a bikini, I'd break down in tears. Now I'm like, how did they find me! I either don't read it or don't care,' she said.

The blonde beauty credits her struggles and dark times for making her the person she is today.

'If I'd never struggled with my weight and if I'd never been tall and curvy, I would never have lived the life that I've lived,' she said.

'It's funny that what I thought was the bane of my existence, I now celebrate!'
Larissa spoke to FEMAIL about the success of her brand and where to next

There are now 5000 listings on the site and growing

Women list their high end fashion items on the site for hire for a small fee

Since then the Melbourne university student has grown her business nationwide

Not many 21-year-olds can say they're the creator and owner of a nationwide fashion rental business.

But creator of Rent a Dress, Larissa Walsh, from Melbourne, is an exception.

The commerce student at the University of Melbourne spoke to FEMAIL about the rise of her fashion rental business and how she came to be a leader in how Australians enjoy high-end fashion.

'I had just started university and started to buy my own clothes for university balls but I didn't want to sell them,' she said.

Larissa Walsh, 21, (pictured) started her business Rent a Dress in 2014 to make fast cash

The Melbourne university students lets women hire their fashion items on her site for a listing fee

'I didn't want to sell the dresses so I thought, why don't I rent them?'

'I started researching my idea and there didn't seem to be anything like it out there so I created an Instagram page and got my friends to list a few of their clothes as well, and that's pretty much how it started!'

Larissa's business grew out of a need for some quick cash as a first semester university student in 2014, when she was 18.

'I just needed money really quickly when I realised I only had about $300 to my name,' she said.

'When I started I was 18 and had done one semester of university. I really had no idea about anything!' she said.

The business is owned and run by Larissa, but the women who hire their clothes on her site are in charge of the price they charge renters and the length of the hire.

'There were a few different people with their items up and it started to grow from there and people I didn't even know started messaging me wanting me to list their dresses as well,' she said.

Starting from a humble Instagram page, Rent a Dress now has a Facebook page and Larissa launched the website just over a year ago.

There are currently 5000 listings on the site.

Starting from a humble Instagram page, Rent a Dress now has a Facebook page and Larissa launched the website just over a year ago

'When I started I was 18 and had done one semester of university. I really had no idea about anything!' Larissa said

The commerce student has since launched a website and she has listings from women all over the country

'The response was phenomenal and it wasn't expected at all. It's really grown and I started charging for listings and it took off from there,' she said.

Larissa said renting wasn't something she had looked at or thought other teenagers and young adults had considered before.

'It was something that grew so quickly that it was surprising something like this didn't already exist.'

Larissa runs the business on her own but said she does ask for help from her accountant.

Dressed to impress! Customer Lucy Brownless wearing two different dresses she hired off Rent a Dress

'I go to him with all my accounts in order because studying commerce, I do have an understanding of the money side of things,' she said.

'It's gotten to the point where the business is pretty much self-sufficient and it runs itself. I just have to keep up customer support and answer emails.'

Larissa said she offers advice to those who are listings their items in the site and also those renting and encourages them to read the terms and conditions.

Despite being a young entrepreneur, the 21-year-old says she is still working at her waitressing job a few times a week.

'The business is set up so that I now have the time and the liberty to actually work elsewhere,' she said.

'I know a few people have said to me why would I choose to work when I don't have to but it's the sensible thing to do for me.'

Working elsewhere also gives Larissa a chance to work on her customer service skills as well.

Two more women wearing dresses they've hired off Larissa's site Rent a Dress

Rent a Dress now has listings from all over the country and Larissa said most of her renters come from interstate.

'I really encourage girls to be almost entrepreneurial in the way they list one item and then it grows from there for them,' she said.

'I know a couple of girls who've started on Rent a Dress and who now own up to 60 dresses and rent them on their own site.'

'It's really about empowering women to reach their fashion goals but also about making your own money, learning about tax and businesses.'

Larissa credits her subjects at university, such as tax law and business tax, that have helped her run her business and grow her knowledge.

Larissa said if you want to start your own business, go for it.

'You have to have passion and be dedicated to it, but if it requires little capital then yeah, go for it!,' she said.

'If I didn't have the drive and passion for it, I would have quit and the business wouldn't be standing today.'

'If you're prepared to put in the hard yards then it's worth it.'
On Monday night, Married At First Sight groom Nick Furphy revealed his father is being tested for Motor Neurone disease.

The shock diagnosis left him unable, or reluctant at best, to drop his life and move to Perth to be with bride Sharon as originally planned.

But a day trip to Melbourne threw a spanner in the works, as an impressive display of commitment from Nick left his 31-year-old bride convinced she could at least trial a move to the southern state.

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Happy days: On Tuesday night, Sharon announced she would trial a move to Melbourne to be with groom Nick

After visiting his apartment, the pair went out to sit down and have a serious chat about their future, with their original plans dashed.

'If [your dad's illness] is as bad as the doctors think it is, I would not expect you to ever come to Perth to live,' she told the carpenter.

'I'm really nervous about the fact that I am the one that has to most likely move to Melbourne.

'I need to know how it's all going to work, I need a plan in place.'

The deal appeared to be cemented when Nick offered to come back to Perth to help her pack up her life and then expressed interest in buying a house with the 31-year-old

With expressions of thoughtfulness and love being a shock specialty of the larrikin man, he immediately jumped in with a grand gesture.

'I can come to Perth, help you pack up all your furniture, put it away in storage, and we can always just drive your car over,' he told her earnestly.

'Maybe we can potentially buy a property.

'Honestly I'll do everything I can and all my friends or family will do everything they can to help out.'

Helping hand: He volunteered himself, as well as his friends and family, for anything she might need in the process

For Sharon, who has spent the past three years away from her family and lives off her Perth-based business, moving interstate would be a huge sacrifice.

But throughout the episode she grew more and more invested in the idea, revealing her still-strong feelings for Nick.

'I get butterflies when he sends me messages, I don't want him to be the one who got away,' she said.

Dreamy: Sharon told producers she was concerned about the 29-year-old carpenter being 'the one who got away'

Eventually the pair came to a decision. Sitting on a park bench, Sharon nervously revealed she wanted to give the move a shot.

'I'm over the Skype, I'm over the texting I'm over the calling,' she began.

'Everything always happens for a reason and I'm 99.9 per cent confident to say I'm happy to move for you Nick Furphy.

'I'm going to start a little life with you in Melbourne, do a little trial, and see how it goes from there.'
Upcoming Netflix film The Swimmers (pictured, right) tells the real-life story of two sisters who were forced to flee Syria after the civil war broke out - before one went onto become an Olympian. Sarah, now 26, and Yusra Mardini, now 24,(pictured, left) left their home in Damascus in August 2015, four years after the conflict started in March 2011, in a bid to reach Europe. They planned to fly to Istanbul, before travelling to Greece via sea, then on land to Germany. But the journey nearly ended in tragedy when the motor on the dinghy they took across the Aegean Sea stalled, leaving its 18 occupants in peril. The sisters realised that the boat, which was designed to carry only seven people, couldn't take the weight of everyone onboard, and so they jumped into the icy waters. After making their way to Germany, and finding a swimming coach, Yusra took part in the Rio 2016 games (pictured, inset) as part of the newly formed refugee team. Now Netflix has immortalised their story in its film directed by Bafta winner Sally El Hosaini, and executive produced by Stephen Daldry.
She is currently hosting Argentina's glamorous First Lady in the Netherlands, so it's only natural that Queen Maxima wanted to make a splash when the pair teamed up for a public engagement on Tuesday.

The Dutch Queen donned a striking maroon ensemble when she joined Juliana Awada on a visit to a domestic violence facility in Amsterdam this morning.

Maxima, 45, ensured she turned heads in the vibrant coat dress from Claes Iversen featuring sparkling star embellishment, adding a hat and small golden clutch, as the pair arrived at Oranje Huis (Orange House).

The Denmark-based label is a firm favourite with the royal, who is regularly spotted out and about in their heavily-embellished designs.

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Queen Maxima, left, and Argentinean first lady Juliana Awada, right, out and about today

Queen Maxima and Ms Awada admire the iconic Girl With a Pearl Earring painting at the Mauritshuis art museum in The Hague

Juliana Awada, wife of Argentina's President Mauricio Macri and Dutch Queen Maxima wave for the cameras as they arrive at the Dutch Prime Minister's office in The Hague

The guests looked fascinated as they were given a tour by museum director Emilie E.S. Gordenker

Juliana and her husband, President Mauricio Macri, are currently on a two-day state visit to the Netherlands hosted by Queen Maxima and King Willem-Alexander.

The stylish duo were expected to visit an art museum this morning; it is not known why they had a last-minute change of schedule.

Last night, Maxima and Juliana, 42, went head-to-head in a fashion showdown of epic proportions as they put on a stunning display for a glittering state dinner.

Maxima wowed in an off-the-shoulder gown in dusky pink, offset by glittering diamonds, while her guest was more understated in a navy long sleeved gown, covered in a sparkling leaf pattern.

The first lady and Queen Maxima chatted happily as they arrived at the Mauritshuis museum

Queen Maxima opted for a dramatic burgundy coat and matching hat for today's engagements

During their busy day the pair also visited the Center for Youth and Family in The Hague

The women both spent time meeting mothers and their children during their visit to the center

According to the Dutch royal family's official website, partnership agreements between Dutch and Argentinian companies and institutions will be signed during President Macri's visit this week.

Sport and social dialogue will also be themes of the president's short time in the Netherlands.

To top off their visit on Tuesday afternoon they will travel to Rotterdam to meet the town's Mayor, Ahmed Aboutaleb, as well as representatives of the business community.

Queen Maxima, left, wore a striking maroon ensemble when she joined Juliana Awada on a visit to a domestic violence facility in Amsterdam this morning

Maxima, second right, ensured she turned heads in the vibrant coat dress from Claes Iversen featuring sparkling star embellishment, adding a hat and small golden clutch

Firm favourite: Denmark-based label Claes Iversen is a firm favourite with the royal, who is regularly spotted out and about in their heavily-embellised designs

Colour pop: Ms Awada, right, perfectly complimented Maxima's maroon ensemble with a pretty pastel blue outfit featuring a figure-hugging lace dress

The state visit will end with a ballet performance presented by President Macri at Theatre Diligentia in The Hague.

Argentine-born Maxima who is mother to Princesses Catharina-Amalia, 13, Alexia, 11 and Ariane, nine was born in Argentina and married into the Dutch royal family in 2002, after meeting her husband-to-be in Seville in 1999.

Despite reportedly having no idea that Willem-Alexander was heir to the throne when the pair first met, she eventually became Queen consort when her husband was crowned in April 2013.

Guest of honour: Juliana, right, and her husband, President Mauricio Macri, are currently on a two-day state visit to the Netherlands hosted by Queen Maxima and King Willem-Alexander

The pair chat to a resident at Oranje Huis. The stylish duo were expected to visit an art museum this morning; it is not known why they had a last-minute change of schedule
On visiting a new country you're always eager to see the sights.

And today Belgium's Queen Mathilde and her husband King Philippe were treated to an exclusive sightseeing tour of Copenhagen, by none other than Crown Princess Mary and of Denmark and her husband Prince Frederik.

Crown Princess Mary was seen pointing out the sights to her royal counterpart as they cruised along, enjoying a sunny afternoon at the start of a three day state visit.

Queen Mathilde of Belgium and her husband King Philippe (left) joined Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark (right) for a boat trip this afternoon as they commenced a three day state visit

Australian bon Mary was seen pointing out the sights to the Belgian Queen as they enjoyed a sunny afternoon on the river

The Crown Princess looked animated as she chatted to Mathilde, no doubt filling her in on some of the sights they were passing on the river

Both were still wearing the glamorous pastel outfits they had arrived in to meet at the airport.

But Prince Frederik had wisely ditched his navy checked suit jacket in favour of a warmer grey overcoat as they took to the river.

Earlier today, Queen Mathilde was a vision in powder blue as she and King Philippe touched down in Denmark for a three day state visit.

And they were warmly greeted on the tarmac by Danish royals including Crown Princess Mary, who was equally glamorous in a pale green belted coat dress.

The couples appeared to be getting on famously as they posed for the watching photographers

Both women looked chic in pastel coats and pillbox hats as they enjoyed an afternoon on the river

Crown Prince Frederik shared a joke with the Belgian Queen earlier this afternoon

The Belgian queen, 44, was photographed stepping off the plane in a blue pillbox hat and matching fitted coat with a diamond silver brooch.

Queen Mathilde smiled as she stood to attention alongside her husband during the official welcome at Copenhagen Airport.

Kisses, hugs and curtsies were exchanged by the Belgian and Danish royals, and Mathilde and Mary seemed particularly pleased to see one another.

Crown Princess Mary, 45, also opted for a smart coat dress - hers a delicate shade of green - offset by a taupe hat.

Queen Margrethe of Denmark, meanwhile, gave her younger counterparts a run of their money in a glamorous fur coat and striking green hat.

Prince Frederik of Denmark (left), Queen Mathilde of Belgium (centre) and Princess Mary of Denmark (right) pictured during the official welcome at Copenhagen Airport

Princess Mary of Denmark, Prince Joachim of Denmark, Princess Marie of Denmark, Prince Frederik of Denmark, Queen Mathilde of Belgium, Queen Margrethe of Denmark and King Philippe of Belgium pictured standing on the royal red carpet

The men shook hands as the women went in for hugs as the royals mixed with one another

Princess Marie bent down to greet King Philippe of Belgium during the welcoming ceremony

King Philippe of Belgium (third from left) and Queen Mathilde of Belgium (third from right) were greeted with an official reception at Amalienborg Castle on their state visit to Denmark

Queen Margrethe was snapped waving to onlookers as she and King Philippe of Belgium rode in a carriage during the welcome ceremony.

Princess Marie of Denmark, the second wife of Prince Joachim, also chose green for the welcome ceremony, donning a fitted coat dress with taupe suede heels and a coordinating fascinator.

The Belgian royals arrived on day one of a three day state visit to Denmark, and were welcomed with an official reception at Amalienborg Castle after the ceremony at the airport.

Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark (left) and Queen Mathilde of Belgium talk during a welcoming ceremony at Copenhagen Airport

Queen Mathilde of Belgium and King Philippe of Belgium were greeted by Queen Margrethe of Denmark

Queen Mathilde of Belgium and Queen Margrethe of Denmark exchanged kisses after meeting

The royals looked comfortable in each others' company during the official welcome ceremony

Queen Margrethe of Denmark , Prince Frederik of Denmark, Queen Mathilde of Belgium, Princess Mary of Denmark, Prince Joachim of Denmark and Princess Marie of Denmark all took the time to speak to one another

The women all wore hats and long coats as they graved the cold and crisp Spring air

Queen Mathilde of Belgium wore a powder blue coat with a pillbox hat for the visit to Copenhagen

Prince Frederik of Denmark put his arm around King Philippe and warmly shook his hand

Crown Princess Mary and King Philippe kissed one another on the cheek after the Belgian royal stepped off the plane

Princess Marie bent down to greet King Philippe of Belgium during the welcoming ceremony

Danish Queen Margrethe II and King Philippe of Belgium ride during the welcoming ceremony

The royal pair waved to onlookers as they took in the sights of the ceremony at the airport

Danish Queen Margrethe and King Philippe of Belgium inspect the Danish guard of honor

Queen Margrethe stood out in the luxurious brown coat which she wore with a mint green hat

Princess Marie, in a pair of nude high heels, made sure she stepped out of the car appropriately

Crown Princess Mary and Crown Prince Frederik made an entrance in their fashionable outfits

Crown Princess Mary wore nude scaled heels with a light blue knee-length coat and pale pink hat

Crown Prince Frederik looked stylish in his navy check suit and light blue shirt for the event

The royals were all smiles as they greeted one another on the red carpet that had been laid out for them

Princess Marie and Prince Joachim smiled for photographs as they arrived at the welcoming ceremony

Crown Prince Frederik was animated as he walked with Queen Mathilde at the event

Queen Margrethe II looked pleased as she inspected the guards who had joined them at Copenhagen airport

Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary smile at one another as they stood and waited on the red carpet

The women, in their stylish coats, engaged in conversation after the royal's arrival

King Philippe and Crown Princess Mary looked pleased to see one another as they kissed each other on the cheek

Crown Prince Frederik, Crown Princess Mary, Prince Joachim and Princess Marie were spotted waiting patiently for the royal's arrival
A children's shoe company has been slammed by parents over its range of high heels for babies.

Pee Wee Pumps, based in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, creates soft slippers with pointed toes and collapsible heels for infants up to six months old.

The leopard print, zebra print and satin styles, which have names like 'Sassy', 'Diva' and 'Glamorous', are promoted on the brand's Instagram page with photographs of children dressed up in extravagant, adult-like costumes.

Parents criticised the controversial brand on Facebook this week, claiming it is 'disgusting' and that the images 'sexualised' young girls.

'First fashion statement': Children's shoe company Pee Wee Pumps promotes its miniature high heels with Instagram photographs like this one, showing babies wearing the pumps

Backlash: Dozens of parents have taken to Facebook to criticise the controversial brand

Posting on the Let Clothes Be Clothes Facebook page, which 'calls for an end to gender stereotypes in children's clothing', one parent wrote: 'Those pictures are actually disturbing'. Another added: 'They're revolting and completely unnecessary'.

It is not the first time the company has come under fire. In 2015 mummy bloggers spoke out against the brand, describing the designs as 'utterly hideous'.

Information on the Pee Wee Pumps website reveals how the shoes, which cost up to $30 (23), are designed to be 'just like mom's favorite pair of pumps only in a miniature size.' It promises: 'Pee Wee Pumps will be your daughters first fashion statement.'

The shoes feature soft heels that compress under pressure. The website states: 'The flexible soft shoe will form to your daughters foot, whether its narrow or wide, while its adjustable strap allows the shoe to stay on and provides a comfortable fit.'

'Just like mom': The 'Sassy' red satin shoes, pictured, are advertised as looking just like a 'grown up' pair of pumps on the brand's website. Other styles are called 'Diva' and 'Glamorous'

Criticism: The babies are often dressed up and posed for the Instagram photographs

Details for the 'Wild Child' model claim it is a 'ferociously fabulous leopard print' style while the original 'Diva' design claims to be 'the perfect way to add that flashy finish to a dress, jeans or one-piece romper'.

Pee Wee Pumps founder Michele Holbrook told MailOnline that the shoes are intended as a 'cute' and 'funny' prop for photos and are only intended for infants up to six months, roughly three to six months before a child takes their first steps.

There are also a number of positive reviews on the website, with parents pointing out they are a 'cute' and 'silly' accessory for photographs.

However dozens of parents were horrified by the shoes and the website, with one writing on Facebook: 'You are disgusting. This is sexualisation of children. Let them play play play and not at being glamour models.'

Defence: The company founder said the shoes were intended as a 'cute' and 'funny' photo prop

Slammed: Horrified parents branded the shoes 'sick', 'appalling' and 'tremendously worrying'

Another posted: 'Dear god, why is that infant doing a boudoir session?'

One parent added: 'Omg those are so creepy. Just eew. Why would you even want to do that, even if they are soft and won't damage their feet they look so gross.'

Ms Holbrook continued: 'I am a mother first and foremost I would never endanger a baby in any way. Pee Wee Pumps are considered by most people to be a photo prop just as the tutus, headbands or lacey rompers that parents also use in photo shoots.

'People are in entitled to their option so I just have to accept that people are either going to love them or hate them.'
The Duchess of Cambridge is set to visit Luxembourg in May for another stop on her European charm offensive.

Kate, 35, will travel on 11 May to attend the commemoration of the 1867 Treaty of London which confirmed Luxembourg's independence and neutrality, Kensington Palace has announced.

The visit is yet another addition to a planned schedule of European engagements, including official visits to Poland and Germany in July.

Kensington Palace has announced that the Duchess of Cambridge will travel to Luxembourg on 11 May

William and Kate will tour the two countries at the specific request of the Foreign Office, run by leading Brexiteer Boris Johnson.

The Royal couple already visited France earlier this month and the royal charm offensive does not stop there.

Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall are expected to tour a number of EU countries including Italy in late March and early Apri

Royal visits to EU nations during the talks may help underline Mrs May's insistence that while Britain is quitting the European Union, it is not leaving Europe.

Kate at an event celebrating the ties between France and the UK in Paris earlier this month

Senior Conservative Jacob Rees-Mogg told MailOnline: 'An excellent move to secure and improve relations with an important ally.'

Laws handing Mrs May power over Article 50 - the clause in the EU treaties that contain the divorce procedures for the bloc - are expected to be law on or around March 15.

This will allow her to meet her timetable of triggering Article 50 and starting the two years of official exit talks before the end of the month.

The Royal Family have long been seen as crucial levers of 'soft power' to the Government.

Kate visited The Hague in October last year, but is set to increase her European visits this year to strengthen ties at the behest of the Foreign Office

William travelled to Germany last summer, visiting Dusseldorf for a series of events honouring the role of British armed forces based in the country.

During a gala event, where the Duke gave a speech alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel, William claimed the 'depth' of Britain's friendship with Germany would not change after Brexit.

The British monarchy has close ties with the European country, as a succession of sovereigns from George I, born in what is now modern Germany and who acceded to the throne in 1714, to William IV, who died in 1830, were also rulers of Hanover in Germany.
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The Duchess of Cambridge was tonight attending one of the most glittering events in her calendar so far this year  a gala dinner at the National Portrait Gallery.

She may have been surrounded by fashionistas such as Alexa Chung, but the Duchess more than held her own in a glamorous forest green floor length gown by Temperley London, one of her favourite designers.

Kate's famously glossy brunette locks were styled in an especially bouncy flurry of curls, and she completed her outfit with a pretty gold glitter clutch bag costing 195 by Wilbur & Gussie and Jimmy Choo gold heels.

The royal was also sporting 8,900 green amethyst and pave diamond Candy earrings in 18ct yellow gold by Kiki McDonough, which complemented the colour of her dress.

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The Duchess of Cambridge arrives at the National Portrait Gallery for The Portrait Gala 2017 fundraiser in a green lace dress by Temperley London

Kate's famously glossy brunette locks were styled in an especially bouncy flurry of curls

Kate was wearing a new pair of earrings by one of her favourite jewellery designers Kiki McDonough, which picked up the colour in her dress

The Duchess looked delighted to greet model Alexa Chung who stood out from the crowds in a rather unusual polka dot dress

Kate was given a personal tour of an exhibit of masks by the artist Gillian Wearing

The former history of art student looked fascinated as she examined a display of masks, specially commissioned for the event

Tonight's engagement follows the news that the Duchess will make a solo visit to Luxembourg on May 11

Kate, a former history of art student at St Andrew's, was at the 2017 Portrait Gala in her role as patron of the gallery

Kate viewed the newest exhibitions and met guests at the 2017 Portrait Gala

Kate, a former history of art student at St Andrew's, was at the 2017 Portrait Gala in her role as patron of the gallery, and she met two potentially useful new acquaintances - fellow parents from Prince George's new school.

She was introduced to Richard Found, who runs an architecture and design practice, and his wife Jane Suitor, an art consultant and collector, who revealed that their child was also at Thomas's School in Battersea, where her son will be starting in September.

They told the Duchess it was a 'great school' and she said she hoped to see them at the school gates.

'We were chatting about Thomas', the school George will be going to,' said Mr Found afterwards.

The Duchess of Cambridge walks with Nicholas Cullinan Director of the National Portrait Gallery, as she arrives to attend the 2017 Portrait Gala,

Kate engaged in an animated discussion with artist Gillian Wearing, who gave her a private tour

Kate, who has been patron of the National Portrait Gallery for five years, views works by artist Gillian Wearing

The Duchess is led up the staircase by director Nicholas Cullinan ahead of a champagne reception and gallery tour

Kate looks lost in thought as she enjoys touring two of the National Portrait Gallery's new exhibitions

Kate gets up close to take in a mask created by the artist Gillian Wearing

Kate's elegant lace dress showed off her very slim figure to full effect

'We're parents there as well. She just said "I may see you at the school gates".'

She went on to speak to Phillip Chung, father of television presenter and model Alexa Chung, who remarked on the collection of art he had built up thanks to his children.

The Duchess told him that she too had begun gathering her own children's artistic efforts together.

Alexa Chung looked captivating in an unusual voluminous, polka dot, off-the-shoulder dress as she arrived for the glittering gala

Sophie Ellis-Bextor channeled a '60s vibe in a deep pink dress and patterned coat

Donna Air, who is dating Kate's younger brother James Middleton, was pretty as a picture in pink lace

Princess Diana's brother Earl Spencer was joined by his stunning wife Karen, Countess Spencer, who looked ravishing in a strapless red gown

Countess Spencer chose a dramatic red dress for the star-studded event, which she teamed with strappy black heels

Samantha Cameron, pictured with Sophie Ellis Bextor and Alexa Chung, promoted her Cefinn range by wearing her own 270 poppy-red, funnel neck midi dress

Greeted by Dr Nicholas Cullinan, the director of the NPG, on arrival, the Duchess was escorted up glittering golden stairs into a champagne reception.

There, she was shown around an exhibition by Howard Hodgkin, Absent Friends, including the last work he painted before he died.

She was then given a lengthy personal tour of Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun: Behind the Mask, Another Mask, by the artist herself.

The gallery's royal patron naturally received a warm welcome as she arrived for the annual fundraising gala

Kate's dress featured a scalloped neckline at the back, which showed off a hint of her slim shoulders

There was no shortage of royal fans gathered outside the London gallery to catch a glimpse of the Duchess as she entered

Dr Cullinan made a speech to guests launching the NPG's major fundraising project Coming Home, which aims to return works of art to the regions they are linked with on loan.

'It could enable sitters such as Sir Francis Drake to return to Plymouth, the Bronte sisters or David Beckham to Essex,' he said.

Moving upstairs, the Duchess was shown ten masks by artists including Philip Treacy, Maggie Hambling and Dame Vivienne Westwood, due to be sold for fundraising efforts.

A series of 100 new postcards, by famous artists who have anonymised their work, were also up for sale for 250.

Kate looked momentarily serious as she stepped out of her car in gold Jimmy Choos and a floor length green lace dress

The Duchess had competition from a glamorous crowd, including model and muse Alexa Chung who looked striking in an unstructured polka dot dress with voluminous sleeves.

Also in attendance was Sophie Ellis Bextor who was channeling the '60s in a brightly patterned coat and pink minidress.

Donna Air, who is the girlfriend of Kate's brother James, was pretty as a picture in a delicate pink dress with a lace pattern.

Tonight's engagement follows the news that the Duchess will make a solo visit to Luxembourg on 11 May to attend events celebrating the 1867 Treaty of London, at the request of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Former history of art student Kate was no doubt looking forward to the evening, where she had the opportunity to view two of the gallery's latest exhibitions

The Duchess was warmly welcomed by Dr Nicholas Cullinan, the director of the NPG, on arrival

The Duchess of Cambridge shows off her gold strappy Jimmy Choos as she departs The Portrait Gala fundraising dinner. Her gold heels matched her metallic clutch bag

Crowds gathered to greet the Duchess of Cambridge as she left the National Portrait Gallery following the Gala

Kate viewed the newest exhibitions and met guests before having dinner at the London art gallery. The Duchess, who has been patron of the gallery since 2012, viewed two exhibitions

The visit is likely to be interpreted as another trip being made by a member of the Royal Family in their role as 'Brexit Ambassadors', as they have been dubbed by the press.

The trip will be the Duchess's second official solo overseas visit, following her successful trip to the Netherlands last October.

Details about the visit have not been released but it is likely Kate will meet members of Luxembourg's monarchy, probably including the head of state Grand Duke Henri.

The Grand Duke and his wife Grand Duchess Maria Teresa were guests at William and Kate's wedding in 2011.
A chilling new anti-sexual assault ad uses autocorrect to show how casual language can hide everyday instances of rape.

The clip, released Tuesday by former Vice-President Joe Biden's It's On Us campaign to end sexual abuse, features an imagined text conversation between two friends recounting a one-night stand.

Both friends seem to think the night's events were innocent, but below their words, an alternative account appears, reflecting what actually happened: a rape.

Read between the lines: A new video from former Vice President Joe Biden's anti-sexual assault campaign demonstrates how 'innocent' sexual assault can be made to seem

Awful: The clip uses autocorrect to help viewers see the truth behind the unnamed guy's lies after he tried to sexually assault a woman

'Remember that drunk chick I was talking to at the party last night?' the first person asks. But the words 'talking to' get autocorrected to 'targeting', a more accurate representation of the friend's attitude during the party.

It is then established that the woman was drunk and that the first person took her back to their room.

'Nice. Get some?' the other friend asks.

''Well... I had to encourage her a bit,' is the response, but the autocorrect turns 'encourage' into 'force', so that the sentence reads instead: 'I had to force her a bit.'

The exchange continues, with the words 'She was getting into it' changing into 'She was getting worried'.

'Dude, she wanted you,' the friend replies - but the smartphone completes the sentence to read: 'She wanted you to stop.'

Words: Former Vice-President Joe Biden shared the ad on Twitter Tuesday, noting how important it is to use the correct vocabulary when discussing rape

Hero: Each instance of autocorrect shows how easily people can mask assaults, simply by referring to them in a casual way

It then emerges that a third person stopped the impending rape by knocking on the door and asking if the woman was OK.

'Wow, what a b***h,' the friend writes. The autocorrect, however, points out that this person is actually a 'hero'.

'Totally shut down a good time,' the first conversation partner types. That last sentence gets changed to a frightening: 'Totally shut down a good rape.'

Former Vice-President Biden, who started the campaign in 2014 with then-President Barack Obama, shared the video on Twitter Tuesday, highlighting how crucial using the correct vocabulary is when discussing rape.

'The correct word for sex without consent is rape. Period,' he wrote.

It's On Us, which has been backed by celebrities including Zoe Saldana, Josh Hutcherson and Orange Is The New Black's Matt McGorry, will kick off its week of action on April 2, with events on campuses around the country.
She came to the attention of eagle-eyed viewers last night who spotted her denim skirt change to white trousers and back again in a continuity blunder on Mary Berry Everyday.

But Annabel Hunnings, the daughter of 82-year-old Mary, will be worth remembering for more than an embarrassing clothing error if rumours that she is poised to take over her mother's baking empire turn out to be true.

Annabel's rare TV appearance last night is the latest subtle clue that the 44-year-old is poised to take her mother's crown when the doyenne of baking eventually decides to retire.

Mary Berry, 82, and her daugher Annabel, 44, are appearing together more and more. Pictured, working together on a baking roadshow in 2014

Annabel was wearing a denim skirt (left) as she and her daughter Atalanta helped Mary Berry milk a goat but in the next shot she was wearing white trousers (right) on last night's Mary Berry Everyday

Annabel said she has been helping her mother cook in the kitchen since the age of five, as this photo from 1975 proves. Pictured, Mary with her late son William (left), as well as Annabel and Thomas (right)

Who is Annabel Hunnings? Annabel Hunnings, or Annabel Bosher, is the youngest child of Mary Berry and Paul Hunnings. She married builder Charles Bosher in 2002 - her mother made her wedding cake, naturally - and the couple have three children together: eldest Louis, middle child Hobie, and youngest Atalanta. Earlier this year, the Oxford Times reported that her husband's family firm, Boshers, had gone bust after nearly 200 years in business. Trained at the Cordon Bleu, Annabel went into business with her mother in the 90s to start Mary Berry & Daughter. Advertisement

Miss Berry, who lives in Buckinghamshire with husband Paul Hunnings, invited her daughter Annabel Hunnings, as well as her granddaughter Atalanta, to join her on the programme as she milked a goat to make her own cheese.

While Mary Berry's cooking shows have previously been a one-woman affair, Mary Berry Everyday has been peppered with appearances by her family.

It's prompted some to speculate that Mary is preparing to hand over her baking crown to her daughter, who is married to master builder Charles Bosher, and transform 'Brand Berry' into a family business.

However if Annabel, a mother of three, was to take over, the decision would be far from nepotistic.

Annabel is a professionally trained cook in her own right - and went into business with her mother in the 90s to make salad dressings.

Here, FEMAIL rounds up all the reasons why Annabel could be poised to take on her mother's baking empire.

MORE PUBLIC APPEARANCES

Last night's Mary Berry Everyday featured Annabel (right) and her daughter Atalanta (right) who were invited to a farm to watch Mary milk a goat to make her own cheese with

Mary Berry invited her daughter Annabel (right) and Annabel's daughter Atalanta (centre) to a farm on last night's Mary Berry Everyday

Just yesterday, Annabel appeared in an episode of Mary Berry Everyday with her daughter Atalanta.

Giving an insight into Mary's peaceful country life, the master baker invited her daughter and granddaughter to a farm to help her milk a goat so she could make her own cheese for a picnic.

It's notable for being one of the rare times Annabel has featured on one of Mary's solo shows. Could it be a sign that she is set to feature in more of Mary's TV endeavours?

It's not just TV where the pair are working together more. Mother and daughter cooked alongside each other for the first time a couple of years ago at the BBC Good Food Cakes and Bakes Show, and they went on to develop a baking roadshow.

And mother and daughter have been attending more red carpet events together too.

COOKING CREDENTIALS

Annabel has also been pictured more with her mother. They both attended the National Television Awards in January this year together

Just like her mother, Annabel trained at the prestigious Cordon Bleu cookery school.

So it's little wonder that she has embarked on a foodie career and looks set to take over from her mother when she retires.

In somewhat controversial comments to Yours magazine in 2012, Mary spoke of her daughter's enthusiasm for baking. 'She does love cooking. Isn't that lucky for a young wife and mother?' she said.

MOTHER-DAUGHTER BUSINESS

Mary and Annabel have been working together now for more than 20 years.

Together, they set up Mary Berry & Daughter in the 1990s, which made salad dressings, chutneys, cake mixes and sauces.

The former Great British Bake Off sold off the company in 2014 for 2.5million, however, dishing out the cash windfall to her family members.

Annabel was reported to receive the majority of the windfall, about 1.5million, according to the Sun on Sunday at the time.

BAKING TOGETHER FOR 40 YEARS

In this touching family picture from 1975, a cheeky Annabel sneaks a treat from her mother Mary Berry's kitchen as her two brothers William (left) and Thomas (right) - and a bemused Mary - watch on

Mary and her daughter Annabel have been baking in the kitchen since the master baker's youngest child was five years old.

In the 2012 Yours magazine interview, Annabel praised her famous mother for helping teach her to cook.

She said: 'Mum instilled in me a work ethic which is there to this day.

'When I was as young as five, I remember accompanying her to demonstrations and helping with little jobs like grating the cheese.'

FAMILY TIES

Annabel (right), her brother Thomas (left) and father Paul (centre right) were there to watch her mother made a CBE in 2012 - showing the strength of the family's ties

Mary is very close to her family, and brought along Annabel and her grandchildren to the premiere of The BFG last summer

Family has always been of the utmost importance to Mary, as she has said herself many times in various interviews.

She has spoken of how her family became very close after the death of her son William aged just 19 in a car crash - an accident that Annabel was also involved in.

Who better then to take on her empire than her own, professionally trained, flesh and blood?

THE OTHER CONTENDER

There is only one other viable contender for Mary's crown, and that's her long-time culinary partner Lucy Young.

The pair have been a team for more than 20 years now and have written several cookbooks together.

Lucy also helps test recipes for Mary and teaches at Mary's Aga Workshop.

If it's not Annabel, there's only one other obvious choice for Mary's baking empire.
Surgery that involves taking anaesthetic might damage your brain for as long as five days, according to a landmark new study.

Researchers tested the mental damage of oxygen deprivation as a result of general anaesthetic in an experiment which involved testing mountaineers climbing Everest.

They found the cognitive ability of participants declined for a sustained period of time after they came down from the mountain.

Experts believe this may explain why so many people have difficulty returning to work after a serious operation.

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The research from City, University of London and University College London might explain why so many people have difficulty returning to work after a serious operation (stock)

WHAT DID THEY DO? Participants took a neuropsychological (NP) test assessing memory, language and attention. They did this at various different altitudes - sea level; 3,500 metres at Namche Bazaar; 5,300 metres at Everest Base Camp and 1,300 metres at Kathmandu. There was also a control group who were tested at sea level over the same period of time. The Reliable Change Index (RCH) was used to calculate how their neuropsychological functions changed over the testing period. The effects of oxygen deprivation on the brain after climbing Everest were still present five days later when the climbers came back to Kathmandu. Advertisement

A side effect of taking anaesthetic is hypoxic brain damage which is caused by inadequate oxygen supply during the operation.

Symptoms, which affect one in five people, include wheezing, high blood pressure and confusion.

However, this research found the brain damage could be much more prolonged than previously thought and last for several days.

The team used mountaineers to test the effect of oxygen starvation because it was unethical to intentionally deprive people of oxygen during an operation.

Research from City, University of London and University College London showed that there was a significant decline in mental activity for participants on their way down from the Everest peak, where there is one third the level of oxygen than at sea level.

After the ascent, the 198 climbers that were tested failed nearly 20 per cent of tests which they could have done before climbing the mountain, writes the Telegraph.

The Reliable Change Index (RCI) calculated the changes in cognition and psychological function during and after oxygen starvation, according to the paper published in Plos ONE.

Participants took a neuropsychological (NP) test assessing memory, language and attention.

The effects of oxygen deprivation on the brain after climbing Everest were still present five days later when the climbers came back to Kathmandu (stock)

TESTING OXYGEN DEPRIVATION The team used mountaineers to test the effect of oxygen starvation on the brain during surgery because it was unethical to intentionally deprive people of oxygen during an operation. A side effect of taking anaesthetic is hypoxic brain damage which is caused by inadequate oxygen supply during the operation. As many as one in five people have hypoxic brain damage and symptoms include wheezing, high blood pressure and confusion. However, this research found that the brain damage could be much more prolonged than previously thought and last for several days after. Advertisement

They did this at various different altitudes - sea level; 3,500 metres at Namche Bazaar; 5,300 metres at Everest Base Camp and 1,300 metres at Kathmandu.

There was also a control group who were tested at sea level over the same period of time.

The effects of oxygen deprivation on the brain after climbing Everest were still present five days later when the climbers came back to Kathmandu.

The fact that oxygen deprivation has such a prolonged impact on the brain might explain why more people die coming down Everest than going up.

Co-author Professor Stanton Newman, Dean of the School of Health Sciences at City believes that a similar thing might occur after taking anaesthetic for surgery.

'We know that a number of people who go back to work after surgery and find that they have cognitive problems but it was unclear what was causing it', he told the Telegraph.

'We also noticed that the declines happened even when people were given oxygen and their oxygen levels returned to normal.'

The volunteers were 60 per cent male and had an average age of 45.

Participants for the study were recruited from the general public. All volunteers were over 18, fluent English speakers, lowland residents and non-professional trekkers.

'By taking otherwise healthy individuals to Everest Base Camp our study has provided insight into how low oxygen environments impact on the human brain and body,' said Dr Newman.

'We hope this study will give further insight into how we can respond to hypoxia-related cognitive impairment in clinical settings, particularly in older patients, in order to guide therapy and thereby minimise the magnitude and duration of impairment.'
A mother has revealed how her heartbreaking pregnancy nearly drove her to abortion after vomiting 90 times a day.

Carys Grant, 23, was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum - the same condition that saw the Duchess of Cambridge hospitalised while expecting Prince George.

Unable to eat for seven months, her life was put at risk after she plummeted from 13st 8lbs to just 7st while being in hospital.

At one point medics had even ran out of sick bowls to give her, forcing them to place an emergency order.

Concerned doctors often told her family that she would be unlikely to survive the devastating illness.

However, she managed to pull through the little-known condition and being fed through a tube to give birth to her son Ieuan, now two.

But the horrific ordeal, which left her depressed, has left her unwilling to have any more children because she doesn't want to 'risk it again'.

Carys Grant, 23, was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum - the same condition that saw the Duchess of Cambridge hospitalised while she was expecting Prince George (pictured with her son Ieuan, now two)

Miss Grant, from Cardiff, said: 'At my worst I was being sick 80 to 90 times a day. One time the hospital run out of sick bowls and had to do an emergency order.

'My whole life changed. I couldnt do anything. I felt close to death. When I wasnt sleeping I was being sick.

'I was in and out of hospital because I had no fluid intake. I would be discharged and then 12 hours later I would be back in. It was very isolating.

'I had a drip in my neck. My hair was falling out. I had kidney failure during the pregnancy and I had to have my gall bladder removed afterwards.

'Its very raw, but I was ready to terminate the pregnancy. I was so weak I couldnt speak but wrote it down on a paper "I need this baby out".

'I cant remember my pregnancy at all because of the medicines. I was in and out of it the whole eight months. Its just a blank, I dont even remember the first time the baby kicked.'

Unable to eat for seven months, her life was put at risk after she plummeted from 13st 8lbs to just 7st while being in hospital (pictured in hospital)

Around 10,000 women a year in the UK are affected by the debilitating hyperemesis gravidarum.

It is far more severe than ordinary morning sickness and some women are left bedbound or need to be admitted to hospital due to extreme dehydration

Symptoms normally occur in the first three months of pregnancy but some women experience them throughout their full term.

At my worst I was being sick 80 to 90 times a day. One time the hospital run out of sick bowls and had to do an emergency order Carys Grant, 23

One explanation for it is that it is a severe reaction to a hormone released in early pregnancy called beta human chorionic gonadotropin.

The Duchess, 35, cancelled engagements as she battled the condition. And in 2012, while expecting, she was admitted to hospital when it left her severely dehydrated.

Miss Grant met her partner, Stephen James, through friends nine years ago. They conceived in March 2014.

However, by the fifth week, the sickness was so bad, she was unable to do anything and was forced to leave her job as a carer assistant.

Initially her condition baffled doctors and it wasnt until her 12 week scan that she was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum.

Mr James said: 'It was so hard to see the person I love so vulnerable and unable to do anything for herself and lying so helplessly in a hospital bed.

Concerned doctors often told her family that she would be unlikely to survive the devastating illness (pictured with her partner, Stephen James)

However, she managed to pull through the little-known condition and being fed through a tube to give birth to her son Ieuan, now two

WHAT IS THIS CONDITION? Excessive nausea and vomiting during pregnancy is known as hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), and often needs hospital treatment. Unlike regular morning sickness, HG may not get better by 14 weeks. It may not clear up completely until the baby is born, although some symptoms may improve at around 20 weeks. Some pregnant women be sick many times a day and be unable to keep food or drink down, which can have a negative effect on their daily life. Exactly how many pregnant women get HG is not known as some cases may go unreported, but it's thought to be around 1 in every 100. Signs and symptoms of HG include prolonged and severe nausea and vomiting, dehydration and low blood pressure. Source: NHS Choices Advertisement

'Carys was so outgoing and happy, then she became a body unable to function for daily activities.

'What should have been such an amazing experience was heart-breaking. I was often told along with Carys mum, that they think she isnt going to survive the pregnancy or the baby.'

Miss Grant eventually had a quick labour and gave birth to her son after 36 weeks in November 2014.

Baby Ieuan spent 10 days in a special care baby unit before the family were finally able to take him home.

However, the physical and mental trauma from Miss Grant's pregnancy ordeal came home too.

She said: 'After, I had really bad post-natal depression. I had to adjust to going outside again.

'After all that time doing nothing, I couldnt look after myself. I couldnt wash or dress myself, I was sent into this spiraling depression

'Once I had Ieuan, I soon felt better and I gradually put on weight. But I still get anxiety over certain foods that I think might make me sick.

At one point medics had even ran out of sick bowls to give her, forcing them to place an emergency order (pictured in hospital)

'I still have severe depression and anxiety because of being in the hospital so long.'

Although Mr James is hoping for another child, she admits that she is too scared to try again.

Instead, she hopes doctors gain a better understanding of the little-known condition and provide better help to sufferers.

Miss Grant said: 'I wish there was more knowledge of the condition, at first no one in the hospital had heard of it.

'There should be more counselling and help during and afterwards. I also wish there was an opportunity of home care rather than just hospital admissions.

'No one should ever have to go through what I did.'

Mr James added: 'I owe my life to Carys, she is my hero. It is amazing to have her still here and she is a fantastic selfless mother to Ieuan.'
A four-year-old boy has to spend 20 hours a day living under bright blue light just to keep him alive.

Ismail Ali suffers from an extremely rare liver disease known as Crigler-Najjar syndrome, which affects only 100 people across the world.

He is missing a critical enzyme which breaks down high levels of old or worn out red blood cells in his body.

Not only does this cause him to occasionally have yellow-tinted eyes, but it can lead to a potentially fatal build-up of toxins in his liver.

To break these down, he spends most of his day on a bed powered by phototherapy rays, which he has done since he was just a week old.

His family, from Luton, made the decision to have the special bed fitted in a desperate attempt to keep him alive.

The only other treatment available to Ismail would be a liver transplant but his mother, Shahzia Chaudhari, 43, fears it could kill him.

Ismail Ali suffers from an extremely rare liver disease known as Crigler-Najjar syndrome, which affects only 100 people across the world

The phototherapy keeps Ismail's bilrubin levels consistent but she can spot when his levels are on the rise as he becomes lethargic.

As a result of his treatment, he is only able to go to school for two hours at a time, and only when he is well enough.

Ms Chaudhari said: 'Ismail does everything under his lights - he eats, he sleeps, he plays like a normal little boy.

'He spends 20 hours a day under the lights. The only thing he can't do under there is jump around.

'He has no choice because if we let the toxins build up he could suffer brain damage and potentially he could die.

'We've had to completely adapt as a family. We can't go out for meals, we can't go to weddings, we have to be close to Ismail's bed at all times.

'But we love him to bits and we wouldn't change him for the world.'

Ismail, who has four older sisters, started showing symptoms of jaundice shortly after he was born in 2013.

His family, from Luton, made the decision to have a specialist bed fitted that shines blue light on the infant to help him break down a potentially deadly build-up of toxins in his liver (pictured with his mother, Shahzia Chaudhari, 43)

Doctors dismissed it as completely normal, thinking it would soon pass, but his maternity care assistant mother had an instinct it was more serious.

A week later he began to shake, prompting medics to carry out tests on Ismail's blood - to find he had an excessive level of bilirubin.

Normally this is broken down by the liver, but Ismail lacks the enzyme that does this for him, leaving him at risk of death.

He spends 20 hours a day under the lights. The only thing he can't do under there is jump around. Shahzia Chaudhari, 43

As a result, he requires regular phototherapy to control his symptoms which was initially administered in hospital via machines.

Built by an engineer in Halifax, West Yorkshire, the specialist kit at his home was completely paid for by the NHS.

The lights inside go up to 40C, but the family can turn the temperature up and down depending on how he is feeling.

Shone onto Ismail's skin, the light adds oxygen to the bilirubin so it dissolves easily in water, making it easier for the liver to break down.

The lights have to be changed every six months as they are only efficient enough to provide proper treatment for 1,000 hours at a time.

The only other treatment available to Ismail would be a liver transplant but his mother, Shahzia Chaudhari, 43, fears it could kill him (pictured using the machine)

Ms Chaudhari added: 'The first thing he does when he comes out is go and jump on our bed, he's like a little tornado.

'It was hard to keep him under there at first but he's come to learn that he has to be under there to keep him healthy.'

Ismail's family has a history of adverse reactions to anaesthetic, meaning if he had a transplant he may not survive being put to sleep.

Their daughter Saima, 18, had to be placed on life-support and almost died after undergoing a biopsy as a baby when she wasn't eating or gaining weight.

It led to doctors testing the whole family to find if they are allergic to medication commonly used when putting people to sleep.

Although they carry cards to say they cannot be given suxamethonium or mivacurium, Ms Chaudhari doesn't want to risk him being administered a drug which could kill him if he underwent a liver transplant.

Ms Chaudhari, who is married to Shazab Ali, 48, said: 'Doctors told us Saima wasn't going to survive when she didn't come round after the operation.

The phototherapy keeps Ismail's bilrubin levels consistent but she can spot when his levels are on the rise as he becomes lethargic

WHAT IS CRIGLER-NAJJAR SYNDROME? Crigler-Najjar syndrome is a severe condition characterised by high levels of bilirubin in the blood. This substance is produced in the body when red blood cells are broken down. It is removed after it undergoes a chemical reaction in the liver, which converts the toxic form to a nontoxic form. The disease is divided into two types - either type 1 or 2. The former is very severe, and affected individuals can die in childhood due to kernicterus - a form of brain damage caused by a build-up of the toxin. Type 2 is less severe and most affected children survive into adulthood. Source: Genetics Home Reference Advertisement

'It was a routine biopsy and we never imagined she could suffer like she did. It was terrifying as a parent and something we never want to repeat if we can help it.

'If Ismail decides to take the risk and have a liver transplant at a later date, that's a decision we will support him with.

'We just want to give him the best that we can for now and allow him to have the best childhood possible.'

The family are now on the waiting list for a specialist 'Billy Bed' which is only available in the Netherlands.

It provides a more intense dose of phototherapy as the lights are more efficient, and it's thought Ismail will only have to spent up to seven hours a night undergoing treatment.

The NHS have agreed to fund the bed and hope it will be delivered to them later this year.

Ms Chaudhari added: 'If we can get this piece of equipment, Ismail could just be in there overnight.

'It would give him some normality and allow him to be like every other child.'

The family are fundraising to try and raise funds for a carer and specialist room for Ismail. Anyone wanting to donate can do so here.
Measles is making its way across Europe at an alarming rate, shocking new figures reveal.

Cases of the highly contagious infection have tripled in Italy so far this year, while Romania has also recorded an outbreak.

France, Germany, Poland, Switzerland and Ukraine, which are all deemed endemic, have also reported an increase in cases.

The World Health Organization warns that outbreaks are mainly in areas where immunisation coverage is low.

But it says that the potentially fatal bug can reach other parts of Europe where vaccinations are more common.

Cases of measles have tripled in Italy so far this year, while Romania has also recorded an outbreak, figures show

WHO regional director for Europe Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab said: 'With steady progress towards elimination over the past 2 years, it is of particular concern that measles cases are climbing in Europe.

'Todays travel patterns put no person or country beyond the reach of the measles virus.

'Outbreaks will continue in Europe, as elsewhere, until every country reaches the level of immunization needed to fully protect their populations.

'I urge all endemic countries to take urgent measures to stop transmission of measles within their borders, and all countries that have already achieved this to keep up their guard and sustain high immunisation coverage.'

The WHO recommends that 95 per cent of two year olds are given the vaccination to contain any outbreaks.

But according to Italian data, only 85 per cent of those youngsters were given the jab in 2015.

The World Health Organization warns that outbreaks are mainly in areas where immunisation coverage is low.

WHAT IS MEASLES? Measles is a contagious respiratory infection. It is spread by droplets in the air from coughing or sneezing. Sufferers get an outbreak of itchy red blotches all over their body around two weeks after exposure. They also get a cough, sore throat, and a fever. Patients can take vitamin A and over-the-counter medications to treat the virus until it goes away. The best form of treatment is a preventative vaccine. Years after infection, measles sufferers can develop an always-fatal neurological disorder called SSPE. It targets the central nervous system. Advertisement

Health officials believe that parents avoiding getting their children vaccinated due to scare stories surrounding a link to autism.

The association was first suggested by a British researcher, Andrew Wakefield, in a 1998 paper for medical journal The Lancet.

However, it was subsequently found to have been falsified and the paper was withdrawn in 2010.

Dr Wakefield was barred from practising medicine. Numerous major studies since have found no evidence of a link.

Although it usually only triggers relatively mild symptoms, measles can cause fatal complications.

Romania has reported more than 3,400 cases and 17 deaths since January 2016, according to the latest data available.

The majority of cases are concentrated in areas where immunisation coverage is especially low.

More than 700 cases have been registered since the start of 2017 in Italy, figures show.

This is compared with 220 in the same period last year. During the whole of 2016 there were just 844 cases.

More than half of those affected have been among the ages of 15 and 39. The outbreak has also been concentrated to Rome, Turin, Milan and Florence.

Italian health officials said the surge showed a worrying number of younger people were not fully vaccinated against the disease.

Health minister Beatrice Lorenzin said: 'We need to rapidly boost the level of vaccination cover, which has fallen dangerously over recent years.'
A groundbreaking procedure will allow women who have survived cancer a chance to get pregnant.

Chemotherapy often causes damage to the ovaries, and women who undergo the treatment are commonly left unable to have a baby.

But a New York fertility doctor has come up with a plan to ensure that women will be able to have a natural pregnancy.

The procedure - similar to a skin graft - stores and freezes a slice of a woman's ovarian tissue that contains eggs before the start of chemo.

When a woman has recovered from chemo and is cancer-free, the tissue is transplanted back into her ovary. Her reproductive function is restored and she will not have to undergo in-vitro fertilization (IVF) or egg donation, according to the doctor who is spearheading the project.

A groundbreaking procedure will allow female cancer patients to become pregnant even if their ovaries were damaged during chemotherapy by freezing a slice of ovarian tissue containing the eggs and transplanting it back in when treatment is done (file image)

New York fertility doctor Dr George Kofinas has submitted a plan to the state's Health Department to open a reproductive surgery center that will specialize in ovarian-tissue harvesting and transplantation, according to the New York Post.

'The demand for this service is projected to be very high,' Dr Kofinas said in a presentation to the Health Department's review panel.

'We have an ever-growing number of cancer survivors that come to us now and their ovaries have been completely destroyed by chemotherapy and other kinds of treatment, and we can't help them unless we use donor eggs.'

CHEMO DOESN'T HARM UNBORN BABY, STUDY SAYS Receiving cancer treatment while pregnant does not result in health problems for unborn children, researchers have found. Neither chemotherapy, radiotherapy nor surgery harmed patients' babies, according to a 2015 study from the University Hospitals Leuven in Belgium. The researchers said that women who are diagnosed with cancer while pregnant should not delay their treatment. Professor Frederic Amant and his team examined 129 children born after exposure to cancer treatment in the womb. The data found that the babies - aged 18 months and then three years when they were tested - had developed normally when compared to children whose mothers had not had cancer. Professor Amant said: 'Our results show that fear of cancer treatment is no reason to terminate a pregnancy, that maternal treatment should not be delayed and that chemotherapy can be given. 'The study also shows that children suffer more from prematurity than from chemotherapy, so avoiding prematurity is more important than avoiding chemotherapy.' Advertisement

Many doctors recommend that a woman not get pregnant in the first six months after finishing chemotherapy because during this time period is when damaged eggs leave the body.

Other doctors suggest waiting between two to five years before trying to have a baby in case the cancer returns.

But Dr Kofinas says the unusual procedure will allow women to not have to wait as long before trying to conceive.

'Providing these people with the service of storing their ovarian tissue for the time they become reproductively active is a unique service which we think will serve well in the metropolitan area, the state and the country,' he said.

The only place in the US where the procedure has been tested and performed before is the Infertility Center of St. Louis in Missouri.

Center leader Dr Sherman Silber told the Post that the success rate for delivering a live baby is 75 percent.

'It has not caught on in the United States elsewhere because it is not a 'money maker' compared to IVF,' he claimed.

Dr Kofinas plans to have a lab adjacent to the operating room to immediately preserve ovarian tissue.

'We have developed the technology for the ovarian tissue freezing and the technology for the surgery. But you have to have those things together or you can't offer it,' he said.
New research suggests that gastric acid suppression drugs are linked to recurrent superbug infections.

The study found that there was an increased risk of recurrent Clostridium difficile infection - which causes diarrhea - with the use of these medications.

The researchers suggest that suppressing stomach acid might have an effect on the bacteria living in the gut, which could make people more susceptible to the infection.

The researchers suggest that suppressing stomach acid might have an effect on the bacteria living in the gut, which could make people more susceptible to the infection

While the study doesn't prove that heartburn medications cause recurrent C.difficile, it does suggest that there is an association between the two.

C.difficile is a bacterium that causes inflammation of the colon, a condition called colitis.

Symptoms include diarrhea, fever, loss of appetite, nausea and abdominal pain.

Recurrent C.difficile is a major problem - with the risk of contracting it again at 50-60 per cent after 3 or more infections, the researchers said.

The new research into heartburn drugs, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine, found that the use of these drugs leads to significantly more cases of recurrent C.difficile

The study was a meta-analysis: It analyzed data from 16 different studies comprising an overall of 7703 patients with C.difficile.

WHAT IS CLOSTRIDIUM DIFFICILE? C.difficile is a a bacterium that causes inflammation of the colon, a condition called colitis. According to the CDC, people who have other illnesses or conditions that require prolonged use of antibiotics, as well as the elderly, are at greater risk of contracting this disease. The bacteria are found in feces, and people can become infected if they touch items or surfaces that are contaminated with feces and then touch their mouths or mucous membranes. Symptoms include diarrhea, fever, loss of appetite, nausea and abdominal pain. Source: CDC Advertisement

Out of all these patients, just over 50 per cent were using gastric acid suppressants.

Almost 20 per cent of all the patients developed recurrent C.difficile - a bout of infection within 90 days of a previous one.

But the rate of recurrent C.difficile infection in patients taking heartburn drugs was 22.1 per cent, compared to 17.3 per cent for patients not taking these types of drugs.

While the difference may seem small, the researchers wrote that 'the use of gastric acid suppressants was associated with a significantly increased risk of recurrent C.difficile infection'.

The research is important because up to 50 per cent of patients with Clostridium difficile are using gastric acid suppressants.

One of the leaders of the research, Dr Sahil Khanna, a gastroenterologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, told CBS News that the suppression of stomach acid might affect the bacteria living in the gut in these people, making them susceptible to C.difficile.

He also said that it's possible that people taking acid suppressors may already be in worse health than people not taking them, and this would make them more likely to contract infections such as C.difficile.

C.difficile is a a bacterium that causes inflammation of the colon, a condition called colitis. This infographic explains key facts and statistics about the infection

In patients that have recurrent C.difficile, Dr Khanna suggests that the best way to prevent the infection is to stop misusing heartburn drugs.

'Patients with C.difficile should be reevaluated to assess the necessity of using gastric acid suppression medications,' Dr Khanna said.

However, a doctor who wasn't associated with the study said that he doesnt think doctors or patients should be worried about the research.

'We dont see this as a problem, because so many people are on these drugs,' said Dr David Bernstein, chief of hepatology at Northwell Health in Manhasset, New York.

'I wouldnt change anything in what we do medically or tell patients based on what this meta-analysis found'.
He's been called a 'real-life X-Men', but it isn't super powers that gives Jamie Keeton the ability to stick objects to his skin - it is a mysterious and rare skin condition.

Keeton, also known as 'Can Head', has an extraordinary capability of his skin that allows him to stick cans and bottles to his head.

Specialists have suggested that the talent stems from his higher than average body temperature, 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which causes his skin pores to act like suction cups.

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James Keeton has an extraordinary capability of his skin that allows him to stick cans and bottles to his head. HE was recently in Chicago during an interview while he poured water into a glass from a bottle suctioned to his head

RARE SKIN DISEASES Jamie Keeton realized he was different when he was seven years old - his toys began to stick to his skin. Although doctors have said Keeton is the only person in the US with the skin disease, they have yet to give it a name. Specialists suggested that the ability stems from his higher than average body temperature, 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which causes his skin pores to act like suction cups. Not only is he able to stick objects to his skin, but his wounds heal faster, he gets sick less and ages slower than the average person. Advertisement

During a recent interview in Chicago, Keeton poured water into a glass from a bottle suctioned to his head.

And, the skill has even earned him a Guinness World Record.

'My doctor explained to me that my skin pores act like suction cups, so things stick to me,' Keeton, who is 47 years old, told Daily Mail Online in a previous interview.

'My body heat is also hotter than normal, which makes the suction stronger,' Keeton said.

Doctors are baffled by the rare disease and have concluded that he is the only person in the US to have the suction capability.

And similar to how a superhero's power develops with age - so did Keeton's ability.

He first realized there was something different about him at the age of seven when his toys began sticking to his skin.

'My parents thought it was just pine sap from climbing trees,' explained Keeton.

'When I was younger I didn't promote it a lot'.

'I was scared people would call me a freak.'

Specialists suggested that the ability stems from his higher than average body temperature, 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which causes his skin pores to act like suction cups. Keeton realized he was different when he was seven years old - his toys began sticking to his skin

But as he grew older and realized people would actual pay to see his bizarre talent, Keeton stopped caring about other people's opinions, he said.

'People are like, 'That's retarded,' but now I'm paid to do it. How retarded is that?'

It may seem bizarre to some, but Keeton has turned the condition into a full-time career, which earns him up to $1,500 a day and sometimes as much as $8,000 in a weekend - and all he is does is stick cans and bottles from brands to his head.

Although the mysterious condition has yet to be given an official name, Keeton has a few ideas of what it could be.

As Keeton grew older and realized people would actual pay to see his bizarre talent, Keeton stopped caring about other people's opinions, he said

Not only is he able to stick objects to his skin, but his wounds heal faster, he gets sick less and ages slower than the average person. Doctors have yet to give Keeton's skin condition an official name

It may seem bizarre to some, but Keeton has turned the condition into a full-time career, which earns him up to $1,500 a day and sometimes as much as $8,000 in a weekend - and all he is does is stick cans and bottles from brands to his head

'Maybe 'Can Head Suction Disease,' he said, before changing his mind.

'Well not 'Disease' though, that sounds bad. Maybe 'Can Head Skin Condition' would be a good name.'

Not only is he able to stick objects to his skin, but his wounds heal faster, he gets sick less and ages slower than the average person.

Keeton won the Guinness World Record for carrying the most cans on his head last year.

Jamie Keeton, also known as Can Head, has the unusual ability to make cans, bottles and even plastic cups (pictured) stick to his head

Jamie Keeton says he can make thousands of dollars per week from his bizarre talent

During the event, he kept eight cans on his head for a total of 10 seconds - winning him the record.

'Of course I blew a lot of minds in China,' Keeton said.

'My interpreter was stopped three times by the police, because I was walking around with cans on my head.

'Also I was in shorts and t-shirt even though it was like nine degrees out.'
People need to ditch the obsession with body mass index and rethink the way they judge obesity, a new report states.

Researchers from the University of Alberta say the metric, which measures a person's body size from their weight and height, has become a benchmark in modern medicine.

But body mass index (BMI) is not only a bad indicator of how healthy you are, it can lead to doctors prescribing the wrong treatment for patients, the scientists say.

Researchers at the University of Alberta state that body mass index (BMI) is not an indicator of how healthy you are and the metrics by which we judge obesity need to be changed

BMI first gained popularity in the 1970s as a way of judging body fat. A healthy BMI is typically measured between 18.5 and 24.9.

Anything under 18.5 is considered underweight. BMIs between 25 and 29.9 fall into overweight territory, and above 30 is considered obese.

It is useful for tracking population trends in body weight, but has well-known limitations when applied to individuals, Dr Arya Sharma, an obesity researcher at the University of Alberta in Canada, told Live Science.

For example, many professional athletes qualify as overweight or obese based on solely their BMI. But they have much more muscle mass, which weighs proportionally more than fat.

And while someone with a BMI of above 30 is considered obese by the metric, they may actually be perfectly healthy, metabolically speaking, according to Dr Sharma.

Their blood pressure is normal, their livers are functioning well and their cholesterol levels are within normal limits.

On the other hand, some people with BMIs below 30 have health problems that could improve if they were to lose weight.

EXPERTS SAY YOUR WAIST SIZE MATTERS, NOT YOUR BMI The size of your waist is a much more accurate marker of health than your weight, experts have found. Researchers, from the University of Wolverhampton in the UK, say the metric of BMI measurement is misleading because it cannot distinguish between fat and muscle, the latter of which is far heavier. The team devised a new measurement of waist-to-height ratio, which they say is a far more accurate predictor of heart disease risk in both men and women. The system, calculated by dividing the waist size by the square root of someone's height, was found in a trial of 4,700 people to be the best marker of cardiometabolic health. Professor Alan Nevill, who led the study, said this is because waist size is usually determined by body fat, with little muscle around someone's middle to confuse the findings. Belly fat is also known to be particularly dangerous because it wraps around vital organs in the torso. So for someone of 5ft 2in, a 36in waist is harmful, whereas for someone of 6ft 1in, the danger point would be a 39in waist. Advertisement

The American Medical Association classifies obesity as a disease, but size alone isn't a disease, Dr Sharma said.

'BMI is a clothing size...It tells me how big you are,' he said.

'It doesn't tell me how sick you are. BMI is not a good criteria to be diagnosing a disease.'

Yet we see BMIs advertised all the time. Drug and medical device companies use BMI cutoffs in deciding who to include in their studies of obesity treatments and insurance companies use BMI to determine coverage.

However, the researchers say what many fail to recognize is that BMI is just a quick and objective number to cite so patients can be told if they have a weight problem.

'What any obesity specialist should do is use BMI as a first step, and then go beyond BMI as needed,' Dr Scott Kahan, director of the National Center for Weight and Wellness, told Live Science.

Dr Sharma says a shift needs to be made from a BMI-based diagnosis of obesity to a more holistic, health-based approach.

This would involve a check for physical health problems, such as diabetes or joint problems; a look at mental health issues, such as depression or social anxiety; and functional health, including the ability to go about day-to-day activities.

He and his colleagues have developed a scale called the Edmonton Obesity Staging System that includes all three.

Despite the pushback, the doctors admit that BMI still has its place in medicine.

Dr Kahan said that, for example, if two patients come in with high blood pressure and high cholesterol, but with BMIs of 21 and 31, he knows that one needs to lose weight and the other needs the cardiometabolic problems treated directly.

It is not unusual to change a disease classification, said Dr Sharma, who is part of a growing movement questioning the laser focus on BMI.

'Definitions of diseases have to grow with our understanding of what the disease actually is,' he said.
The stone-hurling protesters of Jammu and Kashmir have frequently grabbed national and international headlines for unleashing mob fury on government forces.

However, data shared by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) shows it is Kerala, and not J&K, which reported the maximum number of injuries to police personnel inflicted by rioters in 2015.

Between 2013 and 2015, Paradise on Earth seems to have overtaken God's Own Country just once, in 2014, when J&K Police reported 330 injuries while Kerala recorded 202.

Ministry of Home Affairs shared the data on injuries to police by rioters and Kerala fared the worse

In 2013, Kerala reported 615 injuries to its police force while in the same year J&K Police reported 585 incidents.

In 2015, the southern state reported 284 such injuries to its cops while J&K showed injuries to 200 of its police personnel.

However, data shared by the ministry does not include the figures from 2016, which saw a rash of civilian protests and incidents of stone pelting in the Valley.

An IG-rank officer in Kerala told Mail Today: 'Incidents in Kerala pertain to public order and law and order. There is no organised stone throwing as in Kashmir.

'Kerala cops receive minor injuries, but even those are recorded and reported to authorities.'

An Indian policeman tries to douse a teargas shell returned towards them by Kashmiri Muslim protesters during an anti India protest on March 03, 2017, in in Srinagar

There are no encounters with terrorists in the southern state, he pointed out.

He continued: 'The injuries to police force are mainly on account of public order and man management. Kerala also witnesses several marches and agitation, which may turn violent with incidents of stone pelting.

'The politically volatile state also reports marches wings, besides marches by citizens to secretariat or collectorate,' the officer said.

A number of other states reported injuries by riotous mobs to cops with Maharashtra recording 294 in 2013, 90 in 2014 and 163 in 2015.

West Bengal was just behind with 119 in 2013, 197 in 2014 and 151 in 2015.

Srinagar: Soldiers take positions during an encounter after militants attacked an Army convoy at Hyderpora last week

Uttar Pradesh managed to break into the top five with 29 such injuries to cops in 2013, followed by138 in 2014 and 137 in 2015.

Delhi topped the list among Union Territories: reporting 24 injuries to cops in 2013, 72 in 2014 and 60 in 2015.

The overall figures of 29 states and seven Union Territories show that 2013 was a bad year with 1,930 injuries to cops. The situation improved in 2014 with 1,349 injuries but worsened in 2015 with 1,501.

The numbers were shared by Minister of State for Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir in response to a starred question posed by Lok Sabha MP Om Birla.

The figures are from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

A senior officer in Jammu Kashmir told Mail Today: 'The figures quoted by MHA are astounding,' but added, 'The scenario of violence in states are different: from West Bengal, Maharasthra, UP to Kerala.

'But it is the severity of clashes in Jammu and Kashmir, which is incomparable. The personnel face life threatening situations. While it is not fair to compare any two states, Jammu Kashmir Police face threats ranging from bullets to belligerent crowds. The police forces in states on most occasions outperformtasks assigned.'
The crackdown on illegal slaughter houses in Uttar Pradesh is possibly inspiring other Hindutva organisations and political parties in states run by the BJP government.

Gurugram is the latest to follow the trend which is causing trouble for meat sellers.

More than 200 Shiv Sainiks in Haryana forced the closure of over 500 meat and chicken shops, including outlets of international brand KFC, in the old Gurugram area for nine days - until Navratra [Hindi festival] celebrations are over.

Some 500 meat shops, including international chain KFC, have been ordered to close

The Shiv Sainiks have also served notices to non-veg shop owners and threatened them to shut their outlets every Tuesday in future.

Yogi is making his mark as Uttar Pradesh's Chief Minister by cracking down on the sale of illegal meat from the state's abattoirs

'We have served notices to hotels, dhabas, eateries serving non-vegetarian food, apart from raw meat and chicken shops owners to keep shops shut during Navratri and on Tuesdays. One will have to face consequence in case he does not follow instructions,' said Ritu Raj, the general secretary and spokesperson of Shiv Sena Gurugram wing.

The members of Shiv Sena assembled at Palam Vihar and forced the closure of meat markets and Muslim dhabas, after which they forced shops in Surat Nagar, Ashok Vihar, Sector 5, 9, Pataudi Chowk, Jacobpura, Sadar Bazaar, Khandsa Anaj Mandi, bus stand and then to Sector 14 market to close as well.

'We have asked customers of KFC to cooperate with us in vacating the place. We have forced employees to turn electricity off inside and pull shutters down for public,' said Gautam Saini, the president of Shiv Sena Gurugram.

Saini claimed that they have complete support of other local traders and they are complemented us for the drive.

Sources said Sena has also approached police and civil administration and that they have supported it.

The administration was quite aware of the move and hence they have not objected at any point despite the initiative of Sena was against the law.

Manish Sehgal, ACP, (Crime) and spokesperson of Gurugram police told Mail Today however, that he was not aware of anything.

The non-vegetarian shops with valid licences are entitled to commercially operate and anyone forcing them for closure would face legal action.
Distance lends charm. I can vouch for this having spent a week away from Delhi, its alarming morning headlines and hyper competitive television anchors.

India with its growing economy, social pluralism and thriving democracy appears far more attractive in Cardiff than from Delhi.

I have not been accosted about our failing democracy or the rise of virulent communalism despite some erudite Indian commentators who have done so in the domestic media following BJPs recent electoral success.

The BJP and Yogi Adityanath 'will address the three critical deficits of governance, education and infrastructure that have marred the state'

Mature

Clearly, foreigners observing India from afar and in the global context are helped by two attributes.

First, they look at the bigger picture and are not weighed down by happenings in one province or city or sporadic ugly incidents that mar the daily life of an ordinary Indian. This helps them to focus on emerging and dominant trends.

These trends and not the minutiae are perhaps the key to understanding the complex change simultaneously unfolding in India across several dimensions.

Second, foreign commentators constantly compare Indias progress, or lack of it, with that in other emerging economies.

This comparative assessment perhaps makes Indias achievements look far more impressive than when looked at only in a linear manner and in the context of the humdrum of daily mishaps and shortcomings.

Yogi Adityanath (L) elected leader of the BJP Legislature Party, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, with Deputy CM Dinesh Sharma

Viewed from a distance, Indias democracy, with all its warts of communalism, casteism and use of money and muscle power, seems to be thriving better than elsewhere.

The outcome of recent UP elections giving four-fifths majority to the BJP and the installation of Yogi Adityanath as the chief minister of this most populous state is seen as the maturing of Indian democracy.

The Indian democracy is seen as emerging out of its elitist phase engendered and nurtured by the Nehruvian ethos that comprised of an elite political leadership imbued by western values and ideologies lording over the masses sans any accountability.

The elitist phase of Indian democracy, from which it is hopefully now extricating itself, was marked by a dualism between the English speaking and westernised political leadership and the vernacular speaking and locally culturally rooted masses over whom it ruled. There was minimal accountability.

Newly sworn in Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath (L) with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah

Political leaders, across the political spectrum, would make extravagant development promises only to get on with the real business of illegally enriching themselves through a dominant nexus of netas, babus and dalals.

This was the norm except for the short tenure of Lal Bahadur Shastri that was unfortunately cut short by his untimely demise.

Regional parties, rooted in provincial ground realities and reflecting local aspirations, were first to take on the Nehruvian juggernaut, but often with the open adoption of vicious forms of identity politics and recourse to bahubali raj.

This has now changed, hopefully forever. Indian voters will henceforth not be taken for granted.

Dons

However, both the Congress and dominant regional parties, admonished the majority from asserting its due rights as it would smack of majoritarianism, thereby damaging the so called secular fabric of the Indian polity.

The minority was asked to support their rulers palpably to ensure its basic survival in the face of an overwhelming majority that was portrayed as threatening its vital interests.

This false narrative would also be used to justify not only the rise of dons and goondas but also to give them active state support that assured them complete immunity from state action.

The worst was that in states like UP and others in the Hindi heartland, this dichotomous treatment of the common voter, provided the elite political leadership with a cast iron alibi for not fulfilling their promised development agenda.

The people wallowing in their poverty and misery, were occasionally assured by their leaders that this was the best possible outcome in a situation marred by the deep divide between the majority and minorities.

Development

Having given BJP an overwhelming mandate, voters from my home state have spoken very clearly and loudly that they want to overthrow the yoke of elite and divisive political leadership and give development and economic transition a real chance.

To argue that the election of Yogi Adityanath reflects a counterdemocracy trend or foretells the demise of true democracy in India, is to question the voters and their duly elected representatives their constitutionally enshrined right in a democracy.

It is my hope and belief, that the BJP government in UP with Yogi at its helm, will go about addressing the three critical deficits of governance, education and infrastructure that have marred the state and taken it to the bottom of economic and human development indices in the country.

That will benefit all population segments irrespective of their religious and caste affiliations.

Yogi Adityanaths task is sharply cut out and he has his ears close to the ground to realise that he has to pursue this single-mindedly over the next five years
Italian authorities reported on Tuesday that they scuppered an elaborate plan to steal the body of legendary Ferrari founder Enzo Ferrari.

Mr Ferrari, who died in 1988, pioneered the manufacturer's road-car and F1 success throughout his reign, before his death at the age of 90.

Police in the city of Nuoro, on the Italian Island of Sardinia, said they had stumbled across the plot to steal the body during an ongoing investigation into arms and drugs trafficking.

Body snatchers: A gang in Italy has been plotting to steal the body of the late Enzo Ferrari, the carmaker's founder who died 29 years ago. Mr Ferrari is pictured here (centre) during F1 testing at Monza in 1964

According to Reuters, the gang behind the plan aimed to demand a ransom for the return of the late Mr Ferrari's body.

It said police had made 'a number of arrests' as a result of the investigation.

The legendary founder, who the Ferrari Enzo supercar is famously named after, is buried in an above-ground family tomb in the San Cataldo cemetery in Modena.

His grave is not far from Ferrari's headquarters and manufacturing facility in central Italy.

Enzo Ferrari pictured on his 85th birthday, 18 February 1983

Enzo Ferrari began his motorsport career in 1918 and was at the helm of the car firm from its inception until he died in August 1988, just weeks after witnessing the launch of the Ferrari F40 supercar, which was dedicated as a symbol of his achievements.

Ferrari's car company's roots lay in the Scuderia Ferrari race team that he created in 1929 and which raced Alfa Romeos through the 1930s.

He later launched Ferrari to build race cars under his own name and began to sell both race and road cars to fund its motorsport.

Ferrari then evolved into arguably the most coveted name in motoring. Fiat bought a 50 per cent stake in the company in 1969 and Ferrari floated on the New York stock exchange in 2015.

In 2002, Ferrari named its Enzo hypercar after the former boss.

Mr Ferrari is currently a hot topic at the moment, with two movie biopics due to be released - one with Robert De Niro taking the lead role and the other fronted by Hugh Jackman and directed by Michael Mann.

The Italian car firm named the 2002 Enzo supercar after the man who se up the ultra successful vehicle brand
Outrage at Government campaign that says condoms make women sexier

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Ministers were accused of encouraging promiscuity and casual sex yesterday over a new campaign to persuade young women to carry condoms.

The publicity drive tells women in their late teens and early 20s that men are attracted to girls who carry the contraceptives.

It advises that men like nothing better than a woman who knows what she wants and the Department of Health has labelled the campaign condom confidence boosts sex appeal.

The 5.2million initiative, launched by Health Minister Dawn Primarolo, also gives young women advice on how to persuade men to use condoms.

Recommended phrases include if you make it clean, Ill make it dirty and lets get you ready for the ride of your life.

Women are told that they are no longer regarded as easy for carrying a condom.

Cosmopolitan magazine writer Sarah Hedley, brought in to speak for the campaign, is quoted as saying: Taking a condom on a night out should be as normal as taking a phone, keys and purse. There has never been a better time for women to be condom confident and enjoy a healthy, active sex life.

But the campaign brought angry criticism from MPs and experts on teenage pregnancy.

Tory MP Julian Brazier said: I have always accepted that condoms have some role to play in fighting sexually-transmitted infections.

But it is very sad that the authors of this document do not seem to understand that the problem starts with growing levels of sexual activity by people with multiple partners.

This campaign is contributing to the further growth of the problem rather than to public health.

Patricia Morgan, author of studies of teenage pregnancy, said: You could hardly do more to encourage promiscuity. It is close to asking girls to go about the place with noticeson their foreheads saying they are available.

It is crude and brutal, and it will lead to more STIs, more pregnancies, and greater unhappiness.

A previous health minister, Caroline Flint, said in 2006 that carrying a condom should be as familiar to young women as using a mobile phone or lipstick.

The Department of Health has now opted to tell women that carrying a condom makes them attractive.

After commissioning a poll, it said in publicity material: Men like nothing better than a woman who knows what she wants, with the majority of men polled (68 per cent) believing that women who carry condoms are confident and in control.

Female attitudes and behaviour in relation to sex, and roles and responsibilities, have changed significantly over the last 30 years.

Double standards which used to exist for men and women around carrying condoms have disappeared.

The campaign warns of high rates of sexually-transmitted diseases, in particular chlamydia, and quotes Miss Hedley as saying: Many young women who get treated for an STI have had unprotected sex because they didnt have a condom to hand.

Young women are offered confidence tips, which include phrases to indicate you are up for some fun, but only if he wears a condom and lines to persuade reluctant men.

Miss Primarolos officials said government policy is to ask young women to delay having sex, but to persuade those who do to use condoms.

The Health Department said: The Condom Essential Wear campaign reminds sexuallyactive people to be prepared with effective contraception, and raises awareness about sexually-transmitted infections. This is against the backdrop of 397,990 newlydiagnosed STIs in UK sexual health clinics in 2007.

But Tory MP Graham Brady said: There is a fine line between advising those who are having sexual relationships to do so safely, and risking encouraging casual encounters. This campaign falls on the wrong side of that line.

The Christian Institute thinktank warned that the campaign was at odds with efforts by ministers to protect women from sexual violence and rape.

Spokesman Mike Judge said: This will encourage promiscuity and encourage men to think of women as sex objects. It will do nothing to discourage rape.

Author Mrs Morgan said: If women are officially told to behave in this way, then men will expect sex. They are likely to behave badly if they dont get it.
Representative Ted Poe resigned from the House Freedom Caucus on Sunday because of the group's refusal to vote for the healthcare bill championed by President Donald Trump.

He had some harsh words for the caucus on CNN Monday: 'There's some members of the Freedom Caucus - they'd vote 'no' against the Ten Commandments if it came up for a vote.

Poe was in favor of the Republican legislation, but the Freedom Caucus argued the proposal did not go far enough in repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

Ted Poe was in favor of the GOP healthcare bill that was shut down before the vote last week

'Saying no is easy, leading is hard, but that is what we were elected to do,' the Texas representative said in a statement. 'Leaving this caucus will allow me to be a more effective member of Congress.'

The Freedom Caucus is composed of the House of Representatives' most conservative members.

They were instrumental in dealing Trump a stunning political setback on Friday when Republican House leaders pulled the healthcare legislation, derailing a major 2016 election campaign promise of the president and his allies.

Trump's fellow Republicans control both houses of Congress.

Trump tweeted another harsh message about the Freedom Caucus implying they wanted to not pass the healthcare bill as a 'win'

Don't blame me! 'The losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,' Trump claimed, naming the Democratic Party's leaders in the House and Senate, 'because now they own Obamacare. They own it. One hundred per cent own it.' He was flanked by Tom Price, the health secretary, and Vice President Mike Pence in the Oval Office

Monday night, Trump said on Twitter about the healthcare loss: 'The Republican House Freedom Caucus was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. After so many bad years they were ready for a win!'

Trump had courted Freedom Caucus lawmakers intensively. Outside conservative groups such as the Club for Growth and Heritage Action for America that are closely aligned with the Freedom Caucus had strongly opposed the Republican healthcare bill and urged lawmakers to vote against it.

In a tweet on Sunday morning, Trump lashed out at both the Freedom Caucus and other conservatives, saying: 'Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of Club For Growth and Heritage, have saved Planned Parenthood & Ocare!'
A devastated mother has revealed how her aging disabled son lives in fear after he was sexually assaulted by a staff member at his group home - but he can't move because he has nowhere else to go.

Jean Hislop, 87, has spoken out about the gross treatment of her son Andrew, 45, at a government-run group home in Victoria two years ago, telling Four Corners she is 'too old to care for her son herself'.

Andrew, who has Down syndrome, was first sent to the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services facility 20 years ago - but his mother now regrets the decision to let him go.

Andrew Hislop's mother revealed her pain when it was found her son had been sexually abused

'I'm sorry I did it. I really am. I never realised things were so bad,' she said.

Andrew went to the home when his father became ill  and his mother found caring for both of them too much.

'My husband was going blind and he had a heart problem. And, Andrew, so outgoing, wanted to go shopping and he'd go for a walk, and I couldn't handle the two of them,' Mrs Hislop said.

'So... I had to make a decision, and I thought it would be good for him, like, because he's so good with company.'

Mrs Hislop said she now deeply regretted the decision to allow her son to move in to the home where she thought he would be safe.

The offending staff member was 'immediately sacked' after the sexual attack on the 45-year-old, who has the mental age of a small child, but no charges were ever laid.

Mrs Hislop says she regrets the decision to move her son Andrew into care after the harm he was exposed to

The Four Corners report highlighted further cases where people with disabilities were let down by the care providers their loved ones trusted to keep them safe.

The probe into the sector also revealed the mistreatment of clients at Lifestyle Solutions a service provider currently under an ombudsman's investigation following the deaths of four people in their care.

Milissa Christian quit her job with Lifestyle Solutions in disgust at what she calls 'chaotic management' of high-needs children with disabilities.

Milissa Christian was a former employee of Lifestyle Solutions before she quit, appalled at what she saw

'They're placed in situations with other children where they've been sexually assaulted, physically harmed. Where they've lived in what I would describe as a domestic violence situation in services,' she said.

'No child deserves to be treated as a dollar figure rather than a human being. They have rights. They deserve respect. We're entrusted to do what's right for them. We're entrusted to advocate for them, and we failed.'

The accusations come after details have emerged of a string of devastating incidents within the organisation.

In January this year two boys with autism were miraculously found unharmed after wandering over 6km away from their Lifestyle Solutions home in Sydney.

Lifestyle Solutions are currently under an ombudsman's investigation following the deaths of four people in their care

In 2015 a teenager filmed a fight break-out in a Lifestyle Solutions home in western Sydney which saw one boy fight another.

In 2009 a 10-year-old girl was hit by a car in Rockhampton and died after running away from the home.

Chief executive Andrew Hyland told 9News: 'The ABC 4 Corners program referred to matters dating back to 2009. We are deeply saddened by these matters and realise the impact on families and other people we support. The majority of matters have been the subject of extensive reviews by relevant regulatory bodies,' he said in a statement issued on Monday.
The author of The Shack has revealed the tragic secret heartache which lies at the center of his book, which sold over 20 million copies and is now a successful feature film.

William Paul Young, who initially printed just 15 copies of the novel, says he used it to exorcise his own pain over being raped repeatedly as a very young boy by tribesmen in what was then Netherlands New Guinea.

The Shack is a story about a man, Mack, whose daughter Missy is abducted and brutally murdered. Four years after Missy's abduction, he receives a note from 'Papa' (his wife's name for God) asking Mack to meet at the shack where evidence of his daughter's murder was found. It is here where Mack has an encounter with 'God' through which he is able to make peace with some of the deeper questions that have plagued him about his daughter's death and about his own painful childhood of abuse.

Young, whose book went on to be a global phenomenon, told DailyMail.com he was was continuously abused by both the Dani Tribe and by the 'older boys' at boarding school.

William Young's book, The Shack, has been turned into a film, which features Octavia Spencer as 'God' and Sam Worthington as the lead character, Mack, whose daughter was murdered

In the book, Worthington as Mack (right) has an encounter with 'God' at The Shack (left) where his daughter's body was found and he eventually makes peace with her death

He said: 'This all happened well before I was five - I have blank spots there - I just know my memory of it was from five and these are not repressed memories.

'Then at six I was sent away to boarding school, and that is when the big boys would molest the little boys.'

Young's parents moved from Grand Alberta, in his native Canada to the island, which is now Indonesian controlled West Papua, when he was a year old to work as missionaries.

He refers to the area as Cannibal Valley, and said the tribe had a very dark side, practicing ritualistic cannibalism and elderly euthanasia: 'Sexual abuse became part of the very fabric of my soul.

'The Shack, for me, is a metaphor for the place we as human beings hold our pain.

Young says he had a strained relationship with his parents when he was younger, especially his father: 'My dad didn't have the capacity to be a good father.

'That was broken in him, and his father and his father. There is brokenness in my family history.'

However, he says therapy and time have both healed any rifts with his parents: 'We all grow and hopefully we move towards healing.

'My relationship with them is good, it's cordial, it's kind, it's caring,it's compassionate. We are in a good place now.'

Young (left) who initially printed just 15 copies of the novel for his family (his wife Kim, right), says he used The Book to exorcise his own pain over being raped repeatedly as a very young boy by tribesmen in what was then Netherlands New Guinea

His parents moved to Guinea when he was just one year old to work as missionaries

Young says he was sexually abused by members of the Dani Tribe and then later by 'older boys' at his boarding school

The Shack, which was published in 2007, is now a movie starring Australian actor Sam Worthington and tells the story of Mackenzie, a father who is coming to terms with his daughter's death.

His personal pain prompts a visit from God, a black woman, called Papa, played by Octavia Spencer in the film.

Young says people have been able to easily identify with the pain Mackenzie feels, and have been really impacted by the book: 'We have all had losses in our family.

'In our family, we had three shock losses when Kim - my wife - and I were first married.

'In the middle of a six-month period, her mum went in for routine gall bladder surgery, and suddenly passed away, which was a shock.

'Then my 18-year-old brother Stephen was killed, then my five-year-old niece Jennifer died the day after her fifth birthday.

'There is a whole other layer to the book in a deeper sense, a way for people to engage their own hurt and their own tears and their own great sadness.'

Young wrote the book in 2005, while he was holding down three jobs after going bankrupt.

He was asked to do it by his wife Kim.

'She said write something which will tell our children how you think outside the box (about God) and that was my attempt  the year when I turned 50 I thought I can finally do this. It was a gift for my kids. Those 15 copies did everything I wanted this book to do.'

Young's decision to cast a black actress - Octavia Spencer (left with Young's daughter Amy) - as God has caused controversy with some Christians, who feel it is wrong to use this illustration. But he said he wanted to 'move away from Gandalf the wizard' which was the God he was brought up with

But it didn't just stop at 15 copies, the book went on to be one of the best-selling of all time pushing through the 20 million mark last year.

Young explained: 'My friends started giving it to their friends and then them to their friends which started the whole conversation about doing something about it.'

Eventually three men in California got hold of a copy, and decided to publish it, forming Windblown Media in one of their garages.

In a world where the average book sells between 3000 and 5000 in its entire lifetime, in the first 18 months they spent less than $300 in marketing and advertising and shipped almost 1.1 million copies of The Shack.

The success of the book led to him being involved in a protracted legal dispute with Windblown Media's Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings as they had no written agreement.

Young sacrificed the film rights but now has ownership and freedom of the rest of his work.

It is not something that concerns him as the book's global success has made him very wealthy.

He added his book speaks to people on all levels about loss: 'The greatest loss that a human being can experience is the loss of a child.

'It is not a religious book, but it gave people a language to have a conversation about God that wasn't religious.

'It captures our humanity, and the questions we get asked in such a way, that it doesn't matter what kind of religious or non-religious or ethnic background you come from.'

Young's decision to portray God as a black woman has caused controversy with some Christians, who feel it is wrong to use this illustration.

He said he wanted to 'move away from Gandalf the wizard' which was the God he was brought up with.

The Shack went on to sell over 20 million copies and is one of Young's now three 'religious-themed' books

He said: 'I want my kids to have a much bigger sense of who God is.'

Pointing out that in the Bible God takes many forms  a burning bush, a pillar of cloud, he added: 'We have just portrayed him as an old white man most commonly.

'Society has dictated that God is a man. It doesn't specify anywhere He is a man, he is both masculine and feminine.

'It really is about what if there is a God who pursues and loves us relentlessly, even in the midst of all of our crap.

'I was never trying to make a case that God is actually a black woman, I just didn't want my children to lock up God the Father in a white male box.'

Young, who spent some time working on the movie, also faced criticism over the actor cast to play Jesus.

He explained: 'Aviv Alush is actually from Tel Aviv in Israel. This is the first time an Israeli actor has been used to play the role in an English language film. Jesus was born in Israel.'

Young has written three more religious-themed novels since The Shack - Cross Roads, Eve and Lies We Believe About God was published this month.

He says even though The Shack has been a phenomenal hit, he would swap it all tomorrow if it meant sacrificing his family.

'If it cost me the joy of being a dad, grandfather and husband I would give it all away.

'Nothing is worth that. It is crazy, yes, but I live without any expectations and I know I am a very blessed man.'
Gone in a hail of bullets: Waltki Williams, 35, was shot 19 times by police officers in Sumter, South Carolina, in December after a brief chase

A wrongful death lawsuit alleges that an unarmed black man was shot in the back 17 times by police officers in South Carolina after he was chased down and tackled to the ground.

Officers in Sumter were trying to arrest 35-year-old Waltki Williams on the night of December 10 after his estranged girlfriend called 911 saying he had pointed a gun at her car outside a local mall and she was afraid to leave the shopping center.

Williams sped off in a red SUV with police pursuing but crashed into two vehicles, hurled an unknown object out the window, then fled on foot.

According to the lawsuit filed by Williams sister Tomekia Kind against the city of Sumter and its police force, several officers tackled Williams and stepped back before at least three of them fired two dozen shots.

Williams was struck by 19 bullets, of them 17 in the back, said attorney Carter Elliott.

'I don't know if it gets any more horrible than officers standing over an unarmed man shooting him,' Elliott said Monday. He had investigators take pictures of Williams' bullet-ridden body before it was cremated.

Domestic incident: Police said Williams' estranged girlfriend called 911 saying the man pointed a gun at her car. The woman reportedly had been trying to break up with him for two months

The shooting took place not far from the Sumter Mall (pictured) on the night of December 10

Elliott said Kind has seen police video of her brother's shooting and was shocked. The video has not been released publicly as the State Law Enforcement Division is still investigating the killing.

Sumter Police spokeswoman Tonyia McGirt said later Monday that the police agency hasn't been served with the lawsuit.

She also said releasing any specific information about the shooting would be inappropriate given the state's ongoing investigation. Nonetheless, she said the police department denies the allegations made in the suit.

Wrongful death suit: Williams' sister Tomeika Kind is now suing the city of Sumter and its police force in the officer-involved death of her brother

The station WYFF4 reported that Williams' girlfriend had been trying in vain to break up with him for two months by the time she called 911 at around 9.30pm on December 10, telling the dispatcher her estranged boyfriend threatened her with a gun at the Sumter Mall.

In a news release issued shortly after the police-involved shooting, McGirt wrote that 'there was a brief struggle and then an exchange of gunfire.'

The newly filed lawsuit, however, alleges that Williams had no weapon and makes no mention of an exchange of gunfire with police, reported NBC News.

The race and names of the officers who played a role in the incident haven't been made public. They were placed on administrative leave during the investigation.

'This is a tragedy for everyone involved," Sumter Police Chief Russell Roark III said in a statement in December. 'This incident shows the devastating, far-reaching effects of domestic violence on individuals, families, law enforcement, the Sumter community and the state as a whole.'

The Associated Press filed a Freedom of Information Act request Monday for any video footage of Williams' shooting. State police did not immediately respond to that request.

Williams is survived by two sisters and six nieces and nephews. The image above is a photo collage that was put together by one of his young relatives

Elliott has not seen the video, but plans to subpoena the city of Sumter and state investigators. The lawsuit does not ask for specific damages.

Solicitor Chip Finney will decide if the officers face charges. He said Monday he has not received the case file from state investigators and had no comment about the shooting or the lawsuit.

Williams had a criminal record dating back to at least 2013 that included two convictions for stalking and several minor motor vehicle offenses.

He also had been accused of trying to sell a stolen car and entering a bank with intent to steal, but both those charges were eventually dismissed.

About 50 people participated in a peaceful march in Sumter demanding justice for Waltki William about two weeks after the shooting.
A man was caught on camera vandalizing the outside of a mosque before throwing a Bible inside in Colorado.

The hoodie-wearing thug was captured on film carrying out the attack, which police say had a 'profound effect' on the Muslim community.

A 35-year-old man, Joseph Scott Giaquinto, has been arrested in connection with the attack.

The man was filmed attacking the outside of the mosque at around 4am on Sunday. A 35-year-old man has been arrested

The 4am vandalism on Sunday happened outside the Islamic Center of Fort Collins, 60 miles north of Denver.

The suspect's father, Michael Giaquinto, found out about the vandalism when his sister attended a solidarity rally at the center on Sunday.

He said he was not convinced his son, a former combat medic who has served in Iraq, was responsible.

He told The Coloradoan: 'No matter what we find out happened, my son is a good man. He served his country well. Even if he was involved, and I'm not saying he was, it would just indicate that he was in a kind of a bad place.'

The video shows the man attacking the outside of the mosque in Colorado on Sunday morning

The center's president, Tawfik Aboellail, said the man tried to break into the mosque, but did not get inside

The center's president, Tawfik Aboellail, said the man tried to break into the mosque, but did not get inside.

The vandalism prompted the center to cancel religious classes for children that morning, but it has also led to an outpouring of support.

Congregants from Plymouth Congregational Church visited after their morning service, and later about 1,000 people gathered at the mosque for a rally of support organized by a rabbi on Sunday evening.

Many have also been making donations online to pay for repairs and improved security.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations had urged police to investigate the case as a possible hate crime.

Police Chief John Hutto, who attended the support rally, said the incident has a 'very real impact on our Muslim friends and neighbors'.

'The criminal act against their sacred space is unacceptable,' he said in a statement.

The vandalism comes about a month after someone threw a rock through a window at a mosque in the Denver area. The incident at the Colorado Muslim Society was also captured on surveillance video, but no one has been arrested. Investigators in the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office have exhausted their leads, spokeswoman Julie Brooks said Monday.
The man who murdered schoolgirl Masa Vukotic wants taxpayers to fund his appeal against his sentence for the callous rape of a woman in a Christian bookstore days after he killed the teenager.

Sean Price was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 38 years without parole for the murder of Ms Vuktotic last year.

He killed the Melbourne schoolgirl on March 17, 2015, in a horrific random attack.

Two days later, he raped a woman inside a bookshop in the city's western suburbs.

Sean Price (right) killed Melbourne schoolgirl Masa Vukotic (left) then raped a woman in a Christian bookshop two days later

Price pleaded guilty to the rape along with the murder  which prompted a charge that hed breached a court supervision order at the time.

He is getting legal aid for the breach charge.

Legal aid lawyer Mia Smithyman told the County Court that Victoria Legal Aid is also considering Prices application for funding for his appeal, the Herald Sun reports.

However, a spokesman said she could not indicate who was receiving aid as it would be a breach of the states Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities and of the Privacy Act.

'All applications for aid are assessed against our guidelines and not on the identity of the applicant,' the spokesman told the Herald Sun.

But Victims of Crime Commissioner Greg Davies said the victims human rights were being forgotten.

Price killed the Melbourne schoolgirl (above) in a random attack in a park in March 2015

He has applied for legal aid to appeal his rape charge after being sentenced to life in prison

He added that Price was tried, convicted and sentenced with public money 'and now he wants people to open their wallets again.

Mr Davies added: 'When do we say enough is enough?'

Jill Meaghers killer Adrian Bayley also applied for legal aid to appeal his rape convictions.

When the serial rapists applications were rejected twice, he challenged it in the Supreme Court.

The Attorney-General had intervened to oppose Bayleys bid but the Supreme Court ruled he had the right to apply for legal aid.

Price stabbed Ms Vuktoic 49 times in a park near her home in Doncaster, a suburb of Melbourne.

He later told police he thought he had to kill her because the student was dressed 'like a yuppy.'

Jill Meaghers (left) killer Adrian Bayley (right) also applied for legal aid to appeal his rape convictions

Ms Vukotic had gone for a walk at around 6.45pm after having dinner with her family when Price randomly attacked her.

The woman he raped in her workplace on March 19 later revealed in a victim impact statement that she feared he was going to murder her.

She added that she was suffering from anxiety attacks after the brutal assault.

'I seriously considered the fact that they were going to be my last moments,' she said.

'Im angry that I was raped and assaulted. Im angry that he took a young girls life.'

During the rape, Price reportedly asked his victim: Wheres your Jesus now?

She fought him  biting, scratching and gouging at his eyes  as he strangled her.

'I realised like she was fussing up too much and she was starting to change colours,' Price later told police.

'I was like, f*** not another one',' he added.
Canadians should be able to smoke marijuana legally on July 1, 2018, putting Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the path to accomplishing one of his most ambitious goals.

The legislation to legalize recreational marijuana will be announced the week of April 10th and it should become law by July next year, said a senior government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to lack of authorization to discuss the upcoming legislation.

Trudeau, 45, has long promised to legalize recreational cannabis use and sales.

Presently, Canadians can use medical marijuana with a prescription, but recreational use is illegal.

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Canadians should be able to smoke marijuana legally by Canada Day on July 1, 2018

A woman smokes during a rally to celebrate National Marijuana Day on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada, on April 20, 2016

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (pictured) has admitted to smoking marijuana 'five or six times' in his life

If the new legislation is passed, Canada would be the largest developed country to end a nationwide prohibition of recreational marijuana.

Trudeau, who has admitted to smoking marijuana 'five or six times' in his life, said in June that he has no plans to light up even after his government makes it legal to do so.

'I don't think so. I'm not someone who has a history of using drugs,' he said. 'I lived in Whistler (British Columbia) for a few years, surrounded by friends who did. It was never my thing.'

Trudeau admitted to The Huffington Post Canada in a candid August 2013 interview that he smoked pot on a patio by the pool at his house in Montreal since becoming an MP.

'We had a few good friends over for a dinner party, our kids were at their grandmother's for the night, and one of our friends lit a joint and passed it around. I had a puff,' he said.

Trudeau's decision to decriminalize cannabis is influenced by his 23-year-old brother Michel, who had pending marijuana possession charges against him at the time of his death in an avalanche in November 1998.

In the US, voters in California, Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada voted last year to approve the use of recreational marijuana, joining Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska.

Uruguay in South America is the only nation to legalize recreational pot.

The Canadian government will regulate marijuana safety and Ottawa will license producers.

But provinces will be able to decide where marijuana is distributed and sold.

MAGIC MUSHROOMS IN HIS SPAGHETTI AND POT IN AMSTERDAM: JUSTIN TRUDEAU'S CHECKERED HISTORY WITH DRUGS Even though Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has long promised to legalize recreational pot use and sales in Canada, the 45-year-old said he has no plans to light up after his government makes it legal to do so. Trudeau's admitted to smoking marijuana 'five or six' times in his life, but told The Huffington Post Canada in 2013 that he never bought drugs or consumed enough to pay for them. His initial experience with marijuana was during a backpacking trip in Amsterdam when he was 18, he said. He and his friends went to a cafe and ordered hash. 'We were trying to heat it over a candle, and it was just a total disaster,' he recalled. A few years later, Trudeau was on a trip to the Caribbean with university classmates and smoked his first joint. '(It) was the first time I really ever had a hit, but I dont keep a clear memory of it, because its never really been a big deal,' he said. Since being elected to the House of Commons in 2008, Trudeau admitted to smoking marijuana on a patio by the pool at his house in Montreal. 'We had a few good friends over for a dinner party, our kids were at their grandmother's for the night, and one of our friends lit a joint and passed it around. I had a puff,' he said. Although Trudeau said he's never used 'hard drugs', he suspects his friends in British Columbia of adding hallucinogenic mushrooms to his spaghetti. Advertisement

Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould declined to confirm the dates provided by the official, but said in a statement the government is committed to introducing legislation this spring that would 'legalize, strictly regulate and restrict access to cannabis'.

'This will be done in a careful way to keep it out of the hands of children and youth, and to stop criminals from profiting,' the statement said. 'In order to meet our commitment to legalize, the legislation will need to pass through the parliamentary process in a timely fashion.'

The news was noticed online by Snoop Dogg, who tweeted 'Oh Canada!'

Marijuana legislation will follow the recommendation of a federally appointed task force that was chaired by former Health Minister Anne McLellan as well as the advice of former Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, who is the parliamentary secretary to the justice minister.

Blair has been visiting police departments across the country.

The news was noticed online by Snoop Dogg, who tweeted 'Oh Canada!'

Canadians can use medical marijuana with a prescription, but recreational use is illegal

The task force recommended adults be allowed to carry up to 30 grams of pot for recreational purpose and grow up to four plants.

It also recommended that higher-potency pot be taxed at a higher rate than weaker strains and that recreational marijuana should not be sold in the same location as alcohol or tobacco.

Under the task force proposals, alcohol-free cannabis lounges would be allowed.

The panel's report noted public health experts tend to favor a minimum age of 21 as the brain continues to develop to about 25, but said setting the minimum age too high would preserve the illicit market.

The Canadian government will regulate marijuana safety and Ottawa will license producers. But provinces will be able to decide where marijuana is distributed and sold

Canadian youth have higher rates of cannabis use than their peers worldwide.

While the government moves to legalize marijuana, retail outlets selling pot for recreational use have already been set up.

Trudeau has emphasized current laws should be respected.

'Until we have a framework to control and regulate marijuana, the current laws apply,' he said on March 1.

That warning became more apparent when police in Toronto, Vancouver, and other cities raided stores earlier this month and charged several people with possession and trafficking.
Good news for Jamie Oliver fans - the popular British chef is heading to Australia for a visit after his company bought back Jamie's Italian restaurant franchise.

The six restaurants across the country, which were previously owned by Sydney hospitality company the Keystone Group, went into receivership in mid-2016, reported Delicious.

Jamie Oliver will be arriving in May and is expected to meet staff members and launch a brand new menu.

British chef Jamie Oliver (pictured) is heading to Australia for a visit after his company bought back the Jamie's Italian restaurant franchise

The restaurants, which were previously owned by the Keystone Group, went into receivership in mid-2016

'This is a process I've never been through so it's all very new but it's a really happy ending,' the chef said.

'I wish we could have done it sooner but we got there and it's safe to say that every cloud has a silver lining.'

Jamie's Italian franchises are located in Sydney, Parramatta, Perth, Canberra, Brisbane and Adelaide.

'The purchase has put us in a fantastic position to invest even more into our people and restaurants in order to deliver a world-class Jamie's Italian experience, Managing director of the Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group Australia, Ben Shaunessy, told Delicious.

The franchises are located in Sydney, Parramatta, Perth, Canberra, Brisbane and Adelaide

New items on the menu will include wild porcini ravioli, oxtail and Chianti lasagne and 'Wobbly' vanilla yoghurt panna cotta.

There are also plans for fresh pasta to be made on site daily.

Keystone also operated Sydney venues Bungalow 8, Cargo Bar, Gazebo, Kingsleys Woolloomooloo, Manly Wine, the Sugarmill Hotel, The Rook, the Winery and Kingsleys Steakhouse in Brisbane.

All the venues were sold to the Dixon Hospitality group in late 2016, reported the Sydney Morning Herald.

Jamie Oliver will be arriving in May and is expected to meet staff members and launch a brand new menu. The menu will include wild porcini ravioli, oxtail and Chianti lasagne and 'Wobbly' vanilla yoghurt panna cotta
While tourists and locals are fleeing the path of Cyclone Debbie as it tears across north Queensland, storm-chasers are heading straight for eye.

On Monday, 'hardcore hurricane chaser' Josh Morgerman travelled to Brisbane from California in the United States to track the Category 4 storm and hopefully get right in the centre.

Mr Morgerman has positioned himself in Bowen for the monster storm to make landfall at about 12pm, as the town's 10,000 residents prepare for winds gusts of up to 275km/h.

'I want to get right in that eye,' Mr Morgerman told the Courier Mail.

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On Monday, 'hardcore hurricane chaser' Josh Morgerman (pictured) travelled to Brisbane from California in the United States to track Cyclone Debbie

Mr Morgerman has positioned himself in Bowen for the monster storm (pictured) to make landfall at about 12pm

'The air pressure in the eye is one of the most telltale signs of a cyclone's true intensity.'

Storm-chaser Paul Lyons was lucky enough not to have to travel anywhere to experience the Category 4 storm.

Mr Lyons, based in Townsville, has spent seven years tracking major storms in Australia and the United States - including Queensland's Cyclone Yasi in 2011, The ABC reported.

He said cyclones are much harder to predict than tornados, as it's often impossible to get close with debris flying everywhere.

Mr Lyon said he came under fire after chasing Cyclone Yasi, even though he travelled with 200 litres of fuel, 100 litres of water and food.

Storm-chaser Paul Lyons was lucky enough not to have to travel anywhere to experience the Category 4 storm as he is based in Townsville. Airlie Beach is pictured

On Tuesday morning, the monster storm was tracking across the Whitsundays (pictured) with 190 km/h winds and is forecast to hit the mainland by 1pm with 275km/h winds

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has warned the vast size of the cyclone - the worst to hit Queensland since Yasi - means the devastating core could take three hours to pass

'They said 'You're stupid, you're nuts, you're dangerous. You're going to endanger yourself, endanger the lives of others and the emergency services',' Mr Lyon said.

'I could have camped on the side of the road basically for two weeks and no-one would have to save me.'

On Tuesday morning, the monster storm was tracking across the Whitsundays with 190 km/h winds and is forecast to hit the mainland by 1pm with 275km/h winds.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has warned the vast size of the cyclone - the worst to hit Queensland since Yasi - means the devastating core could take three hours to pass, and people should expect to be holed up for the entire day.

Mr Lyons, based in Townsville, has spent seven years tracking major storms in Australia and the United States. Airlie Beach being smashed by wind and rain is pictured
In difficult times there are difficult questions that need to be asked.

After Khalid Masood smeared life over the tarmac on Westminster Bridge, butchered a policeman, and went running to look for more infidels to slaughter, the difficult questions are piling up fast.

Like what made him a butcher? Slashing a man in the face in 2000 stabbing a man in the nose in 2003 - serving time inside for his crime.

By making WhatsApp a sinister accomplice in Khalid Masood's attack and answering easy questions about extremist material on google, Home Secretary Amber Rudd was avoiding difficult questions

And what happened in prison for him to go in as Adrian Ajou in 2003 and come out as Khalid Masood in 2005?

A school friend, Mark Ashdown, 52, has said that Ajou/Masood became a Muslim while in prison.

Yet Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu of the Metropolitan Police has said there was no evidence he was radicalised whilst inside.

Indeed the police have cheerfully told us we may never know what made him a killer.

What made a man guilty of actual bodily harm, now a devout Muslim with a Muslim wife, want to go to Saudi Arabia  twice? And what happened to this man while he was there?

When he returned in 2009 he moved to Luton, living at addresses near to several radical Islamists in an area where the subsequently-banned group Al-Muhajiroun was active. He was known to the authorities as a vicious thug whose violent extremism had brought him to the attention of MI5.

A police officer is led away from the scene after she tries to revive her colleague who was stabbed in the attack on Wednesday afternoon

Yet police say he was a lone operator and was not working in connection with others.

In 2010 he became known to the security services as a potential extremist, thought to have shown up on MI5s radar during a plot by several Luton men to blow up an army base using a remote-controlled car.

Yet Met Commissioner Basu said that he was not a current subject of interest or part of the current domestic or international threat picture for either the security service or counter-terrorism policing.

There were 3,000 on the terror watch list in 2015. Individuals the head of MI5, Andrew Parker, said were home-grown fanatics being radicalised to the point of violence within weeks.

Yet Khalid Masood didn't even make the list.

An injured woman is assisted after a man drove a 4x4 into pedestrians along Westminster Bridge on Wednesday afternoon

Muslim women stood hand-in-hand with others on Westminster Bridge after Wednesday's terror attack

Even if we were to accept all the other answers from the Met Police  about not being radicalised in prison, what he was doing in Saudi, why he chose to relocate to an extremist community  surely one very difficult question remains.

Its this: how many other Khalids are there out there not being watched? How many other knife-wielding Muslim converts with a penchant for random short visits to Saudi and multiple homes amongst extremists are still operating unseen?

Katie Hopkins says Amber Rudd focussed on easy questions

To avoid this difficult question, Home Secretary Amber Rudd and the security establishment is scurrying about like an ant under a magnifying glass, asking easy questions, hoping to fill the answer vacuum with diversionary piffle.

Let's ask easy questions about a messaging app! Lets make them sinister accomplices of this attack! (Forgetting in their bluster that according to their own version of events Khalid is supposed to be a lone operator with no connections to anyone, let alone a WhatsApp hotline to ISIS).

Let's ask easy questions about extremist material on Google  and whether Khalid needed to Google 'how to run people over' or stab a man!

Let's also point to Muslim women are standing hand-in-hand across Westminster bridge instead of listening to Julian, a Muslim man who called me on my radio show at LBC, to say he is frightened about what is being taught in the mosques where he lives.

The faux liberals of London have been brainwashed into believing 'we stand united', that somehow 'walking down a pavement' is the new brave, and that 'carrying on as normal' equates to being resilient and not cowed.

This bizarre pathological altruism leads to tweets like this:

The belief that 'carrying on as normal' equates to being resilient and not cowed leads to tweets like this. Try telling that to the daughters of the beautiful Ayesha Frade

Mother-of-two Aysha Frade who was tragically killed during the attack on Westminster on Wednesday when she went to pick up her children (pictured)

Try telling that to the daughters of the beautiful Ayesha Frade.

The 'we stand united' propaganda is blatant lies. We are a divided nation. Shattered. Splintered.

You can make as many heart gestures to the sky as you want, hold hands on a bridge if you wish, write posters about drinking tea.

This is not the Blitz. We aren't defending Great Britain anymore. We are being asked to be accomplices in its fall. And I refuse to join.

And the easy questions being asked are just diversionary tactics, at best, designed to deflect attention away from the difficult ones that need to be asked.

You want to know whatsapp? A multicultural cover up - that's what's up.
A mouse plague could infest large parts of rural Australia, with farmers being urged to keep a close eye over the coming harvesting season.

Mice populations could reach plague proportions this year as the numbers of rodents are increasing ominously leading into the winter cropping season.

Parts of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia are likely to see significant damage to agricultural crops in grain-growing regions.

CSIRO research scientist Dr Peter Brown said despite the low numbers, the wet conditions have created bumper crops - meaning lots of food and cover for mice.

A mouse plague could infest large parts of rural Australia, with farmers being urged to keep a close eye over the coming harvesting season

CSIRO research scientist Dr Peter Brown farmers need to look out for active burrows (pictured)

'Our models were forecasting that mice were likely to be a problem at sowing this year, around now,' Dr Brown told Daily Mail Australia.

'Our next round of monitoring in March [this year] revealed that mice had indeed increased in abundance.'

Authorities are fearing of an outbreak as figures, so far, have found an estimate of 250-320 mice per hectare in parts of South Australia and up to 50 mice per ha in Victoria's north-western Mallee area.

Plagues are generally defined as in excess of 800 mice per hectare.

Anything over 200 mice per hectare will likely cause infrastructure damage at sowing

Farmers are being encouraged to monitor any mouse activity over the coming months by regularly recording their observations via MouseAlert (pictured of mouse activity in Australia)

However, Dr Brown said anything over 200 mice per hectare will likely cause infrastructure damage at sowing.

Dr Brown said farmers need to monitor mouse activity for themselves in their paddocks and decide then what management to undertake.

'Monitoring could be by mouse chew cards - although not very effective at this time of year because there is still a lot of alternative food available for mice - or by active burrow counts,' he said.

He said farmers with high numbers of mice should bait at sowing because the process of growing crops will increase the foraging activity of the pests.

Figures, so far, have found an estimate of 250-320 mice per hectare in parts of South Australia and up to 50 mice per ha in northwestern Victoria Mallee (stock image)

Research found there is a high likelihood of a mouse outbreak in parts of Victoria (stock image)

'We provide some recommendations for baiting with zinc phosphide rodenticide baits,' he said.

'The best bet if mouse numbers are high is to bait at sowing because the process of sowing the crop will increase the foraging activity of mice and they will more readily take the rodenticide bait rather than the sown seed.

'It is also worth talking with neighbours and coordinate management across large areas, which will minimise the chance or reinvasion.

'Growers can also sow a little deeper and try to disguise the furrows, but that is a little difficult in the zero- and no-till operations many growers use now.'

The research found there is a high likelihood of a mouse outbreak in parts of Victoria and an evidence of increased mouse activity in southern NSW too.

Farmers are being encouraged to monitor any mouse activity over the coming months by regularly recording their observations via MouseAlert.
Legend  or rather Hollywood  has it that the Scottish knight William Wallace daubed himself head-to-toe in blue woad paint to defeat the English army at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297.

Centuries later, Nicola Sturgeon has gone one step further, arriving to greet her Southern nemesis Theresa May apparently dressed as the Scottish Saltire.

Intentional or otherwise, the First Ministers natty blue suit with white piping and matching light-coloured stilettos were unmistakably reminiscent of the Scottish flag, a subliminal if not entirely subtle indication of her feelings towards Westminster.

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Intentional or otherwise, the First Ministers natty blue suit with white piping and matching light-coloured stilettos were unmistakably reminiscent of the Scottish flag

May, for her part, was stateswomanlike in a stylish navy jacket, a patterned dress and her trademark leopard-print heels.

Clearly, Sturgeon was hoping to knock those spots off her.

Nevertheless, clearly eager to give the world a show of unity, the two women posed together, mirroring each others stance, two sets of hands clasped calmly on the arms of their respective chairs.

But while Mays fingers, elegant with their classic red nails, were relaxed and open, Sturgeons grip appeared somewhat tenser, her right thumb at an awkward angle, bearing down on her left index finger in a vice-like grip, as though having to use every ounce of self-control to stop herself poking her rival in that gimlet eye.

Their expressions, too, told very different stories. May is pictured laughing all the way to her eyes, her head thrown slightly back, her chin sinking into her neck. Its a relaxed, natural pose, her gaze confident and aimed directly at the camera.

The Prime Minister and First Minister both arrived at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Glasgow for their talks this afternoon as Mrs May completed as the final stop on her pre-Article 50 tour

Sturgeon, by contrast, looks less comfortable. She is glancing off to one side, her eyes like two hard little chocolate buttons, her smile about as warm and welcoming as Loch Lomond on a winters day.

But what stands out here are the legs  and the vast expanse on show. There is no doubt that both women consider their pins to be the finest weapon in their physical arsenal. Consequently, both have been unsheathed.

Mays famously long extremities are demurely arranged in her customary finishing-school stance  knees tightly together, calves at a flattering diagonal, feet neatly aligned. Its a studied pose that reminds us that for all her confidence, she is ever the vicars daughter, always respectful and anxious not to put a foot wrong.

Sturgeons shorter but undeniably more shapely shanks are altogether more flirty, tantalisingly crossed, with the dominant leg pointing towards her audience.

Sturgeons shorter but undeniably more shapely shanks are altogether more flirty, tantalisingly crossed, with the dominant leg pointing towards her audience

Its a direct attempt at seduction: her stiletto is not quite dangling off her foot, but it could be. Come, succumb to my revolutionary allure, she seems to be saying. You know you want to.

The message to the Scottish electorate is clear. They have a simple choice: on the one hand the reliable, measured, considerate and cautious politics of Mrs May and the safety of a Union that has endured for 300 years  on the other a wild, dangerous leap into the unknown, a glorious moment of rebellion which could all too easily lead to a lifetime of regrets.
An elephant is starving to death because the zoo where she lives cannot afford to feed her and will not accept donations.

Ruperta is a gaunt figure in the elephant enclosure at Caricuao Zoo in the Venezuelan capital Caracas.

At 46 she should have around two decades of life left but she now looks on the verge of death.

Head of Venezuela's National Parks Institute Marlene Sifontes said: 'There is food, but there is not enough variety.

'They are feeding her only with auyama (a kind of pumpkin) and papaya, but it is not covering what she really needs.'

Ruperta's story and pictures were shared online, which brought dozens of well-wishers rushing to the zoo with food for her.

But zoo bosses turned it down, saying they could not accept donations for fear of malicious people giving unsafe or even poisoned material.

Ruperta, 46, should have two decades ahead of her - but many now fear she's starving to death

The Caracas zoo can only feed her auyama and papaya, which does not cover Ruperta's nutritional needs

The zoo released a statement saying: 'Workers are not allowed to receive donations, because while there are people with good feelings, there are others with bad intentions.'

But the zoo refused offers of money too, for unknown reasons.

Ruperta is known to have been treated following a fall, which the zoo said was just a simple slip but Venezuelan media said was a faint caused by malnutrition.

Ruperta had previously been treated for a fall - which Venezuelan media said was actually a faint caused by malnutrition

Well-wishers rushed to the zoo to try and give food to Ruperta but the zoo refused to accept donations or money

The country's Environment Ministry is concerned about Ruperta too, releasing a statement that read: 'Elephants could live in the wild until they are 60 years old and around 65 or 70 if they are captive. Ruperta is 46 years old. She is an animal that could be considered to be aging prematurely.'

Ms Sifontes added: 'Although the government refuses to accept it, Ruperta is not a unique case in Caricuao Zoo that is suffering from this condition, and this zoo is not the only one in the country.'

She says that the country's economic crisis has led to 50 animals dying of starvation in zoos.

Zoo bosses say Ruperta is being attended to by experts.

Elephants can eat up to 330 pounds of food a day, usually grass, leaves and bark.
Sir Michael Fallon accused internet giants of acting like the enemy within yesterday as he threatened new laws to force them to hand over jihadists messages.

The Defence Secretary said a modern democracy could not tolerate fifth column activity by encrypted messaging services such as WhatsApp.

He added that they were giving terrorists the space to operate in secret WhatsApp clusters on their smartphones.

Michael Fallon has accused internet giants of acting like the 'enemy within' and said he would not tolerate 'fifth column activity' by encrypted messaging services such as WhatsApp

At a security conference in Westminster  near the scene of the terror attack which left four dead and 50 injured last Wednesday  he said they must not duck out of their responsibility to help keep us safe.

But the president of Microsoft vowed not to help the Government hack its customers unless it was legally compelled to. We will not help any government, including our own, hack or attack any customer anywhere, Brad Smith told ITV News.

Encrypted messaging services came under fire at the weekend when it emerged the police and security services had been unable to access messages sent on WhatsApp by Khalid Masood, 52, just two minutes before his rampage.

It is understood Facebook-owned WhatsApp, and other encrypted apps such as Telegram, have repeatedly refused to allow security services access to their content. They use end-to-end encryption, which means the content can be deciphered only by the sender and recipient.

Encrypted messaging services came under fire when it emerged security services were unable to access messages sent on WhatsApp by Khalid Masood, 52, two minutes before his rampage

Websites such as Google have also been in the spotlight since Wednesdays attack for failing to remove beheading videos and terrorist manuals.

Sir Michaels tirade against the firms came as Amber Rudd used a summit in Brussels to rally EU nations to unite in forcing web giants to tackle terrorism.

The Home Secretary told EU counterparts there could be no safe spaces for jihadists to plot atrocities.

Sir Michael warned firms could be forced to act. He added: In my view a mature democracy cannot tolerate this fifth column activity by technology providers.

He said they were earning huge revenues but not willing to play their part defending the open society from which they make their money.

If they are not making it possible for us to open up these closed networks then the legislation we have got is being frustrated, he said. We are looking urgently at what we can now do to force these providers to open up these closed networks where we have due cause to look at them.

This could include fines for not removing content swiftly, or software changes enabling firms to decrypt messages when required by law enforcement.

There is a clause in the Investigatory Powers Act, passed in November, which could allow this.

Amber Rudd used a summit in Brussels to rally EU nations to unite in forcing web giants to tackle terrorism. She said there should be no 'safe spaces' for jihadis to plot atrocities

Sir Michael said the firms should be part of keeping our freedom secure and making sure authorities can access some of the vital information they need.

The abilities of security agencies have not kept pace with the advent of new technology, he said, adding: WhatsApp providers and some of these others need to recognise they cannot duck out of their responsibility to help keep us safe.

They are the ones providing this new means for terrorists to talk to each other and they owe the rest of us the right to make sure communication between terrorists can be accessed by those who keep us safe.

Miss Rudd said companies had to do more to remove extremist content and crack down on irresponsible encryption.

Donald Trump was last night under pressure to force WhatsApp to hand over evidence on the Westminster attack. Britain has no legal power to force the firm to help investigatpors

At a meeting of the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council, she stressed that forcing the likes of Google, YouTube and Facebook to remove jihadist content could not be achieved by one country alone.

The Home Secretary demanded that firms create contingencies that allow the security services to access messages if they have a judge-approved warrant.

Sources said France and Estonia were among those to speak in support of Miss Rudd. As she gained European allies on the issue, Donald Trump was last night under pressure to force WhatsApp to hand over evidence on the Westminster attack.

Britain has no legal power to force the firm to help investigators because it is based in the US. But the President could threaten it with legal action, as the FBI did in a similar fight with Apple last year.

Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski, a member of the Commons foreign affairs committee, said: Americans must put pressure on WhatsApp to comply otherwise we are entering uncharted waters.

Meanwhile, it emerged Miss Rudd herself uses WhatsApp. She was active on the service as recently as 8.57am yesterday, according to Buzzfeed News.

A Home Office spokesman said: The Government supports encryption in cyber security. But it is irresponsible to give terrorists a way to plot online which cannot be intercepted by the police and intelligence agencies.
A woman was arrested at Mar-a-Lago for trying to charge into restricted area while she was drunk just hours after Melania made an appearance.

Amanda Ayres Kerwin, 37, has been charged by West Palm Beach Police with disorderly intoxication and resisting arrest without violence over the incident on Friday night.

The 37-year-old allegedly stumbled outside the resort and needed the help of a security guard to make her way back inside to meet her friends, the Palm Beach Post reports.

But when she was back in the building, Kerwin allegedly made a break for an area that was being protected by the Secret Service.

Amanda Ayres Kerwin (left, in her mugshot, and right) was charged with disorderly intoxication and resisting arrest without violence after an incident at Mar-a-Lago on Friday

The police report stated the attempted entry: 'was perceived as a danger to another person'.

She was then escorted outside by Secret Service officers, and police were called to take her away, according to the Post.

When an officer arrived on the scene he 'smelled alcohol on Kerwins breath', the police report reads, before adding the 37-year-old was shouting profanities, talking to empty cars, and making 'incoherent statements'.

She then spent the night in a cell before being released on Saturday morning.

Kerwin was allegedly drunk and at the resort just hours after Melania Trump (pictured with Rick Scott) was a guest at a Republican fundraiser

Melania made the rare political appearance on Friday night to help raise money for the local GOP

A security guard is seen on a boat at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach in November 2016

The dramatic incident took place after Melania was the headline attraction at a Republican fundraiser at the luxury resort.

Palm Beach County GOP chairman Michael Barnett was forced to fork out $150,000 to rent the ballroom from Trump, the newspaper claims, and about 700 tickets to the dinner were then sold for a minimum of $300.

The event is expected to raise about $300,000.

Melania only appeared for a few minutes during a pre-dinner VIP event, which was also attended by Florida Governor Rick Scott, as well as a host of other state Republican officials.
Sebastian Gonzalez, 20, was arrested in connection to the Bellagio heist Saturday

Police arrested a 20-year-old man in connection to the Bellagio robbery where men wearing tuxedos and animal masks stormed a Rolex retailer in the hotel.

Sebastian Gonzalez was arrested Saturday in connection to the Las Vegas heist and faces charges of robbery with use of a deadly weapon, burglary, conspiracy to commit robbery and attempted robbery according to the Las Vegas Review Journal.

Four men are suspected of participating in the Tesorini Rolex retailer, break-in. The other three suspected are still at large.

Their physical descriptions have not been released and they are of 'unknown race.'

Men in tuxedos and animal masks including one of a panda, cat and pig stormed the glamorous Las Vegas hotel at 1am Saturday morning.

At least three people entered the high-end store inside the resort police said. One person was thought to have fired shots but this was later proved false.

At least three people entered the high-end store inside the resort wearing animal masks (pictured)

Four people are suspected of being involved in the Rolex retailer robbery at the Bellagio

Authorities used crime scene tape to keep the public out of an area inside the resort as they carried on investigating the armed robbery

The men are believed to have used sledgehammers to smash into the jewelry cases, which is why some people thought they heard gunshots.

Police say two of the four suspects are believed to have attempted a carjacking to flee the scene. One of the men is thought to have pointed a gun at a security guard.

Guests and tourists had to flee the hotel and head out to the strip amid report of the armed robbery.

Panicked people tweeted their shock, with one woman saying she had to hide under a table.

No one was injured, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department later confirmed.

The investigation is ongoing.
Medical students at a top university have been caught cheating in a final year exam, just months before they were due to graduate as NHS doctors.

Around 270 undergraduates at the University of Glasgow will now be forced to re-sit a major test after course leaders found evidence of collusion among a group of the students.

Two students caught sharing information ahead of the exam now face being banned from graduating and a number of others are also being investigated.

The announcement was made on Monday morning by the Russell Group universitys medical school, which is one of the most prestigious in the world.

Some 270 medical students at the prestigious University of Glasgow will be forced to re-sit a final year exam after course leaders discovered evidence of online 'collusion' among students

The university said a clinical examination earlier this year has now been declared void after it emerged a handful of students had shared information about the test using social media.

Students are not allowed to discuss details of the practical tests they sit, but the course leaders had found evidence of them sharing information online.

The students responsible are now facing a disciplinary and fitness to practise process, which could see them banned from graduating as doctors, and the fresh exam has been timetabled for early May.

The final year students are due to begin working as NHS doctors in August.

But Professor Matthew Walters, head of the universitys school of medicine, dentistry and nursing, said it was disappointing to have discovered the data breach - an unprecedented experience for the department.

The test involved is known as the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE).

It is a practical exam in which students are faced with a number of challenges at different points on a ward, such as interpreting an x-ray, making a diagnosis or examining a patient.

But because there are limited scenarios the examiners can create, students are not allowed to discuss situations they have come across themselves or know to have been used in previous exams.

Prof Walters said: We monitor social media and detected a small number of students sharing certain information that may have given them an advantage in terms of their final exam.

Students had got hold of some questions used previously and were discussing this despite our instructions to the contrary.

Collusion of this nature calls into question the validity of the assessment, so we have scrapped the exam. Regrettably we have to do the whole thing again.

Two students are now facing disciplinary procedures. More students may have been exposed to this information so there may be more to come.

He added: In an abundance of caution, and with the interests of the public as our primary concern, we didnt feel we could use that examination as the assessment to ensure that our students are fit and ready to graduate and work on the wards.

Two students caught sharing information ahead of the exam now face being banned from graduating and a number of others are also being investigated

Although we didnt have any evidence that the results of the exam have been compromised, we felt that the safest course of action was to scrap the exam and put on a whole fresh assessment.

Prof Walters added there was a shared sense of disappointment among students and staff when they were told the news, but also a joint understanding of the importance of having a trusted assessment.

But last night a first year medical student at the University of Glasgow said those on the course feel angry and now face repercussions over the scandal.

The 23-year-old, who didnt wish to be named, said: Were all so angry that a select few people think its ok to cheat, because now we are all tainted.

I dont know why anybody would go through five years of a degree only to throw it away at the end.

It reflects badly on everyone.

Medicine at Glasgow University is one of the top-ranked in Scotland and the UK, and the school is one of the biggest in Europe.

Mita Dhullipala Chair of the British Medical Associations Scottish medical students committee said yesterday: This is obviously very concerning for both students and the medical school faculty and we support the decision to arrange for the exam to be re-taken.
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Thousands of Australians were forced to evacuate their homes and stay in sparse shelters as Cyclone Debbie battered the Queensland coast.

Fearing for their homes and with nowhere else to go, many spent an uncomfortable night sleeping in plastic chairs or makeshift beds on the floor in the bleak-looking lodgings on Monday night.

Ernie Woods, 82, was pictured resting on a single bare mattress he'd brought with him with only a small blanket to keep him warm through the night.

Children were left to entertain themselves, playing on red and white plastic chairs and with gym equipment, such as barbells, hand weights and boxing gloves in a sparsely supplied cyclone shelter in the town of Ayr in northern Queensland.

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Children entertain themselves in the Ayr temporary cyclone shelter with weight and other gym equipment lying around

Ernie Woods sits in the safety of a temporary cyclone shelter in the town of Ayr in far north Queensland on Monday night

Cyclone Debbie has brought lashing rain and howling winds to northeast Australia as towns go into lockdown ahead of the 'monster' cyclone making landfall

A woman could be seen lying on a makeshift bed as others sat on plastic chairs in an evacuation centre on Tuesday

Wendal Jennings, aged 10, reads his book in a temporary cyclone shelter in the town of Ayr

Numerous purpose-built evacuation shelters as well as schools and community centres have opened up to accommodate the evacuees, a Queensland Police spokesman told Daily Mail Australia.

But while people are urged to bring essential supplies - including medication and non-perishable food - with them, some have been told to leave pillows and mattresses at home due to the lack of room.

Those coming to Townsville's Heatley High School have been told not to bring pillows or mattresses because there's not enough room to stretch out, ABC reports.

Instead, they can have one of the 800 chairs that have been set out.

Mark Roche, deputy commissioner of Queensland Fire and Emergency Services, said: 'Generally they're for short-term, not long-term stays.

'In a lot of cases in may be crowded, but that's because it's a place of support and refuge.'

The Queensland Government has urged residents to check for information about evacuation shelters through local ABC radio broadcasts or other media outlets before leaving their homes.

Those who think there is a likelihood of evacuation are urged to make arrangements to stay at the homes of family or friends in safer areas.

Children relax in a temporary cyclone shelter in the town of Ayr in far north Queensland as Cyclone Debbie approaches

Thousands of people including tourists were evacuated on Monday as the storm neared

A mother and her baby relax in a temporary cyclone shelter in the town of Ayr in far north Queensland

Children play on plastic chairs in a cyclone shelter in Ayr as northeast Australia braced for a powerful cyclone

'Evacuation centres are generally only intended for short term stays, and may be crowded and less comfortable,' the government's website states.

The government also explains that residents should pack an emergency kit during times of disaster and keep it with them at all times.

They advise it contain essential times, including non-perishable food, bottled water, a First Aid kit, a flashlight and batteries and toiletries.

Evacuees are also advised to bring all necessary medication with them as well as any special items needed for infants and elderly people as well as important documents.

The government advises people to prepare their evacuation kit well in advance, stay prepared and keep informed as if the order is given to evacuate, they may not have much time  and some supplies may not be available at shelters.

Rows of plastic chairs were lined up for evacuees in a temporary shelter in a school in Bowen

Pets can't be brought to shelters, but Queensland RSPCA has released tips to follow to ensure animals are cyclone-ready.

First and foremost, owners of pets are told to ensure their pet has identification. Other tips include making sure pets aren't tethered if they're outside and provided with food and water in heavy bowls.

If left behind at home, pets should be kept in separate rooms with small or preferably no windows.

On Monday, thousands were evacuated as the severe category four storm moved towards the coast of northeast Australia, packing destructive winds with warnings of major structural damage and surging tides.

The eye of Cyclone Debbie is now hitting the Whitsunday Islands  where trees are down, the streets are empty and the rain is blowing sideways.

Whitsunday Mayor Andrew Wilcox said the wind started to pick up significantly at around 7am on Tuesday.

Mr Wilcox said the region was in lockdown, with more than 300 people in shelters in Bowen and Proserpine.

Paramedic Roy Jackson preparing for the arrival of Cyclone Debbie at a shelter in Bowen

About 10,000 people are without power, and the State Emergency Service has already received almost 100 calls about fallen trees and leaking roofs.

'Outside it is just pouring horizontally, the rain is falling sideways, the trees look like they're in a disco, and it hasn't even arrived yet,' he told AAP.

'It's still 100 kilometres away and the wind is getting very strong ... we've got plenty of places to hide in the house if it gets a lot worse.'

'Most houses are built to withstand cyclones but the problem is people don't maintain their homes and so when they hit, they suddenly find their roofs are leaking water,' the mayor said.

Tourists on Hamilton Island were forced to bunker down in hotel rooms to weather the worst of Cyclone Debbie as it passes over the normally idyllic tropical paradise.

Helena Mo who is holidaying on the island said the wind started to get 'pretty bad' around 1am but the worst came after 4am.

Paramedic Jen Pierce unloads supplies at the Bowen shelter ahead of the cyclone's arrival

Queensland residents shared pictures of how they were weathering the storm on social media

'I have to admit it's been difficult to get some sleep, even with the knowledge that we are staying in a very secure hotel,' she told AAP.

'I have never heard gusts of wind howl this loud and this intense before.'

'You can't help but worry about what's going to happen next.'

She said she and her boyfriend moved a mattress into the bathroom around midnight, but so far they had been able to stay in the main part of their room at the Reef View Hotel.

'The doors and windows in this hotel have been pretty sturdy and cyclone proof,' she said.

One woman shared pictures of her bunking up with her pet in Airlie Beach, Queensland

Meanwhile, almost 400 schools and child care centres in far north Queensland are closed as Debbie lashes the region.

The state government announced on Tuesday that 131 state schools have shut their doors ahead of the arrival of the storm, which is expected to cross the coast south of Bowen about midday.

And it was a rough night for residents of Mackay as Debbie neared.

Around 25,000 people have fled their homes amid fears a storm surge could swamp them, but many are staying put.

Local Felicity Mackintosh, who spent Monday night bunkered down in her home on the waterside suburb of Eimeo, said winds intensified throughout the night as the storm inched closer to shore.

Ms Mackintosh said falling trees and flooding were her main concerns.

'Trees are going to fall over because everything's waterlogged,' she said.

A fig tree was seen uprooted in Mackay, Queensland, as the category four storm hit

Strong winds and rain lash Airlie Beach, as the storm made its way along the Whitsunday coast

'There's a lot of leaf fall so the drains are all blocked so that's more flooding problems.'

While Mackay still has power, Ms Mackintosh reckons locals are prepared for several days without electricity.

'We've lost it for a week before and you can't wash your clothes, so you make sure everything's sorted out,' she said.

'Friends drove by yesterday and they had the mining generator on the back of the truck ... that would light up a whole house.

'That's what people are doing, they are prepared.'




Azi Ahmed has been branded a 'fantasist' by Russia Today

A Kremlin-backed news agency yesterday hit back at a Tory Party poster girl accused of lying over her SAS training.

Russia Today branded Azi Ahmed as a fantasist for claiming that she was the target of a Vladimir Putin-backed campaign of fake news.

The former Conservative parliamentary candidate, who served with the Territorial Army from 1999 until 2002, had been attacked by ex troops who cast doubts over her SAS training.

Azi had told how she turned her back on an arranged marriage at the age of 26 to train with the elite squad as an experiment.

Russia Today  a television network bankrolled by President Putins government - ran a story about veterans complaining that she had exaggerated the training.

But Azi categorically denies that her account of the training, which forms the basis of her book, is exaggerated or fantastical

The online article questioned her version of events, triggering a wave of trolling from social media groups with military links.

SAS troops are also understood to have questioned her claims and sources have insisted she was never going to get a sandy beret  a reference to the elite Special Forces.

Following the coverage in Russia Today, Azi accused the Kremlin of trashing her reputation

Following the coverage in Russia Today, Azi, 42, accused the Kremlin of trashing her reputation.

She believed the article was at attempt to discredit Sir Michael Fallon, whom she introduced at the Tory Party conference last year.

Defence Minister Lord Howe has told the Conservative Candidates department in a letter to that he greatly regrets that Ms Ahmed has been a victim of social media abuse and has supplied them with details of Ms Ahmeds service with the Territorial Army. He also confirmed that her book was cleared by the MOD before publication.

Then yesterday she told the Times she was pursuing legal action.

She said she had instructed a law firm, with a view to taking legal action for defamation to stamp out those cowards who hide behind computer screens.

A former soldier who wrote the Russia Today story, Joe Glenton, hit back yesterday.

He said: Her critics were veterans and soldiers, including from the Special Forces, not the Russian state, which I am fairly sure has more important things to do than spend time poring over military forums and ringing up ex-soldiers to ask how well Ahmed really did on Selection. 

He said that she had responded to allegations from the Armed Forces community of her being a military fantasist or exaggerator by piling on even more fantasy.
Melbourne has long faced a dilemma.

It is Australia's style capital, but also home to the nation's most erratic weather  going from flash floods to asthma storms at the drop of a hat.

So Aaron Tyler put his thinking cap on and designed The Melbourne Jacket - a single item of clothing to keep locals fashionably equipped for all four seasons in a day.

The Melbourne Jacket aims to keep locals prepared for the city's erratic weather

Mr Tyler told Daily Mail Australia the idea came to him after an ill-fated tram commute dampened his spirits.

'It was completely sunny when I got on and torrential thunderstorms when I got off a just minutes later.'

'This happens all the time in Melbourne, and it got me thinking about an idea about that everyone who has been to Melbourne can relate to.'

The design keeps one step ahead of the climate by seamlessly transforming between a singlet, a poncho, a heated coat and a ventilator.

It's just a concept for now, but Mr Tyler is hoping to make the ambitious invention a reality with an online campaign to foot the bill.

'I need Melbourne's help,' he admitted.

The transforms between a singlet, a poncho, a heated coat to keep locals equipped for the elements

The ingenious item of clothing intends to keep locals equipped for four seasons in a day

The jacket comes fitted with a pair of thongs for when the sun comes out to play

It also boasts rainproof pants and shoes for flash floods or unexpected storms

He vowed the jacket will maintain Melbourne's top-shelf style while protecting against the elements.

'It's important that the design and look of The Melbourne Jacket isn't silly because style is important here.'

He describes it as a 'one-of-a-kind super-garment' which promises to be 'the most Melbourne thing ever'.

The design includes a myki card pocket for added convenience

Mr Tyler said the jacket will maintain Melbourne's top-shelf style while protecting against the elements.

He describes it as a 'one-of-a-kind super-garment' which promises to be 'the most Melbourne thing ever'

The jacket offers around-the-clock-protection against 'bloody raining, bloody boiling, bloody windy, bloody storming, bloody freezing, bloody asthma storms, bloody hailing [and] bloody sun-rain'.

The idea still has a long way to go before reaching its $12,000 goal, and while some have claimed it is a hoax, Mr Tyler says the jacket is no laughing matter.

'This is a 100% serious. There will be a Melbourne Jacket if it reaches the goal.'

You can read more or donate to the project here

The design naturally protects against freak asthma storms with a ventilator

Even dogs are protected in the ambitious design
The Church of England is to appoint a new bishop to reach out to ethnic minorities in order to combat its quintessentially English image.

The new Bishop of Loughborough will be based in the Diocese of Leicester and will focus on creating new churches which reflect the cultural changes in the area, according to the Bishop of Leicester Martyn Snow.

As well as being the first new post created since 1987, it is the first ever role to have a focus on ethnic diversity.

The role includes responsibility for enabling greater representation and engagement of BAME Christians as well as building relationships with other faith communities.

The Church of England is to appoint a new bishop to reach out to ethnic minorities in order to combat its quintessentially English image

The Bishop will focus particularly on younger people as well as ethnic minorities, and work in rural and deprived areas.

The post will be filled later this year after the current Assistant Bishop of Leicester Christopher Boyle retires in May.

Bishop of Leicester Martyn Snow told the General Synod in February that of 100 of Leicesters churches have a population which is almost 50 per cent non-white and 37 per cent Asian.

He said: If we truly want to be inclusive of all who live in our parishes, then we have to heed the cultural changes and challenges within our cities.

On Monday he told the Guardian that the Church of England was quintessentially English and needed to be more welcoming to other cultures.

Bishop Snow said: In the 1950s and 60s, when immigrants came from the Caribbean and elsewhere, they did not get a warm welcome in the Church of England. We have to hold our hands up to that.

They went off to set up other churches and were now facing the legacy.

The proposal received support from the Synod, and the Queens permission will now be sought.

According to official Church of England figures, just 3.4 per cent of clergy were non-white in 2015 and just 1.2 per cent were black African or Caribbean.

Nigerian-born Bishop of Woolwich Woyin Karowei Dorgu became the first black bishop to be appointed by the church in 20 years earlier this month.
A farmer who shot dead an environmental officer over a land clearing dispute has died in jail after having a heart attack following his battle with a terminal illness.

Murderer Ian Turnbull, 82, from Moree in western NSW died at the Prince of Wales hospital on Monday after being moved there from Long Bay jail on March 20, a NSW Corrective Services spokeswoman told AAP on Tuesday.

The farmer was jailed last year for at least 24 years for murdering Glen Turner, 51, and detaining his colleague, Robert Strange, for advantage on July 29, 2014.

The two officers were carrying out compliance work near the farmer's property at Croppa Creek in the state's north when Turnbull launched his attack.

Murderer Ian Turnbull, 82, pictured, from Moree in western NSW died at the Prince of Wales hospital on Monday after being moved there from Long Bay jail

The farmer was jailed last year for at least 24 years for murdering Glen Turner, 51, pictured, and environmental officer for the NSW government

He shot Mr Turner twice and ignored Mr Strange's pleas to stop, firing the third and fatal shot as his victim made a desperate dash for safety.

For the friends and family of the murdered man Turnbull's death means there will be no appeal on the killer's sentence, ABC reports.

'It's good now that the appeal is no longer required because it was just going to be another burden on Alison (his widow) and Glen's family to endure, so, in that regard, I'm happy for them,' friend Graeme McKenzie said.

'He has died in prison as a murderer, so I think that's probably the bottom line as far as that's concerned.'

Turner's widow Alison McKenzie told the Sydney Morning Herald Turnbull's death brought the family closure.

'He was able to receive medical attention at his time of need, something he denied his victim, my husband Glen.'

The grieving wife compared her husband's treatment by Turnbull in the moments before his death to that of a 'feral pig'.

At Turnbull's sentencing last June, Justice Peter Johnson said Turnbull had built up a strong resentment - even hatred - for Mr Turner and his employer, the Office of Environment and Heritage, over battles about illegal land clearing.

'The events ... involved the offender prolonging the process of murdering Mr Turner, thereby heightening the terror to which Mr Turner was subjected, before the final and fatal show was fired,' he said.

Justice Johnson also predicted the elderly man would die in custody - as he handed down a 24-year non-parole period for the killer.

Mr Turner was shot three times - the third and fata shot came as he was running away

Office of Environment and Heritage officer Glen Turner's partner Alison McKenzie (left) and sister Fran Pearce

The gun used to shoot down the environmental officer pictured in the back of a truck

More recently Turnbull suffered a stroke in jail and was being sued by his second-eldest son over claims the farmer reneged on a long-standing promise to hand over farm land.

AAP understands the NSW Supreme Court case will not be affected by Turnbull's death and the civil suit will proceed.

A Corrective Services NSW spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia: 'An 82-year-old inmate died at Prince of Wales Hospital yesterday. He had a terminal illness.'
It was the po'est of po' boy sandwiches.

Todd Rates, a senior at Hempfield Area High School in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, shared an image of what was served in his school's cafeteria: a handful of dry chicken nuggets inside a hot dog bun.

Rates was quick to point out that this was a friend's lunch. He did not order or ingest the $2.75 delicacy that was marketed as a 'popcorn chicken po' boy sandwich'.

Todd Rates, a Pennsylvania high school senior, posted this photo on Reddit of his friend's school lunch, chicken nuggets in a hot dog bun disguised as a po' boy sandwich

'I'm smart enough to bring my own,' he wrote on Reddit under the alias OneHotCoffee.

And yes, the ice cream in the photo cost extra. But the Red Delicious apple was mandatory.

Although Rates's friend told him the sandwich tasted 'pretty good', fellow Redditors thought differently.

Some offered suggestions on how to enrich the cringe-worthy meal, like tossing some marinara and cheese on the hapless meat and calling it a chicken parmesan.

One Redditor suggested: 'Put some bbq sauce on this and it's totally edible.'

Others compared the culinary abomination to those they've been served in the past.

This Redditor wrote in response to Rates's post that they found a wasp in their school salad



School lunch meals could always be worse. Students could be served the culinary horrors found in some American prisons and the US military.

The Philadelphia-based Aramark Correctional Services provides meals in schools and prisons nationwide.

There were reports in 2014 of maggots found in food in Aramark prison kitchens.

The Philadelphia-based Aramark Correctional Services provides meals in schools and prisons

Another Redditor shared this photo of a meal served at an unidentified Army mess hall

One Redditor shared these mouthwatering photos of school lunches served in Finland that put America to shame.

They offered this nugget of truth: 'I think it's very important to give kids proper lunches, for some it might be their only meal of the day.'

In Finland, children receive free, mouthwatering school lunches, wrote one Redditor

This lunch from a school in Finland, shared by a Redditor, puts America to shame

'I think it's very important to give kids proper lunches, for some it might be their only meal of the day,' a Finnish Redditor wrote in response to Rates's post

Whereas a child in France may be served a four-course meal that includes vegetables and cheese, youth in other parts of the world are more likely to be served, well, a 'popcorn chicken po' boy sandwich'.

While school lunches have never been the stuff of foodie dreams, former First Lady Michelle Obama championed meal rules that offer smaller, healthier portions as part of her anti-obesity initiatives.

The school meal rules, phased in since 2012, require more fruits, vegetables and whole grains in the lunch line. The standards also limit sodium, sugar and fat.

This Redditor bemoaned American school meal rules that allow kids to eat sugar, fat and carbs

Schoolchildren in Spain, Ukraine, Greece, South Korea, Brazil, France, Finland and Italy eat a remarkable array of fresh foods for lunch, unlike the UK and US trays, which are full of processed items.

The school lunch comparisons were revealed in 2015 by Sweetgreen, a chain of US restaurants, and website Never Seconds, run by Scottish schoolgirl Martha Payne, who logs her thoughts and experiences of eating school meals at her primary school in Lochgilphead, Scotland.

The 12-year-old launched the blog in 2012 as a school writing project with assistance from her father, David.

The surprising pictures show just how the UK and US measures up to the rest of the world when it comes to feeding schoolchildren.

Children in the US get fed popcorn chicken with ketchup, a spoonful of mashed potato, green peas, a fruit cup and a giant chocolate chip cookie for lunch

Italian children get pasta, fish, two kinds of salad, rocket and caprese, a bread roll and grapes

South Korean children tuck into broccoli and peppers, fried rice with tofu, fermented cabbage and fish soup

In Finland lunch is mainly a vegetarian affair of pea soup, carrots, beetroot salad, crusty roll and sweet pancake with berries to finish

Traditional South American food such as rice with black beans, baked plantains and pork with vegetables are on offer for Brazilian children. They also had a side serving of salad and bread with their meal.

In Ukraine children feast on mashed potato, sausages, borscht, cabbage and syrniki, a type of dessert pancake.

US school lunches feature fried popcorn chicken with ketchup, mashed potatoes, peas, a fruit cup and a chocolate chip cookie.
Five people are in hospital after batteries leaked gas in a Melbourne high-rise tower.

Multiple floors of the high-rise at 35 Collins St were evacuated just after 8am on Tuesday after batteries on the 27th floor became 'compromised' and gave off hydrogen sulphide gas, MFB said.

Five people were taken in a stable condition to St Vincent's Hospital, Ambulance Victoria says.

Five people have been admitted to hospital after batteries leaked and gave off hydrogen sulphide gas at a high rise tower in Melbourne's CBD on Tuesday morning

Hydrogen sulphide gas is a extremely hazardous gas with a 'rotten egg' smell.

It is also colourless and flammable.

'Crews evacuated multiple floors of the building and isolated the batteries and dispersed the gas,' an MFB spokesman told The Herald Sun.

The incident took just under two hours until it was deemed 'under control'.

People will be allowed to return to the effected offices shortly.

Emergency services were called to the building at 35 Collins St after 8am after evacuating multiple floors




An 11-year-old boy who ran away from home left his parents a five-page note saying he needed some 'time to think' after he got in trouble at school.

Andrew Ong was found safe at Melbourne Central train station around 7.30pm on Monday, nearly 12 hours after he left his home in Camberwell, police said.

His mother, Cindy Ong, said the child was afraid he had disappointed her after he was caught being silly during canteen duty at school.

Andrew Ong (pictured), 11, left a note at his parents' home in Camberwell in Melbourne's east before fleeing at about 8.30am on Monday. He was found safe on Monday evening

His parents, Cindy and David Ong, made a desperate plea their son to come home, saying he was upset about something that happened at school

Cindy Ong, pictured with her husband David, said their son was afraid to get in trouble after he was caught being silly during canteen duty at school

'Kids were being silly. They were giving treats to their friends. And the principal made them write a letter.

'So I think he feels really bad about what he's done. He probably feels that we're disappointed in him,' Mrs Ong told The Age.

'He left a note lying on the table about why he's doing it, about how he feels sad about what has happened at school. He just wanted to have some time to think. And he'll come back Friday,' the mother said.

'I think he was just feeling a bit daunted about coming back to school, and that's why he's taken off.'

Andrew took his train card and some pocket money when he left home on Monday morning.

His parents spent a terrifying afternoon searching Melbourne's CBD for their lost son, before he was found later in the evening.

'He's a very sweet boy, but very sensitive,' Mrs Ong said as the search was ongoing, according to the Herald Sun.
A hero dog saved his owner when she fell three metres down a cliff face and broke her ankle as they went for a walk.

Sue Pethick, 55, tripped and fell as she walked Abby the red heeler during a two-week family camping trip to the remote Yorke Peninsula in South Australia.

Abby ran back to the Gleesons Landing campground at about 1pm on Monday, where Ms Pethick's husband Michael, 59, was.

Abby the red heeler dog saved his owner by alerting her husband when she fell three metres down a cliff face and broke her ankle as they went for a walk

Sue Pethick, 55, tripped and fell as she walked Abby during a two-week family camping trip to the remote Yorke Peninsula in South Australia

He was already concerned they were gone for almost 20 minutes, and even more so when he saw the dog coming back without her.

'I said "take me to mum" and she turned around and headed down this little track, along the cliff face and walkways and,' Mr Pethick told the Adelaide Advertiser.

'She stopped near an edge where it goes down to the beach and waited for me to catch up  three metres down, there was Sue laying on her back.'

Mr Pethick said the couple rescued the loyal 'wonder pooch' from a shelter in Victoria a year ago and now she had repaid them.

Abby ran back to the Gleesons Landing campground at about 1pm on Monday, where Ms Pethick's husband Michael, 59, was

Mr Pethick (pictured) said the couple rescued the loyal 'wonder pooch' from a shelter in Victoria a year ago and now she had repaid them

'Sue was telling me that Abby didnt want to leave her (but) she told Abby to go find dad (and) thats what (she) had done. For some reason I dont know how she knew what to do,' he said.

Emergency services took two hours to stabilise Ms Pethick and rescued her from the cliff face, during which time she passed out twice from the pain.

She was airlifted to Royal Adelaide Hospital in a stable condition for surgery on her broken ankle.

'Loving our little girl even more. Thank you, thank you, thank you puppy girl,' Ms Pethick posted on Facebook.

It took emergency services two hours to stabilise Ms Pethick and get her off the cliff face, during which time she passed out from the pain twice
Britain should stockpile its aid budget to use when needed rather than trying to meet spending targets, MPs have said.

Under its controversial aid target, the Government must spend 0.7 per cent of national income  more than 12.2 billion a year  on aid.

But the Commons international development committee said funds should be able to be carried forward, rather than spending them in a last-minute splurge each year.

The House of Commons' international development committee said the Government's 12.2 billion aid budget should be carried forward, rather than spending in a last-minute splurge. Pictured, chairman Stephen Twigg MP

The Department for International Development (DfID) has been accused of dumping billions in trust funds administered by the World Bank to meet its target.

Over the past five years, 9billion has been funnelled through World Bank trust funds, with 241million charged in administration fees.

In a report on allocating aid money, MPs said DfID should make its own stockpile of cash so it does not have to rush billions out the door each year into funds with high fees.

They said: We think that Dfid should explore the idea of creating a mechanism for carrying funds forward which could then support its work when the need arose.

The MPs also warned they were concerned about the lack of strategic direction and management within the department, as they said its work was not necessarily done in a consistent and coherent manner.

Concerns were raised about whether DfID had enough staff to properly spend its budget and if it was relying too heavily on consultants to dish out the cash instead.

Over the past five years, 9billion has been funnelled through World Bank trust funds, with 241million charged in administration fees (file photo of the World Bank)

Stephen Twigg, chairman of the committee, said: We are particularly concerned that a lack of strategic direction is holding UK aid back.

'This is more important than ever, with increasing amounts of aid being spent by government departments other than DfID.

The basis on which aid spending decisions across the Government are made needs to be clear. It is absolutely right that Government demonstrates that every penny is spent as effectively as possible.

A DfID spokesman said: Britains place in the world is enhanced by our commitment to UK aid but we should never shy away from delivering the tough messages of reform that will make a real difference on the ground.'
The owner of a dog mauled to death by three pitbulls said seeing his pet 'ripped to shreds' was 'a horrific sight' and he is 'astounded' the attacking animals have not been declared dangerous.

Peter Toscan was walking his Pomeranian 'Buzz' around Yerribi Pond on January 31 about 7.15pm when the attack happened.

He said Buzz was attacked and killed by three American pitbulls who were in the park at the time with two dog walkers.

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The owner of a Pomeranian (pictured) called Buzz who was mauled to death by three American pitbulls in Canberra said seeing his pet 'ripped to shreds' was 'a horrific sight'

Peter Toscan was walking Buzz around Yerribi Pond on January 31 about 7.15pm when the attack happened. The pitbulls (pictured) were being walked by dog walkers at the time

Mr Toscan told Daily Mail Australia Buzz was a family pet who sat under his desk for the past 13 years.

He said Buzz hadn't been for a walk in a few days and was on a lead when the pair approached a footbridge with three larger dogs and two men on it.

'I had Buzz on lead close to me and I made a humorous comment, to be careful of Buzz, next minute this one dog lunged at him unprovoked and other two joined in the fray,' Mr Toscan said.

'I was down on the ground laying on top of one of the dogs trying to dislodge him.

'What was left of him was a horrific sight I can tell you.

'It wasn't one of my better days.'

Mr Toscan said he had Buzz on a lead as he approached a footbridge when one of the pitbulls lunged at Buzz, and the other two joined in. Pictured is a photo Mr Toscan left on the bridge after the attack, and flowers left by neighbours

Mr Toscan said Buzz's injuries were so horrific that he couldn't let his wife Maree see his body.

He said a gentleman and his daughter who were walking nearby stayed to comfort him while he was sitting on the ground nursing what was left of his dog.

Mr Toscan said the dog's owner walked down to the scene after the attack happened and offered apologies and sympathy, and said he'd had the dogs for years and it had never happened before.

The owner of the dogs, identified as 'Jord', told ABC Canberra he was still shaken up thinking about the attack.

Mr Toscan (front left) said Buzz (held by his wife Maree front middle) was a family pet who sat under his desk for the past 13 years. He said what was left of Buzz after the attack was 'a horrific sight'

'It was pretty traumatising for everyone involved especially the gentleman who owned the dog,' he said.

He said his family had owned the larger dog for six years and the other two dogs for four years.

'We never had any inkling or sign that the dogs that could possibly do this,' he said.

The dogs were siezed by Domestic Animal Services (DAS) for assessment and were later released and deemed not dangerous.

The owner admitted he looks at the dogs differently now.

Mr Toscan has called on dog owners to be more responsible for their pets, especially when in public places. Pictured is Buzz playing with a ball at home

The three dogs were siezed after the attack and assessed by Domestic Animal Sevices (DAS). They were later deemed as not dangerous and returned to their owner. Pictured is Yerribi Pong where the attack took place

'It's hard because it was so unprovoked and out of character, they have been tested by the rangers and I have complete faith in their decision.'

The dogs can now only be walked by a person over the age of 18, must be muzzled in public and can only be walked one at a time.

Since the attack, Mr Toscan said he'd had several people call him to express their sympathy and to recount their own experiences with dog attacks.

He called for owners to take more responsibility for their dogs.

'If they're walking them in public areas they need to be aware of the consequences when their dogs attack.

The owner of the dogs who attacked Buzz (pictured), identified as 'Jord', said he was still shaken up thinking about the attack. He said: 'It's hard because it was so unprovoked and out of character, they have been tested by the rangers and I have complete faith in their decision'

'At the moment I understand there are no consequences for owners.'

There have been 360 reported dog attacks in Canberra over the past year and of those, 155 cases have needed treatment for injuries at emergency departments, reported Mix 106.3 Canberra.

ACT opposition urban services spokesman Steve Doszpot is putting a motion to the Legislative Assembly calling for tighter, more effective controls for dogs involved in attacks, reported the Canberra Times.

'From figures given to me by the government, a person presents to hospital emergency departments in Canberra because of a dog attack every three days. This rate is increasing and it is unacceptable,' he said.

For emergency after-hour services for dog attacks or injured dogs call Access Canberra on 13 22 81.

The dogs who attacked and killed Buzz (pictured) can now only be walked by a person over the age of 18, must be muzzled in public and can only be walked one at a time
Motorists have been seen driving through huge gusts of wind thrown up by Cyclone Debbie, ignoring warnings from the emergency services.

The drivers were seen heading through Queensland's Airlie Beach, where the Category 4 storm is already having a devastating effect even before it makes landfall.

Emergency crews have ordered residents to shelter indoors and have warned that they will be unable to attend calls while the storm rages on.

Airlie Beach is set to be pounded by Debbie on Tuesday afternoon, with the 'monster' storm predicted to make landfall near to the usually idyllic town with winds of up to 270km/h.

Daredevil stormchasers have been seen driving through huge gusts of wind thrown up by Cyclone Debbie, ignoring warnings from the emergency services

The motorists were seen driving around Airlie Beach, where the Category 4 storm is already having a devastating effect even before it makes landfall

A 9 News crew spotted two drivers on the streets of Airlie Beach, with one in what appeared to be a white 4x4.

However the other motorist seemed to be driving a small, red hatchback - putting them at great risk in the adverse weather.

A video posted online by stormchaser @ozcyclonechaser - who is thought to be one of the drivers seen on the streets of Airlie Beach - showed his reaction as his back window was smashed by debris as he drove around the tourist hub.

Power has been cut to parts of the coastal haven, plunging holidaymakers in town for a luxury getaway into darkness.

Meanwhile tourists on Hamilton Island are weathering the worst of Cyclone Debbie, after the eye of the storm hit the Whitsundays, tearing roofs from buildings.

'I have never heard gusts of wind howl this loud and this intense before,' tourist Helena Mo said from Hamilton Island. 'You can't help but worry about what's going to happen next.'

On Tuesday morning, the monster storm was tracking across the Whitsundays with 190km/h winds and is forecast to hit the mainland at Ayr by 2pm with 275km/h gusts.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has warned the vast size of the cyclone - the worst to hit Queensland since Yasi six years ago - means the devastating core could take three hours to pass, and people should expect to be holed up for the entire day.

Power has been cut to parts of Airlie Beach, plunging holidaymakers in town for a luxury getaway into darkness

Strong wind and rain from Cyclone Debbie is seen blasting past trees at Airlie Beach

The cyclone (pictured in this weather graphic as it bears down on Airlie Beach) is forecast to hit the mainland at Ayr by 2pm with 275km/h gusts

'It is incredible. Honestly, it is huge,' she told the Nine network on Tuesday.

'The broad stretch of the Queensland coast that it is going to impact - it is going to be felt in a lot of communities from Townsville all the way down south to Mackay. And of course there will be the flooding events that happen afterwards.'

The premier said serious concerns were held for Bowen, which is expected to take an almost direct hit, Airlie Beach and the islands being battered so savagely as Debbie heads slowly towards the coastline.

Whitsunday Councillor Jan Clifford is sheltering at her Airlie Beach home, and offered some choice words to describe Debbie, calling the cyclone 'one mean, big b****'.

'You've got to keep your sense of humour about it, because if you don't laugh you will cry,' she said as she described watching trees topple in her yard under the force of 180km/h wind gusts.

But she says she feels safe.

'The houses are built for this up here,' she said.

Palm trees wave in strong wind as the weather closes in on Airlie Beach, Queensland

Some residents in Airlie Beach were already reporting flooding as the rain continued to fall

Grey sky day: It was a gloomy morning in Airlie Beach as the huge cyclone approached

The storm surge - which could inundate low-lying homes - is still expected to be significant. At Laguna Keys, south of Airlie Beach, a storm surge of 1.5 metres has already been recorded, as the tide builds toward its peak.

'This will not pass during the day. For the next 12 hours, I need families to remain safe, and remain where they are,' Ms Palaszczuk told ABC.

Power has been cut to some communities as Debbie encroaches, trees are down across the region, and some structural damage is starting to become apparent.

Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said Debbie's slow pace is having 'a battering ram effect'.

'These winds are going to keep pounding, pounding, pounding,' he said.

'I suspect before the day is out, we will see a lot of structural damage in the cyclone's path.'
A hedge fund manager who lost billions of his clients' money to Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme leaped to his death from the luxury Sofitel hotel in midtown Manhattan.

Charles W. Murphy, 56, was wearing a dark business suit when he plunged to his death from the 24th floor of the 45 W. 44th St. building at around 4:42pm on Monday.

The father-of-two financier, who was married to his second wife, plummeted 20 floors before hitting a fourth floor terrace, according to the NYPD, and died at the scene.

The former hedge fund he ran, Fairfield Greenwich, poured $7billion into Madoff's ponzi scheme before it was uncovered in 2008.

Charles Murphy, above with his second wife Annabella, is reported to have committed suicide by jumping off the 24th floor of the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan on Monday afternoon

The father-of-two financier plummeted 20 floors before hitting a fourth floor terrace. The former hedge fund he ran, Fairfield Greenwich, poured $7billion into Madoff's ponzi scheme before it was uncovered in 2008

Murphy was renting a room at the time, even though he owns a $36million townhouse just 20 blocks away on the Upper East Side.

The couple would host lavish parties in the property with members of the Manhattan social elite.

When he died he was working with Paulson & Co., another New York hedge fund.

Founder Paul Johnson released a statement on Monday night saying 'We are extremely saddened by this news. Charles was an extremely gifted and brilliant man, a great partner and a true friend.'

In December 2013, Fairfield Greenwich settled a class action suit for $80.2million, according to a website for Madoff's victims. They were sued for failing to protect investor assets.

Almost 3,000 investors claimed a portion of the settlement.

Murphy was a Partner and Member of the Executive Committee. The group's Fairfield Sentry Fund was the disgraced financier's biggest feeder fund.

Up until the scandal, the fund had been paid more than 11 percent interest each year following a 15-year relationship with the Ponzi crook.

Murphy, said to be wearing a dark business suit, jumped from the 24th floor of the Sofitel hotel in midtown Manhattan

Murphy landed on a terrace four stories above the street; medics had a difficult reaching him

Murphy's hedge fund, Fairfield Greenwich, was Bernard L. Madoff's biggest feeder fund and lost $7billion of clients' money. The disgraced financier is seen leaving federal court in New York in 2009

Murphy's limestone townhouse on 67th street is still on the market for $36million, a year after it was listed - and the second time he's tried to offload it

The pair, pictured on a dinner date, got engaged in 2003. A report says that Mrs Murphy crashed her car last summer, but could not afford to get it repaired

MADOFF AND THE SUICIDES LINKED TO HIS PONZI SCANDAL Charles Murphy, 56, has now become the fourth person connected to Madoff to commit suicide in the years following the Ponzi scheme scandal. French aristocrat Rene Thierry Magon De La Villehuchet was found dead in 2008 just after the news broke. His AIA Group lost $1.5 billion. Ex-U.S. Army major William Foxton, 65, killed himself in 2009. A year later, Madoff's son Mark was found dead after he hanged himself in his New York apartment. Advertisement

On the day Madoff was taken into federal custody in 2008, he was working with Fairfield to set up a new fund.

The Koch brothers, Charles and David, moved $2billion overseas that they managed to make from Madoff before his scheme collapsed.

Most of that involved transfers from funds that were operated by Fairfield Greenwich Group.

After Madoff's arrest, the town of Fairfield, Connecticut, lost a reported $42million of its pension plan for police, fire fighters and local government employees on Madoff investments.

Murphy is now the fourth person connected to Madoff to commit suicide in the years following the Ponzi scheme scandal.

French aristocrat Rene Thierry Magon De La Villehuchet was found dead in 2008 just after the news broke. His AIA Group lost $1.5 billion.

Ex-U.S. Army major William Foxton, 65, killed himself in 2009. A year later, Madoff's son Mark was found dead after he hanged himself in his New York apartment.

The hedge fund manager was pronounced dead on the scene, police say they don't suspect foul play

Murphy is now the fourth person who was affected by the Madoff scandal to commit suicide. French aristocrat Rene Thierry Magon De La Villehuchet (left) was found dead in 2008 just after the news broke. Ex-U.S. Army major William Foxton, 65, (middle) killed himself in 2009. Madoff's son Mark (right) hanged himself in his New York apartment in 2010

Murphy was previously a research analyst at Morgan Stanley, and was cohead of the European financial institutions group at Credit Suisse.

He graduated from Harvard Law School and MIT Sloan School of Management.

In 2007, Murphy bought the East 67th Street townhouse of Matthew Bronfman for $33 million. He was married to Annabella Murphy, his second wife.

Murphy reportedly tried to off-load the limestone gem, built in 1899, during the Madoff crisis but found no takers. He listed it again in 2016 for $50million, according to The Real Deal.

It is now on the market for $36million, listed with Corcoran.

It is described as being 11,550 square feet with roof terrace with views of Central Park, a private staff quarters, a gym, a wine cellar, and elevator and a Crestron Total Home Technology system.

A parking attendant at a nearby garage told the New York Post that Murphy's wife, Annabella , crashed their Honda Odyssey last summer but could not afford to fix it.

'She didn't even have enough money to pay for the damage,' the attendant said.

Murphy's first wife, former Heather Kerzner, got married to hotel billionaire Sol Kerzner after the pair split.

They were married for 11 years before their marriage ended in divorce.

Rooms at the Sofitel begin at $150 a night, and the hotel is popular with celebrities, VIPs, and tourists.

In 2011, the hotel made headlines around the world when French politician and head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was accused of raping a maid in the Sofitel.

Three months later, all charges were dismissed. In 2012, he settled a lawsuit with the maid.

Medics had a difficult time getting to the exec's body on the fourth floor, he jumped from the 24th, say police

The Sofitel is a luxury hotel popular with the rich and famous; it's infamous for where former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn was accused of raping a maid
Beyonce's father has been accused of defrauding his former lawyers to the tune of $50,000 for refusing to pay a legal bill.

Mathew Knowles allegedly hired Lang Ferrer Law in November last year, but then refused to pay them over the course of the following months, the firm alleges in a new suit.

The filing claims Knowles hired the firm to represent him and his company, Music World Properties, for an unstated legal matter.

The firm alleges in the documents it claims to show proof that it followed through on its end of the deal, and provided services worth $49,120.35.

Mathew Knowles (pictured in October 2016) has been accused of defrauding his former lawyers to the tune of $50,000 for refusing to pay a legal bill

However, the suit alleges Knowles was the one who then did not follow through on his obligations, and that the entire sum of money remains outstanding.

The filing claims it was a deliberate act by the music manager, and describes it as: 'part of a ruse to secure free legal services'.

Knowles is then accused of holding a secret auction over Super Bowl weekend in Houston this year, where he sold off memorabilia and other items from his time managing Beyonce and the group, Destiny's Child.

Knowles (left, in February, and right, with Destiny's Child in 2000) allegedly hired Lang Ferrer Law in November last year, but then refused to pay them over the course of the following months, the firm alleges in a new suit

Knowles is also accused of selling some of his daughter's (pictured) memorabilia in a secret auction over Super Bowl weekend this year

This paper shows the front page of the court documents filed against Knowles in Texas

Lang Ferrer's lawyer in the matter was aware of the sale ahead of time, and a letter sent by the firm to Knowles outlined how it hoped the auction would be used to pay his outstanding bill.

'Presumably you are liquidating these items to pay debts, including the amounts due to our client,' the letter sent to Knowles on February 3 read, before it issued a warning.

'To the extent you may be disposing of these and other assets to avoid your debts and legal obligations, however, we will consider the sale of such items to be fraudulent transfers and will seek all available remedies for same in the event our client's invoices are not paid as demanded.'

The letter continued on to demand 'immediate payment' of the nearly-$50,000 bill.

DailyMail.com is unaware what Lang Ferrer was hired for by Knowles.

Beyonce Knowles and her father Matthew arrive at the UK premiere of 'Dreamgirls' at Odeon Leicester Square on January 21, 2007 in London

The Texas firm specializes in: business, civil, commercial disputes, contract disputes, collections, and disputes between partners.

Knowles was previously involved in a legal dispute last year that saw him accused of refusing to pay up over a settlement deal.

Fun Fest Entertainment filed suit against Knowles and his Music World Properties.

The entertainment company had planned to hold a music festival in Houston, taking advantage of the Super Bowl being held in the city, at a venue owned by Knowles.

A lease contract was negotiated in April 2016. However, they say Knowles then entered into a deal with another company to rent out the venue. They originally sued Knowles back in October seeking an injunction that would prohibit him from renting out the venue to anyone else.

A settlement was reached between Knowles and Fun Fest Entertainment.
High schoolers charged: Henry Sanchez-Milian, 18 (pictured) and Jose Montano, 17, have been charged with raping a 14-year-old female classmate at a Maryland high school bathroom

The father of a Guatemalan teen who is accused of raping a 14-year-old girl was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Friday.

Adolfo Sanchez-Reyes, 43, was taken away by ICE agents for illegally immigrating to Jessup, Maryland from Guatemala.

He was issued a notice to appear in immigration court and is being held at Howard County Detention Center in Jessup according to WTOP.

Sanchez-Reyes is the father of Henry Sanchez-Milian, 18, who is accused of rape and is also facing deportation.

Police in Maryland arrested Jose Montano, 17, and Henry Sanchez-Milian, 18, after the young girl told school officials the pair had forced her into a bathroom stall at Montgomery County high school and raped her.

Sanchez-Milian is believed to have entered the US illegally from Guatemala seven months ago.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement won't report on Montano's immigration status as he is a minor.

Montano arrived El Salvador about eight months ago.

The alleged attack took place inside a boys' bathroom at Rockville High School during school hours

Sanchez-Milian was held without bond in court on Friday. Montgomery County Assistant States Attorney Rebecca MacVittie called him a 'substantial flight risk'.

Montgomery County Police announced the arrests on Friday, saying that the alleged assault happened the day before at Rockville High School.

According to investigators, the victim was walking in a school hallway at around 9am when she ran into the two teens.

The girl knew only one of the teens, Montano, who allegedly asked her for a hug, then slapped her butt and asked her to walk with them.

As the trio were passing by a boys bathroom on the way to the gym, the 17-year-old Montano repeatedly asked the girl to have sex with him and his friend, and when she refused they allegedly forced her into the restroom.

The probable cause document describes the assault in extremely graphic detail, recounting how the alleged victim grabbed onto a sink to avoid being forced into a stall, but the two suspects shoved her inside.
Mark Latham has come under fire after suggesting Wendy Harmer could only get a job at the 'sheltered' ABC because she is a 'female with a disability'.

The Sydney radio presenter, who has a cleft palate, has threatened to take legal action against the former Labor leader after he described her as a 'proven commercial failure'.

Lawyers for Ms Harmer have sent Sky News a legal letter arguing his on-air remarks on his program The Outsiders on Sunday were defamatory, The Australian reported.

Mark Latham (right) has come under fire after suggesting Wendy Harmer (left) could only get a job at the 'sheltered' ABC because she is a 'female with a disability'

Ms Harmer has demanded an apology from the former Labor leader amid his on-air remarks

Over the weekend, Mr Latham fired back at Ms Harmer after she criticised him on Twitter about his behaviour towards his colleagues.

'Wendy Harmer has put it out there on Twitter that if Sky doesn't do something about people like us she'll be ditching her Foxtel arrangement,' Mr Latham said on-air.

'Now Wendy, of course, we know her well. She's a proven commercial failure, so naturally she got a job at ABC radio at the sheltered workshop there for all the leftys. She fits the criteria, she's female, she's got a disability  that's what they mean by diversity.

'If you don't like the show, tune out.'

Ms Harmer - who was a high-rating breakfast radio announcer at Sydney's 2Day FM for 11 years - has also demanded an apology from Mr Latham.

'To be clear, a simple apology will do,' she wrote on Twitter on Monday afternoon.

The Sydney radio presenter (right) has threatened to take legal action against the former Labor leader (left) after he described her as a 'proven commercial failure'

Ms Harmer took to social media to voice her concerns after Mr Latham called his co-host Kristina Keneally a 'Yankee sheila' during a fiery on-air rant last Tuesday

Mr Latham labelled Ms Keneally, a former NSW premier, a 'Yankee sheila' and accused her of being a 'protege of Eddie Obeid' during a fiery on-air rant last Tuesday

She currently hosts Mornings for ABC Radio in Sydney.

His latest outburst follows Ms Harmer who took to social media to voice her concerns after tensions boiled between Mr Latham and his co-host Kristina Keneally.

Mr Latham labelled Ms Keneally, a former NSW premier, a 'Yankee sheila' and accused her of being a 'protege of Eddie Obeid' during a fiery on-air rant last Tuesday.

'I subscribe @foxtel and I'm deeply unimpressed by some of @SkyNewsAust offerings. Fix it or I'm off,' Ms Harmer wrote on Friday.

'Happy to watch a range of views on @SkyNewsAust - but not character assassination and unhinged ranters.'

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Sky News for comment.
Donald Trump has launched another attack on Hillary Clinton - questioning why she and Bill Clinton are not under investigation from the House Intelligence Committee.

'Why isn't the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech...,' the president tweeted on Monday night, before finishing his thought with a second post.

'...money to Bill, the Hillary Russian "reset," praise of Russia by Hillary, or Podesta Russian Company. Trump Russia story is a hoax.'

Trump seemed to be referring to a falsehood he often uttered on the campaign trail, where he claimed Clinton, 'gave up 20 per cent of America's uranium supply to Russia'.

Donald Trump has launched another attack on Hillary Clinton - questioning why she and Bill Clinton are not under investigation from the House Intelligence Committee

'You know what people do with uranium, dont you? Its called nuclear. Twenty per cent. They could have never done it without her,' Trump told his people at a Wisconsin rally on September 28.

However, Trump's statement was discredited by a number of fact-checking outlets, including Politifact.

The website reported what was sold to Russia was a number of mines, mills and tracts of land in a number of states - including Utah and Wyoming - that 'equate to about 20 per cent of US uranium production capacity', but not physical uranium.

Trump's suggestion that Clinton's State Department approved the sale in order for the Clinton Foundation to benefit financially was deemed false by the fact checkers, as no evidence of a 'quid pro quo' existed.

'Why isn't the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia,' Trump wrote in his first tweet on Monday night

Hillary Clinton is pictured being greeted by supporters at an event in April last year. Trump's previous statements about her selling '20 per cent of America's uranium to Russia' have been proven to be incorrect by a number of fact-checking outlets

FactCheck.org and Snopes reached similar conclusions.

In his storm of activity Monday night, the president also commented on the failed Republican healthcare bill of last week.

'The Republican House Freedom Caucus was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. After so many bad years they were ready for a win!' he wrote.

'The Democrats will make a deal with me on healthcare as soon as ObamaCare folds - not long. Do not worry, we are in very good shape!'

The tweets were sent after it emerged earlier on Monday house intelligence chairman Devin Nunes went to the White House to review intelligence reports and meet the secret source behind his claim that communications involving Trump associates were caught up in 'incidental' surveillance.

Donald Trump sits with House Speaker Paul Ryan during a meeting of Congressional Republicans in Washington DC on Monday

Trump continued in his tweets to begin talking about the failed Republican healthcare submission last week

The revelation prompted DC's top Democrat on the committee to call on Nunes to recuse himself from the committee's Russia probe.

Rep. Adam Schiff said Nunes' connections to the White House have raised insurmountable public doubts about whether the committee could credibly investigate the president's campaign associates.

'I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the president's campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman,' Schiff said in a statement.

Nunes confirmed Monday that he met with the source at the White House complex, but he denied coordinating with the president's aides.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., is 'cleared' to get classified information, and that the White House did not leak anything to him

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) was at the White House the day before he cited new information about 'unmasking' of Americans at Trump Tower

After reviewing the information last week, Nunes called a news conference to announce that U.S. spy agencies may have inadvertently captured Trump and his associates in routine targeting of foreigners' communications. Trump quickly seized on the statements as at least partial vindication for his assertion that President Barack Obama tapped his phones at Trump Tower - though Nunes, Schiff and FBI Director James Comey have said there is no such evidence.

The Senate intelligence committee is also conducting an investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible ties with the Trump campaign. On Monday, it announced that Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has agreed to be interviewed. The White House confirmed that Kushner, a senior Trump adviser, had volunteered to be interviewed about arranging meetings with the Russian ambassador and other officials.

Kushner is the fourth Trump associate to offer to be interviewed by the congressional committees looking into the murky Russia ties. Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, Trump adviser Carter Page and Trump associate Roger Stone last week volunteered to speak as well.

'Mr. Kushner will certainly not be the last person the committee calls to give testimony, but we expect him to be able to provide answers to key questions that have arisen in our inquiry,' the chairman, Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, and the top Democrat, Mark Warner of Virginia, said in a joint statement Monday in a sign of bipartisanship.

The House investigation, meanwhile, has been plagued with partisan divisions under Nunes' leadership.

The chairman did not tell top Democrat on the committee about the meeting at the White House complex. It is highly unusual for a committee chairman and ranking member not to coordinate meetings related to an investigation.

''I think the chairman has to make a decision whether to act as a surrogate of the White House - as he did during the campaign and the transition - or to lead an independent and credible investigation,' Schiff said Sunday on CBS' 'Face the Nation.'

Intelligence panel vice chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) wait for the start of a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence hearing concerning Russian meddling in the 2016 United States election

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) walks out of the West Wing after a meeting at the White House March 22, 2017

Nunes argued he had to review classified, executive branch documents from a secure facility at the White House because the reports had not been provided to Congress and could not be transported to the secure facilities used by the House intelligence committee.

'Because of classification rules, the source could not simply put the documents in a backpack and walk them over to the House Intelligence committee space,' Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said. 'The White House grounds was the best location to safeguard the proper chain of custody and classification of these documents, so the chairman could view them in a legal way.'

Nunes would not name the source of the information, nor would he disclose who invited him on the White House grounds for the meeting. In addition to the White House itself, the grounds include an adjacent building with offices for National Security Council and other executive branch employees.

Nunes described the source as intelligence official, not a White House official. In an interview on CNN, he suggested the president's aides were unaware of the meeting.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer would not comment on whether White House officials were involved with Nunes.

'I'm not going to get into who he met with or why he met with them,' Spicer said.

The clandestine meeting was remarkable for a committee that seeks to demonstrate bipartisanship, said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University who has written extensively about separation of powers.

'Ideally, any meeting at the White House on a subject under investigation would have been done with the knowledge of the ranking member or his staff,' Turley said. 'Because these committees are the least transparent in Congress, both parties have historically tried to be open with each other on contacts or meetings with agencies on key questions.'

The disclosure renewed calls for an independent committee to investigate the Russia ties.

Indeed, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on House Speaker Paul Ryan to replace Nunes as chairman of the intelligence committee.

'He has not been operating like someone who is interested in getting to the unvarnished truth. His actions look like those of someone who is interested in protecting the president and his party,' Schumer said.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said, 'Chairman Nunes' discredited behavior has tarnished that office,' and said Ryan should insist that Nunes 'at least recuse himself' from the Russia probe.

AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Ryan, said Monday the speaker has 'full confidence that Chairman Nunes is conducting a thorough, fair and credible investigation.'

When Nunes disclosed the intelligence reports last week, he said what he reviewed had nothing to do with Russia, which could suggest that Trump associates were in touch with other foreign targets of U.S. intelligence surveillance in November, December or January.

'The chairman is extremely concerned by the possible improper unmasking of names of U.S. citizens, and he began looking into this issue even before President Trump tweeted his assertion that Trump Tower had been wiretapped,' Langer said.

It is unclear exactly what documents Nunes reviewed.

Nunes and Schiff have asked the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency for the names of officials who were cited in intelligence reports. The committee has said it is getting some of what it requested, but has not received everything.
A transgender Florida woman known as the 'toxic tush doctor' was sentenced to 10 years in prison and five years probation on Monday after a patient died as a result of one of her procedures.

O'Neal Morris, 36, used a mixture of Fix-a-Flat, cement, silicone, mineral oil and Super Glue to give women butt injections, WSVN reported.

She pleaded no contest to manslaughter and practicing medicine without a license following the death of Shatarka Nuby, 31, who died in federal prison in 2012 after receiving the injections.

O'Neal Morris, 36, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and five years probation by a Broward County, Florida court after pleading no context to manslaughter and practicing medicine without a license

Morris, pictured, had allegedly injected patients with a mixture of Fix-a-Flat, cement, silicone, mineral oil and Super Glue to give women butt injections on Monday. All told, around 30 women came forward with claims Morris had scammed them

Morris, who was sentenced in a Broward County court, had said that she and Nuby were close friends and told the court: 'I would never do that. So, please don't listen to the lies. Please do not listen to what they're reporting, because it's not true.'

She claimed that she never 'injected any human with any type of unknown substance.'

Nuby's mother told Morris in court: 'What you took from me, that was a precious jewel.'

Under the plea deal she could have received up to 15 years in prison.

Morris, who was born a man but identifies as a woman, will serve her sentence in a men's prison. Florida law does not make exceptions for transgender people.

Nuby passed away from acute and chronic respiratory failure reportedly caused by the silicone used in the procedure while serving time in a Tallahassee prison.

She had underwent around 10 illegal treatments from Morris to enhance her buttocks, hips, thighs and breasts. Her treatments cost $2,000.

Morris was held responsible for the death of Shatarka Nuby, 31, who died in federal prison in 2012 after receiving 10 injections from the 'toxic tush doctor.' Nuby was determined to have died from respiratory failure caused by the silicone used in Morris's procedures

Another 'patient' of Morris, Rajee Narinesingh, had accused Morris of turning her into a 'monster'

Morris was previously sentenced to a year in prison by a Miami-Dade court in 2013.

She was first arrested by police on November 18, 2011, after a 'patient' came forward claiming she had entered a toxic concoction into her backside.

Morris reportedly sealed her injections with cotton balls and super glue.

During a police investigation into Morris's alleged illegal surgeries, more than 30 people from across the US reportedly came forward with claims they were scammed by the bogus doctor.

One 'patient', Rajee Narinesingh, accused Morris of making her 'into a monster' after she received several procedures from the 'doctor' in 2005.

Narinesingh, a transgender woman, wanted fuller lips, cheeks and chin, but could not afford an operation by a licensed plastic surgeon, using medical silicone.

She said she had heard about the 'fake doctor' by word of mouth through the transgender community.
Australia's planned extradition treaty with China has collapsed after Labor and the crossbench decided to block it in parliament.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull pulled a bill to ratify the deal from parliament 20 minutes after Opposition Leader Bill Shorten told him Labour would not support it.

Mr Shorten informed the Prime Minister at about 8.30am on Tuesday that the shadow cabinet voted it down in a Monday night meeting.

Malcolm Turnbull pulled Australia's extradition treaty with China from parliament after Labor and the crossbench decided to block it

The treaty, which would send suspects fleeing China back home for trial (Chinese prison pictured), was opposed over concerns about China's legal system and human rights record

The government needed Labor's votes to pass the treaty, which would send suspects fleeing China back home for trial.

Mr Turnbull was also facing a backbench revolt with up to a dozen coalition MPs opposed to the agreement and several even threatening to cross the floor.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Justice Minister Michale Keenan had to head off the dissent with a 'tense' hour-long meeting on Monday, according to the Sydney morning Herald.

Even former prime minister Tony Abbott spoke out against the treaty, despite talking it up when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Australia in 2014.

'Chinas legal system has to evolve further before the Australian government and people could be confident that those before it would receive justice according to law,' he told The Australian on Monday.

'I want the best possible friendship with China, but not at the expense of our values and long-term national interest.'

Prime Minister Turnbull waves with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Sydney on Saturday

Mr Shorten informed the Prime Minister at about 8.30am on Tuesday that the shadow cabinet voted it down in a Monday night meeting

Mr Turbull was also facing a backbench revolt with up to a dozen coalition MPs opposed to the agreement and several even discussing crossing the floor

Other MPs were concerned about China's lack of legal transparency, human right record, and potential bullying of Australian and dissidents by China.

Former Liberal senator Cory Bernardi, now sitting under the Australian Conservatives banner, also publicly opposed the treaty.

'They have 1.2 million convictions every year and only 1000 people manage to receive clearance from the court system over there,' he told ABC radio.

'It's a 99.99 per cent conviction rate - I don't know anyone that really thinks that's transparency or justice as we know it.'

Nick Xenaphon and his senators, Derryn Hinch, and the Greens were also expected to vote down the bill, leaving it with no hope of passage.

The treaty's collapse is a major embarrassment for Mr Turnbull, Ms Bishop and Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce, who offered spirited defences of it hours before.

Even former Prime Minister Tony Abbott spoke out against the treaty, despite talking it up when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Australia in 2014

Former Liberal senator Cory Bernardi, now sitting under the Australian Conservatives banner, also publicly opposed the treaty

'This is about our national interest, this is about serving our interests in not being a haven for criminals around the world who would seek to escape justice by being in Australia,' Ms Bishop said.

Ms Bishop insisted all such treaties had safeguards in place to ensure Australia's legal and political systems had oversight.

She said people would not be extradited if they face the death penalty, torture fears or the prospect of an unfair trial.

Mr Joyce attacked Labor's decision to block the treaty was 'crazy' and show it had become 'some sort of sensational band of rubbish'.

'As sure as God made little green apples, there are people in China who think the way they can get out of a crime is to get on a plane and get somewhere else as quickly as possible,' he said.

'If you go out and make some grand statement in the Senate today, it's just foolishness and I can't believe to be honest that the Labor Party is going to participate in this.'

Mr Joyce attacked Labor's decision to block the treaty was 'crazy' and show it had become 'some sort of sensational band of rubbish'

Ms Bishop insisted all such treaties had safeguards in place to ensure Australia's legal and political systems had oversight

Mr Turnbull said the bill was withdrawn for 'further consultations' but the government was committed to ratifying it.

He described the treaty as an important part of Australia's co-operation with China on law enforcement and cited a $100 million methamphetamine bust as proof of the crime-fighting ties.

Australia has deals with about 39 countries around the world, including Venezuela, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.

The treaty was signed in the last days of the John Howard government in 2007, but was never ratified into law.
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Tuesday that will undo his predecessor's attempts to reduce US carbon emissions.

As part of the roll-back, Trump will initiate a review of the Clean Power Plan, which restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants.

The regulation, which was the former president's signature effort to curb carbon emissions, has been the subject of long-running legal challenges by Republican-led states and those who profit from burning oil, coal and gas.

President Donald Trump (left) will sign an executive order Tuesday that will undo Barack Obama's (right) attempts to reduce US carbon emissions

Trump, who has called global warming a 'hoax' invented by the Chinese, has repeatedly criticized the power-plant rule and others as an attack on American workers and the struggling US coal industry.

The contents of the order were outlined to reporters in a sometimes tense briefing with a senior White House official, whom aides insisted speak without attribution, despite President Trump's criticism of the use of unnamed sources.

The official at one point appeared to break with mainstream climate science, denying familiarity with widely publicized concerns about the potential adverse economic impacts of climate change, such as rising sea levels and more extreme weather.

In addition to pulling back from the Clean Power Plan, the administration will also lift a 14-month-old moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands.

As part of the roll-back, Trump will initiate a review of the Clean Power Plan, which restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants, similar to this one in Germany

The Obama administration had imposed a three-year moratorium on new federal coal leases in January 2016, arguing that the $1billion-a-year program must be modernized to ensure a fair financial return to taxpayers and address climate change.

Trump accused his predecessor of waging a 'war on coal' and boasted in a speech to Congress that he has made 'a historic effort to massively reduce job-crushing regulations,' including some that threaten 'the future and livelihoods of our great coal miners'.

The order will also chip away at other regulations, including scrapping language on the 'social cost' of greenhouse gases.

It will initiate a review of efforts to reduce the emission of methane in oil and natural gas production as well as a Bureau of Land Management hydraulic fracturing rule, to determine whether those reflect the president's policy priorities.

It will also rescind Obama-era executive orders and memoranda, including one that addressed climate change and national security and one that sought to prepare the country for the impacts of climate change.

The White House budget calls for defunding the Clean Power Plan that Obama announced in 2015. Here EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt address employees at the agency's headquarters

Emissions rise from the American Electric Power Co Inc coal-fired John E Amos Power Plant in Winfield, West Virginia, in 2014. Power plant coal burning by 2020 must decline by 24 per cent

The administration is still in discussion about whether it intends to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change. But the moves to be announced Tuesday will undoubtedly make it more difficult for the US to achieve its goals.

Trump's Environmental Protection Agency chief, Scott Pruitt, alarmed environmental groups and scientists earlier this month when he said he does not believe carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming. The statement is at odds with mainstream scientific consensus and Pruitt's own agency.

The overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed studies and climate scientists agree the planet is warming, mostly due to man-made sources, including carbon dioxide, methane, halocarbons and nitrogen oxide.

The official who briefed reporters said the president does believe in man-made climate change.

The power-plant rule Trump is set to address in his order has been on hold since last year as a federal appeals court considers a challenge by coal-friendly states and more than 100 companies who call the plan an unconstitutional power grab.

Opponents say the plan will kill coal-mining jobs and drive up electricity costs.

Renewable energy - including wind, solar and biofuels - now accounts for more than 650,000 US jobs

The Obama administration, some Democratic-led states and environmental groups countered that it will spur thousands of clean-energy jobs and help the US meet ambitious goals to reduce carbon pollution set by the international agreement signed in Paris.

Trump's order on coal-fired power plants follows an executive order he signed last month mandating a review of an Obama-era rule aimed at protecting small streams and wetlands from development and pollution.

The order instructs the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers to review a rule that redefined 'waters of the United States' protected under the Clean Water Act to include smaller creeks and wetlands.

While Republicans have blamed Obama-era environmental regulations for the loss of coal jobs, federal data shows that US mines have been shedding jobs for decades under presidents from both parties as a result of increasing automation and competition from cheaper natural gas.

Another factor is the plummeting cost of solar panels and wind turbines, which now can produce emissions-free electricity cheaper than burning coal.

Thomas J Donohue (pictured), US Chamber of Commerce president, praised Trump for taking 'bold steps to make regulatory relief and energy security a top priority'

According to an Energy Department analysis released in January, coal mining now accounts for fewer than 70,000 US jobs.

By contrast, renewable energy - including wind, solar and biofuels - now accounts for more than 650,000 US jobs.

The Trump administration's plans drew praise from business groups and condemnation from environmental groups.

US Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J Donohue praised Trump for taking 'bold steps to make regulatory relief and energy security a top priority'.

'These executive actions are a welcome departure from the previous administration's strategy of making energy more expensive through costly, job-killing regulations that choked our economy,' Donohue said.

Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy accused the Trump administration of wanting 'us to travel back to when smokestacks damaged our health and polluted our air, instead of taking every opportunity to support clean jobs of the future'.

'This is not just dangerous; it's embarrassing to us and our businesses on a global scale to be dismissing opportunities for new technologies, economic growth and US leadership,' McCarthy said in a statement.
Police are hunting for a man with a chipped front tooth after a hotel room was booby trapped in Sydney's eastern suburbs last week.

Thomas Hunt, 27, was last seen at a hotel room on Campbell Street, Bondi, about 3pm on Thursday March 23.

Police hold serious concerns for the welfare of Mr Hunt.

Thomas Hunt, aged 27, was last seen at a hotel room on Campbell Street, Bondi, about 3pm on Thursday

He is described as being of Caucasian appearance, about 175 centimetres tall, and of thin build.

He has blue eyes, a shaved head, and a chipped front tooth.

Officers would also like to speak to Mr Hunt about the hotel room after it was allegedly booby trapped and set alight on on Thursday March 23.

No one was injured during the incident.

Members of the public are urged not to approach Mr Hunt but to instead contact police.
Talitha Cummins is taking Channel Seven to court for unfair dismissal, it has been revealed.

The former Weekend Sunrise host is taking legal action after failing to settle after losing her job while on maternity leave.

Her former employer were served with a notice of the 36-year-old's intention to pursue the claim in the Federal Court on Tuesday, news.com.au reports.

The Gold Coast-born newsreader alleges she was told her contract wouldn't be renewed shortly after welcoming her first child  a boy called Oliver  with husband Ben Lucas last year.

Talitha Cummins (pictured with her son) is taking Channel Seven to court for unfair dismissal

Before she went on maternity leave, her co-hosts had noted on air that she would return after giving birth.

However, just nine weeks after her son was born, Seven News boss Craig McPherson reportedly called Ms Cummins to inform her that she would no longer have the same job.

Instead, she was offered a weekday 5am slot and would have been required to be at work for 2am, something she could not do as a new mother.

Mediation to resolve the dispute in the Fair Work Commission failed leading to Ms Cummins' deciding to take legal action.

She said that she is determined to defend her rights in court  and wants to set a good example for her son about respect for women in the workplace.

The former Weekend Sunrise host claims she was told her contract wouldn't be renewed weeks after she gave birth to her son last year

After failing to resolve the dispute in the Fair Work Commission, she is taking legal action against her former employer

'I have never wanted any bad blood with my former employer, and I have tried to settle this matter in a manner that recognises my rights under the law,' Cummins said, according to news.com.au.

'The issue at stake is an important one, not only for me but for many women, as I've observed in practice.

'Many aren't in a position to defend their workplace rights. I'm in the fortunate position where I can.'

She added: 'I also have a child now and I feel it's important to set an example for him about respect for women in the workplace.'

Ms Cummins recently revealed to Australian Story that she is a recovering alcoholic.

In the interview - which she is understood to have been given permission to give by her seven bosses - she revealed she spent years binge-drinking and hiding her addiction at work.

Now, she has been sober for more than four years and is an ambassador for alcohol support group Hello Sunday Morning.
Burt Bacharach has been sued by his dog sitter, who claims the music legend's pet attacked him in an attempt to resuscitate the pooch.

The incident was so bad that Joel Gaynor, 73, required a skin graft from his groin in order to surgically reattach his middle and index fingers that the dog bit off, according to the lawsuit.

Gaynor claims he no longer has feeling in certain parts of these fingers, The Wrap reports.

Burt Bacharach (left) has been sued by his dog sitter, who claims the music legend's Portuguese Water Dog Alfie (right) bit off his middle and index fingers while he was pet sitting

Gaynor claims that he saved the dog's life when he swallowed and choked on a plastic bone, but the dog subsequently attacked him several minutes later

The musician's Portuguese Water Dog, Alfie, allegedly 'mauled' Gaynor's left hand while he was pet sitting sometime in July. Alfie is the same breed as the Obamas' dogs Sunny and Bo.

That morning Gaynor said he woke up and saw that Alfie was 'scratching, restless, gasping for air, choking, urinating, losing control of its bowels, and that the dogs eyes were rolling back into its head', according to the lawsuit.

Gaynor pressed on Alfie's chest and dislodged a plastic bone that the dog had been choking on, saving his life, the sitter recalled.

Bacharach's (pictured) dog sitter, Joel Gaynor, 73, claims he no longer has feeling in these fingers and is suing the music legend for unspecified damages

He massaged Alfie's esophogus and wiped away thick mucus from the dog's mouth with no problem, according to the complaint.

But a few minutes later, despite having 'appeared to have returned to a good and positive state of mind', Alfie attacked Gaynor when he went to go pet him.

Gaynor believes Bacharach knew Alfie was dangerous and is suing the 88-year-old Oscar-winning composer for unspecified damages.

Bacharach has not commented on the allegations.
A high school senior, 17, has been charged with murder after allegedly stabbing his 19-year-old girlfriend to death in Virginia.

Leah Marie Adams reportedly got into a violent confrontation outside her apartment in Front Royal, Virginia at 8.30pm on Saturday when her boyfriend tried to take her car.

The girl apparently jumped into the car to try to stop him, and was allegedly stabbed. The suspect then ran from the scene in the car, knocking down a mailbox.

His name hasn't been released due to his age.

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Leah Adams, 19, was allegedly stabbed to death by her boyfriend of three months

Adams had 'big plans' and a 'bright future' said her father, who was in shock over what happened and wondered if the suspect 'was on some type of drug that made him go crazy'

The victim's father says the behavior of the boy was so out of character that he wonders if he was on 'some type of drug.'

'It's possible he was on some type of drug that made him go crazy,' Robert Adams told NBC Washington. 'They got along very well, so we were shocked to hear everything that happened.'

'My wife came out here and said she was two driveways down lying on her side because she was bleeding from the neck area,' a witness told FOX 5 DC.

Adams' father said the boy began acting strangely inside of her apartment, and then tried to drive off in her car.

The two got into a confrontation inside or outside of the car, and the girl lay on the ground screaming and bleeding. Witnesses at first thought she'd been the victim of a hit and run.

It was only later that authorities realized she'd died from a stab wound to the chest.

The college student was found dead in her driveway (center right) in Front Royal, Virginia

The suspect was soon apprehended.

The boy, a high school senior, was charged with second-degree murder, although it was unclear if he was charged as a juvenile or adult. The suspect is being held without bond and is due in court in April 6.

The girl, a graduate of James Wood High School and a student at Lord Fairfax Community College, had a bright future, said her father. Her Facebook page also said she was an intern at FEMA.

'She had big plans for herself,' he said. 'She had a good job, she was going to school, she worked hard and she was full of personality. She had places to go and it was too soon for her to go.'

He said the pair had only been dating for a few months. While her father suspected a drug might be involved, one of her friends, who didn't want to be named, told the outlet he was angry because she was trying to break up with him.

'She was just trying to break up with him  that was it  and it led to another thing,' one of her friends told the outlet. 'That is all what she was trying to do, just break up with the guy, and now she lost her life.'

Adams' father said he was angry at the suspect, but also felt for the suspect's family.

'Part of me actually wants to hate the kid, but I have a really strong faith, a really good church, and part of me wants to forgive him,' he said.




Woolworths is trying to 'outrun the bear' of rising electricity costs, but now admits prices will have to go up with its world-beating margins gone.

Chief executive Brad Banducci said the supermarket giant was cutting energy costs where it could - as well as fighting price wars on multiple fronts.

'Given the cost increases that are coming through right now, we are trying to outrun a bear, but I am not sure we can,' he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Woolworths is trying to 'outrun the bear' of rising electricity costs, but now Chief executive Brad Banducci, pictured, admits prices will have to go up with its world-beating margins gone

Food prices may rise as the CEO of Woolworths says rising energy costs take a bite out of the company's profits

Woolworths chief executive Brad Banducci said the supermarket giant was cutting energy costs where it could - as well as fighting price wars on multiple fronts

'We will have to in some way, very cautiously and carefully, pass those through to our customers, unfortunately.'

Electricity was the retailer's third-biggest cost after paying staff and landlords, and beating Coles in sales growth for the first time in seven years wasn't enough to cover it.

Absorbing higher costs from its massive profits, once the fattest in the world, were no longer an option after wars with Coles and Aldi saw it slash prices by $1 billion.

Since Aldi entered Australia in 2001, its market share fell to 60 per cent with the German discount supermarket claiming 10 to 12 per cent.

One of the key reasons Aldi came to Australia in the first place was the duopoly's huge profits, described as 'really like waving a flag saying 'come here',' by former executive Paul Foley.

'It's a very stable, balanced, growing economy. The fact that we have great population growth for the food business makes it a naturally attractive market,' Mr Banducci said.

The second-year supermarket boss said profit would be improved by only offering discounts of 30 per cent of its profits, especially on common goods like bread.

But he said there were no plans to sell off subsidiaries like department store Big W or liquor arm Dan Murphy's.

'It's a very stable, balanced, growing economy. The fact that we have great population growth for the food business makes it a naturally attractive market,' Mr Banducci said.
The family of a woman who was allegedly killed by her husband has said they always believed he was the one behind the shocking death.

Susan Winters, a 48-year-old part-time judge and mother of two, died in her Las Vegas home on January 3, 2015, after consuming a fatal amount of anti-freeze and oxycodone.

The death was originally ruled a suicide, however her husband, Gregory Dennis, 54, was arrested earlier this year after a lengthy homicide investigation.

The 54-year-old, who runs a mental health clinic in Boulder City, was always blamed by the family for the death, and it carried out its own investigation of him after police initially refused to do so.

The family of Susan Winters (left), who was allegedly killed by her husband, Gregory Dennis (right), in 2015 in Las Vegas, has said they always believed he was the one behind the shocking death

And now, Susan's remaining family members have spoken about why they believe her husband was her killer.

'When mom said, "Susans dead," I said, "What did he do to her?"' the 48-year-old's brother, Chris, told ABC News.

'She was going to turn him in and Brent in for selling to him,' he continued, referencing a man named Jeffrey Crosby, who had previous convictions for possession with intent to sell cocaine.

'She wanted Brent to stop and she thought that would get him [to] stop.'

The emotional brother added: 'Nevada has the death penalty but I pray he doesnt get it. And I hope that he stays forever in jail.

'Death is too good. Id like him to be punished for the rest of his life.'

Attorney Tony Sgro - who helped lead the family's investigation, along with a retired FBI agent - told the network signs pointing towards Dennis being responsible only strengthened the more they dug into it.

'Everything that we learned seemed to point towards foul play,' Sgro said.

'When mom said, "Susans dead," I said, "What did he do to her?"' the 48-year-old's brother, Chris, said. Susan and Gregory are pictured together in this old photograph

'Nothing we learned tended to point toward Susan taking her own life.'

But Dennis' lawyer reiterated his client's innocence, and said the allegations from Susan's family can be attributed to its inability to overcome her death.

'We believe that the Winters family has been unable to accept that Susan Winters death was a suicide,' Richard Schonfeld said, according to ABC.

'It was deemed suicide... they were unable to accept that.'

It comes after it was revealed last month the family's lawyers discovered Dennis stood to benefit financially from his wife's death.

He inherited about $2million following her death - $1million from a life insurance policy and $650,000 from her share of the family's restaurant franchise business in Oklahoma.

Susan's death was originally ruled a suicide, however her husband, Gregory Dennis, 54, was arrested earlier this year after a lengthy homicide investigation. The two are pictured together

Dennis' lawyer reiterated his client's (right) innocence, and said the allegations from Susan's (left) family can be attributed to its inability to overcome her death

Dennis also took out $180,000 from his wife's bank account.

In December 2016, Henderson police reopened the investigation and prosecutors convened a grand jury.

In testimony under oath, Dennis acknowledged seeking treatment for an addiction and buying drugs from a street dealer.

Roger and a former FBI agent found evidence that Dennis was in contact with the dealer in the hours before and after his wife's death.

The 54-year-old's lawyer said those circumstances did not equate to any guilt on his behalf.

'I dont think the actions when looked at in the totality of the circumstances raised any red flags whatsoever,' Schonfeld said.
As most people in far North Queensland batten down the hatches preparing for the worst of Cyclone Debbie to hit, an elderly woman says she doesn't have a worry in the world.

Ruth Western, 89, from Ayr, was interviewed about the imminent storm on Tuesday and told a reporter she was 'not worried' about the category 4 cyclone.

'Well I don't think it's very serious to us. Down further it would be but ... we're not worried, are we darl?' Ms Western said turning to her companion during an interview on Channel Nine's Today.

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Ruth Western, 89, from Ayr, was interviewed about the imminent storm on Tuesday and told a reporter she wasn't 'worried' about the category 4 cyclone

The senior citizen was then asked what she had planned for the day.

'Nothing,' she replied laughing cheerfully, 'An easy day.'

Shopfronts in the small town centre of Ayr were boarded up and filled with sandbags on Monday as locals prepared for the cyclone to hit.

Residents in the area were specifically warned of dangerous storm tides as the cyclone crosses the coast.

Flash flooding is also likely in areas with heavy rainfall.

Ayr was spared from the heavy damage seen in areas at the eye of the storm, but did experience heavy winds and rain.

Cyclone Debbie made landfall in Bowen earlier on Tuesday afternoon 119km north of Ayr.

'Well I don't think it's very serious to us. Down further it would be but ... we're not worried, are we darl?' Ms Western told Nine's Today

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk described the cyclone a 'one in a hundred year event', warning residents to bunker down

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk described the cyclone a 'one in a hundred year event', warning residents across the 1000-odd kilometre stretch of picturesque coastline to bunker down and wait for the dangerous storm to pass.

'What we have seen is rainfall in excess of 210 millimetres that has fallen within the past hour. This is equivalent to a one in a hundred year event... we are seeing unprecedented levels of rainfall in that area,' Ms Palaszczuk said.

After the storm set in, a man was badly injured after he was struck by a falling wall in Proserpine and was rushed to hospital in an unknown condition.
A property tycoon who banned 'coloured' tenants from his homes because he claims they make them smell of curry has today insisted he is not racist and believes 99 per cent of Britons would so the same.

Fergus Wilson, 69, said it was an 'economic decision' made after he was left 12,000 out of pocket from ridding a home and its carpets of food odour smells.

Mr Wilson, who has also banned single mums and 'battered wives' from renting his Kent homes, maintains his diktat is not racist because he is happy to rent to 'n*****s' because 'they haven't generated a curry smell at the end of the tenancy'.

He said: 'How many white people are going to go into a house that smells of curry and are going to buy the house? They are just going to walk away like me and not make an offer.'

The millionaire added: 'If that makes me racist, that makes 99 per cent of people who buy houses racist'.

Diktat: Fergus and Judith Wilson, who became Britain's biggest by-to-let tycoons, have banned 'coloured' people because they make houses and carpets smell of copy

Mr Wilson, long regarded as Britain's biggest buy-to-let investor with hundreds of properties in Kent, faced a backlash after an email surfaced setting out his ban to a letting agent.

The email, leaked to The Sun newspaper, listed his requirements for potential tenants, including: 'No coloured people because of the curry smell at the end of the tenancy.'

Today Mr Wilson said he 'probably must have said' what was in the email, and that he would send it again to avoid being saddled with the cost of removing curry smells from one of his homes.

He said: 'The problem is the smell gets in the carpets, particularly the bloody carpets. It's the cost of re-carpeting, which in a decent detached house can be rather expensive.

'So all your profits for maybe a year or more is now going on new carpets'.

Defiant: Mr Wilson, who has a vast property empire in Kent, has since been challenged on his 'coloured' people email but stood firm and said they are 'overloaded' with them

He said her was 'wary' of letting to Indians after losing more than 12,000 in rent and re-carpeting costs over a six-month period because one of his properties smelled of curry.

Mr Wilson went on: 'I have taken an economic view, not a racist view. And I'm saying I believe 99% of other British people would do precisely the same.'

In a competitive housing market where demand for rental properties outstrips supply, Mr Wilson said: 'There are more people that want the properties, so why have the headache of this afterwards?'

He added it was difficult to recoup the cost of ridding a property of curry smells.

He said: 'The other thing is when you start pursuing people through the courts, the judge will say to you, 'Right, where's the photograph?'

'You can't take a photograph of a smell, can you?' Mr Wilson said.

Mr Wilson, who has a vast property empire in Kent, has since been challenged on his diktat on 'coloured' people, but stood firm and said they are 'overloaded' with them.

In January it emerged that the property tycoon banned single mothers, battered wives, plumbers and low income earners from becoming tenants.

Mr Wilson defended the document posted online which revealed the latest 'letting criteria' which he has issued to a letting agent.

The 69-year-old set out 11 stringent rules for those who will not be able to rent his properties, which also includes families with children, pet owners, smokers, single adults and workers on zero hours contracts.

Mr Wilson previously banned single mothers, battered wives, plumbers and low income earners from becoming tenants

List: This is the controversial document that lists what is not acceptable for Mr Wilson's tenants

He's even banned plumbers from renting out his properties as he believes they overcharge him while carrying out simple repairs and adding extra jobs to the list.

Instead only those who are able to afford rent and can provide a rent guarantee are to be accepted for his properties in 2017.

Fergus runs his Kent property empire along with his wife Judith and said he is continuing to sell-off properties, but that families and single parents pose a problem as it can take up to 13 months to get a possession order if he decides to sell.

Last year he campaigned to become Kent's Police and Crime Commissioner and vowed to take on the bullies who batter their girlfriends, wives or partners.

But he said that typically the bullies cause damage to his properties by kicking down front doors, and also causing damage inside the homes, therefore he doesn't wish to take on those who are victims of domestic violence.

In the document, which was issued at the end of December last year, Fergus said: 'Like any business, we are consistently fine tuning to best advantage..'

The multi-millionaire claimed he did not discriminate against minorities - as long as they pay the rent.

Fergus added: 'We do a letting criteria every year, and like four out of five landlords we don't accept those on low incomes and housing benefit.

'We have said nothing against lesbians and homosexuals or coloureds. As long as they can pay the rent. We are in business to make money so we make a selection based on a sensible business plan.

'If ever a person came in wearing pink socks and defaulted on rent, and it became a regular problem, then we would stop renting to people who wear pink socks.'

Mr Wilson and his wife Judith met training to be teachers at Goldsmiths College, London, in the 1960s then bought a first three-bedroom semi in Maidstone in 1975.

They realised the benefits of buying to let in the late 1980s, and quit their jobs as teachers to fully concentrate on their empire in the early 1990s.

Many of the homes owned by the couple are on the Park Farm estate near Ashford (pictured)

The Wilsons have bought houses along the M20 corridor, in Maidstone, Ashford and Folkestone

The couple reportedly had around 1,000 properties, mainly around Ashford, Folkestone and Maidstone.

Previously Mr Wilson faced criticism after saying he preferred to let his properties to Eastern European migrants as they were less likely to default on rent payments than Britons on benefits.

He sent eviction notices to around 200 tenants on housing benefit, claiming the move would stop them from getting into more debt.
A string of safety violations, including a lack of fire extinguishers and smoke detectors, were found at an apartment block just days before a devastating fire which killed three people, it has emerged.

The blaze in West Oakland, California, engulfed the homes of around 80 people in a block used as transitionary housing.

In the months before the tragedy the property owner attempted to evict dozens of tenants, citing December's Ghost Ship fire, which killed 36 people in a warehouse just five miles away.

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Three people were killed in the fire at the building, which was described as a 'death trap' just days before yesterday morning's tragedy

The Oakland building where the fire broke out was found to have had a number of serious failings just days before the blaze

Two adults and two children were taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries

A total of 11 failings were uncovered by the city of Oakland at the address three days before the fatal fire, which broke out at around 5.40am yesterday.

Documents reveal the city ordered a string of measures had to be carried out within 30 days.

The building was being leased by a nonprofit group which provides transitional housing.

The Alameda County coroner identified one of the victims as 64-year-old Edwarn Anderson

Last week the Rev Dr Jasper Lowery, a founder and director of the Urojas Community Services group, told The Mercury News: 'It's a deathtrap in there.'

It is believed that squatters had settled on the top floor. He stated: 'This is another Ghost Ship because of the violations on the building, things aren't up to code and things weren't fixed, and that's always been a concern.'

One of the dead has been named as Edwarn Anderson, aged 64. Two others who died were a church deacon and a woman who had recently moved in.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that a battle over evictions had been going on for months, and tenant Gail Harbin claimed that people were forcibly removed and their belongings were removed.

A total of 11 failings were uncovered by the city of Oakland at the address three days before the fatal fire

In Monday's pre-dawn darkness, resident Michael Jones said he was awakened by screams of 'fire,' bolted out of bed and instinctively pounded on the doors of his elderly neighbors and ushered them to safety - walkers and all.

Jones, 43, then found Princess, the 'house' pit bull, cowering in the backyard, and the two ran out the front door as glass shattered from the heat.

A few hours later, he and the dog stood across the street, staring at the smoldering wooden structure that housed some 80 recovering drug addicts and former homeless people, many of whom complained that they had not heard alarms, felt sprinklers or found fire extinguishers as they fled the substandard living conditions.

An evacuee waits as firefighters battled yesterday's blaze, which claimed the lives of three people

Building owner Keith Kim had attempted to evict dozens of tenants in the build up to the fire, citing the Ghost Ship blaze which killed 36

The owner, Keith Kim, did not return telephone calls from The Associated Press.

Four people were injured in the fire. Oakland Fire Battalion Chief Erik Logan said some people were hanging from windows and others were in fire escapes when firefighters arrived.

The fire broke out in the rundown neighborhood nearly three months after a warehouse called the Ghost Ship caught fire and killed 36 people attending an unlicensed concert about five miles away.

The fires have raised questions about the use of some buildings in the city for residences amid a shortage of affordable housing in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Some residents made makeshift ropes from sheets in order to lower themselves to safety

'At least the rats are gone,' said Angela Taylor, 62, clutching her purse, the only possession she managed to get out of a room she paid $550 a month to live in. 'It's the wrong purse, but it's better than nothing. A lady needs her purse.'

In 2010, Oakland allowed the owner of the 40-unit building to convert the structure into transitional housing for recovering drug addicts, people struggling with homelessness and others, records show.

Since then, it has been the subject of several building department citations and investigations. City records show building officials verified complaints filed by the nonprofit organization that rents most of the building about deferred maintenance.

An evacuee sits in an ambulance after fleeing the early morning apartment fire which claimed the life of three people

A boy who was evacuated from an early morning apartment fire clutches a Mickey Mouse toy

Kim was sent a notice of violation on March 2 over complaints of large amounts of trash and debris, building materials and furniture behind the property.

The building department also has an open investigation into complaints of 'no working heat throughout the building, electrical issues and a large pest infestation,' city records show.

City fire officials have been criticized for failing to inspect the Ghost Ship warehouse and the mayor conceded that city agencies need to improve communications after records showed police responding to a number of complaints there in the months before the Dec. 2 blaze.

The cause of the Ghost Ship fire is still under investigation and Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed announced she would retire May 2.

The fire broke out at around 5.40am in the building which provides transitional housing

Days after the warehouse fire, the owner of the building that burned Monday sent an eviction notice to Urojas Community Center, which had leased the first two floors of the three-story building, said James Cook, an attorney for the center.

The center assists about 60 people with transitional housing and services, Cook said. He had complained to the city about clogged toilets and disgusting bathrooms, exposed wires and water an inch deep on the ground floor, he said.

'It's like Ghost Ship, but worse,' Cook said.

Residents said the hallways were cluttered with trash and debris.

'There were no sprinklers or fire extinguishers,' said Curtis Robinson, 52, who had to leave his wheelchair behind in his first floor room in the scramble to escape.
The teenage friends who were found dead at the foot of a cliff fell while taking photographs, one of the boys' mothers has claimed.

Police are investigating the deaths of Harry Watson and Alex Yeoman, both 17, who were discovered at Huntcliff in Saltburn, North Yorkshire, at about 7pm on Friday.

Harry's mother, Tanya Watson, has posted a photo of the teenager surrounded by hearts, calling him her 'precious son'.

Teenage friends Harry Watson (left) and Alex Yeoman (right) were found dead at the bottom of the cliffs in Huntcliff, Saltburn, North Yorkshire, at about 7pm on Friday

Police are investigating the teens' deaths and have appealed for witnesses who might have information. Pictured is the beach at Saltburn-by-the-sea, Huntcliff, where they were found

Harry (pictured above) and Alex are believed to have attended Freebrough Academy, a specialist engineering college in Brotton. They are both from Loftus in North Yorkshire

She said that the boys, who were best friends, died in 'tragic circumstances' while taking pictured on the edge of the cliffs, reports The Mirror.

Writing on Facebook, she said: 'We don't have many answers but Harry is one of the gifts in life always there for everyone and anyone he will always live in our hearts.

'We will get through this as the strong family that we are because that's what Harry would have wanted.

Alex's (pictured) family called him a 'loving son' who will be sadly missed

'We love him all the world love you minions my Harry.'

She also said that Harry was 'one of the gifts in life', and that he was 'always there for everyone and anyone'. She added that Harry would 'always live in our hearts'.

Alex's sister, Samantha Walker, also paid tribute to the two teens on Facebook.

'Feeling really upset today as found out last night that my younger brother Alex Yeoman and his best mate harry have died rest in peace to the both you gone but you will never be forgotten Alex love you to the moon and back,' she wrote.

Harry and Alex are believed to have attended Freebrough Academy, a specialist engineering college in Brotton. They're both from Loftus in North Yorkshire.

Alex's family called him a 'loving son' who will be sadly missed.

Alex has four siblings and two step-siblings, while Harry has three siblings.

Police are investigating the teens' deaths and have appealed for witnesses who might have information.

An investigation is ongoing to figure out what exactly happened, but police are not treating the incident as suspicious at this time.

Harry's mother, Tanya Watson, posted a photo of her son surrounded by hearts on Saturday, calling him her 'precious son'

Alex's sister, Samantha Walker, also paid tribute to the two teens on Facebook, saying they will 'never be forgotten'

Other well-wishers also expressed their condolences to the families on social media, with one teen in disbelief of the news

Another Facebook user called the teens' deaths 'horrible news' and wished that the boys would 'rest in peace'

Cleveland Police said: 'Specialist officers are continuing to support both families.

'The families have expressed their thanks for the messages of support and condolence that have been sent to them, however, they would like to be left to grieve in peace.'

Flowers have been left near where the boys' bodies were discovered as a tribute.

Police said of the flowers: 'Floral tributes have been left at the scene for the boys. Police would ask that any other floral tributes are left at the bottom of the steps to Huntcliff.'

Other well-wishers also expressed their condolences to the families on social media.

'Heartbreaking. Thoughts and prayers are with their families xxx' one wrote.

Any witnesses are asked to contact Detective Sergeant Paul Hodgson from Cleveland Police Major Crime Team on the non-emergency number 101.

A Humber Coastguard spokesman said teams from Redcar, Skinningrove and Staithes responded to the incident at around at around 7.05pm on Friday.

A helicopter was also scrambled for its base East Yorkshire and arrived on the scene at around 8pm.

It comes after a woman was rescued from the sea near Saltburn Pier on Friday afternoon after being spotted struggling in the water

It winched two casualties onboard and took them to James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough.

Any witnesses who may have been in the area of the Circle Sculpture at Huntcliff around the time of the incident are asked to contact Detective Sergeant Paul Hodgson from Cleveland Police Major Crime Team on the non-emergency number 101.

It comes after a woman was rescued from the sea near Saltburn Pier the same day.

The 58-year-old was spotted struggling 'up to her neck' in the surf, with sea breaking over her.

RNLI helmsman Mark Reeves told the Northern Echo: 'We found the lady in a very difficult position.

'She was up to her neck in water and the sea was breaking over her.

'We decided the best option was for my two crew members to jump in and get her straight to the beach.'
A UK tourist left stranded by Cyclone Debbie has vented her outrage after she was charged $158 for failing to return her Australian rental car on time.

Victoria Cao, from Cardiff, rented a Mitsubishi Outlander from Avis at Brisbane airport in the hope of taking the scenic drive to Airlie Beach in Queensland.

But her plans were brought to a standstill when the category three storm barrelled into the idylic holiday destination, leaving Ms Cao stranded in Rockhampton.

After letting Avis know she had to push her plans, an 'appalled' Ms Cao was told she would have to pay the extension because the company 'can't give out free car hire.'

UK woman Victoria Cao was left stranded in Rockhampton after Cyclone Debbie hit the Queensland coast

Ms Cao took to social media to voice her outrage after claiming the rental car company she was using charged her for failing to return the car on time

'I'm pretty appalled. I feel like they're just taking advantage of us because of something out of our control,' Ms Cao told Daily Mail Australia.

'I called them to let them know it wasn't safe, and they just told me "we can't waive the fee, we can't give out free car hire".'

Ms Cao said she booked the holiday with her credit card at a UK travel company, so she was powerless to object.

She said she has already been charged more than $500 by Avis.

'I let them know I was filing a complaint, but I don't really have a choice. It's unfair, I hope they're not taking advantage of all their customers like this.'

She claims they charged her $158 and feels they 'took advantage of her situation'

Ms Cao said she has already been charged in excess of more than $500 by Avis

The cyclone hit wind gusts of over 260km/h as it wreaked havoc over the Whitsunday Islands region

Authorities have confirmed one man has been seriously injured by a falling wall in Proserpine

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Avis, but they refused to comment.

The cyclone hit wind gusts of over 260km/h as it wreaked havoc over the Whitsunday Islands region.

More than 50, 000 homes and businesses were left without power.

Authorities have confirmed one man has been seriously injured by a falling wall in Proserpine.

They warn up to 5,000mm of rain could fall in impacted areas in the next 24 hours.
Marianne O'Connell, 66, said she loves Muslim people and often prays for them

The Q&A questioner attacked on social media over her fear 'Islam will dominate Australia' is a retired Catholic school teacher who brings chocolates to her Muslim neighbours across the road.

Marianne O'Connell, 66, sparked controversy when she appeared on the ABC television program on Monday night.

She told host Tony Jones and the panel she had heard statements coming from a mosque that 'Australia must submit' to Islam.

The grandmother-of-seven was accused of 'lying and spreading fear' by some of the programs viewers.

Many were irate at the retiree's stated support for One Nation party leader Pauline Hanson.

But sitting in her lounge room in her cottage on Tuesday afternoon, Ms O'Connell told Daily Mail Australia: 'I'm not a fundamentalist who hates everyone. I'm a charismatic Christian who loves everyone.'

She also insists: 'I love the Muslim people, I pray for them.'

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The 66-year-old asked the Q&A panel how Australia should respond to an Islamic threat to impose a worldwide caliphate

Ms O'Connell caused a social media storm when she said 'There is a threat behind the ideology of Islam against the Western nations,' on ABC's Q&A

The regular church-goer, who was raised Catholic and attends church at morning and night on Sundays, said she had lived in Sydney - largely in its south-west - for 36 years after moving from Victoria.

'I love the Muslim people, I pray for them - but it's the ideology that's the problem,' she said.

One of her major arguments was the Islamic community needed to better integrate into the fabric of Australia - claiming that they were instead now the majority in nearby suburbs like Lakemba.

'Lakemba used to be a Christian neighbourhood, full of Christians. Now it's full of Muslims, and Christians don't feel safe there,' she claimed.

Ms O'Connell said she was concerned the suburbs which once had Christian majorities had become places where 'only Muslims live', rather than areas where people of all races and religions walk together.

Speaking frankly, the retiree said her family originally emigrated from the Netherlands, as war refugees.

But they were not encouraged to embrace their Dutch identity, she argued.

'When Muslims are in the minority in the area they're happy to integrate,' Ms O'Connell said. 'But once they form a majority, it changes... They don't spread out among the community.'

'That's the problem with multiculturalism. It encourages people to embrace their own culture, not to integrate so we are one nation, one people.

'My family came from the Netherlands, we were refugees. We escaped the war in Europe. And we were not encouraged to hold onto our Dutch identity.

'We were encouraged to become Australians and embrace the Australian identity, which we did.

'I think Muslims should be encouraged to do the same thing. It breaks down the us and them identity which they are holding onto,' she claimed.

Ms O'Connell clarified her comments on Q&A and told Daily Mail Australia she was not a fundamentalist but thought Muslims needed to attempt to integrate into the community better

Ms O'Connell is a retired teacher and said she was a charismatic Christian who 'loved Muslims'

She said she was worried about the proposed construction of a nearby mosque in Padstow, adding there was a lot of opposition to it.

'If Muslims want to integrate and become part of the suburb that would be different,' she said.

But Ms O'Connell said she was 'prepared to be friendly to any Muslim'.

She recently welcomed a hijab-wearing neighbour who moved in across the road with some chocolates.

'We get on very well. She moved in a few weeks ago. I took over some chocolates when she moved in. She came back, brought some biscuits over here,' Ms O'Connell said.

'So we're establishing a bit of a friendship. It's early days... but I love Muslim people, I really do'.

The committed Christian claimed millions of Muslims were having 'supernatural encounters' with Jesus Christ in the Middle East.

She also said she had migrant friends in the Church community who had converted from Islam.

Sitting with a newspaper article by Tony Abbott's former chief of staff Peta Credlin about Islamic extremism in front of her, Ms O'Connell listed some of her other concerns about 'what was happening overseas', including the Islamic State terror group's threat of a worldwide caliphate.

Marianne O'Connell is a retired Sydney Catholic school teacher

Ms O'Connell told Daily Mail Australia: 'I'm not a fundamentalist who hates everyone. I'm a charismatic Christian who loves everyone.'

Ms O'Connell's family emigrated to Australia from the Netherlands and said she embraced the Australian identity

She pointed to claims of purported sexual assaults by migrants in Europe and the Apex gang's crimes in Victoria.

The Catholic woman also said she was concerned about female genital mutilation, of which there have been some court cases in Australia and sharia law.

Ms O'Connell also repeated claims made on Q&A about messages she said were 'coming from the Lakemba Mosque' saying Muslims 'wanted to dominate Australia'.

The Lebanese Muslim Association declined to comment on her claims.

Daily Mail Australia understands Ms O'Connell may be referring to a recent video of a leader of hardline Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir caught by Daily Mail Australia on the weekend, rather than sermons at the mosque.

Hizb ut-Tahrir's spokesman Uthman Badar was captured on video at Bankstown Library on Saturday night saying 'apostates' - former members of the religion - should be subjected to the death penalty.

Ms O'Connell said she had many friends who had been Muslims but who had converted to Christianity.

Ms O'Connell, a devout Christian, said she had many friends who had been Muslims but had converted to Christianity

The retiree gets her news from 'lots of networks', including an email newsletter about Islam she regularly receives, another website called the 'Israeli News Network' and the Australian Christian Lobby

She said she had encounters with Muslims at school and even had overseas students stay at her house, to whom she had preached the message of Jesus.

The retiree gets her news from 'lots of networks', including an email newsletter about Islam she regularly receives, another website called the 'Israeli News Network' and the Australian Christian Lobby.

Her Facebook page includes links to articles by Breitbart and she sits on the board of a group known as the Australian Christian Nation Association, which she said was focused on 'alerting' people to the 'threat' of extremist Islamist ideology.

'We don't want people to hate Muslims, we want them to reach Muslims in love,' she said. 'Because a lot of Muslims are against this ideology'.

Ms O'Connell did not appear fussed by criticism on the Q&A Facebook page

Her favourite politicians include Fred Nile (whose Christian Democratic Party she is a member of), newly independent senator Cory Bernardi, Tasmanian Liberal Eric Abetz and Pauline Hanson, who was the subject of discussion on the Q&A program she appeared on.

Ms O'Connell did not appear fussed by criticism on the Q&A Facebook page and said she was pleased the show gave her a platform to discuss her views.

'That woman infuriated me so much,' one angry user wrote.

'Pauline Hanson will be proud of her performance tonight.'

Added another critic: 'I feel pity for this woman because this is a woman who has a lot of questions that want to be answered and is fearful of the ''threat of Muslims''.'

Ms O'Connell, who walked the streets of a nearby suburb with Daily Mail Australia, said she was also concerned about manners, saying some hijab-wearing women had glared at her when she smiled at them at the supermarket.

'There's a lot more Muslim women coming into the supermarket now.'

'When you smile at someone and they glare back at you, wearing a hijab, that to me is not integration, that's a threat, that's what worries me.

'And I have children and grandchildren growing up in this nation and I want them to have a future.'

Ms O'Connell walking to her local shopping area

Ms O'Connell said she was charismatic Christian and had Muslim friends

Her sit-down interview with Daily Mail Australia comes after she voiced her concerns about Islam taking over Australia on Monday night's Q&A.

The elderly woman asked the panel how Western nations should respond to the threat of a worldwide Islamic caliphate.

'There is a threat behind the ideology of Islam against the Western nations and there's a threat to dominate and take away our freedoms,' she said.

The grandmother-of-seven was accused of 'lying and spreading fear' by some of the programs viewers

But Ms O'Connell was keen to point out she was not against all Muslims as she expressed concerns about Australia's largest mosque in south-west Sydney.

'I would like to say I have Muslim friends. I'm not scapegoating all of the Muslims but I have heard statements coming out of the Lakemba mosque saying that they're going to destroy Australia,' Mrs O'Connell said.

'Australia will have to submit to Islam. That's coming out of the Lakemba mosque.

'I'm watching what's happening in Europe, the same sort of thing.

'So we have to be very vigilant here because we do have Muslims in this country who are out here to destroy us and they make no secret of it.'

Asked by host Tony Jones why she supported Senator Hanson, Ms O'Connell said the One Nation leader identified there was a clear problem with Islam 'that must be addressed'.

'That's what Australians are responding to because they can also see the threat and that doesn't mean they hate Muslims,' she said.
Rohey Hydara has said she is 'saddened and shocked' by what Khalid Masood did

The wife of Westminster terrorist Khalid Masood spoke for the first time today to say she 'totally condemns' his killing spree and was left 'saddened and shocked' by the atrocity.

Rohey Hydara's comments come 24 hours after Masood's mother, Janet Ajao, said she had 'shed many tears' for her son's victims.

In a statement released through the Metropolitan Police, Ms Hydara said: 'I am saddened and shocked by what Khalid has done. I totally condemn his actions.

'I express my condolences to the families of the victims that have died, and wish a speedy recovery to all the injured.

'I would like to request privacy for our family, especially the children, at this difficult time.'

Masood is pictured in a red top in the 90s taking part in a tug-of-war in Northian, West Sussex

Masood got behind the wheel of a rented Hyundai 4x4 and drove at speeds of up to 76mph as he ploughed into victims on Westminster Bridge on Wednesday last week.

His attack took a mere 82 seconds but left four people dead and more than 50 injured.

The British-born jihadi, 52, was on Whatsapp at 2.37pm, approximately two minutes before hitting people on the bridge and four minutes before he was shot dead by armed officers outside the Palaces of Westminster.

He stabbed PC Keith Palmer to death with two knives outside parliament after killing 44-year-old mother-of-two Aysha Frade, 75-year-old Londoner Leslie Rhodes, and US tourist Kurt Cochran, 54, as he ploughed along a crowded pavement on Westminster Bridge.

ISIS initially claimed responsibility for its first attack on British soil and said the crazed knifeman was its 'soldier', but yesterday police insisted Masood was not linked to the terror group.

Floral tributes to the victims of the attack were placed outside the Palace of Westminster

The Westminster terrorist Khalid Masood receives medical treatment by paramedics at the scene

Metropolitan policeman Keith Palmer (left), Mother-of-two Aysha Frade (centre) and US tourist Kurt Cochran (right) have been named as victims of the attack

Masood used this hire car to kill pedestrians then smashed into Parliament's railings

Scotland Yard said the British-born jihadi copied ISIS techniques but there was no evidence he was in contact with them.

His mother said she is 'deeply shocked, saddened and numbed' by her son's actions.

Mrs Ajao said she had 'shed many tears' for the victims and did not condone the attack or the beliefs that led Masood to commit the 'atrocity'.

She said: 'I am so deeply shocked, saddened and numbed by the actions my son has taken that have killed and injured innocent people in Westminster.

'Since discovering that it was my son that was responsible I have shed many tears for the people caught up in this horrendous incident.

'I wish to make it absolutely clear, so there can be no doubt, I do not condone his actions nor support the beliefs he held that led to him committing this atrocity.

'I wish to thank my friends, family and community from the bottom of my heart for the love and support given to us.'

His mother now lives with her husband in Carmarthenshire, west Wales, where she runs an online business selling hand-made bags and cushions (pictured)

Masood's mother makes 'original hand-crafted bags and other textile goodies' in rural Wales

JANET AJAO'S STATEMENT IN FULL In a statement released through the Metropolitan Police, Janet Ajao said: 'I am so deeply shocked, saddened and numbed by the actions my son has taken that have killed and injured innocent people in Westminster. 'Since discovering that it was my son that was responsible I have shed many tears for the people caught up in this horrendous incident. 'I wish to make it absolutely clear, so there can be no doubt, I do not condone his actions nor support the beliefs he held that led to him committing this atrocity. 'I wish to thank my friends, family and community from the bottom of my heart for the love and support given to us.' Advertisement

Scotland Yard said that, while it had not found evidence linking Masood to the group, he 'clearly' had an interest in jihad.

Yesterday, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu revealed more about the investigation into the attack.

He said: 'His attack method appears to be based on low sophistication, low tech, low cost techniques copied from other attacks, and echo the rhetoric of IS (Islamic State) leaders in terms of methodology and attacking police and civilians, but at this stage I have no evidence he discussed this with others.

'Whilst I have found no evidence of an association with ISIS or al-Qaeda, there is clearly an interest in jihad.'

It has also emerged that Masood appeared to be obsessed with the scene of his massacre, keeping photos and maps of the bridge where he killed three people.

A source told The Sun documents of Parliament and the surrounding area were found in his dingy room in Birmingham, which suggested planning as opposed to a random act of terror.

Police and a removal contractor take a matress and bedding away from an address on Navigation Way in Birmingham

Police officials opened the door to the family home on Navigation Way on Monday afternoon to a tradesman who loaded his white van with various household items

The rented room, three miles from his home in the West Midlands, was described as a war room by the source, who said it was designed to be hidden from prying eyes.

Detectives have ruled out that Masood was radicalised in prison, saying he converted to Islam a year after being released.

Born Adrian Elms, Masood took his new name in 2005 having served time for possession of a knife.

'In 2005 he changed his name to Khalid Masood,' Mr Basu said.

'His last criminal offence was 2003 and he was not a current subject of interest or part of the current domestic or international threat picture for either the security service or CT (counter terrorism) policing.

'I know when, where and how Masood committed his atrocities, but now I need to know why. Most importantly, so do the victims and families.'

But Scotland Yard denied claims Masood had been radicalised in prison, following claims from friends and former colleagues who knew him before and after he served time.

Mr Basu, the senior national coordinator for UK counter terrorism policing, added: 'There is no evidence that Masood was radicalised in prison in 2003, as has been suggested - this is pure speculation at this time.'

Dimmon Payne, the father-in-law of victim Kurt Cochran and father of Melissa Cochran, who was seriously injured, yesterday told of his family's grief

Melissa Cochran's sister Angela wept as the family told of their determination to stay positive
A father-of-two accused of striking his estranged wife 24 times with a hatchet so hard it got stuck in her skull has told police he is the real victim.

The 45-year-old accountant, who cannot be named, allegedly struck her with the hatchet he had bought from Bunnings at her workplace in a Melbourne shopping centre, a court has heard.

'I am her husband. She is my wife. She has been sleeping with another man,' he is reported to have said at the bloody scene on Monday.

The court was told the man was jealous that his estranged wife was seeing someone else (stock image)

The Fountain Gate shopping centre in Melbourne's south-east cordoned off on Monday

He wanted to injure her face to teach her a lesson for only worrying about her beauty, a detective testified in Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Tuesday.

The accountant sat quietly during the proceedings on Tuesday apart from making his own bail application, which failed.

Magistrate Jonathan Klestadt refused him bail, saying he showed a 'total lack of remorse' and releasing him would be dangerous for his estranged wife and others.

Mr Klestadt said the man seemed not to subscribe to the rights of the individual to pursue happiness with whomever they chose.

A detective gave evidence the couple had been separated for 12 months when on Sunday, they bumped into each other while she was with her new partner.

He asked her if she was happy and she said she was.

The accountant is accused of striking his estranged wife with an axe 24 times

The next day he went to her workplace at Fountain Gate shopping centre at Narre Warren, in south-east Melbourne, and 'observed' her.

Then he went to his car, grabbed a 39cm hatchet he had bought at Bunnings and returned carrying the weapon in a plastic bag.

A detective told the court from the witness box the accused man had turned up at his estranged wife's workplace and handed her some documents to sign.

As she did this, he struck her in the face and then continued a bloody assault on her back, head, arms and legs.

At one point, the blade of the 39cm hatchet got caught in her head and he had to use force pull it out, the detective said.

One reason he gave for the attack on his wife, from whom he had been separated for 12 months, was that he was her husband and she had been sleeping with another man.

The Westfield shopping mall at Narre Warren where the woman was allegedly attacked

An accountant is accused of striking his estranged wife with an axe 24 times (stock image)

The detective said the man showed no signs of remorse.

He struck another 23 times on her head, back, arms and legs.

The hatchet blade got lodged in her skull at one point and he had to use force to pull it out.

As she lay on the floor, he drove the blade into her leg and a small piece broke off, lodging in the wound, the detective said.

The assault was recorded on CCTV cameras and witnessed by many, the detective said.

Police charged the man with attempted murder and assault offences.

He told them his relationship with his wife of 15 years had failed because of her unfaithfulness, and he wanted her to learn a lesson.

'He wanted to injure her face because she was worried about her beauty,' the detective said.

The shops were closed at Narre Warren following the alleged brutal axe attack

The accountant is accused of visiting his wife's workplace at Narre Warren to attack her

The accused complained the Australian court system was 'regulated around the female' and he was the victim in this situation.

The court heard he'd long been a violent partner but in 2014, his wife went to police for the first time because of his threats.

'Tell your relatives in Sri Lanka that I am going to strangle you,' he'd said at the time.

The accused successfully applied for his and the victim's name to be suppressed to protect their 10 and 15-year-old children from distress because of media coverage.

The case was adjourned to July 4 and a mental health assessment for the accused was ordered.

Police have been unable to speak to the victim because she is in a serious condition in hospital.

National domestic violence helpline: 1800 737 732 or 1800RESPECT. In an emergency call triple-zero.
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Bone fragments recovered from the wreck of South Korea's Sewol ferry are from an animal and not human remains, the maritime ministry said Tuesday.

Shoes belonging to some of the missing victims of the ferry disaster in 2014 that killed 304 people were also discovered on board the wreck.

Relatives of nine missing people say they fear their loved ones' remains may have slipped into the ocean during the operation to raise the Sewol from the sea floor.

The ship, with 476 people on board, sank in April 2014 while on its way from Inchon to Jeju and the wreck was just off the island of Jindo on the south-west tip of Korea.

The nine missing victims include four schoolchildren, two teachers and a married couple and their child who were moving to Jeju to start a new life.

The salvage operation to lift the Sewol from the sea floor near Jindo has collection millions of pounds but the relatives of the dead fear remains may have been lost in the lift

Relatives of the missing from the Sewol ferry disaster looking at the damaged ferry during a memorial service on a ship off the coast of the southern South Korean island of Jindo on March 28, 2017

Lee Geum-Hui (pictured, left), whose daughter Cho Eun-Hwa was on the Sewol and remains missing, looks on as another mother throws a flower into the sea near the wreck site today

Many of those who died were children from Danwon High School in Ansan, near Seoul, who were on a school trip. The bodies of 295 victims were recovered after the ship sank but nine bodies have never been accounted for.

The wreck was brought to the surface last week in a complex salvage operation, nearly three years after it went down and it is being towed to shore on a huge heavy lift transport vessel.

The operation to raise the 145-metre ferry, which has cost more than 65million, is believed to be among the largest-ever recoveries of a wreck in one piece.

People hold yellow balloons - an expression of hope for the safe return of the remains of the missing - on Jindo island, close to the wreck site today

The Sewol was raised by a large semi-submersible vessel (pictured)

The wreck of the Sewol has now been transferred to a huge heavy lifting vessel which will take it to the port of Mokpo

Yesterday salvage crews found six bones near a beam beneath the front side of the ferry.

Lee Cheoljo, an official from the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, said: 'It's presumed that the bones came out with the mud that spilled out from the ship's front.'

He said shoes and other personal items were also found on A deck.

Raising the Sewol has been a mammoth effort which has been largely paid for by the South Korean government and the ship's insurers

But a group representing the families issued a statement calling for the government to take stronger action to prevent the remains from getting lost during the salvage operations.

They called for the government to immediately search the mud which has come out of the ferry and the seabed.

The grieving families said: 'It's now hard to discount the possibility that the remains could have gotten lost while the Sewol was being lifted from the seafloor and loaded onto the semi-submersible transport vessel. It's hard to withhold our feeling of devastation.'

The salvage crews drilled dozens of holes in the Sewol in an effort to empty it of water and fuel before it could be transported to the port of Mokpo.

Relatives have expressed concerns that remains of the missing victims could slip out through the holes and get lost.

Divers wrapped up their search in November 2014, and since then a handful of relatives set up home at Paengmok, a port an hour away from the accident site.

The 145-metre Sewol ferry is brought to the surface in a salvage operation believed to be among the largest ever of a wreck in one piece

As part of the salvage operation, underwater barriers were set up around the wreck and searches will be carried out in the area as well as on board the Sewol.

The sinking, one of the country's worst-ever maritime disasters, dealt a crushing blow to President Park Geun-Hye, who has since resigned because of an unconnected scandal.

Investigations concluded the tragedy was largely man-made - the cumulative result of an illegal redesign of the ship which made it top-heavy, an overloaded cargo bay, inexperienced crew and a questionable relationship between the ship operators and state regulators.

The ship's captain, Lee Joon-seok, who disgracefully fled the ship as it went down, was jailed for life for causing deaths by negligence.
A 23-year-old model has revealed how a photographer threatened to 'burn her face off with a blowtorch' in a series of heated messages because she cancelled on him.

Belinda Briggs, from Brisbane, had organised a photo shoot with the photographer twice before but had to cancel twice - once because she broke her ribs.

The young mother-of-one told Daily Mail Australia it was when she approached him for the third shoot opportunity on Monday that he replied with a series of angry and crude messages.

Belinda Briggs (pictured) has revealed a series of aggressive text messages from a photographer she approached for a photoshoot

'We booked you 2 times you have no respect for us you are a c*** (sic),' the man messaged Ms Briggs when she asked about a shoot.

'Whoa. Was just trying to apologise and explain the situation and my apologies. That does not warrant calling a young female a c***. How rude.' Briggs responded.

The man then replies with what Ms Briggs believed to be a real threat.

'Rude is when I burn ur f****** face off with a blowtorch (sic),' the photographer said.

Then 23-year-old dancer then questioned the legitimacy of the threat  eventually she got another nasty reply from the photographer.

'Do not f*** with EVIL people and get of the Crack u Dumb C*** plenty of fish in the River [sic],' he said.

The woman had cancelled on the photographer twice before - sparking the incident

'And ur sisters p***y stinks [sic].'

The young woman's sister is 'an eight year old girl with Down syndrome', bringing her family into it angered Briggs the most.

'As soon as I saw the message I thought 'is this man a serial killer? Is he going to do this to me?' she said.

'Then I wondered what he has done to other women if he is making these sorts of threats to me.'

The young woman told Daily Mail Australia she had never spoken to the man in person  and is glad she never managed to meet him to have her photo taken.

The young woman told Daily Mail Australia she has never spoken to the man in person  and is glad she never managed to meet him to have her photo taken

The young woman who owns a topless waiting service and also works as a pole dancer initially decided to work with the photographer after finding out he paid in shoes.

'I didn't have the money for new shoes so thought it would be a good thing to do,' she said.

'I also use all my photos for advertising for my business and my portfolio so I thought it was a good deal.'

Briggs has been modelling part time since she was 16 but has decided she would like to become a 'fitspo' model in the future and takes many opportunities to fill her portfolio.

She is afraid photographers like the man who messaged her give the business a bad name.

'There are so many great, profession photographers out there, I just hope girls don't get stuck with this one,' Briggs said.

'She decided to speak out so her model friends and other dancers on her social media page wouldn't "be sucked in to the photographer's promises".

Ms Briggs has been modelling part time since she was 16 but has decided she would like to become a 'fitspo' model in the future

'I don't want other girls to be caught up with him.

'I am happy to be a voice so this doesn't happen.'

Briggs says she has been contacted by 'dozens' of bad dealings with the same photographer.

'Women are telling me that he has black mailed them  told them they work for shoes then made them do sex acts before he will pay them,' she said.

'Some women are messaging me from five years ago and say they have been trying to get out of his life but he threatens them with photos he took after getting them drunk.'

The photographer's professional page has also been flooded with messages from the woman's supporters.

'Disgusting... I can't believe that I read what I read in those screenshots,' Matt Penfold said.

'Awful behaviour and threatens women and speaks about little girls private areas ew,' wrote Imani Bailey.

'Threatening women with violence is not a good business model,' Teneil Zerbst said.

Ms Briggs says she will continue to be a voice for women who have been abused, assaulted or insulted by the photographer and is shocked with the amount of support she has received.
Ana Julia Lima Clemente (pictured) was killed when she played Russian roulette with a friend at her home in Santa Catarina state

A Brazilian teenager died after shooting herself with her uncle's gun during a game of Russian Roulette.

Ana Julia Lima Clemente, 15, took the .38 revolver out and started fooling around with a 14-year-old friend at her home in Criciuma in the southern state of Santa Catarina.

She held the gun at her own head and pulled the trigger twice but nothing happened. But the third time she did it she was killed instantly.

Police chief Rafael Iasco said: 'The dead girl was found lying on the ground with the gun close to her chest.

'There was another teenager there who told officers they were talking when she took the gun out and began to play Russian Roulette.

'Sadly on one of the occasions she pulled the trigger she shot herself in the head.

'We're still waiting for the results of forensic tests but the information we have at the moment points to this being a game that went fatally wrong,' said Mr Iasco.

Ana's mother was taken to hospital after the news was broken to her and is suffering from shock.

Detectives are trying to find Ana's uncle to question him about the gun after it emerged the serial number had been scratched off.

The tragedy happened on Sunday afternoon at Ana's home in the Santa Luzia district of Criciuma, which is 600 miles south of Rio de Janeiro.

Ana's aunt Assim said: 'She was a very quiet girl. She never got involved in dangerous games and there was no history of depression either.'

Ana's aunt Assim (pictured, left) said it was just a terrible accident. Police chief Rafael Iasco (right) said it was a 'game that went fatally wrong'

Earlier this month gambler Jefry Caicedo Toledo, 21, died in Colombia after taking part in a game of Russian Roulette with two friends.

His friends were arrested after the incident and a Smith & Wesson .32 calibre handgun was seized by the police.

Russian Roulette, which was dramatised in the 1978 Vietnam War film The Deer Hunter, involves loading a revolving chamber pistol with a single bullet.

Players then put the gun to their heads and pull the trigger, with a one in six chance of being shot.

Every year a handful of people around the globe are killed while playing the lethal game.
This is the moment Grant Denyer lost control of his racing car and slammed it into a tree in a horrifying crash he was lucky to survive.

In dramatic dashcam footage, the television host can be heard saying 'whoop, whoop, whoop' as he loses control during the Lake Mountain Sprint in Marysville on Sunday.

The Lotus is seen travelling at nearly 160km/h, before slowing to about 100km/h and crashing into the tree.

'Do I hit the biggest tree that I've ever seen right in front of us head-on, or do I try to avoid it,' Denyer (left) said

On impact, the car flips and its windscreen shatters.

'She was a wild old ride. We were lucky to make it out the other side,' Denyer told Ten News from his hospital bed.

'I had basically a couple of decisions to make. Do I hit the biggest tree that I've ever seen right in front of us head-on, or do I try to avoid it?'

The Gold Logie nominee and his co-driver Dale Moscatt were both airlifted to hospital following the crash.

Dramitic dashcam footage captured the moment Grant Denyer lost control of his car and slammed it into a tree in a horrifying crash he was lucky to survive. As the Lotus slams into a tree, it flips and the windscreen shatters

Speaking from his hospital bed on Tuesday night, Denyer said he would reassess his racing career and focus on his family and his television duties

Denyer and his co-driver were both airlifted to hospital following the crash. The Family Feud host escaped with minor injuries

Denyer, who walked with only bruising, was taken to Melbourne as a precaution while Moscatt had a suspected broken leg.

On Channel's The Project on Tuesday night, he said he would reassess his racing career and focus on his family and his television duties.

'I have to remember I am a father, first and foremost and I have got a duty to turn up on television for Family Feud every single night. I will reassess things,' he said.

'She was a wild old ride. We were lucky to make it out the other side,' Denyer told Ten News from his hospital bed

The television host can be heard saying 'whoop, whoop, whoop,' as he loses control of his racing car. Pictured, the Lotus shortly before the crash
An Amazonian tribe will receive 1million from one of Brazil's top airlines after a jet crashed on their land leaving it 'cursed'.

Airline Gol agreed to compensate the Kayapo people after a mid-air collision saw one of their planes crash into the tribe's nature reserve back in 2006.

A Gol Boeing 737-8EH carrying 154 passengers and crew was on a commercial flight when it collided with a Legacy 600 private jet being flown by two Americans.

Brazilian airline Gol has agreed to pay the Kayapo tribe 1million after one of its aircraft crashed in the middle of their nature reserve in 2006

The jet crashed after colliding with a private plane, killing all 154 on board, meaning the tribe had to move several homes and a medical centre believing the site was cursed

While the American plane was able to make it to a nearby airport and land, the Brazilian aircraft came down in the middle of the jungle, killing all those on board.

As a result of the crash, the Kayapo were forced to move several of their homes and a medical centre set up by Brazil's indigenous agency, Funai, the BBC reports.

The tribe say they now cannot return to the area because 'it is cursed with the presence of the dead'.

An investigation into the disaster found errors by the American pilots and Brazilian air traffic control, but Gol still agreed to compensate the Kayapo earlier this month.

The money will be paid into a foundation set up by Kayapo leader Chief Raoni, and managed by Funai and Brazil's Attorney General's Office.

The Kayapo are one of the largest and most powerful of the Amazonian tribes, having first made contact with Europeans around 500 years ago.

The money will be paid to a foundation run by Kayapo Chief Raoni (pictured left), and amounts to 116 for every member of the 8,600-strong tribe

Logging on their land during the 1980s brought them considerable wealth, but when the practice was made illegal on indigenous lands, they switched their efforts to rainforest conservation instead.

In 1989 Chief Raoni worked with the Body Shop's Anita Roddick and musician Sting to bring attention to the plight of the rainforest and the devastating effects of land clearance and deforestation.

Chief Raoni even traveled the world with Sting in order to bring attention to the issue, helping to establish the Rainforest Foundation Fund.

The Kayapo, whose name means 'men who like monkeys', live in scattered villages deep within the Amazon - and while some have frequent contact with outsiders, others are thought to live in virtual isolation.

Their population was estimated to be around 8,600 in 2010, meaning the payout will bring 116 to every member of the tribe.
Russia and the US are in a race to develop 'swarmbot' drones that are fired from a gun.

Russia has unveiled a reconnaissance drone a soldier would shoot from a 'hand-held grenade launcher'.

'The drone is prepared for launch within a period of 5 seconds to 3 minutes, depending on the time of preparing a flight program in cases when other similar drones require much more time for accomplishing the mission,' the Russian news agency Tass reported.

It was part of a military robotics show called 'Robotization of the Russian Armed Forces' on Thursday that brought together more than 30 Russian defence companies and 500 participants.

Russia has unveiled a reconnaissance drone a soldier would shoot from a 'hand-held grenade launcher'

The drone is prepared for launch within a period of 5 seconds to 3 minutes

The drone will carry a very wide range of payloads, including observation and target acquisition systems

The drone will be able to stay in the air for up to two hours at an altitude of up to 4 km, after which it will return to the home base.

It follows the news in February that Russian arms manufacturers had found a way to launch drones from a much larger Smerch multiple launch rocket system.

And in December 2016, Alexander Yakunin, CEO of the United Instrument Manufacturing Corporation, told TASS 'the Russian Army may get weapons against swarms of attack mini-drones in two years.'

He added: 'Powerful types of such hardware with strike capabilities may become operational in the Russian Army within four years, while simpler systems may appear already in two years.

'Serious potential has been accumulated and real prototypes of these weapons have been created. We have demonstrated their capabilities and the results are more than convincing.'

An Uran 6 antimine robot on display at the exhibition that was held last Thursday

A telemetric system for an unmanned boat on display at the military exhibition

A rescue robot for transporting injured soldiers on display at the military robotics show

An unmanned boat equipped with a robotic system on show at the exhibition

Military hardware for the Vikhr robotic system on show at Thursday's exhibit

A Vikhr robotic system with a 57mm gun was also on display

In recent years, drones have emerged as a major component of modern warfare and are expected to be one of the dominating forces on future battlefields.

The US is pursuing similar technology through a programme called 'Locust', short for Low-cost UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) Swarming technology.

Its aim is to fire 30 synchronized, foldable drones out of a tube launcher.

Human Rights Watch has called for 'an international treaty preemptively banning the development, production, and use' of autonomous weapons through their effort called the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots.
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Alexander Blackman's overjoyed wife broke down in court while his jubilant supporters cheered, threw their fists into the air and sprayed Champagne as it was revealed he will be released within two weeks.

There were scenes of unbridled joy inside and outside the High Court as five judges sentenced Sgt Blackman - better known as Marine A - to seven years for manslaughter following the quashing of his murder conviction.

As a result of the three-and-a-half years already served since his original conviction in November 2013, Sgt Blackman will be freed from HMP Erlestoke in Wiltshire next month.

The former marine appeared via video link and smiled broadly as he learned he would soon be a free man - his wife Claire had tears in her eyes and her face crumpled when the sentence was passed.

Afterwards Mrs Blackman was described by her husband's QC Jonathan Goldberg as 'the lioness who inspired us throughout' and was given a 'three cheers' and a bagpipes salute from marines who popped Champagne corks, drank from hipflasks and planted kisses on her cheek.

Speaking on the steps of the High Court she thanked Daily Mail readers who raised 800,000 towards her husband's legal fees and said: 'This is the moment that we have all been fighting hard for. It is hard to believe that this day is finally here'.

Victory: Alexander Blackman's wife Claire is cheered on the steps of the High Court today as her husband was told he will be freed within weeks

Happy day: Alexander Blackman's jubilant supporters cheered and threw their fists into the air on the steps of the High Court today

Heroine: There was special praise for Mrs Blackman for leading the campaign and was kissed by a former marine

Joy: Claire Blackman (pictured today) was in court to hear that her husband (right) will be freed in the next fortnight and was overwhelmed. He looked shocked and then smiled as the sentence was passed

She added: 'We are overjoyed at the judges' decision to significantly reduce Al's sentence, such that he can be released imminently'.

'This is what we've all been fighting for': Claire Blackman's joy at new sentence and thanks to Mail readers Alex Blackman's wife Claire was cheered uproariously outside the High Court today after it was ruled her husband should be released in April. Surrounded by her legal team and supporters she said: 'We are overjoyed at the judges' decision to significantly reduce Al's sentence, such that he can be released imminently. 'This is the moment that we have all been fighting hard for. It is hard to believe that this day is finally here. 'There are so many people we must thank for getting us here. They include of course our brilliant legal team, Jonathan Goldberg QC, Jeffrey Israel and Sengin Kong, thank you all. They also include the fabulous Frederick Forsyth and the wonderful Richard Drax MP, both of whom have fought tirelessly in support of Al. 'I must also thank former Royal Mrine John Davies who had never met my husband and yet captained the campaign and supported us from the start with tireless energy along with Sue Childs. 'Major General John Holmes, Major General Malcolm Hunt and Lieutenant Colonel Ewen Southby-Tailyour all deserve a mention for their wonderful support. 'And finally but by no means least our sincere thanks go to all those who have supported us through this journey. Our own friends and family, the Royal Marines family, especially the Royal Marines mums, all serving and former servicemen and women, members of the public and the Daily Mail readers without whose generosity we would not be here'. Advertisement

The momentous decision sealed a stunning victory for the campaign for justice for Sgt Blackman, who was jailed for life in 2013 for shooting a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan in 2011.

The Court Martial Appeal Court today erupted in deafening cheers as Royal Marine Alexander Blackman was sentenced to seven years in prison for shooting dead an injured Taliban fighter in Afghanistan - meaning he will be set free in two weeks.

Announcing the decision, Lord Thomas said: 'As with any person sentenced to a determinate term, his release will ordinarily be at the halfway point of the sentence.'

Outside supporters jumped for joy and hugged while a procession of black cabs slowed outside the Royal Courts of Justice and blared their horns.

Mrs Blackman walked out of court to bagpipes and her legal team were surrounded by banner-waving veterans and champagne corks popped as she spoke.

Her counsel, Jonathan Goldberg QC, described her as 'the lioness who inspired us throughout'.

'She has shown that ordinary people can do extraordinary things', he said.

'She kept the flame alive when the legal system had completely abandoned her husband.

'Her courage and her dignity have been amazing.'

Also speaking outside court, former soldier Richard Drax MP said: 'The sun is shining, and clearly upon the righteous. Justice is seen to be done.'

In message to servicemen and women and police officers including murdered Keith Palmer, who was knifed to death in last week's Westminster terror attack, he said: 'All those who serve between us and evil deserve our support.

'You will never be forgotten, and if you are we will fight for you, fight for justice.'

As a champagne cork popped behind him, the Conservative MP or South Dorset said: 'I can't wait to clink a glass of champagne with Sgt Al Blackman the hero, who has served this country in an exemplary way.'

Oliver Lee, a former colonel of the Royal Marines and Blackman's commanding officer in September 2011, welcomed the news.

He said: 'I am very pleased that Sergeant Blackman has now been dealt with justly and fairly.

'This has been my sole intention throughout these proceedings.

'My hope now is that the many lessons from this tragic case will be learned and the Royal Marines can look forward to another 350 years of highly distinguished service.'

Alan Logan, 72, a former Royal Marines sergeant from Rhuddlan, North Wales, said: 'I think it's absolutely brilliant.

'I don't think he should have been there in the first place'.

Delighted: Claire Blackman addresses the large crowd outside the High Court today after the stunning victory for the campaign for justice for Sgt Blackman, who was jailed for life in 2013 for shooting a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan in 2011

Overwhelming support: Supporters of Sergeant Alexander Blackman could not hide their joy and relief as it was revealed his fight for freedom was almost over

Hugs: As the news of Sgt Blackman's imminent release his friends and supporters hugged and shared a drink from hipflasks

All smiles: Mrs Blackman smiles at her counsel Jonathan Goldberg QC (right) while surrounded by her legal team Jeffrey Israel (left) and Sengin Kong (second left), as well as MP Richard Drax (second right)

Mark Iles, 63, from Greenwich, south-east London, a former reservist in the Royal Artillery, served in Afghanistan and Iraq and came to court to 'show solidarity'.

Happy day: Today's sentence for manslaughter by diminished responsibility means Blackman is eligible for near-immediate release

He said: 'The court martial, and the way he has been treated by the top brass, hung out to dry, it's got to be a betrayal of the armed forces covenant.'

Another former sergeant with the Royal Marines, Gary Page, 66, had made the journey from his Bournemouth home.

He joked: 'The car parking was expensive, the train fare extortionate, the result today priceless'.

The former sergeant, 42, has already served a three-and-a-half years in jail for blasting the insurgent in the chest at close range with a 9mm pistol before quoting Shakespeare as he said: 'Shuffle off this mortal coil, you c***.'

Blackman was handed a life sentence for murder before the 2013 conviction was quashed by five top judges earlier this month.

They found the shooting was not a 'cold-blooded execution' but the result of Blackman suffering from an 'abnormality of mental functioning' because of an adjustment disorder caused by combat stress.

Today's sentence for manslaughter by diminished responsibility means Blackman is eligible for near-immediate release.

But judges ended hopes of him returning to service as The Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas told him: 'In the light of your service record and psychiatric condition there is no question of dismissal with disgrace.

'However, given the seriousness of the offence and the damage to Her Majesty's armed forces he must be dismissed.'

Blackman smiled as he appeared by videolink at the Royal Courts of Justice from Erlestoke prison in Wiltshire wearing a blue shirt.

His wife Claire, 45, whose campaign for her husband's release has attracted widespread public support and sparked debates in the House of Lords and the House of Commons, sat in the packed courtroom along with scores of supporters - many former servicemen.

Roars rang out, followed by applause and three cheers.

Court drama: Mrs Blackman thanked her husband's army of supporters after they won the High Court fight to have his murder conviction quashed and now his sentence cut

Emotional: Mrs Blackman had tears in her eyes as the judgment was laid down today and was similarly emotional as she spoke outside

Happiness: Marine A will be freed from HMP Erlestoke in Wiltshire by mid-April after three-and-a-half years in prison

Support: QC Jonathan Goldberg warned Sgt Blackman that his wife had received several offers of marriage, such is the admiration for her

Jubilation: A former serviceman roars with joy as news of Sgt Blackman's reduced sentence filtered out of the courtroom, afterwards Mrs Blackman was clearly moved by the support

Back again: Sgt Blackman has been supported by former marines who were back at the High Court again today with the cardboard cutout of the serviceman

Humbling: The campaign to secure Sgt Blackman's release has received huge support from former marines and other servicemen and servicewomen

Blackman has 15 years of service, including six tours of Iraq and Afghanistan in which he risked death hundreds of times when he came under enemy fire.

Mr Goldberg said: 'He estimates having himself personally and lawfully had to kill the Queen's enemies over 30 times on the battlefield,' he continued.

The judges found Blackman, from Taunton, Somerset, had been an exemplary soldier before his deployment in Afghanistan, where he served in the Helmand province with Plymouth's 42 Commando.

His undermanned unit were forced to patrol the 'most dangerous square mile on earth' twice a day for up to ten hours along IED infested paths in searing 50C heat, carrying 100lbs of equipment.

On 15 September 2011 was captured on another Royal Marine's helmet camera as he shot the Taliban fighter, who had been seriously injured in an Apache helicopter attack, before telling his victim: 'Shuffle off this mortal coil, you c***. It's nothing you wouldn't do to us.'

He then turned to his fellow soldiers and said: 'Obviously this doesn't go anywhere, fellas. I just broke the Geneva Convention.'

The court heard the terrorist was just minutes away from death having been lawfully attacked by an Apache helicopter while carrying an AK47, ammunition and a grenade.

The Appeal Court was given nine character witnesses from Sgt Blackman's comrades describing him as kind-hearted, generous, heroic and a born leader of men.

One of them, Thomas Quinn, 25, a serving commando, said: 'To me and all my peers he was a great role model. If he was to come back to the Royal Marines, I would follow him to hell and back without any questions.'

Timeline: The path to justice for British soldier Marine A Sergeant Alexander Blackman - known as Marine A - became the first British serviceman convicted of murder on a foreign battlefield since the Second World War. Here is a timeline of events in the case: 2011 March - Sgt Blackman deploys to Helmand province with 42 Commando as part of Op Herrick XIV. His unit is sent to Nad-e Ali, where it sees heavy fighting. Several marines are killed, including Sgt Blackman's troop commander, and others are maimed. September 15 - Taliban insurgents attack a small British patrol base. The attack is repelled with the aid of a British Apache helicopter gunship. Sgt Blackman and his marines are on patrol and sent to look for the fleeing attackers. They find one, lying gravely wounded, in the middle of a field. Sgt Blackman shoots him in the chest with his pistol. The killing is captured on helmet camera by one of the patrol. 2012 September - The video of the incident is found on a Royal Marine's laptop during an investigation by civilian police into another alleged crime. A police investigation begins. October 11 - Seven unnamed Royal Marines are arrested on suspicion of murder. 2013 October 23 - Sgt Blackman and two others go on trial at the Court Martial Centre in Bulford, Wiltshire, accused of murder. He is only identified as Marine A and his comrades as Marines B and C. They give evidence from behind screens. All three plead not guilty. November 8 - Sgt Blackman is found guilty of murder. The two other marines are acquitted. December 5 - A court rules Sgt Blackman, still only known to the world as Marine A, should be stripped of his anonymity. December 6 - Sgt Blackman, from Taunton, Somerset, is given a life sentence and told he must serve a minimum of 10 years in a civilian prison. 2014 May 22 - Sgt Blackman loses a Court of Appeal bid to overturn his life sentence. His minimum term is cut from 10 years to eight. 2015 September - A high-profile campaign begins to have Sgt Blackman freed, led by his wife Claire. December 16 - 1,100 pages of new evidence are handed into the Criminal Cases Review Commission in an attempt to have the conviction sent back to the Court of Appeal. 2016 December - The CCRC concludes there is a 'real possibility' of overturning the conviction, and grants an appeal. Later the same month, the Lord Chief Justice refuses a bid to grant bail, after prosecutors challenge new psychiatric evidence about his mental state at the time of the killing. December 21 - Sgt Blackman loses a bid to be released on bail in time for Christmas ahead of his appeal hearing. 2017 February 7 - Five judges, Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas, Sir Brian Leveson, Lady Justice Hallett, Mr Justice Openshaw and Mr Justice Sweeney, begin hearing an appeal brought by Sgt Blackman to overturn his murder conviction at the Court Martial Appeal Court in London. March 13 - The Court Martial Appeal Court announces the appeal ruling will be given on March 15. March 15 - Sgt Blackman has his murder conviction replaced with manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility by the Court. March 24 - Judges delay decision on sentencing March 28: Sgt Blackman is given a new seven year sentence, granting him near-immediate release Advertisement

Video of Marine A shooting dead the injured Taliban fighter will not be released because terrorists would use it as a recruiting tool

Top judges refused to release footage of Royal Marine Alexander Blackman shooting dead a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan over fears it would be used as a tool to recruit terrorists.

The media had applied for permission to show three video clips of the killing on 15 September 2011.

The footage, recorded on the helmet-mounted camera of another Royal Marine show Blackman blasting an injured insurgent in the chest at close range.

Audio, which captures Blackman quoting Shakespeare as he tells his victim 'shuffle off this mortal coil, you c***,' along with stills from the video, are already in the public domain.

Delivering the judgement refusing to release the clips, The Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas said: 'Whilst I have no doubt the broadcasters and newspapers would have treated the clips properly, I also have no doubt that would be recorded and used by terrorist organisations to radicalise others and used to justify the claim the West is at war with Islam and operated outside its own legal restraints.'

The Ministry of Defence released footage of the moments leading up to the incident where Marine A killed the Taliban fighter

The footage, pictured, was filmed on a helmet-mounted video camera worn by one of the junior Marines in the patrol, Corporal Christopher Watson

The newly-released video clips do not show the shooting incident itself, but shots can be heard in the background as the Marine patrol searches for the insurgents

Video extracts from the Marine A incident were released for the first time last month.

They show a patrol of Marines watching a British Apache helicopter gunship hovering in the sky as it unleashes a barrage of fire at a Taliban fighter.

The clattering from the gunship's fearsome 30mm cannon can be heard clearly.

It is the opening scene of what became the most controversial episode in the Afghanistan war  culminating in the jailing of Sergeant Alexander Blackman, known as Marine A.

The Ministry of Defence released the video in February following a court application by the BBC, The Guardian and other media organisations.

The dramatic footage comes from a helmet-mounted video camera worn by one of the junior Marines in Sgt Blackman's patrol.

The video was used to convict Sgt Blackman at his court martial in 2013 but has never been seen by the public, as it was ruled too inflammatory and a potential 'propaganda gift to terrorists'.

In a ruling the High Court did not agree to release the full video - but permitted its partial release, allowing the opening scenes of the episode to be viewed by the public for the first time.

The video clips do not show the shooting incident itself, only some of the events leading up to it.

The footage begins in a grassy field shortly after two insurgents had been spotted creeping up on a remote British outpost in Helmand Province.

An Apache was summoned from Camp Bastion to counter their stealth attack, and Sgt Blackman's patrol was sent out too.

The aircrew spotted one of the gunmen in a cornfield.

As the Marines watch, several bursts of loud gunfire can be heard as the Apache unleashes 139 rounds from its 30mm cannon.

The Marines, positioned some distance away, can be heard shouting 'Come on!' and 'I think he's dead'.

As might be expected of young troops in a dangerous battlefield, their language is coarse as they are heard discussing the Apache crew's aim.

A voice says: 'They've missed him. They've f***ing missed the cheeser.'

The Marines accuse the Apache crew of 'error after error after error' and suggest they should have fired a Hellfire rocket instead.

The next clip from the blisteringly hot afternoon in September 2011 shows Sgt Blackman and Jack Hammond, known as Marine C, walking over to examine the wounded man.

They found an AK47, spare ammunition and a hand grenade lying by his blood-soaked body in the 50C heat. The insurgent cannot be seen.

The rest of the episode including the shooting will not be shown publicly, but the story of what happened next is well known.

Sgt Blackman shot the insurgent, famously quoting from Hamlet as he said: 'Shuffle off this mortal coil.'

Other footage shows the patrol moving through a field and holding their positions as they search for the Taliban fighters

Sgt Blackman led his patrol into the cornfield where they found an AK47, spare ammunition and a hand grenade by the insurgent's 'blood-soaked' body

The clips were released following a High Court application from media organisations including the BBC

After Sgt Blackman's court martial, three judges ruled that the video of the shooting incident should not be made public.

At the time, government terrorism experts had advised the judges that Sgt Blackman and his family could be at risk from Islamic extremists.

Paul Mott, the deputy head of the government's Research Information and Communications Unit, said at the time that the video was 'a gift in propaganda terms'.

The court martial's Judge Advocate General, Jeff Blackett, ruled that the release of the video would 'generate significant feelings of anger and revenge among certain people and will incite attacks on British service personnel at home and abroad'.
A postman has spotted a 'big cat' roaming the fields on the outskirts of Inverness.

Paul Dawson took a picture of the black cat with his 300mm long-lens camera at the weekend in a field close to Milton of Leys in the Scottish Highlands.

He says he was standing around 600yards away from the animal with a long black tail that appeared much larger than a domestic cat when he pictured it.

A postman has spotted a 'big cat' roaming the fields on the outskirts of Inverness (pictured)

It was taken around 10 miles from where the famous Beast of Embo was spotted by two sisters in 2011 after a farmer reported that 18 of his sheep had been killed in 2011.

Mr Dawson said: 'My house looks over to the A9 and I always have the camera handy because you can see deer around there a lot of the time,' he said.

'It was about 7.15pm on Sunday when I spotted this and managed to grab a few shots.

'Given the distance, it must have been bigger than an ordinary cat - I've got two cats and if they were that far away I'm not sure you would have been able to see them at all.

Paul Dawson took a picture of the black cat with his 300mm long-lens camera at the weekend in a field close to Milton of Leys in the Scottish Highlands

'It might actually have been about the size of a dog - I have a Dalmatian and a Labrador and it could have been around their size.

'It hung around for about 10 minutes, I'm not sure if it was eating something or maybe playing with its prey the way cats do because it seemed to be jumping about quite a lot as well.'

Mr Dawson has not seen the mysterious creature since.

'I will definitely be much more aware when I'm over that way that there could be something to look out for,' he said.
A Sydney high school student with a 'major crush' on his geography teacher was ecstatic when the teacher started messaging him online, a court has heard.

When they first had sex in the teacher's car several weeks later, the then 14-year-old was anxious, nervous and couldn't believe it was actually happening, he told the NSW District Court on Tuesday.

The teacher, 39-year-old Cameron White, is on trial over his alleged sexual relationships with the male student and two female students across three school campuses from 2007.

Cameron White, 39, (pictured) is on trial over his alleged sexual relationships with a male student and two female students

He has pleaded not guilty to one count of aggravated indecency, and multiple counts of aggravated sexual intercourse and sexual intercourse with a person under care.

The male former student on Tuesday said the pair first had sex in the back seat of White's car after meeting at a spot near the teenager's house. It would subsequently become a regular occurrence.

'I couldn't actually believe it was happening because, as I mentioned before, I had a major crush on him for so long,' the former student told the court.

White had earlier asked the student via MSN Messenger if he was interested in fooling around, he said.

White (pictured) has pleaded not guilty to one count of aggravated indecency, and multiple counts of aggravated sexual intercourse and sexual intercourse with a person under care

As they continued to meet, White became rough during sex and asked the student if he could call him 'his b****', the former student said.

'He would call me his b**** and he would like me to say, myself, that I am his b****,' he said.

Later the student moved to another school but he said he would continue to meet with White until he was 18, including at the teacher's Sutherland apartment.

He pointed out the building to police in a videotaped drive-by shown to the jury.

Under cross-examination from defence lawyer Lisa-Claire Hutchinson, the former student agreed that in a meeting with the Crown and a Department of Public Prosecutions solicitor, he had been told 'something wasn't right' with the timing of some of his allegations.

He also agreed that someone could set up an account for MSN Messenger in a fake name.

Ms Hutchinson further put it to him that White had advertised his unit for sale on Facebook, where the former student could have seen it.

The trial continues.
Family and friends of Danielle McLaughlin, who was raped and murdered in Goa, stood in silence last night as her remains finally arrived in her home town in Ireland.

Neighbours held back tears as a coffin containing the body of the 28-year-old was brought back to Buncrana in County Donegal.

Danielle, who had been studying in Liverpool, was strangled in the Palolem beach resort in India two weeks ago.

Danielle McLaughlin's remains were returned home last night, two weeks after she was raped and murdered while on an 'adventure' in Goa

The hessian coffin containing Danielle's remains are brought into the family home in Buncrana. A wake will be held today and tomorrow before the funeral on Thursday

Local petty criminal Vikat Bhagat, 24, has confessed but several other men are believed to have been involved in the attack.

Ms McLaughlins remains arrived back in Dublin on Friday but underwent a second post-mortem at her familys request before being brought to Belfast for medical procedures.

Last night her heartbroken mother Andrea and her four younger sisters were supported by friends and relatives as Danielle's remains were returned in a hessian coffin.

Local petty criminal Vikat Bhagat (pictured, left) has confessed to raping and murdering Danielle (right) but police in Goa believe others were also involved

The hearse was given a Garda escort and family and friends stood and hugged each other as her coffin was whisked into the privacy of her home.

Local priest Father Francis Bradley arrived a short time before the cortege and said prayers inside the home.

Earlier this week Andrea described the horrific moment when her friend Louise McMenamin arrived at her home in Marian Park last week to break the news of her eldest daughter's death.

She said: 'I knew as soon as I saw her. As soon as she walked in the door, I told her. She did not even get the chance to tell me.

It feels as if it was a year ago and if it was yesterday. It will only get to sink in when I get to hold her hand, she said.

Large crowds are expected at her wake at her family home today and tomorrow before her funeral on Thursday at Cockhill Chapel.

Danielle was found with severe injuries to her head and face in Canacona on March 14.
The leader of an Islamist group campaigning for sharia law threatened to call the police after a television reporter asked him about his call for ex-Muslims to be killed.

Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman Uthman Badar has gone to ground since Daily Mail Australia caught him on camera on Saturday night confirming his view that people born into Islam deserved the death penalty if they left the faith.

A camera crew from 7News has captured the moment Mr Badar threatened to call the police on Tuesday when reporter Bryan Seymour asked him about his comments made at Bankstown library, in south-west Sydney.

Scroll down for video

The moment 7News reporter Bryan Seymour confronts Hizb ut-Tahrir's Uthman Badar at home

Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman Uthman Badar threatened to call police on a 7News crew

The bearded man, who has fronted the group for the past decade, initially opened the door but then shut it when he saw the reporter outside his house at South Granville.

'Can you leave my premises or I'll call the police,' Mr Badar said.

The confrontation comes three days after he told a public forum Hizb ut-Tahrir supported the death penalty for ex-Muslims also known as apostates.

'The ruling for apostates as such in Islam is clear, that apostates attract capital punishment and we don't shy away from that,' Badar said in the presence of children.

Freelance journalist Alison Bevege holding up a copy of Hizb ut-Tahrir's draft constitution

Justice Minister Michael Keenan has referred his extraordinary admission to the Australian Federal Police.

It was made after freelance journalist Alison Bevege held up a printed copy of Hizb ut-Tahrir's draft constitution of the khilafah state published on the UK site, which was on the group's Australian website until 2015.

This outlines their vision for a global Islamic caliphate, which has Muslims and non-Muslims living under sharia law.

She asked about their policy of killing people born as Muslims who leave the faith, after Mr Badar gave a lecture calling on Muslims to embrace jihad and arguing that Islam wasn't compatible with secular, democratic principles.

Daily Mail Australia captured the moment Uthman Badar said ex-Muslims deserved death

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said the footage taken by Daily Mail Australia would be grounds to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.

'My understanding of it, it would. It certainly would pass wouldn't pass the pub test with the way ordinary Australians think,' Senator Hanson told 7News.

Article 7c of Hizb ut-Tahrir's draft constitution said: 'Those who are guilty of apostasy (murtadd) from Islam are to be executed according to the rule of apostasy, provided they have by themselves renounced Islam.'

Mr Badar initially responded by saying the policy wasn't on its website before explaining how the group's apostasy policy was compatible with Islam.

'The whole thing covers different aspects of Islamic sharia law,' he said.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson says Hizb ut-Tahrir should be banned in Australia

'The role of apostasy in Islam is very clear. Again, this is one of the things the West doesnt like and seeks to change the role of apostasy.'

A spokeswoman for Mr Keenan condemned language that incites or advocates violence.

'Language that incites or advocates violence is not freedom of speech,' she said.

'This matter has been referred to the AFP.'

Hizb ut-Tahrir operates in 40 nations, including Australia and the United Kingdom, but is banned in Germany, Russian and China along with Muslim-majority nations including Bangladesh, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott wanted to ban the group in October 2014.
A grandmother believes the spirit of her mum saved her and her family from being crushed to death when a HGV ploughed into the back of their broken down car.

Lynn Gunn, 58, thought she was going to die when the truck tore a gaping hole in her stricken Kia Sorento, injuring her daughter and two grandchildren.

But despite police believing they were attending a fatal collision, all four occupants miraculously walked away with just bad bruising, while Ms Gunn also broke a rib.

The retired intensive care assistant is adamant that her mother Margaret, who died in 2013 after a battle with cancer, protected the family during the horror smash on the A55 in North Wales last October.

Grandmother Lynn Gunn (pictured left) believes the spirit of her mum saved her and her family, including her granddaughter Amelia (right), from being crushed to death when a HGV hit them

Lucky escape: Ms Gunn thought she was going to die when the truck tore a gaping hole in her stricken Kia Sorento (pictured), injuring her daughter and two grandchildren

The retired intensive care assistant is adamant that her mother Margaret, who died in 2013 after a battle with cancer, protected the family during the smash in North Wales (pictured)

Ms Gunn, from Huyton, Merseyside, said: 'I definitely think my mum was in the car that day.

'Just before Christmas a medium, who didnt know what had happened, told me that mum was in a car with us during a car crash and that she had her arms round us protecting us.

'I really believe she was there.

'We are so lucky to be alive, I can't believe we got away relatively unscathed. The police who came out said they thought they were attending a fatal accident.'

The grandmother-of-three was driving with her daughter Paula Arnold in the passenger seat and Georgia, nine, and Amelia, four, in the back on October 28 as they drove back from Wales after selling their holiday caravan.

The car, which was loaded with bedding, kitchen equipment and clothes, suddenly cut out as they were driving.

Ms Gunn's mother Margaret (pictured) died in 2013 after a battle with cancer

Ms Gunn managed to pull over and put her hazards on - it was then that her daughter said she spotted the lorry looming in the side mirror and within seconds it struck the car.

Heart-stopping dashcam footage shows the moment the HGV struck, injuring all four occupants.

Ms Arnold, a 30-year-old retail assistant from Huyton, Merseyside, said: 'It was all over in a few seconds - it happened so quickly.

'I remember thinking, this is it, we're going to die. When I saw the backseat I thought I'd lost both of them - it was the worst feeling ever.

'Georgia managed to jump out but as I looked at Amelia I thought she was dead as she wasn't moving and a quilt from the boot had covered her head.

'The paramedic had to come in through the front seat to get her out - she was in shock and silently crying.'

The mother-of-two suffered badly bruised legs from where they hit the dashboard and is due to see an orthopaedic specialist to investigate what damage has been done to her hip.

Ms Arnold said: 'Mentally it still plays on my mind.

Heart-stopping dashcam footage shows the moment the HGV struck, injuring the family

Ms Gunn was driving with her daughter Paula Arnold in the passenger seat and Georgia, nine, and Amelia, four, in the back as they drove back from Wales after selling their holiday caravan

Ms Gunn is pictured with daughter Paula Arnold and grandchildren Georgia, 9, and Amelia, 4

'Most nights I go to bed and see it in my mind from looking in that wing mirror and seeing it come closer and closer and knowing the kids were in the back and I couldn't do anything to help them.

'The kids have nightmares about it and I have to get up to see to them in the night and reassure them they're OK.

'Amelia was so lucky as the car crumpled around her because she was so little - but she suffered two bumps on the left and right side of her forehead.

'We definitely had someone looking down on us that day who saved us.

'My nanna Margaret was such a strong woman she was, and clearly still is.'

The family were taken to Ysbyty Glan Clwyd Hospital where Ms Gunn was treated for a broken rib, severe bruising, a bang to the head and damage to her lip.

The family were taken to Ysbyty Glan Clwyd Hospital where Ms Gunn (pictured) was treated for a broken rib, severe bruising, a bang to the head and damage to her lip

Ms Arnold suffered a bruised hip and, like the girls, also suffered cuts and bruises.

Ms Gunn said: 'I still feel pain under my rib which takes my breath away. I look in the mirror and I can see that my face is out of shape - one side has still not healed properly and my lip is still bothering me.

'Although the physical injuries are starting to heal my mental state has been really affected.

'If a film comes on the TV I walk out of the room or try and get it turned off. I cant watch [anything like that] it all just comes flooding back.

'I heard a girl screaming [on TV] and I sat there with tears rolling down my cheeks as it sounded just like Paula did in the crash.

'Ive been a driver since 1987 but now I wont get back in a car - I wont even get in as a passenger.'

The injuries suffered by Ms Gunn's four-year-old granddaughter Amelia

Ms Gunn said that its also taken its toll on the grandchildren who are now nervous around cars, aware of all passing trucks and talk about the accident often.

She added: 'The driver has ruined our lives. We're grateful and lucky to be alive but it's had such an impact on us all.

'It's the children - when they're coming up to you and saying 'gran, when you die I will miss you, but then I will die and I'll be with you again.'

'It's terrible listening to them them - five-year-olds shouldn't be talking about things like that. It's wrecking our heads.

'Even if a truck passes the road and we are in the house we have to reassure them that they're OK.

'Georgia doesnt want to even get in a car now - it's almost like travel anxiety.

'Its had a big impact on them.'

HGV driver Thomas Anthony Holland, 61, admitted careless driving and was given six penalty points and ordered to pay a 300 fine and costs when he was sentenced at Mold Crown Court last week.

Ms Gunn said: 'I'm not happy at the sentencing. I wanted him to go to prison - he could have killed the four of us.'

Her daughter said: 'I know he said he does feel bad about what happened but it still doesn't change the fact that we are still suffering now.'

PC Robert Williams from the North Wales Police Roads Policing Unit said: 'We were extremely lucky not to be deal with a fatal road traffic collision and are thankful that all four occupants were released from hospital.

'This just shows that not paying attention behind the wheel of any vehicle can have consequences.'
A female prisoner has revealed how she was forced by ISIS to whip countless 'screaming' women because they did not wear a veil or socks.

Miyasa Hodor, who is believed to have been imprisoned in Mosul two years ago, admitted the terror group have coerced her into torturing more than 50 women a day.

She gave a harrowing account of the first time she was forced to flog another woman, claiming a militant stood behind her and threatened to whip her when she refused.

Miyasa Hodor revealed how she was forced by ISIS to whip countless 'screaming' women because they did not wear a veil or socks

Hodor, who is believed to have been imprisoned in Mosul two years ago, admitted the terror group have pushed her to torture more than 50 women a day

'For adultery, you would be stoned to death. For stealing, they cut off your hand. And for not wearing the veil, whipping,' she told Sky News.

Hodor, who fears that she will die in prison, continued: 'I had no training.

'My duty was to punish those who weren't wearing gloves or socks or the veil. They brought us about 50 people a day.'

The first time they told me 'you have to do it'. 'I said 'I cannot'. They said, 'yes you can, you have to'.'

Hodor hid her face in her hands as she described the first time she tortured another woman.

She said: 'I stood up and I whipped her. With every lash she was screaming.

'I withdrew my hand. They came and stood right behind me and said: 'If you don't do it we will whip you instead'.

She gave a harrowing account of the first time she was forced to flog another woman, claiming a militant stood behind her and threatened to whip her when she refused

'For adultery, you would be stoned to death. For stealing, they cut off your hand. And for not wearing the veil, whipping,' she told Sky News

'My duty was to punish those who weren't wearing gloves or socks or the veil. They brought us about 50 people a day' she said

'I have whipped many, you cannot count. If somebody goes without the veil, they will use pliers on her.

'If they don't take her they will take her husband instead.'

ISIS set up a special group to enforce its sickening views in Syria and Iraq - which include forcing girls to become sex slaves.

Its dress code coerces all females to hide their bodies in head to toe black, black gloves to cover their hands, and veils to obscure their faces.

It comes as Islamic State thugs burned three women to death after they refused to slaughter their neighbours who fled conflict.

The terrorists reportedly ordered the victims to kill citizens who had tried to escape the Iraqi city of Mosul, for which they were sentenced to death by ISIS' lawmakers.

The three women declined, and as punishment, they were burned alive.

It is not clear what happened to the civilians who fled war-torn Mosul and were ordered to be executed, according Iraqi News.

Hodor revealed that if women refused to wear a veil, Islamic State thugs would 'use pliers' on her

The ISIS dress code coerces all females to wear burkas to hide their body shape, black gloves to cover their hands, and veils to obscure their faces

The barbaric militants have regularly burned people who do not adhere to their twisted views, but rarely get civilians to carry out their work.

As they desperately attempt to hold on to the few strongholds they have left in the Middle East, ISIS appear to be taking more extreme measures to exaggerate their standing.

Iraqi forces and a US-led coalition are currently battling to liberate Mosul - where it is believed Hodor is being held - from ISIS.

Iraq's prime minister Haider al-Abadi boldly claimed on Monday that the terror group will be defeated 'within weeks' in the country.

He told Fox News: 'At the moment we are at a very important juncture where Daesh is on the retreat. We in Iraq have been killing Daesh, removing them from our land. We are killing their aim so that recruits are minimal at the moment.

'In Iraq the defeat is sure, it's definite. We'll finish the job in a very short time  it's within reachwithin the next few weeks. We are defeating them militarilywe need the efforts of others to flush them out in Syria and other places.'

A still image taken from a video released by Islamic State-affiliated Amaq news agency, said to be in Palmyra, on December 11, 2016, purports to show Islamic State fighters in front of silos on fire

A local coming out of his house which was just hit by ISIS mortar fire in Mosul, Iraq

He was speaking after Iraqi forces reportedly killed 10 ISIS chiefs in a fresh round of air strikes in Mosul.

The renewed offensive came days after 'tragic' US-led bombing raids killed 200 civilians in a single district.

Rescuers were still pulling the bodies of women and children from rubble in the Jadideh neighbourhood on Saturday, more than a week after the US-led coalition bombs reportedly landed on March 17.

However on Monday, Iraqi forces renewed their offensive against ISIS in Mosul's Old City.

It comes amid reports that ISIS have kidnapped almost 200 children to use as human shields in the battle for Mosul.

The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights said 197 children had been taken hostage by the terror group near the Al-Nuri mosque where ISIS declared its caliphate nearly three years ago.

ISIS have reportedly kidnapped almost 200 children to use as human shields in Mosul
Video footage has caught the dramatic moment a woman in China was caught by a quick-thinking fireman.

She had fallen from a windowsill in her home after she tried to escape the fire in Jiaxing City, China's Zhejiang province on March 25.

People can be heard screaming as the woman falls from the windowsill.

Caught: The woman fell from the windowsill and was caught by a quick thinking fireman

In the footage posted on CGTN's Youtube page, smoke can be seen billowing out of one of the windows of the apartment building.

The woman had been left trapped on the sixth-story windowsill as firefighters worked out how to try and rescue her.

However before they could come up and get her, she lost her footing and fell.

People can be heard shouting and screaming as the woman falls.

Shocking moment: Another section of footage shows the fall from another angle

However a quick-thinking firefighter manages to grab her from the window below and pull her back into the building.

The footage was taken from different angles and at one point, it is possible to see the flames coming from the building.

The woman's daughter was also rescued from the building.

According to CGTN, there were no reported injuries.
Three masked teenagers who broke into a home in broad daylight were shot dead by a 23-year-old man living inside.

The intruders, who were dressed in black and wore masks and gloves, entered the residence in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, before the homeowner's son confronted them with a rifle and opened fire.

The suspected burglars, said to be aged 16, 17 and 18, all died at the scene. One was armed with a knife while another carried brass knuckles.

A fourth suspect, Elizabeth Marie Rodriguez, 21, believed to be the getaway driver, turned herself after the shooting on Monday.

An investigation is ongoing, with police saying the 23-year-old appears to have acted in self-defense.

Police outside the home in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, where three intruders were shot dead yesterday afternoon

One of the intruder's leg can be seen coming from behind a tarpaulin sheet. He was believed to have been shot and killed on the driveway

Video Courtesy Newson6.com

The 23-year-old was at home with his father when he was woken up by banging noises at around 12.30pm on Monday.

Wagoner County Sheriff's Deputy Nick Mahoney said the suspects gained entry after they shattered a glass door at the back of the house.

The homeowner's son armed himself with an AR-15 rifle, exchanged a few words with the suspects, and opened fire, Mahoney said.

Two of teens died in the kitchen, while a third ran to the driveway before collapsing and 'succumbing to his injuries', the sheriff's office said. They have not been named.

'Preliminary investigation looks like it's self-defense. This may be a case of "stand-your-ground", however, its still too early to say for sure, and were still looking into all aspects of this,' Mahoney told CNN.

Elizabeth Rodriguez (pictured left in mugshot, and right), suspected of being the getaway driver, turned herself in after the shooting

There was no reason to believe the homeowner's son knew the suspected burglars, Mahoney said. The 23-year-old, who has not been charged, cooperated with authorities and gave a formal statement at the sheriff's office.

Both he and his father were uninjured.

The suspected getaway driver, Elizabeth Marie Rodriguez, 21, turned herself in after the shooting.

She has been arrested on three counts of first degree murder and three counts of first degree burglary. No bond has been set.

In Oklahoma, those suspected of committing a felony that results in a death can face murder charges even if they did not kill anyone, FOX23 reported.

The 23-year-old shooter was woken up by the intruders, and opened fire with an AR-15 rifle

Neighbors (above) said they were still in shock. Leon Simmons said his home was broken into a few months ago, but police say it's too early to determine if the incident was linked to others

The incident follows a number of burglaries in the neighborhood, NewsOn6 reports.

Leon Simmons said his home was broken into a few months ago, and added: 'We've noticed a lot more people driving slow through the neighborhood, more than one at a time.'

Authorities said it was too early to determine whether the three teens were responsible for other burglaries.

There was no reason to believe the homeowner's son knew the suspected burglars

Officers are seen surrounding the house in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
The Albany Wendys closed abruptly in January 2015, but the fast food burger chain at 1560 Pacific Blvd. SE was back open for business on Monday.

Shortly after 4 p.m., the restaurant was swamped with customers and the drive-through line nearly circled around the building.

Were excited to be back, said Stephen Harris, chief operating officer for Wendys franchisee Group W Askan, which owns 24 restaurants between Longview, Washington, and Albany. That franchisee came to an agreement with Wendys to relaunch the Albany location about a year ago.

Harris said the business has 45 employees in Albany.

Extensive renovations took place before reopening, including the dining room. We basically gutted the entire kitchen, Harris said. That new kitchen will make things more efficient for staff and help customers get their food fresher and faster, he added.

Chili and Frosty desserts were the top sellers on opening day.

Weve been waiting for Wendys to open up for so long, said Susan Lais of Albany. She and her husband had been getting their Wendys fix in Salem or on the Oregon coast for the last two years.

We like to go to have lunch here and have chili and a little hamburger and a Frosty. Its just perfect, she said.

The food is good. For fast food, its the best, Lais added.

The Wendys in Albany and Corvallis, along with three locations in Eugene, all closed on the same weekend in January 2015. The move came as the company announced that it would close as many as 130 restaurants in the United States as part of its plan to remodel many locations.

The former Wendy's building in Corvallis now houses a Burgerville restaurant.

The Wendys chain includes more than 6,500 franchise and company-owned restaurants in the United States and 29 other countries. It is the worlds third-largest fast food burger chain.

The company plans to add about 1,000 new restaurants by 2020, according to a February news release.

The Albany Wendy's is open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., but the drive-through stays open until midnight.
Sixty one per cent of French people believe Islam is incompatible with their society, according to a new poll.

That figure had been falling sharply until the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January 2015, and has been steadily growing ever since, an Ipsos survey found.

That is compared with six per cent of people who believe Catholicism is incompatible and 17 per cent who believe Judaism is incompatible.

In total 61 per cent of French adults surveyed this month said that the way Islam is practiced today means it is incompatible with their society

An overwhelming 94 per cent of respondents said Catholicism was compatible with French society (top graph), while 83 per cent said Judaism was also compatible (middle graph)

A further 79 per cent of French people supported banning headscarves on university campuses, while another 77 per cent want to see the burkini banned.

France already has a nationwide law banning anyone from wearing a full-face veil, while several French Riviera towns attempted to ban full-body 'burkinis' in 2016, but the law was overturned.

Ipsos polled 1,000 adults over the internet between March 16 and 17, and published the results on Wednesday last week.

The survey shows that French attitudes toward religion are highly conservative, with 90 per cent believing that secularism is vital to the Republic.

The number of people who agreed Islam was compatible with French society (yellow line) peaked in January 2015, but has been falling steadily after a series of jihadist attacks

Three quarter of those surveyed also thought there was too much discussion of religion in politics, and 72 per cent felt politicians should not openly display their religious affiliations.

While just 39 per cent of people believe Islam is compatible with French society, that number is significantly higher than it was in 2013, when just 26 per cent of people agreed with the statement.

The number peaked at 47 per cent in January 2015, around the time of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, and has been steadily falling since, according to Ipsos.
An alleged predator has been caught on camera following his victim in broad daylight before attacking her.

Chilling CCTV footage taken on February 19 shows the man following a woman on a Belmore Road property in Randwick on Sydney's east before indecently assaulting her.

Officers from Eastern Beaches Local Area Command have now launched an investigation into the indecent assault

An alleged predator has been caught on camera following his victim in broad daylight before attacking her

Police have released the footage showing the man they would like to speak to who may be able to assist with the investigation.

He is described as being of Caucasian appearance, aged in his 30s, about 175cm tall and of medium build.

He was last seen wearing a grey shirt, denim shorts and sunglasses.

It is also believed he may have a large tattoo on his left calf.

Police are urging anyone with information in relation to this incident to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or use the Crime Stoppers online reporting page

Chilling CCTV footage taken on February 19 show a man following the woman on a Belmore Road property in Randwick on Sydneys Eastern Beaches
Europe does not need to try and frighten Britain with threats of a punishing Brexit deal, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has warned on a visit to Brussels.

Mr Khan said the EU should act with 'confidence' and seek to strike a deal that worked for both sides.

His intervention comes amid repeated warnings in Brussels that the deal Britain gets should act as a deterrent to any other country leaving the bloc.

Mr Khan is spending the day in Brussels meeting a series of senior officials to lobby for London's interests in the talks, which will be officially triggered tomorrow.

Europe does not need to try and frighten Britain with threats of a punishing Brexit deal, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has warned on a visit to Brussels at which he met Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament's negotiator

After Mr Khan and Mr Verhofstadt's meeting today, the MEP said it was 'not at all' Europe's intention to punish the UK

The London Mayor's first encounter was with Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament's chief negotiator, and he will meet Commission President Jean Claude Junker later.

Mr Verhofstadt insisted it was 'not at all' Europe's intention to punish Britain in a photocall with the mayor.

Mr Khan has been scrambling to try and secure a special status for London and the City as part of the Brexit deal, amid fears major banks could quit for Paris or Frankfurt.

In a speech, he said: 'Now is the time to be confident in the European Union, and to act with confidence.

'There is no need - as some have suggested - for the EU to send a message, or to instil fear, by punishing the UK.

'Because a proud, optimistic and confident institution does not secure its future by fear.'

The intervention, the day before Prime Minister Theresa May is set to invoke Article 50 and formally trigger Brexit, was intended to put the 'emotional' argument for a fair deal between the EU and UK.

Mr Khan used the address to stress that London will remain Europe's only global city after withdrawal, and that both sides need each other to boost their own prosperity.

In a speech in Brussels (pictured) Mr Khan said the EU should act with 'confidence' and seek to strike a deal that worked for both sides

'My city is not only the beating heart of Britain's economy, but the single most important organ for growth across Europe.

'I say this with friendship and all due respect - but a bad Brexit deal that hurts London would hurt the European Union too.'

At the beginning of his speech, Mr Khan called for a moment's silence in honour of the victims of the Westminster terror attack.

In a question-and-answer session at the end of the address, he said Labour should be holding the Government to account 'far better' on Brexit than it is as ministers need greater 'scrutiny'.

'One of the things Parliament should be doing - and that includes the official Opposition - is holding the Government to account far better than we have been. It's not a criticism of the leader of my party Jeremy Corbyn.'

When asked during a photocall with Mr Khan if he intended to punish Britain in the negotiations, Mr Verhofstadt said: 'Not at all.'
Villagers in India have rescued a newborn baby girl who was found buried alive.

The girl, thought to be no more than six hours old, was left to die in a shallow sand pit in a field when a young child spotted her feet poking through the ground on Saturday.

The baby, found in Jajpur district in Odisha state, was rushed to hospital where she remains under observation, officials said.

The area where she was discovered is one of many impoverished states where families hope for sons and go to any lengths possible to avoid having to raise a daughter.

A baby was discovered buried alive in India and was rescued and rushed to hospital

The baby was found with her tiny feet poking through the ground in eastern India

Chief medical officer Jajpur district Fanindra Kumar Panigrahi told AFP: 'She is doing fine and all her parameters are normal. She is a full term baby, weighing around 2.5 kg.

'Her umbilical cord was intact and body was still covered with vernix.'

A witness who helped with the rescue, Alok Rout, said: 'It was a little kid who first saw the feet of the child buried under a compost dump in a field.

'Later we rushed to the spot and rescued the newborn girl.'

He said a group helped rescue the girl who was found with her face covered with a piece of cloth.

Hospital staff have named the girl Dharitri, a Sanskrit word meaning 'the earth'.

The girl will be handed over to the state-run child welfare committee after she is discharged from the Dharmasala hospital.

Police told AFP they suspect the newborn was either abandoned by her parents because of her gender or the mother had been an unmarried woman.

Local police officer Jyoti Prakash Panda said: 'We are trying to track the parents of the girl. Chances are it was a case of female feticide and it is clear that the accused wanted to kill her.'

Police Inspector Amitabh Mohapatra added: 'A case has been lodged against the unidentified parents of the child and family members. An investigation is on to find out where the child was born and under which circumstances it was buried.'

The tiny child, aged just six hours old, was found by villagers having been buried alive

The girl, who was found with her face covered with a piece of cloth, was rescued

India is struggling to bridge the sex ratio gap with tough laws as the country fares badly with 940 females for every 1,000 males, according to the last official census in 2011.

Earlier this month police recovered 19 female fetuses from a sewer in western Maharashtra state and accused a doctor of illegally aborting them for parents desperate for a boy.

On Monday a female fetus was found buried near a sewer in New Delhi after dogs were spotted digging the earth around it.

India banned prenatal sex determination to stop its misuse, although the tests are still thought to be common, particularly in poor rural areas.

A 2011 study in the British medical journal The Lancet found that up to 12 million girls had been aborted in the last three decades in India.
Britain will refuse to pay the EU's 50billion divorce bill, David Davis has insisted - as Germany signalled it is ready to fight for the money in court.

Brussels is set to make the huge demand to cover the bloc's 'liabilities' after Theresa May triggers the formal Brexit process tomorrow.

But the settlement is gearing up to be a major obstacle that could derail negotiations before they get properly under way.

Ministers have indicated they will not agree to hand over more than a few billion pounds, and have received advice that they are under no legal obligation to pay anything.

David Davis made clear the UK would not pay anything like 50billion as he appeared on a BBC Question Time special last night

Theresa May, pictured on a visit to Birmingham today, is due to trigger Article 50 tomorrow

Mr Davis has delivered the clearest message yet that the government will resist the demand as he said he did not expect to see 'that sort of money change hands'.

Speaking on a BBC Question Time Brexit special last night, Mr Davis said: 'The Prime Minister said we are coming to the end of the time when we are paying enormous sums to the EU.

'We will, of course, meet our international obligations but we expect also our rights to be respected too.

'I don't think we are going to be seeing that sort of money change hands.'

European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has confirmed he expects the UK's 'divorce bill' for Brexit will be around 50 billion.

A leaked strategy document for the influential German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble shows Berlin is determined to take a hard line on the issue.

The document, obtained by Handelsblatt newspaper, said the UK was 'not only politically but also legally obliged to pay its debts'.

'Great Britain pays for its share just like the other member states,' the paper said.

It suggests the UK could be forced to pay up under Article 70 of the Vienna treaty convention.

The convention, which Britain signed in 1970, sets out the rules for terminating treaty commitments, with disputes heard at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

It is not clear how any judgement would be enforced - although refusing to comply could be damaging to the UK's global reputation.

A leaked strategy paper prepared for German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble suggests Berlin would take the UK to court

The document also says Germany is concerned that a 'hard Brexit' could trigger a financial crash, and is keen to agree a transitional agreement to avoid an economic shock.

Mr Davis insisted the Government remained committed to striking a comprehensive free-trade agreement with the EU but a 'no deal' situation would not be as bad as critics claimed.

He dismissed EU negotiator Michel Barnier's warnings the UK would not be able to import nuclear fuel and would face queues of lorries at Dover as trade ground to a halt because of the increased bureaucracy.

'We have got a huge contingency plan exercised across all of these issues, every department of government,' he said.

He acknowledged 'no deal is not as easy as some would have you believe' but it would be 'a lot better' than critics had claimed.

Mr Davis was challenged about his desire for a trade deal that will provide the 'exact same benefits' as membership of the single market and customs union.

'One of the problems that happens when democracies negotiate is that the politicians are afraid of raising expectations,' he said.

'The truth is we are negotiating for the future of our country.

'Therefore we want to raise the expectations as much as we possibly can, we want to aim as high as we possibly can.

'I make no apology for being ambitious about what we achieve.'

EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has confirmed that the divorce demand will be in the order of 50billion
A British woman has been found dead in a lorry in France only hours after she survived an apparent suicide attempt on a cross-Channel ferry.

The woman reportedly jumped off the ferry from Newhaven just as it came in to Dieppe on Saturday but was scooped out of the water and was found to be unhurt.

A local newspaper in Dieppe said she later discharged herself from hospital and disappeared .

The woman had survived after jumping from the Newhaven to Dieppe ferry (pictured) as it came into the French port on Saturday

The woman jumped into the water as the ferry came into port in Dieppe (pictured). She survived but has now been found dead

But on Sunday afternoon the woman's body was found in a lorry in Manehouville, about five miles from Dieppe when it stopped at a motorway service station.

It is thought she took her own life after the failed suicide attempt on the ferry.

A prosecutor in Dieppe told the newspaper the woman, who has not been identified, had clearly been 'depressed'.

Questions may well be asked once her identity is known about why the French authorities did not intervene to offer her support after the suicide attempt.

For confidential support call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see www.samaritans.org for details.
A man has been arrested by police investigating the death of an exotic dancer at a Melbourne gentlemen's club.

The 33-year-old man was detained by Victoria Police on Tuesday on suspicion of perjury, the Herald Sun reported.

Briton Stacey Tierney, 29, was found dead inside Dreams Gentlemen's Club on December 19 last year.

Briton Stacey Tierney, 29, (pictured) was found dead inside Dreams Gentlemen's Club on December 19, 2016

Police said they were investigating whether there was drug use at the Dreams Gentlemen's Club on the night Ms Tierney (pictured) died

The cause of her death is unknown.

Ms Tierney is suspected of taking drugs in a restricted part of the club, with illicit substances cleared from the area in an alleged cover-up.

Victoria Police said they were examining whether drugs were used at the club on the night Ms Tierney died.

'Melbourne Crime Investigation Unit detectives are investigating whether there was drug use at the nightclub on the night of the deceased's death,' a Victoria Police spokesperson said.

The Ascot Vale man was released by police after questioning pending a summons charge.

Investigations into Ms Tierney's death are continuing.

Police investigating the death of Stacey Tierney (pictured) have arrested a man on suspicion of perjury
An armed robber was caught on camera holding up a convenience store in Washington DC.

Unfortunately for him, he did not remember to disguise himself until the robbery was already underway.

Police in the city have released a video showing the robbery, which happened at a 7-Eleven store on March 21.

Error: The man was seen approaching the store with his face uncovered in the video released by police

He walked into the Washington DC store with the mask over his head before realizing his mistake

The man pointed a gun at the cashier and demanded cash.

Having walked into the building, in full view of cameras, he only noticed his mask was not on once he was standing at the counter.

He pulled it down, but a full view of his face had already been captured. The robber was seen fleeing the scene of the crime with a handful of money.

Anyone who recognizes the robber has been asked to call DC police on 202-727-9099, or by text message at 50411.

The robber threatened the cashier with a gun, helping himself to bundles of cash
Uber has announced it is withdrawing from Denmark in protest over new laws, which include mandatory fare meters and limits the number of new drivers that can be registered.

The app-based taxi company has come under fire since it went online in Copenhagen - the only Danish city it operates from - back in November 2014.

Local taxi driver unions, politicians and cab firms have complained that Uber posed unfair competition because it did not meet legal standards required for established firms.

Uber allows its drivers to use their private vehicles as cabs, a set-up which critics say allows it to sidestep stringent regulations.

Uber has announced it is withdrawing from Denmark this month in protest over new laws

The taxi giant says it currently has around 2,000 Danish drivers and 300,000 customers. In a statement it said it would be shutting down its services in Denmark on April 18.

It said: 'For us to operate in Denmark again the proposed regulations need to change.

'We will continue to work with the government in the hope that they will update their proposed regulations and enable Danes to enjoy the benefits of modern technologies like Uber.'

Under new laws voted through by politicians, all cars operating as taxis will need a meter and video surveillance, and the number of new drivers that can be licensed has been capped at 125 per quarter.

The company said: 'For us to operate in Denmark again the proposed regulations need to change'

Despite the minority liberal government's ambitions to deregulate the taxi business and accommodate new operations like Uber, the taxi law passed in February introduced measures such as mandatory fare meters and seat sensors.

'It is a shame, that there was not a majority in favour of the government's proposal for a significant liberalisation of the taxi law, which would have made it easier for Uber and similar ride services to operate legally in Denmark,' Transport Minister Ole Birk Olesen said in a statement.

At least three opposition politicians used Twitter on Tuesday to praise Uber's exit.

In November, two Danish Uber drivers were fined for violating taxi laws. The following month, Uber's European division was indicted by Danish public prosecutors for assisting the two drivers in violating taxi laws. The case will come to court by the end of April.

'When they (Uber) started two and a half years ago it was illegal and was ruled illegal several times. The new law has not changed that,' Jan Villadsen, the president of the transport section in Denmark's biggest union 3F, told Reuters.

He said Uber's departure would help 6,000 taxi drivers in Denmark continue making a living.

Uber will keep its software development division in Aarhus in northern Denmark, where it employs 40 people working on its infrastructure software, according to the company website.

Uber said it would allocate resources to help Danish Uber drivers through the shutdown process.
President Donald Trump is proposing immediate budget cuts of $18 billion from programs like medical research, infrastructure and community grants so U.S. taxpayers, not Mexico, can cover the down payment on the border wall.

The White House documents were submitted to Congress amid negotiations over a catchall spending bill that would avert a partial government shutdown at the end of next month.

The package would wrap up $1.1 trillion in unfinished spending bills and address the Trump administration's request for an immediate $30 billion in additional Pentagon spending.

The latest Trump proposal, disclosed Tuesday, would eliminate $1.2 billion in National Institutes of Health research grants, a favorite of both parties.

The community development block grant program, also popular, would be halved, amounting to a cut of $1.5 billion, and Trump would strip $500 million from a transportation project known as TIGER grants.

President Donald Trump wants to cut $18 billion from domestic spending in order to fund his proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border

Trump, shown Tuesday before signing an order that rolled back Obama-era global warming regulations, aims to trim funding from the National Institutes of Health, along with community block grant and transportation grant programs

The National Institutes of Health distributes massive amounts of money every year to fund medical and pharmaceutical research

Like Trump's 2018 proposed budget, which was panned by both Democrats and Republicans earlier this month, the proposals have little chance of being enacted.

But they could create bad political optics for the struggling Trump White House, since the administration asked earlier for $3 billion to pay for the Trump's controversial U.S.-Mexico border wall and other immigration enforcement plans. During the campaign, Trump repeatedly promised Mexico would pay for the wall, a claim the country has disputed.

'The administration is asking the American taxpayer to cover the cost of a wall - unneeded, ineffective, absurdly expensive - that Mexico was supposed to pay for, and he is cutting programs vital to the middle class to get that done,' said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat.

'Build the wall or repair or build a bridge or tunnel or road in your community? What's the choice?'

The roster of cuts were sent to Capitol Hill as a set of options for GOP staff aides and lawmakers crafting a catchall spending bill for the ongoing budget year, which ends Sept. 30.

Those talks are intensifying, but Senate Republicans are considering backing away from a showdown with Democrats over whether to fund Trump's request for immediate funding to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Senate Democrats have threatened to filibuster any provision providing money for the wall.

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blasted Trump's priorities, saying fixing crumbling bridges and roads should come before erecting a border wall

U.S. Navy veteran Stephen Matthews receives a monthly check from a community grant program that pays about two-thirds of his rent  a homelessness prevention program that could get the axe to pay for Trump's wall

Asked about including Southern border wall financing in the broader spending package, Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, a key negotiator, said.

'They will not pass together. That's just my view.'

Blunt added, 'My view is there's a path to get 60 votes' in the Senate, the total required to overcome a Democratic filibuster. Blunt is a member of the Senate GOP leadership team and a major player on health and human services accounts.

The government would shut down except for some functions at midnight April 28 without successful action on spending. GOP leaders are eager to avoid a politically damaging shutdown, especially in the wake of last week's embarrassing failure to pass the Trump-pushed bill to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama's health care law.

Negotiators have made progress on the core elements of a dozen must-do funding bills but have ignored the White House's list of cuts in doing so.

President Donald Trump's first budget hit Capitol Hill last week, and was immediately declared 'dead on arrival' by Democrats and Republicans alike

But the White House badly wants funding for the Mexico wall and hasn't fully engaged in the Capitol Hill negotiations. Pitfalls lay ahead in the talks, and the situation is especially fragile because of divisions among GOP ranks and uncertainty over who's playing the lead role at the White House on the particulars of budget work.

According to new details sent to Congress, the administration wants immediate funds to complete an existing barrier in the Rio Grande Valley, $500 million to complete 28 miles of border levee wall near McAllen, Texas, and $350 million for construction along two segments near San Diego.

Other cuts include $434 million to immediately eliminate a program to encourage community service opportunities for senior citizens, eliminating $372 million in remaining funding for heating subsidies for the poor, and cutting $447 million in transit grants.

White House budget office spokesman John Czwartacki said the proposals were not being shared with the media. A Capitol Hill aide described the cuts to The Associated Press, speaking only on condition of anonymity because the budget document is not yet public.
A 24-year-old man was charged Tuesday with murder and being a felon in possession of a firearm in the wake of a shooting incident Monday night in Sweet Home.

Trevor Paul Webb, of Sweet Home, was formally charged Tuesday during an appearance in Linn County Circuit Court.

Judge DeAnn Novotny ordered Webb held without bail.

Webb was arrested Tuesday afternoon after Ryan Tyler Chamberlain, 36, was found Monday night in the front seat of a vehicle in Sweet Home, after having been shot several times. He was transported from the scene and later died at Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital.

Chamberlain was believed to be a transient, living between Sweet Home and Scio.

Sweet Home police responded to the incident after getting several reports of gunshots about 6:35 p.m. in the 1600 block of 13th Avenue.

The arrest came after several hours of interviews with detectives.

Webb, originally from Pahrump, Nevada, pleaded guilty in 2010 to second-degree rape, second-degree sodomy, and second-degree unlawful sexual penetration. He served 18 months each, concurrent, for those offenses.

At the arraignment, Webb confirmed he is on parole for those convictions, which could affect his sentence should he be found guilty in this case.

The next hearing in the case is set for May 2.
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Barriers have been put in place around Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace following last week's terror attack outside Parliament.

The additional security measures in Windsor were introduced to protect the 'Changing the Guard' ceremonies following a review by Thames Valley Police.

Meanwhile in London, a ring of huge metal bollards has been installed outside Buckingham Palace to prevent a car mounting the pavement.

It comes after terrorist Khalid Masood ploughed into more than 50 pedestrians, killing three, last Wednesday, before stabbing a police officer to death outside the Houses of Parliament.

New barriers have been put up outside Windsor Castle in the wake of the London terror attack which killed four and injured 50

The barriers are said to be to increase safety at the town's Changing of the Guard events which are popular with tourists

The local police chief said there was no highlighted threat to the castle but the gates had been brought in following a review

The gates will allow police to completely close off the road to traffic when necessary, such as during the guard ceremonies

Bollards and armed police are also in place at the entrance to the world-famous castle, which receives millions of visitors

The Changing of the Guard events - which take place on most weekdays during the summer - are watched by thousands

The Changing the Guard ceremony - which takes place on most week days - is hugely popular with tourists and more than 1.3 million people visit the castle every year.

Thames Valley Police chief constable Dave Hardcastle said there had been no evidence of a threat to Windsor Castle but recent events had highlighted the need for added security.

He said: 'While there is no intelligence to indicate a specific threat to Windsor, recent events in Westminster clearly highlight the need for extra security measures to be introduced.

'The Force believes that it is proportionate and necessary to put in place extra security measures to further protect and support the public and the Guard Change. This is consistent with security deployments in London.

'Preventative measures such as these have been put in place across the UK over the past 10 years at various events.

'The national threat level remains severe, which it has been since 2014, and I would urge the public to be alert to the threat of terror attacks but not alarmed, and to remain vigilant.'

But not all residents of the Berkshire town are happy. One tweeted police asking: 'What law allows you to install ugly barriers with two hours notice, remove half of residents parking bays?'

Another, Shami Kalra, added: 'Sad times that our beautiful streets of Windsor are now lined with anti-terrorist barriers.'

Some residents of the picturesque Berkshire town say the steel barriers are 'ugly' and have reduced parking on some streets

Others say that, while they reduce the chances of an attacker using a vehicle, a marauding terrorist could still attack on foot

Security gates designed to stop cars are also in place around Buckingham Palace in the wake of last week's attack

The gates are designed to allow people to enter the Palace grounds but prevent vehicles driving along pavements

A surge in the number of armed and unarmed officers has also been announced by the Met Police in the wake of the attack

It comes after Khalid Masood drove through crowds in Westminster, killing four and injuring more than 50 last Wednesday

Town resident Nigel Kenyon also pointed out that the large barriers would only be of help in deterring vehicle attacks like that which took place in London last week.

He told ABC News he hoped the measures would make the town safer, but added: 'One person could walk around them or come over the fields, the Great Park is behind the castle which belongs to the Queen and is open to everyone.'

Security has been beefed-up across the capital in the wake of the Westminster terror attack, but some of the toughest barriers have been put out near the Queen's palace.

The bright arches, as well as steel barriers on The Mall, appeared overnight on Friday on the paved area linking Green Park and Constitution Hill.

Commenting on the measures at Buckingham Palace, Scotland Yard spokesman said: 'It's security measures put in place but not in response to any threat.

'Buckingham Palace is obviously a high profile area that is going to benefit from them. There is no intelligence to suggest a threat to these spots.'

Armed officers and police on horseback were also patrolling outside Buckingham Palace as tourists strolled in the area today

Officers with guns also remained at the entrance to Parliament after questions were raised over security last Wednesday

Last Wednesday's attack has raised questions over whether more officers in the capital and at landmarks should be armed

It comes after the number of armed police on patrol in the capital was doubled and blast and bullet resistant 'Guardian' trucks were stationed in Parliament Square.

The seven-tonne vehicles, which can cost more than 100,000, can carry eight offices and have bullet-proof tyres, a blast-resistant floor and can withstand bullets from AK47s, grenades and bombs.

Police patrolling outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh will be armed with tasers, it emerged today.

Despite the new measures, there have been warnings that officers in other areas of Scotland are not equipped to respond to a fast-moving attack such as last week's terrorist incident in London.

Two officers equipped with Tasers will be on duty at Holyrood at any one time, with the site covered 24 hours a day, it is understood.

The officers deployed will be fully-trained firearms officers carrying Tasers only.

Armoured vehicles guarded roads around Parliament Square last week in a show of force in the wake of Wednesday's terror attack

The heavy-duty vans, called 'Guardians', were rolled out by police in Parliament Square to enhance security last week

Pictured: Armed police outside New Scotland Yard last wek. The number of armed officers in the capital has been doubled

The Met's 'Guardian' vans protecting London The Jankel Guardian is based on a 4x4 Ford F-450 Super Duty truck.

It is equipped with a 6.0-litre V8 turbodiesel 129bhp 4,164cc diesel engine.

Bars on the front to punch through barricades.

It weighs 6,804kg.

7.62 calibre bullet protection.

Armour protection.

Bullet-proof glass and tyres.

Blast-resistant floor. Advertisement

Other firearms officers, while not deployed inside Holyrood, are believed to be in the vicinity of the parliament building and the wider government estate in Edinburgh.

But Calum Steele, head of the Scottish Police Federation (SPF), said: 'We know that batons don't work, we know that in 40% of cases spray doesn't work, we know that unarmed police officers are not only sent to incidents of knives but also to reports of firearms. That's a disgraceful position to find ourselves in and it's unforgivable.

'The events at Westminster took place in less than 90 seconds and were able to be brought to an end because hundreds of officers were in the vicinity.

'No police force in the world can stop those kind of events, but police should be given the equipment they need to protect themselves and the public if events unfold quickly.

Last Wednesday, Khalid Masood, 52, killed three and injured about 50 people after driving a car into pedestrians on London's Westminster Bridge before fatally stabbing a policeman in the grounds of parliament before he was shot dead. Detectives said they believe he was acting alone.

Officers with tasers outside the Scottish Parliament today. Fears have been raised that forces north of the border are ill-equipped to deal with a similar attack to that which took place in London
Carlos the Jackal, once the world's most-wanted terrorist, was today given another life sentence for a deadly attack on a Paris shopping arcade in 1974.

The Venezuelan-born Ilich Ramirez Sanchez is already serving two life sentences in France for murders and attacks he perpetrated or organised on behalf of the Palestinian cause or of communist revolution in the 1970s and '80s.

Today he was found guilty of a grenade attack on Publicis, a pharmacists, that claimed two lives and injured 34 on September 15, 1974.

One of his lawyers, Francis Vuillemin, said the conviction was wrong and would simply feed his 'cult status'.

The press gave him his nickname after a reporter saw a copy of Frederick Forsyth's novel The Day of the Jackal at his London flat and mistakenly assumed it belonged to Carlos.

A courtroom sketch of Venezuelan-born Ilich Ramirez Sanchez known as Carlos the Jackal, during his trial in Paris

The bombing at Publicis in Paris (pictured left) claimed two lives and injured 34 on September 15, 1974. Carlos the Jackal (right) claimed to be fighting for the liberation of Palestine

At the time of the attack, Carlos was a 24-year-old volunteer with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

The 67-year-old has admitted to killing 80 people in various terrorist incidents but said todays verdict was absurd because 'there is no evidence against me whatsoever'.

Prosecutor Remi Crosson du Cormier said: All evidence gathered in this investigation points to Carlos and recommended he spend the rest of his life in a high security prison.

Carlos's former allies in the PFLP are long dead or have abandoned him and there is little risk of him being sprung from jail.

At the start of the trial, Carlos had boasted: No one in the Palestinian resistance has executed more people than I have but he said he faced death if he divulged operational information.

Ramirez, 67, is already serving a life sentence for the murders of two policemen in Paris in 1975 as well as that of a former comrade who betrayed him

He told the court: 'You don't snitch, and you don't cooperate with a court you don't recognise.'

Among those defending him was Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, a lawyer he married in prison in 2001.

He carried the mission out in the name of Palestinian liberation at a time when the Arab-Israeli conflict was being fought on the streets of Paris.

When police arrived at the scene of the attack, they found a devastated shopping centre with all the windows shattered, multiple bloodstains and a hole in the marble slab of the ground floor where the grenade had landed.

The two men who died were hit by metal chips that perforated vital organs and caused internal bleeding.

Georges Holleaux, a lawyer representing the widows of the men and 16 survivors, said before the trial his clients relished the chance of seeing Carlos face justice.

The case took so long to go to trial because it was first dismissed for lack of evidence before being reopened when Carlos was arrested and imprisoned in France.

Ten months before the Paris attack Carlos had shot Joseph Sieff, the owner of Marks & Spencer and vice president of the British Zionist Federation, in London. Sieff died of his injuries nine years later.

Carlos claimed he could not be expected to mount a serious defence for a crime which happened 42 years ago

Carlos the Jackal has now received a third life term for the grenade attack on the Paris branch of Publicis (pictured above)

The US-made hand grenade used in the Publicis attack (pictured above) came from the same batch as three grenades used in an attack in The Hague and another one found in a Paris apartment used by Carlos

His lawyers repeatedly argued against holding a trial, arguing the attack was too long ago and that it won't make a difference for Carlos, already in prison for life.

The world's most wanted fugitive in the 1970s and early 1980s has been in prison in France since his arrest in the Sudanese capital Khartoum in 1994 by French elite police.

He was convicted in 1997 of murdering two French police officers and an informant in 1975 in Paris and in 2011 of masterminding attacks on two trains, a train station and a Paris street that killed 11 people and wounded about 150 more.

He sealed his notoriety in 1975 with the hostage-taking of OPEC oil ministers in Vienna in the name of the Palestinian struggle, and went on to become an international gun-for-hire with Soviet bloc protectors.

The world's most wanted fugitive in the 1970s and early 1980s (pictured above in 1996) has been in prison in France since his arrest in the Sudanese capital Khartoum in 1994 by French elite police

In the 1970s and '80s, the Marxist militant and self-dubbed 'elite gunman' became a symbol of Cold War anti-imperialism and public enemy number one for Western governments.

Carlos was finally arrested in Sudan by the French intelligence services in 1994, 20 years after his first mission on French soil.

Investigators say they have established links between the Publicis case, Carlos, and a hostage-taking at the French Embassy in The Hague two days previously by the Japanese Red Army militant group.

The US-made hand grenade used in the Publicis attack came from the same batch as three grenades used in The Hague attack and another grenade found in a Paris apartment used by Carlos, investigators say.

Some years later, in a newspaper interview which Carlos now denies having given, he was quoted as claiming responsibility for the Publicis attack, saying its aim was to put pressure on French authorities to wrap up negotiations with the hostage-takers in The Hague.
Two Miami-Dade County police officers have been wounded in what authorities called 'an ambush-style' shooting.

Authorities say the plainclothes officers, who are part of the Homicide Task Force Gang-Unit, were shot Monday night while investigating at the Annie Coleman Apartments on the city's north side.

John Rivera, president of the Miami-Dade police union, said six men walked toward the unmarked car and opened fire. At least one of the officers returned fire, he said.

Miami-Dade Police Director Juan Perez said fellow officers used a pickup truck to bring their wounded colleagues to Jackson Memorial Hospital. Perez said they are listed in stable condition and expected to survive.

The suspects involved in the shooting are still at large.

Two police officers were shot and wounded in an ambush-style attack in Miami-Dade county

Miami Dade Police Director Juan Perez, pictured, said both undercover officers were in a stable condition following last night's shooting which he said was an 'ambush-style' attack

No suspects were arrested. Perez urged anyone with information about the shooting to contact authorities.

In a press conference outside the hospital broadcast on Miami Dade's Facebook page, Perez said: 'Today we had a very scary incident. Obviously, we have two of our officers that work in the homicide task force, part of the gang unit, conducting an investigation near the Annie Coleman apartments. The end result of their operation was that they were apparently shot in an ambush-style attack.'

Perez said the shooting was unprovoked and it is not known whether the attackers knew the plainclothes officers were police.

He said: 'These people, if they are willing to do that to our own officers, are causing havoc in our community, causing chaos in people's live, putting people below the ground. That's what these guys are, murders in our community. So let's work together to find a resolution to what occurred tonight.'

The officers were taken from the scene, pictured, to hospital by colleagues in a pick up truck

According to CBS Miami, one of the officers returned fire, although it is not known whether they hit the suspect.

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez continued: 'As the director said, this was a brazen act of violence committed against two of our finest officers. They're there trying to protect us and this community, and they were ambushed and we're not gonna tolerate it.'

Senator Marco Rubio called for the public's assistance on Twitter following the attack.

He tweeted: 'Our prayers with the officers from@MiamiDadePD ambushed last night by thugs. Need public help to find the attackers.'

Perez and Gimenez said anyone with information on the attackers should contact Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers on (305) 471-TIPS.
A double-amputee who lost both legs during Saddam Hussein's reign of terror has dedicated his life to dismantling around two million landmines.

Hoshyar Ali Abdul, who served as a general in the Peshmerga army, first lost a leg to a mine in 1989 during a long war against Hussein's Ba'athist regime.

After leaving the guerilla army, which continues to wage war on ISIS, brave Abdul began travelling around Kurdistan dismantling the weapons which littered the countryside.

But just five years later, the 54-year-old Kurdish Iraqi's second leg was blown off as he trawled through a field looking for explosives.

Hoshyar Ali Abdul, who lost both legs during Saddam Hussein's reign of terror, has dedicated his life to dismantling around two million landmines

He served as a general in the Peshmerga army and first lost a leg to a mine in 1989 during a long war against Hussein's Ba'athist regime

Despite his disability, and with the use of a pair of prosthetics gifted by the Japanese government, he continued to put his skills to good use.

He has removed an estimated two million bombs and then taken them apart in his family home.

He said: 'When I dismantle a mine, I feel I have saved a life. If I was from Europe, I would have the Nobel Peace Prize.

'I lost my first leg to an Italian-made mine, near Bamo [in Iran] in 1989.

'When I lost my second leg I thought I was done for. Japan gave me another leg so that I can serve my country and I thank them.'

In 1994, after his second leg was blown off by an American-made landmine, Abdul was flown to Japan where he was given a second prosthetic and rehabilitation.

Although Abdul has survived two landmine explosions and years of fighting as a Peshmerga soldier, sadly his teenage son was not as fortunate.

His child died aged just 15 in a car accident - and Abdul paid tribute with an image of him taped to one of the rockets in his collection.

Just five years later, the 54-year-old's second leg was blown off as he trawled a field looking for explosives. (pictured with his two-year-old son Barez)

He was also shot by one of Saddam Hussein's snipers after he was injured by a mine in 1989 (pictured, the scar left by the bullet)

One of the rockets in his collection has an image of his dead son (pictured left), who died in a car accident at 15, taped to it

For more than 20 years, he has developed his skills dismantling arms, which he learnt in the mountains between Iran and Kurdistan which were bombarded with explosives.

His house, shared with wife Gelas and their two-year-old son Barez, was home to a collection of AK-47 assault rifles, a Baretta pistol and landmines made in Germany, Italy and the US, relics of his vocation.

Abdul owns a collection of 33,000 German landmines, as well as taking apart 2,000 shells used by ISIS, of which some contained chemical weapons.

His parents and sisters were among the victims of chemical weapons attacks which shocked the world when they were used by Saddam Hussein, in a campaign known as Anfal, widely recognised as genocide.

Abdul's disabled veteran Peshmerga ID card marks him out as a General

For more than 20 years, he has developed his skills dismantling arms, which he learnt in the mountains between Iran and Kurdistan which were bombarded with explosives (pictured left, as a Peshmerga, and right, looking for IED's left by a retreating Da'esh, in 2014)

Abdul said: 'Human lives are getting cheaper. Chemical weapons still exist in this world and adds more pain to my life.'

A self-taught weapons expert, Abdul said he learnt to apply his skills to new weapons he had not encountered before.

In the three years before he became a double amputee, Abdul travelled all over the country learning to dismantle new devices.

It was a skill he hoped to pass onto his children, and he even visited Vietnam, the country most with landmines, to use his talents there.

In 1994, after his second leg was blown off by an American-made landmine, Abdul was flown to Japan where he was given a second prosthetic and rehabilitation

Abdul owns a collection of 33,000 German landmines, as well as taking apart 2,000 shells used by ISIS, of which some contained chemical weapons (pictured in Japan)

Abdul said: 'I do this in the name of humanity and in the name of God. How can I stop?'

It has emerged that he also saved animals thanks to his D.I.Y training, learnt in the army during the Iran-Iraq war.

A herd of 16 grazing cows strayed into a minefield in a nearby village, and the majority of those had already been injured by munitions.

Clearance agencies demanded a helicopter should be scrambled, but Abdul took a simpler approach.

He said: 'I went on a donkey for free and rescued the cows before more where hurt.'

In the three years before he became a double amputee, Abdul travelled all over the country learning to dismantle new devices (pictured giving a lecture at one of his 177 schools, in practical safety around landmines)

It was a skill he hoped to pass onto his children, and he even visited Vietnam, the country most with landmines, to use his talents there
A Russian actress filming a major new BBC drama in London is complaining that she cannot sleep because of the political demonstrations outside her hotel.

Maria Shukshina, 50, is one of the stars of new crime drama McMafia and is staying at an unnamed central London hotel, close to Buckingham Palace.

However, she said the perfect location of her luxury hotel has one downside - she continuously finds herself in the middle of protests.

Kept awake: Maria Shukshina, 50, is one of the stars of new crime drama McMafia and is staying at an unnamed central London hotel, close to Buckingham Palace

She said the perfect location of her luxury hotel has one downside - she continuously finds herself in the middle of protests (pictured)

'There is another demonstration under my balcony. This time it is a pro-European march,' she complained.

'They woke me up yet again when I have a day off.'

Shukshina added that she had never expected that she would have witnessed so many scenes of political unrest in London.

The actress is the daughter of the late Russian writer, film director and actor Vasiliy Shukshin and his widow, the actress Lidiya Fedoseyeva-Shukshina, 78.

She is due to stay in London until filming on McMafia is completed in the capital in late April.

Shukshina (pictured) is one of the stars of new crime drama McMafia and is staying at an unnamed central London hotel, close to Buckingham Palace

The demonstrations in front of Shukshina's London hotel that she says are keeping her awake

The series is a major new BBC production starring War and Peace and Happy Valley actor James Norton as the son of Russian exiles trying to distance himself from his family's criminal past.

Shukshina plays his on-screen mother while the drama also stars Game Of Thrones actress Faye Marsay, The Bourne Ultimatum's David Strathairn and Juliet Rylance, from The Knick.

James Watkins, who directed 2012 movie The Woman In Black, joined forces with Oscar-nominated screenwriter Hossein Amini to create the TV series which is based on the best-selling novel by Misha Glenny.
Rachel Dolezal, the former NAACP leader who was unmasked as a white woman in 2015, has been attacked on Twitter after claiming that the 'idea of race is a lie'.

Dolezal, 39, claimed that ethnicity is not biological and compared being 'transracial' to being transgender in an interview with BBC's Newsnight on Monday.

Following the interview, Twitter users criticized Dolezal's comments, accusing her of using 'white privilege' to make her arguments.

Dolezal, from Spokane, Washington, said in the interview: 'Gender is understood  we've progressed, we've evolved to understanding that gender is not binary.'

Rachel Dolezal, the former NAACP leader who was unmasked as a white woman in 2015, claimed that ethnicity is not biological and compared being 'transracial' to being transgender in an interview with BBC's Newsnight on Monday

She added: 'It's not even biological. But what strikes me as so odd is that race isn't biological either.

'And actually race has been to some extent less biological than gender, if you really think about history and our bodies.

'There isn't, like, white blood and black blood.'

Critics online said that Dolezal was using cultural appropriation to become a black woman, and that Dolezal wanted to 'steal things from other cultures to be trendy'.

One person said that people can't 'become black' because 'at any moment what "makes" blackness can be erased'.

Some argued that the idea of being 'transracial' was 'only available to white people'.

This isn't the first time Dolezal compared acting as a black woman to being transgender.

In 2015, she likened her situation to that of Caitlyn Jenner, who announced she was transitioning from male to female in April of that year.

Following the interview, Dolezal, pictured above left with BBC presenter Emily Maitlis, was accused of cultural appropriation and wanting to 'steal things from other cultures to be trendy' by acting as a black woman

Dolezal told the Guardian that comparisons could be drawn with the 66-year-old former Olympian - arguing that people should not be defined by who or what they were at birth.

Dolezal said: 'Caitlyn Jenner has not been seen as a woman, and treated as a woman by other people, for her entire life. So what does that mean? What if somebody transitions as a teenager and their entire adult life we know them as a woman.

'I hope we can reach some kind of term for the plurality of people and allow everybody to be exactly who they are on the spectrum of all these things. Religion, gender, race.'

Dolezal also suggested people were 'operating on an autopilot that race is coded in your DNA'.

As she was: Dolezal was an ordinary white girl with blonde hair as a teenager

'What I believe about race is that race is not real. It's not a biological reality. It's a hierarchical system that was created to leverage power and privilege between different groups of people.'

Dolezal said she has been unable to find steady work in the nearly two years since her background became public in media reports, and she is uncertain about her future.

In her BBC interview, Dolezal explained how she's been ostracized since it was revealed that she was a white woman.

She said: 'I'm so stigmatized right now - not just at large, but especially in this town where I have to stay here in this region, to be a mother. It's a very hostile environment.

'Some people stopped me in the grocery store and say like: "Oh my goodness! Did you know that you look like that one white woman who said she was black but she wasn't?" and then laugh.

"You know, and it's just like: "Ahhh that's interesting" is what I say. And then they say: 'Oh, it's not a bad thing because she was quite pretty!"'

The disgraced civil rights activist is officially on the comeback trail and back in the spotlight, ahead of the release of the book on Tuesday.

The most unapologetic excerpts are two of the chapter titles chosen by the 40-year-old: 'Escaping to Africa (in My Head)' and 'Hustling to Make a Dollar'.

The former NAACP leader, who still says she 'identifies' as black despite being 'Caucasian biologically', uses these chapters to compare her childhood chores to slave labor.

Dolezal is estranged from her parents and they have never met her one-year-old son Langston, a friend tells DailyMail.com

Explosive snippets of a memoir by Rachel Dolezal - the former head of Spokane, Washington's NAACP chapter who claimed to be black before her parents 'outed' her as white - have been released

Dolezal posted this picture on social media recently of her posing with two copies of her memoir. It is set for release on March 28

'It wouldn't have been too much of a stretch to call me an indentured servant,' she wrote.

Warming to her theme, she tries to claim that she developed a 'similar resourcefulness' that slaves were forced to develop because of the way her parents made her to do housework.

THE TIMELINE OF RACHEL DOLEZAL June 2009: Dolezal makes one of her first TV appearances, with KHQ network. September and November 2009: The then-director of the Human Rights Education Institute in Coeur d'Alene claims she found a noose hanging on her door, and that swastika was drawn on the build where she worked. April 2011: Dolezal is working with the NAACP in Washington state during the time that a march in downtown Spokane after a bomb was found on MLK Day. April 2014: She, 'applies for the Citizen Commission of Spokane Police Ombudsman, and under ethnic origins she checks 'White', 'black', 'two or more races' and 'American Indian',' KHQ reports. November 2014: Dolezal helps organize a rally in Ferguson, MO, after the death of Michael Brown. February 2015: A threatening message littered with racial abuse is sent to Dolezal at the Spokane NAACP office. 'It's deeply concerning, but I'm committed to living my life and not hiding in fear. So I will continue to fight for justice,' she said at the time. June 2015: Dolezal's parents finally speak out and break their silence, revealing their daughter is white, and has been misrepresenting her race for years. As for why they never spoke up before, they said, 'no one asked'. Advertisement

She claims this everyday rite of passage for modest children was similar to 'the institution of chattel slavery in America'.

Her claims about her parents are a lengthy attack on how they brought her up, starting with a claim that she was born in a teepee.

Throughout her childhood, she claims, she felt that she was black - even though she did not meet a single black person until she was ten.

She had blond hair and freckles while growing up near Troy, Montana. She says it was a 'painfully white world', which she eventually left behind.

When she was a teenager, her parents adopted four black children, and she felt 'closer to something that felt oddly familiar'.

But even that warrants an attack on her parents because she claims the adoption was solely to benefit from tax breaks.

Dolezal says it wasn't until she was able attend college that she was able to express herself as a black woman.

She attended Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi, for her bachelor's degree, then went on to get her Master of Fine Arts from the historically black college Howard University in Washington, DC.

Dolezal had married Kevin Moore in 2000, when he was a medical student at Howard University. They divorced in 2004, which is when she decided to become publicly black.

The ruse worked for years until 2015 when her parents, with whom she has long feuded, told local reporters their daughter was born white but was presenting herself as a black activist in the Spokane region, an area with few minorities.

The story became an international sensation, and Dolezal lost the various jobs by which she pieced together a modest living for her family.

Attacked by both blacks and whites, she was fired as head of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP and kicked off a police ombudsman commission, and she lost her job teaching African studies at Eastern Washington University in nearby Cheney.

Dolezal said she wrote the book because she wanted to 'set the record straight' to both the black and white communities. She also said she wanted to 'open up this dialogue about race and identity, and to just encourage people to be exactly who they are'

Dolezal's mother also showed reporters this photo in 2015 of her daughter's 2000 marriage in Mississippi (she is pictured at center and her parents are standing on either side). She is now divorced but has three children

She could not even get a job in a grocery store, she claims.

Despite failing to find a job, Dolezal says she has to stay in the area because of a custody agreement involving one of her sons.

But overall, she described her 'blackness' as a positive.

'Living as a Black woman made my life infinitely better. It also made it infinitely harder, thanks to other people's racist perceptions of me,' she wrote.

Rachel Dolezal's book (pictured) - In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World - is due to hit the shelves on March 28

'The Blacker I became - not just in the clothes I wrote or the books I read but in terms of how I was being seen and treated - the more distant and isolated I felt from white people.

'[I stopped] feeling obligated to check WHITE on medical forms, and once I started claiming my identity and checking BLACK, any whiteness I possessed became invisible.'

But now Dolezal says she has been unable to find steady work in the nearly two years since she was outed as a white woman in local media reports, and she is uncertain about her future.

'I was presented as a con and a fraud and a liar,' Dolezal, said. 'I think some of the treatment was pretty cruel.'

'People didn't seem able to consider that maybe both were true,' she said. 'OK, I was born to white parents, but maybe I had an authentic black identity.'

She has sold some of her artwork, and also braids hair to earn money. But she said local colleges have refused to hire her, as have nonprofits, government agencies and even local grocery stores.

She was worried she might become homeless in March, but friends bought some of her artwork, which provided enough money to pay the rent for a few months.

Dolezal said it is hard for her to look toward the future when she is struggling so hard to survive the present.
Mohamed Amrani, 53, allegedly sexually assaulted five women at work and assumed they would not dare to complain

One of Britain's top heart surgeons sexually assaulted five women at work after assuming they would not dare to complain about a doctor of his 'well-deserved renown', a court heard.

Mohamed Amrani, 53, allegedly raped one victim in his office during a campaign of 'sexual bullying' at Harefield Hospital in Hillingdon, west London.

The consultant surgeon, whose wife worked part-time at Harefield, also groped three other women there over a 13 year period between 2001 and 2014.

He was finally reported to his bosses after he patted the bottom of a fifth victim at the Cromwell private hospital in Kensington, southwest London, in June 2014.

The pioneering surgeon performed the UK's first double valve replacement using keyhole surgery in 2007 and has carried out many life-saving operations during his career.

Prosecutor Peter Clement told the Old Bailey that Amrani was 'a leading heart and transplant surgeon of well-deserved renown'.

He said: 'Mohammed Amrani was held in the highest regard by those who worked with him.

'But there was another side to him: One who exhibited sexualised behaviour.

'It wasn't just banter, it was obscene and descended to assaults by way of grabbing (victims') breasts - over and under clothing - of grabbing their genitalia; of patting another's backside and in the case of one digitally penetrating her vagina and anus before raping her in his office at the hospital.'

Mr Clement said that most of his victims decided not to make a formal complaint at the time.

The prosecutor added: 'His position conferred a high degree of authority, power and trust.

'He breached all three for his own sexual gratification confident that those whom he assaulted would not dare make a formal complaint.

'He was right in his assumption but only for a period of time.'

Giving evidence, one alleged victim said she was first attacked between 2001 and 2002. She told the Old Bailey: 'He just reached out and grabbed my breasts.

'I was just shocked. I just slapped him away, waved my arms around. There was plenty of room to get past him. I basically legged it out the room.'

Asked if she had made a formal complaint, she said: 'No. I didn't feel it would ever be taken very seriously. The surgeons are all powerful. I felt it wasn't really worth my time.'

She added: 'There would be a lot of shouting. Stamping his foot. He was a very very successful surgeon. He is very good at what he does.

'Like most surgeons though, he promises the earth to his patients. But he took on many many more patients than he could physically operate on.'

She said: 'We had an awful lot of very sick patients being bumped and bumped. Dying on the waiting list, all of that sort of behaviour.'

The court heard that after raping one woman in his office, he forced her to carry out a sex act on him.

In early 2014, he attacked another woman in a hospital corridor, jurors were told.

Prosecutor Peter Clement said: 'The defendant leapt out and grabbed her breasts over her clothing and squeezed her nipples hard.

'He asked her if she liked it. Unsurprisingly, she said 'no' and pulled away from him, and he scuttled off.'

She did not formally complain, the court heard.

But he later said to her 'you do realise I will f**** you sooner or later', the jury was told. The woman subsequently told the police.

In June 2014, he was at the Cromwell private hospital in Kensington, west London when he attacked another woman, the court heard.

Mr Clement said: 'Suddenly, without a word, she felt an open handed pat on her backside. She turned to slap the defendant across his face but he ducked.'

The incident was reported to the police, the prosecutor said.

Mr Clement added: 'It was an opportunistic, deliberate touch of that lady's backside without warning, without a word and without her consent.'

Amrani brazenly repeated his assaults on one victim over an eight month period, the court heard.

Mohamed Amrani, 53, allegedly raped one victim in his office during a campaign of 'sexual bullying' at Harefield Hospital in Hillingdon, west London

Jurors heard that the woman described him as 'charming and funny' but also equipped with an explosive temper.

She was first assaulted when he suddenly reached out and grabbed her breasts without warning in 2003.

On one occasion he even assaulted her in front of a colleague, jurors were told.

Mr Clement said: 'It was, suggest the prosecution, sexual bullying of a high order by a man confident that his seniority would ensure his targets' silence.'

Amrani was arrested in May 2015 after the alleged rape victim made a formal complaint to the Harefield hospital.

He had attacked the woman in his office in September 2013 moments after telling her: 'I'm going to f*** you'.

She begged him: 'No, please don't' but he ignored her and pushed her down on the sofa in the room.

Amrani then forced her to perform oral sex, it was said.

Mr Clement said: 'Consent didn't enter into it. He couldn't care less about her wishes, he cared only about himself.

The surgeon then answered a call on his mobile phone before leaving his office.

He later made a series of comments to the victim and flicked her ear, it is claimed.

A few months later he asked her 'What did it taste like?'

Mr Clement said: 'He sought to belittle - to bully - her.'

The woman made a formal complaint to the Harefield in February 2015 and Amrani was arrested in May that year.

The consultant surgeon, whose wife worked part-time at Harefield (pictured), also groped three other women there over a 13 year period between 2001 and 2014

In his police interview Amrani denied any sexual contact with the woman, who was the third of the five victims.

The police were at that time not aware of the other alleged victims.

It is claimed that in early 2014 Amrani jumped out at the fourth victim in the hospital corridor and squeezed her nipples hard.

He then asked her if she liked it, to which she replied 'No' and pulled away, jurors heard.

Amrani later told her: 'You do realise I will f*** you sooner or later.'

This woman went to police after learning of the allegations made by the alleged rape victim.

The fifth victim also revealed she had been patted on the bottom by Amrani at the Cromwell private hospital on 7 June 2014.

She tried to slap him across the face but he ducked, jurors heard.

The fifth victim later reported the incident to the Trust and the complaint was passed to police even though the woman did not regard it as sexual or an assault.

Mr Clement said: 'It was an opportunistic, deliberate touch of that lady's backside without warning, without a word and without her consent.'

In a further police interview Amrani denied touching the first, second and fourth victims and claimed they had invented the allegations.

During his third police interview Amrani also denied touching the fifth victim and said he was surprised by her complaint.

Mr Clement told jurors: 'You will no doubt want to ask yourselves whether each complainant has made up their allegations.

'You may want to ask yourselves also, why should each make them up? What is in it for them in making criminal complaints so long after the event?'

The surgeon claims that all five women have made up their allegations.

The trial continues.
Federal immigration officials say an agent shot and wounded a man after he pointed a gun at agents trying to make an arrest in a Chicago home, but the injured man's family insist he was unarmed and targeted for no apparent reason.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the special agent was attempting to arrest someone Monday morning around 6:20am when a second person, identified by family as 53-year-old Felix Torres, pointed a weapon at agents.

ICE officials said the special agent fired his weapon, wounding Torres in the left arm.

But attorney Thomas Hallock told reporters later Monday that he heard a different version of events when he visited the wounded Torres at a hospital.

Hallock said he was told the man heard a pounding at his door, answered it and was shot 'without cause'. On top of that - the family said he is a legal permanent resident doesn't even own a gun.

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Felix Torres, 53, was shot in the arm by ICE agents Monday morning at his home in Chicago. Officials said Torres pointed a gun at them, but his family said he doesn't even own a gun

'It's a lie when they say he was holding a gun He doesn't even own a gun,' the victim's daughter, Carmen Torres, told DNAinfo. 'They shot my dad. They shot him, and I don't know why.'

Sources told ABC 7 that Carmen's brother was wanted on a weapons charge and was the person ICE agents were after.

Agents were reportedly after Torres son, but Torres' daughter Carmen (pictured) said that her brother is an American citizen, so she's not sure why ICE would be involved in his arrest

But Carmen says that her brother is a U.S. citizen, so she is not sure why ICE would be involved, rather than the police.

She was sleeping in the basement with her one-year-old daughter and husband at the time of the shooting.

She says she was then forced out of the house at gunpoint.

'They didn't say anything. They just came in and pointed pistols in our faces and dragged us out,' she said. 'We didn't even have time to dress or grab milk for the baby'

In total, there were eight family members in the house at the time of the shooting, including Carmen's 1-year-old baby, her 9-year-old nephew and 5-month-old nephew.

Chicago police officials said their officers were not involved in the raid, but that they responded to the call of shots fired. They said they recovered two weapons at the scene but have not revealed who they belong to.

ICE officials said the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility will review the shooting.

Asked about the lawyer's account of the shooting, ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok said in an email Tuesday that the investigation is ongoing and that no further details can be immediately released.

Hallock said Torres and his wife arrived from Mexico more than two decades ago and are legal residents of the United States. Seven or eight people were in the home at the time of the shooting, he said.

Hallock said he is also representing the wounded man's 23-year-old son, who was briefly detained in the raid. It's unclear if that son is the same as the one targeted by ICE.

Chicago Police said they are investigating any underlying criminal offenses and working with prosecutors and the Department of Homeland Security.

Torres continues to recover from his injury at Stroger Hospital, where he is now in stable condition.
China has held anti-terrorism drills on its border with Russia as it vows to step up its campaign against terrorism in the country.

This month the country's anti-terrorism unit have been training and conducting exercises in Hulunbuir in Inner Mongolia, close to the border with Russia.

It comes as President Xi Jinping last week called for a 'Great Wall of Iron' to safeguard China's troubled region of Xinjiang, an area home to the country's largest population of Muslims.

The drill was held in minus 20 degrees temperatures in Hulunbuir near the Russian border

Tackling terrorism: The exercise aimed to help improve the ability of warfare officers

Tougher action: President Xi Jinping has called for tougher anti-terrorism measures

According to CCTV, the drill took place in Hulun Buir in China's Inner Mongolia.

The area has 6 months of snow and icy weather and the terrain is said to be tough. Chinese media reported that the exercise aimed to improve the ability of warfare officers.

The temperature is Hulunbuir is currently -20 degrees Celsius.

Xinjiang: Paramilitary troops onboard army trucks on the streets of Urumqi (File photo)

It comes just as Xi Jinping announced stricter measures on March 10 to help combat terrorism in the country.

One of the focus areas is the province of Xinjiang, home to the country's largest population of Uighur Muslims.

The metaphorical 'Great Wall of Iron' aims to fortify national unity and social stability.

There has been increased tension in the area as Muslims say the government is trying to curb their way of life by enforcing strict bans on items such as beards and enforcing GPS tracking on vehicles.

During a session of the National People's Congress, President Xi said: 'Maintaining stability in Xinjiang is a political responsibility.'

Hundreds of people have been killed in recent years following attacks by pro East Turkestan Independence groups.

Just a week ago, a video thought to be released by the Islamic State group surfaced showing Uighurs training in Iraq vowing to attack China.

Chinese policemen push Uyigur women who are protesting in Xinjiang (File photo)
A New Jersey man wanted only one thing for his 100th birthday: to return to his old job for a single day.

Hutchinson Plumbing, Heating and Cooling in Cherry Hill made William 'Bill' Hansen's wish come true, and on Monday welcomed back the retired permit coordinator.

There was a birthday cake and a standing ovation, and then Hansen got back to work.

Hutchinson Plumbing, Heating and Cooling in Cherry Hill, New Jersey made William Hansen's 100th birthday wish come true by welcoming him back for one day of work on Monday

CEO Fred Hutchinson agreed to pay him $1 and organized a complete day of assignments.

'He took off about 15 minutes after we signed that agreement to get to work,' Hutchinson told NBC's WCAU-TV.

Hansen, of Haddon Township, retired at the age of 97 after working 32 years for the company.

Hansen said he 'was blessed with a good a life and a healthy life' and that he 'didn't mind going to work every day'

'I hate being retired,' he said.

The centenarian went from job to job, as his former co-workers wished him a happy birthday throughout the day.

Carl Canfield, the man Hansen trained to replace him, said he only hopes he can aspire to be 'half the man' Hansen is.

Hansen spent nearly four decades working for other companies, including Exxon, before retiring the first time around at age 65.

Hansen received a standing ovation from the workers at Hutchinson's Plumbing, Heating and Cooling before getting down to business and carrying out his contract work

True to his statement that he hated being retired, he started working at Hutchinson soon after and stayed there for the next three decades.

'I was blessed with a good a life and a healthy life. I didn't mind going to work every day. I enjoyed it,' Hansen told WPVI-TV, an ABC affiliate based out of Philadelphia.

'I never had a job where I didn't want to go to work in the morning,' he said.

Hansen attributes his love of work, his wife and family for his happiness. They're also the motivation for his newest goal.

'To live to see my youngest granddaughter graduate,' Hansen said. 'That'll be in 2024.'

There was no shortage of hugs around the office as Hansen's former co-workers celebrates his birthday and his one-day return to work
SWEET HOME  After nearly 19 years as the director of public works, Mike Adams has resigned and will take a similar position with the city of Toledo.

Adams, 53, is a Sweet Home area native and 1982 SHHS graduate who has a degree in business administration from Oregon State University.

Ive been contemplating a change for various reasons for a while now, Adams said. I feel very blessed and fortunate to have spent the last 18 years in this position, but this new opportunity in Toledo is the door that the good Lord opened.

Before returning to work in his hometown, Adams worked several years for a large electrical wholesale company in Albany, Eugene and Boise, Idaho.

He and his wife, Kristin, also a Sweet Home native, wanted to move back to the community so their children would be closer to their grandparents. Their youngest daughter will graduate from SHHS in June.

For now, the family plans to remain in Sweet Home, where Kristin is employed at Sweet Home High School.

During Adams tenure with the city, numerous projects were completed, including the construction of a new water treatment plant and upgrades to the citys wastewater treatment system.

The citys water has won several awards for quality and taste in recent years.

We have been able to complete updates to the water and wastewater master plans twice, Adams said. We have also worked on compliance issues with wastewater utilities and we were able to get an official storm water utility started.

The city also purchased and remodeled a former trucking company building on four acres, repurposing it as the Public Works compound.

We now have property the city plans to sell and use the proceeds to help fund the remodeling of the former Forest Service building into City Hall, Adams said.

At times, Adams has been in charge of as many as 26 employees.

He has helped manage the city last year as the city council sought a new city manager.

He also developed the city website and set the city up on a centralized computer server.

This is a good opportunity for me, but its also a good opportunity for the city of Sweet Home, Adams said.

Away from the office, Adams is a deacon at the Harvest Christian Center and a member of the American Public Works Association and the Small City Rural Communities committee.

Adams last day of work in Sweet Home will be March 29.

Toledo is a community of about 3,500 population on the Yaquina River about seven miles upriver from Newport.

Former Sweet Home City Manager Craig Martin was named interim city manager in 2016 and has since been named city manager.

City Manager Ray Towry said, Mikes absence will create a huge void for us here, not only in the quality of work he did, but the quality of the man he is.

Towry said that Adams is a major piece of the foundation of the city government, but also the foundation of the entire community.

I understand that it may be time for Mike to move on professionally, but I am personally sad that we will not continue to work together, Towry said.

A going away pancake breakfast in Adams honor was served at the Public Works building Thursday morning.
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This is the toe-curling moment a majestic lion punched its love rival on the nose as they clashed over a lioness.

The brutal brawl broke out after the enraged beast challenged another in a quest to steal his female - while the objects of their affection looked on.

They became trapped in a frenzied headlock as they tussled in the barren African plains, before the aggressor pinned its competitor to the ground.

The dramatic fight was captured by French photographer Lorraine Bettex, who visited Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in Botswana in October 2016.

'It was early in the morning and although the fight didn't last long, it was really powerful,' she recalled.

'The two females just sat there and watched on as the males fought over them.'

The lion king: This is the teeth-clenching moment a lion punched its love rival on the nose as they clashed over a lioness

He nose his limits! The brutal brawl broke out after the imposing beast challenged another in a quest to steal his female

Mane attraction: The enraged lions became trapped in a frenzied headlock as they tussled in the barren African plains

Catfight: The aggressor reared up on its hind legs as it pinned its competitor to the ground

Circle of life: The creatures became locked in the violent tussle - while the object of their affections looked on

Dust-up: The fight was captured by French photographer Lorraine Bettex, who visited Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in Botswana in October 2016

Suns out, claws out! She said: 'It was early in the morning and although the fight didn't last long, it was really powerful'
An ISIS sex slave has revealed how she had her jihadist tormentor killed in an air strike and then fled after two years of being 'treated like an animal.'

Farida, 27, is currently living in a refugee camp near Erbil after being held captive in ISIS-held Mosul for two years.

Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake Mosul, the country's second city, in October, retaking its eastern side before setting their sights on its smaller but more densely-populated west.

Farida, 27, is currently living in a refugee camp near Erbil after being held captive in Mosul

Farida hatched a plan with an ISIS terrorist's wife to take him out with an air strike in Mosul

Farida was kept as a prisoner in Mosul before finally escaping after two years of hell.

'An ISIS fighter kept me as a slave', she said. 'But he still had a wife. She also wanted to flee.'

Working together, the two women hatched a plan to kill the terrorist, managing to communicate with the Iraqi Army to describe the exact position of his car so an air strike could take him out.

She said: 'We hid for eight days, so people thought we had died in the car too. Only then did we escape.'

She has been reunited in the refugee camp with her husband, who was on police duty in another part of the country when she was abducted.

'I tried to keep my honour, but I have not succeeded. They have abused and beaten me, treated me like an animal. I have barely words to describe what happened to me', she added.

Miyasa Hodor revealed how she was forced by ISIS to whip countless 'screaming' women because they did not wear a veil or socks

'For adultery, you would be stoned to death. For stealing, they cut off your hand. And for not wearing the veil, whipping,' she told Sky News

CHILDREN CUTTING HEADS OFF DOLLS A camp official told Sky News he saw some children, aged six or seven, cutting the head off a doll at Chamakor camp. 'One of them had a knife and started beheading it, shouting 'Allahu Akhbar', he said. 'There is manhood, they told me, in cutting the head off.' Global head of UNICEF, Anthony Lake, added: 'If we are not educating the heads and healing the hearts of children who are cutting off the heads of mud dolls, then in the next generation we're going to replicate the same conflicts. 'It breaks my heart. What we have to do is provide the quiet miracle of a normal life.' Advertisement

In another harrowing account, Waheda Musa, 32, and her son Matu, seven, have been reunited with their family for the first time in two-and-a-half-years.

After leaving Mosul they managed to escape to the safety of Dohuk, in northern Iraq.

Recalling her ordeal in Mosul, she said: 'They tormented my son, trained him to use weapons and as punishment imprisoned him in cages.'

They were living in a town close to Sinjar, in northern Iraq, and home to thousands of Yazidis [who are predominantly ethnically Kurdish and viewed by ISIS as as devil-worshippers), when it was captured by the terror group in 2014.

Following that, Waheda was taken as a sex slave by ISIS.

'They have sold me five times. I was exhibited as if I were at a cattle market, first to men from Saudi Arabia, later to Jordanian fighters', she said.

She eventually managed to win the trust of a Tunisian female fighter who paid to traffic her out the area.

'I can hardly believe my son and I are really alive', she said.

The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights said 197 children had been taken hostage by the terror group near the Al-Nuri mosque

ISIS have reportedly kidnapped almost 200 children to use as human shields in Mosul

Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake Mosul, the country's second city, in October, retaking its eastern side before setting their sights on its smaller but more densely-populated west

307 CIVILIANS KILLED IN BOOBY TRAPS At least 307 civilians have been killed and 273 wounded in western Mosul since Feb 17 as Islamic State fighters herd people into booby-trapped buildings as human shields and fires on those who flee, the United Nations human rights chief said on Tuesday. This is an enemy that ruthlessly exploits civilians to serve its own ends, and clearly has not even the faintest qualm about deliberately placing them in danger,' U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said in a statement. 'It is vital that the Iraqi Security Forces and their Coalition partners avoid this trap,' he said, while calling for them to conduct transparent investigations into deadly incidents involving their forces. Advertisement

Elsewhere Miyasa Hodor, who is believed to have been imprisoned in Mosul two years ago, admitted the terror group coerced her into torturing more than 50 women a day.

She gave a shocking account of the first time she was forced to flog another woman, claiming a militant stood behind her and threatened to whip her when she refused.

She told Sky News: 'For adultery, you would be stoned to death. For stealing, they cut off your hand. And for not wearing the veil, whipping.

'I had no training. My duty was to punish those who weren't wearing gloves or socks or the veil. They brought us about 50 people a day.'

The first time they told me 'you have to do it'. 'I said 'I cannot'. They said, 'yes you can, you have to'.'

The harrowing accounts come as the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights revealed 197 children had been taken hostage by the terror group near the Al-Nuri mosque where ISIS declared its caliphate nearly three years ago.

At the same time, Iraqi forces renewed their offensive against ISIS in Mosul's Old City and killed 10 ISIS chiefs.

The fresh round of air bombings came after 'tragic' US-led bombing raids killed 200 civilians in a single district.

Rescuers were still pulling the bodies of women and children from rubble in the Jadideh neighbourhood on Saturday, more than a week after the US-led coalition bombs landed on March 17.

US officials have not confirmed there were civilian casualties but have opened an investigation.

A local coming out of his house which was just hit by ISIS mortar fire in Mosul, Iraq

Iraqi forces have been operating in the area of the Old City for several weeks, but they have faced tough resistance and progress in the area has been slow.

Since launching their assault on the western sector, Iraqi forces have taken several districts and key buildings including the headquarters of Nineveh province's regional government and a railway station.

The fall of Mosul, Iraq's second city, would be a major setback for ISIS following months of losses in Iraq and neighbouring Syria. The city also holds huge symbolic significance for the terror group.

In neighbouring Syria, three separate forces are advancing on the city of Raqqa, the main Syrian city under ISIS control.
A large carpet python named Samson has bit off more then he could chew after swallowing two plastic eggs and forced into surgery to get them removed.

Samson slithered his way into a chicken coop in Brisbane and thought he was eating two eggs.

But the greedy python did not know the eggs placed in the coop were plastic decoys.

Samson the carpet python swallowed two plastic decoy eggs (pictured on the right) when he slithered into a chicken coop

The x-ray shows the plastic eggs lodged into the stomach of Samson

Samson underwent a local anesthetic to remove the eggs

The Brisbane vet shows the egg lodged in Samson's stomach

Samson is a carpet python with the non-venemous snake often growing more than three metres in length

Knowing the plastic eggs would not dissolve, vets at Brisbane Bird and Exotics Veterinary Services placed Samson under general anaesthetic to relax his muscles and fitted him with an endotracheal tube to allow him to breathe.

The vets then lined the stomach muscles of the python with lubrication to gently squeeze out the eggs.

Samson will be fed and released back into the wild after he has recovered.

Samson's stomach was lined with lubrication to squeeze out the eggs

One of the plastic eggs being squeezed out of Samson
A Seattle playboy is being forced to hand over his Ferrari collection and high end penthouse after he conned Apple and local banking institutions out of $3 million.

Maziar Rezakhani, 27, is facing five years in jail after pleading guilty to illegally shipping Apple products to the Middle East.

Authorities say that Rezakhani began reselling Apple products while he was an 18-year-old student at the University of Washington, acting as the middle man, to resell the tech on to distributors across America and the Middle East.

Between 2009 and his eventual arrest, he moved millions of dollars worth of iPhones and other Apple products which he used to fund his playboy lifestyle, SeattlePi.com reports.

Seattle playboy Maziar Rezakhani is being forced to hand over his Ferrari collection and high end penthouse after he conned Apple out of $3 million (Rezakhani was caught on camera buying tiles he would later claim that angry workers had used to replace iPhones in his order)

The 27-year-old, who also failed to pay his taxes, drove expensive foreign cars including two Ferraris, a Mercedes and a Range Rover which each had a personalized number plate, leased a $26,265 a-month luxury penthouse and claimed he was earning a 7-figure income.

His scheme even forced the Foundation Bank's sale last year after they lost $3 million - which was 'very significant to a small, local bank.'

'This is the familiar story of unrelenting greed and lies winning out over hard work,' U.S. Attorney for Western Washington Annette L. Hayes said following Rezakhani's sentencing hearing.

'This defendant could have had all the cars and fancy apartments he wanted by running an honest and successful business. Instead, he deceived everyone in his path resulting in more than $3 million dollars of loss and a lot of innocent bank employees losing their jobs.'

The fraudster has now been forced to hand over much of the trappings of his luxury lifestyle including his cars and penthouse.

Between 2009 and his eventual arrest, he moved millions of dollars worth of iPhones and other Apple products which he used to fund his playboy lifestyle of luxury cars including two Ferraris, a Mercedes and a Range Rover)

He also leased a $26,265 a-month luxury penthouse (pictured) and claimed he was earning a 7-figure income

Rezakhani had been under investigation for almost two years before his October 2015 arrest.

Prosecutors say that his schemes became increasingly bold over time.

One of his earliest plots was when he tried to steal $700,000 of iPhones by claiming they were lost in the mail - managing to steal $300,000.

Rezakhani told FedEx investigators that almost iPhone 5s phones had been replaced with kitchen tiles. To make the scam more believable, investigators found anti-Apple leaflets reading 'iSlave' and named Foxconn, a Chinese electronics manufacturer notable for its poor treatment of workers.

The scheme appears to have been concocted as to make it appear that it was disgruntled workers that had replaced the electronics - despite the fact that the iPhones were actually sent out from multiple locations making it impossible for them all to have come from the one site.

Surveillance footage also captured Rezakhani buying the kitchen tiles days before he bought the phones. Yet, he was able to persuade his creditors to pay out $340,000 at Apple's expense.

In one scheme, Rezakhani told FedEx investigators that almost iPhone 5s phones had been replaced with kitchen tiles

To make the scam more believable, investigators found anti-Apple leaflets reading 'iSlave' and named Foxconn

He went onto claim more iPhones were stolen in the mail in July 2015, staking a $5 million fake insurance claim that the tech was replaced with stone blocks - which he was again seen buying days before.

Rezakhani also claimed a burglar had stolen 625 iPhones from his parents' home. However, by this time, agents were watching him and his home and were aware it had not been burgled.

'Over time, Mr. Rezakhani's fraud schemes grew in their audacity as Mr. Rezakhani increased the stakes' Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Werner said in court papers.

'Each offense preyed on the willingness of others to believe Rezakhani,' Werner continued. 'Of course, the victims were no match for Rezakhani's willingness to deceive.

Investigators say Rezakahani and a co-conspirator used 'runners' who would buy the phones from Apple retailers, before Rezakahani would repackage them at his parents' Seattle home and ship them to Dubai and the Middle East.

The fraudster used several companies to legitimize and manage his scheme, including NeoAce - a Dubai reseller - while Washington firm GTE Holdings, transferred about $50 million between itself and NeoAce between 2011 and 2013.

In another, he claimed that more than $5 million worth of phones had been replaced by bricks

Rezakhani eventually began using the new loans to pay off his old ones and was $2.8 million in debt by the time he was caught by the FBI

He was also propping up the scheme by taking out huge loans by providing fake documents and tax returns to open huge lines of credit.

Rezakhani eventually began using the new loans to pay off his old ones and was $2.8 million in debt by the time he was caught by the FBI.

In August, the playboy pleaded guilty to mail fraud, bank fraud and filing a false tax return.

He admitted faking the stolen mail, lying to obtain the $4 million Foundation Bank loan and hiding $355,000 in income from the IRS.

He has since agreed to pay the IRS and to repay Foundation Bank $3.1 million, and another $349,000 to Apple on top of the $3.3 million he has agreed to forfeit to the government.
A Florida man brutally stabbed his roommate to death when she hugged him to say goodbye and told him she was leaving to move in with her boyfriend, say police.

Randy Herman, 24, is accused of using a hunting knife to stab Brooke Preston, 21, in the abdomen, back and throat, say Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.

According to police Preston came to the house they shared to give him a parting gift of a T-shirt honoring a mutual friend before the frenzied attack.

She informed him she was leaving to move back to Pennsylvania, where she was to begin a career in journalism.

Herman has been charged with first degree murder.

Randy Herman, Jr (left), 24, allegedly stabbed his former roommate, Brooke Preston (right), 21, to death on Saturday morning

Preston had recently moved out of the home at 813 Sarazen Drive (above) in West Palm Beach, Florida, and was planning to return to her native Bradford County, Pennsylvania

According to police, Herman and Preston lived together as roommates in a home in West Palm Beach.

No evidence has surfaced indicating that their relationship was anything more than platonic.

She had recently moved out of the home at 813 Sarazen Drive and was planning to return to her native Bradford County, Pennsylvania.

Authorities said that on Saturday morning Preston visited her ex-roommate to bid him farewell.

The meeting was cordial, as the two had embraced. Herman reportedly gave Preston a T-shirt commemorating a mutual friend who had died.

According to the police report, Herman then began to allegedly stab Preston repeatedly with a hunting knife.

Preston sustained a dozen stab wounds to her back, throat, and abdomen. She also suffered defensive cuts to her left hand, according to police.

'Herman told me that all he could remember after giving Preston the T-shirt was blood,' a detective wrote in the arrest report.

Authorities said that on Saturday morning Preston (left) visited her ex-roommate, Herman (right), to bid him farewell

Original story and video courtesy of CBS 12

After allegedly stabbing his victim, Herman drove to nearby Haverhill Park and telephoned 911.

'Someone's been murdered,' Herman told the dispatcher. 'I'm at Haverhill Park. Just send the police. It was me. I'm sorry.'

Police interviewed a friend of Preston who said that she had visited Herman the night before at his home but eventually left because he was 'acting weird and was drunk.'

Preston is said to have told the friend that she didn't feel comfortable spending the night with Herman at the house.

She then returned to the home at 7:30 the next morning to retrieve belongings she had left behind.

Preston then drove with the friend to another location to eat breakfast. She dropped off the friend and returned to Herman's home one last time to say goodbye, police said.

Preston sustained a dozen stab wounds to her back, throat, and abdomen. She also suffered defensive cuts to her left hand, according to police

Herman called the police at 9:04am on Saturday.

While waiting for police to arrive, Herman texted his mother, telling her that he loved her, the arrest report said.

Herman told police that someone was hurt in his home. He was covered in blood and had suffered a cut to the webbing between his left thumb and pointer finger.

Authorities also said that Herman had scratch marks on his chest.

Investigators say Herman cried during questioning. He's being held without bond.

In February 2015, Herman's 53-year-old father Randy Herman Sr. was accused of killing his 50-year-old girlfriend Gail Monahan in Hanover Township, Pennsylvania.

Two months later, he was found dead inside a truck as law enforcement closed in on him in Marshall County, Alabama.
Westminster will step in and pass laws to keep Northern Ireland's schools and hospitals running after Easter if the province's politicians fail to strike a deal, the Northern Ireland Secretary has revealed.

James Brokenshire has temporarily passed spending powers to civil servants but has warned the situation is not 'sustainable'.

Devolved government is paralysed after the DUP and Sinn Fein failed to form a new power sharing executive by yesterday's 4pm deadline.

Updating MPs today, Mr Brokenshire said he would publish new laws after the Easter weekend which either allow a new executive to be formed after the deadline or to set the 'regional rate' taxes from Westminster.

The latter measure would be the first element of direct rule imposed in a decade and would be seen as a major blow to the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement.

Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire has temporarily passed spending powers to civil servants but has warned the situation is not 'sustainable'

Updating MPs today, Mr Brokenshire said he would publish new laws after the Easter weekend which either allow a new executive to be formed after the deadline or to set budget measures from Westminster

Mr Brokenshire said: 'In the absence of devolved government, it is ultimately for the United Kingdom Government to provide for political stability and good governance.

'We do not want to see a return to direct rule.

'As our manifesto at the last election stated, 'local policies and local services should be determined by locally-elected politicians through locally-accountable institutions'.

'But should the talks not succeed in their objectives, the Government will have to consider all options.'

He added: 'Following the Easter recess, as a minimum, it would be my intention to bring forward legislation to set a regional rate to enable local councils to carry out their functions, and to provide further assurance around the Budget for Northern Ireland.'

Regional rates raise almost 700million in revenue for the Northern Ireland executive every year.

Last night Mr Brokenshire said Northern Ireland would soon reach the point of having no agreed budget as he handed spending controls to civil servants.

The unionist DUP and republican Sinn Fein parties failed to form a new power sharing executive by today's 4pm deadline.

Mr Brokenshire played for time after the deadline passed, warning there was little appetite for yet more elections but insisting nobody wanted to restore direct rule from London.

He said there remained a 'short window' to try and bridge the gap between the battling parties, highlighting issues 'surrounding culture and identity'.

MPs are set to begin a three week recess for Easter from Thursday and direct rule will require the passing of legislation - meaning weeks more limbo in Stormont.

James Brokenshire said Northern Ireland would soon reach the point of having no agreed budget as he handed administrative control to civil servants.

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill, pictured at Stormont today, last night quit the talks

DUP leader Arlene Foster has refused to step aside for an inquiry into a botched green energy deal, leaving the talks in a stalemate

Mr Brokenshire said there remains 'an overwhelming desire' for strong and stable devolved government.

'We now have a short window of opportunity to resolve outstanding issues and for an executive to be formed,' he said at a press conference outside Stormont House.

'Everyone owes it to the people of Northern Ireland to grasp that and provide the political leadership and stability that they want.'

Mr Brokenshire said he would make a full statement in the House of Commons on Tuesday setting out a way forward for the region.

Failure to strike an agreement by 4pm means Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire faces the choice between ordering yet more elections or restoring direct rule from Westminster

No deal will also mean no Budget is agreed and the Northern Ireland Assembly will have no representatives in Brexit discussions.

The talks were overshadowed by the death of former Sinn Fein deputy first minister Martin McGuinness, whose resignation in January provoked the power sharing collapse in January after a row over a botched green energy scheme predicted to cost the taxpayer up to half a billion pounds.

Sinn Fein has said it will not share power with the DUP leader Arlene Foster as first minister until a public inquiry into the renewable heat incentive (RHI) is concluded.

Mrs Foster said: 'We wonder whether Sinn Fein were serious about reaching agreement at this time.

'We are just disappointed that Sinn Fein did not come to the talks in the same spirit as we came to the talks.

'We respect everybody's mandates, let me make that very clear, but if we wanted to form an executive, then there had to be a spirit of compromise and unfortunately that didn't exist.'

Mrs Foster claimed while her party entered talks in 'good faith', Sinn Fein were not in 'agreement-finding mode'.

Mrs O'Neill gave a very different assessment of the breakdown. She claimed the DUP had failed to live up to previous agreements and were standing in the way of progressive policies.

'We are standing firm - previous agreements need to be implemented,' she said.

'We came at the negotiations with the right attitude, wanting to make the institutions work, wanting to deliver for all citizens.

'Unfortunately, the DUP maintained their position in relation to blocking equality, delivery of equality for citizens - that was the problem.'

She said she was open to the suggestion that an independent chair be appointed to mediate new negotiations.

Mrs O'Neill and Mrs Foster appeared together to pay tribute to Mr McGuinness, raising hopes last week of the prospects of a deal

Republicans have also been seeking movement on issues like an Irish language act giving the tongue official status in Northern Ireland, a hugely symbolic measure but deeply problematic for some unionists.

They want to see progress on legacy funding for Northern Ireland conflict victims waiting up to 45 years for answers over how their loved ones died.

Mr Brokenshire chaired the talks in Belfast and said they had a duty to victims to address past violence which left 3,637 dead and countless more injured.

Sinn Fein have now called time on the current round of negotiations.

Its president Gerry Adams said thinking unionism was at a crossroads.

'The DUP cannot be in there representing the DUP voters.

'They have to work with us and any other party in there representing everyone.

As the leading parties in the recent election, the Good Friday Agreement peace deal requires the DUP and Sinn Fein share power

'We don't have the basis for doing that, we are not going back to the status quo, but will we be back, will we get the institutions in place? Yes.'

He said the terms did not exist now to nominate for a deputy first minister.

'That is today...we do believe that we will have the conditions in the time ahead because we want to be in the institutions.'

He said unionists needed to help build a society that respected the rights of everyone.

'That is the big change that has come about and it is amplified in many ways by Martin McGuinness's term in office - you do it for everybody.'

A voting surge by Sinn Fein in the last Assembly election earlier this month saw the party come within one seat of becoming the biggest party at Stormont behind the DUP.
Australia's first female federal Muslim MP Anne Aly wants racial discrimination laws broadened so it is illegal to insult followers of Islam.

The Egyptian-born politician's call comes only days after a motion was passed in Canada calling on the federal government to 'condemn Islamophobia'.

While Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wants to remove the words 'insult', 'offend' and 'humiliate' from section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, Labor wants to go the opposite way.

Dr Anne Aly wants the Racial Discrimination Act broadened to cover religious-based insults

Labor's Dr Aly, a counter-terrorism expert before she was elected to parliament in 2016, has argued there is 'scope to reassess' extending section 18C so the definition of race 'extends to religion'.

'I find it a little bit strange that someone can call you a "dirty Arab" and that be covered under the bill, but if they called you a dirty Muslim, you're not covered [under 18C],' she told The Australian.

'There's scope there. I'd like to see that discussion happen because I think we have definitely seen an increase in anti-Islamic rhetoric.'

The Perth-based MP also claims Muslim women were having their hijabs ripped off.

Islamic activists have also been outspoken critics of the Turnbull Government's plans to amend the Racial Discrimination Act so people are only covered by 18C if they 'harass' or 'intimidate' someone on the basis of their race.

Islamist psychologist Hanan Dover described the government as 's****' on her Facebook page and praised Dr Aly as a 'federal minister' even though she's in opposition and doesn't even hold a shadow frontbench position.

Islamist psychologist Hanan Dover has praised Muslim MP Anne Aly as a 'bad***'

Psychologist Hanan Dover refers to Dr Aly, an opposition backbencher, as a 'federal minister'

'When you're a bad*** federal minister like Anne Aly asking the PM Malcolm Turnbull an important and very simple and question on 18C Racial Discrimination Act and he couldn't answer it, this is the look you give,' she said with an image of her in parliament.

Ms Dover is also campaigning to stop Somali-born Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali from touring Australian next month and has previously represented accused terror suspects.

Dr Aly's call to amend racial discrimination laws to include religion comes a week after Victoria's Multicultural Affairs Minister Robin Scott threatened to strengthen state laws that already curb the right to criticise religion.

'We will review Victoria's Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 to consider ways to strengthen legislative protections, should the federal coalition be successful with their amendments,' he said.

Religious vilification laws potentially threaten secular values and open the door to blasphemy cases if they are legally exploited by religious groups.

Labor, the Greens and some crossbench senators including Nick Xenophon have indicated they will defeat the government's proposed changes to 18C in the Senate.


Two of three bodies that were found in central Democratic Republic of Congo are highly likely to be those of United Nations investigators who went missing earlier this month, the father of one victim said on Tuesday.

Michael Sharp, a 34-year-old U.S. citizen, and Zaida Catalan, of Swedish nationality, had been part of a group of experts monitoring a sanctions regime imposed on Congo by the U.N. Security Council when they disappeared.

'We have been informed that two Caucasian bodies have been found in shallow graves in the search area, one male and one female,' John Sharp, the father of Michael, wrote on his Facebook page on Monday.

Two of three bodies found in the Democratic Republican of the Congo on Monday are believed to be missing aid workers Michael Sharp (left), a U.S. citizen, and Zaida Catalan (right), of Sweden

Sharp's father posted about the tragic news on Monday. Sharp, Catalan and four Congolese staffers went missing on March 12

'Since no other Caucasians have been reported missing in that region, there is a high probability that these are the bodies of MJ and Zaida,' he wrote.

Congolese spokesman Lambert Mende told Top Congo FM that the bodies were found Monday in a shallow grave and that they are likely the aid workers.

'To our knowledge, there are no other foreigners who have disappeared in this region,' Mende said, adding that the provincial commissioner was on his way to recover and identify the bodies of two Caucasians and a Congolese.

DNA tests and dental records will be used to confirm the identities of the bodies, he added.

Sharp and Catalan were investigating possible human rights violations in the region

Sharp is pictured above visiting with children in eastern Congo above

A U.N. spokesman in New York said the U.N. was analyzing the remains and could not confirm the identities of the dead as yet.

Sharp, Catalan, interpreter Betu Tshintela, driver Isaac Kabuayi and two motorbike drivers went missing March 12 in Central Kasai while looking into recent large-scale violence and alleged human rights violations by the Congolese army and local militia groups.

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.

They were ambushed and kidnapped on the Moyo bridge near the village Ngombe, later that day.

Their disappearance is the first time U.N. experts have been reported missing in Congo, Human Rights Watch has said, and it is the first recorded disappearance of international workers in the Kasai provinces.

Parts of Congo, particularly the east, have experienced insecurity for decades, but violence in the Kasai provinces in central Congo represents a new expansion of tensions.

The Kamwina Nsapu militia has been fighting security forces since last year, with the violence increasing after security forces killed the militia's leader in August. More than 400 people have been killed and more than 200,000 displaced since then, according to the U.N.

Sharp is a 2001 graduate of Bethany Christian Schools in Goshen, Indiana, and a 2005 graduate of Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia.

He had been working as a UN expert on the DRC since April 2015. Prior to that, Sharp worked with the Mennonite Central Committee as the Eastern Congo Coordinator.

His father is a professor at Hesston College in Kansas.
A small community in British Columbia, Canada, was left reeling after a family of four, including two children, was wiped out by carbon monoxide.

The victims, identified by relatives as Harvey Volaine, 60, his partner Melissa Penner and their two sons, 10-year-old Kaylex and 7-year-old Ay, were found dead inside their home near the town of Ashcroft last Friday.

The British Columbia Coroners Service has confirmed that the four deaths were caused by carbon monoxide poisoning and has ruled out foul play.

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Family wiped out: Carbon monoxide was to blame for the deaths of Harvey Volaine, his partner Melissa Penner (pictured together, left), and their two sons, 10-year-old Kaylex and 7-year-old Ay (right) in British Columbia, Canada, last week

Police performing a welfare check on March 24 discovered the bodies of the couple and their sons in a tiny village near the town of Ashcroft

According to Harvey Volaines grown daughter, Adrienne Volaine, the source of the toxic gas that killed her family was likely a malfunctioning water heater.

Ms Volaine told CBC that the family had only recently returned home from a trip to Costa Rica.

'We all came home together. I just parted ways with them in Vancouver,' she explained.

Photos posted by Melissa Penner on her Facebook page earlier this month showed the mother of two frolicking on the beach and spending time with her partner and children.

Volaine, Penner and their two boys lived in a rural community of about 25 families sitting on a 1,600-acre property in the remote Venables Valley, where many of the inhabitants have no electricity.

Volaine, Penner and their two boys lived in a rural community of about 25 families sitting on a 1,600-acre property in the remote Venables Valley

Volaine and Penner had been in a relationship for nine years. The 30-something mother-of-two worked part-time as a housekeeper

Kaylex (left) was Penner's son from a previous relationship, and she had Ay (right) with Harvey Volaine

A large number of the people in the area are part of the Hare Krishna religious community, though it is not clear if the deceased family were members.

David Musterer, a senior member of the community, said Harvey Volaire had lived in Saranagati Village for more than 30 years.

This tragedy has deeply impacted family and community members, both adults and children beyond what words can convey, a statement from the group said following the tragedy.

According to a GoFundMe page launched by a friend to help cover the family's funeral expenses, Volaine, Penner and their sons passed away sometime last Wednesday.

As of Tuesday morning, just under $4,000 has been raised, or about one tenth of the $40,000 goal.

Police in the town of Ashcroft discovered the bodies two days later while performing a welfare check at the home.

Speaking to CTV on Monday, Mr Volaines other grown daughter, Julianna, described her brother Kaylex as sweet, shy and respectful, while 7-year-old Ay was like a little superhero with a strong and outgoing personality.

An older sister described Kaylex (left) as sweet, shy and respectful, while 7-year-old Ay (center) was like a little superhero with a strong and outgoing personality

Both children attended Desert Sands Community School in Ashcroft, reported the Ashcroft Cache-Creek Journal.

Melissa Penners mother told the local newspaper The Province the 30-something woman had been in a relationship with Harvey Volaine, who was nearly twice her age, for nine years. Her son Kaylex was from a previous relationship.

Penner worked as a housekeeper for the mayor of Ashcroft, Jack Jeyes, who described her as hardworking, happy and very soft-spoken.

She worked really hard and she was very busy with her kids. She was trying to fit some work in along with taking care of kids and all those neat things that moms have to do, he said.
A 28-year-old teacher has been arrested after allegedly having a relationship with a pupil at her all-boys' school in Texas.

Rebecca Goerdel, a special education teacher at the Young Men's Leadership Academy of Kennedy Middle School in Grand Prairie in Texas, was arrested after officials reported her to the police.

Administrators accused Goerdel of engaging in an 'inappropriate relationship' with a student at the school, which is less than ten miles from Dallas.

Rebecca Goerdel, left, was arrested, right, after school authorities in Texas were alerted to allegations of an 'inappropriate relationship' between the teacher and a student

Goerdel, pictured, who specialized in Special Education Inclusion, was immediately suspended from the Young Men's Leadership Academy at Kennedy Middle School

The school said they were alerted to 'an alleged improper relationship' between Goerdel and a student on the afternoon of March 10 after school was dismissed.

Authorities said Goerdel was immediately 'relieved of all duties' and has not returned to the classroom since.

The school said they also alerted police that same afternoon, who began an investigation resulting in Goerdel's arrest.

The school released a statement following Goerdel's arrest claiming they dealt with the situation 'aggressively' and urged law enforcement to 'pursue all available action'

Goerdel taught at the Young Men's Leadership Academy at Kennedy Middle School in Grand Prairie in Texas, pictured, until the allegations surfaced on March 10 when she was suspended

Dr Susan Hull, Grand Prairie ISD superintendent, said in a statement: 'This kind of conduct is outrageous and will not be tolerated. The teacher-student relationship is sacred. It reflects a vow from teachers to parents that their children are safe - as safe as they would be at home.

'When a teacher in Grand Prairie ISD breaks that vow, he or she will be dealt with quickly and aggressively.

'I encourage law enforcement to pursue all available action.'

According to the Dallas News, Goerdel previously pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated.
Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes says he will continue to lead the House's probe into election interference in spite of Democratic furor over the way he's handling the investigation.

Nunes told a pack of reporters who chased him down this morning on Capitol Hill, 'Everything's moving forward as-is.'

Committee Democrats want the California congressman to recuse himself from the probe following his unconventional visit to the White House last week to brief the president on classified information he had received.

'You've got to go talk to them [Democrats]. That's their problem. My colleagues are absolutely fine,' Nunes told journalists Tuesday. 'We're doing a very thorough job with this investigation.'

Hammered with questions about whether he will continue to over see the Russia investigation, Nunes said, 'Why would I not?'

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Intelligence Committee Democrats want California Rep. Devin Nunes to recuse himself from the investigation into Russian meddling following his unconventional visit to the White House last week to brief the president on classified information he had received

Nunes did not inform the ranking Democrat on the panel, Rep. Adam Schiff, of his plans, angering the fellow lawmaker. Schiff said Monday that Nunes, a member of Donald Trump's transition team, could not be relied on anymore to lead an independent probe

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi seconded him. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Nunes should step down from his leadership position entirely.

The storm clouds had already amassed on Tuesday, before Nunes arrived on Capitol Hill, with CNN reporting on new outrage among Democrats over the chair's decision to cancel public hearings this week.

The committee typically meets twice a week when the House is in session. Nunes wiped the committee's schedule away on Tuesday to hold a closed-door briefing with FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers, CNN said.

But Comey and Rogers do not want to speak to the lawmakers until they resolve their dispute over leadership of the Russia investigation, the network reported.

Nunes did not inform the ranking Democrat on the panel, Rep. Adam Schiff, that he had new intelligence last week that he planned to share with the president, angering the fellow lawmaker.

Schiff said Monday that Nunes, a member of Donald Trump's transition team, could not be relied on to lead an independent probe. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi seconded him.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Nunes should step down from his leadership position entirely.

'I'm sure that the Democrats do want me to quit because they know that I'm quite effective of getting to the bottom of things,' Nunes replied on Fox News.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said Tuesday at a news conference that Nunes should not recuse himself from the investigation and that he did not know where the Republican congressman obtained his information.

'No and No,' Ryan said, moving on.

The White House jumped out of the way of the moving train at a Wednesday briefing.

'That is entirely up to the speaker and the membership of the House of Representatives. We're not going to start commenting on that kind of stuff,' Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said.

The incident is raising eyebrows among some Republicans, though.

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Tuesday on NBC's 'Today' that Nunes has not adequately answered questions about the surveillance reports he says he read that contained inappropriate information about President Trump and his aides.

'He put his objectivity in question at the very least,' said Graham, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. 'If hes not willing to the tell the Democrats and Republicans on the committee who he met with and what he was told, then I think hes lost his ability to lead.'

Graham compared Nunes' to inept 'Pink Panther' detective Jacques Clouseau.

'The problem that hes created is hes gone off on a lark by himself, sort of an Inspector Clouseau investigation here,' the Republican lawmaker said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Tuesday on NBC's 'Today' that Nunes has not adequately answered questions about the surveillance reports he says he read that contained inappropriate information about President Trump and his aides. Graham compared him to the inept detective in the 'Pink Panther' series

Republican Sen. John McCain, also a Senate Intel member, said right after the display that he'd never witnessed the head of a panel that traditionally acts in a bipartisan fashion behave the way Nunes did.

Nunes' visit sparked new intrigue on Monday when it was revealed that he had been on the White House premises a day before he spoke to the president to view the information he told CNN he received from a 'whistle blower.'

The congressman was seen at the National Security Council offices inside the Old Executive Office Building, which is on White House grounds, according to CNN.

He has refused to answer questions about his sources and the method by which he obtained the documents, saying only that the documents could not be delivered to Capitol Hill, so he had to view them at a secure location near the White House.

'If we start talking, disclosing sources and methods, who's ever going to come forward to the committee to bring us information?' he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer Monday.

The congressman said he did not meet with the president or any of his staffers while he was on the grounds.

'I'm quite sure that people in the West Wing had no idea I was there,' he stated.

Yet, Nunes insisted that he wasn't tying to be stealthy, either.

'If I really wanted to, I could have snuck on to the grounds late at night and probably nobody would have seen me, but I wasn't trying to hide,' he said. 'In fact, I stopped to talk to several people there just along the way, including, like I said, many foreigners.'

He told Fox later in the day: 'There was no sneaking around.'

Nunes told Bloomberg News he needed access to a computer system that had the classified information.

'We don't have networked access to these kinds of reports in Congress,' he said.

He also claimed his source wasn't a White House staffer and that he took down identifying information about the documents so he could request access to them for the rest of his committee.

Senior Democrats, however, have called for him to recuse himself from the panel's Russia probe. House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi, and most Democrats on the House Intelligence committee have said he should step aside.

Reps. Jim Himes, Eric Swalwell, Mike Quigley, Jackie Speier and Schiff have said he should put someone else in charge of the investigation.

Schiff led the charge, saying in a Monday statement: 'After much consideration, and in light of the Chairman's admission that he met with his source of information at the White House, I believe that the Chairman should recuse himself from any further involvement in the Russia investigation, as well as any involvement in oversight of matters pertaining to any incidental collection of the Trump transition, as he was also a key member of the transition team.

'This is not a recommendation I make lightly, as the Chairman and I have worked together well for several years,' he added.

Pelosi separately said, 'Chairman Nunes' discredited behavior has tarnished that office. Speaker Ryan must insist that Chairman Nunes at least recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation immediately. That leadership is long overdue.'

Swalwell said Tuesday on MSNBC that Nunes' behavior looks like a 'cover-up to a crime' to him.

Nunes secretly went to the White House last Tuesday  a day before he issued pronouncements about the 'unmasking' of Americans through surveillance  to review classified information that he and fellow committee members didn't have access to.

'I had to go to the White House to meet with a source. Can no one go to the White House anymore?' Nunes complained in an interview with the Washington Post.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer defended Nunes' actions at his Monday briefing as he argued that the information the congressman collected is not the same as a 'leak'

The White House would have known that Nunes was on the property, Swalwell charged on Tuesday.

'Its not an internet cafe. You cant just walk in and receive classified information,' he said on Morning Joe. 'Everyone in the building knows that youre there in the building.'

HOUSE INTEL COMMITTEE POSTPONES CLOSED SESSION WITH FBI The House Intelligence Committee will not hold on Tuesday a closed briefing with the directors of the FBI and National Security Agency, a spokesman for the committee's Republican chairman said on Monday. Devin Nunes, last week said he cancelled a public hearing on the committee's investigation of Russian influence on the 2016 election because it was necessary to hold the closed session with Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey and NSA Director Mike Rogers. 'Director Comey and Adm. Rogers could not come in tomorrow as wed hoped, so the Committee will continue to try to schedule a time when they can meet with us in closed session,' Jack Langer, a spokesman for Nunes, said in a statement. Advertisement

Swalwell said, 'This is done because the White House wanted it to be done.'

'And this is what a cover-up to a crime looks like. We are watching it play out right now.'

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer dodged a question about Swalwell's comments Tuesday.

He used the question as an opportunity to deliver a lecture on reporters' obsession with the process.

'I I think the thing that's important to note is there's somewhat of a double standard when it comes to classified information. When leaks are made illegally to the press, and you all report them, the coverage focuses almost entirely on the substance of the allegation and, that are part of an illegal leak, not on the illegal nature of the disclosure, the identity of the leaks or their agenda.

'But when the information that is occurring now  which is two individuals who are properly cleared, or three or whoever he met with, I don't know  that they are sharing stuff that is entirely legal, with the appropriate clearances, and then there's an obsession on the process.'

Continuing, Spicer opined that 'backwards' that news outlets think it's 'appropriate and fine' when classified information is shared with them.

'No one questions that, the substance of the material,' he said. 'And I think that it is somewhat reckless and dis how, how the conversation over classified information is discussed without  while sort of attempting to press a false narrative that exists.'

He blasted another reporter asking about the investigation later and told her to stop shaking her head in disagreement with his assessment.

'I've said it from the day that I got here until whatever, that there is no connection. You've "got" Russia. If the president puts Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that's a Russian connection,' he hollered.

Spicer had defended Nunes actions at his Monday briefing as he rebuffed reporters comparing the classified information Nunes collected to the intelligence leaks the administration has furtively condemned.

Reporters pressed Trump's spokesman to reveal Nunes' sources - and say definitively whether the White House orchestrated the release of information.

It was also a mystery as to how Nunes even got into the White House to view the classified information in a secure area.

'Chairman Nunes is cleared. He is the chairman of the intelligence committee. Someone who is cleared to share classified information with somebody else [who is] cleared is not a leak,' Spicer said.

Asked who at the White House got him into the compound, Spicer responded: 'I don't know that members of Congress need to be cleared.'

Spicer indicated he doesn't know whether the White House had knowledge of what information Nunes got during his clandestine visit.

'I'm not aware of where he got it from. I know in his public statement, he has talked about having multiple sources,' Spicer said. 'And so I don't know how he derived the conclusion that he did. I think that at this point, the goal would be to wait until the review that he is undertaking is completed.'

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) was at the White House the day before he cited new information about 'unmasking' of Americans at Trump Tower

Why Nunes would need to brief President Trump the next day on documents that were available on White House grounds was also unclear.

'That's a big assumption that you're making, that that's the only thing...he had multiple sources on multiple topics. We don't know what he briefed him on in its totality. And so to jump to that conclusion is frankly irresponsible,' Spicer responded.

On multiple occasions, Spicer tried to keep his distance from the situation, saying reporters should direct their questions to the Intelligence chairman.

'I know that Chairman Nunes has confirmed that he was on White House grounds Tuesday. And frankly any questions regarding who he met with or why he was here should be referred to him,' Spicer said.

'I'm not going to get into who he met with or why he met with them. I think that's something that he has been very clear [on], and I'll let him answer. 'He is the one who has discussed what he is reviewing, and so I will leave it up to him and not try to get in the middle of that.'

Trump's White House has said in no uncertain terms that leaking will not be tolerated and those caught in the act will be severely punished. Comey and Rogers said the same thing in testimony before the House Intel Committee a week ago.

Spicer said Monday that situation involving Nunes is completely different.

'I think there's a difference between a leak and someone pursuing a review of the situation that they have determined ... there's a difference between a leak, someone leaking out to reporters for nefarious, to take classified information and share it with people who aren't cleared,' he said.

IT TAKES TWO: Intelligence panel vice chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) wait for the start of a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence hearing concerning Russian meddling in the 2016 United States election

He offered no additional information to reporters inquiring about the matter on Tuesday.

Nunes on Wednesday claimed that President Trump and his transition aides were 'unmasked' in spy intercepts at a press conference on Capitol Hill that came before his visit to the White House to speak with the president.

He then briefed reporters covering Trump before he spoke to the intel committee's highest ranking Democrat, Schiff.

Nunes said conversations about Trump and members of his transition team got picked up inadvertently through 'incidental' surveillance, but his comments nevertheless were taken to bolster the president's claim that his phones had been 'tapped' at Trump Tower. President Trump later that he felt somewhat 'vindicated.'

At no time has Nunes suggested that Trump's tweets were accurate. He has repeatedly said the wiretapping claims as unproven.

He apologized last week to Democrats after Schiff blasted him for not immediately sharing the information with the panel and meeting with the president about it first.

Still, Schiff said Monday that Nunes' deeds created a need for the Republican to recuse himself.
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A 30-year-old mystery has been solved after a shipwreck was identified as the 17th Century Dutch merchant that capsized in a storm before being ransacked by locals in Dorset.

The Fame, a 130ft long armed merchant ship, capsized and sank at the entrance to Poole Harbour in Dorset in 1631 while taking shelter from a storm en route to the West Indies.

The 45 man crew safely made it to shore but were horrified when the impoverished people of Poole realised there was a potential bonanza on their doorstep - similar to the Queen Charlotte shipwreck in the TV series Poldark.

Numerous parties rowed out to the wreck and illegally plundered it for weapons, sailing equipment and food and drink.

The Fame, a 130ft long armed merchant ship, capsized and sank at the entrance to Poole Harbour in Dorset in 1631 while taking shelter from a storm en route to the West Indies

The rudder of the 17th Century Dutch merchant ship Fame, when it was pulled out of the water in 2013

The 45 man crew safely made it to shore but were horrified when the impoverished people of Poole realised there was a potential bonanza on their doorstep - - similar to the Queen Charlotte shipwreck in the TV series Poldark. Pictured is the wreck on the sea floor

Records now show the ship's master, John Jacobson Botemaker, made a legitimate complaint to the High Court of the Admiralty and insisted the thieves be arrested and the stolen property recovered.

In similar scenes, the eponymous hero from the BBC series faced court trial for inciting a riot, viciously attacking a Customs Officer, and plundering diverse goods in series two of the drama based on the books by Winston Graham.

For whatever reason Botemaker's requests went ignored. The authorities of the day were more concerned with getting the wreck moved as it presented a huge danger to shipping.

The wreck was discovered by a local dredger in the 1990s which triggered a huge archaeological operation hailed as the most significant since the Mary Rose.

Experts discovered that virtually all of the port side of the ship still lies intact in 30ft of water.

They brought to the surface opulent wooden carvings of mermen that would have covered the ship as well as the 28ft long rudder section which had the face of a moustachioed warrior carved into it.

While the relics were treated in preparation for being housed in a museum, a historian was tasked with identifying the ship and its story.

Expert Ian Friel has spent two years researching the wreck and has been able to identify it as the Fame - one of the biggest ships in the world at the time equivalent to the Titanic.

Adrian Turner as Ross Poldark in the hit TV series

When it left the port of Hoorn, near Amsterdam, in January 1631, the Dutch were a superpower of the seas.

The merchantmen was on its way to the West Indies to collect trade goods like tobacco and sugar and would have been targeted by Spanish privateers and pirates along the way.

Mr Friel said: 'This was a merchant vessel which was armed so they were prepared to fight. The seas at the time were potentially dangerous. Privateers for the Spanish as well as pirates would have tried to intercept it.

'It is not known why the Fame stopped off Poole, perhaps the crew were seeking to shelter in Studland Bay. It didn't work as the ship seems to have dragged its anchor and the Fame was driven on to a sandbank.

'It sunk in about nine metres of water in main channel to the entrance to Poole Harbour. It went over on its side and it posed a major problem and potential hazard.

'The people of Poole went out to it to take what they could because a ship like this represented a huge concentration of wealth Most people were very poor and all of a sudden there was this huge bonanza on their doorstep.

'The master and crew all escaped alive and got to land which meant was the ship was not legally a 'wreck' but people from Poole area still came out and filched tackle, gear, victuals and other items from the stricken vessel.

'The ship's owners made a complaint about the looting. They wanted the English High Court of the Admiralty to put together a commission to recover the stolen goods and arrest the people who had taken them.

'The Dutchmen had a cast-iron case, but despite this, it seems that the HCA did nothing.'

The huge rudder was recovered from the sea by Bournemouth University marine archaeologists in 2013 and it has now gone on display at Poole Museum.

Marine archeologist David Parham from Bournemouth Universtiy inspects the carving at the top of the rudder when it was pulled out of the water

he 28ft rudder which is now on display at Poole Museum. Numerous parties rowed out to the wreck and illegally plundered it for weapons, sailing equipment and food and drink

Records now show the ship's master, John Jacobson Botemaker, made a legitimate complaint to the High Court of the Admiralty and insisted the thieves be arrested and the stolen property recovered

The wreck was discovered by a local dredger in the 1990s which triggered a huge archaeological operation hailed as the most significant since the Mary Rose

Archaeology lecturer Dave Parham said: 'It would have been a very big vessel for its day and the whole vessel would have been a spectacular work or art.

'It was a sign of prestige and wealth. It was making a statement, showing how great and wonderful the owners were.

'They would have been a large Dutch conglomerate, similar to the East India Company.

'It would not have been a million miles from a 17th century version of the Titanic, although the Titanic was ornate for the passengers and not for those on the outside.'
An man has been charged with murder after a 34-year-old artist was found stabbed to death in her Washington, DC apartment.

Police arrested El Hadji Alpha Madiou Toure, 28, on Monday and charged him with first-degree murder while armed and theft one in the death of Corrina Mehiel.

Officials are expected to release more details about the suspect's arrest at a Tuesday morning press conference.

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A man has been arrested in the murder of 34-year-old Corrina Mehiel (pictured above), who was found tied up and stabbed to death in her Washington, DC apartment last week

Police arrested El Hadji Alpha Madiou Toure, 28, on Monday. Last week, DC police released this image of the man they believed to be the murderer

The arrest comes almost a week after Mehiel's body was found tied up and stabbed inside her apartment.

Last week, police released a picture of Mehiel's stolen car, a blue 2004 Toyota Prius, sayind that they beleived finding the car would lead them to the suspect.

The car was found on Friday, but police didn't release furhter details about where and how it was located.

Mehiel was last seen at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC on March 19, and her body was found two days later.

Mehiel had not been seen for two days before police made the horrible discovery last week

Last Thursday, police release an image of a man believed to be the main suspect, walking into a gas station wearing grey pants, a black long-sleeve top, sunglasses and a black beanie.

Earlier in the day, police provided details about the grisly death and disappearance.

Acting Police Chief Peter Newsham told reporters that investigators did not know if the 34-year-old had been at the gallery, which is owned and operated by George Washington University, alone or with someone, NBC Washington reports.

Mehiel was found dead in her apartment (pictured) more than two days after she had last been seen

Mehiel, 34, had last been seen at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC on Sunday, before her body was found in her apartment about 4pm on Tuesday

Mehiel was an artist who has had her work displayed across the US and internationally.

She had been working as a visiting professor at George Washington prior to her death, according to NBC Washington.

George Washington University's Corcoran School of the Arts and Design released a statement about the death on Wednesday night.

Police released this image of Mehiel's car, which they said has been missing since the weekend. It was found three days ago, but police did not release any further information about where and how it was found

'It is with a heavy heart that I write to you regarding a tragic loss to our community,' the statement read.

'Corrina worked closely with the William Wilson Corcoran Visiting Professor Mel Chin as a project assistant.

'Her strong commitment to the Fundredcampaign is what led her to work with Mel and while in DC, she proved to be a galvanizing force bringing more attention to lead poisoning.

'Corrina was a vibrant and talented individual who will be dearly missed.'
A single mom dressed up like a man so that she could take her six-year-old daughter to her highly-anticipated father-daughter school dance  but the school's principal refused to let them attend.

Knowing how much her daughter, Gracie, wanted to attend the dance even though her father was out of the picture, Amy Peterson, of Henry County, Georgia, decided she'd take her daughter to the dance.

The conform to the dance's theme though, the duo decided that Amy would attend dressed up like a man.

Mom Amy Peterson dressed up like a man to take daughter Gracie to father-daughter dance, but was told to stay at home by the school principal just one hour before the dance started

Amy told 11Alive that she studied online tutorials to learn how to apply mascara so that it would look like a beard, put on cologne and a bow tie and wore clothes that were bigger than her usual size, all so she could look the part.

'I was trying to comply with the rules,' Amy told 11Alive. 'I knew if I showed up as her mom, they probably wouldn't have let me in.'

Amy told Wave 3 News that she filed the appropriate paperwork with the school a month before the dance, stating that she would be the parent escorting her daughter that evening.

But, last Friday, just an hour before the dance was due to start, Amy says Gracie's school's principal called and told the mother and daughter to stay at home.

Six-year-old Gracie Peterson has been bullied because she doesn't have a father in her life

Amy Peterson wants to see rules change so that in the future, kids like Amy, who aren't from traditional two-parent households won't be excluded from school dances

Amy Peterson watched online videos to learn how to apply mascara to look like it is a beard

'She says, "No, I forbid you to come. If you show up, we will turn you away,"' Amy told Wave 3 News.

When Gracie heard the sad news, 'She screamed, "No, why? Why do I have to be the one missing a dad,"' Amy told 11Alive. 'She was just excited that we were doing this together.'

Not having a father in her life has been difficult for Gracie in the past, too. Amy says that her daughter has been subjected to bullying by her kindergarten classmates at Locust Grove Elementary School.

'Had one kid tell her she didn't have a dad because she's fat and ugly,' Amy recalled to WSB-TV.

The Henry County Schools district said in a statement obtained by WSB-TV that the dance announcement indicated that 'in lieu of a dad' any 'family or friend father-figure' could attend.

Amy wasn't the only mother who wanted to go to the dance to support a daughter, according to the school district  other mothers were informed of the dance rules and told they couldn't attend either.

The Locust Grove Elementary School billboard advertising the dance Amy and Gracie were barred from attending last Friday in Henry County, Georgia

'The school is cognizant that different dynamics exist across households in the our school system...There are multiple parent engagement events and opportunities to participate with their kids annually at this school in an effort to make that connection and build school spirit,' the Henry County Schools district also said in the statement.

A spokesperson for the school district told 11Alive that the county doesn't restrict who is or isn't allowed to attend dances, leaving those decisions to the individual schools. The spokesperson also indicated that Gracie's school apologized for the incident and refunded the $20 dance attendance fee.

Amy says that neither of those things have happened yet.

While there is another opportunity for Gracie to attend a school dance with her mom  the sweetheart dance that allows students to bring anyone they want  Amy says it's not good enough.

'Why is she being punished because she doesn't have a dad?' Amy wondered to Wave 3 News.

'If you dont want things like this happening, put parent-child dance. Dont put a stipulation on if its a mom or a dad,' she added.

'This is my baby,' Amy told 11Alive, indicating that she would be willing to take the issue up with lawmakers to make sure things change in the future.

'I don't want to see her go through this. And if I have to fight tooth and nail to make sure this doesn't happen to another child, I will.'

Meanwhile, Amy intends to home school Gracie next year, reports 11Alive.
Former Tory Cabinet minister Nicky Morgan has branded her party's manifesto pledge to slash immigration to the tens of thousands 'socially divisive'.

The Remain supporting MP stood on the manifesto claim at the 2010 and 2015 General Elections but today endorsed a document condemning it produced by the anti-Brexit Open Britain campaign.

Open Britain today launched a policy paper it described as 'the government's Brexit contract with the British people'.

The new document combines statements made by the Government and Vote Leave spokespeople and presents them as minimum requirements for the Brexit deal.

Mrs Morgan even hinted she could refuse to stand as a Conservative at the next election if Theresa May's Brexit deal breaches the 'contract'.

Former Tory Cabinet minister Nicky Morgan, pictured at today's Open Britain launch, has branded her party's manifesto pledge to slash immigration 'socially divisive'

Mrs Morgan is a senior Conservative member of the campaign, which also includes former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg and former Labour shadow chancellor Chris Leslie.

The publication of a policy paper and the rebuttal of Tory manifesto pledges by a senior Conservative will fuel suspicion Open Britain is behaving as a political party.

At the launch, Mrs Morgan said she disagreed with the Tory pledge on immigration, which is to slash net migration from its current levels to the tens of thousands.

She said: 'I have been very clear that I think actually it doesn't solve the issue.

'Obviously people have voted but people have been told that leaving the EU will help to meet that target  let's see what's going to happen.

'It is the manifesto but I think people did vote on immigration last year, I think people do want to see immigration controlled.

'But my conversations have always been that they want to know that the Government knows how many people are coming in, how long they are here for and when they are going to be leaving.'

Mrs Morgan is a senior Conservative member of the campaign, which also includes former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg (right) and former Labour shadow chancellor Chris Leslie (left today at the launch)

She added: 'The idea that somehow if it's 101,000 that's unacceptable but if you have 99,000 that's OK  I think people want a much more nuanced immigration policy now.

'They want to know that there are enough nurses, that our crops are going to be picked, but also that people aren't going to be abusing the rules.

'That's going to have to be reflected in future policy going forward.'

Asked about the Brexit deal and her own commitment to the Conservatives if that deal is not to her liking, Mrs Morgan said: 'I want and expect that the Government will get the possible negotiation.

'This is about saying to the Government negotiators that there must a good deal, and that's what I'm working towards.

'Anything after that in terms of future elections is very much something for several years hence.'

The publication of a policy paper, spearheaded by former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, and the rebuttal of Tory manifesto pledges by a senior Conservative will fuel suspicion Open Britain is behaving as a political party

A spokesman for Mrs Morgan said: 'Nicky Morgan did not hint at quitting the Conservative Party.

'Nicky is very proud to be the Conservative MP for Loughborough and intends to continue to be the Conservative MP for Loughborough for many years to come.'
Two parents are accused of an alarming misstep after failing to find childcare while they worked.

Parents Jean Seide, 39, and Bilaine Seint-Just, 36, are charged with three counts of child endangerment after allegedly leaving their children alone in the mall where they work on Monday in Victor, New York.

Both parents work as janitors in the Eastview Mall, about 15 miles outside of Rochester, and police say the children aged eight years, six years, and one month old were left alone for about six hours, according to Spectrum News.

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Parents Jean Seide (left) and Bilaine Seint-Just (right) are charged with three counts of child endangerment after allegedly leaving their children alone in the mall where they work on Monday in Victor, New York

Both parents work in the Eastview Mall (pictured). Workers at the mall's Lord and Taylor shop noticed three kids alone on a bench outside the store and called police to report it

Workers at the mall's Lord and Taylor store called police around 8pm after spotting three children alone on a bench outside the store.

The devastated parents said they just wanted to take care of the children, with father Seide telling Spectrum that he made sure the tykes had food and a cell phone, and mother Seint-Just sobbing as she said she loved her children.

Both parents were given tickets to appear in court in April and released. Child protective services was also called to investigate.

'The criminal justice system may move in a direction to, again, keep these parents gainfully employed, but at the same time establish with them an understanding with them that a sound childcare system is certainly necessary during employment,' Ontario County Sheriff Phil Povero told Spectrum.

'Hopefully they learn from this and strengthen as a family unit.'
Investigators fear a 50-year-old teacher who disappeared with his teenage student could have crossed the border into Mexico or Central America since they were last seen two weeks ago.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation alerted police in Mexico and Central America to keep an eye out for Tad Cummins and Elizabeth Thomas, 15, who could be 'anywhere' since they vanished from the town of Columbia on March 13.

While the agency received an tip last week that the two were spotted in Corpus Christi, Texas - just 150 miles away from the border - police were unable to confirm the sighting.

With dwindling leads as to where the couple could be, investigators are taking precautionary measures and considering the possibility that they may have left the country.

Family members have pleaded for Cummins to bring Thomas home after it was discovered that the two had been sending love letters to one another by writing draft emails on a shared classroom computer at Culleoka School.

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Elizabeth Thomas, 15, (left) disappeared from Columbia, Tennessee, on March 13 with Tad Cummins, 50

A reported sighting of the pair was made in Corpus Christi, Texas, last week. Police could not confirm it, but investigators have notified police in Mexico and Central America

Cummins and Thomas left love notes for each other on his classroom computer at Culleoka School before vanishing. The pair are pictured in the classroom, above, in January

The TBI issued a statement saying: 'We have not requested an AMBER Alert be issued in Mexico or Central America.

'We have, through the FBI, shared with law enforcement in Mexico and Central America, relevant information about the case, to include identifying information about both individuals.

'This is, however, in the name of due dilligence. We have no specific information Tad Cummins took Elizabeth Thomas across the Border.'

Cummins' wife Jill spoke with NBC News on Monday and urged her husband to turn himself in, saying: 'You know you can't hide forever. For your sake and for Beth's sake, please go to the police or please just drop Beth off somewhere safe.'

She also said 'nobody understands the pain and shock I am in now.'

'For your sake and for Beth's sake, please go to the police or please just drop Beth off somewhere safe,' said Cummins' wife Jill in a separate interview

Meanwhile, Thomas' sister shared shocking new claims about the girl's relationship with her teacher in an emotional interview withGood Morning America.

Sarah Thomas fought back tears as she revealed that Tad Cummins, 50, had begun showing up unannounced at her sister's work shortly before the pair disappeared together. His last visit had come just two days before the girl's abduction, she said.

'She would go and tell people to tell him she wasn't there and she would go and hide until he left,' explained Sarah Thomas.

'She thought it was the only way. She felt uncomfortable.'

Elizabeth's family is still holding out hope that they will see the girl again, and are begging any person who might have information to reach out and contact authorities.

'It feels like she just vanished, and I know that's impossible, someone had to see her,' said the victim's sister Sarah.

Thomas' sister (Sarah above) said that her teacher Tad Cummins, 50, had been showing up at her work unannounced. Pictured right, the teen's father

Sarah Thomas said her sister would tell he co-workers to tell Cummins she wasn't around when he showed up at her work (Thomas family above)

Her father meanwhile was optimistic about the teenager's eventual return home to be with her family.

'We just live for that day where we are gonna get a phone call that says we're alright and waiting for someone to get me,' said Anthony Thomas.

Investigators spent the weekend pouring over email drafts that the two would send one another while in school for any clues into where the pair may be, with Cummins now facing charges of aggravated kidnapping and sexual contact with a minor.

'They would write the message and let it save as a draft. The other person would log in, read the message and then delete it and then write another message that was saved as a draft,' said Maury County District Attorney Brent Cooper.

'If you read them you would immediately recognize you are reading messages between two people who have a romantic interest in each other.'

One of the emails uncovered by authorities was written by Cummins and began: 'I saw you standing next to your backpack this morning.'

The teacher then told the student how nice one of her body parts looked to him in the note.

Any help: The family has also released a recent video of Elizabeth (above with her brother) hoping that someone might recognize her lisp

Elizabeth's family also released a recent video of the teenager with her brother in hopes that someone might recognize the young girl's lisp.

A student came forward earlier this year to tell school officials that they saw the student and her married teacher kissing in a classroom this past January.

The school eventually made the decision to remove Elizabeth from the teacher's classroom, but allow Cummins to keep teaching at the school.

Cummins was last seen one day before the two disappeared buying hair dye at a Walmart.

Elizabeth, who is one of ten children, made frequent posts on social media about romance and love in the weeks before she was abducted by Cummins.

She also started calling herself 'wife' on Instagram and made several references to a 'mission' that was 'almost complete'.

On March 13, she told family she was going to spend the day with a friend. One of her siblings has since revealed that the teenager told them to call police if she did not return home that night.

Cummins visited a Walmart in Columbia, Tennessee, the day before he vanished with the girl. He was filmed on surveillance cameras buying dark brown women's hair dye

Elizabeth changed her Instagram biography before she vanished to describe herself as a 'wife'. She also added a ring emoji to the description

Authorities believe she may have gone willingly with Cummins, who they say has been grooming her for sex for some time.

Elizabeth was seen on surveillance footage the day she disappeared carrying a bndle of clothes.

The grandfather is believed to be armed and possible dangerous, with two guns.

Elizabeth's mother spoke to DailyMail.com last week in an exclusive interview to share her fears.

This image of Elizabeth was taken on March 13, the day she vanished. She appears to be holding a bundle of clothes

She labeled her daughter's captor 'disturbed' and said she worried Elizabeth would either end up pregnant or dead.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which is leading the hunt for the pair, has received hundreds of tips but none have come to fruition.

One reported sighting of the pair was made in Corpus Christi, a coastal city in south east Texas, last week.

They were reported to have been seen in the tiny town of North Beach which sits just 160 miles from the Mexican border.

Nothing ever came of the tip-off and police have not clarified whether they believe it was credible or a case of mistaken identity.

Anyone with information of their whereabouts is urged to call 1-800-TBI-FIND. Police are asking anyone who sees a silver Nissan Rogue with a license plate of TN 976-ZPT to call 911 immediately.
Louise Harris, 24, is a Cambridge-educated wannabe popstar from Harpenden who has compared the Just Stop Oil campaign to that of the Irish rebels' fight for independence from the British and once said she was like a prisoner of war. This morning she cried on the gantry over Britain's busiest motorway as she declared: 'You might hate me for doing this. I'm here because I don't have a future.' But despite her warnings about the future of the planet, her Facebook page shows her posing next to a 2009 Fiat Punto, which runs on unleaded. Just Stop Oil opposes petrol cars so much its members smash petrol stations to prevent people refueling and blockade refineries. She also appears to be at the wheel - or a passenger - in the same car in a number of other social media posts, including this year when she has been taking part in Just Stop Oil protests, despite it running on petrol. Miss Harris compared her yellow Punto to the vehicle made famous by The Inbetweeners, because it has a red door. In one post where she stands next to her Fiat she says: 'I am officially Number 1 fan of this show f**k you other wannabes. Unfortunately it DOESN'T have a tape deck'. Today Miss Harris was among 23 people arrested by the Met Police and colleagues at Surrey, Essex and Hertfordshire, after shutting down the M25. The demonstrator - who posts songs on YouTube including a slickly edited music video called 'Dating me is like a Cambridge term'. The lyrics include: Dating me is like a Cambridge term. By the fifth week you are completely burnt out emotionally destroyed and suicidal'.
Police have arrested a suspect in connection with the vandalism at a mosque near Colorado State University, a case they are investigating as a hate crime.

Joseph Scott Giaquinto, 35, was arrested on suspicion of several charges, including a crime motivated by bias, after he allegedly overturned benches, broke windows and threw a Bible into the Islamic Center of Fort Collins.

Giaquinto lives across the street from the center, and is a former army combat medic who served for eight years in several middle eastern countries including Iraq and Baghdad.

Joseph Scott Giaquinto, 35, was arrested on suspicion of several charges, including a crime motivated by bias, after he allegedly overturned benches, broke windows and threw a Bible into the Islamic Center of Fort Collins

Police had asked for the public's help in the case, and released surveillance footage of the crime in the hopes of identifying Giaquinto.

His father Michael told the Coloradoan that he noticed his son sometimes being gloomy and moody, and that he had been raised in a Christian household.

He said: 'No matter what we find out happened, my son is a good man,'

'He served his country well. Even if he was involved, and I'm not saying he was, it would just indicate that he was in a kind of a bad place.'

Three of the rear doors were damaged in the incident at Islamic Center Fort Collins

An Islamic center was vandalized near the Colorado State University campus during the early morning hours on Sunday in Fort Collins

Interior images of one of the large rocks that was thrown through a glass door into the prayer area were published by ICFC to their Facebook page on Sunday

An image shared by the IFCF on Facebook shows shattered glass in a rear door of the mosque

In one of the video clips, a man wearing a hoodie, initially believed to be in his late teens or early 20s, is shown picking up a paving stone and walking away. In another clip, he kicks a door.

A police spokeswoman said that she did not have details on how police came to identify Giaquinto as the suspect.

The Islamic Center's president, Tawfik Aboellail, said the man tried to break into the mosque about 4 a.m. Sunday, but he did not get inside.

The arrest brings slight comfort to the community, who are still rattled by the act.

'There is a better sense of security, but we are not out of the woods yet,' Aboellail said.

The vandalism prompted the center to cancel religious classes for children that morning, but also led to an outpouring of support from other Fort Collins residents.

The vandalism prompted the center to cancel religious classes for children that morning, but also led to an outpouring of support from other Fort Collins residents

People gathered to show their support for the Muslim community in Fort Collins on Sunday, shown here in images shared on the ICFC Facebook page

Congregants from Plymouth Congregational Church visited after their morning service, and later about 1,000 people gathered at the mosque for a rally of support organized by a rabbi Sunday evening.

Many have also been making donations on GoFundMe titled 'Protect Our Religious Spaces' to pay for repairs and improved security at the center.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations had urged police to investigate the case as a possible hate crime.

This latest act against a house of Muslim worship comes after the organization reported 33 threats, vandalizations or acts of arson targeting a mosque having occurred between January 1 and March 20, 2017.

Congregants from Plymouth Congregational Church visited after their morning service, and later about 1,000 people gathered at the mosque for a rally of support organized by a rabbi Sunday evening

Over the same time period in 2016, CAIR reported 19 similar incidents.

In a forthcoming report conducted by the organization, figures are expected to show a 40 percent increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes from 2015 to 2016, and a more than 50 percent increase in more general acts of anti-Muslim bias.

Police Chief John Hutto, who attended the support rally, said the incident has a 'very real impact on our Muslim friends and neighbors.'

'The criminal act against their sacred space is unacceptable,' he said in a statement.

The campaign has been fully funded to improve security at the center and donations continue to be accepted

US Representative for the 2nd District of Colorado Jared Polis tweeted a few hours later: 'The vandalism that occurred at the Islamic Center in Fort Collins is unacceptable. It's time for us to stand in unity. These acts must end.'

The vandalism comes about a month after someone threw a rock through a window at a mosque in the Denver area. The incident at the Colorado Muslim Society was also captured on surveillance video, but no one has been arrested.

Investigators in the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office have exhausted their leads, spokeswoman Julie Brooks said Monday.
The Scottish Parliament has tonight voted to demand a new Scottish independence referendum in defiance of Theresa May's warning 'now is not the time'.

MSPs voted 69 to 59 in favour after Nicola Sturgeon warned she will not back down if Mrs May ignores her demand for a fresh Scottish independence vote.

Immediately after MSPs voted, Scotland Secretary David Mundell insisted the UK Government's position had not changed and negotiations on a referendum would not start until after Brexit was finished.

MPs and Peers must vote for a new referendum for it to be legitimate but despite tonight's events in Edinburgh, Mrs May is not required to call a vote in London.

The standoff means Miss Sturgeon will have to follow through on her warning to 'take steps' against the PM after Easter to defend the will of the Scottish Parliament.

The comments appear to hint that Ms Sturgeon could stage an advisory ballot but this would be a dangerous step fraught with questions about who would pay and whether unionist parties would take part at all.

Tonight's dramatic events come after a tense showdown between the leaders yesterday and on the eve of our divorce from the EU being formally triggered.

Nicola Sturgeon warned she is ready to 'take steps' if the Westminster government rejects her demands for another independence vote before Brexit is complete

Miss Sturgeon made her case to MSPs before comfortably winning the vote by 69-59 in the Scottish Parliament

The vote was greeted with jubilation by fist-pumping independence supporters outside the Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh

Independence supporters, such as Lorna Taylor pictured, have been agitating for months to re-run the 2014 Scottish poll

Miss Sturgeon hinted today she could try and hold an unofficial referendum - a move that would delight her strongest supporters but which could be boycotted by unionists

Opening today's debate, Miss Sturgeon demanded Westminster should respect the wishes of the Scottish Parliament.

She said: 'If it does so, I will enter discussion in good faith and with a willingness to compromise.

'However if it chooses not to do so, I will return to the Parliament following the Easter recess to set out the steps the Scottish Government will take to progress the will of Parliament.'

Miss Sturgeon and Mrs May met yesterday at Glasgow's Crowne Plaza Hotel, with sparks thought to have flown in private despite slightly awkward smiles for photographs.

Unusually there was no on-camera handshake - a routine pleasantry at most encounters between dignitaries.

STURGEON WINS VOTE IN HOLYROOD BUT WILL LONDON LISTEN? There is a strict process that needs to be followed to hold a binding referendum - but Westminster is refusing to play ball. At the same stage ahead of the 2014 referendum, an agreement was struck between Edinburgh and London known as the 'Edinburgh Agreement', setting the terms for the poll. Theresa May's Government has said it will not enter negotiations until Brexit is finished. This makes it likely tonight's vote in the Scottish Parliament will go ignored in Westminster. MPs and Peers have to pass what is known as a 'section 30 order' to devolve referendum powers before a legal one can go ahead. Miss Sturgeon hinted today she could take an alternative route and try to call an unofficial referendum. This would not be legal or binding but would be fraught with difficulties for both sides as questions would be asked about who would pay for it and whether unionists would take part. Advertisement

The leaders have been engaged in a furious public slanging match since Miss Sturgeon triggered a huge constitutional row a fortnight ago by demanding a fresh referendum on breaking away from the UK as early as Autumn next year.

Mrs May has insisted 'now is not the time' for an independence vote, and made clear the Westminster government will ignore any requests for one at least until Brexit is completed in March 2019.

She has accused Miss Sturgeon of 'playing politics' with the country's future and today insisted her position has not changed.

But the SNP chief has accused the PM of 'untenable' behaviour and 'running scared' of the electorate.

Addressing MSPs today Miss Sturgeon said: 'When Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty is triggered tomorrow, change for our country at that point becomes inevitable.'

She added: 'It is change that will impact on our economy, not just in the here and now but in the long-term.

'There will be an impact on trade, on investment and on living standards, and an impact on the very nature of the society we live in.'

She continued: 'My argument is simply this: when the nature of the change that is made inevitable by Brexit becomes clear, that change should not be imposed upon us, we should have the right to decide the nature of that change.'

Miss Sturgeon, pictured right after winning tonight's vote, said she would return to parliament next week to outline plans to 'progress' the referendum demands. The result was greeted with jubilation outside the Holyrood building

The pro-independence campaign lost by 10-points at the 2014 referendum and polls do not suggest the level of support has significantly changed

Project Cheer! Record number of Britons are happy about finances More Britons are feeling positive about their finances than at any time on record, according to an influential survey. Around 68 per cent of Britons feel good about their personal situation, a study by Lloyds Bank shows  two points higher than on the eve of the Brexit vote. This is the highest figure recorded by the lender since it started keeping track of sentiment five years ago. There was growing optimism about the British economy and job security, but faith in the housing market fell to its lowest level since July 2013, with only 37 per cent saying they felt confident. Robin Bulloch of Lloyds said: Despite a melting pot of economic uncertainty  from the prospect of Brexit to the impact of inflation  UK consumers are demonstrating a remarkable resilience when it comes to their own personal finances. The figures suggest that as Britain begins the process of leaving the European Union today, most households are positive about the future. It comes as foreign investment continues to flood into the country, with Qatar pledging to plough 5billion into UK assets earlier this week. Fears of a mass exodus from the City have also proved unfounded so far. Advertisement

Scotland Secretary David Mundell suggested the Government was ruling out an independence referendum for years.

He said: 'We wont be entering into any negotiations at all until the Brexit process is complete.

'Now is the time for the Scottish government to come together with the UK government, work together to get the best possible deal for the UK, and that will mean for Scotland as we leave the EU.'

He added: 'We dont recognise, for example, 18 months as being a key point in the journey.

'It will be a journey that will involve the negotiations with the EU, it may be a journey that involves transitional measures, it may be a journey that will involve significant implementation.'

Holyrood presiding officer Ken Macintosh announced the results of the vote in the Scottish Parliament just after 5pm

Unlike in Westminster, MSPs vote quickly from their seats in the Scottish Parliament chamber

After the vote, a UK Government spokeswoman said: 'The Prime Minister has been clear that now is not the time for an independence referendum, and we will not be entering into negotiations on the Scottish Government's proposal.

'At this point, all our focus should be on our negotiations with the European Union, making sure we get the right deal for the whole of the UK.

'It would be unfair to the people of Scotland to ask them to make a crucial decision without the necessary information about our future relationship with Europe, or what an independent Scotland would look like.

'We have been joined together as one country for more than 300 years. We've worked together, we've prospered together, we've fought wars together, and we have a bright future. At this crucial time we should be working together, not pulling apart.'

But Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson mocked the First Minister for claiming vindication of her referendum timetable on the basis of her talks with Mrs May.

She said: 'What I find remarkable is the Prime Minister has been clear time after time, question after question, in the media, in the House of Commons, to say that now is not the time, it will take time to see the deal bedded in.

'What I can't believe is the one person she took into her trust was the First Minister, the person who has tried to derail this from the very beginning.

'That in a one to one meeting, the only person who could make Theresa May change her mind  and she is not known as a woman who changes her mind  was Nicola Sturgeon who couldn't wait to rush out to the bank of microphones and explain.

'I won't take any lessons from the first minister.'

Migrants 'shopping around' EU for handouts to return home Migrants facing deportation from Europe could shop around for cash handouts being offered by EU states to encourage them to leave, officials warn. Leaders across the bloc have introduced incentive schemes in an effort to deal with huge numbers of asylum cases clogging up their systems. Only around a third of attempts to remove failed asylum seekers are successful. But a European Commission document urged consistency, as it said the array of handouts, partly funded by the UKs contributions to Brussels, could lead to migrants travelling around Europe to seek out the best deals. Currently, Poland provides benefits totalling around 400, while migrants leaving Germany may be offered a package worth up to 4,300. The UK is exempt from centralised deportations but runs its own scheme, which can see migrants given 2,000. The report added: While many people arriving to the European Union flee from war, violence and persecution, others use asylum claims as a means of prolonging their presence in Europe. Advertisement

Theresa May, pictured in Birmingham today, will ignore tonight's vote in the Scottish Parliament

Theresa May, pictured on a visit to Birmingham today, made clear when she met the First Minister in Glasgow yesterday that she still believed it was the wrong time for a referendum

Ms Davidson rejected the charge that unionists were frightened of the independence debate, made after the debate was suspended in the aftermath of the Westminster attack.

She said: 'We're not  but we are sick of it. And most people in Scotland have had enough too.'

Speaking after the meeting yesterday, Miss Sturgeon said: 'It was a business like meeting. I wished the Prime Minister well for the negotiations that will kick off when she triggers Article 50 on Wednesday.

'I indicated the Scottish Government's desire to be constructive and play a part in getting what is in everybody's interests - the best possible deal for the UK.

'I had been under the impression we may be about to get some kind of offer from UK government around powers for the Scottish Government but nothing of that nature emerged.

'What was interesting though... was she is very clear the terms of Brexit, both the exit terms and the details of the future relationship on the trading between the UK and the EU will be clear before the UK exits.

'I put to her that will be in 18 months to two years, she said yes that was her expectation - of course that is the timescale I think the people of Scotland should have their ability make an informed choice.'

Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson mocked the First Minister for claiming vindication of her referendum timetable on the basis of her talks with Mrs May

But immediately before the talks Mrs May made clear she is still determined that a referendum will not be held before our divorce from Brussels is complete.

In a speech to civil servants in East Kilbride, the premier said the UK was an 'unstoppable force' in the world and Brexit would make it 'stronger'.

In a speech to civil servants at the Department for International Development in East Kilbride, Mrs May pledged that she will 'never allow our Union to become looser and weaker, or our people to drift apart'.

'We stand on the threshold of a significant moment for Britain as we begin the negotiations that will lead us towards a new partnership with Europe,' she said.

'And I want to make it absolutely clear as we move through this process that this is not  in any sense  the moment that Britain steps back from the world.

'Indeed, we are going to take this opportunity to forge a more Global Britain. The closest friend and ally with Europe, but also a country that looks beyond Europe to build relationships with old friends and new allies alike.

Ms Sturgeon said Westminster should respect the demand of the Scottish Parliament

Theresa May said a united Britain is an 'unstoppable force' as she held head-to-head talks with Nicola Sturgeon yesterday

'That is why the Plan for Britain I have set-out  a plan to get the right deal for Britain abroad as well as a better deal for ordinary, working people at home  has as its heart one over-arching goal: to build a more united nation. Because I believe when we work together, there is no limit to what we can do.'

The Premier continued: 'Because, as you prove every day through the work you do and as some of the most vulnerable people in some of the most desperate conditions around the world can attest, this United Kingdom and the values at its heart is one of the greatest forces for good in the world today.

'When we work together and set our sights on a task, we really are an unstoppable force.'

Mrs May hinted that Brexit could mean more powers being passed to devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

'A more united nation means working actively to bring people and communities together by promoting policies which support integration and social cohesion.

'In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that means fully respecting, and indeed strengthening, the devolution settlements. But never allowing our Union to become looser and weaker, or our people to drift apart.

'So in those policy areas where the UK Government holds responsibility, I am determined that we will put the interests of the Union  both the parts and the whole  at the heart of our decision-making.

'So as Britain leaves the European Union, and we forge a new role for ourselves in the world, the strength and stability of our Union will become even more important.'

Mrs May repeated her rejection of Miss Sturgeon's call for a referendum to be held between Autumn 2018 and Spring 2019.

'My position isn't going to change, which is that now is not the time to be talking about a second independence referendum,' she told reporters.

Most polls show opposition to independence ahead with the most recent survey, in the Sunday Times, putting the Union on 53 per cent

At one point, Mrs May gazed out of the window of the cramped hotel room meeting in Glasgow

The talks between Mrs May and Miss Sturgeon this afternoon will be their last before Britain passes the point of no return in its EU divorce.

On Wednesday the PM will formally write to Donald Tusk, the President of the European Commission, triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

That means Britain will leave the Brussels club on or before March 29 2019.

On Thursday ministers will publish the Great Repeal Bill, which will formally repeal the 1972 European Communities Act and transfer reams of existing EU law onto the domestic statute book.

The EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier warned yesterday there is a 'distinct possibility' Britain will leave without a trade deal.

He admitted the outcome would 'undoubtedly' leave the UK and the EU worse off.

But Brexit Secretary David Davis has made clear that there is no way Britain will pay 'that sort of money'.

PM picks neutral ground for showdown with Sturgeon as the leaders fix grins for the camera before getting to business

Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon fixed awkward smiles for the cameras before holding their crunch talks in a hotel room.

The leaders have previously met at in the more auspicious surroundings of the First Minister's Bute House residence in Edinburgh.

But Mrs May was clearly keen to be on neutral ground as she braced for a combustible encounter.

Both women appeared ill at ease as they settled in to their chairs in a normal room at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Glasgow.

However, the body language was hard to gauge as the only media allowed in was a single stills photographer .

There was not even a public handshake - which is routine when senior figures meet.
A nurse who lost both her legs and an arm after a simple cough developed into sepsis is now planning a trip around the world in a camper van.

Jayne Carpenter, 49, lost three limbs due to the horrific infection in 2016 but less than a year later, she is proving that the ordeal has not defeated her with the trip.

Jayne said she feels 'so lucky to be alive' that she wanted to plan her next adventure with husband Rob, who she has been married to for 18 years.

Jayne Carpenter, 49, lost three limbs due to the horrific infection in 2016 but less than a year later, she is proving that the ordeal has not defeated her by planning an international trip

Jayne said she feels 'so lucky to be alive' that she wanted to plan her next adventure with husband Rob, who she has been married to for 18 years

She said: 'We didn't have children so we started to travel all over the world.

'We are both determined that my disability won't let any of this stop us travelling - Vietnam and Cambodia are next on our list.

'I want to go everywhere we can. I am looking forward taking our camper van down the beach and go for a long, long walk with our dog Harriet in the sunshine.'

Her illness started as a simple cough and Jayne, despite being a health professional, believed it was a simple cold.

But she collapsed with pneumonia and was soon left fighting for her life when doctors diagnosed the killer blood infection of sepsis.

Jayne was put on a ventilator and heavily sedated for nine weeks during her ordeal - and husband Rob, 52, was told she needed a triple amputation with two teams of surgeons spending five hours to save her life.

Her illness started as a simple cough and Jayne, despite being a health professional, believed it was a simple cold until she collapsed

She lost both legs, an arm and four fingers following her terrifying illness in April last year.

She said: 'One minute I had a cough then the next I was on a life support machine.

'The doctor told Robert that I was suffering from neutropenic sepsis and said 'She will die if we don't amputate.'

Jayne, pictured with Rob and their dog, now has prosthetic legs and is able to walk again and says she feels 'lucky to be alive'

'All Robert wanted to know was whether I was going to live.'

Jayne, from Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, was critically ill for four weeks she slowly drifted back into consciousness.

She said: 'I could not wash, feed, walk, make myself a drink or even sit up on my own.

'It was hard. Very hard to accept the new me.'

Jayne now has prosthetic legs and is able to walk again and says she feels 'lucky to be alive.'

She said: 'I am living proof that none of us knows what is around the corner. Life can change beyond recognition in five minutes.

'I'd been fiercely independent and adored my keep fit regime and long walks on the beach with our dog Harriet.

'Robert is my absolute rock and he has proved his love is completely unconditional. I feel so lucky to have him.

'I am determined to make the most of every single second of each day.'

Rob added: 'I married Jayne for who she was and I love her. I just kept telling her that she was going to walk again and that it was just going to take time.

'We're lucky to have a second chance - a lot of people who have had sepsis don't have it.

'We are looking to the future now and I am so proud how strong she has been.'
Connor Allen-Howe has been jailed for tricking children into performing sex acts while he watched on Skype

A paedophile urged young boys to perform horrific sex acts on their pets and siblings over Skype after he posed as a young girl on Skype.

Connor Allen-Howe groomed children aged between 12 and 17 from across the world over the course of three years and then secretly recorded videos of them in their parents' homes.

The predator was finally snared after US police when a young victim in Colorado told his parents.

US law enforcers tipped off police in the UK, who raided Allen-Howe's home in Colchester, Essex and uncovered five separate Skype accounts used by the sex offender.

Allen-Howe, a 21-year-old who was once a spokesman for his local youth council, was jailed for eight years after admitted 31 sex offences at Chelmsford Crown Court.

The court heard officers seized his laptop and mobile phone where they found a sickening archive of illicit material, showing many of his 22 victims either naked or performing sex acts on themselves.

Michelle Brown from the Crown Prosecution Service said the case should serve as a warning to parents everywhere about the dangers of the internet.

The prosecutor at Chelmsford Crown Court (pictured) said the case should serve as a warning

She said: 'Connor Allen-Howe was 16 years old when his offending began in November 2012 and ended in June 2015.

'He posed as a teenage girl, aged 16 or 17 years old, and made random contact with young males on line and then encouraged them to chat with him via Skype chat and messenger.

'This case is a shocking warning of the dangers that exist online, not only of how easy it is for a stranger to make contact with young boys, but also to persuade them to carry out sexual acts on camera. In some instances, these acts were committed on children younger than themselves or involved pet dogs.

'We would urge anyone who suffers abuse online to report it. We continue to work closely with the police and other agencies to support victims and bring abusers to justice,' Mrs Brown added.

Stephen Rose, prosecuting in the case, said Allen-Howe told the boys his webcam and microphone were broken so they would not realise they were chatting with a man.

Four videos were sent to Allen-Howe, two of which showed the abuse of the dog.

Mr Rose added: 'At the heart of what was going on was a fundamental deception that the victims did not realise they were speaking to Connor Allen-Howe, a 17 or 18-year-old male rather than the younger female they thought they were speaking to.'

Allen-Howe was charged with 21 counts of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, eight counts of causing or inciting child pornography and two counts of making indecent images of children.
Caregiver Jenna Boyle walked out on the job

A caregiver who was hired to look after an elderly disabled man abruptly walked out on the job, leaving only a note behind with the unattended 92-year-old.

Jenna M. Boyle, 23, left Harold Longley alone in his Sterling, New York home for hours even though he needs around-the-clock care after suffering two strokes.

Longley's wife Barbara returned home from the grocery store shocked at Boyle's sudden departure, CBS reported.

She found only a note from Boyle, which read: 'I want to apologize for leaving this way, but I feel I can no longer care for Harold.'

Boyle claimed she was 'not technically certified' to work under Harold's insurance, according to the note.

She also said: 'Also, I really feel like I need this time to get working on my service hours. I don't want to do this, and again, I apologize.

The 23-year-old wrote that she gave Harold his lunch and administered his medication, adding: 'He is good until 4:00.'

She left Harold Longley alone in his Sterling, New York home for hours before the 92-year-old's wife returned home to find this note

Barbara Longley, who was shocked and upset that Boyle suddenly disappeared, consulted a nurse before she was advised to call the police.

Barbara Longley clarified that while she didn't want to get Boyle in trouble, it was important that she not be allowed to look after others.

Boyle faces a charge of endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person, according to Sheriff David Gould of Cayuga County.
Hamas has developed a large number of powerful short-range rockets, it has emerged, days after the shooting of one of its leaders in an attack it blames on Israel.

Officials in Israel have voiced fears that the new weapons, which are believed to carry hundreds of kilograms of explosives, could be fired from the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Army Radio has described the weapons as 'completely different than any weaponry we know from the direction of the Strip', and said Hamas now has dozens of the rockets.

A new report claims the new short-range rockets could be fired from the Gaza Strip by Hamas fighters, among heightened tensions following the shooting of a senior figure

The new short-range weapons are believed to be more powerful than any similar weapons used by Hamas (Stock pictures, taken in Israel of unexploded missiles)

Although their range is only a few kilometres, they can inflict more damage than previous short-range weapons in Hamas' arsenal, The Times of Israel reports.

Israel is vulnerable, it states, to shorter range missiles which are harder for the country's Iron Dome anti-missile system to intercept.

It comes at a time of heightened tensions, and if conflict reignites with the Palestinian resistance group, politicians said civilians on the border will be evacuated.

An Israeli air strike on Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, during the war between Hamas and Israel in 2014

Hamas leaders have vowed revenge following the shooting of Mazen Faqha (pictued, in a morgue), which they have blamed on Israel

Yair Ferjon, who heads the Ashkelon coast regional council, told Army Radio: 'We are preparing for every eventuality and if we have to evacuate, we will evacuate. Civilians do not need to be on the front.

'That's how it was in 1948 and that's how it was in the Yom Kippur War. If there is a war and a threat to civilians, they don't have to be in the danger zone.'

WHO ARE HAMAS AND HEZBOLLAH? Hamas, an acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, was founded in 1987 with the intention of liberating Palestine from Israeli occupation. It is designated as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the USA, the US, Canada and Japan. It governs the Gaza strip, and is committed to establishing an Islamic state in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Alongside Lebanon-based Hezbollah, it is commited to resisting what it views as Israeli imperialism. Hezbollah, a Shi'a Islamist group was founded in the early 1980s with the stated aim of liberating South Lebanon. Advertisement

The revelation comes days after the fatal shooting of Mazen Faqha, 38, a senior Hamas figure, on the Gaza Strip. He was freed by Israel in 2011 in a prisoner exchange.

In response to Faqha's death, the group's leader Khaled Mashaal claimed Israel was behind it and vowed revenge.

A statement from Hamas said: 'Hamas and its military wing hold Israel and its collaborators responsible for this despicable crime.'

And it continued: 'Israel knows that the blood of fighters is not spilled in vain and Hamas will know how to act.'

And Mashaal added: 'The Zionist occupier took from us a great hero and for this we will not sit quietly.'

Although the weapons are new to Hamas, Lebanon-based Hezbollah, in the north, is understood to have similar weapons.

Hamas has been building up weapons since the end of the 2014 Gaza War, when it launched more than 4,500 rockets into Israel.

A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas remains in place, and last year no Israelis were killed as a result of attacks from Gaza.

Hamas has repeatedly spoken of its growing arsenal, and the Israeli Defence Forces believe the group has built its capabilities back to pre-2014 levels.
An Alabama congressman, who is part of the right-wing coalition who derailed President Trump's healthcare bill last week, has offered a simple way to remedy the Obamacare problem.

Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., introduced a two-page bill Friday  the same day the Obamacare repeal and replace bill collapsed  that would repeal Obamacare with a single sentence.

'Effective as of Dec. 31, 2017, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is repealed, and the provisions of law amended or repealed by such Act are restored or revived as if such Act had not been enacted,' the bill reads.

Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., has introduced legislation that would kill Obamacare using a single sentence and is calling for other GOP lawmakers to sign on

However, the White House is walking away from healthcare, with President Trump's (left) spokesman saying today the administration wasn't 'actively planning an immediate strategy'

The Brooks bill would kill off the Affordable Care Act and another bill signed by President Obama, the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, according to AL.com.

'If the American people want to repeal Obamacare, this is their last, best chance during the 115th Congress,' Brooks said. 'Those congressman who are sincere about repealing Obamacare may prove it by signing the discharge petition.'

'At a minimum, the discharge petition will, like the sun burning away the fog, show American voters who really wants to repeal Obamacare and who merely acts that way during election time,' the Alabama Republican continued.

Brooks' bill, however, does nothing to reorient the pre-existing lines drawn in the sand, which caused the GOP House bill to crash and burn last week.

Those on the right have always been calling for a straight repeal of Obamacare, knocking last week's bill, the American Health Care Act, as 'Obamacare lite.'

Centrist Republican lawmakers, along with a handful of Republican governors, were hoping for a more measured approach.

Certain aspects of Obamacare are popular too, including children up to age 26 being able to stay on their parents' healthcare plans, along with insurance companies being barred from not insuring patients' pre-existing conditions.

Today, when talking healthcare reform, House Speaker Paul Ryan characterized it as an active issue.

'I don't want us to become a factionalized majority, I want us to become a unified majority,' Ryan told reporters on Capitol Hill.

'And that means we're going to sit down and talk things about until we get there,' he said. 'And that's exactly what we're doing.'

However, down the street on Pennsylvania Avenue, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer suggested that, for now, the administration had walked away from the debate.

'Staff has met with individuals and listened to them,' Spicer noted.

'Have we had some discussions and listened to ideas? Yes. Are we actively planning an immediate strategy?' he continued.

'Not at this time,' Spicer said.
A company in northern Virginia is helping pets get back on their paws, hooves and feet by providing disabled animals with prosthetic limbs.

Animal Ortho Care in Sterling, Virginia, has helped thousands of animals over 12 years, including cats, dogs, horses, elephants and even pandas who have lost their limbs in accidents or were born with disabilities.

Founder Derrick Campana, who started out making prosthetic limbs for humans, has traveled around the world helping animal mobility.

The so-called 'Dr Doolittle of prosthetics' moved into animal limbs when a veterinarian approached him and asked if he'd make one for a dog.

Animal Ortho Care in Sterling, Virginia, has helped thousands of animals over 12 years, including horses, elephants and pandas, improve their mobility with prosthetic limbs. Pictured above, founder Derrick Campana holds the prosthetic paw he made for Kenna

Kenna, a three year-old golden retriever born without a front paw, is one of the hundreds of animals Campana's company helps each month

Animal Ortho Care helps animals of all kinds, including Beauty the goad, who cannot stand on her permanently damaged legs

Now he fits approximately 200 animals a month with prosthetic limbs, according to The Telegraph.

'I built one successfully and said, "Hey, there's a need for this",' Campana, who is not a veterinarian himself, told SPE.

When he noticed there was a gap in the market for prosthetic animal limbs, Campania set up Animal Ortho Care.

'We get emails every day on all types of devices,' he said in 2016, 'I did elephants in Thailand, a ram in Spain. Goat, sheep, llama. Name it, we've probably done it.

'If I had to guess at the number of animals we've seen in my career over the last 12 years, it would have to be about 25,000.'

Campana makes molds of animals limbs to make the prosthetic limbs easier to fit later down the line. Pictured above, he holds the molds he made for a Thai elephant who lost a limb to a landmine

Earlier this month, Campana created prosthetic front legs for a pony named Angel Marie, whose front legs were too crippled to walk

The pony's owner, Lennie Green credited Campana with saving Angel Marie's life by providing the limbs

The shells of Campana's prosthetics are made entirely out of non-porous foam, a plastic, so they can be transportable and remold-able in case a limb needs to be adjusted for an animal.

'The advantages of using these types of plastics are for one they are extremely lightweight,' he told SPE. 'If they were heavy, the dogs wouldnt accept them.

'They would just fall right off the leg. Im lucky to have these plastics because I literally couldnt do what I do without them.'

Earlier this month, Campana created prosthetic front legs for a pony named Angel Marie, whose front legs were too crippled to walk.

Among Campana's patients is a goat named Ruby, who had prosthetics made for her two back legs, at the Goats of Anarchy sanctuary in New Jersey

Campana has several dog patients, who have had their limbs replaced over the years. The shells of Campana's prosthetics are made entirely out of non-porous foam, a plastic, so they can be transportable and remold-able

Campana hopes that the future of prosthetics, including 3D printing, will become more affordable in years to come. Pictured above, a dog who received a limb from Campana

'Seeing her walk, and having her here today walking is just a dream come true. A miracle,' Owner Lennie Green told AOL, crediting Campana with saving Angel Marie's life.

'The kids just love her to death,' Green added. And she loves kids. It's really a great thing. The prosthetics, if it wasn't for that she wouldn't have made it.'

Campana said he believes that his prosthetics are a cost-effective alternative to more invasive procedures that would be done by a veterinarian.

He hopes that the future of prosthetics, including 3D printing, will become more affordable in years to come.

The plastic limbs, like the one above on a pitbull mix who had his paw amputated, can be re-molded if they need to be adjusted

Campana appears to have saved several molds for limbs he's working on for a variety of different animals in his facility in Sterling, Virginia
Vigilantes attacked two burglars and hacked off one of their hands after catching them breaking into houses.

The men were caught in the village of Tephe, in the municipality of Ixmiquilpan, in the central Mexican state of Hidalgo, according to reports.

Residents took the law into their own hands after catching the two thieves trying to steal valuables from their homes.

The younger alleged thief, Victor M.P., 28, was attacked by the mob, beaten and had his right hand chopped off during the attack in the village of Tephe in Mexican's central state Hidalgo

The pair fled on foot into nearby fields but villagers set the fields alight and caught them.

The younger of the two men, identified as Victor M.P., 28, was attacked first by the mob who cut off his right hand, injured his left hand and administered a brutal beating that left him with head injuries.

The other man, named as Jose A. R., 46, was also badly beaten up and suffered head injuries.

His alleged accomplice, Jose A.R, 46, was badly beaten around the head and arm

The two men were later taken by paramedics under police escort to a nearby hospital where they are being treated for their injuries.

Police are looking into the incident but have declined to make further comment pending the outcome of their investigations.

Tephe village is home to the Tephe Water Park, a popular attraction with tourists visiting the area.
An internationally-prominent critic of Islam is calling on Australia to shut down Muslim schools and has likened them to child abuse.

Somali-born atheist writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is touring Australia next month, said the curriculum of these schools was incompatible with liberal, secular values.

Ms Ali, a former Dutch politician and refugee who is also a former Muslim, cited how Islamic schools restricted science lessons and banned art and music classes.

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Somali-born writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali is calling on Australia to ban Islamic schools

'It is child abuse pure and simple,' she told The Daily Telegraph.

'Muslim schools should not be allowed in liberal society.

'These Muslim schools they take opportunity away from the children, they should be banned.'

Her call comes only days after Daily Mail Australia caught on camera former Islamic school student Uthman Badar, the leader of Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, calling for ex-Muslims to be executed.

He went to Malek Fahd Islamic School in south-west Sydney, along with fellow Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman Hamzah Qureshi who also regularly appears in social media videos.

The Malek Fahd School in Sydney's south-west schooled several Hizb ut-Tahrir leaders

Former Islamic school student Uthman Badar is a spokesman for Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir

Another Islamic school in Sydney's west, Al-Faisal College in Auburn, removed references to reproduction in a textbook and instead gave credit to Allah, the News Corp report said.

Ms Ali, who spent part of her childhood in Saudi Arabia under sharia law, said Islam was a political ideology and not just a religion - a sentiment echoed by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.

'Everyone says we allow Christian and Jewish schools but they are different, the Muslim schools are political ideology masquerading as a religion infiltrating the institutions of learning, preying on really small children and filling their heads up with these extreme ideas,' Ms Ali said.

Ms Ali, a former centre-right lawmaker in The Netherlands who had earlier worked for a Labour-aligned think tank, said Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's weak language on Islamist terror would encourage voters to support One Nation.
President Donald Trump isn't shying away from the Russia story just because there is an FBI investigation of alleged links between some of his campaign and transition associates and Moscow.

The president tweeted to his 27 million followers on Tuesday morning that they should 'Watch @foxandfriends now on Podesta and Russia!'

The tweet referenced a segment on the morning cable show, which Trump frequently praises, about former Hillary Clinton campaign chief John Podesta.

The segment explored Podesta's former stock ownership in an energy company that got an infusion of $35 million in funds linked to the Kremlin.

President Trump tried to shift attention to Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta after a fresh round of reports about his former ownership in a company that reportedly got from a Kremlin-linked Russian fund

On Monday, conservative news site Breitbart.com wrote that Podesta 'may have violated federal law' by failing to disclose stock deals related to his role as a member of the executive board of Joule Unlimited, a renewable fuels company that got funds from a government fund connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The story references Podesta's own emails, which got posted on WikiLeaks during the campaign following a computer hack that the intelligence community has concluded was orchestrated by Russian Intelligence.

The story references an August, 2016 report by Peter Schweizer about Podesta's stock in the firm. Schweizer exposed myriad Clinton financial dealings in 'Clinton Cash.' He is president of the Government Accountability Institute, a group he founded along with Steven Bannon, who is now Trump's chief strategist.

The president himself has been under close scrutiny for contacts between some of his closest associates and Russia. The FBI and the House and Senate intelligence panels are investigating.

TUNE IN! Trump tweeted before a Fox News segment featuring 'Clinton Cash' author Peter Schweizer

President Donald Trump encouraged his followers to watch a segment dealing with former Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta and Russia

NA ZDOROVIE: White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough (L) meets with incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Preibus (R), along with former White House Chiefs of Staff, including John Podesta (center L), during a meeting in McDonough's office at the White House in Washington, DC, December 16, 2016Na Zdorovie

On Monday, Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he was willing to speak to the panel, following reports about his meetings during the transition with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. and with the head of a Russian development bank that was put under sanction by the Obama administration following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

During the segment, Schweizer explained the $35 million stake in the firm by Rosnano.

'Rusnano is not a private company, Steve. It is a fund directly funded by the Kremlin. In fact, [a Russian minister] called Rusnano Putins child. So you have the Russian government investing in one of John Podestas business in 2011 while he is an advisor to Hillary Clinton at the State Department,' he said.

The Fox commentators said Podesta did something that was 'against the law,' but gave more slack to Kushner and the Trump team.

'Clinton Cash' author Peter Schweizer speaks with Steve Doocy about John Podesta's connections to Kremlin-backed banks

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) greets Iran's President Hassan Rouhani (L) during their meeting at the Grand Kremlin Palace on March 28, 2017 in Moscow

'When John Podesta became a special counselor to the president of the United States, Barack Obama, he did not reveal that he had a financial tie to a Russian company with ties to the Kremlin,' said cohost Steve Doocy. 'That is against the law for not revealing that,' he continued.

'If somebody in this administration had something like that going on, dont you think it would be on the cover of the New York times in type about that big?' he asked.

Cohost Ainsley Earhardt, who just sat for an interview with Eric and Lara Trump about their new baby, noted that cabinet and other administration officials have their holdings gone over with a 'fine-toothed comb' to serve in government.

'If you have a Kremlin IRA theyre really interested,' Doocy quipped.

Cohost Brian Kilmead added that Kushner 'says "I will come in and talk to any investigators into why I had a meeting with a Russian bank official which is actually on the sanctions list." On the surface theres nothing wrong with that, but the appearances arent great. Lets hear his explanation,' he added.

Then Doocey offered his explanation of Kushner's situation with the Intelligence panel, which is investigating Trump associates' Russia ties and Russian election meddling.

'Well he offered. He said, "Look, I talked to some of these people in the transition. Which is what theyre supposed to do. Ill come in, just let me know when. They say well let you know when,' Doocey said.

President Trump tried to shift the focus to Bill and Hillary Clinton in a pair of tweets Monday

Trump pointed to the 'Podesta Russian Company' in a tweet

Podesta's WikiLeaks emails show he got 100,000 sales in the energy company when he signed on in 2011, and sites research by Schweizer.

Podesta didn't disclose the stock transaction when he joined the Obama administration in 2014, Daily Caller News Foundations Investigative Group. He was awarded 75,000 shares of common stock when he relinquished the position before joining the administration.

'Well Podesta should certainly have been more upfront in filling this out. Clearly, it should have been fully disclosed,' Craig Holman of Public Citizen told the Daily Caller foundation.

Joule Unlimited got a $35 million in infusion in rubles from Rusnano, a state-run Russian firm with close Putin ties, according to the report.

Watch the latest video at <a href="http://video.foxnews.com">video.foxnews.com</a>

Trump has taken other efforts to try to bring the Clintons into the Russia story, following a series of media reports about Russian election interference and a drip-drip-drip of disclosures about Russia ties of associates including ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

'Why isn't the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech ... money to Bill, the Hillary Russian "reset," praise of Russia by Hillary, or Podesta Russian Company. Trump Russia story is a hoax. #MAGA!' he wrote in a pair of tweets Monday.

Schwiezer this month wrote a post on Fox about the Clinton's own Russia ties, with a headline about how they got a 'free pass.'

'Bill Clinton was paid a cool $500,000 (well above his normal fee) for a speech in Moscow in 2010. Who footed the bill? An investment firm in Moscow called Renaissance Capital, which boasts deep ties to Russian intelligence. The Clinton Foundation itself took money from Russian officials and Putin-connected oligarchs,' he wrote.
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It's been almost three months since Ivanka and her family moved into their new Washington home - and what a transformation.

While her father is notoriously fond of all things gold and garish, Ivanka appears to have simpler tastes, choosing to decorate the stunning $5.5 million home in a mix of designer and regular day-to-day brands.

The six-bedroom property, which is located just around the corner from the Obamas in the upmarket Kalorama neighborhood, was bought in December by a company with ties to a Chilean billionaire. The company is renting it to Kushner and Trump, both advisers to the president, who relocated just after Donald Trump's inauguration.

Since moving in January, the house has been transformed. One of the biggest changes was in the dining room where the First Daughter stripped out the old dining table, chairs and rug and replaced them with her own long wooden table, tan color chairs and artwork. The highlight is Ivanka's unusual chandelier from high end designer Lindsey Adelman, worth $22,500.

The dining room looks transformed, after the First Daughter stripped out the old dining table, chairs and rug (left) and replaced them with her own long wooden table, tan color chairs and Lindsey Adelman chandelier, worth $22,500 (right)

A picture of the couple posing at home after an evening at the White House reveals they have chosen simple white matching sofas for their living room (right), replacing the previously more colorful palate (left)

In an Instagram picture of the room, posted by Ivanka to her account, her son Joseph is seen peeking out from behind one of the chairs.

She also appears to have installed an unusual piece of artwork on the wall.

Ivanka is a big fan of contemporary art and counts Cy Twombly, Wade Guyton, and Joe Bradley among her favorite artists.

She also has pieces from Dan Colen and Alex Da Corte which sparked controversy after her father ran for office after the artists demanded she take down their work. However, the incident does not seem to have dampened their enthusiasm for modern art.

Other Instagram snaps reveal that Ivanka and her husband have kept a neutral color scheme in whites and naturally inspired colors. A picture of the couple posing at home after an evening at the White House reveals they have chosen simple white matching sofas for their living room.

The elegant room already has black marble fireplaces and large mirrors which elevate the simple white furniture.

In another, now infamous picture, Ivanka posed in a $5,000 silver dress at home with Jared before heading off to a swanky dinner amidst protests over her father's Muslim travel ban. Taken shortly after moving in, they appear to have just tweaked the decor, replacing the hallway's artwork and miniature sofa with furniture to their own taste.

Meanwhile, the Trumps appear to have left the property's sleek, modern kitchen almost untouched.

In a now infamous picture, taken of the couple amidst the protests over her father's immigration crackdown, Ivanka and Jared pose in front of their hallway mirror (right). They appear to have just tweaked the decor, replacing the hallway's artwork and miniature sofa with furniture to their own taste

The Trumps appear to have left the property's sleek, modern kitchen almost untouched, according to her Instagram picture as Ivanka cooked with her children Arabella and Joseph

But the mother-of-three has added a few touches here and there, such as her son's OVO max luxe high chair, worth $459, or elephant plush rocker, $149 from Pottery Barn.

However, as the family seem to be settling in to their new home, their neighbors are less than happy.

Neighbors of Ivanka and Jared have expressed their fury over the presidential family's lack of community etiquette that is 'ruining' the suburb.

Residents have complained their new neighbors have been hogging parking on an already crowded street and leaving trash bags rotting on the curb. A big part of the complaint: a huge security presence, with even a trip to the playground requiring three vans.

They have groused that sidewalks have been closed, public parking overrun and that the family and their staff can't even be bothered to learn the trash pickup schedule outside their home.

The mother-of-three has added a few touches here and there, such as her son Theodore's OVO max luxe high chair, worth $459 (right)

In another picture, her son is seen playing on an elephant plush rocker, $149 from Pottery Barn, after they stripped out the bright purple corner sofa

As the family seem to be settling in to their new home (right is Ivanka's children Arabella and Theodore) their neighbors are reportedly less than happy

'It has been a three-ring circus from the day that they've moved in,' said Marietta Robinson, who lives across the street, speaking with The Associated Press. 'They've completely ruined the neighborhood.'

Residents of the enclave of four and five-story townhouses and elegant single-family properties about two miles north of the White House are accustomed to VIP neighbors.

Former President Barack Obama and his family have lived there since he left office, and the Secret Service closed off their entire block to traffic. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos bought a home there, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also moved in recently.

Yet no one has raised the ire of the community like the Trumps. At a recent neighborhood commission meeting, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace was among those who showed up to complain about parking problems.

The Trump's appear to be preparing for the summer after they received a big delivery of patio furniture from Restoration Hardware earlier this month

A Secret Service dog and agent inspect a bench during the delivery from Restoration Hardware on March 17

But neighbors of Ivanka and Jared have began complaining over the presidential family's lack of community etiquette, such as leaving trash bags rotting on the curb
Now that's what you call the deadliest catch.

The U.S. Coast Guard cutter James delivered 16 tons of seized cocaine worth $420 million wholesale to Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Tuesday morning.

The illicit cargo was seized in 17 separate raids on smugglers in international waters of the eastern Pacific off Central and South America shores. U.S. and Canadian coastal defense vessels cooperated in the interdictions.

The seizure mission, conducted over 26 days, was code-named operation 'HITRON,' for helicopter, interception, and tactical squadron.

'With this ship, we're capable of owning the night,' cutter James captain Mark J. Fedor told reporters at a dockside press conference Tuesday morning in remarks relayed on Twitter.

The U.S. Coast Guard cutter James delivered 16 tons of seized cocaine worth $420 million wholesale to Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Tuesday morning

'With this ship, we're capable of owning the night,' cutter James captain Mark J. Fedor told reporters at a dockside press conference Tuesday morning

The cutter James' helicopter interdiction aircraft is shown. Captain Keith Gavin, who oversees the helicopter squadron, said they average about 12 interdictions a month

Captain Keith Gavin, who oversees the helicopter squadron, said they average about 12 interdictions a month.

'As I like to say, unfortunately, business is good for us. And I wish it wasnt,' said Gavin according to CBS Miami.

Four American vessels and one Canadian ship took part in the operations that led to the massive seizures.

The cutter James and its helicopter squad conducted five seizures totaling 5.2 tons of cocaine.

The Mohawk raided seven ships, netting 5.8 tons of blow, and the Tampa seized three tons from three interdictions.

The cutter Sherman and the HMCS Saskatoon, carrying a USCG interdiction team, each had one case and seized about a ton each.

'Our persistent maritime presence in drug trafficking zones from cutters like James enables us to interdict bulk quantities of drugs at sea, preventing criminal networks illicit cargoes from reaching the shores of Central America, and land routes into the United States,' Coast Guard Vice Admiral Karl Schultz told CBS Miami.

In December, Coast Guard forces brought in 26 tons of seized cocaine to Port Everglades. The cutter Hamilton was covered in pallets of the drugs in that case, which had to be unloaded with a crane.
Japan has called for the right to carry out pre-emptive strikes for the first time since World War Two in the wake of North Korean aggression.

Politicians in Japan have argued for the technically pacifist country to have the ability to strike North Korea rather than relying on the US for its defence.

The reclusive state has conducted five nuclear tests and a series of missile launches in defiance of U.N. resolutions.

Discussions surrounding the law change to allow Tokyo to launch pre-emptive strikes against North Korea were supported by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (pictured with Donald Trump)

Hiroshi Imazu, the head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's security committee, told the Washington Post: 'Japan can't just wait until it's destroyed.

'It's legally possible for Japan to strike an enemy base that's launching a missile at us, but we don't have the equipment or the capability.'

He added: 'Our country is protected by other countries, but we can't do anything to protect them. This is not acceptable in the international community anymore.'

Gen Nakatani, defense minister until last year and a member of the committee, told the newspaper: 'I believe that we should consider having the capacity to strike.'

Last week Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appeared to give weight to the idea, saying he wanted to 'keep an eye' on developments.

Abe oversaw the acquisition of F-35A stealth fighter jets last year, boosting the country's air defense.

Calls for a stronger Japanese military have grown in the wake of North Korean aggression

Japan's existing missile defense system could reportedly handle only three projectiles at once, according to Reuters.

Japan's pacifist history Japan's pacifist constitution has been in place since the country's surrender at then end of World War II. It was constructed by the Allied powers, principally the United States. Article 9, introduced under the occupying forces after the war, states: "The Japanese people forever renounce war and the threat or use of force." However, under Abe, Japan in 2015 passed a new law that allows its Self-Defense Forces go into battle to protect allies in so-called collective self-defence. Critics argue that this could drag Japan into distant foreign wars even if there was no direct threat to the country or its people, with some even saying the rules violate the pacifist constitution. Abe and his supporters have argued the rules were necessary to deal with a changing security environment marked by an increasingly assertive China and an unpredictable North Korea. Advertisement

The country has reportedly planned a $1 billion improvement to its PAC-3 Patriot surface-to-air defenses.

But any change could come about following discussions with the US and with the support of a currently reluctant public.

Nakatani added: 'Japan doesn't have the capacity to launch an attack on North Korea by ourselves.

'In order for Japan to do that, it would take a lot of discussion with the U.S.'

Earlier this month, North Korea fired ballistic missiles that landed in the sea less than 200 miles off the northwestern coast of Japan.

The incident was one of the numerous military tests conducted by the despotic state, which has expanded its ballistic and nuclear missile capability in the wake of what it views as US and South Korean aggression.

Pyongyang insists that it needs nuclear weapons for self-defence against 'hostile enemies'.

South Korean and U.S. troops began the large-scale joint drills on March 1 that the North calls an invasion rehearsal.
Theresa May is poised to finally trigger Article 50 tomorrow and start the official process of Brexit.

The Prime Minister has written a letter that will be delivered by hand to EU Council President Donald Tusk at around 12.30pm.

This will be the moment in history as Article 50 is not triggered until notification is received in Brussels.

The letter itself - rumoured to run to eight pages - will be signed by the Prime Minister later tonight.

The document was said by No 10 to be one of the most important in Britain's recent history as it officially begins the irreversible Brexit process.

Theresa May, pictured in Birmingham today, is poised to finally trigger Article 50 tomorrow and start the official process of Britain's departure and ensure Brexit cannot be reversed

The Prime Minister will write a letter that will be delivered by hand to EU Council President Donald Tusk, pictured marking the EU's 60th anniversary on Saturday, at around 12.30pm

The choreography of the historic day will begin at 8am, when the Prime Minister will meet her Cabinet in Downing Street to brief her senior team on its contents.

ARTICLE 50: WHAT HAPPENS NEXT Theresa May's letter to Donald Tusk invoking Article 50 will be handed over at around 12.30pm. This is the point of no return and will trigger two years of frantic diplomacy and negotiations. Within 48 hours, the EU will issue its first response and the 27 remaining members are set to meet in late April. The first major summit is likely to be later in the spring - but talks could be limited by pending elections in Germany. The final deal is expected to emerge by the end of next year in time for a series of votes on ratification Brussels, London and around Europe. If the talks collapse at any point in the two years, Britain could face leaving the EU without a deal at all. Advertisement

The occasion will be similar to the Cabinet meeting held hours before every Budget.

While ministers discuss it, the letter - the original copy complete with Mrs May's so-called 'wet signature' - will be couriered to Brussels.

Following the normal Prime Minister's Questions, Mrs May will make a speech to MPs on the delivery of the letter and its contents.

She can expect a barrage of questions from MPs that lasts at least two hours - more if Commons Speaker John Bercow allows it.

As she stands up, shortly after 12.30pm, Britain's EU ambassador Sir Tim Barrow will personally hand the letter to Mr Tusk.

The trigger is irreversible. It will begin a two year process of negotiations that will expire on March 29, 2019.

While a transitional period is thought likely, Britain will cease to be a full member of the EU.

Some 279 days will have passed since the referendum on June 23, 2016 when Article 50 is invoked - and Brexit will occur some 1,009 days after polling day.

Brexit Secretary David Davis and Home Secretary Amber Rudd were both seen arriving in Downing Street tonight as the finishing touches were put to the Article 50 letter

The document was said by No 10 to be one of the most important in Britain's recent history as it officially begins the irreversible two-year Brexit process set to end on March 29, 2019

Mrs May today revealed she plans for the negotiations to include a whole range of security and justice issues as well as the expected divorce and trading arrangements.

She told the Birmingham Mail: 'The important thing is that although a lot of the discussion is about the trade agreement we will be negotiating with the EU, there will be other elements to our negotiations.

'The whole question of co-operation on security and justice and home affairs will be part of that as well.

'There will be issues like the European Arrest Warrant, like access to Europol.

'These are all aspects of that security and justice and home affairs area that will be part of the negotiations which will start once we've triggered [Article 50] and once the EU council have set their guidelines.'

Mrs May, pictured today addressing the Qatar-UK Business Forum, has revealed she plans for the negotiations to include a whole range of security and justice issues

Speaking at the Qatar-UK Business and Investment Forum, Mrs May welcomed continued foreign investment from the Gulf state ahead of the talks.

She said: 'I hope we can pave the way for an ambitious trade arrangement for when the UK has left the EU, including exploring whether we can forge a new trade arrangement for the whole of the Gulf area.

'As a global Britain, I am determined that we will be the most committed and most passionate advocate of free trade in the world.'

After he has received the letter, Mr Tusk is expected to make a short statement acknowledging he has it.

Within 48 hours, the EU will provide an initial response setting out its guidelines for the talks.

This could make clear the first stumbling block if threats about the need to agree the divorce bill before anything else is committed to paper.

The other EU nations are then set to gather to discuss Brexit toward the end of April.
The family of a Canadian filmmaker and conservationist who died during a shark filming excursion in the Florida Keys has filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in Broward County, Florida regarding the death of 37-year-old Rob Stewart accuses the companies and individuals who organized the January dive of negligence.

Among them is Peter Sotis, the famed diver who was with Stewart when the filmmaker disappeared, and who has a checkered legal past.

Sotis pleaded guilty to robbery in 1991 and served three years in federal prison for his role in a $308,000 jewelry store heist, news archives show. More recently, a former business partner accused Sotis of selling 'military-grade' re-breather equipment to a Libyan militant, according to court filings.

The family of filmmaker Rob Stewart (left) is suing for negligence in his January death on a dive in the Florida Keys. Famed diver Peter Sotis (right) is among those named in the suit

Stewart, of Toronto, Canada, was diving with Sotis off the coast of Islamorada, Florida when he disappeared in January

The fatal dive took place while Stewart was working on a follow-up film to his 2006 documentary, Sharkwater, which examined the impact of shark hunting

Sotis' company, Add Helium, was also named in the suit, and made the re-breathers used on the dive.

'When you learn more about these defendants and the history of negligent behavior by people like Mr. Sotis, you come to realize this was a preventable tragedy that was going to happen to someone,' Michael Haggard, lawyer for the Stewart family, said in a statement to the Miami Herald.

Stewart, of Toronto, Canada, was diving with Sotis off the coast of Islamorada, Florida, to film a follow-up to his 2006 documentary Sharkwater, which examined the impact of shark hunting on the ocean's ecosystem.

Sotis and Stewart were investigating the wreck of the Queen of Nassau on January 31 when, the suit claims, they took three dives to the wreck using re-breathers, which extend the length of a dive by scrubbing carbon dioxide from recycled air.

Experts consider that amount of diving with re-breathers pushing the envelope of safety.

The suit claims Stewart and Sotis surfaced together, but said that when Sotis experienced difficulty breathing, Stewart disappeared while dive organizers were focused on treating the other man.

Unspecified damages are being sought by the lawsuit.

A massive manhunt ensued after Stewart went missing, with family and friends holding out hope as rescuers searched a 6,000 square-mile area over three days.

A massive manhunt ensued after Stewart went missing, with family and friends holding out hope as rescuers searched a 6,000 square-mile area over three days

After searching an area the size of Connecticut, rescuers found Stewart's body 300 feet from where he disappeared

'If anybody can survive in the water, it is him,' Brian Stewart, his father (left) had said in a telephone interview at the time. Mother Sandy Stewart is shown right

'If anybody can survive in the water, it is him,' Brian Stewart, his father had said in a telephone interview at the time, adding his son was 'super fit' and a highly skilled scuba diver.

'A bunch of the people in the boat gave their attention to a guy who collapsed and a minute later they turned, and Rob was gone,' he said.

About an hour after the Coast Guard suspended the search, Stewart's body was found just 300 feet away from where he'd disappeared, 220 feet underwater.

The U.S. Navy, Customs and Border Protection, Florida wildlife officials, a county sheriff's office and civilian volunteers had joined the Coast Guard in the search, which covered an area about the size of Connecticut.

Ships, helicopters, airplanes, dive teams and sonar equipment were deployed in the effort, the Coast Guard said.

Rob Stewart's 2006 documentary Sharkwater was aimed at exposing the shark hunting industry that was feeding demand for fins, a delicacy in Chinese cuisine

Stewart said his new film was looking at other ways that as many as 80 million sharks were being harvested each year for items ranging from cosmetics to pet food

Rob Stewart's 2006 documentary Sharkwater was aimed at exposing the shark hunting industry that was feeding demand for fins, a delicacy in Chinese cuisine.

The hunting has ravaged shark populations and the film was part of a campaign that helped persuade some governments to crack down on 'finning'.

With finning, typically the fins are cut off and the live shark is tossed back into the sea. Unable to swim properly, the shark suffocates or is killed by predators.

Stewart said his new film was looking at other ways that as many as 80 million sharks were being harvested each year for items ranging from cosmetics to pet food.

'Sharks are sophisticated, intelligent and often shy creatures that aren't interested in eating humans,' he said in a video seeking funding for his new movie.
This lucky mother was left astonished after being surprised with an exact replica of her high school car that brought her and husband together.

As Jacob Adkins filmed his mother Rebecca's 50th birthday celebrations, she is led to the driveway at home in Boulder, Colorado.

Instantly she shouts 'That's my car, how did you find my car?', before heading over to the beautifully restored red BMW in front of her.

Rebecca Adkins, right, was surprised by her husband Shawn, left, with her old high school car

Shawn first approached Rebecca after seeing her driving around in the red BMW 3-Series

Shawn swore the family to secrecy while the local garage was refurbishing the classic car

While walking around the vehicle, Rebecca keeps asking husband Shawn how he had found the car which started them talking at university in the mid-1980s.

Jacob said: 'Mum was just so in awe and I think she thought she was dreaming.

'She kept asking us how long we knew and how we kept it a secret.

'The energy coming from her was so awesome, and her happiness spread to everyone around her.

'It meant the world to her, and it's probably the most thoughtful gift she's ever received in her life.'

Shawn attended Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, Oklahoma, which is where he spotted Rebecca driving around in 'this awesome BMW'.

Rebecca repeatedly asked 'where did you find my car' after being presented with the surprise

Shawn asked Rebecca, pictured, for a ride before they started dating each other in the 1980s

Out of curiosity he asked Jacob's mum for a ride and they started to date before subsequently breaking up.

Jacob said: 'Mum received the car for graduating high school and loved it.

'Unfortunately, it was sold without her permission. Whenever she saw a similar model, she would take pictures and reminisce about her own car.'

Shawn had spotted the BMW a year before the surprise, less than half a mile from their home and set about the restoration process.

With the help of an auto-shop, the vehicle was rebuilt - even being upgraded with heated seats.

Jacob said: 'Shawn swore everybody to secrecy while it was restored and before the big reveal.

'All of my family and family friends were in on the secret for a year

'Shawn made sure that whenever he visited the auto shop, my mom was always out busy so he could go in secret.'
Hundreds of Indian residents have attacked migrants with sticks and metal chairs in 'revenge' for a teenager's overdose which they blamed on 'foreign' drug dealers.

More than 300 Indian residents charged at the group of African students in a shopping mall rampage after attending a vigil for the teenager in Greater Noida, New Delhi, on Monday.

Five men were arrested and four more are on the run after the 'racially motivated' incident, which left a dozen people wounded.

Hundreds of Indian residents attacked African migrants with metal chairs in 'revenge' for a teenager's overdose which they blamed on 'foreign' drug dealers in Greater Noida, New Delhi

Many Nigerians were targeted in the violence, which was apparently triggered by the release without charge of five Nigerian students detained over the teenager's death.

Sickening footage shows a mob of Indian men attacking the migrants, before honing in on one man in particular.

They bash chairs over his head and body, causing his body to buckle under the brute force.

As the terrified migrant struggles back to his feet and tries to run away, he is trapped by another group of men who punch and kick him.

'Rumours were being spread that Africans are behind the youth's death and racist comments were made on social media. It looks racially motivated,' senior police officer Sujata Singh said.

'Five attackers have been arrested and four others are on the run,' she said.

India's foreign ministry condemned the incident as 'deplorable' and said it had assured the Nigerian high commissioner (ambassador) that all steps were being taken to protect the country's nationals.

'The government is committed to ensuring safety and security of all foreigners in India. People from Africa, including students and youth, remain our valued partners,' said a ministry statement.

More than 300 Indian residents charged at the group of African students in a shopping mall rampage in Greater Noida, New Delhi

Five men were arrested and four more are on the run after the 'racially motivated' incident on Monday, which left a dozen people wounded

Singh said around 500 people had assembled for a candle-lit vigil in Noida to demand justice for the teenager, and became violent after spotting a group of Nigerians.

One television station showed an angry mob hitting a car with sticks, while another showed dozens of attackers hitting shoppers in a mall with metal chairs.

Endurance Amalawa, one of the attacked students, said he was outside the mall with his brother when they saw an angry mob running towards them.

'We kept crying for help, but no one came, not even the security marshals. I was running but they followed me and attacked me,' he said on NDTV television.

'Some people were hitting us, pushing us out... they dragged my brother outside and start hitting him.'

Africans living in India frequently face discrimination and even violence, and are often accused of involvement in the illegal drug trade.

The issue was thrown into the spotlight after a Congolese national was stoned to death last year in a dispute over an auto-rickshaw.

Sickening footage shows a mob of Indian men attacking the migrants, before honing in on one terrified man in particular (pictured) who tried to crawl away

After that, African ambassadors in New Delhi threatened to advise students from their countries to avoid schools in the capital for their own safety.

'The locals look at us like cannibals,' said Presidoe Okujuna, spokesman for the Association of African Students in India, which is advising students to avoid classes for their own safety.

'People are scared. They don't want to come out. They want security for their lives.'

The latest attack stemmed from the death of a local 16-year-old from an apparent drug overdose.

Police detained five Nigerian students in connection with the case after a group of local people went to their home and accused them of murder.

The students were later released after police failed to find any evidence against them.
For decades, the Chinese space agency has been well behind its rivals the US and Russia.

But the country has since become a new space super power, revealing plans for five launches in the next five years.

China has since announced that it will be tripling its space exploration budget and is encouraging space launch start ups with the hope that they will eventually rival that of Space X.

A Long March rocket carries China's first unmanned spacecraft (File photo)

Chinese astronauts wave to well wishers before the launch of the Shenzhou 7 craft

With the increase in spending and the expansion of start ups, its thought that at some point, the country will be a strong threat to the US space program.

With the US currently relying on the Soyuz to get to the International Space Station, China's Tiangong rocket is an example of what China can do in a short amount of time.

In 2016, China launched a manned mission to space, sending a crew of two to dock with China's Tiangong-2 spacecraft. The Tiangong 2 is a temporary spacecraft with China hoping to have a permanent space station within the next few years.

With such successes, the country has since tripled its budget for space exploration, reports CNBC. However the country's budget has not been revealed.

The Long March 3 rocket carries an experimental spacecraft (File photo)

The Shenzhou VI spacecraft lifts off in China's Gansu province (File photo)

In January this year, a private Chinese space firm became the country's first private space launch company to score a contract with a foreign company. The collaboration with Dutch satellite company and Tsinghua University aims to deploy rockets before moving eventually into manned spaceflight.

Meanwhile private firm Kuang Chi Group is aiming to create a space theme park in which customers can travel to 79,000 feet in a high altitude balloon. It could also serve as a useful tool during natural disaster relief projects.

While the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technologies unveiled the world's largest single stage space plane at the International Aeronautical Congress in Guadalajara in Mexico last September. It can carry up to 20 people into space and would cost around $200,000 (159,000), reports New Scientist.

The Chinese expect to finish their space station by 2022 which falls around the time the International Space Station runs out of funding.
Ian Paterson, from Manchester, allegedly carried out 'unnecessary' private operations

A breast surgeon told a court he treated patients 'as if it were a worst case scenario'.

Ian Paterson, 59, from Manchester, denies unlawfully and maliciously wounding nine women and one man by privately operating on them when they didn't have cancer.

He performed an axillary clearance on Marian Moran on February 21, 2004 when she aged 55 despite her cancer being 'low grade.'

Paterson told Nottingham Crown Court: 'She had cancer. Low grade, but (on the shades of grey scale) still black.

'Just as in our last patient (Dr Rosemary Platt) we tend to go for the worst case scenario and treat that so then we miss nothing.'

When asked about why he did not obtain a second opinion, Paterson said: 'There are five to six pathologists in MDT meetings at the time we can all see from the letters that his opinion wasn't requested until after the second surgery.

'If they wanted us to wait for a second opinion they would have said it at the MDT meeting, there was ample opportunity to voice any concerns there.'

He did not follow medical procedure when he performed a mastectomy on a GP - saying he did it because she was 'cancer phobic'.

Scots-born Paterson described the scenario as very 'patient centric' and that because of her medical background, Dr Rosemary Platt already had a 'plan' of what to do.

Dr Platt was aged 51 when she had a mastectomy on her right breast at Paterson's privately run Little Aston Hospital, West Midlands, on June 25, 2001.

Giving evidence at Nottingham Crown Court, Paterson said Dr Platt was 'depressed' and 'anxious' and suggested that all options were presented to her.

Under cross examination from Nicholas Johnson QC who suggested the first operation was unnecessary, Paterson admitted he did not follow the 'triple assessment' process.

He said: 'It is not as straight forward as LCIS (Lobular carcinoma in situ).

'We were treating the worst-case scenario here because she was never going to take a step back based on one opinion.

'The middle ground is what our multi-disciplinary team had always proposed for this disease. It (the operation) gives more information.

'Think of it like a field, if the field is planted with one crop then that is fine, it's normal.

John Ingram, an ex-patient of Ian Paterson's, leaves Nottingham Crown Court, with his wife Katherine (right), after giving evidence about an 'unnessary' operation earlier this month

'If there are weeds in one corner then that is easy to control but if they come up in different areas then it is more difficult to control.

'What we didn't know was if we were going to go back and find something invasive.

'In her mind if you come across an invasive focus you had to go back and get more information. LCIS was an indicator of invasive lobular cancer.

'This lady did not have cancer and clearly understood that, however, the concept of disease in an area is very patient centric. It is very anxiety provoking.

'The patient is thinking 'what is going to happen this time? Is this the time he will tell me I have cancer? She was cancer phobic.

IAN PATERSON'S CAREER Born 10/12/1957 Qualified in 1981 and had jobs in Bristol Married in 1984 Moved to Manchester in 1984-85 Moved to Boston to conduct research at Harvard University Moved to Birmingham in 1991 Appointed as vascular surgeon at Good Hope Hospital, Sutton Coldfield in 1993 Set up private practice just before Christmas in 1993 Advertisement

'This was an information gathering exercise, she was delighted to know her glands were clear.

'The operations were justified and Dr Platt agreed.

'It is clear from her GP notes that she was an anxious lady, a depressed lady who had taken early retirement from work.

'We know from psychiatric reports that she had a cancer phobia. She was concerned about her health.

'She was getting all the surveillance required for her peace of mind.

'I know I will have criticism for not going through the triple assessment process, I don't disagree that that should be done.

'I disagree with the medical experts on one thing and that is they are sticking to the guidelines but they are not treating the patient.

'She was anxious and she kept coming back for surveillance.

'If somebody tells you that you have unstable cells that is not what you want, you want peace and quiet in the breast.'

Speaking about the right breast mastectomy, Paterson said: 'I could have stuck a needle in it but that would not have changed her plan.

'Her cancer phobia was driving that, that was the mental state she was in.

'This lady knew her treatment options and they were laid out very clearly from the start.

'A mastectomy is a huge step for any lady, it has a huge psychological impact.

'It was carried out to prevent cancer, not to treat it.

'The operation was justified and I was happy that we could handle her anxiety.

'The question was should we survey the other breast but we thought it was too far to perform a bilateral mastectomy.

'To do both sides she would need to have two operations and both times she would need to take flaps from her back.

'I am sure I could have persuaded her to have another operation but I didn't.'

Paterson denies 20 counts of unlawfully and maliciously wounding nine female patients and one male between 1997 and 2011.
The hedge-fund manager who leaped to his death from the luxury Sofitel hotel in midtown Manhattan on Monday was struggling with depression and money problems, it has emerged.

Charles W. Murphy, 56, leaped from the 24th floor of the building at around 4:42pm on Monday, falling 20 floors before fatally hitting a fourth-floor terrace.

Now sources have told the New York Daily News that Murphy - who lost $7.5 billion of his investors' money in Berni Madoff's ponzi scheme - was on medication for depression prior to his fatal fall.

It also emerged that he and his second wife, Annabella, were so struggling for money that they couldn't afford to get her car fixed after she crashed it.

Charles Murphy, above with his second wife Annabella, committed suicide by jumping off the 24th floor of the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan on Monday afternoon

The father-of-two financier plummeted 20 floors before hitting a fourth floor terrace. He had been suffering depression at the time, sources said, and did not have enough money to fix his wife's car

A parking attendant at a nearby garage told the New York Post that Annabella Murphy had crashed their Honda Odyssey last summer but could not afford to fix it.

'She didn't even have enough money to pay for the damage,' the attendant said.

Honda Odysseys currently sell for around $29,850.

Another sign of possible money problems emerged last year, when the couple put their luxury Upper East Side townhouse up for sale for $49.5 million.

The 1899 limestone house, where the couple held parties for Manhattan's social elite, failed to sell, so they dropped the price to $36 million. They paid $33 million for it in 2007.

He had last attempted to offload the townhouse after it emerged that that Bernie Madoff had ripped off his hedge fund, Fairfield Greenwich, for billions.

A number of mourners were dropped off at the family home on Tuesday morning but none wished to comment.

A parking attendant told DailyMail.com that the family were very nice people and had given the staff a Christmas card with a photograph of their children on the front.

He said the couple kept one family car in the structure.

The attendant, who did not wish to be named, said: 'I hadn't seen her for ten days, I thought she was on vacation.'

'I feel very sad about it and very sorry for their kids.'

Murphy is seen here being taken from the scene of his death. The former hedge fund he ran, Fairfield Greenwich, poured $7.5bn into Madoff's ponzi scheme

Murphy landed on a terrace four stories above the street; medics had difficulty reaching him

Murphy's limestone townhouse on 67th street is still on the market for $36million, a year after it was listed for $49.5. He tried to offload it before after Madoff's ponzi scam was uncovered

Fairfield Greenwich, Murphy's former hedge fund, was one of many victims of Madoff's ponzi scheme, which was uncovered in 2008.

In December 2013, Fairfield Greenwich settled a class action suit for $80.2million, according to a website for Madoff's victims. They were sued for failing to protect investor assets.

Almost 3,000 investors claimed a portion of the settlement.

Murphy was a partner and member of the Executive Committee; the group's Fairfield Sentry Fund was the disgraced financier's biggest feeder fund.

Up until the scandal, the fund had been paid more than 11 percent interest each year following a 15-year relationship with the Ponzi crook.

When he died, Murphy was working with Paulson & Co., another New York hedge fund.

'We are extremely saddened by this news, said Founder Paul Johnson in a statement on Monday. 'Charles was an extremely gifted and brilliant man, a great partner and a true friend.'

Murphy's hedge fund, Fairfield Greenwich, was Bernard L. Madoff's biggest feeder fund and lost $7.5billion of clients' money. The disgraced financier is seen leaving federal court in New York in 2009

The pair, pictured on a dinner date, got engaged in 2003. A report says that Mrs Murphy crashed her car last summer, but could not afford to get it repaired

MADOFF AND THE SUICIDES LINKED TO HIS PONZI SCANDAL Charles Murphy, 56, has now become the fourth person connected to Madoff to commit suicide in the years following the Ponzi scheme scandal. French aristocrat Rene Thierry Magon De La Villehuchet was found dead in 2008 just after the news broke. His AIA Group lost $1.5 billion. Ex-U.S. Army major William Foxton, 65, killed himself in 2009. A year later, Madoff's son Mark was found dead after he hanged himself in his New York apartment. Advertisement

On the day Madoff was taken into federal custody in 2008, he was working with Fairfield to set up a new fund.

The Koch brothers, Charles and David, moved $2billion overseas that they managed to make from Madoff before his scheme collapsed.

Most of that involved transfers from funds that were operated by Fairfield Greenwich Group.

After Madoff's arrest, the town of Fairfield, Connecticut, lost a reported $42million of its pension plan for police, fire fighters and local government employees on Madoff investments.

Murphy is now the fourth person connected to Madoff to commit suicide in the years following the Ponzi scheme scandal.

French aristocrat Rene Thierry Magon De La Villehuchet was found dead in 2008 just after the news broke. His AIA Group lost $1.5 billion.

Ex-U.S. Army major William Foxton, 65, killed himself in 2009. A year later, Madoff's son Mark was found dead after he hanged himself in his New York apartment.

The hedge fund manager was pronounced dead on the scene, police say they don't suspect foul play

Murphy is now the fourth person who was affected by the Madoff scandal to commit suicide. French aristocrat Rene Thierry Magon De La Villehuchet (left) was found dead in 2008 just after the news broke. Ex-U.S. Army major William Foxton, 65, (middle) killed himself in 2009. Madoff's son Mark (right) hanged himself in his New York apartment in 2010

Murphy was previously a research analyst at Morgan Stanley, and was cohead of the European financial institutions group at Credit Suisse.

He graduated from Harvard Law School and MIT Sloan School of Management.

He married his first wife, Heather, in 1993, and the couple had two children - Charlie and Savannah.

The pair lived together in London until 1999, when Charlie and Savannah were one and three, respectively.

Murphy's first wife, Heather (right), left him in 1999. They later divorced and she married hotel billionaire Sol Kerzner (left)

Heather told The Daily Mail in 2015 that she had decided to return to her native New York.

It was my choice to move back,' she said. 'I was very unhappy in London and I knew I was in the wrong place.

'I needed to be back with my mom and my family. I just wanted to feel safe.'

She later married hotel billionaire Sol Kerzner.

In 2007, Murphy bought the East 67th Street townhouse from Matthew Bronfman for $33 million. By then he was married to Annabella Murphy, his second wife.

It is described as being 11,550 square feet with roof terrace with views of Central Park, a private staff quarters, a gym, a wine cellar, and elevator and a Crestron Total Home Technology system.

Rooms at the Sofitel, which is popular with celebrities, VIPs, and tourists, begin at $150 a night.

In 2011, the hotel made headlines around the world when French politician and head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was accused of raping a maid there.

Three months later, all charges were dismissed. In 2012, he settled a lawsuit with the maid.

Medics had a difficult time getting to the exec's body on the fourth floor, he jumped from the 24th, say police

The Sofitel is a luxury hotel popular with the rich and famous; it's infamous for being where former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn was accused of raping a maid
China urged France to protect its citizens in Paris after police there killed a Chinese father of four, sparking violent protests in the city.

There were 35 arrests in the capital city overnight from Monday to Tuesday as fighting broke out between officers and approximately 150 demonstrators in the 19th arrondissement.

Protesters were furious at the death of Shaoyo Liu, 56, who was shot dead on Sunday night after police were called to his flat to deal with a domestic dispute.

On Monday, members of Paris's sizable Asian community hurled bricks at riot police, who responded with baton charges.

Anti riot police throws tear gas as a man stand next to a banner reading 'Police murderer, Do justice' during a protest in front of the police headquarters in the 19th arrondissement of Paris on March 28, 2017, following the death of a Chinese national during a police intervention on March 26

Riot police officers stand guard in front of a police station during a demonstration by Chinese immigrants following the fatal shooting of a Chinese man in his apartment, in Paris

Anti riot police stand guard during clashes with demonstrators after a protest in front of the police headquarters in the 19th arrondissement of Paris on March 28, 2017

Youths use candles to write the word "Violence" in the road in front of a line of police outside the commisariat of the 19th Arrondissement (District) of Paris late on Monday during riots over the death of Shaoyo Liu

A Chinese immigrant wears a mask during a protest over the fatal shooting of a Chinese man in his apartment, in Paris

Shaoyo Liu, 56, who was shot dead on Sunday night after police were called to his flat to deal with a domestic dispute. Protests broke out the following night (pictured above)

There were 35 arrests in the capital city overnight from Monday to Tuesday as fighting broke out between officers and approximately 150 demonstrators in the 19th arrondissement

A man in his pyjamas looks out his window as police clash with demonstrators during the riot

Three officers were slightly injured in the confrontation and one police vehicle was damaged by an incendiary device.

At least one car was set on fire, as emergency services struggled to put out the blaze out while being bombarded.

Riots broke out a day after Liu was killed by a police officer.

A police source told AFP that Liu attacked the responding officer with a knife 'as soon as the door opened' on Sunday, injuring him.

A police colleague then opened fire, killing the Chinese man, authorities say.

Lui was brandishing a pair of scissors at the time, but his children say he was using them to cut fish, and that he had not meant to threaten the police.

A man runs away from tear gas launched by riot police next to a banner reading "Police murderer, Do justice" during a protest following the death of a Chinese national during a police intervention on March 26

Police face demonstrators during a protest in front of the police headquarters in the 19th arrondissement of Paris on

Members of the French chinese community gather and light candles outside a police station behind a banner reading 'Police Assassins' to protest against police violence in Paris, France

Three officers were slightly injured in the confrontation and one police vehicle was damaged by an incendiary device.

Fireworks are shot at the police during a protest in front of the police headquarters in response to a Chinese national being killed

Huge line of anti-riot police stand guard during clashes with demonstrators after a protest

Lawyer Calvin Job said the family of the dead man 'totally disputes this version of events.'

'He didn't injure anyone,' Job said, adding that the man had been 'trimming fish with a pair of scissors' when the police came to the door.

A police watchdog was to interview the family on Tuesday, Job said.

The Chinese government issued a statement on Tuesday calling on the Paris authorities to 'guarantee the safety and legal rights and interests of Chinese citizens in France and to treat the reaction of Chinese people to this incident in a rational way'.

Massive crowds gathered in Paris amid protests against the death of a Chinese national in the French capital

On Monday, members of Paris's sizable Asian community hurled bricks at riot police, who responded with baton charges

Riots broke out a day after Liu was killed by a police officer. A police source told AFP that Liu attacked the responding officer with a knife 'as soon as the door opened' on Sunday, injuring him. A police colleague then opened fire, killing the Chinese man, authorities say

Lui was brandishing a pair of scissors at the time, but his children say he was using them to cut fish, and that he had not meant to threaten the police. Pictured above, riot police face demonstrators in the 19th District

After learning of Mr Liu's death, China 'immediately ordered its embassy in France to activate an emergency response mechanism' which meant investigating the killing.

The statement adds: 'Meanwhile, we hope that our citizens in France can voice their wishes and demands in a lawful and reasonable manner'.

France is currently under a state of emergency following a series of terrorist attacks carried out by Islamist extremists.

Despite this, public demonstrations regularly descend into violence, with police the principal target of rioters.

A spokesman for the Paris force said the circumstances of Mr Liu's death were the subject of an investigation.

A Chinese national talks through his pollution mask into a loud hailer to a gathered crowd of protesters

The Chinese government issued a statement on Tuesday calling on the Paris authorities to 'guarantee the safety and legal rights and interests of Chinese citizens in France'

Officials in China asked that France 'treat the reaction of Chinese people to this incident in a rational way'

After learning of Mr Liu's death, China 'immediately ordered its embassy in France to activate an emergency response mechanism' which meant investigating the killing

Chinese immigrants pay their respects to a Chinese man killed by the police in his apartment

A woman brings bunches of flowers during a demonstration over the fatal shooting of a Chinese man

Families gather to pay their respects to the man who was killed by police in his apartment

Chinese immigrants gather to protest over the fatal shooting of a Chinese man in his apartment, in Paris

Chinese immigrants sit behind a banner reading 'Police Murderers' during a protest in Paris

Tear gas fills the air on a roundabout on which a banner hangs reading 'Police Assassin'

He confirmed that 35 people were arrested during the protest on Monday night and 'all faced being charged with a variety of public order offences'.

Estimates put the size of the Chinese community in Paris at between 200,000 and 300,000.

Many of the first-generation Chinese nationals who live in the French capital came here in the 1980s and many work in the textile industry.

French police have come under fire for suspected violence in recent months following the highly publicised case of a black youth worker allegedly sodomised with a police baton.

Several demonstrations have been staged since the February 2 incident involving the 22-year-old.
Footwear Design student Georgia Battell has received a massive boost to her blossoming career after being chosen to create a pair of bespoke shoes for De Montfort University Leicesters (DMU) Chancellor Baroness Lawrence.

Georgia was one of five finalists in a competition set by the DMU Footwear department which asked students to design a shoe for Baroness Lawrence.

The finalists were taken to the House of Lords in Westminster on Monday to meet Baroness Lawrence face-to-face, talk through their designs and then allow the Baroness to choose which of the five designs she would like to see made for her.

Georgia, from Waterford, Ireland, said: I am in awe. I am really happy and honoured to have been chosen. I am looking forward to the project as I have always wanted to go into a factory and see my designs turned into a pair of shoes.

Baroness Lawrence has done so much for the university during the year she has been here as Chancellor. My design is a tribute to her and DMU, incorporating the red and black colours of the university and the gold and red of Baroness Lawrences robes that she wears at graduations.

I thought of #DareToBeFearless, which is the slogan for DMU, and how Baroness Lawrence is the embodiment of that.

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Baroness Lawrence said: The standard of entries for this competition was very high. It was difficult to narrow the initial entries down to five. With the final five I decided I would judge them on their presentation. I also want to be able to wear a shoe that I can wear during the day through to evening, so it was about comfort as well as style.

I think any woman would love to have a bespoke shoe. I feel really privileged as I have never had a pair of shoes made for me.

But the most important thing is this competition has been really beneficial to the students. The competition was a great idea. DMU works for the students. The thing I have noticed ever since I first came here is how much the university recognises the students and encourages them to achieve all that they can.

It is not the first time the department has set a task of designing a pair of shoes for a person in the public eye. When The Queen visited DMU five years ago as her very first stop for the Diamond Jubilee Tour of the Commonwealth, Footwear Design student Becka Hunt was chosen to create a pair of shoes for one of the worlds leading fashion icons  Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge.
The White House is pushing back on a report that it tried to stop former acting attorney general Sally Yates from testifying at what was shaping up to be another blockbuster House intelligence hearing on Russian election interference.

'I hope she testifies. I look forward to it,' White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday.

The White House 'took no action' that would have prevented Yates from testifying, Spicer said. 'Thats the story. Thats what the documents show,' he bristled.

The Washington Post reported that the administration was contending much of the material she wanted to testify about was covered by the 'presidential communications privilege,' according to correspondence between the White House, the Justice Department, and Yates' attorney.

The paper wrote that the White House 'sought to block' Yates from testifying. California Rep. Devin Nunes, the Intelligence committee chair, abruptly cancelled the hearing, which was set for this week.

'The Washington Post should be ashamed of how it handled this story,' Spicer fumed. He called the story '100 per cent false.' He added: 'The view here was great, go share what you know.'

The White House is denying a Washington Post report that it tried to block former acting attorney general Sally Yates from testifying before the House intelligence committee

Spicer said that the White House 'encouraged' Yates to go ahead and testify. Asked to back up the statement, he pointed to a letter from Yates' attorney which stated that a failure by the White House to respond by 27th would constitute a lack of assertion of executive privilege.

'We didnt respond. We encouraged them to go ahead,' he said.

'The White House has taken no action to prevent Sally Yates from testifying and the Department of Justice specifically told her that it would not stop her and to suggest otherwise is completely irresponsible,' he said in a statement released by the White House.

Yates served as acting attorney general at the start of the Trump administration. The president fired her after she said she wouldn't enforce his immigration order, which is being litigated in the court.

Former CIA director John Brennan was among those also set to testify.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the Intelligence panel, said Yates was prepared to testify about the time before President Trump fired National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

As acting director, she was involved in the investigation into Flynn, who President Trump fired after revelations about his contacts with Russia's ambassador to the U.S.

'The Washington Post story is entirely false,' said White House press secretary Sean Spicer

President Trump fired acting attorney general Sally Yates after she said she wouldn't enforce his immigration order

Yates 'sought permission to testify from the White House. Whether the White House's desire to avoid a public claim of executive privilege to keep her from providing the full truth on what happened contributed to the decision to cancel today's hearing, we do not know,' Schiff said, the Post reported.

'But we would urge that the open hearing be rescheduled without delay and that Ms. Yates be permitted to testify freely and openly,' he added.

Spicer rejected the idea that Nunes cancelled the hearing to prevent the White House from having to exert privilege.

'I hope she testifies. I'll look forward to it,' he said. 'It was never  they  let's be honest. The hearing was never, was actually never notified. If they choose to move forward, great. We have no problem with her testifying. Plain and simple. The report in The Washington Post is 100 per cent false.'

He continued: 'The letters that they frankly publish on their website all back up everything I just read. All of the letters are available on their website. I hate to give them the traffic. But the reality is that they specifically say if you don't respond we're going to go ahead. We didn't respond. We encouraged them to go ahead. But to suggest in any way, shape or form that we stood in the way of that is 100 per cent false.'

Yates' attorney, David O'Neill, wrote White House counsel Don McGahn on March 24 advising the White House of her intention to testify.

'If I do not receive a response by Monday, March 27, at 10 am EDT, I will conclude that the White House does not assert executive privilege over these matters with respect to the hearing or other settings,' he wrote.

O'Neill wrote a top Justice official, and said committee staff 'has indicated that questioning will focus on January 2017 communications regarding concerns about the conduct of a senior government official,' a likely reference to Flynn.

He wrote that there were 'further constraints' on testimony she could provide, and said the Justice Department took the position that her actions while serving as deputy attorney general were 'client confidences' about which she could not testify without written approval.

According a statement from Intelligence committee spokesman Jack Langer: 'Neither Chairman Nunes nor any Intelligence Committee staff members had any communication with the White House whatsoever about Sally Yates testifying to the Committee.'

'The only person the Committee has spoken to about her appearing before the Committee has been her lawyer. The Committee asked her to testify on our own accord and we still intend to have her speak to us,' he added.
Russia has warned the US deployment of an anti-missile system will spark a new arms race and was a threat to world security designed to contain Russia and China.

The US has deployed its THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile system in South Korea in response to North Korea's increasingly provocative ballistic missile tests.

It is designed to shoot down short, medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles.

The reclusive state has conducted five nuclear tests and a series of missile launches in defiance of UN resolutions.

The US has deployed its THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile system in South Korea in response to North Korea's increasingly provocative ballistic missile tests

THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile system Shoots down short and medium-range ballistic missiles in the terminal phase of their flight Uses hit-to-kill technology - where kinetic energy destroys the incoming warhead Has a range of 200km and can reach an altitude of 150km US has previously deployed it in Guam and Hawaii as a measure against potential attacks from North Korea Advertisement

Viktor Poznikhir told a disarmament conference in Genev: 'The presence of the global ABM [anti-ballistic missile] system lowers the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, because it gives the US the illusion of impunity for using strategic offensive weapons from under the protection of the ABM "umbrella".

'The ABM shield is a symbol of the build-up of rocket forces in the world and a trigger for a new arms race.'

The Russian defence ministry also said it regarded US naval patrols in the Black Sea as a potential threat to its safety, because it was unclear what kind of missiles the ships were carrying.

Russia, which illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimea in 2014, has its own Black Sea Fleet based at Sevastopol.

THAAD is designed to shoot down short, medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles

Earlier this month, North Korea fired ballistic missiles that landed in the sea less than 200 miles off the northwestern coast of Japan.

The incident was one of the numerous military tests conducted by the despotic state, which has expanded its ballistic and nuclear missile capability in the wake of what it views as US and South Korean aggression.

Pyongyang insists that it needs nuclear weapons for self-defence against 'hostile enemies'.

South Korean and U.S. troops began the large-scale joint drills on March 1 that the North calls an invasion rehearsal.
MEPs are threatening to veto any effort by the UK to use tomorrow as a cut-off dates for EU immigrants' rights.

The idea is expected to be explicitly rejected in a resolution responding to Theresa May triggering Article 50 - set to be voted on by the European parliament next week.

Brussels politicians were infuriated by claims over the weekend that March 29 could be used as 'day zero', with migrants who arrive afterwards not entitled to the same benefits.

Theresa May is due to trigger Article 50 tomorrow - launching the formal process for cutting ties with Brussels

The compromise being floated within government is potentially explosive as it would mean three million EU nationals keeping welfare entitlements, potentially breaching two commitments from the Conservatives' 2015 election manifesto.

Under David Cameron the party pledged that EU migrants would not be allowed to claim benefits until they had been in the UK for four years, and also insisted there would be a ban on 'exporting' child benefit to offspring in other countries.

Gianni Pittella, leader of the socialist bloc in the European parliament, confirmed that MEPs would not accept discrimination between EU citizens.

'We have heard that Theresa May is considering a cut-off date as the notification date,' he said.

'We completely disagree on this and we believe that the British citizens and those from the other 27 states are EU citizens until the day of the divorce. During this period the UK is a member state with full rights and obligations.

'It cannot be right that someone signing a work contract in the UK on Tuesday has more rights than someone signing a contract on Thursday.'

The European Parliament's chief negotiator Guy Verhofstadt said: 'Any unilateral decision to curtail the rights of EU citizens in the UK, while the UK remains a member of the EU, would be contrary to EU law and we would oppose such a move vigorously. This would not be the right way to start negotiations.'

The European Parliament's chief negotiator Guy Verhofstadt said any effort to limit EU nationals' rights from tomorrow would be illegal

The issue of rights for EU nationals currently living in Britain, and Britons living on the continent, is due to be one of the earliest hurdles to be cleared in the looming negotiations.

Theresa May will launch the crucial talks tomorrow when she sends a letter to Brussels formally triggering the Article 50 divorce process.

According to the Sunday Times, a paper submitted by Mr Davis's Brexit Department to a cabinet sub-committee has recommended that EU nationals in the UK when the PM takes the historic step should keep their rights to state handouts.

Those who arrive after Wednesday will not be entitled to the benefits.

But ministers have apparently been warned that any attempt to withdraw child benefit from those already here would undermine the health and pension rights of Britons in countries like Spain.

The Tory manifesto said migrants would only be able to claim benefits after living in the UK for four years.

It added: 'If an EU migrant's child is living abroad, then they should receive no child benefit or child tax credit, no matter how long they have worked in the UK and no matter how much tax they have paid.'
Migrants are 'shopping around' EU countries to see which one will pay them the most to be sent home, Brussels has warned.

Every year tens of thousands of European migrants are paid cash incentives and benefits to return to their home countries in so-called voluntary return schemes.

But because the amount they are paid varies from nation to nation, EU bureaucrats say this has created a perverse incentive for migrants to end up in a country with more generous handouts.

EU migrants are 'shopping around' to see which country will pay them the most to return home, according to bureaucrats in Brussels

In a memo sent from the European Commission to EU politicians earlier this month, officials say countries should agree a single payment to stop this from happening.

While Politico reports that the idea has been well received, there is little sign that such a scheme is about to be adopted.

EU policy states that, wherever possible, voluntary return schemes are preferable to forced return schemes.

Despite the name, voluntary return does not mean the person has chosen to leave of their own free will, but only that they have made their own arrangements after being ordered to leave.

Currently, the UK offers up to 550 in cash and another 1,600 of in-kind benefits for those choosing the voluntary route.

Every year tens of migrants are paid cash incentives or benefits in order to return home, with the UK offering 550 in cash and 1,600 in in-kind payments

Meanwhile France offers the same cash benefit but their in-kind payments are much higher, at 6,000.

Norway is the most generous, offering 2,250 in cash and another 4,300 in-kind, while by contrast, the Czech Republic offers nothing.

In 2015 the UK sent more than 1,600 migrants home through a voluntary return programme, according to Home Office statistics.

It is not clear how much these people were paid, while the true number of payments may also be higher, since the Home Office sometimes pays toward travel for those categorised as enforced removals.

Politico reports that it is uncommon for migrants to be paid the full amount.
The girlfriend of a man knifed to death just 250 yards from Prince George's new nursery school has paid tribute to her 'kind' and 'decent' partner.

Malachi Brooks, 22, suffered a fatal knife wound to his heart near the private Thomas's School in Battersea, south London, on Tuesday morning.

Carpenter Mr Brooks was discovered collapsed in the street with stab wounds shortly after 1am.

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Malachi Brooks, 22, suffered a fatal knife wound to his heart near the private Thomas's School in Battersea, south London , on Tuesday morning

His partner Rebecca Nowland, 24, said she is 'devastated' and 'broken'.

She said: 'He wasn't just my boyfriend, he was my best friend, my rock. Words can't describe how much I miss him already.

'You didn't deserve this, the most decent person I ever came across. I'll never forget you and all the good times we shared together.'

Rebecca's brother, Ben Nowland, 18, said: 'There's not one bad word I can say about him.

'Malachi was the coolest, funniest, most loving and outgoing person you could ever meet who always had time for others.

Police officers gather at the scene of the stabbing this morning, with a murder investigation now underway

'It's such a shame bad things happen to the kindest people. He was the brother I never had.'

A woman visiting the scene, who didn't want to be named, said: 'He was a really lovely guy.

'He was really outgoing and liked by a lot of people. It's a very sad loss.'

Detectives have launched a murder investigation into the brutal attack.

Detective Inspector Tony Lynes said: 'This was a brutal attack on a young man.

'We are still trying to establish the circumstances behind this incident, and we are appealing to anybody who was in the area at around the time of the attack - from 12.45am onwards - or who lives nearby and may have seen or heard something to come forward and speak to officers as soon as possible.'

He added: 'There have been no arrests and inquiries continue.'

The incident happened just yards from Thomas's School in Battersea, south London, where Prince George will enrol this September

The incident happened just yards from Thomas's where Prince George will enrol this September.

The youngster will be four years old when he starts at the 6,000-a-term school, which states that its most important rule is to 'be kind'.

In a statement, Kensington Palace said: 'The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will send their son, George, to Thomas's Battersea from September 2017 this year.

Their Royal Highnesses are delighted to have found a school where they are confident George will have a happy and successful start to his education.'

George, who turns four in July, will be decked out in a long list of essentials including a cagoule bearing the school's crest, a 30 art smock and ballet shoes.

The news confounded experts who expected the royal to follow in his father's footsteps by going to Wetherby Pre-preparatory in Notting Hill.

Detectives have launched a murder investigation after a man, in his 20s, was killed after an altercation in Surrey Lane, Battersea on Tuesday morning

The incident took place just a couple of roads away from where George will attend school

According to Thomas's website, boys in reception will need a 36 navy jacket, a 35 jersey and navy Bermudas to kick off the winter term.

In summer, male pupils can switch their jumper for a short-sleeved shirt and white sun hat - all available from John Lewis.

Youngsters will also need to come prepared for messy crafts sessions with a 30 art smock, and ballet shoes for dance lessons from the Royal Academy of Dance.

Altogether there are 24 essential and non-essential items on the list, totalling 368.40.

According to a report from the Department of Education, the average UK parent will spend around 210 on primary school uniform - meaning George's kit comes in at just over 75 per cent more.

The youngster will be four years old when he starts at the 6,000-a-term school, which states that its most important rule is to 'be kind'

Set up 40 years ago, the school described itself as being 'happy, dynamic and vibrant' and priding itself on its 'excellent academic results'.

Its website describes it as a 'busy, thriving purposeful school' which has 540 boys and girls between the ages of four and 13.

Its motto is 'Be kind' and there is great emphasis on kindness, confidence and humility, as well as academic results.

Prince George will also have the chance to take part in the school's exceptional arts, music and drama programme. It also has a flourishing sports department and encourages its pupils to learn outdoors too.
Authorities in Georgia are desperately searching for a missing 28-year-old mother and her three young children.

Rabun County Sheriff's Office says Brittany Rebecca Stewart was reported missing on March 23 along with her three boys who range in age from 7 months to 7 years old.

Police say she is believed to be driving a 1999 maroon Ford Explorer with Georgia license plate number RCP0743.

Stewart has contacted some family members by phone from an unknown location, the sheriff's office said.

But authorities are still actively searching for her to determine the safety of her and her young children.

Authorities in Georgia are desperately searching for Brittany Rebecca Stewart (above), a missing 28-year-old mother, along with her three young children

Rabun County Sheriff's Office says Stewart was reported missing on March 23 along with her three boys who range in age from 7 months to 7 years old (above)

'Those children are the most important thing that's why we jumped on it as quickly as we did and got the information out to the public because of the children,' said Sheriff Chad Nichols, Rabun County.

On Thursday afternoon, the children's grandparents picked up the 7-year-old boy from Rabun County Primary School, Nichols said.

Stewart then met her parents to pick him up, as she had her other two sons with her at the time.

Nichols said after the meeting, she vanished and the following day her family reported them missing.

According to WAGA, they were spotted near a gas station at Habersham County on Friday.

Authorities are asking for anyone who sees Stewart (above) or her children to call call Rabun County Dispatch at 706-782-6226

'The clerk contacted us to let us know she seen the children. Everyone looked fine. Our eyes want to see her and the children just to make sure they are safe,' Nichols said.

One of her longtime friends, Sierrah Justus, said she is very concerned for her safety.

'The people I know are close to her who I talked to today say she has been a little bit not herself like she's been kind of out of it,' Justus told WAGA.

'She hasn't been on Facebook since 2016, that's kind of alerting because usually she was very active on Facebook; that's how we used to keep in contact.

'My concern for the boys is nobody has seen them. We just want to know if the boys are OK.'

The father of the children has been behind bars for the past three weeks on unknown charges.

Authorities are asking for anyone who sees Stewart or her children to call call Rabun County Dispatch at 706-782-6226.
A Tesla vehicle allegedly operating on autopilot hit a police motorcycle in Arizona, just days before a dramatic crash involving a self-driving Uber car.

The incident involving a Tesla Model X reportedly took place in Phoenix on the afternoon of March 21.

The local police department on Monday confirmed that the crash occurred right after a Tesla driver and an off-duty officer got off the Black Canyon Freeway onto Utopia Road.

A Tesla Model X, similar to the one pictured above, was involved in a minor accident in Arizona, where it struck a police motorcycle on March 21

The officer, who was in front of the Tesla, stopped at a light, but the Model X began moving forward, reported The Arizona Republic.

The cop jumped off his bike to get out of the way just before the Tesla struck his motorcycle, allegedly causing it to topple over. No damage was reported to either vehicle, according to police.

The off-duty officer estimated the Model X was moving at a rate of speed of 3mph.

The Tesla driver allegedly told police his car was operating in autopilot mode at the time of the accident, but that information has not been confirmed as of Tuesday afternoon.

Tesla officials told the Daily Mail that so far they have received no report from anyone regarding the alleged incident in Phoenix.

A company spokesperson emphasized that Tesla vehicles do not currently come equipped with autonomous driving software, but rather with advanced driver assistance system, which is an extension of cruise control.

Tesla vehicles do not currently come equipped with autonomous driving software

Tesla cars feature the hardware needed for full self-driving capability, but that technology is still in the development stage.

The Tesla official also noted that it is the driver's responsibility to be in control of the vehicle at all times and remain alert.

Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Alan Pfohl reportedly described the collision as a 'tap and said that it resulted in no injuries and no citations.

Three days later, a self-driving Uber car - a Volvo SUV - crashed and flipped over in Tempe, Arizona.

No one was seriously injured in the accident, but it prompted Uber to temporarily ground its test fleet of self-driving cars in Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Rollover: A self-driving Uber car - this Volvo SUV - crashed and flipped over in Tempe, Arizona, on March 24, prompting the ride-sharing service to ground its test fleet

On Monday, Uber announced that its autonomous vehicles were being put back in action.

Advocates of self-driving cars say that they can cut down on deadly traffic accidents by eliminating human error.

However, there have been accidents.

In May 2016, a truck struck a speeding Tesla that was on autopilot, causing a fatality.

An investigation found no safety-related defects with the autopilot system, but concluded that the driver may have had time to avert the crash if he had been paying closer attention.
Luis Arroyo, 40, bit off the head of his girlfriend's Chihuahua, and then punched her in the face

A man in Puerto Rico has been sentenced to seven years in prison for a series of horrific crimes.

Luis Arroyo, 40, bit off the head of his girlfriend's Chihuahua, and then punched her in the face.

Authorities said Tuesday that a judge also ordered Arroyo to pay a $3,000 fine in the case that included domestic abuse and mistreatment of an animal.

Arroyo had pleaded guilty to assaulting his girlfriend, who owned the dog.

The incident occurred in February around 3:30 in the morning on a weekend in the western mountain town of Lares.

The municipality is located about an hour-and-a-half from San Juan.

According to Primera Hora, the two had been living together for about six months, and he had no history of domestic abuse.

Arroyo, who is unemployed, was unable to originally post his bail which was set at $400,000.

He is now being held at Las Cucharas Correctional Complex.
ISIS have thrown a young man to his death from a rooftop and pelted him with rocks after discovering he was gay.

The barbaric mob released pictures of the public execution in Mosul which was carried out in the name of Allah and Islam through Sharia Law.

A crowd of people had gathered to watch the youth take his final breath and throw stones at him, all because of his sexuality.

The man lies in the street having been thrown from the rooftop and locals launch rocks at him

Locals prepare for the man to be thrown from the building and a row of stones is ready for them

Islamic State thugs blindfold the young man before launching him from the rooftop to the street

A man reads from a piece of paper into a radio as a the youth is thrown to his death by terrorists

The victim was blindfolded and hurled off the roof, according to Iraqi News, before he was stoned to death in the street.

Twisted ISIS militants had even lined the streets with rocks ready for locals to pelt the man with them when he hit the ground as seen in a graphic set of pictures.

It appears to be a common practice among the sick terror group and just four months ago, thugs hurled a prisoner from a rooftop before a baying mob of fanatics pelted his corpse with rocks - again for the 'crime' of being gay.

The victim was dragged to the top of a building in Maslamah City in war-torn Aleppo, Syria, having been accused of 'homosexual relations' in December.

He was then launched face first from the edge of the roof and plunged to his death inches away from a crowd of onlookers.

Although in a different country, the two executions were almost carbon copies of each other, with the victim blindfolded before being thrown to his death.

The same sort of punishment was handed to another man in May last year in Syria and in 2015 the UN estimated 30 men had been thrown to their deaths by ISIS for being gay.
Owners of swanky Knightsbridge restaurant Zuma have won a court battle against a businesswoman who used the same name for her dog food business.

Zuma has been a hot favourite with celebrity diners since 2002 and is rated by many as London's finest Japanese eatery.

And its owners, Azumi Limited, went to the High Court after entrepreneur Zoe Vanderbilt set up Zuma's Choice Pet Products Ltd in 2014.

Miss Vanderbilt said she had named her company after her beloved pet, Zuma, a Japanese Akita/German Shepherd cross.

Zuma has been a hot favourite with celebrity diners since 2002 and is rated by many as London's finest Japanese eatery

But the restaurant's chef and co-founder, Rainer Becker, was left fuming by the association with dog food that is 'quite unpleasant to eat for many people'.

'Sometimes it smells, sometimes it is just unpleasant and people many times associate dog food with bad food,' he told Judge Melissa Clarke.

'So Zuma could serve bad food, dog food..I would never call a restaurant Pedigree because Pedigree is, I think, a well-known animal pet food.

'I know people would associate that food for the animals with my food served in my restaurant.'

Now Judge Clarke has ordered Ms Vanderbilt to stop breaching the restaurant's trade marks.

The restaurant's chef and co-founder, Rainer Becker, was left fuming by the association with dog food

She will not have to change the name of her company but, other than that, cannot use the word Zuma to sell pet food anywhere in Europe.

The judge said she had seen 'bundles of press cuttings' reviewing and recommending Zuma's food as well as its 'spectacular decor and buzzing atmosphere'.

Big names from Tony Blair to Lady Gaga had been spotted dining there and the judge added: 'I have learnt that it is Kevin Spacey's favourite late-night restaurant.'

Since opening, it has consistently ranked among London's best restaurants and its turnover in 2015 was 14million.

Kingston upon Thames-based Zuma's Choice Pet Products had, by contrast, 'not yet made any sales of pet food and its turnover remains at zero'.

But Miss Vanderbilt's ambition was to 'feed the nation's pets' and develop a high quality brand stocked by high-end supermarkets, like Waitrose.

During a meeting with Mr Becker in May 2015 she offered to sell him the business and internet domain name for 500,000, the court heard.

Ms Vanderbilt said the value of her brand 'could be higher than that, given that the pet food market in the UK is, she believes, worth 2 billion per year'.

Simon Malynicz QC, for Azumi Ltd, savaged Ms Vanderbilt over her company's website, dineinwithzuma.com.

'One does not normally refer to dogs dining', the barrister said, 'dogs eat, they do not dine'.

The court heard Ms Vanderbilt's dog foods bear such appetising names as 'slow braised pork', 'cheesy mash' and 'chicken and lentils'.

And she insisted there was nothing unpleasant about her 'very high quality, fresh dog food made from human-grade food'.

But Judge Clarke ruled: 'I am satisfied that there is... an inherent tension between dog food and human food of any type and an even greater tension between dog food and food served to humans in high quality restaurants such as Zuma'.

The association with dog food would 'adversely affect, or tarnish, the image or reputation' that the restaurant had built up over many years.

Ms Vanderbilt denied attempting to 'humanise the goods', saying that every page on her website includes a prominent picture of a dog.

But that argument was 'materially undermined by the fact that the dog is smartly dressed in a bow tie', observed the judge.

Ms Vanderbilt put forward an 'own name' defence to the company's claim, insisting she had simply christened her business after her dog.

Kingston upon Thames-based Zuma's Choice Pet Products had, by contrast, 'not yet made any sales of pet food and its turnover remains at zero'

But, ruling out that argument, Judge Clarke said that Ms Vanderbilt's pet 'is not a party to the proceedings, nor is it a natural person or company'.

Web surfers would have 'no way of knowing Zuma was a real dog and a real dog's name and not a fictional dog' like Churchill the insurance bulldog, she added.

Judge Clarke described Mr Becker and Ms Vanderbilt as 'good witnesses who provided credible and reliable evidence honestly and carefully'.

Her meeting with the chef had been cordial and the restaurant's letters of complaint to her were 'perfectly proper, polite and professional'.

The judge concluded that Azumi's Ltd's bid to make Ms Vanderbilt change the name of her company had been unjustified.

But, issuing an injunction against her, she found her use of dineinwithzuma.com, ZUMA and DINE IN WITH ZUMA all infringed the restaurant's trade marks.
A pro-government Turkish newspaper has called on the country to obtain nuclear weapons and hinted it should stop fighting ISIS.

In is column on March 27, the editor of Tayyip Erdogan-supporting daily Yeni Safak, which translates to New Dawn, wrote that Turkey should withdraw from attacking the enemies of the West, thought to mean Islamic State.

The article, penned by Ibrahim Karagul, criticizes the western world and reserves special mentions for Germany.

The front page of the Yeni Safak on Monday, March 27, which included the editor's article

Ibrahim Karagul, editor in chief of the Yeni Safak, wrote the article in his column on Monday

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a meeting about foresty, in Ankara, Turkey

It comes as Turkey prepares for a referendum on April 16, which the newspaper is calling to be used as a platform for Turkey to 'fight for its existence'.

Yeni Safak editor Mr Karagul said: 'The Western world is old now and has entered a period of stagnation.

'It is not as strong and determinant as it was after the two world wars.

'The future of the world can be shaped through the differentiation of the East and West.

'It is necessary to look at the entirety of this picture while discussing Turkey's fight and the new Western attacks aimed at Turkey.

'If not, determining a position for Turkey based solely on positions within the country is the indication of terrible blindness.'

Militants of Islamic State stand just before explosion of an air strike on Tilsehir hill near Turkish border on October 23, 2014, at Yumurtalik village, in Sanliurfa province

The article goes on to say the Turkish people should not focus their efforts on helping countries in Europe.

Mr Karagul believes a global showdown is imminent and that a weak nation without weapons will not survive.

He wrote: 'There is a major, historical plan behind the despicable attacks we see in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and in almost all of Europe.

'The enmity toward Turkey, which they started on top of enmity toward Islam, is not limited to elections alone. It will not get better after elections either.

'We must prepare according to this new situation.

'We must first put aside fighting against whatever there is that the West has declared a threat whether it be an organization or something else.

'We do not have to waste our strength on their enemies while these financiers of terrorism invade our country and cities through terrorist organizations.

'We should focus on our own priorities and our own definitions of threats.

'We are not Europe's border guard, counterterror team or refugee prevention force, and we should no longer act as such.'
President Trump announced today that the 'War on Coal' was over, signing an executive order rolling back Obama-era regulations that curbed U.S. carbon emissions.

'This is what this is all about,' Trump said today at the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters. 'Bringing back our jobs, bringing back our dreams and making America wealthy again.'

'We love our coal miners!' the president exclaimed.

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence  who stood alongside EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Energy Secretary Rick Perry  spoke about the plight of the coal miners, some of whom were invited today to be part of the signing ceremony.

'I guess they like what we're about to sign,' Trump said, when he received elongated applause upon entering the EPA's Map Room. 'I knew they were going to like this one,' the president chuckled.

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President Donald Trump visited the Environmental Protection Agency and flanked by Vice President Mike Pence and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt spoke about Obama-era regulations that he was about to scrap

President Donald Trump signed an 'energy independence' executive order eliminating Obama-era climate change regulations

President Donald Trump received a warm welcome at the EPA, as the administration invited a number of coal miners to be part of the audience today

As part of the roll-back, Trump will initiate a review of the Clean Power Plan, which restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants.

The regulation, which was the former president's signature effort to curb carbon emissions, has been the subject of long-running legal challenges by Republican-led states and those who profit from burning oil, coal and gas.

Trump, who has called global warming a 'hoax' invented by the Chinese, has repeatedly criticized the power-plant rule and others as an attack on American workers and the struggling US coal industry.

He and members of his administration again articulated that charge today.

'You know our nation can't run on pixie dust and hope and the last eight years showed that,' said Zinke, during his opening remarks.

Perry said the government reforms would ensure clean water and air, but also allow for greater energy independence and a boost in American jobs.

Trump repeated that point saying, 'We're going to have safety, we're going to have clean water, we're going to have clean air, but so many [regulations] are unnecessary and so many are job-killing.'

'We're getting rid of the bad ones,' the president said.

The contents of the order were outlined to reporters in a sometimes-tense briefing with a senior White House official, whom aides insisted speak without attribution, despite President Trump's criticism of the use of unnamed sources.

The official at one point appeared to break with mainstream climate science, denying familiarity with widely publicized concerns about the potential adverse economic impacts of climate change, such as rising sea levels and more extreme weather.

In addition to pulling back from the Clean Power Plan, the administration will also lift a 14-month-old moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands.

As part of the roll-back, Trump will initiate a review of the Clean Power Plan, which restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants, similar to this one in Germany

The Obama administration had imposed a three-year moratorium on new federal coal leases in January 2016, arguing that the $1billion-a-year program must be modernized to ensure a fair financial return to taxpayers and address climate change.

Trump accused his predecessor of waging a 'War on Coal' and boasted in a speech to Congress that he has made 'a historic effort to massively reduce job-crushing regulations,' including some that threaten 'the future and livelihoods of our great coal miners'.

Today at the EPA, the president talked about the conversations he had on the campaign trail with miners, who he said felt their jobs were under attack.

He said he asked them why not pick a job in a different field and relocate, but that the miners wanted to stay put and keep their jobs in the coal industry.

'If that's what you want to do, then that's what you're going to do,' Trump said, with miners lined up next to him onstage, around the small table where he would sign the order.

'I grew up in a real estate family and until this recent little excursion into the world of politics I could never understand why anybody would not want to be in the world of real estate, believe me,' he said. 'So I understand it.'

'We will put our miners back to work,' the president pledged.

On the topic of jobs, Trump also segued to Ford's announcement that the company would expand three facilities in Michigan.

He pivoted from that to once again relishing his campaign win.

'That was an exciting Michigan evening!' Trump said.

The order will also chip away at other regulations, including scrapping language on the 'social cost' of greenhouse gases.

It will initiate a review of efforts to reduce the emission of methane in oil and natural gas production as well as a Bureau of Land Management hydraulic fracturing rule, to determine whether those reflect the president's policy priorities.

It will also rescind Obama-era executive orders and memoranda, including one that addressed climate change and national security and one that sought to prepare the country for the impacts of climate change.

The White House budget calls for defunding the Clean Power Plan that Obama announced in 2015. Here EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt address employees at the agency's headquarters

Emissions rise from the American Electric Power Co Inc coal-fired John E Amos Power Plant in Winfield, West Virginia, in 2014. Power plant coal burning by 2020 must decline by 24 per cent

Trump said the orders would help to unlock job-producing natural gas, including oil and shale energy.

We will transport American energy through American pipelines made with American steel. Made with American steel. Can you believe somebody would actually say that? Trump asked.

The president claimed on Tuesday that that issue came up a little bit coincidentally as he was signing executive orders in January expediting the approval process for two multinational pipelines, Dakota Access and Keystone XL.

He was nearly finished approving the orders, he said, And I said folks, where we do we get the steel, and they said, I think its from foreign lands. I said no good.

Trump says he told his aides, no more, no more.

So we added a little clause, didn't take much. You want to build pipelines country in this country? You're gonna buy your steal and have it fabricated here. Makes sense doesn't it make sense?

The president did not disclose at the time of the signing or in his remarks today that the only pipeline his administration has approved, Keystone XL, would not be made with US steel. Keystone will be grandfathered into the old rules.

The administration is still in discussion about whether it intends to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change. But the moves to be announced Tuesday will undoubtedly make it more difficult for the US to achieve its goals.

Pruitt alarmed environmental groups and scientists earlier this month when he said he does not believe carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming.

The statement is at odds with mainstream scientific consensus and Pruitt's own agency.

The overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed studies and climate scientists agree the planet is warming, mostly due to man-made sources, including carbon dioxide, methane, halocarbons and nitrogen oxide.

The official who briefed reporters said the president does believe in man-made climate change.

''I guess the key question is to what extent, over what period of time. Those are the big questions that I think still we need to answer,' the White House official said.

The power-plant rule Trump addressed in his order has been on hold since last year as a federal appeals court considers a challenge by coal-friendly states and more than 100 companies who call the plan an unconstitutional power grab.

Opponents say the plan will kill coal-mining jobs and drive up electricity costs.

Renewable energy - including wind, solar and biofuels - now accounts for more than 650,000 US jobs

The Obama administration, some Democratic-led states and environmental groups countered that it will spur thousands of clean-energy jobs and help the US meet ambitious goals to reduce carbon pollution set by the international agreement signed in Paris.

Trump's order on coal-fired power plants follows an executive order he signed last month mandating a review of an Obama-era rule aimed at protecting small streams and wetlands from development and pollution.

The order instructs the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers to review a rule that redefined 'waters of the United States' protected under the Clean Water Act to include smaller creeks and wetlands.

While Republicans have blamed Obama-era environmental regulations for the loss of coal jobs, federal data shows that US mines have been shedding jobs for decades under presidents from both parties as a result of increasing automation and competition from cheaper natural gas.

Another factor is the plummeting cost of solar panels and wind turbines, which now can produce emissions-free electricity cheaper than burning coal.

Thomas J Donohue (pictured), US Chamber of Commerce president, praised Trump for taking 'bold steps to make regulatory relief and energy security a top priority'

President Obama's White House photographer Pete Souza threw some shade President Trump's way, by posting a photo to Instagram showing his ex-boss in Alaska 'where climate change is not a hoax'

According to an Energy Department analysis released in January, coal mining now accounts for fewer than 70,000 US jobs.

By contrast, renewable energy  including wind, solar and biofuels  now accounts for more than 650,000 US jobs.

The Trump administration's plans drew praise from business groups and condemnation from environmental groups.

US Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J Donohue praised Trump for taking 'bold steps to make regulatory relief and energy security a top priority'.

'These executive actions are a welcome departure from the previous administration's strategy of making energy more expensive through costly, job-killing regulations that choked our economy,' Donohue said.

Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy accused the Trump administration of wanting 'us to travel back to when smokestacks damaged our health and polluted our air, instead of taking every opportunity to support clean jobs of the future'.

'This is not just dangerous; it's embarrassing to us and our businesses on a global scale to be dismissing opportunities for new technologies, economic growth and US leadership,' McCarthy said in a statement.

In advance of the executive order signing, President Obama's White House photographer Pete Souza posted a photo of the ex-commander-in-chief surveying the coast of Alaska, 'where climate change is not a hoax,' Souza wrote.

Former Vice President Al Gore, who met with Trump at Trump Tower during the transition, called the president's move today a 'misguided step away from a sustainable, carbon-free future for ourselves and generations to come.'

Gore called on the U.S. to continue to be a leader in the climate change fight, saying it's an imperative for both the environment and the economy.

'No matter how discouraging this executive order may be, we must, we can and we will solve the climate crisis,' Gore said. 'No one man or one group can stop the encouraging and escalating momentum we are experiencing in fight to protect our planet.'
The King Cobra normally avoids confrontations with humans but desperate times call for desperate measures.

This deadly snake was so thirsty during a drought that it broke into an Indian village in a frantic search for water.

Dramatic footage shows the kind-hearted villagers looking after their local wildlife.

This deadly snake was so thirsty during a drought that it broke into an Indian village in a frantic search for water

One man can be seen pouring a bottle of water over the snake's head as it greedily laps the liquid.

The man, knowing that the situation could turn nasty at any second, holds a snake catcher so he can grab the serpent in case things kicks off.

He is assisted by his friend who holds the cobra's tail to prevent it launching a vicious attack.

The 12ft cobra was rescued from a village in Kaiga township. Some parts of southern India have been hit by drought, making water scarce.

Dramatic footage shows the kind-hearted villagers looking after their local wildlife

Wildlife officials say the drought has severely affected wild animals in the region.

So when the team of rescue workers found the cobra, the first thing they did was to offer it water.

The thirsty cobra can be seen gulping down water from the bottle. The brave rescuer also poured water over the snake's head in an attempt to cool it down.

The snake was later taken to an animal care facility.
Two weeks into an intense search for 15-year-old Elizabeth Thomas and her former teacher, Tad Cummins, law enforcement officials reiterated that what they are dealing with in this case is not a romance, but a kidnapping.

During a press conference on Tuesday morning, officials with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation told reporters they have received 1,100 tips so far, but there have been no credible sightings of the runaway pair

Officials suggested there is a possibility that Cummins and Thomas have crossed the border into Mexico where the former teacher, who is said to be well versed in the Bible, could be masquerading as a missionary in the rural countryside.

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Not a romance: Officials in Tennessee say the case of Elizabeth Thomas, 15, (left) and her former teacher, Tad Cummins, 50 (right), is not a 'romance' or a 'fairy tale,' but a kidnapping

To that end, authorities in Tennessee have shared the Amber Alert information with their counterparts south of the border, although they have no information confirming that the pair are in Mexico.

During the news conference Tuesday morning, multiple law enforcement officials urged the media and the public to keep in mind that Elizabeth Thomas is a victim.

Some have characterized this relationship as a romance, but this morning, I want to caution the public to avoid anything that might look or sound like-victim blaming, TBI Director Mark Gwyn said.

Let me be very clear this morning: she is 15, a child, he is 50, a grown man, Gwyn went on to say. She's a high school freshman, he's a former teacher.

This is and was not a romance, this was a manipulation solely to benefit Tad Cummins. This is not a fairy tale, this is a case of kidnapping, and we remain gravely concerned for the well-being of this young girl.

A reported sighting of the pair was made in Corpus Christi, Texas, last week. Police could not confirm it, but investigators have notified police in Mexico and Central America

Gwyn noted, Right now, Elizabeth may not realize she's a victim, but she is.

The head of the TBI then addressed Tad Cummins directly, urging him to do the right thing and bring Elizabeth home to her family and friends.

TBI spokesperson John DeVine urged the public to be on the lookout for the missing duo and contact police right away in the event of a sighting.

'It takes just one lead, one tip, one person seeing them to turn this thing around,' he said.

Officials previously said that Cummins and Thomas could be 'anywhere' since they vanished from the town of Columbia on March 13.

While TBI received a tip last week that the two were spotted in Corpus Christi, Texas - just 150 miles away from the border - police were unable to confirm the sighting.

With dwindling leads as to where the couple could be, investigators are taking precautionary measures and considering the possibility that they may have left the country.

Family members have pleaded for Cummins to bring Thomas home after it was discovered that the two had been sending love letters to one another by writing draft emails on a shared classroom computer at Culleoka School.

Cummins and Thomas left love notes for each other on his classroom computer at Culleoka School before vanishing. The pair are pictured in the classroom, above, in January

The TBI issued a statement saying: 'We have not requested an AMBER Alert be issued in Mexico or Central America.

'We have, through the FBI, shared with law enforcement in Mexico and Central America, relevant information about the case, to include identifying information about both individuals.

'This is, however, in the name of due diligence. We have no specific information Tad Cummins took Elizabeth Thomas across the Border.'

Cummins' wife Jill spoke with NBC News on Monday and urged her husband to turn himself in, saying: 'You know you can't hide forever. For your sake and for Beth's sake, please go to the police or please just drop Beth off somewhere safe.'

She also said 'nobody understands the pain and shock I am in now.'

'For your sake and for Beth's sake, please go to the police or please just drop Beth off somewhere safe,' said Cummins' wife Jill in a separate interview

Meanwhile, Thomas' sister shared shocking new claims about the girl's relationship with her teacher in an emotional interview withGood Morning America.

Sarah Thomas fought back tears as she revealed that Tad Cummins, 50, had begun showing up unannounced at her sister's work shortly before the pair disappeared together. His last visit had come just two days before the girl's abduction, she said.

'She would go and tell people to tell him she wasn't there and she would go and hide until he left,' explained Sarah Thomas.

'She thought it was the only way. She felt uncomfortable.'

Elizabeth's family is still holding out hope that they will see the girl again, and are begging any person who might have information to reach out and contact authorities.

'It feels like she just vanished, and I know that's impossible, someone had to see her,' said the victim's sister Sarah.

Thomas' sister (Sarah above) said that her teacher Tad Cummins, 50, had been showing up at her work unannounced. Pictured right, the teen's father

Sarah Thomas said her sister would tell he co-workers to tell Cummins she wasn't around when he showed up at her work (Thomas family above)

Her father meanwhile was optimistic about the teenager's eventual return home to be with her family.

'We just live for that day where we are gonna get a phone call that says we're alright and waiting for someone to get me,' said Anthony Thomas.

Investigators spent the weekend pouring over email drafts that the two would send one another while in school for any clues into where the pair may be, with Cummins now facing charges of aggravated kidnapping and sexual contact with a minor.

'They would write the message and let it save as a draft. The other person would log in, read the message and then delete it and then write another message that was saved as a draft,' said Maury County District Attorney Brent Cooper.

'If you read them you would immediately recognize you are reading messages between two people who have a romantic interest in each other.'

One of the emails uncovered by authorities was written by Cummins and began: 'I saw you standing next to your backpack this morning.'

The teacher then told the student how nice one of her body parts looked to him in the note.

Any help: The family has also released a recent video of Elizabeth (above with her brother) hoping that someone might recognize her lisp

Elizabeth's family also released a recent video of the teenager with her brother in hopes that someone might recognize the young girl's lisp.

A student came forward earlier this year to tell school officials that they saw the student and her married teacher kissing in a classroom this past January.

The school eventually made the decision to remove Elizabeth from the teacher's classroom, but allow Cummins to keep teaching at the school.

Cummins was last seen one day before the two disappeared buying hair dye at a Walmart.

Elizabeth, who is one of ten children, made frequent posts on social media about romance and love in the weeks before she was abducted by Cummins.

She also started calling herself 'wife' on Instagram and made several references to a 'mission' that was 'almost complete'.

On March 13, she told family she was going to spend the day with a friend. One of her siblings has since revealed that the teenager told them to call police if she did not return home that night.

Cummins visited a Walmart in Columbia, Tennessee, the day before he vanished with the girl. He was filmed on surveillance cameras buying dark brown women's hair dye

Elizabeth changed her Instagram biography before she vanished to describe herself as a 'wife'. She also added a ring emoji to the description

Authorities believe she may have gone willingly with Cummins, who they say has been grooming her for sex for some time.

Elizabeth was seen on surveillance footage the day she disappeared carrying a bndle of clothes.

The grandfather is believed to be armed and possible dangerous, with two guns.

Elizabeth's mother spoke to DailyMail.com last week in an exclusive interview to share her fears.

This image of Elizabeth was taken on March 13, the day she vanished. She appears to be holding a bundle of clothes

She labeled her daughter's captor 'disturbed' and said she worried Elizabeth would either end up pregnant or dead.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which is leading the hunt for the pair, has received hundreds of tips but none have come to fruition.

One reported sighting of the pair was made in Corpus Christi, a coastal city in south east Texas, last week.

They were reported to have been seen in the tiny town of North Beach which sits just 160 miles from the Mexican border.

Nothing ever came of the tip-off and police have not clarified whether they believe it was credible or a case of mistaken identity.

Anyone with information of their whereabouts is urged to call 1-800-TBI-FIND. Police are asking anyone who sees a silver Nissan Rogue with a license plate of TN 976-ZPT to call 911 immediately.
Temperatures hovered in the 40s on Tuesday, but that didn't stop Malia Obama from getting in the spring spirit by wearing a dress to work.

The former first daughter wore a mini dress with matching black booties as she headed into the Weinstein & Co. offices in Manhattan.

The 18-year-old aspiring filmmaker kept the cold at bay with a maroon anorak with a faux-fur lined hood.

Malia Obama wore a mini dress as she headed into work at the Weinstein Co. in Manhattan on Tuesday

The former first daughter paired the look with black booties and a burgundy anorak

Obama is reportedly working in the development department, read

While Obama's leg-baring outfit may have been more comfortable on a warmer day, new New Yorkers can find it hard to dress for the ever-changing climate in spring.

Over the weekend, temperatures got has high as 62 degrees.

Obama was pictured wearing a light windbreaker on Sunday when she hung out with two girlfriends in the city.

Obama started interning at the film production company at the start of the year, and is reportedly helping out in the development department by reading and pitching scripts to executives.

She graduated from high school last spring, but decided to take a gap year before starting at Harvard.

She spent the fall traveling around South America and before starting her internship, she attended the Sundance Film Festival for fun.

The eldest daughter of former President Obama has showed an interest in filmmaking, and previously interned on the set of GIRLS while still in high school.
A baby injured in an alleged hammer attack has been left blinded and partially deaf following the incident which tragically killed her twin brother.

Gabriel, one, died from severe injuries while his sister Maria, also one, remains in hospital after the incident at a North London home on March 18.

It has emerged Maria has lost her vision and most of her hearing and is a 'critical but stable' condition.

Tragic: Maria, pictured right, has lost her vision and most of her hearing following an incident at a North London home on March 18

A man was charged with murder of a one-year-old boy and attempted murder of the toddler's twin sister.

Suspect Bidhya Sagar Das, 33, is accused of attacking the innocent toddlers at the flat in Wilberforce Road, Finsbury Park.

He was arrested in the Hackney area on March 21 following a major search by police and remains in police custody.

Today a family friend of the children's distraught mother Cristinela Datcu told how the mother has stayed by her daughter's bedside.

Florentina Ilie said her friend Ms Datcu was in a 'horrific' situation' and couldn't face returning to the home where her little son died.

She said: 'We are all praying that little Maria recovers her eyesight and isn't permanently blinded by the attack.

'Cristinela sits in hospital with Maria, willing, wishing and praying for her full recovery after surgery, for what are quite daunting head injuries for such a young child.'

Pictured: The children's mother Christinela Datcu and her partner Bidhya Sagar Das

Tragedy: Ms Dactu at the birth of the twins in 2015 - one has died and the other is critically ill

Ms Ilie described the upset Ms Datcu was facing with organising a funeral for Gabriel while finding somewhere new to rent.

Now her friend is fundraising for the grieving mum to help give her enough money to support herself while Maria recovers in hospital.

Ms Ilie said: 'Cristinela is a hard-working ordinary person who has a job in a North London hotel, with the twins and the income the family had, they managed to live a reasonable but by no means luxurious life.

'Sadly now (although I'm sure she hasn't had time to even think about it with much more pressing issues on her mind) Cristinela is to be faced with a mountain of expenses for which she has little savings.'

The JustGiving page hopes to raise 10,000 to help pay for Gabriel's funeral and other emergency expenses.

So far the page has seen 340 donated.

Anyone with information that may assist the police investigation is asked to contact the incident room on 020 8345 3775 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111
A Russian billionaire close to President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday he is willing to take part in U.S. congressional hearings to discuss his past business relationship with President Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.

Last week, The Associated Press reported that Manafort had written aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska in 2005, proposing to do work for Deripaska that would 'benefit the Putin Government.'

The story was based on interviews with people familiar with Deripaska's business dealings with Manafort and documents obtained by the AP, including strategy memoranda, contracts and records showing international wire transfers for millions of dollars.

Russian metals magnate Oleg Deripaska says he is willing to take part in U.S. congressional hearings to discuss his relationship with President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort

In 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) is photographed shaking hands with Russian metals magnate Oleg Deripaska (left)

In a quarter-page advertisement in Tuesday's editions of The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, Deripaska said he was 'ready to take part in any hearings conducted in the US Congress on this subject in order to defend my reputation and name.'

Manafort signed a $10 million contract in 2006 that laid out a four-country communications and political strategy intended to support Deripaska's company and undermine anti-Russian political movements.

Payments continued until at least 2009, seven years before Manafort joined and led Trump's 2016 campaign, according to people familiar with the relationship. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the business arrangement openly.

In his newspaper ads responding to the AP's story, Deripaska said he never signed 'a $10 million contract 'to greatly benefit the Putin Government' with Paul Manafort.'

'I have never made any commitments or contracts with the obligation or purpose to covertly promote or advance 'Putin's Government' interests anywhere in the world,' Deripaska wrote.

Former Trump Campaign manager Paul Manafort (center) stands between the then-candidate Donald Trump (left) and his daughter Ivanka Trump (right) during a walk through at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last July

The AP's story said that Manafort wrote a strategy memo proposing that the work he would do for Deripaska would 'benefit the Putin Government,' not that the contract contained that language.

'This AP Exclusive report falls into the negative context of current US-Russian relations and causes fresh unfair and unjustified concerns and alarm in the US Congress about Russian involvement in US domestic affairs,' Deripaska's ad says.

The AP stands by its reporting, spokeswoman Lauren Easton said.

The revelations about Manafort come as Trump campaign advisers are the subject of an FBI probe and two congressional investigations, and they appear to guarantee that Manafort will be sought as a key witness in upcoming hearings. He has volunteered to appear.

Investigators are reviewing whether the Trump campaign and its associates coordinated with Moscow to meddle in the 2016 campaign.

Manafort has dismissed the investigations as politically motivated and misguided. The documents obtained by AP show Manafort's ties to Russia were closer than previously revealed.

Deripaska is one of Russia's wealthiest men.

He amassed his fortune under Putin and has bought assets abroad in ways widely perceived to benefit the Kremlin's interests. U.S. diplomatic cables from 2006 described him as 'among the 2-3 oligarchs Putin turns to on a regular basis' and 'a more-or-less permanent fixture on Putin's trips abroad.'

A spokesman for Manafort has confirmed that Manafort worked for Deripaska representing him on business and personal matters, but has denied that the work involved 'representing Russia's political interests.'

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said last week that Trump was not aware of Manafort's work for Deripaska a decade ago.

The AP reported last week that Manafort proposed an ambitious political strategy in a June 2005 memo that was based on work he had done in Ukraine.

Manafort described how his plan could be used to influence politics, business deals and news coverage inside the United States, Europe and former Soviet republics to the benefit of the Russian government.

'We are now of the belief that this model can greatly benefit the Putin Government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success,' Manafort wrote in the 2005 memo to Deripaska.

The effort, Manafort wrote, 'will be offering a great service that can re-focus, both internally and externally, the policies of the Putin government.'

Manafort wrote that the plan would bolster the legitimacy of governments friendly to Putin and undercut anti-Russian figures through political influence campaigns, nonprofit front groups and media operations.

The $10 million contract Manafort signed in 2006 outlined the political and communications activities in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Georgia in more detail, but the AP noted last week that the work actually performed is unclear.

Manafort and Deripaska had a falling out laid bare in 2014 in a Cayman Islands court.

The dispute involved a nearly $19 million investment that Manafort was orchestrating for Deripaska in a Ukrainian TV company called Black Sea Cable, according to legal filings by Deripaska's representatives.

In the filing, Deripaska accused Manafort and his associates of taking the money and then failing to respond to his queries about how the funds had been used.

Early in the 2016 presidential campaign, Deripaska's representatives openly accused Manafort of fraud and pledged to recover the money from him. After Trump earned the presidential nomination, Deripaska's representatives said they would no longer discuss the case.

Last week, Deripaska wrote in a statement to the AP that 'there was an agreement between Mr. Deripaska and Mr. Manafort to provide investment consulting services related to business interests of Mr. Deripaska, which now is a subject to legal claims.'
A British soldier described as a 'superhero' by his devastated family has died after a hit-and-run accident in America.

Paratrooper Greg Symonds, 42, suffered 'significant' head injuries after he was hit by a car in Santa Monica, California.

The dad-of-two died at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center with his wife Tamsin, 35, by his bedside, after she flew out to America from her home in Newport, South Wales.

Paratrooper Greg Symonds, pictured with his wife Tamsin and their children Bodhi, five, and Bronte, two

Mr Symonds' wife Tamsin flew out to America from her home in Newport, South Wales, and was with her husband when he died

The couple had mostly lived at opposite sides of the Atlantic since they married in 2012 - with Greg on operational duties in the USA and Tamsin running her business consultancy from Wales.

They had two children together Bodhi, five, and Bronte, two, who were pictured in a touching family snap, happily posing with their parents in Superhero costumes.

A GoFundMe page has been set up by family friend Kyle Burrows, which has so far raised more than 6,000.

He wrote on the page: 'In loving memory of Greg, a wonderful father - a true super hero to his two children Bodhi and Bronte.

The couple had mostly lived at opposite sides of the Atlantic since they married in 2012, as Mrs Symonds runs a business consultancy in Wales

'A brother, a superhero of a husband to Tamsin and our real life Superhero serving in the Parachute Regiment for our country.

'We have been inundated with requests to send flowers, but we thought what might be best is this which will be put towards creating happy memories for his two children as that is what he would have wanted or any bereavement counselling that may help with this devastating loss.'

Santa Monica Police Department said the car fled the scene following the collision on March 5.

Officers said they were called to the scene and found Mr Symonds with 'significant head trauma.'

He was treated by paramedics before being taken to hospital for treatment.

A GoFundMe page has been set up by a family friend, which has so far raised more than 6,000 for Mr Symonds' wife and children

A police spokesman said: 'The suspect vehicle is described as a possible 2012-2016 Toyota Camry; silver in colour and four-door.

'The vehicle may have substantial front end damage to the driver's side. SMPD has not received any information on the driver or possible occupants of the suspect vehicle.'

'We have not been able to get a statement from the victim and there are no witnesses to the collision' police spokesman Saul Rodriguez added.

Mr Symonds is believed to have died from his injuries on March 13.

A spokeswoman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said they are prepared to offer assistance if requested.

The Ministry of Defence has been approached for comment.
The Russian government says a meeting between President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and the chief of a bank with ties to Kremlin 'was ordinary business.'

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters in Moscow that the Kremlin was not aware of the meeting between Kushner and Sergey Gorkov, head of Russia's Vnesheconombank at the time and that it was routine.

The bank said in a statement the conversation was about the practices of 'foreign development banks and promising trends.' It made no mention of a discussion on the sanctions it is under.

VEB held meetings on the topic on three continents with the heads of financial institutions and large businesses, the statement said. Gorkov met with Kushner because he was in charge of a major real estate company, the bank claimed.

The revelation that Vnesheconombank, which has spent years on the US sanctions list, met with Trump's son-in-law not as a liaison to the president, but in his personal capacity as head of Kushner Companies, may reinforce concerns about the dual role Kushner was playing in the transition.

The Russian government says a meeting between President Donald Trump 's son-in-law Jared Kushner and the chief of a bank with ties to Kremlin 'was ordinary business.' The bank says the meeting was about Kushner companies

Kushner acted as an adviser to the incoming president in November and December even as he remained the chief of a large real estate business.

The White House's explanation of the meeting conflicts with the bank's.

VEB said that its executive held meeting 'with a number of representatives of the largest banks and business establishments of the United States, including Jared Kushner, the head of Kushner Companies.'

'As part of the preparation of the new strategy, executives of Vnesheconombank met with representatives of leading financial institutes in Europe, Asia and America multiple times during 2016.'

It suggests that VEB did talk to Kushner about business, even though the White House said he took the meeting in his capacity as an adviser to the president.

'He was a conduit and to, to leaders and that's until we had a State Department, a functioning place for people to go,' Trump's press secretary said on Monday.

Kushner has already 'volunteered' to speak to a Senate committee about that meeting and another one with the Russian ambassador to the United States in the transition before the new developments.

A date for the interview has not yet been set. Senators who run the committee have say it will come after they have the appropriate documents.

The revelation that Sergey Gorkov, CEO of Vnesheconombank met with Trump's son-in-law not as a liaison to the president, but in his personal capacity as head of Kushner Companies, may reinforce concerns about the dual role Kushner was playing in the transition

Kushner and ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn met with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, at Trump Tower in December, the New York Times previously reported.

Despite the parade of politicians, business people and foreign visitors meeting Trump and his transition team being made in public through the tower's lobby, the Russian was smuggled in through another entrance and his presence never announced.

The news outlet revealed Monday that Kushner later met with Gorkov, the Russian banker whose institution remains on the US sanctions list because of its links to the country's government.

Kushner is a senior advisor to President Trump and a major player in the administration's security policy.

In the transition, the White House says he met with many officials from foreign governments on behalf of the president, and his talks with Kislyak and Gorkov were non-consequential.

'That was part of his job that was part of his role, and he executed this completely as he was supposed to,' White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Monday.

Still, Kushner has said he will speak to the Senate's intelligence panel about the matter.

'Based on on the media frenzy that existed around this, he volunteered,' Spicer said Monday. 'He said, "Hey, we made some contacts, I'd be glad to explain them, let me know if you'd like to talk." '

The Intelligence Committee has said it would like Kushner answer questions about the meetings as part of its review of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

'Mr. Kushner will certainly not be the last person the committee calls to give testimony, but we expect him to be able to provide answers to key questions that have arisen in our inquiry,' the senators, Richard Burr and Mark Warner, said in a statement.

Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for the White House, told the Times on Monday that Kushner would comply.

'He isnt trying to hide anything and wants to be transparent,' Hicks said.

Spicer told reporters Monday afternoon that Kushner was 'glad to talk about the role' he played in the transition 'and the individuals I met with.'

Asked by CBS' Major Garret if Kushner, who's new to politics, felt he owed them an explanation, Spicer rebuffed the network correspondent. 'For what? Doing his job?'

Kushner and ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn also met with Sergey Kislyak at Trump Tower in December. Kislyak is pictured at the US Capitol in February attending Trump's speech to a joint session of Congress.

Kushner met with Kislyak in December to talk about improving relations between the two countries and the possibility of collaborating in the Middle East, Hicks told the New York Times.

Kislyak requested a second meeting to 'deliver a message,' Hicks said. Kushner sent a deputy, Avrahm Berkowitz, to that session. At Kislyak's request, Kushner then met with Gorkov.

The Russian's bank had been sanctioned by the US after Russian dissidents invaded Crimea.

Vnesheconombank's board is controlled by Putin's government. Prime Minister Dimitri Medvedev is a member.

Kushner was still the chief of his family real estate business, Kushner Companies, at the time of the talks.

Senators want to know if he and Gorkov discussed funding for a Fifth Avenue building Kushner was planning to redevelop with Chinese company Anbang Insurance Group, which has links to its country's government, the Times says.

Hicks said the subject did not come up in the half-hour session, and neither did sanctions.

'It really wasnt much of a conversation,' she told the news publication.

Kushner is one of a handful of Trump associates legislators are looking to speak to as they conduct their investigation.

Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, will go before the House Intelligence Committee to answer questions about his business dealings in Ukraine.

The Republican political strategist has been accused of accepting an illegal cash payment of $12 million to advise the pro-Russian president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, before he was driven out of power.

Trump friend Roger Stone has volunteered to go before House and Senate investigators, too, as he tries to wipe away allegations of Russian collusion in the election.

Stone was in contact with the hacker Guccifer 2.0 before Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta's emails were leaked, and he foreshadowed the theft and release of Democratic National Committee emails.

Both Manafort and Stone say they did nothing illegal. Stone says he wants to testify so he can clear his name.

FBI Director James Comey confirmed last week that the bureau was investigating Trump contacts and had a probe in election tampering. He did not go into greater specificity about who was under scrutiny.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said afterward that he was 'not aware' that anyone who currently worked for Trump was part of an FBI investigation.

Hicks told The New York Times that the FBI had not questioned Kushner. The paper noted that there is nothing to suggest that he's under law enforcement scrutiny.

The Trump son-in-law will be the most high-profile administration official to be questioned by senators when he goes to Capitol Hill. He's one of three who is known to have spoken with Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, before Trump took office.

Flynn's calls with Kislyak turned into a full blown scandal in February when he was accused of discussing sanctions with the Russian emissary just as the Obama administration brought down the hammer.

First Flynn said it didn't happen, then he admitted that the topic may have come up.

Trump dismissed him after the White House determined that the retired general mislead the vice president about the substance of his Kislyak's talks.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a senator at the time of Trump's election, also met with Kislyak - once in his office and another time in passing at a convention event for diplomats.

He caused trouble for himself at his confirmation hearing by saying he'd had no contact with the Russians in the lead up to the election.

Sessions quelled calls for his resignation after the information came out by rescuing himself from any Justice Department investigations into the presidential election.
David Eric Ufferman, 56, was shot dead by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper on Sunday after he was found walking on I-95

A Florida Highway Patrol trooper shot a man dead on Sunday, after trying to stop him from walking on an interstate.

The incident happened around 1:10am in Delray Beach, when officers got a call about a man walking on I-95 near Atlantic Avenue.

The trooper who arrived then got into a physical altercation with the walker, identified as 56-year-old local man David Eric Ufferman.

The trooper tried to use his stun gun to subdue the man but it reportedly failed.

That's when he reached for his actual handgun and shot Ufferman.

Ufferman was rushed to Delray Beach Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the shooting.

The trooper - who has not been named - has been placed on paid administrative leave, as is standard procedure for such incidents.

Public records show that Ufferman was arrested back in 2012 for hitting a pedestrian with his pickup truck in a grocery store parking lot. He was charged with driving under the influence.
Theresa May will urge Britons to come together when she triggers Article 50 today.

In a statement to MPs, the Prime Minister will say now is the time for national unity to achieve the best possible Brexit deal.

She will say we should be no longer defined by the vote we cast, but by our determination to make a success of the result. We are one great union of people and nations with a proud history and a bright future, she will add.

Now that the decision has been made to leave the EU, it is time to come together.

Sat in the cabinet office of Downing Street, May last night signed her name under the watchful eye of Sir Robert Walpole, the country's first ever Prime Minister.

Theresa May officially invokes Article 50 as she signs a letter to EU Council President Donald Tusk, under the watchful eye of Britain's first Prime Minister Robert Walpole (pictured)

Mrs May is pictured in the Cabinet Office signing the letter - which is rumoured to run to eight pages - before it is couriered to the EUs capital

The landmark document (pictured) will be handed over by Britain's EU ambassador Sir Tim Barrow and represents the first act of an irreversible Brexit process

It emerged last night that Britain will obey Brussels free movement rules for up to two more years.

Ministers had considered using the official notification as a cut-off point, denying new EU arrivals the automatic right to stay here. But sources last night confirmed that this idea had been dropped and the timing of the cut-off will form part of the Brexit negotiations.

The decision on free movement last night raised fears of a rush by EU migrants to beat the deadline.

A government source insisted the Prime Minister had not avoided an early confrontation with Brussels in order to ease the opening of negotiations.

We have not ducked anything, the source said. The fact is that we have not got a reciprocal deal on the rights of citizens abroad so we cannot set a date for the start of a new system.

Another source said the Home Office was concerned about the practical difficulties of enforcing a cut-off date before the introduction of a new post-Brexit immigration regime.

The Prime Minister will write a letter that will be delivered by hand to EU Council President Donald Tusk, pictured marking the EU's 60th anniversary on Saturday, at around 12.30pm

The letter was due to be conveyed to Brussels by diplomats tonight to be handed to Mr Tusk by Britains ambassador to the EU Sir Tim Barrow at lunchtime today

Mrs May last night signed the letter to European Council president Donald Tusk informing him that the UK is triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the formal method of leaving the 28-member bloc.

The letter was due to be conveyed to Brussels by diplomats last night to be handed to Mr Tusk by our ambassador to the EU Sir Tim Barrow at lunchtime today. It starts a two-year process that will see the UK leave on March 29, 2019.

ARTICLE 50: WHAT HAPPENS NEXT Theresa May's letter to Donald Tusk invoking Article 50 will be handed over at around 12.30pm. This is the point of no return and will trigger two years of frantic diplomacy and negotiations. Within 48 hours, the EU will issue its first response and the 27 remaining members are set to meet in late April. The first major summit is likely to be later in the spring - but talks could be limited by pending elections in Germany. The final deal is expected to emerge by the end of next year in time for a series of votes on ratification Brussels, London and around Europe. If the talks collapse at any point in the two years, Britain could face leaving the EU without a deal at all. Advertisement

The Prime Minister will pledge to represent every person in the UK, during talks with Brussels, including diehard Remain voters and 3.2million EU citizens living here. Setting out her ambitions for the negotiations, she will pledge to make the UK stronger, fairer and more secure.

It is my fierce determination to get the right deal for every single person in this country, she will say.

For, as we face the opportunities ahead of us on this momentous journey, our shared values, interests and ambitions can, and must, bring us together.

Sources last night said the letter to Mr Tusk would set out the broad principles of Mrs Mays negotiating aims, without getting into the detail.

The document is expected to confirm that Brexit will involve the UKs departure from the EUs single market, because membership would mean accepting free movement and EU court rulings.

Mrs May is expected to demand that trade talks are conducted in parallel with wrangling over the terms of the UKs exit. EU leaders have warned of a 50billion divorce bill.

The Prime Minister will call for an early agreement guaranteeing the rights of 3.2million EU citizens living in the UK and 1.2million British citizens in Europe.

Government lawyers have warned that any cut-off prior to the end of Britains EU membership would inevitably face court challenges.

Sources last night said a date was unlikely to be set until a deal on reciprocal citizen rights has been agreed.

Brexit Secretary David Davis and Home Secretary Amber Rudd were both seen arriving in Downing Street tonight as the finishing touches were put to the Article 50 letter

IN FULL: MAY'S WARCRY TO THE UK AHEAD OF BREXIT 'When I sit around the negotiating table in the months ahead, I will represent every person in the whole United Kingdom  young and old, rich and poor, city, town, country and all the villages and hamlets in between. 'And yes, those EU nationals who have made this country their home. 'It is my fierce determination to get the right deal for every single person in this country. 'For, as we face the opportunities ahead of us on this momentous journey, our shared values, interests and ambitions can - and must - bring us together. 'We all want to see a Britain that is stronger than it is today. We all want a country that is fairer so that everyone has the chance to succeed. 'We all want a nation that is safe and secure for our children and grandchildren. We all want to live in a truly Global Britain that gets out and builds relationships with old friends and new allies around the world. 'These are the ambitions of this Governments Plan for Britain. Ambitions that unite us, so that we are no longer defined by the vote we cast, but by our determination to make a success of the result. 'We are one great union of people and nations with a proud history and a bright future. 'And, now that the decision has been made to leave the EU, it is time to come together.' Advertisement

The European Parliament yesterday threatened to block a final Brexit deal if the UK tried to introduce a cut-off before its full departure from the EU.

A resolution setting out MEPs demands will be voted on next week and will include a provision for non-discrimination against EU citizens in the UK.

A source who has seen the document said: The Parliament will demand that EU free movement law is applied until the day the UK leaves.

The Article 50 process has never been used before. Ministers believe that, after today, the UKs departure from the organisation it joined in 1973 will be irrevocable.

Mr Tusk will set out the EUs draft negotiation guidelines by the end of the week before sending them to the 27 remaining states for consultation.

EU leaders will meet on April 29 at an extraordinary European Council summit to agree a mandate for chief negotiator Michel Barnier and clear the way for talks to begin in earnest in May.

'Gloomy' Brexit report sparks MPs' walkout

Tory MPs staged an unprecedented walkout from a cross-party committee on Brexit yesterday in protest against a massively skewed report.

During a stormy meeting at Westminster, pro-Brexit MPs complained that the committees Labour chairman Hilary Benn had failed to consult them before presenting them with a 155-page report savaging the Governments handling of Britains departure from the EU.

A source said Mr Benn, a former Cabinet minister, tried to pressure committee members into signing the gloomy report.

When Mr Benn refused to back down, three Tories walked out  Dominic Raab, Maria Caulfield and Karl McCartney.

A source said Hilary Benn (pictured) tried to pressure committee members into signing the gloomy report

The other six pro-Brexit members of the 21-strong committee are also expected to vote against the reports findings, rendering it almost worthless. Last night they were even discussing the release of a minority report setting out a more balanced appraisal of the Governments approach to Brexit.

One source on the panel accused Mr Benn of trying to use the committee to fire an Exocet [missile] at the Government in the week it triggers Article 50.

The source added: Normally when you are drawing up a committee report you start with a debate about the principles.

This time, we were presented with a 155-page draft report that is massively skewed against Brexit. We were told we could offer some drafting suggestions, but there is no point doing that when the report itself is irredeemably flawed.

Several of us suggested that we go back to first principles, but when this idea was rejected, there didnt seem much point in staying. It was perfectly amicable but pretty frustrating.

'BRUSSELS OWES UK A TRILLION EUROS' The UK should sidestep demands for a hefty divorce bill during Brexit talks by handing Brussels a one-trillion Euro counter claim. The audacious approach in a report by a leading think-tank called for Downing Street to demand compensation for inefficiency and bad practice since the UK joined the EU. Disputes over the 52billion divorce bill, which covers contributions towards eurocrat pensions and future EU budgets, is likely to prove contentious. Leading EU figures yesterday refused to back down and said they would only approve a Brexit deal that was very costly for the UK. But the Civitas think-tanks report calls for the UK to launch a significant array of financial claims during negotiations. The cross-party body said that the UK should enter compensation claims for fraudulent and extravagant EU use of British funds, as well as increased military expenditure caused by EU recklessness. It calls for a 22billion compensation claim for being associated with the EUs chronic dysfunction and maladministration, as well as 48billion in financial damage caused by European banks. Advertisement

Former Tory Cabinet minister Peter Lilley, who is on the committee, was not at yesterdays meeting but said he was not happy with Mr Benns report.

A spokesman for the committee said Mr Benn would not be commenting on the row, adding: We do not comment on private discussions. But the failure to reach a consensus means the committees report on the Governments Brexit white paper now risks being fatally undermined when it is published later this week.

It also highlights concerns about the operation of the committee, which has an in-built majority of Remain MPs including Mr Benn, who played a prominent role in the campaign to keep Britain in the EU last year.

The committee, which is almost twice the size of a normal Commons committee, is made up of 12 pro-Remain MPs and just nine who supported Brexit.

Eurosceptic Tory MP Peter Bone said yesterdays walkout raised question marks about the future operation of the committee.

It is unheard of for MPs to walk out of a private meeting during deliberations on a report, he said.

It does appear that the chairman is trying to use the committee to promote a personal, pro-Remain agenda, which does not reflect the mood in the country. I am not sure this committee can work if it carries on like this. The whole point about select committees is to reach a consensus. Unless you can do that, any conclusions you reach are pretty pointless.

But pro-Remain MPs yesterday insisted the committee was working.

Alistair Burt, a former Tory Foreign Office minister who is on the panel, dismissed the walkout, posting a message on Twitter saying: Rest of Committee still sitting and doing its job to consider the report.

Anna Soubry, one of the most Europhile Tory MPs, said the committee was fully entitled to produce a gloomy report on Brexit, adding: Gloomy = Brexit reality. It doesnt have to be like this. Membership of the single market will make our prospects brighter.

Committee sources said the report is likely to be published this week.
Hundreds of Indian residents have attacked migrants with sticks and metal chairs in 'revenge' for a teenager's overdose which they blamed on 'foreign' drug dealers.

More than 300 Indian residents charged at the group of African students in a shopping mall rampage after attending a candle-lit vigil near Pari Chowk for 19-year-old student, Manish Singh, late on Monday night.

Five men were arrested on Tuesday and four more are now said to be on the run after the 'racially motivated' incident in Greater Noida, New Delhi, which left a dozen people wounded.

One of the victims injured in the viscous mob attack is interviewed by police

Manish's death was allegedly caused by a drug overdose and his family claimed that their son was offered a cold drink laced with sedatives by five Nigerian nationals living in the NSG Society in Greater Noida, where he also lived.

Five Nigerian students were detained over the teenager's death after locals accused them of murder, but they were later released without charge due to a lack of any evidence.

But furious residents then started shouting slogans against Africans and demanding the arrest of those responsible for the death of the student.

Two Nigerian nationals studying in Greater Noida were thrashed with steel rods, dustbins and sticks by a mob near Ansal Plaza for over an hour

The protest soon got out of hand, triggering a vicious attack which was captured on video.

The mob attacked two Nigerian brothers living in the area who said they were going to Ansal Plaza to buy a pair of jeans when they were suddenly chased by a mob near Pari Chowk.

They bash chairs, steel dustbins and rods over his head and body, causing his body to buckle under the brute force.

'Before I could run inside to save myself, I was grabbed by the mob chasing us. I was stabbed on my shoulder by a sharp object and beaten for over an hour,' said the 21-year-old victim.

Hundreds of Indian residents attacked African migrants with metal chairs in 'revenge' for a teenager's overdose which they blamed on 'foreign' drug dealers in Greater Noida, New Delhi

'No one from the crowd and mall authorities came to our rescue. This is the second time I have been attacked because of my nationality. I am going back to my country now because I live in fear every day,' said the elder brother, who is also a student at Noida International University.

'Rumours were being spread that Africans are behind the youth's death and racist comments were made on social media. It looks racially motivated,' senior police officer Sujata Singh said.

'Five attackers have been arrested and four others are on the run,' she said.

More than 300 Indian residents charged at the group of African students in a shopping mall rampage in Greater Noida, New Delhi

India's foreign ministry condemned the incident as 'deplorable' and said it had assured the Nigerian high commissioner (ambassador) that all steps were being taken to protect the country's nationals.

'The government is committed to ensuring safety and security of all foreigners in India. People from Africa, including students and youth, remain our valued partners,' said a ministry statement.

Uttar Pradesh police chief Singh said around 500 people had assembled for a candle-lit vigil in Noida to demand justice for the teenager, and became violent after spotting a group of Nigerians.

Sickening footage shows a mob of Indian men attacking the migrants, before honing in on one terrified man in particular (pictured) who tried to crawl away

One television station showed an angry mob hitting a car with sticks, while another showed dozens of attackers hitting shoppers in a mall with metal chairs.

Endurance Amalawa, one of the attacked students, said he was outside the mall with his brother when they saw an angry mob running towards them.

'We kept crying for help, but no one came, not even the security marshals. I was running but they followed me and attacked me,' he said on NDTV television.

'Some people were hitting us, pushing us out... they dragged my brother outside and start hitting him.'

Another Nigerian national, Irrfan, was attacked at Jagat farms. He suffered severe injuries on his face, head and forehead and is recuperating at a private hospital.

Five men were arrested and four more are on the run after the 'racially motivated' incident on Monday, which left a dozen people wounded

In an official statement, Singh said: 'We have registered an FIR against 1,200 unidentified people and 54 have been named under several sections for rioting.'

A statement released by Uttar Pradesh's DGP police said the cause of Manish's death has not been ascertained in the post mortem report but investigations will continue.

Africans living in India frequently face discrimination and even violence, and are often accused of involvement in the illegal drug trade.

The issue was thrown into the spotlight after a Congolese national was stoned to death last year in a dispute over an auto-rickshaw.

After that, African ambassadors in New Delhi threatened to advise students from their countries to avoid schools in the capital for their own safety.

'The locals look at us like cannibals,' said Presidoe Okujuna, spokesman for the Association of African Students in India, which is advising students to avoid classes for their own safety.

'People are scared. They don't want to come out. They want security for their lives.'
A Fox News Channel's former executive has reportedly been offered immunity by federal prosecutors who are investigating settlements from the network to women who accused the former chairman Roger Ailes of harassment.

Mark Kranz, who served as Chief Financial Officer at the channel from 2004 to 2016, could possibly avoid prosecution 'if he provides information on payments' made to women Ailes is accused of harassing,' Financial Times reported.

Fox is reportedly the target of a federal probe into allegedly concealing from investors the huge payments from the company made to several women in an effort to settle sexual harassment allegations against Ailes, who was pushed out from his position last summer.

Kranz left the network shortly after Ailes and is thought to be familiar with all of the company's financial dealings due to the top position that he served in for over a decade.

A Fox News Channel's former executive has reportedly been offered immunity by federal prosecutors who are investigating settlements from the network to women who accused their former chairman Roger Ailes (above) of harassment

The details on the government probe into Fox is unclear, however, authorities are searching to see if the channel 'misled investors by concealing multiple financial settlements with former or potential employees,' according to Financial Times.

'Neither FOX News nor 21CF has received a subpoena, but we have been in communication with the U.S. Attorney's office for months  we have and will continue to cooperate on all inquiries with any interested authorities,' a spokesperson for 21st Century Fox said.

Last summer, an internal investigation at the network revealed that Ailes was accused of sexually harassing several employees or potential employees over many years.

Throughout the entire scandal, Ailes has claimed he never sexually harassed anyone.

Those who accused the 76-year-old former CEO include ex-Fox News top anchor Megyn Kelly, former 'Fox & Friends' host Andrea Tantaros, former Fox News booker Laurie Luhn and former anchor Gretchen Carlson.

Last summer, an internal investigation at the network revealed that Ailes was accused of sexually harassing several employees, including former hosts Gretchen Carlson (left) and Megyn Kelly (right) over many years

Former Fox News booker Laurie Luhn (pictured with Ailes) received a $3.15million settlement from Fox in 2011 after she accused Ailes of sexually harassing her for year. Her payment was reportedly not disclosed to investors, which may violate U.S. securities law

Carlson was the first of the women to come forward with the claims against Ailes, which seemingly caused him to be ousted from his position at the network.

She settled with Fox News for a whopping $20 million shortly after his departure.

In addition, Luhn told New York Magazine last year that she was kept as Ailes' secret sex toy for over two decades.

She received a $3.15million settlement from the network in 2011 in exchange for her silence, but it is believed that she had to forfeit the money once she revealed the details of her relationship with him last year.

Luhn's payment was not reportedly disclosed to investors. Under U.S. securities law, such payments are required to be disclosed to investors if they are classified as important or material.

A spokesman for the US attorney's office, which is conducting the investigation, could not be reached for comment.

Last August, Tantaros, 37, sued Fox News, Ailes and various other network executives for $50 million, claiming they ran the network like 'a sex-fueled, Playboy mansion-like cult, steeped in intimidation, indecency and misogyny'.

Ex-Fox News host Andrea Tantaros has accused her former bosses of 'interfering with her ability to make money', and spying on her - after she sued the network for sexual harassment

Specifically, she accused Ailes and The O'Reilly Factor's Bill O'Reilly former Massachusetss Senator Scott Brown, among others, of making 'unwanted sexual advances', adding that network executives condoned the harassment and even participated in a smear campaign against her.

The company has yet to reach an agreement with Tantaros - who was suspended from work in April 2016 - but she claims that she turned down a 'seven figure settlement' from Fox before filing her lawsuit.

Fox's lawyers argued for the case to be heard in arbitration - as per Tantaros' employment contract - and a judge granted the motion.

'The court granted FOX News' motion to send Andrea Tantaros' case to arbitration, where it always belonged, and rejected her counsel Judd Burstein's histrionics,' a spokesperson for 21st Century Fox said.

The network is among 21st Century Fox's most profitable businesses, as it generates annual profits of more than $1.5billion annually.
A jewelry restorer has gone undercover at some of New York's most recognizable diamond stores to 'prove' that customers are being ripped off.

Diamond expert Jacob Worth, founder of I Want What It's Worth, claims that luxury retailers Tiffany & Co, Cartier, Van Cleef and Harry Winston all use 'identical' diamonds to those found in basic retailers - but with huge markups.

'There really is nothing special about these diamonds. Identical rings can be found at Costco or websites like Blue Nile,' he said.

A diamond expert claims members of the public are being ripped off by some of the country's most recognizable retailers - paying thousands for little more than the box they come in

He also found that the advice of the jewelry specialists at each store was questionable (pictured is the expert at Van Cleef) Each expert claimed that the diamonds in their store was superior to all others

Diamond expert Jacob Worth, founder of I Want What It's Worth, has gone undercover at some of New York's most recognizable diamond stores to 'prove' that customers are being ripped off

'At Tiffany you are basically paying a massive markup up for a blue box which you can buy on eBay for 25 dollars.'

Worth visited all four luxury diamond retailers with an undercover camera as he claims customers are paying thousands for little more than the brand name.

At Tiffany's, a simple two carat, round solitaire diamond ring with platinum band was selling for $80,000.

At Costco, an almost identical two carat, round solitaire diamond ring with platinum band costs around $19,000.

When Worth compared prices of a basic round solitaire ring, he reported that Tiffany's had a 253 per cent mark up, at Cartier it was 276 per cent, at Van Cleef it is 314 per cent and at Harry Winstone's it is 336 per cent.

While a specialist at Tiffany confidently claimed that the store used diamonds mined in the US - despite the fact that there are no commercially operated diamond mines in America

He visited all four luxury diamond retailers with an undercover camera to investigate what consumers were being charged for the stones

He also found that the advice of the jewelry specialists at each store was questionable.

Each expert claimed that the diamonds in their store was superior to all others.

While a specialist at Tiffany confidently claimed that the store used diamonds mined in the US - despite the fact that there are no commercially operated diamond mines in America.

'He's so full of it,' Worth said.

A 2005 Good Morning America report found that the quality of diamonds at Costco was surprisingly high.

Expert Martin Fuller said that unlike Tiffany, Cartier, and other stores, Costco actually undervalued its diamonds.

The stone in one diamond ring, which cost $6,600 compared to a 'similar diamond' at Tiffany for $16,000, would be worth on average $8,000 for a similar quality stone.

'It's a little bit of a surprise,' said Fuller of the high quality of the stone. 'You wouldn't normally consider a fine diamond to be found in a general store like Costco, but I'm pleasantly surprised, as well.'

'It's a beautiful stone,' he added.

DailyMail.com has reached out to Tiffany&Co, Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, and Harry Winston for comment.
A video of a man sprinting down a street in Detroit with a kangaroo on a leash has the internet shaking its head in disbelief.

The video posted on Monday was indeed shot in Detroit's University District, at the intersection of Birchcrest and Thatcher, an analysis by DailyMail.com reveals.

In the brief video clip, a man can be seen holding a marsupial as he stands in the street. It's unclear from the video whether the animal is a juvenile kangaroo or an adult wallaby, a very similar animal also found in Australia.

'Man has a kangaroo on a leash,' a woman observes inside the car from which the video is being filmed.

The brief video shows a man sprinting down the street with a marsupial on a leash

The man sets the kangaroo down on the street and sprints to keep up as it springs off in a beeline heading south on Birchcrest.

'What? What the...' the woman in the car can be heard saying.

Several bystanders can be seen standing in the front lawn of a house and filming the incident.

Local ordinances prohibit the private ownership of exotic animals.

An analysis by DailyMail.com confirms that the video was shot at this intersection in Detroit's University District. This image shows the intersection from the perspective of the camera. The marsupial traveled south, from left to right, across the intersection.

The woman who posted the video expressed her suspicion that drugs were involved

Elsewhere in Michigan, a man and woman were arrested after wallabies were spotted in their Kalamazoo yard last year, according to MLive.

In East Lansing, a University of Michigan student drew outrage from animal rights advocates when he offered a wallaby for sale online in 2015.

'A wallaby doesn't belong in a private home any more than a wolverine does,' Brittany Peet, an attorney for animal welfare group PETA, told the Detroit News in that case.
Alexander Blackman offered his profound and heartfelt thanks to Daily Mail readers after learning he will be freed within weeks.

The Royal Marine declared himself stunned and overwhelmed with gratitude to those who had campaigned for justice after military top brass left him to rot in prison.

Judges yesterday slashed his sentence for killing a Taliban fighter, meaning he is likely to be home by Easter.

Supporters of former British soldier Alexander Blackman, Marine A, react outside the The Royal Courts of Justice in London on March 28, 2017, after learning the result of his sentence

Katie Hopkins outside court at Royal Marine Alexander Blackman's appeal trial in London

Supporters of Alexander Blackman celebrate outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London as the Royal Marine could be freed from prison within weeks after the Court Martial Appeal Court sentenced him to seven years for the manslaughter of an injured Taliban fighter in Afghanistan

Claire Blackman (centre), wife of jailed former British soldier Alexander Blackman, Marine A, reacts outside the The Royal Courts of Justice in London on March 28, 2017, after learning the result of her husband's reduced sentence

As the momentous decision was announced, Sgt Blackmans wife Claire shed tears of joy, while scores of Royal Marines cheered and punched the air.

It sealed a stunning victory for the campaign for justice for Sgt Blackman  called Marine A during his military trial  who was jailed for life in 2013 for killing the insurgent in Afghanistan in 2011.

Mail readers raised 810,000 to fund an appeal which led to his murder conviction being reduced to manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility.

Five Appeal Court judges led by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas, accepted he had suffered combat stress.

Marines celebrate the ruling on Sgt Blackman

Yesterday they cut his sentence to seven years, of which he will serve half.

As he has already served almost three and a half years, he is likely to be released in about a fortnights time.

On his release Mr Blackman is expected to receive police protection from potential terrorist attack.

The couple been warned that they must take security precautions because his actions have made him a terrorist target, and are understood to be receiving police advice.

The former Marine has already been informed on five occasions about potential plots to attack him in jail.

He was previously serving life with a minimum of eight years  the equivalent of a 16-year sentence.

Last night, Sgt Blackman, 42, told the Mail: My profound and heartfelt thanks go to the Daily Mails readers.

'Without them we wouldnt be anywhere near this today.

'I am honestly struggling to find words of gratitude that are deep enough to describe the Mail readers who came to my aid.

I am just stunned and overwhelmed by their generosity.

I am so relieved and happy with the results.

'It could have been a lot worse, and I was braced for the worst.

'My heart sank when the judge started talking about my current sentence being the equivalent of 16 years, and I thought it was somehow leading to a larger sentence.

'I just felt a profound sense of relief when they said seven.

I am an extremely lucky man to have Claire as a wife.

'We hear so many other stories of relationships going bad when you are inside.

'That hasnt happened for us. Her love and support has simply sustained me.

Supporters of former British soldier Alexander Blackman, who shot an injured Taliban fighter in Afghanistan in 2011

A veteran celebrates wildly (right) after hearing of the imminent release of Sgt Blackman (left)

Outside court, Mrs Blackman said: This is the moment that we have all been fighting hard for.'

Outside court, Mrs Blackman said: This is the moment that we have all been fighting hard for.

'Its hard to believe that this day is finally here.

Daily Mail Comment It says a great deal for Alexander Blackmans character that he has paid handsome tribute to Mail readers, who raised 810,000 to make his release possible. He showed fundamental decency, too, in saying the hardest part of his punishment was the shame of being discharged from the Royal Marines in disgrace. Yesterday, the Appeal Court righted that wrong, ruling there should be no question of disgrace for a brave soldier who committed a terrible act when his judgment was impaired by combat stress. As we join Sgt Blackman in saluting our readers, we celebrate a great day for our heroic armed forces morale  and for justice. Advertisement

She also thanked John Davies, a former Marine who has spent three years rallying support even though he had never met Sgt Blackman before he was jailed.

Richard Drax, the MP who led the campaign in the Commons, told the crowd: The sun is shining, and clearly upon the righteous. Justice is seen to be done.

A Mail investigation revealed vital evidence had been deliberately withheld from the court martial during Sgt Blackmans original trial.

Thriller writer Frederick Forsyth, in court yesterday, said the villains who locked up Sgt Blackman should hang their heads in shame.

As well as lifting the murder stain from his character, his dismissal with disgrace from the Royal Marines  which his wife said had been the cruellest part of his punishment  has also been reduced to simply dismissal.

Yesterday the judges said Sgt Blackman still bore heavy responsibility for the killing. But they found the incident was not a cold-blooded execution.

The Commandant General of the Royal Marines, Major General Robert Magowan, said it was time to move forward from the Blackman episode.

Lioness who simply said: I cant wait to cook for him again, by Robert Hardman

The decision took a second or two to sink in. Their years of armed combat had left some of the gents in this crowd a little hard of hearing. And for all his undoubted legal brilliance, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas, was not entirely audible as he rattled his way through his historic announcement.

Up in the public gallery, though, Royal Marine mum Jayne Quinn quickly did the sums. Hes out! she cried. Whereupon Court Number Four of the Royal Courts of Justice descended into happy bedlam. Applause in the gallery spread to the courtroom below.

One or two flinty old soldiers appeared to be in tears. People queued up to hug the indefatigable Claire Blackman, the wife who never gave up and who will now soon be reunited with a husband no longer branded a murderer.

Claire Blackman, the wife of Alexander Blackman, is kissed by a supporter outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London

Claire Blackman (centre), wife of jailed former British soldier Alexander Blackman, Marine A, reacts outside the The Royal Courts of Justice in London on March 28, 2017

Even at this Hallelujah moment, she was a good deal more composed than some of those around her. Outside in the Strand, cabs and lorries slowed and honked their horns as news spread on the radio.

Over the road at The George, the bar staff called for reinforcements. Sergeant Alexander Blackman of the Royal Marines was finally going to be freed, and that meant a hefty celebration.

There was still no diluting the anger felt across the Forces that a brave man, whose self-control had briefly snapped in the most appalling circumstances, was treated like the basest criminal lowlife. But everyone was certainly going to enjoy the moment.

Inside the courtroom, a man in a Royal Marines regimental tie stood to attention, ramrod-straight, and proclaimed: Three cheers for Claire and the team. Hip hip

Former Marine Alan Logan from North Wales came up to me and pressed a smart Royal Marines scarf in to my hands  a symbolic thank you to the Daily Mail readers whose generosity had brought about this historic moment.

The party atmosphere was, of course, completely out of order in this judicial holy of holies. The blazered platoons had behaved impeccably throughout this case  until now.

Claire Blackman, the wife of Alexander Blackman

The court usher, who has seen them queuing up at every stage, simply rolled her eyes.

Not so the usher from a neighbouring court, who suddenly burst in demanding quiet. This is a court building! she shouted.

There are other proceedings going on. Please, if you want to do any more celebrating, go outside.

And so they did, leaving one slightly bemused figure taking it all in. In a crisp blue shirt, Sgt Blackman, 42, was still sitting in his Wiltshire prison  where he must remain for a few more days  hooked up to the court by video link. Before switching him off, a clerk offered to bring his wife over to the camera.

Are you all right darling? asked Claire, adding a note of caution: The whole court can hear you, so we will speak very soon. Love you lots. Back came a manly Love you before Sgt Blackman disappeared.

The steps of the High Court were impassable as Claire, 45, emerged alongside her victorious legal team. The gothic entrance was draped with Justice for Marine A flags. Several lifesize cardboard cut-outs of the man himself in combat uniform stood among the ranks of medal-clanking veterans, mostly ex-Royal Marines but with a healthy smattering of other units, too.

Several maroon berets from arch-rivals the Parachute Regiment illustrated the strength of feeling across the Armed Forces. Someone cracked open a bottle of champagne. A hip flask the size of a bedpan did the rounds.

Sgt Blackmans barrister, Jonathan Goldberg QC, began by saluting the lioness who had kept the flame alive from the day her husband went down for murder at that bungled court martial in 2013.

Step forward, the true heroine of the day. Your mans coming home, Claire! shouted a man in the crowd, prompting more cheers. A bagpiper struck up and was promptly struck down again so that everyone could hear her speak.

Here was a woman who has never wanted to be in the spotlight. But whether in Parliament Square or outside Downing Street, or on the steps of the Criminal Cases Review Commission in Birmingham, Claire would always face the cameras to declare that the battle must go on, that justice would prevail.

Claire Blackman, the wife of Alexander Blackman, with supporters outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London

Claire Blackman, the wife of Alexander Blackman, with supporters outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London in a photo captured by Katie Hopkins

Claire Blackman walks from the court where a massive crowd had gathered to celebrate

So often, for her husbands sake, shed conceal her dismay as one false dawn after another ended in disappointment. Now the West Country NHS manager could finally say her thank-yous.

Here at the High Court, they werent all men in green berets. Some of the most assiduous supporters of the Blackman campaign have been Royal Marine wives and mothers, women like Jayne Quinn who had been in the front row of the public gallery day after day.

Though she lives and works as a personnel manager in the Lake District, she hadnt missed a day of this case, using up her holiday allowance to travel to London for the hearings.

Why do it? Because I owe Al Blackman a debt I can never repay. He kept my son safe in Afghanistan  and all the lads would follow him to hell and back.

Last week, the court had heard the written testimony of her son, Thomas Quinn, who was wounded while serving alongside Sgt Blackman in an area of Helmand regularly described as the most dangerous square mile on earth. Sergeant Als leadership was second to none, wrote Marine Quinn, currently serving overseas. He was always there for all of us.

Towards the end of the tour, Sergeant Al had even shouldered some of the patrol duties of those Marines who had children (he does not) in order to extend their chances of getting home to their families in one piece. The word hero has, rightly, come up a lot during this case.

Throughout this appeal, nothing has diminished the brutality of Sgt Blackman firing the fateful round into the chest of a dying Taliban who, moments earlier, had been trying to kill his men.

But what has been exposed in court is the way his superiors left Sgt Blackman for months on end in 50C (122F) heat with a half-strength unit and no officer (and not even a fridge) to patrol a hellhole so dangerous even the padre was banned from dropping in.

Claire Blackman, the wife of Sgt Blackman, is all smiles after learning her husband will be freed

That he should be condemned as a murderer for snapping in a situation few of us can comprehend continued to rankle as the crowds made their way over to a victory party at The George.

This case has proved that the court martial was wrong and that this Government has betrayed the Military Covenant with the Armed Forces, said Mark Iles, 63, late of the Royal Artillery, waving a copy of rules and regulations. Certainly, for many supporters, the campaign is far from over.

But for Claire Blackman, there is an overwhelming sense of relief  both that her husband is coming home and that the word disgrace has been formally expunged from his record. Afterwards, gathering her thoughts at her barristers chambers, she told me how she had never given up hoping, how she cant wait to cook her husband his favourite chicken fajitas  though he is a great cook, too, and does a mean Beef Wellington  and how, through it all, she and her husband had both found plenty to laugh about amid all the setbacks.

He had refused to be over-optimistic about the result in case the judges had been less lenient. Hes very good at keeping it all in perspective, she said.

Finally, her phone rang and Sgt Blackman was on the line. After a long private chat, Claire let me have a word on speakerphone.

How could he be so calm and collected, I asked, when everyone else was so emotional? He chuckled and replied: I just didnt want to embarrass myself in front of Claire. To be honest, shes the only person whose opinion I really care about. Im so lucky to have her.

At which point, Claire chipped in: You are SO going to pay for this! And they both burst out laughing.
Penelope Fillon, 61, spent more than 13 hours being grilled by three Paris judges

The Welsh-born woman hoping to become the next First Lady of France has been charged with three criminal offences that could see her jailed for more than a decade.

Penelope Fillon, 61, spent more than 13 hours being grilled by three Paris judges investigating a fake jobs scandal that has been dubbed Penelopegate.

Her husband Francois Fillon, the conservative Republicans party candidate to become head of state, was indicted earlier this month.

Now Ms Fillon has been formally accused of embezzlement of public funds, which carries a 10 year sentence and a 130,000 fine, misappropriation of public funds and aggravated fraud.

It follows revelations that Ms Fillon, a solicitor's daughter and devout Roman Catholic, never once set foot in the two offices where she earned hundreds of thousands as a highly-paid employee.

Rather than assist Ms Fillon with her ordeal in Paris today, 63-year-old Mr Fillon continued with his election campaign, as aides said it was 'business as usual'.

Ms Fillon arrived at the offices of financial judges in central Paris at 9am, and finally left in a chauffer driven limousine just after 10pm, without speaking to reporters.

Francois Fillon, the conservative Republicans party candidate to become head of state, was indicted earlier this month (pictured at an election event earlier today)

She has consistently denied any wrongdoing but admits that she was a parliamentary assistant to her husband while never actually spending any time at all in the French parliament, where she earned a take home salary totally some 590,000 over three decades.

Instead she said that 'I took care of the mail arriving at our home' - a rambling country estate in the Sarthe department, south west of Paris.

Ms Fillon, who was born and brought up near Abergavenny, also earned the equivalent of 87,000 for 20 months work a tan upmarket literary magazine owned by a billionaire family friend.

Despite this, she admits that she never once went to the central Paris offices of the Revue des Deux Mondes (Review of the Two Worlds).

Instead she produced two short articles from home, and never met the editor of the publication, or any other journalists.

When investigators expressed incredulity that Ms Fillon could earn so much money from two organisations while staying at home, she replied that this was due to her 'wish to remain in the shadows, because of my character.'

Ms Fillon walks towards her appartment building on earlier this evening following her 13-hour hearing

Ms Fillion and her husband Francois are pictured together (left) at the State Dinner at Elysee Palace honouring Michel Sleimane in 2009 and The Pope's visit to the Elysee palace in 2008

Police were particularly astonished that Ms Fillon claimed to have worked for five years in her home in the Sarthe while her husband was a minister in Paris.

In fact she was living in the French capital too at the time, although she insisted: 'I took the mail received at home at the weekend back to Paris to deal with there.'

The forgery charge relates to timesheets that the Fillons are said to have altered to make it look as though Ms Fillon was working all the time.

At one stage all her jobs overlapped, and she had also told journalists that she was studying English literature -and especially Shakespeare - at the Open University.

Asked how she managed to fit so much in, Ms Fillon claimed that she took no time off during the week, or even at weekends.

Yet in filmed interviews with journalists, both the Fillons had once claimed that Ms Fillon had no formal professional role whatsoever.

On the contrary, Ms Fillon portrayed herself as a relaxed wife and mother of five who was happiest looking after the family, and her horses and dogs, in the countryside.

The Fillons claim that the so-called Penelopegate scandal has been manufactured by a 'black office' run by France's Socialist Presidential Francois Hollande who is desperate to discredit them

Her two eldest children, Charles and Marie, also spent time on the pay roll as Mr Fillon's parliamentary assistants when they were students, and also face charges.

The Fillons claim that the so-called Penelopegate scandal has been manufactured by a 'black office' run by France's Socialist Presidential Francois Hollande who is desperate to discredit them.

If Mr Fillon wins the presidency in May, he will enjoyed presidential immunity from prosecution for his entire five year term.

This raises the possibility of the First Lady of France appearing before a judge and jury while her president carries on running the country.

According to the latest opinion polls, however, Mr Fillon will be knocked out of the presidential elections following round one in April.

His independent rival, Emmanuel Macron, is instead expected to win, following a head-to-head with Marine Le Pen, of the far-Right National Front.
The Mexico City Metro is startling riders with what is being called a 'sexist,' men's only subway seat that features a molded plastic nude male torso  complete with a flaccid penis.

The anatomically correct seat is accompanied by a sign that reads exclusive for men  the sexist part of the seat  and 'Its uncomfortable to sit here but it doesnt compare with the sexual violence that women suffer in their everyday lives.'

There's even a video that shows passengers raising their eyebrows in disbelief at the scandalous seat and absentmindedly sitting down on it, only to immediately jump up upon feeling unexpected bulges in place of the usual smooth plastic.

There's more to the seat than just trying to get a rise out of riders, though.

As the slide at the end of the video notes, 'Nine out of 10 women in Mexico City have been victims of some form of sexual violence.'

The idea behind the campaign, which was launched by the Mexican government, is to raise awareness of the fact that 65% of Mexico City women revealed that they have been sexually harassed  including being groped and cat-called  while traveling on the capital city's bus or trains.

However, they are unlikely to report these incidents to authorities to the frequently male authorities, according to Whimn.

A Mexico City Metro rider looks on with shock at the anatomically correct 'penis seat'

Male riders on the Mexico City Metro studiously avoided sitting on the life-like 'penis seat'

After sitting without looking, a male rider jumps up after being surprised by the unusual bulges on the 'penis seat' that is part of a public transport sexual harassment awareness campaign

The Mexican government has also tried to combat sexual harassment on public transportation by reportedly starting up an anonymous, all-female public transportation police unit, charged with catching gropers in the act in subway cars.

The brains behind the 'penis seat'  or 'Seat Experiment,' as it's officially known  also created another sexual harassment awareness video project, called 'Experiment Screens.'

In that project, rear ends of random men on the Metro platforms are filmed and broadcast on TV monitors posted along the platforms. When they finally realize their posteriors are on camera, the men attempt to cover their bottoms and appear to be annoyed or upset by the attention.

Signs above and below the X-rated seat read 'exclusive for men and 'Its uncomfortable to sit here but it doesnt compare with the sexual violence that women suffer in their everyday lives'

The 'penis seat' sexual harassment awareness video ends with the sobering reminder that 'Nine out of 10 women in Mexico City have been victims of some form of sexual violence'

At the end of the video, a legend reads: 'This is suffered by thousands of women every day.'

The 'penis seat' can be found on a train running on Line 7, between El Rosario and Barranca del Muerto, according to Proceso.
A 23-year-old man who shot dead three teenagers after they broke into his Oklahoma home in broad daylight has been identified.

Zachary Peters was at home with his father in Broken Arrow when he awoke to a loud banging noise on Monday after three suspected burglars shattered the back door of his home.

He confronted them with a rifle and opened fire, killing all three suspects, aged 16, 17, and 18, at the scene.

Elizabeth Marie Rodriguez, 21, turned herself in after the shooting and told police she was the getaway driver, although court documents cited by News on 6 say she planned the burglary and knew Peters by name.

Zachary Peters, 23, (left) shot dead three teenagers who broke into his home on Monday afternoon in a burglary planned by Elizabeth Rodriguez (right), according to court documents

The suspects gained entry after they shattered a glass door at the back of the Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, house owned by Peters' dad

Peters confronted the suspects with a rifle and opened fire. Two teens died in the kitchen, while a third (pictured, with his leg emerging from the tarp) ran to the driveway and collapsed

Video Courtesy Newson6.com

The 23-year-old was at home around 12.30pm on Monday when he was woken up by a loud noise.

Wagoner County Sheriff's Deputy Nick Mahoney said the suspects gained entry after they shattered a glass door at the back of the house.

Peters armed himself with an AR-15 rifle, exchanged a few words with the suspects, and opened fire, Mahoney said.

Two teens died in the kitchen, while a third ran to the driveway before collapsing and 'succumbing to his injuries', the sheriff's office said. They have not been named.

'Preliminary investigation looks like it's self-defense. This may be a case of "stand-your-ground", however, its still too early to say for sure, and were still looking into all aspects of this,' Mahoney told CNN.

Peters, who has not been charged, cooperated with authorities and gave a formal statement at the sheriff's office. Both he and his father were uninjured.

Elizabeth Rodriguez (pictured left in mugshot, and right), turned herself in after the shooting and told authorities she was the getaway driver

Rodriguez planned the burglary, took the three teens to Peters' home and waited in the driveway when she heard shots break out, the court documents state.

She drove off and turned herself in, telling police the names of the three boys so their parents could be notified, according to the documents.

Rodriguez has been arrested on three counts of first degree murder and three counts of first degree burglary. No bond has been set.

In Oklahoma, those suspected of committing a felony that results in a death can face murder charges even if they did not kill anyone, FOX23 reported.

Peters has not been charged, with police saying: ''Preliminary investigation looks like it's self-defense'

Neighbors (above) said they were still in shock. Leon Simmons said his home was broken into a few months ago, but police say it's too early to determine if the incident was linked to others

The incident follows a number of burglaries in the neighborhood, News On 6 reports.

Leon Simmons said his home was broken into a few months ago, and added: 'We've noticed a lot more people driving slow through the neighborhood, more than one at a time.'

Authorities said it was too early to determine whether the three teens were responsible for other burglaries.

There was no reason to believe the homeowner's son knew the suspected burglars

Officers are seen surrounding the house in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
Darren Rainey, 50, died in Dade Correctional Institution in 2012, allegedly after prison guards burned off some of his skin with red-hot water in a prison shower as punishment

The death of Dade Correctional Institution prisoner Darren Rainey, 50, in 2012 shocked the nation, as fellow prisoners testified that guards tortured him to death in the prison's showers.

On March 17, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle decided not to press charges, saying that his death was caused in part by heart disease and Rainey's schizophrenia.

But new evidence suggests that vital details - including testimony that his skin had been boiled off - were not included in the prosecutor's final report, The Huffington Post reported.

Officials papers that were not intended for public viewing were shared with the site by a source close to the investigation that did not wish to be named.

They included photographs of Rainey's badly burned skin, testimony from an investigator burned by the showers, notes from paramedics and nurses who handled Rainey's body - none of which found their way into the report.

The state attorney's conclusion

Rundle ruled that there was no evidence that Rainey, who was serving a cocaine charge, had been hurt by guards.

According to a 72-page memo written by assistant state attorneys Kathleen Hoague and Johnette Hardiman, Rainey was taken to the shower on June 23, 2012, after he had smeared feces on himself, the walls of his cell and his bedsheets.

Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle (pictured) said guards were not to blame and Rainey died of a heart attack caused by a schizophrenic episode

They said that Rainey, who was argumentative and did not want to shower, was left in the room by himself for two hours.

When guards entered after that time, he was found lying face up in about three inches of water with no pulse and not breathing, they said.

An autopsy at the time did not record a cause of death and Rainey's body was cremated shortly after.

One inmate, Harold Hempstead, said he heard Rainey yelling and kicking at the shower door, but he was dismissed as 'inherently unreliable.'

Also dismissed were remarks by prisoners who claimed that guards would rig the showers up to spray red-hot water and use it to punish prisoners.

His red and peeling skin, which was likened to 'boiled lobster,' was likely caused by friction or pressure on his moist and warm skin, caused by chest compressions or being carried, the memo said.

'Omitted details': The 'boiling shower'

According to The Huffington Post, testimony about the shower was not included in the prosecutors' memo.

Captain Darlene Dixon, the environmental health and safety officer at the prison, hand-checked the water temperature two days after his death.

She told Miami-Dade police Detective Wilbert Sanchez - the lead investigator - that the water that came out of the shower heads 'was hurting her because it was too hot'.

The shower heads were connected to hot and cold taps in an adjoining room that were only accessible by guards.

She then tested the temperature at the tap in that room and found it to be 160 degrees - 40 degrees higher than the maximum temperature allowed in the prison.

Human skin can suffer third-degree burns, damaging deep tissues, in just seconds when exposed to water over more than 150 degrees.

The prosecutor's report only mentions her testing the tapwater - and doesn't mention her first test, when she hurt her hand in the shower itself.

Rainey died in this Dade Correctional Facility shower. Documents suggest that testimonies, including a guard who hurt her hand in the shower's water, were ignored, Huffington Post said

'Omitted details': Rainey's 'burned skin'

According to the memo, Rainey's skin was not burned, and only appeared so because chest compressions or moving him had led to reddened skin and 'slippage'.

However, Lt Alexander Lopez a Miami-Dade Fire Rescue paramedic, reported that he saw 'second and third-degree burns over 30 per cent' of Rainey's body within 50 minutes of the man being found dead.

Those remarks are not mentioned in the report, which says that Lopez believed the apparent burn marks were due to skin slippage.

Additionally, photographs of Rainey 12 hours after he died seen that were by the site indicate that his body was indeed covered with burns, and had missing layers of skin on his back, head, face, legs and arms.

It describes multiple layers of skin being 'missing, bunched up at the edges of wounds or hanging loosely at the edges of wounds.'

One arm lost so much skin that a tattoo Rainey had there is 'nearly indecipherable,' the site claims.

Dr Michael Baden, who worked on a number of high-profile deaths, including the private autopsy conducted on Michael Brown, was given the autopsy report and had details described to him by The Huffington Post.

Although he did not see the documents described by the Post, he said that skin slippage would not account for Rainey's apparent wounds.

'Skin slippage can occur in decomposition, but not in a matter of hours, he said. 'That doesn't make sense either that there'd be skin slippage of any kind at this point after his death.

'The circumstances I'm aware of along with the autopsy report would indicate the cause of death is not accurate and that he died of the heat, the hot water that he was placed under. The cause of death as attributed does not make sense.'

The shower was operated from another room to stop inmates from turning it off. Witnesses said Rainey's skin was burned and peeling, but the final report said his skin wasn't harmed

'Omitted details': Rainey's body temperature

Britney Wilson, who worked at Dade Correctional Institution as a licensed practical nurse, wrote in her report that she saw Rainey ten minutes after his body was found.

She said he had 'first degree burns' over 90 per cent of his body, and that his body temperature, measured by his ear was 104.9 degrees - 1.9 degrees into the danger zone.

Those notes were included in an emergency room record from the Florida Department of Corrections, the Post said.

But the memo says that Wilson 'failed' to take Rainey's body temperature, that she only described his skin as looking 'red and wrinkled,' that she told a 911 operator he 'appeared to be burned' and that she noticed 'some skin slippage.'

Additionally, the photos seen by the Huffington Post show a rectal thermometer, believed to have been photographed the morning after his death, reading 94 degrees.

Miami-Dade medical examiner Dr. Emma Lew said in the autopsy report that his rectal temperature was 94 degrees 12 hours after he died.

Dr Based said that bodies drop around 1.7 degrees every hour after death, depending on their environment.

If Rainey's body was placed into cold storage, as is typical in such a case, and the photo was taken 12 hours after his death, then his body temperature could have been as high as 109 degrees when he died.

Lew said that plus the 102-degree body temperature registered by a second nurse after Rainey died suggests he was unusually warm.

But she said he could have had an elevated body temperature before he went into the shower, caused by the schizophrenic episode that caused him to smear feces on himself.

'Questionable conclusion': Rainey's 'bad health'

Dr Lew, the medical examiner, said that schizophrenia can make it difficult to regulate heat.

The doctor suggested that this, coupled with Rainey's medication, had led to him becoming unusually hot in the shower and suffering a heart attack.

The memo concludes that the guards did not intend malice when they took him to the shower so should not be prosecuted.

Dr Baden questioned those claims, telling the site: 'Number one, schizophrenia is a disease; it isn't a cause of death. Schizophrenia is not a cause of sudden death.'

He added that the autopsy report indicated Rainey's heart disease was 'minimal' and not unusual for a 50-year-old.

He also said that the claim that Rainey was confined in the showe cubicle contributed to his death 'does not make sense.'

'Even if it were schizophrenia and it was heart disease, why then is it an accident? Because of the confined space?' he said. 'No. The cause of death as indicated does not appear to me to be consistent with the autopsy findings.'

This is the other side of the shower. The prison said his 'burned' skin was damaged by CPR, and that sworn testimony by some of the 'omitted' witnesses contradicted the leaked documents

The state attorney's response

Ed Griffith, public information officer for the Miami-Dade State Attorneys Office, denied the claims made by The Huffington Post.

He said that the 'contradictions and inconsistencies' caused by amassing 'a large volume' of information were the reason for the long deliberation over whether the guards would be prosecuted.

And because so much material had been built up, not everything could be included in the official report.

He said that the guard's claim that her hand was 'hurt' by the hot water coming from the shower was not an indication of how warm it had been when Rainey was in there two days previously.

The claim by the medic that Rainey had 'second and third degree' burns over his body was a 'recounting' of what others had said and not 'an independent medical evaluation,' Griffith claimed.

In the medic's sworn testimony, he said, the medic said he saw 'burns' but, when asked, say they 'could have been' skin slippage.

Griffith also said the amount of 'slippage' is not inconsistent with the photos, and did not begin until after he was moved and CPR attempted. Three nurses Rainey's skin seemed to be intact prior to moving, he said.

He produced testimony from Wilson, the nurse who took a 104.9 degree temperature from Rainey's ear, that said she had attempted to take his temperaure with his armpit rectum but got an 'error' reading on the thermometer.

The testimony does not mention the ear temperature.

While Rainey's body temperature was elevated, Griffith said, but they ruled out hot water 'because of the medical evidence and witnesses.'

As for Dr Baden's remarks, Griffith concluded: 'Dr. Baden is an expert. Experts are allowed to give their opinions.'
The decision took a second or two to sink in. Their years of armed combat had left some of the gents in this crowd a little hard of hearing. And for all his undoubted legal brilliance, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas, was not entirely audible as he rattled his way through his historic announcement.

Up in the public gallery, though, Royal Marine mum Jayne Quinn quickly did the sums. Hes out! she cried. Whereupon Court Number Four of the Royal Courts of Justice descended into happy bedlam. Applause in the gallery spread to the courtroom below.

One or two flinty old soldiers appeared to be in tears. People queued up to hug the indefatigable Claire Blackman, the wife who never gave up and who will now soon be reunited with a husband no longer branded a murderer.

Claire Blackman, the wife of Alexander Blackman, is kissed by a supporter outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London

Claire Blackman (centre), wife of jailed former British soldier Alexander Blackman, Marine A, reacts outside the The Royal Courts of Justice in London on March 28, 2017

Even at this Hallelujah moment, she was a good deal more composed than some of those around her. Outside in the Strand, cabs and lorries slowed and honked their horns as news spread on the radio.

Over the road at The George, the bar staff called for reinforcements. Sergeant Alexander Blackman of the Royal Marines was finally going to be freed, and that meant a hefty celebration.

There was still no diluting the anger felt across the Forces that a brave man, whose self-control had briefly snapped in the most appalling circumstances, was treated like the basest criminal lowlife. But everyone was certainly going to enjoy the moment.

Inside the courtroom, a man in a Royal Marines regimental tie stood to attention, ramrod-straight, and proclaimed: Three cheers for Claire and the team. Hip hip

Former Marine Alan Logan from North Wales came up to me and pressed a smart Royal Marines scarf in to my hands  a symbolic thank you to the Daily Mail readers whose generosity had brought about this historic moment.

The party atmosphere was, of course, completely out of order in this judicial holy of holies. The blazered platoons had behaved impeccably throughout this case  until now.

Claire Blackman, the wife of Alexander Blackman

The court usher, who has seen them queuing up at every stage, simply rolled her eyes.

Not so the usher from a neighbouring court, who suddenly burst in demanding quiet. This is a court building! she shouted.

There are other proceedings going on. Please, if you want to do any more celebrating, go outside.

And so they did, leaving one slightly bemused figure taking it all in. In a crisp blue shirt, Sgt Blackman, 42, was still sitting in his Wiltshire prison  where he must remain for a few more days  hooked up to the court by video link. Before switching him off, a clerk offered to bring his wife over to the camera.

Are you all right darling? asked Claire, adding a note of caution: The whole court can hear you, so we will speak very soon. Love you lots. Back came a manly Love you before Sgt Blackman disappeared.

The steps of the High Court were impassable as Claire, 45, emerged alongside her victorious legal team. The gothic entrance was draped with Justice for Marine A flags. Several lifesize cardboard cut-outs of the man himself in combat uniform stood among the ranks of medal-clanking veterans, mostly ex-Royal Marines but with a healthy smattering of other units, too.

Several maroon berets from arch-rivals the Parachute Regiment illustrated the strength of feeling across the Armed Forces. Someone cracked open a bottle of champagne. A hip flask the size of a bedpan did the rounds.

Sgt Blackmans barrister, Jonathan Goldberg QC, began by saluting the lioness who had kept the flame alive from the day her husband went down for murder at that bungled court martial in 2013.

Step forward, the true heroine of the day. Your mans coming home, Claire! shouted a man in the crowd, prompting more cheers. A bagpiper struck up and was promptly struck down again so that everyone could hear her speak.

Here was a woman who has never wanted to be in the spotlight. But whether in Parliament Square or outside Downing Street, or on the steps of the Criminal Cases Review Commission in Birmingham, Claire would always face the cameras to declare that the battle must go on, that justice would prevail.

Claire Blackman, the wife of Alexander Blackman, with supporters outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London

Claire Blackman, the wife of Alexander Blackman, with supporters outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London in a photo captured by Katie Hopkins

Claire Blackman walks from the court where a massive crowd had gathered to celebrate

So often, for her husbands sake, shed conceal her dismay as one false dawn after another ended in disappointment. Now the West Country NHS manager could finally say her thank-yous.

Here at the High Court, they werent all men in green berets. Some of the most assiduous supporters of the Blackman campaign have been Royal Marine wives and mothers, women like Jayne Quinn who had been in the front row of the public gallery day after day.

Though she lives and works as a personnel manager in the Lake District, she hadnt missed a day of this case, using up her holiday allowance to travel to London for the hearings.

Why do it? Because I owe Al Blackman a debt I can never repay. He kept my son safe in Afghanistan  and all the lads would follow him to hell and back.

Last week, the court had heard the written testimony of her son, Thomas Quinn, who was wounded while serving alongside Sgt Blackman in an area of Helmand regularly described as the most dangerous square mile on earth. Sergeant Als leadership was second to none, wrote Marine Quinn, currently serving overseas. He was always there for all of us.

Towards the end of the tour, Sergeant Al had even shouldered some of the patrol duties of those Marines who had children (he does not) in order to extend their chances of getting home to their families in one piece. The word hero has, rightly, come up a lot during this case.

Throughout this appeal, nothing has diminished the brutality of Sgt Blackman firing the fateful round into the chest of a dying Taliban who, moments earlier, had been trying to kill his men.

But what has been exposed in court is the way his superiors left Sgt Blackman for months on end in 50C (122F) heat with a half-strength unit and no officer (and not even a fridge) to patrol a hellhole so dangerous even the padre was banned from dropping in.

Claire Blackman, the wife of Sgt Blackman, is all smiles after learning her husband will be freed

That he should be condemned as a murderer for snapping in a situation few of us can comprehend continued to rankle as the crowds made their way over to a victory party at The George.

This case has proved that the court martial was wrong and that this Government has betrayed the Military Covenant with the Armed Forces, said Mark Iles, 63, late of the Royal Artillery, waving a copy of rules and regulations. Certainly, for many supporters, the campaign is far from over.

But for Claire Blackman, there is an overwhelming sense of relief  both that her husband is coming home and that the word disgrace has been formally expunged from his record. Afterwards, gathering her thoughts at her barristers chambers, she told me how she had never given up hoping, how she cant wait to cook her husband his favourite chicken fajitas  though he is a great cook, too, and does a mean Beef Wellington  and how, through it all, she and her husband had both found plenty to laugh about amid all the setbacks.

He had refused to be over-optimistic about the result in case the judges had been less lenient. Hes very good at keeping it all in perspective, she said.

Finally, her phone rang and Sgt Blackman was on the line. After a long private chat, Claire let me have a word on speakerphone.

How could he be so calm and collected, I asked, when everyone else was so emotional? He chuckled and replied: I just didnt want to embarrass myself in front of Claire. To be honest, shes the only person whose opinion I really care about. Im so lucky to have her.

At which point, Claire chipped in: You are SO going to pay for this! And they both burst out laughing.
Neighbours heard the disturbing screams of a man shouting 'get the dog off me' as he was mauled to death by his Staffordshire bull terrier in front of a BBC camera crew.

The man, named locally as Mario Perivoitos, was taken to hospital after the attack outside his flat in Wood Green, north London, but died two hours later.

The dog, which was called Major, was seized by police and is being held while officers decided if it will be destroyed.

Upsetting pictures have now revealed how medics frantically battled to save his life as he lay severely injured in his flat.

Pictured: Medics battle to save Mario Perivoitos, after he was mauled by his own dog

Neighbours said his pet Staffie was a 'good dog', but that Mario, of Cypriot heritage, was a troublemaker and would cause a lot of noise and disorder at his flat.

A friend today told how he was 'a good guy' with two masters degrees, one in philosophy, but he suffered with addiction.

His life became more chaotic over the last few years as his father died and his mother, who had dementia, was put into a care home, she said.

But despite reports about a BBC crew interviewing him when it happened, they knew nothing of a film crew being present at the time of the attack.

They said Mario, 41, used to live with his Cypriot mother who is now in a care home.

He was handed a three month Closure Order at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court last month preventing him bringing anyone else back to the flat.

A copy of the order, which the police applied for, remains taped to his front door.

A dog owner was mauled to death by his Staffordshire bull terrier in front of BBC TV crews who were interviewing him for a documentary (stock image)

The order was made to prevent 'the behaviour, nuisance or disorder from continuing, recurring or occurring'.

And it prohibited access to the property for anyone but Mario between February 22 and May 21.

Neighbours gave harrowing accounts of what happened, hearing him screaming to get the dog off him then seeing him collapsed on the floor, covered in blood.

One neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: 'There was just lots of shouting - screams of 'put pressure on the wound' - things like that.

'Police came and struggled to break through the door. Eventually they got through.

'They pulled him out and were trying to give him first aid by the door.'

Another neighbour, who gave his name as Shamarie, 18, said: 'There was a lot of blood coming out of his neck.

'I could see Mario lying on the floor. There was a lot of blood on his face and that, and the neck.

'His face and his side of his neck, it was covered in blood. You could hardly see his skin.

'I think he was only semi conscious. There was bumps on his head and that. The blood was on the floor.

'I could just see the ambulance. I could see two people assisting him.

'I couldn't see the wound. I could see where he was bleeding from, there was just lots of blood.'

He added: 'I heard a lot of people trying to get into the flat for about 20 minutes. They were trying to get in.

'They were saying there was a dog attack. A couple of residents and the police saying his dog attacked him. Police were running in and out.

The dog reportedly attacked the man outside his home on this road in Wood Green, North London, while the programme was being shot

THE BREED WITH A BAD REPUTATION The Staffordshire Bull Terrier is Britain's third most popular breed, with more than 356,000 registered in the UK. In the 19th century, they were reared specifically for fighting and blood-based sports. Today staffies are the dog of choice in London, Liverpool and Sheffield but their historically association with violence often means their reputation proceeds them. Dr Thomas Fletcher, a senior lecturer at Leeds Beckett University explained the breed is often paired with certain groups in society and are they are not seen as safe dogs. 'They're one of those breeds that has a negative stigma attached to them and one of those is around 'chav culture',' said Dr Fletcher told the BBC. It is illegal now for dog owners to use their animal for violence but in recent years there have been a number of tragic high-profile cases where staffies have lost control. Just last month a toddler in Leven, Scotland was rushed to hospital with serious facial injuries after being mauled by a Staffordshire bull terrier. And in October a four-month old baby was savaged to death by a staffy in Colchester, Essex and his brother was left with life-changing injuries. While in 2011 a girl's pet Chihuahua was a mauled to death by four staffies. Staffordshire terrier supporters say however it is not the dog or the breed but the owners who are responsible. Breeder specialists DogTime posted on their website: 'Nicknamed the nanny dog, the Stafford is prized for his patience with and love of children, although it goes without saying that no dog should ever be left alone with young children or expected to double as a baby-sitter.' Advertisement

'I think they forced entry. They had a lot of those red slamming things - the door knockers.

'And there was some long type of pole with a hook at the end of it. I have never seen that before.

'There were about six or seven officers. They were inside and outside. I think the dog must have been inside. I had never seen his dog attack until that day.

'He was a nice guy. He just used to have a lot of friends over.'

Friend Angela Constantinou, 35, said: 'This guy had two masters degrees. He was very intelligent, he was really kind. I think one of them was philosophy.

''He was very interested in lots of things. He was excellent at computers.

She added: 'We grew up together. He used to come and get food from us all the time.

'The last few years, things just got so bad. I found it very strange how he actually got addicted to drugs, because his parents were great.

'His dad died a couple of years ago and his mum went into a care home about 18 months ago.

'That flat was really dangerous for everyone the last couple of years, because of the coming and goings.

'My husband tried to go and calm him down the last few months. I know there was someone who stabbed him in the neck.'

She added: 'He taught me how to ride a bike. He was such a good guy. We used to watch TV and films.

'He was always with the dog. But I did kind of avoid Mario for the last couple of years.

'He came maybe three weeks ago to my door begging for money. And I said look Mario, I am going to give you some money for the dog.

'He said nothing works and I don't actually care. He said 'I just want to die'. I just thought he has got no hope in himself. It's unbelievable.'

Avraam Avramidis, a chef who has lived in the building for seven months, described Mario as a 'clever guy'.

He said that trouble with his neighbours started about five months ago, and a lot of people would come to the flat.

The 31-year-old said: 'I met him a couple of times.There was a lot sometimes, a lot of fights.

'Mario was a good guy. Sometimes I would meet him downstairs when he was home. He was a very clever guy. He finished the language university.'

There was an order from the council stuck to the door of his flat, banning him from bringing anyone else there

He added: 'He told me that he was a heroin user a long time. I never saw him high. Other people, they saw him.

'Usually when the people was coming to his flat, they were sometimes fighting. That's the reason as well why people here didn't like him.'

Mr Avramidis added: 'Before when I came here it was okay. But after two or three months there was a lot of people here. To buy drugs, or something like that.

'A lot of people in the building reported it to the police. I think they gave him a warning, if he was going to bring someone they would kick him out of the house. After that it was quiet.

'The only place that I was meeting him, he was usually outside with his dog.

'The dog was okay. It was very quiet. I don't know the dog's name.'

A neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: 'I knew him for six years but we never talked with him.

'I heard noises, but I didn't see anything to be honest. It happened last week at night time. It was about 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock.

'It was inside his flat. There was a lot of noise. There was banging, shouting, banging doors, someone calling 'Mario, Mario'.

'I didn't see anything to be honest, I just saw him on the floor, outside the door. In front of his door. I don't know how he came out, nothing.'

They added: 'I knew his mother. His mother lived here with him. She has got dementia I think.

'I think he was from Cyprus. His mother is in a care home. I don't know her name. She is nearly 60.

'He was a tall guy. His mother was from Cyprus. I have no idea about his father.

'She said she was from Cyprus. I forgot her name, we never talked too much.'

They continued: 'Since I came here, I think he was a drug dealer.'

Referring to why the closure order was made, they said: 'Because he was noisy always. He would bring people here, girls shouting, fighting always.

'For three months he wasn't allowed to bring people in. He was a very good guy, he was respectful. When he wasn't on drugs, he was okay.

'He had the dog since I came here. His dog was okay, it never attacked, never. His dog was okay.

'It was a good dog. I don't know what his dog was called. It was white and black.

'I don't think he ever worked. He wasn't able to work because most of the time he was very aggressive.

'We saw him sleep on the floor outside his house so many times. He brought a lot of people back, different faces and not normal people.'

Asked if there had been a BBC crew shooting a documentary at the time, she said: 'No. I don't know anything about that. I never saw a film crew.

'I wasn't out. I just came here, I asked my neighbour, and she said Mario was attacked.

'I asked the police the next day, is the guy okay. They said no, nothing else. But my neighbour, she said to me he died.'

The neighbour added: 'He was a lot of trouble. I feel very sorry for him, because he was a young guy.

'But he was a lot of trouble, he messed up his life with drugs. He was in court.'

He was handed a three month Closure Order at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court last month preventing him bringing anyone else back to the flat

Another neighbour, Geoff Morgan, 52, said: 'He was in the flat but they took him out here. He didn't die when he came out.

'He was white, he was Cypriot.

'The police and the paramedics, they brought him out here. He was semi-conscious. He was talking, he was like screaming, screaming, screaming, 'take the dog off me'.

'The door was locked from inside.'

Asked who called the police, he said: 'It must have been the neighbours. This is a constant thing with him, and a lot of people in the flat.

'Put it this way, he uses. To me, I didn't have a problem with him. I just knew he had an addiction, I think it was heroin.'

A spokesman for Scotland Yard said: 'Officers attended the scene along with the London Ambulance Service.

'The 41-year-old man - the owner of the dog - was taken to a north London hospital where he was pronounced dead at around 00:30hrs on Tuesday, 21 March. Next of kin have been informed.

'The dog was contained by officers and seized. It remains in secure kennels.

'The dog is a Staffordshire bull terrier, a breed not prohibited under the Dangerous Dogs Act.

'The man's death is not being treated as suspicious - a post-mortem examination at Haringey mortuary on Friday, 24 March gave cause of death as hypovolemic shock and damage to the airway consistent with a dog bite.

'Enquiries by police at Haringey continue to assist the coroner.'
A 19-year-old Oklahoma woman was strangled to death by a suspected burglar that she found inside her apartment when she returned home on her lunch break.

Greg Epperson, who is a suspect in two other murders, allegedly broke into Kelsey Tennant's apartment near 65th and Mingo in south Tulsa while she was away at work at Metro Appliances & More on Monday.

The 19-year-old came home from work around 3pm to watch 'Friends' reruns when she found Epperson inside her apartment, police said.

Epperson is then accused of viciously attacking, beating and strangling her.

As she was dying, he continued to go through her belongings inside the apartment, KFOR reported.

Greg Epperson (left), who is a suspect in two other murders, allegedly broke into Kelsey Tennant's (right) apartment in south Tulsa while she was away at work on Monday.

The 19-year-old came home from work around 3pm to watch 'Friends' reruns when she found Epperson inside her apartment, police said. Epperson is then accused of viciously attacking, beating and strangling her

Tennant's boyfriend, Riley Allen, became worried when he didn't hear from her as she didn't answer his calls.

Allen went to her apartment to check on her and was also attacked by Epperson, police said.

Epperson allegedly tried to shoot Allen, and then fled the scene.

Both Allen and Tennant were rushed to a nearby hospital. Tennant was in critical condition with no brain activity and was later pronounced dead hours later.

Allen was not seriously injured in the tragic incident.

Authorities later arrested Epperson after finding him in a neighboring apartment later that evening.

Tulsa Police Sergeant Dave Walker told the Tulsa World Daily the case is believed to be an 'an interrupted burglary.'

Tennant's boyfriend, Riley Allen (pictured together), became worried when he didn't hear from her as she didn't answer his calls. Allen went to her apartment to check on her and was also attacked by Epperson, police said

Epperson (left) allegedly tried to shoot Allen, and then fled the scene. Both Allen and Tennant (right) were rushed to a nearby hospital. Tennant was in critical condition with no brain activity and was later pronounced dead hours later

Police said that Tennant fought hard against her attacker. Her family and friends are devastated over her death.

Tennant, who graduated from Broken Arrow high school, is being described by those who knew her as a kind-hearted young woman who loved life to the fullest.

'She's got the biggest smile and puppy dog brown eyes,' her sister Courtney told KOTV.

'She could steal your heart. She had a joyous and contagious giggle.'

Epperson is being held without bail on charges of first-degree murder, assault and battery with intent to kill, first-degree burglary and assault and battery.

Authorities say Epperson was arrested for the 2008 murder of Tulsa car dealer Ray Johnson.

Authorities later arrested Epperson (above) after finding him in a neighboring apartment later that evening. He is being held without bail on charges of first-degree murder, assault and battery with intent to kill, first-degree burglary and assault and battery

'Epperson, we believe, shot and killed Mr. Johnson, put him in the trunk of a car then dumped his body in a creek,' Walker said.

However, Johnson's body has never been found and the District Attorney was forced to drop the charges due to a lack of evidence.

Police also suspect Epperson in the death of John Baker who was reported missing before his body was discovered months later by Lake Keystone.

'The last person to talk to Mr. Baker was Epperson and Epperson was living in a rental house of Baker's,' Walker said.

Epperson has never been arrested or charged in that case due to no physical evidence.

He has previously been convicted of second-degree burglary, driving under suspension, obstructing an officer and transporting an open container.

Epperson, who is a father-of-two, was most recently arrested in December for failing to pay court costs. It's unclear if he has an attorney.
Photos have emerged of desecrated avocado and lemon trees before the price of fruit skyrockets in the wake of Cyclone Debbie.

Fruit and vegetables could go up in price by more than 60 per cent after the category four cyclone devastated crops on the north Queensland coastline.

About 95 per cent of Australia's winter supply of tomatoes and capsicums are grown in Bowen, which was struck by Debbie on Tuesday.

Photos from the Whitsundays show avocado and lemon trees have lost all their fruit as farmers and locals assess the damage on Wednesday.

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A lemon tree in the Whitsundays is pictured on Wednesday in the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie

Photos have emerged of desecrated avocado and lemon trees before the price of fruit skyrockets in the wake of Cyclone Debbie

Photos from the Whitsundays show avocado and lemon trees have lost all their fruit as farmers and locals assess the damage on Wednesday

The damage to crops and produce means Australia will likely be in short supply of fruit and vegetables, raising the price.

David Tobey of Homebush grocer said good quality prices will 'probably go up to $9, $10 a kilo', he told Seven News.

Nick Martelli of Allcrops said rockmelons, tomatoes, red and green capsicums, avocados, passionfruit, and beans will likely go up in price by more than 50 per cent, he told Today Show.

'Conservatively, I would say 50 to 60 per cent increase on current prices,' Mr Martelli said.

'There will be a shortage. We have no other areas in Australia that can compensate for that little block that Debbie has put on us now.'

A tractor is seen inundated with water at a property south of Bowen in Queensland

Crops are seen flooded with water following Cyclone Debbie south of Bowen

Farming equipment is seen destroyed following the category four cyclone

Ongoing heavy rain in the aftermath of Debbie and possible flooding will also continue to hurt farmers who are unable to replant in time for winter.

'It has a huge impact, growers can't replant. Crops would have been planted for the winter, all those will be destroyed. We have to wait at least a a week or two to get back on the land. We have to replant. Climatically it gets cold, the growing rate slows up. We could be looking at six to eight weeks of pain.

'If the rain depression continues, Bundaberg growers can't pick [and] avocado trees are very temperamental with wet feet. There could be trees that die because of the wet weather, it takes five years to recoup.

'They are just getting over the last big wet.'

Farmers could each lose up to $2 million from the damage, Today Show reported.

Cyclone damaged sugar cane crops are pictured at Proserpine in Queensland

Nick Martelli of Allcrops said rockmelons, tomatoes, red and green capsicums, avocados, passionfruit and beans will likely go up in price by more than 50 per cent (flattened sugar cane is pictured)

Flattened sugar cane crops are pictured between Proserpine and Airlie Beach on Wednesday

Cyclone Debbie wiped sugar cane crops and other produce in north Queensland

Bowen Gumlu Growers Association Industry Development Officer Cherry Emeric said prices would undoubtedly rise if the farms were hit.

'I suspect that the prices probably would go up. [The growers have] been planting up to February so they've probably got 15 to 20 per cent of the crop planted,' she told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday.

She added that prices of capsicums and tomatoes would likely go up at the end of May or the beginning of June if crops are destroyed.

'If we can't pick it's a roll-on effect. We have a lot of backpackers, a lot of locals. It's tourism, it's our local community. It would be pretty catastrophic,' she said.

'Roughly between 15 and 20 per cent of planting is in the ground. That crop will be picked at the end of May. If we get a lot of rain after this that's going to provide a lot of problems.'

Properties at Shute Harbour near Airlie Beach are pictured in the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie

Damage in Airlie Beach or Proserpine on the Queensland north coast is pictured

Cyclone Debbie is pictured thrashing Airlie Beach on Tuesday

Ms Emeric added: 'I know a lot of people are very, very anxious and they have taken this cyclone very seriously.'

Mangoes, melons, macadamia nuts, chilies, zucchini, coffee and sugar cane are also grown near Bowen.

Corn, pumpkins, mangoes, eggplant and macadamia nuts are also grown in the area.

Thousands of people - including scores of backpackers - work on the farms and agriculture is said to be worth $450 million to the local economy.

Burdekin, Proserpine and Mackay - which are all forecast to be hit by the storm as it barrels down the coast - produce half of the nation's sugar cane.

The 17.5million tonnes of cane it produced last year was worth $850million, according to industry body Canegrowers.

Damage to property in Airlie Beach or Proserpine is pictured

A backyard in Airlie Beach or Proserpine is pictured

A home in Proserpine in the Whitsundays is pictured midway through the cyclone

The Bureau of Meteorology warned Cyclone Debbie would be the most severe storm to hit the state since 2011's Cyclone Yasi.

That storm wiped out 75 per cent of the country's banana crop and caused the price of the fruit to surge to $15/kg in supermarkets.

In 2006, Cyclone Larry wiped out 90 per cent of bananas and led to their price increasing by nearly 500 per cent.

Winds of up to 260km/h smashed the north Queensland coastline on Tuesday, bashing the region.

Authorities are warning the damage of the cyclone will not be realised until Wednesday.If the crops are wiped out, shoppers will likely take a huge hit as the price of fruit and vegetables skyrocket (file picture)
De'Asia Bartee, 27, has been sentenced to 19 years in prison in the death of her toddler

A mother has been sentenced to 19 years in prison for killing her 14-month-old daughter, who was found lifeless in a playpen with her arms sticking up in the air and may have been refrigerated.

The Westchester County district attorney's office says 27-year-old De'Asia Bartee was sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty to first degree manslaughter.

The child, Samia Yusuf, was found by authorities in a playpen in an apartment in Mount Vernon on August 5 shortly after 5:30am following a 911 call. Prosecutors say she was on her back with her arms rigid pointing toward the ceiling.

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Police say it appears Samia (pictured) died from trauma to the face, and that she did not show any signs of sickness or illness, and that she may have been refrigerated

An emergency room doctor told police she may have been dead for some time. He also said her body may have been refrigerated or put in a freezer.

An autopsy found Samia Rose died from blunt force trauma with a fracture dislocation of the lumbar spine and internal bleeding, according to The Journal News.

Samia Bartee (pictured) was sentenced to 19 years in prison after she pleaded guilty in the shocking death of her 14-month-old daughter, Samia Rose

Prosecutors say she suffered a severe back injury, internal bleeding and was severely malnourished, weighing only 14 pounds.

The position she was found in and the fact that her body was cold suggested she may have been refrigerated, said authorities.

'She was on her back with her arms rigid pointing toward the ceiling. Her left eye appeared to be swollen shut. The victim had no pulse and was lifeless. She was extremely cold to the touch,' said Westchester County District Attorney Anthony Scarpino Jr.

Police were called to this apartment house in Mount Vernon, where the little girl was found dead in her playpen

'The doctor who examined her told the police the child was unusually cold and stated his belief the child had been dead for some time and may have been refrigerated as she was in an advanced state of decomposition.'

Police say it appears the toddler died from trauma to the face, and that she did not show any signs of sickness or illness. Samia was rushed to Montefiore Mount Vernon Hospital but could not be revived.

'It was a gruesome discovery that shocked even our most senior officers on the job,' Mount Vernon Police Commissioner Ronald Fatigate said.

Authorities carried bags of evidence out of the apartment; neighbors said they were stunned

At the time of the arrest, shocked neighbors said they didn't see it coming. One neighbor said Bartee was a former childcare worker, and now had a job at a flower shop.

'Her baby seemed happy and fine to me,' Shakwita Walker told the New York Daily News. 'The baby said hi to me and was happy and smiling... She would walk her kids to school in the sleet, rain or snow. She took her babies to the park and was always taking pictures with them.'

'She was a good mom, okay? A good mom,' another neighbor, Carmen Mahoney, who said she often saw the little girl playing and laughing, told NBC New York.
Cyclone Debbie has wrought havoc and devastation across the north coast of Australia.

But there has been a glimmer of hope even in these trying times with the birth of a baby girl in Queensland's north.

Little Billiana was welcomed into the world by paramedics at an ambulance station in the Whitsundays about 4.20am on Wednesday.

Little Billiana was born about 4am on Wednesday at an ambulance station in the Whitsundays

The parents were unable to get to the hospital - the Whitsundays having copped the brunt of the cyclone for five hours on Tuesday.

So the decision was made to deliver the baby at the ambulance station instead, reports said.

Paramedics said both mother and baby are doing well in the circumstances,

ABC News presenter Michael Rowland suggested the bub should be named "Debbie', after the storm.

But the parents do not appear to have taken his advice.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk praised Billiana as a 'little miracle'.

A happy paramedic cradles the little baby girl at the Proserpine ambulance station

Cyclone Debbie's 'destructive core' has finally struck the north coast of Queensland, making landfall between Bowen and Airlie Beach (pictured being battered by gale-force winds) just after midday on Tuesday

'You know, out of all of this, to see a little miracle, I think, brings a smile to a lot of faces,' she told ABC News Breakfast.

'Especially to all those people who have been working so hard overnight here.'

Cyclone Debbie's 'destructive core' battered the east coast overnight, stripping palm trees bare, destroying boats and leaving homes in ruins.

Devastating photos show buildings with roofs ripped off and homes inundated with water.

The cyclone left North Queensland streets showered in debris while chunks of coastal land collapsed into the sea.

The damage bill from the storm is expected to exceed that of Cyclone Yasi which tore through Queensland's north coast in 2011.

That storm caused about $1.5 billion worth of damage.

Parts of land on the coastline including jetties lost their structural integrity in the storm and collapsed into the water
Nick Clegg speaking at the Open Britain Brexit press conference in London yesterday

Happy Article 50 Day to you all. Wonderful moment. But here in the citadel, there is whinnying and eye-twitching from Remainers. The place has gone slightly mad.

They know Article 50 has to be swallowed but they are still trying to resist. Imagine trying to push semolina past the lips of an unwilling toddler.

Yesterday the Remoaners were torn: should they be crosser about Brexit, another Scottish independence referendum or the Mails jaunty front-page blurb about Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon flashing their pins on Monday?

The Mail yarn won, naturally. As we say on Fleet Street, that storys got legs.

Overnight, Labours Sir Keir Starmer, possibly the dullest man in politics, issued six demands for Brexit. Legs-it blew poor Keir off the headlines. Just after breakfast, Nick Clegg and some of his friends upped Sir Keirs six demands to ten, and called them pledges.

Former deputy PM Clegg (Lib Dem, Sheffield Hallam) appeared at a Westminster venue alongside Chris Leslie (Lab, Nottingham E) and Nicky Morgan (Con, Loughborough).

They claimed to be speaking for the British people when identifying certain promises we, the electorate, would expect the Government to keep as we leave the EU.

These included the exact same benefits as are currently extended to Britain on trade.

Mrs Morgan, who as ever wore the startled face of a cocktail party guest who had just popped a blisteringly hot sausage into her mouth, would spend the rest of the morning appearing on various TV screens.

Theresa May officially invokes Article 50 as she signs a letter to EU Council President Donald Tusk, under the watchful eye of Britain's first Prime Minister Robert Walpole (pictured)

Alas, her soundbites were slightly marred because she gave the mistaken impression that she was reconsidering her future in the Conservative Party. She later said this was wrong and that she intended to be a Tory MP for many years to come. Given what she once said about Mrs Mays trousers, she might be lucky to do so.

Lord Prescott was Tweeting about Legs-it like a speed- typing chimp.

The Greens turned puce. Pipsqueak London Mayor Sadiq Khan tried to grab himself some media attention by saying the Mail would never have been so rude about male politicians. Memo to self: must do a number on Sadiq next week.

Scottish Opposition leader Ruth Davidson (Con) published a photograph of her toes in a Jacuzzi. Jolly edible they looked, too. Scotlands Parliament was holding a debate about an independence referendum.

Back here at the Commons there was some odd behaviour from the normally mild-mannered Hilary Benn, Remainer chairman of the Commons select committee on Brexit.

Mr Benn (Lab, Leeds C) had previously been reasonably successful in finding a consensual approach to his committees findings but this ended when he presented his committee members with, in effect, a fait accompli of a report.

Mrs May is pictured in the Cabinet Office signing the letter - which is rumoured to run to eight pages - before it is couriered to the EUs capital

It was fanatically anti-Brexit. When the committee met at 9 oclock yesterday, its pro-Leave MPs said hold on, Hilary  the usual form is to let us see a proposed report beforehand so we can contribute to it and help mould its conclusions.

Mr Benn shrugged. Had he decided to rupture his committees consensus in order to get himself some airtime?

Having done that, he found the broadcasters were only interested in Mrs May and Miss Sturgeons hemlines.

No rude words were exchanged at the committee meeting  Mr Benn is more of a Sergeant Wilson than a Captain Mainwaring  but the collegiate approach of the committee has been shattered.

Its pro-Leave MPs decided there was no longer much point staying in the room and they drifted away, led by Brexiteer Dominic Raab (Con, Esher & Walton).

Just in case we had not had enough excitement, Mr Clegg published a collection of his Brexit Papers  basically, most of the Press releases he has sent out since last June. Collectors item.

Mr Clegg really is terribly cross, in several languages, about Brexit. I suppose it has ruined his chances of becoming an EU Commissioner. But they might not have wanted him. I bet he is just as irritating in Dutch as he is in English.
A Maryland man was shot dead by police after he reportedly attacked an officer who was taking his report about a stolen bicycle.

Police in Montgomery County, near Washington, D.C., said in a statement that Officer Matthew McGowan had spent 17 minutes late Monday taking information about the theft on Stedwick Road.

Investigators say footage from McGowan's body camera shows 28-year-old Richard Alexander Tilley attacking McGowan, according to Fox 5 DC.

Police block off the area near Stedwick Road where Tilley initially reported the theft

Tilley called police at 10.55pm to report a stolen bike. As Officer Matthew McGowan collected details, Tilley lunged at him with a knife at him unprovoked, according to police.

Police say McGowan defended himself and fell to the ground, but Tilley continued to attack him.

McGowan pulled out his gun fired several rounds at Tilley, striking him. Tilley died at a hospital. Police say both McGowan and Tilley are white.

Officer Matthew McGowan was put on administrative leave after the shooting which was recorded on his bodycam

Police did not comment on the extent of McGowan's injuries.

'Were thankful that he wasnt injured more significantly because he could have been,' said Montgomery County police spokesman Capt. Paul Starks to WTOP. 'Remember, they were fighting; he was knocked down. He was on the ground.'

McGowan is a five-year veteran. He was put on paid administrative leave.

It is not clear if the police body camera footage will be released to the public.
Up to 12 ctivists broke through security at Stansted Airport tonight and chained themselves together on the runway to stop failed asylum seekers being deported.

The left-wing activists were trying to stop a flight taking up to 100 immigrants back to Nigeria and Ghana.

The runway was closed at about 10pm resulting in eight flights being diverted to other London airports. But by 11.30pm the airport was running as normal.

The runway was closed at about 10pm, resulting in eight flights being diverted to other London airports, but by 11.30pm was running as normal

Up to 12 activists broke through security at Stansted Airport tonight and chained themselves together on the runway to stop failed asylum seekers being deported

The protesters were part of three groups called End Deportations, Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants and Plane Stupid

The protesters were part of three groups called End Deportations, Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants and Plane Stupid.

They were heard chanting: 'No borders, no nations, stop deportations'.

One of the activists blocking the runway, Emma Hughes, said she was trying to prevent families from being separated.

She told Huck Magazine: 'We've taken this action because many people on this flight are being placed in serious danger by being callously deported back to Nigeria and Ghana.'

'There's been a lot of attention recently on Trump's racist Muslim ban, but what's happening in the UK is equally repellant.'

The activists were trying to stop a flight taking up to 100 immigrants back to Nigeria and Ghana

'People are being rounded up in the middle of the night based on their perceived nationality, forced on to planes in undisclosed locations and strapped down in their seats with no one witnessing the violence they're facing.

'Do we really want to live in the sort of society where these violent and secretive mass deportations are being normalised?'

It costs the UK taxpayer at least an average of 12,000 per year to house someone seeking asylum.

A Home Office spokesman said it could not comment on operational activity but added: 'We respect everyone's right to peaceful protest but we are clear that removal is an essential element of an effective immigration system.

'We expect those with no legal basis to remain in the UK to leave voluntarily but if they do not, we will seek to enforce their departure.'
The Ministry of Justice was last night at the centre of a fresh tagging farce that could have seen criminals mistakenly sent back to prison.

Ministers said faulty straps on a batch of electronic tags from security firm G4S were behind a huge rise in alerts, which are usually triggered when offenders try to remove the devices.

Officials are attempting to discover if any criminals were wrongly put behind bars because of the blunder, which they said posed no risk to the public.

Liz Truss's department has paid G4S tens of millions of pounds to run the scheme

If so, they could be in line for a taxpayer-funded compensation, said insiders.

The embarrassing setback for Justice Secretary Liz Truss, whose department has paid G4S tens of millions of pounds to run the scheme, comes after a fault was found in a batch of thousands of tags last year.

Prisons minister Sam Gyimah said: Where a strap has been faulty there is a risk it could incorrectly register that somebody has tampered with it.

There is a small chance that some enforcement action may have been taken against an offender or suspect in response to a false report of a tamper.

'It does not mean an individual will have been automatically sent to custody.

The issue came to light in January after the MoJ raised concerns about a significant rise in the number of alerts being triggered  up from around 1,200 to 1,700 a month.

The fault was discovered in a batch of 11,500 tags placed on prisoners since October last year. G4S believes the faulty devices only covered around 115 prisoners, but all the straps will need to removed and replaced.

Mr Gyimah said G4S had introduced further quality checks with manufacturers to ensure no more faulty straps were attached to convicts.

Prisons minister Sam Gyimah said There is a small chance that some enforcement action may have been taken in response to a false report of a tamper

Furious MPs demanded an inquiry  and a review of the Governments pilot of a new generation of GPS satellite tags.

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said: This is a colossal blunder and the blame, yet again, falls at the door of Liz Truss and her department.

People may have been wrongly sent back to prison because of this Governments sheer ineptitude. A review is urgently needed to ensure this doesnt happen again.

The Government cant seem to even do the basic job of keeping an eye on convicted criminals. The so-called party of law and order is becoming the party of incompetence and disorder.

G4S said the fault had been rectified.
Having a bad boss can always be a tough experience so spare a thought for these employees in China.

Five young employees in Jinan City were made to tear their own 100 yuan (12) note into pieces by their employer after they failed to meet the target of handing out 100 flyers every day.

The manager was fined 1000 yuan (115) and received a verbal warning from local policemen.

Five employees were told by their manager to take out 100 yuan (12) note and tear it to pieces

In the video posted on People's Daily Online on March 24, five young men can be seen standing in front of a shop and being told to 'tear the money now.'

They each take out a 100 yuan (12) note each and reluctantly tear it into pieces.

The incident was reported to have taken place at a GOME electrical appliance shop that was being renovated on March 22.

The shop manager surnamed Liu condemned five of her employees for failing to give out 100 leaflets a day and demanded that they rip up a banknote.

The video was shared widely online and alerted the attention of Jinan policemen on social media.

The manager explained she was to educate them on paper waste reduction for the company

Liu explained to the police that it was to educate the employees not to waste any paper from the company's resources.

She received a verbal warning and a 1000 yuan (115) fine. In addition to that, Liu promised to pay the five employees 100 yuan each as compensation.

Jinan police also gave warnings to the five employees as according to China's law on the administration of Renminbi that any intention to destroy renminbi notes shall be fined no more than 10,000 yuan (1155).

A reporter visited the shop and was told the store is scheduled to open in April with a target sales of 65,000,000 in four days.

Twitter user 'organic tiger' said: 'this causes hate and bad motivation on working hard'

'Chandra' commented that it is 'ridiculous and it is a crime to destroy public property (currency notes).'
A Chinese couple have been horrified after discovering that their son was nearly chocked to death as their nanny force-fed him, according to Chinese media.

The nanny was also caught on a monitor hitting and shaking the toddler, who is said to be just over one year old.

When the parents confronted the nanny, she explained that she had been in a bad mood that day before fleeing the house with a packed bag.

A nanny, in Fuzhou, China, has been caught feeding her client's toddler son by force

She grabbed the child's head before shoving a spoonful of rice paste into his mouth

The toddler and his parents, Mr Zhang and Ms Chen, live in Fuzhou, in south-east China's Fujian Province, according to Huanqiu.com, an affiliation to People's Daily.

Mr Zhang and Ms Chen hired the nanny, Ms Zhou from Jiangxi Province, through an agency about a month ago to look after their young son because they need to go on business trips regularly.

The couple have had a monitor installed at their home to that they could check on their child and the nanny, who is in her 40s. Ms Chen said the monitor could send live footage to her and her husband's phones 24 hours a day.

To ensure the baby would eat his food, she then held him horizontally and pinched his nose

The parents were horrified to see that their son had nearly been choked to death by the nanny

When Mr Zhang, the father, watched the footage on his phone at around 6pm on March 18, he was shocked to see that the nanny had been feeding rice paste to his child by force, according to the report.

The couple were horrified that their son had nearly been choked to death.

The video also shows when the child vomited on the table, the nanny, Ms Zhou, slapped him on the head.

Ms Zhou also held the child on a horizontal position and pinched his nose to make sure that he would swallow his food.

The child cried and struggled throughout the footage.

When Mr Zhang and his wife saw the footage, they were in Quanzhou, a nearby city, on a business trip. The shocked couple returned to Fuzhou the next morning.

They took their son to the hospital and reported the case to the police.

The boy, who is reported to be just over one year old, cried and struggled throughout the video

The nanny, in her 40s, was also caught hitting the child on his head as he struggled

The couple confronted Ms Zhou at their home and asked why she had abused their son, as told by Ms Chen to alocal TV reporter.

The mother said Ms Zhou had initially denied the allegations, but when the couple showed her the video, she explained that she had been in a bad mood on that day.

The nanny then fled the family with a packed bag after the conversation.

Ms Chen said that she had previously told off Ms Zhou for taking her son to crowded places. She suspected that Ms Zhou had been unhappy about the comments and released her anger on her son.

According to Shanghai Daily, the toddler was diagnosed with aspiration pneumonia as a result of the alleged abuse.

The case is under police investigation.
It could be the future of cocktails - electronically sending a drink to friends over the internet.

Researchers have transported the sourness and look of lemonade through the internet in a groundbreaking experiment.

The team uses sensors to duplicate the taste of the drink, which was transmitted to a tumbler filled with water that used lights to replicate the color.

When the recipient drinks from the special mug, electrical stimulation hits their tongue and simulates the taste of lemonade.

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Used sensors to duplicate the taste of the drink, which was transmitted to a tumbler (pictured) filled with water that used lights to replicate the color. When the recipient drinks from the special mug, electrical stimulation hits their tongue and simulates the taste of lemonade

HOW DOES IT WORK? Color and acidity sensors capture data of the real lemonades color and acidity. The information was then uploaded to the recipient's digital tumbler that was filled with water and fitted with other sensors and LED lights to recreate the pale yellow color in a bid to trick the senses. Electrical stimulation will hit their tongue and simulate the taste of lemonade. Advertisement

The new technology was created by a group of researchers at the National University of Singapore, who wanted to help people 'share sensory experiences over the internet', Timothy Revell with New Scientist reported.

Nimesha Ranasinghe and his team used color and acidity sensors to record the color and pH of a glass of freshly poured lemonade.

Once the data was gathered, they uploaded the information to the recipient's digital tumbler, which was filled with water and fitted with other sensors and LED lights to recreate the pale yellow color in a bid to trick the senses.

During experiments, the team recruited 13 people to taste both real and virtual lemonades  however researchers kept them in the dark about which was which.

Following the taste tests, the participants were then asked to report how sour each tasted and if the color was also perceived as being sour.

Although a majority of people noted that the real lemonade tasted the sourest, the virtual lemonade was said to look more sourer based on its color.

The team recently presented their findings and work at a conference in Japan earlier this month, but the technology is still in development phases  it cannot yet send the 'full flavor profile of a drink', according to Revell.

'Unless you simulate olfaction, true flavor cannot be reproduced,' says Amol Bhondekar at the Central Scientific Instruments Organisation in India.

However, Ranasinghe said that he and his colleagues are currently developing 'a full virtual cocktail with smell, taste and color all covered.'

'We want to be able to create any drink'.

The team used an array of sensors to record the color and pH of a glass of freshly poured lemonade

Once the data was gathered, they uploaded the information to the recipient's digital tumbler that was filled with water and fitted with other sensors and LED lights to recreate the pale yellow color in a bid to trick the senses

The team foresees this letting people who cannot enjoy sugary drinks enjoy them in the virtual world, he said.

Another firm is working on a similar concept that uses a virtual reality headset.

Project Nourished has been exploring ways that lets those concerned about calorie intake or suffer from health-related issues eat meals without restriction.

The LA firm does not envision forks, knives, napkins or dirty dishing in the future, just aromatic diffusers, bone conduction transducers, gyroscope utensils, virtual cocktail glasses and 3D printed food.

During experiments, the team recruited 13 people to taste both real and virtual lemonades  however researchers kept them in the dark about which was which. Although a majority of people who tasted the real and virtual lemonade said the real lemonade tasted the sourest, the virtual lemonade was reported as looking the sourest based on its color

Users will strap on a virtual reality headset that looks more like a piece of art and is their portal to another location where they will be indulging in their meal.

A bone conduction transducer is strapped around the neck, which mimics chewing.

The chomping sensation is sent from the wearer's mouth to ear drums using their soft tissue and bones as its vessel.

Once you are transported to the virtual world and seated at your table, the aromatic diffuser dissipates the smells of various foods using ultrasonic and heat.

And now that you've caught a whiff of what is cooking, there is a gyroscopic utensil with sensors that tracks your movements to be translated into the virtual world.
The US Navy has revealed a radical new system allowing fighter pilots to land on deck safely.

Called 'Magic Carpet' the software is being tested by F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler pilots across the Navy's fleet.

It effectively acts as an electronic co-pilot for the difficult landings, taking over tasks such as having to gauge the course of landing with the moving ship, adding and reducing power, and adjusting the pitch, yaw and roll.

The pilot simply controls the flight path.

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Landing Signal Officers evaluate an F/A-18F Super Hornet pilot landing aboard USS Washington (CVN 73) using the Precision Landing Modes software also known as Magic Carpet.

Officially know as Maritime Augmented Guidance with Integrated Controls for Carrier Approach and Recovery Precision Enabling Technologies, the magic carpet system has been in development for several years.

Pilots who have tested the system say it makes landings far simpler.

'That was the smoothest night trap I've ever flown, send me up again,' Lt. Zach 'Bamboo' Hutchings, Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 87, Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 8. during recent tests on the USS Washington, told Naval Aviation News.

Magic Carpet was first tested at sea in April 2015.

The demonstration was so successful that Naval Aviation Enterprise leadership directed NAVAIR to deliver an initial capability earlier than 2019.

'Magic Carpet doesnt replace humans  it helps them,' said Breaking Defence, which tried out the system in a simulator.

'Its rather like the old saying about swans.

'They seem smooth and graceful as they swim, but below the surface theres a great deal of frantic paddling.

'With Magic Carpet, the computer is doing that paddling, constantly making tiny adjustments  faster and more precisely than any human could manage  to keep the aircraft on the pilots desired course.'

F/A-18F Super Hornets and an EA-18G Growler in Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23 prepare to launch from the deck of USS George Washington (CVN-73) on June 27, 2016, while testing the carrier landing assistance technology

An F/A-18F Super Hornet in Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23 comes in for an arrested landing on the deck of USS George Washington (CVN-73) on June 27, 2016, while testing the system

The upgraded flight control software and head-up displays were tested in ground-based labs during March 2016, clearing the software for flight test in April, and from May through June, shore-based flight test was conducted.

In June, well ahead of schedule, the fleet-production release software was tested aboard USS George Washington (CVN 73).

By 2019, the fleet's Super Hornet and E-18G Growler squadrons will have the full capability.

Capt. David Kindley, F/A-18 and EA-18G Program Manager in the Program Executive Office for Tactical Aircraft, said that pilots approaching the carrier focus on three things: watching their lineup, with the goal being to catch the third of four wires in the aircraft arresting gear; angle of attack, needed to ensure the tailhook on the back of the plane catches a wire; and speed.

An F/A-18F Super Hornet conducting touch-and-go flight operations off the deck of USS George Washington as part of the tests

Even if a pilot begins his approach to the ship perfectly, every little adjustment to maintain that path to the ship requires counter-adjustments in other areas  'just dozens of corrections, tiny corrections, that I'm making' for the final 18 seconds, called 'flying on the ball.'

The Super Hornets and Growlers were built with digital flight controls, and some automation was built into the system from the start.

When MAGIC CARPET is engaged and put into 'delta path mode,' the plane will fly on a 3-degree glideslope downwards regardless of wind and other conditions outside.
Morning is known to be their least favourite time of day.

But teenagers struggling to get out of bed on time is nothing to do with their hormones or a need for extra sleep, researchers say.

A study suggests most would be able to wake easily if they went outside more, then dimmed lights and stopped using smartphones and tablets at night.

Surrey University and Harvard Medical School scientists found artificial light may be wholly to blame for Western teenagers rising late.

Most teenagers would be able to wake easily if they went outside more, then dimmed lights and stopped using smartphones and tablets at night (file photo)

Adolescents in hunter-gatherer tribes, who are outside all day and see light change naturally, get up at dawn.

The study, in the journal Scientific Reports, looked at 25,000 Europeans and two African tribes.

'It found teens were the age group most affected by light, and turning off blue light screens and dimming other lights could reset their body clocks.

Lead author Dr Anne Skeldon said: This highlights that adolescents are not programmed to wake up late and that by increasing exposure to bright light during the day, turning lights down in the evening and off at night should enable most to get up in time for work or school without too much effort and without changing school timetables.

Scientists have previously reassured parents their teenagers are not just lazy by stating that they have a biological predisposition to sleep late (file photo)

She added: Teenagers do not get much natural light, because they are in school all day, then, because it is easier for them than for other age groups to stay up late, they keep the lights on and use smart phones and tablets into the night.

We know from previous research that blue light from these devices has a particularly strong effect on body clocks.

If these teenagers were hunter-gatherers and were not exposed to this artificial evening light, most of them would sleep no later than anyone else.

Scientists have previously reassured parents their teenagers are not just lazy by stating that they have a biological predisposition to sleep late.

However the British study, in collaboration with Harvard Medical School, suggests schoolchildren are making themselves more tired by sitting in front of electronic screens and keeping lights on at night.

The problem may be getting worse as children are more tied to smart phones than ever before, while modern LED bulbs emit more blue light.

The mathematical model on sleeping habits is based on a study of 25,000 European people and two hunter-gatherer tribes in Namibia and Tanzania.

Children, and particularly night owls, would sleep better with less light at night, according to a study (file photo)

The researchers wanted to see if shifting school start times later, allowing teenagers to sleep for longer, would help with social jetlag  which cause them to sleep later at the weekend after becoming deprived during the week.

But the study found most teenagers clock would drift even later in response to the later start time, and in a matter of weeks they would find it just as hard to get out of bed.

Instead, it concludes that children, and particularly night owls, would sleep better with less light at night.

The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, concludes that the profound delay in sleep observed in adolescents in modern industrialised societies is largely a result of our ability to self-select patterns of light exposure.
A species of millipede 'new to science' has been discovered in an old British coal mine.

The species, dubbed the Maerdy Monster, was described as a 'hugely significant discovery'.

The brown, 4cm-long arthropod was found underneath a pile of stones by a team of naturalists.

The four centimetre long anthropod was found in the Maerdy Colliery in South Wales

It was found at Maerdy Colliery in the Rhondda Valleys of South Wales.

The millipede has been named in honour of the pit which closed in 1990 - one of the last working pits in the Welsh coalfield.

Scientist Liam Olds said: 'It's not every day that you find a species new to science. It shows you don't have to go to the Amazon to find new things.'

Mr Olds said he and his team, including millipede expert Christian Owen, were recording different life forms at the former working mine in December when they made their world-first discovery.

Entomologist Liam Olds said the discovery showed that you 'don't have to go to the Amazon to find new things'

Entomologist Mr Olds, who studies insects, said: 'Under these stones and sleepers were brown millipedes unlike anything Christian had seen before.

'He made the assumption these millipedes were merely an alternative colour form of an already existing but rare species known from numerous sites in South Wales.

'But after putting them under his microscope he recognised they were a completely different species.'

Mr Olds (pictured) added that the discovery highlighted the importance of conserving south Wales' colliery sites

Specimens were then sent to Dr Jorg Spelda at the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology in Germany, who confirmed the millipedes were 'new to science'.

Experts are now working to formally describe and name the species, which has been dubbed the 'Maerdy Monster' by Mr Olds - after the coal mine it was found at.

Mr Olds, from Llantrisant, South Wales, added: 'This discovery highlights the importance of conserving our colliery sites.

'Over the past several decades, these sites have become increasingly important places for wildlife.'
An amphibious cargo drone the size of a Boeing 777 airliners could soon take to the skies, according to a start-up firm in California.

The company behind the craft plans to launch a full scale version in 2020, but first a prototype device will be undergoing tests this summer.

And it could slash the cost of shipping cargo by half if it proves a success, by eliminating the need for on-board staff and maximising full efficiency.

A prototype drone launching this summer could soon lead to a full scale version, capable of carrying up to 200,000 pounds of cargo which will fly at an altitude of approximately 20,000 feet (artist's impression pictured)

NATILUS The proof of concept model will be capable of carrying up to 700 pounds of cargo. But the finished article will eventually carry up to 200,000 pounds. The full scale version will use turboprop and turbofan engines and standard jet fuel. It will fly at an altitude of approximately 20,000 feet, much lower than commercial jets which have an average cruising height of between 28,000 and 35,000 feet. Their speed will be slightly slower than a standard cargo freighter - with the Boeing 777 able to achieve speeds of 557 miles per hour. Advertisement

The pilotless drones are designed to take off and land on water, to avoid the need to fly over populated areas.

They will unload their cargo in docks rather than airports, and will combine the speed of air transport with the lower costs associated with shipping freight.

The prototype is about the size and weight of a military Predator drone, according to a report by Fast Company.

The vehicle is around 70 per cent complete, with initial test flights planned for the summer.

Natilus will put the completed prototype through its paces in San Pablo Bay, just northeast of San Francisco.

Eventually, the company hopes to extend this to 30-hour test flights between Los Angeles and Hawaii.

The proof of concept model will be capable of carrying up to 700 pounds of cargo, but the finished article will eventually carry up to 200,000 pounds.

The full scale version will use turboprop and turbofan engines and standard jet fuel.

It will fly at an altitude of approximately 20,000 feet, much lower than commercial jets which have an average cruising height of between 28,000 and 35,000 feet.

Their speed will be slightly slower than a standard cargo freighter - with the Boeing 777 able to achieve speeds of 557 miles per hour - according to the Richmond, company.

The project has raised $750,000 (600,000) so far but Natilus hopes to one day manufacture hundreds of the drones.

They are hoping to market them to long-distance shipping firms like Fed Ex as well as medium to short distance freight forwarders.

The proof of concept model will be capable of carrying up to 700 pounds of cargo and will be initially tested near San Francisco. Eventually, the company behind its creation hopes to extend this to 30-hour test flights between Los Angeles and Hawaii (3D rendering pictured)

The prototype is about the size and weight of a military Predator drone (pictured) and is around 70 per cent complete. Natilius are are hoping to market them to long-distance shipping firms like Fed Ex as well as medium to short distance freight forwarders (stock image)

Companies like Amazon have already hit headlines for their own experiments with drone delivery.

And goods transporters are said to be 'intrigued' by the plans.

Speaking to Fast Company, Chris Connell, president of the global perishable goods transporter CFI, said: 'Air cargo is all about speed at high price.

'Ocean freight is longer transit times at lower pricing.

'And with certain goods- be it perishables, or goods that are looking for that middle ground -that idea of middle price for middle transit times is that sweet spot.

'Planes aren't going to slow down and boats aren't going to go faster.

'The drone concept adds something new. It adds to the intrigue.'
Google Home, the search engine's rival to Amazon's Echo smart speaker, will finally be arriving in the UK next week.

The technology giant launched the voice-activated device in the US last October but did not extend its release to outside of the country.

But Google announced today that the much-anticipated device will arrive in the UK on April 6 and will cost 129.

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Google Home (pictured) will arrive in the UK on April 6. The smart speaker is the main rival to Amazon Echo, which arrived in the country last year

The small speaker, which is controlled by using the phrase 'OK, Google', utilities Google Search as well as Maps and Translate software to answer queries and provide information.

The speaker, which can be used to play music, also uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to understand context and answer follow-up questions to your initial voice commands.

Google Home's Suveer Kothari said: 'With your permission, Google Home can assist you in planning your day, based on information like your calendar entries or flight information from your Google account.

'But if you'd rather keep things to yourself, you can turn off personal results any time in the Google Home app with a single swipe.'

Artificially intelligent voice assistants have become increasingly popular products among technology firms.

Samsung announced its own assistant, Bixby, last week, to rival Amazon's Alexa, Microsoft's Cortana and Apple's Siri, which are already in use in the US and UK.

The small speaker, which is controlled by using the phrase 'OK, Google', utilities Google Search as well as Maps and Translate software to answer queries and provide information

The tech giant also announced it was launching its Wifi router - Google Wifi - in the UK. The device, which will also cost $130 (129), uses technology called mesh Wifi

GOOGLE WI-FI DEVICE The tech giant also announced it was launching its Wifi router - Google Wifi - in the UK. The $130 device is already available in the US. The device, which will also cost 129 in the UK, uses technology called mesh Wifi, which Google says uses multiple routers to evenly spread internet signal throughout the home 'Enjoy a fast signal in every room, on every device,' the firm said. 'Google Wifi is a new type of connected system that replaces your router for seamless coverage throughout your home.' The system is designed as a connected system of points that are placed throughout the home to provide bedroom to basement connectivity. It also gives you easy control of your network so that you can stay in control. Advertisement

Google Home owners will also be able to use the device to control other smart home products, including light bulbs and thermostats, as well as TVs and other speakers connected using Google's Chromecast devices.

Home will cost $130 in the US and 129 in the UK and will be available in a range of colours, Google said.

The firm also announced it was launching its Wifi router - Google Wifi - in the UK.

The device uses technology called mesh Wifi, which Google says uses multiple routers to evenly spread internet signal throughout the home.
It is only a matter of time before a giant wall of water smashes into the coast of Spain and Portugal, scientists have warned.

In a new documentary, they claim that these areas are woefully unprepared for such a catastrophe - which could result in the deaths of at least 1,200 people.

And the potential carnage has been compared to a cataclysmic earthquake, which created a tsunami that killed more than 10,000 people in 18th century Portugal.

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When an earthquake, volcano or landslide happens on the ocean floor, water is displaced. Pictured is a huge wave of water in South Africa

HOW DOES A TSUNAMI FORM? When an earthquake, volcano or landslide happens on the ocean floor, water is displaced. This water forms the start of the tsunami. When the waves reach shallower water: - Their height can increase by several metres - The shallow water slows the wave - The waves get closer together It is hard to see that a tsunami is approaching. The most obvious sign is the coastal water retreats just before the waves reach the shore. This is actually the trough of the wave following behind. Advertisement

The claims were made in the film La Gran Ola, or 'The Great Wave'.

It warns that The Gulf of Cadiz - an area popular with tourists and expats - would be especially hard hit.

And the documentary's director suggests the ensuing disaster could be a repeat of the Great Lisbon earthquake of 1755.

He believes tens of thousands could be at be killed and hundreds of thousands more might be affected - through evacuation, power cuts and a lack of food and water.

The film interviews a number of scientists in the area, who echo some of the director's concerns.

They are particularly worried by the lack of an early-warning system, which would allow people to prepare for the impending wave to hit.

Begona Perez - head of the division of oceanography of Spanish ports - told the film-makers: 'The question is not whether there will be another tsunami, but when will it happen.'

Luis Matias, a researcher of tectonic and seismic risk at the Dom Luiz Institute in Portugal, added: 'In the Gulf of Cadiz, several faults could cause an earthquake any time.'

The Gulf of Cadiz sits on a major tectonic boundary, the Azores-Gibraltar fault.

This makes the area susceptible to earthquakes at sea, which can create tsunamis.

Speaking to The Olive Press, director Fernando Arroyo said: 'The only reality is that no scientist in the world can claim that it will not be repeated in the short term because there are no indicators in the area.

'It would affect hundreds of thousands of people and cause very high economic losses.

Scientists interviewed for a new documentary have warned that the The Gulf of Cadiz is totally unprepared for a tsunami which could hit the area at any time. Pictured - an image from the film, showing waves encroaching on the coastline.

'For days, large areas could not be evacuated, there would be no electricity, no communications, no water, and entire cities such as Cadiz would have to be evacuated.'

When an earthquake, volcano or landslide happens on the ocean floor, water is displaced.

This water forms the start of the tsunami.

When the waves reach shallower water, their height can increase by several metres

The Azores-Gibraltar fault makes the area susceptible to earthquakes at sea, which can create tsunamis

The shallow water slows the wave and the waves get closer together

It is hard to see that a tsunami is approaching.

The most obvious sign is the coastal water retreats just before the waves reach the shore.

This is actually the trough of the wave following behind.
Far from being 'man's best friend', mice are among humanity's most unwelcome house guests.

But while dogs are often labelled as humankind's oldest ally, research has found that house mice could have lived in our homes long before any faithful hounds did.

The little rodents began living off human settlements some 15,000 years ago in the Middle East, the study revealed.

This suggests that mice have been scurrying underfoot thousands of years longer than previously thought.

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Mice began infesting human settlements some 15,000 years ago in the Middle East, a new study has found. This suggests the little rodents have been scurrying underfoot thousands of years longer than previously thought (stock image)

THE DOMESTICATION OF DOGS The oldest evidence of dog domestication is a grave containing dog DNA dating back 14,000 years. The dogs were found buried alongside their owners at an ancient site in Germany. But experts believe that dog domestication has been around even longer. Some genetic studies suggest that wolves were domesticated 16,300 years ago to serve as livestock in China. However, these findings are speculative. Advertisement

It was previously believed that small mammals such as mice and rats began to settle down with humans as farming practices became more common.

This is because agricultural human communities were more static than the roving hunter-gatherers before them.

But the new study found that as soon as hunter-gatherers settled down for even a small period of time, house mice moved in with them.

When humans settled in one place, they provided shelter and regular access to crumbs and scraps.

Mice learned to benefit from this and would stick around, marking an early phase of domestication.

House mice evolved into their own species during this period, eventually edging out their wilder counterparts.

The study suggests 'that the roots of animal domestication go back to human sedentism thousands of years prior to what has long been considered the dawn of agriculture,' said Marshall.

In hunter-gatherer villages in the eastern Mediterranean region, house mice were common 3,000 years before the earliest signs of agriculture, said the findings.

'The research provides the first evidence that, as early as 15,000 years ago, humans were living in one place long enough to impact local animal communities - resulting in the dominant presence of house mice,' said co-author Fiona Marshall, a professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis.

The team of scientists from the US, Israel, France and Aberdeen University in the UK focused on an ancient Natufian hunter-gatherer site in the Jordan Valley of Israel.

The team of scientists from the US, Israel, France and Aberdeen University in the UK focused on an ancient Natufian hunter-gatherer site in the Jordan Valley of Israel

The new study found that as soon as hunter-gatherers settled down for even a small period of time, house mice moved in with them. When humans settled in one place, they provided shelter and regular access to crumbs and scraps (stock image)

The Natufians were the first eastern Mediterranean culture to establish villages, as opposed to hunter-gatherers who would live in different areas based on seasonal availability.

In Jordan Valley excavations have shown a wildly swinging ratio of house mice to wild mice during different prehistoric periods.

The team studied variations in the molar shapes of fossilised mice teeth going back as far as 200,000 years.

At times when people were more likely to settle for long periods, the house mouse reigned over the short-tailed field mouse.

The house mice pushed most of their rivals outside the settlement through competition for food, water and shelter.

In periods of drought or food shortages, when hunter-gatherers were forced to move more often, the populations of house mice and field mice reached a balance.

'The findings provide clear evidence that the ways humans have shaped the natural world are tied to varying levels of human mobility,' said Professor Marshall.

Whether the findings show that mice were domesticated before dogs is up for debate.

The oldest evidence of dog domestication is a grave containing dog DNA that dates back 14,000 years.

The dogs were found buried alongside people at an ancient site in Germany.

But experts believe that dog domestication has been around even longer.

Some genetic studies suggest that wolves were domesticated 16,300 years ago to serve as livestock in China.

However, these findings are speculative.
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Haunting images have revealed how a Soviet spacecraft has been left abandoned in a disused bunker for more than two decades.

The super-strong Energia was a launch vehicle designed to propel the Buran, an unmanned spaceplane, into orbit in the 1970s.

The USSR built the rocket to compete with Nasa's Saturn V, the super-lift launch vehicle that supported the Apollo mission to the moon.

Haunting images have revealed how a Soviet spacecraft, pictured, has been left abandoned in a disused bunker in Kazakhstan for more than two decades

The images were taken by photographer Ralph Mirebs in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

They reveal a large hangar - once a hub of activity but now left derelict - located near to the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which is still used to launch Soyuz rockets today.

In the late 1970s, the Soviet Union began to develop a superheavy rocket called the Energia.

The super-strong Energia was a launch vehicle designed to propel the Buran, an unmanned spaceplane, into orbit in the 1970s. The USSR built the rocket to compete with Nasa's Saturn V, the that supported the Apollo mission to the moon

The large hangar - once a hub of activity but now left derelict - located near to the Baikonur Cosmodrome, is still used to launch Soyuz rockets today

RUSSIA BEGINS RECRUITING COSMONAUTS TO BEAT AMERICA AND CHINA BACK TO THE MOON Russia has begun recruiting cosmonauts for a new spacecraft that will go to the moon. Earlier this month, Russia's space corporation Roscosmos declared an open contest for a team who will pilot the Federatsiya spacecraft to the Moon. 'The selection begins today and it will last till the end of the year,' said , Roscosmos First Deputy CEO Aleksandr Ivanov told a news conference. 'The results will be summarized at the end of December, and a group of six to eight trainees is to be selected,' he said. The Roscosmos press-service said the selected specialists will be the first to fly the new generation spacecraft Federatsiya, and will be the first Russians to go to the Moon. 'The purpose is to select the best specialists who already have certain knacks of operating space or air technologies. 'They will be the first pilots of Russia's future spacecraft Federatsiya. 'All will be trained under the International Space Program and will be the first Russians to fly to the Moon,' the Roscosmos press-service said. Russia's Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation (RSC) Energia is developing two modifications of the Federatsiya spacecraft, which could carry four or six cosmonauts respectively. The applicants will have to undergo several selection stages - testing for education and professional aptitude, medical examination, psychological qualities and physical fitness tests. Applications will be accepted from Russians no older than 35 years who have higher education in engineering, research or other flight specialties and a previous work record. Advertisement

The space relic was built during the great space race between the USSR and the US. The heavy-lift vehicle was originally planned for a lunar mission which was later abandoned

Rust is visible on the spokes of the rocket, which was built by NPO Energia, Russia's top space agency that still operates today under the name RSC Energia

Energua was designed by NPO Energia, Russia's top space agency, to act as a heavy-lift launch system and booster for the Buran spaceplane.

It flew for the first time in 1987, and helped propel the unmanned Buran into orbit in 1988.

'Over the years, the Baikonur Cosmodrome territory has tested many different spacecraft, the apex of which was the system Energia-Buran,' Mr Mirebs explained on his website.

The rocket was captured by photographer Ralph Mirebs in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. It sits in a large hangar - once a hub of activity but now left derelict - located near to the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which is still used to launch Soyuz rockets today

The Energia was developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s. It was designed by NPO Energia, Russia's top space agency, to act as a heavy-lift launch system and booster for the Buran spaceplane

'But history has chosen its path and the project died in infancy.'

Like Nasa's Space Shuttles, the Buran vehicles had engines located at the back, and two wings for a controlled landing back on Earth.

Development of the programme began in 1976, with the reusable spacecraft capable of performing operations in orbit before returning to Earth.

But after the one unmanned spaceflight in 1988, the programme was scrapped following the dissolution of the USSR in 1993.

The rusting rocket flew for the first time in 1987, and helped propel the unmanned Buran spaceflight into orbit in 1988. The reusable spacecraft was capable of performing operations in orbit before returning to Earth

The outside of the derelict hangar, measuring 433ft (132 metres) long by 203ft (62 metres) in height, it is the largest building at the Baikonur Cosmodrome

This was despite several other models and test vehicles being built, some of which reside in museums today.

But the Energia has been left abandoned in the disused hanger since 1991.

The Energia weighs in at a massive 2,400,000kg (5,300,000 lb) depsite being made of super-light metals.

The super-strong rocket ship could carry 100 tonnes (100,000kg) - the equivalent of 16 African elephants - into orbit.

Unusually, the Energy carried its considerable payload on its side, rather than on the top.

To protect the shuttles from a possible shockwave if a heavy launch vehicle exploded nearby, the structure was made of reinforced steel, much of which has now wasted away

The now derelict building was intended to be a 'clean room' devoid of dust when working on the orbiters, so the doors leading out of the central area could be sealed

Huge sliding gates 138 by 118ft (42 by 36 metres) would have allowed the shuttles to have been rolled out to the launchpad nearby to the giant hangar

The giant hangar that houses the rocket was actually an assembly complex and, measuring 433ft (132 metres) long by 203ft (62 metres) in height, it is the largest building at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Huge sliding gates 138 by 118ft (42 by 36 metres) would have allowed the shuttles to have been rolled out to the launchpad nearby.

To protect the shuttles from a possible shockwave if a heavy launch vehicle exploded nearby, the structure was made of reinforced steel.

The room was also intended to be a 'clean room' devoid of dust when working on the orbiters, so the doors leading out of the central area could be sealed.

The equipment number N5251231155 is just legible on the side of the rocket. The metal exterior of the huge spacecraft has started to waste away

The Energy weighs in at a massive 2,400,000kg (5,300,000 lb) depsite being made of super-light metals. The super-strong rocket ship could carry 100 tonnes (100,000kg) into orbit

Unusually, the Energia carried its considerable payload on its side, rather than on the top (seen right). In August 2016, Russia Today reported that the Energia's engine could be reused in space missions planned for 2030.

In August 2016, Russia Today reported that the Energia's engine could be reused in space missions planned for 2030.

Vladimir Solntsev, director of RSC Energia, said: 'This compilation would allow us to save time and money.

'We take what is already there, don't pay extra costs and don't get stretched into future decades.

The derelict hangar that has became a graveyard for USSR spacecrafts is located near to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which is still used to launch Soyuz rockets today

A view of the aerodynamic top of the impressive rocket. The rocket's space programme was scrapped following the dissolution of the USSR in 1993

While many abandoned USSR spacecrafts have ended up in museums, the Energia has been left to decay. But Russia now plans to revitalise its space programme by incorporating technology from the Energia

'I'm certain that we can have a heavy-lift rocket this way in record time, about five to seven years.'

The engine will be included in the development of a heavy-lift rocket for Russia's future moon missions, Solntsev said.

'Of course we have been dealing with multiple launches and dockings in various orbits for decades and should not overlook them when planning missions to other planets,' he added.

'But it's a complex process. To tackle all flight and technical details we would have to launch rockets within no more than three days.'

Although the rocket may look like a vintage relic, its technology could be incorporated into Russia's 2030 missions to the moon. Earlier this month, Russia's space corporation Roscosmos declared it was looking for new cosmonauts
It's a scenario we all dread  a house fire sweeping through your home, wreaking havoc on your belongings and putting your family at risk.

And a new virtual reality simulator has revealed just how quickly a fire can devastate your home.

The terrifying 360 degree video shows a gas fire left unattended in a living room, which bursts into flames, and fills the room with black smoke in a matter of seconds.

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The terrifying 360 video shows a gas fire left unattended in a living room, which bursts into flames, and fills the room with black smoke in a matter of seconds

PLANNING YOUR ESCAPE ROUTE The goal of an escape plan is to make sure everyone can get out of the house as quickly as possible in the event of a fire. You can use paper to create a floor plan of your house and then decide the best way to exit each room. Be sure to pick two exits from each room - a primary exit that would be the most direct way out of the house, and an alternative exit in case the main one is blocked by fire. Advertisement

The video was created by the New Zealand Fire Service, in the hopes of raising awareness of the dangers of house fires.

In the video, a gas fire left unattended in a living room sets fire to a rack of clothes that has been left beside it.

Within seconds, the clothes are engulfed by flames.

A message reads: 'Objects left too close to heaters often cause fires.'

Viewers can browse around the room to see the effects of the fire, alongside poignant messages, encouraging people to leave behind valuables and escape quickly.

For example, on the TV, a message reads: 'Valuable? It's not worth your life. Leave it behind.'

And on a photo album, a message reads: 'You can make new memories, if you leave. Leave it behind.'

By the end of the minute-long video, the whole room is filled with black smoke, and parts of the walls and ceiling are falling to the floor.

The New Zealand Fire Service is encouraging everyone to have an escape plan so that they can quickly get to safety in the event of a fire.

Viewers can browse around the room to see the effects of the fire, alongside poignant messages, encouraging people to leave behind valuables and escape quickly

By the end of the minute-long video, the whole room is filled with black smoke, and parts of the walls and ceiling are falling to the floor

The description for the video reads: 'Fire is deadly fast. How will you get out? Escape Planner is an easy way to prepare your family for a house fire, so that everyone gets out fast, and stays out.'

A link at the end of the video leads viewers to the Escape Planner, in which they can specify a safe meeting place.

The website also gives handy tips, such as keeping a key in a deadlock to ensure they can escape quickly.
You could soon swipe through matches from any device thanks to a new website from Tinder.

The popular dating app has today announced the arrival of Tinder Online, a site that lets users access a simplified version of the app.

Tinder Online is not yet available in the US or UK, but a global roll-out may take place if testing is successful.

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The popular dating app has today announced the arrival of Tinder Online, a site that lets users access a simplified version of the app (pictured)

TINDER ONLINE To get to Tinder Online, type in Tinder.com in a browser. Currently it is only available in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Philippines, Italy, and Sweden. Tinder Online is not yet available in the US or UK, but a global roll-out may take place if testing is successful. Tinder says that the only information it collects about users who log on to Tinder Online is location via the browser. It doesnt include any of Tinders money-making add-ons such as Tinder Boost or Super Like. It still requires you sign on to your account through Facebook. Advertisement

Currently it is only available in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Philippines, Italy, and Sweden.

'For all those who've ever been stuck in a lecture hall or had to endure an eight-hour workday without access to Tinderthis is for you,' said a spokesperson for Tinder.

'Mobile phones not allowed in class? Just fire up your laptop and swipe incognito.'

The website doesn't include special features such as Super Likes or Tinder Boost.

The display of the website closely matches that of the mobile device.

Users can swipe through nearby matches using the mouse of their computer and start conversations on the website.

Tinder said the online site makes chatting to matches 'more seamless than ever'.

'If you're on your desktop: it's an experience specially designed for messaging, displaying your match's profile as you chat,' a spokesperson said.

The display of the website closely matches that of the mobile device. The website doesn't include special features such as Super Likes or Tinder Boost

Tinder has also made a few subtle changes to the language used on its website and app. The app used to say 'Keep Playing' after a match, but now it says 'Keep Swiping' (pictured)

They added that users without Facebook will be able to log on to the online site using an SMS message.

Tinder has also made a few subtle changes to the language used on its website and app.

The app used to say 'Keep Playing' in large letters after a match was made, leading to some to suggest that Tinder is more of a game than a dating service.

But now Tinder has changed that message to 'Keep Swiping', which appears on the screen in smaller letters.

Users can swipe through nearby matches using the mouse of their computer and start conversations on the website

Tinder said the online site makes chatting to matches 'more seamless than ever'. 'If you're on your desktop: it's an experience specially designed for messaging,' they said

Brian Norgard, head of product and revenue at Tinder, said: 'Tinder is present in more than 190 countries, and we've created new connections in every single one of them.

'With Tinder Online, we're thrilled to make the Tinder experience accessible and available for more users than ever, on any device, any platform, and through any browser.'

He added that Tinder Online was ideal for those who do not have enough storage space for the app on their phone.

The app uses around 128MB of storage on an iPhone.
The waves created a strange 'thumbprint-like' crater on the planet, Nasa said

They were triggered after an asteroid hit a lake, shifting large volumes of water

Billions of years ago Mars looked very different to the dusty red rock seen today.

Many experts believe that the red planet harboured vast lakes and oceans - a theory backed up by evidence of dried up beds of water on the planet's surface.

Nasa research into the bumpy surface of Mars suggests that an asteroid once smashed into one of the planet's large bodies of water.

The impact generated a series of cataclysmic tsunamis that made strange marks on Mars's surface, the researchers said.

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Nasa research into Mars craters suggests that an asteroid once smashed into one of Mars's huge bodies of water. The impact generated a series of cataclysmic tsunamis that made strange marks on the surface, the researchers said (stock image)

MEGA-TSUNAMIS ON MARS Last year scientists found evidence for two large tsunamis on the red planet's surface. About 3.4 billion years ago, a big meteorite impact triggered the first tsunami wave, composed of liquid water. Between the two impacts, Mars went through a period of frigid climate change with liquid water turning to ice. The second tsunami formed rounded lobes of ice whose structure suggested that the ancient ocean was briny. The tsunamis scarred the Martian landscape and piled sedimentary deposits along the edge of the planet's northern plains. The sediments are thought to mark out the shorelines of large expanses of water that once covered the Martian lowlands. Advertisement

Experts believe that asteroid impacts regularly triggered mega-tsunamis on the planet.

In an effort to explore how these huge events were generated, scientists have searched for spots where asteroids have smashed into Mars.

Details were outlined at the 48th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.

'We found typical tsunami deposits along the dichotomy between the northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere of Mars," Dr Costard, from Universite Paris-Sud who worked with Nasa, told BBC News.

"It supports that there was, at that time, a northern ocean."

Nasa describes one 'thumbprint-looking' spot, known as the Lomonosov crater, as a likely asteroid scar.

The spot was thought to have been caused by mud or other debris sliding down after being pushed by a moving iceberg or other big geological event.

But new evidence suggests that it is the result of an asteroid that struck the red planet billions of years ago.

The crater's characteristics support the idea that when the asteroid struck, the spot was part of a large ocean.

The impact led to multiple huge tidal waves due to the large volume of water shifted by the blow.

The push and pull of the water with the tsunamis formed the crater.

Last year scientists found evidence for two ancient mega-tsunamis that swept across Mars billions of years ago and reshaped the landscape. Colour-coded digital elevation model of the study area (pictured) show two proposed shoreline levels of an early Mars ocean that existed approximately 3.4 billion years ago

This is not the first time that scientists have unveiled ancient tsunami events on Mars.

According to a study published last year, the red planet was hit by two mega-tsunamis triggered by a pair of meteor impacts millions of years apart.

It has long been thought Mars was home to a vast ocean 3.4 billion years ago.

But the evidence for Martian shorelines did not support the theory, since it showed the shores were elevated and distributed rather than distributed consistently.

But a team used advanced imaging techniques combined with numerical simulations to demonstrate two separate meteorite impacts caused tsunamis reaching as high as 394 feet (120 metre) on the planet.

Our neighbouring planet Mars could have been covered in vast salty oceans (artist's impression pictured). According to the 2016 study, a pair of meteor impacts several million years apart caused two mega tsunamis on the red planet - providing more evidence early Mars could have supported life

This will have created the elevated shorelines, the researchers say.

The findings provided new clues for where may be the best place to search for signs of life that may have existed, or perhaps even still survives, on Mars.

'For more than a quarter century, failure to identify shoreline features consistently distributed along a constant elevation has been regarded as inconsistent with the hypothesis that a vast ocean existed on Mars approximately 3.4 billion years ago' said Dr Alexis Rodriguez, lead author from the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson.

'Our discovery offers a simple solution to this problem; widespread tsunami deposits distributed within a wide range of elevations likely characterise the shorelines of early Martian oceans.'

The tsunamis scarred the Martian landscape and piled sedimentary deposits along the edge of the planet's northern plains.

Visible light images showing older tsunami lobate upper reaches (white arrows) that embay local highland hills. The image below reveals the deposit's bouldery substrate. Up is towards the bottom right of the images

The icy tsunami lobes would be 'very good candidates' for places to search for biosignatures of microbial life, co-author Dr Alberto Fairen, from the Centre of Astrobiology in Madrid said. The team are hoping to explore the areas with robots or even humans in the future

The sediments are thought to mark out the shorelines of large expanses of water that once covered the Martian lowlands.

'About 3.4 billion years ago, a big meteorite impact triggered the first tsunami wave. This wave was composed of liquid water,'said Dr Alberto Fairen, co-author of the study.

'It formed widespread backwash channels to carry the water back to the ocean.'

In the millions of years between the two impacts, Mars went through a period of frigid climate change with liquid water turning to ice.

The significantly colder climate meant the ocean level receded from its original shoreline to form a secondary shoreline.

The second tsunami formed rounded lobes of ice, with structure that suggested the ancient ocean was briny.

'It is difficult to imagine Californian beaches on ancient Mars, but try to picture the Great Lakes on a particularly cold and long winter, and that could be a more accurate image of water-forming seas and oceans on ancient Mars,' said co-author Dr Alberto Fairen, from the Centre of Astrobiology in Madrid.

The icy tsunami lobes would be 'very good candidates' for places to search for biosignatures of microbial life, he said. The team are hoping to explore the areas.

'We have already identified some areas inundated by the tsunamis where the ponded water appears to have emplaced lacustrine sediments, including evaporites,' Dr Rodriguez said.
Credit card details, passwords and social security numbers are just some of the highly sensitive documents leaked by an online sharing site.

Computer security researchers have revealed that Microsoft's Docs.com is automatically sharing data - which users believed they were distributing privately among colleagues - with the public.

Anyone using the site's search engine can access this information and the leak could affect millions of users.

Computer security researchers have discovered that highly sensitive documents which users believed they were sharing privately are publicly visible via Microsoft's Docs.com. Kevin Beaumont brought the matter to public attention via Twitter (message pictured)

DOCS.COM Docs is a free service linked to Microsoft's Office 365 suite. Many users of the service were unaware that documents intended to be shared privately were also being published publicly. Among the data found were dates of birth, phone numbers, email and postal addresses, and even driving license and social security numbers. As well as more mundane items - like shopping lists and databases of customer feedback - were lists of passwords, credit card statements and divorce settlement agreements. Advertisement

The free service is linked to the software giant's Office 365 suite of productivity programs, like Word, Powerpoint and Excel.

The Docs.com website has a search function which allows users to find publicly shared information.

Over 1.2 billion people use Microsoft's Office products worldwide.

Businesses often use the service to share documents with colleagues, unaware that - in some cases - they are also being shared online by default.

This means confidential and sensitive information - extremely useful for identity theft - is visible to the whole of the internet.

Among the data found were dates of birth, phone numbers, email and postal addresses, and even driving license and social security numbers.

As well as more mundane items - like shopping lists and databases of customer feedback - were lists of passwords, credit card statements and divorce settlement agreements.

In a statement to Ars Technica, a spokesman for Microsoft said: 'Docs.com lets customers showcase and share their documents with the world.

'As part of our commitment to protect customers, we're taking steps to help those who may have inadvertently published documents with sensitive information.

'Customers can review and update their settings by logging into their account at www.docs.com'

To counter the problem, Microsoft initially removed the search function, but the information could still be found in Google's cached search results, as well as Microsoft's own Bing search engine.

The Docs.com website (pictured) is a free service which is linked to the Microsoft's Office 365 suite of programs. Many businesses use the service

Microsoft later blocked incoming searches from Google in an attempt to hide the leaked information.

But at the time of publication of this article, the search engine on Docs.com was still revealing sensitive information.

The leak was brought to public attention by Kevin Beaumont, a computer security researcher from Liverpool, on March 25.

Speaking on Twitter, he said: '@Microsoft Microsoft have a website called where Office 365 customers can share anything in public. It has a search function.'

Kevin Beaumont, a computer security researcher from Liverpool, was first to spot the problem, but many Twitter users were quick to post examples of the documents they had found.

In subsequent tweets he suggested 'You can probably see where I'm going with this' and that 'People clearly don't understand how the service works. It defaults to Publicly accessible, which is the prob.'

Mr Beaumont then began to post redacted versions of confidential documents he discovered on the site.

Other users followed suit and began to post some of the documents they had found.

Many of these were located with obvious search terms like 'passwords' or 'account number'.
Blood-sucking flies can be used as 'flying syringes' to detect infectious disease in animals before they spread to humans.

Researchers analyzed the blood meals of flies that suck blood from animals to find out which types of animals are carrying specific diseases.

The research could help control future outbreaks of diseases such as Ebola and Zika, which are infectious diseases in animals that can be transmitted to humans.

Researchers analyzed the blood meals of flies that suck blood from animals to find out which types of animals are carrying specific diseases. Pictured is the tsetse fly, a type of fly that the researchers analyzed in their study

According to the researchers, seven new pathogens are identified worldwide each year, and this is predicted to reach 15-20 every year by 2020 because of increased human contact with wildlife species that potentially carry disease.

But despite scientific advances, researchers still can't predict exactly where, when and how epidemics arise.

'This is a huge public health issue that urgently requires new tools for the active monitoring of outbreaks and rapid diagnosis of the pathogens involved,' said senior author of the study and evolutionary geneticist Dr Franck Prugnolle, from the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Montpellier, France.

'We wanted to investigate whether blood-feeding insects could act as a sampling tool out in the wild environment, allowing us to monitor the presence and emergence of infectious disease.'

Normally, to study pathogens that are circulating in wild habitats, researchers analyze animals caught for food by humans.

However, these animal's usually only represent a fraction of a region's wildlife.

Another method is to trap animals to study for the presence of infection in their organs and tissues, but this isn't easy to do and it's dangerous to protected species.

Previous research has shown that the DNA of animals, and from diseases such as malaria, is preserved in the blood meals of flies.

This gave Dr Prugnolle and his team the idea to see whether blood meals could be used as a non-invasive way of studying the pathogens circulating in wild animals.

First author of the study Dr Paul-Yannick Bitome-Essono collectting trapped blood-feeding flies from a Vavoua trap in Moukalaba-Doudou National Park, Gabon

So the researchers conducted a study over a 16-week period in four national parks in the forests of Gabon, Central Africa.

They set up traps for three types of flies (tsetse flied, stomoxids and tabanids) and then analyzed the insects' blood meals to determine the origin of the blood and the types of malaria parasites present.

They captured more than 4,000 flies - of which 30 per cent, mostly tsetse flies, were engorged with blood.

Tsetse flies transmit a disease called sleeping sickness which causes symptoms such as fever, headaches, joint pains and disrupted sleep cycles.

'We thought the tsetse fly might be a good candidate in our study, as both sexes feed on blood, they are large and easily trapped, present in large numbers in Central Africa, and are opportunistic feeders with no strong preference for a particular host animal, so would feed on a large range of wildlife, said lead author of the study Dr Paul-Yannick Bitome-Essono, from the CNRS in France.

Infographic showing how Ebola spread. Ebola is a zoonotic disease, meaning it a disease, which means its spread between animals and people. When humans contract the virus, they can then spread it between each other

The researchers used a new technique for studying the blood meal DNA, finding the host animal origin for three-quarters of the samples.

The results revealed that flies had fed on over 20 different species ranging from elephants and hippopotamuses to reptiles and birds.

They found malaria parasites in nearly 9 per cent of the blood meals, including 18 cases of previously undocumented malaria species.

They also identified the animal hosts of some malaria species whose preferred host was not previously known.

'These results show that blood meals of the engorged flies can be successfully used to analyse the diversity of known malaria parasites,' said Dr Prugnolle.

He said the the next step is to look at ways to improve the method with new techniques for DNA sequencing and pathogen detection methods.

'This approach of 'xenosurveillance' could detect pathogens before they spread to humans, as well as the emergence of new diseases in wild animals that may threaten their long-term survival,' said Dr Prugnolle.
In the hopes of protecting the world's most important books, a second 'Doomsday Vault' has been opened in the frozen Arctic wasteland of Svalbard, Norway.

The precious books will be stored in digital form, allowing them to survive the most extreme conditions, including nuclear war.

Alongside Norway, representatives from Brazil and Mexico will be the first to save copies of their files in the vault.

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The precious books will be stored in digital form, allowing them to survive the most extreme conditions, including nuclear war (stock image)

WORLD ARCTIC ARCHIVE The vault is based in Svalbard, Norway. Incredible new technology by a firm called Piql, will be used to store data as film, rather than hard drives, or other forms of storage. The film will be stored deep inside a mine called Mine 3 that is frozen in permafrost, ensuring it keeps a constant temperature. Svalbard is particularly safe, as Norway has sovereignty over the archipelago owing to the 1920 Svalbard Treaty, which was signed by 42 countries and effectively made Svalbard a demilitarised zone. Advertisement

The vault, which is called the World Arctic Archive, is based in Svalbard, which is already home to the Global Seed Vault  a huge collection of seeds that would allow humanity to survive, should food supplies be wiped out.

Incredible new technology by a firm called Piql, will be used to store data as film, rather than hard drives, or other forms of storage.

With expertise in film and using both EU funds and support from the Norwegian Research Council and Innovation Norway, Piql has performed vast research on film as a storage medium.

Speaking to NRK, a Norwegian national broadcaster, Kartrine Loen Thomson from Piql said: 'We believe that we can save the data using our technology for a whole 1,000 years.'

The vault, which is called the World Arctic Archive, is based in Svalbard, which is already home to the Global Seed Vault (pictured)  a huge collection of seeds that would allow humanity to survive, should food supplies be wiped out

The film will be stored deep inside a deep mine called Mine 3 that is frozen in permafrost, ensuring it keeps a constant temperature.

Svalbard is a particularly safe area to store the precious books.

Norway has sovereignty over the archipelago owing to the 1920 Svalbard Treaty, which was signed by 42 countries and effectively made Svalbard a demilitarised zone.

The film will be stored deep inside a deep mine called Mine 3 that is frozen in permafrost, ensuring it keeps a constant temperature

Pal Berg, from SNSK, a Norwegian coal mining firm, said: 'We can be reasonably confident that no military attack will happen.'

So far the UK and US have not opted to store any national archives in the vault, but they may choose to join Brazil and Mexico in saving data later.

Eric Cardoso, from Mexico's National Archives, said: 'There is a special feeling that I should save my nation's memory on the Arctic island.'
By 2050, more than 350 million people living in 'megacities' will be hit with deadly heat waves every year - regardless if nations reach climate change targets, researchers have warned.

A new study has found that even if countries limit global warming to below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2C), which is required by the Paris Agreement, 44 of the most populated cities in the world will still experience the lethal events.

The analysis showed that not only has the number of megacities experiencing heat waves doubled, but it has occurred with only 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5C) of warming.

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More than 350 million people living in 'megacities' will be hit with deadly heat waves every year - regardless if nations reach climate change targets, researchers have warned

EXTREME HEAT RISK When temperatures reach those experienced on 'danger days  when the feels like temperature exceeds 104F  it it becomes difficult for the body to cool itself, the researchers at Climate Central explain. This can lead to dehydration, exhaustion, dizziness, and other problems in the body  and often, even death. During danger days, people are at risk of sunstroke and heat exhaustion, and physical activity or extended time outdoors could even lead to heat stroke. The the combination of high heat and humidity poses serious risks to many people, especially infants and young children, the elderly, and those with pre-existing health conditions. Advertisement

The Paris Agreement was passed with no objections in 2015 by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, bringing to an end four years' of discussions and debates.

Nearly 200 nations adopted the global pact, calling on the world to collectively cut and then eliminate greenhouse gas pollution - but imposing no sanctions on countries that don't.

Countries that signed the 31-page document will be expected to work towards limiting global warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2C) above pre-industrial levels.

Now, a recent study has surfaced from Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom that warns 44 of the 101 megacities in the world are in the path of deadly heatwaves, Healthday reported.

'As the climate warms, the number and intensity of heat waves increases,' said lead researcher Tom Matthews. He's an applied climatologist at Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom.

'Research has shown this to be the case for the global warming experienced to date, and our research is the latest to show that we can expect even larger increases as the climate continues to warm,' Matthews said.

The researchers' analysis had revealed that the number of megacities experiencing or set to experience deadly heat waves have doubled with only 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5C) of warming  lower than the requirement in the Paris Agreement.

Experts have also suggested that the most populated cities in Pakistan and India will feel it more and worse than the event that occurred in 2015  more than 3,000 people died from heat stress.

The analysis revealed that the number of megacities experiencing or set to experience deadly heat waves have doubled with only 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5C) of warming. Pictured is New Delhi, India during a heat wave that swept the country in 2015

However, these cities are said to still be at risk regardless if global warming is stopped using the Paris goals and the events could happen every year.

Megacities are believed to experience deadly heat waves because of the heat-absorbing asphalt and concrete and the millions of people that call those places home, explained Dr. Georges Benjamin, director of the American Public Health Association.

And the reason major US cities are not hit as hard is because these areas have response plans to address deadly heat waves, Benjamin continued.

More than 350 million people living in 'megacities' will be hit with deadly heat waves every year, regardless if nations reach climate change targets, researchers have warned. Pictured is New Delhi, India during a heat wave, it was so hot the pavement was melting

THE PARIS AGREEMENT Its key points include:  Limiting the rise in global temperatures to 2C above pre-industrial levels, with an eye to making it more like 1.5C  Introducing a five-year review system to increase ambition on cutting emissions  Funding for poorer countries It also calls for achieving a balance between man-made emissions and the Earth's ability to absorb them by the second half of this century. A previous draft included a section on 'loss and damage' - an issue pushed by small island nations and vulnerable countries who wanted the deal to recognise there are some impacts of climate change they cannot adapt to. However, an adjoining decision linked to the agreement in the final draft said the loss and damage article 'does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation'. Wealthy nations will, however, need to continue to provide financial support for poor nations to cope with climate change, the report said. Advertisement

To understand how climate change impacts heat stress on humans, the team from Liverpool John Moores University used global warming models and examined how 'global temperature change could affect heat stress projections in the world's largest cities,' reported Healthday.

And following the tests, the team determined that there is a high probability more land surface area will be exposed to lethal heat waves.

Cities are said to still be at risk regardless if global warming is stopped using the Paris goals and the events could happen every year. An Indian farmer sits in his dried up land in gauribidanur village, close to Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh during a heat wave in 2015

But, even though the US has more advanced procedures to dealing with these events, the researchers warn they are note in the clear and should 'expect more frequent and intense heat waves'.

The US National Weather Service found that 45 Americans died from extreme heat in 2015 and more than 9,000 have died from heat-related causes since 1979, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.
The US Army is set to get new helmets that are far lighter, and just as strong, as those currently in use.

The new design relies on ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene, which is roughly 22 percent lighter.

Experts say the material can deflect a 9mm handgun round and various shell fragments, allowing soldiers to perform more efficiently without cutting back on protective equipment.

The US Army is set to get new helmets that are far lighter, and just as strong, as those currently in use. The new design relies on ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene, which is roughly 22 percent lighter

On Tuesday, the Army awarded a contract to Revision Military in Vermont for its Advanced Combat Helmet Generation II design.

The contract calls for the production of up to $98 million in helmets over the next five years.

According to the Army, the new helmet will be made from a material that is lighter than Kevlar, but just as strong.

The weight reductions will vary based on the size of the helmet.

In the most common size, a large, the ACH Gen II will weigh just under 2.5 pounds  roughly 12 ounces less than the current design.

And, the extra-large fit will see the most dramatic reduction, shaving nearly a pound off the load.

This will help to reduce soldiers fatigue, and help them stay alert, according to Program Executive Office Soldier officials.

US ARMY SET TO GET DRONE-KILLING LASERS Lockheed Martin has completed the design, development and demonstration of a radical 60 kW laser weapon for the U.S. Army. In testing earlier this month, the Lockheed Martin laser produced a single beam of 58 kW, representing a world record for a laser of this type. A rendering of a truck mounted 60 kW laser weapon system for tactical U.S. Army vehicles. Lockheed Martin has revealed it has completed the design, development and demonstration of a radical 60 kW laser weapon for the U.S. Army. Army bosses hope the radical weapon will give protection against threats such as swarms of drones or large numbers of rockets and mortars, and says it could one day be installed on military planes, helicopters and ships. Lockheed Martin's laser is a beam combined fiber laser, meaning it brings together individual lasers, generated through fiber optics, to generate a single, intense laser beam. This allows for a scalable laser system that can be made more powerful by adding more fiber laser subunits. Advertisement

In turn, the officials say the lighter helmet will help soldiers to perform more effectively, and even increase their overall survivability.

The Army is also working to implement a new head, neck, and face protection system, which is expected to become available in 2020.

Known as the Integrated Head Protection System, it will have an enhanced helmet, a visor, a mandible that protects the lower jaw, and a ballistic applique that fits over the base of the helmet, according to the Army.

In the most common size, a large, the ACH Gen II will weigh just under 2.5 pounds  roughly 12 ounces less than the current design. And, the extra-large fit will see the most dramatic reduction, shaving nearly a pound off the load

And, theyre developing better-fitting body armour to address the smallest stature of soldier to the biggest.

This includes a better fit for women, officials said.

What weve been able to find through testing recently is that we have the same level or greater protection for up to 26 percent less weight, said Brig. Gen. Robert L. Marion, deputy of acquisition and systems management for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology.

And thats weight that we cant off-board to a mule or something else.

The Army is also working on next-generation vehicles with lighter armour.
Back in the 1960s, a lot of people thought that abroad was a hazardous place where it was dangerous to drink the water, food might be cooked with nasty ingredients such as garlic and olive oil, and the plumbing was likely to be deficient.

For the hesitant Mediterranean traveller, Malta was a beacon of hope and comfort. This was a country that had red post boxes and traditional British telephone kiosks.

Road signs were in English and people drove on the left- hand side of the road.

Star attraction: Basilica St George in Gozo's capital Victoria

Getting there may have involved a three-hour flight  the island sits below Sicily  but it could seem to the determined Anglophile that they had barely left the UK.

Apart from the blazing hot summer sun, of course.

However, what made the island seem such a good bet 50 years ago gradually began to work against it: as people became more confident about foreign travel, the idea of choosing somewhere familiar started to lose its appeal.

A new generation of travellers werent avoiding garlic and olive oil: they were buying it regularly from their local supermarkets.

So, from being a staple of the package holiday business, Malta slipped down the charts.

To the islands credit, in the past decade or so it has substantially reinvented itself as a holiday destination that appeals to the more thoughtful traveller looking for history, culture, beauty and charm.

For the first-time visitor the most impressive aspect of Malta is its history and the wealth of historic buildings, particularly those connected with the Knights of St John. Maltas archaeological treasures boast some of the oldest buildings in the world.

Maltas archaeological treasures boast some of the oldest buildings in the world

Perhaps, however, Maltas real ace in the pack is the smaller neighbouring island of Gozo, reached by a regular ferry service.

This is a destination that has become extremely popular with holidaying celebrities. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were regular visitors and the island is often used as location for film-makers.

One way in which the islands tourist board is hoping to lure more visitors is by publicising the extensive list of festivals, feasts, carnivals and commemorations that take place on Malta  more than 250 events every year.

One of the best known is the Valletta International Baroque Festival, which attracts all the big names in classical music.

If youre not sure about taking a longer holiday here, try a short break.

There are lots of excellent affordable small hotels and the island is served by budget airlines.
How refreshing it is that Theresa May enjoys walking holidays in the Alps. It makes a change from some recent younger prime ministers who, perhaps driven by demanding wives and grasping children, favoured glitzier locations.

My wife and I have left our four (grownup) offspring behind to go walking in the hills of Slovenia, birthplace of America's new First Lady, from the capital Ljubljana to Trieste in Italy. We are with another couple in a similar situation.

I'm a slow walker (family motto: On Slow) and I tend to be left behind on uphill stretches.

Balkan beauty: Lake Bled in Slovenia is the perfect location for a leisurely walking tour

On one occasion, after my wife and friends have disappeared over the horizon, I rest on a bench in a village when a nice man indicates with a twisting of his left hand and a thumbs up on his right that I might be in need of a drink.

How right he is. He takes me to a cellar at his house where he has rows of stainless steel vats. He pours a glass of white wine for me and one for himself, shortly followed by a second one for each of us, and proudly hands me a bottle of his best.

Then he shows me his allotment, with its huge tomatoes and melons, and I help him dig some radishes. I am presented with a bottle of fortified red wine -s g d e for my efforts.

My wife reappears, asking what I am doing. Working, I explain  and being paid for it, too.

Sweet incentive: James's walk around the lake was rewarded with cream cakes

We resume our trek weighed down by my two bottles. In no time, I am left behind again, so I stop to help a man dig up some potatoes. He rewards me with a bag of them.

Our two other friends return and are astonished that one of the peasants working the soil is me. We are soon on our way again, though this time I have the additional burden of a sack of spuds.

Mercifully, it starts to rain heavily and we all take refuge in a bus shelter where the bottle of white is consumed, reducing my baggage. Sadly, we don't have a gas stove on which to cook the potatoes.

Our itinerary has been organised by On Foot Holidays, though it is highly flexible and we do our own thing.

A driver takes our luggage from one night's stay to the next. He will also transport anyone suffering from sore feet.

After a night in Ljubljana, we are taken to Lake Bled for a four-mile walk around its circumference rewarded by cream cakes, a local delicacy.

Take a hike: Walking through the hills helps to to burn off the hearty dinners and local wines

Our driver gives us a rundown on local politics. Slovenians are not greatly exercised by the on Balkan war, but slightly cheesed off by Croatia cutting them off from places further south.

We cover ten miles a day for five days. The paths are marked with yellow arrows and lines and alternative routes can be arranged if the going becomes too steep.

There was a thought that we might lose weight in a week of rigorous exercise, but such are the tasty meats and cheeses, fruit and wine, that it works out quite differently.

We are given huge breakfasts, packed lunches and six-course dinners in restaurants that have cellars stocked with local wine.

Consistently eating too much at breakfast means my lunches begin to accumulate, so I am eating Tuesday's smoked ham, dried sausage and tomatoes on Friday, and am still well stocked on the flight home.

The terrain is mostly grassy or shady woodland tracks. We stay in farmhouses and guest houses and stop for picnics by hilltop churches, learning about their colourful histories from Roman to Communist times.

Hilltop beauty: The castle and cave at Postojna also rank as must-see Slovenian sights

Arriving in Trieste, we take a spectacular tram ride to the harbour and arrive in the main square, where there is a statue of the Irish author James Joyce.

There are hundreds of people watching a big screen.

The compere spots me in my red trousers, turquoise shirt and yellow braces, and notes I do not belong to the suave, sophisticated Italian crowd.

He runs towards me with a microphone as my picture comes up on the screen. 'Why you wear red trousers and yellow braces?' he demands. 'Because they were on the floor when I got out of bed this morning in the hills of Slovenia,' I reply. Wild applause. What a magnificent welcome after such a long and pleasant walk.
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Over 220,000 people entered the 2017 Sony World Photography Awards, which means that those who achieved top honours are very talented indeed.

Here MailOnline Travel showcases some of the pictures that triumphed in the open competition, which received entries from both amateur and professional photographers.

They include winners of themed categories, such as nature and wildlife, and some that came first, second or third in the National Awards  where Sony rank photographers within their own countries.

Feast your eyes below on one of the most incredible pictures of a breaching whale youre ever likely to see.

Then theres the pair illuminated in a sea of red as they take a selfie at a rock concert  a stunning snap.

Scroll down for a sensational selection of open winners and runners-up from the Sony awards. The professional winners are announced on April 20.

An elderly Chinese fisherman in his traditional clothes casts his net from a bamboo boat, with two cormorants ready to catch the fish. National Awards, 1st place, Saudi Arabia

Called Whale Dance, this jaw-dropping image of a breaching whale landed John Tao a third-place rosette for China in the National Awards

The Colombian water polo team surge forward in an image that landed Camilo Diaz first prize in the open 'motion' category

Illuminating: Jelena Jankovic caught two people taking a selfie at a Massive Attack concert in Croatia

Using a long-exposure, Homare Hamada catches a satellite being launched by rocket, left, while on the right, the Milk Way hangs over a lake in Bulgaria

Roy's cafe, a gas station and a motel in Amboy, California, on Route 66, shot as part of a series on roadside America

Beautiful: Untouched woodland in the Balkan mountains, photographed in the autumn of 2016

This atmospheric picture earned Emmad Mohammed Ahmed Elhag a second-place rosette in the Qatar National Awards

Zebras and a giraffe hurtle across the landscape in Africa in a majestic picture by Mohammad Alnaser from Saudi Arabia

Chiseled landscape: A woman watching a sunrise at Mu Cang Chai Rice Terrace in northwest Vietnam

Called Mystic Island, this picture was taken on a cold winter's day after a snow fall

A beautiful misty morning at the base of a mountain located in Gangwon Province in South Korea

Mist-ful thinking: A magically foggy night in Estonia captured by Hendrik Mandla

This image was taken at the Bombo Quarry in Kiama, New South Wales, Australia. Photographer Federico Rekowski said: 'I always wanted to take a photograph that reflects the movement of the water and bring the viewer into the image following the movement'

Gentoo penguins hunting in the icy cool waters of Antarctica. This image was deemed worthy of third for Nadia Aly for the US category in the National Awards

This picture - Light From Above - was taken in September 2016 in Santa Maddalena in Italy

Photographer Linda Cutche said: 'I had heard so much about this famous tree in Lake Wanaka [in New Zealand]. Although this scene had been photographed by many, I was artistically challenged to take my own version. The idea was to go on an early morning venture and get a good spot before the sun rose, capturing the glory of an amazing sunrise showering the tree in a golden light'

Branching out: This tree-climbing lion was spotted in Lake Nakuru National Park in Kenya in September 2016

Awaji Island in Japan has never looked more serene and magical

This image of an egret was taken in Chitwan National Park in Nepal in August 2016. 'The bird soaring elegantly through the white sky almost looked like a ballerina performing on a stage,' said photographer Shashanka Chitrakar

A peregrine falcon is captured here dramatically catching a prey bird by photographer Markus Varesvuo

This incredible image was captured off the coast of the island chain of Vava'u in the Kingdom of Tonga

Photographer Moin Ahmed caught 'curious blurring eyes' staring out of a train at Tongi Railway Station in Bangladesh
Imagine waking up in a lavish retreat overlooking a tropical resort.

Rather than keeping this paradise a secret, your task for the day is to share your experiences on social media.

Not only that but youll be sampling 12 different holiday homes across the globe and youll get paid 24,000 ($30,000) for the privilege.

The company is seeking a blogger to travel to multi-million dollar vacation homes to write about and photograph their stay (file image)

This dream job has been advertised by US-based Third Home, a travel club for second home owners to exchange luxurious holiday properties.

The company is seeking a blogger to travel to multi-million dollar vacation homes to write about and photograph their stay.

The three-month stint will see the lucky candidate stay in up to 12 different homes.

The job advertisement states: Your travels will take you to some of the most desired resorts and homes across the globe.

At each location the employee is expected to create engaging blog and video content to promote the brand.

The three-month stint will see the lucky candidate stay in up to 12 different homes (file image)

The company is looking for someone who has experience in social media, writing, blogging, vlogging and the ability to tell a great story and promote our brand through eloquent words, pictures, videos'.

They will need to understand the high-end market as the travel brand is searching for a luxury connoisseur with an appreciation for the finer things in life and a clear understanding of the hospitality industry'.

To qualify for the role, candidates need to be over 18 years old, have experience of international travel, a valid passport and a driving license.

And the chosen traveller shouldnt worry about feeling lonely in paradise as they are allowed to bring a friend during their adventure, which will take place at the end of the summer.

The successful candidate will be paid $10,000 (7,950) a month for their work and all of their expenses will be covered. The exotic itinerary has yet to be revealed.

To apply for the role Third Home is asking prospective candidates to send a one-minute video explaining why they are ideal for the role.
Going to the toilet on a plane is never the best part of a trip on an aircraft  especially if your business in there involves a No2.

Theyre tiny, for starters, and theres often someone standing right outside  so privacy isnt exactly at a premium.

However, help is at hand, because a former flight attendant has revealed the perfect times for attending to bowel movements mid-flight.

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A former flight attendant has revealed the perfect times for attending to bowel movements mid-flight

Erika Roth told Mel magazine that just after the seatbelt sign comes off and just before drinks service begins are the two most ideal slots.

She said that by going at these times you should get up to 10 minutes peace and quiet, but youll get a knock at the door after 20 minutes.

Roth added that holding on is always appreciated by those on board  if thats possible  because the stench can fill a cabin quickly.

Two years ago a BA flight was forced to return to London due to a foul odour emanating from an overflowing toilet.

Hertsmere councillor Abhishek Sachdev, who represents Potters Bar Parkfield, said the seven-hour flight was aborted because of a smelly poo in the toilet.

Cabin crew were unable to fix the problem and the smell became unbearable for passengers seated nearby, forcing the plane to turn around near Brussels and land at Heathrow Airport.

Erika Roth said that just after the seatbelt sign comes off and just before drinks service begins are the two most ideal slots

Mr Sachdev, a Tory councillor, said the flight departed on time and everything seemed fine until the captain made an announcement about 30 minutes after take-off.

He told MailOnline Travel: The pilot made an announcement requesting senior cabin crew, and we knew something was a bit odd.

About 10 minutes later he said you may have noticed theres a quite pungent smell coming from one of the toilets.

He said it was liquid faecal excrement, those are the words he used. He said its not a technical fault with the plane, and he was very adamant about that.
Samuel L. Jackson and Oscar Isaac deliver spectacular performances at every turn.

And on Monday while on the set of their film Life Itself in New York City, the duo's synchronicity was on show.

The actors shot a scene in which they hovered over co-star Annette Bening who appeared to have collapsed in the street.

Drama on set! Samuel L. Jackson and Oscar Isaac hover over co-star Annette Bening while shooting a scene on Monday in New York City for their new film Life Itself

It was contrasted by other segments in which they appeared to be in good spirits, engaging in dialogue as Oscar enjoyed a coffee.

The romance-drama tells the story of different generations of people from New York to Spain, whose lives intersect.

Olivia Wilde, Antonio Banderas, and Bening are among the A-list stars of the film, which is due in theaters next year.

Star-studded: Olivia Wilde, Antonio Banderas, and Annette Bening are among the A-list stars of the film, which is due in theaters next year

Things are busier than ever for both actors, who have a full plate of projects ahead.

Oscar will star opposite Natalie Portman in Annihilation, due in September, and George Clooney's comedy Suburbicon, out later this year.

He will also reprise his part as Poe Dameron in the next 'Star Wars' trilogy.

Meanwhile, Samuel recently released Kong: Skull Island, and will also reprise his role as Nick Fury in Avengers: Infinity War, in theaters next year.
Former Married At First Sight star Clare Verrall has slammed Cheryl Maitland's new boyfriend Dean Gibbs, calling him a 'cheat' and claiming the Melbourne plumber was unfaithful to her best friend.

The former reality TV star, who appeared on season two of the Channel Nine dating show, took to Facebook on Monday where she accused Dean, 30, of having 'two girlfriends' prior to Cheryl, 25.

'He's my friends [sic] lying, cheating ahole ex from 4 or so years ago,' Clare wrote in a comment.

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Drama: Former Married At First Sight star Clare Verrall has slammed Cheryl Maitland's new boyfriend Dean Gibbs as a 'cheat,' claiming the Melbourne plumber was unfaithful to her best friend

Speaking out: The former reality TV star, who appeared on season two of the Channel Nine dating show, took to Facebook on Monday where she accused Dean, 30, of having 'two girlfriends' prior to Cheryl, 25

'Had two girlfriends at the same time. Was bringing them both to family dinners, telling [them] he loved BOTH of them.

She continued: 'They ended up feeling something was fishy, got in contact, worked out exactly how he had been playing them & confronted him together! He was living in Melbourne then. He is a P***K.'

Clare went on to take a swipe at his criminal history.

Not impressed: 'Had two girlfriends at the same time. Was bringing them both to family dinners, telling [them] he loved BOTH of them,' Clare wrote

When approached by Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday, Clare refused to comment further.

Meanwhile Dean, who recently began dating MAFS star Cheryl, told DMA that the incident happened long ago and he has moved on from the drama.

'It was a very complicated relationship that happened years ago,' he said.

Taking a swipe: Clare went on to call the former police officer a 'dirty, coke dealing cop' while taking a swipe at his criminal history. Pictured here with her ex Jono Pitman

'I don't know why Clare's talking about this now ... Cheryl and I are very happy together.'

This is not the first time that Clare has voiced her opinion on MAFS stars' dating lives.

The outspoken blonde, who split from her TV 'husband' Jono Pitman last year, recently slammed his new romance with Michelle Marsh as a 'publicity stunt.'

Setting the record straight: 'It was a very complicated relationship that happened years ago,' Dean told Daily Mail Australia

Moving on: 'I don't know why Clare's talking about this now ... Cheryl and I are very happy together'

'I highly doubt this is true though since three different friends sent me texts and videos of him hitting on any girl with a pulse at the St Hotel last Sunday,' Clare said.

'Sounds like a publicity stunt.'

On Monday, Daily Mail Australia revealed that Dean was once convicted of trafficking drugs.

Three years ago the Melbourne tradie was handed a one-year suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to trafficking and using cocaine, as well as possessing steroids and ecstasy.

Troubled: Just three years ago Gibbs (pictured) was handed a one-year suspended jail term after pleading guilty to trafficking and using cocaine, as well as possessing steroids and ecstasy

Dean pleaded guilty to five drug-related charges in the Melbourne Magistrates Court in 2014.

His mother Karen told Daily Mail Australia her son had worked hard to build a new life for himself ever since he narrowly avoided jail.

'That is all in the past he's moved on from all of that,' Mrs Gibbs said of his criminal conviction.

'He has worked very hard to build a new life, he's got a successful plumbing business and he's very proud of that,' she said.

All smiles! The brunette beauty first debuted the hunky plumber on her Instagram account over the weekend, sharing this loved-up snap of the pair kissing while out on a picnic

According to reports, the former constable, from the North West Metro Region, started dealing drugs after his salary was unable to cover the cost of his cocaine habit.

Dean is also believed to have bikie links, having reportedly first been charged with drugs offences after he was caught up in a Victoria Police sting on the Comanchero gang in 2012.

After reportedly tapping his phones and tracking his vehicle, police had a warrant to search his house and discovered half-an-ounce of cocaine and two ecstasy tablets.

Troubled times: Gibbs (pictured leaving the Melbourne Magistrates Court in 2014) pleaded guilty to five charges

Ammunition, dealing bags and scales were also found in his home.

He faced more than 15 years in jail but pleaded guilty to trafficking and possession charges, and also failing to store ammunition appropriately.

He resigned from the police force in disgrace and took up a position as a plumbing apprentice.

Hiding something? Gibbs, now a tradie in Melbourne, has made his Instagram account private since his relationship with the MAFS star went public

After his relationship went public over the weekend, Gibbs turned his Instagram account to private.

Prior to that, Gibbs regularly took to social media to show off his muscle-bound physique, posting a number of mirror selfies and shirtless shots.

In one image he can be seen lifting up his shirt to show off his six-pack, while in another he poses without a top with a gold chain around his neck.

Moving on: Gibbs now owns and operates a plumbing business in Melbourne

'Phone. Wallet. Keys. Abs. Ready for gym,' he captioned the revealing picture.

The boss of his own plumbing business, Gibbs Plumbing, he also regularly shares pictures from his days at work.

Just four weeks ago it appeared Dean and Cheryl caught up for the first time since she left the MAFS scene, with a photo of the pair at dinners posted on his Instagram.

While Cheryl's new relationship is her first since leaving the hit Channel Nine show, it seems Dean has previously had other love interests.

Controversy: The revelations come just weeks after Cheryl found herself in controversy when pictures came to light appearing to show her snorting a white substance off of her own breast

Raid: Police found drugs including cocaine, ecstasy and steroids during a search of his house

Just like the snap of him and the busty beauty kissing that was shared on Sunday, the tradie has a number of images of himself getting intimate with other girls on social media.

Just weeks ago Cheryl found herself embroiled in controversy after pictures came to light appearing to show her snorting a white substance off of her own breast.

Verifying her appearance in the clip, the 25-year old told Daily Mail Australia it was just a 'joke' and she regretted appearing in it.

'I posted this video as a joke on my Instagram account several years ago. Looking back I now realise what an extremely naive thing it was to have done, and I seriously regret it,' she said.
Shannen Doherty has paid a touching tribute to her late father for his birthday.

The 45-year-old actress took to Instagram over the weekend to share a heartfelt message to her father John Thomas Doherty, whom she called her 'hero' and her 'mentor'.

Posting a sweet image of herself with her father, the Charmed star wrote, 'March 25 this beautiful light entered the world and left a lasting impression upon everyone he encountered'

'My hero, my mentor': Shannen Doherty paid tribute to her late father in a touching Instagram post, calling him a 'beautiful light entered the world', as well as her 'hero' and 'mentor'

She continued, 'They say you pick your family. I would pick him over and over again. Every time. My hero. My mentor.

'I'm ridiculously lucky to have had him guiding me, teaching me and loving me. He still is. Daddy I love you. Still. Always. Forever. #adadslove. (sic)'

The former Beverly Hills 90210 actress announced that her father had passed in November, almost a year after he had suffered a stroke on Christmas Day in 2009. He was 66-years-old.

She's a fighter: The Beverly Hills, 90210 alum's life hasnt been without difficulty in the years since her fathers passing either, as she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015

She said at the time, '[He was] greatest man in the world  I love him with every inch of my being and cannot imagine life without him.'

And Shannens life hasnt been without difficulty in the years since her fathers passing either, as she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015.

Recently, the Heathers star completed chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and dubbed herself a 'cancer slayer' for being able to get through her treatment.

#CancerSlayer: The star shared at throwback photo from her last day of chemotherapy, calling herself a 'cancer slayer' in the pic's inspiring caption

She wrote on Instagram last month, 'Last day of chemo. Exhausted. Now that I'm done with chemo and radiation, the waiting game is here.

'Waiting for test. Waiting to see if I'm clear or not. Waiting for reconstruction. Waiting. I think when one gets cancer, they are always waiting to a certain extent. To those who know... I'm waiting with you. #cancerslayer (sic).'

And Shannen previously admitted she was frightened to undergo radiotherapy, and during her first session she was tempted to run away.

Facing her fears: The star was open about how much radiation frightened her before beginning treatment, tagging the November post '#RadiationMondaySucks'

The former Dancing With The Stars contestant said, 'First day of radiation treatment. I look like I'm about to make a run for it which is accurate.

'Radiation is frightening to me. Something about not being able to see the laser, see the treatment and having this machine moving around you just scares me.

'I'm sure I'll get used to it but right now.... I hate it,' then adding the tags '#radiation', '#radiationmondaysucks', '#stillfightinglikeagirl (sic).'

Fighting for a cause: The Tenessee native is a huge animal rights activist and recently appeared on Capitol Hill in Washington DC to fight for a piece of animal rights legislation (photographed above)

In addition to challenging her own with bravery, Shannen stands up for the causes she believes in.

The Tennessee native is a huge animal rights activist and last Tuesday appeared in Washington DC to support House bill HR 1406, also known as the Dog and Cat Meat Trade Prohibition Act.

She is also a proud supporter of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
She just recently filed for divorce from her husband Romain Dauriac but that hasn't stopped the action star beauty from revealing her crushes.

During an appearance on The Howard Stern Show on Monday Scarlett Johansson, 32, revealed to Howard who her celebrity crushes were and also that she's been turned down before.

Howard said to her: 'Who wouldn't want to be with you?'

Getting candid: Scarlett Johansson, 32, revealed to Howard Stern who her celebrity crushes were and also that she's been turned down before

The modest blonde beauty quickly replied: 'I mean, there's an ass for every seat.'

She then went on to say: 'Honestly, I'm like somebody who likes Gordon Ramsay,' she said to Howard's surprise.

She won't have much luck with 50-year-old Gordon who has been happily married to his wife Tana since 1996, however there was a second guy on her list.

She did reveal her second celebrity crush is yet another TV chef: 'Or Anthony Bourdain. There's a running theme,' she continued.

She likes her chefs! She then went on to say: 'Honestly, I'm like somebody who likes Gordon Ramsay [...] Or Anthony Bourdain'

She added: 'There's a running theme.'

Johansson recently filed for divorce from Romain, who she has three-year-old daughter Rose with.

However the actress recently said she would 'never' discuss her divorce for the sake of her young daughter.

She said in a statement released earlier this month: 'As a devoted mother and private person and with complete awareness that my daughter will one day be old enough to read the news about herself, I would only like to say that I will never, ever be commenting on the dissolution of my marriage.'

End of an era: Scarlett has asked for primary custody of their three-year-old daughter Rose

'Out of respect for my desires as a parent and out of respect for all working moms, it is with kindness that I ask other parties involved and the media to do the same. Thank you.'

It was previously reported Scarlett has asked for primary custody of their three-year-old daughter Rose, but Romain is desperate to leave America and move back to his home town in France with his child following the split.

The dark-haired hunk's attorney, Harold Mayerson, has revealed a few details about his plans for the future.

He said: '[Romain] would like to move to France with his daughter and Ms. Johansson does a lot of traveling.

'It will be an interesting process.'
Jodie Sweetin's former fiance Justin Hodak has been arrested for allegedly violating a restraining order requiring him to stay away from the Fuller House star on Monday.

It follows hot on the heels of the actress calling emergency services after he threatened suicide after she ended their engagement on Friday.

He was collared in the upmarket Sherman Oaks area of Los Angeles after the actress became suspicious about a car parked outside her house.

Arrested: Jodie Sweetin's ex fiance Justin Hodak, here in Hollywood last year, has been arrested for allegedly violating a restraining order against her

According to TMZ officers saw Hodak drive by just feet from her home after they arrived, which prompted them to pull him over and arrest him.

It was previously reported the 35-year-old actress had a massive argument with her former flame which lead to their split and her obtaining the restraining order on Thursday.

She ended up calling police after he claimed he wanted to kill himself

Hodak was infuriated when he stormed out of their home and Sweetin told cops he had a gun in one of the bedrooms.

Dramatic breakup: Jodie Sweetin called 9-1-1 when her now ex-fiance Justin Hodak threatened suicide after she ended their engagement on Friday, according to TMZ; pictured January 8

Since Hodak is a felon, possession of a gun is illegal and he was immediately arrested by police once returning home.

However, the writer and producer bailed out several hours later.

A reason was not given for the split with Hodak, 39, but a spokesperson told People, 'She appreciates everyones understanding for their need for privacy at this time.'

Former flames: On March 11 he was with the actress and her two daughters at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards

Less than two weeks ago on March 11, he accompanied Sweetin, 35, and her two daughters on the red carpet at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards.

The Dancing With The Stars alum announced her engagement to Hodak with a picture of the stunning proposal ring on Instagram in January 2016.

'So... Looks like the cats outta the bag! Haha! I'm so happy and he did a GREAT job with the ring! Good taste @justinhodak_ I love you!!' she captioned the image.

'He did a GREAT job!': The Dancing With The Stars alum announced her engagement to Hodak with a picture of the stunning proposal ring on Instagram in January 2016

Hodak, like Sweetin, is a recovering drug addict and the couple dated for two years before announcing the news.

The former child star married her first husband, LA police officer Shaun Holguin in 2002 but divorced in 2006.

She has a daughter, Zoie with ex-husband Cody Herpin, who she divorced in 2010 after nearly three years of marriage.

Sweetin also shares daughter Beatrix with her ex Morty Coyle, who she filed for separation from in June 2013.
She attributes her youthful looks to being sunphobic, aquaholic and a lover of fat.

And Nigella Lawson, 57, proved she seems to have the key to the fountain of youth as she enjoyed a night out in London on Monday evening with her daughter Cosima Thomasina Diamond, 23.

The pair showed off the family resemblance as they enjoyed a night out at the theatre.

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Girls' night: Nigella Lawson was enjoying an evening out with her 23-year-old daughter Cosima on Monday

The 57-year-old TV chef looked incredibly chic in head-to-toe black which helped show off her slender physique while also displaying her dewy complexion.

Nigella looked typically flawless for her night out, although she shunned her uniform of wiggle dresses and Vivienne Westwood bodycon in favour of a low-key style.

She wore skin-tight black jeans which made the most of her long legs while cinching in a black wool coat at her tiny waist.

Boosting her height was a pair of wedged knee-high boots which upped the sex appeal of the ensemble - atop her chic designer handbag to match.

Stunning: Nigella proved she seems to have the key to the fountain of youth with her ageless good looks were on display for all to see

Keeping things pared-back, her make-up was extremely minimal while she wore her chestnut tresses in bouncy waves falling over her shoulders.

Nigella was enjoying an evening out with her 23-year-old daughter Cosima.

Cosima, whose father John Diamond died in 2001 - matched her mother's low-key style in black, leaving her curly locks loose and showing off the family resemblance.

Nigella also has a son Bruno, 21, with her first husband John.

Hot stuff! The 57-year-old TV chef looked incredibly chic in head-to-toe black which helped show off her slender physique while also displaying her dewy complexion

Beauty: Nigella has always been candid about her youthful good looks, as she is widely praised for her sensational skin and phenomenal figure

Nigella has always been candid about her youthful good looks, as she is widely praised for her sensational skin and phenomenal figure.

In 2012 the stunning star discussed the secrets to her incredibly ageless look - with some classic and unheard of details to her vivacious appearance.

She said: 'Im a great believer in fat. My view is, its a moisturiser from the inside. Im also a bit of an aquaholic.

All the water! She said: 'Im a great believer in fat. My view is, its a moisturiser from the inside. Im also a bit of an aquaholic'

'My doctor once told me I was drinking too much water, at least three litres a day.

'But I think eating proper food is very important. I dont like this habit of demonising some foodstuffs and venerating others, but I do think on the whole that your skin and your body and your mind are happier with real food and not processed bits of cardboard.

'Theres always room for a bit of junk food from time to time, but I think you really need proper food to feel properly alive.'

Like mother, like daughter: Nigella and her daughter both kept their outfits low key
He's the disgraced former policeman and convicted drug dealer who's dating MAFS star Cheryl Maitland.

And it seems a whirlwind past 48 hours has taken a toll on Dean Gibbs, 30, with the heavily-tattooed plumber appearing drained early on Tuesday morning.

The Melbourne-based tradie, who in 2014 was handed a one-year suspended jail sentence for possessing and trafficking drugs, was pictured rising early and smoking a cigarette before heading off to work.

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Good morning! Dean Gibbs (pictured), the disgraced former policeman and convicted drug dealer who's dating MAFS star Cheryl Maitland, was pictured rising early for work on Tuesday

Loved up: Dean Gibbs (right), the new boyfriend of Married at First Sight star Cheryl Maitland (left), is a former policeman who was convicted of trafficking drugs in 2014

On Monday, Daily Mail Australia revealed the checkered past of Cheryl's new beau, but just hours after making national headlines it was business as usual for Gibbs.

Rising shortly after dawn, the first order of the day was a trip to a local petrol station where he bought himself an instant coffee and seemingly a packet of cigarettes.

Not long later Gibbs hopped in his ute and drove to his first job of the day.

Troubled history: On Monday, Daily Mail Australia revealed the checkered past of Cheryl's new beau, but just hours after making national headlines it was back to business as usual for Gibbs

Troubled tradie: The Melbourne-based plumber was handed a one-year suspended jail term for possessing and trafficking drugs in 2014

Up early! Rising shortly after dawn, the first order of the day was a trip to a local petrol station

Coffee kick! Gibbs seemingly bought himself an instant coffee and a packet of cigarettes

While smoking a cigarette, the former Victoria Police member unloaded his tool bag from the tray of his Ute, before heading in to seemingly fix some pipes.

Slinging a bag over his shoulder, Gibbs took something else out of the tray of his packed Ute before walking off, still puffing on the cigarette in his mouth.

Dressed in heavy work boots, a pair of dirty khaki shorts, a grey t-shirt and sleeveless hoodie, it appears his troubled days in a royal blue uniform are long behind him.

In 2013, Gibbs was handed a one-year suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to trafficking and using cocaine, as well as possessing steroids and ecstasy.

Moving on: Dressed in heavy work boots, a pair of dirty khaki shorts, a dark grey t-shirt and sleeveless hoodie, it appears his troubled days in a royal blue uniform are long behind him

Off to work! While smoking a cigarette, the former Victoria Police member unloaded his tool bag from the tray of his Ute, before heading in to seemingly fix some pipes

A constable in the Victoria Police force at the time he was first charged, Gibbs faced 15 years in jail over his charges but escaped with a suspended sentence and $300 fine.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia on Monday, Gibbs' mother Karen said her son had worked hard to build a new life for himself ever since he narrowly avoided jail.

'That is all in the past he's moved on from all of that,' Mrs Gibbs said of his criminal conviction.

'He has worked very hard to build a new life, he's got a successful plumbing business and he's very proud of that,' she said.

Throwback: A constable in the Victoria Police force at the time he was first charged, Gibbs faced 15 years in jail over his charges but escaped with a suspended sentence and $300 fine

Breaking hearts? Slinging a bag over his shoulder, Gibbs took something out of the tray of his packed Ute before walking off, still puffing on the cigarette in his mouth

Revealed: 'He has worked very hard to build a new life, he's got a successful plumbing business and he's very proud of that,' Karen Gibbs told Daily Mail Australia on Monday

According to reports, the former constable, from the North West Metro Region, started dealing drugs when he was unable to afford the cost of his cocaine habit.

Gibbs is also believed to have bikie links, having reportedly first been charged with drugs offences after he was caught up in a Victoria Police sting on the Comanchero gang in 2012.

After reportedly tapping his phones and tracking his vehicle, police had a warrant to search his house and discovered half-an-ounce of cocaine and two ecstasy tablets.

Convicted: He faced more than 15 years in jail but pleaded guilty to trafficking and possession charges, and also failing to store ammunition appropriately

Troubled: Just three years ago Gibbs (pictured) was handed a one-year suspended jail term after pleading guilty to trafficking and using cocaine, as well as possessing steroids and ecstasy

All smiles! On Sunday, brunette beauty Cheryl debuted the hunky plumber on her Instagram, sharing this loved-up snap of the pair kissing while sitting on a picnic rug

Ammunition, dealing bags and scales were also found in his home.

He resigned from the police force in disgrace and took up a position as a plumbing apprentice.

But on Sunday he re-entered the public eye when his new girlfriend Cheryl, the star of Channel Nine's reality TV hit, posted a love-up snap of the couple to Instagram.

Troubled times: Gibbs (pictured leaving the Melbourne Magistrates Court in 2014) pleaded guilty to five charges

Hiding something? Gibbs, now a tradie in Melbourne, has made his Instagram account private since his relationship with the MAFS star went public

Not long after the photo of Gibbs and Cheryl sitting on a picnic rug and sharing a kiss went public, the former drug dealer turned his Instagram account to private.

Prior to that, he often took to social media to show off his muscle-bound physique, with the gym-junkie posting a number of mirror selfies and shirtless shots.

In one image he can be seen lifting up his shirt to show off his six-pack, while in another he poses without a top with a gold chain around his neck.

Moving on: Gibbs now owns and operates a plumbing business in Melbourne, 'Gibbs Plumbing'

'Phone. Wallet. Keys. Abs. Ready for gym,' he captioned the revealing picture.

Just four weeks ago it appeared Dean and Cheryl caught up for the first time since she left the MAFS scene, with a photo of the pair at dinner posted to his Instagram.

In the snap, Gibbs described Cheryl as a 'legend' and 'one of the strongest, most down-to-earth, kindest people I know!'

Controversy: The revelations come just weeks after Cheryl found herself in controversy when pictures came to light appearing to show her snorting a white substance off of her own breast

Raid: Police found drugs including cocaine, ecstasy and steroids during a search of his house

Ironically, just weeks ago Cheryl also found herself embroiled in a drugs controversy after pictures came to light appearing to show her snorting a white substance off of her own breast.

Verifying her appearance in the clip, the 25-year old told Daily Mail Australia it was just a 'joke' and she regretted appearing in it.

'I posted this video as a joke on my Instagram account several years ago. Looking back I now realise what an extremely naive thing it was to have done, and I seriously regret it,' she said.
They are once again legally married after a judge nullified their divorce.

And it has emerged jailbird Apollo Nida is hoping to net millions of dollars in a new settlement with his Real Housewives Of Atlanta personality wife Phaedra Parks.

Her husband, who is currently in prison for racketeering, is suspicious she did not disclose the full extent of their assets in the initial divorce proceedings.

Out for a peace of the cake: Jailbird Apollo Nida hopes to net millions in a new divorce settlement with wife Phaedra Parks

According to TMZ, he is hoping to net a big windfall from the division of property which he claims includes a million-dollar marital home, millions in personal property and several businesses.

He is also hoping to secure joint legal custody of their sons Ayden, six, and three-year-old Dylan.

The 44-year-old reality television personality's attorney's rep Steve Honig previously issued a statement regarding the incarcerated fitness trainer and his fiancee, calling the situation 'very confusing.'

As they were: Parks and Nida in happier times in 2013 before he was jailed for racketeering

Who is stalling? Real Housewives of Atlanta star Phaedra Parks believes her estranged husband Apollo Nida is preventing the dissolution of their marriage. Pictured together in 2014

Honig told Us Weekly: 'It's very confusing why a man who is engaged and enjoys frequent visits with his fiancee would work so aggressively to avoid ending his marriage.'

He continued: 'Regardless, Phaedra is reviewing her options with her attorney to determine the most efficient path toward ending this marriage so she can move forward and focus on raising strong, healthy and happy children.'

Parks claimed her divorce from estranged husband Apollo Nida was finalized on November 2, but she now must completely refile her legal documents.

Not again: The Real Housewives of Atlanta's Phaedra Parks claimed her divorce from estranged husband Apollo Nida was finalized on November 2

A judge threw the mother-of-two's case out after she 'intentionally misspelled the parties names' as 'Nita' instead of 'Nida.'

The judge also believed she mislead her 38-year-old ex into thinking he could attend hearings - according to legal papers obtained by TMZ.

The incarcerated fitness trainer - who filed his own docs on December 2 - reportedly never received documents confirming the divorce was final and was never informed of the final hearing.

Superbowl outing: Phaedra and Apollo officially separated in 2014 after nearly five years of marriage, and they have two sons - Ayden, 6; and Dylan, 3

Incarcerated: The fitness trainer is currently serving an eight-year sentence for racketeering at Fort Dix Correctional Facility where RHONJ's Joe Giudice is also serving a 36-month sentence

Phaedra and Apollo officially separated in 2014 after nearly five years of marriage, and they have two sons - Ayden, six; and Dylan, three.

Nida is currently serving an eight-year sentence for racketeering at Fort Dix Correctional Facility where RHONJ's Joe Giudice is also serving a 36-month sentence.

While in the New Jersey prison, Apollo - who laundered more than $2M - managed to woo and get engaged to Pennsylvania realtor Sherien Almufti on November 14.

'Missing bae!' While in the New Jersey prison, Apollo - who laundered more than $2M - managed to woo and get engaged to Pennsylvania realtor Sherien Almufti on November 14

According to Radar Online, his new fiancee will be included in segments for RHOA's next season and she has an eight-year-old daughter with ex-husband Derrick Copes.

'My relationship with Apollo is going wonderful!' Sherien gushed to the site.

Catch more of the Bible-quoting, Buckhead-based socialite on the ninth season of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, which airs Sundays on Bravo.
He's the beloved Australian comedian who co-hosts the drive show on KIIS FM.

And Dave Hughes has opened up about giving up drinking at age due to depression in a candid piece for the Herald Sun on Monday.

The 46-year-old penned the column to promote his new show Deluded at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, which starts on Thursday.

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Candid: Dave Hughes has opened up about giving up drinking at 22 years old due to depression

'If I was still drinking, I dont reckon I wouldve ever got on stage,' the entertainer shared in the article.

'I was depressed at the time I was drinking and I wouldnt have had the mental capacity to do stand-up comedy.'

The father-of-three said he still dreams about drinking 'regularly' and although he loved 'getting on the grog' with friends, he was never able to control himself.

Self-control: The father of three said he still dreams about drinking 'regularly' and although he loved 'getting on the grog' with friends, he was never able to control himself

The comic wrote the toughest thing to handle with sobriety is dealing with the fact your alcohol intake ceases forever.

The Footy Show star admitted he experimented with illicit substances also as a young man, but 'dropped everything' at the same time.

He described himself as an 'addictive personality' who now channels his energy fully into his comedy career.

Focused: He described himself as an 'addictive personality' who now channels his energy fully into his comedy career

One habit he hasn't been able to kick is his addiction to energy drinks.

The much-loved larrikin explained how he has to have them before any of his stand-up shows, much to the dismay of wife Holly.

'My wife sent me a photo of a tooth that had been sitting in an energy drink for five minutes, and it was dissolved, basically,' he said of her attempt to get him to quit.
She became America's sweetheart after starring in When Harry Met Sally.

But Meg Ryan was just like any regular mother as she bundled up for a girls' day out with her daughter Daisy, 12, in New York City on Monday.

The 55-year-old actress kept off the chill as she stepped out with her youngest - who she adopted from China in 2005 when she was just 14 months old.

Girlie day: Meg Ryan was just like any regular mother as she bundled up for a girls' day out with her daughter Daisy, 12, in New York City on Monday

Daisy was well protected against the weather in a long duvet coat and shearling-trimmed boots.

Meg covered her head with a black leather baker boy cap.

The Sleepless in Seattle beauty added sunglasses and carried her belongings in a cross body bag.

Being mum: The 55-year-old actress kept off the chill as she stepped out with her youngest - who she adopted from China in 2005 when she was just 14 months old

The screen star's blonde locks were in waves and fell to her shoulders, and she opted for low-key make-up as she went about her day.

The Addicted To Love star also has a son, Jack, 24, from her marriage to Hollywood actor Dennis Quaid.

Meg recently revealed her second career: home renovation.

Bundled up: Daisy was well protected against the weather in a long duvet coat and shearling-trimmed boots

Hats on: Meg covered her head with a black leather baker boy cap

The When Harry Met Sally star appeared on the cover of Architectural Digest and announced that she was selling her Soho loft for $8.7m.

The apartment is the eighth property she has renovated and she is now looking for a new home to sink her decorating teeth into.

The star said that while renovating so many apartments may sound odd to others, she thought it was linked to her lifestyle as an actor.

'I love renovating. I think it's tied to living the actor's life,' she told Architectural Digest.

'As an actor, you are so rarely in control.

'Youre always saying words that someone else has given you, standing in a room that someone else has designed, to create a reality that someone else wants to see.

'But with decorating I am in control; its a chance for me to bring my vision into the world.'
Season 12 of America's Got Talent is set to premiere on May 30.

And on Monday, Heidi Klum and Melanie 'Mel B' Brown dressed to the nines for the show's kick off event in Pasadena, California.

Heidi, 43, showed off her sculpted legs in a purple suede dress by Jitrois while Mel, 41, brought the glamour in a gold, silver and black jumpsuit.

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Looking good: On Monday, Heidi Klum dressed to the nines for America's Got Talent kick off event in Pasadena, California

All four judges for AGT will return for season 12; they include: Heidi, Mel, Howie Mandel and Simon Cowell.

Tyra Banks replaced Nick Cannon as host of the hit summer show.

Heidi slipped on a seventies inspired purple Jitrois mini, from the label's spring/summer 2017 collection.

The textured frock had short sleeves and a fitted nature, highlighting the model's slim physique.

Fancy: Fellow judge Melanie 'Mel B' Brown brought the glamour in a gold and silver jumpsuit

Legs for days: Heidi slipped on a dress by Jitrois, featuring a belt and zipper detail

Hitting the carpet in style: Heidi showed off her long legs in the short number, adding bold cheetah patterned heels to round out her look

The mother of four finished off her bold ensemble for the NBC event with animal printed heels, aviator sunglasses and gold jewelry - including chunky hoop earrings.

Mel chose a halter-style jumpsuit with gold, silver and black stripes.

The sparkling one-piece featured a chain link belt element and a low back.

The Spice Girls star added pointed black heels, silver hoop earrings, bracelets and rings - she did not wear a wedding ring.

Last week, she filed for divorce from Stephen Belafonte; they were married for almost 10 years.

Mel rounded out her look with her tresses in a high ponytail; she opted for mauve lipstick and smokey eye makeup.

She's a head turner: The mother of four finished off her bold ensemble for the NBC event with aviator sunglasses and gold jewelry - including chunky hoop earrings

Amazing: The textured frock had short sleeves and a fitted nature, highlighting the model's slim physique

Showstopper: Mel chose a halter-style jumpsuit with gold, silver and black stripes

Center stage: The sparkling one-piece featured a chain link belt detail and a low back; even fellow judge couldn't tear his eyes away from Mel's ensemble

New host Tyra opted for a more dramatic look.

The 43-year-old donned sheer black lace leggings with a matching blazer, added pointed boots and a gold necklace.

The former model painted her full pout a bright purple hue with her locks styled in waves.

Smizing on the carpet: New host Tyra opted for a more dramatic look

Having a blast: The 43-year-old donned sheer black lace leggings with a matching blazer, added pointed boots and a gold necklace

Wow: The former model painted her full pout a bright purple hue with her locks styled in waves

In February, former host Nick Cannon announced he would not return to the show.

He chose to leave the show after NBC threatened to fire him over racial jokes he made during his comedy show Stand Up, Don't Shoot, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Tyra was announced as the new host of AGT just two weeks ago.

For the Monday event, Howie, 61, wore a bomber jacket with jeans, bringing along a mini doll of himself.

America's Got Talent season 12 premieres on Tuesday, May 30 on NBC.

Unique: Howie wore a bomber jacket with jeans, bringing along a mini doll of himself
Last week she experimented with a faux fringe as she attended one of her very many red carpet events.

And Jesinta Franklin (nee Campbell) changed up her look again on Tuesday.

The 25-year-old revealed another new hairstyle as she took to Instagram Stories to document her eyebrows and eye makeup being done by a makeup artist.

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The model life! Jesinta Campbell gave a sneak peek of yet another new look Instagram on Tuesday after debuting a rock chic hairstyle last week

Jesinta used numerous love hearts as she captioned the short clip: 'In the chair w/ this angel @alliboyle.'

Last week Jesinta debuted a bold rock chic look in a strapless velvet black gown with daring thigh-high boots.

The model showed off a stunning set of bangs while the fashionable strapless gown showed off her toned figure and tan.

New hair! Last week Jesinta rocked shorter locks and a blunt fringe

Her hair transformation appears to only be the beginning of her new adventurous style, as Jesinta shared a photo to Instagram last week rocking a chic metallic head wrap.

She channeled old school glamour in a bandeau bra top by MaxMara and what appeared to be a pair of high-waisted pants made of a metallic material by sustainable fashion brand TOME NYC.

Flaunting her ample assets in the cleavage-baring banedau, she glammed up the look with a pair of elegant statement earrings by Yves Saint Laurent and a metallic turban by Gucci.

Jesinta wed her AFL star partner Buddy at a top-secret ceremony held at Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains last November.

Happy couple: Jesinta wed her AFL star partner Buddy at a top-secret ceremony held at Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains last November and have admitted they're not thinking about kids just yet

She dazzled in a princess-style Vera Wang gown on her wedding day, changing into a second frock for her reception.

The TV presenter revealed to The Daily Telegraph in January that the couple are in no rush to start a family and are solely committed to each other for their first year of marriage.

'When the time is right, it will be the right time,' she continued. 'No plans yet, who knows.'
Charlize Theron and daughter August are catching up on their quality time together.

On Monday, the 41-year-old star was spotted with her little one outside of their Los Angeles residence after returning home from travel through China and Hong Kong.

The mother-of-two was dressed for an inconspicuous and casual AM, clad in a dark sweater, loose tee and comfortable cropped sweatpants.

Playful pair: Charlize Theron was spotted enjoying a fun morning with daughter August in Los Angeles on Monday, looking low-key and lovely in inconspicuous layers

The South African beauty pulled her hair back while covering her eyes with cat-eyed sunnies for her morning with August.

Her little girl playfully tried to climb from her mother's arms, sporting small red vans and a heart patterned set.

Charlize smiled as she tried to keep hold of her wriggling daughter, before setting her down and letting August walk behind her mommy, before jumping in the car and heading off.

Simple style: Charlize covered up in a loose tee shirt and cropped sweatpants for the outing

Charlize is the mother of two children, both of whom she adopted as a single mother.

In 2012, the Aeon Flux star adopted a baby boy named Jackson, now six, from her native South Africa. In the Summer of 2015 she adopted daughter August, now almost two, from a family in the USA.

She opened up about being a mother in a 2015 interview with W Magazine, saying 'I do know that choosing to be a mom in my late 30's has been really great for me. Its given me perspective.'

Dark angel: The Academy Award winner made several stunning appearance while visiting Hong Kong and Beijing. Above you can see her at the third annual amFAR gala in Hong Kong (l) and at the premiere of Fate Of The Furious in Beijing (r)

The Academy Award winner in back on the West Coast after spending a week across the Pacific Ocean promoting her latest projects in Hong Kong and Beijing.

On Saturday, she dazzled in black Yves Saint Laurent at Hong Kong's gala for amFAR, the international Foundation For Aids Research.

Charlize also made a glamorous appearance in a gothic chic Louis Vuitton look at the Thursday premiere of Fate Of The Furious in Beijing, China.

The high octane sequel arrives in US and UK theaters April 14.
Her portrayal of DS Kate Fleming received high praise on Twitter following the explosive return of Line Of Duty on Monday.

But Vicky McClure admitted she has no desire to try for the heights of Hollywood in the future, as she could not live without a typically British sausage roll.

In an interview with The Sun, the actress, 33, confessed that she likes 'normal life' in Nottingham with her family and partner Jonny Owen too much to move - before joking that she could not handle living so far from a Greggs bakery.

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'I'd be nowhere near a Greggs!': Vicky McClure admitted she has no desire to try for the heights of Hollywood in the future, as she could not live without a typically British sausage roll

Vicky's career has only gone from strength to strength in recent weeks - having moved straight from psychological thriller The Replacement to popular BBC series Line of Duty.

Following the cop drama's dramatic return on Monday, the actress received an influx of compliments on social media for her powerful performance as DS Kate Fleming.

Despite her popularity however, Vicky admitted to the paper that she is not tempted to try and find fame across the pond, as she loves her life in the UK - and its selection of hot baked goods.

Happy: The actress, 33, confessed that she likes 'normal life' with her family and partner Jonny Owen too much to move - and joked she couldn't handle living so far from a Greggs bakery

Discussing the chance of a move to LA, the brunette joked: 'It would be very hard for me to move to Hollywood because I'd be nowhere near a Greggs and I don't think I'd like a life without a sausage roll.'

However she later added that she is perfectly content living in her native Wollaton, Nottinghamshire with her director partner Jonny, 45, and her extended family.

She added: 'I like normal life. I have a house, and I have my family near me.'

Vicky met Jonny on set of British comedy Svengali in 2008, which he wrote, produced and starred in alongside the actress.

Born and bred: She said of her life in Nottingham: 'I like normal life. I have a house, and I have my family near me'

The This Is England star went on to gush that after five solid years together, she can now no longer picture a life without him by her side.

She said of their relationship: 'I hope the future holds the rest of our lives together  I can't see my life without him in it.'

The couple, who celebrated the relationship milestone last month, stayed in a glamorous hotel suite at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, south Wales to celebrate.

Once again proving herself to be down to earth, Vicky described the romantic break as a 'treat' as she spent quality time with the Shameless star for their anniversary.

Loved-up: The This Is England star went on to gush that after five solid years with director Jonny, she can now no longer picture a life without him by her side

She wrote excitedly on Twitter: 'Never stayed in a hotel suite!!! It's ridiculous! I'm not complaining!!!'

However in light of her appearance as a grieving mother in The Replacement, Vicky recently lashed out at 'sexist' individuals who often question when she will start a family of her own with the actor.

Talking to Grazia earlier this month, Vicky explained: 'If this was a bloke, that would never happen. It's none of your bloody business.

'You know, whether women choose to work when they have children, whether they choose not to, whether they do a bit of both, it's nobody's business.'

Vicky is currently reprising her role in popular BBC series Line Of Duty - which saw a whopping five million viewers tune in to its comeback episode earlier this week.
Laura Prepon accentuated her baby bump in stripes while attending the premiere of a Netflix series Monday with fiance Ben Foster in New York City.

The 36-year-old actress donned a white turtleneck with black stripes for the premiere of the upcoming Netflix documentary series Five Came Back.

The Orange Is The New Black star completed her look with blue skinny jeans, tall black boots and a tan overcoat.

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Netflix star: Laura Prepon and fiance Ben Foster attended the premiere of Five Came Back on Monday in New York City

Laura had her long dark hair down and let her natural beauty shine without makeup.

Ben wore a matching brown jacket with a grey cable sweater and blue jeans for the premiere at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center.

Laura and Ben announced in January that they were expecting their first child together.

Ben revealed in October 2016 that he was engaged to the actress.

Cute couple: Ben and Laura announced in January that they were expecting their first child together

He called Laura 'the love of my life' last month during an emotional acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actor for Hell Or High Water at the Independent Spirit Awards.

'To my beautiful love of my life, Laura, thank you for reminding of the things that are truly important,' the actor said.

Orange Is The New Black will return in June on Netflix and Laura also will star in The Hero alongside Sam Elliott and Kristen Ritter.

Hollywood stars: Laura and Ben have multiple acting projects in the works

Both projects coincidentally come out June 9.

Ben meanwhile can be seen later this year in My Abandonment and Hostiles.

Five Came Back explores the World War II experiences of five US film directors: John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra and George Stevens and their frontline work.

Famous director: Five Came Back executive producer Steven Spielberg also is featured in the documentary exploring the World War II experiences of five US film directors: John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra and George Stevens

The three-part series will be narrated by Meryl Streep and features directors Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Guillermo del Toro, Paul Greengrass and Lawrence Kasdan discussing the impact and legacies of the five.

The Netflix series is based on a book of the same name by journalist Mark Harris.

Five Came Back will premiere on Friday on Netflix.

Group shot: Mark Harris, Laurent Bouzereau, Lawrence Kasdan, Steven, Guillermo del Toro, Ted Sarandos and George Stevens Jr. are shown at the premiere
Debra Messing made a glamorous appearance at Women's Project Theater's Women of Achievement Awards Gala this Monday.

At the New York event, the auburn beauty wowed in a navy gown with plunging neckline that elegantly flaunted her delicate decolletage.

The stylish Michael Kors dress fit like a glove on 48-year-old star's body, ruched in the middle to accentuate the star's slim waist and womanly form.

Simply honored! Debra Messing made a glamorous appearance in New York for the Women's Project Theater's Women Of Achievement Awards Gala Monday

The Will & Grace actress styled her luscious red tresses into a glamorous side-swept look that oozed old Hollywood glamour.

Debra paired her beautiful blue look with sapphire colored chandelier earrings and a massive ring by Stephen Russell Jewelry.

Glamming up her look with an azure smokey eye and lush lashes courtesy of makeup artist Gita Bass, the NYU alum was ready for a night in the spotlight.

Fits like a glove! The red-headed beauty stunned in a form-fitting navy gown by designer Michael Kors

The beauty of blue: The Will & Grace starlet paired her look with dazzling blue jewels by Stephen Russell Jewelry and sultry azure makeup courtesy of makeup artist Gita Bass

In the spotlight: Debra was one of the evening's honorees

Debra was receiving the evening's honors along with Ann M. Sarnoff, who has been the president of BBC North America since 2015.

The Women's Project Theater is 'the nations oldest and largest theater company dedicated to developing, producing and promoting the work of female-identified theater artists at every stage in their careers,' according to their mission statement.

The group has been called a 'An important, risk-taking organization' by New York Magazine, as well as 'enduringly vital' by the New York Times.

Special date: Debra was accompanied by her son Roman Zelman, 12, who wore a black suit with green-and-white striped tie

In addition to receiving honors around town, Ms. Messing is a mother-of-one with a full career.

The Brooklyn-born talent is starring in the reboot of her well-loved series Will & Grace with original series stars Eric McCormick, Sean Hayes and the raucously funny Megan Mullally.

The quirky sitcom will return for a ten-episode run to air during the 2017-2018 television season.

VIP: Also on hand was Broadway actress Lena Hall in a backless pearl white jumpsuit
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Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin arrived in style Monday for a chat show appearance in New York City.

The actresses were promoting their Netflix series Grace And Frankie that premiered its third season Friday on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

Jane, 79, looked chic in a pair of rust-colored bell-bottoms with a black blouse and matching overcoat.

Streaming star: Jane Fonda arrived Monday for a taping of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert along with co-star Lily Tomlin

The Oscar-winning actress had her short blonde hair down and accessorized with a simple necklace.

Jane completed her ensemble with black Louboutin heels.

Lily, 77, wore a navy blue pea coat over a black blouse along with black trousers.

The Tony Award-winning actress added some flair with a layered silver necklace.

Comedy queen: Lily arrived in a navy pea coat for the chat show

Fan favorite: The Tony Award-winning actress added some flair with a layered necklace

Third season: Lily portrays hippie art teacher Frances 'Frankie' Bergstein in the Netflix series

Lily portrays hippie art teacher Frances 'Frankie' Bergstein opposite Jane as retired cosmetics mogul Grace Hanson in the Netflix comedy.

The series follows Grace and Frankie after their husbands who are divorce lawyers leave them for each other.

The woman who didn't particularly like each other before are forced to live together as they tackle the next chapter in their lives.

Grace and Frankie premiered in May 2015 on the streaming service.

The series also stars Sam Waterston, Martin Sheen and Brooklyn Decker.

Lily and Jane have been making the rounds promoting the show's third season.

They were interviewed last week by Craig Fergson during a Sirius XM Town Hall event in New York City.

Jane and Lily also attended a season three premiere party held last week in Hollywood.
He is footloose and fancy free once more.

And Drew Barrymore's ex husband Will Kopelman appears to be taking full advantage after he was spotted dining out with a pretty mystery woman in Los Angeles on Monday.

He looked like he was having a great time as he headed for a meal in Hollywood with the casually dressed beauty at his side.

Will I never: Drew Barrymore's ex Kopelman was spotted with a mystery woman in LA Monday

Proud father-of-two Will, 39, who in the past has been noted as a 'notably dashing dresser,' flaunted his cuddly dad bod in a tight black T-shirt, jeans and trendy brown boots.

His lady friend meanwhile covered up her ample curves in a black pullover, which she coupled with red trousers and flat shoes.

While they are no longer together following their divorce last August, Will and Drew still seem to be getting along famously.

For on Sunday, the 41-year-old actress shared an Instagram snap of herself cuddling their four-year-old daughter Olive as their younger girl Frankie, three, leaned against her legs on a breezy day.

Pretty woman: It is easy to see why Will was enjoying his walk with the elegent lady so much

Notably dashing dresser: The cuddly father-of-two showed off his dad bod in a black T-shirt

Left in the shade: The dynamic duo were clearly enjoying the sparkling sunshine

She captioned it: 'Weekend vibes on a windy beautiful day!' adding, tellingly, 'Photo by dad!'

The Blended actress opened up about her divorce, her third in total, to Ellen DeGeneres last month saying: 'It was just like my worst nightmare.

'I so wanted to raise kids in this ultra-traditional way and do everything so the polar opposite of my experience.

'Sometimes the road is different than what you tried to make it ... you just figure it out and you figure it out with grace.'

Happier times: But Will and Drew, seen here in 2015, divorced back in August
She has been spending the past few days in Australia doing the media rounds with her husband and children by her side.

And Nicole Kidman, 49, was every inch the doting mother as she and Keith Urban strolled through Sydney Airport on Tuesday with their daughters Sunday Rose, eight, and Faith Margaret, six, in tow.

Nicole's children appear to have grown up rapidly since their last visit to Australia, with the girls already showing signs they are set to reach their mother's lofty height of 180cm.

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Peas in a pod! Nicole Kidman, 49, was every inch the doting mother as she and Keith Urban strolled through Sydney Airport on Tuesday with their daughters Sunday Rose, eight, and Faith Margaret, six, in tow

The girls wore matching denim vests, while Sunday Rose wore a pink tutu dress with blue leggings and brown boots.

Meanwhile, little Faith Margaret wore a blue lace dress with black leggings tucked into her brown boots.

Their famous mother made sure to look her best for the occasion, donning a sleek camel-coloured coat, a white sundress and a pair of sunglasses.

Just like mummy! Nicole's children appear to have grown up rapidly since their last visit to Australia, with the girls already showing signs that they are set to reach their mother's lofty height of 1.8m

Who's on the line? Their famous mother made sure to look her best for the occasion, donning a sleek camel-coloured coat, a white sundress and a pair of sunglasses

Cool guy: Keith, 49, also looked slick in his black v-neck shirt, skinny jeans and sassy shades

Family time: Keith, Faith (pictured) and Sunday Rose were all by Nicole's side as she did her media rounds in Australia this week

Keith, 49, also looked slick in his black v-neck shirt, skinny jeans and sassy shades.

It comes after New Idea magazine reported Nicole and Keith are 'actively looking' for a surrogate to carry their next child.

'They've decided to go down the surrogacy route and are actively looking for the right woman to carry their third baby,' the publication's source claimed.

Two of a kind: The girls wore matching denim vests, while Sunday Rose wore a pink tutu dress with blue leggings and brown boots

The insider went on to claim the Hollywood couple have been in contact with the same agent they used to conceive their youngest daughter Faith and 'are hoping to have contracts sorted in six to eight weeks.'

Nicole's representative, Wendy Day, declined to comment on New Idea's reports.

Earlier this year, the actress opened up about her hopes to have another baby with her husband.

Adorable! Meanwhile, little Faith Margaret wore a blue lace dress with black leggings tucked into her brown boots

Clucky: Earlier this year, the actress opened up about her hopes to have another baby with her husband

'I still have the faintest hope that something may happen to me this year,' she told The Mail on Sunday's Event magazine.

She added: 'Keith and I would love to have more babies. My grandmother gave birth to my mother at 49. I would be beyond happy and just welcome it with open arms.'

The Nashville-based star fell pregnant with her first biological child, Sunday Rose, when she was 41 years old.

'They've decided to go down the surrogacy route': It comes after New Idea magazine reported that Nicole and Keith are 'actively looking' for a surrogate to carry their next child

Adorable: The couple went through a surrogate to conceive their second daughter Faith Margaret, with Nicole recalling they 'wanted another child so much that it hurt'

The couple then went through a surrogate to conceive their second daughter Faith Margaret, with Nicole recalling they 'wanted another child so much that it hurt.'

Nicole is also mother to Isabella, 24, and Connor, 22, whom she adopted during her marriage to Tom Cruise.

The Australian actress was up for an Academy Award last month for her role as the Tasmanian mother of adopted sons Sue Brierley in Lion.

The movie was a box officer hit and a tear-jerking tale of an adopted boy who found his biological mother via Google Earth.

Speaking about the hard-hitting film, the mother-of-four dedicated it to her own adopted children: 'The movie is a love letter to my children who are adopted. I wanted to make the film for them.'

She previously won the Best Actress award at the 2003 ceremony for her lead role in The Hours.
Jessica Chastain never fails to impress on the red carpet.

The newly 40 star looked picture perfect at the premiere of The Zookeeper's Wife Monday.

The Academy Award Winner stunned in a chest-baring Alexander McQueen gown which couldn't help but highlight her womanly curves at the screening held at the ArcLight Hollywood.

Emerald city pretty: Jessica Chastain wowed in Alexander McQueen at the premiere of her latest film, The Zookeeper's Wife, at the Arclight Theater in Hollywood

The couture piece consisted of metallic green fabric inlaid with black velvet blooms and golden accents. Cut with an empire waist and flowing skirt, the gown complimented the porcelain skinned star's trim figure like no other.

The Juilliard alum slicked back her firey red tresses into a chic ponytail to show off dazzling chandelier earrings by Piaget.

Makeup artist Kate Lee gave the star a copper colored eye look which was both sultry and fashionably daring on the red carpet.

Precious metals: The Juilliard alum's copper colored eye look was both sultry and daring on the red carpet. She also donned stunning Piaget earrings at the event

Curves ahead! The auburn beauty's voluptuous chest was on full display in the dazzling green and black gown

The California-born beauty stars in the war drama as real-life keeper of the Warsaw Zoo, Antonina Zabinski.

The Zookeeper's Wife centers around Antonia, who saved the lives of 300 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto in German-occupied Poland by hiding them in the zoo during WW2.

Jessica, who stars as Antonina and was an executive producer on the film, was thrilled to work with so many talented women on the feature.

Team of women: The California born star called the film 'a labor of love' and especially appreciated getting to work with so many talented female filmmakers on the project. Above, director Niki Caro and Jessica Chastain pose together

'It was definitely a girls group,' Jessica dished.

The picture was helmed by director Niki Caro and written by Angela Workman, with the original source material from writer Diane Ackerman -- in addition to an all female team of producers.

'It's a labor of love for me. It's an incredible story about this great female hero that has been untold,' continued the starlet.

Prior to appearing on the red carpet, Jessica had attended a photocall for The Zookeeper's Wife.

Gorgeous in red! Prior to her appearance at the LA premiere, Jessica had attended a photocall for The Zookeeper's Wife

She donned a scarlet red ensemble for her appearance in LA and teamed a fitted tea dress with a military-inspired jacket in the same shade and nude court heels.

Her locks were styled into a teased up-do and she sported a flawless complexion thanks to her soft make-up.

Jessica, meanwhile, spoke animatedly about the new release which will see her star alongside Johan Heldenbergh, Daniel Bruhl, Efrat Dor, Iddo Goldberg and Timothy Radford.

Passionate: The actress appeared to speak animatedly about the new release

Glamourous figure! The red-haired beauty looked incredible in a form-fitting tea dress that she teamed with nude court heels

Taking centre stage: The California-born star plays real-life keeper of Warsaw Zoo, Antonina Zabinski, in the war drama
She doesn't hesitate to flaunt her curves on social media.

But while Fiona Falkiner appears comfortable posing for various bikini shots on Instagram, the blonde beauty hasn't always possessed unwavering confidence.

The 36-year-old shared a throwback image of her in a swimsuit to on Tuesday, following an emotional interview on Tea With Jules about her weight loss journey.

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Confident: Fiona Falkiner shared a throwback image of her in a swimsuit to on Tuesday, following an emotional interview on Tea With Jules about her weight loss journey

The Biggest Loser: Transformed host looked stunning in the resort capture from an earlier vacation to the Maldives, adding the caption 'Take me back!'

She stood in an outdoor swimming pool clad in a white two-piece that showed off her glowing tan and stunning frame.

Fans flocked to the photo's comments section to show their support for the popular reality star.

Journey: While she appears comfortable posing for various bikini shots on Instagram, the blonde beauty recently revealed she didn't always possess unwavering confidence

Trying times: The model recently opened up about how her self-esteem was affected when she regained the whopping 30kgs she had lost during her time on The Biggest Loser

The model recently opened up about how her self-esteem was affected when she regained the whopping 30kgs she had lost during her time on The Biggest Loser.

'I was just in such a miserable place. It was horrible. I got to a point where I was like "something's got to change,"' she divulged.

She became emotional when explaining to interviewer Jules Sebastian how due to unresolved issues from her teenage years, she was prone to gaining weight.

'It was just a really bad place and no one should ever feel like that,' she stated.

Opening up: She became emotional when she explained to interviewer Jules Sebastian how due to unresolved issues from her teenage years, she was prone to gaining weight

Deciding a genuine change was necessary, she decided to focus on something other than her weight gain and began doing daily affirmations to build her confidence.

She recounted how she would take five minutes each day to remind herself of her accomplishments.

'I'd tell myself that I was strong, incredible and that I could achieve anything,' she explained. 'It's still something I practice because it sets me up for a good day.'
Just another feather in Tyra Banks' hat.

The 43-year-old supermodel looked glamorous at the launch of America's Got Talent's 12th season in LA on Monday, two weeks after it was announced she would be stepping into the shoes of host.

Dressed in a sheer black lace suit, the stunning star posed like the pro she is on the red carpet before making her way inside.

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Suits you: Tyra Banks looked glamorous in a sheer lace suit at the launch of America's Got Talent, season 12

Tyra off-set her eye-catching look with a large gold heavy metal necklace, which helped to accentuate her cleavage.

Although covered up, her bold look left little to the imagination, with the star's dark colored bra and underpants on display through her suit.

Her honey-colored hair was worn half-up, half-down, and she wore a vibrant shade of purple lipstick.

Purple rain: The stunning supermodel showed off her vibrant shade of lilac lipstick and smoky green eye makeup

Working the red carpet: The former supermodel drew on her experience as she posed for the cameras

Baring it all: Tyra's sheer suit left little to the imagination, and her dark underwear was on display as she made her way inside

It was announced on March 12 that the statuesque beauty would be stepping into Nick Cannon's role as host of the hit TV series after he sensationally quit the show following a clash with producers.

'Since I was a little girl, I've been obsessed with grandiose acts and performers who make the seemingly impossible possible,' she said in a statement.

'I love how AGT brings that feeling into everyone's home, capturing the best of people who come out and give it their all to make those big, fierce and outrageous dreams come true.'

Happy to be here: 'Since I was a little girl, I've been obsessed with grandiose acts and performers who make the seemingly impossible possible,' she said after landing the role of host on AGT

Reunited: America's Got Talent sees Tyra once again teaming up with fellow former supermodel Heidi Klum

Her new role will see the stunning star reunited with fellow supermodel Heidi Klum, who is a judge on the series.

The two women are both former Victoria's Secret Angels, and became firm friends during their modelling days in the late '90s.

Tyra gave the German beauty a shout out on Instagram shortly after her role as host was announced.

Heaven sent: The stunning supermodels first worked together when they were both Victoria's Secret Angels in the late '90s

'Back at it again w/ BEAUTIFUL Angel @heidiklum,' she captioned a photo of the pair embracing.

Heidi, 43, shared the same image and returned the sentiment on her own Instagram.

'Reunited... and it feels so good. @tyrabanks ,' she captioned the image.

The new season is set to premiere on May 30.
His relationship with Vanessa is over on Married At First Sight.

Now Andrew Hill is having no problems picking up girls - as passengers that is - as he has taken up work as a driver for Uber.

The 30-year-old's second ever passenger has revealed that he told her the show has 'given him more confidence with women.'

He knows how to pick up! MAFS' Andrew Hill, 30, is 'driving for Uber'. Pictured with 'TV wife' Vanessa

A Gold Coast wedding photographer told the Courier Mail recently she didn't expect to hop into a reality star's car when she used the popular ride-sharing app.

The former army combat engineer reportedly wouldn't say too much because of his confidentiality agreement with the Channel Nine show, but couldn't help letting a few pieces of information slip.

The hunk reportedly revealed the experience gave him more confidence with women, because he used to be 'super shy.'

'Hes finding it hard to get used to all his Instagram followers,' she told the publication.

Helping hand: Courier Mail recently spoke to Andrew's second ever passenger, who said he told her the show has 'given him more confidence with women'

Temporary: Apparently, driving for Uber is an in-between job for the 'married' star, who is planning to climb Mt. Everest soon

Apparently, driving for Uber is an in-between job for the 'Married' star, who is planning to climb Mt. Everest soon, the Courier Mail reports.

'Hes Uber driving in the meantime  I was only his second pick-up,' the passenger said.

'It was pretty random and funny, because I hate reality TV so I had no idea who he was.'

Top secret: Andrew's driver would not reveal to his passenger whether or not the pair were still dating, a risky move given Uber's unforgiving rating system

Driving for Uber seems to be a popular side-job for reality stars, with I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! winner Casey Donovan revealing she drove for the service.

As did My Kitchen Rules competitor Tyson.

Speaking before Tuesday night's episode, Andrew's driver would not reveal to his passenger whether or not the pair were still dating, a risky move given Uber's unforgiving rating system.

On Tuesday night's episode, Vanessa dumped Andrew telling him that 'I think youre amazing and you have heaps of good qualities but its not what Im looking for in a relationship and its unfair for me to ask you to be those things.'
Fergie turned 42 on Monday.

And her husband Josh Duhamel gave her a greeting fit for a Dutchess, on social media.

The actor, 44, was joined by their three-year-old son Axl, to sing Happy Birthday to the Black Eyed Peas frontwoman.

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Greetings! Josh Duhamel wished his wife a happy birthday on Monday alongside their three-year-old son

Birthday girl: Fergie turned 42 on Monday (pictured Feb 5)

He captioned: 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY FERGIE FERG!!! Love you madly, JD, Axl and Company.'

She replied: 'I love you fam!'

Blond-haired Axl was seen holding up a sign which read 'Mommy', in front of his father.

At the close of the clip, Josh is seen handing their son a cupcake, which Axl promptly tucks into.

Sweet treat: At the close of the clip, Josh is seen handing their son a cupcake

Fergie also had her own birthday cake, which was inspired by her love of unicorns.

It featured purple icing, spelling her name: 'Fergs,' as well as delicately piped flowers in pastel colours and gold unicorn horn.

She captioned: 'Happy bday to me!!! Thanks @lasands for my cake. #urbanunicorn #thelastunicorn.'

Yum! Axl promptly tucked into the cake

Mad love! Josh held up the cupcake to the camera as he wished his wife a happy birthday

Family message: Fergie replied gushingly to her loving husband

It's hard to believe it's been 13 years since the Catholic couple first fell in love on the set of Duhamel's NBC series Las Vegas, and they celebrated their eighth wedding anniversary earlier this year.

In December, Fergie put the 'finishing touches' on her second solo studio album Double Dutchess alongside producer Venus Brown.

'I've had plenty of life experiences since my last album,' the M.I.L.F. $ hitmaker told People at the time.

'It kind of really is a 10-year reunion to The Dutchess, but its not trying to be The Dutchess: It just is all over the place because that's who I am.'

Gold star: Fergie posted a picture of an exquisite unicorn cake

Fergie hasn't performed live with her band The Black Eyed Peas since 2011, but they released a remake of their 2003 track Where Is the Love? last August for charity.

Meanwhile, Josh reteamed with his Misconduct co-star Sir Anthony Hopkins for Transformers: The Last Knight, which hits US/UK theaters June 23.
He worked with a legend, so it's only natural that Ryan Gosling might be nervous.

And when asked which was more nerve-wracking: filming a musical or working with Harrison Ford on Blade Runner 2049, the 36-year-old star admitted it was definitely the second option.

'I think the latter,' Gosling admitted to E! News on the red carpet for the opening night of CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Monday. '[Ford] is just the best as a guy, as an actor in every way.'

Nerve-wracking: Ryan Gosling, 36, admitted co-star Harrison Ford was 'the best partner' you could ask for as promoted Blade Runner 2049 at CinemaCon 2017 in Las Vegas on Monday

He continued: 'He's such a part of my childhood and he was so great how he showed up to set, just rolled up his sleeves and got to work. He was the best partner, collaborator you could have.'

The talented actor admitted the whole experience was pretty amazing since Blade Runner was a film from his childhood, having first seen it when he was 13.

'They created such a legacy with this film,' he said. 'Time has proven its specialness. So obviously we wanted to do right by him and by the original.'

He continued: 'Being on the set was surreal. It's so baked into my subconscious as a kid that in some way it had this strange feeling of coming home.'

Nostalgia: He admitted the whole experience was pretty amazing since Blade Runner was a film from his childhood, having first seen it when he was 13

Eating out of his hand: Ryan seemed to be having a great time speaking to the audience

The father-of-two who is in a relationship with Eva Mendes, also admitted while working with Ford he got a little roughed up on set.

Gosling told the site, Ford accidentally punched him in the face during a punch scene.

'Or I leaned into it,' Gosling continued. 'There's a strong chance that that's what happened. You don't want to mess with Harrison Ford.'

Blade Runner 2, which also features the original film's star Harrison Ford, Robin Wright and Dave Bautista, is to hit cinemas sooner than expected.

Taking place a few decades after the events of the first film, it is set to hit theaters on October 6 2017, months ahead of its originally planned February 2018 release.

Bewitched: Ryan could not help but stare lovingly when he caught his own reflection

Ryan plays the new blade runner, an LAPD Officer who works to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), who disappeared thirty years earlier, after discovering a dark secret that might bring an end to humanity.

Given Deckard was, in director Ridley Scott's opinion, a replicant in the first film, it seems understandable Harrison's character may be trying to lie low in the forthcoming feature.

Ridley previously explained: 'We talked at length about what it could be, and came up with a pretty strong three-act storyline, and it all makes sense in terms of how it relates to the first one.

'Harrison is very much part of this one, but really it's about finding him. He comes in in the third act.'

Getting carried away: The flamboyant star made a theatrical gesture as he addressed the crowd

Beefcake bonanza: The Canadian ham posed up backstage with fellow star John Hamm
They're busy filming Marvel's The Defenders in New York City.

And Rosario Dawson, 37, and Krysten Ritter, 35, both went hell for leather on set on Monday as they shot scenes around New York City.

Both had leather jackets on - Rosario's was tan while Krysten had on a classic black biker style - as they were joined by their co-star Mike Colter.

Work day: Rosario Dawson stood with Mike Colter during filming for Netflix's The Defenders on Monday in New York

Biker chic: Krysten Ritter was also joined by Mike Colter for filming of the Marvel mini-series

Both looked ready for action.

Krysten - who plays Jessica Jones in the Marvel Universe - was head to toe in black.

She had black biker boots at the end of her scuffed black jeans.

Edgy: Krysten - who plays Jessica Jones in the Marvel Universe - was head to toe in black

Meanwhile, Rosario - who plays Nurse Temple - looked dazzling as she accepted a bouquet of yellow roses.

She had her glossy dark tresses in loose waves, framing her pretty features.

They were joined on the set of the Netflix mini-series by Mike Colter - who plays Luke Cage - and Charlie Cox, who is Matt Murdock/Daredevil.

Set a few months after the events of the second season of Daredevil, in the movie ,the vigilantes Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist team-up in New York City to fight a common enemy, The Hand.

Bright gesture: Rosario - who plays Nurse Temple - looked dazzling as she accepted a bouquet of yellow roses

Pretty: She had her glossy dark tresses in loose waves, framing her pretty features

In tune: Rosario's was listening to her co-star as they walked down the street

Affectionate: Rosario rested her head on Mike's shoulder as they shot scenes

Having fun: They also appeared to mug for the cameras as they were spotted

Who me? Meanwhile Krysten joked about as she was spotted on set with Charlie Cox

Staying warm: The beauty was well bundled up in NYC

Dawson's Nurse Temple is one of the characters connecting the four Netflix Marvel series: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and now Iron Fist - which had its premiere earlier this month.

In that, she has more than a nurse-patient relationship with Matt Murdock's blind vigilante who became romantically involved having saved one another on more than one occasion.

Iron Fist - AKA Danny Rand - is a master martial artist and wielder of the mystical force he is named after, which allows him to focus his chi - or natural energy force - to move or strike at devastating speed, or even heal himself or others.

He and his other three fellow Marvel heroes are uniting for Netflix's upcoming eight-episode crossover project, The Defenders.
political will to impeach him-- especially among Republicans and among careerist conservative Democrats as well-- won't begin 'til he's at least where Christie is. That's what it takes for that kind of wrenching move. People aren't asking me "if" Trump is going to be impeached any longer. They're asking me "when." Chris Christie's disapproval is at 72% now . Trump's disapproval-- historically high -- isn't even in the 60's yet. Thewill to impeach him-- especially among Republicans and among careerist conservative Democrats as well-- won't begin 'til he's at least where Christie is. That's what it takes for that kind of wrenching move.





Post's first paragraph was absolutely devastating: Last night I had dinner with one of the most successful big-time, house-hold name attorneys in America and he told me he's working on collecting evidence against Trump, evidence that will eventually be used in cases against him. Those will come even before impeachment proceedings do. The big news about Nunes canceling the Intelligence Committee that would have included former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, broken by the Washington Post this morning , is leading towards the eventual impeachment case. What are Trump and Sessions hiding that caused the White House to have Nunes-- a sad and pathetic little lap dog-- cancel the testimony? The's first paragraph was absolutely devastating:

The Trump administration sought to block former acting attorney general Sally Yates from testifying to Congress in the House investigation of links between Russian officials and Donald Trumps presidential campaign, the Washington Post has learned, a position that is likely to further anger Democrats who have accused Republicans of trying to damage the inquiry.

Sessions demanded Yates not testify before Congress but she went ahead and agreed to come before the House Intelligence Committee this week anyway. Nunes "abrupt canceled" the hearing. Intelligence Committee Committee member Eric Swalwell (D-CA) was in Morning Joe today and said "this is what a cover-up to a crime looks like. We are watching it play out right now." Watch:













An independent commission is an absolute "must" at this point. When Joe Scarborough asked Bill Kristol, "They're going to have to have a Select Committee, right?," Kristen responded matter of factly, "You'd think they'd have to, but in Trump's Washington [i.e.- the swampiest swamp in the history of swamps] things that we think 'have to happen,' don't have to happen." Trump and Bannon and their regime are counting on that attitude of surrender.

As acting attorney general, Yates played a key part in the investigation surrounding Michael T. Flynn, a Trump campaign aide who became national security adviser before revelations that he had discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador to the United States in late December led to his ouster.



Yates and another witness at the planned hearing, former CIA director John Brennan, had made clear to government officials by Thursday that their testimony to the committee probably would contradict some statements that White House officials had made, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The following day, when Yatess lawyer sent a letter to the White House indicating that she still wanted to testify, the hearing was canceled.



A White House spokesperson called the Post article entirely false and said, The White House has taken no action to prevent Sally Yates from testifying and the Department of Justice specifically told her that it would not stop her and to suggest otherwise is completely irresponsible.



The Justice Department had no immediate comment.



Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said the panel was aware that Yates sought permission to testify from the White House. Whether the White Houses desire to avoid a public claim of executive privilege to keep her from providing the full truth on what happened contributed to the decision to cancel todays hearing, we do not know. But we would urge that the open hearing be rescheduled without delay and that Ms. Yates be permitted to testify freely and openly."



In January, Yates warned White House counsel Donald McGahn that statements White House officials made about Flynns contact with the ambassador were incorrect, and could therefore expose the national security adviser to future blackmail by the Russians.

Pelosi has been demanding Nunes be fired as Intelligence Committee head-- or at the minimum, be forced to recuse himself from this investigation. If Pelosi is so outraged about Nunes' behavior-- and she should be-- why does' t she order her DCCC to do something they've never done before-- mount an election challenge against Nunes. Funny thing how that works: members of Congress who have to answer to their constituents in contested elections tend to be less arrogant in the way they do their jobs. As we've mentioned over and over again, the DCCC has given Nunes a free-pass to reelection in 100% of his reelection battles. Allow me to reiterate:





The DCCC has always dismissed it as "too conservative" and has never run a candidate against Nunes-- never. He skates to reelection without serious opposition. Last year his unsupported Democratic opponent, Louie Campos, didn't even raise the $5,000 that would have triggered an FEC report, while Nunes raised $2,459,235, almost entirely from special interests; only about 1% of his contributions ($25,038) coming from small donors. The bulk of his money came in the form of outright bribes from PACs ($1,623,714). He's widely considered one of the most corrupt characters in Congress and today he's sitting on a formidable $3,177,900 war-chest, interesting in a district that the DCCC has never looked at. He beat Campos 143,333 (68.2%) to 66,802 (31.8). Yes, Campos did terribly but he took 66,802 votes spending no money and with no DCCC help. One district west and south-- CA-21-- saw the DCCC and Pelosi's House Majority PAC spend $94,400 in 2014 and $1,778,846 in 2016 (primarily on ineffective-- and commissionable-- mass media) and the two Democrats who ran spend $1,690,530 (2014) and $648,918 (2016). Now remember how Campos, with his grassroots field operation turned out 66,802 Democratic voters against Nunes? In CA-21 there were just 33,470 Democratic voters in 2014 and just 49,643 in 2016. Even with money, you only win if you know what you're doing. The DCCC has absolutely no idea and local Democrats are-- at best-- out of practice, everything atrophied from lack of use.





The district is minority-white now. Ethnically, it is 45.9% Latino, 41.9% white, 7.0% Asian and 2.5% black. McCain and Romney both beat Obama with just over 56%. Last year Trump beat Hillary 52.1-42.6%. According to the old CBO report, if TrumpCare becomes law, 87,694 Nunes constituents will lose their health insurance. That number, with the changes Ryan put through to placate extremists, is probably closer to 100,000. Now. Remember, Nunes only netted 143,333 votes in 2016, not that many more than the people who are liable tol lose their health care. The DCCC should be working on organizing and registering those voters now. They aren't.





This is on Pelosi. As Ted Lieu tweeted early this morning, "Since Rep Nunes is acting like a Trump appointee, he should apply for a White House position. There are lots of openings." The DCCC should do it's part-- even if the atrophied local party takes 2 cycles to accomplish it-- and take on Nunes electorally.








She announced on Monday evening that she will 'always love' Jeremy McConnell, just weeks after his arrest on suspicion of assaulting her.

Yet it appears Stephanie Davis had a change of heart just hours later, as she swiftly deleted the tweets before launching into a rant at her 'vile' and 'selfish' ex - with whom she shares two-month-old Caben-Albi in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Again the new mother, 24, was quick to delete the messages, but they read: 'You can only turn your life around when you want to be saved and be better for your self if not,live ur own vile selfish life & be unhappy.'

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Seething: Stephanie Davis had a change of heart hours after making kind comments about Jeremy McConell, as she swiftly deleted the tweets before calling him 'vile' and 'selfish'

She continued: 'Selfish in denial people only love and care about them selfs. U can't help people who don't want to be helped.'

'He had made the choice to block me after saviour paranoia and that's his choice not mine.

But u can't help someone who needs to help them selfs! I will always be there for Jeremy. But he now needs to help himself.'

Change of heart: Again the new mother, 24, was quick to delete the messages after her second string of tweets in relation to her ex - who was arrested on suspicion of assaulting her

The former Hollyoaks star then addressed rumours Jeremy had forfeited his place on MTV's Ex On The Beach, claiming that he did it to show he loved her and their two-month-old son, Caben Albi.

''I won't have anyone say anything bad about him. He has his own Desmond's to deal with. He decided not to fo ex for me and Caben,' she explained.

'I wish him well despite blocking after his u forgivable behaviour. When he gets hel

'Help he will see that. He hasn't family left bar us. And he treats me like this. Devastating but I'll deal with it. As always.

Impassioned: Stephanie went on a rant aimed at her ex-boyfriend Jeremy, in which she labelled him 'selfish' and 'vile' but insisted that she would always love him

She continued: 'U may call me a mug, but when u love someone your there for them. I may be worthless the way he's treated me but I believe he can be a Better person.

Despite her seething comments, she stood by her remarks that she would always love her ex, as she reasoned: 'I'll love him always and always be there but sometimes u have to be cruel to be kind.

'I hope he comes back the person I fell in love with [sic].'

After deleting the rant, Stephanie then shared: 'Emotionally and mentally drained.Time for a change. Madness how much u can help someone to just have it thrown back in your face.

'Thanks for all the support.'

Calm: After deleting the rant, Stephanie then thanked her fans for all their support

Cute: Stephanie and Jeremy shared two-month-old Caben-Albi

Representatives for Jeremy declined to comment when approached by MailOnline.

The Twitter rant came hours after she defended her ex, saying that although what he is alleged to have done is "wrong", she will "always be there".

The Irish model, 27, was taken into police custody earlier this month over claims he assaulted former the Hollyoaks actress after moving to Liverpool to live closer to his son and the star.

Hold on: The Twitter rant came hours after she defended her ex, saying that although what he is alleged to have done is 'wrong', she will 'always be there'

Stephanie and Jeremy's convoluted love story began when they starred together on Celebrity Big Brother in January 2016 before becoming embroiled in a toxic romance which ended in April - a month before she announced she was expecting.

After a bitter nine-month battle in which Jeremy denied paternity, once he was proved to be the father he swore to step up and moved from his native Dublin to be with her in Liverpool.

Earlier this month however Stephanie was reportedly 'shaken' after calling the police on Jeremy at her home. Merseyside Police confirmed to MailOnline that Jeremy was taken into custody after voluntarily coming to the station.

After remaining silent on the issue for some weeks, fans were stunned on Monday when Stephanie took to Twitter to discuss the legal and emotional woes which riddle the couple - yet soon deleted the notes.

Hitting out: In a series of now-deleted Twitter messages posted on Monday, the 24-year-old actress defended her ex, with whom she shares son Caben-Albi, saying that although what he is alleged to have done is "wrong", she will "always be there"

Speaking out: After remaining silent on the issue for some weeks, fans were stunned on Monday when Stephanie took to Twitter to discuss the legal and emotional woes which riddle the couple - yet soon deleted the notes

She penned: 'Jeremy knows he's done wrong. To do wha the did to the mother of his child, he knows isn't right...U can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. I have done all I can regardless what has been thrown in my face...

'He had made the choice to block me after saviour paranoia and that's his choice not mine. To the press, u will always love him...

'But u can't help someone who needs to help them selfs! I will always be there for Jeremy. But he now needs to help himself. (sic)'

Stephanie went on to praise the heavily inked heartthrob for deciding not to appear on 'Ex on the Beach' for the sake of her and their son, and said she refused to let people "say anything bad about him".

Reaching out: 'But u can't help someone who needs to help them selfs! I will always be there for Jeremy. But he now needs to help himself. (sic)'

Kiss, kiss: Stephanie went on to praise the heavily inked heartthrob for deciding not to appear on 'Ex on the Beach' for the sake of her and their son, and said she refused to let people "say anything bad about him"

Get help: She penned: 'Jeremy knows he's done wrong. To do wha the did to the mother of his child, he knows isn't right...U can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. I have done all I can regardless what has been thrown in my face..

She added: "I'll love him always and always be there but sometimes u have to be cruel to be kind I hope he comes back the person I fell in love with

"I won't have anyone say anything bad about him. He has his own Desmond's to deal with. He decided not to ex for me and Caben

"To prove he loves & wants to be with us. He may be horrible to me but I'll always stand by him. He has Deamona to sort of for good... I wish him well despite blocking me after u forgivable behaviour. When he gets help. Done with being abused metaly and all (sic)"
Christine Kaufmann has died at the age of 72.

The Austrian-born actress, who became the country's first Golden Globe winner, was married to Tony Curtis in the '60s.

She passed away in Munich after a battle with leukemia, her management company told the dpa news agency on Tuesday.

RIP: Christine Kaufmann has died at the age of 72 (pictured in Germany, August 2016)

Born in 1945, Kaufmann began acting in 1952 and was honoured by the HFPA in 1961 at the age of just 16 for what was her Hollywood debut.

In Town without Pity, she starred opposite Kirk Douglas as a German girl raped by American soldiers.

The following year she met Tony Curtis - 20 years her senior - while filming Taras Bulba.

In 1963 they got married, Kaufman aged 18 and Curtis aged 38.

Wife no 2: The Austrian-born actress, who became the country's first Golden Globe winner, was married to Tony Curtis in the '60s (pictured together July 11, 1963)

The Some Like It Hot star had split from first wife, actress Janet Leigh, the year before after an 11 year marriage and two children: actresses Kelly and Jamie Lee Curtis.

Christine and Tony went on to have two children of their own: Alexandra, now 52, and Allegra, now 50.

The couple divorced in 1968; after which Curtis went on to marry four more times, while Kaufman was just one behind with three more.

Starlet: Born in 1945, Kaufmann began acting in 1952 and was honoured by the HFPA in 1961 at the age of just 16 for what was her Hollywood debut

First Hollywood feature: In Town without Pity, she starred opposite Kirk Douglas as a German girl raped by American soldiers

She was wed to television director Achim Lenz from 1974 to 1976, musician and actor Reno Eckstein from 1979 to 1982, and illustrator Klaus Zey from 1997 to 2011.

Following her split from Curtis, she also resumed her acting career, which she had put on hiatus during the five year marriage; her final role was in a 2014 adaptation of Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn.

She was also a savvy businesswoman, promoting her own successful line of cosmetics, and wrote several books on beauty and health, as well as two autobiographies.

In one, she revealed she had had affairs in her 20s with Eric Clapton and Warren Beatty.
They are a super close family of six.

And the Beckhams proved how tight-knit they are with another sweet Instagram on Monday.

Romeo, 14, shared an adorable photo showing his little sister Harper, five, whispering secrets in his ear as he gushed about his close relationship with his sibling.

Sibling love: Romeo, 14, shared an adorable Instagram photo showing his little sister Harper, five, whispering secrets in his ear as he gushed about his close relationship with his sibling

The teenager can be seen sitting at a dinner table in the cute snap, as his little sister whispers in his ear while he listens intently.

Romeo gushed about the pair's bond in the caption, writing: 'So close love Harper x'.

Romeo shared a number of cute Instas on Monday as he spent time with his family.

Hard at work! Romeo shared a number of cute Instas on Monday as he spent time with his family, including one with his fashion designer mum Victoria at her London store

The teenager enjoyed a trip to his fashion designer mum's work, posing with Victoria inside her London store.

The mum of four looked sensational in a lip-print midi dress as she snapped the mirror selfie, while her middle son also dressed to impress in a denim shirt and black skinny jeans.

He also paid a cheeky reference to his mum's Spice Girls persona as he enjoyed a refreshment, showing off the fancy jug the fizzy drink arrived in and writing: 'Posh..'

Just like mum: He also paid a cheeky reference to his mum's Spice Girls persona as he enjoyed a refreshment, showing off the fancy jug the fizzy drink arrived in and writing: 'Posh..'

Insta fan: Romeo's Instagram account is flooded with sweet snaps of his family and selfies

Romeo, who has been making a name for himself in the fashion world as a model for Burberry, also made sure to pay tribute to his beloved mum on Sunday as the family celebrated Mother's Day.

'Happy Mother's Day mum xx I can't ask for a cooler,nicer and joyful mum. love u lots and lots have a great day ', he wrote alongside a sweet snap of the two.

Victoria was lavished with praise from her brood as she joined the host of stars celebrating Mother's Day in the UK on Sunday.

All about you: Romeo, who has been making a name for himself in the fashion world as a model for Burberry, also made sure to pay tribute to his beloved mum on Mother's Day

Taking to Instagram, the 42-year-old designer - who shares Brooklyn, 18, Romeo, Cruz, 11, and Harper with husbandDavid - showed off the adorable card her youngest had made her.

The cute handmade creation was written out neatly with Harper alongside a drawing and read: 'Dear mummy, I hope you have a lovely day with us. enjoy lunch you are vere spesial to me you are my best friend i hav evr met love Harper. hooray hooray for mummy [sic].'

Victoria captioned the snap: 'Feeling very loved today The sweetest card from my best friend x I love u all so much x @davidbeckham @brooklynbeckham @romeobeckham @cruzbeckham X VB.'

Cute: Victoria was lavished with praise in a sweet card from her daughter Harper as she joined the host of stars celebrating Mother's Day in the UK on Sunday

Sweet: The five-year-old also created another card which Victoria filmed herself reading whilst Harper sang along in the background

The five-year-old also created another card which Victoria filmed herself reading whilst Harper sang along in the background.

'Does it get any cuter?!?! I love my babies and feel beyond blessed x I love u so much @davidbeckham,' she captioned the snap.

David was also full of praise for his wife - as he called her an 'amazing mummy'.

Posting a black and white snap of the family looking out at the horizon, he wrote of the designer: 'Happy mama's day to another amazing mummy ...

Family fun: David was also full of praise for his wife - as he called her an 'amazing mummy' whilst sharing a snap of the group huddled together looking out on the horizon

'Someone that has raised these beautiful little ones to be the most precious , special and loved children ... A woman that has drive , passion , intelligence and love for her children what gets any better than that ??

'Thank you for giving me the most beautiful gift @victoriabeckham ( To all the mums have an amazing day ).'

Victoria also received praise from their eldest son Brooklyn, who shared a sweet selfie of the pair captioned: 'Happy Mother's Day. X love you to the moon and back.'
The high glamour of Hollywood was substituted for comparatively rural surroundings on Monday afternoon as Casey Affleck continued work on his latest film.

The Oscar-winning auteur, 41, was joined by young co-star Anna Pniowsky on Canadas idyllic Vancouver Island, where location filming is well underway on the set of forthcoming drama Light Of My Life.

Both looked suitably fatigued as they made their way across the exterior set dressed in the weather worn ski jackets and battered hiking boots required for their respective roles as a father and daughter who find themselves trapped in the woods.

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Quiet on set: The high glamour of Hollywood was substituted for comparatively rural surroundings on Monday afternoon as Casey Affleck continued work on his latest film

In keeping with his character, Casey  who also directs the film from his own original screenplay  sported the unkempt hair and an increasingly bushy beard he grew in preparation for his latest film.

With temperatures plummeting off the Pacific coast the versatile star later paused for a coffee break while giving a series of instructions to his production team.

Produced by Teddy Schwarzman, Light Of My Life will also star Tom Bower and Timothy Webber.

Side by side: The Oscar-winning auteur, 41, was joined by young co-star Anna Pniowsky on Canadas idyllic Vancouver Island, where location filming is well underway on the set of forthcoming drama Light Of My Life

Grizzled: Casey  who also directs the film from his own original screenplay  sported the unkempt hair and an increasingly bushy beard he grew in preparation for his latest film

Weary: Both looked suitably fatigued as they made their way across the exterior set dressed in the weather worn ski jackets and battered hiking boots required for their respective roles as a father and daughter who find themselves trapped in the woods

Principal photography on the new film commenced in February, shortly before the actor triumphed at the 89th annual Academy Awards for his moving portrayal of a single parent in Manchester By The Sea.

It is also the Massachusetts born actor's first notable work since commenting on sexual assault allegations that plagued him during an otherwise successful awards season.

Producer Amanda White and cinematographer Madalena Gorka, who'd worked with him on I'm Still Here, filed individual lawsuits after accusing the star of sexual harassment. Both were settled in 2010.

Break time: With temperatures plummeting off the Pacific coast the versatile star later paused for a coffee break while giving a series of instructions to his production team

We'll do it my way: The star paused to discuss direction on an imminent scene with a cameraman as filming continued in earnest on Monday afternoon

Busy man: The Massachusetts born actor is back at work after commenting on sexual assault allegations that plagued him during an otherwise successful award season, during which he won an Oscar for his role in Manchester By The Sea

Addressing those allegations for the first time, he told the Boston Globe: 'I believe that any kind of mistreatment of anyone for any reason is unacceptable and abhorrent, and everyone deserves to be treated with respect in the workplace and anywhere else.

'There's really nothing I can do about it. Other than live my life the way I know I live it and to speak to what my own values are and how I try to live by them all the time.'

While an official release date is yet to be established, Light Of My Life it is expected to hit cinemas in 2018.
He's known for giving his honest opinion about the day's issues as a host of The Project.

But on Tuesday night's episode, Waleed Aly may have revealed a little too much as he joked with his co-hosts about using the infamous dating app Tinder.

The 38-year-old quipped about sending money to an American woman using the app, after their story about her asking her matches to send her money to 'see what happens'.

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'Can we confirm you sent $5?' The Project's Waleed Aly was jokingly questioned about whether he used Tinder on Tuesday night's episode

The segment began with the hosts discussing the story of the woman, Maggie Archer, who found a surprising number of men transferred her money with the scheme, before she simply unmatched them.

Comedian Peter Helliar weighed in on the tale, jokingly calling the woman 'the Tinder equivalent of a Nigerian Prince'.

Co-host Carrie Bickmore appeared quizzical, asking the desk 'what were they expecting for five bucks?'

'See what happens': The comments were about a story where an American woman used the dating app to get men to send her money

What a scheme: Comedian Peter Helliar jokingly compared the girl in the story to a 'Nigerian prince' for her crafty ways

Slip-up: Waleed struggled to get out his comment, humorously stating he was 'expecting a photo of her left cheek'

It was then Waleed answered her, seemingly in jest, referencing a discussion from earlier about how people frame their social media photos to show-off their best side.

'I was expecting a photo of her left cheek,' he said, stumbling over his words.

Pausing, Peter then joked: 'So this is a big story - can we confirm you sent $5?'

Laughing the moment off, Waleed sheepishly replied 'I was telling you what I was expecting. I walked into something bad.'

'So this is a big story': Peter then called Waleed up on his comment in jest, asking him to confirm if he had sent $5

All a big joke: Laughing the moment off, Waleed sheepishly replied 'I was telling you what I was expecting. I walked into something bad'

It comes in the wake of the show's heavy criticism over their recent Gold Logie nominations, which came despite the Channel 10 show reportedly being among the 'worst-rated shows on TV'.

An insider spoke with The Daily Telegraph Tuesday, calling the show 'a bit of an embarrassment'.

Special guests: The team were also joined by Fifi Box, with the episode seeing them chat with Irish comedian Jason Byrne and journalist Hugh Riminton

Controversy: It comes in the wake of the show's heavy criticism over their recent Gold Logie nominations, which came despite the Channel 10 show reportedly being among the 'worst-rated shows on TV'

'It is tanking badly and the only time they get any interest is when Waleed does his publicity-grabbing editorialising that lost its zing about a year ago,' the unnamed source said.

In a statement to Daily Mail Australia, A Channel Ten executive called the criticism a case of 'sour grapes.'

'Comments about The Project and the Gold Logie nominations for Waleed Aly and Peter Helliar are nothing more than extremely sour grapes from rival networks who are bitter that their shows and talent failed to score nominations,' a spokesperson wrote.
Iris Law finally emerges from the tall shadows cast by her celebrity parents in a stunning new beauty campaign on behalf of British heritage brand Burberry.

The 16-year old model daughter of Hollywood star Jude Law and ex-wife Sadie Frost takes centre stage in a series of tastefully shot images for the designer labels latest Essentials range.

With her naturally pretty features accentuated by deft touches of highlighter, eyeliner and lip crayon, Iris fully justifies their decision to rehire her for a second make-up campaign.

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Striking: Iris Law finally emerges from the tall shadows cast by her celebrity parents in a stunning new beauty campaign on behalf of British heritage brand Burberry

The young model, an ambassador for the iconic brand, also shows off her smooth, porcelain skin in a series of candid backstage shots.

Joined by make-up artist Wendy Rowe, Iris is in visible high spirits while trying out some of Burberrys new contouring tools.

Evidently delighted with her latest shoot, the model later shared one of its glossy images with followers across social media with the accompanying caption: 'Me for #burberrybeauty thank you @burberry.'

Centre stage: The 16-year old model daughter of Hollywood star Jude Law and ex-wife Sadie Frost takes centre stage in a series of tastefully shot images for the designer labels latest Essentials range

Me again: With her naturally pretty features accentuated by deft touches of highlighter, eyeliner and lip crayon, Iris fully justifies their decision to rehire her for a second make-up campaign

The new campaign is Iris' second for the brand after being signed as the global ambassador for Burberry Beauty in January.

In what proved to be her first ever major campaign, the model appeared in advertisements for the British fashion house's Liquid Lip Velvet.

The goddaughter of Kate Moss, Iris is quickly proving that modelling runs in the family, with brother Rafferty having previously worked on campaigns for Dolce & Gabbana and Hugo Boss.

Natural beauty: The young model, an ambassador for the iconic brand, shows off her smooth, porcelain skin tone

This is how you do it: Iris has also shared a series of candid backstage images from the new shoot

Made up: Iris is in visible high spirits while trying out some of Burberrys new contouring tools

In September, the Daily Mail reported that Iris was on the verge of signing a lucrative contract with Chanel.

A source close to the teenager said: Iris has been courted by a big fashion house in Paris offering a six-figure contract.

'She is already advertising on her Facebook page that she works for Chanel. Sadie isnt stupid. Shes been a model herself and knows her daughter could make a lot of money.

By signing for Chanel, Iris would be following in the footsteps of her godmother Kate Moss, a favourite of Lagerfelds in the 1990s, along with Claudia Schiffer, Linda Evangelista and more recently Cara Delevingne.

Popular choice: The new campaign is Iris' second for the brand after being signed as the global ambassador for Burberry Beauty in January

In good company: The goddaughter of Kate Moss, Iris is quickly proving that modelling runs in the family
It's not uncommon for little girls to dream of being Barbie.

But for Bec Judd's daughter Billie it was a wish that came true on Tuesday, as she joined her mum on the pretty pink set of the latest Myer shoot.

The special mother-daughter moment was created for the famed doll's winter campaign with the store, and saw the adorable three-year-old tucking into some delicious frosted cupcakes.

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Real life Barbie princess! Rebecca Judd enjoys doll-themed day with daughter Billie, 3, as the two tuck into cupcakes as they model for shoot

The 33-year-old mum shared an image from the shoot with her 617k followers, showing her proudly watching over Billie.

The youngster looked happy to be part of the day, grinning in a pale pink outfit and wearing a toy crown on her head.

Bec, meanwhile, appeared chic in an off-the-shoulder black ensemble, which she accessorised with a chunky ebony watch and sparkling rings.

The TV presenter had her long sun-kissed locks down around her shoulders, daintily brushing them off her face for the photo.

Chic and stylish: The mum-of-four wore an off-the-shoulder black ensemble in the photo, which she accessorised with a chunky ebony watch and sparkling rings

Mummy-daughter time! The TV presenter shared a sentimental throwback snap of her and Billie swimming in freezing cold Canada

Climbing up to see the table from the booth they were seated at, little Billie reached out for a one of the sweet treats, while another cupcake lay on its side with crumbs around it.

The pair were even joined by their own Barbie in the photo, with the Miss Millicent figure modelling a long fuschia gown.

Bec expressed her joy at working with her daughter in her caption, hinting it would be hitting stores soon.

'What an amazing day shooting the new @barbie winter campaign with my little princess. Stay tuned to a @myer store near you....' she wrote

Family time: Bec expressed her joy at working with her daughter in her caption, hinting the results of the shoot would be hitting stores soon

Beautiful boys: The twins and their siblings kept Bec busy last week, but it was a girls day Tuesday

Earlier in the day the Postcards host posted another snap to social media, sporting a Barbie T-shirt and skinny jeans.

Basking in the sunlight on the steps of her Brighton home, she revelled in her love for the shirt and called on the store to bring the line back.

'How fab is this @barbie Tee? Come on @myer.... bring it back!'

New additions: The beauty and her former AFL husband welcomed twin boys Tom and Darcy last year

Bec has been all about the heartwarming posts lately, posting a cute throwback snap with Billie on a past trip to Whistler, Canada.

The Channel Nine weather reader is seen holding her only daughter, while former AFL legend husband Chris swam behind with first-born Oscar.

The pair are also parents to twins Tom and Darcy, who they welcomed last year.
She's already faced the wrath of merciless social media followers after sharing a snap of her young daughter striking a 'provocative pose' in her swimwear.

And Katie Price has once again been savaged after posting another snap from the Maldives, where she is currently enjoying an idyllic 'secret honeymoon' with husband Kieran Hayler and their five children, on Tuesday.

Taking to Instagram, the former glamour model, 38, showed off her incredibly tanned complexion in a patterned halterneck bikini, which she teamed with a hot pink sarong.

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Sun-kissed: Katie Price has been accused of using Photoshop to make her legs look longer in a holiday snap shared with Instagram followers from her current stay in the Maldives on Tuesday

With her blonde tresses swept back off her face, the mother-of-five looked adoringly at her two-year-old daughter Bunny.

But while Katie was praised by followers for her healthy complexion, many raised questions about her longer looking legs.

Commenting on the snap, one doubtful fan accused her of doctoring the image, writing: 'You have the longest calf muscles known to mankind Katie #badphotoshop.'

Seemingly in agreement, another skeptical follower remarked: 'Her legs look suspiciously stretched to me as well...'

Skeptical: Commenting on the snap, one doubtful fan accused her of doctoring the image

I'm with you: Seemingly in agreement, another skeptical fan remarked 'Her legs look suspiciously stretched to me as well...'

That's not right: 'Love her but 100% she ain't that tall,' commented a third doubtful follower

'Love her but 100% she ain't that tall,' commented a third doubtful fan.

Writing a lengthy tirade, another threw a series of accusations at the Loose Women panelist, writing: 'Wow! What an out of proportion picture! why do people still 'pander to this lady when she is so ill...

'She must be suffering (and have done for years!) some body dysmorphia... and yet she's still given influential jobs within the TV and media!??? I just don't get it... sh's turning into a parody of her former, and lovely, self. (sic)'

One disappointed fan added: 'Beautiful pic, makes me sad if you felt the need to manipulate this photo, and in all honesty, it looks like you have.'

Furious: Writing a lengthy tirade, another threw a series of accusations at the Loose Women panelist

One disappointed fan added: 'Beautiful pic, makes me sad if you felt the need to manipulate this photo, and in all honesty, it looks like you have'

Strike a pose: Katie has kept fans entertained with a string of snaps from her current holiday destination

Looking good: Others lavished the Loose Women panelist with positive comments following her latest update from the picturesque holiday destination

High praise: Many complimented the star on her toned legs

Golden brown: The TV personality's bronzed complexion was also praised by many fans on Tuesday

Others lavished the Loose Women panelist with positive comments following her latest update from the picturesque holiday destination.

One wrote: '5 kids and you look amazing #goals #5kids #kidsaremyworld credit to you.'

Concurring with that sentiment, another added: 'Legs look fabulous.'

Backlash: The mother-of-five came under fire after she shared a snap of her eldest daughter Princess, nine, posing in a floral bikini on Monday

The snap comes after Katie divided opinion after sharing a snap on Instagram of eldest daughter Princess, nine, posing in a floral bikini on Monday.

The TV personality was subjected to stream of pointed remarks which suggested her young daughter - who she shares with ex Peter Andre - was posing for the camera 'provocatively'.

Captioning the snap to her 1.4million followers, the mother-of-five simply wrote: 'Princess loving her holiday, wearing hat from @creativeedgeattire love these fur flip flops @prettybowchic'.

After she shared the snap, many of her fans came to her defensive under the candid pic which saw her darling girl enjoying their break in Kandima Maldives resort, in her swim costume, personalised straw hat and fluffy flip flops.

One loyal fan wrote: 'I don't agree with all the hate people are giving Katie for this picture, almost every picture you see online these days of little girls have poses like this!

'She's not being exploited in any way shape or form, it's the minds of everyone else that's see's it as something it's not, leave her alone for goodness sake!!!'

Dividing opinion: She was subjected to stream of pointed remarks which suggested her young daughter - who she shares with ex Peter Andre - was posing for the camera 'provocatively'

MailOnline have contacted Katie Price's reps for comment.

'Her mums a model. She's gonna do poses like her mum. People need to get a life,' one wrote. 'Princess is a gorgeous little lady and with her natural beauty will likely go on to do modelling herself.'

Before another chimed in: 'most little girls pose and have been doing so for years'.

While remarked that she was taking after her TV personality mother, with a follower sharing: 'Strike a pose. Beautiful princess takes after her mama :) defo model in the making.'

Under fire: After sharing the snap, many of her fans came to her defence

'Model in the making. Look at the way she poses?? She's the image of you Katie,' another wrote. 'I have a feeling this little one is going to take after her mummy'.

Although Katie had a strong defense, many couldn't help but air their opinion under the holiday picture and flood her comments with relentless backlash.

One concerned user wrote: 'It's the way she's standing .. provocatively. She's a child'.

'Just think that kids should be kids .. my opinion that's all,' another shared. 'Wrong ... love Katie but disagree with this'.

Soaking up the rays: Katie has been posting a series of envy-inducing snaps of their getaway on Instagram

Family break: She posted another snap of her walking along the beach with Bunny on Saturday

Katie previously received a grilling from her 11-year-old son Junior on Loose Women last year as he raised concerns over photos posted online by his mum of his little sister in make-up.

Her second eldest admitted at the time on the kids special of the ITV lunchtime stalwart that he was worried 'paedophiles will get attracted' to his sibling.

While mum-of-five Katie previously admitted on Loose Women that she was wrong to post the snaps, Junior didn't let her get off lightly.

When Junior is asked what he thought about his sister wearing make-up, he said: 'I think if I had a daughter my age I wouldnt let her post it on social media. I would let her have little kid make-up like lipstick but not in public, so no.'

He adds his thoughts on the dangers of social media, explaining to his mum: 'Say you put it on social media, lots of people like paedophiles will get attracted to her more likely, because not only is she well known, it will make her look more beautiful so they will be attracted to her and want to get to her.

'Yes it does [worry me] because I dont want to lose my sister.'
She gave birth to her second child, Indigo Esme, in August, proving a little sister for her six-year-old daughter Dixie.

And on Monday, Luisa Zissman showed just how fabulous her post-baby body is, as she took to Instagram to a share a shot of herself in a daring black lace-up swimsuit.

The former Apprentice star, 29, shared the snapshot from her sunny vacation, which she is currently enjoying with her daughters and mother, Christine Kalozois.

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Hot mama! Luisa Zissman put on a busty display in an Instagram shot she shared on Monday

She captioned the image, which showed her wearing her golden tresses in two plaits as she donned a pair of oversized aviator sunglasses: 'Holiday hair... because I can't be bothered to wash it.'

While she is yet to disclose exactly where she has jetted off to, Luisa did reveal who her travel companions were, when she shared an scintillating shot of herself wearing a red swimsuit emblazoned with the words 'Mermaid Academy'.

She wrote: 'Having a lovely Mother's Day holiday with my mumma & princesses... left the boys at home... #sunshine #easterholidays.'

Here come the girls! The former Apprentice star revealed that she's currently enjoying a sunny getaway with her two daughters and mother Christine Kalozois

Babewatch! She also uploaded an image of herself wearing a sizzling hot red bikini

Back in October - just two months after she gave birth, Luisa also set temperatures rising on Twitter when she uploaded full-body bikini photos to the picture-sharing site while enjoying a sunshine break with her gal pals.

In one photo, Luisa - married to mega-rich businessman Andrew Collins - donned a white crochet bikini that accentuated her ample assets and toned tum.

Flashing a beaming smile and shielding her eyes from the sun with some oversized shades, she captioned the snap: 'Current situation, nursing hangover with iced coffee home tomorrow to my babies been a short but sweet break.' (sic)

Friends reunited: Last month, she revealed that she was shooting with former Celebrity Big Brother castmate Sam Faiers in Los Angeles

The star also showcased her figure in another selfie taken from above and in another where she donned a very jazzy swimsuit.

She captioned the snap: 'Love this bikini hiding a multitude of sins! (Mainly my mummy tummy!) haha'.

Speaking to OK! magazine, ahead of the birth of her second child, she said: My dream is to have four daughters who are all really into horse riding, like me. Im not sure Id know what to do with a boy!

The beauty, who hails from Milton Keynes, gave birth to Indigo Esme back in August. Her daughter Dixie is from her previous marriage to Oliver Zissman.

Glamorous: In October, she shared a series of raunchy Instragram snaps as she showcased her incredible post-baby figure

At first she didnt believe me. I gave her a book called Im Going To Be A Big Sister and she kept looking at me saying: "Youre joking?!" She was so excited. It was the cutest thing,' Luisa said.

But young Dixie wasn't so enthusiastic about the idea of a younger sister.

She was adamant she wanted a brother but Ive bought a few matching outfits for her and the baby, so shes coming around to the idea.

The star also opened up about giving up her beloved horse riding for the last stages of her pregnancy as a result of her hypermobility.

Racy: The star also showcased her figure in another selfie taken from above and in another where she donned a very jazzy swimsuit

Yummy mummy: She captioned another snap, 'Love this bikini hiding a multitude of sins! (Mainly my mummy tummy!) haha'

She said: I carried on riding until I was six months along, but I was in agony.

'Every time I got off the horse Id have to have a massage straight away. If I had my way I would have kept riding throughout my pregnancy.

Luisa started dating her husband Andrew Collins in late 2013, a few months after she found fame on The Apprentice.

The business tycoon proposed to her with a 1.5million ring in Paris in October 2014 before they tied the knot in France in July of the following year.
She was seen enjoying a night out with her ex-girlfriend, musician St. Vincent, last week - six months on from their shock split.

And it looked as though love was in the air of Cara Delevingne as she held a single red rose while strolling out of celebratory dinner for her new sci-fi movie, Valerian and The City of a Thousand Planets, in Los Angeles on Monday.

The model-turned-actress, 24, cut a relaxed figure as she strutted out of a Hollywood eatery while carrying a romantic gift - perhaps from a secret admirer.

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Leggy lady: Cara Delevinge, 24, was gifted a single red rose as she left a celebratory dinner for her new sci-fi movie, Valerian and The City of a Thousand Planets, in Los Angeles on Monday

Although Cara was joined by model pals Kendall Jenner and Lily Donaldson, she managed to ensure all eyes were on her as she wore a tiny, thigh-skimming frock.

The British beauty used the streets as her own personal catwalk as she headed to a waiting vehicle, while her gal pals looked like they were making the most of their girls' night out.

Kendall, 21, and Lily, 30, were giggling as they propped each other up, before continuing their wild night elsewhere.

Earlier in the evening, Cara looked in high spirits as she promoted her latest sci-fo film while making her way into the private screening.

Ooh la la: The model-turned-actress, 24, cut a relaxed figure as she enjoyed a girls' night out with supermodel pals Kendall Jenner, 21, and Lily Donaldson, 30

Movie star: Earlier in the evening, Cara looked in high spirits as she promoted her latest film while making her way into the private screening

The Paper Towns actress wore a futuristic looking ensemble, complete with latex hemlines and bold shoulder pads.

Cara opted for an edgy asymmetrical dress which gave an eyeful of her incredibly long and lithe pins, which were further accentuated with pointy black stilettos.

The eye-catching ensemble was perfectly matched with her newly-dyed platinum blonde hair.

Fellow model Kendall also attended the private screening in support of her friend.

The younger sister to Kim Kardashian wore a chic satin wrap-dress, which accentuated her slender and statuesque figure.

All eyes on her: The Paper Towns actress wore a futuristic looking ensemble, complete with latex hemlines and bold shoulder pads

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is due in US theaters on 21 July 2017.

Just this past Friday night Cara was put in an awkward position by Graham Norton as he hosted a Red Nose Day event.

And while chat covered a variation of topics, one in particular went down like a lead balloon when Graham decided to repeat something the model said to him privately backstage.

'I think your embarrassment threshold is quite high,' Graham said to the star, who asked him 'why?' with a concerned look on her face.

BFFs: Kendall and Lily also attended the private screening in support of their friend

'Well we were talking about having sex on a plane,' Graham went on, which Cara responded to with: 'As have you.'

Graham then admitted he has indeed had sex on a plane, at which point Jonathan Ross, who was sat further along the couch, and remarked that 'it doesn't count if it's with yourself!'

Graham then turned back on Cara: 'You were doing it, and a man was watching it...'

To which Cara interjected: 'My father is here by the way, sorry dad...'

A confused Graham then said: 'I was worried where that anecdote was going then!'

Getting back on track, he continued: 'So you were having sex on a plane and someone was watching you.'

Practically cringing into her seat, Cara stumbled over her words and said: 'I don't even know how to start this story.'
An essential readStephen's eye for detail is incredible and his love for 2 Tone oozes from each page.  Kevin Flowerdew, Do the Dog Skazine





Written with a personal touch and with great passion about the bands and releases while giving a lot of emphasis to the lyrics, Stephens book is a great guiding hand to navigating your way to some great new music.  Peter Walsh, 2-Tone.info





 It's some of the finest Madness analysis I've ever read. Donald Trull, Stateside Madness





 Steve's own story would make a great book, but instead he's written The Duff Guide to 2 Tone, a 250+ page collection of 2 Tone-related pieces from his blog. There are reviews of original pieces, but the book's real purpose is to show how the 2 Tone sound andmore importantly its idealscarry on today...Get this book right away!"  Charles Benoit, Reggae Steady Ska





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She has previously spoken about her rocky childhood that saw her fostered straight from birth and adopted at just 18-months-old.

And during her appearance on Loose Women on Tuesday, Lorraine Pascale revealed she has since re-connected with her birth parents, but felt like they were 'two strangers'.

Speaking candidly about the moment they met, the television chef, 44, likened it to 'meeting with someone at a bus stop'.

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'They were two strangers': Lorraine Pascale, 44, spoke candidly about meeting her birth parents while appearing on Loose Women on Tuesday

Sharing her experience with the Loose Women panel, Lorraine said: 'I've connected with my real parents and it was like meeting with someone at a bus stop.

'I didn't have any expectations,' she admitted, before insisting: 'I wouldn't want to do it again.'

The former model explained that isn't out of the ordinary not to feel connected to her birth mother and father, adding: 'I called the adoption hotline before I went and they said that it's very normal not to have a connection because you basically are two strangers.'

She said: 'It was nice to see what somebody looked like who is related.'

Her comments came as she spoke about her adoptive mother passing away and her difficult upbringing.

'It was like meeting with someone at a bus stop': The television chef - who was just 18-months-old when she was adopted - admitted there was 'no connection' with her birth parents

'It was like meeting with someone at a bus stop': The television chef - who was just 18-months-old when she was adopted - admitted there was 'no connection' with her birth parents

Curious: Following her adoptive mother's passing, Lorraine admitted it was nice to see what 'somebody related to her looked like'

'I love connecting with people': The mum-of-one - Lorraine has a 20 year old daughter Ella - said she finds it important to connect with people and baking allows her to do so

Lorraine had been fostered by several different families up until she was 18-months, before being adopted by a white family from Oxfordshire.

Her adoptive parents had divorced when she was three-years-old and she ended up back in care when she was eight for just under a year, before returning to her adoptive mother.

At 11, Lorraine secured a place at a boarding school in Devon, thanks to a charity named Buttle Trust providing a full scholarship.

Looking back on her early years, Lorraine - who is now a UK Government fostering ambassador - told the Loose Women ladies: 'I think I'm here because of what I went through - not in spite of it.

'I'm grateful for what I've been through, it's not a "poor me" story. It makes you very resilient and it makes you very appreciative. I love connecting with people... I think it's very important.'

'I'm very grateful for what I've been through': The former model insisted her rocky childhood has helped her with her success

The mum-of-one - Lorraine is mum to daughter Ella, 20, from her previous relationship with ex-husband Count Kaz Balinski-Jundzill who she split with in 2000 - revealed that the same sentiment inspired her love for baking.

She said: 'I think baking helps me connect with people because you're making something and giving it to them and you get the "oooh" when you bring it out.'

Although, she joked that while she is passionate about cooking up a storm in the kitchen, it is the taste of cake that drives her to make it.

Lorraine revealed she first got into baking when she was a child and when asked if it was her way of reaching out to people while growing up, she responded: 'From the bottom of my heart, the thing I loved the most about baking was the cake mixture.

'The deep emotional ties were also a big thing,' she admitted, 'but it wasn't so much a way of saying "love me", it was I love that I love baking... and the instant gratification of making something, the magic that happens in the oven and then sharing it with people.'

'First and foremost I love the taste of cake': Lorraine joked that she is driven to bake by her love of eating cake - not the therapeutic value it can have

Early bird! Lorraine confessed that she sets an alarm for 4.45am ever morning to meditate before heading to the gym

Coleen Nolan had asked Lorraine if she actually does eat cake, pointing out her enviable frame while complaining: 'I eat cake, but I don't look like that.'

Lisa Riley then joked: 'I stopped eating cake and even I don't look like that.'

Flattered by their compliments, Lorraine then confessed: 'I don't eat the whole cake and I do exercise a lot. I get up really early and go to they gym most mornings... I have a 4.45am alarm.

'Meditate for 20 minutes and then go to the gym... it's a real routine for me and it's not just for the body, it's for the mind.'

Coleen then quipped: 'Cake does that for me.'
She's keeping up with her fitness regime as she stays in New Orleans this week.

But Karrueche Tran was missing home on Monday as she shared a makeup-free selfie showing off her flawless complexion.

The 28-year-old model gazed into the camera wearing a black tank top and with her long locks scraped into a ponytail.

'I miss LA' she captioned the serious snap.

Away from home: Karrueche Tran went makeup-free for gorgeous selfie on Monday as she confessed she's missing Los Angeles

Over the weekend the ex-girlfriend of Chris Brown was spotted leaving a workout session showing off her fit physique in a grey and neon bra-top and leggings combo.

Karrueche was once again makeup-free looking naturally gorgeous as she hopped into her rental Maserati.

Karrueche has been in Louisiana filming TNT show Claws, set around five diverse manicurists working at the Nail Artisan in South Florida.

The series is executive produced by Rashida Jones and set to air sometime this summer.

Keeping up with her fitness! The ex-girlfriend of Chris Brown was spotted leaving a workout session in New Orleans on Sunday

Coordinated: The 28-year-old model showed off her fit physique in grey leggings and bra top

Meanwhile the brunette beauty has filed for a permanent restraining order on her ex Brown, 27, as she fears for her life.

TMZ reported earlier this month that Karrueche tried three times to serve her ex with a temporary restraining order, which was granted in February, but on all three occasions he has avoided receipt.

In the filing, she said that Brown had beaten her during their relationship, which finally came to an end after it emerged in March 2015 he had had a daughter with aspiring model Nia Guzman.

She also said in a sworn statement he had 'told a few people that he was going to kill me'.
My Kitchen Rules 'dude food' experts Tim and Kyle have revealed they are in it to win it and no one can stand in their way.

Speaking to TV Week, Tim reveals that they have their game face on and, 'We're here to win the $250 grand'.

The pair of best friends have a secret advantage they call 'food mode' and it's basically a serious obsession with all things culinary.

Winners? My Kitchen Rules 'dude food' experts Tim and Kyle have revealed they are in it to win it and no one can stand in their way

When they were cast on the show, 'We switched into food mode. We were talking about food, cooking food and doing as much as we could,' Tim says.

Meanwhile, the pair upped their game in the kitchen this week, toying with fancier ingredients as they faced Amy and Tyson in Monday's head-to-head cook off.

Tim and Kyle cooked bone marrow in pasta, while Amy and Tyson prepared the 'tongues' of sea urchins.

Amy and Tyson made sea urchin with sushi rice and pickled salad, while Tim and Kyle decided to cook rabbit ragu fettuccine with bone marrow.

Game plan: Speaking to TV Week, Tim reveals that they have their game face on and, 'We're here to win the $250 grand'

Kyle was confident, saying to camera: 'Rabbits used to be a pest but now they've really become very popular and sought after.'

They had one hour to whip up a 'luxury dish' of fine dining quality, with both teams having scored over 100 points in their instant restaurants weeks ago.

Both teams were praised for their dishes, but Tim and Kyle won the cook off, and their place in the upcoming finals.

Secret? The pair of best friends have a secret advantage they call 'food mode' and it's basically a serious obsession with all things culinary

When they were cast on the show: 'We switched into food mode. We were talking about food, cooking food and doing as much as we could,' Tim says

After tasting the dishes, judge Manu Feildel commended Tim and Kyle for getting flavour into their dish in the limited time they had.

He added about the perfect pasta: 'Any Italian that would of eaten with us tonight would of said 'mamma mia!'
She has just touched down from her fifth holiday of 2017.

Yet Millie Mackintosh proved it is not all play and no work as she returned to her very unique form of an office while sizzling in a stunning new photoshoot for her eponymous fashion range, where prices range from 70 to 145, on Tuesday.

The 27-year-old former Made In Chelsea star has just arrived home from a surprise visit to meet her boyfriend Hugo Taylor during his working trip to Dubai, shortly after visiting South Africa, two trips to Paris and a stay in Los Angeles.

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Back at it! Millie Mackintosh proved it is not all play and no work as she returned to her very unique form of an office while sizzling in a stunning new photoshoot for her eponymous fashion range, where prices range from 70 to 145, on Tuesday

Millie looked stunning in her chic shoot, in which she oozed sophistication while wowing in a number of her self-designed looks - particularly a scarlet two-piece.

The tapered cigarette pants helped make the most of her endless legs while her suit jacket was perfectly tapered to highlight her tiny waist and slender frame.

Giving the look a Sixties feel, she paired the crimson ensemble with a flouncy polka dot shirt with a white base and bold black spots over the top.

She boosted her already staggering height with a pair of teetering heels, perfect for her elegant look which proved she truly has her finger on the style pulse.

Holiday lover: The 27-year-old former Made In Chelsea star has just arrived home from a surprise visit to meet her boyfriend Hugo Taylor during his working trip to Dubai, shortly after visiting South Africa, two trips to Paris and a stay in Los Angeles

Hot stuff! Millie looked stunning in her chic shoot, in which she oozed sophistication while wowing in a number of her self-designed looks - particularly a scarlet two-piece

Hard at it: The tapered cigarette pants helped make the most of her endless legs while her suit jacket was perfectly tapered to highlight her tiny waist and slender frame

Flouncy: Giving the look a Sixties feel, she paired the crimson ensemble with a flouncy ploka dot shirt with a white base and bold black spots over the top

Millie's next look was a more muted ensemble comprising of another suit, although this time her ensemble was paired with a sleeveless long-line waistcoat.

Again she wore tapered cigarette pants while tucking a pussybow blouse into the waistband to help show off her incredible taut stomach from beneath the high waist.

Strappy black sandals were perfect for once again boosting her height but also giving a touch of designer cool to the stunning ensemble.

Chic: Millie's next look was a more muted ensemble comprising of another suit, although this time her ensemble was paired with a sleeveless long-line waistcoat

Jump for joy: In January she kicked off the year with a trip to South Africa, before heading to Paris in both February and March

Living it up: March has been a particularly fruitful time for the starlet, jetting not just to the French capital but Los Angeles and now Dubai

Loved-up: It appears she is now on track to rival her record of taking a whopping 18 trips abroad in 2016

She pulled an edgy fedora atop her perfectly styled blonde tresses which cascaded over her shoulders in loose bouncy waves.

In January she kicked off the year with a trip to South Africa, before heading to Paris in both February and March.

March has been a particularly fruitful time for the starlet, jetting not just to the French capital but Los Angeles and now Dubai.

It appears she is now on track to rival her record of taking a whopping 18 trips abroad in 2016.

Millie had good reason for jetting to the United Arab Emirates this month, however, as she was surprising her boyfriend Hugo whilst he worked on his sunglasses brand Taylor Morris.

Out and a pout: Despite her many holidays, Millie proved she can still work hard

Check me out! She had a keen grasp on the shoot

Look at me! The stunner was keen to observe what was going on

Luxury: Enticingly, Millie was dressed in just a silk robe when she waited patiently on his balcony, overlooking the famous landmark Burj al Arab

Giggling in an Instagram Stories video last week, the model uploaded the moment she caught her businessman boyfriend off-guard at the Jumeirah Al Naseem hotel and completely took his breath away.

Enticingly, Millie was dressed in just a silk robe when she waited patiently on his balcony, overlooking the famous landmark Burj al Arab.

Hugo is in Dubai showcasing his newest Taylor Morris collection as part of the #TaylorMorrisTravels series, which recently took him to Beachcomber's luxury Trou Aux Biches resort in Mauritius.

Living it up: Hugo is in Dubai showcasing his newest Taylor Morris collection as part of the #TaylorMorrisTravels series, which recently took him to Beachcomber's luxury Trou Aux Biches resort in Mauritius
She became embroiled in an online spat with his former flame earlier this week.

Now brushing the furor under the carpet, TOWIE newbie Yazmin Oukhellou, 23, showcased her taut stomach as she stepped out hand-in-hand with beau James Lock, 29, on Tuesday in Amsterdam.

The show newcomer sizzled in her stomach-teasing crop top that boasted a chic frill which enhanced her ample bust as she navigated the Dutch city's tramlines ahead of filming for ITVBe series.

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Loved up: TOWIE newbie Yazmin Oukhellou, 23, showcased her taut stomach as she stepped out with beau James Lock, 29, on Tuesday in Amsterdam

The brunette beauty's cleavage-flaunting look was sure to command attention as she teamed the sizzling garment with a pair of high-waisted culottes.

Her wide-leg cropped trousers skimmed her slender thighs while she injected inches into her diminutive height with her black platform wedges.

Holding onto her new love's hand, she wrapped her petite frame in a tailored blazer with chic flared bell sleeves heading into ABE nightclub.

She draped her distressed quilted bag over her forearm while her chocolate brown tresses fell into a curl.

Happy couple: The show newcomer sizzled in her stomach-teasing crop top that boasted a chic frill which enhanced her ample bust as she navigated the Dutch city's tramlines ahead of filming for ITVBe series

Complementing his new flame, TOWIE veteran James worked a matching all black look as he slipped into a pair of form-fitting denims, skin-flaunting shirt and motor inspired leather jacket.

Elsewhere, Yazmin entered the show as James' girlfriend earlier this month, with her sweet demeanor winning over fans, yet the veil dropped on Sunday night's show when she became embroiled in a row with Georgia Kousoulou.

Georgia accused Yazmin and co-star Amber Turner of speaking behind her back after she refused to go out on a group date with the duo as James' ex is Danielle and Amber is seeing Dan Edgar - who is Georgia's pal Kate Wright's former flame.

Danielle, who left the show in the last series, threw her support behind Georgia in a thanks for her ongoing respect, as she said: 'Yes Georgia my girl Slays as always'.

Fuming: Danielle, who left the show in the last series, threw her support behind Georgia in a thanks for her ongoing respect, as she said: 'Yes Georgia my girl Slays as always'

After Danielle's message, when Yazmin retweeted an array of comments from fans who lashed out at Danielle, a fan penned: 'Yazmin, retweeting things about Danielle and Georgia will get you nowhere, grow up and let me be happy'.

Seemingly attempting to rise above the grief, Danielle cruelly hit back: 'She needs the followers babe let her. All love here'.

It seems the comment was the straw that broke the Essex girl's back as Yazmin went on to accuse Danielle of flirting with James during a recent trip to the cast's favourite eatery Sheesh in Chigwell.

She penned: '@Daniarmstrong88 @MissGeorgiakx like the love in sheesh when you kept stroking my boyfriends back. Sure your fella would love that'.

Blocked: After the shock comment, Danielle then blocked the newcomer which Yazmin appeared to take as an instant sign of guilt

Style maven: The couple were joined by series regular Chloe Sims in the Netherlands' capital as she flaunted her honed pins in a simple white shirt dress with frill detail

Glam: Chloe worked a glamorous beauty look with a dramatic smokey eye and heavy application of dark nude lipstick

After the shock comment, Danielle then blocked the newcomer which Yazmin appeared to take as an instant sign of guilt.

Despite the row, in which James weighed in: 'Silence says a lot more than you think'.

Elsewhere, the couple were joined by series regular Chloe Sims in the Netherlands' capital as she flaunted her honed pins in a simple white shirt dress with frill detail.

She paraded her pins in a pair of leg lengthening black peep-toe shoe boots as she draped a fluffy grey tote over her shoulder.

Stepping out in style: Also putting on a sartorial display was Georgia Kousoulou with her long-term boyfriend Tommy Mallett

Also putting on a sartorial display was Georgia Kousoulou with her long-term boyfriend Tommy Mallett.

No doubt an awkward encounter for Georgia in Amsterdam as she prepared to come face-to-face with Yaz following their explosive exchange in a rust coloured miniskirt and over-the-knee suede boots.

Aside from fighting foes, Dan Edgar and newly-single Pete Wicks appeared to enjoy a boys trip together as they made their way to the venue for filming.

Pete, 28, seemed in a decidedly chipper mood as he moves on from the demise of his year long relationship with co-star Megan McKenna.
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She's rarely seen without her beautiful siblings by her side these days as they attend glitzy soirees and red carpet events together.

And attempting to become the UK's answer to the Stallone sisters, Chloe Goodman with her sisters Lauryn and Amelia looked sensational as they soaked up the sun on the idyllic island of Maldives.

Turning up the heat in the Indian Ocean, Ex On The Beach star Chloe, 23, sizzled in a bust-flaunting coral coloured halterneck bikini with waist-cinching fringe detail that draped over her curves at the Sun Siyam Iru Fushi resort.

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Sizzling: Turning up the heat in the Indian Ocean, Ex On The Beach star Chloe, 23, sizzled in a bust-flaunting coral coloured halterneck bikini with waist-cinching fringe detail that draped over her curves at the Sun Siyam Iru Fushi resort

The Celebrity Big Brother alum put on an eye-popping display in the skin-flaunting garment that boasted a tie strap detail.

She teamed her asset enhancing look with a pair of skimpy fuchsia pink thong style bottoms that showcased her perky posterior in full as she walked along the pristine shoreline with her stunning sisters.

Her tiny bikini garment hugged her slender hips with matching fringe detail on the side which fell down her toned thigh while making her way out of the crystal clear waters.

The beach babe accessorised her swimwear with a simple silver necklace around her neck and covered her blue peepers with a pair of iridescent reflective cat-eye shaped shades.

Beach babes: Attempting to become the UK's answer to the Stallone sisters, Chloe Goodman (L) with her sisters Lauryn (Centre) and Amelia (R) looked sensational as they soaked up the sun on the idyllic island of Maldives

Orange you very happy: The Celebrity Big Brother alum put on an eye-popping display in the skin-flaunting garment that boasted a tie strap detail

Shore thing: Chloe dazzled in her skimpy two-piece on the idyllic beach

Life's a beach: She teamed her asset enhancing look with a pair of skimpy fuchsia pink thong style bottoms that showcased her perky posterior in full as she walked along the pristine shoreline with her stunning sisters

Seas the day: Her tiny bikini garment hugged her slender hips with matching fringe detail on the side which fell down her toned thigh while making her way out of the crystal clear waters

Hooking them in: The reality beauty leisurely lounged at the water's edge, lapping up the clear Indian Ocean waters over her torso and honed legs while she let the sun wash over her

The reality beauty leisurely lounged at the water's edge, lapping up the clear Indian Ocean waters over her torso and honed legs while she let the sun wash over her.

Meanwhile, her sister Lauryn put on an equally sultry display on the beach as she slipped into a key-hole style orange one-piece that hinted at her ample bust.

The stunner's daring swim costume was cut into a high-thigh style which elongated her toned legs and showcased her pert derriere in it's similar thong style.

She highlighted her petite frame as she wrapped a matching orange sarong around her hips while she strolled along the beach with her wet locks slicked off her face.

Not feeling crabby! The trio looked incredible as they walked along the shoreline together

Just got schooled: Meanwhile, her sister Lauryn put on an equally sultry display on the beach as she slipped into a key-hole style orange one-piece that hinted at her ample bust

They're onboard: She highlighted her petite frame as she wrapped a matching orange sarong around her hips while she strolled along the beach with her wet locks slicked off her face alongside sister Amelia (R and L)

Demure: Putting on demure display compared to her older siblings, Amelia worked an all black look with a figure-flattering high-waisted bikini set and chiffon beach robe

Putting on demure display compared to her older siblings, Amelia worked an all black look with a figure-flattering high-waisted bikini set and chiffon beach robe.

Chloe's sunshine break with her sisters has been a long time coming for the starlet who was seen sharing her excitement over the trip a fortnight ago.

She shared an idyllic snap of the sought-after holiday destination alongside a heart-eyed emoji and told her 178k Twitter followers: 'Maldives in 2 weeks.'

However, the raven-haired beauty's tweet caused a stir on the social media site as many fans were quick to link Chloe to Geordie Shore star Aaron Chalmers.

Aaron had tweeted that he is also heading to the Maldives and teased he will be joined by a female companion.

She's got sole: Chloe enjoyed a quick dip in the ocean to cool off in between her tanning session on the white sand

Far from shellfish: The three sisters enjoyed a swim in the sea before they carried on with their relaxing break

Gar blimey: Chloe and sister Lauryn complemented each other in their orange swimwear while sister Amelia stood out in her all black look

Playing koi: The siblings showcased their peachy posteriors as they walked calf-high into the sea

No buoys allowed: Chloe cooled off in the inviting water with her pretty sisters on their girls only trip abroad

Fishing for compliments: The girls appeared taken by something in the water

Catch that? Lauryn fixed her wet tresses away from her face as she relaxed in the sea with her sisters

One hull of a look: Chloe reached out for her sister Amelia's hand as she slowly waded in the water

Little more Pacific? Amelia let her arm rest on Chloe's shoulder as she adjusted her swimwear

Whale of a time: Amelia and Chloe giggled as Lauryn made the most of her time in the ocean

Sea-ing is believing: While Amelia stood at the shoreline, sisters Chloe and Lauryn made the most of the stunning water

You cod to be kidding: As the girls entered the water, Lauryn (centre) appeared overwhelmed by something she saw

He tweeted on March 10: 'Maldives in just over a week with the beautiful smiler.'

Putting two and two together, some fans suspected that he had been referring to Chloe, with one commenting: 'So @Chloe__Goodman is @AaronCGShore smile? what do u guys reckon!??'

However, Aaron has since confirmed that he and Chloe are not dating and his latest flame is said to be Essex-based beauty, Danielle Scott.

Meanwhile, Chloe's reality appearances have always been steeped in controversy, starting with her locking lips with Ashley Cain in the inaugural series of Ex On The Beach, despite his ex Talitha being present.

Oh my cod! Lauryn (centre) fixed her sarong as they enjoyed their leisurely stroll down the beach

Really 'eeling it: As the girls enjoyed their walk down the beach, the resort's luxury suites were noticeably behind them

The current situation: The sisters appeared in jovial spirits as they made the most of their girls holiday

Sea something? The trio looked healthy as the boasted natural golden tans during their outing

She also appeared on Celebrity Big Brother and hit the headlines following a devastating incident, in which she was groped by fellow housemate Jeremy Jackson, 35 - after which she revealed she felt unsafe living in the house.

In the infamous scenes from the series, Chloe was seen running out of the bathroom in tears after heading in to comfort the worse-for-wear Baywatch star. She later revealed he had pulled back her robe to indecently expose her.

Reflecting on the incident, the Ex On The Beach star explained on This Morning: 'It affected me because I was really comfortable, you're in a show that you've got security, you've got producers, you know you think nothing can touch me in here.'

She continued: 'Then to feel so secure and safe, then to go... I felt like my kindness was seen as weakness a little bit with Jeremy.'

Water are you thinking about? The beach babe accessorised her swimwear with a simple silver necklace around her neck and covered her blue peepers with a pair of iridescent reflective cat-eye shaped shades
A trailer tease and new poster have been released by Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema for their new adaptation of Stephen King's IT.

The official trailer is set to be unveiled for the eagerly anticipated horror on Wednesday.

The new clip takes viewers into the sewer, the camera moving through the darkness towards sunlight and greenery at the end.

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Down here: A new trailer teaser for the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's IT was released on Tuesday ahead of the official teaser on Wednesday

The letters I and T hang in the center of the screen ominously.

'I saw something...' a child voice is heard as he recounts an eerie experience, as another says 'a clown...'.

A third child chimes in 'Yeah, I saw him too'.

Cue a creepy distant laugh from Pennywise the killer clown.

'We all float down here' is the final haunting line in the clip.

'We all float down here' comes the haunting final line of the clip

'I saw something': The letters I and T hang in the center of the screen ominously as the camera moves through the tunnel towards the light

The new poster shows a small child in a yellow coat and rain boots as he stands facing the creepy clown who lurks in the shadows holding a red balloon.

'You'll float too' reads the tagline.

On Monday a new image was released showing Pennywise with a big balloon obscuring most of his face.

The painted red mouth of Pennywise - played by Bill Skarsgard - is seen above the ruffles of his collar.

Building the anticipation: The official trailer is due to be released on Wednesday

'You'll float too': A small child in a yellow coat is seen in the new poster unveiled by Warner Bros.

Who wants a balloon? Pennywise is creepier than ever in new image released from the film on Monday

The drip feed of promotional material follows the release two weeks ago of the first full look at the evil force that haunts and destroys the children of Derry, Maine.

In the first small screen incarnation, a 1990 ABC miniseries, the character was brought to life by Tim Curry. This time around on the big screen, that challenge falls to Bill Skarsgard.

Director Andres Muschietti is making two films, echoing the two parts of King's original story.

Scary story: The evil clown terrorizes the children of Derry, Maine, in the movie set for release on September 8 and the appearance of a red balloon signals he's about to strike

Iconic character: 'Pennywise takes the shape of your worst fear,' the movie's director Andres Muschietti said as the new images were released Monday

The first part recounts the terrifying experiences of the children in 1989. The second part follows those same characters 30 years later as adults and how what happened to them continues to impact their lives.

'Its established that Pennywise takes the shape of your worst fear,' Muschietti told USA Today.

'He doesnt have a steady behavior, he doesnt expose how he thinks, and thats what makes him really unpredictable,' he explained.

'And because no knows what hell do next or how, the space between appearances  with the occasional red balloon creepily floating by  becomes a 'feeling of dread that grows in peoples minds.''

Evil: Pennywise is played by actor Bill Skarsgard and IT is being made in two parts, the first about what happens to the children in 1989 and the second about how they fare 30 yars later

The film's young cast includes Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard as well as Megan Charpentier, Nicholas Hamilton, Steven Williams, Owen Teague, Wyatt Oleff, and Javier Botet.

And, Muschietti teases, the first movie opening September 8 will have a few hints about what might follow in the second film.

It will 'make you think about what will happen 30 years later when Pennywise comes again,' the director promised.
Katie Waissel has boldly claimed her estranged second husband Brian Moote has been 'f**king their neighbour' following their split after just a year of marriage.

The 31-year-old former X Factor star took to Facebook to discuss her heartbreak as she alleged the American comedian had been involved with the mystery woman, despite being 'apologetic' and wanting to work on their relationship.

It was revealed in December that Katie, who married Brian following a six-month romance, had shed her wedding ring shortly after pulling out of a production of Jack and The Beanstalk in Cheshire, due to her love woes.

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Lost love: Katie Waissel has boldly claimed her estranged second husband Brian Moote has been 'f**king their neighbour' following their split after just a year of marriage

Katie met Brian through a friend while she was living in Los Angeles and after a whirlwind romance he proposed to the stunner in Summer 2015 - with an unconventional high five sealing the deal.

The duo went on to marry in October the same year, yet their split was reported just a year later with Katie's latest revelations seemingly being the end of the romance.

On Monday morning, while staying in New York, she revealed she was struggling to sleep after discovering the apparent news that Brian was getting together with their neighbour, in the home they seemingly shared in Los Angeles.

She penned on her Facebook page: 'Its 6:31am in NYC. Having not slept all, and thought about this thoroughly, I think it is now time that I am ready to put myself back out there into the big wide world.

Fuming: The 31-year-old former X Factor star took to Facebook to discuss her heartbreak as she alleged the American comedian had been involved with the woman, despite being 'apologetic' and wanting to work on their relationship

Over: It was revealed in December that Katie, who married Brian following a six-month romance, had shed her wedding ring shortly after pulling out of a production of Jack and The Beanstalk in Cheshire, due to her love woes

'Having found out that my husband, that I am currently only just separated from, who claims to still love me and is apologetic and even came to NYC to work things out, has been lets see how to put it politely, f**king our neighbour since the moment I left.

'And who knows, knowing his track record maybe even before, a girl I confided in for a whole year (I know so so disgusting!!!). Rather than be mad, or sad about it, I thought, you know what, its time for me to move on and let go

'So, here I am, officially single! Feel free to take pity on me and introduce me to friends. The only thing on my what am I looking for list is the opposite of what I just had.'

Angry: 'Having found out that my husband, that I am currently only just separated from, who claims to still love me and is apologetic and even came to NYC to work things out, has been lets see how to put it politely, f**king our neighbour since the moment I left'

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Katie and Brian for comment.

Meanwhile, the unlucky-in-love CBB star Katie split from her first husband Brad Alphonso three years ago following two months of marriage - they had only been dating for 16 weeks before the nuptials.

She was left 'devastated' after posting a series of extraordinary photographs of her battered and bruised arm on her Twitter page following an apparent disagreement with him.

That was then: Meanwhile, the unlucky-in-love former X Factor star Katie split from her first husband Brad Alphonso three years ago following two months of marriage - they had only been dating for 16 weeks before the nuptials

Oh no: She was left 'devastated' after posting a series of extraordinary photographs of her battered and bruised arm on her Twitter page following an apparent disagreement with him

It is understood that police were called after the former X Factor star bumped into male model Brad Alphonso, to whom she was married for two months, on a night out in Los Angeles.

Prior to her split from Brian, Katie spoke to OK! magazine in August last year about how she felt Brian was The One: 'It was like that age-old saying: "When you know, you know".

'Ive been married before so I was in no rush to get into anything else, but were best friends. It didnt seem fast for me.'
She found a place in the hearts of Harry Potter fans all over the globe.

So Evanna Lynch's appearance at the star-studded launch of the Forbidden Forest leg of the Warner Bros Studio Tour on Monday will no doubt delight fans.

The star, who played Luna Lovegood in the movie adaptation of the book, looked worlds away from her characters as she enjoyed a trip down memory lane at the tour, while joined by James and Oliver Phelps and Warwick Davis.

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Lovely Luna: Evanna Lynch's appearance at the star-studded launch of the Forbidden Forest leg of the Warner Bros Studio Tour on Monday will no doubt delight fans

Evanna, 25, made her debut as dippy Luna in the Harry Potter and the fifth installment, The Order of the Phoenix, as she brought to life the character coined by J. K. Rowling in the book series.

While she won praise as the dreamy yet steely character, whose wild blonde tresses and bizarre choice in clothing made her an on-screen favourite, she proved on Monday that her fashion choices are certainly more honed.

Slipping into a chic polka dot gown, she oozed Fifties elegance in the wraparound number which perfectly highlighted every inch of her sensational figure.

Adding in an edgy touch, she wore a pair of heeled monochrome brogues which coordinated with the dress while also boosting her diminutive height.

The crew: The star, who played Luna Lovegood in the movie adaptation of the book, looked worlds away from her characters as she enjoyed a trip down memory lane at the tour, while joined by James and Oliver Phelps and Warwick Davis

Chic: Slipping into a chic polka dot gown, she oozed Fifties elegance in the wraparound number which perfectly highlighted every inch of her sensational figure

Way back when: While she won praise as the dreamy yet steely character, whose wild blonde tresses and bizarre choice in clothing made her an on-screen favourite, she proved on Monday that her fashion choices are certainly more honed

The group: The trio of stars, who played Luna Lovegood, Fred Weasley and George Weasley respectively, all looked worlds away from their characters as they enjoyed a trip down memory lane at the tour, while joined by Warwick Davis

Striking: The Irish beauty wore her lengthy platinum tresses in a sleek side-parting with she pulled the volumunious waves over her shoulders

The Irish beauty wore her lengthy platinum tresses in a sleek side-parting with she pulled the volumunious waves over her shoulders.

Adding in a slick of red lipstick, she helped highlight her alabaster complexion perfectly while also adding to the retro vibe of the ensemble.

James and Oliver meanwhile, who played Fred and George Weasley respectively, appeared delighted to return to the set where they filmed a whopping eight movies after winning the roles as the best-loved characters in the series.

Cheeky! The twins meanwhile appeared delighted to return to the set where they filmed a whopping eight movies after winning the roles as the best-loved characters in the series - the cheeky Weasley twins

Then and now: The boys have been dedicated since the start, as illustrated from their fresh faces at the premiere for Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone in 2001 (right)

Dashing: Oliver and James were for contrasting yet complementary suits, in which both of the flame-haired duo looked incredibly handsome

The star: They were joined by acting legend Warwick, who scooped two roles in the series - initially playing Professor Filius Flitwick and later Griphook

Eek! Warwick larked around inside the studio

Oliver and James were for contrasting yet complementary suits, in which both of the flame-haired duo looked incredibly handsome.

They were joined by acting legend Warwick, who scooped two roles in the series - initially playing Professor Filius Flitwick and later Griphook.

He was more casually clad than his co-stars as he sported a stylish designer jumper paired with jeans and trendy Adidas trainers.

Her and the kids: Kate Garraway was joined by her kids as she showed off her funky style in chic checked cape paired with jeans

The Hills have eyes: Leggy beauty Stephanie Pratt added some reality star fun to proceedings as she wore a chic forest green A-line mini with sexy thigh-high boots

Legs eleven! The stunning star provided some designer glam with her Chanel handbag

In the fun... Stephanie proved herself to be a lover of the magic

A dream in jean: Stacey Solomon looked stunning for her turn at the bash

Chic: Kimberley Wyatt looked simply sensational in a super trendy black getup complete with stocking style tights and tough ankle boots as she was joined by husband Max and their daughter

Kimberley Wyatt looked simply sensational in a super trendy black getup complete with stocking style tights and tough ankle boots as she was joined by husband Max and their daughter.

Kate Garraway was joined by her kids as she showed off her funky style in chic checked cape paired with jeans.

Leggy beauty Stephanie Pratt added some reality star fun to proceedings as she wore a chic forest green A-line mini with sexy thigh-high boots.

Coyote Ugly hunk Adam Garcia made a surprise appearance at the bash while joined by his stunning wife Nathalia Chubin.

Oh hey! Coyote Ugly hunk Adam Garcia made a surprise appearance at the bash while joined by his stunning wife Nathalia Chubin

Model behaviour: Jade Parfitt looked chic in a leather jacket
They are both known for their show-stopping senses of style at red carpet events everywhere.

But Nancy Dell'Olio and Rosamund Pike came close to an awkward fashion blunder on Tuesday, as they both headed to the National Portrait Gallery gala in daring semi-sheer lace gowns.

The 55-year-old first flashed an eye-wateringly short nude bodice and enviable figure beneath her sheer gown - before the Gone Girl actress arrived soon after in an almost identical crochet dress.

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Double trouble: Nancy Dell'Olio and Rosamund Pike came close to an awkward fashion blunder on Tuesday, as they both arrived at the National Portrait Gallery gala in semi-sheer lace gowns

Nancy was the picture of confidence as she arrived in her sheer frock, openly revealing her nude undergarment - which cut off at a very daring height to leave most of her long legs on show.

The statement frock was elegant in style with long bell sleeves and a strict black collar, but was formed of delicate white lace and crochet to flaunt her slim figure to all.

Cinching in at her slim waist with a thin belt, the dress then softly skimmed her frame to the floor, where it met a pair of chunky black platform heels.

Cheeky: Nancy confidently arrived in her sheer frock, openly revealing her nude undergarment - which cut off at a very daring height to leave most of her long legs on show

The property lawyer upped the glamour of the look by styling her hair into big, bouncy curls, and accessorising with statement pearl drop earrings.

The personality kept her make-up light with just a sweeping of metallic eyeshadow and bronzer, to display her enviably smooth and youthful complexion to all, after years in the spotlight.

Adding a slick of scarlet lipstick as a finishing touch of glamour, the former Strictly contestant oozed confidence as she smouldered for cameras outside the event.

Gorgeous: The property lawyer upped the glamour of the look by styling her hair into big, bouncy curls, and accessorising with statement pearl drop earrings

Chic: Adding a slick of scarlet lipstick as a finishing touch of glamour, the former Strictly contestant oozed confidence as she smouldered for cameras

However things may well have become awkward at the bash later on, as Rosamund Pike then made her arrival in a very similar white lace ensemble.

The former Bond girl, 38, exuded elegance in her version of the gown - which followed a more Victoriana style with a stiff high-collared neck and flounced sleeves.

Formed of soft white floral lace which cascaded effortlessly to the floor, the dress was then given a bold edge with a contrasting ribbon tied around the neck.

Twice as nice: However things may well have become awkward at the bash later on, as Rosamund Pike then made her arrival in a very similar white lace ensemble

The black strands, which broke up the ethereal white shade, were accessorised with round bejeweled brooches for a hint of glitz - which she mirrored in her trendy lone earring of silver gems.

The star tied her look together with a co-ordinating monochrome tweed clutch and a slick of pale red lipstick - to match fashion rival Nancy's.

The pair were both attending the gala in order to raise money for Coming Home - a project that returns iconic portraits on loan to places that are special to them, such as the Bronte sisters to Yorkshire.

Guests will have the opportunity to view two exhibitions; Howard Hodgkin: Absent Friends, and Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun: Behind the mask, another mask, hosted by artist Gillian Wearing.

Old-fashioned feel: The former Bond girl exuded elegance in her version of the gown - which followed a more Victoriana style with a stiff high-collared neck and flounced sleeves

Every last detail: The star tied her look together with a co-ordinating monochrome tweed clutch and a slick of pale red lipstick - to match fashion rival Nancy's

A helping hand: Nancy was sure to grip on to a gentleman friend as she stepped out of the event

Taxi for two: The socialite was seen navigating her way into a cab in her awkward dress

The event was attended by the Duchess of Cambridge, who has been a patron of the gallery since 2012, as well as Alexa Chung and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

Nancy has enjoyed a busy week on the London nightlife scene, having attended the English National Opera's Spring Fundraising Gala the previous evening.

However she appeared to fly solo at both events - after last being romantically linked to Ex On The Beach star Jordan Davies, who at 23 is 32 years her junior.

A source told MailOnline last year: 'Jordan got in contact with Nancy's camp as he has admired her from afar (from CBB) and asked to meet her. Nancy agreed after seeing some pics.

And relax: Nancy sat back in the cab, happy to be done with the party

Second wind? Nancy was seen bursting into laughter in the cab, before disappearing into the night

Stunning: The event was attended by the Duchess of Cambridge (above), who has been a patron of the gallery since 2012

Going at it alone: Nancy has enjoyed a busy week on the London nightlife scene, having attended the English National Opera's Spring Fundraising Gala the previous evening

'They hit it off. The air was electric - and they flirted and teased throughout the night. They were very touchy-feely with each other - spending the date holding hands.'

However the brunette is perhaps now focusing more on her latest business venture - a new kind of Italian lemon liquor limoncello.

'Sugar is now the white enemy. This is the right time to launch a sugar-free drink,' she told The Telegraph last year.

Meanwhile Rosamund has been enjoying a much-needed break over the last few weeks, following the promotional trail for racial drama A United Kingdom with David Oyelowo.

The film movingly re-created the then-scandalous marriage between Prince Seretse Khama of Botswana and white British typist Ruth Williams.
They seem to be inseparable after confirming their romance earlier this month.

And regardless of the public focus on their relationship, Jennifer Lopez and new beau Alex Rodriguez seem to be getting along just fine.

The 47-year-old actress was spotted on a double date with the 41-year-old former professional athlete in Los Angeles on Monday night.

Fun times: Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez were spotted on a double date at the iconic Sunset Tower Hotel in Los Angeles on Monday night

The happy couple were joined by another pair as they enjoyed a private dinner at the iconic Sunset Tower Hotel.

It seemed to be a grand old time as J-Lo and A-Rod shared a few hearty laughs together during the intimate night out.

No word yet who they were dining with but no doubt they enjoyed the company as a source told TMZ on Tuesday that the group of four had dined for a little over two hours.

Getting along: The 47-year-old actress seemed to be having a good time with the 41-year-old former professional athlete

Quite the affair: No word yet who they were dining with but no doubt they enjoyed the company as a source told TMZ on Tuesday the group of four had dined for over two hours

The two have been spending plenty of time together as they were spotted heading to Italian eatery, Madeo in West Hollywood on Saturday.

The night before the two were driven by a bodyguard in a black and silver Rolls-Royce as they left popular celeb-favorite Hotel Bel-Air on Friday.

Sources close to the athlete claim he's now calling J.Lo his 'lady'.

Fun times: It seemed to be a grand old time as J-Lo and A-Rod shared a few hearty laughs together during the intimate night out

Keeping cool: J-Lo wore a knit white top for the occasion

Back to work: The following morning Lopez was spotted heading into a recording studio in Hollywood

'All his friends can tell he really likes J.Lo [but] in the beginning they thought this may just be a fling,' a source told E! News.

They added: 'Friends are slowly thinking this may actually be a great match. He calls J.Lo his 'lady'. He would wife her up in a heartbeatshe is different than other people hes dated.'

The couple clearly have not tired of each other's time as they recently returned from their first romantic holiday together.

Jennifer and Alex spent several days in the Bahamas earlier this month and apparently feel like they've found their perfect match.

Good night? The two have been spending plenty of time together continued their run of romantic date nights on Saturday with a stop by Italian eatery, Madeo in West Hollywood

Chill: The two A-listers sat comfortably in the back of a luxury car

The duo have been dating just two months but a source told Us Weekly they 'definitely see a future together.'

The couple reportedly started dating when A-Rod 'swooped in at the perfect time' when they were both single.

Both stars have enjoyed high-profile romances in the past, however, the Latin duo feel like they have found their match, an insider revealed.

A-Rod has dated Madonna, Kate Hudson, Cameron Diaz and Demi Moore, while Lopez has romanced Ben Affleck and Bradley Cooper, as well as having a long-term relationship with her dancer Casper Smart, 29.
Olivia Wilde was spotted on Tuesday sheltering under an umbrella during the filming of her upcoming movie Life Itself in New York City.

She'd been seen shooting the motion picture on multiple occasions last week as well, and back then, she'd got blonde hair and prosthetic baby bump.

Yet by this Tuesday, she had quite a different look: the character she was playing wasn't visibly pregnant and had a jet-black bob hairdo with bangs.

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No rain check here: Olivia Wilde was spotted on Tuesday sheltering under an umbrella during the filming of her upcoming movie Life Itself in New York City

Dark red lipstick on her face, the bewigged 33-year-old had buttoned herself into a largely black bomber cardigan with white stripes at its neckline, cuffs and hem.

Slightly faded sky blue jeans tightened about her svelte legs, and the fiancee of Jason Sudeikis had slid into a fossil grey pair of rain boots.

As she sauntered out of her trailer, she was seen in a black hooded raincoat, which shielded her from the weather before she could get herself under an umbrella.

Now (left)/Then (right): She'd been seen shooting the motion picture on multiple occasions last week as well, and back then, she'd got blonde hair and prosthetic baby bump

She's been engaged to her husband-to-be since early 2013, and delivered their second child - a daughter called Daisy - only five months ago.

Dan Fogelman, creator of the smash hit NBC sitcom This Is Us, is writing and directing Life Itself, which is set to shoot in Seville as well as New York.

The impressive cast list features such names as Antonio Banderas, Samuel L. Jackson, Annette Bening and Oscar Isaac, and the film's due out in 2018.

Bewigged: Yet by this Tuesday, she had quite a different look: the character she was playing wasn't visibly pregnant and had a jet-black bob hairdo with bangs

Scant plot details have emerged, though a tragedy will apparently link several characters, and Oscar and Olivia's characters are a couple, per Deadline.

Olivia's had rather a busy year, having only earlier this month wrapped filming on a movie called A Vigilante that's been written and directed by Sarah Daggar-Nickson.

The leading lady had been seen multiple times shooting the film in Westchester, and stars as a woman who enacts domestic abuse victims' vengeance on their attackers.
Judging by their tense split in September, it would seem as if Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt would not want to travel together.

But according to a Tuesday report from E! News, the 41-year-old Oscar winner and the 53-year-old Allied star have been getting along well enough to coordinate a trip.

It was claimed that Pitt joined Jolie when she went to Cambodia in mid February to attend the premiere of her new film First They Killed My Father. The insider added the Moonlight producer was there not for the actress, however, but to spend time with his six children.

He was there? Brad Pitt flew to Cambodia in February to spend time with his children as Angelina Jolie promoted her film First They Killed My Father, E! News claimed on Tuesday

He went unnoticed? 'Brad came to Cambodia in secret to spend time with the kids,' an insider said. There were no photos of Pitt in the country. Here he is seen in November

Together they have Maddox, 15, Pax, 13, Zahara, 11, Shiloh, 10, and twins Knox and Vivienne, aged eight.

'Brad came to Cambodia in secret to spend time with the kids,' an insider said.

'They were with Angelina for probably 75 percent of the time when Brad was in the country and they'd go back and forth between her and Brad.'

Glowing: It was at this time that the Salt actress told GMA that Brad was a 'wonderful father.' She added, 'We will always be a family. Always'

Pretty in pink: Here the 41-year-old is seen with some of her children as well as actors from First They Killed My Father in Siem Reap in mid February

It was at this time that the Salt actress told GMA that Brad was a 'wonderful father.'

The daughter of Jon Voight added, 'We will always be a family. Always.'

And it was also stated that Brad visited Angelina plenty when she made the film in the country in 2015 and 2016.

Indeed, he was seen with her on a boat in Vietnam in December 2015 when she took a break from working on First They Killed My Father.

A presence: And it was added that Brad also visited Angelina plenty when she made the film in the country in 2015 and 2016. Indeed, he was seen with her on a boat in Vietnam in December 2015 during a break from making the saga

'He wasn't in Cambodia the entire time they filmed, but he made multiple trips there to spend time with the kids,' the source added.

This seems to be a very positive turn after an ugly split last year.

There was an accusation that Pitt may have hit one of their children during a flight from Europe to the US in September.

Solo: 'Things have calmed settled between Brad and Angelina. It's not as tense as it had been,' a source told E! News last week. Here he is seen heading into an art studio in mid March

The FBI and DCFS looked into it. But Brad was cleared of any wrongdoing.

It was also made public that the family had to see a therapist outside Los Angeles. The name of the therapist was even made available.

But the two seemed to have called a truce earlier this year and agreed to keep the details of their custody arrangements private.

'Things have calmed settled between Brad and Angelina. It's not as tense as it had been,' a source told E! News last week.

A new look: The beauty has been promoting a new fragrance for Guerlain

'They are focused on the kids and working to do what's best for them. Brad has been able to spend more time with the kids. He's doing well and is focused on healthy, clean living. He's in a good place.'

Last week People magazine added that the By The Sea costars are talking directly to each other now.

'Hes much happier,' a source said of the Troy star. 'Hes very relieved that things are not playing out in public anymore.'

Back in the good old days: The super stars seen happy in 2013 at the London Maleficent premiere




Oscar Isaac and Elvira Lind are expecting.

The 38-year-old Star Wars star and his girlfriend revealed their baby bump as they stepped out together in New York on Monday.

The delighted parents-to-be were seen heading for dinner hand-in-hand in The East Village.

The first awakens! Oscar Isaac and girlfriend Elvira Lind are expecting their first child together

Lind's bump was unmistakable in her long flowing light green dress; she showed off both by leaving her long dark cardigan unbuttoned.

She matched them with a comfy-looking pair of wedge heels, which will likely decrease in height as her term extends.

Her man looked razor sharp in a dark navy suit, shirt and tie, under a navy mac.

Ironically, Isaac is currently in New York filming Life Itself opposite a 'heavily pregnant' Olivia Wilde.

Happy family: The delighted parents-to-be were seen heading for dinner hand-in-hand in The East Village on Monday

Mysterious: The 38-year-old Star Wars star is notoriously private about his love life

Directed by Crazy, Stupid, Love's Dan Fogelman, it tells the story how the lives of a group of people from different countries and generations intersect, and also stars Samuel L Jackson, Antonio Banderas, Annette Bening, Mandy Patinkin and Olivia Cooke.

Since his break-out role in the Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis in 2013, Guatemala-Born Isaac has gone from strength to strength, starring in A Most Violent Year, Ex Machina, and HBO's Show Me A Hero.

He also played the titular villain in X-Men Apocalypse, and will reprise his role as X-Wing fighter pilot Poe Dameron from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, when Episode VIII: The Last Jedi arrives this Christmas.

Secret's out: He only confirmed he was dating filmmaker Lind when they arrived at the Golden Globes together in January 2016

Past: He was previously engaged to but then split from childhood sweetheart Maria Miranda (2nd from L, pictured at Gen Art's Fall For New York party in September 2009)

The actor is notoriously private about his love life; so much so that in a December 2015 profile in GQ the only mention of the word 'girlfriend' is when the actor called the interviewer the next day to ask him to retract it.

He was previously engaged to but then split from childhood sweetheart Maria Miranda.

Isaac only confirmed he was dating filmmaker Lind when they arrived at the Golden Globes together in January 2016.

The couple met in 2012, one month before he began shooting his critically acclaimed Inside Llewyn Davis.

According to Bustle.com, a captioning error may have seen Lind incorrectly identified as Miranda for those four years, leading to much confusion among fans.

In demand: Since his break-out role in the Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis in 2013, Guatemala-Born Isaac has gone from strength to strength, starring in The Force Awakens and HBO's Show Me A Hero
It's the Channel Seven cooking show that's been mired in controversy, due to cheating accusations and a shocking verbal assault.

And perhaps in one of the most explosive allegations yet, My Kitchen Rules has been accused of rigging its scoring by the show's resident villain Josh, 25.

Speaking to Kyle and Jackie O on Wednesday, the self-proclaimed Seafood King made explosive claims that Channel Seven producers previously 'swung' scoring in his favour in a bid to keep him and wife Amy, 26, on the show to boost ratings.

Shocking: My Kitchen Rules has been accused of rigging its scoring by the show's resident villain Josh, 25

'... I can definitely say that when we cooked against Kelsey and Amanda, Amy and I were pretty much ready to go home and I can guarantee you they swung it in a way so that we stayed in he competition,' he said.

The reality star, who came under fire this week for calling another contestant a 's**t,' went on to claim that producers used a 'two-point special' on more than one occasion.

When asked by hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie 'O' Henderson to elaborate, he replied: 'Isn't it funny that we both won against Alyse and Matt by two points and then we won against Kelsey and Amanda by two points?'

Explosive: Speaking to Kyle and Jackie O on Wednesday, the self-proclaimed Seafood King claimed Channel Seven producers previously 'swung' scoring in his favour in a bid to keep him and wife Amy, 26, on the show to boost ratings

Rigged? '... I can definitely say that when we cooked against Kelsey and Amanda, Amy and I were pretty much ready to go home and I can guarantee you they swung it in a way so that we stayed in he competition,' he said

He also claimed that his cooking skills were edited to make him look worse.

'I'll admit that I mucked up seafood a fair few times but also when Amy took charge we also got dish of the day, it wasn't all bad,' he said.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Channel Seven for comment.

Earlier this month, MKR viewers watched Josh and Amy succeed during the sudden-death cook off against Kelsey and Amanda, after a series of disastrous attempts.

Eliminated: Josh and Amy also previously won against Alyse and Matt by two points

The Broome native was told by judge Manu Feildel that he can indeed cook seafood, as he and Amy knocked the sisters out of the competition, having beaten them by just two points.

In the feedback of their three-course meal and before the judges scores were revealed, Manu told Josh: 'We know you can cook fish now, tick!'

Fellow judge Pete Evans also chimed in, adding: 'The crab was good and the salmon for me, was spot on.'

Josh, relieved after proving himself, exclaimed: 'That's what I wanted!'

Impressed: In the feedback of their three-course meal and before the judges scores were revealed, Manu Feildel (pictured) told Josh: 'We know you can cook fish now, tick!'

Going home: Pictured are Kelsey (L) and Amanda (R) who lost to Josh and Amy during the sudden-death cook-off

The winning dish? Josh and Amy served grilled salmon for main

For entree, Josh and Amy cooked tempura soft shell crab with papaya salad, grilled salmon with couscous and coriander sauce for the main, and a dessert of apple and berry fry pie.

Kelsey and Amanda made deep fried calamari with mango and avocado salad and lemon aioli for entree, a main of cooked prawn red curry, and a dessert of churros with chocolate sauce.

The cook off took place on a cruise ship, and in the galley.

Guest judge Guy Grossi, said Josh and Amy's crab for the entree was cooked to perfection, but what let them down was their salad, which had onion in it and was overpowering.

Looks good! Josh and Amy served an entree of tempura soft shell crab with papaya salad

Interesting: Josh and Amy made a dessert of Apple and Berry fry pie

Tasty! Kelsey and Amanda were making deep fried calamari with mango and avocado salad and lemon aioli

Cook off: Josh and Amy bickered while cooking, in a bid to beat the others

Colin Fassnidge said their salmon was done well, saying: 'It was pink, moist and well seasoned.'

But he said the coucous was a failure.

'It was like two different teams put dishes on the plate, it was just a bit disjointed.'

Karen Martini meanwhile added that for their dessert, the pastry and dough was so overcooked.

Amy and Josh finished on a total of 28 points out of 60, while Kelsey and Amanda finished on 26 points.

Kelsey and Amanda were commended for their perfect dessert, but their calamari entree fell short as they put too many crumbs on the dish.

One for the sweet lovers: Kelsey and Amanda were commended for their perfect dessert, but their calamari entree fell short as they put too many crumbs on the dish

Sorry, girls! With their curry, the judges said it lacked flavour

Stress! Manu meanwhile added: 'I don't think I saw Kelsey and Amanda in that kitchen tonight, no fun, no joy, stress, stress stress'

With their curry, the judges said it lacked flavour.

'There was no depth of curry in there,' Colin said.

Manu meanwhile added: 'I don't think I saw Kelsey and Amanda in that kitchen tonight, no fun, no joy, stress, stress stress,' he said, with the girls agreeing with him.

After it was revealed that they were going home, Kelsey and Amanda got emotional and Amanda cried.

In the hot seat: Seen are judges (from L to R) Colin Fassnidge, Liz Egan, Guy Grossi and Karen Martini

'I'm really proud of us, I feel blessed to be here,' Amanda told the judges.

Manu complimented them, saying: 'Two great cooks, two loud sisters and two wonderful mums on their way home.'

Amanda joked that things were going to be 'a lot quieter now,' on the show.

Josh added: 'Maybe that's a way we can get to the grand final, constantly going to sudden-death and beating teams!'
Their tumultuous split has dominated the 20th season of TOWIE.

And Amber Turner proved her dramatic love life is showing no signs of soothing as she headed to Faces nightclub on Tuesday night, where she came face-to-face with her ex-boyfriend Jamie Reed and his new flame Jade Lewis.

The 24-year-old newbie looked stunning in a plunging black lace body as she kept a straight-face while Jamie, 34, could not stop laughing as he headed into the bash with his side-boob baring new flame.

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Stunner: Amber Turner proved her dramatic love life is showing no signs of soothing as she headed to Faces nightclub on Tuesday night, where she came face-to-face with her ex-boyfriend Jamie Reed and his new flame Jade Lewis

Amber was in a relationship with live-in beau Jamie for four years before her arrival in TOWIE earlier this month in which she was accused of cheating on the hunk with co-star Dan Edgar during a cast trip to Tenerife.

As she returned to the glamorous home county, she was faced with her beau in a heated confrontation as she persistently denied reports that she had stayed in his room - yet later admitted the fact.

After the saddening demise of their romance, she has now gone on to start dating Dan, leaving Jamie free to pursue interest in Jade, who he was first spotted with at Katie Price's husband Kieran Hayler's 30th birthday earlier this month.

Seemingly forgetting her woes, Amber look calm and collected as she headed to the club night looking sensational in her head-to-toe black ensemble.

All smiles: The 24-year-old newbie looked stunning in a plunging black lace body as she kept a straight-face while Jamie, 34, could not stop laughing as he headed into the bash with his side-boob baring new flame

Stunner: Jade meanwhile opted for a similar ensemble as she wowed in a black jumpsuit with deeply slashed sides which gave a cheeky glimpse of side-boob from underneath

Stunning: The lacy V-neck top she sported highlighted her slender frame, while she wore wide-leg Pallazo pants on her bottom half to help accentuate her endless legs

A shoulder to cry on: Amber was joined by her best pal and co-star Megan McKenna

Oops! She risked baring too much in the garment

The lacy V-neck top she sported highlighted her slender frame, while she wore wide-leg Pallazo pants on her bottom half to help accentuate her endless legs.

Her blonde tresses were styled into dramatic bouncy waves while her make-up was heavily applied with flawless application helping enhance her plump pout.

Jade meanwhile opted for a similar ensemble as she wowed in a black jumpsuit with deeply slashed sides which gave a cheeky glimpse of side-boob from underneath.

Despite heading into the club with a leather jacket draped over her arms, she later pulled off the garment to reveal her incredibly perky assets.

Leather lady: Despite heading into the club with a leather jacket draped over her arms, she later pulled off the garment to reveal her incredibly perky assets

Who's who? Both Jamie's girls channelled similar vibes in their chic ensembles

Way back when: Jamie made his first appearance on TOWIE in 2012, when he caused shockwaves upon revealing he has slept with Billie Faiers and Frankie Essex - who wound up throwing a punch bowl at him in dismay

Jamie made his first appearance on TOWIE in 2012, when he caused shockwaves upon revealing he has slept with Billie Faiers and Frankie Essex - who wound up throwing a punch bowl at him in dismay.

Amber's sighting of Jamie will no doubt bring up old wounds after Dan was spotted on Wednesday night leaving the Sixty6 Magazine launch party in London alongside a stunning mystery brunette.

The 26-year-old TOWIE star's departure appeared to strike a chord with Amber, as she took to Instagram to share a bikini-clad snap shortly after images emerged.

Just hours after the images emerged, Amber, perhaps transparently, took to Instagram to show off her incredible body in a throwback bikini snap.
He's known as the self-proclaimed 'Seafood King'.

But on Wednesday, the conversation turned to some entirely different as My Kitchen Rules villain Josh Meeuwissen was left red-faced and flustered after being quizzed on The Kyle and Jackie O Show about the size of his manhood.

'You look like the kind of bloke that has quite a large penis,' asked co-host Kyle Sandilands, before adding: 'Give us the length of your penis.'

'You look like the kind of bloke that has quite a large penis!' My Kitchen Rules villain Josh Meeuwissen was asked about the size of his manhood by Kyle Sandilands

'Not even I want to know that!' exclaimed a stunned Jackie O as Josh remained silent, too shocked to answer.

As the embarrassed MKR star struggled to respond, Kyle chimed back in with some more questions.

'What size are we talking?' he demanded. 'I think we're dealing with a lengthy bit of work here.'

'Give us the length of your penis,' continued the outrageous shock jock

'Not even I want to know that!' exclaimed a stunned Jackie as Josh remained silent, too shocked to answer

A clearly flustered Josh finally found his words, spluttering: 'Aw mate... I think I've been controversial enough, I don't need to add anything more.'

The Seafood King has emerged as the most controversial star on this season of MKR.

During an episode to air this week, he called his rival participant Amy a 's**t' and at one point, his wife of the same name stormed out on him.

'I think we're dealing with a lengthy bit of work here,' continued Kyle, seemingly infatuated with his perceived size of Josh's junk

Fans of the series immediately took to social media to slam the show's self-described Seafood King, who has become its resident villain.

'Can it really be said enough that Josh is a complete c***?' one fan wrote on Twitter.

A female fan made the announcement she would stop supporting the show.

'I'm not watching #MKR anymore cos a*****e Josh & his mousy long suffering wife are just too embarrassing for a W.A. resident to tolerate,' she declared.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has exploited a power vacuum created by the war between the government and Huthi rebels who control the capital Sanaa and number of major cities along the Red Sea coast

Ten people were killed Monday in a jihadist attack on a government building in southern Yemen that also saw 10 assailants die, including a suicide bomber, officials said.

The suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into the entrance of the local government headquarters in Huta, the provincial capital of Lahj, a security official said.

Security forces killed nine militants, including three wearing explosives belts and others armed with guns, when the assailants attacked the building following the bombing, the official said.

Six soldiers and four civilians were killed in the bombing and gunfight, and two soldiers and two civilians were wounded, the official said.

Lahj's deputy governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed, accused Al-Qaeda of being behind the attack.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has exploited a power vacuum created by the war between the government and Huthi rebels who control the capital Sanaa and number of major cities along the Red Sea coast.

The United States regards AQAP as the jihadist network's most dangerous branch.

Washington has conducted more than 40 air raids, including drone strikes, against AQAP in March alone. Many of the strikes have targeted towns in southern provinces where the radical group is known to operate.

At least 25 suspected AQAP members have been killed in the raids.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley addresses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference

The US ambassador to the United Nations received a rapturous welcome Monday at Washington's biggest pro-Israel forum, where she vowed never to allow "Israel-bashing" at the world body.

Nikki Haley was addressing the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference for the first time since President Donald Trump named her Washington's UN envoy.

And she drew a clear line under the record of her predecessor, who in December abstained from a UN Security Council vote, thus allowing a resolution criticizing Israeli settlements to pass.

Haley described Resolution 2334 as a "kick in the gut" to all Americans, and warned other UN members that the United States would retaliate against any new attempt to isolate Israel.

"Basically what it comes down to is that I'm not there to play, and what I wanted to make sure of was that the United States started leading again," she told the lobby group's invitees.

- 'No greater friend than Israel' -

"Never do we not have the backs of our friends. We don't have a greater friend than Israel," she added. "And to see that happen was not only embarrassing it was hurtful."

"What I can tell you is that everybody at the United Nations is scared to talk to me about Resolution 2334," Haley declared, to warm cheers from the large pro-Israeli crowd.

"And I wanted to let them to know that, look, that happened but it will never happen again. The days of Israel-bashing are over."

Trump's administration has already made several gestures to reassure Israel's government that, in Haley's words to AIPAC, "a new sheriff is in town" and US policy has changed.

Welcoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House last month, Trump did tell his guest that he would like Israel to "hold back on settlements for a little bit."

But he and Haley have repudiated the critical vote and he has appointed an ambassador to Israel -- David Friedman -- with a history of skepticism toward a two-state peace deal.

US officials still insist they support the eventual goal of Israel and a future Palestine living side-by-side within agreed borders -- but they will not pressure the Jewish state for concessions.

Israeli leaders, in turn, have expressed confidence.

Ambassador Ron Dermer told AIPAC: "For the first time in many years... there is no daylight between our two governments."

Now, Netanyahu's government want Trump and Friedman to make good on a campaign promise to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which Israel claims as its undivided capital.

Such a move would dismay Palestinians and some Arab leaders, and US officials have not repeated the promise since Trump came to office, but Netanyahu alluded to it in his remarks to AIPAC.

"David, I look forward to welcoming you warmly to Israel and especially to Jerusalem," he said, speaking by videolink to pass a message to the ambassador and his supporters.
Angelique Kerber of Germany returns a shot to Risa Ozaki of Japan during their Miami Open 4th round match, at the Crandon Park Tennis Center in Key Biscayne, Florida, on March 27, 2017

World number one Angelique Kerber despatched Japanese qualifier Risa Ozaki 6-2, 6-2 to set up a quarter-final clash with Venus Williams at the Miami Open.

Seven-time Grand Slam champion Williams fought past Russian seventh-seed Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-3, 7-6 (7/4) to reach the last eight.

Fourth-seed Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia crashed out to the Czech Republic's Lucie Safarova and ailing French Open champion Garbine Muguruza also bowed out in the fourth round.

Kerber took charge early, breaking twice to establish a 4-1 lead and she was in firm control from then on.

The German said that while her opponent may only have been ranked 87th she had studied Ozaki's game closely before the contest.

"She came through the qualies, she beat good players, so I was ready for it," Kerber said.

Lucie Safarova of Czech Republic celebrates a point against Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia during their Miami Open 4th round match, at the Crandon Park Tennis Center in Key Biscayne, Florida, on March 27, 2017

"I talked with my team and I knew that she's moving good and bringing a lot of balls back. I was trying to play my game and be aggressive."

Williams cruised through the first set before Kuznetsova, a two-time Grand Slam champion and runner-up at Indian Wells last week, fought back to take the second set to a tie-break.

It was a fierce battle for the decisive points, Kuznetsova going 4-1 up, but after two lengthy rallies, both of which were won by the 36-year-old Williams, the oldest player in the tournament emerged victorious.

The victory, sealed with a delicate slice at the net, was Williams' first against a top 10 opponent since 2015.

"It was tough out there," Williams said. "She is like a wall. To come back in the tie-break was great, I hope I can keep that tennis up."

Safarova, ranked 36th in the world, moved into the quarter-finals with a 7-6 (7/5), 6-1 victory over Cibulkova, which was her first triumph against a top 10 opponent since 2015.

Illness has disrupted Safarova's campaigns over the past two years but the seven-time WTA title winner, looks to be on the right track.

"I feel healthy now -- thank God and I'll keep trying to push my limits more and more," she said.

The 30-year-old Czech will face Dane Caroline Wozniacki who advanced when Spain's Muguruza retired feeling ill after being edged in a first set tie-break.

In an all-Czech clash, number two seed Karolina Pliskova enjoyed a 6-1, 6-4 win over Barbora Strycova.

Pliskova will come up against Croatian Mirjana Lucic-Baroni whose impressive late career revival continued with the 35-year-old beating American Bethanie Mattek-Sands 7-5, 6-4.

- Halep hangs on -

Lucic-Baroni said she was benefitting from a more thoughtful approach to preparation.

"I've always worked hard, but we're working much smarter now," she said.

"We're not murdering me six hours a day anymore, but we're doing good things."

While she has never appeared in the Miami quarters before, this will be her third quarter-final appearance in her last four WTA events and she goes into the match knowing she beat Piliskova in the last eight in the Australian Open.

Romanian third seed Simona Halep showed her trademark fighting spirit in an enthralling win against Australia's Samantha Stosur, coming back from a set and 5-2 down in the second, saving a match point before going on to win the third set.

"I've been always like this," Halep said. "I never give up, I don't like to give up matches. I am here to play, away from home, I am going to give my all, always."
In its latest report on human rights conditions in Iran, the U.S. State Department noted that in 2016 there were severe restrictions on the Iranian peoples civil liberties, including the freedoms of assembly, association, speech, religion and the press.

In addition, the State Department reported abuse of due process, as well as politically motivated violence and repression, disappearances, [and] limitation on citizens ability to choose their government peacefully through free and fair elections. The report also noted arbitrary arrest; denial of fair public trial; and the lack of independent judiciary.

Recent news from human rights monitors confirm that the new year has not brought an end to such abuses in Iran.

In February, Amnesty International reported that Iranian doctor and Swedish resident Ahmadreza Djalali, who was arrested and imprisoned last year on a visit to Tehran to attend a conference on disaster medicine, was brought before a revolutionary court without his lawyer and informed that he was accused of espionage, a charge that is punishable by death.

In March, according to Human Rights Watch, intelligence authorities ramped up detentions of peaceful government critics, arresting journalists Hengameh Shahidi, Ehsan Mazandarani, and Morad Saghafi. HRW also noted the arrest of administrators who manage channels within Telegram.

The Center for Human Rights in Iran has also noted that in the run-up to the presidential elections in May the Intelligence Ministry has increased the arrests of individuals for their peaceful activism and personal beliefs, including civil rights activist Farzaneh Jalili, teenage ethnic Arab environmentalist Mohammad Kab-Aomair, and film director Saleh Deldam.

Most recently, multiple news outlets have reported that Faezeh Hashemi, womens rights activist and daughter of the late President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been sentenced to six months in prison for "spreading lies against the judiciary.

In the preface to the State Departments Country Reports on Human Rights, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that [p]romoting human rights and democratic governance is a core element of U.S. foreign policy.

The United States calls on all governments, including the government of Iran, to respect the fundamental human rights of their citizens, thereby forming, in Secretary Tillersons words, the foundation of stable, secure and functioning societies.
The Amin al-Husseini school in al-Bireh in the occupied West Bank is named for a former grand mufti of Jerusalem, a hero for Palestinians but seen as a Nazi ally by Israelis

At Amin al-Husseini secondary school in the occupied West Bank, with an Israeli settlement visible in the distance, singing the Palestinian national anthem is a daily ritual of student life.

For the Palestinians, Haj Amin al-Husseini, former grand mufti of Jerusalem, is the hero of a 1936 revolt against the British mandate over Palestine.

To Israelis, he was an ally of the Nazis and naming a school after him is an example of incitement to hatred of Israel and Jews.

Few topics are more indicative of the starkly different viewpoints of Israelis and Palestinians than the debate over incitement in schools.

While Israel says it is a main cause of violence, Palestinian officials call such accusations baseless propaganda that seeks to deny them their right to teach children their history.

A study by Israeli and Palestinian researchers has found that education on both sides presents the other as the enemy

Last month, at his first White House meeting with President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said incitement was a key factor in the long-running conflict with the Palestinians.

"They continue to call for Israels destruction -- inside their schools, inside their mosques, inside the textbooks. You have to read it to believe it," he said.

"I think the Palestinians have to get rid of some of that hate that they're taught from a very young age," Trump said, responding to a reporter's question about concessions each side needs to make.

"It starts in the school room," he added.

Israeli public security minister Gilad Erdan told AFP that the 1.19 million Palestinian students learn "from kindergarten to university" that Israel has no right to exist.

Israel does not appear on the maps in their schoolbooks or on the walls of their schools, which are named after "terrorists", according to Erdan.

Tharwat Zeid, curriculum chief at the Palestinian education ministry, flatly denies the Israeli accusations.

"Our books are not for inciting hatred but for teaching," he said.

"Historical Palestine" -- the Palestinian territories and Israel -- is taught to children "because it is our history and it was our land", he explains.

Israel came into existence as a state in 1948 and the war surrounding its creation resulted in hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees.

- 'Odes to the Israelis' -

Since the end of the 1980s, the Palestinian leadership based in the West Bank -- unlike Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip -- has recognised the Jewish state's existence.

School programmes are inspected by the international donors who finance the Palestinian Authority and therefore public education.

Despite Israeli allegations, UNESCO reports that nothing in the Palestinian study programmes under its oversight supports allegations of inciting hatred against Israel or anti-Semitism

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, has said in a report that nothing in the Palestinian study programmes under its oversight supports charges of inciting hatred against Israel or anti-Semitism.

However, Israel alleges that Palestinians are encouraged to hate Jews, citing examples such as what it calls the glorification as "martyrs" of people who carry out attacks.

Israelis point to schools named for those responsible for attacks, while many Palestinians see such figures as heroes of their struggle against the occupation.

The Palestinians say it is the Israeli curriculum that teaches hatred and ask whether teaching their own history should be off-limits.

"Should we write odes to the Israelis and the occupation? Should we teach the history of Israel?" asked Al-Husseini teacher Ziad Khadash.

The debate gained resonance when a new wave of violence broke out in October 2015 that has killed 256 Palestinians, 40 Israelis, two Americans, one Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese national, according to an AFP count.

Most of the Palestinians who lost their lives were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, according to Israeli authorities. Many were young people acting on their own.

- 'The other as the enemy' -

Israel blames Palestinian education, social media and children's TV programmes, whether broadcast by the Islamist Hamas movement or the Palestinian Authority dominated by president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party.

Zeid says it is more likely that it is the overall situation created by the occupation that fuels hatred rather than schools.

The Gaza Strip, ruled by Hamas, which calls for Israel's destruction, has been under an Israeli blockade for 10 years.

The West Bank has been occupied for 50 years, is criss-crossed by Israeli checkpoints, largely blocked off on its western edge by Israel's security wall.

It is also dotted with Israeli settlements around which clashes are frequent.

Some students are forced to make wide detours to reach their schools due to settlements in the area.

In the Gaza Strip, ravaged by three wars since 2008, the last conflict in 2014 destroyed 24 schools and damaged 190 others.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian youngsters need psychological support, according to the UN.

Both Palestinian and Israeli children, who have grown up with the conflict, lack "mention of the culture of the other", says Sami Adwan, a researcher in education sciences.

With a team of Israeli and Palestinian researchers, he analysed both sides' study programmes.

They found that "instances of dehumanisation and demonisation of the other" regularly alleged by each side are actually rarely found in either curriculum.

But "Israeli and Palestinian books contain unilateral national narratives that present the other as the enemy," their study says.
Congolese policemen patrol the streets of the capital Kinshasa

Congolese national police on Monday accused rebels of massacring 39 of their officers in the violence-wracked Kasai region.

The victims were killed in an "ambush" early Friday and buried in a mass grave by supporters of late militia leader Kamwina Nsapu around 75 kilometres north of Tshikapa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo's central Kasai region, a police spokesman said.

The 39 massacred police officers had been travelling in two army transport trucks "with a substantial cargo" of material and law enforcement equipment, which their attackers hijacked, spokesman Colonel Pierre-Rombaut Mwanamputu added in a statement.

The national police "strongly condemns this massacre" and have taken urgent measures to boost security in that part of the country, the statement said.

The remote region has been plagued by violence since mid-August, when government forces killed Nsapu, a tribal chief and militia leader who had rebelled against President Joseph Kabila's central government.

Clashes between government forces and Nsapu supporters began in central Kasai, but the violence has since spilled over to the neighbouring provinces of Kasai-Oriental and Lomami, leaving at least 400 people dead.

The Kamwina Nsapu group is accused of numerous atrocities by the United Nations and of using child soldiers.

DR Congo security forces have also faced regular UN condemnation over the use of disproportionate force against the militiamen, who are armed mainly with clubs and catapults.

Earlier this month, seven Congolese soldiers were arrested after the release of a video online implicating troops in an alleged massacre in Kasai-Oriental province.

The accusation of the massacre of 39 officers comes two days before the UN Security Council is due to vote on extending its stabilisation mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo -- the largest UN peacekeeping mission in the world, but with few soldiers in the Kasia region.
Ahmed Kathrada was an anti-apartheid activist and close friend of former South African President Nelson Mandela

South Africa's anti-apartheid icon Ahmed Kathrada, who was jailed alongside Nelson Mandela, was feted as a humble liberation hero who shunned the power and glory that came with freedom.

Unlike many struggle veterans, Kathrada, who was imprisoned on Robben Island, never held public political office after the fall of apartheid and Mandela's election as president in 1994.

He choose instead to serve as one of Mandela's closest advisors during his time as the country's first black leader.

When Mandela left office in 1999, after serving a single four-year term, Kathrada also stepped away from politics -- immersing himself in activism through his Ahmed Kathrada Foundation.

Released from prison in 1989, the softly-spoken Kathrada commanded huge respect within the African National Congress (ANC) party, belonging to the golden generation of freedom fighters untainted by later corruption scandals.

He was often described as Mandela's "trusted lieutenant", an "unsung hero" and "humble icon".

To those close to him, he was known as "Kathy" or "Uncle Kathy".

In his book "Long Walk to Freedom", Mandela recalled meeting a young and impassioned Kathrada during the early days of the struggle, and then their later time on Robben Island.

"Kathy was a slender fellow unused to hard physical labour," Mandela said, referring to the back-breaking daily work of crushing rock at the prison quarry.

Mandela recounted how Kathrada was mocked by prison warders when he could not move a wheelbarrow laden with rocks, while the guards prevented Mandela from helping his friend.

- Strategic thinker-

Kathrada was a close advisor to Nelson Mandela

In the cells, "Kathy" was a teacher for fellow prisoners and a strategic thinker who later formed part of the ANC delegation in the negotiations that finally ended apartheid.

Born on August 21, 1929 in Schweizer-Reneke, a small rural town in what was then known as Western Transvaal, Kathrada was a second generation South African of Indian descent.

In his youth, he joined apartheid resistance movements, including the South African Indian Congress, which followed the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi's passive resistance.

"Even as a young man, he stood out as a leader," said retired Constitutional Court judge Albie Sachs.

Kathrada's arrest with other anti-apartheid activists in a 1963 police raid at Liliesleaf Farm, a secret safe house outside Johannesburg, was a turning point in his life.

He was arrested along with Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Denis Goldberg, Elias Motsoaledi and Andrew Mlangeni and charged with sabotage.

"There was nothing I could do," said Kathrada, remembering how a police team burst out of a laundry van and surrounded the property.

- Sacrifices for freedom -

Those arrested were tried at what became known as the Rivonia trial, including Mandela, who was already in prison.

The trial drew worldwide attention to the brutal legal system under the apartheid regime.

In 1964, Kathrada and his co-accused were convicted and sentenced to life on Robben Island prison.

"From the word go, the message was, you are going to die," said Kathrada in 2016 at a screening of a documentary about his life.

"What we were being arrested for already warranted the death sentence."

In 1982, after spending 18 years on Robben Island, he was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town, serving a total of 26 years and three months in jail.

Since Mandela's death in 2013, Kathrada was one of the three surviving members of the Rivonia trial.

"Freedom did not fall from heaven, our freedom was fought for, sacrificed for," he once said.

In later years, Kathrada spoke out against corruption

In recent years, Kathrada was a fierce critic of the ANC government under President Jacob Zuma, himself a fellow Robben Island inmate.

In 2016, Kathrada wrote an open letter to Zuma urging him to resign after the country's highest court found the president in breach of the constitution for using public funds to upgrade his private home.

Kathrada also spoke out against corruption, offering support to Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan when he faced possible prosecution for fraud.

After being released unconditionally from prison in 1989, Kathrada applied for amnesty in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) over his conviction in the Rivonia trial.

In a formality, the commission granted him a pardon in 1999.

The Kathrada foundation said he was survived by his wife, Barbara Hogan, also an ANC stalwart.
Kim Jong-Nam, half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un was poisoned with the lethal nerve agent VX in Kuala Lumpur

Six weeks after the airport assassination of Kim Jong-Nam, Malaysia on Tuesday said it was still waiting for family to claim the body, denying rumours it had been sent back to Pyongyang.

The half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un was poisoned with the lethal nerve agent VX in a brazen Cold War-style assassination on February 13 in Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

"There have been a lot of rumours that the body was cremated but we would not do this without the responsible parties giving us directives or agreement," Health Minister S. Subramaniam told reporters.

In recent days, there has been some speculation that Kuala Lumpur had done a deal with Pyongyang to send the body to North Korea, in exchange for the return of nine Malaysians being prevented from leaving by Kim Jong-Un's regime.

Other reports had suggested the corpse would be transported to Macau, where Kim had been living with his family.

"The body is still in the morgue at Hospital Kuala Lumpur," Subramaniam said, adding it would remain there until the government had decided what to do.

Kuala Lumpur has been waiting for the next of kin to come forward and claim the body, but as this has not happened, they are now seeking other solutions.

Kim's wife and children, who were living in exile in the Chinese territory of Macau, staged a vanishing act after the murder. There are fears his 21-year-old son, Kim Han-Sol, could be targeted next and the family is thought to be in hiding.

The killing has triggered a bitter row between Malaysia and North Korea, which have expelled each other's ambassadors and barred their citizens from leaving.

Two women -- one Vietnamese and one Indonesian -- have been arrested and charged with the murder. Airport CCTV footage shows them approaching the 45-year-old victim and apparently smearing his face with a piece of cloth.

Investigators are seeking seven North Korean suspects, four of whom left Malaysia on the day of the murder.

The police chief has said he believes they fled to Pyongyang while the other three are hiding in North Korea's embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

Seoul has blamed Pyongyang for his death, but the North denies this, refusing to confirm the identity of the victim, who was carrying a passport bearing the name of Kim Chol when he was attacked.

Malaysia has officially confirmed his identity using DNA evidence.
Ma Ying-jeou served as president of Taiwan from 2008 until 2016

A Taiwanese court Tuesday found former president Ma Ying-jeou not guilty in a political leaks case, one of a series of lawsuits brought against him since he stepped down last year.

Ma was acquitted of leaking secrets and of defamation. He will face a new trial after state prosecutors brought fresh leaks charges against him earlier this month.

"Defendant Ma Ying-jeou is found not guilty" of violating the Communication Security and Surveillance Act and the Personal Information Protection Act, said Judge Wu Yung-yi.

Ma was not present when the verdict was announced. Throughout the trial he had denied any wrongdoing.

Tuesday's case, which had been filed by lawmaker Ker Chien-ming, accused Ma of asking the then-prosecutor-general to leak information to him about a confidential judicial probe in 2013.

Ma was also accused of defamation by implying that the lawmaker had sought to influence a court case which he (Ker) was facing.

The judicial probe was investigating whether the parliamentary speaker at the time -- a political rival of Ma -- had improperly influenced the case against Ker in an attempt to benefit the lawmaker.

While still in office Ma had immunity from prosecution. But since he stepped down in May last year after serving the maximum two terms, the 66-year-old has been hit with a series of corruption and other allegations.

Ma's Beijing-friendly Kuomintang (KMT) party held power from 2008 to 2016, before it was trounced by Tsai Ing-wen and her opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

The KMT hailed Tuesday's ruling and urged lawmaker Ker not to appeal the case to avoid "political name-smearing and wasting judicial resources".

But Ker's lawyer Zan Keng-goan expressed shock at the verdict and vowed to appeal.

The leaks controversy sparked a political storm in 2013 and saw two top officials resign, while thousands of protesters took to the streets to demand Ma's resignation.

The DPP, then in opposition, compared the probe to the Watergate scandal in the United States, as information allegedly implicating the parliamentary speaker was obtained by a wiretap on lawmaker Ker's phone.

Ma won the presidency in 2008 with the biggest landslide in Taiwan's democratic history, as voters registered disgust at the graft scandals of his predecessor Chen Shui-bian of the DPP.

Chen was indicted after leaving office and had been serving a 20-year sentence for corruption until he was freed on medical parole in 2015.

However, Ma's popularity plummeted during his eight years in power, with public disquiet at policies seen as linking the island too closely to China and benefiting big business rather than ordinary people.
A third of Yemen's 22 provinces are on the brink of famine, the UN World Food Programme warns

The devastating conflicts gripping the Middle East and North Africa have left 30 million people unsure of their next meal, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said.

"Food security and nutrition levels in the Near East and North Africa have sharply deteriorated over the last five years," the agency said in a report released Monday.

"The prevalence of severe food insecurity in the adult population... was close to 9.5 percent in 2014-2015, representing approximately 30 million people," it said.

"Countries such as Iraq, Sudan, Syria and Yemen have rates that are among the highest in the world, reflecting the devastating impacts of the ongoing conflicts on their food security and nutrition situation."

FAO Assistant Director General and Regional Representative Abdessalam Ould Ahmed said that conflict was hampering efforts to cope with the severe water shortages affecting agriculture in many countries in the region.

"A peaceful and stable environment is an absolute precondition for farmers to respond to the challenges of water scarcity and climate change," he said.

Yemen, which is the Arab world's poorest nation and has seriously depleted its underground water sources, has seen food security deteriorate dramatically since its civil war escalated two years ago with the intervention of a Saudi-led coalition.

A third of its 22 provinces are on the brink of famine, the UN World Food Programme warned on Friday, adding that 60 percent of its population of 17 million was going hungry.

The FAO said that the six-year-old civil war in Syria was also having a devastating effect on access to food for civilians.

"The Syria crisis in particular has deepened during the period 2015-2016, leaving more than half of the population in need of food assistance," it said.
Amazon will acquire the Middle East's largest online retailer Souq.com

Tech giant Amazon expanded its global reach Tuesday with the announcement of a deal to buy Dubai-based Souq.com, the Middle East's largest online retailer.

The agreement, the financial details of which were not disclosed, brings Amazon into a fast-growing market as it continues to invest in its core retail network despite expanding into a wide range of services.

It appears competition was fierce to acquire Souq.com, with the Amazon deal announced just a day after Dubai-based Emaar Malls confirmed offering $800 million to acquire the site.

Amazon had walked away from talks with Souq.com earlier this year, but it reportedly came back with an offer of $650 million.

Founded in 2005 as an auction site, Souq.com has evolved into a retailer and a marketplace for third-party sellers.

In a joint statement announcing the agreement, the two companies said the deal would be finalised this year "subject to closing conditions".

Souq.com chief executive and co-founder Ronaldo Mouchawar called the agreement "a critical next step in growing our e-commerce presence on behalf of customers across the region."

"By becoming part of the Amazon family, we'll be able to vastly expand our delivery capabilities and customer selection much faster, as well as continue Amazon's great track record of empowering sellers," he said in the statement.

- 'Share the same DNA' -

Amazon senior vice president Russ Grandinetti said the deal made sense as both companies "share the same DNA".

"We're both driven by customers, invention and long-term thinking," he said.

"We're looking forward to both learning from and supporting them with Amazon technology and global resources."

Souq.com won a major vote of confidence last year and emerged as the highest-valued internet company in the region when it secured $275 million in funding from international investors to support its growth.

At the time, Mouchawar said the e-commerce market in the Middle East was "growing very fast" and expected to reach $20 billion in 2016.

Known for its huge online retail operations, Amazon has been expanding into areas including cloud computing and streaming video where it is trying to rival Netflix.

But online shopping remains at its core, with its retail operations taking in $26 billion in North America and $14 billion in the rest of the world in the last quarter of 2016.

Samih Toukan, the head of Jabbar Internet Group, an early investor in Souq, hailed the deal on Twitter, writing: "History is made".

He described the acquisition as the "biggest regional tech deal" since Yahoo! in 2009 purchased Maktoob, the first provider of Arabic email services.

Mouchawar launched Souq from within Maktoob, which he joined after he landed in the United Arab Emirates in 2000. Born in Syria, Mouchawar had studied engineering and worked for several tech companies in the United States.

"This is a milestone for the online shopping space in the region," he said in a later statement to staff posted on Souq.com's website.

"Over time, I'm excited for what this acquisition will mean for every customer across the region," he added.

In an interview with Al-Arabiya news channel, Mouchawar said he would remain as the chief executive of Souq.com, and that the company would keep its workforce.

Souq.com attracts over 45 million visits per month.

But the Middle East continues to have a "significant untapped e-commerce potential", according to a report last year by consultancy McKinsey, which put the region's e-commerce at around one percent of total retail.
Among the foreigners currently on death row in Indonesia are Frenchman Serge Atlaoui and Filipina Mary Jane Veloso

Indonesia's President Joko Widodo said he would restore a moratorium on the death penalty if he won the backing of the people, after a spate of executions that drew international condemnation.

Widodo declared an anti-drugs campaign soon after coming to power in 2014 and refused all requests for pardons from death-row drug convicts, ending a four-year moratorium.

But in recent months he has softened his position.

Asked in an interview with AFP on Monday whether he would consider a moratorium, Widodo said: "Why not? But I must ask my people.

"If my people say OK, they say yes, I will start to prepare," he said.

A moratorium could be the first step towards abolishing the death penalty, a move which needs approval in parliament which has been discussing the issue for the past year.

However, Widodo said it would be difficult to secure parliamentary backing without clear public support in a conservative, Muslim-majority country where voters are deeply concerned about high levels of addiction.

He cited a 2015 survey by a private pollster that found 85 percent of Indonesians support the death penalty for drug traffickers.

- Jungle killings -

President Joko Widodo has insisted that the death penalty is part of Indonesia's law and serves as deterrent against drug trafficking

Since Widodo came to power, Indonesia has hauled 18 people -- 15 of them foreigners -- before the firing squad for drug trafficking.

They include a group of eight -- two Australians, a Brazilian, an Indonesian and four Nigerians -- who were put to death in a single night in April 2015 on the prison island of Nusakambangan.

The convicts were taken to a jungle clearing on the island, which houses several high-security prisons, and tied to stakes before being shot, in an move that triggered global revulsion.

The executions of Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in particular caused tensions, with Indonesia's neighbour Australia temporarily recalling its ambassador from Jakarta.

Among the foreigners currently on death row are Frenchman Serge Atlaoui and Filipina Mary Jane Veloso, who were both pulled from the April 2015 round of executions.

A British grandmother, Lindsay Sandiford, is also on death row in Bali after she was caught smuggling a huge stash of cocaine into the resort island which attracts millions of visitors to its palm-fringed beaches every year.

Widodo has insisted that the death penalty is part of Indonesia's law and serves as deterrent against drug trafficking.

However, last November he said he was "open for options" to abolish it. In another concession, only drug convicts from countries that implement the death penalty were executed last year.

- 'Good sign' -

Since Widodo came to power, Indonesia has hauled 18 people -- 15 of them foreigners -- before the firing squad for drug trafficking

International and domestic rights groups have appealed to Indonesia to put a stop to capital punishment, arguing that miscarriages of justice are inevitable in a judicial system deeply compromised by corruption.

Ricky Gunawan from Community Legal Aid Foundation, a group calling for the abolition of the death penalty, said Widodo's latest comments were "a good sign that he is shifting from his stubbornness".

"But the downside is he leaves it to the people to decide, and a good leader should make a stance instead of leaving to the people to decide," he told AFP.

Gunawan urged President Francois Hollande, who will visit Indonesia this week, to press the issue during their talks. France scrapped the death penalty at a time when public support for it was high.

Some analysts have said that since Widodo is the first Indonesian president from outside the establishment -- he was not in the military nor part of the elites -- he needed to show a strong hand on law enforcement.

Halfway into his term, Widodo is faced with rising religious intolerance in a country that has always prided itself as a moderate Muslim nation.

In a case seen as a major test for pluralism, the governor of Jakarta -- an ethnic Chinese Christian - is currently on trial on allegations of blasphemy against Islam.

Widodo said that extensive freedoms have opened the way for hate speech, but played down the extent of intolerance, saying that a "small" number of incidents was "normal" in a nation that embraces many religions and ethnicities.

"People must know the balance of rights and duty... if they are too free, it is not good for our country," he said. "Indonesia is one of the most tolerant countries in the world."
Palestinians walk past the Dome of Rock at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, on January 13, 2017

An Israeli lawmaker petitioned the Supreme Court Tuesday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ban on visits by MPs and ministers to a flashpoint religious site in Jerusalem, his office said.

The petition comes with concerns over whether violence will again flare up for the upcoming Jewish holiday of Passover beginning April 10.

The ban was aimed at helping restore calm following a previous upsurge in violence.

Yehuda Glick, who was once shot over his campaign for Jewish prayer rights at the site, calls the 17-month ban "discriminatory" in the petition.

The hilltop site in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem is known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif compound, which includes the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

The holiest site in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam, it is central to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Netanyahu had in October 2015 instructed police to bar ministers and lawmakers from visiting.

The order was part of attempts to restore calm following an outburst of Palestinian violence, fuelled in part by fears among Muslims that Israel was planning to assert further control over the site.

Jews are allowed to visit the compound but not pray there, and the site has been the scene of regular incidents when Jews try to break the rule and Muslims intervene to stop them.

- 'Political' ban -

On Monday, Israeli media reported that Netanyahu had decided to reexamine the ban at the end of June, after the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.

But Glick went ahead with his petition nonetheless, railing in a video against the "intolerable and strange reality".

"This is a place that any person from around the world can enter except (Israeli) lawmakers," he said.

Glick noted a "return of calm" at the compound following Israel's 2015 decision to outlaw the Murabitat and Murabitun, funded by the Islamic Movement in Israel and acting as self-appointed sentinels who harassed Jewish visitors.

The petition accused Netanyahu's ban of being "political" and running counter to police evaluations, which Glick says recommended allowing ministers and lawmakers -- both Jewish and Muslim -- to visit the compound again.

The US-born Glick, an ordained rabbi, nearly lost his life over his outspoken campaign for Jewish prayer rights at the site in October 2014, when a masked gunman shot him four times.

A day later, police shot and killed his suspected attacker, Muataz Hijazi, a Palestinian from east Jerusalem.

In March 2016, Glick visited the site for the first time since his assassination attempt, but two months later he was sworn in as a member of parliament and became subject to Netanyahu's ban.

A wave of violence that broke out in October 2015 has claimed the lives of 257 Palestinians, 40 Israelis, two Americans, one Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese national, according to an AFP count.

Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, according to Israeli authorities.

Others were shot dead during protests or clashes, while some were killed in Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip.

The violence has greatly subsided in recent months.
Rare wild tigers have been discovered by scientists after the cats wandered past a set of camera traps set deep in the Thai jungle.

The group of small tigers are one of two breeding populations of Indochinese tigers left in the wild.

Conservationists called the discovery 'nothing short of miraculous' after the tigers have been nearly wiped out by poaching in the last few decades.

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Rare wild tigers have been discovered by scientists after the cats wandered past a set of camera traps set deep in the Thai jungle. Pictured one of the cats looking closely at a trap

INDOCHINESE TIGERS Indochinese tigers, which are generally smaller than their Bengal and Siberian counterparts, once roamed across much of Asia. But today only an estimated 221 remain, with the vast majority in Thailand and a handful in neighbouring Myanmar. Aggressive poaching, weak law enforcement and habitat loss has rendered the animals all but extinct in southern China, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, according to scientists. Tiger farms around the region have also boosted the trafficking trade by propping up demand for tiger parts, which are used in traditional medicines popular in China. Advertisement

Indochinese tigers are a sub-species, smaller than their closely-related cousins, that have been driven nearly to extinction by poaching.

Images of the group made up of four mothers and six cubs were captured by camera traps in an eastern Thai jungle throughout 2016.

The discovery confirms the presence of what is only the world's second known breeding population of the endangered Indochinese tiger.

The only other growing population, the largest in the world with about three dozen tigers, is based in a western forest corridor in Thailand near the border with Myanmar.

'The extraordinary rebound of eastern Thailand's tigers is nothing short of miraculous,' said John Goodrich, the tiger programme director at Panthera, a wild cat preservation group that backed the survey.

Indochinese tigers are a sub-species, smaller than their closely-related cousins, that have been driven nearly to extinction by poaching

The group of small tigers, including six cubs (two pictured), are one of two breeding populations of Indochinese tigers left in the wild

The camera trap footage, which shows female tigers and their cubs traipsing through the leafy jungle, was captured with help from the anti-trafficking group Freeland and Thai park authorities.

Indochinese tigers, which are generally smaller than their Bengal and Siberian counterparts, once roamed across much of Asia.

But today only an estimated 221 remain, with the vast majority in Thailand and a handful in neighbouring Myanmar.

Rebecca May, head of WWF's tiger programme, said: 'The sightings of these endangered tigers and cubs is fantastic news and hugely encouraging.

'Improving protection against poaching in areas where there's enough prey and a good habitat can see tiger populations bounce back.

'However, the future of tigers in South-east Asia remains uncertain. We must see efforts ramped up to tackle the illegal wildlife trade, stem habitat destruction and invest in greater conservation work, so wild tiger populations stand a better chance of recovering in these areas.'

Conservationists called the discovery 'nothing short of miraculous' after the sub-species was nearly wiped out by poaching

The only other growing population of Indochinese tigers is based in a western forest corridor in Thailand near the border with Myanmar

The breeding group, one of only two in the world, live in The Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai forest complex in eastern Thailand

Aggressive poaching, weak law enforcement and habitat loss has rendered the animals all but extinct in southern China, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, according to scientists.

Tiger farms around the region have also boosted the trafficking trade by propping up demand for tiger parts, which are used in traditional medicines popular in China.

Conservationists and park officials attributed Thailand's success story to a rise in counter-poaching efforts over the past few decades.

Images of four mothers and six cubs were captured by camera traps in an eastern Thai jungle throughout 2016

Aggressive poaching, weak law enforcement and habitat loss has rendered the animals all but extinct in southern China, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, according to scientists

But they warned that the breeding populations remained vulnerable and would not thrive without a sustained commitment to busting poachers and taking down the lucrative trafficking trade.

The Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai forest complex, where the latest young cubs were caught on some of the 156 cameras, still hosts a only modest tiger density of 0.63 tigers per 100 square kilometres.

It is a ratio on par with some of the world's most threatened tiger habitats, according to Freeland, but still means there is a population of at least 23 of the big beasts roaming wild.

'It's crucial to continue the great progress made by the Thai government to bolster protection for tigers at the frontlines,' said Kraisak Choonhavan, the group's board chairman.

'As long as the illegal trade in tigers continues, they will need protection.'

Tiger farms around the region have also boosted the trafficking trade by propping up demand for tiger parts, which are used in traditional medicines popular in China
Gabon's President Ali Bongo took over from his father Omar Bongo, who ruled for 41 years until his death in 2009

Gabonese President Ali Bongo launched a forum Tuesday of political and social groups on resolving a crisis sparked by his re-election last year, but the talks are boycotted by his rival Jean Ping.

Ceremonies to launch Bongo's promised "dialogue" took place at the presidential palace, attended by representatives from 1,200 groups from civil society, around 50 political parties and government officials and diplomats.

Notable by his absence was opposition leader Ping, who has repeatedly declared himself the winner of last August's election, in defiance of Gabon's constitutional court, which upheld Bongo's victory.

In an opening speech, Bongo characterised the country's problems as a post-electoral "family quarrel," of the kind that had marked the country's history even before independence from France in 1960.

"There's nothing new under the Gabonese sun," he said. "What some people are calling a crisis is and should remain a family quarrel."

Bongo said the "dialogue" -- which is expected to last three weeks but can be extended -- "can discuss everything."

"Our institutions should reflect our identity," he declared.

Topics on the agenda include "institutional reform," changes to the electoral code, the role of the Constitutional Court and "consolidating peace and social cohesion."

Violence erupted on August 31, four days after the vote, when Bongo was declared winner by a mere 6,000 votes.

Demonstrators set parliament ablaze and clashed with police, who made around 1,000 arrests. Opposition figures say more than 50 people were killed. The government has given a toll of three dead.

Ping, 73, a career diplomat, asked for a recount in Haut-Ogooue province, where 95 percent of voters in the Bongo family stronghold were reported to have cast their ballots for the president on a turnout of more than 99 percent.

On September 24, the Constitutional Court ruled Bongo had won 50.66 percent of the vote and Ping 47.24 percent, extending Bongo's lead to 11,000 votes.

Bongo seized the start of his second term to promise an "inclusive political dialogue without taboo" and a 2025 programme that would deliver a flourishing economy for all.

Ali Bongo took over from his father Omar Bongo, who ruled for 41 years until his death in 2009. His second mandate has received a cool reception from the African Union, EU and United Nations.

Gabon has large oil, mineral and tropical timber resources, and its per-capita national income is four times greater than that of most sub-Saharan nations.

But about a third of its population of 1.8 million still live below the poverty line -- the result, say specialists, of inequality, poor governance and corruption

Already-postponed legislative elections are due to be held by the end of July, but could be rescheduled again if there are changes to the constitution, sources close to the Gabonese presidency said.
Syrian main opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) chief negotiator Mohamad Sabra (R) and leader Nasr al-Hariri arrive for a meeting with UN Special Envoy during Syria peace talks in Geneva on February 27, 2017

A political deal to end the Syrian conflict is not possible without a strong US role, the opposition's chief negotiator told AFP, warning that Washington's absence was threatening ongoing peace talks.

Lead negotiator for the main opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), Mohamad Sabra, said in an interview late Monday that the UN-backed talks in Geneva remained "stalled".

"There can be no real and viable political solution without the presence of the Americans," he said.

The United States has a "moral duty" to throw its weight behind efforts to end the six-year conflict, he added.

Years of diplomatic initiatives have failed to end the war, which has killed more than 320,000 people and displaced millions since it started in March 2011 with protests against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Washington has long been the biggest backer of the Syrian opposition, but it appears to be putting far less diplomatic muscle towards the rebel cause since President Donald Trump came to power in January.

Two UN-backed taskforces co-chaired by the United States and Russia and aimed at securing ceasefires and access for humanitarian aid in Syria seem to be having less impact.

At the same time, regime supporters Russia and Iran along with rebel-backer Turkey have been pushing separate negotiations in Astana since January after gains on the ground by Damascus turned the tables in the conflict.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was on Tuesday set to host his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani for talks that are being closely watched for signs of their next moves in Syria.

Closer cooperation between the two Syrian regime supporters will likely go even further in marginalising US influence in the peace process.

- 'No partner' -

While urging Washington to be more fully engaged in the peace process, Sabra warned that a deal would be impossible "if the Russians do not withdraw their (military) support for the regime."

Russia's entry into the conflict in September 2015 -- when it began launching air strikes to shore up Assad's forces -- played a significant role in turning the tide for the Syrian regime.

The HNC delegation was expected to meet with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Genady Gatilov on Wednesday, after he met with the government delegation on Tuesday.

In the interview, Sabra also reiterated the HNC's often-repeated claim that the Syrian government delegation, headed by the country's ambassador to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari, was "not seriously involved" in the talks.

"Until now, we don't have a partner in these negotiations," he insisted.

His comments came amid a fifth round of negotiations in Geneva being mediated by UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura which have remained clouded by persistent violence on the ground and deadlock over the country's political future.

The government has ruled out discussing Assad's possible departure, while the HNC says it will refuse any deal that leaves him in power.

Sabra insisted that "once the transitional government is formed," Assad's regime would end, and he "and his clique will be referred to a fair trial" for their crimes.
Hundreds of thousands more civilians are still inside west Mosul, caught up in deadly fighting between the Islamic State group and Iraqi forces

The US-led anti-jihadist coalition said Tuesday it "probably" played a role in civilian casualties in west Mosul, as the UN and Amnesty International called for greater efforts to protect civilians.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians are still inside west Mosul, caught up in deadly fighting between the Islamic State group and Iraqi forces who are backed by coalition air strikes in the battle to retake the area from the jihadists.

West Mosul is both smaller and more densely populated than the city's east, meaning that this stage of the battle poses a greater danger to civilians than those that came before.

"We probably had a role in those casualties," Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, the commander of the US-led operation against IS, told reporters in a phone briefing from Baghdad, referring to civilians killed and wounded by aerial bombing in west Mosul.

"If those innocents were killed, it was an unintentional accident of war," he said.

Townsend described the fighting in the narrow streets of Iraq's second city as the "most significant urban combat" since World War II and "probably the toughest and most brutal close-quarters combat that I have experienced in my 35 years of service."

The coalition had previously said it carried out a strike on March 17 in an area of west Mosul in which civilian casualties were reported, and that it had opened an investigation.

Iraq is also investigating civilian deaths in west Mosul, but has sought to place the blame on IS.

UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said Tuesday that more than 300 civilians have been killed in west Mosul since February 17.

IS has targeted civilians and used them as human shields, while strikes by anti-IS forces have also left civilians dead.

UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein called on Iraqi and US-led coalition forces "to undertake an urgent review of tactics to ensure that the impact on civilians is reduced to an absolute minimum."

Iraqis who fled their homes in the Old City in western Mosul due to the fighting between government forces and Islamic State group fighters are taken to Hammam al-Alil camp, south of the city

IS's "strategy of using children, men and women to shield themselves from attack is cowardly and disgraceful. It breaches the most basic standards of human dignity and morality," he said.

Amnesty's Donatella Rovera said field research in east Mosul -- which was recaptured from IS in January -- showed "an alarming pattern of US-led coalition air strikes which have destroyed whole houses with entire families inside".

- Jihadists deployed among civilians -

"The high civilian toll suggests that coalition forces... have failed to take adequate precautions to prevent civilian deaths, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law," she said.

In the east, the Iraqi forces adopted a strategy of encouraging civilians to stay at home, dropping leaflets into the city with safety instructions for residents.

"The fact that Iraqi authorities repeatedly advised civilians to remain at home instead of fleeing the area, indicates that coalition forces should have known that these strikes were likely to result in a significant numbers of civilian casualties," Rovera said.

Amnesty quoted Waad Ahmad al-Tai, an east Mosul resident, as saying six members of his extended family -- including his nine-year-old son and three-year-old daughter -- were killed after they followed government advice not to flee the city.

The battle for Mosul

"We heard these instructions on the radio... Also leaflets were dropped by planes. This is why we stayed in our homes," he said.

Amnesty said that, in many cases it investigated, east Mosul residents said IS fighters had been present in or near houses targeted in the strikes.

In one case, five members of a family and their neighbour were killed in a raid on a house where IS fighters were hiding but the jihadists survived that attack, Amnesty quoted survivors as saying.

That pattern has also been repeated in west Mosul, according to witnesses.

Two witnesses who have now fled the city said that a building with around 170 people inside was destroyed in the Mosul al-Jadida area.

One of them said that IS snipers had fired on Iraqi forces, after which an aircraft targeted them with a missile.

Another man said that IS placed snipers atop a house where he was residing with more than 20 relatives.

He was told that an air strike hit the house, an attack he survived because he was away at the time.

More than 200,000 civilians have fled west Mosul since the battle for the area began, according to Iraqi authorities.
The UN Security Council is set to vote on extending its mission in the DR Congo, the largest and costliest UN peacekeeping mission in the world

Two foreign UN contractors who were kidnapped in DR Congo have been found dead, one of them decapitated, the government said Tuesday, as spiralling violence in the vast country sparked international condemnation.

The bodies of American Michael Sharp and Swedish national Zaida Catalan were found as the UN Security Council prepared for a vote on Wednesday on extending its peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres vowed that the world body would do "everything possible" to bring justice in the case.

"Michael and Zaida lost their lives seeking to understand the causes of conflict and insecurity in the DRC in order to help bring peace to the country and its people," the UN chief said.

"I trust that the Congolese authorities will conduct a full investigation into this incident. The United Nations will also conduct an inquiry. In case of criminal acts, the United Nations will do everything possible to ensure that justice is done."

The two were kidnapped by unidentified assailants on March 12 along with four Congolese accompanying them in Kasai-Central province.

Government spokesman Lambert Mende said the woman's body had been decapitated.

The remote region has been plagued by violence since mid-August, when government forces killed Kamwina Nsapu, a tribal chief and militia leader who had rebelled against President Joseph Kabila's central government.

DR Congo

The violence has spilled over from Kasai to the neighbouring provinces of Kasai-Oriental and Lomami, leaving at least 400 people dead.

Several days before the two UN experts were kidnapped, a Uruguayan peacekeeper was shot and injured in the same region.

Sharp's father, John Sharp, said there was a "high probability" the bodies were those of his son and Catalan.

"Dental records and DNA samples will be used to confirm the identities. This will take some time," he added on Facebook.

- 39 officers killed -

On Monday, Congolese national police accused rebels of massacring 39 of their officers in Kasai.

The victims were killed in an "ambush" early Friday as they were travelling in trucks, and buried in a mass grave by supporters of the late Kamwina Nsapu, a police spokesman said.

Jordan Anderson, Africa analyst for IHS Markit, cited reports that all 39 had been beheaded.

The Kamwina Nsapu militia "is increasingly taking violent and hostile action against anyone it sees as being outsiders, interfering in the Kasai," he said.

The United Nations, European Union and African Union on Tuesday expressed "grave concern" over the spiralling violence in Kasai.

The organisations "condemn this despicable act and express their condolences to the families of the victims," they said.

They called for an "urgent response from the country's political leaders" to curb the violence and "urge the defence and security forces to exercise restraint in the efforts to restore order in the Kasai."

The UN has 19,000 soldiers, police and military observers deployed in the DR Congo, costing $1.2 billion annually

The UN Security Council is set to vote on Wednesday on extending its mission in the DR Congo, the largest and costliest UN peacekeeping mission in the world.

The UN has 19,000 soldiers, police and military observers deployed in the mission, costing $1.2 billion annually.

About 100 of those troops were recently dispatched to the Kasai region.

- 'Playing with fire' -

France warned last week that drastic cuts to the mission would be tantamount to "playing with fire" as the DRC is also embroiled in election turmoil.

France has circulated a draft resolution to renew the mandate of the peacekeeping mission, but is facing scrutiny from the United States which is seeking cuts to UN peace operations.

The influential Catholic Church in DR Congo brokered a deal in late December to pave the way for elections by the end of 2017, but the agreement has been bogged down in disputes over the appointment of a new prime minister.

Elections would bring an end to the rule of Kabila, in power since 2001.

The Church and the electoral commission said earlier this month that the growing unrest in Kasai threatened to derail voter registration.

Police reinforcements meanwhile were sent to strategic points in the capital Kinshasa on Tuesday after clashes between demonstrators and officers in several districts, where tyres were burned and roads blocked.
View of a court room at the International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2016

Zambia opened public consultations this week on the government's plan to leave the International Criminal Court, as several other African countries re-assess their membership.

South Africa recently revoked its planned departure from the ICC, based in The Hague, and The Gambia's new president, Adama Barrow, reversed his predecessor's decision to withdraw.

Zambian justice minister Given Lubinda announced the consultation, which will run until Friday, in a speech to parliament last week.

"The consultative process will be conducted through public hearings in 30 districts where members of the public will be invited to make oral and written submissions," Lubinda said.

The government will then decide whether to seek to leave the court, and plans to announce its decision at an African Union assembly later this year.

The court has been hit by withdrawal threats following longstanding complaints of an alleged bias against African nations.

Along with South Africa and The Gambia, Burundi has also registered to leave, while Kenya is considering following suit.

One Zambian opposition leader accused President Edgar Lungu of trying to evade justice by seeking to leave the court.

"President Lungu thinks that by running away from ICC he cannot face the ICC," said Nason M'soni, of the MMD party.

Opposition parties accuse Lungu of electoral fraud and political violence during his 2016 re-election campaign, though the result was upheld by the courts.
The Energy Star certification scheme under threat from the Trump administration offers tax credits, rebates and other incentives to commercial building owners to improve energy efficiency

Voluntary efficiency programmes -- including one targeted for elimination by the Trump administration -- have led to energy savings of up to 30 percent in commercial buildings in Los Angeles, researchers have reported.

Describing their study as the first large-scale analysis of green certification schemes for big buildings, a pair of researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles reviewed data on nearly 179,000 properties in the city.

"We found that -- with the programmes -- there is a significant improvement in energy efficiency," said co-author Magali Delmas, an environmental economist.

The Energy Star certification scheme under threat from the Trump administration offers tax credits, rebates and other incentives to commercial building owners to improve energy efficiency.

Besides lowering energy costs, this also contributes to reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that drive global warming, Delmas said.

"These findings are important because they show that voluntary information programmes can be effective to reduce energy and CO2 emissions," she told AFP.

The energy supplied to buildings around the world -- mostly through electricity -- accounts for about one-third of total energy use, which means that gains in efficiency can make a serious dent in global warming.

Based on their findings for Los Angeles, the researchers estimate that a modest 20 percent participation rate for office and industrial real estate in the United States would cut emissions by nearly six million metric tonnes annually.

- 'More efficient choices' -

"This is the equivalent of powering 862,546 homes with electricity each year, or burning 6.23 billion pounds of coal," Delmas said.

The study was published Monday in the journal Nature Energy.

One of the three programmes analysed was set up by the US Green Building Council, a nonprofit organisation.

The other two are operated by the federal government -- Energy Star is overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency, while the Department of Energy runs the Better Building Challenge.

The EPA says that since its inception, Energy Star has lowered consumers' electricity bills by $430 billion (400 billion euros) and avoided 2.7 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

It's annual operating costs are about $55 million (52 million euros).

President Donald Trump was expected to sign an executive order Tuesday to dismantle the EPA's climate change policies, many of them put in place by his predecessor, Barack Obama.

In a budget blueprint unveiled this month, Trump called for axing dozens of the agency's programmes, including Energy Star.

Exactly why is not obvious, given that the voluntary programme -- which is not a regulation -- helps consumers and businesses save money.

"Without the information provided by Energy Star, customers cannot evaluate the energy efficiency of different products and make more efficient choices," Delmas said.

Many consumers trust the Energy Star label, and depend on it to make smart choices in buying big ticket items, said Robert Cowin, director of government affairs for climate and energy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington-based policy think tank.

"I think the reason that it is marked for elimination in purely ideological," he told AFP.

Beyond the animus against climate change measures, "there's the ideology of what the government's role should be, the idea that the private sector could do it better."

Under the proposed federal budget, the agency's $8.2 billion budget would be cut by more than 30 percent, and 3,200 of its staff would be laid off.

The EPA's Office of Research and Development would see its funding slashed to $250 million from $483 million.

Congress -- which has the final say on budget matters -- may decide not to kill Energy Star, Cowin said.

"I think it will survive," he told AFP. "It has a lot of support on both sides of the aisle."
Ultra-Orthodox Jews take part in a protest against Israeli army conscription, in the city of Jerusalem, on March 28, 2017

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews took to the streets of Jerusalem on Tuesday to protest against compulsory military service at a time of increased tensions between them and Israeli authorities.

The protesters dressed in the dark suits and hats typical of the ultra-Orthodox community held signs, including those saying "the state of Israel persecutes Jews".

Rabbis addressed the crowd, sometimes in Yiddish, while police deployed heavily in the area.

"It's better to be shot than to go in the army," said one of the protesters, Aaron Roth, 45 and with a long, dark beard.

The protest was organised by particularly hardline ultra-Orthodox who completely reject the Israeli state.

Military service, two years and eight months for men and two years for women, is compulsory for most Jewish Israelis.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews represent about 10 percent of the Israeli population and live in compliance with a strict interpretation of Jewish laws.

Some of them view military service as a source of temptation for young people who then leave the closed world of prayer and religious study.

The ultra-Orthodox are exempt if studying in yeshiva religious schools, though the issue is controversial with secular Israelis and attempts have been made to remove the exemption.

Regardless, they must register at the recruitment office but some, inspired by rabbis hostile to any cooperation with the Israeli authorities, refuse to and are considered deserters.

Last month there were major protests in ultra-Orthodox areas across Israel, with more than 30 people arrested.

There were also fresh tensions on Monday, when police arrested 22 ultra-Orthodox suspected sex offenders whose alleged crimes were known to their insular communities but concealed from the authorities.

Less hardline ultra-Orthodox Jews participate in Israeli politics and wield significant influence.

Ultra-Orthodox politicians have often acted as kingmakers in Israeli politics, and a number of them currently form part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition.
Pakistan's President Mamnoon Hussain will sign an amendment to extend secret military courts into law

An expired Pakistani law allowing secret military courts to try civilians on terror charges was extended by the Senate for another two years Tuesday, despite stringent criticism from rights groups.

The law expired in January with the controversial tribunals having hanged 12 people and ordered the executions of 149 more.

The courts will now be revived as soon as Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain signs the amendment to extend them into law, a senior government official told AFP.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) slammed the move in a statement.

"The nationwide concern at a number of recent attacks in the country seems to have once again been misdirected toward a seriously flawed counter terrorism strategy that weakens the rule of law and the struggle for justice," said Sam Zarifi, ICJs Asia director.

"Pakistan must reject this counter productive strategy and instead strengthen its judicial process and law enforcement in line with its domestic law and international obligations," he added.

The military courts were created by constitutional amendment after the country's deadliest ever extremist attack in December 2014.

The assault on a school in northwestern Peshawar, in which gunmen killed more than 150 people -- mostly children -- traumatised a country already grimly accustomed to atrocities.

The army intensified an operation against militants in the tribal areas and the government launched a National Action Plan, including the creation of the courts, against extremism.

The courts were seen as an "exceptional" short-term measure put in place to allow the government time to reform the criminal justice system.

Last month, a fresh wave of militant violence killed 130 people across Pakistan.

The attacks, most of which were claimed by the Islamic State group or the Pakistani Taliban, dented optimism after the country appeared to be making strong gains in its decade-and-a-half long war on militancy.
Prosecutors say Maxim Senakh used a malicious computer software known as "Ebury" to attack computers around the world

A Russian man pleaded guilty in a US federal court on Tuesday to charges he participated in a global computer fraud conspiracy that generated millions in illicit profit, US authorities announced.

Appearing before a federal judge in the state of Minnesota, Maxim Senakh, 41, of Velikii Novgorod, Russia pleaded guilty to computer and wire fraud conspiracy charges, the US Justice Department said in a statement.

Prosecutors say Senakh used a malicious computer software known as "Ebury" to attack computers around the world. The malware harvested server log-in credentials, allowing Senakh and his co-conspirators to operate an infected network or "botnet" involving tens of thousands of servers, including some in the United States.

This allowed them to redirect internet traffic for click-fraud and email spam, drawing in millions of dollars. Senakh admitted to creating accounts with domain registrars to create the botnet and to personally profiting himself.

Sentencing is scheduled to occur in August, the Justice Department said.

Senakh was extradited from Finland in January of last year after Finnish authorities arrested him on the Russian border in August 2015 as he was returning him from a vacation. Russian officials objected strongly at the time.

Senakh's arrest and extradition were sensitive, given that Finland shares an 830-mile (1,340-kilometer) border with Russia and Helsinki has worked to maintain stable relations with Moscow since the end of World War II.
Workers move dirt in front of a home in Flint, Michigan, as they replace the old lead pipe with a new safer copper pipe on March 4, 2016

A federal judge on Tuesday approved a $97 million settlement in a lawsuit over drinking water contamination in the US city of Flint, Michigan, requiring that all lead pipes be replaced.

The agreement comes almost three years after lead first began to contaminate the drinking water of the hard-scrabble Midwestern city near the US automotive capital of Detroit, due to a switch to a more corrosive water source that had not been properly treated to protect aging underground pipes.

The lead contamination, initially denied by state and local officials, poisoned thousands of children. The tainted water caused the deaths of 12 people from Legionnaire's disease, officials said.

According to the state's top law enforcement official who is now investigating the crisis, a $200-a-day water treatment would have prevented the lead leaching.

The settlement requires that all of Flint's lead and galvanized steel pipes be replaced within three years. The state must also guarantee the availability of water filters through 2018 and provide bottled water at least until September.

US District Court Judge David Lawson will monitor the settlement's implementation.

"For the first time, there will be an enforceable commitment to get the lead pipes out of the ground. The people of Flint are owed at least this much," said Dimple Chaudhary, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The NRDC is one of the groups that brought the lawsuit along with Flint area pastors and the Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Flint resident Melissa Mays was also a party to the suit.

"This is a win for the people of Flint," Mays said in a statement. "The greatest lesson I've learned from Flint's water crisis is that change only happens when you get up and make your voice heard."

Almost half of the money in the settlement will come directly from the state of Michigan, with the rest allocated by the US Congress.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder supported the settlement, saying it was the best path forward for Flint.

"While the settlement provides for commitments to many different resources, the state will continue striving to work on many priorities to ensure the city of Flint has a positive future," Snyder said in a statement.

Thirteen current and former government officials have been criminally charged in the ongoing investigation of the handling of the water crisis and the decisions that caused it.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has also sued two water engineering companies, the French firm Veolia and the Texas-based Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam, claiming they failed to prevent or properly address the crisis.

The two companies have denied wrongdoing.
Actress Cara Delevingne and director Luc Besson attend an STXfilms presentation during CinemaCon in Las Vegas

Legendary sci-fi director Luc Besson revealed Tuesday he has been thinking about making his latest film "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" since he was 10.

The 58-year-old French auteur has made a string of iconic hits, including "The Fifth Element," "Leon: The Professional," "Lucy" and "Nikita."

But he said his upcoming movie has been a passion project since he began reading the serialized 1960s comics from Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mezieres on which it is based.

"There was no internet, no YouTube, nothing and you had to wait a week to get two more pages," he told delegates at the CinemaCon gathering of movie theater operators in Las Vegas.

"I got totally addicted... It was so cool at the time, really new and I never stopped thinking about it."

Besson believed a movie based on a comic about just two human characters and 1,000 aliens would be impossible, he told the audience at Caesar's Palace.

"But then this gentleman, this young director James Cameron -- you've heard of him? -- he just made these techniques possible after 'Avatar.' Thanks to him now, the imagination is the limit," Besson added.

- Fever dream -

The $180 million "Valerian" -- which comes out on July 21 -- centers on a dark force threatening Alpha, a vast metropolis and home to species from a thousand planets.

Blacks ops agents Valerian (Dean DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) race to identify the marauding menace and safeguard the universe.

The audience was treated to a new trailer, a surreal but self-aware fever dream in vivid 3-D featuring a huge, drooling CGI dog-like monster that rips a bus apart, as well of plenty of large Zen-like aliens and desert vistas with echoes of Mad Max.

"I grew up loving Luc's movies from when I was a kid. This is my biggest dream," said 24-year-old British fashion model-turned-actress Delevingne ("Paper Towns").

Adam Fogelson, studio head of Hollywood newcomer STX, introduced "Valerian" as part of a slate of its upcoming movies building on an impressive portfolio of 10 releases in its first two years in business.

An array of stars, including Jessica Chastain, Aaron Sorkin, Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis took to the stage to discuss upcoming projects in various stages of development.

There was a first look at Jackie Chan action vehicle "The Foreigner," an American-Chinese production that hits US theaters October 13.

- 'Female power' -

There was also very early concept art from animations "Ugly Dolls," which Fogelson announced would be benefiting from the creative oversight of veteran director Robert Rodriguez, and an untitled rodeo comedy starring Eddie Murphy.

Wahlberg introduced actioner "Mile 22" saying he hoped it would become a trilogy and "the thing that defines me," while Kunis chatted about motherhood and the sequel to smash-hit "Bad Moms," due for release in November.

Oscar nominee Chastain stars in "Molly's Game" as Molly Bloom, a real-life skier who lost out on her Olympic dream and became an organizer of underground poker games for the Hollywood elite.

"I like that the film explores female power and what that means in society," said Chastain, who got to meet Bloom during production.

First-time director Sorkin, 55, is best known for his writing on televisual milestones such as "The West Wing" and the "The Newsroom," as well as movies "Moneyball" and "The Social Network."

"It isn't often you come across a story that is both cool and has a lot of heart, and this one does," he told the CinemaCon crowd after a screening of the trailer.

"And what drew me to the story is the character of Molly. She is a thoroughly original movie heroine."
ADVANCE, N.C. (AP) - Three North Carolina Highway Patrol troopers are on leave while state police investigate the shooting of a man during a confrontation following an attempted traffic stop.

Highway Patrol Sgt. Michael Baker says in a news release that troopers Courtney Richmond, John Chapman and Ryan Goodin are on leave during the investigation.

The statement says 30-year-old Steven P. Little of Statesville was shot and wounded and is wanted on 14 felony charges in Iredell County.

The race of those involved wasn't immediately available.

The shooting happened Sunday afternoon in Davie County, outside Winston-Salem.

Baker says the chase started when the driver of a car refused to stop for a trooper in Iredell County. The pursuit crossed into Davie County and resulted in an armed confrontation between the driver and troopers.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Authorities say a 52-year-old man called 911 after finding a bale of marijuana that had washed up on a Florida beach.

Jeff Stolowitz tells local news outlets he was walking on Daytona Beach on Saturday morning when he spotted the object, which was shaped like a giant cigar. As he got closer on Saturday morning, he saw a ripped edge and what appeared to be blood. That's when he called for help.

Volusia County Beach Safety Capt. Mike Berard says narcotics sometimes wash ashore when the surf kicks up. He says small amounts are typically tested and disposed of, but larger amounts are transferred to another agency.

Berard says they've found cocaine, medical waste and 30-gallon drums of diesel fuel on the beach after big storms or high surf.
GENEVA (AP) - Swiss and Turkish prosecutors announced separate investigations Monday after protesters hoisted a banner in Switzerland's capital showing a gun pointed at an image of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan next to the words, "Kill Erdogan."

Bern regional prosecutors opened a probe for alleged "public provocation of crimes or violence," Bern police spokesman Dominik Jaeggi said. Officers collected evidence when the banner was raised during a peaceful protest outside the Swiss Parliament, but did not pull it down, Jaeggi said.

Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency said prosecutors in Istanbul have launched a separate investigation. The people responsible for the poster could face charges for crimes such as membership in a terror organization, insulting the president and promoting terrorist propaganda, the news agency reported.

Istanbul prosecutors have instructed police to identify the demonstrators who unfurled the banner, alleging that groups including the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, were involved, Anadolu said. The party is banned in Turkey and considered a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union.

"They made a poster of me with a gun pointing to my head. They say 'kill Erdogan,'" Erdogan said while campaigning Monday for constitutional changes that would grant him sweeping new powers. "No one has the power to take away the lifespan that God has designated for me."

Secretary General Regula Tschanz of the Swiss Green party, which helped organize the demonstration with pro-Kurdish advocacy groups, insisted organizers had nothing to do with the gun image. Tschanz said the rally was meant to support peace and dialogue, and called the banner "counterproductive."

"We are 100 percent against the content of that image," Tschanz said, adding that she had no idea who was behind it. The full message on the banner read: "Kill Erdogan with his own weapons."

Urs Sekinger, a coordinator with the anti-globalist group Solifonds, said he thinks an unspecified communist youth group that had begun demonstrating before the organized rally started was behind the image.

Sekinger he does not believe PKK members were involved, but noted that since the group is not banned in Switzerland it was "possible."

He said the rally drew 5,000 people, although a photographer working with The Associated Press put the figure at about half that.

The peaceful, if noisy demonstration came amid tensions between Ankara and parts of Europe over the referendum in Turkey next month on the proposed constitutional changes, and allegations of Turkish interference on the Swiss political scene.

On Friday, Swiss federal prosecutors said they had "concrete indications" pointing to alleged political espionage by people linked to the Turkish community in Switzerland.

___

Fraser reported from Ankara.
BERLIN (AP) - Germany says it will keep calling for access to a German-Turkish journalist detained in Istanbul since January on charges of terrorist propaganda and incitement to hatred.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer told reporters in Berlin on Monday that "everyone involved, including in Turkey, knows that the emblematic case of Deniz Yucel has great political and symbolic importance for German-Turkish relations."

He acknowledged that since Yucel is also a Turkish citizen, Turkey has no obligation to grant Germany consular access, but said Turkey's prime minister had said German diplomats would be allowed to visit him.

Schaefer said: "We won't stop demanding what we've been promised. But Turkey is a sovereign state that, whether we like it or not, has the right to allow this or not."
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - The foreign minister of Nigeria visited Poland on Monday in an effort to develop economic, military and security ties with the fast-growing economy in central Europe.

Geoffrey Onyeama, on his first visit to Poland, said he was "extremely impressed" by the economic development he has seen in Poland, a country that threw off communist rule 28 years ago.

He said Nigeria, an oil exporter badly hit by a fall in oil prices, is eager to diversify its "mono-economy" and is seeking out Poland as one of its new partners.

Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Witold Waszczykowski,right, and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria Geoffrey Onyeama hold a press conference after a meeting at the Polish foreign ministry's headquarters in Warsaw, Poland, Monday, March 27, 2017. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

"I think there is a lot that we can gain from each other," Onyeama told reporters, speaking at a news conference alongside his Polish counterpart, Witold Waszczykowski. "It would be a real win-win relationship, Poland and Nigeria."

Onyeama said security, military equipment and training, agriculture, manufacturing and energy are areas of possible cooperation, but he gave no specific details for any agreements under consideration.

Both ministers noted that Poland is attractive as a partner to Nigeria because it produces many of the same things produced by other leading economies in Europe, but at lower prices.
SANFORD, Fla. (AP) - A woman and her boyfriend were arguing over property before he fatally shot her and also shot five others, including her two grade-school age sons, police in Florida said Monday.

The woman and the gunman were arguing about property Monday morning at a gas station, and the woman approached a police officer about it, said Officer Bianca Gillett, a spokeswoman for the Sanford Police Department.

The officer settled them down, but sometime later an officer was called to the home in the Orlando suburb of Sanford, where the argument had flared up again. While there, the woman, who wasn't immediately identified, gave the officer a bag of possessions that included a firearm. The argument died down and the officer left, Gillett said.

A short time later, the gunman fatally shot the woman and also shot her two sons and their grandfather. The gunman then went to a nearby street and shot two innocent bystanders, including a high school student waiting for a bus.

A police officer who was in the neighborhood heard the shots, located the gunman and was able to take him into custody, along with his weapon, Gillett said. Charges are pending against the gunman.

"This is one of the most horrific crime scenes our officers have had to encounter," Gillett said.

The boys, ages 7 and 8, and grandfather were in critical condition, and the bystanders were in stable condition, she said.
Muslims complain they are frivolous bills meant to spread fears and sow suspicion of their religion in a nation divided.

But supporters of state proposals to prevent Islamic code from being used in American courts argue they aren't overtly anti-Muslim and are needed to safeguard constitutional rights for average Americans.

The bills, variations of which have been around for years, don't specifically seek to ban Islamic law, known as Sharia, even though some lawmakers concede that's their intent.

FILE - In this March 21, 2013 file photo, Montana state Rep. Keith Regier, R-Kalispell speaks on the house floor in Helena, Montana. Regier, now a state senator, has proposed a bill poised to clear the state legislature in March 2017, which would forbid the use of religious and foreign laws in state courts that don't grant the same rights and privileges as the state or U.S. constitutions. While the legislation does not specifically mention Sharia law, both supporters and opponents refer to them as "Sharia law bills." Sharia law is what governs Islamic societies. (Eliza Wiley/The Independent Record via AP)

Instead, the proposals broadly call for banning the application of any foreign law, legal code or legal system that doesn't grant the same rights and privileges as the state or U.S. constitutions.

"I believe very strongly in the values of America to allow for religious freedom," said Connecticut state Rep. Robert Sampson, a Republican sponsor of a bill. "I just don't want our court system to start using what is religious law from other countries to make decisions. I'd like to preserve our way of life."

Muslim leaders say the bills are among a range of proposals and decisions at all levels of government that they're gearing up to fight this year, from President Donald Trump's travel ban to local planning and zoning rulings against mosque projects.

"These are thinly veiled attempts to alienate Muslims in America," said Hazem Bata, of The Islamic Society of North America, based in Indiana, where once such "anti-Sharia" bill has been introduced.

The bills have been introduced in at least 13 states, a number that will likely grow as the legislative year progresses, said Jonathan Griffin, of the National Conference of State Legislatures, who has been tracking the proposals. Anywhere from 15 to 30 states see the proposal introduced in a given year, he said. Ten states already have some version of them on the books since they started cropping up around 2010.

While many of this year's bills likely won't become law, they're gaining traction early in Montana and Arkansas, where the legislatures are poised to approve bills and send them to the governors this month.

Supporters point to a 2014 report by the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think tank whose critics deride as anti-Muslim, that cites nearly 150 cases in which it says Sharia played a role.

The cases, some of which date to the late 1970s, mostly involve divorce, child custody and other family law proceedings where either the plaintiff or defendants invoked Islamic laws and customs to make their case.

"Sharia should be very concerning to all of us," said state Rep. Heidi Sampson, a Maine Republican who has proposed legislation. "It is a way of life and a legal code which is designed to impinge on culture, family life, marriage, equality of the sexes - a whole host of areas."

Sampson and other lawmakers say a 2010 New Jersey case highlighted prominently in the report is particularly troubling.

A Muslim woman accused her husband of sexual abuse and sought a restraining order in 2009, but the judge denied the request after the husband argued, in part, that a wife must comply with her husband's sexual demands in Islamic custom. An appeals court ultimately overturned the ruling.

But Will Smiley, an editor at the Harvard Law School's SHARIAsource, an online collection of academic writings on Islamic law, is skeptical the bills proposed by lawmakers would have made a difference in the initial ruling.

"These new laws don't provide any new safeguards," Smiley said. "Courts can still make mistakes, like most observers agree that New Jersey court did."

Many of the other cases cited in the center's report don't appear to show evidence that U.S. courts based decisions on Sharia or other foreign codes, said Jay Wexler, a professor at Boston University's School of Law who specializes in separation of church and state issues.

"The facts of a case might require a court to consider in some way a foreign custom or law," he said. "But that does not mean that the court is applying foreign law."

Supporters stress the proposals would affect all religious codes and foreign laws equally.

If parts of Jewish, Christian or other laws ran counter to fundamental constitutional rights, they too would not be applicable in U.S. courts, said Montana state Sen. Keith Regier, a Republican.

"They're saying it's hateful, and I have no idea where they're getting that from," he said of opponents. "Read the bill and tell me what is hateful or distasteful in there."

But opponents maintain the bills as proposed don't serve a practical purpose.

"The U.S. legal code already states that American courts can only adhere to American laws," said John Robbins, executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "It's a stupid solution to a nonexistent problem."

___

Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/journalist/philip-marcelo .
VIENNA (AP) - An Austrian court has found a man guilty of terrorism-linked charges for spreading Islamic State group propaganda, and sentenced him to prison.

The court in the western city of Linz convicted the Austrian national for "participation in a terrorist organization." The man, who is not being identified in accordance with Austrian privacy laws, has been given an 18-month prison sentence, three months of which are suspended.

The man was accused of spreading videos of radical Islamic preachers and beheadings prepared by IS. The court was told Monday that police started investigating him after he hung an IS flag from his balcony several years ago.

He acknowledged interest in IS but denied being part of the group.
WASHINGTON (AP) - New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is expected to join a White House effort to combat opioid abuse.

A White House official said Monday that the Republican governor will work on an opioid task force that will be announced later this week. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plans in advance.

Christie said on his regular radio call-in show Monday that he wouldn't "jump" any announcement from the president.

The governor has dedicated his final year in office to curbing heroin and prescription drug addiction in his state. Last month, he signed legislation into law which includes a five-day limit for first-time opioid prescriptions and a requirement that insurance cover six months of substance abuse treatment.

Christie met with Trump on the issue in February.
CHICAGO (AP) - A Chicago man has been charged with child endangerment after police say they found a handgun hidden in a baby stroller alongside a 1-year-old boy.

Chicago police say 32-year-old Anthony Kennedy fled Friday afternoon as officers approached him in a West Side neighborhood, but that he was soon captured.

Police said in a statement that officers also found marijuana in the stroller. Kennedy is also charged with unlawful possession of handgun by a felon and other charges.

The child is in the care of relatives.

Kennedy was ordered held on $100,000 bail. An attorney who could speak on behalf of Kennedy is not listed.
Here's a look at stories The Associated Press plans to cover in Europe on Thursday, March 30. Questions about coverage plans can be directed to the Europe Desk at eurdesk@ap.org.

BRITAIN-BREXIT - The British government publishes details of how it will extricate itself from a web of EU regulation through a Great Repeal Bill, as European leaders meet in Malta. UPCOMING: Developing.

BREXIT-ECHOES OF THE PAST - The last time Britain held deep trade negotiations with the EU was when it wanted to enter the bloc. It was frustrating, painful and humbling for Britain - at one point reducing the prime minister to confide in his diary that "all our policies at home and abroad are in ruins." A look back at those talks highlights some of the challenges Britain faces today. By Pan Pylas. UPCOMING: 900 words by 0900 GMT, photos, stacked with video.

POLAND-BRITAIN-BREXIT - Poles, who have settled in large numbers in Britain in recent years, are expressing confusion and apprehension as Britain launches the process to leave the European Union. They rue being cut them off from Europe's most attractive job market and some even fear weakened European unity leaves them more vulnerable to a belligerent Russia. By Vanessa Gera. UPCOMING: 600 words, photos by 0800 GMT.

TURKEY-US - US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson holds talks with Turkish leaders in Ankara to discuss Turkish demands for extradition of cleric blamed for the July 15 failed coup as well as a possible operation to oust the Islamic State group from its stronghold of Raqqa. Schedule TBA.

RED CROSS-SYRIA - The head of the Red Cross-Red Crescent speaks to the Associated Press a day after a trip to Syria, laying out the country's most pressing needs ahead of next week's Brussels conference about helping the country rebuild one day, after its devastating war is over. By Jamey Keaten. UPCOMING: 400 words by 1500 GMT. With photos, video.

G-7 CULTURE - Law enforcement agencies will trade strategies for combatting the illicit trade of cultural treasures by criminal organizations and their destruction by terror groups on the sidelines of the first-ever Group of 7 meeting of culture ministers.

FRANCE-RACISM EXHIBIT - An exhibit exploring the psychology behind racism opens at Paris' Museum of Mankind. It comes during a presidential campaign in France that's been rife with anti-Islam rhetoric, and comes the same week in which violence on the streets of Paris has exposed deep tensions affecting France's large Asian community. By Thomas Adamson. UPCOMING: 300 words by 1400 GMT.

PORTUGAL-CHILE - Chilean President Michelle Bachelet visits the Portuguese city of Evora, 150 kilometers east of Lisbon, where she is to receive an honorary doctorate. Remarks to the press are scheduled for 1115 GMT. UPCOMING: 130 words on merit after 1115 GMT. TV covering. Print monitoring from Lisbon.
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - Maryland lawmakers voted Monday to ban hydraulic fracturing for oil and natural gas, a process better known as fracking.

The Senate voted 35-10 for a measure that already has been approved by the House. That sends the bill to Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who supports the ban.

Fracking isn't being done in Maryland now, but a moratorium on issuing permits ends in October.

Fracking opponents cited health and environmental concerns for not allowing the drilling process to ever happen in the state. The drilling technique forces pressurized water and chemicals underground to break up the rock and release the gas. Critics say the process and disposal of tainted wastewater pose risks of water and air pollution, earthquakes and property devaluation.

"Let the news go forth to Congress and the White House: Fracking can never be done safely," said Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. "The Republican governor closest to D.C. - Larry Hogan of Maryland - has joined scientists and health leaders in agreeing that fracking must be banned."

Supporters of fracking say it could create jobs. A 2014 Towson University study found it could create 3,600 jobs over 10 years in economically distressed Garrett and Allegany counties in far western Maryland.

Drew Cobbs, executive director of the Maryland Petroleum Council, said the Maryland General Assembly's decision to approve a statewide ban could hurt families, jobs and energy security.

"Denying Maryland consumers, businesses and job-seekers the benefits that come with in-state energy production through hydraulic fracturing shuts the door on an important share of the American energy renaissance and western Maryland's future economic growth," Cobbs said in a statement after the vote.

A portion of the western side of the state sits atop the Marcellus Shale, which runs underground from New York to Tennessee. Neighboring West Virginia and Pennsylvania allow fracking, while New York and Vermont have banned it.
NEW YORK (AP) - A lawsuit accuses Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police of targeting gay men who use the restrooms at New York City's main bus terminal.

The class action lawsuit claims Port Authority police officers engage in discrimination by falsely arresting men perceived as gay at the Port Authority Bus Terminal on baseless charges including public lewdness and exposure.

The complaint accuses officers of targeting gays to boost quality of life arrest statistics, believing that most of those arrested will ultimately be forced to plead to lesser charges to avoid public humiliation.

The suit was filed Monday in Manhattan federal court by Winston & Strawn LLP and the Legal Aid Society. The plaintiffs are seeking a stop to the practice, as well as compensatory and punitive damages.

The Port Authority has declined to comment.
NEW YORK (AP) - Two men have been arrested on drug charges after heroin was found hidden in the false bottom of a dog crate containing a Labrador retriever that had been shipped from Puerto Rico to New York.

The defendants have been identified as 35-year-old Samuel Seabrooks, of the Bronx, and 27-year-old Carlos Betancourt-Morales, of Carmel. Both were charged Sunday with drug possession and conspiracy.

Prosecutors say the two were arrested on Friday after they picked up the dog crate at New York's Kennedy Airport. Hidden in the crate's false bottom was more than 22 pounds of heroin with a street value of more than $1 million.

It wasn't immediately clear if the suspects had lawyers who could comment. If convicted, they each face up to 20 years in prison.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - The Australian government on Tuesday shelved a planned extradition treaty with China rather than allow the Senate to reject it over human rights concerns.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said senior ministers decided not to proceed with trying to ratify the treaty after the opposition Labor Party declared it would block it in the Senate. Labor was the conservative government's last hope of getting the treaty through the upper house a decade after it was signed.

Bishop said she would renew negotiations with China and Labor to find a compromise that the Senate would accept.

"China has asked us to uphold our end of the deal which is to ratify the treaty and that's what we've been seeking to do," Bishop told reporters.

"It is very much in Australia's national interests for us to have the highest level of cooperation with China and other countries with whom we have an extradition treaty," she said.

Former conservative Prime Minister John Howard's government signed the treaty in September 2007, only weeks before it was defeated in a general election. The prime ministers who have followed Howard in the past decade have proved less enthusiastic about the deal which was never ratified.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang urged Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to ratify the deal during a visit last week which focused on closer economic ties, Bishop said.

"They want the extradition treaty because they are seeking to crack down on criminals who leave China and seek safe haven in Australia," Bishop said.

The issue has split the government, with government lawmaker and former prime minister Tony Abbott telling The Australian newspaper in an interview published Tuesday that "China's legal system has to evolve further before the Australian government and people could be confident that those before it would receive justice according to law."

The Chinese Embassy in Australia did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.

Australia has an extradition treaty with Saudi Arabia which, like China, has not ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

A parliamentary committee recommended in December that it be ratified, but made recommendations designed to strengthen protections of human rights.

A report by Labor lawmakers said the committee should not dismiss concerns over the lack of transparency in the Chinese judicial system, allegations of ill-treatment and torture of prisoners and the continuing imposition of the death penalty.

Australia opposes capital punishment and demands assurances that extradited prisoners will not be executed.
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) - Lawmakers in Slovakia on Tuesday began debating a proposal to annul pardons by former authoritarian Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar that bar investigations into the kidnapping of the son of late President Michal Kovac, Meciar's political archrival.

Meciar led Slovakia into international isolation in the 1990s and is believed to be behind Michal Kovac Jr.'s abduction to Austria in 1995. The Slovak spy agency known as SIS - then led by a close Meciar ally - has been widely blamed.

Meciar's government temporarily acquired some presidential powers in 1998 when lawmakers failed to elect a new president. He granted pardons at that time that made it impossible to investigate the kidnapping.

FILE- In this Saturday April 17, 2004 file photo, the then Slovak presidential candidate and former Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar speaks to the media after casting his vote during elections in downtown Bratislava, Slovakia. Slovakia's parliament has started to debate a proposal to annul pardons by former authoritarian Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar that prevent an investigation into the kidnapping of the son of late President Michal Kovac, Meciar's political archrival. A vote is expected on Thursday, March 30, 2017. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek, File)

Slovak President Andrej Kiska has urged parliament to cancel the pardons, and many Slovaks agree with Kiska.

Prime Minister Robert Fico rejected that, saying they are legally impossible to undo. But Fico's coalition recently changed its view and drafted a constitutional amendment to make it possible to undo them.

A three-fifths majority in the 150-seat parliament is needed for approval. The government doesn't have enough votes and has to rely on help from the opposition.

Parliament's final vote is expected Thursday.
PARIS (AP) - The Latest on Paris clashes after Chinese man killed by police (all times local):

11:40 a.m.

China's Foreign Ministry says it has summoned a French envoy in Beijing over the police shooting of a Chinese man in Paris.

Police shot the man Sunday night. His death sparked clashes Monday in Paris that injured three officers and led to 35 arrests.

Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that the man had been shot by plainclothes police at his home. She said China had summoned a representative of the French Embassy in Beijing and urged French authorities to "get to the bottom of the incident as soon as possible."

Protesters said the man was killed while cutting up fish. Police said the officer fired in self-defense.

Hua said Chinese authorities "hope that Chinese nationals in France can express their wishes and demands in a reasonable way."

___

10:15 a.m.

Clashes in Paris over the killing of a Chinese man by police have left three officers injured and led to 35 arrests.

Police official Agnes Thibault Lecuivre said Tuesday that demonstrators, who were from the Asian community, had gathered Monday night in the 19th district on the French capital's northeastern edge. They were paying homage to the man shot dead by police in a raid Sunday night. Protesters also set fire to a car. Chinese media say the man was Chinese.

Protesters say the man was killed while he was cutting up fish. But police say the officer fired in self-defense because the man was holding a bladed weapon.

The latest violence comes weeks after anti-police protests erupted over the alleged rape by police of a 22-year-old man.
BERLIN (AP) - German officials on Tuesday warned Turkey against spying on its territory, after Ankara allegedly sought Berlin's help in eavesdropping on hundreds of Turks in Germany thought to be supporters of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

The Turkish government claims Gulen supporters were behind a July coup attempt and has arrested 41,000 people in a crackdown on the moderate Islamic religious movement and other groups. Gulen denies orchestrating the failed coup. Turkey is seeking his extradition from the United States.

Last month, Turkey's foreign intelligence agency MIT handed its German counterpart a list of some 300 suspected Gulen supporters living in Germany. Boris Pistorius, the interior minister of the German state of Lower Saxony, said Tuesday that Turkey had asked the Germans to put the people named under surveillance.

Pistorius said officials in his state had decided to warn those on the list that they might face repression or arrest if they entered Turkey. He said there was "no evidence that Gulen supporters in Germany had anything to do with the attempted putsch."

He accused the Turkish government of having an "almost paranoid fear of conspiracy" and of trying to silence its critics.

Germany's top security official, Thomas de Maiziere, said the country would not tolerate foreign spying on its soil.

"That holds true for any foreign state and for every intelligence agency," he said.

The federal prosecutor's office has opened a preliminary investigation of the alleged actions of Turkey's MIT agency, the German news agency dpa reported Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors last month also raided the homes of four Islamic clerics affiliated with the union of Turkish-Islamic cultural organizations in Germany, or DITIB, who are suspected of passing information about opponents of the Turkish government on to the Turkish consulate in Cologne.

Turkey's top religious official at the time rejected accusations that the clerics were engaged in spying or any other illegal activity, but acknowledged that some had "exceeded their authorities" and were called back to Turkey.

Ercan Karakoyun, a spokesman for the Dialogue and Education Foundation in Germany, which is close to the Gulen movement, told The Associated Press that "we've been assuming for a long time that we're being spied on (by Turkish authorities) in Germany."

Many Gulen supporters in Germany had their passports confiscated by Turkish consulates, those with German passports were banned from entering Turkey, and several had their property in Turkey confiscated, Karakoyun said.

There are some 3 million people of Turkish origin in Germany. Relations between Berlin and Ankara have been strained recently by the spying allegations, but also by a German parliamentary motion labeling the killing of Armenians in Turkey a century ago as "genocide" and by Turkey's arrest of a journalist working for a German newspaper.

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Kirsten Grieshaber contributed reporting.
DETROIT (AP) - A federal judge approved a deal Tuesday to replace water lines at 18,000 homes in Flint, Michigan, marking a permanent fix to overcome the disastrous decision in 2014 to draw water from a river without treating it to prevent lead contamination.

Flint will be responsible for replacing lead and galvanized-steel lines that bring water into homes. The cost could be as high as $97 million, with federal and state governments covering the bill. Pipes at more than 700 homes have been replaced so far.

The court-ordered pipe replacement is unprecedented in the United States, said lead attorney Dimple Chaudhary of the Natural Resources Defense Council. The organization sued Flint and Michigan on behalf of residents, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan.

In a photo from March 10, 2017, work continues on the water replacement lines in Flint, Mich. Flint residents could still be a few years away from drinking unfiltered tap water as the city makes incremental progress on an ambitious timeframe to replace old water service lines that leached lead into homes and businesses. The project's coordinator said he has a goal of finishing the pipe replacements for residents in 2019 by fixing 6,000 service lines a year. (AP Photo/Chris Ehrmann)

"Flint proved that even while poisoned, we're not just victims," said resident Melissa Mays, a plaintiff in the case. "We're fighters."

Flint's water was tainted with lead for at least 18 months, starting in spring 2014. While under the control of state-appointed financial managers, the city tapped the Flint River as its water source while a new pipeline was being built to Lake Huron. But the river water wasn't treated to reduce corrosion. As a result, lead leached from old pipes and fixtures.

Under the new agreement, pipes serving 18,000 homes will be replaced by January 2020. Michigan will continue to provide water filters, but the state can start closing free bottled water sites in Flint depending on demand and results of water quality tests.

U.S. District Judge David Lawson approved the settlement, which was the result of weeks of negotiations involving a court-appointed mediator. The judge praised Gov. Rick Snyder for suggesting negotiations after his administration lost two major court rulings on door-to-door water delivery.

Lawson said the settlement was "fair, adequate, reasonable, consistent with the public interest."

Marc Edwards, an expert at Virginia Tech who in 2015 warned about dangerous lead levels after state regulators repeatedly dismissed the concerns, said the agreement is a good deal for Flint's roughly 100,000 residents.

He told The Associated Press that with improved water quality, temporary use of filters and new pipes, "Flint residents really have nothing to worry about other than the lost trust and history of this disaster, which may take a generation to repair."

Residents who get new water lines will be urged to continue using a filter for six months. There will be no cost for replacement cartridges or household testing kits.

There will be tests for lead in the Flint system every six months until one year after the replacement of water lines. An independent monitor also will check household water samples for lead, and the results will be posted online.

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Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwhiteap
Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has criticized Russia's alleged interference in the U.S. presidential election, calling it a hostile act.

'There was a very serious effort made by Mr. Putin and his government, his organization, to interfere in major ways with our basic fundamental democratic process,' Cheney said during a speech Monday at a conference in New Delhi.

'In some quarters, that would be considered an act of war,' he added.

Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday during a speech in India that Russia's election meddling could be seen as 'an act of war'

Vladimir Putin 'has designs on the Baltics. He wanted Crimea and he took it. And he is trying to undermine NATO,' Cheney warned

Cheney said the Cold War was long over but Putin is on a course to re-establish Russian power following the collapse of the former Soviet Union.

'Putin has aspirations of trying to correct what he sees as a disaster. He has designs on the Baltics. He wanted Crimea and he took it. And he is trying to undermine NATO,' Cheney said.

Russian cyber interference is 'the kind of conduct and activity that we'll see going forward,' he said.

But he also warned that Russia should not 'underestimate the weight that we as Americans assign at Russia's attempts to interfere in our democratic processes.'

Cheney's accusation comes at a time when both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives intelligence committees are investigating possible Russian interference in the election that brought President Donald Trump to power.

Among the other threats faced by the United States, Cheney listed an aggressive China, North Korea, Iran and the terror threat posed by the Islamic State group.

Cheney described North Korea as the 'most dangerous part of the world with an unpredictable head of government,' Kim Jong-un

He described North Korea as the 'most dangerous part of the world with an unpredictable head of government' who is developing nuclear warheads and missiles to add to his stockpile.

Cheney said these threats come at a time when the U.S. military is at a 'significantly diminished level' following eight years of budget cuts under the Obama administration.

The U.S. budget debate in the coming weeks will focus on how to allocate more funds to rebuild the military and restore the relationships that the United States had with its allies and adversaries in the past, he said.
SPENCER, W.Va. (AP) - A newly elected West Virginia sheriff who acknowledged a meth addiction and taking the drug from a police evidence area for his own use was sentenced to up to 10 years of home confinement Tuesday.

After apologizing in a courtroom one floor above his former office, Bo Williams was sentenced for his January guilty plea to a felony charge of entering without breaking. A judge followed the recommended sentencing guideline of one to 10 years.

"I made a bad decision and it took me down a road I never intended to travel," Williams said before sentencing. "I take full responsibility for my actions."

Former Roane County Sheriff Bo Williams, right, speaks to his attorney during his sentencing hearing Tuesday, March 28, 2017, in Spencer, W. Va. Williams was sentenced to up to 10 years of home confinement in a case in which he was accused or stealing methamphetamine from a police storage locker while he was a city police officer in Spencer. He was the county sheriff for a few weeks before resigning in January. (AP Photo/John Raby)

Williams was accused of taking methamphetamine from an evidence storage area late last year when he was a Spencer police officer. He resigned from that post.

Elected sheriff in November, he stepped down soon after taking office in January as part of a plea agreement.

Letters read by Roane County Circuit Judge Richard Craig Tatterson from community members noted the unwanted negative attention the case brought, and the community's broken trust of law enforcement. The judge also noted that at least two other felony drug cases were dismissed as a result of Williams' case, and several others are in question.

Two friends and Williams' aunt spoke in court, citing his good side including when he jumped into an icy creek years ago to save a teenager.

Tatterson opted not to place Williams on probation, instead giving him 48 hours to arrange fitting with a home confinement monitor.

Williams previously agreed to give up his law enforcement credentials.

Wood County Prosecutor Pat Lefebure, who handled the case after Roane County Prosecutor Josh Downey removed himself, said Williams sought treatment for his addiction after being charged. But the prosecutor said the ex-sheriff deserved to be incarcerated.

"This is certainly a difficult case," Lefebure told the judge. "He has brought shame to local law enforcement. He has disgraced the badge that he was sworn to uphold. He has stolen from the Spencer Police Department."

Williams and his attorney declined comment afterward.

Roane County Sheriff Todd Cole, appointed to replace Williams, didn't immediately return a message left at his office.

According to a criminal complaint, meth was found in Williams' desk and in a police vehicle. The complaint said several evidence bags found with Williams contained case numbers corresponding to missing evidence.

Downey had said Williams told him, Spencer Police Chief Greg Nichols and a state police sergeant last November that he had been addicted to meth for more than a year. Downey said Williams acknowledged removing methamphetamine from a police case file and using it.
"Charlton Heston: Hollywood's Last Icon" (Dey Street), by Marc Eliot

Talk about your movie miracles: As a struggling stage actor Charlton Heston was down to posing nude for art classes to pay his rent in New York. Thirteen years later, he was posing with an Academy Award for "Ben-Hur" (1959), in which he played a man twice saved by Christ.

Heston had felt God's grace in real life, too. A casual wave to director Cecil B. DeMille led to his third movie, the Oscar-winning circus drama "The Greatest Show on Earth" (1952). His signature role of Moses in DeMille's 1956 blockbuster "The Ten Commandments" came after Marlon Brando and Rock Hudson had turned it down.

This cover image released by Dey Street shows "Charlton Heston: Hollywood's Last Icon," by Marc Eliot. (Dey Street via AP)

Those epics and a slew of others in the 1960s would have secured Heston's place as a movie star for the ages. Then came "Planet of the Apes" (1968), the cultish science-fiction thrillers "The Omega Man" (1971) and "Soylent Green" (1973), and disaster films like "Earthquake" (1974). He was a star all over again with a new generation.

Marc Eliot's insightful biography provides an admiring yet even-handed reassessment long overdue for one of Hollywood's most popular stars. Those chiseled features were perfect for the melodramatic spectacles enjoyed by audiences who wanted a break from more realistic storytelling and acting. Good thing - Heston was never quite comfortable playing a modern man or a romantic scene, yet no one did larger than life better.

His first role was a young boy named Charlton Heston. In 1923 he had been born John Charles Carter in Evanston, Illinois. An idyllic childhood spent hunting and fishing in the St. Helen woods of Michigan ended abruptly at age 10 when his city-bred mother left his blue-collar father for life in Chicago with another man. A new name came with the move, but young Chuck Heston always thought of himself as a hick kid.

Acting in high school plays was a good fit for the deep-voiced, 6-foot-3 teenager. He met Lydia Clarke while they studied drama at Northwestern University, marrying her before he went off to serve as a radio gunner on B-25 combat missions during World War II. Reunited in 1946, they headed for New York. Heston made a stronger impression in live television dramas than the stage and by 1950 had attracted the attention of moviemakers.

"As his career progressed," Eliot writes, "his canny choice of screen roles illuminated what had become his essential cinematic persona: the heroic, self-sacrificial, eternal loner, alone in the crowd of the world."

Heston wasn't one of Hollywood's colorful characters. The Irish hell raiser Richard Harris dismissed his co-star in "Major Dundee" (1965) as "the only man who could drop out of a cubic womb - he's so square." True, in the sense that Heston showed up for work prepared, on time and sober, and was a devoted husband and father.

His politics were not always predictable. In 1961 Heston was among those protesting Oklahoma City's segregated restaurants. Two years later studio executives and colleagues failed to talk him out of joining the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s march on Washington. He was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild six times and opposed cutting federal funding for the arts. After the assassinations of King and Robert F. Kennedy, he publicly backed the Gun Control Act of 1968.

Much like his friend Ronald Reagan, Heston drifted from liberalism toward a conservative if politically independent viewpoint. For many fans his late-in-life presidency of the National Rifle Association was a tone-deaf performance given the toll of gun-related deaths. But Heston viewed the right to own firearms in terms of liberty. As he had when demonstrating for civil rights, he didn't worry about what other people thought.

Heston, who died in 2008, is best remembered as Moses but may have been most like the title character of the 1967 Western "Will Penny," a saddle tramp described as quiet, principled and practical. He often cited it as his favorite among all his films. It was a fitting choice for a man who longed for the woods of his youth, preferred playing heroes over villains, and stepped up to be counted when he believed freedom was at stake.

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Douglass K. Daniel is the author of "Tough as Nails: The Life and Films of Richard Brooks" (University of Wisconsin Press).
BRUSSELS (AP) - The EU's antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager, says the bloc's executive Commission has approved Danish subsidies for a proposed offshore windfarm in the Danish section of the Baltic Sea, near German windmills.

Vestager says the aid to Kriegers Flak windfarm was in line with European Union guidelines because "it helps the EU to meet its energy and climate targets."

The Commission said Tuesday the support will be granted as a premium on top of the electricity price in the Nord-Pool market, Europe's leading power market.

The project will be Denmark's largest offshore windfarm, expected to be operational by 2021. It will be connected to two German offshore windfarms and will allow for increased electricity exchange between the two countries.
TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) - An Arizona college student who is living in the country illegally is receiving backlash after posting a picture of her tax return on Facebook.

The Arizona Republic reports 23-year-old Belen Sisa is shielded from possible deportation by former President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The newspaper says the Arizona State University student came to the U.S. from Argentina as a 6-year-old with her parents and the family overstayed their visas.

Sisa said in her post that she filed state and federal taxes and paid $300 to Arizona. She says she was hoping to "make a statement and educate people" but instead received a slew of negative comments, including some saying they were reporting her to federal officials.

Sisa served as a page at the Democratic National Convention last year.
ALUM CREEK, W.Va. (AP) - West Virginia State Police say a trooper was wounded by gunfire after responding to a domestic violence call and a suspect was taken into custody hours later.

Agency spokesman Lt. Michael Baylous told the Charleston Gazette-Mail (http://bit.ly/2ocKfHa) that the trooper was hit in the shoulder, leg and wrist while responding early Tuesday morning to the call at an apartment complex in Lincoln County. Baylous did not identify the trooper, but said he is expected to survive.

Police say a suspect was taken into custody about 9 a.m. after local and federal authorities negotiated with him for about six hours.
ST. JOHN'S, Newfoundland (AP) - Northern cod are making a comeback off of Newfoundland and Labrador almost 25 years after a sweeping commercial fishing ban devastated the Canadian province.

A federal government report released Monday week said cod stocks continue to rebound, but warned catches should be kept to the lowest possible levels for now as a precaution.

The union representing fishermen and plant workers, however, wants to immediately expand the relatively small commercial cod fishery.

The report found that while total biomass was up 7 percent from 2015 to 2016, stocks are still well below what would be needed to sustain larger-scale fishing.

Canada announced a moratorium on the province's commercial cod fishery on July 2, 1992, instantly throwing thousands of people out of work and sparking angry protests.

Karen Dwyer, a biologist with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, said any optimism must be tempered with patience as an unpredictable recovery unfolds. It will be about three years before new assessments offer more news of when the ban on large-scale commercial cod fishing may be lifted, she said

"I appreciate how harvesters are waiting with bated breath for this information," she said.

The moratorium was initially to last two or three years, but stocks have been slow to rebound. A fishery that had sustained the island and its far-flung ports for more than 400 years had collapsed, with mismanagement, overfishing and climate change among the factors blamed.

Many harvesters have focused over the last 25 years on now-declining shrimp and crab stocks.

David Decker, secretary-treasurer of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers-Unifor union, said the recovery rates over the last decade are "phenomenal numbers" and not modest.
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) - The Latest on vandalism at a Colorado mosque (all times local):

8:15 a.m.

The father of a man arrested in connection with vandalism at a Colorado mosque says his son was an Army medic who served in Iraq and Korea and is a "good man."

In this Sunday, March 26, 2017, still image from a video surveillance camera, a suspect is shown during the vandalizing of a mosque near Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo. Police are asking for the public's help in identifying the person who overturned benches, broke windows and threw a Bible into a mosque near Colorado State University, a case they are investigating as a hate crime. (Fort Collins Police Department via AP)

Michael Giaquinto told the Coloradoan that he doesn't think 35-year-old Joseph Scott Giaquinto vandalized the Islamic Center of Fort Collins, about 60 miles north of Denver, on Sunday. Police say someone overturned benches, broke windows and threw a Bible into the center.

Giaquinto says that if his son was found to be involved, it would just show that he "was in a kind of a bad place."

The younger Giaquinto was arrested Monday on suspicion of a bias-motivated crime, criminal mischief and trespassing soon after police released portions of surveillance video from the mosque near Colorado State University. Police haven't said what led them to him.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - Adil Hasan and his wife, Enas Ibrahim, came to the U.S. in 2008 as refugees from Iraq, and have been living peacefully in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., ever since.

To get here, though, they faced a dilemma as they sat in a camp in Jordan, where they were required to fill out their family trees to apply for refugee status: Should they include Hasan's brother, Majid Al Mashhandani, who participated in the 2004 kidnapping of American contractor Roy Hallums?

In a phone interview Tuesday, Ibrahim said they decided to keep that relationship a secret.

"We just wanted to leave our country," she said. "When we started the process we were just scared to add his name."

Now Ibrahim, her husband and her husband's brother, Yousif Al Mashhandani, 35, of Vienna, Virginia, are charged with immigration fraud for failing to disclose the relationship. The three made their initial appearance in federal court Tuesday. All face up to 10 years in prison and eventual deportation.

Yousif and Hasan were detained pending a hearing scheduled for Friday. Ibrahim was allowed to remain free and return to her home in Burke, Virginia, where she cares for the couple's two children, ages 5 and 6, who are natural born U.S. citizens.

The case comes in the midst of national debate over U.S. authorities' ability to effectively vet refugee applicants. President Donald Trump has issued an executive order that temporarily suspends the nation's refugee program to allow time for a review of the screening process. Refugee advocates argue that the vetting process is already very strict, and a federal judge has temporarily blocked Trump's executive order from taking effect.

The charges against the three make no allegation that any of them were involved in Hallums' kidnapping, though a court affidavit says Yousif's fingerprint was found in the building where Hallums spent nearly a year in captivity before he was freed in an Army raid.

Hallums, though, said his kidnapping was largely a family affair perpetrated by the Mashhandani clan.

"The gang that had me was all one family," Hallums said in a phone interview from his home in Memphis, Tennessee. "There were so many people involved in this kidnapping."

Hallums said he was surprised to learn Tuesday that the three had been able to enter the U.S., given the fact that Yousif's fingerprint had been on file with authorities for years when he made his refugee application in 2007.

When all three applied for U.S. citizenship, they had to answer whether they had ever given false or misleading information while applying for any immigration benefit.

And when the FBI came calling last year, Ibrahim said they came clean, giving agents Majid's address and every bit of information they had about him. Ibrahim said she even offered to go with agents to Iraq to help them find him.

"I thought we were OK," she said. "The agent was very nice. He said, 'We know you are good people.' I told him, 'Just put yourself - if you were us, and you had someone behind you who wants to kill you."

She said her husband worked in Baghdad's Green Zone and was a target for terrorists.

In court papers, prosecutors allege that Ibrahim and her husband embellished the threat they faced, saying that Hasan had been kidnapped, tortured by a Shia militia, and released after paying a $20,000 ransom. In reality, they allege, Hasan later acknowledged that he was only once stopped at a Shia militia checkpoint for five hours, and slapped once on his shoulder with an open hand.

As for Yousif's fingerprint, Ibrahim said that her husband's father kept all the family paperwork in the same place, and it's not surprising that some of Yousif's and Majid's paperwork was commingled.

She wept as she contemplated the implications of the criminal case on her family.

"I don't want to go back to Iraq," she said through sobs. "It's my nightmare."
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) - Police arrested a former Army medic after a vandal broke windows and left a Bible at a Colorado mosque - an act that led to an outpouring of support for Muslims, authorities said

Joseph Scott Giaquinto, 35, was taken into custody Monday on suspicion of committing a crime motivated by bias and other allegations just hours after police released surveillance video and asked for the public's help identifying a hoodie-wearing man seen picking up a stone and kicking a door at the Islamic Center in Fort Collins.

The suspect's father, Michael Giaquinto, told the Coloradoan (http://noconow.co/2mKWQEG ) that his son was an Army medic who served in Iraq and Korea and moved last year to Fort Collins - the home of Colorado State University about 60 miles (96 kilometers) north of Denver.

This photo provided Tuesday, March 28, 2017, by the Larimer County Sheriff's Office shows mosque vandalism suspect Joseph Scott Giaquinto. Giaquinto was arrested on suspicion of several charges, including a crime motivated by bias, on March 27 just hours after police released portions of surveillance video and asked for the public's help identifying the hoodie-wearing man seen picking up a stone and kicking a door. (Larimer County Sheriff's Office via AP)

"No matter what we find out happened, my son is a good man," he told the newspaper. "He served his country well. Even if he was involved, and I'm not saying he was, it would just indicate that he was in a kind of a bad place.

"This whole affair has been exhausting. Here in Fort Collins, that sort of thing is not what we do," Michael Giaquinto said.

According to an arrest affidavit, the younger Giaquinto acknowledged damaging the mosque. Investigators said they also found items at the man's apartment that linked him to the vandalism.

He is being held on $7,500 bail, and booking documents do not indicate if he has hired an attorney.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group, said there have been 35 attacks on mosques so far this year - ranging from arson to torn Qurans - compared with 19 between January and March last year.

The group believes people who may have hidden their anti-Muslim views in the past have been emboldened to act by the election of President Donald Trump, who called for a ban on Muslims entering the country during his campaign.

In response, more mosques have installed surveillance video and police have become aware of the trend, group spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said.

Police haven't said what led them to Joseph Giaquinto in the Colorado incident.

About 1,000 people gathered Sunday at the mosque for a rally organized by a rabbi and many supporters have made donations online to pay for repairs and improved security.

Police Chief John Hutto, who attended the rally, said he hoped the arrest sends a message that the community will not tolerate acts of hatred.

"While the building can be repaired, this incident caused deeper hurt that won't just go away." he said in a statement.

Last month, someone was seen on security video throwing a rock through a window at the Colorado Muslim Society mosque near Denver but no arrests have been made and investigators say they have exhausted their leads.
BANGKOK (AP) - Authorities in Thailand have escalated their effort to collect taxes they say are due from ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, posting a bill for 17.6 billion baht ($503 million) at the house where he lived before fleeing into exile in 2008 to avoid a prison term for conflict of interest.

The Revenue Department acted Tuesday as part of a plan announced earlier to avoid a March 31 legal deadline on collecting the money. Presenting a formal tax assessment covering Thaksin's sale in 2006 of shares worth 73.3 billion baht ($1.88 billion) in his telecommunications company to a Singapore state holding company is supposed to keep alive the government's claim.

One of Thaksin's lawyers, Noppadon Pattama, said his team will challenge the bill. He contended that under the law in existence at the time of the sale, the shares were exempt from tax.

Thaksin's supporters say the action is politically motivated.

Thaksin was ousted in 2006 after public demonstrations accused him of corruption, abuse of power and disrespect for King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last year. His supporters say Thailand's political establishment ousted him because his popularity was a threat to their own influence.

In 2010, the Supreme Court ordered $1.4 billion of his assets seized for concealing his ownership of the family telecommunication group and tailoring government policies for his own financial gain.
TULSA, Okla. (AP) - Oklahoma could soon join Louisiana and Texas in allowing hunters to shoot feral hogs from helicopters.

Aerial gunners are already used to help control feral swine in Oklahoma, but the work can only be done by trained, licensed contractors with support from the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture Food and Forestry, the Tulsa World (http://bit.ly/2neDl3i ) reported.

Lawmakers are considering a bill to expand the practice to private operations.

FILE - In this Feb. 18, 2009, file photo, the shadow of a helicopter hovers over feral pigs near Mertzon, Texas. Oklahoma lawmakers are considering a bill to allow hunters to shoot feral hogs from helicopters. Aerial gunners are already used to help control feral swine in Oklahoma, but the work can only be done by trained, licensed contractors with support from the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture Food and Forestry. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

Dubbed "the flying pig bill," the proposal would allow private landowners, companies and pilots to apply for a state license and be responsible for the activity. Hunters on board the aircraft wouldn't need a license, nor would they have to provide their names to the state.

The change would follow a similar shift a few years ago in neighboring Texas, where shooters can now hire an aircraft for anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000 per hour for a hunt.

Republican Rep. Jeff Coody said over-regulation by Oklahoma's agriculture department has "put so many administrative rules on their books, it has made it difficult for private individuals to go out and shoot from an aircraft."

Coody, a co-sponsor of the bill, said the proposal is intended to "to take aerial depredation a little more back to what was originally intended several years ago."

Oklahoma's agriculture department says its agents killed more than 11,200 feral hogs last year, mostly by air. Coody said aerial shooting has proven effect in getting rid of the hogs, which he called "a nuisance and a negative to the state."

He also noted that Federal Aviation Administration rules require licensing before anyone can shoot a firearm from an aircraft.

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Information from: Tulsa World, http://www.tulsaworld.com
BANGKOK (AP) - An armed militant group fighting Myanmar's government on behalf of the country's Muslim Rohingya minority has issued a statement asserting its right to self-defense and denying links to any terrorist group.

The statement, dated March 29 but released Tuesday through overseas sympathizers, is the first public announcement issued in the name of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, which previously called itself the Faith Movement, or Harakah al-Yaqin. Analysts including the Brussel-based International Crisis Group say it has been carrying out armed resistance.

The statement says the group "came forward to defend, salvage and protect Rohingya community in Arakan with our best capacities as we have the legitimate right under international law to defend ourselves in line with the principle of self-defense." Arakan is another term for Rakhine, the western state of Myanmar where most of the country's 1 million Rohingya live.

The Rohingya face severe discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar and were the targets of inter-communal violence in 2012 that killed hundreds and drove about 140,000 people - predominantly Rohingya - from their homes to camps for the internally displaced, where most remain. Most are denied citizenship because they are looked on as having migrated illegally from Bangladesh.

The statement issued 20 demands to the government for ensuring Rohingya rights.

In October last year, armed men killed nine Myanmar border guards, triggering a savage counterinsurgency sweep by the army in the Rohingya area of Rakhine. Alleged human rights abuses by the army, including rape and killing of civilians and the burning of more than 1,000 homes, caused international criticism and led to a U.N. Human Rights Council call last week for an independent international investigation.

Harakah al-Yaqin has taken credit for the killings of the border guards, according to the International Crisis Group, and the government has accused them of being terrorists.

"We do not associate with any terrorist group across the world," the Arakan group's statement said. "We do not commit any form of terrorism against any civilian regardless of their religious and ethnic origin as we do not subscribe to the notion of committing terrorism for our legitimate cause. "

It said the group assures "the safety and wellbeing of all ethnic communities, their places of worship and properties" in Rakhine state.

An extensive report issued last December by the International Crisis Group said the Harakah al-Yaqin "is led by a committee of Rohingya emigres in Saudi Arabia and is commanded on the ground by Rohingya with international training and experience in modern guerrilla war tactics. It benefits from the legitimacy provided by local and international fatwas (religious judicial opinions) in support of its cause and enjoys considerable sympathy and backing from Muslims in northern Rakhine state, including several hundred locally trained recruits." It said the group did not appear to have jihadist motivations.

The report said that "the group apparently killed several informers."

The group's statement was signed by its leader, Ata Ullah, who has appeared in several videos showing him proclaiming the group's positions while surrounded by armed followers.
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - The Latest on the Florida governor's decision to remove a prosecutor who doesn't want to seek the death penalty in a case involving a police officer killing (all times local):

11:25 a.m.

A judge says Florida's governor can remove a prosecutor from a death penalty-eligible case and has denied a request to delay the proceedings.

State Attorney Aramis Ayala said earlier this month that she wouldn't seek the death penalty for a man charged in the December slayings of his ex-girlfriend and the January killing of a police officer. After her announcement, Republican Gov. Rick Scott removed her from the case.

Ayala, a Democrat, says the governor overstepped his authority and she is fighting to keep the case.

She asked a judge to delay proceedings for two weeks while she prepares an argument for the Florida Supreme Court. But Circuit Judge Frederick J. Lauten denied her request Tuesday.

The case involves Markeith Loyd, who is accused of killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend and an Orlando police lieutenant. Ayala says there is no evidence that shows the death penalty improves public safety. She says it's costly and drags on for years for the victims' families.

Another hearing in the case is scheduled for Monday.

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This story has corrected the judge's title to circuit judge, not chief justice.

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6 a.m.

The fight over whether Florida's governor can take away an officer-killing case from a prosecutor because she no longer will seek the death penalty in any cases is returning to a courtroom in Orlando.

A hearing is taking place Tuesday in the case of Markeith Loyd, who's charged in the killing an Orlando police lieutenant and Loyd's pregnant ex-girlfriend.

Gov. Rick Scott took the case away from State Attorney Aramis Ayala in Orlando earlier this month after she announced she wouldn't seek the death penalty in Loyd's case or any future cases.

The governor reassigned the case to State Attorney Brad King who works in a neighboring district.

Ayala argues that the governor doesn't have the authority to remove her.

King says he's now the authorized prosecutor for the case.
WASHINGTON (AP) - A showdown over President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee and Senate rules loomed as the number of Democrats opposing Judge Neil Gorsuch grew to two dozen on Tuesday.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, was joined by five other senators who announced their intention to vote against Gorsuch. Republicans, who hold the majority in the Senate, are intent on getting Trump's choice confirmed before Congress' two-week break in mid-April.

"Judge Gorsuch's hearing reinforced my fear that he would favor corporations and special interest elites at the expense of American workers and families," Durbin, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said of the four-day confirmation hearing last week. He announced his opposition on the Senate floor.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, center, listens as the committee's ranking member, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. requests a one week postponement for the panel to vote on Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, as she displays a list of appointments made during presidential election years, Monday, March 27, 2017, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Whether it is ruling against children who want an equal opportunity to get a quality education or women who want access to health care, Judge Gorsuch often fails to take into account the human face behind each case," said Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., one of the five other senators announcing their opposition Tuesday.

Republicans defended Gorsuch, with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, calling him an "incredibly well-qualified judge" and urging Democrats to allow an up-or-down vote.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters, "We are optimistic they will not be successful in keeping this man from joining the Supreme Court very soon."

The Democratic opposition raises the prospects of McConnell taking the politically charged step of changing Senate rules to get Gorsuch confirmed. Republicans hold a 52-48 majority, and it takes 60 votes to clear parliamentary hurdles and set up an up-or-down vote on a Supreme Court nominee.

McConnell could push for a rule change to win approval of the nominee with a simple majority in the 100-member Senate.

The topic of doing away with the 60-vote threshold for a Supreme Court nominee, sometime referred to as the "nuclear option," came up when GOP senators gathered Tuesday behind closed doors.

"A lot of us really hate the thought of using it. Nonetheless it may very well be the ultimate outcome because one way or the other, we will have Judge Gorsuch on the bench," said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D. "That will happen."

Liberals have pressured congressional Democrats to resist all things Trump, and have been emboldened by the failure of the Republican health care bill last week.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he would oppose the nominee and lead Democrats in filibustering the choice.

Among those opposing Gorsuch are five Democrats who are up for re-election next year in states that Trump won in 2016. Five other Democrats from Republican-leaning, Trump states such as North Dakota, West Virginia and Montana have not said how they will vote.

The vacancy on the court has lasted 13 months since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last February. President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland, but Republicans insisted that the next president should fill the seat, a move that infuriated Democrats.

Changing the Senate rules would not be unprecedented.

In 2013, Democrats were in the majority under the leadership of Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada and upset about the blockage of President Barack Obama's nominees to a powerful appellate court. The Democrats pushed through a rules change lowering the vote threshold on all nominees except for the Supreme Court from 60 to a simple majority.

At the time, McConnell warned Democrats the strategy would backfire: "I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, you will regret this, and you may regret it a lot sooner than you think."
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump is expressing concern about violent crime as he welcomes leaders of a national police union to the White House.

Trump is hosting a listening session Tuesday with the Fraternal Order of Police. Opening the event, Trump said public safety was a top concern, specifically citing shootings in Chicago.

Trump said he was "removing criminals all over the country."

National Fraternal Order of Police President Chuck Canterbury listens at right as President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with the Fraternal Order of Police, Tuesday, March 28, 2017, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

He pledged: "I will work night and day to make American safe again."

Trump was seated next to FOP president Chuck Canterbury. The national police union, which represents 340,000 members, endorsed Trump for president.
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico's Catholic council of bishops says a priest has been killed in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit.

The council identifies Felipe Altamirano Carrillo as an Indigenous priest and says he was killed early Monday.

His Nayar prelature serves a population made up largely of Huichol and Cora Indians.

The council gave no details, but local media report he was shot while driving.

He is the second priest killed this year in Mexico. Another priest was found dead in the northern state of Coahuila in January.

In 2016, two priests were found shot to death in Veracruz state, and another priest was killed in the western state of Michoacan.

An estimated 32 priests have been slain in Mexico since 2006.
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. (AP) - The Florida Highway Patrol says a trooper fatally shot a man in a fight on Interstate 95 in Palm Beach County.

The agency said Tuesday that the trooper confronted 56-year-old David Eric Ufferman of Delray Beach as he was walking on the interstate shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday.

Sgt. Mark Wysocky said in a news release that Ufferman fought the trooper, who shocked him with an electric stun gun. When that proved ineffective, according to the statement, the trooper shot Ufferman. The man died at a hospital.

Authorities didn't say why Ufferman was walking on I-95. They said the announcement was delayed while relatives were notified.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating.

The trooper's name wasn't released, nor the races of those involved.
DEAD SEA, Jordan (AP) - The Palestinian president said Tuesday that he expects this year's Arab summit to deliver a "clear message to the world" about Palestinian rights.

Mahmoud Abbas spoke to reporters on the sidelines of the summit, which brought together kings, presidents and top officials from 21 Arab countries.

The long-stalled Palestinian quest for statehood is a key issue at the gathering. Several of more than a dozen draft resolutions deal with the Palestinian issue.

Jordan's King Abdullah II, center, greets Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, left, upon his arrival at Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, Jordan, Tuesday, March 28, 2017. Sudan's president, sought by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges, has been welcomed in Jordan, despite calls by human rights groups to deny him entry. Omar al-Bashir is among 21 Arab leaders gathering for a summit. (AP Photo/Raad Adayleh)

Abbas said he expects the summit to give full backing to the Palestinian positions and to deliver a "clear message to the world about Palestinian rights."

A 2002 Arab peace plan, which offers Israel normal ties with dozens of Arab and Muslim states in exchange for withdrawing from war-won lands sought for a Palestinian state, is to be reaffirmed when heads of state meet Wednesday.

On the eve of the summit, Abbas met with U.S. President Donald Trump's international envoy, Jason Greenblatt, who has been shuttling between Israel, the West Bank and Jordan in recent weeks to assess prospects for reviving Israeli-Palestinian negotiations after years of paralysis.

Israeli settlement construction has been a major obstacle to resuming talks. Abbas has said he can't negotiate while Israel continues to build more homes for Jews on occupied lands. Greenblatt has talked to Israel's leader about construction curbs.

Referring to the settlements, Abbas said Tuesday that "we are now waiting how things are being dealt with between them (the Americans) and the Israelis."

At the same time, he said, there are "lots of questions from the American side at this stage, and we answered all of their questions."

Abbas initially feared he would be sidelined by the Trump administration, which early on embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump has since invited Abbas to the White House, a meeting Abbas said he expects to take place in late April or early May.

Greenblatt met Tuesday with the Qatari and Egyptian foreign ministers as well as the European Union's foreign policy chief on the sidelines of the summit. In Twitter messages, Greenblatt said he was talking to them about ways to support Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

Earlier Tuesday, King Abdullah II of Jordan welcomed Arab leaders arriving for the summit, including Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is being sought by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The international group Human Rights Watch urged Jordan to arrest al-Bashir, based on two long-standing arrest warrants issued by the court. The charges were filed in connection with his government's campaign against insurgents in Sudan's Darfur region.

Jordan has said that as an Arab League member Sudan has a right to attend Wednesday's summit.

Al-Bashir has traveled despite ICC arrest warrants, but is careful where he goes.
Tristan Potts (above), now 15, was sentenced Monday in Joplin for second-degree murder, armed criminal action and attempted first-degree arson

A southwestern Missouri teenager has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for fatally shooting his 12-year-old sister when he was 13.

Tristan Potts, now 15, was sentenced Monday in Joplin for second-degree murder, armed criminal action and attempted first-degree arson, The Joplin Globe reports.

Tristan, who was certified to stand trial as an adult, pleaded guilty to the charges in December.

His sister, Teresa Potts, was suffering from gunshot wounds to her temple and right shoulder when officers responded in October 2015 to their adoptive parents' home near Jasper.

Authorities say the siblings were adopted out of foster care.

Chris Carriger, a detective with the Jasper County Sheriff's Department, testified at a hearing that Tristan fled into some woods after the shooting and turned up later near a shop building behind the house, close to where investigators eventually recovered two handguns.

Carriger said the teen tested positive for gunshot residue on his hands.

The teen was believed to have been preparing to set the family's home on fire and run off to Georgia.

His sister, Teresa Potts (above), was suffering from gunshot wounds to her temple and right shoulder when officers responded in October 2015 to their adoptive parents' home near Jasper

Authorities say Teresa and Tristan Potts were adopted out of foster care. The fatal shooting took place in the home of their foster parents

Potts pleaded guilty to murdering his sister at his family's home on Placid Road, Jasper, Missouri, pictured in October 2015

The detective said he found the home (seen in the above satellite image) in 'messy disarray,' with black gunpowder strewn throughout the rooms and about 500 rounds of .22-caliber bullets in two skillets in the kitchen

The detective said he found the home in 'messy disarray,' with black gunpowder strewn throughout the rooms and about 500 rounds of .22-caliber bullets in two skillets in the kitchen.

Carriger also testified that the investigation turned up three lists that bore the fingerprints of Tristan Potts, including one titled 'Supplies for Georgia.'

Investigators later learned that the boy had been in contact on Facebook with a female in Georgia.

Items on the to-do-lists, including a gun and food, were found near the home's front door.

As part of the sentence, a judge assigned Potts to a program in which a juvenile and adult sentence is simultaneously imposed, with the adult sentence suspended while the inmate undergoes treatment and vocational training.

When he turns 21, the court determines whether he should remain in custody.


BOSTON (AP) - Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter is the latest member of Barack Obama's cabinet heading to the world of academia.

Harvard University said Tuesday that Carter is being hired as a professor and as director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, a university think tank.

Carter follows other top members of the Democratic former president's administration who have landed in college jobs, including former Vice President Joe Biden, who will lead policy institutes at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Delaware, and former Secretary of State John Kerry, who was tapped to oversee a new global affairs program at Yale University.

FILE - In this Dec. 1, 2015 file photo, Defense Secretary Ash Carter responds to a question during a forum at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. Harvard said Tuesday, March 28, 2017, that Carter is returning as a professor of technology and global affairs, and as director of Harvard's Belfer Center think tank. He previously taught at the Ivy League School from 1996 to 2009. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

For Carter, the new role will be in familiar territory - he taught at Harvard from 1996 to 2009 and once led an earlier version of the Belfer Center.

Harvard President Drew Faust said she is delighted to welcome Carter back, offering praise for his career as an academic and government leader.

"His knowledge, experience, and commitment to the future of public service and public policy will be of great benefit to our students and scholars, and to the world well beyond our walls," Faust wrote in a statement.

Carter served as defense secretary from 2015 until Obama's second term ended this year. He said the transition will mark an end to his 35-year career in national security.

As defense secretary, Carter sought to build relationships with the tech industry, opening Pentagon outposts in technology hubs including Silicon Valley and Boston. In an interview, Carter said he hopes to draw on that work at Harvard, providing a link between scholars and the tech industry to solve problems in a range of fields.

"A great university is the perfect place to find this combination of innovative ideas and technology, and the young people who are going to be our future," Carter said.

The ex-Pentagon chief said he also wants to focus on "inspiring a new generation" and training new leaders and researchers.

He told Harvard students he's proud of them for choosing to use their talents for the public good.

"You're my kind of people," he said during a Harvard University John. F. Kennedy School of Government forum. "And that's why I'm so confident in the future. That's why I wanted to be here, and who I want to work with, to continue to make a better world."

To support that work, Harvard officials say philanthropist Robert Belfer and his wife, Renee Belfer, are making "a major new funding commitment" through a series of undisclosed donations. Their contributions will pay for a named professorship for Carter, along with student financial aid and research funding.

Carter, a physicist by training, has degrees from Yale and Oxford University in England. He's scheduled to start at Harvard after this school year and will succeed current Belfer Center director Graham Allison, who is stepping down after leading the center since 1994.
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) - Bolivian President Evo Morales says that he'll return to Cuba earlier than planned for a brief operation to remove a nodule on his vocal chords.

Morales had planned to return to the island in April. But he said Tuesday that he'll travel to Havana Wednesday night.

The 57-year-old says that a sore throat is getting worse, prompting him to undergo surgery earlier than planned. He says that he's not suffering any pain.

FILE - In this Feb. 22, 2016 file photo, Bolivia's President Evo Morales sings his national anthem at a signing ceremony for the expansion of a road that connects the capital with the nearby city of El Alto, in La Paz, Bolivia. Morales says that he'll return to Cuba earlier than planned for a brief operation to remove a nodule on his vocal chords. Morales had planned to return to the island in April but said Tuesday, March 28, 2017 that he'll travel to Havana Wednesday night. (AP Photo/Juan Karita, File)

Morales was treated in Cuba earlier this month after losing his voice due to a sore throat. Doctors determined that he suffered from a viral infection.

Health Minister Ariana Campero tells Bolivia's ATB TV that Morales was also treated for herpes zoster. But she says that the nodule is benign and the operation will be brief.
BOSTON (AP) - Convenience store magnate Christy Mihos, who built and sold a chain of markets bearing his name, twice ran unsuccessfully for governor and endured a nasty divorce and bankruptcy, has died at age 67.

He died Saturday in hospice care in Stuart, Florida, after a battle with cancer, his sister, Marlene Bucuvalas, told the Cape Cod Times. His death was confirmed Tuesday by the Haisley Funeral Home in Fort Pierce, Florida, which is handling arrangements.

Mihos, who was born in Brockton, turned his father's grocery store into a chain of nearly 150 stores across New England called Christy's Markets. He and his brother eventually sold the chain for millions of dollars.

FILE - In this March 26, 2010 file photo, Christy Mihos smiles as he is introduced prior to facing off against Charlie Baker before their Massachusetts Republican Gubernatorial debate in Hyannis, Mass. Mihos, a former owner of a convenience store chain who twice ran for governor of Massachusetts, died in hospice care on Saturday, March 25, 2017, in Stuart, Fla. He was 67. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

He was appointed to the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority board in 1999 and crusaded against mismanagement and cost overruns in the multibillion-dollar Big Dig highway project.

He and another board member, Jordan Levy, were fired by acting Republican Gov. Jane Swift but took their case all the way to the state's highest court and were reinstated.

Mihos, who lived in a waterfront home in Yarmouth, later wrote a book about the Big Dig.

He mounted failed runs for governor as an independent in 2006 and as a Republican in 2010.

His later life was marred by a sordid divorce and bankruptcy. His wife, Andrea Mihos, accused him of assaulting her and squandering millions of dollars on his political ambitions and on prostitutes. He even spent a week in jail for failing to pay her nearly $80,000.

He is survived by two children, his sister and a brother.

A funeral is scheduled at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox church in Fort Pierce, Florida, on Thursday, followed by burial.
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - The Latest on the Arab Summit (all times local):

10:30 p.m.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says he's waiting to hear from the U.S. on the extent to which Israel is willing to curb settlement construction.

Jordan's King Abdullah II, center, greets Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, left, upon his arrival at Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, Jordan, Tuesday, March 28, 2017. Sudan's president, sought by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges, has been welcomed in Jordan, despite calls by human rights groups to deny him entry. Omar al-Bashir is among 21 Arab leaders gathering for a summit. (AP Photo/Raad Adayleh)

Abbas spoke to reporters Tuesday, after meeting with President Donald Trump's envoy, Jason Greenblatt, on the sidelines of an Arab summit.

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been deadlocked for years over Israel's building on war-won lands sought for a Palestinian state. Abbas says he can't negotiate while settlements grow.

Greenblatt has talked to Israel's leader about construction curbs.

Abbas, who is to meet Trump in coming weeks, says there are "lots of questions from the American side at this stage, and we answered all of their questions."

He says he's pleased with the summit draft resolutions, saying that "we count on the Arab leaders to represent the Palestinian interests."

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9:40 p.m.

President Donald Trump's envoy has met with the Palestinian leader, the foreign ministers of Qatar and Egypt, and the EU foreign policy chief to talk about reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

Jason Greenblatt held the meetings on the sidelines of an Arab summit.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki says Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Greenblatt met because "the American administration still needs certain clarifications."

Israeli settlement construction was likely a central issue.

Negotiations have been deadlocked for several years, in part over Israel's building on war-won lands sought for a Palestinian state. Abbas says he cannot negotiate while settlements grow.

Greenblatt tweeted after his meeting with the Qatari foreign minister that they "exchanged views on how to move peace efforts forward, combat terrorism and help the people of Gaza."

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7:20 p.m.

Sudan's president, sought by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges, has been welcomed in Jordan despite calls by human rights groups to deny him entry.

Omar al-Bashir is among 21 Arab leaders gathering for a summit.

The ICC charged him in 2009 and 2010 with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in connection with his government's campaign against insurgents in Sudan's Darfur region.

Al-Bashir was welcomed Tuesday by Jordan's King Abdullah II.

Jordan, an ICC member, has said Arab League member Sudan has a right to attend Wednesday's summit.

Adam Coogle of the international group Human Rights Watch says that "we're very concerned about the possibility of impunity" signaled by al-Bashir's visit.

Al-Bashir has traveled despite ICC arrest warrants, but is careful where he goes.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - North Carolina has become the first state in the nation to require not only prosecutors but also attorneys in private practice to reveal any evidence of innocence they become aware of after a conviction.

Sixteen other states have made this reporting duty mandatory for prosecutors as more innocent people are exonerated after spending years behind bars. North Carolina is the first to apply the rule to all attorneys, said Bruce Green, a Fordham University law professor who wrote the model rule for prosecutors for the American Bar Association.

"We're leading the country again," said Chris Mumma, who directs the N.C. Center on Actual Innocence. North Carolina also is alone in establishing an Innocence Inquiry Commission to investigate claims of innocence.

She said she expects other states to follow suit.

The North Carolina State Bar's ethics subcommittee began debating the reporting rule for prosecutors about a year ago, then added defense attorneys. The state Supreme Court, the last stop for the rules, approved them earlier this month.

"I just thought as officers of the court, all lawyers would feel some obligation to try to correct an injustice if they had seen one," said Colon Willoughby, a former prosecutor who suggested adding a rule for defense attorneys. Without such a rule, some lawyers may feel constrained from coming forward, he said.

"There were a number of defense lawyers who felt the same way," he added.

Exonerations have only increased since 2009, when the State Bar last considered the idea. Prosecutors and police are more likely to cooperate and DNA evidence has helped reverse convictions, according to The National Registry of Exonerations. The registry has tallied more than 2,000 exonerations since it began keeping records in 1989, and 166 found innocent last year, six more than in 2015.

"The sheer number of exonerations has proved this is a crisis," said attorney Brad Bannon, who sought reconsideration last year by the State Bar. "People in prison for things they did not do is a very real part of the criminal justice system now."

The North Carolina rule has exceptions for private practice attorneys, including that they need not disclose information that would harm a client's interests or violate attorney-client privilege.

"It's mandatory, but then it carves out so much that it's hard to know when it will apply," Green said.

North Carolina's prosecutors first opposed the rule, citing their workloads and saying that lawyers are already obligated to turn over innocence evidence, whenever it appears. In response, the subcommittee dropped a requirement that prosecutors investigate the evidence.

"Ideally, what you're seeing is an evolution in the manner in which prosecutors look at their responsibilities and their duties," said Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman. "And this really is not inconsistent with an overarching duty to pursue justice and not just try to get a conviction."

The rules are effective immediately. Breaking them could result in discipline imposed by the State Bar.

The rules help people who have been convicted in way that the U.S. Supreme Court's 1963 Brady ruling does not. The Brady doctrine requires prosecutors to disclose material exculpatory or mitigating evidence to the defense, but in 2009, the court held that Brady didn't apply after a defendant has been convicted.

Advocates point to a Buncombe County murder case as a prime example of why these rules matter.

Five innocent men went to prison for a home invasion murder in 2000 that they didn't commit. Another man confessed in 2003 and implicated an accomplice, whose DNA was eventually found on masks and bandanas near the scene.

The district attorney said in a deposition that he didn't believe the confession and never saw the DNA evidence, although the report from the State Bureau of Investigation indicated it was copied to the DA.

A defense attorney representing the last man sentenced also received the confession as pretrial evidence, but didn't turn it over to the others, said David Rudolf, an attorney for one of those men.

The state's Innocence Inquiry Commission began reviewing their cases in 2011. Eventually, all five were exonerated, and the state payed them a total of $8 million for their wrongful imprisonment.

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Follow Martha Waggoner at http://twitter.com/mjwaggonernc
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - National Grid on Tuesday announced a transmission project that would bring up to 1,200 megawatts of clean energy from Canada to the New England power grid and run along existing lines in Vermont and New Hampshire.

National Grid said the project, which would be sold to a Massachusetts clean-energy program, has two segments. The first is a high-voltage, direct current overhead line in Vermont alongside an existing one from the Canadian border in Norton, to a proposed converter station on National Grid-owned property in Monroe, New Hampshire.

The second segment is an upgrade of an existing overhead line in New Hampshire to accommodate additional power flow from Monroe to Londonderry in southern New Hampshire, where a proposed switching station would be built.

When asked if it would compete with the proposed Northern Pass power project, which seeks to run a 192-mile transmission line in New Hampshire from Pittsburg to Deerfield, carrying enough HydroQuebec power to southern New England markets to power about a million homes, project director Joe Rossignoli said, "Really all I'm here to do is discuss the merits of our project. Ultimately, others will make the call on who gets contracted with it and who doesn't."

Martin Murray, a spokesman for the Northern Pass project, said the National Grid announcement "speaks to the regional need for new sources of reliable and clean power to replace retiring power plants across New England."

He said ISO New England, an independent, nonprofit Regional Transmission Organization that serves New England, has said that new transmission infrastructure will be necessary to reach clean energy sources, "and warned that we will need to address a loss of more than 4,000 megawatts of electric capacity in the immediate future."

The project, estimated to create more than 2,000 construction jobs, would be funded by National Grid and investors, including a nonprofit called Citizens Energy in Massachusetts that plans to use half of its profits to fund energy assistance programs for families in New Hampshire and Vermont. Both states also would receive tax revenues from the project.

Rossignoli said the goal is to have the project done by the end of 2022. The project would require federal and state permits. He said the utility is in discussions with hydro and wind suppliers in Quebec.

National Grid sold its gas and electric businesses to Liberty Utilities in 2012. It also has partnered on a separate power project in Vermont.
NEW YORK (AP) - Wells Fargo has agreed to pay $110 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over up to 2 million accounts its employees opened for customers without getting their permission, the bank announced Tuesday.

It's the first private settlement that Wells has reached since the company paid $185 million to federal and California authorities late last year. Authorities said bank employees, driven by high-pressure sales tactics, opened the bank and credit card accounts without customer authorization.

Wells also disclosed Tuesday that a federal regulator had downgraded its rating under a law designed to help monitor and promote banking practices to low-income and minority communities. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency cited the sales practices as one reason for the downgrade. The move means restrictions on Wells' business, including opening more branches or making acquisitions.

FILE - In this May 6, 2012, file photo, a Wells Fargo sign is displayed at a branch in New York. Wells Fargo said Tuesday, March 28, 2017, it will pay $110 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over up to 2 million accounts its employees opened for customers without getting their permission. (AP Photo/CX Matiash, File)

The settlement will include customers who had accounts opened without their permission, or were signed up for a product they did not agree to, going back to Jan. 1, 2009. Wells Fargo says it believes this settlement, which is subject to court approval, will resolve the 11 other pending class-action lawsuits filed against it over the accounts.

Notably, Wells said it is waiving its right to take customers into what's known as third-party arbitration, which lets the bank take complaints to a private mediator instead of a court of law. The practice has been a source of controversy for the bank, and customer advocates and politicians had been pressuring Wells to give up its right to use arbitration. Until Tuesday, Wells had been invoking its right to arbitration in this particular case.

"We believe this is an outstanding result obtained for the benefit of a proposed nationwide class, notwithstanding Wells Fargo's effort to block the class action with an arbitration clause," said Derek Loeser, a partner with Keller Rohrback, one of the firms that filed a class-action suit against the bank.

After paying attorneys' fees, the $110 million will first go to cover any customers' out-of-pocket losses or fees that they may have incurred due to the unauthorized accounts. All remaining money will be split among the all impacted customers.

San Francisco-based Wells Fargo has seen sharp declines in new account openings and bank traffic, and has been working to restore customers' trust since the practices came to light. The biggest scandal in the bank's history led to the abrupt retirement of its CEO, John Stumpf. In response to the scandal, Wells has changed its sales practices, ousted other executives and called tens of millions of customers to check on whether they truly opened the accounts in question.

"This agreement is another step in our journey to make things right with customers," Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan said in a prepared statement. Sloan took over as CEO in October.

Wells Fargo's board of directors is conducting an investigation into the bank's sales practices, a report that is expected to be out in April ahead of the annual shareholder meeting. The board has already cut bonuses to major executives.

The downgrade Tuesday from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the nation's supervisor for all large national banks, moved Wells Fargo to a "needs to improve" standing from its previous "outstanding" under the Community Reinvestment Act. Banks can be fined or sanctioned under the law when evidence show patterns of discriminatory behavior.

In its report, which covers 2009-2012, the regulator cited the sales practices scandal as a sign of unfair or deceptive behavior. It also cited previous settlements from that period, including one the bank reached in 2012 in which Wells was accused of selling subprime and more costly mortgages to black and other minority borrowers.

"These findings reflect an extensive and pervasive pattern and practice of discriminatory and illegal credit practices across multiple lines of business within the bank, resulting in significant harm to large numbers of consumers," the regulator said.

Sloan said the bank was "disappointed" with the decision but is "committed to addressing the OCC's concerns."

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Ken Sweet covers banks and consumer financial issues with The Associated Press. Follow him on Twitter at @kensweet.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - A man who fatally shot Memphis' first female police officer killed in the line of duty was sentenced Tuesday to a total of 40 years in prison on an array of charges.

Twenty-five-year-old Treveno Campbell was sentenced to 25 years for his second-degree murder conviction in the December 2012 shooting death of Officer Martoiya Lang, a 32-year-old mother of four.

He also was sentenced by Shelby County Criminal Court Judge James Beasley to another eight years for attempted second-degree murder, six additional years for using a firearm while committing a felony and one more year on a marijuana count. Beasley ordered the sentences to be served consecutively.

Campbell was convicted Jan. 31 after a trial in which his attorney cast scrutiny on the tactics used by officers who raided the man's home.

Campbell had testified he was asleep in his room when he heard a loud "boom" and then people entering his rental home. Campbell said he began firing wildly because he thought he was the victim of a home invasion and didn't know it was police officers who had crashed through his front door.

"I didn't know what was going on," Campbell testified. "A whole lot of racket. I was scared to death."

Officers testified they repeatedly yelled "police search warrant" as Lang and her fellow Organized Crime Unit officers entered after smashing through the door with a battering ram.

The officers were looking for another person, a suspected cocaine dealer. The group known as Team 6, had safely served more than 200 warrants in 2012 before the deadly raid, according to trial testimony.

Lang was shot in the left shoulder while standing in the doorway of Campbell's bedroom. She was pulled from the house by a fellow officer before she died. Another officer, William Vrooman, was shot in the leg. He survived.

Evidence showed Campbell was not mentioned in the warrant and officers never found the suspect nor any cocaine. Authorities said they did find cash and a large amount of marijuana.

Defense attorney William Massey questioned the police tactics at trial. He pressed officers to explain why Lang didn't have a colleague right beside her when she was shot; Vrooman testified he had just cleared the kitchen but was shot before reaching her.

Campbell said he had his hands up when he was shot three times. But Sgt. Darryl Dotson testified that Campbell was pointing a gun at him when he shot Campbell.

Retired former Officer Timothy Goodwin, a Team 6 member at the time of the raid, exercised his Fifth Amendment rights to not testify during trial. Goodwin and another officer were relieved of duty during a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation into inconsistent statements made about the shooting.
ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) - Attorneys for a teenager accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in a high school bathroom say the sex was consensual.

Seventeen-year-old Jose Montano and 18-year-old Henry Sanchez are both charged with rape. Police say they took turns sexually assaulting the girl at Rockville High School. The case received national attention after the White House called it an example of why President Donald Trump wants to crack down on illegal immigration. Officials said Sanchez came to the U.S. from Guatemala illegally.

In a court filing Monday, Montano's lawyer said the girl agreed in text messages to have sex with Montano. Police tell The Washington Post (http://wapo.st/2neVj5f ) they stand by their finding that the sex was not consensual. Montano's being charged as an adult.

Sanchez's lawyer had already said he believes the sex was consensual.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A Tennessee judge who is being investigated after allegations that he helped a woman with her legal troubles in exchange for sex is facing federal charges of bribery, witness tampering and retaliating against a witness, prosecutors said Tuesday.

FBI agents arrested Davidson County General Sessions Judge Cason "Casey" Moreland on Tuesday at his sister's home where he had been living, and he later appeared in court, shackled at the wrists and ankles. He was ordered to remain in custody, pending another hearing Friday, media outlets reported.

Moreland's attorney, Peter Strianse, said his client is in a state of shock.

"He certainly didn't expect to be welcomed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation at 6 o'clock this morning with a search warrant," Strianse told reporters. "So I think he's still reeling a bit from all of that."

According to a criminal complaint, Moreland learned in February that the FBI was investigating him for possible corruption. That investigation is centered on allegations that Moreland extorted sexual favors as well as travel and lodging in return for official acts, such as having fines dismissed for defendants.

A female witness told the FBI she believed Moreland offered his help with her legal troubles with the expectation of receiving sex in return, and the two started their relationship in April 2016.

The woman told the FBI that Moreland helped her eliminate court costs and traffic ticket fines, got an interlock breathalyzer removed from her car, and aided her in avoiding a ticket for a suspended license during a traffic stop, the complaint states.

Moreland, 59, also tried to pay the female witness $6,100 through an intermediary in exchange for her signing an affidavit in which she would recant her statements about his improprieties, the complaint said.

At the FBI's direction, the intermediary recorded the meeting, during which Moreland said, "this right here gets me out of trouble," according to the complaint.

Moreland told an intermediary get the witness "liquored up real good" before mentioning the affidavit, which had been written as if she had authored it herself, and bought a temporary "burner" phone because he was worried about his phone calls being monitored, the complaint said.

In an attempt to further ruin the witness's credibility, Moreland also schemed to plant drugs on the witness and have a police officer pull her over in a traffic stop, the complaint said.

"As the conduct outlined in the charging document makes clear, allowing Judge Moreland to continue to exercise the vast power over the lives of individuals as a sitting judge can severely jeopardize the constitutional protections afforded to our citizens," Acting U.S. Attorney Jack Smith said at a news conference.

If convicted, Moreland faces up to 20 years in prison.

Nashville Mayor Megan Barry said Moreland's immediate resignation "would seem to be in the best interest" of the city.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Family members of Emmett Till pushed Attorney General Jeff Sessions Tuesday to enforce a law that that allows prosecutors to reinvestigate old civil rights murder cases.

Deborah Watts, Till's cousin and co-founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation and Alvin Sykes, a member of the Emmett Till Justice Campaign, met with Sessions before going down to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture afterward to view Till's casket, which is one of the centerpieces of the museum.

"He's definitely open to looking at cases that should be reviewed and cases where there are no answers for loved ones who have experienced the murder of their loved ones," Watts said.

FILE - In this Aug. 27, 2015, file photo, Deborah Watts, of Minneapolis, speaks in Jackson, Miss., about the slaying of her cousin, Emmett Till. Family members of Emmett Till pushed Attorney General Jeff Sessions March 28, 2017, to move forward with a law that that allows prosecutors to reinvestigate old civil rights murder cases. Watts, co-founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation and Alvin Sykes, a member of the Emmett Till Justice Campaign, met with Sessions before going down to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture afterward to view Till's casket, which is one of the centerpieces of the museum.(AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

The Emmett Till Civil Rights Crimes Act allows prosecutors to investigate crimes committed before 1980.

Watts said they did not talk in depth about a white woman's confession that Till did not make any sexual advances toward her.

A new book by author and historian Timothy B. Tyson says Carolyn Donham told him a decade ago she wasn't telling the truth with her claims of sexual advances by the 14-year-old Chicago boy, who was visiting family in rural Mississippi. In August 1955, Till was kidnapped, tortured, shot and mutilated.

Till's mother insisted on an open-casket funeral to show the world the mutilated body of her son. The brutality sparked outrage that helped galvanize the civil rights movement. Donham's first husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, were acquitted of the murder, but both later claimed responsibility.

The Justice Department in 2007 determined the Till case did not warrant federal prosecution due to the statute of limitations on any potential federal crimes.

The meeting was set up before Tyson's book was published, Sykes said. "Our purpose was strictly on the implementation of the Till Act," he said.

Sykes said they are hoping to push for funding for more civil rights investigations, and for the Justice Department to establish a Till Act advisory committee to help pick which cases to pursue.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Republicans in the Iowa Legislature are backing newly filed legislation that would ban abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which would be the strictest ban in the country if enacted.

A GOP-led House committee had been set to vote on the provision Tuesday night but lawmakers later adjourned without a decision. It's expected to be taken up again Wednesday.

The measure was added to a separate bill that would ban most abortions at 20 weeks of pregnancy. The new version would include several abortion restrictions.

Democrats criticized the legislation in an afternoon press conference, though they don't have the legislative power to stop the bill's advancement.

"This is an all-out assault on women and a sneak attack from Republicans at the last minute," said Democratic Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, a ranking member of the House Human Resources Committee that was set to take up the measure.

GOP Rep. Shannon Lundgren, a committee member and the bill's floor manager, said Democrats should not be surprised by the move. She also acknowledged backers of the bill are still securing enough support from other House Republicans.

"Overall, we are a pro-life caucus," she said. "We've been talking about running a bill through our committee since the beginning of session. Republicans ran on pro-life issues."

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland spokeswoman Rachel Lopez sent out a press release calling it the "most extreme and overreaching abortion legislation ever introduced in Iowa."

If the new version of bill is passed, it would still require floor votes in both chambers before it could reach the Republican governor's desk. Ben Hammes, a spokesman for Gov. Terry Branstad, did not immediately comment on support for the bill.

"Obviously, Gov. Branstad is very pro-life," Hammes said in an email. "But until we see legislation in its final form, we will reserve judgment."

Ed Failor, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix, said in an email, "we do not wish to comment on house actions as they move through their process."

Among provisions in the amendment:

-A pregnant woman will need to wait 72 hours, or three days, before she can get an abortion.

-State health officials would be required to make available to a woman seeking an abortion reading material that encourages adoption. It would include language stating Iowa's interest in promoting adoption over abortion.

-A woman seeking an abortion would need to sign documentation acknowledging she was told a heartbeat was detected and the statistical probability of bringing the pregnancy to term.

-A woman or her spouse could sue a doctor in certain instances for performing an abortion. Parents could sue the physician if the woman was a minor or unmarried.

-A legal clause would state that if a part of the bill is found invalid, it does not affect other provisions.

The so-called "heartbeat bill" would prohibit most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can be as early as six weeks into pregnancy. Ohio Gov. John Kasich vetoed a similar measure late last year. In January 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review lower court rulings overturning North Dakota's so-called fetal heartbeat law.

A handful of states have introduced heartbeat bills this year, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.

If enacted in Iowa, the measure is expected to face legal challenges over its constitutionality. The U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling established a nationwide right to abortion, though states were permitted to restrict abortions after viability - the point when the fetus has a reasonable chance of surviving under normal conditions outside the uterus. The ruling offered no legal definition of viability, saying it could range between 24 and 28 weeks into a pregnancy.
PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) - The former home of the Detroit Lions will be demolished.

A judge approved a deal Tuesday between the city of Pontiac and the owner of the Pontiac Silverdome to get rid of the stadium. The Detroit Free Press (http://on.freep.com/2neZRbq ) says Triple Investment Group has until June 9 to apply for a permit and announce the date of destruction.

Pontiac Mayor Deirdre Waterman says it's possible that implosion will be part of the strategy to bring down the Silverdome. The Lions played in Pontiac in suburban Detroit from 1975 through 2001.

It was also the home of the NBA's Detroit Pistons and hosted the Super Bowl in 1982.

The enormous parking lot lately has been used to store Volkswagen cars related to the company's emissions scandal.

___

Information from: Detroit Free Press, http://www.freep.com
Parties in Northern Ireland have a short few weeks to strike a deal to save powersharing at Stormont, Secretary of State James Brokenshire has said.

With a deadline for forming a new ruling executive following this months snap election having elapsed on Monday without agreement, the UK government now either has to call yet another poll or potentially reintroduce direct rule from Westminster.

Mr Brokenshire indicated he will delay taking action to allow the regions political leaders some more time to resolve their differences.

Without an executive or agreed budget for the upcoming financial year, control of Stormonts finances will be handed to a senior civil servant on Wednesday, albeit subject to tight spending constraints.

Mr Brokenshire said that was not sustainable, making clear the final window for negotiations would not be allowed to drift.

I think there are a short few weeks in order to resolve matters, he said.

The reason I say that is because of the stark issue in relation to public services here in Northern Ireland and the lack of a budget having been set, and therefore it is the impact on public services on having an extended period that is very much at the forefront of my mind in terms of the responsibilities that we have as the UK Government to provide that assurance to the public here.

Criticising SF stance, Mrs Foster says "Government in Northern Ireland is not a game - it's actually very serious". pic.twitter.com/513SU7chwE  David Young (@DavidYoungPA) March 27, 2017

The Democratic Unionist/Sinn Fein administration collapsed in January amid a bitter row over a botched green energy scheme. The subsequent snap election campaign laid bare a range of other contentious issues dividing the parties.

The Secretary of State rejected criticism of the Governments handling of the talks to form a new executive and defended the fact Prime Minister Theresa May did not participate in the process. He said the Government had played a positive and active role and Mrs May had been kept updated throughout.

He declined to be drawn on calls for an independent mediator to be appointed to inject fresh impetus to negotiations that some politicians have described as a shambles to date.

Under current legislation, the Government is required to call another snap election if a deadline for forming an executive passes.

However, there is some room for manoeuvre, as there is no obligation to set a poll date immediately, rather within a reasonable period.

Making a public statement at Stormont House, Belfast, after the 4pm deadline passed on Monday, Mr Brokenshire said there was no appetite for an immediate election.

The Government could also theoretically go for the nuclear option of reintroducing direct rule, but that move  which would require emergency legislation  looks unlikely at this stage at least.

Mr Brokenshire said there was an overwhelming desire among politicians and the public for strong and stable devolved government.

We now have a short window of opportunity to resolve outstanding issues and for an executive to be formed, he said.

Everyone owes it to the people of Northern Ireland to grasp that and provide the political leadership and stability that they want.

Mr Brokenshire said he would make a full statement in the House of Commons on Tuesday setting out a way forward for the region.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has postponed a planned visit to Russia in order to attend a meeting with Nato counterparts, including US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

The Brussels gathering was rescheduled to March 31 after Mr Tillerson indicated he could not attend on its original planned date of April 5 to 6 because of a US visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

But the new date clashes with Mr Johnsons mooted visit to Moscow at the invitation of foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, which would have been the first by a UK foreign secretary in more than five years.

Sergey Lavrov (Jonathan Brady/PA )

A Foreign Office spokesman said: We have unfortunately had to postpone the Foreign Secretarys visit to Russia planned this month due to rescheduling of the Nato foreign ministers meeting, said the spokesman.

The Foreign Secretary has spoken to Foreign Minister Lavrov and looks forward to reinstating his visit as soon as possible.

At the time the visit was announced, Government sources insisted it did not represent an attempt to reset relations with Moscow and that Mr Johnson would take a robust line with his Russian hosts.
A man seen running from the scene of a crash which killed a four-year-old girl is believed to have fled the country just hours later, police said.

Violet-Grace Youens died in her mothers arms on Saturday, after she was struck by a stolen black Ford Fiesta while walking through St Helens, Merseyside, on Friday.

Her grandmother, Angela French, 55, was also injured in the crash and is in a serious but stable condition in hospital.

My prayers are with the family of Violet-Grace Youens, and my admiration for their incredible act of goodness in the midst of such tragedy.  Conor McGinn (@ConorMcGinn) March 27, 2017

Merseyside Police released CCTV images of two men fleeing the scene after the crash, which happened on Prescot Road at about 3pm on Friday.

On Monday a 27-year-old man from St Helens was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and causing serious injury by dangerous driving.

Police said they were working with authorities abroad to locate a 23-year-old man who was believed to have left the country just hours after the collision.

Detective Chief Inspector Chris Sephton said: We believe that a second male, aged 23, who we would like to speak to, is abroad. He left approximately three hours after the incident.

27-year-old man has been arrested and detained for interview following a serious RTC - Prescot Rd, St Helens. https://t.co/k469BLqJtV pic.twitter.com/y1S7IzGBgG  Merseyside Police (@MerseyPolice) March 27, 2017

We have been in contact with the authorities of the country where we believe he is. We are not releasing that information at the present time but we are doing everything we can to try and identify where he is now and get him back over here.

A third man, aged 23 and from Prescot, was arrested on suspicion of being carried in a stolen vehicle but later released pending further inquiries.

Violet-Graces mother, Rebecca Youens, paid tribute to her brave baby girl after she died in hospital.

My beautiful baby girl passed away in my arms on 25/03/2017 at 23:38, she said in a Facebook post.

Thank you for all your well wishes  she was just too poorly.

However, my brave baby girl saved two lives by donating her kidneys and pancreas.

I am truly heartbroken but proud of my little fighter.

Angela French (Merseyside Police/PA)

A fundraising website set up in memory of the youngster raised more than 10,000 in one day.

The GoFundMe page was set up to raise money to help Violet-Graces family at this truly traumatic time.

A message posted on the site said: Money wont bring this beautiful girl back, but it will certainly take one worry away from her grieving parents. Please give what you can.

Anyone with information can call Merseyside Police on 0151 777 6041 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Supermarket giant Tesco will take a 235 million hit after reaching an agreement with authorities over its accounting scandal that will see it make a hefty compensation payout to investors.

The UKs biggest supermarket said its subsidiary  Tesco Stores  had entered a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) with the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which could see it escape prosecution but pay a 129 million fine and costs.

The agreement, which will face court approval on April 10, came as Britains financial watchdog concluded that Tesco had committed market abuse when it inflated profits by 263 million in a trading update on August 29 2014.

Tesco has been forced to compensate investors who had bought shares and bonds on - or after - August 29

In an unprecedented move, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said the supermarket chain would pay 85 million in compensation to investors who bought shares and bonds on  or after  August 29 and had held stock when the financial statement was corrected on September 22 2014.

Tesco suspended eight directors, and the SFO charged three former executives with fraud, after the black hole was discovered in the firms accounts in 2014.

The scale of the problem was later revised from 263 million to 326 million, helping drag the Big Four grocer to a 6.4 billion loss in 2015, one of the largest in corporate history.

Dave Lewis, Tesco chief executive, said the firm was doing everything it could to restore trust after seeing the brand suffer following the accounting scandal.

He said: What happened was a huge source of regret to all of us at Tesco, but we are a different business now. The decisions over the last years are evident to all and the job now is to keep this momentum.

I am pleased with how our colleagues have responded and that has allowed us to rebuild the business since 2014.
The EU wants to negotiate in a fair and friendly way with the UK over Brexit, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has told London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

The Mayor met Mr Juncker during a whirlwind day of talks with EU powerbrokers in Brussels.

A spokeswoman for the commission president said that he conveyed his solidarity with London after the Westminster attack, adding: President Juncker also listened with interest to the Mayors views and concerns in the context of the Brexit process.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan meets Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission at the European Commission in Brussels (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

He restated that the EU will negotiate in a friendly and fair way.

The remarks came after Mr Khan used a keynote address in Brussels to warn the EU it would be a mistake to punish the UK for Brexit.

He said: Now is the time to be confident in the European Union, and to act with confidence.

There is no need  as some have suggested  for the EU to send a message, or to instil fear, by punishing the UK.

Because a proud, optimistic and confident institution does not secure its future by fear.

My city is not only the beating heart of Britains economy, but the single most important organ for growth across Europe.

I say this with friendship and all due respect  but a bad Brexit deal that hurts London would hurt the European Union too.

The intervention, the day before Prime Minister Theresa May is set to invoke Article 50 and formally trigger Brexit, was intended to put the emotional argument for a fair deal between the EU and UK.

Ahead of #Article50 I'm calling on the PM to give an immediate cast-iron guarantee to EU nationals that they can stay in the UK after Brexit pic.twitter.com/F7gqNomi8r  Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) March 28, 2017

When asked during a photocall with Mr Khan if he intended to punish Britain in the negotiations, European Parliament Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt said: Not at all.

After meeting Mr Khan, European Parliament president Antonio Tajani said that the UK could not expect the same benefits as a member state after Brexit.

He said: Parliament will play a key role in deciding the outcome of the negotiations. And as its president I will ensure that all positions will be fairly represented in this debate.

I want a pledge protecting the 3.3m EU citizens who currently live in Britain to be given as soon as #Article50 is triggered.  Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) March 28, 2017

It is unacceptable for EU nationals in the UK and UK nationals in the EU to be used as bargaining chips in Brexit negotiations. #Article50  Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) March 28, 2017

We will all play a part towards achieving a fair and orderly divorce between the European Union and the United Kingdom.

The parliament will ensure that the interests of our citizens will be protected.

Mr Khans staff said diary clashes meant he was not able to meet European Council president Donald Tusk as hoped.
The wife of Royal Marine Alexander Blackman, who fatally shot an injured Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, has spoken of her joy at the prospect of him coming home in a few weeks.

Claire Blackman said she was overjoyed after judges sentenced her husband to seven years for diminished responsibility manslaughter  meaning that because of time already served he could be freed next month.

Surrounded by scores of veterans outside the Court Martial Appeal Court in London, she said: We are overjoyed at the judges decision to significantly reduce Als sentence, such that he can be released imminently.

Claire Blackman, the wife of Alexander Blackman, arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice on Monday morning

This is the moment that we have all been fighting hard for. It is hard to believe that this day is finally here.

A panel of five judges, headed by Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas, sentenced Blackman, 42, from Taunton in Somerset, to the term of seven years following the recent quashing of his murder conviction for the 2011 killing.

Announcing the decision, Lord Thomas said: As with any person sentenced to a determinate term, his release will ordinarily be at the halfway point of the sentence.

Blackman, who watched Tuesdays proceedings via video link, has already spent almost three-and-a-half years in prison following his original conviction in November 2013 after the death of the insurgent.

Supporters of Alexander Blackman outside the Royal Courts of Justice on Friday

One of Blackmans legal team indicated he would probably be released in about two weeks, but the decision on the exact date was for the Prison Service to determine.

The Court Martial Appeal Court ruled previously that Blackman was suffering from an abnormality of mental functioning at the time of the 2011 killing when he was serving with Plymouth-based 42 Commando.

The court found the incident was not a cold-blooded execution as a court martial had earlier concluded, but the result of a mental illness, an adjustment disorder.

The judges said Blackman had been an exemplary soldier before his deployment to Afghanistan in March 2011, but had suffered from quite exceptional stressors during that deployment.

They found his ability to form a rational judgment was substantially impaired.

Blackman shot the insurgent, who had been seriously injured in an attack by an Apache helicopter, in the chest at close range with a 9mm pistol before quoting a phrase from Shakespeare as the man convulsed and died in front of him.
Great Britains hopes of reaching the Davis Cup semi-finals suffered a major blow after Andy Murray was ruled out of next months last-eight clash with France through injury.

The world number one withdrew from the Miami Open because of an elbow problem and it has now been confirmed he will not be part of Britains team in Rouen.

As expected, no Andy Murray in the GB Davis Cup team to take on France next weekend. Edmund, Evans, J Murray and Inglot is the quartet  Eleanor Crooks (@EleanorcrooksPA) March 28, 2017

Dan Evans, Kyle Edmund, Jamie Murray and Dom Inglot will take on the French on indoor clay at the Kindarena from April 7-9.

Andy Murray

There has yet been no official update from the Murray camp on the nature of the Scots injury but his brother Jamie revealed at the weekend that he had a tear in the joint.

Murray was also suffering from a virus prior to flying home to London last week and was told to rest by doctors.

Leon Smith: Not having Andy in the side is obviously a big loss to our team but most importantly we all wish him well for a speedy recovery  Eleanor Crooks (@EleanorcrooksPA) March 28, 2017

British Davis Cup captain Leon Smith said: This is a team with significant Davis Cup experience now and these guys have all stepped up and delivered performances at the very top of the competition.

Not having Andy in the side is obviously a big loss to our team but most importantly we all wish him well for a speedy recovery back to full health and fitness. I know that he would really want to be here with the rest of the team.

Facing France in a Davis Cup tie is a tough test for any group of players and this Rouen quarter-final will be no exception. They have the strongest depth of squad by far out of any nation in the competition.

France captain Yannick Noah named Lucas Pouille, Gilles Simon, Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert in his team.

The hosts are missing the injured Gael Monfils and Richard Gasquet, who is recovering from an appendix operation, as well as new father Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

But, in Pouille and Simon, they can still call on players ranked 15 and 25 respectively, while Mahut and Herbert are the reigning Wimbledon champions, although they have not been in great form this season.

Winning the match would have been a tough task for Britain even with Murray. Without him, they will go in as heavy underdogs and much will depend on world number 45 Edmund.

The 22-year-old is unusual among British players in that his favourite surface is clay and he stepped up impressively in Murrays absence from the team against Serbia last summer, winning both singles rubbers.

Evans is ranked marginally higher at 43 but has not played a match on clay in nearly two years, while his only tour-level win on the surface came in a Davis Cup dead rubber in 2013.

GB big underdogs now. Evans hasn't played a match on clay since May '15 and his only tour-level win was a DC dead rubber v Mate Pavic  Eleanor Crooks (@EleanorcrooksPA) March 28, 2017

Smith, however, sees no reason why Evans cannot perform on clay, citing the example of Tim Henman, who reached the French Open semi-finals in 2004 having previously struggled on the red stuff.

He learned to play on it really, really well, said the Scot. Dans serve is good on any surface, his forehand can be a weapon, he obviously moves great so I dont see why he cant play well on it.

It is the same quartet that beat Canada in the first round in February, where all four played their part before the dramatic ending when Denis Shapovalov was defaulted for smashing a ball in anger into the eye of umpire Arnaud Gabas.

Britain last played France at the same stage two years ago, when Murray was the hero on grass at Queens Club in arguably the key victory of their title run.
A watch which once belonged to former prime minister Sir Winston Churchill and symbolised his vision of peace and unity in Europe is going under the hammer.

Sir Winston was presented with the watch in 1946 when he stayed in Switzerland, where he penned a speech ending with the words Let Europe arise and proposing a kind of United States of Europe.

Reflecting on the wars which wreck the peace and mar the prospects of all mankind, he called on European countries to unite so that its citizens can dwell in peace, safety and freedom.

The yellow-gold Lemania wristwatch formerly owned by Sir Winston Churchill (Sotheby's/PA)

Sir Winston, who had been defeated in the 1945 general election, was presented with the Lemania yellow-gold classic gentlemans watch during a visit to the Swiss city of Lausanne, where local people thanked him for his actions during the Second World War.

Sir Winston kept the watch all his life and it was passed through his family, before being sold privately to the current, anonymous owner.

It is expected to fetch more than 25,000 at Sothebys when it is auctioned, next month, for the first time.

The wristwatch shows signs of wear and tear, leading to speculation that the wartime leader often wore it.

Sothebys head of watches, Joanne Lewis, said: He was in Switzerland to relax with his family. But for a lot of the time he would have been mulling over his speech and considering his words very carefully. He may have been wearing the watch while fine-tuning the speech.

The back of the watch is engraved with the words From the Canton of Vaud to its famous guest Mr Winston Churchill August-September 1946.

The watch will be go under the hammer as part of the Sothebys London watch sale on April 25.
The Duchess of Cambridge is to visit Luxembourg to attend commemorations marking the 150th anniversary of a treaty that confirmed the countrys independence and neutrality.

Kate will travel to the country on May 11 to attend events celebrating the 1867 Treaty of London, at the request of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The visit is likely to be interpreted as another trip being made by a member of the Royal Family in their role as Brexit Ambassadors, as they have been dubbed by the press.

The Duchess of Cambridge (Heathcliff O'Malley/Daily Telegraph/PA)

The trip will be the Duchesss second official solo overseas visit, following her successful trip to the Netherlands last October.

The Duchess of Cambridge will visit Luxembourg

on the 11th of May and attend the commemoration of the 1867 Treaty of London. pic.twitter.com/pyrB9WiAbG  The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) March 28, 2017

Details about the visit have not been released but it is likely Kate will meet members of Luxembourgs monarchy, probably including the head of state Grand Duke Henri.

The Grand Duke and his wife Grand Duchess Maria Teresa were guests at William and Kates wedding in 2011.

Kate visited Paris earlier this month with William in what was seen as the first in a series of European tours by the Royal Family to strengthen ties with the Continent.

The Cambridges will visit Poland and Germany in July and on Wednesday the Prince of Wales will fly to Romania, and later visit Italy and Austria with the Duchess of Cornwall, on the day Theresa May triggers the start of the UKs formal withdrawal from the EU.

Luxembourg is only a small country but over the decades has become a thriving financial centre after suffering the depression of its iron and steel industries.

The countrys strategic place between France, Belgium and Germany, and proximity to Holland, has meant it has been at the heart of territorial ambitions of a number of states for centuries.
reuters

'Our democracy's at risk,' Biden says on eve of U.S. midterm elections

By Andrea Shalal and Andy SullivanBOWIE, Md., Nov 7 (Reuters) - In a stark closing argument ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, President Joe Biden on...
Arsenal need more players with the mentality of Alexis Sanchez throughout the team to be successful, according to Sol Campbell.

Chile forward Sanchezs future at the Emirates Stadium is in doubt as his current contract expires in the summer of 2018.

Chelsea are among those linked with making a move this summer for Sanchez, who Campbell believes could have played alongside him in the Arsenal team which completed the 2003-04 season undefeated.

Alexis Sanchez

Former England defender Campbell told ESPN FC: (Arsenal need) more Sanchez-type of mentality players, from defenders to up front. I think that for me they need more players like that on the pitch.

Sanchez would easily play in our (Invincibles) side. (Sanchez) has everything. If you want to win things, youve got to have more guys like that.

This is a pretty interesting story...https://t.co/z475ltkSzz  Arsenal (@Arsenal) March 28, 2017

Arsenal are sixth in the Premier League, 19 points behind leaders Chelsea, ahead of this weekends resumption following the international break.

Campbell crossed the North London divide when moving from Tottenham to Arsenal, while more recently Petr Cech swapped Chelsea for Arsenal.

The prospect of a Sanchez move to Stamford Bridge could be more likely if Real Madrids perennial interest in Eden Hazard materialises.
Health workers ranging from doctors, dentists, nurses and midwives to cleaners and porters are to receive a 1% pay rise, angering unions.

The Government said it had accepted recommendations from Pay Review Bodies (PRB) for increases in the coming year.

Unions reacted with fury, saying the rise was derisory, especially as fuel, food and transport costs were increasing.

Health workers ranging from doctors, dentists, nurses and midwives to cleaners and porters to have pay rise pegged at 1% - @unisontweets  Alan Jones (@AlanJonesPA) March 28, 2017

Christina McAnea, head of health at Unison, said: This deal amounts to less than 5 a week for most midwives, nurses, cleaners, paramedics, radiographers and other healthcare staff.

Its a derisory amount in the face of soaring fuel bills, rising food prices and increasing transport costs.

The Governments insistence on the 1% cap has tied the PRBs hands. As the PRB itself admits, it can no longer prevent health employees pay falling way behind wages in almost every part of the economy.

Without the cash to hold on to experienced employees, the NHS staffing crisis will worsen as people leave for less stressful, better rewarded jobs elsewhere.

A doctor with a stethoscope around their neck (Lynne Cameron/PA)

Todays unfair settlement is yet more evidence of the Governments failure to invest in the NHS. Ministers must stop relying on goodwill, rethink this short-sighted pay policy and reward staff properly.

Rehana Azam, of the GMB union, said: Public sector workers desperately need a real pay rise, not the miserly and cruel decision being imposed on them by the Government.

Dedicated professionals are hurting and the quality of services is deteriorating for everyone else.

Theresa May talks about helping those who are just about managing, but its clear that she doesnt include over five million public sector workers.

Imposing a 1% settlement is an insult to our selfless NHS staff and other public sector workers  who keep us safe day in, day out.
UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping has revealed he will fight Yoel Romero if Georges St-Pierre is not ready to face him in July.

The Bisping-St-Pierre bout was announced earlier this month by UFC president Dana White, albeit with no confirmation of date or venue.

Having said July 8 was the date he had discussed with White, Bisping, during a recent episode on his podcast, indicated that St-Pierre would not be ready.

Michael Bisping

New episode of The Believe You Me Podcast available now from iTunes etc https://t.co/kYHyybUFes  michael (@bisping) March 28, 2017

St-Pierre, who was tempted out of retirement by the prospect of a lucrative clash with the Mancunian, reportedly wants the match-up to take place in September, but Bisping has made it clear he will not wait around if negotiations stall.

Long story short, it looks like GSP is trying to push for a later date, the Englishman said.

I heard that they wanted September/October and thats what the UFC told me as well. But Im just throwing it out there right now. If he wants to wait until September or October, then he can go find himself another opponent, buddy. Im the champion and Im not willing to sit around until September or October.

July 8, Las Vegas, International Fight Week is the date and the event that we are targeting. But Dana wouldnt confirm the date at the press conference. But then I saw Dana a couple of weeks later and Dana said, Yeah were still hoping for July 8.

This fight was discussed in January. A fight camp only takes eight weeks or six weeks. Fighting in September or October is ridiculous. July 8 is the date. I will be a little bit flexible and maybe go past that a little bit, but I want to fight at International Fight Week, July 8. So Georges St-Pierre, get it together.

Come on, sign the paperwork. You want it. You sat there at the press conference. You talked big. You sounded confident, so sign the God damn paperwork. Its as simple as that.

#OnThisDay in UFC history, @GeorgesStPierre defended his belt for the fifth time against @DanHardyMMA, who REFUSED to give up   pic.twitter.com/r3a7PIBDtb  UFC (@ufc) March 27, 2017

Romero earned a title shot following a third-round knockout of Chris Weidman at UFC 205 last November, only for the mixed martial arts promotion to bypass him in favour of St-Pierre, who has never fought at middleweight, but is UFCs longest-reigning welterweight champion having defended the belt nine times from 2008-2013.

If the highly anticipated fight against St-Pierre falls through, Bisping would be willing to defend his belt against 39-year-old Cuban Romero.

If hes not ready then I guess Yoel Romero gets his title shot, the 38-year-old said.

Listen, Im not afraid of Yoel Romero. If GSP wants to fight, of course, theres a great story there. But Im not willing to sit around and he doesnt get to call the shots.
Theresa May has played down a row over the Daily Mails front page picture of her and Nicola Sturgeon focusing on their legs.

The Prime Minister said she did not mind if people want to have a bit of fun about how she was dressed.

The national newspaper faced accusations of sexism after publishing a front page picture of the Prime Minister and Scottish First Minister under the headline Who won Legs-it!.

Prime Minister Theresa May (right) and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon meet at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Glasgow (Russell Cheyne/PA)

The Mail was condemned as moronic and accused of deterring girls from entering politics over its coverage of Mondays meeting between the two women.

Seriously? Our two most senior female politicians are judged for their legs not what they said #appallingsexism https://t.co/18FMUzttlJ  Baroness Nicky Morgan (@NickyMorgan01) March 27, 2017

It's 2017. This sexism must be consigned to history. Shame on the Daily Mail. pic.twitter.com/V3RpFSgfnO  Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) March 27, 2017

But the newspapers columnist Sarah Vine accused critics of having a sense of humour failure, while a Daily Mail spokesman hit out at its po-faced detractors.

And Mrs May told Wolverhamptons Express and Star: If people want to have a bit of fun about how we dress, then so be it.

Mrs May told the Express and Star: You will notice that I am wearing trousers today!

As a woman in politics throughout my whole career I have found that very often, what I wear  particularly my shoes  has been an issue that has been looked at rather closely by people.

It's 2017. Two women's decisions will determine if United Kingdom continues to exist. And front page news is their lower limbs. Obviously pic.twitter.com/AMp0YvtISa  Yvette Cooper (@YvetteCooperMP) March 27, 2017

Obviously what we do as politicians is what makes a difference to peoples lives. I think that most people concentrate on what we do as politicians.

But if people want to have a bit of fun about how we dress, then so be it.

The Mails front page carried a photograph of the two women sitting down for talks in Glasgow under the headline Never mind Brexit, who won Legs-it!.

In later editions the headline was accompanied by a trail for an inside page article by Ms Vine  the wife of Conservative former cabinet minister Michael Gove  discussing their appearance.

The 1950s called and asked for their headline back.#everydaysexism https://t.co/s1W1XfhrhN  Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) March 27, 2017

A spokesman for the First Minister said: It is slightly surprising that when the First Minister of Scotland and the Prime Minister of the UK meet to discuss the key issues of the UKs departure from the EU and giving the people of Scotland a choice over their future that the main focus should be on their legs and what they are wearing.

Brexit may risk taking Britain back to the early 1970s but there is no need for coverage of events to lead the way.

But Ms Vine said: I think that people have maybe have had a slight sense of humour failure.

She told BBC Radio 4s World at One: A lot of the kerfuffle around this, if I may say so, is to do with the fact that this is a piece in the Daily Mail.

If Private Eye were to run this picture on the cover of their magazine next week and put a similar headline, nobody would bat an eyelid.

What do women politicians have to do to be taken seriously? #EverydaySexism pic.twitter.com/aPwlfnuKN1  Leanne Wood  (@LeanneWood) March 28, 2017

Its just because its in the Daily Mail and people have a Pavlovian reaction to the Daily Mail.

A spokesman for the newspaper said Ms Vines piece was a sidebar alongside the serious political coverage and added: For the record, the Mail was the paper which, more than any other, backed Theresa May for the top job.

Again for the record, we often comment on the appearance of male politicians including Camerons waistline, Osbornes hair, Corbyns clothes - and even Boriss legs.
By John O'Donnell

FRANKFURT, March 27 (Reuters) - London has seen its standing as a financial centre slip as Britain prepares to trigger its departure from the European Union, according to a survey released on Monday, although rival European cities still lag far behind.

The Z/Yen global financial centres index (GFCI), which ranks 88 financial centres, still puts London in first place, followed by New York and three cities in economically powerful Asia - Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

It also shows that banks and others are increasingly worried by Brexit and a drift towards protectionism in the United States and Europe.

"Brexit is a major source of uncertainty for all centres - not just London," said the report's authors, citing what they said was a common complaint among those surveyed.

"London slipping is not to the benefit of continental Europe," said Michael Mainelli of Z/Yen Group.

"That is largely due to perceptions of Europe. The notion that we are a tired old continent is raised quite a bit," he said, referring to the survey.

London's rating, based on answers from industry players on reputation, infrastructure or business environment, nonetheless fell sharply since last September.

This may worsened further since then. The survey was conducted before Prime Minister Theresa May said in January that Britain would not remain in the single market, setting course for a clean break with the world's largest trading bloc.

Politicians in Germany and France would like to seize on Brexit to build up their own centres of Frankfurt and Paris.

Frankfurt, where promoters have even sent a nightclub owner with a London delegation to vouch for the city's often lacklustre night life, and Paris, where many banks have balked at strict labour laws, are still struggling.

The global ranking of Paris, in 29th place, only held steady compared with September, while Frankfurt, Luxembourg and Dublin, in 23rd, 18th and 33rd place, received a lower position than in the earlier survey. (Reporting By John O'Donnell; editing by Richard Lough)
BERLIN, March 27 (Reuters) - The German Finance Ministry is worried there will be turbulence on the financial markets if there is a 'hard Brexit', a German newspaper reported on Monday - two days before Britain triggers divorce proceedings with the European Union.

Handelsblatt daily cited a risk analysis from the Finance Ministry as saying that if Britain and the EU do not strike a deal about Britain's exit in time, it could threaten the stability of financial markets.

The ministry is also worried that the two-year negotiation period between Britain and the EU will not suffice to conclude a free trade deal with Britain and that would mean there are "significant" risks for the financial markets, it said.

For that reason, there should be interim solutions, said the analysis, which talked about "phasing out".

An abrupt exit could "trigger dislocations", with British banks no longer able to offer their services in the EU and banks in the EU finding they no longer have access to the financial centre in London, the report said.

That would result in "grave economic and systemic consequences" for Europe, the newspaper added.

It said that Germany had a strong interest in having an "integrated financial market" with Britain but for that London would need to fulfil conditions such as accepting the EU's basic freedoms as well as strict regulatory standards.

The German government is taking a tough line on the EU budget and wants Britain to promise, at the start of negotiations, that it will meet all of its obligations, including after quitting the EU, and Britain should pay to have access to the European Single Market, the newspaper said. (Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by Ken Ferris)
TRIPOLI, March 27 (Reuters) - Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) said on Monday it had asked the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli to withdraw a resolution that seeks to allocate powers over the oil sector.

The leadership of the U.N.-supported Government of National Accord (GNA), or Presidential Council, issued a resolution on Saturday sharing out powers previously held by the largely defunct oil ministry.

The Council said it was assuming the authority to supervise energy sector investment and exploitation of the country's oil wealth, including the approval or cancellation of contracts.

It then listed NOC responsibilities over production operations.

"I have asked the Presidential Council to withdraw its recent resolution," NOC Chairman Mustafa Sanalla said in a statement on Monday.

"It has exceeded its authority. Only the House of Representatives (HOR), the legislature, has the power to make these changes."

The Presidential Council, the result of a U.N.-mediated transition plan aimed at stabilising Libya, arrived in Tripoli a year ago.

It received early backing from the NOC, but has struggled to assert its authority and has failed to win approval from factions in eastern Libya aligned with a parallel government.

Many of its rulings have been subject to legal, administrative or political challenges.

The NOC in Tripoli continued to control oil production and sales as Libya slid into political chaos and conflict after a 2011 uprising.

Output has more than doubled to about 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) since last year, though it is still far below the 1.6 million bpd OPEC member Libya was producing before 2011.

"NOC has long supported the establishment of a genuine government of national accord able to speak for all Libyans," said Sanalla.

"Until we have a political settlement, our duty is to administer the country's oil resources in trust for benefit of the nation." (Reporting by Aidan Lewis; Editing by James Dalgleish)
By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON, March 27 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he was committed to working with U.S. President Donald Trump to advance peace efforts with the Palestinians and with the broader Arab world.

Netanyahu made the pledge in a speech to the largest U.S. pro-Israel lobbying group at a time when the Trump administration is seeking agreement with his right-wing government on limiting settlement construction on land the Palestinians want for a state, part of a U.S. bid to resume long-stalled peace negotiations.

But Netanyahu, speaking via satellite link from Jerusalem, avoided any mention of the delicate discussions and stopped short of reiterating a commitment to a two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Israel's hand and my hand is extended to all of our neighbors in peace," Netanyahu told the annual convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. "Israel is committed to working with President Trump to advance peace with the Palestinians and with all our neighbors."

But he repeated his demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, something they have refused to do.

Netanyahu heaped praise on Trump, who has set a more positive tone with Israel than his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, who often clashed with the Israeli leader.

He thanked the new Republican president for a recent U.S. budget request that "leaves military aid to Israel fully funded." He also expressed confidence in a U.S.-Israeli partnership for preventing Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon, following its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, and for "confronting Iran's aggression in the region."

Addressing AIPAC later on Monday, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, vowed that the Trump administration would watch Iran "like a hawk" to be sure it sticks to the nuclear deal. The accord, which Netanyahu opposed and Trump denounced during his campaign, gave Tehran sanctions relief in return for limits on its nuclear program.

On the settlements issue, a round of U.S.-Israeli talks ended last Thursday without agreement. Gaps remain over how far the building restrictions could go, according to people close to the talks.

Netanyahu's coalition is grappling with divisions that have sparked speculation that he could seek early elections.

Many Israelis had expected Trump, because of his pro-Israel campaign rhetoric, to give a green light for settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank. But Trump unexpectedly urged Netanyahu last month to "hold back on settlements for a little bit."

There is skepticism in the United States and Middle East over the chances for restarting Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. Peace talks have been frozen since 2014.

Most countries consider Israeli settlements, built on land captured in a 1967 war, to be illegal. Israel disagrees, citing historical and political links to the land, as well as security interests.

Trump has expressed ambivalence about a two-state solution, the mainstay of U.S. policy for the past two decades, but he recently invited Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to visit. (Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem and MIchelle Nichols in New York; Editing by James Dalgleish and Leslie Adler)
By Andrius Sytas and J.R. Wu

VILNIUS/TAIPEI, March 28 (Reuters) - Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer Quanta Computer Inc has acknowledged that its name was used as part of an email fraud scheme that bilked two U.S.-based internet companies out of more than $100 million.

U.S. prosecutors last week indicted a Lithuanian man, Evaldas Rimasauskas, for the fraud.

He was arrested this month in Lithuania at the request of U.S. authorities and is currently in jail there.

Rimasauskas' alleged scheme involved sending emails to employees of the two unnamed companies asking them to wire money that they actually owed to the Asian hardware vendor to the accounts of companies in Latvia and Cyprus that carried the name Quanta.

In order to conceal his fraud from banks that handled the transfers, Rimasaukas forged invoices, contracts and letters purportedly signed by executives of the two victim companies, according to prosecutors.

In a statement on Monday to Reuters, Quanta spokeswoman Carol Hu said the company had been "impersonated" as part of the fraud.

"Quanta did not suffer from any financial harm from this incident," she added, calling the matter "unfortunate."

Quanta, with a market capitalization of $8.4 billion, is a supplier of servers and other hardware to major technology companies. It is part of the Open Compute Project, an initiative launched by Facebook Inc to share server design technology. In 2011 Amazon.com Inc outsourced the assembly of its Kindle Fire tablet to Quanta.

It is not known who the two victims of the alleged $100 million fraud were. U.S. prosecutors referred to them in a statement as a "multinational technology company" and a "multinational online social media company."

Representatives of Amazon and Facebook have had no comment on whether they were possible victims of the scheme.

Rimasauskas, through his lawyer, confirmed he was the owner of a Latvian company with the same name as Quanta from 2013 to 2016, the time frame in which the fraud occurred, according to the indictment.

"Rimasauskas did buy the Latvian company, because he was going to develop a business," the lawyer, Linas Kuprusevicius, told Reuters in an email.

Rimasauskas strongly contests the charges presented by U.S. authorities, the lawyer said. He has a construction engineering degree and was working at a construction business in Lithuania prior to his arrest, he said.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation said last year that U.S. and foreign victims had made 22,143 complaints since October 2013 about so-called business email compromise scams involving requests for more than $3 billion in transfers.

A U.S. extradition request for Rimasauskas is expected by late May, Lithuanian prosecutors told Reuters.

He is charged with wire fraud and money laundering, which each carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, and identity theft, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of two years. (Reporting by J.R. Wu in Taipei and Andrius Sytas in Vilnius; Additional reporting by Stephen Nellis, Jeffrey Dastin and David Ingram in San Francisco; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Tom Brown)
By Clyde Russell

SINGAPORE, March 28 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia and Russia are likely to discover that when pursuing two incompatible goals, the one deemed less important will ultimately be sacrificed.

The world's top two oil exporters appear to be chasing both higher crude prices through their curbs to production and market share by increasing exports, at least in Asia, the world's biggest crude importing region and the fastest growing.

The question is which of these two goals will ultimately be abandoned in favour of the other, and how long will it take for Saudi Arabia and Russia to realise the incompatibility of their dual ambitions?

The crude import data from Asia's biggest buyers show the scale of the challenge facing Saudi Arabia and Russia, the two countries that are the lynchpins of the November agreement between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies to cut output by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first six months of 2017.

That agreement, which provided an initial boost to crude prices, may be extended for another six months after ministers from OPEC and non-OPEC producers agreed on March 26 agreed to conduct a review.

While OPEC and its allies have had success in ensuring high compliance with the deal, which has started the process of drawing down high global oil inventories, they have also opened the door to producers outside the agreement to raise output.

Chinese customs data for the month of February highlight how at risk OPEC and its allies are from cutting their own output while their rivals are free to pump as much as they want.

China imported 4.77 million tonnes, or about 1.24 million bpd, from top supplier Saudi Arabia in February, down almost 13 percent from the same month a year earlier.

While February's imports were down from the same month in 2016, they were actually up from the 1.18 million bpd China imported from the kingdom in January, which shows that the Saudis seem reluctant to restrict sales to their top customer.

That's strike one against boosting prices in favour of preserving market share.

China imported 1.19 million bpd from Russia in February, up 4.5 percent on the same month last year and also above the 1.08 million bpd recorded in January.

So far, that looks like strike two against cutting supplies to increase prices over preserving market share.

To be sure, there were countries that agreed to the cuts that did reduce their exports to China in February, such as the United Arab Emirates, but this was more the exception than the rule.

China's imports from Saudi Arabia are 1 percent higher in the first two months of 2017 from the same period last year, while those from Russia are up 18.9 percent higher, from Angola 5.1 percent, Iraq 26.2 percent, Iran 9.4 percent and Venezuela 39.6 percent.

These figures don't really speak of a concerted effort to restrict supplies to China, which has overtaken the United States to be the world's largest importer of crude.

BRAZIL GAINS MARKET SHARE

It will also be disturbing for OPEC and its allies to look at the 64.8 percent surge in China's imports from Brazil in the first two months of this year to 392,000 bpd, and even from Britain, with a 380 percent leap to 126,000 bpd.

Sure, these are small numbers in the context of China's imports of 8.14 million bpd in the first two months, but it does show the Chinese are willing and able to tap other suppliers if they feel any pinch from OPEC and its allies cutting production.

It's a somewhat similar story in India, Asia's number two oil importer.

India's imports of crude oil from Brazil jumped 176.2 percent in the first two months of the year to 139,300 bpd, according to vessel-tracking and port data compiled by Thomson Reuters Supply Chain and Commodity Forecasts.

It was more of a mixed picture from exporters party to the November agreement, with India's imports from Saudi Arabia down by 15.2 percent to 789,900 bpd in the first two months, while Iraq saw a drop of 37.5 percent and Kuwait 27.3 percent.

But India's purchases from Iran were up 211 percent, from the UAE by 19.7 percent and Azerbaijan by 220 percent.

What the crude import numbers from China and India for the first two months show is that by and large the top producers seem reluctant to cut supplies to major Asian buyers, and that even if they do, other producers seem willing to step into the breach.

It's the ability of producers outside the agreement to fill any supply gap that's the potential strike three against cutting output to boost prices.

The United States exported around 950,000 to 1 million bpd in February, according to participants in the industry who spoke at an Argus crude oil forum in Singapore on Tuesday.

The participants, some of whom represented U.S. oil producers, expect that this level of exports can be sustained, and will increase in coming years as shale producers, particularly those in the Permian basin ramp up output, given they can be profitable at prices as low as $40 a barrel.

The U.S. shale industry is still the Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of OPEC and its allies.

While their agreement to curb output may have some impact insofar as drawing down excess inventories, perhaps it would be better for Saudi Arabia, Russia and the others to hope for stronger world economic growth to spark a demand-led rebalancing.

(Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
DUBAI, March 28 (Reuters) - Amazom.com has agreed to acquire Middle East online retailer Souq.com,, the two companies said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

The value of the deal was not disclosed.

"By becoming part of the Amazon family, we'll be able to vastly expand our delivery capabilities and customer selection much faster, as well as continue Amazon's great track record of empowering sellers," said Souq.com's co-founder, Syrian-born entrepreneur Ronaldo Mouchawar.

Reuters reported last week that Amazon had agreed in principle to buy Souq.com, the Dubai-based company which was started 12 years ago by Mouchawar. (Reporting by Alexander Cornwell; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
By Tom Finn

DOHA, March 28 (Reuters) - Qatar sees Britain's exit from the European Union as an opportunity to boost supplies of liquefied natural gas to the world's fifth-largest economy and is open to investing in British energy assets, Qatar's energy minister said.

The Gulf state has 40 billion pounds ($50 billion) of investments in Britain and delivers 90 percent of Britain's imports of liquefied natural gas.

Qatar, the world's biggest exporter of LNG, pledged 5 billion pounds of investment in Britain on Monday in a show of support as Prime Minister Theresa May begins the formal process of negotiating a divorce settlement with the EU.

"The UK will have a new era post-Brexit ... The negotiations will start among Europeans and nobody is extremely clear about where the negotiations will lead to," energy minister Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada said in an interview late on Monday.

"However, we can sense the possibility of the UK's manufacturing power going higher, and with that the need for energy. For that, Qatar will always be there to supply the energy required. Certainly we can contribute to the UK's need."

Britain started receiving LNG from Qatar in 2008 via ships that dock at South Hook in Kent, one of Europe's largest LNG terminals, which is owned by Qatar.

Qatar faces rising competition in Asia from other LNG producers as new projects in the United States and Australia come online in the next few years, and Doha has said it will focus on expanding contracts in Europe.

"Europe is an important market. The UK is a very important market," Sada said.

When global oversupply of gas peaks in the next two to three years, a possible rise in demand for energy in Europe and Britain could present an opportunity for Qatar, he added.

Doha has made billions of dollars securing long-term contracts with Asian consumers such as Japan and has the world's largest fleet of LNG carriers.

Like other Gulf economies, Qatar is trying to restructure its economy to rely less on hydrocarbons, and Sada said Britain could contribute. "They can also help us in our endeavour of diversifying the economy - we can complement each other."

Sada said Qatar supported a free-trade agreement with Britain that the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, which also includes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, hopes to draw up ahead of Brexit to ensure preferential arrangements.

"Qatar is supporting that. That would be excellent. Qatar will do its best to further this agreement."

The head of Qatar Petroleum has said Qatar plans to increase its investments in upstream energy assets overseas. It has been exploring for gas in Cyprus and looking at assets in Mozambique, sources told Reuters last year.

Asked whether Qatar would consider investing in British energy assets, Sada said: "Although I cannot mention projects by name, Qatar is fully open-minded about considering projects as long as they are economically viable." (Editing by Andrew Torchia and Edmund Blair)
VIENNA, March 28 (Reuters) - Austria will seek an exemption from having to accept more asylum-seekers under an EU relocation system, it said on Tuesday, arguing that it has already taken in its fair share during Europe's migration crisis.

The move is a new blow to the system that would cover only a fraction of migrant arrivals to the European Union and that has barely been implemented because of opposition led by Eastern European countries including Poland and Hungary.

It also coincides with a tightening of security and immigration rules by the centrist coalition government in Austria, where a wave of arrivals that began in 2015 helped fuel a rise in support for the far-right Freedom Party, which still leads in opinion polls.

"We believe an exception is necessary for Austria for having already fulfilled its obligation. We will discuss that with the European Commission," Chancellor Christian Kern told reporters after a weekly cabinet meeting. "We will send a letter as quickly as possible and then begin discussions."

Fewer than 14,500 asylum-seekers have been relocated from Greece and Italy, the first EU countries that many refugees and migrants from the Middle East and Africa set foot in, under the two-year EU plan that was supposed to cover 160,000 people and which expires in September.

"We are of the opinion ... that the people in question here already sought an asylum application or arrived in Italy or Greece," Kern said. "We must check whether we have already fulfilled our quota and discharged our obligation."

Austria took in roughly 90,000 asylum seekers in 2015, more than 1 percent of its population. More than a million migrants arrived in Germany that year, most of them having passed through Austria after crossing the Balkans from Greece.

Austria has repeatedly called on other EU countries to take their fair share, and has even backed the idea of financial penalties for those that do not.

The Commission granted Austria a temporary exception because of the large number of people it had taken in, but that has since expired.

"Austria is now expected to fulfil its legal obligation ... to start relocating," Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said.

The government has been seeking to erode support for the Freedom Party with a series of law-and-order measures and stricter immigration rules.

An "integration bill" agreed in cabinet on Tuesday would ban face-veils in public places and oblige unemployed refugees to perform jobs "of public utility" for no pay beyond their normal benefit payments. (Reporting by Francois Murphy; additional reporting by Waverly Colville in Brussels; Editing by Catherine Evans and Robin Pomeroy)
By Thomas Wilson

TOKYO, March 28 (Reuters) - A Vietnamese man who died in a solitary cell at a Japanese immigration detention centre complained of pain throughout his detention for a week before his death, according to fellow detainees.

The death was the 13th in Japan's detention system since 2006, a toll that has provoked sustained criticism from activists and a watchdog overseeing the centres about conditions prevailing there.

In a handwritten note seen by Reuters on Tuesday, six detainees said the man, Nguyen The Hung, repeatedly told guards he was suffering from pain in his neck and head after his arrival at the East Japan Immigration Center in mid-March.

An official at the centre northeast of Tokyo, declined to elaborate on a statement issued on Monday saying that a Vietnamese man in his forties had been found unconscious there on Saturday and later pronounced dead.

A Vietnamese nun helping to arrange Nguyen's funeral, Tam Tri Thich, initially told Reuters on Monday that the Vietnamese embassy in Tokyo had told her that Nguyen had killed himself at the facility in the prefecture of Ibaraki.

On Tuesday, however, she said she had misheard the information and that in fact the embassy had told her only that Nguyen had died suddenly.

The embassy did not immediately reply to Reuters telephone and email requests for comment.

Nguyen was prescribed painkillers by a doctor at the centre last Wednesday, the detainees said in their letter, only for guards to ignore his later complaints of pain and admonish him to be quiet.

A Reuters investigation into the death of a Sri Lankan held in a solitary cell at a Tokyo detention centre revealed serious gaps in medical care and monitoring of people held in Japan's immigration detention system.

The cause of Nguyen's death has not been announced. The centre and the country's Justice Ministry, which oversees the detention centres, have said the authorities would perform an autopsy.

The East Japan Immigration Center held 297 detainees at the end of last year, according to the Justice Ministry. (Reporting by Thomas Wilson; Additional reporting by Minami Funakoshi; Editing by William Mallard and Tom Heneghan)
ABUJA, March 28 (Reuters) - Nigeria's military is "ransacking" territory it said it has recaptured from Boko Haram in recent months in a search for its elusive leader, the country's defence minister said on Tuesday.

The Nigerian military has said on multiple occasions that it killed Abubakar Shekau, leader of one of two branches of the jihadist group, only for the announcement to be swiftly followed by video denials from someone saying he is Shekau.

"He is on the run so he may be hiding in one of the enclaves of Sambisa forest," Mansur Dan Ali, minister of defence, told reporters in Abuja.

"We shall be patrolling and ransacking that forest for the whereabouts of Shekau," said Ali.

Earlier this month a man identifying himself as Shekau appeared in a video in which he claimed responsibility for a spate of bombings in and around the northeastern city of Maiduguri.

Large areas of the northeast, particularly in Borno state, remain under threat from Boko Haram as suicide bombings and gun attacks have increased in the area since late last year.

Ali said the military was committed to finding Shekau.

"We will not relax, we are on him," he said.

Boko Haram split last year, with one faction led by Shekau operating from the Sambisa Forest and the other, allied to Islamic State and led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi, based in the Lake Chad region.

Nigeria's army said in December it had pushed Boko Haram out of its Sambisa forest stronghold in an operation to reclaim territory lost to the Islamist insurgency since 2009.

The militant group had controlled a swathe of land in northeast Nigeria around the size of Belgium at the end of 2014 but was shifted from most of that territory early last year by Nigerian troops, aided by soldiers from neighbouring countries.

Boko Haram has killed more than 15,000 people and displaced more than two million during its seven-year insurgency to create an Islamic state governed by a strict interpretation of sharia law in Africa's most populous nation. (Reporting by Felix Onuah; Writing by Paul Carsten; Editing by Alexis Akwagyiram and Julia Glover)
Sri Lankas banks may be operating with fancy projected numbers to grow their loan books during 2017 but the countrys Central Bank seems to be standing firm on their way to crush those expectations as cheaper credit always tends to destabilise the import-driven island economy.

Sri Lankas private sector credit growth in January 2017 decelerated to 20.9 percent year-on-year (YoY) from 21.9 percent in 2016 with the credit disbursed during the month sharply falling to Rs.18.7 billion from about Rs.70 billion a month on average during the second half of 2016. But the Central Bank appears to be not content, meaning the monetary authority wants further restraints on the pace of credit growth.

Hence, the healthy level of private sector credit growth for 2017 is not more than 15 percent, Central Bank Governor Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy said, adding that there is an uptick during the month of February, which might have caused some concerns for the Monetary Board when they met for the second time for the year to decide on the key rates, last week.

The Central Bank last week raised its key policy rates by 25 basis points as the credit growth had remained higher than what the Central Bank would have expected it to be. Dr. Coomaraswamy said the private sector credit growth had not come down as expected.

The news may not be welcoming for most bankers who want to appease their shareholders with higher earnings recording around 17-20 percent and even close to 30 percent growth levels in their loan books for this year, information obtained by Mirror Business from some of the lenders showed.

It was only recently Hatton National Bank PLC, Sri Lankas second largest private lender by assets, said it wants to grow its loans by 17-18 percentwhich would be slightly over Rs.100 billion for 2017. Private credit is only part of the problem which causes monetary expansion because the credit to the public sector has contributed much to the expansion of the monetary base, causing constant worries for the Central Bank.

The deceleration in monetary and credit aggregates has been slower than expected, the Central Bank said.

According to the data, Sri Lankas credit to the state from the banking system has surged to Rs.141 billion in January 2017, rising from Rs.121 billion in the corresponding month in 2016.

Meanwhile, the credit to the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in January 2017 was Rs.23 billion after lending Rs.26 billion in December 2016.

As a result, YoY broad money (M2b) growth remained high at 17.7 percent in January 2017, although this was a deceleration compared to 18.4 percent in December 2016, the Central Bank said.

The private credit growth is a Central Bankers nightmare because more of this would overheat the economy while less of this would slow down the economy hurting the growth.

Despite multiple rounds of monetary tightening measures, since December 2015 the Central Bank holds on to its original growth projection of 5-5.5 percent growth for 2017.

Dr. Coomaraswamy said there is lot more optimism about the global economy now than a couple of months ago to hold this view and also said there is enough space for the economy record over 5.0 percent growth this year.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to prosecute former finance minister P. Chidambaram under the new Black Money Act and Benami Act on charges of acquiring properties in Sri Lanka and 13 other countries, the ANI news agency reported today.

In his complaint, Swamy said the findings of the Income Taxs Chennai investigation team has said it was necessary to persecute them under the new law apart from charging them under Prevention of Corruption Act, Disproportionate Asset (DA) case and money laundering act.

Report also shows the illegal assets and properties of P. Chidambaram and his family across the globe. The IT report finds that these huge assets were acquired by corruption and bribes taken when Chidambaram was the finance and home minister during 2004 to 2014, the complaint read.The huge properties, vine yards, hotels, farm houses were bought in London, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Spain, France and Greece like 14 countries, all acquired by black money by abuse of power.

Swamy asked Prime Minister Modi to instruct Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia in this regard.

Prime Minister Modi has acknowledged the March 20 complaint.
Asked specifically if he was aware of the existence of a special unit established to attack journalists, as alleged by former Army Commander Sarath Fonseka, former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa yesterday asked whose unit? Under whom? and held that the army commander was responsible for every single soldier. My security was selected by Sarath Fonseka. Even my officers reported to his seniors."

His job as defence secretary was at a strategic, higher level and he did not get involved at the tactical level, he said, responding to questions at a forum with the Foreign Correspondents Association in Colombo yesterday.

Responding to questions regarding charges that army intelligence officers were involved in enforced disappearances, he said these were baseless and politically motivated allegations. Accusing Fonseka of saying things in anger, he asked how Fonseka could maintain that he did not know what intelligence personnel working under him were doing.

Rajapaksa also said that foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera could have got a better outcome at the recent Human Rights council session in Geneva had he correctly understood the changes that have come about in the US administration.

US President Donald Trump has said he wants to look inward and not outward and our government should be able to use that opportunity, he said.

Rajapaksa blamed US State Departments officials of the Obama administration like Samantha Power and Susan Rice for targeting Sri Lankan security forces in the 2015 Geneva resolution, to which Sri Lanka renewed its commitment in a follow-up resolution this year. He remarked that these officials were focused on human rights, R2P etc. and that Power would probably write a book about how she succeeded in changing the government. Thats where the resolution came from he said.

Analyzing the changing US attitude to Sri Lanka he said that when he was Defence Secretary, the US wanted to help and they assisted by giving the intelligence coordinates to locate the LTTE ships. Bob Blake who was US ambassador at the time asked the government to sign the Acquisition and Cross Service Agreement to show the world that the US was behind Sri Lanka. With the change of government and with Obama coming to power there was a definite change in the attitude to the war, he said.

On the question of whether he would enter politics as a presidential candidate, the former presidents brother said he had not decided. However he recalled that he came from a political family whose association with politics went back to 1935, and that he had the capability to do something for the country.
Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has said that anyone proven guilty of murdering innocent civilians under the pretext of fighting a war will be held accountable through a due process and that accountability means being fair on both sides of the conflict.

She said this when addressing a workshop for the security forces to create awareness about the work being carried out by the ONUR and the reconciliation priorities of the government.

The workshop was held at the Jaffna Auditorium and it was hosted by Major General Mahesh Senanayake (Chief of Staff - SL Army and Commander of SFHQ-Jaffna) and Division commanders.

Under the Coordinated District Development Project, ONUR-funded Fisheries Auction Centre at Chulipuram West was officially opened. The main event was held at the Divisional Secretary's office in Tellippalai.

ONUR-funded projects including the construction work of the Primary Health Care Centre at Palai Veemankamam in Tellippalai, Coastal Area Salt Water Barrier bund at Ponnalai to prevent the contamination of well water, the Renovation of Yaanaivilunthan Tank and Canal at Uduppiddy South, Construction of Gramadhaya Health Centre and other facilities at Polikandy and Polikandy South Rural Water Supply Scheme at Polikandy South.

And under the Village based Enterprise Development Project, inauguration of Mango Village Programme in Tellippalai East, Pineapple Cultivation Programme at Karanaivai West and Solar Panel and Inverter for Motor at Point Pedro were inaugurated.

Chief Minister C. Vigneswaran, State Minister of Child Affair, Vijayakala Maheswaran, District Secretary of Jaffna, V Vethanayagam, parliamentarians Mawai Senathirajah and E Saravanabavan, ONUR Director General M S Jayasinghe, ONUR Director Danesh Casie Chetty and a host of elected officials and government officers took part in the proceedings.

In Ponnalai, the ONUR Chairperson Ms. Kumratunga had an informal Q and A session with local residents where an honest dialogue took place on various issues. The residents handed over letters of requests detailing some of the longstanding issues for which they deemed ONUR's intervention was required.
A high-level delegation from the European Investment Bank (EIB), the worlds largest international public bank, is in town on an official three-day visit to explore new opportunities for future investments, an EIB press communique said.

During the visit, Andrew McDowell, the newly appointed Vice President of the EIB responsible for South Asia, is expected to discuss the recent engagement and future investment with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and senior government ministers, business leaders, members of the diplomatic community and local and international financial institutions.

McDowell will also inspect the ongoing construction work to upgrade the wastewater infrastructure in Colombo financed by the EIB in conjunction with the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The EIB is Europes long-term lending institution and owned directly by the 28 European Union (EU) member states.

The EIB has supported investment in Sri Lanka since 2002 including backing climate-related investment, private companies and post-tsunami recovery.

The visit marks the first visit of an EIB Vice President to Sri Lanka in more than five years.

The European Investment Bank has a strong track record of supporting transformational investment that improves the lives and economic opportunities across Asia and around the world.

This weeks visit to Sri Lanka builds on the fruitful discussions with Minister Karunanayake following the European Investment Banks first-ever support for water investment in Sri Lanka and the first loan for public sector investment agreed with this government, said McDowell, before his arrival in Colombo.

The visit by the European Investment Bank is an opportunity for the Sri Lankan government to showcase their plans for the sustainable development of the country. I am confident that strengthened engagement by the European Investment Bank will lead to new investment across the key sectors that are vital for the modernisation of the countrys infrastructure, highlighted EU Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives Tung-Lai Margue.

Today the delegation is expected to visit a number of sites around Colombo to see how the new investment is improving the supply of clean water and treatment of waste water in the capital city. The EIB is one of the worlds largest financiers of water-related investment.

In January, the EIB agreed to provide 50 million euros to support the improvement and expansion of sewage networks across the Sri Lankan capital Colombo.

The loan will help the Colombo Municipal Council to achieve its goal of providing full sanitation coverage to benefit people living and working in the greater Colombo area and represented the EIBs fifth sovereign loan in the country.

The new water investment programme will include the provision of a new sewage network in currently unserved areas of Kirulapone. Under the initiative a new wastewater treatment facility will also be built to reduce pollution at the Wellawata sea outfall.

ADB will also support the water investment project and this new initiative marks the first time that the EIB has financed a project alongside another international financial institution in Sri Lanka.

Looking ahead, the EIB expects to provide more than one billion euros each year to support new investment across Asia.

Last year, the EIB provided 84 billion euros to finance new investment around the world, including 19.6 billion euros for climate-related investment.
As the government launches its centenary celebrations of the Champaran Satyagraha, the centenary of another struggle remains largely forgotten in India.

Mahatma Gandhi had launched his satyagraha against the British rule in Champaran district on April 10, 1917.

The indenture system that took Indians to work as agricultural labourers to British colonies came to an end in March 2017 as a result of a long struggle by nationalist leaders in India and resistance by the workers in the colonies.

While the Union ministry for culture has a series of grand events, including restoring railway stations, planned for the Champaran centenary, there is no official commemoration of the centenary of the end of indentured servitude.

However, countries that have large communities of descendents of indentured workers are holding commemorative functions to mark the centenary of a significant historical event.

Indians reach South Africa's Natal province to work as indentured labourers for the British Raj, in the early 20th century. Photo: Sahistory

Guyana held a commemorative function that was inaugurated by its president David Granger, while Trinidad and Tobagos international conference was opened by its prime minister, Keith Rowley.

Events to honour the indentured workers, seminars, literary and cultural conferences, are being held in Fiji Islands, Suriname, Sydney, London and New York to mark the abolition of the system.

Despite the NDA government prioritising its outreach to the diaspora, there are no government functions in India to mark the centenary.

Gandhiji had taken up the cause of the poor tenant farmers in Bihar who were forced to grow the indigo crop at the cost of food grains.

Farmers were not only forced to plant indigo, but also poorly paid for their produce and heavily taxed for any failure to plant indigo.

They were not allowed to plant food crops even after the indigo was harvested.

In protest against the indigo regulations, the farmers of Champaran district refused to plant the crop.

The Champaran Satyagraha was Mahatma Gandhis first major political agitation in India.

But before taking up the plight of the poverty-stricken peasants of Champaran, Gandhiji had taken up the cause of the indentured labourers.

Gandhijis political activism began in South Africa when he sought to draw attention to the pitiable conditions of the indentured workers.

After his return to India from South Africa, Gandhiji got involved in the nationalist struggle to end the indenture system.

Over a million Indians were taken to work in foreign lands to grow sugarcane, which was the main engine of growth of the colonial economies.

The indenture system came into being after slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1834.

The abolitionists agitation brought an end to slavery, but the emancipation of slaves resulted in a sharp labour shortage in the plantations.

Plantation owners in the Caribbean islands, who had influential friends in London, sought replacement workers for their sugarcane estates from India.

The British Indian government agreed to send Indian workers on indenture contracts to work in the colonies.

It was a voluntary migration, but implemented through deception, duplicity and sharp-dealing.

The migrants signed or put their thumb print on the indenture contract, but the largely unschooled village folk had little idea of what they had signed on.

Inveigled by the arkatis (recruiters) with visions of abundant land available for tilling, fanciful tales of a comfortable living, many did not know where they were going, that they were going abroad or the length of the contract.

The workers were confined to the plantation for five years, conditions on the plantations were harsh with long working hours and low wages.

Many of the practices on the plantations were carried over from the days of slavery.

Overtasking with punitive fines made life miserable for the workers, and mortality and suicide rates were high.

Gandhi faced arrest for marking the Champaran Satyagraha. Photo: BetterIndia

The indentured workers described their indenture period as "hell". When stories of the ill-treatment of indentured workers reached India, prominent Indian nationalists called for ending the indentured migration.

Indian migrants sent petitions and plantation workers resorted to strikes, but these were put down by force by the colonial authorities.

Several resolutions were introduced in the Legislative Council in India to bring an end to the practice. When Gandhi returned to India, he took the lead in the struggle.

By 1915, the campaign against indenture had become part of the nationalist discourse against the British colonial government.

Nationalist groups sent representatives to the colonies to report on the conditions of the indentured workers.

Father CF Andrews, an associate of Gandhiji, sent reports about the conditions in Fiji, which raised a furore in India.

Magazines and journals brought out especial editions on the indenture system.

The nationalists agitation and pressure from other groups in India and the UK eventually forced the British India government to stop indenture recruitment in 1917.

As popular anger against indenture recruitment increased, people rallied against the hated labour migration and it led to the first mass movement in India.

Around the time the indenture system was abolished, the Champaran Satyagraha was launched.

In 2014, Mauritius had celebrated the 180th anniversary of Indians' arrival in Mauritius with an International Conference that flagged off the International Indentured Labour Route project, funded by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

The Indian government had supported the project.

The indenture system and the prolonged campaign against it is an intrinsic part of the emotional and ethnic history of the migrants and their descendents.
In what seems to be a mechanism to ensure endless delay, the Centre on March 28 told the Supreme Court that it is unable to appoint the Lokpal - the chief ombudsman who's supposed to oversee government and bureaucracy to check corruption in the corridors of power.

The Centre has cited pending amendments to the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act of 2013, which seek to redefine leader of Opposition in Parliament in case the largest party in Opposition has less than 10 per cent of the House, which is currently the case.

As a result of attorney general Mukul Rohatgi's arguments, which have pegged the Centre's inability to appoint a Lokpal on the pending amendments, the Supreme Court reserved its verdict on a bunch of pleas seeking the expedited appointment of the chief ombudsman.

Rohatgi said: "Unless the proposed amendment making the leader of the largest Opposition party as leader of Opposition is passed by Parliament, the Lokpal cannot be appointed."

However, as both the petitioners and others involved in the Lokpal movement since its inception in 2010, have observed, the Centre's excuse for not doing so is flimsy at best.

Centre has cited pending amendments on definition of Leader of Opposition in Parliament to delay appointing a Lokpal at present. [Photo: PTI]

Senior advocate Shanti Bhushan, who appeared for the NGO Common Cause in favour of the petition, has observed that though the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act was passed in 2013 and came into effect in 2014, the Narendra Modi government at the Centre was deliberately delaying appointing the chief ombudsman.

This flies back in the face of the BJP-led NDA's anti-corruption narrative and its clean governance plank, which was the basic premise of Modi's 2014 election campaign, along with inclusive development.

The Centre versus Supreme Court face-off in the matter of Lokpal appointment has been going on for a while, with the top court pulling up the Union government for failing to do its job multiple times in 2016. As late as November 2016, the SC hauled up the Centre for the unwarranted delay in appointing the country's chief anti-corruption whip, despite harping on "minimum government, maximum governance" for close to three years now.

Former Supreme Court chief justice TS Thakur even scolded the Centre with this admonition: "Don't allow Lokpal to become a dead letter."

"When you say the government is committed to cleansing corruption, then this (Lokpal) is the step in the right direction. Why should there be a feeling government is dragging the feet?" the SC had said.

Appointment of an ombudsman is essential given the string of amendments smuggled into Finance Bill as 'money bills'. [Photo: Agencies]

However, the flouting of SC order, overlooking the top court's rebuke or observation has become usual practice. Whether it's about not making Aadhaar mandatory for accessing welfare subsidies, or ignoring the earlier SC ban on Jallikattu in Tamil Nadu, SC order has been violated and how.

But in case of the Lokpal, the Centre's delay is not only problematic, it is also in keeping with the slew of recent legislations and amendments to existing laws that the government has smuggled in via the Finance Bill, 2017. This bulk Bill was just passed in Lok Sabha on March 22, amid uproar from Opposition MPs, while the members of Parliament in the Upper House raising stern objections to the mode and matter of the Bill and its passing.

As it is, the amendments to the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act have been accused of seriously diluting the law's legislative and jurisdictional expanse, with public servants not being liable to disclose their assets unless the central government so deems fit.

Significant voices in the Right to Information movement, such as Anjali Bharadwaj of the National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI), have already branded the dilution of the Lokpal Act via the amendments as a mechanism to rob the ombudsman, if appointed, of real bite.

Bharadwaj had earlier said that the Lokpal and Lokayuktas (Amendmnet) Bill, 2016, which was passed on July 28, 2016, had "fundamentally diluted the Lokpal Act as it has done away with the statutory requirement of public servants to disclose the assets of their spouses and dependent children. The bill has also dispensed with the statutory requirement of public disclosure of these statements."

This, when coupled with the amendment to Income Tax Act that okayed foreign donations for political parties, and the latest "backdoor" provision in Finance Bill, 2017 that allows unlimited anonymous funding from private companies to political parties, makes the Centre's murky position all the more compromised.
Prime Minister Modi will be visiting Russia from June 1 to 3 as guest of honour at the St Petersburg Economic Forum at which India will be the guest country. Contrary to criticism in certain quarters, our relations with Russia have not been neglected since he took over. Defence ties have been carefully nurtured. Our economic relations remain feeble, though lately a welcome upswing in energy ties has occurred. Modis visit to St Petersburg for an economic event indicates a shared desire to strengthen the trade and investment pillar of our strategic ties.

Resurgence

The timing of the visit is also politically opportune as Russia has re-emerged forcefully on the international scene with its boldly conceived intervention in Syria. This has changed perceptions about Putin, now seen as a geo-strategic genius. Whereas former US president Obama denigrated Russia by calling it a mere regional power, now Moscow is viewed as holding the key to conflict-resolution in West Asia. Having established a crucial role for itself in this crisis-ridden region, Russia is now extending the geopolitical space it has gained by taking the lead in promoting a settlement in Afghanistan without US participation.

Russia explains this initiative as part of countering the threat of the Islamic State to its security through Afghanistan and Central Asia. One can surmise that this diplomatic resurgence of Russia, despite the economic, political and security pressures being exerted on it by the trans-Atlantic alliance, will arrest the process of reducing Russia to a junior partnership with a rising and geo-politically expansionist China, not only in Asia but wider afield as Chinese power grows.

Our relations with Russia have retained their fundamental stability though of late some misgivings have surfaced in both countries. Russia sees us as becoming too close strategically to the US, while its own relations with America have sharply deteriorated. Our growing purchases of defence equipment from the US are seen by Russia as cutting into an area that it has dominated historically. The China factor in our growing strategic ties with the US, even as Russias own strategic coordination with China has deepened because of the US factor, has resulted in gaps in our respective understanding of the strategic challenges that each country faces.

We need to discuss many issues with Russia beyond the economic. [Photo: Livemint]

From Indias point of view, greater China-Russia strategic coordination has opened up more diplomatic space for China to harden its postures on our membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the designation of the Jaish-e-Mohamed chief Masood Azhar as an international terrorist by the relevant UN Security Council committee, as it puts constraints on the strength of Russian support to us in the concerned forums on both issues.

Reality

Besides Russia's stepped up sales of advanced weaponry to China, we cannot ignore its political and military overtures to Pakistan that include sale of offensive weapons, military exercises and according political legitimacy to the Taliban despite Pakistans manipulation of this force for its geo-strategic aims in Afghanistan that include limiting Indias role in that country.

Wisdom demands that the concerns that have surfaced in both countries should not be accorded exaggerated importance. Russia has its own concerns about China despite the two coming together on issues of shared interest. We too have concerns about some aspects of US polices towards Pakistan, and these will not change to our satisfaction. We are also aware that US-China ties are deeper than US-India ties and that Washingtons priority would be to manage China with economic pressure and avoid a military conflict with it. India has therefore to calibrate its relationship with the US in the light of these realities. Because Russia is viewed as a tried and trusted friend of India by the public, any wrinkles in the relationship gets greater than warranted attention in the media.

Autonomy

It is not as if difficulties in our relations with Russia have not existed in the past, only that a lid was kept on them officially. On the Russian side, Indias emergence as a power in its own right has probably not been sufficiently internalised in policy making in Moscow, and therefore the imperatives on the Indian side to broaden the range of its strategic ties are not adequately appreciated.

We need to discuss many issues with Russia beyond the economic. To the extent needed, we need to clear the air on some troubling Russian initiatives in our region. Trumps election has created a great deal of uncertainty at the international level, with Americas allies, friends and adversaries unsure about the direction of US policies under him. His inclination to mend ties with Russia and, at the very least, work with it to destroy the Islamic State is being vociferously resisted domestically. Putins perspective on Trumps America would be of great interest. The Trump-Xi summit, slated for April, will indicate where US-China ties are headed, which has implications for both India and Russia. How the Trump administration deals with Iran would also have implications for both. Putins views on Russias relationship with a troubled Europe and Turkey would interest us.

A strong relationship with Russia is essential for maintaining a balance in our foreign policy and preserving our strategic autonomy. Our aspiration to be a leading power requires both.
India's President Pranab Mukherjee is due to retire in July. The buzz is already in the air about his possible successor.

For the first time in the nation's political history, it's the BJP that is now set to have a candidate of its choice elected as head of state.

After the landslide of the party and its allies in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and its rise to power in Manipur and Goa, the ruling NDA is just short of 25,000 votes in its electoral college for the presidency. This shortage is quite bridgeable - parties like the Biju Janata Dal and the AIADMK can step in to fill the gap should they wish to.

So, India is very close to getting its first president from the saffron brigade: the Sangh Parivar.

Various names are doing the round for this job. Lets have a look at some of them.

Mohan Bhagwat

Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut has pitched RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for the presidency, saying his elevation would finally turn India into a Hindu Rashtra.

"It is the highest post in the country. Somebody with a clean image should occupy it. We have heard Mohan Bhagwat's name is being discussed for president. If India has to be made a Hindu Rashtra, Bhagwat will be a good choice for president," news reports quoted Raut as having suggested.

Born on September 11, 1950, in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, Bhagwat graduated in veterinary sciences and animal husbandry.

One of the RSS's youngest heads, he is described as "straightforward".

Positive: Has a clean image and if he gives his consent, the entire Sangh Parivar will put its weight behind him. He can not only be the first Sangh chief to occupy public office but also the only member of the Sangh to get the presidents job.

Negative: He may be the choice of the saffron brigade but cant be a consensus candidate.

LK Advani

The Financial Express has done a story based on reports from Zee News. According to it, PM Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah proposed Advanis name for president in a party meet held at Somnath on March 8. The report further said the proposal was made in the presence of senior BJP leaders and, if reports are to be believed, Modi also hinted that this would be his gift or "guru dakshina" to Advani.

One of the senior-most and respected political leaders in India, Advani is the man who brought BJP at the centre-stage of Indian politics. He served as the minister of home affairs and as deputy PM under Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He was the political guru of Modi, but in the last few years, it seems, this relationship has soured.

Positive: If Modi proposes his name, he may emerge as consensus candidate because of his vast administrative experience.

Negative: The Babri Masjid demolition case may mar his chances. The Supreme Court is already deliberating over the issue.

The Babri Masjid demolition case is hanging around the neck of Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi.

Murli Manohar Joshi

Former BJP president and one of its trimurti along with Vajpayee and Advani, Joshi has long experience in public life. He served as cabinet minister in all three governments formed by Vajpayee. Modi was part of BJPs 1992 Ekta Yatra in Kashmir, which was led by Joshi, then BJP president.

Unlike with Advani, Modi actually does not have a strained relationship with Joshi. He also left his own constituency Varanasi for Modi in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and never complained. Joshi was born on January 3, 1934, and finished doctorate studies from Allahabad University. One of his teachers was professor Rajendra Singh, who later became an RSS sarsanghchalak.

Positive: With huge administrative and organisational experience, Joshi has the potential to emerge as a consensual candidate.

Negative: The Babri Masjid demolition case is hanging around his neck like an albatross and may derail his presidential ambition.

Najma Heptulla

Though originally from the Congress, Heptulla is a late entrant in the BJP. Speaking to Swati Chaturvedi, she made her presidential ambition clear. "I had told Ram Lal earlier and then told Mr Shah recently that I was going to contest and would want the party to support me for whichever job they believe I am fit. I have run the House for 17 years and think I can do a good job," she said.

She became deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha in 1985 and was elected to the Upper House five times. Currently the governor of Manipur, Heptulla has also served as Union minister in the Modi government. She contested the vice-presidential election as an NDA candidate in 2007 but lost to Hamid Ansari.

Positive: She has occupied several positions both as a member of Congress and BJP. Has a clean image. Electing a woman from a minority community may help Modi in correcting his image, which many think is pro-Hindu.
The NDA government has been in power since 2014 and multiple issues have made headlines in the last few years, which may reveal the anti-minority and majoritarian stance of the government. The ban on beef in Maharashtra, rise in cow vigilantism and increase in people being charged under Section 377 (homosexuality) has a direct correlation to the rise in right-wing extremism in India.

One cannot make a strong case for right-wing extremism in relation to the government based on these events, but the government may have found another way to push anti-minority agenda by introducing legislation which will have strong implications for the Muslim community.

This can be seen in three examples of legislation which attack the property rights, citizenship rights and cultural rights of Muslim minorities i) The Uniform Civil Code ii) The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 and iii) The Enemy Property (Amendment & Validation) Bill, 2016. Adopting a legislative lens, the current essay analyses the anti-minority stance of the government.

The Uniform Civil Code

One of the major features of the Bharatiya Janata Partys manifesto was the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), on which it stated that: BJP believes there cannot be gender equality till such time India adopts a Uniform Civil Code, which protects the rights of all women, and the BJP reiterates its stand to draft a Uniform Civil Code, drawing upon the best traditions and harmonising them with the modern times.

Article 44 of the Constitution lists UCC as one of the Directive Principles of State Policy. They are not enforceable and the principles are meant to be the guidelines for the Centre and state governments for governance and framing laws.

Different communities in India have different set of civil laws for dealing with personal issues such as marriage, divorce, succession, adoption and maintenance. Through the UCC, the government aims to create a single set of civil laws applicable to all citizens, irrespective of their religion.

Against this backdrop, the contentious debate arising out of UCC has been on triple talaq (divorce practice among Muslims) governed by the Muslim Personal Laws. The Centre filed an affidavit with the Supreme Court on October 7, 2016, to abolish the practice of triple talaq.

The main contention was that the law must be abolished to protect the rights of Muslim women as the divorce procedure is being trivialised by Muslim men who have been using social media platforms such as Skype and Facebook to divorce their wives.

Political parties are divided on the issue, as one side believes the rights of women should be protected while the other side believes the government cannot interfere in the practice of customary laws by religious communities, as the Constitution protects the right to religious freedom of its citizens.

The reason this move is anti-minority and communally-biased is because, according to data from the Census of India (2011), the number of divorced Christian (0.27 per cent) and Buddhist (0.33 per cent) women in India is higher than Muslim women (0.25 per cent). Muslim women form only 1 per cent of the divorced women in India, yet the government is choosing to focus only on Muslim women while ignoring the other communities.

Further, other issues such as dowry deaths, child marriage, domestic violence and rape are being faced by women across India but rape victims are still awaiting justice and the government has been unable to improve the safety of women in the country. The use of the words best traditions in the manifesto also seems to imply that the Hindu traditions are better and should be universalised.

Various women rights activists have publically stated that the UCC is anti-minority. They have reasoned that the Supreme Court ruling on Shamim Ara already lays down the correct procedure through which a Muslim couple can get divorced and has invalidated triple talaq.

The government should have highlighted the judgment in the media instead of filing an affidavit on an issue already decided by the Supreme Court. Further, the purpose of UCC was national integration but the issue has caused polarisation within the Muslim community.

The Convention on Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women was signed in 1993 with the reservation that section 16, which deals with uniform personal laws, was not attested. This is because it was felt that a compulsory uniform civil code cannot be enforced. The present government seems to have gone back on this position.

The governments change in position on the UCC, the polarisation within the Muslim community and political parties, and the lack of effective action towards improving the status of women in India shows that the move was not aimed at national integration, which was the original purpose of the code in the Constituent Assembly debate on Directive Principles, Article 44 of the Constitution.

The government's proposal on UCC is considered by many experts to be an attack on the personal laws of the Muslim minorities in India.

According to data from Census 2011, the number of divorced Christian (0.27 per cent) and Buddhist (0.33 per cent) women in India is higher than Muslim women (0.25 per cent). Photo: Reuters

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, was enacted to provide for the acquisition and determination of Indian citizenship. Under the existing provisions of the Act, persons belonging to the minority communities, such as Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who have either entered India without valid travel documents or the validity of their documents has expired are regarded as illegal migrants and hence ineligible to apply for Indian citizenship.

It is proposed to make them eligible for applying for Indian citizenship. The Bill seems to aim to save religious minorities from violence and blasphemy laws in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The rationale for selecting just these three countries, which are Muslim-dominated countries, seems to be cause for concern.

The Bill at first glance seems like a humanitarian effort to help persecuted minorities but it only seeks to help Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from the neighbouring Muslim countries. The Muslim minority communities facing oppression in the region have been completely ignored.

If the Bill was really an attempt to provide a safe haven for minorities facing violence in their countries then it would offer the same provisions to the minority Muslim community in China and Myanmar as well. The Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and the Ahmaddiya Muslims in Pakistan and Bangladesh have been facing persecution for years.

Further, the Burmese Hindus have also been ignored in the Bill. The Bill aims to reduce criteria for citizenship from 11 years to six years for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan but does not allow Muslims staying in the country for six years to gain citizenship.

This is a discriminatory clause for granting citizenship and seems to follow the trend of anti-minority legislations.

The Enemy Property (Amendment & Validation) Bill, 2016

The latest Bill which fits the trend of anti-Muslim legislation is the Enemy Property (Amendment & Validation) Bill, 2016. The Bill amends the Enemy Property Act, 1968, to vest all rights, titles and interests over enemy property in the Custodian. It declares transfer of enemy property by the enemy, conducted under the Act, to be void. This applies retrospectively to transfers that have occurred before or after 1968.

The provisions of the Bill may be legally flawed as the government has not provided a rationale for how enemy property inherited by an Indian citizen can still be termed as enemy property. The Bill also does not provide a rationale for transfer of ownership of enemy property to the State which would be tantamount to nationalisation and would potentially violate rights of the successors without justification.

Bonafide onus of property is being deprived from non-enemy owners. It is not clear under what legislative power the government would take this action. The provisions of the Bill have been widely criticised and are contrary to the Supreme Courts judgment on the issue of enemy property.

It is a communally-biased and politically motivated legislation as properties owned by enemies of Chinese origin are very few; the Bill would primarily target properties owned by enemies from Pakistan and Bangladesh, which are both Muslim-dominated countries.

Further, there has been a sudden increase in identification of enemy properties in states with high proportion of Muslims like Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. This may be construed as discriminatory and anti-minority and espouses the governments majoritarian stance. Thus, this legislation may curb the voices of the Muslim minorities and infringe on their property rights.

The Enemy Property (Amendment & Validation) Bill, 2016, attacks the succession and property rights of Muslims, the UCC attacks their personal laws and cultural rights and the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 attacks the citizenship rights of the Muslims living in India.

By analysing the legislations, it is clear that right-wing extremism in the country follows the trend set by the BJP government and seems to subscribe to the political philosophy of majoritarianism, which asserts that the majority of the population is entitled to enjoy first-class citizenship while the minorities are treated like second-class citizens.

This philosophy has no place in a democracy like India where the Constitution protects the rights of the minorities and espouses the principles of equality and equity.

Politically motivated and communally biased legislation must not be allowed to become law as it would further worsen the state of minorities in India. An in-depth analysis of the discussed legislations highlights that the government is systematically targeting the rights of Muslims.
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Removing the statue in Lee Park communicates that the city of Charlottesville denounces racism and white supremacy.

But this isnt about the city. Its about the people of Charlottesville and bringing understanding and reconciliation among them. Making a decision to pay $330,000 to remove the Lee statue (to say nothing of legal costs in defending against lawsuits alleging that the removal is in opposition to state law) does nothing toward this end.

The history of Lee Park is painful for African-Americans (segregation and oppression) and white Americans (the reality of white privilege), but endeavoring to efface it does nothing toward reconciliation. The statue might be gone; the knowledge, and the wounds, would not.

Removing the statue tells some people that we are going to forget about the oppression and injustice that occurred; it tells others that their heritage, part and parcel, is shameful; and it preserves the perception of black Charlottesville and white Charlottesville as separate and competing entities.

This issue is currently framed in terms of race, but it doesnt have to be. We as citizens need to collaborate to recontextualize the monument in an unflinching pursuit of truth. We must dare to lay aside our personal narratives and realize that the black story and the white story are equal halves of our shared story.

When we are objectively pursuing historical facts, competing agendas disappear because we have a shared goal: completing history. Heres a plan: Proponents of keeping the statue and proponents of removing it should work together to do historical reporting. With the objective accuracy of journalists, they would collect oral tradition and compile primary sources from different perspectives to present a full-orbed view of history. They would collaborate to present their findings in an exhibit in Lee Park.

We as citizens can acknowledge and denounce past evil together and present a boldly accurate portrait of a famous Virginian. By adopting this solution, Charlottesville would be on the vanguard of dealing with Confederate monuments in a way that builds community and brings reconciliation.

This method has not been used in the United States before, but has seen incredible success in Australia. Charlottesville has the opportunity to pioneer an innovative solution to a widespread issue.

Althea Cupo

Augusta County

Reference:
ELKO  March is National Professional Social Workers Month, designed to highlight the important contributions social workers make to society as well as an opportunity to spotlight the profession.

With the U.S. population shifting to urban areas, rural communities in Nevada are continually seeking qualified social workers.

The University of Nevada, Reno and Great Basin College 3 +1 Bachelor of Social Work program is working towards filling the demand for social workers in the many rural communities of Nevada.

In collaboration with GBC, the University of Nevadas School of Social Work program offers a dynamic schedule for students who reside in rural Nevada and wish to pursue a BSW degree.

Through this program, all students in the GBC service area are able to complete the equivalent of the first three years of academic study at GBC through online classes and interactive video classes. Students then complete their final year as a UNR student through online classes while completing an internship in their own communities. They must attend a weekend class once a month at UNR. The BSW degree is conferred by UNR, said GBC Social Work Instructor Wendy Charlebois.

Megan James and Esperanza Garcia of Elko both completed the 3+1 BSW program last year. Upon completion of the program, both obtained full-time careers at Nevada Early Intervention Services in Elko, where both graduates previously completed their field internships.

The program is important for rural students who want to work in their communities after graduation, said James. Traveling just one weekend a month in the final year of the program is awesome for students who want to stay local while completing field internships.

Garcia also explained the program allowed her save money while pursuing a bachelors degree.

Going through college, financial issues were a huge concern of mine. Being able to stay home, where I wanted a career, worked best for me, she said.

Like many graduates of the program who continue to work in rural Nevada, James and Garcia stated they have first hand experience of the need for more social workers.

Driving to other surrounding communities is a daily task of ours. We cover Jackpot, West Wendover, Battle Mountain, Ely, Winnemucca, plus many other communities, said James. I definitely feel we are working to make a difference. At NEIS, while the goal is ultimately helping the child, we get to work and interact with families across the northern part of the state.

NEIS is just one of many agencies and organizations where local 3 +1 BSW students can complete their internships. Current BSW students are interning for school districts, non-profit organizations, as well as county and state offices.

Charlebois, explained that the GBC service area gains professionals in many areas due to the reach of the 3 + 1 Program.

The local State of Nevada office of the Division of Child and Family and the Winnemucca Office is staffed almost completely with 3+1 graduates. In the past, those have been difficult positions to fill but because of the 3+1 program, DCFS in Northeastern Nevada is almost fully staffed, said Charlebois. Social Work is a dynamic and rewarding profession that offers students a career they can be proud of.

The public is invited to attend an orientation about the GBC- UNR 3 +1 Bachelor of Social Work program Thursday, April 13 at 5:30 p.m. The orientation will be held live at the GBC Elko campus in the Dorothy Gallagher Health Sciences building room 108. The orientation will also be held via interactive video at the GBC Center locations in Ely, room 111; Pahrump, room 115 and Winnemucca, room 124.

For more information about the orientation, contact Rachel at 753-2244.
Who's to blame for the failure of the Republican bill to repeal and replace Obamacare? Who cares? What matters now is that Democrats stop gloating, Republicans stop sulking, and each party come to the table to improve a health-care system that both parties agree needs work.

After the bill collapsed on Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump accused the Democrats of obstruction, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer accused the president of incompetence, Speaker Paul Ryan said health care was done, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi bragged that it was a great day. No one had the courage to pick up the pieces and point the way forward.

The Affordable Care Act has provided health-care coverage to millions more Americans, but there are still some 30 million with no insurance. Premiums are too high. The individual mandate isn't encouraging enough people to buy into the system. Some of its regulations and taxes make little sense. Insurance markets are too thin, providing consumers too little choice. Health-care savings accounts do too little to encourage savings.

Republicans have viable ideas to address these issues, including high-risk insurance pools and capping the tax exclusion that companies get for providing employees with health insurance. It's regrettable that none of these ideas were seriously considered in the rush to repeal Obamacare.

Equally regrettable is that Republicans appear to be giving up and moving on to other issues. If they can't get everything they want, they seem to have concluded, they'll take nothing. It's a bad strategy. As Senator John McCain said Saturday, Republicans need Democrats to reform health care. The art of governing is compromise - and not just within the majority party. The sooner Ryan accepts the fact that Democrats can be a cudgel to use against the Freedom Caucus, the more successful he and Congress will be.

Ronald Reagan was known to say that he would happily take 70 or 80 percent of what he wanted and come back for the rest later. Yet instead of living by Reagan's rule, Republicans are hung up on the Hastert Rule, named for Dennis Hastert, the former (and now disgraced) House speaker: Only bills that can get through without Democratic votes are brought to the floor. This led the party to produce a deeply flawed health-care bill that, ultimately, did not win strong support from the Republicans' moderate or Tea Party wings.

At the same time, Democrats steadfastly refused to reach across the aisle to produce a bipartisan alternative. Gloating only makes that more difficult.

On Friday, Schumer said that Democrats are ready to work with Republicans to improve the Affordable Care Act on one condition: that Republicans take repeal off the table. This is not an auspicious step. Democrats ought to allow Republicans to call a new bill whatever they want. The details are what matters, not the label.
Last years earthshaking election brought new attention to rural America. This attention is overduerural America has long been largely ignored by reporters, researchers and policymakersand much of it is useful, as this increasingly urban-centric country tries to understand and reconnect with those living far from cities.

But so far, the narrative emerging about rural America has been woefully incomplete, because so much of the media coverage has focused on only one slice of it: rural white America. Some stories are clear about their scope: Their authors have intentionally chosen a particular geographic and racial population to explore and explain. Others are less obvious in their focus, though detailsregion of the country or photographssoon make explicit what is merely implied or assumed. Either way, though, a particular racial narrative is being told.

Theres another rural America that exists beyond this rural white America. Nearly 10.3 million people, about one-fifth of rural residents, are people of color. Of this population, about 40 percent are African-American, 35 percent are nonwhite Hispanic, and the remaining 25 percent are Native American, Asian, Pacific Islander or multiracial. And this rural America is expected to grow in the coming decades, as rural areas see a rapid increase in Latino immigration.

This rural America, much like rural white America, can be found from coast to coast. But these rural Americans tend to live in different places from rural whites: across the Mississippi Delta and the Deep South; throughout the Rio Grande Valley; on reservations and native lands in the Southwest, Great Plains and Northwest.

This rural America has a different history from rural white America: a history of forced migration, enslavement and conquest. This rural America receives even lower pay and fewer protections for its labor than does rural white America. And, as my own research shows, this rural America attends very different schools than rural white America, schools that receive far less funding and other resources.

In fact, the relationship between rural white communities and rural communities of color is much like the relationship between urban white communities and urban communities of color: separate and unequal.

And it also appears that these rural Americans vote for different candidates than rural whites. A look at county-level voting and demographic data suggests that this rural America voted for Hillary Clinton.

In defining rural white America as rural America, pundits, academics and lawmakers are perpetuating an incomplete and simplistic story about the many people who make up rural America and what they want and need. Ironically, this storyso often told by liberals trying to explain the recent rise in undisguised nativism and xenophobiaserves to re-privilege whiteness. Whiteness is assumed; other races are shoved even further to the margins.

The erasure of rural communities of color has other, more immediate risks, too. As community and service organizations rush to temper the effects of recent immigration and voter-ID policies, they may focus on urban areas and overlook the rural populationsimmigrants, refugees and black communitiesalso affected by this legislation. And as hopeful progressives market themselves in the run-up to midterm elections, they risk alienating their rural supporters: rural communities of color.

Interest in rural America is welcome. But we need to make sure it is complete and inclusiveand genuine. We need to press the media for more balanced, more representative coverage of rural places and people. We need to push our politicians for legislation and programs that support rural communities of color. And we need to organize, building political coalitions that bridge lines of race and geography.
ELKO  Sheriff Jim Pitts has suggested cuts to his own budget for next year, but County Commissioners were hesitant to trim from public safety.

To reach an 8.3 percent ending fund balance, the County would have to cut $1.6 million from its budget, but for a 6 percent balance it will have to cut a little more than $800,000.

We kind of agreed that wed take baby steps to get back to 8.3, said Commissioner Rex Steninger.

Public safety, which includes the patrol division, jail and Elko County Fire Protection District, is 43 percent of the Countys operating budget, said County Comptroller Debbie Armuth.

Pitts proposed cuts in services and supplies from the jail and the patrol divisions totaling $135,800. However, his budget also included salary increases for those two divisions, which totaled $339,448.

Patrol has been at 47 employees since 2014, which includes the three school resource officers, but the amount of incidents all deputies handle has increased 153 percent from then until 2016. The amount of overall incidents has increased about 47 percent from last year to this year, Pitts said.

Were doing a lot more work with just the same manpower we had all along, he said.

After the jail addition was constructed, the employees increased from 25 to 30, but the jail population also went up. Pitts said the population in 2012 ranged from 100 to 110 inmates, but now averages 160 to 165 each day.

Pitts suggested buying out employees as a potential savings measure. If the County bought out three sergeants, four deputies and one staff support position, it could save an estimated $500,401, but only if those positions remain unfilled for a year.

Commissioner Delmo Andreozzi said the commissioners need to look at next years budget but also farther into the future.

We need to look out for the next year and the next couple of years and kind of look at what we need to do to get that additional, you know to get back to a sustainable point, where we can go forward, where were not faced with this on an annual basis, he said.

The commissioners are concerned with how much the County spends on employees, but Commissioners Cliff Eklund and Demar Dahl both cautioned on making too many cuts.

I think we need to be careful on our cuts, Dahl said. I agree with Delmo on the DAs office. The sheriff seems to be satisfied with the cuts he was willing to take, but Im concerned about it.

Andreozzi said he also had serious concerns about safety concerning decreases in deputies and attorneys.

On Friday, commissioners asked staff to look at the salaries and the increases that occurred in the past.

About 50 to 60 percent of the Countys employees are in its step program, which means employees receive an increase in pay automatically, said Assistant County Manager and CFO Cash Minor.

Were still muddling through, Commissioner Jon Karr said. Were going to be able to make it, but weve got to think of long term  what else we can do for revenue or what seriously big changes (can be made to) how we operate. I didnt see one department at all that was squandering cash by any stretch.

Commissioner Rex Steninger said I think the county commission ought to set an example.

He suggested the commissioners take a 5 percent cut to services and supplies from their budget.

Andreozzi agreed and said he would be willing to not take any raise as a county commissioner.

Commissioners told staff Friday to shoot for a 6 percent ending fund balance with a $300,000 contingency fund. They also voted to freeze increases for the board. Commissioners range in pay from about $27,000 to $31,000.

County Manager Rob Stokes said he was confident staff and the budget committee would come back to the commissioners with a balanced budget. The budget committee meets Tuesday and the budget will be on the Countys April 5 agenda.
LAS VEGAS (AP)  Nevada prison officials say a 56-year-old inmate from Elko who was serving 13 years to life for sexual assault causing injury has died at a prison outside Las Vegas.

The state Department of Corrections said Tuesday that John Layton Stokes was found dead about 1 p.m. Monday at High Desert State Prison in Indian Springs.

A department spokeswoman said he was found dead in bed in a solo cell. The Clark County coroner is conducting an autopsy to determine how he died.

Stokes was originally imprisoned in 1991 after his conviction in Elko County.

He was 30 years old when he raped a 59-year-old woman in her Cedar Street home, according to Elko Daily Free Press files. The woman called police to report the crime around 1:30 a.m. Oct. 3, 1990. She was taken to the hospital and treated for broken ribs.

Stokes was also accused of attacking a 31-year-old woman in August of that year. She woke up to find him standing naked beside her bed. After a struggle he fled the residence. Those charges were dropped in a plea agreement on the sexual assault charge.

Stokes was paroled in 2013 but returned to prison in February after violating conditions of his release.
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New Delhi: Air India is projected to post an operating profit of Rs 300 crore in the current fiscal and there is no plan to privatise the airline, the government said today.

"The operating losses of the company have been steadily coming down over the past few years and the same have converted into operating profits," Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha told the Rajya Sabha.

In a written reply, he also said the carrier's net losses are also reducing gradually on account of the overall improvements in the "operational and financial performance". As per provisional figures for 2016-17, the airline is projected to see an operating profit of Rs 300 crore and net loss after tax of Rs 3,643 crore.

Last fiscal, Air India had an operating profit of Rs 105 crore and a net loss after tax of Rs 3,836.77 crore. On whether there is any proposal to either disinvest or privatise Air India, the minister replied in the negative.

In a separate written reply, Sinha said various steps are being taken to improve the airline's revenues. These include introduction of new routes, flash sale of seats, dynamic pricing and introduction of advance purchase fare.

The government's Turnaround Plan (TAP) or Financial Restructuring Plan (FRP) provides for equity infusion worth Rs 30,231 crore in the airline up to 2021 subject to achieving certain milestones.

To another query, Sinha said that as per records, no request for 'no objection certificate' has been received from pilots of B-787 Dreamliner to quit Air India.
New Delhi: With RIL shares taking a beating on Sebi's penal action, the company today said it has a strong case against the regulatory order and there was no market manipulation by it on account of trades in cash and futures segments.

Reliance Industries also reiterated to file an appeal against the Sebi order in the Reliance Petroleum case before the Securities Appellate Tribunal. "The company reiterates that an appeal will be preferred against the order in Securities Appellate Tribunal," RIL said in a regulatory filing.

On the basis of legal advice, the company is confident that its position will be upheld by the appellate forums, it added. The statement comes on a day RIL shares declined by 3 per cent on bourses after Sebi banned the company and 12 others from equity derivatives trading for one year in a 10-year-old case.

Sebi has also directed the Mukesh Ambani-led firm to disgorge nearly Rs 1,000 crore for alleged fraudulent trading. Elaborating on the matter the company said: "There is no market manipulation by the company on account of the trades both in futures and cash segments.

There are no profits or losses in a hedging transaction, leave alone undue profits." "Open positions in excess of limits prescribed in circulars is neither fraudulent nor manipulative as per the bye laws and regulations of stock exchange and also as Securities Contracts (Regulation ) Act," it added.

The allegations cannot attract the consequences sought for in the show-cause notice, the company said. Selling at marginally below the last traded price in a genuine delivery transaction in the cash segment is not a fraudulent and manipulative trade practice, it added.

"We are legally advised that SEBI's conclusions are based on surmises, conjectures and hindsight view of the transactions and on untenable reasoning," RIL said. The company has not indulged in any market manipulation or fraudulent and unfair trade practice in the trades in both futures and cash segments, it added. Shares of RIL ended the day down 3 per cent at Rs 1,247.55 on BSE. During the day, it touched a low of Rs 1,247.10.
Mumbai: Softbank, Japan's internet and telecommunications giant, has proposed merger of troubled Snapdeal with another domestic e-commerce giant Flipkart.

Japanese conglomerate, according to reports, will buy 15 per cent stake in the merged entity for $1.5 billion.

Presently, SoftBank holds 30 per cent stake in Snapdeal that has been in trouble for lack of funding and low profitability. The report added that the deal will also see a share sale worth $1 billion by Tiger Global, largest investor in Flipkart.

Recently a media report claimed that Snapdeal was in talks with Flipkart and digital wallet provider Paytm for a potential sale which the company had later denied.

The report has also claimed SoftBank was planning to pump in $50 million as "bridge money" until the deal was clinched.

"SoftBank and Flipkart have agreed on the broad contours of the deal. If these terms stay on track, it's likely that the talks will culminate into a definitive transaction by late April," The Times of India quoted one source as saying.

The deal if it is clinched would be biggest consolidation exercise in the $8 billion Indian e-commerce industry. Last week Snapdeal revealed that it will cut 600 jobs and its founders will not take their salaries to turn profitable.
Bharti Airtel will primarily use the proceeds from this sale to reduce its debt.

New Delhi: Bharti Airtel has sold 10 per cent stake in its mobile tower arm Bharti Infratel to a consortium of KKR and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for Rs 6,193.9 crore (around $951.6 million).

Bharti Airtel will primarily use the proceeds from this sale to reduce its debt. It sold around 190 million shares of its subsidiary Bharti Infratel at a price of Rs 325 per share.

After the sale, Bharti Airtels equity holding in Bharti Infratel stands at 61.7 per cent, and that of KKR and CPPIB at 10.3 per cent.

This transaction makes it KKRs second investment in Bharti Infratel. Previously, the funds managed by KKR had invested in Bharti Infratel during the period 2008 to 2015.

Post this transaction, the stake held by KKR and CPPIB (combined) will be the single largest public shareholder block.

This investment by a consortium of marquee long-term investors underlines the confidence of the global investors in Indias growth story and the governments Digital India initiative in particular. It further reinforces the positive outlook for the telecom infrastructure sector. The long-term investment horizon of the investors aligns well with the capital needs and business cycles of Bharti Infratel, said Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman, Bharti Airtel.

Bharti Infratel is one of leading provider of tower and related infrastructure and it deploys, owns and manages telecom towers and communication structures, for various mobile operators.

The firms consolidated portfolio of over 90,000 telecom towers, which includes over 38,500 of its own towers and the balance from its 42 per cent equity interest in Indus Towers, makes it one of the largest tower infrastructure providers in the country with presence in all 22 telecom circles.

The three leading wireless telecommunications service providers in India by revenue  Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular  are the largest customers of Bharti Infratel. The company has been the industry pioneer in adopting green energy initiatives for its operations.

Analysts expect an increase of acquisitions in India's mobile tower business, as wireless providers seek to exit the business in order to reduce high debt levels and focus on their core businesses.
New Delhi: Chinese handset maker Xiaomi founder, chairman and CEO Lei Jun on Tuesday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and briefed about company plan to create more than 20,000 jobs in the country in the next three years.

Xiaomi has just started second manufacturing plant in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh.

Lei Jun and Mr Modi discussed Xiaomi India's manufacturing and growth plans.

Lei Juns latest trip is an acknowledgement of the importance of global expansion to Xiaomi. Xiaomi officially entered the Indian market over two years ago and has already invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the country, said Xiaomi. It said India is now the most important market outside of China for Xiaomi, and is a harbinger of the companys global expansion plans.

Xiaomi India achieved annual revenue of over $1 billion for the calendar year of 2016. According to analyst firm IDC, Xiaomi India has become the number one selling smartphone brand online and the second-largest smartphone brand in India in Q4 2016.
New Delhi: The Centre and states have concurrent powers to levy GST and the new indirect tax regime will result in reduction of prices for consumers and broaden the tax base, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said today.

At a workshop on Goods and Services Tax (GST) organized under the Speaker's Research Initiative (SRI) in Parliament Library Building today, Adhia explained how the existing multiple taxes at the central and state level will be merged into a single tax.

"The workshop was designed to provide Members of Parliament an insight into the new tax regime being established in the country and give them a better understanding about GST, thereby enabling them to participate fruitfully in the upcoming Parliamentary discussions on the subject," said an official statement.

Under the GST Constitutional Amendment Act, concurrent powers to levy GST has been provided to both the Centre and the states. "Members were also apprised about the major decisions of the GST Council, compensation mechanism for the states and the future roadmap in rolling out the GST in the country," the statement said.

Speaking about the benefits of GST, Adhia stressed that it will not only usher in a transparent tax system thereby reducing cascading of taxes, but will also result in reduction of prices for consumers and broaden the tax base in the country. Earlier in the day, the government tabled 4 supplementary GST legislations in the Lok Sabha. Discussion on the bills is expected to begin on Wednesday.
New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today briefed lawmakers about the four GST bills introduced in Lok Sabha which will be taken up for consideration tomorrow.

Jaitley told MPs that the passage of these bills, which were introduced in the Lower House yesterday, will result in one-nation one-tax regime, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar told reporters after the meeting.

The Finance Minister explained in detail the four bills--Central GST, Integrated GST, Union Territory GST and the Compensation Law--to MPs and how they would be beneficial to the common man.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier said that the government wants to build consensus for the passage of these bills. Modi was also present in the meeting. Former Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna was also present in the meeting and he formally joined the BJP in presence of Modi and party chief Amit Shah.

During the meet, Congress leader and former Union Minister M V Rajasekharan's letter showering praise on the Prime Minister was discussed. They also discussed the Union Cabinet's decision approving the setting up a National Commission for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes with constitutional status. The Cabinet had also cleared a proposal for dissolving the National Commission for Backward classes and repealing the law under which it was established.
Government, in the current fiscal year, expects to raise close to Rs 45,500 crore from its disinvestment programme.

New Delhi: Government think-tank NITI Aayog is preparing a fresh cabinet note recommending closure of 7 more sick CPSEs as part of an excercise to tackle mounting losses incurred by these entities.

"Cabinet note is being prepared for closure of 7 more sick CPSEs," a senior government official told PTI.

The Aayog, tasked with preparing a roadmap for ailing public sector undertakings, had earlier identified 26 sick central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) for closure, of which 7 received cabinet nod.

These include Hindustan Cable, Tyre Corporation, HMT Watches, Birds Jute and Export Limited (BJEL) and Central Inland Water Transport Corporation.

The fresh list, the official said, would be in addition to the CPSEs which were approved for closure by Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA). The official said the Aayog has also identified five CPSEs which can neither be revived nor sold, for liquidation.

He further said the Aayog, in a third tranche, has identified 12 more CPSEs for strategic sale. Companies identified in the third tranche include National Textile Corporation, Hindustan Antibiotics, Scooters India and Hindustan Flurocarbons.

Last year, the NITI Aayog in two tranches had recommended strategic sale of 15 CPSEs, three units of SAIL and one unit of National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC).

For the next financial year, the government has budgeted to raise Rs 72,500 crore through disinvestment in CPSEs, of which Rs 15,000 crore is to come from strategic sale.

The government, in the current fiscal year, expects to raise close to Rs 45,500 crore from its disinvestment programme but so far has raised about Rs 30,000 crore through minority share sale by way of offer for sale (OFS), share buyback and CPSE ETF (exchange traded fund).
The Minister said the volume of total military procurement in 2014-15 was Rs 65,583 crore. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: A whopping Rs four lakh crore worth of military procurement involving 136 proposals were cleared by the government in the last three years as part of efforts to modernise the armed forces.

The government incurred a capital expenditure of Rs 1.75 lakh crore on purchase of defence platforms for armed forces between 2014-2015 and December, 2016. The details about military modernisation were given by Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre while replying to questions relating to defence preparedness in Rajya Sabha.

Asked about Naval version of Tejas light combat aircraft, he said its development is under progress but is likely to be delayed.

"The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) accorded approval of 136 capital procurement cases at an estimated cost of Rs 4 lakh crore during the last two financial years (2014-15 and 2015-16) and current year 2016-17 (upto January 2017)," said Bhamre.

He said out of the total deals cleared, 96 cases involving Rs 2.46 lakh crore are under the 'Buy (Indian)' 'Buy & Make (Indian)' and 'Make' categories. Listing initiatives for defence indegenisation, Bhamre said the government has issued 342 industrial licences covering 205 Indian companies for manufacture of a wide range of defence equipment till June 2016.

The Minister said the volume of total military procurement in 2014-15 was Rs 65,583 crore out of which purchase from foreign vendors totalled Rs 25,984 crore and from Indian firms, the amount was Rs 39,598 crore. In 2015-16, the total procurement was estimated at Rs 62,341 crore out of which purchases from foreign and domestic vendors were Rs 23,192 crore and Rs 23,192 crore respectively.

To a separate question, Bhamre said budget estimates (BE) for defence services and defence ministry was Rs 2.58 lakh crore in 2016-17 whereas for year 2017-18, the budget estimate (BE) has been pegged at Rs 2.74 lakh crore.

The allocation in 2017-18 is around six per cent more than BE for the year 2016-17. He said there was a under-utilisation of funds to the tune of Rs 172 crore and Rs 3,675 crore in 2013-14 and 2014-15 respectively.

About funds given to Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), he said the premier agency was given Rs 13,716 crore in 2014-15, Rs 13,540 crore in 2015-16 and Rs 13,593 crore in 2016-17. He said the DRDO has developed various nutritious and protein-rich foods to cater to the requirements of service personnel deployed at high altitude and in snow bound areas.

To a separate query on whether the government is considering 57 multi-role carrier-borne fighters for Navy, Bhamre said a global Request for Information for it was issued on January 25.
Revocation of suspension would be subject to the companies further complying with the procedure and all extant norms prescribed for revocation of suspension

New Delhi: Leading stock exchange BSE will suspend trading in securities of seven companies from April 18 as they have failed to comply with certain norms for two consecutive quarters. In case they comply with the norms by April 12, they would not face trading suspension.

The firms that face suspension are Birla Shloka Edutech, Divine Multimedia (India) Ltd, Prism Informatics, REI Six Ten Retail, Shreejal Info Hubs, Skypak Service Specialists and Subh Tex (India) Ltd. The exchange has also ordered freezing of the entire promoter shareholding of these companies from March 27 till further notice.

"Trading in securities of the companies (7) will be suspended with effect from April 18, 2017 on account of non-compliance with Regulation 55 A of the Sebi (Depositories and Participants) Regulations 1996 for two consecutive quarters -- September and December 2016," BSE said in a circular.

As Sebi's Depositories and Participants Regulation 55 A, every firm will have to submit audit report, on a quarterly basis to the bourse, about reconciliation of total issued capital, listed capital and capital held by depositories in dematerialised form and the details of changes in share capital during the quarter.

Further, the exchange said the suspension will continue till such time these firms comply with the norms. The exchange said 15 days after suspension, trading in the shares of non-compliant companies would be allowed on restricted basis or in 'Trade for Trade basis in Z group' only on the first trading day of every week for six months.

"Revocation of suspension would be subject to the companies further complying with the procedure and all extant norms prescribed for revocation of suspension," it added.
Mumbai: If any controversy can match up to the Kangana-Hrithik spat or even surpass it, it is the Kapil Sharma-Sunil Grover fallout. The comedians were on a flight back home from a show in Australia when an inebriated Kapil started yelling at Sunil Grover and the rest of the team for eating without him. He has allegedly thrown his sandal on Grover and boasted of making his career. Following the incident, the producers of the show have reportedly decided against renewing Kapils contract (for a whopping 103 Cr).

Sunil, on the other hand, has written heartfelt notes on Facebook urging Kapil not to behave like God and has admitted to enjoying the tamasha revolving around it.

In an earlier interview with a leading daily, Grover had called himself a better actor and claimed to be more popular than the star comedian. When asked if any kind of competition was going on between the two, Sunil reportedly said, You know what the most important thing is? That people are watching the show. As long as the TRP is up and audiences are loving us, none of us wants anything else. It was never Kapil vs Gutthi. It would never be. There's no competition. We area part of a single team and we need to cooperate and coordinate. But I cannot deny that I'm more popular than Kapil. And that is an excellent feeling. But yes, people are used to seeing all of us together. The formula works.

Sunil, however, admitted that Kapil is witter than him but he is a better actor.

Contrary to reports, Sunil Grover is still a part of the famous The Kapil Sharma Show.
Mumbai: Sunil Grover has penned a heartfelt note on Twitter, saying he wants to surrender himself to "good work and good people" following his fall out with Kapil Sharma.

Sunil, 39, thanked his fans for their immense support which has given him strength even in these hard times.

"My thanks and gratitude for all the love. I am non-existent without the love. My public identity is just because of the love that you shower. I embrace it. It fills my heart and leaves no place for hate.

"I just want to surrender myself to good work, good people and acknowledge my intentions genuinely," he wrote.

The duo involved in a tussle while travelling together in a flight. It was reported that Kapil even abused Sunil and hit him with a shoe.

However, in the post Sunil did not mention Kapil, 35, or their altercation directly but said, "Yes, I'm feeling a little lost at the moment and nervous too. Don't know what the future holds for me."

Sunil, who plays the popular characters of Dr Mashoor Gulati and Rinku Bhabhi on "The Kapil Sharma Show", earlier tweeted to Kapil that "Thanks for making me realise it was your show and you have power to throw out anybody, anytime."
Mumbai: Rahul Bose, who is all set to release his movie 'Poorna' this weekend, wished team of 'Naam Shabana' all the best, saying the film industry has space for everyone.

When asked about the clash of the two movies' at the Box-Office, Rahul said, "The makers of both the movies never had a conversation about changing the release dates. I feel this world has space for everyone, so there is space for everyone in movies too. I never think about such negative things. I wish 'Naam Shabana' all the best, I wish them huge success."

The multi-starrer ' Naam Shabana' will release on the same date as 'Poorna,' on March 31.

The actor-turned-direct0r also shared how excited and nervous he is for 'Poorna.'

He said, "I am really excited and nervous for this movie. In the past, I have never been excited or nervous for any of my films. But, 'Poorna' makes me feel both as it is getting bigger than what we were expecting of. The prints will increase, the show timings will also increase. In last five-six days, the interest for the movie has increased a lot. I have no doubts that it is a commercial movie, which touches your heart. It is a big story of hope and inspiration."

'Poorna' is a biopic on Poorna Malavath, a 13-year-old Indian girl, who created history by becoming the world's youngest person to scale the Mount Everest on May 25, 2014.
New Delhi: Rahul Bose, who is all set to come out with his latest movie 'Poorna' hosted a special screening of the film for the President Pranab Mukherjee, at Rashtrapati Bhavan, ahead of its commercial release.

The President was moved by the biopic which spreads awareness about Poorna's journey, encourages women's empowerment and is an inspiration to women from every part of the country to dream big and accomplish their goals.

The cast and crew of the film were overwhelmed by the President's appreciation of the film and the achievements of its main protagonist, Poorna Malavath.

'Poorna' is a biopic on the youngest girl to climb Mount Everest, at the tender age of thirteen.

Poorna Malavath, a tribal girl from India fought social stigmas and achieved her dreams with true grit, determination and a never-give-up attitude.

Directed by Rahul Bose, Produced by Rahul Bose Productions, Raay Media Pvt Ltd and Co-produced by Amit Patni.
Varun will next be seen in 'Judwaa 2'.

Mumbai: Varun Dhawan has often been linked with a couple of his co-stars but the actor has been in a relationship with his girlfriend of many years, Natasha Dalal.

Though the actor has never openly affirmed the same, he's never denied it either.

However, recent rumours had stated that he's been spotted on dating websites like Tinder.

Varun, who's been basking in the success of his latest 100-crore venture, 'Badrintah Ki Dulhania,' took to Instagram to ensure people know that he's on no dating website.

Recently, the news of a woman being duped by a man passing Saif Ali Khan's pictures as his own had gone viral.

Actors must have become doubly cautious since their pictures are anyway plastered across the internet.

We feel you, Varun.
Our Nevada heritage is under attack by extreme animal activists and our state lawmakers. Its currently trapping and it will be hunting next. Trapping and those who trap are in the crosshairs of these active extremists. To decimate this tradition, management tool, and outdoor recreational activity the extremists present misleading, emotional, and graphic information to prey upon the general publics concern for their pets and wildlife (insert graphic picture here  Donate now). These active extremists and politicians do not put their falsehoods into context and they completely ignore the facts.

Lets look at the three biggest examples and put these examples in context.

Example 1: Traps are indiscriminate and injure and kill pets.

This is one of the biggest misleading techniques they push to stop trapping. Lets put this into context. In comparison many times more pets are injured or killed by other pets! Many more pets are injured or killed by automobiles than trapped in Nevada! Many more pets are killed by coyotes than trapped in Nevada! Many more pets are shot by people than are trapped in Nevada. Clearly pet ownership is much more dangerous to pets than trapping ever was, or ever will be. Apparently these extreme activists dont care about the facts.

Example 2: Nevada has inadequate trapping laws, which pose a serious threat to wildlife, family pets, and public safety. (Promoted by the Humane Society)

Nevada currently has trapping laws that allow trapping to happen. The Nevada Department of Wildlife is the state agency that regulates trapping. Current law regulates when traps can be used, where they can be placed, and even what types and design of traps can and cannot be used. Modern traps when placed by good trappers are very safe for non-target wildlife, pets, and pose no public safety threat.

Traps are a very valuable tool when it comes to public safety. Ive trapped badgers that were digging under old highway 50 creating extremely dangerous cavernous holes in the center of the highway. Trapping helped reduce the danger of crashing into a hole by reducing the number of holes in the highway. Traps are used to remove wildlife from most commercial airports in the state; wildlife poses significant threat to aviation safety when on the runways. There are many people in Spring Creek alone who have ground squirrels (disease-infested rodents) trapped to protect their pets, family, and property. Nothing of this sort is mentioned by animal extremist advocates.

Every year thousands of traps are set out in Nevada for thousands and thousands of trap-days. How many actual reports do you see of someones pet dying in a trap in Nevada? The answer is a damn low percentage rate! In our area, your dog has a higher chance of getting stomped to death by a mule deer than dying in a trap in Nevada. Are you going to take the stance of extremist advocacy groups and politicians and remove all the deer? Of course not, so please help stop the Vegas politicians from ridding our state of trapping.

How many reports do you see of traps killing or injuring a general member of the public in Nevada? (Not counting the idiot extremists who willfully stick a hand in the trap.) In Nevada you have a much higher chance of dying in an automobile/deer crash than being killed or injured by a trap. Deer pose a bigger threat to public safety than trapping and trap laws ever have, or ever will.

Example 3: We need to evolve as human beings, trapping is inhumane and below us. (uhhg! I have a hard time even typing that, such ignorance.)

Trapping is a valuable tool that protects both human health and safety and our property. In Reno Ive trapped coyotes that were denning inside a major high tech water treatment facility, posing a significant threat to operational capacity of the plant and the water for the population of Reno. On a side note, these coyotes were living on house cats and small dogs. Ive trapped porcupines that were damaging landscaping. Ive even trapped a mountain lion that was killing sheep inside a barn in Minden. Lets not forget to mention trapping is an effective tool for protecting newborn livestock and chickens from coyotes, skunks, and other predators. It is inhumane to take away a tool that is necessary to save so many animals from a very inhumane death of being bitten to death or eaten alive by predators. Not a thing mentioned by the activist extremists. These active extremist animals push and promote many more myths that harm trapping, hunting, and our culture. We need your help to fend off these extremists that are attacking our western culture!

I will finish in a brief description of their assault.

Currently proposed legislation would ban trapping on all public land in Nevada. Trappers would have to register their traps to trap on private land and post signage (to let trespassers know about the trap?) indicating traps are in the area. A slew of other changes would essentially make the cost unbearable and trapping would effectively cease in Nevada altogether. Then having nothing left to do these animal extremists would attack hunting. Theyd probably start with archery hunting because arrows only permanently maim wildlife and small fluffy bunnies.
Were all in boxes  you, me, that woman in the window, says Shabana Azmi in the opening frame of the trailer for Aparna Sens next directorial, Sonata. The movie itself seems to be a way for the women portrayed in it to break out the boxes designated to them by society. It becomes apparent from the trailer that none of the three women have been slotted into the roles that are usually reserved for older women in Bollywood movies  those of the mother, or mother-in-law, usually one-dimensional, and without much scope for growth.

Sonata is not the only movie, which seeks to explore sexual liberation in older women. Lipstick Under My Burkha, which has come into the limelight for its altercations with the CBFC, also portrays the love affair of Ratna Pathak Shah with a much younger man, while in Ramesh Sippys next film, Shimla Mirchi, Hema Malini also reportedly makes a comeback as a woman in love with a younger man. While the trend of expanding roles and looking beyond traditional tropes is something that veteran actresses in the industry have welcomed, they also feel that more films of this nature are long overdue.

I think the reason why the plot for Sonata works is because people are not used to seeing cinema like this. You have to remember, though, that the film was originally a play by Mahesh Elkunchwar and in theatre, you have enough freedom of expression and this would not be considered unusual at all, says Lilette Dubey, who plays one of the leading ladies of Sonata.

It was a blast for us to film the movie, but I was a bit curious to see if the audience would be interested in three middle-aged women chit-chatting, and the responses on Facebook have been overwhelming. I hope the movie does well, because such stories provide an incentive for others to create similar stories that go beyond typical tropes, she adds.

Supriya Pathak, whose role in Sanjay Leela Bhansalis Ram Leela won her an award for best actor in a negative role, also welcomes this trend. Older women have, until now, been portrayed as gentle, naive, and motherly. The shades of the character are being explored now and one is very happy to be a part of that, she says.

Elaborating on the reasons as to why there is now a rise in nuanced characterisation in older roles for women, Supriya explains, Cinema in its entirety is changing and strong stories have replaced formula films. It only follows that roles for older women will also become more layered. The audience has also got access to global cinema now and is, therefore, more appreciative of offbeat films, she adds.

Though the trend is definitely an encouraging one, there arent nearly enough movies in this category to celebrate just yet, according to Vagina Monologues producer Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal. If you look at Hollywood films, you have so many older women acting in roles that fall beyond the typical. You have Judy Dench acting in a James Bond movie and Meryl Streep doing multiple kinds of roles. I think Indian filmmakers are still afraid to take the risk. And, if you look at the controversy that Lipstick is going through, that may be the reason why, she states.

Movies still have a lot of catching up to do, as theatre veterans Lilette and Mahabanoo both state that the medium provides far more freedom. The audiences for theatre are also such that they are more open to experiments, says Mahabanoo, while Lilette states, You have infinite freedom in theatre that films have yet to tap into. So, when you look at theatrical themes through the lens of the camera, it makes them unusual. After all, age is no barrier on the stage. As it turns out now, neither on screen.
He suffered the attack on January 26. (Photo: AP)

Mumbai: Spanish actor Antonio Banderas has revealed that he had a heart attack earlier this year.

Speaking at a film festival in his home town of Malaga, the Mask of Zorro star said, "I suffered a heart attack on January 26, but it wasn't serious and hasn't caused any damage."

Banderas, 56, had three stents put in his arteries but insisted the incident had not been dramatic, reported BBC.

He added that he was well and keen to return to work.

Banderas accepted a lifetime achievement award at the festival, recognising his career as an actor, producer and director.

He performed a flamenco on stage as he picked up the Biznaga de Oro Honorifica trophy.

His recent visit to a Swiss clinic had led to speculation about his health, but a spokeswoman had said last week that he was in "perfectly good health".

At the time of the heart attack, Banderas, also known for roles in the Shrek films and Philadelphia, was taken to hospital near his home in Surrey.

He tweeted a picture taken in the countryside with girlfriend Nicole Kimpel a few days later, saying he was "enjoying nature after a startle".
Lesbians were more than twice as likely as straight girls to smoke. (Photo: Pixabay)

Lesbian, gay and bisexual adolescents report higher rates of tobacco use than heterosexual teens, according to a U.S. study that also highlights gender differences in smoking habits.

Overall, about 41 percent of lesbian and gay teens use tobacco products including both traditional and e-cigarettes, as do 39 percent of bisexual youth and 32 percent of adolescents who are uncertain about their sexual orientation, the study found. That compares to 30 percent of heterosexual teens.

Lesbians were more than twice as likely as straight girls to smoke, the study also found. Gay teens, however, had roughly the same odds of tobacco use as heterosexual boys. "Gender does matter in tobacco use among sexual minority youth," said lead study author Dr. Hongying Dai of Children's Mercy Hospital and the University of Missouri in Kansas City.

While some previous research has found teens who aren't heterosexual tend to be more drawn to smoking than their straight peers, the current study offers fresh insight into how both gender and sexual orientation may separately influence tobacco use, Dai said by email.

For the study, researcher examined nationally representative survey data collected from 14,703 adolescents in high school in 2015. Most of the participants were heterosexual, while 6 percent were bisexual, 2 percent were gay or lesbian and about 3 percent said they weren't sure about their sexual identity.

The survey looked at how often youth used four types of tobacco products over the previous month: cigars, snuff or chewing tobacco, traditional cigarettes, and e-cigarettes, which are battery-powered gadgets with a heating element that turns liquid nicotine and flavorings into a cloud of vapor that users inhale.

Gay and lesbian teens, as well as youth uncertain about their sexual orientation, or "questioning," were more likely than their straight peers to use all four types of tobacco products, researchers report in Pediatrics.

Bisexual teens, a predominantly female group, were more likely than heterosexual youth to use cigarettes, cigars and e-cigarettes but less likely to use snuff. The results highlight the need for tobacco control policies that specifically target youth who arent heterosexual, the authors conclude.

Limitations of the study include the lack of data on transgender teens and the exclusion of youth who dropped out of high school, the researchers point out. The study also counted any amount of tobacco use the same way, so it didnt separate teens who reported trying one cigarette from youth with a daily smoking habit.

It also wasn't a controlled experiment designed to prove whether sexual orientation directly influences tobacco use.

"Sexual orientation is not the cause of the smoking disparities; the stigma of being LGBTQ is the problem," said Michele Eliason, a researcher at San Francisco State University who wasn't involved in the study.

"Many youth fear rejection by family and peers and hide their sexuality," Eliason said by email. "This is very stressful and smoking is used as a form of stress release."

It's also possible that some lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer/questioning (LGBTQ) teens may be open about their sexuality and engaged in LGBTQ communities, where they find more acceptance for smoking and drug use, Eliason added. When teens have a social support network with other smokers, they are more likely to start smoking themselves.

Providing a strong support system at home can make a difference, said Heather Corliss, a public health researcher at San Diego State University who wasn't involved in the study.

"The most important thing parents can do is to support their teens unconditionally and without judgment. This recommendation applies to parents of all teens regardless of their sexual orientation," Corliss said by email.

"Teens who have a strong attachment to a parent are less likely to use tobacco than those who are less connected to their family," she added. "Parents should foster strong relationships with their teens, while at the same time maintaining consistent rules and limits."
On any flight, youd see that guy waiting for the signal that allows the use of electronic gadgets, to dig out his laptop and start typing away. Perhaps to kill time, perhaps to finish some pending work, perhaps just out of habit. So when the US announced a ban on passengers carrying electronic devices bigger than a cell phone in cabin baggage, there were murmurs from frequent travellers, most of them IT professionals having to fly to the US regularly.

More than the work getting affected, their concern is about the safety of the devices checked in. The main issue will be how safe the gadget will be in check in. We have seen videos where cabin bags are mishandled, says Nandakishore Harikumar, COO, GOIS Software Labs. The move was announced as a security measure, to prevent terrorist attacks.

Nandakishore adds, We have to see the growth of attempts made by terrorist groups to smuggle explosive devices in various consumer items. Security experts are already trying to identify systems that could track malicious devices.

For Anoop John, CTO of Zyxware Technologies, too, the main concern is for the safety of his laptop. I don't use laptops inside the flight while travelling. I use them a lot at the airports while transiting though. I will be happy reading a book as well and wont cry about the laptop ban for this reason. But if you have to check in your laptop your total baggage weight you can take with you goes down by 4-5 kilos. I have seen stuff inside my baggage break during air travel. There are good chances of your laptop breaking, he says.

The UK, too, had followed suit on the ban, but not included UAE in its list of countries.
Sometimes, what someone does in her own surroundings can be so inspirational that it can catapult that person to the status of a global citizen. Monika Khangembams story is a good example of this. This Manipur activist was one of 15 from across the world to be invited to the Global Citizen Youth Campaigners Symposium which took place in New York last week.

A human rights activist who has been relentlessly campaigning for social causes back home, Monika founded the Women and Youth for Peace and Development (WYPD) in 2015. Its an NGO based in Imphal. We work with women whose husbands and sons have been killed in fake encounters by the commandos. Most suffer from acute Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and psychological issues, so we provide psycho-social therapy through clinical counselling, music and meditation therapy, sharing sessions, exercises etc. They let their hearts out and build a sense of sisterhood with each other. They face many hardships in bringing up their children. We train them so that they can be economically independent and sustain themselves, she shares.

WYPD also works with youth who belong to various ethnic communities who are in conflict with each other. We give them a platform to mingle with and get to know each other better, and become peace ambassadors in the future.

In 2016, Monikas Facebook post revealing how she was racially discriminated at the Delhi IGI airport, went viral and created a furore. As someone who feels strongly about racism, she has been spearheading national campaigns against racial discrimination since 2012. Coming to her days as a student, she says, I did my MA in Marketing and Management Communication from Commits, Bengaluru. I have a special connection with the city because it was there that I realised what I wanted to do and started campaigning on various issues. The problems of my people impacted me deeply. In no time, Monika got involved in various campaigns.

Organised by Global Changemakers and Global Citizen, the New York meet saw 29-year-old Monika also attend the Commission on the Status of Women as a special guest.

At the reception co-hosted by the governments of Malta and the UK, we heard inspiring stories on achieving the Global Goals  specifically, repealing discriminatory laws against women and eradicating preventable diseases. The speakers included actress Erin Richards and UK Permanent Representative to the UN, Matthew Rycroft, she says.Her future agenda? We want women to take equal roles in peace interventions and mediations and be leaders on their own.
Taking a trip to NASA is the stuff of dreams for many. But for a team of six engineering students from Mukesh Patel School of Technology Management, NMIMS, Mumbai, this dream has finally turned into reality. Competing for a coveted prize at Nasas fourth Human Exploration Rover Challenge, the team  or Technovators as they call themselves  travelled to Huntsville, Albama on Sunday. Consisting of four boys and two girls, it is the only team to make the cut among Mumbai colleges, apart from two others from across the country.

Speaking to us over the phone, team leader Tirth Shah explains what the challenge entails. Students are expected to build and design their own rovers from scratch, which are then tested on a makeshift pathway similar to the celestial bodies in the solar system, he shares.

Team Technovators has designed, fabricated and tested the rover, which weighs over 108 kg. Theyve spent over six months building the vehicle and are now waiting for it to be shipped. Chirag Kulkarni was the manufacturing in-charge and took care of every minor detail during the fabrication process. It was a wonderful experience. I learned many practical aspects, scope and limitations of engineering. To make sure our rover is stable in extreme conditions, we had to do multiple calculations to get the correct centre of gravity. We studied how the other rovers are built and took the risk of making the light-weight rover, he adds.

The wheels of the rover have been designed after rigorous testing and prototyping and the team has already applied for a patent of the design. Sarthak Agarwal used his expertise of software design for designing the wheels. The periphery of the wheel is in the form of a bent M shape, which increases traction three-folds, thus providing a better grip, he explains.

Having made their way to the states on the weekend, the teams immediate excitement was marred by a minor glitch at the airport. The team is now without its luggage, thanks to the airport authorities misplacing them. The actual competition begins on March 30, but for us it has already begun. We have been travelling for 22-hours and our bags are nowhere in sight. The airlines has promised that they will send it in two days, we can only keep our fingers crossed, says the hopeful team leader.

Twenty-year-old Birva Ghodasara understands the pressure such global competitions bring  There is always a little bit of pressure in any competition. But more importantly we want to take away an experience of a lifetime from this dream trip. This is an excellent opportunity to work alongside NASA astronauts, she says excitedly.
Five Nigerian students were also picked by the police for their role in the death of the class 12 student reportedly due to drug overdose. (Photo: PTI/File)

Greater Noida: Four Nigerian students were allegedly attacked by residents who took out a candle-light march for a 17-year-old boy who had died last week due to suspected drug overdose.

Five people have been arrested by the police in Uttar Pradesh in connection with the attack.

The protest march was taken out after police released some Nigerians detained for questioning in connection with the death of the Class 12 student, Manish, in Greater Noida's NSG Black Cats Enclave due to "lack of evidence".

The boy's parents had alleged that the foreigners had kidnapped him and given him drugs which caused his death.

Sujata Singh, Superintendent of Police, Greater Noida said the protesters became violent during the march and started beating up the Africans they saw on the road.

"They also went to Ansal Mall and caused havoc and beat up Africans there. Police then rescued them and moved them to a safe place," she said.

"Police had to use force to dissuade people from attacking and arrested 5 people from the spot. Many of them who were there trying to play mischief have been identified as the entire event had been videographed. An FIR has been registered and action will be taken accordingly," Daljit Chaudhary, ADG Law and Order, told reporters here.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said the central government was taking immediate action and that she had spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who had assured her of a fair and impartial investigation into this "unfortunate" incident.

The Greater Noida Superintendent of Police said the police had not yet given a clean chit to the Nigerian nationals accused by the victim's parents.

There have been several attack on Africans in and around Delhi. In May last year, a 29-year-old Congolese national was bludgeoned to death by three men, two of them with past criminal records, in south Delhis Vasant Kunj after an argument over hiring of an auto-rickshaw.
Chennai: When taxi driver Samuel decided to stop the vehicle near the Krishyanpet check post on the Tamil Nadu- Andhra Pradesh border near Vellore on Friday evening and ask the police team to check the occupants of his vehicle, he never thought it would lead to the cracking of a sensational jewellery shop heist that had taken place in Tirunelveli during the early hours of the same day.

Samuel literally guided the police to the gang which had looted 37.5 kg gold worth Rs 9 crore and Rs 7.95 lakh cash from a jewellery shop. The gang from Jharkhand had got into his vehicle near Vellore CMC and asked him to take them to Tirupati. The gang had travelled across the state by Friday evening after looting the shop in the morning.

"I became suspicious. So I stopped the vehicle and asked the police to check their bags," Samuel, who was driving the vehicle a Tata Sumo, told this newspaper. The Police team at the check post was quick to realise what was happening. Seeing Samuel having put the cops on to them, the gang left the bag behind and started running away. The cops managed to overpower one of the gang members, later identified as Khalid Sheik (35).

As Samuel was instrumental in recovering the stolen gold within 12 hours, the DGP on Tuesday honoured him by giving him a share of the reward along with other police personnel deployed at the check post. "He decided to take that particular route because he was aware that there is a police check post. He was not comfortable with the gang in his vehicle and wanted to check their identity cards. He was sure he would not be able to check them by himself. So he approached the police," noted Vellore SP, P.Pakalavan, when this newspaper contacted him.

Police said the gang members were heading to Tirupati from where they were planning to go to their home state in the north.
Ranchi: Following Uttar Pradesh government's action against illegal slaughterhouses, Jharkhand government on Monday asked closure of illegal abattoirs within 72 hours.

The step was taken keeping in view the overall public order, safety and health of the general public, an official release said here.

Principal Secretary (Home) S K G Rahate wrote to all deputy commissioners, senior superintendents of police, superintendents of police, municipalities and notified area committees to take steps for closure of illegal abattoirs.

Stating that notice must be issued to all illegal slaughter houses for closing operations within 72 hours, the letter asked the officials not to allow any illegal abattoirs to operate within their jurisdictions.

Rahate also said that valid slaughter houses must ensure compliance of the rules and regulations laid down by the Animal Husbandry Department and Health Department.
Srinagar: Two were killed and 17 were injured on Tuesday in security forces' action against stone-pelting protesters near the encounter site in Chadoora area of central Kashmir's Budgam district. One of the two killed was a civilian.

Security forces launched a cordon and search operation in Durbugh area of Chadoora in the wee hours following information about the presence of militants in the area, a police official said.

He said the search operation turned into a gunbattle after militants opened fire on security forces.

As the security forces were engaged in the exchange of firing with holed-up militants, a large number of protesters started pelting stones at the law enforcing agencies, the official said.

He said one person was hit by a bullet in the neck and rushed to a hospital here. He succumbed to injuries on way to the hospital.

Four others suffered injuries as security forces fired pellet guns and tear smoke shells in a bid to disperse the protesters, the official said.

The gunbattle between security forces and militants was going on till last reports came in, the official said.
People holding a protest against African nationals over the death of a teenager allegedly due to drug supplied by Nigerians, in Greater Noida on Monday. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Claiming that the Greater Noida incident was a "hate crime", the President of an association of African students in India on Wednesday urged students to not come to India for studying until they get better security.

"I urge them (Africans), wherever they are, to stop making India their destination of study until and unless there is proper security," Association of African Students President Samuel Jack said.

"In Greater Noida, they (locals) say that, Africans 'we don't want you to be here anymore'. These are actually hate crimes towards African community. Africans are not secure in this country," he said.

Jack claimed that the alleged attack on African students last night was mobilised by local youths and police have arrested six of them while two others were absconding.

Four Nigerian students were allegedly attacked by residents who took out a candle-light march for a 17-year-old boy who had died last week due to suspected drug overdose.

The boy's parents had alleged that the foreigners had kidnapped him and given him drugs which led to his death.

One of the injured Nigerians alleged that he was assaulted for no reason.

"I don't go to club in this country. I don't drink. They assaulted me for no reason. I don't know what to say. They do not want us to be in this country," he claimed.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said the central government was taking immediate action and that she had spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who had assured her of a fair and impartial investigation into this "unfortunate" incident.
New Delhi: Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agarwal on Monday said the blanket ban imposed on Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad by domestic airlines was a "violation of the Constitutional rights of a citizen."

"The law will take its own course. The investigation will take place as to what the Air India official did and other such aspects. But airlines banning somebody...tomorrow they will ban any common citizen.

"This is the constitutional right of a citizen. How can you ban somebody? If he is guilty, a case will be filed and judicial action will be taken. Tomorrow, if any official says anything, they will stop the person from flying. This is violation of Constitutional right," he said.

The Shiv Sena has also defended its legislator, saying "moving around in the country is the fundamental right of a person and one cannot impose a ban on it."

After Air India put Gaikwad on the no-fly list for assaulting its official last week, the Federation of Indian Airlines which has Jet Airways, SpiceJet, IndiGo and GoAir as its members, also imposed a ban on the legislator.

"Unless you investigate, you (media) cannot become judge. Do not make it a media trial. Whatever has happened is not worthy of being said as good. But at the same time, there are other aspects of the issue which need to be investigated," Shiv Sena leader Arvind Sawant told reporters outside the Parliament.

"An FIR has already been filed. Let the law take its own action. What we are saying is that it is our fundamental right to attend the Parliament or to move in the country. You cannot impose a ban on that right?" he asked.

RPI chief Ramdas Athawale Athawale said that the Shiv Sena MP should have complained to the Ethics Committee of the Parliament if he had any issues, rather than resorting to violence.

"Gaikwad attacked the Air India official...it is not a good thing. He has the right to complain to Air India, but it was not good to attack," he said.
The AIADMK leader also requested the farmers to call off the protest. (Photo: File/DC)

New Delhi: Leaders from Tamil Nadu cutting across the political spectrum have offered their support to the state's farmers who have been protesting at Jantar Mantar for the past 15 days demanding a drought relief package of Rs 40,000 crore from the Centre and farm loan waiver.

Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker M Thambidurai, who visited the agitating farmers on Tuesday for a second time, assured them that the issue would be placed before Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the earliest.

"We have met the ministers concerned and have even raised the issue in Parliament. It is not just the issue of one state, but pan-India. We will be meeting the PM on this," said Thambidurai.

The AIADMK leader also requested the farmers to call off the protest.

Tamil Nadu Agriculture Minister R Doraikkannu, who accompanied Thambidurai, apprised the farmers about the steps the government has taken to address their problems.

DMK's Rajya Sabha MPs T K S Elangovan and R S Bharathi and Pondicherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy also visited the farmers and offered their support.

G K Vasan, the Tamil Manila Congress chief, said a meeting of the farmers with President Pranab Mukherjee would be arranged soon.

"We are planning to meet the President and apprised him about the difficulties faced by farmers," Vasan said.

The farmers are expected to meet Union Minister for Agriculture Radha Mohan Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the evening. DMK MP Tiruchi Siva is expected to accompany the farmers during the meeting with Jaitley.
Washington: US President Donald Trump has congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the outcome of recent state elections and expressed his support to the Indian leader's economic reform agenda, the White House said today. A day after Trump called Modi, the third telephonic conversation after his electoral victory in November last year, the White House said the US President looks forward to hosting the Prime Minister later this year.

"President Donald J Trump spoke with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India to congratulate him on the outcome of India's recent state-level elections," the White House said in a readout of the call which took place yesterday.

"President Trump expressed support for the Prime Minister's economic reform agenda and emphasized his great respect for the people of India," it said.

"President Trump also said he looks forward to hosting Prime Minister Modi in Washington later this year," said the statement issued by the White House.

Earlier, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump congratulated Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday on their electoral victories.

"The president spoke with German Chancellor Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Modi earlier today to congratulate them on their parties' success in recent elections," Spicer said. The two leaders are expected to meet on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Germany in July.

Following the elections, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party formed the government in four states: Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Uttarakhand and Goa. It, however, lost Punjab to main rival Congress.

Merkel's Christian Democrat party easily won an election in the Saarland state on Sunday, dealing an early blow to centre-left hopes of ending her more than decade-long reign. "The two leaders also used the occasion to reflect on the Chancellor's March 17 visit to the White House. The President said he looked forward to visiting Hamburg, Germany for the G-20 Summit on July 7th and 8th," the White House said.

Previously, Modi and Trump talked by phone on January 24,when they had resolved to stand "shoulder-to-shoulder" in the global fight against terrorism and for defence and security. According to a White House statement then, Trump had "emphasised that the US considers India a true friend and partner in addressing challenges around the world."

Prime Minister Modi was the fifth foreign leader Trump had spoken to on phone after he was sworn-in as the US President on January 20. He had by then spoken to British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canada's Justin Trudeau, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. After Trump's surprise victory in the November 8 elections, Modi was among the first world leaders to congratulate him.
The enraged protestors were demanding strong action against the accused. (Photo: ANI)

Greater Noida: Chaos ensued in Noida Sector 63 after a Chinese national at a factory of mobile company Oppo tore an Indian flag and threw it in the dustbin late on Monday night.

This enraged the Indian employees working there, leading to frenzy outside the company.

The company officials have offered unconditional apology after the district authorities and Deputy Labour Commissioner intervened in the matter, officials said.

"Company officials and agitating employees were taken to discussion table. Both promised to resolve the issue amicably," city magistrate Ramanuj Singh said.

There was a labour dispute between workers and the Chinese company. Deputy Labour Commissioner too was called to settle the matter amicably, according to district officials.

The protestors, including the Chinese mobile company Oppo and members of Vishva Hindu Parishad, had earlier demanded strong action against the accused.

Every corner of the office is under camera surveillance and we have told the police to scan the footage to establish the facts. We cannot tolerate disrespect towards our national flag, Vineet Arya, a protester, was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.

Meanwhile, police have registered a case against the accused Chinese national, who was the production manager in the company. The company has expelled him after the incident.

"The investigation is underway and if the allegation against the accused comes out, strict action will be taken," the police officials said.

Earlier this year, Amazon India was spotted selling door mats with the National flag pattern on them, which provoked a lot of friction.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had intervened and had asked Amazon to tender an unconditional apology and withdraw all products insulting the tricolor, otherwise no Amazon official will be granted an Indian visa.
VCK chief Thol Thirumavalavan said that Rajinikanth can meet the Tamils any day in Sri Lanka but only after the situation of its various regions affected by the 2009 war improves there. (Photo: File)

Chennai: Pro-Tamil outfits, including the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, on Tuesday said they were not averse to actor Rajinikanth visiting Sri Lanka to meet Tamils after the situation for the minorities improves there.

VCK chief Thol Thirumavalavan said an 'all-is-well carnival atmosphere,' being sought to be projected by the pro-government organisers, was inappropriate now when Tamils were struggling for their rights.

Originally on April 9, actor Rajinikanth was scheduled to hand over 150 new houses built in Jaffna for Tamils by Gnanam Foundation of Lyca Group, a Tamil film production house.

The actor, however, cancelled his visit after various outfits, including VCK, objected to it. "They had planned to mobilise four lakh people to project an all-is-well, carnival atmosphere for the event in which Rajinikanth was supposed to participate," he told PTI, adding such an impression would have hindered the Tamils' struggle.

Rajinikanth, however, can meet the Tamils any day in Sri Lanka but only after the situation of its various regions affected by the 2009 war improves there, he said. "People there too are ready to welcome him. We too are not going to oppose it," he told reporters here, adding, however, that the present situation was not conducive for the actor's visit.

"When the situation improves, he may visit Tamils there." Explaining his stand, he said Sri Lankan Tamils were continuing their relay agitation on various demands, including the ones for retrieving their houses and farmland from Sri Lankan army.

They have also been raising the issue of the people who went missing after they surrendered to the Lankan armed forces during the 2009 civil war, he said.

CPI State Secretary R Mutharasan, explaining his party's opposition to Rajinikanth's proposed visit, said neither the army personnel posted in Tamil-populated regions in Sri Lanka have so far been withdrawn, nor the Tamils have been given back their land or the equal rights.

Though this was the current scenario, an effort was being made to project as if "good things" were being done, he said.

"This is the fact and only under this situation did we appeal to him to avoid visiting Sri Lanka." Tamizhaga Vazhvurimai Katchi chief T Velmurugan said if the visit had materialised, it would have been used to portray that all was well and the people were happy.

It could have been utilised to obliterate the need for probe war crimes by the erstwhile Lankan regime, he said. BJP state president Tamilisai Soundararajan, however, said the actor should have gone there.

"It could have been a solace for them (Tamils). The houses were not built by the government, but by a Tamil foundation. There is no need for bringing politics in the issue," she said blaming Thirumavalavan.
New Delhi: Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad has booked another ticket with Air India but it was cancelled on Tuesday by the airline, days after all domestic carriers banned him from flying for assaulting an AI staff.

Sources said that the MP had purchased an open ticket prior to the ban, which his staff had booked for Wednesday morning to travel from Mumbai to Delhi.

The ticket "has been cancelled", an Air India (AI) statement said.

The Shiv Sena MP, who is at the centre of a raging storm for assaulting an elderly Air India employee last Thursday, was earlier barred from flying by all major domestic airlines in an unprecedented step in Indian aviation history.

A day after the incident, the national carrier had cancelled a return ticket of the MP while IndiGo too had followed suit, forcing him to take a train to Maharashtra.

The MP from Maharashtra's Osmanabad, however, has continued to brazen it out and remained unapologetic about his conduct.

An FIR has been registered against him on the basis of the complaint lodged by Air India for repeatedly hitting 62-year-old Duty Manager R Sukumar with sandals on a Pune-Delhi flight after it landed. The MP was angry at not being given a business class seat though he had boarded an all-economy flight.
New Delhi/ Greater Noida: The police arrested five men on Tuesday after a group of angry residents in Uttar Pradeshs Greater Noida attacked four Nigerian students with sticks and metal chairs the previous night following the death of a local teenager from a suspected drug overdose.

Union external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj spoke to UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who promised a fair and impartial investigation into the incident. The ministry termed these attacks as deplorable.

Residents in Greater Noida, a satellite city of New Delhi, took out a candle-light march Monday after 17-year-old Manish died last week after a suspected drug overdose. The march was taken out after the police released some Nigerians detained for questioning in connection with the death of the Class 12 student, due to lack of evidence. Nigerian high commission officials are also understood to have met their injured nationals and said they felt unsafe.
Hyderabad/Mumbai: Continuing its ban, Air India cancelled a ticket booked for Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad to travel to Delhi from Mumbai. A report from Hyderabad said another ticket booked for Mr Gaikwad from the Shamshabad airport to Delhi was also cancelled.

Mr Gaikwad was to attend a private function at Hyderabad on Wednesday morning and return to Delhi by AI-559. Air India spokesperson Dhananjay Kumar said the ticket had been cancelled as Mr Gaikwad was on the no-fly list. Mr Gaikwad, who had slapped and hit the national carriers 60-year-old duty manager 25 times with his sandal when the official persuaded him to disembark after the plane landed at the IGI airport in New Delhi from Pune on March 23, has become the first flier to be moved to the no-fly list of all Indian airlines.

AI officials said Gaikwad was also booked to travel to Delhi on Wednesday on Flight AI 806. The MP had booked an open ticket (where the date of the flight can be adjusted after the ticket is booked) before the (slapping) incident, which was rebooked for Wednesday, said an official.
Hyderabad: Residents in many parts of the city are complaining that water is being supplied at very low pressure by the Metro Water Board even though there is enough water in the reservoirs. But the metro water board, while admitting that the demand for tankers has increased by 25 per cent, blames residents for using powerful motors that draw off all water and at the same time, has not cracked down on households using such motors. Last week, the board booked cases against four residents but the number involved in illegal siphoning off of water reportedly runs into lakhs.

Pressure has dipped drastically in Malkajgiri, Begum Bazar, Alkapuri Colony, Himathnagar, ECIL, Bollaram, Vaishali Nagar, Darul Shifa, and Thukaram Gate.

Another reason for the low pressure is the supply of water daily to slum dwellers at the cost of other residents. The board has made it clear that the daily supply of drinking water is meant for 167 slums but not for other areas of the city.

On February 1, the HMWSSB had announced the daily water scheme, which was however put off as the election code of conduct had come into force. But slums in the city are receiving daily water on a trial basis.

K. Vinodh from East Anand Bagh, A.N. Rao Nagar Road No.2, says his colony is receiving very low pressure water. We suspect water motors are being fixed to direct water connections, but no probe has taken off. I have informed the HMWSSB division general manager to keep an eye. Also, the water is supplied for not more than 45 minutes. Homes paying bills are getting less water.

Operations director, G. Rameshwar Rao says the water board is supplying 400 million gallons per day to Greater Hyderabad.

Use of powerful motors is rampant. Majority of the complaints received is about low pressure. One motor sucks water meant for 20 households and a majority of the motors seized were of 1 HP and higher range. After Ugadi, we will crack down on such motors.

SCB supply not enough

The Water Board, after 50 days of delaying supply to Secunderabad Cantonment board jurisdiction, especially to the reservoirs of Marredpally, Balamrai and Mahendra Hills, have now released extra water. But the amount is not the promised 2 million gallons per day.

DC had reported on how SCB limits were deprived of water due to the daily water scheme since February 1. And after the report, the board had deployed a team to inspect supply and demand at SCB reservoirs.

SCB Water wing superintendent Raj Kumar said: A team visited the reservoirs after that report was published in the Deccan Chronicle. So far, 2 MGD of water has been released and supply at Balamrai reservoir has considerably increased, due to which the board is able to provide water to many localities. But even the promised 2 MGD is really not sufficient.

Over 6.8 million gallons of water daily was the agreed quantity of water supply to the Cantonment board. But since the daily water scheme was launched, supply to SCB has been reduced to 4.2 MGD.
The 22-member committee suggested that companies should employ men for night shifts and avoid women to ensure safety and security.

Bengaluru: Theres a fine line between gender discrimination and safeguarding women's rights, and Congress MLA N.A. Haris, however well meaning he may be, just crossed it.

A report tabled in the Assembly on Monday by the standing committee on women and child welfare that the MLA chairs, set off an uproar among women's rights activists and the IT-BT industry on Tuesday.

Disregarding the fact that more than half the workforce in the booming IT industry is made up of women, the 22-member panel, on Monday, recommended companies should employ men rather than women on night shifts and to ensure their safety and security.

"The IT and BT companies in Karnataka should to the extent possible avoid employing women on night shifts,' the panel said. Mr. Haris said: "It would be much better, safer and more secure for women if they work during the daytime." Coming on the heels of a wrong-headed maternity leave directive from the Centre, giving women 26 weeks off, that could see employers frown on hiring women, this move is seen as a further downer.

When approached for a comment on what motivated him to push for the no-night employment rule for women, Mr. Haris, told Deccan Chronicle that women must stay home at night to look after their children and household.

"Women have a much bigger responsibility in our society than men. They need to look after their children and families. Men cannot play the role of a mother," Mr. Haris said, apparently unaware that these days most young families see both parents sharing the burden of child-rearing.

Calling it a "very sexist" comment, a women's rights activist, Dona Fernandes, said that the MLA was legitimising gender discrimination. "He is perpetuating the stereotype that women are mothers, home- makers and meant only to look after their children," said an outraged Mrs. Fernandes.

She said that men must stop stereotyping women, pointing out that women were no safer during the daytime than they were at night, and the whole issue was not about women working in day shifts or night shifts but about providing a secure environment in the city, be it for men, women orchildren.

Ms Sangeeta Gupta, the vice president of the IT industry body, NASSCOM, said, "It's the women's choice if they want to work in the night shift or not. It is completely their right to decide where, when and how they want to work. The government and the companies need to do their duty and ensure that adequate safety is provided."
Naidu said he was happy that there would be good rains, crops and power. (Representational image)

Hyderabad: Good rains, good crops, invention of a new drug for diabetes, focus on power and industry by both Telangana state and Andhra Pradesh were among the predictions made during Ugadi eve celebrations at Raj Bhavan.

State Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, YSRC chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy were those present, along with Telangana Speaker Madhusudhana Chary, Council chairman Swamy Goud, AP Council chairman A. Chakrapani, former Governor K Rosaiah, at the high tea hosted by Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan and his wife Vimala on the lawns of Raj Bhavan on Tuesday. Sridhar Sharma, who read from the Panchangam (almanac), said people of both the states would live in happiness this year too with good rains.

Both chief ministers are working hard to develop their states, focusing on the power sector and industry. Hemalamba Nama Samvatsaram is almost a photocopy of Durmukha Nama Samvatsaram. There will be good rains and crops. But there will be drought-like situation at some places, pestilence could impact crops and cattle could face disease. If handled carefully, these difficulties can be overcome, he said.

He added that timely interventions from both governments can check spiralling prices of commodities. He said education would get high priority and leading lights from both states, including actors, were set for international recognition.

Mr Narasimhan is not a Telugu but he hosts great Ugadi get-togethers every year. I wish him the best of luck, Mr Chandrasekhar Rao said during his address.

Meanwhile, Mr Naidu said he was happy that there would be good rains, crops and power. But Nature has to cooperate, Mr Naidu added.

Referring to the confusion over Ugadi dates, Mr Naidu said: The Governor, the Telangana state Chief Minister and I dont have any such confusion. We are celebrating Ugadi on Wednesday. The gathering at the Raj Bhavan was treated to the traditional Ugadi Pacchadi and a cultural programme.
Five days after she was forced to drink acid on a train while returning to Lucknow from her home in Rae Bareli, the woman suffered burns in her mouth, jaw and throat. (Representational image)

Lucknow: After going through the harrowing experience of gang rape and five acid attacks, she still survives. Though, she says, she had lost the will to live.

Five days after she was forced to drink acid on a train while returning to Lucknow from her home in Rae Bareli, the woman suffered burns in her mouth, jaw and throat. Her speech is incoherent but her husband understands and conveys what she says.

Lying on a hospital bed, with security guards outside, the 46-year-old woman, says I dont want to live. I cannot take it anymore. Ab saha nahin jata. I want justice but have no hopes left.

The woman belongs to the Pasi community (dalit) and her attackers are from the Thakur community. She says that she was picked up and gang raped in 2008 because she refused to part with the land that the attackers wanted. They were arrested and let off. To teach me a lesson, they attacked me with acid in 2011, twice in 2012 and again in 2013. My whole body has burn marks, she says in between sobs.

The woman, who now works in Sheroes Hangout  a cafe run by acid attack survivors in Lucknow  had gone to her home in Rae Bareli to celebrate Holi, and was returning by train when she was attacked again. Guddu Singh and his brother Bhondu Singh were on the train. They caught me when I was getting down at a Lucknow outer stoppage. Before I could realise, one of them caught my face opened my mouth and poured acid. I lay screaming for help but passengers walked away.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday slapped a fine of Rs one lakh on a petitioner for filing a plea against two sitting apex court judges who had earlier decided his case.

A bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar imposed costs on Rashid Ali Saudagar and asked him to deposit it within four week in the apex court registry which would route it to the National Legal Services Authority.

The petitioner had arrayed as party the judges, who had passed the verdict on his earlier plea, in the petition challenging the order.

"In the pleadings now, the applicant has impleaded by name two sitting judges of the Supreme Court. These judges have nothing to do with the controversy raised by the applicant who has prayed for appropriate writ order seeking a direction for imposing criminal sanction against the judges...," the bench, also comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud and S K Kaul, said.

"We are of the view that the registry was fully justified in dismissing the appeal against the order passed by the judges," the bench said while dismissing his plea and imposing costs of Rs one lakh on the petitioner.
New Delhi: A universal identity card, to be accepted by central and state governments, will be issued to all disabled to help them avail various welfare schemes and quota, Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thaawarchand Gehlot said today.

As per 2011 census there were 2.68 crore disabled in the country, but so far there is no proper identity document for them, he said in Lok Sabha.

"We are planning to distribute the universal identity card to all disabled persons in the country. The card will help the persons with disabilities to avail all government schemes and reservation. These cards will be recognisable by all the states," Gehlot said during Question Hour.

The card will be linked with the Aadhar card and the data will be available online to ensure transparency, he said.

Under the Deendayal Disabled Rehabilitation Scheme, 371 special schools across the country were provided financial assistance to the tune of Rs 31.31 crore.
Krishnagar: Bowing to public pressure, the police on Friday in Nadia district fined four policemen who were riding motorbikes without wearing helmets.

People of Krishnaganj area used to see policemen fining bikers riding without helmet.

This afternoon, a section of them found that four police personnel on two motorbikes at Brahmadanga locality of Krishnaganj but none of them were wearing helmets.

Two of them were civic police, who assist policemen in various works including traffic control.

Police said the four were returning after duty at Higher Secondary Examination centres.

People stopped them and asked them why they were riding motorbikes without helmets. Gradually a large number of people gathered at the spot and road got blocked.

Two policemen came from Krishnaganj police station and tried to negotiate with the people without success.

Finally, the four personnel without helmets were fined Rs 100 each and then they were allowed to leave the spot, police said.
Bengaluru: A fortnight away from the crucial R.K. Nagar Assembly by-poll in Chennai, there are hardly any visitors to meet the jailed AIADMK general secretary V.K. Sasikala inside the Bengaluru Central Prison at Parapanna Agrahara.

A couple of ministers and two Members of Parliament had come to visit Sasikala before the elections date for the by poll was announced. But now only her family visits her in the prison, said an official source.

He added that visitors can meet Sasikala only on Mondays and Fridays after seeking prior permission from the Superintendent of Prison, Bengaluru Central Prison.

The R.K. Nagar Asembly by-poll is scheduled for April 12. The seat fell vacant following the demise of then Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalitha in December last year.

Ms Sasikala has been keeping a low profile and after receiving hate mail from people in Tamil Nadu, who blame her for Jayalalithas death, she has reportedly become even more reclusive. The letters addressed to convicts are vetted by prison officials before they are handed over to them.

She has prison food and reads a couple of Tamil news dailies, which are given to her on request. Her relative and co-convict Ilavarasi is with her in the prison cell, the source said.

Early this month, Sasiskalas nephew and the newly inducted deputy general secretary of the AIADMK (Amma) faction T.T.V. Dinakaran had met his aunt at the Central prison for 40 minutes.

Later, Minister for Forests Dindigul C. Srinivasan, Minister for School Education Sengottaiyan K. A, Minister for Cooperation Sellur K Raju and an AIADMK? office-bearer had met Sasikala in the prison in which they had reportedly discussed on the poll strategy.
Chennai: The AIADMK (Amma) led by V.K. Sasikala and the AIADMK (Puratchithalaivi Amma) of former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam are leaving no stone unturned to enthuse the partys traditional voters in RK Nagar, especially women, to support them at the polling booths on April 12. There is palpable apprehension in both the camps that the people might ignore the bypoll in the absence of the charismatic leader Jayalalithaa, who had represented the constituency until her death on 5 December, 2016, and the magnetic draw of the Two-Leaves symbol.

Jayalalithaa had polled 97,218 votes in 2016 to defeat DMKs Shimla Muthuchozhan (57,673) and retain the seat she had secured in the by-election the previous year. It was a huge drop from the 2015 score (1,60,432) but then that tally had been possible because the adversary then was the CPIs C. Mahendran (9710) and there was a massive effort by the ruling party to get its Amma back into the Assembly after her acquittal by the Karnataka high court in the disproportionate assets case.

P. Vetrivel had vacated the seat to make way for her; he is the pillar-of-strength beside the AIADMK (Amma) candidate TTV Dinakaran, who is campaigning wearing a thoppi, the symbol allotted by the Election Commission following the freezing of Two Leaves. His faction spokesperson Nanjil Sampath says it would be easy for TTV to familiarise his poll symbol because people would connect his thoppi with the thoppi worn by party founder MGR in his 1966 film, Anbey Vaa.

Adversaries, however, are telling the RK Nagar voters that all they can expect from the nephew of Sasikala, who is in a Karnataka jail for corruption, is thoppi on your heads, meaning he would take them for a ride.

It would be impossible for septuagenarian E. Madhusudhanan, an old hand at RK Nagar having won in 1991, to try similar easy ways of popularising his symbol by carrying an Electric Pole on his frail frame. But then, the EC symbol for his AIADMK (Puratchithalaivi Amma) depicts a twin electric pole, so his clever campaign managers are waving their two fingers in a V sign that could mean the twin electric pole as well as the famous Two Leaves symbol.

Even if the AIADMK factions succeed in bringing the traditional Two Leaves voters to the booths, they can at best only share the 97,000 votes got by Jayalalithaa as it might be real tough attracting new supporters in the prevailing post-Jaya turmoil. Besides, political novice Deepa is also in the fray hoping to get a chunk of her aunt Jayalalithaas vote-bank; which could be a near-impossible dream to materialise, going by local reports. This split of the AIADMK vote can only help the rival DMK to win comfortably in RK Nagar, as past poll scores have shown that it would need at least 60,000 votes to defeat the DMK and 40,000-50,000 votes to secure a decent second place.

Political analysts opine that the AIADMK factions could bring most of their cadres to the booths, but a section of the party voters could stay away. Political commentator Govi. Lenin said, Most of the AIADMK cadre will certainly vote in the bypolls, since they will be individually approached by the two factions. But the AIADMK voters could keep away as Jayalalithaa and the Two Leaves symbol is absent.

There is a perceived detachment among the AIADMK voters, whose disinterest in voting could bring down the support for both the factions, whose campaigners are working overtime to retrieve lost ground. While Madhusudhanan has the support of most of the party functionaries in four out of the seven wards in the constituency, TTV has the party lieutenants in the three other wards, besides the help of the local strongman Vetrivel.

Dinakaran has gone for micro level field management by splitting each ward into smaller segments and entrusting them to loyalists for effective monitoring.
CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury tweeted that it is just a ploy to target a particular community in UP and other states. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: The CPI(M) on Tuesday latched on to reports suggesting variance in the BJP's position on beef consumption in different states, alleging that the saffron party's anti-beef stance was a ploy to target a "particular" community.

The BJP is imposing ban on cow slaughter and closing down illegal abattoirs in Uttar Pradesh, but according to media reports the party is not for imposing the same rule in three north eastern states which go to polls next year.

The three Christian-majority states Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland widely consume beef. "Well, they claim beef is a matter of "faith" for them.

But it is just a ploy to target a particular community in UP and other states (sic)," CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury tweeted.
Ujjain: RSS activist Kundan Chandrawat, who stirred a hornet's nest by announcing a bounty of Rs 1 crore for beheading Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, has been arrested, police said on Tuesday.

Chandrawat was arrested on Monday and later produced before the chief judicial magistrate's court which sent him to judicial custody for a fortnight, they said.

In a video that went viral on social media early this month, Chandrawat was purportedly seen announcing a bounty of Rs 1 crore for beheading Vijayan, whom he held responsible for the killing of RSS workers in Kerala.

He later retracted his statement which drew widespread condemnation from various quarters, including the Sangh, and expressed regret.

The RSS had distanced itself from its functionary's remark and promptly removed him from the post of Sah Prachar Pramukh (joint publicity chief) of Ujjain district.

"We yesterday arrested Kundan Chandrawat over his alleged statement. He was produced before the chief judicial magistrate's court which remanded him in judicial custody," Superintendent of Police Manohar Verma told PTI.

On March 2, Madhav Nagar police had registered an FIR against Chandrawat under IPC section 505(1)(B) (whoever makes any statement with intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, fear or alarm to the public, or to any section of the public whereby any person may be induced to commit an offence against the State or against the public tranquillity).
To send out a message that they would soon be forced to eat rat meat if the problems of the farming community are not addressed.

Chennai: As their protest against the Union Government's apathy towards their plight entered 14th day in New Delhi, farmers from Tamil Nadu on Monday escalated their agitation by holding dead rats in their mouths to draw attention of the Prime Minister.

The farmers, who have been protesting in the Jantar Mantar area in New Delhi for the past two weeks, held dead rats in their mouths to send out a message that they would soon be forced to eat rat meat if the problems of the farming community are not addressed.

On a day their protest received support from Left MPs  Sitaram Yechury, T. K. Rangarajan and D. Raja, farmers wanted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene and immediately enhance the drought relief package already approved for Tamil Nadu.

Our protest has been peaceful and will always be peaceful. Those in power should understand the problems of the farmers. Farmers holding dead rat is an indirect way of warning the government that they could be forced to eat them in the future if their crops continue to wither, farmers' leader Ayyakannu said.

He also asked both the governments to ensure that demands of the farmers are met to ensure that they don't take any extreme step.

Mr Raja and Mr Yechury assured farmers that they will raise their issues inside and outside Parliament and accused the Union government of doing nothing to solve the agrarian crisis.
New Delhi: The BJP and the Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United) seem to have embarked upon a mission to mend fences, with some saffron strategists reportedly working behind the scenes to bring the JD(U) back into the NDA fold.

Kumar, whose party was once a part of the NDA, had walked out of the 17-year-old alliance in Bihar in 2013 when Narendra Modi was declared as the NDAs prime ministerial candidate.

Sources told this newspaper that secret talks were being held between top JD(U) and BJP leaders. Eyebrows were again raised when for the first time since Kumar ended his nearly two-decade alliance with the BJP, the partys senior leaders attended an official dinner at the chief ministers residence in Patna.

In the recent Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP got a massive mandate, sealing Modis leadership. That the ice between Kumar and Modi was now breaking became evident when the Bihar CM emerged as the only Opposition leader to praise the governments demonetisation policy.

After the UP victory, Kumar openly said the poor voted for the BJP. He also said the other Opposition parties, including the Congress, should not have criticised the demonetisation drive as the common man was supportive of it.

The Bihar chief minister is reportedly exploring options of rejoining the NDA after getting fed up with Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav. At present, Kumar heads a coalition government of the JD(U), RJD and the Congress in Bihar.

The RJD had recently suggested that Lalu Yadavs younger son Tejaswi Yadav be made the chief minister of Bihar by next year. It is interesting to note that the JD(U) remained out of the SP-Congress coalition in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.

Kumar also did not campaign for these parties, though his alliance partner Lalu Yadav campaigned for the SP-Congress alliance.

While the official reason given was that the Samajwadi Party had refused to part with even five seats and refused to ally with the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal, it was clear that the JD(U) wanted to maintain an equal distance from both sides.

Kumar has, however, engaged with Patidar Navnirman Sena leader Hardik Patel in Gujarat, and is also likely to address joint rallies with him in the Saurashtra region.
Chennai: She was catapulted to the post of AIADMK general secretary, was honoured with titles like Chinamma and Ilaya Puratchi Thalaivi and not even a day goes without ministers and senior leaders mentioning her name at the drop of a hat.

But V K Sasikala is conspicuous by her absence in posters and campaign material of the newly christened AIADMK (Amma) for the R K Nagar by-poll. Her nephew T T V Dinakaran, who is the candidate, and the party, seems to have abandoned her for the by-election, as result of negative public perception against her after J Jayalalithaas death.

Even cadres who join Mr Dhinakarans high-voltage campaign in the scorching sun display placards with images of only late M G Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa but not Sasikala. Not a word is said about Ms Sasikala in any of the speeches made by senior AIADMK leaders and ministers.

From the hoardings to posters to pamphlets to advertisements on the social media  Ms Sasikalas image has been completely blacked out in and around R K Nagar constituency. But, interestingly posters seeking votes for Mr Dhinakaran that adorn the walls outside the constituency prominently feature her.

The rebel OPS faction was quick to sense a political opportunity when it said the Sasikala-less campaign by the AIADMK (Amma) was an open admission that their jailed party chief was indeed a political liability. They are obviously scared and they know there is tremendous public anger against Sasikala and her family. And that is why Dhinakaran is scared of using her image in posters and banners, said Mr E. Madhusudhanan, the OPS candidate.

Political analyst Ramu Manivannan terms it a survival and hypocritical strategy and predicts that Ms Sasikala's image would return as presiding deity of the AIADMK once the polls are over.

This is a pure hypocritical strategy. They want to survive and win this election and now they avoid her picture. They very well know they can't use the picture of a person who is despised by the people. Once the elections are over, they would start worshipping her again, Mr Manivannan, Head of Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Madras, told Deccan Chronicle.

The party seems to take have taken the conscious decision of not using Ms Sasikala's image in their campaign material and an indication that the orders might have come from the top came on Monday when the party's manifesto for the constituency was released. The manifesto, which was released in the form of a pamphlet, did not have the picture of Ms Sasikala while it featured images of MGR, Jayalalithaa and Dravidian stalwart C N Annadurai.

Political commentator Gnani Sankaran said avoiding Chinnamma seems to be a conscious decision and the AIADMK might have decided to avoid using her images only to simplify things.

The AIADMK, after the death of Jayalalithaa, has been fighting a battle of perception with the general public, especially the younger lot, taking to the social media to publicly air their anger against Ms Sasikala and her family in the form of memes and videos.
A young man described himself as a dejected Muslim, and punctured the sharp analysis that was under way about the Uttar Pradesh defeat. The venue was a well-appointed seminar room at the India International Centre. Why dont we show our outrage like they do in America, the young Muslim wanted to know. People in America are out on the streets fighting for the refugees. Why are Indian opponents of Hindutva so full of wisdom and analysis but few, barring angry students in the universities, take to the streets? Its not that people are not fighting injustice. From Bastar to Kashmir, from Manipur to Manesar, peasants, workers, college students, tribespeople, dalits; they are fighting back. But they are vulnerable without a groundswell of mass support like we see in other countries. Off and on, political parties are capable of expressing outrage. A heartbreaking scene in Parliament is to see Congress MPs screaming their lungs out with rage, but thats usually when Sonia Gandhi is attacked or Rahul Gandhi belittled. Yet there is no hope of stopping the Hindutva march without accepting the Congress as a pivot to defeat the Modi-Yogi party in 2019.

Its a given. The slaughterhouses may or may not open any time soon, but an opposition win in 2019 is easier to foresee. It could be a pyrrhic victory, the way the dice is loaded, but it is the only way. Will the Congress join the battle without pushing itself as the natural claimant to power? Like it or not, there is no other opposition party with the reach of the Congress, even today. Should we be saddled with a party that rises to its feet to protect its leaders but has lost the habit of marching against the insults and torture that large sections of Indians endure daily? A common and valid fear is that the party is vulnerable before the IOUs its satraps may have signed with big league traders, who drive politics in India today. The Congress needs to ask itself bluntly: Who chose Mr Modi as prime minister? It was the same people that chose Manmohan Singh before him.

The fact is that India has come to be ruled by traders, though they have neither the vision nor the capacity to industrialise or modernise this country of 1.5 billion. The traders have thrived by funding ruling parties and keeping their options open with the opposition when necessary. Its like placing casino chips on the roulette table, which is what they have turned a once-robust democracy into. If theres religious fascism staring down Indias throat, theres someone financing it. The newspapers won't tell you all that. The traders own the papers. Nehru wasnt terribly impressed with the journalists. He fired his finance minister for flirting with their ilk. Indira Gandhi did one better. She installed socialism as a talisman against private profiteers in the preamble of the constitution. They hated her for that. The older Indian literature (Premchand) and cinema were quite a lot about their shady reality  Mother India, Foot Path, Do Bigha Zamin, Shree 420, to name a few.

The Congress must evict the agents of the moneybags known to surround its leadership. But theyre not the only reality the Congress must discard. It has to rid itself of soft Hindutva completely. For a start, the West Bengal, Karnataka, and Delhi Assemblies will need every opposition members support in the coming days. For better or worse, it is the Congress that still holds the key to 2019. After the 2014 shock, its vote has grown, not decreased. While everyone needs to think about 2019, the left faces a more daunting challenge. It knows that the Modi-Yogi party does not enjoy a majority of Indian votes. As the keystone in the needed coalition, the left must tweak its politics. It alone has the ability to lift the profile of the Indian ideology, which is still Nehruvian at its core.

By arrangement with Dawn
The most important result of the BJPs landslide victory in the elections to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly last month was not the installation of Hindutva diehard Adityanath Yogi as the chief minister. Within a few days of the stunning result, the finance minister introduced the Budget with 33 new unannounced clauses in various bills that immediately became law. This was done by passing them as money bills that does not require the Rajya Sabhas approval. This means that these amendments were passed without debate in a day. The government cleverly let MPs from major parties give their speeches before they dropped the amendment bomb  tweeted Meghnad, a BJD MP. The important changes to Indian law included making it compulsory for all taxpayers to submit an Aadhaar identity card by July 2017, their PAN card being no longer enough, and in none of the donations by cheque to political parties need the identities of the donors be revealed.

These were startling changes to the law with far-reaching implications. The Supreme Court had made it clear in October 2015 that Aadhaar was voluntary and could not be made mandatory. The court had repeated this position in September last year and made the Narendra Modi government remove a condition making it compulsory for students to give their Aadhaar numbers for various scholarship schemes. By allowing political parties to not disclose the names of large donors, the government was tightening the grip of big business over politics and giving a ready advantage to a ruling dispensation such as itself to corner most of the money. The Modi government was taking advantage of its strong win in UP to take steps that weakened the democratic nature of our polity. Its appointment of Adityanath Yogi  with several criminal cases of murder, intimidation and rioting against him  showed its confidence in pursuing a divisive right-wing path. It further showed its confidence in forming governments in Goa and Manipur despite not having the required majority.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley made a fantastic claim that the permanent account number (PAN), which is essential for all tax returns, is not reliable since many people have multiple PAN, which are used to evade tax. As an example, he said, though there are over 240 million PANs in the country, less than a million are linked to Aadhaar cards. This is the first time the government has made such a claim without bothering to verify it. The numbers are unbelievable, around 250 PAN cards for every card linked to Aadhaar, indicating that by giving his PAN card is enough for the taxpayer without the need for an Aadhaar card. Nevertheless, the government maintained that an advantage of linking Aadhaar to PAN will be a big source to gather banking transaction information, which can be an important indication of a persons income profile. It is part of the government tightening its surveillance of citizens. Nandan Nilekani, the first chairman of the scheme, succeeded in creating the worlds biggest surveillance engine, monitoring 1,200 million people, several times more than in any other country.

It ensures that any government will have complete access to all the data of the citizen and can use it to manipulate any one at will. Control of citizens is increasing by the day. Initially, people only had to get an Aadhaar card if they wanted subsidised LPG or kerosene, but the list expanded. Now, proof of enrollment in Aadhaar is necessary for several vulnerable groups  including women rescued from trafficking, workers engaged in forced labour, schoolchildren between six and 14 years of age and people with disabilities  to continue to receive government benefits. Schoolchildren, for instance, will not be served mid-day meals from June if they are unable to present their Aadhaar credentials. Now, since most people pay tax in one form or another, replacing the tried and tested PAN card with the superfluous Aadhaar will mean that surveillance will extend to increasing parts of life. Its becoming reminiscent of Nazi Germany, when a similar system was used to identify and isolate Jews and other minorities.

Much has been made between Aadhaar and the US social security number. But the differences are greater than any similarities. Aadhaar uses fingerprints and eye biometrics to identify the person uniquely. The social security number originated in the years of the Great Depression, when it was used to track the earnings of workers and compute the amount of social security benefits to be credited to their accounts. The US government decided not to collect fingerprints, since the use of fingerprints was associated in the public mind with criminal activity, making this approach undesirable, notes the Social Security Administration, And its website states: The card was never intended to serve as a personal identification document. Aadhaar is being used as an identifier to link databases, which makes it easy for government officials to gain access to personal user information, such as bank records, education data, health records, and for surveillance of phone calls and data usage. This data was not linked; under Aadhaar it is. Taking this further, the government is thinking of linking the Aadhaar number to mobile phone numbers.

The present governments rush to push for Aadhaar despite the Supreme Courts many objections and the misgivings of many critics is in line with its eagerness to push digital money transactions. It is not just an attempt at modernisation, but having greater control and surveillance. As the demonetisation experiment proved it could bring great inconvenience to the public but not necessarily affect the governments ability to put a spin on it to sway voters. Even more than demonetisation, Aadhaar could be sold as being good for the country since it gives greater control to the government. Government control is one thing. Private profit is another. Nandan Nilekani, in a foreword to a report by investment banker Credit-Suisse, noted that the use of Aadhaar by the financial sector could open up a $600 billion business opportunity. No wonder private companies are rushing to get their hands on the Aadhaar numbers.
The NASAs spacecraft Juno, orbiting around Jupiter, acquired the image of a Dark Spot through the JunoCam on Feb. 2, 2017 (Photo: NASA)

A NASA spacecraft on March 27 sent back an image of a Dark Spot found on the fifth planet ,Jupiter, in our solar system.

The NASAs spacecraft Juno, orbiting around Jupiter, acquired the image of a Dark Spot through the JunoCam on Feb. 2, 2017, at 5:13 am PDT (8:13 a.m. EDT), at an altitude of 9,000 miles (14,500 kilometers) above the giant planets cloud tops.

In ground-based images it was difficult to tell that it is a dark storm, reported NASA.

NASA revealed citizen scientist Roman Tkachenko enhanced the colour to bring out the rich detail in the storm and surrounding clouds.

Just south of the dark storm is a bright, oval-shaped storm with high, bright, white clouds, reminiscent of a swirling galaxy. As a final touch, he rotated the image 90 degrees, turning the picture into a work of art, NASA added.

This enhanced-color image of a mysterious dark spot on Jupiter seems to reveal a Jovian galaxy of swirling storms.

 NASA

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The US space agency Nasa has reported that Indias earth observation satellite Risat-1 had experienced a fragmentation event in September last year, when pieces appeared to have broken off. (Representational image)

Nellore: The US space agency Nasa has reported that Indias earth observation satellite Risat-1 had experienced a fragmentation event in September last year, when pieces appeared to have broken off. The report, in Nasas quarterly magazine Orbital Debris, said the cause was not known. An Isro official said there was some anomaly which had been rectified, and the satellite was functioning normally.

Risat-1 (Radar Imaging Satellite) was launched on April 26, 2012, on board a PSLV rocket. It had been in space for 4.4 years when the incident reported by Nasa occurred. The magazine said Risat-1 experienced the fragmentation event between 0200 and 0600 GMT (7.30 am and 11.30 am IST). Over 12 fragments were observed by the Space Surveillance Network of the US, it said. By November 8, only one piece, designated SSN 41797, had entered the catalog, having decayed  from orbit on October 12, 2016. The other pieces had decayed  moved away from the satellite  as well. Eventually, space debris in the near earth orbit tends to enter the earths atmosphere and burn up.

The magazine said the event was categorised as an anomalous separation of multiple high area-to-mass ratio debris. Events like this are sometimes referred to as a shedding event. Nasas Space Debris Programme continuously tracks 17,000 space objects and maintains record of all space debris  non-functional objects in space  as well as operational satellites.

When contacted for clarification, Isro spokesperson Deviprasad Karnik said the satellite was functioning normally. He said Isro scientists had corrected some anomaly which had nothing to do with what was reported in the Nasa magazine. Operating in the microwave frequency, Risat-1 carries a first of its kind synthetic aperture payload. The camera which enables imaging of the surface features during both the day and night under all weather conditions. The satellite can be used for management of natural disasters like flood and cyclones, monitoring crop especially paddy in the Kharif season, generic vegetation, forestry, soil moisture, geology, and sea ice.

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The officer later stated the car was moving at an estimated three miles per hour, police said.

In a second incident involving automated vehicles, a Phoenix police motorcycle was struck by a Tesla Model X operating on autopilot last week, one out of the two incidents involving automated vehicles in the Valley in a matter of days.

Phoenix police have confirmed the incident occurred on the afternoon of March 21, as the Tesla driver and an on-duty officer exited the Black Canyon Freeway onto Utopia Road.

The officer was in front of the Tesla driver, has stopped for a stoplight, police said. After stopping briefly, the Tesla began moving forward causing the officer to move away. The car struck the fallen motorcycle, but no damage was reported to either vehicle.

The officer later stated the car was moving at an estimated three miles per hour, police said.

The Tesla driver has stated that the car was in autopilot mode at the time of the incident, but Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Alan Pfohl stated that investigators were unable to confirm that statement.

Because it was a minor collision, there will be no further probe. The officer was not harmed, and there were no citations issued.

A police report is pending approval before it will be released. Police have declined to release the names of the officer or the Tesla driver.

On Friday, a Volvo SUV belonging to Ubers fleet of autonomous vehicles collided with another vehicle whose driver failed to yield while making a left turn. The Uber car ended up on its side but no one was seriously injured. The car was in self-driving mode with a test driver behind the wheel and another in the passenger seat.

The collision prompted Uber to suspend its program as it investigated the incident, but a spokesperson for the company said the fleet will be redeployed soon.

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Van Breda, who is out on bail, has agreed not to contact witnesses, including his sister. (Photo: AP)

Johannesburg: A 22-year-old South African man appeared in court on Monday on charges of murdering three members of his family with an axe in their luxury home in Cape Town in January 2015.

Henri Van Breda, who handed himself over the police in September 2016, is accused of murdering his father Martin, 54, a wealthy businessman, his mother Teresa, 55, and older brother Rudi, 22, in a frenzied early morning axe attack in the heart of South Africa's western Cape vineyard area.

His younger sister Marli, who was 16 at the time of the attack, was left for dead on a balcony. She survived, despite a cut to her jugular vein and severe head injuries.

Van Breda appeared calm and smiled briefly as he appeared in the packed court room wearing a blue suite.

The case was postponed to April 24 because the defence said it had not received crucial DNA reports about the murder weapon from the state.

Van Breda, who is out on bail, has agreed not to contact witnesses, including his sister. He is also forbidden from being within 500 meters (yards) of an airport or a harbour.

According to police, when officers arrived at the crime scene they found Van Breda sitting outside the house, wearing sleeping shorts and white socks stained with the blood of the victims. He was taken in for questioning and later brought back to the house, where investigators found a bloodstained axe and kitchen knife. He was later released into the care of an uncle.

Marli van Breda, who has been living with other members of the extended family, is suffering amnesia and unable to recall the incident.

On the morning of the attack van Breda had phoned his girlfriend at 4 am but only called paramedics three hours later.

A recording of van Breda phoning the emergency services emerged in which he can be heard telling the operator: "My family and I were attacked by a guy with an axe."
The fiscal gap in Spains pensions system is getting wider every year. Job creation has been growing at a rate of 3% over the past two years, and consequently so have Social Security affiliations. But this increase in revenue for the system still does not match spending.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Labor Minister Fatima Banez. Bernardo Perez

This explains why, in 2016, Social Security ran a deficit that broke its own record, which had been set only a year earlier. This deficit (which covers pensions, not unemployment benefits) was at least 18.6 billion, according to provisional Labor Ministry figures.

Considering that average affiliation last year was 17.6 million, this means that every worker signed up with the system has a deficit share of more than 1,000.

The government insists that the solution to the Social Security deficit is to regain all the jobs that were lost during the long economic crisis

Ever since the Spanish pensions system slipped into the red in 2011, this fiscal gap has kept on growing. Reforms were passed in a bid to contain the rise in spending, but these have not yet developed their full cost-cutting potential.

And the increase in affiliations through job creation is not growing at a fast enough pace to reduce this gap, according to the figures that the ministry has handed over to the unions and employer associations. Additionally, many of the new jobs are low-paying and often temporary, meaning that their contributions to the system are small.

Labor Minister Fatima Banez had already warned Congress that this deficit would be something like 1.7% of GDP. This number coincides with the recent ministry figures, which show a Social Security deficit of between 18.6 and 18.8 billion, a 2 billion rise from the previous year. The final figure will be released later this week, before the 2017 budget plan is officially presented on Friday.

Many of the new jobs are low-paying and often temporary, meaning that their contributions to the system are small

Contributions to Social Security, which are closely tied to jobs, represent over 80% of the systems entire budget and are its main source of funding. These contributions grew 3.15% last year on the back of a better job market, yet the revenues are still falling short of the systems pension payments, which grew at a rate of 5.87%.

A pending reform

So far this year, Social Security revenues have been growing even faster than last year, at a pace of around 6% according to Banezs own account. But this percentage is an internal number provided by the agency itself, and not necessarily the final official figure.

For several months now, a parliamentary committee has been hearing experts lay out various proposals for closing the fiscal gap in the system. The government has simultaneously opened talks with the CC OO and UGT unions, and with the employer associations CEOE and Cepyme. But negotiations are progressing slowly, and there is no sign of a quick deal on the horizon. On Monday, a UGT spokeswoman, Maricarmen Barrera, described the situation as being on stand-by.

The government keeps reiterating that the solution to the Social Security deficit is to regain all the jobs that were lost during the long economic crisis. But an analysis of the figures suggests that something more is required to bump up the systems resources. One of the options on the table is raising the monthly contribution rates. Another is funneling more funds from the national budget.

One of the reasons for the systems rising expenditures is the fact that new pensions being paid out now to recent retirees are 38.3% higher that the retirement benefits of older people who are passing away. This is because new retirees tend to have longer and better-paid careers than older pensioners, which means their lifetime contributions to Social Security were higher.

English version by Susana Urra.
Congressman Darrell Issa insisted that his move would bring the best talents to the US and help fix the flaws in the existing H-1B system. (Photo: AP)

Washington: Indian firms, which account for the bulk of H-1B visas, have "gamed" the system, an influential American lawmaker on Tuesday alleged and insisted his legislation introduced in the Congress will help fix the existing flaws.

Congressman Darrell Issa, who recently introduced the legislation which calls for an increase in the salary of H-1B workers, insisted that his move would bring the best talents to the US and help fix the flaws in the existing H-1B system.

"The president supports (the bill). I think we will have strong support in the Senate," he told a Washington audience at an event hosted by Atlantic Council at the Capitol Visitor Center.

He alleged that Indian companies have "gamed the system" and made the "best use of this flawed immigration system".

"You can't have 75 per cent of a programme going to an Indian-owner, Indian operated, Indian employee visas and not say that this is distortion," Mr Issa said, adding it's common sense to hire the best and not the other way around.

"It would be interesting that India would be concerned that a relatively simple change (in H-1B visas) that does not target India, somehow happens to be accommodation for India," he said.

"Today 75 per cent of all H-1Bs are coming in about $ 60-65,000, which is pretty absurd considering these are high-skilled visas... If they were told to write $ 1,00,000 and you will get your H-1B, they will write that check," he said.

The lawmaker from California called for fixing the system and removing the country-based caps. He also said increasing the salary would raise the quality of people coming to the US.

"An auction system is not a bad way to go," he said. "A graduate with a STEM degree from a US university is not going to take a job with $ 60,000 salary. And that's the reality," said the Congressman.

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows American firms to employ foreign workers in occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. The technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year.
The Georgia branch of the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the state on March 23. The Georgia branch of the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the state on March 23.

Washington: A civil rights group is suing the US state of Georgia because it will not let a couple give their toddler daughter "Allah" as her last name.

Parents Elizabeth Handy and Bilal Walk want to name their 22-month-old daughter ZalyKha Graceful Lorraina Allah.

But state officials at the Department of Public Health said that under Georgia law, the child's last name should either be Handy, Walk or a combination of the two, according to the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper.

The Georgia branch of the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the state on March 23.

"Government has no business telling parents what they can and cannot name their children," said ACLU of Georgia Executive Director, Andrea Young.

The parents said they said gave her the child the name Allah because it was "noble" and it had nothing to do with religion. The parents said that because of the state's actions, they cannot get a birth certificate for the child and therefore they cannot obtain a social security number either.

They also fear they will have problems with access to health care, schools and travel, the paper reported. "It is just plainly unfair and a violation of our rights," Walk said.

Young of the ACLU said: "The department's actions interfere with the couple's right to raise their child and are a clear violation of the right to freedom of speech and the right to equal protection under the law."
Manhattan District Attorney, Cyrus Vance says James Jackson, 28, 'prowled the streets of New York for three days in search of a black person to assassinate.' (Photo: AFP)

New York: A white US Army veteran faced terror and racism charges on Monday as he was indicted for fatally stabbing a 66-year-old black man.

James Jackson, 28, "prowled the streets of New York for three days in search of a black person to assassinate in order to launch a campaign of terrorism against our Manhattan community and the values we celebrate," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement.

"Last week, with total presence of mind, he acted on his plan, randomly selecting a beloved New Yorker solely on the basis of his skin colour and stabbing him repeatedly and publicly on a Midtown street corner."

He was formally charged in New York State Supreme Court with one count each of murder in the first and second degrees as an act of terrorism, murder in the second degree as a hate crime, as well as three counts of criminal possession of a weapon.

The March 20 attack comes as several major US cities including New York grapple with an increase in hate crimes.

Police say Jackson admitted stabbing Timothy Caughman multiple times near the low-rent shelter where the victim lived. Caughman managed to walk two blocks to a police station but was pronounced dead at an area hospital.

Jackson -- who served in the US Army from 2009 to 2012, a stint that included a tour of duty in Afghanistan -- turned himself in to police in Times Square on Wednesday, according to local media reports.

He told police he considered the killing to be "practice prior to going to Times Square to kill additional black men," according to the complaint.

It said he was "angered by black men mixing with white women."

The ex-serviceman told police he had travelled to the city on a bus from his home in Baltimore, about 170 miles (275 kilometres) to the south.

Jackson attended a prestigious secondary school in Baltimore, and in 2009 joined the Army in intelligence. In addition to the Afghanistan tour, he was stationed for some time in Baumholder, Germany, according to US media.

He arrived in New York on Friday and took a hotel room under a false name. Then he said he would start the first of many murders of black men that he planned.

When questioned by police after his surrender, there was no indication where the hate developed.

A law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity since the investigation is continuing, told the Times that: "He told the cops, 'I've hated black men since I was a kid. I've had these feelings since I was a young person. I hate black men.'"

A former landlord told the Times that Jackson was months behind on his rent, and a filthy tenant.

"He definitely had some issues of some kind," Marcus Dagan told the paper. "How do you describe it? He was off."

Jackson, who surrendered near Times Square, told police he selected New York to start a killing rampage.

His victim, a former youth corps division leader who recently spent most days returning bottles for five cents each, lived in a humble hotel room for two decades.

As Caughman rooted for garbage and cans in a dumpster, a white man in a long coat approached him from behind, pulling a sword from it.

On Wednesday, Vance's office launched a "Too New York To Hate" campaign to encourage victims and witnesses of violence against an ethnic group, community or religion to come forward to testify.
Kuala Lumpur: The body of the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is still in Malaysia, the country's health minister said Tuesday, dismissing reports that his remains were about to be flown out of the country as part of diplomatic negotiations.

Malaysian authorities say Kim Jong Nam 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.

Conflicting reports in the local media on Monday said either that Kim's body was to be cremated and flown to Pyongyang, or that the body was about to be sent to Macau where his family is believed to be.

But Health Minister Subramaniam Sathasivam said Kim's body was still in a morgue pending negotiations with North Korea.

"I need to check with my forensic department whether there is any requirement for them to take the body out. But as far as we are concerned, there has been no change," he said.

Kim's death has sparked a diplomatic dispute, with the countries imposing an exit ban on each other's citizens. Malaysian officials have pledged to secure the release of nine Malaysians - three embassy staff and six family members - stranded in Pyongyang but have been tight lipped on the negotiations.

About 315 North Koreans are in Malaysia but the focus is on three of the seven North Korean suspects wanted by police in connection to Kim's death. Police have said the three men, including the embassy's second official and a worker with North Korean carrier Air Koryo, are believed to be hiding in the embassy.

Four others left the country on the day of the killing. Confusion set in after local media reported that Kim's body was taken out of the morgue late Sunday. Later reports then said it had been returned to the hospital due to technical problems with airline cargo.

Subramaniam said the government will keep the body until a solution is found "to this problem." "Once they finish the discussion and come to a definite decision, we will make an announcement," he said, in reference to the negotiations.

The countries have each expelled the other's ambassador. North Korea then blocked all Malaysians from leaving until a "fair settlement" of the case was reached. Malaysia followed suit, by barring North Koreans from exiting its soil.

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.

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.
Trader Lim Choon Hong, 48, was sentenced to three weeks in jail and fined Sg$10,000 ($7,200), while his wife Chong Sui Foon, also 48, was jailed three months, the couple's lawyer said. (Photo: YouTube Screengrab)

Singapore: A Singaporean couple who starved their Philippine maid until she weighed just 29 kilogrammes (64 pounds) were jailed Monday, in a case described as "shocking" by prosecutors who are appealing for stiffer sentences.

Trader Lim Choon Hong, 48, was sentenced to three weeks in jail and fined Sg$10,000 ($7,200), while his wife Chong Sui Foon, also 48, was jailed three months, the couple's lawyer said.

Both were convicted last year of violating employment laws for failing to provide enough food for their maid, Thelma Oyasan Gawidan, over a 15-month period in 2013 and 2014 at the couple's condominium in the posh Orchard Road area.

State prosecutors, who have described the systematic starvation as "downright shocking in its extremity and severity" are appealing the sentences and pushing for the pair to be jailed for the maximum 12 months.

Gawidan, who is in her 40s, lost almost 20 kg during her time working for the couple, who only allowed her to eat two meals a day, usually a few slices of white bread and small portions of instant noodles prepared by Chong.

She had no access to her mobile phone, was not allowed to go out on her own to buy food, and only allowed to shower twice a week.

Gawidan ran away in April 2014 and called a compatriot for help.

She was taken to a migrant workers' shelter which helped her file a complaint with the manpower ministry.

The couple's lawyer Raymond Lye said they will remain out on bail pending the prosecution's appeal, adding that they were "remorseful and sincere in expressing their regret".

Many Singapore households depend on foreign domestic help. In 2016 there were 239,700 foreign maids working in the affluent city-state, mostly from Indonesia and the Philippines.
Kim Jong Un also has said North Korea is close to an ICBM test-launch. (Photo: AP)

Geneva: North Korea has carried out another test of a rocket engine that US officials believe could be part of its programme to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile, said officials on Monday.

The latest test follows one earlier this month, and is another sign of Pyongyang's advancing weapons programme. It comes amid mounting US concerns about additional missile and nuclear tests, potentially in the near future.

Several US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the test took place on Friday night and the engine could possibly be used in an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

Earlier this month North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country had conducted a test of a new high-thrust engine at its Tongchang-ri rocket launch station, saying it was "a new birth" of its rocket industry.

At the time, North Korea's official media said the engine would help it achieve world-class satellite launch capability, indicating the test was of a new type of rocket engine for long-range missiles.

Kim also has said North Korea is close to an ICBM test-launch.

North Korea has been testing rocket engines and heat-shields for an ICBM while developing the technology to guide a missile after re-entry into the atmosphere following a lift-off, experts have said.

Once fully developed, a North Korean ICBM could threaten the continental United States, which is around 9,000 km (5,500 miles) from the North. ICBMs have a minimum range of about 5,500 km (3,400 miles), but some are designed to travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles) or farther.

The reclusive state has conducted five nuclear tests and a series of missile launches in defiance of UN resolutions.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said during a visit to the region that a military response would be "on the table" if Pyongyang took action to threaten South Korea and US forces.

The Trump administration is still deliberating its policy on North Korea, but appears to be giving priority to less risky options than pre-emptive military strikes.

It is considering sweeping sanctions aimed at cutting North Korea off from the global financial system as part of a broad review of measures to counter Pyongyang's nuclear and missile threat.
If the draft law is passed by Italys parliament, companies will have to give three paid days off every month to women who get bad aches.

Rome: Italy is set to become the first country in Europe to offer paid menstrual leave to women suffering from period pain.

Romes lower house of parliament has started discussions on a draft law which, if approved, will mean all companies in Italy will have to allow women who experience painful periods an extra three days off a month, the Daily Mail reported.

The Italian edition of womens magazine Marie Claire described it as a standard-bearer of progress and social sustainability. But the bill has drawn criticism from some womens rights campaigners who fear that the new law will discourage firms from hiring women, the Mail reported.

Lorenza Pleuteri wrote in womens magazine Donna Moderna (Moder Woman): Employers could become even more oriented to hire men rather than women.

Miriam Goi, a feminist writer at Vice Italy, also said the new law could end up reinforcing stereotypes about women being more emotional during their periods.

Italy has one of the lowest rates of female workers in Europe, only 61 per cent. The European average is 72 per cent. This is in part due to the reluctance of companies to hire women or retain them after they become mothers. According to a report by ISTAT, Italys national bureau of statistics, almost one-fourth of pregnant workers are fired during or right after their pregnancies. According to the Daily Mail Italian labour laws are already quite generous to women. Italian women are entitled to five months paid maternity leave, on which they receive 80 per cent of their salary. Mothers can then take an extra six months' leave, receiving 30 per cent of their salaries.

It is unclear whether women would have to prove if they are suffering from menstrual pain.
China has refused to confirm speculation over whether it plans to declare an air defence identification zone over the South China Sea. (Photo: Representational/AP)

Beijing: A report from a US think tank says China has nearly completed construction work on three man-made islands in the South China Sea, giving it the ability to deploy combat aircraft and other military assets to the disputed region.

The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies analyzed recent satellite photos and concluded that runways, aircraft hangers, radar sites and hardened surface-to-air missile shelters have either been finished or are nearing completion.

The report, released on Monday, appears to be the most conclusive indication yet that China is using its island-building project to give teeth to its claim over almost the entire South China Sea and its islands and reefs.

The islands in the study - Subi, Mischief and Fiery Cross reefs - are part of the Spratly chain, which is claimed in whole or in part by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei.

On each of the islands, China has constructed enough concrete hangers for 24 fighter jets and four or five larger planes such as bombers or early warning aircraft, CSIS reported.

China already uses an existing airfield on Woody Island in the similarly disputed Paracel chain, located to the north, where it has maintained mobile HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles for more than a year and deployed anti-ship cruise missiles on at least one occasion, CSIS said.

The airfields and advanced surveillance and early warning radars will allow China's military to operate over virtually the entire South China Sea.

"Beijing can now deploy military assets, including combat aircraft and mobile missile launchers, to the Spratly Islands at any time," the report said.

China's creation of seven man-made islands in the South China Sea has drawn strong criticism from the US and others, who accuse Beijing of further militarising the region and altering geography to bolster its claims.

China says its island construction is mainly for civilian purposes, particularly to increase safety for ships that carry an estimated USD 5 trillion worth of goods through the waterway each year. It has also provided reassurances that it will not interfere with freedom of navigation or overflight, although questions remain as to whether that includes military ships and aircraft.

Commenting on the report, a senior Philippine defence official said the construction China has carried out on the islands "belies a clearly military purpose contrary to Chinese public pronouncements that it is civilian in nature."

That raises the likelihood of further militarisation and restrictions on air and sea traffic, posing a "clear and present danger to the present regional security balance," said the official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters on the matter.

China has refused to confirm speculation over whether it plans to declare an air defence identification zone over the South China Sea as it has done already over international airspace in the East China Sea.

The US has refused to recognise the East China Sea zone, which requires aircraft to declare their flight plans, identify themselves to Chinese traffic monitors and follow their instructions.
Islamabad: Voicing "serious concerns" overgrowing strategic partnership between US and India, Pakistan has said "logistic exchange pact" between the two countries has put the vision of 'Asia's century' in serious jeopardy.

"Inter-state tensions in the region and significant investments in blue water navies by countries like India have brought oceans into focus as sensitive security space," said Lt Gen (retd) Nasser Khan Janjua, Pakistan Prime Minister

Nawaz Sharif's adviser on national security.

Speaking at a national maritime conference yesterday, Janjua underscored the importance of maritime security and said the vision of 'Asia's century" was under stress as "security architecture and strategic stability of the region has come under stress".

He pointed towards the Indo-US logistics exchange agreement, through which India and the US have carved out space to pre-position themselves on this ocean, the Express Tribune reported today.

"India is being propped up as a counter-weight to China through geo-political, geo-economic and geo-military moves," he was quoted as saying by the paper.

India and the US last year signed a crucial logistics defence pact that will enable their militaries to use each other's assets and bases for repair and replenishment of supplies, making joint operations more efficient.

The conference, attended by policymakers, legislators, maritime experts, and academics, was held to analyse the challenges in the realm of maritime security emanating from militarisation and nuclearisation of the Indian Ocean and power projection by states maintaining presence in the area.

It was proposed that India may also be roped in to the connectivity net as it was identified as the only way forward towards promoting peace and stability in the region and ensuring the security of investments like the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
Islamabad: Snapping of Indo-Pak peace talks by India due to militant attacks has only benefited the terrorists, Pakistan's new envoy to the US Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry has said.

"Whenever Pakistan and India move towards peace, there is a militant attack and India suspends peace talks. I think it encourages the terrorists," Chaudhry told BBC Urdu in Washington.

Replying to a question about the arrest of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief and Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed, he said, "We don't want to send any negative message from Pakistan to the international community."

Chaudhry said Pakistan wants peaceful relations with India and reiterated the Pakistan government's stance that the relationship should be based on mutual respect.

"Our stance is very clear: we want to have peaceful and friendly relations with India based on mutual respect," he said. He also rejected the notion that dreaded Haqqani network is linked with Pakistan.

"They (Haqqanis) are neither our friends nor our proxies. Those playing with human lives, we are against such elements or activities. We do not want that they should commit terrorism against anyone, America or Afghanistan. It is wrong to kill innocent people," he said.

Afghanistan has long blamed Pakistan for not taking action against Haqqani network sanctuaries on its soil, alleging that this has allowed insurgency there to sustain.

"We decimated the sanctuaries of terrorists and solved the problems inherited from the times of Afghan jihad (against the Soviet army)," he said, referring to the series of military operation Pakistan has conducted in the tribal regions.

"Declaring Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism is far from reality. It is wishful thinking by a few individuals who try to exaggerate such stories," he said.

Earlier this month, a bill was moved in the US House of Representative that seeks to declare Pakistan a "state sponsor of terrorism". He said the new US president Donald Trump has positive views about Pakistan.

"If you want to know Donald Trump's views about Pakistan, then you should read the conversation he had with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (soon after his ascension to the White House)."
In 2014, a 27-year-old woman from the northern Argentinean province of Tucuman went to her local hospital with a serious vaginal hemorrhage. The duty doctor diagnosed a spontaneous miscarriage, but the young woman, who has been named only as Belen, was subsequently accused of having disposed of the fetus in one of the hospitals washrooms. She was arrested and later sentenced to eight years in jail for aggravated murder in a trial riddled with irregularities.

A march in Buenos Aires in 2016 calling for the release of Belen. Telam

More information Absuelta una joven argentina que estuvo dos anos presa por un aborto

Belen spent more than two years behind bars until August, when the Tucuman Supreme Court ordered her release after a long-running nationwide campaign. Seven months later, the court has now acquitted her.

In overturning the lower tribunals decision, the provincial Supreme Court also highlighted the importance of professional confidentiality, the rights of women who have undergone an abortion and the right for women to be treated with dignity and not subjected to violence.

Belen is very excited and very happy, her lawyer, Soledad Deza, told EL PAIS, saying that the ruling will set a precedent to prevent other women from being treated in the same manner. Belen not only saw the right to confidentiality owed to her as a patient who had suffered an abortion ignored, but was also sentenced without evidence being presented against her. The court found her guilty of the murder of a 32-week-old fetus found in a washroom in the hospital, although its advanced state of decomposition made it impossible to carry out a DNA analysis.

This ruling provides justice twice over: for Belen and all other women who do not want to be mothers and that face spontaneous or voluntary abortion. I believe this ruling will encourage women to use the public health system because they now know they will not be arrested when they leave, says Deza.

Belen is now considering whether to bring legal action against the Argentinean state. There is a state responsibility for the time she has lost and for the violation of her rights that led to her losing her freedom and changed the course of her life, adds Deza.

Around half a million women undergo privately carried out abortions each year in Argentina

The case made headlines in Argentina and abroad. The United Nations and Amnesty International joined local organizations in demanding Belens release. The sentence once again put the spotlight on abortion rights in Argentina, which are only granted in cases of rape and serious health risk to the mother. Despite being illegal in all other cases, around half-a-million women undergo privately performed abortions each year, while complications resulting from them are the main cause of maternal death there.

English version by Nick Lyne.
US President Donald Trump today called up Prime Minister Narendra Modi and congratulated him on his recent electoral success, the White House said.



Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump congratulated Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on their electoral victories.



The White House said the leaders spoke by phone. "The president spoke with German Chancellor Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Modi earlier today to congratulate them on their parties' success in recent elections," Spicer said.



Following the elections held in five states that begun on February 4 and ended on March 9 after polling was rescheduled in some constituencies, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party formed the government in four states: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.



It, however, lost Punjab to main rival Congress in the results announced on March 11. Anchored mainly by Modi and his aide Amit Shah, the BJP juggernaut rolled on in Uttar Pradesh and in the neighbouring state of Uttarakhand, bagging three-fourth majority.



The BJP returned to power in the politically-crucial state of UP after a gap of 15 years during which regional parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party held sway.

Goa and Manipur had hung assemblies after the polls, but the BJP managed to form the government with support from other regional parties.



The elections in the five states had turned into a virtual referendum on Modi's popularity following his much-debated decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.



Previously, Modi and Trump talked by phone on January 24, when they had resolved to stand "shoulder-to-shoulder" in the global fight against terrorism and for defence and security.



According to a White House statement then, Trump had "emphasised that the US considers India a true friend and partner in addressing challenges around the world." The two leaders had exchanged invitations for visits.



"President Trump looked forward to hosting Prime Minister Modi in the US later this year," the statement had said. Prime Minister Modi was the fifth foreign leader Trump had spoken to on phone after he was sworn-in as the US president on January 20. He had by then spoken to British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canada's Justin Trudeau, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.



After his surprise victory in the November 8 elections in the US, Modi was among the first world leaders to congratulate Trump. And during the gruelling election campaign, India and Israel were the two prominent countries Trump spoke of strengthening ties if he were to become the president.
Snapping of Indo-Pak peace talks by India due to militant attacks has only benefited the terrorists, Pakistan's new envoy to the US Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry has said.



"Whenever Pakistan and India move towards peace, there is a militant attack and India suspends peace talks. I think it encourages the terrorists," Chaudhry told BBC Urdu in Washington.



Replying to a question about the arrest of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief and Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed, he said, "We don't want to send any negative message from Pakistan to the international community."



Chaudhry said Pakistan wants peaceful relations with India and reiterated the Pakistan government's stance that the relationship should be based on mutual respect.



"Our stance is very clear: we want to have peaceful and friendly relations with India based on mutual respect," he said.



He also rejected the notion that dreaded Haqqani network is linked with Pakistan.

"They (Haqqanis) are neither our friends nor our proxies. Those playing with human lives, we are against such elements or activities. We do not want that they should commit terrorism against anyone, America or Afghanistan. It is wrong to kill innocent people," he said.



Afghanistan has long blamed Pakistan for not taking action against Haqqani network sanctuaries on its soil, alleging that this has allowed insurgency there to sustain.

"We decimated the sanctuaries of terrorists and solved the problems inherited from the times of Afghan jihad (against the Soviet army)," he said, referring to the series of military operation Pakistan has conducted in the tribal regions.



"Declaring Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism is far from reality. It is wishful thinking by a few individuals who try to exaggerate such stories," he said.



Earlier this month, a bill was moved in the US House of Representative that seeks to declare Pakistan a "state sponsor of terrorism".



He said the new US president Donald Trump has positive views about Pakistan.

"If you want to know Donald Trump's views about Pakistan, then you should read the conversation he had with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (soon after his ascension to the White House)."


Voicing "serious concerns" over growing strategic partnership between US and India, Pakistan has said "logistic exchange pact" between the two countries has put the vision of 'Asia's century' in serious jeopardy.



"Inter-state tensions in the region and significant investments in blue water navies by countries like India have brought oceans into focus as sensitive security space," said Lt Gen (retd) Nasser Khan Janjua, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's adviser on national security.



Speaking at a national maritime conference yesterday, Janjua underscored the importance of maritime security and said the vision of 'Asia's century" was under stress as "security architecture and strategic stability of the region has come under stress".



He pointed towards the Indo-US logistics exchange agreement, through which India and the US have carved out space to pre-position themselves on this ocean, the Express Tribune reported today.



"India is being propped up as a counter-weight to China through geo-political, geo-economic and geo-military moves," he was quoted as saying by the paper.

India and the US last year signed a crucial logistics defence pact that will enable their militaries to use each other's assets and bases for repair and replenishment of supplies, making joint operations more efficient.



The conference, attended by policymakers, legislators, maritime experts, and academics, was held to analyse the challenges in the realm of maritime security emanating from militarisation and nuclearisation of the Indian Ocean and power projection by states maintaining presence in the area.



It was proposed that India may also be roped in to the connectivity net as it was identified as the only way forward towards promoting peace and stability in the region and ensuring the security of investments like the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
Agitating meat sellers and exporters held talks with Uttar Pradesh health minister Siddhartha Nath Singh on the second day of their strike but no rapprochement appeared in sight. "We have noted all the issues raised by them with an open mind. The Uttar Pradesh government will not allow anything illegal to happen," Singh said after the meeting as he directed officials not act in over-zealousness or overstep their jurisdiction.



The office bearers of the associations have submitted a memorandum to the state government and now want to meet Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Aditya Nath Yogi. "We look forward to working with them within the system. If needed, we will meet again," Singh said. He said the government is acting only against illegal abattoirs.



"We are acting only against illegal abattoirs. Licenced slaughter houses are requested to stick to the norms. The licenced slaughter houses should comply with the norms mentioned in the licence and need not to fear. No orders have been issued to take any action against any shop selling chicken, fish or eggs," he said.



Singh however said that if officials were insisting on checking the licence of meat shops, there was "nothing wrong" in it. "We are acting as per the provisions of the law and not on the basis of any pre-conceived notions," he said. Meanwhile, the indefinite strike called by meatsellers and mutton shop owners entered its second day and threatened to go on for much longer.



"The strike called by mutton sellers would continue at least till the end of Navaratra (April 5). It may be extended further depending upon the outcome of talks," Mubeen Qureshi, an office bearer of Lucknow Bakra Gosht Vyapar Mandal said. The sale of fish, egg and chicken was normal in the state capital but mutton lovers continued to be disappointed. As the hindu festival of 'Navratras' has begun, the demand for non-vegetarian food is expected to relatively come down for the next few days.



Iqbal Qureshi, president of Meat-Murga Vyapaari Kalyan Samiti, UP, said the state government has started initiating action against the illegal slaughter houses, but the action has affected the shopkeepers and their livelihood. Secretary general of All India Meat and Livestock Exporters Association D B Sabharwal while expressing his concerns over the prevailing sitaution, said, "Due to the crackdown, the livelihood of many people is in jeopardy."



Lucknow Municipal Corporation Chief Veterinary Officer A K Rao said, "Within the municipal limits, there are 330 meat shops." A rough estimate suggests that there could be around 5,000 meat shops in the capital operating from shanties and huts, he said. However, there was no authentic data for the entire state.


Five people were arrested for assaulting some Nigerian students in Greater Noida, as the Minister of External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj, stepped in to reassure the safety of Africans studying and living in the city in Uttar Pradesh. Sushma called up Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and discussed with him the measures needed to be taken to bring the perpetrators to justices and ensure safety of the African students in Greater Noida.



I have spoken to Yogi Adityanathji, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, about attack on African students in Greater Noida. He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident, the external affairs minister posted on Twitter on Tuesday.



The Ministry of External

Affairs too issued a statement terming the incident of attacks on Africans as deplorable. The government is committed to ensuring safety and security of all foreigners in India. People from Africa, including students and youth, remain our valued partners, Gopal Baglay, official spokesperson of the MEA, said. The incident took place on Monday when a mob assaulted four Nigerian students in Greater Noida. A large number of students from Africa come to study in educational institutions in Greater Noida.



At the receiving end

The African community in Greater Noida was at the receiving end of the wrath of local people after Manish, a teenager from the city, died apparently due to narcotics overdose. The African community is generally accused of drug peddling. Police arrested some Nigerians after the death of Manish, but released them after questioning due to lack of evidence. This irked the local residents who took out a protest march. Some of the protesters assaulted the four Nigerians.



Sushma stepped in after Sadiq Bello, a Nigerian student at Sharda University in Greater Noida, drew her attention to the incident on Twitter. Bello described the situation as life-threatening, prompting the external affairs minister and the MEA to swing into action. Minister of State for External Affairs, M J Akbar, apprised the acting high commissioner of Nigeria the steps being taken by local authorities for the safety of Nigerians in Greater Noida.



The external affairs minister has spoken to the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. Law enforcement authorities of the district have made arrests and are investigating into this matter. They are also taking necessary steps to keep the situation under control, said Baglay.
Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force chief R P Sharma got cracking soon after taking charge of the post. Two days after he was assigned additional charge of BMTF, Sharma held a meeting with his subordinates and asked them to show progress in cases registered in the past and action taken on complaints. Sources in the BMTF said he gave the BMTF police 10 days to submit a detailed action taken report.



The major fallout of the change in guard was felt in the Bengaluru district authorities as they have been asked to furnish the progress made in the complaints pertaining to encroachment of lakes and stormwater drains.



An officer in the Bengaluru urban district said a BMTF inspector has sought the progress in the case related to Venkatarayana Kere, a tank measuring 4 acres, 15 guntas in Gubbalala village off Kanakapura Road. Just now, our officers prepared a reply and sent it to BMTF. The BDA has encroached upon the tank and formed a layout. The BMTF has already registered an FIR in this case, said the officer. Along with it, details of more lakes and stormwater drains have been sought in which some big builders are involved, the officer said.




A member of the Yuva Janata Dal (S) has filed a complaint with the cyber police on Tuesday against a person for defaming former prime minister Deve Gowda on social media.



The complainant Ramesh Gowda stated that on March 24, 2017, a person named Jagadish alias Jaggi had posted on his Facebook and Twitter accounts that Deve Gowda was anti-national and a traitor. He had forwarded several derogatory messages through WhatsApp trying to defame Deve Gowda, police said.



The complainant also stated that Jagadish was trying to show Deve Gowda and JD(S) in bad light. The police should arrest him and ensure all his social media accounts are blocked. Based on the complaint, an FIR was lodged and efforts are on to trace Jagadish.
Central Crime Branch sleuths arrested four persons for trying to exchange demonetised notes and recovered Rs 4.98 crore in Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denominations and four mobile phones from them.



In the first case, Rs 3 crore was recovered from Nanjunda (46), a resident of Shanthinagar, Bengaluru. On a tip-off, the police arrested the suspect when he was waiting for customers in his car opposite New Shanthi Sagar hotel on Bull Temple Road in Shankarpuram, Basavanagudi. Two of his associates fled on seeing the police. The sleuths are interrogating him to ascertain the sources of the notes.



In the second case, the sleuths arrested Ambrose (42), a resident of Jayanagar, Arif Pasha (34) of Bannerghatta Main Road and Felix (35) from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala and recovered demonetised notes worth Rs 1.98 crore, two cars and three mobile phones.



The police caught them in front of Shivali hotel near Bhashyam Circle in Rajajinagar II Block when they were waiting for customers. They claimed that they received notes from various sources in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.



Deer antlers seized

CCB police arrested three persons and recovered 56 deer antlers and a goods vehicle. The suspects were Vinod D Devendrappa (28), a resident of Chennagiri taluk, Davangere district; Manjunath (31) of Hosur Main Road and Shekhar (35) of Nelamangala.



The police arrested them when they were trying to sell the deer antlers in Yeshwantpur. The suspects told the police that they hunted deer in the forests on the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu borders.



Four arrested

The police arrested four persons and recovered 500 gram of brown sugar worth Rs 28 lakh from them. The suspects are Vijay Kumar (47), a resident of Krishnagiri district in Tamil Nadu, Basappa Papaiah (43) of Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh, Ponnaswamy (50) of Krishnagiri and Govindappa (45) of Malur in Kolar district. The police arrested Vijay Kumar and Basappa near Hosakerehalli bus stop and recovered nine sachets of brown sugar. Based on their inputs, the two others were arrested near NICE toll plaza parking facility.



The suspects told the police that they had procured the banned substance from Vinod Kumar, a resident of Krishnagiri town. They wanted to sell it to college students and at pubs, bars and restaurants. They used to sell 5 gram of brown sugar for Rs 25,000. The police are searching for Vinod Kumar.



Drug peddlers arrested

Two foreign nationals were arrested in Challakere on Monday, while they were trying to peddle drugs. The arrested are Anil Ahmed (35), a native of Maldives and Yakubu Usma (30), a native of Nigeria. Officials have seized marijuana weighing 430 gram, 48 gram of hashish oil, three gram of methamphetamine and five blots of LSD. Ahmed was also involved in smuggling hashish oil at international airport in November 2016 and was absconding, said the official.




The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to consider if the prosecutions failure to provide Swamy Nithyananda the victims medical reports would affect his fundamental right to a fair trial.



Swamy Nithyananda alias Gopal Sheelum Reddy, is accused of sexual offences including rape.

A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and A M Khanwilkar appointed senior advocate Sidharth Luthra as amicus curiae after Swamy's counsel contended that the prosecution, along with Karnataka police, by suppressing records, were trying to convict him.



The Karnataka government, represented by Additional Advocate General Devadutt Kamat, challenged the July 21 order of the high court, wherein the prosecution was ordered to provide to the accused the statements of 32 witnesses, including that of Tamil actress Ranjitha Menon, whose purported CD with the Swamy had led to registration of criminal cases. It had also directed furnishing medical records of another victim and her email conversations.



For the purpose of framing of charges, what is relevant is records of the case  charge sheets and other documents  which prosecution prefers to rely upon, Kamat contended. The counsel added that at this stage, the accused was not entitled to documents which were not part of the charge sheet.



Framing of charges is a crucial stage where the trial court after taking prima facie view of the charge sheet puts the accused on trial, by fixing the date of examination of witnesses. The court can also reject the charge sheet and discharge the accused.



Countering his arguments, Swamy's counsel senior advocates Shekhar Naphade, supported by C V Nagesh and advocate Sanjay M Nuli, contended, The intention of the prosecution is to suppress the materials to prove my culpability.



The bench, however, asked, Suppose charge sheet is filed after 100 witnesses were examined by the police, the prosecution says those statements are not on record. Should the trial court direct production of those statements at the charge framing stage or at later stage?



The question of fairness is required even at the stage of framing of charges, Swamy's counsel responded.



The bench then shot back, What about the victims? Should victims go somewhere in the glacier? Why are you avoiding trial? What has been your conduct so far?



Even if my conduct is bad, should I be hanged? the counsel again submitted.The bench put the matter for further consideration on April 5.


Mexico gave them a new opportunity, and they wanted to give Mexico something back. It happened over 70 years ago, but they still remember it as though it were only yesterday. They are part of a generation of Spanish Republican exiles who were fleeing the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the regime of the dictator Francisco Franco. They were also trying to get away from poor conditions for Spanish exiles in France. In a Mexico then under the administration of Lazaro Cardenas, who governed from 1934 to 1940, they were welcomed with open arms.

Left to right: Carmen Taguena, Trinidad Martinez, Paloma Altolaguirre, Loty de la Granja and Teresa Martin (sitting). DANIEL VILLA

More information El exilio republicano espanol en Mexico: una historia de agradecimiento

The governments of the Mexican and Spanish Republics had laid out the groundwork for the arrival of a large number of Spaniards whose ship, the Sinaia, drew into the port of Veracruz on June 13, 1939. Five women who were part of that group, and who are now Mexican citizens, recently shared their experiences and expressed renewed gratitude for the land that took them in and gave them a new lease on life.

Teresa Martin, a painter who was born in Madrid in 1936, remembers that no one talked about the Spanish Republic at her house. The family had been divided, with members taking different sides during the war, and her father had been a prisoner at a French concentration camp.

But the family did sing. During gatherings of Spanish Republicans, a young Martin would be asked to sing Francisco alegre, or La bien paga... songs that allowed these men to remember, and they cried when they heard them, she remembers.

Mexico is not welcoming Central Americans the way it welcomed the Spanish

Carmen Taguena, Spanish Ateneo in Mexico

Sinaia, Mexique, Ipanema, Orinoco, Flandre or Nyassa are names that represented salvation for many of them. They were the names of the ships commissioned until 1942 to take around 25,000 Spaniards to Mexico, then a country with a population of fewer than 20 million people.

We arrived at Veracruz and were received by women in traditional dress. We were taken to a hotel, fed, and the next day they gave us a bus ticket to the capital, recalls Trinidad Martinez, who was born in Barcelona in 1928. Martinez grew up to be an economist who founded the Centro de Investigacion y de Docencia Economica (CIDE), a highly reputed research institute.

Their personal experiences contrast with todays world, where solidarity with Syrian refugees is wavering and national borders are being reinforced.

Mexico never did recognize the legitimacy of the Franco regime. It was only after Adolfo Suarez became the first democratically elected prime minister after Franco in 1976 that diplomatic relations were renewed. This week marks the 40th anniversary of that thaw.

Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas addresses a group of Spanish refugees. Acervo Historico Diplomatico

My father always used to say to my sister and I, Mexico has given us everything and never asked us for anything in return. Whenever you can, give something back, recalls an emotional Martinez.

My parents also taught me to be grateful, agrees Martin. For years, she taught workshops at public libraries across the city to encourage children to read.

That job of teaching children and teenagers was my way of thanking Mexico, explains the artist.

Meanwhile, the economist Martinez worked in Scotland for 11 years, then realized that it was necessary to develop the field of postgraduate studies in Mexicos educational sector. That was the seed of CIDE. I told myself that I had to go back and reinforce that.

Mexico never did recognize the legitimacy of the Franco regime

Loty de la Granja, Paloma Altolaguirre, Teresa Martin and the recently deceased poet Carmen Romero de Rayo have all known each other since they were kids, and have shared the same friends. They are living reminders of a chapter in recent Spanish history that has been forgotten: the first generation of Spanish women who had a chance to study. Many of them did, and went on to become doctors, lawyers, fashion designers and factory managers.

A project for Mexico

Carmen Taguena, president of the Spanish Ateneo in Mexico, is herself the daughter of exiled Republicans. She organized the gathering that brought together all these women at this cultural center in the capital.

The decision to take in Spanish Republican exiles was Cardenas project for Mexico, because he believed that they had a lot to contribute to the country, she notes. A lot of university schools had just been created, and there were a lot of teaching positions to fill. He also embarked on an agricultural project with the Spaniards. The people who came were trained in construction, baking... There was a range.

After a pause, Taguena reflects that Mexico is not welcoming Central Americans the way it welcomed the Spanish.

Trinidad Martinez recalls escaping through the mountains of the Pyrenees in 1939, during one of the harshest winters in many years. She and Paloma Altolaguirre were little girls when it happened, and their personal memories have been complemented with research work. But there is something that none of them need to research because they know it for a fact: Mexico is their home now.

English version by Susana Urra.
Health Minister K R Ramesh Kumar will head a joint House Committee constituted to rein in the media, Legislative Assembly Speaker K B Koliwad announced on Tuesday.



Koliwad said the panel will have 10 members from the Assembly and three from the Legislative Council.



Last week, legislators cutting across party lines had come down heavily on the media. They had charged the media, both print and visual, with blackmail, extortion, character assassination and misleading society. Koliwad had then announced that a House committee will be constituted to rein in what he called irresponsible and arbitrary media.



The other members from the Assembly in the panel are Ashok Pattan, B R Yavagal, N A Haris, Shivaraj Thangdagi, S T Somashekar (all Congress), Bharamagouda Kage, Suresh Gowda (both BJP), S R Mahesh and K C Narayana Gowda (JD-S). Interestingly these are the members who had spoken vociferously against the media during the discussion.



The panel will decide on its frames of reference at its first meeting. Legislative Council chairman D H Shankarmurthy said he will appoint three MLCs after consulting leaders of all the parties. Leader of the Opposition K S Eshwarappa said the BJP would not like to be part of the committee.



Rayareddy against panel



Earlier, Higher Education Minister Basavaraj Rayareddy has appealed to Koliwad not to go ahead with the constitution of a House committee to rein in the media on the grounds that it is irresponsible and arbitrary.



Rayareddy, on the day the Assembly witnessed a heated debate on how the media is doing baseless reporting and humiliating politicians, had said that at any cost there should be no restrictions on the media. However, he was the lone MLA to speak on those lines.



In his letter to Koliwad, the minister said there is no provision under the Constitution to curtail the freedom of press except during rare situations such as the Emergency. At the same time, he said, he could understand the anger, helplessness and pain suffered by the legislators because of baseless media reports.



However, the minister said he is of the view that cordial relations should be maintained between politicians and the media in a democratic setup. Values are declining in public life, and even the media is not an exception to this. But a majority of the journalists, newspapers and television channels have been upholding the values of their profession. Complaints can be lodged with the Press Council of India if media houses publish or telecast baseless reports, Rayareddy said.



Rayareddy suggested that the Speaker hold dialogues and discussions with senior journalists to encourage adopting self restrictions through a code of conduct . In addition, a meeting could also be held with heads of media houses to draw guidelines pertaining to the usage of language.






He was followed by French president Francois Hollande and Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. The other foreign leaders who called to congratulate the prime minister include Mohammed Najib bin Tun Abdul Raza and Stefan Lofven, his counterparts in Malaysia and Sweden.







US President Donald Trump called Prime Minister Narendra Modi to congratulate him for leading the BJP to victory in the just-concluded Assembly polls. US President HE Mr. @realDonaldTrump called PM @narendramodi to convey his felicitations on the electoral results. @POTUS, Modi posted on Twitter on Tuesday.Trump called Modi late on Monday and congratulated him for the victory in the state Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Haryana. The just-concluded Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh and other states reconfirmed Modi's pre-eminence in the political landscape of the country.Many foreign leaders called him to congratulate over the past fortnight. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and de-facto ruler of United Arab Emirates, was the first foreign leader to congratulate Modi after the poll results.
The Shiv Sena has given a notice to move breach of privilege motion against syndicate of airlines for barring controversial Parliamentarian Ravindra Gaikwad from undertaking air travel citing his unruly behaviour. Shiv Sena member Anandrao Adsul mentioned the issue before Speaker Sumitra Mahajan in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday seeking action against the airlines to debar a member of Air Travel Privilege granted by the House.



The notice was submitted to the Lok Sabha Speaker a day after a delegation of Shiv Sena leaders met her to seek an amicable solution to the issue. Air India had put Gaikwad on the no-fly list after he allegedly assaulted an air line employee last week over ticketing issues. I have received your notice on Question of Privilege.



The matter is under my consideration, the Speaker told Adsul. If the Airlines had any grievance in this case, they could well take up this matter with the Minister of Civil Aviation rather than jumping the fence to hoist their no travel bar on Gaikwad. It is a clear case of overstepping legitimate jurisdiction, Adsul had argued in the notice submitted to the Speaker.



Sena members had raised the issue in the Lok Sabha on Monday and demanded revocation of the air travel ban on Gaikwad. Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapati Raju had stood by Air India officials saying violence on any kind of aircraft could prove disastrous.


The Medical Council of India has obtained a stay from the Delhi High Court against a CIC ruling on the disclosure of records pertaining to its tainted former president Ketan Desai. The top medical education regulator received the stay on March 22 on the ground that petitioner seeking the information under the RTI Act is a US-citizen.



The MCI also argued that since the information sought is spread over 2,800 files, it was not possible for the council to provide the information in the format as sought by the petitioner Kunal Saha, an Indian origin doctor settled in the USA.



The Central Information Commission (CIC) in February directed the MCI to disclose information under the Right to Information Act on the legal proceedings against Desai, who is facing two cases on corruption and bribery charges. The transparency panel gave its ruling after hearing the lawyers from both sides.



The MCIs counsels argued that neither Saha nor the non-governmental organisation (President for Better Treatment) he created are eligible to receive information under the RTI Act.



Earlier, in a separate case, West Bengal Medical Council (WBMC) refused to share information with Saha on the same plea, but the state councils arguments were turned down by the Supreme Court in 2007.



Although I am an overseas citizen of India (OCI), the WBMC refused to provide me information under the RTI Act in 2007 on the ground that Im not a citizen of India, the SC held that as an OCI, I am eligible to obtain information under the RTI Act, following which the WBMC was compelled to provide me the requested information, he said.



Desai, who was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation in 2010, has been selected as the new president of the World Medical Association on the basis of the clean chit given by some of the MCI members, who did not seem to have been provided the correct facts on the corruption cases involving Desai to the international body.






Senior advocate A M Singhvi, appearing for Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), told the bench that it needs around 12 months to dispose of the inventory of BS-III vehicles. He said 41 automobile firms have manufactured 13 crore BS-III vehicles between 2010 and March 2017 and their stock at present is 8.24 lakh.



Dont portray us as villains. We are not running away. We too want our environment to be pollution-free and we are saying we will comply with the directions, he pleaded. He said the plea to stop registration of vehicles after April 1 is like an ambush on the industry, which is the countrys second biggest job generator and has the highest industry tax rate.



The bench then observed that the automobile companies knew about the BS-IV notification in 2014 and should have scaled down the production. Senior advocate K K Venugopal, appearing for auto major Hero MotoCorp, said the company has an unsold inventory of 3.28 lakh BS-III compliant two-wheelers and could loose over Rs 1,500 crore due to the ban. Senior lawyer Shyam Diwan, representing Bajaj Auto, which supported the plea on ban, said the ban on manufacture also meant ban on sale/registration of such vehicles and no extension should be given.



The Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA), which had sought the ban said the automobile firms were having the latest technology for a long time and these should have scaled down the production of BS-III vehicles.







The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict on pleas seeking ban on sale and registration of BS-III vehicles after April 1 for enforcing the upgraded standard of BS-IV emission norms. A bench of Justices M B Lokur and Deepak Gupta said it will pronounce the operative part of the verdict on Wednesday.


A bit of an issue

Ajay Seth, Principal Secretary, Primary and Secondary Education, said, Paper supply is a bit of an issue and we are trying to help the printers obtain supply. The Department of Printing, Stationery and Publications has spoken to a mill in Tamil Nadu and they have agreed to supply 5,000 tonnes of paper.



He said the government had given orders for most of the 86 packages by February. Only seven or eight were given in March. Retendering was done three times because printers were quoting prices 30 to 35% more than last year, he told DH.



No water to produce paper

A source at Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers Ltd, a major supplier of paper to mills in Karnataka, confirmed the mill had shut down one of its three machines. To produce one tonne of paper, we need between 1.3 to 1.4 lakh litres of water. Because of severe shortage, the water is being diverted for drinking, the source said. Though units such as the West Coast Paper Mills in Dandeli (Karnataka) are not so water-starved, their production capacity isnt enough to make up for the Tamil Nadu shortfall, the source explained.



Students of state board schools in Karnataka may have to wait for at least two months for their textbooks this year. Printers have run into a shortage of paper, and complain the government took too long to give them work orders. In all, 511 titles have to be printed, adding up to nearly six crore books. Anil Hosakoppa, one of those chosen by the government, has to print 1.37 crore books. He has managed to print only about 30% of it so far.I need 3,300 tonnes of paper to complete the order. I have used up the 400 tonnes I had already procured. For 40 days, work has remained stalled for want of paper, he said. The tender document lays down that printers must use A grade, 60 GSM paper, but water-starved mills in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh are in no position to meet the demand. Every year, Hosakoppa says, paper prices go up by at least Rs 10,000 in the printing season, and touch Rs 50,000 a tonne. This year, even if we pay Rs 70,000 to Rs 80,000, we are not sure we will get supplies, he said. He has placed orders at multiple mills and hopes to get enough supplies in two months, after which he expects to take 100 to 120 days to print the textbooks. The government took longer than usual to call for tenders and issue work orders, another printer said.Every year, the tender notification is given in October and by December, the work orders are issued. But this year, the department called for tenders several times saying the rates quoted were too high. This delayed the process by 45 to 60 days, and paper prices went up further, he explained.By his reckoning, the exercise did not save the government any money. The second printer has to deliver 1.3 crore books. If the work order had been issued in December, the textbooks would have been ready in time, he said.
A Lashker-e-Toiba militant and three civilians were killed and 17 injured in central Kashmirs Budgam district on Tuesday. The police said they got to know militants were hiding in Durbugh area of Chadoora, 22 km from here. A joint team of the armys Rashtriya Rifles and the police Special Operations Group surrounded the area in the early hours.



As a house-to-house search was on, the hiding militants opened fire on the security forces, triggering an encounter that lasted hours, a police officer said. When the security forces were engaged in a gun battle with the holed-up militants, a large number of protesters started pelting stones at them.



The police said about 20 people were injured in the action against the protesters. Three youths Zahid Dar, Saqib Ahmad and Ashfaq Ahmad later succumbed to injuries. Zahid was the only brother of five sisters, people at the site said. The house where the militants were holed up was blasted by security forces, resulting in the death of an LeT operative identified as Touseef Wagay. A security person was injured. Stone-pelting at encounter sites has emerged a major problem for security forces in Kashmir in recent months, forcing Army Chief Bipin Rawat to warn that civilian protesters obstructing encounters would be treated as overground workers of terrorists and dealt with harshly.



Tuesdays is the third incident, since Rawats warning in February, in which civilian protesters have been killed during an encounter. The latest incident has resulted in the highest civilian casualties in the vicinity of any encounter site this year. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said, It is highly painful to see young boys losing their lives.



Terming the deaths as unfortunate, she said it was high time peace was given a chance. Meanwhile, separatist leaders, including Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik, have called for a complete shutdown on Wednesday.




Malaysia Not Yet Ready to Buy New Fighter



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Local Annie Glenn has opened her ninth retail store in San Diego with The Perfect Pineapple at the Village at Pacific Highlands Ranch. The tabletop and hostess gift shop opened on March 1 across from her Urban Girl shop.

The Perfect Pineapple is the first of its concept of all of Glenns stores. She has two other Urban Girl locations in Del Mar Plaza and Seaport Village; American Nostalgia, San Diego Surf Company, Urban Beach House and Seaport Shore Company at Seaport Village; and an Urban Beach House in Del Mar Plaza.

Glenn runs the stores with her husband Chris; the perfect pair of aspiring entrepreneurs met in college at Point Loma Nazarene. After graduating they pooled their money to open a kiosk in Horton Plaza in 1993  weve been doing this a long time.

Glenn is a proud Carmel Valley resident and has lived in Pacific Highlands Ranch for nine years, Its such a great town, I love it, she said. Her son Jack graduated from Canyon Crest Academy in 2016 and son Cooper is now in eighth grade at Pacific Trails Middle School, part of the schools first graduating class. He plans to attend Torrey Pines High School in the fall.

Urban Girl in Carmel Valley has been doing so well, its incredible, Glenn said. We started to see a need for a gift shop with hostess, teacher and birthday gifts. But Urban Girl already has clothes, jewelry and shoes and it was bursting at the seams.

Village at Pacific Highlands Ranch ownership, Coast Income Properties, approached her about the space that was up for lease across the street from Urban Girl and she was flattered and excited by the opportunity to expand.

Coast Income is like family, Glenn said. They are incredible owners, they are here at the center every day. They have really made it their own, (The Village) is unique and its very special.

With cheery pineapple wallpaper and flower-stamped tile floors, every wall, shelf and tabletop is filled with fun gift items in the Perfect Pineapple. There is a variety of unique cutting boards, serving platters, glassware, coffee mugs, throws, pillows and outdoor accessories such as funky avocado and donut-shaped pool floats.

The back brick wall is lined with tea towels, wine bags and wine tags. Glenn said the store is a perfect one-stop shop for people on their way to a party or gathering, they can grab a bottle of wine at Trader Joes and stop in at Perfect Pineapple to pair it with a bag and card and theyre good to go.

As both of her stores gift wrap for free, Glenn said she has had people send photos from parties where every gift was from Urban Girl or Perfect Pineapple.

Its just so cool and it makes me so happy, Glenn said.

The name for her new store was inspired by Glenns love of pineapples  she has always loved the smell, the taste and how they can evoke a Hawaii vacation. Hidden pineapples are scattered everywhere throughout the store  on napkins, candles, cards, tea and even the store fish SpongeBob has a little pineapple in his bowl.

Pineapples mean welcome and welcome home and it has always been the signature scent of Urban Girl, Glenn said. As a sister store to Urban Girl, its the perfect gift shop, the perfect home, the perfect welcome  the Perfect Pineapple.

Outside, a window illustration bears her favorite pineapple quote: Be a Pineapple: Stand tall, wear a crown and be sweet on the inside.

Perfect Pineapple is open from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., one of the few Village stores open late to pop in after dinner or during an evening stroll. The store is located at 5980 Village Way, #103, San Diego, 92130; 858-324-6218.
As construction of Del Mars sprawling new civic center on Camino Del Mar bulldozes ahead throughout the rest of this year, the roof of the future city hall will bear perhaps the projects crowning achievement: an array of solar panels connected to an innovative battery storage system that will together make the civic center one of the most energy-efficient endeavors anywhere in the region.

The two-part Tesla photovoltaic network will consist of 174 photovoltaic panels arrayed on the southwest-facing roof, linked up to a battery Powerwall in the garage comprised essentially of an upgraded version of Teslas electric car battery stacked to the size of an upright freezer.

During most of each day, those panels will power city hall and then some, with the surplus funneling into the battery system, said Donald Mosier, former city councilman and the citys facilitator for its Climate Action Plan. Roughly half of the batterys 100-kilowatt capacity will go toward cutting city halls energy consumption in the late afternoon, Mosier said, when the sun dips and energy prices start their daily climb. The other half should be enough to power evening activities for five hours.

That system, when the sun is shining, will supply 90 percent of the energy requirements, Mosier said. I would have loved to have gotten to net zero, but we didnt have enough room for PV panels on the roof, and we didnt want to put them out where they were visible to the public. Ninety percent is pretty good; its not 100 percent but its close.

Had Del Mar waited a few years, solar would have cost less and the return on investment would have come sooner, Mosier said, but the city was determined to spark a broader transition to cleaner, greener energy.

This will be one of the most energy-efficient buildings in San Diego County. Were going to invite property owners with adequate roof space to come and see this system. We hope to incentivize more investment in similar systems, Mosier said. Until we have a few cities out there doing the demonstration projects, youve got to incentivize the battery manufacturers and the customers to start using these things.

The solar endeavorand the civic center overallmarks the first major step toward implementing the landmark vision laid out in the Climate Action Plan city leaders enacted last year, which calls for Del Mar to run exclusively on renewable energy by 2035.

All told, the solar component is expected to cost nearly $493,000. The city is awaiting word on a $393,000 grant from the California Energy Commission, with the remainder to be covered by an in-kind match.

The California Energy Commission is making $10.2 million available this summer through its one-time Local Government Challenge, of which $3 million has been designated for cities with populations under 150,000. The Commission was scheduled to announce the winning projects on April 11, but after extending the deadline to allow for more applications, results are not expected until May or June. Even if Del Mar does not win the grant, a contingency fund set aside in the civic centers $17.8 million budget might have enough left over to pay for the solar project, Mosier said.

The long-planned project will transform the 1.5 acres at 1050 Camino Del Mar into nearly 30,000 square feet of cutting-edge civic space, including a nearly 9,000-square-foot city hall flanked by a 3,000-square-foot town hall and public plaza spanning some 15,000 square feet.

Planning director Kathleen Garcias March 20 update to the city council explained that two-thirds of the concrete slabs for the underground parking garage have been poured. The remaining concrete will pour in April, she said, with scaffolding expected to go up in the coming days and weeks.

We were worried that the rains may have set us behind schedule; and that may turn out to be a factor, Mayor Terry Sinnott said in an email. But so far both our schedule and budgets are looking good.

If construction does stay on schedule, the solar-enabled roof will go up in February 2018 or March 2018, giving the city two months to test and tweak the system ahead of the civic centers dedication in May 2018.

Over its first year, the photovoltaic system will serve as a demonstration project meant to encourage property owners and other governments to try their hand at solar, said Assistant City Manager Kristen Crane, who is overseeing the civic center construction.Energy will be metered in real time in the lobby of city hall and broadcast on the citys website as part of a collaboration with the Center for Sustainable Energy, a San Diego-based nonprofit.

Several cities in the region have put solar arrays into place, including Carlsbad, National City, Chula Vista and San Diego. But only Escondido has taken that a step further and added energy storage systems, according to SANDAG. Escondido runs seven storage sites in the city.

Because Del Mars new city hall will be so much more energy efficient than the facility that had operated out of a converted schoolhouse for more than 40 years, city leaders remain unclear on how quickly the energy savings will cover the expense of the system. But with roughly $200,000 in hardware alone, the break-even point is likely several years away, Mosier said.

A crucial unknown is how well the photovoltaic system will perform so close to the beach, enshrouded as it so often is by clouds and coastal fog.

Its not like Poway, out in the desert, where the sun shines almost every day and all day long, Mosier said. We have our Mays and Junes when the sun may only be out for three or four hours.
The Carmel Valley Community Planning Board approved a new stop sign for Carmel View Road and Caminito Mira Del Mar at its March 23 meeting. The intersection is at the entrance to the Sunstream community, just past Carmel Grove Park and will now be a four-way stop.

Niveen Farmer, a Carmel Valley resident for 13 years, started on the effort to bring a stop sign to the intersection back in 2007.

Currently there are stop signs on Caminito Mira Del Mar but none to slow the cars traveling on Carmel View Road. Farmer said people speed down the road and it can be very dangerous pulling out of the Sunstream community as there is a blind spot due the curve in the road. Farmer said drivers almost have to be in the middle of the road to see if cars are oncoming and many neighbors have reported near-misses.

Farmer circulated a petition gathering over 100 signatures and invested time going door-to-door talking to neighbors and posting flyers in the community to raise awareness about the potential stop signs. Farmer said she was met with zero opposition.

Farmer first made her request for stop signs to the city which sent staff out in 2016 and determined that the intersection did not meet the requirements for a four-way stop. The planning board has the ability to take the alternative process and request a stop sign.

As part of their approval of the stop sign, the planning board will also request that the city study a potential crosswalk down the road at Carmel Grove Park.

I love where I live and I want it to be safe for everyone, Farmer said.
Ameriabank: At the Vanguard of Armenia's Banking Sector

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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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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

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STATEMENT BY SECRETARY ANTONY J. BLINKEN

This criminal act is another proof that the Armenophobia policy. Tatoyan

Nikol Pashinyan, Nancy Pelosi discuss a number of issues related to the Armenian-American agenda and regional developments

Delegation by Nancy Pelosi Accompanied by Alen Simonyan Visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex

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Armenian Revytech, global technology leader SAP and financial services software specialist SAP Fioneer sign a cooperation agreement

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Kajal Aggarwal Is Really Happy Working With Ajith
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Ameriabank: At the Vanguard of Armenia's Banking Sector

STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARTSAKH

SUBSCRIBERS OF UCOMS ALL TIME BEST OFFER TO ENJOY ADDITIONAL BENEFITS

Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders

PACE co-rapporteurs on Armenia concerned by reports of alleged war crimes or inhuman treatment perpetrated by Azerbaijans armed forces

There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan

Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia

Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair

Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan

I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General

I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox

UCOMS SPECIAL OFFER OF THE UNLIMITED INTERNET IS NOW TERMLESS

There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol  Armenia and Azerbaijan  to do so without delay

An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".

UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

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
In a bid to reduce its debt, Bharti Airtel has sold a 10.3% stake in its tower unit Infratel to a group of investors.

Headed by private equity firm KKR and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, the collective of buyers have paid INR61.9 billion ($952 million) for the Infratel holding. Airtels board gave the go-ahead for a stake sale in October 2016, and rumours regarding the consortiums interest in Infratel have circled since then.

While it was initially believed that Airtel was interested in selling a controlling stake in Infratel, reports earlier this month suggested that the firm had revised this stance and was looking to divest a holding of around 22%. Once this new sale goes through, Airtel will hold 61.7% of Infratel, with the company using the funds to lower its debt.

Sunil Bharti Mittal, the chairman of Airtel, said: This investment by a consortium of marquee, long-term investors underlines the confidence of the global investors in Indias growth story and the governments Digital India initiative in particular. It further reinforces the positive outlook for the telecom infrastructure sector.

The deal is the latest in a spate of sales in India, with the CCI (Competition Commission of India) recently approving a deal that will see Canadian investment firm Brookfield Group acquiring 51% of Reliance Communications tower business.
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A branch of Co-op in Exeter city centre will close next month.

The convenience chain said the decision to close the branch on Sidwell Street and Cheeke Street has been made "with reluctance" and workers will be moved to other stores in the city.

A spokesperson for Co-operative Food today said: "I can confirm that our store located at 160 Sidwell Street, Exeter, will close.

"The Co-op is moving forward with a clear purpose and momentum, and while this often involves opening new stores, we sometimes have to take difficult decisions.

"The decision to close this store has been taken with reluctance, and does not reflect on the commitment and hard work of colleagues, who have been informed. Every effort is being made to support colleagues and help them to find alternative positions in the area."

With plans to build a student flats block at a building opposite the supermarket it appears the current occupier, a British Heart Foundation charity home ware store, is planning a move into the building Co-op will vacate.

Ceri Winter, British Heart Foundation regional manager, said: "I can confirm that the Exeter BHF furniture and electrical store will be closing on and relocated to Sidwell Street around July, although the exact date cannot be confirmed at this time.

"The team have done a fantastic job in the area over the past five years but due to student flats being developed in the store location, we are moving to a brand new location.

"We completely rely on the support of the local community to generate funds for life saving heart research and our volunteers are invaluable in keeping our shops running. We could not do it without them and I'd like to say a big thank you to them on behalf of the BHF.

"Each year, BHF shops raise around 30 million to help the BHF fight coronary heart disease.

She added: "The decision to relocate the Exeter store means we can continue to raise as much money as possible in the fight against heart disease."

British Heart Foundation furniture and electrical will close on Saturday, April 15 and Co-operative Food will close on Saturday, April 29.

It's the second Co-op store to announce it will leave the area, with the branch on the corner of Sidwell Street and York Street set to be re-branded as McColl's.
Panasonic is a long established name in the field of imaging, and have had their own share of industry-firsts to boot. In over a decade-long journey, Panasonic's LUMIX lineup has produced a number of interesting mirrorless cameras, with distinctions like the first mirrorless camera to shoot Full HD videos back in 2008, and also the first mirrorless camera to shoot 4K videos, introduced in 2014.

As is evident, Panasonic's focus has been around shooting videos. With the new LUMIX GH5, the company aims to step out from being videography specialists to presenting a camera that excels as an overall imaging device. Naturally, the upgrades lent to the Panasonic LUMIX GH5 also work towards making it an efficient mirrorless camera for photographers, and not just videographers.

The 20.3MP micro four-third sensor

The Panasonic LUMIX GH5 uses a 20.3-megapixel micro four-third sensor, which is smaller than the APS-C sensors used by the likes of Sony in mirrorless cameras. While purists may raise an eyebrow here, Panasonic has used this to leverage smaller, lighter lenses. Inherently, the micro four-third sensor has higher crop factor, and as a result, allows Panasonic to use shorter optical ranges in lenses ~300-400mm and produce similar results as a Sony/Canon ~500-600mm lens. This is crucial as such engineering effectively allows lighter lenses, which is very important for interchangeable camera bodies that are smaller and lighter than DSLRs.

4:2:2 sampling, 10-bit depth

Keeping the importance of videography intact, the Panasonic LUMIX GH5 produces videos with 4:2:2 colour subsampling and 10-bit colour depth. Video resolution extends up to 4K (2160p) at 60fps, and better slow motions can be produced in HD (720p) at 180fps. Colour subsampling is essentially the compression factor of colour data in reference to brightness data, and most consumer (and even broadcast) cameras of today use 4:1:1 subsampling, which can lead to loss of colour. Seeing that this is not a professional-oriented camera, the 4:2:2 subsampling combined with greater colour depth allows for better contrast levels, wider range of shades and higher vibrancy in photographs. This adds a prosumer touch to the LUMIX GH5, which upon first impressions seem good enough to suffice in wedding and night videography. For photography, too, the LUMIX GH5 seems fairly adept with wider buffer that allows upto 5.7fps continuous shooting in full-frame RAW.

225-point AF, 5-axis dual IS

Panasonic also boasts of dual-image stabilisation - a 5-axis mechanical stabilisation in the camera body, and as well as in lens, to produce inherently stabilised videos. In the short while that we spent with it, we could not really catch the superior stabilisation standards at play, and reserve our verdict for the eventual review that is to follow. Coupled with this is the new, Advanced DFD autofocus mechanism with a total of 225 focus points. Upon first impressions, not only did the AF system seem accurate and fast, it also had an interesting procedure of focusing up its sleeve. Seeing how we often tend to get the focus wrong especially in low light, the 225-point AF system takes all the focus points on the focal plane in account and shoots a burst of photographs. Post shooting, you can surf through the photographs and retouch the focus for efficient adjustment. This essentially cancels out the probability behind out-of-focus photographs, and seems promising upon first impressions.

Other new features include weather sealing on the body, which is smaller than prosumer DSLRs of similar prices, and integrated wireless connectivity that will allow you to transfer compressed or full resolution photographs on the go. The wide range of connectivity options include HDMI-A, USB-C, 5GHz WiFi band and Bluetooth.

Initial reactions

On overall terms, the Panasonic LUMIX GH5 is quite formidable on paper, and does impress upon first sight. What has not entirely convinced me is the comparatively restricted range of lenses, and the seemingly larger body despite the use of a micro four-third sensor. This, along with a price of Rs. 1,43,990 (body only) may make the Panasonic LUMIX GH5 appeal as a comparatively compact mirrorless camera body for prosumers who shoot with bulky full-frame or medium format cameras. There is, however, no denying that this is a really well-equipped camera, one that seems well-suited for photographers and videographers alike.
Apple is rolling out iOS 10.3 update to its customers today. This is likely the last major release to iOS 10 before Apple announces iOS 11 later this year at WWDC. The new update is available for devices currently running iOS 10 or newer. The OTA update is about 640MB in size. There is nothing outright exciting in the new update, but there are some tweaks which are worth looking into.

APFS: a new file system in place

This is a big update for your iPhone or iPad storage as Apple is finally shifting to a new internal file management system, called APFS. This is Apple File System (APFS) and it will replace the 31 year old Hierarchical File System (HFS) which was originally developed for Macs using hard drives. Apple did update the HFS system with HFS+ but that was still 18 years back. Hence, the HFS+ is still dated and not well equipped to handle the full potential of newer flash storage based devices to its fullest.

(L-R) Before and after the update

So, when you update your device to 10.3, the OS will automatically shift all your data on your device to the new APFS system. According to the Apple, this should technically increase the read and write speeds on flash based storage. The update will also bring some storage optimizations, which means you may get some added free space. In terms of security, APFS offers full disk encryption along with individual file encryption.

Apple will be updating its other products like MacOS, TvOS, WtachOS to APFS in near future.

Tweaks to Apple ID: Front and centre

Your Apple ID is now at the top of the setting stack and incorporates your Apple ID, iCloud, family sharing settings and more. The password and security section sits right at the top, and will prompt you setup your two-factor authentication if you haven't already done so. Inside the Apple ID you also get a list of all the Apple products and serial numbers you own. If you have iTunes installed on a Windows machine that is also shown here. However, Android devices linked to Apple account using Apple Music app arent shown in this list. You can also check how much iCloud storage you are using and how much storage is being consumed by photos, docs, backups and email.

Last chance for 32-bit apps

Apple has been pushing the 64-bit app architecture since the last two years and it seems this might be the last year for 32-bit apps on iOS devices. You can check whether you have any 32-bit apps by going into the General tab in settings, then About, followed by Applications. Here you will have a list of all the applications which wont be compatible with future versions of iOS.

Removing 32-bit apps will essentially clear all compatibility issues which may arise with iOS11, but at the same time may remove a large chunk of old applications which have not been updated in a while.

Find My Air Pods

If you are one of those people who bought the new AirPods then there is something for you as well on the new update. iOS 10.3 has a new feature Find my Air Pods which will give the user the last known location of their wireless earphones. Although, the feature only works if your AirPods are in their case and if your phone is connected to the internet when you are looking for them.

Other features

Siri now supports cricket scores, and statistics for Indian Premier League and International Cricket Council.

New design tweaks in CarPlay such as easy access to last used apps and daily curated playlists.

Rent and watch movies across all devices on iTunes.

Hourly weather updates and support for 3D Touch

Support for Searching parked cars in Maps

3D Touch support in Podcast app. Episodes and podcasts are now shareable on messages.

Some Location and Privacy issues resolved.

Stability improvements.

Correction: This story earlier said that iOS 10.3 adds Apple Pay functionality in India, which it does not.
Strategists at Credit Suisse said they preferred Defensive shares over Cyclicals, albeit with one exception, financials, which led them to reiterate their 'benchmark' stance towards the former.

The main reason for their caution is that Cyclicals are pricing-in a level for the new orders sub-index in European purchasing managers' indices of 59.0, which is consistent with a rate of economic growth of nearly 4%.

A similar gauge for the US, from ISM, was peaking, as was the number of macro surprises, Credit Suisse added.

Their preferred sectors are still Telecommunications and Pharmaceuticals and among Cyclicals, financials and technology, with their favourite geographical regions for the latter being Continental Europe and Global Emerging Markets.

"Non-financial cyclical valuations are expensive in the US and neutral in Europe," the broker said.

Furthermore, levels of sector risk appetite were "euphoric" and hedge-funds' weighting in Cyclicals have risen to normal levels in the States.

Several so-called Trump/reflation trades, such as the US dollar or Emerging Markets, had also unwound back to their pre-election levels, yet Cyclicals remained "somewhat elevated", they said.

However, Garthwaite still likes some Cyclicals because of their exposure to growth on the Continent or on valuation grounds and because of the stage in the corporate earnings cycle at which they are at, such as WPP and Johnson Matthey.

Among Defensives, telecoms was their stated preference, including Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Com Hem, all of which were at 'Outperform'.
Amazon on Tuesday agreed a purchase Dubai-based Souq.com , the Middle Easts largest online retail and marketplace site, for an undisclosed fee.

Subject to closing conditions, the acquisition is expected to close in 2017, adding Souq's 45m-plus visits per month, with regional operations in the Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

While the value of Amazon's bid was not disclosed, on Monday, Dubai rival Emaar Mall announced that it had made an $880m offer to buy Souq.com that had been rejected.

Souq chief executive and co-founder Ronaldo Mouchaware said the acquisition was "a critical next step in growing our e-commerce presence on behalf of customers across the region".

"By becoming part of the Amazon family, we'll be able to vastly expand our delivery capabilities and customer selection much faster, as well as continue Amazon's great track record of empowering sellers."

Amazon's senior vice president for international consumer business Russ Grandinetti said the two firms "share the same DNA  were both driven by customers, invention, and long-term thinking.

He added: "Souq.com pioneered e-commerce in the Middle East, creating a great shopping experience for their customers. We're looking forward to both learning from and supporting them with Amazon technology and global resources. And together, well work hard to provide the best possible service for millions of customers in the Middle East."

In March last year Souq, which was founded in 2005 by Syrian entrepreneur Ronaldo Mouchawar, drummed up more than $275m of venture financing from investors including Standard Chartered Private Equity, the World Bank's International Finance Corp, Baillie Gifford, New York's Tiger Global Management and South Africas Naspers, in what was said to be the largest financing of an e-commerce business in the Middle East region.

On Tuesday, Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, said the Amazon deal highlighted Dubais position as "a regional and global hub for the worlds biggest and leading organizations, fostering in its ecosystem that amalgamates the brightest minds, talent, thought leaders, entrepreneurs and investors from around the world".
China Southern Airlines announced on Tuesday that US carrier American Airlines would purchase a small stake in the carrier for $200m.

Americans move is its latest in line with its plans to invest in China, following rival Delta Air Lines' purchase of 3.55% of China Eastern Airlines in 2015.

The deal will see shares worth $199.6m worth of shares issued to American, which will mean that all three of Chinas major airlines are now tied up with foreign competitors.

The Beijing government has encouraged such partnerships in an effort to boost competitiveness.

"We're pleased to begin this relationship to better connect two of the world's largest aviation markets and leading economies," China Southern chairman Wang Chengshun said in a statement.

American Airlines president Robert Isom added: We are two of the biggest carriers in the world and our networks are highly complementary, with the potential to offer China Southern and American customers an unmatched range of destinations in two critical markets for business and leisure travelers.

The agreement also involves the sharing of codes and interline deals later in 2017, allowing Chinese tourists more destinations when coming to the US, and vice-versa.

China Southern is the countrys largest airline in terms of passenger numbers, and the sale will aim to further increase that lead.

Shares in American Airlines were trading 0.1% higher in after-hours trading following the release of the announcement.
Stocks in London drifted through Brexit-eve day to a positive bias as investors displayed caution ahead of Prime Minister Theresa triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty on Wednesday.

Investors were also greeted by a flurry of FTSE 350 and AIM results news that took time to filter through, although the UK and European economics diaries were essentially bare.

After the closing bell, the FTSE 100 was up 0.68% to 7,343.42, and the FTSE 250 was up 0.28% to 18,953.34. Both remained a short distance behind the year's highs-to-date, caught in sideways trade.

Equities markets in Europe did modestly well, the Euro Stoxx 50, Dax and Cac 40 all advancing, while in the US all the main market gauges were moving higher.

"Nothing much happened this afternoon, the market caught between yesterday's Trump-dive and tomorrow's Article 50-triggering," said Spreadex financial analyst Connor Campbell.

He added that the FTSE had benefited on Tuesday from some Brexit-jitters induced sterling weakness.

Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at ThinkMarkets UK, said if, in the coming weeks, UK economic data still remained resilient and immune to all the shocks, that could be very positive for the currency and thus for the equity market.

"It is highly likely that the short squeeze could push the sterling towards the level of $1.30 in no time and we also see some new record highs for the FTSE 100 index," he added.

Michael Hewson of CMC Markets UK said European stocks had struggled for direction today after Monday's declines.

"While sentiment over the past few days has been on the negative side as a result of US President Trump's local difficulties, the absence of any significant positive drivers is keeping investors adopt a cautious tone as we head into the end of the month and the quarter."

Turning to corporate news, Tesco was reasonably firmer this afternoon after it agreed to pay a 129m fine to the Serious Fraud office and agreed to a finding of "market abuse" by the Financial Conduct Authority for overstating its expected profits in August 2014.

The grocery titan was also in focus following a report that two of the largest shareholders in the supermarket retailer were advising against its 3.7bn takeover of wholesaler Booker, whose shares dropped.

Building materials Wolseley surged after it revealed a name change, a jump in half-year profits and its intention to exit Nordic operations.

United Utilities was another blue chip stock gaining, after it said current full year trading was in line with expectations, with group revenue expected to be slightly lower than last year.

Insurer Aviva advanced after a report that it was looking to sell Friends Provident International in a deal that could fetch up to $750m.

Elsewhere on the FTSE, miners such as Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Glencore regained some of their footing after falls on Monday. Financial stocks Standard Chartered, Barclays and Prudential all rose for similar reasons.

In the meantime, a bounce in the price of West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude oil translated to gains in the shares of Shell and BP.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,343.42 0.68%

FTSE 250 (MCX) 18,953.34 0.28%

techMARK (TASX) 3,470.45 0.35%

FTSE 100 - Risers

Wolseley (WOS) 5,130.00p 5.06%

Standard Chartered (STAN) 752.40p 4.07%

Pearson (PSON) 656.00p 3.63%

Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,220.00p 2.81%

BHP Billiton (BLT) 1,227.00p 2.51%

Smurfit Kappa Group (SKG) 2,132.00p 2.50%

Johnson Matthey (JMAT) 3,005.00p 2.24%

Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust (SMT) 363.60p 2.11%

Glencore (GLEN) 311.60p 1.91%

Aviva (AV.) 534.50p 1.91%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Associated British Foods (ABF) 2,612.00p -1.43%

easyJet (EZJ) 999.00p -1.33%

Hammerson (HMSO) 562.50p -1.23%

Intu Properties (INTU) 271.80p -1.09%

Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 264.90p -1.08%

Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) 332.30p -0.69%

Land Securities Group (LAND) 1,037.00p -0.67%

SSE (SSE) 1,496.00p -0.60%

United Utilities Group (UU.) 1,000.00p -0.60%

Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets (MRW) 235.40p -0.59%

FTSE 250 - Risers

AA (AA.) 270.90p 5.75%

Evraz (EVR) 218.00p 3.96%

Tullow Oil (TLW) 213.90p 3.83%

Barr (A.G.) (BAG) 566.50p 3.74%

CYBG (CYBG) 273.90p 3.59%

Inmarsat (ISAT) 820.50p 3.47%

Redrow (RDW) 516.00p 3.20%

BGEO Group (BGEO) 3,192.00p 3.03%

Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) 926.00p 3.00%

FirstGroup (FGP) 132.00p 2.96%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

OneSavings Bank (OSB) 395.70p -6.21%

Thomas Cook Group (TCG) 86.10p -3.86%

Clarkson (CKN) 2,893.00p -3.32%

Capita (CPI) 553.00p -2.98%

Carillion (CLLN) 214.00p -2.23%

Bovis Homes Group (BVS) 855.00p -2.06%

Berendsen (BRSN) 761.00p -2.06%

Ashmore Group (ASHM) 340.10p -2.02%

Greencore Group (GNC) 248.90p -2.01%

Card Factory (CARD) 268.50p -2.01%
Stocks on the Continent staged a bounce in early trading, recouping the previous day's losses as investors focused on the speeches from US central bank officials and modest gains in crude oil futures.

As of 0850 GMT the benchmark Stoxx 600 was higher by 0.39% at 376.47, as the German Dax was putting on 0.55% to 12,062.12 and the FTSE Mibtel advanced 0.44% to 20,219.08.

In parallel, front month Brent crude oil futures were 0.49% higher to $51.00 a barrel after Iran pledged nominal support for an extension of OPEC's output cut deal past June. Euro/dollar was off 0.08% at 1.0857.

Speaking overnight, the presidents of the Federal Reserve banks of Dallas and Chicago made relative 'dovish' remarks.

For his part, Robert Kaplan, the chief of the former, reportedly said he would continue to support further tightening policy as long as the US economy continued to make progress.

That saw the implied odds of a June Fed rate hike dip to 50%, according to Fed funds futures.

Hence, at least for the very short-term traders' bias appeared to be slightly more cautious now.

"While a lot of the focus is inevitably being focussed on the extent of last weeks declines and yesterdays losses, the fact remains that US markets still remain up around 10% from when President Trump won the keys to the White House. Whether these declines continue is likely to be down to whether the Republicans decide to put some of their differences to one side and make an attempt to try and make some good policy," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK.

For their part, strategists at Credit Suisse reiterated their benchmark view on 'Defensives', following an upgrade in February.

Telecoms and Pharma continued to be their preferred sectors, telling clients they remained cautious towards non-financial cyclicals.

"We continue to prefer to play cyclicality through financials and technology, and the cyclical regions such as Continental Europe and GEM," they added.

On the economic front, Italian industrial orders shrank 2.9% month-on-month in January, giving up the prior month's gains.

The economic calendar was rather light on Tuesday, although markets were expectant ahead of a speech from US Kansas City Fed chief Esther George later in the day and another from ECB Governing Council member Benoit Coeure.

Shares in German electric utility E.On were edging higher on reports it was set to return to debt markets with a sale of up to 3.0bn in new bonds.

Bayer was also making headlines after Bloomberg reported Syngenta was running the ruler over some of its assets.

Germany's Lufthansa was also on the up after trade union Verdi acquiesced to a three-year pay deal, eliminating the risk of further strikes.
The Scottish Parliament is expected to back the Scottish Nationalist Partys motion to hold a second independence referendum within two years.

The vote comes after a meeting with Prime Minster Theresa May and Nicola sturgeon on Monday did not break the impasse between the two leaders.

The First Minister of Scotland said that meeting had been perfectly business-like and cordial," but did not come to anything.

The vote for further discussions with Westminster to hold another referendum is expected to pass on Tuesday with the backing of the SNPs minority Scottish government and the Scottish Green party.

Scottish Liberal Democrats, Labour and Conservatives are against holding a second independence referendum, with the Scottish Labour leader saying: "Brexit isnt the motivation for another referendum; its just the latest excuse."

The Scottish Parliament held a two-day debate last week but it was cut short following news of the Westminster terror attack.

Scots voted against independence in the first referendum in September 2014 by 55% to 45% and at the time Sturgeon said that it was a once in a generation vote, however she has argued that since May is intent on a so called 'hard Brexit'  no longer being a member of the European single market and customs union  there had been a "material change" in circumstance and it warrants a new referendum.

Sturgeon said that leaving the single market would hamper Scotlands economic prospects which was reinforced by Scotland voting to remain a part of the EU by 62% in last Junes referendum, while the rest of the country voted to Leave. However, a recent poll has showed that there is growing euroscepticism among Scots.

May previously said that "now is not the time" for a second referendum as she plans to trigger Article 50  the two year clock of formal exit negotiations with the EU  on Wednesday.

Sturgeon is aiming to hold it the referendum in autumn 2018 or spring 2019 but needs permission from Westminster first.
Tesco was in focus on Tuesday as it agreed to pay a 129m fine to the Serious Fraud Office and following a report that two of its largest shareholders were advising against its deal with Booker.

As well as the fine to the SFO, Tesco agreed to a finding of "market abuse" by the Financial Conduct Authority for overstating its expected profits in a trading update in August 2014.

Following months of talks with the Serious Fraud Office, the supermarket giant reached a deferred prosecution agreement, which means it will not be prosecuted as long as it meets certain requirements.

Tesco has agreed to pay compensation to investors who purchased shares and bonds in the company on or after the 29 August 2014 and who still held those securities when the statement was corrected on 22 September 2014. The compensation scheme is expected to total around 85m plus interest.

FCA chief executive Andrew Bailey said: "Dissemination of information that gives a false or misleading impression as to traded securities harms the integrity of our markets. The FCA is committed to UK markets being fair, transparent and thus competitive.

"Tesco and its board are doing the right thing here, taking appropriate responsibility and agreeing to rectify the consequences of the misconduct. They have cooperated fully with us and this sets a good example for the market and so is a good outcome for Tesco and investors.

Meanwhile, Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis said: "Over the last two and a half years, we have fully cooperated with this investigation into historic accounting practices, while at the same time fundamentally transforming our business. We sincerely regret the issues which occurred in 2014 and we are committed to doing everything we can to continue to restore trust in our business and brand.

Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "This kind of accounting error is exceptionally rare in the UK stock market, nonetheless shareholders in all companies will be heartened to learn that in instances where false information is provided to the market, the regulator will see to it that investors are duly compensated."

Tesco was also in the spotlight following a report that two of the largest shareholders in the supermarket retailer were advising against its 3.7bn takeover of wholesaler Booker.

According to the Financial Times, Schroders and Artisan - who own 9% of the stock between them - argued that the price of the deal was too high and completing it would be too distracting.

Neil Wilson, senior market analyst at ETX Capital, said the deal with Booker does look pricey. "The 24% premium paid for Booker scrubs the lions share of value from the deal. The big risk is that Tesco will take its eye off the ball and its turnaround will suffer for precious little by way of value. Hubristic takeover deals usually mark a market top  lets hope its not one of those.

Olivetree Financial said: "Tesco already knew there is dissent over the strategic shift that this deal brings  it faced criticism of the move from within its own board ahead of making the transaction public. Since the transaction was announced, the top 20 Tesco shareholders, who speak for 60% of the company, have been net buyers of 5.7% of the company.

"The management have already shown their firm commitment to the transaction (and have affirmed it this morning), with it being so rare to see a Class 1 transaction prove any impediment to UK M&A, this really shouldnt move the implied probability of completion very much. However  a number of Booker shareholders were hopeful that over the lifetime of the deal Booker shares would outperform to a degree which forced Tesco to improve the terms of the deal  with such dissent from acquirer shareholders it would seem that it is the probability of this development which will have been eroded more than anything."

At 0839 BST, Tesco shares were flat at 190p, while Booker shares were off 2.1% to 195.80p.
Live: ORO alliance gathers supporters at Liberty Square /updated/ (video)

20.30 The alliace is holding a march through the streets of Yerevan 20.00 "We have built our heroic way with national minorities living in Armenia," said Armenias former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan, who leads the ORO alliance. He mentioned the names of all nations, stressing that their sons had given their lives for Artsakh. 19.50 Raffi Hovannisian, a member of the ORO alliance and Chairman of the Heritage party, began his speech reciting the national anthem. We should fight not to the end, but to the beginning of Armenias sovereignty, he said. 19.24 A Kurdish woman who introduced herself as Zeyna made an unexpected appearance and addressed the ralliers at Liberty Square. She said she was not afraid of anything. She lost her son in the war. I have come here to say that although I am not affiliated with his party, I see wonderful people gathered here. why shouldnt I bow my head before Seyran Ohanyan who is sharing my grief with me. Mr Vigen Sargsyan, I know that you are a graduate of Harvard University but you were to graduate from the university of the victims' families as well. I have applied to you four times. Where are you? Why dony you respond to my lettters? What is the reason for your silence? she said. 19.15 This square is a sacred place, Ashot Manucharyan, a member of the Karabakh Committee, said addressing people gathered at Liberty Square. People who gather here govern this country. Our country is to make a crucial decision, he added. 19.01 Addressing the ralliers at Yerevans Liberty Square, Armen Martirosyan, who runs for Parliament on a ticket of the RO alliance, spoke about the obstacles put in the blocs way during the election campaign. Along with blocs posters, people gathered at the square are also carrying the photos of Samvel Babayan, a former military commander of Artsakh who was placed under two months pre-trial detention for smuggling a Russian-made surface-to-air Igla system to Armenia. The ralliers observed a moment of silence for Artur Sargsyan, nicknamed the bringer of bread, an activist who died last. Sargsyan was charged with aiding opposition gunmen last summer. He drove his car through a police cordon to deliver food to armed members of the Sasna Dzrer group that seized a police base in Yerevan in July. Our cause is just. The power should be changed in Armenia and Serzh Sargsyan should step down with his Republican Party of Armenia (HHK). The authorities have recorded real progress: the countrys debt will increase from 1,7 billion to 6,2 bln by the end of the year. We demand that Samvel Babayan and other political prisoners be released immediately. There should be a healthy climate and an atmosphere of unity in Armenia, he said.
European diplomats based in the UK say the British government is stepping back from its threat to leave the EU without a trade deal if negotiations break down. In private, say diplomats, UK officials recognise the havoc that this would cause, and have come to regret the threat to turn the UK into a deregulated offshore tax haven, implicit in Theresa Mays Lancaster House speech in January, when she warned that no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal. - Guardian

Theresa Mays ambitions to create a global Britain after Brexit have been boosted by Qatars announcement that it expects to invest 5bn in the UK over the next five years. On Monday, two days before the planned triggering of article 50, Qatari investors at a London conference suggested they were unperturbed by the prospect of Britains departure from the EU and were looking for further opportunities to build on already significant investments in the UK that include the Olympic Village in east London, the Shard building, Harrods department store and a stake in Sainsburys. - Guardian

An increase in personal loans and rising levels of debt on credit cards have led the Bank of England to announce a review into whether the UKs biggest banks have let their lending criteria become too loose. Britons are taking out unsecured loans at the fastest rate in more than 11 years and the Banks financial policy committee, which oversees financial stability, is concerned that a surge in the indebtedness of households could fuel another debt bubble, noting that consumer credit was growing particularly rapidly. - The Times

The financial sector will carry on growing despite Brexit but at a slower pace for the next couple of years, according to a survey. The rate of growth for personal and business lending is expected to slow in the next two years as real incomes weaken but a pronounced pick-up is predicted for 2019 and 2020, EYs Item Club said. -The Times

Two of Tesco's largest shareholders have chastised the supermarket for its "foolhardy" 3.7bn merger with wholesaler Booker, arguing the deal would destroy billions of pounds worth of value. Schroders, the grocer's third biggest investor, and Artisan Partners, the fourth largest, have written to Tesco's board to urge the company to abandon its tie-up with Booker, throwing the deal into doubt. - Telegraph

The Serious Fraud Office and Tesco are within days of announcing a settlement that could mean Britains biggest supermarket chain will pay a multimillion-pound fine over an accounting scandal. Under the deferred prosecution agreement (DPA), Tesco would pay a penalty that could be well over 100m and agree to other conditions in return for avoiding formal prosecution for overstating its profits. - Guardian

A high street bank employs hundreds of its staff on one-hour-a-month contracts, fuelling the debate about employees rights and flexible working. Santanders contracts are different from the controversial zero-hour arrangements, which do not guarantee any work at all and in some cases prohibit individuals from accepting work elsewhere. - The Times

Britains biggest companies have been urged to increase the number of black and minority ethnic people they employ - with hints that legislation could come to ensure this happens if improvements do not come voluntarily. Business Minister Margot James has written to all FTSE 350 businesses asking them to take up the recommendations in a government review published last month which found that black and minority ethnic (BME) groups are being held back in the workplace because of their skin colour. - Telegraph

Virgin Atlantic is predicting it will make its first loss in four years this year thanks in part to the weakness of sterling. Craig Kreeger, the chief executive of the Sir Richard Branson-backed airline, said that he is forecasting a loss for the 2017 calendar year, as the airline struggles to cope with the fall in the value of the pound since last June's EU referendum. - Telegraph

Only a third of the value of new UK offshore wind farm projects is being spent with British companies, according to analysis. As a result the cost of subsidies to projects will outweigh their benefits, a report by the government-backed innovations company Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult (Orec) suggests. - The Times

The NHS is to stop giving patients travel vaccinations, gluten-free foods and some drugs that can be bought over the counter in an effort to rescue its ailing finances. Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, announced the changes in an interview with the Daily Mail in which he detailed new efforts to get better value for money so that money saved could instead be spent on promising therapies that have recently been developed. - Guardian

The governments plan to digitise tax records could cost small businesses up to 3,000 extra a year, the chairman of the Treasury select committee said. Andrew Tyrie has called for a comprehensive pilot scheme to ensure that businesses are not burdened by a proposed overhaul of the tax system, which includes updating the taxman four times a year instead of once. - The Times

A boycott of Google by some of the worlds largest companies will cost it more than $750 million a year, analysts have predicted. Advertising revenues from YouTube, Googles video platform, will fall this year after hundreds of brands withdrew their business in protest at the companys failure to clamp down on extremist content, according to analysts at Nomura, an investment bank. - The Times

British TV producers targeting the demand for new programming from Netflix and Amazon are being offered specialist loans to help them bridge longer delays before they receive payment compared with traditional broadcasters. Barclays said it was launching a 100m fund to provide finance to programme makers who can face cash flow challenges if they work for on demand services. - Telegraph
London's FTSE 100 was up 0.1% to 7,302.51 in afternoon trade as investors looked ahead to Wednesday, when PM Theresa May will officially kick off divorce proceedings with the EU.

Plumbing and heating supplier Wolseley was the standout gainer as it unveiled a name change and plans to withdraw from the Nordics, along with a drop in half-year pre-tax profit and a 10% dividend hike.

The group said it would now be called Ferguson, in recognition of the US division that now pulls in 84% of group trading profit - a move that was welcomed by investors.

Insurer Aviva gained ground following news that it is looking to sell Friends Provident International in a deal that could fetch up to $750m.

The Wall Street Journal cited people familiar with the matter as saying that Aviva has received several pre-emptive offers for the unit, which serves high net worth individuals in Asia and the Middle East, although a formal bidding process hasn't started.

Chinese conglomerates Fosun Group and HNA Group were said to be among those evaluating the unit.

Randgold Resources was on the back foot after confirming its intention to increase its final dividend for the last full year and saying that while the size of its remaining gold resources had shrunk there had been an increase in the reserve grade.

The gold miner proposed a 52% year on year increase in the dividend to $1 per share for the year ended 31 December 2016 for approval at its annual general meeting on 2 May 2017.

Risers

Wolseley (WOS) 5,140.00p 5.26%

Pearson (PSON) 656.00p 3.63%

Standard Chartered (STAN) 739.20p 2.24%

Smurfit Kappa Group (SKG) 2,111.00p 1.49%

Convatec Group (CTEC) 268.50p 1.32%

Johnson Matthey (JMAT) 2,979.00p 1.26%

Aviva (AV.) 529.50p 1.24%

Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust (SMT) 360.10p 1.12%

Mediclinic International (MDC) 773.50p 1.11%

Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,166.50p 1.10%

Fallers

easyJet (EZJ) 998.00p -1.38%

Old Mutual (OML) 215.30p -1.24%

Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 66.14p -1.21%

Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 190.50p -1.14%

Experian (EXPN) 1,614.00p -1.10%

BT Group (BT.A) 321.45p -1.08%

Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 7,105.00p -0.98%

Associated British Foods (ABF) 2,625.00p -0.94%

Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets (MRW) 234.60p -0.93%

Whitbread (WTB) 3,904.00p -0.86%
Alexander Bueso Sharecast News

Sector movers: China news boosts commodity stocks

Commodity-related stocks paced gains in the market on Tuesday amid favourable news for the sector out of China and from key OPEC producer Iran.

Industrial Metals & Mining was top of the leaderboard, with Evraz gaining on the back of reports that on the day before Beijing had called a meeting with major steel producers to discuss progress on industry consolidation. News that local authorities had renewed a drive to cut excess steel output also helped. In other China-related news, analysts at SP Angel highlighted the improvement seen in SpaceKnow's China Satellite manufacturing Index for the month of March. The gauge, which was designed to track activity at the nation's industrial sites, rose from a reading of 51.1 for February to 51.8 in March. As of 1634 GMT COMEX-traded copper futures were up by 0.61% to $2.6480 a pound. Over in the oil patch, remarks from Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh sparked gains in crude oil futures. Speaking from Moscow, Zanganeh reportedly said it was likely that most producing nations would extend the November 2016 agreement to reduce their combined production, although time and face-to-face meetings were needed to evaluate the situation. As of 1611 GMT front month Brent crude futures were higher by 1.89% to $51.73 per barrel on the ICE, alongside a 1.81% move to the upside for West Texas Intermediate to $48.61 a barrel. Aerospace & Defence was also among the top risers, after Cobham confirmed plans to raise roughly 512.4m via a rights issue as it looks to trim debt. Heading the other way were Defensives. Somewhat ironically, that came even as strategists at Credit Suisse reiterated their benchmark view on 'Defensives', following an upgrade in February. Telecoms and Pharma continued to be their preferred sectors, telling clients they remained cautious towards non-financial cyclicals. "We continue to prefer to play cyclicality through financials and technology, and the cyclical regions such as Continental Europe and GEM," they added. Top performing sectors so far today Industrial Metals & Mining 2,303.43 +2.50% Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 16,086.93 +2.12% Mining 15,537.01 +1.85% Aerospace and Defence 4,957.64 +1.14% Oil & Gas Producers 7,791.27 +1.14% Bottom performing sectors so far today Food Producers & Processors 7,984.48 -1.07% Electricity 8,814.50 -0.60% Fixed Line Telecommunications 3,713.85 -0.59% Real Estate Investment Trusts 2,859.64 -0.59% Gas, Water & Multiutilities 6,317.46 -0.36%
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De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) is visiting Poland to talk openly to prospective students about what triggering Article 50 means for higher education in the UK.

The UK government is on the brink of enacting the piece of legislation which will formally begin the process of leaving the EU, following the countrys referendum result last June.

Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to trigger Article 50 by the end of March and DMU will mark the occasion with a visit to Warsaw, to meet with prospective students, media and higher education experts to discuss the consequences of the process.

The university will hold an event at the Marriott Hotel in Warsaw on March 29 from 11.45am to 2pm.

It is the second time in a year DMU has travelled to the Polish capital, following its visit in July last year, in the weeks following the referendum result, where senior staff and Polish students from the university talked about the benefits of international study and dispelled many of the myths which had sprung up about post-Brexit access and rights to work and study in the UK.

The visit was one of the first moves of DMUs #LoveInternational campaign, created in response to the referendum result.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Dominic Shellard wanted to reassure existing staff and students of their right to remain in the UK and work to engage and encourage international students in the uncertain period following the referendum.

The campaign involved numerous trips to European cities  including Berlin, Warsaw, Vilnius and Stockholm  meeting with prospective students, answering their questions and showing the benefits of international study.

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By January 2017, DMUs undergraduate EU applications had risen 29 per cent, bucking a national decline in numbers of 7.43 per cent.

Polish students in particular have responded to DMU, with the number of applications from prospective Polish students rising 70 per cent since last summer.

Polish students will join senior staff  including the Vice-Chancellor  in a reception and presentation open to Polish media, where the qualities of international study and the impact of Brexit will be openly discussed

Vice-Chancellor Professor Dominic Shellard said: During a time of great change, some things remain the same. We, at DMU, are proud to have stepped forward in the last nine months to assure our friends and partners around the world, and particularly in Europe, that our international instinct and global outlook are stronger than ever.

We acted quickly and decisively after the EU referendum to say that our university will always welcome international students. We were particularly happy that our message was heard by our friends in Poland, where we have seen applications to DMU rise 70 per cent since last summer.

The friendships we have here in Poland are natural expressions of a shared belief in diversity, openness and inclusiveness. We are honoured to be travelling to Warsaw again, and to be able to underline how important those friendships are.
Indian Oil Corp in pact to meet Nepal's POL needs for next 5 years

Indian Oil Corporation Limited signed an agreement with Nepal Oil Corporation on Tuesday under which it will meet all requirements of all major POL products of Nepal, including petrol, diesel, kerosene, aviation turbine fuel and LPG for the next five years.

The supply agreement signed with Nepal Oil Corporation on Tuesday is valid for the period from April 2017 to March 2022 and will meet NOC's full requirements of all the major POL products, including petrol, diesel, kerosene, aviation turbine fuel and LPG.

The new agreement is based on the concept of 'Umbrella Agreement' by keeping the provisions of future MoUs / agreements subsidiary to this.

A provision has also been kept for collaboration in new fields like engineering, projects, aviation fuelling, retail sales, petrochemicals, business developments and LPG ventures.

Indian Oil Corp will supply 1.3 million tonnes a year of refined fuels to Nepal, the company's chairman B Ashok told a news conference.

As well as refined products, India was discussing plans to supply gas to Nepal, Indian oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan said at the same news conference.

Indian Oil will also start releasing BS-IV grade fuels to Nepal from its supply points with effect from 1 April 2017 to convert Nepal's markets to the green fuel.

The minister said the two nations were considering building a refined products pipeline linking Motihari in India's eastern state of Bihar to Amlekhgunj in Nepal.

The agreement provides for laying of the Patna-Motihari-Amlekhganj Pipeline for meeting the major requirements of POL products of Nepal. This pipeline will have the flexibility to receive products from Indian Oil's Barauni and Haldia refineries.

Nepal Oil may nominate, with prior written advice to Indian Oil, any other supply point to uplift POL products.

Indian Oil started supply of POL and LPG products to Nepal Oil Corp in 1974 when the first supply agreement was signed. Thereafter, the agreement was renewed periodically.

New Delhi has used its surplus refining and power generation capabilities to deepen ties with nations such as Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, as well as Nepal.

China wants to include Nepal in its flagship `One Belt, One Road' initiative to link Asia with Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Uber to resume self-driving car programme in Arizona, Pittsburgh

Uber said it was resuming its self-driving car programme in Arizona and Pittsburgh after briefly suspending it following a crash over the weekend. Uber also grounded self-driving cars in San Francisco over the weekend, but resumed operations earlier yesterday. (See: Uber suspends AV testing programme after accident)

The difference between the California programme and those in Arizona and Pennsylvania was that California barred passengers from riding in the vehicles.

Uber said yesterday that the operations had been paused over the weekend in order to better understand what had happened in Arizona, but now felt confident of returning the cars to the road.

No serious injuries had been reported in the Tempe, Arizona accident on Friday night.

According to the police, the self-driving Uber SUV was obeying the law, while the human driver of the other car was cited for a "moving violation". A moving violation is a breach of traffic laws, which occurred when the driver's vehicle was in motion.

According to Uber, the incident was under investigation and there were no passengers in the back seat of the self-driving car.

Uber grounded all of its self-driving cars following the Tempe incident.

The taxi app company had taken its fleet of self-driving cars off the roads in three cities until the completion of the investigation.

Uber had shifted testing operations to Arizona last year, after a dispute with the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which required companies operating self-driving cars to report on their operations.

Arizona did not have rules specific to self-driving cars. The company confirmed yesterday that it had been transporting customers with self-driving cars in the state.

The vehicles used a combination of cameras, lidar and other sensors to guide them, though all self-driving cars operating in Arizona today had test drivers behind the wheel to take control if required.

According commentators, there were indications that Uber had been left behind by rival Waymo in the development of driver-less cars.
European regulator approves $130-bn Dow Chemical-DuPont merger with conditions

The European regulator yesterday approved $130-billion Dow Chemical-DuPont merger after both companies agreed to divest several assets including most of their entire research & development operations.

The mega merger is yet to be approved by regulators in the US, India, China, Brazil and other countries.

In December 2015, both Du Pont and Dow agreed to a $130-billion merger in order to split into three separate publicly traded companies focused on agriculture, specialty chemicals and material science.

The market value of the two companies has increased from $130 billion to $145 billion since the deal was announced.

The European Commission (EC) concluded that both Dow and DuPont produce a wide range of chemicals and both companies complement rather than compete with each other. But their activities overlap significantly in other areas, as both sell pesticides products used by farmers to control pests that can harm their crops.

''Effective competition in this sector allows farmers to choose from a range of products at affordable prices. It also pushes companies to continue developing new products that meet the high regulatory standards in Europe,'' the EC said.

The EC said that the merger would have significantly reduced competition for pesticides products, and would have led to higher prices and lesser choice.

DuPont agreed to sell its pesticides business in the areas the EC was concerned about, which accounts for about half of the sales of DuPont's pesticide business.

The sale includes all the assets that DuPont needs to make and sell these products and also includes a number of new products that it is developing, and its worldwide research and development organisation for pesticides.

Since the EC also said that Dow and DuPont are also significant competitors for two types of petrochemical products and hold a large share of both markets, Dow agreed to sell its factories and contracts for these products.

Both companies have agreed to divest almost all of DuPont's global R&D organisation so that the divestment enables a buyer to sustainably replace DuPont's competitive effect in these markets and continue to innovate, for the benefit of European farmers and consumers.

Dow and DuPont are in negotiations to find a buyer for the divestments, which could delay completion of the merger, say analysts.

EC Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said, ''Our job, as a competition authority, is to make sure a merger doesn't deny Europeans the benefits of competition. That is why we always look at what a merger would change  not just today but also tomorrow. We need to ensure that a merger does not lead to higher prices for existing products or reduce choice. But it is just as important to ensure that it does not reduce innovation for new and better products.''

The Indian competition regulator has also said that the proposed merger is likely to have an "appreciable adverse impact on competition," especially in agrochemicals, seeds and material science.

(See: European Commission statement on the Dow Chemical-DuPont merger conditions)
Sari Tagh residents: They do not care a damn about you or your relative who is in custody

No official has shown up to talk to residents of Yerevans Sari Tagh district who have been staging a sit-in protest outside the Office of Prosecutor General since Monday, March 28. No matter where you sit  on the ice or in the rain It is all the same to them. They [authorities] do not care a damn about you or your relative who is in custody, says Narine Ghazaryan, the wife of Hrachya Boyajyan, who was arrested in the wake of last years clashes between demonstrators and riot police in Sari Tagh neighborhood following the seizure of a police station in Erebuni district. The protesting residents demand that the police set free their relatives detained in the unrest that erupted late on July 29 when demonstrators tried to approach the police station where gunmen from the Sasna Dzrer stayed barricaded for about two weeks. The detainees were immediate charged with using violence against government representatives. Residents of Sari Tagh district claim that the clashes were triggered by the police. Even if they threw stones at the rows of riot police, I do not think that they should be sent to prison for 5-10 years. They panicked after security forces pulled out their guns. Had they gone to the border to fight with the enemy, they would not have gone empty-handed; they would have taken sticks or knives with them but they went to solve their community problems, said Aghavni Jamkochyan, the grandmother of Hrachya Boyajyan. The group demands that the ten detainees be released as soon as possible.
Brussels, 27 March 2017

The European Commission has approved under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed merger between US-based chemical companies Dow and DuPont. The approval is conditional in particular on the divestiture of major parts of DuPont's global pesticide business, including its global R&D organisation.

Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, said: "Pesticides are products that matter  to farmers, consumers and the environment. We need effective competition in this sector so companies are pushed to develop products that are ever safer for people and better for the environment. Our decision today ensures that the merger between Dow and DuPont does not reduce price competition for existing pesticides or innovation for safer and better products in the future."

Today's decision follows an in-depth review of the merger. The Commission had concerns that the merger as notified would have reduced competition on price and choice in a number of markets for existing pesticides. Furthermore, the merger would have reduced innovation. Innovation, both to improve existing products and to develop new active ingredients, is a key element of competition between companies in the pest control industry, where only five players are globally active throughout the entire research & development (R&D) process.

The commitments submitted by Dow and DuPont address these concerns in full. The parties will remove the overlap in markets, where concerns were raised, by divesting the relevant DuPont pesticide businesses. They will also divest almost the entirety of DuPont's global R&D organisation. The Commission concluded that the divestment package enables a buyer to sustainably replace DuPont's competitive effect in these markets and continue to innovate, for the benefit of European farmers and consumers.

As regards certain petrochemical products, where both companies are important players, the parties will divest relevant assets in Dow's petrochemical business to preserve effective competition.

This transaction is one out of a number of proposed mergers in the agrochemical sector. The Commission examines each case on its own merits. In line with its case practice, the Commission assesses parallel transactions according to the so-called "priority rule" - first come, first served. The assessment of the merger between Dow and DuPont has been based on the currently prevailing market situation.



The Commission's competition concerns

The Commission had three main categories of competition concerns.

a) Significantly reducing competition in a number of markets for existing pesticides

Pesticides are products used in agriculture to control pests that can harm crops. They can be categorised into herbicides (targeting weeds), insecticides (targeting insects) and fungicides (targeting diseases).

The merged entity would have held very high combined market shares for a number of pesticides, with few other competitors remaining. The Commission found that the merger would have significantly impeded effective competition and resulted in reduced choice and higher prices in the following markets:

As regards herbicides , the transaction would have significantly reduced competition for certain types of selective herbicides for cereals, oilseed rape, sunflower, rice and pasture in a number of Member States.

, the transaction would have significantly reduced competition for certain types of selective herbicides for cereals, oilseed rape, sunflower, rice and pasture in a number of Member States. As regards insecticides , the transaction would have significantly reduced competition for products controlling for chewing insect and sucking insect in fruits and vegetables and some other crops in a number of Member States in particular in the South of Europe.

, the transaction would have significantly reduced competition for products controlling for chewing insect and sucking insect in fruits and vegetables and some other crops in a number of Member States in particular in the South of Europe. As regards fungicides, where the parties overlap to a more limited degree, the transaction would have reduced competition for rice blast fungicides in some Member States.

b) Significantly reducing innovation competition for pesticides

Innovation in pesticides is of particular importance. The Commission's in-depth investigation confirmed that the ability and incentive to innovate is important to capture sales from competitors and to defend existing sales. Farmers value new products that are less toxic or more efficient against pests, which may become resistant to existing active ingredients over time.

The transaction would have had a significant impact on innovation competition by:

Removing the parties' incentives to continue to pursue ongoing parallel innovation efforts - The Commission's investigation of Dow and DuPont's innovation pipelines demonstrated that the two are competing head-to-head in a number of important herbicide, insecticide and fungicide innovation areas. After the merger, they would have an incentive to discontinue some of these costly development efforts.

Removing the parties' incentives to develop and bring to market new pesticides  The Commission found specific evidence that the merged entity would have lower incentives and a lower ability to innovate than Dow and DuPont separately. In its investigation it also found specific evidence that the merged entity would have cut back on the amount they spent on developing innovative products. Only five companies (BASF, Bayer, Syngenta and the merging parties) are globally active throughout the entire R&D process, from discovery of new active ingredients (molecules producing the desired biological effect), their development, testing and regulatory registration, to the manufacture and sale of final formulated products through national distribution channels. Other competitors have no or more limited R&D capabilities (e.g. as regards geographic focus or product range). After the merger, only three global integrated players would remain to compete with the merged company, in an industry with very high barriers to entry. The number of players active in specific innovation areas would be even lower than at the overall industry level.

c) Significantly reducing competition for certain petrochemical products.

Dow and DuPont's activities also overlap in petrochemical products. Specifically, the Commission had concerns due to the high combined market shares of the two companies in the acid co-polymer market, where the number of competitors would be reduced from four to three. The Commission also had concerns due to the strengthening of DuPont's dominant position in the ionomer market. These are products widely used in packaging and adhesive applications.

The Commission initially also had concerns relating to nematicides (products used to protect against nematode worms) and seeds. However, the in-depth investigation did not confirm these.

The commitments

The parties offered a set of commitments, which address the Commission's competition concerns in full.

a & b) Preserving price and innovation competition in pesticide markets

The parties will divesta significant part of DuPont's existing pesticide business, including its R&D organisation, in particular:

Globally, DuPont's herbicides for cereals, oilseed rape, sunflower, rice and pasture (thifensulfuron, tribenuron, metsulfuron, chlorsulfuron, triflusulfuron, lenacil, flupyrsulfuron, ethametsulfuron and azimsulfuron) and insecticides for chewing insect and sucking insect control for fruits and vegetables etc. (indoxacarb, cyazypyr and rynaxypyr). They will also divest all tangible and intangible assets underpinning the divested products (including the facilities where the products are manufactured) and relevant personnel.

for cereals, oilseed rape, sunflower, rice and pasture (thifensulfuron, tribenuron, metsulfuron, chlorsulfuron, triflusulfuron, lenacil, flupyrsulfuron, ethametsulfuron and azimsulfuron) and for chewing insect and sucking insect control for fruits and vegetables etc. (indoxacarb, cyazypyr and rynaxypyr). They will also divest all tangible and intangible assets underpinning the divested products (including the facilities where the products are manufactured) and relevant personnel. An exclusive license to DuPont's product for rice cultivation in the European Economic Area to address the more limited concerns relating to fungicides .

. DuPont's global R&D organisation, with the exception of a few limited assets that support the part of DuPont's pesticide business, which is not being divested.

The Commission concluded that the divestment package will enable a buyer to replace the competitive constraint exerted by DuPont. Competition on price and choice in existing markets is preserved because all of DuPont's products in problematic markets are divested. The sale of the underpinning R&D organisation and pipeline ensures the viability and competitiveness of the divested business on a lasting basis and will enable the buyer to become a global integrated R&D competitor.

c) Preserving competition for certain petrochemical products

Dow will divest its two manufacturing facilities for acid co-polymers in Spain and in the US, as well as the contract with a third party through which it sources ionomers that it sells to its customers.



International cooperation

The Commission has been in close contact with a number of other competition authorities, which are also reviewing the transaction. In particular, the Commission has had regular exchanges with the US Department of Justice and the competition authorities of Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China and South Africa.



Companies and products

Dow is headquartered in the United States. It is the ultimate parent company of the Dow group, which is active in plastics and chemicals, agro-chemicals, and hydrocarbon and energy products and services.

DuPont is also headquartered in the United States. It is the ultimate parent company of the DuPont group, which is active in a variety of, plastics and chemicals, agro-chemicals, paints, seeds, and other materials.

(See: European regulator approves $130-bn Dow Chemical-DuPont merger with conditions)
More than one hundred members of the local community have called for the Ulster Bank to overturn its decision to close its branch in Raphoe in three months time.

There was a large turnout at a meeting in Raphoe this evening where the community said it will do everything it can to make the bank reverse its decision.

The bank is also planning to close its branch in Ardara and the union representing bank workers says the number of staff in Letterkenny will also be reduced.

Around 20 job losses are feared between the three branches.

If carried through, the decision will leave a town that once had three banks with none.

Members of the community in Raphoe were travelling to Ardara to attend a meeting to lend their support to the community there.

Minister for State Joe McHugh, TD Pat The Cope Gallagher and councillors Liam Doherty and Gerry Crawford attended the meeting.

A meeting has been organised between local political representatives and senior bank officials next Wednesday in Dublin to discuss the proposed closures.

Gareth Murphy, Senior Industrial Relations Officer with the Financial Services Union, said staff in the Raphoe branch are devastated by the decision. He said compulsory redundancies are possible at the three Donegal branches.

This is a shocking decision and a shocking decision first and foremost for the community of Raphoe. People here should make their voice heard to the new CEO that this is not a good decision, he said.

Minister McHugh said information is needed about the branch and he questioned the banks contention that there are only 30 customers a day.

He said on a visit to the bank today he saw 20 customers in a half hour.

Your response is unanimous. You want to keep it open but we have a very difficult and hard job to do, he told the meeting.

Deputy Gallagher said the figure of 30 customers a day was absurd.

They have a moral obligation to the people of this area. People should not have to travel elsewhere, he said.

Local people were called upon to voice their opinion to bank management and tell them that they will not keep their business with the bank if it leave the town.

Ann Harkin, manager of the Raphoe Livestock Mart, said feelings are running very high at the decision.

This is very, very important for our community.The Ulster Bank is all we have left here as a lifeline. Everyone wants to tell Ulster Bank how important it is to have a bank in our town, she said.

We need to do whatever it takes to tell Ulster Bank they need to stay here. We have to do whatever it takes to keep this town open for business.

Chair of the Irish Farmers Association in Donegal, Michael Chance, said the decision was a bad commercial one.

Raphoe is central to the farming community in the whole of Donegal, he said.
At times, he feels like the lone wolf raising his voice. Hes done it so long that he has grown weary of it.

Now, Jonathan Grecu, mayor of Ashford, is ready for others to join him in the effort to see the eastern half of Houston County develop to its fullest potential. What will that take? Grecu says it will take a combination of factors to make it happen. And, he notes, it needs to happen sooner rather than later.

Im tired of the east side of Houston County being overlooked, Grecu said as he measured his words to make his point. We need to come together with new ideas, new prospects for growth on the east side of Houston County. We need Houston County (as a whole) to come together, to work together. The question is: we have five members from four districts and one at-large that are supposed to be working for the betterment of Houston County.

But are they?

I love Dothan, Grecu continued, but, if the Houston County Commission will see the big picture, take a minute and look at it, they will see the untapped potential of eastern Houston County. If they do, I believe they will see a golden opportunity in this half of the county.

Grecu has seen some movement in economic development in Ashford, but he desires to see more things happen in other communities in the eastern side of the county.

I think the growth of Next Level Apparel is, by far, much quicker and more unexpected as far as how quickly it came, he said of the distribution center that looks to add at least 25,000 more square feet of warehouse space and potentially add another 100 jobs to its work force. That is definitely very satisfying and welcome to see. Im excited about that. And it tells me there is more potential on this side of the county.

He noted there at least 10 incorporated cities and towns in Houston County. The majority of them are in the eastern half of the county.

There are six cities and towns in the eastern half of Houston County that want to grow, Grecu said. This is not political. It has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with economic growth for the whole county. Why should we be begging for crumbs? If the right people get behind us, its unimaginable the growth that would take place that would benefit all of us. What Im looking at is for our future.

I believe weve grown in the last five years fairly well in Ashford while fending for ourselves. The one exception is the case of Next Level Apparel. All of us, as mayors, stood up when Next Level came. All of us said the exact same things. Its good for the Wiregrass area. It was a win for Houston County. It was a win for all of us.

Grecu says he decided to speak up, because he wants to see the entire county benefit from economic development.

Its not that Im upset about anything, Grecu continued. Im not. What I am is a voice saying, Hey, were over here. If we grow, its going to take the effort of everybody. Its not a matter of just standing up and saying we want to grow. We need the whole of Houston County working together. Its good for all of us if Cottonwood grows, if Pansey grows, if Webb or Columbia grows.

What were looking at is Houston County as a whole. Cities need the opportunity to expand, not only their economic base but to expand in general. We cant just stop growing. Things like Next Level Apparel coming cant be few and far between. At some point in time weve all got to get on the same page. I dont care what we have to do. We will grow as a county, regardless of what we have to do. If we have the mayors and commission coming together, then we would see economic growth in Houston County. That is what were all looking for.

We want the growth, but, individually, its not going to happen. Corporately, as a county, it will. And the commission will say Jonathans right.

He also noted land is available in eastern Houston County for more development. He also says the U.S. Hwy. 84 East corridor is waiting to be developed.

Take a look at U.S. 84, Grecu said. From Dothan all the way to the Georgia line ought to be filled with businesses, industrial development, retail shops. We should look like I-10 with a bunch of businesses on it.

And, he notes, that begs another question hed like answered.

I want to know why business owners, not the ones we already have, dont see the value in eastern Houston County, Grecu said. Im talking about real estate agencies, developers. How much screaming and cheering do I have to do?

For an example of what could happen in eastern Houston County, Grecu says to look west.

Look at Andalusia, he said. Its off the beaten path. But you have people there who want to invest in that community.

Why dont we have a community college on this side of the county? You dont have to make a new model for growth. Look at the models, like Andalusia, that are working. We want to do that.

The Bible says that hope deferred makes the heart sick. My question to any mayor in Houston County is this. Can you do it by yourself? The answer is no. But, get a group of men and women together who strive to grow our county and our municipalities will grow. Look at any growth pattern. If the county grows, the cities will grow. That is what we need.
Organizers and area farmers continue to move forward with plans to open a certified farmers market in Ashford. Called the Farmers Market at the Depot, the event will be held every Saturday from June 3 through Aug. 5. The hours of operation are set to be 8 a.m.-noon.

Another organizational meeting for the Farmers Market at the Depot was held last Tuesday night in the Ashford Depot. Kim Vann, committee chair, led the discussion as she gave an update of where the plans are for the market. She noted 10 vendors were anticipated for the first year. Seven of the vendors would be area farmers while the other three would sell original merchandise. She also noted the market would be certified by the state of Alabama Farmers Market Authority.

As a certified farmers market, it assures us the grower selling the food also grew the food, Vann said. The state regulates it (the activities of the market). We will inspect your farms. Being certified also helps with being able to accept vouchers. We have rules that we have to go by.

Some farmers expressed concerns over the 10-week length of the market. Vann says that is where some latitude is available. If a farmer is unable to attend, she says the market has the option of contacting a farmer that was not among the first seven selected to participate in the market to fill that spot for that week.

As a committee, we have to make the tough decision as to who can be in the market, Vann said. We will go over all of the applications to get a good blend (of producers). We want the people that live here to be involved. This is our first year, so, we dont know what will happen. I ask that you be sure to bring enough (produce) to stay the whole time. We dont want a spot to go vacant.

She also noted flexibility comes into play when selecting other types of vendors.

The first seven vendors will be producers, Vann said. That includes growers, eggs and baked goods. The other three will be miscellaneous vendors. That will include those who make homemade arts and crafts. If you make it, you can sell it.

Because of that stipulation, no vendors will be allowed to sell items made from pre-packaged kits.

Vann also noted in her presentation that the Farmers Market Authority stipulates some plans for consistency.

We have been told that white tents for the farmers have to be used, Vann said. It helps the market (look) stay consistent. You will also need a sign for your farm at the market. I think most farmers are familiar with that.

Vann says plans for the event go beyond the actual market.

We are also looking at the business side, she said. We want to talk about advertising. We will have banners on Hwy. 84 to let people know about the market, but we also want to get the (downtown) businesses involved on Saturdays. We want to get more people downtown.

One way to encourage that involvement, Vann says, is to have local businesses advertise on the shopping bags that will be available to the people who come to the farmers market to buy fresh, locally grown produce.

We want to help you, and you to help us, Vann said of the relationship between the city and the farmers.

Some might question why Ashford would want to create a farmers market, considering Poplar Head Farmers Market is held at the same time in Dothan.

One of the things I kept hearing is that people here dont want to drive to Dothan, Vann said. People in Georgia dont want to drive to Dothan for the farmers market.

The Farmers Market at the Depot is sponsored by the city of Ashford.
When the 28th annual Alzheimers Conference convenes on Wednesday, April 5, in the Dothan Civic Center, caregivers of all levels will benefit from the events two keynote speakers  Richard E. Powers, MD, a neuropathologist and geriatric psychiatrist, and Robin W. Dill, director of Grace Arbor Respite Care Ministry at First United Methodist Church in Lawrenceville, Ga.

This years conference is entitled New Understandings of Alzheimers Disease. Registration begins at 7:30 a.m., followed by the conference at 8 a.m. The conference will close at 3 p.m. The registration fee is $65 with CEUs and $25 without CEUs. Lunch will be provided.

The conference is co-sponsored by the Alzheimers Resource Center and Wallace Community College.

Professionals caregivers, family caregivers and anyone who wants to learn more about Alzheimers disease or other forms of dementia are welcome to attend, said Kay Jones, executive director of the Alzheimers Resource Center. We have great speakers with a lot of information to give to those who attend.

She credits Dr. Powers with opening the eyes of the state of Alabama to the special needs of dementia patients. Jones says he was also a valuable asset to her, since her mother had been diagnosed with this devastating brain disease when little information was readily available for caregivers.

I have known Dr. Powers since 1993, when I became part of the Dementia Education Training Agency (DETA) program for the state of Alabama, Jones said as she discussed the importance of his visit to the conference this year. Dr. Powers created that program. In my opinion, he knows more about Alzheimers disease than anyone else Ive come in contact with. He gave me a lot of advice on how to help my mother. She had been diagnosed with Alzheimers disease in 1985.

Through the Department of Mental Health, Dr. Powers, Jones says, was funded to start the Bureau of Geriatric Psychiatry. His work eventually led him to the Veterans Administration, which gives him an added focus for his presentation at this years conference.

Im very excited that Dr. Powers is coming, Jones continued. He will be able to answer a lot of questions that caregivers  both professional and family  have. He will bring us up to date with whats going on in the Alzheimers world. He will speak on several forms of dementia, which is important, since doctors in this area are diagnosing patients with different types of dementia. His presentation will also help caregivers in that respect.

The other forms of dementia Dr. Powers will address include vascular dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies, frontotemporal dementia or frontotemporal lobar degeneration and alcohol-related dementia. He will also distinguish between early versus late onset dementia. He will also address rapidly progressive dementia.

Dr. Powers will also speak on difficult behaviors associated with dementia, Jones noted. We will benefit by learning how to handle difficult behaviors. He is more into changing our approach to handling a person with dementia.

Jones says a lot has changed in the state since Dr. Powers started the DETA program.

No other state had what we had through the DETA program, she continued. Weve lost that because of cutbacks in funding.

During his career in mental health, Dr. Powers witnessed many things that caused him to change the way dementia patients are treated.

Dr. Powers was in charge of patients who had gotten kicked out of nursing homes (because of their behavior), Jones said as she elaborated on his awareness of a need for change in care. A large number of Alzheimer patients who came to him were either sick or impacted, which accounted for their behavior issues. He knew what this state needed was education (in how to assist dementia patients). This state is so indebted to Dr. Powers. I have been learning about Alzheimers disease since 1985. He taught me most of what I know about Alzheimers disease.

Assisting veterans is another component in Dr. Powers upcoming presentation.

Dr. Powers, a veteran himself, is concerned about the memory health of veterans, Jones said. Weve never addressed this issue. Im really excited about that.

Areas to be covered include: the long-term health of veterans in America, defining memory complaints in younger veterans, explaining the short- and long-term consequences of traumatic brain injury in veterans and other individuals and a discussion of the aging of Vietnam veterans and cognitive disorders in this group.

While Dr. Powers will cover the medical aspect of the care of dementia patients, Robin Dill will address the importance of providing respite care for dementia patients, which will provide down time for the caregivers.

Robin has developed and coordinates a program and activities for people with dementia, Jones said. She started the very first respite care ministry in Georgia. She followed that by starting a respite care program in Montgomery before she started one here (at First United Methodist Church) in January 2016.

This respite care ministry is something positive to offer caregivers. Its really a win-win situation. The caregivers have time away to rest or take care of errands. The participants in the program are surrounded with dignity and respect, happiness, encouragement, socialization and exercise.

There are some requirements that must be met before a dementia patient can attend the program.

The participants must be able to walk by themselves, Jones noted. They must also be able to feed themselves and be able to go to the bathroom by themselves. The program here is now open four days a week. The fee is $35 per day.

Jones says the program is worth the cost.

Its a proven fact that socialization is important to the Alzheimers disease patients, she said. Going to their church or synagogue, believing in a higher being is good for all of us, but it is especially good for an Alzheimer patient. Its one of the things that helps with aging.

In addition to assisting with the creation of church-based respite care programs, Dill, a Clemson University graduate, has also authored four books: Walking with Grace, Walking with GraceRevised, The Friendly Pelican and the Seagull and Seasons of Caring (as a contributing author).

To register for the conference by phone using debit or credit cards, contact Shaletha Barnes-Blackmon at Wallace Community College, at 556-2205 or FAX the registration form to 984-2132. You may also register the morning of the conference.

Wallace Community College is an approved provider of continuing education for the Alabama Board of Nursing (ABNP0035  exp. 4/17). RN/LPNs and OTs are approved for 7.2 contact hours. CEUs have been approved for up to 6 contact hours for certified counselors, social workers, speech therapists, nursing home administrators and assisted living administrators. Physical therapists and physical therapy assistants must follow the guidelines set forth in the Alabama Code 700-x-2.09.

For more information about the conference, contact Kay Jones at the Alzheimers Resource Center, 334-702-2273. You may also email inquiries to alzheimer@graceba.net.
MG's fledgling Australian operation is on a mission to convince buyers it is "here to stay", following a false start four years ago.

The historic brand, now under the ownership of Chinese giant SAIC, made ripples in the Australian car market when it launched an ill-prepared challenge on the motoring establishment in 2013.

Championed by independent importers Australia Longwell Motor, the brand's rebirth was hurt by poorly-positioned, uncompetitive cars as well as logistical red tape.

But the brand is now back with three new models as a local arm of SAIC, MG's parent company.

Danny Lenartic, marketing and communications manager for the new operation, says customers should not be worried by MG's recent history in Australia.

"This is a completely different operation," he says.

"That door is closed. It was a distributor - it didn't have anything to do with SAIC.

"It wasn't a false start it is more of a hiccup. SAIC are committed to continue here."

The reborn brand's range includes the budget MG3 hatch, revised MG6 Plus sedan and new MG GS SUV that goes on sale this month. It's a small operation to begin with, comprising of just three dealerships - one Queensland outlet in Brisbane, plus a NSW presence in Coffs Harbour and Campbelltown. Expect a Victorian outlet to follow soon.

MG hopes to win buyers over with a combination of value-for-money and customer service anchored by a six-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty and roadside assistance package.

Lenartic says the MG brand will help erode the inferior quality stigma surrounding Chinese cars, one he believes is already slipping away.

"That message is softening," he says.

"So much of our household technology comes out of China, I think people understand that."
Volkswagen is looking to bridge a gap between now and when its next-generation Touareg SUV arrives with a new special edition.

With a new model due next year, the German brand is keeping the spotlight on its ageing off roader before it is replaced.

A new Touareg Adventure edition follows on from the Wolfsburg limited edition that went on sale last year.

The Adventure model is based on the mid-range variant that is powered by a 3.0-litre V6 turbo diesel engine that produces 180kW and 550Nm and is paired to an eight-speed auto with power delivered to all four wheels.

Volkswagen has thrown in some 19-inch alloy wheels, new bi-xenon headlights, leather seat upholstery, autonomous emergency braking and roof racks compared to the standard model.

Its Adventure tag comes from the addition of a 100-litre fuel tank and air-suspension just in case one of its new owners might want to venture a little way off the beaten path.

Representing solid value, the Adventure is priced from $79,990 before on-road costs and slots in between the $68,990 base 150TDI and the $85,490 mid-range model it is based on.

The Volkswagen Touareg Adventure edition is now available for order, with deliveries commencing in May.
Apple has released a new iPad calling it just 'iPad' which in no way, the current tablet for this year. While there are certain compromises in primary features to achieve their price target, there's an equally competing product from their primary rivals, Samsung electronics. Samsung also came out with their 'Galaxy Tab S3' tablet.

Comparing both the products side by side, the iPad 2017 is offered at a starting price of $329 for the 32GB Wi-Fi only variant. It's price peaks at $559 that comes with both Wi-Fi and cellular connection with a maximum storage capacity of 128GB. A plus point for customers opting for Apple is the fact that while there are certainly some features missing, it might make a great high-end product to test things with. A complete spec list from Apple's website reveals an older A9 chip with a smaller 8MP camera on the back.

Connectivity options for the new iPad do not include the smart connector and also, the Apple pencil that will be limited to the current generation iPad "Pro" variants only. The screen does not include a true-tone display, nor a wide color gamut. Another key feature that didn't make it for the new iPad is the retina flash.

Meanwhile, taking a look at Samsung's new Tab S3 tablet, Samsung has come out with an all-glass design for their new tablet to achieve that premium looks. The Galaxy Tab S3 also comes at the same size of 9.7-inches to indirectly hint that the Tab S3 will directly compete with the iPad Pro 9.7-inch. Taking a look at its specifications on Samsung's website, HDR video playback is restricted to only videos and other content streamed through the Amazon app.

A Snapdragon 820 processor combined with 4GB of RAM is equipped with a gigantic 6000mAh battery that runs on the latest Nougat OS from Android. Samsung has also introduced an S-Pen that pretty much performs similarly to the Apple pencil. Audio needs on the Galaxy Tab S3 are taken care by AKG audio.
First new homes now on sale at Ashwood Park and Castle Walk, Reading

Theres a superb selection of high-quality homes now on sale at Taylor Wimpeys brand new Ashwood Park and Castle Walk developments in Reading, Berkshire.

The eagerly awaited collection of one and two-bedroom apartments and three and four-bedroom houses at Ashwood Park enjoys a convenient location off Southcote Lane to the south west of the town, while Castle Walk  offering a selection of three and four-bedroom homes  is also based in Readings popular south-western outskirts, off Wensley Road.

The new homes at both developments combine generous living space with high-quality design and offer superb value for money, with a choice of properties to suit a range of purchasers.

Discerning house-hunters have already moved quickly to secure their favourite plots  with one home already snapped up during the opening weekend and interest running exceptionally high on the remaining homes.

Emma Jones, Regional Sales and Marketing Director for Taylor Wimpey, says: We are delighted to unveil the first selection of new homes for sale at both Ashwood Park and Castle Walk, and its no surprise to see they are already generating a great deal of interest from savvy buyers.

Interest is showing no signs of slowing, so Id urge prospective purchasers to get in touch right away to make sure they dont miss out!

Whats more, by reserving off-plan, they can ensure their property is completed to their personal specifications before theyve been handed the keys, by choosing from our range of interior Options.

To make moving to one of these stunning developments even easier and more affordable, Taylor Wimpey offers a range of helpful homebuyer incentives for those with a property to sell, including Easymover, where customers can reserve their new house and then sit back and relax while Taylor Wimpey helps to find a buyer for their existing home, usually within a few weeks and sometimes in as little as a fortnight!

Ashwood Park is situated opposite Prospect Park, Readings largest open space, which gets its name from the fine views across the Kennet Valley and beyond.

Castle Walk, meanwhile, is nestled within an established residential area in Reading close to footpaths and open fields.

Theres a fantastic choice of shops and supermarkets in Reading town centre, just over a mile away, plus the Oracle Shopping Centre, which offers a variety of high street stores, as well as riverside restaurants, cafes and bars, and a multi-screen cinema.

Primary and secondary-aged pupils are well catered for with a number of schools and academies in the local area. The University of Reading is also within easy reach.

Commuters will appreciate the nearby M4 for convenient links to the rest of the country, while Reading railway station provides regular services to various locations including London, Oxford, Bristol and Bournemouth.

Reading railway station will also benefit from the world-class new Crossrail service  Europes largest infrastructure project that aims to change the way people travel around London and ease congestion by improving journey times and offering better connections.

To find out more about the new homes at Ashwood Park or Castle Walk, property-seekers can visit the Sales Information Centre at Taylor Wimpeys nearby Loddon Park development, located off Mohawk Way, Woodley, RG5 4TE, and open daily from 10am to 5pm.

Alternatively, visit taylorwimpey.co.uk.
Independence and accountability in a changing world

Introductory remarks by Benoit Cure, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the Transparency International EU Event Two sides of the same coin? Independence and accountability of the European Central Bank, Brussels, 28 March 2017

General considerations

Thank you for your invitation to todays event. I am looking forward to a discussion with a panel representing such a wide range of stakeholders and views.

The ECB fully shares the values that underpin Transparency Internationals work, such as integrity and accountability. At a time when many people are expressing doubts about public institutions, it is clear that these principles are vital for their legitimacy.[1] And we are convinced that greater responsibility and integration at euro area level, which are much needed to strengthen our Economic and Monetary Union, should go hand in hand with greater democratic accountability.[2]

So Transparency Internationals work regarding the EUs economic governance is certainly useful. This is why the ECB has facilitated this project by inviting the researchers to a series of meetings with senior staff. We were offered the opportunity to comment on the draft of the report. But as the study and its recommendations are entirely owned by Transparency International, we exclusively provided factual observations and abstained from commenting on the substance.

Before offering some observations on the four chapters of the report  independence, transparency, accountability and integrity  I would like to make two preliminary, more general remarks:

First, and to answer the question raised in the title of the report: yes, for the ECB independence and accountability are two sides of the same coin. The ECB was given a democratic mandate. Independence ensures that the ECB can act in line with its mandate. Accountability , on the other hand, ensures that the ECB does act in line with its mandate. This can be measured ex post against outcomes  the ECB did indeed take decisive action to preserve price stability during the crisis [3]  and it relies ex ante on having a strong accountability framework.

ensures that the ECB can act in line with its mandate. , on the other hand, ensures that the ECB does act in line with its mandate. This can be measured ex post against outcomes  the ECB did indeed take decisive action to preserve price stability during the crisis  and it relies ex ante on having a strong accountability framework. Second, the ECB is quite unique in the EU institutional context. I understand that Transparency International has published similar reports on the European Investment Bank and the European Stability Mechanism. There are important differences between the three bodies  not only as regards their mandate and purpose, but also in terms of their institutional setup, governance structures, funding and, in this context more importantly, accountability. Of course, we are an EU institution (like the European Parliament or the European Commission). But we are also a central bank and, as of 2014, a banking supervisor. These specific tasks require a dedicated governance framework considered so crucial by the EU legislators that it was laid down in the EU Treaty and, as regards banking supervision, in the regulation establishing the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM).

In my remarks I will cover each aspect of the report briefly.

Independence

In the European Union, the principle of central bank independence has a quasi-constitutional basis. Article 108 of the Treaty establishing the European Community states that: neither the ECB, nor a national central bank  shall seek or take instructions from Community institutions or bodies, from any government of a Member State or from any other body.

Looking at the debate around independence, which is also taking place outside the EU, it becomes clear that safeguarding our independence requires more than a series of legal provisions.

It requires an explanation of why independence is important for a central bank. As guardians of price stability in the euro area, the ECB creates the foundation for a healthy and stable European economy. Independence is essential in that respect, as it protects the ECB from any temptation by governments to seek changes in monetary policy to favour short-term economic gains over price stability, or to pander to private interest groups.

It is equally important to correct misperceptions, and all stakeholders do have a responsibility in this respect. The ECB communicates clear conditions for accepting credit institutions as counterparts, for quality of collateral, for emergency liquidity assistance extended by national central banks so as not to interfere with monetary policy, for accepting securities under its asset purchase programme, etc. These conditions are transparent and equal for all counterparties in the euro area. Therefore, the ECB does not aim for political buy in, it merely clarifies the conditions which govern its monetary policy for all euro area countries, and this is needed to ensure that it stays within its mandate and, thus, to safeguard its independence.

As for the ECBs current role in the macroeconomic adjustment programmes, this is enshrined in a legal framework[4] that is not for the ECB to alter. We believe that financial issues are where the ECBs advice is of particular relevance. If there were political willingness to change the framework, we would be happy to engage and, based on our experience, help clarify how best to support the other institutions while safeguarding our independence.[5]

Accountability

Independence does not mean arbitrariness. The ECB was given a democratic mandate. It is held accountable for acting in line with this mandate, both democratically and legally.

From a democratic perspective, the ECB is accountable for its policies to the representation of EU citizens. As described in the Report, the ECBs President participates in quarterly hearings of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament. As MEP Tremosa i Balcells knows very well, these are not dialogues de sourds. The MEPs do not shy away from asking critical questions. As the President emphasised at his September 2016 hearing, the ECB takes these exchanges very seriously.

In addition to the regular quarterly hearings, my Executive Board colleagues and I also participate in hearings of this Committee to explain the ECBs reasoning and decisions on specific topics. Just last year, I visited the European Parliament twice to discuss the proposal for a euro area budgetary capacity and the ECBs involvement in Greece.

In about ten days time the ECB, as it does every year, will publish its Annual Report and the Vice-President will present it before the European Parliament. Later in the year, the President will also attend the plenary debate on it, which precedes the Parliament adopting its official position on our activities.

This European Parliament Resolution is an important contribution for our work, as it summarises the views of the representatives of the European people on our actions and policies, also in the fields of independence, transparency, accountability and integrity. We take the European Parliaments comments and suggestions very seriously.[6]

I could continue with other examples showing the health of the relationship between the European Parliament and the ECB: from the Governing Council decision to adopt principles that increase transparency in developing ECB regulations on European statistics, to the ECBs readiness to discuss questions on the work it is engaged in in the Basel Committee, of course within the confines imposed by confidentiality requirements. And I could mention the separate accountability channels foreseen with the establishment of ECB Banking Supervision, based on the Interinstitutional Agreement (2013/694/EU) between the European Parliament and the ECB. Last week, the Chair of the ECB Supervisory Board was at the European Parliament to present the ECB Annual Report on supervisory activities 2016.

Of course, I leave it to MEP Tremosa i Balcells to express the Parliaments judgement on the robustness of our accountability framework towards the Parliament. From the ECBs perspective, our accountability framework as defined in the Treaty is working well, and has been adapted to the challenges we have faced in recent years by expanding our interactions where and when necessary.

Transparency

Transparency is crucial to the ECBs work and it attaches great importance to communicating effectively with the public. Transparency helps people understand the ECBs monetary policy, and better public understanding, in turn, makes the ECBs monetary policy more credible and effective.

Against this background, communication with financial market participants deserves particular attention. I see it as a double-edged sword. Clear communication with financial markets enhances the implementation and transmission of monetary policy, but on the other hand it may risk central banks being captured by private interests, or worse, disclosing privileged information. And even the perception of such risks would be harmful.

Please allow me to present some examples.

The European Central Bank has made significant progress on matters of transparency and good governance. This was noted by the European Ombudsman, who commended the ECB for adopting the Guiding principles for external communication by members of the Executive Board and encourage[d] it to lead the field on all aspects of good governance. The Ombudsman more generally acknowledged, when presenting her Annual Report for 2015 to the European Parliament, that the ECB has boosted its transparency.[7]

The Guiding Principles provide a more concrete and very practical expression of the rules that are already binding on Executive Board members. They enshrine the ECBs approach to ensuring that financial market-sensitive information is not disclosed to select groups and avoiding giving the impression that an event organiser has a prestige advantage allowing it to benefit financially from the perception of exclusive contacts with the members of the Executive Board. The Guiding Principles also advise the Executive Board members to include, as a matter of principle, an ECB staff member in bilateral meetings. These principles have also been subscribed to by the Chair of the ECBs Supervisory Board and the other ECB Representatives to the Supervisory Board.

In addition, the members of the Governing Council (including the Executive Board members) observe a quiet period before monetary policy meetings. This means they avoid making comments or attending meetings that could influence expectations about monetary policy decisions in the seven days before a scheduled meeting on this issue. This also covers meetings with the media, market participants or any other outside parties with interests in monetary policy matters.

As you probably know, the Executive Board Members  including myself  as well as the Chair of the Supervisory Board have been publishing their diaries since November 2015. I find that the diaries provide a very comprehensive overview of our interactions with external parties; they cover all our professional meetings with the private and public sectors (at national and international level). No other EU institution  including via the Transparency Register  or central bank provides such extensive information in terms of transparency.

The ECB has also established high-level fora such as the Institutional Investor Dialogue and the Banking Industry Dialogue to collect relevant market intelligence from stakeholders in a transparent way. These fora are underpinned by a published charter that sets out the participation rules; the agendas and meeting summaries are also published. This makes the ECBs interactions in terms of gathering information from stakeholders highly transparent for the public.

Since January 2015 the ECB has also been publishing regular accounts of the Governing Councils monetary policy discussions. They contain an overview of financial market, economic and monetary developments, followed by a summary of the discussion, in an unattributed form, on the economic and monetary analyses and on the monetary policy stance. In doing so, we aim to provide the rationale behind monetary policy decisions and enable anyone who is interested to read the Governing Councils assessment of the economy within a short period of time after the discussion takes place.

Integrity

However, independence, accountability and transparency are not enough if they are not flanked by a robust integrity system. Or as Mario Draghi put it in an address to staff: a stronger business culture has to be complemented by a stronger ethical culture.

An enhanced ECB Ethics Framework applicable to all staff members became effective in January 2015, and a dedicated Compliance and Governance Office was established to implement this new framework, among other tasks. Mandatory ethics training for all staff members should further enhance our strong ethical culture. Moreover, a high-level Ethics Committee has been established to advise Governing Council, Executive Board and Supervisory Board members on conduct matters.

In my view the ECBs Ethics Framework is probably the strictest of any EU institution or central bank. All our staff members  including Executive Board members  need to provide a list of their bank accounts and powers of attorney conferred on them by third parties, to facilitate regular compliance checks of their private financial transactions by our external auditor.

While we are convinced of the robustness of our Ethics Framework, such frameworks must, of course, be regularly reviewed against international best practice. The review of our whistleblowing regime is just one example in that regard.

Concluding remarks

Let me conclude. While we certainly have to strive constantly for improvements, I believe one has to admit that the ECB has made tremendous efforts and indeed made significant progress in strengthening its accountability, boosting its transparency and further enhancing its integrity mechanisms and good governance.

The ECB is, and has always been, open to a balanced dialogue with stakeholders, including the general public, and strives to keep up to date with fast-evolving communication practices, such as Q&A sessions on Twitter.

This study, containing interviews of ECB senior managers and the report by Transparency International, is indeed a good example of how the ECB engages in a balanced dialogue with diverse representatives.

As mentioned earlier, we are convinced that independence requires accountability, and that accountability requires transparency. Integrity is a foundation of any good administration.

We are confident about what we have achieved, but as central bankers we are always vigilant and never complacent.

Thank you for listening, and I look forward to hearing your views.
PRESS RELEASE

ECB welcomes dialogue with NGOs on transparency

EMBARGO Transmission embargo until 0:00 CET on Tuesday, 28 March 2017

Non-governmental organisation commends ECB for steps taken to enhance transparency

ECB confirms that it maintains balanced dialogue with all stakeholders

ECB committed to strengthening good governance framework and integrity mechanisms

The European Central Bank (ECB) today stressed its commitment to open dialogue with a broad range of stakeholders, as a non-governmental organisation published a report on the central bank. While emphasising that it is directly accountable to the European Parliament (EP), the ECB facilitated a project by Transparency International EU (TI-EU) by inviting the NGOs researchers to a series of meetings with senior staff.

Good conduct and governance are essential for securing public trust. It is the duty of European institutions to further strengthen their legitimacy both by reinforcing their democratic accountability and by showing that they meet the objectives theyve been entrusted with, said ECB President Mario Draghi. Let me also add that the ECB is and has always been open to a balanced dialogue with stakeholders, including the public.

The report acknowledges recent measures taken by the ECB to further enhance its transparency, accountability and integrity mechanisms, also in the light of its responsibilities as banking supervisor since end-2014. TI-EU commends the ECB for:

putting in place a significantly enhanced Ethics Framework

establishing a high-level Ethics Committee and a dedicated function for ethical conduct and good governance matters

publishing accounts of monetary policy deliberations

releasing the diaries of Executive Board members and the Supervisory Board Chair

publishing a reassertion of the Executive Boards guiding principles for external communications

making the ECBs balance sheet and monetary policy operations more accessible for the public.

The report also encouraged the ECB to continue its efforts in communicating with the public.

Some recommendations in the TI-EU report fall outside the ECBs mandate or are not foreseen in the Treaty. Some other points have already been implemented, such as publishing decisions, opinions and recommendations as well as providing information on meetings with industry representatives.

For media queries, please contact Eszter Miltenyi-Torstensson, +49 69 1344 8034.
Linux Academy, an online training platform for the Linux OS and cloud computing, on Tuesday announced a public beta rollout of its Cloud Assessments platform, which is designed to let large enterprise firms train and assess their IT workers and prospective job candidates.

The academy offers training on a variety of cloud-based platforms, including Amazon Web Services, Open Stack, DevOps, Azure and others.

The Cloud Assessments platform will focus initially on training and testing of AWS, due to the strong demand for that cloud-based computing platform and the large skills gap of existing knowledge among IT workers.

Since AWS is a leader in the market, companies and individuals are rushing to ensure they can handle these technologies, said Linux Academy CEO Anthony James.

AWS Demand

The academys current focus is preparation and validation for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate level exam, James told LinuxInsider. However, there are other in-demand areas that it is beginning to explore.

Hands-on learning has been very important to professionals who have taken these courses, James said. We came to understand that not only do people want to learn, but they also want to validate their skills in a way that our industry would recognize.

Another critical aspect of the Academys approach is what it calls lean learning, which involves recommending specific training based on a users specific performance, he continued. The new training efforts target specific areas that need improvement.

The Cloud Assessments platform offers a different approach to teaching IT professionals by using live servers in existing work environments. Workers actually learn skills they can use on the job in real time. Theyre not limited to responding to questions in a test environment.

Individuals also can use Cloud Assessments to earn micro-certfiications for AWS skills.

Linux Academy and Cybrary last month conducted a survey of 6,000 IT professionals, and 35 percent said that micro-certifications would help them get a job or advance in an existing position.

In addition, 85 percent said they would pursue micro-certifications if their employers helped facilitate the training.

Skills Gap

The launch of this program is another indication of the accelerating adoption of cloud services, noted Jeffrey Kaplan, managing director of ThinkStrategies, and there is no question that initial focus on AWS specialists is because of its dominant position in the market at this time.

As the demand for multi-cloud services increases, the academys program likely will broaden to include training courses for additional cloud platforms, he told LinuxInsider.

Certification programs directly from AWS are exam-based, said Paul Teich, principal analyst at Tirias Research.

However, Linux Academy has created a more practical live assessment environment in which users are graded on actually using AWS rather than just answering questions correctly, he told LinuxInsider.

Cloud services really dont care about certification, but enterprise does, Teich pointed out. Enterprise needs these certifications to start implementing hybrid cloud business models. Upleveling certification to demonstrate practical experience should play well with enterprise IT shops.

Amazon Web Services last year announced an effort to enhance its AWS Educate program to offer additional modules, called cloud career pathways, to help educate students about cloud-based skills, as well as connect them with specific cloud-based jobs offered by various employers, including AWS, Salesforce, Cloudnexa and Splunk.
Following WikiLeaks publication earlier this week of classified documents stolen from the CIA, major technology companies, including Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and Cisco, have been scrambling to assess the risks posed to their customers by the revelations.

The so-called Vault 7 leak includes information about methods and tools the CIA crafted to hack into products produced by those companies.

Apples initial analysis reportedly showed that many of the issues identifed in iOS already were patched in the latest version of the software.

In addition methods of hacking iPhones, the WikiLeaks documents pointed to ways the CIA might exploit Windows PCs, Android phones and Samsung smart TVs.

Google reportedly expressed confidence that existing security protections in Chrome and Android shield their users from many of the vulnerabilities identified in the WikiLeaks dump.

Both Samsung and Microsoft reportedly said they were investigating the impact of the leaks.

Routers and Linux Targeted

Other targets of CIA hacking included Cisco and the Linux operating system, according to the Vault 7 documents.

There is little actionable information in the WikiLeaks documents, noted Dario Ciccarone, a security researcher at Cisco.

At the time of the initial release, WikiLeaks has not released any of the tools or exploits associated with the disclosure, he pointed out.

Since none of the tools and malware referenced in the initial Vault 7 disclosure have been made available by WikiLeaks, the scope of action that can be taken by Cisco is limited. An ongoing investigation and focused analysis of the areas of code that are alluded to in the disclosure is underway, Ciccarone said.

Until more information is available, there is little Cisco can do at this time from a vulnerability handling perspective, he added.

Linuxs popularity makes it a likely target for intelligence agencies, according to Nicko van Someren, chief technology officer for The Linux Foundation.

Linux is a very widely used operating system with a huge installed base all around the world, so it is not surprising that state agencies from many countries would target Linux, along with the many closed source platforms that they have sought to compromise, he told TechNewsWorld.

However, the rapid development cycle of the operating system  a kernel update is released every few days  enables Linux development teams to quickly address security problems, van Someren explained.

Rapid release cycles enable the open source community to fix vulnerabilities and release those fixes to users faster, he said.

Assange Offers Sneak Peek

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange took to Facebook Live Thursday, offering to give tech companies making products targeted by CIA hacking tools exclusive access to any tools in WikiLeaks possession, so the businesses could plug any security holes.

Assanges offer poses a dilemma for the companies. While they want to make their products more secure, hooking up with WikiLeaks would mean collaborating with an organization that may have broken U.S. laws by accepting stolen data. At the least, it has undermined the nations security by releasing classified information to the public.

Still, they should accept Assanges offer, argued Israel Barak, chief information security officer at Cybereason.

These companies have to make their software as secure as possible, he told TechNewsWorld. When you have an opportunity to do that, youve got to do it.

However, Assanges offer may be too little, too late.

My guess is that some of this code is already in the hands of bad actors, said Tony Busseri, CEO of Route1.

Thats a point of concern for consumers, government and enterprises, he told TechNewsWorld.

Consumer Impact

Consumers shouldnt be too concerned about the Vault 7 leaks affecting their privacy and security, observed Craig Young, a computer security researcher at Tripwire.

Consumers should, however, be cognizant that the conveniences afforded by connected technologies also inherently introduce privacy and security risks, he told TechNewsWorld.

As data is made available to smart devices like TVs, phones and voice-activated speakers, consumers are in fact extending a large degree of trust to the vendors making these products. There is trust not only that vendors are making these devices securely, but also that the vendors will continue to support them, Young pointed out.

Even with all of these things in mind, he added, there is always some risk  so it is advisable not to share sensitive data with these smart devices.

Most consumers wouldnt be affected by the tools WikiLeaks claims to have in its possession if the CIA had exclusive control of them, but thats not the case now.

The CIA is not going to try to hack your TV for no reason, Route1s Busseri said.

The danger with WikiLeaks is if it starts exposing how these vulnerabilities and toolkits work, then criminal organizations will try to profit from them at the consumers expense, he explained.

These leaks are giving consumers a glimpse into how their devices can be used to spy on them, said Cybereasons Barak.

The leaks illustrate how vulnerable all digital devices are.

The technology to hack into these systems is advancing just as rapidly as the security to protect them, said Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research.

Nothing will ever be 100 percent secure, he told TechNewsWorld, just as no doctor will ever say with 100 percent accuracy whats wrong with you.
The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday issued a joint statement following the FCCs temporary stay of data security regulations.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and FTC Acting Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen issued the statement to address the FCCs decision, in essence, to overturn rules designed to bolster broadband consumer privacy.

Both chairs had disagreed with the FCCs unilateral 2015 decision to strip the FTC of any authority over broadband providers privacy and data security practices.

Pai was one of the dissenting FCC commissioners, along with Michael ORielly, in last falls 3-2 vote that limited how much of Internet subscribers data companies could sell, share and trade.

The FTC has a long track record of having guarded privacy and security protection online, Pai and Ohlhausen noted, and the decision to remove it from that role did not serve consumers interest.

The stay will remain in place until the FCC is able to rule on a petition that would reconsider privacy rules online.

The federal government should not favor one set of companies over another, especially when it comes to a marketplace as dynamic as the Internet, the agencies maintained.

Winners and Losers

The FCCs recent privacy rulings have been controversial, and staying implementation of those rules likely will trigger more disagreement.

This is, in essence, a restoration of rules that favor Internet providers, said Roger Entner, principal analyst at Recon Analytics.

The new rules were meant to level the playing field for edge providers, including Google, Facebook and Amazon, he told the E-Commerce Times.

However, opponents viewed the new rules as distorting the market, so the losers now are Facebook and Google, and the winners are the ISPs, Entner said.

The negative consequences may not be limited to the tech giants, however.

Internet service providers benefit from this decision, and customers lose, suggested Steve Blum, principal analyst at Tellus Venture Associates.

At least they will if the FTC ultimately applies the same rules to ISPs as they currently do to run-of-the-mill websites, he told the E-Commerce Times.

Fair Competition

The agencies new stance met with enthusiasm from many who do business online.

Staying the data security provision will allow providers to avoid spending a potentially significant sum to retrain thousands of employees across the industry and alter their internal procedures in response to a regulation that might not even be on the books in a few months, said Ryan Radia, regulatory counsel at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Subscribers, in turn, will benefit from their provider investing more in services that actually matter to consumers, instead of complying with an unnecessary and legally dubious regulation, he told the E-Commerce Times.

Complying with last falls mandate could have caused irreparable injury to businesses and consumers, Radia maintained.

Privacy Concerns

Central to the rules is the issue of consumer privacy, a concern that is only likely to grow.

Its fine to say that everyone should play by the same rules, but thats only a valid argument if everyone is playing the same game, said Tellus Blum.

Theres a big difference between your ISP and, say, Facebook, which only has the information you voluntarily give it, he pointed out.

Users are the ones who choose to go to Facebook, pick a user name and password, and upload information about themselves, he suggested, but your ISP can see all that too  and you should be able to decide whether or not your ISP can use that information.

Regardless of how companies acquire data, Americans should have their privacy protected equally, argued Recon Analytics Entner, and there should be no expectation that privacy will be protected differently by ISPs and edge providers.
Gmail users in recent months have been targeted by a sophisticated series of phishing attacks that use emails from a known contact whose account has been compromised. The emails contain an image of an attachment that appears to be legitimate, according to Wordfence.

The sophisticated attack displays accounts.gmail.com in the browsers location bar and leads users to what appears to be a legitimate Google sign-in page where they are prompted to supply their credentials, which then become compromised.

The technique works so well that many experienced technical users have fallen prey to the scam, noted Mark Maunder, CEO of Wordfence. Many have shared warnings on Facebook to alert family and friends, given that the technique has exploited otherwise trusted contacts so successfully.

Googles Reply

Google has been aware of the issue at least since mid-January, based on comments from Google Communications Aaron Stein, which WordPress characterized as an official statement from the company.

Google was continuing to strengthen its defenses, Stein said, adding that it was using machine learning-based detection of phishing messages, safe browsing warnings of dangerous links in emails, and taking steps to prevent suspicious sign-ins.

Users could take advantage of two-factor authentication to further protect their accounts, he suggested.

Wordfence last month noted that Google Chrome released 56.0.2924, which changes the behavior of the browsers location bar. The change results in the display of not secure messages when users see a data URL.

Google last month announced additional steps to protect G Suite customers against phishing, using Security Key enforcement. The technique helps administrators protect their employees using only security keys as the second factor.

Bluetooth low energy Security Key support, which works on Android and iOS mobile devices, is another user option.

Realistic View

Recent changes in Chrome and Firefox browsers have mitigated some of these types of attacks, observed Patrick Wheeler, director of threat intelligence at Proofpoint.

However, a variety of techniques are used to target users, he pointed out.

Attackers create extremely realistic landing pages, use Javascript to obfuscate and encrypt pages and contents, and host documents directly on Google drive, he told TechNewsWorld.

They recently have used PDFs to make it appear that users already are logged onto Google Docs  then users are prompted for a login when they move the mouse over the PDF.

Attacks such as these are a type of cat-and-mouse game in the sense that attackers will find more sophisticated entry points as cyberdefense methods improve, noted Javvad Malik, security associate at AlienVault.

This shows the increasing maturity of cybercriminals, he told TechNewsWorld. As they become more organized and better funded, mainly through the proceeds of crime, they can invest time and resources into tweaking attack methods to become more effective.

Difficult Defense

Attacks like phishing and social engineering are among the most common methods of entry, according to Sam Elliott, director of security product management at Bomgar.

Attacks like these often target privileged users with access to sensitive data, he said.

While companies are aware of this, providing security around these types of users without limiting their ability to do their jobs effectively is difficult, Elliott told TechNewsWorld.

Defining privileged user poses additional challenges for companies, even those with sophisticated security protocols, he added.

Despite the challenges it poses, like any phishing scam, this one has a limited lifespan, observed Mark Nunnikhoven, vice president for cloud research at Trend Micro.

Because it impacts a very specific audience, theres also a central point to prevent this scam, he told TechNewsWorld.

Google likely will deploy image recognition and URL filtering to prevent this campaign from continuing, Nunnikhoven said.

Google did not respond to our request to comment for this story.
WikiLeaks on Tuesday dumped thousands of classified documents onto the Internet, exposing hacking programs used by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

The torrent of data is just the first in a series of dumps WikLeaks is calling Vault 7. This first installment includes 8,761 documents and files stolen from an isolated high-security network within the CIAs Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virginia.

This first batch of data, according to WikiLeaks, introduces the scope and direction of the CIAs global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal, and dozens of zero-day weaponized exploits against a wide range of U.S. and European company products  among them, Apples iPhone, Googles Android operating system, Microsofts Windows OS, and Samsungs smart TVs, which are turned into covert microphones.

The source leaking the documents to WikiLeaks did so to raise policy questions about the CIAs hacking program, the organization said, and to open a discussion about the agencys power and the governments oversight mechanisms to keep it in check.

The CIA offered a terse response to WikiLeaks actions: We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents, agency spokesperson Heather Fritz Horniak told TechNewsWorld.

Bigger Than Facebook

According to WikiLeaks, by the end of 2016, the CIA had produced more than a thousand hacking systems, trojans, viruses and other weaponized malware.

Such is the scale of the CIAs undertaking that by 2016, its hackers had utilized more code than that used to run Facebook, it stated.

The CIA had created, in effect, its own NSA with even less accountability and without publicly answering the question as to whether such a massive budgetary spend on duplicating the capacities of a rival agency could be justified, WikiLeaks contended.

In a departure from the way it has carried out previous data dumps, WikiLeaks appears to have taken some steps to avoid collateral damage from its latest revelations.

One thing that strikes me this time is the apparent care WikiLeaks took to redact sensitive information, said Mark Graff, CEO of Tellagraff.

They were much more responsible this time than theyve been in the past, he told TechNewsWorld.

Hurting US Security

WikiLeaks claimed it redacted ten of thousands of CIA targets and attack machines throughout Latin America, Europe and the United States, and that it avoided including information in its data dump that could lead to the distribution of armed cyberweapons.

No matter how careful WikiLeaks may have attempted to be, its Year Zero data dump undermines U.S. national security, according to Robert Cattanach, an attorney with Dorsey & Whitney.

WikiLeaks release will rock the intelligence communities, he told TechNewsWorld.

The CIAs ability to access the target devices and technologies certainly is compromised, Cattanach maintained, noting that the release appears to contain highly sensitive organizational and operational internal CIA information.

The uses foreign intelligence services might have for such data can only be imagined, he added.

Then theres the threat of that actual tools the CIA has used for hacking having been obtained but not yet released, Cattanach said.

Loss of Important Tools

Although no source code for the hacking tools appear to have been included in this batch of data, the information that has been released may still be turned into a weapon, noted John Hayes, CTO of BlackRidge Technology.

There are going to be some very bright people looking at this, and if theyre pointed in the right direction, you may be giving them enough hints to recreate some of this stuff even if they dont have the source code, he told TechNewsWorld.

The Vault 7 leaks have the potential to be very damaging to the U.S. intelligence community, said Adam Klein, a senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security.

It could mean the loss of some very important tools for the intelligence community, he told TechNewsWorld  tools that would be directed at great power adversaries: Russia and China, rogue states like Iran and North Korea, terrorist groups, drug traffickers, and criminal enterprises around the world.

The extent of the damage may be tempered if WikiLeaks has overplayed its hand.

Given WikiLeaks past record, it is unlikely that all or even most of the allegations are true, maintained James Scott, a senior fellow at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology.

If nothing else, the tools and malware capabilities provided are not exceptionally devastating over the tools and exploits already available on Deep Web markets and forums, he told TechNewsWorld.

Authentication Needed

The first step the U.S. government should take is to authenticate the data in the dump, Scott said.

If the documents are authentic, then the CIA already knows what secure network was compromised, which tools are now exposed, and what exploits now need to be patched against adversarial use, he explained.

After the Snowden incident and the NSA platform leak, it is possible that the agency even has an incident response plan for this scenario, Scott added.

The Vault 7 material may have been turned over to WikiLeaks by a CIA insider, but the assistance of a nation state cant be ruled out.

Some experts are speculating that exfiltration at this scale would necessitate the involvement of a well-resourced nation state threat actor, Scott said.

These disclosures help the adversaries of the United States, Klein added. Thats not a concern for WikiLeaks, but its a concern of me  and it should be a concern of all Americans.
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By C.J. Polychroniou

The first 100 days are considered to be a benchmark for presidential performance. This is part of the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who managed to reshape the U.S. governments role in the economy within the first 100 days of his administration. However, the fact of the matter is that usually, a first-time president doesnt have the slightest inkling of what governing from the Oval Office is all about. Theres no better proof of that than the early records of the most recent U.S. presidents, from Nixon to Obama. Nonetheless, no recent U.S. president has demonstrated such an overwhelming ignorance about governing as the current occupant of the White House.

But is Trumps apparent inability to govern and conduct himself in a remotely conventional manner an innate character flaw or part of a well-conceived strategy aimed at a society that loves reality TV? Is Trumps fondness for Putin simply an infatuation with a strongman and admiration for autocratic rule or something of a more political and strategic nature? And what does Trump mean when he says jobs? In this exclusive Truthout interview, world-revered public intellectual Noam Chomsky shares for the first time his views about the first 100 days of the Trump administration.

C. J. Polychroniou: The first 100 days of Donald Trump in the White House are characterized by complete disrespect for the truth and the freedom of the press and, overall, a style of political leadership that is not merely authoritarian but also smacks of fascism. In your view, is all this part of a preconceived strategy or simply a reflection of the whims of a person with a very fragile ego?

Noam Chomsky: I dont pretend to have any special insight into the mind of this strange person, though the people around him have been fairly coherent, in particular Steve Bannon, who seems to be the shadowed figure behind the throne.

What is happening before our eyes appears to be a two-pronged operation, I presume planned.

Bannon/Trump (and the pathetic Sean Spicer, who has to defend the latest shenanigans in public) have the task of dominating TV and headlines with one wild performance after another, the assumption apparently being that his fabrications will quickly be forgotten as the next episode displaces them and the base will be satisfied for a time, believing that their champion is standing up for them. So, who remembers the millions of undocumented immigrants who voted for Clinton or the charge that that really bad guy Obama (sad!) literally wiretapped poor Trumpa claim now downgraded to irrelevance, but not withdrawnand so on? Look how well the birther tales played for many years, ending hilariously with Trump blaming Clinton for initiating the farce.

Meanwhile, the real work is going on more quietly, spearheaded by Paul Ryan, a different and more malicious kind of posturer, who represents the most brutal fringe of the Republican establishment and somehow manages to present himself as a man of ideas, maybe becauseas Paul Krugman argueshe rolls up his sleeves and uses PowerPoint. The ideas are quite familiar. They are the standard fare of the component of the Republican establishment dedicated with unusual ferocity to enriching the rich and powerfulbankers, CEOs and other types who matterwhile kicking in the face the vulnerable, the poor and Trumps rural and working-class constituency. All of this abetted by the ultra-right billionaire cabinet and other appointees, selected very carefully to destroy whatever within their domains might be helpful to mere humans, but not to the chosen few of extreme wealth and power.

The consistency is impressive, if not breathtaking.

With the collapse of the shameful GOP health care proposals, we are likely to see this scenario enacted with real passion. The White House and its congressional allies have many ways to undermine the current health care system, which, with all its flaws, is a considerable improvement over what preceded it though still well behind comparable societies, let alone what the population wants and deserves, as polls continue to show: a rational single-payer universal health care system. That is a fairly resilient phenomenon over many years, with some variation, quite remarkable in that there is virtually no articulate elite advocacy of this sane and popular position.

Of course, undermining the system will harm a great many people, but that cannot be a consideration. After all, Ryancare was going to add some 24 million to the ranks of uninsured, which might kill more than 40,000 people annually according to an analysis by health care specialists Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein. If the health system can be substantially damaged and people really do suffer sufficiently, then the propaganda drumbeat can proceed to blame the disaster on the political opposition and maybe even get away with it. A good deal is possible in the era of alternative facts. We are already witnessing the early stages.

The lead character in the show does indeed present himself as a thin-skinned megalomaniac whose only ideology is Me. But his appointments, and the policies for which all of this is a cover, are too systematic to be merely random shots.

As I mentioned, the policies being formulated and enacted are drawn from the playbook of the most reactionary fringe of the Republican establishment. The abject service to private wealth and power is accompanied with an authoritarian and fundamentalist program to transform U.S. society. The project is driven by the Bannon-Sessions vision of a society devoted to Judeo-Christian roots and white supremacy, eliminating such pernicious and threatening nonsense as arts and humanities, upholding the Betsy DeVos doctrine that public education has to be dismantled, while if science conflicts with religion, then too bad for science. Meanwhile, we are to wave a mailed fist at the world while cowering behind walls and rebuilding the depleted military that is the most powerful force in human history, dwarfing any collection of competitors. All of this resonates with at least parts of a society that has long been the safest and most terrified in the world.

The fundamentalist project goes well beyond getting rid of arts and humanities. Science is also in the crosshairs. Trumps budget cuts medical research. Theres been considerable attention to his dismantling of the EPA [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency], now pretty much in the hands of associates of James Inhofe, the Senates leading climate denier, who has explained that if God has decided to warm the Earth, so be it. But thats the least of it. For action and research on climate, EPA is a small actor. Far more important is the Department of Energy. Its Office of Science is scheduled to lose $900 million, nearly 20 percent of its budget. DOEs $300 million ARPA-Energy program is eliminated completely. Thats in addition to deep cuts to the research programs at the EPA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a 5 percent cut to NASAs earth science budget.

In Congress, the science-deniers can scarcely contain their glee now that the wrecking ball has opened the path for demolition of the heresies of the modern world. Lamar Smith, who for years has used his position as chair of the House science committee to harass scientists, now feels free to openly acknowledge that the committee is now a tool to advance his political agenda rather than a forum to examine important issues facing the U.S. research community.

An appropriate comment on all of this was made by Stephen Colbert, when the Republican-run legislature in North Carolina responded to a scientific study predicting rapid sea level rise by barring state and local agencies from developing regulations or planning documents anticipating a rise in sea level. This is a brilliant solution, Colbert said. If your science gives you a result that you dont like, pass a law saying the result is illegal. Problem solved.

Most important of everything that is happening is the attack against future generations, in fact even against those coming of age today, as Trump and allies, departing from the world, cheerily lead the race to environmental destruction while the rest take at least halting steps toward averting a looming catastrophewhich doesnt weigh in the balance against fabulous profits tomorrow for the select few.

A few years ago Republican governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal took a little time off from his campaign to drive the state even deeper into the abyss to warn that Republicans are becoming the stupid party. The respected conservative analyst Norman J. Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute described the current party as a radical insurgency that has abandoned parliamentary politics Has any other organization dedicated itself with such enthusiasm to undermining our prospects for decent survival? And not in the distant future.

Click here to read additional interview questions with Chomsky.

Reposted with permission from our media associate Truthout.
The majority of European Union governments voted against a proposal to authorize two new strains of genetically modified (GMO) maize today.

The two varieties of maize, DuPont Pioneers 1507 and Syngentas Bt11, kill insects by producing its own pesticide and is also resistant Bayers glufosinate herbicide.

If approved, the varieties would be the first new GMO crops authorized for cultivation in the EU since 1998.

However, as Reuters noted, the votes against authorization did not decisively block their entry to the EU because the opposition did not represent a qualified majority.

A qualified majority is achieved when at least 16 countries, representing at least 65 percent of the European population, vote in favor or against. (Scroll down for the vote breakdown)

The majority of EU governments also voted against renewing the license for another maize, Monsantos MON810, the only GMO crop currently grown in the EU. The votes against its renewal was not considered decisive either.

MON810 is banned in 17 EU countries and is grown on less than 1 percent of agricultural land, mainly in Spain and Portugal, according to Friends of the Earth Europe.

The Brussels-based environmental advocacy group says the fates of the three crops now rests with the European Commission and is calling on Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, to reject the new GMO crops.

Whether he likes it or not, the buck now stops at Jean-Claude Juncker, said Mute Schimpf, food campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe, in a statement. He can put himself on the side of the majority of countries, citizens and farmers who do not want genetically-modified crops, or he can back the mega-corporations behind the industrialization of our countryside.

Greenpeace EU explained that if the three authorizations are approved, they would only be valid in nine out of 28 EU countries, as well as in three regions (England in the UK, Flanders and the Brussels region in Belgium). The remaining 19 EU countries and regions in the UK and Belgium have used the EUs opt-out mechanism to prevent GMO crops from being grown in their territories.

Although GMO crops are grown in many parts of the world, the topic is fraught with contention in Europe. While many scientific reviews have concluded that the crops are safe for human consumption and the environment, there are many others that conclude the opposite. Many EU countries have strict laws against GMOs due to public health and environmental concerns. All 28 EU member countries require GMO labeling.

Friends of the Earth Europe has expressed safety concerns of these GMO crops, especially whether they unintentionally kill butterflies and moths.

There is no political or public support for genetically-modified crops; farmers dont even want them. Its time for President Juncker to pull the plug on this failed technology once and for all, and to focus on how we make farming resilient to climate change, save family farms and stop the destruction of nature. Its time to close our countryside to genetically-modified crops and move on, Schimpf added.

Time to pull plug on failed #GMO technology once and for all  our reaction to EU vote todayhttps://t.co/HtOnWL8zDZ #GMOs pic.twitter.com/2ufOYNocs8  Friends of the Earth Europe? (@foeeurope) March 27, 2017

Similarly, Greenpeace EU food policy director Franziska Achterberg commented that the European Commission should back away from supporting risky products.

When he was elected, Commission President Juncker promised more democratic decision-making. This vote leaves no doubt that approving these GMO crops would break that promise, Achterberg said in a statement. A majority of governments, parliamentarians and Europeans oppose them, and two thirds of European countries ban GMO cultivation on their lands. Instead of backing risky products peddled by multinational corporations, the commission should support ecological farming and the solutions it provides for rural areas, farmers and the environment.

Katherine Paul, associate director of Organic Consumers Association agrees. President Juncker has an opportunity to do the right thing, by siding with the majority of EU countries that oppose the introduction of these new GMO crops, she told EcoWatch.

To do anything less, would send EU leaders and citizens the wrong messagethat corporations can buy the approval of crops that farmers and citizens dont want, crops that must be grown using chemicals that are toxic to humans and the environment. We hope Mr. Juncker will stand up to corporate pressure, and instead come down in favor of health, safety and organic, regenerative alternatives to chemical agriculture.

Ken Roseboro of the Organic & Non-GMO Report shared the same sentiment. The European Union has remained steadfast in rejecting GM crops in their member states for nearly 20 years, and these votes reflect that anti-GMO stand, he said. The European people dont want to eat GM foods, there is not market for them there, and yet the biotech companies continue to try to push their GMOs. Hopefully,Commission President Juncker will side with the wishes of the majority of the European people and reject approval of these GM crops.

Here is Mondays vote breakdown, according to Friends of the Earth Europe:

On renewal of GMO maize MON 810

8 Member States voted in favor, representing 34.45% of the EU population: CZ, EE, ES, NL, RO, FI, SV, UK.

6 Member States abstained, representing 22.26% of the EU population: BE, DE, HR, MT, PT, SK

14 Member states voted to reject, representing 43.29% of the EU population: BG, DK, IE, EL, FR, CY, LV, LU, HU, AT, PL, SL, IT, LT 14

On authorisation of GMO maize 1507

6 Member States voted in favor, representing 30.45% of the EU population: EE, ES, NL, RO, FI, UK

6 Member States abstained, representing 22.28% of the EU population: BE, CZ, DE, HR, MT, SK

16 Member states voted to reject, representing 47.27% of the EU population: BG, DK, IE, EL, FR, CY, LV, LU, HU, AT, PL, SL, SV, IT, LT, PT

On authorisation of GMO maize Bt 11

6 Member States voted in favor, representing 30.45% of the EU population: EE, ES, NL, RO, FI, UK

6 Member States abstained, representing 22.28% of the EU population: BE, CZ, DE, HR, MT, SK

16 Member states voted to reject, representing 47.27% of the EU population: BG, DK, IE, EL, FR, CY, LV, LU, HU, AT, PL, SL, SV, IT, LT, PT 47,27%
Maryland is on track to become the third state to ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for oil and natural gas, after the Senate voted 35-10 on Monday for a measure already approved by the House.

The bill is now headed to Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who is in favor of a statewide fracking ban.

Hogan, who once said that fracking is 

an economic gold mine, stunned many with his complete turnaround at a press conference earlier this month.

We must take the next step to move from virtually banning fracking to actually banning fracking, the governor said. The possible environmental risks of fracking simply outweigh any potential benefits.

Once signed into law, Maryland would be the first state with gas reserves to pass a ban through the legislature.

Dont Frack Maryland, a coalition of more than 140 business, public interest, community, faith, food and climate groups, has campaigned vigorously for a statewide ban through rallies, marches, petition deliveries and phone calls to legislators.

Todays vote is a result of the work of thousands of Marylanders who came out to town halls, hearings and rallies across the state. The grassroots movement to ban fracking overcame the high-powered lobbyists and deep pockets of the oil and gas industry, said Mitch Jones,

Food & Water Watch senior policy advocate. We worked tirelessly to make sure our legislators and the governor were held accountable to the demands of voters and followed the science. Now we look forward to Governor Hogan signing this bill into law and finally knowing that our water, climate and families will be protected from the dangers of fracking.

Josh Tulkin, director of the

Maryland Sierra Club, also commended the Maryland General Assembly for this bipartisan victory.

Congratulations go to the thousands of people across the state, particularly those in Western Maryland, who stood up for their beliefs, who organized, lobbied and rallied to get this legislation passed, Tulkin said. This ban is a major step for Marylands path to a clean energy economy.

Supporters of fracking say it creates jobs and provides energy security.

Denying Maryland consumers, businesses and job-seekers the benefits that come with in-state energy production through hydraulic fracturing shuts the door on an important share of the American energy renaissance and western Marylands future economic growth, Drew Cobbs, executive director of the Maryland Petroleum Council, told the

Associated Press after the vote.

But opponents of the drilling process, which involves shooting highly pressurized water and chemicals into underground formations to release oil and gas, cite health and environmental risks such as air and water pollution and earthquakes.

New study: Fracking caused more than 6,600 spills in four US states over a decade https://t.co/CmT6dFtckX via @EcoWatch  Climate Reality (@ClimateReality) March 20, 2017

Fracking does not currently take place in Maryland but a moratorium on issuing permits ends in October.

Elisabeth Hoffman of Howard County Climate Action said that alarming research about frackings harms has emerged during the state moratorium, adding that voices from fracked states were sounding the alarms as well.

We are relieved and overjoyed that the state Senate has said NO to fracking, she added.

The implications of the Senates vote are far reaching, according to Natalie Atherton of

Citizen Shale.

Western Maryland is surrounded by fracking just across our state borders. We have learned from and worked with our neighbors whose health has been compromised for years, Atherton said. Already Citizen Shale is being approached by communities in other states, hoping to learn how they can ban fracking where they live. This has become a movement of people, and it wont stop with Maryland.

Yesterdays vote was widely applauded by environmental groups especially in light of the Trump administrations apparent assault on environmental regulations.

Despite Trumps efforts to block climate action and roll back protections for people and the planet, communities in Maryland took matters into their own hands. This is an incredible victory that speaks to the power of grassroots organizing to take on the fossil fuel industry. Fracking is a reckless practice that threatens health and safety while intensifying the climate crisis,

350.org Fracking Campaign coordinator Linda Capato Jr. said.

Capato is urging a similar movement worldwide.

Maryland is taking a huge step forward, but communities are continuing to suffer as fracking and extreme extraction expands worldwide. This fight is a great reminder that when communities organize, we win, she said. As more people fight back against this dangerous and dirty industry, elected officials everywhere should follow Maryland and other states example by banning fracking and putting the health of our communities and climate first.
(Photo: World Council of Churches)Activists hold up signs at a public hearing on human rights violations in the Philippines hosted by the World Council of Churches at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva on May 30, 2012.

A Catholic Church-based election watchdog has criticized the Philippine government's plan to indefinitely postpone village polls originally scheduled for October last year.

The election of the country's village leaders was originally scheduled for Oct. 31, 2016, but President Rodrigo Duterte postponed them to October this year.

Now Duterte has said he wants the polls postponed indefinitely and leaders appointed due what he says is the influence of drug money in local politics, UCAN news reports.

The move, however, drew the ire of election observers.

"There is no substitute to periodic elections in a democracy to check the accountability of elected officials [and] to get a fresh mandate," said Rene Sarmiento, chairman of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting.

The National Movement for Free Elections also raised concerns.

"Postponing elections undermine a democratic process instituted to ensure every individual citizen's right to choose their leaders and make them accountable," said Eric Alvia, secretary-general of the movement.

Sarmiento said village polls could only be postponed "for legitimate reasons."

In another sign of the rift between the Catholic Church and Duterte's administration the church has turned down an invitation from the Philippines national police to become part of the president's murderous campaign against drug dealers, the Irish Catholic reported.

Following a call, issued by police chief General Ronald dela Rosa, the Filipino bishops' conference insisted that it supports "whatever strategy there is, for as long as there's no killing and it is devoid of any corrupt and unjust practice."

The Irish Catholic reported that after months of controversy and some 7,000 deaths, the anti-drugs clampdown launched by Duterte was halted temporarily at the end of January.

This followed accusations of extra-judicial killings and of corrupt practices on the part of the police, some of whom, it faced accusations of engaging in kidnapping and extortion under the cover afforded by the campaign.

Now seeking to re-launch the initiative, General dela Rosa suggested that if priests were to accompany police on drugs raids, it was more likely suspects would surrender and not resist officers.

Police often cite the message that many of those thousands of deaths occurred when people were resisting arrest, something disputed by many eyewitness accounts.

The drug war became a national issue in 2016 when newly-elected Duterte pledged to end the menace by killing the leaders of drug cartels and their protectors.
Educators tasked with finding instructional materials for their districts and classrooms face a dizzying array of options these days.

Classroom resources are available in print, digital textbook formats, and online. They can be paid for, subscribed to, or downloaded for free. Theyre available as comprehensive, yearlong curricula; individual thematic units; and single activities and games.

Several forces have collided to bring the market to this confusing, yet ultimately academically promising point: The majority of states are now using the Common Core State Standards , meaning there are more opportunities to share materials across state lines. States are increasingly letting districts choose their own instructional materials, rather than forcing them to select from an approved list. Theres been a recent push, including from the federal government , to make online instructional materials free and open to the publicknown as open educational resources.

And advances in digital technology have made it easier to personalize learning materials for individual students needs.

The trick is choosing well. In selecting instructional materials, teachers and administrators have to ask: Do the resources Im considering align with my states standards? Do they have enough supports for English-learners? Can they be modified to fit a classrooms unique needs? And, perhaps most importantly, will they really lead to student learning?

As it turns out, that last question is an incredibly thorny onetheres as little agreement on what makes a curriculum good as there is on what makes a teacher so.

And yet, with the varied influx of curricular materials, districts are scrambling to deduce what will work in classrooms.

Teachers across the country are trying to figure out how to find materials that are standards-aligned for increasingly diverse populations, that are culturally relevant and responsive, said Brian Kingsley, the assistant superintendent for academics of the Wake County, N.C., schools . Theres a lot of sorting through the forest for the right materials.

Nationwide Curriculum Review

Certain states have long had curriculum-review panelsbut some of the most influential ones, including California, have in recent years ceded their power over materials to the districts.

Now, a growing number of national efforts are underway to help teachers and administrators wade through the curricular muck.

Teachers' Go-To Sources Teachers often turn to the internet to find classroom materials aligned to the Common Core State Standards, according to a survey by the Education Week Research Center. Of the 328 teachers who responded to a survey question last October, one-quarter said they used Teachers Pay Teachers, an online marketplace for teachers peddling their lessons. State-curated websites were also popular.

The nonprofit EdReports.org , launched two years ago, reviews K-12 math and English/language arts curricula for alignment to the common core, which sets expectations for those subjects and, despite some pushback , is being used in nearly 40 states. EdReports.org has come under some criticism from publishers and a math teachers group for its methodology.

Even so, the ongoing reviews may be proving influential: In Palo Alto, Calif., the school board initially rejected a pilot for one of three educator-recommended math curricula because that particular curriculum hadnt yet been reviewed by EdReports.org. (It subsequently was deemed to partially meet academic standards, and approved in February for a trial run.)

If were not explicit about what were looking for in terms of curriculum alignment, what were left with is trusting peoples gut feeling about whether or not they like something, said Daniel Gohl, the chief academic officer of the Broward County, Fla., schools . That like needs to be defined and articulated.

Learning List, a for-profit company based in Austin, Texas, analyzes digital and print educational resources for alignment with states standards as well, though it is a paid-subscription service.

The State Educational Technology Directors Association has become a resource for state officials with a web-based print to digital guide to high-quality instructional materials. And Johns Hopkins University researchers have created a website for school administrators that rates instructional programs for K-12 reading and math based on the criteria for judging their effectiveness that is laid out in the Every Student Succeeds Act , the new federal education law.

Individual researchers are taking on curriculum effectiveness as well, though on a smaller scale: A recent study by Corey Koedel, an associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of Missouri, and Morgan Polikoff, an assistant education professor at the University of Southern California, looked at the impact that textbooks have on student achievementsomething very few studies have attempted to do.

Kodel and Polikoff found that one of the four most popular math textbooks used in California from 2008 to 2013 consistently outperformed the other three and led to nontrivial gains in student performance at a very low cost.

Some districts have tried to assess curriculum effectiveness on their own. The Wake County district used a backwards mapping approach to determine what instructional resources have led to the best student outcomes.

Starting with students work products in a particular classroom, and comparing them to available resources, the question was asked: Did these resources naturally lead to teaching to the mastery of our standards?

Measuring the Common-Core Fit How are teachers assessing whether classroom materials are aligned with the Common Core State Standards? The Education Week Research Center survey suggests that teachers are turning to a variety of sources, including colleagues and materials archives, and they are using evaluation tools developed by experts.

This helped us build some systemwide priorities of areas we need to enhance our curriculum  and in some cases, procure new curriculum, said Kingsley of the Wake County district.

Now in the market for English/language arts and math curricula, Wake County also held print and digital playground sessions for educators, students, and parents so they could give feedback about their impressions of the instructional-material finalists in each category. These are the people who are going to be using them every day, Kingsley said.

Creating Lessons In-House

In light of the bewildering number of resources available and few agreed-on measures of quality, some districts have, in a sense, gone off the grid.

In Louisiana, the state education department decided to have teachers craft a curriculum of their own. The resulting program, which is voluntary, was released across the state last year, and about 80 percent of districts there are using it so far.

Recent state test results show signs it may be helping improve student outcomes, though some teachers say they need more help differentiating the units for students of all needs. The curriculum, hosted on the LearnZillion cloud-based platform, is free and open for any school across the country to use.

The District of Columbia public schools are doing something similar.

In the Middletown, N.Y., district , educator-created open educational resources are being organized in a scope and sequence onto a Learning Path platform that Superintendent Ken Eastwood plans to make available to districts nationwide as well.

On the other end of the curricular spectrum, some schools have turned to curriculum playlists, some of which use computer-based algorithms, rather than teachers, to gather online lessons tailored to individual students learning gaps.

Role of Digital Curriculum

Despite the proliferation of digital and online materials, print curricular resources continue to be in demand in schools.

Weve coined a phrase internally: purposeful technology and purposeful print,  said Christine Willig, the president of McGraw-Hill Educations K-12 Group, which is focusing on why educators prefer their materials in one format versus another.

But having material in digital format offers the advantage of using the programs embedded assessments and obtaining instant results, said Linda Ruiz Davenport, the Boston districts director of K-12 mathematics. She also likes how digital formats provide text-to-speech options that help the districts English-language learners.

For many educators, a key ingredient sought in an instructional program is flexibility.

Were telling vendors we do not want a basal textbook, said Gohl, the Broward chief academic officer. His school system is working on a social studies adoption now. What we want is the opportunity to procure materials that are aligned with standards that, in traditional language, would be called supplementary materials, he said.

Gohl is looking for modularity, the ability to easily manipulate components of the curriculum in a digital environment.

Publishers say theyre hearing this kind of request more and more.

The evolving needs and demands of the print-to-digital transition have proven to be more complex and expensive than first envisioned, said Jay Diskey, the executive director of the Association of American Publishers PreK-12 Learning Group.

Moving to digital personalized learning is something quite different from what schools had been doing, he said. It really is a sea change in learning.
To build the largest and most complete Amateur Radio community site on the Internet - a "portal" that hams think of as the first place to go for information, to exchange ideas, and be part of whats happening with ham radio on the Internet. eHam.net provides recognition and enjoyment to the people who use, contribute, and build the site. This project involves a management team of volunteers who each take a topic of interest and manage it with passion. The site will stand above all other ham radio sites by employing the latest technology and professional design/programming standards, developed by a team of community programmers who contribute their skills to the effort. The site will be something of which everyone involved can be proud to say they were a part. We welcome your comments. The eHam.net Team, Revision 07/2020.
The metro will make a big difference for many people, particularly poor people. It will help us save money, fuel and a lot of time. Jai Krishan Pandey is a young electronics student at Lucknow Polytechnic and one of three million people who live in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh. Indias most populous state is home to more than 200 million people. If it were a country, it would be the fifth biggest in the world by population.

Like most inhabitants of Lucknow, Jai Krishan spends a lot of time in traffic. Once the metro is constructed, Jai will have a station right in front of his faculty. That means a faster commuteand a cleaner one. Lucknow will then be one of eight Indian cities to boast a metro system.

Sustainable urban development in the making

One of the challenges here in India is the scale of urbanisation, says Donal Cannon, who has just arrived at the Indian capital, New Delhi, to head the European Investment Banks South Asia office. Donal is one of the one million people who are expected to move to New Delhi this year.

Rapid urbanisation brings its own demands, notably around water, sanitation and, in particular, transport, he explains. Without addressing mass transport requirements, sustainable urban development would simply not be possible.

The construction of the Lucknow Metro

Thats precisely what the new Lucknow Metro aims to achieve. The new infrastructure is expected to increase the share of public transport within the city from the current 10% to 27% by 2030. A EUR 450 m loan from the EIB, our largest ever investment in India, is financing the construction of the first 23km of the metro system, and purchase of around 80 metro cars to operate on the network.

Around 64% of the air pollution in Lucknow comes from traffic. For Piers Vickers, the EIB engineer behind the project, the metro will have a profound impact on the way people in Lucknow move, as the city doesnt currently have a well-developed public transport system. There are some scheduled bus services, but most travel in the city is by unscheduled three-wheeler services  so called tempos and tuk-tuks  motorcycles, bicycles and walking. We hope that there will be enormous short-term benefits. Due to the decongestion effect, the air quality in the city should improve.

The metro line will run from the airport in the south of the city, through dense residential areas, the city centre and to the north, serving 22 stations along the route. It will operate trains every four minutes with a capacity of 1 100 passengers per train.

An energy efficient, comfortable and safe mode of transport was very necessary, says Kumar Keshav, chairman of Lucknow Metro. My feeling is that the metro will change the way people behave, not only the way of travel alone. Using their own means of transport, people are irritated because of the congestion, accidents so many problems are there! With these fully equipped air-conditioned trains, people will save time and will be more relaxed, he explains.

Inside the metro: each train will be able to transport 1 100 passengers

Why does Europe care?

So why does the EU bank invest in projects like this, thousands of kilometres away from Europe? Pollution is a global problem, says EIB Vice-President Andrew McDowell. Treating pollution in Europe alone is never going to solve the issue. Reducing emissions around the world is crucial to tackle climate change, one of the key objectives we have at the EU bank.

Lucknow Metro is a flagship project of the EIBs commitment to climate action also outside the EU borders where we have committed to increase our climate financing to 35% of our total lending by 2020. Over the next four years we will provide around EUR 100bn for climate-related projects all over the world.

In images: Lucknow Metro, the future is now
Its a sludgy, after-lunch Monday afternoon inside a classroom full of young Airmen. Instead of dozing off in the corner from a food coma, each troop is sitting at the edge of their seat listening attentively as a man sporting a Denver Broncos polo, a leather jacket and a handlebar mustache reminisces on his memories of war.

Inside the Airman Leadership School at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., future noncommissioned officers and leaders of the Air Force learn of the sacrifices a group of veterans made.

Robert Schilling, a former Airman and gunner on the AC-47 Spooky, told stories of his experiences as an enlisted troop deployed to Vietnam and shared some wisdom about leadership.

Leadership is hard to define, Schilling said. A lot of people say that some people are born leaders, and others say some are trained leaders.

One example he uses to describe leadership is former crewmate Airman 1st Class John Levitow  a Medal of Honor recipient. After being hit by mortar fire over Vietnam, Levitow saved his crew by throwing himself on a flare which would have ignited the ammunition in the aircraft. After gaining control of the canister, Levitow ran to the back of the plane and threw the flare out right before it ignited.

I can speak on behalf of John and what he did for us, Schilling said. Hopefully it will sink in with these new kids.

Schilling works at the South Dakota Air and Space Museum and is a member of the Black Hills Veterans Writers Group, a nonprofit organization that keeps stories of war alive. The group of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans meet on the second Saturday of each month inside the museum to tell their story and listen to others.

ALS and the BHVWG have been working together to help instruct the next generation of leaders in the youngest branch of the military. A speaker from the Writers Group comes to speak to each class of graduates, reaching more than 300 students a year.

They come in to speak to the classes and provide a different aspect of leadership, said Master Sgt. Kevin Davis, the ALS commandant. Here at ALS, we really want to make sure heritage is emphasized because its very important. Every generation needs to know how they fit in and heritage puts that into perspective.

Davis has been working as the commandant at ALS for a year, and says the speakers from the Writers Group contribute immensely to the development of these new Air Force leaders.

The students really enjoy hearing a different perspective, Davis said. Theyre not being told how to lead; theyre hearing stories of good leadership and there is a big difference.

One thing that Schilling and Davis agree on  good leadership is the key for success.

Leadership is a matter of importance, Schilling said. If you dont have it, you better find someone who does.
There's no doubt about the intensity of the scenes created in "Fifty Shades Darker" and probably, the lead stars were having a hard time controlling whatever emotions are in need of control. However, despite various rumors connecting Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, and the secret affair ongoing, the two admitted that they only share an amazing relationship.

"Fifty Shades Darker" has shown such powerful acts that get every viewer carried away. With Jamie Dornan spanking and kissing Dakota Johnson, there's no doubt about the two developing a deeper relationship. This led to several rumors such as a scandalous affair between the "How To Be Single" actress and the "Anthropoid" actor. Indeed, their chemistry is impeccable and this made fans think that the two are crossing the lines.

However, despite all the nasty rumors, Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson had shared about the real deal about their relationship in real life. As The Stir reported, the "Black Mass" star and the "X Returns" actor are good friends and they managed to give respect on each other's personal and professional life. The site even stated: "It certainly is an unconventional movie to make, but these two have found their comfort within it, and that lies within them, making sure the other one is okay, protected, consenting,"

Although the two confirmed that there's no cheating or secret affair going on, Amelia Warner's husband hints about staying away from his co-star, Dakota Johnson. Apparently, Jamie Dornan wants to alter his image following his popularity for playing Christian Grey in the "Fifty Shades of Grey" franchise. He has also debunked the rumors that his life is similar to the character that he is playing in the hit movie.

Meanwhile, Korea Portal reported that Jamie Dornan will no longer star as Christian Grey in the 2018's movie franchise entitled "Fifty Shades Freed" due to a new project that he is working with. However, this reports stays unconfirmed.
The Take That frontman Gary Barlow is gracing "Star Wars: Episode 8 - The Last Jedi" in an unknown role yet. However, the 46-year-old star gave some details of his character in the new installment of the movie franchise in an interview on "Lorraine."

Barlow confirmed his appearance in "Star Wars: Episode 8 - The Last Jedi" following the 2015 "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." But, the lead vocalist of British pop-group asserted that he won't be playing the role of a stormtrooper.

According to Mirror Online, Barlow's face will be visibly seen in "Star Wars: Episode 8 - The Last Jedi" unlike Daniel Craig's cameo role as a stormtrooper. "I'm in it but I'm not a stormtrooper, you can see my face," he told Ross King in the interview.

Barlow added that as he gave a hint of what his role in "Star Wars: Episode 8 - The Last Jedi," he might be kicked out in the film. "The Star Wars people are very strict about what you say. By me saying that I'm probably out of the role," he added.

Moreover, Barlow will be joining the likes of Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker and Carrie Fisher as General Leia Organa. Fortunately, the mother of Billie Lourd managed to finish filming "Star Wars: Episode 8 - The Last Jedi" before she unexpectedly died in December 2016.

Aside from Barlow, Hamill and Fisher, "Star Wars: Episode 8 - The Last Jedi" will be featuring Daisy Ridley as Rey and John Boyega as the runaway stormtrooper Finn, BBC News reported. Other stars that will be seen in the film are Oscar Isaac, Anthony Daniels and Lupita Nyong'o.

"Star Wars: Episode 8 - The Last Jedi" is originally set to be released in May but has been pushed back to December. Lucasfilm has yet to reveal the reason for the delay, but it is strongly believed that the movie's script has been rewritten.


As "The Walking Dead" Season 7 is about to end, "Fear the Walking Dead" Season 3 is about to start. Fans are now excited for the continuation of the post-apocalyptic television series, especially now that things are about to change.

The show's showrunner David Erickson is about to leave the horror drama after "Fear the Walking Dead" Season 3. According to Variety, he is set to develop other assignments for AMC, thus he has to quit the show.

The network executive Joel Stillerman said that they are all grateful for David's amazing work from the first chapter of the show until "Fear the Walking Dead" Season 3. "The series fulfilled its creative promise to expand the Walking Dead universe in a way that was totally unique from the original series," he added.

In other "Fear the Walking Dead" Season 3 news, the show's survivors are up to face another set of new challenges. In the official synopsis revealed by AMC, it said that the families will be all gathered at the border of U.S. and Mexico, Geek reported.

Madison (Kim Dickens) is now reunited with Travis (Cliff Curtis), but Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) gets fractured when she killed Andres. Aside from building the society again destroyed by the walkers, they also have to build their own families in "Fear the Walking Dead" Season 3.

Madison is now miles away from his son in "Fear the Walking Dead" Season 3. Nick's (Frank Dillane) decision as the leader of the group put Luciana (Danay Garcia) in danger as she got ambushed by the American's militia group. But, as the couple escaped their deaths, it has a great impact to Nick.

Strand (Colman Domingo) is still recovering from his emotional and physical trauma in "Fear the Walking Dead" Season 3. Lastly, the detention of Ofelia (Mercedes Mason) will test her ability to survive and check if she can summon the cruelty of her father. AMC has yet to reveal the show's release date, but it is believed to be out in June.


The mood towards the Pound turned rather more muted on Thursday morning, leaving the GBP NZD exchange rate on a narrow trend around 1.7695.

Although the general sentiment of risk aversion remained investors were equally discouraged by signs that the UK is already at odds with the EU over the process of Brexit negotiations.

GBP/NZD has wobbled throughout the day due to Brexit news, but ultimately hasn't seen the crash that some analysts had forecast.

Due to an increase in demand for risk-correlated currencies, the New Zealand Dollar has been able to hold against the highly volatile Pound and GBP/NZD remains near its worst weekly levels.

With foreign exchange markets still showing a degree of jitteriness over the impending activation of Article 50, the event proved unspectacular for the British Pound.

With confidence in the New Zealand Dollar generally picking up as general market risk appetite strengthened the GBP NZD exchange rate returned to a downtrend, albeit a narrow one.

Investors became increasingly jittery on Sterling towards the end of Tuesdays European session amid expectations that the Brexit process would finally be beginning on Wednesday.

GBP NZD Exchange Rate Rises as Government Rethinks Brexit Deal

The GBP NZD exchange rate jumped over a cent this morning, reaching a new three-month high as European diplomats suggested that the UK government is rethinking its threat to leave the EU without a deal if negotiations go south.

Reports say that the government realises the havoc leaving without a deal would cause, appearing to contradict Theresa Mays threat in January that no deal would be better than a bad deal.

Markets were upbeat about the news as failing to reach an agreement would force the UK to fall back on World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.

Such rules would place heavy tariffs on select goods and force firms to navigate a large amount of red tape, potentially causing a great deal of disruption to the UK economy.

The diplomats are also reported to have said that the government will soften its approach to immigrations as minsters recognise that curbs would be a bad idea for British society and economy.

Sterling Advances Following Trump Slump

Sterling was also strengthened this morning as investors flocked to the safe haven provided by UK bonds as they fled the US Dollar.

Markets moved to ditch the Greenback as the failure by Trump to pass his healthcare bill has caused analysts to question his administrations ability to push through his much anticipated economic reforms.

Trump will also likely be forced to rethink his spending plans as he loses access to the saving his healthcare plan would have given the government with the possible scaling back of his stimulus package likely leading to further gains for the Pound.

Weak Commodity Prices Prompts New Zealand Dollar to Slide

The New Zealand Dollar found itself unable to take advantage of the US Dollars weakness this morning however as it faced the pressure of falling commodity prices.

The CRB Index of 19 commonly traded commodities fell to a two-week low on Monday, with Chinese futures suggesting that they still have further to fall as they tumbled again overnight.

This added to the general shying away from risk-sensitive currencies that has hampered the Kiwi in recent weeks with investors reluctant to trade in high-yield markets amid growing global uncertainty.

UK CPI Figures Ahead

The GBP NZD exchange rate is likely to become increasingly volatile over the coming days as Theresa May invokes Article 50 tomorrow, kicking off two years of Brexit negotiations and creating a great deal of market uncertainty.

Meanwhile the New Zealand Dollar may struggle to find direction this week as a lull in notable domestic data leaves the currency rudderless.

GBP NZD Data Releases

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

08:30 GBP Net Consumer Credit (FEB)

08:30 GBP Net Lending Sec. on Dwellings (FEB)

08:30 GBP Mortgage Approvals (FEB)

08:30 GBP M4 Money Supply (MoM) (FEB)

08:30 GBP M4 Money Supply (YoY) (FEB)

08:30 GBP M4 Ex IOFCs 3M Annualised (FEB)

12:00 GBP UK PM May Triggers Article 50, Starting Brexit Process

Thursday, March 30, 2017

21:45 NZD Building Permits (MoM) (FEB)

23:01 GBP GfK Consumer Confidence Survey (MAR)

23:01 GBP Lloyds Business Barometer (MAR)
Commentary by management consultant Michael Wade on Leadership, Ethics, Management, and Life
A weird thing happened to me recently that prompted thoughts on real estate investing, eminent domain and big gubmint, aka big government.

I (re-)learned that what you dont know might hurt you, and also what you think you know about your constitutional rights might not be true.

Through a series of unfortunate events, I became a one-fifth owner in a parcel of agricultural land in Southeast Bexar County. Ive been trying to sell it ever since. I have areas of investment expertise, but real estate development isnt one of them. Which is probably why I found myself in this awkward spot.

Last fall I learned from our Realtor that a 50-acre parcel, of which I am a part owner, has a planned major thoroughfare running through the middle of it.

My real estate agent sent me the city parcel map and yup, theres a bright yellow line cutting right through our property. As owners we cant build on that. Any development done on the property has to make way for a future, theoretical, 120-foot wide road right down the middle.

Art Reinhardt, an assistant director of transportation for the city of San Antonio, explained to me that in 1978  and then periodically updated afterward  the city mapped out future theoretical roads, to account for growth.

The long-planned major thoroughfare is not built yet, and might not be built for decades, or even built at all, ever. But in the meantime, we cant use that land for anything except a road.

All-in, the as yet nonexistent major thoroughfare will take about 5 acres out of the parcel and make it unavailable for building. Multiply those 5 acres times the cost per acre, and were talking about real money lost by myself and my fellow owners.

At first, I thought the carved-out 5 acres would be no big deal. Because, well, Im an American. And I was flipping through my copy of the U.S. Constitution, as one does in ones free time, and I re-read Article V of the Bill of Rights: Nor shall any person  be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

This amendment is the basis for limitations on any government  city, state or federal  claiming eminent domain over private property, taking it for public use without paying the private property owner for that taking.

So no problem, I thought, the city of San Antonio will certainly pay us for that public use, right? I mean, I read it right there in the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. So, cool, Im good.

Thats when I called city officials to test my theory.

Nope. There will be no compensation. I checked with multiple city officials familiar with this type of matter in the planning, transportation, and legal counsels offices. None of them wanted to be identified because they werent authorized to be quoted.

I further learned that even if an unbuilt (but planned) major thoroughfare exists, it wont show up in a title search, the typical due diligence real estate purchasers use to be certain they have full ownership with no liens or counter-claims from anyone, like an unpaid creditor or previous owner.

It seems the only practical way a buyer would know about this is through hiring a specialist attorney familiar with maps showing city plans for major thoroughfares. Something we clearly hadnt done.

I talked to San Antonio attorney David Denton, a specialist in eminent domain and governmental real estate issues. He helped walk me through the legal particulars that would define an eminent domain case versus a tough luck, private property owner case.

Cities and other government entities obviously have rights and the need to restrict private usage through zoning, parcel platting, infrastructure requirements and transportation. These are considered exactions imposed by a city government.

An exaction, in real estate law, is land, money or goods the government requires and the property owner has to provide as a condition to develop the land. Its not considered a taking covered by eminent domain because  get this  its treated as a negotiated deal. Except the property owner doesnt really have a choice and the government holds all the cards.

In legalese, qualifying for payment under eminent domain hinges on whether its an exaction (a negotiated deal in which there is no cash compensation for the private landowner) or a taking (possible compensation for the private landowner).

Voter Guide: What to know for the midterm election Your guide to the Texas and San Antonio races and candidates on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Exactions provide government cover for a variety of legitimate uses, including it seems, future theoretical road access. Denton also mentioned case law around the proportionality of the governments requirements. I understand that to mean that if a higher proportion of a full property value was lost, it might start to resemble a taking, but my situation didnt rise to that level.

One lesson, obviously, is dont get into investing in things without really knowing what youre doing.

In other words, do as I say, not as I do.

Another lesson, more subtly, is that the world of real estate is not as simple as a bright line between private property rights and public or government property rights. We rarely can do precisely what we want with private land, and the public interest can impinge upon our theoretical property rights.

The third lesson I learned along the way is that big gubmint can be serendipitously profitable. It turns out theres private silver-lining opportunity in this public impingement. As a developer buddy of mine explained, some investors seek out land like this, with a major thoroughfare plan running through it.

Heres why. If the major thoroughfare did get built soon, Id be sitting on a potential gold mine (a very small-scale gold mine, but still). Suddenly, my rural land would become far more valuable from the expected increase in automobile traffic. I could lease it out to a Krispy Kreme or whatever fast food joint would build a store next to the major roadway cutting through the property.

Actually, who am I kidding? If we could lease to Krispy Kreme specifically, I would move into a trailer next door and never leave. I love that sugary goodness.

Michael Taylor is a former Goldman Sachs bond salesman and writes the Bankers-Anonymous.com finance blog. michael@michaelthesmartmoney.com

@Michael_Taylor
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Two men arrested in less than a couple of days are facing murder charges for their alleged involvement in the death of a man whose body discovered with gunshot wounds in front of a Southwest Side home in January.

Johnny Ray Morales, 29, and Juan "Wero" Gonzales, 38, are accused of fatally shooting Marcelino Deleon, 42, who was found dead in a front yard with multiple gunshot wounds Jan. 30 at a residence in the 13800 block of South Loop 1604, according to the Bexar County Sheriff's Office.

Morales was already in custody at the Bexar County Adult Detention Center on a charge of felon in possession of a firearm, the department said in a press release.

RELATED: The Texas Mexican Mafia, explained

Deputies apprehended Gonzales at about 3:15 p.m. Monday near the intersection of Zarzamora and Murray streets. Details as to his involvement in the case were not immediately available, nor were they clear in Morales's affidavit.

There were two types of bullet cartridges at the scene, indicating that there were two weapons and two shooters involved in the murder, the document states.

Morales parents told investigators they saw Morales and Deleon sitting in a pickup truck parked in the front yard the night before the slaying. Morales was seen holding and playing around with a AK47 rifle, according to the affidavit. About 10:30 p.m., loud gunshots were heard and Morales already had fled the scene by the time his parents checked outside. Witnesses identified a blue SUV driving down the street at the time of the shooting.

Morales - known as Chon - denied involvement in the murder when he was brought in for questioning Feb. 1, the affidavit states. He later admitted his first statement was false after he was charged with felony possession of a firearm March 24, adding that he was there when the killing occurred but he did not shoot the victim. Two other people shot Deleon, he told detectives.

RELATED: Gang tattoos in the Bexar County Jail

Deleon allegedly was involved with drugs, the affidavit states. A few days before the slaying, Deleon was in possession of a large quantity of methamphetamine with the intention of selling the product. A confidential source told authorities that Morales planned on robbing Deleon for the drugs, which were split between the three men after the shooting.

The document states that the informant relayed a conversation with Morales, in which he said, I had to do what I had to do  my finger had to be on the trigger. Morales later added that he smoked (killed) the victim.

According to the affidavit, detectives learned from the informant that Morales was made a carnal (brother) of the Mexican Mafia for killing Deleon, who allegedly had cut ties with the mafia. One of the Mexican Mafias rules and conduct is to assault and or kill all dropouts, the document stated.

Gonzales was being processed through the Bexar County Magistrate's Office Monday. Murder is a first-degree felony punishable by up to life in prison.

qramirez@express-news.net

Twitter: @quixem
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Opening statements began Monday in the federal wrongful death lawsuit filed against the city of San Antonio by the family of Marquise Jones, who was fatally shot in the back by off-duty San Antonio police officer Robert Encina three years ago.

In his opening remarks, an attorney for the Jones family told a panel of eight jurors that the city and the San Antonio Police Department failed to properly discipline Encina for a prior incident in which Encina exhibited animosity toward black people. Jones was African-American.

The attorney also told jurors that there were a number of inconsistencies in the police narrative of events that detectives failed to properly investigate.

A failure to supervise Encina led to Marquise Jones constitutional rights being violated, attorney Daryl Washington said. The shooting of Marquise Jones should not have happened.

In their opening statements, lawyers for the city and Encina contested those charges, saying Encina was properly disciplined for the incident in which he drunkenly tried to fight patrons at another restaurant where he worked security.

Additionally, the city said, there were no inconsistencies in the narrative of events, because its normal for witnesses to have varying accounts of a traumatic experience.

The evidence is going to say there was no cover-up, said Shawn Fitzpatrick, a lawyer for the city. There was nothing the city did to cause Mr. Jones death.

The opening remarks Monday came three years after Jones, a 23-year-old father who was planning on joining the military, was shot and killed at the Chachos and Chaluccis on the Northeast Side.

Jones, accompanied by his sister Whitney and two other friends, had visited the restaurant on their way home from Fast Eddies, where they had spent the evening drinking and shooting pool.

As the friends waited for their order in the drive-thru, the driver of the vehicle, Fabian Garza, reversed the car, hitting the vehicle behind him. Encina, dressed in full SAPD uniform, came outside to examine the fender-bender when he approached Garza, asking him to step out of the vehicle.

Encina said he smelled alcohol on Garzas breath and handcuffed him.

Jones, who was on probation and had been arrested several times for theft and drug possession and once for assault, grew nervous as he watched Encina handcuff Garza. Whitney Jones told her brother not to worry, but he stepped out of the vehicle and began running.

At that point, police say Jones turned toward Encina, pointing a handgun at him. Encina told investigators he fired because he feared for his life.

Two witnesses verify the police account of events. Six other witnesses either say Jones didnt have a gun or they didnt see one.

An internal investigation into the officer-involved shooting found that Encina was justified in using force. And in 2015, a Bexar County grand jury voted not to indict Encina, a six-year veteran of the force at the time of the shooting.

At the heart of the plaintiffs claim that the city failed to properly discipline Encina is an April 2010 incident at Mama Margies in the 9900 block of Interstate 10 on the Northwest Side. Encina, along with other off-duty officers, tried to pick a fight with black customers, according to an internal affairs report.

During this confrontation, Encina threw down a bag of food and began identifying himself as a baller and from the East Side, wrote Sgt. Javier Salazar, who now is the Bexar County sheriff.

On Monday, Washington said Encina also verbally abused a woman, calling her a derogatory name.

Originally, Police Chief William McManus proposed an indefinite suspension for the incident, but he reduced the discipline to a 45-day suspension. Encina was allowed to give up vacation and holiday leave instead of serving the suspension.

You will hear of a culture that allows this type of behavior at the San Antonio Police Department, Washington said. Encina didnt get any type of counseling  Vacation days is not punishment.

Fitzpatrick, the city attorney, said Encina was properly disciplined for the incident. The police unions collective bargaining agreement prohibits the police chief from issuing more than a 45-day suspension.

Additionally, Fitzpatrick said, Encina was referred to a department program called Officer Concerned.

The trial is expected to continue today with testimony from four witnesses, Jones sister Whitney, and another friend who was in the vehicle the night of the shooting.

eeaton@express-news.net

Twitter: @emilieeaton
AUSTIN  The Texas Senate on Monday approved changes to the states controversial voter ID law to bring it into line with a federal appeals court ruling that declared it discriminatory toward minorities.

The Republican-led upper chamber voted 21-10 along party lines Monday for a bill that would allow people with a reasonable impediment to obtaining an applicable photo identification to sign an affidavit in order to vote. It also would impose a penalty of up to 10 years in prison for lying on the sworn document.

The people of the State of Texas demand integrity of the ballot box, said Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, the sponsor of the bill. Im committed to constitutionally sound, free, fair and secure elections.

Huffman said the courts provided a road map for changes needed in Texas voter ID law, and those changes are incorporated in Senate Bill 5.

Republicans swatted down three amendments pitched by Democrats that would have allowed students to use their college IDs to vote and relax the penalty for those who signed an affidavit but still had a valid photo ID.

It has the effect of scaring people, said Sen. Jose Rodriguez, an El Paso Democrat. I dont think we should do anything that in any way intimidates voters.

The bill changes a 2011 law that requires voters to show one of seven valid photo IDs to prove their identity, which includes a Texas drivers license, an Election Identification Certificate, a state personal identification card, a state license to carry a handgun, a U.S. military ID, a U.S citizenship certificate or a U.S. passport.

The law was challenged in 2013 and led to a 2016 decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2016 that the law discriminates against minorities. The ruling dealt a blow to Republicans, who had supported stiffer voting regulations, and ordered temporary changes the state put into effect for the November 2016 election. Huffman said she believes SB 5 will satisfy the courts concerns.

The bill reduces the age of an expired photo ID voters can use from four years to two years. It also allows people 70 years old and older to use an expired ID of any age.

SB5 is a top priority of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and was fast-tracked through the Legislative session. It faces a final perfunctory vote in the upper chamber Tuesday before it can be considered in the House.

andrea.zelinski@chron.com

twitter.com/andreazelinski
AUSTIN  Prosecutors would be required to present exculpatory evidence to grand juries under a pair of bills awaiting hearings in Austin as part of a push to reform the process in ways that could significantly benefit criminal suspects.

The nearly-identical bills by Sen. Dawn Buckingham, R-Lakeway, and longtime Houston Democratic Rep. Senfronia Thompson, also would allow any grand jury witness, including the suspect, to have a lawyer present while testifying. Currently, lawyers must remain outside of the grand jury room.

Other provisions in Senate Bill 1424 would require grand jury proceedings to be recorded, impose a reasonable notice requirement for witness appearances, and would prohibit cases in which no indictment is returned from being taken before another grand jury unless there is new evidence.

House bill 2640 includes an additional provision intended to safeguard against unwarranted proceedings by awarding lawyers fees and related expenses if a grand jury investigation was not substantially justified.

Supporters of reform assert that grand juries too often act as rubber-stamps for prosecutors, failing to provide adequate protections for the accused, and say legislation is needed to create a more equitable playing field.

I dont see why the grand jury room should be the only place in the criminal justice system where a suspect is denied a right to a lawyer, Thompson said, noting she has filed similar bills probably four or five times over the course of her 45-year tenure in the legislature.

Lisa Shapiro Strauss, vice president of the Harris County Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, said the group supports the legislation that would allow defense attorneys in the courtroom with their client.

This would change the dynamics completely if we were able to be in there with a witness, she said.

Opponents of the bills, which include the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, have expressed concerns about protecting witness privacy and the potential for increased costs and delays in grand jury proceedings.

The Bexar County Criminal District Attorneys office said in a statement that it is strongly opposed to the legislation because it would bring the justice system to a virtual halt. The passage of this bill would not only delay the defendants right to have their case heard by a jury by making the discovery process more burdensome, but also substantially increase the costs of each case for Bexar County taxpayers, it said.

Putting an attorney in the grand jury changes the dynamics in the sense that it becomes an adversarial proceeding with no controls, Coryell County District Attorney Dusty Boyd said. If thats the case, we might as well abolish the grand jury process and go to public pre-trial hearings.

Shapiro Strauss said she could see that the requirement to present exculpatory evidence likely would add more work to the process and could result in a backlog of cases.

Of course, as a defense bar, we would love it because wed have more information early on, she said.

A spokesman said the Harris County District Attorneys Office had no comment as it had not yet reviewed the legislative proposals. Attorney General Ken Paxtons office also declined to comment.

While fewer than half of the states mandate the use of grand juries, Texas generally requires grand jury indictments for all felony cases. Most states and the federal government transcribe grand jury proceedings, while more than a dozen allow counsel to be present in the grand jury room in at least some circumstances.

Thompson said her bill would not give defense attorneys the right to question or cross-examine witnesses.

Right on Crime, a criminal justice project of the conservative think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation, has worked with the lawmakers to provide research and technical background support for the proposals.

Greg Glod, a senior policy analyst with TPPF, said the goal is to increase transparency for criminal suspects, to allow the grand jury to get the whole story without impeding the prosecution.

Because it is such a secret process now it weighs heavily in favor of the state, he said.

In 2015, a bill that changed grand jury selection procedures was signed into law after being approved by both chambers. It ended the use of the key man or pick-a-pal system that let judges designate certain individuals to choose grand jury members from a pre-selected pool, rather than the community at large.

Both bills have been referred to committees in their respective chambers, but no hearing dates have been scheduled.

Staff Writer Nicole Cobler contributed to this report.

sky.canaves@chron.com

twitter.com/skycita
About 60 years ago, an elite group of business leaders began convening in secret at the St. Anthony Hotel to select their favored candidates for City Council.

The Good Government League got away with it for 16 years  a political machine packing council with mostly Anglo North Side residents  until voters wrested power back in 1977, reforming the charter to create 10 single-member districts.

But who needs a shadowy cabal when the charter has no teeth, anyway?

Regarding city council, the charter now declares: Each member from a district or ward shall reside within its boundaries at least six (6) months prior to filing his application for election and continuing during his or her term of office, and failure to do so shall render such office vacant.

Shalls notwithstanding, District 9 candidate Lynlie Wallace has given the lie to this requirement by telling one. She scrawled it on her application for a place on the May 6 ballot. In the box titled permanent residence address, she wrote in a District 9 address, declaring it her home for the past four years and 11 months.

A tenant, however, has leased that residence since September 2013, according to a San Antonio Water System account associated with the address. Wallace, meanwhile, has claimed a homestead exemption on a residence in Austin, where she serves as chief of staff for Republican state Rep. Lyle Larson.

This month, Wallace told San Antonio Express-News Staff Writer Josh Baugh that the local tenant was her roommate. A day later, Justin Hollis, her campaign manager, retracted that statement and clarified that the person in the District 9 home actually was Wallaces tenant.

Lynlie misspoke, Hollis told Baugh, and wanted to amend that.

Despite its revolutionary residency rule, the city can do nothing to enforce it. The Secretary of States Office has made clear that no public record conclusively establishes residency. Only a court of law may make a ruling on a persons residency.

Now the North Side knows how the rest of the city felt 60 years ago. Someone from the north  in this case, the far north  wants to represent them on council, and she has the support of the political establishment.

Larson, whose legislative district overlaps with half of District 9, has endorsed Wallace (his chief of staff). So has U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes, who is Wallaces boyfriend.

Political donors are now referring to Wallace as the smart money in the race.

For his part, Henry Flores, a professor of political science at St. Marys University, referred to Wallaces candidacy as ridiculous.

She cant even run for office in New Braunfels, Flores said. She has no understanding of whats going on in the district. Is she just a political opportunist?

Flores called for a charter amendment to prevent this situation, one that would require candidates to prove their residency in order to apply for a place on the ballot.

Its got to be enforced to the point that theyre not allowed to register, Flores said.

In an emailed response, Wallace said her work at the state legislature has temporarily taken her away from her San Antonio home until the session ends this summer.

That does not mean I am no longer a resident, Wallace said. Im registered to vote here, I pay taxes here. This is my home and it more than fulfills the requirements set by the city and the State of Texas.

She believes the homestead exemption has no bearing on where someone can run for office.

If I had no homestead exemption, would I not be allowed to run for office anywhere? she asked. I did that to save money because taxes are higher there. City of San Antonio voters should be glad because now they have more of my tax dollars to spend right here.

John Courage, another candidate in District 9, acknowledged that the only recourse  this election cycle, at least  would be to file a lawsuit against Wallace.

Ive spoken with a couple of the other candidates, Courage said. Theres one other whos interested in joining with me in filing a request to the court for an injunction against her being on the ballot.

That other candidate is David Doc Cohen, a local physician.

Its an honesty issue, Cohen told me. Its an issue of character  She has no shame about it. If no one in standing files a case in district court, then she would not be removed from the race and presumably would actually be able to serve if she won. Even if I dont win  I really feel like someone who would do that is not the person I would want to be representing me.

Going to court is a burden. It would take time and money. Courage and Cohen are planning to do so anyway.

Its a matter of precedent, Courage said. The city shouldnt allow people to be on the ballot if theyre not eligible.

bchasnoff@express-news.net
At the close of Womens History Month, theres much for which to be grateful. Nowhere more vividly than San Antonio, where arts and culture continue to bear fruits of justice, and where the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center gifted the city a historical celebration this month in Thats Not Fair! No Es Justo! Emma Tenayucas Struggle for Justice.

Based on the childrens book of the same name by San Antonio writer Carmen Tafolla and Emmas niece attorney Sharyll Teneyuca, it was the latest incarnation of the play, which ran mid-month at the Guadalupe Theater and then in an encore performance last week at Texas A&M San Antonio.

Many were moved by the story; perhaps no one more than Keli Rosa Cabunoc, the UTSA graduate student who played the young labor activist who led the 1938 pecan shellers strike. Its regarded as the first major milestone in the Mexican American struggle for justice in U.S. history, though Texas students arent taught about her.

An estimated 10,000 to 12,000 workers were involved, the great majority of them Mexican and Mexican-American women who walked off the job for several months to protest cuts in starvation wages and unbearable working conditions.

Tenayucas oratory led them.

Cabunoc was one of two actresses who played Emma in a show thats growing into a musical. For the descendants of those pecan shellers, it was moving. She met with some of them after each performance and saw tears in their eyes as they spoke of mothers and grandmothers who were pecan shellers.

Cabunoc, who expects to finish her masters degree in bicultural studies this year and embark on a doctorate, someday hopes to teach Mexican-American Studies to help fill such gaps in Texas and U.S. history.

She brings to that mission her own history. Her father was among the Filipino grape pickers who joined the United Farm Workers struggle in California. Her parents live in Delano, the birthplace of that movement.

She first heard of Tenayuca at California State University-Fullerton, where a professor passed out a list of Latina figures from which students could select writing assignments. No one picked Tenayuca. Cabunoc remembers she was defined by only a few words, pecan sheller strike leader, communist.

Later, she saw a meme that pictured a young Tenayuca, and these words: This is Emma Tenayuca. Emma was Chicana. Emma organized Chicana and Mexicana workers. She was gassed. She was beaten. She was jailed. Emma didnt care. Emma organized. Be like Emma.

Those last three words have become Cabunocs mantra, especially in preparing for the role. She visited her grave on the South Side and built a small altar to her backstage. A musician and dancer, Cabunoc had not acted before. It helped that she looks so much like Tenayuca and brought to the role a commitment to her story.

Everywhere she went, she told it, sharing Tenayucas passion as a union leader, her intelligence and courage. A mob of KKK members almost lynched Emma because she was organizing brown folks, she recalls telling people of the Municipal Auditorium riot of 1939. At the time, communists and other activists were advocating for union rights, a minimum wage and racial equity.

Such extremist groups still exist  nearby, she adds, We dont talk about that. The Southern Poverty Centers Hate Map online bears out her fears.

In a month when were reminded of all those women of courage who came before us, remembering Tenayucas contributions is important. So is recognizing those women still waging battles around us.

Among them are the scholars  Antonia Castaneda, Ellen Riojas Clark, Josie Mendez-Negrete, Norma Elia Cantu and many more  who have kept stories alive; and the activists who still know the power of protest and resistance.

Of teachers and lawyers, there are two many, but in the category of justice seekers are those who seek it from the bench. The justices of the Fourth Court of Appeals come to mind, all women, four among them Latinas.

Justice Irene Rios of that court reminds us to remember, our mothers who were there holding the ladder for us.

Cabunoc has hopes for those who have yet to starting climbing, like the student who came to the show because the book is her favorite. She was one of the first persons I made contact with sitting in the front row with these huge eyes. she said. Im excited to see what shes going to do with her life.

eayala@express-news.net

Twitter: @ElaineAyala
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Sometimes when you defend someone, youre really insulting them.

For a prime example, lets revisit a classic scene from the movie Spinal Tap.

The band is feeling humiliated after a disastrous gig, because a Stonehenge replica they had commissioned for a stage prop turned out to be only 18 inches  rather than 18 feet  tall.

When Polly Deutsch, the sculptor they hired, explains that she merely followed the written instructions given to her by guitarist Nigel Tufnel, Tufnels songwriting partner David St. Hubbins sticks up for his bandmate by shouting at Deutsch: Its not your job to be as confused as Nigel!

Another good example came last Saturday night, when Fox News host Jeanine Pirro defended her hero, President Donald Trump, by castigating U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Pirro, a former New York county court judge whose default demeanor is that of an anger-management dropout who just spent three hours waiting in line at the DMV, said Ryan must step down as speaker, because he botched the GOP effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

Speaker Ryan, she said, you come in with all your swagger and experience and you sell him (Trump) a bill of goods, which ends up a complete and total failure, and you allow our president, in his first 100 days, to come out of the box like that?

Ryans unforgivable sin is that he failed to provide Trump with a glorious legislative victory, which Pirro apparently believes should be the speakers daily objective, from the moment he rouses himself from bed and runs a comb through that Eddie Munster widows peak.

I want to be clear, Pirro said. This is not on President Trump. No one expected a businessman to completely understand the nuances, the complicated ins and outs of Washington and its legislative process.

I thought Trump was the master dealmaker, Mr. I-Alone-Can-Fix-It. Yet Pirro, his ardent defender, talks about him like hes a clueless dolt who Ryan manipulated with ease.

Trump repeatedly said during the 2016 campaign that he was determined to immediately repeal and replace Obamacare. Ryan merely tried to facilitate that goal. If Trump allowed himself to be sold a bill of goods, isnt that his fault?

Last time I checked, the job description of the speaker of the House is not to babysit the president and make sure that he doesnt stick his (tiny) hand on a hot stove.

If Trump didnt like Ryans bill  and lets face it, practically nobody liked Ryans bill  he could have said so. If hes so cowed by Ryan, he sure didnt show it last October when he tweeted that Ryan is a weak and ineffective leader.

A little of that gumption (or trumption) might have been helpful during the rollout for Ryans health plan. But it would have required Trump actually reading and comprehending the bill. Trump has neither the aptitude nor the attention span to absorb that kind of information, so he just trotted out public assurances that it was a great bill, while expressing private doubts.

Think of the dozens of times that Trump blasted Obamacare on the campaign trail last year. Did he ever offer any substantive critiques? Did he ever talk about the laws mandates or its subsidies or Medicaid expansion or the challenge of getting young invincibles to sign up on the Obamacare exchanges?

Of course not. Trump just called it a disaster and said it was imploding. Because he never really understood how the law worked, any more than he understood how Ryans replacement would have worked.

Whether you love the Affordable Care Act or hate it, theres no denying that Barack Obama stuck his neck out in 2009 when he decided to make it his top legislative priority. He did so against the wishes of his then-chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. He did so at great political cost to his party. But he got it passed.

If Obama had failed, the failure would have belonged to him, not then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. After all, the buck stops in the Oval Office, or its supposed to.

Whats strange about the fallout from the Ryan/Trump fiasco is that Pirro and many of her fellow Republicans hated Ryans plan and are glad that the partys Freedom Caucus rejected it, but they dont hold it against Trump for pressuring those Freedom Caucus members to back it. They also dont mind that Trump has denounced the Freedom Caucus three times on Twitter since last Friday.

They pin the whole debacle on Ryan, because, after all, its not his job to be as confused as Trump.

ggarcia@express-news.net

Twitter: @gilgamesh470
Trauma Narratives and the Ethics of Reading

Saulkrasti, Latvia, 26 July2 August, 2017

The research circle Narrative and Memory: Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics is pleased to announce the call for its 2017 summer symposium, following its inaugural symposium in Tallinn (Estonia) in March 2017.

The summer symposium will discuss the specific ethical and aesthetic issues raised by trauma narratives. Trauma narratives attempt to communicate suffering which is sometimes at the edge of representability and barely comprehensible to those who have not lived through it. We shall examine the aesthetic means which have been adopted to confront this problem and the ethical challenge which trauma narratives pose, as they radically bring into question our responsibility as readers, scholars, subjects, and citizens. The symposium explores the current state of the field of trauma studies and its intersections with memory studies and narrative studies.

We invite reflections on the ethical and political questions related to the narration and reception of trauma in all artistic and memorial media. How is the story of trauma to be told and understood? Who has the right or the responsibility to narrate the horrors of war, violence, displacement and re-location? What is the responsibility of those who are not primary victims, but who witness or receive the stories of atrocity? What are the gains and risks of attending to the trauma of others? What are the benefits and limits of the concept of trauma in addressing legacies of violence in the contemporary world? How should we rethink the notion of trauma in the light of recent discussions about the inadequacy of the perpetratorvictim binary in dealing with these legacies? We have no pre-established view of the answers to these and related questions. The aim of the symposium is rather to promote debate in the expectation that beneficial effects are more likely to follow from open, informed discussion than public silence. We welcome both theoretical interventions and studies of particular instances of trauma, its narration and reception. Reading should be understood in the broad sense as including all forms of reception and interaction, such as spectatorship, interviewing, conversation and secondary witnessing.

We encourage participants to craft their presentations in the format that they find most suitable. However, please note that the maximum duration of each presentation, including time for follow-up discussion, will be 40 minutes, and we expect most presentations to be max. 20 minutes. Those who wish to attend the symposium without giving a presentation are welcome to apply, but we encourage everyone to contribute actively to the group by reading participant papers and taking part in collective discussions. Priority is given to applicants who will present their work.

Please send a proposal (max. 300 words) and a short biographical statement to Prof. Hanna Meretoja (hailme@utu.fi) and Prof. Colin Davis (Colin.Davis@rhul.ac.uk). If you would like to attend the symposium without presenting your work, please send us a biographical statement and briefly explain your interest in participating.

The deadline for submission is 1 May, 2017. The preliminary program will be announced in mid-May at www.nordic.university. There you will also find more information about NSU and may sign up for the newsletter.

Narrative and Memory: Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics is a three-year international research initiative funded by the Nordic Summer University with the aim of investigating how different storytelling practices of literature, audiovisual arts, social media and oral testimonies address the legacies of twentieth-century European conflicts and how they travel across national borders. It is an interdisciplinary network that brings together scholars of narrative and memory from the Nordic and Baltic countries and Great Britain. The research circle aims to contribute to public debate on issues of memory, war, displacement and the future of Europe in the current political context of the refugee crisis.

The Nordic Summer University (NSU, http://www.nordic.university) is a Nordic network for research and interdisciplinary studies. NSU is a nomadic, academic institution, which organises workshopseminars across disciplinary and national borders. Since it was established in 1950, Nordic Summer University has organised forums for cultural and intellectual debate in the Nordic and Baltic region, involving students, academics, politicians, artists and intellectuals from this region and beyond. The backbone of the activities in NSU consists of its thematic study circles (http://nordic.university/study-circles/), in which researchers, students and professionals from different backgrounds collaborate in scholarly investigations distributed regularly in summer and winter symposia during a threeyear period.

Practical information about the Nordic Summer University Summer Session

In the summer session, all the study circles of the NSU hold their symposia at a shared location, which offers additional possibilities for cross-fertilisation and dialogue between the thematic networks. The summer session is centrally organised by the NSU/ARRKOM.

Location

The summer session 2017 will be held in Saulkrasti, Latvia. Saulkrasti is a historical sea resort situated on the Baltic Sea, 50 kilometers from Riga. The summer session 2017 will be held in Minhauzena Unda, a holiday accommodation in the middle of a pine forest, less than a five-minute walk from the sandy beach seaside. The hotel got its name from the worlds biggest liar, Baron von Munchausen. The location is within easy reach, approximately 1 hour from Riga city centre by bus or train. More information about the hotel can be found here:

http://minhauzens.lv/en/recreation-complex-minhauzena-unda/

Registration and payment

(1) Application (submission of proposals) closes on the 1st of May.

(2) Once your proposal has been accepted, you must go through registration and payment which close on the 1st of June. All registration and payment will be done electronically.

Scholarship program

NSU provides a number of scholarships for students and grants for others in need of a subsidy in order to attend the summer session. The application period is from 1-15 April. For information see http://nsuweb.org/w2014/ Please note that people who receive grants and scholarships are expected to help ARRKOM with small tasks like writing blog posts, sharing their experience, distributing information if needed, and helping out with setting up and cleaning up the picnic.

ECTS

PhD and MA students are eligible for up to five ECTS points for participation and presentation of a paper. See also: http://nordic.university/study-circles/

Parents with children

We welcome families at the Summer Session. As in previous years, there will be a separate circle for children between 3 and 15 years. In the children's circle, we offer a variety of activities for children and youth, running parallel to the other study circles. See also: http://nordic.university/study-cir-cles/childrenscircle/

Keynote speakers

Sigri?ur ?orgeirsdottir, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iceland. She specializes in the philosophy of Nietzsche, feminist philosophy and philosophy of nature and embodiment. More information of her research and publications is found from her website: http://uni.hi.is/sigrthor/

Cecilia Malmstrom Olsson, who received a doctorate in literature from Lund University in 1993, with special focus on Dance Studies. She is a freelance dance researcher, writer, lecturer, and has been active in dance, culture, and education over the last thirty years in Sweden, Scandinavia, Europe and the US. Her research focus is on dance and aesthetics, dance and politics from different perspectives, such as identity, gender, race, and power relations.

Cost and accommodation

There is a limited amount of rooms in Munchhausen Hotel, therefore we will also offer accommodation for participants in 2 or 4 bed caravans that will be located right next to the main buildings in a forested camp-like environment surrounded by nature. Participants who stay in caravans will be able use bathroom facilities/showers in the main buildings. Total cost per adult person ranges from 80 - 550  depending on the kind of accommodation you choose.

- Staying in a caravan: from 80  to 150 .

- Staying in the hotel building: from 200  to 550 .

Grant and scholarship holders will be given a place in caravans. Cost for grant holders is 60  and for scholarship holders 40 . The total cost per child from ages 4-14 years old is 150 . Children under the age of 4 pay 50  even if they share a room with the parent. More detailed information about the summer session will be sent out in the April newsletter (subscribe at www.nordic.university).
SALEM, Ohio  Some Ohio county auditors affected by the planned natural gas pipeline known as Nexus Gas Transmission are trying to collect conveyance fees on the easements held with landowners.

And other counties say the value of those easements is too difficult to determine, and are not collecting at this time.

Ohio law allows counties to collect up to $4 per thousand dollars of easement value, with $1 of that going to the state, for handling the easements. Easements of less than $1,000 are exempt.

But some counties and pipeline opponents say those fees were not assessed from the beginning.

Nexus is a 255-mile interstate pipeline that is intended to begin in Columbiana County, near Kensington, and cross Ohio diagonally on its way into lower Michigan.

Collecting fees

Stark County Auditor Alan Harold said his county began charging for pipeline easements in August, following a directive from the Ohio Department of Taxation.

Through January, Stark County has reviewed about 17 easements, with values as low as $3,300 and as high as $305,000.

Harold estimates that after reviewing the easements, Stark County has since collected about $40,000 from Nexus. He said its important revenue, but very little compared to the $4.3 million the same account generated all of last year. Stark County collects $4 per thousand dollars of easement value.

While the $40,000 is important, its $40,000 on top of $4 million, he said.

In Medina County, assistant prosecutor Mike Lyons said the issue with the conveyance fees could be an oversight and misunderstanding.

Im very reluctant to even allude to some notion of (Nexus) not being forthcoming with information, Lyons said. I think this was a kind of assumption that (pipeline) easements are not subject to this fee.

Correcting the issue

Lyons said the county prosecutors office has been in touch with Nexus, about reviewing the leases and correcting any oversights. He said Nexus has been responsive to the countys concerns.

Medina County Auditor Mike Kovack said Nexus holds 104 easements in his county, which could add up. He said that with the way the easements were filed in his county, theres no paperwork to track the value.

The actual value of the easement could become a big question, as counties and Nexus work to determine what each easement is worth.

That is one of the sticking points right now, said Jack LaMonica, chief of staff for the Summit County Fiscal Officer.

Some easements might include only an access point, or right-of-way, while others could include damages or alterations to the land.

LaMonica said Summit County officials determined there were 87 parcels related to the Nexus project, since December of 2015. He said when Nexus conveyed the easements to the county, it checked a box stating the value for each was less than the states threshold of $1,000.

Further review

But the county later learned of at least one homeowner who was paid above the threshold, which led to a meeting with Nexus and an effort to reclaim the funds.

LaMonica said Summit County has asked Nexus for an order of payment, to verify the exact amount granted in the lease. Since the order, he said at least four leases were found to be above the threshold, and the county was paid $1,800 in conveyance fees.

LaMonica said the county also instructed Nexus that any future easements run through the county fiscal office need to include a document showing the amount paid to the homeowner.

Adam Parker, spokesperson for Nexus, told Farm and Dairy that Nexus continues to work with county officials to address any outstanding matters.

In a Feb. 18 article by the Medina Gazette, four Nexus-affected counties in northwest Ohio said they did not charge conveyance fees on easements.

Sandusky County Auditor Jerri Miller said her county doesnt charge for easements because its difficult to determine the value, and whether the parties in the easement are being honest.

Its really hard for us to track them, she said, adding that its even harder with pipeline easements, because the developers can claim the right-of-way is less than $1,000, and therefore exempt, while keeping the cost for damages separate.

Opposed to pipelines

Pipeline opponents have pressed the issue, saying its not fair to Ohios taxpayers to allow these funds to go unpaid.

Paul Wohlfarth, a pipeline opponent who lives in Ottawa Lake, Michigan, and owns a farm in Lucas County, Ohio, said the pipelines should be held accountable.

Our government should be holding their feet to the fire and making them pay, he said.

But even if Nexus did pay the amount Wohlfarth believes they owe, he said hed still be opposed to the pipeline.

Its an export pipeline  theres no need and theres no public service, said Wohlfarth, arguing the line would only benefit private interests.

Wohlfarth is a member of the Coalition to Reroute Nexus, and a couple other pipeline opposition groups. He said he is doubtful the pipeline will ever bring the state, or the individual counties, the millions of revenue promised.

The Nexus pipeline is being planned by Enbridge, which acquired Spectra Energy in February. The project received its final environmental impact statement from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the pipeline in late November, and the company hopes to have final approval from FERC soon.
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In a dramatic twist, one of several inmates who were expected to testify in the murder trial
The former chief compliance officer of a registered broker-dealer in Woodbury, New York was sentenced to six months in prison for stealing money from overseas investors who thought they were investing in Dell, Berkshire Hathaway, and BlackRock.

William Quigley, 52, was Director of Compliance of Trident Partners Ltd. on Long Island from 2004 until 2014. He also acted as the firms Anti-Money Laundering officer.

He lives in Seaford, New York.

Quigley pleaded guilty in federal court in Central Islip, New York in March 2016 to wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies. He was indicted in mid 2015.

The court Friday ordered him to spend six months in prison followed by a year of home confinement and three years of supervised release. The court earlier ordered him to forfeit nearly $357,000.

Quigley also reached a settlement with the SEC Friday for violating the securities laws. In an administrative action, the SEC waived civil penalties because of the criminal sentence and forfeiture.

But the agency barred Quigley from all aspects of the securities business.

Quigleys two brothers  Michael, 47, and Brian, 44  live in the Philippines and directly solicited overseas investors.

The three brothers said they were brokers at firms registered with the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) and the Financial Institution Regulatory Authority Inc. (FINRA). They also told investors their money would go into blue chip companies and funds, including Dell, Berkshire Hathaway, and BlackRock.

In reality, the DOJ said, Quigley and his co-conspirators were not registered brokers and did not invest the funds as promised.

Quigley opened several bank accounts in New York to receive the investors funds. He transferred more than $500,000 of the $800,000 investor funds from these accounts to accounts in the Philippines, the DOJ said.

His brothers handled the solicitation aspects of the scheme, the SEC said, while he funneled investor money out of the accounts to his brothers and himself.

____

Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog.
Golden Globe winner Christine Kaufmann has died at the age of 72.

Christine Kaufmann

The German actress passed away on Monday night (27.3.17) at a hospital in Munich after battling with leukaemia.

In a statement, her management and family expressed their grief over the death of the Hollywood icon.

They said: "With much sorrow and grief, we have to say goodbye to our beloved Christine Kaufmann, our friend and professional partner. She died in Munich alongside her family. Christine Kaufmann was 72-years old.

"Christine was an exceptional and wonderful woman, a very warm-hearted person with an ageless love for life. Her endless wisdom, her poetical way and her unlimited tolerance and love for people will make her unforgettable.

"She loved her family, was a reliable friend and charmed everyone with her unique charm, humour and love for life. We will miss Christine very much and bid farewell to a great actress, author and creator of a successful beauty line. Her remarkable oeuvre and the memory of her will stay with us forever."

Her tragic death comes after she was rushed to hospital last week when she suddenly collapsed and was put into a medically-induced coma.

Hollywood star Kirk Douglas sent his well-wishes to his former co-star at the time, adding: "She is one of the most charming and affectionate women I have ever met. And a fighter."

Kaufmann started her film career at the tender age of nine. With roles in 'The Last Days of Pompeii' and 'Town Without Pity', she gained international recognition. In 1961, she picked up the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year before marrying American film legend Tony Curtis, who she met on the set of 'Taras Bulba', in 1963 at the age of 18. Curtis was 20 years her senior and they had two daughters, Alexandra and Allegra. However, they divorced in 1968 and Kaufmann went back to Germany to focus on her film career. During her long career, she also launched her own beauty line and published several books that focused on health and lifestyle.

Her children were left with a bitter feeling after the death of their father Tony Curtis in September 2010. The actor always acknowledged that he did a poor job as a father and failed to include any of his six children in his will. Although his worth is estimated to be as much as $60 million, his children were not included in the will in favour of his spouse Jill Vandenberg Curtis.

Kaufmann said at the time: "Everything the children should have, Jill has ... I do believe that deep down inside he was a nice Jewish father, and you know that nice Jewish fathers do not disinherit their children. Tony was on strong painkillers at the end, and they make you really stoned."

However, the testament in his will read: "I acknowledge the existence of my children ... and have intentionally and with full knowledge chosen not to provide for them in this last will and testament."

Kaufmann is survived by her children Alexandra, 52, Allegra, 50, and her grandchildren Elisabeth, 31, and Dido, 31.
Emmy Rossum has reportedly been robbed.

Emmy Rossum

The 30-year-old actress has reportedly been stripped of around $150,000 in antique jewellery after burglars broke into her West LA home and emptied the contents of two locked safes.

TMZ.com reports the 'Shameless' star had been in New York City when the alleged robbery took place last week, and it was her housekeeper who noticed the missing items when they saw a smashed pane of glass on the property's back door on Friday (24.03.17).

Law enforcement sources reportedly told the publication: "Emmy was in NYC last week when the housekeeper showed up on Wednesday and everything was fine. But on Friday, the housekeeper returned to a crime scene.

"The housekeeper noticed the power was off and a glass pane on a back door was smashed."

It is believed the culprit was able to get into Emmy's safes after she reportedly left the combination to the secured boxes written beside each safe.

Nothing else was taken in the raid, and law enforcement sources told TMZ they believe the thief cut the power in order to turn off the security alarm.

The 'Beautiful Creatures' actress isn't the first celebrity to have their home targeted recently either, as reality star and model Kendall Jenner was reportedly robbed of $200,000 in jewellery earlier this month.

It is thought the burglars entered Kendall's house sometime between her leaving at lunchtime and returning home at 8pm. Kendall didn't raise the alarm at first as she didn't realise things had gone missing until she went to her bedroom just after one in the morning.

Police found no evidence of forced entry, and are working under the assumption that Kendall's missing jewellery was taken by someone who attended a party at the home shortly before she noticed the items were gone.

Meanwhile, Jaime Pressly, Yasiel Puig, Derek Fisher, Alanis Morissette, Cesar Millan and Nick Young have all reportedly been targeted by burglars this year.
Samira Wiley wanted her wedding dress to be a "real fashion moment".

Lauren Morelli and Samira Wiley

The 'Orange Is The New Black' star tied the knot with Lauren Morelli in Palm Springs over the weekend and turned to her good friend Christian Siriano to design the perfect gown for her to walk down the aisle in.

He revealed: "Having spent years in an orange jumpsuit, Samira really wanted to have her fairytale wedding moment and therefore opted for a more traditional look. But we modernised [it] by making it two pieces so she could change into a simpler skirt later into the evening ...

"Samira's look was the first one she tried on and then we customised it for her. wasn't given any details on the wedding prior so there was no part of the [funfetti] theme in the design. They wanted it to be a real fashion moment, which I think we accomplished. They're strong women who know what they like, which is always helpful."

And Christian was also happy to work on Lauren's outfit, which was a "play on masculinity".

He added: "In contrast, Lauren wanted something more tailored and a play on masculinity, but we kept it feminine with the crystal beaded pearl. She wanted to feel regal and elegant."

Christian was thrilled he got a chance to design the couple's wedding outfits and says it was a "no-brainer" for him to work on the outfits because he knows exactly what Samira likes.

He told People Style: "Samira and I have been friends for years. I've dressed her for many award shows and I know what she likes so when they became engaged and asked me it was a no-brainer ...

"Their wedding was gorgeous and I was honoured to be a part of it. They're perfect for each other!"
Olly Murs celebrated being single at his debut show at London's Royal Albert Hall in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust on Monday night (27.03.17).

Olly Murs performs for Teenage Cancer Trust

The 'Dance With Me Tonight' hitmaker poured his heart out on stage performing songs from his latest record, '24 Hrs' - including 'You Don't Know Love' and 'Flaws' - which he's openly admitted is about his heartbreak from his break-up from his ex-girlfriend Francesca Thomas, who he split from in 2015 after three years of dating.

After asking the crowd, equally of men and women, if they were single, he declared he was too.

And speaking to the Metro newspaper before going on stage, he confirmed his relationship status.

He said: "I'm still single. Nothing has changed in that department."

He jumped around the stage pulling some cheeky dance moves and interacted with the audience by hugging them and taking selfies throughout his performance.

However, the 32-year-old hunk also got the iconic venue pumped performing pop hits from his back catalogue including 'Heart Skips a Beat', 'Troublemaker' and 'Wrapped Up'.

Olly ended his set on a high with his latest song 'Years & Years', before reminding his fans how much they've "changed his life" by continuing to follow his music as he reminded them he was once just a guy working at a call centre in Essex before he shot to fame by winning 'The X Factor' in 2009.

Olly also reminded the audience how just by buying a ticket to the charity gig they were still "changing lives" - the young cancer patients who benefit from the organisation.

He told the audience: "You guys changed my life so thank you so, so much.

"And the most important thing is you guys are still doing it by being here tonight. You are changing people's lives. "
Prince George is set to learn how to be a "giver, not taker" when he starts primary school this year.

Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with Prince George and Princess Charlotte

The three-year-old royal will join Thomas's Battersea school in September this year, which is located a short walk away from Kensington Palace, and the educational institution pride themselves in teaching their pupils the "core values", which include "kindness, courtesy, confidence, humility".

Speaking about their main principles in a newsletter posted on the school's website, the headmaster, Ben Thomas, wrote: "Whilst we are proud of our record of senior school entrance and scholarship successes, we place a greater emphasis on a set of core values, which include kindness, courtesy, confidence, humility and learning to be givers, not takers.

"We offer a rich and broad curriculum, with Art, Ballet, Drama, ICT, French, Music and PE all taught by specialist teachers from a child's first day in school."

And Ben vows to transform their students into "conscientious and caring citizens".

The post continued: "We hope that our pupils will leave this school with a strong sense of social responsibility, set on a path to become net contributors to society and to flourish as conscientious and caring citizens of the world."

And the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge - who also have 22-month-old daughter Princess Charlotte together - don't want their oldest child's attendance to change the "values or ethos" of the school.

Speaking previously, Ben said: "The Duke and Duchess have made it clear that they do not wish Prince George's attendance at Thomas's to change its aims, values or ethos in any way.

"They would like, as far as is possible, for him to enjoy the same education that all of our pupils receive and for them to join the school community as all of our new parents do."
Love is something you feel, experience and can study as well! When we say 'study', we mean rigorous academic courses that expatiate on the various aspects of love and sexuality from inter-disciplinary perspectives. Not too long ago, Presidency University in Kolkata introduced a course on 'Enigma of Love' as a part of its interdisciplinary studies programme. Here are some other hotly pursued courses at a few colleges/universities around the world offered mostly at the undergraduate level:



Love Actually at New York University

Dr Megan Poe's undergraduate course on love at NYU, Love Actually, has become a talking point of late. As per media reports, the 42-year-old psychiatrist and associate professor's class has grown thrice in size in just a couple of years. It's all about "human experience of love", mainly from a psychological perspective.



Theory and Practice of Romantic Relations at China's Tianjin University

This course has a sharp focus: Seduction. Students need to attend a series of lectures on handling relationships and how to attract members of the opposite sex. All theory.



"What is love?" at Stanford University

This one deals with the evolution of Love. Mainly Western ideas about romance. The course looks back at classical roots and medieval developments and offers modern day observation as well.



Sexuality and Society at Duke University, North Carolina

This course looks at sociocultural factors that are responsible for sexual behavior. Students also learn about the changing social beliefs regarding sexuality.



'Love, Sex, and Relationships' at Ciy University of Hong Kong

This is a course that helps students learn about building healthy romance relationships as well as interpersonal relationships at work. Mainly the course offers psychological perspectives.
The 33India Carpet Expo is a boost for the cultural heritage of Indian handmade carpets and other floor coverings, and the weaving skills of their makers, amongst visiting overseas carpet buyers. The ongoing expo organised by the Carpet Export Promotion Council (CEPC) is a sourcing platform for carpet buyers from various parts of the world.

The expo is an ideal platform for international carpet buyers, buying houses, buying agents and architects to meet with and establish long-term business relationships with Indian carpet manufacturers and exporters. The expo inaugurated by Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani, will conclude on March 30, 2017.

"This exhibition and buyer-seller meet will be the first step in taking Indian exports of handmade carpets to greater heights," said CEPC chairman Mahavir Pratap Sharma adding that CEPC is confident that the expo will generate good business.

The 33rd India Carpet Expo is a boost for the cultural heritage of Indian handmade carpets and other floor coverings, and the weaving skills of their makers, amongst visiting overseas carpet buyers. The ongoing expo organised by the Carpet Export Promotion Council (CEPC) is a sourcing platform for carpet buyers from various parts of the world.#

Around 400 carpet importers from 55 countries, mainly from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Chile, Germany, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, UK and the US are visiting the expo. For the first time, the expo has buyers from countries like Bulgaria, Israel, Malaysia, Mauritius, Taiwan, Zimbabwe, Vietnam, Serbia and Hungary.

India Carpet Expo is one of the largest handmade carpet fairs in Asia with a unique platform for the buyers from all over the globe to source the best handmade carpets, rugs and other floor coverings under one roof. It has become a famous destination for handmade carpets across the globe. India's ability in adapting to any type of design, colour, quality and size as per the carpet buyer's specification has made it a household name in international market. (RR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Two Messe Frankfurt shows, Techtextil North America and Texprocess Americas have joined the list of top 250 US tradeshows in 2016. Techtextil North America has ranked #229 with 54,133 Net Square Feet (NSF) while Texprocess Americas is at #236 with a NSF of 61,583 in the top 250 US tradeshow list. Messe Frankfurt is the largest trade fair and event organiser.

The co-located shows attracted more than 519 leading exhibitors in the technical textile, nonwovens, sewn products equipment and software industry sector. Every even year Techtextil North America and Texprocess Americas are one of the most anticipated events in the industry bringing together over 8,000 visitors from around the world to Atlanta to network, expand and create new business.

"Making the top 250 trade show list shows the strength of this most important industry we serve," commented Dennis Smith, president & CEO, Messe Frankfurt, Inc. "This accomplishment is shared with our dedicated exhibitors, visitors and industry partners and the talented staff at MFI."

Both shows were named 2016 Trade Show News Networks (TSNN) top 250 trade shows in the United States. TSNN, a leading news and online resource for the trade show, exhibition and event industry, gathers information from show management and available data to annually rank the shows by net square footage.

The Georgia World Congress Center will host the next co-located Techtextil North America and Texprocess Americas from May 22, 2018 to May 24, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. (RR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Germany based Intex Consulting GmbH has entered into a strategic partnership with PT Kawan Era Baru, a textile machinery and testing equipment agency in Indonesia. Intex Consulting offers the only software suite dedicated to the textile manufacturing industry (across the textile value chain) with only one common and centralised database.

Germany based Intex Consulting GmbH has entered into a strategic partnership with PT Kawan Era Baru, a textile machinery and testing equipment agency in Indonesia. Intex Consulting offers the only software suite dedicated to the textile manufacturing industry (across the textile value chain) with only one common and centralised database. #

Indonesia as a steadily growing textile industry market is fighting the same challenges as others. The demand of short lead times, highest quality standards of products, reliability towards the given lead times to the customer and the transfer of knowledge in case of staff fluctuation are challenges in the day to day business. In such a scenario, there is demand in Indonesia for Intexs process optimising and consulting services along with the globally unique and natively developed ERP- and MES-Software  the Intex ERP Business Suite.

Germany based Intex Consulting GmbH has entered into a strategic partnership with PT Kawan Era Baru, a textile machinery and testing equipment agency in Indonesia. Intex Consulting offers the only software suite dedicated to the textile manufacturing industry (across the textile value chain) with only one common and centralised database. #

Having the unique capabilities of offering one system without any interface disruption or breakages is not only unique  it is also the only way a consistent data flow can be guaranteed, according to Intex.

Germany based Intex Consulting GmbH has entered into a strategic partnership with PT Kawan Era Baru, a textile machinery and testing equipment agency in Indonesia. Intex Consulting offers the only software suite dedicated to the textile manufacturing industry (across the textile value chain) with only one common and centralised database. #

Intex Consulting has two customers currently under implementation in Indonesia. The partnership with PT Kawan Era Baru is planned for the long term expansion of Intex Consulting in Indonesia. It will also help the German company to optimally provide its consultation services to the Indonesian textile industry.

Germany based Intex Consulting GmbH has entered into a strategic partnership with PT Kawan Era Baru, a textile machinery and testing equipment agency in Indonesia. Intex Consulting offers the only software suite dedicated to the textile manufacturing industry (across the textile value chain) with only one common and centralised database. #

We chose Intex Consulting as ERP- and MES-Software solution experts in the textile industry as our partner because from our evaluation there is no other software existing which could provide the textile specific functionality that Intex offers. For PT Kawan Era Baru it is a very promising partnership as we are convinced that the offerings of Intex Consulting in terms of service, knowhow and software are the best available for textiles globally. The Indonesian textile industry needs the support of such senior experts in the industry to catch up with European standards in terms of quality and reliability of software systems, says Aditya Suryaman of Kawan Era Baru.

Germany based Intex Consulting GmbH has entered into a strategic partnership with PT Kawan Era Baru, a textile machinery and testing equipment agency in Indonesia. Intex Consulting offers the only software suite dedicated to the textile manufacturing industry (across the textile value chain) with only one common and centralised database. #

We are currently in the final phase of the implementation of Intex ERP Business Suite in our company. From our research before, we know, that there is no other provider existing which has such detailed knowledge and understanding of textile processes, which are as well reflected in the software. Luckytex is very happily looking forward to the Go Live. From our belief in having chosen the best available supplier, we are convinced that Intex Consulting will expand its business in the Indonesian textile sector very successfully, says Lily Tamin of Luckytex.

Germany based Intex Consulting GmbH has entered into a strategic partnership with PT Kawan Era Baru, a textile machinery and testing equipment agency in Indonesia. Intex Consulting offers the only software suite dedicated to the textile manufacturing industry (across the textile value chain) with only one common and centralised database. #

Intex Consulting Group will be present at hall A2 booth 111 at the Indonesia International Textile and Garment Machinery & Accessories Exhibition, Indo Intertex 2017, which will be held in Jakarta from April 19-21, 2017. (RKS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Picture Caption  Left to Right: Permanent Secretary for Public Enterprises, Mr David Kolitagane, Biosecurity Authority of Fiji chairman, Mr Ajith Kodagoda, Biosecurity Authority of Fiji Chief Executive Officer, Xavier Riyaz Khan, Acting Prime Minister and Attorney-General Hon. Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, World Organisation for Animal Health - Performance of Veterinary Services Technical Expert, Dr Julia Punderson, Minister for Health & Medical Services, Mrs Rosy Akbar, Minister for Agriculture, Mr Inia Seruiratu and Dr Niksa Barisic.

The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) has successfully completed it's gap analysis mission to identify key issues in improving Fiji's veterinary services and technical competency to confront a wide-range of food security issues, and is working with the Fijian Government to develop a five-year strategic plan to address these issue-areas.This announcement was made following a meeting between an OIE technical team and the Attorney-General and Minister for Public Enterprises, Hon. Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.The OIE technical team consisted of Dr. Julia W. Punderson and Dr. Niksa Barisic. The meeting also included the Minister for Health and Medical Services, Hon. Rosie Akbar, the Minister for Agriculture, Hon. Inia Seruiratu, and the Biosecurity Authority of Fiji CEO, Mr. Xavier Riyaz Khan, and Chairman, Mr. Agith Kodagoda.At the meeting, the Attorney-General outlined the Fijian Governments plan to improve livestock development and trade, veterinary public health and animal health. He also discussed ongoing efforts to streamline and modernise legislation to improve veterinary services.The OIE agreed to begin development on a five-year strategic plan outlining how the Fijian Government and the OIE can cooperate to advance the priorities put forward by the Attorney-General and move Fijis veterinary service offerings more in line with international best practices. The plan will help improve Fijis technical competency to combat zoonotic diseases, reduce residues in bringing food from farm to table and mitigate antimicrobial resistance in line with the internationally accepted One Health Approach.The Attorney-General welcomed the commitment from the OIE and stressed the importance of high-quality veterinary services and food security for the economies of small island developing states (SIDS).As is often the case for SIDS, the success of the Fijian economy relies heavily on maintaining secure pathways with our trading partners. Our work with the OIE will improve the health of our animals in Fiji and maintain high standards for our food products  and that will guarantee greater food security and continued economic prosperity for the Fijian people, he said.
Sooraj Pancholi debuted in the film Hero alongside Athiya Shetty in 2015 and it's been close to two years that the actor has not signed another film and if the same continues, people would even forget everything about him. However, right in the nick of time, Sooraj has bagged a Remo D'souza film which also stars Ajay Devgn in the lead role.

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He confirmed the news at the sidelines of Society Leadership Awards 2017 by saying, "I am starting a film now. In 20 to 25 days probably, I will start shooting for the film. It is a love story, an action love story. That is all I am allowed to say right now."



Hot! Julie 2 Star Raai Laxmi Flaunts Her First Look In A Bikini!

The film will be directed and choreographed by Remo D'souza and it's a dance-action film of two brothers featuring Ajay Devgn and Sooraj Pancholi. While Sooraj will helm the dance moves in the upcoming film, Ajay will spearhead the action sequences.

Remo D'souza had revealed that the actors will be trained by professionals in Germany for both the action sequences and dance moves. However, the lead heroine of the film has not been cast yet and we wonder whom Remo would choose this time. Who do you think must star in a dance-action movie? Leave your comments!

Veena Malik Opens Up About Her Painful Divorce! Now Wants Her Husband Back!
Deepika-Ranveer Clicked Together

Here's the latest picture of Deepika & Ranveer, which is going viral on the social media. According to the recent reports, the duo is trying their best to avoid making public appearances and the reason behind their this act is nothing but Padmavati shoot.

They're Purposely Avoiding Each Other..

Recently, a leading daily has quoted a source, close to the couple as saying, "She (Deepika) plays the warrior queen who refuses to surrender to his demands for any meeting. Since they play mutually hostile characters, they thought it best to avoid being seen together in public. Reports of the two parting ways in real life are a mere reflection of the distance they are meant to keep in their on-screen roles."

Ranveer Skipped An Award Show

You must have come across many gorgeous pictures of Deepika Padukone from HT Most Stylish awards. But did you know, it is also being said that Ranveer has purposely skipped the award night, so that he and Deepika doesn't get clicked together.

What's Their Relationship Status?

However, even if we keep the Padmavati row' aside, there has been many rumours that Ranveer & Deepika has parted their ways.

The Changed Relationship Of Ranveer & Deepika

Off late, both Ranveer & Deepika, who used to speak highly about each other, started avoiding talking about each other in heir interviews. Not just that, even their statements related to love' or  relationship' made us worried about them!

Hope, Everything Goes Well

Currently, neither Ranveer-Deepika love life is on the right track, nor is their upcoming film, Padmavati. Every now & then, when Mr Bhansali is trying to resume the shooting he's facing innumerable troubles on the sets of the film.

Recently, Kolhapur Set Was Set Ablaze By Miscreants

A few days back, the set that was built in Kolhapur was set ablaze by some miscreants. Though no one from the unit, including the actors Ranveer Shahid and Deepika, were injured, expensive costumes were damaged.

It Needs To Stop, Soon!

Post the Kolhapur' incident, many celebs including Karan Johar, Anushka Sharma and Shahid Kapoor have come out in support of director Sanjay Leela Bhansali, slamming the deeply saddening incidents.
Rahul Bose hosted a screening of his upcoming film Poorna for the Honourable President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. The cast and crew of the film were present during the special screening and were overwhelmed by the President's appreciation and positive response towards the film.

See Here! Shraddha Kapoor's First Look In 'Half Girlfriend'!

Poorna is based on the real life story of Poorna Malavath, who at the age of 13 became the youngest girl to climb the Mount Everest. Poorna is a tribal girl who fought social stigmas to achieved her dreams with true grit, determination and a never-give-up attitude.



The biopic spreads awareness about Poorna's journey and encourages 'women empowerment' in its true form and is an inspiration to many women from every part of the country to dream big and accomplish their goals.

Poorna is directed by Rahul Bose and the biopic is all set to hit the theatres on March 31, 2017. This is the second directorial film of Rahul and it stars himself in the lead role along with Aditi Inamdar, who plays the role Malavath Poorna.

HOT! Sunny Leone & Daniel Weber Holiday In Cancun Beach, Mexico!
Celebrated Hollywood comedian, film producer, screenwriter, musician and actor Adam Sandler has signed a new exclusive deal with online movie streaming giant Netflix for his four upcoming films.

Happy Madison Productions which is owned by Adam Sandler now will produce and release next four films exclusively on Netflix.

Talking about this development, the celebrated actor said that, he is very happy to be able to get associated with Netflix, and working with the online movie streaming site feels like a family to him.

"I Love working with Netflix and collaborating with them. I love how passionate they are about making movies and getting them out there for the whole world to see. They've made me feel like family and I can't thank them enough for their support," said Adam Sandler in a statement.

Chief Content Officer of Netflix Ted Sarandos was also excited to grab this deal with Adam Sandler's production company Happy Madison Productions and said he is thrilled to get exclusive rights for next four Adam Sandler films.

"Adam Sandler is one of the leading comedians in the film world, and his movies have proven to be extremely successful with our subscribers around the world." Said Ted Sarandos.

"We are thrilled at the opportunity to extend our partnership with Adam and his entire team at Happy Madison and keep the world laughing," Ted Sarandos added further.
1971 Beyond Borders, the upcoming Mohanlal movie has created a huge hype among the audiences even much before its release. Now, the satellite rights of 1971 Beyond Borders have been sold for a record price.

If the reports are to be true, popular Malayalam television channel Amrita TV has bagged the satellite rights of the Mohanlal movie, for a whopping amount. However, the team is yet to confirm the reports officially.

As per the close sources, several popular Malayalam channels, including Asianet, Mazhavil Manorama, Surya TV, were in the race for the satellite rights. But, Amrita TV finally managed to beat its contemporary channels.

1971 Beyond Borders, which is written and directed by Major Ravi, is the fourth instalment of Major Mahadevan film series. If the rumours are to be believed, the movie is a prequel to the first part of the series, Keerthichakra.

Mohanlal is appearing as Major Mahadevan, who has now been promoted as a Colonel, and his father ex-soldier Sahadevan. The movie is depicted in the backdrops of Indo-Pak war of 1971 and UN Peace Keeping Force.

The movie, which stars Allu Sirish and Arunodhay Singh in the key roles, was widely shot at the various locations of Georgia, Rajasthan, Kashmir, Punjab, and Kerala. 1971 Beyond Borders is produced by Red Rose Creations.
Litespeed Management LLC ("Litespeed"), an event-driven investment firm, today announced that it has sent a letter to Mr. Hiroaki Nakanishi, Chairman of the Board and Representative Executive Officer of Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), the majority shareholder in Ansaldo STS S.p.A ("STS"). In the letter, Litespeed, a long-term shareholder in STS, highlights significant corporate governance issues at STS and Hitachi's continuing efforts to deprive minority shareholders of the value of their holdings in STS. Litespeed requests that Mr. Nakanishi ensures that Hitachi offers minority shareholders fair value for their shares, publishes the December 2014 Hitachi Board presentation and meets with Litespeed to engage in constructive dialogue to clarify these issues.

The full text of the letter is below:

March 20, 2017

Mr. Hiroaki Nakanishi,

Chairman of the Board and Representative Executive Officer of Hitachi, Ltd.

Dear Sir,

Litespeed Master Fund Ltd. has been a shareholder of Ansaldo STS S.p.A ("STS") since 2014. Litespeed Management LLC ("Litespeed") is the investment manager of Litespeed Master Fund Ltd. We are writing to you regarding certain matters which relate to Hitachi Ltd. ("Hitachi") in its capacity as majority shareholder in STS. We are deeply concerned by Hitachi's continuing efforts to deprive minority shareholders of the value of their holdings in STS.

The materials that were made public on the 17th of January 2016 through the website www.fairtreatmentforsts.com coupled with STS' decision to bring corporate liability action against independent director Giuseppe Bivona and the subsequent removal of Mr. Bivona at the shareholder meeting on the 19th of January are particularly troubling and point to a lack of proper corporate governance to the detriment of minority shareholders.

We believe Hitachi's behavior does not comport with that of a global corporate citizen. We call upon you Mr. Nakanishi to ensure that a fair price is offered to all minority shareholders.

Specifically we refer to the following points:

1. The December 2014 Hitachi Board Presentation ("the Presentation") posted on the website, reveals by its own words, a plan to pay minority shareholders less than fair value for their shares in STS. By Hitachi's own calculation, Hitachi paid 550m less for the 40% of Ansaldo STS purchased from Finmecannica SpA by packaging Finmecannica's stake in STS with its stake in money losing AnsaldoBreda.

Specifically:

Page 2 of presentation (referred to by Elliott Advisors (UK) Limited in a letter to you dated 11 th January 2017): " Hitachi seeks to reach basic agreement with Tower [i.e. Finmeccanica] for the Bishop [i.e. Ansaldo Breda] transaction, which is a packaged transaction with Queen [i.e. Ansaldo STS], to secure a favorable position in negotiations for acquiring Tower's stake in Queen

January 2017): " [i.e. Finmeccanica] [i.e. Ansaldo Breda] [i.e. Ansaldo STS], Page 3 " In the event that Tower struggles to negotiate terms for the sale of Bishop, Tower's stake in Queen could be subject to an auction process as a stand-alone transaction. In such case, the price of Queen would be much higher than anticipated. To avoid such scenario, Hitachi needs to be flexible for a mutually acceptable position for the Bishop acquisition

Page 6 " The transaction is a "Package Deal" of both Queen and Bishop

Page 13 "Hitachi understands that if Tower's stake in Queen were subjected to an auction process as a stand-alone transaction, the price would be around 12 per share (compared to the offer price of 9.4 per share). This implies a discount with an absolute value of approximately 550m on the Queen Equity Value, achievable by purchasing Bishop as well

At the shareholder meeting in January your representative Mr Raimondo Premonte stated the website "features a considerable amount of misleading information which is disseminated for purely obstructionist purposes, doubtlessly in defiance of the right of shareholders in STS to receive correct information". If Hitachi believes this is the case we urge you to publish the entire presentation to clarify the matter.

2. In response to Mr. Bivona's recommendation to you, Mr. Nakanishi, in an email on August 14, 2016, to appoint a Senior Executive from Hitachi Ltd. to look into the matter of Hitachi's acquisition of Breda and STS, you responded to Mr. Bivona on 19 August 2016 that "the transactions with Finmeccanica for Ansaldo Breda and 40% of Ansaldo STS were valued as completely separate transactions." This is in direct contradiction to the information in the Presentation.

3. Possible further evidence of an effort to deprive minority shareholders of fair value was revealed in a March 19, 2016 article published in Il Secolo XIX. According to the article, as part of prosecutor Adriano Squires' criminal investigation into the possibility of market manipulation and obstruction of supervisory activity by the Chairman of Hitachi Rail, Alastair Dormer, Mr. Squires was privy to a conversation, heard over wiretap, wherein Mr. Dormer asked Stefano Siragusa (then CEO of STS) to alter Hitachi's impairment charge which was based on Deloitte Touche's independent valuation of STS at 14/share because Hitachi was only paying 9.50/share.

With the evidence revealed, Hitachi's actions regarding Mr. Bivona's removal seem to be a continuation of an effort to silence minority shareholders of STS and to deprive them of the value of their holdings.

Litespeed would welcome the possibility to meet with Hitachi to engage in a constructive dialogue and clarification regarding the issues raised.

On behalf of Litespeed Master Fund Ltd, a minority shareholder in STS, Litespeed is expressing its own views and beliefs based on the information available to us.

Yours sincerely,

Jamie Zimmerman

Chief Executive Officer

Litespeed Management LLC

About Litespeed Management LLC

Litespeed Management LLC is a New York-based investment firm focused on event-driven strategies.

The contents of this press release and the attached letter reflect solely the views of Litespeed as a shareholder and should not be construed as investment advice on the merits of any investment decision. Litespeed is not responsible for any direct or consequential loss arising directly or indirectly from any person's use of the information contained herein. The English version of the press release and letter have been translated by a third party into Japanese (and Italian) for the readers' convenience Litespeed is not responsible for accuracy or completeness of any such translation.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170327005997/en/

Contacts:

Litespeed Management LLC

John DiCerbo, +1 212-808-7452

john@litespeedpartners.com
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 03/27/17 -- ABERDEEN INTERNATIONAL INC. ("Aberdeen", or the "Company") (TSX: AAB) welcomes General (retired) Lewis MacKenzie as a member of the board of directors of Aberdeen. General MacKenzie retired from the Canadian Forces after 36 years of service. Since retiring he has authored two bestselling books and numerous newspaper articles and is a frequent media commentator. He is known for commanding Sector Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, under the United Nations Protection Force in 1992. General MacKenzie has served as a director for a number of public companies. He has received the Order of Ontario and the Order of Canada.

Aberdeen would like to thank Mr. John Begeman for his contributions to the Company during his tenure as a director. Mr. Begeman has tendered his resignation from the Aberdeen board so that he can join the board of directors of African Gold Group (TSX VENTURE: AGG). Mr. Begeman's appointment to the African Gold board will be effective upon completion of Aberdeen's investment into African Gold. Mr. Begeman was President, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Avion Gold Inc. when that company re-commenced mining operations at the Tabakoto and Segala gold mines in Mali. Avion Gold successfully restarted and expanded production at the Tabakoto and Segala operations. The management team, led by Mr. Begeman, identified and acquired the Hounde project in Burkina Faso. Endeavour Mining acquired Avion Gold in 2012 after substantial growth in both market capitalization and production had occurred. Aberdeen wishes good fortune to Mr. Begeman and the African Gold team as they pursue success in West Africa.

ABOUT ABERDEEN INTERNATIONAL

Aberdeen International is a global resource investment company and merchant bank focused on small capitalization companies in the mining and metals sector.

For additional information, please visit our website at www.aberdeeninternational.ca and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Cautionary Notes

Except for statements of historical fact contained herein, the information in this press release constitutes "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities law. Such forward-looking information may be identified by words such as "plans", "proposes", "estimates", "intends", "expects", "believes", "may" and "will" and include statements regarding the future success of investee companies and the expected contributions of individuals to corporate success. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate; actual results and future events could differ materially from such statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, among others, metal prices, competition, financing risks, acquisition risks, risks inherent in the mining industry, and regulatory risks. Most of these factors are outside the control of the Company. Investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking information. Except as otherwise required by applicable securities statutes or regulation, the Company expressly disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Contacts:

Aberdeen International Inc.

Stan Bharti

Interim President and Chief Executive Officer

+1 416-861-2267

info@aberdeeninternational.ca




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.
Exterior Design of the New Hospital



Mitsubishi Corporation Telephone: +81-3-3210-2171 Facsimile: +81-3-5252-7705

TOKYO, Mar 28, 2017 - (JCN Newswire) - Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) has agreed to form a hospital management joint venture in Myanmar with plans to open a general hospital in Yangon in 2020. MC will hold a 30% equity share in the joint venture, while Yee Shin Holdings (Yee Shin) and Capital Diamond Star Group (CDSG) will share the remaining 70%.MC's involvement in the field of healthcare primarily through the distribution and sales of medical devices and supplies, but the company regards hospital management as a growth field over the medium- to long-term. This project is a first step in pursuit of this area, aiming to engage in hospital management in fast-growing Myanmar. In Myanmar, many people travel abroad to receive medical services in neighboring countries such as Thailand and Singapore. The new joint venture will construct a 300-bed general hospital in Yangon, equipped with the capacity to provide high quality medical care. Leveraging CDSG's diversified business network in Myanmar, the hospital will be constructed in the integrated development complex "Capital City"(2). Yee Shin will provide hospital management expertise, developed through its management experience of two hospitals in Mandalay.MC will complement CDSG and Yee Shin's strengths by bringing in Japanese quality medical care to the joint venture. The joint venture aims to realize safe, high-quality healthcare services locally in Myanmar, contributing to the overall improvement of medical standards in the country.http://www.acnnewswire.com/topimg/Low_MitsubishiNewHospital.jpgExterior Design of the New Hospital (Image)(1) MC and CDSG have collaborated in other joint ventures together, including the food manufacturing and distribution company, Lluvia Limited.(2) "Capital City" is an integrated development complex in Yangon managed by Capital Development Limited, a member of CDSG, and includes the construction of a shopping mall and condominium complex.Reference Information1. Overview of Mitsubishi CorporationLocation: 3-1, Marunouchi 2-chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, JapanYear Established: 1950Areas of Business: MC is a global integrated business enterprise that develops and operates business across virtually every industry including industrial finance, energy, metals, machinery, chemicals, foods, and environmental business. MC's current activities are expanding far beyond its traditional trading operations as its diverse business ranges from natural resources development to investment in retail business, infrastructure, financial products and manufacturing of industrial goods.Number of Employees: 68,247 (consolidated, as of March 2016Representative: Takehiko Kakiuchi, President and CEO2. Overview of Yee Shin HoldingsLocation: Mandalay, MyanmarYear Established: 1990Areas of business: Yee Shin Holdings operates two general hospitals in the Mandalay region and engages in businesses associated with the healthcare industry, such as the manufacturing, distribution and retail of hospital supplies, medical equipment and pharmaceutical products, among other businesses.Number of Employees: Approx. 1,400Representative: U Maung Maung, Chairman3. Overview of Capital Diamond Star GroupLocation: Yangon, MyanmarYear Established: 1960Areas of business: CDSG is engaged in a number of different sectors in Myanmar including food, manufacturing and distribution, agribusiness, retail, real estate, healthcare, and financial services, amongst other investments. The JV will build the hospital in Yangon's "Capital City," an integrated complex developed by Capital Development Limited, a member of CDSG.Number of Employees: Approx. 6,500Representative: U Ko Ko Gyi, Managing DirectorAbout Mitsubishi CorporationMitsubishi Corporation (MC; TSE: 8058) is a global integrated business enterprise that develops and operates businesses across virtually every industry including industrial finance, energy, metals, machinery, chemicals, foods, and environmental business. MC's current activities are expanding far beyond its traditional trading operations as its diverse business ranges from natural resources development to investment in retail business, infrastructure, financial products and manufacturing of industrial goods. With over 200 bases of operations in approximately 80 countries worldwide and a network of over 500 group companies, MC employs a multinational workforce of nearly 60,000 people. For more information, please visit www.mitsubishicorp.com.Source: Mitsubishi CorporationContact:Copyright 2017 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Red Mountain Capital Partners LLC is now calling upon Board of Deckers Outdoor Corp. (DECK) to explore a sale of the Company because they believe that the value of a sale to a strategic or financial buyer is substantially higher than the risk-adjusted value of the standalone operating plan announced by management on February 2, 2017. Red Mountain believes that a publicly announced sale process would address the full universe of potential buyers for the Company and restore shareholders' confidence that the board is acting in their best interests. Red Mountain Capital Partners LLC , an investment management firm owning approximately 3.3% of the outstanding shares of Deckers Outdoor, today sent a letter to Deckers' Chairman of the Board, Angel Martinez, and Lead Independent Director, John Gibbons. In its letter, Red Mountain references meetings and communications that they have had with the management and board of Deckers over the past two years with respect to Red Mountain's proposals to rationalize the Company's retail store network, streamline its brand portfolio, right-size its cost structure, optimize its balance sheet, and align its executive compensation with shareholder value creation. 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.
LONDON (dpa-AFX) - British life and health insurer Aviva Plc (AV.L, AV) said that it will sell Friends Provident International Limited or 'FPIL' to RL360 Holding Company Limited, a subsidiary of International Financial Group Limited, for a total consideration of 340 million pounds. Aviva stated that the sale of FPIL will allow Aviva to further reallocate capital to businesses that can achieve leading market positions and deliver superior returns. The transaction will result in an increase of about 100 million pounds in Aviva's Solvency II capital surplus. The transaction will also create an IFRS loss on disposal of about 130 million pounds, which is primarily due to the intangible assets held on Aviva's balance sheet arising from Aviva's acquisition of FPIL in 2015. In 2016, FPIL made a post-tax loss of 2 million pounds and did not remit any cash to Aviva Group. As a result, a disposal of FPIL is expected to be positive to Aviva's cash dividend paying capacity. The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals and is expected to complete in early 2018. 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.
LONDON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Waterman Group is pleased to announce confirmation of a two-year extension to its existing partnering term contract with London Borough of Bexley until September 2019.

The contract is an important part of the long-term regeneration framework of the Borough's growth strategy for its economic, environmental and social regeneration.

The Infrastructure and Environment team will be supported on the contract by the Group's wholly owned subsidiary Waterman Aspen, which specialises in highway and transportation secondment services.

The contract includes the provision of traffic and transportation engineering services, civil engineering, highways and infrastructure, bridgeworks, drainage, Principal Designers (CDM 2015) and staff secondment.

Over the last twelve months, the team has successfully delivered the replacement of Bexley High Street Bridge, the second stage of Bexleyheath Town Centre Revitalisation and public realm design adjacent to the new Crossrail station at Abbey Wood.

The framework is anticipated to generate annual fees of about 1.7m to Waterman.

Nick Taylor, CEO of Waterman Group, states; "We are extremely proud of our continued collaboration with London Borough of Bexley as it now enters its 21st year. This is one of our many prestigious frameworks in the Public sector which we look forward to developing further."

For more information about Waterman's framework, please see the Interim Results Investor Presentation on our website http://www.watermangroup.com/investors



About Waterman Group

Waterman Group is a multidisciplinary consultancy providing sustainable solutions to meet the planning, engineering design and project delivery needs of the property, infrastructure, environment and energy markets. Founded in 1952 and listed on the London Stock Exchange since 1988, Waterman has grown into a leading engineering and environmental consultancy with offices throughout the UK, Australia and Europe. Waterman works with government agencies, local authorities, government-regulated industries and private sector clients to provide innovative, sustainable and economic solutions across a wide spectrum of business activities.The firm has extensive experience in property and buildings, environmental consultancy, power and energy, roads, highways and rail infrastructure, urban and regional planning. Award winning teams provide professional consultancy services throughout the complete life cycle of the asset starting from initial surveys and concept planning, through to design, delivery, project management, supervision and on-going maintenance. See more information onhttp://www.watermangroup.com






Public Affairs Division Global Communications Department Toyota Motor Corporation Tel: +81-3-3817-9926

Toyota City, Japan, Mar 28, 2017 - (JCN Newswire) - Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) announced that its new paint line (Prius production line at the Tsutsumi Plant) has received the Okochi Memorial Production Prize for a significant reduction in the size of the paint line, and its corresponding CO2 emissions in the 63rd (2016) Okochi Memorial Prize awards. Presented by the Okochi Memorial Foundation, the Okochi Memorial Prize acknowledges remarkable achievements related to research and development, and the application of production engineering, production technology and production systems annually. This marks the first time in 16 years that Toyota has been awarded the well-established, prestigious Okochi Memorial Prize. It is the 11th Okochi Memorial Prize(1) overall for Toyota.http://www.acnnewswire.com/topimg/Low_ToyotaOkochiMemorial.jpgThis development is in relation to Toyota's "Plant Zero CO2 Emissions Challenge" hich is one of the six targets in the Toyota Environmental Challenge 2050 which had been announced in 2015.CO2 is not only emitted by vehicles while traveling, but CO2 is also generated during the vehicle manufacturing process. Therefore, we have been striving to reduce CO2 and other Substances of Concern (SoC) that are discharged during the manufacturing of automobiles at production sites. In particular, paint processes discharge the largest quantity of CO2 compared to various other processes in the automobile manufacturing process such as stamping, welding, assembly, etc. and thus, improvements in this area was seen as an urgent task.Now, Toyota has developed and introduced new paint technology and completely improved all paint processes. As a result, Toyota successfully reduced the size of paint line equipment by 40% and decreased CO2 emissions from the line by 32% while maintaining high quality levels.A key point of this technology is the development of production technology that has realized a "reduction of process length", "reduction of equipment height", and "reduction of size of associated equipment".More specifically, a wide variety of efforts were made such as reducing the space under the paint booth (space to collect leftover paint), creating a narrower booth air supply room(2), jidoka (automation with a human touch) of the cleaning and interior painting processes(3), improving robot processing capabilities, optimizing transfer pitch, decreasing cross-section surface of the dry oven, and effectively using compact deodorization equipment.Reducing the space beneath the paint booth had the greatest contribution to the reduction of line size. Toyota's development of a new method using centrifugal force to collect paint that did not adhere to car bodies, reduction of equipment size, and decrease of pressure loss also contributed to CO2 emission cuts. (Fig. 1)http://www.acnnewswire.com/topimg/Low_ToyotaOkochiMemorialFig1.jpgPaint Booth (Section View)Currently, the paint line that adopted this technology is used for the production of the Prius, which is one of the most popular environmentally friendly Toyota models. Its deployment to other plants in Japan and overseas has also been scheduled.Toyota will continue working to reduce our environmental burden to near zero, and take on new challenges to contribute to the realization of a sustainable society through efforts to bring about positive effects to the earth and society.(1) Including the Okochi Memorial Grand Production Prize, Okochi Memorial Production Prize, Okochi Memorial Technology Prize(2) Room that adjusts the speed and direction of air located above the paint spray booth(3) Process that paints the interior of hoods and trunksAbout ToyotaSupported by people around the world, Toyota Motor Corporation (TSE: 7203; NYSE: TM), has endeavored since its establishment in 1937 to serve society by creating better products. As of the end of December 2013, Toyota conducts its business worldwide with 52 overseas manufacturing companies in 27 countries and regions. Toyota's vehicles are sold in more than 170 countries and regions. For more information, please visit www.toyota-global.com.Source: ToyotaContact:Copyright 2017 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
The Texas-headquartered firm will provide grid stability for Power Grid Corporation of India Limited in Puducherry with its flow battery systems.India's rapidly burgeoning renewable energy capacity is a recent and ongoing success story in the electricity sector, but with such vast amounts of new and intermittent power generation coming online so rapidly, the nation needs to start thinking longer term about how to handle these new sources of power. Enter storage, and notably this week, ViZn Energy - a U.S. battery systems provider that specializes in redox flow technology. The Texas-based firm has signed a contract with Indian utility Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL) to install a 1 MWh system at its facilities in Puducherry. The systems will be integrated by Raychem RPG, a JV between TE Connectivity and RPG Enterprises of India that specializes in strengthening power grids and energy infrastructure. PGCIL has ...

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.
LAUSANNE, Switzerland, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

iWedia, a leading provider of software solutions for TV devices, today announced that it has extended the coverage of its Teatro-3.5 product for Android TV STB to the industry leading Amlogic S905D STB SoC.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140226/671778 )



The announcement was made to coincide with the opening of TV Connect 2017, which is being held in London (ExCeL) from Tuesday, March 28th through to Thursday, March 30th. iWedia exhibits at the show (stand B54) where it demonstrates Teatro-3.5 running on Amlogic's reference design.

Teatro-3.5 is a complete software solution for STB operated under Android TV. It is based on iWedia ANDROID4TV framework which extends Android TV with broadcast and multicast Pay TV functionalities implemented as input modules of the Android TV Input Framework (TIF). The product is available for Android TV 7.0 Nougat, integrated with various Conditional Access Systems (CAS), and connected to various service delivery platforms and content delivery networks.

Part of Teatro-3.5, C-More Live is a custom launcher and TV app meant to be tailored for the operator. The app is fully compliant with both Android TV Operator Tier program requirements and Google design principles. It allows navigating and accessing the whole features provided by the operator such as Live TV, VoD, catchup TV, DVR, and Time Shift.

The Amlogic S905D SoC is deployed by major Pay TV operators worldwide and offers high-end features at unprecedented price points. Its advanced media processing ensures a flicker-free viewing experience and is capable of decoding 4Kp60 10-bit HEVC and VP9 formats with advanced HDR schemes. The S905D boasts a quad-core 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 CPU and a penta-core ARM Mali-450 MP3 GPU to handle sophisticated UI and premium content. It also supports operator-level security technologies like Trusted Video Path (TVP) and video watermarking.

"Our S905D SoC is ideally suited for Android TV STB and has passed CTS, GTS, and other Google certifications for a better Time-To-Market," says James Xie, Vice President, Corporate Business Strategy at Amlogic. "Integrating Teatro-3.5 enables us to accelerate the Time-To-Market further and to leverage iWedia's software integration services."

"With Teatro-3.5 Pay TV service providers can use Android TV as a vehicle for their own premium services and provide their subs with the best out of both worlds," says Nikola Teslic, CTO at iWedia. "With its S905D STB chipset, Amlogic provides an extremely powerful and highly integrated device to support our solution and we are delighted to have extended the coverage of our product through this porting".

About Amlogic

Amlogic is a global fabless system-on-a-chip (SoC) leader that provides open platform solutions for multimedia consumer devices including OTT/IP STBs, Smart TVs and Smart Home products. Amlogic has combined its highly-optimized media processing engine and system IPs with industry-leading CPU and GPU technologies to produce solutions for leading pay-tv operators, OEM, and ODM partners. Through proprietary techniques, Amlogic has been able to achieve cost, performance, and power consumption optimizations never seen before. Amlogic lets partners rapidly develop market-leading products by providing turnkey solutions on both Android and Linux. Amlogic is founded in Santa Clara, California, with R&D centers, support and sales offices in Santa Clara, Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Taipei, Seoul and France.

Please visit www.amlogic.com for more information.

About iWedia

iWedia provides software components and solutions for TV devices to service operators and consumer electronics manufacturers. Its mission is to deliver the software products and services needed by its customers to adapt constantly to the ever-changing requirements of the digital TV markets. In addition to stand-alone components giving support to DVB, ATSC, ARIB, ISDB-T, HLS, DASH, VidiPath, DVB>IP, MHEG-5, HbbTV, CI Plus, DTCP-IP, TR-069, etc., iWedia offers a range of complete solutions for zappers, connected receivers, Smart TVs, as well as for OTT and IPTV boxes. Dubbed Teatro, these solutions are available for RTOS, Linux/HTML, and Android/Java and are pre-integrated with leading service and delivery platforms, CA/DRM systems, and chipsets. Alongside its products, iWedia delivers efficient and scalable software integration services performed by an experienced team used to enable rapid deployments of high volume consumer electronics devices. iWedia is headquartered in Switzerland with development labs in Belgrade and Novi Sad, Serbia, and sales and support offices in Brazil, France, Germany, and Thailand.

Please visit www.iwedia.com for more information.

Media Contact:

Herve Creff

VP Marketing, iWedia

herve.creff@iwedia.com


KIEV, Ukraine, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

- Pledge Comes as Ukraine Hosts its Second Gas Investment Forum in Kiev

- Follows Publication of Oxford Institute of Energy Studies Report into Ukrainian Gas Market

Burisma Group,Ukraine'slargest independent gas company, has announced today its commitment to helping Ukraine achieve energy independence, following a$100m USDinvestment to develop gas projects inUkraine, announced earlier this month.

Speaking from Burisma's HQ in Kiev, Vadym Pozharskyi, Advisor to the Board of Directors and Director for International Cooperation and Strategic Development of Burisma Group, commented:

"Helping Ukraine achieve energy independence is a major part of Burisma's strategic goals for the coming years. Burisma has always encouraged government and market players to reformtheUkrainian gas market based on Europeanbestpractices.It is crucial thatmarket players, infrastructure investors andUkraine's international partners see our country as a reliable partner."

"We strive to make Burisma's work visible and set a benchmark for other State and domestic market players to follow. Burisma is continuously investing in the development of new wells and contributing to Ukraine's energy independence."

"The energy sector remains a key source of revenues for the Ukrainian budget. Gas companies not only provide the country with domestic gas, but also continue to invest billions in production and introduce state-of-the-art exploration and drilling technologies. We are going to stay committed to this strategy."

Burisma recently announced its 2017 corporate 'billion' program according to which the Group is going to reach over 1 bcm of gas production levels, increase investments in development of gas fields, drill and bring into operation new wells worth more than UAH 3 billion ($100m USD) and pay 2 billion UAH of taxes to the budgets of all levels. At the same time, over the last two years alone, Burisma paid around UAH 6 billion to the State budget ofUkraine. Thanks to the investment program, the Group is going to drill 20 new wells where 3 out of every 4 would be more than 5000 m deep and have complex profiles.

Today's announcement from Burisma follows on from last week's Second Ukrainian Gas Forum. The announcement also follows the recent publication of a report into the Ukrainian gas sector by The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. The report looks at how far the Ukrainian gas market, one of Europe's largest, has moved away from a model based on large-scale Russian imports and post-Soviet economic relationships, towards a new set of arrangements underpinned by closer integration with the European market.

About Burisma

Burisma Group is an independent oil and gas company operating inUkraine. Since its launch in 2002, the Company has rapidly become one of the largest independent gas producers in the country.Burisma has been engaged in oil and gas exploration and production for more than 10 years. The core business is located inUkraine, where the Group is the largest independent natural gas producer.Burisma is a market leader with annualized natural gas production circa 1,1 BCM and over 30% market share.Burisma is seeking for opportunities to expand its portfolio to other countries.Burisma has a state-of-the-art equipment and many years of experience to provide best services for oil and gas companies around the world.

EnergySecurityUkraine

For more information, please visithttp://burisma.com/en/.
STOCKHOLM (dpa-AFX) - Sweden's foreign trade balanced in February from a year ago, as exports and imports grew at a same pace, figures from Statistics Sweden showed Tuesday. The trade balance came in at SEK 0.0 billion in February versus a deficit of SEK 0.2 billion in the corresponding month last year. Meanwhile, economists had expected a surplus of SEK 2.0 billion for the month. In January, the trade balance showed a surplus of SEK 0.6 billion. Compared with February 2016, both exports and imports climbed by 7.0 percent in value. Trade with countries outside the EU resulted in a surplus of SEK 13.4 billion, while EU trade ended in a deficit of SEK 13.4 billion. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the net trade deficit widened to SEK 1.0 billion in February from SEK 0.9 billion in January. 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.
Australian Men's Underwear Company Aussiebum Has Created The World's Most Expensive Men's Underwear From 24k Gold Fabric.

LONDON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Australian underwear brand aussieBum has created the most expensive men's underwear ever in history and selling at AUD RRP $14,695. One pair has already been sold to an international customer. The customer, who wishes remain anonymous, has been a huge fan of the brand since its inception in 2001.

For broadcast quality video and high-res images, please visit the Multimedia News Release:

http://news.medianet.com.au/aussiebum/24k-gold-men-underwear-created

To give other underwear collectors the opportunity to own a pair of the 24K Gold underwear, aussieBum is running a competition where three lucky people will win a pair of the limited edition 24K Gold underwear. The 24K Gold yarn was developed in Germany and knitted into fabric in Queensland. It was designed by company founder Sean Ashby, and made in Sydney, Australia.

Sean Ashby, founder and Managing Director of aussieBum shared; 'The Gold Rush era was one of the most exciting and prosperous times of Australian history. I'm mesmerized by the thought that people travelled from around the world to seek their fortunes in Australia. Now, people don't have to travel down under to find their fortunes, they can find it online at aussieBum.com.'

aussieBum, proudly manufactures its underwear in Sydney, Australia, and continues to enjoy international success. In the last financial year the company sold more than one million pairs of underwear and swimwear around the world-- a statistic very few Australian fashion companies can boast.

Cheeky, irreverent and always sexy, Australian owned aussieBum stands by the mantra; 'If youdoubt yourself, wear something else'.

For further information, digital video, images or editorial content, please contact;

Jonathan Marsh jonny@aussieBum.com

M: +61406873282

John Scott john@aussieBum.com

M: +61409177777

Watch the aB 24K Gold video: http://bit.ly/aB24KGoldVideo

Download Media Kit: http://bit.ly/ab24KGoldMediaKit
Lauf/Pegnitz (ots) -- Querverweis: Bildmaterial ist abrufbar unter http://www.presseportal.de/bilder -THOMAS SABO is presenting the new watch collection and combining a stylish aesthetic with a unique design. New models for women from the Spirit and Karma series surprise as highlights: the new rose-gold coloured Karma watch, an elegant timepiece for women, showcases the expressive THOMAS SABO design language with its en-vogue, Bordeaux-red dial. White mother-of-pearl dials complete the watch innovations of the Spirit series and refine the look.The new men's watches of the Rebel Spirit and Rebel with Karma series are more than mere timepieces, for each model also reflects the personality of its wearer in the same way as a jewellery item. The new Rebel with Karma models show sporty-classic, matt black stainless steel bracelets with sparkling black inserts to complement the existing leather strap models. Iconic design codes are the trademark of THOMAS SABO and the new Rebel with Karma watches are the masterful expression of this artistry. The expressive statement watches impress with a crown positioned at 9 o'clock derived from the popular Skull or Dragon Bead, while the black guilloche dial with skull symbol elegantly draws attention to the round case and makes it a stylish companion.THOMAS SABO watches - Experiencing special moments.Image material is available to download at http://ots.de/blr6O.www.thomassabo.comAbout THOMAS SABOTHOMAS SABO is one of the globally-leading jewellery and watches companies, designing, selling and distributing lifestyle products for women and men. The company, established in 1984 by Thomas Sabo in Lauf/Pegnitz, Germany, operates around 300 of its own shops across all five continents with a total of around 1.860 employees. THOMAS SABO also collaborates globally with approximately 2.800 trade partners.Originaltext: THOMAS SABO GmbH & Co.KG digital press kits: http://www.presseportal.de/nr/78321 press kits via RSS: http://www.presseportal.de/rss/pm_78321.rss2Contact: Felizia Kindermann Head of International & Corporate PR Tel: +49912397150-0 Mail: press@thomassabo.com
SEATTLE (dpa-AFX) - E-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN) announced Tuesday that it has reached an agreement to acquire SOUQ.com, a Middle East -based e-commerce company. Subject to closing conditions, the acquisition is expected to close in 2017. The acquisition is expected to enable SOUQ.com to continue growing while working with Amazon to bring even more products and offerings to customers worldwide. 'Amazon and SOUQ.com share the same DNA - we're both driven by customers, invention, and long-term thinking,' said Russ Grandinetti, Amazon Senior Vice President, International Consumer, noted that SOUQ.com pioneered e-commerce in the Middle East SOUQ.com CEO and Co-Founder Ronaldo Mouchawar, said, 'We are guided by many of the same principles as Amazon, and this acquisition is a critical next step in growing our e-commerce presence on behalf of customers across the region. By becoming part of the Amazon family, we'll be able to vastly expand our delivery capabilities and customer selection much faster, as well as continue Amazon's great track record of empowering sellers.' 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.
CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- Genoil Inc. (OTCQB: GNOLF), the publicly traded clean technology engineering company for the petroleum industry, has today announced the addition of a special adviser to its management team with the appointment of Douglas A. Phillips, CPA, who joins Genoil to provide strategic input on major transactions and provide advice to top management.

Phillips has a distinguished track record in business counsel, having served a wide variety of domestic and foreign companies in the areas of accounting and auditing, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate structurings. He served as the Chairman, CEO and Managing Partner of WeiserMazars LLP, Certified Public Accountants, in the US, and as Co-CEO and the Vice Chairman of Mazars SCRL on an international level. In these roles, which he held until 2015, Phillips achieved a top ranking in the greater New York region and the US, executing twenty mergers and acquisitions and engineering significant organic growth for the company.

He is currently CEO of GYST Advisors LLC, a management consulting firm focusing on strategy, business development, mergers and acquisitions, financial performance and risk management.

Phillips joins Genoil after the agreement of several major initiatives for the company. In November 2016, Genoil signed a US $50 billion Letter of Intent to develop and construct upgrading and energy projects in Russia and Chechnya, including the provision of a complete solution from oil field development through to the production of 3.5m barrels per day of clean fuels. In April 2016, Genoil received a $5 billion Letter of Intent from a Chinese Policy "Superbank" to develop a project in the Middle East. In February 2017 Genoil also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Bomin Group, a leading global physical supplier and trader of marine fuel, to develop a co-operation agreement to supply the marine market with compliant low sulphur products.

Bruce Abbott, COO of Genoil, commented: "The level of interest in Genoil's Hydroconversion Unit has been growing steadily in line with the global demand for cleaner energy and low sulphur products. Doug's high level of experience in strategic business development and finance will add real value to Genoil as we drive continued growth and negotiate on future deals."

The appointment of Douglas Phillips follows the recent appointment of Raushan Telyashev as Vice President of Genoil Middle East, which is testament to Genoil's strong and continued global growth ambitions.

About Genoil Inc.:

Genoil is a publicly traded Canadian clean technology engineering company for the petroleum industries. Genoil is headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, with offices in Calgary, Sherwood Park, New York City, Constanta, Romania, and Dubai & Abu Dhabi. Genoil has developed its proprietary technology, the Hydrocracking Upgrader (GHU), which converts heavy crude oils and refinery bottoms into clean burning fuels for transportation industries including shipping. The GHU can be placed in remote locations, including receiving terminals, pipelines and ports. The company operates one of the largest and most advanced pilot & design test facilities in the world, from its 147-acre site in Alberta, Canada.

About The Genoil Hydrocracking Upgrader:

The Genoil Hydrocracking Upgrader (GHU) is an advanced upgrading and desulfurization technology, which converts heavy or sour crude oil into much more valuable light low sulphur oil for a very low cost. The Genoil GHU was designed to be versatile, can be placed at many different locations, either upstream at oil fields, or downstream at refineries, in a standalone form at ports and other logistical locations.

The GHU achieves 96% pitch conversion and 95% desulfurization with an operating cost of up to 75% less than the competition. For Conoco Canada Ltd, Genoil converted their bitumen of 6-8.5 API and converted it to 24.5 API. We also removed 92% of the sulphur reducing the amount from 5.14% to below 0.24%. These results were taken by Conoco Canada Ltd, who had them analysed by Core Laboratories, one of the largest service providers of core and fluid analysis in the petroleum industry.

Contacts:

BLUE

Georgey Routen

01865 514214

georgina.routen@blue-comms.com




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- Equifax Canada (NYSE: EFX) - Millennials are the leading target for fraudsters according to new data from Equifax Canada, which flagged this age group for 49 per cent of all suspected fraud applications in its fraud management database last year.

Millennials (aged 18-34) are followed by Generation X (aged 35-50) at 30 per cent and Baby Boomers (aged 51-69) at 18 per cent. Seniors, meanwhile, represent roughly six per cent of all fraudulent applications. On average, attempted fraudulent applications across all age groups have increased by 75 per cent over the last two years.

"Younger adults are being targeted because too many make it easy for fraudsters to gain access to their personal information," said Tara Zecevic, Equifax Canada's Vice President of Fraud Prevention & Identity Management. "Education and better protection is needed given the fact that on average millennials are less likely to double check their credit card statements, change their passwords, and install or update security software on personal computers."

Consumers concerned about fraud can learn how to better protect themselves via The Little Black Book of Scams from the Competition Bureau. Likewise, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre offers tips on how people can avoid fraud.

To gauge how Canadians are trying to avoid fraud Equifax also conducted a consumer survey. The numbers below compare millennials against Canadians aged 35-plus. Millennials scored the lowest among all age groups in taking the following preventative measures:

-- Only 57 per cent double-checked credit card and/or bank statements; (68 per cent) -- 38 per cent shredded personal and/or financial documents; (64 per cent) -- 45 per cent updated security passwords; (51 per cent) -- 27 per cent installed and/or updated security software on personal computers; (48 per cent) -- 37 per cent shared less about themselves on social media; (40 per cent) -- 29 per cent limited their use of public Wi-Fi; (35 per cent)

Surprisingly, millennials took the top spot for checking their credit report (26 per cent) to help spot signs of identity theft. Older Canadians (55 and older) and college and university educated Canadians are significantly more likely (over 95 per cent) to have done at least one thing to protect their personal data over the past 12 months.

The survey also found that millennials are significantly more likely to say there are some situations in which they would not report fraud (26 per cent), while older Canadians are nearly always going to report fraud if they are a victim (+90 per cent). Of additional concern, 41 per cent indicated they didn't believe fraudsters would target them because they didn't have enough money.

"Fraudsters can do a lot of damage with the smallest amount of personal data," adds Zecevic. "It's not necessarily your money they're after. With your personal information, they can open bank accounts, take out credit cards and apply for loans in your name. Without ongoing credit monitoring in place, it may take time to discover this kind of crime and it will certainly take a considerable amount of time to undo the damage that they can inflict on your credit file."

For parents concerned about their millennial children becoming victims of fraud, Equifax has a new product (Equifax Complete Friends and Family) that provides credit monitoring and identity theft protection for two adults. Alternatively, an invitation can be extended to a friend, an aging parent or a spouse. The person doesn't need to be living under the same address and alerts can be shared with both people covered by the subscription so nothing goes unnoticed.

Equifax surveyed 1,569 Canadians ages 18-65. A probability sample of the same size would yield a margin of error of +/- 2.5%, 19 times out of 20.

About Equifax

Equifax is a global information solutions company that uses trusted unique data, innovative analytics, technology and industry expertise to power organizations and individuals around the world by transforming knowledge into insights that help make more informed business and personal decisions. The company organizes, assimilates and analyzes data on more than 820 million consumers and more than 91 million businesses worldwide, and its database includes employee data contributed from more than 7,100 employers.

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

Some noteworthy achievements for the company include: Named to the Top 100 American Banker FinTech Forward list (2015-2016); named a Top Technology Provider on the FinTech 100 list (2004-2016); named an InformationWeek Elite 100 Winner (2014-2015); named a Top Workplace by Atlanta Journal Constitution (2013-2016); named one of Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies (2011-2015); named one of Forbes' World's 100 Most Innovative Companies (2015-2016). For more information, visit www.equifax.com.

Contacts:

Media Contacts:

Andrew Findlater

SELECT Public Relations

(416) 659-1197

afindlater@selectpr.ca



Tom Carroll

Equifax Canada

(416) 227-5290

MediaRelationsCanada@equifax.com

www.equifax.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- One World Minerals Inc. (CSE: OWM) (the "Company") is pleased to announce the start of a second phase exploration program on the Company's Rico Litio lithium property located in the State of California Baja Norte, Mexico. Logistical preparations are underway with field crews on the property within three weeks and concluding with a 4000 metre (13,000 foot) drill program to be completed by the end of June 2017.

The second phase program will consist of 80 kilometres (50 miles) of surveyed grid lines in the northern portion of the property in preparation to complete a time domain electromagnetic survey. This survey will help to identify sediment formations with good permeability and porosity that may contain lithium brines. In addition, a gravity survey will be conducted over the same grid lines to identify the depths of the closed basin as well as structural features and young volcanic rocks that may contribute to the formation of the lithium brine. Historically these geophysical surveys have worked extremely well in identifying structural targets in preparation for drilling.

Coincident with the geophysical programs, an additional 500 geochemical samples will be taken to further delineate anomalous lithium.

The second phase also includes, a four thousand meter (13,000 feet) drill program to test several of the high priority targets that have coincidental anomalies that may contain brine and traps created by active faults.

A third phase program will include a pump test work program done on sections of the drill holes to test and determine the aquifer capacity; draw down flow rates, and concentrations of Lithium and potassium.

As previously reported on March 10, 2017 the Company is acquiring up to a 90% interest in the Rico Litio Property. The property covers a large closed basin (or salar) that is 291 square miles or 75,410 hectares. The Company who is the operator, will contract the exploration program to Jehcorp Inc., a private company owned by John Hiner who has over 45 years' mineral exploration experience, including lithium and potassium properties in North and South America. A group led by John Hiner also identified the Rico Litio Property.

Doug Fulcher, President and CEO of One World commented:

"We are very pleased to moving quickly on to the next phase of work on the Rico Litio Lithium Property after such a successful first phase work program. As well we are very fortunate to have a professional such as John Hiner coordinating and overseeing the future development of this project. His experience and knowledge of lithium and lithium projects in the Americas is so important as we further explore and advance the Rico Litio Property. The Company's significant second phase exploration program that will be underway before the end of March 2017 and continue over the next 3 months will be highlighted by the drilling of several of the targets before the end of June 2017."

ABOUT ONE WORLD MINERALS INC.

One World Minerals Inc. announced on March 10, 2017 that it had entered into a binding letter agreement to acquire up to a 90% interest in the Rico Litio Property in Mexico (the "Property").

The Property covers 291 square miles or 75,410 hectares over a closed basin where surface and auger samples were taken over a distance of 74 miles (120 Kilometers). The sampling work program was conducted by Lithium Investments Ltd. and returned assay results between 53 to 188 parts per million lithium in the northern part of the Property. In the southern part of the Property, samples ranged from 15 and 82 parts per million lithium, with an average value of 74 ppm lithium from 24 samples across 74 miles. It is important to note the samples were taken from surface salts and shallow auger holes and not from brines that may occur at depth.

The basin also has geological attributes to develop lithium brines, including recent tectonic and volcanic activity; many hot springs; young rhyolitic volcanic lavas; high heat flows within the region; and ash flow tuffs surrounding and within the basin.

The Property is located in the state Baja California Norte, Mexico. Ready access to the Property includes paved roads and dirt roads within the basin. There is paved access to the USA, which is 100 miles to the north. The Property is only 21 miles (35 kilometers) from San Felipe which is a well-established service center that can provide housing and mine personnel. Power is available from major power lines that cross the Property near the north end, as well as interconnected power lines from the US via Mexicali to San Felipe.

Lithium and Potassium Results of Initial Sampling Program ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- SAMPLE Recvd K GPS Mark DESCRIPTION Wt. kg % Li ppm Sample Notes ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 203 1029153 0.66 0.44 24.1 rhyolitic tuff- mark 203 204 1029154 1.07 0.81 35.2 auger hole 1- 18 inch deep sample- mark 203 205 1029155 1.51 0.81 28.4 auger hole 2 - 22 inch deep sample- mark 203 206 1029156 2.58 1.37 82.0 auger hole 3- 24 inch deep sample- valley floor is rhyolitic tuff - mark 206 207 1029157 3.52 0.81 35.1 auger hole 4 - 24 inch deep sample- mark 207 207 1029158 4.84 0.7 31.1 auger hole 4 5 foot deep sample mark 207 210 1029160 1.77 0.08 5.0 spherulitic rhyolite rock chip - mark 210 211 1029161 2.03 0.32 15.2 fine grained lithic tuff- unconfrormable over spher rhy -mark 210 212 1029162 2.59 0.07 4.7 crs grained qtz eye lithic tuff - mark 213 213 1029163 1.61 0.42 19.4 fine grained qtz-mica shell bearing tuff- mark 213 214 1029164 1.69 1 53.3 auger hole 5 - 24 inch deep salar sed vfg soil - mark 214 215 1029165 2.14 1.31 66.8 auger hole 6- clayey salar sed- trc mca salt veneer on srfc- mark 215 216 1029166 1.62 0.66 69.2 auger hole 7- vfg clayey brn soil, interstitial salt in mtx - mark 216 217 1029167 2.27 0.52 33.9 auger hole 8- 24 inch deep, m-dk bn vfg slty-clayey w mca +salt- mark 217 218 1029168 2.1 1.58 132.5 auger hole 9 - m bn clay w vfg salt, tr moisture- mark 218 219 1029169 2.71 1.57 103.5 auger hole 10- hard caliche at 18inch depth, m bn fg sdy silt- mark 219 220 1029170 2.01 1.41 91.2 auger hole 11- dk bn cly slt w abun salt - mark 220 220 1029171 0.75 1 66.3 hand pick of salt concentrated at surface- mark 220 221 1029172 2.36 1.4 92.0 auger hole 12- vfg sdy silt w caliche layers - mark 221 222 1029173 2.14 1.45 95.8 auger hole 13- m bn slty qz-fld sltst - mark 222 223 1029174 1.61 1.43 90.9 auger hole 14- vfg qz-fld mica clay- mark 223 224 1029175 2.43 1.97 188.5 auger hole 15- hard salt srfc, 2 12 inch holes, mica clay- mark 224 225 1029176 2.04 1.41 159.5 auger hole 16- slty cly com salt in mtx- mark 225 225 1029177 0.78 0.92 84.3 hand pick of salt concentrate at srfc- mark 225 226 1029178 3.33 0.4 50.8 auger hole 17- tan fg slty ss +/- mca, com thn cly layers- mark 226 227 1029179 0.53 0.52 30.8 thn bedded slty vfg lakebed- mark 227 228 1029180 0.98 0.27 21.8 cross bd qz-fld bio vfg ss- mark 228 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Andrea Diakow, P. Geo., a Qualified Person as defined in NI 43-101, and a consultant of OWM, has read and approved the scientific and technical disclosure as stated in this news release.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of One World Minerals Inc.

Douglas Fulcher, CEO and President

Forward-Looking Information: This press release may include forward looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation concerning the business of the OWM. Forward looking information is based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by the management of the OWM regarding the proposed exploration program. Although OWM 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 OWM can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Forward looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release. OWM disclaims any intent or obligation to update publically any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, other than as required by applicable securities laws. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from the those anticipated in such statements, important factors that could cause actual results to direr materially from the company's expectations include: (I) potential comments from regulators which may delay; (II) inability of OWM to execute its business plan and raise the financing required to implement the exploration program; and (III) risks and market fluctuations common to the mining industry and lithium sector in particular. The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, some of which are beyond the control of the OWM. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information contained in this press release.

Contacts:

One World Minerals Inc.

Steve@oneworldinvestments.com

Darren@oneworldinvestments.com




Managing Director Dr Richard Lipscombe, PILL Laboratories, Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, Perth, Western Australia.



PERTH, W. AUSTRALIA, Mar 28, 2017 - (ACN Newswire) - Proteomics International Laboratories Ltd (PILL; ASX:PIQ) is the leader in predictive diagnostics for diabetic kidney disease, according to an independent Frost & Sullivan report released this month. PILL managing director Dr Richard Lipscombe is in Shanghai this week meeting with possible commercialisation partners for China, and was showcasing PromarkerD at the China-Australia Biotech Investment forum in Shanghai today.Dr Lipscombe said the new report, titled Biomarkers Enabling Diabetes and Obesity Management, identifies PromarkerD as the world leader. The report says novel biomarker research is likely to transform the future of obesity and diabetes management.Frost & Sullivan states that novel tools like PromarkerD can allow enhanced management of obesity, diabetes and related complications in the near future, and goes on to highlight PILL's novel test for diabetic kidney disease noting its high adoption potential.[1]PromarkerD technology has also been validated by the peer-reviewed scientific journal EuPA Open Proteomics, the official journal of the European Proteomics Association (EuPA).[2]There is currently no available test for predicting the onset of diabetic kidney disease and Frost & Sullivan suggest PILL is one of only two companies worldwide developing such a test. Results have shown PromarkerD can correctly predict 95% of previously kidney disease-free diabetic patients who go on to develop chronic kidney disease.PILL already has a deal in place with Chinese biopharmaceutical company Newsummit Biopharma Co. (NSB) to manufacture the PromarkerD kit in China. The process includes engagement of Key Opinion Leaders and Hospitals, who will facilitate validation of the completed kit.Publication details[1] 'Biomarkers Enabling Diabetes and Obesity Management' published by Frost & Sullivan, March 2, 2017.[2] 'Comprehensive Mass Spectrometry Based Biomarker Discovery and Validation Platform as Applied to Diabetic Kidney Disease' published in EuPA Open Proteomics, the official journal of the European Proteomics Association, March 1, 2017.- Publication materials available at http://bit.ly/2nqMfNYMultimediaPresentation: An audio summary of the research paper.Video: The power of the Promarker platform for personalised medicine.- MultiMedia support available at http://bit.ly/2nqMfNYPromarkerD - a predictive diagnostic test for diabetic kidney disease --The EuPA journal article followed evaluation by independent scientific experts and serves to verify the process used to develop and test PILL's PromarkerD protein 'fingerprint' that measures kidney disease in patients with diabetes. This novel test can both diagnose and predict disease.In diabetic patients already suffering from chronic kidney disease PromarkerD could diagnose the presence of disease that was missed by the current gold standard tests (known as the ACR and eGFR tests).Critically, PromarkerD can also predict the onset of disease before clinical symptoms appear. In an extension of the published work 576 patients were followed in a four-year longitudinal clinical study. PromarkerD correctly predicted 95% of the previously kidney disease-free diabetic patients who went on to develop chronic kidney disease.About the Promarker Platform --PILL's diagnostic research is made possible by the company's proprietary biomarker discovery platform termed Promarker, which searches for protein 'fingerprints' in a sample. This disruptive technology can identify proteins that distinguish between people who have a disease and people who do not, using only a simple blood test. It is a powerful alternative to genetic testing.The technology is so versatile it can be used to identify fingerprints from any biological source. The Promarker platform is also being applied to the asbestos-related cancer mesothelioma, the gastro-causing parasite Giardia (in partnership with a US veterinary company) and endometriosis, a condition that affects one in ten women in their reproductive years.About Proteomics International Laboratories (PILL) --PILL (ASX: PIQ) is a medical technology company focused on proteomics - the industrial scale study of the structure and function of proteins. As proteins have become the drug class of choice for the pharmaceutical industry because of their intimate role in biological systems, proteomics technology is now playing a key role in understanding disease, from finding new diagnostic biomarkers to determining drug targets, and discovering new biopharmaceutical drugs.PILL is recognised as a global leader in the field of proteomics. It received the world's first ISO 17025 laboratory accreditation for proteomics services, and operates from state-of-the art facilities at the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research in Perth, Western Australia.The Company's business model uses its proprietary technology platform across three integrated areas, each massive growth markets:1. Diagnostics: Biomarkers of disease and personalised medicine - focus on diabetic kidney disease.By 2020 the biomarkers market is estimated to double in size to $45.6 billion, and the personalised medicine market is forecast to be worth over $149 billion.2. Analytical services: Specialist contract research fee-for-service model - focus on biosimilars QC.The global biosimilars market is expected to reach $6.2 billion by 2020, almost trebling from its 2015 level, as it seeks to replicate the multiple billion dollar blockbuster drugs that are coming off patent.3. Drug discovery: Therapeutic peptide drug discovery - focus on painkillers and antibiotics.The global peptide therapeutics market is currently estimated to be worth $18 billion and is expected to increase by over 10% per year during 2016-2025.For further information, please visit www.proteomics.com.au, or contact:Dr Richard LipscombeManaging Director,Proteomics International Laboratories LtdE: enquiries@proteomics.com.auT: +61 2 8218 2144Media Contact:Susan Fitzpatrick-NapierDigital Mantra GroupE: team@dmgpr.comT: +61 8 9389 1992Source: Proteomics International Laboratories Ltd (PILL)Copyright 2017 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
DENVER, CO -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- Two Rivers Water & Farming Company ("Two Rivers") (OTCQB: TURV) is pleased to announce it has created a separate company to focus on its existing and future investments in water. The new subsidiary is Water Redevelopment Company, a Delaware corporation. Water Redevelopment has completed its first initial seed capital of $257,000. After this first initial round, Two Rivers owns 99% of Water Redevelopment Company.

Water related assets represent approximately $31 million of Two Rivers' $48 million assets on the books. The purpose of Water Redevelopment is to have an entity with its sole focus on the Company's water assets, to achieve maximum gain for Two Rivers and its shareholders.

To address investors' questions on Two Rivers' strategy, the Company is pleased to host an investor call on March 30th at 4:15 p.m EDT, 15 minutes after the close of the stock market. Interested participants are invited to call-in up to 15 minutes prior to scheduled call. The phone number is 888-298-3511 (or international: +1 719-325-2458), conference ID 7339870 and a playback of the call will be available for the 2 weeks after the call by dialing 888-203-1112 (or international: +1 719-457-0820), with the same conference ID. Time will be set aside to ask questions of Management. Participating in this call will be Two Rivers' President and CEO, Wayne Harding and Vice President of Finance and Accounting, Bill Gregorak.

Over the past several years, Two Rivers has been focused on its irrigated farming and greenhouse development for marijuana grow operations, through its subsidiary GrowCo Inc. GrowCo designs and builds state-of-the-art infrastructures for marijuana growers, however GrowCo does not touch the plant. Commenting on GrowCo, Wayne Harding, CEO of Two Rivers, stated, "GrowCo is now gaining traction with two tenants in its first greenhouse and the further development of our Pueblo marijuana focused grow campus. It is our plan to take GrowCo's design & build solutions to other states where medicinal and/or recreational use of marijuana is now legal."

Harding continued, "Additionally, after three years of disappointing results, Two Rivers has liquidated its irrigated farming business. Now is the time to re-focus our efforts on our most basic core asset, water, and monetizing it for maximum gain where Two Rivers' water assets are located. This is a very exciting time for our Company and its shareholders."

Water Redevelopment Company will focus on development and redevelopment of infrastructure for water management and delivery. Water Redevelopments' first efforts will be development projects in the Huerfano-Cucharas water basin located in southeastern Colorado where it currently owns water assets. This basin contains approximately 1,900 square miles and is the last undeveloped watershed in Colorado's front range. The planned projects are as follows:

In January 2011, with the purchase of the Orlando land and water rights, Two Rivers entered into a water supply agreement to supply water resources for real estate development in Huerfano County, Colorado. The resource charge to be received by Water Redevelopment is $6,500 per water tap. There are approximately three water taps per acre foot of water to render a value of $19,500 per acre foot. Water Redevelopment believes that the supply of water taps will become available sometime in 2018. The proper legal filings and development plan will be made soon.

Part of the Huerfano-Cucharas basin includes the Huerfano Lake. This lake has an 1888 storage decree of 2,000 acre feet. The storage decree allows for multiple fill and discharge over each season. The first step will be to dredge the Huerfano Lake to fully recognize its storage right and rehabilitation of the ditch system providing water to this lake. Once completed, water can be leased to the agriculture community. A wildlife sanctuary will also be considered.

The rehabilitation of the Cucharas #5 reservoir will soon be underway. In early 2016, Two Rivers and the State of Colorado entered into a stipulation agreement whereby the prior earthen dam will be taken down to silt level with the intent to reconstruct the dam.

About Two Rivers

Two Rivers assembles its water assets by acquiring irrigated farmland with senior water rights. In November 2012, Colorado legalized the personal use and cultivation of marijuana. As a result, Two Rivers is building state-of-the-art greenhouses and processing facilities for licensed marijuana growers in Colorado on land with water rights. Two Rivers' long term strategy focuses on the value of our water assets and how to monetize it for maximum gain, including communities near where our water assets are located.

About Water Redevelopment Company

Water Redevelopment Company is a subsidiary of Two Rivers and focuses on development and redevelopment of water management and delivery infrastructure. Water is one of the most basic, core assets. Water Redevelopment's first area of focus is in the Huerfano-Cucharas river basin in southeastern Colorado.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking statements," as that term is defined in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Statements that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements and include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors, including the inherent uncertainties associated with developing and acquiring land and water resources. There can be no assurance Two Rivers will be able to initiate and operate its grow facilities in accordance with its business plans. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and Two Rivers assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements.

Contact:

Wayne Harding

Two Rivers Water & Farming Company

(303) 222-1000

info@2riverswater.com




CHICAGO, IL--(Marketwired - March 28, 2017) - Advancing its goal to offer modern solutions to the healthcare quality market, Q-Centrix announced today that it received certification for submission to The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) registry.

The Q-Centrix Universal Registry Solution is the first to couple cloud-based technology that offers the National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR) and STS registries submission capabilities with data management services from its team of quality information specialists.

"As an organization that has partnered with almost 100 hospitals throughout the country to manage their STS registry data for more than four years, Q-Centrix is tremendously proud to receive STS certification of our technology today," explained Q-Centrix CEO, Milton Silva-Craig. "Along with the submission capabilities, our patent-pending technology offers real-time access to performance data and reporting that hospitals and health systems need to improve outcomes."

The Universal Registry Solution includes both the registry application and quality data management service. The patent-pending technology is an application within the market-leading technology platform, Q-Apps. The SaaS-delivered capabilities include registry data management and reporting on cardiothoracic care processes. These processes produce immediate and positive changes that promptly shape the way patient care is improved in the market.

The technology pairs with the industry's largest and broadest team of nurse-educated, quality information specialists -- more than 650 quality experts who review, analyze and manage the data through submission -- acting as a virtual extension of quality departments within more than 350 hospitals throughout the country.

The solution empowers hospital and health system clinical teams to work at the top of their licenses by removing the burden of registry data management from encounter through submission and reporting.

"The Universal Registry Solution technology within our Q-Apps platform delivers complete quality data integration, extraction and submission to the NCDR or STS with real-time reporting and analytics that are accessible anytime from anywhere, thanks to our cloud-based data model," explains Russell Reas, Chief Technology Officer at Q-Centrix. "Our modern, unique approach to the data model will allow us to add more registries to the solution quickly and efficiently."

The Q-Centrix Universal Registry Solution was certified by the NCDR for CathPCI Registry, ACTION Registry and ICD Registry' in April and May of 2016. The recent certification for STS-ACS will add a fourth certification to the tool in less than a year.

"This technology certification from the STS for Q-Apps furthers our mission to measurably improve the safety and quality of care hospitals and health systems deliver while reducing costs through the comprehensive management of quality data," Silva-Craig affirmed.

About Q-Centrix:

Q-Centrix aims to measurably improve the quality and safety of patient care in the U.S. through the use of its market-leading technology platform, Q-Apps, coupled with the industry's largest and broadest team of nurse-educated, quality information specialists. Processing in excess of 1 million quality data transactions annually, Q-Centrix is a comprehensive quality partner to hundreds of hospitals, providing quality data management solutions, including quality data capture, surveillance, measure calculations, analysis, reporting, and improvement solutions. For more information about Q-Centrix, visit www.q-centrix.com.

About The Society of Thoracic Surgeons:

The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) is an international, non-profit organization that represents researchers, surgeons, and additional health care professionals who are members of the cardiothoracic surgery team. STS's goal is to ensure premier results for esophageal, lung and heart surgeries and additional surgical chest procedures. STS's mission is to strengthen the abilities of cardiothoracic surgeons to provide excellent patient care through research, education and advocacy. STS has over 7,200 worldwide members from 90 countries and over 60 employees in its Chicago society headquarters. For more information about STS, visit https://www.sts.org.

Contact:

Cathy Felts

Senior Director, Marketing

Q-Centrix

Phone: 312.659.8243

E-mail: cathy@q-centrix.com
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- AZINCOURT URANIUM INC. ("Azincourt" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: AAZ) has entered into an agreement with Skyharbour Resources Ltd and Clean Commodities Corp. (collectively the "Property Owners") whereby Azincourt may acquire an undivided seventy per cent (70%) interest in the Property Owners East Preston Project located in the highly prospective western Athabasca basin (the "East Preston Project").

East Preston Project highlights:

-- Azincourt may acquire a 70% interest the Eastern portion of the Preston Project consisting of approximately 25,329 contiguous hectares. -- The Preston Project is one of the largest tenure land positions in the Paterson Lake region and currently consists of 121,148 hectares strategically located near NexGen Energy Ltd's high-grade Arrow deposit, Fission Uranium Corp's Triple R deposit and AREVA/Cameco/Purepoint's joint venture (Spitfire). -- AREVA recently optioned 49,635 hectares of the Preston Project for up to $7.3 million in exploration expenditures (see Skyharbour News Release dated March 9, 2017). -- Over CDN$2 million in exploration expenditures on the East Preston Project over the past three years. -- Several high priority drill targets identified within multiple prospective exploration corridors delineated through recent geophysics and ground evaluation.

Paul Reynolds, CEO of Azincourt commented, "We are excited to option the East Preston uranium project. Azincourt now has two properties located in the western part of the Athabasca Basin, one of the most compelling high-grade uranium regions in the world. Given the historical work that was previously completed on this project, as well as it being adjacent to the Preston Project in which AREVA Resources Canada can earn up to 70% through $7.3 million in exploration we feel we have potential to extract significant value for our shareholders."

Proposed Acquisition of the East Preston Project

Under the terms of an option agreement (the "Option Agreement") entered into with the Property Owners, Azincourt has been granted the option to acquire a seventy per cent (70%) interest in the East Preston Project by incurring an aggregate of CDN$2,500,000 of staged expenditures and paying an aggregate of CDN$1,000,000 in staged cash payments as follows:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date Consideration Work Obligation ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- On execution of Option Agreement $150,000 Nil ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- On or before March 27, 2018 $150,000 $250,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- On or before March 27, 2019 $300,000 $750,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- On or before March 27, 2020 $400,000 $1,500,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TOTAL $1,000,000 $2,500,000 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Additionally Azincourt has agreed to issue to the Property Owners an aggregate of 4,500,000 common shares upon receipt of regulatory approval to the Option Agreement. These common shares will be subject to a restriction on resale for a period of approximately one year from their date of issuance.

There is an underlying 2% NSR on commercial production from the East Preston Project and AREVA Resources Canada will retain a Right of First Refusal on the any future proposed sale of East Preston.

The parties' obligations to close the Option Agreement are subject to the satisfaction of the usual conditions precedent including the receipt of all necessary approvals of the TSX Venture Exchange.

Azincourt has agreed, subject to TSX Venture Exchange acceptance, to the payment of a finder's fee to an arms length third party for introducing Azincourt to the Property Owner's.

About the East Preston Project

To view the image associated with this release, please clock on the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Azincourt%20Uranium%20Inc.%20Image.pdf

The significant potential of the western Athabasca Basin has been highlighted by recent discoveries in the area by NexGen Energy (Arrow), Fission Uranium (Triple R) and a joint venture consisting of Cameco Corp., AREVA Resources Canada Inc. and Purepoint Uranium Group Inc. (Spitfire). In excess of $4.7 million in expenditures on the Preston Project have been incurred to date, including over $2.0 million on the East Preston Project. Exploration on East Preston has consisted of ground gravity, airborne and ground electromagnetics, radon, soil, silt, biogeochem, lake sediment, and geological mapping surveys, as well as an exploratory drill program (discussed below). Several high priority drill target areas associated with multiple prospective exploration corridors (see above map) have been successfully delineated on the East Preston Project through this methodical, multi-phased exploration initiative, which has culminated in an extensive, proprietary geological database for the East Preston Project area.

In March 2014, Skyharbour and Clean Commodities commenced an inaugural diamond-drilling program on the East Preston Project. Three initial target areas, out of a growing target base were selected for drilling based on encouraging fieldwork results and coincident anomalies. This drill campaign represented the first modern-day drill exploration program on the East Preston Project and consisted of approximately 1,500 metres of drilling in seven holes. The majority of these holes intersected broad, hydrothermally altered and reactivated, structural zones with several of the holes returning elevated radioactivity and intersecting multiple graphitic units within sheared and altered basement lithologies. The Property Owner's technical team considered these findings in the early stages of the first drill program to be a significant breakthrough towards locating shallow uranium mineralization.

The Company will provide a detailed follow up news release summarizing the proposed work program on the East Preston Project once determined.

Qualified Person

The technical information in this news release has been prepared in accordance with the Canadian regulatory requirements set out in National Instrument 43- 101 and reviewed on behalf of the company by Ted O'Connor, P.Geo. a director of Azincourt Uranium Corp., as well as a qualified person.

About Azincourt Uranium Inc.

Azincourt Uranium Inc. is a Canadian based resource company specializing in the strategic acquisition, exploration and development of uranium properties based out of Vancouver, British Columbia. The Company's Patterson Lake North Property ("PLN"), also located in the western Athabasca Basin, lies adjacent and to the north of the Patterson Lake South property (Arrow deposit), owned by Fission Uranium Corp. The company owns a 10% working interest in PLN and Fission 3.0 owns a 90% interest. In addition, the Company is currently evaluating additional uranium properties to acquire or joint venture.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF AZINCOURT URANIUM INC.

Paul Reynolds, CEO

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its regulation services provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This press release includes "forward-looking statements" that are subject to a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the control of Azincourt. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and that actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Specifically, there is no assurance the Company will be able to exercise the option or acquire any interest in the East Preston Project.

Contacts:

Azincourt Uranium Inc.

Paul Reynolds

604-638-8063

info@azincourturanium.com




Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (NYSE:TDY) ("Teledyne") and e2v technologies plc ("e2v") jointly announced today the successful completion of the previously announced acquisition by Teledyne of e2v by means of a Scheme of Arrangement.

For the machine vision market, e2v provides high performance image sensors and custom camera solutions and application specific standard products. In addition, e2v provides high performance space qualified imaging sensors and arrays for space science and astronomy. e2v also produces components and subsystems that deliver high reliability radio frequency power generation for healthcare, industrial and defense applications. Finally, the company provides high reliability semiconductors and board-level solutions for use in aerospace, space and communications applications.

"Every business within e2v is highly complementary to Teledyne and will contribute to our balanced portfolio of highly engineered products. From industrial machine vision to space-based imaging, microwave devices spanning radar to radiotherapy, and specialty semiconductors through micro electro-mechanical systems, our respective capabilities and engineering-centric cultures are truly a great fit," said Robert Mehrabian, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Teledyne. "We are proud to continue e2v's 70-year legacy of innovation and specialized high technology products. In addition, e2v adds greater critical mass and technical resources to Teledyne in key locations, including the United Kingdom; Grenoble, France; and Seville, Spain."

The aggregate value for the transaction, excluding transaction costs, was approximately 627 million (or approximately $789 million) taking into account e2v stock options and net debt as of September 2016. For the year ended March 31, 2016, e2v had sales of approximately 236 million. Excluding transaction-related expenses, Teledyne management expects the transaction to be accretive to earnings per share.

Bank of America, N.A and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner Smith Incorporated participated in financing activities related to the transaction.

Teledyne is a leading provider of sophisticated instrumentation, digital imaging products and software, aerospace and defense electronics, and engineered systems. Teledyne Technologies' operations are primarily located in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Western and Northern Europe. For more information, visit Teledyne Technologies' website at www.teledyne.com.

Forward-Looking Statements Cautionary Notice

This press release contains forward-looking statements, as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, relating to a recent acquisition. Actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Many factors, including the company's ability to integrate the acquired product lines, retain customers and achieve anticipated synergies, could change anticipated results. There are additional risks associated with owning and operating businesses internationally, including those arising from U.S. and foreign policy changes or actions and exchange rate fluctuations.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170328005756/en/

Contacts:

Teledyne Technologies Incorporated

Jason VanWees, +1 (805) 373-4542


AMSTERDAM (dpa-AFX) - Dutch paints and chemicals maker AkzoNobel N.V. (AKZA.AS; AKZOY), which recently rejected a takeover offer by PPG Industries Inc. (PPG), Tuesday said it will outline plans for the creation of two focused businesses and enhanced long-term value creation in April.



The company will also provide updated financial guidance and growth plans during its investor update on Wednesday, April 19.



This investor update follows the recent announcement to review strategic options for the separation of its Specialty Chemicals business.



The company will demonstrate the benefits of two focused businesses, and will provide further details regarding the strategic options for the separation of its Specialty Chemicals business.



AkzoNobel will also publish results for the first quarter 2017 on the same day.



Ton Buchner, CEO, AkzoNobel, said, 'Our new strategy will further unlock the value within the company, including the creation of two focused businesses. We are convinced we have a strong platform to build further on our leadership positions to deliver improved profitability and additional long-term value creation...'



On March 22, PPG said that AkzoNobel rejected its latest revised proposal of 90.00 euros (cum dividend) per ordinary share, comprised of cash of 57.50 euros and 0.331 share of PPG common stock. Including the assumption of net debt and minority interests, the proposed transaction was valued at approximately 24.5 billion euros, or $26.3 billion.



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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - March 28, 2017) - Canuc Resources Corporation (TSXV: CDA) ("Canuc" or the "Company") is pleased to provide summary information, previously compiled, pertaining to work done by Santa Rosa Silver Mining Corporation ("Santa Rosa") on the San Javier Silver/Gold project.

Prior to the merger between Canuc and Santa Rosa, Santa Rosa performed an extensive channel sampling program of the vein(s) mined intermittently since the 1950s. The channel sampling program was carried out in 2012 under the guidance of Seymour Sears, P.Geo, whose NI 43-101 report on the San Javier project can be viewed on SEDAR.

The Santa Rosa mine consists of five levels, plus connecting sub-levels, spanning a strike length of 490 m and 135 m down dip (~100 m vertically below surface). The vein ranges from 0.3 m to 5.0 m in width and is open along strike in both directions, and also down dip. A total of 341 samples of vein material were collected; the weighted average grade was:

388 g/t (11.3 oz/t) Ag, 2.02 g/t (0.06 oz/t) Au, 1.58% Pb & 1.28% Zn over 1.45 m.* avg. width.

Figure 1 Long Section Santa Rosa Mine

http://canucresources.ca/project/san-javier-project/santa-rosa-long-section-1/

Two sub-parallel veins, El Capulin and Las Norias, occur in the footwall rocks below the Santa Rosa vein; the width between these three veins is about 115 m. These veins are similar in appearance to the Santa Rosa vein and are virtually unexplored. The host rocks to the veins are sedimentary, dominated by sandstone, but shale and coal are known to occur as interbeds. The wall rocks next to the veins are highly fractured and altered, providing the potential to find lower grade, high tonnage mineralization.

A drilling program, planned for the second quarter this year, will test this concept in conjunction with detailed drilling of the Santa Rosa vein.

A control and soil sampling grid, initiated in June 2016, will be completed this year-initial soil samples are in the laboratory at this time.

Figure 2 San Javier Plan Map

http://canucresources.ca/project/san-javier-project/san-javier-plan-map-1-1/

* The reader is cautioned that the results of the underground sampling, reported above, do not represent a resource nor do they reflect what a potentially mineable resource may ultimately average in grade and/or width.

About Canuc

Canuc is a junior resources company engaged in the exploration and development of mineral properties in North America. In addition, the company is active in the development of a natural gas field in Central West Texas where it has an interest in seven producing gas wells. These wells generate a sustainable cash-flow with the potential to increase income by the drilling and completion of additional wells.

John Nebocat, BSc (Geological Engineering), P.Eng, Vice President Exploration for Canuc, is the Qualified Person for the Company, as defined by NI 43-101, and has reviewed and approved the contents of this press release.

For more information on the content of this release or about Canuc, please contact:

Christopher J. Berlet, CFA

CEO

416 525-6869

cberlet@canucresources.ca

Disclaimer and Forward-Looking Statements

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements: This news release contains forward-looking statements that include risks and uncertainties. When used in this news release, the words "estimate", "project", "anticipate", "expect", "intend", "believe", "hope", "may" and similar expressions, as well as "will", "shall" and other indications of future tense, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and apply only as of the date on which they were made. The factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in such forward-looking statements include changes in the prevailing price of gold, the prevailing price of natural gas, the Canadian-United States exchange rate, amount of gas produced that could affect revenues and production costs. Other factors such as uncertainties regarding government regulations could also affect the results. Other risks may be set out in the Company's annual financial statements and MD&A.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - March 28, 2017) - True Leaf Pet, a wholly-owned subsidiary of True Leaf Medicine International Ltd. (CSE: MJ) (FSE: TLA), has signed an exclusive three-year agreement with Synchronicity Holistic of Pebble Beach, CA. that will bring its innovative functional pet chews to grocery stores throughout California.

True Leaf CEO Darcy Bomford praised Synchronicity Holistic as a company that shares many of True Leaf's values in the production and distribution of its products.

"Both True Leaf and Synchronicity Holistic believe in bringing top quality, lab-tested products to their customers. Founder Valentia Piccinini believes in the healing power of effective, natural remedies such as cannabis," he said. "We also believe in the importance of science-backed natural products for the health and well-being of people and their pets."

"True Leaf Pet is exactly the kind of company we're looking to help our expansion into products for pets," said Synchronicity Holistic's founder, Valentia Piccinini. "They bring a deep understanding of the health-promoting properties of natural plant remedies such as hemp. People are looking for trustworthy products for their pets and we're confident that we've found the right source."

The pet products will initially be sold under three SKUs, but more products for both dogs and cats are already on the drawing board. The first production run is underway with an expected rollout to the California market in April. The product will be manufactured by True Leaf's US manufacturing partner and delivered to Synchronicity Holistic from True Leaf's central US distribution center.

About True Leaf

True Leaf Medicine International Ltd., through its wholly-owned subsidiary "True Leaf Pet', has entered the $104.9 billion global pet care industry with a line of hemp-focused pet chews and supplements marketed through natural pet health and veterinary channels in Europe, Canada, and the United States. The company has also filed an application under Health Canada's Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR) to become a Canadian licensed producer through its "True Leaf Medicine' subsidiary. It has passed through the preliminary and enhanced screening process of Health Canada's review and is currently awaiting security clearance and "pre-licensing inspection' approval.

Media Contact:

Paul Sullivan

BreakThrough Communications

O: 604-685-4742

M: 604-603-7358

Investor Contact:

Kevin Bottomley

Director and Corporate Relations

M: 778-389-9933

E: kevin@trueleaf.com
HONG KONG, CHINA and CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- The Board of Directors (the "Board") of Sunshine Oilsands Ltd. (the "Corporation" or "Sunshine") (HKSE: 2012) is pleased to announce the following:

Partial Completion of Zhengwei Placement

Reference is made to the announcement of the Corporation dated December 29, 2016 (Hong Kong time) / December 28, 2016 (Calgary time) (the "Announcement") in relation to the placing of new Shares under the General Mandate to Zhengwei International Investment And Management Co., Limited ("Zhengwei"). Unless otherwise specified, terms used herein shall have the same meanings as defined in the Announcement.

The Board is pleased to announced that all conditions of the Placement have been fulfilled and partial completion of the Placement took place on March 28, 2017. A total of 40,000,000 Common Shares have been subscribed by Zhengwei at the Subscription Price of HK$0.29 pursuant to the terms and conditions of the Subscription Agreement ("Partial Completion"). The subscribed shares are subject to 4 months' holding period.

The net proceeds from the Placement, after deducting relevant expenses incurred in relation to the Subscription, amount to approximately HK$ 11,599,985 (approximately CDN$ 1,996,485 at the current exchange rate) will be used as general working capital of the Corporation and as funds for future development of the existing business of the Corporation, including funding the operation costs of the West Ells project.

The Subscription Agreement expires on the date of this announcement and hence the time for completion for the remaining 110,000,000 Common Shares has also lapsed.

EFFECT ON SHAREHOLDING STRUCTURE

The 40,000,000 Common Shares subscribed by Zhengwei represent (i) approximately 0.75% of the issued share capital of the Corporation immediately before Partial Completion of the Placement and (ii) approximately 0.75% of the issued share capital of the Corporation as enlarged by the allotment and issuance of the Common Shares to Zhengwei in the Placement.

Set out below is the shareholding structure of the Corporation immediately before and after Partial Completion of the Placement:

As at the date of this Immediately after Announcement Completion of the Placing --------------------------- -------------------------- Name of Number Approx. % Number Approx. % Shareholder of Shares of Shares of Shares of Shares ----------------------------------- ------------- ------------- ------------ Sun Kwok Ping 1,312,881,500 24.72% 1,312,881,500 24.54% Bright Hope Global Investment Limited 267,353,088 5.03% 267,353,088 5.00% China Life Insurance (Overseas) Co., Ltd 201,941,600 3.80% 201,941,600 3.77% Tseung Hok Ming 295,893,656 5.57% 295,893,656 5.53% Sinopec Century Bright Capital Investment Limited 239,197,500 4.50% 239,197,500 4.47% Zhengwei - - 40,000,000 0.75% Other public shareholders (excluding Zhengwei) 2,992,684,014 56.36% 2,992,684,014 55.94% ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------ ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------ Total 5,309,951,358 100 5,349,951,358 100 ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------ ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------

ABOUT SUNSHINE OILSANDS LTD.

The Corporation is a Calgary based public corporation listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since March 1, 2012. The Corporation is focused on the development of its significant holdings of oil sands leases in the Athabasca oil sands region. The Corporation owns interests in approximately one million acres of oil sands and petroleum and natural gas leases in the Athabasca region. The Corporation is currently focused on executing milestone undertakings in the West Ells project area. West Ells has an initial production rate of 5,000 barrels per day.

FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION

This announcement contains forward-looking information relating to, among other things, the plans and expectations of the Corporation. Such forward-looking information is subject to various risks, uncertainties and other factors. All statements other than statements and information of historical fact are forward-looking statements. The use of words such as "estimate", "forecast", "expect", "project", "plan", "target", "vision", "goal", "outlook", "may", "will", "should", "believe", "intend", "anticipate", "potential", and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the Corporation's experience, current beliefs, assumptions, information and perception of historical trends available to the Corporation, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to those associated with resource definition and expected reserves and contingent and prospective resources estimates, unanticipated costs and expenses, regulatory approval, fluctuating oil and gas prices, expected future production, the ability to access sufficient capital to finance future development and credit risks, changes in Alberta's regulatory framework, including changes to regulatory approval process and land-use designations, royalty, tax, environmental, greenhouse gas, carbon and other laws or regulations and the impact thereof and the costs associated with compliance. Although the Corporation believes that the expectations represented by such forward-looking statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions and factors discussed in this announcement are not exhaustive and readers are not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements as the Corporation's actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. The Corporation disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, subsequent to the date of this announcement, except as required under applicable securities legislation. The forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this announcement and are expressly qualified by these cautionary statements. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing lists are not exhaustive and are made as at the date hereof. For a full discussion of the Corporation's material risk factors, see the Corporation's annual information form for the year ended December 31, 2016 and risk factors described in other documents we file from time to time with securities regulatory authorities, all of which are available on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at www.hkexnews.hk, on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com or on the Corporation's website at www.sunshineoilsands.com.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited and The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited take no responsibility for the contents of this announcement, make no representation as to its accuracy or completeness and expressly disclaim any liability whatsoever for any loss howsoever arising from or in reliance upon the whole or any part of the contents of this announcement.

This announcement appears for information purpose only and does not constitute an invitation or offer to acquire, purchase or subscribe for securities of Sunshine Oilsands Ltd.

(a corporation incorporated under the Business Corporations Act of the Province of Alberta, Canada with limited liability)

By Order of the Board of Sunshine Oilsands Ltd.

Sun Kwok Ping, Executive Chairman

Hong Kong, March 28, 2017

Calgary, March 28, 2017

As at the date of this announcement, the Board consists of Mr. Kwok Ping Sun, Mr. Hong Luo, Dr. Qi Jiang and Mr. Qiping Men as executive directors; Mr. Michael John Hibberd, Mr. Jianzhong Chen and Ms. Xijuan Jiang as non-executive directors; and Mr. Raymond Shengti Fong, Mr. Gerald Franklin Stevenson, Ms. Joanne Yan and Mr. Yi He as independent non-executive directors.

(i)For identification purposes only

Contacts:

Sunshine Oilsands Ltd.

Mr. Hong Luo

Chief Executive Officer

(1) 403-984-1450

investorrelations@sunshineoilsands.com

www.sunshineoilsands.com




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN)(OTCQX: IVPAF) today announced its financial results for the year ended December 31, 2016. All figures are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated. Ivanhoe Mines is a Canadian mining company focused on advancing its three mine-development projects in Sub-Saharan Africa: the Platreef platinum-palladium-gold-nickel-copper discovery in South Africa; and the Kamoa-Kakula copper discovery and the Kipushi zinc-copper-lead-germanium mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

HIGHLIGHTS

-- On March 21, 2017, Ivanhoe announced that a new discovery hole had intersected a shallow, 3.8-kilometre extension of the Kakula Copper Discovery at the Kamoa-Kakula Project, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This latest extension has been named Kakula West. The new discovery hole, DD1124, essentially doubled the presently-defined length of the copper-rich mineralized system at Kakula to more than 10 kilometres. -- Discovery hole DD1124 is 3.8 kilometres west of the current limit of Kakula drilling and 4.1 kilometres west of the last drill hole with returned assays - DD1093 - that was announced on January 23, 2017. DD1124 also extended the length of the Kakula mineralized trend a further six kilometres longer than the 4.1-kilometre strike length that was used to calculate the initial Kakula resource estimate in October 2016. Up to five rigs are being mobilized to Kakula West to accelerate delineation of the new discovery. -- On October 12, 2016, Ivanhoe released an independently verified, initial Mineral Resource estimate for the exceptionally-high-grade Kakula Discovery - the second major discovery at the Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project. Kakula's Indicated Resources presently total 192 million tonnes at a grade of 3.45% copper, containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper. Inferred Resources total 101 million tonnes at a grade of 2.74% copper, containing an additional 6.1 billion pounds of copper. Both estimates are at a 1.0% copper cut-off. -- At a higher 3% copper cut-off, Kakula contains Indicated Mineral Resources estimated at 66 million tonnes at 6.59% copper, plus Inferred Resources of 27 million tonnes at 5.26% copper. -- The combined Kamoa-Kakula Indicated Mineral Resources now total 944 million tonnes grading 2.83% copper, containing 58.9 billion pounds of copper at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres. Kamoa-Kakula also has Inferred Mineral Resources of 286 million tonnes grading 2.31% copper and containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper, also at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres. -- With the addition of Kakula's Mineral Resources, Wood Mackenzie - a prominent, international industry research and consulting group - independently demonstrated that the Kamoa-Kakula Project is the largest copper discovery in Zambia and the DRC, making it the largest copper discovery ever made on the African continent. In addition, Wood Mackenzie's research also shows that Kamoa-Kakula already ranks among the 10 largest copper deposits in the world. -- The Kakula Discovery remains open for significant expansion along trend to the west and the southeast, while the remainder of the Kakula Exploration Area remains virtually untested. Fourteen rigs now are drilling in the Kakula Exploration Area. More than 63,000 metres have been drilled since the Kakula drilling campaign began in May 2016. Ivanhoe expects to issue an updated Mineral Resource estimate for the Kakula Discovery early in Q2 2017. -- Nearly 200 square kilometres of the approximately 400-square-kilometre Kamoa-Kakula project area remain untested. The Kamoa-Kakula geology team, with the assistance of its technical advisors, has intensively evaluated the structural and stratigraphic controls on mineralization of the broader Kamoa-Kakula basin. This work has highlighted at least nine high-priority targets located in the untested parts of the Kamoa-Kakula project area that are planned to be drill tested this year. -- Kamoa Copper has retained OreWin Pty. Ltd., of Australia, to prepare a follow-up economic assessment (PEA) for the development of the Kakula and Kamoa deposits. The new PEA will assess the economic parameters of an eight-million-tonne-per-annum (Mtpa), stand-alone Kakula Mine, plus expanded, combined mining scenarios of up to 16 Mtpa from mines at both the Kakula and the adjacent Kansoko Sud deposits. -- Underground mine development at Kamoa's Kansoko Mine has made good progress and is expected to reach the high-grade copper mineralization at the Kansoko Sud Deposit within the next two months. The service and conveyor declines each have been advanced more than 670 metres through underground development work. -- Specialist engineering firm DRA Global is finalizing the design of the Kakula box cut. Construction of the box cut is expected to begin in Q2 2017 and take approximately six months to complete. Engineering and design work of the planned twin declines at Kakula also is well advanced. -- In October 2016, the Kamoa-Kakula Project began drawing clean, hydroelectric power from the DRC national grid for development and construction activities. In September 2016, ongoing upgrading work financed by Ivanhoe at the Mwadingusha hydropower plant began supplying an initial 11 megawatts of electricity to the national grid. -- Bench-scale metallurgical flotation test work at XPS Consulting and Testwork Services laboratories in Falconbridge, Canada, achieved copper recoveries of 87.8% and produced a concentrate with an extremely high grade of 56% copper using the flowsheet developed during the Kamoa pre- feasibility study. The material tested was a composite of chalcocite- rich Kakula drill core, assaying 8.1% copper. -- On February 8, 2017, Ivanhoe received the fourth of five scheduled $41.2 million installment payments from a Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. subsidiary as part of a strategic co-development agreement under which Zijin acquired 49.5% of Ivanhoe's majority stake in the Kamoa-Kakula copper discovery. Zijin - through its subsidiary, Gold Mountains (H.K.) International Mining Company Limited - agreed to pay a total of $412 million for the interest in Kamoa Holding Limited, beginning with an initial payment of $206 million in 2015. The fifth and final US$41.2 million installment payment from Zijin is due on May 23, 2017. -- Following the signing of an agreement with the DRC government in November 2016, Ivanhoe and Zijin Mining each now hold an indirect 39.6% interest in the Kamoa-Kakula Project, Crystal River Global Limited holds an indirect 0.8% interest and the DRC government holds a direct 20% interest. Kamoa Holding Limited continues to hold an 80% interest in the Kamoa-Kakula Project. -- A pre-feasibility study for the redevelopment of the Kipushi zinc- copper-germanium-lead-silver mine is being prepared by OreWin, of Australia. The comprehensive study will refine Ivanhoe's May 2016 preliminary economic assessment of Kipushi's proposed redevelopment. The upgraded mine is expected to produce an annual average of 530,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate over a 10-year mine life at a total cash cost, including copper by-product credits, of approximately $0.54 per pound of zinc. -- At the Platreef platinum-palladium-gold-nickel-copper project in South Africa, sinking of Shaft 1 has reached a depth of more than 283 metres below surface. Sinking of Shaft 1 is proceeding at an average rate of approximately 45 metres per month and is expected to reach the Flatreef Deposit, at a depth of 777 metres below surface, in the first half of 2018. Sinking will continue to a planned final depth of 980 metres below surface. Development work will include four shaft stations at depths of 450 metres, 750 metres, 850 metres and 950 metres below surface. Shaft 1 will provide development access into the Flatreef Deposit while Shaft 2 is being developed. -- The design has been completed for Platreef's Shaft 2, which will have a total hoisting capacity of six million tonnes per annum and an internal diameter of 10 metres. Construction of the box cut for Shaft 2 is expected to begin in Q2 2017; when completed, Shaft 2 will be the main production shaft at the Platreef Mine. -- On February 24, 2017, the five-million-volt-ampere power line connecting the Platreef site to the South African national grid was energized and now is supplying electricity to Platreef for shaft sinking and construction activities. The new line, a collaboration between Platreef, the South African government and local authorities, also is providing energy to the neighbouring community of Mzombane, which previously was without electricity. -- The feasibility study for the first phase of underground mine development at Platreef, which is being finalized by DRA Global, is expected to be completed in Q2 2017. -- Ivanhoe Mines' three projects achieved a combined 10.98 million work hours free of lost-time injuries (LTIF) by the end of 2016. Ivanhoe had recorded 25,973 LTIF hours at Platreef, 4.94 million hours at Kipushi and 6.01 million hours at Kamoa-Kakula to the end of 2016.

Principal projects and review of activities

1. Platreef Project

64%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines

South Africa

The Platreef Project is owned by Ivanplats (Pty) Ltd, which is 64%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines. A 26% interest is held by Ivanplats' historically-disadvantaged broad-based, black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) partners, which include 20 local host communities with a total of approximately 150,000 people, project employees and local entrepreneurs. In January 2017, Ivanplats reconfirmed its Level 3 status in its third verification assessment on a B-BBEE scorecard. A Japanese consortium of ITOCHU Corporation and its affiliate, ITC Platinum, plus Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation and JGC Corporation, owns a 10% interest in Ivanplats, which it acquired in two tranches for a total investment of $290 million.

The Platreef Project hosts an underground deposit of thick, platinum-group metals, nickel, copper and gold mineralization in the Northern Limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex, approximately 280 kilometres northeast of Johannesburg and eight kilometres from the town of Mokopane in Limpopo Province.

On the Northern Limb, platinum-group metals mineralization is hosted primarily within the Platreef, a mineralized sequence that is traced more than 30 kilometres along strike. Ivanhoe's Platreef Project, within the Platreef's southern sector, is comprised of three contiguous properties: Turfspruit, Macalacaskop and Rietfontein. Turfspruit, the northernmost property, is contiguous with, and along strike from, Anglo Platinum's Mogalakwena group of mining operations and properties.

Since 2007, Ivanhoe has focused its exploration and development activities on defining and advancing the down-dip extension of its original discovery at Platreef, now known as the Flatreef Deposit, which is amenable to highly mechanized, underground mining methods. The Flatreef area lies entirely on the Turfspruit and Macalacaskop properties, which form part of the company's mining right.

Health and safety at Platreef

The Platreef Project reached a total of 6,686,087 million hours worked in terms of the Mines Health and Safety Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) by the end of December 2016.

A Lost Time Injury (LTI) occurred to one of the shaft-sinking contract employees in December 2016. Various remedial actions have been implemented to prevent a re-occurrence. The Platreef Project continues to strive toward its workplace objective of an environment that causes zero harm to any employees, contractors, sub-contractors and consultants.

Shaft 1 construction now in fast-sinking mode

Shaft 1, with an internal diameter of 7.25 metres, will provide access to the Flatreef Deposit and enable the initial underground capital development to take place during the development of Shaft 2, the main production shaft.

Following the successful commissioning of the stage and kibble winders and ancillary equipment, the permanent sinking phase started in July 2016. The initial sinking phase was completed to 107 metres below surface and the main sinking phase has been initiated. Shaft 1 had reached a depth of 283 metres below surface on March 27, 2017.

An average sinking rate of 45 metres per month is expected during the main sinking phase. The shaft includes a 300-millimetre concrete lining to prevent loose rock from falling into the shaft. The main sinking phase is expected to reach its projected, final depth of 980 metres below surface in 2018. Shaft stations to provide access to horizontal mine workings for personnel, materials and services will be developed at depths of 450 metres, 750 metres, 850 metres and 950 metres below surface.

Figure 1. Platreef Project's Shaft 1 head gear, showing removal of excavated rock from shaft-sinking operations: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F1.pdf

Figure 2. Shaft-sinking crew operating jumbo drill rigs underground in Shaft 1: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F2.pdf

Eskom's 5MVA line supplying grid power to the Platreef Project

Work is complete on the Platreef electrical substation, which has a capacity of five million volt-amperes (MVA). Construction recently was completed on the power transmission lines from Eskom, South Africa's public electricity utility, which now is supplying the electricity for shaft sinking. Back-up generators have been installed to ensure continued sinking operations during any interruptions in Eskom's supply. The new transmission lines also are expected to provide power to an adjacent community near the Platreef Project, which will be a major, added community benefit.

Figure 3. Eskom's five-million-volt-ampere power line, energized last month, now is supplying electricity from the national grid for shaft sinking and construction activities at Platreef: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F3.pdf

Platreef implementing a phased approach to a large, underground, mechanized mine

Ivanhoe plans to develop the Platreef Mine in phases. The initial annual rate of four million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) is designed to establish an operating platform to support future expansions. This is expected to be followed by a potential doubling of production to eight Mtpa; and then a third expansion phase to a steady-state 12 Mtpa, which would establish Platreef among the largest platinum-group-metals mines in the world.

Ivanhoe has made good progress on advancing the feasibility study of the first phase, which began in August 2015. The study is being managed by DRA Global - with specialized sub-consultants including Stantec Consulting, Murray & Roberts Cementation, SRK, Golder Associates and Digby Wells Environmental - and is expected to be completed in the first half of 2017.

Planned mining methods to incorporate highly productive, mechanized methods

The selected mining areas in the current mine plan occur at depths ranging from approximately 700 metres to 1,200 metres below surface. The main access to the Flatreef Deposit and ventilation system is expected to be through four vertical shafts: 1, 2, 3 and 4. Shaft 2 will host the main personnel transport cage, material and ore-handling system; shafts 1, 3 and 4 will provide ventilation to the underground workings. Shaft 1, now under development, also will be used for initial access to the deposit and early underground development.

The planned mining will incorporate low-cost, mechanized mining methods, including long-hole stoping and drift-and-fill mining. Mined-out areas will be backfilled with a mixture of tailings from the processing plant and cement. The ore will be hauled from the stopes to a series of ore passes that will connect to a main haulage level at Shaft 2, from where it will be hoisted to the surface for processing.

Bulk water and electricity supply

The Olifants River Water Resource Development Project (ORWRDP) is designed to deliver water to the Eastern and Northern limbs of South Africa's Bushveld Complex. The project consists of the new De Hoop Dam, the raised wall of the Flag Boshielo Dam and related pipeline infrastructure that ultimately is expected to deliver water to Pruissen, southeast of the Northern Limb. The Pruissen Pipeline Project is expected to be developed to deliver water onward from Pruissen to the municipalities, communities and mining projects on the Northern Limb. Ivanhoe is a member of the ORWRDP's Joint Water Forum.

The Platreef Project's water requirement for the first phase of development is projected to peak at approximately 10 million litres per day, which is expected to be supplied by the water network. Ivanhoe also is investigating various alternative sources of bulk water, including an allocation of bulk grey-water from a local source.

The Platreef Project's electricity requirement for a four-million-tonne-per-year underground mine, concentrator and associated infrastructure has been estimated at approximately 100 million volt-amperes. An agreement has been reached with Eskom for the supply of phase-one power. Ivanhoe chose a self-build option for permanent power that will enable the company to manage the construction of the distribution lines from Eskom's Burutho sub-station to the Platreef Mine. The self-build and electrical supply agreements are being formulated.

First phase of the relocation of informal graves completed

On February 2, 2017, a South African judge issued a ruling in favour of Ivanplats clearing the way for the company to proceed with the relocation of informal graves in the vicinity of its Platreef Mine development project.

A total of 75 informal graves were successfully relocated from land outside the perimeter of the active mine development site to new burial plots in a formal cemetery. An additional 19 locations were investigated and found not to contain human remains. The Ivanplats support program included assistance in providing new burial plots in a formal cemetery, tombstones and related services.

Ivanplats plans to relocate an estimated 27 additional informal graves as part of the second phase of its relocation program after the permits for the exhumations and reburials have been received. Further phases on peripheral infrastructure areas also are planned. The relocation of informal graves will not impact on the development of the Platreef Project.

Development of human resources and job skills

Work is progressing well on the implementation of Ivanhoe's Social and Labour Plan (SLP), to which the company has pledged a total of R160 million ($11 million) during the first five years, culminating in November 2019. The approved plan includes R67 million ($4 million) for the development of job skills among local residents and R88 million ($6 million) for local economic development projects.

2. Kipushi Project

68%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines

Democratic Republic of Congo

The Kipushi copper-zinc-germanium-lead mine, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is adjacent to the town of Kipushi and approximately 30 kilometres southwest of Lubumbashi. It is located on the Central African Copperbelt, approximately 250 kilometres southeast of the Kamoa-Kakula Project and less than one kilometre from the Zambian border. Ivanhoe acquired its 68% interest in the Kipushi Project in November 2011; the balance of 32% is held by the state-owned mining company, La Generale des Carrieres et des Mines (Gecamines).

Health, safety and community development

The Kipushi Project achieved a total of 4,943,935 work hours free of lost-time injuries, equivalent to 1,604 days, to the end of 2016. Malaria remains the most frequently occurring health concern at Kipushi with approximately 200 cases reported in 2016 - an average of approximately 17 cases per month.

In an effort to reduce the incidence of malaria in the Kipushi community, a Water Sanitation and Health (WASH) program has been initiated in cooperation with the Territorial Administrator and the local community. The main emphasis of the program's first phase is cleaning storm drains in the municipality to prevent accumulations of ponded water, where malarial mosquitos breed.

The Fionet program to improve malaria diagnostics and treatment expanded to 300 Deki readers installed in 252 medical service providers in Haut-Katanga and Lualaba provinces in Southern DRC, which host Ivanhoe's Kipushi and Kamoa-Kakula Projects. Deki readers provide automated readings of rapid diagnostic tests to remove the human-error factor and avoid prescription of unnecessary medication. The data is uploaded to a cloud server for analysis by the Ministry of Health in planning malaria-control measures. There were more than 30,000 patient encounters, where Deki readers provided diagnostic testing, during the past year, with approximately 63% of patients testing negative for malaria.

Road and drainage rehabilitation on the main thoroughfare through the centre of Kipushi municipality was completed by the Haut-Katanga Office of Roads and Drainage (Office des Voires et Drainage) following the civil works completed by MCK on behalf of the Kipushi Project.

Project development and infrastructure

The Kipushi Mine, which had been placed on care and maintenance in 1993, flooded in early 2011 due to a lack of pump maintenance over an extended period. At its peak, water reached 851 metres below the surface. Ivanhoe restored access to the mine's principal haulage level at 1,150 metres below surface in December 2013; since then, crews have been upgrading underground infrastructure to permanently stabilize the water levels.

Since completion of the drilling program, water levels have been lowered to the bottom of Shaft 5, which is planned to be the mine's main production shaft. The shaft is eight metres in diameter, 1,240 metres deep and approximately 1.5 kilometres from the planned main mining area. It provides the primary access to the lower levels of the mine, including the Big Zinc Deposit, through the 1,150-metre haulage level and underground ramp decline.

Engineering work has focused on the upgrading of Shaft 5 conveyances and infrastructure, cleaning the shaft bottom to facilitate the installation of new hoist ropes, repairs and upgrades to the hoisting infrastructure and cleaning and stripping of the main pump station at the 1,200-metre-level. A new, high-volume ventilation fan also has been installed and commissioned on surface at Shaft 4 to provide fresh air to the underground workings.

Figure 4. New high-capacity water pumps at Kipushi's 1,200-metre level: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F4.pdf

Pre-feasibility study underway at Kipushi

In September 2016, Ivanhoe began a pre-feasibility study (PFS) on the Kipushi Project that will further refine the optimal development scenario for the existing underground mine at Kipushi. Orewin, of Australia, has been appointed the main engineering firm for the preparation of the PFS. Golder Associates, MDM, SRK, DRA, Murray & Roberts and Grindrod also have been engaged to complete various aspects of the study.

The PFS will refine the positive preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for the redevelopment of the Kipushi Project that was announced on May 2, 2016. The PEA was prepared in compliance with Canadian National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

Highlights of the 2016 PEA, prepared by OreWin and the MSA Group (Pty) Ltd, of Johannesburg, South Africa, include:

-- After-tax net present value at an 8% real discount rate is $533 million. -- After-tax real internal rate of return is 30.9%. -- After-tax project payback period is 2.2 years. -- Leveraging existing surface and underground infrastructure significantly lowers the redevelopment capital compared to a greenfield development project, as well as the time required to reinstate production. -- Life-of-mine average planned zinc concentrate production of 530,000 dry tonnes per annum - with a concentrate grade of 53% zinc - is expected to rank Kipushi, once in production, among the world's major zinc mines. -- Life-of-mine average cash cost of $0.54/lb. of zinc is expected to rank Kipushi, once in production, in the bottom quartile of the cash-cost curve for zinc producers globally.

3. Kamoa-Kakula Project

39.6%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines

Democratic Republic of Congo

The Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project, a joint venture between Ivanhoe Mines and Zijin Mining, has been independently ranked as the largest copper discovery ever made on the African continent, with adjacent prospective exploration areas within the Central African Copperbelt in the Democratic Republic of Congo, approximately 25 kilometres west of the town of Kolwezi and about 270 kilometres west of Lubumbashi.

Ivanhoe sold a 49.5% share interest in Kamoa Holding Limited to Zijin Mining in December 2015 for an aggregate consideration of $412 million. In addition, Ivanhoe sold a 1% share interest in Kamoa Holding to privately-owned Crystal River Global Limited for $8.32 million - which Crystal River will pay through a non-interest-bearing, 10-year promissory note. Since the conclusion of the Zijin transaction in December 2015, each shareholder has been required to fund expenditures at the Kamoa-Kakula Project in an amount equivalent to its proportionate shareholding interest in Kamoa Holding.

A 5%, non-dilutable interest in the Kamoa-Kakula Project was transferred to the DRC government on September 11, 2012, for no consideration, pursuant to the DRC Mining Code. Following the signing of an agreement with the DRC government in November 2016, in which an additional 15% interest in the Kamoa-Kakula Project was transferred to the DRC government, Ivanhoe and Zijin Mining now each hold an indirect 39.6% interest in the Kamoa-Kakula Project, Crystal River Global Limited holds an indirect 0.8% interest and the DRC government holds a direct 20% interest. Kamoa Holding Limited continues to hold an 80% interest in the project.

New discovery hole intersects a thick, shallow, 3.8-kilometre extension - now known as Kakula West - of the Kakula Copper Discovery

On March 21, 2017, Ivanhoe announced that a new step-out hole - drilled 5.4 kilometres west of the present boundary of Kakula's current Inferred Resources - intersected a relatively shallow, 16.3-metre zone of typical Kakula-style, chalcocite-rich copper mineralization similar to holes drilled in the centre of the high-grade Kakula Deposit on the Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project.

The DD1124 discovery hole is 3.8 kilometres west of the current limit of Kakula drilling and 4.1 kilometres west of the last drill hole with returned assays - DD1093 - that was announced on January 23, 2017.

The target area where DD1124 was drilled - now named Kakula West - was selected by the Kamoa-Kakula geological team at the intersection of the axis of the interpreted Kakula trend with a southwesterly-northeasterly-trending antiform (the Kakula West antiform). DD1124 intersected 16.3 metres of visually moderate-strong chalcocite copper mineralization, similar to the mineralization encountered within the core of the chalcocite-rich Kakula Deposit, beginning at a downhole depth of 422.2 metres (410 metres below surface), which included a 4.0-metre zone of strong-to-very-strong mineralization beginning at a downhole depth of 432.4 metres. Assays for DD1124 are expected early next month. Up to five rigs are being mobilized to fast-track the drilling at the Kakula West discovery.

Hole DD1124 has extended the length of the Kakula mineralized trend to approximately 10.1 kilometres, essentially doubling the previously estimated strike length of 5.5 kilometres contained in Ivanhoe's January 23, 2017 news release. The continuing success also means that the discovery has grown to become six kilometres longer than the deposit's 4.1-kilometre strike length that was used in calculating the initial Kakula resource estimate in October 2016.

The Kakula Discovery remains open along a westerly-southeasterly strike. Importantly, the chalcocite-rich zone of mineralization in DD1124 was intersected at a depth of approximately 400 metres below surface, significantly shallower than several of the mineralized intercepts announced in January 2017 that were drilled closer to the western boundary of the Kakula Inferred Resource (See Figure 7).

Figure 5. Kamoa-Kakula mining licence - showing copper grade of Indicated and Inferred Resources at a 2% copper cut-off, untested areas, current target areas and location of Kakula West Discovery: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F5.pdf

Figure 6. Planned drilling over the Kakula Exploration Area for Q1 2017 and Q2 to Q4 2017, showing current and future drilling areas and location of recent significant intersections: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F6.pdf

Figure 7. Section along the axis on the Kakula Deposit on the section A - A'- A" - B showing drilling completed to date and composites at a 2.5% copper cut-off: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F7.pdf

October 2016 Kakula Resource estimate significantly boosts project's tonnes and grade

Ivanhoe issued an updated Mineral Resource for the Kamoa-Kakula Project on October 12, 2016. The updated Mineral Resource included the initial Kakula Mineral Resource estimate, prepared by Ivanhoe Mines under the direction of Amec Foster Wheeler E&C Services Inc., of Reno, USA, in accordance with the 2014 CIM Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. The Qualified Persons for the Kamoa-Kakula Mineral Resource estimate are Dr. Harry Parker, RM, SME and Gordon Seibel, RM, SME both of Amec Foster Wheeler E&C Services Inc.

The combined Kamoa-Kakula Project's Indicated Mineral Resources now total 944 million tonnes grading 2.83% copper, containing 58.9 billion pounds of copper at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres. Kamoa-Kakula now also has Inferred Mineral Resources of 286 million tonnes grading 2.31% copper and containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper, also at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres.

The Kakula Indicated Mineral Resources total 192 million tonnes at a grade of 3.45% copper, containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper at a 1% copper cut-off. At a 2% copper cut-off, Indicated Resources total 115 million tonnes at a 4.80% copper grade, containing 12.1 billion pounds of copper. At a higher cut-off of 3% copper, Indicated Resources total 66 million tonnes at a grade of 6.59% copper, containing 9.6 billion pounds of copper. Kakula has Inferred Mineral Resources totalling 101 million tonnes at a grade of 2.74% copper, containing 6.1 billion pounds of copper at a 1% copper cut-off. At a 2% copper cut-off, Inferred Resources total 51 million tonnes at a 3.92% copper grade, containing 4.4 billion pounds of copper. At a higher cut-off of 3% copper, Inferred Resources total 27 million tonnes at a grade of 5.26% copper, containing 3.2 billion pounds of copper. Kakula's Indicated and Inferred resources are included in the combined Kamoa-Kakula Project resources.

The average true thickness of the Kakula selective mineralized zone (SMZ) at a 1% cut-off is 14.27 metres in the Indicated Resources area and 10.33 metres in the Inferred Resources area. At a higher 3% cut-off, the average true thickness of the SMZ is 5.91 metres in the Indicated Resources area and 5.15 metres in the Inferred Resources area.

Kamoa-Kakula studies present two initial development scenarios

On December 13, 2016, Ivanhoe Mines announced the results of a positive, independent, preliminary economic assessment of initial options for the start-up of world-scale copper mining on the Kakula and Kamoa deposits. The PEA presented two initial development scenarios for the Kamoa-Kakula Project.

One initial option analyzed in the PEA is the development of a four-million-tonne-per-annum (Mtpa) Kakula Phase 1 Mine at the Kakula Deposit, in the southerly portion of the project's discovery area. For this option, the PEA envisaged an average annual production rate of 216,000 tonnes of copper at a mine-site cash cost of $0.37/lb copper for the first 10 years of operations and peak copper production of 262,000 tonnes by year three.

A pre-production capital cost of $1.0 billion for this option would result in an after-tax net present value at an 8% discount rate (NPV8%) of $3.7 billion with an after-tax internal rate of return (IRR) of 38%.

The PEA also analyzed an alternative initial option that could involve a two-phase, sequential expansion of production to eight Mtpa from the proposed Kakula Phase 1 Mine at the Kakula Deposit and also the Kansoko Mine at the adjacent Kamoa Deposit. Under this alternative, the PEA envisaged $1.0 billion in capital costs and an average annual production rate of 292,000 tonnes of copper at a mine-site cash cost of $0.42/lb copper during the first 10 years of operations and peak production of 370,000 tonnes by year seven. This would result in an after-tax NPV8% of $4.7 billion, an after-tax IRR of 34.6% and payback period of 3.5 years.

Kamoa-Kakula surpassed six million hours worked without a lost-time injury in 2016

Health and safety remain key priorities for all people working at the Kamoa-Kakula Project. A noteworthy milestone of six million hours worked without a lost-time injury was achieved at the project on December 29, 2016.

Exploration activities lead to a substantial expansion of the Kakula Discovery

During Q4 2016, a total of 13,508 metres of exploration drilling was completed at the new Kakula Discovery. A further 11,678 metres were completed by the drilling contractor, Titan Drilling SARL, utilizing up to six drill rigs; an additional 1,831 metres were completed using company-owned drill rigs. Included in the drilling program were holes drilled for geotechnical studies to help find a suitable location for the Kakula box cut. Exploration drilling for 2016 totalled 45,853 metres.

Expanded exploration to target untested parts of the Kamoa-Kakula licence

A decision was made at the end of Q4 2016 to increase exploration diamond drilling activity into 2017. The intention is to accelerate the resource expansion drilling planned for Q1 and Q2 2017 to establish sufficient resource for an expansion of the four Mpta production plan option examined in the December 13, 2016, PEA. The PEA examined two possible development options for the Kakula Deposit, and the Kakula Deposit together with the adjacent Kamoa Deposit. A total of nine rigs now are dedicated to the resource expansion drilling program. The current plan is to update the Mineral Resource in early Q2 2017.

Geological investigations of the untested parts of the Kamoa-Kakula licence are ongoing and a number of significant targets have been identified. Five rigs now are dedicated to drill testing regional targets on the Kamoa-Kakula licence, including Kakula West, bringing the total number of rigs active at Kamoa-Kakula to 14. Locations of the delineated resources, drill-tested areas and targets for future exploration are shown in Figure 5.

Excellent copper recoveries and concentrate grades confirmed by preliminary metallurgical tests on drill core from Kakula

In July 2016, initial metallurgical test results from a sample of exploration drill core from the Kakula area achieved copper recoveries of 86% and produced a copper concentrate with a grade of 53% copper.

Due to high-grade intercepts consistently achieved at Kakula, an additional sample of higher grade was selected and shipped to the XPS laboratories for preliminary floatation tests. DD1012 and DD1036 composite grading 8.1% copper produced a recovery of 87.8% at an extremely high concentrate grade of 56% copper.

These positive preliminary Kakula metallurgical test results indicate that the metallurgy is very similar to that at Kansoko Sud and Centrale, and that mineralization from these three areas could be successfully processed through the same concentrator plant.

A metallurgical drilling campaign for a representative composite sample is planned for Q2 2017 for PFS circuit development and optimization in line with the defined Kakula resource. Earlier metallurgical testwork indicated that the Kamoa and Kakula concentrates contain extremely low arsenic levels, by world standards - approximately 0.02%. Given this critical competitive marketing advantage, Kamoa-Kakula concentrates are expected to attract a significant premium from copper-concentrate traders for use in blending with concentrates from other mines. The concentrates will help to enable the other concentrates to meet the limit of 0.5% arsenic imposed by Chinese smelters to meet China's environmental restrictions.

Mine development at Kansoko Sud nearing zone of high-grade mineralization

Byrnecut Underground Congo SARL progressed well with the decline development at Kansoko Sud during Q4 2016. The service and conveyor declines each have been advanced more than 670 metres through underground development work.

Development of the underground mine is designed to reach the high-grade copper mineralization at the Kansoko Sud Deposit during Q2 2017.

Figure 8. Ongoing construction of access declines for the Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project's high-grade Kansoko Mine: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F8.pdf

Development of Kakula box cut and decline advancing

The Kamoa-Kakula technical team has identified a location for a box cut for the initial portal to planned decline ramps that will provide underground access to the Kakula Deposit. The design of the box cut has been completed and the excavation, support and civil works have been tendered. Bids have been received and adjudicated and Kamoa-Kakula now is in a position to award the work. Construction of the Kakula box cut is expected to take approximately six months, after which development of the set of twin declines can commence.

A tender document is under preparation for the Kakula decline development and is expected to be issued to prospective contractors in April 2017.

Kamoa mine site connected to the national hydroelectric grid

The construction of the 120 kilovolt (kV) power line that branches off from the main supply at Kisenge has been completed. A 120kV mobile substation was installed, commissioned and energized on October 30, 2016. The Kamoa mine site now is connected to the national electrical grid and is receiving hydropower for work on site.

An eight-kilometre, 11kV overhead power line with mini substations has been constructed from the mine site to the Kamoa camp and is supplying hydropower from the mine to the camp. The supply of electricity from the grid has resulted in significant savings from reduced use of diesel fuel.

Figure 9: Kamoa-Kakula Project team members working on the 11-kilovolt mobile substation that is connected to the DRC national electricity grid now supplying power to develop the access declines for the planned mine: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F9.pdf

Initial repair work enables Mwadingusha power station to supply electricity to grid

The Mwadingusha Unit 1 repair work was completed in August 2016 and the official inauguration ceremony was held at the Mwadingusha power station on September 7. The Mwadingusha G1 unit, supplying 11 megawatts, was synchronized to the SNEL national interconnected grid on September 6.

Preparations for permanent power progressed well during Q4 2016. The contract to purchase four turbines for the Mwadingusha power plant upgrades was awarded and the contract signed between SNEL and the consortium Andritz Hydro & CEGELEC. A site visit by the consortium took place in December in preparation for demolition work to start in August 2017.

Continued focus on community and sustainability

The number of unskilled job opportunities from the Kamoa-Kakula Project and contractors has risen during Q4 2016 due to the increase in activity around the camp and mine area. Preference is given to local job-seekers and numerous positions have been filled.

The sustainable livelihoods project is largely aimed at economically empowering communities in the vicinity of the planned mine. The project, which has been in place for the past five years, successfully implemented the following programs in benefiting communities during 2016:

-- a small-holder maize (corn) production program yielded maize from 16 communities; -- a vegetable program supplying produce to the Kamoa-Kakula Project camp kitchen; -- a poultry project now is self-sustaining and supplies the Kamoa-Kakula Project camp kitchen with chickens and eggs; -- a beekeeping program managing 50 honey-producing hives; and -- aquaculture production that is reducing the cost of fish for the Kamoa- Kakula Project and empowering involved communities through nutrition enhancement and economic growth.

Community projects in 2016 also included the construction of a secondary school at the local Kaponda village.

Figure 10: One of the community maize (corn) plantations in the vicinity of the Kamoa-Kakula Project: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F10.pdf

SELECTED ANNUAL FINANCIAL INFORMATION

This selected financial information is in accordance with IFRS as presented in the annual consolidated financial statements. Ivanhoe had no operating revenue in any financial reporting period and did not declare or pay any dividend or distribution in any financial reporting period.

For the year ended December 31, 2016 2015 2014 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- $'000 $'000 $'000 Exploration and project expenditure(i) 32,426 40,751 97,933 Share-based payments 5,977 7,722 97,294 General administrative expenditure(i) 18,835 17,445 30,998 Finance income (29,902) (2,204) (1,041) Finance costs 1,798 1,674 2,241 Share of losses from joint venture 21,732 1,030 - Deferred tax expense (recovery) 790 (1,624) (46) Gain on partial sale of subsidiary - (357,671) - Re-measurement to fair value of the interest retained in joint venture - (376,148) - Mark-to-market gain on revaluation of warrants - (6,945) (9,524) (Gain) loss from subsidiary held for partial sale - (4,319) 38,537 Total comprehensive loss (profit) attributable to: Owners of the Company 23,011 (681,274) 227,347 Non-controlling interest 12,739 12,969 32,863 Loss (profit) per share (basic and diluted) 0.04 (0.93) 0.34 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total assets 1,002,230 1,022,578 253,077 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Non-current liabilities 28,957 28,103 23,603 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (i) Prior period amounts have been amended to show the (gains)/losses from subsidiary held for partial sale separately in order to improve comparability.

DISCUSSION OF RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

Review of the year ended December 31, 2016 vs. December 31, 2015

The company recorded a total comprehensive loss of $35.8 million for the year ending December 31, 2016, compared to a total comprehensive profit of $668.3 million for the year ending December 31, 2015. The profit in 2015 was attributable mainly to the gain on the partial sale of Kamoa Holding of $357.7 million and the re-measurement to fair value of the interest retained in the joint venture of $376.1 million.

In 2015, the company sold a 50.5% stake in Kamoa Holding, the company that owned 95% of the Kamoa-Kakula Project. The company sold a 49.5% stake to Gold Mountains (H.K.) International Mining Company Limited, a subsidiary of Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. (Zijin), for an aggregate consideration of $412 million. Zijin paid an initial $206 million at closing in December 2015, followed by the payment of the first three of five scheduled $41.2 million installments in March, July and October 2016 and the fourth installment in February 2017. The fifth and final $41.2 million installment payment is due on May 23, 2017.

In addition, the company sold 1% of its share interest to Crystal River Global Limited. Crystal River paid its purchase consideration of $8.32 million through a non-interest-bearing, 10-year promissory note.

The present value of the purchase consideration at the closing date, net of transaction costs, amounted to $390.4 million. As a result of the partial sale, the company derecognized the assets, liabilities and non-controlling interest of Kamoa Holding, recognized the investment retained at its fair value, deemed to be $408.2 million at the time. This resulted in the gain associated with the sale of $357.7 million and the re-measurement to fair value of the interest retained in the joint venture of $376.1 million.

Subsequent to the partial sale, the company accounted for Kamoa Holding as a joint venture using the equity method of accounting.

When excluding the 2015 gain on the partial sale of Kamoa Holding of $357.7 million and the re-measurement to fair value of the interest retained in the joint venture of $376.1 million, the company's total comprehensive loss for the year ending December 31, 2015, amounted to $65.5 million. This is $29.7 million higher than the total comprehensive loss for the same period in 2016 of $35.8 million. The decrease mainly was due to exchange gains on translation of foreign operations of $10.2 million recognized in 2016 compared to an exchange loss on translation of foreign operations of $20.7 million in 2015, as well as the company's share of losses from the Kamoa Holding joint venture that increased from $1.0 million in 2015 to $21.7 million in 2016.

The increase in finance income of $27.7 million, together with an $8.3 million decrease in exploration and project expenditure, also contributed to the decreased comprehensive loss for the period, but was partly offset by the company's mark-to-market gain on revaluation of warrants of $6.9 million that expired during December 2015.

Finance income for the year ending December 31, 2016, amounted to $29.9 million, and was $27.7 million more than for the same period in 2015 ($2.2 million). The increase mainly was due to interest earned on loans to the Kamoa Holding joint venture that amounted to $16.2 million in 2016, together with deemed finance income on the purchase price receivable from the partial sale of the Kamoa-Kakula Project, of $11.0 million.

The following table summarizes the company's share of the comprehensive loss of Kamoa Holding for the year ending December 31, 2016, and for 2015, from December 8, when the company sold 50.5% of its interest in Kamoa Holding:

Year ended Year ended December 31, December 31, 2016 2015 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- $'000 $'000 Interest expense 32,438 1,806 Interest income (111) - Exploration costs 14,743 482 Foreign exchange loss (gain) 187 (117) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loss for the period 47,257 2,171 Loss attributible to non-controlling interest (3,354) (89) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loss for the period attributible to joint venture partners 43,903 2,082 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Company's share of losses from joint venture (49.5%) 21,732 1,030 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The costs associated with mine development are capitalized as development costs in Kamoa Holding, while the exploration expenditure at Kakula is expensed. The interest expense in the Kamoa Holding joint venture relates to shareholder loans where each shareholder is required to fund Kamoa Holding in an amount equivalent to its proportionate shareholding interest.

Exploration and project expenditures for the year ending December 31, 2016, amounted to $32.4 million and were $8.4 million less than for the same period in 2015 ($40.8 million). The $4.1 million retrenchment costs incurred in 2015 relating to the closure of Ivanhoe's regional exploration company in the DRC was the main reason for the decrease, together with reduced expenditure at the Kipushi Project.

With the focus at the Platreef Project on development and the Kamoa-Kakula Project being accounted for as a joint venture, $31.7 million of the total $32.4 million exploration and project expenditure related to the Kipushi Project. Expenditure at the Kipushi Project decreased by $2.0 million compared to the same period in 2015.

Financial position as at December 31, 2016 vs. December 31, 2015

The company's total assets decreased by $20.3 million, from $1,022.6 million as at December 31, 2015, to $1,002.2 million as at December 31, 2016. This resulted from the company utilizing its cash resources in its operations. The company's total liabilities increased by $2.2 million to $46.0 million as at December 31, 2016, from $43.8 million as at December 31, 2015.

The remaining purchase price receivable due to the company as a result of the sale of 49.5% of Kamoa Holding decreased as the company received $134.3 million from Zijin during 2016. The present value of the remaining consideration receivable, net of transaction costs, was $76.2 million as at December 31, 2016. Ivanhoe received $41.2 million of the remaining consideration receivable subsequent to December 31, 2016, on February 8, 2017, and the last installment is due on May 23, 2017.

The company's investment in the Kamoa Holding joint venture increased by $61.6 million from $412.0 as at December 31, 2015, to $473.6 million as at December 31, 2016, with the current shareholders funding the operations equivalent to their proportionate shareholding interest. The company's portion of the Kamoa Holding joint venture cash calls amounted to $58.4 million during 2016, while the company's share of comprehensive loss from joint venture amounted to $21.7 million. At Kamoa-Kakula, the focus remained on development, together with an exploration program at the Kakula Discovery.

Property, plant and equipment increased by $48.4 million, with a total of $43.5 million being spent on project development and to acquire other property, plant and equipment, $40.3 million of which pertained to development costs of the Platreef Project.

The company utilized $31.0 million of its cash resources in its operations and earned interest income of $2.7 million in 2016.

SELECTED QUARTERLY FINANCIAL INFORMATION

The following table summarizes selected financial information for the prior eight quarters. Ivanhoe had no operating revenue in any financial reporting period and did not declare or pay any dividend or distribution in any financial reporting period.

3 Months ended ------------------------------------------------------ December 31, September 30, June 30, March 31, 2016 2016 2016 2016 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- $'000 $'000 $'000 $'000 Exploration and project expenditure 9,507 7,769 8,233 6,917 General administrative expenditure 7,272 4,213 3,657 3,693 Share-based payments 1,442 1,750 1,312 1,473 Finance income (6,827) (7,239) (7,367) (8,469) Finance costs 471 454 445 428 Total comprehensive loss (profit) attributable to: Owners of the Company 14,101 (1,860) 6,568 4,203 Non-controlling interest 3,914 2,445 3,483 2,897 Loss per share (basic and diluted) 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.01 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 Months ended ------------------------------------------------------ December 31, September 30, June 30, March 31, 2015 2015 2015 2015 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- $'000 $'000 $'000 $'000 Exploration and project expenditure (i) 10,271 8,553 9,009 12,918 General administrative expenditure (i) 5,833 4,430 1,323 5,859 Share-based payments 2,345 1,655 1,736 1,986 Gain on partial sale of subsidiary (357,671) - - - Re-measurement to fair value of the interest retained in joint venture (376,148) - - - Finance income (1,191) (273) (445) (295) Finance costs 1,556 36 48 34 Mark-to-market gain on revaluation of warrants (429) (970) (1,334) (4,212) Loss (gain) from subsidiary held for partial sale 755 (7,958) 2,675 209 Total comprehensive loss attributable to: Owners of the Company (717,213) 9,420 11,008 15,511 Non-controlling interest 2,468 3,439 3,564 3,498 (Profit) loss per share (basic and diluted) (0.93) 0.00 0.01 0.02 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (i) Prior period amounts have been amended to show the (gains)/losses from subsidiary held for partial sale separately in order to improve comparability.

LIQUIDITY AND CAPITAL RESOURCES

The company had $285.0 million in cash and cash equivalents as at December 31, 2016. Certain of the company's cash and cash equivalents, having an aggregate value of $19.8 million, are subject to contractual restrictions as to their use and are reserved for the Platreef Project.

As at December 31, 2016, the company had consolidated working capital of approximately $364.8 million, compared to $424.6 million at December 31, 2015. The Platreef Project working capital is restricted and amounted to $14.8 million at December 31, 2016, and $53.2 million at December 31, 2015. Excluding the Platreef Project working capital, the resultant working capital was $350.0 million at December 31, 2016, and $371.4 million at December 31, 2015. The company believes it has sufficient resources to cover its short-term cash requirements. However, the company's access to financing always is uncertain and there can be no assurance that additional funding will be available to the company in the near future.

On December 8, 2015, Zijin, through a subsidiary company, acquired a 49.5% interest in Kamoa Holding for a total of $412 million in a series of payments. Ivanhoe received an initial $206 million from Zijin on December 8, 2015, and a further $41.2 million on each of March 23, 2016, July 8, 2016, October 25, 2016, and February 8, 2017; the last remaining $41.2 million is scheduled to be received on May 23, 2017. Since December 8, 2015, each shareholder in Kamoa Holding has been required to fund Kamoa Holding in an amount equivalent to its proportionate shareholding interest.

The company's main objectives for 2017 at the Platreef Project are the completion of the phase one feasibility study, the continuation of Shaft 1 construction and commencement of construction of Shaft 2. At Kipushi, the principal objective is the completion of the pre-feasibility study and continued upgrading of mining infrastructure. At the Kamoa-Kakula Project, priorities are the continuation of drilling, the continuation of construction of the twin declines at Kamoa and the commencement of a box cut at Kakula. The company expects to spend $60 million on further development at the Platreef Project; $33 million at the Kipushi Project; and $15 million on corporate overheads in 2017 - as well as its proportionate funding of the Kamoa-Kakula Project, expected to be $55 million for 2017.

This news release should be read in conjunction with Ivanhoe Mines' audited 2016 Financial Statements and Management's Discussion and Analysis report available at www.ivanhoemines.com and at www.sedar.com.

Qualified Person

Disclosures of a scientific or technical nature in this news release have been reviewed and approved by Stephen Torr, who is considered, by virtue of his education, experience and professional association, a Qualified Person under the terms of NI 43-101. Mr. Torr is not considered independent under NI 43-101 as he is the Vice President, Project Geology and Evaluation. Mr. Torr has verified the technical data disclosed in this news release.

Ivanhoe has prepared a current independent NI 43-101-compliant technical report for each of the Platreef Project, the Kipushi Project and the Kamoa-Kakula Project, which are available under the company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com:

-- Technical Report dated January 20, 2017 prepared by OreWin Pty. Ltd., AMEC and SRK Consulting Inc. covering the company's Kamoa-Kakula Project; -- Technical Report dated April 22, 2016 prepared by OreWin, AMEC, Stantec Inc., SRK and DRA Projects (Pty.) Ltd. covering the company's Platreef Project; and -- Technical Report dated March 11, 2016 prepared by MSA Group (Pty) Ltd and OreWin covering the company's Kipushi Project.

These technical reports include relevant information regarding the effective dates and the assumptions, parameters and methods of the mineral resource estimates on the Platreef Project, the Kipushi Project and the Kamoa-Kakula Project cited in this news release, as well as information regarding data verification, exploration procedures and other matters relevant to the scientific and technical disclosure contained in this news release in respect of the Platreef Project, Kipushi Project and Kamoa-Kakula Project.

Forward-looking statements

Certain statements in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such statements and information involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company, its projects, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. Such statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "expect", "believe", "plan", "anticipate", "estimate", "scheduled", "forecast", "predict" and other similar terminology, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. These statements reflect the company's current expectations regarding future events, performance and results and speak only as of the date of this news release.

Such statements include without limitation, the timing and results of: (i) statements regarding Shaft 1 providing initial access for early underground development at the Flatreef Deposit; (ii) statements regarding the station development of Shaft 1 at the 450, 750, 850 and 950-metre levels; (iii) statements regarding the sinking of Shaft 1, including that a sinking rate of 45 metres per month is expected; (iv) statements regarding Shaft 1 reaching the planned, final depth at 980 metres below surface in 2018; (v) statements regarding the timing of the commencement of Shaft 2 development, including that construction is to commence in 2017; (vi) statements regarding the operational and technical capacity of Shaft 1; (vii) statements regarding the internal diameter and hoisting capacity of Shaft 2; (viii) statements regarding the company's plans to develop the Platreef Mine in three phases: an initial annual rate of four million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) to establish an operating platform to support future expansions; followed by a doubling of production to eight Mtpa; and then a third expansion phase to a steady-state 12 Mtpa; (ix) statements regarding the planned underground mining methods of the Platreef Project including long-hole stoping and drift-and-fill mining; (x) statements regarding the expectation to start the construction of the Platreef Project's box cut for Shaft 2 in Q2 2017; (xi) statements regarding peak water use of 10 million litres per day at the Platreef Project and development of the Pruissen Pipeline Project; (xii) statements regarding the Platreef Project's estimated electricity requirement of 100 million volt-amperes; (xiii) statements regarding the completion of a feasibility study at the Platreef Project in the first half of 2017; (xiv) statements regarding the declines having been designed to intersect the high-grade copper mineralization in the Kansoko Sud area during the first quarter of 2017; (xv) statements regarding the timing, size and objectives of drilling and other exploration programs for 2017 and future periods including a metallurgical drilling campaign at the Kakula deposit planned for the second quarter of 2017 and increased exploration diamond drilling activity in 2017; (xvi) statements regarding the implementation of Social and Labour Plan at the Platreef Project and pledged expenditure of R160 million; (xvii) statements regarding the expectation to have an updated mineral resource for the Kakula Discovery released in early Q2; (xviii) statements that the Kakula box cut is expected to take approximately six months; and (xix) statements regarding expected expenditure in 2017 of $60 million on further development at the Platreef Project; $33 million at the Kipushi Project; and $15 million on corporate overheads - as well as its proportionate funding of the Kamoa-Kakula Project, expected to be $55 million in 2017.

As well, all of the results of the pre-feasibility study of the Kamoa-Kakula Project and preliminary economic assessment of development options for the Kakula deposit, the pre-feasibility study of the Platreef Project and the preliminary economic assessment of the Kipushi Project constitute forward-looking statements or information, and include future estimates of internal rates of return, net present value, future production, estimates of cash cost, proposed mining plans and methods, mine life estimates, cash flow forecasts, metal recoveries, estimates of capital and operating costs and the size and timing of phased development of the projects. Furthermore, with respect to this specific forward-looking information concerning the development of the Kamoa-Kakula, Platreef and Kipushi Projects, the company has based its assumptions and analysis on certain factors that are inherently uncertain. Uncertainties include: (i) the adequacy of infrastructure; (ii) geological characteristics; (iii) metallurgical characteristics of the mineralization; (iv) the ability to develop adequate processing capacity; (v) the price of copper, nickel, zinc, platinum, palladium, rhodium and gold; (vi) the availability of equipment and facilities necessary to complete development; (vii) the cost of consumables and mining and processing equipment; (viii) unforeseen technological and engineering problems; (ix) accidents or acts of sabotage or terrorism; (x) currency fluctuations; (xi) changes in regulations; (xii) the compliance by joint venture partners with terms of agreements, (xiii) the availability and productivity of skilled labour; (xiv) the regulation of the mining industry by various governmental agencies; and (xv) political factors.

This news release also contains references to estimates of Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. The estimation of Mineral Resources is inherently uncertain and involves subjective judgments about many relevant factors. Estimates of Mineral Reserves provide more certainty but still involve similar subjective judgements. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The accuracy of any such estimates is a function of the quantity and quality of available data, and of the assumptions made and judgments used in engineering and geological interpretation (including estimated future production from the company's projects, the anticipated tonnages and grades that will be mined and the estimated level of recovery that will be realized), which may prove to be unreliable and depend, to a certain extent, upon the analysis of drilling results and statistical inferences that ultimately may prove to be inaccurate. Mineral Resource or Mineral Reserve estimates may have to be re-estimated based on: (i) fluctuations in copper, nickel, zinc, platinum group elements (PGE), gold or other mineral prices; (ii) results of drilling; (iii) metallurgical testing and other studies; (iv) proposed mining operations, including dilution; (v) the evaluation of mine plans subsequent to the date of any estimates and/or changes in mine plans; (vi) the possible failure to receive required permits, approvals and licenses; and (vii) changes in law or regulation.

Forward-looking statements and information involve significant risks and uncertainties, should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results and will not necessarily be accurate indicators of whether or not such results will be achieved. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements or information, including, but not limited to, the factors discussed below and under "Risk Factors", as well as unexpected changes in laws, rules or regulations, or their enforcement by applicable authorities; the failure of parties to contracts with the company to perform as agreed; social or labour unrest; changes in commodity prices; and the failure of exploration programs or studies to deliver anticipated results or results that would justify and support continued exploration, studies, development or operations.

Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the company believes are reasonable assumptions, the company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Subject to applicable securities laws, the company does not assume any obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this news release.

The company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of the factors set forth in the "Risk Factors" section and elsewhere in the company's MD&A.

Contacts:

Ivanhoe Mines - Investors

Bill Trenaman

+1.604.331.9834



Ivanhoe Mines - Media

North America:

Bob Williamson

+1.604.512.4856



South Africa:

Jeremy Michaels

+27.82.939.4812

www.ivanhoemines.com




TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - March 28, 2017) - Kinross Gold Corporation (TSX: K) (NYSE: KGC) announced today that it has agreed to sell its 25% interest in the Cerro Casale project in Chile, and its 100% interest in the Quebrada Seca exploration project located adjacent to Cerro Casale, to Goldcorp Inc. ("Goldcorp") for the following consideration:

US$260 million in cash, payable at closing (which includes US$20 million for Quebrada Seca);

US$40 million in cash, payable following a construction decision for Cerro Casale;

Assumption by Goldcorp of a US$20 million payment obligation due to Barrick Gold Corporation ("Barrick") under the existing Cerro Casale shareholders agreement, which is payable when commercial production at Cerro Casale commences;

A 1.25% royalty from Goldcorp based on 25% of gross revenues from all metals sold at Cerro Casale and Quebrada Seca, with Kinross foregoing the first US$10 million.

Additionally, on closing Kinross will enter into a water supply agreement with the Cerro Casale joint venture. After certain conditions are met, the agreement will provide Kinross with certain rights to access, up to a fixed amount, water not required by the Cerro Casale joint venture. Kinross expects to use this water for its Chilean assets and would be responsible for the incremental capital costs to accommodate the supply of water to the Company along with its pro rata share of operating and maintenance costs.

Kinross expects to use the proceeds from the sale for its organic development projects and to further strengthen its balance sheet.

The sale is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2017, subject to customary conditions of closing as well as the closing of Goldcorp's acquisition from Barrick of a 25% interest in the Cerro Casale project.

About Kinross Gold Corporation

Kinross is a Canadian-based senior gold mining company with mines and projects in the United States, Brazil, Russia, Mauritania, Chile and Ghana. Our focus is on delivering value based on the core principles of operational excellence, balance sheet strength, disciplined growth and responsible mining. Kinross maintains listings on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: K) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: KGC).

Cautionary statement on forward-looking information

All statements, other than statements of historical fact, contained in this news release, including any information as to the future financial or operating performance of Kinross, constitute "forward-looking information" or "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of certain securities laws, including the provisions of the Securities Act (Ontario) and the "safe harbor" provisions under the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are based on the expectations, estimates and projections of management as of the date of this news release unless otherwise stated. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by Kinross as of the date of such statements, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. The estimates and assumptions of Kinross contained in this news release, which may prove to be incorrect, include, but are not limited to: (i) the various assumptions set forth herein; (ii) that Kinross will complete the sale of its interests in Cerro Casale and Quebrada Seca in accordance with, and on the timeline contemplated by, the terms and conditions of the relevant agreements, on a basis consistent with our current expectations; (iii) that any contingent payment contemplated by the purchase agreements governing the sale or the royalty will be paid to Kinross, (iv) that a construction decision will be made by the Cerro Casale joint venture; (v) that the conditions will be met under the water supply agreement to allow Kinross to exercise its rights to access water thereunder; and (vi) that Kinross will use the proceeds from the sale as described herein. The forward-looking information set forth in this news release is subject to various risks and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking information, including the risk that the sale transaction will not be completed for any reason. Certain of these risks, factors, estimates and assumptions are described in more detail in Kinross' most recently filed Annual Information Form in the section entitled "Risk Factors" and the "Risk Analysis" section of our most recently filed Management's Discussion and Analysis, to which readers are referred and which are incorporated by reference in this news release. In addition, all forward-looking statements made in this news release are qualified by the full "Cautionary Statement" in such Annual Information Form and the "Cautionary Statement on Forward Looking Information" in such Management's Discussion and Analysis. These risks, factors, estimates and assumptions are not exhaustive. Kinross disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, or to explain any material difference between subsequent actual events and such forward-looking statements, except to the extent required by applicable law.

Investor Relations Contact

Tom Elliott

Senior Vice-President, Investor Relations and Corporate Development

phone: 416-365-3390

tom.elliott@kinross.com



Media Contact

Louie Diaz

Director, Corporate Communications

phone: 416-369-6469

louie.diaz@kinross.com


TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- Editors Note: There is an image associated with this press release.

Emerita Resources Corp. (the "Company" or "Emerita") (TSX VENTURE: EMO) has received a written resolution from the Seventh Provincial Court of Seville (the "Court") pursuant to which the Court has ruled against the request by Minorbis SL ("Minorbis"), a competitor bidder in the Aznalcollar project tender process, the Andalucian government panel (the "Panel") responsible for awarding the Aznalcollar project, and the former Director of Mines of the Government of Andalucia (collectively, the "Accused"), to dismiss the ongoing criminal case against them.

The criminal case in connection with the Aznalcollar project tender was re-opened in October 2016 following a successful appeal by Emerita of the lower court's decision that there was not sufficient evidence of a criminal act in such tender process (see the Company's press release issued on October 28, 2016).

In denying the Accused's request to dismiss the case, the Court described the Accused's arguments as unfounded and reiterated that there is sufficient evidence of gross negligence and misconduct by the Accused that it is necessary to continue investigating whether criminal acts were committed by the Accused. The Court, in its resolution, stated: "It is necessary to investigate the case as there are indications of the crime of prevarication thereby we reject all the appeals presented by the accused."

The Court also emphasized that the role of the appellate courts is to review the findings and evidence from the lower courts to determine if the lower court has correctly applied the law. The Court's resolution also strongly criticized the lower court's ruling that there was not sufficient evidence of a potential crime by the Accused. The Court has also ruled that the Accused must pay for the costs associated with the Accused's unfounded appeal to dismiss the ongoing proceedings as well as barring the Accused from bringing similar appeals in respect of this case going forward.

The Aznalcollar project appears to have been awarded to Minera Los Frailes SL ("Los Frailes"), a company that did not participate in the public tender process. The Court has indicated that this result is highly irregular, inconsistent with the laws and regulations governing public tenders in Spain and further investigations need to be made to determine if there were any criminal acts committed in connection therewith. The Court has requested that the Junta de Andalucia (the "Junta") confirm whether it has formally granted the rights to the Aznalcollar project to Los Frailes. This specific request has been made several times by the Court and to date the Junta has not provided the Court with the relevant documentation. The Andalusian Government website indicates that Los Frailes is the company that accepted the Aznalcollar project although documentation supporting such result has not been made public or disclosed to the Court.

The Court has ordered the Spanish federal police to continue investigating the Accused's actions in connection with the Aznalcollar project tender including reviewing the Accused's email correspondence, invoices and payments made and received during the applicable period of time.

Joaquin Merino, CEO of Emerita, commented: "This resolution of the Seventh Provincial Court of Seville is a further positive step in properly resolving the Aznalcollar public tender and brings an end to frivolous appeals that have slowed down the legal process. Emerita's Spanish legal counsel has advised Emerita that under Spanish law, should the commission of a crime occur in the awarding of a public tender, such bid will be disqualified and the tender is required to be awarded to the next qualified bidder. Emerita strongly believes that it is the only qualified bidder in the Aznalcollar tender process. Emerita remains committed to working with the community of Aznalcollar to develop the Aznalcollar project in an environmentally responsible manner to benefit all stakeholders."

About the Aznalcollar Project

The key focus of the Aznalcollar project, if the project is awarded to Emerita, would be the development of the Los Frailes deposit as an underground mining operation. The deposit thickness ranges between 30 and 90 metres. The thickest section of the ore body lies below 150 metres depth from surface. The Los Frailes and the previously mined Aznalcollar deposits are both open for further expansion by drilling at depth, as historical drilling was primarily constrained to depths accessible by open pit mining.

The historical Los Frailes open pit mineral resource, as calculated by the previous operator of the mine, was estimated to be 71 million tonnes grading 3.86% zinc, 2.18% lead, 0.34% copper and 60 ppm silver. A review of the historical drilling data indicates the potential existence of a higher grade portion of the resource that is estimated to contain 20 million tonnes grading 6.65% zinc, 3.87% lead, 0.29% copper and 84 ppm silver. This higher grade resource has been modeled by Emerita and would be the focus for the underground mining operation (see Figure 1).

A qualified person, as defined in National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101"), has not done sufficient work on behalf of Emerita to classify the historical estimate as a current mineral resource and Emerita is not treating the historical estimate as a current mineral resource or mineral reserve. The resource estimate is a historical estimate and should not be relied upon. A summary of the historical resource estimate is available on the Government of Andalucia's web site in a report prepared by the prior operator of the Aznalcollar Project entitled "Proyecto de Explotacion Yacimiento Los Frailes, Memoria Andaluza de Piritas, Boliden- Apirsa, Octubre 1994" (Los Frailes Development project Report, Boliden-Apirsa, October 1994) along with subsequent resource estimate updates, the latest being from 2000.

Qualified Person

Joaquin Merino is a "qualified person" as such term is defined in NI 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information included in this press release and has approved its dissemination.

About Emerita Resources Corp.

Emerita is a natural resource company engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of mineral properties with a primary focus on exploring in Spain and Brazil. The Company's corporate office and technical team are based in Sevilla, Spain with an administrative office in Toronto, Canada.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Information

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, without limitation, statements regarding the Aznalcollar project, the significance of the Court's rulings, the significance of the Court's actions, the results of any appeals or judicial or administrative proceedings in connection with the Aznalcollar project, participation in any public tenders, the ability of the Company to be granted any mining rights pursuant to a public tender process, the potential of the Aznalcollar project, historical mineral resource estimates for the Aznalcollar project, the mineralization of the Aznalcollar project and the Company's future plans. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Emerita, as the case may be, to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to: general business, economic, competitive, geopolitical and social uncertainties; the actual results of current exploration activities; risks associated with operation in foreign jurisdictions; ability to successfully integrate purchased properties or mining rights awarded; foreign operations risks; and other risks inherent in the mining industry. Although Emerita has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Emerita does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

NEITHER TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

To view the image associated with this release (Figure 1), please visit the following link: http://www.marketwire.com/library/20170327-Emerita-F1-gr.png

Contacts:

Emerita Resources Corp.

Joaquin Merino

+34 (628) 1754 66 (Spain)



Emerita Resources Corp.

Helia Bento

+1 416 309 4293 (Toronto)

info@emeritaresources.com




ANN ARBOR, MI -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- ONL Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapies for preserving sight in a range of retinal diseases, today announced new appointments and promotions involving the company's board of directors and management team. The company has appointed Christine (Chris) Gibbons as a new, independent member of its board of directors, replacing departing board member, William F. Brinkerhoff. Additionally, ONL has strengthened its operational team, appointing Jana van de Goor, Ph.D., as vice president of project operations, while promoting Linda Johnson to senior vice president of operational excellence and Andrew Kocab, Ph.D., to manager of research operations. Collectively, these changes are designed to further supplement ONL's leadership as it continues to advance its innovative retinal cell protection technology.

"Chris is a valuable addition to our board based on her extensive experience in supporting early-stage medical and technology companies in areas ranging from fundraising to operations. While we look forward to her guidance as we continue to grow and mature as a company, we also want to thank Bill Brinkerhoff for his years of service as a member of our board and wish him well in his future endeavors," said John Freshley, chief executive officer of ONL Therapeutics. "The expansion of our internal operations team with the addition of Jana and promotions of Linda and Andrew will serve to support our near-term efforts aimed at ramping up our development of ONL1204. Following recent developments including receipt of an NEI grant and closing of a round of interim financing, this strategic expansion of our leadership team further signals the progress we are making in our efforts to develop products that can change the lives of patients with ocular diseases."

Ms. Gibbons has more than thirty years of financial management, fundraising and operating experience. For the past twenty years, she has been deeply involved with early-stage emerging technology companies, both as an investor and a member of entrepreneurial management teams. Together with other founders, she has raised over $80 million in start-up capital to launch and support fourteen new ventures. Ms. Gibbons currently serves as co-founder and chief operating officer of HistoSonics, Inc., a medical device company developing a non-invasive, image-guided, highly precise tissue ablation technology for cost effective treatments of significant cancers and diseases.

Prior to HistoSonics, she has held various leadership roles in entrepreneurial ventures including Executive in Residence (EIR) for Venture Investors, LLC, chief financial officer for Sensicore, a company with lab-on-a-chip sensor products (acquired by a division of GE), vice president of finance for Ardesta, an investor in "small-tech" opportunities and partner and chief financial officer of Seaflower Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage biomedical opportunities. Ms. Gibbons also serves as an advisor to Apjohn Ventures Fund LP, is a member of the University of Michigan's Venture Center Council and is an advisory board member of Michigan State University's Center for Venture Capital, Private Equity and Entrepreneurial Finance.

Dr. van de Goor joins ONL following more than 15 years at Genentech, where she held a range of research and development positions of increasing responsibility. Most recently, she served as a global project team leader for KADCYLA, a first-in-class antibody drug conjugate for the treatment of HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer, and several other oncology clinical candidates. As a leader of these cross-functional teams, she was responsible for the development of clinical candidates from pre-IND phase through clinical development and launch. Earlier in her career with Genentech, Dr. van de Goor led research efforts into the molecular mechanism of cell death and contributed to the development of novel cell lines expressing apoptosis inhibitors to prolong cell viability. She will leverage her expertise on cell death in her new role with ONL, where she will be responsible for leading the company's ongoing development efforts for ONL1204. Dr. van de Goor has served as a consultant to ONL since 2014.

Ms. Johnson, who joined ONL in late 2014 as senior vice president of operations, will now serve as the company's senior vice president of operational excellence. In this new role, she will be responsible for overseeing efforts to scale the company's operational processes and entrepreneurial culture to align with the ongoing advancement of the ONL1204 program. Ms. Johnson has over 20 years of pharmaceutical industry experience with responsibilities ranging from principal research scientist through development team leader. Prior to joining ONL, she served as an executive director for Pfizer Worldwide Development. In that role, she led global, multi-disciplinary teams in the development of more than 30 clinical candidates across a wide range of therapeutic areas and through all phases of drug development. During her final two years with Pfizer, Linda served as a global leader, overseeing the development and clinical activities for a therapeutic portfolio of 10 - 15 candidates.

Since joining ONL in 2015, Dr. Kocab has played a key role supporting senior leadership in a range of efforts spanning both corporate and research activities. Importantly, he recently spearheaded the development and submission of grant applications to the National Institutes of Health and Orphan Drug applications to the United States Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Kocab's research background involves cell signaling pathways related to cell death and inflammation. Specifically, he has undertaken research into the signaling from receptors closely related to Fas, as well as the effector proteins involved in regulating these processes. This expertise will be particularly relevant in his new role as he continues to build ONL's fundamental understanding of how Fas inhibitors may protect key retinal cells, including photoreceptors, from cell death that occurs in a range of retinal diseases and conditions.

About ONL1204

ONL1204 is a novel, first-in-class small molecule Fas inhibitor designed to protect key retinal cells, including photoreceptors, from cell death that occurs in a range of retinal diseases and conditions. Death of these retinal cells, both direct and via inflammatory signalling, is the root cause of vision loss and the leading cause of blindness. The company is initially developing ONL1204 for the treatment of retinal detachment, a condition for which the compound has been granted orphan drug designation by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). While initial development efforts are focused on retinal detachment, preclinical in vivo data along with a growing body of literature support potential application in several additional ocular diseases including age related macular degeneration (AMD).

About ONL Therapeutics

ONL Therapeutics (ONL) is a biopharmaceutical company committed to protecting and improving the vision of patients with retinal disease. By advancing a novel breakthrough technology designed to prevent activation of the Fas-pathway and the resulting death of key retinal cells, ONL is pioneering an entirely new approach to preserving sight. The death of key retinal cells, both direct and via inflammatory signaling, is the root cause of vision loss and leading cause of blindness, and is implicated in a wide range of retinal diseases, including retinal detachment and both the wet and dry forms of age related macular degeneration (AMD).

For more information about ONL Therapeutics, please visit www.onltherapeutics.com.

Contacts:



ONL Therapeutics, Inc.

John Freshley

President and Chief Executive Officer

Email Contact

(734) 926-5530



Vida Strategic Partners (On behalf of ONL)



Stephanie Diaz (investors)

Email Contact

(415) 675-7401



Tim Brons (media)

Email Contact

(415) 675-7402




CHICAGO, IL -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- America will celebrate the 25th anniversary of one of its defining mow-ments on April 1, the birth of the U.S. Lawn Mower Racing Association (USLMRA) and its STA-BIL Lawn Mower Racing Series. Since the USLMRA was founded on April Fool's Day in 1992, the oldest and largest national mower racing sanctioning body has mowed its way into the hearts of fun-loving racing enthusiasts across America.

"We never could have predicted 25 years ago when STA-BIL sponsored the first USLMRA race that lawn mower racing would become such an iconic sport with such an incredibly loyal following," said Marc Blackman, CEO of Gold Eagle Co. "A quarter of a century later, it's bigger than ever, and we are proud to put our name on the sport."

In honor of its twenty-fifth year, the USLMRA and title sponsor, STA-BIL brand fuel stabilizer, will host racing events in three locations on the anniversary, kicking off the racing season in kick grass fashion. Turf Titans will gather in Gun Barrel City, Texas for the STA-BIL Southern Shootout, Davenport, Iowa for the Mecum Gone Farmin' Tractor Auction and Green Cove Springs, Fla for the Clay County Fair for Southern Mower Madness where racers' 'mowtivation' will be on full display while they compete for trophies, glory, bragging rights and, mow-st importantly, birthday cake.

"We're celebrating 25 years of kicking grass, family fun, American ingenuity and adventure," said "Mr. Mow It All," USLMRA President, Bruce Kaufman. "No matter where we mow, there we are!"

Some say the grass is always greener on the other side (of the pond), and this year, the STA-BIL National Lawn Mower Racing Series will welcome old friends from the British Lawn Mower Racing Association in St. Mary's County, MD on July 28-30. The British Race Weekend will also feature the annual induction ceremonies for the USLMRA National Lawn Mower Racing Hall of Fame, a sod after honor for turf titans nationwide.

"It will be the British Invasion all over again, with 20 UK racers competing on racing mowers provided by their U.S. counterparts. All systems are mow!" said Kaufman.

The STA-BIL Lawn Mower Racing Series season has a great lineup of races across the country in 19 states for fans to get their mow on, including:

Feb 18-19 - Florida State Fair, Tampa, Fla.

March 10-11 - Southern Regional Championships, Avon Park, Fla.

March 30-April 1 - Mecum Gone Farmin Tractor Auction, Davenport, Iowa

March 31-April 1 - Clay County Fair, Green Cove Springs, Fla.

April 1-2 - Gun Barrel City, Texas,

June 24-25 - Midwest Regional Championships, Claremore, OK

July 1-2 - Western Regional Championships, Wamic, OR

July 28-30 - British Mow Down Show Down & Hall of Fame, Clements, MD

August 12 - Illinois State Fair, Springfield, Ill.

August 26-27 - Apple River, Ill.

Sept. 2 - STA-BIL 360 Performance Finals, Carlisle, Iowa

For more information about Gold Eagle and the USLMRA, please visit www.goldeagle.com and www.letsmow.com.

About Gold Eagle Co.

For 85 years, Gold Eagle Co. has been an industry pioneer in the production and distribution of aftermarket fluids and additives. We create products that help preserve, protect and enhance the performance of engines everywhere. We are a leader in the product development, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of branded engine performance and maintenance chemicals. Privately held and headquartered in Chicago, Gold Eagle Co. is the manufacturer of leading brands, including STA-BIL Fuel Stabilizer, HEET Gas-Line Antifreeze, NO LEAK Treatments, 104+ Octane Boost, Start Your Engines!, DieselPower! Diesel Additives, 303 Products and TriNova cleaners and protectants. To view our complete line of Gold Eagle products or learn more about the Company, please visit http://www.goldeagle.com or "like" our STA-BIL, 303 Products, Start Your Engines! or Engine Answerman pages on Facebook. For product questions, please call us at 800-621-1251 or follow us on Twitter @GoldEagleHelp.

All trademarks, service marks and trade names, including STA-BIL, HEET, Start Your Engines! , NO LEAK, ALUMASEAL, Gold Eagle, DieselPower! , Golden Touch, 104+, Cool Rides Online, 303 Products, TriNova used herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of Gold Eagle Co. The aforesaid families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of Gold Eagle Co. Any other product or company names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.

About the U.S. Lawn Mower Racing Association (USLMRA)

Founded on April 1, 1992, the United States Lawn Mower Racing Association (USLMRA) sanctions and presents organized lawn mower racing across America including the 18-race STA-BIL National Lawn Mower Racing Series and a network of 50 Local Chapters and Affiliated Clubs hosting more than 250 sanctioned races nationwide every year. STA-BIL lawn mower racers compete in ten classes with all cutting blades removed for trophies, points and bragging rights. Since its inception, USLMRA Title Sponsor is STA-BIL Fuel Stabilizer and STA-BIL 360 Performance, industry leaders in proper fuel management. Associate sponsors include K&N Filters and M.E. Miller Tire Co.

Founded in 2009, the USLMRA National Lawn Mower Racing Hall of Fame is a place of honor for Turf Titans who have turned a weekend chore into a competitive sport. The USLMRA National Lawn Mower Racing Hall of Fame & Museum of America is located at Miller Lawn and Power, 1299 Harding Highway East State Road 309, Marion, Ohio.

Media Contact:

Bruce Kaufman

Gold Eagle Co.

O: 773.326.6302

M: 847.989.3705

bkaufman@goldeagle.com




NEW YORK, NY -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- Competitive Telecoms Group, Inc. ('CTG'), one of the leading consulting and recruiting companies in the Telecommunications and Data Center space, with nearly 100 global carrier and Data Center clients, announces the expansion of its consulting group with the addition of industry veteran, Larry Fisher.

Mr. Fisher is well-known throughout the telecom industry for his role in managing new product development for Sprint and later led MCI's (now Verizon) partnership with IBM. The partnership between IBM drove over $500 million in annual outsourcing contracts for MCI. He later parlayed this experience for NTT America, the second largest telecom group in the world, where he became SVP of Sales and Services. In addition, while at Dun & Bradstreet, Larry first led the new product development team for the Marketing Services division then later served as Vice President of Strategic Alliances where he was instrumental in developing the company's partner distribution strategy. The Dun & Bradstreet partner distribution strategy Larry put in place secured relationships with SalesForce.com, Oracle, Microsoft, IBM and others. Most recently, Larry led development of Financial markets at both Coresite and QTS.

"Larry will become our Vice President, Consulting Services with a key focus on our growing Data Center sales, support and transaction activities. While best known for our recruiting capabilities, CTG continues to expand our Consulting, Board Placement and M&A practice with major industry players such as The Carlyle Group, Verizon, Neustar, Cerberus Capital, Aon, Telarix, Allstream and many others," says Jerry DeMartino, CEO of Competitive Telecoms Group, and former President of MCI International and CEO of GlobeNet.

CTG is building a team of truly talented executives with diverse expertise to handle virtually any assignment, anywhere. By incorporating consulting with recruiting, CTG has the ability to reach into its extensive database of executives worldwide to manage projects that require skills in every segment of the industry.

CTG is excited about its new partners and direction and looks forward to discussing its capabilities at The Channel Partner show in Vegas on April 10th through the 13th and International Telecoms Week (ITW) in Chicago from May 14th through the 17th.

To learn more about Competitive Telecoms Group, visit www.competitivetelecoms.com or call 1.914.248.5991

About Competitive Telecoms Group, Inc.

CTG is a specialist executive placement and advisory firm for the telecommunications industry. With an extensive proprietary database, experienced recruiters and proven executive leadership, the company's knowledge, speed and network remain unmatched.

Competitive Telecoms Group (CTG) was founded in 1999 in New York by Jerry DeMartino, former President of MCI International, the multi-billion dollar subsidiary of MCI. After more than 26 years as a senior executive holding senior positions in strategy, development, sales, marketing and international, Mr. DeMartino saw the unique opportunity to create an organization of senior executives and affiliates with extensive, competitive telecommunications and technology expertise to provide services to Carrier and Data Center players throughout the world.

Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3123316


LONDON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SAVO Group, the leading provider of enterprise-grade sales enablement solutions, announced today that Matt Downes is joining the company as its new Senior Client Director for SAVO Group in the UK. Downes comes to SAVO with over 15 years of sales strategy, effectiveness and enablement expertise focused on growing revenue streams for multinational clients.

"Matt has impressive experience building strategic sales excellence programs for many of the same European companies SAVO partners with today and he is a good fit to help us continue our expansion efforts in Europe," said Jason Keever, Vice President EMEA, SAVO Group.

"The EMEA sales enablement market has a long history of investing heavily in training, messaging and other sales transformation efforts but is reaching the realization that without technology supporting these efforts, the investment continues to fall flat. Matt's experience on both sides of this conversation with be valuable for current and new clients alike," says Keever.

Prior to joining SAVO, Matt was most recently Co-Founder & VP of Sales at Strategy To Revenue, revenue acceleration experts which works with some of the world's largest companies including HP Enterprise, Vodafone, Thomson Reuters and DHL. Previously to Strategy To Revenue, Matt held a VP Sales role at A.S.K. Learning where he led the growth of sales performance solutions to large multinational companies. Downes started his career at Complete Learning, a Cisco Learning Partner where he managed large Tier 1 partners and alliances including Dimension Data, IBM, Energis, Orange, Cable & Wireless to both defend and grow revenues of new Cisco services and solutions.

On joining SAVO, Matt said, "We are seeing the next paradigm shift in selling with the effects of hyper-connected world with mobility, artificial intelligence and predictive analytics starting to play out. I am very excited to be part of a company that has the experience and vision to help companies embrace the required change to accelerate growth and differentiate from their competitors."

About SAVO

SAVO is the leader in the sales enablement market having pioneered the sales enablement category since its founding in 1999. SAVO provides the most insightful, prescriptive and secure sales enablement platform for global use, delivering content to sellers within the context of their selling situation. With SAVO, companies achieve their revenue initiatives by aligning their sales, marketing and operations to work together with focus on the customer and greater results in the field. Learn about how more than one million sales and marketing professionals leverage SAVO today at www.savogroup.com.

Media Contact:

Amanda Wynne, SAVO

Email: Amanda.wynne@savogroup.com

Phone: 312-506-1700 x3140

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/372282/savo_logo.jpg
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/29/17 -- Millennial Lithium Corp. (TSX VENTURE: ML)(FRANKFURT: A3N2)(OTCQB: MLNLF) ("Millennial" or the "Company") is pleased to report it has entered into an option agreement (the "Agreement") to acquire 100% of the Cauchari East Expansion Project (the "Project") in Jujuy Province, Argentina.

The Cauchari East Expansion Project covers an area of 8,742 hectares and is contiguous to and consolidates Millennial's wholly owned Cauchari East Project ("Cauchari East"). Cauchari East is adjacent to Orocobre and Advantage Lithium's Cauchari Project and the Lithium Americas/SQM advanced-stage Cauchari-Olaroz Project. With the addition of this project, Millennial's land holdings at Cauchari East total 11,742 hectares.

Farhad Abasov, Millennial's CEO commented, "The addition of the Cauchari East Expansion Project further expands Millennial's land position on the eastern side of the Cauchari basin. With over 11,000 hectares, Cauchari East now covers enough ground to be considered a world class, stand-alone lithium exploration project."

As announced on April 12, 2017, Millennial engaged Tecnologia y Recursos (TyR), a Salta-based geophysics consulting group, to conduct a 10 station Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) survey over the Cauchari East Project. The survey identified a sharp contrast between high resistivity upper zones and low resistivity (conductive) lower zones, which can be indicative of brine-bearing sediments. Technical reports from adjacent properties controlled by Orocobre and Lithium America's Corp., confirm that the brine-bearing aquifer is related to a low resistivity horizon. These horizons under Cauchari East may be the continuation of the known brine-bearing aquifers of the Olaroz and Cauchari basins.

Measurements taken from most survey stations demonstrate good potential for continuous lithium brine mineralization. A north-south profile over the northern property block identifies a continuous 72 to 105 metre thick conductive layer extending from productive aquifers of the present-day Olaroz salar. As that layer extends into the southern block of Cauchari East, it thickens beyond the detective depth capacity of the VES survey. An east-west profile in the southern block further supports continuity with the Cauchari basin aquifers. In addition, the profile identifies what appears to be a structurally confined sub-basin containing the deep conductive zone continuous with the north-south profile.

Permitting for a drill program is underway and the required public consultations and Jujuy Government approvals are anticipated to be completed in the third quarter of 2017.

Under the terms of the Agreement, Millennial can acquire a 100% interest in the Project, subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange, in consideration of the following payments and share issuances:

1. USD $10,000 on the Effective Date - Paid 2. USD $40,000, payable as USD$20,000 in cash and USD$20,000 in common shares of Millennial on or before the date (the "Mining Court Registration Date") of the granting of the Property (Cateo # 1638-M- 2011) in the name of the Holders; 3. USD $100,000, payable as USD $50,000 in cash and USD $50,000 in common shares of Millennial on or before the first anniversary of the Mining Court Registration Date; and 4. USD $100,000, payable as USD $50,000 in cash and USD $50,000 in common shares of Millennial on or before the second year anniversary of the Mining Court Registration Date.

The total Option Payments for Millennial's exercise of the Option are USD $250,000.

The Company would like to further report that an updated NI 43-101 Technical Report, on the Company's Pastos Grandes Project, has been filed on Sedar.

This news release has been reviewed by Iain Scarr, AIPG CPG., COO of the Company and a qualified person as that term is defined in National Instrument 43-101.

MILLENNIAL LITHIUM CORP.

Farhad Abasov, CEO and Director

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

This news release may contain certain "Forward-Looking Statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities laws. When used in this news release, the words "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "target, "plan", "forecast", "may", "schedule" and similar words or expressions identify forward-looking statements or information. These forward-looking statements or information may relate to future prices of commodities, accuracy of mineral or resource exploration activity, reserves or resources, regulatory or government requirements or approvals, the reliability of third party information, continued access to mineral properties or infrastructure, currency risks including the exchange rate of USD$ for Cdn$, fluctuations in the market for lithium, changes in exploration costs and government royalties or taxes in Argentina and other factors or information. Such statements represent the Company's current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the Company, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social risks, contingencies and uncertainties. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements or information to reflect changes in assumptions or changes in circumstances or any other events affections such statements and information other than as required by applicable laws, rules and regulations.

Contacts:

Millennial Lithium Corp.

Investor Relations

(604) 662-8184

info@millenniallithium.com




ZURICH, SWITZERLAND / ACCESSWIRE / September 11, 2017 / Today, Pistol Bay Mining Inc. (TSX.V: PST; OTC PINK: SLTFF; Frankfurt: 0QS2) provided a significant update on its activities in the last months. The company has now received the final results of an extensive VTEM PLUS survey over the eastern two-thirds of its properties, covering 40 km length of the Confederation Lake greenstone belt in Ontario, Canada. This state-of-the-art survey has successfully detected multiple new conductive zones below the surface.

Pistol Bay controls such a large land package with so many drill-ready targets that joint ventures are the best way now to unlock values on multiple fronts simultaneously. With around 43 million shares issued and outstanding, Pistol Bay's market capitalization currently stands at $2 million CAD - providing its shareholders with substantial upside in case joint ventures can be formed and subsequent discoveries via the drill bit are made.

The full report can be accessed with the following links:

English: http://rockstone-research.com/index.php/en/research-reports/3479-Exciting-Times-for-Pistol-Bay-Mining

German: http://rockstone-research.com/index.php/de/research-reports/3494-Spannende-Zeiten-fuer-Pistol-Bay-Mining

Disclaimer: Please read the full disclaimer within the full research report as a PDF as fundamental risks and conflicts of interest exist.

SOURCE: Rockstone Research
QUEBEC, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 06/28/17 -- Petrolia Inc. (TSX VENTURE: PEA) ("Petrolia" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has obtained an interim order (the "Interim Order") from the Quebec Superior Court (Commercial Division) (the "Court") in connection with its previously announced planned amalgamation with Pieridae Energy Limited ("Pieridae") by way of a plan of arrangement (the "Arrangement") under the Canada Business Corporations Act ("CBCA"). The Interim Order, among other things, authorizes Petrolia to call and hold an annual and special meeting of its shareholders (the "Meeting") to consider and, if deemed advisable, approve (i) the continuance of Petrolia into the CBCA, (ii) the reduction of the stated capital of its common shares (as more fully described below) and (iii) the Arrangement, in addition to matters usually addressed at its annual meetings. In accordance with the Interim Order, the Meeting will be held at a date to be determined concurrently with the finalization of the joint information circular to be addressed to the respective shareholders of Petrolia and Pieridae (the "Circular"). The record date for determining Petrolia shareholders entitled to receive notice of and vote at the Meeting has been established as the close of business on June 28, 2017.

When the Circular is final and the exact date of the Meeting is established, Petrolia will issue another press release to announce the details. Until such announcement, Petrolia and Pieridae continue to work towards completing Pieridae's previously announced private placement financing of subscription receipts and finalising the documents to be filed with the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange"), including the Circular which will set out detailed information about the transaction and the two companies.

First Amendment to the Arrangement Agreement

Petrolia also announces that it has entered into an agreement with Pieridae (the "First Amendment") to amend certain provisions of the arrangement agreement executed on May 15, 2017 with Pieridae (the "Arrangement Agreement").

In addition to correcting minor inconsistencies in the previously filed Arrangement Agreement, the First Amendment provides for the addition, as a condition to the Arrangement, of the reduction of the stated capital of Petrolia's common shares. In fact, in order to proceed with the Arrangement, Petrolia must satisfy the solvency requirements of subsection 192(2) of the CBCA, which provides that (a) Petrolia must not be unable to pay its liabilities as they become due, and (b) the realizable value of the assets of Petrolia must not be less than the aggregate of its liabilities and stated capital of all classes of shares of Petrolia. Since Petrolia, as of this date, does not meet part (b) of this statutory test, a resolution concerning the reduction of the stated capital of the Company's issued and outstanding common shares to $1.00 shall be put before Petrolia's shareholders for approval.

All terms and conditions of the Arrangement Agreement not modified by the First Amendment remain unchanged. For further details with respect to the material terms of the Arrangement, please refer to Petrolia's press release dated May 15, 2017 and the Arrangement Agreement which, together with the First Amendment, are available on the Company's SEDAR profile on www.sedar.com. In addition, in order to allow for a better understanding of the transaction, a "frequently asked questions" for investors is available on-line on Petrolia's website, www.petrolia-inc.com.

Additional Information

Trading of the Petrolia Common Shares remains halted at least until the reception, to the satisfaction of the Exchange and according to its applicable policies, of the documents necessary to resume trading. Petrolia will issue a further news release when the trading of the Petrolia Common Shares is to resume.

Petrolia and Pieridae are working to complete the next steps and to satisfy the conditions of the Arrangement. When additional information becomes available, a press release will be issued.

Completion of the transaction is subject to a number of conditions, including but not limited to, Exchange acceptance and if applicable pursuant to Exchange requirements, 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.

Investors are cautioned that, except as disclosed in the Circular 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 Petrolia should be considered highly speculative.

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.

About Petrolia

Petrolia is a junior oil and gas exploration company which owns interests in oil and gas licences covering 16,000 km2 (4 million acres), which represents almost 23% of the Quebec territory under lease. Petrolia is a Quebec leader in oil and gas exploration and its vision is to develop oil from here, by the people here, for here. The social and environmental dimensions are a major concern of Petrolia and its exploration process. Through its Investissement PEA Inc. subsidiary, Petrolia holds 21.7% of the Hydrocarbons Anticosti L.P. limited partnership and its Petrolia Anticosti Inc. subsidiary is the operator of its Ile d'Anticosti project. Petrolia has 108,399,683 shares issued and outstanding.

Disclaimer

Certain statements made herein may constitute forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or the future economic performance of Petrolia and carry known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may appreciably affect their results, economic performance or accomplishments when considered in light of the content or implications or statements made by Petrolia. Actual events or results could be significantly different. Accordingly, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Petrolia disclaims any intention or obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its regulation services provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

Martin Belanger, P. Eng.

Interim President and Chief Executive Officer

418 657-1966

www.petrolia-inc.com




Calvin Klein, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of PVH Corp. [NYSE: PVH], today announced the opening of new CALVIN KLEIN multi-brand lifestyle stores in Shanghai, China and Dusseldorf, Germany. Each store is a flagship and features the brand's latest retail design concepts.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170928005736/en/

CALVIN KLEIN Multi-Brand Lifestyle Store, Dusseldorf, Germany (Photo: 2017 Huy Nguyen)

The 6,000 square foot, two-story Shanghai store is located in Raffles City and offers men's and women's CK Calvin Klein, CALVIN KLEIN JEANS, CALVIN KLEIN UNDERWEAR and CALVIN KLEIN PERFORMANCE apparel and accessories. The new store in Dusseldorf is located on Konigsallee Boulevard and spans three floors and over 3,500 square feet, and offers men's and women's Calvin Klein sportswear and accessories CALVIN KLEIN JEANS,CALVIN KLEIN UNDERWEAR and CALVIN KLEIN SWIMWEAR

The new design concept for each of these retail locations communicates the brand's minimal, modern aesthetic with a fresh addition of color and sumptuous materials to enhance the consumer experience. Vibrant cobalt blue curtains frame the entrance, while geometric-shaped lush rugs in soft pink set a luxurious tone and contribute an elegant counterpoint to the gray concrete. Kvadrat/Raf Simons fabric is utilized throughout as well as Utrecht chairs by Gerrit Thomas Rietveld, which are distributed by Cassina. Oversized silhouette cut-out images of models in the brand's latest styles are suspended from the ceiling, delineating spaces and communicating the product story of the store.

Digital technology is also utilized throughout the stores, offering consumers the opportunity to actively participate in a personalized shopping experience and engage with the products and the brand in new, unique ways. Interactive video and denim fit guide walls allow consumers to browse items featured in the brand's current campaign and make selections to try on in-store. In the Shanghai location, an interactive video table invites consumers to explore the brand on a deeper level via newspaper, magazine and online articles on the brand, key milestones, runway show videos and recent events, as well as the brand's official social media platforms.

"Our new flagship stores in Shanghai and Dusseldorf represent CALVIN KLEIN's commitment to strong consumer experience, technological innovation, and unmatched brand equity for our global audience," said Steve Shiffman, Chief Executive Officer, Calvin Klein, Inc. "As we continue to focus on expanding CALVIN KLEIN's global footprint, it is our objective to bring a best-in-class retail experience to key markets and shopping destinations around the world."

CALVIN KLEINis a global lifestyle brand that exemplifies bold, progressive ideals and a seductive, and often minimal, aesthetic. We seek to thrill and inspire our audience while using provocative imagery and striking designs to ignite the senses.

Founded in 1968 by Calvin Klein and his business partner Barry Schwartz, we have built our reputation as a leader in American fashion through our clean aesthetic and innovative designs. Global retail sales of CALVIN KLEIN brand products exceeded $8 billion in 2016 and were distributed in over 110 countries. CALVIN KLEINemploys over 10,000 associates globally. We were acquired by PVH Corp. in 2003.

With a history going back over 135 years, PVH has excelled at growing brands and businesses with rich American heritages, becoming one of the largest apparel companies in the world. We have over 35,000 associates operating in over 40 countries and over $8 billion in annual revenues. We own the iconic CALVINKLEINTOMMYHILFIGERVanHeusenIZODARROWSpeedo*,Warner's, Olga and True&Co. brands, and market a variety of goods under these and other nationally and internationally known owned and licensed brands.

*The Speedo brand is licensed for North America and the Caribbean in perpetuity from Speedo International, Limited.

EDITORIAL CREDIT: CALVIN KLEIN

IMAGE CREDITS SHANGHAI: 2017 Andy Shen

IMAGE CREDITS DUSSELDORF: 2017 Huy Nguyen

SOCIAL MEDIA: facebook.com/calvinkleincalvinklein.tumblr.comgoogle.com/+calvinkleinyoutube.com/calvinkleintwitter.com/calvinkleininstagram.com/calvinkleinpinterest.com/calvinklein

snapchat: calvinklein

brand handle: @calvinklein

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170928005736/en/

Contacts:

Calvin Klein, Inc.

Alexandra Wagner, 212-292-9794

SVP, Corporate Communications

alexandrawagner@ck.com

or

Amanda Pena, 212-292-9223

Director, Corporate Communications

amandapena@ck.com
NEC Seiichiro Toda s-toda@cj.jp.nec.com +81-3-3798-6511

TOKYO, July 7, 2017 - (JCN Newswire) - NEC Corporation (TSE: 6701) today announced that it has been conferred the 2017 Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific Integrated Biometrics Solutions for Public Safety Leadership Award. The award recognizes NEC for its technical leadership and growth performance in 2016 in Asia Pacific for the Biometrics solutions segment.Urban planners today are faced with greater challenges than before. While digitization of the environment and business landscape brings enormous benefits, there are unprecedented risks that agencies, corporations and citizens become exposed to.NEC addresses their concerns with a wide and established product portfolio to support the authorities in public safety. Its solutions have been widely deployed in security checkpoints, police checks and border controls in many countries across the Asia Pacific region.Its on-going development and advancement in biometrics have evolved to include facial recognition technology to bring security to the next level. At the same time, supplementing biometrics solutions with video analytics offers a lot more information to derive meaningful insights that have not been possible before."NEC is a pioneer in multimodal biometrics authentication. Its advanced facial recognition technology solution employs one of the most cutting edge technologies in the world. With no direct interaction with people, facial recognition is among the least invasive method of assessing individuals. In particular, NEC's NeoFace Watch Solution is instrumental in identifying suspects in border controls and public places who have been registered as being involved in suspicious activities by the authorities," noted Ajay Sunder, Vice President, ICT, Asia Pacific, Frost & Sullivan."The award is recognition for our proven solutions and validates our expertise in the public safety sector. NEC is committed to providing the best-in-class technology to law enforcement, border security and governments globally to create better cities and keep communities safe," said Tan Boon Chin, Managing Director, Global Safety Division, NEC Corporation.As one of the pioneers of cutting edge biometric technology, NEC has been involved in the development of facial recognition technology for more than 30 years. NEC's NeoFace, part of NEC's suite of AI technologies, is a facial recognition engine boasting the world's highest(1) authentication accuracy for real-time investigations. NEC's facial recognition technology has been introduced to more than 40 countries globally.(1) NEC's video facial recognition technology has been top ranked for four consecutive times in the benchmark testing of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).http://www.nec.com/en/press/201703/global_20170316_01.htmlAbout NEC CorporationNEC Corporation is a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies that benefit businesses and people around the world. By providing a combination of products and solutions that cross utilize the company's experience and global resources, NEC's advanced technologies meet the complex and ever-changing needs of its customers. NEC brings more than 100 years of expertise in technological innovation to empower people, businesses and society. For more information, visit NEC at http://www.nec.com.Based on its Mid-term Management Plan 2015, the NEC Group globally provides "Solutions for Society" that promote the safety, security, efficiency and equality of society. Under the company's corporate message of "Orchestrating a brighter world," NEC aims to help solve a wide range of challenging issues and to create new social value for the changing world of tomorrow. For more information, please visit http://www.nec.com/en/global/about/solutionsforsociety/message.html.Source: NEC CorporationContact:Copyright 2017 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
DALLAS, TX -- (Marketwired) -- 04/19/17 -- Graecrest Energy Solutions LLC ("Graecrest") announced today that the Company will provide Dominovas Energy Corporation (OTCQB: DNRG) with financing for their recently announced 18MW hydroelectric project in Lunda Sol, Angola. This power plant will produce in excess of 150,000,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per year. Total value of Graecrest and its partner's investment is currently estimated at US$90 million.

In October of 2015, Graecrest agreed to commit a total of $1.2 billion in financing for Dominovas Energy Corporation's energy projects in Africa. The anticipated financing support to Dominovas Energy will be concomitant with specific guarantees and terms to be negotiated by Dominovas Energy with the Republic of Angola and approved by Graecrest. Russ Howell, Graecrest's Principal for Finance and Development, stated, "Angola has long been a country that we have been interested in. We see a tremendous opportunity for growth within their renewable energy sector and this project is a great first step." He went on to say, "We applaud Dominovas Energy's focused and steadfast approach, wherein they are consistent with their desire to primarily engage country-sponsored, bankable and financially viable large scale power projects. The achievement of this significant milestone is a direct result of their determination to succeed, in Angola and across Africa."

Neal Allen, Dominovas Energy's chairman and CEO, added, "I appreciate Graecrest's understanding and support of our methodology and process. Collectively, we recognize the long-term financial benefits of large scale projects, although the acquiring of these projects can seem to be long in coming." He added, "We are looking forward to a timely financial close so that the development process can begin."

Currently the cost of energy in Angola is very high; it frequently can exceed US$.20/ per kWh. With 150M kWh energy generation yearly via the hydroelectric power plant, the cost of this generation of electricity will contribute to Angola's overall desire to normalize electricity costs via increased production from renewable sources.

About Graecrest Energy Solutions

Graecrest develops, finances, installs, owns, services, and maintains energy-related systems to provide cost-effective, efficient energy sources for large institutional consumers of power in the government, corporate, healthcare, industrial, and education sectors. The company seeks to exploit an emerging niche by intermediating between consumers and providers of equipment and systems, creating immediate energy savings for consumers while enabling its clients to eliminate lengthy payback periods and conserve capital for more productive uses. By means of innovative contract structures and funding strategies, Graecrest enables the rapid deployment of large energy-efficiency projects on a whole portfolio basis. With offices in New York, Chicago, Dallas, and the Pacific Northwest, the Graecrest team has successfully managed structured financing transactions and projects totaling more than U.S.$9 billion. For more information, visit http://www.graecrestllc.com/.

About Dominovas Energy Corporation (OTCQB: DNRG)

Founded in 2005, Dominovas Energy Corporation (DEC) is a publicly traded company, based in Nevada. With its operating headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, Dominovas Energy Corporation is a leading power solutions provider to emerging markets around the world. DEC seeks to deploy its proprietary RUBICON Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) technology, the ORCAS hydro systems and sourced clean coal technology for deployment in multi-megawatt power generation units worldwide. The worldwide need of clean and efficient production and distribution of is well documented. Dominovas Energy recognizes that worldwide, the markets offer immense potential for commercial development of energy resources. Dominovas Energy is aggressively moving to allocate its intellectual and financial capital forthwith, in order to strategically address this opportunity. By engaging throughout the world, Dominovas Energy is committed to creating shareholder value by not only generating guaranteed revenue streams, but also by increasing the value of "human and community capital." Devoted to core values by operating under the utmost of honesty and integrity in all its business transactions, Dominovas Energy is additionally dedicated to respecting the rights of all individuals, while acknowledging and respecting all cultures necessary to support the growth and development of the communities and countries in which it operates. The Company strongly believes that the impact of advanced "energy" technology can and will positively change the world, and Dominovas Energy is resolute in its mission to provide electricity where and when economically viable. For more information, visit www.dominovasenergy.com.

Graecrest Energy Solutions

Camille Amidei

214 587 7641

camille.amidei@graecrestllc.com




COLORADO SPRINGS, CO -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- Alliance Storage Technologies, the leading provider of optical, and cloud data archiving solutions, today announced NETArchive version 2 high performance storage offering customers major advancements in performance, capacity and cost. Built on Alliance Storage Technologies' Archive Management Software (AMS) Platform, NETArchive is a revolutionary new archiving, management, optimization and protection solution that reduces business risks, secures data unaltered, ensures regulatory compliance and simplifies operations -- all at a price comparable to tape.

Worldwide data growth is exploding. In fact, according to a Northeastern University blog and infographic, "The total amount of data in the world was 4.4 zettabytes in 2013. That is set to rise steeply to 44 zettabytes by 2020." This data growth explosion is driving the need for faster, smarter and more cost effective data storage solutions. Moreover, when combined with increasing stringent and complicated internal governance, and external legal and regulatory compliance mandates, the need for long-term data preservation solutions has never been more critical.

NETArchive answers this demand. Delivering the ability to safely and affordably store, secure, protect and recover data for 100+ years, NETArchive provides an industry-unique modular architecture consisting of high performance disk, cloud and optical tiers. With support for on-premises installations and cloud-based deployments in the Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, NETArchive delivers elastic scalability with simplified, cross-platform management and unrivaled control. The solution is a flexible, robust and secure offering that can be tailored to meet the data management, business continuity and long-term retention requirements found in today's complex business and IT environments.

Loran Technology, a leading IT solution Integrator based in Quebec, Canada, was engaged by one of their Provincial Government customers to assist with a technology refresh of their existing archiving system used for long-term, unalterable data storage of extremely sensitive information.

"After a thorough search and review of potential solution providers, we chose to pursue Alliance Storage Technologies," said Aldo Kavcic, Director Business Development, Loran Technology. "After working closely with their team to address our customer's requirements for permanent, secure data retention, the NETArchive proved itself to be the ideal solution. It answered the need to securely retain information in an immutable state for decades, and was the most cost effective solution available. In addition, Alliance provided a complimentary upgrade path using their new AMS TAM migration software which enabled the client to transparently and non-disruptively migrate years of legacy information to the NETArchive system."

What's New in NETArchive Version 2:

100% increase (or doubling) of the NETArchive system on-premises near-line storage, increasing to 1.6PB in a single rack

100% increase in media capacities, cutting cost per GB in half

100% increase in drive speeds, doubling data migration and recall rates

3 times increase in system cache resulting in faster access to recently archived data with flexible RAID options from 4TB to 72TB

Built-in complimentary Transparent Archive Migration Facility for existing Archive Appliance users, facilitating a non-disruptive migration to the NETArchive

100% increase in media life to 100+ years, increasing reliability, data retention, and ROI while further eliminating costly technology refresh cycles associated with other technologies

"Today, more that 80% of enterprise data is static content sitting on expensive, Tier 1 storage," said Chris Carr, CEO of Alliance Storage Technologies. "NETArchive enables organizations to move this data and free up critical primary storage for business critical, bottom-line revenue activity. With support for on-premises installations and cloud-based deployments in the Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, NETArchive delivers unrivaled performance, cross-platform management and capacity scalability, together with the features and functionality necessary to meet today's business, regulatory and legal requirements -- all at a cost comparable to tape."

NETArchive version 2 is available Q2, 2017.

Tweet This: .@alliancestorage announces NETArchive v2 HighPerformanceDisk Cloud & Optical tiers priced comparable to tape http://www.alliancestoragetechnologies.com/news-events/press-release

About Alliance Storage Technologies

Alliance Storage Technologies, Inc. is the leading provider of cloud and optical data archiving solutions. The company's flagship product, NETArchive gives organizations the most reliable, unalterable, secure archive that protects data for decades not just years. Alliance's solutions are trusted by thousands of businesses worldwide and meet the most stringent regulatory requirements with game-changing performance and efficiency at an unrivaled price, so customers can actively archive, manage, optimize and secure critical information assets with confidence. For more information visit www.alliancestoragetechnologies.com.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/alliance-storage-technologies-inc

Twitter: https://twitter.com/alliancestorage

NETArchive is a registered trademark of Alliance Storage Technologies. All other brand and product names in this announcement may be trademarks of their respective holders.

PR Contacts:



Sabrina Sanchez

The Ventana Group

Email Contact

M: 925-785-3014



Nicole Gorman

The Ventana Group

Email Contact

M: 508-397-0131




SEATTLE, WA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- CFN Media Group ("CannabisFN"), the leading creative agency and media network dedicated to legal cannabis, announces publication of an article that will take a look at Invictus MD Strategies Corp.'s investment in a Canadian licensed producer along with its status in ramping up operations.

The Canadian cannabis industry could reach $22.6 billion in size, according to Deloitte, driven by nationwide recreational legalization. The retail base market alone is estimated to be worth between $4.9 billion and $8.7 billion per year, which is a significant number given that there are only 40 licensed producers approved by Health Canada. Investors interested in the space may want to take a look at these well-positioned licensed producers.

Licensed Producer Acquisition

Invictus MD Strategies completed its final commitment with a cash transaction of C$2 million for its 33.33% stake in AB Laboratories Inc. ("AB Labs") on March 14, which provides valuable access to Canada's burgeoning cannabis industry. Under the terms of the deal, the company has the first right of refusal to arrange any initial public offering, reverse take-over, or other going-public transaction, while agreeing to commit an additional C$5.5 million to fund the cost of construction and licensing of future capacity.

AB Labs is one of about 40 licensed producers under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations ("ACMPR") with a 16,000 square foot cultivation facility located in Hamilton, Ontario. Recently, the LP plans to close on 100 acres of land in Ontario on May 1, 2017 where it plans to construct five production facilities totaling 100,000 square feet of capacity by 2019 -- a move that could help it become a leader in the space.

On March 23, the company announced that AB Labs has completed several test crops in its licensed production facility. While the facility is only operating at half capacity, the company plans to ramp up to full capacity by the end of May 2017. The LP also disclosed that it has already received several direct inquiries from medical marijuana patients, which underscores the continuous growth in demand even before recreational legalization takes effect.

Well-Positioned to Execute

Invictus MD Strategies is well-positioned to execute on its goal of building a portfolio of licensed producers to capitalize on Canada's burgeoning cannabis industry. With $15.5 million in cash on its balance sheet, the company has ample resources to execute the initial expansion of AB Labs' business with construction plans already underway and expected to be submitted to Health Canada by May 1, 2017.

The company's management team has established a strong track record building value in companies that it has acquired. For example, the team acquired an 82.5% stake in Future Harvest -- a 20 year old hydroponics and indoor growing firm -- and sold its lighting division for 350% return on investment. It used the $4.8 million in cash to reinvest in its nutrients business and increased 2016 revenue by 50% year-over-year.

On March 24, the company announced the appointment of Mr. George E. Kveton to its Board of Directors. Mr. Kveton is a founding partner of LOGSCALE Venture Partners and a highly effective, strategic, and pragmatic international executive and investment professional with broad experience operating in both Fortune 500 and startup environments. In particular, his strengths lie in executing cross-border M&A deals and executing deals in regulated markets.

Please follow the link to read the full article:

http://www.cannabisfn.com/invictus-mds-ab-laboratories-rapidly-moves-market/

For more information, visit the company's website or CannabisFN's company profile.

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.

Learn how to become a CFN Media client company, brand or entrepreneur: http://www.cannabisfn.com/become-featured-company/

Download the CFN Media iOS mobile app to access the world of cannabis from the palm of your hand: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cannabisfn/id988009247?ls=1&mt=8

Or visit our homepage and enter your mobile number under the Apple App Store logo to receive a download link text on your iPhone: http://www.cannabisfn.com

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/

Contact:

Frank Lane

206.369.7050

flane@cannabisfn.com




SEATTLE, WA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- CFN Media Group ("CannabisFN"), the leading creative agency and media network dedicated to legal cannabis, announces publication of an article that will take a look at SinglePoint Inc.'s focus on cannabis enterprises rather than cultivation and consumers and how it could help cannabis investors diversify their portfolios at a critical time for the industry.

The cannabis industry is projected to reach $50 billion in size over the next decade, which has created a tremendous opportunity for investors. Cultivators and retail dispensaries may provide the most direct exposure, but investors may want to consider equipment providers and consumer product makers as a way to diversify their exposure, particularly with the threat of federal-level intervention from the Trump Administration.

Focusing on Enterprises

SinglePoint has developed a series of technologies serving cannabis businesses, as well as a select line-up of consumer devices.

The company's flagship product is a best-in-class mobile commerce and communications platform that enables dispensaries to accept electronic payments and market to consumers through SMS messages. By building a network of dispensaries leveraging its SMS marketing technology, the company is positioning itself to take advantage of a vast opportunity in the payments space when federal guidelines surrounding cannabis banking are finalized.

In March, the company closed the first round of funding to acquire a portion of Jacksam Corp., dba Convectium, the developer of a unique oil filling system poised to revolutionize the cannabis industry. Convectium's 710Shark technology is sold to cannabis cultivators and extractors to help them fill up to 100 cartridges of cannabinoid oils in just 30 seconds. These child-proof cartridges are then immediately ready for retail distribution at dispensaries and other locations.

Convectium projects full-year 2017 revenue of $3.5 million, an increase of 150% compared to revenue of $1.4 million in 2016. The company is well on its way to achieving these goals with first quarter 2017 sales that have already significantly surpassed sales from the comparable quarter a year ago as product demand and brand visibility is on the rise.

Convectium also owns a number of consumer brands that it licenses, including BlackoutX, Hi-Lifer, and HazeSticks. These are consumer-level devices for consuming cannabis extracts, but the company does not sell actual cannabis or cannabis extracts. This means that investors gain access to both enterprise and consumer products without the regulatory risks associated with cultivating or selling marijuana outright.

Importance of Diversification

Cannabis investors face a dilemma when it comes to committing capital to the space that should shape how their portfolios are constructed.

On one hand, the cannabis industry is rapidly growing and expected to reach $50 billion in size over the next decade, according to Cowen & Co. Public support for cannabis legalization has also been on the rise, according to Quinnipiac, with 93% of Americans supporting medical marijuana and 71% opposing a federal crackdown on legal marijuana. The legalization of recreational use in states like California and Nevada could also prove a tipping point.

On the other hand, President Trump hasn't exactly been fully supportive of the industry with the appointment of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General and the risk of a federal crackdown on legal cannabis remains a large risk factor. The industry could also face eight years of federal-level issues even if a full-scale crackdown doesn't occur, which could include a lack of banking access, difficulties with FDA approvals, and other federally-driven factors.

Cannabis investors can leverage diversification to reduce the risks associated with directly handling marijuana. For example, a cultivator or dispensary could face issues with payments or changes to legalization, but equipment-providers like SinglePoint face less risk since they only provide equipment to businesses and consumers. Equipment providers also provide a differentiated source of revenue and a potentially wider enterprise customer base.

Please follow the link to read the full article:

http://www.cannabisfn.com/singlepoints-enterprise-strategy-helps-investors-diversify/

For more information, visit the company's website or CannabisFN's company profile.

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.

Learn how to become a CFN Media client company, brand or entrepreneur: http://www.cannabisfn.com/become-featured-company/

Download the CFN Media iOS mobile app to access the world of cannabis from the palm of your hand: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cannabisfn/id988009247?ls=1&mt=8

Or visit our homepage and enter your mobile number under the Apple App Store logo to receive a download link text on your iPhone: http://www.cannabisfn.com

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/

Contact:

Frank Lane

206.369.7050

flane@cannabisfn.com




Sensor-driven system-on-a-chip lighting family expands to speed OEM and market adoption of variable-CCT and daylight-responsive LED lighting

ams (SIX: AMS), a leading worldwide supplier of high performance sensor solutions, today announced the AS7225 tunable-white lighting smart system sensor, further broadening the solution set for sensor-integrated tunable-white lighting solutions. With the addition of the AS7225, OEM lighting manufacturers can access ams' closed-loop CCT tuning and daylight compensation, while retaining the existing host microprocessor architecture in their smart lighting design. The result is higher precision, more flexible LED binning, and lower system costs for tunable white lighting systems.

The AS7225 is equipped with the product family's industry-first embedded tri-stimulus CIE XYZ color sensor to enable precise color sensing with direct mapping to the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) 1931 color space which is recognized as the standard coordinate definition for human color perception. CCT and daylighting tuning directives are communicated to the host microprocessor via an industry-standard I2C interface, allowing IoT smart lighting manufacturers to avoid costly calibration and tuning algorithm development and reduce time to deployment.

"As the lighting industry moves to tunable solutions, the inclusion of closed loop sensor-driven integration not only increases white or daylighting tuning precision, it also loosens the required precision for both LED binning and system components. This results in cost reductions for both the overall bill of materials, as well as in time and cost savings in the materials management and manufacturing processes", commented Tom Griffiths, Senior Marketing Manager at ams.

The AS7225 is an extension of ams' Cognitive Lighting smart lighting manager family. The efficient AS7225 is available in a 4.5 x 4.7mm LGA package, for flexible integration into luminaires, light-engines and larger replacement lamps, such as LED linear T-LED products. The device provides precise CCT tuning direction between configured warm and cool white LED strings within a luminaire. In addition to the CCT- tuning functions, the AS7225 can additionally be used looking outward in luminaire designs to provide precise daylight management, or can deliver combined CCT-tuning and daylighting directives by the addition of ams' TSL4531 ambient light sensor.

"Recent trends in LED device pricing show that chips have moved away from being the primary cost element in a typical commercial luminaire. This means that in just a few years, tunable lighting will become the standard for new commercial lighting installations", Griffiths added. "The comfort, productivity and health benefits of good lighting have been clear for decades, and as it is becoming cost effective to do so, tunable lighting will be a key element in delivering those benefits from LED smart lighting platforms."

Key features of the AS7225 include:

"Calibrated for life" Tri-stimulus XYZ color sensor for direct mapping into the CIE color space

Comprehensive register-driven command set enabling complete sensor control plus management of precision tuning directives

Integrated support for tunable white, daylighting or combined functionality

Pricing for the AS7225 spectral tuning IoT smart lighting manager is set at $2.40 in quantities of 5,000 pieces, and is available in production volumes now. For further information, please visit our website at www.ams.com/Smart-Lighting/AS7225 or contact CognitiveLighting@ams.com.

Download press picture and block diagram at http://www.ams.com/eng/Press/Press-Releases/

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170328005603/en/

Contacts:

ams

Patricia Moosburger, Media Relations

phone: +43 (0) 3136 500 31235

press@ams.com

www.ams.com
STOCKHOLM, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Progressive dairy farmers, Mike and Sue McCloskey, convinced automated dairies are a big part of the equation for the future of milk production



Fair Oaks Farms in Indiana, one of the biggest dairy operations in America, announced its intention to expand from conventional milking systems by signing an agreement for 12 DeLaval voluntary milking system VMS'. The robots are for Prairie's Edge Dairy Farms llc, one of the nine partnerships that comprise Fair Oaks AG tourism experience, which attracts more than 500,000 visitors annually.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/482698/FairOaks_DeLaval.jpg )



This move further supports a recent shift in the business plans of large-scale milk producers exploring robotics as a viable solution for addressing issues like animal welfare, milk quality, production and labor.

The Fair Oaks Farms dairy attraction is represented by nine families milking 36,000 cows. Mike and Sue McCloskey, well-known visionaries of progressive and sustainable dairy farming, are one of these nine families. "These DeLaval robotic solutions are unbelievably productive and efficient," said Mike McCloskey. "On top of that, the level of cow comfort that robotic milking brings is very attractive."

"All of these things are coming together at the right time. It's pretty exciting," he continued. "The DeLaval team has gone above and beyond by assisting with the design process and implementation, helping our people - and eventually our cows - approach this new way of farming. The depth of knowledge DeLaval shows from a milk quality point-of-view and their understanding of milk's physiology is fascinating."

The decision to add on to Fair Oaks Farms' rotary-based milking systems with an automated one is rooted in the Grass to Glass ethos of fairlife' milk, a nutrient-dense, lactose-free beverage the McCloskeys co-created with their Select Milk Producer partners. Fair Oaks Farms operates as a closed-loop system where they grow their own feed, never mix milk from other dairies, and process and bottle the milk at their dairy cooperative's facilities. Twelve VMS' will help harvest enough milk to fill one tanker truck a day, helping to control milk quality and traceability.

"We are very pleased to be a part of Fair Oaks Farms' journey in going robotic. At DeLaval we are committed to helping our customers remain progressive and future-oriented, and we feel that robotic milking matched with outstanding cow comfort and excellent milk quality are the prerequisites for this," said Fernando Cuccoli, DeLaval Vice President, Market Area North America.

Start-up of Fair Oaks Farms' new robotic milking facility is planned for December 2017 and will serve 780 cows.

DeLaval VMS'

DeLaval VMS' (voluntary milking system) allows cows to be milked automatically, whenever they like, in a calm, quiet and stress-free environment.

It identifies the cow as it enters the system and feed is dispensed before the teats are cleaned and prepared, and milking begins. Dual lasers on the robotic arm enable quick, precise teat detection.

When milking is complete, both the animal's teats and the system itself are cleaned, ensuring the highest standards of hygiene are maintained at all times.

The world's largest automated milking operation with 64 DeLaval VMS' came on-line at the end of last year in Chile, and another large robotic facility in Michigan with 24 DeLaval VMS' will start milking later this year.

About DeLaval



DeLaval is a worldwide leader in milking equipment and solutions for dairy farmers, which make sustainable food production possible, warranting milk quality and animal health. Our solutions are used by millions of dairy farmers around the globe every day.



DeLaval was founded more than 130 years ago in Sweden, when the visionary Gustaf de Laval patented the cream separator. Today, DeLaval has 4,500 employees and operates in more than 100 markets. DeLaval, alongside Tetra Pak and Sidel, is part of the Tetra Laval Group. See more at www.delavalcorporate.com.
VANCOUVER, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Fineqia International Inc.(the "Company"or "Fineqia") (CSE: FNQ) (OTCPink: FNQQF) (Frankfurt: FNQA) today welcomes Dr. Tryggvi Thor Herbertsson, financial advisor and investor, to its board of advisors.

Dr. Herbertsson is an independent investor and financial advisor at his own company, Taurus SLF and a senior advisor to GAMMA Capital Management HF. Prior to that he was a Member of Parliament (MP) in Iceland for the Independence Party and a Professor of Economics at the University of Reykjavik.

Before becoming a MP he was the CEO of Askar Capital Ltd, an Icelandic investment bank. He served as the Special Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister of Iceland during the collapse of the Icelandic banking system in 2008. He was the Director of the Institute of Economic Studies and a Professor of Economics at the University of Iceland before joining Askar Capital Ltd. He has published over 50 scholarly papers and is the editor, author, and co-author of 13 books and monographs on various topics in economics.

Dr. Herbertsson has been on the Board of Directors and a consultant to many private companies, banks, and pension funds in Iceland and internationally. He has been a consultant to institutions and international organizations, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission, the Nordic Council of Ministers, the OECD, and the World Economic Forum. He has been a consultant to the governments of Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Uganda. He has also been a consultant to Fortune 500 companies.

"We're excited to have a person of such caliber on our advisory board," said Fineqia's CEO Bundeep Singh Rangar. "Tryggvi's extensive experience in the financial sector will ensure we stay ahead of the curve in our strategy of making Fineqia a go-to investment platform."

Fineqia's board of advisors and its members are not officers or directors of the company.

About Fineqia International Inc.

Fineqia's business model is to provide an online platform and associated services for the placement of debt and equity securities, initially in the UK. The platform will transparently highlight the risks and objectively outline opportunities involved. For more information, visithttp://www.fineqia.com.

NEITHER THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATORY SERVICE PROVIDER HAS REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THE CONTENT OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.

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 to complete the Change of Business, failure to obtain sufficient financing, and other risks disclosed in the Company's public disclosure record on file with the relevant securities regulatory authorities. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and except as may be required by applicable securities laws. The Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement.

Karolina Komarnicka, Chief Marketing Officer, T: +1(778)654-2324, E: info@fineqia.com, W: http://www.fineqia.com
PALO ALTO, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- Cognoa, a digital health company revolutionizing how children with developmental delays are diagnosed and supported, today announces $11.6 million in additional funding. Since the company's founding in 2013, Cognoa has raised a total of more than $20 million. The new funding, provided by existing investor Morningside, is being used to advance Cognoa's machine-learning-based technology; support additional clinical validation and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) submissions and approvals process; and expand commercialization with employers, payers and clinicians.

There is a systematic problem documented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other institutions: fewer than half of children receive developmental assessments when concerns of autism are first identified. Cognoa is the first company of its kind to help parents and doctors address this issue by using patient reported outcomes (PROs) and machine learning to provide clinically-validated assessments for child development and behavioral health; this enables earlier diagnosis, more effective interventions and better outcomes for children with developmental delays.

"The trend of using PROs and machine learning to provide diagnoses has grown exponentially in the healthcare field, and Cognoa is a leader in the area of assessments for developmental and behavioral conditions," said Isaac Cheng, MD, of Morningside. "We believe Cognoa can significantly improve the standard of care for child behavioral development and are committed to supporting the clinical validation and FDA approval of the first machine learning-based diagnostic for early diagnosis of developmental delays."

Originally developed at Harvard and Stanford's medical schools, Cognoa's assessment utilizes information and videos provided by parents of the child's natural behavior at home. The company has completed clinical validation studies with multiple leading clinical centers, and its assessment app has been trusted by 300,000 families. Cognoa's current app provides a detailed evaluation, identifying whether a child is at risk for developmental delays, such as autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or providing peace of mind if a child is on track. Further studies conducted by Cognoa in clinical settings in 2016 demonstrate the promise of Cognoa's machine learning approach to continue to "learn" how to better identify autism and other developmental and behavioral disorders.

"Our goal is to improve families' lives while supporting clinicians by enabling earlier diagnosis and improved outcomes for children," said Brent Vaughan, CEO of Cognoa. "Cognoa's next phase of growth will involve not only engaging in additional clinical validation and pursuing FDA approvals, but also working with employers and health plans to offer our clinically-validated assessment and child development support platform to employers to support their parents in the workplace."

Cognoa recently launched Cognoa for Employers, which provides working parents with peace of mind, increased productivity and lower healthcare costs through earlier detection of child developmental delays and milestone support and tracking. Cognoa for Employers easily fits into current healthcare platforms. To learn more about the science behind the program and receive a 15-minute demo, please visithttps://www.cognoa.com/employers.

About Cognoa:

Cognoa leverages machine learning and patient reported outcomes to revolutionize how parents and clinicians screen and support child development. Cognoa gives parents peace of mind and helps them take the right action at the right time to best support their child's development. Cognoa's assessment has been used by 300,000 families and has been validated in multiple scientific clinical studies. It is based on more than five years of clinical research and validation studies led by Dennis Wall, PhD, at prominent institutions including Harvard Medical School and Stanford Medical School.

About Morningside

Founded in Boston 30 years ago, Morningside is an active investor in venture-backed biotechnology start-ups. Licensing intellectual property from universities and research institutions, Morningside works with both academics and industry professionals to bring scientific discoveries into the clinic. The firm invests in novel therapeutic, diagnostics, and medical devices across many disease areas. For more information, visit www.morningside.com.

Media Contact

Courtney Calderon

Uproar PR for Cognoa

321-236-0102

Email Contact




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- Affinor Growers Inc. (CSE: AFI)(CSE: AFI.CN)(FRANKFURT: 1AF)(OTCQB: RSSFF) ("Affinor" or the "Corporation), is pleased to announce the signing of a research and development Test Agreement with a large strawberry production company headquartered in California, USA.

The Test Agreement is a collaboration of Affinor's vertical farming tower technology, proprietary strawberry seedlings from California, and the new greenhouse facility in Abbotsford, B.C. currently under construction by Vertical Designs Ltd. Under the terms of the agreement, specific strains of strawberry seedlings will be supplied for testing to optimize production within the unique environment created by Affinor's greenhouse tower technology. In return, Affinor will share the testing and production results, and collect a portion of revenue from berry sales to the local market.

Strawberries will be produced within a technically advanced light-diffused polycarbonate greenhouse. Vertical Designs Ltd. will operate the facility to grow and test the various strawberry strains in partnership with Affinor. It is anticipated the facility will be operational and planting will begin in late 2017. Affinor is working directly with the Californian strawberry producer over the next several months sharing information and collaborating on growing protocols to ensure the best varieties for vertical applications are identified.

Jarrett Malnarick, President and CEO said that "This is a great opportunity for Affinor to work with a company that has a long history in strawberry development and can offer strain specific seedlings to optimize production for our vertical farming equipment. It is one more step in bringing our technology to market with solid production testing data."

About Affinor Growers Inc.

Affinor Growers is a publicly traded company on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol ("AFI"). Affinor is focused on growing high quality crops such as romaine lettuce, spinach and strawberries using its vertical farming techniques. Affinor is committed to becoming a pre-eminent supplier and grower, using exclusive vertical farming techniques.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

AFFINOR GROWERS INC.

Jarrett Malnarick, President & CEO

The CSE has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION

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. 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 Company's disclosure documents which can be found under the Company's profile on www.sedar.com. This News Release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Contacts:

Jarrett Malnarick

President and CEO

604.837.8688

jarrett@affinorgrowers.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- Blue Sky Uranium Corp. (TSX VENTURE: BSK)(FRANKFURT: MAL2)(OTCQB: BKUCF) ("Blue Sky" or the "Company") is pleased to provide initial results from the ongoing Phase 1 reverse circulation (RC) drilling program at the Ivana target on the Amarillo Grande uranium project, in Rio Negro Province, Argentina. The results from 31 holes received to date outline a broad area of near surface uranium measuring approximately 1,800 metres by 600 metres. Within this area, a higher-grade northwest oriented corridor is interpreted to have been intersected by four holes and a second area with higher grades is indicated by two holes at the eastern margin of the drill grid. A full geologic interpretation will be completed once results from the remaining 66 holes from the Ivana target are received. Blue Sky holds over 440,000 hectares of property located in two provinces in the most prospective uranium regions of Argentina.

Drill hole highlights include:

-- 743 ppm U3O8 over 3.0m in AGI-27 -- 547 ppm U3O8 over 6.0m in AGI-05

"The initial results from the Ivana area provide important information on where to focus our follow-up drilling as we delineate new zones of surficial uranium mineralization at Amarillo Grande," stated Nikolaos Cacos, Blue Sky President & CEO. "These initial results confirm the broad occurrence of uranium mineralization at Ivana."

The 250,000-hectare Amarillo Grande project includes three areas of known mineralization (Ivana, Anit and Santa Barbara) within a 140 kilometre-long uranium trend discovered by Blue Sky. This 3,000 metre preliminary drill program is designed to delineate the mineralized zones at all three areas, for follow-up infill drilling. The program is testing areas prospective for discovery of near-surface uranium mineralization as identified by ground radiometric surveys, trenching, manually excavated pits and geo-electrical surveys. This program is the first phase of the overall 10,000 metre program which is designed to prepare for potential resource estimation later this year.

Blue Sky believes the mineralization that has been discovered through the work to date at Amarillo Grande can be classified as Surficial-type uranium. Examples of Surficial uranium deposits include Langer Heinrich in Namibia, which has Proven and Probable ore reserves totalling 91.31 Mlb at an average grade of 560 ppm U3O8 and produces approximately 4 Mlb per year(1), and Toro Energy Limited's development-stage Wiluna project, which has Measured and Indicated resources totalling 66.6 Mlb within 10 metres of surface at an average grade of 525 ppm U3O8.(2) Wiluna consists of 5 separate deposits within a 100-kilometre district in western Australia.

Program Details

The preliminary drilling phase at the Ivana target area is now complete and included 97 holes totaling 1,390 metres with an average hole depth of 14 metres. Complete results have been received from the first 31 of the 97 holes completed at the Ivana target; of these, 21 holes intersected near-surface zones of mineralization exceeding 30 ppm U3O8 over a minimum of 1.0 metre. Highlights of the exploratory drilling results to date are provided in Table 1 below. All results reported herein are from vertical holes drilled at 100-200 metre intervals along two northeast oriented lines spaced at 600 metres apart. A map of the drill hole locations is available here: https://blueskyuranium.com/assets/img/news/6-2017MAR24-IVANA-DRILLING-Press.jpg. These holes outline a broad area of near-surface uranium (greater than 30 ppm U3O8 over a minimum of 1.0 metre) measuring approximately 1,800 metres by 600 metres. Within this area, a higher-grade northwest oriented corridor is interpreted to have been intersected by holes AGI-04, -05, -25 and -27, and a second potentially by AGI-25 and -27 at the eastern margin of the drill grid. A full geologic interpretation will be completed once results from the remaining 66 holes in the Ivana target are received.

Table 1: Highlights of Ivana RC drilling results from AGI-01to AGI-31

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Drill Hole # From (m) To (m) Interval(i) (m) U3O8 ppm V2O5 ppm ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- AGI-04 1.0 4.0 3.0 245 395 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- AGI-05 0.0 6.0 6.0 547 716 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- AGI-14 16.0 18.0 2.0 152 563 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- AGI-16 0.0 3.0 3.0 370 251 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- AGI-21 4.0 7.0 3.0 184 321 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- AGI-25 3.0 5.0 2.0 321 387 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- AGI-27 0.0 3.0 3.0 743 600 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

(i)insufficient drilling has been completed to determine whether the reported widths represent true thickness

The drill holes were laid out along northeast oriented lines or fences to transect approximately orthogonally paleo channels overlying basement rocks. Holes were drilled at 100 metre intervals in areas delineated by ground radiometric anomalies, and at 200 metre intervals in peripheral areas. A table with complete drill hole information and results is available here: https://blueskyuranium.com/assets/img/news/6-2017MAR-BSK-AGI01-to-31.pdf. Based on the results received to date, anomalous near-surface uranium has been intersected outside of the surface radiometric anomalies and to depths of up to 19 metres below surface. Although it is believed that the widespread uranium mineralization intersected in the drilling is generally flat-lying in nature, insufficient drilling has been carried out to date to determine if the reported widths are representative of true thickness, and, the degree of continuity between adjacent intercepts.

Uranium mineralization at Ivana is believed to be related primarily to carnotite mineralization, a secondary leachable uranium mineral. Visible carnotite has been observed in a number of the drill holes completed to date. Uranium values in the results reported herein ranged from below detection (less than 10ppm) up to 1,838 ppm U3O8 (or 0.18% U3O8), and Vanadium values ranged from 29 ppm up to 2,015 ppm V2O5.

The drilling program been carried out using an ROC L8 drill rig from Atlas Copco, an ore-control track-mounted rig adapted to reverse circulation with double cyclone in order to reduce the dust loss during sampling. Every hole was surveyed by a senior geophysicist from Geopehuen SRL Service Company using a natural gamma probe from Geovista Ltd. The probe was previously calibrated at the Comision Nacional de Energia Atomica facility (Atomic Energy National Commission, CNEA).

Analyses of samples reported herein were performed by Alex Stewart Assayers of Mendoza, Argentina, an internationally recognized analytical services provider. Samples were prepared by drying, crushing to 80% passing 10mesh and then pulverizing a 600g split to 95% passing 106 microns. Pulps were analyzed for 42 elements by means of Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry following a four-acid digestion (ICP MA-42). Approximately every 10th sample a blank, duplicate, or standard sample was inserted into the sample sequence for quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) purposes. Review of the QAQC results for the samples reported herein identified two of five BSK inserted with analyses below the acceptable range. All lab inserted standards were within the acceptable range, as were all blanks. The Company is investigating this and will report any material developments in the future. Note that 10,000 ppm = 1% and 1% = 1.1792% U3O8, 1% = 1.785% V2O5.

About the Amarillo Grande Project

This new uranium district was first identified, staked and underwent preliminary exploration by Blue Sky from 2007 to 2012 as part of the Grosso Group's strategy of adding alternative energy focus to its successful portfolio of metals exploration companies. The close proximity of several major targets suggest that if resources are delineated a central processing facility would be envisioned. The area is flat-lying, semi-arid and accessible year round, with nearby rail, power and port access.

Mineralization identified to date represents a Surficial Uranium style of deposit, where carnotite mineralization coats loosely consolidated pebbles of sandstone and conglomerates. Carnotite is amenable to leaching, and preliminary metallurgical work indicates that the mineralized material can be upgraded using a very simple wet screening method. The near-surface mineralization, ability to locally upgrade, amenability to leaching and central processing possibility suggest a potentially low-cost development scenario for a future deposit.

Rio Negro is host to several facilities related to the nuclear industry. Furthermore, the Provincial government is amenable to mining as a means of socio-economical development. In addition, the Federal government has expressed support for building domestic resources of uranium. In particular, the Argentina Atomic Energy National Commission (CNEA) published its Strategic Plan 2015-2025, which includes a strategic objective "To ensure the supply of domestic uranium for nuclear power plants in operation, under construction and planned."

For additional details on the project and properties, please see the Company's website: www.blueskyuranium.com.

Qualified Person

The results of the Company's drilling program have been reviewed, verified (including sampling, analytical and test data) and compiled by the Company's geological staff under the supervision of David Terry, Ph.D., P.Geo. Dr. Terry is a Director of the Company and a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101. The contents of this news release have been reviewed and approved by Dr. Terry.

About Blue Sky Uranium Corp.

Blue Sky Uranium Corp. is a leader in uranium discovery in Argentina. The Company's objective is to deliver exceptional returns to shareholders by rapidly advancing a portfolio of surficial uranium deposits into low-cost producers. Blue Sky holds has the exclusive right to over 428,000 hectares of property in two provinces in Argentina. The Company's flagship Amarillo Grande Project was an in-house discovery of a new district that has the potential to be among the first domestic suppliers of uranium to the growing Argentine market. The Company is a member of the Grosso Group, a resource management group that has pioneered exploration in Argentina since 1993.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Nikolaos Cacos, President, CEO and Director

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. Readers are encouraged to refer to the Company's public disclosure documents for a more detailed discussion of factors that may impact expected future results. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. We advise U.S. investors that the SEC's mining guidelines strictly prohibit information of this type in documents filed with the SEC. U.S. investors are cautioned that mineral deposits on adjacent properties are not indicative of mineral deposits on our properties.

(1) www.paladinenergy.com.au

(2) www.toroenergy.com.au

Contacts:

Blue Sky Uranium Corp.

Corporate Communications

1-604-687-1828 or Toll-Free: 1-800-901-0058

info@blueskyuranium.com

www.blueskyuranium.com




Invitation extended by French President Francois Hollande to Sharjah Ruler

The third largest emirate of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Sharjah was recently declared a special Guest of Honour at Salon Livre Paris' (Paris Book Fair's) 2018 edition. The announcement aligns with France's longstanding appreciation of Sharjah's commitment to artistic and cultural excellence. The emirate will be seen taking centre stage at the book fair next year, with a rich Arabic cultural and literary showcase.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170328005845/en/

(Left to Right) French President Francois Hollande and His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council Ruler of Sharjah during the Paris Book Fair 2017 (Photo: Business Wire)

The invitation was made by French President, Francois Hollande, to His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Member of the UAE Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah, during his visit to the Sharjah Book Authority's (SBA) stand at the recently concluded Paris Book Fair.

The decision reflects a successive step in a series of ongoing efforts, which are being made by France and the UAE to strengthen bilateral relations by celebrating their shared passion for cultural engagement and exchange.

Addressing the launch ceremony of His book in Paris, Sous le Drapeau de l'occupant, His Highness Sheikh Dr Sultan Al Qasimi said: "The culture of France has been a long-cherished muse for my writings. I have a library full of French publications the ones dealing with Egypt's architectural treasures, its rich historical, environmental and human legacy are my favourite. These works aren't just masterpieces, but go great lengths to reflect the French people's passion for diving fearlessly into the cultures of the world."

Earlier this year, the UAE witnessed the Emirati-French cultural programme featuring a diverse array of events including equestrian choreography, dedicated to the celebration of the upcoming Louvre Abu Dhabi.

The emirate of Sharjah enjoys a unique cultural position, which it has forged by fusing its rich Islamic heritage with an open acceptance of world cultures. In 1998, Sharjah was named the 'Cultural Capital of the Arab World' by UNESCO, and in 2014 the 'Capital of Islamic Culture' by Islamic Organization for Education, Science and Culture (ISESCO).

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170328005845/en/

Contacts:

National Network Communications

Fadia Daouk, T: +971 52 617 2111

E: f.daouk@nncpr.com


COPENHAGEN (dpa-AFX) - Uber is closing its ride-hailing services in Denmark next month, citing upcoming changes in regulations that would make its app unworkable for consumers.



The San Francisco-based company said in a blog post that it will close its services on April 18, 2017, as the new laws currently being proposed in Denmark will not allow drivers to use their privately owned cars for ride sharing. The new laws also require the installation of 'expensive old style' taximeters and seat-sensors.



Uber, whose app is used by more than 2,000 drivers and 300,000 riders in Denmark, noted that the installation of taximeters and seat-sensors effectively block the use of modern technology, like smartphones, which can serve the same functions.



However, Uber will retain its presence in Denmark by maintaining a team of 40 engineers based in the city of Aarhus, who help develop Uber technology for the global market.



'For Uber to be available in Denmark again, the proposed regulations need to change. We will work hard and push the government for a new law that will enable hundreds of thousands of Danes to again enjoy the benefits of Uber,' the company said.



Uber also advised its riders in Denmark to urge their politicians to create laws that embrace modern technology and will allow Danes to enjoy the benefits of apps like Uber.



Uber halted its operations in Taiwan from early February 2017 after the company faced opposition from the government for recruiting for its transportation service, despite its registration as a software company.



In July 2016, Uber said it was shutting operations in Budapest, Hungary, citing government measures that made it difficult for the company to operate.



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NEW YORK, NY -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- USPack Logistics (www.gouspack.com), a NewSpring Holdings' portfolio company and a national provider of local delivery solutions for eCommerce, healthcare, parts and supplies shippers, today announced two significant changes to its executive management team.

Newly appointed Chief Operating Officer, Frank Powell, has been promoted from his previous role as director of sales and operations.

"This promotion is truly an honor and I appreciate the trust both Peter and Mark Glazman have in my abilities," said Frank Powell. "I look forward to our continued success and to a future filled with unlimited potential."

"Since Frank joined USPack in 2012, he has made as great an impact on our success as any other employee in this company," said Peter Glazman, CEO of USPack. "This promotion formalizes the role that Frank has played for some time. Frank's leadership has not only been central to USPack's growth, but by also developing an operational roadmap, and hiring the right people to execute the plan with precision. On Frank's watch, USPack's sales and operational efficiencies have ascended to unprecedented heights."

Dan Byrne joins USPack Logistics filling a newly created position, vice president of business development.

"As USPack continues to expand both organically and through acquisition, it's imperative that we have an executive on our team with the expertise to align our brand both horizontally and vertically, and to ensure communications and marketing efforts connect the new USPack brand to customers in a manner that sustains long-term relationships, said Mark Glazman, Executive Vice President of USPack.

In this capacity, Mr. Byrne will be responsible for all USPack sales and marketing programs. Prior to joining USPack, Mr. Byrne held similar roles at DHL Supply Chain and BeavEx, and has served as an independent operating advisor to investors and management of middle market transportation companies. Mr. Byrne holds an MBA from Emory University's Goizueta Business School, an MS in Telecommunications from George Washington University's School of Engineering and Applied Science, as well as an undergraduate Finance degree from Stetson University.

"Dan brings both a stellar track record of success in the final mile sector and an innovative approach perfect for connecting the USPack brand with a growing target audience," added Mark Glazman, "and an increasingly important role considering our record growth and recent acquisitions of Best Courier and JS Logistics."

"It's clear that the consumer supply chain is being re-invented at the local level," said Mr. Byrne. "But what's happening in retail is now being extended to healthcare and B2B sectors like parts delivery and industrial supplies. For some time, I've been looking for a transportation company who is ideally positioned to accelerate this transformation, and I've found it at USPack."

Mr. Byrne will also collaborate with Frank Powell and other division leaders to support the continuing development of leading edge supply-chain solutions, and creating targeted service bundles that meet the needs of today's ever-changing market.

"Frank's promotion and Dan's appointment are just two of a myriad of critical hires and internal changes that position USPack to thrive in the years ahead," added Peter Glazman. "I'm confident that we have assembled the right team to meet the tremendous opportunity being presented to us by customers."

About USPack:

USPack Logistics, based in New York City, makes supply chains local for the eCommerce, healthcare, and critical parts & supplies sectors. Our national transportation and warehouse network provides same day and next day service to 70% of the U.S. population. For more information, please visit www.gouspack.com.

About NewSpring Holdings

NewSpring Holdings, LLC, NewSpring Capital's dedicated buy and build strategy, focuses on control buyouts and platform builds, targeting profitable, growing companies seeking a financial partner to better assist them in achieving their goals. NewSpring Capital, based in Radnor, Pa., collectively manages more than $1.5 billion of committed capital supporting more than 110 portfolio companies across its growth equity, control buyout and mezzanine debt strategies. Combining deep operating knowledge with financial and investing expertise, NewSpring Capital provides growing companies the financial resources, advice, network of contacts and strategic partnerships necessary to be successful. To learn more about NewSpring Capital, please visit www.newspringcapital.com.

CONTACT

Mostafa Razzak

JMRConnect

202-904-2048

m.razzak@jmrconnect.net




JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, August 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The Hejaz valley in Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam and the most celebrated place on earth. For centuries, millions of Muslims have converged in Mecca for the annual Hajj pilgrimage - the world's largest peaceful global gathering.

More than 80 different nationalities unite in one kingdom. This year Saudi Arabia welcomes more than 1.8 million from across the world. While Hajj lasts one week, the country plans and prepares year-round to put in place the logistics needed to host this truly astounding congregation gathering that is 46 times the average crowd per game at the 2014 World Cup and 5 times the number of foreign travellers to the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janiero.

To view the Multimedia News Release, please click:

https://www.multivu.com/players/uk/8169551-saudi-arabia-welcomes-world-hajj/

Additional information: http://www.saudiwelcomestheworld.org

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/549956/SaudiWelcomesTheWorld.jpg )

Video:

https://www.multivu.com/players/uk/8169551-saudi-arabia-welcomes-world-hajj/




PANAMA (dpa-AFX) - Carnival Corporation & plc (CCL, CUK) reported third-quarter adjusted net income of $1.7 billion, or $2.29 per share, higher than adjusted net income of $1.4 billion, or $1.92 per share, a year ago. On average, 17 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report profit per share of $2.2, for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.



Revenues for the third quarter of 2017 were $5.52 billion, higher than $5.10 billion reported prior year. Analysts expected revenue of $5.39 billion, for the quarter. Gross revenue yields increased 5.5 percent. In constant currency, net revenue yields increased 5.1 percent for third-quarter, better than June guidance of up approximately 4.0 percent.



Looking forward, the company said it now expects 2017 adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $3.64 to $3.70 compared to June guidance of $3.60 to $3.70. The company expects full year 2017 net revenue yields in constant currency to be up approximately 4.0 percent compared to the prior year, better than June guidance of up approximately 3.5 percent.



The company expects adjusted earnings per share for the fourth quarter 2017 to be in the range of $0.44 to $0.50. Fourth-quarter constant currency net revenue yields are expected to be up approximately 1.5 to 2.5 percent compared to the prior year. Excluding the estimated impact from recent weather related voyage disruptions, fourth-quarter constant currency revenue yields would have been expected to increase approximately 3.5 percent, 1.5 percent higher than the mid-point of September guidance.



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NEW YORK, NY -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- HealthiNation, a leading producer of premium original videos for health, food and fitness announced today it has received an Emmy Nomination by The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) for the 44th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards. The Daytime Creative Arts Emmy Awards will be held at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on Friday, April 28, 2017 and The Daytime Emmy Awards will be held on Sunday, April 30th at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

The nomination in the "Outstanding Special Class - Short Format Daytime Program" category is for the HealthiNation Films documentary titled "Time to Live Again." Created by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Jacquelyn Lobel, this story of childhood trauma, healing and resilience chronicles Australian-born and now Brooklyn-based artist, musician and entrepreneur Nadia Ackerman. The film debuted December 6, 2016 exclusively online on HealthiNation (healthination.com) and Facebook (facebook.com/healthination). Ms. Lobel collaborated with HealthiNation Producers Charles Conyers, Carianne D'Alessandro, Shannon Jones, and Felix Rojas and Chief Medical Editor Preeti Parikh, MD.

"We're honored to be nominated for our Second Emmy Award for our story about Nadia's inspiring journey," said Michael O'Donnell, CEO of HealthiNation. "'Time to Live Again' is HealthiNation's first film under the HealthiNation Films label and continues our commitment to tell authentic health stories through the eyes of individuals, whether they be patients, caregivers or physicians."

The Daytime Creative Arts Emmy Awards gala honors the more than 70 craft categories behind the many shows that grace the Daytime genre. The current nomination follows HealthiNation's previous Daytime Emmy awarded in 2015 for "True Champions: Depression," an episodic series starring patient advocate Erin Schulthies, created to help people living with depression who are searching for answers to the disease online.

In April 2017, HealthiNation Films will introduce its second documentary, "Care Until Cure: A Second Chance At Alzheimer's," a 30-minute film about Alzheimer's caregiving that won Best Documentary Short at the Sunscreen Film Festival in St. Petersburg, Florida in 2016, and was an official selection at the Fort Myers Beach Film Festival and the American Psychological Association Film Festival. "Care Until Cure" will debut exclusively on HealthiNation (www.healthination.com) and HealthiNation's Facebook page (facebook.com/healthination).

ABOUT HEALTHINATION

Based in New York, New York and backed by venture capital firms, HealthiNation is a leading digital health media company that produces an award-winning consumer destination for videos around health conditions, food and fitness. A member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, HealthiNation works with major advertisers to provide video advertising opportunities to reach consumers interested in HealthiNation's engaging and informative original health and wellness content.

Contact info:



David Spector

Email Contact

212-633-0007




ISTANBUL, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

LC Waikiki, one of the world's leading fashion retail brands, has today opened its first store in Indonesia shortly after the opening of their first store in Kenya.

The grand opening of the LC Waikiki store in the Gandaria City Mall Jakarta took place on Friday, 24th of March from 6 PM onwards. The store is the first in the Asia Pacific region and the grandeur of the opening was set to match the importance. The red carpet ceremony included the presence of VIP guests, famous artists, actors/actresses, and celebrities who were invited to celebrate the opening of the store.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/481899/LC_Waikiki_Grand_Opening_1.jpg )



(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/481900/LC_Waikiki_Grand_Opening_2.jpg )



(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/481901/LC_Waikiki_Grand_Opening_3.jpg )



(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/481902/LC_Waikiki_Grand_Opening_4.jpg )



The grand opening of LC Waikiki's first store in Jakarta was hosted by the LC Waikiki Sub Saharan Africa and Asia Operations Director Mr. Alker HacioAYlu and LC Waikiki Regional Manager Mr.Ozan BaAY. The store opening was enlivened by the presence of Isabella Damla and Emre Kivilcim who are Turkish, actress and actor from Elif TV Series, along with the attendance of Patricia Gouw as the MC and DJ RBA.

Last month LC Waikiki, also opened their first store in Sub-Saharan Africa at the Two Rivers Mall, in Nairobi, as part of its growth strategy. The entry into the Kenyan market is seen as a step towards increasing its footprint in Africa, with the store in Nairobi being the main launch pad.

LC Waikiki, established in 1988, has been offering service under LC Waikiki MaAYazacilik in Turkey since 1997 and dresses people up with the motto "Everyone Deserves to Dress Well" alongside sticking with the "affordable fashion" approach. LC Waikiki's journey to growth has been continuing for 20 years. LC Waikiki, one of the leaders of the ready-to-wear industry, currently offers service with more than 750 stores and 35.000 employees in 37 countries.

http://www.lcwaikiki.com
ORLANDO, FL -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- First GREEN Bank, a local bank with a global mission, announces today its recognition as a Certified B Corporation by B Lab, a nonprofit organization that supports a global movement of people using business as a force for good. This prestigious certification is a verified benchmark for companies supporting positive global impact through responsible professional practices. First GREEN Bank is one of 15 Certified B Corporation companies in Florida and is now helping lead the movement for other companies to become certified nationwide.

"This accreditation serves as a testament to First GREEN Bank's ability to be successful and generate profit through a values-based business approach, proving that companies can benefit without compromising ethical standard," said Ken LaRoe, founder of First GREEN Bank. "The environmental and social mission of First GREEN Bank was greatly influenced by the book 'Let My People Go Surfing,' written by the renown environmentalist and founder of Patagonia. It is a great milestone in our company's history to receive B Lab recognition for turning a simple inspiration into a business that successfully embraces holistic practices."

Each of First GREEN Bank's seven locations is considered a "values center" for its strong commitment to advance positive change in the banking sector. Buildings are built or renovated to meet the highest level of sustainability possible, and each location offers customers discounts on solar energy loans. For the community, the bank lends in excess of $422 million to local Florida businesses and citizens, and hosts an annual Art of Medicine Gala to benefit those affected by brain injuries. The bank also has some of the best benefits of any company, including a Living Wage Program that ensures employees earn a wage of at least $32,000, and a Parental Leave Policy to give both mothers and fathers additional time to bond with their newborn.

"We are extremely honored to join the more than 1,000 other Certified B Corporation companies across America that are working together to make the world a better place," said Keith Costello, CEO of First GREEN Bank. "We hope to redefine standards and build an enterprise that is without ethical compromise through our continued efforts in sustainable energy, employee benefits, charity donations and community involvement."

To learn more about First GREEN Bank, visit www.firstgreenbank.com. For more information on B Lab, Certified B Corporations and to view First GREEN Bank's B Lab evaluation score card, visit www.bcorporation.net.

About First GREEN Bank

Since its opening in 2009, First GREEN Bank has led an impactful and successful charge to prove there is a better way to do business -- one that is financially, environmentally and socially responsible. Committed to incorporating a strong sense of social responsibility into its business, founder Ken LaRoe and CEO Keith Costello are one of the only two leaders and friends in the banking industry to promote environmentally responsible behavior through its own business and employees. LaRoe and Costello coincidentally received the last and second to last bank charters in the state of Florida and, together, plan to use that certification to promote their global mission.

Headquartered in Orlando, with additional locations in Mount Dora, Clermont, Ormond Beach, Winter Park, Fort Lauderdale, and, most recently, Altamonte Springs, First GREEN Bank offers personal and commercial banking services.

To find out more about First GREEN Bank, visit www.firstgreenbank.com.

About B Lab

B Lab is a nonprofit organization that serves a global movement of people using business as a force for good. Its vision is that one day all companies will compete to be best for the world and that society will enjoy a more shared and durable prosperity. B Lab drives this systemic change by: (1) building a global community of Certified B Corporations; (2) promoting Mission Alignment using innovative corporate structures like the benefit corporation to align the interests of business with those of society; (3) helping tens of thousands of businesses, investors and institutions Measure What Matters, by using the B Impact Assessment and B Analytics to manage their impact -- and the impact of the businesses with which they work -- with as much rigor as their profits; and (4) inspiring millions to join the movement through compelling storytelling by its multi-platform branded media company B the Change Media.

For more information, visit www.bcorporation.net.

Media Contact

Kaleigh DeHart

Uproar PR for First GREEN Bank

321-236-0102

Email Contact




BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The Conference Board releases U.S. consumer confidence index for March at 10:00 am ET Tuesday. The index is forecast to dip to 114.0 from 114.8 in the previous month. Ahead of the data, the greenback traded mixed against its major rivals. While the greenback held steady against the pound, it fell against the rest of major rivals. The greenback was worth 1.0867 against the euro, 110.27 against the yen, 0.9836 against the franc and 1.2554 against the pound as of 9:55 am ET. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
DUBLIN and ATLANTA, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Waratek, the virtualization-based application security company, announced today that CRN  , a brand of The Channel Company, has named Waratek to its annual Security 100 list. This project recognizes the coolest security vendors in each of five categories: Endpoint Security; Identity Management and Data Protection; Network Security; SIEM and Security Analytics; and Web, Email and Application Security. The companies on CRN's Security 100 list have demonstrated creativity and innovation in product development, as well as a strong commitment to delivering those offerings through a vibrant channel of solution providers.

Last month, Cyber Defense Magazine, the industry's leading electronic information security magazine, also honored Waratek as the leader in the "application security" category of its Infosec Awards.

Waratek offers security solutions for application protection and operational efficiency in four key areas: Application Protection, Zero Day Defense, Virtual Patching, and Legacy Platforms. Waratek's solutions defend against attacks in the full software stack in a customer's existing runtime environment. Waratek's Application Security Platform prevents real-time attacks with no false positives, backed by a guarantee against OWASP Top Ten attacks.

"In an age of cyberattacks and heightened concerns about cybercrime against businesses of all sizes, protecting data has become a top priority, and security solutions are in higher demand than ever," said Robert Faletra, CEO of The Channel Company. "CRN's annual Security 100 list honors the expert technology suppliers at the forefront of this thriving field, and supports solution providers in their search for the right vendor partners to help them leverage the rich business opportunities it offers."

"We are honored to be ranked on CRN's Security 100 list and recognized by Cyber Defense Magazine's Infosec Awards, especially as application security continues to become a more pressing concern for businesses in many industries," said Brian Maccaba, Waratek CEO. "Our inclusion on this list underscores the value of application security, which has historically been overlooked by companies that dedicate most of their resources to securing the perimeter. Lack of visibility in the application layer limits comprehensive security, but our solutions detect and prevent real-time attacks without false positives and without slowing application performance."

Resources:

The Security 100 list will be featured in the April 2017 issue of CRN and online at www.crn.com/security100.

issue of CRN and online at www.crn.com/security100. Cyber Defense Magazine's Infosec award winners for 2017 are available online at http://www.cyberdefensemagazine.com/2017-cdm-infosec-award-winners/

About Cyber Defense Magazine

Cyber Defense Magazine is the premier source of IT Security information. We are managed and published by and for ethical, honest, passionate information security professionals. Our mission is to share cutting edge knowledge, real world stories and awards on the best ideas, products and services in the information technology industry. We deliver electronic magazines every month online for free and limited print editions exclusively for the RSA Conferences and our paid subscribers. Learn more about us athttp://www.cyberdefensemagazine.com

About the Channel Company

The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers and end users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequaled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. www.thechannelco.com

About Waratek

Waratek is a pioneer in the next generation of application security solutions known as Runtime Application Self-Protection or RASP. Based on virtualization, Waratek's solution is highly accurate, easy to install, simple to operate and does not slow application performance - while providing protection against known and unknown vulnerabilities in current and legacy software. Based in Atlanta, Georgia and Dublin, Ireland, Waratek offers customers a $10,000 credit per unique event for false positives. For more information visit www.waratek.com or follow us @Waratek.

Media Contact:

Michael Gallo

Lumina Communications

212-239-8594

Waratek@Luminapr.com
CRESCO, PA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- Net Savings Link, Inc. (OTC: NSAV) announced today that the Company has cancelled 3.0 billion shares of its common stock that had been pledged to KBM Worldwide in a settlement negotiated by the Company's previous management. The Company took this action as these shares were part of an agreement between NSAV and its former management and China Food and Beverage Company (OTC: CHIF). The agreement expired on June 30, 2016 and is now null and void. The Company feels that this action is in the best interest of NSAV and its shareholders.

Further, in the Company's 8-K filed on June 14, 2016, it stated that the former president of NSAV sold his preferred shares to the Company's current president, James Tilton, thereby giving Mr. Tilton voting control of NSAV. Mr. Tilton, who owns no shares or options of the Company's common stock, has pledged to transfer these preferred shares of NSAV to China Food and Beverage Company for no consideration. The attorneys for both companies and Mr. Tilton are preparing the paperwork for this transfer and hope to complete it as soon as possible. Mr. Tilton is also the president and one of three directors of China Food and Beverage Company. Mr. Tilton's preferred shares are not convertible to common stock, only voting rights. Therefore, this transfer will not result in a single share of dilution for NSAV shareholders.

The Company also announced that the final decision on how many of the additional 2.5 billion of its authorized shares, which have been placed on hold for possible cancellation, will be announced at the end of this week or early next week. The Company wants to ensure that the amount of authorized shares will enable NSAV to fulfill its business plan and, in time, pay a substantial share dividend to its shareholders.

Further, although the Company's business model is growth by acquisition, the desire of NSAV is not to dilute its shareholders when making acquisitions. The Company's vision is to pay for its acquisitions out of the earnings of the companies it acquires.

Further, the current total issued and outstanding shares of NSAV is 3,149,504,075. This total is as of close of business yesterday.

James Tilton, president of NSAV, stated, "I know it has taken a while, but I am truly pleased that we have cancelled these 3.0 billion KBM Worldwide shares. This agreement was negotiated and signed by the former president of NSAV and although I signed the Binding Change of Control agreement on behalf of China Food and Beverage Company on January 29, 2016, in the end, I could not follow through with the closing, as this clause relating to the KBM shares could have destroyed NSAV and caused great harm to its shareholders. Protecting shareholders has been my personal motto for 22 years and will continue in my role with NSAV."

Mr. Tilton went on to state, "To be clear, there is no company imposed gag order on Pacific Stock Transfer. I have urged them to provide shareholders with full details of the NSAV share structure. Pacific has decided to refer all enquiries back to the Company. Our attorneys informed me that this is the legal right of the transfer agent. I believe that Pacific is taking this action in order to protect themselves after the serious communication problems with the company a few weeks ago. I urge all shareholders to continue to contact the transfer agent and demand up to date share information. This is your legal right."

Mr. Tilton further stated, "I can personally guarantee all NSAV shareholders that there is no dilution of the Company's shares. The rumors on the message boards and social media are totally fabricated and completely untrue. I give all you shareholders my word on that."

NSAV's vision is the establishment of a fully integrated technology company that provides turnkey technological solutions to the medical cannabis industry, as well as other areas of the medical industry. Over time, the Company plans to provide a wide range of services such as software solutions, e-commerce, financial services, patents and trademarks and information technology.

For further information please contact NSAV at 1 (570-595-2432) or jamestilton@netsavingslinkinc.com.

The NSAV Twitter account can be accessed at https://twitter.com/NSAV_MJTechCo

The NSAV Facebook account can be accessed at https://www.facebook.com/Net-Savings-Link-Inc-768628693317257/

This press release contains certain 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, which are intended to be covered by the safe harbors created thereby. Investors are cautioned that, all forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including without limitation, the ability of Net Savings Link, Inc. to accomplish its stated plan of business. Net Savings Link, Inc. believes that the assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements contained herein are reasonable, any of the assumptions could be inaccurate, and therefore, there can be no assurance that the forward-looking statements included in this press release will prove to be accurate. In light of the significant uncertainties inherent in the forward- looking statements included herein, the inclusion of such information should not be regarded as a representation by Net Savings Link, Inc. or any other person.

NSAV

1 (570-595-2432)

jamestilton@netsavingslinkinc.com




AUSTIN, TX--(Marketwired - March 28, 2017) - Bridgepoint Consulting, a leading Texas-based finance, IT and management consulting firm, announced today that the firm's Turnaround & Restructuring practice has been named a 2017 finalist for Turnaround Firm of the Year (Boutique category) by the Global M&A Network Turnaround Atlas Awards.

Additionally, Bridgepoint Consulting's client Life Partners Holdings Inc. has been recognized as the Chapter 11 Restructuring of the Year (companies with assets $1 Billion - $2.5 Billion), particularly for having the Best Value Creating Chapter 11 Plan.

The annual Turnaround Atlas Awards, presented by the Global M&A Network, honor excellence in categories of best value-creating transactions, outstanding firms, influential professionals and leaders from the restructuring, bankruptcy, special situation deals and turnaround communities, world-wide. Winning a Turnaround Atlas Award equates to achieving the highest "Gold Standard of Performance" seal of endorsement in the local, regional and global markets; validating the team expertise and talents, as well as the organization's competitive brand leadership position.

The Life Partners restructuring is likely the first time ever a fraudulent scheme of this magnitude was converted to a legitimate enterprise, according to Dawn Ragan, Managing Director of Turnaround & Restructuring Services, whom led the transaction for Bridgepoint. "We are delighted to receive this recognition from the Global M&A Network for the great accomplishment achieved by our Turnaround team, on behalf of thousands of investors in the Life Partners portfolio," said Bill Patterson, Principal at Bridgepoint Consulting. "We have an outstanding team of professionals who are focused on delivering unique restructuring and business transformation solutions, and I am very proud of their dedication to and passion for serving our Texas clients."

Since 2008, Bridgepoint has helped more than 60 struggling companies with everything from Turnaround, Dispute Resolution, Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and CRO Services. Learn more about the firm's comprehensive Turnaround services here.

"Every day, we help our clients navigate some very complex reorganizations or financial distress," said Ragan. "This is truly a testament to our teams' hard work, restructuring capability and ability to work across industries."

"Bridgepoint has and continues to be an excellent partner," said David Bennett, Bankruptcy & Restructuring Practice Leader for Thompson & Knight, Life Partners' Chapter 11 counsel. "We've been very impressed by their personalized services, which rivals some of the biggest firms out there thanks to its high-quality service delivery model and the teams' restructuring capability."

Winners will be honored at the Global M&A Network's Turnaround Atlas Awards Gala on Tuesday, April 4 in New York. The winners in each category are selected independently based on identifiable performance criteria, including restructuring style, sustainability, number of creditors, sector challenges, timeliness and jurisdictional intricacies.

About Bridgepoint Consulting

Bridgepoint Consulting is a leading Texas-based professional services firm that provides strategic services and highly qualified professionals to solve complex financial, management and technology challenges. Since 1999, we've been helping executives and management teams reduce their business and operational risks, bridge resource gaps and improve overall performance. Whether an organization needs interim expertise to improve infrastructure and processes, or strategic management of a major transition or transaction, Bridgepoint's team of 140+ qualified professionals can help. The firm has offices in Austin, Dallas and Houston. For more information on Bridgepoint Consulting, please visit our website at www.BridgepointConsulting.com.

Contact:

Gina Budd

Bridgepoint Consulting

Ph. 512-422-6571

gbudd@bridgepointconsulting.com
GUERNSEY, CHANNEL ISLANDS -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- Further to the press release of Highland Copper Company Inc. ("Highland") of 27 March 2017, Greenstone Resources II L.P. ("Greenstone") announces that it has acquired 80,700,000 common shares of Highland at a price per common share of C$0.10, for aggregate gross proceeds of C$8,070,000 (the "Greenstone Subscription"). The Greenstone Subscription is part of the fourth tranche of a larger private placement by Highland to raise up to C$30,000,000 (the "Private Placement").

In addition, in connection with the Greenstone Subscription, Greenstone received 40,350,000 share purchase warrants (the "Warrants"). Each Warrant entitles Greenstone to purchase one additional common share of Highland for a period of 12 months at C$0.15 per share.

Prior to completion of the Greenstone Subscription, Greenstone held no securities of Highland. As a result of the Greenstone Subscription, Greenstone now has ownership of and control over a total of 80,700,000 common shares of Highland, representing approximately 17.6% of the outstanding common shares of Highland on a basic shares outstanding basis. Assuming exercise of the Warrants, Greenstone would have ownership of and control over approximately 24.2% on a partially diluted basis.

Greenstone acquired the securities of Highland for investment purposes. Depending on market conditions and other factors, Greenstone may from time to time acquire and/or dispose of securities of Highland or continue to hold its current position. A copy of the early warning report required to be filed with the applicable securities commission in connection with the transactions will be available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and can be obtained by contacting Joanna Duquemin Nicolle and Sadie Morrison at +44 1481 810 100. Greenstone's address is set out below.

Contacts:

Greenstone Resources L.P.

1st Floor, Royal Chambers

St Julian's Avenue

St Peter Port, Guernsey

+44 1481 810 100



Highland Copper Company Inc.

1111 St-Charles West

West Tower, Suite 101

Longueuil,Quebec

Canada J4K 5G4




ORLANDO, FL--(Marketwired - March 28, 2017) - Tijuana Flats, the fast-casual Tex-Mex dining experience, is bringing its "Flat Outrageous" brand to Florida's First Coast with the opening of a new store in St. Augustine on Monday, April 3, 2017.

Tijuana Flats' decision to set up shop in St. Augustine is part of an expansion strategy that will enhance the restaurant's foothold in Florida, while also growing its presence in regions across the Southeast.

"As a company that is rooted in Central Florida, opening a store in St. Augustine felt like a natural progression for us," said Larry Ryback, chief executive officer at Tijuana Flats. "The city's reputation for its laid-back atmosphere and as a melting pot for people of all ages and backgrounds makes it an ideal location for our 'anything goes' brand."

Located at 833 S Ponce de Leon Boulevard, the new store will span 2,400 square feet, will include 70 indoor guest seats and 24 patio seats, and will employ 45-50 team members to include management, back-of-house and front-of-house employees.

Like all existing Tijuana Flats stores, the new location will feature energy-efficient equipment and environmentally friendly processes, such as menus on recycled paper, water-conserving faucets, and more.

Tijuana Flats will promote the following grand-opening specials at the St. Augustine location throughout the store's first week:

Monday, 4/3 - First 50 guests receive a FREE Tijuana Burrito

Tuesday 4/4 - Tijuana Tuesdaze - 2 tacos, chips and a drink for $5.99

Wednesday, 4/5 - $5 Norrito Bowls

Thursday, 4/6 - Throwback Thursdaze - Tijuana burrito, chips and a drink for $5.99

Friday, 4/7 - Rock Out Party - Happy Hour all day! Live music and giveaways from 6-9 p.m.

Saturday, 4/8 - Local Hero Day - Police, firefighters, EMT, nurses, teachers and military get 50% any entree with a valid ID.

Sunday, 4/9 - Kids Eat Free - Free kid's meal with the purchase of an adult entree.

Tijuana Tuesdaze and Throwback Thursdaze are reoccurring offers at the St. Augustine store.

To view the Tijuana Flats menu and list of additional locations, visit tijuanaflats.com.

About Tijuana Flats

Established in 1995 in Winter Park, Florida, Tijuana Flats is a unique, fast-casual Tex-Mex dining experience featuring superior guest service and fresh, made-to-order food. Tijuana Flats has 125 locations in Florida, Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. The brand has been named to Fast Casual Magazine's 2015 & 2016 Top 100 Movers & Shakers list. For more information on Tijuana Flats, please visit https://tijuanaflats.com/.

About AUA Equity

AUA Private Equity Partners, LLC is a New York-based, operationally-focused, lower middle-market investment firm providing strategic capital to companies in the consumer, media, and business services sectors, with a particular focus on family-owned businesses and companies benefiting from the growth of the U.S. Hispanic population. AUA Equity makes equity investments of $15 to $50 million in companies that generate in excess of $3 million in EBITDA. AUA Equity currently manages over $275 million of capital. For more information on AUA Private Equity, please visit www.auaequity.com.

Media Contact

Lauren Bowes

lbowes@findsomewinmore.com

(407) 722-7843
SASKATOON, SASKATCHEWAN -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- International Road Dynamics Inc. (IRD) (TSX: IRD) announced today that it has been awarded a contract to supply, install and maintain a Weigh-in-Motion (WIM) Sorting System at the Blunt Port of Entry on US Highway 14 and US Highway 83 east of Pierre, South Dakota. The project is valued at approximately USD$1.1 million with installation to be completed by October 2017. This project is the fifth Port of Entry WIM system supplied by IRD to South Dakota, as South Dakota Department of Transportation continues the deployment of additional systems throughout the State.

The Port-of-Entry Commercial Vehicle Identification System protects highway infrastructure by weighing all commercial vehicles, capturing license plate numbers and directing suspected violators to report to the Truck Inspection Station. The project includes IRD's Single-Load-Cell (SLC) WIM, intelligent Roadside Operation Credentialing (iROC) system, and License Plate Reader (LPR) technology. Commercial vehicles are automatically identified, and their safety, operating authority and credentials are verified, while confirming compliance with weight regulations. The combination of screening technologies improves highway safety and provides efficient enforcement of credentials and overloaded trucks.

Mr. Terry Bergan, IRD's President and CEO stated: "We are pleased to have been awarded this new contract in South Dakota, which demonstrates the growth of our commercial vehicle screening system deployments throughout the US. In addition to making the station more efficient, South Dakota's roadway infrastructure will be better protected from truck overloading, traffic safety will be improved, and weight enforcement will be enhanced."

IRD is a highway traffic management technology company specializing in supplying products and systems to the global Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) industry. IRD is a North American company based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada with sales and service offices throughout the United States and overseas. Private corporations, transportation agencies and highway authorities around the world use IRD's products and advanced systems to manage and protect their highway infrastructures.

The Company's shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol IRD.

IRD is listed on the TSX - trading symbol - IRD

www.irdinc.com

Contacts:

International Road Dynamics Inc.

Terry Bergan

President & CEO

(306) 653-6600



International Road Dynamics Inc.

Francine Senecal

Investor Relations

(306) 653-6603

(306) 653-1454 (FAX)

Email: irdir@irdinc.com

Website: www.irdinc.com




BEIJING (dpa-AFX) - At least 18 people were injured at a Hong Kong mall after a four-storey escalator malfunctioned. The escalator at the Langham Place shopping center suddenly stopped and reversed at high speed, sending passengers hurtling down. However, the reason behind the malfunction is still unknown. According to reports, the escalator traveled at two or three times its normal speed after it reversed. According to South China Morning Post, two workers were arrested due to possible hampering efforts to determine the cause of accident. The report says that an auxiliary braking system designed to shut down the escalator in the event of failure might not have been turned on. Police officials have arrested two technicians, who worked for Otis Elevator Company. According to the officials, the escalator had been shut down and all personnel involved in the investigation were ordered not to touch it. However, on Sunday night however, officials discovered that the escalator's auxiliary braking system had been reactivated, which could affected the escalator's computer data records. 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.
ClearFlow places heavy emphasis on enhancing global customer awareness about PleuraFlow ACT System's role in minimizing RBS

SANTA CLARA, California, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --Based on its recent analysis of the retained blood syndrome solutions market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes ClearFlow, Inc. with the 2017 Global Frost & Sullivan Award for New Product Innovation. ClearFlow has disrupted post-operative cardiothoracic surgery care with its unique PleuraFlow Active Clearance Technology (ACT) System. Clinical data indicates that this pioneering technology reduces retained blood syndrome (RBS) by 43% and postoperative atrial fibrillation by 33%, giving hospitals considerable return on investment in terms of improved patient outcomes and fewer associated complications. An analysis of over 313,000 US Adult cardiac surgery patients has shown that these complications generally cost an average of $28,814 per incident.

"The PleuraFlow ACT System comprises a tube clearance apparatus that inserts between the chest tube and the drainage canister outside the body, allowing cardiac ICU staff to minimize the chance of the drainage tube clogging at the bedside," said Frost & Sullivan Senior Industry Analyst, Patrick Riley. ClearFlow uses silicon for its chest tubes because the softer material is much more comfortable for the patient and causes less pain during removal than conventional hard plastic tubes.

ClearFlow offers four standard French (FR) configurations-20-FR, 24-FR, 28-FR, and 32-FR. It recently released a pediatric edition of its 20-FR System, which has a shorter effective drainage length (SEDL) and fewer drainage holes for use in a smaller chest cavity. The 20-FR SEDL can be used in two-thirds of pediatric applications. The company is developing additional smaller tube configurations for the remaining one-third.

ClearFlow places a considerable emphasis on educating cardiac surgeons, physician assistants, and nursing staff members within the cardiac surgery suite and ICU. It also developed a simple cost calculator application leveraging industry studies and medical payment record databases that allow hospitals to estimate the overall cost savings enabled by the PleuraFlow ACT. This is in addition to the company's continuous quality improvement (CQI) program that helps hospitals compare patient results before and after using the PleuraFlow ACT to track their individual return on investment.

"ClearFlow's largest market is in the United States, but it has gained regulatory approval to sell the PleuraFlow ACT System in Australia, Canada, and many more countries in the European Union and South America," noted Riley. "Clearly, the PleuraFlow ACT is uniquely positioned for sustained success as it meets customers' core requirements of quality, functionality, and reliability."

Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that develops an innovative product to leverage leading-edge technologies. The award recognizes the value-added features/benefits of the product and the increased ROI it offers customers, which in turn raises customer acquisition and overall market penetration potential.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.

About ClearFlow, Inc.

ClearFlow, Inc. is an Anaheim, CA based medical device company that has developed a patented active blood and fluid evacuation system to speed recovery, reduce complications and lower healthcare costs related to medical tube obstruction. The company has been awarded several prestigious awards, including the European Association of Cardiothoracic Surgeons Techno-College Innovation Award for worldwide innovation that has the potential to change the standard of care in heart and lung surgery, and the Innovations in Cardiovascular Interventions Award, among others.

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Contact us: Start the discussion.

Contact:

Chiara Carella

P: +44 (0) 207.343.8314

F: 210.348.1003

E: chiara.carella@frost.com

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/480806/ClearFlow_Award_Logo.jpg
BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - Lyft is all set to link charity with its rides. As per the plan, passengers can opt to round up their fare and can donate the difference for charity activity. The Round up & Donate program will be launched soon and will expand it gradually. The company aims to utilize the charity fund from climate change to the pursuit of equality. Earlier on March 22, Lyft had said its drivers have earned more than $200 million in tips. For the last few months, the riding app has been in an expansion mode with a target of 100 new cities in one year. It has spread across 40 cities in January, 56 in February, and 35 in March and crossed 131 cities in first three months. The achievement was 31 percent higher than its original target. Now Lyft is used by 37 million riders with presence in 7 new states. The company said it covers 67 percent of the U.S. Recently, the riding app providers have partnered with Colorado Department of Transportation to help combat driving under the influence of marijuana. 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.
Finance the commercial launch of IRIS II in Europe and Middle East

Prepare the clinical development of sub-retinal system PRIMA

Regulatory News:

Pixium Vision (Paris:PIX) (FR0011950641 PIX), a company developing innovative bionic vision systems to allow patients who have lost their sight to lead more independent lives, announced today the planned drawdown of the first 4 million euros tranche of the financing agreement signed with Kreos Capital, a leading growth debt provider for high growth companies in Europe.

The financing facility of 11 million euros, announced on September 29, 2016, allows Pixium Vision to pursue its strategy and, in particular, to finance the commercial launch, in selected European and middle east countries, of its first approved device, epi-retinal IRISII system for patients suffering from Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) and prepare the upcoming clinical development of sub-retinal photovoltaic PRIMA system for dry Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD). Following the drawdown of the first tranche, the second tranche of 4 million euros should be drawdown before June 30, 2017. The drawdown of the final tranche, amounting to 3 million euros, is optional.

Reminder of the main characteristics of the financing agreement

The financing amounts to a maximum of 11 million euros, composed of 11 million bonds with a nominal value of 1 euro. It is divided into three tranches: 4 million as announced today, 4 million by June 30, 2017 and an optional of 3 million by October 31, 2017. An 11.5% annual interest rate applies on each tranche. They shall be reimbursed through 33 monthly payments after a differed repayment of the nominal value (or interest-only period) equal to 9 months for the first tranche and 3 months for the second and third tranches. The loan is secured by usual pledges over tangible and intangible assets of Pixium Vision. In parallel, Pixium Vision has issued a warrant to Kreos Capital, as described in the press release dated on September 29, 2016 and to be formally approved by the AGM to be held on June 27, 2017.

ABOUT PIXIUM VISION

Pixium Vision's Mission is to create a world of bionic vision for those who have lost their sight, enabling them to regain partial visual perception and greater autonomy. Pixium Vision's bionic vision systems are associated with a surgical intervention as well as a rehabilitation period.

The company is developing two bionic retinal implant systems. IRISII, the company first bionic system, obtained CE mark in July 2016. In parallel, Pixium Vision has recently completed the pre-clinical study phases for PRIMA, a sub-retinal miniaturized wireless photovoltaic implant platform, and is planning to initiate first-in-human trials.

Pixium Vision collaborates closely with academic and research partners spanning across the prestigious Vision research institutions including the Institut de la Vision in Paris, the Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory at Stanford University, and Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. The company is EN ISO 13485 certified.

For more information, please visit: www.pixium-vision.com;

And follow us on: Twitter: @PixiumVision; Facebook: www.facebook.com/pixiumvision

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/pixium-vision

Pixium Vision is listed on Euronext Paris (Compartment C). Pixium Vision shares are eligible for the French tax incentivized PEA-PME and FCPI investment vehicles.

Pixium Vision is included in the Euronext CAC All Shares index

Euronext ticker: PIX ISIN: FR0011950641 Reuters: PIX.PA Bloomberg: PIX:FP

Disclaimer:

This press release may expressly or implicitly contain forward-looking statements relating to Pixium Vision and its activity. Such statements are related to known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could lead actual results, financial conditions, performance or achievements to differ materially from Vision Pixium results, financial conditions, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward looking statements.

Pixium Vision provides this press release as of the aforementioned date and does not commit to update forward looking statements contained herein, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

For a description of risks and uncertainties which could lead to discrepancies between actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements and those contained in the forward-looking statements, please refer to Chapter 4 "Risk Factors" of the company's Registration Document filed with the AMF under number R16-033 on April 28, 2016 which can be found on the websites of the AMF AMF (www.amf-france.org) and of Pixium Vision (www.pixium-vision.com

IRIS is a trademark of Pixium-Vision SA

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170328005951/en/

Contacts:

Pixium Vision

Didier Laurens, +33 1 76 21 47 68

CFO

investors@pixium-vision.com

Twitter: @PixiumVision

or

Media Relations

Newcap Media

Annie-Florence Loyer

+33 1 44 71 00 12 +33 6 88 20 35 59

afloyer@newcap.fr

or

Lea Jacquin +33 1 44 71 94 94

ljacquin@newcap.fr
DETROIT, MI--(Marketwired - March 28, 2017) - JobFairGiant.com unveiled new mobile app to assist those who are currently searching for a job or want to hire an employee. Named JobFairGiant, it provides users with the automatic selection of employers hiring in Michigan, two job boards for candidates seeking positions, a calendar of upcoming job fairs and access to resume writing and interview tips.

If job seekers want to have advantages over other candidates in the modern competitive labor market, they should be aware of all fresh career opportunities 24/7. Constant access to the specialized job search resources can help them to quickly get in touch with prospective employers. Hiring employers can update potential applicants about their positions using the new app. This app will help with the growing needs of employers and job seekers in Metro Detroit; mobile applications are of great use.

JobFairGiant.com launched the mobile application to connect hiring employers with candidates using the trendy approach to mobile-recruiting to spark a direct connection between candidates and employers. In JobFairGiant there is no endless manual search with keywords or parameters for fresh vacancies. Hiring companies are highlighted and applying is simple with one click. When someone is looking for a job they always have to use different accounts, sources or websites. Save your time! Launch the JobFairGiant mobile application and immediately apply for thousands of positions in minutes. All functions are free of charge.

Click the below link to download the mobile application for your device.

Android Devices: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.app.jobfairgiant

Apply Devices: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jobfairgiant/id1214042831?ls=1&mt=8

Kindle Devices: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XRXP96W

Digital Press Release Online at www.Blog.JobFairGiant.com.

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/3/28/11G134304/Images/screen696x696_(2)-766d10823dc986128974318f4e64ed75.jpeg

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/3/28/11G134304/Images/screen696x696-a9853c85d24a96fbaf602588e36f00c5.jpeg

Contact Person:

Megan Thomas

Community Outreach Team

JobFairGiant.com

Office: 734-956-4550 ext#1

Email: thomas@jobfairgiant.com
Regulatory News:

Stallergenes Greer (the "Company") (Paris:STAGR) (Euronext Paris: STAGR), a biopharmaceutical company specializing in treatments for respiratory allergies, today announced that its commercialization partner in Japan, Shionogi Co. Ltd. (Shionogi), submitted its New Drug Application (NDA) for ACTAIR, an investigational allergy immunotherapy sublingual tablet for the treatment of house dust mite (HDM) induced allergic rhinitis in children 5 to 11 years old. ACTAIR is already approved for the treatment of HDM-induced allergic rhinitis in patients 12 years of age and older in Japan.

The NDA submission is supported by data from Shionogi's positive Phase III trial, which was announced in January 2017. The multi-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study evaluated the efficacy of ACTAIR at a daily maintenance dose of 300IR administered for 12 months to children between 5 and 16 years old with HDM-associated allergic rhinitis. Having achieved the study's primary efficacy endpoint, the active group demonstrated a statistically significant difference (p=0.0005) on the Average Adjusted Symptom Score (AAdSS) after one year of treatment versus placebo.

"Now on the cusp of providing access to this therapy for children living with HDM-induced allergies in Japan, we are pleased with the progress our partner, Shionogi, has made to bring this NDA filing to fruition," said Fereydoun Firouz, Chairman and CEO of Stallergenes Greer. "If approved, ACTAIR will be a valuable new treatment option for this pediatric patient population and their families."

In September 2010, Stallergenes SA signed exclusive partnership agreements with Shionogi for the clinical development, registration and commercialization of sublingual HDM and Japanese cedar pollen immunotherapy tablets. As part of this, the Company is eligible for development, regulatory and sales milestones, as well as royalty payments on net sales.

ABOUT SHIONOGI'S PHASE 3 TRIAL IN CHILDREN 5 TO 11 YEARS OLD

The primary endpoint was the AAdSS over the last month of the one year treatment period. The AAdSS is the average of the total score of four rhinitis symptoms (sneezing, rhinorrhea, nasal congestion and nasal pruritus) adjusted for rescue medication use. This was a multi-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to assess the efficacy of HDM sublingual immunotherapy tablets for the treatment of allergic rhinitis. Patients aged 5 to 16 years old with medical history consistent with HDM-induced allergic rhinitis were eligible. A total of 438 patients were randomized to receive 12 months of treatment with HDM sublingual immunotherapy tablets or placebo. The active group showed statistically significant difference (p=0.0005) compared to placebo. Local adverse reactions were observed, with most of them mild in nature with no marked safety concerns.

ABOUT RESPIRATORY ALLERGIES IN JAPAN IN PEDIATRIC PATIENTS

Allergic rhinitis affects 25% of Japan's population. House dust mites and Japanese cedar pollen are the two main causes of respiratory allergies in this country. From early childhood, house dust mites can trigger allergic rhinitis, which worsens over time with a natural progression towards asthma. The symptoms may be severe, significantly impairing patients' quality of life. With 32 million respiratory allergy sufferers, there is a strong, and as yet unmet, demand for allergy treatment in Japan where sublingual allergy immunotherapy tablets have not been available.

Trading Information

Name: Stallergenes Greer

ISIN: GB00BZ21RF93 1 Ticker: STAGR

ICB Classification: 4577

Market: Euronext Paris regulated market

Additional information is available at http://www.stallergenesgreer.com.

This document (including information incorporated by reference in this document), oral statements made and other information published by the Company contain statements that are or may be forward-looking with respect to the financial condition and/or results of operations and businesses of the Company. These statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "believe," "expects," "project," "estimated," "forecast," "should," "plan," "may" or the negative of any of these, or other variations thereof, or comparable terminology indicating expectations or beliefs concerning future events. These forward-looking statements include risk and uncertainty because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future. Without being exhaustive, such factors include economic situations and business conditions, including legal and product evaluation issues, fluctuations in currencies and demand, and changes in competitive factors. These and other factors are more fully described in the Company's 2015 annual report published on 29 April 2016 on the Company's website www.stallergenesgreer.com. Actual results may differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements, due to various factors. Save as required by applicable law, neither the Company nor any other person assumes any obligation to update these forward-looking statements or to notify any person of any such update.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170328006208/en/

Contacts:

Investor and Analyst Relations

Peter Buhler, +33 1 55 59 23 22

Chief Financial Officer

investorrelations@aresallergyco.com

or

Investor Relations Agency

FTI Consulting

Arnaud de Cheffontaines, +33 1 47 03 69 48

arnaud.decheffontaines@fticonsulting.com

or

Media Relations Agency

Havas Worldwide Paris

Jean-Baptiste Froville, +33 1 58 47 95 39

jean-baptiste.froville@havasww.com
DUBLIN, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The new research portal will provide visitors with unparalleled access to company research on Exxon Mobil, alongside comprehensive market research on their position within the global oil and gas industry.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160330/349511LOGO )



According to the Transmission Fluids Market - Global Forecast to 2021, the market is projected to reach USD 8.43 billion by 2021. There is an increase in the demand for automobiles and heavy machinery for construction in the emerging Asia-Pacific region and Middle Eastern & African markets which is leading to the growth of the overall transmission fluid market. The market is expected to grow at a nominal rate as the automotive market in North America is mature, which is also a major factor restraining the growth of the transmission fluids market.

"Exxon Mobil is a leading player within the transmission fluids market and the new portal provides easy access to information on their performance as a company and their impact on the overall oil and gas industry," says Ross Glover, CEO of Research and Markets.

For more information visit: http://www.researchandmarkets.com/companies/exxon-mobil-corp?cid=342jpr

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.

Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com

For E.S.T. Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

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Madre Labs Launches California GOLD Nutrition Astaxanthin Supplement Product with TruAzta Label

Heliae, in collaboration with Madre Labs Inc., today announced California GOLD Nutrition Astaxanthin supplement caps branded with a TruAzta logo are now available on iHerb.com.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170328006284/en/

Madre Labs is the first company to implement the TruAzta branding on its label. The TruAzta labeling aids consumers in identifying California GOLD Nutrition Astaxanthin as a high quality astaxanthin supplement product.

"Natural algal astaxanthin is a powerful carotenoid antioxidant and has been gaining momentum as a valued health supplement due in large part to an expanding database of scientific support," says Len Smith, chief business officer at Heliae. "Manufacturers have options when it comes to sourcing astaxanthin for their products, but TruAzta by Heliae represents a unique value proposition among astaxanthin ingredients, due to Heliae's unique production method, quality, and pricing. We adopted the TruAzta brand to emphasize these unique qualities of our product and our dedication to balancing natural production methods with purity. We are excited that Madre Labs has recognized that how astaxanthin is made matters and is dedicated to ensuring that high quality products are delivered to their customers."

Heliae utilizes a unique production system to produce TruAzta astaxanthin which balances technology ensuring high quality and purity standards with nature's expertise in driving astaxanthin expression. This yields a product produced as close to the way it has been produced in nature for thousands of years while maintaining critical quality standards.

California GOLD Nutrition containing TruAzta astaxanthin may be found on iHerb at www.iHerb.com and is available as 12 mg astaxanthin caps in bottles of 30 and 120 softgels. Heliae will be in attendance at Ingredient Marketplace April 18-20 in Orlando, Florida, and will be showcasing TruAzta in booth I32.

An applied life sciences and technology company located just outside of Phoenix, Arizona, USA, Heliae is focused on researching and developing algae and other underdeveloped biological platforms for commercial scale production of products that help people live better.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170328006284/en/

Contacts:

Heliae

Len Smith, 800-998-6536

Chief Business Officer

info@heliae.com
LAS VEGAS, NV -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- Lucite International, owner of the LuciteLux acrylic brand, will exhibit numerous LuciteLux acrylic colors and effects in booth #2915 at GlobalShop 2017 from March 28-30 at Mandalay Bay. GlobalShop serves as the world's largest annual event for retail design and shopper marketing. Visitors to the LuciteLux booth will also see a demonstration of digital printing on LuciteLux acrylic, a new technology for point-of-purchase displays, signage and wayfinding. It's as simple as using UV-cured ink and ensuring the LuciteLux surface is clean and dust free.

"We're excited to return to GlobalShop to showcase the variety of LuciteLux acrylic options available to retailers today," said Chris Robinson, business manager for Lucite International. "Each color and effect offers a unique design appeal that can help capture the attention of the consumer."

Some acrylics used for POP displays are prone to crazing, a term used to describe a series of minute cracks that appear in the surface of a material after exposure to commonly used liquids, such as rubbing alcohol and perfume. Fading is also a major challenge for retail designers.

With LuciteLux, there is no need to worry about crazing or fading. The material is a continuous cast acrylic sheet with high UV and chemical resistance that protects against this type of irreversible damage.

The showcase at GlobalShop will feature LuciteLux Myst, EcoShade, Light Guide Panel, Spectrum and Clear. Manufactured in Memphis, Tennessee, these various LuciteLux acrylic colors and effects are known to add modern design appeal to visual merchandising displays and retailer interiors.

LuciteLux Myst

Offers a chic frosted look that softly diffuses light while adding subtle elegance.





Offers a chic frosted look that softly diffuses light while adding subtle elegance. LuciteLux EcoShade

Designed with innovative components that are evenly distributed throughout the material providing the ability to permanently reduce heat transmitted through windows and skylights during summer months and heat lost during winter.





Designed with innovative components that are evenly distributed throughout the material providing the ability to permanently reduce heat transmitted through windows and skylights during summer months and heat lost during winter. LuciteLux Light Guide Panel (LGP)

Developed specifically for edge-lit applications, including lighting and signage. Our LGP continuous cast acrylic is formulated with evenly dispersed illuminating particles to provide bright, even illumination.





Developed specifically for edge-lit applications, including lighting and signage. Our LGP continuous cast acrylic is formulated with evenly dispersed illuminating particles to provide bright, even illumination. LuciteLux Spectrum

Designed for back-lit applications, Spectrum continuous cast acrylic is infused with diffusion particles that help deliver vibrant, constant color and exceptional, even brightness.





Designed for back-lit applications, Spectrum continuous cast acrylic is infused with diffusion particles that help deliver vibrant, constant color and exceptional, even brightness. LuciteLux Clear

While colors and effects often steal the spotlight, LuciteLux Clear remains a timeless favorite. The continuous cast clear acrylic sheet with its high molecular weight combines all the outstanding performance characteristics, including high optical clarity and long-term retention of properties you'd expect, with excellent aesthetics and gives designers and fabricators the ultimate flexibility.





About LuciteLux

Manufactured by Lucite International, LuciteLux continuous and cell cast acrylic is as tough as it is beautiful. It resists scratching and has built-in UV protection, which keeps colors true over time. The material is easy to cut, join, form and fabricate and is available in an array of colors, textures and thicknesses. These features, coupled with excellent optical clarity and light transmission qualities, make LuciteLux ideal for use in point-of-sale, display, signage, furnishings, fashion accessories, interior design and more. For more information, visit http://www.lucitelux.com, http://www.facebook.com/lucitelux or http://www.pinterest.com/lucite.

Media Contact:

Jennifer Leckstrom

215-681-0770

jleckstrom@rosecomm.com




CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/28/17 -- Canacol Energy Ltd. ("Canacol" or the "Corporation") (TSX: CNE)(OTCQX: CNNEF)(BVC: CNEC) is pleased to provide an update on the Mono Capuchino 1ST exploration well and the Corporation's drilling program.

Mono Capuchino 1ST Exploration Well VMM2 Exploration & Exploitation ("E&P") contract Middle Magdalena Valley Basin, Colombia CNE Oil and Gas S.A.S. Operator WI 66.9% Vetra Exploracion y Produccion Colombia S.A., Partner WI 33.1%

The Mono Capuchino 1 exploration well was spud on December 17, 2016, reaching a total depth of 10,023 feet measured depth ("ft. md") before experiencing mechanical difficulties that required the well to be sidetracked. The Mono Capuchino 1ST reached a total depth of 10,245 ft. md within the La Luna formation on February 22, 2017. The well encountered approximately 103 feet of net oil pay within the Tertiary Basal Lisama sandstone reservoir, with average porosity of 22%, and approximately 406 feet of net oil pay within the Cretaceous La Luna formation, which consists of shales and limestones with average porosity of 15% and open fractures visible on image logs.

The Lisama sandstone reservoir interval was perforated between 5,691 and 5,884 ft md and flowed at a final stabilized rate 1,013 barrels of oil per day of 18 degrees API oil, 70 barrels of water per day, and 0.3 million standard cubic feet per day of gas using a jet pump with an injection pressure of 3,000 psi over a 34 hour test period. The composition of the produced water indicates that it is power fluid for the jet pump and trace amounts of filtrate related to the drilling process and not formation water. Approximately 769 feet of open hole section within the La Luna was tested and recovered uncommercial heavy oil.

The Mono Capuchino 1ST well will be tied into the permanent production facilities located at Mono Arana and brought on full time production within the next 60 days.

2017 Near Term Drilling Program

Canahuate 1 Exploration Well Esperanza E&P contract Middle Magdalena Valley Basin, Colombia CNE Oil and Gas S.A.S. Operator WI 100%

The Canahuate 1 exploration well was spud on March 24, 2017. The Canahuate 1 well is located 3 kilometers ("kms") north of the Corporation's Jobo gas processing facility and is targeting gas-bearing sandstones within the Cienaga de Oro reservoir. Over the past three years, six of the seven exploration wells drilled by the Corporation on its gas blocks, including the Esperanza E&P contract, have resulted in commercial gas discoveries. The Canahuate 1 well will take approximately 6 weeks to drill and test.

Pumara 1 Exploration Well LLA23 E&P contract Llanos Basin, Colombia CNE Oil and Gas S.A.S. Operator WI 91%

The Corporation plans to spud the Pumara 1 exploration on March 31, 2017. The Pumara 1 exploration is located 3 kms north of the Labrador field and is targeting light oil bearing reservoirs within the proven producing C7, Mirador, Gacheta, and Ubaque reservoirs. Over the past four years, five of the six exploration wells drilled by the Corporation on the LLA23 contract have resulted in commercial producing light oil discoveries. The Pumara 1 well will take approximately 5 weeks to drill and test, and if successful will be placed on permanent production via the Corporation's oil processing facilities located at Pointer.

Canacol is an exploration and production company with operations in Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico. The Corporation's common stock trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the OTCQX in the United States of America, and the Colombia Stock Exchange under ticker symbol CNE, CNNEF, and CNE.C, respectively.

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur, including without limitation statements relating to estimated production rates from the Corporation's properties and intended work programs and associated timelines. 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 cannot assure that actual results will be consistent with these forward looking statements. They are made as of the date hereof and are subject to change and the Corporation assumes no obligation to revise or update them to reflect new circumstances, except as required by law. Prospective investors should not place undue reliance on forward looking statements. These factors include the inherent risks involved in the exploration for and development of crude oil and natural gas properties, the uncertainties involved in interpreting drilling results and other geological and geophysical data, fluctuating energy prices, the possibility of cost overruns or unanticipated costs or delays and other uncertainties associated with the oil and gas industry. Other risk factors could include risks associated with negotiating with foreign governments as well as country risk associated with conducting international activities, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Corporation.

Boe conversion - The term "boe" is used in this news release. Boe may be misleading, particularly if used in isolation. A boe conversion ratio of cubic feet of natural gas to barrels oil equivalent is based on an energy equivalency conversion method primarily applicable at the burner tip and does not represent a value equivalency at the wellhead. In this news release, we have expressed boe using the Colombian conversion standard of 5.7 Mcf: 1 bbl required by the Ministry of Mines and Energy of Colombia.

Contacts:

Canacol Energy Ltd.

Investor Relations

214-235-4798

IR@canacolenergy.com

www.canacolenergy.com




In his latest executive order, the president and his administration showed a brazen willingness to manipulate fossil fuel workers as they move energy policy back to the 19th century.As an editor at pv magazine, I was tempted to fact-check the statements coming out from the Trump Administration during the signing of today's executive order on energy. However, attempting to address individual falsehoods was like pushing sand uphill, given that the entire announcement was based upon a fantasy world. Sadly, many of these are being propagated to play on the desperate circumstances of workers who have been left behind in a changing energy sector. Where to start? First off, while Trump is telling coal miners that he will put an end to the war on coal, the mythology that he is lulling them with - that the death of their industry comes primarily from federal regulation - is not going to save their jobs. According to an analysis by Bloomberg based on U.S. Department of Energy data, there were over 131,000 coal mining jobs in 1990, and less than 66,000 in 2015 - a fall of nearly half. Coal mining jobs fell below 100,000 in the 1990s, and during the first term of Barack Obama coal mining jobs were actually growing. This is compared to the over 260,000 jobs in the solar industry - jobs which Donald Trump did not address, and appears unconcerned with. Furthermore, the president's executive order will assist, not stop, the real thing that is destroying coal jobs - cheap natural gas. During the last 20 years the United States has built a massive fleet of gas-fired power plants, which have overtaken coal as the largest supplier of power as renewable energy grows to a mere 15% of U.S. electricity generation. Trump's lies regarding reviving coal mining jobs are so transparently false that even coal CEOs are publicly dismissing them, with Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray telling the Guardian that "he can't brink them back." The coal executives aren't the only ones throwing cold water on the Trumpian fantasies. Tom Sanzillo, director of finance for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), said the coal industry especially remains unlikely to recover, regardless of what the administration does. "Market forces overwhelmingly favor natural gas-fired electricity generation and renewable energy, and the trend away from coal will continue," Sanzillo said. "Coal is simply being outpaced. It is an industry in decline, and the fundamentals are inescapable."nstitute for Energy Economics and Financial ...

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Vietnams space at the exhibition featuring the countrys stunning landscapes and the well-known traditional Ao Dai received great attention from international friends. Art performances and traditional cuisine of ASEAN countries also wowed the visitors.

Ambassador Le Linh Lan (R) introduces Vietnam's images to visitors.(Photo: VNA)



In his opening remarks, Director of the Naucalli cultural institute and park Juan Jose Vicencio Estrada highlighted that the event, annually held by the institute, aims to enhance understanding and tighten relations between Mexico and foreign nations.



Meanwhile, Indonesian Ambassador to Mexico Yusra Khan, who holds the rotary chair of the ASEAN committee in Mexico, spoke highly of the cultural week, saying that it offers opportunities to foster cultural exchange, popularise ASEAN states image as well as lift up the friendship and cooperation between the bloc and Mexico.



The Ambassador also laid stress on ASEANs significant role in the Southeast Asian region, given that the establishment of the bloc helps member states promote integration and collaboration to cope with challenges, especially non-traditional security issue./.
Antiva Biosciences, a South San Francisco, CA-based biopharmaceutical company developing novel, topical therapeutics for the treatment of pre-cancerous lesions caused by human papilloma virus (HPV) infection, raised $22m in Series C funding.

The round was led by Brace Pharma Capital with participation from new investors NS Investment, Osage University Partners and Alexandria Venture Investments and existing investors Canaan Partners and Sofinnova Ventures. In conjunction with the funding, Brace Pharma Capital President and CEO Vinzenz Ploerer has joined Antivas board of directors.

The company intends to use the funds to advance its ABI-1968 into clinical studies.

Founded in 2012 by Dr. Karl Hostetler of The University of California San Diego and led by Gail Maderis, president and CEO, Antiva develops novel, topical therapeutics for the treatment of diseases caused by HPV infection.

Last week, the company initiated a Phase 1 clinical study of its lead compound, ABI-1968, which will assess tolerability and safety of this topical therapy when administered intravaginally to healthy women. Antiva plans to commence a Phase 1b clinical study in patients with high grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN 2,3) later this year. CIN is a precancerous condition caused by HPV in which abnormal cell growth occurs on the surface of the cervix.

FinSMEs

28/03/2017
Benson Hill Biosystems, a St. Louis, Mo.-based agricultural technology company, closed a $25m Series B funding.

The round was co-led by Lewis & Clark Ventures and Prelude Ventures, with participation from Fall Line Capital and S2G Ventures and existing investors Alexandria Venture Investments, Cultivation Capital, iSelect Fund, Mercury Fund, Middleland Capital, Missouri Technology Corporation, Prolog Ventures and TechAccel. As part of the financing, David Russell of Lewis & Clark Ventures and Mark Cupta of Prelude Ventures will join the Benson Hill board of directors.

The company intends to use the funds to further advance its computational platform.

Founded in 2012 by Matthew Crisp, CEO, Benson Hill Biosystems leverages cloud biology, comprised of cloud computing, big data analytics and plant biology, to enable companies of all sizes to improve crop genetics. CropOS is a cognitive engine that uses machine learning to continuously advance, enabling researchers to predict which seeds will produce a desired trait. The platform outputs can be deployed in crop plants by using a spectrum of approaches and tools, from breeding to genome editing to transgenics.

The companys first application of CropOS identified traits to increase crop yields by improving photosynthesis, one of the most fundamental and complex plant systems.

FinSMEs

28/03/2017
Cocoon, a London and Leeds, UK-based maker of a smart home security system, raised 2.46m in equity crowdfunding.

The company conducted the campaign on Crowdcube, receiving backing from 1,117 investors and reaching a $15m valuation.

The company intends to use the funds to continue to expand operations, growing its retail distribution, insurance partnerships and continue to improve the product offering.

Led by Sanjay Parekh, Dan Conlon, Colin Richardson, Nick Gregory and John Berthels, Cocoon provides a smart home security product that covers every room by leveraging Subsound technology, with no wires, extra sensors and other hassles required.

The users just plug thier Cocoon and the app guides them through the steps to get everything up and running. It automatically arms when people leave the house in the morning and stands down when they get back. Over time, Cocoon learns the sounds of home and notifies users only when it hears something out of the ordinary.

The company currently employs approx. 30 people.

FinSMEs

28/03/2017
ControlUp, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based provider of an ITOps analytics and management platform, raised $10m in Series B funding round.

The round, which brought total funding to $13.3m, was led by K1 Capital and Jerusalem Venture Partners.

The company intends to use the funds to expand its global presence.

Led by Asaf Ganot, Founder and CEO, ControlUp provides an ITOps analytics and management platform for thousands of companies to monitor, analyze and directly remediate problems in their on-premise, hybrid cloud and cloud infrastructures. By leveraging big data, the platform enables teams to analyze operational IT data from a global customer base to find patterns, detect problems, establish dynamic baselines and generate actionable targeted insights.

The company also has R&D in Israel.

FinSMEs

28/03/2017
Hundredrooms, a Palma de Mallorca, Spain-based vacation rental search engine, raised 4m in funding.

The round was led by Seaya Ventures with participation from Media Digital Ventures, Atresmedia, Bankinter and Inveready.

The company, which has raised a total of 11m in total funding, will use the capital to consolidate its international expansion in France, Italy, UK and Germany, to finalize the product, maintain its mobile app, and launch new services.

Founded in early 2014 by Jose Luis Martinez, CEO, Hundredrooms is an online comparison site for apartment rentals and holiday homes. With a single search, the platform allows consumers to check and compare prices for properties across all the vacation rental websites such as Airbnb, House Trip, Homeaway and Booking.com, among others, within a few seconds.

The company currently has 60 employees.

FinSMEs

27/03/2017
Techstars is opening a Paris-based accelerator in partnership with Air Liquide, Groupama Group, FDJ, Groupe Renault and Total.

Techstars, considered the most prestigious startup accelerator globally with 27 programs in the US, Europe and Africa, will move into the Partech Shaker, the startup campus founded by venture capital firm Partech Ventures.

Led by Bertier Luyt, Managing Director, Techstars Paris is looking for companies focused on Artificial Intelligence, Data and Bots; B2C Apps and services, Blockchain; IoT and Connected Hardware; SaaS and Cybersecurity; Smart city and smart transportation should apply.

The first class of the 13 week program will settle into the Partech Shaker in September 2017. Interested startups can apply to join the program on the Techstars website.

The application deadline is Jun 18, 2017.

Led by Marie Raichvarg, Managing Director, Partech Shaker is a program and space that aims to support entrepreneurs and help foreign tech companies set up a base in France and expand their activity in France and/or in Europe. Residents include Made.com, Etsy, Dropbox, Hired, Influans and Pinterest.

FinSMEs

28/03/2017
With the latest directive from the Supreme Court, Aadhaar, an identity project that many suspect has turned into a surveillance mechanis, has become legal tangle, heightening the public's concern over its validity.

A bench headed by Chief Justice J S Kehar and Justices D Y Chandrachud and S K Kaul on Monday reiterated that the government cannot press Aadhaar for social welfare schemes. However, they said the government and its agencies cannot be stopped from seeking Aadhaar cards for non-welfare schemes like opening of bank accounts.

This is not the first time the Supreme Court has made such an observation. The apex court on 15 October, 2015 had lifted its earlier restrictions and permitted voluntary use of Aadhar cards in welfare schemes that also included MGNREGA, all pension schemes and provident fund, besides ambitious flagship programmes like 'Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna' of the NDA government, PTI reported.

The Supreme Court in its 2013 order had directed that no person should suffer for not getting the Aadhaar card', inspite of the fact that some authority had issued a circular making it mandatory.

While the Supreme Court is clear that enrolling for Aadhaar is not mandatory, through Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act passed by Parliament this March, the government of India has effectively made Aadhaar enrollment mandatory for receiving any subsidy, benefit or service for which expenditure is borne out of the Consolidated Fund of India, the ET reported.

The latest directive by the court comes at a time when the government is issuing notification after notification, in a hurry to make the Aadhaar an integral part of the economic and social system of the country. And experts, from the left to the right end of political spectrum, have raised serious concerns about the move.

Undermining SC

"By making Aadhaar compulsory, the government is undermining the SC authority. It is unfortunate that the SC has not come down heavily on the government," said Alok Prasanna Kumar, an advocate based in Bengaluru. "It is not possible to change a SC order by legislation." The reason why the constitution bench heard the Aadhaar case was because it was a constitutional matter considering the scope and extent of privacy guaranteed under the constitution, he remarked.

With its latest observation on Aadhaar, the Supreme Court has gone against the Aadhaar Act, said Jehangir Gai, consumer activist. "The Act is for availing government subsidy only," he said. For the government to insist that you need to give personal data to avail of subsidy is a intrusion, he said, adding that the government is 'supposed' to work in accordance with the legal framework but is instead flouting it.

The NDA government enacted the Aaadhar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, in March 2016 in a bid to provide legal sanctity for the system even as the case was being heard in the apex court.

The government has been proved to be wrong again and again on this issue, points out Gopal Krishna of the Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL). Earlier in the National Scholarship case and then in the Lokniti Foundation vs Union of India case.

The central government had told the Supreme court that it was following the SCs September 2013 order regarding Aadhaar cards making it not mandatory and yet it is going on about doing just that, he said.

He feels the government's attempt is to replace the constitutional guarantees with Aadhaar. "There is no need to replace what is granted under the constitution with what the government now purports to give under its Aadhaar scheme, he said.

What has many worried is the fact that the Supreme Court has not taken action against the government for committing contempt of court by making Aadhaar mandatory for essential services.

"The court was perfectly clear in its order that Aadhaar cannot be mandatory," said Chinmayi Arun, Assistant Professor of Law at National Law University Delhi and Faculty Associate of the Berkman Klein Centre at Harvard University. Filing IT returns is mandatory and linking Aadhaar to it makes Aadhaar mandatory, Arun pointed out.

She suggests that the Supreme Court should order the government to desist from linking Aadhaar to all services. "If our democratic institutions fail us completely, people should protest. In the United States, there are protests everywhere, as there should be in a healthy democracy where the executive ignores the constitution completely.

Safety issues

For anyone to get an Aadhaar number, the details that needs to be submitted include (i) biometric (photograph, finger print, iris scan) and (ii) demographic (name, date of birth, address) information. There is a wealth of information that is gathered by the government through a thumb print and a scary-looking photograph (with most people remotely resembling their photographs on the Aadhaar card) along with biometric information, and one's bank account too linked to it which can be mined by a cyber criminal.

Experts say there are no mechanisms in place to secure the biometrics and other information that the individual hands over to the government.

Shailesh Gandhi, former Information Commissioner with the Central Information Commission spoke of not being 'recognised' by the system at two private banks where he tried to verify his Aadhaar number. "When I asked about the failure of the system to recognise me, I was told that only one out of every 15-20 persons are recognised by the system. If biometrics do not recognise the individual who has the card, it is a very serious problem. If you cannot verify an Aadhaar card, then you are back to corruption," he said.

However, Gandhi doesn't agree with concerns about privacy.

Anita Gurumurthy, founding member and executive director of IT for Change, raises a bigger concern of connectivity issues in rural areas. "You cannot blame anyone as power outages cannot be made an excuse to not give an individual his/her right share from the PDS system," she said.

Before undertaking the exercise that links every service to Aadhaar and coercing people to take it or find themselves out of any scheme, the government should have taken measures to 'strengthen' the ecosystem, said Pavan Duggal, advocate with the Supreme Court and an authority on cyber security law.

I am concerned about the cyber security ramifications with data being stored in a centralized source. We do not have a dedicated law on privacy and data protection, said Duggal. The information about citizens at the command of the government is a volcano that can burst when used by unscrupulous elements if they get their hand on to the data, he said.

When the Aaadhar was introduced, it was done through an act of the executive, says Pavan Duggal. From 2009 to 2016, no legislation was passed by Parliament that gave legality to Aadhaar.

It is the lack of data protection laws in the country that worries most citizens. They fear misuse of their details that were given for a certain purpose -- to avail of bank accounts, for IT purposes, et al. How does one ensure that consent is not abused, is the oft-asked question.

"We have no mechanism in the country currently to take issue of conflict to an authority. This poses a deep threat. We consent to pay IT, for instance, and have our files in the public domain but that information cannot be used by companies to sell cars to us or any other product or service," said Gurumurthy.

No data protection law

There is not much clarity with regard to UIDAI and cyber rules and hence the privacy concerns with making it mandatory by the government. "Aadhaar deals with biometric information. Under the law, this is sensitive personal data, contends Duggal.

The government can go out and assuage people's fears in this sensitive issue. It should assure citizens that the information gathered will not be used against the individual except, for instance, if the sovereignty of the nation is threatened, suggested Duggal. Until such exceptions are spelt out, there will always be the fear of information being misused or targeted against individuals, groups or people by the government itself or any unscrupulous element who are able to lay their hands on it.

What the government is doing by making Aadhaar mandatory is denying the rights of citizens, points out Gopal Krishna of CFCL. The Aadhaar is proof of an individual's residency in India and not of Indian citizenship.

"I don't think Arun Jaitley and the government have examined the implementations of the Supreme Court's directive. It is surprising as Jaitley is a lawyer of repute," says he.
Indian Oil Corp has agreed to supply refined products to Nepal for the next five years to meet all the fuel needs of the landlocked Himalayan nation, officials said on Monday.

India has supplied all Nepal's fuel needs since 1974 and is keen to maintain close trading ties with its neighbour in South Asia, an area where regional rival China has sought to expand its influence.

Indian Oil Corp, the nation's biggest refiner, would supply 1.3 million tonnes a year of refined fuels to Nepal, the company's chairman B Ashok told a news conference. As well as refined products, India was discussing plans to supply gas to Nepal, Indian oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan said.

The minister said the two nations were considering building a refined products pipeline linking Motihari in India's eastern state of Bihar to Amlekhgunj in Nepal.

He did not give details of the pipeline plan.

New Delhi has used its surplus refining and power generation capabilities to deepen ties with nations such as Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, as well as Nepal.

China wants to include Nepal in its flagship "One Belt, One Road" initiative to link Asia with Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The Vietnamese agriculture and aquaculture are among the key production sectors, which have been growing substantially over the last two decades. However, a key challenge the sector faces, is meeting the demands of export markets for high quality, safe, clean and especially organic products.

International customers expect a very high quality of Vietnamese shrimp and other products, through time, they trend to go to green food, of which organic products are more prioritized, Dr. Christian Henckes, Program Director of the Integrated Coastal Management Program (ICMP) implemented by GIZ on behalf of the German and Australian Government said during the event titled Organic Vietnam: Development trends held in the Southern-most province of Ca Mau on March 27th-28th.

There is a high potential for organic production in Vietnam, however the sector is still facing a lot of challenges. Especially market demand and farming practices need to be improved. How to promote green production remains the key question.

Photo for illustration (Source: Le Quan/http://news.zing.vn)

According to Le Van Su, Vice Chairman of Ca Mau provincial Peoples Committee, green growth is a very high priority for the development in Ca Mau, since Ca Mau has an advantage of natural mangroves, Ca Maus policy is to encourage the private sector and farmers towards sustainable production, with organic production being among the key measures.

Ca Mau shrimp currently had large areas certified by Naturland, EU organics and different standards which contribute to increasing the benefit and value for producers in particular and economic development in general.

For the market, Sai Gon Co.op is one of the biggest retailers in the nation which is committed to set up a part of their business to stabilize the organic sector and to foster future growth, by a series of interconnected activities at all levels of the supply chain.

The workshop also received positive comments from over 80 participants from Government agencies, private sector, international organisations and farmers, affirming that organic production will be the green way forward which can bring a higher value to Vietnamese products globally, such organic tiger shrimp, and help to protect the coast of the Mekong Delta./.

Since its start in 1999, based mainly on joint Vietnamese-European projects and initiatives, organic farming in Vietnam has developed positively. An important driver has been the increasing demand for organic seafood by European retailers. In addition, there is a growing demand for safe and organic foods by Vietnamese consumers as well.
Director S S Rajamoulis magnum opus Baahubali 2: The Conclusion is set for the biggest release of any Indian film. The film will hit theatres on April 28, 2017 in more than 7000 screens across India. Releasing in four Indian languages - Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil  Rajamoulis epic war drama is predicted to outdo the first part, which grossed over Rs 650 crores.

With such high expectations, Rajamouli has ensured that Baahubali 2: The Conclusion will be nail-biting for the audience. Having already made about Rs 500 crore pre-release thanks to sale of satellite and distribution rights, this movie is set to change Indian cinema. Both the films have been touted to have a budget of 250 crores.

Here are five things you can expect from the second part of the film:

Visual Grandeur

When the audience saw Baahubali, they were in awe of the visuals and how seamless they flowed between war scenes and romances. Now with Baahubali 2, the audience can be rest assured that the visuals are going to be grander and the sets more lavish. Rana Daggubati who plays Bhallala Deva in Baahubali has revealed that the film is much larger in scale and is far bigger than the first part.

National Award-winning art director Sabu Cyril has worked on this masterpiece and stated that 500 to 2000 people worked every day on sets for nearly five years. Sabu Cyril added that he was not just an art director for this film but also an architect and engineer as the scale of the war drama demanded it. From creating extensive palace sets to showcasing the royalty of an ancient kingdom, Sabu Cyril and his relentless team have achieved the impossible.

Emotional drama

Director S S Rajamouli has made sure that the characters written by his father K. V. Vijayendra Prasad have shone on screen. Baahubali 2 The Conclusion will be heavy on emotional drama as compared to the first part. Why? Because there are many relationships that will be explored and secrets revealed in this film. The big question as to why Kattappa killed Baahubali is on everyones minds. It has been revealed that this scene will be quite traumatic as he killed someone whom he worshipped but the reason for the murder is said to be valid. The politics of war in this war drama supposedly ends up taking the life of this king.

But what was Sivagamis role in this whole story? She asks God to save Shivudu before she does but she set in motion a series of events that led to her death. Baahubali 2 will reveal what these were. Some rumours say that she was the one who threw out Amarendra and Devasena when they got married.

The second part trailer focussed a lot on Prabhas (Mahendra Baahubali and Amarendra Baahubali) and its evident that the film will feature him during his period as king and the things that go wrong in his relationships and life. We will also see Bhallala Deva (Rana Daggubati) consumed by the need for power and his obsession with ascending the throne. All the deviousness he is upto will tumble out of the closet. Both the young Amarendra Baahubali and Bhallala Deva will be much fitter, stronger and war-ready having learnt martial arts and more for this film.

War sequences

If you thought the war sequence in Baahubali The Beginning was fantastic, wait till you see the second part. With the first part grossing over Rs 650 crores and having a global audience, director S S Rajamouli decided to up the ante where the war sequences were concerned. He wanted to make them the best ever in Indian cinema and as comparable to any Hollywood film. Since he had a bigger budget for part 2, Rajamouli hired not one but five of the best Hollywood stunt technicians for the climax sequences.

Lee Whitaker is a well-known name now in India thanks to the numerous Indian films he has done. He has worked on top Hollywood flicks like X-Men: Apocalypse, Pearl Harbor, Percy Jackson series and more. Joining him for this film was John Griffith of The Maze Runner and Planet of the Apes fame, and martial artist Brad Allen who has worked on many Jackie Chan films as well as films like Avatar and Kingsman: The Secret Service.

A stunt director who shot to fame thanks to the Hobbit franchise is Morne Van Tonder and he is also part of this mega-project. Larnell Stovall, a former world and international champion in fighting, weapons and forms (kata), was also roped in by Rajamouli. Fans of Hunger Games will know him for sure. Given the vast stunt repertoire of these five men, the fight sequences in part 2 are going to be nothing short of mind-blowing. And this has been certified by the films lead actors as well.

The climax scene (shot a reported cost of Rs 30 crore) will feature Mahendra Baahubali fighting his uncle Bhallaladeva and this will be historic.

Maharani Devasena's past

Anushka Shetty who plays Maharani Devasena is seen as a prisoner at the palace in the first part. In Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, we will see her as a fierce, young, beautiful warrior princess and yes, theres romance with King Amarendra Baahubali. In fact, theres talk that she will be seen as a pregnant queen who gives birth to Mahendra Baahubali.

Finally, a love triangle

There is a strong buzz that there is a love triangle all set to be revealed in Baahubali 2. Apparently, Bhallala Deva is also in love with Devasena. It is said that Sivagami wanted Devasena to marry Bhallala Deva but the strong-minded princess rejected him. Bhallala Deva had Maharani Devasena chained for over 25 years in the palace courtyard as we saw in part 1. And we know that she ends up marrying Amarendra Baahubali but we will find out what happened what set the wheels of jealousy, tragedy and revenge in motion.
Poorna: Courage Has No Limit is based on the real life story of Malavath Poorna, an Indian mountaineer from Telangana, who is the youngest girl to climb Mount Everest. She was 13 when she scaled the highest peak in the world. This film is directed by Rahul Bose, who also plays the role of Dr RS Praveen Kumar, the man who identified her talent.

Aditi Inamdar has essayed the role of this young mountaineer in this film, who climbed Mount Everest on 25 May 2014 and pitched a flag on the summit at 6 am. Interestingly, Inamdar too, hails from Telangana. The film was shot in Malavath's village in 11 days, and Inamdar was picked from among 109 other girls who auditioned for the role.

Despite not starring any A-listers, Bose is convinced that the film is not a small one. "This is going to be a very big movie commercially, I can bet on that. So, I never had this doubt (whether it will get released or make money)," he said, adding that he credits its potential to the story it is based on, which he called phenomenal. He added that he felt shame when he heard her story and realised that he had never heard of Poorna.

The film has 70 shots from Poorna's expedition which were hitherto unreleased, and which the creators had to struggle to acquire from the only Indian with her, Hemant Sachdev. Bose said that this film was a difficult one to shoot because of the locations. "We started at 40-45 degrees in Pakala village from a hut, where Poorna grew up and then we moved to Bhongir, 650 feet above sea level, where one shot would take one and half to two hours," he said. The other locations featured in this film are Darjeeling, Sikkim and Nepal.

Rahul Bose said that he went into a "creative cave" while working on the film, and did not reveal this fact to anyone for 14 months, fearing that someone else would use the idea.

The music for this film has been produced by Salim-Sulaiman because Bose wanted it to be "soulful". The lyrics have been written by Amitabh Bhattacharya and sung by Arijit Singh. The music album was launched by maestro Zakir Hussain.

When both the real life and reel life Poornas were shown the film at a special screening, Malavath was reportedly moved to tears. "Seeing the movie, I really broke down and I think it's just superb, fantastic, mind blowing and unbelievable... I remembered my journey," she said. Her message for viewers is, "Ladkiyan kuch bhi kar sakti hai," which is also the tagline of the film.

Poorna releases on 31 March, 2017 across roughly 24 cities, and two months later, it will go digital. Apart from Rahul Bose and Aditi Inamdar, this biopic also stars Heeba Shah, Dhritiman Chatterjee and Harsha Vardhan.


TV actress Kamya Punjabi will release a short film Hum Keh Naa Sakey on Pratyusha Banerjee's first death anniversary on 1 April. This was the last project that the 23-year-old actress shot before she hanged herself to death in her Oshiwara home.

This tribute by Kamya will feature the late Balika Vadhu actress in the lead role, which was apparently her last project before hanging herself to death in her Oshiwara home last year. Punjabi told Bombay Times: "Though a work of fiction, it will seem quite similar to what Pratyusha must have gone through. She will be seen heartbroken, resorting to vices like drinking and smoking."

Banerjee reportedly committed suicide because of heartbreak and depression. Punjabi was also quoted saying that the short film will interlink Banerjee's reel and real lives.

"As a narrator, I will interlink Pratyusha's reel and real lives, and question viewers on why people change in love and choose to remain silent sufferers. Pratyusha didn't use glycerine while shooting the emotional scenes. I too was nursing heartbreak at that time," she said.

The two became friends because of the time they spent together in Big Boss. Punjabi also remarked how she wished she had taken time out to talk to her late friend about her problems and maybe prevented her from taking her life.
If you loved Serial, the podcast by Sarah Koenig and This American Life, then you'd be glad to know  the team is ready with its next offering.

If Serial's season one narrated the story of the disappearance of high school student Hae Min Lee, and the subsequent arrest, trial and incarceration of her boyfriend Adnan Syed in connection with the case, then this new podcast from the team also has a murder mystery at its core. What makes this mystery compelling, however, is that no one knows anything about it (or at least, nothing that they're willing to share)  except for one old member of the Alabama town where the incident is believed to have taken place. The podcast has been titled S.Town.

The story begins when Brian Reed (who hosts S.Town) is approached by an old man named John  a wealthy if eccentric Alabama esident who spends his time restoring antique clocks  to investigate a murder and its subsequent cover-up. Serial's co-creator Julie Snyder, This American Life creator and host Ira Glass, and Serial host Sarah Koenig are all part of the S-Town team. along with Reed.

The S.Town website describes the start of Reed and John's association like this: "John despises his Alabama town and decides to do something about it. He asks a reporter to investigate the son of a wealthy family who's allegedly been bragging that he got away with murder. But then someone else ends up dead, sparking a nasty feud, a hunt for hidden treasure, and an unearthing of the mysteries of one man's life."

If that isn't enough to draw you in, here's a transcript of the two-minute podcast preview teased by Brian Reed and the S.Town team. It does a great job of setting the mood for the slow, satisfying unravelling that we're sure follows:

"When an antique clock breaks, a clock that's been telling time for 200 or 300 years old, fixing it can be a real puzzle.

If a clock like that was handmade by someone, it might tick away the time with a pendulum, a spring  with a pulley system, it might have bells that are supposed to strike the hour, or a bird that's meant to pop out and 'cuckoo' at you... there can be hundreds of tiny, individual pieces, each of which needs to interact with the others precisely.

To make the job even trickier, you often can't tell what's been done to a clock, over hundreds of years. Maybe there was damage that was never fixed, or fixed badly. Sometimes, entire portions of the original clock would go missing, but you cannot know for sure because there were rarely diagrams of what the clock was supposed to look like.

A clock that old doesn't come with a manual, so instead, the few people left in the world who know how to do this kind of work often rely on what are called 'witness marks 'to guide their way. A witness mark could be a small dent, a hole that once held a screw, these are actual impressions and outlines and discolourations left inside the clock, of pieces that might have once been there. They are clues to what was in the clockmaker's mind, when he first created the thing.

I'm told fixing an old clock can be maddening, you're constantly wondering whether you spent hours going down a path that will probably take you nowhere, and all you've got are these vague witness marks which might not even mean what you think they mean. So at every moment along the way, you have to decide if you're wasting your time  or not. Anyway... I only learned about all this because years ago, an antique clock restorer contacted me.

And asked me to help him solve a murder."

All seven episodes of the S.Town podcast will be released on 28 March 2017. So get ready to binge-listen.

Meanwhile, tune in to the preview here, or play the Facebook link below:
The Mumbai Police says that it will soon close the molestation probe into Arunabh Kumar, the CEO and founder of The Viral Fever (TVF), one of India's leading digital studios. It has been 10 days since the case was lodged and no victim has come forward, reports India Today.

Lawyer Rizwan Siddiqui, who filed the third-person first information report, urged the police thrice to file an FIR against Kumar. Despite the emergence of more than 50 unverified complaints against Kumar, no victim has approached the police, forcing them to shut the case.

The police cannot consider allegations made on social media, and have said that they are beginning to wonder if the original article on Medium written by user 'The Indian Fowler' is even true or if such a person exists. Consequently, Kumar will not be called to a police station to record a statement. He is no longer officially an accused person.

The Mumbai Police will soon reply to Siddiqui informing him of the closing of the case and the dropping of allegations. However, the source speaking to India Today maintained that even if one victim emerges at this time and speaks to the police, an FIR will be filed with immediate effect against Arunabh Kumar.

Over the course of a week in March, a Medium blog, a Facebook post and a victim who spoke to The Quint alleged that they were sexually harassed by Arunabh Kumar. In an official statement, TVF called these allegations "ludicrous" and "defamatory".
Mahesh Bhatt has announced that Begum Jaan, which stars Vidya Balan as the titular character, will not be released in Pakistan because of its content.

Speaking to India Today, Mahesh Bhatt, whose production house Vishesh Films has made the film, said that the film has been banned in Pakistan because the country does not screen films whose content revolves around the Partition era.

"I was told by my distributor that Pakistan has a policy does not permit the import of films which deal with the issue of partition. On learning this I requested the key officer of the censor board of Pakistan to at least view the film and then take a decision. I was assured that they would look into the matter. Sadly, I have not heard from them after that," he said.

Bhatt later added that his distributor had informed him that the film would not be imported by him into Pakistan.

The news of the ban of Begum Jaan's release comes days after it was announced that Aamir Khan's Dangal would not be released in Pakistan because the Pakistani censor board had asked the filmmakers to cut out two scenes which featured the Indian national anthem and flag and the filmmakers chose not to. Naam Shabana, starring Taapsee Pannu and Akshay Kumar, also faced the same issue owing to its 'terrorism-related scenes'.

Previously, in an interview to Deccan Chronicle, producer Vishesh Bhatt who is the son of Mukesh Bhatt, expressed doubts over the film's release in the neighbouring country. He said, "Pakistan is in a kind of a limbo of a state in general, because of various reasons. Were in talks, but as of now theres no confirmation from there, thanks to the political situation." The producer has even written to the Pakistan government to allow the film to be released, according to reports.

Begum Jaan tells the story of a brothel owner set in the backdrop of the Indian Independence movement. This brothel is located on the border of India and Pakistan, according to the plot of the film. Directed by Srijit Mukherji, it stars Vidya Balan, Gauahar Khan, Ila Arun, Pallavi Sharda, Naseeruddin Shah and Rajit Kapoor.

In India, it is set to release on 14 April, 2017. It is a remake of the Bengali film Rajkahini, also directed by Srijit Mukherji.
By James Davey and Carolyn Cohn

| LONDON

LONDON Two of Tesco Plc's (TSCO.L) biggest shareholders have called on the supermarket group to withdraw its 3.7 billion-pound ($4.7 billion) agreed offer for wholesaler Booker Group Plc (BOK.L), potentially casting doubt on the deal's progress.Schroder Investment Management (SDR.L) and Artisan Partners, Tesco's third and fourth largest investors with stakes of 4.49 and 4.48 percent respectively, both said on Monday they were against the transaction.In a letter to Tesco Chairman John Allan, Schroders fund manager Nick Kirrage and the asset manager's global head of stewardship Jessica Ground called on investors who share their view to speak out against the deal announced on Jan. 27."All management teams believe that their acquisitions will create value. However, there is compelling academic and empirical evidence that, on average, acquisitions destroy value for acquiring shareholders," they wrote in the letter, seen by Reuters."We believe that the high price being paid for Booker makes the destruction of value even more likely."In response Tesco said the strategic and financial rationale of the deal remained compelling and it was pleased with the overall response of investors from its own soundings over the last two months."Since announcing the transaction the majority of our top 10 shareholders have chosen to increase their shareholding in Tesco and we hope to convince all our shareholders of the merits of the transaction," said a spokesman.

DISTRACTION

Daniel O'Keefe, lead portfolio manager of Artisan's Global Value funds, told Reuters buying Booker was a distraction for Tesco's management and a risk not worth taking."Booker is a new business for Tesco, it's going to involve a lot of distraction for management, unforeseen risk, and unforeseen issues," he said. O'Keefe said Artisan had expressed its concern over the merits of the deal to Tesco management.

"They are still in favour of the transaction; we're not," he said.Tesco would need a majority of its shareholders to back the deal at a meeting for it to go ahead.The stances of Schroders and Artisan were first reported by the Financial Times.Richard Cousins, CEO of Compass Group Plc (CPG.L), the world's biggest catering firm, resigned as Tesco's senior independent director on Jan. 3 because he did not support the deal.

"This demonstration of integrity delivers a powerful message about his concerns around the merits of the deal," said Schroders.By buying Booker, Tesco is looking to increase its exposure to Britain's 85 billion pound "out of home" food market, including cafes, restaurants and takeaways, which is growing at a greater pace than the 110 billion pounds "eat at home" market.Share prices in both companies rose sharply when the deal was announced. However, Tesco's shares have since fallen on concerns the deal faces a lengthy competition investigation.Tesco shares are down 8 percent so far this year while Booker's are up 14 percent.Though Tesco and Booker maintain they have a compelling competition case the deal is expected to face intense scrutiny from Britain's antitrust authorities as it will add to Tesco's more than 28 percent share of the overall UK grocery market and, more specifically, its influence in the convenience, confectionery and tobacco markets.($1 = 0.7961 pounds) (Additional reporting by Rachel Armstrong; Editing by David Clarke and Lisa Shumaker)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
There are just two basic issues at the heart of the wildly confusing debate over Aadhaar. One, can the government be trusted when it says the 12-digit unique identification number is a tool for civic empowerment and rule-based society? Two, how secure is our biometric and demographic data? A related question  how seriously should we take government's claims that the most sensitive, crucial and identifiable data of a billion-plus Indians are "safe" and won't fall prey to identity or financial thefts?

Ergo, the first issue is one of privacy and the second is that of security. Let's explore the issues one by one.

At its very basic, privacy is a trust issue. Activists, academics, lawyers and a section of the media and civil society argue that under the guise of empowerment, the government is planning to play Big Brother with data. They say Aadhaar will expose us to large-scale snooping from security agencies.

According to critics, from being an optional identification tool aimed at providing welfare benefits, Aadhaar's rapid metastasis into a mandatory, all-pervading legislative mechanism is a malignant development for citizens. The fear is that through Aadhaar, the foundation is being installed of a surveillance state that will have complete control over our lives. In short, the government cannot be trusted even if it professes to work for greater, common good. Why?

Civil society suspicion has been raised by the way successive governments have tried to usher in Aadhaar through the backdoor. The project, which was launched under UPA, saw rapid strides under the NDA government and both regimes adopted extra-legal steps to push it through. The trust between government and civil society over Aadhaar was further bruised by the way the NDA government has tried to incrementally expand the parameters of Aadhaar while arguing in Supreme Court that Constitution does not guarantee its citizens the right to privacy.

While defending the validity of Aadhaar in the apex court, attorney general Mukul Rohatgi had argued before a three-judge Bench in July 2015 that no less than a "nine-judge Bench is required" to settle whether or not right to privacy is a fundamental right because an eight-judge bench had ruled in 1954 that it was not. According to a report carried in The Indian Express, "Rohtagi also read out from another SC judgment by a six-judge bench in 1963, holding that 'the right of privacy is not a guaranteed right under our Constitution'."

From this point onwards, Aadhaar became a fierce bone of confrontation between civil society and the government which tried every trick in the book to push through contentious clauses. On 11 March, the government introduced Aadhaar Bill in Lok Sabha as a money bill which made Rajya Sabha's subsequent amendments redundant. On 16 March, the NDA government used the provisions of a 'money bill' to override Rajya Sabha's objections and passed Aadhaar Bill it in its original form.

This muscling through of a Bill which has such sweeping powers over our lives raised justifiable hackles. Even if, for argument's sake, we contend that the government's motives are benevolent and aimed at rooting out endemic corruption, the lack of debate on such a sensitive issue cannot be a good sign for democracy. Chinmayi Arun of Centre for Communication Governance at National Law University and Faculty Associate of the Berkman Centre at Harvard University in a detailed piece in The Hindu last year highlighted multiple areas of grace concern. Among the many points, two are of specific interest. The high-handed introduction of Aadhaar into our lives as a legislative mechanism and the complete absence of accountability if the authorities are found guilty of callousness or misuse.

"There are extensive threats to privacy contained within this legislation, which seeks to institutionalise an extensive, pervasive database that links multiple other databases containing our personal information. It is unconscionable for the government to pass the Aadhaar Bill with no public consultation about the sort of privacy safeguards that are necessary for such a database," she wrote.

On the subject of accountability, Chinmayi wrote: "The Aadhaar Bill excludes courts from taking cognisance of offences under the legislation, requiring that the authority that runs Aadhaar consent to prosecution for any action to be taken under the legislation. This part of the Bill completely undermines all the safeguards that do exist within it, since citizens cannot access these safeguards without co-operation from the authority which is arguably in a position of conflict of interest."

The NDA government stayed true to its high-handed ways and on Tuesday, as part of the Finance Bill proposed in making Aadhaar mandatory for filing of income-tax returns as well as for obtaining and retaining the permanent account number (PAN).

This step received backing from Supreme Court which found no merit in objections that the government's plans to make Aadhaar mandatory for opening bank accounts, getting mobile connections or passports is mala fide in intent. The Bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justices DY Chandrachud and Sanjay K Kaul elucidated that the earlier interim order on the UID's optional nature pertained to benefits under social welfare schemes. As a report in Times of India points out, among such schemes, too, the court held that the Centre may insist on Aadhaar for programmes such as MGNREGA, gas subsidies, PDS rations and Jan Dhan Yojna.

As Aadhaar's scope becomes bigger and bigger, privacy safeguards remain brittle and government's moves continue to be opaque, it becomes difficult for citizens to take the promises in good faith. The government says that linking of Aadhaar to PAN and making it mandatory to file tax returns are aimed at ferreting out "resourceful" individuals who use multiple PAN cards to evade taxes. At the heart of the government's move is an effort to continue the battle against black money and it hopes that these provisions will bring much-needed transparency into the system.

As Chetan Chandak, head of tax research, H&R Block, writes in Financial Express, "The penetration of Aadhaar is close to 111 crore compared to PAN card holders (only 25 crore). The current government definitely wants to leverage this for unearthing black money, tracing benami transactions and increasing the overall base of taxpayers." The dispute will remain an interpretive one. It does give government the tools to go after ubiquitous corruption in our body politic but consequently, it makes ordinary citizens vulnerable to unprecedented amounts of surveillance.

As Nandan Nilekani, the man behind UID project told Britain's Financial Times, "Surveillance is far better done by following my phone, or when I use a map to order a taxi: the map knows where I am. Our internet companies know where you are". His logic is that the Unique ID can "bring discipline" and "reduce cheating".

The second point relates to security of the database, and is equally, if not more important. With Aadhaar becoming world's most extensive repository of demographic and biometric data, can India offer the security standards needed to keep this big data safe?

A reported recent breach of Aadhaar data from agencies tasked with accumulating and storing of biometric data met with an official response from Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) which stated that "There has been no incident of misuse of Aadhaar biometrics leading to identity theft and financial loss during the past five years when more than 400 crore Aadhaar authentication transactions have taken place". Perhaps not yet. But if we are to compare Aadhaar data to a vast tank (a well-guarded one) of very sensitive information, what kind of data-breach safeguards have we put in place?

More to the point, with its shoddy record and appalling standards in cyber security, can India even remotely match up to the US or European Union norms when it comes to detecting or preventing hacking of critical information? Bear in mind that even in the US, data breaches are not immune to hacking despite their state-of-the-art, encrypted, multiple layers of security.

This is not colonial hangover or condescension towards desi standards but a very real threat perception based on the shocking lack of awareness on cyber security among our administrative machinery and security agencies. With Aadhaar, the government is asking us to jump into an abyss with our hands tied, eyes shut in response to a promise that it will catch us in time. Who's willing to bet?
The most remarkable feature of the aftermath of the TV-expose that grounded Kerala transport minister AK Saseendran on Sunday was that he didnt have to struggle much to defend himself because the states overcrowded media and their periphery did it better than what he could have done.

Many television journalists and commentators were livid with the way the story unfolded. While many thought it had lowered the standards of journalism in the state by invading the privacy of Saseendran, many others thought it was patently illegal and that the minister did nothing wrong. The arguments that strengthened their outrage were that if at all the conversation was real, the minister was speaking as private individual, he didnt misuse his office and that nobody had complained of sexual abuse or harassment by him.

They went on to argue that what he spoke in his privacy was completely personal and by recording and broadcasting it, the television channel breached the law of the land and resorted to yellow journalism. It was like hiding a camera in ones bedroom or bathroom and one couldnt have gone any lower, some of them said.

Its indeed gratifying to see that a major section of the media in the state is outraged by this episode because sting and morality based journalism doesnt bespeak something good about the media practice, not just in Kerala, but anywhere in the world. Therefore, journalists, most of them from rival channels, taking a stand against the expose was reassuring. But wait a minute, werent they on the vanguard of the same sleaze less than a year ago, when a fake women-entrepreneur was making sex and smut the main ingredient of her allegations against the then Chief Minister of Kerala Oomen Chandy and many of his cabinet colleagues?

It was just the inconsistent, one-sided version of that woman, with no technical background or entrepreneurial antecedents posing as a businesswoman, who was peddling stories about how her effort to be a solar-energy pioneer in the state was abused by several politicians of the ruling UDF that the channels celebrated. The climax of this competitive peddling of sleaze was when the channels went on a highway-race - beamed live OJ Simpson style - to recover the purported sex-videos of the chief minister that her accomplice, a murder-convict, claimed to have possessed. The con-woman and her stories seemed to have long since disappeared into thin air once the government fell. The journalists have forgotten the incomplete smut that they had pushed. They never bothered to complete the story.

If the same journalists are outraged today, it couldnt be because of conscience suddenly dawning on them, but because they are bad losers. According to some reports, Mangalam TV  the channel that aired Saseendrans alleged sex talk  hit the TRP bulls eye on its launch day itself. As they themselves have demonstrated several times in the past, media measure truth in terms of whats expedient and whats popular. If you are on a TRP race, you aren't a saint. And the new entrant Mangalam TV has learned it from you, nobody else. Probably, they amped it a bit and beat you in your game.

Now lets look at the fallacy of some of the arguments of the journalists and the commentators who are on the outrage-bandwagon now.

The minister has been tricked into a trap and forced to talk sex. Nobody knows whos at the other end and the talk involved no misuse of his office. What he does as a person has nothing to do with what he does as a minister.

The minister may very well have been tricked. Probably, theres an imposter at the other end that he may not have even met as in the case of many phone-sex cases. But that precisely is the point  if it was indeed a trap, it tested the ministers vulnerability and he failed.

In the US, the government routinely sets up honey-traps to reduce the supply side in prostitution. Undercover women officers, pose as escorts/sex-workers and advertise in the media offering sex services. If one calls, meets up with them and talk sex and money, he is instantly arrested. Decoy-officers even walk the streets.

Every year, in whats called the National Johns Suppression Initiative, hundreds of unsuspecting men, who are solicited into talking sex and money, are arrested, shamed (by publicising their photos and details), fined and often sent to jail. To naked eyes, they havent done anything wrong because they didnt talk sex-deals voluntarily, but were literally lured into doing it; but to the police, its a test of their proclivity to buy sex. If you fail the test, you are a potential buyer of sex, a potential participant in a possible crime. Its a long shot, unfair to the men; but thats the way it works.

In the case of the minister, if the conversation was indeed the result of a trap, it was not just a test of a personal vice, but his indiscretion as a minister. Can anybody vouch that a man who gets carried away like this wouldnt have or couldnt have misused his office? Its not about immorality, but about the chinks in propriety that a constitutional job demands.

Even if its not a trap, the situation doesnt change.

The channel violated law by recording and broadcasting a private conversation

Right to privacy is indeed a part of Article 21 (Right to Life), but the critics seemed to have failed in making a distinction between recording and tapping. Nobody knows if the conversation was recorded or tapped. If its recorded, the law is not clear and the general sense based on jurisprudence is that it can be done with the consent of one of the parties involved. One of the parties can record the conversation or allow somebody else to record with her/his consent. If its tapped, it is a different ballgame and without the statutory permission, its illegal; a crime. If Mangalam indeed did it by tapping, its liable to be prosecuted. Without really knowing how exactly the conversation was made public, calling it illegal or criminal is too premature.

The man who knows the truth the most must be the minister himself. Unless hes speaking to too many people like this, he would have instantly recognised who the other person was. Probably, thats why he resigned.

Phone sex or sex over new media is not as benign as it sounds. At the other end, it could have been even a minor. In the early years of Internet chat, there was this notorious case of the Babe from Memphis in which an old man was posing as a young girl and engaging in tiny sex with a minor boy at the other end.

This is a new low, an invasion into a persons privacy. Cant two consenting adults talk sex?

This is certainly not a new low, but a different low. The state has seen a lot smut on TV, particularly in recent years. In 2013, the sex-video of another prominent politician reached Kerala homes when a woman set up a stealth camera on herself and him. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court and he was exonerated. A channel fronting for a political party once violated all norms of confidentiality and even law when it said that the victim of a sensational murder case was HIV-positive (whether its true or not was immaterial). During the last year of the Oomen Chandy regime, many TV channels peddled round-the-clock unverified sleaze that slandered several politicians. The same channels also aired damaging and libelous gossip against Congress MP Sashi Tharoor, when his wife died in a hotel room.

What Mangalam TV did was the symptom of a larger disease in Keralas mainstream media. Pointing fingers is not the way to get rid of it. When there are too many TV channels in such a tiny state (highest per capita density in India), the struggle for survival can only drag everybody down. Its a competitive race to the bottom. Those who cashed out early preaching morality from the sidelines are lucky.

Inevitably, the government has announced a judicial commission enquiry into the sting. If its really serious about fixing the rot, they should have done instituted something similar to the Leveson Committee in England when smut from the News of the World had hit the fan.

Would it help? Probably not, because the argument in Kerala is whose sleaze is more moral.
Sadeeq Bello, a Nigerian student, made a desperate appeal to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday.

@SushmaSwaraj as an international student in noida, you need to act fast as living for us in Noida is becoming a life threatening issue  Sadiq Bello (@Sadiq8800) March 28, 2017

His plea came after a group of Nigerian students were attacked by a mob in Greater Noida. Four students sustained severe injuries in the attack. The local residents even demanded that all Africans living as tenants in residential colonies of Greater Noida should be asked to vacate the houses immediately. This outburst against the Africans came after five Nigerian students were picked by the police over the death of Class XII student Manish Khari due to suspected drug overdose.

#CaughtOnCamera -- Footage shows Nigerian students being beaten by a group of locals in a Greater Noida mall pic.twitter.com/Se2I9d2Kon  News18 (@CNNnews18) March 28, 2017

True to her diplomatic style, Swaraj in a series of tweets, assured immediate action and even spoke to the newly appointed Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath about an fair and impartial investigation.

Sadiq - Government of India is seized of the matter. We are taking immediate action. https://t.co/SRdS2QGuj1  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath ji Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh about attack on African students in Greater Noida. /1  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident. /2  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

Many-a-times, Swaraj's prompt tweets have highlighted the Ministry of External Affairs' transparent way of handling diplomatic crisis, nevertheless, tweets alone cannot ensure on-ground safety. It is the efficiency of the state machinery that can manage to instill a feeling of security among its people, especially among the expatriate community. Assurances like those of Uttar Pradesh minister Siddharth Nath Singh's would remain mere lip service if the first-reaction team fails to take immediate action.

Attack on Nigerian students a serious issue. Proper probe will be done. Report will be provided to centre at earliest: UP Min S Nath Singh pic.twitter.com/T7UwB3ZqWT  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 28, 2017 Case in point: We asked people around for help, but not one called the police. Even our college did not help: Nigerian national who was attacked pic.twitter.com/nTsen47zZ5  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 28, 2017

This, however, is not a one-off case. Last year, a group of African national students had held a protest at Jantar Mantar following the killing of a Congolese national and a string of other attacks on Africans in Delhi. Assuring increased police patrolling and sensitisation campaigns, Swaraj had said, "I assure our African friends that institutional mechanisms would be put in place to ensure that such incidents do not recur in future. India will continue to remain a country where they will always feel welcome.

In February this year, Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was killed and his colleague Alok Madasani and an American, Ian Grillot, were injured in a shooting by Navy veteran Adam Purinton who was heard yelling, "Get out of my country!" at a bar in Olathe City, Kansas. Harnish Patel, an Indian American and an owner of a convenience store in Lancaster County, South Carolina, was shot dead in the front yard of his home. Hate crimes and racial attacks on Indians abroad have increased in the US, especially since Donald Trump was elected president. Following the attacks, Swaraj had informed Parliament that the Indian authorities have taken the issue of racial attacks to the top echelons of the US administration.

Pramit Pal Chaudhuri of Hindustan Times writes: "US law-and-order agencies and judicial bodies have, if anything, become more active in prosecuting hate groups and crimes. The Kansas shootings were notable that one of the victims was a white American who tried to intervene and that private online donations have covered the medical costs of the wounded."

With the rise in the number of racial attacks on Indians abroad, it is imperative that the police in India, demonstrate inefficiency and expediency while handling security issues related to expats back home. It is the efforts at the local level that will reflects on the government's ability to handle and quell such crisis. In the wake of these attacks, Association of African Students in India issued the following statement:

According to latest reports, the police have arrested seven locals and the Uttar Pradesh government has promised to investigate the incident. However, repeated attacks on Africans throw up a few questions:

1. Why did the police fail to control the mob? As this Nigerian points out why wasn't the police called in time to stop the ensuing violence?

We asked people around for help, but not one called the police. Even our college did not help: Nigerian national who was attacked pic.twitter.com/nTsen47zZ5  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 28, 2017

2. Sadeeq Bello's tweet to Swaraj seemed like a desperate effort to seek security in a foreign country. Does it show the police's failure to ensure their protection?

3. The fact that the student association had to issue an advisory cautioning students not to step out of their homes reflects a deep distrust in the police force. What is the being done to dispel this feeling of alienation and helplessness?

4. Arresting local goons is not enough. How will the police ensure the protection of these foreign nationals?

5. Racial attacks are a reality for Indians abroad, what is the police doing to prevent such attacks on foreigners?
Scene of the death (Source: Kyodo)

During a working session on March 27th, representatives from Abiko and Chiba Police Departments told the Embassy staff that an investigation is underway to determine the cause of her death.

First Secretary of the Vietnamese Embassy to Japan Tran Huu Tho asked the Japanese police to strive for the work.

In a message sent to the Embassy, the Abiko Police Department said injuries have been found in the genital area according to the preliminary autopsy.

The Japanese agencies concerned promised to announce the investigation results as soon as possible and the police said they will try their best to deal with necessary work to hand over the victims body to the family for a funeral in Vietnam.

Linh reportedly usually went to school by herself at 08h00 as the school is only about 800m from her house.

Her family reported her missing to police after they failed to find her when the teacher phoned at 09h00 to inform that she had not shown up at school on March 24th morning.

While she was unaccounted for, a dead girl without clothes or other items that could be her belongings was found on March 26th morning at a site near a drainage ditch which is about 10-12km from the school.

Police confirmed her as Nhat Linh and is hunting for the culprit.

The Vietnamese Embassy in Japan told Vietnam News Agency on late March 26th that it talked to Linhs father Le Anh Hao, who came to Abikos police station and identified the girl as his daughter.

Her mother, Nguyen Thi Nguyen, is on a trip to Vietnam with a three-year-old boy at the time of her disappearance. She plans to return to Japan on March 28th and will be picked up at the airport by police.

A local resident was horrified by what had happened, saying that there has never been such a tragedy there./.
Srinagar: Expressing grief over the killing of three youths in security forces firing, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah on Tuesday blamed the Centre and state government for the "alarming situation" and advocated talks with all stakeholders.

"By choosing to turn a blind eye towards the unprecedented level of alienation and perpetual uncertainty in Kashmir both the Central Government of Narendra Modi and the state government of Mehbooba Mufti have compounded the situation in the Valley and pushed the youth into a corner," Abdullah said in a statement here.

He said the political issue in Kashmir cannot be resolved through rhetoric, operational measures or development. "There is no alternative to talks. You have to talk to the people of Kashmir and the stakeholders of all shades of opinion with an honest intent to resolve the political issue," Abdullah said.

The NC president, who is contesting the upcoming bypolls from Srinagar Lok Sabha seat, warned the PDP-BJP Government to end the era of "bloodbath" in Kashmir and realise the gravity of the "alarming situation that is a result of their criminal negligence in addressing the core political issue in Kashmir".

He said the same young men, who were asked to repose their faith in PDP in order to ensure Indo-Pak talks and dialogue with Hurriyat, have been "betrayed" on account of what PDP chose to do with the mandate it got in 2014. "The unfortunate tragedy in Chadoora today and all such incidents indicate how alarming the situation has become," Abdullah said.

Urging New Delhi and the PDP-BJP government in the state to realise the consequences of creating a "political vacuum" in the State, the NC leader said it was disappointing that a party which rose to power in Kashmir on the promise of political engagement with all stakeholders ended up pushing stakeholders farther away from talks and dialogue.

Attacking the PDP-BJP alliance, he claimed it has implemented a ruthless policy of operationally and militarily suppressing the sentiments and aspirations of the people rather than engaging with them. "The same young men who were exploited on the promise of political engagement and reprieve from harassment were betrayed by the PDP when it chose to align with the BJP. These are the same young boys who are now taking the path armed militancy again. The number of local young boys being pushed towards militancy is shocking," Abdullah said.

He extended condolences to the families of the young boys who lost their lives today. NC Working President and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah also expressed shock and sorrow over the loss of lives in Chadoora and prayed for peace to the departed souls.

Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Monday expressed anguish over the death of three civilians in Budgam and urged restraint from all sides saying issues confronting the state cannot be resolved if violence becomes the norm. In a statement released by the official spokesman, Mehbooba expressed deep anguish and grief over the death of three youths at Chadoora.

"It is highly painful to see the young boys losing their lives," the chief minister said. She termed the killings as highly unfortunate and said the people in Kashmir continue to suffer massive collateral damage due to violence of past three decades or so. Violence has given people of the state innumerable miseries, she said adding that it is high time that peaceful means are given a chance for the resolution of issues.

"We know there are issues that need to be addressed and resolved but no one will be able to do anything at a point when violence becomes a norm. There is a need for restrain from all sides so that conducive atmosphere is created and dissent is expressed in a peaceful way," she said. Three civilians -- all young men in their twenties --

were killed while 18 others were injured in security forces' action against a large number of protesters who pelted the law enforcing personnel with stones allegedly in a vain bid to help the holed up militant escape.

Earlier in the day at an election rally, Mehbooba asked local militants to give up their arms as nothing can be achieved through violence. "Today an encounter is going on at Chadoora... We made efforts to tell the lad to lay his arms and come back (to the mainstream). Violence will not yield anything," she said addressing an election rally in south Kashmir.
New Delhi: The Centre waives off farmers' loans in a state only if it votes for the BJP, Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar on Tuesday alleged after visiting Tamil Nadu farmers protesting at Jantar Mantar here. The former Congress MP was speaking to the media after expressing solidarity with farmers from the drought-hit southern state who were protesting for the last 15 days demanding a drought relief package of Rs 40,000 crore from the Centre and a loan waiver.

"Centre waives off farmers' loans in a state only if it votes for BJP. What kind of politics is this?" Aiyar asked. "How can the Centre say that they don't have enough funds to waive off loans in this situation? They waived off loans when they came to power in other states," Aiyar said, adding that he hopes the issues will get resolved in a few days.

Meanwhile, Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker M Thambidurai met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and submitted a letter of TN Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami requesting the Centre to fulfil the farmers' demand. A delegation of OPS faction of AIADMK led by Member of Parliament V Maithreyan is also expected to visit the protesting farmers.

Cutting across party lines, leaders of various political parties today visited the farmers and offered their support. DMK Rajya Sabha MPs T K S Elangovan and R S Bharathi and Pondicherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy had also visited the farmers and offered their support.

G K Vasan, the Tamil Manila Congress chief, is expected to meet President Pranab Mukherjee in the evening. "We are planning to meet the President and apprise him about the difficulties faced by farmers," Vasan had said.

The farmers are expected to meet Union Minister for Agriculture Radha Mohan Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the evening. DMK MP Tiruchi Siva is expected to accompany the farmers during the meeting with Jaitley.
Washington: US President Donald Trump called up Prime Minister Narendra Modi and congratulated him on his recent electoral success, the White House said.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump congratulated Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on their electoral victories.

The White House said the leaders spoke over the phone. "The president spoke with Merkel and Modi to congratulate them on their parties' success in recent elections," Spicer said.

Following the elections held in five states that begun on 4 February and ended on 9 March after polling was rescheduled in some constituencies, Modi's BJP formed the government in four states: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur. It, however, lost Punjab to Congress in the results announced on 11 March.

Anchored mainly by Modi and party president Amit Shah, the BJP juggernaut rolled on in Uttar Pradesh and in the neighbouring state of Uttarakhand, bagging three-fourth majority.

The BJP returned to power in the politically-crucial state of UP after a gap of 15 years during which regional parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party held sway. Goa and Manipur had hung Assemblies after the polls, but the BJP managed to form the government with support from other regional parties.

The elections in the five states had turned into a virtual referendum on Modi's popularity following his much-debated decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes. Previously, Modi and Trump talked by phone on 24 January, when they had resolved to stand "shoulder-to-shoulder" in the global fight against terrorism and for defence and security.

According to a White House statement then, Trump had "emphasised that the US considers India a true friend and partner in addressing challenges around the world."

The two leaders had exchanged invitations for visits. "President Trump looked forward to hosting Prime Minister Modi in the US later this year," the statement had said.

Modi was the fifth foreign leader Trump had spoken to on phone after he was sworn-in as the US president on 20 January. He had by then spoken to British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canada's Justin Trudeau, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

After his surprise victory in the 8 November elections in the US, Modi was among the first world leaders to congratulate Trump. And during the gruelling election campaign, India and Israel were the two prominent countries Trump spoke of strengthening ties if he were to become the president.
Noida: India on Tuesday condemned an alleged racial attack on Nigerian students who were brutally beaten up in Greater Noida by mobs targeting African nationals blaming them for drug running following the death of a teen due to suspected drug overdose.

Apprehending a diplomatic row over the attack near the national capital, the External Affairs Ministry assured of an impartial probe and said India was committed to the safety of foreigners in the country.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said she had spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Aditya Nath Yogi, and he had assured her of a "fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident".

According to police in Greater Noida, some 40 km from Delhi, late on Monday night four Nigerian students were attacked by crowds near Pari Chowk while two more were beaten by a mob inside a shopping mall.

The attacks took place after protests over the death of Manish Khatri, a Class 12 student in Greater Noida's NSG Society, Superintendent of Police Sujata Singh told IANS.

Khatri is said to have died of cardiac arrest due to suspected drug overdose on Saturday.

Singh said three FIRs had been registered.

Five suspects were arrested and over 1,000 unknown people have been booked, police officer Avinish Dixit in Greater Noida told IANS.

Dixit said police had received a complaint from an association of Nigerian residents in Greater Noida.

Atul Saxena, store manager at Levi's outlet in Ansal Plaza where one of the attacks occurred, said two Nigerians shopping in the mall rushed into the store, closed the door and pleaded with him to save them from the mob.

"After them, some 100 or 150 people forced open the door and barged in. They beat one of the Nigerians and dragged him out. The other had hid himself in a trial room. He too was dragged out and beaten up," Saxena told IANS.

The store manager said the Nigerians were beaten up by leather belts available in the store. "Some among the mob ransacked the shop and lifted goods too."

The two assaulted Nigerians -- Endurance Amarawa, 21, and Precious Amalcima, 24 -- were taken to a hospital with facial injuries and minor fractures but doctors have ruled them out of danger.

"We were shopping in Ansal Plaza on Monday evening when suddenly a mob attacked us viciously. We tried to enter a showroom to save ourselves," Precious Amalcima, who is doing political science from Noida International University (NIU), told reporters at the hospital.

Endurance is a first year BA-LLB student at the university.

A video shared online by the Association of African Students in India shows a mob beating, kicking and punching an African man repeatedly inside the mall. Some among the mob carried sticks, stools and trash cans to beat the man in the video which couldn't be verified independently.

MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay termed the incident "deplorable".

Baglay said Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar spoke to Nigeria's Acting High Commissioner and assured him of steps being taken for the safety and security of Nigerian nationals.

"The government is committed to ensuring the safety and security of all foreigners in India. People from Africa, including students and youths, remain our valued partners," Baglay added.

In Gautambudh Nagar, District Magistrate N.P. Singh held a "peace meeting" with some Nigerians, police and civil officials, local resident welfare associations, students and representatives of colleges and universities of the area.

Singh, according to a statement, assured that the administration was committed to the safety of foreign students and said that the incidents had "blemished the image of India where thousands of foreign students come to study".

"They are our guests and we should respect them. It part of our culture."
Kathmandu: Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat arrived in Kathmandu on Tuesday on a four-day official visit.

Rawat will be conferred the honorary rank of General of the Nepal Army by Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari on Wednesday, defence officials said in Kathmandu.

It is a custom and tradition between the Indian and Nepali armies to confer this honour on each other's chiefs to signify close and special military-to-military ties.

General Rawat will also discuss bilateral military ties and other aspects of cooperation during his meeting with Nepali Army chief General Rajendra Chhetri.

Rawat is also scheduled to meet Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Defence Minister Bal Krishna Khand and will visit Pokhara, where India's biggest pension camp is located, and travel to Muktinath where Nepal Army runs a high-altitude military warfare training centre.

Other highlights of his visit will be issues related to purchasing military hardware and software for the Nepal Army.

Nepal makes almost all military and defence purchases from India, including helicopters.
One person was killed and four others were injured on Tuesday in security forces' action against stone-pelting protesters near the encounter site in Chadoora area of central Kashmir's Budgam district.

J&K: Encounter underway between Security forces and terrorists in Chadoora in Budgam (visuals deferred) pic.twitter.com/9izVt2Mx7O  ANI (@ANI_news) March 28, 2017

#WATCH J&K: Encounter underway between Security forces and terrorists in Chadoora in Budgam (visuals deferred by unspecified time) pic.twitter.com/QrDaBoPh3J  ANI (@ANI_news) March 28, 2017

Security forces launched a cordon and search operation in Durbugh area of Chadoora in the wee hours following information about the presence of militants in the area, a police official said. He said the search operation turned into a gunbattle after militants opened fire on security forces. As the security forces were engaged in the exchange of firing with holed-up militants, a large number of protesters started pelting stones at the law enforcing agencies, the official said.

He said one person was hit by a bullet in the neck and rushed to a hospital. He succumbed to injuries on way to the hospital. Four others suffered injuries as security forces fired pellet guns and tear smoke shells in a bid to disperse the protesters, the official said.

The gunbattle between security forces and militants was going on till last reports came in, the official said.

Meanwhile, according to The New Indian Express, some terrorists barged into the residence of an assistant sub-inspector of police and a constable in Kashmirs Shopian district and ransacked their houses in Jammu on Monday night. The terrorists fired gunshots into the air before fleeing from the spot.

According to India Today, the army said that the terrorists are "already making preparations" to target tourists coming to Jammu and Kashmir this year.

Intelligence agencies and army spies have been keeping an eye on the movements across the Line of Control in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, according to India Today. Inputs suggest that operatives of Lashkar-e-Taiba and other outfits are moving towards new launch pads to infiltrate, the sources told India Today.

With inputs from agencies
On 1 March, Swati Pravin Jamdade, a 26-year-old woman died during an abortion at Bharati Hospital in Mhaisal Village in the Miraj Taluka of Maharashtra's Sangli district. Swati, a mother of two daughters, was pregnant again and was carrying a female foetus. Her husband Pravin, who wanted a son, brought Swati to the hospital  located some 60 to 70 kilometres from their hometown of Khanderajuri  for the procedure.

Following her death, instead of taking her body for post-mortem, Pravin took it to their hometown to perform the last rights. Villagers got suspicious of Swatis sudden demise and informed the police. Meanwhile Sunil Jadhav, Swatis father, who had advised Pravin not to abort the foetus, lodged an FIR against Pravin, following which Miraj Police launched a probe.

During their probe, the police came across a milkman, who revealed that Dr Babasaheb Khidrapure, who runs Bharati Hospital, allegedly used to dispose off aborted foetuses on a regular basis. He took the police to a location near the stream in the village, where 19 foetuses were found buried.

On a search of the hospital, one more fetus was found in a drawer in one of the rooms. The milkman confessed to his role in the ordeal, saying that he used to dispose off foetuses more than two months old for the doctor, and that he was given Rs 300 per foetus to do so.

He said that foetuses less than two months into the pregnancy were flushed down the toilet and that a particular acid was used to cover up the foul smell.

Khidrapure, a homeopathy doctor, had been running the two storey hospital in the village since 2009. Though he is originally from Kanwad village, he set up his practice in Mhaisal, a place to which he has no connection at all.

The hospital, that is not registered under the Bombay Nursing Home Act, has facilities like an operation theatre, X-ray machines, stocks of allopathy medicine etc.

Social activists are perplexed how an illegal hospital had been running in the vicinity of a primary health centre, that is just 200 meters away, for eight years.

Amit Shinde, advocate and social activist, said, "In 2014, an anonymous letter had informed the then district collector about illegal activities at Bharati Hospital. The collector then constituted a committee comprising a civil surgeon, district medical officer and health officials. But the committee did not find anything suspicious,"

"That the committee could not find out that the hospital itself was illegal is surprising. Now, after the death of one woman, health officials have shut down the hospital and posted a show-cause notice, Shinde said.

Anil Hulle, a social activist from Mhaisal village, said, "Police had to act this time as the father of the deceased woman lodged an FIR. Khidrapure or anyone else could not deter him from lodging the complaint. Otherwise, this is not the first death at this hospital. Earlier, a lady named Savita Sampkal had died at this hospital in 2013. She was either going for an abortion or due for delivery. Her relatives got hostile and had threatened Khidrapure with police action."

He added, But Khidrapure managed to convince the relatives of the woman to not go to the police. He would either pay off hostile relatives or threaten them. This time though, the father of the deceased girl did not succumb to threats or money. Otherwise, this racket would have continued uninterrupted for many more years.

During the probe, the police uncovered a network of illegal sex determination and abortion businesses in Maharashtra and Karnataka. Three doctors have been arrested so far, including Khidrapure, along with two medicine suppliers, five agents, two assistants of Khidrapure, and the husband of the deceased. The other two doctors were arrested from Karnataka, where they ran sonography centres.

Explaining how the racket was being run and why Khidrapure did not get caught earlier, Dattatray Shinde, superintendent of Police, Sangli, who is leading the probe, said, "There is a strong network of agents and doctors at villages along the Maharashtra-Karnataka border. Women or couples seeking sex selection test are found out by agents. These agents then get them to doctors in Karnataka, who conduct the tests. Following the test, they are asked to go to Khidrapure or other doctors involved in the racket for an abortion,"

"Patients are asked to park their vehicles far away from the hospitals. The abortion is done without conducting any checkup or tests. The doctor completes an abortion within 2-3 hours and mostly operates at night. The patients are discharged before dawn. Thus, even though police or health officials get tips, they are not caught red-handed," he added.

One of the agents involved in the racket shared some details: "When we take patients to doctors in Karnataka for sex selection tests, they reveal if the patient is carrying a female fetus. Then, the patient is advised to go for an abortion to the doctors involved in this racket. Sometimes, male foetuses are also killed by incorrect reports for the sake of money. The parents never come to know about this. Generally, a sex selection test costs between Rs 5,000-10,000 and an abortion costs Rs 25,000-50,000. We receive Rs 1,000-2,000 commission from the doctors per sex selection test and Rs 5,000 to 10,000 per abortion."

Following this incident, health officials conducted a survey of the hospitals in the village and found that there were two more illegal nursing homes. They were also given show-cause notices.

Sanjay Barade, who runs a paint shop in the village near Krishna Hospital  run by Dr AT Chougule  alleged, "The doctor here (Krishna Hospital) is a Bachelor of Homoeopathic Medicine and Surgery by education, and he has been involved. Earlier he was leading the business and had more patients coming in for abortion and sonography tests. But, in the last 2-3 years, Khidrapures business flourished and he lost out,"

"Villagers are aware of all these illegal activities but they cannot take the risk of informing the police. But why do the police or health officials or politicians not take an initiative? Maybe they get a cut as well," he alleged.

Dhannajay Argade, a social activist who runs the Snehalaya NGO to create awareness against female foeticide, said, "These doctors open small clinics far away from their own native places. Like in this case, Khidrapure has no connection with Mhaisal but he opened his clinic there. They receive patients from other villages, districts and local villagers are not entertained at these hospitals,"

He added, There are many medical vans that are also in this business. Vans equipped with portable sonography machines and facilities required for abortion, collect patients in the evening from various villages. These vans are then taken to open areas or the hills and sex selection tests or abortions are performed, most of the time by unskilled doctors like Khidrapure. Abortions are done without carrying tests like BP, that too in unhygienic conditions. The patients are dropped back to their villages by morning.

Varsha Deshpande, another social activist, said, All sonography machines in Maharashtra are connected with their respective collectors' offices. Hence, officials can easily find out irregularities by checking the number of tests done. Thus, such doctors in Maharashtra send patients for sex selection tests to Karnataka, where sonography machines are not under surveillance. Last year, Karnataka government had informed Maharashtra that over 6,000 tests were done in three years, but no action was taken."

Sanjay Salunkhe, civil surgeon, Sangli, who is a member of the investigative team, said, "All hospitals and clinics across the districts will be checked and strict action will be taken against those who do not follow the rules."
Chinese electronics manufacturer Oppo faced major backlash on Tuesday after an employee from their Noida unit in Uttar Pradesh allegedly "tore the National Flag and dumped it in a dustbin."

While the details of the case are still unclear, a report in India Today says that soon after the incident, people from nearby areas reached the site to protest against the company for disrespecting the National Flag. The impromptu mob was seen shouting slogans and carrying national flags.

Soon after, social media joined in the protest as many were enraged by the "anti-national" actions displayed by the company employee.

According to a report in BGR, Oppo India said that they were "investigating the situation and will share an update once we verify all the facts.

Oppo chinese head insult our indian flag... Thats why indian youth go high. And do strike in front of oppo...indian youth not compromise pic.twitter.com/bktCzbP6LS  Sunny Gujjar (@SunnyGu29844962) March 28, 2017

Many on Twitter and Facebook appealed to new Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Hindutva hardliner Yogi Adityanath to look into the matter.

@myogiadityanath, Indian flag torn by Chinese person in noida oppo office# disrespect of indian flag# need action  prateek bhardwaj (@pratsb92) March 28, 2017

Outside #Oppo office in #Noida. Riot-like situation because of insult to national flag by a Chinese official #nationalism pic.twitter.com/NPCFHyAd6L  Ishveena (@rosaceous) March 28, 2017

The incident is yet another example of the growing wave of 'hyper-nationalism' in the country, where just the whiff of 'anti-national' activity is enough to fuel protests.

Chinese employee of @oppo at Noida torn off the Indian National Flag and dumped in dustbin. People have reached the site with Flags. pic.twitter.com/vLT1DjciAv  Rishi Muni (@RishiUvaach) March 28, 2017

Earlier this year in January, online retail giant Amazon drew ire from India's Minister for External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj, for selling doormats with the Indian flag printed on them. She had threatened to not allow Amazon employees to travel to India if the online giant did not take down from its Canadian site, doormats and rugs with the Indian flag on them. She also threatened to rescind visas of the staff in India if Amazon did not comply with her threat.
Our VIP politicians seem to believe that getting rid of red lights on top of vehicles they travel in should serve as a declaration of their intent to end the rampant VIP culture of entitlement. A trailblazer on this issue, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was the first to give up the lal batti culture after coming to power in Delhi in 2014. Three years on, Amarinder Singh, the newly elected Punjab chief minister, has followed suit. There is speculation that the new Uttar Pradesh incumbent Yogi Adityanath, too, is keen to give up the flashing red beacons. While Bihars education minister and Congress state president, Ashok Choudhury, is urging the government to follow in Punjabs footsteps, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already abandoned this accoutrement of VIP culture.

It seems politicians enamoured by the VIP culture are scrambling to outdo each other in giving up this one symbol of privilege. But isnt it the case that in their haste to declass themselves these members of the political elite have conveniently picked a soft option to impress the electorate? Even as they eagerly give up lal battis, politicians are not ready to show the same eagerness in ending their habit of swaggering around, demanding VIP treatment wherever they go, and whosoever they engage with in public life.

One of the reasons that politicians today are targets of public wrath is the arrogance with which they conduct themselves. The tradition of displaying red beacons is but just one outward manifestation of indulging in such power play; a manifestation easier to get rid of than tackling structural problems plaguing the system itself.

Take for instance the latest incident concerning Ravindra Gaikwad, a Shiv Sena MP, who assaulted a 60-year-old staffer of Air India over a seat on a Pune-to-Delhi flight last week. Even after being told that it was an all-economy flight, the MP insisted on being shifted to business class. When put in his place by the Air India staffer, Gaikwad repeatedly hit him with slippers.

The response of Shiv Sena, the party Gaikwad represents in Parliament, explains why legislators routinely get away with such bad behaviour. Rather than suspend the offending legislator, the party even while it condemned Gaikwads use of violence, maintained that listening to the other side of the story was important in this context. Not just that. On Monday, Shiv Sena declared its intention to move a breach of privilege motion against Air India for grounding and cancelling Gaikwads ticket. Digging in its heels, the party called for a bandh in Maharashtras Osmanabad, the constituency Gaikwad represents in Lok Sabha. There is no need for any disciplinary action against him (Gaikwad), Sanjay Raut told the Hindustan Times.

This kind of response from the party leadership is nothing but an outright endorsement of the impunity driving VIP culture. Its hardly surprising that the offender has, till date, not bothered to tender an apology to the airline or its staff. In such a context, the exhaustive list of public representatives who have abused or manhandled public servants across India, is hardly surprising.

Recall in this context the incident that took place in Delhis Maharashtra Sadan in 2014. Angry at not being served Maharashtrian food, a group of 11 MPs (which included Gaikwad), forced Arshad Zubair S, a Muslim catering supervisor who was fasting for Ramzan, to eat a chapati. According to a report in The Indian Express (4 August, 2014,) in his formal complaint about the incident, Arshad wrote, All the guests along with media reporters and staffs of Maharashtra Sadan got into kitchen where I was getting the orders prepared. They caught me and put the chapati into my mouth. I was wearing a formal uniform set as prescribed by IRCTC and everybody in the panel also knew my name as Arshad as I was wearing the name tag

Such an unacceptable political culture which encourages legislators to misbehave at will is nourished by a deeply flawed political system. First, parties give tickets to winnable, criminal elements within their ranks. The only consideration for ticket distribution seems to be the winnability of a candidate. Then, once elected, these party leaders flagrantly disregard the law. But their respective high commands refuse to initiate action against them. One cycle of criminality feeds the other. Gaikwad, a first-time MP and twice-elected former MLA, for instance, has a string of cases against him, including charges such as criminal intimidation, culpable homicide not amounting to murder, preventing public servants from discharging their duties by using violence.

The reality is that peoples representatives, at all levels (whether or not they do away with red beacons) regard themselves as masters of the people, they are meant to serve. As long as politicians do not get rid of this basic distortion  the habitual tendency to place themselves above ordinary citizens who elect them to positions of power  there is little hope of tackling VIP culture in a way that truly matters.
Ms Van always leads in movements assisting the poor. (Photo: VNA)

She has been presented with a certificate of merit from the Prime Minister for her achievements in realizing Politburo Directive 03-CT/TW (Term XI) on increasing the studying and following of President Ho Chi Minhs moral example.

According to Vietnam News Agency, in her position, she has always led in humanitarian blood donation, mobilization of money to assist the lives of poor families, and providing humanitarian meals for poor families.

She has reached to each family to disseminate the significance of humanitarian blood donation. Over the past four years, the Chairwoman of the Phu Thanh communal Red Cross has encouraged the donation of 48 units of blood. She has patiently reached every corner of remote villages and mastered the number of poor families who are in need of help, thus developing plans for mobilizing assistance. Over the past five years, Ms Van has mobilized over VND600 million, assisting over 2,280 poor families, and contributing to building 7 charitable houses.

Tan Phu Dong, a waterway district, reports a large number of poor families living in isolated areas that have travel difficulties. Pupils have to travel a considerable distance to go to school. Many poor pupils have to starve themselves at lunch for going to school. Loving the children, Ms Van arranges to provide humanitarian meals by mobilising donations of essential food and facilities for the childrens lunch. Her deeds are supported by other people. So far, her humanitarian meal provision is assisted by 10 volunteers.

Ms Van has also encouraged voluntary doctors to give free medical check-ups and treatment to thousands of poor patients. Sharing that studying and following President Ho Chi Minhs moral example is a long-term deed, she said she realized that she has to strive harder in carrying out humanitarian activities and assisting the poor.

Doctor Vo Van Lang, Chairman of the Tien Giang provincial Red Cross, appreciates Ms Van for her deeds, recognizing her as a typical officer in emulation movement. Her accurate thinking and good ways of doing have been expanded by Red Cross organizations in the province./.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj spoke to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday about the alleged attack on African students in Noida after a foreign student pleaded with her for swift action, saying living in the area was becoming a "life-threatening" issue.

Swaraj said the central government was taking immediate action and that the UP chief minister had assured her of a fair and impartial investigation into this "unfortunate" incident.

Four Nigerian students had earlier on Monday sustained severe injuries after being attacked by a group of local residents in Greater Noida's Pari Chowk area in Uttar Pradesh, according to The Times of India. The incident took place on Monday evening when local residents raised slogans demanding that all Africans living in residential colonies in Greater Noida be asked to vacate their rented houses immediately, according to The Times of India.

Following the incident, the Association of African Students in India on Tuesday asked its members in Greater Noida to remain inside their homes and not leave them until sufficient security measures are taken. You are advised to not attend any lecture until we are granted maximum security, the association said in a Facebook post.

The association also posted a video on Facebook detailing the attack on students of African descent with the caption "Attacked for no reason".

The protests came after five Nigerian students were picked by the police for their role in the death of the class 12th student reportedly due to a drug overdose on 25 March.

Swaraj in series of tweets on Tuesday said that she had spoken to the newly elected chief minister of Uttar Pradesh regarding the attack on African students in Greater Noida. She assured that a fair and impartial investigation into the matter will take place.

I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath ji Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh about attack on African students in Greater Noida. /1  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident. /2  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

Responding to a tweet from a student who requested her to "act fast as living for us in Noida is becoming a life-threatening issue", she said that the Central government was "seized of the matter".

"We are taking immediate action," she added.

Sadiq - Government of India is seized of the matter. We are taking immediate action. https://t.co/SRdS2QGuj1  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

Swaraj on Monday sought information from the Uttar Pradesh government over the arrest of some African nationals for their alleged role in the death of a class 12 student in Noida.

I have asked for a report from Government of Uttar Pradesh about the reported attack on African students in Noida.  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 27, 2017

The Hindu reported that the deceased, Manish Khatri, who was a student of Class 12 in a private school had gone missing on Friday evening and was found in an intoxicated state near his residence the next day.

He was rushed to a hospital, where he died during treatment. His family later lodged a complaint against five Nigerian nationals accusing them of drugging him, The Hindu reported.

According to The Times of India, the locals had permission to organise a peaceful protest at Pari Chowk on Monday, but the situation suddenly went out of control. Police officials were present to maintain law and order at the venue but some of the protesters suddenly turned into a mob on spotting a few Nigerians near the spot of protest.

NDTV reported that the police said they used batons to control the mob that attacked the Africans Monday evening. Three Nigerians were admitted to a nearby hospital with injuries. Seven local residents have been arrested, according to NDTV. Also, the police have identified and traced 54 locals who were part of the mob that beat up the Nigerians.

The Greater Noida police, according to NDTV, said they have video-graphed the attackers and will initiate legal action against them. Security has been strengthened in areas where the Africans, mostly students in Greater Noida's universities, live.

With inputs from PTI
Arguing before the Supreme Court on Monday, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) took two positions on the issue of triple talaq, the practice whereby a Muslim husband utters talaq (divorce) three times to end a marriage. One, it told the court that if triple talaq is declared illegal, it would amount to disregarding Allah's directions and rewriting of the Quran and would force Muslims into committing a sin. Two, the Muslim personal law provisions such as triple talaq enjoyed the protection of the Constitution's Article 25 which guarantees citizens a fundamental right to profess and propagate a religion.

Let's take the second point first. Article 25 gives the "freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion" to the Indian citizen. But this right is subject to two sub-clauses  clause 25 (1) notes that the freedom of religion is "subject to public order, morality and health" and clause 25 (2) clarifies that the right to religion does not "prevent the state from making any law" regarding the welfare of people. So, the Constitution is clear that the right to religion, though a right, is an inferior right among all the fundamental rights. The AIMPLB cannot take refuge under Article 25 because triple talaq is against the public morality of our times.

There are further implications of Article 25. One, the right to religion is available to the Indian citizen, not to religious communities, and certainly, does not apply to organisations like the AIMPLB or Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind and others. Two, Article 25 allows a citizen to practice and propagate his/her beliefs, but the differing institutionalised practices of religious sects are not protected under this right because they are not essential to the belief in a religion. So, if the court declares triple talaq illegal, it will not harm religious beliefs of Muslims and no sin will be committed. About two-dozen Muslim countries including Pakistan have already abolished triple talaq.

Religious practices are also not protected by Article 25 for the simple reason that they harm the welfare of citizens. Notably, Shayara Bano, a Muslim woman from Uttarakhand, has approached the apex court because her welfare is harmed by the arbitrary practice of triple talaq. It is also clear that under the Constitution, the religious freedom is subject to all other fundamental rights. This means that the Article 14, which guarantees the right to equality, overrides Article 25 because triple talaq denies a Muslim woman's equality before the law.

Similarly, Article 25 is subject to Article 15 (1) which says that the State "shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex..." Since triple talaq is anti-women, it violates Article 15 (1) of the Constitution.

To return to the first point. The AIMPLB is not a representative body of Indian Muslims and its members are not elected. The AIMPLB is also an anti-Quranic group. On 3 September 2015, its spokesman Maulana Abdul Raheem Qureshi said: "Though as per Quran and Hadith, 'triple talaq' is a crime, but once said the process would be considered complete and cannot be changed." Hadiths (plural of Hadith), are sayings and deeds of Prophet Muhammad. Since the AIMPLB admits that the triple talaq is a crime as per the Quran, it must not oppose any move that seeks to declare triple talaq illegal. However, the AIMPLB and other Islamic groups are defending the arbitrary practice of triple talaq despite knowing that it is a crime under the Quran.

The AIMPLB misled the Supreme Court on Monday by submitting: "If such casual denunciation of the verses of the holy book is permitted, then soon Islam would cease to exist. Though triple talaq in one sitting is an unusual mode of divorce in Islam, it cannot be declared to be invalid in the light of the direct verses of Holy Quran and categorical command of the Messenger of Allah." As per the current law, the only way for Muslims to divorce is the practice of triple talaq.

The Quran has a chapter devoted to this subject in the surah called Al-Talaq, which comprises of 12 verses. In these verses, the Quran establishes a procedure for divorce, providing for three talaqs, each delivered at an interval of a month. The Quran does not approve of the instant triple talaq, which is arbitrary and is exercised at the whims of a Muslim husband and many times uttered in a fit of anger. Under the Quranic practice, a talaq must be uttered in the presence of two witnesses. So, the Quran removes the arbitrariness of triple talaq.

If the Supreme Court declares the practice of instant triple talaq, which is given in one sitting, as illegal, the apex court's decision will still be as per the Quran. It can be said with certainty that the position adopted by the AIMPLB before the Supreme Court is, therefore, anti-Quranic and anti-Constitutional. Under the existing law, a Muslim woman can approach the courts to seek, not to give, divorce; alternatively, she can resort to the informal practice of seeking divorce through an Islamic cleric. However, a Muslim husband cannot go to the court to give divorce; the only option open before him is to deliver triple talaq either through Islamic clerics or through informal means such as a letter, phone call, or WhatsApp messages.

The current practice of instant triple talaq cannot be acceptable as per the modern standards of morality. It has emerged as a menace to the society in India. It is also violative of the Constitution's Article 21 which guarantees to Indian citizens the protection of life and personal liberty, which includes human dignity. Currently, it is the dignity of Muslim women that is being challenged by Islamic groups like the AIMPLB. The Muslim women who are divorced via triple talaq, are increasingly approaching the Supreme Court to uphold their right to dignity and liberty, which must be supported by everyone.

However, ending the practice of triple talaq will not end the miseries of Muslim women, who need to send their daughters to study and permit them to work. Even the number of talaqs, whether triple or not, should be meaningless if the same is uttered in the presence of a judge at three monthly intervals to complete the Quranic procedure. To remove its arbitrariness and at the minimum, the Supreme Court of India must rule that all Muslim divorces must be given in a court, not in parallel Shariah courts run by numerous Islamist groups such as the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, AIMPLB, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind and Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind.

The author, a former BBC journalist, is a contributing editor at Firstpost and executive director of the Open Source Institute, New Delhi. He tweets @tufailelif
Banned terror group United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent (Ulfa) has asked Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama to refrain from making anti-China remarks when in Assam next month. Ulfa said the Dalai Lama shouldn't make comments that risk irking Beijing lest they cause a setback in India-China relations.

According to a report in Hindustan Times, the banned outfit's chairman Abhijeet Asom has written an "open letter" to the spiritual leader. "If you want to visit Assam, we have a special condition. You will not make any personal or public comments against China from Assams soil. China and Assam are friendly neighbours who share long-standing linguistic and cultural ties. We will not tolerate it if you act as a spokesperson for Indian sentiments from Assam's soil," it said.

The Dalai Lama will be spending time in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, where he will visit the Tawang monastery. Union minister Kiren Rijiju, who is originally from Arunachal Pradesh, is expected to accompany him. China refuses to recognise the state of Arunachal Pradesh as India's territory, laying claim to the region on several occasions.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry, reacting to the Dalai Lama's visit, has said India was "fully aware of the seriousness of the Dalai Lama issue and the sensitivity of China-India border question".

A report in NDTV also quoted from Ulfa's letter to the Dalai Lama. "India has kept her nuclear arsenal ready on Assam's soil to use against your country. In neutralising Indian military power, China is also likely to unleash an immense counter offensive which will be a disaster for Assam. Moreover, your beloved Tibet is also likely to suffer heavily from your host's action," it said.

Ulfa leader Paresh Baruah, who has been on Indian intelligence agencies' radar for a long time, is reportedly said to be hiding in China, although Beijing has denied this. There have also been reports that Ulfa has training camps in Chinese territory.
The issue around the Uttar Pradesh government's crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses gained further steam on Monday with thousands of meat sellers going on strike for an indefinite period.

The strike, which started on Monday, has brought the over Rs 15,000-crore industry that employs 25 lakh people in the state, to a grinding halt. The issue also came up for discussion in Parliament on Tuesday, with the central government claiming that only illegal slaughterhouses were closed.

Meat sellers in the state, however, allege that police were raiding shops and forcing the closure of their establishments despite having valid licences. They said the ban on slaughterhouses has caused a shortage in meat supply across the state, as thousands of meat sellers have been forced to down shutters for an indefinite period of time, as uncertainty over the state government's policy continues.

Meanwhile, with contrasting arguments emerging, there is no making of the rights and wrongs in the issue. The issue has the right to livelihood of lakhs of people and their dependents on one hand, and the law of the land and crucial environmental checks on the other.

Considering only illegal slaughterhouses are the ones targeted, or so the government claims, here's a breakdown on the legal aspects of the issue to help define what exactly is a "legal slaughterhouse".

Legal meat, illegal meat

Cow slaughter is illegal in Uttar Pradesh, as is in most parts of India. However, the slaughtering of buffaloes, water buffaloes and other cattle is not banned. The protection of cows and calves is also one of the directive principles of state policy contained in Article 48 of the Constitution. However, a blanket ban remains very much a state subject. Various states have chosen to outlaw cow slaughter, as per local customs and culinary preferences, but in Uttar Pradesh, buffalo meat is legal as of now.

An issue more about environment than religious sentiments?

It is important to point out at the onset that the issue of slaughterhouses, in practical terms, is mostly about the environmental norms, blatantly flouted by the illegal units, usually in connivance with local administration and politicians.

Even though much of the debate has bordered around the religious sentiments of the Hindu community, which revers the cow, and the ruling party's alleged attempts to encourage vegetarianism, a much neglected aspect is its environmental implications. Slaughterhouses are listed under the 'red' category (amid those industries with highest release of effluents and pollutants in environment) of industries, which are considered heavily polluting and are covered under the central action plan for consent management.

This essentially means that abattoirs are counted amid industries that are most polluting for water bodies, and if unregulated can be a serious menace to public health.

According to a list put out by the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board in 2015, of the 129 industrial units (deemed very hazardous for the environment) that have not installed anti-pollution devices, 44 units are slaughterhouses.

What clearances are required before an abattoir can operate legally in UP?

There are no records of illegal slaughterhouses available officially. However, according to industry insiders, there could be an estimated 140 abattoirs and over 50,000 meat shops that don't have permission to operate, IANS reported. In the current crackdown, the government has rounded up more than 20 illegal slaughterhouses and several meat shops.

To open a slaughterhouse in India, the applicant is required to apply for land use clearance for opening the unit. However, it is after this step that a series of checks and norms kick in that are specific to this industry. According to Uttar Pradesh's Department of Infrastructue and Industrial development, a No Objection Certificate (NOC) must be obtained from the district authorities and the UPPCB, both of which carry out separate inspections to determine whether the unit is being built in accordance with the set norms.

After UPPCB grants an environmental clearance, the plant owner is then required to approach the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), the Union government's body that regulates the export of all products. Before granting approval for export of the meat, APEDA has its own procedures and series of checks and inspections which are carried out before an NOC is granted.

The slaughterhouses should further operate in accordance with the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Slaughter House) Rules, 2001, that outlines further laws to ensure the health and well being of cattle being slaughtered. Amid other things, it requires a large and airy reception, and resting area for the cattle and a compulsory examination by a veterinary doctor, 24 hours before they are slaughtered.

Moreover, an abattoir should also be licensed and registered with the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), under the Food Safety (License and Registration of Food Business) Regulations Act, 2011.

Besides, even after the slaughterhouses have obtained these clearances, they are required to maintain standards of operations in accordance with the environmental, hygiene and sanitation, and prevention of animal cruelty norms in their day to day operation.

NGT intervention

In May 2015, hearing a plea of an environmental activist, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had ruled that any slaughterhouse that is operating without the necessary permission from local authorities  particularly the UPPCB  should not be allowed to operate. According to a report in The Indian Express, it is this order that the UP government has cited time and again in justifying its action against the slaughterhouses. The NGT also asked UPPCB to form a form a committee that will issue certificates to small shops on a quarterly basis.

The NGT order had come on a petition alleging that "the abattoirs were discharging untreated effluents contaminated with animal waste and blood of slaughtered animals in open drains which go into the tributaries of Ganga and Yamuna, polluting them," according to a PTI report at the time published in OneIndia.

"As per official records, more than 8.5 lakhs cattle are slaughtered annually in Uttar Pradesh, at its 115 registered abattoirs. However, a bare perusal of the records of total export made by the state shows that it is several times higher than the amount mentioned in the records and data maintained by UP," the petitioner had said.
Washington: The White House was briefly lockdown this morning after a male suspect approached US Secret Service agents with a "suspicious package" and made suspicious comments, officials said.

The man had approached uniformed officers at around 10:15 am when both President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were inside the White House. "A male suspect approached uniform division officers in the area of 15th and Pennsylvania (Avenue). He made some suspicious comments. He also had package. We separated the individual and the package. He is now in Secret Service custody," a Secret Service spokesperson told reporters."

Explosive disposal team are on the scene. We established a security perimeter, the media was moved in here (James S Brady press room) and East Wing tours were temporarily suspended. All other activities in White House continues as normal," the spokesperson said.

"Yes," the spokesperson said when asked if the suspect was taken into custody without incident. The lockdown was lifted around 11.45 am.

Meanwhile, the President and the Vice President continued with their daily activities inside the White House. "You keep us safe," Trump said in a listening session with the Fraternal Order of Police.

"I made a crucial pledge: we will always support the incredible and women of law enforcement. I will always have your back 100 per cent," Trump said, adding that sadly the police are often prevented from doing their jobs.

"In too many of our communities, violent crime is on the rise. These are painful realities that many in Washington don't want to talk about. We have seen it all over," he said and expressed concern over the increasing violence in Chicago.
Many in Delhis power circles are debating the appropriateness of the ministry of external affairs (MEA) getting involved in the issue of The New York Times critical editorial stance after the appointment of Yogi Adityanath as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. After all, NYT, is a 'democratic' paper of a democratic country and it is free to have its views, which need not be commented on by the government of another democratic country like India. There are strong merits in this argument. The MEA should have avoided getting involved in the issue of a paper, which incidentally is losing its credibility and circulations in its home country, the United States.

However, for a private Indian citizen, it is worth exploring why a publication like NYT has been repeatedly showing India in poor light over the last few years; in fact, its anti-India tirades predate the advent of the Narendra Modi government in 2014, although of late they have become sharper and more frequent. Invariably all the editorials of the NYT on India have been highly critical of Modi and his governments policies, such as the ones on demonetisation, Kashmir, Pakistan, nuclear matters and space missions. Some of them have gone even to the extent of demonising his economic achievements in Gujarat as the chief minister, let alone as prime minister.

In fact, going by the editorial comments and op-ed features that appear in the NYT these days, many people feel that the paper is suffering from 'Indo-phobia'. Prof. Sumit Ganguly, a professor of political science at Indiana University, wondered in his 2009 article for Forbes, "why The New York Times editorial board has a 'hectoring' and 'patronizing' tone towards India, be it on its coverage on Kashmir or Indo-US nuclear deal or Indian economy."

In 2010, The Huffington Post charged that the NYT is 'Indophobic' and promotes neocolonialism with its slanted and negative coverage. Vamsee Juluri, author and professor of media studies at the University of San Francisco, has identified 'Indophobia' in certain sections of the US media, particularly in the NYT, as part of a racist postcolonial/neocolonial discourse used to attack and defame India and encourage racial prejudice against Indian Americans. Some speculate that "old-school" colonialists find India's recent economic progress to be incompatible with their 'Clash of Civilizations' world view.

US lawmaker Kumar P. Barve, a legislator of Maryland (he is the first Indian-American to be elected as a state legislator in United States history) once described a NYT editorial as full of "blatant and unprofessional factual errors or omissions," having a "haughty, condescending, arrogant and patronizing" tone. It is worth mentioning that when in September 2014, the Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) successfully placed a spacecraft into orbit around the planet Mars, thereby completing the Mars Orbiter Mission and earning plaudits from all over the world, the NYT published a cartoon, showing a turban-wearing man with a cow knocking at the door of an "elite space club." Predictably, the cartoon drew immediate criticism for being racist in content all over America, compelling the NYT to publish an apology saying that a "large number of readers have complained" about the cartoon and that they "apologise to readers who were offended."

More than China, it is the NYT which opposes Indias entry into the Nuclear Supplier's Group (NSG). It said that Indias membership was "not merited" as it had "fallen far short" in assuming responsibilities of a nuclear nation. This view was criticized by several western experts such as Prof Ramesh Thakur (Director of the Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament at the Australian National University) and Alyssa Ayres (senior fellow for South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations). Thakur found the NYT to be frequently chauvinistic", reflecting a deliberate bias", whereas Ayres advised the paper to ground its arguments in an appraisal of the complete facts."

If I look at the issue as a journalist, who has spent enough years as an editorial writer and columnist, I find that while editorials are the views of the publisher in strict sense of the term unlike signed columns, the fact remains that senior editors (most of whom begin as Assistant editors in the edit page) who write the edits on their assigned areas enjoy virtual autonomy, save rare occasions. So in all probability, editorials written on India at NYT are written by those assigned to write on international affairs. That being the case let us see who constitutes the editorial board at NYT.

Led by James Bennet, the NYT editorial board consists of 17 writers, among whom there are two persons of Indian origin  Vikas Bajaj and Mira Kamdar. Bajaj mainly writes on global economy and that of the United States. But, Paris-based Kamdar has been assigned international affairs. Kamdar, it may be noted, has written extensively on India and has authored books like, 'Planet India: the Turbulent Rise of the Largest Democracy' and 'Motibas Tattoos: A Granddaughters Journey Into her Indian Familys Past'. Any dispassionate analysis of her views on India suggest that India is a terrible country where there is no secularism, no real democracy, no social justice, and no real development. In fact, she (child of an Indian father and Danish mother) once wrote that "My immigrant Gujarati father is both a liberal Democrat and a supporter of Hindu fascism. This is not as unusual as one might think."

On another occasion in 2002, she wrote, The Hindu militant leaders are bent upon transforming India from the secular democracy its founders envisioned 55 years ago into a Hindu religious state, sanitized of Muslims and other minority groups. This, grossly stated, is the core ideology of Hindutva: to unify Indias Hindus  otherwise divided by caste, class, region, language and sect  into a dominant political force that can restore modern India to essentially the Hindu past (of Indian sub-continent divided into 5,000 princely states before the arrival of Muslims in the early 8th century) from which it has been severed.

In fact, as one can see, the above theme runs in almost all editorials in NYT on India under the Modi government. This is not to say that Mira has to change her views; in fact she has every right to propagate her opinions. However, the problem arises when the NYT sees India only through her eyes. Mira is the not the only 'expert' on India. For its credibility, the paper needs to do some rigorous fact-checking and air some alternate impressions. India is not bad a place as Mira, and therefore the NYT, believes it to be.
Navratri (nine nights) is a festival that honours the indomitable Divine Feminine. (The three most commonly known and revered forms being Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati).

There are four navratis (1) during the course of a year; the most popular and widespread of these is the Ashwin Navratri which usually comes in the months of September/October and is synonymous with the worship of Maa Durga (2), as she is fondly called. Chaitra Navratri, which occurs in the months of March/April, is also observed by many devotees and marks the beginning of the new year in many regions of India.

From Ghatastaphana to Kumari Puja, from Durga Puja to golu (only during Ashwin Navrtri), from fasting and praying to garba, from yajnas and homams to planting saplings, the diversity of Navratri celebrations are a colourful kaleidoscope intended to harmonise both body and soul with the cosmos.

One of the integral parts of this festival is the recitation of a centuries-old text called the Durga Saptashati or the Devi Mahatamya. It is among the loftiest of puranic compositions and is a part of the Markandeya Purana (one of the oldest 18 mahapuranas). The Durga Saptashati is also popularly referred to as the Chandi Patha or the Chandi.

The Saptashati (700 verses) has withstood the test of centuries (3) and is as relevant today as it was at the time of its composition, when it was probably an attempt to synthesise and crystallise millennia-old traditions of goddess worship (4) in India. It can be stated with conviction that it drew upon many well-known myths in wide circulation at that time. The Saptashati is probably the oldest extant text in the world devoted entirely to a fiercely independent goddess who is also The Supreme Being  The Ultimate Godhead  The Divine Feminine.

The Goddess Durga as we know her today has been shaped to a large extent by this text. The biggest achievements of the Saptashati are probably its contribution to the arts and iconography of the goddess and its elucidation of the basic tenets of spiritual thought in a narrative form, thus making the tenets accessible and comprehensible to the common devotee.

In addition, it also serves as a basic text for re-evaluating and recasting gender equations in contemporary Indian and global social orders given that the composer(s) seem to have anticipated modern women empowerment issues millennia ago or maybe the times have changed but the debate hasn't!

In a three part series, we propose to revisit the text within the following framework:

Part I  Summary of the Saptashatis Narrative

Part II  Key Takeaways from the Saptashati for Contemporary Times

Part III  Re-imagining Kumari Puja in Households

Part I: The Durga Saptashati  A Brief Summary

The Saptashati can roughly be divided into three main episodes (referred to as charitras) over its 13 chapters and a frame narrative to weave the three episodes together (5). It speaks of a king named Suratha and a merchant named Samadhi who meet while seeking refuge in the hermitage of Rishi (sage) Medha. A string of misfortunes had struck both of them and they had been deceived by their kin. Befuddled by their own circumstance and attachments to their lost possessions, they approached Rishi Medha for advice. The rishi explained to them that they, like the universe, were controlled by the great goddess Bhagwati Mahamaya (6). He proceeded to extol her major exploits in the text's three episodes.

The first episode (7) narrates the myth of the asuras (demons) Madhu and Kaitabha who threatened Brahma. Brahma prayed to Goddess Yoganidra (deep sleep induced by yoga), who was residing in Vishnu's eyes, beseeching her to confuse the demons and awaken Vishnu to slay the demons. Propitiated by his prayers, Devi Mahamaya (Yoganidra) did as requested. Vishnu woke up from his yogic slumber and killed the demons, thus saving the world and also setting in motion the cycle of creation.

The second episode (8) of the text is devoted to the Devi's most celebrated form  Mahishasurmadini. In ancient times, the devatas led by Indra fought against the demons led by Mahisha (buffalo in Sanskrit  vehicle of Yama, the god of death). The gods were defeated and Mahisha usurped Indra's powers to become Indra himself. Mahisha ruled over all realms of the universe.

The defeated gods then approached Vishnu and Shiva for help, who were angered by the news. Radiant energy (tejas) emanated from the faces of Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma, and from the bodies of Indra and other gods. This dazzling energy coalesced into a whole and expanded to fill the universe. The incomparable brilliant energy transformed into a feminine form  the goddess Shakti. Shakti laughed so loudly that the worlds trembled and the oceans started churning on their own.

Attracted by this loud sound, Mahisha's demon army engaged with her in a battle which is described in vivid detail. She destroyed the demon army, wreaking havoc with her weapons, the aid of her troops (ganas created by her) and her vahana (vehicle)  the majestic lion.

Upon witnessing the defeat of his generals and army, Mahisha assumed the form of a buffalo and attacked the goddess' troops. A bitter and gory battle ensued. The battle climaxed in a duel between the agile warrior goddess and the fearless Mahisha. She leapt upon him, pressed him with her foot, and struck his throat with her spear. As the demon came halfway out of his own buffalo mouth, still fighting, the goddess beheaded him, thus earning the laudatory title of Mahishasurmardini (she who killed Mahisha). The devatas, led by Indra, rejoiced and praised her with a hymn.

The motif of the Devi slaying the buffalo-demon Mahishasura continues to be one of the most pervasive of her iconographic representations. It should be mentioned that the motif predates the date generally given to the composition. Images of what can be construed as Mahishasuramardini can be traced to at least as long back as the 2nd Century BCE.

The Saptashati then progresses to the third episode (9), which recounts the ascent to power of the demons Shumbha and Nishumbha. As usual, they displaced Indra and the other devatas from their heavenly positions and usurped their power. The goddess had promised the gods that she would reappear/reincarnate whenever they were in trouble and save them. Remembering her promise, the devatas went to the Himalayas to appease Goddess Parvati and sang an exquisite hymn in her praise.

Devi Ambika incarnated from the body of Devi Parvati in order to save the gods. Goddess Ambika's unparalled beauty attracted the attention of Shumbha and Nishumbha, who wanted to control her. They, through a messenger, demanded that she should marry one of them. The goddess explained that as per her vow, she would only marry someone capable of defeating her on the battlefield.

Spurned by the arrogant goddess, the demons and their army engaged in a battle. After the defeat of their vast armies and generals, Shumbha and Nishumbha eventually attacked the goddess and were defeated and slayed by her thus re-establishing the reign of the devatas.

Within this episode, the Saptashati also weaves in the emergence of the Sapt Matrikas (mother goddesses)  the shaktis (energies) of various gods (not consort goddesses). It also mentions the fierce goddess Kali who appeared from the face of Ambika which had turned black with anger. Kali is also referred to as Chamunda, because she destroyed the demons Chanda and Munda, who served Shumbha and Nishumbha. The Matrikas also fought the terrible demon Raktabija in this episode.

As is customary in texts of this nature, there is a chapter (10) on the "phalashruti" (fruits of listening and reciting) or Mahatmya of the Saptashati. The frame narrative culminates (11) with Surath and Samadhi propitiating the Goddess with severe penance and beseeching her for boons of their choice  Surath in the material world and Samadhi in the eternal world.

The summary above does not do justice to the text and is intended to serve only as an outline to its stories to enable further discussion. The Saptashati (originally composed in Sanskrit) has been translated into most Indian languages and English. A list of references is appended for further exploration.

Notes:

1: The other two Navratris are not widespread and also referred to as gupt navratri.

2: Durga means the far shore that is difficult to reach, and the essential doer of all things.

3: The Markandeya Purana is variously dated by scholars to the 3rd century CE. The Saptashati (700 verses) is believed to be a later interpolation in the Markandeya Purana but is definitely dated before the 7th century CE.

4: The tradition of goddess worship in in the Indus-Sarasvati Civilisation has been proven conclusively based on archaeological evidence. References to various forms of goddess are present in the Vedic literature, epics and other ancient Indian traditions.

5: The Saptashati frame is independent of the Markandeya Purana frame.

6: The word 'maya' has many connotations  generally implies that which is unreal or illusory. The world is supposed to be maya (unreal) in Vedanta and it is common parlance to say in Hindi: "Sab moh maya hai."

7: Chapter 1

8: Chapter 2-4

9: Chapter 5-11

10: Chapter 12

11: Chapter 13

Garima is an independent business and strategy consultant and an Indic Studies enthusiast. She can be reached at garima.c@hotmail.com
By Sneha Alexander

Thirty-four of the Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJPs) 312 members of legislative assembly (MLAs) in Indias most populous state are women. This is the largest number of women MLAs for any party in Uttar Pradesh (UP) since Independence, the party claimed.

Implementation over mere lip-service - BJP has given maximum number of women MLAs in 17th UP assembly, highest since independence. pic.twitter.com/HNgsBdZa6s  BJP (@BJP4India) March 14, 2017

While we found this to be true, the claim requires some context. Women account for 11 percent of BJP legislators, an improvement of 9.1 percentage points from 1.8 percent in 1989 when the party started giving tickets to women contestants. But women are under-represented in both the BJP and the UP assembly.

Source: Election Commission of India and Association for Democratic Reforms

The proportion of women MLAs in the UP assembly, however, continues to be around 10 percent, and has not crossed 10 percent since Independence, according to data compiled from Election Commission of India and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), an advocacy.

Source: Election Commission of India and Association for Democratic Reforms

Women constitute 46 percent of the voters of UP, according to Election Commission data.

In the 2017 assembly elections, BJPs proportion of women candidates was only marginally higher than that of the Samajwadi Party (SP), but the difference in winning candidates could be explained by the BJPs landslide victory in the elections this time.

Of 4,823 contestants in UP, only 9.2 percent (445) were women.

Womens Participation in Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections, 2017 Party Candidates Female Candidates Proportion Of Female Candidates (in percentage) Seats Won By Female Candidates Bharatiya Janata Party 384 43 11.2 34 Samajwadi Party 306 33 10.8 1 Congress 114 11 9.6 2 Bahujan Samaj Party 400 19 4.8 2

Source: Election Commission of India and Association for Democratic Reforms

What about womens representation in other states?

BJP has argued that it has gone beyond lip service in terms of womens representation.

BJPs Women Candidates In Assembly Elections, 2017 State Candidates Female Candidates Proportion Of Female Candidates (in percentage) Seats Won By Female Candidates Uttar Pradesh 384 43 11.2 34 Uttarakhand 70 5 7.1 3 Goa 35 1 2.9 1 Punjab 23 2 8.7 0 Manipur 60 2 3.3 1

Source: Election Commission of India and Association for Democratic Reforms

The proportion of women candidates in the BJP has not crossed 10 percent in the remaining four states, while the proportion of female candidates in the 2017 assembly elections in the five states was lower than 10 percent.

Source: Election Commission of India and Association for Democratic Reforms

These trends could also explain why India scores poorly on the global comparison of women in Parliament and ministerial positions.

India ranks 88 out of 186 countries in the list of Women in Ministerial Positions, according to Women in Politics: 2017 published by Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), an international organisation of world Parliaments and United Nations Women, a division of the United Nations that works for women empowerment and gender equality.

India has only 12 percent (9/75) women in the union council of ministers: Sushma Swaraj (external affairs), Uma Bharati (water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation), Maneka Sanjay Gandhi (women and child development), Harsimrat Kaur Badal (food processing industries) and Smriti Zubin Irani (textile) hold cabinet-level portfolios. Nirmala Sitaraman holds independent charge for commerce and industry while Niranjan Jyothi (food processing), Krishna Raj (women and child development) and Anupriya Patel (health and family welfare) are ministers of state.

India is ranked 148 out of 193 countries in the list of women in Parliament, according to the same report.

Of the 541 members of Parliament (MPs) in the Lok Sabha, only 64 (12 percent) are women. In the Rajya Sabha, only 27 of 244 MPs (11 percent) are women.

Women comprise 27.7 percent of parliamentarians in Afghanistan, 29.6 percent in Nepal, 25.3 percent in Iraq, 20.6 percent in Pakistan and 20.3 percent in Bangladesh, according to the report by IPU and UN Women.

As the Womens Reservation Bill, 2008, for 33 percent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies remains lapsed, after being passed in Rajya Sabha in 2010, India still struggles to maintain gender balance.

(Alexander is a policy analyst with BOOM, an independent digital journalism initiative.)
Goa unit of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has virtually slammed doors on its supremo Arvind Kejriwal with the decision to reduce its dependence on the national body and Delhi-based leaders following its disastrous debut in the just concluded Goa State Legislative Assembly election.

A brainstorming session of the state unit to dissect reasons for its pathetic show concluded last week that importing leaders and workers from other states, especially Delhi, detached Goa voters from the party.

This in simple terms means Kejriwal and his close associates are unwelcome in Goa and their services would not be requisitioned henceforth in the state.

AAP failed to open its account in Goa and embarrassed itself after forfeiting security deposits in 38 out of 39 constituencies it contested in the 40-member Goa Assembly. The lone saving grace came from South Goas Benaulim constituency where its candidate Royla Fernandes finished second, though her margin of defeat was in excess to 5,000 votes which is seen as huge considering just 74.12 percent out of Benaulims 28,602 voters chose to exercise their right to franchise on 4 February when Goa went to polling.

In nine constituencies, AAP polled less than 500 votes while in 10 other constituencies it polled less than 1,000 votes. AAPs chief ministerial candidate Elvis Gomes finished fourth in Cuncolim constituency with only 3,336 out of 22,148 who voted in the constituency opting for him.

The meeting came to the conclusion that importing workers from other states to campaign backfired as Goas voters failed to connect with them. AAP was seen as a party of outsiders. Kejriwal visited Goa four times to address rallies while his close associates like Ashutosh were camping in Goa for months.

AAP, born out of social activist Anna Hazares anti-corruption movement, had identified Goa as a fertile state for its growth beyond Delhi due to widespread corruption prevailing in the state. It had everything going well for it. Until one month prior to voting, AAPs chances of even forming the government was not being ruled out since Goas voters wanted corruption to be tamed. The party named former bureaucrat Gomes, a popular and widely respected person in Goa, as its face. The script, however, went horribly wrong thereafter.

The BJP had woken up from its deep slumber too late to win another majority like 2012 and the Congress party was in tatters. There was definitely scope and space for a third force in Goa which AAP failed to capitalise.

The eventual results clearly indicated Goa voters wanted to get rid of BJP though they could not due to BJPs post-poll political manipulations. BJPs then chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar and five out of his eight ministers were defeated, amplifying the voters anger and apathy against BJP, which finished a poor second with 13 seats behind the Congress partys 17 seats in the hung Assembly.

Congress party, in the hindsight, prospered due to the anti-BJP votes that AAP was eyeing and many thought would go to it. AAP had followed its 2014 Delhi pattern of identifying candidates with focus on clean and honest image. However, it erred when it accepted some political turncoats as its members. Presence of a large number of outsiders, seeking votes and doing door to door campaigning proved to be the blunder that can be expected only from political novices.

Undeterred by the poll bashing, AAPs Goa unit has decided to contest the upcoming panchayat elections, likely to be held in May, after regrouping and adding local flavour. Image makeover is another aspect the party has identified to establish itself as true Goan party. Gomes has said that they will work at the grassroots and connect with people. The party, however, is facing a different kind of problem  lack of leaders.

Most of its defeated leaders have gone back to whatever they were doing before elections, disheartened and disgraced. They have not quit the party but are not taking any interest, leaving Gomes with the Herculean task of rebuilding the party, undo the mistakes and emerge with flying colours in the panchayat elections which may make or break AAP in Goa.
The four cases of farmer suicides in Odisha that surfaced within a month have put the Naveen Patnaik government in the dock, once again, with the issue doubling the heat in the state Assembly in session. While a new case was reported from Balasore district (second from the district) last Sunday, two more had come from Ganjam and Bargarh districts. In all the cases, the farmers were debt-ridden.

The party that is yet to recover from the spasms that the panchayat election results left on it and is busy re-strategising, witnessed a tumultuous beginning of the Assembly when agriculture minister Pradeep Maharathy hush-hushed the suicide by a Bargarh farmer Khainu Bagarti on 27 February as the outcome of a domestic wrangling. With growing public outrage and the Leader of Opposition moving a breach of privilege notice against the minister for misleading the Assembly, Maharathy changed his statement attributing the suicide to heavy debts that forced the farmer to take the drastic step. He, however, blamed the district collector of misinforming him.

As per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 1,895 farmers have committed suicide in the state between 2005 and 2015. Quoting from the report, the minister stated a factsheet in the Assembly mentioning that of the ten years, 2006 accounted for 283 deaths, the highest, followed by 260 in 2008 and 254 in 2005. As many as 240 farmers ended their lives in 2007.

Odisha accounts for 3 to 7 percent of the total farmer suicides in the country, the minister cited from the report. This comes as a big shock to the Naveen Patnaik government which has been claiming that 82 lakh families have moved above the BPL list in the last few years. However, without accepting the reality, which is trickling down from districts, the minister kept citing examples from the report that more farmer suicides were reported from Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Karnataka, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu during the period.

More than sounding gibberish, such statements make the public suspect the government's intentions especially when a grave issue such as farmers suicides is presented as a competition to prove who's better than the worst.

The average monthly income of a farmer in Odisha is Rs 4,976 as per records from 2012-13, which is much below the national average of Rs 6,426 and the Odisha government has accepted it. While Punjab tops the list with an average income of Rs 18,059 per month for farmers, Haryana and Kerala follow at Rs 14,434 and Rs 11,889 respectively.

The state government had announced Rs 100 bonus per quintal of paddy for the drought affected farmers last year but there has been no accountability. This year too, the Odisha government declared crop insurance for the farmers who are battling to come out of the debt trap, but by the time the benefit reaches the affected, the damage would have aggravated. The official paraphernalia to form committees and inquiries, followed by letters to the centre and release of funds, do not provide succour to the farmers who are left with no option but take drastic steps as committing suicide.

It is pertinent to mention here that months ago the farmers from all districts had launched an agitation demanding price, prestige and pension among other benefits like subsidy and insurance. But the government paid no heed.

With farmer suicides becoming an annual crisis, instead of niggling on allegations and refutations, the government should get into a "fighting the menace" mode and send teams who could provide financial relief to the smallest of farmers in the remotest districts at the earliest. A step like this doesnt seem onerous especially looking at the manpower that the government has. Moreso, since the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) which is in power in the state, performed poorly in the last panchayat election with the BJP taking over 293 seats. The BJD should ensure that resuscitation is done forthwith keeping in mind the 2019 General Election to the Lok Sabha also because farmers form a majority in the state.

To this, add the starvation death case that poured in from Kalahandi on Monday, and the Opposition has more fuel to create a ruckus in the Assembly and seek an answer from the party in power.
New Delhi: The Congress said it did not support Shiv Sena's suggestion of making RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat as the next president as it "opposed the saffron ideology", adding that the party would come out with its candidate after holding internal discussions.

"It is very clear that we do not support RSS ideology," Congress spokesperson Gaurav Gogoi told reporters when asked if the party supported the Sena's suggestion.

Asked whether the Opposition party would rise above politics to arrive at a consensus in choosing the successor of President Pranab Mukherjee, he said the party will hold internal discussions before coming out with its view. "When it comes to appointing our President, at the right time, we will, of course, have our own internal discussion first and then announce the nominee," he said.

Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut had put forth a suggestion that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat would be a good choice for president to make India a 'Hindu Rashtra'.

"Somebody with a clean image should occupy it. We have heard that Mohan Bhagwat's name is being discussed for President. If India has to be made a 'Hindu Rashtra', Bhagwat will be a good choice for President," he had said.

Incumbent President Mukherjee is due to retire on 24 July.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will host a dinner for all NDA MPs tomorrow, a move aimed at seeking their support for the NDA Presidential candidate.
By Simon Lewis and Antoni Slodkowski

| YANGON/NAYPYITAW

YANGON/NAYPYITAW At the beginning of this year, Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi sat down with one of her advisers to go through priorities for the coming months. She began with an apology for the slow pace of economic reform."You must be very disappointed," she said. "You know, my plan had been that we would get the peace process done and then I would be able to bring my attention - personally - to the economy."The remark, recounted to Reuters by the adviser speaking on condition of anonymity, offers a rare insight into Suu Kyi's thinking on what some critics say are the defining issues of her first year in power: continued fighting with ethnic armed groups in the north, sluggish progress on retooling an economy stunted by decades of military rule, and a reluctance to delegate power to others.Suu Kyi - who had been globally celebrated as a heroine of democracy - took over last April, forming Myanmar's first civilian government in half a century amid soaring hopes among both her backers in Western governments and ordinary voters at home.A year on things look very different.Last week, the United Nations Human Rights Council moved to probe allegations of crimes against humanity committed against Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar soldiers on the watch of the Nobel Peace Prize winner.Suu Kyi's support for the security operation in northwestern Rakhine State, during which about 75,000 members of the stateless Rohingya minority have fled to Bangladesh, has strained relations with the West. U.N. officials have told Reuters more than 1,000 people may have been killed.Meanwhile, the government's domestic performance has struggled to match the optimism that swept her National League for Democracy (NLD) to a landslide election win."Many voters feel frustrated," said NLD lawmaker Myo Zaw Aung, citing pervasive low-level corruption as one source of disaffection among a population who also face ramshackle public services and wages among the lowest in Southeast Asia."People had sky-high expectations for NLD, but actually the change can't be that dramatic - they are not seeing an obvious change at the grassroots level."Suu Kyi's spokesman, Zaw Htay, did not respond to Reuters' questions about the government's first year in office. Requests for an interview with Suu Kyi have gone unanswered or have been rejected over the past year. She has given only two interviews, both to broadcasters overseas, in that time."FIGHTING NEVER GOES AWAY"

When she came to power, Suu Kyi said her number one priority was ending the myriad ethnic conflicts involving more than 20 rebel groups that have kept Myanmar in a state of near-perpetual civil war since independence in 1948.That goal remains as elusive as ever, and some critics say that, mired in complex, on-off peace talks, Suu Kyi has taken her eye off the economy.Growth, albeit still relatively strong, has slowed since she took power, while foreign direct investment has fallen sharply.

"She had the whole world and everyone at home on her side. And look what happened: she has alienated the ethnics, she has lost the battle over Rakhine ... and has not delivered on the economy," said a recent former senior Western diplomat to the country.Suu Kyi's defenders say she is hamstrung by a constitution written by the military that - along with disqualifying her from the presidency - left the army in control of key security ministries and much of the apparatus of the state.Some say they believe she has supported the military because her ultimate goal is to coax the generals into accepting a re-writing of the constitution - over which they wield a veto thanks to the bloc of seats reserved for the army in parliament."It might be part of her strategy to change the military's mindset and to lead them into the democratic change," said Myat Thu, chair of the Yangon School of Political Science. "But after one year, many people want to see concrete results."When she took charge of the peace process Suu Kyi dismantled a peace centre - set up by the previous semi-civilian government - that was leading talks with ethnic armed groups.Some observers say that was a mistake, because experienced negotiators who had built up trust with ethnic minority representatives were removed."Ethnic leaders describe their meetings with her as like a headmistress and her students," said one former negotiator, who was briefed on the talks and whose account was broadly backed up by other observers. "She's always up high, and treats them like they are below her." Several conflicts have reignited since Suu Kyi took power, displacing an estimated 160,000 more people, according to U.N. data.

Most recently, fighting with Kokang rebels in the hills along the Chinese border sent about 20,000 refugees fleeing to China's Yunnan province."This fighting never goes away," said one of those who fled, 75-year-old Tao Xiaoshun, still looking for her son lost amid the chaos. "The Myanmar government is too far away. They don't take care of us."

SPOILT CHILDREN

A criticism of the NLD in power has been the extent to which decision-making is concentrated with Suu Kyi, who rules through the specially created position of "State Counsellor"."She doesn't have a process in place to tackle several issues at the same time," said the former Western diplomat. "She gets easily distracted and she micro-manages. There's no one driving the smart thinking, no one manages the in-tray."There are few signs of a new generation of leaders emerging from within the NLD, which has always been run by a narrow group close to the charismatic Suu Kyi. Most are fellow former political prisoners, shut out from government for decades and with little executive or lawmaking experience.Some advisers said the problem was not with Suu Kyi but with senior civil servants in the capital Naypyitaw who she mostly retained, despite many being former army officers or having close military ties.

"In every sector the bureaucrats are still using the same old tactics ... denying every accusation, stonewalling everything," said Han Tha Myint, one of NLD's leaders, adding that the administration had been trying to foster a more open attitude.Suu Kyi wanted to run the government "like a mother", he said, bringing everyone on board in the spirit of national reconciliation and treating officials "like her children", but that the loyalties of some remained with the country's former military rulers."This style is very dangerous. The children are already spoilt and need more strict measures," said Han Tha Myint. "I think mainly it's a cultural problem, but there are elements of sabotage.""MOMENT, NOT MOMENTUM"

Suu Kyi made a brief push on the economy in September, courting investors during a visit to the United States where she oversaw the cancellation of Washington's economic sanctions on the country, while moving to finalise a long-awaited investment law.But rather than generating momentum, another advisor to the government said, the push turned out to merely be a "moment". Suu Kyi took months to install members to a panel that approves investments. A new Companies Act, to replace an early 20th century law and ease rules on foreign ownership, has floundered in the parliament.This has meant approvals for projects from overseas in the 11 months to February stood at just $6 billion, compared with almost $9.5 billion in the full fiscal year to March 2016, government data show.The World Bank says gross domestic product growth will fall to 6.5 percent in the current fiscal year from 7.3 percent a year earlier and 8 percent in 2014-15.Washington D.C.-based Anthony Nelson, a director at consultancy Albright Stonebridge Group who has accompanied U.S. business delegations to Myanmar, says there was a general understanding that rural development and infrastructure were vital to the country's economic growth."But it's important for (the government) to spell that out and lay out what they are going to prioritize," he said. "What's the number one goal here? What's the best way we can do things? It's not as clear as it could be."Suu Kyi's supporters point to positives - state banks are being restructured, loss-making enterprises shuttered, and the first NLD budget is fiscally stable, with larger allocations for healthcare and education, for years underfunded in favour of military expenditure.But more needs to be done, said Win Than, a senior member of a parliamentary commission dealing with high-priority reforms. Like many Suu Kyi allies, he argued that economic improvements would aid reconciliation."Daw Suu will be getting it wrong until she prioritises business," said Win Than, using a Burmese honorific title. "If the business isn't strong, it will push people to find problems." (Additional reporting by Wa Lone and Yimou Lee in YANGON, Shwe Yee Saw Myint in NAYPYITAW, Timothy McLaughlin in CHICAGO and James Pomfret in NANSAN, China; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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By Joe Bavier

| ABIDJAN

ABIDJAN Villagers in Democratic Republic of Congo discovered the remains of two U.N. investigators and their Congolese interpreter who went missing this month in an area engulfed in a violent uprising, a government spokesman said on Tuesday. Michael Sharp, a U.S. citizen, and Zaida Catalan, a Swedish national, had been in a group of experts monitoring a sanctions regime imposed on Congo by the U.N. Security Council when they disappeared in Kasai Central province.Villagers found three bodies - two Caucasians and one Congolese - not far from where the experts group vanished, according to the government. Police informed the authorities in the capital Kinshasa on Monday and a team including the provincial police commissioner was sent to the scene to identify the bodies."It's now a certainty. It is the two investigators. We identified the third body in the grave with them as their Congolese interpreter," Communications Minister Lambert Mende told Reuters.John Sharp, the father of Michael, posted on his Facebook page that the bodies of two Caucasians had been found in a shallow grave, saying that there was a "high probability" that it was the U.N. officials.

"This is a message I hoped never to write," he wrote, adding that DNA tests and dental records would be used to confirm the identities of the bodies. The United Nations said it was still examining the remains."We cannot, at this moment, confirm that they are the bodies of the experts. We hope to be able to provide more information on this soon," U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said.

The Swedish Foreign Ministry said it would not comment on the incident as it was being handled by the United Nations.Congo's Kasai Central region is the epicentre of the Kamuina Nsapu insurgency that has now spread to five provinces in the loosely governed Central African country. The Kinshasa government said earlier this month the two U.N. officials had fallen into the hands of unidentified "negative forces" along with four Congolese who were with them near the village of Ngombe in Kasai Central.

"Going to places where few people go, asking questions that few people ask, finding out the truth, this is the work of United Nations experts," said Emilie Serralta, a former coordinator of the U.N. Congo group. "This is how the reports and recommendations (guiding) the Security Council are written." Kamuina Nsapu militants pose an increasingly serious threat to President Joseph Kabila, whose decision to stay on beyond the end of his elected mandate last December has sent ripples of unrest across the vast mining powerhouse. U.N. figures indicate that over 400 people have been killed in violence in which militants have been blamed for atrocities and government forces are accused of targeting civilians. Local officials said on Saturday militiamen decapitated about 40 police officers in the deadliest attack on the security forces since the uprising began last year. (Additional reporting by Aaron Ross in Kinshasa, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations and Johan Ahlander in Stockholm; Editing by Edward McAllister and Mark Heinrich)

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The mayor of London on Tuesday warned the European Union (EU) against punishing Britain in Brexit negotiations, saying that everyone would suffer the consequences.

Speaking in Brussels a day before Britain triggers the two-year Brexit process, Sadiq Khan also urged Prime Minister Theresa May to give a "cast iron" guarantee of the rights of EU citizens living in Britain.

"There is no need for the EU to send a message or to instil fear by punishing the UK," Khan told an event run by the Politico Europe newspaper.

"A bad Brexit deal that hurts London would hurt the EU too," added Khan, who is meeting key EU figures including European Parliament chief Antonio Tajani while in Brussels.

Khan warned that businesses driven out of London, one of the world's leading financial centres, would "leave Europe altogether and go to New York and Singapore instead."

"A bad Brexit really is a lose-lose situation."

The London mayor, whose city voted overwhelmingly against Brexit in last year's referendum, called on May to set a positive tone for the Brexit talks by quickly agreeing to protect the rights of the three million EU citizens in Britain, including one million in London.

"It would be a perfect gesture of goodwill to provide a cast iron guarantee of their rights to remain in the UK," Khan said.

Khan also held a minute of silence for victims of last week's attack outside the British parliament and said it was important for Britain and the EU to keep cooperating on security after Brexit.

'Very costly'

After meeting Khan, Tajani said that he would "work hard towards achieving a fair and orderly divorce between the European Union and the United Kingdom".

MEPs will have the final vote on any Brexit deal, and are also set to vote next week in Strasbourg on a resolution on their goals for the negotiations.

Manfred Weber, the German head of the European People's Party, the largest group in the parliament, warned Britain's bill to leave would be "very costly".

The EU says Britain will have to agree to meet billions of euros of spending commitments made while still a member as part of the divorce.

"In the last nine months we saw only the message about what they don't like. Hopefully tomorrow we will have more idea about what they like," Weber told reporters.

"The promises of Brexit campaigners last year that it would be positive for the budget were a lie. It will be very costly for the British," he said.

Weber said it would be a in "both sides' interest to immediately clarify" the fate of EU nationals.
New Delhi: A key Indo-American business body has favoured early visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US to help iron out issues with President Donald Trump on tightening of visa rules that impacts over $100-billion Indian technology industry.

N V Srinivasan, National President, Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC), said it is "right time for India and the US to clear misconceptions and erroneous inferences" voiced in various quarters about loss of jobs in the US on account of granting of H-1B visas to Indian skilled workers.

"The reports emanating from the US suggest that the visa rules may be further tightened. Already, the decision of the US to suspend priority processing of H-1B visas is affecting the Indian industry," he said.

"Coupled with this, there are reports that further stringent measures are on the anvil. An amicable solution to such vexatious issues will require consultations at the highest level between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Trump."

Moreover, he said, the contribution of Indian workers has to be seen against their role in scripting technological changes in the US economy.

Some of the H-1 B visa holders are into high-end innovation technology development, aiding US corporations to shore up the technological edge.

"To categorise these brilliant minds imbued with a passion to work 24/7 as mere workers is an anachronism and a nation like the US, which embarks on meritocracy more than any other country, visa regulations for technical people sound like a paradox," said the IACC president.

Quoting a report by the US Chamber of Commerce, Srinivasan debunked the notion that H-1B visa holders are replacing American workers.

"One can understand such emotive issues getting flashed up during the election times - as it happened even earlier - but such rhetoric had died down after the elections. The present controversy should also make a silent retreat," he said.

Srinivasan observed that another factor that is relatively unknown is 50 percent of the H-1B visas and intra company transfer visas (L1) are granted to Indian professionals and students passing out from US universities.
By Matt Spetalnick

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he was committed to working with U.S. President Donald Trump to advance peace efforts with the Palestinians and with the broader Arab world.Netanyahu made the pledge in a speech to the largest U.S. pro-Israel lobbying group at a time when the Trump administration is seeking agreement with his right-wing government on limiting settlement construction on land the Palestinians want for a state, part of a U.S. bid to resume long-stalled peace negotiations.But Netanyahu, speaking via satellite link from Jerusalem, avoided any mention of the delicate discussions and stopped short of reiterating a commitment to a two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Israel's hand and my hand is extended to all of our neighbours in peace, Netanyahu told the annual convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. Israel is committed to working with President Trump to advance peace with the Palestinians and with all our neighbours.But he repeated his demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state, something they have refused to do.

Netanyahu heaped praise on Trump, who has set a more positive tone with Israel than his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, who often clashed with the Israeli leader.He thanked the new Republican president for a recent U.S. budget request that leaves military aid to Israel fully funded. He also expressed confidence in a U.S.-Israeli partnership for preventing Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon, following its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, and for confronting Iran's aggression in the region."Addressing AIPAC later on Monday, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, vowed that the Trump administration would watch Iran "like a hawk" to be sure it sticks to the nuclear deal. The accord, which Netanyahu opposed and Trump denounced during his campaign, gave Tehran sanctions relief in return for limits on its nuclear programme.

On the settlements issue, a round of U.S.-Israeli talks ended last Thursday without agreement. Gaps remain over how far the building restrictions could go, according to people close to the talks.Netanyahu's coalition is grappling with divisions that have sparked speculation that he could seek early elections.

Many Israelis had expected Trump, because of his pro-Israel campaign rhetoric, to give a green light for settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank. But Trump unexpectedly urged Netanyahu last month to hold back on settlements for a little bit.There is scepticism in the United States and Middle East over the chances for restarting Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. Peace talks have been frozen since 2014.Most countries consider Israeli settlements, built on land captured in a 1967 war, to be illegal. Israel disagrees, citing historical and political links to the land, as well as security interests.Trump has expressed ambivalence about a two-state solution, the mainstay of U.S. policy for the past two decades, but he recently invited Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to visit. (Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem and MIchelle Nichols in New York; Editing by James Dalgleish and Leslie Adler)

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By Nate Raymond

The assistant to a billionaire real estate developer from Macau accused of engaging in a scheme to pay bribes to a former United Nations General Assembly president is in plea talks, his lawyer said on Tuesday.The negotiations involving Jeff Yin, who was arrested along with billionaire Ng Lap Seng in 2015, were disclosed in a letter filed in Manhattan federal court by his attorney, who said prosecutors had extended him a plea offer.The lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, sought to extend court deadlines so that Yin, 31, could consider the plea offer, which "is complex and involves civil tax assessments and liabilities," according to her letter.The plea talks come ahead of a jury trial scheduled for May 15, in which Yin and his boss could face substantial prison time if convicted.

It was unclear what charges Yin would have to plead guilty to if he accepted the offer. He had faced bribery, money laundering and tax-related charges, and was also accused of violating the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.Shroff declined comment. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan, which is pursuing the case, also declined comment.Ng, who was once linked to a campaign fundraising investigation during former U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration, is one of seven individuals charged since October 2015 in the U.N.-related probe.

Prosecutors accuse Ng and Yin of paying more than $500,000 in bribes to John Ashe, a former U.N. ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda who served as General Assembly president from 2013 to 2014. Ashe died in June awaiting trial.The indictment said Ng and Yin also paid bribes to Francis Lorenzo, a then-deputy U.N. ambassador from the Dominican Republic who pleaded guilty in March 2016 to bribery and money laundering charges as part of a deal to cooperate in the probe.

The main goal of the bribes, according to the indictment, was to have both ambassadors take steps to help obtain United Nations' support for a multibillion-dollar U.N.-backed conference centre in Macau that Sun Kian Ip Group would develop.Yin, a U.S. citizen who currently lives in California, also faces charges for taking steps to evade paying income taxes and helping Lorenzo conceal portions of his income from U.S. tax authorities.Ng, the founder of Macau-based real estate developer Sun Kian Ip Group, has denied wrongdoing. A lawyer for Ng declined to comment. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Tom Brown)

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Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Health Minister S Subramaniam on Tuesday confirmed that the body of Kim Jong-nam, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's half-brother who was assassinated here last month, is still in Kuala Lumpur, the media reported.

According to the minister, the body is being kept at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital's National Forensic Institute, the New Straits Times reported.

He denied media reports that the remains have been cremated.

"There have been so much speculations on the whereabouts of the body, but we need to check that with our forensics team."

"As far as I know, the body is still at the hospital's mortuary," he said.

Subramaniam said Kim Jong-nam's body is still under the responsibility of the Health Ministry until it receives advice from the Foreign Ministry and Prime Minister's Office on the next course of action.

"The negotiations between Foreign Ministry and the North Korean government are still ongoing," the New Straits Times quoted him as saying.

"We need to wait for the results from the discussion before we can make any decision on what to do with the body," he added.

It was reported on Sunday that Kim Jong-nam's body had been taken out of the mortuary for a "religious rite".

There were also rumours that the body was taken to the Kuala Lumpur City Call Crematorium.

Kim Jong-nam, 45, was killed when two women smeared a VX nerve agent on his face at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 13.

He died while on way to the hospital.
Former US vice president Dick Cheney has said that Russias attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election could be considered an act of war against the country. Cheney said so while speaking at the Economic Times' Global Business Summit on Monday.

Giving an overview of the climate currently prevailing in the US under President Donald Trump, Cheney said, One of my big concerns is that there will be another major attack. But next time they will not use airline tickets and box cutters, they will use something far deadlier. Cheney was in office when the 9/11 attacks took place during the George W Bush administration.

We have to be concerned about the proliferation of nuclear weapons and all kinds of weapons of mass destruction. That they can fall into the hands of terrorist organisations is a matter of great concern, he added in the video posted on YouTube.

Cheney in his address spoke about Russian attempts to influence the recent US elections as an example of security threats that can lead to disruption.

"The fact that he (Vladimir Putin) took his capabilities in the cyber area and tried to influence our election, there's not any argument at this stage that somehow the election of President Trump was not legitimate. But there's no question that there was a very serious effort made by Putin and his government to interfere in major ways in our basic fundamental democratic process. In some quarters that will be considered as an act of war, Cheney said.

"I would not underestimate the weight that we as Americans assign to Russian attempts to interfere with our internal political process," said Cheney.

He also vocalised his thoughts about China as a threat to global security. China is very active in the South China Sea, claiming territory and building military bases where there were none before. And, I think (the Chinese are) aggressively presenting themselves throughout Asia, he said.

Cheney also made particularly strong comments on the proliferation of nuclear weapons in North Korea and Iran.

The possibilities of trouble from that quarter (North Korea and Iran) are almost unlimited. It is a subject that is very much on our minds, Cheney added.
WASHINGTON U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will press this week for NATO allies to demonstrate a "clear path" to increase defence spending, a State Department official said on Tuesday.Tillerson will hold his first meeting with NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on March 31.He will push allies on how they plan to meet a defence spending goal of 2 percent of gross domestic product, and press NATO to increase its role in the fight against terrorism, the official said."It is no longer sustainable for the United States to maintain a disproportionate share of NATO's deterrence and defence spending," the official said in a briefing with reporters, on condition of anonymity.

President Donald Trump has unsettled European allies with demands they increase defence spending and talk of establishing an alliance with Russia to counter Islamic State militants.Tillerson's initial decision to skip his first meeting with NATO foreign ministers to attend expected talks in the United States with Chinese President Xi Jinping also reopened questions about the Trump administration's commitment to the alliance. The State Department later said the meeting in Brussels had been rescheduled and Tillerson would attend.Five NATO members - Britain, Estonia, Greece, Poland and the United States - currently meet the 2 percent spending threshold, according to 2016 NATO figures. Members of the alliance have until 2024 to meet the targets.

The Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian foreign ministers met with Tillerson at the State Department on Tuesday. The Baltic states have felt especially vulnerable since Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea region in 2014.Asked if they were confident in U.S. support for NATO, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius responded "No doubts about that" and Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics and Estonian Foreign Minister Sven Mikser nodded in agreement.

The senior State Department official said Trump administration officials are "pushing allies to do more, faster, absolutely no apology for that." The United States also wants allies to give a "clear path" on how they would meet the threshold, such as timelines and budgetary commitments, he said.But the official declined to state any specifics on what the United States would do if allies did not meet the targets."Our joint security requires it, that's the main leverage that we have," the official said.Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said last month the United States might "moderate" its support for the alliance but gave no details. (Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by James Dalgleish)

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By Jonathan Stempel

| NEW YORK

NEW YORK A wealthy Turkish gold trader's decision to hire former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to represent him, as he defends against charges he conspired to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran, raises a potential conflict of interest, prosecutors said.At least eight big banks allegedly victimized by the trader, Reza Zarrab, are current or former clients of Giuliani and Mukasey's law firms, acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim in Manhattan said in a letter dated Monday to the federal judge hearing the case.The banks' relationships with the law firms require a special hearing, known as a "Curcio" hearing, to make sure Zarrab understands the potential conflict, Kim said.Giuliani is a lawyer for Greenberg Traurig, while Mukasey, who is also a former federal judge, is a lawyer for Debevoise & Plimpton. Neither firm had an immediate comment.

The eight banks are Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Standard Chartered Plc, UBS Group AG and Wells Fargo & Co."Through various deceptive acts, including layering the transactions and omitting information concerning the Iranian nexus, Zarrab and his co-conspirators allegedly tricked numerous U.S. financial institutions into processing barred transactions, thus exposing them to significant potential loss," Kim said in a letter to U.S. District Judge Richard Berman, explaining the potential conflict of interest.Prosecutors accused the Iranian-born Zarrab and two others of engaging in hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions for Iran's government and Iranian entities from 2010 to 2015, in a scheme to evade U.S. sanctions.

A trial is scheduled for Aug. 21. Zarrab has been in federal custody since his March 21, 2016, arrest in Miami, while en route to Disney World with his wife and daughter.Holding a Curcio hearing now could eliminate one ground for appeal if the case goes against Zarrab.

The case has been closely watched in Turkey, where Zarrab was arrested in 2013 in a corruption probe into individuals with close ties to Tayyip Erdogan, then Turkey's prime minister and now its president. Zarrab is a dual national of Iran and Turkey.Another lawyer for Zarrab, Benjamin Brafman, said in a letter on Monday that Giuliani and Mukasey's roles "will not require any appearance in court and, accordingly, a hearing is not required."The case is U.S. v. Zarrab, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 15-cr-00867. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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By Phil Stewart

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON The United States is considering deepening its role in Yemen's conflict by more directly aiding its Gulf allies battling Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, officials say, potentially relaxing a U.S. policy that limited American support.The review of potential new U.S. assistance, which includes intelligence support, would come amid increasing evidence that Iran is sending advanced weapons and military advisers to the Houthi movement, a Shi'ite ally.Any elevation in U.S. support could be seen as a sign that President Donald Trump's administration has made confronting Iran and its allies an early priority.For the moment, however, any increase in direct U.S. assistance may be restricted to non-lethal measures and there was no sign the United States was considering waging strikes on Houthi targets, for example.Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, increasingly sought to limit U.S. ties to the civil war in Yemen and his administration became unnerved by civilian casualties caused by the Saudi-led coalition, which have come under intense international scrutiny. Yemen's conflict has claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people and pushed the impoverished country to the brink of famine.Critics of U.S. participation in the conflict, which has included arms sales to Saudi Arabia and refuelling of Saudi-led coalition jets, say Washington carries some of the blame for the civilian fallout.

"The U.S. should not escalate our military involvement in a civil war in Yemen halfway around the world without any explanation by the president of what we are doing there and what is our strategy," said Representative Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California and a longtime advocate in Congress for a suspension of U.S. cooperation with the Saudi-led coalition.MEMO FROM MATTIS

Trump's defence secretary, Jim Mattis, wrote a March memo to the White House advocating limited support for operations by Gulf partners, officials told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

One of the officials said the United States was examining offering the United Arab Emirates, for example, U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets and information sharing.The memo was first reported by the Washington Post and comes amid a broader U.S. review into its policy in Yemen, which for years has been seen almost entirely seen through the prism of America's fight against al Qaeda.Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has taken advantage of Yemen's war pitting the Houthis against the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to try to broaden its wealth and power.Iran rejects accusations from Saudi Arabia that it is giving financial and military support to the Houthis in the struggle for Yemen, blaming the deepening crisis on Riyadh.

But Iran's role in Yemen has increasingly been the focus of U.S. policymakers since the United States struck Houthi targets with cruise missiles in October in retaliation for failed missile attacks on a U.S. Navy destroyer.U.S. officials say the Houthis have benefited from Iranian-provided know-how and weaponry, including ballistic missiles.The proposed U.S. support could allow America to aid an eventual push on the western port city of Hodeidah, which is under the control of the Houthis.It is near the Bab al-Mandab strait, a strategic waterway through which nearly 4 million barrels of oil are shipped daily.Obama's administration was long wary of operations involving the port, given its strategic importance as a vital gateway for humanitarian supplies, and last year rejected a proposal to assist its Gulf allies in a push for the port. (Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by James Dalgleish)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin was on Tuesday to host Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani for talks that will be closely watched for signs of their next moves in Syria.

Rouhani's first official visit to Russia comes as the two Syrian regime supporters push for ways to end the six-year conflict, having done much to marginalise US influence in peace talks.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said ahead of the trip that the leaders would discuss "regional issues especially the Syrian crisis, solutions to end it quickly," as well as ways to counter "terrorism and extremism."

Rouhani  accompanied by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh and other high-ranking officials  is expected to sign more than 10 economic cooperation agreements with Russia, according to Iranian state media.

Late on Monday Rouhani met Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, with the Iranian president saying he hoped his visit would mark a "new turning point" in relations, Russian state media reported.

The Kremlin said in a statement this month that Rouhani's trip would focus in part on "the prospects of expanding trade, economic and investment ties."

In addition to cooperation on Syria, energy and defence ties between Iran and Russia have grown despite meagre trade relations.

Russia is to build nine of Iran's 20 nuclear reactors in the coming years and has also emerged as a long-term arms partner for Iran, supplying Tehran with the S-300 air defence system.

The relationship has blossomed under Rouhani despite the countries having a complicated history over territory, oil, and communism.

Rouhani is looking to boost Iran's economy ahead of elections in May in which he is expected to stand for a second term.

Iran and Russia have become increasingly allied in Syria, providing support that has propped up President Bashar

al-Assad.

They helped Assad's forces gain ground in recent months, including in the Syrian army's major offensive last year to retake rebel-held eastern Aleppo.

More than 310,000 people have been killed since conflict broke out in Syria in March 2011 with protests against Assad's rule.
COLOMBO War crime investigations backed by some Western countries and the United Nations will exacerbate the differences between Sri Lanka's two main ethnic groups instead of uniting them, former defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa said on Monday. As defence secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the brother of former leader Mahinda Rajapaksa, oversaw the defeat of the separatist, predominantly Hindu Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) by the government military in a 26-year war. Gotabaya Rajaksa, the most influential government officer in the Rajapaksa government, has been accused of committing war crimes in the final weeks of the conflict ended in May 2009. He has denied all the allegations against him. A U.N. panel has said around 40,000 people, mostly ethnic minority Tamils, were killed in the war's final phase. Families in the former northern war zone still complain of thousands of enforced disappearances during that time.Gotabaya made his comments four days after the U.N. Human Rights Council said Sri Lanka must make more progress towards meeting commitments to establishing a credible investigation into alleged war crimes during the country's civil war.

The United Nations originally asked Sri Lanka to have foreign judges run the war crime probe focussing particularly on the last few days of the conflict. But President Maithripala Sirisena later said he would not agree to having foreign judges. "How can you talk about investigations and foreign judges at the same time bringing these communities together?" he told a Foreign Correspondents Association of Sri Lanka late on Monday.

"By trying to do these things, you only try to bring people apart. If you think like that, there won't be reconciliation at all. After a war, what can we do? Going back and harping on these things will never bring communities together. That will widen the gap."He also said that when Tamils talk about war crime probes, ethnic majority Sinhalese speak of the massacre of Buddhist priests and police and the horrors they experienced during the war, and that could slow the postwar healing process. The government has already launched some related investigations into alleged war crimes, but ethnic-minority Tamils have complained about the sluggish pace of probes.

Former leader Mahinda Rajapaksa's government rejected visas that would have allowed U.N. investigators to visit the island nation. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, 67, also denied allegations that he was involved in maintaining death squads, in attacks on journalists, and in some financial misappropriation during the war. Under the new government, he is facing police and financial crime investigations.As defence secretary, he was the highest-ranking civil servant in Sri Lanka's Defence Ministry. (Reporting by Shihar Aneez and Ranga Sirilal; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
London: The wife of the Westminster attacker, Khalid Masood, has said she is "saddened and shocked" by the atrocity, and condemns his actions, a media report said on Tuesday.

Rohey Hydara spoke out after Masood's mother, Janet Ajao, said she had "shed many tears" for her son's victims, The Guardian said in the report.

In a statement released through the Metropolitan police, Hydara said: "I am saddened and shocked by what Khalid has done. I totally condemn his actions. I express my condolences to the families of the victims that have died, and wish a speedy recovery to all the injured.

"I would like to request privacy for our family, especially the children, at this difficult time."

On Monday, the Met said Masood had had a clear interest in jihad and his methods echoed the rhetoric of Islamic State leaders.

Hydara was thought to have lived with Masood from about 2010.

Her comments follow those of Ajao, who broke her silence on Monday, saying she was "shocked, saddened and numbed by the actions my son has taken that have killed and injured innocent people in Westminster", the Guardian report said.

Masood was shot dead by a protection officer in the courtyard of the Palace of Westminster.

His attack claimed the lives of PC Keith Palmer, American tourist Kurt Cochran, London sixth-form college administrator Aysha Frade and Leslie Rhodes, a 75-year-old window cleaner.

Since the attack, Ajao, 69, has been under armed police guard in west Wales, where she runs a craft business.
Sberbank of Russia has announced the plan to sell 100% in the Ukrainian subsidiary bank to a consortium of investors, which will include Latvia's Norvik Banka and a Belarusian private company, the corresponding legally binding agreement was signed on March 27, Sberbank of Russia has said.

The transaction is expected to be completed in the first half of 2017 after getting approval for the transaction from the financial and antitrust regulators of the relevant jurisdictions, including Latvia and Ukraine.

"PJSC Sberbank (Ukraine) has necessary funds to fulfill its obligations to private and corporate clients. We hope the decision to sell our subsidiary bank will help unblock its offices and resume normal operation, which will allow the bank's customers to continue using the services and create the basis for its further development," Sberbank of Russia said.

"Due to the quick sale of the bank a loss on investments into the capital of the subsidiary bank will be reflected in the financial results of PJSC Sberbank under RAS. At the same time, the effect of the deal on the consolidated IFRS results of Sberbank Group will not be material," Sberbank said.

The main buyer of Sberbank's Ukrainian subsidiary will be Said Gutseriev, the son of Russian tycoon and owner of Russneft oil company Mikhail Gutseriev, Norvik Banka said in a press release.

"Today AS Norvik Banka and its main shareholder, British citizen Grigory Guselnikov, have signed an agreement on participation in an investment consortium to acquire the Ukrainian division of Russia's Sberbank. British citizen Said Gutseriev and the Belarusian company he owns have become the majority shareholder of the new consortium," the Latvian bank said in a press release.

"This deal will make it possible to offer Ukrainian clients service built on European principles of quality, transparency and accessibility, while maintaining the technological level of the bank created by Sberbank of Russia," Norvik Banka said.

Along with the main deal, Norvik Banka is planning a number of measures to reduce its presence in the Russian banking market, where it owns Norvik Bank.

"This will make it possible to increase the effectiveness of investments and eliminate a number of political risks related to the geography of the bank's operations. The diversity of investors will make it possible to form a balanced consortium that will take into account the interests of all parties involved, which will make it possible to effectively develop the bank in European markets and Belarus," Norvik Banka said.

"The bank being acquired has excellent infrastructure," in which former owner Sberbank of Russia" invested hundreds of millions of dollars," Said Gutseriev was quoted as saying.

"This is a solid foundation for development and quality growth of the project. My experience suggests that by deciding to participate in it all of the members of the consortium are making a very farsighted and lucrative investment, and this will enable the bank itself to take a big step forward and implement many advanced projects, not only in Ukraine but in the neighboring European countries as well," Gutseriev said in the press release.

The press release does not say anything about Gutseriev's family ties, but the background cited - studies at Harrow School and Oxford University and work at commodities trader Glencore - coincide completely with the CV of the son of Russneft's owner. Said Gutseriev spoke about his life in the UK in an interview with Forbes last year.

The elder Gutseriev also had been living in the UK for several years after a criminal investigation was launched against him in Russia in 2006. Subsequently it was Sberbank CEO Herman Gref whom Gutseriev thanked in an interview with Vedomosti, along with JSFC Sistema owner Vladimir Yevtushenkov, for helping to get the charges dropped so that he could return to Russia.

"I would like to thank all partners who made this possible. I am confident that today's agreement will make it possible to turn a new page in the development of Ukraine's financial system and open up new development horizons for AS Norvik Banka," Guselnikov was quoted as saying.

Guselnikov became the majority shareholder of Norvik Banka, Latvia's eighth largest bank by assets, in 2014.
NBU gets no official notification of purchase of Ukrainian subsidiary of Sberbank of Russia

The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has not yet received an official notification from potential investors regarding the purchase of PJSC Sberbank (Kyiv) or relevant documents for the acquisition of a significant stake in the bank, the press service of the central bank has told Interfax-Ukraine.

"The decision on approval of the acquisition of a significant stake in the bank capital, received from any investors, is made within the framework of single regulatory requirements and legislation," the press service noted.

At the same time, the NBU noted it supports the civilized withdrawal of banks with Russian state capital from the Ukrainian market, including through their sale.
Poroshenko, G7 ambassadors and EU agree on comprehensive support for reforms in Ukraine and continued pressure on Russian Federation

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has met with the ambassadors of the G7 countries and the European Union, during which the parties reached an agreement on further comprehensive support of the reforms in Ukraine and continued pressure on the Russian Federation in the matter of terminating aggression against Ukraine, the presidential press service has said.

"Particular attention was paid to the aggravation of the situation in Donbas in connection with Russia's recent destructive actions on the territory of certain regions of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which undermine the peace process and further implementation of the Minsk agreements," the website says.

The parties reportedly agreed to "continue to pressure the Russian authorities to return the situation to the framework of the Minsk agreements, including by preserving and, if necessary, tightening international sanctions against the Russian Federation."

In addition, the president and ambassadors discussed the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) to suspend the movement of goods between Ukraine and the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

"The ambassadors expressed their understanding on the necessity of such steps (the decision of the NSDC) of the Ukrainian authorities, taking into account the unlawful expropriation of Ukrainian property and the irresponsible actions of certain political forces regarding the unauthorized and ill-considered so-called blockade of the railway tracks in Donbas," the message says.

The parties agreed on the importance of preventing the deterioration of the humanitarian situation on both sides of the disengagement line and on taking joint measures to minimize the negative consequences of restricting the movement of goods for the civilian population.

Poroshenko informed the ambassadors about "progress and prospects in implementing the program of internal reforms, in particular with regard to anti-corruption policy, judicial reform, decentralization, deregulation, energy, healthcare and creating an attractive investment climate."

Following the meeting, the parties reached an agreement on further comprehensive support for reforms in Ukraine by the G7 countries and the EU.
Ford said it will inject $1.2 billion into three more Michigan plants. Joe Hinrichs, Ford President of the Americas, told the FOX Business Networks Stuart Varney the plans include an $850 million investment in the revival of the Ranger and Bronco.

We are excited about the Ranger and Bronco coming back to the portfolio. We should make good money on that, he said.

Hinrichs added plans also include building new engines to support the Ranger and Bronco and a new $200 million data center.

He also discussed the companys electric car investments.

President Trump visited Detroit recently to announce plans to scale back fuel-economy standards imposed by the Obama administration. Despite this, Ford has already planned for current CAFE standards, according to Hinrichs.

We, as an industry, have asked President Trump and his administration to do the midterm review as it was originally agreed toa data driven discussion about whats going on with oil prices, consumer affordability, technology costs, etc., he said.

He added, Weve had these plans in the works for quite some time, but remember, we are also investing in 13 electrified new vehicles.

In January Ford announced it would invest $700 million in Flat Rock, Michigan to build an all-electric SUV and make a $4.5 billion investment that would go into electrified vehicles he said.
Newell Brands, the parent of Elmers Glue, said Tuesday it is currently upping production of the iconic school glue to keep up with a massive surge in sales that the company attributes to the do-it-yourself slime craze sweeping the country (with a little help from social media).

The Elmers team has increased production forecasts to stay on top of the extreme consumer demand from the slime trend, Ashley Mowrey, a spokesperson for Newell Brands, tells FOX Business.

Elmers, which was acquired by Newell Brands (NYSE:NWL) in 2015 for $600 million, says it saw a huge sales boost during the second half of 2016, after its liquid glue was featured in a homemade slime tutorial on YouTube. Today, there are more than 1.2 million results for slime recipes on the social media site.

[The] larger spike occurred in the last four weeks of 2016, during the holiday season, when sales of Elmers liquid glue in retail stores increased by more than double, adds Mowrey.

Elmers says the strong sales growth is continuing so far in 2017, rising 9 percent in the first half of the first quarter.

However, the gooey concoction which is typically made with Elmers glue, water and Borax (sodium borate usually found in household cleaner and laundry detergent) has come under fired in recent weeks, as some parents claim it can be dangerous for children.

A Massachusetts family says their 11-year-old daughter suffered second-and third-degree burns on her hands from prolonged exposure to slime, which was made using Borax.

Consumer Reports Chief Scientific Officer James Dickerson also warns parents about the dangers of using the chemical for fun.

"Borax, also known as sodium tetraborate hexahydrate, is meant to be a household cleaner or laundry additive. Just because you have it handy, just because you can use it safely in those applications does not mean that you can use it for anything else, particularly in making homemade slime. Borax is a known eye, respiratory, and skin irritant. So, we do not want young children to play around with it," Dickerson tells FOX Business.

Elmers, which says its product has been certified as safe and non-toxic by Duke University Medical Center and by The Arts & Creative Materials Institute, Inc. (ACMI), does suggest parents use other products instead of Borax when making slime.

Elmers has developed easy-to-make and worry-free slime recipes, which include commonly used household ingredients such as baking soda and contact lens solution, Mowrey says.

Borax, which is made by Henkel AG & Company, a German chemical and consumer goods company headquartered in Dusseldorf, Germany, declined to comment to FOX Business.
Ford (NYSE:F) said Tuesday it will invest $1.2 billion in three of its Michigan factories, supporting 130 jobs in one plant that makes engines.

President Donald Trump cheered the move in an early morning tweet.

Big announcement by Ford today, Trump wrote. Car companies coming back to U.S. JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!

Ford plans to spend $850 million to retool the Michigan Assembly Plant in preparation for building the Ranger pickup truck and Bronco SUV. The Ranger will return to showrooms in 2019, the automaker announced in January, with production beginning in late 2018. The Bronco will begin rolling off the assembly line in 2020.

The Ranger and Bronco will replace production of small cars, which are moving from Wayne, Michigan, to a plant in Mexico.

Ford also said it will invest an additional $150 million at its Romeo Engine Plant located in a northern suburb of Detroit. The investment will help create or retain 130 jobs in Romeo, according to the company.

The remaining $200 million will go to a data center that supports Fords mobility and self-driving vehicle programs.

A majority of the investments were promised in Fords 2015 labor agreement with the United Auto Workers union.

During a speech in Detroit two weeks ago, Trump teased that an announcement related to the automotive industry was coming. However, a Ford spokesperson said the company informed the White House of its plans on Tuesday morning, just hours before the announcement became public.

Trump visited the Detroit area on March 15 to officially begin a review of Obama-era rules on fuel economy.
Electric bills in Georgia and South Carolina could rise more than customers expect if state utilities are left stranded by a Westinghouse Electric Co bankruptcy filing expected this week, consumer advocates said.

U.S. nuclear developer Westinghouse is the lead contractor building two nuclear reactors each in Georgia and South Carolina, both of which are billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.

Westinghouse was expected to file for bankruptcy protection as it struggles to limit losses that have thrown its Japanese parent Toshiba Corp into crisis, people familiar with Toshiba's thinking said.

If Westinghouse is unable to complete the reactors, it puts the states in an unenviable position. They would either have to go ahead with another contractor - which would cause delays - or stop work, and find another solution for growing power demand.

"Neither scenario sounds good for ratepayers. People will either be forced to pay for something they never got or pay more to complete something that does not make economic sense," said Liz Coyle, executive director of consumer advocacy group Georgia Watch.

Rates were already anticipated to rise per the terms of the agreement with Westinghouse in coming years, as customers move from paying for the financing costs for the reactors to paying for construction costs when the plants go into service.

However, if the utilities - Georgia Power and South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCE&G) - elect to stop building, customers are still on the hook for what has already been spent on the unfinished reactors. In addition, whatever replaces that power generation will also need to be paid for.

"Were getting briefings about what were facing and at this point I dont think any of the options are terrific," said Stan Wise, chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC), which regulates rates in Georgia.

The reactors at Georgia's Vogtle plant were expected to cost about $14 billion and enter service in 2016 and 2017. Now they are not expected to be finished until at least 2020, with expected costs around $19 billion.

The typical Georgia Power residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt hours pays about $122 per month. Of that, almost $7 is covering financing costs for Vogtle. Georgia Power, a unit of U.S. power company Southern Co, serves almost 2.5 million homes and businesses in the state.

Once the project is complete, rates are expected to rise by 6 percent to 8 percent as customers have to cover the project's capital costs. Coyle said cancelling or delaying the completion would likely end up boosting customer bills by more than Georgia Power's estimate.

The utility would have to go back to the Georgia PSC, which would determine whether to complete the project or stop work.

"Knowing what we know today, we might not choose to build the new reactors," the Georgia PSC's Wise said. Since the commission approved construction a decade ago, natural gas prices and renewable technologies have become less expensive.

Jacob Hawkins, a spokesman at Georgia Power, said the company is monitoring the situation and is "prepared for any potential outcome."

The reactors at South Carolina's Summer plant were expected to cost about $9.8 billion, excluding certain costs, and be completed in 2016 and 2019; current estimates are around $22 billion and completion in 2020.

SCE&G, a unit of Scana Corp, serves about 714,000 customers. A typical residential customer using 1,000 kWh per month pays about $148. Of that, about $27, or 18 percent, is for construction, according to the South Carolina PSC.

"The financing cost of the new reactors alone will account for over 25 percent of a typical customer's bill by 2020," said Tom Clements, director of Savannah River Site Watch, a public interest group monitoring energy and nuclear issues. He said he expects "big rate hikes" when the reactors enter service or if SCE&G stops work.

Rhonda Maree O'Banion, a Scana spokeswoman, would not comment on possible rate hikes, saying they are "preparing for a variety of possible outcomes."

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.

Worried about retirement? You're not alone. A large number of workers nearing the end of their careers are learning the hard way that retirement is expensive and that most older Americans simply aren't prepared. If you're thinking of retiring in the not-so-distant future, here are a few facts you should be aware of.

IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.

1. The Average Baby Boomer has $163,577 Saved for Retirement.

According to a report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the average household aged 56-61 has amassed a $163,577 nest egg. But while that number might seem encouraging, it's actually pretty scary. Over the course of a 20-year retirement, $163,577 amounts to just $8,178 a year, or $681 a month, of income. Granted, this number doesn't take investment growth during retirement into account, but it's glaringly small nonetheless. Furthermore, while $163,577 represents the average savings among baby boomers nearing retirement, the median savings for that age group is just $17,000, which means a large number of workers have far less than the average.

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2. A Frightening 41% of Baby Boomers Have no Retirement Savings at all.

Here's another alarming statistic from the EPI: An estimated 41% of households aged 55-64 have no retirement savings at all. And clearly, their older counterparts didn't do a much better job of saving, either. An estimated 21% of married Social Security recipients and 43% of single recipients 65 and over rely on their monthly benefit checks to provide at least 90% of their income, which is far more than what the average worker should expect out of the program.

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3. Social Security Pays the Average Recipient $1,360 a Month.

Workers who plan to fall back on Social Security are often less motivated to save for retirement on their own. But those monthly benefit checks aren't nearly enough to help the typical retiree pay the bills. Currently, the average beneficiary gets just $1,360 a month in Social Security payments, which equates to an annual income of $16,320. One thing you should know about Social Security is that it's only designed to replace roughly 40% of the average worker's pre-retirement income, and as you'll see in an upcoming point, that's hardly enough to live on.

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4. One Out of Every Four 65-Year-Olds Today will Live Past Age 90.

Forget about saving enough for a 20-year retirement. Seniors are living longer these days, and with that comes the need for additional savings. According to the Social Security Administration, one out of every four 65-year-olds today will live past the age of 90, while one out of 10 will live past 95. It's no wonder 60% of baby boomers claim they're more afraid of outliving their savings than actually dying.

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5. Almost Half of Retired Households Spend More Money, Not Less, in Retirement.

Many older Americans bank on their expenses going down in retirement, and while some seniors are perfectly comfortable living on 70% of their previous income, almost half of retirees wind up spending more money once they stop working, not less. The Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) reports that 46% of retired households increase their spending during the first two years of retirement, and for 33%, this pattern continues for six years. And it's not just wealthy retirees who take the opportunity to indulge. The EBRI found this data to be consistent across all income levels.

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6. Healthcare will Cost the Average Healthy Couple $377,000 in Retirement.

If that number sounds too high to be true, think again. HealthView Services, a provider of healthcare cost-projection software, released a report last year stating that when you factor in the typical out-of-pocket costs not covered by Medicare, like dental and vision services, the average healthy 65-year-old couple today is looking at $377,000 in healthcare costs in retirement. Reading between the lines, if your health isn't great or you have a known medical condition, you could spend even more. Not only that, but that $377,000 figure doesn't even take long-term care costs (such as for nursing homes) into account. Ouch.

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7. A Good 30% of Homeowners 65 and Older Still Have a Mortgage.

Some people think they can get away with less income in retirement because they won't have a mortgage to worry about. But that's far from a given. In fact, an increasing number of seniors are entering retirement saddled with mortgage debt. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reports that 30% of homeowners 65 and older (roughly 6.5 million people) still had a mortgage back in 2013, up from 22% 12 years earlier. Meanwhile, Federal Reserve data shows that 21% of seniors 75 and over continued to carry mortgage debt in 2011, up from 8% a decade prior.

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8. More Than 25 Million Seniors Live at or Below the Poverty Line.

Relying too heavily on Social Security in the absence of independent savings comes at a price. Rising medical costs, housing expenses, and mounting bills leave many retirees in a state of perpetual financial vulnerability, and over 25 million older Americans are currently living at or below the federal poverty level as a result.

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9. Almost 25% of Current Workers Expect to Retire at 70 or Later.

There's a reason a growing number of seniors are working longer and retiring later. Given the cost of retirement and the aforementioned collective lack of savings, many have no choice but to extend their careers in an effort to sock away extra money and stretch their existing nest eggs. According to a recent study by human resources consulting firm Willis Towers Watson, almost 25% of Americans think they won't be able to retire until age 70 or older. Even worse, 5% don't think they'll ever manage to retire at all.

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10. Nine Out of 10 Retirees Identify as Happy.

Let's end with some positive news. In a recent Transamerica study, 90% of retirees said that they're enjoying their lives despite the financial challenges retirement typically presents. What this tells us is that if you're among the countless older workers who are behind on savings, you don't need to resign yourself to an unsatisfying, impoverished retirement. Rather, you can take steps to work around your circumstances and adjust your expectations. That might mean downsizing your living space in retirement, moving to an area that's more affordable on a whole, or working part-time to generate added income. If you're willing to make compromises, you can enjoy a fulfilling retirement and learn to live on less.

One final point you should take away is this: If you are willing to extend your career and focus on your savings, you can change your financial picture in retirement so you're more comfortable and less stressed. Workers 50 and over can currently contribute up to $6,500 a year to an IRA and $24,000 a year to a 401(k). Maxing out either limit could really work wonders for your nest egg, so even if you're behind on savings, all is not officially lost.

The $16,122 Social Security Bonus Most Retirees Completely Overlook

If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,122 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after.Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies.

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You can't argue with success, particularly when it comes to oil and gas exploration and production companies. And the stocks of drillersApache Corporation(NYSE: APA) andAndarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC) both beat the market last year, thanks to a big Permian Basin find by Apache and savvy portfolio management by Andarko.

But since the first of the year, both stocks have hit the skids, and are now trading at significant discounts. For investors looking to snap up shares on the cheap, which stock looks like the better buy?

Apache's "Alpine High" discovery in West Texas will pay off...once the company gets the infrastructure in place. Image source: Getty Images.

Where angels fear to tread

Apache's big win in 2016 was the result of some guesswork that paid off handsomely. The company had been quietly buying the drilling rights to a previously unexplored far western part of the oil-and-gas-rich Permian Basin. Before Apache came to town, though, nobody knew exactly what kind of cache was hidden underground. That was good for Apache, because it allowed the company to pick up assets on the cheap.

When Apache announced the results of its testing, the result was a shocker:more than 3 billion barrels of oil and 75 trillion cubic feet of natural gas were trapped underneath Apache's 300,000-acre holding, an amount that could support some 3,000 wells. Apache dubbed the find the "Alpine High," and while expectations are indeed high, everything's on hold right now. You see, the lack of previous oil and gas production activity in the region means that Apache is basically starting from scratch. The company needs to build wells to pump the oil, but first needs to complete a pipeline so there's somewhere to put it once it's pumped!

A few years down the road, the Alpine High find should contribute significantly to the company's earnings, but until then there's no money flowing in from the field. In fact, money will be flowing out as the company devotes nearly a sixth of its budget to developing the field!

This could be good for long-term investors who are willing to be patient for a couple of years until the Alpine High oil and gas starts flowing.

Wheeling and dealing

By contrast, Anadarko has been dealing with areas of proven reserves. And I do mean "dealing." Late last year, Anadarko acquired the deepwater Gulf of Mexico assets fromFreeport-McMoRanin a $2 billion deal. That purchase is expected to addapproximately 80,000 net barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) per day to Anadarko's holdings. Better yet, more than 80 percent of it is oil, as opposed to lower-margin natural gas. The company estimates this will add $3 billion in incremental free cash flow over the next five years. Paying $2 billion to get $3 billion sounds like a good deal to me.

The company hasn't just been buying, though: in January it sold off $2.3 billion of its Eagleford Shale properties to concentrate on higher-margin projects, including its deepwater Gulf of Mexico operations. Normally, we tend to think of deepwater extraction as costlier and riskier than onshore, but Anadarko CEO Al Walker believes these portfolio adjustments will lead to a 12% to 14% five-year compounded annual oil growth rate.

Those are impressive numbers, particularly considering that even with its Alpine High find, Apache is only projecting a 10% growth rate through 2018, despite a whopping 50% annual growth rate projection in its Midland and Delaware Basin holdings, in the part of the Permian Basin where Alpine High is located.In fact, Apache CEO John J. Christmann IV predicts thatApache's production "will experience a brief decline before transitioning to a strong growth trajectory around mid- 2017."

Now or later

So what we have here is one company, Anadarko, forecasting strong growth starting immediately, and a second, Apache, predicting a lull before strong growth begins. That's a tough call for an investor to make.

Both companies' share prices have fallen since the first of the year, along with shares of peer oil producers Devon Energy andOccidental Petroleum. But as you can see, Apache's share price decline has been much more pronounced:

APA data by YCharts

That could mean Apache is a better buy for investors right now, particularly as Apache's current dividend yield of 2% is far higher than Anadarko's 0.3%. Assuming Apache doesn't slash its dividend -- as Anadarko had to in early 2016 -- the dividend gives investors an incentive to be patient as the company builds out its Alpine High infrastructure.

However, it's also worth noting that Apache's projected production declines through mid-2017 may cause share prices to drop further as the year unfolds.

Investor takeaway

This one's a tough call, because both companies are anticipating strong futures as long as oil prices remain above $50/barrel. And if prices rise, that's icing on the cake for the entire oil industry. Apache's clear dividend superiority almost tips the balance in its favor, but a 2% dividend yield -- while good compared to most oil producers right now -- isn't quite good enough to justify a win.

For right now, I'm calling Anadarko the better buy by a nose, simply because the company has a very clear plan for immediate growth, while Apache seems likely to stagnate for another quarter before beginning to take off. However, smart investors will want to keep a close eye on Apache and be ready to pounce when the company's investments begin to pay off.

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John Bromels has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of Devon Energy. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Updated

Coal stocks were on fire Tuesday in response to President Donald Trumpas move to unwind an Obama-era environmental plan that targeted coal-fired power plants.

Trump signed an executive order to roll back multiple climate actions taken by former President Barack Obamaas EPA. The main subject of the order is the Clean Power Plan, which was put on hold by an ongoing court battle. Critics have argued that the Clean Power Plan would spell the end for hundreds of power plants that would be unable to meet its stringent emissions rules.

aThe action Iam taking today will eliminate federal overreach, restore economic freedom and allow our companies and our workers to thrive, compete and succeed on a level playing field,a Trump said.

With the president moving to dismantle the Clean Power Plan, miners are breathing a sigh of relief.

aTune into the End of the War on Coal,a the American Coal Council wrote in a tweet ahead of Tuesdayas announcement.

Similarly, Vice President Mike Pence declared, aThe war on coal is over.a

Tune into the End of the War on Coal Today at 2 pm EDT.https://t.co/Mz9nYRmLJY  ACC (@AmericanCoal) March 28, 2017

The wide-ranging executive order, which Trump signed at the Environmental Protection Agency, also reverses a ban on leasing federal land to coal companies.

Ramaco Resources, a producer of metallurgical coal with mines in West Virginia, Virginia and Pennsylvania, surged 10.6% following the announcement. Cloud Peak Energy (NYSE:CLD), CONSOL Energy (NYSE:CNX) and bankrupt Peabody Energy (OTC:BTUUQ) also posted strong gains.

aAmerican energy resources give us a competitive advantage in the global economy, and the presidentas effort to capitalize on those resources is vital to stimulating economic growth,a U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue said in a statement. aThe U.S. Chamber has long argued that EPAas power plant regulations are not only unlawful, they are a bad deal for American families and businesses.a
Several activists are removing the concrete blocks that were put earlier this month at the entrance to the central office of PJSC Sberbank, Sberbank of Russia's subsidiary in Ukraine, on Volodymyrska Street in Kyiv.

The activists have cleared nearly the entire wall of the building of the blocks, stickers and writings, an Interfax correspondent reported from the scene on Tuesday. He said the activists were using hand tools.

It had been reported earlier that nationalists had walled the entrance to the Sberbank headquarters in the center of Kyiv with concrete blocks in mid-March.

The National Corps party, whose members were hindering the operations of Russian bank subsidiaries in Ukraine, said on March 27 it would temporarily suspend the blockade so that Ukrainian citizens could withdraw their savings but was determined to resume the blockade until all Sberbank of Russia branches in Ukraine fully ceased their operations.

KYIV. March 28 (Interfax) - Several activists are removing the concrete blocks that were put earlier this month at the entrance to the central office of PJSC Sberbank, Sberbank of Russia's subsidiary in Ukraine, on Volodymyrska Street in Kyiv.

The activists have cleared nearly the entire wall of the building of the blocks, stickers and writings, an Interfax correspondent reported from the scene on Tuesday. He said the activists were using hand tools.

It had been reported earlier that nationalists had walled the entrance to the Sberbank headquarters in the center of Kyiv with concrete blocks in mid-March.

The National Corps party, whose members were hindering the operations of Russian bank subsidiaries in Ukraine, said on March 27 it would temporarily suspend the blockade so that Ukrainian citizens could withdraw their savings but was determined to resume the blockade until all Sberbank of Russia branches in Ukraine fully ceased their operations.
Much to the delight of President Donald Trump, Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) said on Tuesday that it will invest $1.2 billion in three of its facilities in Michigan.

The investments will help Ford prepare to produce several new products, including the Ranger pickup and Bronco SUV, and will also support its ongoing move into new technology-enabled "mobility" businesses.

Ford will spend $850 million to retool its Michigan Assembly Plant to produce the Ranger pickup and Bronco SUV. Image source: Ford Motor Company.

What Ford said: Spending on new products and big data

Ford said that it's committing $1.2 billion to three sets of investments:

$850 million will be spent to retool Ford's Michigan Assembly Plant, located just west of Detroit in the city of Wayne. Michigan Assembly currently builds the compact Focus and C-Max hybrid; the investment will retool the facility to enable it to begin building the midsize Ranger pickup in late 2018 and the all-new Ranger-based Bronco SUV in 2020.

$150 million will be spent at Ford's Romeo Engine facility to expand production of engine components for several vehicles, including the Ranger and Bronco. The plant currently builds several different V-8 engines for a number of Ford products. The move will "create or retain" 130 jobs, Ford said.

$200 million in a new, advanced data center to be located somewhere in Michigan. The data center, one of two that Ford has planned, will support what Ford expects to be a dramatic increase in its data storage and usage needs as it expands into new mobility businesses, ramps up the connectivity in its vehicles, and prepares to launch self-driving products.

These investments follow a $700 million commitment, announced earlier this year, to add production tooling for upcoming Ford electric and autonomous vehicles at Ford's Flat Rock Assembly plant. Ford said on Tuesday that it will build the second new data center at the Flat Rock facility.

Together with the Flat Rock investments announced in January, Ford has committed to spend $1.9 billion on its Michigan facilities so far in 2017.

What it means for Ford investors

Despite the president's happy tweet, there's not much new in this news, and the total number of "new and retained" jobs announced on Tuesday isn't huge. (The Flat Rock commitment announced in January will lead to 700 new jobs, Ford said at the time.) For Ford investors, there's notmuch in the way of surprises here, good or bad.

We knew Ford was planning to retool Michigan Assembly to build the Ranger and Bronco, and we knew it was planning to build new data centers (though we didn't know where). But in the current political environment, it makes sense for Ford to play up these kinds of announcements.

Most of these investments were outlined in Ford's 2015 contract with the United Auto Workers and have been hinted at in news releases since then. But it's worth noting that the spending announced on Tuesday is $350 million more than Ford had committed to spend in that UAW agreement. It's spending $150 million more than expected at Michigan Assembly, and the data center at Flat Rock wasn't outlined in the UAW deal.

What's next for Ford

Ford will report its first-quarter earnings result on April 27. The Blue Oval's first-quarter profit is expected to be down significantly from a year ago, in line with the guidance given by CFO Bob Shanks to investors last week.

10 stocks we like better than FordWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*

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John Rosevear owns shares of Ford. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Ford. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
In the current low-interest-rate environment, plenty of investors have been hunting for higher yield from dividend stocks. This hunt has driven the valuation of many blue chip dividend payers to near-nosebleed levels. Not only has this trend watered down the effective yield on those stocks, since they trade at premium prices, but it's also increased the downside risk of short-term losses in a market correction.

So what's an income investor to do? A great place to look for underappreciated income stocks right now is the energy industry. Oil and gas prices remain far below recent highs, and a lot of companies in the sector continue to struggle. But there are still some wonderful companies paying solid dividend yields, with varying levels of risk.

Image source: Getty Images.

Here are three high-yield investments in the energy industry to consider: midstream stalwartMagellan Midstream Partners, L.P.(NYSE: MMP), overlooked French integrated giantTotal SA (ADR)(NYSE: TOT), and the supermajorRoyal Dutch Shell plc (ADR)(NYSE: RDS-A) (NYSE: RDS-B), which is early in its plans to focus on deepwater and natural gas, making its dividend a little riskier.

Keep reading to learn from our Fool contributors more about these high-yield energy investments and why they may be ideal for your portfolio.

A low-risk high yield

Matt DiLallo(Magellan Midstream Partners): With a current yield of 4.4%, Magellan Midstream Partners definitely offers investors a high yield. However, what I like about the company's generous payout compared to other options is that it comes with a much lower-level risk.

Supporting Magellan Midstream's low-risk payout is the stable cash flow it generates from its asset base. Overall, the company gets about 85% of its gross margin from providing fee-based services to the oil and refined-products markets.

Magellan's main business is moving refined products under fee-based contracts, which makes its cash flows stable and secure. Image source: Getty Images.

The company typically distributes about 80% of that cash flow back to investors, retaining the rest to help finance growth projects. That's a fairly conservative ratio for an MLP, because many others pay out close to, if not more than, 100% of cash flow. Magellan's conservative approach has paid off during the recent oil market downturn because the company hasn't had to follow its more aggressive peers in slashing its payout. Instead, the company has been able to grow the distribution as it completes high-return expansion projects, recently notching its 59th consecutive quarterly increase.

Another reason there's minimal risk associated with Magellan's payout is that itdoesn't use much debt to grow its business. As a rule, the company keeps its leverage to less than four times debt-to-EBITDA, which is well below the comfort level of most other midstream companies. In fact, its leverage ratio has been below 3.5 in recent quarters.

Because of that low leverage, the stability of its cash flow, and its conservative payout ratio, Magellan Midstream Partners has one of the highest credit ratings among MLPs. That provides investors with a high level of confidence in the security of this high yield.

High rates of return

Tyler Crowe(Total SA):It's not shocking that brand recognition can have a big influence on the types of investments we make, so investors in the big oil industry might overlook Total because it doesn't have the retail presence in the U.S. that many of its competitors have. That shouldn't keep you from making an investment in this stock, though, because you would be missing out on what has become the leader in the industry in returns on equity for its investors.

As the oil crash reallystarted to take hold in late 2014 through early 2016, Total was in a unique position because many of its major capital projects were brought on line. This development had two big benefits for the company: It allowed it to wind down capital spending and keep its percentage of unproductive working capital low, and it meant rapid increases in total production that helped to offset the declines from realized prices. This is how Total was able to surpass ExxonMobil for the highest return on equity in the business, even though ExxonMobil has an inherent advantage in this metric because it has bought back loads of shares over the years and kept its equity value low.

TOT Return on Equity (TTM) data by YCharts.

What is encouraging, though, is that the company has been taking steps to ensure that these returns aren't just a fluke of the downturn. Over the past couple of years, management has signed multiple concession contracts with national oil companies in the Persian Gulf that represent 50 billion barrels of resources, 300,000 barrels per day of production, and a 15% return on average capital employed at today's prices. These low-cost, long-life, high-return projects will help boost profitability over the long term and will be a pillar to support growth in its other big investments in deepwater and LNG.

For investors, all of this comes with a stock that currently yields 5.3%. If you want a high-yield investment with the potential to grow and last for a long time, Total is worth a look.

Don't ignore the risk of a cut

JasonHall(Royal Dutch Shell plc): With a 6.7% yield on its B shares and over 7% on its A shares (there are different tax implications for the two share classes), Shell is certainly a high-yield stock.And while that yield can make it attractive, it's worth making sure you understand that there is some risk the company could be forced to cut payouts.

Shell made two significant moves that allowed it to acquire BG Group, but those moves also significantly increased its cash outflows. Since the acquisition closed in early 2016, Shell's share count has increased more than 27%, while management has kept the dividend steady, leading to an increase in total dividends paid. Shell's debt has also ballooned, from $53 billion at the end of 2015 to almost $83 billion at the end of 2016.

RDS.B Average Diluted Shares Outstanding (Annual) data by YCharts.

Combined, the higher share count and debt added $1.6 billion in higher cash outflows to cover these items versus 2015. And since the BG Group acquisition happened several months into 2016, the full annual incremental expense on these two items is likely to be closer to $2 billion.

In short, Shell's cash inflows and outflows are a bit out of whack right now, and it's going to take some balance-sheet work to address this matter. Management has targeted over $30 billion in assets it plans to sell off, both to pay down its debt and to focus the company on deepwater and natural gas assets.

With $19 billion in cash on hand, there is some margin of safety, and management has stated multiple times that sustaining the dividend is a priority. But make no mistake: The dividend will be unsustainable if cash flows don't improve or debt doesn't come down. I like the odds that management will pull off its plans, but the current dividend is not as safe as are those of the companies my colleagues wrote about above. Invest accordingly.

10 stocks we like better than Royal Dutch Shell (B Shares)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 Royal Dutch Shell (B Shares) 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

Jason Hall owns shares of Royal Dutch Shell (B Shares). Matt DiLallo has no position in any stocks mentioned. Tyler Crowe owns shares of ExxonMobil, Magellan Midstream Partners, and Total. The Motley Fool owns shares of ExxonMobil. The Motley Fool recommends Magellan Midstream Partners and Total. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Oil prices rose as much as 2 percent on Tuesday after a severe disruption to Libyan oil supplies and as officials suggested OPEC and other producing countries could extend an output cuts deal to the end of the year.

Armed factions have blocked production at the western Libyan oilfields of Sharara and Wafa, reducing output by 252,000 barrels per day (bpd), about a third <PRODN-LY>, said a source at the National Oil Corp (NOC).

NOC has declared force majeure on crude loadings from those oilfields.

Brent crude rose 58 cents, or 1.14 percent to settle end $51.33 per barrel. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude ended the session 64 cents, or 1.34 percent higher at$48.37 a barrel. Both benchmarks were up about 2 percent at their session highs.

"The closure of two Libyan oil fields ... is supporting the market today with the timing of a potential restart uncertain after militias in western Libya shut key pipelines," Tim Evans, an energy futures specialist at Citi Futures said in a note.

"Past outages have ranged from a few days all the way up to two years, although the need for oil revenues will be a strong incentive to negotiate a pipeline restart sooner rather than later."

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said the deal between OPEC and non-OPEC producers to cut output and reduce the global crude glut is likely to be extended beyond June. Russia, a non-OPEC member, is seen as a wild card. However, Russia and Iran signed a joint statement saying they will keep cooperating to reduce output.

Non-OPEC member Azerbaijan also said it was ready to join an extension of the deal.

Major oil traders gathered in Switzerland this week said they expected the output cuts to be extended, providing Russia complies.

Still, resurgent U.S. oil production and record domestic crude inventories have kept pressuring oil prices. Analysts polled by Reuters predicted that data will show U.S. crude oil stocks rose 1.2 million barrels in the latest week.

Data from the American Petroleum Institute is due at 4:30 p.m. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

Saxo Bank Head of Commodity Strategy Ole Hansen said "an increase of more than 322,000 barrels will see Cushing hit a record."

Rising stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, storage and delivery point for WTI tend to depress the price of the U.S. benchmark <CL-LCO1=R>. Rising domestic production has pushed WTI's discount to Brent to its steepest since the United States lifted a ban on exports in late 2015. Analysts and traders said they expect U.S. crude exports to pick up. (Additional reporting by Sabina Zawadzki in London, Henning Gloystein in Singapore; Editing by Marguerita Choy and David Gregorio)
Recently, the oil markets dropped a whopping 4.5% on the news that the U.S. had an inventory build of 9 million barrels -- despite the fact that the U.S. accounts for only 16% of the market.

In this clip fromIndustry Focus: Energy,Motley Fool energy analysts Sean O'Reilly and Taylor Muckerman talk about one possible explanation for why the market reacted so strongly to the news, and what an oil build means in the greater context of the sector today.

A full transcript follows the video.

10 stocks we like better than Goldman SachsWhen 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 Goldman Sachs 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

This podcast was recorded on March 23, 2017.

Sean O'Reilly:The other thing was, I think the day I had him on,there was another inventory build. I think it was just under 9 million barrels, it was unexpected,everyone was freaking out, oil fell4.5% that day. And Crowe and I chatted about it, and his point was, theUnited States oil market in terms of consumption and, therefore,very closely tied to Cushing --

Taylor Muckerman:WestTexas Intermediate pricing at Cushing, yeah.

O'Reilly:It's16% of the oil market. That's a lot, cool. But this is nottheoil market.

Muckerman:Yeah, OPEC still reigns supreme.

O'Reilly:Well, no, his point was,everybody is worried about oversupply here, andit's being stored here, but his point was,the market fixates on U.S. supply and storage herebecause this is the only good data we have. For example, China's oil production is down 7%. But do we trust that? Wedefinitely don't trust the Saudi Arabian numbers. They're all checkingeach other, or whatever, I don't know what that means.

Muckerman:Yeah.I don't know if we have any necessary reason -- just because a U.S.government agency isn't able to validate it, doesn't mean that it's not true.

O'Reilly:Right,but it also doesn't mean --

Muckerman:Maybethey're thinking the same thing about our inventory numbers.

O'Reilly:Fine. Itjust seems odd todrive the price down of a globalcommodity, that arguably, our economy needs right now, down by 4.5% in a single daybecause of the inventory numbers in one market thatrepresents 16% of the global market.

Muckerman:Well,I think it's because of the fact that --

O'Reilly:This has a "Mr. Market" Benjamin Graham feel to it, is the point.

Muckerman:I think maybe prices took a nosedivebecause they weren't all that highto continue to build inventory. That just means that thesecompanies really don't care if oil is in the $40 range, they'regoing to continue to produce. It also means thatdemand isn't soaking up the new production. So,you look at, the IEA came out recently andsuggested that oil demand growth -- not oil demandoverall, but oil demand growth -- will slow in 2017 versus 2016. So, you had around 1.6 million barrels per day of newdemand growth last year. They suggest only 1.4 million barrels of new demand growth this year. Meanwhile, the U.S. is likely going to produce 1 million more barrels per day, which isalmost the entire new demand growth. And if OPEC wanted to,they could just reverse the cuts that they have, and that would totally absorb and likely oversupply the market.Goldman Sachssuggests that that's going to happen in 2018 or 2019 or 2020,when the historic spending of the early teens catches up to usbecause of the megaprojects that were spent on 2011, 2013 --

O'Reilly:So,those aren't on line yet, to your knowledge.

Muckerman:They'recoming on line. But the bulk of them will be in full forcein the next few years. And these are the projects that have a long life span compared to shale oil.

Sean O'Reillyhas no position in any stocks mentioned.Taylor Muckermanhas no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist expressed doubt on Monday that Democrats and Republicans will be able to collaborate on tax reform.

In private conversation with business leaders, Democratssenators and congressmanto raise money, have been telling the business community they agree that the rate needs to come down for 15 years, Norquist told FOX Business David Asman. But in power, they never do it and if they even talked about a teeny cut in the corporate rate, they wanted a $1.4 trillion net tax hike. Thats what Obama and the Democrats always asked for during his eight years. Thats fantasy world.

Norquist also believes the Trump administration has enough votes for significant tax reform, though he said the changes might only last 10 years due to the GOPs inability to pass the American Health Care Act last week.

What well probably end up with is temporary tax reform because we needed the lower taxes and less spending of repealing ObamaCare, in order to make the tax plan that the Republicans and the president have permanent, he said.

Additionally, Norquist said a new carbon tax isnt necessary and is not happening.
As Montgomery County, in which Rockville High School sits, reels from the rape case, debate is being sparked not only about Maryland becoming a sanctuary state, but also the impact and fiscal strain illegal immigration is having on public schools.

Mass immigration, both legal and illegal, over recent years has resulted in a sharp increase in the number and share of public school students coming from immigrant households, which is currently almost one out of four, according to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). This has raised concerns about assimilation, the absorption capacity of U.S. schools and rising costs on state and local governments.

Programs for students not born in the U.S., or whose native language is not English, in some cases are growing faster than school districts ability to run and fund them effectively. On average, states and municipalities in the U.S. spend $59.2 billion to educate Limited English Proficiency (LEP) students, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (F.A.I.R.).

Montgomery County, which champions sanctuary policies and openly welcomes illegal aliens, has around 15 percent of all students attending the ESOL program, which has grown 42 percent since 2010. Over the same period, ESOL costs in Montgomery County increased 53% to $462 million, indicating spending is rising faster than enrollment, according to F.A.I.R.

Dr. Steven Camarota, director of research at CIS, a think tank favoring strict immigration policies, said he believes the government bears some of the responsibility in the Rockville High School case. Both of the accused rapists were apprehended by federal border agents after crossing into the U.S. illegally in 2016, but after time in federal custody, each were let go to join relatives in Maryland, as reported by FOX News.

As illegal immigrants continue to pour into the United States, the local school districts are left holding the bag, Camarota said.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions further stirred up the sanctuary city debate this week when he announced that the government will withhold federal funds from cities and states that do not certify that they are not sanctuary jurisdictions. Sessions addressed Maryland directly in his announcement, saying legislative efforts to make it a sanctuary state would be such a mistake.

Shortly after the announcement on Monday came news that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency last week arrested Adolfo Sanchez-Reyes, the father of 18-year-old Henry E. Sanchez-Milian, one of the suspects in the Rockville rape case.

Earlier this month, Sanchez-Milian, a Guatemalan national, and 17-year-old Jose O. Montano, from El Salvador, both were charged with the first-degree rape and first-degree sexual offenses of a 14-year-old girl which allegedly happened inside a bathroom at Rockville High School.

Bob Dane, executive director of F.A.I.R., says many U.S. public schools today face a conundrum because while they have the legal obligation to provide any minor (including undocumented immigrants) that enrolls with a public education, they also have a moral obligation to keep students safe.

Dane said he believes that schools within sanctuary cities, which he terms as welcome centers for illegal immigrants, will continue to have issues with safety.

On the other hand, some immigration experts argue that sanctuary cities are in fact safer, making schools within those cities safer.

Community members can turn to law enforcement in sanctuary cities when crimes are committed, said Rachel Micah-Jones, executive director of migrant rights organization Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, Inc. They [are] cities where all of us can go about our day-to-day lives knowing that law enforcement is there to keep our families safe, not tear them apart. When sanctuary policies come under attack, our schools and communities suffer, parents are afraid to take their children to school, and all children suffer from heightened fear and anxiety in the classroom.

Putting an end to sanctuary policies is one way FAIR suggests to eliminate the burden of illegal immigrants on taxpayers and public schools, calling sanctuary cities one of the largest incentives illegal immigrants have to resettle their families in the U.S.

But Jordan Garcia, Immigrant Ally Organizing Director of the American Friends Service Committee, says that education is a human right guaranteed by the Constitution and its beneficial to the country overall to have an educated populous.

We cant pick and choose which young people are deserving of an education, said Garcia.
President Trump was set to sign an executive order Tuesday which would roll back the Clean Power Plan, an initiative that restricts greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fueled power plants. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke appeared on the FOX Business Network to discuss what this means for the energy industry and jobs in America.

When asked whether the executive order would boost job growth, Zinke told host Maria Bartiromo:

It will, but it is jobs day and its important to realize really three things. First of all, that we need jobs and there is a social cost of not having jobs in America. And you need reliable and affordable energy for manufacturing. Lastly, it is environmentally better to have energy produced here under reasonable regulation than watch it get produced overseas with no regulation.

The Interior controls about one-fifth of the territory of the United States and within that territory we have enormous assets of energy and mines and were going to do it right. Im very much a conservationist, as is the president, but we want to make sure we use our public lands in the right way and thats creating wealth and jobs.

As the Dakota Access Pipeline project progresses, Zinke explained that boosting energy infrastructure is needed to keep America competitive globally and is a key part of the countrys foreign policy in dealing with countries like Russia and Iran.

Strategically, its important of the United States to be not only an energy producer, but to be dominant where we need to. And we talk about Russia a lot in the news; if we are going to check Russia its about delivering liquid natural gas to Eastern Europe, sub-plan their ability to make cash  same thing with Iran.

Zinke then weighed in on the Interior Department working with Homeland Security on a wall roughly 62 miles long, according to reports, along the U.S. border with Mexico.

Interior owns about 40% of that and were looking at designs, were looking at wheres appropriate to make the wall. Some places that are national parks down there, the wall is a 100-foot cliff.
Billionaire real estate mogul Sam Zell has done a fair amount of business near the Mexican border and thinks the country is going to do fine despite President Trumps plan to build a wall.

I think the Mexico-U.S. connection is far too strong for any shift in policy to have anything other than a short term impact, said Zell during an appearance on FOX Business Networks Mornings with Maria.

Zell opened a high-traffic bridge from San Diego, CA to Tijuana, Mexico last year and expects it to carry 1.8 million people this year.

Along with Zells own business interests, he notes the growing importance Mexico is playing in manufacturing.

We used to talk about China being the manufacturing center of the U.S., well Mexico has become the manufacturing center of the U.S. and frankly thats a plus, Zell said.

The U.S. is Mexicos biggest export market, topping $290 billion a year and Mexico is the United States third-largest trading partner. It is estimated that 5 million American jobs depend on trade with Mexico.

Trump ran and won the U.S. election partly on the promise to build a wall spanning the entire length of the U.S.-Mexico border. He has repeatedly said that Mexico will pay for it and has threatened to levy a 20% border adjustment tax on all goods coming from Mexico. These policies that have caused tensions in relations with Mexico.

Bids for Trumps border wall are due this week.
Trucking company leaders met with President Trump at the White House to lend their support in reforming the Affordable Care Act and rolling back regulations.

During an interview on FOX Business Networks Varney & Co., James Burg Trucking Company CEO Jim Burg said his company has taken quite a hit due to the rising cost of Obamacare.

We were forced to cut plan choices to our employees, Berg said "We needed for them to contribute more and we had to cut bonuses just so that we could remain profitable with those increases."

Berg says regulations enforced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) limit the trucking industrys ability to stay competitive with modern equipment.

The EPA has forced us to run older trucks that do not have the most advanced safety technologies available today, he said. The most advanced safety components are only available on new equipment. We cannot retrofit that to the equipment that we run in our fleets today, Berg said.

Berg said the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), which is the lead federal government agency responsible for regulating and providing safety oversight of commercial motor vehicles, has been out of control under the Obama administration.

We are looking forward to working with [Transportation] Secretary Chow to make sure that we focus on safe regulations, efficiency based regulations and get away from the challenges we had in the past, he said.
The Trump administration took steps Tuesday toward dismantling former President Obamas signature climate regulation, the Clean Power Plan, as President Donald Trump signed an executive order the White House promises will both bring back jobs and help the climate.

"[We are] bringing back our jobs, bringing back our dreams and making America wealthy again, the president said during an address at the EPA.

EPA administrator Scott Pruitt said the new administration believes in pro-growth and pro-environment policies during an interview on Fox News Tuesday.

Tuesdays executive order is a push toward American energy independence, an agenda the Trump administration believes will bring back jobs in manufacturing, coal and gas.

The energy independence directive is a stab at President Obamas Clean Power Plan which aimed to limit greenhouse gas emissions from coal-burning power plants. The law was halted by the Supreme Court last year after 27 states and a multitude of business groups challenged its legality.

Trump called the Obama-era regulations job killing. While both critics and supporters agree with the administrations sentiment that pro-jobs and pro-climate policies arent mutually exclusive, they disagree on what type of jobs should be created.

Rolling back these regulations will absolutely lead to a boost in employment throughout the sector, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told FOX Business.

Regulation costs companies money. It makes them less competitive, [results in] less jobs and investors are less likely to invest in that particularly product, Paxton said.

On a purely statistical basis, Paxton may have a point when it comes to the damaging effects of regulation. Another piece of regulatory legislation imposed on the U.S. energy industry, the Clean Air Act, is blamed for eliminating 590,000 jobs in heavily affected sectors during its first fifteen years as law, according to 2001 research by Michael Greenstone, former chief economist for President Obamas Council of Economic Advisers. The same report showed those pollution intensive industries lost $37 billion in capital stock and $75 billion worth of output during the same timeframe.

However, some energy experts say those jobs died of old age.

Pro-growth and pro-environment can in fact go hand in hand, but only if one invests in high growth, environmentally-friendly technologies like renewable energy. Coal in any form doesn't [meet] this criterion," Dr. Robert Orr, dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and special advisor to the U.N. secretary-general on climate change, told FOX Business.

Former Gov. Bill Richardson, Secretary of Energy under President Bill Clinton, told FOX Business the "Trump-Pruitt ticket to the Stone Age" will result in "massive job losses in renewable energy and green jobs."

Further, it will be difficult for the Trump White House to fully unravel the former administrations climate regulations, according to Nathan Hultman, who worked on the Obama Administrations climate and energy policy team.

Not all of the Obama climate regulations can or will be undone. The Clean Power Plan, for example, covers less than 1/3 of greenhouse gas emissions. Energy efficiency standards  will continue to drive up energy productivity and are generally not worth undoing because they tend to have relatively high benefits for very low costs, Hultman said.

Many of the Obama-era climate regulations however, were an overreach of authority, according to Paxton.

[The state of Texas has] around twelve lawsuits related to energythe federal government over the past six years has overstepped its Constitutional role of implementing law the Obama administration was creating law at the executive branch levelthe Trump administration undoing that [is] appropriate, he said.
Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili has expressed hope that Ukrainian citizens will soon be able to travel to the European Union without visas.

"One of the recent achievements that will come into force tomorrow is the visa free regime approved by the EU for the citizens of Georgia, and we hope that this will help to simplify relations and expand business opportunities between Georgia and the EU. We hope that in the near future a similar opportunity will be open to a friendly, fraternal country for us - Ukraine," he said during the GUAM business forum (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova) in Kyiv on Monday.

The prime minister also said that the Georgian government is carrying out a large number of reforms, in particular, improving the business environment of the state, tax legislation, increasing transparency and inclusiveness in governance, reforming infrastructure and reforming higher education.

According to him, the trade turnover between GUAM member countries is decreasing, and to prevent such dynamics, it is necessary to intensify cooperation between the countries.

Kvirikashvili informed that the growth of Georgia's GDP was 2.7% by the results of 2016.

"According to the forecasts of the World Bank, real GDP growth of Georgia in 2017 will be 5.2%," the prime minister said.
Ferraris have been stolen before, but Ferrari himself?!

Italian investigators working a drug and arms smuggling case say they uncovered a plot to steal the body of Enzo Ferrari from his grave and hold it for ransom.

Ferraris remains lay in an above-ground family tomb in the city of Modena, not far from the headquarters of the automobile company he founded in 1939. Ferrari died in 1988, age 90.

Authorities say the Sardinia-based gang had everything planned out, including an escape into the Apennine Mountains where they would hide the body until the ransom was paid, according to Motorsport.com.

But on Tuesday, 300 police and military rounded up 34 members of the gang in raids across Italy before they could pull of the gruesome heist.

FERRARI ABANDONED ON LONDON STREET FOR TWO YEARS FINALLY GETS THE BOOT
They welcomed a beautiful baby boy together in January, but "Dancing with the Stars" pro Peta Murgatroyd has admitted she wanted to stall her wedding to fellow dancer Maksim Chmerkovskiy.

After Monday night's live taping of the hit ABC reality show, Murgatroyd (who dances with "The Bachelor" star Nick Viall) admitted to reporters her upcoming July 8 wedding wasn't always a sure thing.

"I tried to put it on hold, to be honest with you," Murgatroyd, 30, smiled backstage about walking down the aisle with Chmervkovskiy.

"I said, 'Baby, let's just drop it for a second. We have a child already. Let's just maybe cool it.'

"But he was like, 'No. I want to marry you,' and it was really funny, actually. He had to sort of coax me back into being ready to get married and do all of this stuff because there's so much to do."

Popular "DWTS" professionals Murgatroyd and Chmerkovskiy were thrilled to bring son Shai into the world on Jan. 4 -- and it's been hectic ever since as both have been juggling baby watching duty while competing on the show.

While her fiance Chmerkovskiy, 37, has a lot of family and friend connections in New York, Murgatroyd is trying to plan their wedding "from over here in L.A. so it is a little bit more stressful but I have got somebody helping me do it so I hope it all comes together in time. I know that sounds really corny and stupid, but I really do," she said.

While Murgatroyd and Viall scored 25 out of 40 together for their foxtrot on Monday night's show, Chmerkovskiy couldn't perform at all as he suffered a calf injury that left him wincing in pain on camera.

Rehearsal footage showed Maks, whose partner is former "Glee" star Heather Morris, swearing and saying, "It's not good! Worst case scenario, I'm never coming back."

Morris danced with fill-in Alan Bersten and they got 30 points.

Chmerkovskiy will have his calf examined by a doctor on Tuesday and his status on this season's "DWTS" is up in the air.

When asked if he'd be able to stand with her at the altar this summer, Murgatroyd joked, "I hope so! I don't want to be jilted. Runaway bride type of thing? No! It's going to be fine."
33-year old Ashley Cogswell had never hiked a mountain before she decided to trek 19,340 feet up into the clouds of Mt. Kilimanjaro. But she wasnt climbing just for fun; she was climbing with a purposeto help raise funds to bring cancer care to developing countries. Cogswell and other climbers from all skill levels climbed Africas tallest mountain in 2016 as a part of an exhibition led by Radiating Hope, a non-profit with a mission to bring radiation machines to underserved countries.

"Ill climb a mountain every year if that's what it takes to bring the awareness to what they're doing, but also to the people around the world that are suffering without any means to treatment," Cogswell, who works as a software sales direct for Elekta, a company that manufactures radiation therapy equipment and software, told Fox News.

In the U.S., there is roughly one radiation machine for every 100 to 200,000 people, but in the African nation of Senegal they have one machine for 13 million people.

"Through Radiating Hope people are able to donate machinery to us, but after we get that machinery we want to refurbish and then ship it to these countries, so climbing became our platform for fund raising," Dr. Brandon Fisher, a radiation oncologist and Radiating Hope Co-founder told Fox News.

Every five to 10 years hospitals typically refurbish or buy new radiation machines to stay competitive as cancer facilities. So instead of scrapping them for parts or throwing them in the trash, hospitals can donate their older machines to Fisher and his Radiating Hope team.

Through donations and climbing excursions, Radiating Hope has successfully placed radiation machines in 15 different countries, like Senegal, Honduras and Nepal.

"When you walk the streets of Senegal they'll say 'Oh why are you here?' and we'll say 'We're here to treat cancer' and they'll be like 'Treat cancer? You cant treat cancer, that's only a death sentence,'" Fisher said.

If you raise at least $12,000, Radiating Hope will cover the cost of the trip, excluding airfare and some equipment, however youre not required to raise a certain amount of money as participants can pay for the trip out of pocket.

Through a Go Fund Me page and a local fundraiser, Cogswell surpassed her fundraising goal and raised about $16,000.

I was astonished, just absolutely surprised and overwhelmed by the amount of support I received," Cogswell said.

Although days were physically challenging and mentally difficult, Cogswell said she leaned on her fellow climbers to get her through the six-day journey.

"Youre feeling sick, you have headaches, youre nauseous, [and] youre having bathroom problems. I mean there's just so many things that instantly bond you with everyone there because everyone is there to lift each other up and help you accomplish this task," she said.

Cogswell and her group traveled up the slopes of Kilimanjaro, hiking 6-to-8 hours a day, only stopping for meals and camping at night. On summit day, they woke up in the middle of the night to hike another 8-to-9 hours after sleeping for only a couple of hours. But when she reached the top, her efforts were all worth it, she said.

"When my guide tapped me and kind of rubbed my back and said 'Sister you made it'I was just so overwhelmed I started crying, Cogswell said. It was a feeling of joy, of accomplishment, also relief that I cant believe I did this."

In April 2017, Cogswell will join Radiating Hope to climb to the base of Mt. Everest. For people who cant make the trip, you can also donate $20 for a Prayer Flag that gets taken on the climb and left on top of the summit. Each colorful prayer flag can be dedicated to a cancer patient or survivor.

Were taking over 2,000 prayer flags that have been dedicated over the last 5 years in honor of cancer patients locally in the United States to the base camp of Mt. Everest where well leave them to slowly disintegrate over time, Fisher said. Tibetans believe if you hang them in the mountain high winds those winds will beat at them and the little threads [that] start to unravel from these flags are supposed to be a representation of strength, hope and wellbeing.

For more information, visit RadiatingHope.org.
During last Thursdays confirmation hearing for Sonny Perdue  the presumptive Secretary of Agriculture  the former Georgia governor faced a barrage of questions from Republicans and Democrats united in their opposition to President Trumps budget for rural America.

The reason for the pushback? Small Town USA is struggling and cannot endure Trumps cuts.

While many rural Americans agree, its equally clear that these government programs are but a tourniquet to a long-festering economic wound. Simply put, rural counties like mine have lost our competitive advantage to our urban cousins.

Unless and until we fix that challenge, taxpayers will continue to subsidize what is effectively the palliative care of our anemic communities.

So how do you fix a problem that started nearly 200 years ago with the advent of the Industrial Revolution? Is it even possible?

You bet. Just ask South Dakota.

Faced with a dwindling rural population, political leaders in Pierre created a savvy recruiting tool  DakotaRoots.com  and related marketing campaign to peak the interest of young workers.

The pitch was personal. Business leaders, state government officials, and average citizens all reached out to those applicants who expressed a desire to be a Dakotan. These civic leaders worked hard to ensure that interested professionals found the right city and the right job. Sometimes that even included personal phone calls.

Their efforts paid off. More than 4,000 people now call South Dakota home because of the Dakota Roots program.

Success like this rarely goes unnoticed. Other states  such as Idaho and Wyoming  have adopted similar programs too.

While these initiatives are laudable, critics rightfully point out that these outcomes are relatively modest. Rural America doesnt just need a few thousand people to rebuild its economy. It needs millions.

In the language of entrepreneurs, these matchmaking efforts are an important beta test but, unless they are scaled, will have limited impact.

And that is the key to repopulating rural America. There are millions of people who are looking for a new or better life. And there are thousands of unique communities that want to give them just that.

The challenge is connecting them.

Thankfully, Americas tech firms have considerable experience in this field. Just take a closer look at dating websites.

Behind the success of Match and OK Cupid are algorithms designed to find and rank connections between people. To do so, computers consider user preferences about the qualities theyre most keen to find in a mate  blond or brunette, short or tall, humorous or serious. Algorithms then make informed guesses on which profiles best fit.

Not every connection works, of course. (Trust me, I have the bad coffee dates to prove it) But the results are clear: a growing number of us find love and marriage through technology.

So could this matchmaking concept work for rural America?

Imagine if private industry selected 25 communities in each state, focusing on those cities that offered the most promise. Characteristics of chosen towns might include things like affordable housing, healthcare, schools, transportation, proximity to recreation, and low taxes.

Meanwhile, Americans in search of new beginnings would answer a series of questions that would ask which of these characteristics held the most importance. For example, does a user need an airport nearby? If so, must it be five miles away or no more than 50?

A well-designed algorithm would then sort the cities, giving users a top 10 list of locations best suited to their individual needs. The cities and states hungriest for new talent  like South Dakota, Wyoming, and Idaho  would dedicate people and resources towards recruiting these prospective citizens.

Naysayers might scoff at this effort but theyre ignoring a profound change in the labor market. Data show that young professionals and middle class families are fleeing expensive locations (New York, D.C., Miami, Los Angeles, and San Francisco) in favor of regional hubs in the Pacific Northwest, the Carolinas, Vermont and South Dakota.

The trend is clear: Americas workers are looking for better options, especially in the face of stagnate wages, student debt, and unfulfilled dreams of buying a home. Theyre looking for tools to help them find these hidden communities.

Turns out, rural America has them.

All of this leaves small towns with a choice. Communities like mine can certainly wait for more welfare programs to trickle down from Washington D.C. Alternatively, we can join hands with private industry and try to recapture the restless spirit of American workers on the move.

Id rather take the path with fewer bureaucrats. To me, that is how we will make rural America truly great again.
The Trump administration sent Attorney General Jeff Sessions to deliver a blunt message Monday to so-called "sanctuary" cities: Continue to defy federal immigration policy and you'll take a big hit in the wallet.

Sessions' announcement that the White House is serious about cutting off funds from cities that protect illegal immigrants from federal deportation was met with bluster and defiance from big-city mayors. But when push comes to shove, they may find the courts ultimately side with President Trump.

For now, it is worth cutting through the posturing and considering how we got here - and what the law actually says.

What Is A Sanctuary City?

More than 300 cities and counties have sanctuary policies. For some, it is simply a political statement. They have taken no real action to give sanctuary to people who are there illegally.

But other cities like San Francisco actively protect illegal immigrants. They refuse to turn over people who committed low-level crimes to federal agents for deportation. And when ICE asks for a hold on a prisoner, the city ignores it. Often they walk free.

That is what led to the tragic shooting death of Kate Steinle in July of last year. Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez of Mexico was in the U.S. illegally. He had 7 felony convictions and was deported 5 times. He kept slipping back through our border, seeking refuge in the safe haven of San Francisco.

Sanchez was in the custody of the San Francisco Sheriff on drug charges when ICE issued a detainer for him requesting that he be held until the feds could pick him up. Instead of handing him over, the Sheriff followed the citys sanctuary policy by ignoring immigration authorities. He opened the jail doors setting the prisoner free. Sanchez then shot Steinle to death as she was walking with her father on a San Francisco pier.

Steinles death ignited opposition to sanctuary cities. During his successful presidential campaign, Trump cited her case specifically as he vowed to end the practice of giving sanctuary to criminals who are here illegally.

Giving Sanctuary Is Against The Law

President Obama refused to take action against cities like San Francisco that shield illegal immigrants even after arrests or criminal convictions. He deliberately ignored existing federal law. The Illegal Immigration Reform Act of 1996 requires states and municipalities to cooperate with federal authorities on immigration requests:

A state or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual. (8 U.S. Code, section 1373)

That same law allowed President Obama to withhold federal financial support from those cities that continue to thwart the law. Yet, he took no action. If he had, perhaps Kate Steinle would be alive today.

Even Obamas own Justice Department seemed aghast at the then-presidents refusal to enforce the law. The DOJs Inspector General issued a report concluding that the policies and practices of sanctuary jurisdictions violate federal law and they are, therefore, ineligible for federal funds. The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution gives primacy to federal law over contrary state or local laws. Did any of that matter to President Obama? Obviously not.

Already, sanctuary cities are searching for a loophole in the specific wording of the statute. They claim that simply declining to honor ICE detainers is not the same thing as a refusal to send or receive information. Wrong. Detainers require a response from local law enforcement. Refusing or restricting a response is clearly covered in the statutory language.

President Trump, even before Sessions' explicit warning, had promised to take a different course than his predecessor, vowing to withhold federal dollars from cities that protect people who are here illegally. What would that mean? For a large metropolitan area such as San Francisco, it could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal money upon which it relies.

Politicians love to take public stands on their idealistic principles, however misguided they may be. Until, of course, you hit them in the wallet. When faced with budgetary catastrophes like the loss of millions of dollars, they often exhibit a sudden change of heart. Funny how that works.

Prosecute City Officials

If the carrot and stick approach fails to force city officials to abide by the law, perhaps President Trump should begin charging people with crimes. He can do so under another federal statute which makes it a felony to shield someone who is here illegally:

"Any person who, knowing that an alien has come to the U.S. in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection such alien in any place, including any building shall be imprisoned not more than 5 years. (8 U.S. Code, section 1324)

Five years behind bars might give city officials pause to rethink their sanctuary philosophy. But theres an added punishment written in the law: if someone dies because a city official decided not to comply with federal law, as in the Steinle case, the maximum penalty is life behind bars. Im pretty sure thatll get the attention of some sheriffs, police chiefs and mayors.

Whether President Trump and his Department of Justice will decide to criminally prosecute city officials who thumb their noses at federal law is unknown. How many innocent victims like Kate Steinle have to die before people realize that most laws exist for a reason to protect citizens.

I have a feeling that Ronald Reagan might have done it. Maybe President Trump will channel his inner-Reagan and make the right decision.

If he doesnt, how can he call himself the law and order" president?
Friday's decision to pull the House Republican health reform bill was not the end of health reform. In fact, it may have been the best step toward actually achieving real health care reform -- if congressional leaders learn from the experience.

The Republican congressional leadership erred because they decided to repeal and replace ObamaCare within the traditions of the pre-Trump legislative swamp.

By default, they accepted the fake scores of the Congressional Budget Office. By allowing the scores to exist, they let Democrats and the media quote "the non-partisan CBO" to their disadvantage.

Leadership applied the absurd limitations of Senate reconciliation rules to a House bill, even though it was guaranteed to frustrate their conservative members.

They established a deadline for failure  which we know is detrimental to large legislative achievements. Ronald Reagan took eight months to pass a tax cut, which was giving away money. We took 18 months to pass welfare reform, which had the support of 92 percent of Americans. Obama took eight months to pass ObamaCare  even while he promised it would cure all our health care ills.

The current congressional leadership tried to pass a complicated, critical bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare in fewer than three months.

While Republicans focused on process, and a complex, wonky, Washington-insider argument (just read the transcripts), their opponents in the media and the left hammered away at the human cost of their bill. The result: By the time the bill was pulled, only 17 percent of Americans  or less than 1 in 5  wanted it.

In an era when total outsider candidate Donald J. Trump was elected president, congressional leaders adopted a trust us, were in Washington strategy. They promised all the rough edges would be smoothed over during Stages 2 and 3  which were obscure and undefined. Americans didnt believe them.

Frankly, they were fortunate to avoid the vote. Insider health reform was a major factor in killing the Democratic House majority in 1994  after a 40-year reign. Insider health reform killed the House Democratic majority in 2010, too. Voting for a bill with 17 percent approval might have broken the current House majority.

History has taught us: America doesnt like political health care. There is a deep imperative for Congress to think through bipartisan health care reform.

The House and Senate GOP leadership can learn a lot of lessons from this failed experiment  if they are willing to.

THE ROAD AHEAD

There are a set of principles for successful conservative reforms. President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher used them in the 1980s. We followed them in creating the "Contract with America" in 1994, reforming welfare in 1996 and passing the balanced budget in 1997.

As Thatcher said: "First you win the argument, then you win the vote." The best short book on her fight to reform Britain, Claire Berlinski's "There is no Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters," makes clear the moral, human arguments Thatcher used to dismantle socialism in Britain.

The No. 1 goal of any health reform must be to communicate with the American people and convince them this will provide a much better future than the current system. Tom Evans' "The Education of Ronald Reagan" outlines Reagans years at General Electric and the lessons he learned in focusing on educating the public, so they would educate the Congress.

In Reagan's farewell address, he explained his legislative successes this way: "I've had my share of victories in the Congress, but what few people noticed is that I never won anything you didn't win for me. They never saw my troops, they never saw Reagan's regiments, the American people. You won every battle with every call you made and letter you wrote demanding action."

A new health reform effort must start by focusing on the American people and winning their support. It will be President Trump's health rallies in the states which win the day not clever insider negotiating in Washington.

2. The key is to focus on health and health care, not on financing.

When asked about his success, Eisenhower said, Whenever I run into a problem I cant solve, I always make it bigger. I can never solve it by trying to make it smaller, but if I make it big enough, I can begin to see the outlines of a solution.

That principle applies to reforming the health system. To solve health financing, you have to expand the discussion to the entire health system.

For decades, government has tried to focus on financing. Costs continue to rise. Systems get more and more complex. A bigger and bigger percentage of money is spent on bureaucracy (public and private) rather than health. People get lost in the arguments about insurance and programs, because they are highly technical and don't relate directly to their lives.

The first goal must be to describe the values (and the systems which will achieve those values) that matter to people.

People want to live longer and healthier, at lower cost, and with greater convenience. For example, people want solutions other than nursing homes. They want systems other than maintenance for diseases. They want health and independent living. There are many.

Health policies have to be described in both micro and macro terms.

Micro policies are quite simply "what does it mean to me and my family?" People at the personal level want to know about their own health, their access to health care, their premiums, their deductibles and whether they have access to the doctors they want.

Macro policies are how the society, the private sector, nonprofits and government are going to organize and incentivize activities to achieve the micro policies.

3. Health is the largest sector of the American economy and the most complex. Health care is at least 10 times more complicated than national security. It is one-fifth of our economy.

Really understanding and solving health and health care takes more time than politicians and bureaucrats have been willing to invest.

Hearings must be held geographically, by topic, and by specific specialties to gather enough information to develop a series of steps that will improve health and health care.

Listen-Learn-Help-Lead is the key system for involving the entire country and developing a comprehensive understanding of what the American people want and how to achieve it.

Health is broader than payments. The National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Food and Drug Administration, federal community health centers, the Indian Health Service, the Veterans Administration, Tricare, etc. are all part of the fabric of meeting our health potential.

4. As the health reform plan evolves, it has to be described in very detailed question-and-answer systems online, so people can understand how it affects them, health professionals can understand how they will be impacted, the news media can understand it, and the elected officials can explain and defend it.

The plan should meet the goals defined by President Trump during the campaign. They were the goals the American people voted for and, unlike Obama, we should keep our word.

The plan should be implemented in a series of bills. It is impossible to write a comprehensive health care bill. No one can understand the complexity. No one can understand all the second- and third-order effects. The 21st Century Cures bill, as a bipartisan achievement, is a better model than the HillaryCare and ObamaCare comprehensive bills.

5. It should be possible to outline the entire new system in a series of very clear charts, so everyone can understand the goals and the directions before being asked to support the transition process. People both have to understand the long-term values-based goals and the policy changes, which will be bridges to achieve these goals.

6. Properly developed, a dynamic, innovative, science-based American health system will be the largest job creator, the largest sector of high-paying jobs, and the biggest earner of foreign exchange in the country. If we liberate the American health system so it can once again be the most innovative and effective in the world, people all over the planet will buy American health products, seek American health technology, and ask to see American medical specialists. Health is not a problem, it is a great opportunity and should be approached as such.

7. Following a disciplined road map like this is hard work and requires more patience and more discipline than the inside Washington game. As Reagan, Thatcher, and the Contract with America Congress proved, it can also yield dramatically bigger and better results.
The following column originally appeared in The Hill newspaper and on TheHill.com.

Right-wing media to President Obama: We are so very sorry.

Thats the message I got last week from the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page.

The Journal abandoned efforts to make sense of President Trumps outright fiction that Obama wiretapped him. Its editorial page  never a friend to Obama  wrote this last week about Trump:

[He] clings to his assertion like a drunk to an empty gin bottle, rolling out his press spokesman to make more dubious claims.

Wow. The Journal was sharply critical of Obama but never said he had the credibility of a drunkard.

They are not yet saying Thanks, Obama, but their words do stir new appreciation for the good old days under the previous president.

Will right-wing talk radio follow the Journals example?

Imagine the reaction from far-right talk radio  the people who raised hell and their ratings by attacking Obama daily with accusations about fake scandals  if the 44thpresident had lied about his predecessor or if people in his circle had been taking money from Russia.

Imagine the outburst from Rush Limbaugh  the king of conservative talk radio  if the Justice Department told Obama that his National Security Advisor had lied about discussing sanctions with Russian government officials and Obama had waited three weeks to demand that persons resignation.

And what would Hugh Hewitt say on radio if it was later revealed that the advisor took over $65,000 from companies linked to Vladimir Putins Russia, in addition to pocketing more than $500,000 from moonlighting as a lobbyist tied to the Turkish government?

What might my friend, conservative radio host Lars Larson, have said if Obamas former campaign manager had taken $10 million from Russian oligarchs to  in his words  greatly benefit the interests of Putins Russia inside the U.S.?

Of course, the reality is Obamas team never engaged in such damaging acts. It is Trumps team that is under investigation for all of these charges of scandalous behavior.

Radio talk show hosts on the right have great ratings but they are not elected to defend the democratic basis of our government. That job belongs to Congress.

But House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), has become an apologist for Trump. Last week, he rushed over to the White House to say he had seen transcripts of apparently legal intercepts that may have swept up some Trump campaign officials.

Was this evidence that Obama wiretapped Trump as he was running for president? No. Even Nunes admits that. But by briefing the White House before sharing the information with his own committee, Nunes revealed himself as an advocate for the Trump White House.

Nunes, who served on the Trump transition team, compromised any claim to independence and threw away the credibility he needs.

Before Nunes rash action it was left to the top Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), to explain to the nation what the House panel had already found:

Last summer, at the height of a bitterly contested and hugely consequential presidential campaign, [Russia]intervened in an effort to weaken our democracy, and to influence the outcome for one candidate and against the other, Schiff said.

Schiff made more news later in the week when he told Chuck Todd of NBC News, there is more than circumstantial evidence that there was collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign.

Meanwhile, House Republicans continue injuring the partys brand as they busily sweep dirt from the Russia scandal under the White House carpet.

But even the attempted congressional cover-up cant fool the public  not even in concert with the silence from right-wing talk radio hosts. Look at the polling: Trumps approval ratings are at historic lows for any president in the modern age at this point in his presidency.

A Quinnipiac poll last week found his approval rating had fallen to 37 percent while his disapproval rating had risen to 56 percent. According to the same poll, 60 percent of voters say he is not honest, 55 percent say he does not have good leadership skills and 57 percent say he does not care about average Americans.

What could be driving the presidents collapsing poll numbers?

The Quinnipiac results suggest an answer.

A whopping 70 percent of voters do not believe Trumps claim that Obama wiretapped him last year. Just 19 percent believe  in the face of the evidence  that Obama did so.

In perhaps the most damning result in the Quinnipiac survey, 73 percent of voters say Trumps administration makes statements without evidence to support them very often or somewhat often.

Again, it was left to the Wall Street Journal editorial page to admit that the Trump White House is drowning in a vast credibility crisis.

If President Trump announces that North Korea launched a missile that landed within 100 miles of Hawaii, would most Americans believe him? The Journal wrote. Would the rest of the world? Were not sure, which speaks to the damage that Mr. Trump is doing to his Presidency with his seemingly endless stream of exaggerations, evidence-free accusations, implausible denials and other falsehoods.

President Obama, please accept the right wings many apologies.
During the past 20 years, eight British universities -- among them Oxford and Cambridge -- have taken more than $292 million from Saudi Arabia and other Islamic governments. These contributions represent the largest source of external funding to UK universities, according to the director of Brunel Universitys Center for Intelligence and Security Studies.

This phenomenon is also not isolated to the United Kingdom: Harvard alone has received more than $30 million from the Saudi government.

Stop and think about this.

Money used to fund professorships, scholarships and centers of study is coming from regimes with long histories of violating religious freedoms. As well-intentioned as the contributors might be, it is clear these contributions are not arriving without strings attached. A cynic might say that they are buying off professors and universities in order to advance their own agenda, even while forbidding similar activities within their own countries. They are happy to exploit Western freedoms in order to strengthen their own theocracies.

Theyre not just doing it via the academy, either.

Saudi Arabia also plays a significant role in the establishment of mosques -- the centerpieces of Muslim communities -- across the world. According to a hearing conducted before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security in 2003, the vast majority of mosques in the United States were then under Saudi influence. In all, it is estimated that Saudi Arabia has spent more than $100 billion to spread the countrys worldview.

Saudis want and enjoy freedoms around the world, but we must ask ourselves: Where is the equal religious freedom offered by the Saudi government toward people of Buddhist, Hindu or Christian faith, or even atheists, in their own country?

Rather, Saudi Arabia remains one of the most oppressive regimes in the world when it comes to freedom of conscience. A recent USCIRF report on the country says Saudi Arabia continues to prosecute, imprison and flog individuals for dissent, apostasy, blasphemy and sorcery. The Kingdom has been designated as a country of particular concern by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Not long ago, I learned about a group of Indian Christians who were arrested in Saudi Arabia during a raid conducted on a private home worship service. While they were all eventually released, the Saudi authorities notified them that their permits for working and living in the country would not be renewed. Once they expire, the Indian Christians have to leave the country.

On the other hand, right now an extremist religious preacher wanted by the Indian government -- who has received massive funding from the U.K. and Saudi Arabia -- enjoys safe haven in Saudi Arabia.

And while cases like these freely happen in Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom is allowed to funnel billions of dollars to countries to promote their brand of Islam -- that exportation certainly contributed to the 9/11 attack on New York.

This hypocrisy must end. The free exportation of extremist ideologies -- religious or atheistic -- is what drives people to violence and the curtailment of freedoms.

The international community must adopt a reciprocal approach to religious tolerance in response to those nations that abuse our freedoms while forbidding freedom among their own. It is high time that the West, with its evolved understanding of freedom of conscience and liberty, begins to ask for this kind of reciprocity in bilateral relations with nations.

The Religious Freedom International Reciprocity Enhancement Act, introduced last July to the U.S. Congress, is an example of the type of action that nations may take to protect themselves from the inadvertent importing or exporting of ideology promoting bigotry, intolerance and persecution. The act would forbid a national of any country that limits the free exercise of religion from spending money in the United States to promote a religion. Money is also raised in America and the U.K. among diaspora communities to fund religious extremist groups (not just Islamic groups) in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

More countries need to adopt similar and other measures now that three-quarters of the worlds population lives in a country with high or very high restrictions or hostilities on the freedom of conscience.

Religious tolerance and the freedom of conscience and belief are cornerstones of human rights affecting all other rights. We must hold nations accountable for the safeguarding of these freedoms, and those who restrict them ought not to be able to freely promote their ideology -- in any form -- abroad.

America needs to act and not be focused on economic considerations only.

Most Rev. Dr. Joseph DSouza is the Moderating Bishop of the Good Shepherd Church and Associated Ministries of India. He also serves as the President of the All India Christian Council. He is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades for his work as a human rights activist, and especially on behalf of Indias Dalits (sometimes called untouchables). He is also the founder and

International President of the Dalit Freedom Network. He can be reached at: moderator@gsoim.org
In 2015 Kate Steinle was gunned down by an illegal alien in San Francisco - a sanctuary city. The man charged with her murder was a seven-time felon who had been deported five times.

Five times.

There was an immigration hold on the suspect, meaning the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement wanted to come get him and ship him out of the country. But San Francisco authorities set the man free. Just a few months later, Steinle was dead.

Steinle's blood is not only on the hands of her killer, it's also on the hands of San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee.

It's beyond belief that liberal mayors are allowing illegal aliens to run wild in the streets of American cities, terrorizing law-abiding citizens.

So Attorney General Jeff Sessions' vow to punish sanctuary cities is welcome news. On Monday he announced plans to withhold from any city that harbors illegals billions in federal funding.

Click here to join the fight to restore traditional American values  by getting a copy of Todds new book, The Deplorables Guide to Making America Great Again.

"Not only do these policies endanger lives of every American, just last May, the Department of Justice inspector general found that these policies also violate federal law, Sessions said. The president has rightly said disregard for law must end.

I believe the Trump Administration should go a step further. If an illegal commits a felony crime in a sanctuary city - the mayor of that city should also face criminal charges  from harboring fugitives to aiding and abetting.

San Francisco's Lee defiantly declared Monday on Twitter that #SanctuaryCities are safer, more productive, healthier places to live.

Tell that to Kate Steinles family.

The attorney general rightly said that failing to report illegal immigrants who are convicted of criminal offenses put whole communities at risk, especially immigrant communities in the very sanctuary jurisdictions that seek to protect the perpetrators.

Countless Americans would be alive today if sanctuary cities were shut down. Kate Steinle would be alive today.

Click here for a free subscription to Todds newsletter: a must-read for Conservatives!
Federal prosecutors are seeking about three years in prison for two former allies of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who were convicted of illegally closing lanes at the George Washington Bridge in 2013.

Lawyers for the former allies asked the judge for leniency, saying probation and community service would be more appropriate.

Bill Baroni, a former executive at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Bridget Kelly, a former aide to Mr. Christie, are scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Newark, N.J. Prosecutors said Baroni and Kelly were part of a scheme to create traffic jams in Fort Lee, N.J., to punish the boroughs Democratic mayor for not endorsing Mr. Christie, a Republican.

Christie wasnt charged with wrongdoing.

In a filing made public Monday, prosecutors said Baroni and Kelly should be sentenced to at the bottom of or modestly below a range of 37 to 46 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. The two committed a monumental betrayal of the public trust, they said.

 The Defendants criminal abuse of their government power was truly outrageous and warrants a meaningful term of imprisonment for both Baroni and Kelly, prosecutors wrote.

Click for more from WSJ.com
Yuzhny seaport (Odesa region) plans in 2017 to launch a project to develop a terminal for transshipment of imported coal for energy and coking and increase the volume of iron ore transshipment.

According to the press service of the port, with reference to its acting director Vitaliy Zhukovsky, the largest load of the enterprise (93%) is provided by SCM Group's cargo - exported iron ore and imported coking coal, supplied from the Metinvest coal mines located in the United States.

Within the framework of the project it is planned to build a complex of wagon dumpers with defrosting devices for winter operation, new belt conveyors, stackers and ship loaders. It is expected that this year more than UAH 770 million will be invested.

"The development of the company is aimed at supporting the policy of the Ministry of Infrastructure for the participation of top port operators in the work of Ukrainian ports. Therefore, my actions as the head of the state enterprise are focused on attracting the global operator to implementing a joint project to modernize the technology and increase transshipment volumes. I hope this will happen soon, and the project of the terminal will be very interesting for them," Zhukovsky noted.
The top Democrat on the House intelligence committee said Monday that the committee's chairman should recuse himself from any further involvement into the investigation of possible ties between Russian officials and President Donald Trump's campaign.

In a statement, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said he believed "the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the Presidents campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by [Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif.]."

Nunes responded in an interview with Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" late Monday, telling host Bill O'Reilly, "Im sure the Democrats do want me to quit, because they know that Im quite effective at getting to the bottom of things."

Schiff's statement was made hours after Nunes' spokesman revealed that the congressman met on the White House grounds with the source of the claim that communications involving President Donald Trump's associates were caught up in "incidental" surveillance.

"The chairman is extremely concerned by the possible improper unmasking of names of U.S. citizens, and he began looking into this issue even before President Trump tweeted his assertion that Trump Tower had been wiretapped," Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said.

The meeting occurred before Nunes disclosed at a news conference last week that U.S. spy agencies may have inadvertently captured Trump and his associates in routine targeting of foreigners' communications. Trump quickly seized on the statements as at least partial vindication for his assertion that President Barack Obama tapped his phones at Trump Tower  though Nunes, Schiff and FBI Director James Comey have said there is no such evidence.

"Chairman Nunes met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source," Langer said.

Previously, Nunes would not say where he met his secret source. In an interview with Bloomberg View on Monday, Nunes said the source was not a White House staffer and was an intelligence official.

In addition to the White House itself, the grounds of the executive mansion include an adjacent building with offices for National Security Council and other executive branch employees.



"Because of classification rules, the source could not simply put the documents in a backpack and walk them over to the House Intelligence committee space," Langer added. "The White House grounds was the best location to safeguard the proper chain of custody and classification of these documents, so the chairman could view them in a legal way."

It is unclear exactly what documents Nunes reviewed. White House spokesman Sean Spicer would not comment on whether White House officials were involved with Nunes.

"I'm not going to get into who he met with or why he met with them," Spicer said.

The bizarre disclosure about the intelligence reports brought criticism from Democrats, especially those who sit on his committee and are working with him on an investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election campaign. That investigation is also looking into possible ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin.

Nunes has repeatedly said the intelligence reports were not related to Russia, which could suggest that Trump associates were in touch with other foreign targets of U.S. intelligence surveillance in November, December or January.

The House investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential race has been plagued with partisan divisions under Nunes' leadership.

The chairman did not tell Schiff about the meeting at the White House complex. It is highly unusual for a committee chairman and ranking member not to coordinate meetings related to an investigation.

"'I think the chairman has to make a decision whether to act as a surrogate of the White House  as he did during the campaign and the transition  or to lead an independent and credible investigation," Schiff said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."

The disclosure renewed calls for an independent committee to investigate the Russia ties.

Indeed, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called on House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to replace Nunes as chairman of the intelligence committee.

"He has not been operating like someone who is interested in getting to the unvarnished truth. His actions look like those of someone who is interested in protecting the president and his party," Schumer said.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, "Chairman Nunes' discredited behavior has tarnished that office," and said Ryan should insist that Nunes "at least recuse himself" from the Russia probe.

AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Ryan, said Monday the speaker has "full confidence that Chairman Nunes is conducting a thorough, fair and credible investigation."

Nunes and Schiff have asked the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency for the names of officials who were cited in intelligence reports. The committee has said it is getting some of what it requested, but has not received everything.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


President Trumps son-in-law and top White House adviser met with officials from a Russian bank under Western economic sanctions in December, Reuters reported on Monday.

Executives from the Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) met with Jared Kushner during a bank roadshow, the report said. The sanctions were in place over Russias incursion into Ukraine, according to the report.

Senate investigators want to question Kushner about the interaction. He has been asked to talk to the committee investigation Russias alleged interference in the 2016 presidential elections, White House and congressional officials told The Wall Street Journal. The meeting with the head of the bank reportedly occurred at a location other than Trump Tower, an official told The Journal.

'TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT': Tucker to Dem: Show me evidence of Trump-Russia collusion

It is unclear when Kushner, 36, will give his testimony. The two chairmen of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence told The Journal that they expect Kushner to be able to provide answers to key questions that have arisen in our inquiry.

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said Kushner volunteered to testify. Kushner was "doing his job" by reaching out to foreign officials, Spicer said.

Kushner is one of Trump's top advisers who the president has entrusted, in part, with holding talks with foreign leaders.

Spicer says that "based on the media frenzy" surrounding contacts Trump associates have made with Russian officials in particular, Kushner "volunteered" to meet with to be interviewed by the Senate committee about arranging meetings with the Russian ambassador and other officials.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
In the end, President Trump was stymied by the bitter warfare that for years has divided the Republican Party into two camps: the purists vs. the pragmatists.

When the purists wouldnt budge, Paul Ryan couldnt round up enough votes for the White House.

Reince Priebus is among those blaming the House Freedom Caucus. We can't be chasing the perfect all the time, the chief of staff told Chris Wallace on Sunday. Sometimes you have to take good and put it in your pocket and take the win.

Ted Poe, a Texas congressman who quit the Freedom Caucus, told Fox & Friends yesterday that Trump and Ryan made several changes demanded by his group after visiting with caucus members. But no matter what changes were made, the goal post kept getting moved and at the end of the day, no was the answer, Poe said. And sometimes youre going to have to say yes.

Or not.

Theres a long history here. The Republicans, led by Ted Cruz, shut down the government in 2013 rather than fund ObamaCare, but they wound up taking a political hit while the health program emerged unscathed.

The intransigence by his right wing ultimately led John Boehner to resign. The former speaker tried to cut a tax-and-spending grand bargain with Barack Obama but couldnt deliver the votes. Boehner was facing another potential government shutdown in the fall of 2015 when he quit his job. Ryan didnt particularly want the speaker's gavel and had to be drafted.

Its noteworthy that the president hasnt blamed Ryan, but tweeted the following: Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of Club For Growth and Heritage, have saved Planned Parenthood & Ocare!

In fairness, members of the Freedom Caucus were acting on principle, believing that the rushed health bill was an abomination that not only failed to repeal the Obama program but would have made things worse.

Trump campaigned on a much more moderate position on health care. In fact, its helpful to think of him as an independent president, since he ran against the Republican establishment and rejected key conservative platforms on taxes and spending.

So where does the president go from here as he turns to tax reform and infrastructure?

If the Freedom Caucus keeps depriving him of a Republican majority, Trump could try to win over some moderate Democrats, as Ronald Reagan did.

But Politico says Nancy Pelosi is now empowered, and the New York Times says Democrats will not be lending a hand anytime soon.

"Invigorated by the Republican dysfunction that led to a stunningly swift collapse of the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and relieved that President Barack Obamas signature domestic accomplishment remains intact, Democrats are in their best position since their embarrassing loss in the November election.

The Weekly Standard reports there's not much appetite in the White House for dealing with the Freedom Caucus, citing an unnamed White House aide as arguing "there's practically no reason to consider the demands of the Freedom Caucus or its chairman, North Carolina's Mark Meadows, on anything important again.

But, says the piece by Michael Warren, What incentive do Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leadership, who have control over committee assignments and campaign contributions, have in releasing its members to support the Trump administration on almost anything difficult?

Two possible answers: If the Democrats dont cooperate with Trump on a couple of issues, they will take heat for being obstructionist (a label they threw at Mitch McConnell when they ran Congress). Also, they might be able to get half a loaf on their priorities rather than being totally sidelined.

None of this is going to be easy. On tax reform, the Democrats always want higher taxes on the wealthy, which is anathema to the GOP. But if Trump is going to prove himself a pragmatic dealmaker, he may need to put together some shifting coalitions.
Healthcare is on hold in Washington after the first Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare failed to attract necessary support to pass. But thats not stopping Democratic lawmakers in states across the nation who are pushing legislation to protect birth control access, Planned Parenthood funding and abortion coverage before the GOP comes up with another option.

This year alone, 14 states  Alaska, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Washington  are considering 12-month prescription requirements to make it easier and cheaper for women to stay on the pill. Maryland passed a similar plan in 2015, which is set to take effect in 2018.

In Nevada, state lawmakers and health care advocates plan to continue to promote bills that would allow women a similar 12-month access to birth control supplies, and require all health insurers to cover contraceptives at no extra charge, regardless of religious objections.

TRUMP BLAMES DEMOCRATS FOR GOP HEALTH CARE BILL FAILURE, SAYS OBAMACARE IS 'IMPLODING'

Another Nevada proposal looks to provide alternative funding to help organizations like Planned Parenthood, which was at risk of losing federal funding had the Republican bill, American Health Care Act, passed the House of Representatives last Friday.

Nevadans need these protections regardless of whats happening in Congress, Elisa Cafferata, president of Nevada Advocates for Planned Parenthood Affiliates said. Family planning and preventative health care are still very much threatened.

The American Health Care Act, introduced and pushed by House Republican leadership, would have defunded Planned Parenthood, which pro-choice lawmakers blasted as government overreach and pro-life lawmakers dismissed as not going far enough.

The AHCA planned to add more than $420 million to womens community health centers, but prohibited Medicaid money from going to centers that provide abortions.

So Democratic state lawmakers are now trying to thwart any effort to pull funding from these groups  by using state coffers to replace federal funding cuts.

ONE MORE GOOD REASON TO REPEAL OBAMACARE. NOW

In addition to Marylands plan to continue with one-year birth control coverage, the Maryland State Legislature plans to continue work on a bill that maintains family planning services provided by Planned Parenthood if the group ever lost federal funding, and would direct $2 million from Marylands Medicaid budget and $700,000 from the states general fund to family planning.

The bills sponsor, state Delegate Shane Pendergrass, said Maryland would be unwise to assume that congressional Republicans were finished with efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Could this come back in six months? Maybe, she said. Do we want to make sure were prepared if something happens? You bet we do.

Those in favor of defunding Planned Parenthood say it makes more sense to pour money into health centers that provide broader services.

Our goal is making sure women get the kind of care they need and we believe that can best be achieved by putting money into community health centers, which provide similar services as Planned Parenthood but vastly outnumber them, AshLee Strong, spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, told Fox News when the bill was introduced.

When the Congressional Budget Office did its analysis of the American Health Care Act earlier this month, it estimated that thousands of women on Medicaid would lose access to services that help women to avert pregnancies if federal funding for Planned Parenthood was cut.

Despite Planned Parenthoods victory after the AHCA was removed from the table, the national president said their fight is not over.

We know this is the beginning, not the end, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said. We will never stop fighting for the 2.5 million people who count on us each year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones on Tuesday became the first congressional Republican to call for fellow party member Rep. Devin Nunes to step aside from leading the House Intelligence Committees probe into alleged ties between Russia and Donald Trumps successful presidential campaign.

Democrats on Monday began to call for Nunes -- chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence -- to recuse himself from the probe.

That came after he revealed Monday that he went to the White House grounds to review intelligence reports and meet the secret source behind his claim that communications involving associates of Trump were caught up in "incidental" surveillance.

Jones told Fox News that Nunes is now tainted by the events and that he has written House Speaker Paul Ryan to demand a special committee to investigate the Russia probe.

I'm frustrated by the fact that the American people have a right to know the truth, he said. Certain actions by the chairman have hurt the crediblity of the committee."

Jones also said the special committee should be independent and outside Congress, like the 9/11 Commission.

The first to call for Nunes to step aside was California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the Houses Intelligence committee.

"I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the president's campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman," he said.

Nunes, a California Republican, has thus far declined to step aside, asking, Why would I?

This is politics, he said Tuesday, before Jones remarks. I understand that people have to play different sides.

On Monday night, Nunes told Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" that "there was no sneaking around" when he met with the secret source behind his claim that Trump's associates were caught up in "incidental" surveillance.

"We go to the executive branch at least once or twice a week," he told host Bill O'Reilly. "This is not unusual, because there are intelligence products that we dont have access to in the House of Representatives, although we do have the clearances to see them."

Nunes also has the backing of Rep. Paul Ryan, the chambers top Republican.

A spokeswoman for Ryan, R-Wis., said Monday that the speaker has "full confidence in Nunes conducting a thorough, fair and credible investigation."

Nunes reviewed the information last week, then called a news conference to announce that U.S. spy agencies may have inadvertently captured Trump and his associates in routine targeting of foreigners' communications.

Trump quickly seized on the statements as at least partial vindication for his assertion that President Obama tapped his phones at Trump Tower -- though Nunes, Schiff and FBI Director James Comey have said there is no such evidence.

The Senate intelligence committee is also conducting an investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible ties with the Trump campaign. On Monday, it announced that Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has agreed to be interviewed.

The White House confirmed that Kushner, a senior Trump adviser, had volunteered to be interviewed about arranging meetings with the Russian ambassador and other officials.

Kushner is the fourth Trump associate to offer to be interviewed by the congressional committees looking into the murky Russia ties. Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, Trump adviser Carter Page and Trump associate Roger Stone last week volunteered to speak as well.

Besides the two congressional committees, the FBI is also investigating connections between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The House investigation, meanwhile, has been plagued with partisan divisions under Nunes' leadership.

The chairman did not tell the top Democrat on the committee about the meeting at the White House complex. It is highly unusual for a committee chairman and ranking member not to coordinate meetings related to an investigation.

Nunes argued he had to review classified, executive branch documents from a secure facility at the White House because the reports had not been provided to Congress and could not be transported to the secure facilities used by the House intelligence committee.

"Because of classification rules, the source could not simply put the documents in a backpack and walk them over to the House Intelligence committee space," Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said. "The White House grounds was the best location to safeguard the proper chain of custody and classification of these documents, so the chairman could view them in a legal way."

Nunes has declined to name the source of the information, nor will he disclose who invited him on the White House grounds for the meeting.

In addition to the White House itself, the grounds include an adjacent building with offices for National Security Council and other executive branch employees.

Nunes described the source as an intelligence official, not a White House official. In an interview on CNN, he suggested the president's aides were unaware of the meeting.

He said Tuesday that he would "never" reveal his source.

The disclosure renewed calls for an independent committee to investigate the Russia ties.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on Ryan to replace Nunes.

And House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said Ryan should insist that Nunes "at least recuse himself" from the Russia probe.

Fox News Chad Pergram, Jason Donner and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
With complications mounting for Republican efforts to rally 60 votes to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, youre going to hear a lot in the next few weeks about the so-called nuclear option.

Heres what it all means:

Lets start with the mathematics.

There are 52 Republicans in the Senate and 48 senators who caucus with the Democrats.

It only takes a simple majority to confirm a Supreme Court nominee. But it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster on a Supreme Court nominee. Never before has there been a successful filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee.

The Senate filibustered the nomination of Associate Justice Abe Fortas to become chief justice of the United States in 1968. But Fortas was already on the Supreme Court. Nominees have withdrawn. President George W. Bush nominated Harriet Miers in 2005 before she pulled out, anticipating a rocky confirmation process. President Ronald Reagan tapped Douglas Ginsburg for the Court in 1987. But Ginsburg withdrew over his marijuana use. Twelve Supreme Court nominees went down to defeat outright on the Senate floor. The most recent Supreme Court nominee to stumble at confirmation came in 1987 when Reagan selected Robert Bork. Bork only garnered 42 ayes for confirmation and the nomination failed.

Senate Democrats have made it clear that they intend to filibuster Gorsuch and make Senate Republicans cough up 60 yeas to break their filibuster.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., insists that the Senate will fact confirm Gorsuch.

But how do they get there?

Republicans think they can persuade some Democratic senators who represent swing states who face re-election in 2018 to at least vote to break the filibuster (known as voting for cloture) if not voting to confirm Gorsuch. Those senators include Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.; Joe Donnelly, D-Ind.; Angus King, I-Maine; Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.; Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.; Jon Tester, D-Mont.; Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D.; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Bob Casey, D-Pa.; Tim Kaine, D-Va.; Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.; and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.

But if not, Republicans are stuck. They cant get Gorsuch to a final vote.

They say paybacks are hell. And both sides have a lot to say about paybacks right now.

For Democrats, this is about Republicans failing to ever hold a confirmation hearing for President Obamas Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. For Republicans, this is about Democrats taking the extraordinary step in 2013 to lower the bar to from 60 to 51 to break filibusters for all Executive Branch nominees except Supreme Court nominees.

This was known as the nuclear option and cast the Senate into nuclear winter for more than a year.

Both sides feel the other side wronged them. Now, this is about revenge.

Lets go back to the fall of 2013 when Democrats teed up the nuclear option.

Democrats intensified their criticisms of Republicans when the GOP stalled the nomination of Patricia Millett to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The Senate didnt clear a procedural hurdle which required 60 votes to break a GOP filibuster of the Millett nomination.

The filibuster is the quintessence of the Senate. The right of the minority to stall and delay  even upend the agenda the majority party intends to advance. Stripping the Senate of at least part of that opportunity for dissent fundamentally changes the place. But these filibusters stymied general Senate business and drove Democrats up a wall.

So, they hit the nuclear button.

It should be noted that the nuclear option is not a rules change, but a change in precedent. But much of what the Senate does is based on precedent.

The Senate must be in a very unique parliamentary posture in order to detonate a nuclear option. It has to get onto a parliamentary item which is non-debatable. In other words, senators cant demand more time to speak on a given topic, and a senator cannot appeal how the chair rules on a parliamentary question. That is the key. If a senator can challenge how the chair has ruled, they can gum up the works. But if the chair establishes a new precedent by ruling something to be in or out of order, no one can contest that ruling.

And therefore, the Senate establishes a new precedent.

This is how it worked in 2013: That year, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., tried to proceed to consider again a failed vote to end debate on the Millett nomination for the D.C. Circuit. That motion was non-debatable  so the GOP couldnt stop him. So, the Senate voted to make the failed vote the business at hand before the Senate.

At that point, Reid made a point of order that the votes required to break a filibuster on all nominations other than for the Supreme Court of the United State States is by majority vote. The presiding officer (a Democrat) ruled against Reid (this was pre-baked). After all, that was the old precedent. So Reid then appealed the chairs ruling. That forced the Senate to vote on what the chair ruled: a simple majority wasnt valid to end filibusters on Executive Branch nominees. Just a supermajority (60). But on the appeal, the Senate voted against the chair. That affirmed Reids position. The Senate overrode the chairs ruling, establishing a new precedent to break filibusters on all nominations except the Supreme Court.

The Senate then voted to end the filibuster on the Millett nomination with just 55 yeas (not 60, as per the old way). The Senate then confirmed Millett, 56-38.

And thus, the Senate established a new precedent.

For a new nuclear option, McConnell would have to pitch the Senate into a special parliamentary posture in order to mimic Reids 2013 gambit and lower the bar to break a possible filibuster against Gorsuch.

The question is whether he has 51 senators (or 50 senators and Vice President Pence) willing to go along with the tactic. Keep in mind that Republicans were very sad that Reid hit the nuclear switch in 2013. They felt it diminished the Senate and its history of unlimited debate. Republicans and some Democrats didnt like that the Senate was changing the bar for filibusters, because, well, they may like to filibuster a given issue sometime.

It is unclear if McConnell, an institutionalist, wishes to go that route. It is risky. And he may not even have the votes to get Republican senators to vote against the ruling of the chair to establish a new precedent to end filibusters on Supreme Court nominees.

There are also questions as to whether Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., may want to truly go to the mat on this nominee or put vulnerable Democratic senators up for re-election next year in challenging states on the hook. Confirming a conservative to take the place of a conservative like Antonin Scalia on the court may be okay for some Democrats. It doesnt disrupt the balance of the court. But confirming another conservative to take the place of say, a liberal, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is entirely different.

There is another way for Gorsuch to wind up on the Supreme Court if he cant overcome a filibuster: a recess appointment.

Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution says that Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting. In other words, the House and Senate must earn the blessing of the other before taking off for more than three days. If they dont, the House and Senate sometimes meet for just a few seconds at a time at three-day intervals with skeleton staff. These are called pro-forma sessions and constitute a meeting of the House or Senate.

The founders anticipated periodic congressional recesses. So to maintain the operation of government, the founders grafted a clause onto Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution. It states that The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate.

In 2012, President Obama made four recess appointments during a three-day respite between two pro-forma sessions. Opponents of the effort challenged the presidents appointments to the Supreme Court. Justices ruled Obamas ploy to be unconstitutional. In National Labor Relations Board v. Canning, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that it was out of bounds for the Executive Branch to tell the Legislative Branch what constitutes a recess.

The Senate is in session when it says it is, wrote Breyer in the majority opinion.

Moreover, the court also determined that a recess between three and 10 days is too abbreviated for a recess appointment. In other words, the Senate has to be gone for more than 10 days to make the recess appointment valid.

So, the Republican House and Senate would have to work together in order to engineer a recess, thus opening the door to a recess and giving Trump the window he needs for a possible recess appointment.

Recess appointments to the Supreme Court arent unprecedented. President Dwight Eisenhower advanced two individuals to the high court via recess appointments: William Brennan in 1956 and Potter Stewart in 1958. However, all recess appointments are temporary. The Senate later confirmed both Brennan and Stewart.
The specter of another government shutdown is emerging on Capitol Hill, amid concerns that Republican leaders who failed to unite the party last week on an ObamaCare overhaul will likewise struggle to finalize a spending package before the April 28 deadline.

We should not take things for granted, especially after what happened last week, Oklahoma GOP Rep. Tom Cole told Fox News. The last thing we need is a self-inflicted crisis.  There frankly isnt much time.

Voters largely blamed congressional Republicans for the last shutdown, in 2013, when they engaged in a budget standoff with Senate Democrats and President Obama over ObamaCare funding.

Much of the federal government shuttered from Oct. 1-16, during the fight driven by Tea Party sage Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and the conservative Heritage Foundation -- both influential in sinking House Speaker Paul Ryans ObamaCare overhaul bill.

To avoid a repeat this year, Congress is eyeing a short-term measure known as a continuing resolution. This could bundle the roughly 12 spending bills together, despite Ryan, R-Wis., pledging last year to try to end that practice.

Cole, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, which has jurisdiction over the spending bills that fund all federal agencies, voiced concern about that approach and said these bills should have been done late last year.

But this years spending bill standoff is now emerging as a sequel to the clash over an ObamaCare replacement, with Ryan again having to juggle the interests of the chambers moderate Republicans with those of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus.

About 20 of the Freedom Caucus roughly 35 members opposed Ryan and President Trumps ObamaCare overhaul plan, arguing it didnt fully repeal and replace the struggling 2010 health care law. Ryan and Trump got no support from House Democrats to get the requisite 216 House votes to pass their plan, which they scrapped Friday.

In this years budget battle, Ryan will likely need Democratic support, which will be tough to get if Republicans try to use the package to defund Planned Parenthood and seek spending cuts elsewhere. All this comes before debate even begins over the budget plan for next year, which Trump wants to include billions more for the military, and a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

And any compromise on spending cuts will almost certainly spark opposition from the Freedom Caucus.

Republicans have always needed help from the Democrats, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House second-ranking Democrat, said Tuesday. They never came up with  votes on their own.

He and Cole agreed this week on at least one point: that GOP-led House committees should have agreed months ago on spending bills.

They had time to figure it out, Hoyer said. They haven't figured it out.

The House now has 237 Republicans, 193 Democrats and five vacant seats, which means Ryan needs 216 votes to pass legislation.

The Republican-led Senate also is behind on its spending bills, having largely been consumed by confirmation hearings for the Trump administration and now getting the votes to install Judge Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court.

The budget problem is further compounded by Congress taking a roughly two-week recess starting Friday. House and Senate appropriators purportedly will have a bill ready in the final week of April -- which doesn't leave much time before the deadline.

Ryan signaled Tuesday that congressional Republicans would still revisit ObamaCare, suggesting some foes of the last bill have offered to compromise but making clear that the more immediate focus is on tax reform and other big policy issues.

We want to get this right. We are going to keep talking to each other, he said. But Im not going to put a timeline on it.

Fox News' Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
Moving forward with a campaign pledge to unravel former President Obama's sweeping plan to curb global warming, President Trump on Tuesday is set to sign an executive order that will suspend, rescind or flag for review more than a half-dozen measures in an effort to boost domestic energy production in the form of fossil fuels.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt told Fox & Friends that the president will set a new course that is both pro-jobs and pro-environment.

Its going to create jobs in the oil and gas sector, he said. For too long, over the last several years, youve had certain industries, certain sectors of our economy that were within the crosshairs of the EPA.

He added, That is not going to happen anymore.

As part of the new roll-back, Trump will initiate a review of the Clean Power Plan, which restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants.

The regulation, which was the former president's signature effort to curb carbon emissions, has been the subject of long-running legal challenges by Republican-led states and those who profit from burning oil, coal and gas.

Trump, who has called global warming a "hoax" invented by the Chinese, has repeatedly criticized the power-plant rule and others as an attack on American workers and the struggling U.S. coal industry. The contents of the order were outlined to reporters in a sometimes tense briefing with a senior White House official, whom aides insisted speak without attribution, despite Trump's criticism of the use of unnamed sources.

The official at one point appeared to break with mainstream climate science, denying familiarity with widely publicized concerns about the potential adverse economic impacts of climate change, such as rising sea levels and more extreme weather.

In addition to pulling back from the Clean Power Plan, the administration will also lift a 14-month-old moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands.

The Obama administration had imposed a three-year moratorium on new federal coal leases in January 2016, arguing that the $1 billion-a-year program must be modernized to ensure a fair financial return to taxpayers and address climate change.

Trump accused his predecessor of waging a "war on coal" and boasted in a speech to Congress that he has made "a historic effort to massively reduce job-crushing regulations," including some that threaten "the future and livelihoods of our great coal miners."

The order will also chip away at other regulations, including scrapping language on the "social cost" of greenhouse gases. It will initiate a review of efforts to reduce the emission of methane in oil and natural gas production as well as a Bureau of Land Management hydraulic fracturing rule, to determine whether those reflect the president's policy priorities.

It will also rescind Obama-era executive orders and memoranda, including one that addressed climate change and national security and one that sought to prepare the country for the impacts of climate change.

The administration is still in discussion about whether it intends to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change. But the moves to be announced Tuesday will undoubtedly make it more difficult for the U.S. to achieve its goals.

Trump's Environmental Protection Agency chief, Scott Pruitt, alarmed environmental groups and scientists earlier this month when he said he does not believe carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming. The statement is at odds with mainstream scientific consensus and Pruitt's own agency.

The overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed studies and climate scientists agree the planet is warming, mostly due to man-made sources, including carbon dioxide, methane, halocarbons and nitrogen oxide.

The official who briefed reporters said the president does believe in man-made climate change.

Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy accused the Trump administration of wanting "us to travel back to when smokestacks damaged our health and polluted our air, instead of taking every opportunity to support clean jobs of the future."

"This is not just dangerous; it's embarrassing to us and our businesses on a global scale to be dismissing opportunities for new technologies, economic growth, and US leadership," she said in a statement.

Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist at Princeton University, told The New York Times that Trumps order signals that the U.S. will fall short of its pledge to cut emissions of about 26 percent by 2025. He said Trumps order sends a signal to other countries that they might not have to meet their commitmentswhich would mean that the world would fail to stay out of the climate danger zone.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
It turns out you can't keep a bad phone down. With the launch of the highly anticipated Galaxy S8 approaching, Samsung announced plans Monday to offer refurbished Galaxy Note 7s as part of an effort to minimize that discontinued handset's environmental impact.

Specifically, Samsung released a statement that it plans to recycle parts of the Note 7 to be used as refurbished or rental phones in some markets. It plans to remove the parts of the phablet that can be reused while extracting precious metals used in the phone's components  that includes copper, nickel, gold and silver  in what it called an eco-friendly way.

If you've forgotten about the Note 7  and Samsung probably hopes you have  that big-screen phone launched last August to much fanfare. It quickly became apparent that there was a problem with the Note 7, though, as some consumers reported that the phone was catching fire. Samsung recalled the Note 7 in September, issued a new version that claimed to fix the problem and then faced a new spate of reports involving exploding phones .

By October, Samsung had discontinued the product altogether. As for the remaining Note 7s out in the wild, Samsung has issued a series of software updates aimed at disabling them, the most recent of which came out last week.

Samsung subsequently blamed the battery for the explosions, citing specific design and assembly problems that it's vowed to fix in future phones. With the flaws in the Note 7 identified, then, that left Samsung with a tricky problem to solve: what to do with the roughly 3 million Note 7s it's retrieved. The company had been under pressure from environmental groups, with Greenpeace interrupting Samsung's press event at last month's Mobile World Congress with a protest about the Note 7.

Reusing Note 7 parts in refurbished phones seemingly settles that question. Greenpeace said in a blog post that it would "make sure Samsung takes into account the voice of millions of our supporters and abides by its commitment."

Samsung's statement about its plans for phones with reclaimed Note 7 parts was notably vague about when and where those phones would show up. Samsung would only say that refurbished phones would only be available "where applicable," suggesting that it would work with regulatory authorities and carriers in different markets while also considering demand for the phones. "The markets and release dates will be determined accordingly," Samsung said.

In other words, don't expect a new-and-improved Galaxy Note 7 sales push. This sounds like Samsung is trying to salvage some useable parts, while its main focus will continue to be on developing new flagships. That includes the Galaxy S8 , which will be unveiled later this week, as well as a new version of the Note , which Samsung has said will likely arrive later this year.
PJSC Borschahivsky Chemical Pharmaceutical Plant in 2016 doubled net profit in comparison with 2015, to UAH 118.702 million.

According to the company's announcement of a shareholders' meeting scheduled for April 27, posted in the information disclosure system of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission, its assets for the reporting period increased by 14.6%, to UAH 1.413 billion, net worth by 28.69%, to UAH 1.202 billion.

As reported, in 2015 the plant received a net profit of UAH 59.3 million, which is 35% or UAH 15.4 million higher than in 2014.

In 2016, the plant entered the top ten in terms of pharmacy sales and occupied 4.2% of the market.

In March 2015, Kyiv sold its 30% stake in Borschahivsky Chemical Pharmaceutical Plant to Darnytsia pharmaceutical firm (Kyiv) for UAH 171.844 million.

In January 2016, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine authorized Darnytsia to acquire more than 50% of the shares in the plant. However, in April 2016, the committee fined the company UAH 20,400 for the acquisition of a 30% stake in the plant without a relevant permission from the regulator.
The U.K.s Royal Mint has released what it describes as the most secure coin in the world. The bimetallic 1 coin, which entered into circulation Tuesday, boasts a hologram-style image, micro lettering and a hidden security feature designed to beat counterfeiters.

A spokeswoman for the Royal Mint told Fox News that the coins 12-sided shape and the fact that it is made from two metals make it difficult to counterfeit. The latent hologram-style image on the coin changes from a  symbol to the number 1 when the coin is viewed from different angles, she added, via email.

Micro-lettering is another feature of the coin designed to foil counterfeiters  there is very small lettering on the lower inside rim of both sides of the coin.

THE U.K.'S FIRST-EVER 'PLASTIC' 5 BILL HAS REALLY UPSET VEGANS

The coin replaces the existing $1 coin. Approximately one in 30 1 coins in circulation is a counterfeit, according to the Royal Mint.

For as long as coins have been struck, since the 7th century BC, people have attempted to copy them, and the old 1 is no exception, explained Dominic Chorney, a numismatist at London-based coin expert Baldwins. In an attempt to counter this, the new 1 coin has been piled with a number of tricks to make it very difficult to counterfeit.

Mark OByrne, research director at gold broker GoldCore agrees that the new coin will be a valuable weapon in the battle against forgers. The coin's many anti-counterfeiting features are interesting and they sound like they will be quite effective, he explained, via email. High quality forgeries can be made of most coins these days but it will be very expensive for forgers to try and mint such high quality coins that will fool the authorities.

ELON MUSKS NEURALINK WILL CONNECT OUR BRAINS TO COMPUTERS

As for the hidden security feature, the Royal Mint told Fox News that the coin contains a strong electro-magnetic signature, used by the vending industry to authenticate a real coin.

However, specific details on the electronic-magnetic signature have not been revealed. The BBC reports that this may be a material within the coin that can be detected by electronic scanners in coin-counting or payment machines.

This likely involves radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology which uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track objects including coins which have been tagged, added OByrne of GoldCore. The tags contain electronically stored information.

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OByrne noted reports that the coin contains Integrated Secure Identification Systems (iSIS) technology that was previously only available in paper bank notes. It is believed that the iSIS technology can be inserted as a physical security layer within each coin, he wrote. This means that thousands of coins could be scanned and verified for authenticity within seconds.

The U.K. is earning a reputation for innovation in currency technology. Last year the country introduced a new, highly durable plastic 5 bill, its first ever bill made from polymer. The bill, however, upset vegans when the Bank of England confirmed that it contains traces of animal fat in the form of tallow.

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A British woman who sold thousands of dollars worth of fake Disneyland tickets to friends wont be heading to jail for the crime.

According to the Mirror, 28-year-old Ellie Catchesides sold several tickets to Disneyland Paris via her Facebook account. In all, Cathesides sold tickets to four people including a woman she had been friends with for 15 years.

PEOPLE ARE WAITING HOURS FOR THIS 'BEAUTY AND THE BEAST' SOUVENIR

Catchesides, a mother of three, claimed to have purchased the passes to the French tourist attraction but told followers she was unable to make the trek and would instead sell them for a reduced price. Those tickets  which were fake  were sold for 1,500 pounds (about $1,880).

One mother set up a JustGiving group for fraud victims upon discovery of the incident. Her evidence was used in Woolwich Crown Court when the case was heard March 21. Catchesides eventually admitted to four counts of fraud.

At first my friend thought it was just me it happened to but upon looking further into it I have found that I am not alone, said Catchesides' friend and victim Jade Miller.

On one occasion a family turned up on the day ready to travel to Disneyland with children in tow to discover the heart-breaking truth.

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Catchesides first claimed to be a victim of a fraud on her own and stated that she was scared to leave her home but she ultimately admitted to her role in the Disneyland scam.

You sold fake trips to people who no doubt work hard and were hoping they had a chance to go on holiday that might be enjoyable for them and their family, said Judge Andrew Lees during his closing statement.

"But it turned out you were committing a mean and dishonest offense against them and there was some persistence in what you were doing, he said.

Catchesides was sentenced to complete 140 hours of unpaid work for her role in the scam but she will not be going to jail.
The push over the last decade by international maritime ports to fully automate operations has sparked the ire of many U.S. longshoremen whose high-paying jobs and way of life are at stake. The trend also sets up a battle between their unions and companies and governments who see automation as a cleaner, more efficient and more cost-friendly alternative to the current system.

This may be the most difficult and complex challenge weve ever undertaken, Dan Sperling, professor of civil engineering and environmental science at the University of California, Davis and a member of Californias Air Resources Board, told Bloomberg. Were trying to change the entire freight system.

California is on the frontlines in the battle over automation as the ports of Long Beach, Los Angeles and Oakland handle 40 percent of U.S. container traffic and that number is expected to increase with the expansion of the Panama Canal.

Advocates for automation argue that ports run basically by robots can handle the greater volume of goods expected to go through the states ports and do it more efficiently and in a tighter space.

TraPac LLC, which operates a shipping terminal at the Port of Los Angeles, says the companys fully automated terminal in Southern California has not only doubled the speed of loading and unloading ships  saving TraPac money and boosting its profit margin  but it has also cut down on the time trucks have to wait for containers. Adding to this is the electric- and hybrid-powered automated machines cut down on carbon emissions  something that California Gov. Jerry Brown is particularly keen to do.

Brown wants 100,000 zero-emission freight-hauling machines in California by 2030 and with half the states toxic diesel-soot emissions and 45 percent of the nitrogen oxide that plague Los Angeles with the nations worst smog coming from commercial shipment, the Democratic governor has honed in on the ports as the place to start working on his goal.

While this may be music to the ears of environmentalists and shipping industry insiders hoping that the U.S. catches up with the rest of the world (the Port of Rotterdam automated in 1993), it has hit a sour note with the regions longshoremen, many of whom earn six-figure incomes under the current system.

Those robots represent hundreds of (lost) jobs, Bobby Olvera Jr., president of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 13, told the Press-Telegram. It means hundreds of people that arent shopping. They arent paying taxes and they arent buying homes.

This sentiment  which is echoed across the country on factory floors and warehouses  is not without precedent.

When container shipping was first introduced in the U.S. around the middle of the last century, more than 90 percent of workers at urban docks lost their jobs within 15 years of containerization's arrival  a trend that greatly contributed to the decline of the urban middle class in port cities across the globe.

In a more recent example, at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach the International Longshore and Warehouse Union formally accepted the use of self-driving and automated technologies in 2008. Since then, while none of the unions 14,000 workers have lost their jobs, 10,000 contingent workers have been called up to work much less often, Jim McKenna, president of the Pacific Maritime Association, said.

The push for full automation has been much stronger on the West Coast than at ports in the East and Gulf Coasts, where operators and unions have come to a tacit agreement on partial automation. While ports in Virginia and New Jersey were the first to try out full automation, major stops like Miami and New York seem less likely to do so anytime soon given the pushback from unions and the fact that large ships rarely unload all of their cargo on a single stop like they do out west.

Those robots represent hundreds of (lost) jobs... It means hundreds of people that arent shopping. They arent paying taxes and they arent buying homes.  Bobby Olvera Jr., president of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 13

We have no problem with semi-automated terminals, Jim McNamara, a spokesperson for the International Longshoremens Association, told Fox News. New technology is fine if it keeps our workers safe, but full automation means that our jobs are gone.

McNamara added: Not only do our jobs help the economy and keep more people working, but it would also take years and a lot of money to rebuild a port to be fully automated.

The high cost, however, is something that terminal owners seem willing to handle if it means bigger profits and to keep pace with global competitors.

The Port of Los Angeles and TraPac have already invested $693 million in four dozen self-driving cranes and automated carriers, plus related infrastructure. Middle Harbor, the port of Long Beachs automated terminal, should be up and running in about two years at a cost of $1.3 billion.

Experts say that these developments mean that the writing is on the wall for longshoremen and that the automation tide is upon U.S. ports whether they are ready or not.

The maritime industry has perhaps been slower than most to embrace container terminal automation, Howard Wren, director of Logistics at Australias Jade Software Corp., wrote in article for Port Technology. However, confidence in automation technology is now at its highest level ever and the development of automated terminals is quickly approaching the point where the rush is about to begin.
Authorities in Oregon are trying to learn who killed a bald eagle found dead Monday with its talons removed, OregonLive.com reported.

There were no signs of other injuries to the bird. The bird, which is protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, was reportedly discarded at the mouth of the Winchuch River on the southern Oregon coast.

The penalty could be jail time and a fine of $100,000 or more. It is illegal to take a bald eagles talons without a permit.

Authorities asked the public to call 541-531-5896 with any information.
The father of an 18-year-old Rockville High School student charged with the rape of a fellow classmate has been arrested for being in the country illegally, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

ICE spokesperson Sarah Rodriguez said 43-year-old Adolfo Sanchez-Reyes was arrested last Friday after a review of his immigration history revealed he was unlawfully present in the United States from Guatemala.

AG SESSIONS: I WOULD 'PLEAD' WITH MARYLAND NOT TO BECOME SANCTUARY STATE

Sanchez-Reyes has been issued a notice to appear in immigration court and is currently being detained at the Howard County Detention Center in Jessup.

Sanchez-Reyes is the father of 18-year-old Henry Sanchez-Milian, one of two teenage students charged with first-degree rape and first-degree sexual offenses of a 14-year-old girl inside a bathroom at the Montgomery County high school.

Authorities have said Sanchez-Milian is also in the country illegally after he was stopped and detained by a U.S. border patrol agent in Texas last August.

MARYLAND GOVERNOR VOWS TO FIGHT 'SANCTUARY' MOVEMENT AMID RAPE CASE

He was stopped at the border and detained by ICE, said Andrew Jezic, the 18-year-olds attorney. He was detained for 12 days, but then ICE made the discretionary decision to simply let him go. They put him on a plane in Texas and his father had to pay for the ticket. His father picked him up at BWI Airport and he's been in this country with the full awareness of ICE.

Jezic said his client is innocent and the encounter with the 14-year-old girl was pre-planned and consensual.
Every day, an estimated 8,000 girls worldwide are cut and marred in a debilitating process known as female genital mutilation, or FGM.

But survivors and experts stress that this is not a faraway human rights violation. A portion of it is happening right here in the United States of America.

Not a day goes by where I am not contacted by a girl who has been cut in this country, or forced to visit another country to have it done, Jaha Dukureh, an infant FGM survivor, activist and founder of the support and educational foundation Safe Hands for Girls, told Fox News. Sometimes, it is doctors performing it under the guise of plastic or vaginoplasty procedures, or in quiet and underground settings.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than half a million girls in the United States have endured, or remain at risk, of suffering FGM  a threefold uptick from their 1990 projection. FGM is considered a cultural practice that ensures a girls purity and eligibility for marriage, and typically involves the partial or complete extraction of the external female genitalia.

BRITAIN'S FAILURE TO TACKLE FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION A 'NATIONAL DISGRACE': LAWMAKERS

There are many who are secretly doing it here in the USA, noted Wahid Boctor, an Egyptian-American and former Director of Arab-American Television. It is done very secretly and mostly women who do to their kids or grand kids.

Beyond the brutality of the ritual procedure itself and the chance of death, FGM has a string of long-term consequences  from the physical to the psychological. Complications include sexual dysfunction, incontinence and increased risk of HIV transmission.

HONOR KILLING IN AMERICA: DOJ REPORT SAYS GROWING PROBLEM IS HIDDEN IN STAT

A bipartisan effort has sought to criminalize the practice. The 2013 Transport for Female Genital Mutilation Act made it illegal to transport U.S girls abroad for FGM  sometimes referred to as vacation cutting. Since 1996, it has been a federal crime.

However, only 24 states have laws in place that designate FGM unlawful, while 26 do not. Activists assert that such legal loopholes need to close, and at least some states are trying to follow suit.

Last month, Virginias General Assembly unanimously passed legislation to criminalize the act as a Class 1 misdemeanor, which holds a maximum jail term of one year. Critics say that while thats a step in the right direction, the punishment is significantly lower than the five-year sentence initially proposed by Republican State Sen. Richard Black.

States need to make this illegal because the federal courts dont have the time to prosecute these all over the country, Blacks aide Michelle Stanton said. States need to educate people and the federal law needs to add the civil liability  to give the girl standing to sue if mutilated  and that will make a big impact.

Massachusetts has a bill in-motion seeking to prohibit FGM in the state as a form of gender-based violence  including jail time and financial penalties for practitioners and families that perpetuate this abuse.

Law enforcement agencies have pledged in recent times to make the issue a higher priority. Last month, the FBI recognized the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation and reiterated that individuals suspected of perpetuating or facilitating the crime will be investigated and prosecuted accordingly. Special Agent Kerry Sparks, who focuses on FGM cases as part of the bureaus International Human Rights Unit (IHRU), stated that the practice continues at the hand of both medical practitioners and female elders within the communities.

The FBI is dedicated to investigating this horrendous crime and works with U.S government and foreign law enforcement partners to gather intelligence and investigate any allegations of criminal activity, said FBI spokesperson Samantha Shero.

Just two weeks ago, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported an Ethiopian man in Georgia to his home country  after he served 10 years behind bars  for the 2006 genital mutilation of his then 2-year-old daughter.

But, as Dukureh stressed, while laws are important  they are not the solution to ending the practice.

Until we look at this from a holistic perspective, it will only be driven further underground. We need more educational programs, more awareness and we cant forget about the girls who have already had to endure this and so we need more doctors helping, she said.

Activists also underscore the importance of educating refugees and immigrants on arrival  especially from countries in the Middle East and Africa where it is widely practiced  of its strict illegality in the U.S., something which the State Department itself does not do.

According to Stanton, as long as the U.S. allows immigration from countries where it is widely practiced  from Egypt and Somalia to Iran, Iraq and Yemen  the problem will continue to spread.

Immigrants are not educated that this is a human rights abuse with no health benefits and lifelong consequences, said Amanda Parker, senior director at the womens activist organization the AHA Foundation, founded by FGM survivor Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Raising awareness with immigrants should be a priority for the administration to ensure that women and girls know their rights and their families and communities would know that this is a harmful practice that will not be tolerated.
A former hedge fund executive jumped to his death from the luxury Sofitel New York Hotel on Monday afternoon, authorities said.

Charles Murphy, 56, whose hedge fund reportedly invested billions of dollars in clients money with Bernie Madoff, leaped from the 24th floor of the 45 W. 44th St. building around 4:42 p.m. and landed on a fourth-floor terrace, according to police sources.

The New York Times reported in 2009 that Murphys hedge fund, Fairfield Greenwich Group, invested more than $7 billion with Bernard Madoff, and lost much of their clients money in his infamous Ponzi scheme.

Murphy owned a multi-million limestone town house in the heart of Lenox Hill.

A person who answered the door Monday night said the family was grieving.

Emergency crews had a hard time getting to his body on the terrace but eventually did, authorities said.

The incident was reported at 4:42 p.m. at 45 W. 44th St., when witnesses said the man leaped from the tower of the hotel, then landed on a roof that is in-set from the street, about four stories up.

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Three Iraqis living in the U.S. as refugees have been charged with visa fraud after prosecutors say they hid their family ties to a kidnapper.

Thirty-five-year-old Yousif Al Mashhandani of Vienna, Virginia, and 38-year-old Adil Hasan of Burke, Virginia, were arrested Tuesday morning. A summons was issued for Hasan's wife, 32-year-old Enas Ibrahim.

All three came to the U.S. and settled in the Washington suburbs after applying for refugee status.

But prosecutors say the two men are brothers of Majid Al Mashhandani. According to court papers, he has admitted his role in the 2004 kidnapping of U.S. contractor Roy Hallums, who spent nearly a year in captivity before he was freed in an army raid.

Prosecutors say the brothers failed to disclose their relationship to Majid as required by law.
A couple from Phoenix purchased a $10,000 sniper rifle from a licensed gun store on behalf of a Mexican drug cartel, police say.

According to the police report obtained by abc15.com, Jonathan Ibarra Alarcon, 31, had his wife, 22-year-old Erica Jean Ibarra-Alarcon, purchase a Barrett 82A1 that was meant to end in criminal hands south of the border.

The 50-caliber rifle is currently used by the U.S. and other military forces, the news outlet reported.

The woman allegedly gave a false address and lied on an ATF form stating the gun was for her, police say.

REPORT: MOST GUNS USED IN NY CRIMES BOUGHT IN OTHER STATES

The Alarcons were charged with forgery and weapons misconduct charges for the March 20 purchase.

Upon arrest, Jonathan Ibarra-Alarcon reportedly told police he was approached about a week before the straw sale and admitted the rifles destination was the Sinaloa cartel.

He also said he was given $13,000 to buy the gun and was allowed to keep the remainder of the money as payment for the service provided.

NYC COPS THWART GUN RING THAT EXPLOITED LOOSER VIRGINIA LAWS

The arrests take place just week after another Phoenix man was charged for buying a high-powered rifle and giving it to criminal gang in Mexico shortly after.

In that case, police said Armando Oliveros bought a .50 caliber Barrett rifle from a local gunshot and hours later allegedly crossed the border with the weapon, which was eventually recovered and traced back to Oliveros.
The PATH, the international organization driving transformative innovation to save lives, plans to supply innovative medicine Bedaquilinum to treat multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) to Ukraine on the basis of the Yanovsky Phthisiology and Pulmonology Institute, Head of the representative office of PATH in Ukraine Kateryna Hamazina has said.

"Bedaquilinum will come to Ukraine as donation of USAID [under the Challenge TB Project] free of charge, while the price of the medicine is high. The project is bringing the medicine to Ukraine and will support its application. We plan that it will be shipped at the end of April. The process is close to the final stage," she said.

Director General of the Public Health Center at the Health Ministry Natalia Nizova said that at present the medicine is not registered in the country, but there is a possibility of registering it quickly.

Nizova also said that the Health Ministry is holding talks with manufacturers on placing Ukraine to the list of countries which have preferences in purchase of the medicine.

"We believe that during the next national anti-TB program  from 2017 to 2020  we have a real chance to treat all patients," she said.

Currently the medicine is used in more than 70 countries. A total of 5,700 patients are included in the program to treat TB using Bedaquilinum.
An Oklahoma deputy is being hailed as a hero after saving the life of a driver from a burning car. His actions were all caught on camera.

BRAVE COPS RESCUE DRIVER TRAPPED IN BURNING CAR

According to authorities, deputies from the Washington County Sheriffs office were called to an injury accident. Right after this, dispatchers told responding deputies that the car was on fire and that the driver was trapped.

DRAMATIC RESCUE FROM BURNING CAR CAPTURED ON BODY-CAM VIDEO

Deputy Carey Duniphin was reportedly the first deputy to arrive on the scene and rushed to the burning car. The deputy noticed the driver's leg was injured, meaning he would not be able to walk away from the crash site.

He then helped the driver, by dragging him by the shirt away from the flames. The man was then airlifted to a Tulsa hospital.

Click for more from Fox 26.
Having too many white students will cost a California middle school funding and imperil the jobs of some teachers and others.

Last week the Los Angeles Unified School District informed parents of students at the Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood that because the white population had exceeded 30 percent, it had to make cuts.

GEORGE LUCAS GIVES ANOTHER $10M TO USC FOR STUDENT DIVERSITY

Under provisions of a district policy, the school had qualified for additional funding, which enable the hiring of more teachers and having smaller classes, because it had a student body that was 70 percent or higher of Hispanics, blacks, Asians and non-Anglos. However, in the last two years that percentage has fallen beneath the 70 percent level, meaning Walter Reed no longer qualified for those extra funds.

The announcement infuriated parents, who fear that class sizes will increase as the number of teachers and other school personnel decreases.

NOTRE DAME HOSTS CHARLES MURRAY, BRACES FOR PROTESTS

The parental outcry prompted the district to modify its planned funding cut.

A school qualifies for PHBAO status if 70 percent or more of its students who live within the schools attendance boundary are identified as Hispanic, Black, Asian, or non-Anglo, the letter from Local District Northeast Superintendent Linda Del Cueto stated.

Under a court-ordered integration program that has been in place since 1978, PHBAO schools qualify for smaller class sizes and additional positions. When a school no longer qualifies for PHBAO status, fewer positions are funded.

And so, the district still is going to pursue some cuts, Del Cueto said, just not as many as it would have under the original plan. The superintendent noted that the nurse, librarian and counselor will not be cut.

Critics said it was racist and did more harm than good.

"When your class sizes are getting larger and you're taking resources away from students, I mean as parents, you do want your kid to go out to college," one parent, Rosemary Estrada, was quoted as saying to the local ABC News affiliate.

Another parent, Sheila Edmiston, said: "Thankfully we're going to keep our librarian. We're going to keep our nurse, but we may lose a few teachers, but not as many as we once thought.

People who posted comments online were pointed about their thoughts about the racial quota system for funding.
A Minnesota man is charged with assault after police say he stabbed and bit another man multiple times in Minneapolis, telling police he hates Muslims.

According to criminal charges, 47-year-old Kelvin Porter told police he tried to kill a Muslim by stabbing him in the neck.

Police say Porter, the victim and another man were on a Minneapolis sidewalk Wednesday when Porter began acting aggressively. Police say the victim raised his fists and Porter stabbed him several times and bit him in the face.

The Star Tribune reports (http://strib.mn/2o2mxQQ) the victim was treated at the scene.

Porter's attorney, Gregory Renden, says more information will come out during the court process.

The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling for hate charges.

___

Information from: Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com
A jury has found a Dallas salon worker guilty of murder in the death of woman who was injected in the buttocks with industrial-grade silicone as part of an illegal cosmetic procedure.

Forty-five-year-old Denise "Wee Wee" Ross was found guilty Tuesday after the jury deliberated over the course of two days. She also was found guilty of practicing medicine without a license.

The trial now moves to the punishment phase and Ross faces up to life in prison.

Prosecutors say Ross injected the silicone into the buttocks of Wykesha Reid to give her what the salon called the "Wee Wee Booty." Reid, 34, was found dead at the salon in 2015.

The Dallas Morning News reports that silicone from the injection traveled through Reid's heart and into her lungs.
Four years ago, Melissa Dohme got a phone call that turned her life upside down  for the worst and eventually the better.

The nursing student, then 20 years old, got a call from her ex-boyfriend about meeting one last time in Clearwater, Fla., to get some closure.

The meeting took a gruesome turn when he pulled out a switchblade and stabbed her 32 times.

I felt the first three and not the rest, she told Fox News on Tuesday. The injuries were so severe.

VETERAN WHO HELPS HOMELESS VETS AIMS TO MAKE IT A NATIONWIDE MOVEMENT

Ten months later, at a luncheon in her honor, Dohme met Cameron Hill, an emergency worker who carried her from an ambulance to a helicopter for treatment.

The two tied the knot in an outdoor wedding earlier this month.

Cameron helped to learn to trust again, to feel safe  to put my heart out there again, Dohme said. He showed me what real love is.

After the horrific attack, Dohme flat-lined four times, lost so much blood that she went into a coma, had a stroke and had facial paralysis.

OFF-DUTY POLICE OFFICER RISKED LIFE TO HELP OTHERS AFTER TANKER EXPLOSION

Throughout her recovery, the now-25-year-old closed herself off to the possibility of love and told herself that she would be single for the rest of her life. She was OK with that.

However, when she met Hill, 42, it all started changing.

I would think I cant believe how much I like him, Dohme recalled. This was almost a year later  my whole life had transformed. Hes my best friend. Im a normal person (again).

She added: I definitely wouldnt be where I am without him. He cheers me on every day.

Through her recovery, Dohme underwent more than 10 surgeries including two facial nerve reconstructions that helped her smile again. She had to wear an eyelid weight because she couldnt close her eye.

The two got engaged in 2015 at a Tampa Bay Devil Rays game after she threw out the first pitch. They waited until Dohme was recovered from her nerve surgeries to walk down the aisle.

'SOUTHERN GENTLEMAN' LESSONS TEACH MISSOURI KIDS OLD-SCHOOL ADVICE

I wanted to be able to smile on my wedding day, she said.

It was all worth it.

A smiling Dohme, surrounded by 200 friends, family, EMTs and doctors who helped save her life, said I Do.

The wedding day was the most beautiful day of my life, she said. So many good people helped me get me get here The trauma surgeon was there and I want him to realize that he made this possible.

Dohme said she got her dream wedding thanks to Brooke Palmer, a local wedding planner who was inspired by their story and donated her services. Other Tampa businesses donated their services for the wedding after hearing Dohmes story.

It was so incredible, she added. I cant think of enough adjectives to explain it.

Now, more than four years after the attack, Dohme is an advocate for domestic violence prevention at Hands Across the Bay.

I know that God saved me for a reason because I shouldnt have survived, she said. Its my duty as a survivor to speak out. This is my life purpose.

A judge in 2013 sentenced Dohme's ex, Robert Burton, to life in prison for attempted murder.
Police are looking for a Virginia woman accusing of stealing $40,000 worth of iPhones from Target while dressed as a Target employee.

BABY SITTER PLEADS GUILTY IN COLORADO BANK ROBBERY

The fake Target worker went into the store in Alexandria on March 15 and gained access to the stock room, Fox 5 reported. She then allegedly loaded dozens of iPhones in a box and waltzed out of the store.

Surveillance photos showed the suspect walking with a shopping cart, as well as the suspects car.

ARMED ROBBERY SUSPECT FORGETS TO PUT ON HIS MASK

The suspect is not affiliated with the store, Fairfax County police said in a news release. But [she] appeared to have knowledge of the stores procedures, employee hours and the location of the iPhones in the stockroom.

Anyone with information about the suspect was asked to contact police.
Two leading House and Senate committees are examining the FBIs handling of its investigation into Russias possible links to Trump campaign associates and the countrys alleged interference with the 2016 presidential election.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, headed by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is investigating whether the FBI wrongly included political opposition research from Trumps opponents in its probe, and then paid the author of that controversial report, a former British spy, to work for the FBI on its investigation. The committees probe began March 6 with the letter Grassley sent the FBI and was furthered Monday with requests for information from the company that did the opposition research.

When political opposition research becomes the basis for law enforcement or intelligence efforts, it raises substantial questions about the independence of law enforcement and intelligence from politics, Grassley said Monday.

The House Intelligence Committee, headed by Rep. Devin Nunes, R- Calif., is looking into how classified documents containing foreign surveillance transcripts with references to Trumps transition team were illegally disclosed to the media. The committees probe began Jan. 25.

The leaks could have come from the FBI, a source close to the investigation notes, because that agency requested multiple Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants that helped capture some of the foreign surveillance. In addition, sources say, the FBI is not cooperating with the House investigation, unlike the National Security Agency, which has been transparent with the committee. In addition, multiple sources suggest that British intelligence also passed along information to U.S. intelligence agencies.

Meanwhile, the FBI will take full control over the law enforcement investigation into Russias interference in the election, Trumps possible ties to Russia, as well as the leaks, Fox News has learned.

In Grassleys probe, he is calling into question the FBIs use of a controversial and unsubstantiated dossier compiled by a political opposition research company against then-presidential candidate Trump.

Fusion GPS, a Washington, D.C.-based research and strategic intelligence company, was paid during the campaign by backers of Trumps Republican and Democrat opponents to perform opposition research, Grassley said. And that company hired former British spy Christopher Steele to write the dossier that was distributed widely to political opponents, the media and the FBI.

The unverified reported was published by the online publication BuzzFeed and included embarrassing allegations that Russian intelligence supposedly could use against Trump.

Most concerning, Grassley said, is that Fusion GPS and Steele reportedly shared the dossier with the FBI, which then offered to pay Steele to continue his political opposition research on Trump.

Grassley wants to determine the extent to which the FBI has relied on the political dossier in its investigation. The senator also has requested documentation from Fusion GPS as to who hired and paid them, when Steele was hired, how the FBI got involved and whether Fusion GPS was aware of the FBI paying Steele.

Meanwhile, House Intelligence Chairman Nunes said last Wednesday that a source in the intelligence community presented him with dozens of reports that were produced from incidentally collected communications between members of the Trump transition team and foreign targets. Nunes met with his intelligence source at a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) in the old executive office building on the White House grounds where they could access the computers without being noticed. They couldnt go to the sources agency and use the secured computer network, a source told Fox News, because it would out the source.

Nunes said Trump staff members identities reportedly were unmasked within intelligence agencies through foreign surveillance unrelated to Trump or Russia, and the names were illegally disseminated among intelligence agencies and to the media in what many believe was an effort to embarrass Trump and undermine his presidency.

At least one of those unmasked was former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who had information about his communication with the Russian ambassador leaked to press, resulting in a public scandal and his resignation.

Nunes committee, like the FBI, has been looking into what actions Russia took against the U.S. during the 2016 election, whether anyone from a political campaign conspired in the activities; whether the communications of officials or associates of any campaign were subject to any kind of improper surveillance; and which intelligence officials leaked classified information that exposed foreign surveillance, conversations between President Trump and other world leaders.

While Nunes refutes Trumps claims that Obama had him wiretapped during the campaign, Nunes said . it's still possible that other surveillance activities were used against President's Trump and his associates.

An FBI spokesperson said the agency does not have a comment on Grassleys letter or any additional comments on the House probe.
A little kitten needed the help of firefighters over the weekend when it got stuck in the wall of a Florida home.

Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue showed up to the house Sunday after homeowner reported hearing meowing inside the wall.

It was a stray that either the mother cat carried into the attic to keep it safe or gave birth up there and this one just wandered, deputy fire chief Timothy Heiser told ABC News. We get a lot of these. The shelters are all overloaded so a lot of our guys adopt them. Cats and dogs."

Firefighters were able to use thermal imaging to find where the kitten was hiding, and eventually had to tear a hole in the wall to safely remove the tiny feline.

Theyve got all the tools they need for cutting stuff up, Heiser told ABC. The owner was more than happy to let us cut a hole in the wall. They found the little guy in there. They didnt know how long he was in there for.

The kitten was later taken to a local no-kill animal shelter for adoption, according to ABC.
Two Florida school resource deputies were out of their jobs after a sheriff said they tried covering up an incident when one of them accidentally shot a high school worker with a Taser.

Master Deputy Raymond Mattiucci deployed his Taser on January 31 when Leesburg High School security monitor Jerome Scott asked him how far it could shoot, the Lake County Sheriffs Office reported. Jones fell unconscious and broke his wrist, the Orlando Sentinel added.

FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA OFFICER WANTS HIS TASER EXAMINED

An internal investigation by the sheriffs office found that Deputy Darrell Blanton then plotted with Mattiucci to cover it up. Mattiucci resigned and Blanton was fired, according to the paper.

Another school employee, Pamela Nash, was alone with Mattiucci and Scott in her classroom when she heard the pop of the Taser and saw Scott falling face first to the floor, according to the sheriffs report.



DRAMATIC FOOTAGE OF INTENSE STANDOFF RELEASED BY POLICE

Mattiucci then called Blanton over his radio. According to Nash, another 15 minutes passed before Scott could speak again.

Mattiucci claimed Scott and Nash initially told him, We got your back. However, Nash eventually reported the incident to the school principal during the first week of February, according to the Sentinel. The principal reported the incident to the sheriffs office.

I cant tell you how many times [Scott and Nash] flat out said we got your back, Mattiucci told investigators. I made a grievous error believing them.

These deputies failed to immediately report a serious incident to their supervisor and then compounded the issue by being less than truthful, Lake Sheriff Peyton Grinnell responded.

Click for more from The Orlando Sentinel.
The illegal immigrant who was arrested in February after seeking a protective order from her boyfriend pled guilty to illegal reentry Friday, according to an agreement with United States attorney Richard Durbin.

In this case, removal from the United States is presumptively mandatory, reads the agreement, a copy of which was obtained by KFOX.

SANCTUARY CITY MAYORS FIRE BACK AT TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'S THREAT TO CUT FED FUNDING

A new hearing will be held on April 13th.

Interest in Irvin Gonzalez's case hit the national level nearly overnight when she was arrested on Feb. 9 while walking into a courthouse to get a protective order.

ICE AGENTS DETAIN OREGON 'DREAMER,' LAWYER SAYS

It prompted local and federal lawmakers to ask the question: Even if she is an illegal immigrant, is it appropriate to arrest someone when theyre walking out of a courthouse to get a protective order from an abusive boyfriend?

Lawmakers were also concerned about the fact that the affidavit didnt appear to match what happened. The original affidavit said she was arrested outside the courthouse. But security footage emerged which appeared to show a federal agent confront her inside and escort her out.

An amended affidavit was filed on Feb. 28 stating that she was confronted and escorted in the building but arrested outside.

Gonzalez has a criminal history in the United States. She has been deported six times and spent over a year in jail for crimes including domestic battery, illegal entry, and possession of stolen mail. The criminal history may have been extended had it not been for her illegal entry arrest, authorities say.

On Jan. 13, during a police interrogation, she admitted to a money order washing scheme. Gonzalez told police she and her boyfriend stole money orders from mailboxes, washed the names off with transmission fluid, added her boyfriends name and deposited the money into his bank account.

Click for more from KFOX.
The National Commission for Energy, Housing and Utilities Services Regulation (NCER) has introduced the entry-exit tariff system for the gas transport system (GTS) from April.

The regulator made the decision in Kyiv on Tuesday.

The new tariffs are calculated using the methods approved by the commission in December 2015. The methods take into account the depreciation of the GTS until 2019 (until the contract between Naftogaz Ukrainy and Gazprom expires). When the contract expires, the tariff would considerably decline.

Representatives of gas producers and metal companies of Ukraine criticized the proposed tariffs at the commission meeting, naming them the highest in Europe.
A judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing a federal information-sharing program of flagging innocent people as potential terrorists.

U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco said Monday that the standard used by the program to identify possible terror activity was legally adopted and not arbitrary.

The program  the National Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative  has state and local law enforcement flag behavior they think reasonably indicates terrorism-related planning or other criminal activity and report it to the FBI or federally funded law enforcement centers for vetting.

The American Civil Liberties Union had sued on behalf of five California men, arguing that the "reasonably indicative" standard was too broad and led to innocent people being identified.

The ACLU of Northern California said it was examining options for an appeal.
Police arrested a suspect in connection with the vandalism at a mosque near Colorado State University, a case they are investigating as a hate crime.

Joseph Scott Giaquinto, 35, was arrested on suspicion of several charges, including a crime motivated by bias, The Coloradoan reports.

Police had asked for the public's help in identifying the person who overturned benches, broke windows and threw a Bible into Islamic Center of Fort Collins, which is about 60 miles north of Denver.

POLICE INVESTIGATE VANDALISM AT COLORADO MOSQUE

A police spokeswoman told the newspaper that she did not have details on how police came to identify Giaquinto as the suspect.

Police released two clips of surveillance video that captured the vandalism at the Islamic Center of Fort Collins before dawn Sunday. In one, a man wearing a hoodie, believed to be in his late teens or early 20s, is shown picking up a paving stone and walking away. In another clip, he kicks a door.

The center's president, Tawfik Aboellail, said the man tried to break into the mosque about 4 a.m. Sunday, but he did not get inside.

The vandalism prompted the center to cancel religious classes for children that morning, but it has also led to an outpouring of support. The Coloradoan reports that congregants from Plymouth Congregational Church visited after their morning service, and later about 1,000 people gathered at the mosque for a rally of support organized by a rabbi Sunday evening.

Many have also been making donations online to pay for repairs and improved security.

ON MUSLIMS' AGENDA: FIGHT US PROPOSALS TO BAN SHARIA LAW

The Council on American-Islamic Relations had urged police to investigate the case as a possible hate crime.

Police Chief John Hutto, who attended the support rally, said the incident has a "very real impact on our Muslim friends and neighbors."

"The criminal act against their sacred space is unacceptable," he said in a statement.

Giaquinto was booked into the Larimer County Jail on Monday evening, where he remains in custody. Bond has not been set.

The vandalism comes about a month after someone threw a rock through a window at a mosque in the Denver area. The incident at the Colorado Muslim Society was also captured on surveillance video, but no one has been arrested. Investigators in the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office have exhausted their leads, spokeswoman Julie Brooks said Monday.
Defense attorneys for one of the illegal immigrants accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in a high school bathroom in Rockville, Md., have claimed that the accuser agreed to have sex with the defendant and texted him "explicitly compromising" images of herself.

FATHER OF MARYLAND HIGH SCHOOL RAPE SUSPECT ARRESTED BY ICE

In a motion for bond review filed Monday, attorney David Wooten said the girl engaged in a text conversation with 17-year-old Jose Montano the day before the alleged assault. During that conversation, Wooten claimed the girl "acknowledged that she had already engaged in sexual activity with [Montano] previously, and asked if he liked what she had done."

The filing went on to say that the girl agreed to have sex with Montano the following day during gym class. Wooten argued that the new evidence showed that Montano "appears to be actually innocent, and should be released forthwith."

Fox News has not seen the texts.

Montano and 18-year-old Henry Sanchez, both Guatemalan nationals, were arrested March 17 charged with first-degree rape and two counts of first-degree sexual offense. Prosecutors said the two raped the girl at Rockville High School on March 16. Montano was charged as an adult.

ROCKVILLE RAPE CASE LENDS POWERFUL EMOTION TO 'SANCTUARY' DEBATE

Adolfo Sanchez-Reyes, the 43-year-old father of Henry Sanchez, was arrested Friday after a review found that he, too, was in the United States illegally, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed on Monday.

Sanchez-Reyes was being held in the Howard County Detention Center and was ordered to appear in immigration court, the ICE spokeswoman added.

The girl was walking in a hallway when one of the suspects asked her to have sex and she refused, police said. They added that Montano forced her into a boy's bathroom stall before they raped her.

Federal law requires public schools to admit students even if they are in the country illegally.

"As a mother of two daughters and grandmother of four young girls, my heart aches for the young woman and her family at the center of these terrible circumstances," Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said last week. "We all have a common responsibility to ensure every student has access to a safe and nurturing learning environment."

Fox News' Doug McKelway and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Moving forward with a campaign pledge to unravel former President Obama's sweeping plan to curb global warming, President Trump on Tuesday is set to sign an executive order that will suspend, rescind or flag for review more than a half-dozen measures in an effort to boost domestic energy production in the form of fossil fuels.

Trump accused his predecessor of waging a "war on coal" and boasted in a speech to Congress that he has made "a historic effort to massively reduce job-crushing regulations," including some that threaten "the future and livelihoods of our great coal miners."

COULTER: REPUBLICANS NEED TO ENFORCE THE TRUMP AGENDA

NO 'SNEAKING AROUND'

The chairman of the House intelligence committee told Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" Monday that "there was no sneaking around" when he met with the secret source behind his claim that President Trump's associates were caught up in "incidental" surveillance. "We go to the executive branch at least once or twice a week," Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. (WATCH CATHERINE HERRIDGE'S COVERAGE AT 10 AM ET LIVE ON FOX NEWS CHANNEL)

'THE O'REILLY FACTOR' NUNES ENTERS THE 'NO SPIN ZONE'

CRITICS QUESTION WHETHER NUNES CAN CONDUCT BIPARTISAN PROBE

LOSING HIS COOL

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., caused a scene at a Manhattan restaurant when he began yelling at a wealthy and well-connected Donald Trump supporter that the POTUS is a liar, The New York Post reported. Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, lost his cool on Sunday night at Upper East Side restaurant Sette Mezzo, according to witnesses.

'TUCKER CARLSON' TUCKER TO DEM: SHO ME EVIDENCE OF TRUMP-RUSSIA COLLUSION

MARYLAND RAPE CASE

The father of an 18-year-old Rockville High School student charged with the rape of a fellow classmate has been arrested for being in the country illegally, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE spokesperson Sarah Rodriguez said 43-year-old Adolfo Sanchez-Reyes was arrested last Friday after a review of his immigration history revealed he was unlawfully present in the United States from Guatemala. (WATCH DOUG MCKELWAY'S COVERAGE AT 9 AM ET ON FOX NEWS CHANNEL)

COMING UP ON FNC

1 PM ET: WH press briefing with Sean Spicer

5 PM ET: Hillary Clinton addresses the Professional Businesswomen of CA Conference. San Francisco. Watch live on FoxNews.com

COMING UP ON FOX BUSINESS

7 AM 'MORNINGS WITH MARIA' INTERIOR SECRETARY RYAN ZINKE TO BE INTERVIEWED BY MARIA BARTIROMO

8: 30 AM ROB MANFRED, MLB COMMISSIONER, ON 'MORNINGS WITH MARIA'
Controversial author Charles Murray is scheduled to speak at the University of Notre Dame on Tuesday and despite growing calls for protests from some students and faculty, organizers are standing behind the invitation.

The event comes weeks after violent protests broke out at Middlebury College where Murray was set to speak.

The 74-year-old author of Coming Apart: The State of White America" was invited to the Catholic university as part of a lecture series for a constitutional law and politics class.

CHARLES MURRAY: 'INTO THE MIDDLE OF A MOB' -- WHAT HAPPENED WHEN I TRIED TO SPEAK AT MIDDLEBURY

Kate Hardiman, a senior who is organizing the event, told Fox and Friends on Tuesday morning it was unfortunate that students have promised to protest against Murray.

I think that the majority of Notre Dame students are committed to free speech and open dialogue on campus and that these protests are being driven by a very vocal minority who seek to disrupt the event, she said. This is part of a larger trend of students who want to shut down ideas that they find disagreeable. The irony is that tolerance is the watchword on campuses these days, yet only certain ideas are apparently worthy of being tolerated.

HOW MIDDLEBURY STUDENTS PROVED CHARLES MURRAY RIGHT

The calls for protest at Notre Dame came just weeks after the violent protests broke out at Middlebury, a small liberal arts college in Vermont, where Murray also was set to speak. Demonstrators interrupted Murrays speech and the event was forced to be canceled after the protests turned violent, sending one professor to the hospital.

In a letter to alumni last week, college President Laurie L. Patton condemned the violence and reiterated the colleges commitment to free speech and dialogue.

A 21st century education must embrace an uncompromising commitment both to free speech and to open dialogue that creates a more inclusive public sphere, she wrote, according to VermontBiz. Free speech must be defended on all sides, and only through this principle will we achieve the work of making society more inclusive.

Vincent Phillip Munoz, the Notre Dame professor who invited Murray to speak, stood behind the invitation, saying in an op-ed on Real Clear Politics that rescinding it would communicate that violence works.

I want my conservative students to read smart, persuasive liberal thinkers, and I want my liberal students to read thoughtful conservatives, he wrote. Educated citizens can give reasons for their beliefs and can defend intellectually the positions they hold. That requires that we understand and articulate the positions with which we disagree.

He said that while he appreciates the concerns for the wellbeing of students, he believes that what is most harmful to students  and, to speak candidly, most patronizing  is to protect our students from hearing arguments and ideas they supposedly cannot handle.
The woman accused of acting as the getaway driver for three would-be burglars shot and killed by a homeowner's son in Oklahoma was arrested, law enforcement officials announced late Monday.

More details also emerged about the moments leading up to the gunshots. Two of the three who broke in through a glass door in the back of the house were armed: one with a knife and one with brass knuckles, according to investigators in Broken Arrow.

SITE OF DEADLY CINCINNATI NIGHTCLUB SHOOTING HAD MULTIPLE DRUG AND HEALTH VIOLATIONS

The suspected getaway driver, 21-year-old Elizabeth Marie Rodriguez, turned herself in hours after the shooting, Fox 25 reported. She was booked in the Wagoner County jail on three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of first-degree burglary.

The would-be burglars had "a short exchange of words" with the homeowner's 23-year-old son before he shot them with a rifle, Wagoner County Deputy Nick Mahoney said. Some reports indicted the rifle was an AR-15.

OKLAHOMA POLICE OFFICER KILLED IN TRAFFIC-STOP SHOOTOUT

Mahoney did not name the intruders, but said they were between 16 and 18 years old. The homeowner and his son were not hurt.

The unnamed shooter has not been charged, and Mahoney said he appeared to be acting in self-defense -- but investigators said more charges could be coming. The homeowner's son voluntarily gave a statement to sheriff's investigators.

The intruders were wearing black clothes, gloves and masks when they forced their way in, waking up the son, Mahoney added. He said there was no reason to believe the son knew the intruders.

Two of the three died in the kitchen and the third made it out to the driveway before he collapsed, according to investigators.

No bond was set for Rodriguez, KOTV reported.

People in the neighborhood had reported more break-ins in recent months. "Within the past six months we've had two or three burglaries out here," neighbor Leon Simmons told Fox 25.

The neighborhood is in an unincorporated part of the county about 20 miles southeast of Tulsa.

Click for more from Fox 25.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The man accused of shooting and killing police officer Justin Terney after a traffic stop in Oklahoma was a wanted man, investigators revealed Tuesday.

The suspect was identified as 35-year-old Byron Shepard. Police said he shot Tecumseh Officer Justin Terney on Sunday night. Terney died Monday morning after undergoing surgery.

Terney, 22, pulled over Shepards vehicle before the suspect ran off, according to Tecumseh Assistant Police Chief J.R. Kidney.

OKLAHOMA POLICE OFFICER KILLED IN TRAFFIC-STOP SHOOTOUT

Terney shocked the suspect with a stun gun but he kept running, Kidney told Fox 25. Both the officer and the suspect were shot in the skirmish.

Shepard had an outstanding warrant for knowingly concealing stolen property, which may have convinced him to try escaping, according to police. He was still recovering in the hospital for his injuries.

OKLAHOMA POLICE OFFICER RUNS OVER, KILLS SHOOTING SUSPECT

We owe a debt of gratitude to all those who put on the uniform every day and risk their lives to ensure the safety of our communities, Republican Sen. James Lankford said in a statement. Officer Terney gave the ultimate sacrifice.

Procession escorting Officer Justin Terney's body back to Tecumseh has departed. pic.twitter.com/hmQ9fbrVz9  Phil Cross (@philsnews) March 27, 2017

Terneys body was escorted back to his hometown of Canadian, Okla., later Monday. Law enforcement officers lined the streets to pay their respects to Terney during his procession.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Two Miami-Dade County police officers have been wounded in what authorities called "an ambush-style" shooting.

Authorities say the plainclothes officers were shot Monday night while investigating at the Annie Coleman Apartments on the city's north side. The officers were part of the Homicide Task Force-Gang Unit.

Miami-Dade Police Director Juan Perez says fellow officers used a pickup truck to bring their wounded colleagues to the hospital. Perez says they are listed in stable condition and expected to survive. The extent of their injuries wasn't immediately known.

No suspects were arrested. Perez urged anyone with information about the shooting to contact authorities.
Boys at an elementary school in Missouri are learning all about what it takes to be Southern Gentlemen from a special new program documented by Fox 4.

BEAR 'EXPELLED' FROM FLORIDA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL



To me a gentleman is someone who is kind to all and always helps out with certain situations, a young student at William Southern Elementary School in Independence says.

The kids have been practicing gentlemanly behavior by opening doors for others and cleaning up the schoolyard so others could enjoy it more.

Deputy Superintendent Dr. Dred Scott described the program as a way to help the fourth grade boys improve themselves.

GIRL USES GOOGLE TRANSLATE TO BREAK DOWN BARRIERS AT HER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Its kind of the brainchild of the teachers and the administration in this building, he said, to really target the boys in fourth grade, helping them understand the importance of doing their best in all things in this school.

So far, the program seems to be working. What I have heard from a lot of the staff members in this building is that they can tell the difference in these boys, theyve seen the transition and the difference this program has made in them, Scott said.

Click for more from Fox 4.
Ukraine's Economic Development and Trade Ministry has pointed out 75 markets in the draft exports strategy of Ukraine where Ukraine is not using the trade potential in full, seeing a shortfall of around $6 billion.

According to the published document during its presentation on Tuesday, in particular, Ukraine insufficiently uses the opportunities of trade cooperation with the United States, Germany, UK, France, Japan and Canada.

According to the strategy, exports of goods and services in 2012-2016 almost halved  from $82.4 billion to $44.9 billion.

The ministry said that the EU market share of total Ukrainian exports of goods over the period grew from 25% ($17 billion) to 37.1% ($13.5 billion), the India's share rose from 3.2% ($2.3 billion) to 5.2% ($1.9 billion), China's  from 2.6% ($1.7 billion) to 5% ($1.8 billion). Exports of goods and services to Russia fell almost 80%, to from $17.3 billion to $3.6 billion.

According to the document, the share of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions of total exports of Ukrainian goods fell from 26.6% in 2013 to 10.4% in 2015 (data of the State Statistics Service, not taking into account the ATO zone and Crimea). In the period from 2013 to 2015, exports from Donetsk region fell by 70% and from Luhansk region  by 93%.

The cost of exports losses due to these regions jointly with the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea was $12.9 billion, while total exports losses of Ukraine in the past two years amounted to UAH $25.2 billion.
Attorneys for a teenager accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in a high school bathroom say the sex was consensual.

Seventeen-year-old Jose Montano and 18-year-old Henry Sanchez are both charged with rape. Police say they took turns sexually assaulting the girl at Rockville High School. The case received national attention after the White House called it an example of why President Donald Trump wants to crack down on illegal immigration. Officials said Sanchez came to the U.S. from Guatemala illegally.

In a court filing Monday, Montano's lawyer said the girl agreed in text messages to have sex with Montano. Police tell The Washington Post (http://wapo.st/2neVj5f ) they stand by their finding that the sex was not consensual. Montano's being charged as an adult.

Sanchez's lawyer had already said he believes the sex was consensual.
A senior executive at one of Turkeys most established state-owned banks was arrested in the United States on Monday in connection with a scheme to evade trade sanctions on nuclear Iran -- ramping up political strains between the U.S. and Turkey.



Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a deputy chief executive officer at Turkiye Halk Bankasi AS, is being accused of shady dealings with Reza Zarrab, an Iranian-Turkish gold trader, to launder hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of Iran and Iranian companies through the U.S. financial system.

It was unclear whether Atilla hired lawyers for his defense, Reuters reported.

IRAN CONDUCTS MISSILE LAUNCH AFTER NEW US SANCTIONS

The consequences of this arrest came at a trying time for U.S.-Turkish affairs. Turkey had been one of the Wests strongest allies in the Middle East for decades, but Zarrabs arrest and conflicting tactics over Syrias civil war and fallout have escalated tensions between the United States and Turkey.

According to a criminal complaint made public on Tuesday, Atilla collaborated with Zarrab and others from 2010 to 2015 to hide Zarrabs ability to supply currency and gold to Irans government and a number of entities in Iran through a Turkish bank, without exposing the bank to U.S. sanctions.

IRAN HOLDS MILITARY EXERCISE IN RESPONSE TO US SANCTIONS

As part of this plan, Atilla and Zarrab duped several U.S. banks into processing transactions through fake invoices and front companies, according to investigators. To make the transactions seem like they were humanitarian immunities to the sanctions, they were often disguised to appear as though they involved food, prosecutors added.

United States sanctions are not mere requests or suggestions, they are the law, Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim in Manhattan said in a statement.

After being arrested on Monday, Atilla was set to appear in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday. He is charged with conspiracies to commit bank fraud, which carries a maximum 30-year prison sentence in addition to violating U.S. sanctions, which carries a maximum 20-year term.

Zarrab, a dual citizen of Iran and Turkey, had a prior arrest in 2013 in a corruption probe into people with close ties to then-Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Zarrab also has close relations with Erdogans presidential administration who accused the U.S. of ulterior motives last year in bringing forward the case of Zarrabs arrest.

The U.S. has said it has evidence that Zarrab paid millions of dollars in bribes to Turkish government officials and top executives at Halkbank, which assisted in processing the payments, Bloomberg reports.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will be making a one-day visit to Ankara, Turkeys capital, this week where he will discuss Syria with Erdogan, U.S. officials say.
Several people have been detained after an ambush that targeted two Miami-Dade police officers, officials announced Tuesday.

It was not immediately clear if the people detained were part of a group a six that police were hunting early Tuesday in connection to the attack. Police also released photos of the bullet-riddled van.

The officers  who were ambushed as they sat in the unmarked vehicle  were identified by Miami-Dade police as Terence White, a 26-year veteran on the force, and Charles Woods, an 11-year veteran, WSVN reported.

Actual photos of our detectives' vehicle involved in the shooting. pic.twitter.com/WvmZXFIv9L  Miami-Dade Police (@MiamiDadePD) March 28, 2017

A responding officer rushed both men to a nearby hospital. Woods was released Tuesday morning from Jackson Memorial Hospital while White remained there in stable condition.

All I hear is bloom, bloom, bloom, bloom, Michelle Brown, a witness who heard the gunshots, told WSVN. Ever since last week, all Ive been hearing is gunshots. Tonight, I heard it like it was out my back door.

The shooting unfolded at around 10 p.m. in Brownsville. The officers were on gang detail, The Miami Herald reported. The detectives were part of the Homicide Task Force-Gang Unit and were assisting other officers in a city-wide sweep.

They were outnumbered and outgunned. God was watching over them tonight, John Rivera, Miami-Dade union president, said.

Footage from WSVN-TV showed the officers walking into the emergency room at Jackson Memorial Hospital supported by fellow officers.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez called on the community for help in arresting the suspects.

If they're brazen enough to shoot at and try to kill police officers, they'll shoot at others. They don't deserve to belong on the streets in our community," he said.

Click for more from WSVN-TV.
After decades of pressure to not make pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Egypts Coptic Christian population is now making such trips to Jerusalem at a record pace.

The number of Egyptian tourists to Israel has nearly doubled to 7,450 from 4,428 between 2014 and 2016, according to Religion News Service. While the figures from Israels Population and Immigration Authority do not break down the numbers of visitors by religion, it is widely believed that the uptick is due to a surge in pilgrimages by the Coptic community.

THOUSANDS OF ULTRA-ORTHODOX ISRAELIS PROTEST MILITARY DRAFT

To visit Jerusalem and the holy places was always my wish, merchant Refaat El-Sayeh, a Coptic Christian from the city of Al-Kosheh, said to Religion News Service. You feel the hand of God. This is the lifelong dream of every Christian in Al-Kosheh.

Last year, El-Sayeh was one of nearly 30 from his village that made an Easter pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Making the pilgrimage is a coveted distinction. Just like Muslims who travel to Mecca return with the honor of being called haj, Copts who return from Jerusalem are called muqadiseen, which roughly translates to one who has visited the scared precincts mentioned in the Bible.

DESPITE SOME TENSIONS, EVANGELICAL CHURCHES BOOMING IN CUBA

Several factors accounted for the low number of Copts, who comprise about 10 percent of Egypts population, making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Pope Shenouda III, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, had banned travel to Israel for Copts in solidarity with Palestinian nationalism. While the ban was not enforced, many Copts avoided making the trip out of respect for their church.

But after Shenoudas death in 2012 things started to change. Even though his ban on pilgrimages to Jerusalem was not lifted, one year after his death applications for tourist visas at the Israeli embassy surged from several hundred to nearly 3,000, according to RNS.

Then in November 2015, the current Coptic pope, Tawardos II, made a trip to Israel to attend the funeral of Coptic Archbishop Abraham of Jerusalem and the Near East. It was the first such visit to Jerusalem by an Egyptian Orthodox cleric in decades.

Tawardos trip emboldened Copts to do likewise.

The Egyptian governments executive and judicial authorities have also contributed to the recent uptick in Coptic pilgrimages to Jerusalem.

President el-Sisi has enacted laws to normalize construction of church buildings  a long-standing issue of contention with the Muslim majority  and has made repeated outreach efforts to the community.

Last month the nations Higher Constitutional Court issued a verdict in a case that granted Egyptian Christians the right to take a one-month paid leave to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. According to Daily News Egypt, the verdict stipulated that certain articles in the countrys Workers Law were unconstitutional because it grants only Muslims paid leave for pilgrimages.

Naguib Gobrail, head of the Egyptian Union for Human Rights and lawyer who filed the lawsuit three years ago, told the news site that the verdict is considered an unprecedented victory.

The verdict supports the rule of law and non-discrimination against Christians in Egypt, he said,

Gobrail also said the verdict means Christians from other sects will be able to freely visit the city and travel if they secure permission from Israeli authorities.

There may be a limit to the freedom Copts feel to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Coptic journalist and activist Nader Shokry told Daily News Egypt that Copts are not out rightly banned from traveling to Israel.

The Coptic Church does not forcibly prevent Coptic citizens from travelling to Jerusalem, Coptic journalist and activist Nader Shokry told Daily News Egypt said. Instead its ban is considered as a tradition that morally all Coptic citizens should follow.
Theresa May will issue an appeal to the country to "come together" as she formally launches the process for the UK to leave the European Union.

Nine months after the divisive Brexit referendum last June, the Prime Minister will officially trigger Article 50 in a letter that will be hand delivered in Brussels.

At the same time, in a statement to MPs in the Commons, she will pledge to get the right deal for everyone in the UK, including EU nationals living in this country.

"We are one great union of people and nations with a proud history and a bright future," she will say.

"And, now that the decision has been made to leave the EU, it is time to come together."

While the Prime Minister's approach on the historic day of the triggering of Article 50 will be typically business-like, many Brexit-supporting Conservative MPs are in a mood to celebrate.

Although Tory MPs have been discouraged from holding Article 50 parties, many are preparing to defy the plea and begin celebrating immediately after the PM has finished answering questions on her statement.

There is also a mood of anticipation and excitement in Whitehall. One senior government source, describing the mood ahead of triggering Article 50, said: "It's like Christmas Eve".

The letter invoking Article 50, signed personally by the PM, will be delivered to European Council president Donald Tusk by Britain's EU ambassador Sir Tim Barrow at around 12.30pm UK time.

Read more from SkyNews.
Cambodia has permanently banned the export of human breast milk by a company headed by a former Mormon missionary that pioneered the business two years ago.

A letter issued Tuesday by the Cabinet to the Health Ministry said Prime Minister Hun Sen has ordered a halt to U.S.-based Ambrosia Labs Ltd. buying and exporting the milk. The product is marketed as food for babies and a nutritional supplement and sells for as much as $4 an ounce.

The letter gave no reason for the ban, but said that Cambodia was not so afflicted by poverty that its mothers needed to sell their milk.

The milk's export was recently suspended while the Health Ministry investigated its effects on babies and whether the business violated a law on trafficking in human organs.
The man known as "Carlos the Jackal" was sentenced to life in prison for the third time by a French court for the deadly 1974 attack on a Paris shopping arcade.

The Venezuelan-born Ilich Ramirez Sanchez was found guilty for throwing a grenade onto a crowded area, killing two and injuring 32.

'CARLOS THE JACKAL' BACK ON TRIAL FOR DEADLY 1974 PARIS ATTACK

He is already serving two life sentences in France for other attacks he perpetrated or organized on behalf of the Palestinian cause or in the name of communism in the 1970s and '80s.

As the trial wrapped up Tuesday, the 67-year-old known worldwide as "Carlos" denounced "an absurd trial" for a 42-year-old crime.

Carlos had denied involvement, saying there was no proof against him.

Asked to state his profession before the court at the beginning of the trial, the 67-year-old convict called himself a "professional revolutionary."

He wore a black shirt and jacket with a trademark kerchief in the breast pocket and blew kisses at supporters before taking the stand during the trial, Sky News reported.

Click for more from Sky News.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has criticized Russia's alleged interference in the U.S. presidential election, calling it a hostile act.

Cheney said Russian President Vladimir Putin had made a serious attempt to interfere in the 2016 election and other democratic processes in America.

In a speech at a speaker's conference in New Delhi, Cheney said, "In some quarters, that would be considered an act of war."

Cheney's accusation comes at a time when both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives intelligence committees are investigating possible Russian interference in the election that brought President Donald Trump to power.
The Japanese government recently announced plans to populate a cluster of minute, rocky islands located almost equidistant between Okinawa and Taiwan -- a move that has reignited a decades-long dispute with China over sovereignty of the tiny territories.

According to Japanese officials, the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans next month to legally designate the Senkaku Islands  known in China as the Diaoyu Islands  as inhabited border territories. Amid the goals of the plan, which stems from a law passed last year, is a call for the construction of civic facilities, the purchasing of land, the improvement of ports and stopping foreign vessels from illegally visiting the islands.

Along with the Senkaku Islands, Japan will also designate another 143 remote islands  with 71 receiving special attention for their isolation and population decline  as part of a plan to secure the countrys sprawling archipelago of around 6,800 islands from the dual threat of territory-hungry neighbors and a long-term decrease in population.

Prime Minister Abe is very conservative and a nationalist, Zhiqun Zhu, a political science professor and director of the China Institute at Bucknell University, told Fox News. So this move is not very surprising, but its going to be counterproductive in terms of relations with China.

The Senkaku Islands  a chain of five uninhabited islets and three barren rocks in the East China Sea  were uninhabited until 1895 when Japan laid claim to them. In the ensuing decades, the Japanese populated the chain and even set up a fish-processing plant on one of the islands.

The Government of Japan made a Cabinet Decision on January 14, 1895, to erect markers on the islands to formally incorporate the Senkaku Islands into the territory of Japan, Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated. These measures were carried out in accordance with the internationally accepted means of duly acquiring territorial sovereignty under international law.

The United States took control of the islands during the occupation of Japan following World War II, and handed them back in 1972. It was around this time that China  citing ancient texts and maps  claimed that Japan seized the islands in violation of international law.

The Chinese went further by claiming that Japan took possession of the islands as part of the treaty that ended the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, which also handed over Taiwan to Japan. China argues that when Japan handed back Taiwan following the end of World War II, the islands should have gone back too as in Chinas view the islands are part of Taiwan.

Furthering mudding the situation is the fact that at the time of the Taiwan handover, the U.S. technically controlled the islands (although it did not claim sovereignty) before handing them back in the early 1970s.

Despite international law that governs over these territorial disputes favoring Japan, things are not so clear cut when the shifting power dynamics of the region are taken into account.

These two powers are still trying to figure out their roles in the region. There is a saying in Chinese that two tigers cannot share the same mountain.  Zhiqun Zhu, director of the China Institute at Bucknell University

Experts say the dispute over the islands is more about two regional players asserting their respective power than about the actual land at stake. When Japan first seized control of the islands in 1895, it was on the verge of becoming a great power while China was beset by internal turmoil. More than 120 years later, the tables have turned and China now has the upper hand in the region.

This is a very emotional issue for both sides, Frances Rosenbluth, a political science professor at Yale University, told Fox News. Japan right now is trying to send strong signals to ward off any other advances by Chinese in regards to their territory.

In early February, three Chinese warships sailed into the water near the Senkaku Islands -- only two days before Japans Abe was set to meet with U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis.

It was the latest move by Beijing that has provoked the ire of Tokyo and heightened tensions throughout East Asia.

Last November, China flew a pair of nuclear-capable bombers around Taiwan for the first time, as the Japanese scrambled eight F-15 fighter jets to intercept the Chinese flight while it was circling the island.

China in December also placed hundreds of surface-to-air missiles on Hainan Island off mainland China, which intelligence officials say could one day be moved to Chinas man-made islands in the South China Sea to better defend them.

These two powers are still trying to figure out their roles in the region, Zhu said. There is a saying in Chinese that two tigers cannot share the same mountain.

While experts agree that neither Japan nor China want an armed conflict over the disputed territory  something that some have speculated would start World War III  it may be up to the U.S. to help resolve this issue.

During his trip to Japan last month, Mattis reaffirmed -- under Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty -- the U.S.s commitment to defend Japan and its territories if attacked.

I made clear that our long-standing policy on the Senkaku Islands stands. The U.S. will continue to recognize Japanese administration of the islands, Mattis said. As such, Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty applies.

Mattis words not only mirror longstanding U.S. policy toward its closest ally in Asia, but also the administration of Donald Trumps tough talk toward China. During his time on the stump, Trump railed against Chinese economic and political polices, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, told lawmakers during his confirmation hearing in January that Chinas buildup in the South China Sea was "akin to Russias taking Crimea from Ukraine.

"Were going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops and, second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed, Tillerson said.

Chinas Foreign Minister Lu Kang said after Mattis trip that the U.S. needs to take a responsible attitude to avoid making the issue more complicated and bringing instability to the regional situation.

Besides the U.S., Russia has involved itself in the dispute between Japan and Russia over the islands. While relations between Tokyo and Moscow chilled following the formers invasion on the Crimea in 2014, Abe has maintained a strong relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and has promised economic cooperation in a bid to move forward the territorial dispute over the Senkaku islands.

How the two countries settle a long-running dispute over the ownership of the Southern Kurils  called the Northern Territories in Japan and seized by the Soviet Union in 1945 at the end of World War II -- could foreshadow future negotiations over the Senkaku Islands. Putin visited with Abe in December 2016 to discuss the situation.

And while Chinas expansionist polices have come under widespread scrutiny on the world stage, observers say its also up to the U.S. to keep Japan from making any more moves that could lead to a clash in East Asia.

Japan is not a major actor in the future of East Asian political economy, but Abe and many in Japan dont see it that way, Zhu said. I dont know why Japan is doing these things on these islands, but if they continue China will respond and this will escalate into a conflict.

Zhu added: Its the U.S. that has the ability to rein in Japans aggressive moves.
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Congo's government says the bodies of two Caucasians and a Congolese have been found in the Central Kasai region where two U.N. experts and their colleagues recently disappeared.

Government spokesman Lambert Mende told Top Congo FM on Tuesday that national police confirmed the discovery of the male and female Caucasians and one Congolese.

The finding raises fears about the two U.N. experts and four Congolese who went missing two weeks ago.

Mende says the government knows no other foreigners missing in the region, but the provincial commissioner still must identify the bodies.

Michael Sharp of the U.S., Zaida Catalan of Sweden, interpreter Betu Tshintela, driver Isaac Kabuayi and two motorbike drivers went missing March 12 while looking into alleged human rights violations by the army and local militia groups.
The Ukroboronprom State Concern has presented its development strategy for domestic defense industry enterprises for potential investors at the international conference in London Ukrainian Investment Roadshow, the press service of the concern reported on Tuesday.

Deputy Head of Ukroboronprom Denys Hurak said at the presentation that the reform declared by the state concern "is a tool for attracting foreign investment, expanding international cooperation and the final transition of Ukrainian defense industry to international standards."

The concern said that conducting an audit of Ukroboronprom's enterprises would help leading international experts to get an unbiased picture of the concern. This will attract new investors, offering them a clear principle for entering the capital, protecting investment and creating a unique market offer.

Today participants of Ukroboronprom created in 2010 are 112 Ukrainian defense enterprises, including state-run enterprise Ukrspecexport and its subsidiaries. A total of 21 enterprises of the concern are located on the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea and uncontrolled areas in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
As Australian authorities appealed for people to stay indoors away from the fury of Cyclone Debbie, this man wanted to go surfing in the eye of it.

The man, who wandered into the background of a live cross as Channel Nine reported from Airlie Beach, stood buffeted by wind with a boogie board under his arm contemplating the wild waves.

POWERFUL CYCLONE DEBBIE SLAMS INTO AUSTRALIA'S TROPICAL NORTHEAST

Oh my God, theres someone with a boogie board going out in the ocean it would seem, so thats obviously not a good idea at all, said reporter Jessica Millward.

Wearing a singlet and boardshorts, the man waded into the wild waves as the cameras rolled, as a mate on the beach watched on.

PERU MUDSLIDE SURVIVOR: I PRAYED TO GOD FOR STRENGTH

Knee deep, he turns to look back at his mate, then launches onto the board, swamped by a messy wave.

Theres a lot of backpackers in town Karl, and I can tell you theres obviously been a lot of cyclone parties throughout the evening and this morning because theres a fair few inebriated people here so the authorities are out and about just warning people we are in the eye of the storm, we are certainly not through the thick of it yet, Millward said.

Ah hello. Hi. Ah yeah, thats very dangerous so we might just alert some authorities as to whats going on down. Yeah, thats not good, thats not smart, she continued as he attempted to catch a wave.

Predictably, social media lit up, and the consensus was idiot - which is how the journalist later described the mans actions.

Watching the news. A man is attempting to boogie board at Airlie Beach. Umm there's a cyclone in that area. #Cyclonedebbie #sillyman  Gen (@riddle_methis) March 28, 2017

Meanwhile, Channel 7 was reporting a kite surfer in Bowen had been captured surfing the winds of the cyclone on Monday off Bowen, with 7 News Mackay tweeting this footage:

A kite surfer in Bowen has been capture surfing the winds of Tropical Cyclone Debbie. #7News pic.twitter.com/o4jKe8XoG9  7 News Queensland (@7NewsQueensland) March 27, 2017

Click for more from news.com.au
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An Ivory Coast judge says former first lady Simone Gbagbo has been found not guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Kouadio Bouatchi said Tuesday that Gbagbo was acquitted. The prosecution had asked for a life sentence, saying she participated in a committee that organized abuses against supporters of her husband's opponent after the 2010 election.

More than 3,000 people were killed after former President Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept defeat to current President Alassane Ouattara.

Simone Gbagbo still must serve 20 years in prison after being found guilty in March 2015 of offenses against the state.

Simone Gbagbo, in custody since April 2011, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, but Ivory Coast has refused to transfer her.
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The Latest on France's presidential campaign (all times local):

12:10 p.m.

French Socialist presidential candidate Benoit Hamon has assailed European austerity policies as he met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, arguing that they have helped fuel the far right's rise.

Hamon has met with Merkel and her center-left rival Martin Schulz in Berlin. He followed conservative Francois Fillon and independent Emmanuel Macron in making the trip to France's biggest European partner.

Hamon said after meeting Merkel that they agreed on reinforcing European defense and on energy issues, but differed on economic matters.

He told reporters: "I repeated to her my disagreement with austerity policies, the consequences that they have had on people, the fact that they have produced today social desperation that produces votes for the far right."

France's two-round presidential election will be held April 23 and May 7.

___

9:40 a.m.

The wife of French presidential candidate Francois Fillon is facing preliminary charges over well-paid parliamentary jobs that investigators suspect she never performed.

Fillon himself has already been charged in the case, which has deeply damaged the conservative candidate's chances for the two-round election April 23 and May 7. He is suspected of embezzlement and other charges.

Penelope Fillon is expected to face investigating judges Tuesday in Paris who can hand her preliminary charges in the case.

Investigators recently expanded the probe on suspicions that the couple falsified documents after the investigation opened to prove that Penelope carried out parliamentary work for her husband.

The Fillons have denied wrongdoing. Francois Fillon, once the front-runner, calls the investigation a smear campaign to torpedo his presidential campaign.
Authorities say a prized 2nd-century B.C. coffin in sculpted marble depicting the 12 labors of Hercules is set to return to Turkey.

It ends a legal battle over an artifact that mysteriously turned up in Geneva's secretive customs-office warehouse years ago.

The Inanna Art Services cultural goods importer tried for months to block the restitution of the hulking, three-ton sarcophagus.

Didier Bottge, a lawyer who represents the importer, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the company decided two weeks ago "to contribute to the return" by abandoning its efforts in Swiss courts.

La Tribune de Geneve newspaper first reported last week that the sarcophagus would go home from the secretive Geneva Free Ports warehouse.

The coffin is said to be among 12 of its kind known in the world.
The wife of London attacker Khalid Masood has said she is "saddened and shocked" by his actions.

Rohey Hydara condemned her husband's killing spree after his mother Janet Ajao said she had "shed many tears" for her son's victims.

In a statement released through the Metropolitan Police, Hydara said: "I am saddened and shocked by what Khalid has done. I totally condemn his actions.

ISIS RECRUITING VIDEOS HIT YOUTUBE AFTER LONDON ATTACK

"I express my condolences to the families of the victims that have died, and wish a speedy recovery to all the injured.

"I would like to request privacy for our family, especially the children, at this difficult time."

Masood, 52, killed four people and injured dozens more in an 82-second rampage last Wednesday.

He was shot dead by armed police after fatally stabbing officer Keith Palmer in Parliament's cobbled forecourt.

Click for more from Sky News.
Two Otis Elevator Company employees in Hong Kong have been arrested in connection with a mall escalator that suddenly reversed injuring over a dozen people.

TRAIN STATION ESCALATOR GRABBED GIRL'S FOOT, LAWSUIT CLAIMS



The escalator was apparently thrown into reverse and increased speed Saturday afternoon and sent people onto the ground and on top of each other. The incident happened at Mong Kok's Langham Place.

Two of the escalator mechanics were arrested after police said they tampered with the machinery after the accident.

MALFUNCTIONING ESCALATOR SENDS HOCKEY FANS FLYING

Otis, a subsidiary of United Technologies, is based in Farmington, Connecticut.

A spokesman for Otis said that the arrests came as a surprise, and the company is committed to helping in the investigation.

More than 18 people were injured in the incident.

Click for more from Fox 61.
Giant Motors, the automotive company backed by billionaire Carlos Slim, will begin production of cars in Mexico in a joint venture with the Chinese corporation Jac Motors, according to published reports.

The deal aims to cash in on Mexicos car market but will also look to expand south of the border.

We want to be a hub for exports to Latin America," said Elias Massri, Giant Motors chief executive, to the Financial Times

CHINA AND MEXICO PLEDGE TO DEEPEN TIES AT MEETING BETWEEN TOP DIPLOMATS

We dont depend on Nafta at all, not for exports or for supplies, he said. For us, this is where the opportunity lies.

The $230 million investment is materializing after two years of talks, the Times said, fueled by a healthy 6.5 percent auto sales growth in 2016.

Giant Motors already has in place a joint venture with the Chinese company FAW by which it assembles trucks and vans in a plant in the state of Hidalgo.

The new vehicles will be assembled there too.

CARLOS SLIM ANNOUNCES PLANS TO LAUNCH MEXICAN TV CHANNEL IN US

Currently Mexico exports cars to 44 countries through a dozen free trade agreements and serves as a global exports platform to companies such as Audi, the Times reported.

[Those car companies] have a clear intention to go global, in contrast to what were seeing in globalized countries that want to go backwards, said Massri.
Islamic State fighters in western Mosul likely herded innocent men, women and children into a building as human shields before the airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition that killed more than 100 people, a top U.S. general revealed Tuesday.

"It's not a war crime to accidentally kill civilians, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the top U.S. general in Baghdad, told reporters. It's unfortunate, but it's not a crime because these solders have to make these decisions in seconds sometimes in circumstances that you cannot image unless you have experienced them."

U.S. COMMAND: MOSUL AIRSTRIKE OCCURED AT THE REQUEST OF IRAQ FORCES

Still, he added that the U.S. militarys investigation into the March 17 incident was focusing on what Iraqi witnesses called a deliberate plot by ISIS to put the civilians into a building where they were fighting.

It sure looks like they were forced into the building, Townsend said, noting that ISIS has long used human shields. The enemy had a hand in this.

AIRSTRIKE KILLS HIGH-PROFILE TERRORIST LEADER

Townsend said it was possible ISIS had booby traps and other bombs inside the building to set off secondary explosions. U.S. personnel have visited the site to inspect it.

One coalition bomb should not have collapsed an entire building, he said.

Residents of the neighborhood known as Mosul Jidideh told an Associated Press team at the scene that scores of residents are believed to have been killed by a pair of airstrikes that hit a cluster of homes in the area earlier this month.

"Over 137 people were inside. The entire neighborhood was fleeing because of missiles that hit, so people were taking refuge here," said Ahmed Ahmed, one of the residents of the neighborhood.

One airstrike hit the residential area on March 13, followed by a second strike four days later, the residents said. A statement from the U.S.-led coalition said "multiple allegations" were being investigated.

AP reporters saw at least 50 bodies being recovered from the wreckage of the buildings.

Fox News Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ambassadors from NATO and Russia will meet this week for the first time this year in a fresh attempt to resolve some of their differences.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement Tuesday that a NATO-Russia Council  their main forum for dialogue  would be held at the military alliance's Brussels headquarters on Thursday.

He did not say what would be discussed. Disputes over meeting agendas, particularly on the thorny issue of the conflict in Ukraine, have held up talks in the past.

Stoltenberg said after the last NATO-Russia Council in December that the 28-nation, U.S.-led military alliance and Russia "have profound disagreements on the crisis" in Ukraine.

NATO foreign ministers meet their U.S. counterpart Rex Tillerson for the first time in Brussels on Friday.
The Polish defense minister has welcomed a multinational NATO battalion to Poland made up of troops from the United States, Britain and Romania, saying the deployment improves the region's security given the "threat from the East."

Antoni Macierewicz welcomed the U.S.-led battalion in a ceremony Tuesday in the central town of Piotrkow Trybunalski.

TRUMP HANDED MERKEL $374B NATO BILL DURING TALKS -- REPORT

The deployment fulfills a NATO pledge to enhance security on the alliance's eastern flank, amid the region's fears over Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its support for insurgents in eastern Ukraine.

The NATO commitment involves the deployment of four battalions of about 1,000 troops each to Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, each led by a different NATO country.

It is separate from a 3,500-strong U.S. armored brigade that also deployed to Poland earlier this year.
VTB is not ruling out the option of transforming its Ukrainian subsidiary - VTB (Ukraine) - into a financial company, and will make a final decision on the subsidiary's fate before the end of 2017, VTB Chairman Andrei Kostin told journalists on the sidelines of the Association of Russian Banks congress.

"There are two paths: the bank sale path, the path of gradually reducing the balance sheet, perhaps, transformation into a financial company; a new law in Ukraine has been approved. We will see Overall we would like to arrive at one of the two decisions by the end of the year," Kostin said, emphasizing that VTB wants to transact "a truly good deal" with the Ukrainian subsidiary.

VTB (Ukraine) is conducting normal operations, and has not halted or limited client operations and payments, Kostin said.

Any asset sale in Ukraine will entail a discount, he said.

VTB has yet to determine the volume of additional reserves it will set up for the Ukrainian subsidiary. The size of the reserves will depend on the results from the working group on loan collection and sale of collateral received, particularly real estate.

The sale of another VTB subsidiary in Ukraine, BM Bank, is in the concluding stage. "It is the final stage there. Some reconciliation is already underway. The deal is not that big," Kostin said.

He also said VTB is not worried about VTB (Ukraine) being illegally seized by force. "We do not fear that, although we allow there is such a possibility," he said.

In addition, Kostin said VTB would make use of the ability proposed by the Central Bank to postpone creation of reserves for operations with Ukrainian subsidiary banks for three years.
North Korea tested a rocket engine for the third time this month -- and like the previous two tests, it showed signs the rogue nation's missile capabilities were improving, a U.S. official confirmed Tuesday to Fox News.

None of the three rocket tests ended in an embarrassing explosion, showing the secretive regime has made progress, the official said. The test did not demonstrate any new capabilities.

The Pentagon continues to see signs North Korea is edging closer to conducting another nuclear test, following two successful tests last year.

MALAYSIA SAYS KIM JONG NAM'S BODY STILL IN THE COUNTRY



North Korea conducted the latest test last Friday night, Reuters reported, adding that Kim Jong Un's regime could use the engine in an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM.

Kim claimed earlier this month that a high-thrust engine test symbolized a "new birth" of his country's rocket industry.

NORTH KOREAN AIRLINE STARTS NEW ROUTE TO CHINA

Meanwhile, a nuclear-powered U.S. Navy fast-attack submarine joined the Pentagon's annual joint military exercises with South Korea. "The U.S. Navy's USS Columbus (SSN-762) is participating in the Foal Eagle exercise," a defense official told the Yonhap news agency on Tuesday.

The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier and at least two Air Force bombers already had joined the military drills. Secretarty of State Rex Tillerson said earlier this month on a visit to South Korea that the Obama-era policy of strategic patience was over.

North Korea is pushing hard to upgrade its weapons systems, analysts say. Many weapons experts warn the North could have a functioning nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the continental U.S. within a few years.

North Korea carried out two nuclear tests last year.

U.S. defense officials had said last week that the Pentagon was expecting another North Korean missile launch within days. The officials said the U.S. had increased its surveillance over the North and had detected a North Korean missile launcher being moved, as well as the construction of VIP seating in Wonsan.

Washington, Seoul and others view North Korea's rocket program as a cover for its banned long-range missile development program.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Serbia's defense minister says Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised to sign off on a delivery of fighter jets, battle tanks and armored vehicles to Serbia.

Defense Minister Zoran Djordjevic said Tuesday that six MiG-29 fighter jets, 30 T-72 tanks and 30 BRDM-2 armored vehicles will be delivered soon.

Djordjevic says in a statement that Putin agreed to approve the delivery during a visit by Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic to Moscow on Monday.

Serbia formally has been on the path to join the European Union, but under political and propaganda pressure from Moscow has steadily slid toward the Kremlin and its goal of keeping the countries in the region out of NATO.
Lawmakers in Slovakia are debating a proposal to annul pardons by former authoritarian Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar that bar investigations into the kidnapping of the son of late President Michal Kovac, Meciar's political archrival.

Meciar led Slovakia into international isolation in the 1990s and is believed to be behind Michal Kovac Jr.'s abduction to Austria in 1995. The Slovak spy agency known as SIS  then led by a close Meciar ally  has been widely blamed.

Slovak President Andrej Kiska has urged parliament to cancel the pardons.

Prime Minister Robert Fico rejected that, saying they are legally impossible to undo. But Fico's coalition recently changed its view and drafted a constitutional amendment to undo them.

Parliament's final vote is expected Thursday.
A 25-year-old man, with his political asylum documents still on him, was found hanged near a port in Athens.

Greek media described as a Syrian refugee, according to Telesurtv.net.

TOP TURKISH BANK EXECUTIVE ARRESTED IN MULTIMILLION-DOLLAR PRO-IRAN FRAUD

More than 60,000 refugees and migrants have gone to Greece, and ended up stranded in camps, or living in abandoned warehouses and tents, among other places that international human rights groups have denounced as having substandard conditions.

They have been stranded since most European countries closed their borders to the migrants. The conditions on the camps are so poor, say human rights groups, that many migrants have attempted suicide.

UNITED NATIONS CHIEF URGES DIVIDED ARAB STATES TO COME TOGETHER ON SYRIA

"Under these conditions, tense situations could lead to such unfortunate incidents," Kyriakos Katsadoros, the scientific director of Klimaka's Greek Suicide Prevention Centre, told Al Jazeera.

"And amid such large numbers, there are people who are vulnerable and in need of help  which they often can't find, unfortunately, in Greece.

Greek officials complained in recent days that they cannot take one more migrant, and that their capacity to hold them has reached its limit.

Greece has received more than a million migrants since 2014.

Most of the migrants come from North Africa and the Middle East.

The United Nations International Organization for Migration reports that 20,484 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea this year through mid-March. More than 80 percent  16,248 -- of that staggering number arrived in Italy, the second largest-number went to Greece and the third-largest to Spain.
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Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews are protesting in Jerusalem over the military draft.

Tuesday's protest was one of several following the recent detention of a rabbi's son who refused to report to a draft office.

Exemptions are granted to ultra-Orthodox Jews who declare their values at a recruitment center. Those refusing to report can be detained.

Ultra-Orthodox leaders say they serve the Jewish nation through religious study and prayer and fear integration in the army threatens their insular, pious lifestyle.

Draft privileges go back to when Israel's founders granted exemptions to a few hundred gifted students to help rebuild the schools of Jewish learning destroyed in the Holocaust. But numbers have ballooned dramatically since then.

Exemptions have bred resentment among Israel's secular majority, whose children mostly serve after high-school.
Thousands of students at Puerto Rico's largest public university have gone on a one-week strike to protest multimillion-dollar cuts prompted by an economic crisis.

The strike that began Tuesday has forced the main campus of the University of Puerto Rico to close for the day. Interim Dean Carmen Rivera says she'll soon announce other steps.

A federal control board that oversees Puerto Rico's finances is demanding that the university cut $450 million from its budget. The proposal prompted nearly a dozen top university officials to resign in protest in recent weeks.

Gov. Ricardo Rossello has proposed that the cuts be reduced to $241 million and be implemented by 2021.

The university has 11 campuses and serves more than 50,000 students.
The Danish branch of the ride-sharing service Uber is shutting down its activities in Denmark over a law proposal that toughens standards for cabs.

Uber's spokesman in Denmark, Kristian Agerbo, said Tuesday "we must take the consequence," adding the proposal, demanding cabs and cars for hire must have seat occupancy sensors and meters was "going in the wrong direction."

When the proposal was presented in February, Agerbo said Uber would stay in Denmark and "fight."

Danish prosecutors have said Uber  banned in several cities in Europe  is akin to an illegal taxi service and a court ruling is pending on the company's services. Uber has said some 2,000 people are "active drivers" in Denmark and some 300,000 people have downloaded the app.
The top U.S. general in Europe said Tuesday the United Nations proposed ban on nuclear weapons had serious problems, telling Congress that it was "just not realistic" amid ongoing threats from North Korea and Russia.

"My view is the nuclear weapons ban is just not realistic, Army Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, head of U.S. European Command and NATO supreme allied commander, told the House Armed Services Committee.

NORTH KOREA CONDUCTS THIRD TEST OF ROCKET ENGINE THIS MONTH

It is occurring in a world where we have North Korea in particular who is in violation of U.N. sanctions and resolutions, he added, mentioning that Russia is also aggressively improving their modernization of their nuclear weapons.

The remarks came a day after the U.S., Great Britain, France and dozens of other countries announced that they would not join talks about a nuclear weapons ban treaty at the U.N.

ERIC SHAWN REPORTS: UNITED STATES SPEAKING OUT AT THE UNITED NATIONS

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said the countries skipping the talks are committed to 1970s Non-Proliferation Treaty, aimed at stopping the spread of nuclear arms, Reuters reported.

"There is nothing I want more for my family than a world with no nuclear weapons. But we have to be realistic. Is there anyone that believes that North Korea would agree to a ban on nuclear weapons?" she asked reporters.

The U.N. adopted a resolution in December to "negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination," according to Reuters.

Scaparrotti also said during his testimony Tuesday that NATO nations are planning to ramp up defense spending for the year.

Today, only five of 28 NATO nations spend the required 2 percent of GDP on defense. The Trump administration has made it a point to encourage all NATO nations to spend more in the wake of increasing threats and posturing from Russia.

Trumps call echoed a point shared by former President Obama in an interview with The Atlantic last year, in which he was talking about European countries not putting enough resources into defense.

"Free riders aggravate me," Obama had said.

Scaparrotti said every Baltic nation has requested a permanent presence of American troops to deter Russia.

Fox News Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.
Ukraine more than triples exports of cranberries, bilberries in 2016

Ukraine exported 2,900 tonnes of cranberries and bilberries in 2016, and this was 3.3 times more than in 2015, Ukraine's Agricultural Policy and Food Ministry has reported.

According to a Tuesday posting, the largest importers of Ukrainian berries were Poland (1,400 tonnes), the Netherlands (613 tonnes) and Belarus (541 tonnes). In general, exports of cranberries and bilberries brought $6.9 million of currency income last year.

The ministry said that exports of raspberries, blackberries and mulberries more than doubled, to 720 tonnes and exports of strawberries grew by 1.7 times, to 2,270 tonnes.

"First since 2013 Ukraine exported 79 tonnes of currant for $18,200," the ministry said.
The soldier in the photo is rigid and unsmiling, as if the realities of his life, both at home and at war, are visible in his bearing. But he also seems welcoming of these responsibilities, accomplished and proud, but no longer young at 18.

He is Nathan Horton Wilcox from Pennsylvania, the oldest child and only son of Daniel and Abigail Wilcox. Nathan wrote his mother at least once, on April 12, 1863, while camped with the Union Army at Belle Plains in Stafford County. That letter and a photo of him taken a few months earlier in Washington are now the property of the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. Two sisters, Laura Moyer of Fredericksburg and Rosemarie Nielsen of Fairfax, donated the Civil War material to the park in February after discovering it among the possessions of their late father, M. Eugene Moyer.

A RARE GIFT

The combination of photo and letter, the observations made in the letter, and the fact that Wilcox died notably at Gettysburg, make the gift a rare one, said John Hennessy, chief historian for the park. Its a great little snapshot in time, he said.

The material also invites an intimate look at a young soldier, one among the thousands who lived and fought in the Fredericksburg area.

Hennessys records indicate that Wilcox spent about three months here with his beloved Bucktails, the 149th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment. He was in winter camp with 120,000 other Union soldiers in Stafford and King George counties and fought at the Battle of Chancellorsville in Spotsylvania County.

HELPING OUT AT HOME

The Civil War had been underway for about 16 months when his regiment formed in Harrisburg, Pa., in August 1862. Wilcox served in Company A along with other men from rural Delmar Township, Tioga County, near the New York border. He enlisted in spite of his home life, or perhaps because of it. His father, Daniel Wilcox, died when he was 12. That left his mother at home with seven young children. Two neighbors who had known the family since Nathan was a child said later that Daniels death left Abigail in very straitened circumstances with so large a family of children.

Nathan tried to help, as his mothers primary support since about age 14. He regularly sent home the greatest portion of his corporals wages, and he no doubt shared his enlistment bonus. In his letter, he told his mother to sell his rifle for $16 to help you along. The money was critical for the family. By one estimate, the cash he sent home represented about 75 percent of what they lived on.

DEFENDING THE CAPITAL

Wilcox and the Bucktails (so named because they wore deer tails in their caps) moved first to Washington to defend the capital. While there, he visited the studio of John Holyland on Pennsylvania Avenue to have his picture taken. In the carte de visite that accompanies his letter, he wears a beginners moustache, with dark hair and light eyes. He is dressed in wool trousers and a blue wool jacket, a government-issue, Schuylkill Arsenal variety, and he wears his cap slightly cocked.

The regiment stayed in Washington for about five months before being transferred to Stafford County. The Army of the Potomac had suffered a terrible defeat in December 1862 in Fredericksburg, and it was massing again in Stafford in preparation for a new campaign. Wilcox and the other soldiers departed Washington aboard the Louisiana, a steam transport, and landed at Belle Plains on Potomac Creek. They camped in the quadrant today formed by Belle Plains Road, White Oak Road, Potomac Creek and Waugh Point in King George County.

LESSON NEVER LEARNED

By the time he wrote the April 12 letter to his mother, Wilcox had been in camp for about six weeks. The weather was warm and wet, and he was hungry for news from home. Tell Ellis to write and tell me how he gets along, he said. Old Abe Lincoln had been there the week before to review the Union troops. He give us the praise of being the best regiment in the First Army Corps, he wrote. He also praised his commanding officers, Capt. Alfred Sofield, who was as good a captain as ever swung a sword, and Gen. Roy Stone, who if we should lose him, we would not know hardly what to do.

Like many soldiers, Wilcox believed that he would soon be going home. This war will end before this winter, he said. It cant last much longer than this summer. He was wrong. The war would last another two years.

They said the same thing in July 1861, Hennessy said. You can find that kind of utterance related to every campaign of the war. It was a lesson never learned.

Wilcox told his mother that his regiment would soon be moving out, though he was careful not to reveal important details. Each soldier got 60 cartridges, he said, and he describes canonading in the distance, probably target practice, Hennessy said. Their departure was delayed, however, and Wilcox was unhappy. It is raining here now. I guess it is going to rain so we cant move. I hope not. I want to be doing something.

A GETTYSBURG GRAVE

Soon enough, the rain stopped, and the soldiers moved north and west along what is today U.S. 17 in Stafford, down Holly Corner Road and across the Rappahannock River. There, near the village of Chancellorsville, they fought for seven days in early May to another Union defeat.

The Bucktails did not see much action at Chancellorsville, but Wilcox was confident that they would be courageous when the time came. The men believed in the Union cause and were not there because of the enlistment bonuses, he said. He resented the antiwar movement back home, the Copperheads, who questioned the soldiers motives.

Tell them to stay home, he wrote to his mother. We dont want them here, for we dont want any cowards here to hold up the Stars and Stripes.

Motivation was less of a worry for the Bucktails after Chancellorsville.

The Confederate Army, led by Gen. Robert E. Lee, moved north from Virginia into Pennsylvania. Wilcox and the Bucktails followed to defend their home state. The two armies met at Gettysburg, and on July 1, the first day of the battle, Wilcox was with Capt. Sofield when an artillery shell exploded and cut Sofield in half. Wilcox was killed instantly, as was Pvt. Edwin Dimmick, also of Tioga County.

Wilcox is buried in an identified grave in the national cemetery at Gettysburg, a distinction that most slain soldiers did not enjoy. At the national cemetery in Fredericksburg, for example, officials know the identities of fewer than 3,000 of the more than 15,000 soldiers buried there, Hennessy said. They have pictures of fewer than two dozen.

Wilcox had been away from Tioga County for about 11 months and didnt quite make it home. His grave at Gettysburg is about 180 miles south of the family home. Since he had never married and had no children, his Army pension of $8 per month went to his widowed mother. Even in death, he provided for his family.
A young Caroline County couple has been arrested in a robbery that started on Facebook.

The incident happened Sunday at about 11 p.m., according to a release from the Caroline Sheriffs Office.

The victim told deputies that he made a deal to sell a video gaming system and games to a man through Facebook. A meeting was set up at a site on Harris Road in the county.

The victim said when he and three friends who were with him got out of their car, the suspect pulled a handgun and took the system, games and the victims cellphone and fled, according to the sheriffs office.

Detectives eventually tracked down the suspect and his girlfriend, who authorities believe was in the suspects car during the robbery, to a home on Schumans Road in the county.

A resident of the home told deputies and detectives that he had nothing to do with the crime, but said his roommate might have been involved since he had jumped out of a window and fled just before police arrived. The girlfriend was at the home and was arrested.

A search of the home turned up the stolen items and a firearm that turned out to be a pellet gun.

Once a police dog arrived on the scene, the other suspect surrendered, according to the Sheriffs Office.

Karislam Fuquan Miller, 22, faces charges of robbery, abduction, larceny and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. The sheriffs office said Miller also has warrants in Washington County on charges of domestic assault and destruction of property.

Christina Lee Edens, 21, faces charges of conspiracy to commit robbery and larceny. Edens also lives at the residence where the arrests were made, authorities said.
A Stafford man is accused of firing multiple shots during an argument Monday at a motel in the northern part of the county, police said.

No one was injured, Sheriffs spokeswoman M.C. Morris Moncure said, but police found several bullet holes in the motel walls, and the windshield of a vehicle was struck.

Moncure said deputies went to the Spring Lake Motel at 3817 Jefferson Davis Highway about 11:35 p.m. Monday in response to a reported dispute involving gunfire. Witnesses said the suspect had fired a weapon inside one of the rooms while arguing with another person.

Deputy D.G. French and 1st Sgt. D.F. Purcell saw a man matching the suspects description near U.S. 1 and the entrance to the motel parking lot. The man, who police said appeared unsteady on his feet, was given commands over Frenchs loudspeaker and was taken into custody as he moved from the shoulder of the road into the highway.

He had no weapon, but a search of his room turned up multiple shell casings and bullet holes in the wall. One bullet went through the front window and into the windshield of a vehicle parked directly outside.

Robert Steven Denardi, 32, was charged with shooting in an occupied dwelling, reckless handling of a firearm, brandishing, assault and battery, two counts of destruction of property and public intoxication.
A Spotsylvania County man who supplied the heroin that resulted in his wifes fatal overdose last year was ordered Monday to serve 11 years in prison.

William John Moore, 40, had been scheduled for a trial Thursday in Spotsylvania Circuit Court. Instead, his attorney reached a deal with Commonwealths Attorney Travis Bird on Monday in which a felony murder charge was reduced to voluntary manslaughter.

Moore was also convicted of distributing heroin as an accommodation and two counts of felony child neglect. He was sentenced to a total of 30 years in prison, with 19 years suspended.

According to the evidence, Moore and his wife, 28-year-old Ashley Moore, frequently used heroin in their home in the 11300 block of Pine Needle Court off Harrison Road. Bird said the couple was shooting up sometimes as much as four to five times a day.

On Feb. 26, 2016, Moore called 911 after waking up and finding his wife not breathing. Police and rescue workers arrived and found heroin in plain view and nearly 20 used needles on the floor. Two syringes were loaded with heroin.

Two children, ages 10 and 2, were also in the house. Bird said authorities couldnt find any clean clothes to put on the children when they took them to stay with relatives.

Moore told police that he and his wife used heroin daily and that he had given her that days dose. He admitted to selling drugs to support their expensive habit; Bird said the pair used a large amount of heroin every time.

He didnt want his wife to die, Bird said. But he provided the heroin that ended up killing her.

Attorney Michael George represented Moore, who has been in the Rappahannock Regional Jail since shortly after his wifes death.
Transparency International and its head Jose Ugaz have called on Ukrainian authorities to abolish controversial amendments to the law on prevention of corruption that appear designed to intimidate and target anti-corruption activists.

"These new provisions must be abolished immediately. Lawmakers are trying to intimidate civil society and in particular anti-corruption activists. If these amendments come into force, it will be clear that Ukrainian top officials are not serious about fighting corruption. It will show that they have chosen to side with those who want to quash the anti-corruption movement," Ugaz said in a statement posted on the website of Transparency International.

The amendments would make it mandatory for leaders of anti-corruption groups to submit e-declarations of their assets, similar to those that are now mandatory for civil servants, judges, senior government employees and members of parliament.

"These amendments are a vindictive retaliation by lawmakers who are angry that they are required to declare their wealth. There is no justification for singling out anti-corruption groups," Ugaz said.

For his part, Executive Director of Transparency International Ukraine Yaroslav Yurchyshyn noted that non-governmental organizations are overseen by the public and their donors.

"The relevant authorities review tax and financial reports. Our annual reports are available online. These new amendments which extend to organizations that work with us, if introduced, will complicate not only anti-corruption activity but the life of individuals indirectly assisting and supporting our work," he said.

As reported, bill No. 6172 on amending certain laws of Ukraine on the specifics of financial control of certain categories of officials was supported by 268 lawmakers on March 23. This document exempts servicemen of the rank and file, sergeant, sergeant corps, junior officers from the obligation to file e-declarations. At the same time, the bill obliges individuals who receive funds and/or property for anti-corruption activities, in particular, heads of relevant public organizations, members of public councils under state agencies, candidates for elected offices, to file data on property and incomes.

When reviewing the bill in second reading the parliament passed a lot of amendments, some of which were presented only orally. Therefore the final text of the document is currently unknown.

The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine said the changes in legislation extending the list of those obliged to file electronic income declarations to include public activists is a step back in Ukrainian reforms. "E-declarations for senior public servants is a strong step forward for reform in Ukraine. Members of civil society play vital role for transparency; targeting them is a step backwards," the Embassy wrote on Twitter.

EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn for his part wrote on Twitter: "E-declarations should target #corruption in public administration - not hamper work of civil society. Changes to the law on e-declarations are a step back, not forward, and should be reconsidered."

On Monday, March 27, Verkhovna Rada Chairman Andriy Parubit signed the amendments to the legislation on e-declaration and submitted the document to the president.

On the same day, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed the bill.

Poroshenko said he will hold consultations in the presidential administration concerning the amendments to the legislation on e-declaration adopted by the parliament.

After a meeting with executive director of Transparency International Ukraine Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, the Ukrainian president said he cannot veto this bill, because these changes allow those who serve in the anti-terrorist operation zone not to file electronic declaration. At the same time, Poroshenko suggested activists should set up a working group to develop amendments to the document, which the president will then submit to parliament as urgent.

"Since the requirement to submit electronic declarations by representatives of non-governmental organizations will come in force only in 2018, on the proposal of the president of Ukraine, the sides agreed to create a working group involving representatives of non-governmental organizations, people's deputies and representatives of the presidential administration with a view to developing the amendments to this law," the president's press service reported.
A former faculty member and dean of Germanna Community College who is one of three finalists to be president of the school says his experiences as a student and instructor changed his view of community collegesand his career.

John R. Donnelly presented his vision for Germanna at an open forum Monday morning at the Sealy Auditorium on the colleges Fredericksburg Area Campus in Spotsylvania County.

The forum gave faculty, staff, students and members of the community the opportunity to ask questions and learn more about the candidate. It was broadcast live on Facebook and on the colleges website.

Donnelly is currently vice president for instruction and student services at Piedmont Virginia Community College, a position he has held since 2010. Prior to that, he served for two years as vice president of academic and student affairs/provost for Massachusetts Bay Community College in Wellesley Hills, Mass.

Donnelly said the path to his community college career began largely by accident. He had attended James Madison University, where he majored in French, and joined the airline industry shortly after graduation. While he enjoyed traveling around the world, he began to feel the need for more mental stimulation, so he enrolled in a history class at a local community college.

He said his experience there helped reverse some of the misguided ideas he had about community collegesincluding that they are institutions for people who cannot get into a four-year college or university.

The magic of community colleges opened up, and I saw the richness and uniqueness of community college students, he said.

Eventually, he received his second bachelors degree and then a masters degree, and then decided to pursue his passion for teaching.

He became an adjunct instructor of history at Germanna in 1999. As a new teacher, he enjoyed interacting with students from such diverse backgrounds, including adults and high school students, he explained.

One of his favorite experiences was when a young woman who was in an abusive relationship approached him at the end of the academic year to let him know how empowering it was to receive an A in his history classit was something she never thought she could do.

I began to see I could transform lives by taking an interest in my students and teaching what I loved, he said. So I became hooked on the community college experience.

While at Germanna, he rose through the ranks serving as a full-time faculty member and eventually an assistant dean and dean at the college. Having already spent nine years working at Germanna, he feels he knows the college and area well, he said.

My experiences have taught me I like to help people transform their lives, he said. I can do that, I have done that and I am doing that. But I can do that a lot more as a president.

During the forum, attendees asked questions ranging from his position on emergency response and safety, his process for prioritizing and allocating resources, and what he would do to foster a more diverse and inclusive culture at the college.

Donnelly said that PVCC grappled with this issue in the wake of the recent travel ban on some Muslim countries. To alleviate consternation and fear among the student body, staff invited students to give presentations on their countries. For example, they could talk about what it was like to grow up in Iraq and come to the United States.

It was a direct response and it made our faculty and students feel better, Donnelly said. It made them feel included.

Several attendees also asked questions regarding how he sees his role as president, and what it takes to be a good leader.

Donnelly used the analogy of a composer and conductor to describe his vision for his presidency. Just as a composer creates and sets the direction for the piece, so does the president provide direction for the college. The president must also be a conductor insofar as he needs to make sure everyone stays in sync and has what they need, he explained.

As president, Donnelly said a major priority would be expansion of locations, which he believes is key to the colleges success. His goal is to steer the college toward the creation of a vibrant, thriving campus, which he thinks could be a possibility in a decade.

I really see a Germanna campus, he said. If you build it they will come is a gamble, but it is a gamble that might work here.

The national search for a new president began after Germannas current president, David Sam, announced in August his decision to retire at the end of this academic year. He served as president for nearly a decade.

The application process for a new president began with initial screenings in January followed by state-level interviews in Richmond in February. The three finalists were selected from among more than 100 applicants from across the nation.

The final stage is the campus visits and open forums. The first open forum was held last week. Candidate Linda ThomasGlover, the current president of Eastern Shore Community College, presented her views on the future of college.

The final candidate to present and answer questions will be Janet Gullickson, who has presided over two community colleges, including her current position as president of Spokane Falls Community College. She will appear in a forum at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday at Sealy Auditorium on the Fredericksburg Area Campus.

The chancellor is expected to announce the new president in mid-April.

I began to see I could transform lives by taking an interest in my students and teaching what I loved. JOHN R. DONNELLY
Only one of the civilian security guards at Fredericksburg-area public schools could legally carry a gun in the classroom under new legislation.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed a bill this month that allows some former law enforcement officers to carry firearms while working as security guards for public schools. The law, which takes effect July 1, says the ex-officers must have been employed in Virginia and retired or resigned in good standing within the last 10 years.

The new law applies to civilian security officers hired by schools. Sheriffs deputies assigned as school resource officers are already allowed to carry weapons on school grounds.

But just one of the 15 security officers employed by Stafford County Public Schools appears to meet the criteria for armed guards. And none of Spotsylvania Countys 10 guards would be eligible to carry guns under the law, based on information from a schools spokeswoman.

Schools in Fredericksburg and Caroline and King George counties do not use civilian security officers.

Law enforcement officers typically make more money than school security guards, who earn from $18,281 to $19,207 annually in Stafford and from $19,106 to $32,189 per year in Spotsylvania.

Guns are generally prohibited in Virginia schools, with an exception for active law enforcement personnel. Republican lawmakers pushed for the recent change, saying it will better protect students and teachers.

Some Democrats voted against it because they oppose loosening restrictions on guns in schools.

Del. Mark Cole, RSpotsylvania, a chief co-sponsor of the bill, said it could result in more retired officers applying for security guard positions in public schools. The bill gives school boards the option of arming some security guards, but is not a requirement, he said.

It never made sense to me that, if youre a sworn law enforcement officer, one week its legal for you to carry in a school, but then you retire or quit and the next week its not, he said. In 2015, he unsuccessfully proposed a bill to let school employees carry guns, regardless of their jobs, if they are former law enforcement officers who retired or quit in good standing.

McAuliffe, a Democrat, vetoed a similar bill last year because he said it did not require enough training.

Statewide, public schools employed 338 full-time security guards during the 2015-16 school year, according to the state Department of Criminal Justice Services. Donna P. Michaelis, manager of the Virginia Center for School and Campus Safety, said she did not know how many of them have police backgrounds.

Stafford employs three security guards at each of its five high schools.

One retired from the Stafford Sheriffs Office less than 10 years ago, said schools spokeswoman Tiffany Twine. That guard may be eligible to carry a gun with the School Boards approval.

Another four guards have law enforcement experience, but did not resign within the past decade, Twine said.

Spotsylvania assigns two guards to each of its five high schools and another to the alternative school, though one of the positions is vacant.

One of the Spotsylvania guards worked for the Secret Service, but the new law does not apply to former federal law enforcement personnel. Another guard retired from a law enforcement job more than a decade ago, said schools spokeswoman Rene Daniels.

The state defines a school security guard as an employee who is responsible solely for ensuring the safety, security, and welfare of all students, faculty, staff, and visitors in the assigned school. All applicants must undergo background checks, complete first-aid training and pass courses on topics such as conflict resolution and emergency response.

In addition, guards who carry guns under the new law must undergo training on active shooter emergency response, emergency evacuation procedure, and threat assessment, the bill states.

Spotsylvania School Board Chairwoman Erin Grampp said she supports the new law, calling it a great bill. She said it would not be out of the question for the School Board to permit armed security guards in the future.

Asked if she thought more retired officers will apply for security officer positions as a result of the law, she said: Being that its a new requirement, maybe if that got out there and was more public, then maybe more qualified people that meet those criteria would apply.

Stafford School Board Vice Chairman Scott Hirons said he would defer to the Sheriffs Office and other security experts on whether to allow armed guards. He noted that the school system has taken a lot of security measures to ensure visitors are properly identified, and said, We have not seen a significant amount of issues within Stafford County Public Schools.

Im not going to make the request right off the bat, he said of allowing armed guards. If I start seeing instances where I think it may be helpful, maybe I would take advantage of that.
A horse named Bailey who city residents came to know well from mounted patrols downtown is helping a Massachusetts police department start its first police horse unit since the 1940s.

Jane Shelhorse, whose husband Jim passed away earlier this year after a long battle with cancer, said he would be thrilled to know that his faithful mount will soon patrol the streets of Worcester. Jim Shelhorses funeral in early January even included a mounted police procession.

Jane Shelhorse said she got a call a while back that resulted in Bailey heading north.

Jimmy was a member of the North American Police Equestrian Council for years, said Shelhorse. A contact he knew from that organization got in touch to say that the Worcester police were starting a patrol unit and could really use an experienced horse.

She said that 15-year-old Bailey, who had gotten extensive training to be part of a mounted police unit, spent most of his time at the couples home in Orange County.

But his experience was being wasted in a pasture, so it didnt take me any time to agree to give Bailey to this police department in Worcester, said Shelhorse.

With help from another horse organization contact, the tall mix of quarter horse and thoroughbred was shipped by trailer to Worcester in the latter part of February.

I feel very proud to know that this experienced horse will help this new unit and inexperienced riders start a mounted unit there, said Shelhorse.

For those who never saw the now-discontinued mounted patrols downtown, the Fredericksburg-born Shelhorse got them started in 1986 when he was still working as an auxiliary officer with the Fredericksburg Police Department.

He ended up becoming a full-time police officer with the city, working from 1990 until 2010, becoming well-known at city events downtown where he was often on horseback.

After he retired, the Shelhorses moved to a spot in the Mine Run area of Orange County, Jimmy spending time with the horses and Jane leaving her longtime job with the city of Fredericksburg to run the Parks and Recreation Department in Louisa County.

Shes back in Fredericksburg now as director of the citys Parks, Recreation & Events Department, though she still has some of the seven horses that the couple kept stabled in Mine Run.

I just know that Jimmy would be so happy to see Bailey doing what hes trained to do with this new mounted unit, said Shelhorse.

Published reports in Worcester noted a handful of police officers graduated in late February after finishing 10 weeks of mounted unit training conducted by the Massachusetts State Police. In December, seven officers began training that included a combination of classroom study, learning how to groom and care for horses, along with exercises providing officers with the skills necessary to perform the duties of a mounted patrol officer.

According to the Worcester Police Department, it will take a few more months for those officers to hone their riding skills and prepare their horses before patrolling in the city. The officers expect to receive their first patrolling assignments during the summer months.

Worcester hasnt had a mounted unit since the 1940s, but reports noted that it is wanted again because horses can give officers a better view in crowds and because they can be used to build positive relationships between police and the communities they serve.

Its amazing to see a group of Worcester police mounted officers riding so well when a few short weeks ago, we had some officers who couldnt make a horse move all day, Lt. Joseph Ashe of the Worcester police told Worcester Magazine.
The Community Foundation of the Rappahannock Region is celebrating its 20th anniversary of advancing local philanthropy by offering a total of $80,000 in special Visionary Grants to area nonprofits this year.

The Board of Governors recently voted unanimously to give its first award to Friends of the Rappahannock. It received $20,000 to create a River Report Card, an information and awareness tool that will deliver easily accessible local data about the state of the Rappahannock River.

The foundations review committee selected FOR because its staff demonstrates excellent expertise in their field, according to a foundation news release. Its River Report Card has the potential to influence the quality of life in the region in the near future and for generations to come.

The project will involve a number of agencies and stakeholders.

If I could sum it up in a few words, its a culture of clean water, said Kathy Harrigan, FORs executive director, about her nonprofit. I want people to recognize we have this incredible resource and we have to take care of it.

The foundation will award grants to three more nonprofits in the categories of arts, human services and education. It is accepting applications from area nonprofits for a Visionary Grant in the education category. The submission deadline is April 28, and the grant award winner will be announced the week of June 19.

Our 20th Anniversary Visionary Grants accelerate local nonprofits biggest dreams for a thriving community, said Teri McNally, Community Foundations executive director.

The organization is an advocate for the vitality and well-being of the Rappahannock River region, and manages and distributes charitable giving in Fredericksburg, along with Stafford, Spotsylvania, King George and Caroline counties.
Spotsylvania Parkways picturesqueand priceylandscaping is here to stay for now.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe recently vetoed a bill that could have turned the parkways landscaping over to the Virginia Department of Transportation. The two-mile stretch of Spotsylvania Parkway at issue is privately landscaped, and residents of Lees Parke and Virginia Heritage foot the bill under a Cost-Sharing Agreement signed in 2005 by Lees Parke developer Fried Cos. and Virginia Heritage developer Lennar Corp.

Critics say the Spotsylvania County-approved pact costs each resident more than $100 a year in homeowners association dues.

But other residents worried the parkway would go from scenic to shabby under VDOTs care, hurting their home values. The parkway between U.S. 1 and Courthouse Road cuts through Lees Parke and Virginia Heritage, a community for adults ages 55 and older.

McAuliffe, a Democrat, explained his veto by writing that the bill violates the Virginia Constitution by impairing existing agreements and arrangements among Spotsylvania County, Homeowners Associations, developers, and VDOT.

The bill sponsored by Del. Bobby Orrock, RCaroline County, sailed through the House of Delegates and Senate. It would have required VDOT to take over maintenance of the parkway by July 2020 unless the developer-run HOAs and the county worked out a new arrangement before then.

I encourage the interested parties to resolve this issue at the local level, McAuliffe wrote.

Orrock filed the bill on behalf of a small group of Virginia Heritage homeowners who do not think they should bear the cost of beautifying a state parkway traveled by thousands of vehicles a day. State legislation passed in 2012 prohibits developers from locking HOAs into contracts for more than five years, he said, but it does not impact earlier agreements.

VDOTs maintenance would have been limited to mowing the grass three times a year. The parkway includes well-manicured medians with trees, flowers and mulch.

Orrock said Tuesday that he will not contest the veto. He said he filed the bill to give residents a say over the cost-sharing agreement, which developers signed before any homes had been built.

I have problems with one party doing something that forever will bind anyone else coming along in a community like that, he said.

Virginia Heritage residents seemed to agree at a recent meeting that they should be able to renegotiate the contract in the future, Orrock said. But Lees Parke homeowners expressed adamant opposition to Orrocks bill at a contentious meeting with the delegate last week.

The chance that VDOT would cut down trees in order to mow unobstructed took center stage, Orrock said. After that, kind of nothing else mattered, he said.

Orrock and Fried Cos. Vice President David Lesser said VDOT would remove trees, though a VDOT spokeswoman said she could not confirm that.

The Board of Supervisors approved the 2,232-lot Lees Parkewhich includes Virginia Heritagein 2002 with the condition that the developer build the parkway. Fried Cos. also agreed in writing to plant trees, shrubs and perennials along the road.

More than 1,500 homes have been built in the development to date.

Virginia Heritage resident Frank Brodersen, who supported Orrocks bill, said in an email he was astonished the governor would veto the only way the young families in Lees Parke and the senior citizens of Virginia Heritage have to obtain a voice in their future. He emphasized the bills positives rather than what he called the undesired and extremely remote possibility that trees would be cut down.

That is not only a bogus representation of our goal but also totally ignores the principal point . . . both HOAs and the county could negotiate and create a new agreement that is fair to all concerned, said Brodersen, who stressed that he is not the principal voice of concerned homeowners.

Lisa Frensley, a Lees Parke HOA rep who opposed Orrocks bill, said residents there pay $11 a month for the parkways landscapinga small percentage of the $233 monthly HOA bill. Virginia Heritage homeowners pay even less, she said.

Frensley, who has lived in Lees Parke since 2007, blamed the controversy on a few homeowners who pushed changes without soliciting input from other residents.

Were certainly open to working with Virginia Heritage moving forward, she said. We just want to make sure that everybodys voice is heard and everybodys represented.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine on the third anniversary of the adoption of the UN General Assembly resolution "Territorial Integrity of Ukraine" (68/262) demands from the Russian Federation to stop the occupation of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. Ukraine, for its part, will continue taking steps to counteract the aggression of the Russian Federation.

A statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, posted by the press service of the ministry, reminds that March 27, 2017 marks the third anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations General Assembly resolution "Territorial Integrity of Ukraine" (68/262), by which the international community thereby reaffirmed the need for strict compliance by States with their obligations under international law, and its commitment to the sovereignty, political independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders. As underscored in the resolution, the referendum held in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol on 16 March 2014, having no validity, cannot form the basis for any alteration of the status of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea or of the city of Sevastopol.

Despite the clear demand of the international community, over the past three years the Russian Federation has not abandoned its aggressive actions and gross violations of the UN Charter and fundamental norms and principles of international law, and continued temporarily occupation of the Crimean Peninsula, blatant infringements on human rights and open military aggression in Donbas.

The adoption of the UN General Assembly resolution "Situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (Ukraine)" (71/205) on 19 December 2016 became another testimony of major deterioration of the human rights situation in Crimea. The resolution condemns systematic human rights violations committed by the Russian occupation authorities. By condemning the temporary occupation of Crimea by Russia, the General Assembly urges the Russian Federation to uphold all of its obligations under applicable international law as an occupying power, including by bringing an immediate end to all human rights violations in Crimea.

"Ukraine urges the Russian Federation to end its occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol and fully comply with the demands of the UN General Assembly resolutions 68/262 and 71/205. Ukraine will continue to take all steps under international law to counter Russian aggression, alleviate the situation of Ukrainian citizens in the temporarily occupied territory, restore its territorial integrity and ensure that Russia makes full reparation for the injury caused by its internationally wrongful acts," a statement by the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry says.
Militant forces have shelled Ukrainian Armed Forces positions in Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) zone 58 times over the past 24 hours, killing two Ukrainian servicemen and wounding another four. One more soldier sustained a combat-related injury, ATO press centre has said.

The heaviest shelling was recorded in the Donetsk sector, where militant forces fired 122mm artillery on Troyitske, used 120mm mortars against Avdiyivka, Troyitske and Luhanske, and fired 82mm mortars, grenade launchers and large-caliber machineguns against Avdiyivka, Kamyanka, Pisky, Novhorodske and Luhanske.

In the Mariupol sector, 82mm mortars and grenade launchers were used against Krasnohorivka and Maryinka, large-caliber machineguns were fired on Novohryhorivka and Vodiane, and a ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft gun was fired on Shyrokyne. The enemy's snipers were also targeting Ukrainian military positions in the vicinity of Pavlopil and Hnutove.

In the Luhansk sector, militant forces fired 152mm artillery on Novozvanivka, used 120mm mortars against Krymske, fired 82mm mortars on Novo-Oleksandrivka, and used anti-tank grenade launchers against Kriakivka.
Sealston Elementary School in King George County will be closed today, for the second day in a row, as water is tested once more for bacteria.

Likewise, residents and businesses served by the Oakland Park Waterworks should not drink tap water unless they boil it or treat it with purification tablets, according to the King George County Service Authority.

The utility placed the county-run system, which serves about 330 customers in eastern King George, on notice Friday evening after tests showed bacteriological contamination.

E. coli, a type of fecal coliform bacteria commonly found in the intestines of animals and humans, was found in original water samples from the Oakland Park subdivision, said Service Authority Director Chris Thomas.

The presence of E. coli in water is a strong indication of recent sewage or animal waste contamination, according to various websites about water safety. Sewage may contain many types of disease-causing organisms.

Service Authority officials said they dont know what caused the contamination, but that they took appropriate action immediately and worked throughout the weekend to remedy the issue, according to a news release the utility sent out Tuesday afternoon.

Residents, however, were not happy with the countys approach. Micah Murphy complained that written notices were placed on front doors or porches after dark on Friday night, where some people might not have seen them. He wondered why the county didnt use its electronic notification system, King George Alert, to alert residents in a faster fashion.

Thomas said the Health Department told King George officials to distribute paper notices. He also said King George Alert wasnt used because in the past, those who arent affected by such actions tend to get alarmed unnecessarily.

Officials at Sealston Elementary School didnt know about the water problems until Monday morning, when buses were on their way to school.

School Superintendent Rob Benson said bottled water was used for drinking and cooking that day, and hand sanitizers were distributed for hand-washing.

However, because so much water is used throughout the school, he said it was impractical for school to be in session if the taps were turned off.

That announcement alarmed resident Michelle Doss, a 49-year-old who lost both breasts to cancer two years ago. If it wasnt safe for children to wash their hands with the county water, she wondered if she should shower in it or use it to wash dishes.

What about adults going through something right now, whose immune systems are deprived? said Doss, who lives on Fletchers Chapel Road. What about somebody going through cancer treatment or diabetes or anything?

She called the Service Authority and was told to check with her doctor.

Utility officials said Monday they hoped the boil-water ban would be lifted Tuesday afternoon, after water tests taken Monday came back clean. Samples from Monday showed no total coliform or E. coli, Thomas said.

But, the Virginia Department of Health told King George officials they needed a second round of testing before the ban could be lifted. Thats why additional water samples were taken Tuesday afternoon.

It takes 24 hours for the samples to be tested, so Service Authority officials do not expect the ban to be lifted before 2:30 p.m. today.

We understand the burden that is being placed on our residents, the news release stated. The Service Authority is exercising careful diligence to ensure this issue will be completely resolved.
Doris Dottie Laton went home to her beloved Lord after a spirited battle against Alzheimers disease on March 24, 2017 at age 89. She was preceded in death by her husband of 45 years, USAF Tech Sgt. Arnold Lee Laton in 1999. Dottie spent her life as a US Air Force wife caring for her son and husband by making a home for them in places as diverse as Texas, Massachusetts, Illinois, Colorado, Wyoming, West Virginia, and Germany. She spent her last forty years living in the Fredericksburg area. She was a member of Salem Baptist Church.

She is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, Allen and Debbie Laton of Spotsylvania, Va.; and her sister, Jean James, of Charleston, W.Va. The family would like to express their great appreciation to Michael Shafer whose help allowed her to stay in her home in comfort as long as possible. The family would also like to express their gratitude to the staff in the Memory Care Unit at Brookdale Assisted Living for their excellent care of her for the past nine months.

The family will receive friends at Mullins and Thompson Funeral Service, Fredericksburg Chapel, from 6 to 8 p.m. on March 28. A private interment ceremony will be held at Quantico National Cemetery. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to DAV (Disabled American Veterans) Charitable Service Trust, PO Box 14301, Cincinnati, OH 45250. Condolences maybe sent at www.mullinsthompsonfrededericksburg.com.
WHOS to blame for the failure of the Republican bill to repeal and replace Obamacare?

Who cares? What matters now is that Democrats stop gloating, Republicans stop sulking, and each party come to the table to improve a health-care system that both parties agree needs work.

After the bill collapsed on Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump accused the Democrats of obstruction, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused the president of incompetence, House Speaker Paul Ryan said health care was done, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi bragged that it was a great day.

No one had the courage to pick up the pieces and point the way forward on such a critical issue.

The Affordable Care Act has provided health-care coverage to millions more Americans, but there are still some 30 million with no insurance.

Premiums are too high. The individual mandate isnt encouraging enough people to buy into the system. Some of its regulations and taxes make little sense. Insurance markets are too thin, providing consumers too little choice. Health-care savings accounts do too little to encourage savings.

Republicans have viable ideas to address these issues, including high-risk insurance pools and capping the tax exclusion that companies get for providing employees with health insurance.

Its regrettable that none of these ideas were seriously considered in the rush to repeal Obamacare.

Equally regrettable is that Republicans appear to be giving up and moving on to other issues. If they cant get everything they want, they seem to have concluded, theyll take nothing. Its a bad strategy.

As Sen. John McCain said over the weekend, Republicans need Democrats to reform health care. The art of governing is compromiseand not just within the majority party. The sooner Ryan accepts the fact that Democrats can be a cudgel to use against the Freedom Caucus, the more successful he and Congress will be.

Ronald Reagan was known to say that he would happily take 70 or 80 percent of what he wanted and come back for the rest later.

Yet instead of living by Reagans rule, Republicans are hung up on the Hastert Rule, named for Dennis Hastert, the former (and now disgraced) House speaker: Only bills that can get through without Democratic votes are brought to the floor. This led the party to produce a deeply flawed health-care bill that, ultimately, did not win strong support from the Republicans moderate or tea party wings.

At the same time, Democrats steadfastly refused to reach across the aisle to produce a bipartisan alternative. Gloating only makes that more difficult.

On Friday, Schumer said that Democrats are ready to work with Republicans to improve the Affordable Care Act on one condition: that Republicans take repeal off the table.

This is not an auspicious step. Democrats ought to allow Republicans to call a new bill whatever they want. The details are what matters, not the label.

Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. A political independent, he is the UN secretary-generals special envoy for cities and climate change.
STEPHEN MORET has hit the ground running.

During the past three months, the new chief of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership has traveled across the commonwealth for his first listening tour. He stopped in Fredericksburg last week to hear from the regions economic development officials and speak with The Free LanceStars editorial board.

We were impressed by his frank manner, obvious smarts and plan to improve the agency, whose goal is to bring new business and more jobs to Virginia.

The VEDP was rocked last year by a highly critical report from the Joint Legislative and Review Commission, the state legislatures watchdog. The way it administered 10 incentive-grant programs exposed the state to avoidable risk of fraud and financial loss, the commission declared.

Early last year, The Roanoke Times reported that the agency awarded a $1.4 million grant to a Chinese-led company for an Appomattox County factory that proved to be a ghost. VEDPs flabby vetting relied, in part, on false online informationa discovery that roused a hue and cry from legislators.

Thats quite the mess to inherit. But Moret, former economic development secretary of Louisiana, has sketched five priorities to help boost the states business-friendly reputation, widen prosperity beyond the eastern crescent from Northern Virginia to Hampton Roads, and make VEDP more transparent and accountable.

Its very important for us to address the JLARC report, he told us. But we also, ultimately, want to get about the business of creating more economic opportunity across Virginia and helping us to get back on top as a state.

Moret said VEDP staffers will perform more due diligence before incentive grants are approved and monitor the performance of the incentives. The agency will report its results. That will give the public more confidence, he said.

Moret aims to make VEDP more effective at collaborating with local, regional government agencies, universities and private-sector economic development allies. Hence his travels to every region of Virginia to hear peoples ideas and concerns.

I want to put a lot of emphasis on the P in VEDPpartnership, he said. Economic development is a team sport. He expects his agency to be far more modest when theres good news about a business recruitment deal or jobs announcement.

Were going to try to get out of the credit-taking business, Moret said. Part of what was frustrating people about VEDP was its seemingly taking credit for things that it didnt totally create, maybe it was involved with in some way.

If our partners feel like were being a good partner and that were being effective, he said, thats going to get out.

Now, thats a healthy attitude. One we dont hear much from government officials.

Moret pledged to get Virginias business-climate rankings back on top. It was 2009 when Virginia last held the No. 1 spot in a majority of national business rankings. He noted that when he began working for Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, his native state ranked 38 spots behind Virginia. By 2014, Louisiana climbed to ninth in one ranking.

Moret credited a combination of policy changes, program initiatives and aggressive marketing for improving how national business leaders view the Pelican State.

And while he said VEDP will better marshal its existing funds, he said it needs additional investments, especially in the marketing area.

Virginia right now has an economic-development advertising budget of roughly zero. Thats not the right number, Moret said with a smile. In Louisiana, it was about $6 million, which wasnt enough, eitherbut you can do an awful lot more with $6 million than you can with zero.

We want to be one of the most effective state economic development agencies in the country, and were going to lay out what it would take to do that.

He said hes going to analyze VEDPs core functions of marketing, recruitment, retention and incentives, compare how it does business with the outfits that are best in the country, and see what lessons can be learned to apply to Virginia.

Theres really no reason I can see that we should be a less attractive place for business today than we were in 2009, Moret said. So part of this is an image issue.

Though beset with reductions in defense and other federal government spending, Virginia should be in the top three states for business climate, given its human capital, geographic assets, research and technology industry and amazing and diverse array of quality businesses, he said.

For the sake of Virginians economic future, we hope hes proven right and gets the support he needs to turn things around.
They then pinpointed a pair of genes responsible  one, known as TRP-4 produces a touch-sensitive protein in neurons; the other, DOP-3, produces a protein on neurons that senses the presence or absence of dopamine. Humans have DOP-3 too, Bai said, although we dont have the TRP-4 gene. TRP-4 seems to have been lost in evolution at the point animals moved from living in either liquid, like fish or tadpoles, or solid states, like the worms, whose natural home is dirt or rotten fruit, to living above ground in air, like humans.

Animals interpret their physical environments with different sensations, Bai said. Worms sense by touch but humans sense dominantly by vision.

It turns out our sense of sight is tightly coupled to dopamine, Bai said, implying this conserved neurochemical could be regulating environmental perception from worms to humans. Children with mutations in a gene that affects dopamine sensation have difficulty interpreting visual cues in their environment, a 2007 study found.

Transcontinental differences

Its at this point in the research that things got even more interesting. The researchers wanted to ask whether worms have a natural level of variation in their spatial perception behavior. So they took 11 different strains of roundworms from around the world and tested their maze-navigating abilities. The laboratory strain most distantly related to the British worms, which was found in a pineapple field in Hawaii, showed no preference for the more constricting maze quadrant, swimming freely throughout all the different fields of pillars.

So not only does this very simple creature change its behavior in response to its physical environment, theres a level of natural genetic variability that underlies that behavior.

Thats how diverse a simple animals perception is, Bai said.

Of the 11 strains they tested, six (including the Hawaiian worms) showed this free-ranging behavior. The other five were more like the British in their selectivity for tight spaces. All six of those more adventurous worm strains had small mutations in either TRP-4 or DOP-3, the genes the researchers identified as important for the spatial perception and quadrant preference in the British worms. And subbing in the Bristol version of TRP-4 made the Hawaiian worms more particular in selecting comforting spatial settings, they found.

Their findings dont name the evolutionary reason for this diversity, Bai said. But he believes that having a natural level of variability in the animals behavior could have benefited the population over time. Certain changes in the environment could favor more timid or more adventurous worms, and having both present in the global population could ensure the species survival through times of plenty and lean.

As for the specific differences in Hawaiian versus British worms, that requires even more speculation, Bai said. It is possible that the colder environment with fewer food sources in the U.K. favored animals that stay put, while the abundance of different fruits in Hawaii selected for animals willing to venture out from home base, he said. But theres no scientific evidence to support that hypothesis yet.

It would be even trickier to directly line up these results with human behavior. Our own behavior is extremely complex, Bai said. But we do know that dopamine plays an important role in behaviors that could be correlated to the worm experiments, namely, environmental perception and risk taking.

Next up, Bai wants to map the behavior to understand which of the animals 302 neurons is responsible. When Bai reflects on the events that took him and his laboratory team down this novel research path, its still hard for him to believe. He credits both Hans ingenuity  hes a very creative guy, Bai said  as well as the freedom the Hutch confers on basic scientists like him to explore new areas of science.

Once in a while, you find a lab is doing something that is so weird, you dont expect that theyre working on this topic, he said.

When asked if his lab is now the weird lab, Bai laughed. At this moment it probably is, he said.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak and Head of the NATO Liaison Office (NLO) in Ukraine Oleksandr Vinnikov met on Monday to discuss the military and political situation in Ukraine, the country's ongoing defense reform and priorities in continued cooperation between Ukraine and the alliance.

"The work done together with NATO is extremely important and has produced positive results at all levels, from the drafting of strategic documents to the process of Ukrainian servicemen's training by instructors from the alliance's member countries," the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's press service quoted Poltorak as saying at the meeting.

The reform of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' General Staff should significantly improve following the Ukrainian president's approval of the Armed Forces development program for the period up to 2020, he said.

Poltorak also reiterated the need to maintain close contact with the NATO Liaison Office in order to promptly address pressing issues.

Vinnikov, for his part, positively assessed the results of Ukraine-NATO cooperation and stressed the need to continue dialogue between the parties.
Story Highlights 90% think they are not likely to get Zika virus

Americans more concerned about getting Ebola and swine flu in past

64% are at least somewhat confident in government handling Zika

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Fewer than one in 10 Americans believe it is likely that they will get the Zika virus. This is in contrast to previous polls in which more Americans believed they were likely to get Ebola or the swine flu, two other high-profile viruses.

Zika Worry Less Than Ebola or Swine Flu Concern How likely do you think it is that you or someone in your family will get the Zika virus -- very likely, somewhat likely, not too likely or not likely at all? Very likely Somewhat likely Not too likely Not likely at all % % % % Zika Mar 10-11, 2017 3 4 24 66 Ebola Oct 18-19, 2014 2 13 32 50 Swine flu Aug 26, 2009 8 28 36 26 Comparison made to Ebola and H1N1/swine flu in previous surveys Gallup

These results, from a Gallup poll conducted March 10-11, display Americans' low levels of concern about Zika despite widespread reports of how the virus affects fetal development and can be spread by infected individuals traveling from affected areas to areas previously free of the virus. There have been 5,158 Zika cases reported in the U.S. since January 2015 -- in every state except Alaska -- and these cases once garnered significant media attention. The areas in the U.S. that can host mosquitoes capable of carrying Zika are relatively small, and most U.S. cases have involved individuals who had traveled abroad. Millions of Americans contracted the H1N1 virus, or swine flu, and there were 11 confirmed cases of Ebola in the U.S.

Prevalence of Zika Does Not Influence Perceptions

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that of these 5,158 cases in the U.S., 40% were in the South and 36% in the East, while 15% were in the West and 10% were in the Midwest. Despite the large regional differences in the prevalence of infection, perceptions about contracting Zika are similar across the U.S. While more than three-fourths of the individuals who contracted Zika reside in the South and East, upward of about nine in 10 of the people in each of those regions think it is either "not too likely" or "not at all likely" they will catch the disease. In the West and Midwest, where Zika has been far less prevalent, the perceptions are similar.

No Major Regional Differences in Zika Worry Proportion of U.S. Zika cases vs. perception of likelihood, by region Proportion of U.S. Zika cases Very likely Somewhat likely Not too likely Not likely at all % % % % % East 36 2 1 28 66 Midwest 10 2 4 27 64 South 40 3 6 21 69 West 15 4 5 22 64 Gallup, March 10-11, 2017

U.S. Government Trusted to Handle Zika More Than Other Outbreaks

A virus such as Zika can quickly spread across state lines, requiring federal intervention to research, identify, prevent and mitigate the spread of the disease. While largely the responsibility of the CDC, handling these outbreaks will involve a coordinated, multiagency response. As the Zika virus has spread in the U.S., 64% of Americans are at least somewhat confident that the federal government will be able to manage the public health emergency. Americans' confidence is somewhat greater than its past levels for Ebola (52%) and swine flu (59%). This level of confidence in Zika prevention may be attributable to the seemingly "less threatening" nature of the virus bolstering Americans' confidence level.

Americans' Confidence in Handling Potential Zika Cases How confident are you that the federal government will be able to handle an outbreak of the Zika virus in this country -- very confident, somewhat confident, not too confident or not confident at all? Very confident Somewhat confident Not too confident Not confident at all % % % % Zika Mar 10-11, 2017 22 42 19 14 Ebola Oct 18-19, 2014 19 33 22 24 Swine flu Aug 26, 2009 10 49 25 14 Comparison made to Ebola and H1N1/swine flu in previous surveys Gallup

Bottom Line

Spotlighting public health emergencies and outbreaks such as Zika can effectively raise public awareness about protective measures for contact and exposure to a disease. Despite the thousands of Americans infected with Zika, Americans see less risk of contracting this virus than they did Ebola, which had only a handful of U.S. cases. While this perception could be accurate -- because people do not live in areas that have the specific mosquito species that spread the disease, have not had sexual contact with people who have Zika and have not traveled to areas where the Zika virus is prevalent -- it is unclear if Americans are aware of the risk factors for contracting the Zika virus.

Alternatively, these people might be subject to personal biases that influence their perceptions of risk. Individuals depend on various and sometimes conflicting messages from an array of sources to form their opinions. Sometimes preparedness messaging might not adequately reach (or stick with) those most at risk.

Even if Americans do not feel like they are at risk of contracting Zika, if an outbreak were to occur, they trust the government to handle it at least slightly more than they have similar public health threats in recent years. This sentiment is positive news for the CDC and the federal government as a whole, as trust in government has dwindled overall. At the same time, opinion could shift if government operations in containing or addressing the virus falter or are perceived to falter, rightly or wrongly.

Historical data are available in Gallup Analytics.
Story Highlights Putin's approval ratings stable, higher than 80%

Economic outlook worst since global economic crisis

Three in four Russians see widespread corruption in government

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Tens of thousands of Russians turned out to protest against government corruption last weekend, but since 2014, neither corruption -- nor a failing economy -- has hurt Russians' approval ratings of President Vladimir Putin. Russians' approval of their president remains undiminished from the high ratings they have given him since Russia's annexation of Crimea three years ago. More than eight in 10 Russians (81%) in 2016, Gallup's most recent year of polling in the country, said they approved of the job Putin is doing.

Putin's unfaltering popularity has been remarkable because it appears to be untied to his country's recent economic troubles. Russians' approval of Putin has remained buoyant -- even ticking slightly upward -- amid plunging oil prices, years of recession and Western sanctions over Moscow's actions in Ukraine.

While Russians have not soured on Putin, they have on their economy. After a short-lived rally in 2014, Russians' optimism about the outlook for their national and local economies has continued to wane, dropping to levels in 2016 that rivaled the recent lows in 2009 at the height of the global economic crisis. Just 14% of Russians in 2016 said their national economy was getting better, and 18% said this about their local economies.

As further evidence that Putin's popularity in recent years has been mostly immune to the changing economic conditions, even though the percentage of Russians who say economic conditions are getting worse has more than doubled since 2014, Putin's ratings among this group of pessimists have actually increased. Nearly seven in 10 Russians (68%) who saw their economy as getting worse in 2016 approve of Putin. Just the year before the annexation of Crimea, 29% who saw the economy as getting worse approved of the president.

At the same time, Russians' outlooks on their own lives have not retreated as much as might be expected given the economic climate. However, the 29% of Russians who rate their lives positively enough to be considered "thriving" is still down from the record-high 34% in 2014 -- and this indicator may prove to be the one to watch ahead of the election. As thriving percentages declined after the global economic crisis, Putin's approval ratings also edged lower. This trend ended abruptly in 2014, when thriving increased almost 10 percentage points in one year after the Sochi Olympics and the situation in Crimea.

Widespread Corruption Does Not Taint Putin's Approval

In the last 10 years that Putin has been in power as either president or prime minister, large majorities of Russians -- upward of seven in 10 -- have perceived corruption as widespread in their government. In fact, it was this perceived corruption that drew protesters to the streets in Moscow and other Russian cities, resulting in hundreds of arrests and the detention of opposition figure Alexei Navalny. Protesters have directed most of their ire at Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, rather than the president.

However, this perceived endemic corruption does not appear to be harming Putin's most recent approval ratings. Since 2015, Putin's approval ratings among Russians who see corruption as widespread in government have been just as high as ratings among Russians who do not see it as widespread. Before 2015, Russians who saw widespread corruption tended to give lower approval ratings to Putin. But even among this group, his ratings have never dropped below 50%.

Implications

The rally effect that propelled Putin's approval ratings upward in 2014 -- and colored other aspects of Russians' lives -- is not unique to Russia. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, country unity and faith in a strong leader vaulted U.S. President George W. Bush's approval ratings to a record 90% and increased Americans' confidence in their institutions.

But Bush's ratings were not as buoyant and eventually succumbed to an increasingly unpopular war and the Great Recession. This has not happened yet in Russia. Even as they saw their economy slipping farther behind the rest of the world in 2016, Russians have continued to rally around Putin and his efforts to restore his country's status as a great power. This may be because many Russians overwhelmingly supported Crimea joining Russia -- which ultimately led to the economic sanctions against their country -- and are more likely to blame those who impose the sanctions rather than their president. With Russia's presidential election less than a year away, based on Putin's approval ratings, his odds of winning remain good -- should he decide to run again.

Gabriela Atanasiu and Art Swift contributed to this report.

The data in this article are available in Gallup Analytics.
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has met with the heads of delegations of the member states of the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development - GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova), during which the parties discussed the coordination of cooperation in combating terrorism and cybercrime.

Poroshenko hosted Prime Minister of Georgia Giorgi Kvirikashvili, Prime Minister of Moldova Pavel Filip and Deputy Prime Minister of Azerbaijan Ismet Dursun oglu Abasov, presidential press-service said on Monday.

The Ukrainian president highly appreciated the results of the summit of the heads of government of the GUAM member states in Kyiv," which are of great importance for launching the GUAM free trade zone."

According to the press service of the president of Ukraine, during the meeting it was noted the need to strengthen cooperation with international partners as a prerequisite for the activation of the economic dimension within GUAM.

"The sides discussed issues of strengthening cooperation in the security sphere both in the format of GUAM and the Eastern Partnership, in particular, the creation of a Regional Center for the Eastern Partnership to combat cybercrime, and coordination of cooperation in combating terrorism," a message says.

The participants of the meeting reaffirmed the solidarity support for the sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of the internationally recognized borders of the GUAM member states.
Story Highlights Among men, approval down seven points since early March

Overall approval down from 43% to 39% in past four weeks

Republican approval down four points; independents down six

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- President Donald Trump's job approval rating among men has fallen seven percentage points over the last four weeks, from 51% in early March to 44%. Meanwhile, his already low approval among women -- currently 34% -- has changed little, reducing the gender gap in approval of Trump to 10 points, down from 15 points four weeks ago.

Trump won the 2016 election in large part to strong backing from men, who supported him by 12 points over Hillary Clinton, according to exit polls. Women supported Clinton by an equally large 12-point margin, resulting in the largest gender gap in election polling history.

Men have continued to support Trump at much higher levels than women since he became president. But as his popularity is waning among the general public, he is beginning to lose support among subgroups across the board, including those who are more loyal to him.

These results are based on weekly averages of Gallup Daily tracking surveys, each encompassing more than 3,500 interviews with U.S. adults to allow for reliable analysis of subgroups.

For the week of March 20-26, an average of 39% of all Americans approved of the job Trump was doing as president, the lowest weekly average approval rating of his term. The period included a personal low 36% three-day rolling average approval rating for Trump in March 24-26 interviewing, the first three days after Republicans were unable to pass legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Trump's job approval remains at 36% in the latest three-day rolling average.

Four weeks ago, when Trump delivered his first address to a joint session of Congress and the stock market reached record highs, 43% of Americans approved of his job performance. Since then, his overall job approval rating has dropped at least one percentage point each week.

Trump Job Approval Down Among All Major Subgroups

Trump's approval has declined among all major subgroups, with the seven-point decline among men tied for the largest. He also has fallen seven points among non-Hispanic white college graduates.

Trump's support has now fallen below the majority level among men, those ages 50 and older, married Americans and all non-Hispanic whites.

President Trump's Job Approval Ratings Down Among All Major Subgroups in Past Four Weeks Feb. 27-March 5 March 20-26 Change % % pct. pts. U.S. adults 43 39 -4 Men 51 44 -7 Women 36 34 -2 18-29 years old 30 28 -2 30-49 years old 40 36 -4 50-64 years old 50 44 -6 65+ years old 52 47 -5 Non-Hispanic white 53 49 -4 Nonwhite 23 18 -5 High school education or less 44 40 -4 Some college 48 44 -4 College graduate only 42 36 -6 Postgraduate 31 25 -6 Republican 88 84 -4 Independent 39 33 -6 Democrat 10 8 -2 Conservative 75 70 -5 Moderate 35 31 -4 Liberal 13 9 -4 Married 51 45 -6 Not married 35 33 -2 White college graduate 43 36 -7 White college nongraduate 59 57 -2 Gallup Daily

Politically, Trump has suffered a larger loss in support among independents (six points) and Republicans (four points) than among Democrats (two points), mainly because Democrats' approval has always been low.

Trump still enjoys better than 80% approval among Republicans, but only one in three independents and 8% of Democrats now approve.

Like Democrats and women, young adults and unmarried Americans are two groups who have been less inclined to support Trump all along and who show little change in their approval of him in recent weeks.

Whites without a college degree are one group that has long backed Trump and is mostly maintaining higher approval. Currently, 57% of whites without a degree approve of the job Trump is doing -- little changed from 59% in early March.

White college nongraduates, along with Republicans and conservatives, are the only three major subgroups who now express majority approval for Trump.

Implications

The first week of March was one of Trump's better ones as president, based on his job approval rating at the time, while the past week has been his worst. The good feeling surrounding his address to Congress and the post-speech stock market rally made Americans optimistic about the future of the U.S. economy, if not the country more broadly.

Toward the end of that week, however, Trump made an unsubstantiated accusation that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. In subsequent weeks, he has faced renewed questions about Russian involvement in his presidential campaign and transition, and he saw his revised "travel ban," which aimed to prevent people from six Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the U.S., blocked in the courts.

The month wound down with House Republicans unable to pass legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act, one of Trump's most prominent campaign promises.

As a result, Trump has hit a new low in public approval, with all major subgroups showing declines, including larger drops among men and other groups who have been solid Trump supporters.

Now, Trump is facing concerns about whether he can accomplish some of the other big items on his agenda, including tax reform, infrastructure spending and regulatory reform.

Americans are not affording Trump the honeymoon period typically enjoyed by new presidents, suggesting he is unlikely to make solid gains in approval among Democrats anytime soon, and his approval ratings in general will likely stay low. Therefore, it is critical for Trump to maintain support among his core constituencies, who might then apply pressure to reluctant members of Congress to vote for his agenda.

These data are available in Gallup Analytics.

Explore President Trump's approval ratings in depth and compare them with those of past presidents in the Gallup Presidential Job Approval Center.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman has said the work with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the next tranche is continuing and Kyiv is expecting the final decision from the fund.

"We are working, everything is fine, we are in contact with the IMF, we are expecting the IMF's decision," Groysman told Interfax-Ukraine.

At the same time, the premier did not specify the exact terms of such a decision, but assured the public would be immediately informed about it.

Asked about the results of work of the IMF technical mission, Groysman said "this is a separate mission, it is not connected with the IMF global mission, this mission is engaged in tax reform, so it works on its own schedule."
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Readers, we need your help to prove a merry Christmas for victims of domestic violence.
This log includes incidents in which there might have been a public disturbance or a risk to the public. Information comes from the Corvallis Police Department, the Benton County Sheriffs Office and Oregon State Police. It does not include all calls for service. The status of incidents might change after further investigation. Locations are approximate. People arrested or suspected in crimes are considered innocent until proven otherwise.

Corvallis Police Department

SATURDAY, MARCH 25

ASSAULT: 2:38 p.m., 3000 block Northeast Flintlock Place. Officers arrested Kevin Maurice Mitchell, 18, of Corvallis after he reportedly punched another man multiple times and struck him over the head with a long florescent light bulb tube. Mitchell was charged with second degree assault, fourth degree assault, second degree criminal trespass, and second degree disorderly conduct.

FRIDAY, MARCH 24

METH: 10:29 p.m. 1334 N.W. Ninth St. An officer arrested Rebel Lee Tester, 29, no address, after the officer allegedly watched him toss a methamphetamine pipe behind a parked car. Tester was charged with unlawful possession of methamphetamine and tampering with physical evidence.

Benton County Sheriffs Office

SATURDAY, MARCH 18

DUII: 2:30 a.m., Northwest Seventh Street and Northwest Jackson Avenue. A deputy arrested Rory Seamus Cunningham, 31, of Corvallis for a charge of DUII. Cunningham reportedly initially refused to take a breath test until a judge issued a warrant to collect a blood or breath sample from him, at which point he gave a breath sample that reportedly showed a blood alcohol content of 0.16 percent. Cunningham was charged with DUII, reckless driving and refusing a breath test.
Four out of five blocked Sberbank offices resume operation

Four out of the five branches of the Ukrainian subsidiary of Sberbank of Russia, which were blocked by representatives of nationalist organizations, have resumed work and operate as normal.

"At present two bank branches have been unblocked - in Kyiv and Dnipro. The employees returned to their workplaces and are preparing for customer service. One blocked office of the bank remains in Zaporizhia," the press service of the financial institution said.

All other branches of the bank work as normal, including offices in Sumy and Vinnytsia, unblocked earlier.

As reported, in mid-March, the representatives of nationalist organizations in the center of Kyiv walled in the entrance to the central office of Sberbank.

In addition, as of March 24 Sberbank branches in Dnipro, Zaporizhia, Sumy and Vinnytsia had been blocked.
Elder, senior, golden age, doyen, patriarch: all words for people who have reached the golden years. In fact, I'm in my golden years but I prefer Tom rather than any other label.

We moved to Corvallis five years ago from Coos County and find Benton County a wonderful place to live: great people, good food, lots of things to interest us.

Over the years, we've found that we like to give back by volunteering as advocates for the intellectual and/or developmental disability population.

It became a little intense in Coos Bay so I looked around locally and found the long term care ombudsman, certified ombudsman program. A little over two years ago, I went through the four-day training in Salem and was assigned a nursing home in Lebanon and an assisted living facility in Corvallis, about 100 beds total. I really enjoyed the time meeting people, chatting with them, learning about the high points and low points in their lives and, as a side issue, tackling the differences between the residents and the administration.

Working with long-term care facility administration, the Department of Human Services and other organizations was profoundly satisfying even when I couldn't seem to solve an issue. I visited my assigned facilities once a week, attended monthly training sessions and continue to be surprised at the lack of volunteers in Benton County. There were times during my two years when I was the only certified ombudsman volunteering in the area and did multiple back-up investigations for the office because there weren't enough volunteers.

Now that I am out of that program and in another where I visit residential facilities for people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities and mental health group homes, I understand there is still a great need for certified ombudsmen in Benton County. Folks, it's a great job, gives you a good feeling and you get to help. Where are you?

There are nine facilities in Benton County for residents in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, residential care facilities and 18 adult foster homes. All the residents in these facilities deserve advocacy. They deserve to have visitors, friends, advocates and ombudsmen.

Take a look at the program, get the training, work with the area deputy, get to know your facility and its residents. Make a difference in a life. Here's the 800 number if you're interested: 800-522-2602 or visit www.Oregon.gov/ltco.

Oh, and today, Benton County has two certified ombudsmen. They can use the help, folks.
Back in 2011, the Legislature rolled out an ambitious set of goals for the state's educational system.

By 2025, legislators declared, every adult Oregonian would have a high school diploma. Some 40 percent of adult Oregonians would have an associate degree or some sort of post-secondary credential. The remaining 40 percent of adult Oregonians, legislators decreed, would have earned a bachelor's degree or higher.

This so-called 40-40-20 goal (in retrospect, a better nickname would have been 40-80-100, but we quibble) was widely seen as aspirational. Realistically, everyone knew that these were goals that never would be completely met. And, more to the point, it was unlikely that Oregon would ever have the kind of money available to reach the goal. (In fact, this still seems unlikely, as legislators battle with a $1.6 billion shortfall for the next two-year budget cycle.)

So this year's session of the Legislature is considering a bill, House Bill 2587, that would make a small but key change to the 40-40-20 goal. Under the terms of the bill, which is backed by the state's teachers union, the language of the goal would be changed: The state's education goals now would read that 40 percent of Oregon adults will be "given the opportunity" to earn a bachelor's degree or higher. Another 40 percent of Oregon adults would be "given the opportunity" to earn an associate degree or a post-secondary credential." The remaining Oregon adults would have "the opportunity to earn a high school diploma, a modified diploma or extended diploma or any other credential equivalent to a high school diploma."

We are sympathetic to those who argue that the 40-40-20 goals can never be reached. They're right, of course: For example, we never will be at the point at which every Oregon adult has a high school diploma or its equivalent. (The most recent statistics, for the class of 2015, show that 78 percent of Oregon high school students earned a diploma within five years after starting school.)

Similarly, the two 40 percent goals for higher education are, to put it mildly, very challenging for a state that traditionally has underfunded higher education.

So, proponents of the bill argue, why should we set ourselves up for failure?

We understand that argument.

But it's not as if the 40-40-20 goal, as unattainable as it is, hasn't benefited the state in some concrete ways. The state's high school graduation rate has inched upward over the last few years, perhaps in some small way because of the attention that rate has received statewide.

And the goal also has put a spotlight on the middle 40 percent  the associate degrees and professional certifications that are awarded by the state's community colleges. Institutions such as Linn-Benton Community College have been working vigorously over the last few years to make sure that their students complete their courses of study  in other words, that they leave school with that associate degree or certification in hand. Now, certainly, some of that would have happened without the 40-40-20 goal, but it's clear that adopting the goal helped to highlight the role that the state's often-ignored (not to mention underfunded) community colleges play in our educational system.

So the goal has had, we believe, a practical impact in Oregon.

And something just doesn't feel right about putting it on the shelf.

If we believe that education is the key to Oregon's future, for all of its residents and for the state, why would we choose to say, in essence, well, we know that not everybody will get that key, and that's OK? Throwing in the towel on the 40-40-20 goal would be setting ourselves up for a much more dangerous failure. (mm)
Investment projects in Bonn : New roof for the Poppelsdorf palace

BONN The City of Bonn has much potential for development and one of the strongest drivers is the University of Bonn. Here are some areas where investments for improvements are being made.

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In the coming years, the federal government will invest a three-digit million amount in new buildings, but also in the renovation of existing buildings in Bonn.

Development of the University of Bonn accounts for a lions share of the work on the part of the building and real estate company of the state of NRW (BLB). Its director Martin Brans and deputy director Heike Blohm-Schroder gave an overview of the upcoming projects. One of the smaller projects is causing one of the biggest headaches.

Reconstruction and renovation of the university underground parking garage, which was closed on New Years eve in 2012, has turned out to be quite complicated. Work is now expected to begin in October. Costs are expected to run 10.5 million euros, four million of that being earmarked for making the garage accessible.

Brans and Blohm-Schneider are optimistic that the garage will re-open for Christmas shopping in 2019. Three new buildings had been commissioned for the Poppelsdorf campus but these were also delayed. Considerable construction defects meant these buildings were not completed in October of 2016 as originally planned.

Instead, they will be handed over to the university in the coming days. Coming next is the restoration of the roof and facade of the Poppelsdorf baroque palace. The work will begin in June and is expected to take two and a half years. Temporary closures can be expected in this area during that time. The University of Bonn has also expressed interest in the Childrens Hospital on Adenauerallee but currently, there are no concrete plans in place.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko says Russian President Vladimir Putin and he will be able to solve problems facing bilateral relations without anyone's help.

"It's been said already about Russia that mediators are needed there between Putin and Lukashenko. Calm down - Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and I have excellent, brilliant relations. And we will find time and meet," Lukashenko said at a meeting with Armenian Ambassador Armen Khachatryan in Minsk on Tuesday.

"If there are any problems, we will solve them. We will solve them on our own, just the two of us, without any mediators. We do not need any mediation," he said.

"We are brothers. We have nothing to quarrel over," Lukashenko said.

"I once told him [Putin] in public that maybe there would come a time when we would have to stand back to back and return fire, as military people say," Lukashenko said.

"I hate mediators because they have been circling around Belarus for as long as I have been president - it is either peacekeepers or mediators, they are either with the European Union or with someone else. We will sort everything out with the European Union, with other states, and so on without any mediators," he said.
Accident with rental car : Two young men from Bonn killed in New Zealand

Bonn/Te Anau A tragic traffic accident last week claimed the lives of two young men from Bonn. They had been on vacation in New Zealand.

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Two 20-year-old Bonn men were killed in an accident in New Zealand last week. The accident occurred on March 23, as confirmed by police at the request of the General Anzeiger. The two young men were in their rental car near the city of Te Anau when they collided with a bus. According to the authorities in New Zealand, 16 tourists from Korea were on the bus.

The accident was first reported by the newspaper, The Marlborough Express. Apparently, the two Bonn men were driving on Milford Road near the small town of Te Anau when their car collided with the tourist bus. Both vehicles burst into flames. Witnesses tried to free the two young men, who were trapped in the car but without success.
Bonn central train station : Woman mugged in tunnel

A woman was mugged in a tunnel at the Bonn central train station on Friday. Police are asking for anyone who has information to come forward.

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Police are searching for two men involved in a mugging on Friday evening at 6:15 pm. A 43-year-old woman was in the tunnel at the train station, near the stairway to Track 5 when she was mugged by two men. The men tried to tear away her purse. Police reported that she was coming from Quantiusstrae, heading in the direction of the city center, when she was suddenly attacked by the men.

While one of them grabbed her from behind, his accomplice tugged at her purse. The purse strap ripped but the woman still held on to her purse, and then one of the men grabbed at the necklace she was wearing, ripping it off her neck. The men took a part of the damaged necklace and fled towards the inner city.
An opportunity for foodies and beer lovers to get lost in a world of food and drink from a hand-selected range of food trucks and breweries from around New Zealand.
The High Court of Justice in England will publish the decision if the court hears Russia's lawsuit against Ukraine on the $3 billion bond debt under a quick procedure.

The decision will be published at 09:30 London time.

In December 2015, Ukraine defaulted on a $3 billion bond that Russia purchased in December 2013 using money from the National Welfare Fund (NWF), as well as $75 million in the final interest payment. Kyiv offered to restructure the debt on the same terms as the debt restructuring deal with commercial creditors. Russian refused to discuss that option, arguing the bond was sovereign, not commercial, debt.

The Russian Finance Ministry filed a lawsuit in High Court of Justice in England in February 2016 seeking to secure repayment. The law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, which has advised Moscow for a number of years, is representing Russia in the case.

Ukraine on May 27, 2016 filed objections against the lawsuit. Ukraine said that the loan agreement signed in December 2013 is invalid and cannot be implemented.

On July 28, 2016, Russia filed a petition to make the decision in the case under a quick procedure. The Law Debenture Trust Corporation, representing the interests of Russia filed the petition.
Ghana Police Chief Grant Interview And Spill More Secret On Tonto Dikeh's Marriage Scandal (Video)

felicilin at 28-03-2017 01:18 PM (5 years ago) (f)

Following the long heated social media exposed marriage crisis of controversial actress Tonto Dikeh and her estranged husband, Olakunle Churchill, the media that interviewed them, has further travelled to Ghana over references from the couple in their interviews. Tonto Dikeh claimed she suffered domestic violence at home and subsequently ran to the Nigerian Embassy in Ghana naked for safety.

The Media Room Hub reporter Azuka visited the Ghana Police and the Embassy to further investigate claims from both couple and present facts to the public especially with regards to the status of those involved in society. This is a must-watch video which exposes the false claims and counter accusations that bedeviled the much talked about marriage bouhaha.

Following the long heated social media exposed marriage crisis of controversial actress Tonto Dikeh and her estranged husband, Olakunle Churchill, the media that interviewed them, has further travelled to Ghana over references from the couple in their interviews. Tonto Dikeh claimed she suffered domestic violence at home and subsequently ran to the Nigerian Embassy in Ghana naked for safety.The Media Room Hub reporter Azuka visited the Ghana Police and the Embassy to further investigate claims from both couple and present facts to the public especially with regards to the status of those involved in society. This is a must-watch video which exposes the false claims and counter accusations that bedeviled the much talked about marriage bouhaha. A Police Superintendent, Joseph Oppong, who was part of the team that investigated the case between Tonto Dikeh and her husband, Olakunle Churchill, spilled more secret as he was interviewed by a Mediahub correspondent.

According to Supri. Joseph, an incident was reported to them on June 5th, 2015, by Olakunle Churchill, who alleged that Tonto Dikeh destroyed properties in his

house in Accra, Ghana. He went further to disclose that CCTVs, televisions alongside other household properties were found destroyed, when they got there. He also alleged there were eyewitnesses who confirmed the incident.

The Policeman alleged that the fight was caused by some women Tonto allegedly spotted her husband with when they got to Ghana on that faithful day, and told him not to

come back to the house. Mr. Olakunle who went to sleep in a hotel, didn't come back the next day as he went out with some friends. This marked the beginning of destruction of properties in the house by Tonto Dikeh, by 3a.m on that day. He further alleged that those present at the scene of the incident, stopped Tonto Dikeh from destroying more properties before the Police got there.

He also alleged that Tonto Dikeh who looked haggard when they took her to the Nigerian embassy in Ghana, laid a complaint against her husband at the embassy. The Ghanaian Police Superintendent, also disclosed that Tonto Dikeh who was arrested by her husband, was also bailed by him (Churchill), as he wrote a withdrawal letter on the case, telling the Ghanaian Police that he will like to settle the matter with his wife amicably.

He concluded by saying that his men were not bribed by both parties, as they have a detailed document on the case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k27nn1QIzgA

A Police Superintendent, Joseph Oppong, who was part of the team that investigated the case between Tonto Dikeh and her husband, Olakunle Churchill, spilled more secret as he was interviewed by a Mediahub correspondent.According to Supri. Joseph, an incident was reported to them on June 5th, 2015, by Olakunle Churchill, who alleged that Tonto Dikeh destroyed properties in hishouse in Accra, Ghana. He went further to disclose that CCTVs, televisions alongside other household properties were found destroyed, when they got there. He also alleged there were eyewitnesses who confirmed the incident.The Policeman alleged that the fight was caused by some women Tonto allegedly spotted her husband with when they got to Ghana on that faithful day, and told him not tocome back to the house. Mr. Olakunle who went to sleep in a hotel, didn't come back the next day as he went out with some friends. This marked the beginning of destruction of properties in the house by Tonto Dikeh, by 3a.m on that day. He further alleged that those present at the scene of the incident, stopped Tonto Dikeh from destroying more properties before the Police got there.He also alleged that Tonto Dikeh who looked haggard when they took her to the Nigerian embassy in Ghana, laid a complaint against her husband at the embassy. The Ghanaian Police Superintendent, also disclosed that Tonto Dikeh who was arrested by her husband, was also bailed by him (Churchill), as he wrote a withdrawal letter on the case, telling the Ghanaian Police that he will like to settle the matter with his wife amicably.He concluded by saying that his men were not bribed by both parties, as they have a detailed document on the case.

Post Reply Posted: at 28-03-2017 01:18 PM (5 years ago) | Hero

dynasty4all at 28-03-2017 02:04 PM (5 years ago)

(m) MONEY HAS EXCHANGED HANDS.

ARE WE IN LAW COURT?

DO POLICE HAS RIGHT TO REVEAL A STATEMENT MADE BY ANYONE TO THE PUBLIC IF NOT IN LAW COURT?

MONEY IS GOOD, WITH MONEY YOU CAN BUY SOME FOOLS TO BE ON YOUR SIDE. Posted: at 28-03-2017 02:04 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac MONEY HAS EXCHANGED HANDS.ARE WE IN LAW COURT?DO POLICE HAS RIGHT TO REVEAL A STATEMENT MADE BY ANYONE TO THE PUBLIC IF NOT IN LAW COURT?MONEY IS GOOD, WITH MONEY YOU CAN BUY SOME FOOLS TO BE ON YOUR SIDE. Reply

dynasty4all at 28-03-2017 02:05 PM (5 years ago)

(m) GUYS MAKE MONEY IF NOT YOU ARE IN TROUBLE ESP IN AFRICA WHERE THERE IS POVERTY. Posted: at 28-03-2017 02:05 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac GUYS MAKE MONEY IF NOT YOU ARE IN TROUBLE ESP IN AFRICA WHERE THERE IS POVERTY. Reply

akinmanchy at 28-03-2017 02:14 PM (5 years ago)

(m) Hmmmmm ok na Life na jeje so just try to take am softly Posted: at 28-03-2017 02:14 PM (5 years ago) | Hero Hmmmmm ok na Reply

morgan1 at 28-03-2017 02:42 PM (5 years ago)

(m) From Naija to Ghana again?? Posted: at 28-03-2017 02:42 PM (5 years ago) | Hero From Naija to Ghana again?? Reply

Haso112 at 28-03-2017 02:58 PM (5 years ago)

(m) Quote from: morgan1 on 28-03-2017 02:42 PM From Naija to Ghana again??



Churchill resides permanently in GHANA....!!! Posted: at 28-03-2017 02:58 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac Churchill resides permanently in GHANA....!!! Reply

Larry28 at 28-03-2017 03:33 PM (5 years ago)

(f) Quote from: dynasty4all on 28-03-2017 02:04 PM MONEY HAS EXCHANGED HANDS.

ARE WE IN LAW COURT?

DO POLICE HAS RIGHT TO REVEAL A STATEMENT MADE BY ANYONE TO THE PUBLIC IF NOT IN LAW COURT?

MONEY IS GOOD, WITH MONEY YOU CAN BUY SOME FOOLS TO BE ON YOUR SIDE.

Posted: at 28-03-2017 03:33 PM (5 years ago) | Hero Reply

mensch at 28-03-2017 03:50 PM (5 years ago)

(m) For me churchill caused the whole problem. It seems tonto was not happy with those girls she saw with him .she then wanted some explaination from the husband which she tonto did not get. Adding salt to injure churchill went and slept in the hotel. Maybe with does girls.

Making it true what tonto suspected. Then she went made.

The husband should have stayed at home to calm her down. Posted: at 28-03-2017 03:50 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac For me churchill caused the whole problem. It seems tonto was not happy with those girls she saw with him .she then wanted some explaination from the husband which she tonto did not get. Adding salt to injure churchill went and slept in the hotel. Maybe with does girls.Making it true what tonto suspected. Then she went made.The husband should have stayed at home to calm her down. Reply

topsy78 at 28-03-2017 04:09 PM (5 years ago)

(m) This social network things ennnh!! na grand family spoiler and major friendship breaker avenue, hate propeller. Una get time o! over think plenty for una. Even think for people before them talk. This is a matter they should rather settle amicably as husband and wife, but no. guys would rather expand the issue to a point of no correction. Not even a call to settlement. If they'd rather settle their differences though our positive advises and support to continue as couple for the betterment of their kid woun't that be better? Nawa o! I just don't know why we do what we do. she's wrong o, He is wrong o, that's not the issue. we are not perfect either. Lets rather help them come to a compromise than create more friction in their marriage WITH OUR CHOICES OF COMMENT. Help them to think wiser. Besides, they are only human too. Posted: at 28-03-2017 04:09 PM (5 years ago) | Upcoming This social network things ennnh!! na grand family spoiler and major friendship breaker avenue, hate propeller. Una get time o! over think plenty for una. Even think for people before them talk. This is a matter they should rather settle amicably as husband and wife, but no. guys would rather expand the issue to a point of no correction. Not even a call to settlement. If they'd rather settle their differences though our positive advises and support to continue as couple for the betterment of their kid woun't that be better? Nawa o! I just don't know why we do what we do. she's wrong o, He is wrong o, that's not the issue. we are not perfect either. Lets rather help them come to a compromise than create more friction in their marriage WITH OUR CHOICES OF COMMENT. Help them to think wiser. Besides, they are only human too. Reply

gogoman at 28-03-2017 04:37 PM (5 years ago)

(m) all of una dey mad Posted: at 28-03-2017 04:37 PM (5 years ago) | Addicted Hero all of una dey mad Reply

schmit at 28-03-2017 05:44 PM (5 years ago)

(f) Rubbish Posted: at 28-03-2017 05:44 PM (5 years ago) | Hero Rubbish Reply

chimkey at 28-03-2017 05:59 PM (5 years ago)

(f) Make I hear word biko, enough of this Tonto/Churchill wahala. Posted: at 28-03-2017 05:59 PM (5 years ago) | Upcoming Make I hear word biko, enough of this Tonto/Churchill wahala. Reply

24magic at 28-03-2017 07:34 PM (5 years ago)

(m) Why too much ado about this couple Posted: at 28-03-2017 07:34 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac Why too much ado about this couple Reply

Markeve at 28-03-2017 10:34 PM (5 years ago)

(f) pls Tonto and Churchill is high time u both stop this madness. Posted: at 28-03-2017 10:34 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac pls Tonto and Churchill is high time u both stop this madness. Reply

cmmtrend at 29-03-2017 09:37 AM (5 years ago)

(m) For free Social Network and Free Blog Websites,

Visits,

http://Https://cmmtrends.com.ng





It's all about Chatting With a Great Features, Sign up there and Test it yourself Posted: at 29-03-2017 09:37 AM (5 years ago) | Newbie For free Social Network and Free Blog Websites,Visits,It's all about Chatting With a Great Features, Sign up there and Test it yourself Reply

tonyigho at 29-03-2017 12:07 PM (5 years ago)

(m) i am a man, no woman will see her husband or bf with another woman mostly in a suspicious way and get happy even if the man is doing everything for the woman. Posted: at 29-03-2017 12:07 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac i am a man, no woman will see her husband or bf with another woman mostly in a suspicious way and get happy even if the man is doing everything for the woman. Reply

ngfineface at 29-03-2017 12:44 PM (5 years ago)

(f) Who is this Azuka wanting cheap popularity kwa? Won't she allow a sleeping dog to sleep? We are praying for this coupl eto heal and she carry her yeye dress sense waka go Ghana go dey open old wound. Posted: at 29-03-2017 12:44 PM (5 years ago) | Hero Who is this Azuka wanting cheap popularity kwa? Won't she allow a sleeping dog to sleep? We are praying for this coupl eto heal and she carry her yeye dress sense waka go Ghana go dey open old wound. Reply

Deltaboy1 at 29-03-2017 03:17 PM (5 years ago)

(m) Quote from: dynasty4all on 28-03-2017 02:04 PM MONEY HAS EXCHANGED HANDS.

ARE WE IN LAW COURT?

DO POLICE HAS RIGHT TO REVEAL A STATEMENT MADE BY ANYONE TO THE PUBLIC IF NOT IN LAW COURT?

MONEY IS GOOD, WITH MONEY YOU CAN BUY SOME FOOLS TO BE ON YOUR SIDE.

omo ibo bastard, drug peddlers Posted: at 29-03-2017 03:17 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac omo ibo bastard, drug peddlers Reply

diezo at 29-03-2017 04:25 PM (5 years ago)

(m) WHO NO GET WORK AMONG THESE PEOPLE: A. TONTO DIKEH B. CHURCHILL C. POSTER D. THE JOURNALIST, BEFORE ANY ANSWER MAKE UNA NO FORGET SAY PERSON NO WELL ANOTHER PERSON WEY WELL COME DEY TAKE TABLET FOR PERSON WEY NO WELL NA WHO NO COME WELL? Posted: at 29-03-2017 04:25 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac WHO NO GET WORK AMONG THESE PEOPLE: A. TONTO DIKEH B. CHURCHILL C. POSTER D. THE JOURNALIST, BEFORE ANY ANSWER MAKE UNA NO FORGET SAY PERSON NO WELL ANOTHER PERSON WEY WELL COME DEY TAKE TABLET FOR PERSON WEY NO WELL NA WHO NO COME WELL? Reply
Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office has said the murder in Kyiv of former Russian lower parliament deputy Denis Voronenkov, who was an important witness in the case against former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, will not affect the treason case against him.

"The position of the prosecution is that we don't have any "key" witnesses or any witness, who are not "key" witnesses. There are more 100 of them and each is important," said military prosecutor Ruslan Kravchenko on Tuesday. He added that each witness in the case has given and continues to give evidence.

Kravchenko said enough evidence has been collected to convict Yanukovych of the treason charge.
Xiaomi in plans to create 20,000 jobs in India; teams up with Foxconn for second manufacturing unit News oi -Abhinaya Prabhu Xiaomi job opportunities coming soon.

Xiaomi is one of the successful Chinese brands in India. The company that entered India in 2014 has generated over $1 billion in terms of revenue from here.

Xiaomi's founder Lei Jun announced that the country is one of the important markets for them and that they aim to create 20,000 jobs in three years. At the Economic Times Global Business Summit 2017, he added that the company has managed to achieve a great success in a short span of time. On the sidelines of the event, he also added that the company is planning to increase its offline presence by 500% in India.

Xiaomi to increase offline share by 50 percent in 2017

Notably, Xiaomi entered the country in July 2014 and in two years it generated $1 billion revenue over here. After entering India, the company opened a manufacturing plant in March 2015. In one year, over 75% of its phones were made in India. However, he announced that over 95% of the Xiaomi phones sold in the country are made in India.

Xiaomi Mi 6, Mi 6 Plus: Complete specs are out before launch

Following the success, Xiaomi announced that they are partnering with Foxconn to set up the second manufacturing unit in Andhra Pradesh, India. Eventually, the plant will help in creating employment for over 5,000 people in the surrounding villages. Over 90% of the workforce employed in these plans are women. Undoubtedly, the company is contributing towards employment opportunities in the country with its own manufacturing plants.

As of now, Xiaomi slipped to the fourth position in China as the demand for smartphones dropped by 22% on an annual basis. Eventually, it dropped to the seventh position in the global rating and witnessed 16% drop in the sales.

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Moto G5 to be launched in India on April 4 News oi -Samden Sherpa Lenovo will launch the Moto G5 in India on April 4.

Well, it looks like the new smartphone Moto G5 will be launching in India on April 4. Lenovo has just sent out press invites for an event to be held in new Delhi.

The launch comes after Lenovo recently announced the Moto G5 Plus in India. Further, it looks like the company is keeping its promise of delivering another smartphone. Having said that, Lenovo seems to be following the same strategy as it did with the Moto G4 Plus and Moto G4 smartphones. The company had launched the Moto G4 Plus first and then the G4 variant.

Motorola India teases fans with video of upcoming Moto G5

On the other hand, it is expected that the Moto G5 will relatively be less costly compared to the other Moto G series devices. The Moto G5 Plus was launched in India at Rs. 16,999.

In terms of specifications, the Moto G5 will feature downgraded components as compared to Moto G5 Plus. One tad similarity between the two smartphones maybe in terms of design complete with a fingerprint scanner bust the rest will differ marginally. The G5 will come with a 5-inch FullHD display. The G5 will feature a regular 13-megapixel rear camera and a 5-megapixel camera. The device will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor and a 2800 mAh battery.

Is Moto G5 Blue Sapphire color variant coming soon?

Further, the smartphone will likely feature three variants depending on the RAM. Reportedly, it will start with 2GB of RAM and 16GB inbuilt storage, followed by 3GB of RAM with 32GB of storage, and lastly 4GB of RAM and 32GB storage. The device will come with a microSD card slot which will be expandable up to 256GB. As for the OS, Moto G5 will run on Android 7.0 Nougat out-of-the-box. The dual-SIM smartphone will support 4G.

However, as of now, Lenovo has not given any information on the pricing details of the upcoming Moto G5 smartphone. Given the three storage and RAM variants of the Moto G5, the price could be set accordingly to give a close competition to Xiaomi's Redmi Note 4.

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Samsung Galaxy S8 to feature an unannounced Sony IMX333 sensor News oi -Samden Sherpa The latest rumor suggests the Galaxy star duo will premiere a new Sony IMX333 sensor

With the amount of leaks and rumors that we have seen in the past several weeks, we are almost clear about Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S8 flagship.

Besides, with the data that we have till date about the Galaxy S8 series smartphones, we don't think there is much room for excitement. Moreover, we can not say Samsung has been good at keeping secrets. While this has been the case, yet again, a new information about the Samsung's upcoming flagship has just popped up on the internet. Now, this only proves the statement we made earlier.

Galaxy S8, S8 Plus: Expect these software features and changes to debut on Samsung phones

However, while we are just 24 hours away from the official launch event, the new twitter leak claims that Samsung Galaxy S8 will come with a Sony IMX333 sensor in the rear-facing camera. On the other hand, this is an interesting report. Why? Because this particular sensor has not yet been introduced in the market. More significantly, none of Sony's Xperia phones feature this technology.

With the amount of leaks and rumors that we have seen in the past several weeks, we are almost clear about Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S8 flagship. Besides, with the data that we have till date about the Galaxy S8 series smartphones, we don't think there is much room for excitement. Moreover, we cannont say Samsung has been good at keeping secrets. While this has been the case, yet again, a new information about the Samsung's upcoming flagship has just popped up on the internet. Now this only proves the statement we made earlier.However, while we are just 24 hours away from the official launch event, the new leaks claims that Samsung Galaxy S8 will come with a Sony IMX333 sensor in the rear-facing camera. On the other hand, this is an interesting report. Why? Because, this particular sensor has not yet been introduced in the market. More significantly, none of Sony's Xperia phones feature this technology. Unfortunately, no other details have been revealed or shared apart from the sensor type. We are still speculating the possibilities. While we can't disuss much, we know that the smartphone is expected to come with a 12-megapixel single-lens camera.The good thing though is that Samsung will be upgrading the performance and the quality of the camera on its upcoming Galaxy S flagships. It will interesting to see how the Galaxy S8's camera will compare to it older siblings the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge smartphone.

Unfortunately, no other details have been revealed or shared apart from the sensor type. We are still speculating the possibilities. While we can't discuss much, we know that the smartphone is expected to come with a 12-megapixel single-lens camera.

Samsung Galaxy S8 accessories leaked with pricing details

The good thing though is that Samsung will be upgrading the performance and the quality of the camera on its upcoming Galaxy S flagships. It will interesting to see how the Galaxy S8's camera will compare to it older siblings the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge smartphone.

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Samsung confirms its plans to sell refurbished Galaxy Note 7 News oi -Abhinaya Prabhu Refurbished Samsung Galaxy Note 7 to go on sale soon.

Earlier this year, there were claims that Samsung might sell the refurbished units of Galaxy Note 7 in India. However, the company rubbished these claims saying that it has no such plans for the country.

Now Samsung has announced that it plans to sell the refurbished Galaxy Note 7 smartphone those were recalled from the global markets due to the exploding batteries. The company scrapped the Note 7 in October last year following a global recall around two months after its launch as some phones exploded due to faulty batteries. The probe found issues related to the manufacturing process of the batteries used in the Note 7.

Refurbished Samsung Galaxy Note 7 to go on sale with safer batteries

Analysis from the company as well as independent researchers found that there were no issues in the Galaxy Note 7 except for the batteries. Eventually, it is believed that the South Korean tech giant will be able to recoup a part of its losses with the refurbished Note 7 units.

Samsung has confirmed that the refurbished units will be sold outside the U.S. The remaining units will be recycled and some components will be reused. The decision of selling either refurbished or rental phones depends on consultations with the carriers and regulatory authorities and the local demand as well.

Samsung India denies plans of selling refurbished Galaxy Note 7 in India

The company has announced that it will release dates and availability of the refurbished Galaxy Note 7 soon. It also plans to recover some reusable components like camera modules and chips to and extract metals such as gold, copper, nickel, and silver.

Notably, Samsung has been facing constant pressure from environment rights group and others to handle the recalled Galaxy Note 7 units in an eco-friendly way.

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Jio Prime vs Airtel offers: Which one is best for you? Features lekhaka -Gizbot Bureau Jio Prime vs Airtel Offers: Choose Yours

Post the inception of Reliance Jio and its plan, there has been an interesting tariff war among telecom companies, where many including Airtel and Vodafone have accused it of disrupting the market. While the 'Happy New Year' is nearing its end, meaning there will be no free data and unlimited calls, as you need to pay to avail the offer.



In order to make things attractive, Reliance Jio launched its Prime plan that of course looks quite good for the cost. Seeing this, Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea have come with up their own version of bundled plans offering free local+STD calls and up to 28GB of data for prepaid users. So, today, let's compare the bundled plan of both Airtel and Reliance Jio.

Reliance Jio

In order to continue using the 'Happy New Year' Plan, the user must sign in to the Prime membership plan with Rs. 99 per year. In addition to that, users need to pay for a choose tariff per month starting at Rs. 149.

If you are not recharging your number after Prime membership enrollment, the company will automatically cancel your the plan for yourself. The last date for enrolling into the Jio Prime membership program is March 31. The Plans of Reliance Jio are as follows:

Rs 149 plan: Prime Members get 2GB data in 4G speeds with a validity of 28 days along with 100 SMS.

SEE ALSO: How to become a Reliance Jio Prime member for free

If the above plan doesn't suit you, from 1st April 2017, users can pay Rs. 303 per month to avail free unlimited calls, SMS, and 1GB internet per day. This tariff plan can avail 28GB of data for just Rs. 303 with a validity of 28 days.

Also, on the other hand, the Jio users will still continue to enjoy free 4G internet from 2 AM to 5 AM at night.

If suppose 1GB per day is not enough for you, users can opt for another plan that is priced at Rs 499 which will offer 56GB of 4G data along with free unlimited calls and SMS. In this plan, users will get a 2GB daily limit on this plan.

Airtel

In an attempt to counter the threat posed by Jio, Bharti Airtel also came up with an offer equivalent to Jio's 303 Plan. The Rs 345 plan from Airtel will get you 28GB of 3G/4G data with a validity of 28 days but with a catch here.

If you recharge for Rs. 345 customers will be able to use only 500MB of the 1GB daily allowance between 6 AM to midnight and the other 500 MB can be used between 12 AM to 6 AM only.

Moreover, customers need to recharge this Rs 345 plan before March 31, to avail this service for a period of 12 months. In addition to data, customers will also get unlimited local and STD calls as well.

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Next round of sale of airwaves should ideally be scheduled in 2018: COAI News oi -Priyanka The Association said that the next round of sale of airwaves should ideally be scheduled in 2018

Giving its suggestion on spectrum auction this year, Cellular Operator's Association of India (COAI) today said that the centre should wait for the next spectrum auction, PTI reported.

The Association said that the next round of sale of airwaves should ideally be scheduled in 2018, the report added.

"In the immediate context, we don't expect a whole lot of demand for the spectrum because mergers and harmonisation will lead to efficiencies in terms of use of existing spectrum, companies like Idea Cellular and Vodafone (which have announced decision to merge in India) will put their spectrum together for efficiencies," COAI DG Rajan S Mathews told the news agency.

His comments come after India's second largest telecom service provider Vodafone has announced its merger plan with Idea Cellular and Bharti Airtel is acquiring Telenor's India unit and Tikona Digital's 4G airwaves.

Do you know what the Spectrum and Spectrum Auction mean?

Last month, former Telecom Secretary JS Deepak said, The government is planning for a fresh round of spectrum auction between July and December and will send recommendations to the telecom regulator soon.

We are looking to do a spectrum auction every year so that telcos can plan their needs, whether they need to trade it, buy it from someone else or come to the auction. This ensures complete certainty and policy stability, Deepak said.

He said, "And we are soon going to send a request to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India for recommendations for the next auction, which I believe would be held between July and December. It will be annual auction done every year. How much of spectrum to be sold, the price, newer spectrum bands - all issues will be considered," he said.

"The government is not worried about unsold spectrum," he added.

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House Intel Chairman Met Source on White House Grounds

By VOA News March 27, 2017

The chairman of the U.S. House intelligence committee, David Nunes, met a source on White House grounds before making his disclosure last week that President Donald Trump was caught up in "incidental" surveillance, according to his spokesman.

Nunes' spokesman Jack Langer told reporters Monday that "Nunes met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source."

Previously, Nunes' would not say where he met his source, and has still not revealed the identity of the source.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Monday he does not know where Nunes got his information, but said Nunes has said he did not meet with anyone from the White House staff. He said Nunes also has made clear that he had multiple sources for his allegations.

When asked if the meeting creates a perception problem between Nunes and the White House, Spicer said Nunes was doing his job to investigate allegations of surveillance and was being upfront with journalists about his activities.

Last week, Nunes' announced that he received information from an undisclosed source that conversations by Trump and his staff had been swept up in "incidental collection" activities by U.S. spy agencies targeting foreign agents.

Nunes spoke with reporters and the president about the material without informing any of the other 21 members of the House Intelligence Committee, angering Democrats on the committee who questioned Nunes' credibility.

Nunes later apologized to the committee for not first telling them about the information.

Trump, who earlier this month tweeted unsubstantiated allegations that former President Barack Obama had wiretapped his campaign while he ran for office, has said he was "somewhat vindicated" by Nunes' statement about the surveillance.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey has said that there is no information to support Trump's allegation that Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump Tower. Trump has asked Congress to investigate.

Nunes, as chair of the House intelligence committee, is leading a Congressional investigation into Russia's involvement in the 2016 election, including possible ties between Trump associates and Russia.

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, Congressman Adam Schiff, said Nunes' actions last week, including briefing Trump before committee members, "casts quite a profound cloud over [the committee's] ability to do the work," and he called for the formation of an independent commission.

"If the chairman is going to continue to go to the White House rather than his own committee, there's no way we can conduct this investigation," Schiff said.

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Counter-ISIS Strikes Continue in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, March 27, 2017  U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, conducting 34 strikes consisting of 80 engagements against ISIS targets yesterday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

U.S. Central Command continues to work with partner nations to conduct targeted airstrikes in Iraq and Syria as part of the comprehensive strategy to degrade and defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

Officials reported details of yesterday's strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Strikes in Syria

In Syria, coalition military forces conducted 19 strikes consisting of 20 engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Abu Kamal, a strike suppressed an ISIS tactical unit.

-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, a strike destroyed a wellhead.

-- Near Palmyra, a strike destroyed a tank.

-- Near Raqqa, nine strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit; destroyed a wellhead, a heavy transport equipment piece, a vehicle, an oil storage tank, an ISIS headquarters, a vehicle-borne bomb and a fighting position; and damaged two supply routes.

-- Near Tabqah, seven strikes engaged three ISIS tactical units; destroyed two vehicles, a fighting position and a front-end loader; and damaged two supply routes.

Strikes in Iraq

In Iraq, coalition military forces conducted seven strikes consisting of 67 engagements against ISIS targets, coordinated with and in support of Iraq's government:

-- Near Beiji, a strike destroyed a tactical vehicle.

-- Near Mosul, seven strikes engaged four ISIS tactical units; destroyed six tunnels, three fighting positions, three vehicles, two mortar systems, a weapons storage facility, a front-end loader, a supply cache and a heavy machine gun; damaged 17 supply routes; and suppressed six ISIS mortar teams and three ISIS tactical units.

-- Near Qaim, a strike suppressed an ISIS tactical unit.

-- Near Qayyarah, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed a watercraft.

-- Near Rawah, two strikes engaged two ISIS tactical units and destroyed a unmanned aerial vehicle, a UAV facility and a vehicle.

-- Near Sinjar, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed a tactical vehicle and a vehicle.

-- Near Tal Afar, two strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed a weapons cache, an explosives cache, a storage facility and an improvised weapons facility.

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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Soldiers to receive lighter combat helmet

By Gary Sheftick March 27, 2017

WASHINGTON (Army News Service) -- The Army awarded a contract Tuesday for a helmet that weighs an average of 22 percent less than the one currently in use but provides just as much protection, according to officials.

The Advanced Combat Helmet Generation II contract was awarded to Revision Military in Vermont to produce up to $98 million in helmets over the next five years. The contract was mentioned Wednesday at the Senate Armed Services Committee, subcommittee on airland, during a hearing about Army modernization.

Brig. Gen. Robert L. Marion, deputy of acquisition and systems management for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, told senators the helmet and other lightweight body armor items now being developed are among the Army's most promising new technologies.

The new helmet is made from ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene, a lighter material than Kevlar, but reportedly just as strong. It can stop 9 mm handgun rounds, officials said, along with various shell fragments.

Collaboration with industry, academia and government research laboratories enabled the weight reduction without compromising integrity, according to Program Executive Office Soldier at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

"The partnership between the Army and industry is critical," said Lt. Col. Kathy M. Brown, product manager for Soldier protective equipment. "With a renewed focus on research and development, our goal is a revolutionary leap in technology for personal protective equipment in the future."

The weight difference between the new ACH Gen II and the current helmet depends on the size, explained another PEO Soldier official. In the most common size of the helmet, a large, the ACH Gen II will weigh just under 2.5 pounds, about 12 ounces less than the current large ACH.

The most weight reduction will be in the extra-large helmet, officials pointed out. That size will see a reduction of nearly a pound.

The helmet weight reduction will help Soldiers reduce mission fatigue and enhance their situational awareness, according to PEO Soldier officials. They believe the lighter helmet will increase Soldier effectiveness and overall survivability.

The new helmet will also be available to other military services through Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, just like the current ACH.

"The procurement of the ACH GEN II is the result of the Army's modernization program to meet one of the Army's top priorities -- lightening the Soldier's load," Brown said.

LIGHTENING THE LOAD

Heavy, bulky body armor has been a problem for many years, said Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, the Army's deputy chief of staff, G-3/5/7, who also testified at the hearing.

"We went into Iraq back in 2003 and all this stuff started getting added to us like a Christmas tree: side plates, groin plates, neck plates," Anderson said, adding that all the protective equipment weighed Soldiers down and caused them to move almost "like robots."

The new integrated head, neck and face protection that is now being developed is promising, though, Anderson said.

The Integrated Head Protection System will include an enhanced helmet, a visor, a mandible that protects the lower jaw, and a "ballistic applique" that can be attached over the base helmet. The complete ensemble is scheduled to be fielded in 2020.

In the meantime, though, body armor is already being fielded to better fit women and smaller Soldiers, Marion told lawmakers. Body armor is now being customized to fit the smallest stature Soldier to the biggest, he said.

"What we've been able to find through testing recently is that we have the same level or greater protection for up to 26 percent less weight," Marion said of body armor being engineered at the Army's Natick Lab in Massachusetts.

"And that's weight that we can't off-board to a mule or something else," Marion said, referring to the SMET mule -- the squad mission equipment transport -- which is a vehicle being designed to follow along with an infantry squad and carry up to 1,000 pounds of gear.

The SMET is basically a four-wheel cart that will roll autonomously without a driver, carrying food, water, batteries and equipment for a squad, in order to reduce the weight in Soldier rucksacks, explained Lt. Gen. John M. Murray, the Army's deputy chief of staff, G-8.

He said the Army is working with industry and attempting to lower the estimated production cost of the SMET.

LIGHTENING ARMORED VEHICLES

Personal protective equipment is not the only armor that needs to be lightened, Murray said. The problem with upgrading armor on vehicles is that it increases their weight, he said.

"The next upgrade of the Abrams (tank) will once again increase the weight," he said. "We're just about reaching the limit of what we can do with the Abrams. So it is time for us to start looking for a next-generation tank."

"For the very near term, the Abrams is still at the top of its class," Murray said, but added there is parity out there, with other countries now fielding tanks that can compete on the battlefield.

Armored vehicles like the M1 Abrams tank and M2 Bradley are expensive to replace, so in the meantime, incremental upgrades must continue, Murray said. At the same time, new technologies must be explored for a next-generation vehicle. What he said must be found is a new technology that can significantly lighten armored vehicles, but provide the same level of protection.

"We must do both," said Maj. Gen. Robert M. Dyess Jr. about upgrades and new development. Dyess is the acting director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center.

"There is an urgent need to modernize existing equipment," he said, "and undertake developmental programs to replace the workhorses that have provided overmatch and have served our nation so well."

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U.S. Department of Defense

Press Operations

News Transcript

Presenter: Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis; Minister of State for Defense for Qatar Khalid bin Mohammad Al Attiyah March 27, 2017

Remarks by Secretary Mattis and Minister Al Attiyah at the Pentagon

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE JIM MATTIS: Well, good morning, excellency, and welcome to you to the Pentagon, to your party. It's good to have you here.

As we both know, over many years, we have stood together, both of our militaries in the effort to try to stabilize a region of great importance to the international community and the relationship between our two militaries through good times and bad has been one that we've always taken a great deal of pride in.

I would just say too that the interests that we share are what bind us together, but there's also a friendship between our forces, thanks to your -- your hosting of so many of our forces there and the support you've given to so many of our troops who've rotated through and come home with very fond memories of their time in your country. So we appreciate your hospitality, your serious investment in so much of what -- the infrastructure there, so much of which supports our forces there and we look forward that we continue to cooperate in many ways.

But again, Excellency, welcome to the Pentagon. It's a pleasure to have you here.

DEFENSE MINISTER KHALID BIN MOHAMMAD AL ATTIYAH: Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.

Ladies and gentleman, good morning. I'm really honored and happy to be with you here today this morning. And as you said, Mr. Secretary, the relation between us and the United States is not only the cooperation, it's the friendship we are enjoying together and we are so glad to have your -- (inaudible) -- working side by side -- (inaudible) -- armed forces. And I hope to see more of this cooperation between us.

Thank you again for hosting.

(CROSSTALK)

SEC. MATTIS: You know, excellency, relationships never stay the same. They either get better or they decline, and we're committed here to improving our already strong relationship. So again, welcome. I'm sure there's at least one question that I'll answer from the press here. You're authorized to say nothing if you so desire.

But what's on your mind there, young man?

Q: Mr. Secretary, are you concerned about the increased number of civilian casualties in and around Mosul?

SEC. MATTIS: There is no military force in the world that has proven more sensitive to civilian casualties. We are keenly aware that every battlefield where an enemy hides behind women and children is also a humanitarian field, and we go out of our way to always do everything humanly possible to reduce the loss of life or injury among innocent people.

The same cannot be said for our adversaries, and that's up to you to sort out.

But thank you very much to the press and we will now ask you to -- thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

Q: Can I ask you one more -- secretary, please, can I ask you what the increased number of troops means for the battle of western Mosul?

STAFF: That's it, folks.

-END-

http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1131262/

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George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group Conducts OIR Missions Against ISIS

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS170327-07

Release Date: 3/27/2017 10:25:00 AM

By Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Mario Coto, USS George H.W. Bush Public Affairs

ARABIAN GULF (NNS) -- The George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group (CSG) is currently launching missions against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in support of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) from the Arabian Gulf.

Rear Adm. Kenneth R. Whitesell, commander, CSG 2, said the missions are part of the key to accelerating the fight against ISIS.

"The superb efforts made by the men and women of this strike group will be critical to continuing this fight," said Whitesell. "The George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group brings a flexible, mobile and lethal multi-mission strike force to work with our allies and partner nations to engage ISIS and the threat they pose to the region and the greater international community."

Whitesell credited the strike group's readiness on the extensive training leading up to deployment.

"This is what we've been training for," said Whitesell. "We're ready to support the mission wherever and whenever we're needed. We have a crew of highly-trained, warfighting professionals ready for this mission, and I know that we, along with our allies and regional partners, will be successful."

OIR is the unwavering resolve and commitment of the U.S and partner nations in the region and around the globe to eliminate the terrorist group ISIS and the threat they pose.

The George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group is comprised of the staff of CSG 2; USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77); the nine squadrons and staff of Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 8; Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 22 staff; guided-missile destroyers USS Laboon (DDG 58) and USS Truxtun (DDG 103); and Mayport-based guided-missile cruisers USS Philippine Sea (CG 58) and USS Hue City (CG 66).

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US, UK, France Commit to Increase Cooperation

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS170327-04

Release Date: 3/27/2017 10:05:00 AM

From Chief of Naval Operations Public Affairs

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. John Richardson met in London with the First Sea Lord of the United Kingdom, Adm. Sir Philip Jones, Royal Navy and Chief of Naval Staff, Adm. Christophe Prazuck, French Navy, March 27.

This is the first time the three chiefs have held such an event., The importance of such collaboration can't be overstated given the increase in maritime competition worldwide and recent geo-political events.

As a result of the half-day session, the three chiefs of Navy affirmed their commitment to increased interoperability in a signed agreement that stated, "We believe this increased trilateral cooperation will help secure a future that is not only in the interests of our three nations, but in the common interests of our allies, partners, and all likeminded nations who are committed to peace, prosperity, and maritime security."

The U.S., U.K. and French navies have regularly operated together around the world. During this trilateral event, the three chiefs agreed there is room for more joint operations and for enhanced cooperation in the undersea domain and power projection.

Each navy is committed to an open and free maritime system based on respect for international law. Continued trilateral engagement and cooperation is in the interest of each individual country, NATO and the overall maritime community.

Link to text of 2017 Trilateral Agreement.

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USS Donald Cook Departs Cobh

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS170327-11

Release Date: 3/27/2017 10:30:00 AM

From U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet Public Affairs

COBH, Ireland (NNS) -- The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Donald Cook (DDG 75) departed Cobh, Ireland, March 25, 2016, after a scheduled port visit to enhance U.S.-Irish relations as the two nations work together for a stable, secure and prosperous European region.

The ship's presence in the North Atlantic Ocean is a demonstration of continued commitment to the collective security of the European region.

"Our Sailors thoroughly enjoyed the superb hospitality of our Irish hosts during this visit," said Cmdr. Timothy Moore, USS Donald Cook (DDG 75) commanding officer. "We had the awesome opportunity to meet with the people of Cobh and Cork and to experience the rich history and culture of Ireland. The enduring friendship between our countries is strong as many of my Sailors can trace their heritage to the local area."

USS Donald Cook is working with allies and regional partners to help develop and improve maritime forces, maintain regional security, and work towards mutual goals in order to advance security and stability in Europe.

While in port, Donald Cook hosted a reception and Sailors participated in a community relations (COMREL) event.

Strengthening partnerships during the port visit to Ireland demonstrates enduring relationships and shared commitment to promote safety and stability within the region, while seeking opportunities to enhance interoperability with partners like Ireland.

USS Donald Cook, forward-deployed to Rota, Spain, is conducting a routine patrol in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations in support of U.S. national security interests in Europe. The ship departed from Naval Station Rota Dec. 3, 2016.

U.S. 6th Fleet, headquartered in Naples, Italy, conducts the full spectrum of joint and naval operations, often in concert with allied, joint, and interagency partners, in order to advance U.S. national interests and security and stability in Europe and Africa.

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US Marines, Sailors work with Sri Lanka Navy, Marine Corps for second time on deployment

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS170327-06

Release Date: 3/27/2017 10:24:00 AM

From 11th MEU Public Affairs Office

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (NNS) -- 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) arrived in Colombo, Sri Lanka, for a Theater Security Cooperation (TSC) engagement.

This is the second military-to-military exchange with Sri Lanka for the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and 11th MEU during their multimonth deployment to both the Indo-Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions. USS Somerset (LPD 25) and embarked Marines of the 11th MEU participated in a TSC with Sri Lanka Marines and sailors at Trincomalee Naval Base in November 2016.

This iteration of ongoing U.S.-Sri Lanka military exchanges focuses on the infantry and logistical skills necessary to implement humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations. The training will culminate with a full scale, bilateral humanitarian assistance mission exercise.

"This is a great opportunity to continue our partnership with the Sri Lankan Marine Corps," said Lt. Col. Patrick Reynolds, commanding officer, Combat Logistics Battalion 11, 11th MEU, and commander of troops embarked aboard USS Comstock. "This exchange is a unique experience for our young non-commissioned officers to impart our history, traditions, and training to the world's newest Marine Corps. The training will focus on the fundamentals of security operations and considerations for planning and executing humanitarian assistance/disaster relief operations."

U.S. Marines will also work to provide increased familiarization of Marine Corps tactics and equipment to advance Sri Lanka Marine Corps' knowledge and expertise. Topics of exchange include basic offensive and defensive tactics; combat lifesaving skills; tactical convoy operations; humanitarian assistance and disaster relief training; and amphibious assault vehicle familiarization.

The Comstock crew will host their Sri Lankan navy counterparts for shipboard tours and familiarization of naval damage control procedures.

Additionally, Sailors and Marines will have an opportunity to conduct an outreach project at an orphanage and experience the culture of Sri Lanka. Finally, sporting activities and a concluding BBQ reception will round out the activities, allowing forces from both nations to build bonds in parallel with training.

"The U.S. Navy has a good relationship with the Sri Lanka navy and specifically with the Makin Island ARG-11th MEU team," said Cmdr. Bradley Coletti, commanding officer, USS Comstock. "Our counterparts aboard USS Somerset recently conducted a meaningful exchange with the Sri Lankan navy, which was a great success for both of our militaries and countries. We hope to build upon that success and do what we can to exchange best naval practices for regional security and humanitarian assistance, and to ensure a bright future for further bilateral engagements like this."

Approximately 325 Marines and Sailors from the Makin Island ARG/11th MEU and 175 Marines and Sailors from the Sri Lankan navy and Marine Corps are expected to participate in the TSC. The U.S. units involved are Company B, Battalion Landing Team 1st Bn., 4th Marines; Combat Logistics Detachment 113, Combat Logistics Battalion 11; and USS Comstock.

The Sailors and Marines of Comstock and 11th MEU will also have the opportunity to experience the sites and history of Sri Lanka as part of the visit.

USS Comstock, assigned to the Makin Island ARG, and embarked 11th MEU are on scheduled deployment to the U.S. 7th Fleet and 5th Fleet area of responsibilities.

ARG/MEUs provide senior U.S. military leadership and coalition partners with a flexible force, which can rapidly respond to contingencies and crises within a region. With ships, aircraft, troops, and logistical equipment, the ARG/MEU is a self-contained and self-sustained task force capable of conducting a variety of missions from combat operations to providing humanitarian assistance.

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Japan leases military planes to Manila to patrol South China Sea

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 27, 2017 5:37PM

The Philippines has taken delivery of two Japanese military surveillance aircraft to help it patrol vital sea lanes in the disputed South China Sea, officials say.

Philippine military chief General Eduardo Ano said in the capital Manila on Monday that the new planes would be deployed over Benham Rise, waters east of the main Philippine island of Luzon and the South China Sea.

Speaking at a ceremony to hand over the planes, Japanese Defense Minister Kenji Wakamiya highlighted the need for bilateral coordination to meet existing crucial regional security challenges.

"As we are faced with many security-related issues in the Asia-Pacific, including those in the South China Sea, our cooperation with the Philippines for the regional security and stability is now even more significant," Wakamiya said.

According to Manila's Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, Japan will lease a total of five surplus Beechcraft TC-90 planes to the Philippines,

Japan, which has a territorial row with China over disputed islands in the East China Sea, has worked to strengthen ties with other countries in a bid to contain China's growing influence in the region.

Beijing opposed the Philippines' lease of the planes almost as soon as it was announced last year under Manila's then-president Benigno Aquino.

The Philippines has squabbled with China for years over the South China Sea, but ties have improved under Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte has reversed this stance, openly courting China for trade and aid, while playing down the South China Sea dispute. Earlier this month Duterte said he was open to sharing resources with Beijing in the flashpoint waters.

Duterte has also brushed aside concerns over Chinese survey ships that had been seen near Benham Rise.

China claims sovereignty over nearly all of the resource-rich South China Sea. Brunei, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have territorial claims in the waters which are also an important trade route.

Senior Chinese officials have accused the US and its allies of stirring up tensions in the region.

In January, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying warned the United States not to make any rash comments about its islands in the South China Sea, urging the White House to mind the facts and not interfere in the territorial dispute. She was responding to comments made by White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer who said Washington intended to stop Beijing's "takeover" of the South China Sea.

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Boko Haram kills three civilians in NE Nigeria for collaborating with military

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 27, 2017 4:10PM

The Boko Haram Takfiri terrorist group has raided a village in northeast Nigeria, killing three civilians on suspicion of collaborating with the military.

Nigerian security sources said on Monday that the fatalities had occurred two days earlier when the terrorists stormed Kalari Abdiye village, in Borno State.

"They singled out the four men whom they accused of collaboration with the military. They accused the men of passing information to the military," said a military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"The gunmen took the men outside the village where they slaughtered three of the men."

The officer said three locals had their throats cut while the fourth was left severely wounded.

Security sources said that the Takfiri terrorist group had also seized livestock from a nearby village without leaving any civilian casualties.

Nigeria has been at war with Boko Haram since the group launched militancy in Borno State about eight years ago. More than 20,000 people have been killed while the violence has displaced over 2.7 million others.

Boko Haram has pledged allegiance to the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group, which has been wreaking havoc in the Middle East and North Africa over the past few years.

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Saudi jets bomb northwestern Yemen with banned munitions

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 27, 2017 3:45PM

Saudi warplanes have pounded Yemen's northwestern province of Sa'ada with at least two cluster bombs despite a global outcry against the use of such internationally-banned weapons by Saudi Arabia.

According to Yemen's Arabic-language al-Masirah television network, the airstrikes were carried out against al-Malahit area in Az Zahir district on Monday afternoon, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

The Saudi war machine has already used cluster bombs across Yemen on multiple occasions despite the inherently indiscriminate nature of cluster munitions. Various rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have on many occasions reported and criticized the use of cluster bombs by Riyadh's military in Yemen.

On March 9, the Amnesty International rights group said in a statement that Saudi Arabia had used cluster bombs on three residential districts and agricultural land in Sa'ada back in mid-February.

Last December, Human Rights Watch also said Saudi Arabia had fired cluster bombs near two schools in Sa'ada, killing two civilians and wounding six others, including a child.

Cluster bombs are banned under the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), an international treaty that addresses the humanitarian consequences and unacceptable harm caused to civilians by cluster munitions through a categorical prohibition and a framework for action. The weapons can contain dozens of smaller bomblets, dispersing over vast areas, often killing and maiming civilians long after they are dropped.

Meanwhile, Yemeni snipers managed to kill at least two Saudi soldiers during a retaliatory attack on a Saudi military base in the kingdom's southern province of Najran. Since March, dozens of Saudi troops and Saudi mercenaries have been killed by Yemeni snipers in Najran and Jizan, another southwestern Saudi province.

In another development on Monday afternoon, terrorists suspected of belonging to the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) terror group detonated an explosive-laden car at the gates of a building, used as a temporary headquarters by militia loyal to Yemen's resigned president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, in the city of Hawtah in Yemen's southwestern province of Lahij.

Shortly after the deafening blast, AQAP militants, dressed as the militia, attacked the headquarters but faced fierce resistance from the guards. The explosion and the ensuing gunfire have so far killed at least eight people and wounded dozens more, mostly from the militia.

On March 26, 2015, Saudi Arabia, backed by a number of African and Persian Gulf Arab states, began launching airstrikes on different areas across Yemen, its southern neighbor, in an attempt to reinstate Hadi, who is a close Riyadh ally, and to crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement.

According to the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick, the Saudi military campaign has claimed the lives of 10,000 Yemenis and left 40,000 others wounded.

However, in a report released on February 23, Yemen's Legal Center for Rights and Development, an independent monitoring group, put the civilian death toll in the war-torn Arab country at 12,041. The fatalities, it said, comprise 2,568 children and 1,870 women. The rights body said the bombings have also wounded 20,001 civilians, including 2,354 children and 1,960 women, while more than four million others have been displaced.

The Saudi war has also taken a heavy toll on the country's facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools and factories.

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President invites Nepal, Madagascar and Micronesia to join trade initiative

Nepal, Micronesia and Madagascar are welcome to take part in the Belt and Road Initiative, President Xi Jinping separately told leaders of the three countries on Monday.

While meeting with Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Xi said that the two countries should seize the opportunities to work together on the Belt and Road Initiative to push forward cooperation in such areas as interconnection, free trade, agriculture, production capacity, energy and earthquake reconstruction.

The Belt and Road Initiative, put forward by Xi in 2013, aims to revive the ancient land and sea trade routes of the Silk Road with a focus on infrastructure.

Mentioning that China and Nepal have maintained close contacts in all levels of government and political parties, Xi called for ongoing efforts to further develop friendly ties between the two countries.

China and Nepal should continue to build upon political trust and support each other on major issues related to shared interests, Xi said. The two countries should expand two-way investment and promote fair bilateral trade, he added.

The Nepalese prime minister expressed gratitude for China's long-term support, especially the assistance with reconstruction following Nepal's deadly 2015 earthquake.

Dahal also affirmed his nation's commitment to the one-China policy and said the country will never allow any force to engage in anti-China activities in Nepalese territory.

Nepal supports the Belt and Road Initiative, and it is willing to cooperate with China in areas including trade, investment, transportation, infrastructure, tourism and aviation, he said.

Also on Monday, President Xi told Madagascan President Hery Rajaonarimampianina that China supports Madagascar's participation in the Belt and Road Initiative and the nation can help bridge a link to Africa.

China is willing to establish a comprehensive cooperative partnership with Madagascar, Xi said.

In the past 45 years, the two countries have respected each other and supported each other on issues of key interests and concerns, Xi said.

China will support Madagascar in infrastructure construction, human resources and investment and trade efforts, he said, adding the two countries should cooperate in fields such as agriculture, fisheries and security and legal affairs.

The Madagascan president said his country expects to promote economic and social development through deepening cooperation with China.

After the meeting, the two presidents were on hand as cooperative documents were signed, including a memorandum of understanding on jointly working on the Belt and Road Initiative and others related to trade and infrastructure.

Xi also said on Monday that China and Micronesia should fully tap into their potential and press ahead with two-way cooperation in fields including tourism, agriculture, fisheries and infrastructure.

He told Micronesian President Peter M. Christian the two countries enjoy common or similar views on international and regional issues and explained China is ready to strengthen coordination on key issues such as climate change.

China supports Micronesia to further play a role in regional affairs and is ready to step up dialogue and communication on issues involving Pacific island countries, Xi added.

Christian said his country staunchly upholds the one-China policy and stands with China regarding major issues such as climate change and globalization.

Xi noted that, after the two countries established a strategic partnership of mutual respect and common development in 2014, they have deepened political trust and strengthened cooperation and have made important progress.

China views Micronesia as a good friend and a good partner among Pacific island countries, Xi said. He said China is willing to continue with high-level communication.

Christian said Micronesia's relationship with China has achieved robust development since the diplomatic ties were established 28 years ago.

Following their talks, the two presidents witnessed the signing of bilateral agreements on economic and technological cooperation.
Afghan ministers, head of security service survive impeachment vote

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 27, 2017 3:22PM

Two Afghan ministers, along with the head of the country's security service, have survived a vote of no-confidence in parliament amid growing concerns that militants seem poised to seize control of more areas.

The Afghan legislature summoned Defense Minister Abdullah Habibi, Interior Minister Taj Mohammad Jahid and Masson Stanekzai, head of the National Directorate for Security, on Monday over their failure to tackle mounting insecurity and the Taliban insurgency in the country in recent months.

The impeachment came less than a month after a massive attack on Kabul's 400-bed Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan hospital, Afghanistan's largest military health facility. Around 50 people were killed in the attack, which took place just across the road from the heavily-fortified US embassy. The Daesh Takfiri terrorist group claimed the attack.

Afghan Parliament Speaker Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi said the chamber had called the impeachment vote over "weakness in management and the worsening security around the country," especially in relation to the hospital attack.

The vote also came after reports said that Taliban militants had overrun the district of Sangin and government facilities in the southern province of Helmand following months of fierce fighting. However, spokesmen for the Kabul government denied the claims that the district had fallen to the militants.

According to estimates, the government in Kabul controls less than 60 percent of the country while militants, mainly from the Taliban, either control or contest the rest.

The UN says nearly 3,500 civilians, including 923 children, were killed and about 8,000 were wounded as a result of insurgency in Afghanistan last year.

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Pentagon chief asks for deeper military involvement in Yemen

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 27, 2017 12:36PM

Defense Secretary James Mattis has asked the White House to remove restrictions on US military support for Saudi Arabia and its allies engaged in a military offensive against Yemen that has caused significant civilian casualties, according to a report.

In a memo submitted to National Security Adviser Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster this month, Mattis suggested that "limited support" for the Saudi-led war would help counter a "common threat," the Washington Post reported on Sunday , citing senior US officials.

If approved, the request would mark a significant increase in US military involvement in Yemen, which until now has been largely restricted to counterterrorism operations against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and indirect backing for the Saudi-led coalition.

The immediate question in the Pentagon chief's memo, which will be debated by President Donald Trump's national security team this week, is whether to provide support for a planned operation by the United Arab Emirates to take the key Red Sea port of Hudaydah.

The memo, however, does not recommend that the White House agree to every element of the Emirati plan.

A proposal to deploy American Special Operations forces on the ground on the Red Sea coast "was not part of the request" Mattis is putting forward, a senior administration official told the Post on condition of anonymity.

The official and several others said Mattis has requested that restrictions, set by former President Barack Obama, be lifted so that the US military can provide surveillance and intelligence support as well as refueling and operational planning assistance to Emirati operations against the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

The Obama administration had rejected a similar Emirati call for support for a military assault on Hudaydah, on the grounds that the operation was not likely to succeed and could worsen the humanitarian situation.

The official, who talked to the Post, acknowledged that lifting the limits would amount to "a green light for direct involvement in a major war."

"There has been no decision yet as to whether [the restrictions] will be lifted. There is certainly broad disagreement across our government," the official added.

Earlier this month, the Pentagon quietly ordered fresh deployments of Special Operations troops to Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East in what military officials described as part of a more aggressive campaign against al-Qaeda.

Advisers to President Trump are concerned that direct support for the Saudi-led coalition would take resources away from the fight against AQAP.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has grown in weapons and number since Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf allies launched the war against Yemen in March 2015 to bring back resigned president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi to power and undermine the Houthi movement.

The campaign, which also involves ground operations and a naval blockade, has so far left over 12,000 people dead, pushing the Arab world's poorest country to the verge of famine.

The Trump administration has been under close scrutiny since a January 29 raid, the first known ground operation in Yemen in two years, ended in failure.

The raid in al-Bayda province did not go smoothly. One Navy SEAL was killed and, according to local residents, as many as 25 civilians lost their lives. A military aircraft worth $75 million was also destroyed after it crash-landed at the operation site.

While the White House hailed the Yemen operation as a success, Democrats and other critics questioned whether any intelligence gathered was worth the high cost of SEAL Ryan Owens' life and children killed in crossfire.

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Kenyan troops kill 31 Shabab militants in Somalia's Jubbaland

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 27, 2017 1:1PM

Kenyan troops deployed in neighboring Somalia have carried out a raid on militants of the al-Shabab Takfiri group, killing at least 31 of them.

The Kenyan military said on Monday that two bases of al-Shabab militants in Somalia had been targeted in the raid, which took place a day earlier in the southern region of Jubbaland.

"Ground troops were supported by attack helicopters and artillery fire," the Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) said in a statement, adding that 11 AK-47 assault rifles, communications equipment and uniforms were captured from the militants during the raid.

Al-Shabab has yet to comment on the Kenyan military operation in the Baadhade district of Jubbaland. The al-Qaeda-affiliated militant group has a history of attacks on Kenyan soil, prompting the East African country to deploy thousands of its forces in Somalia as part of a regional mission to combat the militant group.

The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which includes soldiers from Kenya, Djibouti, Uganda, Ethiopia, and some other African countries, has managed to curb al-Shabab's attacks and improve security in Somalia.

Kenya said in early March that its forces had killed some 60 suspected al-Shabab militants during a raid in southern Somalia.

The massive operation came after militants targeted a Kenyan military base in the town of Kulbiyow, near the Kenyan border. Kenyan authorities said that nine soldiers had lost their lives in the assault, while al-Shabab claimed it had killed at least 66 people.

Al-Shabab militants have been pushed out of all major urban strongholds and ports, but they continue to stage attacks on targets in smaller, more remote areas.

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Trump urged Germany to pay $375bn NATO debt: Report

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 27, 2017 8:15AM

US President Donald Trump has reportedly called on German Chancellor Angela Merkel to pay hundreds of billions of dollars Berlin owes to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a German minister says, calling the request "outrageous."

Trump handed the bill  thought to be for more than 300 billionns (US$375 billions) to Merkel during their last week meeting in Washington, DC, the Sunday Times reported, citing an unnamed German minister.

"The concept behind putting out such demands is to intimidate the other side, but the chancellor took it calmly and will not respond to such provocations," the minister added.

During the meeting, the new US president reportedly criticized Germany for not making adequate contributions to the military alliance, forcing the US to burden larger spending than its fair share.

Under a 2014 agreement, each NATO member should set aside two percent of their GDP for military purposes. However, only the US, Britain, Estonia, Greece and Poland have so far been able to meet the target.

Despite constantly increasing its military spending, Germany has yet to invest the required amount.

According to the report, Trump's bill takes 2002 as the starting point for the 2-percent payment and calculates the amount that Germans have fallen short of paying since then plus interest.

American officials argue that in 2002, Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schroder, committed his country to higher military spending.

Sources within the US government have indicated that Trump is preparing similar bills for all NATO members who have not paid their share in full.

"The president has a very unorthodox view on NATO defense spending," said a source close to Merkel. "The alliance is not a club with a membership fee. The commitments relate to countries' investment in their defense budgets."

The Times noted that Merkel "ignored the provocation" but promised to gradually increase spending. She also asked Trump to factor in the money Berlin was spending for international development.

A day after his meeting with Merkel, Trump said in a tweet that Germany "owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!"

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said in response that Trump was wrong to assume that Germany and other NATO members have to spend the entire two percent of their economic output on issues related to the alliance.

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Tajikistan To Hold Separate Military Maneuvers With U.S., Russian Troops

RFE/RL's Tajik Service March 27, 2017

Separate military maneuvers -- one involving Tajik and U.S. forces and the other Tajik and Russian troops -- are due to begin in Tajikistan on March 27.

The Tajik-U.S. exercises will be conducted by the U.S. Defense Department and Tajikistan's security forces until April 7. They were announced by the U.S. Embassy on March 20.

Embassy officials told RFE/RL on March 27 that some 150 Americans and 100 Tajik personnel are taking part in the maneuvers, which will focus on fighting transnational terrorism.

Three days after the U.S. Embassy's announcement, media reports quoted Tajik defense officials as saying that 50,000 Tajik troops and some 2,000 Russian military personnel will hold military exercises in Tajikistan from March 27-31.

On March 25, Russia's Central Military Region said several military planes were brought to Tajikistan from Russia's Kant military base in neighboring Kyrgyzstan to take part in the maneuvers.

A representative of the Russian military in Tajikistan told RFE/RL on March 27 that the Tajik-Russian maneuvers had been planned for months.

He said the exercises will be held in Tajikistan's southern Khatlon region.

Russia has some 7,000 troops in Tajikistan, making it Moscow's largest military contingent abroad.

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/tajikistan-united-states- russia-military-exercises/28393495.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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He Said, She Said: White House Denies it Handed Merkel a Bill for NATO Defense

Sputnik News

22:04 27.03.2017(updated 22:16 27.03.2017)

Various news outlets have cited unnamed sources to claim that President Donald Trump handed German Chancellor Angela Merkel a NATO defense invoice for approximately $377 million -- but the White House is calling the claims fake news.

British newspaper The Times, which first reported the incident, cited an unnamed German minister. The report claimed that Angela Merkel was handed a bill by the US president during her recent visit to DC, for failure to meet NATO's defense spending target of 2 percent of GDP.

"The concept behind putting out such demands is to intimidate the other side, but the chancellor took it calmly and will not respond to such provocations," the unnamed official told the paper.

The report claimed that Trump had asked White House aides to calculate the difference between Berlin's defense spending and the 2014 agreement by member nations to pay NATO two percent of their GDP  plus interest.

White House spokesman Michael Short quickly made the rounds after the news story broke on Sunday, calling it completely false.

Trump has not been quiet about his belief that Germany owes money to both NATO and the US, even tweeting about their debt following Merkel's visit.

"Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Nevertheless, Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO and the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany," Trump said in a series of two tweets.

During a joint news conference after the two leaders met in DC, Trump expressed support for NATO, while also decrying nations that do not pay their fair share.

"Many nations owe vast sums of money from past years and it is very unfair to the United States. These nations must pay what they owe," Trump said.

 Sputnik

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Russian Defense Ministry Denies Claims of Arms Deliveries to Taliban Militants

Sputnik News

18:36 27.03.2017(updated 18:51 27.03.2017)

The Russian Defense Ministry did not have any interaction with the Taliban terrorist group, according to ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The Russian Defense Ministry on Monday denied claims of Russian arms supplies to the Taliban terrorist group (banned in Russia).

"Unlike US state agencies, the Russian Defense Ministry did not and cannot have any interaction with, let alone supplies of armaments to, organizations recognized by the UN as terrorist," ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said.

 Sputnik

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Berlin Denies Claims About Merkel Getting Invoice From Trump to Pay Debt to NATO

Sputnik News

15:58 27.03.2017

German Chancellor Angela Merkel did not receive any bill during the meeting with US President Donald Trump for money Germany allegedly owed to NATO, a German government spokesperson told Sputnik Monday.

BELGRADE (Sputnik), Victoria Mladenovich  On Sunday, The Times reported, citing German government sources, that a certain bill for NATO defense was handed over to Merkel during private talks with Trump in Washington on March 17.

"The reports about the mentioned invoice or bill are wrong. Chancellor Merkel and President Trump discussed the topic of defense expenditure during their talks in Washington. They informed the public about these talks in a press conference," the government spokesperson said.

On March 18, following the meeting with Merkel, Trump wrote on Twitter that Germany owed "vast sums of money" to NATO. On Friday, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen criticized the US leader for his controversial remark stressing that "there is no debt account in the Alliance."

The issue of the contributions to the alliance has been raised repeatedly by the new US administration, insisting on all countries honoring their NATO budget responsibilities.

The target of spending two percent of the GDP mandated by NATO was adopted at the Alliance's September 2014 Summit in Wales, with only five countries, including the United States, meeting the required standard, according to NATO figures.

Merkel has repeatedly said that Berlin will fulfill its commitments concerning the military spending through 2024.

 Sputnik

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US Could Lift Support Restrictions on Militaries Involved in Yemeni Conflict

Sputnik News

14:33 27.03.2017

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis sent a memo to US National Security Adviser Herbert McMaster calling for provisions of "limited support" to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for their engagement in the Yemeni conflict, according to US media.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The United States could lift restrictions that the previous presidential administration of Barack Obama had imposed on military support for states involved in the ongoing conflict in Yemen, local media reported.

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis sent a memo to US National Security Adviser Herbert McMaster calling for provisions of "limited support" to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for their engagement in the Yemeni conflict, The Washington Post reported Sunday, citing officials in the administration.

According to the news outlet, the Obama administration initially supported the Saudi-led coalition by selling weapons and providing fuel to its aircraft, however Washington had distanced itself from direct assistance by introducing several restrictions on arms deliveries and support of operations against the Houthi-controlled port of Al Hudaydah, following reports of the coalition's pilots' airstrikes against civilian infrastructure.

The media outlet reported that potential assistance to the Gulf States involved in the conflict would be enabled if the Obama-era prohibitions were lifted.

The warfare in Yemen between the internationally recognized government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Houthis, who are backed by army troops loyal to the country's former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, has been ongoing since 2014. In 2015, the Saudi-led coalition started carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis at Hadi's request.

 Sputnik

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Non-Aligned Sweden to Devise New Foreign Military Aid Strategy

Sputnik News

10:58 27.03.2017

While Sweden remains formally non-aligned, it has been creeping closer to NATO and forming bilateral partnerships. Last week, a new enquiry was launched into the exact extent of the military help Sweden will be able to give and receive without breaking its age-old tradition of non-alignment.

The aim of the government investigation is to establish a comprehensive operational procedure in deciding on giving or receiving military help in times of war or crisis.

"This is really very simple: what do we do if we get into a crisis or a war situation, which stipulates our need to receive or give help to Finland? Who makes the decisions? What are the government's and parliament's respective roles and how can we ensure that everything happens quickly in such a situation?" Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist told Swedish Radio.

According to him, the purpose of the investigation is to make sure quick decisions are made in times of crisis to avoid fumbling and procrastination. In addition to wars, help may be extended in the event of that a country's borders are violated. Lastly, the inquiry will review the powers of foreign troops that may embark into Sweden in a similar situation.

"For this cooperation to be effective, we need to establish how the chain of command will look and how we handle the situation beyond peacetime conditions," Peter Hultqvist said.

At present, Sweden maintains its closest defense cooperation with similarly non-aligned Finland, running a series of joint defense projects and exercises. However, given its widening partnerships with other Nordic nations, as well as NATO and the EU, giving and receiving military help to and from other countries will also be considered, which may facilitate help from a wider array of NATO countries and draw Sweden even closer to the alliance.

In addition to joint defense projects with Finland, Sweden also shares operational planning in the event of a conflict. The fast-track decision-making is widely viewed as another step in this direction, yet Peter Hultqvist ensured that a formal defense alliance was still a remote possibility.

"We work, of course, increasingly closer and I see it as in our strategic interest. But I do not wish to speculate about agreements, alliances, pacts and such," Hultqvist said.

Sweden and Finland have shared a special relation since the Middle Ages, when most of today's Finland fell under the Swedish rule. During the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union, Sweden, though formally non-belligerent, supported its Nordic neighbor with some 8,000 army and air force volunteers and took in Finland's "war children."

Today, a Finnish-Swedish alliance is seen by many as an alternative to NATO in both Nordic countries, which remain non-aligned, despite broadening military cooperation with NATO amid a non-existent, but largely touted Russian threat. In Finland, the Greens and the Coalition Party are in favor of forming an alliance with Sweden, whereas in Sweden this idea is supported by the Sweden Democrats, the Liberals and the Christian Democrats.

After WW2, a Scandinavian defense union between Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark was mulled over in 1948-49. However, after Sweden declined the option, claiming it was "of little benefit," Norway and Denmark joined NATO.

 Sputnik

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China should ask Myanmar to protect pipeline, workers: analyst

The launch of the Sino-Myanmar oil pipeline following a two-year delay could be the Myanmar government's way of sending a positive signal ahead of its president's visit to China in April, Chinese experts said.

The project to pump oil 770 kilometers across Myanmar to Southwest China is set to begin, Reuters reported, citing Aung Myat Soe, deputy director of planning under the state-owned Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, as saying that the project was awaiting a final go-ahead from the Minister of Electricity and Energy.

Major issues, including transport tariffs and Myanmar's tax take on the oil, have been settled, but port fees have yet to be finalized, a Myanmar-based industry source familiar with the matter told Reuters, adding that "the two sides are working to finalize the terms and sign the contract," and "the time that the deal would be sealed could be in a couple of days or early April."

"The possible start-up of the oil pipeline shows the Myanmar government attaches great importance to cooperating with China. It may be a 'gift' of the Myanmar president to China during his visit, intended to enhance cooperation in other fields," Zhu Zhenming, a deputy director of the Southeast Asia Research Institute affiliated with the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

The new government wishes to strengthen economic ties with China to promote development in the "special economic zone," such as the Kyaukpyu project, said Zhu, adding that both Myanmar and China will benefit from the pipeline project.

China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the pipeline contractor and operator, declined to comment on Monday when reached by the Global Times.

The refinery project in Yunnan is awaiting operation. Based on the plan, the project will process half of the crude oil from the pipeline and generate 13 million tons of oil every year.

Ding Kebei, deputy manager of the company's office in Yunnan, told the media in November 2016 that the project will begin operations in 2017, and that final negotiations with the Myanmar government were underway.

Caijing magazine reported that China will pay $13.6 million to Myanmar every year, with the Myanmar government expected to earn $1 for each ton of transported crude oil.

Several National People's Congress deputies have also called for the construction of roads and railways connecting Southwest China's Yunnan Province to the port of Kyaukpyu in Myanmar, saying that road construction, especially the section outside of China, is a bottleneck in China's strategic plan of opening a trade route to the Indian Ocean.

Bottlenecks

In 2005, CNPC signed a deal with the Myanmar government for the purchase of natural gas over a 30-year period. Three years later, China and Myanmar agreed to build a $1.5 billion oil pipeline and a $1.04 billion natural gas pipeline.

The oil and natural gas pipelines run in parallel and start near Kyaukpyu and enter China at the border city of Ruili, Yunnan province. The 2,806-kilometer-long natural gas pipeline, running from Kunming, Yunnan to Southwest China's Guizhou Province and South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, went into full operation in October 2013 and has transferred 3.4 billion cubic meters of gas to a gas branch company as of October 2016.

However, the oil pipeline, which will allow China to import oil via the Bay of Bengal and has a capacity of 22 million tons of crude oil per year, has been sitting empty for two years.

Experts warned that safety remains a key issue.

"Construction was suspended due to a misunderstanding with the Myanmar public as well as armed clashes. If the project starts, the Chinese government should push the Myanmar government to protect the pipeline and workers along the line," Liu Yun, an analyst on Myanmar issues, told the Global Times on Monday.
The Russian Defense Ministry has denied allegations of arms supplies to the Taliban

TASS

March 27, 18:25



MOSCOW, March 27. / TASS /. Russia does not supply arms to organizations recognized by the UN as terrorist, including the Taliban (the organization is banned in the Russian Federation), said the official representative of the Russian Defense Ministry, Major-General Igor Konashenkov.

So he commented on the statements of the US commander in Europe, General Curtis Scaparotti, who accused Russia of supplying arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"Unlike the US government agencies, the Russian Defense Ministry did not and can not have any interaction, let alone supplies of weapons to organizations recognized by the UN as terrorist, not only for the Afghan Taliban, but for any other international terrorist organization , With which the American forces fight independently or as part of coalitions, "Konashenkov said.

"General Scaparotti should have been required to give his subordinates more attention to the quality planning of operations against the Taliban, rather than justifying the failures in Afghanistan with the mythical influence of Moscow's hand," a Russian military official added.

Skaparotti also said earlier that Russia had increased its influence on the radical Taliban movement in Afghanistan and, perhaps, even started supporting it . The general accused Russia of trying to undermine the position of the United States through an "asymmetric approach." The Russian Defense Ministry said that the report of Scaparotti "does not need serious analysis," since it did not contain "not a single fact, specific figures or documents, the same slogans, only now in new covers, and absurd accusations."

 TASS

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Near East and North Africa: Conflicts threaten to erode gains in region's zero-hunger battle

27 March 2017  As the escalation of the conflict in Yemen enters its third year this week, the top United Nations humanitarian official has called on the parties to the conflict to commit to political dialogue and resolve the situation or risk an unending manmade crisis.

In a statement, Stephen O'Brien, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs underscored that in addition to wrecking the country's economy, killing thousands and displacing millions, the fighting has brought Yemen to the brink of a famine.

"During my third visit to Yemen only weeks ago, I saw the terrible and terrifying evidence of looming famine," said Mr. O'Brien.

"In the hospital ward, the complete stillness of the tiny malnourished child whose eyes focus on nothing. The grim realization that these patients were the fortunate ones who could access a hospital and might survive."

Underscoring that UN and its partners are already providing life-saving assistance in all of Yemen's 22 governorates, reaching almost 6 million people every month, Mr. O'Brien urged parties to the conflict to expedite immediate, timely, and unimpeded humanitarian access as well as facilitate commercial activities  critical to reversing prevailing massive food insecurity and ensuring that people's basic needs can be met.

Nearly 19 million Yemenis  over two-thirds of the population  need humanitarian assistance and, according to UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), seven million are facing starvation.

"Most of all, the Yemeni people need the parties to commit to political dialogue, or this man-made crisis will never end," noted Mr. O'Brien.

"In the meantime, together we can  we must  avert this famine, this human catastrophe."

Number of children injured, recruited in conflict nearly doubled in one year  UNICEF

As with most crises, it is the children who are bearing the brunt of the suffering.

Families are having to resort to "extreme measures" to support their children as coping measures have been severely eroded, turning Yemen  the poorest country in the region  into one of the largest food security and malnutrition emergencies in the world, noted United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in a new report, Falling through the Cracks today.

According to UN verified data, in the past year alone, the number of children killed increased from 900 to more than 1,500; those injured nearly doubled from 1,300 to 2,450; children recruited in fighting neared 1,580 (compared to 850 last year); and 212 schools were attacked (up from 50 last year).

Also, Yemen's health system is on the verge of collapse, leaving close to 15 million men, women and children with no access to health care. This is all the more concerning given an outbreak of cholera and acute watery diarrhoea in October 2016 that continues to spread, with over 22,500 suspected cases and 106 deaths.

"The war in Yemen continues to claim children's lives and their future," said Meritxell Relano, UNICEF Representative in the war-torn country.

"We need to act now to pull families back from the brink. The risks for generations to come are extremely high."

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More than 30 al-Shabab Militants Killed Somali, Kenyan Officials Report

By Mohamed Olad Hassan March 27, 2017

More than 30 al-Shabab fighters were killed when African Union and Somali forces attacked two of the armed group's bases in southern Jubaland, according to Somali and Kenyan officials.

Mohamed Ahmed Hersi, a deputy commander with the Jubaland administration, said al-Shabab weapons were also destroyed in the "surprise" attacks that began Saturday and continued Sunday near Badhadhe.

"We killed at least 33 al-Shabab militants and destroyed vehicles mounted with anti-aircraft guns," Hersi told VOA's Somali Service. "I have seen the dead bodies of the 33 militants with my eyes."

A separate statement by Kenya's Defense Force said 31 al-Shabab militants were killed during the attacks, and IEDs, 11 AK-47 rifles and 634 rounds of ammunition were seized.

In the statement to the media, KDF spokesperson Joseph Owuoth said the operation was launched after AU and Somali forces received intelligence from reliable sources.

"The intelligence-led operation was executed by air and ground assets. Ground troops were supported by attack helicopters and artillery fire to access the terrorists' base and the two command and logistics bases 17 kilometers from Siraria near Hola Wajeer," Owuoth said.

On March 18, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta made a surprise visit to Dhobley in southern Somalia, where the Kenyan solders serving in the AU force, known as AMISOM, have a major base.

Kenya first sent soldiers into Somalia in October 2011 after a series of tourist kidnappings along the border. The troops were moved farther into Somalia after the Kenyans were formally integrated into AMISOM in February 2012.

Al-Shabab has inflicted heavy casualties on the Kenyans at times. In January 2016, al-Shabab overran a Kenyan base near the town of El Adde and said it killed more than 100 soldiers. The Kenyan government refused to give casualty figures.

In January, the militants said they killed at least 66 soldiers in a single attack on a Kenyan military camp in Lower Juba, some 18 kilometers from the Kenyan border.

But a Kenyan military spokesman said at the time that nine soldiers were killed.

After meeting last week with Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed in Nairobi, Kenyatta said his troops will only leave war-torn Somalia after the threat of terror is eliminated.

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Aid Groups Determined to Continue Operations in South Sudan

By Jill Craig March 27, 2017

Unidentified assailants took the lives of six aid workers in South Sudan on Saturday, the highest number killed in a single incident since South Sudan's conflict began in December 2013, according to the United Nations.

Working for a local NGO called GREDO, they were killed in the Magri area of Central Equatoria State, as they traveled from South Sudan's capital, Juba, to the town of Pibor.

GREDO program director Jaffar Mbugua told VOA's South Sudan in Focus that a seventh person riding with the convoy  a man who had hitched a ride so he could seek construction work  was also killed.

A spokesperson for the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs confirmed a seventh person had died.

Motive no so obvious

Jerry Ferrell, the South Sudan representative of Catholic Relief Services, says he does not believe aid groups are being politically targeted. Instead, he says they are likely singled out for the same reasons that perceived wealthy individuals would be.

"Because NGOs have Land Cruisers and very often have Thurayas, or satellite phones, often are carrying cash to the field to pay vendors and pay staff, they are being targeted for those reasons by criminals," said Ferrell.

But Ken Isaacs, the vice president of programs and government relations at U.S.-based charity Samaritan's Purse, hesitates to comment on motive.

"There is a lot of nuances and I just know from my own experience doing this for 30 years that it is premature right now to make any speculation about it, but it rarely is as simple as it appears on the surface," said Isaacs.

South Sudan's government told VOA's Daybreak Africa that opposition forces loyal to former First Vice President Riek Machar are responsible for the deaths.

Contacted by VOA, the deputy military spokesman for the opposition SPLA-IO said the area where the incident took place is under the control of the government and allied militia groups.

Aid Groups Vow to Continue Work

Samaritan's Purse had 15 staff members abducted in Mayendit in mid-March by an independent armed faction, but all were rescued shortly thereafter. Isaacs says the weekend's attack will cause his group to operate at heightened alert.

"So it does not cause us to hesitate, it makes our resolve stronger, but it also makes us more cautious," said Isaacs. "So we will put certain measures into place, about how we move, when we move, how many vehicles are in a convoy, how many meters distance can be between them, it will affect our movements all over the country."

The attack also will not prevent the International Committee of the Red Cross from delivering aid to South Sudan, says spokesman Jason Straziuso.

"This extremely tragic incident is at the top of our attention right now. It has added to the latest of the security concerns in South Sudan," said Straziuso. "But at the same time, given how we operate, because we mostly travel through the air, to carry our personnel, this is not likely to affect our operations, our food assistance, or our medical assistance. We are going to be able to continue this because of the way we travel."

Resolve strengthened

Ferrell of Catholic Relief Services says the killings have only strengthened the resolve of NGOs working in South Sudan.

"We are doubling down," said Ferrell. "No, I think that is the case for everyone. It is very, very sad, but everyone is more determined to help people who are in desperate need of assistance."

Save the Children provided a statement that "while humanitarians will continue to do all that is possible to alleviate suffering and save lives, the fact remains that unless the guns fall silent, the humanitarian situation will continue to deteriorate."

'Entirely unacceptable'

The U.N. humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan, Eugene Owusu, said "At a time when humanitarian needs have reached unprecedented levels, it is entirely unacceptable that those who are trying to help are being attacked and killed."

South Sudan's Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission has asked monitors of the country's shaky 2015 ceasefire agreement to investigate the incident.

The United Nations says since December 2013, at least 79 aid workers have been killed in South Sudan, including 12 this year.

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Senate Panel to Question Trump's Son-in-law on Russia Meetings

By VOA News March 27, 2017

U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law and key adviser, Jared Kushner, has agreed to be questioned as part of a Senate investigation into Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election, according to the White House.

Kushner is the closest Trump ally to be questioned so far by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating ties between Trump associates and Russian officials.

The Senate committee wants to know more about Kushner's two December meetings with Russia's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, according to The New York Times, which first reported the story.

The Times also says senators are interested in Kushner's previously unreported meeting with the head of Vnesheconombank, a Russian state-owned development bank that the U.S. had placed under sanctions following Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea.

A White House spokesman told the paper that Kushner's meetings were not unusual, noting that his role during the campaign and transition required him to regularly meet with foreign officials, including Russians.

U.S. intelligence officials have concluded the Russian government was behind a campaign to influence the U.S. election by hacking Democratic Party groups and releasing the information to help benefit Trump. Moscow denies the allegations.

Last week, FBI director James Comey publicly confirmed an investigation into Russian interference in the election and whether associates of the president helped coordinate those efforts.

Several Trump associates are said to be under scrutiny by the FBI, including Trump's former campaign chair Paul Manafort, former adviser Carter Page, and Trump's longtime confidante Roger Stone.

Trump's former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was also forced to step down after misleading White House officials over the nature of his phone calls with Ambassador Kislyak.

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Bahrain Says It Dismantles 14-Member 'Terrorist' Cell

March 27, 2017

Bahrain says it has broken up a 14-member "terrorist" cell suspected of a bomb attack on a bus in February and of plotting to assassinate senior government officials.

The Bahraini Interior Ministry on March 26 said individual group members had been trained by Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the Iraqi Ketaeb Hizballah Shi'ite paramilitary group, and in Bahrain.

It said the members were financed and supervised by two Bahrainis who had fled to mainly Shi'ite Iran.

Sunni-ruled Bahrain has been hit by unrest since March 2011, when authorities put down a month of Shi'ite-led protests demanding democratic reforms.

Bahrain is a strategic U.S. ally and home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet. Its majority Shi'ite population has complained of being marginalized by ruling Sunni authorities.

Officials said the detainees are suspected of a February 26 bomb attack on a bus that injured five police officers.

They are also suspected of planning to attack "senior officials," the Interior Ministry said.

The ministry said weapons and explosives were seized with the detainees.

Based on reporting by BNA, AFP, and Reuters

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/bahrain-terrorist- cell-iran-iraq-irgc/28392948.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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Britain Wants Social Media Sites Cleared of Jihadist Postings

By Jamie Dettmer March 27, 2017

Islamic State propagandists are seeking to capitalize on last week's terror attack in London, which left five people dead and 40 injured, by flooding YouTube with hundreds of violent recruitment videos.

The online propaganda offensive comes as Britain demands social media companies scrub their sites of jihadist postings.

Amber Rudd, the country's interior minister, has vowed to "call time" on internet firms allowing terrorists "a place to hide" and has summoned some of the leading social media companies, including Facebook and Twitter, for what is being dubbed by British officials as "showdown talks" later this week.

Rudd says she is determined to stop extremists "using social media as their platform" for recruitment and for operational needs.

Britain's security services are in a standoff with WhatsApp, which has refused to allow them access to the encrypted message the London attacker sent three minutes before he used an SUV to mow down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and stabbed to death a policeman outside the House of Commons.

British security services are powerless to read that final message, which might cast light on whether the attack was a "lone wolf" or one aided and directed by others. Police investigators believe the terrorist acted alone and have seen no evidence that he was associated with IS or al-Qaida.

WhatsApp, which has a billion users worldwide, employs "end to end encryption" for messages, which the company says prevents even its own technicians from reading people's messages.

Officials want voluntary action

Rudd and other government ministers have launched a media onslaught, saying they are considering legislation to require online companies to take down extremist material. They argue this wouldn't be necessary if the companies recognized their community responsibilities.

Rudd told the BBC that Facebook, Google and other companies should understand they are not just technology businesses, but also publishing platforms. "We have to have a situation where we can have our security services get into the terrorists' communications," she argued. "There should be no place for terrorists to hide."

British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson joined in the condemnation of social media and online companies. "I think it's disgusting," he told The Sunday Times. "They need to stop just making money out of prurient violent material."

At a security conference last week in the United States, Johnson called for action.

"We are going to have to engage not just militarily, but also to stop the stuff on the internet that is corrupting and polluting so many people," he said. "This is something that the internet companies and social media companies need to think about. They need to do more to take that stuff off their media  the incitements, the information about how to become a terrorist, the radicalizing sermons and messages. That needs to come down."

Recruiting criminals

The furor over extremist use of the internet was fueled Monday by front-page articles in the Times and Daily Mail newspapers highlighting the IS propaganda videos posted on YouTube since last Wednesday's slaughter in the British capital. The high-definition videos, some of which contained references to the London attack, include gory scenes of beheadings and "caliphate violence" carried out by child adherents of the terror group.

U.S. and European officials have long complained online companies are, in effect, aiding and abetting terrorism. A year ago in January, much of the U.S. national security leadership of the Obama administration sat down with Silicon Valley chiefs to discuss jihadist use of the internet to recruit and radicalize people and plot attacks.

Also last year, British spy chief, Robert Hannigan, singled out messaging apps as especially worrisome for the security services, saying they had become "the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals  precisely because they are highly encrypted."

Some cooperation

After initial resistance to complaints from Western governments, Facebook, Google and Twitter have in recent months been more cooperative with authorities and have removed large amounts of extremist material. Twitter said in the second half of 2016 it suspended 376,890 accounts for violations related to promotion of terrorism.

But some services have resisted providing governments with encryption keys, or so-called back doors.

Apple has developed encryption keys that message users can use that are not possessed by the company. Apple's chief executive, Timothy Cook, argued last year, "If you put a key under the mat for the cops, a burglar can find it, too."

Silicon Valley chiefs say they fear violations of privacy and their priority is their customers, not national security, an argument that has resonated since former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed the extent of electronic surveillance by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Last year, WhatsApp was blocked several times in Brazil for failing to hand over information relating to criminal investigations.

Messages sent on a rival service by Telegram are also encrypted, but after bad publicity and immense pressure from Western governments, the company does provide a backdoor for security and law-enforcement agencies.

Not that access to encrypted communications always helps.

Sunday, it emerged that German police knew the Christmas market attacker in Berlin who drove a truck into a crowd of shoppers was planning a suicide attack. Police had intercepted his Telegram messages nine months before the attack.

A police recommendation that he be deported was declined by state government prosecutors because they feared the courts would reject the request.

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Missing Belarusian Opposition Leader Freed After Three-Day Detention

RFE/RL's Belarus Service March 27, 2017

MINSK -- Three days after he went missing ahead of a large antigovernment rally, Belarusian opposition leader Mikalay Statkevich has been released from what he said was a KGB jail and returned home.

Speaking with RFE/RL and other reporters at his apartment in Minsk on March 27, Statkevich vowed to continue organizing protests against authoritarian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

Statkevich is a former presidential candidate who spent nearly five years in prison after protests that followed a 2010 election that Lukashenka's critics said was rigged.

He went missing early on March 25, hours before thousands of people took to the streets in Minsk for an annual Freedom Day march that was met with a violent police crackdown.

Statkevich had been set to co-lead the march. Instead, he said, he was detained by officers of the KGB security service and taken to a detention center, where he was questioned and told that he faced charges that he had been plotting terrorist attacks across Belarus since 2011.

He laughed as he recounted the experience, saying that the KGB must have forgotten that he was in jail from December 2010 to August 2015.

The KGB denied on March 26 that Statkevich was in its custody, and no public announcement of charges against him has been issued.

Statkevich said that most likely Belarusian authorities did not want to draw Western criticism by holding him further.

Activists say dozens of people were detained during the rally on March 25 as well as on March 26, when police clamped down to prevent people from attending a protest in central Minsk.

Hundreds more had been detained since March 1 as the government sought to end a series of protests against a controversial tax on the unemployed in the economically struggling former Soviet republic.

Some have been released, with or without a fine, while some have been sentenced to jail terms of up to 25 days.

'Imposing Fear'

Statkevich expressed the hope that all those detained would be freed, reasoning that Lukashenka cannot afford to alienate the West too much.

"The Belarusian government is keen to preserve ties with the West, otherwise Russia will smash Belarus," he said.

Russia's seizure of Crimea in 2014 and involvement in a deadly three-year-old conflict in eastern Ukraine has increased fears that Moscow might have designs on Belarus, which also lies between Russia and NATO nations.

Statkevich said the government's current internal policy can be defined as "imposing fear" without sentencing opponents to long prison terms, as Minsk is interested in "normalizing " its ties with the European Union and the United States.

Statkevich said he would continue opposing the authorities and demonstrating in the street.

"The government is cracking down on protests with one hand, but with another hand it is creating such protests through its own policies," Statkevich said.

Statkevich and another former presidential candidate and opposition leader, Uladzimer Nyaklyaeu, had said publicly that they would lead the opposition march in Minsk on March 25.

Nyaklyaeu was detained by police on March 24 in the western city of Brest as he came from Poland en route to Minsk. He was later hospitalized and was unable to attend the march, but has since been discharged.

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-statkevich- freed-detention/28393028.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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Hong Kong Set to Arrest Protest Leaders

By VOA News March 27, 2017

Nine Hong Kong activists were informed Monday that they will be arrested for their involvement in the student protests of the Umbrella Movement of 2014 and charged with creating a public nuisance.

The news of their pending arrests comes one day after veteran civil servant Carrie Lam was selected by a pro-China election committee to become Hong Kong's first female chief executive.

Democracy activists are concerned about Lam's win and her pro-China tendencies. They are leery of China's growing interference in Hong Kong and fearful of losing the former British colony's "one country, two systems" formula that guarantees Hong Kong wide-ranging freedoms.

Lam said Sunday Hong Kong "is suffering from quite a serious divisiveness and has accumulated a lot of frustrations." She said her "priority will be to heal the divide."

Activist Raphael Wong told the French news agency, AFP, he had been notified he would receive the public nuisance charge for his role in the protests.

"As Carrie Lam talks about unity, they are saying you don't need it," Wong said.

Civic Party lawmaker Tanya Chan, also notified about the public nuisance charge that carries a maximum seven-year sentence, said the timing undermines Lam's unity pledge. She also described the move as a "death kiss" from outgoing chief executive Leung Chun-ying who steps down in July.

Others targeted for arrest include university professors, former student leaders, and current and former pro-democracy lawmakers.

Tens of thousands of student protesters took to the streets in 2014 in what became known as the Umbrella Movement to demand full democracy for Hong Kong.

Hong Kong's chief is elected by a committee of 1,200 that includes tycoons and lawmakers, leaving millions of residents unable to vote for their leader.

The 59-year-old Lam's victory with 777 votes was no surprise since Beijing had lobbied heavily for her. She was Hong Kong's number two official before Sunday's vote.

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'Hostage' No More: India to Buy $1 Billion in Israeli Anti-Tank Missiles

Sputnik News

22:01 27.03.2017(updated 22:16 27.03.2017)

The Indian Ministry of Defense (MoD) has circumvented conventional policy to ink a deal with Israeli state-owned Rafael Defense Company for thousands of new missiles.

The Spike missile was developed in Israel for land-to-land missile strikes against enemy tanks. It is considered a "fire-and-forget" munition, however some versions of the Strike missile can be user guided via a "fire, observe, and update"model.

The Ministry of Defense has officially "forwarded the deal to the Cabinet Committee of Security, which is likely to clear the same (deal)" in the week ending March 31, Defense News reported on Monday. "The deal could then be signed after next month," the MoD said.

Similar to previous deals, the Indian Army will secure 321 Spike launchers and 8,356 anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) from Rafael for $1 billion total. Delivery could take up to 60 months, or five years, to send all the equipment, the MoD noted. In October, 2014, India spent $525 million on 8,000 Spike anti-tank missiles along with 300 launchers, Haaretz reported.

The javelin FGM-148 has a range of 4.75 km, while the Spike can reach targets 4 km, 8 km or 25 km into the distance.

Generally, the MoD prefers to procure new equipment and weaponry by soliciting bids from multiple contractors. "The single-vendor situation has arisen as the other option, American Javelin, was found to be too expensive," said Rahul Bhonsle, defense analyst and Indian armed forces veteran.

One key element of the deal involves the transfer of intellectual property from Israel to India. Particularly, a clause in the contract allows India to gain access to the steps and procedures used to make the missiles in the event that the MoD exercises its option to create another 1,500 launcher systems and 30,000 missiles in the future.

"For long," an Indian Army official told Defense News, the Indian Army and Air Force have "been held hostage" to older generation ATGMs from Europe.

"These ATGMs are fully wire-guided ATGMSEven Spike is not a fully fire-and-forget missile, as there is wire guidance in Spike," the military official noted.

 Sputnik

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Chinas involvement in Africa goes back more than fifty years. However, over the past decade or so its presence on the continent has been growing at a remarkable rate. Since 2000, China-Africa trade has increased twenty-fold, and Chinese direct investment in Africa more than thirty-fold. Foreign aid figures are less readily available. According to the Chinese Governments White Paper on Foreign Aid, published in 2011, China had provided 256.29 billion yuan (US$37.7 billion) in aid to foreign countries by 2009. Africa has received a significant share of such aid, accounting for 45.7% of the total sum in 2009. Estimates of annual Chinese development assistance to Africa vary between US$ 1 and 3 billion. In 2012, China pledged US$20 billion in loans to Africa over three years for infrastructure, agriculture and manufacturing. If these funds are actually committed, China will become one the principal financial backers of Africas growth and development.

The Chinese government established the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2000 to mark a new chapter in bilateral relations between China and African countries, and in 2006 it published a document entitled Chinas Africa Policy. Over the years, the FOCAC Ministerial Conferences, the last of which was held in 2012 in Beijing, have generated a large number of principles, action agendas and commitments which have widened and deepened Chinas involvement and investment across Africa. The motivations for such expansion are numerous and mixed, ranging from the need to strengthen political and diplomatic ties with countries seen as regional leaders to the promotion of commercial interests, and from securing access to natural resources to projecting a new global image of China as a trusted partner for developing countries.

Read the full article here .

(Source: BRICS Policy Center)
Iran Navy flotilla berths at India's Cochin port

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 27, 2017 4:23PM

An Iranian Navy fleet has docked at India's Port of Cochin in line with the Islamic Republic's policy of expanding its naval presence in high seas.

The operational training flotilla comprises Shaheed Naqdi destroyer and Tunb warships.

The fleet is scheduled to leave Cochin Port on Tuesday.

Iran and India have adopted measures to develop positive defense and military cooperation during recent years.

In May 2016, an Indian navy flotilla called at the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas, as the two countries work to boost friendly maritime relations.

The fleet, comprising INS Trikand (F51) and INS Ganga (F22) frigates, arrived in Bandar Abbas, the capital of Hormozgan Province, for a four-day stay.

In August 2015, an Indian navy fleet, comprising the INS Beas (F37) and INS Betwa (F39) frigates, docked at Bandar Abbas for a four-day stay.

In late January 2015, Iranian Navy's destroyer Alvand set sail to India to participate in joint maneuvers with several other navies. It participated in the naval drills along with other destroyers near Visakhapatnam Port in India.

In recent years, Iran has made great achievements in its defense sector and conducted numerous military drills.

Over the past few years, Iran's Navy has increased its presence in high seas to safeguard naval routes and provide security for merchant vessels and tankers.

Iran has repeatedly assured other countries that its military might poses no threat to other states, insisting that the country's defense doctrine is entirely based on deterrence.

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Myanmar army chief defies UN calls, defends crackdown on Rohingya

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 27, 2017 2:13PM

Myanmar's army chief has defended an ongoing crackdown against the persecuted Rohingya Muslims minority in Rakhine State after the UN pledged to probe a campaign of killing and torture by security forces there.

Army chief Min Aung Hlaing defended the military campaign while speaking to crowds assembled in the capital Naypyidaw for armed forces day on Monday.

The military chief branded Rohingya Muslims as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh or "Bengalis" despite many living there for generations.

"The Bengalis in Rakhine State are not the Myanmar nationalities but the immigrants," Hlaing said.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the commander-in-chief of the Myanmar armed forces blamed Muslims for a series of attacks across the troubled region on security forces that occurred October last year.

"The terrorist attacks which took place in October 2016 resulted in the political interferences."

The remarks come after the top United Nations human rights body on Friday agreed to send an international fact-finding mission to investigate widespread allegations of killings, rape and torture by security forces against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar's Rakhine state.

Sources say the mission will seek to ensure "full accountability for perpetrators and justice for victims."

However, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) stopped short of calling for the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry - the world body's highest level investigation - into the situation of the Rohingya despite a call by Yanghee Lee, the UN's special rapporteur on rights in Myanmar.

UN investigators believe security forces may have committed crimes against humanity.

Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has, meanwhile, rebuffed the UN probe, saying any international fact-finding mission "would do more to inflame, rather than resolve, the issues at this time."

Rights groups have cast doubt on the impartiality of several investigative commissions set up by Suu Kyi to look into the crimes against the Rohingya.

Myanmar has long faced criticism for its treatment of the more than one million Rohingya who live in Rakhine State.

Since October 2016, Myanmar's forces have been carrying out a military crackdown in Rakhine State, where the Rohingya community is mainly based, following a raid on a police post that was blamed on Rohingya-linked militants.

In a report last month, Reuters cited two UN officials dealing with refugees fleeing violence as saying that some 1,000 Rohingya Muslims may have been killed in Myanmar's army crackdown on the minority group.

At least 75,000 Rohingya have since fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh, according to the UN.

UN investigators, who interviewed Rohingya escapees in neighboring Bangladesh, have blamed Myanmar's government forces for responding with a campaign of murder, gang rape and arson that they say may amount to genocide.

Myanmar classifies Rohingya Muslims as stateless or non-citizens, a status which strips them of the right to education, work or social services.

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India Bags Myanmar Torpedo Order Worth $38 Million

Sputnik News

18:37 27.03.2017

India has agreed to supply lightweight torpedoes to Myanmar in a US$ 37.9 million-contract which is said to be evidence of a growing arms race between Myanmar and Bangladesh. The torpedoes will be manufactured by government-owned Bharat Dynamics and private company L&T.

New Delhi (Sputnik)  Earlier this month, the Indian Navy had accepted a proposal of the Myanmar Navy to train their personnel and set up meteorological facilities. "Export of the lightweight torpedoes would follow the earlier supply of sonars, acoustic domes and directing gear to Myanmar," said S. Christopher, chief of the Defense Research and Development Organization.

In recent years, India successfully entered the Myanmar naval recapitalization bid which was dominated by China. India has supplied HMS-X hull-mounted sonar and radar for Myanmar's Kyan Sittha-class frigates. India also provides night-vision devices, bailey bridges, rocket launchers, mortars, rifles, communication and Inmarsat sets to the armed forces of Myanmar.

India shares a long maritime boundary with Myanmar in the strategically important Bay of Bengal. It will soon hand over the Sittwe port to Myanmar after completing the development process in the next few weeks. This port will be part of the transit corridor through which India expects larger trade share with East Asian countries.

 Sputnik

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Pakistan building fence along Afghanistan border

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 27, 2017 3:44PM

Pakistan says it has started building a fence along its volatile border with Afghanistan in an attempt to restrict the movement of militants that cross over the frontier and launch attacks.

The fence construction began in the northern tribal regions of Mohmand and Bajaur over the weekend as Pakistan's army chief, General Qamar Bajwa, visited the "high threat zones." He said the new border measure would be in the interest of both countries.

A Pakistani army statement said "additional technical surveillance" would also be deployed, but did not provide any further information.

Najib Danish, the deputy spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, said Kabul was unaware of any construction work, noting that his government would move to prevent any such project.

"We have not seen any signs of building fences along the border. But it is not going to solve the terrorism problem. It is only going to divide the people and we will not allow it," he said.

Experts say deep cultural ties between Pashtu-speaking people who live on both sides of the border will render the controversial move ineffective.

Every day, thousands of Afghan and Pakistani Pashtuns cross the Durand Line -- the 2,430-kilometer boundary established by the British in 1896 during their colonial rule.

Neither the Afghan government nor the Pashtuns recognize the Durand Line as an official border between the two nations, who are bound by cultural and family ties.

The movement across the Durand Line generates revenue for both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The two countries exchange goods and services worth 3 billion dollars annually across the border.

Last year, Pakistan completed a 1,100-kilometer trench along the southern half of the border.

Pakistan says its recent move to fence the crossings is aimed at curtailing the movement of militants and stopping them from entering the country.

Experts, however, say Islamabad is increasingly worried about India's influence in Afghanistan.

Former Afghan diplomat Ahmad Saidi argues that Pakistan is trying to put pressure on Afghanistan to achieve its long-term goals such as persuading Kabul to distance itself from New Delhi.

"Governments pursue long-term policies and consider the current losses that people suffer  collateral damage," he said.

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S. Korean prosecutors seek to arrest ex-president Park over corruption scandal

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 13:36, March 27, 2017

South Korean prosecutors on Monday sought to arrest Park Geun-hye, the country's former president who was impeached in a historic ruling earlier this month, over a corruption scandal embroiling Park and her longtime confidante.

The special investigation headquarters of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, tasked with the probe into the scandal, said in a statement that concerns remained about an attempt to destroy evidence as Park denied most of criminal charges despite a number of collected evidences.

Park was removed from office on March 10 as the Constitutional Court upheld a motion to impeach Park. The first South Korean female leader became the first president ousted by impeachment.

State prosecutors, who took over the investigation from special prosecutors this month, summoned the disgraced leader last week for questioning, but she denied most of her wrongdoings.

The arrest warrant was formally delivered to a Seoul court, which would review evidences and decide whether the warrant can be justified. The decision would be made late Wednesday or early Thursday.

If issued, Park would become the third South Korean former leader to be taken into custody. Two former military strongmen were put behind bars in 1995 for charges of treason and corruption.

State and special prosecutors levied a total of 13 charges against Park, including bribery, abuse of power and the leakage of state secrets.

The statement said Park abused power by using her "powerful status and authority as president" to extort money and valuables from businesses and infringe on the liberty of corporate management, while leaking official secrets.

Park is accused of colluding with her decades-long friend Choi Soon-sil, who is now in custody, to solicit tens of millions of U.S. dollars in bribes from Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong who is also arrested.

The bribes were offered in return for getting assistance in the transfer of management control of Samsung Group to Vice Chairman Lee from his ailing father Chairman Lee Kun-hee.

The younger Lee, an heir apparent of the country's biggest family-controlled conglomerate, has effectively taken the helm of Samsung since his father was hospitalized after a heart attack three years ago.

Choi is charged with extorting tens of millions of dollars from scores of conglomerates to establish two non-profit foundations she used for personal gains. Prosecutors already branded Park and Choi as criminal accomplices.

Choi, at the center of the influence-peddling scandal, is also suspected of receiving secret government documents from one of Park's former secretaries on a regular basis to meddle in state affairs behind the scenes.

The prosecution office said it considered fairness in the decision to seek the arrest of Park given the detention of many of those implicated in the scandal including Choi, the Samsung heir and other government officials.

The decision is believed to have considered recent opinion polls, in which a majority of South Koreans demanded Park's arrest. According to a Realmeter survey released on Thursday, 72.3 percent of South Koreans favored restricted prosecution of the former president.

A candlelight rally was held on Saturday night, and over 100,000 participants marched to the streets, chanting the slogan "Imprison Park Geun-hye."

A presidential election is scheduled for May 9. The three-week campaign period is slated to kick off on April 17.

Concerns remain that if Park, dressed in prison uniform and handcuffed, appears on TV, it could cause backlashes from conservative politicians and voters and influence the election results.

Others claim Park's arrest would have no effect on the upcoming election, in which one of progressive candidates is widely forecast to succeed Park, as the majority of people still want Park detained.

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South Korea prosecutors seek ex-president Park's arrest

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 27, 2017 4:19AM

South Korean prosecutors are seeking an arrest warrant for ousted president Park Geun-hye, who has become vulnerable to prosecution and potential incarceration following the loss of her political immunity.

The Seoul Central District Court said on Monday that an arrest warrant hearing for Park had been scheduled for Thursday at 1030 am local time (0130 GMT).

The court would decide whether to arrest Park and hold her in custody for up to 20 days while she is investigated or not. The decision is likely to come late Thursday or early Friday.

The 65-year-old former president, who was removed from power over a corruption scandal earlier this month, now faces charges that include bribery, leaking government information, and abuse of executive power.

"The accused abused her enormous power and status as president to receive bribes from companies or to infringe upon the rights to freedom of corporate management and leaked important confidential information on state affairs," prosecutors said in a statement on Monday.

The statement came almost a week after Park was brought in by judiciary officials for questioning in connection with the corruption scandal that culminated in her impeachment and removal from power.

Prosecutors also said in the Monday statement that, "A large amount of evidence has been collected so far but the accused is denying most of the charges, and there is a risk of destroying evidence in the future."

Park's confidante and alleged accomplice Choi Soon-sil is already on trial, and prosecutors said it would be "counter to the principle of fairness" if Park were not arrested. Park could face more than 10 years in jail if convicted of receiving bribes.

Park faced massive outcry as the scandal involving Choi gained momentum late last year and early this year. Huge rallies were held against her, and a parliamentary vote to impeach her was ultimately upheld by the country's Constitutional Court, permanently forcing her out of office.

Despite her denial of any wrongdoing, Park has apologized to the nation several times in the past months.

Prosecutors have long been seeking her arrest over the scandal but had faced legal obstacles back when she enjoyed immunity under the constitution as sitting president.

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South Korea Prosecutors Seek Detention Warrant for Ousted President Park

By Brian Padden March 27, 2017

Prosecutors in South Korea Monday requested an arrest warrant for impeached former President Park Geun-hye on charges related to the alleged multimillion-dollar bribery scandal that forced her from office.

Park was ousted from office for allegedly colluding with her longtime friend Choi Soon-sil to extort Korean conglomerates to donate over $69 million to two dubious foundations. Choi was alleged to have a "cult-like" influence over President Park and access to classified documents, even though she had no official government role.

The prosecution team within the Ministry of Justice, which has been investigating the presidential scandal, released a statement announcing the arrest warrant request for Park.

"The case is very grave as the suspect has showed actions of abuse of power, such as collecting bribes from companies using the president's position of power and authority, and infringed upon the freedom of management of companies, and leaked important official secrets," the statement said.

The Seoul Central District Court has said it will rule Thursday on whether to grant an arrest warrant later this week.

Park was immune from any criminal prosecution while in office. Prior to being forced from office, she refused to cooperate with an independent counsel investigation and declined to speak in her own defense during a Constitution Court trial that ultimately upheld the National Assembly impeachment vote.

A new presidential election is scheduled for May 9.

In its ruling, the court noted the impeachment trial was focused, not on Park's criminal guilt or innocence, but on the legitimacy of the National Assembly action to oust the president.

The justices also admonished Park and her defense team for being uncooperative and evasive in the investigations and attempting to prevent the legislature from acting as a "check and balance" on executive power.

Rule of law

As a private citizen facing a possible criminal indictment, Park will now be afforded all the protections under the law, including a presumption of innocence that did not apply to the impeachment process, and will require the prosecution to present substantial proof to support its charges.

The former president apologized on a number of occasions for any possible misconduct by those around her, but has denied that she was personally involved in any wrongdoings.

After the court upheld the impeachment, Park agreed to cooperate with the criminal investigation, and last week was interrogated by prosecutors for 14 hours.

Prosecutors also expressed concern in their Monday statement that Park may have destroyed evidence.

Prosecutors had tried to raid the presidential Blue House while Park was still living there, but were denied entry due to the president's immunity protection and because officials claimed the presidential office is a national security facility.

The prosecution is expected to directly tie Park to the case against Samsung Group vice chairman Lee Jae-yong. Lee and other company officials were indicted for donating $37.19 million to the Choi run foundations in exchange for government help on an important merger for the company. They face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Choi and a number of presidential aides are facing similar charges and prison terms for their roles in the influence peddling scandal. Choi also denies she committed any any wrongdoing.

Mixed reaction

The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea released a statement Monday calling the arrest warrant request, a "historic decision."

"Arrest of this suspect is unavoidable and obvious. We think the prosecution fully considered and made a (just) decision," the Democratic Party statement said.

The Democratic Party also reprimanded Park for not publicly accepting the impeachment ruling as legitimate and for not urging her supporters to abide by the decision of the courts.

Park's conservative political party, the Liberty Korea Party, sounded resigned to her likely indictment in a short statement released Monday.

"We understand that the prosecution made the decision according to law and principle, but it is regrettable as we would like that investigation (to continue) without (Park's possible) detention," said the Liberty Party statement.

While Park is the first democratically elected president of South Korea to be impeached, she will not be the first to be indicted, if the court approves the prosecution's arrest warrant request.

Former President Roh Moo-hyun successfully fought off an impeachment motion, but after leaving office he was charged with bribery and tax evasion over allegations he and other family members had taken million of dollars from a wealthy shoe manufacturer.

Reportedly distraught over the corruption scandal, Roh later committed suicide.

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Russia's Navalny Jailed And Fined Over Protests; U.S., EU Condemn Mass Detentions

RFE/RL March 27, 2017

A Russian court has ordered opposition leader and anticorruption activist Aleksei Navalny to be jailed for 15 days for disobeying police, one day after he was arrested near the site of a demonstration in central Moscow.

The March 27 ruling comes after an earlier decision by the court to fine Navalny 20,000 rubles ($350) for organizing what the authorities say was an illegal protest in the Russian capital on March 26.

Navalny was detained on that date as he made his way to an anticorruption demonstration that he had called on people to attend in Moscow.

The government says the protest was illegal because city authorities had not granted permission for a march and rally in the center of the city, and that it led to violations of public order. Navalny disputes that, saying that it was legal.

Police also detained hundreds of other demonstrators at anticorruption protests that were attended by thousands of people in dozens of cities nationwide in the largest such rallies since 2012.

A day after the anticorruption protests, the Kremlin lashed out.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on March 27 that many of the protests the previous day were illegal and that organizers had "provoked" participants into "illegal activity."

Peskov also claimed that children had been promised "rewards" for taking part. The same day, Russia's Investigative Committee opened a probe into possible payments to demonstrators -- "not only youths, but to other participants as well."

Peskov pointed out that the authorities in Moscow declined to give Navalny permission to hold a march and rally at a central location and proposed alternate sites on the outskirts of the city.

Navalny contends that there were no grounds for the government to refuse permission, and that the alternate sites were offered later than is required by law.

A total of tens of thousands of people took part in the demonstrations on March 26, and a group called OVD-Info says more than 1,000 were detained in Moscow alone.

OVD-Info said on March 27 that most of those detained had been released but that at least 120 remained in custody.

Moscow police said 500 people had been detained.

The United States and the European Union have condemned the mass arrests of protesters in Russia and called for their prompt release.

The U.S. State Department said Washington was "troubled" by Navalny's detention.

"We call on the government of Russia to immediately release all peaceful protesters," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement issued on March 26.

"Detaining peaceful protesters, human rights observers, and journalists is an affront to core democratic values," Toner said.

The EU also called on Russia to allow people "basic freedoms of expression, association, and peaceful assembly."

Speaking in Moscow on March 27, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the West of applying a "double standard" regarding protests in Russia.

He said international law recognizes "freedom of speech and the right for gatherings, as well as exceptions when it concerns state security and the moral well-being of society."

The nongovernmental organization Amnesty International issued a statement saying that Navalny "and all the peaceful protesters detained after the mass demonstrationsmust be immediately released."

The statement said the detentions demonstrate the Russian government's "profound disdain for the right to freedom of expression and assembly."

The rallies followed a report released by Navalny's Anticorruption Foundation (FBK) accusing Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of using charities and NGOs to collect donations from tycoons and state banks and using the funds to buy expensive assets.

According to accounts from the court hearing on March 27, Navalny at one point called for Medvedev to testify.

He also critized the judge, Alesya Orekhova, accusing her of behaving like a rude teenager.

"Your honor, I have a 15-year-old daughter. When she is wrong, she starts taking back -- like you are doing," a person with the Twitter handle Vladlen Los quoted Navalny as saying.

Navalny was detained as he emerged with supporters from a subway station on March 26 in central Moscow.

Navalny helped lead a series of major protests in 2011-12 that were sparked by anger over evidence of widespread fraud in parliamentary elections and dismay at Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency after a stint as prime minister.

Posting on Twitter from his cell after he was detained, Navalny wrote he was "proud" of the protesters and said the arrests were "understandable."

"The thieves defend themselves this way. But you cannot arrest everyone who is against corruption. There are millions of us," he wrote.

In a tweet on March 27, Navalny said that 13 employees of his foundation remained in police custody after they were detained when the group's office in Moscow was searched on March 26 by law-enforcement authorities.

"The office was robbed: They took away absolutely all the equipment," Navalny wrote.

Russia's Interfax news agency said 130 people were arrested in St. Petersburg.

The size of the March 26 protests was remarkable because they were unauthorized. Recent laws have tightened criminal punishment for protests that are not permitted by city authorities.

Navalny announced in December that he would run for president next March, when Putin is widely expected to seek a new six-year term.

Russian authorities have said Navalny will be barred from the ballot if a conviction on charges of financial crimes is upheld on appeal. But he has pushed ahead with his campaign.

Navalny has said the two previous convictions in two separate cases were politically motivated punishment for his opposition to Putin.

With reporting by Mediazona and rapsinews.ru

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/us-condemns-russia- protesters-arrests-navalny/28392841.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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Russia to Boost Artillery Firepower in Central Military District

Sputnik News

17:18 27.03.2017(updated 17:41 27.03.2017)

In order to boost combat capabilities of the Missile Troops and Artillery, battalions of large-caliber artillery are being formed in the Central Military District (CMD), according to Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Russia will deploy a number of large-caliber artillery battalions in the Central Military District (CMD) to increase combat capabilities of its Missile Troops and Artillery, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Monday.

"In order to boost combat capabilities of the Missile Troops and Artillery, battalions of large-caliber artillery are being formed [in the CMD]," Shoigu said at a meeting of the Defense Ministry's Collegiate in Moscow.

According to Russian military sources, current Russian large-caliber artillery includes Soviet-era 2S7 Pion (Malka) 203-mm self-propelled guns and 2S4 Tyulpan 240-mm self-propelled mortars.

 Sputnik

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Russian Court Jails, Fines Opposition Leader Over Mass Protests

By Daniel Schearf March 27, 2017

A court in Russia sentenced opposition leader and anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny on Monday to 15 days in jail for resisting police and fined him 20,000 roubles, about $350, for organizing what authorities said was an illegal, mass protest in Moscow.

Navalny rejected official claims that the demonstration Sunday afternoon, part of the biggest unsanctioned anti-government protests in years, was illegal.

"In accordance with a decision made by the Russian Constitutional Court, in the event of denial or if no alternative locations were proposed three days prior, we were supposed to go to the initial place. The legal requirements were observed 100 percent," the state news agency TASS quoted Navalny as telling the court.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday said Moscow authorities offered two alternative sites to the organizers, according to the Interfax news agency. "Those sites were rejected. In actual fact, people were deliberately dragged to unauthorized locations. Of course, one cannot agree with that," he said.

Peskov called the protesters provocateurs looking to incite violence and accused organizers of exploiting children, claiming many were paid to attend but citing no evidence.

Navalny's lawyer said they would appeal the sentence.

Massive Protests

Organizers said the demonstrations Sunday against corruption took place in more than 80 cities across Russia.

They were the largest unsanctioned anti-government protests in Russia since 2011-2012 rallies over voter fraud and President Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency.

The demonstrations took place on the 17th anniversary of the first time Putin was elected president.

Hundreds of peaceful protesters were detained in Moscow, some brutally dragged to the ground just for holding signs criticizing authorities and corruption.

Navalny was detained as he arrived at the protest on central Moscow's Tverskaya Street near Pushkin Square. Some observers and journalists were also reportedly detained.

Washington has "strongly condemned" the detention of protesters, including Navalny.

"Detaining peaceful protesters, human rights observers, and journalists is an affront to core democratic values," acting U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement.

He said the U.S. is "troubled" by the arrest of Navalny, who has announced plans to run for president in the 2018 election.

Turning point?

"Yesterday's event may be a turning point for Russia's political situation because it shows that the mood in Russian society is changing and people are ready to protest," said Boris Kagarlitsky, director of the Institute for Globalization Studies and Social Movements. "It also shows that a new generation of protesters emerged that did not participate in the protests of 2011-2012 which does not identify itself with any Russia's political or dominant ideologies."

A large number of the protesters were younger Russians of university age. Some analysts say this could indicate the Kremlin and political elite are losing touch with the younger generation.

"The events will motivate authorities to be more attentive to young people, particularly to teenagers and their communication in the Internet," said Mikhail Chernysh, deputy director of the Institute of Sociology. "At the same time, I guess that the authorities base their judgment on the fact that young people are not very important for the electoral process because of their sheer number. They are much smaller than other age groups. Older people are more numerous and more active as an electoral agent. Unlike young people, they provide for the turnout and thereby make more impact."

The demonstrations were sparked by Navalny's investigation of alleged corruption by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Navalny's Fund to Fight Corruption released a YouTube video investigation into property allegedly owned by Medvedev that went viral and has been viewed over 11 million times.

In court Monday, Navalny demanded Medvedev be brought in for questioning. Medvedev has yet to comment on the allegations.

"Another interesting change is that the protests started in provincial cities earlier than the ones in Moscow and the number of people (protesting) in the provincial cities was unprecedented," said Kagarlitsky. "These events show that the people are really tired not only of corruption but also of a broader spectrum of economic and social problems."

Navalny defiantly told reporters at the courthouse Monday he would call people to the streets again, saying authorities could detain thousands but not tens of thousands or millions.

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ZHENGZHOU, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Lankao County in central China's Henan Province Monday announced its withdrawal from the country's list of impoverished counties.

A county can be removed from the list if less than 2 percent of its population is classified as "impoverished," according to a national mechanism, established in April 2016, to eliminate poverty in affected regions.

In 2014, 11.8 percent of Lankao's population lived in poverty, but the proportion has dropped to 1.27 percent, according to an assessment by the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

After evaluation results were examined and approved by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, Henan Provincial Government greenlit the county's withdrawal Monday.8 "Today is a commemorable day," said Cai Songtao, secretary of the Lankao County Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) at a press conference. "Getting rid of poverty has been the ardent wish of Lankao residents for decades."

In 2014, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, visited Lankao twice as part of a campaign pairing top Party officials with the country's poor areas.

That year, Lankao County authorities made a commitment to casting off poverty in three years and achieving moderate prosperity in seven years.

To achieve success, Cai said that the county government made poverty alleviation its first and primary task.

"Over the course of the process, we've realized that poverty alleviation is not the main goal, but that achieving moderate prosperity matters more," he said.

NEW BUSINESS

Figures show that per capita disposable income in urban and rural areas in Lankao rose 7.5 percent and 9.6 percent year on year to 21,124 yuan (3,072 U.S. dollars) and 9,943 yuan in 2016, doubling the amounts in 2013.

The county's economy expanded by 9.4 percent to 25.76 billion yuan in 2016, boosted by upgrades to the agricultural and industrial sectors and ecological tourism in recent years.

Xuchang Village of Guyang Township is rich in paulownia trees, an ideal raw material for musical instrument manufacturing. The village has 54 musical instrument workshops with sales revenue reaching more than 60 million yuan.

Villager Xu Erpai, who could not even pay his own medical bills in the past, has secured an annual income of 300,000 yuan for the past two years.

Funded by the local government, Xu learned to make instrument strings in Yangzhou City in the eastern province of Jiangsu and established a plant in Lankao two years ago.

"We can't blame god or the government for our poverty. Overcoming it is our own business," said Xu, who now owns a two-story building and a vehicle.

After making his personal fortune through a gold accessory business in the provincial capital of Zhengzhou, Dai Yujian was elected Party chief of his home village of Daizhuang in 2014.

"My fellow villagers hoped my business brain would help bring prosperity to the entire village," he said with a smile.

In half a year, he led the villagers in building vegetable greenhouses and concrete roads, and growing trees along the roadside. He also helped villagers sell their vegetables via his personal contacts.

Under Dai's leadership, per capita annual income of poor people surged from 1,400 yuan in 2014 to 3,500 yuan in the village by growing greenhouse vegetables, raising cattle and working in cities.

DECADES OF WORK

Lankao has been poor throughout history, as wars as well as frequent sandstorms and floods left the area with nothing much but poor soil.

According to the county's annals, floods hit Lankao more than 90 times between 1644 and 1949, and over 60 villages were buried by sandstorms from the 1850s to 1949, when the People's Republic of China was founded.

Dai was reluctant to admit he was a Lankao native when he was out doing business several years ago.

"I often claimed to be from the neighboring Kaifeng, as people would have asked 'Are locals still going out to beg?' if they heard that I was from Lankao," Dai recalled.

Efforts to cast off poverty have persisted since the founding of New China.

In the 1960s, Lankao suffered another natural calamity, resulting in years of crop failures. It was then when Jiao Yulu, who was later known as a national model cadre for his painstaking efforts in poverty-alleviation, came to work as Party secretary in Lankao in 1962.

Astonished by the miserable life of locals, Jiao worked tirelessly and devoted all his life to fighting the poor natural conditions in the county, even when diagnosed with liver cancer.

He led locals to plant trees and dig water channels to reduce the impact of disasters until his death in 1964 at the age of 42. His story was later made into a film that touched the whole country in 1990.

"CPC members have led Lankao's people to fight against poverty generation after generation, and the pressure of anti-poverty efforts has become a driver of economic growth," said current Lankao Party chief Cai.

NATIONAL INSPIRATION

Lankao is the second county to be removed from the list after Jinggangshan in eastern China's Jiangxi Province, which was eliminated from the list in late February.

The Chinese government has vowed to eradicate poverty by 2020. As of late February, there were 831 impoverished county-level regions across China, which are expected to eliminate poverty in the next four years.

According to official figures, China still had 55.75 million people living under the poverty line at the end of 2015. The government has said 10 million people were lifted out of poverty in 2016 and another 10 million will be this year.

Li Heng, from the school of economics at Henan University, said Lankao's poverty reduction experience can inspire other economically backward areas to transition from outdated development modes to new, sustainable growth patterns.

Despite harsh natural conditions, locals have successfully boosted the economy by upgrading traditional farming and establishing higher value-added industries such as musical instrument manufacturing, which have reshaped local industry and fueled growth, said Li.

"A restructured regional economy with sustainable growth will help prevent local people from returning to poverty. The Lankao experience is a touchstone in China's battle against poverty," he said.
Kurdish-led forces capture Tabqa airbase west of Syria's Raqqa from IS control

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:06, March 27, 2017

DAMASCUS, March 26 -- The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fully captured the Tabqa airport west of the northern city of Raqqa on Sunday, following battles with the Islamic State (IS) group, the SDF spokesman told Xinhua.

Tabqa airport in a city bearing the same name in the western countryside of Raqqa, is the first airport to be controlled by the Kurdish-led groups, Talal Silo, the SDF military spokesman, told Xinhua. He added that the airport will be used to bring in humanitarian aid to the area, and also passengers.

He noted that the airfield had been used for military and civilian aviation.

Silo said the airport needs repairing, without elaborating whether the United States will use the airfield as a base for its forces, who have been either airdropped or crossed from Iraq to aid the Kurds in their push against the IS strongholds on the basis of a new Pentagon plan against the terror group.

The SDF entered the airport earlier in the day and got engaged in intense battles with the IS in and around the facility.

Silo said the achievement comes with the help of only the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition, the main backer to the Kurdish groups in northern Syria.

The Syrian army did not join in the attack on Tabqa, he added.

The push by the U.S.-backed SDF toward the city of Tabqa and the nearby areas is part of a major offensive against Raqqa, the de facto capital of IS.

The first stage of the attack is aimed at isolating Raqqa from Tabqa and other IS positions in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour.

Earlier in the day, Kurdish officials said the battle against Raqqa city will start early next month.

The Tabqa Air Base has a strategic value for the SDF, as it will enable the Kurdish-led group to tighten the noose on IS militants in the city of Tabqa from three directions.

There are also reports that the U.S.-led coalition may plan to use the base to provide supplies for SDF units in the upcoming battle of Raqqa.

The Syrian army withdrew from the airbase in August 2014, the year IS declared its caliphate in Raqqa and took the city as its capital.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the over 90 civilians have been killed over the past week as a result of the airstrikes by the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition on Tabqa city.

The UK-based watchdog group also said that 66 civilians have been killed in Raqqa city of the past five days.

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More militants leaving last bastion in Syrian city of Homs

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 27, 2017 10:10AM

A second group of militants and their families are leaving the last opposition-held neighborhood in the western Syrian city of Homs under a deal signed last year with the Damascus government.

According to Syria's state-run SANA news agency, a new round of evacuations from Homs' al-Waer neighborhood started on Monday, involving 466 people  including 129 militants.

The buses carrying the evacuees were escorted by Syrian security forces and Russian military police. Russia has been offering military support to the Syrian government in its fight against violent extremism.

Provincial Governor Talal Barrazi said earlier that the militants were granted safe passage out of Homs, located 162 kilometers north of the capital, Damascus, under a deal signed on March 13.

Those residents who remain in the city and who renounce violence can benefit from amnesty granted by President Bashar al-Assad, he added.

A first group of militants and their families was evacuated on March 18.

Barrazi added that the entire evacuation would be carried out within six to eight weeks.

Al-Waer, with an estimated 75,000 population, has been under a government siege since 2013.

Those evacuated from al-Waer are relocated to an area around the border city of Jarablus, which is held by Turkish-backed militants.

Once the evacuation of the militants is completed, Damascus will be able to claim control over the entire city for the first time in years.

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U.S.-Backed Fighters Capture Key Air Base In Northern Syria From Islamic State Fighters

RFE/RL March 27, 2017

A U.S.-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance in northern Syria says it has driven Islamic State (IS) militants out of a strategic air base that was the site of an IS massacre in 2014.

"The Syrian Democratic Forces have full control of Tabqa military airport, and operations to clear and demine are under way in order to secure the airport fully," Talal Sello, a spokesman for the alliance, told AFP on March 26.

The airport could now be used as a launching pad for an assault on nearby Tabqa dam, which is held by IS fighters.

The militants warned on March 26 that the dam could burst after air strikes by coalition warplanes.

Coalition officials denied the IS claim and said SDF fighters had control of a spillway north of the dam that can be used to "alleviate pressure on the dam if need be."

The United Nations has warned of catastrophic flooding in Syria from the Tabqa dam from possible deliberate sabotage by IS and damage from coalition air strikes.

U.S. planes and special forces have provided air and ground support to the SDF fighters, who are moving closer to an assault on the IS capital of Raqqa, about 40 kilometers from the dam.

The Kurdish-Arab alliance is attempting to encircle Raqqa, the last IS stronghold in Syria, before assaulting the city.

At some points, they are as close as eight kilometers from the city, although most forces are 18 to 29 kilometers away, officials said.

The Tabqa air base was captured by militants from the Syrian government in August 2014.

IS, which has been blamed for multiple human rights atrocities, immediately announced it had killed about 200 government soldiers at the base and then distributed a video of the killings.

IS fighters, who seized large swathes of Syrian and Iraqi territory in 2014, are now being pressed on two fronts -- around Raqqa and in Mosul, their last stronghold and so-called capital in Iraq.

More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria since its conflict began in March 2011 with antigovernment protests.

With reporting by AP and AFP

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/kurdish-arab-alliance- captures-northern-syria-air-base/28392750.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 Central Command Backs Syrian Rebel Claim Tabqa Dam Structurally Sound

Sputnik News

18:17 27.03.2017(updated 18:24 27.03.2017)

US Central Command announced that Tabqa dam that lies on the Euphrates River upstream from the Syrian city of Raqqa remains structurally intact, as claimed earlier by anti-government forces advancing on the city about 25 miles to the south.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The Tabqa dam that lies on the Euphrates River upstream from the Syrian city of Raqqa remains structurally intact, as claimed earlier by anti-government forces advancing on the city about 25 miles to the south, US Central Command announced in a Twitter message on Monday.

"The Coalition is taking every precaution to ensure the integrity of Tabqa Dam, the tweet stated. "To our knowledge, the dam has not been structurally damaged."

Earlier on Monday, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced a temporary pause in its advance on the Russia-outlawed terror group Islamic State's stronghold of Raqqa to allow its engineers to inspect the dam.

Local media reported on Sunday that the dam had been damaged, taking its electricity generators off line and prompting fears that the dam had been structurally weakened by US airstrikes.

 Sputnik

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Some 1,300 People, Including 436 Militants, Leave Syria's Homs

Sputnik News

16:16 27.03.2017(updated 16:17 27.03.2017)

A total of 1,276 people, including 436 militants, left the al-Waer neighborhood in the Syrian city of Homs on Monday under an agreement with the authorities on a local truce, an informed source in the country's security services told Sputnik.

DAMASCUS (Sputnik)  The source said that 387 women and about 460 children left al-Waer in addition to members of the armed opposition, adding that the militants who left the city took weapons with them  more than 50 assault rifles, five sniper rifles and 24 handguns.

On March 13, Syrian authorities and militant groups in Homs reached an agreement with Russian mediation as the guarantor. In accordance with the agreement, militants and their families agreed to leave Homs stage by stage, while Syrian government troops guarantied safe passage for them.

On March 18, over 1,400 militants and members of their families left al-Waer toward the Jarablus city to the north of the Aleppo province in compliance with the agreement.

The civil war in Syria has been lasting for around six years with government troops fighting against numerous opposition factions and terror organizations such as al-Nusra Front and Daesh, outlawed in Russia.

 Sputnik

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Taiwan Tapping US, Itself for New Weapons

By Ralph Jennings March 27, 2017

Taiwan is pursuing a two-pronged upgrade to its armed forces as people on the island worry about recent shows of force by powerful rival China during a political stalemate.

Last week, the Taiwanese navy signed a memorandum of understanding with two local companies to develop submarines over the next four years. Construction of the vehicles, ideal for warfare against a stronger adversary, could reach $85.8 million, though the final price is not set, the defense ministry spokesman said.

Taiwan's ambition to design its own submarines stems partly from China's pressure against other governments to avoid selling the island any arms.

Last week the Taiwan president called the submarine project "the most challenging aspect" of a broader plan to foster an independent local defense industry, per a local media report.

Taiwan now operates two Dutch-designed Hai Lung submarines, bought in the early 1980s, and two Guppy II-class submarines dating back to 1946. China has the world's third most powerful armed forces overall, with Taiwan in 19th place, according to the GlobalFirePower.com database.

The navy has not fixed on a number of submarines to develop as part of the agreement signed Tuesday, the defense ministry spokesman said.

"Because in the past, Taiwan has the technology to build boats, we hope to make use of this domestic industry," said senior Taiwan legislator Lee Chun-yi. "We hope we can use the construction (of submarines) to encourage domestic industries, and there's a definite help for Taiwan's defense sector."

Taiwan looks to the US

Separately, U.S. President Donald Trump may approve a sale of advanced weapons to Taiwan in the first half of the year according to media reports from Washington.

"Without speaking to any specific cases, we can say that under long-standing U.S. policy, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan are ... based on an assessment of Taiwan's defense needs," said Sonia Urbom, spokesperson for The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), which unofficially represents U.S. interests in Taipei.

"Defensive arms are helpful for Taiwan's security," Lee said. "We hope for them and welcome them. We also all hope the United States can have a closer military dialogue and that the United States will approve this package as soon as possible and let Taiwan process it as soon as possible."

Taiwan defense ministry spokesman Chen Chung-chi said Monday the government would urge Washington to make the arms sale.

December arms deal blocked

The administration of former U.S. President Barack Obama stopped an arms sale to Taiwan in December. Some analysts expect Trump at least to unblock it. The United States may sell advanced rocket systems and anti-ship missiles to Taiwan in the next package, news reports from Washington say.

"I wouldn't necessarily characterize it as urgency," said Ross Feingold, Taipei-based analyst with an American political consultancy. "The time has come to make a decision and the Obama Administration decided to punt, and now the Trump Administration is following up in a reasonable and appropriate time frame.

"A better question would be what's going to come next because we are simply approving things that were on the table and under discussion already," he said.

Chinese officials fume when other countries, especially the United States, sell weapons to Taiwan. Taiwan is looking to Trump because he risked China's anger by speaking to Tsai by phone in December and his staff has taken a tough line against Beijing's military expansion at sea.

China temporarily cut off some exchanges with the United States in 2010 when Obama approved a $6.4 billion arms package for Taiwan. After Washington announced a $1.83 billion package in 2015, China formally protested to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

Some see Obama's decision to stop an arms deal in December as a goodwill gesture toward China, and say approval by Trump would risk China calling off any cooperation with the United States on containing North Korea.

Shaken by aircraft cruise

People in Taiwan have been particularly on guard since the Liaoning aircraft carrier, the only ship of its type in the Chinese navy, sailed around Taiwan in December and January. Taiwan is just 160 kilometers away from China at its nearest point.

This month China flew 13 aircraft east of Taiwan, near Okinawa. Taiwan's defense ministry is also watching as Beijing builds military infrastructure in the disputed South China Sea.

"China is doing some activities in the South China Sea recently, and even though they're not always directed toward Taiwan, in the Pacific region it's stronger and stronger, so people in Taiwan feel that without the ability to resist we will be diminished in terms of bargaining position," said Ku Chung-hua, a standing board member in the Taipei-based political action group Citizens' Congress Watch.

Taiwan frets because the Communist leadership claims sovereignty over the self-ruled island despite opinion polls showing most Taiwanese oppose China's goal of eventual unification. The two sides talked regularly from 2008 to 2015 but stopped after Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen took office last year.

Tsai takes a more guarded view of relations with China than her predecessor and Beijing is seen using military displays as well as diplomatic and economic measures to pressure Taiwan back into talks. China has not renounced the use of force, if needed, to reunify with the island.

US arms package

Taiwan's parliament would need to allocate money separately for a U.S. arms package, but the China threat is marshaling public support in favor, analysts say. The existing military budget for this year comes to $10.24 billion, or 2.05 percent of the Taiwan GDP.

"With the cross-Strait situation not only stagnant, but in some respects deteriorating, this is as good a time as any both to garner domestic support within Taiwan to purchase weapons and to hope for a sympathetic ear in Washington," said Alan Romberg, East Asia Program director with American think tank The Stimson Center.

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Nearly 5,000 academics dismissed since coup attempt: Turkish opposition

Iran Press TV

Mon Mar 27, 2017 6:25PM

Turkey's main opposition party says nearly 5,000 academics have been sacked by the government since last summer's failed coup.

Republican People's Party (CHP) said in a report on Sunday that a total of 4,811 academicians from 112 universities had been dismissed by the Turkish government in the aftermath of the last July botched putsch.

The report said the authorities had also shut down 15 out of 191 universities in Turkey over alleged criticisms of the government since July 15, 2016.

The coup began when a faction of the Turkish military declared that it had seized control of the country and the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was no more in charge. It was, however, suppressed a few hours later.

Following the failed coup, Ankara launched a heavy-handed crackdown on those deemed to have played a role in the attempt, which was blamed on the movement led by US-based opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen. The Pennsylvania-based cleric has, however, categorically denied the allegation.

Over 240 people were killed during the failed coup.

Tens of thousands of people have been arrested in Turkey on suspicions of having links to Gulen and the failed coup. More than 110,000 others, including military staff, civil servants and journalists have been sacked or suspended from work over the same accusations.

Last week, Amnesty International said one-third of all imprisoned journalists across the globe were incarcerated in Turkey. The rights group urged Turkish authorities to immediately release all the inmates totaling more than 100 journalists.

Ankara unleashed a widespread purge across the country following the subversive move, with the international community highly critical of the Turkish president over the massive dismissals.

Ankara says it will continue the purge to prevent a repetition of the attempt.

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UK's NATO Southern Air Policing Mission to begin in May

27 March 2017

RAF Typhoon fast jets will deploy to Romania from May for the UK's contribution to NATO's Southern Air Policing mission, Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon announced today.

Sir Michael also confirmed that four Typhoons from Royal Air Force 3 (Fighter) Squadron will lead the deployment.

The Defence Secretary agreed the UK's air policing contribution during NATO defence ministerial talks in the autumn and confirmed the timing of the deployment and squadron name at the International Parliamentary Conference on National Security in London today.

The Typhoons from RAF Coningsby will be based at Mihail Kogalniceanu Airbase in south east Romania for up to four months, working side-by-side with the Romanian Air Force to police the skies over the Black Sea.

Royal Air Force 3 (Fighter) Squadron has a long history. One hundred years ago it was a fighter scout unit assisting our forces in the trenches, in World War Two it was at the forefront of our air defences destroying nearly 300 V1 flying bomb. More recently it took tours of Sierra Leone and as part of Counter Daesh operations in Iraq and Syria.

The UK is the first nation to provide jets to this NATO mission, which forms part of the UK's increasing support to our Allies following the recent deployment of British troops to Estonia as part of NATO's Enhanced Forward Presence.

Secretary of State for Defence Sir Michael Fallon said:

"The UK is stepping up its support for NATO's collective defence from the north to the south of the alliance. With this deployment, RAF planes will be ready to secure NATO airspace and provide reassurance to our allies in the Black Sea region."

During his speech the Defence Secretary addressed a range of national security issues, including cyber where the UK is investing its growing Defence budget in new cyber capabilities.

This comes as the UK's cyber capabilities are tested in exercises, including Information Warrior 2017, the Royal Navy's first ever large-scale cyber war games, designed to test new Artificial Intelligence able to speed up complex decision making, which starts this week.

Sir Michael also confirmed that 1.9 billion will be invested in developing cyber capabilities and skills across all Government departments, in addition to establishing the new National Cyber Security Centre, the Defence Cyber School at Shrivenham, and a Cyber Operations Centre at Corsham.

Sir Michael added:

"Our military is among the best prepared in the world to tackle cyber threats  with capabilities and skills integrated into the Army, Royal Navy, and the RAF. But in such a dynamic environment we must continually test and enhance our skills."

"We're interested not just in defensive but also in offensive cyber - those who threaten cyber-attacks against us need to know the risk they're running."

During the speech at Church House the Defence Secretary also paid tribute to those who lost their lives during last week's attack in Westminster.

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PARIS, March 27 (Xinhua) -- About a hundred people from the Chinese community held a demonstration on Monday evening in front of a police station in the 19th arrondissement of Paris to protest against the death of a Chinese national who was killed Sunday night in a conflict with the police.

The Chinese embassy in France confirmed Monday that a Chinese national was killed Sunday night in a conflict with the police in the 19th arrondissement of Paris.

According to the website of the Chinese embassy in France, after being informed of the incident, the consular section of the Chinese embassy in France contacted the French police, asking them to find out the cause of this incident.

The French police authorities said that the police investigators were making investigation into the death of the Chinese national in Paris, according to the source of the embassy.

The Chinese embassy also sent its condolences to the victim's family and asked the French authorities to find out the true situation as soon as possible.
To the editor:

According to a March 17 article in The Washington Post, the $3 billion cut in President Trumps budget proposal is to eliminate the Community Development Block Grant Program that provides 3 percent of the Meals On Wheels budget.

Why cut the CDBG?

The program was started during President Fords administration as a means of helping the poor and aged. It now provides $3 Bbillion to the states to administer programs such as Meals on Wheels in poor districts. Millions of dollars of that program were not given to the senior citizens. It has gone into the pockets of crony corporations, and it has to be cut to stop it  and fix it.

Meals on Wheels has 3 percent of its budget provided by the federal government through the Community Development Block Grant Program. President Trump became aware of widespread, longstanding corruption and cronyism in that $3 Billion per year program and proposed that it be cut from the budget.

Indiana University business Professor Scott Shacklefords March 16 blog cited numerous misuses of the block grant, but it is a tiny fraction of funds directed toward big corporations and away from the intended elderly and poor citizens. Some of the misused funds that did not help the Elderly or the childrens needs include:

 $245,000 for the expansion of an art museum in Allentown, Penn.,

 $294,000 for a community recreational facility in New Haven, Conn.,

 $245,000 for renovations to awnings at a historical market in Roanoke and

 $294,000 for the development of an educational program at the Houston Zoo in Texas.

Big corporations received the funds for these projects and hundreds more.

Approximately 20 percent of the federal funds allotted to the states and localities for the Community Development Block Grant were used for administrative costs and never reached those in need.

The People should know why the nation was wrongly taught that President Trump cut Meals On Wheels. CNN reporter, Jake Tapper was among the first to tweet a distorted headline about the program. According to The Washington Post, his tweet read: On chopping block: $3 billion Community Development Block Grant program, which funds programs like Meals on Wheels.

Gregory Kortes article in the March 18 issue USA Today reported that Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., tweeted that Trump had called for the elimination of Meals on Wheels, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus quickly dubbed it the Starvation Budget.

We are living in a time when our trusted news organizations will write or say anything to harm those who do not agree with their agenda. Three of the major networks took the distorted headlines about Meals on Wheels and made the public think that President Trump had hurt the elderly citizens who had made this country great.

We should also know that ABC, CBS and NBC were among the networks which did not report the rape of the 14-year-old girl by illegal immigrants in the school in Rockville, Md., two weeks ago. Fox News Bill OReilly and I dont think that it fit the political bent of those on the progressive left.

Concerning Meals on Wheels, I believe that the president is removing the corrupt funding program in order to start a new program that provides for programs that care for our people who need our help. If that is not his intent, I will speak up for the Greatest Generation.

In the meantime, we need Gods help to seek the truth, especially during this critical time in our nations history.

CAROLYN WINSTEAD BAGLEY

Sutherlin
PARIS, March 27 (Xinhua) -- French police officers used batons and tear gas as around one hundred people from local Chinese community Monday evening staged a protest against the killing of a Chinese national at his home by police in a reported clash Sunday.

At least one man of Chinese origin was injured, according to witnesses, as police officers intervened with batons and tear gas at around 8:40 p.m. local time to disperse protesters outside a police station on the Erik Satie street of the 19th arrondissement.

The protesters had set up candles on the ground in the shape of words "Opposition to violence" in French and "Dying with injustice unredressed" in Chinese. Some of them chanted slogans "Murderers! Murderers!"

"We're here to commemorate our compatriot, and we do not want to die of police violence," a protester said. "That's equality?" questioned another protester, a Chinese who has lived for ten years in France.

A Chinese national was shot dead at his home in Paris by a policeman on Sunday night. Some French media reports described the killing as a "legitimate defense" against "an assailant with scissors." However, local Chinese media reports, quoting a daughter of the man, said the 160-cm-tall man, a father of five children, did not attack the policeman at all.

The Chinese embassy in France in a statement on Monday confirmed the death of the Chinese national, urging the French authorities to ascertain the truth in a quick manner and handle the case fairly.
VANCOUVER, March 28, 2017 - Winston Resources Inc. (CSE: WRW) (the "Company" or "Winston") is pleased to announce that GT Therapeutics completes a sale to supply a chain of 35 Marijuana affiliated retail stores for a total purchase of approximately $250,000.00."This order coincides with our strategy of capturing shelf space in order to add a large number of new distribution outlets/channels and build customer loyalty to our brand. In the quickly changing landscape of legalized marijuana, we feel those who have captured shelf space are the companies that are going to win the market share."By completing this transaction, the purchaser has an option to purchase an additional $250,000.00 worth of vaporizers on the same terms and conditions as the initial purchase.The order is scheduled to be delivered within the next 30 days to all retail stores. GT Therapeutics has also agreed to help educate the sales and marketing of the vape pens throughout the retailers."Educating retailers and sales staff is key to building a successful brand culture. We not only look to be on all shelves throughout North America, but also be one of the highest volume products on those shelves."On Feb. 24, 2017, Winston signed a letter of intent with GT Therapeutics Corp., doing business as Green Tree Therapeutics, an arm's-length private British Columbia company, pursuant to which the company will complete a reverse takeover and acquire from Green Tree Therapeutics' shareholders 100 per cent of the shares of Green Tree Therapeutics, causing Green Tree Therapeutics to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Winston. On completion of the transaction, the business of Green Tree Therapeutics will become the business of Winston, and the company will abandon the Pigeon River property.The company continues to work through due diligence and negotiation of the definitive agreement. The transaction remains subject to certain closing conditions, including completion of due diligence, the negotiation and signing of a definitive agreement, and obtaining all necessary approvals, including approval of the respective boards, the approval of the Canadian Securities Exchange, and if applicable, shareholders of the company. There can be no guarantees that the transaction will be completed as proposed or at all.ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF Winston Resources Inc. "Sean Bromley"CEONEITHER THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.This press release includes "forward-looking statements" including forecasts, estimates, expectations and objectives for future operations that are subject to a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the control of Winston Resources Inc. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and that actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking information represents management's best judgment based on information currently available. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed and actual future results may vary materially. Winston Resources Inc. does not assume the obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required by applicable law.SOURCE Winston Resources Inc. For more information please contact Sean Bromley at (604) 283 1722.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / March 28, 2017 / Pistol Bay Mining Inc. (OTC PINK: SLTFF) (TSX-V: PST) (FSE: OQS2) ("Pistol Bay" or the "Company") is pleased to report that the Company has entered into an amending agreement with Rio Tinto Exploration Canada Inc. ("RTECI" or "Rio Tinto"), with regards to the C 4, 5 and 6 Uranium properties, whereby Rio Tinto will make an initial cash payment of $750,000 to Pistol Bay.

The C block of Uranium properties, located in the Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan, is under option to Rio Tinto, which has earned a 75-per-cent interest to date. Rio Tinto has previously indicated its intention to exercise the further option to acquire a 100-percent interest by paying Pistol Bay $5-million on or before Dec. 31, 2019, and granting Pistol Bay a 5-per-cent net profit interest (see Pistol Bay news release of Feb. 16, 2015).

Under the amending agreement, Rio Tinto will acquire an additional 25% interest in the Property (thereby increasing its aggregate interest to 100%), by:

(a) paying Pistol Bay $750,000 on or before April 17, 2017; and

(b) paying Pistol Bay one of the following payments:

(i) $1,500,000 on or before 31 December 2017;

(ii) $2,000,000 on or before 31 December 2018; or

(iii) $2,250,000 on or before 31 December 2019.

Pistol Bay will retain a 5% net profits interest in the Property.

Charles Desjardins, CEO of Pistol Bay, commented: "Rio Tinto's payment does not dilute the Company and allows Pistol Bay to expand the scope of its upcoming exploration work, including drilling, on its Confederation Lake greenstone belt zinc-copper-gold project. We look forward to continuing our working relationship with Rio Tinto."

About Pistol Bay Mining Inc.

Pistol Bay Mining Inc. is a diversified junior Canadian mineral exploration company with a focus on precious and base metal properties in North America. For additional information please contact Charles Desjardins - pistolbaymining@gmail.com.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

Pistol Bay Mining Inc.

"Charles Desjardins"

Charles Desjardins,

President and Director

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary note:

This report contains forward-looking statements. Resource estimates, unless specifically noted, are considered speculative. Any and all other resource or reserve estimates are historical in nature, and should not be relied upon. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainties because they relate to events and depend on factors that will or may occur in the future. Actual results may vary depending upon exploration activities, industry production, commodity demand and pricing, currency exchange rates, and, but not limited to, general economic factors. Cautionary Note to US investors: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission specifically prohibits the use of certain terms, such as "reserves" unless such figures are based upon actual production or formation tests and can be shown to be economically and legally producible under existing economic and operating conditions.

SOURCE: Pistol Bay Mining Inc.
Drilling expected to begin at Cauchari, focusing on its large exploration target, in April 2017

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Mar 28, 2017) - Advantage Lithium Corp. (the "Company" or "Advantage Lithium") (TSX VENTURE:AAL)(OTCQX:AVLIF) is pleased to announce that, further to its news releases of November 23, 2016, December 22, 2016, January 24, 2017, February 8, 2017, February 17, 2017 and March 16, 2017, the Company has completed its acquisition of an initial 50% interest, with a right increase its interest to a total of 75%, in the Cauchari Project and a 100% interest in five other lithium brine properties located in the northern provinces of Jujuy, Salta and Catamarca in Argentina's lithium triangle (the "Argentine Properties") from Orocobre Ltd. ("Orocobre") - one of Argentina's leading lithium producers. The closing of the acquisition follows the closing of a $20 million financing.

David Sidoo, President and CEO, of Advantage Lithium, commented, "Having closed this acquisition and the $20 million financing, we are in a position to aggressively advance the exploration and development of our advanced Cauchari project with our partner, Orocobre, with drilling expected to commence in April 2017. We will also begin exploring the other 100% owned exploration projects in the heart of Argentina's lithium triangle as we seek to build a premier lithium exploration company in Argentina."

"I would like to welcome our new directors, Richard Seville, Rick Anthon, Miguel Peral and Nick DeMare to the Board," Sidoo added. "I also want to thank Dev Randhawa and Ross McElroy in particular, as well as William Marsh, for their invaluable assistance and guidance with Advantage Lithium."

News Highlights

Acquisition of six Orocobre lithium brine properties, including 50% (with option of 75%) of the Cauchari project in Argentina

Drilling to start at Cauchari in April 2017, focusing and expanding both laterally and at depth on area of the inferred resource estimate as well as drill testing the large exploration target defined with a quantity range of 0.25 to 5.6 mt of LCE and 0.9 mt to 16 mt of potash and target grade range of 260 mg/L Li and 2550 mg/L K and 537 mg/L for Li and 5350 mg/l K for the lower and upper ranges.

Cauchari hosts an inferred resource containing an estimated 230 million cubic metres of brine at ~380 mg/l Li and 3,700 mg/l K. This is equivalent to 470,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate (~88,000 tonnes lithium metal) and 1.62 million tonnes of potash (KCl - equivalent to ~840,000 tonnes of potassium).

The project is adjacent to Lithium America's and SQM's Cauchari project - host to major resources in the proven, probable, measured and indicated categories. Lithium Americas recently proposed a combined equity and debt financing of USD $286M investment by Bangchak Petroleum Public Company Ltd. and GFL International Ltd. to put its project into production.

The same, highly-experienced drilling contractor that successfully drilled and proved up the Lithium America/SQM Cauchari project has been contracted by Advantage Lithium

Orocobre (TSX:ORL)

One of Argentina's leading lithium producers and one of the world's five primary producers.

Currently producing from its Olaroz brine project in Argentina (JV with JEMSE [8.5%] and Toyota Tsusho [25%]).

Olaroz is operating profitably at 17,500tpa capacity, with recently-announced plans to expand to 35,000tpa. Approximately 80% utilization rate and profit margins in excess of USD$6500/t.

Extensive land holdings in Argentina's lithium triangle and strong working relationships with government and local communities

Changes to Board of Directors and Management

Upon the closing of the Company's acquisition of the Argentine Properties, Richard Seville, Rick Anthon, Miguel Peral and Nick DeMare were appointed to the Company's board of directors. Devinder Randhawa, Ross McElroy and William Marsh have resigned from the Company's board of directors. Miguel Peral also takes the position of Exploration Manager in Argentina.

Issuance of Securities and Conversion of Subscription Receipts

In consideration for its acquisition of the interest in the Argentine Properties, the Company issued 46,325,000 and 8,175,000 common shares of the Company, respectively, to Orocobre and Peral, and issued 2,550,000 and 450,000 warrants of the Company, respectively, to Orocobre and Peral, on the terms announced in the Company's March 16, 2017 news release.

The Company has now satisfied all the conditions to the release of the escrowed proceeds of its previously completed $20,000,000 financing (the "Financing") and the conversion of the 26,667,000 subscription receipts issued by the Company in the Financing. The escrow release conditions required, among other things, completion of the acquisition of the Argentine Properties and obtaining from the British Columbia Securities Commission, as principal regulator, a receipt for the Company's final short form prospectus filed in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and New Brunswick qualifying the distribution of the underlying securities issuable pursuant to the conversion of the 26,667,000 subscription receipts. The Company will be providing notice today to Computershare Trust Company of Canada, as subscription receipt agent, that the escrow release conditions have been met. Computershare will then release the net proceeds of the Financing to the Company and the balance of the fees and commissions relating to the Financing to the co-lead agents, Eight Capital and Canaccord Genuity Corp., and to certain finders all as previously announced on February 17, 2017. The subscription receipts issued by the Company in the Financing will be converted into 26,667,000 common shares and 13,333,498 share purchase warrants to purchase 13,333,498 common shares at a price of $1.00 per share for a two year period, on the terms previously announced on February 17, 2017.

In connection with the Financing, the Company issued a total of 1,011,656 compensation warrants to Eight Capital and Canaccord Genuity Corp. and 472,662 compensation warrants to various finders. Such compensation warrants have now been converted into compensation options on the terms announced in the Company's January 24, 2017 news release.

This news release is not an offer of securities for sale in the United States, and securities may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from registration.

The technical information in this news release was reviewed and approved on behalf of the company by Ross McElroy, P.Geol., Technical Advisor for Advantage Lithium Corp., and a "Qualified Person" as defined in NI 43-101.

About Advantage Lithium Corp.

Advantage Lithium Corp. is a resource company specializing in the strategic acquisition, exploration and development of lithium properties and is headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. The common shares of the company are listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX VENTURE:AAL), and the company is also traded on the OTCQX Best Market in the U.S. (OTCQX:AVLIF). The company has acquired a 100% interest in five projects in Argentina and up to a 75% interest in a sixth, called Cauchari. Cauchari is host to a near-surface estimated inferred resource of 230 million cubic metres of brine at 380 mg/l Lithium that equates to 470,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate (LCE), and a large exploration target of 5.6mt to 0.25mt of LCE and 19mt to 0.9 of KCL. Cauchari is located just 20 km south Orocobre's flagship Olaroz Lithium Facility. The Company is also earning an interest from Nevada Sunrise Gold Corp., in a portfolio of five lithium brine projects in the Clayton and Lida Valley regions of Nevada, USA, including 70% in Clayton NE. In addition, the Company has acquired 100% of the Stella Marys lithium brine project, immediately adjacent to Orocobre's Salinas Grandes project that hosts an inferred, near-surface resource, in Argentina's Lithium Triangle.

ADVANTAGE LITHIUM CORP.

David Sidoo, CEO, President, Director

Cautionary Statement:

Certain information contained in this press release constitutes "forward-looking information", within the meaning of Canadian legislation. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur", "be achieved" or "has the potential to". Forward looking statements contained in this press release may include statements regarding the outcome of the Closing, and the future operating or financial performance of Advantage Lithium which involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties which may not prove to be accurate. Actual results and outcomes may differ materially from what is expressed or forecasted in these forward-looking statements. Such statements are qualified in their entirety by the inherent risks and uncertainties surrounding future expectations. Among those factors which could cause actual results to differ materially are the following: market conditions and other risk factors listed from time to time in our reports filed with Canadian securities regulators on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made as of the date of this press release and the Company and Advantage Lithium disclaim any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable securities legislation.

Neither 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.
Vancouver, BC (FSCwire) - 92 Resources Corp. (the Company) (TSX.V: NTY) (FSE: R9G2) is pleased to announce that it has initiated a preliminary metallurgical program for its wholly owned Hidden Lake Lithium Project (the Project or Property), Northwest Territories. The Property is situated within the central parts of the Yellowknife Lithium Pegmatite Belt, along Highway 4, approximately 40 km east of Yellowknife.

The metallurgical program will be the first applied to the pegmatites forming the Hidden Lake Project, with the primary objective to demonstrate the amenability of the material to be processed through to potentially marketable spodumene concentrate.

The program will be comprised of two phases; mineralogy, and mineral processing. The mineralogy phase will aim to fully characterize the lithium bearing minerals (i.e. spodumene) and the gangue minerals (i.e. waste material), as well as the inherent mineral liberation characteristics. This information will form the foundation of the mineral processing phase, where the objective will be to separate the spodumene from the gangue, into a high-grade mineral concentrate.

In the mineralogy phase, material from the LU D12, HL1, HL3, and HL4 pegmatites will each be evaluated separately to confirm liberation and mineralogical characteristics. Assuming there are no significant differences among the four pegmatites, a single composite will be produced for the subsequent mineral processing testwork.

The mineral processing phase will include grindability, heavy liquid separation (HLS), magnetic separation, and flotation test work, with the objective of determining a preliminary flowsheet for the Project, as well as producing a small quantity of spodumene concentrate of potentially marketable quality.

Although lithium recovery is the primary focus of the test work, the potential for the recovery of tantalum bearing minerals into a secondary concentrate will also be evaluated.

The Company has retained the services of SGS Canada Inc. to carry out the program, with the test work to be completed at their Lakefield, ON facility over a period of several months. SGS has considerable experience in spodumene pegmatite processing as well as other lithium bearing minerals and rock types, making them ideally suited for the program.

NI 43-101 Disclosure

William Miller P. Geo., of Dahrouge Geological Consulting Ltd., a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, supervised the preparation of the technical information in this news release.

About 92 Resources Corp.

92 Resources Corp. is a modern energy solution company, focused on acquiring and advancing strategic and prospective modern energy related projects. The Company currently holds three principal assets in Canada: the Hidden Lake Lithium Property, NWT, the Pontax Lithium Property, QC, and the Golden Frac Sand Property, BC.

The Hidden Lake Lithium Property is strategically located within the heart of the Yellowknife Pegmatite District with 2016 exploration results returning 1.90% Li2O over 9 m and grab samples up to 3.3% Li2O. The Property is easily road accessible and its proximity to infrastructure provides for numerous development advantages.

The Pontax Property is located within Quebecs lithium district, and covers several historic pegmatite occurrences that are adjacent to known spodumene bearing pegmatite(s). The underlying geology includes over 20 km strike length of the Pontax Greenstone Belt, which is also a favourable geological environment for gold occurrences.

The Golden Frac Sand Property covers more than a 4 km length of the Mt. Wilson Formation, which consists of high purity, white, quartz sandstones. Its strategic location in western Canada and proximity to infrastructure, provides competitive access to the oil and gas markets where high-quality frac sand is an essentially input. The adjacent Moberly Silica Sand Mine, owned and operated by Heemskirk Canada Ltd., produces a number of high-purity products and as of February 2017, became subject to a takeover bid by Northern Silica Corporation valued at $42.3 million AUD.

For further information, please contact Adrian Lamoureux, President & CEO at Tel: 778-945-2950, E-mail: adrian@92resources.com or visit www.92resources.com.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors,

ADRIAN LAMOUREUX

Adrian Lamoureux, President & CEO

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Forward Looking Statements:

Statements included in this announcement, including statements concerning our plans, intentions and expectations, which are not historical in nature are intended to be, and are hereby identified as, forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements may be identified by words including anticipates, believes, intends, estimates, expects and similar expressions. The Company cautions readers that forward-looking statements, including without limitation those relating to the Companys future operations and business prospects, are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements.

To view this press release as a PDF file, click onto the following link:public://news_release_pdf/92Resources03282017.pdfSource: 92 Resources Corp. (TSX Venture:NTY)

To follow 92 Resources Corp. on your favorite social media platform or financial websites, please click on the icons below.

Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com

Copyright  2017 Filing Services Canada Inc.
(Xinhua) 09:57, March 28, 2017

LAGOS, March 27 -- The Nigerian government has concluded plans to borrow 6.1 billion U.S. dollars from Chinese Exim Bank to complete all rail projects in the country by 2019.

Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi made the remarks during the Ministry's 2017 budget proposal defense at the National Assembly in Abuja, the nation's capital city on Monday.

Amaechi said the government had targeted the construction of Lagos - Ibadan, Kano - Kaduna rail projects and the first phase of the Coastal Rail (Lagos-Calabar) in the 2017 budget.

The minister told lawmakers that President Muhammadu Buhari insisted that all rail projects in the country that had been awarded by previous administrations must be resuscitated and completed on or before December 2019.

Amaechi said rail projects needed to be completed due to the economic importance of these projects and the benefits to be derived by the generality of Nigerians.
BEIJING, March 28 (Xinhua) -- A senior official has called for more to be done to maintain social stability and security in China's border areas.

State Councilor and Minister of Public Security Guo Shengkun made the remarks during his visit to Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, south China, from March 24 to 27.

All border area precautionary systems should be reviewed and improved, he said, adding that technology and data could enhance border area law enforcement.

The police should work with the public, who could help to maintain "a fortress of iron and a wall of bronze" in China's border areas, said Guo.
Any day now, President Donald Trump is expected to sign legislation that will undo an Obama-era regulation about drug testing the jobless.Ever since unemployment insurance was created by the Social Security Act of 1935, states were forbidden from drug testing applicants. But last year, the Obama administration finalized rules that let states do so under two circumstances: when applicants lost their employment because of illegal drug use, or when they worked in an occupation "that regularly conducts drug testing," such as directing air traffic or jobs that require use of a firearm.Conservatives, however, complained that the circumstances were too narrow.Republican members of the House Committee on Ways and Means said the rule contradicts Congressional intent [...] to assure future employers that UI claimants reentering the workforce are truly able and available for work. Wisconsin's Scott Walker, chair of the Republican Governors Association, argued that the regulation doesn't address a key concern among employers: that job applicants often pass through an initial screening only to fail a drug test.Now that Republicans have control of the U.S. House and Senate, they sent the president a bill, H.J.Res.42, that would allow for the rules to be rewritten. It's unclear, though, who would rewrite them.Trump, who has expressed support for the legislation, could direct the Labor Department to rewrite the regulation, or Congress could pass a new law on the issue. Last year, U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas -- who sponsored H.J.Res.42 -- introduced the Ready to Work Act that would have let states decide when unemployment applicants can be drug tested. The bill died in committee but could be revived now that it's likely to garner more support from the White House.Virtually all states already disqualify a person for unemployment compensation if they lost their job because of drug use. Three states (Mississippi, Texas and Wisconsin) have laws calling for drug testing in their unemployment insurance programs. So far, none have implemented them. But if the rules about drug testing are relaxed, they may start -- and more states could follow suit.Drug testing the unemployed, however, may invite costly lawsuits.Some legal experts say an expanded definition of allowable drug testing would violate applicants constitutional rights. George Wentworth, an attorney with the National Employment Law Project, which opposes the Ready to Work Act, co-wrote a policy brief in February that called drug testing for unemployment insurance an unconstitutional solution in search of a problem.Wentworth noted that federal courts have already struck down drug-testing requirements in Florida and Michigan for another program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, otherwise known as welfare. The judges ruled that state governments had violated peoples due process rights protected under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, at least 15 states have drug-testing laws for applicants of some kind of government assistance.Critics of drug testing, which often include Democrats and advocates for the poor, argue that it's not just unconstitutional but can cost states more than it saves and doesn't help people escape poverty or unemployment.Despite that, the National Association of State Workforce Agencies, a bipartisan group whose members administer unemployment insurance, supports the resolution on Trump's desk because they see it as a way to grant flexibility to states.
Attorney General Ken Paxton joined Republicans officials from 12 other states to throw their weight behind the Trump administration Monday, filing an amicus brief supporting the president's revised travel ban.The brief, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, argues the president's executive order "is not a pretext for religious discrimination" because it is rooted in concerns about national security and is constitutional.Although federal judges in Hawaii and Maryland have blocked the administration's order to restrict immigration from six predominantly Muslim countries earlier this month, a Virginia U.S. district judge denied a request there to also halt the president's order on Friday.Paxton, who was the first attorney general to file a brief supporting Trump's initial executive order to restrict travel to the United States, filed the amicus brief along with attorneys general from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, West Virginia and the Mississippi governor.Citing "uncertainty" surrounding President Donald Trump's latest travel restrictions, the largest school board in Canada said it won't be booking future trips to the United States. John Malloy, director of education for the school board, said in a statement Thursday, the Toronto District School Board announced it would bar new trips to the U.S. because of "uncertainty surrounding these new restrictions -- specifically with regards to who may be impacted and when.
Description

GIS - 28 March, 2017: Mauritius and India are collaborating on a series of developmental projects and the two countries are working towards strengthening both diplomatic and economic relations and reinforcing bilateral cooperation in areas of mutual interest.

The Foreign Secretary of India, Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, made this statement yesterday at the Treasury Building in Port Louis during a courtesy call on the Minister Mentor, Minister of Defence and Minister for Rodrigues, Sir Anerood Jugnauth.

Dr Jaishankar recalled that he met the Prime Minister, Mr Pravind Jugnauth, on 25 March 2017 with whom he had discussions about the progress of developmental projects on which both countries are working. T he Foreign Secretary of India is on a five-day visit to Mauritius since 25 March.

Dr Jaishankar is an Indian diplomat who joined Indian Foreign Service in 1977. He was appointed Foreign Secretary in January 2015. He. He had previously served as Indian Ambassador to the United States (20132015), China (20092013) and the Czech Republic (20012004), and High Commissioner to Singapore (20072009).
Description

GIS - 28 March, 2017: The presentation and release of the ten year Master plan for the SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) sector was held in the presence of the Minister of Business, Enterprise and Cooperatives, Mr Soomilduth Bholah, yesterday at the Labourdonnais Waterfront Hotel in Port-Louis.

The aim of the Master plan is to address the main constraints of SMEs and put forward a comprehensive strategic plan that will infuse resilience and productivity to the sector.

The main objectives of the Master Plan are: improve SME competitiveness and growth; foster high growth potential; upgrade skills and job opportunities by addressing skill mismatch and upgrading human capital; improve design and value addition by supporting research and develop innovation and increase market access and exports.

The ten-year Master Plan is driven by Governments vision of making SMEs competitive and the sector an engine of economic growth. It sets out impactful actions to be implemented within the short-term and is expected to yield results on the long-term. It includes nine High Impact Initiatives, 46 Key Actions, 27 Sectorial Actions and 13 Thematic Actions. It makes several recommendations to achieve these targets by 2026.

In his address, Minister Bholah underlined that with SMEs contribution of about 40% to the countrys GDP and around 64% of national employment, it constitutes an important sector of the economic landscape. He added that this sector needs further development and innovation to sustain more economic activity.

Minister Bholah further pointed out that the SME has to assume a more impactful role as an enabler and key driver of growth, as spelled out in Governments 2015-2016 Programme and 2030 Vision.

On that score, Mr Bholah highlighted that the master plan charts the way forward for the revamping and boosting of the SME sector. He underscored that the master plan advocates a structural transformation of the sector and will bring forward various policies and strategies promoting a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.

The Master plan is a game changer as it will enable the SME sector to make a quantum leap and become a backbone to the economy and move Mauritius on the income ladder, concluded Minister Bholah.
About two years after launching, ClearGov has closed on a $1.2 million seed round.The money, which follows ClearGovs construction of infographic-style statistical portals for more than 20,000 local governments in 20 states, comes in a Kepha Partners-led round. MassVentures, a quasi-public investment corporation and angel investors, also participated in the funding, according to a press release. Kepha and MassVentures are both based in ClearGovs home state, Massachusetts.ClearGov, a Gov Tech 100 company, operates on a freemium business model. First it sets up hosted statistics portals for local governments, drawing on publicly available data, then offers premium upgrades to those governments. That data is benchmarked against similar, nearby communities to provide context.ClearGovs team has a proven entrepreneurial track record and the companys traction with local governments in Massachusetts speaks for itself, said Eric Hjerpe, partner at Kepha Partners, in the statement. The companys solution is incredibly topical as governments are increasingly battling misinformation, making the need to improve transparency and build public trust ever-more important.The companys upgrades include more detailed financials and back-office software that enables government officials to dig deeper into statistics and help generate reports.Ultimately, we believe our platform has the potential to positively impact millions of people through a more informed and efficient democracy, ClearGov CEO Chris Bullock said in the statement.ClearGov previously received a $35,000 grant from the Knight Foundation in 2015.
(TNS) -- STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A 3-D application that enhances capital improvement designs. An app that uses data to enhance the sightseeing and travel experience for tourists and can boost sales at local shops. Artificial intelligence and facial recognition software for education that can automate administrative tasks in the schools.These are three of the tech start-ups unveiled Monday by the College of Staten Island's new Technology Incubator in St. George.CSI opened up the facility at 60 Bay St. last year. It's designed to offer new companies office space, workshops and classes, and take advantage of the CUNY High-Performance Computing Center and Global Information Systems (GIS) offered by the college.The college hopes to contribute to the redevelopment of the North Shore by encouraging technology innovation. According to CSI President Dr. William Fritz, the Incubator is envisioned as a driver of economic development that will attract more businesses and additional employment opportunities to the borough."I want the college to be one of the drivers of change, by helping tech start-up companies grow to scale, stay in the borough, and provide jobs for our graduates," Frtiz said Monday.The college was able to get plans for the Incubator off the ground after it received a $500,000 grant from the City Council.Councilman James Vacca (D-the Bronx), who chairs the Council Technology Committee, said the Council has also funded Tech Incubators at the City University's Lehman College in the Bronx, and Queens College, but the CSI Incubator shows the most promise because of its ties to the North Shore redevelopment, with the coming of the New York Wheel and Empire Outlet Center, as well as the Lighthouse Point development, and the newly-established URBY residential village along the Stapleton waterfront."Ultimately, Incubators like this are about producing jobs, so that today's students will get the jobs they want," Vacca said.New Dorp High School Principal Deirdre DeAngelis and Staten Island Technical High School Principal Mark Erlenwein, who attended Monday's session, said their students are already accessing the CSI Incubator for resources and job prospects."It gives them a head start on the kinds of technology required in the workforce," Erlenwein said.DeAngelis said students in New Dorp's Corporate Center for Virtual Enterprise & Software Engineering small learning community find the Incubator helpful.Linda M. Baran, president and CEO of the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce, said the Chamber welcomes the Incubator and its role in development."The Incubator's direct connection to the world-class programming provided by CSI is exactly the kind of innovative solution our borough needs to foster a dynamic tech community," Baran said. "With this connection, the Incubator will no doubt provide the resources, guidance, and mentorship these businesses will need to succeed in today's competitive tech marketplace."The first three Incubator start-ups were selected by by CSI through a competitive application process. The principals from the start-ups presented their business vision Monday.Here's what you need to know about each:VECTUEL Founded in France in 2007, Vectuel designs innovative interactive 3D applications for real estate and urban development, combining enhanced maps, 3D models and virtual reality media, to create three-dimensional 360-degree experiences of future developments and help project leaders tell their story in a visual way, Claire Flurin, director of urban planning, explained Monday.WALK & EXPLORE Walk & Explore utilizes data analytics to personalize and enhance interactions between users and the environment . Users of the new software product can chose among more businesses and municipal services compiled through the interface to increase choice for consumers. The technology can even improve the sightseeing and travel experience for tourists and further boost local sales, according to Georgina Castanon, who heads the start-up.MTECH mTech, formerly called Time-Gaurd uses artificial intelligence and facial recognition software for educational purposes, automating administrative tasks in a school setting through an online venue. Through technology, Mtech can provide educators with the ability to know where students are at all times and maintain a safe environment by, for example, alerting school officials of any unauthorized entry to facilities. The founder of mTech, Muhand Jumah, is a CSI student who will graduate in June.For more information on the CSI Tech Incubator and the three start-ups, go to www.csitechincubator.com. In addition to the Incubator, CSI is also in the process of renovating the first floor of 120 Stuyvesant Place, opposite Borough Hall, as a St. George satellite campus. Work is expected to be complete before the start of classes for the fall 2017 semester.
Cincinnati, which last year updated its small-cell wireless facilities ordinance and released its CincyInsights portal to 15 different informational dashboards, is embarking on the creation of a smart city platform that will feature free or tiered-rate Wi-Fi for all residents.On Tuesday, March 21, City Manager Harry Black and other officials announced the Smart Cities Phase 1 Request for Qualifications (RFQ), which is aimed at identifying a team of developers to deploy Wi-Fi or wireline broadband throughout the city beginning along the Cincinnati Bell Connector streetcar route. As the document points out, it has a plethora of ducts, conduits and access to more than 370 poles in 3.6 miles that run through the city center from the Banks to Findlay Market.We want your help to lay the groundwork for a smart-city grid in Cincinnati that is useful, cost effective, and opens doors to future innovations to benefit our citizens, officials wrote in the RFQ.The city is giving interested developers 45 days  until 12 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on May 5  to submit their qualifications and describe their visions for what Black toldwill be a digital broadband superhighway that will have a series of on-ramps and exit ramps.After a city-appointed selection committee reviews submissions, Black said Cincinnati will issue its RFP, likely with a 30-day deadline  and with the goal of getting a network operational this summer.An attorney who is assisting the city with the process toldthat the tight timeline may not be doable  something applicants will likely clarify  but it is intended to convey the citys dedication and its intent to move the process forward quickly.The city manager said these next steps are essential, predicated on the idea that Cincinnati, like Louisville, Ky.; Columbus, Ohio; and other Midwestern municipalities exploring smart city concepts, is essentially competing for residents.With the dashboards, were letting them touch and see their government and the work that we do, Black said, referring to CincyInsights. This is another way of reaching out to our various constituent groups and trying to provide value to them... The key is we have to make the Cincinnati experience a very valuable one. That people seek out."At the March 21 press conference, broadcast through Facebook Live, City Council member P.G. Sittenfeld noted the first-ever smart cities working group he convened recognized that peer cities are beginning to outpace Cincinnati."While Cincinnati can absolutely excel against any competition, we can't do it if we're standing still," he said. "A smart future is about everything from closing that digital divide once and for all to achieving a more data-driven government."The councilmember highlighted public trash cans that alert the city when they're full and traffic lights that manage vehicles in real time as examples of modern civic technology that could follow an update like citywide wireless access."This is not some science fiction. All of that is within our grasp and indeed some of it has already come our way," said Sittenfeld, emphasizing that Cincinnati must update its mindset along with infrastructure.Cincinnatis initiative, Black said, is the best, most effective path by which to pursue a smart cities vision, establishing the primary infrastructure needed to connect government with its customers, the citys residents and visitors, via digital broadband.Its envisioned as a public-private partnership between the city and a team of developers  companies, Black said, like Cisco, IBM and GTE  that will connect educational, arts and business communities, and provide a return on investments to all.The RFQ asks developers to detail a build-out schedule; specify the citys role, project costs and when the network would turn a profit; and discuss how and when the profits generated from their proposed network would be shared with the city.The network they would create is intended to stimulate commercial, noncommercial and public benefits.Broadband engineer Dr. Jonathan Kramer, an attorney at Los Angeles-based Telecom Law Firm, P.C. which is advising Cincinnati, said the project has the potential to bridge the digital divide.Cincinnati, Kramer said, can do a very, very good job of making public information available  but will look to its partners to bring access to other things like navigational aids, educational aids, financial tools.Weve spent a lot of time refining the RFQ to not just do a normal type of public solicitation but to solicit, really, innovation, Kramer said. What were looking at is the next level of that service, which is the high-speed, frequent service, high utilization. Using the rail analogy, we want to bring the high-speed trains into Cincinnati. This is a great place to try out interesting ideas."
(TNS) - Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal issued a mandatory evacuation order Thursday for all areas east of I-95 and other parts of the states coast as Hurricane Irma barrels toward Florida and Georgia with potentially catastrophic force.The governors executive order also authorized up to 5,000 Georgia National Guard members to be on active duty to respond to the deadly storm. And he expanded a state of emergency to 30 southeast Georgia counties.Deal has set a 10 a.m. press conference on Friday with the head of Georgias emergency management agency and other public safety officials to outline the states storm response.I encourage all Georgians in our coastal areas that could be impacted by this storm to evacuate the area as soon as possible, said Deal.The mandatory evacuation order includes all of Chatham County and some areas west of I-95 that also could be impacted by Irmas storm surge. The governors office said the evacuation order takes effect on Saturday.The storm, which has already killed at least 10 people in the Caribbean, has created traffic delays across the state as roads are flooded with evacuees fleeing its path. Many hotels are fully booked, and Deal signed an executive order banning price gouging and waiving transportation restrictions for drivers ferrying emergency supplies.The 30 counties under a state of emergency are: Appling, Atkinson, Bacon, Brantley, Bryan, Bulloch, Burke, Camden, Candler, Charlton, Chatham, Clinch, Coffee, Echols, Effingham, Emanuel, Evans, Glynn, Jenkins, Jeff Davis, Liberty, Long, McIntosh, Pierce, Screven, Tattnall, Toombs, Treutlen, Wayne and Ware counties.The storm tests Deals overhauled storm response strategy anew, and it is the most significant challenge yet for the new head of the states emergency management agency.Hurricane Irma: Traffic builds in Atlanta, more Georgia colleges closeDeal tapped Homer Bryson, a former corrections commissioner, to lead the agency shortly after Hurricane Matthew killed four people and left tens of millions of damage in its wake after scraping the shoreline in October.He replaced Jim Butterworth, who publicly announced he was leaving state government shortly after the storm. Documents obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution showed internal friction between Butterworth and one of the agencys top officials over the states handling of the response.2017 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta, Ga.)Visit The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta, Ga.) at www.ajc.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
BEIJING, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) said Tuesday that it had approved three new loans totaling 285 million U.S. dollars to finance infrastructure in Indonesia and Bangladesh.

This announcement brought the multilateral development bank's total lending to over 2 billion dollars so far, according to a press release from the AIIB.

The new loans included 125 million dollars for a dam project in Indonesia, and 100 million dollars for the Indonesian Regional Infrastructure Development Fund, both projects co-financed with the World Bank.

Another 60-million-dollar loan was granted to improve a gas transmission network in Bangladesh, which was co-financed with the Asian Development Bank.

The loans were "different in their focus, but united in their efforts to leverage infrastructure spending to stimulate growth and improve the quality of life for local communities", said D.J. Pandian, vice president and chief investment officer of AIIB.

The bank values the ongoing collaboration with its multilateral development bank partners, Pandian said.

The AIIB was established in 2015 and started operation in January 2016 to provide financing for infrastructure improvement in Asia. Its membership has increased to 70, with 13 new members approved last week.
(TNS) - Dallas is relying on its Police Department to help fill a staffing shortage at its troubled 911 call center.The center has experienced sudden spikes in calls that have correlated with two tragic deaths and left hundreds of people on hold for emergency services. In addition to technological trouble, the mayor has blamed the problem on having too few 911 operators.The Police Department is now temporarily assigning officers to the center to help until new call takers are hired, police said Monday.When you call 911, someone needs to be on the phone and someone needs to be on the way to resolve the issue, said Dallas City Council member Adam McGough, who said hes received complaints from constituents about long wait times.Assistant Police Chief Paul Stokes said on Monday that he expects each of the departments seven patrol divisions to assign a neighborhood police officer to the call center. Those officers will work for a period at the call center and rotate in and out as needed, he said.Stokes said officers from the community engagement unit will fill in for the neighborhood police officers, which is what happens when one of those officers is sick or on vacation.Were not abandoning the neighborhood, Stokes said.Some council members have expressed concerns about potentially losing their neighborhood police officers, who focus on crime prevention and relations with the community, to the 911 call center.Thats putting a Band-Aid on that issue and taking away from the community, said Adam Medrano, who chairs the public safety committee.But interim Police Chief David Pughes told council members that the neighborhood officers roles likely wont change unless the 911 call volumes increase and more call takers are needed.Were all in this together, and weve all got a part in this to ensure that we get calls answered in a timely fashion, Pughes said.McGough and other members of the councils public safety committee expected to be briefed Monday about the 911 call center problems and any progress being made to remedy them. The city manager removed the briefing from the agenda, chairman Adam Medrano said. The council member didnt explain why.Its not something thats sitting well with me right now, Medrano said. Its an issue that a lot of folks want to talk about, to know whats going on. And I think that thats a disservice to the residents of the city of Dallas.Earlier this month, when 911 callers were on hold for extended periods of time, Dallas police brought in patrol officers to help answer 911 calls, which police officials said added to an already strained overtime budget.The Police Department is dealing with its own staffing shortage and facing mounting pressure to reduce crime.Police officials at Mondays public safety meeting touted fewer homicides and sexual assaults so far this year compared to last year. But there has been an increase in aggravated assaults and business robberies, according to a crime report presented to the public safety committee.Nearly 1,080 aggravated assaults were reported between January 1 and March 22, according to the report. About 930 assaults were reported in the same period last year.Pughes said it has been a constant battle for the department to manage crime and deal with high attrition. There were 3,338 officers on the force about this time last year; now there are 3,210 officers, he said.Since October, 208 officers have left the department, and roughly 350 are expected to leave by the end of the fiscal year. Only 80 new officers have been hired so far this fiscal year, Pughes said.This is about as low as we are going to be able to sustain and still begin to make a difference as it relates to crime and response time, the chief told the public safety committee.2017 The Dallas Morning NewsVisit The Dallas Morning News at www.dallasnews.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
(TNS) -- NuTonomys CEO says the tech firm wont suspend its tests of self-driving cars in South Boston after a wreck involving an autonomous car in Arizona Friday prompted Uber to hit the brakes on its own driverless vehicle program.Critics say the Uber crash shows the technology behind the hands-free cars needs to be heavily scrutinized and regulated  if not brought to a screeching halt  until any role self-driving technology played can be ascertained.Karl Iagnemma, CEO of nuTonomy, the firm testing driverless cars at the Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park in South Boston, said not enough is known about the crash on Friday in Tempe, Ariz., to justify any change to his companys tests, which are being conducted under an agreement with the state and city.Until we understand what happened, I dont think its really possible to think about implications for the broader industry, Iagnemma told the Herald yesterday.Uber is developing its own technology and is not using nuTonomys. Uber halted its Arizona and Pittsburgh test after a self-driving SUV was knocked onto its side by another car. Police were still working to determine if a driver who was behind the Uber cars wheel was controlling it. Driverless cars often have drivers in them to record data and provide safety backup. There were no injuries. The human driver of the other vehicle was cited.In an unrelated accident last May, the operator of a Tesla sedan in self-driving mode was killed in Williston, Fla., when the car failed to stop for a tractor-trailer taking a left turn in front of it.Donna Blythe-Shaw of the Boston Taxi Drivers Association questioned whether a human driver might have averted the Arizona Uber crash.We all drive defensively; I think driverless cars, they dont have those kinds of instincts, Blythe-Shaw said. Thats an element in this automated intelligence they probably need to figure out.Dave Sutton, spokesman for the Taxicab, Limousine, and Paratransit Association, a staunch opponent of Uber, said the crash is a wake-up call that there could be snags in driverless technology that might not be disclosed to regulators.Its incumbent on the Boston regulators to demand that information, Sutton said. Regulators cannot afford to sit back and imagine the companies will just provide their errors and accident rates unrequested.A MassDot statement last night said that with nuTonomy, testing progress is regularly reviewed and there have been no meaningful problems to date, adding the Arizona accident will be monitored. A spokeswoman said the agencys autonomous vehicle working group will discuss the incident at a meeting Thursday.Mayor Martin J. Walshs office said the Arizona crash underscores the importance of rigorous testing with autonomous vehicle technology. ... We will continue to hold our partners to the highest safety standards.Bryan Reimer of the New England University Transportation Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, citing the limited scope of nuTonomys testing zone, said, The fact this crash happened should have no bearing on what Google and nuTonomy are doing. Both organizations are moving very slowly and very strategically.But Teamsters Local 25 president Sean OBrien, concerned that driverless cars could replace truck drivers, said the Arizona incident points to massive problems involved in the development of this technology.Whats worse is the massive disruption to the economy driverless cars will bring  further undermining middle-class jobs and redistributing more wealth to the already wealthy, OBrien said.
The developers of Lake Nona, Fla., like to think of themselves as a city within the larger city of Orlando. The 11,000-acre mixed-use planned community has housing that ranges from townhomes to estates. It has 10 million square feet of commercial space with gigabit connectivity.Lake Nona also has wellness, with a 650-acre health and life sciences business park and a newly announced wellness platform designed to bring smart technologies to the table.How do we put legs on what healthy living means? What does a wellness community mean? We need to think about this in a way that is more holistic than what we have seen in other big master-planned communities, said Gloria Caulfield, executive director of the Lake Nona Institute and vice president of strategic alliances at Tavistock Development Co.A civic approach to wellness starts with data. To that end Tavistock teamed early on with Johnson and Johnsons Wellness and Prevention Inc. to conduct a longitudinal research study on local health and wellness issues. Some 2,000 residents have signed on to be eligible.It will help us better understand prevention, wellness and health. Its going to be everything from claims data to self-reported survey instruments to biometrics and potentially even genetic data over time, Caulfield said.The developers also have launched a WHIT initiative , addressing wellness, home innovation and technology. The effort aims to turn homes into living laboratories where residents can discover new technologies that address sleep, nutrition, chronic care and a range of other wellness variables.People simply want to live in a healthy home. They want an environment that helps to support their health status, but they dont know how to go about it, Caulfield said. There is a drive to have a preventative slant to health care so everyone doesnt end up crashing in these very expensive tertiary care facilities. So we want to look at how the home can contribute to that, what a home health dashboard might look like and how it could give residents actionable data at the right time.Institutionally, this mini-city supports its wellness drive with a health and life sciences cluster. Tenants include the University of Florida Research and Academic Center, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, and the GuideWell Innovation Center , a laboratory and incubation space for health-related endeavors.The developers also have established their own nonprofit, the Lake Nona Institute, which focuses on innovative technologies and programs for building healthy, sustainable communities.Most recently, Tavistock announced it would be rolling out a wellness initiative built on Jiyo, a comprehensive digital platform recently launched by health advocate Dr. Deepak Chopra. They are calling it a smart-cities approach to wellness.Lake Nona has offered us the unique opportunity to create the Internet of wellbeing, the global brain for creating a more peaceful, sustainable, healthier and more joyful world, said Chopra in a press release.More specifically, Joya will give developers a means to distribute needed health information. We want to provide content and resources that have been vetted, that have strong trust and credibility, Caulfield said.The central element of the program will be an app that delivers curated wellness information and practical advice in small daily doses. Over time, the information will be tailored to the needs of the local community based at least in part on the findings of the Johnson and Johnson research.We are creating a customized community of content, a community within that app that will engage individuals in a range of programs, initiatives and content with a heavy focus on emotional well-being. We think of it as sort of a Facebook for health, Caulfield said. The app will deliver bite-sized bits of information on sleep management, stress and nutrition. The idea is not to thrust it at you in vast quantities, but to give you something actionable daily or weekly.Lake Nona is not the only master planned community to take on wellness as its theme.In Liberty, Mo., for example developers are working on Norterre , whose offerings span the gamut from a Pilates studio to a short-stay rehabilitation facility. The master-planned community ATLAS , presently under development adjacent to the Texas A&M Health Science Center, also claims an emphasis on wellness.In fact, with the aging of the baby boomers, some real-estate professionals have predicted wellness will be the predominant theme of future planned developments.Cities hoping to leverage technology in support of wellness may find themselves looking to these master-planned communities for pointers  but these developers may enjoy certain advantages not available to city planners. In particular, they get to start with a clean slate, which may allow them to incorporate wellness technology from the ground up, rather than adding it into an existing landscape.What is most important is the recognition that as a person you are making dozens of decisions every day that can have a direct impact on your health and well-being. Caulfield said. Community development has to be done in such a way as to encourage the best possible decision-making for an individual. We want the healthy choice to be the default choice.She describes a simple example: Civic architecture that guides people to take the stairs by placing the elevators off to the side of the lobby rather than front and center. Thats a means to promote wellness that a developer can implement in a ground-up effort, but that a city might not be able to incorporate in existing facilities.While the developers may have an edge in this regard, wellness nonetheless remains high on the agenda for many aspiring smart cities.The Smart Cities Council describes how Dell Healthcare Services uses telehealth to help patients deal with transportation challenges and keep in touch with clinicians. Researchers at the Harvard Kennedy School are building the case for increase use of data to bolster public health.The increase in technology and data that will come with smart cities represents a huge opportunity for governments to change the way that health care is delivered, blogs smart cities technologist Lucy Zodion . The enhanced connectivity that will come with smart cities has the potential to make sure that health care services are truly meeting the needs of citizens.
A Look at Cyberattack Trends

Locking Down Email

2016 was the year cyberattacks shook the public sector. From the start, we witnessed sophisticated attacks that targeted government employees (both federal and the state) and politicians, and aimed to breach sensitive data and infiltrate organizations. Targets included city, county and state government organizations in communities like Los Angeles Salt Lake City and El Paso, Texas The public sector has become a top target for cybercriminals who are interested in more than just financial gain. For example, attacks carried out by cybercriminals, such as the highly publicized phishing attack against Los Angeles County, which disclosed usernames and passwords of more than 756,000 Californians, were intended to compromise sensitive employee credentials. And when cybercriminals are successful  when federal employee emails are made public or when tens of thousands of Social Security numbers are stolen  people lose confidence in the governments ability to secure their information.Just as with hacks of private organizations, the impact is felt not just by those whose information is taken. The stolen data can now be used to launch attacks on a victims family members and friends. Consider how many times we list an emergency contact and include a name, phone number and email address. That person can now be contacted by an attacker posing as the person whose record was stolen. Its that easy.Despite the increasing magnitude of cyberthreats, however, government agencies are struggling to keep personal data and public infrastructure safe. According to a recent KPMG report that surveyed a pool of executive-level government officials and contractors, nearly 65 percent said the government as a whole cannot detect ongoing cyberattacks and 59 percent believe their agency currently struggles to understand how cyberattackers could potentially breach their systems.Why is government failing to keep ahead of the criminals?As we work with government agencies and private companies, we see cybercriminals creating increasingly sophisticated attacks by using contextual information, such as what is available on social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, to understand company networks and employee interests, and then disguising themselves as a trusted source to trick victims into performing a desired action. For example, members of John Podestas staff were tricked into believing a fraudulent email was in fact legitimate and willingly clicked on a link, inviting the attackers in.Standard defenses just dont work. Attacks are specifically designed to work around awareness training, and even security professionals are challenged to identify todays sophisticated phishing attacks. Spam filters, which examine bulk email for keywords, arent designed to detect these types of attacks, and most of these attacks dont involve a virus that anti-virus software can detect.Thats why these social engineering-based email attacks  which typically rely on identity deception, including spear phishing and business email compromise (BEC)  are the fastest growing security threat facing public and private organizations today. The FBI reported losses from BEC scams jumped from $2.3 billion (April 2016) to $3.1 billion (June 2016). One factor driving this increase is a trickle-down effect. It typically takes no more than a few weeks from the use of a new method in a high-value attack (such as a state-sponsored attack) until the same method is reused against enterprises  most likely because the same criminal organizations are behind both attacks.So while the attackers are rapidly evolving their strategies and methods, government agencies and private companies are doing little to adjust their defenses.Organizations should adopt email security technologies that focus specifically on preventing the more targeted, and increasingly popular spear phishing and BEC attacks. While firewalls and scanning for malware can aid with these defenses, the best solution is one that can identify the true identity of an emails sender to detect and then block all fraudulent emails.Given the global implications of recent cyberattacks, cybersecurity within the U.S. public sector needs to become a top priority. Government agencies need to stay informed of the latest cybersecurity trends and the innovative solutions available to protect against new threats. Attacks against this sector will only grow more sophisticated and more dangerous over the coming months if action is not taken soon. The government just needs to act  and fast.
On March 27, the White House announced the creation of the Office of American Innovation (OAI), which will be headed by the senior advisor to the president and first son-in-law of the United States Jared Kushner. The OAI will recommend policies to the president that are meant to spur job growth and implement private-sector strategies. According to The Washington Post, the office will primarily direct efforts toward improving veteran care and combatting the opioid epidemic.Kushner, husband of Trumps daughter Ivanka, has a background in New York City real estate development and publishing. Before joining the White House as advisor, Kushner had no official political experience. Since joining the West Wing, Kushner has been reported as one of Trumps most trusted advisors and has been tasked with brokering peace between Israel and Palestine, and helping to negotiate international trade deals.According to, the office is viewed as a SWAT team of strategic consultants, that will report directly to the president and will be staffed by former business executives. Trump reportedly takes pride in the fact that members of the team also have little to no political experience.It is reported that the office will focus on technology and data, and as Kushner told, The government should be run like a great American company. Tech giants such as Tim Cook, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Marc Benioff have reportedly been in contact with the OAI. While the goal of business is to make profit and that of a government is to take care of its residents, introducing private-sector strategies into the public is not novel. 18F and the United States Digital Service (USDS) were created during the Obama administration in an attempt to modernize government services. 18F, which is housed within the General Services Administration, is meant to function as a startup within government that helps create digital products for government organizations. The USDS, which is housed within the Executive Office of the President, was formed to fix the HealthCare.gov website after its troubled release.The OAI, in some cases, will direct certain services to be privatized. In other cases it will function as a service organization, rather than dictating changes within different departments.This move by the White House could wrangle policy creation powers to the executive branch avoiding another congressional failure after the American Health Care Act was removed from the voting docket last week.While he is being tasked with leading an innovation council that focuses on technology and data, Kushner has never sent out a single tweet , despite having a Twitter account since 2009.
(TNS) -- The heads of two Maine-based internet service providers blasted an ongoing congressional effort to repeal privacy protections for their customers Friday, saying it is wrongheaded and an invasion of privacy.Sen. Susan Collins joined her Republican colleagues Thursday in voting to overturn landmark privacy protections for broadband internet customers, making it easier for internet service providers to collect, sell and share detailed information about individuals web browsing, app usage, personal movements and internet search terms without their consent.The vote broke along party lines, with 52 Republicans voting in favor of repealing the protections. Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, voted against it.Fletcher Kittredge, founder and CEO of Biddeford Internet Corp., which does business as GWI, said the vote was absolutely appalling and a threat to everyone who uses the internet.This is very, very bad, he said. Your ISP can look at your traffic and discover the most intimate details of your life, and selling that information will ultimately be more valuable than selling the internet connection, which is something libertarians and civil libertarians ought to worry about, especially as the government and hackers will ultimately have access to it.The House, which also is controlled by Republicans, is expected to take up the measure early next week.The privacy protections, which were to go into effect later this year, would require that internet providers obtain permission from subscribers before sharing or selling data on their users browsing, internet use, geo-location history and other information. Currently, broadband providers can collect all of that information unless a user tells them not to collect it.The adoption of the rules in October by the Federal Communications Commission was bitterly opposed by major internet providers like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon Communications, which argued they would result in higher costs for consumers because they would reduce the opportunity to profit from the sale of precision-targeted advertising.But Kittredge and the head of a Machias-based internet provider, Susan Corbett of Axiom, disagree with their national competitors, saying the measures are a clear threat to their customers. They note that internet providers  unlike web services like Google or Facebook  have the ability to collect the full picture of everything you do, from the video feed of your smart television to what disease you just looked up on the internet.As an internet service provider we have access to individuals data, where and how they surf the web, the sites they frequent and other important information most customers would be uncomfortable sharing, Corbett said in an email. We believe customers have a right to know if a company is selling or using their data in a way that invades their privacy and should be given a choice to decide for themselves.Kittredge said the situation will get worse with the continued expansion of the internet of things, where cars, household appliances, home security cameras, baby monitors, and other devices become connected to the internet.If youre monitoring someones web connection, you know what they think, who they associate with and every intimate detail about them, he said. When you add access to video and audio feeds of what is going on in the house, they will know more about you than you know about yourself.He said history suggests all that data, if collected by your internet service provider, will be available to the government and hackers, and for sale. Im sure my competitors are seeing dollar signs, but in the long run I think its a really bad idea because it reduces the value of an internet connection when you cant trust your ISP.He said his company would collect and sell such information over my dead body, but it puts GWI at a competitive disadvantage against its competitors.He also said he found it deeply upsetting that Collins voted for the measure. As a Republican who is very close to becoming a former Republican, this goes against every principle and precept I thought the party had.Collins spokeswoman Annie Clark defended Collins vote in a statement to the Portland Press Herald, saying that the Obama administrations new so-called privacy rule had created an inconsistent, confusing standard.This new rule put extensive restrictions on internet service providers like Verizon and Comcast, while leaving much less strict standards in place for edge providers like Google and Facebook, Clark said. This inconsistency created confusion for consumers, competitive disadvantages for internet service providers, and limited broadband innovation without ensuring privacy for internet users. Therefore, Senator Collins voted to eliminate this misguided rule and looks forward to internet privacy rules that apply consistently to all providers.But Kittredge says that argument doesnt hold water, for two reasons: First, he said, you can avoid using Facebook or Google, but everyone has to have an internet provider. Second, internet providers like his company collect everything, whereas web service providers like Google and Facebook have only a partial picture of an individuals online activity.An ISP sees everything and can put it all together and draw inferences, he said. If youre worried about inconsistency then the thing to do is apply the same rules to Google and Facebook, not say, Geez, someone else is robbing you, so our remedy is to allow everyone to rob you.Kings spokesman issued a statement on the senators vote that echoed many of the same points.Broadband providers can see nearly everything that someone does online, from what sites they access to where they are physically located when they do it, which is why Senator King believes that they must be required to obtain a persons consent before sharing that data with third-parties, spokesman Scott Ogden said in an email.He said King understands the concerns of those looking for consistent standards, but noted that repealing the rule does not accomplish it, since the Federal Trade Commission, the agency that regulates web services like Google, has no jurisdiction over internet providers.The result will be that broadband subscribers are left with no privacy or data security protections at all, and he thinks thats a mistake that will compromise the personal information of millions of Americans, Ogden said.The cable industrys trade association applauded the repeal, describing it as a step toward reversing the FCCs misguided approach and restoring a consistent approach to online privacy that consumers want and deserve.The Republican sponsor of the bill and President Trumps new FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, have both said that the rules are onerous, and that it is unfair that internet providers would face these regulations when web companies like Google or Facebook do not.Its unnecessary, confusing, and adds another innovation-stifling regulation, bill sponsor Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, said when he introduced the measure last fall.Civil liberties groups have opposed the effort to repeal the privacy rules.Were disappointed that the Senate  including Senator Collins  voted against protecting the basic privacy of Mainers and all constituents in favor of protecting corporate profit, said Oamshri Amarasingham, advocacy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine. We believe we should have to consent to sharing sensitive information with the rest of the world when we use the internet. We hope that the House will stop this from moving forward.Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine, D-1st District, said she will oppose repealing the regulations when the bill comes before the House.It is unconscionable that the House and Senate leadership have chosen to make repealing broadband consumer privacy rights a top legislative priority in Congress when there is so much to be done to bring broadband access to Americans, Pingree said via email. I do not support this invasive resolution and strongly believe that internet service providers should not be given a blank check to collect data on their customers just to help companies boost their advertising.A spokesman for Maines other House member, Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin, said he was undecided.The congressman will closely review the legislation if it is brought up in the House, Brendan Conley said via email. He wants to ensure that the internet remains a level playing field where consumers are protected consistently across the internet and gaps in consumer protection are not created.
(TNS) -- Reports released this past week by U.S. security officials and private cybersecurity researchers suggest hacking of energy facility computers is on the rise, and happens far more often than the public assumes.The Department of Homeland Security said it received reports of 59 cyber incidents at energy facilities last year, up nearly a third from the year before.The agency responsible for protecting the nation from cybercrime said it worked to mitigate 290 incidents last year across more than a dozen industries that rely on computer controls to run industrial sites, including manufacturing sites, power generation facilities, refineries, chemical plants and nuclear facilities.It found more than a quarter of these intrusions originated from so-called spear phishing emails that hackers use to trick people into downloading infected attachments or clicking on virus-laden links. More than one in 10 came from network probing and scanning."Every year, adversaries develop increasingly sophisticated attacks against control system networks," Homeland Security's Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team said.The increased number of intrusions into energy computer controls last year brings the number of such incidents in the industry to more than 400 since 2011, Homeland Security data show. Security specialists say that's likely a conservative number because energy companies aren't required to report cyberattacks to the U.S. government.In another report, cybersecurity researchers believe computer controls at industrial facilities, including in the oil business, get infected by non-targeted malware at least 3,000 times a year.Dragos Security, a cybersecurity firm in San Antonio, arrived at what it believes is a conservative estimate of worldwide industrial cyberattacks after studying 30,000 samples of infected control system files submitted over the past decade and a half to a publicly available database called VirusTotal, a web service owned by Google.The findings show malware that isn't even tailored to industrial controls finds its way into critical technology far more often than the public assumes. Some of the malware can spread through these systems with ease, and some were designed many years ago."If you have really bad cyber hygiene and you're not paying attention to basic things, you're more likely to get impacted by a virus that was written nine years ago," said Ben Miller of Dragos.For example, Miller found thousands of industrial files compromised by Sinowal, a Trojan horse first discovered in 2006. Even more common, though, were strains of malware that spread from computer to computer, created at least five years ago.It's not clear how many of these industrial facilities were tied to the energy industry, because the VirusTotal data only provided the country of origin of the independently uploaded files. But it's yet another grim revelation for oil companies that rely on automated computer controls to run refineries, pipelines and offshore platforms.Miller said these breaches could begin during the equipment upgrades that happen when power plants, refineries and other energy facilities are taken offline for repairs.Crews of engineers, equipment contractors and information technology specialists flowing in and out of the facilities could, for example, fail to follow security protocols and accidentally plug in infected USB drives into facility systems. And they might only discover they've infected operational computers after they use the same thumb drives in corporate computers outfitted with antivirus alert systems, Miller said.
KAMPONG CHAM, Cambodia, March 28 (Xinhua) -- As the annual Tomb-Sweeping Day approaches, Cambodia and China on Tuesday jointly commemorated two Chinese UN peacekeepers who were killed in a blast here 24 years ago.

Held at a memorial monument in Skun town in southeastern Cambodia's Kampong Cham province, the ceremony was attended by more than 100 people.

After laying wreaths at the monument, Li Ningya, military attache of the Chinese Embassy, said nearly 800 Chinese UN soldiers were deployed in Cambodia on a peacekeeping mission in 1992, and a mid-night explosion killed two soldiers - Chen Zhiguo and Yu Shili - on May 21, 1993.

"They lost their lives for the cause of peace in Cambodia," he said, adding that "their great sacrifices will be in our memories forever."

Cambodian Defense Ministry Undersecretary of State Gen. Khun Vuth said Cambodia and China have held such a ceremony every year to commemorate their great sacrifices for the cause of peace and happiness of the Cambodian people.

"We will never forget their courage and sacrifices," he said at the ceremony. "Their sacrifices have further deepened the fraternal sentiment between Cambodia and China."
Max Verstappen says he must be patient amid Red Bull's push to catch top two F1 teams Ferrari and Mercedes in 2017.

While some thought the energy drink-owned team was bluffing in the winter, the Dutchman finished fifth in Australia as Red Bull admitted to both chassis and engine deficits.

Red Bull said it is working on upgrades to debut in China and Bahrain, while improvements for the Renault power unit might take until May's Monaco grand prix to arrive.

"If it's frustrating to have to wait so long? That's how it is," Verstappen is quoted by the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf. "I can't change anything about it.

"The gap is big," he added, "so we'll have to work hard."

Verstappen said one bright spot is that the new-generation 2017 cars are more enjoyable to drive, but he joined those worrying that overtaking will be particularly rare this year.

One count showed there were just 5 passes during the Australian grand prix, down from two dozen in 2016.

"The cars have become more fun to drive," said Verstappen. "But it (Melbourne) wasn't very exciting. I could have made two extra pitstops without endangering my position."

Verstappen also told the Dutch broadcaster Ziggo Sport Totaal: "I'm not really frustrated because already during the winter I noticed that the car is not quite perfect.

"The most positive thing about the (Melbourne) weekend? The weather."

(GMM)
Chinas active participation in Australias infrastructure sector has been praised by Chinese experts, with some noting that the move sends a positive signal about Chinas efforts to go global on an industrial level.

The move has not only brought an increased market value for Chinese companies, but has also provided a chance for China to export its domestically-manufactured equipment and industrial production capacity worldwide, Wang Yiwei, a professor from Renmin University, told the Peoples Daily Online.

Wangs remarks came after a state-owned Chinese construction giant signed an unprecedented deal on March 24 to build an AU$5 billion mining infrastructure project, which is a crucial component of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, itself worth AU$50 billion.

This is the first time China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) has tapped into resource-rich northwestern Australia. According to an announcement released by the Sydney-based BBI Group (BBIG), which inked the deal with CSCEC, the two companies cooperation to develop the mine, port and rail project will create a new gateway to the Pilbara region for iron ore exporters.

Partnering with China State Construction Engineering Corporation provides BBIG the opportunity to access CSCECs large-scale infrastructure delivery capabilities and allows CSCEC the opportunity to showcase these capabilities on a large-scale project in Australia, BBIG chair Jon Young stated.

Echoing Young, Wang said China should seize the opportunity to take part in more international infrastructure projects, in an effort to export the countrys significant equipment and manufacturing capacity.

Chinas active participation in iconic international infrastructure projects not only promotes Made-in-China products, but can also lead to an upgrade of the countrys manufacturing industry, said Wang.
Ren Hui39, is an expert maker of Chinese guqin, the Chinese zither. He is also known as a great guqin player.

As the most ancient instrument in China, the guqin has long been a favorite of the literati, who believe it is a prerequisite for their personal cultivation, as its beautiful melodies helped to maintain a peaceful and balanced mind. Nowadays, the urheen and zheng are more popular than the guqin in China, thanks to their unique timbres. However, in 2008, the deep, smooth tone of the ancient instrument was showcased in the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Ren explained. Since then, the guqin has experienced a small renaissance.

"I knew it was my instrument as soon as I heard it. It is a great instrument, but the price for one is very high," Ren noted. He still remembers that his first one cost him 5,000 RMB, which was quite a lot at the time. "I could barely afford one, so I thought, What if I make my own?"

Before long, this idea took hold. However, the process to make a guqin is very complicated. One must acquire an extensive set of skills, including woodcarving, painting, polishing and design.

The body of the guqin is made of wood,, and its strings are made of silk. In order to ensure that its tone is pure and perfect, the maker must carefully carve out the bottom little by little, adjusting until the sound is just right.

"I can only make 15 guqin each year at most. I can't rush the work just because I have to make money," Ren explained. It took Ren four years before he could make a decent guqin. Now, after 20 years of practice, his guqin sell for up to 300,000 RMB.
South African Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Bank of China signed the Strategic Co-operation MOU in Johannesburg on Monday. The signing of this MOU enables the two parties to run investment promotion campaigns and to jointly support enterprises of two countries for more profound economic and trade cooperation.

According to DTI Minister Rob Davies, the department will roll out a promotion event for Special Economic Zones in May with Bank of China to showcase business opportunities.

Based on the MOU and the Plan of 10 Major Cooperation Projects initiated during FOCAC, DTI and Bank of China will treat each other as preferred partners, share information of investment opportunities, optimize own advantages in mutual initiation of investment promotion campaigns, and give full support to the mutual investment and market expansion of enterprises from two countries, for newer and greater contribution to Sino-SA economic, trade and investment cooperation.
The focus will be on the economy, sustainability and practicality of tailpipe emission-free delivery vans when used for the last mile. By the end of 2020, Hermes Germany intends to deploy 1,500 Mercedes-Benz Vito and Sprinter electric vans in urban areas across Germany.

Hermes and Mercedes-Benz Vans have agreed on a wide-ranging strategic partnership to electrify the courier services vehicle fleet. The companies are to start using battery-electric vehicles in the logistics providers normal operations in a pilot phase in Stuttgart and Hamburg in early 2018.

Electric mobility plays a key role as part of our long-term strategy for climate and environmental protection. With this in mind, we are continuing along the path of sustainably renewing our fleet of vehicles. The strategic partnership with Mercedes-Benz is another milestone in this process. We are especially pleased to have Mercedes-Benz at our side as a prestigious partner since 1972. An important key aspect for the future is the gradual electrification of our fleet in urban areas. At the same time, we are continuing with the full changeover to low-emission Euro 6 vehicles. Frank Rausch, CEO of Hermes Germany GmbH

The partners intend to improve the efficiency, productivity and sustainability of parcel deliveries. This has been partially triggered by the rapid growth in online retailing and the resulting challenges for courier-express-parcel (CEP) companies.

Another aim is to generate and to implement ideas that improve service quality for the customers. By the year 2025, Hermes plans to carry out deliveries in the inner-city areas of all major German cities completely free of emissions.

Only electricity from 100% regenerative energy sources will be used to charge the electric vehicles batteries. The electricity will be generated with a completely neutral effect on the climate and, accordingly, in line with the green-electricity label Gruner Strom from the environmental associations.

One special focus is on the technical feasibility and economic efficiency of battery-electric vehicles in the CEP industry. New concepts are to be developed for the integration of battery-electric vansincluding the required charging infrastructureinto existing operational processes.

Another crucial driver of efficiency improvements is the development of system solutions in the vehicle and beyond that are optimally adapted for the specific applications. In the context of the strategic partnership with Hermes, Mercedes-Benz Vans will thus also implement connected servicesfor example, services that facilitate optimal route planning with the use of information on the vans batteries and remaining range. The van producer will also contribute intelligent cargo-space solutions and innovative mobility services to the partnership. These will include new kinds of leasing offers and short-term rentals for contractual partners of Hermes.

Hermes and Daimler have had a growing partnership for more than 40 years mainly based on conventional vehicles but also with a long tradition in the research and development of alternative drive systems. That goes back to the 1990s and tests of the very first van on the market powered by hydrogen.

In 2001, Hermes tested a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter with fuel-cell technology in normal operating conditions. In 2011, the Hamburg-based logistics provider deployed the first series-produced electric vehicle from Mercedes-Benz Vans, the Vito E-CELL.

The two companies also cooperate on vehicles above 3.5 tons. Together with Hermes and the city of Stuttgart, Daimler is currently performing a fleet test with five battery-powered Fuso Canter E-CELL vehicles in urban distribution transport. The test started in April 2016.

With this latest partnership, Mercedes-Benz Vans is taking a further step towards the implementation of its strategic future initiative, adVANce, which was presented last year. (Earlier post.) With adVANce, Mercedes-Benz Vans seeks to transform itself from a pure vehicle manufacturer into a supplier of customer-oriented holistic system solutions.

In this context, Mercedes-Benz Vans is concentrating on four areas in which it will invest up to 500 million by 2020: the integration of various connectivity solutions in vans (digital@vans); innovative hardware solutions for the van sector (solutions@vans); new mobility concepts for the needs-oriented transport of persons and goods (mobility@vans); and optimized electric drive systems tailored to specific applications (eDrive@vans). In the strategic partnership with Hermes Germany, Mercedes-Benz Vans is proving its expertise in all four areas.
HOUSTON  The rapper Takeoff, best known for his work with the Grammy-nominated trio Migos, is dead after a shooting early Tuesday outside a bowling alley in Houston, and police are asking for the public's help in identifying who fired shots.
(Xinhua) 20:30, March 28, 2017

Officials and thousands of members of the public gathered in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, on Tuesday to celebrate Serfs' Emancipation Day.

"I can proudly say that Tibet is full of vigor like never before. A hundred flowers are in bloom," said Qizhala, chair of Tibet regional government, in a speech to mark the Serfs' Emancipation Day.

March 28 was designated as the day to mark the freeing of 1 million people, or 90 percent of the region's population at that time, from the feudal serf system in 1959.

Qizhala recounted economic, social and religious progress in the past year, during which growth in GDP, fixed-asset investment and per capita disposable income in Tibet ranked first among provincial-level regions nationwide.

"Ethnic solidarity has grown deeper into the hearts of the people. Work has been done to ensure harmony in religious affairs, ceremonies and in monasteries," he said.

On Tuesday, over 3,000 officials, students, retirees and other members of the public gathered at Potala Palace Square in Lhasa for a flag-raising ceremony.

"I learned to sing the national anthem in school. The year after the emancipation, an elementary school was built in my town. I went there, although I was already 13," said Dondrup Gyalpo, who arrived early at the palace for the occasion.

"Young people never have to experience the cruel old times, but it is hard for old folks like me to forget," he said.

When news of emancipation reached Dondrup's hometown in Maizhokunggar County of Lhasa, his family dared not tell the landlords. "We were afraid they may retaliate against us, but we were truly happy to celebrate the end of starvation and insecurity of living under others' roofs," he said.

In Nyingchi to the southeast of Lhasa, the Serfs' Emancipation Day celebrations coincided with a local peach blossom festival. Doje, a 73-year-old retiree, could not resist the urge to dance along with the performers at the opening ceremony of the festival.

"I learned to dance when I started working at the age of 18. I'm in a dance club now, regularly performing for people in the villages," Doje said.

"I watch the young people and think about my childhood, my only memory of which was starvation and endless toiling for the landlords," he said.

"I remember complaining to my mother that I was so hungry that there was no fat on my belly. My mother said, 'Son there is nothing I can do,'" Doje said.

Padain, also a retiree, spent his childhood in a monastery after being sent there by his family. "My parents could not afford to feed me. All my five brothers and sisters went begging," said Padain.

"Monastery life was also harsh. You only could have what people brought you. My robe was crawling with lice," he said.

Padain spent his retirement reading books and playing chess. "I'd like to write down the story of my life, and there is so much to write about," he said.
The conflict-fueled hunger crises in Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan have culminated in a trio of potential famines hitting almost simultaneously. Nearly 16 million people in the three countries are at risk of dying within months.
With another big assignment yesterday  making the entire federal government run with business-like efficiency  presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner is now in charge of almost everything, the Huffington Post reports with only a bit of hyperbole.

Reforming the VA and achieving Middle East peace would be enough for anyone, but President Donald Trump apparently expects even more from Ivanka's husband.

But Kushner does have some explaining to do first about his curious meeting in December with Russian banker, Putin associate and former counter-intelligence agent Sergey Gorkov. Kushner will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee, which yesterday issued this statement from Sens. Richard Burr and Mark Warner:

"From the beginning of this investigation we have committed to follow the facts wherever they lead us. This announcement serves to demonstrate that commitment. Mr. Kushner will certainly not be the last person the committee calls to give testimony, but we expect him to be able to provide answers to key questions that have arisen in our inquiry. The timing of Mr. Kushners testimony is still being determined, but will only come after the committee determines that it has received any documents or information necessary to ensure that the meeting is productive for all sides."

The White House said Kushner met with Gorkov in his capacity as an adviser to the president-elect.

"He was a conduit and to  to leaders and that's until we had a State Department, a functioning place for people to go," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday.

But, VEB, as the bank is known, "confirmed the meeting with Kushner in a statement to CNN, though described Kushner in his role as head of Kushner Companies, not as a representative of Trump."

So, already, there is a significant discrepancy in how this meeting is being presented. That's curious indeed.

The bank is supposedly autonomous of the Russian government, but Gorkov was appointed to his position by Russian President Vladimir Putin and reports to Putin, as this somewhat formal "interview" between Putin and Gorkov on Kremlin media demonstrates.

Kushner's meeting with Gorkov was not previously disclosed by the White House, so it would be interesting to find out its purpose, especially if it's true that Kushner was representing the president-elect. What official U.S. business was Kushner discussing with the head of a bank that is subject to economic sanctions because of Russia's aggressive actions in Ukraine?

Gorkov's bio indicates that he is a graduate of the Academy of the Federal Security Service of Russia but has worked for banks and oil companies for most of his career. Maybe an education in the state security services is perfect preparation for high-level positions in the Russian oligarchy. It would count for a lot with Putin, the ex-KGB officer.

So it's likely that Gorkov reported to Putin what he and Kushner discussed, just as Kushner surely informed Trump. It was just another of many curious contacts between Trump associates and Russians that bear close examination.

Trump has put a lot of trust in Kushner. What message might he have entrusted with Kushner for delivery to Gorkov and thus to Putin? I hope the Senate panel will find out.
Guilford College Guilford College and Wake Forest University are mourning the deaths of two people who gave much to their schools.

Guilford College said Edward J. Bauman died Wednesday in Florida. Wake Forest said Porter Byrum died Monday in Charlotte.

Bauman, who was 92, was the former president, CEO and chairman of Greensboro jeansmaker Blue Bell Inc. He served on Guilfords Board of Trustees from 1988 to 2007 and was awarded emeritus status after he stepped down.

Bauman and his wife, Vivien, gave nearly $3.9 million to the college over their lifetimes. That includes a $1.75 million contribution to a building that opened in 1991. The Bauman Telecommunications Center houses computer labs, the public safety office, information technology and some administrative offices.

The Baumans also contributed to a project to renovate Founders Hall, the colleges student center. The buildings plaza and galleries are named for them.

The Baumans lived in Greensboro and Naples, Fla.

Porter Byrum, who got his law degree from Wake Forest, died Monday at age 96.

An attorney who lived in Charlotte, Byrum gave more than $50 million to Wake Forest over his lifetime.

In 2011, he donated Park Road Shopping Center in Charlotte to Wake Forest, Queens University and Wingate University. Wake Forests share of the sale  $40 million  is the largest single gift in the universitys history.

Byrum, who grew up in eastern North Carolina, graduated from the law school of Wake Forest College in 1942, when the school was located near Raleigh.

Byrum later fought in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II.

Later, Byrum helped hundreds of students attend Wake Forest. He set up scholarships for athletes, law students and undergraduates.

The university named its admissions and welcome center for Byrum in 2011.
Details added (first version posted on 13:59)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 28

Trend:

The US is interested in an early settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, reads the letter of the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov.

Tillersons letter was sent on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and the US.

In his letter, the US secretary of state noted the close cooperation of the US with Azerbaijan, in particular in the energy sector.

He also noted the support of the US aimed at diversifying the economy and developing the economic opportunities of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan was among the first countries to support the US after the Sept. 11 events, Tillerson said in his letter.

The US secretary of state conveyed congratulations of the American people to the Azerbaijani people on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of friendship and cooperation between the two countries.

In response, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov noted in his letter to Tillerson that over the past 25 years, the relations between Azerbaijan and the US have developed into a strategic partnership.

Mammadyarov added that Azerbaijan closely cooperates with the US in the energy sector by contributing to the energy security and the diversification of the energy resources of Europe.

The Azerbaijani foreign minister also stressed the successful cooperation of the two countries in the fight against terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The minister noted in his letter that Azerbaijan relies on the fair mediation of the US in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Mammadyarov stressed that the conflict must be resolved peacefully and on the basis of the UN Security Council resolutions.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 28



Trend:

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko has commented on the extradition of blogger Alexander Lapshin to Azerbaijan at a meeting with Ambassador of Armenia Armen Khachatrian Mar. 28.

Alexander Lapshin is a citizen of several countries and has had a criminal conspiracy with Armenians living in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. He also illegally visited these territories.

Lapshin is accused of violating Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012. On Jan. 17, 2017, Alexei Stuk, deputy prosecutor general of Belarus, issued a ruling on Lapshins extradition to Azerbaijan. Lapshin was brought to Azerbaijan on Feb. 7.

Alexander Lukashenko noted that Armenia had never told him anything about Lapshin and only Azerbaijan put the blogger on the wanted list, according to the Belarus presidents website.

Interpol knew about it. We properly reported, as law-abiding people. Where did we have to extradite him? We had to extradite him to the country which had put him on the wanted list, the head of state said.

No one wanted to take him [Lapshin] back. They started to play this card later. He is a citizen of three countries  none of them wanted him back.
The state Board of Examiners for Nursing last week disciplined eight nurses, including those with ties to Bridgeport, Monroe and Shelton.

Among those punished was Lisa Fabrizio, formerly from Monroe, who had her registered nurse license revoked after the board found that she took jewelry from patients and computers from her work at Lighthouse Home Healthcare in Old Saybrook and was trading the goods for heroin, state records show.

In June, she was charged by Stratford police with third-degree larceny after a detective determined she was pawning stolen jewelry, tools and electronics in local shops, state records show.

She is also facing multiple criminal charges in connection with a hit-and-run accident in August, when she told police she had recently used heroin, records show. The board found that her abuse of heroin was affecting her practice as a nurse and that her thefts constituted a failure to conform to the standards of the nursing profession, records show.

Others disciplined included, Dorsey Saunders, a licensed practical nurse from Bridgeport, whose licese was revoked for failing to comply with the terms of a four-year probation imposed in March 2016.

The probation was ordered after she was found stealing drugs, including oxycodone and fentanyl, while on duty at Fairview of Fairfield, a nursing home in the Southport section of Fairfield, records show.

The board also placed the RN license of Amanda Alarcon of Shelton on probation for four years after finding that she abused heroin from 2011 to 2014. Records show she is receiving substance abuse treatment.

Those who faced reprecussions also included nurses from Middletown, West Hartford, Cromwell, Killingworth, and New Britain.

Also, the board dismissed all charges against Dawn Noyce, a registered nurse from Canterbury, because she voluntarily surrendered her nursing license. Records show she has struggled with drug and alcohol abuse and pleaded guilty in April 2015 to driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

This story was reported under a partnership with the Connecticut Health I-Team ( www.c-hit.org )
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WESTPORT  Organized to give various groups and individuals a venue for expressing their outrage and concerns, the CT on the Move march and rally, held Sunday in Westport, did just that.

Between 1,500 and 2,000 people blocked the eastbound side of the Post Road as they marched from Jesup Green to Veterans Green by Town Hall, where a rally featured speeches by U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, and keynote speaker U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy.

There are a lot of people out there who are not happy with what theyve been getting, Murphy said.

We know that political action works, he said.

What we wanted to do was give people a venue to come and voice their issues and give people an outlet for all their energies, said Nita Prasad of Westport, one of four Westport women who created the group DefenDemocracy and organized the event.

Weve been working on this for months, she said.

At least a dozen groups were represented, including Fairfield Standing United, Connecticut Against Gun Violence, and Indivisible Connecticut. Speakers addressed issues ranging from immigration to education, with an emphasis on blasting President Donald Trump and his administration for a range of actions.

This kind of outpouring is what the nation needs, Blumenthal said, crediting the failure of Trumps healthcare bill, which he called cartoonishly cruel and incompetent, to similar grassroots protests.

The country rose up, as youre doing here, he said.

Nothing is as powerful as a small group of citizens committed to change the world, he said.

This was your victory, echoed Himes, who spoke of Trumps election as being a reflection of a fear of change.

What happened in November is Donald Trump and a couple of others (built) on insecurity  But the good news is in this country were Americans and we dont do fear well, and we dont fear very long, he said.

There are reasons for us to be optimistic and proud of our country and proud of who we are, Himes said. America and her sense of decency and all her shared values will prevail.

Murphy received the longest, loudest applause, accompanied by chants of Chris!

There are days when I feel down, he said, when I feel like Im on the mat, and this picks me up again  This moment is enormous.

Remember what happened on Friday, he said. Theres no way that that would have been stopped without what weve done here in Connecticut.

We wanted to come together as a community and really energize each other and lift each other up and raise our voices, said Lauren Soloff, co-founder of DefenDemocracy.

Really the goal is to show our community and our children that our voices really matter and we can make a difference, she said.

Selectman Avi Kaner, a Republican, attended the event, along with GOP First Selectman Jim Marpe.

Anything that unites us and gets us together for a common cause is beneficial, Kaner said, and sets a wonderful example for our children, particularly with everything thats going on in Washington.

Honestly, Im scared to death of everything thats going on, said Leanne Harpin of Fairfield, one of many activists in attendance. Were not living in ordinary times.

While it was intended to be an event aimed, in part, at assuaging divisiveness between political parties, many signs clearly marked disillusionment in and contempt for Trump.

Meanwhile, during one moment of Blumenthals speech someone drove by with a loudspeaker and yelled to the crowd to Make America Great again in homage to Trump.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 28



Trend:



Stability is being ensured in Azerbaijan and the Azerbaijani people is guarantor of stability, said the countrys President Ilham Aliyev at the conference on development of cotton-growing, held in the country's Saatli district on March 28.



Azerbaijan stands out by its policy both in the region and in the world, noted President Aliyev.



He said that security measures are being ensured in Azerbaijan, social processes are underway in a positive direction, civil solidarity is being strengthened, economic and regional development are accelerating.



Today we show an example of how to govern a country. We show this example, and, of course, this policy is also approved and supported by the people. This is the main factor for realization of our future plans, said the president.



The unity of people and state power is the main factor that determines the successful development of each country, noted President Aliyev.



Im confident that our successful economic policy, the development of regions and new initiatives, reforms will ensure sustainable development, he said adding that strategic road maps have recently been compiled and published.



The public already knows about this. There are specific programs in each sphere, and we work and will work on the basis of these programs, added the president.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 28

Trend:

Starting from 2016, Azerbaijan provides great state support to cotton-growing, said Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev at the conference on development of cotton-growing, held in the countrys Saatli district on March 28.

Todays conference is the second one and holding these conferences is a manifestation of this support, noted President Aliyev.

Meanwhile, we are conducting very serious measures to stimulate citizens and farmers, he said adding that the purchase price of cotton rose from last years 0.41 manat to 0.50 manat, as well as a subsidy of 0.10 manat is being provided.

President Aliyev also noted the great interest in cotton-growing among the citizens and added that this is a very important factor.

The state provides and will provide its support. We invested and will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the development of cotton-growing. However, if citizens didnt show interest in this sphere, then our work couldve remained imcomplete, he said.

"Therefore, the state support, joint work of all state structures, private structures and support provided by the public led to a completely new situation. The figures also promise to be even better in 2017," added the president.

President Aliyev went on to add that the cotton-growing will develop even more intensively in the future, it will gain even greater scope that will bring great benefits to both citizens and the country.
Months after revealing that its video calling app Duo will soon start offering audio-only calling as a feature, it was last week when Google finally announced that the functionality has started rolling out.

While only Brazil was getting it so far, that's not the case any more.

#GoogleDuo Audio calls is rolling out worldwide now ...  Amit Fulay (@amitfulay) March 27, 2017

As clear from the aforementioned tweet from Amit Fulay, who is Head of Product (Allo and Duo) at Google, the feature has now started rolling out worldwide. So if you have been waiting for the feature, it shouldn't be too long before you get to use it.

Source | Via
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 28

Trend:

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has said the development of cotton-growing will make an outstanding contribution to boosting light industry.

Last year we laid the foundation of a light industry park in Mingachevir. A total of nine plants, including a yarn plant, will be built there. The first plants will open there this year. And this is a great economic initiative, noted President Aliyev at the conference on development of cotton-growing, held in the country's Saatli district on March 28.

The technological park will create at least 5,000 new jobs, he added.

The president said he raises the issue of boosting Azerbaijans trade and exports during his meetings with foreign counterparts in order to ensure the countrys access to new markets.

There are traditional markets that we are working with. We should access new markets, and the establishment of trade houses serves this aim. We will set up trade missions in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, China, the United Arab Emirates in the near future because, I think, these are the primary markets right now, added President Aliyev.




Haiti - USA : U.S. elected officials are asking to extend the TPS for Haitians





U.S. Senators and Representatives from Florida wrote to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly asking him to extend Haitis Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation when the current 18-month period expires on July 22. They emphasized Haitis continuing struggle to rebuild after the 2010 earthquake and 2016 Hurricane Matthew, as well as the cholera. Signatories include US Senators Rubio and Nelson and US Representatives Alcee Hastings, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart, Ted Deutch, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Carlos Curbelo, Frederica Wilson, and Lois Frankel.



Letter Senators and Congressmen :



"[...]



We write to encourage you to exercise your authority under Section 244 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1254a) to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Haitian nationals who have been residing in the United States and benefitting from this program.



Through TPS, our country has been committed to providing a safe haven to individuals unable to securely return to their home country due to ongoing environmental disasters and violence that have severely impacted their country. On January 12, 2010, Haiti was hit by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake causing massive devastation throughout the country. The earthquake is estimated to have directly affected 3,000,000 people, nearly one-third of Haitis population. In addition, the earthquake destroyed government buildings, hospitals, schools, and vital aid offices, including the United Nations mission headquarters. Haiti, to this day, continues to rebuild from this debilitating earthquake.



Since the earthquake hit Haiti, the country has not only suffered a cholera outbreak that is responsible for the deaths of, to date, 9,000 Haitians, but also Hurricane Matthew, which made landfall on October 4, 2016. Hurricane Matthew was the worst to hit the country in 50 years, taking the lives of over 1,000 people and directly affecting 2.1 million Haitians. The hurricane was responsible for the internal displacement of 175,000 people and left 1.4 million in need of urgent humanitarian aid.



It is estimated that Hurricane Matthew resulted in damage that will cost Haiti $1,000,000,000, or about 11.4 percent of its gross domestic product. This includes extensive damage to Haiti's roadways, bridges, buildings and critical infrastructure. Additionally, Hurricane Matthew resulted in tremendous destruction of Haiti's agricultural sector with crop losses estimated to be $360 million.



[...]



The United States remains steadfast in assisting Haiti with its democratic development and providing necessary assistance for reconstruction, development, and hwnanitarian relief. Given the continued difficult conditions in Haiti, we urge your administration to extend the TPS designation, within all applicable rules and regulations, for Haitian nationals who are currently living in, and contributing to, our great country.



Sincerely [...]"



SL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Chile : President Bachelet addresses the issue of illegal Haitians in her country





On Monday at the National Palace, President Jovenel Moise, accompanied by Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant, received the President of the Republic of Chile, Michelle Bachelet https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20475-haiti-politics-official-visit-to-haiti-of-the-president-of-chile.html



The two Heads of State first held a bilateral meeting during which they discussed the strengthening of cooperation. President Moise then expressed his willingness to work with Chile to revitalize the political relations between the two states.



President Moise also took the opportunity to present his vision of the development of Haiti, the priority areas of intervention of his Administration, the main objectives he sets himself for his five-year term, and his desire to find lasting solutions to the problems that confront Haiti.



President Bachelet discussed with her counterpart the migratory crisis in Latin America in general and in particular the arrival in her country of tens of thousands of Haitians who arrive with tourist visas of 90 days and who remain illegally in Chile https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-18331-haiti-social-stampede-of-thousands-of-illegal-haitians-in-chile.html to escape the economic problems and lack of work in Haiti.



Aware of the situation Jovenel Moise said "they are about 60,000 and we will see what we can do to give them papers so that they can regularize their situation..."



President Bachelet's visit to the National Palace ended with the signing of a supplementary agreement to the basic agreement for scientific and technical cooperation for the equivalence of studies at the level of basic and medium-level education or of comparable level, within the institutions officially recognized and in conformity with the legislation in force, sanctioned by educational certificates, diplomas or other documents authentic, issued by the institutions of both countries.



"There are many Haitians in Chile, so we signed an agreement to standardize their studies," Moise said. "Foreign ministers from both countries agreed to recognize the equivalence of primary formations and secondary [...]"



Beyond the immigration crisis, the visit of Bachelet coincides with the organization in the countries of Latin America of the withdrawal of the blue helmets of the Minustah. Chile still has a dozen officers and 340 soldiers in Haiti, heavy machinery and several helicopters. "We have asked that Chile leave some equipment to our military and also train our young soldiers, as Ecuador did," said Senator Latourue stating "We must develop a national capacity so that in case of disasters, Haiti has its own force to begin work pending the arrival of international aid."



Following her meeting at the National Palace, President Bachelet, want to Cap-Haitien where she visited the Chilean troops of the "Batallon Carrera", a few weeks before the announced withdrawal of the Chilean Peace Forces https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20161-haiti-security-chilean-navy-will-withdraw-its-battalion-from-haiti.html



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-18331-haiti-social-stampede-of-thousands-of-illegal-haitians-in-chile.html



SL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - FLASH : Sabotage of the EDH grid at the Airport-Tabarre area





Monday Electricity of Haiti (EDH) deplored the acts of diversion of commercial and industrial lines, perpetrated on its electrical grid especially in the zones of the commune of Tabarre: Tabarre 27, street Sol Solon, road Mais Gate, Tabarre 36, Tabarre 48, Tabarre 23, acts that it describes as "sabotage" and informs of the consequences...



"[...] EDH informs the general population that these acts prevent it from guaranteeing 24-hour supply to commercial and industrial customers in the Airport-Tabarre area.



Indeed, some residents of Tabarre and Mais gate have organized to commit piracy by diverting lines for large industrial and commercial customers to increase their hours of power. These regrettable acts occur when EDH and its partners have put into operation a new 115,000 KV substation in Tabarre https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-18387-haiti-edh-a-high-tech-substation-in-tabarre.html



EDH warns all saboteurs and accomplices that they risks their lives, that of the population and that of the technicians of the EDHby perpetrating such acts. It recalls that such acts can cause unfortunate incidents such as electric shock, serious and disturbances on power lines, which can lead to general tripping, breakage of conductors etc...



In order to put an end to such acts and to restore the normal course of its circuits, the EDH will not hesitate to take the measures that it deems appropriate with the competent authorities.



The EDH is asking the public to denounce these acts of sabotage with a view to helping it gradually meet its program to increase the number of supply hours in the metropolitan area."



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-19185-haiti-notice-edh-intensification-of-the-disconnection-campaign.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-18387-haiti-edh-a-high-tech-substation-in-tabarre.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-9450-haiti-social-dark-picture-of-the-situation-to-the-edh.html



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Security : Moise to the 27th PNH promotion





Monday, at the Police Academy of Freres, President Jovenel Moise, accompanied by First Lady Martine Moise and Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant, attended the graduation ceremony of the 27th promotion of the National Police of Haiti (PNH), named "Promotion Elite", which has 946 police officers, including 80 women.



The ceremony was attended by, among others, the new Minister of Justice, Heidi Fortune, the Director General of the National Police of Haiti (PNH), Michel-Ange Gedeon, the Director of the National Police School, Bernard Elie, PNH High Command, faculty, relatives and friends of graduates.



The Head of State addressing to the new police officers declared "By the training you have received, you are prepared to carry out an important job for the country. As police officers, the Nation expects a lot from you, because you are one of the most important trades for the stability and progress of the country. Security is fundamental for our fellow citizens as well as for the permanence of the rule of law for the establishment of the latter for which several generations fought," by taking advantage to announce the opening of a hospital specially dedicated to the agents of the PNH.



He also invited this new promotion to carry out its task "Protecting and Serving" with seriousness and professionalism "[...] Protecting citizens, enforcing the rules of the road, welcoming the public, helping the peasants, to fight traffickers and criminals, to search for bandits and criminals, to execute the orders of justice, as police officers, you will be deployed on the territory to carry out a public service mission [...] I therefore ask you, in the performance of your duties, attributions and responsibilities to make use of the rules and principles that were transmitted to you during your training at the National Police School."



In his speech, Michel-Ange Gedeon expressed his deep satisfaction and urged the new police officers to be at the listening of the people reminding them "Never forget that it is the population that is your reason for being: always be ready for it !"



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - News : Zapping politics...





"The situation is catastrophic and unspeakable"

Monday, Pierre Simon Georges, the new Minister of the Environment visited several neighborhoods of the capital and notably the gullies Cerisier, Loe-Menard, Marchand, Fond-Brache and Tessoto the Morne l'Hopital, and declared that the situation was "catastrophic and unspeakable" referring to an emergency response, which will involve awareness-raising measures and evacuation, voluntary or forced, of some residents living in dangerous or unhealthy sites and the start of dredging and dam construction in gullies, as soon as the financial resources are unblocked.



New DG for agriculture

Engineer Agronome Carmel Andre Beliard, Minister of Agriculture of Natural Resources and Rural Development (MARNDR), proceeded to the installation of Dr. Branly Eugene (Doctorate in Soil Studies) as Director General https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20476-haiti-flash-jovenel-moise-makes-23-appointments-including-11-advisors.html He replaces the outgoing DG Arnoux Severin.



Defense : Herve Denis meets with his Chilean counterpart

Sunday, as part of the official visit of the President of Chile https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20490-haiti-chile-president-bachelet-addresses-the-issue-of-illegal-haitians-in-her-country.html the new Minister of Defense, Herve Denis, and his Chilean counterpart, Jose Antonio Gomez Urrutia, had a tete-a-tete. Besides issues related to the Minustah https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-20487-icihaiti-chile-it-s-time-to-refocus-our-strategy-dixit-bachelet.html , they discussed cooperation and capacity building of the two republics face the new threats. The visit to Haiti of the President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet on March 27, served as the framework for this meeting.



Haiti-Brazil Cooperation

Aviol Fleurant, the Minister of Planning and External Cooperation, received the visit of the Brazilian Ambassador accredited to Haiti, Fernando Vidal. The two men discussed issues of bilateral cooperation, migration policy and the issue of environment and water resources.



Inauguration of the National School Republic of Chile

Monday, the President of Chile Michelle Bachelet t, on an official visit to Haiti, inaugurated the National School Republic of Chile, destroyed during the earthquake of January 2010. The school building was rebuilt on 3 levels, to the costs of US $ 2 million offered in part by the Chilean Cooperation Agency. Welcoming the Chilean solidarity, Prime Minister Lafontant hopes that this fruitful cooperation will go further and extand to the continuing education of teachers, in order to maximizing the transmission of knowledge in the classes. President Bachelet took the opportunity to hand over a set of teaching materials to the students of the National School of the Republic of Chile.



Women's Entrepreneurship

Friday, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Chamber of Commerce of the Women Entrepreneurs of Haiti. (CCFEH), the Embassy of Canada to Haiti warmly congratulates the CCFEH for its efforts to promote women's entrepreneurship in Haiti.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Details added (first version posted on 11:16)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 28

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev attended the opening of the newly built 110/35/10 KV Sarijalar substation in Saatli district March 28.

Chairman of Azerishig Open Joint Stock Company Baba Rzayev informed the president on the work carried out there.

President Aliyev viewed the substation.

The president was informed that the old substation supplied electricity to 3,637 consumers in 8 villages, while the new facility will ensure reliable and sustainable supply of electricity to 7,222 consumers in 15 villages, including plants, trade centers, hospitals, schools and the facilities to be built under new infrastructure projects.

President Aliyev launched the substation.

The president viewed 35 KV and 10 KV Closed Distribution Installations.
Details added (first version posted on 11:36)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 28

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev attended a ceremony to launch water supply systems in the city of Saatli March 28.

Chairman of Azersu Gorkhmaz Huseynov informed the president of the work carried out under the project, which is a part of National Water Supply and Sanitation Project, co-funded by the Azerbaijani government and the World Bank.

The project is designed to improve water supply and sanitation services for 22,000 people in the city of Saatli. The project will see improvement of water supply of 17,000 people in seven villages in Saatli district.

The project featured the construction of two water reservoirs with the capacity of 5,000 cubic meters each, and a pumping station. A 137-km water distribution network was built to ensure drinking water supply to the entire city of Saatli.

The president then pressed a button to launch water supply systems.
After debate gets heated, assisted-suicide bill is defeated in Hawaii

From Life Site News

HONOLULU, Hawaii, March 27, 2017  The Hawaii state House of Representatives effectively killed a proposed Medical Aid in Dying Act last week.

The Hawaii State Senate Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Health recommended passage of SB-1129, but after heated debate the state's House Health Committee "deferred" it for changes and amendments.

Patterned after Oregons assisted-suicide law, the Medical Aid in Dying Act would transform killing a patient into a legal medical treatment for terminal illness.

SB-1129 expands its prototype Oregon law in many ways, including allowing certain nurses, not just licensed physicians, to both diagnose a patient's terminal illness and to prescribe the lethal drugs to kill him or her.

Other areas of pro-life concern include:

Patients who do not want to die may choose to be euthanized in order to no longer "burden" their family. Oregon's own records show nearly 50 percent of assisted suicides chose to be killed to avoid burdening their family, friends or caregivers.

Contrary to the report issued by the State Senate Committee, the bill applies not just to patients at the end of life. People with years or decades to live may qualify for assisted suicide.

Eligibility for assisted suicide is based on the patient's desire to die after a terminal diagnosis. But "terminal diagnosis" is defined in the bill as probable death within six months of non-treatment. In other words, controllable medical conditions such as diabetes, types of leukemia, conditions needing dialysis, disabilities requiring a ventilator, etc., would qualify for euthanasia.

Family members, especially heirs, may pressure patients who do not want to die to choose assisted suicide. The bill bans "coercion" but "does not prohibit someone from suggesting, advising, pressuring, or encouraging a patient to request prescribed suicide."

Insurers may apply financial pressure on patients to choose death. Both Oregon and California insurance companies denied coverage for medical treatment but approved coverage for euthanasia.

The bill does not require self-administration of the poisonous drugs, raising the possibility of involuntary action.

A witness testifying to the patient's desire to die and authorizing his/her "mercy" killing may legally be "an heir who will financially benefit from the patient's death."

The bill does not require a doctor present when the deadly dose is administered. In fact, there is no oversight. If the patient changed his or her mind, or even struggled against receiving the fatal injection, no one would know.

The lethal drugs are water soluble, so they could be given to a restrained or a sleeping person without consent.

The death certificate must "list the underlying terminal disease as the cause of death," and not the lethal drugs that actually killed the patient. The "manner" of death must be listed as "natural." The significance of this is that any questioning or possible criminal investigation is thwarted before it even begins, as a "natural" death by "disease" is unprosecutable.

Later questioning or inquiry is thwarted, too. The Department of Health's statistical record of legal compliance "shall not be a public record and may not be made available for inspection by the public," and one year after the records are made "all source documentation is destroyed."

There continues to be political pressure to expand "eligibility." Oregon has proposed bills that lengthen diagnoses to one year. New Hampshire has twice proposed making diseases eligible for assisted suicide if they merely may cause "premature death."

Besides, many times diagnoses of terminal illness are simply wrong. In 2000, Oregonian Jeanette Hall was given a terminal diagnosis of six months to live (based on non-treatment). She decided to be euthanized, but her doctor convinced her to be treated. Last year, she wrote, "This July, it will be 16 years since my diagnosis. If my doctor had believed in assisted suicide, I would be dead."

Furthermore, predictions of life expectancy are not an exact science but fallible educated guesses. John Norton was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease in the 1950s and told he had 3-5 painful years to live. Instead, the disease stopped progressing completely on its own. In 2012, Norton wrote, "If assisted suicide or euthanasia had been available to me in the 1950s, I would have missed the bulk of my life and my life yet to come."

Attorney Margaret Dore of Choice is an Illusion testified against the bill. "The act will encourage people with years or decades to live to throw away their lives," she predicted.

"The act is a recipe for elder abuse, especially for (heirs) in the middle class and above," Dore stated. "The act creates the perfect crime in which the death is allowed to occur in private, without oversight, and the death certificate gives perpetrators a 'Stay Out of Jail Free' card."

Dore also criticized the bill's lack of oversight, which she described as "prevent(ing) everyone, including law enforcement, from accessing information." She said patient identity "is not recorded in any manner" and "all source documentation is destroyed" after one year.

Under the proposed bill, Dore asked, "Will (the legislature) have access to the information needed to evaluate the situation, or will people be killed by their heirs and other perpetrators in a black hole of wishful thinking?"

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CNS: After intense debate, Hawaii lawmakers vote to defer suicide bill
TALENT SCIENCE

Two key HR trends are business-driven talent analytics and predictive talent models with HR analytics. Both of these concepts involve merging talent data from the pre- and post-recruitment process with business process

information. The focus is on predicting how and where to access talent based on the use of analytical tools and algorithms using what if scenarios. Nicole Cook explains how PeopleScout uses these insights.



PeopleScout implements Higher Insights, a proprietary business intelligence reporting platform that provides powerful analysis of program-specific data and metrics at a customised frequency and cadence aligned with our clients overall business objectives. Higher Insights custom reporting provides clients with data on candidate quality, candidate pipelining, process efficiencies, hiring volumes, trends, SLAs and KPIs, sourcing effectiveness, market research, compliance reporting and more. The platform also provides meaningful and relevant industry data on topics including competitive insights, regulatory and legislative changes, RPO, HR and talent acquisition trends, technology and innovation, economic market indicators such as unemployment data and more.

WHY RPO?

Nicole Cook outlines why RPO might be appealing:



 Results-focused An RPO model is unique in that we operate like a fully integrated internal model, but we have contractual KPIs aligned to our clients talent acquisition objectives that are non-negotiable. We can also flex up or down to meet recruitment demand easier than an internal team can.



 Flexibility Customers look to us to provide the flexibility to adapt to increases and decreases in demand, changing talent acquisition agendas and provide innovation. Our ability to be nimble and flexible in meeting the changing demands of our client is a requirement.



 End-to-end services HR directors in the APAC market arent simply looking for a transactional RPO any more. Were being engaged to manage graduate recruiting, redesign employee value proposition programs, manage diversity agendas, run internal consulting projects or provide the entire HR function itself (HRO).

PEOPLESCOUT

PeopleScout, a TrueBlue company, is a Total Workforce Solution provider trusted by businesses around the world for Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO), Managed Service Provider (MSP) and blended programs. PeopleScout provides coste effective delivery of scalable, integrated and highly customised recruitment solutions to more than 70 countries worldwide. Learn more at PeopleScout, a TrueBlue company, is a Total Workforce Solution provider trusted by businesses around the world for Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO), Managed Service Provider (MSP) and blended programs. PeopleScout provides coste effective delivery of scalable, integrated and highly customised recruitment solutions to more than 70 countries worldwide. Learn more at peoplescout.com.

>As the Australian workforce undergoes dramatic change, now is the time to rethink traditional recruitment methodsGlobalisation. An ageing workforce. Fundamental shifts in how, where and when people are undertaking work. These are just some of the key disruptors shaking up the workforce of 2017. At a time when businesses need to think even more strategically about their workforce mix, and as HR teams are under pressure to deliver more results with less, its understandable some may feel daunted.Unfortunately, research suggests that the impact of workforce change is only just starting to be felt. Nicole Cook, Managing Director ANZ , PeopleScout, cites just one example: the rise of the contingent workforce (eg temporary, contractor and statement of work engagements). This development has challenged businesses to think through creative ways of attracting and engaging these workers, to think through the mix of workers required to deliver necessary outcomes and to revisit the policies needed to support a contingent workforce.We have first-hand experience working with clients in media and advertising  industries that rely on the freelance economy for results, says Cook. Your recruitment approach in these industries is passive strategic sourcing and you must be prepared to present a compelling employee value proposition [EVP] to keep good talent. Traditional views of turnover metrics may also be challenged. What is an acceptable turnover rate in this new way of working?In addition to this, Australias population is changing, and it will soon have a very real effect on the countrys workforce. According to McCrindle research, we should start to notice these differences by 2020 when the countrys median age will be 40 (up from just 29 in 1980), and there will be more 65-year-olds than one-year-olds.The population is ageing while young people continue to flow into the workforce from secondary and tertiary education, says Cook. For people in talent acquisition, this means balancing the talents and desires of five distinct generations of workers.Then theres globalisation, which has had a profound impact on workforces and the employer landscape throughout the APAC region, particularly in Australia and New Zealand.The rise of multinational corporations and foreign investment has provided robust demand for talent, says Cook. Australian companies investing internationally have also created a demand for Australian managerial talent to work outside the country for a significant period.Globalisation is also a major factor in the description of jobs being created in the Australian economy. Cook cites an example: a consumer in Chicago can order a pair of boots from an Australian company on his computer and expect them to arrive on his doorstep in a matter of hours. In addition to those working in the factory in India, this is only possible due to those who work in global supply chain management, others who work processing the internet orders, and those who transfer those US$ being paid to A$ returned as profit.The nature of jobs in the global marketplace is constantly evolving along with technology and the market itself, says Cook, who adds that the classic supply and demand model of local talent filling the needs of local employers is obsolete.Its no surprise that Cook has found that even for organisations with sophisticated and well-staffed HR departments, these challenges can be daunting. A possible solution may lie in partnering with a reputable recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) provider, such as PeopleScout.PeopleScout operated in the ANZ region as HRX from 2005 through 2015 and became fully integrated into the global PeopleScout organisation in 2016. Cook says the firms global reach is important. It allows PeopleScout to offer Total Workforce Solutions  which blend Managed Service Provider (MSP) with RPO in one integrated program. It also enables the firm to provide workforce planning when there are no formal programs in place; and to draw on deep expertise in the strategic elements of talent acquisition, such as championing and integrating diversity programs and succession planning. This is important to a number of sectors, as many APAC organisations need to access talent from outside the country or region.The term Total Workforce Solutions can mean different things to different clients depending on their needs, but Cook says for PeopleScout the term implies there is a trend for organisations to look at a more comprehensive view of their workforce needs (executive search, full-time professional hiring, contingent and labour hires) from end to end.Weve seen talent acquisition get more attention at the board levels; therefore, our solutions have to demonstrate innovation and differentiation in the approach, says Cook. Being a part of a global organisation like PeopleScout means that we now have access to a global team to extend our reach and keep us tightly linked to innovations in this space.The evolution of the RPO industry is another consideration for talent acquisition leaders. BPO analysts NelsonHall predicts that RPO will be the fastest growing service in the HR arena by 2020 and that the Asia-Pacific and Latin America markets will emerge as high growth. The global RPO market will help companies that require the flexibility to access talent from different geographies.Total Workforce Solutions have also been on the minds of RPO buyers for a number of years. The market is now maturing and PeopleScout is finding more talent acquisition professionals interested in the possibility of a blended solution.Many of the key drivers for RPO are directly related to the key drivers for Total Workforce Solutions, including the changing world of work, talent scarcity, demand for improved analytics and technology and need for improved ROI, says Cook.Cook adds that employer brand positioning is a key trend in the talent acquisition space. Due to so many employers competing for the best talent, RPO programs play a crucial role in effective employer brand positioning and candidate experience, and can assist with strategic talent consulting and long-term workforce planning.Lastly, RPO programs  as well as Total Workforce Solutions  help buyers increase online access to program analytics, workforce planning and labour market data to boost visibility into relevant market dynamics.Despite its popularity, some misconceptions about RPO remain. One is that theres a highly defined client profile. This is not the case, says Cook.Were seeing interest from places that wouldnt have considered our services five to eight years ago. We have extremely highquality people that were able to supply to our clients who are skilled at understanding the nuances of their business and trained to get fast results in recruitment.The key, she adds, is being able to develop customised solutions to clients needs.Now that were part of PeopleScout, much of this is driven by our brand pillars of technology and innovation, where were able to leverage the global infrastructure that comes when you are making 28% of all RPO hires around the world.
While Aaron McEwan of CEB is an advocate of the use of HR data analytics, he uses the saying garbage in, garbage out to highlight the risk.



About 54% of heads of HR or heads of data analytics are concerns about the data quality, he said.



Its also critical to understand what decisions HR is trying to shape with the data. Where is the organisation going and what data is going to help inform decisions about that direction?



Thats the most important thing: if you are asking the wrong questions you are going to be collecting data that doesnt actually support the decisions you are trying to make, McEwan said.



As to the human element involved in data-based decision-making, McEwan agrees there is a genuine risk of poor choices being made.



There is always a human element both in the selection of what data we choose to analyse and then also in the analysis of that data, he said.



However, the alternative  and the traditional means by which decisions were made  is not ideal.



Traditionally, you would have had a group of leaders with their own personal biases sitting around making subjective decisions about peoples future in terms of pay rises, promotions and so on. The addition of objective data, even if its not perfectly objective, I think increases the accuracy of these decisions.



The key, he added, is evidence-based collection practices and evidence-based analysis practices to ensure at least some of the subjectivity is minimised.



Associate professor Uri Gal from the Discipline of Business Information Systems at the University of Sydney Business School, suggests algorithms might be rejecting candidates without HR being aware of it.



Ostensibly, the process is meant to be objective and rational, Gal said.



But the problem is that algorithms are not really objective in the sense that collecting big data actually involves a significant amount of human judgment.



Gal cited an example. Consider a manager who wants to assess the performance of his or her employees over the previous year.



There are a number of ways which the manager can do that, including collecting data on how much revenue they have generated for the company over the last 12 months, how many clients they have interacted with or how many leads they have generated.



So we have three data points to access what we call performance, but why these three? We could have used any other combination of data points, said Gal.



He suggested other alternatives could equally be valid, such as feedback from customers, feedback from colleagues, how much time they spent on email, or how many days they were absent from work.



Further, when algorithms rely on inaccurate, biased or unrepresentative data, they may systematically undermine racial and ethnic minorities, women and other historically disadvantaged groups.



There are a variety of different data points we could have used and the choice of data points inevitably involves human judgment, said Gal.



So its not really objective in the sense that people often think when they are talking about algorithmic decision-making.



Gal does not dismiss analytics and said there is room for having certain technologies in place to assist people making decisions. However, he urges a more aware approach in what these technologies are being used for.



Its fine to have certain tools in place to help go through large amounts of data because computers and algorithms are more effective at that than human beings. But I think it is probably wise to maintain some sort of human oversight over this process.




Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 28

Trend:

Representatives of Azerbaijans Kapital Bank participated in an international conference in Dubai March 22-23 at the invitation of the American Bankers Association, the bank said in a message.

Presentation of opening of the MENA (Middle East and North Africa region) branch of the association was held for the event participants, according to the message.

The best banks of the region participated in the forum entitled "The Future of Correspondent Banking within the event.

A council of the American Bankers Association is represented in each region. The new council MENA, the main purpose of which will be to mull important regional issues, was also presented at this forum, said Emin Mammadov, board member, chief financial officer at the Kapital Bank.

Being one of Azerbaijans leading banks, we will use the experience of other countries and try to contribute to the development of the country and the region.

Kapital Bank is one of Azerbaijans biggest banks. The bank renders services in 90 branches and four offices throughout the country. It has the most extensive service network.

Kapital Bank successfully cooperates with many local and international organizations in various fields. The bank intends to expand cooperation with international financial institutions in various fields in the future.

Detailed information about the bank's products and services can be obtained on www.kapitalbank.az, as well as by calling the Customer Service Center: 196.
(NBC News) A former FedEx driver and the founder and chief investment officer of a local management firm was sentenced to more than two years in prison for stealing more than half a million dollars from local investors. Joshua Knaup, 41, opened up an investment management fund, EquityPro Capital, in Downtown San Diego after he lost his job at FedEx.

In 2013, he claimed to have started The F2 Fund and duped victims into investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in the non-existent hedge fund. In one instance, he convicted Bankers Hill couple, Lois and Henry Mathews to invest $240,000 during a celebration for the couples wedding anniversary.

To read this article:
Finland is becoming increasingly international and there are now a record number of people living here with foreign, non-European backgrounds. Some have come to Finland because of marriage, others have come here to study or work, and some have received asylum due to refugee status. In addition to work, participating in education at various levels is the best way to integrate and become an active part of Finnish society. It is therefore very important that these people have free access to education, at all levels, here in Finland.

Election Talk gives candidates running in the municipal elections a chance to discuss their views on the increasingly international aspect of Finnish society, as well as how this will affect their work if they are elected. Voting will take place on 9 April 2017, with advance voting between 29 March and 4 April. The opinions expressed in this column are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Helsinki Times.

Many universities and other educational institutions are planning to introduce high tuition fees in several degree programs for people who do not have Finnish or European citizenship. Tuition fees of 13,000, 15,000 and 18,000 EUR per academic year have been mentioned. Remarkably, these fees are also going to be applied to people who already live in Finland but do not yet have permanent residency. To obtain permanent residency or citizenship it is required that a person has lived at least 4-5 years in Finland.

The introduction of such tuition fees is an ill-conceived idea that, in the long run, will promote social inequality and widen social clefts both in Finnish society and globally. In addition, such fees are unlikely to strengthen the position of Finnish universities and educational institutions. The fees will deter many gifted non-European students from coming to Finland, while students that have the economic resources to pay such fees will most likely favor higher-ranking international universities elsewhere.

The introduction of tuition fees will make it very difficult or even impossible for people that lack permanent residency to train or complete their education. In turn, this will greatly affect their chances of fully integrating and finding jobs in Finland. This doesnt fit in with the rhetoric of facilitating the integration of people with foreign citizenship that reside in the country.

So far many well-qualified foreign students have come to Finland to complete their studies at master's level. Many of the most talented have subsequently started to work successfully in research groups or the Finnish industry. Many of them have contributed substantially to research and development here. Also, the number of students with good qualifications that come here to build on previous studies will probably be radically reduced with the introduction of these tuition fees.

For these reasons I appeal to decision-makers in both the educational institutions and the government to abolish these tuition fees. They are not beneficial to Finland's future development. Introducing such fees will lead to a lose-lose situation: Brilliant people of foreign origin will be delayed or unable to develop high-level skills, and Finnish society will lose talent that is essential to the future of this country.



Peter Hackman is a Swedish-speaking Finn living in Helsinki. An adjunct professor and researcher in the biomedical field, Peter is a candidate in the 2017 Helsinki municipal elections. He represents the Swedish People's Party of Finland.

Peter believes that Finland should develop in a more global direction, with increased connections to the rest of the world: It is very important that the integration of all resident non-Finns in Finland is efficient. There should not be any unnecessary obstacles in the way of finding work or study positions for any residents here. One example of these obstacles is the high tuition fees planned for people without Finnish citizenship or permanent residency.

Candidate number 178 SFP/RKP in the Helsinki municipal elections
Sir,  From Saturdays BBC programme about Vera Lynn and newspaper reports of her insistence on visiting the troops in Burma, the aspect that comes over so strongly is a simple devotion to what she saw as her duty.

Quite amazingly, she was performing almost within sight of a very fluid front line.

As commanding officer of RAF Ranchi, near Calcutta, my late father would have been aware of Veras travel arrangements and probably all too cogniscent of the loss of Major General Orde Wingate the previous month, perhaps due to someones miscalculation about flying during the raging monsoon referred to in the BBC programme.

At the end of her 1944 Burma trip Vera presented a signed 78rpm record to her British army driver. My photograph shows it alongside Veras very latest album just issued to mark her milestone 100th birthday.  Yours faithfully,

Jim Munro

Blandy Road, Henley
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 28

Trend:

Increasing the non-oil exports is one of the key tasks of the coming years, because everything is going in a positive direction in the oil and gas sector, said Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev as he addressed a conference on the development of the cotton-growing industry, held in Saatli District.

Our great Southern Gas Corridor project is being successfully implemented, he said. And this is a historic project. But our main goal is to increase our non-oil exports.

The head of state noted that traditional industries of agriculture must be developed.

We are talking not only about the cotton-growing industry, he said. We as well made a significant turning point both in tobacco-growing and sericulture last year.

Tobacco production is increasing, Ilham Aliyev said. Now we are seriously engaged in the export of dry tobacco, contracts have been signed. The development of viticulture is rapidly growing. Wine products export must also be boosted and is already growing. Sericulture is developing rapidly. The export of non-oil products, particularly the agricultural products is the main task for us at the current stage of our countrys development.

We are already creating trading houses in a number of countries. The Made in Azerbaijan brand has already spread to the world, he said. Now the export of Azerbaijani goods is the most important issue for me in all political contacts and during the meetings with my counterparts.

I raise this issue and where there is political support, of course, there are new opportunities for our entrepreneurs, President Aliyev added. Entrepreneurs should be active too, and enter new markets themselves. The Azerbaijani government is helping them.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar.28

Trend:



The Council of State of Italy gave the green light to build the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), RIA Novosti reported.



The Council of State is Italy's top administrative court, arbitrating cases concerning the State administration and the government.



In its ruling, the top administrative court said TAP's environmental impact permit, awarded in 2014, had met all the conditions needed.



TAP is a part of the Southern Gas Corridor which is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union.



TAP project envisages transportation of gas from the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas and condensate field to the EU countries.



The pipeline will be connected to the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) on the Turkish-Greek border, run through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Italy's south.

TAP will be 878 kilometers in length (Greece 550 km, Albania 215 km, Adriatic Sea 105 km, and Italy 8 km). Its highest point will be 1,800 meters in Albanias mountains, while its lowest point will be 820 meters beneath the sea.
A man with 103 convictions was on bail for seven offences when he raped a woman in a Dublin hotel room, a court has heard.

John Gavin (29) was jailed for six years yesterday for raping the woman in Handel's Hotel on Fishamble Street in 2012.

The woman had helped him get a room in the hotel by saying she was staying there too after staff initially refused to give Gavin a room.

The court heard Gavin later denied rape. He told gardai that the victim was a "lying b*****d" and a "dirty mare", and said she had "jumped" on him.

Gavin, of Belcamp Halting Site, Coolock, had pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to the rape.

Mr Justice Paul Coffey imposed a six-year sentence, which was backdated to July 2016, when Gavin went into custody on this offence.

He also ordered that Gavin be registered as a sex offender.

Gavin has previous convictions for violent disorder, possession of drugs, criminal damage and other offences. He was on bail for seven separate charges at the time of the rape.

Pauline Walley, prosecuting, told the court that the victim got chatting to Gavin at a city centre venue.

They spent the day drinking and taking drugs before the victim left to go home at around midnight.

She became aware Gavin was having trouble getting a hotel room and agreed to help as it was on her way home.

They went to Jurys Inn but were refused and directed to Handel's.

The court heard she kissed Gavin in the lobby of Jurys and had kissed him earlier.

Pleaded

She did this because she wanted to show she had no problem with Travellers.

Gavin was given a room in Handel's and the woman went up with him.

In the room she saw Gavin take off his trousers and went to leave but he jumped on her.

He raped the woman as she pleaded with him to stop. He made so much noise that the residents in the next room made a complaint. The woman then left the hotel crying and told the receptionist there was a "scumbag" up in the room.

Gardai were alerted and went to the hotel the next morning. Gavin was gone and the room was trashed. He was arrested a short time later.

The victim wrote in an impact report that she did not think she would ever move on.

"I still worry he will attack or rape me again because I reported it to the guards," she wrote. "He has ruined my life and changed me from the happy person I once was."

Gavin wept as defence counsel Fearghal Kavanagh told the court he was barely able to read or write.

Mr Kavanagh also pointed to a report that found that his risk of sexual re-offending was low.
The three men captured on CCTV shortly after the vicious attack in Dublin city centre. Photo: RTE CRIMECALL

Gardai are seeking these three men in connection with a vicious assault in Dublin city centre.

The attack, which took place on South William Street last November, was captured on CCTV.

The recording featured on RTE's Crimecall last night and shows a group of men approach two other males sitting outside a premises on the street.

The gang suddenly launch a brutal volley of punches and kicks against their victims.

A bouncer is seen trying to chase the attackers away, but the thugs show no mercy as they deliver more blows to the two men's heads.

Gardai have asked for public assistance to identify the attackers in the incident which took place on November 5, 2016, just after midnight.

A CCTV still shows three of the alleged attackers walking away, clearly showing two of their faces.

One of the men wearing a blue zip-up jacket has short brown hair and is clean-shaven.

The other has a darker but similar hairstyle, a light black jacket and grey jumper.

The third man was wearing a black hoodie with a red cap underneath.

Anyone with any information is asked to phone Crimecall on 1800 40 50 60 or any garda station.
Gardai outside the flat in Pophams Road where Nicola Collins was brutally murdered

Neighbours have spoken of their horror after a young mum was found beaten to death in a city flat on Mother's Day.

Gardai are treating the death of Nicola Collins (39), a mother-of-three, as murder. A post-mortem revealed she died from a brutal and sustained attack in which she received multiple head and neck injuries.

The grim discovery was made in a flat above the Gala Xpress convenience store in Popham's Road, Farranree, Cork, shortly after 3am yesterday.

The young mother was pronounced dead at the scene. Her body was taken to Cork University Hospital (CUH).

Arrested

Gardai were alerted by an occupant of the premises. Officers from Mayfield Garda Station rushed to the scene and a 42-year-old man was taken into custody.

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He was arrested under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act and taken to Mayfield Garda Station for questioning. Gardai must either release or charge him before the end of today.

The man, who is known to the deceased, is from Charleville in north Cork, but has been resident in Cork city for some time.

The flat in which Ms Collins was found has been rented for the past year by a middle-age man. It is accessed by a door to the side of the convenience store.

It is understood she would occasionally spend nights there, particularly at weekends. Ms Collins, who was separated, lived in a flat off Clashduv Road, Togher, on the other side of Cork city. Her body was examined at 11am yesterday at the scene by assistant state pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster. A full post-mortem was later conducted at CUH.

Gardai upgraded the investigation to a murder inquiry under Supt Michael Comyn immediately after the post-mortem results were available.

Ailish Coker, who lives next to the flat where Ms Collins was found, said she was "totally shocked" by the news.

"I didn't really know her but I would see her coming in and out of the flat every so often. She seemed like a very nice girl," she said.

"It is absolutely awful what happened. I'm still shaking. I just can't believe it to be honest. It is such a quiet area."

Cllr Ken Collins lives only four doors away from the flat.

"It is a shocking thing to wake up to on a Monday morning," he said. "This is a very quiet area. There are a lot of elderly people living around here and it has shocked everyone. All I can say is that my thoughts and prayers go to the family of that poor young woman."

Ms Collins is understood to have also spent time in Cork city and Kerry over the past 10 years and was a graduate of Cork College of Commerce.

"She was a lovely person," said one Togher resident. "She was very quiet and private and pretty much kept to herself."

The man, who asked only to be called Colm, said he had seen Ms Collins around her flat in the past week.

Locals were appalled to hear the news of her death, he said.

"It's desperate for any family. God help them," he added. "I don't know much about Nicola. We knew she lived here alone so everyone kind of kept an eye out for her.

"The neighbours here are very good and everyone looks out for everyone else.

"I think she has been living here for about two years or so."

Another neighbour, who also asked to be unnamed, said Ms Collins would always greet people with a smile or a nod.

"She was very nice but was quiet. She kept to herself," they said. "But when you'd meet her out she would always wave or smile at you."

It is understood Ms Collins has an adult son and family members living in the Kerry area. Last night, Garda Technical Bureau experts continued a painstaking forensic and technical examination of the Popham's Road flat.

Suspicious

Gardai also began door-to-door inquiries to determine if anyone had seen or heard anything suspicious. They particularly want to talk to anyone who saw Ms Collins on Sunday.

The flat involved is located less than 30m from the busy Popham's Road post office. CCTV security camera footage from local business premises is also expected to play a critical role in the investigation.

Locals said Cork Fire Brigade attended a reported blaze at the flat earlier this month. Ms Collins is understood to have been out socialising with a friend at the weekend. She is believed to have travelled to Popham's Road sometime on Sunday evening.

Gardai suspect she sustained her fatal injuries sometime between 11.30pm on Sunday and 3am on Monday.
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 28

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

Elite Control Systems has announced that the major oil and gas operator BP has renewed its contract with the company to provide comprehensive process control software systems and ongoing support in Azerbaijan, said the message on the website of Elite Control Systems.

For almost 20 years, Elite Control Systems has provided a fully operational, customized process software control system, and ongoing technical support for Chirag offshore production platform on the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oilfield in the Caspian Sea.

Elite can access the platforms fire and gas control system remotely from its headquarters in Livingston, Scotland. As a result, the automated control systems used to operate Chirag operate smoothly, and allow production to continue without interruption. During this period, Elite Control Systems has also supplied technical guidance with regard to, for example, system upgrades and adjustments to the platform to enhance safety and efficiencies.

The renewal of this contract to continue to maintain these systems and provide around-the-clock control support for Chirag is a real testament to the long and mutually productive relationship that we share with this highly valued customer in Azerbaijan, said Ewan McAllister, Technical Director for Elite Control Systems.

The proven oil reserves of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block near one billion tons.

The shareholders in the project are BP (operator of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli, 35.78 percent), Chevron (11.28 percent), Inpex (10.96 percent), AzACG (11.65 percent), Statoil (8.55 percent), Exxon (8 percent), TPAO (6.75 percent), Itochu (4.3 percent) and ONGC (2.72 percent).

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 28

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) has reasserted that it is the only body authorized by United Nations resolutions to export crude oil and oil products from Libya, said the message on NOCs website.

NOC confirmed that term contracts covering the entire production for 2017 for all Libyan crude grades have already been entered with 16 international oil companies.

Only these companies are legally contracted to buy Libyan crude oil and to charter shipping tankers from Libyan ports for 2017. The companies are the following: ENI, Total, OMV, Repsol, Rosneft, LukOil, Cepsa, Saras, API, Glencore, Socar, Unipec, Vitol, Gunvor, Petraco, and BB Energy, said the message.

NOC identified a group of individuals abusing the current status of political division in Libya by entering into illegal contracts with unknown or unqualified companies.

NOC said these individuals, and others associated with them, have offered Libyan crude oil for sale at huge discounts below the Official Selling Price (OSP). If implemented, the losses to the state of Libya of these contracts would be hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue.

NOC warned the maritime market and crude oil market that these contracts are illegal and that entering into them may lead to serious legal consequences and financial losses. NOC does not accept responsibly or liability whatsoever for any loss or damage incurred as the result of entering into contracts with unauthorized individuals, said the company.

NOC also confirmed that all crude oil exports are paid by documentary letters of credit, and at the Official Selling Price (OSP) without any discount.

Earlier, NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla.said that Libya plans to bring its oil production to 1.1 million barrels per day by August.

Our production today is 700,000 barrels per day day and we work hard in order to reach 800,000 barrels per day before the end of April. We will reach 1.1 million barrels per day next August, added Sanalla.

Alongside with Iran and Nigeria, Libya was also exempted from OPEC oil output cut deal reached last year in Vienna.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
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.
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 28

Trend:

Caspian Oil&Gas 2017, the 24th International Caspian Oil and Gas exhibition, the largest energy sector event in the Caspian region, will take place from 31 May  to 3 June 2017 at Baku Expo Center, Iteca Caspian said March 28.

As a recognized international platform and the key event in the regions oil and gas industry, the exhibition has been bringing together senior level directors every year to discuss key oil and gas projects in the Caspian region and ensure energy security.

The annual participation of Mr. Ilham Aliyev, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, in the exhibitions opening ceremony testifies to its high status. The Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) both show invaluable support for Caspian Oil&Gas.

Companies from China, Georgia, Germany, Iran, Russia, The Netherlands, Turkey, Uzbekistan, etc. will take part in this years exhibition. The companies which participating in the exhibition will demonstrate innovative technologies in oil production and transportation of energy resources, provision of oil and gas storage systems, services, existing and future oil and gas projects in the region, and much more. The national pavilions will be performed by Italy and Germany.

The events status is consolidated by its line-up of sponsors. Traditionally exhibitions General Sponsor is SOCAR, the Gold Sponsor is BP, and the Silver Sponsor is TP Azerbaijan. Among the Bronze Sponsors are Azeri MI, Baku Steel Company, AZFEN, Caspian Drilling Company Ltd, Caspian Marine Services (CMS), Global Energy Azerbaijan, RussNeft, SOCAR POLYMER, TEKFEN Construction, SIMONE and other. The exhibitions General Media Partner is Caspian Energy International Media Group.

Issues of further development for Azerbaijans oil and gas industry in todays realities, Azerbaijans role in maintaining energy supplies to Europe, ensuring environmental and industrial safety, and other subjects will be covered at the international Caspian Oil and Gas Conference, which will take place from 1-2 June at the JW Marriott Absheron Baku.

The exhibition and conference provide suppliers with the opportunity to talk to customers and colleagues, to present technologies and services in action, to acquire useful business contacts, and to get new information and technologies, expanding the opportunities for international collaboration in the oil and gas sector. The organizers of the exhibition and conference are ITE Group and its partner Iteca Caspian.
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 28

By Maksim Tsurkov  Trend:

Azerbaijan exported 590.35 million cubic meters of gas to Turkey in January 2017 as compared to 594.46 million cubic meters exported in 2016, the Turkish Energy Market Regulatory Authority said in a report posted on its website.

Azerbaijan supplied 6.48 billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey in 2016 versus 6.17 billion cubic meters in 2015.

According to the report, Turkey imported 5.91 billion cubic meters of gas in January 2017, out of which 4.21 billion cubic meters were imported via pipelines and 1.71 billion cubic meters accounted for the liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports.

Azerbaijan's share in Turkey's total gas imports was 9.98 percent in January 2017.

Turkey imports gas from Azerbaijan via the South Caucasus Pipeline (Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum).

Turkey has a contract for the annual purchase of 6.6 billion cubic meters of gas from Azerbaijan's offshore Shah Deniz gas and condensate field.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 28

By Maksim Tsurkov  Trend:

Turkey imported 2.83 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia in January 2017 as compared to 2.79 billion cubic meters in 2016, according to a report of Turkeys Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK).

Russia delivered 24.54 billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey in 2016 as compared to 26.78 billion cubic meters in 2015.

The report says that Turkey imported 5.91 billion cubic meters of gas in January 2017, 4.21 billion cubic meters of which were imported via pipelines, and 1.71 billion cubic meters accounted for import of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Russias share in Turkeys total import of gas was 47.84 percent in January 2017.

Russia supplies gas to Turkey via the Blue Stream and the Trans-Balkan pipelines. Blue Stream is a major trans-Black Sea gas pipeline with the capacity of 16 billion cubic meters per year that carries natural gas from Russia into Turkey.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 28

Trend:

Azercell Telecom LLC has set up Barama Media Center for students in cooperation with Baku State University. The Center established in the faculty of Journalism is aimed to support the students to realize their innovative ideas, organize training events, workshops and interesting meetings and allow students from other faculties to present their projects in Barama Media Center.

Imran Baghirov, Head of Barama Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center, stated at the opening ceremony that Media Center will provide vast opportunities for the students to enhance their knowledge and skills. Azercell Telecom regularly conducts projects aimed for the development of the youth. The company has signed memorandum of cooperation with several educational institutions and established special laboratories. Under the Student Bursary program of the company, capable youth studying at Azerbaijani universities get a great opportunity to receive special bursary from Azercell and take internship at different divisions of the company, he added.

Based on the memorandum of cooperation signed last year between Azercell and Baku State University, the company started to pay monthly stipend to third-and fourth-year students with excellent performance results. The qualifying students get a chance to receive a monthly scholarship in amount of AZN 200 for one academic year and take part in various company events.

Barama Media Center was established with the support of Azercell Telecom LLC and Pasha Bank.

For more information, please contact [email protected]

The leader of the mobile communication industry of Azerbaijan and the biggest investor in the non-oil sector Azercell Telecom LLC was founded in 1996. With 48% share of Azerbaijans mobile market Azercells network covers 80% of the territory and 99,8% of population of the country.

Currently, 4,5 million subscribers choose Azercell services. Azercell has pioneered an important number of innovations in Azerbaijan, including GSM technology, advance payment system, 24/7 Customer Care, online customer services, GPRS/EDGE, M2M, MobilBank, one-stop- shop service offices Azercell Express, mobile e-service ASAN signature, etc. Azercell deployed first 4G  LTE services in Azerbaijan in 2012.

According to the results of mobile network quality surveys of Global Wireless Solutions company and international systems specialized in wireless coverage mapping such as Opensignal and Testmy.net, Azercells network demonstrated the best results among the mobile operators of Azerbaijan.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 2

By Elena Kosolapova  Trend:

Kazakhstan is not able to cut oil output more, Kazakh Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev told journalists March 28, Kazakhstan Today reported.

We can only increase oil output, Bozumbayev said, answering the question as to what extent can Kazakhstan reduce oil output.

In December 2016, OPEC and non-OPEC producers reached their first deal since 2001 to curtail oil output jointly and ease a global glut after more than two years of low prices.

Non-OPEC producers such as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, Sudan, and South Sudan agreed to reduce output by 558,000 bpd starting from Jan. 1, 2017 for six months, extendable for another six months, to take into account prevailing market conditions and prospects.

OPEC agreed to slash the output by 1.2 million barrels per day from Jan. 1, with top exporter Saudi Arabia cutting as much as 486,000 bpd.

Within the deal with OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers, Kazakhstan has committed to cut oil output by 20,000 barrels per day from the November 2016 level from Jan. 1, 2017.

Bozumbayev noted that in January, Kazakhstan over-fulfilled its obligations within the deal.

In February and March, oil output was a little higher, and it is expected to decrease again in April.

According to Kazakh Statistics Committee, Kazakhstans oil and gas condensate production increased by 4.4 percent to 13.69 million tons in January-February 2017 compared to the same period of 2016.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 28

By Elena Kosolapova  Trend:

All passengers of Kazakhstan's national carrier Air Astana, who will be visiting Astana during EXPO 2017, will be able to attend the event for free, head of the airlines Baku office Daken Shemet said Mar. 28 at a road show dedicated to EXPO 2017.

Kazakh capital, Astana, will host the exhibition on June 10-Sept. 10. The EXPO 2017 theme is Future Energy.

Passengers should register their air tickets on the airlines website in order to get free tickets to EXPO 2017.

Shemet reminded that Air Astana operates three direct flights per week from Baku to Astana and Almaty. The company will carry out four Baku-Almaty flights per week in the summer, according to him.

Air Astanas passenger traffic from and to Baku in 2016 was about 35,000 people, Shemet said.
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Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Mar. 28

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

Turkmenistans President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and Slovenias Foreign Minister Karl Viktor Erjavec discussed the two countries cooperation, the Turkmen government said in a message.

Importance of intergovernmental agreements and other normative legal documents, signed during the Turkmen presidents official visit to Slovenia in May 2015, was noted during the meeting.

Ashgabat also hosted a meeting of the joint intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation, during which the Slovenian companies expressed intention to expand their participation in Turkmen market.

Trade, telecommunications, transportation, air communication, freight traffic, agriculture and food industry are among priority areas of partnership between Turkmenistan and Slovenia.

Turkmenistan, which ranks the fourth in the world for its big gas reserves, is studying the possibility of exporting its hydrocarbons to the European market. To this end, a project is being developed to lay the Trans-Caspian pipeline to the shores of Azerbaijan, from where the Turkmen gas can be delivered to Turkey and further to Europe.

Negotiations on the project are underway between the EU, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan since 2011.

In late July 2014, during the visit of Slovenian President Borut Pahor to Ashgabat, the two sides expressed readiness to cooperate in ensuring global energy security.
Are Indians racist? The simple answer to that, it sadly seems, is Yes. Of course we are! What else can explain this violent animosity towards Africans as though all people of a certain skin colour belong to one large continent that doesnt even deserve to be thought of as different countries.

Take the latest incident in Greater Noida as an example. In a tragic incident, a teenage boy studying in class 12, who had been missing since Friday night, was found on Saturday morning in a highly intoxicated state, and later died of a suspected drug overdose.

A reasonable response to the situation would have been to try and find out how a teenage boy was getting his hands on intoxicants and drugs; and to do something to prevent others like him from falling prey to such dangerous addictions.

Instead, neighbours decided that it must have been the Africans who lived nearby that must be responsible, even setting off a malicious rumour that they may have killed and eaten up the boy. They even filed a police complaint against the Nigerian students, who were arrested for murder, and eventually let off due to lack of evidence.

At a protest march over the teenagers death, in which the crowd shouted slogans against Africans and demanded that those behind the death of the boy be arrested, the crowd became inflamed at the sight of some black people doing their evening shopping at a nearby market. The mob descended upon them, beating them up, and caused one Nigerian woman to be found in a hospital later that night.

As a people obsessed with a Fair-And-Lovely complexion, Indians cut a sorry picture when it comes to people who dont look like us, whatever that may mean in a country as diverse as India. Just ask anyone from the North-East living anywhere else in India about it. But somehow, when it comes to black people, the discrimination is harsher, tinged with an unreasonable fear that appears to manifest as hysterical violence.

This is not the first time such a shameful incident has occurred. At least six Africans were attacked in south Delhi in May last year in separate incidents, after 23-year-old Masonda Ketada Olivier, a French teacher, was stoned to death over an altercation about hiring an auto rickshaw.

From being called hapshi, negro and any number of racial slurs to being thought of as drug traffickers; and being accused of everything from prostitution to cannibalism; black people in India continue to be at the receiving end of many nasty forms of violence.

But is that even something to be surprised by? In a country where violence based on caste, religion, gender, sexual preferences (and any other difference one can think of) has become so commonplace, racism is entirely unsurprising. That famed Indian hospitality, advertised as athithi devo bhava (A guest is like God) in Incredible India campaigns, sounds like such a lie when it comes to people whose skin colour is not white.

@vidyathinks

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On the day Yogi Adityanath was appointed BJP chief ministerial candidate, a close friend - who is a young successful Lucknow businessman and often my sounding board to gauge the mood of both the urban young voter as well as the business community - sent me a text message: I feel cheated as a BJP voter. It is sad, sad day for UP.

Three days later, over a conversation, he said that his anger had dissipated a bit. The margin of error for BJP has gone down with this appointment. Yogi cannot afford to make a mistake. Lets see.

And by the end of the week, as we met during a trip he made to Delhi, he had a somewhat different approach. What is the media doing?, he questioned with a touch of irritation. Give him a chance. This criticism even before he has got down to serious work is unfair.

Even as the criticism over Yogis appointment and his decisions had increased, particularly among Delhis opinion makers and media, the sense on the ground seems to have moved into the reverse direction.

How has this happened? And what does it tell us about the great liberal dilemma on the Yogi question? There are three ways in which the Yogi appointment has trapped the opposition.

The appointment trap

Yogis past record, both in terms of rhetoric and action, gives enough grounds to worry about his commitment to an inclusive state, communal harmony, and the place of minorities and women in society.

It was thus obvious, and even correct, that those who consider themselves liberals would pick on these features of his political record - and critique the appointment.

Here is the problem.

That critique may not necessarily resonate with the electorate of UP, which voted for a rupture. Admittedly, they did not know that Yogi would be their chief minister when they voted. But they did believe that having Modiji ki sarkar in Lucknow would be a break from the past - Yogi represents that change.

Whether that change is desirable or not is a matter of opinion; the fact that he represents change is indisputable. By critiquing the change, the opposition and sections of the media, to the UP voter, came across as grudging. My friend represented this phenomenon - someone who wanted change, who was not necessarily comfortable with the nature of change, but who felt that this change needed to play out.

This does not mean people should refrain from criticising his appointment and policies. It is only to flag the point that this may not necessarily be winning over the BJP voter. Instead, it may be consolidating the base further. That is the first trap.

The Hindutva-vikas trap

But is mere change and rupture enough?

BJPs vote share in 2012 in UP was 15 percent. This went up to over 41 percent in 2014, which it was more or less able to retain in 2017. Assuming that BJPs core base vote is actually 15 percent - for only this segment stayed with the party in one of its worst electoral performances - there is an incremental vote of 25 percent which joined the partys ranks due to Modi in 2014 and 2017.

We have no way of distilling actual voter motivations. But conversations through the campaign trail revealed that there is no distinction between the Hindutva voter or the vikas voter of the BJP. The same voter was exasperated with poor law and order, joblessness, and was also annoyed with what he sees as the pro Muslim politics of other parties in the fray. The lines are blurred, even if for some, one or the other element may be important.

The point is this. Yogi thrills the base - the 15 percent or more. His challenge would be not to alienate the incremental vote- and even try to sustain and expand it. A key BJP leader told us, See, if he remains the Yogi of old, he will appeal to 15-20 percent. But if it is a new Yogi - of Hindutva plus vikas plus strong law and order plus integrity - then we may even go beyond 40 percent. That is the gamble.

This leads us to the second trap for the opposition. If he remains dependent and driven by solely Hindutva identity based grievances and aggression, it means the base will get even more emboldened and the state will witness a degree of turmoil. If he continues with the Hindutva messaging but combines it with administrative skills, he will become stronger and more popular.

No one would want the first option to play out; the second option does not suit the critics either.

The policy trap

Take the policy step that has - again rightfully - drawn criticism, the anti-Romeo squads, as a window to understand the BJP.

A BJP spokesperson during the campaign had told us, See how we are combining law and order and Hindutva here. The anti-Romeo squad is actually anti-Salman squad, and in west UP in particular, it conjures up the image of love jihad. At the same time, women security is a major issue and we highlight law and order with this promise.

The critique of the anti-Romeo squad has rested on its draconian nature, its encouragement to vigilantism, and most fundamentally, its violation of individual freedom and free choice.

But BJP has quite successfully been able to project freedom as an elite obsession - as the concern of those who do not care for women safety, as the preoccupation of those who are disconnected from society. A journalist who travelled to colleges in Meerut came back with the sense that it was very popular with women students.

This is very similar to what Nitish Kumar has done in Bihar. When asked how prohibition was violating choice, the Bihar CMs dismissive response has often been on the lines of how those in distant metros do not understand the real social problems on the ground.

BJP is similarly projecting a binary - of women safety on one side, which touches every family, versus the abstract idea of freedom, almost synonymous with irresponsibility and encouraging harassment.

And so here is the third trap. It is the duty of the opposition and liberal media commentators to critique state attempts to regulate the everyday life choices, and they must continue doing so. But each time they do it, it may only help reinforce the perception of the BJP as the only rooted party, connected to real problems of society.

Modi redux

For those who believe that Yogi represents a serious threat to Indian democracy, it may be instructive to go back and introspect about the 2002-2014 period.

The same opposition figures, and almost the same set of liberal media institutions, felt the same about Narendra Modi. But after 12 years of being critiqued, Modi ended up as the most powerful man in India - through the most democratic of exercises, the elections.

It was a similar trap that opposition fell into. They critiqued the fact that someone who could not control the 2002 riots, or was even seen as complicit in it, was the CM of Gujarat. The CM projected this as an attack on Gujarati voter, the mandate, and pride. They critiqued the CMs Hindutva plank and refused to acknowledge the Hindutva plus vikas card. The CM continued to grow stronger because of it.

This is not to suggest Yogi is another Modi. He has a long long way to go. But it is to flag the prospect that treating Yogi in the same manner as they treated Modi - and then expecting an entirely different result - may not be the smartest way to counter him. It may then be too late to escape the trap.

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Linking people living with the HIV/ AIDS with Aadhaar cards has allegedly driving away patients from hospitals and antiretroviral therapy (ATR) centres in Madhya Pradesh.

The patients feared that the compulsory submission of Aadhaar card to get free medicines and medical check-ups under a governments AIDS control scheme, could lead to disclosure of their identity, inviting social stigma.

The Aadhaar is a 12 digit unique-identity number issued to Indian residents based on their biometric and demographic data collected and maintained by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

As per health department sources, the MP State AIDS Control Society made Aadhaar card number compulsory from February this year for those affected by the virus to get free medicines and treatment in accordance with the Central governments policy making the submission of 12 digit identity number mandatory to avail benefits of any government scheme.

The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) has also recently written to ART centres to link all people living with the HIV/ AIDS with Aadhaar cards for effective monitoring and to avoid duplication.

Health activists, however, said that while issuing the directive the society did not take into account the negative fallout of the move.

Sources said many patients and suspected victims started avoiding ATR centres and district hospitals after the new rule came into effect.

Aadhar card is linked to so many things, including even the bank account. How can I be assured that my identity would not be disclosed? I would rather go to a private hospital. Its daunting for a person like me who has come here for the first time just to rule out my doubts related to the infection, said an engineering student, who was at the Bhopal district hospital for a test.

Even evaluators at the states AIDS Control Society find justification in the apprehension.

During evaluation, we find employees at the centres disclose identities of patients without any hesitation. When they can easily disclose it to me, how can I expect they would not pass on the information to others? Even, patients lodged complaints of facing social stigma because of disclosure of their identities. The linking of Aadhaar with the health scheme will only add to their woes, said an evaluator, requesting anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to media.

Officials of the society, however, refused to pay much attention to the concerns raised by the patients on the ground that the linking was imperative for effective monitoring.

Aadhaar is being made compulsory for everything. So, I dont think there is any problem to make it mandatory for AIDS patients too, said Savita Thakur, joint director of the society.

We want the entire system to be centralised and to provide the benefits under social protection schemes to the AIDS patients. It helps us in monitoring their health. Many a time, patients give wrong addresses, making it difficult for us to track them later. The Aadhaar linkage will eliminate such problem, she added.

She assured protection of patients identity would be paramount and said counsellors were asked to convince patients about it.

Health activists are not convinced. They cited most of the suspected-patients get themselves examined anonymously.

Social worker Sudheer Bhargava, who is working for the welfare of AIDS patients for the past two decades, said, When government claimed that identity of a patient would not be disclosed to even his/her spouse then why should they ask for the Aadhaar card.

Such a situation might trigger a major problem in the society in future as AIDS patients would prefer not to be treated and it would be detrimental not only to their health but also to the society, he added.

Social activist Rakesh Diwan questioned the legality of the move pointing out that even the Supreme Court has ordered the Aadhaar card could not be made mandatory for availing benefits of government schemes.

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The news that Bollywood actor Akshay Kumars comedy-drama Toilet: Ek Prem Katha will release on August 11, the same day as filmmaker Imtiaz Alis Shah Rukh Khan-starrer, spread like wild fire on Tuesday. While both actors didnt comment on the clash, a source informs HT that it could not have been averted. Toilet: Ek Prem Katha was earlier meant to release in early June, but that wouldve come in the middle of the holy month of Ramzan. The Fridays after Ramzan ends are already booked for Hollywood biggies including Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Spider-Man: Homecoming.The only date available then was August 11, which is also a long weekend on account of Rakhi and Independence Day. So this clash was inevitable, says the source.

Interestingly, the much sought-after date  August 11 was earlier announced by Akshay Kumar for his Neeraj Pandey directorial, Crack. A few weeks after Akshay announced the film on Twitter, Shah Rukh Khan announced that his yet-untitled film starring Anushka Sharma will also release on the same date. While Akshay postponed plans to film Crack, and started work on Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, the clash was destined to happen on the same date.

The poster of Crack that Akshay had tweeted much before SRK announced the same date for his film.

Trade analyst Amul Mohan says such clashes are inevitable. One cannot avoid clashes since there are only 52 weeks in a year, and almost 200 films release annually. August 11 was always Akshays preferred weekend. The audience will be divided for sure, and so will the money, says Mohan.

Trade expert Atul Mohan says, The subjects and settings of both the films are very different from each other. While Shah Rukh Khans film has been shot abroad in locations such as Prague and Amsterdam, Akshays film has a desi feel and has been shot in the hinterlands of Uttar Pradesh and MP, including Mathura and Hoshangabad. So eventually, it will be a clash between whether fans choose videshi or a desi subject.

While the three Khans  Shah Rukh, Salman and Aamir  book Diwali, Eid and Christmas weekends (respectively) for their films, Akshay Kumar typically chooses Independence Day or Republic Day to release his films as they have a patriotic flavour. This time, too, Akshays choice was Independence Day as his film touches upon the topic of Prime Minister Narendra Modis call for Swachh Bharat and addresses the problem of open defecation, adds the source.

Fans meanwhile, will have to brace themselves for choosing between the superstars. Twitter user, Alias Omkar, wrote, Its better to avoid clash. Both are content driven movies but Imtiazs next films budget is huge. With clash it wont be doing great. Another user, an Akshay Kumar fan, tweeted, This time, SRK is finished!

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Actor-host Maniesh Paul knows how to strike the right chord with his fans. Known for his wit and comic timing, Maniesh recently visited his college in Delhi (College of Vocational Studies) to talk about women safety and empowerment. His words left a huge impact on the crowd and his speech went viral on social media. The craze continued on his recent trip to Nepal, where his fans promoted his initiative and sported T-shirts with the slogan Respect for All.

It was a very touching moment to see people supporting what Ive always believed in. The best part was the fact that people (in Nepal) were happy to see me taking this issue so seriously, says Maniesh, who has been invited by many colleges in Delhi to speak about women safety.

Super to meet these fans in kathmandu!!! Love u all...thanks for all d love #mp #lovemyfans #gratitude #always #happy #nepal #trip #awesome A post shared by Maniesh Paul (@manieshpaul) on Mar 18, 2017 at 7:44am PDT

Doing his bit, Maniesh says that he ensures women around him are taken good care of and nobody is misbehaving. If I am shooting for a show, I take care of things like how are women crew members going back and if theyre being dropped back safely after the wrap up. Also, theres special instruction to the unit also to take care of women and give them the best treatment, shares Maniesh.

Especially with films like Pink, people understand that its important that boys need to change.

Ask him if Bollywood films are also putting strong emphasis on women safety and trying to send a message to the society, the actor adds, Definitely theyre making a lot of difference especially with films like Pink (2016), people understand that its important that boys need to change and not tell girls what to do.

Even while addressing the crowd, Maniesh had said he has been telling men to behave, while girls should be allowed to live freely. I dont have any message for the girls that dont step out late at night or dont wear short dresses or live in a particular way, they should do whatever they want, says the actor, adding, I want to tell boys that dont tease girls, rather make yourself so attractive that they want to talk to you. Its always better to be friends and not necessary that you need to flirt with someone to start a conversation. You can be nice and still talk to someone.

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Actor Rasika Dugal is trying hard to get into the skin of her next films character. She plays late Pakistani writer Saadat Hasan Mantos wife in his biopic. In order to understand her role better shes in talks with wives of other writers.

I once saw a very interesting video of this lovely and spirited woman, who was married to a well-known poet, who is now dead. She recited beautifully a romantic poem he had written. She claimed that she was the muse for this poem and then wistfully added that at least thats what she thought. It made me wonder about families, lovers, spouses of well-known artists or writers, says Dugal, who plays the role of Safiyah Manto.

Since Safiyas narration is not well-documented, Dugal went out to meet real case studies because she had a lot of questions in her mind.

I was very curious about the lives of the wives of acclaimed writers. How do they view their husbands work, what respect they get, do they despise their husbands for it and how involved are they or do they feel? After all they have to live with the mundane as well as the artistic, she says.

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Looks like Salman Khans Tubelight is already talking of big bucks months before its release. Reports have now emerged that the music rights for the film have been sold for a whopping Rs 20 crore.

Salman Khan on the sets of Tubelight.

A Bollywoodhungama report claimed on Tuesday that makers of the Kabir Khan directorial sold the music rights for Rs 20 crore to Sony Music. Interestingly, the film only has three songs, it added.

Hindustan Times could not independently verify the report.

The music rights of Salmans 2015 hit Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, which also starred Sonam Kapoor, were sold for Rs 17 crore. Interestingly, the music rights for Shah Rukh Khans Dilwale were reportedly sold for Rs 19 crore.

Tubelight marks the Bollywood debut for Chinese star Zhu Zhu. It is a war drama shot in Ladakh and Manali

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Actor Tannishtha Chatterjee who has acted in quite a few international projects, says that the character one portrays in a film, decides whether they need an accent or not.

In the Australian film Unindian, I played somebody who was born and raised in India, so my English was very much what we speak here and not Australian. If I were to play a character who was born and raised in New York right from childhood, Ill have to put on that accent because thats how people speak there. When I did Brick Lane, the guy who was playing my lover, had to pick up a Bangladeshi second generation accent, which is not Queens English. So it always depends on characters and nothing beyond that, says Tannishtha who has worked in films such as Lion (2017), Unindian (2016), Brick Lane (2007) and Shadows of Time (2005).

She doesnt understand actors who work in one or two international films and then flaunt an accent even when they are not shooting. I understand that many actors try to maintain the neutrality or try to imitate an accent closer to the understanding of the given audience, and thats what the makers want. Also, if one is doing blockbuster films in Hollywood, and theres no time to establish a characters history and logistics, so they have an accent. But otherwise, why would you speak like that all the time? I know so many people who go to New York for two years and then they start imitating an accent, adds Tannishtha.

The actor, whos been in Bollywood films such as Angry Indian Goddesses and Parched (2015), Gulaab Gang (2013), Road (2010), feels that this accent is a different aspect of the cultural hangover that most Indians have. After being smitten by England, we are now we are totally smitten by America  for everything - the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the films we watch, the music we aspire to listen, the form of comedy we want to celebrate - everything is a reflection of that hangover, she says.

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Acquisitive Chinese conglomerate HNA Group is in talks to buy a controlling stake in the owner of the publisher of Forbes magazine, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Hong Kong-based investor group Integrated Whale Media Investments (IWM), which holds 95% of Forbes Media, is also in talks with another Chinese media firm and is scouting for more potential buyers for most or all of its stake, said one of the sources, who declined to be identified as the talks are confidential.

Reuters was not able to confirm the names of the other possible bidders.

HNA, ranked 353rd in the 2016 Fortune Global list of the worlds biggest 500 companies, has been in discussions for a couple of weeks with IWM for a deal worth at least $400 million, said the source.

IWM and Forbes Media declined to comment, while HNA didnt respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The move comes three years after the Forbes family, which founded the American financial magazine 100 years ago, gave up its controlling stake in Forbes Media to IWM.

That transaction valued the Forbes company at $475 million, a source familiar with the transaction has said.

HNA, which has more than $100 billion in assets, has been on an acquisition spree expanding out of its traditional business of aviation and logistics into financial, media and cultural sectors.

Late last year, HNA Capital, the groups financial arm, bought an 80% stake in Beijing Lianban Caixun Cultural Media, a media firm that runs the website of influential financial publication Caijing magazine, for an undisclosed sum, records with Chinas state-run corporate register showed.

Going forward, HNA will continue to scout for good-quality domestic and international media assets, the second source said. HNA wants to display publications owned or invested by it on its planes, in its hotels across the world.

The media deals are taking place at a time when Beijing is flexing its soft power muscles to extend its global influence.

Last year, China Central Television, the countrys largest TV network, said it would launch a new global media platform to help re-brand China overseas.

Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has also acquired or invested in a growing portfolio of media and content firms in the past few years. It snapped up Hong Kongs flagship English-language newspaper the South China Morning Post and other media assets of SCMP Group Ltd for $266 million in late 2015.
The government plans to tweak the norms to deal with unruly fliers as it looks to provide more clarity on regulatory powers amid debate on airlines barring an MP from flying for assaulting an Air India staff.

While aviation regulator DGCA has guidelines in place to deal with unruly passengers, there is no specific mention about the possibility of barring any individual from flying for disruptive behaviour.

A senior Civil Aviation Ministry official said the current Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) on Handling of unruly/ disruptive passengers has some gaps which needs to be plugged.

The Ministry will work towards making some changes in the CAR, which was issued back in November 2014. The revised norms would provide more clarity on preventive measures that can be initiated against any unruly passenger, the official said.

Even though there is no particular mention of regulatory provisions to bar an unruly passenger from boarding an aircraft, the 2014 CAR mentions that every reasonable effort to protect passengers and personnel against any offence by unruly and disruptive passengers shall be made.

Among others, the CAR provides for airlines to establish mechanism to detect and report unruly passenger behaviour at check-in, in the lounges, and at the boarding gate in order to prevent such people from boarding.

In case of occurrence of an act of unruly behaviour while the aircraft is on the ground, such cases shall be reported immediately in writing and First Information Report (FIR) lodged with security agency at the aerodrome for assistance, as per the CAR.

Later in the evening, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju evaded a direct reply to a query on whether the government would be revising the existing CAR.

What I have told Parliament holds good, he said in response to the query on the sidelines of an event here to launch a music video.

On whether he had discussions with Shiv Sena members, the Minister said, We have discussions and did not elaborate.

Earlier in the day, Raju had made a statement regarding the incident involving the Shiv Sena MP.

I never in my wildest dreams thought that an MP will get caught in such an incident... violence of any kind can be disastrous, he told the Lok Sabha.

Following the assault of a 62-year-old Air India staffer by Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad at the Delhi airport last week, the national carrier as well as six other domestic airlines barred him from taking any of their flights.

The incident as well as the action by the airlines have triggered a controversy on whether an elected representative can be barred from flying in the absence of any specific legal provisions.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 28

Trend:

Russia and Iran plan to sign a memorandum on the development of peaceful nuclear cooperation following Iranian President Hassan Rouhanis meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin Mar. 28, a source from the Russian Foreign Ministry told Sputnik.

The source noted that the memorandum, among other aspects, would relate to "understanding on the transportation of nuclear materials, coordination of joint activities, rules."

"We are talking about signing a document that defines a number of aspects of bilateral cooperation in the field of the purely peaceful use of nuclear energy, in the context of the construction of the second and third units in Bushehr as well," the source said, referring to Iran's nuclear power plant.

"This is a working document, not the first one between Rosatom [Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation] and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran," the source said.
The total cost of operation of Jan Dhan accounts by State Bank of India is Rs 774.86 crore, Parliament was informed today.

Bank-wise and year-wise information on the cost of operation of Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan accounts is not maintained. However, the total cost of operation of Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) accounts as reported by State Bank of India as on December 31, 2106, is Rs 774.86 crore, Minister of State for Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

To a separate query, the minister said the number of zero balance Jan Dhan accounts was 5.93 crore as on November 9, 2016, and 6.32 crore as on December 28, 2016.

The balance of deposit in PMJDY was Rs 45,636 crore as on November 9, 2016 and Rs 71,036 crore as on December 28, 2016.

Replying to another query, Gangwar said public banks, regional rural banks and 13 private lenders have reported that as on March 24, 2017, 92,52,609 accounts were frozen under the PMJDY due to lack of transaction in the last one year.

The minister further noted that as per report received from public sector banks, RRBs and 13 private banks, as on March 15, there are 28.02 crore Jan Dhan accounts and 1.8 crore operational ones have deposits of more than Rs 5,000.
Tens of millions of dollars were within reach for M Prabhakara Rao as he prepared in April 2015 to take his Indian cotton seed company public.

The Indian businessman already had $54 million in initial funding from an American private equity investor. Rao had also locked in a long-term licensing agreement with Monsanto Co, the worlds largest seed company, for the technology used in genetically modified cotton seeds that made up the majority of his annual sales.

Two months after publishing his initial public offering plan, Rao gambled. He sent one of his executives to negotiate a 10% cut in royalties with Monsanto. The multinational said no.

The outcome of that meeting ignited a corporate battle that has left Raos IPO plans in tatters and drawn in the Indian and US governments. More ominously, the fight has disrupted Indias $1.8 billion-a-year seed industry, with Monsanto saying it may abandon the market.

Monsantos Indian joint venture last July withdrew its application to introduce a new generation of cotton seed technology to India. The existing version, in India for a decade, is losing effectiveness against bollworms, which can wipe out crops. If another company doesnt step into the breach, agricultural economists warn the dispute could damage Indias cotton-growing sector - which recently surpassed Chinas as the worlds biggest and last year accounted for more than a quarter of global output, with a value of over $8.5 billion.

To an outsider, Raos decision to take on Monsanto in a David-and-Goliath battle may seem hard to fathom. But the rules of doing business in India have changed. With the rise to power of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014 on a groundswell of Hindu nationalism, newly assertive right-wing groups, suspicious of foreign influence and particularly outspoken against large multinationals like Monsanto, now hold sway in the government.

The leaders of these groups operate under the umbrella of the powerful Hindu nationalist group known as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, Hindi for national volunteer organization. They speak of returning India to an ancient, Hindu glory that was ravaged by foreign imperial powers. More pragmatically, theyre amassing power.

Modi himself first attended RSS meetings at the age of 8 and was propelled to power with the groups help. A series of crucial ministries, including agriculture, are now run by ministers who are members of the RSS and its affiliates. Members of these Hindu nationalist groups also form a network of influential mandarins who seldom surface in public. They have the ear of the prime minister and those around him.

Anti-Monsanto measures

A lean, moustachioed man, Rao denies seeking the support of the RSS or working in tandem with the group, which wants indigenous varieties of cotton seed to replace Monsantos products. But RSS powerbrokers - including the agriculture minister himself - told Reuters that Rao approached them for help in his battle with Monsanto. And they say they were happy to weigh in.

The agriculture minister, longtime RSS member Radha Mohan Singh, says his decision to intervene in the dispute was driven by the need to serve the interests of all Indian farmers, not just Rao.

The timing of Singhs actions, though, was telling. In the months after the meeting between Monsanto and Raos man in Mumbai, the agriculture ministry first challenged and then slashed the royalties Monsanto is able to charge in India. The ministry called for an antitrust investigation into alleged monopolistic practices by the company. It also floated the idea of a compulsory licensing regime that would all but force Monsanto and other firms to hand over their proprietary technology to major Indian seed companies that applied for licenses.

A worker harvests cotton in a field on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, India, October 24, 2016. (REUTERS File)

Prime Minister Modi hasnt publicly commented on the matter. After the US ambassador intervened last year, according to two people familiar with the dispute, the Indian government suspended the compulsory licensing proposal. The other measures remain in place.

After years of seeking more leverage with Monsanto, Rao found in the rise of Modi and the RSS an opportunity to challenge the companys domination of the Indian market. It was against this backdrop that he dispatched senior company executive P Sateesh Kumar, a Ph.D. in agricultural genetics, to Monsantos Mumbai headquarters in 2015.

At the time, Raos company, Nuziveedu Seeds Ltd, was behind on royalty payments to Monsanto and on its way to racking up, by Monsantos calculations, more than $20 million in debt. And its American investor, Blackstone Group LP, was waiting for the IPO to go through. Nonetheless, Kumar sat down in a corner conference room on the fifth floor and conveyed Raos demand for a reduction in royalties. Monsanto delivered its answer there and then: That wasnt going to happen.

Before Kumar left the meeting on that hot June day, he paused. He told the executives from Monsanto and its Indian joint venture that there would be consequences for refusing Rao a discount, according to a letter Monsanto sent to the government and which was reviewed by Reuters. Kumar says he did not use such language.

Fighting a battle

In an interview in which he let loose peals of laughter, Rao pointed out that the first item under Risk Factors in the IPO prospectus for his company, of which he controls more than 80 percent of shares, was the possibility of his contract with Monsanto being disrupted. Still, he said, Monsanto made a mistake in thinking it had the upper hand.

Monsanto declined to answer questions on the role of the RSS in Raos campaign. We conduct our business in an honest, transparent and respectful manner and continue to engage with stakeholders across the spectrum, the company said.

Monsanto is backed in the dispute by chemical giant Bayer AG , which is in the process of buying the seed company for $66 billion. It also has the support of the local units of other seed heavyweights, including Dow Chemical Co and Syngenta AG. In August, these multinationals held a news conference in which they called for transparency in government regulation and licensing. Failure to do so, they warned, would endanger future investment in India.

An RSS spokesperson referred queries about Rao and Monsanto to the RSS farmers union, the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh. Its vice president, a man named Prabhakar Kelkar, said the union was working with Rao, who had approached it to complain about Monsantos seed pricing.

It is important for all of us to unite to wage a war against Monsanto. No one can do it alone, be it Rao or the farmers union, Kelkar told Reuters. We are cooperating with him because he is fighting a battle that is meant for greater good.

Monsanto and Rao are now locked in a series of government complaints, litigation and arbitration.

Citing an Indian law that excludes seeds from being patented, Rao says Monsanto should never have been allowed to collect royalties after an initial payment to use its technology. Or, at the very least, he adds, prices should have been set by the government.

The technology currently licensed out by Monsanto is known as Bollgard II. The company received a patent in 2009 in India for Bollgard IIs ability to modify cotton seeds to include a microbe called Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which fortifies cotton plants against bollworms.

Monsanto says Rao and a small group of other seed companies demanding a reduction in royalties are simply trying to renege on contracts and money owed. Dhiraj Pant, who oversees tech development for Monsanto across Asia, said it would have been preferable if the Indian seed companies had not pushed for the government to step in. It is unfortunate that these disputing companies sought policy interventions to address a bilateral matter, said Pant.

Hindu nationalist vision

The RSS, which has its own farmer and labor unions, was formed in 1925 to campaign against British colonial rule. It seeks to instill a nationalist vision of India as a Hindu nation, despite large minority populations that include Muslims and Christians.

The group nurtured Modis rise  in his early days in the RSS he cleaned floors at a local chapter office. And the RSS helped form the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

But Modi and his RSS backers have differing views about the role of foreign multinationals. In his 13 years as chief minister of the western state of Gujarat, Modi was an early supporter of genetically modified cotton. His administration there allowed farmers to plant Monsanto-modified seeds, known as Bt cotton, before the technology received official approval in New Delhi.

His approach contradicted the RSS stance against multinationals operating in the agricultural sector, particularly when it comes to genetically modified crops.

The tension simmered for years. After Modis election in 2014, the RSS began its push.

A senior leader in the RSS farmers union, a man named Mohini Mohan Mishra, began holding study sessions with leaders in the ruling party and the Modi administration to argue against genetically modified crops. One of Mishras presentation slides pointed to the rise in popularity of organic food in the West.

Another slide said of Monsanto: It created seed monopoly, a threat to seed sovereignty.

Monsantos mistake was that it did not approach the RSS to plead its case, said Mishra in an interview at his office in central Delhi, which has peeling paint, dirty rugs and, in summer months, mosquitoes buzzing inside.

It was the overconfidence of Monsanto that has destroyed their chances to do business in India, said Mishra. They failed to study and understand the RSS.

Not good for India

Rao, meanwhile, was lobbying Modis government. Sometime in 2015, he met with Singh, the agriculture minister and RSS member.

The powerbrokers and officials of the Congress party that ruled India for most of its independent history tended to espouse secular ideology in clipped English accents that hinted at elite schooling at home and abroad. The RSS leadership speaks of rural roots and the virtues of the homegrown.

Singh is cut from that cloth. At the beginning of one interview he paused to fold a small wad of snuff in his left cheek as an attendant brought a metal spittoon.

He was not hard to convince that Monsanto was in the wrong, said Rao.

The truth is that Monsanto was dominating the market, and that is not good for Indias farming practices, said Singh. We should have our own seeds to compete with them.

Farmers take shelter under a plastic sheet during a day-long protest in New Delhi August 8, 2013. (REUTERS File)

After Monsanto declared Raos company in breach of payment obligations and terminated its contract in November 2015, Singhs agriculture ministry moved swiftly.

The next month, the ministry established a panel to fix the price of genetically modified cotton seeds and the royalties Monsanto was allowed to collect.

Less than two weeks later, a junior minister under Singhs command told parliament that the ministry had asked Indias antitrust regulator to consider investigating whether Monsanto abused its dominance in the marketplace. He said the National Seed Association of India, of which Rao is the president, had asked his ministry to intervene in the dispute. An antitrust investigation was formally launched in February last year.

On March 4, 2016, Monsantos chief executive for India put out a statement threatening to leave the country. Four days later, Singhs ministry slashed the royalty paid by local firms to sellers of genetically modified cotton seed technology, a market dominated by Monsanto, by about 70%.

Two months later, the agriculture ministry proposed compulsory licensing for Monsantos technology. It was this move that prompted the US ambassador to India at the time, Richard Verma, to approach Modis office. People familiar with the matter said Verma wrote to Modis principal secretary, Nripendra Misra, after the agriculture ministry did not respond to two previous letters. After the ambassador and Misra met, the government suspended the licensing measure.

A common agenda

During a visit to India last year, the US commerce secretary, Penny Pritzker, said she had raised the Monsanto dispute with the government. Companies will look to see how this is resolved because it sends a message about the seriousness of the current government to protect intellectual property, said Pritzker, who stepped down this January.

An aide close to Modi declined to discuss whether the prime minister had personally intervened in the licensing dispute. He said the issue would remain open for the foreseeable future. Sometimes the best decision is not to take a decision, the aide said. The prime ministers office did not answer questions from Reuters.

Asked about Rao and his fight with Monsanto, Singh denied granting the businessman any favors.

Kelkar, from the RSS farmers union, said the RSS had pushed for Singh to act against Monsanto. In the previous regime we had to stand on the streets to launch anti-Monsanto protests, Kelkar said. But with this government we can sit and talk in a room  its because we all believe in the same agenda.

The impact of the dispute on Monsantos bottom line became clear late last year when the company released its results: Sales of seeds and genetic traits for cotton dropped 16 percent, or $83 million, in the fiscal year ending August. That was primarily due to lower average net selling price in India as a result of new government pricing policies, the report said.

Dhiraj Pant, technology head of Monsanto Asia, poses inside his office in Gurugram on the outskirts of New Delhi. (REUTERS)

The disputes fallout could have grave implications, says Ashok Gulati, an agricultural economist who has advised the government on crop support prices in the past.

The whole fiasco will dissuade global seed or technology companies from investing in India, Gulati said. In the short term, he said, India might get by with a local alternative to genetically modified cotton. But in the long-term, say beyond five years or so, we need a technology that can propel Indias cotton output. But then, political masters dont look beyond immediate gains.

Rao says that Monsanto and others deserve a return on their investment. But he wants royalty rates to be determined by government rules. In an interview, he pointed to the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Act, which gives the regulator the power to fix royalty rates. The government fails, however, to exercise that authority, enabling Monsanto to dictate terms, says Rao.

In October, the government announced a change in the board that oversees the plant varieties act. A new member had been added: M. Prabhakara Rao.
Several passengers fell ill on the Kolkata-bound Rajdhani Express on Monday night after eating suspected stale food served on the train.

Angry over the incident, the passengers protested after the train reached Asansol station in West Bengal on Tuesday morning. Many of them said they have not eaten since Monday night.

People vomited after taking the food, and the staff didnt even clean the toilets and basins, they alleged.

Also, they accused the train staff of ignoring their complaint about the food.

Union junior heavy industries minister Babul Supriyo, the BJP parliamentarian for Asansol, supported the passengers, who lodged a complaint with the railways after the train reached its destination, Sealdah station, later in the day.

Their grievance is valid. The day before I took the same train to Asansol and had a similar experience. The quality of food was bad. I thank these passengers for making my argument stronger, Supriyo said.

He promised to take up the issue at a ministers meet in the Prime Ministers home on Tuesday evening.

Railway minister Suresh Prabhu will be present. The food contractors should be chosen more carefully by the railways, he said.

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), a subsidiary of the railways, hires private contractors for meals to train passengers.

Sealdah station manager Ananda Bardhan assured necessary steps after receiving the complaint.
When Narendra Modi visits Israel this year, it will be remarkable for two reasons: First, that it will be the first visit to the Israeli state by an Indian head of government; and second, that it will in all likelihood raise no eyebrows  never mind hackles  in the Arab world. The exact dates for the trip have not yet been announced, but it has been known for some weeks now that it will happen this summer. And yet, no Arab State has voiced any displeasure, not publicly, and not even through diplomatic back-channels.

This is nothing short of astonishing to anyone who, like your humble servant, grew up in the India of the 1970s and 80s, when it was routine for New Delhi to join the Arab chorus of condemnation for Israel at Tel Avivs every turn. Whether it was because of Indias need for Arab oil, or because there were so many Arab members of the benighted Non-Aligned Movement, or because the Jewish State was tied to the US while New Delhi was chummy with the USSR, or simply because so many in this country genuinely sympathised with the Palestinian cause, a succession of Indian governments avoided diplomatic relations with Israel.

If youd told me then that an Indian PM would one day be making an official visit there, Id have laughed you out of the room. But that prospect is no longer surprising: The two countries began building close ties in the 1990s, and are now locked in a tight embrace of economic, defence and security interests.

What is astonishing, though, is the absence of even a murmur of protest from Indias friends in the Arab world. West Asian diplomats quizzed by my colleagues at Hindustan Times have shrugged off the idea of Modis visit as a matter of realpolitik. One expressed the mild hope that the PM might also visit the West Bank, to show some solidarity with the Palestinians, but acknowledged that this is unlikely.

One reason for the Arab pococurantism over deepening Indo-Israeli relations is a resigned acceptance that the two countries have much in common, including their enemies, in the shape of Islamist terrorism. Another is a profound sense of Palestine fatigue in Arab capitals, whether on account of the interminable and intractable nature of the problem, or because other Arab peoples  Syrians, for one  are making a more pressing case for sympathy.

Yet another reason for the lack of concern among Arab governments for Indias friendship with Israel is that many of them would themselves like an accommodation with the Jewish State. Countries like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have for some time now reportedly been making quiet, behind-the-scenes contact with the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Bibi Netanyahu, and the frequency has grown since January 2016, when the US and other major powers signed a nuclear treaty with Iran.

Arab leaders have determined that Shia-ruled Iran represents an existential threat to their Sunni-dominated regimes, and recognise that, in this, they have a common cause with Israel. Netanyahus trenchant tirades against the theocracy in Tehran have an enthusiastic audience in Arab palaces.

This is especially true in Riyadh and Manama, where the threat of Iran is felt most keenly. The Saudis are terrified that Iran will stir up trouble in its eastern province, where there is a large Shia population  and where a great deal of the countrys oil lies below the ground. Spooked by Tehrans encouragement of the Houthi militia that controls much of Yemen, the Saudis have led a Sunni-Arab coalition in a protracted military misadventure in the heel of the Arabian Peninsula. (The Houthis are nominally Shia.) Bahrains Sunni rulers, meanwhile, feel Irans breath on their shoulder as they continue to suppress their Shia-majority population.

The Sunni states had long banked on the US to forestall the threat from Tehran, but the nuclear deal  Iran agreed to scrap its nuclear ambitions in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions  have left them scrambling for succor elsewhere. Russia, the most obvious alternative, is seen as being on Irans side, with Moscow offering Tehran billions of dollars worth of military hardware. China has said it would like the Israeli-Palestinian issue resolved, but has shown no interest in playing umpire between the Shia and the Sunnis. That leaves Israel, which is not only hostile to Iran, but has its own arsenal of nuclear weapons with which to menace the mullahs in Tehran.

But Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and most other Arab states have no formal relations with Israel: Most of them dont even acknowledge Israels right to exist. For six decades, their propaganda machines have portrayed the Jewish State as an abomination, and have normalised anti-Semitism among their citizenry. The rulers of these states cannot now afford to be seen breaking bread with Israel, and so can only play a form of diplomatic footsie  or rely on sympathetic intermediaries to ferry little notes between them.

So, if Modi does hear from Arab rulers before his visit to Israel, it may very well be in the form of requests to convey cautious felicitations. And its just conceivable that Netanyahu will want Modi to carry a message for Saudi King Salman, who is expected to visit New Delhi later in the year.

Bobby Ghosh is editor-in-chief of Hindustan Times

Twitter: @ghoshworld

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The state government is planning to turn lost town of Tehri -- buried under Tehri dam -- into a tourist hotspot by using submarine-like vessels.

Old Tehri township is now submerged under Tehri Dam that is the highest water reservoir of India.

Tourism minister Satpal Maharaj said structures of old Tehri town were still intact and would offer a thrilling experience to tourists.

Small submarines will be employed for underwater tourism. Watching an underwater township from a submarine that will have transparent body will be new experience for tourists. We hope to make it reality in coming days, tourism minister Satpal Maharaj told HT.

The minister said structures like clock tower, Purana Darbar, Naya Darbar, Swami Ram Teerath Ashram, main market area, Pakoriwali Gali of the submerged town would be major tourist attractions.

When implemented, the project would increase inflow of foreign tourists in the hill state, Maharaj said, adding that transparent body submarines were made specially for under water tourism activities. These are already being used in several parts of the world particularly in Australia.

Tehri, a princely estate of Garhwal regions Shah Rulers was slowly submerged under waters of Bhagirathi and Bhilanglana rivers in late 1990s after commissioning of 2400 MW multipurpose hydropower project by central government PSU Tehri Hdropower Development Corporation (THDC).
The Delhi Police crime branch on Tuesday evening raided the office of a chit-fund company owner in west Delhis Janakpuri and seized scrapped banknotes worth Rs4.25 crore. The owner of the company, identified as Anil Jain, was taken into custody for questioning.

Madhur Verma, deputy commissioner of police (crime branch), confirmed the seizure of demonetised banknotes from Jains office. According to Verma, Jain had collected the banned notes in denomination of Rs1,000 and Rs500 from various businessmen after promising them to get the notes exchanged with valid banknotes on 50% commission basis.

Jain had planned to hire a cash van to transport the scrapped notes from his office to the place where they were to be exchanged with valid notes. We are questioning Jain to know the source through which he had claimed to get the notes exchanged, said Verma, adding they have also identified two associates of Jain who were part of the illegal deal.

A senior crime branch official said that they raided Jains office after their informers shared information that a chit fund company owner was collecting demonetised banknotes from businessmen after promising them to get them exchanged on commission basis.

We seized the scrapped banknotes under section 103 of Delhi Police act as Jain failed to give a satisfactory account about the presence of invalid notes at his office. We are taking legal action against him. He will be produced before the concerned court, said Verma.

Meanwhile, the income-tax department was also informed about the raid. Two senior income-tax department officers joined the investigation later in the evening. According to the officer, the probe will finally be handed over to the income-tax officials for further investigation.

Income-tax department officials will question Jain to establish the source through which he collected scrapped banknotes. They will also ask him to reveal the source through which he had planned to exchange the banned notes, the officer said.

This is the second such seizure of scrapped notes by the Delhi Police in the last one week. On last Tuesday, four men allegedly trying to illegally exchange Rs6.18 crore in banned currency notes were caught from south Delhis Safdarjung Enclave by the south Delhi Police. The men worked as property dealers and share brokers in West Delhi areas. They were carrying the notes in suitcases in two cars, a Honda City and a Maruti Ritz when the police swooped down on them.
Delhis first automated fitness centre for vehicles is set to open by end of April.

The facility, a partnership between the Union ministry of road transport and highways and the Delhi government, has been built in southwest Delhis Jhuljhuli area. The centre is expected to take a major load off the existing fitness centre at Burari, which at present is the only place where commercial vehicles including taxis, auto-rickshaws and buses can be tested.

An average of 20,000 vehicles queue up every month at the Burari centre for fitness certificates, which commercial license owners need to get either on buying a new vehicle or for yearly renewal after completion of the first two years.

We hope to start the centre by the end of April. Construction of the centre is over and the machinery required have been commissioned. We are now waiting for installation of high-speed internet service which is required to integrate records of all vehicles under the web-based Vahan 4.0 system, an official working on the project said.

Currently, fitness test of in-use transport vehicles such as heavy motor vehicles and light motor vehicles is being carried out manually after a visual check by regional transport office officials. This could be the reason as to why only 6,352 (3.6%) out of a total 1,77,065 vehicles that were tested at the centre failed fitness tests between March 2016 to February 2017.

The new automated centre will ensure the safety and quality of vehicles like buses, cabs, gramin sewas, heavy goods vehicles, ambulances, and light goods vehicles.

The current vehicle fitness process is not foolproof and could be inaccurate at times. Automation of fitness centres will improve quality of vehicles on road as everything from brakes, headlights and suspension to emissions will be checked by different machines, the official said.

A properly maintained and fully functioning vehicle meeting all safety requirements is also less likely to be involved in a road accident, he added.

The Delhi government has provided three acres of land for the project, with the Union road ministry funding the project and the International Centre for Automotive Technology (ICAT) being the implementing agency. The centre has been built at a cost of Rs 16 crore approximately.

The facility is a part of the Road Ministrys pilot project where seven states including Haryana, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh will get automated vehicle fitness centres. The only such operational facility is in Nashik.

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Raj Kapoors Mera Naam Joker and Sangam will be the last two movies to be shown at Delhis 85-year-old Regal cinema hall that is closing down on March 30.

One of the owners of the hall, Vishal Choudhary, said that he received many requests and fan mails requesting them to screen Raj Kapoors movies as the hall was his favourite. He is said to have visited the theatre regularly and hosted premieres of several films released under the banner of RK films, including Sangam that released in 1964 and Mera Naam Joker, first screened in 1970.

The hall that is currently playing Anushka Sharma-starrer Phillauri will show Mera Naam Joker in the evening at six and Sangam at 9pm on Thursday.

Regal Cinema in Connaught Place was the first theatre in the area opened in 1932 by Sir Sobha Singh.

Called the New Delhi Premier Theatre in its early days, Regal may return as a multiplex with four auditoria. According to the owners, they are trying to get permission from agencies concerned to build a multiplex at the same spot.

The facade will not be changed as the building is a heritage structure but inside there will be major changes including a new design of the hall, better seats, new toilets and canteen, said Choudhary.

The corridors and the staircase of the hall is lined with black and white photographs of actors Dev Anand, Meena Kumari, Nargis, and Raj Kapoor.

Raj Kapoor and Nargis would spend time a lot of time here. Kapoor often sat through the premieres of his films. The theatre was decorated and rituals were performed before the start of every film. Every show then was house full in advance for at least a week, said Roop Ghai, manager.

Choudhary said he has got 60% of the proposal to build a multiplex cleared. We have got the no-objection certificate from fire department and Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) as it is a heritage site. Our designs have been approved by Delhi Urban Arts Commission, he told Hindustan Times.

It will, however, take at least a year before the work begins as we have to take permission from several other departments and it takes a long time to complete these things, he said. Hindustan Times had reported on December 22 that the cinema was on the verge of closing due to severe cash crunch aggravated by demonetisation.

Choudhary said it was time to fold up Regal as they had not been making money for many years now. Business has been down for a decade and last months collection of Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya film was also not very good. He said the cinema hall has been unable to recover operating costs over the past two years. Half the money we get from tickets goes to the distributor. It costs us over Rs 2 lakh a week to run a show.

Choudhary also said that they didnt want to take any chances after the collapse of some buildings in Connaught Place recently. The New Delhi Municipal Council has asked the owners of buildings in the area to prove structural capability. This is another reason why he decided to close the theatre and rebuild it.

The first and second floors of the Regal Building were sold to Madame Tussauds in 1996, so the famed wax museum could open its 22nd branch in Delhi. The ground floor remains with the owner.

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There will be no fee hike at over 300 private schools located on Delhi government land when the new academic session begins in April, a circular issued by the education department on March 27 has stated.

The remaining 1,400 private schools cannot cite implementation of the 7th pay commission to hike their fees beyond 10%, it added.

Last year, it was made mandatory for schools located on government land  such as the Birla Vidya Niketan, Sanskriti School and Delhi Public School-Vasant Kunj  to acquire prior approval of the Directorate of Education (DoE) for effecting the regular 10% fee hike. However, while 168 schools applied for the DoEs approval in the 2016-17 session, only five received it.

Read | Mandatory for Delhi private schools to seek govt approval before fee hike: SC

The latest circular cleared some of the confusion over the fee hike. In January, the government sent a circular stating that we cannot hold meetings on increasing our fees. However, a circular issued yesterday clarified that we are only restricted from hiking our fees over 10%, said Ameeta Mulla Wattal, principal of Springdales School-Pusa Road, which is not located on government land.

Under the 7th pay commission, the government will come up with a separate set of guidelines for schools to follow. So, the 300 private institutions located on government land may not be able to hike their fees until the middle of the academic session.

Even if we apply for approval now, the state authorities will take time to process it. This academic year, the hike may happen along with the implementation of the 7th pay commission, the principal of one of the affected schools said on the condition of anonymity.

Read | As parents protest fee hike, Gurgaon schools asked to discuss hike beforehand

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Anger spread like fire at Pari Chowk in Greater Noida, about 40 kilometres away from the heart of Delhi, on Monday. More than 100 people, who had gathered at the quaint roundabout with candles to stage a vigil after the death of a 17-year-old student, ended up attacking Africans spotted anywhere in the vicinity. They alleged that the teenager died after a few Nigerians forced him to inhale drugs.

The peaceful protest soon turned into a riot and there were rumours about the abduction of an African woman, which the local police denied. The latest incident only adds to the long list of hate crimes in Delhi NCR against people who look and live different.

The conflict of races has gone hyperlocal in the Capital with people of African origin settling in ghettos across colonies owned by old-timers and their families. HT takes a look back at how Delhi has often been unkind to Africans residing here.

May 2016: Congolese youth beaten to death in Vasant Kunj

A 23-year-old Congolese national was beaten to death in Kishangarh near Vasant Kunj where he had gone to meet a friend.

Police said that the victim, MT Oliva, was on his way home when apparently had an argument with some men.

The victim was chased for 20 meters and then beaten up by the assailants with stones and bricks lying around. He was later taken to a hospital where he was declared brought dead.

May 2016: Over a dozen African nationals attacked in South Delhi

At least four men and two women were injured in the attack on at least 12 Africans in Rajpur Khurd village in south Delhi. They were attacked by locals who allegedly objected to the free lifestyle of these men and women.

Police had said that there were four attacks within a span of an hour which hinted that they may have been carried out in a planned way. In two cases, the complainants were women  one a Uganda national and the other of South Africa. In the other two, the complainants were Nigerian men.

October 2014: Mob attacked African students at Rajiv Chowk metro station

CCTV cameras installed at the station captured three African students being beaten up by a mob. They had to climb up a booth at the station to save themselves.

The footage showed that nobody came forward to help the students even though many were busy shooting the incident on the camera. A few policemen, who tried to intervene, soon walked away allowing the attack to continue. The attack ended when a CISF personnel dispersed the crowd.

Some, who later claimed to be witnesses, said the students had allegedly harassed a woman on the train, which made the crowd angry. But the police did not confirm the allegation.

January 2014: AAP MLA Somnath Bharti led a mob that allegedly attacked African women

AAP MLA Somnath Bhari went to south Delhis Khirki Extension, an African ghetto, after he was allegedly tipped off about a sex and drug racket operational in the area. He had gone there to conduct a sting operation along with his supporters and TV crew .

Four African women  two Nigerians and two Ugandans  were allegedly mobbed by Bhartis men following which they were taken to AIIMS hospital. However, AIIMS hospital later confirmed that no drug traces were found in their body.

The women alleged that Bhartis supporters even molested them.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 28



By Dalga Khatinoglu  Trend:



The recent US sanctions imposed on foreign companies or individuals over their contribution to Irans missile program are outside the scope of the 2015 nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action/ JCPOA), a State Department official told Trend on condition of anonymity.



Penalties are being applied pursuant to sanctions that were not relieved on JCPOA Implementation Day. The JCPOA is solely focused on Irans nuclear program and these sanctions are outside the scope of the JCPOA. Sanctions related to Irans support for terrorism, ballistic

missile program, human rights abuses, and destabilizing activities in the region remain in force. And these actions are fully consistent with our implementation of the JCPOA," said the official.



"Under the JCPOA, the United States did not commit to lift sanctions outside of those sanctions specifically related to Irans nuclear program. The penalties underscore that the United States continues to impose sanctions under existing authorities, as warranted, against Iranian entities and individuals in areas separate from the JCPOA including its ballistic missile program, human rights abuses, and support for terrorism, the official said.



The US on March 24 announced sanctions on 11 foreign companies or individuals for transferring sensitive technology to Iran for its missile program.



In the meantime, 19 entities or individuals were sanctioned for other violations under the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act.



Iran reacting to the development on March 26 imposed retaliatory sanctions on 15 American companies because of their support of terrorism.
Air India on Tuesday foiled two attempts by Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad to book flights to Delhi with the airline for Wednesday. The state carrier, which had grounded the MP for abusing and assaulting a 60-year-old Air India manager last week, first cancelled Gaikwads Mumbai-Delhi ticket and then cancelled a ticket that he had booked from Hyderabad to Delhi later in the evening.

Hyderabad is just 300 kilometres from the MPs constituency, Osmanabad in Maharashtra.

Gaikwad had an open ticket with Air India and had booked a flight for Wednesday morning. He blocked a seat on a morning flight from Mumbai to Delhi, which was booked through the Air India call centre. When the airline realised who the passenger was, they cancelled the ticket.

Not one to give up, Gaikwad then booked another ticket, this time from Hyderabad to Delhi. However, the airline again came to know who the passenger was and cancelled the ticket once again. Air India officials say that they are now checking the database to ascertain how many tickets Gaikwad may have booked.

The MP had booked two tickets for Wednesday -- Mumbai-Delhi and Hyderabad-Delhi -- and we cancelled them, said an Air India spokesperson.

Now we have issued directions to all our regional staff to check if he has booked more tickets. We will also enter his name in the online ticketing system so that whenever he ties to book a ticket, our staff gets a notification, the official said.

Gaikwad abused and assaulted R Sukumar with his slippers, venting his anger after being denied business class on a Pune-New Delhi Air India flight last Thursday.

The 56-year-old MP was then banned by Air India and five private airlines from flying as he refused to apologise for the incident that triggered nationwide outrage.

. @airindiain is issuing direction to call centre staff to not to block seats for Gaikwad. @htTweets @htdelhi  Faizan Haidar (@FaiHaider) March 28, 2017

Fellow MPs criticised Gaikwads action, and Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan said she would take a call if any parliamentarian brought the topic to her notice in the House.

He, however, remained defiant and unrepentant, and instead blamed Sukumar for the incident.

He told reporters at Maharashtra Sadan this morning that he has no regrets.

Kaahe ka pashchaataap (what is there to repent)? I will not apologise ... he (Sukumar) should come and apologise. Then we will see. A 60-year-old man should know how to behave, he said.

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Its an important mission for an institute in faraway US, the University of Virginia (UVA) to be precise. It involves reviving a river we hold sacred but one which we have been choking to death through pollution  the Yamuna

The Yamuna River Project, an exhibition being unveiled tomorrow, March 29, at Delhis India Habitat Centre, will showcase three years of work done by UVA with the ministry of water resources and the Delhi Jal Board through its project, Re-Centering Delhi.

Inaki Alday, Quesada professor of architecture at UVA and director of the project, shared more details with us.

Inaki Alday, Inaki Alday, Quesada professor of architecture at UVA and director of the Yamuna River Project. (Dan Addison/U.Va. University Com)

The Yamuna River exhibition will open on March 29  and will feature the Re-Centering Delhi project was launched three years ago. Please tell us about the progress made so far?

In the summer of 2016, after three years of research, the University of Virginia signed an MoU with the Delhi Jal Board to share information on Delhi, on the Yamuna and its tributaries, and on the urban infrastructures. The immediate focus of study is the Najafgarh Drain, the major source of pollution in the Yamuna. After several months of work, we are now presenting the first findings and scenario studies.

What about finances? How much money has the university invested in the project and what are the takeaways?

All of our work is covered by salaries so there have been no additional expenditures for the Yamuna River Project. In the coming months and years, following the duration of the MoU, the project will keep adding experts in different fields, increasing cooperation with Indian partners, and developing research in multiple areas with the objective of offering information and visualising possibilities to inform the public, others working on this issue, and those with the responsibility of making decisions.

Urban design proposal - Pankha Drain, located in Hastsal Village. (Handout)

How is Pankaj Vir Gupta, the Harry S Shure visiting professor of architecture, UVA, involved with the project?

Gupta conceived the project. When asked what he wanted to focus on during his professorship, Gupta didnt hesitate. To him, the neglect of the Yamuna presented a unique opportunity to create a research focus and launching pad for a long-term relationship between UVA and India. Since its inception in the School of Architecture (UVA), the work has become a pan-University effort that draws from many disciplines, including environmental science, urban planning, history and public policy, to name a few. More than 60 students from architecture, landscape architecture, planning, environmental sciences and engineering have sifted through data and drawn plans to revitalise the Yamuna area since the project launched in 2013. They have made site visits to the Yamuna in Delhi to get an on-the-ground read of the situation.

Design proposal - Hapur Bypass Trans Yamuna Housing. (Handout)

How has UVA benefited from being a part of the project? Are you satisfied with the progress and do you think the river can be saved  especially its most polluted spots?

Being able to draw on UVAs expertise and present a blueprint for recovery is hugely satisfying. This is not an impossible task. There are case studies in India and other countries in which polluted rivers and wicked urban conditions have been recovered and transformed.

The river and its environs have been restored and renewed in Ahmedabad, water scarcity has been solved in Singapore, water fronts have been recovered in Barcelona, dead rivers have come to life in the Ruhr in Germany, water remediation parks have been built in Zaragoza, Spain, floodable areas are healthy, accessible, and safe in Pamplona and in the Netherlands. The Yamuna and Delhi are a huge challenge that can be usefully addressed with a holistic approach informed by similarities and differences with successful precedents.

How ambitious are you about Re-Centering Delhi? Where do you see this collaboration going in five years?

Very.

In the coming months and years, following the duration of the MOU, the project will keep adding experts in different fields, increasing cooperation with Indian partners, and developing research in multiple areas with the objective of offering information and visualizing possibilities to inform the public, others working on this issue, and those with the responsibility of making decisions.

The Yamuna River Project Exhibition opens on Wednesday, March 29, 6.30 to 9.30 PM at India Habitat Centre Atrium, Lodhi Road.

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A top US body in international education and global investment banking has announced a scholarship and mentoring programme for the Indian women university students in science and technology-related fields.

Under the scholarship - WeTech Goldman Sachs Scholars - announced by the Institute of International Education (IIE) and Goldman Sachs, 25 Indian women will each receive a merit-based $1,500 (about Rs 97,000) scholarships for the 2017-18 school year and be connected with an experienced mentor from Goldman Sachs for a six-month mentorship from June through December 2017, a statement said on Monday.

Engaging women at various stages from their academic years to a career is a critical step in addressing the gender gap often seen in the technology industry, said Shubha Iyer, managing director in the Technology division at Goldman Sachs in Bengaluru.

IIE and Goldman Sachs believe that providing young women university scholarships toward a degree in a STEM field and offering real-world career advice has tremendous impact on their ability to thrive in the global workforce, said Allan Goodman, IIE president and CEO.

This comes at a time when the tech industry around the world needs more women who are educated and trained to entering into STEM careers and work with peers across many different countries and cultures, Goodman added.

The winners will be announced in June.
The hills of a Mewat village reverberated with gunshots on Monday after the police and members of a robbery gang exchanged fire.

The gang is accused of lifting about 10 ATMs in Odisha within five months and has been involved in similar crimes in Delhi, Karnataka, Gurgaon and Faridabad, police said.

A team of Odisha police, led by a deputy superintendent of police, has been camping in Mewat for the last fortnight after they got specific input that the gang members were in the area.

The Odisha police team, with the help of the Gurgaon crime branch, tracked three of the accused to Sohna on Monday. They were on a motorcycle and, when chased by the police team,they opened fire and fled towards Mewat, a police officer said.

The accused fled to their village Nagli and started climbing the nearby hills. But the police managed to corner them and the gang opened fire on the police party. The police team fired in retaliation and the FIR mentions that the accused fired seven rounds while the police fired three rounds.

Read | Gangs of Mewat: Govt indifference, neglect bigger realities than crime

Police sources, however, claimed that more than 50 rounds were fired as the accused were carrying countrymade weapons and bullets in their belts.

After the ammunition was exhausted, two of the accused Mohammed Jahid, 25, and Mohammed Shahid, 47, surrendered while Shahids brother escaped.

The Odisha police had booked them lifting 10 ATMs and looting Rs 5.5 crore in total. The arrested accused have been taken on three-day police remand for further interrogation, said assistant sub inspector Ajit Singh, the investigating officer.

The police are trying to find out why the accused targeted ATMs in Odisha specifically. He said the accused are experts in cutting and lifting ATMs and looting them. The police recovered pistols cartridges and also seized a car and a tractor from the arrested men.

According to the Odisha police, the gang first looted at ATM at Gandarpur area in Cuttack on October 17. They opened the ATM with gas cutters and stole Rs 17 lakh. The police had noticed a Tata Safari bearing a Delhi registration number used by the accused and this made them widen the search to the National Capital Region.

Read | Ghasera, where Mahatma Gandhis legacy lives on, waits for India

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Leisure time is getting squeezed by modern lifestyles, claims a new study.

A study commissioned by Beko, a Turkish domestic appliance and consumer electronics brand, and titled The World Play Shortage, contends that the average amount of leisure time worldwide is 21 hours per week (19 hours for women, 22 for men.)

The figure is the result of a 22-country, 10,100 person survey.

Residents in Denmark top the list with 33 hours of leisure time while Bolivians have on average 12 hours of free time each week.

On average, workers under the age of 22 are more likely to cancel leisure-time activities in order to stay late at the office, according to the survey, while its at 38 years old that, typically, people start indicating a preference for more free time over more money.

Two in three respondents (64%) said that spending time with their families was their preferred activity, with time relaxing at home the next most popular use of leisure hours (62%), and going out with friends rounding out the top three (46%) categories.

Turkish consumer electronics and domestic appliances manufacturer Beko signed a four-year deal with FC Barcelona in 2014, starting with the 2014/15 season.

Respondents from Algeria, Australia, Austria, Bolivia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Norway, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay were included in the survey.

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Actor Pierce Brosnan says he mistakenly ate rat while shooting for a film in Nigeria.

The 63-year-old actor says he thought he had been offered beef and was left feeling ill after eating the rodent skin, reported Female First.

(The worst thing Ive put in my mouth) is rat. I was in Nigeria making a movie called Mister Johnson and we went into town one night and there were these delicacies on a stick. I thought it was beef, but it was rat skin. I was sick for a week, Brosnan says

The star confessed that he fancies himself a baker, but hasnt done any cooking recently.

I used to bake bread - I was a good baker of soda bread -but I havent picked up a pot in a long time.

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A total of 59 army personnel have been killed since 2016 in counter-terror operations and foiling cross border infiltration attempts in Jammu and Kashmir. As many as 127 cross-border infiltration attempts were made in the state in the last three years, including 88 last year, the government informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

Minister of state for defence Subhash Bhamre said 49 army personnel lost their lives in terror incidents, counter-terror operations and foiling infiltration attempts in 2016, while the number till March 17 this year was 10.

The minister said 28 infiltration attempts were made in 2015, 88 in 2016 and 11 till February this year.

To another query, Bhamre said the number of appeals filed against soldiers with disability in respect of ex-servicemen in Supreme Court between 2014-16 was approximately 794.

The percentage of appeals against soldiers with disability out of all appeals is 61.5% while the number of appeals ruled in favour of the government is only one.

The ministry of defence has taken several steps to reduce the litigation in respect of defence personnel including soldiers with disability.

Recently, the defence ministry has issued order for implementation of One Rank One Pension on November 7, 2015 and delinking of 33 years qualifying service with effect from January 1, 2006 for pre-2006 retirees on August 30, 2016, he said.

To a separate query, he said the onus was clearly on Pakistan to create a conducive environment free of violence and terrorism for addressing all matters of mutual concern between the two countries.

India wants to maintain peace and calm along the LoC and remains committed by the tenets of ceasefire understanding of 2003, he said.

To another question, Bhamre said the number of women officers in the army, excluding those in general and medical branch, is 1,528 while the number for Navy is 469 and Air Force 1,581.

He said the army has recruited 407 women officers since 2013 while the IAF inducted 644 women personnel and Navy recruited 186 during the period, excluding those in general and medical branch.
In Jagdamba Camp, a south Delhi slum, Sunita and Prem Kumar Upadhyay are caught in an Aadhaar bind, curtailing their familys ration entitlement.

The family of six is getting provisions under the public distribution system (PDS) only for two as names of their minor children could not be enlisted in the ration card in the absence of their Aadhaar cards, the all important document to get benefits of the government schemes.

The Aadhaar is a 12 digit unique-identity number issued to Indian residents based on their biometric and demographic data collected and maintained by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

Explaining his predicament, Kumar says officials responsible for the Aadhaar enrolment at the time did not register children below 12 years, saying it was not feasible.

Now that all the four children have finally got their Aadhaar cards, the window to enlist their names in the ration card has closed.

As a result, Kumar, who owns a bag repairing shop, is now forced to buy provisions from the open market to meet the shortfall. His family has a priority card which entitles them 5kg ration (4kg wheat at Rs2 per Kg and 1kg rice at Rs 3 per Kg) per person listed on the card.

Sunita and Kumar are not the only ones in the Sheikh Sarai slum, to be deprived of their rights, though with more than a billion enrolments, the government is tomtoming the success of the Aadhaar project.

Only a few days ago, Ravi Shankar Prasad, the minister in charge of the UIDAI claimed linking of the Aadhaar with ration distribution has brought about more transparency and saved public money to the tune of Rs 14,000 crore.

The government is now making the linking of permanent account numbers (PAN) to Aadhaar mandatory ignoring the controversy over the project since the inception of UIDAI in 2009.

The Aadhaar has been challenged in the Supreme Court on several grounds, including national security, violating right to privacy, excluding some people from benefits of welfare programmes.

Since 2013, the top court has issued seven interim orders, directing voluntary use of Aadhaar and that no one should be denied benefits to which they are otherwise entitled, if they do not have the 12 digit number.

Notwithstanding such riders, the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 came into force on September 12 last year.

The Act makes Aadhaar mandatory to get subsidies, benefits and services provided by the State.

The government has expanded its scope to even filing of Income Tax returns.

However, activists affirm that making Aadhaar mandatory is unconstitutional and a complete disregard of the Supreme Courts orders.

Reetika Khera, associate professor of Economics in IIT Delhi, accused the government of creating false impression that the SC orders have become redundant following the enactment of the Aadhaar Act.

The most common trick used by the government to get around the courts order is to state that those who do not have Aadhaar can continue to get their entitlements if they enrol for it and that the government will facilitate this.

This is sugar-coating on a bitter pill, says Khera. You just stop getting your entitlements  until you enrol for it. This is the reality of it, though the government vehemently denies it.

The civil society has been alleging government is maintaining a double-standard on the issue.

Though enrolment for Aadhaar is voluntary, you have to compulsorily enroll for it if you want any entitlements from the state, pointed out Anjali Bhardwaj of Satark Nagrik Sangathan.

Some even say the identification number is a tool for the government to keep a tab on the residents.

Nandan Nilekani, the first chief of UIDAI, however, dismissed all concerns about Aadhaar-linked state surveillance: Surveillance is the last thing on the governments agenda. The mobile phone is a bigger tool of surveillance than Aadhaar.

Ajay Bhushan Pandey, chief executive officer at UIDAI, said: The Act ensures that no one is denied of any benefits for the want of the Aadhaar. It is required only for ensuring that the benefits reach the right individuals.

Since 2012, the UIDAI has done 500 crore authentications, 100 crore eKYC transactions, 32 crore Aadhaar enabled payment system transactions, and not a single case of identity theft or financial loss has been reported over a period of five years, he claimed.

With ever increasing last-mile glitches, connectivity and network issues, machine malfunctioning, there is a growing criticism that in a bid to weed out the fakes, the government is depriving many deserving people of their entitlements.

For the anomalies, the UIDAI officials pass the buck to concerned departments that implement the welfare schemes.

The Aadhaar only helps various agencies and departments to identify a person, said a UIDAI official, adding if anyone is denied of his or her entitlement due to non-availability of the unique number, it is only because concerned officials are not properly following the law or the notification.

There are more than 30,000 common service centres where people can update their existing details. They can also send details by post or email. There is a special provision to enrol a child below five years by linking his/her details at the enrolment centres or the Aadhaar ID of the parent, he pointed out.

But those opposing the Aadhaar are not convinced. They argue technology is vulnerable to failures and is not a panacea for curbing corruption.

Imagine if you had to board a flight or withdraw cash and your Aadhaar-based biometric authentication, mandatory for the transaction, fails, and you are requested to go re-enroll and wait for records to be updated, Khera said.

Bhardwaj maintained that corruption could take place even in the welfare schemes that are based on Aadhaar authentication such as PDS.

After the authentication, the ration shop owners can give less provisions than what is entitled, citing lack of availability or supply. In such a scenario, what can the beneficiaries do? There is no redressal mechanism in place. How will the thumb authentication ensure that the ration shop is not depriving the beneficiary? she asked.

Amid these claims and counterclaims, the reality perhaps lies somewhere in between.

The Aadhaar will solve only a part of the problem. It cannot be a one stop solution for all ails, said a senior UIDAI official.

Read about the people entangled in the Aadhaar web of confusion:

IDENTITY CRISIS: Sabra Khatoon Ansari, Jagdamba Camp

Sabra Khatoon Ansari holds up her Aadhaar card which erroneously mentions her sex as male. (Arun Sharma/HT PHOTO)

Nine-year-old Sabra Khatoons sex on the Aadhaar Card is mentioned as Male. Due to the anomaly, she is facing severe identity problems to get benefits of various government welfare schemes such as Laadli and EWS medical card.

Her father MD Salam attributes the error to chaos at the Aadhaar enrolment centre where his daughter got her biometric data registered in 2014. He says several attempts by him to rectify the mistake went in vain.

MISSING LAADLI: Mahi, Motilal Nehru Camp, Near JNU

Saroj and Prem Kumar Kanojia with their daughter Mahi, who could not be enrolled for the Laadli scheme. (Arun Sharma/HT PHOTO)

Mahi, born to Saroj and Prem Kumar Kanojia on August 4, 2016 could not be enrolled for the Laadli scheme as she did not have an Aadhaar card.

They said despite several visits to Aadhaar centre to get the all-important card for their daughter did not yield any result. They were sent back on the ground that the child is too young for the registration.

SCHOLARSHIP WOES: Swayam Gupta, Motilal Nehru Camp, Near JNU

Swayam Gupta , with his mother Geeta. Swayam has lost out on a school scholarship because his name is misspelt on his Aadhaar card. (Arun Sharma/HT PHOTO)

The Syndicate Bank passbook of Swayam Gupta shows an entry of Rs 1200 on 24/11/2016 in his account. However, he cannot withdraw the money as his name in the Aadhaar card has been erroneously spelled as Shivam.

His mother Geeta was told by bank officials that her son will not be able to take out the money credited in his account to purchase books and uniforms due to the mismatch. Swayam studies in Class 4 in the government school at Sector 3, R K Puram.

Kaagzon pe sarkar chaltee hai (government depends only on paper), says Geeta Gupta, lamenting that just because of a clerical error her son is not getting his school scholarship.

PENSION PAIN: Rukampal, Jagdamba Camp, Malviya Nagar

Rukampal, who runs an ironing stall, cannot claim his pension because of an error in his year of birth on his Aadhaar card. (Arun Sharma/HT PHOTO)

Rukampal is not getting his monthly old-age pension because his age mentioned on the Aadhaar Card is less than the pensionable age.

As per the voter ID card, Rukampals age as on 1/1/2013 is 67 years, whereas his Aadhaar Card issued on 8/3/2012 mentions his year of birth as 1957, that makes him 55-year-old at the time of the enrolment.

To correct the mistake, Rukampal says he even paid Rs 300 to a local agent, who works at the Aadhaar enrolment centre to make a new Aadhaar card. Nothing came out of it.

After the Delhi government revised the old age and disability pensions, senior citizens in the age group of 60-69 years are now entitled to get Rs 2,000 monthly, while those above 70 years get Rs 2,500 per month.

Iss burdape mein bhee koi sahayta nahee (there is no respite even in this old age), he said.
After Uttar Pradesh, the Jharkhand government on Monday issued an order for closure of all illegal slaughterhouses in the state within 72 hours. But ironically, the government doesnt have any record of legal abattoirs in the state.

The home department has asked all the deputy commissioners, senior superintendents of police and superintendents of police to ensure closure of the illegal slaughter houses in their respective areas.

Notice will be served to all illegal slaughter houses for closing their operations in the next 72 hours, said the government circular signed by home secretary SKG Rahate. According to the circular sub-divisional officers would be nodal officers to follow up and ensure closure of illegal slaughter houses.

Unlike UP where the ban on illegal slaughter houses was part of the BJPs election manifesto, in Jharkhand, the governments decision came on the heels of a demand by right wing organizations for a blanket ban on slaughter houses.

About half a dozen organizations including Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM), Bajrang Das and Jharkhand Gau Raksha Dal had been pressing their demand for a ban on slaughter houses for the last four days.

The organizations took out a torch light procession on Sunday night demanding ban on slaughterhouses and a crackdown on cattle smuggling and had threatened massive agitations after April 10 if the state government did not issue an order against slaughterhouses.

Right-wingers had been claiming hundreds of illegal slaughterhouses were operating in Jharkhand.

Animal husbandry, health and municipal bodies are responsible for ensuring compliance of the rules and regulations of slaughterhouses and meats shops. Interestingly, these departments do not have any record of legal slaughter houses operating in Jharkhand.

An official of the urban development department, who did not want to be identified, said the department does not have any record of legal abattoirs in the state.

Rajnikant Tirkey, director of state animal husbandry department, said they provide veterinarian for ante-mortem and post-mortem facilities of the animals in slaughter house on request of local urban bodies.

But sources in the department say that they have not received any requisition from any local bodies in the state till date.

In the run-up to the ban, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) had held two different meetings in Ranchi last week urging the state government to proscribe illegal abattoirs in the state.

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The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has asked the state government to produce the order or executive instructions under which the drive for closure of illegal meat shops has been undertaken.

The court asked the government to file its reply by April 3.

The court said any communication to the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) in this regard should also be brought on record by the LMC counsel.

A division bench of justice Amreshwar Pratap Sahi and justice Sanjay Harkauli issued the order on an application moved in a writ petition of 2015 filed by Shahabuddin and nine meat traders. The written order was issued on?Tuesday.

Seeking directives for the renewal of licences of their meat shops, the petitioners had alleged that the matter was urgent as they had been prevented from carrying on their trade. They said their establishments were being forcibly closed even as their licences were pending for renewal.

The counsel of the petitioners, GC Sinha, said the licences of meat shops had not been renewed since 2014.

The petitioners had moved a writ petition in the high court in 2015 and the court had sought reply from the respondents, Sinha said.

Plea in NGT

An environment activist moved the NGT against illegal slaughter houses in UP, alleging that these were discharging effluent into drains.

The plea, which has been listed before a bench headed by Justice Jawad Rahim, also seeks the execution of the NGTs 2015 order for closure of all illegal slaughter houses in the state. The plea has made the UP government, Central Pollution Control Board, UP Pollution Control Board and state groundwater department as parties in the case. The plea, filed through advocate Anuja Chauhan, seeks action against four illegal slaughterhouses in Aligarh.
Tehran, Iran, Mar. 28

By Mehdi Sepahvand  Trend:

Tehran has shown strong reaction to recent statements by US Vice President Mike Pence addressing some 20,000 people at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference, where the US official accused Iran of destabilizing the region and attempting to develop a nuclear bomb.

In a response to Pence, Irans Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said the unwavering help of the US to Israels nuclear activity is a sign of Americas support for instability in the region and the world, the Iranian Foreign Ministry website reported March 28.

All the International Atomic Energy Agencys reports indicate that Irans nuclear activities are peaceful, Qassemi said.

In his address to the AIPAC March 26, Pence said Iranian politicians openly admit their desire to wipe Israel off the map and drive its people into the sea. America will no longer tolerate Irans efforts to destabilize the region and jeopardize Israels security.... Under President Donald Trump, the United States of America will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. This is our solemn promise to you, to Israel, and to the world. History attests that enmity toward the Jewish people often turns from evil thought to evil action.
BJP workers in Gujarat are all set to accord a grand welcome to party president Amit Shah who will be felicitated on Wednesday during the Vijay Vishwas Karyakarta Sammelan.

It will be Shahs first visit to his home state after the election results were announced for the five states that went to polls earlier this year.

Key party leaders, including Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, deputy CM Nitin Patel and state BJP chief Jitubhai Vaghani will be present for the event.

As our party chief is coming to his home state for the first time after the election results of five states, including Uttar Pradesh, we have organised this programme on Wednesday at Sabarmati Riverfront to felicitate him in a grand manner, said the release.

Later, Shah, who is the MLA from Naranpura seat of Ahmedabad, will attend the ongoing budget session of the Gujarat assembly on March 30, a day before the session draws to a close.

Shah is expected to stay here till March 31 and hold meetings with key party leaders as assembly polls in Gujarat are also approaching, party sources said.
Around 336 tonnes of hazardous waste is lying in the premises of Union Carbide India Limited, the site of the infamous 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, the government said on Tuesday.

Environment minister Anil Madhav Dave, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha, said the government has neither sought any allocation of funds from department of expenditure nor any allocation has been made for disposal of toxic waste.

Approximately 336 tonnes of hazardous waste is lying in the premises of erstwhile UCIL, Bhopal, Dave said.

He said the central government has taken all measures for safe and speedy disposal of the toxic waste which include assessment of the waste, evaluation of toxicity, safe packaging and storing of waste at the site, identification of appropriate technology for disposal, trial disposal of 10 tonnes of waste and formulation of procurement framework.

Dave in another written reply on March 20 had said that the government has decided to dispose of safely the hazardous waste from the UCIL.

He had said trial incineration of 10 tonnes of actual UCIL waste was carried out at common hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal facility (TSDF) in Pithampur in Indore from August 13-18, 2015 under the supervision of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board and the environment ministry.

The CPCB has reported that all the monitored parameters of the incinerated waste complied with the prescribed parameters of common hazardous waste incinerator as prescribed under schedule II of the Environment ( Protection) Rules, 1986 notified under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.

Ambient air quality around incinerator was found to be within the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for monitored parameters namely, PM10, SOx, NOx, arsenic, lead and benzene, he had said.

Thirty-two years ago, a deadly gas leak at the Union Carbide plant killed over 3,000 people and maimed thousands of others in Bhopal.
The father of a 13-year-old girl, who was allegedly sexually abused by eight teachers of a private school in Rajasthan for nearly two years, has said he concocted the charges because of his poor mental condition, officials said on Tuesday.

Though police said they will continue to probe the charges, the fathers admission could potentially turn on its head a case which sparked anger and revulsion across the country.

A team of the Rajasthan Commission for Women (RCW) met the girls father on Monday.

Additional superintendent of police Yogita Meena, who was with the womens commission team, said the father denied the gang rape charge.

He said he lodged the case because of his bad mental state, the officer said.

The team also spoke to the girls grandmother and she, too, denied the charge, Meena added.

The first hints that the case could be false came from Rajasthan home minister Gulab Chand Kataria who told reporters that the case appeared fake but added that police investigation will carry on to reach a conclusion. Women and child development minister Anita Bhadel also said the case was untrue.

The father had charged the eight teachers of a private school in Nokha, 116 km from Bikaner, of abusing his daughter for a year-and-a-half after. He said the teachers also made a video and blackmailed her. The complaint said the girl was forced to take abortion pills after she became pregnant out of the illegal act.

The parents even blamed the abortion pills for her cancer.

Police registered a case of gang rape under sections of the IPC and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. No one has been arrested so far.

Police had expressed doubts about the case looked as of the accused teachers had earlier field a complaits against two cousins of the victim on March 20 charging them of assaulting him.

Earlier, the family went missing after the girl was discharged from Acharya Tulsi Regional Cancer Hospital and Research Institute in Bikaner where she was taking treatment for blood cancer, on Saturday.

Investigative officer, deputy superintendent of police Banwarilal Meena, told HT that the girls statement before a magistrate could not be recorded for last two days because the family was untraceable.

Her father keeps his mobile phone switched off most of the time, he said.

The girl is likely to give her statement on Tuesday.

Bikaner superintendent of police, Amandeep Singh Kapoor, said they will wait for the statement before deciding on the future of the case.
Leaving behind the unsavoury turn of events of June 2010, BJP leaders, barring leader of the opposition in the assembly Prem Kumar and a few others, attended a lavish dinner hosted by Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar at his residence on Monday.

Kumar, in 2010, as part of the NDA, had cancelled a dinner for the BJP national leadership at the eleventh hour, apparently after photographs showing him holding hands with the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi appeared in newspaper advertisements.

But all that was buried on Monday. The menu was lavish and so was the warmth on the occasion. While JD(U) termed it a customary dinner, four days before the closure of the monthlong Bihar legislatures budget session, it was enough to add grist to the rumour mill that the two former allies were again cosying up.

The dinner diplomacy has set tongues wagging. Even as senior BJP leader Nand Kishore and Nitin Navin also opted out, the BJP, on its part, gave wings to the speculation of the two former allies coming together.

Nitish Kumar wants to come close to BJP through dinner. After all, he has been part of the NDA for 17 years, said BJP MP Janardan Singh Sigriwal.

The BJP has 53 members in the 243-member Bihar assembly and 23 legislators in the 75-member legislative council.

BJP leader Prem Kumar, who on Monday morning said he would attend the banquet, backed out by evening. How can we forget that incident? But we have decided not to play a spoilsport, said leader of the opposition earlier in the day. But as the day unfolded, with lathicharge on teachers, demonstration by anganwadi sevikas and protest against steep rise in power tariff, he changed his decision.

This is not a party dinner but one given by chief minister of a state. In a democratic setup, posts of PM and CM are above politics, said BJP spokesperson Binod Narayan Jha explaining the participation.

A party legislator said the decision to attend the dinner was taken at a party meeting, which was attended by several top leaders, including Sushil Kumar Modi, Nand Kishore Yadav and others.

The practice of holding such dinners had stopped after Jitan Ram Manjhi became the CM in May 2014. After the formation of the JD(U)-BJP government in the state in November 2005, chief minister Kumar used to organise a feast after the end of the budget session. Similarly, the speaker of the state assembly also organised feasts for lawmakers after the budget session.

The ruling JD(U) in the state had invited opposition BJP leaders on the occasion of Makar Sankranti on January 14, which was ultimately cancelled due to a boat mishap near Patna. The present invite was the first since the two parties ended their alliance in June 2013. The invitation extended to BJP and the mutual appreciation of works of two former allies did not go well with other Grand Alliance partners - the Congress and the RJD.

Political pundits see Kumars support to Prime Minister Narendra Modis demonetisation move and the PM praising the liquor ban in Bihar as a thaw in the estranged relationship between the two political parties. During his last visit to the BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh, Kumar had praised the public distribution system there.

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Bihar legislative council chairman took back the suspension of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member Lal Babu Prasad within hours of pronouncing the verdict on Tuesday.

The member was suspended around noon on Tuesday for unruly conduct in the house a day earlier. However, his suspension was taken back on the request of senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi even before the days session ended.

Prasads suspension was taken back on the request of senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi who appealed to the chairman to revoke the suspension order.

Prasad had on Monday taken away the paper from Bihar excise and prohibition minister Abdul Jalil Mastan when he was replying to a call attention motion, moved by the JD(U).

Council chairman Awadhesh Narayan Singh announced Prasads suspension after an all-party meeting and having gone through the video footage (of the incident that occurred in the house).

Prasad had termed the chairmans decision to suspend him as one having been done under pressure of the ruling Grand Alliance government. The JD(U), however, supported it.

The BJP has been baying for the ministers blood ever since his provocative speech and outrageous remarks against the Prime Minister recently.

According to a PTI report, Mastan had kicked up a controversy by asking a crowd gathered at a programme at his Amour assembly constituency in Purnia district on February 22 to protest the Centres demonetisation move and to beat the photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with shoes.

When the government did not budge from its stand of not sacking Mastan from the council of ministers, that the BJP had demanded, the saffron party resolved to boycott him in both the houses.

In pursuance of their resolve to boycott the ministers speech, Prasad had on Monday rushed to the well of the house, saying they (the BJP) would not hear any reply from the minister and renewed the demand to sack Mastan from the cabinet for allegedly making uncharitable remarks against the Prime Minister in Purnia district.

Mastan had begun replying to a call attention motion moved by Dinesh Prasad Singh of the JD(U) when the commotion began.

Other members of the BJP joined Prasad in the well and raised slogans against the minister. Prasad tried to snatch file from the minister, while another BJP member made attempts to uproot the microphone the minister was using.

Sensing the gravity of the situation, the chairman had adjourned the house for 30 minutes on Monday.

When the house re-assembled, Congress member Dilip Kumar Choudhary moved a proposal, seeking suspension of Prasad and Krishna Kumar. It was supported by the JD(U), RJD and CPI members, while BJP opposed it. The chairman had reserved his ruling for Tuesday.

The over month-long budget session is scheduled to conclude on March 31.
A Rs 2,000 crore package allocated by the Centre for the rehabilitation of refugees from Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) will remain unspent in the financial year ending March 31 as the Jammu and Kashmir government is yet to come up with a list of beneficiaries.

According to sources, the state administration has not been able to compile the list of those entitled to the cash, even though initial assessments put the number at 35,000 families.

Senior officials in the state department told Hindustan Times, on condition of anonymity, the process of identifying such families is a time consuming one and admitted that the money will remain unspent for the current financial calendar.

Advertisements have been issued in the newspapers for the families to submit their documents in a given format. The process should be complete soon, an official said.

The sluggish pace of work on the issue, which found a mention in the agenda for alliance (between the Bharatiya Janata Party and Peoples Democratic Party) has irked BJP president Amit Shah and national general secretary and in-charge of the state Ram Madhav, who made their displeasure evident during recent meetings with state unit functionaries.

Citizenship of the state and a fiscal compensation for PoJK refugees, who arrived in 1947, 1965 and 1971, was the BJPs poll promise.

The home ministry first referred to the disputed region as Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) and not as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) last year. The reference was in line with the BJPs official stance that the two regions of the state  Muslim-majority Kashmir and Hindu-majority Jammu  arent separate but one unified entity.

A source told HT the issue of one-time settlement for the refugees, who have been living in the state for decades, was an issue that the state BJP leaders had been flagging, but the growing consternation among the refugees over the delay in compensation has not gone down well with the saffron partys top brass in Delhi.

In Jammu, groups of PoJK refugees have been protesting the complex procedure for filling out their details. They have alleged most families that do not have a state subject and Aadhaar card are finding it tough to enlist their names in the list of beneficiaries.

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The government told the Supreme Court on Tuesday it was not possible to appoint a lokpal till Parliament cleared the changes proposed to the law governing the appointment of the anti-corruption watchdog.

Attorney general Mukul Rohatgi said the amendments to the definition of the leader of opposition in the lokpal act were pending with Parliament. Currently there is a problem with the law due to which selection of lokpal cannot happen.In the absence of a leader of opposition, the appointment cannot be done, the countrys top law officer told the court.

The court, which was hearing a bunch of petitions seeking appointment of the lokpal, reserved its verdict.

Parliament in 2013 approved a law to create an independent anti-corruption agency after a delay of almost 50 years but the hiring of lokpal to run it has been stuck on the question of who should be on the appointment panel.

The lokpal act says the prime minister-led selection panel will include the leader of the opposition, the Lok Sabha speaker, the chief justice of India and an eminent jurist.

Its up to Parliament, which cannot be given a time limit for its work, just like a time-frame cannot be fixed for the judiciary to decide a case, Rohatgi said.

As the present Lok Sabha does not have a leader of the opposition, the government moved an amendment allowing the leader of the largest opposition party to be part of the panel.

But, the Opposition called for closer scrutiny of other changes and the bill was sent to a parliamentary committee that gave some suggestions last year. The government is yet to take a call on them.

During a hearing in November, the court pulled up the government for the delay, asking why it was dragging its feet if it was so committed to cleansing corruption.

The government was not sleeping over the issue, Rohatgi said on Tuesday.

The Congress, the largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha, didnt have enough members for one of its MPs to be named the leader of the opposition, he said. The Congress has 45 MPs, while the requirement is 55.

Appearing for the NGO Common Cause, senior advocate Shanti Bhushan said the government was delaying the appointment though the law mandated expeditious implementation.

The Modi government, it seemed, didnt want to be held accountable to an independent institution such as lokpal, the Congress said.

The BJP government is systematically dismantling the checks and balances in our democracy and dismantling the pillars of transparency and accountability, Congress spokesperson Gaurav Gogoi said.

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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday filed a petition before the special CBI court in Hyderabad seeking cancellation of bail granted to YSR Congress party president YS Jaganmohan Reddy in an alleged disproportionate assets case.

In its petition, the premier investigation agency said Jagan tried to influence a key witness in the case.

The CBI is learnt to have referred to a recent interview given by former Andhra Pradesh chief secretary K Ramakanth Reddy to Sakshi Telugu television channel, promoted by Jagans family. The official is said to have made some critical comments against the functioning of the CBI in Jagans case.

The CBI court posted the matter for further hearing on April 7 and asked Jagan to file his counter by then.

The CBI had arrested Jagan on May 27, 2012, and filed 11 chargesheets against the party chief and others in the case.

The probe agency said that various companies and individuals had made huge investments in Jagans business empire when his father YS Rajasekhar Redddy was the chief minister.

These investments were part of the quid pro quo deal with the government for granting favours to the companies in the form of land allotments, granting of licences etc. Thus, Jagan had amassed huge wealth misusing the office of his late father, the CBI alleged.

The YSR Congress Party president was released on bail from Chanchalguda jail on September 25, 2013, nearly 16 months after his arrest.

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The escalating rift between the coalition partners ruling Bihar  the JD(U) and the Congress  cast a shadow on the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

Congress MP Ranjit Ranjan protested in the House over the alleged arrest of her husband, MP Rajesh Ranjan, by the Bihar police on Tuesday.

Rajesh, also known as Pappu Yadav, is a former RJD MP. He was expelled by the party in 2015 after which he floated his own outfit, the Jan Adhikar Party (JAP).

He was arrested during a demonstration by the JAP outside chief minister Nitish Kumars residence organised to protest against a hike in power tariff and to demand a CBI probe into the Bihar Staff Selection Commission question paper leak case.

If someone wants to expose shortcomings of the Nitish Kumar government, whats wrong in it? Should the protestors be threatened in this way so that no one dares to raise voice against the government in future, she asked.

Ranjit narrated how, despite being an MP, her husband was being ill-treated by the police. The DSP told him, we will thrash you today.

The JD(U), RJD and Congress had formed the government in Bihar in 2015 after RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his bete noire Nitish Kumar mended fences to take on the BJP. But the parties have failed to come on the same page on many issues, prompting experts to wonder how long this fragile alliance will continue.

Amid protests from JD(U) MPs, Ranjit claimed that in a democracy peaceful protests outside the governors house or the chief ministers residence couldnt be construed as a crime.

He was detained for eight hours, said Ranjit.

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Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajans sumptuous lunch for the lawmakers left a bitter taste in CPI(M)s mouth on Wednesday.

On the occasion of Nutan Samvatsar, Mahajan invited MPs for a vegetarian fare in Parliament House. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP veteran LK Advani and leaders cutting across political lines attended the event.

The Left, however, saw it as a saffronised lunch. The RSS, for several decades has been championing Nutan Samavatsar as the Hindu calendar. The lunch was the first official recognition of that idea, CPI(M) MP Md. Salim said.

Salim, along with other party MPs, however, had attended the feast. He pointed out that no lunch was ever organized to mark this day in Parliament earlier. The government has already changed the financial year. For most part of India, the New Year starts from April, he pointed out.

Some other MPs, however, could not attend due to short notice, an allegation refuted by Speakers Office.

Congress MP Abhijit Mukherjee said he could not attend as the invitation card reached him just half an hour before the lunch started.

Sources in Speakers office told HT that the invitation cards had been distributed from Friday and the Speaker had also mentioned about the lunch on Monday. Every MP was individually telephoned multiple times, the source added.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 27

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has called for cooperation between scholars and states in order to resolve global issues.

Resolution of complicated problems of the world requires cooperation between governments and scholars, Iranian governments official news website quoted President Rouhani as saying at a meeting with lecturers and students of the Lomonosov Moscow State University on March 28.

He further spoke about extremism and urged for a global will to fight terrorism.

Rouhani arrived in Moscow on March 27 on a two-day visit at the official invitation of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

The presidents are slated to meet later in the day to discuss bilateral and international issues.

According to media reports, the sides are expected to ink about 10 documents on cooperation.
US President Donald Trump called Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday to congratulate him on his recent state election victories, White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at a daily briefing.

The President had also called German chancellor Angela Merkel for her partys victory in a provincial election, Spicer added.

Details of both calls were awaited.

US President HE Mr. @realDonaldTrump called PM @narendramodi to convey his felicitations on the electoral results. @POTUS  PMO India (@PMOIndia) March 28, 2017

While Modis BJP won Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand outright and formed the governments in Goa and Manipur with an alliance with other parties, Merkels centrist-right Christian Democratic Union won a state election in Saarland.

This was the third publicly known phone conversation between Modi and Trump after latters victory in US presidential elections last November. The first conversation took place on the morning after Trumps upset win over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

The second took place after President Trumps inauguration.

Their officials and aides have spoken and met many times since Trumps election, with the first team of Indian officials meeting vice-president-elect Mike Pence.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi waves to his supporters while heading towards BJP headquarters to celebrates partys landslide victory in assembly elections in New Delhi on March 12. (Raj K Raj/HT Photo)

Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval met his then counterpart Michael Flynn in December --- before the inauguration, but had to make another trip last week to meet HR McMaster, his new counterpart, after Flynn was forced to resign for lying about his contacts with Russians.

Doval also met secretary of defence James Mattis on his recent visit.

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and Secretary of State Rex Tillersen spoke on phone, and foreign secretary S Jaishankar met with the top US diplomat during a visit to the US earlier in March.

Jaishankar, who was accompanied by commerce secretary Rita Teotia, also met McMaster and President Trumps top adviser on international economic affairs Kenneth Juster in the White House, commerce secretary Wilbur Ross and secretary for homeland security John Kelly.

Indian officials have felt generally good about these meetings. Overall our sense was that the administration has a very positive view of the (India-US) relationship and a very positive view of India, Jaishankar had said after his meetings.
US president Donald Trump called Prime Minister Narendra Modi Monday to congratulate him on his recent state election victories, and went on to express support for his economic reforms and great respect for Indians.

The president had also called German chancellor Angela Merkel for her partys victory in a provincial election, Spicer added.

President Donald J. Trump spoke with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India to congratulate him on the outcome of Indias recent state-level elections, the White House said in a statement Tuesday.

President Trump expressed support for the Prime Ministers economic reform agenda and emphasized his great respect for the people of India. President Trump also said he looks forward to hosting Prime Minister Modi in Washington later this year.

The White House calls were announced by press secretary Sean Spicer at his daily briefing Monday afternoon. But details followed in separate statements a day later.

US President HE Mr. @realDonaldTrump called PM @narendramodi to convey his felicitations on the electoral results. @POTUS  PMO India (@PMOIndia) March 28, 2017

While Modis BJP won Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand outright and formed the governments in Goa and Manipur with an alliance with other parties, Merkels centrist-right Christian Democratic Union won a state election in Saarland.

This was the third publicly known phone conversation between Modi and Trump after latters victory in US presidential elections last November. The first conversation took place on the morning after Trumps upset win over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

The second took place after President Trumps inauguration.

Their officials and aides have spoken and met many times since Trumps election, with the first team of Indian officials meeting vice-president-elect Mike Pence.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi waves to his supporters while heading towards BJP headquarters to celebrates partys landslide victory in assembly elections in New Delhi on March 12. (Raj K Raj/HT Photo)

Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval met his then counterpart Michael Flynn in December --- before the inauguration, but had to make another trip last week to meet HR McMaster, his new counterpart, after Flynn was forced to resign for lying about his contacts with Russians.

Doval also met secretary of defence James Mattis on his recent visit.

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and Secretary of State Rex Tillersen spoke on phone, and foreign secretary S Jaishankar met with the top US diplomat during a visit to the US earlier in March.

Jaishankar, who was accompanied by commerce secretary Rita Teotia, also met McMaster and President Trumps top adviser on international economic affairs Kenneth Juster in the White House, commerce secretary Wilbur Ross and secretary for homeland security John Kelly.

Indian officials have felt generally good about these meetings. Overall our sense was that the administration has a very positive view of the (India-US) relationship and a very positive view of India, Jaishankar had said after his meetings.
A former sarpanch of a Madhya Pradesh village was allegedly abducted and sodomised for four days by a group of men who suspected he helped another mans daughter-in-law elope, said police on Tuesday.

Police arrested 13 people in the case, among them the man whose daughter-in-law eloped, said sub-inspector M L Bhati, in-charge of Jhabua kotwali (outpost).

The accused were produced before court on Monday. Police got the remand of three of them who are accused of sodomising the man and looting cash and valuables from him. The other 10 were sent to judicial custody, Bhati added.

The accused ambushed the former sarpanch, 46, of a village in Dhar district in west Madhya Pradesh along with two of his friends on March 20 and held them captive in a ravine inside a forest. They were rescued four days later quite by chance.

Udaigarh police of Alirajpur district neighbouring Dhar were on the lookout for a gang of thieves inside the forest on March 24 evening when they encountered one of the three captives who had managed to escape from the ravine. On spotting the police personnel, he came out of hiding and screamed for help.

After he narrated their ordeal, police set up a cordon and nabbed the accused. According to police, the accused wanted to teach the former sarpanch a lesson and beat him up several times during captivity even as they sexually assaulted him.
Writer-historian Ramachandra Guha tweeted on Tuesday that he had been getting identical threat mails warning him not to be critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

The historian, however, told PTI that such mails were a routine affair and it was nothing serious.

Guha, 58, claimed that the mails also warned him against criticising BJP president Amit Shah.

I am also warned not to criticize Narendra Modi and Amit Shah who "are blessed & divine chosen one by Divine Mahakal to change the world".  Ramachandra Guha (@Ram_Guha) March 28, 2017

Calling themselves Divine Indian, the sender of the mail/s also told Guha not to compare Modi with Indira Gandhi and Amit Shah with Sanjay Gandhi, while calling the BJP leaders Divine chosen ones.

Before writing such blogs, comparing Mr Modi and Indira Gandhi, or Amit Shah and Sanjay Gandhi... You should understand the differences between them. Who are you to think, and write that way. You need to first understand the meaning of Divine chosen, and blessed by divine, the mail read.

It also warned Guha not to compare or insult and maintain the dignity of blessed persons.
BJP president Amit Shah would be felicitated in Goa on April 9 after the party, under his leadership managed to grab power in four of the five states which went to polls recently.

BJP Goa unit would be felicitating Amit Shah on April 9 for leading the party and forming the government in four states after the recently held assembly elections, partys Goa unit president Vinay Tendulkar told PTI on Tuesday.

He said a public meeting would be organised at Campal ground here which will be attended by more than 30,000 people.

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari will also be present for the function, he said.

This would be Shahs first visit to Goa after the February 4 Legislative Assembly elections.

The BJP, which finished second in the state, winning 13 seats in Goa managed to form the government under Manohar Parrikar after cobbling up an alliance with regional forces like Goa Forward and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party besides getting three Independent MLAs to back them.

After the assembly elections to five states, the BJP bagged overwhelming majorities in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Whereas in Goa and Manipur, it managed to steal a march over the Congress by stitching up crucial alliances and formed the governments.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Tuesday the GST bills are based on the principle of shared sovereignty and that the government wants to pass these landmark tax reforms through consensus.

Jaitley was briefing the party MPs after BJPs parliamentary party meeting in Delhi that was also attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar told reporters after the meeting.

The finance minister in detail briefed the party MPs about all the four Goods and Service(GST) bills and said these legislations are based on the principle of shared sovereignty, Kumar said, adding they were drafted after detailed discussions in the GST council which comprises all states.

Jaitley in detail explained the four bills -- Central GST, Integrated GST, Union Territory GST and the Compensation Law -- to the MPs and how these legislations would be beneficial, Kumar said.

Kumar added that government wants to pass these bills through consensus that was also mentioned by Jaitley in his address.

The meeting was also told that the new legislations will usher in a one-nation one-tax regime,

Similarly, the Prime Minister had earlier said and conveyed to all parties that the government wants to pass GST bill through consensus and these bills will be beneficial for the common man, Kumar said.

Modi had said that the passage of these bills would lead to one tax regime for the entire country.

On Monday, Jaitley had introduced the 4 GST bills to implement the biggest tax reform since independence.

The government proposes to launch GST from July 1.

It is estimated that the rolling out of the GST can add up to 2% to Indias economic growth.

Former Karnataka chief minister and Congress stalwart SM Krishna, who recently joined the BJP, was also present at the meeting.

During the meet, Congress leader and former union minister MV Rajasekharans letter showering praise on the Prime Minister was discussed.

The Cabinets decision to set up a National Commission for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes with constitutional status, was also discussed during the meeting.
At least 9 major cities in India will witness intensifying heat stress even if 2015 Paris climate targets are reached and could experience extremely hot days every year in the future, a new study has said.

The study, published on Monday in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at 44 cities across the world. Kolkata, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Surat, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad were selected from India as they are the largest metropolitan areas and will continue to be this century.

The Paris Agreement seeks to limit the usage of fossil fuels in the world in the second half of the century, limiting the rise in average world temperatures to well below 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above preindustrial times.

The study said at the global level, a warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial time will feed into heat stress that is 5-6 times worse than in the recent past (1979-2005) and 350 million people in these 44 megacities will face heat stress year after year.

It added Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Ahmedabad are already affected and that the West Bengal capital is the most heat-stressed among the 44 megacities across the world.

Heat stress broadly refers to the human body experiencing more heat than it can tolerate, and is calculated using the heat index that incorporates both air temperature and humidity conditions.

India faced a searing heat wave in 2015 that led to over 2000 deaths, and 2016 emerged as the hottest year since 1901. West Rajasthan, Gujarat and parts of Madhya Pradesh are already facing heat wave conditions.

Junior minister for science and technology and earth sciences, YS Chowdary, told the Lok Sabha this week that the frequency of severe heat waves had increased sharply in the recent years.

STATE 2013 2014 2015 2016 Andhra Pradesh 1392 447 1422 100 Telangana - - 584 300 Odisha 1 24 - - West Bengal 4 19 - - Assam 12 - - - Jharakhand 6 - - - Maharashtra 3 36 - 43 Madhya Pradesh 3 - 2 - Rajasthan 5 6 2 3 Gujarat 3 3 7 87 Chhattisgarh - 14 - - Kerala - - - 4 TOTAL 1433 549 2081 557

Source: Lok Sabha reply of Y.S. Chowdary, junior minister for science and technology on March 22, 2017.

Heat stress burden is greater in places with more people because the impact of the heat is larger and it is the perfect storm, Tom Matthews, a climatologist at Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom who led the study, told Hindustan Times.

The challenge posed by heat stress is likely to increase in the future because of two things: Rising air temperatures from global warming and population growth, Matthews explained over instant messaging app Skype.

This is especially true for Kolkata, which will likely remain the most heat-stressed city for this whole century. Kolkatas population could be 3 times higher by the end of the 21st century and even if global temperatures do not rise, heat stress would increase.

Unfortunately, the climate will continue to warm, so both factors will drive up the heat stress challenge, Matthews added.

If global average temperatures rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius, Mumbai will be added to the list of heat-stressed cities.

With a 2.7 degrees Celsius warming, that might be the result of the currently pledged targets for emissions reductions, both Hyderabad and Pune will become heat stressed. With 4 degrees warming Bengaluru will also enter the heat stressed zone.

Heat wave conditions usually form in India between March and June. Experts have listed increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the warming of the sea surfaces over the equatorial Indian and Pacific Oceans as possible factors.

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The Hyderabad police busted a 13-member gang on Monday night for allegedly exchanging demonetised notes with new currency in return for hefty commission.

According to the police, banned currency worth Rs 3.5 crore in Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denominations was seized from the gang. Unconfirmed reports, however, said the seized currency was worth Rs 8 crore.

The racket was busted at Moghul Court building at Basheerbagh, yards away from the Hyderabad police commissionerate. Following reports that several people were gathering at the office of Jain Associates in the building for exchange of their old currency with new notes, the Central Zone police raided the place at around 10pm. The raid went on till past midnight.

We have arrested 10 members of the gang and the remaining three have escaped. We are investigating what they were going to do with the banned currency, whether they are part of any wider network and if they have any connection with any bankers, Hyderabad Central Zone deputy commissioner of police D Joel Davis told Hindustan Times.

The kingpin of the racket Fazuluddin along with nine of his associates, was among the accused who were arrested. The mediators were identified as Sai Krishna and Govindulu.

Police suspect the cash belonged to multiple individuals. The gang had offered to pay Rs 43 lakh of new currency to every Rs 1 crore worth of demonetised notes.

The deadline for exchange of demonetised notes with new currency ends on March 31 under specific conditions. According to the Specified Bank Notes Cessation of Liabilities Ordinance, only those who were abroad, the armed forces personnel posted in remote areas or others who can give valid reasons for not being able to deposit the cancelled notes at banks, can deposit the demonetised currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes till March 31.

Those found possessing the old currency notes are liable for arrest and prosecution from April 1 this year.

Since only three days are left for the exchange of old currency, we are investigating as to how the gang was planning to do that. We, however, could not find any new currency bundles with them at the time of the raid, the DCP added.

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On Monday evening, an angry mob brutally beat up a Nigerian man and roughed up two more near Greater Noidas Pari Chowk. The mob, which started out as a candle-light march for Manish Khari , a 17-year-old student who allegedly dies of a drug overdose.

Witnesses said that as the candle-light vigil progressed, a few men started raising slogans against Nigerian nationals, accusing them of peddling drugs. The crowd turned violent after spotting a few Nigerians at Ansal Plaza.

A Honda City car was damaged by the mob in front of the Ansal Plaza mall near Pari Chowk in Greater Noida. (Virendra Singh Gosain/HT PHOTO)

In the wake of the attacks, police has beefed up security, deploying at least 200 additional police personnel in Greater Noida, especially residential societies with African population.

Additional police force was called from other police stations at Kasna, Knowledge Park and Surajpur police stations, where tempers still run high, as most of the African nationals stay in nearby localities.

Additional police force deployed at Pari Chowk and surrounding areas in backdrop of racial attacks. (Virendra Singh Gosain/HT PHOTO)

Kasna SHO, Avnish Dixit said, Following the scuffle that took place last evening, we have taken all necessary steps to ensure safety of African nationals. The police has kept vigil all night to control the situation.

Endurance Amarawa, Ibgiya Malu Chukwuma and Precious Amalcima were admitted at a hospital after Monday nights attacks on African nationals in Greater Noida. (Virendra Singh Gosain/HT PHOTO)

Precious Amalsima at Kailash Hospital after the violent attack. (Virendra Singh Gosain/HT PHOTO)

Brothers Endurance Amarawa (21) and Precious Amalcima (24) sustained facial injuries and minor fractures after being attacked by the mob. They kept beating us viciously, hurling abuses at us, said Endurance.

In Delhi, Africans have been the target of a spate of attacks in recent years - six people were thrashed in three separate incidents in Chhattarpur last year. A week before that, a Congolese national was bludgeoned to death. In Bengaluru, a Tanzanian student and her friends were attacked by a mob last year.

While Sushma Swaraj has asked for a report of the incident, Africans living in Delhi and its suburbs say that they will not be cowed by the attacks.
India is not participating in the conference on negotiations for a total ban on nuclear weapons that began at the United Nations on Monday.

Diplomatic sources familiar with Indias position said the decision to not participate in the meeting was taken independently by New Delhi taking into account the nations own interests and that the Indian mission was closely monitoring the developments at the conference.

India was expected later this week to issue a comprehensive statement outlining its stance on the meeting that is officially called the Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards their Total Elimination.

India abstained from voting on the General Assembly resolution last year that set up the conference.

Meanwhile, US Permanent Representative Nikki Haley separately announced a boycott of the conference by western nuclear powers and 37 other countries.

Speaking to reporters outside the General Assembly chamber where the meeting was taking place, she cited the danger posed by the international outlaws who will not abide by any treaties or laws as a rationale for her country, France, Britain and the others to stay away from the negotiations on a legally binding treaty to ban all nuclear weapons.

In this day and age we cant say honestly that we can protect our people by allowing the bad actors to have them, she said.

We have to be realistic, she said. Is there anyone that believes that North Korea would agree to a ban on nuclear weapons?

In defiance of the UN, North Korea is developing nuclear weapons and missiles to launch them.

The US boycott under President Donald Trump follows the policy set by the Democratic Party administration of President Barack Obama, which opposed calling the conference.

While China and Pakistan abstained, Russia joined the western nuclear powers in voting against the resolution convening it.

Haley instead pitched the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as the route to disarmament.

Frances Deputy Permanent Representative Alexis Lamek said the NPT remains the cornerstone of nuclear disarmament efforts. A new treaty to ban all nuclear weapons will divide the parties to the NPT, he said.

British Permanent Representative Matthew Rycroft also backed that approach. He said that his country was for a step by step approach within existing multilateral system.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 28



By Fatih Karimov  Trend:



Irans President Hassan Rouhani met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Mar. 28 in Moscow, wherein the two sides discussed regional and international topics as well as the issues of mutual interest.







During the meeting Rouhani expressed hope that his visit to Russia will deepen Tehran-Moscow ties, Irans state-run IRINN TV reported.





He further said that regional stability is the ultimate goal of the

cooperation between the two countries.



Rouhani arrived in Moscow on March 27 on a two-day visit at the official invitation of his Russian counterpart President Putin.





According to media reports, the sides are expected to ink about 10 documents on cooperation.






State-owned Indian Oil Corporation has agreed to supply refined products to Nepal for the next five years to meet all the fuel needs of the landlocked Himalayan nation, officials said on Monday.

India has supplied all Nepals fuel needs since 1974 and is keen to maintain close trading ties with its neighbour in South Asia, an area where regional rival China has sought to expand its influence.

Indian Oil Corp, the nations biggest refiner, would supply 1.3 million tonnes a year of refined fuels to Nepal, the companys chairman B Ashok told a news conference in New Delhi.

The supply agreement signed today is for the period April 2017 to March 2022 and will meet the full requirements, demand and quantities of all the major oil products, including petrol, diesel, kerosene, aviation turbine fuel and LPG, Ashok said.

IOC will supply Euro-IV grade petrol and diesel to Nepal from next month.

While presently the fuel is sent by trucks, a pipeline will be laid from Patna-Motihari-Amlekganj for supply of fuel in future. According to IOC officials, the pipeline will get fuel from IOCs Barauni refinery in Bihar as well as Haldia refinery in West Bengal.

As well as refined products, India was discussing plans to supply gas to Nepal, oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan said at the same news conference.

The minister said the two nations were considering building a refined products pipeline linking Motihari in Indias eastern state of Bihar to Amlekhgunj in Nepal.

He did not give details of the pipeline plan.

We feel it is the responsibility of India to help Nepal meet its energy requirements, especially after Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Nepal in 2014 where in his address to Nepal parliament took responsibility of the Raxaul-Amlekhganj petroleum product pipeline, the minister said.

Pradhan said work on the pipeline should begin in 2017-18.

Nepal wants to take that pipeline little forward to near Kathmandu which is about 70 kms more and has sought technical help from IOC, though the expenses will be incurred by Nepal, he said.

Pradhan said a high level official committee has been formed to look into preparing feasibility of the pipeline as well as another LPG pipeline from Motihari to Nepals Amlekhganj.

New Delhi has used its surplus refining and power generation capabilities to deepen ties with nations such as Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, as well as Nepal.

China wants to include Nepal in its flagship One Belt, One Road initiative to link Asia with Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
At the Nai Sadak area in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modis constituency, it was business as usual at Mohammad Meerajs mutton shop  a steady flow of customers lining up for fresh meat from a well-stocked trader.

More than a hundred kilometres to the west in chief minister Adiyanath Yogis parliamentary constituency Gorakhpur, Abdullah Quraishi was having an equally busy day. It was Monday, a day before the Hindu holy week of Navratra, and people were queuing up at his shop to buy mutton, one last time before they go vegan for nine days.

The scene in the two towns is in contrast to what many other places in Uttar Pradesh is facing  a severe shortage of meat and eggs due to an indefinite strike called by traders against what they said was harassment by officials following a crackdown by the BJP government on illegal slaughterhouses.

Barring buffalo meat, there was visibly no shortage of meat, chicken, or eggs in the two towns.

I know meat sellers are on strike at Lucknow. There has been a crackdown against illegal slaughterhouses but not meat shops. Therefore, I have opened the shop, said Mohammad Meraj.

Mohammad Ansari, a chicken meat seller, in the Rewari Talab area, said he kept his shop closed for a few hours on Monday morning but opened it by noon.

Read | Spurt in sale, price of fish in Lucknow after UP govts crackdown on abattoirs

There is no impact on business. Crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses is a good move. Anything illegal should face action. Customers inflow is as usual at my vending cart. Neither it has increased, nor dipped, said Pintu Sonkar, an egg seller in Pandeypur area.

Vinod Kumar, who sells fried chicken, omelettes and other chicken dishes from his vending cart, claimed a little rise in business. In Lucknow, several well-known eating joints are said to be facing shortage of meat and eggs, leading to dip in business.

In Gorakhpur, home to Yogi Adityanath for the past 20 years, meat sellers said there was no effect of the crackdown on their business.

Besides other places, meat is also sold at 15 to 20 shops located in two dozen Muslim localities near the iconic Gorakhnath Temple headed as chief priest by Yogi Adityanath.

Pointing to the rush of customers at his shop, Abdullah Quraishi said: 90 percent of the customers you see are Hindus. As they will avoid eating meat for the next nine days during festival of Navratra, they have rushed to the shops to eat meat before the festival begins.

Quraishi, also the secretary of a meat-sellers association, said they were not contacted for supporting the strike.

Quraishi said prices of chicken had gone up from 180 to 220-240 per kg and added that sale of mutton was not affected though the supply had declined.

Out of fear that police will harass them, suppliers in Behraich have stopped supply due to which there is a shortage of goats. As against 4 to 5 trucks, just one truck is coming each week and as a result prices have goat have gone up from Rs 2500 to more than Rs 3000.

Gorakhpur university PhD student Swatantra Kumar -- whose daily meals admittedly includes a mutton or chicken dish, said the items were easily available.

Even today, we got it easily but if a strike happens it will cause inconvenience to many.

Food department records shows that there are around 200 licensed mutton and chicken meat shops in the town and their license were last renewed in 2013.

In addition, there are many non-licensed meat-sellers who sell meat at make-shift shops and by the roadside. Though the number of red meat shop  those dealing in bufalo meat -- is around 60, their licenses have not been renewed since 2002.

In, 1995, the only slaughterhouse in Humayunpur locality was shifted to Bhathat on the outskirts when Yogi Adityanath raised objection to it. It was later sealed.
Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti expressed deep anguish and grief over the death of youth in Chadoora on Tuesday. It is highly painful to see the young boys losing their lives, she said.

Terming these killings as highly unfortunate, the chief minister said the people in Kashmir continue to suffer massive collateral damage due to violence of past three decades. She said violence has given people of the state innumerable miseries and it is high time that peaceful means are given a chance for the resolution of the issues.

Read | Kashmir: Separatists call for strike over Budgam civilian deaths, demand inquiry

We know there are issues that need to be addressed and resolved but no one will be able to do anything at a point when violence becomes a norm. There is a need for restrain from all sides so that conducive atmosphere is created and dissent is expressed in peaceful way, she said, adding that the solution to problems can be found only through political means and not through violence.

Three men were killed and several others injured on Tuesday when security forces battling militants fired on stone-pelting protesters in Chadoora area of central Kashmirs Budgam district. Reports from the area suggested that more people were injured at the encounter site in fresh firing in the afternoon. Eyewitnesses said police fired at protesters when they tried to march towards the site, resulting in injuries to over a dozen more people.
The by-elections to two Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir next month will not only be an appraisal of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-BJP alliance in the state but also a test of popularity of chief minister Mehbooba Mufti.

The by-polls are also important for the National Conference (NC) and the Congress which have come together yet again after a bitter split in the run-up to the last assembly elections in December 2014. NC president and former chief minister Farooq Abdullah is the alliances candidate from Srinagar and faces a challenge from PDPs Nazir Ahmad Khan.

From Anantnag, the PDP has fielded Mehboobas brother Tassaduq Mufti who is pitted against state Congress chief Ghulam Ahmad Mir. Cinematographer Tassaduq, 45, had joined active politics and the PDP in January 7 on the first death anniversary of his father and late chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.

Coming after months of widespread unrest in Kashmir in the second half of last year that left close a hundred people dead in clashes between protestors and security forces and scores with serious eye injuries due to the use of pellet guns following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in an encounter on July 8, the by-elections will determine the success of the PDP-BJP alliance.

Much is at stake for Mehbooba, 56, who took over as the first woman chief minister of the Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir on April 4 last year after three months of renewed negotiations with the BJP following her fathers death.

She has been at the receiving end of both the mainstream politicians and separatists for her inept handling of the situation after Burhans killing.

Mehbooba is also facing the heat over the non-implementation of the agenda of alliance, a framework agreement reached between the PDP and the BJP at the time of government formation in February-March 2015 after the assembly elections threw a hung verdict. The agenda of alliance talks about among other issues the withdrawal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and dialogue with Pakistan and all stakeholders, including the Hurriyat Conference, to resolve the Kashmir issue.

Mehbooba was reluctant to take oath as the new CM after her fathers death and had sought assurances from the BJP on J and K-specific confidence building measures apart from time-bound implementation of the agenda of alliance. During the period from January 8 to April 4, the state was placed under Governors rule.

But more than that, the political discourse in these by-polls has remained centered around the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) even though its ideological prodigy BJP is not in the fray. In every election meeting, NC and Congress leaders talk about how the PDP is an RSS proxy in Kashmir and also how it has imported the Sangh to the valley.

On the other hand, the PDP is fighting the by-elections on the issues of development and has also projected itself as a strong votary of friendly relations with Pakistan. Kick-starting her partys campaign, the CM reiterated that forming a coalition government with the BJP was not an easy task in 2015, but her father chose a difficult path only to get the states issues addressed by the countrys top leadership.

Srinagar will go to polls on April 9 while Anantnag will vote on April 12. While Mehbooba had vacated Anantnag after assuming the CMs post, her former party colleague Tariq Hameed Karra resigned from Srinagar accusing the PDP of selling out to the RSS.

Political analysts say the by-elections could establish how much ground the PDP has lost after its controversial alliance with the BJP and also due to its mishandling of the long unrest in Kashmir.

But at the same time, it will offer an opportunity of revival to the NC-Congress combine, said Prof Noor Ahmad Baba of Kashmir University. People are skeptical of this alliance as well as these parties (NC and Congress) too have nothing new to offer, he said.

That apart, the by-polls will not only be a report card on the performance of the ruling PDP-BJP coalition but also decide the future of the NC-Congress alliance ahead of the 2020 assembly elections.

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Separatists in Kashmir have called for a general strike on Wednesday against the killing of three civilians during protests near an encounter site in Budgam district and sought an impartial inquiry into the incident.

There should be a complete strike tomorrow and peaceful protests after Friday prayers against the incident, chairmen of both factions of Hurriyat Conference, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and JKLF chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik said in a joint statement.

Two youth were killed when security forces, engaged in an encounter with militants at Durbugh village of Chadoora, opened fire to chase away protesters attempting to break the cordon around a house where militants had taken shelter.

The separatists alleged that the Chadoora incident was the outcome of the army chief general Bipin Rawats statement warning local youth against creating hurdles during anti-militancy operations early this year.
The violent attacks on Africans in Greater Noida, which followed the death of a teenage boy of a suspected drug overdose, was covered by sections of the Nigerian media, which highlighted a video of a brutal assault on a man inside a mall.

Hundreds of people in the satellite city of New Delhi went on the rampage against Africans. The violence erupted late on Monday after police in Greater Noida released five African students detained over the teenagers death.

Local residents claimed 17-year-old student Manish Khari died after taking drugs that were provided by Africans living in Greater Noida, which is home to a growing number of students from different African countries.

Indian mob beats Nigerian to stupor was the headline for a report on the NigerianEye website that featured the video of a mob assaulting a man, identified as 21-year-old Nigerian national Endurance Amarawa, who was kicked and hit repeatedly with stools and a trash can inside Greater Noidas Ansal Plaza mall.

The video, shared by the Association of African Students in India, doesnt show anyone trying to stop the attackers.

In the video, about 20 young men are seen attacking a defenceless black man, NigerianEye reported. At a point, the man was motionless, but the attackers will not stop. A young man in white shirt tried to pacify the rampaging mob, but did not succeed.

The report added: From Libya to Malaysia, Nigerians have been victims of attacks across the world, the latest being in South Africa.

The Punch, another Nigerian news website, reported that Indian authorities had ordered an investigation into the mob attack on several African students. It added that a protest over the death of Khari turned violent, leading to attacks on African students, mostly Nigerians, shopping in the area.

Attacks on Africans have been reported at regular intervals in India in recent years. Last May, a Congolese student was beaten to death in Delhi, The Punch reported. Earlier, a Tanzanian student was attacked and partially stripped by a mob in the city of Bangalore.

The Punch too featured the video of the attack on the African man inside the Greater Noida mall.

The attacks on Africans was also reported by The Sun news website, which noted that external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj had promised immediate action after a Nigerian student appealed to her for help, saying that living in the Noida area had become a life-threatening issue.
In yet another alleged case of honour killing in Haryana, a minor girl was allegedly murdered by her family for being in a relationship with a boy, who was also her neighbour, in Mehmoodpur village of Sonepat district.

The deceased has been identified as 17-year-old Sakshi, a Class 9 student, who was in a relationship with Vikki, 22. Both girl and boy are Dalits.

The police said they received a complaint from Vikki on Monday that Sakshis parents have killed her and discreetly cremated her body as well. He added in his complaint that he was in a relationship with Sakshi for the past seven months.

Police quoting Vikki said Sakshis mother Ramrati had caught them together at his place on Saturday night. She had then dragged Sakshi back home thrashing her while threatening Vikki of dire consequences. On Sunday night, Sakshis parents allegedly killed her and cremated the body in the wee hours to destroy evidence.

However, when Vikki found out about this through his neighbours, he lodged a complaint with the police. The police said on Vikkis complaint, they called in the FSL team and collected samples from the funeral pyre that has been sent to the lab for testing.

Sakshis parents are on the run. We have booked them for murder and destroying evidence, and have launched a massive hunt to nab them. As of now, we cant say how they killed her. That could be said after making arrest and getting lab reports, Gohana sadar police station in-charge Phool Kumar said.
A visiting Namibian parliamentary delegation was welcomed in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday amid slogan-shouting and ruckus by the opposition MPs over vacant posts in several statutory commissions.

While several Opposition MPs were protesting in the Well, deputy chairman PJ Kurien asked them to stop as he read out a statement welcoming the delegation led by the speaker of national assembly of Namibia, Peter H Katjavivi, who was sitting in the special box in the Upper House.

We hope that during their stay here, they would see and learn more about our Parliamentary system, Kurien said and wished them a fruitful stay.

The Namibian speaker rose from his seat to acknowledge the greetings while the delegation was being welcomed.

While some of the protesting members were seen greeting the delegation members, some others, however, had a good laugh on the phrase learn about our parliamentary system as they resumed slogan-shouting soon after Kurien completed his statement.

This forced the Chair to adjourn the House for some time soon thereafter.
Meat traders of the district announced a 10-day strike on Tuesday in wake of the statewide crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses.

The wholesale poultry, fish and eggs market will remain closed during the strike. There are 14 such markets in the district that will not operate till April 6. The crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses and unregistered shops began in the state a day after Yogi Adityanath took oath as the chief minister.

The strike has been announced to show solidarity with the cause of meat sellers across UP who are in crisis after the recent drive, said Iftikhar Quraish, member, All-India Jainul Quraish.

The organisation represents the Quraishi community, which owns majority of the meat trade in the district. We are not against the drive against illegal meat or cow slaughter, but the injustice being done to our community in its (campaigns) name, added Iftikhar.

Several traders, especially those who sell buffalo meat, have alleged that police and local goons have started harassing them since the drive started.

Most of these complaints have been reported from rural areas.

We have to give as much as Rs 1,000 per animal to the policemen who stop our vehicles on way to the slaughterhouse. The cops ask for money even if we show them proper documentation, alleged Md Salman, 38, a meat trader of Bahedi area.

While the traders are allegedly harassed by policemen, meat shop owners are targeted by goons.

They accuse us of selling cow meat and create a ruckus. If we refuse to pay, they lodge false report and our meat is seized, said Usman Quraishi, a meat shop owner in Faridpur who sells buffalo meat.

At least seven such incidents have been reported across the district since last week. Though police have registered complaints in some cases against those causing ruckus, senior officials have denied that the situation is rampant.
If you are planning to undertake the Chardham Yatra in Uttarakhand this year, ensure that you are completely sober while at it.

The states tourism department has planned mandatory, and multiple, alcohol tests for pilgrims visiting Gangotri, Yamunotri , Kedarnath and Badrinath shrines for pilgrimage season  2017, which will begin with the opening of Gangotri Temple portals on April 28.

The pilgrims will also be issued exclusive photo identity cards, which they will have to keep with them throughout the course of the yatra.

According to state tourism minister Satpal Maharaj, the decision has been taken not just to maintain the sanctity of the pilgrimage but also to prevent any untoward incident from taking place en route the higher hills.

Alcohol tests of pilgrims will be conducted at select points. The government will soon come up with a plan for its implementation, Maharaj told Hindustan times after his first departmental review meeting, held recently.

Maharaj said no such restriction will be placed on pilgrims staying at hotels.

Sources said there have been reports of several tourists undertaking the pilgrimage in an inebriated state.

Opposition Congress has expressed its reservations over the implementation of the policy. Preventing sanctity of pilgrimage shrines is fine but what about the right of people who want to consume liquor? What will be status of liquor shops on the pilgrimage routes? We will wait and watch how things shape up , said Congress leader Surendra Kumar.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 28



By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:



The so-called Islamic State terrorist group (IS aka ISIS/ISIL) has released a 36-minute video in Persian language threatening Iran over its role in the regional developments.







The propaganda film was reportedly issued through social media accounts affiliated to the terrorist groups Diyala Province arm.





A masked man appears in the video threatening to destroy the Islamic Republic of Iran.





The propaganda film also harshly criticizes Iran over its tolerance and hospitality towards Jews inside the country.





Iran over the past years has helped Syrian and Iraqi governments in fight against the terrorist group deploying military advisors to the conflict zones and organizing pro-government militia.







Iranian security officials had earlier announced that they tackled some terrorist teams linked to the IS inside the country.
In second incident of gang war within a week, unidentified persons dressed as women, opened fired outside police-fortified court complex in Rohtak, killing one and injuring seven others in broad daylight on Tuesday.

Police said two assailants opened fired at history sheeter Ramesh Lohar when he was coming out of the court with his accomplices after attending the hearing of a Section 307 (attempt to murder) trial against him.

While Lohar suffered a bullet injury in his leg, seven people around him became victim of indiscriminate firing. The assailants, however, managed to flee the spot after firing over 15 rounds of shots.

Victims included Lohars accomplice Sanjit Malik of Bhainswal village, who came in for his rescue and suffered several bullets. He was pronounced dead during treatment at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS) while others admitted include Ramesh Nandal, Sundar Kumar, Manjeet Yadav, Vijay Kumar, Sonu and Deepak.

Rohtak superintendent of police (SP) Pankaj Nain said an old enmity between Lohar and Naresh Kala, both residents of Rohtaks Bohar village, is being suspected as the reason behind the shooting.

Nain added that CCTV footage is being checked to ascertain the identities of the assailants, who eyewitnesses said came on a motorcycle and had their faces covered and were wearing black salwar and kameez.

Few hours after the incident, the SP rejigged six station house officers (SHOs) in the district, shunting out inspector Ramesh from the Civil Lines police station, under which the court complex falls, as a possible fallout of lapses in the security.

This was the second incident of gang war outside court complex in Haryana within a week. Earlier on March 22, an ex-sarpanch, who was also a murder undertrial, was killed by shooters outside Jhajjar court complex when he was brought by the police for hearing.
Pakistan is not friends with the Haqqani Network, the countrys ambassador to the US Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry, has said.

Those playing with human lives, we are against such elements or activities, Dawn online quoted Chaudhry as saying.

Chaudhry also reiterated that Pakistan wanted peaceful relations with India and these should be based on mutual respect.

This is our message for India to promote relations with peaceful environment in the region, he said.

Chaudhry said terrorist activities have halted any attempts between Pakistan and India to boost relations.

He said terrorists are encouraged when India stops the process.

Afghanistan has long blamed Pakistan for not taking action against Haqqani Network sanctuaries on its soil, alleging that this has allowed insurgency there to sustain, Dawn said.

However, earlier in March, General Joseph Votel, Commander of the US Central Command, informed a congressional panel that Pakistan had done things against the Haqqani Network that have been helpful to the war against terror.

They have done some things that have been helpful to us, he said. Most recently, theyve supported General Joseph Nicholson in some places on the border, making sure they were well coordinated and doing the activities on their side of the border.

Thats a very positive sign and a move in [the] right direction. And they have done things against the principal concerns we have -- the Haqqani Network and Taliban, Votel said.

But we need that to be more persistent and continue to focus in that particular area. And so, we will continue to engage with partner Pakistan throughout this.

So long as these groups maintain safe haven inside of Pakistan, they will threaten long-term stability in Afghanistan, he said.

He added that the US was particularly concerned about the Haqqani Network, which posed the greatest threat to coalition forces operating in Afghanistan.
Kundan Chandrawat, an RSS leader who had announced a bounty of Rs one crore for Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayans head during a hate speech on March 2, was arrested in Ujjain Monday evening.

The police claimed that Chandrawat had been absconding since the hate speech, but locals maintain that he was very much in Ujjain.

He was taken to the chief judicial magistrates court which sent him to judicial custody. But he had to spend the night at the Madhav Nagar police station since it was past sunset and the jail had closed.

Chandrawat announced the bounty on Vijayan, holding his government responsible for the recent killing of members of right- wing organisations in Kerala.

In his speech at an event organized by the Janadhikar Samiti, Chandrawat had declared that he had the capability to pay the promised Rs one crore in bounty. Bring his head and I will transfer my house and assets in your name.

There had been wide spread condemnation of Chandrawats speech, where apart from the bounty offer, he had claimed that his Hindu society had killed thousands of Muslims during the Gujarat riots of 2002.

The RSS did not take kidly to his rabble rousing. A day after his hate speech, even though Chandrawat retracted his statements, the Sangh relieved him of his responsibilities as sah prachar pramukh (joint publicity chief) in Ujjain.

Malwa prant sanghchalak Dr Prakash Shastri had noted that a misconception has been created about the RSS due to the controversial statement, and it was not an official statement of RSS.
Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Tuesday said a notice for privilege motion by the Shiv Sena on its MP Ravindra Gaikwad being barred from flying by airlines is under consideration.

The issue was raised by Shiv Sena MP Anandrao Adsul as soon as the Zero Hour started.

The MP, who had raised the issue of Gaikwad being barred from flying on Monday as well, was seen speaking even as his microphone was not working.

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said a privilege motion notice has been received.

I have received your notice of motion of privilege, it is under my consideration, the Speaker said.

Lok Sabha member from Osmanabad in Maharashtra, 57-year old Gaikwad last week abused and assaulted a 60-year-old duty manager of Air India, and assaulted him with slippers because he had to travel economy class though he had an open business class ticket. The flight was an all-economy one.

Air India has refused to fly the MP, following which other private airlines too refused to fly him.

An FIR has been registered against him.
The Supreme Court collegium is learnt to have rejected a government proposal to widen the consultation process while selecting candidates to appoint as high court judges.

The clause on widening the zone of consultation was part of the memorandum of procedure the government had sent to the collegium last year.

But in its recent response, the collegium headed by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar has said no to the clause.

The government wanted the memorandum of procedure to state that sitting judges of the high court, senior lawyers and advocates general of the respective states will suggest names of candidate to the collegium for elevation to the Bench.

But the collegium was of the unanimous view that the authority of naming candidates should remain with the high court collegium and not go outside.

Since January last year, the government and the apex court are trying to finalise the Memorandum of Procedure -- a document to guide appointment of judges to the higher judiciary.

There are two memorandums of procedure -- one for the Supreme Court and the other for the 24 high courts.

While rejecting the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, the SC had agreed to revise the memorandum of procedure to usher in more transparency in appointment of judges to the SC and HCs.

The new law had sought to overturn the over two-decade-old collegium system where judges appoint judges. It had sought a say for the executive in appointment of judges.

The national security clause and the secretariat clause are part of the draft MoP which has been shuttling between the government and the collegium since March 22, 2016.
The Supreme Court reserved its verdict on Tuesday on Environment Pollution Control Authoritys plea to ban sale and registration of BS-III emission vehicles after April 1.

A bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur is likely to give interim order Wednesday at 2 pm.

Automobile companies, except Bajaj, have opposed EPCAs plea, which says only BS-IV compliant vehicles should be sold in the market. As per the government rules there would be an all India roll-out of BS-IV fuel from April 1 onwards. EPCA says the objective behind having a cleaner fuel technology would not be achieved if the old technology vehicles continue to flood the market.

If the court allows EPCAs request, the order will impact around 7-8 lakh BS-III compliant vehicles that are ready for sale. These cars, two-wheelers and trucks are lying in various carmakers factories and showrooms across the country.

Advocates representing Society of Indian Automobile Manufactures (SIAM), Hero MotoCorp and Tata opposed EPCAs interpretation of several government notifications and contended the cut-off date was meant for stopping the manufacturing of BS-III complaint vehicles and sale and registration. They said it happened so during the transition from BS-II to BS-III.

Centre has indirectly supported the automobile makers. Solicitor general Ranjit Kumar had on Monday informed the court that the transition did not mean the existing BS-III vehicles would be off-road. BS-III vehicles can ply on BS-IV fuel, he had said.

Senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for EPCA  a Supreme Court-appointed body  told the bench that carmakers were aware of the deadline and had enough time to comply with the norms. Indian cities were among the worst polluted ones. Out of the top 20 polluted cities, 10 are in India, he said.

Government would be spending more than Rs 80,000 crore for immediate transition from BS-IV to BS-VI, Kumar had told the court during his argument.

He was critical of EPCA for approaching the top court, saying the panel should have moved the Centre for a clarification on its statutory rules related to the deadline.

Since 2005 the government had been issuing notifications for phase-wise implementation of BS-IV, but EPCA never sought an interpretation, he had said. EPCA has to work under the Centres supervision, Kumar said and remarked that environment in Delhi was no better than 20 years ago when the panel was constituted.

His argument was not appreciated by the bench that asked him not to indulge in a blame game. We can ask you the same question, it said.

Centre for Science and Environment Director General and an EPCA member later told HT: The solicitor-general and the automobile companies were speaking the same language. Instead of discussing the cost of converting a BS-III vehicle to BS-IV emission norms compliant vehicle, he spent all his time blaming the EPCA. He sided with the automobile companies and implied that they were on the right track.

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External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj has spoken to Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik regarding the reported abduction of a Canadian national in the state.

I have spoken to Naveen Patnaik, chief minister regarding the reported abduction of a Canadian national in Koraput district of Odisha, Swaraj tweeted on Tuesday. She has also asked for a report from the state government.

I have spoken to Shri Naveen Patnaik, Chief Minister reg the reported abduction of a Canadian national in Koraput district of Odisha. https://t.co/MEvrLlu2TB  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

John Schlazak is said to have disappeared from Singamdagu village in Sukma district, a Maoist den, Sukma assistant superintendent of police Jitendra Shukla told IANS. Schlazak had left Mumbai on a bike on March 14. He reached Bastar two days ago and was last seen in Singamdagu village in Sukma district, the officer said.

Authorities now suspect that he may have been kidnapped by Naxalites, reports said, adding a massive search operation has been launched to trace him.

(With inputs from IANS)
A man hailing from Tiruchengode in Tamil Nadu has deposited an undisclosed income of Rs 246 crore in a public sector bank, Income Tax department officials said.

He has accepted to pay 46% of the total sum as tax, according to the officials.

While top IT officials declined to reveal the identity of the individual, they have confirmed to PTI that the individual hailing from the district deposited Rs 246 crore in the bank.

It is true. This man has deposited Rs 246 crore in that banks branch. Upon further investigation, he agreed to pay 46% of it as tax under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana scheme, they said.

The Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana Scheme allows an individual to disclose the income in the form of cash with a penalty totaling 46% of the declared income. The scheme ends March 31, 2017.
The banned United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent (ULFA-I) has asked the Dalai Lama to refrain from making anti-China comments during his visit to Assam next month.

If you want to visit Assam, we have a special condition. You will not make any personal or public comments against China from Assams soil, outfit chairman Abhijeet Asom told the exiled Tibetan leader in an open letter.

China and Assam are friendly neighbours who share long-standing linguistic and cultural ties. We will not tolerate it if you act as a spokesperson for Indian sentiments from Assams soil, it added.

Despite Beijing expressing its displeasure, India has allowed the Dalai Lama to undertake a trip to Assam and Arunachal Pradesh from April 1. China has warned that the visit could affect ties between the two nations.

Indian intelligence agencies said ULFA commander-in-chief Paresh Barua is currently based in China, and the outfits statement echoes the sentiments of his host nation.

The Dalai Lama will spend two days in Assam before departing for Arunachal Pradesh to visit the Tawang monastery. China claims a large part of Arunachal Pradesh as its territory.

The ULFA-I letter claimed that South Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh) was under illegal occupation by India, and expressed resentment at the Dalai Lamas proposed visit. Your unwise decision to go to Tawang despite Chinas objection is a cause of concern to us. It could lead to deterioration in ties, and if Chinas limit of tolerance is breached, even result in a war-like situation, it said.

The spiritual leader will arrive in Assam on April 1, and deliver a lecture in the state capital. The next day, he will participate in the state government-organised Namami Brahmaputra festival.

On April 3, the Dalai Lama will deliver another lecture at Dibrugarh University. He will then proceed to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, and end his trip at Itanagar on April 12.

Security has been beefed up in certain parts of Assam, amid reports that the ULFA-I could try to disrupt events attended by the Dalai Lama.

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Vietnam on Tuesday sought cooperation from India in various fields, including cyber security and e-governance, to steer the country towards economic development on the lines of Prime Minister Narendra Modis Digital India and e-governance initiatives.

The south-east Asian country joined a number of others, including the US, Japan, South Korea, the UK, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and Uzbekistan, that have favoured Indias Digital India and e-governance initiatives.

A Vietnamese delegation led by the countrys information and communication minister Truong Minh Tuan met Union IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

Vietnam would like to tap into the experience of India in the delivery of digital services, law management and cyber security as this will help in the economic development of the country, Tuan told Indian government officials, adding that the IT sector contributes to 25% of Vietnams GDP.

Tuan said that Vietnam also wants to train its officers on e-governance and wants to build smart cities after seeing the work happening in India. He added that Vietnam is open to Indian firms opening businesses in the country thereby creating opportunities for Indian engineers.

Aptech and NIIT are already present in Vietnam and is closely working to develop IT training centres in the country. Aptech has already built one, Tuan said.

He said Vietnam has a requirement of 1 million engineers to fulfil its digital and e-governance initiatives and already has 600,000 people working on several digital initiatives.

Prasad said India was open to supporting Vietnam with their digital programmes and proposed a collaboration through working groups to carry forward the proposals.

He proposed to the delegation to work on delivering digital literacy for citizens through platforms such as common service centres and also offered a cooperation with National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology (NIELET) to provide basic courses on cyber security.

The minister also suggested a collaboration between Indias National Knowledge Network and Vietnams VinaREN in areas of high-performance computing, e-learnings, telemedicine, weather forecast, cyber security, biodiversity and big data.

Vietnam has a population of 90 million and nearly 70% of its people are on the internet. And, nearly 90% of all its computers are connected to the web.

The delegation also signed an MoU on further cooperation picking up from PM Modis visit to Hanoi in September last year.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 28

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

Iranian and Russian officials signed 14 memorandums of understanding (MOUs) on the sidelines of a meeting between Iran's President Hassan Rouhani and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Mar. 28.

The signed documents cover cooperation in political, economic, legal, cultural and scientific areas, Irans state-run IRINN TV reported.

The documents include an MOU on extradition of criminals, an MOU on visa-free travel for Russian and Iranian citizens within tourist groups, a cooperation document between the energy ministries for electricity trade, a document on cooperation in sports, as well as MOUs on cooperation in the fields of housing, transportation, railways, ICT, trade, oil and gas, and transportation of nuclear materials.

Rouhani arrived in Moscow on March 27 on a two-day visit at the official invitation of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
From BJP saying no to beef ban if elected in northeastern states and Nigerians beaten up in Greater Noida to Australian captain Steve Smiths outburst against Murali Vijay, here are 10 top stories to keep you up to date:

Crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses: Meat prices in Delhi soar following traders strike in UP

Meat traders strike in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh has halved Delhis supply and sent the prices soaring, with mutton selling for Rs 500 a kilo in some areas on Monday. Traders at Ghazipur, Delhis only slaughter house and biggest wholesale meat market, said they were not getting cattle from Uttar Pradesh, the biggest suppliers of animals, which had led to buffalo and goat meat costing at least 25% more. Delhi doesnt have livestock farms and relies on neighbouring Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. The bulk of buffalo supply to Ghazipur is from UP, which is countrys biggest meat producer. Read the full story here.

No beef ban if we come to power in poll-bound Northeast states: BJP

Amid a crackdown in Uttar Pradesh by the new BJP government to enforce a ban on cow slaughter and illegal abattoirs, the party has clarified that a similar rule would not be imposed in three northeastern states which go to polls next year. Beef is widely consumed in Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland and the drive against illegal abattoirs in UP has prompted speculation in these states. Read the full story here.

Nigerians beaten up by locals in Greater Noida, Sushma Swaraj seeks report

A Nigerian girl was allegedly abducted and several Africans were assaulted in Greater Noida on Monday as people from a protest march over a teenage boys death because of suspected drugs overdose attacked black foreigners in the area. The peaceful protest march suddenly turned violent and triggered a vicious racial attack as locals have accused Africans living in the area of drugging class 12 student Manish Khari, who died of a cardiac arrest on Saturday. Most of the victims of the mob attack were shopping near Pari Chowk, oblivious to the undercurrent of anger against Africans. Read the full story here.

Mental Healthcare Bill decriminalising suicide attempt passed by Parliament

The new Mental Healthcare Bill that decriminalises attempt to suicide and bans use of electric shock therapy for treating children with mental illness was passed by the Lok Sabha on Monday. The Rajya Sabha had passed earlier in August 2016. An important factor in the Bill is that it separates attempt to suicide from the Indian Penal Code. In effect, IPC provisions cannot be invoked in case of an attempt to suicide. Read the full story here.

Govt did not give time to study GST proposals, claim Opposition members

Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Monday introduced the GST and related bills in the Lok Sabha amid objections by some Opposition members over the manner the government had moved the proposed legislation. Opposition leaders KC Venugopal (Congress) and Saugata Roy (Trinamool) sought a ruling from Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, claiming that the government had not given the members enough time to study the bills. The opposition MPs asked how the government could expect the members to check the website at midnight and questioned why the issue was not discussed at last weeks meeting of Business Advisory Committee. Read the full story here.

Murali Vijay a f**king cheat, Steve Smiths outburst raises Twitter storm

Australia captain Steve Smith appeared to call Murali Vijay a f**king cheat after the Indian opener claimed to have taken a catch that was later ruled grounded. Vijay, fielding at gully, seemed to have caught Josh Hazlewood off Ravichandran Ashwin for the final wicket of Australias second innings in the Dharmasala test. The India opener, convinced he had claimed the catch cleanly, left the field to begin padding up while the on-field umpires considered it for a referral. Smith, who was in the Australian dressing room, was visibly displeased with Vijays run to the pavilion and was caught by television cameras mouthing the words. Read the full story here.

Manus flood was real, Saraswati nurtured Harappan settlements: Indian experts

Manus flood, widely believed to be a mythological phenomenon, was real, while the mythical river Saraswati actually existed and had nurtured human settlements of the Harappan civilisation, according to Indian experts. BB Lal, former director general of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) known for his works on Ayodhya, presented a research paper on Manus flood at a seminar organised by the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) on Monday. Read the full story here.

Trump backs H-1B reform bill, says US lawmaker

A senior Republican lawmaker on Monday said his bill proposing a massive hike in the minimum salary for those employed on H-1B visas to prevent outsourcing has the backing of President Donald Trump, himself a critic of the programme. If enacted, the bill will hurt Indian IT firms in the US and all other consultancies whose business model was based on offering same services performed by temporary foreign workers on salaries lower than their American counterparts. Read the full story here.

London attacker interested in jihad but no evidence of IS link: Police

British police said on Monday they had found no evidence that Khalid Masood, who killed four people in an attack on Britains parliament last week, had any association with Islamic State or al Qaeda, but he was clearly interested in jihad. The statement came as 52-year-old Muslim convert Khalid Masoods mother spoke out for the first time, saying she was deeply shocked, saddened and numbed. Read the full story here.

SPS Oberoi, the NRI businessman from Punjab who just saved 10 Indians from death sentence in UAE

For SPS Oberoi, philanthropy is a way of life. So much so that Oxford University had bestowed an honorary doctorate on him for it. The 59-year-old businessman, a native of Indias Punjab and based in Dubai, is in the news again for depositing blood money to save 10 Indians from his home state who faced the death sentence for the murder of a Pakistani man in the UAE. He deposited Rs 60 lakh (200,000 dirham) with a UAE court last week and the 10 youths from Punjab would soon be released as the murder victims father has agreed to a pardon. Read the full story here.
Uttar Prdaesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has defended his governments crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses, saying the state is following the Supreme Courts directions.

We havent made a new law. We are merely ensuring that the existing law is implemented. We are neither against nor in favour of anyone, he said on Monday, referring to the top courts 2017 guidelines on illegal abattoirs.

Prior to the guidelines, the National Green Tribunal had issued directions on the contentious issue in May 2015.

The monk-turned-politician, who has completed a week as chief minister of Indias most populous state, had made some tough announcements, raising concerns among several sections.

Talking to Hindustan, a Hindi news daily of the HT media group, the chief minister sought to allay fears, saying there is no reason to be intimidated.

Why should those who respect the law and the Constitution be afraid? the saffron-clad Yogi said.

He reiterated that his government will treat everyone equally and will not grant favour to anyone.

The rule of the law will prevail. Nobody needs to be afraid. I will implement the Prime Ministers sabka saath, sabka vikas agenda in letter and spirit, he assured.

On charges that the anti-Romeo police squad his government formed for womens safety is harassing innocent youth, Adityanath said action would be taken against policemen if they overstep their brief.

Also, he warned: If someone casts an evil eye on our mothers and sisters, they wont be spared.

Highlighting his governments agenda, the chief minister, who begins his work at 5am, said goons will no longer rule the roost in the state.

The mafias will be targeted and the middlemen will be barred from the corridors of power. No land-grabbing will be allowed.

He promised to soon fulfill the BJPs poll pledge to provide uninterrupted power supply to the people in his state.

The actual transmission loss is just 15-20%. But it is often showed as 35-40%. That indicates power theft. We will stop this, he said, underlining some of the measures his government plans to take to improve the states power scenario.

Loan waiver for farmers is in the pipeline too, and his government is working on this pre-poll promise that will be taken up at his first cabinet meeting.

Earlier in the day, he inspected Lucknows Gomti riverfront, where he issued several instructions to officials.

The Gomti is part of the Namami Gange project. Until small rivers and tributaries of the Ganga are made pollution-free, the holy river cannot be cleansed, he said.
Airfares on the Jaipur-Delhi route have fallen to a new low with increasing competition between private airlines.

While the economy class airfare for the Delhi-Jaipur Indigo flight has come down to Rs 1,200 for advance bookings, the fare on a Jet Airways flight is Rs 1,387.

Airfare usually tends to go up during the summer holiday season but a spurt in the number of flights this year has increased the competition on the route.

Airfare depends on the availability of seats and low fares for advance bookings indicate higher availability of seats. The spot rates, however, remain unchanged on the Jaipur-Delhi route, said Rajesh Kumar of Dream Holidays, a Jaipur-based travel agency.

The minimum airfare on the Jaipur-Delhi route has now come down to Rs 1,396, which is close Rs 800 for a ticket for an AC Volvo bus for Jaipur to Delhi.

The number of seats has increased over the past one year with the introduction of new flights and now there are flights almost every hour for the national capital.

At present, there are 14 daily flights from Jaipur to Delhi. Jet Airlines operates six daily flights to the national capital while Indigo operates four daily flights, Air India operates three flights and SpiceJet operates one flight.

As per Airports Authority of India (AAI) data, the domestic aircrafts movement from Jaipur airport shot up by 36% in 2016-17 (April-February) as compared to last year.

Earlier this month, officials of the state civil aviation department and Union civil aviation department signed an agreement letter to improve regional air connectivity.

Under the agreement, flights will be launched between Jaipur and Agra via Delhi.

In a move that is expected to boost air travel, the state government in the recent budget slashed VAT on air turbine fuel.
There has been a flood of suggestions to name the new district of Jhargram that chief minister Mamata Banerjee expected to announce during her next visit in April, with most recommendations focusing on leveraging the connection with West Midnapore.

While sources told HT that the district may be named Jhargram, there has been quite a few suggestions to keep the word Midnapore in the new name to signal the connection. Incidentally, Jhargram sub-division consists of eight blocks spread over 540 square km and will be carved out of West Midnapore district. The entire area of the new district was a happy hunting ground of the Maoists between 2008 and 2011.

Read: Bengal police launch hunt for the last Maoist squad

The chief minister is scheduled to visit Jhargram on April 4 after holding an administrative meeting and rally at Kharagpore on April 3. Locals, political leaders and administrative officials expect that the new district will be announced from the meeting at Jhargram.

Incidentally, the chief minister has initiated the process to rename the state of West Bengal. She wants to name it Banga (in Bengali) and Bengal (in English).

For a few years between 2008 and 2011, Jhargram and West Midnapore grabbed national attention due to CPI(Maoist) leader Kishenji, who virtually enjoyed free run in the area till he was killed on November 24, 2011. (HT Photo)

On January 1, 2002, former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya announced bifurcation of Midnapore district into West Midnapore and East Midnapore districts in an effort to carve out smaller administrative units for more efficient governance.

We welcome the bifurcation of West Midnapore. On behalf of Medinipur Samanway Sanstha, (MSS), a registered as well as uniformly well represented organization of undivided Midnapore, have applied to the chief minister, on March 10 to name the new district Jhargram Jangalmahal as Aranyak Medinipur or North West Midnapore or any word containing the word Midnapore , to honour the cultural and heritage of undivided Midnapore district, professor Pranabesh Jana, general secretary of MSS, told HT.

Read: Now, get SMS alerts on elephant presence in West Bengal forests

The Congress leaders in Jhargram area also favour having the word Midnapore while naming the 22nd district of Bengal. We have proposed that the name should be Simanta Midnapore or Aranyak Midnapore, said Nikhil Maity, a Congress leader of Jhargram.

As there is plenty of forest in the region, many one are saying that the new district should carry the word related to forest. Many one are in favour of having the name Jhargram when the district will be created.

The Jhargram area is marked by forests where marauding herds of elephants from the Dolma range of hills from Jharkhand regularly kill people and destroy crops and property. (HT Photo)

Jhargram has a separate culture and we want that the new district should be named as Jhargram, said Manoranjan Mahato, a local of Belpahari area. Sentiments are attached to the name Jhargram, he added.

A section of BJP supporters are also in favour of retaining the name Jhargram. The district party leaders argued that the chief minister should have taken suggestions of locals and political leaders.

Read: Elephant chasers feel cash crunch heat, more lives at risk

The chief minister does not care about what others think. We are not against bifurcation of the district, but she should have taken the views of locals before deciding the name, said Sukhmay Sathpati, the BJP district president of Jhargram area.

Our chief minister is well aware of the area and the sentiment of the people and she will give the right name of the distirct when that will be announced on 4 April, said Nirmal Ghosh, working president of West Midnapore Trinamool Congress committee.

Source also told HT that some parts of Purulia and Bankura districts that parts of Bandowan (Purulia district) and Fulkusma and Sargenga (Bankura) want to join Jhargram as the district headquarters of these areas are far away.
The beef crackdown in Uttar Pradesh has sent shivers in Bengal, one of the two states where cow slaughter and sale/consumption of beef are legal. Beef dealers of Bengal claimed that they are badly hit with the supply of cattle drying up from UP and other north Indian states, and said that they are planning to approach chief minister Mamata Banerjee over the issue.

On Tuesday, the chief minister also expressed her concern over the situation in Uttar Pradesh.

Read: No beef ban if we come to power in poll-bound northeast states: BJP

We are concerned about recent happenings in UP. People are afraid & many are scared about differences over caste, creed & religion.We are all one. Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas sirf bolna nahi hain, karna hain. We have to do it, to make it meaningful. A govt has to be for all. We need to safeguard our Constitution and allow it to guide, Mamata Banerjee twitted.

More than five lakh people are directly and indirectly involved with the beef industry in Bengal, claimed dealers. (HT Photo)

According to beef industry representatives, every stage of the beef industry, from loading and unloading of cattle in vehicles/rail bogies to the slaughterhouse, shops selling beef to those transporting the meat and hide, is labour intensive and employs more than five lakh people in Bengal.

Beef dealers were extremely worried over the fact that cattle supply was never hit so badly in the past. The export of beef from the state was also affected.

Read: Illegal slaughterhouse crackdown: UP strike hits Delhi hard, meat supply down

Mohammed Ali, President of Calcutta Beef Dealers Association said, Since March 24, not a single buffalo has been slaughtered at the Tangra slaughterhouse, one of the biggest in the state. In normal circumstances, around 150 buffaloes are slaughtered here everyday. The supply of cattle from UP has stopped and cattle-carrying vehicles that pass through UP are also being attacked by vigilante groups.

Leaders of Jamiat-ul-Quraish, an organisation of beef dealers in the state said that supply of cows and buffaloes from Uttar Pradesh has also stopped. They claimed that the situation was deteriorating over the past few years, but now they are worst hit.

Bengal beef dealers said that the supply of cattle from Uttar Pradesh, one of the main sourcing points, has almost stopped. Vigilante groups are also intercepting vehicles carrying cattle passing through the state. (HT Photo)

Cow slaughter is allowed in Bengal and Kerala, so we procure cows from other states. That, too, has almost stopped, said Md Jehangir Quraishi, general secretary of the Jamiat.

Jamiat members stated that goods trains comprising 72 bogies would carry cows from UP to Bengal with eight to 10 cows in each of the compartments five years back. Earlier 20 trucks per week carrying the animals used to come to Kolkata (each having 14 to 15 animals). But now only handful of trucks come from Bihar and that is all, said Jehangir.

Read: Azam Khan demands nationwide ban on animal slaughter, asks Muslims to stop eating meat

You can easily understand the impact. This is in addition to the trouble which we are facing with on-road transportation, Ali said.

He also said that a representative team of the association would seek appointment with chief minister Mamata Banerjee and apprise her of the plight of beef dealers.

They said that the ripple effects will soon hit the tannery and leather industry.
RSS and VHP have seized the occasion of Ram Navami to expand its presence in Bengal, which has emerged as a focus state for BJP post the UP blitzkrieg, by organising a clutch of programmes such as religious gatherings, processions, chanting of the Gita in neighbourhoods and raising of the saffron flag atop houses. The Sangh parivar is highlighting the new drive in the state as a push to its agenda of rebuilding the Ram Temple in Ayodhya that has gathered steam after the UP landslide.

Incidentally, Ram Navami that is celebrated with fanfare in states such as UP and Bihar have never been organised in such a scale in Bengal by any outfit.

Read: Adityanath orders security, amenities in temples ahead of Navratri, Ram Navami

We will consolidate the Hindu community through an array of programmes. To that end, we are organising Ram Navami in a big way in every district so that we can teach the urgent need to for the Hindus to come together in Bengal, said Jishnu Basu, RSS general secretary, (south Bengal).

An invitation card distributed in Malda district for Ram Bavami. (HT Photo)

Though the vote share of the saffron camp has gone up in Bengal since 2014 Lok Sabha polls -- from 6% in 2009 to 16.8% in 2014 -- its remains a marginal player with two Lok Sabha MPs and three MLAs.

We are organising a statewide programme that will be a wake up call for the people of Bengal for the Ram Janmabhoomi moveement in the state. It will be not only a celebration of Lord Rama but also a show of might of Hindus in Bengal, remarked Sourish Mukherjee, VHP spokesperson.

While RSS has planned gatherings and Gita Path (recitations from the Gita), VHP has planned colorful processions in the districts and special pujas on and after April 5, the birth date of Lord Rama.

Read: Mumbai temples gear up for grand Ram Navami celebrations

VHP has also planned a Hindu dharma sabha in Kolkata on April 11. Its national leaders and religious figures have been invited to the programme at Esplanade in the heart of the business district of Kolkata.

Incidentally, the saffron camps plan to celebrate Ram Navami has already triggered a reaction from chief minister Mamata Banerjee who pointed out that she doesnt have any objection to anybody celebrating the birthday of Rama, but it should not create communal disharmony in the state.

File picture of Babri Masjid. The Sangh parivar will use the Ram Navami celebrations to push its programmme for building public opinion to build the Ram temple in Ayodhya. (HT Photo)

RSS masterminding communal riots on the d of Ram Nabami in different parts of d state. D Vigilant Left has 2 protect communal harmony at any cost, twitted CPI-M Bengal secretary and politburo member Surya Kanta Mishra on Monday evening.

The Sangh Parivars announcement comes close on the heels of the RSS expressing grave concern at the Akhil Bhartiya Paritinidhi Sabha meet in Nagpur over the unabated rise in violence propagated by jihadi elements in Bengal.

Read: VHPs temple passion to run high on Ram Navami this year

RSS also alleged that the state government/ruling party is hand-in-glove with anti-national elements and are encouraging them to play Muslim vote bank politics right.

The initiative will build confidence among the Hindus of Bengal. It will foster the much needed brotherhood. Hindus are under attack and there is an unchecked rise in fundamentalist elements in the state. In a way it will be a show of might too, BJP state president Dilip Ghosh told HT.

Though BJP is formally not associated with the programmes, its workers and leaders of the state unit will join.

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The newly-elected BJP MLA from Chail assembly seat in Kaushambi Sanjay Gupta has started a novel initiative to improve the quality of mid-day meal  breaking bread with the students of government-run basic schools.

The legislator feels the step will not only help improve the quality of mid-day meal in schools but will also put pressure on teachers and officials of the education department to maintain high standards.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Yogi Adityanath have appreciated the efforts being put in by Gupta. The PM recently posted a tweet praising Gupta for his commendable work.

Modijis tweet came as a surprise to me. It is a great honour for me and his words have boosted my confidence. I will work even harder and better, said Gupta, who has carried out over a dozen inspections after being elected an MLA.

Due to regular inspections, the quality of food at government-run schools has considerably improved in the last 15 days.

Guptas caring nature has made him dear to children who have started calling him uncle. They eagerly wait for him and feel pleasure sharing meal with him.

The central government releases crores of rupees to provide nutritious meal to the students of basic schools under the national mid-day meal programme. Some corrupt officials, gram pradhans and teachers are not providing quality food to children. To bring in change, I have started taking my days meal with children of government-run primary and upper primary schools of the constituency, Gupta told HT.

I have taken it as a mission and will make all possible efforts to ensure effective implementation of the programme, he said.

Officials should understand that the government in the state has changed and no laxity or indiscipline will be tolerated. Special focus should be on cleanliness in schools, he said.

Gupta added that regular meeting with senior officers of the education department would be held to solve the problems related to mid-day scheme.

His way of functioning has also influenced basic education officers who have also started regular inspections of basic schools to take stock of arrangements.

Chail assembly constituency has three blocks with over 400 government-run primary and upper primary schools. It has three Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya in each block.

Divisional coordinator of MDM, Allahabad, Sunit Kumar Pandey said Guptas efforts were inspiring one and all. The system needs public representatives like Gupta, he added.
Encouraged by the Yogi Adityanath governments clampdown on unlicensed slaughter houses and meat shops, the saffron cadres have begun sending letters, reports and videos to the government on how illegal meat and fish markets were still operating in many parts of the state.

Demands to move meat shops outside city limits in Hindu holy cities, too, have started becoming louder.

Even as the indefinite strike by meat sellers against the governments crackdown completed three days on Monday, saffron cadres have also started demanding a complete ban on all meat and fish sale during Navratras  the nine-day Hindu auspicious period, beginning Tuesday.

Most of such complaints -- letters and videos  are being sent from Hindu holy cities of Mathura, Varanasi, Allahabad and the twin-cities of Ayodhya-Faizabad.

UP cabinet minister Siddharth Nath Singh, meanwhile, justified the clampdown on llegal slaughter houses and meat shops.

Read more| Adityanath on slaughterhouse crackdown: Govt following law...not against anyone

Lets not fall prey to a disinformation campaign. There is no crisis as there isnt a problem with legal and licensed slaughter houses. Same is the case with authorised meat shops. But as I have said earlier as well, anything illegal cannot be justified, Singh said here in a brief chat with newspersons.

Responding to the governments version, a slaughter house owner said, I believe even vegetable shops are unauthorised. Is the government mulling action against them as well?

Manu Kacker, a BJP worker who had come here from Allahabad to meet UP minister Rita Bahuguna Joshi, told HT that he had provided details of how unauthorised fish and chicken markets were operating on the Sangam Marg.

We have requested that these unauthorised fish and meat shops be shut immediately, Kacker said.

In Mathura, several illegal meat shops had been operating without any licence. In fact, a slaughterhouse, which has now been shut down following government action, too, was reportedly operating illegally.

Read more| Only illegal slaughter houses being shut in UP: Commerce minister Sitharaman

The government action isnt wrong per se if its limited to unauthorised or unlicensed slaughter houses and meat shops. But, it would be better if the government reaches middle ground rather than acting with an iron hand, Congress leader Pradeep Mathur, who hails from Mathura, told HT on phone.

Slaughter and sale of meat is banned within the panchkosi parikrama route in Ayodhya.

Thus, all liquor and meat shops are mostly in adjoining Faizabad where Kasaibara and Gudari bazaar markets are among the main slaughter and sale points. Raids were also carried out at meat shops amid demand by Bajrang Dal volunteers to shift the shops, including licensed ones, outside the city limits.

A similar demand has been made in Varanasi, where party cadres want meat shops to be shifted 2 km away from Kashi Vishwanath temple. Also, an illegal slaughter house operating in Kamalgaraha area of Varanasi has been closed because it didnt have licence.

Read more: Meat vendors in Ghaziabad, Noida shut shop in protest against crackdown

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Sale of fish has gone up in Lucknow following an indefinite strike by traders in Uttar Pradesh to protest the Yogi Adityanath-led governments clampdown on illegal butcher shops and mechanised slaughterhouses.

The crackdown was one of the first decisions taken by Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu hardliner who took over as the UP chief minister on March 19 after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept the state election.

Meat sellers, especially mutton vendors, kept their shops closed on Monday - the first day of their strike against the crackdown in UP, which accounts for nearly 50% of Indias total meat exports.

As non-vegetarians shifted to fish and eggs, the sudden change in food habits also spurred a minor rise in the price of fish in the local markets.

The rates of Rohu shot up to Rs 400 per kg from Rs 360 just a day before and the price of other fish, which ranged between Rs 120 to 160, shot up to Rs 180 to Rs 200 in the fish market at Qaiserbagh and Kanpur Road.

There was no change in the price of eggs (Rs 48 per dozen) in the wholesale market but the rates increased in the retail market.

Major non-vegetarian food outlets, including the famous Tunday Kababi, Idris, Wahid and Rahims, remained closed to express solidarity with meat traders. The closure of these eateries benefited small vendors selling eggs on roadside carts.

The demand for boiled eggs increased three-fold, said Kashif, an egg stall owner at Lalkuan.

Mutton and chicken sellers, who have pulled down their shutters, have warned the government of intensifying their stir.

The meat sellers are worried over the irrational crackdown on slaughterhouses. This has created a shortage of beef in the market. Now butchers are afraid of slaughtering buffaloes and this has adversely hit their livelihood, Mubeen Qureshi of the Lucknow Bakra Gosht Vypar Mandal said.

In a nutshell There is no mechanised slaughterhouse in Lucknow Lucknow has 600 licensed mutton sellers There are 5 licensed beef sellers 1,500 goats and 25,000 chickens are slaughtered per day

The government has only ordered action against illegal slaughterhouses and ban on cow smuggling but here officials are closing down shops selling chicken and mutton, he added.

Deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma has assured meat sellers that action will be taken only against illegal slaughterhouses and meat sellers, not against licensed meat traders.

Chief veterinary officer Dr AK Rao also assured smooth trade to licensed meat traders but said those indulging in the illegal trade of meat would not be spared as this was directly connected with the health of the people.

Prices of vegetables are stable in all major market in the city.

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A 17-year-old boy, who had borrowed his relatives bike for a joyride, died as he rammed the two-wheeler into a divider of a flyover at Vile Parle (West) early on Sunday. His friend, who was riding pillion, escaped with injuries and is out of danger, said the police.

The incident serves a grim reminder to parents and relatives who cave in to their childrens demand to take cars and bikes out for a joyride.

The minor has posthumously been booked for rash and negligent driving. Also, his family member, who owned the bike, will be fined for allowing him to ride it despite being a minor, the police said.

According to the Juhu police the incident took place on the Gokhale flyover at around 7 am on Sunday when the deceased boy and his friend went for a joyride. Senior inspector Sunil Ghosalkar refused to divulge the name of the victim, saying, As the victim is a minor, we cant disclose his identity. Ghosalkar, however, confirmed the development.

The boys were heading towards Andheri (East) from Juhu. The boy was speeding and lost control over the bike. He crashed it into the divider. A passing motorist alerted the police control room. The boys were rushed to a nearby hospital, said the Juhu police.

Ghosalkar said the boy was declared dead on admission at the hospital while his injured friend is said to be in a stable condition.

An FIR has been registered under sections 279, 337 and 304 A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The police said they will also invoke sections of the Motor Vehicles Act to fine the owner of the bike for allowing the minor to use it.

The police said that the boy was not driving under the influence of alcohol.

The police seized the bike and the RTO will examine it to find out if any mechanical failure led to the incident.

READ

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 28



By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:



Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has met the relatives of a group of members of Afghan fighters who have been killed in Syria.





Following the outbreak of the Syrian crisis, Iran has reportedly set up Zeinabiyoun brigade of Pakistani Shia nationals and the Fatemiyoun brigade of Afghan Shia fighters to support President Bashar al-Assad's government against armed opposition groups.



On the occasion of Nowruz holidays marking the beginning of the new Iranian calendar year, the supreme leader who is on a visit to the Iranian holy city of Mashhad, received the relatives of a group of slain Afghan fighters, Tasnim news agency reported.





During the meeting Ayatollah Khamenei paid tribute to the killed Afghan fighters.





Earlier in March, a senior official in the Islamic Republic said that the number of fatalities among the Iranian-backed forces in Syria has reached 2,100.


The Bombay high court (HC) struck down a first information report (FIR) filed against a school teacher for abetting suicide of a Class 10 girl, who ended her life after one of her classmates suspected her of having stolen her mobile phone and the teacher conveyed it to her parents.

Though the entire happening depicts an unhappy state of affairs, we do not find either from the allegations in FIR or from the suicide note that applicant was responsible in any way for commission of suicide by Nikita (the deceased student), said the division bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice IK Jain while exonerating Jayashree Kotgirwar, a teacher with Kesrimal Girls School, Wardha.

The incident took place on January 29, 2016. On that fateful day, one of the students complained to Kotgirwar that her mobile phone had been stolen and she suspected Nikita of stealing it. Kotgirwar, therefore, called Nikitas mother to school and informed her over the phone about the entire episode. However, when Nikitas mother reached the school she discovered that her daughter had committed suicide by hanging.

The deceased had left behind a suicide note in which she stated that she took the drastic step since she had been accused of stealing the mobile phone. Nikitas father then approached the police alleging that his daughter took the drastic step because of the false allegation levelled against her by the teacher. Following his complaint, the Ramnagar police registered an FIR against Kotigirwar and booked her for abetting Nikitas suicide.

The teacher then approached the high court seeking quashing of the FIR against her.

The high court found merit in the contentions raised by Kotgirwars counsel. It noted that the FIR revealed that a student complained to the teacher that her mobile has been stolen and the said student expressed her suspicion on Nikita. It is not even the case of the prosecution that applicant (teacher) suspected the deceased for theft of mobile of another student and she falsely blamed the deceased for the theft, said the bench.

The bench observed that the FIR and the suicide note would not amount to abetment, as defined under Section 107 of the Indian Penal Code. Therefore the applicant cannot be compelled to face trial for the said offence as allowing the continuance of criminal action would amount to abuse of process of law.

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14,180 narcotics cases were registered in Mumbai 2016

13,959 of those cases were of consumption

1,969 cases were registered till February this year

While the peddlers of drugs and its consumers are booked, there isnt enough legal action that will deter them. Conviction rates are low and cases are adjourned for months  sometimes even years. The result: those booked jump bail, flee the country or find ways to go on with their drug trade.

So, in the bylanes of Colaba, for instance, it is not uncommon to hear a passerby ask casually for Hash Sir. At Worli, Kurla, Juhu, Versova and Malwani drugs, from low-grade ganja and hashish to quality cocaine and meth that are sold by peddlers in BMWs, are found in abundance. With two ports and industrial corridors stretching all the way to Gujarat on one side and Solapur to the other, Mumbai is a natural hotspot.

There is a flaw in the law that needs to be corrected. The accused are aware of these flaws and are taking advantage of it. The police machinery has to overcome this, said Shrihari Aney, former Maharashtra advocate general.

One major problem is cases lie in courts for years. Recently, a special court constituted to try those booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Pyschotropic Substance Act (NDPS), adjourned the trial of a September 2014 case of one, Sajid Sayyed who was found with 370g of hashish, to January 2018. Sayyeds case isnt the only one.

Sandip Salariya, a native of Punjab, was arrested in 2009 and soon granted bail. He attended court for a few days but stopped after a while. The court issued a non-bailable warrant against him and declared him a proclaimed offender. Salariya was arrested only in February 2016  seven years later. Salariya, in his defence, claimed he was told his case was over, which is why he returned to his village in Pathankot. He claimed he was not aware of being declared a proclaimed offender. In March 2016, the court rejected his bail plea, saying he was arrested in a combing operation after the Pathankot attack. The court said he could abscond if granted bail. But a few months later, when the case was transferred to another special NDPS court, Salariya got bail again, the judge was transferred, and Salariyas case was heard before another judge, who has now adjourned the case to next year  thats a nine-year delay.

Aney said judges need to be cautious when using the discretionary power to give bail in cases under special law. Bail should not be granted, unless there are sufficient grounds, as hardened criminals end up indulging in the same offences again.

Francis Saldhana, a special public prosecutor for central agencies like DRI, Customs and Narcotics Control Bureau, said long adjournments give the accused a chance to escape. It becomes difficult for agencies to track them down afte that.

Saldhana gave the example of foreign nationals booked in narcotics cases getting bail and leaving the country. A Nigerian national was granted bail and his passport seized by the court. He managed to obtain a duplicate passport and tried to flee. Fortunately he was caught at immigration. In another case, Saldhana said an Italian national managed to leave the country after getting bail. He was caught under the NDPS Act. Once he got bail, he applied for documents from his embassy, which without any verification helped him. He fled the country and the case is pending.

What is the solution then? Former Supreme Court judge Santosh Hegde said a drastic overhaul of the system of disposal of cases is needed. There has to be a system in which criminal cases are disposed of within a maximum of 2 to 3 years.Everyone, from judicial officers to the defence lawyer and public prosecutors, must speak on issues of delay and the low conviction rates, justice Hegde said. And, those with a history of jumping bail, should not be granted the liberty at all, he said .

Former HC judge BG Kolse Patil said adjournments were a matter of discretion of the courts. But there has to be a way for speedy justice. In many cases, the courts just pass orders and not necessarily do 0justice. Delay in cases affects the society .

The government too should work on appointing more courts so cases are disposed of faster, Aney said. The process will become faster, there will be no need for adjournments.

Arrested in September 2014, case will be heard in January 2018

Sajid Sayyed was arrested for holding 370g of hashish in September 2014. A special court to try cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Pyschotropic Substance Act (NDPS) recently adjourned his trial to January 2018  thats a four-year wait for a verdict.

A month after his arrest, Sayyed was granted bail, despite the prosecutions plea of denying him bail as he had several cases against him. In the years that the case has dragged on, Sayyed failed to attend court and has consistently moved for pleas for exemption from appearance. The court initially allowed the plea, but soon noticed Sayyed was absconding.

About two years after he was booked, Sayyed was issued a non-bailable warrant on July 1, 2016. Sayyed was re-arrested a month later and remained in jail till this month, when he came out on bail again.

Sayyed has asked for the his surety amount to be reduced from Rs40,000 to Rs15,000, saying he comes from a poor family.

The prosecution, however, told the court if that was allowed, Sayued would abscond. The offence is serious, and there are chances of him absconding. There are many cases pending the court in which the accused never appeared, the public prosecutor said. The court rejected the plea and asked him to arrange for the cash amount for bail.

For now, even with the risk of Sayyed missing the judicial process, the case has been adjourned to January 2018. (Charul Shah)

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Giving in to demands from students, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has announced its 11th examination city in the state to conduct the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for medical admissions.

A circular released on Tuesday announced that Nanded, in Marathwada, will also be a centre. It also said that students have time till March 31 to update the centres information on their forms online.

While the state was previously allotted six examination cities in the state  Aurangabad, Mumbai, Nagpur, Nashik, Pune and Thane  CBSE recently added Ahmednagar, Amravati, Kolhapur and Satara to the list. Along with Nanded, the total count of examination cities in Maharashtra is now 11, the highest in the country.

Since Maharashtra government will not conduct a separate Common Entrance Test for health science aspirants, every interested student will have to opt for NEET. Obviously we would need more centres in the state, said Ashish Bangera, a parent.

Students and parents had protested against having only six examination cities in the state as many students from rural areas had to travel to far flung cities to take the test. Students remain worried about NEET and extra travel will only add to their anxiety, Bangera added.

Earlier this month, some activists had written to state medical education minister Girish Mahajan, asking for his help in demanding more examination centres for the state. While CBSE had previously announced 84 examination cities across all states and union territories, they have recently added 24 more cities where NEET 2017 will be held, taking the total count to 104 cities. Each of these cities will now be allotted different number of examination centres.

About 11.35 lakh students have registered for NEET I & II this year while the numbers stood at 8.02 lakh last year, sated the circular. It added, Looking at this substantial increase in numbers, the Ministry of Human Resource and Development has decided to increase the number of examination cities.

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The Santacruz police on Monday found a 15-year-old girl who had gone missing on Sunday night. A case of kidnapping had been registered but it was later found that the girl had left of her own accord after a fight with her parents.

The girl, who lives with her parents in a SRA building in Santacruz (west), is reportedly short-tempered. On Sunday, she fought with them over a trivial matter and left the house around 8.30pm. When she did not come back for quite sometime, her worried parents rushed to Santacruz police station and a case of kidnapping was registered under section 363 (kidnapping) of the Indian Penal Code.

The police swung into action immediately and alerted other police stations across Mumbai along with her description. On Sunday, a gentleman spotted her in Kurla and took her to Kurla police station immediately.

The Kurla police contacted the Santacruz police on Monday morning and the girl was returned to her parents. An official from the Santacruz police said, She is just 15 years old. It was fortunate that she was found unharmed.

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After farmers resisted the option to pool their land for the ambitious Mumbai Nagpur Super Expressway, the state government has decided to allow the acquisition of the land under the Land Acquisition Act, 2013. Acquiring land under the act, which states that farmers must be paid three to four times the ready reckoner rate, will cost the government about Rs10,000 crore. The cash-strapped government is now mulling the idea of raising a loan of Rs4,000 crore from four state corporations. The rest will be raised by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), the nodal agency implementing the project.

The 710-km expressway, which is also called the prosperity expressway, needs about 20,820 hectares of land. Of this, 84.13% is agricultural land. In most districts, farmers have opposed the land pooling scheme, which offers Rs30,000 to Rs60,000 an acre a year as compensation for 10 years, with an annual increase of 10% every year. The farmers will also be entitled to 25 to 30% of the developed land along the corridor.

However, farmers have opposed this, demanding a lump sum as immediate compensation under the Land Acquisition Act, stating that they do not want to be kept waiting for 10 years.

During a recent review meeting, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis directed the public works department to implement a mixed model, in which land will either be pooled or acquired under the act.

Those present at the meeting told the CM was apprised that 40% of the farmer consented to land pooling and their land was being measured. However, sources said the land of farmers who havent consented is also being measured.

Most of the farmers in Shahapur are willing to give up their land under the Land Acquisition Act, which entitles farmers to immediate compensation. The act clearly outlines the rules of acquisition and has a fair compensation rate, unlike the land pooling scheme. Our past experiences with land acquisition have shown us that the officials are untrustworth. Hundreds of people affected by the Koyna dam were rehabilitated in Shahapur. They have been waiting for the transfer of their rightful land for the past 43 years, said Vinayak Pawar, president, Shetkari Sangharsh Samiti. He said about 3,500 farmers, who collectively own 6,000 acres, were served land acquisition notices.

Tukaram Bhasme, officer bearer, Maharashtra Kisan Sabha, which has fighting for the cause of farmers in Vidarbha said, Farmers are against giving away their land even under the Land Acquisition Act. We think the project is unnecessary as we have a national and state highway connecting Mumbai and Nagpur. The proposed corridor will run parallel to them.

According to an MSRDC officer, all the district collectors and divisional commissioners have been directed to adhere to the 2015 policy of acquisition through negotiations. This will give farmers 10% over and above the price fixed under the Land Acquisition Act.

The MSRDC is set to take loans of Rs1000 each from the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra (CIDCO), Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA)and Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA).

We asked farmers to choose either option. We will need Rs10,000 crore,of which we will take loans of Rs4,000 from four state agencies. There has not yet been a decision on fund-raising by the MSRDC, MSRDC minister Eknath Shinde told HT.

The government plans to acquire all the land it needs by the end of monsoon and start the actual construction by October 2017. The government wants construction to be completed before the 2019 assembly elections.

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Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis continued to remain silent regarding farm loan waivers, an issue that has stalled the state legislative assemblys budget proceedings.

Addressing the annual general meeting of Vasantdada Sugar Institute (VSI) on Monday, Fadnavis also declined to address various issues raised by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, such as the drastic decline in land under sugarcane cultivation.

However, Fadnavis said the states sugar industry had been critical for the past few years owing to drought. Terming this industry rural Maharashtras main source of strength, he said its problems needed to be addressed immediately.

Fadnavis said the government would support cooperative movements, particularly those of sugar mill owners. He, however, said the sugar sector must ensure that its practices are transparent, so stakeholders do not incur losses.

Fadnavis said the government would buy cogeneration power from sugar mills at a higher price so the mills would not face financial hardships.

We will take a decision soon and ensure that the user is not financially burdened, he added. Fadnavis shared the dais with prominent NCP leaders such former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, former finance minister Jayant Patil and Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil. Several Congress leaders attended the meeting. The NCP has stalled budget proceedings for more than two weeks, demanding that loan waivers be given to farmers.

The BJPs partner Shiv Sena has also taken an aggressive stance on the issue, posing a serious problem for the government.

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The Shiv Sena was set up in 1966 by khadi-clad Congressmen who wanted to loosen the grip of Communist parties in Bombay. Over the next decade, they succeeded to a large extent in reducing the Left parties to a rump in both trade union activities and electoral politics. According to Madhav Deshpande, one of the Sena founders, Thackeray had a love-hate relationship with many of his political rivals, including the Congress, and in the later years, the BJP, but he never got over his paranoia for the Communists. That is because, as Deshpande says it, they had attempted to put an end to the threat from the Sena by hatching a plot to decimate Thackeray at one of his political rallies. Other Sena leaders got wind of it and threw a protective ring round Thackeray until he reached home safe  in the later years when a group of Shiv Sainiks were accused of killing Communist MLA Krishna Desai in Parel, the Congress even helped the Sena win the by-election from Desais consitutency to get its first MLA in the Maharashtra Assembly.

But now, all across Maharashtra, in the zilla parishads and panchayat samitis where the Shiv Sena had a fighting chance at electing its own president, the Congress and the Communists have come together to help defeat the BJP, which has now emerged as the common enemy for all opposition parties in the state. The BJPs astounding performance in not just the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation election but all across the state is owed in no small measure to defections from the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena. It picked and chose candidates from these parties with care  all potential winners who their parent parties let go without heeding the BJPs game plan. But now, despite being rather bushed at these polls, the Shiv Sena has lost none of its sting and continues to be a troublesome ally to the ruling party. The BJP is thus said to be hatching a plot to now engineer defections of sitting MLAs in the Assembly from not just the Sena but also from the Congress and NCP. Though they have nothing in common with the BJP ideologically, Congress and NCP MLAs are being tempted with the prospect of striking a deal with the ruling party to go slow on cases of corruption against them  they have been frightened by what has happened to Chhagan Bhujbal and believe joining the BJP will save them from a similar fate.

Now, with rumours gaining ground that 29 MLAs from these parties might soon defect to the BJP, furious efforts from leaders of all the threatened parties are underway to stall their exit, which can happen only if these parties can come up with a better game plan than the BJP. Not surprising, then, that a nexus is growing between the Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena and leaders of the parties are making no bones about this strange coming together of unlikely partners. Congress leaders at first were worried about a backlash if they were seen cosying up to the Sena but with no seeming reaction from the people at the grassroots, their moves got rather emboldened. Ajit Pawar of the NCP has even given an open call for all forces opposing the BJP to come together overtly before it is too late.

Ajit has been urged to make this move because of reports of a core committee meeting of the BJP last week where it is said the party discussed several scenarios, including a mid-term poll or getting MLAs to quit their parties and contest on the BJPs symbol  it is unlikely that it will be able to get two-thirds of MLAs from any of the three parties to avoid the anti-defection law. So in case the MLAs do quit as BJP candidates, Ajit has proposed to make it impossible for them to win. According to him, all three parties will fight against the BJP, there will be only one opposition candidate supported by the other two parties.

Ajit has gone on so far as to say that he has already spoken to Shiv Sena leaders on this but both the Sena and the Congress are adopting a wait-and-watch attitude. However, it is unlikely that the BJP will have a cakewalk this time round in the by-elections. The instinct for survival has kicked in and in this existentialist battle, there is no line dividing the left, the right and the centre.

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You can now express your opinion on the Central governments performance and decisions in Marathi. The Prime Ministers Office has included Marathi as an optional regional language for Narendra Modi app, the official mobile phone application of the Prime Minister.

In December 2016, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) worker Akhil Chitre had complained that the app had only five Indian languages  Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil  besides English. Chitre received a reply within days that his complaint was disposed of due to translation problem with no further action was taken.

He then took the matter up with the PMO, asking it to incorporate Marathi in the app, which was launched in 2015 and posted updates on Modis day-to-day activities.

Inclusion of Marathi has taken the total number of Indian languages available on the app to nine. The other languages added were Bengali, Odia and Telugu.

I am happy that Marathi was added to the regional language option in the Narendra Modi app just a day before Gudi Padwa, the Maharashtrian new year, said Chitre.

The Raj Thackeray-led MNS is known for its anti-Hindi rhetoric and pro-Marathi stand, especially in Maharashtra. It had insisted on measures such as issuing auto-rickshaw permits only to Marathi-speaking people, and displaying signboards of shops and restaurants in Marathi. The party has been struggling to stay afloat after failing in elections consistently.

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The Opposition, comprising seven political parties, is set to start its Sangharsh Yatra (Struggle March) to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Maharashtra government over its demand for a loan waiver for the distressed farmers. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar are likely to take part in the Yatra starting from Chandrapur on Wednesday. The event will conclude at Panvel.

The Opposition parties  Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Samajwadi Party (SP), All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), Peasants and Workers Party (PWP), Republican Party (Kawade) and United Janata Dal  have collaborated for the first time to take on the state government. Speculations are rife that the Communist Party of India (CPI) may join the Yatra.

The leaders from all the seven parties, including legislators, would be covering 1,500 km while passing through Vidarbha, Marathwada and Western Maharashtra, where farmer suicides have remained the highest in the state. Politicians would be with farmers and the families of those who have committed suicide.

A senior Congress leader confirmed that they have invited Gandhi on the last day (April 4) of the Yatra, and have received a positive response. Similarly, NCP legislator Jitendra Awhad said the NCP chief would also be joining the event.

Meanwhile, the government announced a slew of schemes under its Unnat Sheti, Samruddha Sheti initiative on Tuesday .

While addressing farmers on Akashwani on Tuesday, state agriculture minister announced an initiative to raise the food production and productivity.

The project has the provision of additional funding for drip irrigation, distribution of soil health cards to 1.06 crore farmers, funding for 8,000 onion chawls (godowns) with storage capacity of two lakh metric tonnes, a five-year plan for seed supply and mechanisation of farming.

Also read: Opposition readies to corner Maha govt over farm loan waiver

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A dead longcomb sawfish, a critically endangered species of shark, was hauled in Sindhudurg, a district in Maharashtra, on Sunday morning. Local fishermen said the 15-foot-long carcass weighed nearly 700 kg, and the fish must have died of suffocation as its snout was found entangled in the net they had cast.

The fish, a member of the shark family, is listed as critically endangered on the Red List issued by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and falls under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.

The carcass of the sawfish (HT)

On Saturday night, we had cast our nets close to shoreline for our daily catch. On Sunday, as I was pulling them in, I realised that a massive fish was trapped in one of the nets, said Munir Mujawar, a fisherman from Vijaydurg. It took five men to pull the fish out of the water. Once on board, we saw that its snout was entangled in the net, which most likely suffocated the fish.

As per the endangered list of marine species issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), sawfish population is under threat owing to trophy angling, for food, illegal sale to aquariums and elimination by fishermen to prevent the fish from consuming their catch.

Researchers said the sawfish has been spotted mostly along the Gulf of Mexico, Australia and South-East Asia. (HT)

Another fisherman from the area said the species is on the decline along the entire western coast of India. About 20 years ago, we used to regularly spot this shark. However, the population has declined drastically in the last 10 years owing to increasing water pollution, said Khalil Vasta, a fisherman from Sindhudurg. The fish is sold for Rs1.5 lakh in the domestic market.

Expertspeak

Marine biologists said that the shark is prone to entanglement in fishing nets owing to its long snout, which has 31 teeth. Being such a large animal, the fish has to move constantly so that it can breathe, said Sajan John, head of marine projects at Wildlife Trust of India. Once their snout gets caught in the fishing nets, their movement gets restricted. In their bid to break free, they get entangled further and eventually get choked to death.

He added that there is no clear indication on the population of the sawfish, but their numbers in the wild are dwindling. There is hardly any research done or protection offered to these animals, said John. Their body is made of cartilage and the species is an intermediate to fish with bones under the evolutionary cycle.

Researchers said the sawfish has been spotted mostly along the Gulf of Mexico, Australia and South-East Asia. The species is extremely rare to be found in Indian peninsula. After witnessing small numbers across the world, IUCN labelled the species as critically endangered. Even a single death, such as this, can put the entire population at risk, said senior scientist and marine consultant, Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute.

He added that in case of the fish getting entangled in a net, its gills should be immersed in water during the rescue period and the net should be removed and the fish released quickly.

Also read: Carcass of dolphin-like mammal washes ashore near Gateway of India

32-feet whale carcass buried on Alibaug beach

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 27

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

The Lomonosov Moscow State University has awarded visiting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani with an honorary doctorate degree.

President Rouhani received the honorary doctorate from the Moscow State University during a ceremony this morning, Mehr news agency reported.

Addressing the ceremony, Rector of the Moscow State University (MSU) Viktor Sadovnichy said the honorary degree is granted to President Rouhani for his services and steps on the path of strengthening and expanding scientific and academic relations between Iran and Russia.

Rouhani arrived in Moscow on March 27 on a two-day visit at the official invitation of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Will senior Congress leader and former chief minister Narayan Rane join the BJP or stay with the Congress? Speculations were rife on Tuesday as Rane was in New Delhi and one of the BJP ministers in the state said any decision on him would be taken by the top BJP leadership. Ranes younger son and Congress legislator Nitesh Rane, however,denied this and insisted his father was very much in the Congress party.

He [Narayan Rane] had gone to Delhi for personal work. We are not even thinking of quitting the party. In fact, our aim is to lead the party to victory in the 2019 Assembly election like the triumph in Punjab in the recent polls. It is a deliberate attempt by a few to create an air of ambiguity around the Rane family, Nitesh said on Tuesday. Rane reached Delhi late on Monday evening and there was speculation he would meet senior BJP leaders on Tuesday.

For the past few days, Rane has been publicly criticising the state Congress leadership following the partys defeat in the municipal and district council polls in Maharashtra. His elder son and former MP Nilesh resigned from party posts and is running a campaign for the removal of Ashok Chavan as state Congress chief. Significantly, BJP MP Kirit Somaiya has been demanding an investigation by the Enforcement Directorate into Ranes financial transactions.

Ranes aides in his hometown Sindhudurg have confirmed their leader was unhappy in the Congress and is exploring the option of joining the BJP or returning to the Shiv Sena, the party he left 12 years ago. Sources in the Sena, however, said party chief Uddhav Thackeray is not keen to take Rane back. The Sena has rebuilt the party organisation in Konkan after Rane quit and did well in the 2014 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. Rane lost the Assembly election, while his son lost his parliamentary seat to Sena candidate Vinayak Raut.

Although most of the state BJP leaders were in two minds over the induction of Rane and his sons Nilesh and Nitesh, party leadership felt it could help them grow in the Sindhudurg district of Konkan. A section of the party also believes that a chunk of Congress legislators may also join the fold if Rane is given key responsibility.

Senior BJP leader and revenue minister Chandrakant Patil did not deny when asked if Rane was in touch with BJP. He said on Monday Rane was a leader that every party wanted to have in their fold. On Tuesday, another BJP minister Ravindra Chavan said the partys leadership would decide on Rane if he wanted to join the BJP.

Sources from the Congress, however, said Rane was unlikely to part ways with the party and the reports of him quitting the party were just pressure tactics by the leader. He is eyeing the post of state Congress president and believes that he can win sizeable seats for the party in the 2019 Assembly elections, a senior party leader said.

Nitesh said the Congress high command is in touch with his father. We were expecting introspection of the recent defeat by the state leadership. We keep talking in the interest of the party. We believe the party leadership will take due cognisance of the concerns expressed by us, he said.

Last week, Rane himself refuted reports he was quitting the Congress and blamed leaders from the party for the rumours. He said he did meet chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on three occasions, but the meetings were for the official work as a legislator.

Rane was Shiv Sena chief minister in 1999 and later opposition leader in assembly. He quit the Sena in 2005 accusing Sena chief late Bal Thackeray and his son Uddhav of sidelining him. He had even publicly criticised Congress top leadership in 2008 when he was ignored for the post of chief minister following the resignation of Vilasrao Deshmukh after the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai. After he joined the Congress in 2005, Rane was a minister in successive Congress-led governments till 2014 when the party was voted out of power. Rane lost the Assembly election and was later rehabilitated by the Congress by making him a member of the Legislative Council.

Meanwhile , Narayan Rane is back in Mumbai and will attend the legislative council on Wednesday.
In a sign that the Shiv Sena is unwilling to give in easily and offer its unconditional support to the BJP in the upcoming presidential election in July, party MP Sanjay Raut has said any such discussion would have to be done at party chief Uddhav Thackerays residence, Matoshree, in Bandra (East) locality of Mumbai.

Rauts statement on Monday comes in the wake of reports that Thackeray had been invited for a dinner meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with other National Democratic Alliance (NDA) constituents to discuss the presidential polls.

The Sena chief has not received any such formal invite.. all this talk of dinner meetings is being done through the media. If there has to be any discussion on the Senas support for the next presidential candidate then such a meeting will have to be held only in Matoshree, said Raut, also the editor of Sena mouthpiece Saamna. Top BJP sources in the state, however, said there has been no communication from their side with the Sena on the issue of the presidential election so far.

The reason the Sena can flex its muscles despite the BJPs victory in Uttar Pradesh is that with its 18 MPs and 63 MLAs, the party has 25,893 votes in its kitty for the election. The electoral college for the presidential election includes 708 points for every MP and 175 points for every MLA from Maharashtra.

The Senas votes are crucial for the BJP to get its candidate elected as president even though the BJP  post the Uttar Pradesh polls  has increased its vote share in the presidential electoral college in a big way. The NDA is short of reaching the half way mark by around 24,522 votes and would need help from non-UPA parties to make up for this shortfall. In this light, it cannot afford to lose one of its allies vote points.

Further, the Sena, in the recent past, has twice voted in favour of the Congress Presidential candidate, including incumbent President Pranab Mukherjee and former President Pratibha Patil, even while it was a part of the NDA.

Given that the current state of saffron alliance in Maharashtra is in near tatters and its relation with the BJP top brass choppy, the Sena wants to play hardball.

If they want our support, they will have to send someone senior from Delhi to hold talks with our party chief. We have been treated shoddily by the BJP throughout this tenure. What is a better indicator than the fact that we have 18 MPs, but were given only one post in the council of ministers at the Centre ? said a senior Sena leader.

The Sena chief has not received any such formal invite.. all this talk of dinner meetings is being done through the media. If there has to be any discussion on the Senas support for the next presidential candidate then such a meeting will have to be held only in Matoshree. --- Sanjay Raut

While the Sena shares power in the state,the relations between the allies have only worsened since the BJP took over in the state in 2014. The situation reached a break point during the Mumbai civic polls.

The BJP has not reacted to Rauts remarks. Just last week, the state BJPs core committee had discussed possibility of going for mid term polls or inducting 29 legislators from other parties and getting them elected in by polls to neutralize Senas nuisance in the state legislature.

However, now with the Presidential elections slated in July, it remains to be seen if it chooses to mollify the Sena or finds a way to deal with the situation. Given that this could be the partys last bargaining chance ahead of 2019 assembly polls, Sena is likely to play hardball.

Realising that its timing was wrong, the state BJP tried to make up for this (discussion of mid term polls) a day later by saying it would send its senior ministers to call on Sena chief on the occasion of Gudi Padwa, Maharashtrian New Year. There was also buzz from BJP quarters that Modi had casually asked Thackeray to come over and meet him when the latter had called the PM to congratulate him over post UP polls victory.

However, following Rauts statement, it seemed unlikely revenue minister Chandrakant Patil and finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, would call on Thackeray. Both the ministers are scheduled to be in their respective constituencies until late on Tuesday evening. Patil, in a jibe while speaking to media, said that since relations between the allies have never been better, there was no reason to call on Thackeray.

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A non-bailable warrant has been issued against former Bollywood actor Mamta Kulkarni on Monday at Thane sessions court in connection with the Rs2,000 crore drug haul.

On April 13, 2016, the police arrested two people with Ephedrine worth Rs12 lakh and later busted a racket that was worth Rs2,000 crore at a Avon Pharma Life Sciences Private Limiteds factory in Solapur.Till now, 14 people have been arrested in the case, while five accused are abroad, including Mamta Kulkarni.

The warrant was issued after the Thane police produced evidence against Kulkarni, which included- WhatsApp chats, pictures of the meetings that were held at Kenya, call records, and also the statements recorded from arrested accused Jay Mukhi, Manoj Jain and Kishoresingh Rathod- former MLAs son and the kingpin.

Bharat Shelkhe, assistant commissioner of police, Thane crime branch, said, We have a lot of evidence against Mamta Kulkarni. The other accused have not only confessed to the crime but have also revealed Kulkarnis part in the case. We also found that she was to be made the director of the companys branch in Solapur and that she was present in almost all the meetings.

Thane police have included her name in the FIR and also charge sheet.

Kulkarnis husband Vicky Goswami was arrested in January.

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Nine months on, former MLAs son held in Ephedrine haul case

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Political parties are competing against each other to stage a better cultural show on Gudi Padwa, the Maharashtrian new year. While traditional processions are part of the itinerary for many, others have organised pujas and cultural shows.

Most of the parties have men wearing kurta pyjamas and women in sarees.

Take the case of Shiv Sena minister Ravindra Waikar. He has organised a bike rally for women at Jogeshwari. Women will ride the bikes in sarees and traditional headgears. In addition, he has also organised dance competitions where communities like the Kolis and Adivasis will perform.

My effort is to encourage talented people, said Waikar.

Women take part in bike rally in Mulund on Tuesday as part of Gudi Padwa celebrations. (Pratik Chorge/HT)

The Kalachowkie unit of the Sena has roped in various social and religious organisations to take part in a traditional procession which will be accompanied by the Puneri band.

In Vile-Parle, BJP legislator Parag Alvani is one of the main organisers of the Gudi Padwa festival. The theme for the event is New India  one of the partys pet themes. There will be floats and mock drills depicting defence, social schemes, e-governance, tourism and economic initiatives. We want to highlight the glorious tradition of India the country and issues like cashless transactions and surgical strikes, said Alvani. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis will attend the event.

In the past two years, there has been stiff competition between the BJP and Sena over celebration of festivals such as Ganeshotsava, Diwali and Dahi Handi. For years, the Sena had a virtual monopoly on such celebrations but BJP has caught on over the years.

The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has scheduled a puja at Shivaji Park where party members will celebrate Gudi Padwa in a traditional way. This year, MNS cancelled its annual rally as its chief, Raj Thackeray, is currently abroad for his sons treatment.

A Rangoli at a Gudi Padwa event at Dadar in Mumbai. (Anshuman Poyrekar/ HT)

According to political analysts, festivals are an ideal platform for political wings to spread branches across the state. Political parties have been using this platform effectively as it connects them to the mass, said political commentator Prakash Bal.

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Victory, faith, life: Thats what youre really celebrating on Gudi Padwa

In Mumbai: Its raining offers, builders hope for Gudi Padwa boost
A 40-year-old woman and her 46-year-old husband, manager at a restaurant in south Mumbai, were found unconscious with stab injuries at their chawl in Nagpada early on Tuesday.

The woman was taken to a nearby hospital where she was declared brought dead.

The Nagpada police suspect the manager, Zulfikar Dalvi, may have stabbed his wife, Sameera, to death and injured himself with sharp objects.

The couple would fight regularly, the police said. They have two sons and a daughter. They had deep injury marks on their bodies. They were alone when the incident took place.

During the incident, their two sons were not in the city as one is studying in Bangalore while another just appeared for his Class 12 exams and was in Ratnagiri, his native place. The daughter, a Class 9 student, had gone to her grandmothers residence to sleep on Monday, said an officer of Nagpada police station. The incident came to light when the neighbours got suspicious as the couple did not open their door for morning chores. They called up his brother, Abdul Mazid.

At 12.30 pm, Abdul Mazid went to his brothers residence and found the couple unconscious. They were taken to JJ hospital. She was declared dead before admission while the manager is still critical. She was declared dead on arrival at the hospital, said the officer.

The police are trying to locate weapons used in the crime.

Things will become clear once Dalvi regains his conscious as even the neighbours are unaware of what had happened at night, said the officer.

The brothers recently opened a pan shop in their area.

Deputy commissioner of police Pravin Padwal (Zone 3) said, We have registered the case under section 302 (murder) of the IPC. We are looking for the accused.

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Engineer kills wife for refusing to stay with him in Mulund home, is on the run

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Fear and anger gripped the African student community on Tuesday despite increased police presence, the Centres promise of swift action and more arrests in the violence against Nigerians in Greater Noida a day earlier.

The African Association of Students of India (AASI) asked students in Greater Noida, a township coming up in Uttar Pradesh, to stay away from colleges till they were provided police security.

We are hopeful the situation will improve. Yet, it is too early to advice students to resume their normal life. They are terrified, said Chemist Goodwill, a Nigerian who is also a representative of AASI.

The Greater Noida violence against Africans is the latest in a string of such incidents in New Delhi and its satellite towns.

At least six Africans, most of them Nigerians, were wounded in three separate incidents in south Delhis Chattarpur in May, a week after a 23-year-old Congolese man was stoned to death in a village near Vasant Kunj.

The African students are upset over the failure of the government to prevent such incidents.

A basic sensitisation drive has not been carried out by the government. It is the people who have to be told that we are also humans and they should not judge us by our colour, AASI president Samuel Jack, who is from Nigeria, said at a press conference in New Delhi.

The student body asked the Centre to move quickly or be prepared for a boycott of India by students from the continent.

The ultimatum came even after the Noida Police arrested two more persons and booked more than 300 unnamed people for the assault that wounded four Nigerians.

We are viewing each and every video footage to grab the scandalous groups quickly, superintendent of police Sujata Singh said, adding they were looking for two more accused.

Five persons were arrested a few hours after some locals participating in a candle march attacked Africans out for evening shopping.

The protest was over a teenaged boys death because of suspected drugs overdose. The locals blamed Manish Kharis Nigerian neighbours for supplying him the contraband.

The Modi government, too, moved in to contain the damage.

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj spoke to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath after an African student tweeted for help.

He (Adityanath) has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident, Swaraj said in series of tweets.

Minister of state for external affairs MJ Akbar spoke to the acting high commissioner of Nigeria and apprised him of the steps being taken for the security of Nigerian nationals.

Greater Noida is home to around 4,000 students from Africa enrolled in various colleges and private universities.

At least 200 police personnel were deployed at busy road intersections, educational institutions and public places on Tuesday morning.

Police personnel deployed at Sharda university in Greater Noida on Tuesday. (Virendra Singh Gosain/HT Photo)

The district administration called a meeting of police, representatives of residential societies, educational institutes and African students in the evening.

Police were patrolling the streets and we are sending out a message to all African students that they are 100% safe in Greater Noida, local SHO Avnish Dixit said.

Security may be up but prejudices run deep.

Africans do not behave properly in public places, do not carry themselves in a decent manner and show aggression when they talk, said Anil Sharma, a resident of Greater Noida.

The bias is not lost on African students

We are a very hospitable, peaceful people. Millions of Indians are happily living in our country so why cant they treat us the same. Just because we are black we are not entitled for law and order and safety? AASIs Jack said.

(With inputs from Vinit in Greater Noida)
Multiple reports of racially motivated attacks on people of African descent have surfaced in satellite town of Greater Noida, about 40 kilometres from the heart of New Delhi. The attacks were precipitated by the death of a class 12 student following a cardiac arrest, caused allegedly due to drug overdose, and has students of African nationalities on high alert.

The Nigerians have been accused of drugging the student.

The Association of African students in India have asked African students to remain indoors and refrain from venturing out, until the violence dies down and order is restored.

HT traces the unfurling of the attacks in the region.

Friday, March 24: 17-year-old boy, Manish Khari, a resident of NSG society in Greater Noida goes missing, only to be found in front of societys entrance gate next day morning in inebriated condition.

Saturday, 25 March: A class 12 student of JP International school in Greater Noida, Khari was later admitted to a private hospital, where he died due to cardiac arrest at 4 pm. Greater Noida police booked five Nigerian students of Noida International University under the charges of kidnapping, culpable homicide and murder.

Sunday, 26 March: Police arrest five Nigerians in connection to the case, but later let them go, because of lack of proof.

Sunday 26 March: Locals attack two Nigerians living in the area at night, alleging that they plied the young boy with drugs.

Monday, 27 March: A protest march by residents turns violent as several people assault Africans in the area.



Monday, 27 March/ Tuesday, March 28 (midnight): The Association of African Students in India post videos on Facebook, that show a man of African descent being mauled and attacked by a mob in Greater Noidas Ansal Plaza. Post violence, police arrested five persons for the attack.

Police have arrested 5 persons. FIR registered, action will be taken accordingly: Daljeet Chaudhary (ADG, Law&Order) on attack on Nigerians pic.twitter.com/rs00krq2rM  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 28, 2017

Monday, 27 March/ Tuesday, March 28 (midnight): The Association of African Students in India ask All African Students Residing in Greater noida-Uttar pradesh to remain indoor at their home (sic) and to not attend lectures on Tuesday in a Facebook post. They ask the students to be vigilant, as the number of attacks were increasing, and they were receiving calls from all angles seeking for police assistance.

Tuesday, 28 March: Sushma Swaraj, union foreign affairs minister, tweets that she spoke to Yogi Adityanath, the newly elected UP CM, about the racial attacks. He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident, she tweets.

I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath ji Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh about attack on African students in Greater Noida. /1  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident. /2  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017



Tuesday, 28 March: The Association of African Students in India reiterate their directive to African students to remain indoors. ALL AFRICAN STUDENTS STUDYING IN GREATER NOIDA ARE HERE BY INSTRUCTED TO STAY HOME UNTIL PROPER SECURITY IS PROVIDED TO SECURE OUR LIVES. ALSO YOU ARE ADVISED NOT TO ATTEND ANY LECTURE UNTIL WE ARE GRANTED MAXIMUM SECURITY, reads their Facebook post.

Read: Living in Noida a life-threatening issue: How Nigeria reported the Greater Noida attack on Africans

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The police on Tuesday arrested a 27-year-old man for allegedly posting morphed pornographic images of his former fiance on social networking sites after she refused to marry him. He had also allegedly threatened the woman, a BTech student, of an acid attack if she did not marry him.

The accused, Harvinder Sachdeva, of Panipat in Haryana, was engaged to a Vijay Nagar resident in January 2016. Later, the womans family got to know that the man was previously married and was divorced by his former wife. Upon learning about his previous marriage, the 23-year-old woman decided not to marry Sachdeva and called off the engagement.

The family approached the police in October 2016 and lodged an FIR that the man was posting morphed pornographic images of his former fiance. He morphed pictures clicked during their engagement and posted them on Facebook, WhatsApp and other social networking sites, said Rajesh Kumar Singh, circle officer (city-I).

Police teams chased him but he continued to change locations and went into hiding. In the latest instance, 10 days ago, the man had posted a message on the womans Facebook profile and threatened her with an acid attack if she refused to marry him. After this, we formed teams and traced him to Panipat from where he was arrested. He also used fake profiles to post these pictures, Singh said.

The family also came to know that the accused had studied only up to class 12, whereas the woman is an engineering student in a Ghaziabad college. After receiving threats of acid attack, however, the woman stopped stepping out and did not even attend her college classes.

I wanted to marry her as I was rejected several times after my divorce took place. Since she denied to marry me, I tried to harass her but she did not budge, the accused said.

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The attacks on Nigerian students in Greater Noida over the past two days appear to confirm an ugly truth about Indian society.

Tens of thousands of Africans live in India for work and study but say they face a harrowing time transacting even the most basic chores - shopping, eating out or paying bills - because of the colour of their skin.

In Delhi, they have been the target of a spate of attacks in recent years - six Africans were thrashed in three separate incidents in Chhattarpur last year. A week before that, a Congolese national was bludgeoned to death. In Bengaluru, a Tanzanian student and her friends were attacked by a mob last year.

But Africans--and there are an estimated 40,000 of them in India--say the assaults are only the tip of an iceberg of discrimination, where they are often denied housing, and called racial slurs on the streets. Others say local residents harbour deep suspicion over Africans being crime-prone, drug peddlers and sex workers. Many of them have tried to assimilate with local communities, but only with limited success. Take our poll, lets know about the issue.
The Noida office of a mobile phone company witnessed high drama on Tuesday after an employee of the company, a Chinese national, tore and threw an Indian flag in a dustbin.

The incident, reported from the Sector 63 Noida office of mobile phone company Oppo, triggered protests by hundreds of employee, prompting the police to step in.

The Phase-3 police registered a case against the Chinese national, who works as a production manager in the company, on a complaint filed by three employees later. A probe has been launched.

Senior superintendent of police, Gautam Budh Nagar, Dharmendra Singh said, A case of disrespecting the national flag has been filed on the basis of a complaint by three company employees. We have not arrested anyone in this connection yet and investigations are in progress. Action will be taken after a thorough probe. We are in touch with the company employees.

Hundreds of people, including employees of Oppo and members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad protested outside the office of the company after the incident.

The situation turned aggressive later when protesters started demanding the arrest of the Chinese national. They also raised some issues related to the labour laws being violated by the company and sought immediate action.

Eyewitnesses said more than 200 police personnel were rushed to the spot to control the crowd. As news of the incident spread, residents of neighbouring colonies climbed on to their rooftops and waved the Indian flag in a show of support for the protesters.

Every corner of the office is under camera surveillance and we have told the police to scan the footage to establish the facts. We cannot tolerate disrespect towards our national flag, said Vineet Arya, a protester.

The protesters dispersed after senior officials of the district administration intervened and assured them of swift action in the issue. The officials also assured the protesters that problems related to employment would be addressed.

The company shut its office for the morning and told employees to resume work on Wednesday evening.

The station house officer of Phase-3 police station, Umed Singh Yadav, said that the incident allegedly took place on Monday evening after the first shift. He said that the employees accused the Chinese national of taking down an Indian flag that was pasted on a wall and dumping it in a dustbin.

We have registered a case and the company has extended its support for the investigation. We have sought the camera footage of the office so that we can check the claim of the employees, Singh said.

Protesting employees said that they took up the matter with their bosses, who did not take any action, forcing them to protest in the morning.

An Oppo spokesperson later said: We are extending all our co-operation to the concerned authorities and will take appropriate action. OPPO as a brand has deep respect for India and is strongly rooted as well as localized in the country.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, March 28

By Orkhan Quluzade  Trend:

The opening ceremony of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway (BTK) will be held in late June, Turkish media cited the countrys Minister of Transport, Maritime and Communication Ahmet Arslan as saying.

Arslan added that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will attend the ceremony.

The minister stressed that diesel locomotives will transport cargo via BTK.

He added that the BTK corridor will help establish continuous railway communication between Europe and China.

"While using alternative routes, for example via the territory of Russia or Iran, as well as cargo transshipment by sea, 45-60 days are required for cargo transportation from China to Europe, he said. Cargo will be transported from China to Europe in 12-15 days via BTK."

He added that BTK will also make an important contribution to the development of Turkish trade.

"At present, 26.5 million tons per year account for the cargo transported via the Turkish railways, the minister said. At the same time, an additional annual volume of 10 million tons of goods transported via BTK will account only for Kazakhstan. In general, after the BTK is commissioned, the volumes of cargo transported via the Turkish railways will double."

The BTK railway is being constructed on the basis of the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey intergovernmental agreement. Peak capacity of the railway will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At the initial stage, it will serve one million passengers and transport 6.5 million tons of cargo.
The Greater Noida police has stepped up security in the city in the backdrop of racial attacks on African nationals that rattled Greater Noida on Monday evening. On Sunday night another African national residing in Greater Noida was attacked by locals.

At least 200 additional police personnel have been deployed in all sectors of Greater Noida, special instructions have been issued to secure residential societies with African population.

The attacks happened after a 17-year-old student Manish Khari died in Greater Noida on Saturday following a cardiac arrest, allegedly caused by a drug overdose. The Nigerians have been accused of drugging the student.

After the racial attacks, an uneasy calm prevailed at violence-hit Pari Chowk and Ansal Plaza shopping complex on Tuesday morning, while the policemen were seen gearing up to take charge of the day.

Additional police force was called from other police stations in Kasna, Knowledge Park and Surajpur police stations, where tempers still run high, as most of the African nationals stay in nearby localities.

A strict vigil was in place throughout the night, and several teams of police are deployed at different junctions in Greater Noida to observe movement of people, said an intelligence officer.

Recounting the incident, a paan kiosk owner, Rohit Sharma, told HT that hundreds of men carried out a candle march to Pari Chowk and sat at the junction for over an hour. As dusk fell, a few men were seen raising slogans against Nigerian nationals and turned furious at the sight of them.

A Honda City car was damaged by the mob in front of the shopping complex near Pari Chowk in Greater Noida . (Virendra Singh Gosain/HT Photo)

Sharma said, The protesters caught hold of a Nigerian national in front of gate no. 2 of Ansal Plaza and thrashed him. Then the mob barged into the shopping complex and roughed up two more inside. They threw soft drink bottles and also used a dustbin to attack them.

A Honda City sedan was damaged by the mob in front of the shopping complex.

Kasna SHO Avnish Dixit said, Following the scuffle last evening, we have taken all necessary steps to ensure safety of African nationals. The police kept vigil all night to control the situation.

We had also held a few persons responsible for violence and disruption and due course of action is being taken, the police officer said.
External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj said on Tuesday that she had spoken to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath over a suspected racial attack on African students in Greater Noida, assuring immediate action on the matter.

CM Adityanath said he will conduct a fair and impartial investigation into the incident, Swaraj tweeted.

Sadiq - Government of India is seized of the matter. We are taking immediate action. https://t.co/SRdS2QGuj1  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath ji Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh about attack on African students in Greater Noida. /1  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident. /2  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

She was reacting to the tweet of a foreign student who requested swift action, saying living in the area was becoming a life threatening issue.

Trouble erupted in Greater Noida on Monday after people protesting a teenage boys death caused by suspected drugs overdose attacked black foreigners in the area. A Nigerian girl was allegedly abducted and several Africans were assaulted in Greater Noida.

Locals accused Africans living in the area of drugging Class 12 student Manish Khari, who died of a cardiac arrest on Saturday.

Most of the victims of the mob attack were doing their evening shopping near Pari Chowk, oblivious to the undercurrent of anger against Africans.

Soon after the incident, Swaraj asked for a report from the Uttar Pradesh government about the violence.

Many African students live in Greater Noida, where a clutch of international universities has come up of late.
African students living in Greater Noida say they face daily prejudice and are living in fear after two days of violence targeted at them following the mysterious death of a local youth.

The students  who hail from various nations in Africa  allege political pressure behind the attacks amid rising tensions between local residents and the foreigners.

We come to India to live in peace but we will not be bullied by force or violence. The need of the hour is for African students to unite against this blatant racism, said Lawrence, a Nigerian national.

The violence broke out on Sunday after a Class 12 student Manish Khari died because of a suspected drug overdose. Locals alleged that Africans living in the area had plied the youth with drugs and attacked two Nigerians on Sunday night. Police also arrested five Africans but released them later because of a lack of proof.

The crowd was peaceful until it reached Pari Chowk, but went out of control at the sight of Africans in the market. A car was also damaged by the angry mob. (HT Photo)

A day later, a protest march by residents turned violent as people assaulted several Africans at Greater Noidas busy Pari Chowk. Rumours startled swirling that residents had abducted a Nigerian woman  a speculation denied by police. The waves of violence have left the foreigners rattled.

We have been living in a sense of fear as there is no protection for us even after the attack, said Bukola, a commerce student at IEC college.

African nationals talk to a policeman after a suspected racial attack on them, in Greater Noida on Monday. (HT Photo)

Lawrence said the attacks were well-planned.

We had assembled at Kasna Police station on Monday morning demanding the release of two students who had been arrested without proper investigation. As soon as the duo got bail and we left the spot, several African nationals were attacked by the local people, said Lawrence.

The Association of African Students in India (AASI) have also condemned the attack on African nationals and have also asked the central government to ensure that the community got protection in the national capital region. The government has also sought a report and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has assured foreign minister Sushma Swaraj of a fair and impartial investigation.

More than 4,000 Africans stay in Greater Noida and study in a clutch of private universities and colleges that have come up in the area over the past decade. But many of them say that they feel uncomfortable at the hostile attitude of locals, who see the Africans as the source of crime and drugs.

For now, we have decided to drop our protest against racist attacks by locals. Further course of action will be decided soon, said Bukola.

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For some time, the Modi government has been talking about facilitating 20 world class academic institutions in India. In his 2016 budget speech, finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced that an enabling regulatory architecture will be provided to ten public and ten private institutions to emerge as world-class Teaching and Research Institutions. Last year, the University Grant Commission (UGC) came out with draft guidelines on World Class Institution (WCI). Recently the UGC has approved these guidelines with changes (including renaming them as institutes of eminence) for Cabinet approval.

Draft guidelines and various reports have indicated that the core difference between the so-called WCI and normal universities in India will be that these 20 institutions will enjoy much more autonomy than existing universities and academic institutions. They will be free to fix their own fees for foreign students (which could be up to 30% of the total strength), salary of foreign faculty as well as freedom to choose admission procedure, course structure, course duration etc. Any public university seeking this tag also must be among the top 25 in the National Institution Ranking Framework (NIRF).

As per draft guidelines, the potential WCI will have to be a multidisciplinary institution, focusing on teaching and research; a good proportion of foreign or foreign educated faculty; focusing on development concerns, merit based admissions, faculty-student ration of 1:10, good infrastructure and large owned campus, international collaborations, good publication record, etc.

The basic philosophy behind this move has been that the existing regulatory structure from the institutions likes the UGC, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), etc. do not for a allow fully autonomous environment for many Indian universities to become world class.

With the highest National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) score, best central university award by the President, and number three ranking in the NIRF, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) definitely has the potential to become world class. But even with the governments own philosophy, this will only happen if institutions like JNU are given greater autonomy in their admission and other procedures.

The government is correctly planning to create WCI with minimal State institutional interference. This broadly fits within the Modi governments philosophy of minimum government and maximum governance. However, existing institutions like the UGC, whose own future is uncertain, keep issuing one-size-fits-all regulations. The current M.Phil/PhD admission guidelines have practically stopped all new research admissions in JNU for the next few years, particularly in social sciences, international studies, languages (including Sanskrit), law and governance, biotechnology etc.

In JNU, with the existing faculty strength of 565 and about 5,000 research scholars, this means each faculty on an average is guiding close to nine researchers. For a mainly research-oriented university, this is not a terribly bad situation.

There may be some professors with more than average numbers, which can be taken care of with the existing 300 vacancies. But we must understand that research supervisors are allocated on the basis of specialisation rather than academic hierarchies as the UGC guidelines dictate.

As per the UGC, a young assistant professor can only guide half the number of students than a professor even if she/he has a specialisation in an exciting new research area.

These are the regulations, which the government must do away with, if there is any plan to make Indian academic institutions world class.

Gulshan Sachdeva is Jean Monnet chair and professor at the School of International Studies, JNU

The views expressed are personal
The Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) on Monday announced the dates of intermediate and matric examinations 2018. The intermediate examinations will be held from February 7 to 19 next while matric examinations will be held from February 21 to 28.

BSEB releases the academic calendar keeping the students interest on top priority and giving them sufficient time for preparations, said board chairman Anand Kishor. He said inter students could fill up the examination forms online from October 3 to 20 and with late fee from October 21 to 25.

Matric students can fill up the forms online from December 29 to January 8, 2018 and with late fee from January 9 to 12. He said the BSEB had suspended the affiliations of ML Yadav College, Nagla (Arwal) and Ideal Higher Secondary Public School, Delha (Gaya) for pushing ghost students in 2016 examinations.

Kishor said results of the 100 students of ML Yadav College and 2057 students of Ideal School had also been cancelled.

Aiming at complete digitization of the secondary and senior secondary sections, the governing council of the BSEB approved a total budget of Rs 493.01 crore with a deficit of Rs 67.6 crore for the year 2017-18.

In a three-hour long meeting the governing body endorsed Rs 279.05 crore expenditure budget against a receipt of Rs 215,44 crore for secondary section. It also approved a spend of Rs 213.97 crore against the receipt of Rs 209.97 crore.

The budget showed a deficit of Rs 63.6 crore in secondary section and Rs 4 crore in senior secondary.

Kishor said Rs 25 crore would be spent on office automation and modernization of the board is to be pursued vigorously over the new fiscal.

He said the governing council had also approved a vision document to make the BSEB one of top three boards of the country in one year and the top board in the country in the next two years. We are in the process of total digitization of BSEB functions in 2017-18, he said.

We have undertaken digitisation in 2016-17 and it has succeeded in making the system transparent and error free, he said.

Asked how will the BSEB manage the budget deficit, he said the board had enough fund and the budget deficit offer tax benefit of Rs 4.5 crore per year for the next 10 years due expenditure on construction of nine examination halls in as many commissionaries of the state. The examination halls will cost Rs 145 crore.

He said, from 2018 onwards, working in the BSEB will be on digital platform as the governing council has approved expenditure for office automation, date centre, networking and other such works.

It may be recalled that BSEB has taken a series of corrective measures and adopted digitization in pre and post examination system in the wake of toppers scam in May/June last year.

He said integrated software record management would be adopted . A fund of Rs 5 crore has been allotted for the required technology.

We want to link day to day working of the BSEB with the latest technology so that there will be minimal room for error, he said.

He said the BSEB would also start skill development and reorientation courses for staff so that they could work smoothly on the digital platform.

He said the board would also recruit a consultant agency to get detailed project report on IT, infrastructure, manpower, office automation and best practices applied in conduct of examinations.

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The Bihar government admitted that 656 children were reported missing from Patna alone from January to December 2016. In most cases, however, they had left their home on their own without telling their families, as was evident from the supervision reports upon their recovery, it said in state legislative assembly on Monday.

Replying to a short-notice question of BJPs Nand Kishore Yadav, home minister in-charge Bijendra Prasad Yadav said out of 656 missing children, 443 had been traced, while 213 remained missing.

The BJP member was not satisfied with the reply. He wanted to know what steps the state government had taken to check trafficking of children. He furnished figures of 2012 to 2015 to highlight that a large number of children had gone missing and had remained untraced. Nitin Navin, also of BJP, sought clarity in the governments reply.

The minister said, As far as children below 5 years of age are concerned, just six were reported missing, out of which four were traced. In the 6-14 age group, 90 boys and 147 girls were reported missing, out of which 66 boys and 102 girls were traced, he said, adding that the cases of missing were mostly in the category of adults.

The minister said the government had a mechanism in place both at the police headquarters level, as well as district level to deal with missing cases. In case of adults going missing on their own, it is a different thing, he said, citing an example of a boy at Chhatapur in Supaul district running away from home on Sunday after his mother scolded him.

Nand Kishore Yadav, however, insisted that trafficking could not be overlooked and the government ought to look at the issue more sensitively.

Two girls went missing on December 25, 2016 from Patna City and 80 days later one was recovered from Agra. She told the police that she had been sold thrice. The second girl was killed in Eta, he added, demanding strong action against traffickers who lured innocent children in the name of jobs to exploit them.

Leader of opposition Prem Kumar insisted on data on specific action taken against traffickers and middlemen in the last three years, as their network seemed to be growing.

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An assistant teacher of a middle school in Aurangabad has stumped the state vigilance investigation bureau.

Reason: Huge recovery from his house, which includes Rs 14.16 lakh cash, Rs 1.5-crore worth property and investment worth Rs 13-lakh.

The vigilance sleuths are stunned as how could Mohammad Shahbuddin, a teacher teaching in a school located in Maoist-affected Khutidih in Madanpur block, amass so much wealth and through which activity. For a teacher in his category, salary is in the range of Rs 30,000  Rs 40,000 a month, depending on the length of service.

This is the first raid by VIB since demonetization in which such huge cash has been recovered.

According to sources, the teachers source of money is attributed to mid-day meal and various other welfare schemes of the government. The teacher had been collecting money from students on the promise of helping them to clear matric examination too.

Acting on an allegation of acquisition and amassing of disproportionate assets, vigilance investigation bureau (VIB) on Tuesday lodged a DA against him. Later two separate teams conducted raids at Shahi Road locality in Aurangabad and Mirwasi Tola (Phulwarisharif) in the state capital.

During searches, VIB sleuths recovered documents for 15 plots including seven each in Patna and Aurangabad on the name of Shahabuddin and his wife worth Rs 1.23 crore at base prices of years ago. Vigilance also unearthed three of his houses in Phulwarisharif.

The VIB also recovered 10 passbooks of different banks, insurance policy related documents of LIC, four of Bajaj, two of SBI and one of UTI, besides ornaments worth Rs 4 lakh and NSC bond of Rs 3 lakh.

According to VIB, the assistant teacher who joined the school in 1994, deposited Rs 15.58 lakh in two branches of SBI and PNB in Aurangabad, which has now been frozen.

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The Punjab police on Tuesday found two balloons, two Pakistani coins and a piece of paper with coded words written on it from a field at Mallian village in Sultanpur Lodhi area in Kapurthala district.

Senior superintendent of police (SSP) Sandeep Kumar Sharma said the police was trying to decode the words that appear to be in Arabic with the help of experts from Chandigarh to know the conspiracy behind it.

He said the coins bear the mark of Pakistan. The balloons were recovered from the fields of a farmer who had informed the police, Sharma said.
Hardly a fortnight after the Punjab cabinet decided to do away with beacon atop vehicles, the state transport department on Tuesday committed a faux pas and issued an order permitting its use for the chief minister and cabinet ministers.

The purported order, which also allowed the beacons for chief justice and judges of the Punjab and Haryana high court, was withdrawn when it went viral on social media and people started taking potshots at CM Capt Amarinder Singh, who after the first cabinet meet had announced to shun VIP culture.

By the evening, the CM had to intervene and a government spokesperson issued a clarification, denying any change in his governments policy against use of beacons, categorically ruling out dilution of the stance.

The spokesperson said the transport department had erroneously put out a part of the (Congress) poll manifesto, which the social media had picked up and published as an official notification.

Following a cabinet decision on March 18, the CM and his council of ministers stopped using red-beacon lights on their cars. Though the chief minister and ministers were exempted in the partys manifesto, they had decided to bring themselves within the decisions ambit, a spokesman had then said.

Sources said the goof-up occurred on the part of office of the state transport secretary as the actual noting of the Congress manifesto was not read properly. The file regarding the notification, sources revealed, was also signed by transport secretary Sarabjit Singh, who did not respond to repeated calls and text messages by HT.

Amarinder also talked to chief secretary Karan Avtar Singh and ordered to issue a fresh notification. Sources said the chief secretary also pulled up officials of the transport department, which withdrew the purported order.
The 12.5% hike in fee by Panjab University has made headlines in the tricity, giving the impression that it is unreasonable. But the truth is that the oldest university in the region is gasping for funds to stay afloat, and needs to do everything possible to mop up resources for its survival. The hike, which will fetch the varsity an additional sum of Rs 12.5-13 crore, may not be enough for the varsity to tide over its crisis but it is a good start.

The universitys catchment area is prosperous to say the least. A stray look at the number and kinds of cars used by the students provides an ample proof of their economic status. The students who can afford such swanky wheels can certainly shell out a heftier fees. Also, PU has already taken care to ensure that it doesnt jeopardise the future of economically weaker students by proposing a rebate of 50% for students with an annual family income of up to Rs 5 lakh.

Any step to shore up the universitys finances must be lauded as it will not only ensure that the varsity maintains its academic standards, but also help in revamping its infrastructure, besides boosting research. The austerity measures suggested by senators on Sunday prove that the teachers have their heart in the right place. Now its the turn of the students and the state governments to contribute.

Last year, the varsity had increased the fee by 5%, which had helped it garner Rs 38 crore. The PU think tank, set up to suggest measures to improve the varsitys finances, had suggested a hike of tuition fees and examination fees by 20% for 2016-17, 25% for 2017-18 and 25% for 2018-19. The only universities that are charging less than PU are central universities, such as Aligarh Muslim University, Banaras Hindu University and Jawahar Lal Nehru University (JNU), which have a much higher budget allocation.

Its unfortunate that the university, whose alumni include the likes of former prime minister Manmohan Singh and a galaxy of industrialists doing fabulously well across the world, hasnt been able to get any help from them. PU is in a deep financial crisis  its budget for 2017-18 shows a deficit of Rs 244 crore  the alumni must rise to the occasion and rescue the university. So must the state governments of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, which feed on this varsity.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi will meet with US President Donald Trump during his visit to the United States next week, the White House said in a press release on Tuesday, Sputnik reported.

According to the press release, the two leaders will discuss bilateral and regional issues and ways to advance the US-Egypt relationship.

"President Donald J. Trump looks forward to welcoming President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi of Egypt for an official visit to Washington on April 3," the release stated.

The news comes as on Monday it was reported that the US seeks to resume military exercises with Egypt that was scrapped by former US President Barack Obama in 2013 amid Cairo's crackdown on protesters in the country.

Relations between Cairo and Washington started to deteriorate after the ouster of Egyptian then-president Hosni Mubarak. During almost 30 years of his rule, Egypt has become one of the top recipients of US military aid. The aid was suspended after the 2013 military coup when the country's first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi was ousted.

In March 2015, Obama ordered to resume military exports to Egypt to help fight rising terrorism in the region, including Daesh (outlawed in Russia), and encourage reforms in the country. In July, the United States sent eight F-16 fighter planes to Egypt. In addition, the White House earlier agreed to grant Egypt annual financial assistance amounting to $1.3 billion.

In April 2016, the US administration decided to resume full arms deliveries and to continue financial military support.
A tribal student body locked Ranchi College, forced suspension of classes and stopped around 300 students from performing at a a pre-Sarhul celebration at the governors house on Monday in protest against the rechristening of the college as Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee University.

The students alleged that naming the college after Mukherjee was an effort by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to saffronise the education system in Jharkhand.

Mukherjee was the founder of BJP and an ex-minister in Pandit Jawaharlal Nehrus cabinet. He had quit the Indian National Congress and founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which later became BJP.

On Monday, over a hundred members of Adivasi Chhatra Sangh (ACS), a tribal student body, locked the main gate of the college and burnt the effigy of chief minister Raghubar Das amid anti-BJP slogans reverberating at Morhabadi locality of the Jharkhand capital.

We want the university to be named after a local academician, or freedom fighter. The government has paid no heed to our demands and named the university after a right wing leader. Why should we allow our students to perform at the governors house for Sarhul? said Akash Kacchap, vice president of the Ranchi College student council.

Sarhul is one of the largest tribal festivals celebrated across Jharkhand and parts of Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Bengal.

Kacchap added that the entire tribal student community stood united against the diktat of the government.

Founded in 1926, Ranchi College received autonomous status from the University Grants Commission (UGC) on January 9, 2009. The Jharkhand cabinet in October 2015 decided to accord university status to Ranchi College, which currently imparts education to at least 4000 undergraduate and postgraduate students. It is the first college in Jharkhand to get state university status.

However, several student bodies have been up in arms against the government since it proposed to name the university after Mukherjee. Several protest marches and signature campaigns by student unions followed soon after the recommendation was made about a month ago.

Jharkhand Chhatra Morcha (JCM), the student wing of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, had recommended renaming the college as Param Veer Albert Ekka University. Ekka, a son of the soil, was martyred in the 1971 Indo-Pak war. Ranchi also has a famous square named after him.

The All India Students Federation (AISF) has joined hands with the JCM to protest the alleged efforts to saffronise education here. All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) too has expressed discontentment over the governments decision.

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On Monday, an image of Bani J and Sapna Bhavnani kissing each other went viral on social media.

On Tuesday, Sapna Bhavnani reacted to the storm the picture stirred up, saying, love has no gender.

In a Facebook post, the reality television star clarified that it was not a kiss and was just a snapshot of a Boomerang video.

She wrote, Just finished yoga and saw that Bani J and I are trending for a kiss which I wish was a kiss but really just a snapshot of a boomerang. India when will we move forward. Really! Sooooooooo Much attention for a KISS??? Dang people fighting for world peace dont trend so much!!! lol. Hope more women and men come out and kiss and show yall love does not have a gender. My life. My rules. Kisses to all. Men and Women and the Transgender.

This is not the first time Sapna, along with Bani, has accepted that love is something that unites everyone. They both are known for defying gender stereotypes.

While Sapna has been vocal about being bisexual, Bani is rumored to be dating television actor Yuvraj Thakur, who shot to fame with a show on MTV India.

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TV actor Kamya Punjabi has announced that she will release the last film of late TV actor Pratyusha Banerjee, who committed suicide in April 2016.

Kamya Punjabi shared a close friendship with Pratyusha.

Right after the news of Pratyushas suicide emerged, close-friend Kamya had told the press, Some days ago she (Pratyusha) called me and said Rahul is cheating on her. Three-four days ago, when I got a call in Delhi, I told her Ill come and sort out everything. She said she cant live like this anymore and wanted to get out of this relationship. She said she needed help.

Rahul Raj Singh is facing a case for suicide abetment.

Kamya tweeted a teaser video of the short film where Pratyusha is seen in an intense role. Kamya signs off the video saying, Ashk, kuch beh gaye, aur kuch reh gaye.

The short film will be released on April 1, on the first anniversary of Pratyushas death.

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Two days after the scheduled telecast of Hollywood film The Danish Girl was cancelled, chief of Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) Pahlaj Nihalani has claimed the film was never cleared for TV screening.

The Tom Hooper directorial is based on American author David Ebershoffs debut novel with the same name.

The Danish Girl is the story of Lili Elbe, one of the first people who came out and went for gender reassignment surgery.The movie was scheduled to be aired on Sony Le Plex HD on Sunday.

Speaking to DNA, Pahlaj said, We certified the film for Adults with no cuts for a theatrical release. As per rules there is no separate certification for television broadcast. However since we wouldnt want the distributor to miss out on some added revenue we agreed out of good faith to view the film on Thursday evening for possible re-certification. But even before we could view the film they had announced their telecast of The Danish Girl for March 26. How can they announce the telecast before censor certification? Its completely illegal!

The movie went to CBFC for clearance three months ago and they were sitting on it. And now they have cancelled the broadcast citing that the issue is very sensitive... CBFC has put a ban across channels, and now no other channel can also show the film, sources earlier told IANS.

Elaborating further, Nihalani told DNA, We postponed the screening of another film and scheduled The Danish Girl after it was submitted to us with voluntary modification by the producers of the content, so that the A certification could be possibly converted to UA or U for telecast. However when we viewed their modified version we found it unsuitable for telecast and refused a revised certification. That shouldve been the end of that.

The Tom Hooper directorial is based on American author David Ebershoffs debut novel with the same name. With stars like Alicia Vikander and Eddie Redmayne as leads, the film deals with the emotional upheavals in Lili Elbes life as she goes in search of her sexual identity.

The film, which released theatrically in India last year, was critically acclaimed and was nominated in multiple categories in Oscars 2016. Vikander won an Oscar in Best Supporting Actress category in 2016 for the film.

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A third season of True Detective, HBOs hit anthology series, is being revived after season 2 failed to draw praise like season 1. Creator Nic Pizzolatto is working on a third season with David Milch, creator of HBOs Deadwood.

The duo are said to be in the early stages of writing a possible third season, which has not yet received a series order, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The news of a potential third season comes nearly two years after the polarizing second season of the drama, which starred Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn and Rachel McAdams.

The first season of True Detective earned wide acclaim for Pizzolatto, director Cary Fukunaga and stars Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.

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The Pentagon, facing accusations that a coalition air strike may have killed scores of civilians in the Iraqi city of Mosul, said on Monday it was not loosening its rules of engagement in the fight against Islamic State but that resources to investigate claims were limited.

Eyewitnesses from Mosul and Iraqi officials have said last weeks strike on Islamic State targets may have collapsed homes where rescue officials say as many as 200 people were buried in the rubble.

The US military does not intend to change the way it carries out strikes, even as the fighting in Mosul enters more densely populated areas, Colonel John Thomas, a spokesman for US Central Command, told reporters.

General Votel is not looking into changing the way we operate other than to say our processes are good and we want to make sure we live by those processes, Thomas said.

General Joseph Votel heads Central Command.

There (are) only so many people dedicated to this who really have the expertise to get us where we need to be, Thomas added.

The Mosul strike, if confirmed, would be one of the deadliest single incidents for civilians in recent memory in any major conflict involving the U.S. military, which prides itself on efforts to limit civilian fallout.

Thomas said the assessment is looking at 700 videos from the area over a 10-day period.

We didnt have any reports internally where we thought we had killed any civilians. We saw the reports come out just like, I think, like everybody else, Thomas said.

Rescue workers are still searching the site of the March 17 explosion in Western Mosul, where one health official said 160 bodies had been recovered. Iraqs military says 61 bodies have been pulled out so far.

The civilian death toll has increased in the more densely populated west of Mosul as militants have used homes for cover.

The absolute default in every building should be that there are going to be civilians present, said Jay Morse, a senior military adviser at the Centre for Civilians in Conflict, a US-based advocacy and research group.

Iraqi forces have discussed new tactics, which a US military official said might include opening a second front and trying to isolate the Old City.

Earlier on Monday, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis appeared to back the way the United States carries out strikes.

There is no military force in the world that has proven more sensitive to civilian casualties, Mattis said before a meeting with his counterpart from Qatar.

We go out of our way to always do everything humanly possible to reduce the loss of life or injury among innocent people. The same cannot be said for our adversaries, he said.

The coalition has said that investigating the allegations in Mosul is a priority and it is assessing the credibility of conflicting reports.

The military has also opened an investigation into a strike in northern Syria this month believed to have killed nearly 50 people and is probing allegations that another strike hit a school near Raqqa.
A recent spike in civilian casualties in Mosul suggests the US-led coalition is not taking adequate precautions as it helps Iraqi forces battle the Islamic State group, Amnesty International said Tuesday.

The rights groups allegations came after the U.S. military acknowledged carrying out a March 17 airstrike in an area of western Mosul where residents say an explosion killed more than 100 civilians. U.S. officials did not confirm there were civilian casualties, but said a probe is underway.

Amnestys report also cites a second strike on Saturday that it said killed up to 150 people. The U.S.-led coalition said in a statement that it was investigating multiple strikes in western Mosul that allegedly resulted in civilian deaths.

Evidence gathered on the ground in Mosul points to an alarming pattern of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes which have destroyed whole houses with entire families inside, the Amnesty report said.

It said any failure to take precautions to prevent civilian casualties would be in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.

In Baghdad, visiting U.S. army chief of staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, said Monday that the exact cause of the March 17 explosion was still unknown, adding that some degree of certainty will be known in the coming days following the investigation.

It is very possible that Daesh blew up that building to blame it on the coalition in order to cause a delay in the offensive into Mosul and cause a delay in the use of coalition airstrikes, Milley told reporters. And it is possible the coalition airstrike did it.

Daesh is an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.

Initial results from an investigation launched by the Iraqi Defense Ministry showed that the airstrike hit an explosive-laden tanker truck which was heading toward the advancing troops, according to Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, an Iraqi military spokesman. The explosion damaged a number of buildings, including the one where IS was holding 130 civilians as human shields and where snipers were deployed on its roof, Rasool said.

It is a new tactic being used by the members of this terrorist group, using big car bombs against the troops that impact the civilians to inflame the public, he told The Associated Press. He added that the rules of engagement adopted by Iraqi troops and the coalition had not changed.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, the spokesman of the U.N. human rights office called on the coalition to work to minimize the impact on civilians. Rupert Colville said IS militants are brazenly employing human shields, urging the coalition to avoid this trap.

Colville added that the rights office has tallied the deaths of at least 307 people between Feb. 17 and March 22, including 140 from the March 17 airstrike.

Iraqi forces began the assault on IS-held Mosul in October, after months of preparation and buildup. In January, Iraq declared the eastern half of Mosul  the Tigris River divides the city into an eastern and western sector  fully liberated. Iraqi government forces are now battling to retake the citys western half.

Civilians, humanitarian groups and monitoring officials have repeatedly warned of the possibility of increased civilian casualties in western Mosul due to the higher density of the population there and the increased reliance on airstrikes and artillery. Faced with their toughest fight against IS yet, Iraqi and coalition forces have increasingly turned to airstrikes and artillery to clear and hold territory in Mosuls west.

Unlike in previous battles against IS in urban settings in Iraq, the government instructed Mosul civilians to remain in their homes, to prevent large-scale displacement. In the battles for Fallujah and Ramadi, those cities were entirely emptied of their civilian population while Iraqi forces fought to push out IS.

When the operation to retake Mosul was launched, more than a million people were estimated to still be living in the city, Iraqs second-largest. Today, the United Nations estimates about 400,000 people remain trapped in IS-held neighborhoods in western Mosul.

Amnesty Internationals report quoted survivors and eyewitnesses of airstrikes that have killed civilians as saying that they did not try to flee as the battle got underway because they received repeated instructions from the Iraqi authorities to remain in their homes.
China and Nepal have agreed on expanding cooperation under President Xi Jinpings ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), promoting free trade arrangements and increasing industrial and energy capacities, the state media reported.

The report came hours after Xi met visiting Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kumar Dahal Prachanda in Beijing on Monday.

Prachandas visit comes at a time when India appears to have improved ties with Nepal after a period of diplomatic turbulence.

Both sides are expected to promote cooperation in connectivity, free trade arrangements, agriculture, industrial capacity, energy and post-disaster reconstruction, taking advantage of the opportunity provided by jointly building the Belt and Road Initiative, Xi was quoted as saying at the bilateral meeting in the Great Hall of the People.

Xi called on the two sides to strengthen political trust, have more close exchanges and support each other on issues concerning their core interests and major concerns, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Prachanda was quoted as saying that Nepal supports the BRI and that Kathmandu is willing to work with Beijing in different sectors to strengthen bilateral cooperation.

Dahal said Nepal appreciates China's important and positive role in international affairs and is ready to have close coordination and cooperation with China in international and regional affairs, the state media reported.

Earlier this month, state media had speculated whether the visit of the Nepalese prime minister would boost relations between the two side, which were at a low ebb since Prachanda became premier last year.

For quite some time, Prachanda, PM of Nepal and chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Center), had been friendly toward China. However, since assuming office for the second time as prime minister on August 3, 2016, he has visited India twice and warmly welcomed Indian President Pranab Mukherjee in Kathmandu last November. Given Prachanda's pro-India foreign policy, the Sino-Nepalese relationship has fallen into low ebb, Zhang Shubin, director of the Nepal Study Center at Hebei University of Economics & Business, wrote.

Zhang said: Prachanda's term is about to come to an end. A China tour at this point and possible deals with the Chinese side can be a significant sign of improvement in the bilateral relationship.

No matter which political party comes to power, China would like to advocate cooperation. China is always ready to help Nepal to develop its economy and achieve prosperity. Nepal can become another iron friend of China in South Asia, Zhang added.
Violent clashes in Paris between baton-wielding police and protesters outraged at the police killing of a Chinese man in his home saw three police officers injured and 35 protesters arrested, authorities said on Tuesday.

Demonstrators, who were from the Asian community, gathered on Monday night outside the multicultural 19th districts police station in the northeast of the French capital, said Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, of the Paris Prosecutors Office.

The protesters gathered in homage to a Chinese man killed on Sunday by a police officer, angry at reports that he was shot in his home in front of his children while he was cutting up fish and didnt attack.

Police say the officer fired in self-defence during a raid because the victim, whom Chinese media say is Chinese, wounded an officer with a bladed weapon.

With chants of murderers and candles that spelled opposition to violence lining the road on Monday night, scores of demonstrators broke down barricades, threw projectiles and set fire to a car during the brutal clashes with myriad police that lasted several hours.

A parked car was set on fire, with firefighters rushing to extinguish the blaze.

Authorities said that 26 demonstrators were held for participating in a group planning violence, six for throwing projectiles, and three others for violence against police that saw a police car damaged by arson.

Chinas state-run Xinhua news agency says that the Chinese embassy in Paris has urged French authorities to ascertain the circumstances of the killing quickly and to handle the case in a fair manner.

It adds that, according to witnesses, one man of Chinese origin was injured in the clashes.

The latest violence comes just days after several thousand people marched in Paris against police violence, in a show of anger sparked by the alleged rape in February of a young black man with a police baton, and other police abuse. Anarchists faced off with riot police at the end of that march, and tear gas was fired. But clashes remained limited in scope and violence.

The alleged police rape of Theo in the Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois turned the 22-year-old into a symbol for minorities standing up to police violence. His last name hasnt been publicly released.
US President Donald Trump will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on April 6-7 at the Presidents Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida, a source familiar with the meeting said on Tuesday.

It will be their first face-to-face meeting since Trump took office on January 20. Trump played host to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last month at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May will trigger Article 50 of the EU treaty on Wednesday, thus beginning the procedure of separating from the European Union, Sputnik reported.

May will send a letter to EU Council President Donald Tusk, with media reports suggesting that two versions of the letter exist, a 100-page long one, and a more compact seven- or eight-page version.

The prime minister is reportedly more likely to send out a shorter letter.

May is expected to brief her government on the contents of the letter before it is delivered to Tusk personally by the United Kingdom's EU ambassador Tim Barrow.

After the letter is received by the European council, the two-year countdown on Brexit negotiations will begin.
US President Donald Trump will on Tuesday roll back a slew of environmental protections enacted by Barack Obama, in a bid to untether the fossil fuel industry.

In a maiden trip to the Environmental Protection Agency, Trump will sign an Energy Independence Executive Order, a White House official told AFP.

The new president will unveil a series of measures to review regulation curbing oil, gas and coal production and limiting carbon emissions.

The centerpiece of Trumps plan is an effort to slow walk Obamas Clean Power Plan, which restricts emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The measures will help keep energy and electricity affordable, reliable, and clean in order to boost economic growth and job creation, the White House said.

But the new president could face a cool reception at the agencys imposing Washington headquarters.

Trump has repeatedly questioned humans role in warming the planet, leaving environmentally-focused EPA staff to wonder whether the fox is guarding the hen house.

Trump has done little to assuage those fears, vowing to slash EPA funding by a third, appointing anti-climate litigator Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA and Exxons CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State.

But Trumps climate skepticism has struck a chord with many Republican voters.

Some 68 percent of Americans believe climate change is caused by humans, but just 40 percent of Republicans say they worry about it according to Gallup.

During the 2016 election campaign Trump donned a hardhat and embraced miners from Kentucky to West Virginia, promising to return jobs to long-ravaged communities.

He won both states by a landslide.

Since coming to office he has coupled his pro-miner rhetoric with support for the fossil fuel industry.

War on coal

The United States is the worlds second largest polluter. Around 37 percent of domestic carbon dioxide emissions come from electricity generation.

Curbing emissions from coal-fired power plants was a pillar of Americas commitment in the Paris Climate Accord.

It remains to be seen whether stalling implementation and defunding the EPA will bring coal back.

And some experts warn the economic payoff from ditching the clean power plan will be limited.

In my view, it will have virtually no impact, said professor James Van Nostrand of West Virginia University, who said the decline of coal had more to do with higher mining costs and cheaper natural gas and renewables.

Defunding or dismantling the EPA and repealing its regulations is not going to bring the coal industry back.

The constant narrative about the war on coal and the alleged devastating impact of EPAs regulations on West Virginias coal industry will now be exposed for its inherent speciousness, he predicted.

In 2008 there were 88,000 coal miners in the United States, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Today the number of coal miners has fallen around 25 percent. More people work in Wholefoods, an upscale supermarket chain.
There was much emotion and tears in the Irish seaside town of Buncrana in County Donegal when the body of Danielle McLaughlin reached on Monday evening after a second post mortem in Dublin and medical procedures in Belfast.

McLaughlin, 28, was found dead near Palolem beach in Goa on March 14, prompting renewed concern over the safety of foreign nationals at the popular holiday destination, where several have died in recent years.

The garda (police) escorted the black hearse as local priest Francis Bradley said prayers inside her house, reports from Ireland said. Large gatherings are expected at vigils on Tuesday and Wednesday, before her funeral on Thursday in the Cockhill Chapel.

Goa police said Vikas Bhagat, 24, has been charged with her murder.

The McLaughlin family has called for justice for their daughter and sister. A crowd-funding campaign to raise 10,000 to meet the expenses for repatriation of the body from Goa and funeral expenses raised over 40,300.

A family spokesman said: We call for justice from the Indian legal system and appeal to the Indian authorities for a full, diligent, transparent and open investigation into all aspects of this crime and have real faith that with their help full justice will be served and the truth known which will provide some small comfort to the family.

Words and thoughts can do little at a time like this to help us understand how such an awful tragedy can happen and especially to someone so full of life and love as Danielle.

Memorial cards distributed at last weeks vigil in Bucrana had smiling pictures of McLaughlin with words from one of her last posts on Facebook: I am very grateful and the luckiest person I know....off on another adventure.

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A former policeman allegedly killed his two-year-old and four-year-old children with a hammer at their home in this northern Italian city on Monday before hurling himself to his death, police said.

The mans wife had left the children with her 45-year-old husband while she went out on an errand and found the them dead in the blood-splattered living-room on her return, police said.

The man, named as Gabriele Sorrentino, was later found dead at the foot of a nearby cliff. His car was parked at the beauty spot and investigators said they did not find a suicide note.

The couples 13-year-old daughter was away on a school trip at the time of the tragedy.

Sorrentino may have had economic worries linked to a new house the couple was due to buy and had become depressed, according to investigators.

He had been working from home as a financial consultant and regularly looked after the children while his wife, a local vet, was out, investigators said.
Indian Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat arrived in Kathmandu on Tuesday morning for a four-day official visit during which he will be conferred the honorary rank of general of the Nepal Army.

The title will be conferred by President Bidhya Devi Bhandari during a special function at the Presidents Office on Wednesday. Nepal and India have a long tradition of conferring such titles on the chiefs of their armies since 1950 to signify the close military-to-military ties.

Rawat is visiting Nepal close on the heels of a trip by Chinese defence minister Chang Wanquan. He was invited by the Nepal government soon after he assumed office in December.

The main purpose of the visit is to confer the honorary title of general of the Nepal Army to General Rawat, said Nepal Army spokesperson Tara Bahadur Kari.

Rawat will also hold talks with Bhandrai, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda and defence minister Bal Krishna Khad. He will visit Pokhara and Muktinath, where the Nepal Army has a high-altitude warfare training centre.

Issues related to the purchase of military hardware for the Nepal Army are expected to be discussed by Rawat. Nepal buys almost all its military and defence gear from India, including helicopters.

An upcoming China-Nepal joint military drill is being closely watched by India since Beijing has been pushing Kathmandu to join the ambitious One Belt, One Road initiative, a flagship foreign policy initiative of President Xi Jinping.
Veteran Indian-origin South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, who was one of Nelson Mandelas closest aides, died on Tuesday at a hospital here aged 87.

Kathrada died this morning at the Donald Gordon Hospital, his foundation said.

This is great loss to the ANC (African National Congress), the broader liberation movement and South Africa as a whole. Internationally, he was staunch in his support for the Palestinian struggle, Neeshan Balton, Executive Director of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, said.

Kathy was an inspiration to millions in different parts of the world, said Balton.

Kathrada, who frequently referred to Mandela as his elder brother, was among three political prisoners who were sentenced to life imprisonment together with the South African anti-apartheid icon after the infamous Rivonia Trial of 1964.

The two others were Andrew Mlangeni and Denis Goldberg.

They played major roles in shaping the countrys policies after Mandelas election as the first democratic President of South Africa.

We are deeply saddened to learn this morning of the passing on of our dear friend and founding trustee, Ahmed Kathrada, said the Nelson Mandela foundation on Twitter.

Former South African President Nelson Mandela talks to fellow veteran politician Ahmed Kathrada before Mandela's address to Parliament in Cape Town March 2, 1999. (Reuters FIle Photo)

Kathrada was born on August 21, 1929 in Schweizer-Reneke, a town in the North West Province of South Africa, and introduced to politics as a young boy when he joined a non-racial youth club run by the Young Communist League.

At the tender age of 17, Kathrada participated in the 1946 Passive Resistance Campaign led by the South African Indian Congress.

He was among 2,000 people who were arrested and imprisoned for defying a law that discriminated against South African Indians.

In July 1963, the police swooped on Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, a Johannesburg suburb where Kathrada and other banned persons had been meeting secretly. This led to the famous Rivonia Trial in which eight accused were sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour on Robben Island.

Kathrada spent 26 years and 3 months in prison, including 18 years on Robben Island.

While in prison, he obtained four university degrees.

Kathrada also received the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award, Indias highest honour for foreign nationals of Indian- origin, in 2005 from the President of India.

Despite having left the political arena, Kathrada has maintained a hectic schedule of local and international travel for the past few years in pursuit of the objectives of a non-racial society espoused by the Foundation that bears his name.

A prolific writer, Kathrada penned six books himself or with co-authors. He is survived by his wife Barbara Hogan, also an ANC stalwart and veteran.

Kathrada will be buried according to Muslim religious rites.
Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told Reuters on Tuesday that Russia could use Iranian military bases to launch air strikes against militants in Syria on a case by case basis.

Russia and Iran are both key allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and have played decisive roles in the past 18 months to turn the tide of the Syrian conflict in his favour.

Russian jets used an air base in Iran to launch attacks against militant targets in Syria last summer, the first time a foreign power had used an Iranian base since World War Two.

The deployment ended abruptly however after some Iranian lawmakers called the move a breach of Irans constitution which forbids foreign military bases, and the Iranian defence minister chided Moscow for publicising the arrangement.

Russia doesnt have a military base (in Iran), we have good cooperation, and on a case by case basis, when it is necessary for Russians fighting terrorism to use Iranian facilities, we will make a decision, said Zarif.

Zarif is part of an Iranian delegation headed by President Hassan Rouhani, which arrived in Moscow on Monday.

Zarif said that regional issues, including Syria, would be discussed at a meeting in the Kremlin with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The wife of the man who killed four people outside Britains Parliament last week condemned the attack, saying she is saddened and shocked.

In statement released through London police on Tuesday, Khalid Masoods wife, Rohey Hydara, also said I express my condolences to the families of the victims that have died, and wish a speedy recovery to all the injured.

She added: I would like to request privacy for our family, especially the children, at this difficult time.

Police believe Masood  a 52-year-old Briton with convictions for violence who had spent several years in Saudi Arabia  acted alone in Wednesdays knife and car attack. But they are trying to determine whether others helped inspire or direct his actions.

Masood was killed by police after fatally stabbing an officer.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Tuesday that he discussed the possible purchase of Dassault Aviation SAs Rafale fighter jets with French President Francois Hollande but remained undecided.

Were not ready yet to make a decision, but we take note of its success in other countries..., Najib said at a joint news conference with Hollande in Kuala Lumpur.

Rafale is seen as a frontrunner as Malaysia looks to buy up to 18 jets in a deal potentially worth more than $2 billion, sources have said.

Malaysias plan is to replace the Royal Malaysian Air Forces (RMAF) squadron of Russian MiG-29 combat planes, nearly half of which are grounded.

Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein was reported in the media as saying the race for new fighter jets has narrowed to the Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon, built by BAE Systems .

I know you will be making a decision, and against that background, we want to provide the necessary support, Hollande said in his speech after comments from Najib.

Our ministers are already working to that effect. All I would like to say is that the Rafale jet is the best in its category, and then we propose to discuss the prices, and the specifications. I trust you will make the decision when the time comes, he added.

Hollande held bilateral talks with Najib during his visit to Malaysia, which is part of a three-nation tour of Southeast Asia. Hollande was in Singapore earlier this week and is headed to Indonesia later on Tuesday.
A group of Muslim women formed a human chain along the iconic Westminster Bridge here in a show of solidarity with the victims of deadly terror attack outside the British Parliament that killed four people.

The women, many of whom wore blue to symbolise peace, were joined by supporters who stood in silence for five minutes when Big Ben chimed at 4 PM on Sunday.

The vigil, which was organised by the Womens March on London, came after a photo of a woman wearing a hijab crossing the bridge in the aftermath of the attack went viral on social media.

The feeling of what happened here on Wednesday was really strong. We thought of the ordinary people who were here and were mown down, standing here like this, it was very overwhelming, Fariha Khan, from Surbiton, was quoted as saying by the BBC.

It was an overwhelmingly emotional experience, another said.

Another woman who was there, Sarah Waseem, said the Islam faith totally condemns violence of any sort.

When an attack happens in London, it is an attack on me. It is an attack on all of us. This is abhorrent to us, she said.

Londoner Mary Bennett, retired healthcare worker, said she was present to make a small gesture.

Four people died and 50 injured when lone attacker Khalid Masood rammed a car into pedestrians on the bridge, before crashing his vehicle and fatally stabbing an on-duty police officer in the grounds of Parliament. Masood was shot dead by police at the scene.
Over 300 civilians have been killed since last month in an offensive against the Islamic State group in western Mosul, the UN said on Tuesday, adding the toll could exceed 400 if fresh killings are verified.

According to information verified by the UN Human Rights Office and the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq, at least 307 people were killed ... between 17 February and 22 March, the UN rights office said in a statement.

In addition, between 23 and 26 March, reports were received that at least 95 civilians were killed in ... (four) neighbourhoods in western Mosul.

Iraqi forces, supported by air strikes from the international coalition fighting the IS, are engaged in a bitter struggle to dislodge the jihadists from Iraqs second-largest city.

Iraq and the US defence department are investigating reports that coalition air strikes have killed dozens if not hundreds of people in recent days.

UN rights chief Zeid Raad Al Hussein said he welcomed those probes and his office did not directly blame the coalition for any specific deaths, but called for an urgent review of tactics to ensure that the impact on civilians is reduced to an absolute minimum.

With IS reportedly using civilians as human shields in buildings around western Mosul, Zeids spokesman Rupert Colville noted that it was clearly not easy to ensure that non-combatants were spared.

What we are saying is that in these circumstances you have got to be exceptionally careful, Colville told reporters in Geneva.

More than 200,000 civilians have fled west Mosul in the past month, according to Iraqi authorities.

But some 600,000 remain in IS-held sectors, which include two thirds of the citys Old Town, a warren of narrow streets, according to the UN.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and Pakistans parliament speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq met late Monday in efforts to strengthen economic ties between the two nations, Anadolu reported.

The two sides exchanged views in order to further deepen the ties between Pakistan and Turkey, especially for the development of bilateral trade and economic cooperation, according to a statement from the Pakistan embassy in Ankara.

The Turkish Prime Ministrys Press Office released a separate statement that said Yildirim thanked Pakistans government and parliament for showing solidarity with Turkey after a deadly failed coup attempt last July in which 249 victims were killed and thousands of others injured.

Sadiq and Turkeys parliament speaker Ismail Kahraman held a meeting earlier Monday in which they stressed the close bonds between the two friendly countries.
The Reserve Bank of India has decided to limit the exchange facility for scrapped currency notes held by Nepalese nationals to Rs 4,500, raising fears about a further delay in replacing the now-useless notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination.

Officials of the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) had demanded that the ceiling be raised to Rs 25,000 per individual but this was rejected by the RBI team, which held talks with Nepalese officials here on Sunday and Monday, sources said. The team returned to India on Tuesday.

Both sides took up the issue on Monday but could not bridge their differences as they remained firm on their respective positions.

We told them it was the Indian governments decision to allow Nepalis to hold up to Rs 25,000 in cash and asked them to raise the ceiling. But they didnt agree to our demand, NRB deputy governor Chintamani Siwakoti said.

The RBI officials told the Nepalese side that they would take up Kathmandus demand with the highest authorities in New Delhi.

The Indian team arrived in Kathmandu on Saturday for talks on extending the exchange facility to Nepalese nationals holding scrapped Indian banknotes. According to the Indian proposal, individuals possessing the scrapped bills will have to deposit them in their bank accounts. The NRB will then send the notes to the RBI for verification.

After the notes are verified, the RBI will send back the equivalent value in new Indian currency notes. Though the NRB officials agreed to the modalities presented by the RBI, they said the proposed amount was too small.

The RBI delegation agreed to exchange banned banknotes held by Nepals financial system worth a total of Rs 33.6 million. This figure includes cash parked in banks, financial institutions and the NRB.

Although the official figure for demonetised Indian notes within the Nepali financial system is not very high, the actual stock is expected to be much higher because Nepalese nationals were previously allowed to hold up to Rs 25,000 in Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.
Donald Trump launched an all-out assault on Barack Obamas climate change legacy on Tuesday with a sweeping executive order that undermines Americas commitment to the Paris agreement.

Watched by coal miners at a ceremony at the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, the president signed an order to trigger a review of the clean power plan, Obamas flagship policy to curb carbon emissions, and rescind a moratorium on the sale of coal mining leases on federal lands.

But the move was swiftly condemned by environmentalists as a dangerous and embarrassing attempt to turn back the clock that would do little to revive the US coal industry while threatening cooperation with major polluters such as China and India.

In a speech before he signed the order, Trump promised a new era in American energy and production and job creation. He said: The action Im taking today will eliminate federal overreach, restore economic freedom and allow our workers and companies to thrive and compete on a level playing field for the first time in a long time. Im not just talking eight years.

Trump promised the measures would be bringing back our jobs, bringing back our dreams and making America wealthy again.

He praised coal miners in the room as amazingand incredible, recalling that he heard about their struggles over the past two years. I made them this promise: we will put our miners back to work ... Today Im putting an end to the war on coal.

Trump also pledged a future of clean coal, and dismissed the so-called clean power plan as a crushing attack on American industry. The executive order also lifts a moratorium on the sale of new coal leases on federal land, removes job killing restrictions on energy production, and returns power to state level.

Trumps acceptance of climate change science has long been in question. In 2014 he tweeted: Global warming is an expensive hoax! On Tuesday his press secretary, Sean Spicer, ducked a question over whether he still takes this view. I think youll hear more today about the climate and what he believes, Spicer said.

I think he understands  he does not believe that ... there is a binary choice been job creation, economic growth and caring about the environment, and thats what we should be focusing on. I think at the end of the day, where we should be focusing is making sure that all Americans have clean water, clean air and that we do what we can to preserve and protect our environment.

The clean power plan  introduced by Obama in 2015 but blocked by the courts last year  was intended to restrict greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

Spicer said that Tuesdays order included a review of the new performance standards for coal-fired and natural gas-fired plants that amount to a de facto ban on new coal plant production in the United States. He told reporters: This is great news for states like Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and others.

All the states listed voted for Trump in last Novembers presidential election. The executive order continues his aggressive endeavour to unravel his predecessors policies and strip away regulations in what his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, has called the deconstruction of the administrative state. This includes radically diminishing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Spicer said: For too long the federal government has acted like a barrier to energy independent and innovation.

Related: I am an Arctic researcher. Donald Trump is deleting my citations | Victoria Herrmann

The president has previously condemned the clean power rule and other regulations as placing an unnecessary burden on American workers and the struggling US coal industry, which faces growing competition from natural gas, wind and solar.

Trump accused Obama of a war on coal and has promised to revitalise the coal industry. At a rally last week in Kentucky, he said he had already removed some burdensome regulations and insisted the new executive order would go further. We are going to put our coalminers back to work, he told the crowd.

Spicer said on Tuesday: The miners and the owners are very, very bullish on this. The people who are actually in the business applaud this effort, believe that it will do a lot to revive the industry.

But the order was condemned by climate change activists, including Al Gore, the former vice-president, who describe it as a misguided step away from a sustainable, carbon-free future for ourselves and generations to come.

Gina McCarthy, a former EPA administrator, accused the Trump administration of wanting us to travel back to when smokestacks damaged our health and polluted our air, instead of taking every opportunity to support clean jobs of the future.

She added: This is not just dangerous; its embarrassing to us and our businesses on a global scale to be dismissing opportunities for new technologies, economic growth, and US leadership.

Sheldon Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Senate environment and public works subcommittee on clean air and nuclear safety, said: Just a few years ago, Donald Trump and his children supported meaningful and effective measures to fight climate change, calling it scientifically irrefutable and its consequences catastrophic and irreversible. Today he began to unravel the clean power plan, one of the most important actions we have taken to fight climate change, just like the big polluters wanted.

He added: The most voracious and malign special interest in American politics  the fossil fuel industry  has captured the Trump administration, installed its top henchmen at the EPA, and gone to work trying to unwind any environmental and public health safeguard that gets in the way of its profits.

Obama was dubbed the first climate president for acknowledging the real threat of global warming, although critics argued his record was blemished by investments in dirty fuels around the world . In 2015, the clean power plan was billed as the strongest action ever on climate change by a US president. Under the subsequent Paris accord, the US agreed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 26-28% by 2025 compared with 2005 levels.

Trump and his allies, including EPA chief Scott Pruitt, have previously criticised the Paris agreement involving nearly 200 countries. A senior administration official said on Monday: In terms of the Paris agreement, whether we stay in or not is still under discussion.

Tuesdays order seeks to suspend, rescind or review more than half a dozen measures in an effort to boost domestic energy production. These include Obamas 2013 climate action plan, a major fracking regulation, guidelines published by the White House Council on Environmental Quality last August, and estimates of the social costs of carbon and other greenhouses gases.

The 2015 clean power plan has been on hold since 2016 while a federal appeals court considers a challenge by coal-friendly states and more than 100 companies. The attempt to roll it back completely faces a complex process of rewriting rules and fending off legal challenges from states such as California and New York, environmental groups and sections of industry.

Whatever process was used create it, that process will have to be used to undo it, said Richard Lazarus, an environmental law expert at Harvard University. The more they rush in, the more likely they make a mistake.

Laurence Tubiana, chief executive of the European Climate Foundation. said: Sending the Clean Power Plan back to the drawing board might earn President Trump a few political points from a narrow interest group, but should this see the light of day, it will hurt the vast majority of Americans as it will propel the economy backwards so that it resembles something from the 19th century.

The good news is that it will take much more than todays order to stop domestic climate action in the US  indeed, this document is likely to spend years in court. Whats more, there are countless countries ready to step up and deliver on their climate promises and take advantage of Mr Trumps short-termism to reap the benefits of the transition to the low carbon economy.

Lease applications blocked by the Obama moratorium included more than 1.8bn tons of coal from two dozen mines, the Associated Press reported. Burning that coal would unleash an estimated 3.4bn tons of carbon dioxide  equivalent to a year of emissions from 700m cars, it said.

But coal faces still competition from cheap and abundant natural gas, partly due to advances in drilling such as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. From 2011 to 2016, the coal mining industry lost about 60,000 jobs, leaving just over 77,000 miners, according to preliminary government figures.

Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, said: No matter what any elected official says, rescinding common sense climate change regulations and popular public health protections will not revive the coal industry or put thousands of miners back to work.

Market forces, including consumer preferences and technological advancement, are the primary reason for the surge in cleaner forms of energy. In fact, even without the clean power plan, we are likely to hit its emissions targets ahead of schedule  because consumers, cities and businesses will continue leading on public health and climate change even when Washington wont.

But the presidents actions were praised by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank. Nick Loris, a fellow in energy and environmental policy, said: Wealth equals health. Its not about being a fossil fuel stooge; its about allowing them to be competitive.
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday is expected to sign an executive order granting federal regulators sweeping powers to roll back measures initiated by his predecessor Barack Obama to cut carbon emission, a move that could potentially jeopardise Americas ability to meet its Paris Agreement commitments.

The executive order will instruct the Environment Protection Agency to begin the legal process for withdrawing Obamas Clean Power Plan that focussed on shutting down highly polluting coal power plants and replacing them with those using renewable energy, remove the freeze on coal mining on federal lands, and kill an instruction mandating all federal agencies to consider the environment cost of every decision.

A senior administration official said the goal was to make the US energy dependent, and as far as climate change was concerned, we want to take our course and do it in our own form and fashion.

The order is also aimed at saving coal-mine jobs  a poll promise by Trump  that have been shrinking because of automation and a market-driven shift towards cheaper and cleaner natural gas for power generation.

Trump has already reversed other Obama-era environment-related restrictions such as those on mining and drilling.

The new order is said to be silent on the Paris Agreement, an ambitious global compact which went into effect in November 2016 and was signed by 175 states including the US, India and China, but experts have said the unintended consequences of the new rules would prevent the US from fulfilling its commitments.

Trump had vowed to tear up the agreement and pull the US out of the agreement during while he was campaigning, but has been ambivalent about it since his election, saying as president-elect that he had an open mind to it, and that clean air and crystal clear water were vitally important.

Briefing reporters on the order on Monday, an administration official said a decision had not been taken on Paris Agreement yet.

The Eiffel tower is illuminated in green with the words "Paris Agreement is Done", to celebrate the UN COP21 Climate Change agreement in Paris on November 4, 2016. (Reuters File)

Under the Paris Agreement, the United States pledged to cut its carbon emissions by between 26% to 28% of the 2005 levels by 2025 as part of the effort to reduce emissions to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius.

Meeting the US terms of the Paris Agreement would require full enforcement of the current regulations, plus additional regulations, Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist at Princeton University, told the New York Times. It takes a comprehensive effort involving every country doing what they committed to and more.

He added that Trumps order sends a signal to other countries that they might not have to meet their commitments  which would mean that the world would fail to stay out of the climate danger zone.

Robert Jackson, chair of the Earth System Science department at Stanford University, told New Republic, If we pull back from the Clean Power Plan, and especially if we roll back vehicle fuel efficiency standards, we have almost no hope of reaching our Paris climate commitments.

India, which has committed to cutting Emissions Intensity of GDP (emissions per unit of GDP) by 33 or 35% compared to 2005 levels by 2030, will be closely studying the new order executive order for what it could mean for the Paris Agreement, as will be other countries.

If America pulls out of the accord or decides to disregard its targets  voluntarily adopted Intended Nationally Determined Contributions  other countries, who took some convincing to sign up, might be tempted to follow suit.
A Russian bank under Western economic sanctions over Russias incursion into Ukraine disclosed on Monday that its executives had met Jared Kushner, President Donald Trumps son-in-law and a top White House adviser, in December.

A US Senate committee investigating suspected Russian interference in the election wants to interview Trump associates, including Kushner, 36, who is married to Trumps daughter Ivanka Trump and has agreed to testify.

Kushner previously acknowledged meeting the Russian ambassador to Washington last December and only on Monday did it emerge that executives of Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) had talks with Kushner during a bank roadshow last year.

The bank said in an emailed statement that as part of its preparing a new strategy, its executives met representatives of financial institutes in Europe, Asia and America.

It said roadshow meetings took place with a number of representatives of the largest banks and business establishments of the United States, including Jared Kushner, the head of Kushner Companies. VEB declined to say where the meetings took place or the dates.

There was no immediate comment from Kushner.

Allegations by US intelligence agencies that Russian actors were behind hacking of senior Democratic Party operatives and spreading disinformation linger over Trumps young presidency. Democrats charge the Russians wanted to tilt the election toward the Republican, a claim dismissed by Trump. Russia denies the allegations.

But there has been no doubt that the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, developed contacts among the Trump team. Trumps first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign on February 13 after revelations that he had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with Kislyak and misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations.

U.S. officials said that after meeting with Russian Kislyak at Trump Tower last December, a meeting also attended by Flynn, Kushner met later in December with Sergei Gorkov, chairman of Vnesheconombank.

White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks confirmed the meetings, saying nothing of consequence was discussed.

Gorkov was appointed head of VEB in early 2016 by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He graduated from the Federal Security Service, or FSB, Russias internal security agency. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Merit for Services to the Fatherland, according to the banks website.

According to two congressional staffers, some Senate investigators want to question Kushner and Flynn about whether they discussed with Gorkov or other Russian officials or financial executives the possibility of investing in 666 Fifth Avenue in New York or other Kushner Co or Trump properties if the new administration lifted the sanctions.

VEB, aside from being under sanctions, has been grappling with bad debt after financing politically expedient projects such as construction for the Sochi Winter Olympics.

It received 150 billion roubles ($2.6 billion) in support from the Russian budget in 2016, when its senior management was sacked and replaced by a team of executives from Russias biggest lender Sberbank.

In an article posted on December 18, Forbes estimated that Jared Kushner, his brother Josh and his parents, Charles and Seryl, have a fortune of at least $1.8 billion, more than half of which Forbes estimates is held in real estate.

Forbes did not provide a specific estimate for Jared Kushners net worth on his own.

Foreign contacts

On Monday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters that Kushner is willing to testify to the Senate Intelligence Committee chaired by U.S. Senator Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican.

Throughout the campaign and the transition, Jared served as the official primary point of contact with foreign governments and officials ... and so, given this role, he volunteered to speak with Chairman Burrs committee, Spicer told reporters at his daily briefing.

The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate panel also said Kushner had agreed to be interviewed but no date had yet been scheduled.

Simply meeting with representatives of a US-sanctioned entity is not a violation of sanctions or against the law.

Evgeny Buryakov, 41, a Russian citizen who worked at Vnesheconombank and whom U.S. authorities accused of posing as a banker while participating in a New York spy ring, pleaded guilty to a criminal conspiracy charge on Friday. Buryakov admitted in federal court in Manhattan to acting as an agent for the Russian government without notifying U.S. authorities.

He was prosecuted by the office of the US attorney in Manhattan under Preet Bharara, who was among several chief prosecutors fired or asked to resign earlier this month by the new administration.

Classified information

Also on Monday, a mystery rooted in Trumps claim that he was wiretapped by then President Barack Obama during the election campaign deepened with the disclosure that a top congressional Republican reviewed classified information on the White House grounds about potential surveillance of some Trump campaign associates.

U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, visited the White House the night before he announced on Wednesday that he had information that indicated some Trump associates may have been subjected to some level of intelligence activity before Trump took office on January 20.

Democrats have said Nunes, who was a member of Trumps transition team, can no longer run a credible investigation of Russian hacking, the US election and any potential involvement by Trump associates.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, have urged Nunes to recuse himself from the Russia probe.

Nunes told CNN on Monday that he went to the White House grounds because the intelligence information was not available to Congress. He said he did not meet with Trump or his aides at that time and did not coordinate the release of information with the Trump administration.

Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said in a statement that Nunes met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source.

White House spokesman Spicer did not shed any light on who at the White House helped Nunes gain access to a secure location.

It was the latest twist in a saga that began on March 4 when Trump said on Twitter without providing evidence that he just found out that Obama had my wires tapped in Trump Tower just before the victory.

FBI Director James Comey told Congress last Monday he had seen no evidence to support the claim.
Britains regulator of charity organisations has criticised the trustees of Grail Trust, which focuses on disadvantaged children in Tamil Nadu, for its inadequate handling of an allegation of child abuse involving a person linked to its India partner.

The Charity Commission said in its inquiry report released on Tuesday that there were serious governance failures due to the trustees lack of proper oversight in relation to safeguarding measures and their failure to identify or report the allegation to the police or the commission as a serious incident.

The widely reported allegation related to a childrens home in India run by the trusts partner, Grail Trust India (GTI), which has now closed. The Wales-based charity raised funds for and provided financial support to GTI to run the home, which was periodically visited by representatives of the charity.

The Commission does not investigate allegations of abuse but intervenes to ensure that trustees are protecting their charity and its usersThe inquiry found that the initial response by the trustees to the allegation was inadequate as they did not report the allegation and were not impartial in considering the allegation, which they publically rejected, the report said.

The inquiry also found that the charitys trustees had failed to take reasonable steps to ensure that safeguards put in place by GTI were adequate.

The trustees told the inquiry that, when the allegation was brought to their attention, they did not believe it was appropriate to report it to the commission because they were not aware of any formal charges and the allegation appeared, in their view, to be malicious and unsubstantiated.

They did not report the allegation to police in the United Kingdom because they assumed they were already aware of the matter. They told the inquiry this was a wholly new situation for them.

Michelle Russell of the Charity Commission said: This is very concerning. It is another case where trustees do not take abuse allegations seriously nor ensure there are proper safeguarding protections in place to protect children.

Trustees have a duty to act in the best interests of the charity and this includes having adequate safeguarding policies in place and fully implementing them.

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A Daily Mail front page that declared Never mind Brexit, who won Legs-it! next to a photograph of Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon and British prime minister Theresa May has prompted widespread outrage.

Inside the paper there was more ogling at the female leaders, with a headline reading: Finest weapons at their command? Those pins! A column by Sarah Vine referred to Sturgeons legs as altogether more flirty, tantalisingly crossed  a direct attempt at seduction.

The front page, which appeared on Twitter on Monday night, met with instant criticism from politicians and the public.

Among the first to criticise the front page as sexist and offensive were the Labour MPs Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper.

Moronic! And we are in 2017! pic.twitter.com/LTGEZdtNo3  Harriet Harman (@HarrietHarman) March 27, 2017

It's 2017. Two women's decisions will determine if United Kingdom continues to exist. And front page news is their lower limbs. Obviously pic.twitter.com/AMp0YvtISa  Yvette Cooper (@YvetteCooperMP) March 27, 2017

Tony Blairs former spin doctor, Alastair Campbell, labelled the paper utter scum and urged anyone who spotted a copy of the Mail to rip it up . The former Labour leader Ed Miliband tweeted: The 1950s called and asked for their headline back.

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, echoed their condemnation, saying such attitudes should be consigned to history.

It's 2017. This sexism must be consigned to history. Shame on the Daily Mail. pic.twitter.com/V3RpFSgfnO  Jeremy Corbyn MP (@jeremycorbyn) March 27, 2017

The front page, which referenced difficult talks between the leaders in Glasgow over Brexit, looked slightly different in Scotland, where the Scottish edition of the Daily Mail used the same photograph but with a headline that read: Oh so frosty! Secrets of Nicola and PMs talk-in.

Journalists, commentators and members of the public in the UK and beyond were left shaking their heads.

I'd like to think in an alternative brexit-verse far far away this is what everyone's getting cross over #dailymail pic.twitter.com/QlOg5Y6a0p  Ashley Gould (@APJGould) March 27, 2017

We're living in the most political unstable era of my lifetime, and the Daily Mail are writing sexist articles about our leader's legs. pic.twitter.com/54uAuAE9Sp  Angry Salmond (@AngrySalmond) March 27, 2017

Breaking news: two women have four legs between them. Forget their brains - utterly immaterial. United by being unwitting pin-ups pic.twitter.com/RY64nVMLyF  Emma Barnett (@Emmabarnett) March 27, 2017

This is what happens when you let that drunk, pervy uncle at a wedding edit a newspaper. pic.twitter.com/FQcqjjQMNJ  Jane Bradley (@jane__bradley) March 27, 2017

While others took matters into their own hands.

Later editions of the paper appeared to attempt to water down the editorial line, describing it on the front as: Sarah Vines light-hearted verdict on the big showdown.
The Lahore high court in Pakistan has asked the Punjab government to explain under what authority it has detained Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed without a trial.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Syed Kazim Raza Shamsi was on Monday hearing a petition of Saeed and his aides -- Prof Malik Zafar Iqbal, Abdur Rehman Abid, Qazi Kashif Hussain and Abdullah Ubaid -- who challenged their detention under the anti-terrorism law.

After hearing the arguments of advocate AK Dogar, counsel for Saeed, Justice Shamsi observed that the government should tell about its powers to detain a citizen like Saeed without trial.

Referring to an Indian movie wherein Saeed was portrayed as a villain, the judge said the government should see if there is any international conspiracy against Pakistani citizens.

Dogar concluded his arguments saying the government detained the JuD leaders without any justification.

He also questioned the powers of the provincial government to include any citizen in the fourth schedule of the Anti-Terrorism Act. He said such powers were solely vested with the federal government.

He said the government had detained Saeed and others to please India and the US.

He further argued that the UN resolution followed by the government action did not seek detention of any citizen. He said the detention of the JuD leaders is a case of mala fide intention and ulterior motive on part of the government.

Dogar said the government had no evidence that the petitioners were a risk to security of Pakistan, and merely on the basis of UN resolutions their liberty could not be curtailed.

The government on January 30 had put Saeed and the four leaders of JuD and Falah-e-Insaniat (FIF) under house arrest in Lahore under the countrys anti-terrorism act.

The court adjourned the hearing till April 4.
About 4:30 a.m. on April 2, 1865, the Army of the Potomacs 6th Corps breached the Confederate defenses near Petersburg, Va., ending a bloody 10-month stalemate. The Confederate capital of Richmond had to be evacuated the next day, and Robert E. Lees Army of Northern Virginia surrendered a week later at Appomattox Court House. The site is remembered as The Breakthrough, now a revered piece of Civil War ground within the 424-acre Pamplin Historical Park and The National Museum of the Civil War Soldier, about five miles from downtown Petersburg. For 22 years, A. Wilson Greene was executive director of this private, nonprofit facility comprising four museums, four historic structures, and three miles of interpretive trails. Greene, who retired in February, talked to ACW before he left.

[dropcap]1 [/dropcap]What makes Pamplin Park different from other Civil War sites?

Its hard to place us in a neat descriptive box. First, we are a major Civil War museum. The National Museum of the Civil War Soldier is widely recognized as one of the nations best. Second, we are a house museum. We have four historic buildings on their original sites, including Tudor Hall Plantation, the home of the Boisseau family before and during the Civil War and the headquarters of Confederate General Samuel McGowan from October 1864 to March 1865. Third, we are a battlefield park. We preserve the site of the 6th Corps breakthroughthe engagement that ended the 292-day Petersburg Campaign, now a National Historic Landmark. And finally, we are a living history site. Costumed interpreters are stationed at Tudor Hall and at our re-created military encampment to explain civilian and soldier life during the Petersburg Campaign. The park is unique in its range of interpretive themes, which include life in the antebellum South and the impact of the Civil War on civilians; the story of the common soldier during the war; and the context, conduct, and consequences of the breakthrough.



[dropcap]2 [/dropcap]Of which of the parks accomplishments are you most proud?

I am personally most gratified by the range of audiences that visit our site. Whether it be the tens of thousands of elementary school students who visit, the highly knowledgeable participants in our annual October symposium and tours, or those who just spot our sign on the interstate and drop in to see what we are all about. We designed the parks facilities and programs to be relevant and accessible to as broad an audience as possible, and I think we have succeeded. Im gratified that we rarely get accused of bias for or against the Union or the Confederacy.



[dropcap]3 [/dropcap]How has working at the park influenced your own Civil War research and writing?

Most historians like to write about events and places that are accessible to them. When we began to conceive Pamplin Park I realized that almost nothing had been written about the 6th Corps breakthroughthe centerpiece of the land we preserve. I began doing research simply to develop a body of knowledge to inform our site interpretation. That research expanded and resulted in my book, The Final Battles of the Petersburg Campaign: Breaking the Backbone of the Rebellion (University of Tennessee Press, 2008). My next project involved a history of wartime Petersburg, and now I am engaged in a multi-volume history of the entire Petersburg Campaign. My proximity to the landscapes involved in these topics and the repositories that contain so much of the data pertaining to Petersburg played a big role in my literary endeavors.



[dropcap]4 [/dropcap]Will the Civil War remain a part of your future endeavors?

I cant imagine life without teaching and learning about the Civil War era. As long as the Good Lord sees fit to provide me with the physical and mental ability to contribute in some small way, I will write, speak, and lead tours of Civil War sites. I also hope to become a bit more active in promoting battlefield preservation, now that my focus is no longer exclusively on Pamplin Historical Park.



[dropcap]5 [/dropcap]What experiences can visitors expect to enjoy at Pamplin Historical Park?

Guests should come prepared to be actively engaged with the parks resources. We put the visitor in charge of his or her experience by lending them an MP3 player that allows them to control the information they receive through their headsets. Within all of our four museums, visitors have the opportunity to use interactive exhibits, select videos, and even play computer games all designed to support the parks historical themes.
How legends of T. E. Lawrences guerrilla forces in Arabia and Orde Wingates Chindit special ops in Burma fatally beguiled the French at Dien Bien Phu.

Historians interpret the May 1954 fall of the French fortress at Dien Bien Phu to, in the words of French writer Jules Roy, the search for a classic, set-piece battle in which the French hoped to bring the destructive power of modern technology to bear on the elusive communist enemy and smash him with an iron fist. The logic of the French gamble is explained by two factors, one tactical, the other strategic. The tactical piece evolved from a faith in the defensive capabilities of the base aeroterrestre, or hedgehoga system of mutually supporting strongpoints tied together by barbed wire and trenches arranged around a heavily defended airstrip. The strategic piece was the offspring of acute war fatigue in Paris that, in May 1953, had Prime Minister Rene May admonishing his new commander in Indochina, General Henri Navarre, to create the conditions for une solution politique honorable. Navarres plan was to seek a major battle to wound the Viet Minh so devastatingly that Paris could trade a thumping tactical triumph for a settlement more favorable than its military performance heretofore would merit.

Dien Bien Phu failed, according to the accepted version of history, because Navarre elected to defend low ground too distant from his Red River Delta base, chose the wrong commanders, and underestimated the offensive power of the Viet Minh. In this version of the narrative, he also ignored the fact that the Geneva Conference, which had begun the month before in an effort to resolve outstanding issues in Korea and Indochina, gave the communists an incentive to turn the tables on the French. This historical verdict is correct as far as it goes. But there are several problems with it, beginning with the fact that it interprets history backward, from effect to cause. For Viet Minh commander Vo Nguyen Giap the search for victory in a decisive, conventional battle could be plausibly portrayed as a validation of Mao Zedongs vision of revolutionary forces evolving in stages from, in the words of Vietnam War historian Martin Windrow, a clandestine guerrilla movement into a powerful conventional army. The French, though, appeared to be moving in the opposite directionfrom a conventional army to a guerrilla movement.

In fact, the French decision to occupy Dien Bien Phu in 1953 was not a search for a climactic conventional Austerlitz in the jungle but rather a desperate grasp at the straw of survival for their Indochina enterprise by means of irregular warfare. The creation of a base at Dien Bien Phu married irregular warfare methods of British provenance with a historic French commitment to the militias of montagnardstribal highlandersin the upper Tonkin. It was a combination designed to shift the strategic dynamic of the Indochina War.

The British contribution to Dien Bien Phu can be traced to two men who could claim justifiably to be the founders of modern irregular warfareThomas Edward Lawrence and Orde Wingate. Lawrence was an Oxford-educated archeologist of Crusader castles who turned intelligence officer in the British Armys Cairo bureau following the outbreak of the Great War. At that time, the failed intervention at Gallipoli in 1915 had left the British war secretary, Lord Herbert Horatio Kitchener, in no mood to manufacture further strategic distractions in the Middle East. But Kitcheners death in June 1916 opened an opportunity for Lawrence and he took it. He made contact with the Hashemite sharif of Mecca and would-be insurgent leader against the Ottomans, Husayn bin Ali al-Hashemi. Reconnoitering the situation in the Hejazthe western Arabian PeninsulaLawrence reported back to his superiors that the Bedouin of the Hejaz had many problems, but he believed that an infusion of modern weapons, British advisers, some aerial reconnaissance, and the substitution of the sharifs son Faisal bin al-Husayn for his aging father could swell the nascent insurgency into a full-blown Arab revolt.

Historians now tend to agree that there was no Arab Revolt, least of all in the Hejaz, which together with Yemen formed one of the most backward, non-nationalistic provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Historian David Fromkin believes the revolt, such as it was, had no material effect on the conduct or outcome of the First World War. The Arab Revolt was supposed to rescue Britain, but instead Britain had to rescue it.

Given the poor opinion of the military value of the Arab Revolt among professional soldiers of the era and its inability to achieve significant military and political objectives, the insurgencys inflated postwar reputation can be explained by several factors rooted in propaganda, military particularism, and imperialist statecraft in the further evolution of the Eastern Question and Arab nationalism. First, it was compatible with the Wests narrative of smashing the backward and tyrannical Ottoman Empire as the first step in the creation of a modern Middle East under the sway of the victorious Entente powers. Second, the argument that the Arabs had simply seized the initiative and taken Damascus allowed Prime Minister David Lloyd George to renege on the British commitment, laid out in the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, to divide with Paris the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. Third, the myth of an Arabled liberation leveraged Hashemite ambitions. King Faisal deliberately adopted the language of Arab nationalism in his negotiations with the British after 1915 because it was an idiom comprehensible to Cairo. It also allowed him to validate his rebellion against the worlds major Muslim power and lent legitimacy to postwar Hashemite rule in the Transjordan and Iraq. Faisals Arab nationalists, concentrated mainly in Damascus and loath to acknowledge that the British Army had broken their Ottoman shackles, embraced the fanciful narrative of self-liberation. It was a narrative bolstered by mock media events featuring bouncing Hejazis whipping their camels down Damascus boulevards, anonymous and imaginative dispatches to The Times, and self-aggrandizing books written by Lawrence. In truth, the fairly limited actions of Faisals Arab irregulars in 1918 on the flanks of Field Marshal Edmund Bull Allenbys army had no more than nuisance value, in the words of one British cavalryman.

Yet the Faisal-Lawrence myth persisted. One of Lawrences admirers, the eminent military theorist Sir Basil Liddell Hart, puffed him as a strategic genius in a 1934 biography, explaining that Lawrences exploits validated the indirect approach: Avoid the enemys strength and win through intelligence, guile, cultural knowledge, and sowing psychological confusion. That Liddell Harts theories of strategy and operations were anchored in fictionalized history, guerrilla mania, and a cowboys-and-Indians imagination mattered not a jot to a shaken island nation that, after 1918, had acquired a collective aversion to continental warfare. Liddell Harts marketing of Lawrences approach as a means of victory without battles obviated the requirement for military professionalism and the high-casualty sacrifice of conventional warfare. Such marketing discouraged the preparation for conventional warfare in the interwar British Army, and for that Britain would pay a huge price in World War II. The Lawrentian myth of arming local insurgents would exact a further price on the French at Dien Bien Phu.

Irregular warfare in World War II flourished in inverse proportion to the fortunes of conventional forces. By then Lawrence was gone, though not his influence, much to Orde Wingates consternation. Wingate had served in the interwar years with the British military in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Palestine, developing his own approach to irregular warfare highly trained special operations forces and a reliance on the kind of easily constructed hedgehog box later adapted at Dien Bien Phu. Wingates approach was more deliberate, less fortuitous than that of Lawrences levee en masse, which he rejected as inefficient hugaboothe rush of tribesmen, the peasants with billhooks. But hugaboo became a guiding principle of British strategy following the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Forces from Dunkirk in May and June 1940. The truth is that both Lawrences and Wingates approaches were adopted out of strategic weakness, even despair, in the wake of the industrialized slaughter of the Great War and the impotence of British conventional arms following the 1940 Fall of France. The incompetence of Britains conventional army was in part the fruit of a persistent small-wars mentality that failed to embrace a unified operational and tactical doctrine, to impose a common template on the conduct of war at the strategic and operational level, to prepare for continental conflict in interwar grand maneuvers, and even to enforce common training standards on regimental and battalion commanders. In 1940, British generals whose command experience topped out at quelling uprisings of colonial miscreants cut an amateurish figure against the German army.

Winston Churchills order in July 1940 to his newly created Special Operations Executive (SOE) to set Europe ablaze by sparking and sustaining resistance movements in the Axis-occupied countries was inspired by the imperatives of propaganda, Lawrentian romanticism, and Liddell Harts championing of the indirect approach. Then there was the sheer desperation born of another conventional war near  defeat, as well as the limitations of British sea and air power. Given the weakness of Britains strategic position, Churchill turned to special operations to create an illusion of offensive momentum. SOE was to carry out espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance behind enemy lines, mainly by making contact with local resistance forces in Europe. SOE agents were first dropped into France in May 1941, Yugoslavia in September, and Greece in November 1942. In June 1942 the United States established the Office of Strategic Services to replicate the SOE and British secret intelligence. Thus, the Gallic beret of the SOE superseded the symbolic Lawrentian kaffiyeh to perpetuate the romanticism of revolt among decisionmakers.

The myth of the resistance as a militarily effective phenomenon was also propagated by SOE and OSS propagandists, who exaggerated the effects of resistance sabotage on German defenses and morale. The truth was that resistance movements in Adolf Hitlers Europe remained small, factious, poorly armed, easily contained, and fixated on seizing power at wars end. When British economic historian Alan Milward questioned Albert Speer, reich-minister for armaments and war production, on the impact of the French Resistance on German war production, Speer famously replied, What French Resistance? Still, in the postwar era, the myth of la Resistance became Lawrences Arab Revolt on steroids. The belief that through resistance, occupied populations played a part in their own liberation legitimized partisan leaders and exile governments like Charles de Gaulles Free French.

The evolution of quasi-conventional, hybrid warfare experiments had underpinned the improvised British approach to fighting in the Western Desert in 19411942, under Generals (later Field Marshals) Archibald Wavell and Claude Auchinleck. Service on Allenbys staff in World War I had left Wavell with a fascination for special operations forces, which he encouraged in Ethiopia with Wingates Sudanese and Ethiopian Gideon Force. Before Bernard Montgomery arrived in the Western Desert in August 1942, commanders like Wavell maneuvered with ad hoc tactical concoctions like long-range patrols, Special Air Service formations, Jock columns, and other Lawrence-style Bedouin mobile units. This strategy instilled a tip and run mentality in the officer corps. Their raids, which were hyped into doctrine, delivered mere mosquito bites to the desperately overextended but nevertheless operationally competent Afrika Korps. Strongholds or boxesthe air supply feature had yet to be developedwere used with a singular lack of success. Yet when Bernard Montgomery imposed a centralized battle concept on the Eighth Army in August 1942, it was denounced as an unimaginative, stultifying reversion to Great War continental warfare. His critics were wrong: Allied infantry advancing behind profligate artillery fireinstead of light cavalry razzle-dazzlewas the only method that succeeded against Erwin Rommels Afrika Korps.

But like the resistance myth and the Arab Revolt, the legend of Wingates special operations forces acquired a life of its own. Wingate cashed in on Churchills invitation to attend the 1943 Quebec Conference initially for cosmetic purposes. His attendance reinforced the propaganda illusion of special operations success and helped mask the systemic shortcomings of British conventional forceswhich were on gaudy display in France in 1940, Greece and Crete in 1941, and Tobruk and Singapore in 1942. Wingate had become the T. E. Lawrence of the tropics, his diminutive frame, signature solar topee, full beard, and evangelical fervor broadcasting British determination and combat skill to a U.S. ally skeptical that His Majestys soldiers were willing or even able to put up a fight.

For his part, Wingate used the Quebec Conference as an opportunity to sell the Combined Chiefs of Staff on his plan for an offensive in northern Burma that would use special forces operating out of fortified air bases in the Japanese rear. Once implemented, Wingates 3rd Indian Infantry Division, better known as the Chindits (from a Burmese word meaning mythical creature), did divert Japanese troops in northern Burma up to a point, but as his biographer Simon Anglim argues, by February 1944, when the Allies launched Operation Thursday, the British-Indian army in Burma had become largely an air-supplied, light infantry force. Nor was there any indigenous resistance in Burma for the Chindit long-range patrol groups to support. Wingate was also fortunate that Japanese forces were divided, operationally spent, and too malaria-ridden at wars end to concentrate against his vulnerable boxes. Post-Thursday analysis concluded that long-range penetration formations were too light to achieve anything more than a diversionary effect, and that medium range penetration operations, in conjunction with main forces for limited periods, was preferable to creating boxes distant from the main bases that could not be reliably supported by air.

Yet special operations enthusiasts count Orde Wingates Chindits among the most effective irregular units of World War II. Supporters of Wingate, mainly those who served under him, claim that the Chindits disrupted Japanese offensives against India by diverting troops and attacking lines of supply. While Wingates superior, William Slim, British Fourteenth Army Commander, commended the spirit and courage of the Chindits, he found the investment in special operations wasteful in men, resources, and time. In Slims view, the Chindits assumed tasks that could be carried out just as well by better-equipped conventional units with a more balanced force structure. The Chindits lacked punch because they were basically light infantry unsupported by heavier elements such as artillery; they were deficient in logistics, which limited their operational stamina; they suffered heavy losses from tropical diseases; and their casualties were difficult to evacuate from remote jungle sites. They also proved difficult to support, competed with other special operations formations in the region, and depleted line units of the best men, which lower[ed] the quality of the rest of the Army, according to Slim. In short and with great insight, Slim concluded that British special operations had become a cult whose doctrinal proponents in mass persuasion evangelized their tactics as the path to strategic salvation, when in fact their modest achievements were bought at great cost to the rest of the army. Yet the myths of the military effectiveness of Wingate-inspired special ops and Lawrentian peoples war continued into the postwar decades, despite the minimal, even morally ambiguous, role they had played in the Axis defeat.

The French army returned to Indochina in 1945 only to discover Ho Chi Minh and his forces encamped in the north of the country. Against U.S. advice at the time, the French appeared determined to carry on in the colony as if the Vietnamese resistance, along with their earlier defeat to the Japanese and the subsequent Japanese occupation, had never occurred. Nor did the French government lay a political foundation to underpin a counterinsurgency campaign, in part because a series of weak and divided coalition governments in Paris essentially ceded control of colonial policy to the military and its imperialist supporters. As a consequence, the French army increasingly faced complex tactical, operational, strategic, and political challenges, especially following Maos 1949 victory in the Chinese Civil War and his subsequent decision to aid the Viet Minh.

The more the Viet Minh main-force units outmanned, outgunned, and outmaneuvered the French, forcing them back to the tenuous security of the Red River Delta, the more French military leaders clutched at the hope that indigenous resistance forces offered a way to redress the deteriorating military situation. That hope was encouraged by the myth that the World War II French Resistance had created a climate of insecurity in German-occupied France that diverted German troops and allowed the Allied landings in Normandy. The supposed transferability of this resistance strategy to Indochina lay in the calculation that French-organized resistance behind Viet Minh lines could divert the enemy from their siege of the strategically vital Red River Delta, site of Hanoi and Tonkins port city of Haiphong. That the montagnards of the Tonkin highlands could form that resistance was further reinforced by the romanticized Lawrentian myth of the white special operator assisting bands of simple natives to a victory they could not otherwise achieve on their own. French general Raoul Salan, Navarres predecessor in command, wrote that the montagnards deserve our nurturance and protection. They love us, place their confidence in us. We do not have the right to abandon them.

The French faith in the military efficacy of the Resistance, projected onto the montagnards and combined with Wingates fortified air bases strategy, created a seductive but ultimately toxic operational melange. The Resistance myth also boomeranged on Paris when the Viet Minh cast themselves as patriotic maquisardsguerrillas of the French Resistancepitted against a French army assuming a role akin to Nazi oppressors. The French proved willing to mortgage their entire future in Vietnam to a faith in the strategic potential of special operations combined with 19th-century racist sentimentality.

In 1951 French army major Roger Trinquier inspired the creation of the Groupement de Commandos Mixtes Aeroportes, whose goal was to establish an antiViet Minh maquis. Trinquier flew into the Tonkin highlands and convinced village headmen there to volunteer recruits, who were then flown to the special forces camp at Cap Saint-Jacques, about 80 miles from Saigon, for training in counterinsurgency tactics. Once trained, they were equipped with arms, radios, cash, and a special operations cadre of French officers and NCOs and reinserted into the mountains. Each French commando was to lead about a hundred montagnards, who would attack Viet Minh forces from behind, collect intelligence, and interdict their supply routes, forcing Commander Giap to divert significant numbers of troops from the Red River Delta.

The experiment proved DoA. Although initially taken by surprise, the Viet Minh quickly regrouped and moved against the dispersed pockets of French-led montagnards in the latter half of 1952, putting them to flight. Hoping to rescue them, Salan chose Na San in central Tonkin in october 1952 as the site of what he called a base aeroterrestre. Hastily constructed, it consisted of barbed wire and trenches surrounding an airstrip defended by interlocking fields of artillery fire backed by air support. In November and December 1952, 15,000 French troops and their artillery were successfully airlifted into this fabricated hedgehog. While they were able to repel ferocious human wave attacks launched by Giaps Viet Minh, Na San came too late to rescue most of Trinquiers maquis and their French cadres, who perished outside the protective wire of the base.

The Na San hedgehog had been a tactical success in resisting Giaps attacks. But as a mooring point for a French-led maquis it had proved a strategic bust. Shorn of strategic value, Na San was abandoned by the French in 1953. yet in early 1954 the French were claiming they were on their way to creating an immense guerrilla zone in northern Tonkin that would become a second front. Henri Navarre boasted that the maquis was his artillery and laid plans to train 40,000 montagnards. The obsession with special operations and its attendant myths had come to dominate strategy. The French risked the base aeroterrestre gambit again the following year at Dien Bien Phu.

By then, the Viet Minh had been invigorated by the end of the Korean War, which gave them arms, energy, and focus. Giap, however, was not distracted by French maquis fantasies. In the early fall of 1953 he began to mass his divisions around the Red River Delta, which he saw as the center of gravity for control of the Tonkin. His Chinese advisers had other ideas; they viewed the montagnard maquis as bait to draw the French out of their Red River Delta base. The French, they surmised, would want to protect a maquis base at Lai Chau in northwest Tonkin, a major opium-producing area whose profits financed French special operations.

When, in early November 1953, French military intelligence detected the imminence of a rebel action against our maquis near Lai Chau, Navarre bit, launching an airborne operation to convert the broadest valley in the Tonkin highlands into the Dien Bien Phu base aeroterrestre, where the maquis could be shifted. But Dien Bien Phu would be no Na Santhe Chinese made certain that Giap had the resources to inflict serious harm on the isolated French garrison. No Allenby or Montgomery arrived to rescue Dien Bien Phu, and the defeat there resonated at the ongoing Geneva Conference and in Paris.

Special operations romantic fantasies proved to be the French Achilles heel. A strategy driven by the World War II myth of the maquis, a sentimental attachment to the montagnards in the fashion of Lawrentian romanticism, a faith in the defensive capacities of Wingatian boxes, an overreliance on special operations, and the need to retain control of opium-trade profits set the stage for a disaster from which French fortunes in Indochina never recovered.

Douglas Porch chairs the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. His latest book, Counterinsurgency: The Origins, Development, and Myths of the New Way of War (2013), is on the Army Chief of Staffs reading list for all officers.

Originally published in the October 2014 issue of Military History Quarterly. To subscribe, click here.
A Canadian may have invented the Civil Wars best fieldpiece

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]ll sorts of new weapons were developed during the Civil War. Breechloading rifles, repeating rifles, and metal-cased ammunition all made their mark on battlefields. But such innovations were not limited to small arms. One inventor in particular, Norman Wiard, developed a number of cannons and boat howitzers that incorporated new ideas. Two fieldpieces that he developed, a 6-pounder rifle and a 12-pounder smoothbore, were particularly ingenious and innovative.

For example, Wiard applied the concept of interchangeable parts to the wheels of his gun carriages. Typical wheels were made as one unit, so if a wheel was damaged in battle or transit, it had to be replaced in its entirety. But Wiards wheels were made in a series of sections, with a set of spokes attached to a felloe, the arched pieces that made up the wheels circumference, which were held together by bolts and wedges. During a demonstration, Wiard handed an ax to an artillery officer and told him to destroy the wheels of his gun as fast as he could. The officer vigorously hacked away, but Wiard calmly unbolted the damaged portion of the wheel and replaced it with a spoke and felloe combination. Interchangeable parts for small arms were common during the Civil War, but no one had ever seen interchangeable wooden wheel parts.

Wiard, a foundry foreman originally from Ontario, Canada, came from a family of blacksmiths and metalworkers, and had been an inventor his whole life. Before the war, he obtained a patent for a steam-powered boat that could transport passengers and cargo over ice and snowdrifts. He also patented a steamship boiler that he sold to the U.S. and Japanese governments for $72,000 and $80,000, respectively. The boiler was placed on all 32 U.S. warships.

During the Civil War, Wiard served as the Union Armys superintendent of ordnance stores, which placed him in intimate contact with the long arm of the battlefield. Frustrated that Federal forces were using no less than nine different calibers of rifle and smooth-bore guns he developed two unique cannons he believed would be viable alternatives to the Norths fieldpiece needsa 2.6-inch 6-pounder rifle and a 4.62-inch smoothbore 12-pounder howitzer.

The barrels were made out of what he called semi-steel, a mixture of low-carbon cast iron and scrap steel instead of just iron. That meant the tubes could withstand the enormous pressure of 110,000 pounds per square inchfar in excess of any comparable field gun of the day. The 6-pounder rifle, for example could fire a shell 800 yards with only one ounce of powder, and up to 1,200 yards with two ounces. With a 12-ounce charge of powder, the rifle could fire a shell for four miles, and the shell would remain airborne for 34 seconds.

Wiard considered the physics of a cannons recoil. Objecting that carriage design had not changed much since the French system of Gribeauval of 1765  and that many axles are bent, broken, or twisted out and away from their fastenings because of the guns tendency to recoil jarringly, Wiard designed his cannon carriage with a large flat steel plate on the bottom of the trail, with a perpendicular keel that would cut into the earth. The plate allowed the gun to slide freely when it recoiled, and the keel helped the gun recoil straight back. Wiards guns kicked back only an average of 20 inchesabout half the recoil of a standard gun. The short distance, and the straight recoil, helped gunners return the cannon more quickly to its firing position and aim it for another shot.

The carriages also had unusually high, wide-spaced curved cheekpieces that rested directly on the axles and permitted Wiards cannon barrels to elevate to 35 degrees, much higher than the 5 and 10 degrees of elevation that most cannons could reach, allowing the howitzers to function like mortars. Another advantage was that both the 6-pounder and 12-pounder tubes fit on the same carriage.

Wiard realized that by the second year of the war more than 600 types of ammunition were being used for Union artillery pieces. Wanting to standardize and economize such projectiles, he designed his own. His 6-pounder shell, for example, contained only 10 ounces of fine gunpowderrather than the commonly used coarse powderand produced a higher shrapnel count of 4060 pieces. A further benefit was that Wiards 6-pounder shell could be produced at less of a cost than any other rifled projectile, and 80 of those rounds could be carried on a single limber chest as opposed to only 40 for standard guns.

Firing canister from rifled guns had always been problematic, as centrifugal force caused the round to revolve with such velocity that the shot would spread in every direction after leaving the muzzle. But Wiards canister round consisted of two end-castings sandwiched around nine intermediate castings, with the shot completely encased within. A wire running internally through the length of the canister held the castings together, tightened at each end by bolts. The canister case was designed with rounded edges so that only a minute area touched the rifling when the gun was fired. Consequently, the charge would not expand into the rifling, distorting the shots pattern.

Despite the proven advantages of Wiards cannons and carriages, both Brig. Gen. James W. Ripley, chief of ordnance for the Union Army, and Brig. Gen. William F. Barry, chief of artillery for the Army of the Potomac, preferred the more traditional Parrott rifles and 3-inch ordnance rifles, meaning only 11 Union batteries would be equipped with Wiard cannons. All saw heavy action, however. On October 1, 1862, Brig. Gen. Franz Sigel wrote to Wiard that the mobility, accuracy, and rangetogether with their remarkable facility for adjustment and repair on the field, were the subject of general remark among officers and men. In my judgement, the Wiard guns and equipment are superior to any field artillery I have ever seen in service.

Captain A.C. Johnson of the 12th Ohio used his Wiard guns at the 1862 battles of McDowell, Cross Keys, White Sulphur Springs, and Second Bull Run. At Cross Keys he reported firing at least 600 rounds from his Wiards. One had the wood cover of the iron axle, but the gun continued to fire another 200 rounds with no additional damage to the axle or the carriage. Johnson considered the accuracy of the guns unequaled, and also appreciated their shorter recoil.

Although his guns were not widely accepted during the war, Wiard stayed in arms production after the conflict, and had a successful career. He died in 1896 at age 71. A number of Wiard guns survive and can be seen displayed on the battlefields at Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Fredericksburg, Pea Ridge, Petersburg, and at West Point.

Ronald D. Evans writes from Hillsborough, N.J. He retired after 38 years on Wall Street, and enjoys competitive black powder shooting and historical research.
Bosch to Develop Internet of Things Solutions, Set Up New Plants in China This Year

Bosch Chairman Volkmar Denner (Photo : Getty Images)

Bosch GmbH, the German mobility, industry and software conglomerate, is planning to develop solutions for Internet of Things (IoT) as well as set up new Bosch plants in China this year, Bosch chairman Volkmar Denner announced on Monday, March 20.



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China Daily said the German company will open a new joint venture for gasoline engine management systems in Chongqing and a thermo-technology joint venture with Guangdong Vanward New Electric Co Ltd, a Foshan-based gas appliance exporter. It also plans to build an automotive electronics plant in Changzhou, in Jiangsu Province, and a power tools plant in Chengdu.



In an interview with China Daily, Denner said that their long-term plan was to develop connected mobility, smart city and smart home products.



"China's growing demand for high value-added products and services, especially for its automobiles, home-related service businesses and manufacturing projects, offers many opportunities," Denner was quoted as saying.



It was not the first time that Bosch had invested in the country. Last year, it poured around 5.4 billion yuan ($782 million) into the country and help established a research and development facility in Suzhou and Nanjing.



Bosch's connectivity business involves sensors, software and services, and it has set up a local team for its connectivity businesses in the country, which includes the subsidiaries of Bosch Software Innovations, Bosch Sensortec and Bosch Connected Devices and Solutions.



"Bosch is convinced about the long-term potential of the Chinese market and we will continue to invest in China," Denner added.



Last year, Bosch sales in China increased by 3.5 percent to 73.1 billion euros ($78.77 billion), indicating that China remained its second-largest market worldwide.



"We see China entering a phase of more balanced and sustainable development, through the transformation of economic development patterns and economic structural reforms," Denner said.



About 60,000 people work for Bosch in China and the company runs pilot projects in nine of its manufacturing plants in the country, as part of Germany's Industry 4.0 strategy. The strategy promotes the digitalization in manufacturing, which is hailed as an innovative way for manufacturing companies.



The first Industry 4.0 pilot project started in Suzhou three years ago, the report said.



Meanwhile, Bosch will start exporting products made at its China facilities to European countries starting this year. This will be done using the China-Europe railway, a new move that will take advantage of the Belt and Road Initiative.



Bosch said that mobile machines produced by Chinese equipment manufacturers use the company's drive and control solutions, which provide them with excellent performance.



To develop their business in the ASEAN region, the company said it will provide mobility solutions to Chinese OEM customers such as SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co in Indonesia and SAIC Motor Corp Ltd in Thailand.


Stalin had been purging his enemiesreal and chimericalfor years, including military officers. Then the 1941 German invasion exposed the Red Armys real problems.

In late June, 1941, without a declaration of war, the Axis armies of Germany, Hungary, and Romania invaded the Soviet Union along a broad front stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Much of the Red air force was destroyed on the ground in the first week of the war, leaving the army at the mercy of the German Luftwaffe. The Red Army leadership reacted clumsily and ineffectively to the German blitzkrieg style of war, and by the end of September, the Axis had conquered large swaths of territory in the Baltic States, Belarus, and Ukraine, and had killed, captured, and wounded millions of Soviet soldiers and civilians. Soviet general secretary Joseph Stalin reacted to the German advance by blaming his generals and had several of them executed on baseless charges of cowardice, as examples to the rest.

In October the Germans launched their drive on Moscow and made it to within 12 miles of the Kremlin. Weather, sheer exhaustion, massive casualties (750,000), and lack of supplies were among the factors that halted their advance, but mostly it was the Red Armys refusal to quit fighting. After the war, while Stalin lived, discussions of who was responsible for the disaster of 1941 were forbidden. But once he was gone, the army was quick to blame him, citing the ongoing purge of 19371939.

In the popular imagination, and even in the world of scholars, Joseph Stalins terror purge in those years is associated with midnight arrests, lengthy torture sessions resulting in false confessions, and firing squads. Certainly, the terror purgeoften referred to as the Ezhovshchina after Nikolai Ezhov, the chief of the police (the NKVD) at the timewas a terrible tragedy for Soviet society at large and the officer corps of the Red Army in particular.

Yet its ultimate effect on the Soviet military was initially greatly overstated by Red Army apologists, in part to deflect blame for the 1941 disaster from the army onto Stalin. Even as the purge was taking shape, the armed forces were exaggerating and misrepresenting their losses, perhaps in order to persuade Stalin to end the Ezhovshchina. Until recently, historians had estimated that the purge claimed as many as 50,000 out of an estimated 100,000 officers. Now, thanks to greater access to Russian archives, we know that far less than 50 percent were lost, and even as officers were purged, new officers were addedalmost 14,000 in 1937 and 57,000 in 1938. At its worst, then, no more than 12.5 percent of the officer corps was repressed. We can legitimately question whether the purge had as dramatic an impact on the leadership and the armys unpreparedness for war as long assumed.

Without a doubt, Stalin wanted to eliminate specific top officers and commissars whom he unjustifiably suspected of outright disloyalty to him, failing to support his policies, or being unreliable in a crisis. Among those purged were some of his best officers, notably Robert Eideman, Iona Iakir, Innokentii Khalepskii, August Kork, Aleksandr Sediakin, Aleksandr Svechin, Mikhail Tukhachevskii, and Ieronim Uborevich, while Stalins incompetent croniesMarshals Semen Budenny, Grigori Kulik, and Kliment Voroshilov survived.

As commissar of defense, Voroshilov submitted to Stalin a list of some 300 officers to be repressed. Voroshilov wanted to put an end to the struggle over modernizing the Red Army that his cohorts were waging against Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevskiis group of rising professional officers, who wanted to emphasize armor and aviation at the expense of cavalry. Also, Stalin and Voroshilov held personal grudges against certain officers. Yet none of that explains the scale of the repression that extended not just to the military but to all sectors of Soviet society and government. Nor do any of the many theories suggested for the terror adequately explain all of its variations. The best we can do is accept that Stalin promoted the Ezhovshchina purge because he was afraid of losing his own political power. We may never know how he decided who was a threat to him or why he allowed his murderous measures to extend to people who could not possibly have been a threat.

The progression of the Ezhovshchina within the military shows that the army itself was at least partly culpable: Stalin initiated the purge by ordering some of the truly professional officers of the Tukhachevskii group to be arrested on false charges, emanating from the security services, that they were traitors in the pay of Nazi Germany. Voroshilov subsequently called on all servicemen to vigilantly report suspicious activity and denounce enemies of the people hidden in their ranks. Officers and men enthusiastically heeded these instructions, especially those in Communist Party organizations. As a result, a wave of denunciations spread throughout the armed forces. From June through December 1937, 2,238 officers were arrested and 15,426 discharged. By the time the Ezhovshchina was over, twothirds of the more than 9,500 arrests had been orchestrated by special sections of Ezhovs NKVD assigned to the army; the Peoples Commissariat of Defense (NKO), playing Stalins game, had ordered the arrest of the remaining third.

Military district staffs in particular played an important role in the scale of the Ezhovshchina, because the NKO gave them wide latitude. In October 1937 the NKO authorized military districts to expel Communists under suspicion from the party without consulting the central authorities in Moscow and to relieve expelled officers of their military duties on the spot. What constituted grounds for discharge or arrest was not always clear. A man could be denounced for any type of military inefficiency or political unreliability, from criticizing some aspect of party policy to holding favorable views of the policies of Stalins former rivals to having even the slightest connection with a foreign country. Six months earlier, in March 1937, the Politburo had ordered that all senior officers expelled from the party were to be discharged from active duty. Many men found themselves in trouble simply for not being Russian: In 1938 orders went out to the military districts to discharge all officers with German, Polish, Latvian, Estonian, Korean, Finnish, Lithuanian, Romanian, Turkish, Hungarian, or Bulgarian backgrounds. Accordingly, NKO leadership initiated the discharge of 4,030 army and political officers and the military districts discharged another 7,148 men.

By September 1938, however, Voroshilov was attempting to end the Ezhovshchina by publishing an order that forbade military districts to submit any more lists of personnel to the NKVD for ethnic background checks. Yet the submissions continued. It took a joint NKO/NKVD order in August 1939 to finally put the brakes on the practice.

Conventional wisdom has it that the armyand the Soviet people in generalfelt terrorized by the Ezhovshchina. Some people did live in terror, and the suicides of prominent officers attest to that, but there is evidence that some, and perhaps many, Soviets believed the Ezhovshchina was just and necessary. The state bombarded the population with the idea that traitors and spies were threatening the security of the Soviet Union and had to be eliminated. Consequently, people denounced one another in good conscience, thinking they were doing patriotic deeds. Boris Starinov, a captain in 1938, remembered thinking that Tukhachevskii and his gang of wreckers were guilty. One budding pilot, Valentina Ivanova, said of the times and Stalin: He rid us of traitors. To this day, there are Russians who still believe that Stalin made the Soviet Union safer through his purge.

Many people, civilian and military, believed that the Ezhovshchina was conducted legally and fairly, because, in the months and years that followed, thousands were released from custody and tens of thousands reinstated. By mid-1940 nearly one-third of all officers who had been expelled from the party and discharged from the army had successfully appealed both their expulsions and discharges and had been reinstated in the party and in their jobs. Party members first appealed through the established party mechanism, which gave all members a right to appeal an adverse ruling regarding membership. If that appeal was successful, they then appealed to the NKO personnel office for reinstatement, using their rehabilitation to the party as proof of their innocence. Nonparty officers made their cases directly to the NKO. At the end of 1941, more than one-third of the arrested had been released, some based on individual appeals to the Commissariat of Justice, others on orders from the NKVD based on requests from the NKO. Most officers were then given back their rank and assigned to duty. Time and again one reads in officers memoirs of mistakes made in the arrests of friends and family that were recognized and rectified after an effective appeal. Such was the case of Sigismund Torgovskii, a lieutenant arrested in May 1938 for having been born in formerly Russian Poland and accused of being a Polish spy. He wrote a letter of appeal denouncing Ezhov and his minions for the mistake. (By this time Ezhov himself had been arrested and replaced as head of the NKVD by Lavrenti Beria.) In less than a year, the lieutenant was reinstated in the army by administrative orders from Beria.

The terror purge of 19371939 can be seen as an extension of earlier Trotskyite purges taken to extremes. Stalins war with Leon Trotsky lasted from the 1920s until Trotsky was murdered in Mexico in 1940. In those years, anyone suspected of having been a Trotsky supporter on any issue was doomed, whether he worked on a collective farm or on the armys General Staff. In the mid-1920s, 26,000 Trotskyite officers were purged dismissedfrom the service during high-level party battles. That marked the beginning of politically based repression of army officers, but it was only the beginning. In March 1937 Voroshilov proudly announced to a meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee that from the onset of the fight against Trotsky in the mid-1920s to that point, the NKO had discharged 47,000 officers. The commissar of defense noted that 5,000 of those men, clearly oppositionists, had been arrested. In a secret meeting with members of the Military Soviet of the Commissariat of Defense on June 2, 1937, Stalin explained the need to arrest Marshal Tukhachevskii and his group in the context of the ongoing struggle against Trotsky and Fascist spies. Gullible members of the Military Soviet, including career officers such as Marshals Georgii Egorov and Kirill Meretskov, believed the charges and gave their approval for the arrest of senior officers. Marshal Egorov, in his capacity as a Communist Party Central Committee member, continued to authorize the arrest of high-ranking party members in the months preceding his own arrest.

At least some level of army purge continued from the mid- 1920 Trotskyite purges right up to Stalins death in 1953, with thousands of officers dismissed from service every year on suspicion of being politically unreliable. In 1930, for example, the NKVD launched Operation Vesna, a major effort to eliminate officers who had begun their careers in the tsarist army and were then suspected of being anti-Soviet. Roughly 3,000 officers were discharged and many of them arrested on bogus charges of conspiring with the Orthodox Church to overthrow the Soviet regime. Strictly on political grounds, the NKO discharged 6,198 officers from the army in 1935 and another 5,677 in 1936.

Considering that the number of officers repressed has proven to be far lower than previously believed, we have to look to the quality of the officers lost to help explain the disasters during the German offensive of 19411942. In absolute numbers lieutenants and captains suffered the most; however, on a percentage basis, the purge hit hardest senior officers with the rank of colonel and higher. For example, between January 1937 through to the end of 1938, 52 corps commanders, 123 division commanders, 264 brigade commanders, and 897 colonels were discharged. In all, the army discharged 1,336 colonels and generals and 1,385 of their commissar equivalents. The NKVD subsequently arrested 800 of these officers and 465 commissars.

After Stalins death, Soviet historians declared that those purged were the Red Armys best and brightest as a way to blame Stalin for the armys failure to stop Adolf Hitlers blitzkrieg. The insinuation is that the more militarily proficient an officer was, the more likely he was to be repressed. But this thinking must be viewed skeptically: After all, why focus a purge on your best officers? Further, the competent performance during the war of such generals as Vasilii Chuikov, Ivan Konev, Boris Shaposhnikov, Aleksandr Vasilevskii, and Georgy Zhukov, to name but a few who were not purgedand of the many lieutenant colonels and colonels who rose to successfully command divisions and armieschallenges the idea that only incompetents survived. All of this suggests that the Ezhovshchina was just one of several factors that contributed to the debacle in 19411942.

The Red Army had never been in good shape; it continuously struggled with indiscipline, rampant alcoholism, equipment and weapon shortages, and inattentiveness to training. Social strife between workers and peasants in the ranks was also a problem: The peasantry had suffered when agriculture had been collectivized in the 1930s and a famine early in that decade only worsened matters, as did the partys idealization of workers.

In general, it is fair to say that the quality of senior officers colonels and abovewas very uneven in the prewar years. Most senior officers had little to no formal military education and had risen to high command at young ages during the Russian civil war. Their credentials were based on their performance in an extremely low-tech war and on their party loyalty rather than on professional training and demonstrated competence. The purge of Trotskyites in 1926 only made matters worse, leaving the army with serious officer shortages, lack of effective officer training, and a pattern of intrusive politicization. The subsequent Ezhovshchina was not the reason for the preponderance of poorly trained officers in the Red Army but it did exacerbate the problem.

Another contributing factor was the exponential growth of the armed forces in anticipation of eventual wars with Germany and Japan. The Red Army more than tripled in size in only four years, from 1.3 million in 1937 to 4.5 million in 1941. The plan to counter the growing threat called for the army to field a fully mobilized armed force of 8.6 million men by spring 1942, dividing them between the Soviet Far East and Eastern Europe. To achieve these numbers, the scale of the expansion in 1939 alone was breathtaking: 4 new army groups, 2 fortified regions, 8 armies, and 19 corpsall requiring administrative structures and support staffs. Along with this were 111 new infantry divisions comprising 333 infantry regiments, 222 artillery regiments, and 555 separate artillery battalions; 16 tank brigades; 12 reserve infantry brigades; 85 reserve regiments; 137 artillery battalions independent of corps and divisions; 42 military schools; 52 reserve officer refresher courses; and 345 evacuation hospitals. New units were still being formed in the spring of 1941 when the Germans invaded. The Red air forces establishment was similarly expanded to enable it to support ground forces with air cover and tactical air support.

The manning requirements created by the formation of these new units, combined with the need to replace the losses from the purge, further degraded the leadership capacity of the officer corps: Officers spent very little time in their positions before being promoted to higher responsibilities, often in new units. In their new positions, they were responsible not only for leading and overseeing the training of hundreds or thousands of soldiers but also for training subordinate officers, despite their own minimal training and experience. Lateral transfers between units only increased with the pace of expansion and undermined cohesion within the leadership.

Although the defense industry began to produce materiel at a frantic pace, it could not keep up with the armys rapid mobilization of manpower. Soldiers would arrive at newly established regiments with barracks still under construction. They often had to sit idle, waiting for artillery pieces or the rifles and ammunition necessary for their training. Some units had to wait weeks to be issued such simple things as boots so they could go into the field.

Stalin and his generals knew that expanding the armed forces would be difficult, not just because of the ambitious material goals they had set but also because there was already a deficit of leadership cadres. Even before the start of the Ezhovshchina in May 1937, the army was short some 10,000 officers. By the following January, at the height of the Ezhovshchina, that number was 39,100. As 1938 progressed, newly created infantry divisions required 33,000 additional officers, but even with the bulk of discharges and arrests over and reinstatements beginning, the army was still short 73,000 officers at the end of the year. The Red Army projected that 198,000 officers would need to be added in 1939 to meet that years expansion plans, and it subsequently set a goal of procuring 203,000 men to fill newly created and vacant officer posts.

From 1938 to 1939 the army had commissioned only 158,147 officers. These new officers, who would lead platoons and companies into battle in 1939 in Poland, Finland, and Mongolia, were woefully underprepared. The majority77,971 of them were junior lieutenants who had trained for six months or less, while some 62,800 went through shortened courses of one or at most two years at military schools; the remaining 17,376 officers were reservists called up for temporary service and given only abbreviated refresher training. In contrast, young officers who had been recruited after the civil war and before the rapid expansion of the army (1922 through 1937) had typically spent four years in a military school preparing for their commission.

General Efim A. Shchadenko, head of the personnel office for the Commissariat of Defense, estimated that the officer corps would need to grow by 50 percent between January 1, 1939, and March 1940that is, from 240,000 to approximately 357,000. Despite their best efforts, the army and the Communist Party failed to recruit enough officers, and with 9,093 officer casualties in combat in 19391940 (in the invasion of Poland, the Battle of Khalkin-Gol with Japan, and the Winter War with Finland), the army was, in March 1940, undermanned by 125,000 officers. Shchadenko then reported that in order to have the officer corps fully manned by 1942, at the completion of the projected expansion, a total of 438,000 additional officers would be needed. A mind-boggling 980,000 sergeants would also be required over the same two years to lead the soldiers at the squad level; privates, however, abounded. By May 1940 the army numbered almost 4 million soldiers, an increase of 2.2 million over 1937.

One week before the Nazi invasion, on June 15, 1941, the Red Army had 439,143 officers, half of whom had been in the military for two years or less. This number was 15 percent (67,000 men) fewer than it needed. The hundreds of thousands of officers added to the rolls since 1937 were simply not prepared to lead their semitrained and underequipped men, and many companies and even battalions were commanded by recently minted lieutenants as young as 19. The catastrophe to come, then, had roots that went far deeper than the Ezhovshchina. The purge and the expansion together crippled the leadership capacity of the Red Army officer corps at the most critical time in Soviet history.

In sum, the disaster of 1941 was the result of a combination of factors: a shortage of officers due to the purge as well as the rapid expansion of the armed forces; hasty and abbreviated training of junior officers after 1937; the brief time in command positions before promotion or transfer or both; and lack of talent among many of the senior officers. Harder to quantify is the effect of the politicization of the officer corps and Stalins interference in personnel policy regarding the promotion, assignment, arrest, and release of top generals. The effect of the purge was not only to remove many competent officers but to create an air of distrust among the officers and their men, who, influenced by state-controlled media propaganda, became predisposed to believe that their commander could be a traitor or a spy. Overall, Stalins interference in military affairs was unhelpful and destabilizing, but it was the rapidity of the war itself that dealt the greatest blow to the Red Army.

Roger Reese is a professor of history at Texas A&M University and a leading expert on the Soviet military under Stalin. The most recent of his four books on the subject is Why Stalins Soldiers Fought (2011).

Originally published in the October 2014 issue of Military History Quarterly. To subscribe, click here.
His soldiering was ruthless, brilliant, and backed by faith.

At the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642 an unheralded military genius was waiting in the wings. Oliver Cromwell, already past 40 years old when he first took up arms, approached the conflict with few preconceptions, instead bringing an uncluttered pragmatism and a religious zealotry to his battle strategy. These traitsalong with strong powers of observation, a unique hold on mens hearts, and an approach to recruiting, training, and organization that placed a premium on battlefield successcombined to make him perhaps the foremost general of the age, and to many the most hated.

Cromwell was born in 1599 to a family of lesser gentry at Huntingdon, in southeastern England. When he was 18, his father died, leaving him to care for his mother and seven sisters. For the next 20 years, those obligations and his own growing family pushed him to the edge of poverty. During that same period, he became a member of Parliament and an ardent follower of Puritanism, among the growing religious sects that had emerged after Henry VIIIs break with the Catholic Church a hundred years before. That break had spawned a century of religious wars across Europe, shredding English society and the international polity of the era.

In 1625 Charles I assumed the throne and within a few years was tangling with Parliament over taxation and religious policies. By 1640 his troubles had escalated into open conflict, and in January 1642 he stormed Parliament with 400 soldiers, set on arresting for treason five of its most troublesome members, including Cromwell. Forewarned, the MPs escaped, and Charles, fearing retaliation, fled north with a few supporters. The stage was set for civil war, as both sides began gathering their forces.

It was onto this stage that Oliver Cromwell stepped. He returned to his home territory and by the following autumn had raised a cavalry troop to fight on the side of the Parliamentarians. He apparently arrived late to the first major battle, at Edge Hill on October 23, 1642. It was a long and bloody affair, with the amateur armies pushing and shoving at each other. Charles commanded the Royalists, while the passive and militarily incompetent Earl of Essex commanded the Parliamentarian army. Only when Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the kings nephew and the outstanding Royalist commander of the war, unleashed his massed cavalry did the tide turn in favor of the king. But Charles was denied a decisive victory because his undisciplined horsemen rode off in pursuit of the broken enemy cavalry rather than reforming and smashing into the rear of the wavering Parliamentarian infantry.

Though Cromwell had played little part in the fighting, he absorbed two crucial lessons from the confusion: That cavalry, with its speed and shock effect, was now the dominant battlefield arm; and that massed cavalry by itself was insufficient. Victory demanded a highly disciplined force, capable of striking hard, reforming, and striking again.

Returning home, Cromwell began recruiting a full regiment of cavalry that was soon incorporated into one of the Parliamentarian armies known as the Eastern Association. Given tremendous autonomy in the raising and training of his regiment, Cromwell looked for men of strong religious beliefs, who were well respected within their communities regardless of whether they were born to privilege. He selected officers on perceived merit and advanced these men only after they had demonstrated courage in battle and a high capacity to lead men. Parliamentarians like Cromwells commander, the Earl of Manchester, looked askance at these officers who were not gentlemen. But Cromwell was undaunted: I had rather have a plain russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for and loves what he knows than that which you call a gentlemana few honest men are better than numbers.If you choose godly honest men to be captains of horse, honest men will follow them.

Although his Puritanism and his loyalty to Parliaments political program were paramount, Cromwell also believed in hard training. He drilled his cavalry on attack techniques both en masse and by squadronalways knee to knee so as to maintain the units integrity and multiply its shock value in combat. Part of this training focused on preparing broken squadrons to reform and strike again. Even more crucial, victorious regiments were taught to resist the urge for headlong pursuit of a fleeing foe in favor of regrouping for further efforts on a still contested battlefield.

Within a remarkably short time Cromwells regiment, eventually called Ironsides after Cromwells own sobriquet, became the elite formation in the Parliamentarians fighting force and later provided a replicable prototype for other units in their New Model Army.

Cromwells chance to prove his regiments worth was not long in coming. A series of tactical successes in the spring and fall of 1643 gained him notoriety but did little to alleviate Parliaments mismanagement of the wider strategic effort. The crucial port of Bristol was lost to the Royalists, as was most of Yorkshire. The military incapacity of Parliamentarian commanders, coupled with the tactical brilliance of Prince Rupert, initially gave the king the upper hand. But in September 1643 the Parliamentarian commander, the Earl of Essex, forced Charles to raise the siege of Gloucester, then during the kings return to London inflicted a sharp reverse on his army at the First Battle of Newbury. It was the one bright spot on Essexs mediocre military record. The following month Manchesters Eastern Association advanced north to relieve the besieged forces of Sir ThomasBlack TomFairfax at Hull. As the relieving army approached, Fairfax slipped out of Hull with a large force of cavalry and joined Cromwell. Their combined troops mauled a Royalist cavalry force at Winceby and heralded the wars most fruitful military partnership. The rise in Parliamentarian fortunes induced the Scots to reenter the war, and in early 1644 Cromwell and Fairfax joined with a Scottish invasion force besieging Yorkthe key to northern England.

Ruperts swift march north and over the Pennines thwarted Parliamentarian hopes. He outmaneuvered the besieging army, relieved York, and joined his force with the kings northern Royalist army. For the moment Charless hold on the north was secure, and though the south was still in jeopardy, Rupert turned his attention to the Parliamentarian forces that had retreated from York to Marston Moor, five miles away.

On July 2 his 18,000 men found themselves staring across a field at 28,000 Parliamentarians. Yet neither side attempted to close for a decisive fight. At about six that evening Rupert concluded no fighting would occur until morning. When he retired from the field for dinner, his Royalist troops relaxed, and their tight formations loosened. Sensing an opening, the Scottish commander, the Earl of Leven, ordered a charge. For a little while, the Parliamentarians prevailed, but a devastating countercharge by a hastily returned Rupert at the head of his veteran cavalry checked their advance. Even Cromwells magnificent cavalry was, for a time, hard pressed. As one participant later related: Cromwells own division had a hard pull of it, for they were charged by Ruperts bravest men both in flank and front. They stood at swords point a pretty while, hacking on another; but at last (it so pleased God) he [Cromwell] broke through them, scattering them before him like dust.

In the center and on the other flank, however, the Parliamentarians were getting the worst of it and all looked lost. Then Cromwells recruiting and training program proved its worth. Rather than engaging in a pell-mell pursuit of Ruperts fleeing horsemen, the Ironsides dispatched a small force to see that Rupert did not return, then reformed, wheeled to the right, and charged into the rear of the Royalist cavalry fighting on the other flank. Next it turned on the infantry regiments in the center. Here the fighting was long and vicious, because the white-clad Royalist elite known as the Lambs chose annihilation over surrender. The results of the battle are best summed up by Cromwell himself: We drove the entire cavalry of the Prince off the field. God made them as stubble to our swords. Then we took their regiments of foot with our cavalry and overthrew all that we encountered.

Ruperts army was destroyed, the north was secure, and Essex had the king trapped in the south. Then, inexplicably, Essex and Manchester gave Charles a reprieve. Instead of finishing him off in central England, Essex marched his army to distant Cornwall, where it met with a series of bloody reverses. For his part, Manchester, believing that his army was exhausted after Marston Moor and the siege of York, took his Eastern Association forces back south again. There he sat for a long while, refusing to budge. After much prodding from Parliament, both commanders eventually marched to join forces with the Southern Association, under Sir William Waller. On October 27, 1644, the combined force of nearly 20,000 men met Charles, who had less than half that number, at the Second Battle of Newbury. Again, the Parliamentarians had a chance to destroy the kings army but threw it away by failing to press their advantage and then neglecting to block Charless only path of retreat.

Cromwell was flabbergasted when he heard Manchester explain his failure to exterminate the kings army at Newbury: If we fight 100 times and beat him 99 he will be King still, but if he beats us but once, or the last time, we shall be hanged, we shall lose our estates, and our posterities be undone.

My Lord, Cromwell replied, if this be so, why did we take up arms at first. This is against fighting ever hereafter. If so, let us make peace be it never so base.

Fed up with the poor performance of its senior commandersand with Cromwell leveling verbal attacks on his military superior, Manchesterthe House of Commons pushed through the Self-denying Ordinance in 1645. It prohibited a sitting member in either house of Parliament to hold an army commission. As there was no mechanism for opting out of the peerage and thus the House of Lords, both Essex and Manchester were forced to resign their commissions. A member of the House of Commons, such as Cromwell, had the option of giving up either his seat or his military positionthough a choice was unnecessary in Cromwells case, since the Commons, knowing his value, voted him an exception.

Parliament also recognized the inherent deficiencies in the way its scattered forces were organized. Too many of them, such as the Eastern Association and the defenders of London, were only interested in fighting within their own areas. Many others had not made the leap from amateur rabble to professional fighting force. To cure these ills, Parliament took the best regiments from around the country, filled them with the strongest recruits available, and placed Englands leading soldierBlack Tom Fairfaxat their head. Fairfax made Cromwell his second in command and gave him control of the Parliamentarian cavalry. Thus was the New Model Army born. Such a force had never been seen in England before, and on the Continent only Gustavus Adolphuss Swedish army had rivaled it.

Well trained, well provisioned, and supremely dedicated to its cause, the New Model Army comprised 22,000 men, assembled in 11 regiments of cavalry (6,600), 12 regiments of infantry (14,400), and 1 regiment of dragoons (1,000)all recruited and trained along the lines of Cromwells Ironsides. Their commanders had only one thing to recommend thembattlefield competence. Morale ran high in the New Model Army as it marched north in late spring 1645, spoiling for a fight.

Fairfax hoped to catch and smash Charless army before it could link up with a large Scottish force that had remained loyal to the crown. On June 13 Henry Ireton, who would become Cromwells son-in-law, defeated a small Royalist force at Naseby, alerting the Royalists to the fact that the New Model Army was just a few miles from their position. Charles was left with two unpleasant choices: To fight against a force of Parliaments professional veterans, who outnumbered his Royalists, or retreat with an army snapping at his heels. Fearing a collapse of his armys morale in a retreat, Charles opted to fight.

At 10 oclock on the morning of June 14, Ruperts forces charged into Iretons troopers. Surprisingly, the Parliamentarians broke on impact. Then, proving that he had failed to absorb the one great tactical lesson of the war, Rupert led his men off the battlefield in pursuit of Iretons troopers. As Rupert rode off toward Naseby, two miles away, Cromwell, on the opposite flank, easily defeated a separate Royalist cavalry charge. Unlike Rupert, Cromwell kept his men in hand, swinging them in a great arc into the rear of the Royalist infantry. Already hard pressed by Fairfaxs well-drilled infantry, the Royalist force cracked. Most of the troops ran to the rear, pursued for many miles by Cromwells cavalry, who did not let up on the butchery until nightfall. A few regiments, most notably Ruperts bluecoats, held their formations until many were cut to pieces. Seeing that all was lost, Charles tried to lead his Life Guard cavalry in a desperate charge. At the last moment, though, a Scottish nobleman grabbed his bridle and swore, Will you go upon your death? Witnessing this, the Life Guard cavalry too lost heart and retreated in disorder. Later, Prince Rupert rallied his surviving men and returned to the battlefield, but when he saw that he was too late, he and his troopers rode off.

The main Royal army was shattered. Over the next several months of 1645 the New Model Army swept through the west of England, capturing the last Royalist outposts and bringing to heel whatever forces the king still possessed. With his options limited, Charles chose to surrender to the Scots in the spring of 1646. After long negotiations, the Scots turned him over to Parliament, and he was placed under house arrest.

This closed what became known as the First Civil War, but it did not end the political or religious turmoil. Failure to reconcile the many grievances that had been papered over during the war kept the embers of conflict glowing. In 1647 Charles escaped and formed an alliance with Scotland. Their joint invasion of England ignited a second conflagration. This time, however, the political winds had shifted, and there were tremendous forces arrayed against Parliament and its guardianthe New Model Army. Winston Churchill later summed up the situation and the result: King, Lords, and Commons, landlords, and merchants, the City and the countryside, bishops and presbyters, the Scottish Army, the Welsh people, and the English Fleet now all turned against the New Model Army. The Army beat the lot.

For months the army marched, fought, and marched again first into Wales then toward the Scottish border. Cromwells troops destroyed any force that opposed them. Where Cromwell could not be, small detachments sufficed. Before the year was done, it was over. Again from Churchill: Cromwell was dictator. The Royalists were crushed; Parliament was a tool, the Constitution was a figment, the Scots were rebuffed, the Welsh back in their mountains, the Fleet was reorganized, London overawed, King Charles.left to pay the bill. It was mortal. As to the success of the New Model Army, it was a triumph of twenty-thousand resolute, ruthless, disciplined, military fanatics, over all that England has ever willed or ever wished. Their ruthless mood did not spare Charles. In January 1649 he was tried and convicted of treason then hanged for his crimes.

With England at his feet, Cromwell turned his attention to Ireland. During the long years of the English Civil War, the Irish had broken free of English control. In fact, only Dublin and Londonderry, both supplied by sea, remained in Parliamentarian hands. Outside Dublin stood the forces of the Irish Catholic Confederation commanded by the Earl of Ormonde, intent on capturing the city before the New Model Army arrived.

On August 2, 1649, the Dublin commander, Colonel Michael Jones, launched a surprise attack on Ormondes deploying besiegers and routed them. By the time Cromwell began landing two weeks later, the forces of the Irish Catholic Confederation were retreating in disarray. Cromwell had with him the best regiments in the New Model Army and was looking for a quick fight and rapid conclusion to the campaign. Ormonde, however, had no stomach for testing his still shaken army in the field. So, with few choices left to him, he placed his army within various fortifications throughout northern Ireland, hoping that starvation and diseasethe great killers of besieging armieswould do their work. What he had not taken into account was the proficiency the New Model Army, with its vast array of artillery, had in shattering walls.

On September 9 Cromwell aimed his huge 48-pounders at the walls of strongly fortified Drogheda and within days had created two reasonable breaches. By the laws of warfare of that time, once there was a reasonable breach, defenders could surrender on terms. By failing to do so, they forfeited all rights to quarter or mercy. Drogheda opted to fight on, forcing Cromwell to order it taken by storm. The ensuing massacre, while not severe by the standards of the era, horrified the Irish, and remains a blight on Anglo-Irish relations to this day. As Cromwells dispatch recorded: Being in the heat of action, I forbade them [his forces] to spare any who were in arms within the town, and I think that night they put to the sword about 2,000 men.

The actual slaughter was likely over 3,000 and included many women, children, and priests. As Cromwell saw it, though, such ruthlessness was justified: I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God on these barbarous wretches, who have imbrued their hands with so much innocent blood, and that it will prevent the effusion of blood for the future, which are satisfactory grounds for such actions.

A similar atrocity befell Wexford in early October, when the 2,000-man garrison, as well as 1,500 civilians, were massacred. The twin atrocities had their effect, as garrisons all through southern and eastern Ireland either fled or surrendered without a fight.

The following spring of 1650 Cromwell began his blitzkrieg through central and southern Ireland, intent on finishing off the remnants of the Irish Catholic Confederations forces. Only at Clonmel, held by a soldier named Hugh ONeill, who learned his business in the Thirty Years War, did the New Model Army meet with a serious reverse. After breaching the walls, Cromwells men crossed the breach without meeting any resistance. They had walked into a trap: Hastily constructed interior defenses penned them in. The storming force was slaugh tered, losing as many as 2,000 men before retreat sounded. During the night the defenders considered it the better part of valor to surrender on terms rather than face the wrath of a fresh assault.

After the fall of Clonmel, Cromwell departed for England, where he was needed to meet a new threat coming out of Scotland. He left his son-in-law Henry Ireton to complete the Irish conquest. In his nine-month campaign, Cromwell had conquered most of Ireland. What Irish forces remained were mostly trapped behind the Shannon River, where they would make determined stands in Limerick and Galway. Eventually, though, organized Irish resistance broke down and the conflict became a merciless guerrilla war. Before it was over, almost half the population had been killed by war, disease, or famine, and another 50,000 were shipped overseas as indentured servants. The subsequent Cromwellian Settlement banned Catholicism and deprived Catholic landowners of their property.

In short, Cromwell did his utmost to destroy Catholic Ireland, with grievous results. Churchill summed them up: Cromwells record was a lasting bane. By an uncompleted process of terror, by an iniquitous land settlement, by the virtual proscription of the Catholic religion, by the bloody deeds already described, he cut new gulfs between the nations and the creeds.The native inhabitantsacross three hundred years, have used as their keenest expression of hatred The Curse of Cromwell on you.

Even as the ruin of Ireland continued, Cromwell prepared to eliminate a new Scottish threat. Scot- land had proclaimed its support for Charless son, Charles II, making him king. After the Scots refused Cromwells appeal to them to see the error of their ways and lay down their arms, the New Model Army marched north in May 1650. But this time Cromwells forces set forth before they were ready. Without proper supplies and facing stiff resistance from determined Scots led by the competent David Leslie, the army soon bogged down. By the end of August Cromwells legendary army was starving, sick, and beginning to come apart. He ordered a retreat toward the seaport at Dunbar, but by then the army had already lost perhaps a third of its original strength to hunger and disease.

At first, Leslies Scots followed cautiously. But once the Scots had entrenched themselves on the heights around Dunbar, they were able to observe the vastly outnumbered New Model Armyby all appearances a trapped, weak, and demoralized force, more like a rabble than an army. With rash overconfidence, they left their strong positions on the heights and marched into the valley outside Dunbar. Their likely intent was to press Cromwells forces hard enough to force a surrender. What they did not expect was a fight.

But neither Cromwell nor his veterans were much for surrendering. Cornered but still dangerous, they struck out viciously. At dawn on September 3, 1650, Cromwells assault went forward. Now, he yelled to his soldiers, let God arise and his enemies be scattered. Surprised by the attack, the Scottish right, which faced the hardest blow, collapsed in a twinkling. Seeing this, the remainder of the Scottish force ran hastily to the rear, leaving 3,000 dead and another 8,000 as prisoners. In less than an hour the New Model Army had crushed a Scottish army that only a day before had considered itself triumphant.

Rather than demoralize the Scots or Charles II, news of the Dunbar disaster galvanized them. Scotland reacted with fury. A new army was raised with Leslie again in command. This time, however, when the Scots marched south, Charles was with them. It was now winner take all: Charless objective was London. Cromwell took the new threat in stride. He could easily have marched the New Model Army into the path of the invasion and brought it to battle. He chose not to. He had no wish to stop the invasion or defeat yet one more Scottish army. Rather, he wanted to draw it deep into England and then annihilate it.

Cromwell caught up with the Scottish army at Worcester. This time he was the one with overwhelming numbers close to 30,000 against 12,000 Scots. By conducting an early battle of maneuver, which previous English armies had been incapable of, he had also trapped the enemy. When the New Model Army made its final assaults, it came from three sides simultaneously. The result was a foregone conclusion. Still, the Scots fought tenaciously. The battle was fought with various successes, Cromwell reported, and in the end became an absolute victory and so full a one as proved a total defeat and ruin of the enemy army.

Charles II had acquitted himself well on the field of battle and had only barely escaped. For weeks he wandered the countryside, enduring multiple hazards before finally making his way back to Paris.

The final shot of the Civil War had been fired. The New Model Army would go on to fight well against the Spanish army, but its time was marked. Cromwells Protectorate government was never popular and became less so with each passing day. Two years after Cromwells death in 1658, Parliament voted that Charles II be restored as king. Upon taking power, Charles did not forget the instrument that had defeated his father and seen him off at Worcester. By royal command he disbanded the New Model Army. The only units allowed to continue were a kings Life Guards and a remnant of cavalry.

A dozen years later, as war with Netherlands loomed, Charles and England had reason to regret abolishing the best army in Europe. When in 1672 Charles complained to the French ambassador about insults to his country that would never have taken place during Cromwells rule, the ambassador replied: Ha, Sire, that was another time; Cromwell was a great man, and he and his army were feared on land and sea.

Jim Lacey is professor of strategic studies at the Marine Corps War College. His most recent book, with coauthor Williamson Murray, is Moment of Battle (2013). Sharon Tosi Lacey is a serving army officer currently assigned to the Armys Center for Military History. Her book Pacific Blitzkrieg (2013) was selected as the best operational history of the year by the Army Historical Foundation.

Originally published in the October 2014 issue of Military History Quarterly. To subscribe, click here.
Andrei Kelin, Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's European Cooperation Department, stated that Russia will not explain about Iskander deployment in Kaliningrad at Russia-NATO Council. Kelin stated that NATO wants explanations about it. The organization wants to know why Russia moved the Iskander-M mobile missile systems.

Moscow has decided to place those weapons in Kaliningrad, a western exclave. Sputnik reports that western countries want to know more about it. At the coming Russia-NATO council both parties will discuss about important and critical issues of bilateral concern. Russians believe that the expansion of NATO is a potential threat.

Many countries that belonged to the Warsaw Pact and even that were part of the Soviet Union have joined NATO. This expansion is seen as unfriendly and aggressive behavior by Russians. Some US politicians believe that NATO is obsolete and expensive for United States.

The Baltic states and other issues

Andrei Kelin stated that Russians are concerned about the deployments that are taking place in the west, mainly in the Baltic states. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have joined NATO some years ago. For decades these countries were part of the Soviet Union. These years the Baltic states have become important allies for United States. The conversations between Russia and NATO will be about exchange of opinions, transparency and removal of the existing concerns. Russia and NATO have also had disagreements because of Ukraine, Syria and other issues.

Kaliningrad is a Russian exclave that belonged to Germany in the past. This is seen as a place of vital and key importance. The deployment of the Iskander in that area is seen as the Russian answer to the NATO expansion. Lately Donald Trump wants to increase the US military budget. For decades, Russia and the West had a lot of misunderstandings in their bilateral relations. This was known as the Cold War.

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
W yclef Jean headlined the opening party of this stylish hotel, where nearly one thousand guests gathered on the 8,000 square-foot outdoor terrace  one of the largest in New York  last June.

Location:

35th Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues

Signature style:

Walls of marble contrasted with exposed concrete emulate the grit and glamour of the hotels Garment District location.

Intelligent corridors that respond to human movement with digital murals and subtle sounds are a futuristic backdrop.

Wall-projected images are a contemporary touch, while slightly-faded photographs give a feeling of history to the modern setting.

Hidden design gem:

Look and look again is the theme to this hotel, which models itself on industry where attention to detail is everything. Dont miss the hidden artwork in the cupboards in your room, touch the spaces where rolls of fabric decorate the walls, and do look down when walking up stairs to read the quotes painted on the edge of the steps.

The team behind it:

Part of the Marriott group, the hotel was designed by award-winning agency Jeffrey Beers International.



The bedrooms have floor-to-ceiling windows and an uncluttered aesthetic - some also come with fantastic views and a terrace

Rooms:

There are 348 guest rooms with king-size beds or two queen beds. The decor and furnishings are a mix of industrial chic with soft-luxe, and a gradient frosted-glass shower wall separates the en-suite bathroom from the sleeping area. The higher the room, the better the view - request the Statue of Liberty, Empire State building or Hudson yard.

Dont miss:

Walk past the lifts on the ground floor and you will find a Discovery Portal - a digital alcove that acts as your guide to the city, powered by Time Out. Conduct your way through the suggestions of bars, restaurants and galleries by pointing your finger or swiping your hand through the air. Cover one eye with your hand and it will send a photo of you to Rock and Reilly's gastropub on the fifth floor where they will give complimentary drink. (The password is "thirsty".)



Perfect for:

Mixing business with pleasure

Prices from about 150 per room per night based on a March stay; www.newyorkrenaissance.com

Renaissance New York Midtown Hotel

218 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

(001) 212.239.0014
Skift Global Forum is the largest creative business gathering in the global travel industry. Over the last three years it has become what media, speakers, and attendees have called the "TED of travel." It is the first conference focused on top marketers, strategists, and technologists in travel  the people creating and defining the future of travel. Skift carefully curates topics and speakers in order to inspire the professionals in travel about the business and creative potential of world's largest industry. Our Global Forum events  first in New York City and now in London  help top travel professionals understand the changing trends in travel across sectors, geographies, and the functional silos in travel industry.
Picture shows impounded bicycles from the bike-sharing schemes Mobike and Ofo in Shanghai. (Photo : Getty Images)

China's booming bike sharing startups raised generous financing from tech giants and big-name venture capitalists, which made a polarizing effect to Chinese bicycle manufacturers.



Mobike is the leading player in the booming bike-sharing market, which secured $215 million in a financing round led by Tencent.



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The new investment came shortly after Mobike signed an exclusive strategic partnership with Foxconn Technology group last month. This partnership will help double its annual bicycle production capacity to more than 10 million units.



Ofo, Mobike's competitor, has connected more than 1 million bicycles with more than 20 million registered users since June 2015. It announced this month that it has completed a 3.1 billion yuan D-round financing that is led by global investment institution Digital Sky Technology.



Mobike and Ofo simplified the traditional bike rental process with mobile applications. Users register themselves and pay deposits in their smartphone using their mobile app. Users will also have the convenience to park their bike almost anywhere in public after use.



Big companies supply bicycles to both of these startups. Given this, small-time bicycle manufacturers are dying due to lack of orders.



One of the big-time suppliers of bicycles to the startups is Flying Pigeon. According to Zhang Jinying, the general manager of Flying Pigeon, they are scheduled to produce 900,00 bikes in March, half of which will go to bike-sharing startups.



Fushida, another big-time supplier, is one of the suppliers of Ofo. According to its general manager, Ofo has ordered about 800,000 bikes to be delivered in April.



Liu Xuequan, director of the bicycle industry association in Tianjin, China's largest bicycle manufacturing base, said that as the bike-industry grows, it will deal a huge blow to the traditional bike market.



"The big companies are doing reasonably well at this stage, but the smaller ones are definitely suffering. Dozens of small and medium bike-makers have quite a few orders," Liu stated.


French-Canadian Julien Sagots newest album Blue Jane will be released in three days time. The album features multiple artists such as but not limited to, Robbie Kuster, Patrick Watson, Mishka Stein and Fabienne Lucet and contains nine songs.

Kicking off with a rather remarkable chaotic beginning, the track Les raciness Au Ciel contains a mixture of styles. The initial 35 seconds of chaotic music seamlessly transfer into what could be compared to sounds fitting an opening of a Twenty Century Fox movie, while drums are rhythmically beating in the background. Followed up by a synthesized tune and a calm soothing voice. The song continues this trend and adds other characteristics such as Asian flute play in the background. Only to end with electronic music braking off towards the end.

The songs of his new album touch different music styles such as jazz, pop, rock and electronic and their pace goes from fast to slow with his voice as a constant speed caught up in the middle.

Blue Jane is set to release on March 31 2017 via Simone Records. Sagot will be performing an album release show on April 6 in Montreal. Streaming has been made possible by Exclaim.

'Stream Blue Jane'

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The album can be bought on iTunes and Amazon on release.
There's also a new album on the way from Mike Scott & the chaps.

With a new album due through BMG later this year, The Waterboys have announced a big Dublin 3Arena show on October 26.

Having had their songs covered recently by Ellie Goulding ('How Long Will I Love You'), War On Drugs ('A Pagan's Place'), Dawes ('Fisherman's Blues') and the late, great Prince ('The Whole Of The Moon'), and included in the About Time, Dom Hemingway and What We

Did On Our Holiday movies, Mike Scott & Co's stock remains as high as ever.

Tickets go on sale on Friday March 27 priced from 44.05-48.75.
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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump will begin a sweeping roll back of the Obama administration's climate policies Tuesday, targeting rules regulating greenhouse gas emissions and policies that critics believe hinder the domestic energy sector.

Through a series of executive orders and memoranda, Trump will order a review of Obama's Clean Power Plan, which was expected to shutter a large share of the nation's coal power plants, as well as rules forcing oil and gas companies to seek out and fix methane leaks at drilling sites, a senior White House official said Monday. The reviews are the first steps toward undoing the regulations.

The administration also will pull back guidance issued last year by Obama, who instructed federal agencies to consider the impact on climate change when writing policies, as well as a federal finding on global warming's negative social effects, from economic disruption to higher public health costs.

"This policy is in keeping with President Trump's desire to make America energy independent," the White House official said. "The president is not going to pursue climate policy that puts the economy at risk."

Trump's actions, for now, will not go so far as to pull the United States from the Paris climate accord, in which close to 200 countries have agreed to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. That decision, the official said, "is still under discussion."

The measures, however, run counter to the overwhelming scientific consensus that the burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal is accelerating climate change with potentially disastrous social, economic and environmental effects as seas rise, violent storms become more frequent and habitats that help support human populations vanish. Many corporations are considering the potential impact of climate change on their business while more investors are asking companies to consider and account for the impact of climate change on future earnings as they plan ahead.

A win for Texas

Even some of the world's biggest oil companies acknowledge that they must adapt to a low-carbon world. At a recent energy conference in Houston, the chief executives of Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and the Norwegian oil company Statoil agreed that the industry needed to find ways to produce energy with fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

"This is an all-out assault on the protections we need to avert climate catastrophe," Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. "It's a senseless betrayal of our national interest."

The administration's moves were widely anticipated, but they nonetheless underscore that the fossil fuel industry in Texas and across the United States will enjoy more favorable treatment under the new administration. Under Obama's Clean Power Plan, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency forecast that electricity generated from coal-fired plants in Texas would need to be cut in half to meet carbon emissions targets - a move that likely would force plant shutdowns.

Texas, among several states that sued in federal court to block the Clean Power Plan, had not, as some other states had, developed a plan to meet the federal rules. As a result, rolling back the rules might spare the state some legal expenses and keep coal plants operating for the time being.

But practically, the state's power industry is already moving toward the goal of Clean Power Plan as cheap and abundant natural gas and wind energy make it difficult for coal to compete economically. Wind already produces about one-fifth of the state's electricity, according to Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages 90 percent of the state's electricity grid.

The Clean Power Plan was blocked by the Supreme Court from going into effect while it undergoes judicial review. The case is now before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

'Welcome departure'

But even if Trump decides to rescind the plan, undoing the regulations would still face a lengthy administrative process and a new round of lawsuits from environmental groups and other interests.

"One year, two years or three years? I don't know, but it's going to take some time," the White House official said.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration says its priority is to grow the U.S. energy sector. The moratorium on new coal mining leases on federal lands will be rescinded. Federal agencies and departments will be ordered Tuesday to identify any policy or regulation that "serve as obstacles to energy production" - whether coal, nuclear or renewable energy - the official said.

"These executive actions are a welcome departure from the previous administration's strategy of making energy more expensive through costly, job-killing regulations that choked our economy," U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue said in a statement late Monday.

Whether the United States remains in the Paris accord, pulling back on existing climate policies is going to make it increasingly difficult to meet the greenhouse gas reduction goals President Obama agreed to last year - a reality the Trump administration appears willing to accept.

"We have a different view on climate policy," the White House official said.

Ryan Maye Handy contributed to this report.
Tom Stromme/MBO

BISMARCK, N.D. - Hollywood actress Shailene Woodley has reached a plea deal that calls for no jail time over her involvement in protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline in North Dakota.

The "Divergent" star was among 27 activists arrested Oct. 10. She livestreamed her arrest on Facebook.
This one hurts: The Last Waltz 40 Tour -- where musicians including Warren Haynes, Don Was, Dr. John and Jamey Johnson were to recreate The Band's famous farewell concert from 1976 -- will not be visiting Houston after all. The show was announced earlier this month, which didn't give the promoters much time to sell tickets.

The cancellation further hurts because Garth Hudson -- one of just two surviving members of the influential roots rock group The Band -- had joined the lineup. A revered multi-instrumentalist whose work was crucial to the sound of The Band, Hudson doesn't tour very much.
Cuts to universities of between 6 and 10 percent advanced through the Texas Senate on Tuesday with a unanimous vote to approve the $217 billion state budget.

Tuesday's hearing passed without prolonged fighting between lawmakers, though the House and Senate must still resolve an intense disagreement on whether to use money from the Rainy Day Fund.

After the House weighs in, a group of lawmakers from both chambers will come together to negotiate the budget for 2018 and 2019 before it gets to Gov. Greg Abbott's desk.

The passed budget distributes to universities about $700 million more in formula funding, which is based largely on enrollment, instead of funding more than $1 billion in individual "special items," a separate avenue that lawmakers have used for decades to fund projects at colleges and universities.

Critics of special items argue that items, once approved, are rarely reviewed. Programs that receive special item funding as "start-ups," they said, were funded session after session.

Sen. Jane Nelson, a Republican who leads the Senate finance committee, praised Sen. Kel Seliger for his "A-plus work" on this change at the Tuesday hearing.

A funding system that more heavily leans on a formula will better serve universities than one dependent on special items, said Seliger, a Republican from Amarillo.

Democrats bristled at higher education cuts, though they still voted to advance the bill.

With proposed federal cuts in President Donald Trump's budget proposal, "Texas higher education will take a double hit, potentially, down the line," said Sen. Jose Rodriguez of El Paso.
Airbnb China Social Marketing Specialist Haina Xiang speaks during Connecting with Hosts Around the World at Clifton's Cafeteria. (Photo : Getty Images)

The home-sharing and home rental services in China are currently facing concerns due to the lack of unified standards and regulations.



A lot of travelers that are looking for a flexible and cost-effective travel use home-sharing services such as Airbnb, which enabled tourist to lease or rent short-term lodging including vacation rentals, apartment rentals, homestays, hostel beds or hotel rooms.



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Besides Airbnb, domestic competitors are also opening their doors on the booming online home-sharing system. Domestic competitors such as Tujia, Mayi and Xiaozhu currently have over 800,000 properties that are up for rent



Despite the market's huge turnover last year, it is currently facing a plethora of issues from dissatisfied customers.



Landlords are only required to provide an ID card, owner certificate, lease contract and few pictures of their home. Due to the huge number of houses that are being registered each day, website owners aren't strict when it comes to the authenticity of the requirements.



Mr. Hong, a landlord that shares two private houses, said: "It is easy to list on these websites. The pictures I posted have been deliberately edited and sometimes 'beautiful' pictures I upload are 'stolen' from other listings."



There is also a lack of unified standards and regulations when it comes to both the tenant and the owner.



Chang Linglong, a tenant that used a home rental service, was disappointed when she arrived at Shanghai, as she found out that she is a victim of false advertising. The advertised 160-square-meter apartment turned out to be only 70 square meters. It is also beside a busy street, instead of it being quiet and exquisite as advertised.



Owners also experienced issues when it comes to their tenants. One instance is wherein a tenant brought two dogs in the house. After the tenant left, he found out that the dogs ripped the sofa and mattress, leading to expense.



Liang Shanying, an official that works at a tourism supervision department in central China, said: "The supervision lags far behind development, especially since professional renters and small startups joined in. It is hard for us to get a clear picture of the total number of short-term properties or renters."



"There should be legislation as soon as possible and a multi-layer credit-rating system to help the development of the industry," he added.


AUSTIN  The Texas Senate on Tuesday approved a its $106.3 billion budget plan that would add more money for troubled child protection programs, health care initiatives and struggling state pension programs.

The two-year plan would spend roughly the same amount on state programs as the current budget, meaning several agencies were reduced to make up for a revenue shortfall that prompted state officials to order a hiring freeze and significant cuts in certain state programs.

The vote was unanimous, unusual in such a contentious budget year.

CHEAPER FEES: Senate votes to cut handgun license fees

Sen. Jose Rodriguez, an El Paso Democrat who is the Senate minority leader, said he voted for the budget despite "some serious concerns" about funding levels to key programs. "I want to move the process along," he said.

The plan does not tap the state's so-called Rainy Day Fund, a $12 billion savings account that senators said they wanted to leave untouched for routine state expenses. House leaders have said they plan to take out just over $2 million.

The measure now goes to the Texas House, where leaders already have said they do not like many aspects of the upper chamber's spending plan.

Only passing mention was made during the more than two hours of debate of a controversial accounting maneuver to balance the Senate's budget, by delaying the transfer of $2.5 billion to the transportation fund by one month.

House Speaker Joe Straus has harshly criticized that move, announced last week, as akin to the Enron scandal, referring to the Houston-based energy giant that collapsed in 2001 in a scandal of financial fraud.

While the Senate plan spends just under the current state-revenue budget of $106.8 billion, the overall state budget including federal funds and investment income will grow by $4 billion  to $217.7 billion for the next two years.

TRANSPARENCY: Open government bills pass Texas Senate

"This budget fully funds education, let me be clear," said Senate Finance Committee Chair Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, the author of the spending plan.

Even so, the Senate plan includes only a small portion of the funding that Gov. Greg Abbott sought for his showcase pre-K programs, a move that led him to demand additional funding just before the Senate budget got initial approval. Their budget committee added just $65 million of the $236 million that Abbott initially sought.

While Sen. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio, called the plan "a lean budget, not a mean budget," Nelson said it also is "a smart budget."

"This gets us where we need to be," Nelson said. "In a year when state revenues were down, when the needs seemed to be overwhelming in some areas, we have crafted a conservative budget that meets the essential needs of the state."

Even so, she acknowledged: "This budget is a work in progress."

Added Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston: "We had to make some tough choices, but they are fair."

"Like the people of Texas, we must live within our means, and I think we have done that in a responsible way," said Senate Health and Human Services Committee Chairman Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, who helped write key sections of the spending plan.

ACTION IN AUSTIN: This week at the Texas Legislature

Higher Education Committee Chairman Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, said funding for Texas colleges and universities was revised to stop some automatic funding formulas that had been in effect for decades, one since 1909 and long after their original purpose was accomplished.

Though that reduces funding allocations to some schools, those cuts are mostly made up by shifting other funding to mostly take their place, he said.

Among the highlights, senators said, the budget includes:

 the closure of four prisons -- the most at one time in state history -- including the Ware Unit in Colorado City, the Bartlett State Jail, the West Texas Intermediate Sanction Facility in Brownwood and the Bridgeport Pre-Parole Transfer Facility.

 $4.6 billion increase for public schools, when local school taxes are added, and includes money to cover enrollment growth of 82,000 students

 $1.6 billion for pre-K funding statewide

 $800 million for continued border-security programs, maintaining current funding levels to provide public safety until the federal government can ramp up its enforcement presence

 slight increases for state universities and colleges, along with some decreases for special projects

$430 million more for Child Protective Services programs to reduce backlogs high staff turnover and to improve outcomes for kids in state custody

$346 million for health and human services programs, an increase of 4.8 percent

$316 million to stabilize the Teachers Retirement Fund

$300 million increase for mental-health programs, including funding to eliminate waiting lists statewide

$50 million in additional funding for community colleges in Texas

$25 million to provide bulletproof vests for local and state police agencies

$5 million for courthouse restorations, a small percentage of what the grant program used to receive
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The campaign to succeed term-limited Pasadena Mayor Johnny Isbell has drawn seven candidates of varying backgrounds, but it's challenging to identify a universal theme other than the desire to win.

Even so, certain sentiments emerged repeatedly as I sifted through the public statements of the five men and two women vying to succeed the controversial Isbell, who has been in power on and off for four decades. These ideas, expressed mostly in standard campaign platitudes, focus on uniting the city and moving past recent events that brought an unusual degree of public attention - much of it unfavorable - to the industrial suburb of Houston.

"It's a new day in Pasadena," says a message on the campaign website of San Jacinto College trustee John Moon Jr. "Let's get beyond bad headlines and get back to basics that made our city strong."

Another candidate, former state Rep. Gilbert Pena, struck a similar note in a recent interview with my colleague Kristi Nix, promising to bridge gaps between the city's older, predominantly Latino north side and the mostly Anglo south side: "It's my hope that if I win, I would work to unify Pasadena as one city, and not just north and south."

And here's Councilman Jeff Wagner on his mayoral campaign website: "Decades of good planning, innovative thinking and community building have created a great place to call home. But not every area of our city has access to the best this city has to offer."

Over the past two years or so, Pasadena has been in the news more often than at any time since the "Urban Cowboy" craze of the 1980s. But the critical coverage - in outlets ranging from this column to an investigative public radio program to The New York Times magazine - has been in sharp contrast to the lighthearted accounts of city slickers struggling to stay mounted on thrashing mechanical bulls.

Instead, recent accounts have depicted Pasadena as a place where top city officials sought to suppress the influence of a growing Latino electorate, a city of glaring inequities in public services based on ethnicity and geography. The drumbeat of bad press continued Monday with a front-page Chronicle story examining problems within Pasadena's economic development agency.

Wagner is a consistent Isbell ally, so his acknowledgment that some parts of Pasadena have been neglected indicates that clinging to the status quo is no longer regarded as a winning political strategy. Moon's admonition to "get back to basics" suggests that the long dispute over a change in the council structure initiated by Isbell has been a distraction from providing essential services.

With Isbell moving to the sidelines and the city under federal court order to return to its previous district council election system for now, there's a sense of renewed focus on the nuts and bolts of city government.

"I'm looking forward to it," says Don Harrison, a longtime Pasadena politician who is running unopposed for a council position in the May 6 election. "We'll be going back to building roads and drainage."

Yet the issues that have created the recent distractions will not simply go away. On May 7, Pasadena will still be a city where 62 percent of the roughly 150,000 residents are Latinos concentrated mostly in neighborhoods lacking in infrastructure and services.

The new mayor will have much to overcome.

In response to a lawsuit that successfully challenged the new council structure as discriminatory, U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal found that city officials lavished grant funds on the south side, at the expense of older north-side neighborhoods, to gain support from Anglo voters seen as more likely to go to the polls.

And that's just one example of a local culture, described in trial testimony and officially recorded in Rosenthal's opinion, that hasn't quite shed the reputation for prejudice it acquired when it once served as the home of the Ku Klux Klan's Texas headquarters.

This legacy is a source of embarrassment to residents like Robbie Lowe, a real estate agent who has lived in Pasadena since 1982. At a council meeting in January, Lowe scolded Isbell for having brought "an ugly part of our history back to the forefront" by persisting with the new council scheme.

When I called Lowe on Monday morning to ask for her thoughts on the mayor's race, she was fuming about another embarrassment: Isbell, during a council meeting just moments before we spoke, had referred to Latino Councilman Cody Ray Wheeler as "boy."

"Maybe he meant it as 'my youthful companion,' but it doesn't play well in terms of that image we're trying to overcome," Lowe said.

Whoever succeeds Isbell will have to do more than refrain from racially insensitive rhetoric.

Those bad headlines reflect real problems rooted in the policy choices and governing tone of the city's leadership.

If I lived in Pasadena, I'd vote for the candidate who had a realistic plan to start building a city that stands for equity and inclusiveness rather than discrimination and division.
MOSCOW - The wave of nationwide demonstrations that shook Russia's long dormant political scene over the weekend showed a new face of protest: mostly teenage demonstrators driven by accusations of high-level official corruption, glaring amid the nation's painful two-year recession.

A year before facing re-election, President Vladimir Putin has a dilemma: to tighten the screws or to devise more artful means for keeping a lid on dissent. On Monday, a Moscow court handed a 15-day jail term to the protest organizer, Alexei Navalny, whose charisma and social media savvy helped rally the young.

Hundreds jailed

Navalny was arrested as he walked to a protest in Moscow on Sunday and spent the night in jail before showing up in court. Police have arrested more than 1,000 people for taking part in the unauthorized protest in the capital, and many of them face jail or fines.

"Even the slightest illusion of fair justice is absent here," Navalny told reporters Monday from the defendant's bench, complaining about the judge striking down one motion after another. "Yesterday's events have shown that quite a large number of voters in Russia support the program of a candidate who stands for fighting corruption. These people demand political representation - and I strive to be their political representative."

Journalists and well-wishers packed the courtroom in central Moscow, where Navalny, in a selfie posted on Twitter, declared: "A time will come when we'll put them (the authorities) on trial too - and that time it will be fair."

Navalny, 40, Russia's most popular opposition leader, has had three convictions on fraud and embezzlement charges that he dismisses as politically motivated. Even though the convictions technically disqualify him, he has announced a presidential bid for 2018.

With his colorful and sarcastic expose of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's alleged collection of mansions, villas and vineyards - which garnered over 13 million views on YouTube - Navalny managed to draw tens of thousands to the streets across Russia in the biggest show of defiance since a 2011-2012 wave of protests led to harsh new laws aimed at suppressing dissent.

On Monday, Putin met with senior officers of the National Guard, which took part in arresting participants in the demonstrations along with police, but he didn't mention the protest. Russian state television ignored the demonstrations in its broadcasts Sunday, and Medvedev refrained from comment.

"The question now is what kind of balance between propaganda and repression the government will choose," said Andrei Kolesnikov, a political analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center. "The government needs to preserve itself for another presidential term - if not forever - and now there is an important moment when the government is choosing its strategy and tactics."

Discontent spreads

Medvedev's job had reportedly been in jeopardy amid infighting among various factions in the Kremlin, but now his tenure seems secure as his dismissal would look like caving in to protesters' demands.

The Kremlin has long sought to cast the opposition as a phenomenon of a privileged Westernized urban elite out of sync with broader layers of the population in Russia's far-flung regions. But Sunday's protests engulfed many areas outside big cosmopolitan cities, a sign of spreading public discontent.

Teenage students made up a large share of protesters in Moscow and other cities - an unpleasant surprise for the Kremlin, which has hoped to boost support for Putin in the 2018 vote by attracting more young voters.

"It's a serious challenge for those who control the election campaign," Kolesnikov said. "It's a signal that the most advanced part of the population wants changes."
AUSTIN - A decade-long rivalry between Houston and Austin for bragging rights over the location of the official state music museum is tuning up for a new fight.

On Tuesday, the Senate Business and Commerce Committee is scheduled to hear a bill that would designate Austin as the location, even though supporters in Houston insist the Bayou City was selected several years ago.

At stake are millions of dollars in tourism traffic, whether the museum is located in Houston, with its historic connection to Texas' music and the recording industry, or Austin, which claims to be the "Live Music Capital of the World."

"By all rights, Houston should have this museum," said Stephen Williams, a founding member of the Museum of American Music History, a coalition of more than 50 organizations, private collectors and families who he said has been working for years to get the museum located in Houston. "Austin is trying to steal it and bring it to Austin when it should be in Houston."

Supporters of the Austin museum say that's bunk, that the legislation is part of a plan to further develop a museum district near the Texas Capitol - the Bullock State History Museum, the Blanton Museum of Art and the new music museum - in a project that will cost state taxpayers nothing.

"This is part of a bipartisan effort to create a museum that would make the state money," said Sen. Kirk Watson, co-author of Senate Bill 1147 and former Austin mayor who has represented the city in the Legislature since 2007. "If there's an issue with the project, I'm not aware of it."

Other opponents of the measure express irritation that state government is moving into turf dominated for years by private museums.

In a state with a rich music history - ranging from polka, country and jazz to Texas swing, zydeco and rock - and one that officials estimate is home to more than 28,000 musicians and events drawing more than 19 million people, the winner could attract hundreds of thousands of fans from across the nation like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville.

Part of master plan

Under the bill, the State Preservation Board - chaired by Gov. Greg Abbott, with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Joe Straus as vice chairs - would establish a nonprofit private foundation to create and operate the Texas State Music Museum on what is now a parking lot across from the Bullock Museum.

Members of the new foundation would be appointed by Abbott, and costs of the museum "shall be paid from revenue generated'' by the foundation, according to the bill.

State officials said the site is part of a master plan approved last year by the Texas Facilities Commission, and would feature a multi-story building on the site, with parking and other amenities. Other agencies would occupy portions of the building.

Williams, who has been publicly protesting the plan, said his Houston group was to receive a $10 million federal grant from the state several years ago for a museum to serve as the state's showcase music history. However, he said the money never was released because of politics in Austin, even as his group was moving to buy a downtown building.

Now, he says the group has selected another Houston site.

The museum has been the subject of several bills over the years, all of which officials said failed to pass. "But the official designation of Houston as the site for the museum still stands," Williams insists, a designation that came with the federal grant.

One already in Austin

While Williams and other Houston supporters are upset with the Senate bill and an identical House bill, other private music institutions also are questioning the move, especially the private Texas Music Museum, located just a mile east of the Capitol complex site.

"We have really worked our hearts out for the past 33 years, and this really sort of messes up our dreams," said University of Texas professor Clay Shorkey, board chairman at the museum that he said has a large collection of recordings, exhibits and artifacts. "We really want to see an excellent Texas music museum, something really wonderful that can tell the story of music history in Texas, but this (proposal by the state) is really kind of disturbing."

At the Texas Musicians Museum in Irving, owner Thomas Kreason told the Dallas Observer he is concerned that private museums like his will have to compete for state resources, funding, collections, even tourism dollars.

"If you have your grandfather's rare (musical instrument or collection), you're going to drive right past Irving and take it to the 'official' Texas music museum," Marianna Kreason told the Observer. "Everybody knows it will go to the official one."

Still in the early stages

While Williams and others say Abbott is pushing to approve the Austin museum plans, aides insist the plan was agreed to by several state agencies after a review process. Other Austin supporters say the new museum should be in the capital, where tourists come to see statewide history. John Wittman, Abbott's press secretary, declined to comment.

For their part, officials at the State Preservation Board, which originally was established to restore and maintain the State Capitol and now oversees the Bullock museum, said they are just following the lead of the legislative sponsors of the two bills.

Like the proposed music museum, the Bullock has a related fundraising foundation to cover most of its operating costs. The rest, he said, is paid by a state appropriation.

"This is all in its very beginning stages," said Chris Currens, a spokesman for the Preservation Board. "We have some in-house expertise that could be helpful in this project."
Regional boost

Regarding "We'd better get used to low prices for oil, gas" (Page B1, March 12), Chris Tomlinson's column is perceptive and on point. He reported that 80 percent of the new electricity generation projects commissioned in 2016 are renewable energy projects, that Tesla will bring down electric vehicle costs, and that less wealth and fewer jobs are in Houston's future if the city doesn't diversify its economy more.

All that leads me to ask, why has the leadership of our city - the mayor, the Greater Houston Partnership, Rice University, et al. - not spoken out against the terrible disservice which the University of Houston's powers have done to our city in sabotaging the University of Texas' efforts to establish a presence here? ("UT halts expansion plans here," Page A1, March 2). And what has the leadership done to support UT in the face of this misguided opposition?

UT coming to Houston would have been one of the best long-term, impactful concepts to happen here since NASA came in the '60s and since Shell moved its headquarters here in the '70s. Every city in the country would give its right arm to have such a presence. Its probable failure is the worst event, in my opinion, since Enron's demise.

UH's opposition is like Harvard saying to MIT, "You can't come to Boston." Or Stanford opposing UC Berkley establishing itself in the Bay Area. We know what those institutions have meant to the long-term health of those areas.

Is the effort dead? I have heard varying opinions. What I do know is that UT has bought and paid for most of the land, so I'm an optimist. But it is going to take a very strong, concerted and immediate effort to turn this thing around. In view of the issues pointed out regarding the energy industry as well as the apparent challenges in the Medical Center, we very much need a win!

David S. Wolff, Houston

Talk, no action

Regarding "GOP pulls plug on repeal plan" (Page A1, Saturday), after years of voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, the GOP finally had a chance to kill it and failed. Since Obamacare is such a disaster for the country, how could any Republican congressman fail to vote for Trumpcare? Obamacare is collapsing and the GOP decided not to vote on a replacement - why? Could it be that the GOP never really wanted to repeal Obamacare, that all the repeal votes were just for show, that the GOP was just using resistance to Obamacare as a handy cudgel for beating up on President Obama? Can the GOP be trusted to do the will of the people who sent them to Washington?

Gonzalo Martinez, La Porte

Russian dictator

Regarding "Scores of protests roil Russia; police forces arrest hundreds" (Page A10, Monday), the latest protests in Russia against President Vladimir Putin represent a threat to his power. So, of course, his most prominent critic Alexei Navalny was among the top targets for arrest. I'm taking bets as to how long he survives in jail before he is "killed trying to escape" or some other lame excuse given for his death.

Putin's critics (especially Russian ones) have a way of meeting untimely deaths. If he dies in prison, he won't be the first one.

Cathy Newman, Meadows Place
"Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated." So declared Donald Trump three weeks before wimping out on his promise to repeal Obamacare. Up next: "Nobody knew that tax reform could be so complicated." Then, perhaps: "Nobody knew that international trade policy could be so complicated." And so on.

Actually, though, health care isn't all that complicated. Basically, you need to induce people who don't currently need medical treatment to pay the bills for those who do, with the promise that the favor will be returned if necessary.

Unfortunately, Republicans have spent eight years angrily denying that simple proposition. And that refusal to think seriously about how health care works is the fundamental reason Trump and his allies in Congress now look like such losers. But put politics aside for a minute, and ask, what could be done to make health care work better going forward?

The Affordable Care Act deals with the fundamental issue of health care provision in two ways. More than half of the gains in coverage have come from expanding Medicaid - that is, collecting taxes and using the revenue to pay people's medical bills. And that part of the program is working fine, except in Republican-controlled states that won't let the federal government aid their residents.

But Medicaid only covers the lowest-income families. Above that level, the ACA relies on private insurance companies, using a combination of regulations and subsidies to keep policies affordable. This has worked well in some places. For example, in California, which has tried hard to make health reform work, the number of people with health insurance has soared, while premiums are still well below expectations.

Overall, however, too few healthy people have purchased insurance, despite the penalty for failing to sign up; this is partly because many of the policies offered have high deductibles, making them less attractive. As a result, some companies have pulled out of the market. And this has left some areas, especially rural counties in small states, with few or no insurers.

No, it's not a "death spiral" - subsidies keep insurance affordable for most people even if premiums rise sharply, and the Congressional Budget Office believes that markets will remain stable. But the system could and should be improved. How?

One important answer would be to spend a bit more money. A report from the nonpartisan Urban Institute argues that the ACA is "essentially underfunded," and would work much better - in particular, it could offer policies with much lower deductibles - if it provided somewhat more generous subsidies. The report's recommendations would cost around 0.2 percent of GDP; or to put it another way, would be around half as expensive as the tax cuts for the wealthy Republicans just tried and failed to ram through as part of Trumpcare.

What about the problem of inadequate insurance industry competition? Better subsidies would help enrollments, which in turn would probably bring in more insurers. But just in case, why not revive the idea of a public option - insurance sold directly by the government, for those who choose it? At the very least, there ought to be public plans available in areas no private insurer wants to serve.

There are other more technical things we should do too, like extending reinsurance: compensation for insurers whose risk pool turned out worse than expected. Some analysts also argue that there would be big gains from moving "off-exchange" plans onto the government-administered marketplaces.

So if Trump really wanted to honor his campaign promises about improving health coverage, if he were willing to face up to the reality that Obamacare is here to stay, there's a lot he could do, through incremental changes, to make it work better. And he would get plenty of cooperation from Democrats along the way.

Needless to say, I don't expect to see that happen. Improving Obamacare requires doing more, not less, moving left, not right. That's not what Republicans want to hear.

And the tweeter-in-chief's initial reaction to health care humiliation was, predictably, vindictive. He blamed Democrats, whom he never consulted, for Trumpcare's political failure, predicted that "ObamaCare will explode," and that when it does Democrats will "own it." Since his own administration is responsible for administering the law, that sounds a lot like a promise to sabotage Americans' health care and blame other people for the disaster.

The point, however, is that building on Obamacare wouldn't be hard, and wouldn't even be all that complicated.

Krugman is a New York Times columnist.
ARUN SANKAR/Stringer

Even in a time of great political uncertainty, there are still truths that can be known. One surprising certainty is that it is possible to relatively inexpensively improve the health of millions of people around the world. Congress should keep this in mind as it sets its budget priorities in the coming months.

Over the past 20 years, the United States has led the investment for global health during both Republican and Democratic administrations and congresses. For example: The United States is the lead contributor to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. This support started as part of President George W. Bush's President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and Congress continued to provide significant funding to it throughout the Obama administration. The results of U.S. investment in global health are encouraging. Thanks to Global Fund programs, 9.2 million men, women and children are receiving lifesaving antiretroviral medications, 15.1 million have been tested and treated for TB, and 659 million mosquito nets have been distributed. In January, the World Health Organization noted that AIDS is no longer one of the top 10 causes of death in the world.
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Premier Li Keqiang is greeted by New Zealand's Prime Minister Bill English. (Photo : Twitter)

Premier Li Keqiang went to New Zealand to enhance trade ties and expand an already advanced bilateral relationship.



Prime Minister Bill English announced that China and New Zealand will be upgrading their free trade agreement in April. The agreement has been in effect since 2008.



Premier Li said that the relationship will be "the first of its kind between China and a developed country." There is also a commitment from New Zealand that they will work together for the One Belt, One Road initiative.



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He also signed nine deals that promised more support from China.



The premier wrote an article that was published in the New Zealand Herald entitled "To New Zealand, with love." Li wrote that the recent political climate of the world "has made it all the more important for China and New Zealand to work together to turn challenges into opportunities."



China is the second-largest exporter to New Zealand, next to Australia. New Zealand is also the first to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and encouraged the United Kingdom and Australia to join.



Both Li and English agreed to cooperate in goat exports and e-commerce. Other issues were also discussed such as steel dumping, dairy exports and the South China Sea dispute.



Li said that China is not dumping steel in New Zealand and that it has already decreased steel production.



English said that the talks on trade and steel dumping show "a sense of the robustness of the relationship. These are issues that get talked about in pretty testing ways, and that's how it should be."



New Zealand's Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment investigated an alleged steel dumping issue. The investigation revealed that China's steel is only 5 percent of the total supply in New Zealand.



On the subject of the South China Sea dispute, Li said that the topic was sensitive but will not affect the relationship between the two countries.


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The premise is that these well paid, highly skilled employees can negotiate for themselves, she explains.

Scampion predicts that  if the bill becomes law  New Zealand will likely start to see terms increasingly being included in employment agreements that provide for damages payments to be made to senior staff in the event of a termination without cause.

Sometimes referred to as a golden handshake or golden parachute, Scampion says these caluses are already making their way into some senior executive employment agreements in New Zealand  but she warns that theyre still largely untested by the courts.

We are finding that a number of our clients are already comfortable with this concept and that senior employees dont often dispute these tailored termination provisions being included in their agreement from the outset, she tells HRM.

If, as the bill anticipates, an employee had contracted out of their right to bring a personal grievance such clauses would almost certainly be upheld.
Humane Society International/Canada, Pacific Wild and middle school students from Glenlyon Norfolk school are calling on the B.C. government to implement a complete ban on the trophy hunting of grizzly bears in British Columbia, and to implement an immediate moratorium before the hunting season.

Gabriel Wildgen, campaign manager for HSI/Canada, stated: One can only imagine the pain and terror that a grizzly bear experiences in the course of a trophy hunt. Worse off still are the wounded bears hunters never track down  they end up suffering for days, weeks, or even years from their injuries. We are calling on the B.C. government to implement a moratorium on slaughtering grizzlies for trophies before the hunting season starts on April 1, and to then develop regulations to enact a permanent ban.

Glenlyon Norfolk School students Marisa Smith, Giulia Giommi and Lily Wieczorek, accompanied by teacher Margaret McCullough, gave statements at a press conference held earlier today. McCullough said: The students, like many other B.C. students, are afraid that they will grow up without wildlife as they see more and more species being pushed towards extinction. These three students committed to doing something to stop this, and focused on bears as they are at the top of the food chain. They understand that learning to co-exist with top carnivores will ensure that entire ecosystems are protected.

Ian McAllister, cofounder of Pacific Wild, added: The students of Glenlyon Norfolk raise compelling points in their opposition to the grizzly bear trophy hunt and they join over 90 percent of British Columbians who want to see the archaic practice banned. These students represent B.C.s future, and a society that hopefully will respect wildlife  not one that supports the legal killing of our most iconic wildlife for trophy or as a so-called sport.

The vast majority of British Columbians  including Coastal First Nations and other residents in rural areas  are opposed to trophy hunting of grizzly bears, and at least nine of the provinces 57 grizzly bear populations are threatened. Urgent action must be taken to end this cruel and ecologically irresponsible trophy hunt.

Call on the B.C. government to ban trophy hunting of grizzlies.

All Canadians can through these online actions: www.hsicanada.ca/protectbears

http://pacificwild.org/take-action/campaigns/stop-the-trophy-hunt

For photos and video available via the media contacts listed below.

Facts:

After hunters shoot them, grizzly bears often suffer for hours before they die, sometimes with multiple wounds.

Bears are highly vulnerable to population decline, given that half of bear cubs die within the first year. Roads, railroads and land use developments also make it difficult for adult males to find and mate with female bears.

A 2013 study published in the Public Library of Science found that trophy hunting may be causing declines in bear populations, and that hunters were exceeding government quotas in half of the populations studied.

Further independent studies have found that government estimates of bear populations in B.C. are inaccurately high, and in reality, populations are too low to sustain current hunting levels.

A 2012 study by Center for Responsible Travel and Stanford University found that bear-viewing businesses in B.C.s Great Bear Rainforest generated 12 times more visitor spending than bear hunting.

Media Contacts:

Christopher Pare: 514 395-2914 x 206, cpare@hsi.org

Lindsay Marie Stewart: 403-827-0678, lindsay@pacificwild.org
For underwater filmmaker Russell Clark, a workplace hazard is an overly friendly sea lion that wants to nibble on him while he's trying to finish a shoot. Yeah, it sounds really rough.

Clark and his partner Trisha own Seaproof.tv, an underwater video company that shoots all over the world  but the pair especially love to showcase the biological diversity off the coast of Comox, B.C., near their home  which is also where they met the adorable sea lions.

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"There's no shyness. There's no getting to know you. They're just curious and they just want to know what you are. You know, are you soft and squishy? Do you want to have a good play with them?" Clark said, in an interview with The Huffington Post Canada.

''They're just like ... they're like puppy dogs. They're like a herd of 2,000-pound puppy dogs that just run over to you and then jump all over you."

Watch Clark and his team dive with sea lions at Vivian Island, Hornby Island and Vancouver Island in B.C.:

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Clark says many think diving in B.C. is just cold and dark  which it can be  but there are also many places to explore, from glacial fjords, to artificial reefs, to shipwrecks.

"There's very few cities in the world like Vancouver where you can have a dozen different dive sites a 45-minute drive outside of downtown."

It's not just sea lions Clark has encountered on Canada's west coast. He's spotted everything from Giant Pacific octupi  "they can be huge, 20 feet from arm to arm"  to adorable shrimp  "they're kind of looking at you with these eyes, and you're looking at them and it's like a scene out of a Pixar movie."

When Russell first moved to B.C. from England about eight years ago, he says he was terrified of swimming in the ocean. But, after friends pushed him to give diving a shot, he tried it out  "and something just clicked."

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He met his partner Trisha, who taught one of his scuba courses, and three years ago the two decided to turn their hobby into a business.

Clark produced this video to showcase the biological diversity divers can explore in B.C.:

He's hoping his work shows off the beauty of B.C.'s marine life.

"The 'Emerald Oceans' as we call them, they're beautiful and they can be crystal clear in the winter. Some of those sea lion dives, we can see 100 feet in front of us ... that's getting people really interested in our oceans and our marine life and hopefully will make people a little bit more aware of the responsibilities they have towards them," Clark said.

"I mean, Port Hardy makes certain parts in the Great Barrier Reef look dull. It's absolutely incredible."

Follow The Huffington Post Canada on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Also on HuffPost

Sea Lion Rescue By Vancouver Aquarium See Gallery
Chinese troops marched in Pakistan Day Parade. (Photo : Getty Images)

According to Russian online newspaper Vzglyad, the United States is seriously concerned about the deepening Pak-China alliance, triggering Washington to make a big bet on India.



"Washington is seriously concerned about the strengthening of the core China-Pakistan in the Asia-Pacific region," said Vzglyad.



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"Growing Chinese activity in the Asia-Pacific region and Central Asia against the backdrop of the loss of influence on Islamabad makes them do a big bet on India. That they see it as the main counterweight to China and the deterrent factor," the newspaper added.



The United States has been pushed to actively enhance the countrys military cooperation with New Delhi due to an upsurge in Chinese presence in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in Pakistan.



New Delhi has become alarmed with the strategic Pak-China alliance and the mounting defense cooperation between the two countries.



"The planned opening of China's military bases in Pakistan actually closes the ring of Chinese bases around India. In Delhi, a growing fear that the strengthening of cooperation of Beijing and Islamabad, especially in the military sphere, may result in their aggression against India," the report said.



China is considered as an all-weather friend by Islamabad. The two countries have grown closer in the recent years with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).



The CPEC is a network of road, rail and pipelines that will connect western China with Gwadar, Pakistans Arabian Sea Port. The $57 billion project was funded by Beijing.



On Thursday, 90 members of the Chinese military marched in the Pakistan Day Parade in Islamabad. It was the first time Chinese troops joined a parade in a foreign country, making President Mamnoon Hussain say that it was a historic event.



In the recent years, the Chinese and Pakistani militaries have increased cooperation. Both countries have worked together to protect and promote the CPEC.



The China-Pak alliance continues to grow, causing distress to the U.S.


A Conservative senator who was criticized for praising some good things, about residential schools will not step down from the Senate committee on aboriginal peoples.

Ive made my statements and I stand by them, Lynn Beyak told CBC News on Monday.

She said shes received hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of letters of support since saying that the positive side of residential schools went unacknowledged.

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"I've suffered with them up there," Beyak said of residential school survivors in her northwestern Ontario riding. "I appreciate their suffering more than they'll ever know."

The Senate committees chairwoman, Lillian Eva Dyck, asked Beyak to leave the committee after her comments made headlines earlier this month.

At a discussion on the high number of indigenous women in prison, Beyak said that some officials at residential schools were well-intentioned and did remarkable work.

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"I was disappointed in the TRC's Report and that it didn't focus on the good," Beyak said, referring to Canadas Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The commission found that 6,000 children died in residential schools, making it more deadly to attend the schools than to serve for Canada during WWII. Sexual abuse was also rampant  with nearly 38,000 claims of sexual assault.

Its estimated that 150,000 children were taken from their families and forced to attend, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions final report released in 2015.

According to CBC News, children were separated from their families for 10 months a year and were only allowed to send letters in English, which most of their families could not read. Some teachers and staff physically and emotionally abused the children.

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Canadas first prime minister said that the purpose of these schools would be to make aboriginal people like white men. It wasnt enough to teach indigenous children English, Sir John A. Macdonald said in 1879. A child had to be removed from family or else he or she would be simply a savage who can read and write, he said.

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A U.S. civil rights group is suing Georgia after the state refused to give a couples daughter a birth certificate because her surname is Allah.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit on behalf of parents Elizabeth Handy and Bilal Walk. The couple welcomed their daughter in May 2015 and named her ZalyKha Graceful Lorraina Allah.

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State refuses to allow parents to use Allah as daughter's last name: https://t.co/T5LZsI4RSfpic.twitter.com/pVzPY86Cbl  WSB-TV (@wsbtv) March 28, 2017

While the state had no issues with the girls unique first or middle names, they did have a problem with her surname. According to state officials at the Department of Public Health, Georgia law states that the childs surname should either be the same as the mothers, the fathers, or a combination of the two.

The unmarried parents told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that they chose the last name Allah instead because it was noble, since it means God in Arabic. Interestingly, it is the same last name Handy and Walk gave to their first child, three-year-old Masterful Mosirah Aly Allah, but the state did not question his surname at the time of his birth.

University of California law professor Carlton F.W. Larson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Naming your child is an expressive action. And the idea that you get to name your child, and not the state, is a fundamental right. The state would need to have a compelling reason for rejecting a name, and I dont see it. I would hope that (Handy and Walk) would win this case.

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The ACLU has deemed the case not only a government overstep, but a violation of the First and 14th Amendments.

Government has no business telling parents what they can and cannot name their children, said Andrea Young, Georgia executive director of ACLU. The departments actions interfere with the couples right to raise their child and are a clear violation of the right to freedom of speech and the right to equal protection under the law.

Without a birth certificate, Handy and Walks two-year-old daughter will not be able to obtain a social security number. The parents fear this will lead to future problems, specifically when it comes to health care, school and travel.

Additionally, Handy is currently six months pregnant with their third child and the couple does not want to experience another legal battle.

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We dont want to go through that process again, Handy said. We are still in the process of coming up with a name, and we dont even know if it will be a girl or a boy. But the child will definitely have a noble title. Something to live up to.

In the U.S., rules around baby names vary drastically by state. Tennessee, for instance, has old-fashioned standards where the baby must take the fathers surname or a combination of the father and mothers surname. In Massachusetts, names must not be longer than a combined total of 40 characters. And in states like Maryland and Delaware, there are absolutely no baby name laws!

Read more about U.S. baby name laws here, or flip through the slideshow below to see which countries have the strictest naming rules.
Canada and other countries with universal health care systems are keeping drugs cheap by freeloading off of American innovation, says the chief executive of one of the worlds largest pharma companies.

Canada is cheaper because of (drug) ration(ing). And Canada is cheaper because ... it freerides off American innovation, Pfizer CEO Ian Read said in an appearance at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. last week.

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Asked what he would do about it, Read suggested negotiating tougher free trade deals that would reduce the ability of governments to pay less for drugs, such as through longer patent terms.

You need good trade agreements where intellectual property is protected, he said, according to a transcript of the appearance. Read noted Pfizer did not support the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) because it did not do enough to extend pharma patents.

Unlike Britain, France and numerous other countries with universal health care, Canada does not have a universal prescription drug benefit. A 2012 study suggested some 10 per cent of Canadians struggle with the cost of medication.

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With some US$53 billion in annual revenue, Pfizer is among the worlds largest pharmaceutical makers. Its behind such innovations as the cholesterol drug Lipitor, the anti-acne ingredient tetracycline, and Viagra.

Read suggested by rejecting coverage of certain drugs, single-payer health care systems are in effect preventing patients from accessing the best new medicine available.

Say there were 100 new products authorized in the United States. Australia and New Zealand, their population only has access to 30 per cent of them. The U.K., they have access to 47 per cent of them, normally, two to three years later than the U.S., he said.

Their citizens are not getting quality health care.

Read made an argument familiar to those in the pharma industry: That developing drugs is extremely costly, and U.S. patients and insurance companies are in effect subsidizing cheaper drugs for other countries.

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Without the U.S. market, there would not be the tremendous expansion in the innovative therapies that are available today and will be available in the future, he said. Basically, you're seeing Europe freeriding on American innovation.

Read cited data from Boston University showing how developing a new drug takes 10 to 15 years and costs US$2.6 billion on average.

Pfizer spends $8 billion a year on research and development, he added. Were lucky if we produce three (new) drugs a year.

Pfizer has been the subject of controversies relating to its pricing and tax practices.

The company was recently fined the equivalent of $140 million in the U.K. for conspiring with Flynn Pharma to raise the drug of an anti-epilepsy drug by 2,600 per cent.

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Pfizer announced a merger with Allergan last year that would have seen it move its headquarters to Ireland from the U.S. in an effort to reduce its tax bill.

The company backed off the plan after criticism from politicians and the public.
Congratulations, Toronto, youve finally made it to number one. At least when it comes to house prices.

Canadas largest city saw the fastest pace of house price growth of any major world city in the past year, according to research from analytics firm CoreLogic, carried out for Australias Daily Telegraph.

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Torontos median house price jumped 19 per cent in the past year, beating second-place Sydney, Australia, and third-place Vancouver, which has seen prices slow in the past six months.

The survey measures median house prices, a slightly different measure than the average numbers typically provided by Canadian real estate boards.

Average prices have been growing even more strongly in Greater Toronto, up by 27.7 per cent in February compared to a year earlier, to $875,983.

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Fiscal watchdog says the partys about to end

But if Ontarios fiscal watchdog is right, the citys stay at number one will be short-lived: A house price slowdown is in the offing.

The Financial Accountability Office of Ontario (FAO), which provides independent advice to the provincial legislature, is forecasting "slightly lower (house) prices" over the next three years.

The report also noted there is an elevated risk of a housing correction. In that scenario, it sees house prices declining 10 per cent by 2020, from their 2016 levels. In its worst-case scenario, that becomes a 20-per-cent price decline.

The FAO expects a leveling out in residential investment over the next several years, consistent with a modest decline in housing prices, but a sharper housing price correction remains a significant risk, both for the economy and the provinces tax revenues, it said in its report.

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The house price decline forecast by the FAO would leave the government with a budget shortfall of between $1.2 billion and $2.2 billion by 2020, the report predicted.

The FAO released its forecast in February, but it went unnoticed by the media until the housing blog Better Dwelling flagged it.

Its prediction goes against some others, which forecast another hot year for Toronto housing. TD Bank chief economist Beata Caranci recently called for another 25-per-cent jump in Toronto house prices this year.

A strong Toronto home-price forecast is not a vote of confidence in market fundamentals, Caranci wrote. Its getting harder to ignore warning signs that market demand pressures are increasingly reflecting speculative forces.

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Just weeks after making headlines on Broadway, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will return to New York City to discuss gender equity and women's rights at a summit that includes Hillary Clinton.

Trudeau announced Tuesday that he will participate in the Women in the World Summit on April 6, part of an annual three-day gathering of activists, artists, CEOs, and politicians.

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Clinton, the former U.S. secretary of state and presidential candidate, will speak on the same day as Trudeau.

Remaining tickets for next Thursday's event cost US$350.

We have achieved real progress in advancing womens equality, especially in the past decades, but there is still a lot of work to be done, Trudeau said in a statement. We need the full and equal participation of women around the world.

Though the event website describes the summit as a chance to showcase women of impact, it notes that it has also included men who champion women. Actor Tom Hanks, for example, celebrated the life of screenwriter Nora Ephron there in 2013.

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According to the site, Trudeau will be interviewed by journalist Tina Brown, who launched the summit in 2010, about how the roles of prime minister, feminist, teacher, and father inform his priorities of gender equity, strengthening the middle class, and promoting diversity and inclusion.

Trudeaus release suggests he will mention how last weeks federal budget included a 25-page gender statement on how measures would benefit women. The spending plan included $7 billion over 10 years to improve access to affordable child care.

Actress Scarlett Johansson, Chinese billionaire Zhang Xin, and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will also take the stage next Thursday.

One orchestra seat for the full-day event at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center costs $350. Tickets for events on the Wednesday and Friday range from $50 to $250.

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Trudeau will also meet with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres next week, as questions remain about Canadas pledged commitment to deploy troops on a UN peacekeeping mission.

Trudeau on Broadway just weeks ago

Trudeau was in New York City two weeks ago to attend the Broadway debut of Come From Away, a musical highlighting the hospitality Newfoundlanders extended to stranded U.S. travellers immediately after 9-11. U.S. President Donald Trumps daughter Ivanka was also in the audience.

Trudeau addressed the crowd before the show about the close relationship between Canada and the U.S., and importance of leaning on each other in the darkest times.

The event was covered by a number of top U.S. media outlets, including The New York Times, which noted the symbolism of a show that celebrates generosity toward foreigners in need.

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Trudeau has also participated in a panel on gender parity at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in 2016. A clip from the event, in which Trudeau encourages men not to be afraid of the word feminist, has been viewed millions of times online.

He delivered much the same message at a forum at the United Nations last March.

"I'm going to keep saying loud and clearly that I am a feminist until it is met with a shrug," Trudeau said at the time.

But, here in Canada, some politicians are evidently trying to poke holes in Trudeaus reputation.

During a particularly rowdy question period last week, where discussion centred on controversial Liberal proposals to reform the House of Commons rules, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel essentially accused Trudeau of trying to intimidate Tory House Leader Candice Bergen.

The prime minister purports to be a feminist, yet when a strong, confident woman dares to question his arrogance and unilaterally changing the fundamentals of Canadian democracy, he tried to stare her down and yell at her, Rempel said.

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The Tory MP sparked applause by calling on the so-called feminist to apologize.

With a file from The Canadian Press

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Thank you, Brexit and Trump. Youve helped Canada rise in the rankings of the worlds most competitive financial centres.

Thanks to a stable business environment, Canadas largest cities climbed up in the rankings of the worlds most competitive financial centres, and Canada now holds four of the top 10 spots in North America. (Calgary, in 49th spot, isn't shown on the chart.)

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Toronto ranked number 10 worldwide in this springs edition of the biannual Global Financial Centres Index, up from 13th place in the previous ranking. The ranking is compiled by consultancy Z/Yen and the China Development Institute.

Montreal ranked 14th in the world, up from 15th in the previous survey, while Vancouver rose to 17th place from 20th. London and New York retained their first and second spots, respectively.

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Calgary actually saw the steepest drop of any city in the rankings  down 15 spots 49th. The city has been affected by energy price volatility, researchers wrote.

Still, the decline wasnt enough to unseat Calgary as the 10th most important financial centre in North America.

So whats driving the rise in rankings? It appears Brexit and U.S. President Donald Trump may have had something to do with it.

Europes financial future is up in the air with Brexit looming, while the U.S. and its trading partners have been rocked by the election of Donald Trump to the White House.

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Small wonder, then, that Toronto and Montreal both jumped three spots on the rankings for business environment, and both cities clocked their highest scores in this category.

Im kind of glad Im (on) this side of the Atlantic and north of the border with the U.S.A. right now, an unnamed, Toronto-based head of investment banking told the researchers.

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Carrie Lam wins the Hong Kong elections. (Photo : Getty Images)

Carrie Lam is the new chief executive of Hong Kong and was voted by a committee that was dominated by pro-Beijing officials.



Lam's victory was expected because the committee was composed mostly of officials who were believed to be supported by Beijing. The turnout was 67 percent of membership composed of 1,194 voters.



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The other two candidates, John Tsang, received 365 votes, or 31 percent; retired judge Woo Kwok-thing had 21 votes.



Based on opinion polls, Lam had a very poor approval rating from the public.



Pro-democracy activists went to the streets as soon as the results were announced. The activists said that the elections were fake.



The protesters also demanded that the elections be open to the 3.2 million citizens of the region.



Mabel Yau, one of the hundreds of protesters, said, "China promised that Hong Kong people would run Hong Kong. Today, only 1,200 people are representing us in electing the chief executive. Is it fair?"



Protesters also believe that there will not be any change because Lam's leadership will be the same as her predecessor's.



"When the No. 2 official becomes the No. 1, there isn't going to be much change," said Joshua Wong, one of the protest organizers.



"One country, two systems are going down the drain, and our high degree of autonomy will exist in name only," he said.



Lam sees that she is not popular with the public and said that she will have to work harder to unite the very divided region.



"My priority will be to heal the divide and to ease the frustrations and to unite our society to move forward," she said at a news conference.



She also said that she will revive the talks on establishing a public electoral system and focus on education, health and housing.



"There is a serious divide in Hong Kong, so why don't we start with the easier subjects and try to reach consensus," she said.


By Anna Vogt

It is the final evening of the Observation Mission of Human Rights and Migration (OMODH). As a group of 24 international human rights organizations, we have travelled from Guatemala to Mexico, visiting with migrants and communities to better understand and advocate around migration. We are sitting in the central plaza of San Cristobal de las Casa, in Chiapas, Mexico, when a rumor starts spreading through the crowd. "The mothers are coming, the mothers are coming!" As a group, we rushed to the street entering the plaza, clasping hands to form a human chain of welcome and honour.

"Vivos los llevaran y vivos los queremos!" echos off the church and fills the plaza. This cry, "alive they were taken, and alive we want them!" has been taken up by the Caravan of Central American Mothers Searching for their Sons and Daughters. The Caravan is made up of women of all ages, wearing photos of their missing children around their necks and carrying the flags of their countries: Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador. We applaud their courage, as the long line of women passes between us to take place of honour on the plaza stage.

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Their children disappeared somewhere along the different migrant routes from Central America, through Mexico, into the United States. The children decided to migrate north for various reasons: looking for employment opportunities, family reunification, fleeing violence, or a combination. Now the mothers of these migrants also travel, following their children's footsteps through Mexico in their pilgrimage of remembrance and advocacy. They are searching for their disappeared and vow not to rest until they find them.

Mothers searching for their disappeared has a long history throughout the Americas, spilling over from the disappearances during the dictatorships and civil wars of the 20th century into the present. In Argentina, the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo courageously marched every Thursday during the Dirty War to demand the return of the over 6,000 disappeared. The Mothers of Soacha also search for their children, among the 60,630 forcibly disappeared in Colombia. In Canada, Indigenous women also demand answers for the over 1,200 missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Now, the caravan of Central American Mothers joins in this tradition. While official statistics represent only the bare minimum number of missing migrants, Missing Migrant Project records 668 migrant deaths from Latin America in 2016. According to the Colibri Centre in Tucson, since 1998, more than 6,951 migrants have lost their lives while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. In a community we visited in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, an Indigenous woman shared about the ongoing search for her missing uncle, disappeared during the Guatemalan civil war in the 1990s. Now her brother is also missing, gone somewhere along the migrant route in Mexico. The circumstances have shifted, but the strategy of disappearing people remains the same.

In the communities and shelters we visited, migrants shared some of their stories with us. They face kidnapping, extortion, rape, human trafficking and robbery by armed groups, along with threats, bribes and corruption by migration authorities. We heard that cartels located on the southern Mexican border now earn more money through trafficking and extorting migrants than through the drug trade. Border militarization through Plan Frontera Sur has pushed migrants to seek increasingly dangerous routes to avoid detention and deportation by authorities. Migrant lives appear to be of little value to those in power in all the countries they travel through.

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To take the mothers' quest seriously would mean admitting and dealing with the human rights crisis taking place all along migrant routes.

Yet to their families, these migrants are much more than objects of exploitation. Rather, they are seen as brave to undertake such a journey, often for the benefit of their families. The absence of these loved ones has left a gnawing hole of uncertainty and grief.

The mothers demand answers. Dona Marias son has been missing since 2003. She participated in the Caravan of Mothers and shares what she has learned during her search in a report from Junax ko'tantik: United Families of Chiapas Searching for our Migrants, "We have learned that we have rights and that we can demand that the government help us in our search. We can demand, even when the government does not respect us and considers us to be ignorant...We want the authorities of our states to comply with their responsibilities."

In most instances, however, there are few answers from Central American or Mexican authorities. To take the mothers' quest seriously would mean admitting and dealing with the human rights crisis taking place all along migrant routes. NGOs are active in their support, using a DNA database and forensic science to try to connect families with bodies, but without a concentrated state response to deal with human rights violations and roots causes of migration, the mothers of Latin America will be forced to continue to search for even more missing children.

We recently marked International Women's Day and I wonder, how do we honour these women and their tireless search? We can begin by recognizing rights of migrants, to be free from discrimination and danger during their journey. The Canadian government must advocate with their counterparts in Mexico, Central America and the United States for less militarization and an increased humanitarian response to migrants, with human rights protections at the top of the agenda. Foreign aid to the region must focus on root causes, such as unemployment and corruption, and support civil society efforts to create government accountability. No woman, no matter how courageous, should have to search for her missing child.

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Anna Vogt is the Latin America and Caribbean Regional Advocacy and Context Analyst for Mennonite Central Committee, based in Bogota, Colombia.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of CCIC or its members.

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If there had only been two names on the ballot in last November's election, and if I was eligible to vote in the United States, I would have cast my ballot for Donald J. Trump.

I know what you are thinking: what a douche. Some people reading this believed that a vote for Trump was a vote for normalizing racism, sexism, xenophobia and a whole host of other negative trends in our troubled society.

If you are one of those readers, just relax.

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Electing Trump was an exercise in productive cynicism, made possible by a perfect storm of colliding realities such as an incredibly unlikable Hillary Clinton, a profit-obsessed media blowing their coverage (as well as their sponsors), a public growing weary of status quo politicians, and a large swath of the population who felt swindled in the primaries.

Because the truth is there were many people who cast a ballot for Trump so that he could help fulfill the one thing that has eluded the shit show known as American politics -- a complete breakdown and subsequent moral inventory of the world's most important Republic and its most significant institutions.

Let's begin with the Republicans and Democrats and the certainty that a two party system can only foster the potentiality of a polarized electorate. Through ideological animosity the United States has bred a sagacious climate where most voters have just one choice in the end. After all, a progressive stalwart will never vote Republican, and a true-blue conservative would not be caught dead voting for a Democrat. So when both parties abandon their supporters a collapse in support is only natural. Trump hijacked the GOP, putting Republican lawmakers in the precarious position of propping up the man who gutted whatever principles they had left.

Meanwhile, the DNC thwarted the beginnings of an organic movement when they worked against the wishes of their own base, propping up Clinton during a time when the public was begging for real change.

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[Trump's] just such a disaster that the system is instinctively correcting itself.

The Trump victory exposed the ugliness of both parties, the innards of the inner workings, and the debasement of party ethics. Both party bases undoubtedly shrank, and now each party has a stark choice in front of them -- evolve or get used to a growing revolt where more voters take longer looks at other parties and independent candidates. This new reality is not just good for democracy, but it may help to preserve the democratic pillars that help hold the nation steady.

The media is also rebuilding, albeit contemptuously and without the culpability one would expect after the avalanche of irresponsible reporting we witnessed, not to mention the unmasking of various media personalities who were joined at the hip of the Clinton campaign. But now, finally, the media seems to be doing the kind of work they are supposed to be doing -- journalism. They are holding the highest office in the land accountable. They are digging for stories. They are engaging in the kind of reporting that has been absent for decades. They still have a long way to go, but it was the reaction to the election that prompted them to begin the long road back to relevancy.

Even the so-called "deep state," the collection of intelligence agencies that have been caught lying to the public about domestic spying, are starting to answer more questions. And even if they aren't willing participants in transparency, if the end result is lifting the curtain and forcing them to either change tactics or water down existing methods of intelligence gathering, it has to be considered a win.

And to think, Steven Bannon wanted to destroy the administrative state, but he may be succeeding in making it stronger, and with a stiffer resolve.

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These systemic improvements are the direct result of electing a rodeo clown as president, and none of them would have materialized under a Clinton presidency. Trump is already the most transformational president in the modern era, a political virus attacking the cracks in the system, demolishing the laisse faire attitude that allowed the deterioration of the country's institutions in the first place.

And he isn't even trying. He's just such a disaster that the system is instinctively correcting itself. The surreal combination of incompetence, absurdity, corruption and being profoundly unpresidential has released a societal antibiotic working its way through the system that has been desperate for a cleansing.

Most importantly, this president has caused an awakening of activism across the continent. And while there is a subsection of rabid alarmists likening Trump to Hitler, and a few others overstating his politics as an example of fascism, a majority of people appear to be inspired by the desire to engage in goodwill, especially towards immigrants and the concept of having a health-care system worth protecting.

Take a moment to thank a Trump voter, because they did more for America than a Hillary Clinton administration ever could.

Which leads me to believe that it will not be impeachment that removes Trump from office. Like his several bankruptcy declarations, he will wait until his back is against the wall and then retreat, probably blaming the Washington elite as he resigns from the highest office in the land. His resignation will signal to the rest of the world that America's bender has run its course, and the newly installed President Mike Pence will be too preoccupied with salvaging the GOP's midterm results to attempt any controversial legislative endeavors.

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And while Trump's humiliating departure will certainly be a positive for the nation, it will probably be accompanied by mass demonstrations from the right, fervid celebrations from the left. The potential for violence will be high, and America will have to find a way to move forward.

But two years or so of Trump's buffoonery resulting in positive institutional overhauls was a far better proposition than a Hillary Clinton presidency drenched in the usual status quo. It was also a huge gamble, but unless Trump, for the first time in his life, finds humility and a calm, measured disposition, the possibility of him finishing a full term is remote, at best.

So please, all you Clinton supporters, take a moment to thank a Trump voter, because they did more for America than a Hillary Clinton administration ever could.

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British Columbia is working to put kids with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in their place.

Their rightful place.

And it's time for the rest of Canada to do the same.

"The Ministry of Education is currently reviewing proposed changes and additions to the current Special Education Services Manual," says B.C. Ministry of Education spokesperson, Craig Sorochan. "If approved, the new guidelines will represent students with ADHD under the new Learning Disabilities category." https://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/specialed/adhd/what.htm

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Finally.

One province gets it.

Instead of focusing on the behaviour of children with ADHD, B.C. is working to address how it impairs their learning.

"We're thrilled with the news," says Executive Director, Heidi Bernhardt of the Centre for ADHD Awareness Canada (CADDAC). "This will allow students with ADHD to have the opportunity to get an Individual Education Plan (IEP) if their ADHD impacts their learning and I don't think you can have ADHD without it impacting your learning in some way." http://www.caddac.ca

What prompted B.C. to take action were recent changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5) where ADHD was removed from the behaviour category and included in the neurodevelopmental category, where learning disabilities resides. The DSM is considered the diagnostic standard in North America for all neurodevelopmental and mental health diagnoses.

CADDAC gave B.C. a failing grade in its 2010 Provincial Report Card for requiring students with ADHD to have a diagnosed learning disorder in order to qualify for special education resources. Under the new guidelines, students with ADHD alone would be able to receive accommodations under the learning disabilities category.

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"CADDAC has been advocating for this change for many years," says Bernhardt. "The remaining barrier to students with ADHD will be ensuring B.C. educators truly understand ADHD as an impairment to learning." http://www.caddac.ca/cms/page.php?48

ADHD affects 5% of children worldwide. The largest brain imaging study to date recently revealed that children with ADHD have differences in certain parts of the brain when compared to children without the disorder. ADHD affects the frontal lobe of the brain as well as other areas and results in impairment in regulating attention. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(17)30049-4/fulltext In addition, some children may also have increased levels of hyperactivity and impulsivity. All types are equally impaired in their learning with an average high school drop-out rate of 30-40%.

"Children with ADHD can have a hard time focusing, be easily distracted, impulsive, fidgety, have difficulty with regulating emotions and unintentionally disruptive in a classroom," says Bernhardt. "On the flip side, they can also be day-dreamy, slow to respond and almost lethargic." http://www.caddac.ca/cms/page.php?67

With solely an ADHD diagnosis, Jamie Lee of Port McNeill, B.C. was told her five year old son couldn't qualify for an IEP. It was only after McNeill received further diagnoses of sensory processing disorder, Tourette Syndrome, and coordination development disorder that her now seven year old could finally receive help including one on one support time with a resource teacher for reading and spelling, trips to a sensory room when he is feeling overwhelmed and extra time to complete tasks.

"He was unable to read or write and his outbursts were heard throughout the school," says Lee who resorted to bringing her son to school half days instead of full days after being called to pick him up at least three times per week. "Here we are trying to give our children the best learning opportunities and get them ready for adulthood and basically being told 'too bad'. It made me feel angry and disappointed and I cried for him nightly."

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Under B.C.'s new guidelines, children like Lee's son with only an ADHD diagnosis would get the help they need right away. If approved, school districts will be able to report students with ADHD under the learning disabilities category starting this September.

Good for B.C.

Now it's time for all of Canada to follow suit.

Especially in Ontario and Quebec, the only other two provinces in CADDAC's report to receive failing grades.

The Ontario Ministry of Education tried to rectify the situation in a memorandum to school boards in 2011 noting that students with ADHD, and no other diagnosed disorder should not be barred from qualifying for special education resources but Bernhardt says the memo has not been widely implemented. http://www.caddac.ca/cms/page.php?275

"Ontario still refuses to include ADHD under a category of exceptionality like B.C. is doing," says Bernhardt. "This has resulted in two students with the same diagnosis and learning profile receiving totally different resources from one school to another."

Though diagnosed with ADHD at age eight, a school in Hamilton, Ontario doesn't want to identify Kitty Gowland-Banda's ten year old daughter, Jessie, as an "exceptional student" under Ontario's Identification Placement and Review Committee (IPRC) because she doesn't present with any behavioural issues. Once identified under an IPRC, the right to special education resources kicks in.

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"She has difficulties with reading and writing," says Gowland-Banda. "She often does not recognize basic words and writes her letters backwards. She gets very upset when the classroom is loud, she has difficulty adjusting to schedule changes and making and keeping friends is hard."

Gowland-Banda insisted on getting Jessie accommodations through an IEP which the school finally granted after a lot of persistence but Gowland-Banda says the accommodations are not always implemented and that it depends on the teacher. And though an IEP is a legal document, without an IPRC, it can be taken away at any time.

After having no luck with the principal or the schoolboard, the Hamilton, Ontario mother contacted Paul Miller, MPP for Hamilton East - Stoney Creek.

"Promises were made, but nothing was done to support my daughter," says Gowland-Banda. "I don't want school to be made easier for my daughter, I want her to have the opportunity to show her knowledge just like everybody else."

Fed up with the lack of support, Nicole Kasurak of Orillia, Ontario has been homeschooling her son with ADHD for the past two years.

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"The school decided I didn't know what I was talking about and that I was just a terrible parent," says Kasurak. "I pulled him out of grade one at that point. He was spending all his time in the office and doing all his school work at home.

Although Alberta received a "good" rating at the time the report was released for identifying ADHD under the "medical disabilities" category, Bernhardt says it would receive only a fair grade today for moving away from a system of identification, towards a system of inclusion which all remaining provinces also presently follow.

"It sounds great," says Bernhardt. "However, the entire system hinges on educators being able to recognize the behaviours they see in students with ADHD as a learning impairment. Will issues be seen as a learning need caused by a neurodevelopmental disorder or rather interpreted as a lack of discipline, laziness or defiance?" says Bernhardt.

Sherri Kobes, of Edmonton, Alberta spent years trying to get help for her 11 year-old son, diagnosed with ADHD at age eight.

"It's been very difficult," says Kobes. "Some principals get it and others don't have a clue how to deal with a child whose brain physically functions differently."

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Karen Popal, also of Edmonton, was able to get an IEP for her six year old son, but says it was impossible to get teachers to follow it.

"The school was unwilling to help or even take our suggestions," says Popal. "Their idea of working with my child was to punish him by taking his recess away and having him sit in the hallway for most days."

As a school psychologist, Kim Unrau of Edmonton works with a lot of children with ADHD. She's like to see students with ADHD identified in Alberat a having special learning needs.

"Right now they are not," says Unrau, "and so their needs are often overlooked or misunderstood so that they fall behind in learning or are treated as having a behaviour disorder. They may be punished or otherwise singled out for things they can't help."

Some parents have resorted to requesting an autism diagnosis which "opens the doors" to additional resources.

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"It demonstrates just how desperate parents are becoming," says Bernhardt. "Unfortunately, a great deal of stigma and misunderstanding still exist around ADHD. The reality is that parents of children with other developmental disorders like autism have been more vocal and the squeaky wheel gets the oil."
napatcha via Getty Images little boy sitting alone at dam in the evening

How had I not heard this before?! Today I read about a study that made my blood run cold. According to the study published last week in the American Journal of Public Health, people with autism die at an average age of just 36 due to injuries. For the general population, life expectancy is 72.

For children and young adults, they are 40 times more likely to die from injury. More than 40% of these deaths occurred in their homes or residential institution and the last sickening stat I'll throw into this cesspool of great news is that suffocation, asphyxiation and drowning are the leading three causes of fatal injuries in people with autism.

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These statistics are not so shocking when I break them down and consider what they mean and how they line up with my own experiences of accidents, runaways and close calls with my own boys. But seeing those numbers on paper is sickening. For every statistic, I am thinking about the parent or caregiver who is not only mourning the death of their loved one, but who is likely beating themselves up with guilt that they didn't prevent it from happening.

My ex and I have had more arguments than I care to admit over the issue of safety and my twins. I have always felt that I was the proactive parent and he was the reactive one -- but from his perspective, I was the paranoid one and he was more rational.

If I saw a weak spot in the fence in the backyard, I'd freak out and want to patch it up in case one of the boys tried to run away. I wanted out-of-reach locks on the doors and windows in case O or W tried to slip out. I wanted to force the kids to wear life jackets whenever they were near deep water, despite the fact they could swim pretty well. I wanted security cameras and alarms in case someone tried to make a run for it while I was sleeping.

We've had GPS units on the kids, been wait-listed and explored the option of therapy dogs, we've registered the kids with the police department and have worked on therapy programs to teach the boys about safety and danger.

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Rooftop escapades, forays into traffic, and opening of car doors on busy highways are all heart-stopping moments that we have somehow survived.

As far as I was concerned, we were 'lucky' when it comes to numbers. What are the odds at having twins? What are the odds at both twins having severe autism? With those odds and us 'winning', I should buy a lottery ticket. Therefore if the odds are low that something bad could happen, I always felt like we'd get 'lucky' again and land on the wrong side of the statistic.

History has revealed that I have been right to worry. We have had far too many close calls with my guys. Their understanding of danger is next to non-existent and is often over-powered by their determination to follow their own agenda. If W wants to submerge himself in deep water, you can bank on the fact that he'll jump out of the boat in the middle of the lake to do it -- even if it's flying at high speeds.

Rooftop escapades, forays into traffic, and opening of car doors on busy highways are all heart-stopping moments that we have somehow survived.

I live in constant fear, in constant vigilance and in constant anxiety. Reading that study tells me that I'm not paranoid.

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But while my brain screams that as a Mama, I have the responsibility to protect my boys from harm, my heart screams that I have to loosen the leash and let them experience life a little. At what point do I acknowledge that they are no longer little boys? They are teenagers now. They are more intelligent than we know and more capable than I give them credit for. At what point, do I trust them with a bit of freedom from my paranoia?

One day last year, one of the boys' classmates showed up at my front door. He was by himself and I knew he lived further away than just around the corner. I freaked out, worried that his mother would be beside herself, not knowing where he was. He has developmental disabilities, but is pretty verbal, and he informed me that he just wanted to come over and play with his buddies.

Once I tracked his mom down, I learned that he was free to wander the neighbourhood and after school, he sometimes is on his own, or his younger brother watches him. This blew my mind and shifted the way I thought about my boys and their independence.

Am I holding my boys back from experiencing the world? Could they be ready for more and am I treating them like babies, when inside, they could be screaming for some independence? I just don't have the answers. Autism doesn't come with a rule book and no two people with autism are alike.

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These parenting dilemmas plague every parent, regardless of whether or not autism is in the picture and I struggle fiercely on this issue with my neuro-typical teen as well. I just want to do right by my kids and damn it - I want them around longer than the age of 36.

I would love to hear how other parents have tackled this issue. Please share your comments.
Looking back at the last election, the Harper Conservatives made a serious mistake that the current crop of cons continue to make; ignore the rising influence of highly engaged, liberal leaning millenials. Right up to the last minute in his campaign, Stephen Harper continued to press his message that Justin Trudeau was too young, too inexperienced, and had no idea how to lead this country. He was not ready to lead, that is, until he won his landslide victory forming a majority government, relegating the Conservatives to leaderless second party status. Late breaking news flash: he's the leader of Canada.

And with the Conservative party's best bet for a leader, Rona Ambrose, committed to not running for the permanent job, the current field of underwhelming candidates will now have to square off against Kevin O'Leary. While it may be tempting to draw parallels between his entry into the race and the path to the White House travelled by Mr. Trump, I suspect at some point soon Mr. O'Leary will realize that he is not Donald Trump, and this is not the United States.

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While O'Leary is best known for playing a caricature of a stereotypical tough businessman, the truth about his own corporate record has been characterized as shocking, and his success attributed more to celebrity than business smarts. His recent claims he is the only one who could defeat Justin Trudeau and his Liberals sound more like parroting Trump, and much less like a potential leader who might revive the flagging fortunes of his potential political party -- assuming Conservatives would even have him.

Mr. O'Leary has missed much of the debates, and while he is a great mean talker, I don't for a moment believe Canadians, including most millennials and boomers, are interested in the country being governed by a mouthy bully with dubious business credentials, no French, and poor people skills.

I look forward to hearing his platform, and to seeing how he chooses to behave during this run for the leadership. For now, I can't help but think he will be seen as a TV personality, who was more famous a few years ago then he is today. And his mean, aggressive persona is no match for the current charm and youth offensive that has so many Canadians forgiving so much of Justin Trudeau's recent stumbles.

In any event, the real race for the Conservatives comes after the leadership race, when the Conservative party will have to convince a younger voting public to buy into their brand. I just can't see Mr. O'Leary having anything relevant to offer this demographic. I fully expect him, like his fellow leadership opponents and the former leader of the party, to completely misread the mood of the electorate. But like everything Kevin O'Leary has done so far, it will probably make for entertaining television.

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I have met hundreds of models throughout my time working in the fashion industry but there are specific people that stood out to me over the years. Some I have had the pleasure to meet and work with and others I have admired from a distance. It is hard to thrive in an industry that is so competitive and cut throat. I always applaud the models who managed to have a modelling career and use it for a bigger cause and raise awareness. I was fortunate enough to check in with some of these role models.

1. Char San Pedro

Char is a Hawaiian and Maldivian activist and philanthropist. She started to model professionally at 22 years old. She started her own foundation called "Good To Be Good" were she raises funds for homeless shelters and children that come from abusive homes. Every event that Charmaine has held has been highly successful and every few months she gives a tuck full of boxes of food to families that are hungry around Toronto City. She adds "No matter how big or small the act is, everything we do as an individual effects the whole world"

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2. Elly May Day

Elly May Day is an activist and public speaker. Elly is a spokeswoman for Ovarian Cancer and also a survivor of Ovarian Cancer. She uses her voice to encourage women to love their bodies and regularly posts body positive images to her Instagram of her scars reminding women everywhere that they are beautiful. As well as being a very successful model and taking part in campaigns like Lane Bryant's "Im no angel" its her positive fighting attitude that really makes her a diamond in the rough. She add's "Ive chosen not to let this disease define me or deter me. I want to show you how you are #stillbeautiful through the things life hands us."

3. Felicity Hayward

Being yourself is cool, never dull yourself down for anyone, they will ruin your sparkle  Full outfit details via @liketoknow.it http://liketk.it/2pSB4 #liketkit ( simply sign up once, like any of my images with the hashtags above and all links will slide into your DM )  A post shared by Felicity Hayward (@felicityhaywardcurvemodel) on Dec 15, 2016 at 10:17am PST

Felicity is a curve model/body activist and the founder of @self.love.brings.beauty. Self Love Brings Beauty is a self love movement for all genders, ages and sizes. This organisation runs events globally and they also run workshops. She started the project because she wanted people to value beauty from their own perspective and not the perspective of the media. In an interview with Vogue magazine Felicity said "My size never came to mind, I would never change myself for anyone."

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4. Stacey Mckenzie

Stacey Mckenzie is a television personality and the founder of #Walkthiswayworkshops & #Thewalkcamp. These workshops see hundreds of teenagers attend as Stacey gives inspirational and empowering talks. The talks are not just about fashion but education. Stacey's workshops encourage children/teens to express themselves through the arts and to find their voices through the arts. Her other mentoring talents include helping youth with confidence and self esteem and personal health. She adds "The main message I want people to see with #Walkthisway is to love and own who they are first. I want them to have a strong sense of self worth."

5. Myla Dalbesio

Myla is an artist photographer and writer. Myla runs a series on her Instagram page called "Myla Runs Her Mouth." In these posts she gets very real about the harsh realities of the fashion industry. According to Myla the girls who put real messages out there on Instagram with a good intention are the ones who usually succeed. In this series Myla gives young girls advice and realistic advice about the modelling and fashion industry. She adds " Working as a model is not as glamorous as it seems, you will face endless amounts of rejection, you will be ignored and you will struggle with jealousy."

6. Seana Sweeney

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Seana Sweeney is an advocate for women all over the world. She has spoken publicly about life when she had her son as a single mum and how she juggled with jobs to make ends meet. Although Seana is one of Irelands most successful curvy models she's very realistic about the nature surrounding the fashion industry and working as a model. Although admitting that the money earned in the modelling industry can be a great help she said its nice to now I have a back up plan if there's not much going on with modelling. She added "To help even one woman to feel good would mean the world to me".

7. Saffi Karina

Saffi is the founder of the Body Project London. The project is globally pioneering self confidence and empowerment masterclasses. At 27 Karina couldn't maintain a size 8 figure and was dropped by her modelling agency. From here she made it her mission to carry on despite being too she was "too curvy." She adds "I had only been working for a few years and really loving it when they dropped me. I have 41 inch hips and they are pure bone, there is nothing i can do about them, they aren't going anywhere so I have to work with what I've got."
What Donald wants, Donald gets.

But getting more money out of Canada for NATO? He's going to get that.

Now, if you were to poke through the entrails of the 2017 federal budget, released with a minimum of fuss last week, you would not find any statement that read: "Her Majesty's Government pledges to commit more resources to the North American Treaty Organization (NATO), because we are concerned what the short-fingered vulgarian to the South will do to us if we don't." No such statement is in there.

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There is, however, this on page 186 in Chapter Three of the budget:

That paragraph is the Donald Trump paragraph, you might say. It was written just for him. As we speak, Canada's highly capable ambassador to the U.S., David MacNaughton -- probably the best appointment Justin Trudeau has made to date, but that is a column for another day -- is shuttling around Official Washington, a photocopy of that paragraph in hand, solemnly assuring the hawks in the Trump regime that Canada will start paying its way in NATO very soon.

Because we don't pay our way in NATO, and we haven't for a long time. And we need to.

There are 28 members of NATO. Its budget is north of $900 billion annually. The United States of America contributes an extraordinary $650 billion of that. The United Kingdom, $60 billion; France and Germany, in and around $40 billion each, give or take. Canada?

"You have countries in NATO that are getting a free ride and it's unfair, it's very unfair." -- U.S. President Donald Trump

Canada is in the bottom third of NATO members, alongside military powerhouses like Slovenia and Luxembourg, and others with bankrupt and/or struggling economies. By agreement reached in 2014, NATO members are supposed to be devoting two per cent of their nation's gross domestic product (GDP) to defence. Canada doesn't, and consistently hasn't. We spend less than one per cent.

During the Republican primaries and during the U.S. presidential race, Donald Trump would be asked often about defence by reporters looking for some new insane Trump statement to report. Trump wouldn't disappoint.

So: "We are getting ripped off by every country in NATO, where they pay virtually nothing, most of them. And we're paying the majority of the costs."

And: "We're spending a tremendous -- billions and billions of dollars on NATO. We're paying too much! You have countries in NATO, I think it's 28 countries -- you have countries in NATO that are getting a free ride and it's unfair, it's very unfair."

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And, this gem, which gave plenty of Western leaders heartburn, and which transformed Donald Trump's presidency from something that was mildly amusing to something that was deeply terrifying: NATO was "obsolete," he said. And: "The U.S. must be prepared to let these countries defend themselves."

That statement about NATO's obsolesence, uttered during an interview in January with a German newspaper, was a shock. "[NATO is] obsolete, first because it was designed many, many years ago," Trump said. Secondly, he said, it's obsolete because "countries aren't paying what they should."

His first point, like so much that the Unpresident says, was certifiably insane. With Trump's pal Vladimir Putin massing troops and guns on the border of assorted Baltic states, NATO is needed more now than perhaps ever before. But on his second assertion, that NATO is compromised because many countries aren't paying what they should?

Donald Trump is right.

(Your eyes are not deceiving you. Hillary Clinton-loving Warren Kinsella wrote that "Donald Trump is right" about something. Clip and save, folks.)

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The unofficial word around official Ottawa is that the budget's Donald Trump Paragraph means that the forthcoming defence review -- with the Trudeau government's amorphous pledge to "equip the Forces to meet the challenges of the coming decades" -- will result in Canada finally meeting its NATO commitment. A Conservative government had long been a NATO free rider, but it will be a Liberal government that will finally pay its way in NATO. To this Liberal hawk, that is profoundly ironic -- but highly satisfying.

Donald Trump is a traitor to his nation and its constitution. He is a thug and a demagogue. He is an Internet troll, elevated to the Oval Office. But on NATO, and on the requisite contributions to NATO, he is right.

Just ask the guy who said this: "NATO needs more Canada." That guy?

One Barack Obama, in the House of Commons on June 29, 2016.

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Wish you were there. Really do. But since you couldn't make it, no problem. Here's what to appreciate: It's believed there were more than 50,000 people last Saturday on March 25th taking part in a positive, peaceful, pleasant March for a United Europe in the heart of London, from Park Lane to Westminster. People wore blue and handed out yellow flowers in memory of the heroes and victims of last week's tragic events.

It was a sparkling blue-sky day. People (and their dogs) from all over Britain - families, babies, the elderly, millennials, people of all ages, colours, religions and nationalities - came together and just walked. Yes there was the group from Wales, the group from Devon, the group from Stratford, and on and on, but rather than a description I read somewhere of "affiliated groups protesting Brexit", I see a more accurate perception from the inside as: Real people from Real life, who never get to be seen or heard, who are not afraid and who believe in Britain, believe in unity and believe in Europe, came together with one voice.

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Photo:Alex Ratcliffe

For all its internationalism, it was a very British affair: "Let's all queue here for hours as the march stretches out for miles, before we can even move, then quietly shuffle forward with our buggies". And yet, it was affirmation that Britishness is no longer incompatible with being European as well.

No anger, no shouting, but a visible passion for all the important reasons for being there, including a stubborn opposition to Brexit, and a celebration of the 60th anniversary to the day, of the Treaty of Rome. Strains of "Happy Birthday to EU" could be heard everywhere. And the placards. An absolute favourite one just read: "Tut."

And others: The humorous, "May, Non!", "Missing EU Already" and "I'm British. I'm on a March. Things must be Serious", morphing to the more impassioned, " Save Our United Kingdom", "May Day, May Day", and "Brexit NOT the Choice of the Next Generation".

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Photo:Alex Ratcliffe

Being handed a bunch of flowers upon arrival by the wonderful Avaaz group, set the tone for what was not going to be an anti-Vietnam nor anti-Iraq type march, nor was it a Woodstock. It was just a sample of Real Life, spilling out onto the streets of London, good people, respectful, and focused on what they believe.

People with their tupperware lunches, letting you squeeze through, squeeze in, sit down, whatever. A father overheard saying kindly to his toddler, "Don't be a Remoaner. You can't eat until lunch". Parliament Square packed, shoulder to shoulder, people standing in the sun, listening to a host of speakers. And amongst so many others, the inspiring young man speaking from the platform: "I'm British, I'm Muslim, I'm Pakistani and I'm European!"

Photo:Alex Ratcliffe

And yet, one can't help but be disappointed that media coverage of this massive event was conspicuous by its near total absence. News was devoted to further information about the perpetrator of last Wednesday's attack, more sensational photos, and more Death. Barely a photo of Life Happening, of what could be, if seen, so heartening and encouraging for so many.

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So maybe you had to be there to be appreciate it, to be amongst the thousands and thousands , walking for hours, showing "more which unites us than divides us." It may not be on the front pages, but at least we know that it happened. Lots of good stuff happens.
Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May are arguably two of the most powerful women in the country. When they can each be reduced to nothing more than a pair of limbs, pitted against each other and ranked by their attractiveness on the front of a national newspaper, we have a problem.

The Daily Mail's front page coverage of a critical meeting about the relationship between Scotland, the UK and the EU has somehow been reduced to a headline about the legs of these two politicians as they negotiated the future of their countries. The use of the crude term 'Legs-it' to rhyme with Brexit is a new low, even for the Mail.

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Undermining female politicians in this way is utterly unacceptable, so I've submitted a formal complaint to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) over the 'Legs-it' headline. It's already attracted a storm of criticism today from across political divides, with many stating that the "1950s want their headline back".

As a young woman politician I find it absolutely extraordinary that a national newspaper has sunk to this level. Female leaders deserve to be treated with respect, not contempt, and we must listen to their voices rather than comment on their appearances.

We have come a long way towards securing diversity in Parliament. Today's Daily Mail coverage is a step back that undermines all of our accomplishments over the last century - from securing the right to vote for all women of voting age, to the first women being elected into Parliament.

The Mail appears to be deliberately ignoring these years of progress by women in politics. It's utterly pathetic. We have now reached a point where we have a female prime minister, first minister and party leaders, yet this is how they are treated by the press.

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My complaint to Ipso accuses the paper of breaching Cause 12 of the Editors' Code of Practice, discrimination. The code states outlets must "avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual's race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability".

The article itself was about a meeting between Sturgeon and May about a possible second Scottish independence referendum - a decision that will impact the UK for generations to come. To bring the politicians' appearance into this story is not only entirely irrelevant but incredibly disrespectful, both to the women, and to the people that they represent.

The Legs-it headline and the further derogatory comments inside the paper would not have even been considered, let alone published, if the two politicians in question had been men.

Social media users have been proving this exact point all day, by posting photos of the likes of David Cameron and Michael Gove in shorts and swimwear (which wasn't exactly what I wanted to see while I was eating my breakfast this morning). I don't want to see anyone's body judged by a national newspaper before I've even had a cup of tea. But the sheer absurdity of the photoshopped front pages shows our wildly different standards for men and women.

What does this indicate to every other women in the UK? Even if you run the country, you will still be treated with contempt. It reinforces a fallacy that politics isn't a place for women, potentially putting off the next generation of leaders and decision makers.

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We're facing a widening gender gap of voters, with more men voting than women. More than nine million women did not vote in the last general election. When the press makes politics seem irrelevant to women's lives, the engagement of these women in our political system becomes even more difficult.

Sadly, this isn't the first time the Daily Mail has commented on Theresa May's attire instead of her actions. Not to mention all the other women politicians who have been targeted by the paper. It's time we acknowledged the Daily Mail and its tabloid peers have a problem with women.

Unfortunately, the paper's response to today's outcry has been equally shameful. Critics of the Mail's headline are not lacking a sense of humour, we're lacking patience.

An alleged two thirds of female politicians have faced sexism at work. We endure derogatory comments, social media abuse and being judged solely on our appearances. I refuse to be put off, but I worry about the impact on others who might be reconsidering stepping into the public sphere.
Image: By kropekk_pl [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

Companies and the UK government pulled advertisements from YouTube after it had been revealed that some of these organisations' ads were presented together with videos featuring anti-Semitism, white supremacist ideology, hate speech inciting violence, and right-wing extremism. Organisations that have removed ad investments from YouTube include Audi, BBC, Channel 4, EDF Energy, Havas ad agency (representing e.g. Domino's, HSBC, Hyundai, O2, Royal Mail), L'Oreal, Lloyds, Marks & Spencer, McDonald's, RBS, Sainsbury's, Tesco, The Guardian, Toyota, Transport for London, UK Cabinet Office, UK Financial Conduct Authority, and Volkswagen.

YouTube is only in respect to the use-values it provides a media content company. In respect to what it sells and in terms of exchange-value it is the world's largest advertising company. It lives by turning user activity into labour that creates big data commodities. YouTube's data is big in two respect: One hour of new videos is uploaded to YouTube per second - that is 31,536,000 hours or 1,314,000 full days of video content per year. One person would need 3600 years to watch all the content uploaded in one year to YouTube. There are more than one billion YouTube-users. YouTube involves big content data and big user meta-data. Big data capitalism is a capitalism of large numbers. YouTube is part of the capitalist openness industry: It favours the open distribution of content without access restriction and the de-commodification of access in order to commodify user data in the form of targeted advertising.

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Not humans, but algorithms decide on which YouTube and Google-content specific advertisements are featured. Algorithmic advertising and sales only require relatively little human labour. Data trade is a highly automated capitalist business, in which algorithms organise the commodity sales process.

One can target Google-video ads by location, demographics (gender, age, parental status, household income) and interests. The ad algorithm identifies individuals with the chosen characteristics and presents ads to them while they watch YouTube videos. A YouTube ad client can select particular videos or leave the choice open. Popular YouTubers can become YouTube partners and earn money by allowing ads on their video content. The ad revenue is shared between YouTube and its partners.

Digital capitalism entails big data commodity fetishism: Users' sociality and activity disappear behind screens and algorithms. The algorithmic machine organises the data commodity, the viewing process, and the mapping of ads and users. Google's profits live and grow through algorithms, instrumental logic, online automation, and machinic behaviour.

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The commodity and the algorithm are blind for morality and meaning. They empty online communication from its meaning and fill the created void by automatically presenting advertisements. The algorithm does not care if the content it matches with ads contains dog poo, beef stew or a fascist cuckoo. The logic of algorithms and the logic of the commodity know no ethics and no morals. They only know the instrumental logic of numbers. The immorality apparent in the pairing of fascist videos with mainstream organisation's ads is the very consequence of the automation of human activity in big data capitalism.

Image: Author's own

What can be done? Clear guidelines and policies that ban fascist content as well as employment of more staff for checking policy violations would certainly be a good step. But it is not enough. The problem is of a more fundamental nature: Big data capitalism negates public interest content and public interest platforms. The logic of minimising human intervention by algorithmic automatic is part of big data capitalism's business models. Algorithmic advertising is part of the problem. The only solution is that we re-invent Internet platforms. We need public interest platforms that are not about advertising and selling commodities, but about critical and educational content that engages humans in debate, co-creation and fascination. The online world needs socio-technological and institutional innovations that transcend big data capitalism. We need small data, slow media, non-profit social media, and non-commercial platforms.
Operation Mekong (Photo : Golden Age Cinema/You Tube)

China is the guest of honor at the 23rd International Mediterranean Film Festival which opened in Morocco on March 25. There are several movies from China that are being exhibited at the festival that runs until April 2.



Presenting China Experience to Wider Audience



In selecting China as the festivals guest of honor, Ahmed El Housni, festival director, said that in recent years, Chinese filmmaking had distinguished itself as one of the worlds leader in movie production. By making China the guest of honor, the festival targets to present the experience to a wider audience in Morocco, Xinhua News Agency reported.



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Mojin: The Lost Legend by Wu Ershan is among the Chinese movies participating in the film festival. Also being shown are Operation Mekong by Dante Lam, The Master by Xu Haofeng and The Dead End by Cao Baoping.



Past editions of the film festival included nations that are not geographically part of the Mediterranean region such as Iran, Chile and Mexico whose movies were showcased. There are 24 movies competing in the film festival, 15 are from Mediterranean counties. Half of the movies are feature films and the other half are documentary films.



The Jury



The best feature movie would be awarded the Grand Prix Tamouda dor. The best documentary film would receive the Tetouan Grand Prix award. To determine the winners is a jury which Yousry Nasrallah, an Egyptian director, heads for the feature movies, while for the documentary films, Thomas Bauer, French screen writer, presides.



The festival is known for awarding and showing excellent movies such as You Got A Problem by Broadway actor-turned-director Charles Mandracchia which was the winner of the Best Animated Short Film Category at MEDFF in 2016. Since then, it has won awards also in film festivals in Los Angeles and Italy, Broadway World reported.



Housni added that friendly bilateral relationship is enhanced whenever the festival honors a nation. He pointed out that in recent years, ties between Morocco and China saw significant economic and cultural progress.


wildpixel via Getty Images

Last month I didn't post a blog.

Sadly, my father passed away after a short illness.

Seeing my Dad attached to a life support machine somewhere between this life and whatever comes next made me think about being in limbo.

Limbo, a place of transition?.

Limbo, a place where we get stuck?

Dante describes limbo as a region on the edge of hell in his epic poem The Devine Comedy.

I don't know.

Since having a brain haemorrhage and subsequent radiosurgery on my AVM in January 2015 I have been living in a state of limbo - a 4% chance of the abnormality, deep in my brain, bleeding again until I am told otherwise by the neurosurgeons.

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My most recent MRI scan, last month, gave my neurosurgeon, Francis Johnston, enough confidence to order up an angiogram which will show whether the abnormality is still "alive" or that nature has done her work and sealed off the AVM and so the chances of a re-bleed are zero releasing me from this limbo I find myself in.

I am not alone in my own states of limbo.

We all live in various states of limbo all of the time.

Limbo creates thunderous storms in our minds. Loud "What ifs" clatter about inside our heads. What if this happens? What if that happens?

Limbo feeds on our reactions and our thoughts to the situations and circumstances we find ourselves in.

The bigger the reaction the bigger limbo becomes.

Being in states of limbo can be debilitating, paralyzing, and the destroyer of our confidence.

Limbo can deny us a way forward, to seek growth and to uncover opportunities to make a better us and a better someone else.

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I have learnt from my own illness, and through my recovery, that you can rid yourself from states of limbo by getting to work and moving yourself forward.

Work doesn't mean a job and a pay cheque.

Work means doing your best, and better, making the most of your day and your time.

Work is cleaning up after the kids, taking the dog for a walk, going to the gym, talking to your neighbour, giving your time to a stranger in the street, finding forgiveness.

There is always work to be done.

By doing your best work, and better than best, you can and will create new opportunities and new experiences that can and will move you forward and away from these states of limbo and the negativity we can all find ourselves in.

This is shared wisdom.

James Altucher, writes "Every day try to get a tiny bit better in physical health, emotional health, creativity, and spirituality. 1% a day compounds to 3800% per year. It's amazing what this means...."

Senica, the Roman Stoic, wrote "It's not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it."

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My dad would of agreed with Altucher and Senica. By doing a little bit more everyday you create a movement forward and with that will come a better you along with new and better opportunities for you and for others which enriches your life and the life of others.

An actor can find himself in limbo too when it comes to communicating a script.

In an actors training you learn of various methods to keep you moving forward through the text, word by word, moment by moment.

One of these methods is known as actioning the text. The purpose, to keep the story alive and moving forward to avoid a dull and lifeless performance - a performance stuck in limbo.

This is the work for an actor, discovering ways to tell the story, to drive the story you are telling forward.

And, that's what we are doing with our own work. We are driving our own stories, our own lives, forward.

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For my Dad, he had reached the end of his life and the life support machine was turned off.

This action released him, my mum, my sister and me from that state of limbo we found ourselves in.

We are now slowly doing the work, I have talked about, to move ourselves forward and out of the bereaved state of limbo we now find ourselves in.

This work may take time, possibly a long time, but I know this, it is what my Dad would of wanted each of us to do.

My Dad hated people sitting around in limbo when there is much work to be done.
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Cloud computing - where IT resources and services are delivered remotely rather than on local platforms - is one of tech's biggest trends.

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The concept has been around for many years, but it's in the last decade or so that it has really gained a strong foothold. In one way or another, if we are users of the Internet, smart phones or indeed, just about any connected device, we are users of the cloud.

From simple consumer-focused data storage services at one extreme, to global businesses moving their entire IT infrastructure to the cloud at the other, there's huge financial momentum behind it.

But when we talk about big tech trends, how big is big?

Analyst house IDC predicted that the public cloud market will grow from $95bn last year to $195bn by 2020. These are huge numbers, but to give those billions some context, Apple, the most profitable company in the world, brought in revenues of $233bn, according to Forbes 2016 rankings. Microsoft, a massive worldwide success story and employer of 94,000 people, generated a 'mere' $85.3bn in the same year, a figure just ahead of the entire revenue of the worldwide information security market.

Or look at it this way - the GDP of Portugal (population: 10.4m) is around $200bn.

So yes, it's a lot. But it's actually just the start.

According to analysts, Bain, cloud computing actually makes up a relatively minor segment of the IT industry - just 16% of the $1.1 trillion enterprise technology market as a whole.

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So where are we heading? The cloud market is increasingly competitive and nuanced. Services aimed at businesses and consumers alike, such as cloud storage, are growing enormously. Whole industry sectors, from the Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) who offer various elements of cloud-powered IT infrastructure, to the Managed Service Providers (MSPs) who make sure cloud can be used successfully, employ a new generation of 'cloud people', experts and innovators. They represent just a few layers of the cloud industry 'onion'.

Cloud will play a major role in enabling and supporting the nascent Internet of Things (IoT) industry, which is expected to sky rocket in value in the years ahead. From quirky, and some might argue unlikely, devices such as IoT hairbrushes, umbrellas and bins to the emerging connected cities where infrastructure, buildings, businesses, vehicles and people become 24/7 data generators, cloud services and storage will be a huge part of that future.

This exponential hyper growth in data is consuming vast amounts of storage space - IDC estimates that a mind boggling 1.8 zettabytes of digital data will exist by 2020 (to give it some context, a zettabyte is 2 to the 70th power bytes, or around a billion terabytes). And, while cloud is just one of the storage options open to organisations, the general trend for everyone is massive, sustained demand.

This IoT gold rush will take an industry that didn't exist 20 years ago, to one that will overtake many established markets in the years ahead. According to McKinsey, it's an industry where - for once - "hype may actually understate the full potential". They believe it could generate up to $11.1 trillion a year in economic value by 2025.
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Sunday 26th March 2017 marked two years since the Modern Slavery Act 2015 received Royal Assent and last week saw the 210th anniversary of the Slave Trade Act 1807.

As the UK's first Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, appointed by the Prime Minister in her former capacity as Home Secretary, I have been afforded the responsibility of spearheading the country's response to this barbaric crime. The journey thus far has included many successes and numerous challenges. Overall more victims have been supported and more perpetrators punished - a noteworthy victory - but there remains much to do, domestically and on the international stage.

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Despite there being an estimated 10 - 13,000 victims of modern slavery in the UK, just two years ago there was no single piece of legislation that addressed the complex nature of the crime. Much has changed in the last two years and the passing of the Modern Slavery Act was just the start.

The Prime Minister now chairs a Taskforce on modern slavery, hosting regular meetings at Downing Street with relevant departments to coordinate the UK fight. The Home Secretary has committed 8.5m funding to police to boost their response to the crime. A further 33.5m has been committed to address the root causes of modern slavery overseas in countries where victims originate.

Since the Act received Royal Assent, statutory agencies have stepped up anti-slavery efforts. Combating the crime of modern slavery has been made a high priority threat for the UK's National Crime Agency, who have ramped up their response; UK police have begun conducting increasing investigations across the country; and the Work and Pensions Select Committee is carrying out an inquiry into access to welfare benefits for all victims of modern slavery, as well as looking at awareness levels among the Department for Work and Pensions staff on modern slavery issues.

Furthermore, with the UK the first country in the world to bring in legislation on transparency in supply chains of companies, businesses have begun to openly engage on the issue. Cases of modern slavery have been identified, shared and no longer kept hidden.

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Specific companies have started to lead the way in responding to modern slavery by going above and beyond the requirements of the Act. For example, The Co-op has developed an innovative project providing employment opportunities for survivors of modern slavery; the Chartered Institute of Building has driven collective action within the construction industry; and a number of companies, such as Carillion, are taking pro-active approaches, establishing steering groups to identify modern slavery risks, rolling out training programmes for employees and introducing agreements with suppliers to ensure all comply with the Act.

Not only has progress been made at home, but internationally too. In late 2015, I led efforts to secure a clear target in the UN's Sustainable Development Goals dedicated to the eradication of modern slavery. Since then, the international community has woken up to the scale of slavery, which thrives in humanitarian crises. Preventing this brutal trade in human life is now an integral part of discussions among world leaders. So much so that during its presidency of the UN Security Council earlier this month, the UK hosted an open debate on modern slavery in conflict where over 80 countries acknowledged the need to address the crime. In addition, countries such as Australia are following the UK's lead by considering introducing their own legislation on modern slavery.

Mind-sets are starting to change and cultures are beginning to shift. We are seeing more statutory and non-statutory agencies view this as the serious and often organised crime that it is. However, for the UK to be deemed a world lead on this issue, there is still more to be done. The Modern Slavery Act is the first legislation of its kind in Europe but we cannot be considered a global leader if support for victims in the UK lets them down, if law enforcement agencies do not work together to build an improved intelligence picture or if British businesses ignore slavery in their own supply chains.

Complacency is a barrier to progress; we must remain driven to fighting the injustice of modern slavery. I want to see reform of the support available to victims, so that they are not left destitute, homeless or worse, vulnerable to modern slavery once again. I want to see agencies doing all they can to prevent children going missing after exiting exploitation. I want to see capacity building of law enforcement officers, whether on our streets or at our borders. I want to see anti-slavery efforts built into protection measures in humanitarian crises. And last but not least, I want all to remain committed to tackling the crime at source, with clear preventative messaging and employment options to stop people falling prey to traffickers and slave masters.
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It was a normal Wednesday afternoon and I was working away in the office not far across from the River Thames across from Westminster Bridge, in fact you can see the London Eye from the top floor of my office - then all of a sudden I started getting Whatsapp notifications about the stabbing of a Police Officer near Parliament. At first I was unable to understand what had happened, then my colleagues turned on the TV and the news began to emerge that 4 people had been killed amidst another incident where a driver ran over 3 people.

Amongst the deceased was Aysha Frade, a mother going to pick up her children from school. I felt sadness and anger - who knew that an innocent woman going about her daily life would have her life taken in this horrific act of violence and senselessness? My heart and sincerest condolences go to her family and children. My email got stopped half way as I and my colleagues looked at the screen with much fear at the loss of lives including that of Police Officer Keith Palmer who bravely protected our city that day - it took a while to sink in that all this was taking place just a few minutes away from my office.

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Westminster is a place I am very familiar with, having grown up in London and studied Politics myself at University College London I've attended plenty of events and engagements in the heart of this great city I am proud to call my home. This monumental place today became the centre of attack for yet another mindless thug who happens to be Muslim. But he does not reflect what Islam, a religion of peace and compassion, teaches from his atrocious crimes which took the lives of innocent people that day.

As a young British Muslim I felt deeply sad and horrified by these events. I also felt fear admittedly about the safety of not only myself but everyone else in London that evening on my way to Leicester Square with my Hindu friend. My friends and family were all messaging from around the world to check if I was safe, I had never thought despite witnessing so many terrible acts of violence since 9/11 that something would happen so close to home. I knew that as a British Muslim we must do something to support the victims of this atrocity and tragic event which occurred in our community, so I was glad that a group of British Muslims launched a campaign called 'Muslims United for London' to help the victims and their families on LaunchGood - a crowdfunding platform for individuals to support great causes of good in society As one of the founders of the campaign Muddassar Ahmed said he started the campaign as a way of standing up for London, and the city's international values.

"It's very important to show that individuals that may try to divide communities by participating in attacks which pit one side of the community against another are going to fail," he said. The funds raised will provide support to the victims and their families from the attacks. LaunchGood is a platform founded by global Muslims to support Muslims launching good all across the world by helping them raise funds for their campaigns. This is what British Muslims stand for.

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What happened next was an incredible expression and moment of pure love, compassion and solidarity by British Muslims - so powerful and strong that it told those who sought to divide us and create fear in our society that we will not allow it. Within 48 hours the campaign raised over 25,000. Hundreds of Muslim faith leaders, Imams, activists and Muslims turned up at the Trafalgar Square Vigil last Thursday evening where Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, a proud British Muslim himself highlighted that: "Terrorists want to attack London is because they hate the fact that we don't just tolerate each other - whether you're a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, member of an organised faith or not, we respect, embrace and celebrate each other and that's going to carry on",

British Muslims like myself have studied, grown up and are proud to be British citizens, we like everyone else want to see an end to these mindless and extreme acts of violence on innocent lives wherever they may take place around the world. The Qur'an says: "Whoever takes a life, it is as though he has killed the whole of humanity." (Chapter 5, Verse 32) Social cohesion and unity will only be fostered if we learn to embrace each other's differences, to work together against evil and through better understanding one another as the beautiful teachings of my faith encourage. If we allow the attackers to divide us, we let them win, But if we stand together united, we are more stronger than they ever will be.
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Unfortunately in every group that holds a particular belief system, there are always those who take the messages too far or make their own definitions of the beliefs held. These people are extremists and should not in any way represent these groups. Through fear and ignorance, people hold these groups accountable for the extremists actions. In this case of course I am talking about Islam and what's known as ISIS.

Following the recent terror attack in London and the many in Europe in the last few years, people have taken to social media and within their daily lives to spread the message that these attacks MUST be the work of radicalised Muslims. When the 9/11 attacks happened I was just 3 years old and of course I don't remember it, but throughout my life since that awful day, the prejudice and hatred felt towards the Muslim community has grown intensely. It's become a mainstream and rather common field of thought that every attack must be the work of anyone following Islam. It's important to remember that 99% of Muslims believe in peace and solidarity and should not be punished for others actions.

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We cannot let these messages of hatred and pure ignorance win. We need to be fighting against Islamophobia to ensure that our Muslim brothers and sisters are safe and the true meaning of their religion is understood. It's important to remember that terrorism has no religion and no race. Terror attacks are random, brutal and unforgiving. The terrorists that undergo these attacks and claim to be members of Islamic State should not be affiliated with the general Muslim community. They are extremists who have disregarded Islam's messages of love, unity and equality and decided to preach hatred and genocide instead. Islamophobia is strong in this country and millions of people believe that all Muslims are a danger to our society.

We are a strong, diverse and unique society. Our country is made up of thousands of different religions and belief systems, you don't have to understand all of them, but you do have to respect them. We need to respect and understand that we are all very different. But our differences should bring us together in solidarity, even though we all believe different things, our hearts beat as one. We cannot let hatred and evil triumph. Now more than ever we need to reach out to the Muslim community with love and peace. We need to spread messages of unity and respect.

If you hear anyone in your daily life make Islamophobic comments, confront them. Tell them why those comments are wrong and explain to them the true meaning of Islam.

''You shall resort to pardon, advocate tolerance, and disregard the ignorant'' (Quran 7199)

Islam forbids the killing of innocent people, irrespective of the causes, religious, political or social beliefs. (Quran 6 151) "....You shall not kill anyone. God has made life sacred-except in the course of justice. These are His commandments to you that you may understand.

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Today in Parliament MPs will debate a motion to highlight the conflict in Yemen. This attention is welcomed by me, and all my colleagues at the DEC, as the situation in Yemen reaches catastrophic proportions. After two years of terrible violence, 19million people - 70% of the population - now desperately need humanitarian assistance. That's 19million people too many!

MPs Keith Vaz, Mrs Flick Drummond & Alison Thewliss will lead and open a debate in the House of Commons today to highlight the worsening situation in Yemen. They will ask the UK government to take a lead in passing a resolution at the UN Security Council that would give effect to an immediate ceasefire in Yemen.

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The resilience of the Yemeni people is reaching breaking point. More people are facing starvation in Yemen - a staggering seven million - than anywhere else in the world.

Conflict and insecurity have destroyed the economy and are depriving people from accessing their most basic human rights; food, water and health services. Three million people have fled their homes because of ongoing fighting, and two-thirds of them live with host families.

And as is often the case, it is women and children that are the hardest hit; 3.3million children and pregnant or lactating mothers are acutely malnourished and almost half a million children under five are suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

The people of Yemen need both peace and emergency assistance. The DEC is calling for all parties to respect international humanitarian law. Civilians should be protected and full humanitarian access and movement must be allowed. Families must be free to leave for safer regions and to be protected in their movements.

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But we must also be allowed to deliver the immediate life-saving assistance needed. DEC member charities and other humanitarian partners must have access on the ground so that they can do their job and provide the support for the people that need it most. Urgent funding is also needed in the coming weeks.

In December 2016, the DEC launched the Yemen Crisis Appeal which so far has raised over 22 million, reaching over 1.5 million people life-saving assistance across Yemen's northern and southern regions. Despite the ongoing conflict DEC member charities are continuing to deliver aid; food, water and sanitation, cash assistance and food vouchers.

Read this report and watch these films to see how life-saving aid is getting through to the people of Yemen.
If Trump is serious about his foreign policy - or lack of it - then the answer must be: the UN

Since Donald Trump took office, a number of satirical videos have emerged, purportedly from European states vying to be 'second' to America's 'first'.

The German spoof cites the country's experience of walls. Luxembourg's boasts that it has a lot of money and "you know what, Mr President? You don't even have to pay taxes. None. Zero. Nada". And Switzerland's proclaims: "we also love to treat our women badly. Love it. We didn't let them vote until 1971."

The idea of diplomacy by YouTube may well appeal to a president who governs by Twitter and makes policy based on Fox News. It would certainly allow for even deeper cuts to the State Department.

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But if Trump is serious about his foreign policy - or lack of it - he should be looking to strengthen diplomacy, particularly through the United Nations, the only organisation capable of tackling the major challenges facing the world. And American partners in Europe should be making this case vigorously. This is especially true for the UK, which sees itself as the closest US ally on the continent.

The Whitehouse's proposed cuts to UN funding are hardly surprising. Trump took aim at the organisation before his inauguration, tweeting that it was "just a club for people to get together, talk" (one of its most valuable functions) and that "things will be different after Jan 20th". A draft executive order on UN funding was prepared - and shelved - during his first week as president.

From across the pond, it appears that many Republicans, even those who opposed Mr Trump, are now exploiting his presidency to further red-meat issues, such as attacking the right to choose and the UN. While the American Sovereignty Restoration Act - a perennial fringe attempt to withdraw from the organisation - is as unlikely as ever to succeed, proposals supported by high-profile Republicans are more troubling.

Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, for example, have proposed defunding the UN in response to a Security Council resolution condemning Israel's violations of international law. That it passed only because the Obama administration chose not to veto it is conveniently forgotten. So too is the fact that millions of people would suffer as a result. In the words of former presidential candidate Rick Santorum, this "opportunity for those of us who are very anti-UN" to "deconstruct it" is simply too good.

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Yet despite longstanding hostility to the UN, the Whitehouse budget is likely to encounter opposition in Congress. Even if it doesn't succeed, though, it is deeply concerning, implying a failure to understand the UN's value to the US.

The UN is at the centre of the rules-based international order that the US has built since the Second World War. It is structured in a way that cements American power and inoculates the country against global power shifts. As former US ambassador Susan Rice memorably put it: the Security Council can't even issue a press release without America's blessing.

Like its allies in Europe, US administrations have always acknowledged, albeit more reluctantly at times, the UN's role in furthering their interests. After 9/11, G.W. Bush may have sought to justify "coalitions of the willing", but he also reaffirmed US commitment to the UN, noting that "no nation can build a safer, better world alone". The invasion of Iraq without UN blessing ended up harming the US more than the organisation.

If Trump truly wants to put "America first" and play a less active global role, the UN will be crucial in picking up the slack in terms of promoting stability. Europe is going through a period of turmoil, with challenges from within - political and economic - and from without, notably a more adventurous Russia. The major emerging economies meanwhile, with the exception of China, seem disinclined to play global policeman, humanitarian or peace broker.

The UN is also a vital tool for furthering Trump's foreign policy priorities, by strengthening international efforts to counter terrorism and by creating the conditions for trade to flourish. It also provides a mechanism for US allies, in his words, "to take a direct and meaningful role in both strategic and military operations, and pay their fair share of the cost".

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Today, the UN is needed more than ever. The convergence of multiple crises has stretched the post-1945 international system to breaking point, threatening to reverse the gains of the past 70 years. Yet instead of increased engagement with the UN, national outlooks are narrowing. More countries are seeking to put themselves "first", ignoring the reality that the line between national and global interests has blurred. In the UK, too, internationalism is no longer the default position.
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As a British citizen, a husband, father and, as it happens, a lawyer, I was as shocked and sickened as most others by the appalling murders on Wednesday in Westminster. A policeman doing his job to uphold the law, protecting the public and the parliamentarians who serve us, was killed in cold blood. Tourists were mown down in the street as they stopped to look at Big Ben. My thoughts and prayers are with the families still devastated by the loss of those dearest to them.

But as an Imam at one of the largest mosques in Britain, I also feel the need to speak for the community in Leeds that I serve and for Muslims across Britain. We stand united with everyone else in Britain at condemning this atrocity. We are part of Britain and this was an attack on our society. This was an attack on all of us, on our shared home.

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Imams from across the country have joined me in condemning this attack. I will be leading a prayer service for 1,000 Muslims in memory of the victims from London. My fellow Imams will mark the Friday services, again attended by hundreds and thousands of British Muslims, with prayers of peace and solidarity with those who lost their lives and those who have lost their loved ones. We will re-state our resolve to fight extremism.

Our focus must be on the loss of those families and the heroism of those public servants who, at the first signs of danger, ran towards it when most would run away. But in the coming days attention will inevitably shift to the perpetrator, Khalid Masood. I am at a loss to convey my absolute horror and repulsion at his actions. How do you explain the thought process of a man who purposefully runs over innocent tourists? Whether the murderer was a lone-wolf inspired by the fanatics of ISIS or part of a terrorist network, his perverted ideology is not shared by Muslims across the globe. As Brendan Cox himself has said, Khalid Masood is no more representative of British Muslims than the murderer of his wife Jo was representative of the good people of Yorkshire, whom I live and work amongst.

Yet as Muslims we want to understand how individuals like this can claim to be acting in the name of our religion. And we want and need to understand how to stop others following Khalid Masood down this evil path. British Muslims must not let these lunatics hijack our faith.

We need to analyse the psyche of the recent terrorists who have committed massacres in Europe. Unlike Masood they have mainly been young men. Often they have shared feelings of inadequacy, of unfulfilled ambitions and frustration with their own personal failures. They have felt anger at real or perceived injustices, and have sought to blame other people or institutions for their misfortunes. Extremist networks manipulate these individuals, fomenting and exploiting their grievances and reinforcing their belief that the cause of their frustration is the society around them.

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So we, as the Muslim community, must also define for young Muslims what it means to be a British Muslim in the 21st century, and to highlight that there are no inherent tensions between being a Muslim and being a Brit.

We are facing a complex, multi-faceted threat which cannot be beaten with conventional warfare alone, or legislation and marginalisation. Living well together requires vigilance, the voluntary, civic and social policing of our rhetoric and a genuine commitment to inclusion and tolerance. A failure to adhere to these principles is likely to have damaging consequences for our shared society.

Public responses to this atrocity have sought to focus on the common humanity and values that extremists seek to fracture. From the Prime Minister to the Metropolitan Police and Mayor of London, voices have remained calm and measured - seeking not to scapegoat the Muslim community for the actions of one fanatic and the extremists who inspired him, but to emphasise our shared sense of outrage and determination not to let them win.

All terror attacks, whether committed on a small or large scale, have one thing in common: the desire to deepen divisions in society and provoke hatred, suspicion, fear and anger. And at times of crisis, we are often tempted to act more from fear than from resilience. There will be some who now feel fearful of their Muslim neighbours; and British Muslims who fear blame and reprisals. But I believe it is important not to give in to fear and instead to stand together.

Our strength as a nation lies in our values of democracy, tolerance of others and the rule of law. Through pluralism and our shared values, we must continue to build a cohesive society where people of all faiths and backgrounds feel safe. These values have stood the test of time and only by holding firm to them, can we defeat the violence that we tragically witnessed this week. But that strength is also found in our sense of 'who we are' as a society - a shared and inclusive identity in which all feel we have a stake.

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We often talk about counter-narratives but that is not enough: counter-narratives do have an important role to play, when seeking to re-engage those already susceptible. But 'Don't be an extremist' is too passive. We need a positive call to action - a clear articulation of a shared identity and sense of belonging. The response to Wednesday's cowardly attack gave a taste of what that could be - proud, inclusive and resilient.
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The word 'immigrant' has in many ways become a heavy label, dragging along with it certain stereotypical assumptions - many of them negative. The Brexit campaign encouraged intense debate over people defined as immigrants. Some argued that immigrants ultimately contribute to the economy and additionally positively encourage diversity and multi-culturalism in Britain. However, others drew attention to concerns surrounding the idea of too many people coming into Britain - potentially limiting employment opportunities for native Britons and leading to a chaotic flooding of the country due to the belief of a drastic population increase. Regardless of whatever perspective one might take in relation to immigration, it is worth questioning why a British person who goes to live abroad is, in contrast, typically admired for their decision, and why they are defined as an 'expat' rather than an immigrant.

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A notable pattern can be detected in British culture and the media. Immigrants are often demonised; the featuring of one migrant who has exploited the benefits system on the front covers of right-wing newspapers has become a common occurrence, regardless of whether they are realistically representative of the wider immigrant population. Additionally, the Tory government has made very vocal efforts to further reduce the rights of the immigrant population by deliberately making it harder for them to effectively live comfortably in Britain - further aggravating the notion that somehow the immigrant population has merited punitive treatment through their actions. In contrast, when a British person chooses to live abroad they are respected and seen as adventurous, well-travelled and cultured. Consequently, they are attributed with the word 'expat' that holds much more positive connotations. Effectively, the superficial idea exists that expats contribute to other economies and society in positive ways, while immigrants take from the economy and create difficulties for British public life. More efforts should be made to challenge these unfair and generalised assumptions, that are so often perpetuated by media and political efforts, since as of yet these are just assumptions and very little justification can be given to explain their existence. If you really think about it, the reality is much more likely to challenge these perspectives.

Statistics can easily demonstrate the contribution of the immigrant population to the British economy. For instance, a study conducted by University College London's migration research unit in 2013 revealed how "immigrants contribute 25b to the UK economy". Given the fact that immigrants are not able to claim benefits unless they have secured employment, the argument that they only detract from the economy becomes somewhat less credible.
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If the scriptwriters of the film Apollo 13 got a dollar every time somebody quoted their dialogue, they could probably fund the next space mission themselves: "Houston, we have a problem"; "Failure is not an option". But my favourite line hardly ever gets an airing.

It comes from the key scene in which the astronauts and mission controllers struggle to find the tiny amount of power - just four amps - required to restart the command module's systems and bring the crippled spacecraft safely home.

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"Ken - you're telling me what you need. I'm telling you what we have to work with."

For me, the scene provides a perfect analogy for the challenge of achieving sustainable development we face today. In both, the mission is life-or-death important and resources are critically constrained. The astronauts and engineers work together to solve the problem by fundamentally rethinking their energy systems, and we must do the same.

By 2030, the UN's Sustainable Development Goals commit us to abolish poverty and hunger; provide good healthcare, education, decent work, gender equality and access to clean water for all; and to promote affordable clean energy, sustainable cities, infrastructure, climate action, economic growth and responsible consumption.

The problem is that western standards of living have been achieved through reckless resource depletion, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. If everyone on earth took the same route, we would quickly need the resources of three planets, and even if we could conjure up those resources, climate change would soon snuff us out.

We cannot deny the legitimate aspirations of billions. Our aim has to be a world where everyone can live well and within the sustainable limits of our planet. Increasing demand is a given, resources are finite and time is against us. This is our Apollo 13 moment.

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That means going back to first principles. Instead of asking how to improve the efficiency of incumbent technologies by a few percentage points, we need to start from the other end of the problem, and ask what services we need, and how we can redesign the system to meet them within our available natural resources.

This is nowhere truer than in cooling - the invisible pillar of civilisation. Without cold, the supply of food, medicine and data would simply break down. But conventional technologies are also energy intensive and highly polluting and cooling demand is growing at a furious pace, driven by population growth, rising incomes and changing lifestyles in developing countries. On current trends, by 2100 the electricity needed for global air-conditioning alone will equate to around half the power generated for all purposes today.

We cannot simply green this volume of new electricity. To reconcile this demand with finite resources, we need transformational thinking. We need to bring together the key stakeholders to deliver a system-level approach that fundamentally rethinks our delivery of cooling.
An Indian software engineer (Photo : Getty Images)

An Indian professor is urging China to leverage Indian talent pool to boost global competitiveness through an opinion piece that appeared in the Global Times, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party.



The write-up, which appeared in the column entitled "Insider Eye," was written by Indian S Ramakrishna Velamuri, a professor at China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai, who completed his MBA in Spain and Ph.D. in the U.S.



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While the piece was written by an Indian, India Today said that it is noteworthy that it was published in a major Chinese newspaper, where everything gets approved by Chinese officials before printing.



Velamuri pointed out that while China is the world's largest producer of engineers and science graduates, they traditionally specialize in hardware.



He added that by complimenting this specialization with India's pool of software professionals, China's economy will gain the edge it needs to succeed as the world heads toward an era where factories work on a seamless integration of hardware with software, called the Industry 4.0.



The Indian professor added that with their superior English language skills, Indian software engineers are accustomed to creating solutions for global market, whereas Chinese engineers are more focused on their local market.



The article also pointed out that India's population--the youngest in the world--can provide a sustained supply base to China for the foreseeable future. China is rapidly aging and is projected to have the world's biggest population of people over 65 years old.



Velamuri also emphasized that Indian talent is "significantly cheaper" than those of China's.



China is rapidly switching from being a global manufacturing base to being an innovation-driven economy.



Meanwhile, India has emerged as the R&D hub for multinational companies with around 1,200 R&D centers, which include 42 percent of the top 500 R&D spenders in the world. India's R&D centers employ more than 300,000 professionals.



China is relying on its growing number of engineers to help advance in innovation.


There is no escaping the 'post-truth' tidal wave. The rise of populist politics that has swept the US and Europe and the language of 'post-truth' along with all its connotations, represents an era where evidence and experts are often accused of being irrelevant and detached from reality. Whether this analysis is a true reflection or not, there are a set of assumptions that are being made about 'evidence' that pits it as homogenous, technical and disconnected that cannot and should not be ignored. Evidence, in its many forms, is diverse and complex but we need to make sure that it is accessible and relevant.

There appears to be an easy and flippant dismissal of the important role that evidence should play in shaping the decisions of our leading political figures and many others, driving some towards simpler, more technocratic, definitions of what improves lives and has a positive impact on development.

Evidence is not simply about 'cold, hard facts', which on their own can often ignore or dismiss the reality of the human situation, the political context and social dynamics. We need to appreciate and share evidence in all its forms. So, as we navigate these choppy waters, we need to find a way to genuinely and meaningfully engage without falling into the trap of implying that there is a 'single truth', or indeed that the 'impact' of evidence on policy and practice is, or should be, direct and linear. In fact, this is where the challenge truly lies. Understanding that evidence is plural, complex and fluid is one thing, but how to make it matter is another point entirely. In this context, there is a role for us all to play, whether you are a researcher, donor or practitioner.

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In responding to the 'post-truth' narrative, we should steer away from the notion that evidence simply constitutes academic research, or of presenting the narrow view of evidence-to-impact that has sometimes dominated in recent years, and which has often privileged certain sorts of evidence (technical, quantitative, randomised control trials), as was debated by policymakers, researchers and practitioners at the recent 'research impact symposium: If evidence really matters what can we do about it?' co-hosted by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), International Institute for Environmental Development (IIED) and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and supported by The Impact Initiative for International Development Research and the ESRC-DFID Strategic Partnership.

In recognition of this, IDS and the Impact Initiative have published an edited collection of case studies which reinforces the need to appreciate that all evidence, and links between evidence and action, happen in a social context. We do not sit at a desk, alone, and generate numbers and facts without seeking to understand the context and the reality of what we are talking about. 'The Social Realities of Knowledge for Development', clearly identifies the need to understand the connections between research knowledge and policy and practice. This is key to understanding how to make evidence matter.

Yet even in understanding the complex nature of research and evidence, who defines good quality research? How, why and with whom should we work with to build knowledge and partnerships? The articles in this IDS Bulletin aim to answer these questions based on IDS' approach of 'engaged excellence'. IDS prides itself on delivering research that is built on solid evidence, acknowledging plural perspectives. Our approach is dependent upon it linking to and involving those who are at the heart of the change we, and those we work with, wish to see. Engaged excellence combines conceptually and empirically innovative research with deep and extensive engagement with actors in society, global partners and students.

At the heart of all this is trust. This can be trust within your institution, or trust between partners, trust between policymakers and academics - the list goes on. At the symposium there was a broad consensus between the researcher, donor and practitioner cohort that power relations and politics pervade the whole knowledge-policy 'ecosystem'. It is vital that we understand both the politics of knowledge itself, affecting how problems are framed and whose knowledge counts, and a more material political economy of resources and interests that affect how policy processes unfold, and whether or not which kinds of evidence are taken up and used (or not). This applies in all fora and at all levels. A task for us all is to be more explicit about politics and power relations, so we can be more strategic in how we navigate them. Building trust can and should be a part of this.

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Hutchinson woman arrested for alleged sex with four juvenile males

Police have been investigating case since two victims came forward in September. Two others were identified since through the investigation.
Moonlight Gallery Brings Chinese Culture to New Zealand via Image and Imagination Exhibit

China and New Zealand deepen cultural ties via different art exchange events. (Photo : Getty Images)

In a bid to help New Zealanders better understand Chinese culture, Moonlight Gallery has staged an exhibit called Image and Imagination featuring six New Zealand and eight Chinese artists, online portal stuff.co reported.



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The artist and cultural exchange event, which ran for one week, was part of the Auckland Arts Festival.



According to Moonlight Gallery director Ling Zhao, this kind of exchange will deepen cultural ties between the two countries.



"Many New Zealanders have only heard about China from the news, so I think it's good to introduce a direct connection to Chinese culture and Chinese history," Ling, who was originally from China, shared.



For Cao Yang, one of the participating Chinese artists, remarked that the exhibit served as an eye-opener, adding that "the enthusiasm that New Zealand artists present in their artwork really moved [him]."



Artist Liu Jia Wei shared the same sentiment, further emphasizing how the event helped him.



"As an artist I think having this connection between two countries is very important, and it will really bring new life to my art," Liu said.



In 2016, Moonlight Gallery has previously invited three New Zealand artists to China who took part in a two-week artist exchange activity.



"Last year Moonlight Gallery invited three artists to China for an art exchange for two weeks. This year, we wanted Chinese artists to return the exchange, so we invited eight of them here for this exhibition," Ling explained.



Robin Ranga, one of those who visited China, shared that she was delighted to realize she had things in common with Chinese artists.



"We were from such diverse backgrounds, but there were more likenesses than there were differences between us. I think it helps you understand how we're all part of one human race," she said.



Meanwhile, Ling expressed hope that other artists and even art enthusiasts alike can have the same insight. "I hope the Chinese and New Zealand people can get to know each other well as friends through this art exchange."


The city is looking to spend around $150,000 to restore the marquee on what is now the Froio Senior Center.

Pittsfield Looking to Restore Capitol Marquee



The historic marquee that hangs out over North Street's south sidewalk will need to be completely rebuilt. PITTSFIELD, Mass.  The city is looking at spending some $150,000 to restore the historic Capitol marquee outside of the senior center.

Barry Architects did an assessment of the structure and determined there are significant repairs needed. President John Barry submitted a cost estimate for the City Council's Building and Maintenance Subcommittee to review on Monday that calls for basically demolishing it and then rebuilding.

"It is in sad shape and needs extensive restoration," Barry wrote. "I would estimate the cost to restore of replicate items on the marquee to bring it back to its original condition would be $142,030."

The largest costs would be to install new metal for the structure and rewire it. Director of Building Maintenance Brian Filiault says the majority of the issues are with the steel structure itself, so much that it is in danger of falling down.

"A lot of this deterioration happened quite a while ago. I don't think it was ever recognized," he said.

Filiault said nobody had noticed it until rust spots became visible and by then, it was too late. Water is getting into the structure and rotting out the support beams, he said.

"There have been repairs done to it but I think it was too little too late," he said.

Filiault will be asking Mayor Linda Tyer to include a capital request to fund the restoration work. The building was built in 1898 as the New Mills Block, later becoming the Capitol Theatre. According to the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the marquee is a 1922 art deco. The theater closed in the 1980s and the building was turned into the Ralph Froio Senior Center.

"We've put a lot of work into that, every time we have Callahan Sign come over it is a couple thousand dollars of work and it doesn't seem to be doing any good." Council on Aging Director Vincent Marinaro said. "It is more than cosmetic, it is safety."

For city councilors, the appeal to restore it is both for aesthetics and safety.

"I think we are at the point where something has to be done for safety as well as cosmetic," Ward 7 Councilor Anthony Simonelli, who submitted the petition asking for the cost estimates, said. "It is a nice thing for the city of Pittsfield. North Street looks really good and we don't want a crumbling structure."

The building does have a historic restriction on it so repairs will have to be approved by the Massachusetts Historical Commission. Director of Community Development Bonnie Galant says that part will likely take the longest.

"I am going to start the process dealing with Mass Historical Commission soon so we can iron out the description of work," she said.

As long as the funding is approved, Galant will put together a bid to go out in the next fiscal year, sign a contractor, and get the demolition and construction going. If all goes well, the work can start in the fall.

"That is a tight time frame and something always seems to come up," she said.

When it is done, Filiault is calling for an ongoing maintenance plan so that the structure doesn't fall into such disrepair again. He said if properly maintained, the new structure will last a long time.

All of the councilors on the subcommittee supported the project and sent a recommendation to the mayor that it be included in the capital plan. The idea of completely removing it wasn't something the councilors wanted to entertain.

"The marquee means so much to so many people," Ward 5 Councilor Donna Todd Rivers said. "It is a symbol of our community and it is much more than a cosmetic repair at this point, it is safety. I believe it needs to be done."

With a difficult budget season looming, Ward 4 Councilor Christopher Connell questioned if there could be community support for the project, like a "save the marquee" campaign. Local businesses have supported projects in the city such as a new playground at Durant Park and the contract for the ShotSpotter and Connell wondered if there would be that level of support for the marquee.
China to Bring Workers to Work in AIIB-Funded Projects in Canada as Part of China-Canada Free Trade Deal

China-Canada Trade Relations (Photo : Getty Images)

As part of the negotiated trade deal between China and Canada, China is planning to buy Canadian companies and bring Chinese workers to Canada to work on projects, which will be mostly funded by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).



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The move came after Canada joined the AIIB on Thursday, March 23, sputniknews.com reported. The Chinese government said that it would require unlimited access to the Canadian economy, including important sectors.



As this developed, state-owned enterprises also sought to bring their own workers on their projects in Canada.



The AIIB continued with its expansion after the U.S. withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an agreement seen by Trump as harmful to U.S. economic interests.



Lu Shaye, Chinese ambassador to Canada, said that China is looking for mergers and acquisitions of Canadian companies, cautioned the Canadian government that human rights should not be used as "bargaining chip" or issue in their expansion.



"Investment is investment. We should not take too many political considerations into the investment," Lu said. "Just like the negotiations of the [Canada-US] free trade agreement, we should not let political factors into this process. Otherwise, it would be very difficult."



After reaching preliminary agreement early this year, China and Canada are expected to take the next round of negotiations in April.



Meanwhile, Canada believes the increasing activity of Chinese companies would bring more jobs and contribute to its economic growth.



"Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is very clear that we want to pursue stronger ties with China. We think that in the medium term this will lead to more Canadian jobs," Canada's ambassador to mainland China John McCallum said.



Observers, however, believe that the Canadian ambassador had overlooked China's intent to bring in workers to the country.



China's increased activity in the Canadian economy could cause tensions between Canada and the U.S., whose relationship was already strained by issues in the NAFTA trade deal.



Another issue is the import of Chinese workers into Canada, which some believed would not be advantageous as it is not beneficial to the host country, in terms of employment.



According to the report, China's business expansion into Canada is mainly due to its interest in the North American oil and energy. The U.S. has recently approved the Keystone XL pipeline, which will bring Canada's oil to refineries in Louisiana. Canada needs its own pipeline to be able to export oil on a global scale, such as bringing it to the Pacific coast to be exported by sea.



The report said that China wants the project to be undertaken by Chinese companies and Chinese workers.



Meanwhile, Canadians are divided on the trade deal with China as only 46 percent supported the deal, based on a poll conducted last August by the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada. The same percentage of people also opposed to the deal. According to the poll, most Canadians prefer to have trade agreements with advanced economies such as Australia, Japan and the European Union.



Other new AIIB members



The AIIB also announced on Thursday, March 23, the other new members of the bank, which include Hong Kong, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Ireland, Hungary, Belgium, Peru, Ethiopia and the Republic of Sudan.



Along with Canada, these countries are now full members of the AIIB, after making the required deposit and adapting their rules and regulations in accordance with the AAIB guidelines. The bank is expected to have 70 nations as total members.


Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's visit to New Zealand marks the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. (Photo : Getty Images)

New Zealand on Monday signed a cooperation agreement with China on the Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative, making it the first Western developed country to do so.



The signing of the memorandum of understanding was witnessed by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English at Wellington, the state-owned Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday.



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China and New Zealand will explore the possibilities of bilateral cooperation in various fields to promote interconnectivity between the two nations, Li said in a joint press conference with English.



The signing caps a string of milestones the countries have made in bilateral cooperation.



New Zealand was among the first Western developed countries to conclude bilateral negotiations on China's entry into the World Trade Organization, to recognize China's status as a full market economy, to sign and implement a bilateral free trade agreement with China, and is a founding member of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.



The Belt and Road Initiative, which comprises the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road that was launched by China in 2013, seeks to build a trade and infrastructure network linking Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient land and maritime Silk Road trade routes.



Li arrived in Wellington on Sunday for a four-day visit to New Zealand, the first by a Chinese premier in 11 years.



Ahead of the press conference, Li spoke in English on bilateral ties with New Zealand and refuted claims of China dumping steel into the country.



Ninety percent of China's steel products are consumed domestically and only 10 percent are exported, Li said, noting that China-New Zealand trade actually leans toward the latter.



Fifty percent of dairy products imported into China come from New Zealand but "we haven't said NZ is dumping in China," Li added.



During his visit, Li is also scheduled to meet with Governor-General Patsy Reddy and opposition Labor Party leader Andrew Little, and attend a series business and cultural exchange events.


Daniel Craig speaks onstage during The New Yorker Festival 2016 - Daniel Craig Talks With Nicholas Schmidle at MasterCard Stage at SVA Theatre on October 7, 2016 in New York City. (Photo : Getty Images for The New Yorker/Ilya S. Savenok)

Updates have been sparse on the 25th "James Bond" movie, and there's still no confirmation as to whether Daniel Craig will be returning as 007 or not. There's currently a "will he or won't he" buzz surrounding the franchise, especially since Craig himself has been very vague about his responses regarding the film.



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Craig previously said he's "done" and that all he wanted to do was "move on" with "James Bond." A couple of months later Craig impliedly retracted his statement. According to The Independent, Craig spoke at the New York Festival's Beyond Bond panel, where he said "If I were to stop doing it, I would miss it terribly. I love this job. I get a massive kick out of it and if I can keep getting a kick out of it, I will."



Moreover, Craig's "Spectre" co-star Naomi Harris also hinted that he may reprise his role as the super suave spy. Harris, who played Eve Moneypenny in the last two "James Bond" movies, said that Craig is still somewhat attached to the franchise.



"I really don't think that they've moved on from Daniel," said Harris. "I think there's a very good chance that Daniel will come back."



Despite these statements, there's still no certainty about Craig's highly awaited comeback as James Bond so much so that there are still rumors of the role being re-casted. Tom Hardy and Michael Fassbender have been among the frontrunners so far. Jack Huston is also being mentioned as favorite by "James Bond" producer Barbara Broccoli.



However, Craig's latest event appearance perhaps reinforces the fact he's still James Bond. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Craig attended the Omega dinner at The Beekman Hotel. The private gathering was attended by 35 guests, comprised of journalists, Omega execs and VIP clients.



What makes Craig's attendance particularly interesting is the fact that Omega has been a long-time partner of the "James Bond" franchise. They've been providing the films with timepieces ever since 1995's "Golden Eye."



As a matter of fact, Craig said his Omega Seamaster watch holds a very special place in his heart since it was the first timepiece he wore as Bond in "Casino Royale." The piece was ultimately given to him by Broccoli after the film was completed.






Pashmina Shawl (Photo : Getty Images)

The Nepali government plans to promote its pashmina products through the Belt and Road International Trade and Investment Platform (BRITIP) in China to boost China-Nepal trade, according to an official.



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Purchasers and suppliers around the globe can conduct mutual trade through the BRITIP. According to the state-run Xinhua News Agency, the platform was created with a joint initiative of chambers of commerce and associations from countries and regions along the Belt and Road routes.



Proposed by China in 2013, the initiative aims to build a trade and infrastructure network which will link Asia with Europe and Africa along ancient trade routes of the Silk Road.



According to a local chapter of the platform, a team of the international platform had been to Nepal recently to join the Nepal Investment Summit which was held on March 2-3. The local chapter has been recently launched last November.



China and Nepal have come to an understanding on trading Nepali pashmina in China, said Bhaskar Raj Rajkarnikar, chairman of the local chapter. China is one of the biggest markets in the world via BRITIP platform.



"Nepal has got a huge opportunity to increase exports of Nepali pashmina to China," the chairman said.



Shanker Prasad Pandeya, president of Nepal Pashmina Industries Association, said that the platform will sell Nepali pashmina in China once the entrepreneurs have presented product information.



"Agreement has not been signed on the matter, but understanding has been reached," Pandeya said.



Based on the statistics of Nepal Rastra Bank, the countrys central bank, $201,149 worth of Nepali pashmina was sold to China, as of first seven months of the current fiscal year starting in mid-July 2016.



Traditionally, Nepali pashmina is marketed to Western countries, including European countries and the U.S. However, according to Nepali entrepreneurs, China had apparently been an important market for Nepali pashmina.



"It is a growing market and we can take benefit of [the] Chinese market with the help of Belt and Road investment platform," Pandeya said.



Pashmina products will soon enhance China-Nepal trade, thanks to the Belt and Road investment platform.


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To share with friends and brethren The Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (the Everlasting Gospel), and to prepare a people to stand when He returns to redeem His remnant. Also, to share relevant information of current events, and to show how they relate to prophecy; By means of articles, editorials, opinions, scripture readings, and poetry.

Disclaimer

Endrtimes does not necessarily endorse or agree with every opinion expressed in every article/video posted on this site. The information provided here is done so for personal edification; It's up to the reader to separate truth from error, and to examine everything (like the Bereans) from a Biblical perspective. Let the Holy Scriptures be you guide! - - - FAIR USE NOTICE: These pages/videos may contain copyrighted () material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of ecological, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, economic, DEMOCRACY, scientific, MORAL, ETHICAL, and SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes.
Peter Hsu and Daniel Fluhmann of Bar & Karrer survey new Swiss Federal Council proposals to amend rules to facilitate fintech, and look at some of the pros and cons of the current system

Regulatory framework for fintech

The Swiss financial regulatory regime does not specifically address fintech. Rather, the legal framework governing the activities of fintech operators consists of a number of federal acts and implementing ordinances mainly in the areas of corporate law and financial market regulation, as well as circulars and supervisory messages issued by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma).

In particular, depending on their specific business models, fintech operators can become subject to the Banking Act (if engaging in activities involving the acceptance of deposits from the public); the Anti-Money Laundering Act (if active as a financial intermediary, for example in connection with discretionary asset management, payment services or lending); the Stock Exchange Act (if engaging in securities broker-dealer activities); the Collective Investment Schemes Act (if issuing or managing investment funds or engaging in other activities relating to collective investment schemes); the Consumer Credit Act (if granting or intermediating loans to consumers); or the Financial Market Infrastructure Act (if acting in a financial market infrastructure function, for example as a trading venue).

Relevant legal and regulatory requirements include, again depending on the specific business model, prudential licence and other regulatory authorisation or registration requirements as well as ongoing compliance and reporting requirements regarding organisation, capital adequacy, liquidity, documentation and other key aspects of a fit and proper business conduct. The laws and regulations provide for de minimis and other exemptions from their scope of application or from specific requirements, which may benefit fintech operators depending on their business or client base.

It is worth noting that the Swiss inbound cross-border regulatory regime for financial services is relatively liberal. In particular, Swiss banking and anti-money laundering regulations do not apply to fintech operators that are domiciled abroad and offer their services into Switzerland on a pure cross-border basis, that is without employing persons permanently on the ground in Switzerland and without establishing a branch or representative office or any other form of relevant physical presence in Switzerland. However, other areas of financial regulation are more restrictive with regard to cross-border activities, notably the regulation of collective investment schemes.

Although the legal framework for fintech is based on various laws and regulations, the fact that Finma acts as main financial regulator in Switzerland ensures a consistent approach to the qualification and regulatory treatment of fintech operators. Furthermore, Switzerland provides for an established system of industry self-regulation in respect of specific areas of financial services (for example in the area of money laundering prevention or with respect to certain activities in connection with collective investment schemes).

Recent legal developments

A diverse and dynamic fintech scene has the potential to contribute significantly to the quality and competitiveness of Switzerland as a financial centre. Not least for this reason, the Swiss Federal Council has launched a proposal for amendments to the Banking Act and the Banking Ordinance to ease the regulatory framework for fintech operators. A public consultation procedure regarding the proposed amendments was opened on February 1 2017. The planned exemptions and reliefs are based around three main pillars:

Creation of a largely unregulated innovation sandbox: This will allow operators to accept deposits from the public in an amount up to CHF1 million ($1 million) without requiring a banking licence, creating an opportunity to test innovative business models without unnecessary regulatory burden.

Specific regulatory amendments regarding settlement accounts: It is proposed to extend the maximum period during which third party monies can be held in so-called settlement accounts without qualifying as deposits from the public from currently seven days (Finma practice) to 60 days. This is meant to enable business models that require operators to hold substantial amounts of third party monies, but only for a limited time, by carving out a longer period during which this is possible without triggering any prudential licence requirement.

Creation of a new licence type (banking licence light): To facilitate the step-up from an unregulated activity to a prudentially regulated status, it is proposed to create a new type of licence for operators that have a need to accept deposits from the public but do not intend to engage in traditional banking business. The new licence type will allow the acceptance of deposits from the public up to a maximum of CHF100 million, subject to certain limitations but with the benefit of substantially less burdensome regulatory requirements than a fully-fledged banking licence.

While the proposals are primarily aimed at fintech operators, the regulatory approach is neutral in terms of technologies and business models. This means that the new exemptions and reliefs will also be available to businesses outside the fintech space. The proposed new regulation is currently expected to enter into force by 2018.

Pros and cons of Switzerland as a base for fintech operators

While Swiss financial market laws are not specifically tailored to fintech, the principle-based approach to regulation generally copes well with the challenges of innovative business models. It also offers a high level of flexibility to address the rapid developments in the financial industry. In addition, Finma has implemented certain enhancements to existing regulation to make it more technology-neutral (and thereby technology-friendly) in the interest of a level playing field for all market participants (for example by dropping the requirement for a written agreement for discretionary asset management or by enabling video identification for money laundering prevention purposes).

The principle-based approach to regulation generally copes well with the challenges of innovative business models

That said, the current limitation that only regulated banks are allowed to accept and hold deposits from the public in a professional capacity results in an all-or-nothing approach for certain fintech operators. This is because holding third party monies, at least for a certain period of time, is a crucial element of many fintech business models, such as crowdfunding platforms and certain payment services. As a banking licence is usually impractical or not economically viable for fintech operators, they are forced to offer their services on a cross-border basis from abroad into Switzerland or to tailor their business around the regulatory restrictions, which can prove difficult. However, the planned amendments to the Banking Act and the Banking Ordinance (see above) can be expected to address these shortcomings, making Switzerland considerably more attractive as a base for deposit-based fintech business models.

Furthermore, the following factors add to the attractiveness of Switzerland as a base for fintech operators: financial and political stability; excellent universities and educational system; availability of expertise and opportunity to recruit skilled workforce; presence of global players and competitors in the industry; liberal labour laws; availability of venture capital; and a generally innovation-friendly climate. For example, the region around the city of Zug has established itself as a centre for innovation in the areas of blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

Impact of the revised Directive on Payment Services (PSD2)

Switzerland is not a member of the EU nor of the European Economic Area. Consequently, it is in principle not bound by the Payment Services Directive nor by the revised Directive on Payment Services (PSD2), which is set to replace it.

However, many Swiss financial institutions participate in the Single Euro Payments Area (Sepa) schemes that define standards for euro payments and that have been developed with a view to European legislation. In order to participate in the Sepa schemes, Swiss financial institutions have to provide evidence to the European Payments Council (in legal opinions) that substantially equivalent provisions exist in national law and, in addition, enter into a Sepa Adherence Agreement.

Regtech

Regtech is understood as a collective term for innovative technologies that relieve the compliance functions of financial institutions while promoting efficiency in regulatory oversight. This is especially important in the context of increasingly dense regulation in an international context, with regtech solutions promising superior agility and flexibility in addressing new requirements.

In Switzerland, the legal policy debate regarding regtech is still in its infancy. However, on June 17 2016, the Swiss National Council (the large chamber of Swiss Parliament) adopted a postulation (Postulat) regarding the promotion of digitisation in regulation. Finma also shows a generally positive attitude towards regtech. It might be expected that regtech will lead to a reduction of the regulatory efforts in the financial sector by facilitating the administrative burden of complying with regulatory requirements. Inter alia, this should lead to reduction of the costs associated with compliance (for the market participants as well as for Finma). However, regtech might also promote an increase in regulation, for example in the context of risk management system design.

About the author Peter Hsu Partner, Bar & Karrer Zurich, Switzerland T: 41 58 261 53 94 F: 41 58 261 50 01 E: peter.hsu@baerkarrer.ch W: www.baerkarrer.ch Peter Hsu is Bar & Karrer's key contact for the practice area of banking and insurance. His practice focuses on banking, insurance, financing and capital markets. He regularly advises Swiss and foreign banks, securities dealers, insurers and other financial intermediaries with regard to a wide range of regulatory and contract law matters. Moreover, he often advises clients on M&A transactions. Hsu has published several books and articles on topics in banking, insurance and capital markets and is regularly invited to speak on these topics. Hsu is ranked as a leading individual in the practice areas of banking and finance as well as insurance and reinsurance and listed as 'most highly regarded' practitioner in Insurance & Reinsurance (Who's Who Legal). In IFLR1000, a client characterizes him as 'very knowledgeable, detail-oriented and very open to novel solutions and approaches' (2016). The Legal 500 2014 refers to him as a 'key individual within the banking and insurance sector' and recommends him for insurance advice. In Who's Who Legal, he is quoted as the '"go-to guy" for clients in need of insurance and reinsurance regulatory advice' (2013) and a 'key player in the Swiss insurance and reinsurance regulatory field' (2014), and wins praise for his 'unparalleled abilities'. In addition, he is described as 'extremely knowledgeable' in insurance and regulatory matters and lauded for his 'business oriented approach' (2016).
The U.S. Dept. of Agricultures (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has announced additional steps to keep the food supply safe for Americans in light of the recent investigations of Brazils meat industry. While none of the slaughter or processing facilities implicated in the Brazilian scandal have shipped meat products to the United States, the agency immediately instituted additional pathogen testing of all shipments of raw beef and ready-to-eat products from Brazil upon hearing reports of the Brazilian investigation. The USDA has also increased its examination of all these products at ports-of-entry across the country. The agency will indefinitely maintain its 100% re-inspection and pathogen testing of all lots of FSIS-regulated products imported from Brazil.

According to NPR, Brazils federal police have unearthed evidence that the employees of some meat-processing companies bribed ministry inspectors to ignore outdated and adulterated products. More than 1,100 police officers carried out nearly 200 raids in the search and seizure operation across six Brazilian states and the countrys capital of Brasilia. They found 40 cases of suspected malpractice, including the use of chemicals to improve the smell of expired meat, and of flour and even cardboard to pad out sausages.

They also allege that meatpackers were able to handpick their Ministry of Agriculture inspectors, who issued approval and export certificates regardless of adulteration. One of the companies accused of bribing officials is JBS SA, one of the worlds largest meat processors. The company has responded with a slew of media advertisements, including full-page newspaper ads, stressing its high quality standards. It has vehemently denied that any of its brands used adulterated products.

USDA release

NPR article
Social media give us the freedom to communicate with our loved ones, whenever and wherever we want. However, this freedom comes at a cost: blinded by our seemingly happy digital lives we often dont realize how social media threatens and damages our real-life relationships.

New research from Kaspersky Lab, with 1,000 respondents from the Philippines, shows that a third of people communicate less face-to-face with their loved ones, and 21% of parents admit that relationships with their children have been damaged as a result of them being seen in a compromising situation on social media.

With peoples tendency to post photos of themselves or others under the influence of alcohol, wearing something revealing or even naked in order to get more likes, it is evident that social media can damage offline relationships. But while we would expect parents not to approve of their childrens online behavior, it is often the other way round.

More than a fifth of children admitted that their relationship with their parents worsened after they had seen them in compromising circumstances on social media. In contrast, only 14% of parents said they were annoyed by their childrens online behavior.

In addition, around one-in-five (16%) people also said that their relationship with their spouse or partner has been damaged as a result of them being seen in a compromising situation on social media.

In the Philippines, 12.8% of parents said their relationships with their kids were affected by their misbehavior on social media. Meanwhile, 7.9% of children revealed their moms and dads were bothered after seeing them sharing embarrassing posts online.

There are also 11.9% of Filipino respondents who admitted their romantic relationships and marriages were distressed after their partners saw them in disturbing scenes published on social networking sites like Facebook.

Relationships with family, friends and colleagues are changing as people communicate less face-to-face as a result of social media. A significant third of people admitted that they now communicate less with their parents (31%), children (33%), partners (23%), and friends (35%) because they can see and communicate with them via social media.

Filipino netizens surveyed in this study also revealed the same scenario-- of talking less in person and more on social media. They admit they seldom communicate face-to-face with their friends (46.0%), parents (36.9%), colleagues (32.9%), spouses (29.2%) and children (26.4%).

Studies show that today, digital communication complements real-life communication. We live in a globalized and highly mobile world resulting in distances between partners and family members. Digital communication is an opportunity to bridge the gaps in our modern lives caused by living in different cities or countries. However, digital communication cannot replace face-to-face communication - at least not always and not completely. Digital communication is less rich in terms of sensory channels affected, resulting in reduced sensory quality, comments Dr. Astrid Carolus, Media Psychologist at the University of Wurzburg.

Although people communicate less face-to-face, around half of respondents believe that the quality of their relationships does not suffer at all and is even better as a result of being connected with their loved ones online.

Dr. Astrid Carolus warns that although it seems that the quality of our relationships is improving, people cannot always evaluate their online communication objectively. Under certain circumstances they perceive their online communication as hyper-personal communication and thus they can misread and over-interpret the messages on social media. We feel especially close, we blind out the rather negative, focus on the possible positive intentions behind a message, and over-interpret, adds Carolus.

With the study finding that although social media can help ease communication channels and bridge time zones and distance barriers, it doesnt always make people happy. It can strain relationships as well as leaving people feeling down and upset, as they constantly compare their lives to those of others.

The hunt for likes and social validation leads people to share increasing amounts of private information on social media platforms, putting not only themselves but also their friends, family and colleagues at risk.

For those who decide to shut themselves off from social media, the reality of losing a lifetime of digital memories, including photos and interactions, can make it difficult to do.

In order to protect themselves and their relationships, people need to be more cautious and cyber-savvy about the information they share on social media. That will not only help to mitigate the risks of the online world, but prevent relationship damage in the offline world.

To help people keep their memories safe, no matter how long their online social media journey, Kaspersky Lab is developing a new app. FFForget will enable people to back-up all of their memories from their social networks, keeping them in a safe, encrypted memory container.

Methodology

This study was conducted online by research firm Toluna, October - November, 2016. Users from 18 countries were surveyed online. A total of 16,750 people, aged over 16 years old, split equally between men and women, were surveyed. Data was weighted to be globally representative and consistent.
The Egyptian prosecution referred a 35-year-old man for trial on Monday evening on charges of raping a 20-month-old child in the Nile Delta governorate of Daqahliya.



The suspect was arrested by police on the same day as the alleged incident and has confessed to the crime, say prosecutors.



The suspect, who was the victim's neighbour, allegedly kidnapped the child on Friday as she was playing in front of her house in Belqas village, taking her to a secluded area and raping her, according to investigations conducted by the prosecution.



The child was later found by residents and taken to Belqas Central Hospital, where she received emergency surgery for vaginal bleeding. She was later released from hospital.



Shortly after the incident, which has sparked anger across the country, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported that residents of the village attempted to burn down the house of the suspect, who lives alone.



On Saturday, the National Council for Women, Daqahliya branch, issued a statement demanding the maximum penalty for the defendant. The council is set to hold a meeting to discuss providing aid to the child and her family.



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For many visitors, Michelangelos Taddei tondo  one of the star exhibits of the National Gallerys Michelangelo & Sebastiano show in London  will be a revelation. For me, this exceptional loan from the Royal Academys permanent collection provides a chance to share, and shed light on, a major work by this towering Renaissance genius, which I have long had a passion for, and which is the focus of my new book on the subject.

Michelangelos unusually large sculpted tondo (a type of image named after its rotondo, round, shape), depicts the Virgin and Child and the infant St John in a rocky landscape. It is hewn from a sparkling lump of Carrara marble, and is tantalisingly unfinished, allowing us the dramatic sensation of almost looking over Michelangelos shoulder as he carved the relief and brought it to various stages of completion.

The narrative, too, is unusually alive for such a gentle theme: the toddler St John  a shadowy, dynamic figure  holds out a fluttering bird, which startles the Christ child as he rests on his mothers lap. Christ seems torn between his natural impulse to flinch and even fly away (in fact, he almost propels himself out of the sculptural space) and being drawn irresistibly towards Johns clumsy offering.

The bird, variously identified as a dove or a goldfinch, is usually interpreted as a symbol of Christs Passion or redemptive role. The Virgin, a beautiful and remote figure in gentle profile, appears at that very moment to forsee her childs momentous destiny, as it were, step by step. The figures are arrested, caught in this poignant instant, and yet at the same time the boldness and virtuosity of Michelangelos attack makes the composition crackle with energy and possibility (visible in the flurry of chisel marks and his audacious working of the stone).

Michelangelo's 'The Virgin and Child with the Infant St John' was bequeathed to the Royal Academy by Sir George Beaumont in 1830 ( Royal Academy of Arts, London; Photographer: Prudence Cuming Associates Limited)

For those in the know, all these facets of the tondo have been free to enjoy in a quiet corner of the Sackler Landing (on the upper floor of the Royal Academy). The relief has been exhibited there since the early 1990s, set back into the wall in a specially designed niche, behind a greenish bulletproof glass that has done it little favours. Discreetly billed as the only Michelangelo marble in Britain, it has been part of the academys collection since 1830. The fact that such a treasure was hidden, as it were, in plain sight, was one of the things that motivated me to write about it: to try to bring it plainly into view. I was also intrigued as to how one of Michelangelos great marbles ended up on these shores?

The story of its arrival at the academy rests with the fortunes of one man: the connoisseur, collector and amateur landscape painter Sir George Beaumont, an arbiter of taste who exhibited his efforts at the Royal Academy for many years, and who was a supporter of both the painter John Constable and the poet William Wordsworth. According to Constable, Michelangelos Taddei tondo was entirely lost, till accident discovered the one in question in the year 1822, at which time George Beaumont was in Rome. There, through the efforts of the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova  who negotiated the purchase on his friends behalf  Beaumont bagged the hefty marble. Canova even supervised its packing so that it could be safely shipped back to England.

Moving Michelangelo's Tondo into the Royal Academy's Sackler Galleries in 1991 ( Royal Academy of Arts, London)

Beaumont bought the tondo from the distinguished French artist Jean-Baptiste Wicar, who had already made a name for himself as a great collector of Michelangelo drawings. A hitherto unpublished document in the Royal Academy archive (two pages of notes in French), probably served as sales notes of sorts to verify the authenticity of the work, and to give Beaumont the comfort he needed to shell out 1,500.

The French notes tell us that Wicar himself acquired the tondo from the palace of Taddeo Taddei  the Florentine gentleman who originally acquired the tondo directly from Michelangelo in about 1505. Taddeo, then a wealthy young cloth merchant and generous supporter of the arts, was part of a new generation of connoisseurs and patrons in Florence who collected works of the avant-garde. He proudly displayed his new Michelangelo, with its innovative take on the Madonna and child theme, in his palace  even though the sculpture was unfinished in a conventional sense (as, indeed, a remarkable proportion of Michelangelos great marbles reliefs and statues are). While it hung in Taddeos palace, his protege  the precocious young Umbrian artist Raphael, who intermittently stayed there  eagerly made sketches of it.

According to the notes, Wicar himself acquired the tondo in 1812. Having forged a successful career as a neoclassical artist in revolutionary France, Wicar had been appointed the leading member of Napoleons Commission des Sciences et des Arts, charged, during the French occupation of Italy, with the systematic expropriation of works of art for Frances national museum collections. As a result, Wicar had gained remarkable access to all the palaces and private collections in Florence, and clearly took advantage of it.

He continued to add to his incredible collection of Michelangelo drawings and it may be that the tondo, which has been described as a sketch in stone, fell into his hands as a result. Beaumont was under no illusion about the type of vendor he was dealing with, writing in a letter of 1822, that all the treasures of Italy were at one time at [Wicars] command.

Back in England, and freshly installed in Beaumonts London bolthole at 34 Grosvenor Square, the tondo  as the RAs David Wilkie relates  became the chief talk of all the artists: a renowned female sculptor, he jokes, even had to be restrained from finishing it. Beaumont, who had recently been in poor health, was fired up by his purchase and exhilarated by his recent experience of fair Italy ... in all her splendour.

Having visited the Vatican and the Capitoline Museums in Rome, where some of the greatest works of mankind were all accessible to the general public, he determined to redouble his efforts to promote good taste and model public outreach in England. He campaigned vigorously for the creation of a National Gallery, where great works of art should be not merely toys for connoisseurs, but solid objects of concern for the nation and, in 1823, promised his collection of old masters to the nation, on condition that a suitable place be found for their display. This led directly to the establishment of the National Gallery in 1824.

Michelangelos Taddei tondo has now been installed in the National Gallerys Michelangelo & Sebastiano show (National Gallery) (National Portrait Gallery)

Beaumont also specified that his great tondo should be left to the Royal Academy  which acquired it in 1830, following his death in 1827. Beaumonts explicit intention was that every artist should have free access to it, so that progress in the arts could be promoted. While some of the greatest arts academies in Europe boasted plaster casts of the tondo, Beaumont  like his great idol, Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first president of the Royal Academy  believed that artists should have access to authentick models, rather than copies. Michelangelos great tondo, of course, is especially illuminating for artists, as it lays bare his whole process from beginning to end.

The tondo was delivered to the Royal Academy in the summer of 1830 at the cost of a 1. Constable sketched it almost as soon as it arrived, describing it as one of the most beautiful works in existence. For many, its mysterious play of light and shadow makes it one of Michelangelos most painterly works  demonstrating not only his rivalry with his older contemporary Leonardo da Vinci (the two had a complete antipathy to one another) but also the psychological intensity of Michelangelos own response to the mother and child theme.

The Taddei tondo can now be enjoyed at the National Gallery until June 2017, and it will be part of a major redisplay of the collection when the Royal Academy celebrates its 250th anniversary and redeveloped exhibition spaces in 2018.

Alison Cole is the author of 'Michelangelo: The Taddei Tondo' (Royal Academy Publications)
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For all Ben Wheatleys successes, the director behind cult hits Kill List, Sightseers and last years JG Ballard adaptation High-Rise can pinpoint one moment above all others. Spending an afternoon with legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese. As far as a career goes, winning awards or going to film festivals and all that stuff is fine, he says, but meeting him was the high point of everything Ive done.

They spent a few hours together at his office in New York after Wheatley discovered that Scorsese was a fan of Kill List, his breakout 2011 movie about two hitmen caught up in a dangerous occult world. It was as close as you can get meeting your film god, he says, citing Scorseses Taxi Driver as the film that first made him realise what a director actually does for a living.

Now Scorsese is executive producing Wheatleys latest, Free Fire  ostensibly his first American film, in that this 1970s tale of two gangs squaring up in a warehouse is nominally set in Massachusetts. Starring Cillian Murphy, Armie Hammer and Sharlto Copley, it was actually shot in Brighton at the old printing works for the Brighton Argus newspaper.

Director Ben Wheatley's new film 'Free Fire' is executively produced by his hero Martin Scorsese (Getty Images)

Scorsese never quite made it to the English south coast  but with his name on the credits, he kept an eye on the project. We had to take it to him and show it to him, which was terrifying. But he loved it. Its yet another milestone in the Wheatley story; one of the few British filmmakers to break from the genre scene and penetrate the mainstream.

Sitting in Londons Corinthia Hotel, sniffing his way through a cold, the Billericay-born Wheatley may now be 44, but he hasnt changed much since directing his debut feature, 2009s unsettling crime story Down Terrace, in just eight days. He still lives in Brighton, where he and his wife and regular screenwriter Amy Jump raise their young son and run their company Rook Films.

Wheatley, who studied for a degree in fine art sculpture before posting short films online led him to TV and commercial work, has very carefully managed his growth as a filmmaker. After Kill List, hed eschewed the more technical and difficult scripts hed readied if favour of the purely performance-based Sightseers, a comedy about a serial killers couple holidaying in England.

Jack Reynor as Harry, Sharlto Copley as Vern and Armie Hammer as Ord in 'Free Fire' (Kerry Brown ) (Kerry Brown)

Free Fire may have Scorsese on board and a cast that includes Oscar-winner Brie Larson, but Wheatley has similarly managed to keep it contained. There was no need to travel to America to shoot it, not when Shoreham Docks can double as a port-side location. The production even found an abandoned Gran Torino car close by. We looked at it and it had tax discs in it from New York 1974, he laughs. Fate has a funny way of intervening.

While some will cite Quentin Tarantinos crooks-in-warehouse debut Reservoir Dogs as the obvious influence on Free Fire, Wheatley was looking back further, to 1970s gritty crime sagas like Wholl Stop The Rain, The Friends of Eddie Coyle and Straight Time, not to mention Scorseses own Mean Streets, albeit filtered through his and Jumps sensibilities, as bullets and barbs are exchanged with increasing rapidity.

The story is a bloody game of survival after an arms deal goes wrong, leading to the mother of all Mexican stand-offs. If the shootout is a tradition of the crime film, Free Fire is that moment taken to the nth degree, says Wheatley. Ive always wanted to do a more action-based movie. A genre movie with a big G. The other genre films weve done have been a step to the left or the right of genre. So I wanted to make something that was more straight ahead.

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Brie Larson as Justine and Cillian Murphy as Chris in 'Free Fire' (Kerry Brown ) (Kerry Brown)

His idea was to make something about real people under real pressure in real jeopardy. It wasnt about superheroes blowing up planets and cities dissolving. In one scene, two wounded characters desperately slither towards the only phone in the building  this is pre-mobiles, remember  to call in back-up. Crawling up a flight of stairs is one of the big action sequences in the film! he says. Its painful. Its funny. Its very Ben Wheatley.

Despite primarily being set in one location, Free Fire was a huge logistical challenge. Wheatley designed the entire set in 3D in the video game Minecraft, before using storyboards and models to plan out precisely the movements of each character around the set. Its not something you can make up on the day, he says, pointing out that for every wall being hit by a bullet (and there are lots of them), a fake panel must be created to explode dust from.

Still, there will come a time when Wheatley takes these skills into a bigger arena, in the way Gareth Edwards did on Godzilla and Rogue One. Theres certainly no shortage of material. He and Jump make it a policy to write other films while one is in production. So for every film weve made, weve probably written three or four scripts. And over time they all start to stack up.

Among those in the pile are Freakshift, a film Wheatley has had in his locker since Kill List which he describes policeman versus monsters. Set to shoot in August, Alicia Vikander is currently in talks. Then theres Hard Boiled, a take on Frank Millers early-90s comic-book series, in which his High-Rise star Tom Hiddleston will play a tax collector in a dystopian Los Angeles.

I dont want to get into that cycle of four years, five years, then suddenly its one [movie made] every six years, which seems to happen to a lot of people, he says. Its not just the writing where Wheatley is smartly thinking ahead. A former storyboard artist, hes started to art-design projects in advance, rather than wait for financing and rush the design phase in pre-production. I want to have them prepped before that moment.

Comparable to Guillermo del Toro, who began on small-scale genre productions like Cronos, could he similarly go and work in America? If Free Fire had been set outdoors in a town, wed have gone to America to shoot it, he shrugs. But theres something perfect right now about his set-up. While Im making films produced by my own company, its much more comfortable for me. Also, its nice making stuff near your house! You dont have to move around!

'Free Fire' opens on 31 March
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The focus of Sony Pictures' CinemaCon panel was assumed to be its new sneak peek at Spider-Man: Homecoming, but a surprise was waiting in store.

Playlist reports that Sony Chairman Tom Rothman brought onto stage none other than Ryan Gosling, to debut brand new footage from this year's highly-anticipated sci-fi sequel, Blade Runner 2049.

Surprising, especially, considering the film's US and Canadian distributor is actually Warner Bros., with Sony Pictures acting as a distributor overseas. However, with Sony having financed half its production, it seems clear the studio is wanting to edge in on the ownership of what could, potentially, be one of the year's major hits.

"It was so surreal to be walking around the universe of Blade Runner," Gosling told the crowd. "The craftsmanship of this film is really on another level. Every location was real. Every set was there. Every prop was functional. It was a fully functioning, living, breathing world. And it made it so easy for us in the end because we could just focus on the internal world of these characters because the external world was so realised and full of detail."

Rothman revealed that part of the film takes place in Las Vegas, before debuting brand new footage.

*WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD*

The footage opened on Gosling's Officer K in what appears to be a replicant creation facility run by Jared Leto's character, though the room doesn't look particularly 'sci-fi'; instead boasting wood-panelled walls and stone staircases. Leto notes of the location, "We make angels". The scene intercuts with Officer K in an office arguing with Robin Wright's character, though their relationship is unclear.

 Blade Runner 2049 - Trailer

The footage also revealed replicant Joi (Ana de Armas), who Office K watches be given birth, though that doesn't appear to hinder the pair having some extreme sexual tension. Also shown were plenty of major action set pieces, with explosions galore and even a shot of Harrison Ford running for his dear life.

Rothman ended the segment by announcing that more would be revealed at the Warner Bros. panel, which suggests at least some of this footage will eventually make its way online.

Films to get excited about in 2017 Show all 13 1 /13 Films to get excited about in 2017 Films to get excited about in 2017 Star Wars: The Last Jedi Director: Rian Johnson Rian Johnson Cast: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, and Lupita Nyong'o Plot: No details yet, but it will continue directly on from Rey coming face-to-face with Luke at the end of The Force Awakens. Release Date: 15 December 2017 Films to get excited about in 2017 Thor: Ragnarok Director: Taika Waititi Taika Waititi Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Tessa Thompson, Jeff Goldblum, Karl Urban, and Mark Ruffalo Plot: Story details are minimal as of now, but Thor's third return to screen has already been teased to feature a loose adaptation of the famous 'Planet Hulk' storyline. Release Date: 27 October 2017 Films to get excited about in 2017 You Were Never Really Here Director: Lynne Ramsay Lynne Ramsay Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Alessandro Nivola Plot: A war veteran's attempt to save a young girl from a sex trafficking ring goes horribly wrong. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 Annihilation Director: Alex Garland Alex Garland Cast: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson, and Oscar Isaac Plot: A biologist's husband disappears. She thus puts her name forward for an expedition into an environmental disaster zone, but does not quite find what she's expecting. The expedition team is made up of the biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a surveyor. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 Wonderstruck (image from Far From Heaven) Director: Todd Haynes Cast: Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams, and Amy Hargreaves Plot: The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 Mother (image of Darren Aronofsky) Director: Darren Aronofsky Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Michelle Pfeiffer, Domhnall Gleeson, and Ed Harris Plot: A couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 The Killing of a Sacred Deer (image from The Lobster) Director: Yorgos Lanthimos Cast: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, and Alicia Silverstone Plot: A surgeon forms a familial bond with a sinister teenage boy, with disastrous results. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 Blade Runner 2049 Director: Denis Villeneuve Denis Villeneuve Cast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Robin Wright, and Jared Leto Plot: Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years. Release Date: 6 October 2017 Films to get excited about in 2017 Lady Bird (image of director Greta Gerwig) Director: Greta Gerwig Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, and Lucas Hedges Plot: The adventures of a young woman living in Northern California for a year. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara (image of director Steven Spielberg and star Mark Rylance) Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Mark Rylance, Oscar Isaac Plot: The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara recounts the story of a young Jewish boy in Bologna, Italy in 1858 who, having been secretly baptized, is forcibly taken from his family to be raised as a Christian. His parents' struggle to free their son becomes part of a larger political battle that pits the Papacy against forces of democracy and Italian unification. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 How to Talk to Girls at Parties Director: John Cameron Mitchell John Cameron Mitchell Cast: Elle Fanning, Ruth Wilson, and Nicole Kidman Plot: An alien touring the galaxy breaks away from her group and meets two young inhabitants of the most dangerous place in the universe: the London suburb of Croydon. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 The Dark Tower Director: Nikolaj Arcel Nikolaj Arcel Cast: Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, and Tom Taylor Plot: Gunslinger Roland Deschain roams an Old West-like landscape in search of the dark tower, in the hopes that reaching it will preserve his dying world. Release Date: 28 July 2017 Films to get excited about in 2017 Suburbicon Director: George Clooney George Clooney Cast: Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Josh Brolin, and Oscar Isaac Plot: A crime mystery set in the quiet family town of Suburbicon during the 1950s, where the best and worst of humanity is hilariously reflected through the deeds of seemingly ordinary people. When a home invasion turns deadly, a picture-perfect family turns to blackmail, revenge and betrayal. Release Date: 24 November



Directed by Denis Villeneuve, Gosling's new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret which could potentially plunge an already fractured society into total chaos. The discovery puts him on a journey to seek out Rick Deckard (Ford), the LAPD blade runner who's now been missing for the past 30 years. The film also stars Dave Bautista and Mackenzie Davis.

Blade Runner 2049 hits UK cinemas 6 October 2017.
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A petition to boycott Netflix's upcoming adaptation of popular Japanese Manga Death Note has gone viral, successfully hitting its goal of 10,000 signatures.

The backlash was sparked following the release of the first trailer of the film which showed white actors in the film's lead roles. The Care2 petition currently has been signed by more than 12,000 people.

Nat Wolff (The Fault in Our Stars) is the project's lead actor which is being directed by Blair Witch director Adam Wingard. He plays Light Turner, a student who unearths a supernatural notebook that permits him to murder anybody he can identify; the character's name in the original manga is Light Yagami.

Recommended Netflix sparks whitewashing controversy once more with Death Note

LaKeith Stanfield also stars as the private detective chasing Light, while The Leftovers actor Margaret Qualley plays the film's female lead.

Other recent projects to have ignited criticism following claims of whitewahsing are Scarlett Johansson film Ghost in the Shell and Netflix's Marvel series Iron Fist. Unlike the former, however, Death Note is a westernised version of the Manga which has relocated the action to Seattle; Ghost in the Shell remains set in Japan but has swapped out its Japanese lead for Hollywood star Johansson.

Hollywood whitewashing controversies Show all 11 1 /11 Hollywood whitewashing controversies Hollywood whitewashing controversies Scarlett Johansson cast as Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell Blonde, white US actress Scarlett Johansson was announced to be playing the clearly Japanese character Motoko Kusanagi in Hollywood's Ghost in the Shell remake, much to the dismay of Asian film fans Hollywood whitewashing controversies Tilda Swinton cast as The Ancient One in Doctor Strange Marvel sparked outrage when Anglo-Scottish actress Tilda Swinton was cast as Tibetan mystic The Ancient One alongside Benedict Cumberbatch in Doctor Strange Hollywood whitewashing controversies Zoe Saldana was criticised for 'blacking up' to play the considerably darker-skinned soul singer Nina Simone in Nina AP Hollywood whitewashing controversies Jake Gyllenhaal stars in Prince of Persia The half Jewish, quarter Swedish actor was cast to play a Middle Eastern Prince in Disney's 2010 film Hollywood whitewashing controversies Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily in forthcoming film Pan Mara was been cast in the role of American Indian Tiger Lily, sparking an online protest from angry film fans Warner Bros Hollywood whitewashing controversies Christian Bale plays Moses in Ridley Scott's Exodus: Gods and Kings Ridley Scott claimed he would never cast 'Mohammed so-and-so from such-and-such a country' in a lead role in his Biblical epic, and went on to cast an entirely white cast instead Hollywood whitewashing controversies Jim Caveziel plays Jesus in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ Catholic star Mel Gibson chose to cast a Caucasian American actor in the role of Jesus for his controversial film AP Hollywood whitewashing controversies Micky Rooney plays a Japanese neighbour in Breakfast at Tiffany's Who better to play Holly Golightly's Japanese neighbour IY Yunoishi than American actor Mick Rooney. At least Hollywood has come some way since 1961 YouTube Hollywood whitewashing controversies Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez in Argo Ben Affleck became the subject of a few editorials in Latin American newspapers for casting himself (an American with English, Irish, Scottish and Swiss ancestry) as a Mexican CIA operative Hollywood whitewashing controversies Jennifer Connelly plays Alicia Nash in A Beautiful Mind Alicia Lopez-Harrison de Larde was a naturalised US citizen from El Salvador, but was played by an actress of Jewish, Irish and Norwegian descent YouTube Hollywood whitewashing controversies Chinese actresses cast in Memoirs of a Geisha What better way to alienate Japanese cinemagoers than to cast three Chinese actresses in the lead roles in a film about Japanese culture REUTERS

Willem Dafoe will provide the voice of death spirit Ryuk (a Shinigami), a character eerily similar in appearance to the actor.

Death Note will be released globally on Netflix on 25 August.
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Scarlett Johansson has addressed the celebrity photo-hacking scandal which saw her private nude photos leaked online.

The actor, whose phone was hacked in 2011, said the ordeal was devastating and especially degrading as a woman.

The 32-year-old, who was named the top grossing actor of 2016, said it was difficult having her privacy so starkly invaded. She also claimed the person who hacked into her email account impersonated her and attempted to gain access to images of others.

It was so devastating, she told shock jock host Howard Stern on his radio show.

It was absolutely shocking and devastating at the time It was such an invasion. I just felt like as a woman, I felt like its such a degrading and awful thing to have to go through that.

The hacker, Christopher Chaney, was sentenced to ten years in prison after pleading guilty.

Johansson said she was one of around 50 people targeted, saying: It feels particularly invasive when you are in the public eye and youre like, What else can I give you?

Scarlett Johansson on screen Show all 25 1 /25 Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in Luc Besson's Lucy (2014) Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson again in Lucy (2014) Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with a software package (Scarlett Johansson) in Her (2013) Warner Bros Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson and director Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Don Jon (2013) Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen L to R: Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Captain America (Chris Evans) & Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) in Avengers Assemble (2012) Marvel Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow in Iron Man 2 (2010) Rex Features Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Drew Barrymore and Scarlett Johansson in 'He's Just Not into You' (2009) Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson in The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) IMBD Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Rebecca Hall, left, and Scarlett Johansson star in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) AP Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in The Spirit (2008) IMBD Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in The Nanny Diaries (2007) IMBD Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in The Prestige (2006) YouTube Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson lights up on screen in the film The Black Dahlia (2006) CHRIS BRANDES Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Josh Hartnett and Scarlett Johansson in The Black Dahlia (2006) Moviestore Collection/REX Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Hugh Jackman and Scarlett Johansson in Scoop (2006) IMBD Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in Woody Allen's Match Point (2005) IMBD Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in Woody Allen's Match Point (2005) YouTube Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in The Island (2005) IMBD Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in A Good Woman (2004) Lions Gate Entertainment Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in A Good Woman (2004) YouTube Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson and Bryan Greenberg in The Perfect Score (2004) Paramount Pictures Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson,The Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)  Jaap Buitendijk Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in Ghost World (2001) IMBD Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) USA Films Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Robert Redford and Scarlett Johansson in The Horse Whisperer (1998) Buena Vista Pictures/AFP

The actor, who rose to fame for her roles in Lost in Translation and Girl With A Pearl Earring, warned it was not difficult to find your photos stolen and leaked.

Its not that hard! Its a low-level hacking thing - were not talking about the dark web here, she said.

Recommended Scarlett Johansson spoofs Ivanka Trump in SNL sketch

But Johansson, who recently grabbed headlines for impersonating President Donald Trump's daugher on Saturday Night Live, did not just discuss hacking during the lengthy interview. Stern also questioned the actor about her appearance on a number of occasions and repeatedly referred to her as hot.

Stern is arguably Americas most infamous shock jock radio host - a term for radio presenters who express opinions in a deliberately provocative or offensive way.

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The controversial radio personality started the interview by saying: Look at you let me soak you in for a second. We could spend the hour staring at each other that would be awesome.

Im listening to your voice because everybody always says Scarlett Johansson has the sexiest voice.

He then went on to joke that she must have been a hot ten-year-old and later called her face a money maker. He also pressed her about the skin-tight beige rubber unitard she wore in her latest film Ghost in the Shell  a Hollywood live-action adaptation based on the Japanese manga of the same name by Masamune Shirow.

The outfit your wearing in this movie, you might as well be naked right dont you think, he said. Talk to me about nudity for a second when you did that film with Sofia Coppola and they open up on that shot with your arse in those panties.

Johansson snapped back saying she despised the word panties.
Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II attempted on Monday to reassure Egyptians after the recent attacks on Copts in North Sinai, stressing that the Coptic families that have fled the governorate out of fear of terrorist violence will return to the city "when the time is right."

At the start of this month, the Coptic Orthodox Church announced that 143 Christian families had fled North Sinai to Ismailiya after a spate of killings of Christians by Islamist militants in the governorate.

"What happened in El-Arish is a pressure card aimed at dividing the country. These criminal acts of terror are temporary and will be solved soon," the pope said during a Monday interview with TV host Lamis El-Hadidy on CBC channel.

"The state is taking care of the El-Arish issue," the pope said, adding that "it was wise of the families who felt danger to leave... during the 1967 war, entire governorates were displaced."

The series of killings in North Sinai came after the Egyptian affiliate of the Islamic State militant group called on its supporters to attack Christians across the country, in a video in which it claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a church in Cairo in December.

Several days after the video was released, three Christians were murdered in El-Arish, bringing the number of Christians killed in North Sinai in the last month to seven.

Several of the killings were claimed by Islamic State-affiliated militants.

The pope stressed during the Monday interview that the Egyptian church is one of the main pillars of Egypt, and any act against it or against the police, the army, or the mosque is an act targeting Egypt.

Christians are estimated to make up around 10 percent of Egypts population.

When asked about the possibility of protests being held by Copts living in America during President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi's upcoming visit to the US over the pope's friendly relations with the state, Tawadros said that this positive relationship is "not shameful."

The pope said that Egyptian Christians do face problems, but that they are "minor" and should be dealt with case by case.

He said that a sectarian attack in one village out of 5,000 villages is a "small wound," but "the body is healthy."

"There is anger, and I understand it, but the problem is the media presents the news in an exaggerated and harmful way, and this makes Copts, especially abroad, more anxious," the pope said.

"However, we always tell them that we can deal with our own problems, and we constantly try to reassure them through our churches abroad."

Tawadros said that the state is doing its best to secure churches, and that he could ask no more of the government in this regard. He also pointed to the fact that the president attended the funeral of the victims of last year's church bombing in Cairo.

At least 25 people were killed and 49 were injured on 11 December in a suicide bomb attack on the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, which is attached to Cairo's main Coptic cathedral in Abbasiya.

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights  a local human rights watchdog  reported in August 2016 that in the first eight months of that year, 10 incidents of sectarian violence took place in the governorate of Minya, which has a high proportion of Christian residents.

During the Monday interview, the pope also praised the recently approved law reforming regulations surrounding the issuing of permits to build churches in the country.

Before the law was passed in August 2016, Christians faced heavy restrictions on building churches in Egypt.

"We were living without a law [addressing this issue] the law is an achievement," the pope said.

"It used to take up to 15 years to approve the building of a church, and it required the approval of the president. But according to the new law, the local governor is the one who gives approval, and should respond [to a request for a permit] within four months, [and give justification if he denies the request]."

Tawadros stressed, however, that if there are any problems with the law, they should become evident within the first year after its passing.

Due to the restrictions that existed on building churches, some congregations have been forced to build unlicensed churches or carry out their religious practices in buildings that have not been designated for religious use.

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Wiz Khalifa has paid tribute to Pablo Escobar by sharing a photo of himself appearing to smoke marijuana near the late Colombian drug lords grave.

The US rapper, who is from Pittsburgh, posted a photo of flowers and a marijuana joint next to Escobars headstone and a second image of himself smoking what appears to be cannabis near the grave.

Khalifa, who posted the photos during a trip to perform in the Colombian city of Medellin, also shared an image of himself posing in front of the apartment where the cartel lived and which is the site of a bombing and an attempt on Escobars life back in the 1980s.

Khalifa, whose real name is Cameron Jibril Thomaz, is a prolific marijuana smoker and even has a strain of marijuana named after him which he markets with a Colorado company.

The apparent tributes to the druglord, who was killed on a Medellin rooftop in 1993 during a shootout as he attempted to escape police, have caused fury among Colombians.

Medellin Mayor Federico Gutierrez demanded the rapper apologise for "advocating crime" and labelled Khalifa a scoundrel.

"It shows that this guy has never had to suffer from the violence inflicted by these drug traffickers," Mr Gutierrez told the BBC.

The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Show all 10 1 /10 The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Leonardo DiCaprio On climate change: 'Climate change is real, it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating.' Getty The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Chrissy Teigen 'I will never stop talking about how horrible Donald Trump is. Even after he loses, I will set an alert to my phone to remind me to not stop. Getty The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Nicki Minaj On the war on drugs and US prison system: What it has become is not a war on drugs. It has become slavery. Or something crazier. When I see how many people are in jail, I feel like, Wait a minute. Our government is aware of these statistics and thinks its OK The sentences are inhumane. Christopher Polk/Getty Images for A+E Networks The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Emily Ratajkowski 'I am not shamed or apologetic of what my body might represent to you. Its the body I was given. I'm no less worthy of making political points about feminism or fighting for the reclaiming of female sexuality because of it.' Andrew Toth/Getty Images The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Jesse Williams On racial equality: Now what we've been doing is looking at the data and we know that police somehow manage to de-escalate, disarm and not kill white people every day. So what's going to happen is we are going to have equal rights and justice in our own country or we will restructure their function and ours. Getty The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Zendaya On claiming a magazine photoshopped her: Had a new shoot come out today and was shocked when I found my 19 year old hips and torso quite manipulated. These are the things that make women self conscious, that create the unrealistic ideals of beauty that we have. Getty The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Jennifer Lawrence Im over trying to find the "adorable" way to state my opinion and still be likable! F**k that. I don't think I've ever worked for a man in charge who spent time contemplating what angle he should use to have his voice heard. It's just heard.' AFP/Getty Images The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind John Legend On Black Lives Matter: 'We should not have to jump through hoops to prove black people shouldnt be shot by police during routine traffic stops. So many people work so hard to find a reason why executing a human being during a traffic stop is ok. ITS NOT OK.' Getty The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Amandla Stenberg On cultural appropriation: 'What would America be like if we loved black people as much as we loved black culture?' Getty Images The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Maisie Williams On feminism: I [also] feel like we should stop calling feminists feminists and just start calling people who arent feminist sexist  and then everyone else is just human. You are either a normal person or a sexist. People get a label because theyre bad.' Chris Jackson/Getty Images

The city has spent over two decades endeavouring to rid of its image as the druglords former headquarters.

While some on social media argued Khalifa had shown a lack of respect for the people of Colombia, others leapt to his defence.

Colombia fills its pockets making series about the life of Pablo Escobar, but are indignant when Wiz Khalifa take him flowers #hypocrites, said one.

Escobar, who was often dubbed the The king of cocaine, was accused of being behind up to 80 per cent of all the cocaine shipped to the US at the height of his career. His life was documented in Netflix series Narcos.

Khalifa has been contacted for a comment.
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The Walking Dead season seven finale is almost upon us, and the first trailer has previewed what looks to be an action-packed hour of television.

Having used the past seven episodes to build up what is sure to be the start of a blood-soaked war against The Saviours, this finale looks as if it will bring together all the communities Rick has assembled for the first time.

We've delved into the trailer and picked out the things you may not have noticed the first time around.

The most shocking Walking Dead moments Show all 10 1 /10 The most shocking Walking Dead moments The most shocking Walking Dead moments Sophie's a walker (season 2, episode 7) Much of season two's opening half is spent looking for Sophia, the missing daughter of Carol (Melissa McBride). Turns out she was locked up in Hershel's barn as a zombie all along. The most shocking Walking Dead moments Shane reanimates without being bitten (season 2, episode 12) When Carl (Chandler Riggs) guns down a deranged Shane (Jon Bernthal) to protect his father, the shock arrives when he manifests into a walker despite not being bitten; turns out everyone's infected with the virus and will turn whichever way they die. The most shocking Walking Dead moments Axel's bullet to the eye (season 3, episode 10) A character introduced in the show's prison arc, Axel is a reformed prisoner who strikes up a friendship with Carol - until he's gunned down mid-sentence. The most shocking Walking Dead moments Carl kills Lori after she gives birth (season 3, episode 4) Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) goes into labour at the very moment a zombie siege breaks out at the prison. Unfortunately, she doesn't make it through the procedure with her son Carl being the one to put a bullet to her head. The most shocking Walking Dead moments The Governor slays Hershel (season 4, episode 8) The Governor makes his dramatic return for a showdown at the prison after he captures Michonne (Danai Gurira) and Hershel (Scott Wilson). Rick reaches out, attempting to reason with him - but The Governor starts a war when he proceeds to decapitate poor old Hershel instead. The most shocking Walking Dead moments "Look at the flowers" (season 4, episode 14) In a standout episode from the show's fourth season, Carol is forced to take drastic measures when young teenager Lizzie murders her sister Mika in the belief that she'll live on as a zombie. Realising Lizzie's depraved mind would endanger those around her, Carol puts a gun to the young girl's head and, telling her to "look at the flowers," pulls the trigger, fighting back the tears. The most shocking Walking Dead moments Carl's bullet to the eye (season 6, episode 9) Season six returned from its mid-season break in typically dramatic fashion when an iconic moment from the graphic novels came to life: Carl takes a bullet to the eye. The most shocking Walking Dead moments Beth is killed (season 5, episode 8) Upon being kidnapped, Beth (Emily Kinney) is taken to Grady Memorial Hospital managed by Atlanta Law Enforcement. Forced to reside there against her will, the group - including Rick and Daryl (Norman Reedus) - eventually find her - only for her to be accidentally shot in the head by her captor. The worst thing? Her sister Maggie (Lauren Cohan) had just arrived outside. The most shocking Walking Dead moments Negan kills Abraham Season seven opened in brutal form as we discovered it was Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) at the opposite end of Negan's baseball bat. "Suck my nuts," the soldier growls as the Saviours' leader brings Lucille raining down on his head until nothing remains but a pulpy mess. The most shocking Walking Dead moments Negan kills Glenn Negan decides to punish the group once more after getting clocked round the face by Daryl. Without expectation, he thwacks Lucille round the head of poor Glenn. With his eyeball popping out of his head, he manages: "I'll find you, Maggie before Negan proceeds to finish the job ending the former pizza delivery boy's life.

Dwight goes undercover

At the end of latest episode 'Something They Need,' Rosita brings Rick to Dwight who she has locked up in the prison in Alexandria; he claims he wants to help them. Considering Dwight's been Negan's right-hand man for some time now, Rick is wary. The trailer sees him telling Rick how he wants Negan dead, however, later on - when Negan can be seen making his grand return to Alexandria (quite possibly alongside a probably-doomed Sasha) - Dwight can be seen stood behind him. It seems Negan's once-loyal aide will help take him down from the inside.

The troops are rallied

Excitingly, the walls of Alexandria can be seen lined with people willing to fight against The Saviours, but the most thrilling image is one of Rick and the Junkyard's leader Jadis leading the charge. Let's just hope the latter isn't the one who betrayed Rick else it could spell mortal danger.

Morgan joins the cause

Morgan (Lennie James) can be glimpsed dressed in attire which suggests King Ezekiel's impassioned plea to help in their fight against The Saviours eventually pays off.

Shiva

Morgan and Ezekiel aren't the only ones along for the battle - we'll get to see the latter's pet tiger Shiva outside the walls of the Kingdom, ready to eviscerate some Saviours at the order of his master. Carol (Melissa McBride) can be seen walking alongside them too - and we all know what happens when Carol gets angry.

The Walking Dead season seven continues in the UK tonight (27 March) and concludes in the US next Sunday (3 March).
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Just three out of the 28 European Union countries appear to be in favour of creating a tough new law that would set binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new analysis.

Sweden was the sole member state whose attitude towards a key piece of proposed EU legislation was rated as good, in a ranking was developed by Carbon Market Watch and the European Federation for Transport and Environment.

Germany and Frances stances were only described as moderate, but this was enough to claim second and third place.

Most countries were seeking to rig the law with loopholes, one analyst who worked on the ranking said.

The EU Climate Leader Board ranks countries based on their attitude towards strengthening a key piece of proposed legislation (Carbon Market Watch/Transport & Environment) (Carbon Market Watch/Transport & Environment)

The fifth-placed UKs attitude was rated as insufficient while the lowest ranked countries, all considered very poor, were Poland, Spain, Italy, Romania, Czech Republic, Croatia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The UK Government has been stalling on producing its own plan to reduce emissions as legally required by the 2008 Climate Change Act and is facing potential legal action as a result.

The new EU Climate Leader Board was compiled by awarding points to countries which back strengthening the Effort Sharing Regulation, a proposed law which is currently being negotiated.

This should set binding emission reduction targets for transport, buildings, agriculture and waste, covering about 60 per cent of the greenhouse gases produced by the EU.

The ranking suggested few politicians were interested in taking a tough stance on the issue.

Femke de Jong, the EU policy director at Carbon Market Watch, said: EU politicians portraying themselves as climate leaders should put their money where their mouth is by closing loopholes in the EUs key climate law and pushing for more ambition.

Only with determined climate action will lawmakers ensure that European citizens can enjoy the significant benefits of a decarbonised society, such as clean air.

And Carlos Calvo Ambel, an analyst at the Transport & Environment federation, said: This is the most important climate law that will enable Europe to deliver on the Paris Agreement.

But the great majority of countries want to rig the law with loopholes so they can continue business as usual.

Either Europe follows the lead of Sweden, Germany and France, which are going in the right direction though not far enough, or we should forget about our climate leadership.

The worst countries in the world for air pollution deaths Show all 10 1 /10 The worst countries in the world for air pollution deaths The worst countries in the world for air pollution deaths Ukraine The worst countries in the world for air pollution deaths Bulgaria Rex Features The worst countries in the world for air pollution deaths Belarus The worst countries in the world for air pollution deaths Russia The worst countries in the world for air pollution deaths Armenia The worst countries in the world for air pollution deaths Bosnia and Herzegovina REUTERS The worst countries in the world for air pollution deaths Georgia The worst countries in the world for air pollution deaths Hungary DigitalGlobe The worst countries in the world for air pollution deaths China The worst countries in the world for air pollution deaths Moldova

The ranking was based on statements made by government ministers, papers sent to the European Councils Working Party on Environment and policy positions laid out in public documents.

After talks between member states, the European Parliament will discuss the Effort Sharing Regulation, which is expected to become law by the end of this year.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which is responsible for climate change after Theresa May abolished the dedicated department, said: The UK is an international leader in tackling climate change and played a major role when the world came together in Paris to reach the ambitious deal to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions.

"Under the UK Climate Change Act, we set our own ambitious target of at least 80 per cent emissions reduction by 2050 and have already made good progress with emissions 38 per cent lower today than in 1990.

According to the 2017 Climate Action Performance Index, the UK is the third best performing country in the world after France and Sweden.
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Issues around children learning to read are rarely out of the news. Which is hardly surprising  becoming a successful reader is of paramount importance in improving a childs life chances.

Nor is it surprising that reading creates a virtuous circle: the more you read the better you become. But what may come as a surprise is that reading to dogs is gaining popularity as a way of addressing concerns about childrens reading.

There is a lot of research evidence indicating that children who read extensively have greater academic success. The UK Department for Educations Reading for Pleasure report, published in 2012, highlights this widely established link.

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Keith Stanovich, an internationally eminent US literacy scholar (now based in Canada) wrote a widely cited paper in 1986, describing this virtuous circle as the Matthew effect (a reference to the observations made by Jesus in the New Testament about the economic propensity for the rich to become richer and the poor, poorer).

A downward spiral impacts upon reading ability and then, according to Stanovich, on cognitive capability.

Underachievement in groups of children in the UK is recognised in international studies  and successive governments have sought to address the issues in a range of ways. Reading to dogs, so far, has not been among them, but its time to look at the strategy more seriously.

Dramatic paws: a loyal listener wont interrupt when mistakes are made (H Hudson/The Kennel Club, Author provided) (H.Hudson/The Kennel Club, Author provided)

Many children naturally enjoy reading and need little encouragement, but if they are struggling their confidence can quickly diminish  and with it their motivation. This sets in motion the destructive cycle whereby reading ability fails to improve.

So how can dogs help?

A therapeutic presence

Reading to dogs is just that  encouraging children to read alongside a dog. The practice originated in the US in 1999 with the Reading Education Assistance Dogs (READ) scheme and initiatives of this type now extend to a number of countries. In the UK, for example, the Bark and Read scheme supported by the Kennel Club is meeting with considerable enthusiasm.

The presence of dogs has a calming effect on many people  hence their use in Pets as Therapy schemes (PAT). Many primary schools are becoming increasingly pressurised environments and children (like adults) generally do not respond well to such pressure. A dog creates an environment that immediately feels more relaxed and welcoming. Reading can be a solitary activity, but can also be a pleasurable, shared social event. Children who are struggling to read benefit from the simple pleasure of reading to a loyal, loving listener.

All ears: reading aloud to a dog allows children to be positive and enjoy the experience (Shutterstock)

Children who are struggling to read, for whatever reason, need to build confidence and rediscover a motivation for reading. A dog is a reassuring, uncritical audience who will not mind if mistakes are made. Children can read to the dog, uninterrupted; comments will not be made. Errors can be addressed in other contexts at other times. For more experienced or capable readers, they can experiment with intonation and voices, knowing that the dog will respond positively  and building fluency further develops comprehension in readers.

For children who are struggling, reconnecting with the pleasure of reading is very important. As Marylyn Jager-Adams, a literacy scholar, noted in a seminal review of beginner reading in the US: If we want children to learn to read well, we must find a way to induce them to read lots.

Reading to a dog can create a helpful balance, supporting literacy activities which may seem less appealing to a child. Children with dyslexia, for example, need focused support to develop their understanding of the alphabetic code (how speech sounds correspond to spelling choices). But this needs to be balanced with activities which support independent reading and social enjoyment or the child can become demotivated.

Creating a virtuous circle

Breaking a negative cycle will inevitably lead to the creation of a virtuous circle  and sharing a good book with a dog enables children to apply their reading skills in a positive and enjoyable way.

Research evidence in this area is rather limited, despite the growing popularity of the scheme. A 2016 systematic review of 48 studies  Children Reading to Dogs: A Systematic Review of the Literature by Hall, Gee and Mills  demonstrated some evidence for improvement in reading, but the evidence was not strong. There clearly is more work to do, but interest in reading to dogs appears to have grown through the evidence of case studies.

The example, often cited in the media, is that of Tony Nevett and his greyhound Danny. Tony and Dannys involvement in a number of schools has been transformative, not only in terms of reading but also in promoting general well-being and positive behaviour among children with a diverse range of needs.

So, reading to dogs could offer many benefits. As with any approach or intervention, it is not a panacea  but set within a language-rich literacy environment, there appears to be little to lose and much to gain.

Gill Johnson is an assistant professor in education at the University of Nottingham. This article first appeared on The Conversation
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How to create the perfect Tinder bio is one of lifes great mysteries ... but it looks like one woman has taken it a step further.

Maggie Archer, a 20-year-old student from Missouri, has a pretty interesting strategy and it seems to be working, in a way.

She simply writes, Send me $5, see what happens.

Thats right, instead of using the app to find a date, Archer is using Tinder to scam money off gullible men, BuzzFeed reports.

So, how does it work?

The student reveals that as soon as she matches with a guy and he inquires about the cryptic fee, she encourages him to send the money via Paypal.

And, as for the surprise, much to the dismay of those foolish enough to fall for Archers trapping, all you get is unmatched.

Love and sex news: in pictures Show all 31 1 /31 Love and sex news: in pictures Love and sex news: in pictures What makes a perfect penis? Scientists have now answered one of these great unknowns. According to a new study, general cosmetic appearance is the most important penile aspect when it comes to what women value down there. This is swiftly followed by the appearance of pubic hair, penile skin, and girth. Length comes in at number six, with the look of the scrotum trailing closely behind. The least important facet of the phallus, say the scientists, is the position and shape of meatus, the vertical slit at the opening of the urethra. Getty Love and sex news: in pictures Half of divorcees had doubts on their wedding day Over half of divorcees considered abandoning their husband or wife-to-be at the altar on their wedding day, a new study has revealed. On top of likely worrying about wedding favours and making sure guests behave on their big day, 49 per cent of divorcees admitted they were unsure before the ceremony that their marriage would last. Some 15 per cent of divorcees polled said they were so wracked with doubt that they felt physically sick in the run up to their wedding. Joe Raedle/Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures Students who marry after studying the same subject Picking a university subject is already difficult enough for young people. But heres an extra piece of data to weigh on your decision: you may be picking a life partner as well. Dan Kopf of the blog, Priceonomics, analysed US Census data and found that the percentage of Americans who marry someone within their own major is actually fairly high. About half of Americans are married, according to the 2012 American Community Survey (part of the Census). And about 28 per cent of married couples over the age of 22 both graduated from college. (The survey didnt recognise same-sex marriages for the 2012 data, but it will for 2013 onwards, says Kopf). Sean Gallup/Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures How much sex we have (and how much we'd like) As a nation, we dont have as much sex as we would like, a survey has (somewhat unsurprisingly) confirmed. In a poll of 1523 people by YouGov, 64 per cent of Britons said they would wish to have sex at least a few times a month. The same sample said that only 38 per cent had sex at least a few times a month. In addition, 10 per cent said they wished to have sex every day, a goal which only 1 per cent admitted reaching. Rex Love and sex news: in pictures The new female condom Picture an internal condom. The chances are youre thinking of something which resembles a carrier bag. However, this could all be about to change with the new VA w.o.w. Condom Feminine. Not only is it a wireless, Bluetooth enabled, vibrating interactive device, which comes available in the shape of a heart, but the manufacturers think youll love it more than not using a condom at all. Love and sex news: in pictures One in five Brits admit to having had an affair One in five British adults admits they have had an affair, according to a new poll. 20 per cent of male respondents and 19 per cent of female respondents admitted to having had an affair in a new poll of 1660 respondents by YouGov. Orlando /Three Lions/Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures The UK's favourite sex position Casting aside the myth that Brits are a prudish bunch, a new survey has revealed that doggy style is the nations favourite sex position. As many as a quarter of UK adults surveyed said doggy style was their favourite way to indulge with a partner. Missionary, which is sometimes scoffed at the most boring position, was favoured by a fifth of the 1,000 people surveyed by high street sex shop Ann Summers, seeing it come in as third under "woman on top". Caiaimage/REX Love and sex news: in pictures Who's most likely to cheat? Men and women who are economically dependent on their spouses are more likely to cheat, a new study has revealed. Researchers have found that men who are solely financially dependent are more like to cheat than women, at 15 per cent and 5 per cent respectively. Men who are rely on their wives may cheat because they are undergoing a masculinity threat by not being the primary breadwinner as is culturally expected, said study author Christin L. Munsch, a UConn assistant professor of sociology. Eye Candy/REX Love and sex news: in pictures Jailed for loud sex noises A woman who breached a court order barring her from causing nuisance by making "loud sex noises" was sent to jail. Gemma Wale, of Small Heath, Birmingham, was given a two-week prison sentence after a civil court judge concluded that she had breached the order by "screaming and shouting whilst having sex" at a "level of noise" which annoyed a neighbour. Rex Features Love and sex news: in pictures Photo of wedding guest proposing to girlfriend in front of bride and groom goes viral When the staggering amount time, money, and effort that goes into to planning a wedding is considered, it seems pretty obvious that all guests have is to do is turn up with some gifts, and not upstage the couple. But this fact seems to have escaped one man, whose grinning face has gone viral after he decided to propose to his girlfriend in front of the bride and grooms top table. The photo, which has been viewed over 1.4 million times on Reddit, shows a boyfriend perched on one knee in front of his crying girlfriend. Joe Raedle/Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures Sexual fantasies The results of a sex survey are busting the myth that Britons are sexually repressed, by revealing how the majority of women have lived out their sexual fantasies. As many as 81 per cent of women and 77 per cent of men have shared and acted out fantasies with a partner  with having sex in public topping the list of turn-ons. The study also laid bare the influence of TV and film on our desires, with three-quarters of couples saying they had inspired them. Meanwhile, a further three quarters of women and over half of men have played out a fantasy theyd found in a book. LEO RAMIREZ/AFP/Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures The world's sexiest nationalities Irish men are the worlds sexiest, according to a survey of thousands of jet-setting women. In a poll of 66,000 of single American women who use MissTravel.com, as many as 8,000 said that Irish men are the sexiest. Around half of the females who took said they were turned on by Irish men said their accent influenced their choice, according to the Irish Times. ANDREW COWIE/AFP/Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures More sex = happiness? Couples were asked to double the amount of sex they had each week over a three month period by researchers at the Carnegie Mellon University, who compared them to couples who had their normal amount of sex. Their findings, published in the Journal of Economic Behavior, went against advice given by the average self-help book  having more sex doesnt automatically make a person happier. Instead, couples who were instructed to have more sex reported a decrease in happiness levels. Mood Board/Rex Love and sex news: in pictures Most sexually satisfied countries It is often considered the most amorous nation on the planet, but France doesn't even feature in a new list of the most sexually satisfied countries. According to a Durex global survey of 26,000 people, aged 16 and older, across 26 countries, only 44 per cent of people are fully satisfied with their sex lives. In the wake of these results, AlterNet has compiled a list of the 12 most sexually satisfied countries, with Switzerland, Spain and Italy topping the list. INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP/Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures Sex o'clock They say women are from Venus and men are from Mars  but a new sex survey suggests that members of the opposite sex seem to operate in different time zones too. While women like to get steamy between 11:21pm on average, men are more likely to be turned on at the rather inconvenient time of 7:54am. These times fall into the broader timeslots of 11pm and 2am for women, and 6am and 9am for men. PIERRE ANDRIEU/AFP/Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures More sex = more money People who have more sex are likely to earn more, new research claims. The research, partly conducted from the responses of 7,500 people, found employees who have sex two or three times a week earn 4.5 per cent more than colleagues who do not. Rex Love and sex news: in pictures The effects of watching porn Contrary to suggestion that porn desensitises viewers to sex, a study has found that it doesn't "negatively impact sexual functioning" and in fact boosts couples' sexual attraction to one another. In research published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, scientists at the University of California tested the effects of visual sexual stimuli on men in relationships, finding that it "is unlikely to negatively impact sexual functioning, given that responses actually were stronger in those who viewed more VSS." Rex Love and sex news: in pictures 'I have herpes' A woman diagnosed with herpes at the age of 20 has written an emotional essay about living with the common condition to fight the stigma surrounding it. Ella Dawson, now 22, said she had never had unprotected sex and thought she wasn't the sort of person STDs happened to when the symptoms first appeared during her time at university in the US. She wrote that the diagnosis initially felt like a punishment for her values and relationships and worried her that telling boyfriends would ruin her love life. Ella Dawson Love and sex news: in pictures More sleep, better sex A new study could have a simple answer to enhancing your sex life  just get a good nights sleep (if you are a woman at least). A study conducted by a team at the University of Michigan Sleep and Circadian Research Laboratory found women who get an extra hour of sleep at night reported higher levels of sexual desire and were more likely to have sex with their partners. Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures Swipe right A woman has detailed her experiences of a week of always swiping right on Tinder. By opening the floodgates, as Ms Caster describes it, she receives scores of messages from different men  and not all are terrible. Love and sex news: in pictures The most adulterous town in the UK Ever wondered what the neighbours are up to? Well if you live in Beeston, Nottinghamshire, then the answer is probably... having an affair. The bustling East Midlands town has been granted the dubious honour of being the UK's top spot for infidelity  with a total of 941 affairs reportedly taking place right now. According to The Official Infidelity Index 2015, which was released this week, 2.54 per cent of the towns population are currently seeing someone they shouldn't. REX FEATURES Love and sex news: in pictures Average penis size revealed Scientists have measured more than 15,000 mens penises in an effort to find out what size is normal. Researchers at Kings College London and a London NHS trust said they hoped the review would help address the concern that some men have about their penis size and aid people suffering from anxiety and distress. They revealed that the average flaccid penis is 3.6ins (9.16cm) long, or 5.2ins (13.24cm) when stretched, and 3.7ins (9.31cm) in circumference. Erect penises are 5.1ins (13.12cm) long on average and 4.5ins (11.66cm) in girth. Rex Love and sex news: in pictures One true love Men fall in love more times in their life than women, according to a new survey. 2,000 adults were asked about relationships, and discovered that more than half of men say they've loved more than one person their lifetime. For women, it's markedly fewer, with only 45 per cent saying they've had multiple loves. Love and sex news: in pictures Dating site for 'beautiful people only' A self-proclaimed elite dating website has removed around 3,000 members because they were "letting themselves go". BeautifulPeople.com describes itself as the largest internet dating community exclusively for the beautiful and puts peoples photographs to a members vote to decide if they are allowed in. But administrators have now shown that the rigorous 48-hour selection period is not a permanent pass by taking thousands of profiles down, mainly because of weight gain and graceless ageing. Love and sex news: in pictures Sex is a 'miracle cure' Regular exercise  including sex, walking and dancing  are miracle cures staring us in the face and could dramatically cut our risk of cancer, dementia, heart disease and diabetes, leading doctors have said. In a new review of existing evidence which reveals the full extent of benefits that can be accrued from exercise, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges said the improvement in health and savings to the NHS could be incalculable. Susannah Ireland Love and sex news: in pictures Pornhub searches by age of user Pornhubs prolific Insights blog fires out many reports of sociological interest, none more so than its latest on age, which lays bare different age groups' sexual proclivities. Looking at the most popular searches among 18-24s, there are several familial terms including 'step mom', 'milf', 'mom' and 'step sister', a trend that seems to die out somewhat in users' 30s. By 65, 'massage' becomes the top term, while 'granny' perhaps unsurprisingly also hits the top ten. PlaceIt/Just Another IKEA Catalog Love and sex news: in pictures Mature sex Research into the sexual lives of more than 7,000 men and women between the ages of 50 and 90 in England reveals that half of men and almost a third of women aged 70 and over were still sexually active, with around a third of these sexually active older people having sexual intercourse twice a month or more. Around two-thirds of men and over half of women thought good sexual relations were essential to the maintenance of a long-term relationship or being sexually active was physically and psychologically beneficial to older people. Getty Creative Love and sex news: in pictures The secret to an eighty year marriage Figures from the Office of National Statistics show that 42 per cent of marriages in England and Wales end in divorce, and the average British marriage which ends in divorce lasts 11 years and six months. Helen and Maurice Kaye, now aged 101 and 102, have been married for 80 years, and say the secret is: I think its important to have patience and tolerance. You're two entirely different people who suddenly live together, which can't be easy. But if you love each other, you get over the difficulties. Love and sex news: in pictures Valentine's Day porn Pornhub saw a (slight) drop in traffic on Valentine's Day as people focused on pleasuring their partners rather than themselves. Everywhere, it is, except for London. Overall UK traffic dipped 3 per cent across the UK, with Plymouth and Oxford seeing the biggest drops of 11 per cent and 10 per cent respectively. In fact every major city spent less time watching porn bar London, the Pornhub audience for which grew by 2 per cent. Getty Love and sex news: in pictures 1 in 10 men paying for sex A tenth of British men have admitted to paying for sex, according to a new study. Professionals aged 25 to 34 who binge drink and take drugs were found to be the most likely to have used the services of prostitutes, based on findings from a study of 6,108 men. Around 11 per cent of subjects, in the study published in the Sexually Transmitted Infections journal, have ever paid for sex in their lifetime and four per cent admitted to doing so in the last five years. Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures Questions that determine if you're in love The existence of love and its nature is something that has troubled philosophers for centuries, but a pair of scientists believe they have a set of questions that yield "clear empirical evidence" of it, or at least whether your relationship will end in divorce. They are: 'How happy are you in your marriage relative to how happy you would be if you weren't in the marriage?' and 'How do you think your spouse answered that question?' Columbia

But really, no one in their right mind would actually fall for that, would they?

Unfortunately so.

Taking to Twitter to prove just how successful the scam has been, Archers Paypal history shows a string of $5 payments.

In fact, she has received money from more than 20 paying matches in the last week.

Thats in excess of over $100 just for a one-sentence bio.

Some men have even offered her more - she says the most shes ever gotten from anyone was $10.

Recommended Meet the model who claims to be the most popular person on Tinder

Some men get creepy and assume if they offer a lot more, like hundreds, something will actually happen, which of course it doesn't, she told BuzzFeed.

It's really a foolproof plan, because I'm not actually promising anything, I just say 'see what happens.'
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Bill Gross has reached a roughly $80m (65m) settlement of his lawsuit against Pacific Investment Management Co (Pimco), ending a bitter 2 year drama over the well-known bond investor's abrupt departure from one of the world's biggest asset managers.

Terms of the accord were not disclosed, but were confirmed by two people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the terms were confidential.

Mr Gross and Pimco said in a joint statement the settlement was amicable, and that Pimco will donate the proceeds to charity.

Pimco has always been family to me, and, like any family, sometimes there are disagreements, Mr Gross, a Pimco co-founder, said in the statement.

The accord quietly ends an acrimonious battle over the 72-year-old billionaire's September 2014 exit from Pimco, where he had been chief investment officer. That battle played out first in the media, and then in Mr Gross's $200m lawsuit.

Mr Gross, who now works for Denver-based Janus Capital, left Pimco following negative reports about his leadership and weak returns at Pimco Total Return, once the world's largest bond mutual fund with $293bn of assets at its peak.

In his October 2015 lawsuit, Mr Gross accused a greedy cabal of Pimco executives, including group chief investment officer Dan Ivascyn, of plotting to oust him so they could divide his 20 per cent share in Pimco's bonus pool among themselves.

Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled  leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year.

The pool totaled $1.3bn in 2013, and Mr Gross's pay that year topped $300m, according to the complaint filed in California Superior Court.

Pimco, a Newport Beach, California-based unit of German insurer Allianz, countered that Gross's egregious misconduct, including abusive behaviour toward colleagues, would have justified his firing had he not resigned.

Once known on Wall Street as the Bond King, Gross left Pimco eight months after his second-in-command Mohamed El-Erian quit, in part because of Gross's management style. Gross is worth $2.5bn, according to Forbes magazine.

Reuters
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Two of Tescos biggest shareholders, which together hold just short 9 per cent of the companys stock, have come out against the retailers proposed takeover of wholesaler Booker.

Schroders on Monday wrote to Tesco chairman, John Allan, urging him to withdraw from the merger.

In the letter, seen by the Independent and signed by fund manager Nick Kirrage and global head of stewardship Jessica Ground, the UK-based asset manager said that the high price being paid for Booker makes the destruction of value even more likely [compare to an average deal].

The letter said that Schroders would be encouraging other shareholders who voice this view to share it.

Thus we urge you to reconsider and withdraw the offer, it said.

Separately, the Financial Times reported that Daniel OKeefe, who manages a fund at Artisan Partners, described Tesco as a train wreck that has over the last decade expanded into new businesses [and] new geographies.

The company basically imploded before [CEO] Dave Lewis began a journey of simplifying, refocusing on the UK. We just dont understand, in a business as fragile as retail, why on earth would we risk distracting ourselves from that huge goal, Mr OKeefe reportedly added.

Artisan Partners was not immediately available to comment when contacted by the Independent.

Both Schroders and Artisan Partners hold around 4.5 per cent of Tesco, according to Thomson Reuters data.

In January, Tesco, which is Britain's biggest retailer, announced that it was merging with Booker, the UK's top food wholesaler, in a 3.7bn deal.

In a joint statement, the two companies said that the combined group would bring benefits for consumers, independent retailers, caterers, small businesses, suppliers, and colleagues, and deliver significant value to shareholders.

But the tie-up is subject to majority consent from Tesco shareholders and resistance from two of its major stake holder could prove a considerable hurdle.

Tesco says the merger will generate a return greater than the cost of capital within two years of completion [] but Schroders and Artisan Partners think its just too expensive and too risky, said Neil Wilson, an analyst at ETX Capital.

In a statement on Tuesday Tesco said that it remains confident that the deal will enhance the recovery plans for Tesco and deliver substantial benefits to customers and shareholders.

Financially, it will unlock more synergies than Booker's operating profit for the 2016 financial year and deliver a return in excess of our cost of capital in the second year. Strategically, it builds on our core expertise of sourcing, distributing and selling food in the UK market and will enable us to enter the faster growing out of home food consumption market, it said.

Tesco said that since announcing the transaction the majority of its top 10 shareholders had chosen to increase their shareholding in Tesco

We hope to convince all our shareholders of the merits of the transaction, it said.

The worlds most valuable brands Show all 10 1 /10 The worlds most valuable brands The worlds most valuable brands 1st - Google Google replaced Apple as the worlds most valuable brand, with a brand value of $109.5bn, according to Brand Finance The worlds most valuable brands 2nd - Apple Apples brand value declined from $145.9bn to $107.1bn in 2016 The worlds most valuable brands 3rd - Amazon Amazon's brand value rose from $69.6bn to $106.4bn in 2016 Amazon The worlds most valuable brands 4th - At&t Of the 40 telecoms brands in the ranking, AT&T in 2016 overtook Verizon as the most valuable brand rising to $87bn from $59.9bn the year before The worlds most valuable brands 5th - Microsoft Microsoft's brand value rose marginally from $67.3bn to $76.3bn in 2016 The worlds most valuable brands 6th - Samsung Amazon's brand value rose from $58.6bn to $66.2bn The worlds most valuable brands 7th - Verizon Verizon's brand value inched up from $63.1bn to $65.9bn The worlds most valuable brands 8th - Walmart Walmart's brand value rose from $53.6bn to $62.5bn The worlds most valuable brands 9th - Facebook Facebook's brand value increased sharply from $34bn to just shy of $62bn The worlds most valuable brands 10th - ICBC ICBC saw its brand value rise to $47.8bn from $36.3bn. It was the most valuabe financial brand in the world in 2016 replacing Wells Fargo

Shares in Tesco inched lower on Tuesday morning.

Separately the retailer on Tuesday said that it had agreed with the Serious Fraud Office to pay a 129m fine for overstating its profits in 2014.
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UberEats, the food delivery service introduced by ride sharing giant Uber, will expand across more than 40 towns and cities in the UK before the end of the year as it continues to compete with rivals Deliveroo and JustEat.

Uber, whose car-hailing app has caused upheaval in the taxi industry, disrupted the takeaway market in London when it launched UberEats in June last year. The app is now also available in Manchester and Birmingham and more than 1 million customers have downloaded it since its launch, according to the company.

Its clear from the response weve seen in London, Manchester and Birmingham that theres huge appetite from people to order food at the touch of a button from their favourite local restaurants, Jambu Palaniappan, regional manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa at UberEats, said.

Were really excited about the future of the business which is why were investing heavily in an ambitious plan to launch the app in at least 40 towns and cities in the UK by the end of the year, he added.

Some 55 per cent of the UKs population can order a car through Uber and the company aims to replicate that with UberEats.

UberEats has so far partnered with over 2,000 restaurant in the UK including frozen yoghurt chain Snog, Lebanese restaurant Comptoir Libanais, Vietnamese street food restaurant Pho and La Bodega Negra, a Soho-based Mexican restaurant.

UberEats continues to face competition from Deliveroo which earlier this month launched in Newport. It says it now supplies customers across 100 towns and cities in the UK.

Gadget and tech news: In pictures Show all 25 1 /25 Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gun-toting humanoid robot sent into space Russia has launched a humanoid robot into space on a rocket bound for the International Space Station (ISS). The robot Fedor will spend 10 days aboard the ISS practising skills such as using tools to fix issues onboard. Russia's deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin has previously shared videos of Fedor handling and shooting guns at a firing range with deadly accuracy. Dmitry Rogozin/Twitter Gadget and tech news: In pictures Google turns 21 Google celebrates its 21st birthday on September 27. The The search engine was founded in September 1998 by two PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in their dormitories at Californias Stanford University. Page and Brin chose the name google as it recalled the mathematic term 'googol', meaning 10 raised to the power of 100 Google Gadget and tech news: In pictures Hexa drone lifts off Chief engineer of LIFT aircraft Balazs Kerulo demonstrates the company's "Hexa" personal drone craft in Lago Vista, Texas on June 3 2019 Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures Project Scarlett to succeed Xbox One Microsoft announced Project Scarlett, the successor to the Xbox One, at E3 2019. The company said that the new console will be 4 times as powerful as the Xbox One and is slated for a release date of Christmas 2020 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures First new iPod in four years Apple has announced the new iPod Touch, the first new iPod in four years. The device will have the option of adding more storage, up to 256GB Apple Gadget and tech news: In pictures Folding phone may flop Samsung will cancel orders of its Galaxy Fold phone at the end of May if the phone is not then ready for sale. The $2000 folding phone has been found to break easily with review copies being recalled after backlash PA Gadget and tech news: In pictures Charging mat non-starter Apple has cancelled its AirPower wireless charging mat, which was slated as a way to charge numerous apple products at once AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures "Super league" India shoots down satellite India has claimed status as part of a "super league" of nations after shooting down a live satellite in a test of new missile technology EPA Gadget and tech news: In pictures 5G incoming 5G wireless internet is expected to launch in 2019, with the potential to reach speeds of 50mb/s Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Uber halts driverless testing after death Uber has halted testing of driverless vehicles after a woman was killed by one of their cars in Tempe, Arizona. March 19 2018 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie 'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway, resembling a giant panda, is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A visitor tries a Nissan VR experience at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv Getty

Uber, and chief executive officer Travis Kalanick, are also under scrutiny because of a series of scandals and accusations of operating a sexist workplace.

Over the weekend, a self-driving car operated by Uber was involved in a crash in Arizona.
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A new government-owned property company launched to purchase and develop land for new free schools has been condemned by industry leaders, who have labelled the move an obscene waste of taxpayers' money.

LocatED has been set up to acquire land and buildings across England as part of plans set out in the Spring Budget to build 500 new free schools by 2020.

The company will act on behalf of the Department for Education with a budget of 2bn  making it one of the largest purchasers of land in the UK.

Announcing the launch, ministers cited Government analysis of Ofsted figures showing 29 per cent of free schools have been rated outstanding following inspections.

A further 140 new free schools  including some grammar schools  are to be created as part of the Governments pledge to create 70,000 new school places to keep up with demand from the growing school-age population.

The plans have been met with resistance each step of the way, however, with teachers union leaders accusing the Government of prioritising the privileged few over the majority, as well as leaving local authority schools underfunded and in need of repair.

Kevin Courtney, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said the new property company's creation was deeply despairing news for teachers and parents.

He said: While the vast majority of existing schools are balanced on a financial cliff edge, the decision to pour yet more money into the completely discredited free schools project is nothing short of obscene.

The more the free school project flounders, the more inflated the Governments rhetoric becomes. The truth is that free schools have fallen some way short of achieving the claims originally made for the project.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 7 November 2022 Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of a protester who has climbed a gantry on the M25 between junctions six and seven in Surrey, leading to the closure of the motorway PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2022 A grey seal with its pup, at the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in north Lincolnshire, where they come every year in late October, November and December to give birth to their pups near the sand dunes, the wildlife spectacle attracts visitors from across the UK PA 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 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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 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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

In the last three months a further three free schools have announced their impending closure, bringing the total number of free schools which have closed or partially closed to eight, he added.

Experience shows that free schools are hugely wasteful and are no way to meet the demand for new places.

Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers added: LocatED would not have been needed if the Government had allowed local authorities to have the control over the planning for the additional school places that they need.

We hope that LocatED will behave more responsibly with tax payers money when purchasing land and buildings and that they will be accountable if costs are excessive, such as the 7.3m spent on an unsuitable site which was only worth 3m, or the extortionate rents paid by the Bolton Wanderers Free School.

A report into capital funding for schools published by the National Audit Office (NAO) last month said in some areas the independently-run, state-funded schools are creating spare capacity that could have serious financial implications for the state education sector.

 Jeremy Corbyn confronts Theresa May about breaking manifesto pledge over education funding

The report suggested at least 6.7bn was needed just to bring all existing school buildings up to a satisfactory standard.

The average cost of each of the 175 free school sites bought by the DfE so far stands at 4.9m, with 34 sites having cost more than 10m each, including four that have cost more than 30m.

Commenting on the announcement, Shadow Secretary of State for Education, Angela Rayner, said the company's creation highlighted the "growing desperation" to find suitable schools sites, but said the Government were failing to address "real issues".

"They continue to spend nearly 5m on every land purchase for a free school, and are regularly paying far more than the market rate to secure the land they need," she said.

Their inefficient and costly approach is failing to provide school places where we need them, and it is failing to deliver value for taxpayers money."

Toby Young, Director of New Schools Network, which is to work alongside the DfE in drawing up plans for expansion, restated that the new free schools are the most economical way of creating new school places needed for the coming years.

He said: The most challenging part of opening a new free school is finding a suitable site so I welcome this initiative. The more expertise the Department for Education can draw on in this area, the better.

LocatED is to consider brownfield, greenfield, mixed-use sites and existing buildings for purchase, ranging from 10,000 to 175,000 square feet, it was announced.

Last month, Treasury officials admitted to The Independent that money set out in the Budget for the creation of new free schools will only fund a fifth of the 70,000 new school places promise.

Suggestions that the remaining money needed could be met using capital budget from existing local authority schools prompted fresh concern from industry leaders, who warned the Prime Ministers grammar schools project must not come at a cost to other schools.

Commenting on the new property company, schools systems Minister Lord Nash said: Part of the governments plan for Britain is building a fairer society, with a good school place for every child. Free schools are playing a vital role in creating those school places.

"They are popular with parents, ensuring thousands more families have the choice of a good local school.

We need to secure hundreds of new free schools in order to keep pace in creating 600,000 new school places by 2021. LocatED has the skills and expertise to find and secure land and buildings to ensure our free schools ambition becomes a reality."
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University tuition fees in England are now the highest in the world, new analysis has found.

The average annual cost of 9,188, makes it significantly more than higher education in the US, where the average student pays $9,410 (7,518) per annum, according to the Student Loan Calculator website.

Students in England are also paying significantly more than their peers in other European countries.

In France, annual fees amount to the equivalent of just 346, while universities in Belgium, Germany, Italy and Austria also charge less than 1000 per year.

Several countries, including Scotland and much of Scandinavia, do not charge any fees at all.

However, England has many more world-leading universities than other European nations.

Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College London  rank in the planet's top 10. The rest are all in the United States, apart from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

France, Spain, Italy and Portugal have no universities in the world's top 50, according to The Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Canny ways to cut the burden of mounting university tuition fees Show all 2 1 /2 Canny ways to cut the burden of mounting university tuition fees Canny ways to cut the burden of mounting university tuition fees tuition-fees-CFB.jpg Charlie Forgham-Bailey Canny ways to cut the burden of mounting university tuition fees student-finance-graphic.jpg

Tuition fees were introduced by the Labour government in 1998 and were initially based on a students financial circumstances.

The cap was raised to 3000 in 2004 and then trebled to 9000 by the Conservative, Liberal Democrat coalition government, which insisted only the best universities would be allowed to charge the highest fees.

Last year the Government announced university costs would be raised again  to 9,250.

Education is a public good and a universal right, and should be treated as such", said Sorana Vieru, Vice President, Higher Education at the National Union of Students (NUS).

"The current fees system in the UK makes Higher Education inaccessible to many, and those who do attend University are likely to be paying for their degree for most of their adult lives.

"Fees in the UK are set to increase over the next few years, and worryingly the government is proposing to charge more for the best Universities. This means not only that future generations of students will be graduating with huge amounts of debt, but that those whose families are unable to support them will need to take on additional debt if they wish to access the best education.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: "We are determined to make sure that everyone with the potential to benefit from higher education has the opportunity to do so.

"The UK has some of the best universities in the world. Our reforms will drive up the standard of teaching at universities and other higher education providers so students get the best return for their investment. Our student funding system is sustainable, with repayments starting when a student earns over 21,000 and universities will not be able to increase their fees unless they have passed rigorous quality standards.
Related Egyptian parliamentary committee approves judicial authority draft law

Egypt's Judges Club, the body representing judges across Egypt, has expressed strong objections to a parliamentary committee passing a new judicial authority draft law that critics say undermines the independence of judiciary.

On Monday, the parliament's constitutional and legislative affairs committee voted in favour of the bill, which gives the president the right to appoint the heads of the country's judicial councils.

The council's move comes despite the fact that the country's State Council, the state advisory body that provides legal advice to the government, recommended against the passing of the draft bill.

The current judicial authority law stipulates that the heads of judicial bodies are selected based on seniority by their judicial councils and that the president ratifies the councils' selections.

However, the new draft law, presented in December 2016, empowers the president to pick from three candidates nominated by each of the four judicial councils: the State Lawsuits Authority, the administrative prosecution, the Court of Cassation  the country's top appeals court  and the State Council.

The Judges Club has called for an emergency meeting to discuss its next move with regards to the bill.

The move comes as a number of the country's judicial bodies, including the State Council and the Supreme Judicial Council, stressed their rejection of the amended draft law.

Judges against the bill say that putting the final decision of appointing the heads of judicial bodies in the hands of the president would eliminate the independence of the judiciary, making it a pawn in the hands of the executive authority.

The judicial bodies say the bill violates the independence of the judiciary and ignores seniority among judges.

Judges say the appointment of the heads of judicial councils should be solely based on seniority, as it eliminates the chance of competition or grudges between judges.

The draft law is yet to be voted on by parliament, after which it must be ratified by the president.

Mohamed Hamed El-Gamal, a veteran judge and a former head of Egypt's State Council, says that the state should acquire the approval of all judicial bodies on any law that regulates their affairs before it is put for a vote before parliament.

El-Gamal said that this law would violate the constitutional guarantee of an independent judiciary, and "if ratified there is a very high probability it will be challenged before the higher courts."

However, the senior judge says he expects parliament will pass the law regardless of the objections of the judicial councils.

Some MPs, however, argue that the consent of judicial bodies to the law is not mandatory under the constitution.

The MPs cite Article 185 of the constitution, which states that each judicial body or organisation shall merely be "consulted" when drafting bills regulating its affairs, but that their approval is not required.

Under the draft law, the judicial bodies must submit their nominations 60 days before the sitting head of the body leaves his post.

If any of the judicial councils does not present its nominations during this time, the president will have the right to automatically choose the head of the council from its seven most senior judges.

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Rachel Dolezal, the white woman who for 10 years pretended she was black before being publicly outed, has called for racial fluidity to be recognised in the same way as transgenderism.

The former National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) leader said race is less biological than gender and believes the term transracial is a useful term to describe how race should be considered in the future.

Ms Dolezal also claimed race is a lie, so how can you lie about a lie? in response to her public shaming in 2015 when she was outed by her parents as biologically Caucasian.

Gender is understood - we have progressed, we have evolved into understanding gender is not binary, it is not even biological but what strikes me as so odd is that race is not biological either and actually race has been to some extent less biological than gender, she told Newsnights Emily Maitlis.

The former civil rights activist claims she can no longer work because of the controversy and is ostracised in Spokane, Washington, where she is forced to remain due to a custody arrangement with her sons father.

As a result of me being discredited, called a liar and a fraud, a con - and not just distrusting my work but everything I did, including my resume, was called into question, she said.

Im stigmatised and ostracised, it is a very hostile environment.

She also described the hurt she continues to suffer as a result of being pushed to the fringe of the black community.

The thing that hurt the worst was from the black community because I still feel like that is home for me and even if I get evicted or get pushed to the fringe or some people don't see me as part of that group, it is still where I feel like I fit and where I feel at home, she said.

It is painful because I feel like there is misunderstanding that I want to resolve, if i could resolve one groups understanding it would be theirs.

Ms Dolezal was fired as head of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP and kicked off a police ombudsman commission when she was outed. She also lost her job teaching African studies at Eastern Washington University in nearby Cheney and has been accused of cultural appropriation by both the white and black community.
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They are not mans best friend, a source of food or even a provider of pest control. In fact, they are more like the pests.

But the house mouse now has a claim to be the oldest domesticated animal after scientists discovered they have been living in our homes for some 15,000 years, rivalling dogs for the longevity of their association with humans.

It had been thought that house mice evolved from their wild cousins after humans began farming and creating the enticingly large stores of food about 12,000 years ago.

However, new research has found evidence that hunter-gatherers of the Natufian culture in the Jordan Valley area of the Middle East put down roots for long enough to attract the rodents' attention.

While they may have chosen a degree of domestication  rather than being selected by humans  they have since become pets and, famously or infamously, used as laboratory test subject in medical trials.

One of the researchers, Professor Fiona Marshall, of Washington University in St Louis, said wild mice had worked out that humans had something to offer  food and shelter  much earlier than previously thought.

A team of scientists, from the US, Israel, France and Aberdeen University in the UK, studied the remains of fossilised teeth left by the house mouse (Mus musculus domesticus) and a short-tailed field mouse (Mus macedonicus) over thousands of years and how numbers of the two different types changed over time.

Science news in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Science news in pictures Science news in pictures Pluto has 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen Pluto has a 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen that is doing strange things to its surface, Nasa has found. The mysterious core seems to be the cause of features on its surface that have fascinated scientists since they were spotted by Nasa's New Horizons mission. "Before New Horizons, everyone thought Pluto was going to be a netball - completely flat, almost no diversity," said Tanguy Bertrand, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and the lead author on the new study. "But it's completely different. It has a lot of different landscapes and we are trying to understand what's going on there." Getty Science news in pictures Over 400 species discovered this year by Natural History Museum The ancient invertabrate worm-like species rhenopyrgus viviani (pictured) is one of over 400 species previously unknown to science that were discovered by experts at the Natural History Museum this year PA Science news in pictures Jackdaws can identify 'dangerous' humans Jackdaws can identify dangerous humans from listening to each others warning calls, scientists say. The highly social birds will also remember that person if they come near their nests again, according to researchers from the University of Exeter. In the study, a person unknown to the wild jackdaws approached their nest. At the same time scientists played a recording of a warning call (threatening) or contact calls (non-threatening). The next time jackdaws saw this same person, the birds that had previously heard the warning call were defensive and returned to their nests more than twice as quickly on average. Getty Science news in pictures Turtle embryos influence sex by shaking The sex of the turtle is determined by the temperatures at which they are incubated. Warm temperatures favour females. But by wiggling around the egg, embryos can find the Goldilocks Zone which means they are able to shield themselves against extreme thermal conditions and produce a balanced sex ratio, according to the new study published in Current Biology journal Ye et al/Current Biology Science news in pictures Elephant poaching rates drop in Africa African elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years, an international study has found. It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017. Reuters Science news in pictures Ancient four-legged whale discovered in Peru Scientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale. Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planets oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago A. Gennari Science news in pictures Animal with transient anus discovered A scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a transient anus that appears only when it is needed, before vanishing completely. Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species. However, as the animal gets full, a pore opens up to dispose of waste Steven G Johnson Science news in pictures Giant bee spotted Feared extinct, the Wallace's Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years. An international team of conservationists spotted the bee, that is four times the size of a typical honeybee, on an expedition to a group of Indonesian Islands Clay Bolt Science news in pictures New mammal species found inside crocodile Fossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago. The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animal New Mexico Museum of Natural History Science news in pictures Fabric that changes according to temperature created Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat, expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold Faye Levine, University of Maryland Science news in pictures Baby mice tears could be used in pest control A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males Getty Science news in pictures Final warning to limit "climate catastrophe" The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase Getty Science news in pictures Nobel prize for evolution chemists The nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution. Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes, while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodies Getty/AFP Science news in pictures Nobel prize for laser physicists The nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers. Arthur Ashkin (L) was awarded for his "optical tweezers" which use lasers to grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells. Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasers Reuters/AP Science news in pictures Discovery of a new species of dinosaur The Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa. Recently discovered by a team of international scientists, it was the largest land animal of its time, weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet. In Sesotho, the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered, its name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn" Viktor Radermacher / SWNS Science news in pictures Birth of a planet Scientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever. This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star. ESO/A. Muller et al Science news in pictures New human organ discovered that was previously missed by scientists Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the interstitium. These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins Getty Science news in pictures Previously unknown society lived in Amazon rainforest before Europeans arrived, say archaeologists Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest. These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs Jose Iriarte Science news in pictures One in 10 people have traces of cocaine or heroin on fingerprints, study finds More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test. Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly. Getty Science news in pictures Nasa releases stunning images of Jupiter's great red spot The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth. Pictures by: Tom Momary

The research provides the first evidence that, as early as 15,000 years ago, humans were living in one place long enough to impact local animal communities  resulting in the dominant presence of house mice, Professor Marshall said.

Its clear that the permanent occupation of these settlements had far-reaching consequences for local ecologies, animal domestication and human societies.

The house mouses early relationship with humans is described as commensalism, an early phase in the domestication process in which an animal realises that contacts with humans can be beneficial.

The earliest confirmed date for a mutually beneficial relationship between humans and dogs is also about 15,000 years ago, although there are much earlier cases where there was a possible link.

Another of the researchers, Dr Lior Weissbrod, of Haifa University in Israel, said house mice and wild mice populations had fluctuated with more of the latter when humans were forced to keep moving during dry periods and more of the former when they were able to set up reasonably permanent settlements.

These findings suggest that hunter-gatherers of the Natufian culture, rather than later Neolithic farmers, were the first to adopt a sedentary way of life and unintentionally initiated a new type of ecological interaction  close coexistence with commensal species such as the house mouse, he said

The human dynamic of shifts between mobile and sedentary existence was unravelled in unprecedented detail in the record of fluctuations in proportions of the two species through time.

The research was described in a paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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An asylum seeker was found hanged in an apparent suicide at Greeces largest port, shortly after aid agencies warned of mounting desperation among refugees trapped in the country.

The 25-year-old Syrian man was carrying refugee application papers when he was found dead near passenger ferry departure gates in Piraeus, outside Athens.

He had hung himself from a kiosk, the Kathimerini newspaper reported.

The Hellenic Coastguard said the man was pronounced dead at the scene, adding that a post-mortem would be carried out.

His death comes amid growing concern for around 62,000 refugees and migrants who remain trapped in Greece by the controversial EU-Turkey deal and border closures through Europe.

Asylum seekers continue to arrive by land and in smugglers boats over the Aegean Sea, where at least 11 people drowned last week, but European nations have refused quotas to relocate refugees and agreed transfers are running behind schedule.

Aid agencies have warned that increasing numbers of refugees trapped in Greece, where two men attempted to hang themselves from a tree in February 2016, were self-harming and attempting suicide as desperation mounts.

Sacha Myers, a spokesperson for Save the Children, told The Independent the charity was deeply saddened by the apparent suicide, adding: Many [refugees in Greece] have been living in deplorable conditions for months now, with limited access to basic services like education or healthcare, and waiting for the resolution of their asylum claims.

The constant stress, uncertainty, and anxiety are driving many asylum seekers to the edge.

 Refugees in Greece: Every day you die many times

Research by Save the Children found more than 5,000 minors are living in appalling conditions, driving a mounting mental health crisis.

It found that children as young as nine were self-harming and 12-year-olds attempting suicide, sometimes filming themselves in the act.

A spike in drug and alcohol abuse by teenagers was also recorded, as dealers exploit them in the camps.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warned that transit centres housing refugees in tents and shipping containers on Greek islands were well over capacity, with grim conditions and the threat of deportation taking its toll.

Its research has shown rocketing rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, trauma and psychosis.

MSF psychologists have been recording rising rates of attempted suicide and self-harm in recent months, with 12 migrants attempting to kill themselves on the island of Samos in January alone.

Several asylum seekers described their desperation to Human Rights Watch, including those who had fled war and persecution.

Arash, a 30-year-old asylum seeker being held in the EU-sponsored Moria detention centre on Lesbos, said he was tortured and forced through mock executions as a political prisoner in Iran.

Refugee crisis - in pictures Show all 27 1 /27 Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugee crisis - in pictures A child looks through the fence at the Moria detention camp for migrants and refugees at the island of Lesbos on May 24, 2016. AFP/Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Ahmad Zarour, 32, from Syria, reacts after his rescue by MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) while attempting to reach the Greek island of Agathonisi, Dodecanese, southeastern Agean Sea Refugee crisis - in pictures Syrian migrants holding life vests gather onto a pebble beach in the Yesil liman district of Canakkale, northwestern Turkey, after being stopped by Turkish police in their attempt to reach the Greek island of Lesbos on 29 January 2016. Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees flash the 'V for victory' sign during a demonstration as they block the Greek-Macedonian border Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants have been braving sub zero temperatures as they cross the border from Macedonia into Serbia. Refugee crisis - in pictures A sinking boat is seen behind a Turkish gendarme off the coast of Canakkale's Bademli district on January 30, 2016. At least 33 migrants drowned on January 30 when their boat sank in the Aegean Sea while trying to cross from Turkey to Greece. Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A general view of a shelter for migrants inside a hangar of the former Tempelhof airport in Berlin, Germany Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees protest behind a fence against restrictions limiting passage at the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Since last week, Macedonia has restricted passage to northern Europe to only Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans who are considered war refugees. All other nationalities are deemed economic migrants and told to turn back. Macedonia has finished building a fence on its frontier with Greece becoming the latest country in Europe to build a border barrier aimed at checking the flow of refugees Refugee crisis - in pictures A father and his child wait after being caught by Turkish gendarme on 27 January 2016 at Canakkale's Kucukkuyu district Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants make hand signals as they arrive into the southern Spanish port of Malaga on 27 January, 2016 after an inflatable boat carrying 55 Africans, seven of them women and six chidren, was rescued by the Spanish coast guard off the Spanish coast. Refugee crisis - in pictures A refugee holds two children as dozens arrive on an overcrowded boat on the Greek island of Lesbos Refugee crisis - in pictures A child, covered by emergency blankets, reacts as she arrives, with other refugees and migrants, on the Greek island of Lesbos, At least five migrants including three children, died after four boats sank between Turkey and Greece, as rescue workers searched the sea for dozens more, the Greek coastguard said Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants wait under outside the Moria registration camp on the Lesbos. Over 400,000 people have landed on Greek islands from neighbouring Turkey since the beginning of the year Refugee crisis - in pictures The bodies of Christian refugees are buried separately from Muslim refugees at the Agios Panteleimonas cemetery in Mytilene, Lesbos Refugee crisis - in pictures Macedonian police officers control a crowd of refugees as they prepare to enter a camp after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A refugee tries to force the entry to a camp as Macedonian police officers control a crowd after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees are seen aboard a Turkish fishing boat as they arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea from the Turkish coast to Lesbos Reuters Refugee crisis - in pictures An elderly woman sings a lullaby to baby on a beach after arriving with other refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A man collapses as refugees make land from an overloaded rubber dinghy after crossing the Aegean see from Turkey, at the island of Lesbos EPA Refugee crisis - in pictures A girl reacts as refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees make a show of hands as they queue after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures People help a wheelchair user board a train with others, heading towards Serbia, at the transit camp for refugees near the southern Macedonian town of Gevgelija AP Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees board a train, after crossing the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Macedonia is a key transit country in the Balkans migration route into the EU, with thousands of asylum seekers - many of them from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia - entering the country every day Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures An aerial picture shows the "New Jungle" refugee camp where some 3,500 people live while they attempt to enter Britain, near the port of Calais, northern France Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A Syrian girl reacts as she helped by a volunteer upon her arrival from Turkey on the Greek island of Lesbos, after having crossed the Aegean Sea EPA Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Beds ready for use for migrants and refugees are prepared at a processing center on January 27, 2016 in Passau, Germany. The flow of migrants arriving in Passau has dropped to between 500 and 1,000 per day, down significantly from last November, when in the same region up to 6,000 migrants were arriving daily.

Ive attempted three times to kill myself, he told HRW. The conditions here remind me of the prison in Iran, the nightmares, the threats and the torture.

I cant leave the island and after such a long time here, I feel that nothing has a purpose anymore. You feel like crazy, wandering around without knowing why.

Since 20 March 2016, all migrants arriving on Greek islands have been held while their asylum applications are processed under threat of deportation to Turkey, but legal blocks have slowed transfers and left refugees in overcrowded tent camps for up to a year.

Many lack proper shelter, heating and fuel, several asylum seekers were killed by hypothermia, carbon monoxide poisoning and a gas blast during a period of extreme cold over the winter.

Austria is to seek an exemption from having to accept more asylum seekers under the EUs relocation scheme, arguing that it has already fulfilled its obligation after taking in around 90,000 migrants in 2015.

Chancellor Christian Kern, whose centre-left party is attempting to combat surging support for the far right, said his government was sending a letter to the European Commission asking to be excluded from future transfers.

It is a new blow to an already floundering system that only ever covered a fraction of arrival and has barely been implemented because of opposition led by Eastern European nations including Poland.

Fewer than 14,500 asylum seekers have been relocated from Greece and Italy  where 176,000 migrants are living in temporary reception centres  under the two-year EU plan that was supposed to cover 160,000 people before September.

A young girl in Kara Tepe camp on the Greek island of Lesbos (Sacha Myers/Save the Children)

One of its most vocal opponents has been Hungary, where a new law allowing all asylum seekers to be detained in border camps came into effect earlier this week.

The EU commissioner for migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said European and Hungarian experts were meeting to discuss that the legislation complied with EU rules and principles.

Humanitarian organisations have called on the EU to take legal action against Hungary over the law and other measures making it increasingly difficult to seek asylum, with refugees reporting being beaten by police near the border fence.

Politicians have defended the measures as means of deterring refugees risking their lives to migrate illegally to Europe but, with wars continuing in Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and elsewhere, thousands have continued to attempt treacherous sea crossings.

A grim record of 5,000 deaths at sea in 2016 is on course to be surpassed this year, with at least 811 migrants being drowned or suffocated on boat journeys over the Mediterranean so far in 2017.

Most lives are lost on the treacherous crossing between war-torn Libya and Italy, where numbers have increased since the EU-Turkey deal slowed shorter and comparatively safer voyages over the Aegean Sea to a trickle.

European leaders have vowed to increase cooperation with Libyas fragile government but an agreement struck with Tripoli by Italy in February has been suspended by a Libyan court.

More than 27,000 asylum seekers have reached Europe by sea this year  around 23,000 to Italy and 4,000 to Greece  with the vast majority coming from Syria, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Iraq and sub-Saharan African nations.
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The Daily Mail has told critics of its front page comparing Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeons legs to "get a life".

The tabloid was accused of sexism after its front page focused on the British Prime Minister and Scottish First Minister's appearance rather than their meeting about the process that will see the UK leave the European Union.

The leaders met for an hour in Glasgow on Monday to discuss the triggering of Article 50 on Wednesday.

Recommended Daily Mail reported to press regulator over May legs front page

The front page drew immediate criticism from politicians, commentators and members of the public after it first appeared on Twitter on Monday night. Conservative MP and former Education Secretary Nicky Morgan accused the paper of appalling sexism and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn argued such representations of women should be relegated to history.

A representative for the newspaper told The Independent the backlash to the front page, which was titled Forget about Brexit, who won Legs-it!, had been overblown.

Theresa May in quotes Show all 10 1 /10 Theresa May in quotes Theresa May in quotes On being described by the former chancellor Ken Clarke as a bloody difficult woman: Politics could do with some Bloody Difficult Women actually Rex Features Theresa May in quotes On keeping secrets even from her husband: There are some things I am told that I am not able to confide in anybody Rex Features Theresa May in quotes On the relentless focus on her appearance during a speech at the Women in the World summit: "I like clothes and I like shoes. One of the challenges for women in the workplace is to be ourselves and I say you can be clever and like clothes. You can have a career and like clothes Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On comparisons to Margaret Thatcher: I think there can only ever be one Margaret Thatcher. Im not someone who naturally looks to role models. Ive always, whatever job it is Im doing at the time, given it my best shot. I put my all into it, and try to do the best job I can AFP/Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On her rebelliousness, or lack of, as a teenager: I probably was Goody Two Shoes at school Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On being replaced as chairman by Lord Saatchi and Liam Fox in 2003: Yes, it takes two men to step into the shoes of one woman AFP/Getty Images Theresa May in quotes What Theresa May said when she was asked about her political ambitions during an interview with Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, a lawyer married to Nick Clegg, in December: MD: "My very last question is: that little girl who is somewhere there, is she dreaming of becoming the next British Prime Minister?" TM: "Shes dreaming of carrying on doing a good job in the Home Office" Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On not being able to have children: I like to keep my personal life personal. We couldnt have children, we dealt with it and moved on. I hope nobody would think that mattered; I can still empathise, understand people and care about fairness and opportunity Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On whether she can deliver the mandate of the EU referendum: I think for party members and indeed for others, I would say look at my record. I think they can see that Im somebody who gets on with the job, but Im also somebody who says it as I see it and actually delivers on what I say Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On the equally relentless obsession with her shoes: As a woman I know you can be very serious about something and very soberly dressed add a little bit of interest with footwear. I always tell women you have to be yourself, dont assume you have to fit into a stereotype and if your personality is shown through your clothes or shoes, so be it Getty Images

For goodness sake, get a life! Sarah Vines piece, which was flagged as light-hearted, was a side-bar alongside a serious political story, the spokesperson said.

It appeared in an 84-page paper packed with important news and analysis, a front page exclusive on cost-cutting in the NHS and a health supplement devoted to womens health issues.

For the record, the Mail was the paper which, more than any other, backed Theresa May for the top job. Again for the record, we often comment on the appearance of male politicians including Camerons waistline, Osbornes hair, Corbyns clothes  and even Boriss legs.

Is there a rule that says political coverage must be dull or has a po-faced BBC and left-wing commentariat, so obsessed by the Daily Mail, lost all sense of humour and proportion?"

The piece written by Vine, long-time columnist and wife of Conservative politician Michael Gove, was headlined: Finest weapons at their command? Those pins.

It referred to Ms Sturgeons legs as altogether more flirty, tantalisingly crossed, a direct attempt at seduction.

Ms May has dismissed the row over the front page, suggesting the coverage of her legs is "a bit of fun".

"You will notice that I am wearing trousers today! she told the Wolverhampton Express and Star newspaper during a visit to the West Midlands.

As a woman in politics throughout my whole career I have found that very often, what I wear  particularly my shoes  has been an issue that has been looked at rather closely by people. Obviously what we do as politicians is what makes a difference to people's lives.

"I think that most people concentrate on what we do as politicians. But if people want to have a bit of fun about how we dress, then so be it.

The tabloid has been reported to the press regulator for its controversial front page. Amelia Womack, deputy leader of the Green Party, accused the paper of breaking the editors' code and treating women with contempt in a submission to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) which the paper is signed up to.

In her submission to Ipso, Ms Womack said: To bring the politicians appearance into this story is not only entirely irrelevant but incredibly disrespectful.

This headline and the further derogatory comments inside the paper would not have even been considered, let alone published, if the two politicians in question had been men.

The front page was condemned by a number of Labour MPs. Yvette Cooper joked that the clocks had gone forward this weekend, not 50 years back, while former Labour Leader Ed Miliband wrote the 1950s called and asked for their headline back.
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A Daily Mail front page showing Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon in skirts has prompted widespread outrage.

The tabloid has been accused by many of sexism after it compared the Scottish First Minister and British Prime Ministers legs rather than focusing on their meeting about the process that will see the UK leave the European Union.

The leaders met for an hour in Glasgow on Monday to discuss a second referendum on Scottish independence and the triggering of Article 50 on Wednesday.

While the front page was titled Forget about Brexit, who won Legs-it!, inside the paper, a headline read: Finest weapons at their command? Those pins.

A piece written by Sarah Vine, long-time columnist and wife of Conservative politician Michael Gove, referred to Ms Sturgeons legs as altogether more flirty, tantalisingly crossed, a direct attempt at seduction.

The front page drew immediate criticism from politicians, commentators and members of the public after it first appeared on Twitter on Monday night. Conservative MP and former Education Minister Nicky Morgan accused the paper of appalling sexism.

Seriously? Our two most senior female politicians are judged for their legs not what they said #appallingsexism, Ms Morgan said.

Labour MP Yvette Cooper joked that the clocks had gone forward this weekend, not 50 years back, while former Labour Leader Ed Miliband wrote the 1950s called and asked for their headline back.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn argued such representations of women should be relegated to history, saying: It's 2017. This sexism must be consigned to history. Shame on the Daily Mail.

Theresa May in quotes Show all 10 1 /10 Theresa May in quotes Theresa May in quotes On being described by the former chancellor Ken Clarke as a bloody difficult woman: Politics could do with some Bloody Difficult Women actually Rex Features Theresa May in quotes On keeping secrets even from her husband: There are some things I am told that I am not able to confide in anybody Rex Features Theresa May in quotes On the relentless focus on her appearance during a speech at the Women in the World summit: "I like clothes and I like shoes. One of the challenges for women in the workplace is to be ourselves and I say you can be clever and like clothes. You can have a career and like clothes Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On comparisons to Margaret Thatcher: I think there can only ever be one Margaret Thatcher. Im not someone who naturally looks to role models. Ive always, whatever job it is Im doing at the time, given it my best shot. I put my all into it, and try to do the best job I can AFP/Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On her rebelliousness, or lack of, as a teenager: I probably was Goody Two Shoes at school Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On being replaced as chairman by Lord Saatchi and Liam Fox in 2003: Yes, it takes two men to step into the shoes of one woman AFP/Getty Images Theresa May in quotes What Theresa May said when she was asked about her political ambitions during an interview with Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, a lawyer married to Nick Clegg, in December: MD: "My very last question is: that little girl who is somewhere there, is she dreaming of becoming the next British Prime Minister?" TM: "Shes dreaming of carrying on doing a good job in the Home Office" Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On not being able to have children: I like to keep my personal life personal. We couldnt have children, we dealt with it and moved on. I hope nobody would think that mattered; I can still empathise, understand people and care about fairness and opportunity Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On whether she can deliver the mandate of the EU referendum: I think for party members and indeed for others, I would say look at my record. I think they can see that Im somebody who gets on with the job, but Im also somebody who says it as I see it and actually delivers on what I say Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On the equally relentless obsession with her shoes: As a woman I know you can be very serious about something and very soberly dressed add a little bit of interest with footwear. I always tell women you have to be yourself, dont assume you have to fit into a stereotype and if your personality is shown through your clothes or shoes, so be it Getty Images

A row about the front page also erupted on the Radio 4s Today Programme. While Catherine Mayer, co-founder of the Womens Equality Party argued the page undermined and sexualised women, Angela Epstein, a Daily Mail columnist herself, insisted there was nothing wrong with it and that men were also scrutinised for their appearances.

Ms Mayer said: What a typical Daily Mail gambit. Not only to ignore the fact that one of the reasons we ended up with Brexit was the sidelining of women but then when women are in there attempting to wrestle some workable solution to then sideline, sexualise and minimise them.

Ms Mayer criticised the paper for including a piece by Vine and argued this was an example of pitting women against women.

But Ms Epstein defended the UKs second biggest-selling paper and said she was bored of Daily Mail bashing.

She said: I think these women know exactly what theyre doing. Both Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon have done photo shoots for Vogue.

They both understand that clothes are a tool by which we can communicate who we are. Anybody who is in the public eye will be scrutinised for their appearance, just as we scrutinise Jeremy Corbyn, Ed Miliband and Michael foot. There has been a litany of male politicians who have been criticised for their lack of professional appearance.

Ms Mayer responded: This isnt treating women about professionals this is treating two national leaders as unlikely sex symbols the point about that it's meant to diminish their power.

The media frames all women and the things we talk about via our appearance and a set of very reductive ideas.

The Daily Mail has been contacted for comment.
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One of the UK's biggest buy-to-let landlords has instructed agents acting on his behalf, not to let his properties to coloured people, because the smell of curry sticks to the carpet.

Fergus Wilson's Kent property empire is thought to number around 1,000 homes in the Ashford and Maidstone areas.

The 70-year-old has form for "offensive directives" regarding who can and cannot rent his properties.

At the start of the year, he told agents not to rent to battered wives, single parents, low income and zero hours workers, or plumbers.

In a second email to agents at Evolution Properties, the landlord  who evicted 200 tenants in 2014 for being on housing benefit  added: No coloured people because of the curry smell at the end of the tenancy.

His request was subsequently leaked to the media.

Defending the directive, Mr Wilson told The Sun: To be honest, were getting overloaded with coloured people. It is a problem with certain types of coloured people  those who consume curry  it sticks to the carpet.

You have to get some chemical thing that takes the smell out. In extreme cases you have to replace the carpet.

Dozens of people responded on social media, condemning "vile" and "disgusting" Mr Wilson for racism, and speculating that he would be sued.

Anti-racism charity HOPE not hate told The Independent that the email was an "unacceptable throwback" to the 1960s.

You simply cannot treat people like this and deny them a place to live due to their skin colour," a spokesman said. This is the unacceptable face of the housing crisis. There is something broken in the system when such a powerful figure can get away with such an appalling policy. Fergus Wilsons comments would seem laughably offensive, a throwback to the Alf Garnett era, if they werent so serious in their implication."

He added: Mr Wilson should face the full legal implications of his actions. Wed encourage the Equality and Human Rights Commission to investigate further as a matter of urgency.

 Money roundup video: Bogus landlords' warning and pension freedom problems

It is currently not a criminal offence to ban any group of people from renting a property you own in the UK, but racial discrimination by landlords is against civil law, so a tenant or a tenants' rights group could take Mr Wilson to court, according to campaign group Generation Rent.

Fergus Wilsons words are a disgraceful throwback to a time when racial discrimination in housing was common in this country, and [although] his actions do not break criminal law, he could be challenged with a civil case under the Equality Act," the group's interim director, Dan Wilson Craw, told The Independent.

"The law needs to change," he added. It shouldnt be up to individual renters to have to proactively fight the worst landlords operating in the market," he said. "Robust landlord licencing that applied to all private lets would mean that the worst landlords could simply be denied a licence if found to discriminate  whether that be on grounds of race, gender, or other life circumstances.

When asked by the Sun if he had told Evolution not to take coloured people, Mr Wilson confirmed he had issued the instructions.

Certainly at one point we have, he told the newspaper.

Approached for comment by The Independent an agent at Evolution Properties initially hung up the phone.

Roy Fever, the firm's manager, later said the company did not support the move.

We dont condone this at all," he said. We would never implement a policy like that. We put through anyone to the landlord and it is up to the landlord who they take on.

Nightmare landlord gives tenant list of ridiculous rules Show all 4 1 /4 Nightmare landlord gives tenant list of ridiculous rules Nightmare landlord gives tenant list of ridiculous rules roomsdf.jpg Nightmare landlord gives tenant list of ridiculous rules list2.jpg Nightmare landlord gives tenant list of ridiculous rules list4.jpg Nightmare landlord gives tenant list of ridiculous rules list5.jpg

Mr Wilson, who is estimated to own properties worth 250 million has in the past, has been included in The Sunday Times rich list.

He previously defended his criteria for tenants by insisting he is not racist or homophobic.

We have said nothing against lesbians and homosexuals or coloureds, he told local media earlier this year. "As long as they can pay the rent. We are in business to make money so we make a selection based on a sensible business plan."

He added: If ever a person came in wearing pink socks and defaulted on rent, and it became a regular problem, then we would stop renting to people who wear pink socks.

Mr Wilson and his wife Judith are currently in the process of selling off their empire, because they say buy-to-let is becoming less profitable, but they are still believed to own hundreds of properties in the south of England.
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RAF Typhoon jet fighters are set to be deployed to Romania to beef up defence around the Black Sea and provide reassurance to allies, according to Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon.

Four of the aircraft from 43 (Fighter) Squadron will lead the deployment, joining Nato's southern air policing mission, he said.

He also confirmed UK investment in developing cyber warfare capabilities and skills  including the ability to launch online attacks.

The Typhoons, from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire, will spend up to four months based at the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in south east Romania, policing the skies over the Black Sea alongside local jets.

It follows the deployment of the first of UK troops to Estonia last week as part of Natos plan to deter Russian aggression in the Baltic.

Some 120 soldiers from 5th Battalion The Rifles landed at the Amari air base, 25 miles south-west of the capital Tallinn.

Other Nato members, such as the US, have also deployed troops and military resources to other vulnerable former Iron Curtain states.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 7 November 2022 Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of a protester who has climbed a gantry on the M25 between junctions six and seven in Surrey, leading to the closure of the motorway PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2022 A grey seal with its pup, at the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in north Lincolnshire, where they come every year in late October, November and December to give birth to their pups near the sand dunes, the wildlife spectacle attracts visitors from across the UK PA 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

Sir Michael said: "The UK is stepping up its support for Nato's collective defence from the north to the south of the alliance. With this deployment, RAF planes will be ready to secure Nato airspace and provide reassurance to our allies in the Black Sea region."

In a wide-ranging speech at the international parliamentary conference on national security, Sir Michael said an already-announced 1.9 billion investment in cyber security would help develop skills and capabilities across government.

He said: "Our military is among the best prepared in the world to tackle cyber threats with capabilities and skills integrated into the Army, Royal Navy, and the RAF. But in such a dynamic environment we must continually test and enhance our skills.

"We're interested not just in defensive but also in offensive cyber, those who threaten cyber-attacks against us need to know the risk they're running."

The move comes after Nato announced plans to spend its 3bn (2.6bn) on upgrading its satellite and computer technology in acknowledgement that conflicts are increasingly fought out online rather than in the air, on land or at sea.

The plans will include a 1.7bn (1.5bn) investment in satellite communications to better support troops and ships deployed across the alliance, as well as aiding the use of drones and 71m (61m) on improving the protection of Natos 32 main locations from cyber attacks.

Additional reporting by PA
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Stansted Airport was forced to briefly close its runway on Tuesday evening as police dealt with an incident involving protesters who had surrounded a parked plane.

Activists said they were attempting to keep a "deportation flight" used to remove failed asylum seekers grounded at the Essex airport.

A spokesman for the airport told The Independent takeoffs and landings were temporarily stopped "as a precaution" to allow police to check no protesters had made it onto the runway.

Several flights had to be diverted during the incident and aircraft were shown on flight radar apps having to circle near the airport.

Recommended Workers from outside EU face new criminal record checks by Home Office

Flights resumed late on Tuesday evening.

A statement from the activists said eight protesters from End Deportations, Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants and Plane Stupid had surrounded the plane.

It said their target was a "mass deportation charter flight to Nigeria and Ghana".

A Facebook page called Stop Charter Flights  End Deportations broadcast live from the protest.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 7 November 2022 Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of a protester who has climbed a gantry on the M25 between junctions six and seven in Surrey, leading to the closure of the motorway PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2022 A grey seal with its pup, at the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in north Lincolnshire, where they come every year in late October, November and December to give birth to their pups near the sand dunes, the wildlife spectacle attracts visitors from across the UK PA 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

Susan James, from Plane Stupid, said: Mass deportations like the one we stopped tonight are immoral, unfair and illegal.

"I dont want to stay silent in the face of mass deportations that are deliberately rushed and secretive.

In the wake of the Brexit vote, this government is more keen than ever to be seen to be 'tough' on immigration.

"But its mass deportations have devastating human consequences. Everything about these deportations points to the fact that they are inhuman, and must be stopped."

One woman who the activists said was on the flight was quoted as saying: My ex-husband said he knows I am being deported. He is waiting for me. He is planning to kill me. If he kills me- who will I look after my children?

Another male deportee was quoted as saying: I have been in this country for almost 18 years. My family and my life is here in the UK. If they take me back to Ghana I will kill myself.

The Home Office refused to comment on the scheduled flight from Stansted but said deportations were an "essential element" of an "effective immigration system".

An airport spokesman earlier said: There are a number of protesters on the north side of the airport away from the passenger terminal, away from the commercial side of the airport, where the private terminals are.

We understand there is a protest around an aircraft, but we dont have details of the plane.

As a precaution flights have been suspended while police carry out an inspection.

Essex Police believe they have contained all the people involved in the protest but as a precaution they are doing a double check.

Once they have done that they will give the all clear to air traffic control.
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Three of the UKs most prominent former cabinet ministers from across the political spectrum have urged Theresa May to drop her threat to leave the EU with no deal or risk a catastrophe for British business.

As the Prime Minister prepares to trigger Article 50 on Wednesday, ex-business secretaries Michael Heseltine, Peter Mandelson, and Vince Cable told The Independent leaving with no arrangement in place would be disastrous for British firms and jobs.

Tory Lord Heseltine branded the move the nightmare which every Conservative prime minister for whom I have worked sought to avoid, Labours Lord Mandelson compared it to shooting ourselves in both feet and Liberal Democrat Sir Vince Cable warned disruption could be as serious as the credit crunch.

 Article 50 triggered: What happens now?

Organisations representing more than 200,000 manufacturers across the UK and Europe also warned that quitting with no deal would be highly damaging, while the flourishing UK tech sector said it would be chaotic.

Their comments come as Ms May prepares to deliver a letter to European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels to officially launch Brexit talks.

Speaking in the Commons, Ms May is expected to emphasise her fierce determination to get the right deal for every single person in this country and call for people to unite after the divisive referendum.

But the pressure on her administration to deliver will only intensify after the letter is handed over by the UKs ambassador to the EU Sir Tim Barrow, sparking a two-year countdown before which a withdrawal deal must be struck.

If none is, the UK will drop out of the EU with no trading arrangements, potentially devastating manufacturers and their supply chains and hitting importers and exporters with major delays and extra costs. Yet Ms May has threatened to voluntarily quit without a deal, if terms offered do not meet her demands.

The three business secretaries with years of experience marshalling Britains trade policy urged her to rethink.

Lord Heseltine said leaving the EU with no deal is a folly (PA)

Lord Heseltine told The Independent: No sailor leaves port in the teeth of the storm. To leave Europe with no deal with our largest market would be just such a folly.

The supply lines for our manufacturing industry in chaos. The financial supremacy of London seeping away as companies sought protection within the European market. Twenty-seven leaders sitting in the Council of Europe, without even an empty chair to remind them of Britain's national self-interest.

It is the nightmare which every Conservative prime minister for whom I have worked sought to avoid.

In her Lancaster House speech setting out her approach to Brexit, Ms May sought to play hardball with European leaders by warning she would not be afraid of quitting talks and leaving the EU with no arrangement, saying no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain.

Despite former Conservative Prime Minister John Major branding the no deal scenario the worst possible outcome and reports that British officials were playing-down the threat to European diplomats, Downing Street has confirmed there is no change of position.

Lord Mandelson has said talks cannot be conducted with threats and point-scoring Getty

Lord Mandelson, leading supporter of the Open Britain campaign, said: No deal means walking away from the negotiations while shooting ourselves in both feet.

The results would be catastrophic for British businesses, particularly manufacturers and for our economy as a whole.

Trade negotiations of this complexity are better conducted in the spirit of cooperation and common goals, rather than threats and points scoring.

Sir Vince Cable warned that the no deal scenario could deliver consequences like the credit crunch (Gareth Fuller/PA)

Sir Vince said that European negotiators had been misrepresented in the UK as being bloody minded and wanting to punish us, but instead he argued that they would actually be boxed in by their own mandate, with British officials finding it difficult to move them to any other position.

He added: The dangers of the no deal scenario are very real. The threat is damaging and disruptive and playing hard to get may not be strategically wise.

He told The Independent it is a nuclear option, more damaging to the UK than the EU, and said it would have particular implications for firms needing the fluid movement of goods in the manufacturing sector.

Sir Vince added: Its important that the system be free of tariffs, but they have to be free of interruption and delay  once you introduce that the system breaks down.

You had a taste of that in 2008 with the credit crunch, this could potentially be as serious as the credit crunch.

 David Davis 'cannot quantify the outcome' of leaving EU with no deal

Groups representing 200,000 manufacturers across Europe and the UK added their voice to calls for a no deal scenario to be avoided.

Brussels-based group, Ceemet, which includes the UKs EEF along with French, German and Italian manufacturing organisations said it is not anybodys interests to lead industries to cliff-edge decisions that could occur if Britain falls out of the EU with no deal.

Ceemet director general Uwe Combuchen said: Simply put, a negotiation which produces no deal would be highly damaging for industry in the EU as well as the UK.

Digital is one of the fastest growing UK sectors, accounting for 16 per cent of GVA, 24 per cent of total exports and three million jobs  but is particularly at risk from a bad result.

Julian David, CEO at techUK, which represents 900 British companies, collectively employing more than 800,000 people, said: A chaotic Brexit that results in the UK falling back on WTO rules will benefit no one.

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

Ms May will tell MPs that her Government does have a Plan for Britain which will unite people, so that we are no longer defined by the vote we cast, but by our determination to make a success of the result.

She will add: When I sit around the negotiating table in the months ahead, I will represent every person in the whole United Kingdom  young and old, rich and poor, city, town, country and all the villages and hamlets in between.

And yes, those EU nationals who have made this country their home. It is my fierce determination to get the right deal for every single person in this country.
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A group of businesses has offered to help the Government come up with a new plan to fight climate change amid fears that the UK is wavering in its commitment.

According to the landmark 2008 Climate Change Act, Ministers are legally required to spell out how the UK will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions over the next few years.

But, despite signing up to a bold new target to reduce emissions by 57 per cent by 2030 last year, the Government has repeatedly delayed saying how this will actually be achieved  in an apparent breach of the law.

Now 30 businesses, including Kingfisher, the owner of B&Q, and engineering giant Arup, have written to Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Greg Clark  responsible for climate change after Theresa May abolished the dedicated Cabinet post  urging him to commit to an ambitious energy efficiency drive as part of the forthcoming Clean Power Plan.

The letter, which was coordinated by environmental campaign group WWF, argued this was one of the most cost-effective ways of meeting the UKs climate targets and pointed to a string of other benefits.

Better insulated homes would mean fewer people living in fuel poverty and reduce rates of illness associated with living in a cold house, saving the NHS money, the businesses said.

Recent research has also showed that a nationwide push to improve the energy efficiency of homes could create up to 108,000 jobs a year, they added.

As companies and trade bodies active in the energy efficiency, construction and heat markets we urge you to use the Clean Growth Plan to address the significant gap in policy to decarbonise heat for buildings, the letter said.

We offer our support and expertise as a group of organisations that can play a crucial role in delivering the emissions cuts the UK needs to achieve, in addition to creating jobs and boosting economic productivity.

The companies said the Government should also grasp the opportunities offered by existing technologies and support the growth of heat pumps and district heating to drive down carbon emissions.

In addition, there must be a concerted period of research and testing of heat decarbonisation options for the UKs long-term needs, they said in the letter.

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Under a European Union directive, all new buildings must be nearly zero energy by 2020 and the companies said the UK must ensure it retains this target after Brexit.

As the UK goes through the process of leaving the EU, these standards or higher must be incorporated into UK law. This would ensure that we do not face costly retrofit in future years and create certainty for industry, the letter said.

Taking such measures would be good for the environment and good for the British economy, it concluded.

Chris Jofeh, director of global buildings retrofit at Arup, said reducing greenhouse gas emissions could be good for consumers and the UK as a whole as well as the environment.

Decarbonising our buildings, done properly, will stimulate the economy, increase employment, reduce energy bills, enhance the UKs energy security, and help the UK to honour its climate commitments, he said.

This is an opportunity for all of us to shape a better world for future generations.

That point was echoed by Graham Cash, chief executive of BAM Construct UK.

Government policy is important to drive UK plc towards a lower carbon future, he said.

We need clear signals and a strong commitment to get everyone moving in the same direction. The bottom line is that a low-carbon economy is good for business.

10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Show all 10 1 /10 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A group of emperor penguins face a crack in the sea ice, near McMurdo Station, Antarctica Kira Morris 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Floods destroyed eight bridges and ruined crops such as wheat, maize and peas in the Karimabad valley in northern Pakistan, a mountainous region with many glaciers. In many parts of the world, glaciers have been in retreat, creating dangerously large lakes that can cause devastating flooding when the banks break. Climate change can also increase rainfall in some areas, while bringing drought to others. Hira Ali 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Smoke  filled with the carbon that is driving climate change  drifts across a field in Colombia. Sandra Rondon 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Amid a flood in Islampur, Jamalpur, Bangladesh, a woman on a raft searches for somewhere dry to take shelter. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to sea level rise, which is expected to make tens of millions of people homeless by 2050. Probal Rashid 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Sindh province in Pakistan has experienced a grim mix of two consequences of climate change. Because of climate change either we have floods or not enough water to irrigate our crop and feed our animals, says the photographer. Picture clearly indicates that the extreme drought makes wide cracks in clay. Crops are very difficult to grow. Rizwan Dharejo 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Hanna Petursdottir examines a cave inside the Svinafellsjokull glacier in Iceland, which she said had been growing rapidly. Since 2000, the size of glaciers on Iceland has reduced by 12 per cent. Tom Schifanella 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A river once flowed along the depression in the dry earth of this part of Bangladesh, but it has disappeared amid rising temperatures. Abrar Hossain 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A shepherd moves his herd as he looks for green pasture near the village of Sirohi in Rajasthan, northern India. The region has been badly affected by heatwaves and drought, making local people nervous about further predicted increases in temperature. Riddhima Singh Bhati 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A factory in China is shrouded by a haze of air pollution. The World Health Organisation has warned such pollution, much of which is from the fossil fuels that cause climate change, is a public health emergency. Leung Ka Wa 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Water levels in reservoirs, like this one in Gers, France, have been getting perilously low in areas across the world affected by drought, forcing authorities to introduce water restrictions. Mahtuf Ikhsan

The Clean Power Plan, also known as the Emissions Reduction Plan, was supposed to be published last year.

In January, the Climate Change Minister Nick Hurd said it would be ready by the end of March, but the Government later refused to stand by this deadline.

ClientEarth, a group of environmental legal activists, has threatened to sue the Government for breaking its own laws if the delay continues.

Gareth Redmond-King, head of energy and climate change at WWF, said: The UK has a world-leading Climate Change Act, but the UK Government isnt delivering the robust and ambitious plan for reducing emissions that we need.

Climate change is not waiting; it is already having an impact today  from extreme weather events, to loss of wildlife and an increasingly unstable world.

The low-carbon economy represents a huge opportunity for UK businesses, so its no wonder that theyre desperately looking for longer term clarity that will enable them to invest in the technologies that we know can help to tackle climate change.

The UK Government must heed their call and build these measures into their Clean Growth Plan; doing so will be good for the environment and good for the British economy.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said in a statement: Our emissions reduction plan will set out how we will reduce emissions through the 2020s across all sectors of the economy.

The Government recognises that better energy efficiency can help the transition to a low-carbon economy and significantly improve quality of life. Were committed to tackling fuel poverty and our current reforms will help insulate one million homes across Britain by 2020.
Clashes raged around a key northern Syrian town on Tuesday after the Islamic State (IS) militant group launched a counter-attack to fend off a US-backed advance near the Islamist militants' stronghold Raqa.

Backed by air power from the international coalition bombing IS, the Syrian Democratic Forces are laying the groundwork for an assault on the heart of the militants' so-called "caliphate".

A key part of the campaign is the battle for the IS-held town of Tabqa on the Euphrates River, as well as the adjacent dam and military airport.

The SDF seized the Tabqa airbase late Sunday and began moving north towards the town itself, but IS fighters began pushing back on Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"The fighting is a result of IS launching a counter-offensive to exhaust the Syrian Democratic Forces around the Tabqa military airport," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

He said the SDF was working to "consolidate its positions" near the airport ahead of a final push for the town.

IS began the attack by dispatching a car bomb towards SDF forces stationed near the airport, the alliance's media arm said.

Fierce clashes broke out but the SDF held back the attack and managed to seize some ammunition and rocket stores from IS, according to pictures published by the SDF.

SDF fighters are also bearing down on the Tabqa dam after capturing its northern entrance on Friday from IS fighters.

The fight around the structure has been backed by forces from the US-led coalition, with American-made armoured vehicles bearing the markings of the US Marine Corps seen moving along a nearby road.

An AFP correspondent at the dam on Tuesday said it was generally quiet around the dam itself, despite the occasional IS-fired mortar that landed in SDF-controlled parts of the riverbank.

Planes could be heard above as SDF forces patrolled the northern entrance of the structure.

On Tuesday, coalition forces could be seen standing near military vehicles less than two kilometres (one mile) from the dam, their mortar rounds casually stacked nearby.

After a brief pause in fighting on Monday to allow technicians to enter the dam complex, SDF fighters resumed their operations around the structure, said spokeswoman Jihan Sheikh Ahmed.

"IS amassed its fighters and attacked our forces in the area, which forced us to respond and resume the operations to liberate the dam," she said.

Earlier this year, the United Nations raised concern about the prospect of damage to the dam in fighting, warning that water levels -- which put pressure on the structure -- were already high.

On Tuesday, technicians accompanied by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent could be seen examining the dam to assess whether water levels had risen in recent days.

"The explosions and the clashes are threatening the dam, and we ask for all sides to distance themselves from it," said Ismail Jassem, an engineer from the SDF-controlled Tishreen Dam in neighbouring Aleppo province.

"The water levels are acceptable now. We came to open up one of the gates to relieve the pressure," he told AFP.

The SDF launched its offensive for Raqa city in November, seizing around two thirds of the surrounding province, according to the Britain-based Observatory.

At their closest point, the forces are just eight kilometres (five miles) from Raqa city, to the northeast. But they are mostly further away, between 18 and 29 kilometres (between 11 and 18 miles) from Raqa.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources on the ground in Syria, said IS had deployed around 900 fighters from Raqa city to various fronts in the wider province.

"Fighting is raging on every front around the city of Raqa, accompanied by non-stop air strikes," Abdel Rahman said.

Syria's conflict began with protests against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011 but has turned into a brutal war pitting government forces, Islamist militants, rebels, and Kurds against each other.

UN-mediated talks between government and rebel representatives continued Tuesday in Geneva, aimed at bringing an end to the war that has killed 320,000 people.

The lead negotiator for the main opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), Mohamad Sabra, said in an interview late Monday that there could be "no real and viable political solution without the presence of the Americans."

The United States has a "moral duty" to throw its weight behind efforts to end the six-year conflict, he told AFP.

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Dear Donald Tusk,

I hereby notify you that the UK is leaving the European Union. I am, to use the vernacular, triggering Article 50. Or you are. Anyway, someone is. No one seems to know exactly. Trigger is not really a verb, and even if it were, how can you trigger an article? Its like violining a doorknob. Thats what my top man in Brussels told me anyway but dont worry, Ive sacked him.

I hope this doesnt come as a shock to you. You will know that Article 50 was only ever written for use by a rogue dictator, but since the UKs historic referendum last June we have done our best to show willing on that front by installing an unelected leader (me!) and turning the country into a one party state. Indeed so dedicated have our efforts been on that front, we may even soon be two one-party states, but that particular project is ongoing (bit of inside info on whos going to win that one by the way: you dont drop a grand on brown leather flares then lose at legs-it.)

Anyway, I know you have been keeping up to date with affairs in Britain and so will already have a clear idea of my demands in the forthcoming negotiations, but I am happy to set them out in detail here:

All of the good stuff. None of the bad stuff.

To be clear, the UK is not leaving Europe. Plate tectonic patterns indicate that Great Britain will remain part of the European continent for at least the next 100 million years and even after that point, I am confident that favourable relations can be established with whoever is Conservative Prime Minister at the time.

Recommended European Parliament to block Brexit deal unless EU citizens can stay

The UK loves Europe. Your cars, your wine, your cheeses will all be welcome in the UK after it has left the European Union. The only thing we dont want is your people. You talk a lot of the European Unions four freedoms. Well I will gladly take three of them, and I hope you too will approach the days and months ahead with the same spirit of cooperation.

We are both warned that it will be tough. You yourself have said there will be no cakes on the table, only salt and vinegar. As it happens Ive given up salt and vinegar crisps for Lent, so if you could have a word with the caterers about a few more options, just for the next couple of weeks, Id appreciate it.

But it neednt be so tough. You may find we are surprisingly chilled out. On agricultural regulations, on financial services, on fishing policy, on anything at all youll find well roll over pretty easy as long as you dont try it on when it comes to the people thing. Britains full and thats that.

Besides, things dont need to get too tense. Youll soon discover David Davis laughs at anything. In fact the graver the matter, the more certain it becomes that were absolutely doomed  these are the things that, in my experience, make him laugh all the more. And therell always be Boris Johnson on hand with a smile and a lighthearted Nazi analogy. Of course, I cannot guarantee I wont have sacked him long before all this is over, but if needs absolutely must, I can always send over Ken Livingstone.

Above all else, this you must not forget: you need us more than we need you. That is an incontrovertible fact. Over here, Nigel Farage says it on the TV once every eight minutes so it must be true. You need our innovative jams! You need our complex financial products! And of course, where would you be without the Great British Nissan Qashqai?

We have taken back control. We have bent our bananas. We have turbo-charged our vacuum cleaners and recycled our teabags. Our children stand ready to blow up balloons of their own free will, ready to tie with all the red tape that we will cut. We will fight you on our newly polluted beaches! I say again, we have taken back control! Now we wait patiently to see what you will be prepared to give us. Be nice now. Please.

Yours sincerely,

Theresa May
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Britains Brexit divorce bill will be nothing like the tens of billions of pounds in liabilities floated by EU officials and widely reported in the press, David Davis has said.

The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union suggested Britain might pay nothing when it left the EU and said he had seen no explanation for any figure cited anywhere else.

It was reported in February that European Commission chief negotiator Michel Barnier would demand 48 billion in liabilities from David Davis and his UK negotiating team.

The figure, supposedly agreed at a meeting of member states, reflects commitments Britain has made on EU-wide projects until 2020, as well as the pensions of officials. The one-off payment is separate from any ongoing contribution the UK might make to the EU budget for access to trade markets.

But Mr Davis said on Monday night: I dont know about 50 billion, Ive seen 40 billion, 50 billion, 60 billion, Ive seen no explanation for any of them.

The Prime Minister said we are coming to the end of the time when were paying enormous sums into the European Union. Well of course meet our international obligations but we expect also our rights to be respected too. I dont think were going to be seeing that sort of money change hands.

We have said before that we will meet our international obligations, whatever that turns out to be. BU that is nothing like what were talking about here  indeed the House of Lords committee on this subject reckoned that that was was zero only a few weeks ago.

Asked whether he actually believed the payment could be zero, he said: Wait and see, Im not going to do the negotiation on your programme.

The Brexit Secretary made the comments on a special edition of the BBCs Question Time programme which was specifically focused on Britains exit from the European Union.

Speaking on the same programme, shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer said reneging on Britain's responsibilities could have negative consequences for its ability to negotiate future trade deals.

"I say that we shouldnt be bandying figures around, we should agree that there will be principles that decide how much it is and once theyre agreed of course we must honour our negotiations," he said.

"Anybody who says otherwise just needs to think about our future. We want a comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU. Well, are we going to get that if were breaching the rules as we leave?

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"The Government wants free trade agreements with other countries across the world? If were going to be taken seriously in future negotiations for the future of our country we cannot do that in breach of obligations that weve already got.

The Labour MP said he was not committing to a figure but that it should be kept as low as possible .

The row comes just 36 hours ahead of Theresa Mays planned triggering of Article 50, which will start the two-year process of Britain negotiating an exit package from the European Union.
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Theresa May is backing away from her threat to crash out of the EU with no deal as she realises the huge economic damage it would cause, EU diplomats believe.

The Government now realises the hardline stance went too far by bolstering the confidence of Brexit supporters with the intention of creating chaos, they say.

In private, British officials are ready to discuss the UK remaining in the EUs customs union as part of a transitional arrangement, one told the BBC.

Allowing the European Court of Justice some sway over British law and high immigration  despite Ms Mays supposed red lines on the issues  are also said to be on the table.

A Government spokesman told the BBC it did not recognise the claims being made by the EU diplomats, who are based in this country.

But there is speculation that the Article 50 letter  to be delivered in Brussels tomorrow  will not repeat Ms Mays warning that no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal.

It was issued in January, winning loud cheers from many Conservative MPs and the Tory press, apparently setting Britain on course for a hard Brexit.

But EU diplomats believe it lacks credibility, because of the huge costs likely to be imposed on the British economy if no agreement  even a transitional one  is reached.

 Keir Starmer: Theresa May must 'face down' the Brexiteers in her Government

Under World Trade Organisation rules, firms would face tariffs on most goods and more red tape, if the EU refuses to recognise the UKs regulatory standards.

They have realised that 'no deal is better than a bad deal' won't fly, one diplomat told the BBC.

They are worried about people in this country who have an ideological and political intention of creating chaos. The civil service has told them it would create havoc.

The number of customs checks on goods would soar from 17m each year to 350m, he pointed out.

Another diplomat added: The British do realise that [immigration curbs] are a bad idea for British society and economy. They will focus more on control and not quantitative limits.

Earlier this month, Brexit Secretary David Davis stunned MPs by admitting the Government has done no economic assessment of crashing out of the EU with no deal.

But Michel Barnier, the European Commissions lead Brexit negotiator, has warned that leaving with no agreed trading arrangements would undoubtedly leave the UK worse off.

Severe disruption to air transport and long queues at the Channel port of Dover are just some of the many examples of the negative consequences of failing to reach a deal, he wrote this week.

Others include the disruption of supply chains, including the suspension of the delivery of nuclear material to the UK.

This week, the manufacturers' lobbying organisation, EEF, urged the PM to drop her no deal, describing it as a risky and expensive blow.

Meanwhile, the former head of the Foreign Office has ridiculed the Prime Ministers hopes of reaching a comprehensive trade deal within the two years of the Article 50 talks.

Sir Simon Fraser said transitional arrangements would be necessary, adding: It's certain that we won't have resolved everything in the period before the expiry of the Article 50 process.
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If Northern Ireland opts for reunification it would have the ability to join the European Union as part of the Republic after Brexit, a leaked ministerial letter has indicated.

Unlike Scotland, which has been told it could be forced to join a queue for membership of the bloc if the country votes for independence, the province would not have to reapply for EU membership, as the Republic is already one of the existing member states.

According to The Times in a leaked letter to an SDLP MP, David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, wrote: If a majority of the people of Northern Ireland were ever to vote to become part of a united Ireland the UK Government will honour its commitment to enable that to happen.

 Northern Ireland: Parties have a few short weeks to strike power sharing deal

He added: In that event, Northern Ireland would be in a position of becoming part of an existing EU member state, rather than seeking to join the EU as a new independent state.

If polls show support for a reunification referendum then the Good Friday Agreement stipulates the UK Government is legally obliged to offer one.

It comes after the power sharing agreement at Stormont collapsed on Monday with James Brokenshire, the Northern Ireland Secretary, saying it was extremely disappointing.

But he said there was no appetite for another round of devolved assembly elections, adding there was still a narrow wind of a short few weeks in which a government could be formed. In the meantime, the provinces civil servants are preparing to take over the budget and allocation of resources to public services.

We are rapidly approaching the point at which Northern Ireland will not have an agreed budget, he added. This is not sustainable.

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

Under the rule of power sharing if the deadlock is not broken and new elections results are inconclusive the UK Government would be expected to take Northern Ireland back under direct rule. But this move would likely require emergency legislation at Westminster and looks unlikely at this stage at least.

Mr Brokenshire is expected to make a further statement in the Commons on Tuesday, outlining details of how the UK Government intends to foster an agreement to save power sharing at Stormont.
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MEPs will block any Brexit deal unless EU citizens who move to the UK up to 2019 are granted the right to stay and work, the European Parliament's chief negotiator has said.

Guy Verhofstadt vowed to fight any attempt by Britain to set tomorrow  the day for triggering Article 50  as the cut-off date for the free movement of people.

Both the Parliament and the Commissions chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, are concerned by reports that No 10 will designate 29 March 2017 as the landmark date.

If so, EU nationals moving to the UK for the next two years, until Brexit is completed, would have weaker rights than those already in the UK  even if the rights of existing citizens are eventually guaranteed.

A five-page resolution setting out the Parliaments red lines  to be voted on next Wednesday  will rule out any degradation of the rights of EU nationals arriving in the UK over the next two years.

Speaking to The Independent, Mr Verhofstadt warned Theresa May that imposing the cut-off date would be the wrong way to start the negotiations, which will begin after tomorrow.

Any unilateral decision to curtail the rights of EU citizens in the UK, while the UK remains a member of the EU, would be contrary to EU law and we would oppose such a move vigorously.

The Prime Minister has said the future rights of the three million EU nationals in the UK  and of around one million British ex-pats living in the EU  will only be settled on a reciprocal basis, as part of the Brexit negotiations.

 EU citizens in UK victims of 'political games', says Guy Verhofstadt

However, government sources have briefed previously that setting 2019 as the cut-off date for any agreement would spark a rush of EU citizens seeking to enter the country before then.

Now the European Parliaments resolution will insist on equity, reciprocity, symmetry and non-discrimination for all EU nationals  for as long as Britain remains a member state.

MEPs have the right to veto any deal between the EU and the UK when talks come to a close  and Mr Verhofstadt has already threatened to exercise that right, if necessary.

Gianni Pittell, the leader of the socialist bloc in the European Parliament, also confirmed that MEPs would not accept discrimination between EU citizens.

We have heard that Theresa May is considering a cut-off date as the notification date, he told The Guardian newspaper.

We completely disagree on this and we believe that the British citizens and those from the other 27 states are EU citizens until the day of the divorce. During this period the UK is a member state with full rights and obligations.

The warnings come just hours before Sir Tim Barrow, the UKs permanent representative to the EU, delivers the historic letter from Ms May to start the exit process.

At 12.30pm, the clock will start ticking on the two years of talks allowed under Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon.

The resolution is also expected to insist that Britains withdrawal agreement be enforced by the European Court of Justice  which is certain to inflame hardline Brexit supporters.

Further resolutions are likely to be issued at key moments in the talks, to strengthen the hand of Mr Barnier in his talks with David Davis, the Brexit Secretary.
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Germany has warned it will take Britain to the International Court of Justice if it refuses to pay its 50bn Brexit divorce bill.

A second threat to launch a legal battle at The Hague was revealed in a leaked strategy document prepared for Wolfgang Schauble, Germanys finance minister.

Mr Schaubles department is convinced that Britain is not only politically but also legally obliged to pay its debts, The Times reported.

Great Britain pays for its share just like the other member states, the paper says  insisting that must happen at the start of the Brexit negotiations.

Britain is bound by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, signed in 1970, which governs what happens when states terminate treaty commitments, it said  with any disputes heard at The Hague.

Earlier this month, a Dutch newspaper revealed a draft EU plan to go to the International Court if Britain tries to walk away without meeting its huge historic and future liabilities.

In that case it is: see you in The Hague! it quoted an EU official  in response to suggestions that Britain will try to avoid any exit bill.

Theresa May has threatened to leave with no deal if necessary, with Government lawyers arguing Britain could then avoid paying out.

But a lengthy battle at the International Court would hold up attempts to reach a new trade agreement with the EU, if it insists on settling the controversy over money owed first.

Last night, Brexit Secretary David Davis toughened the Governments stance, suggesting Britain had a right to walk away without paying a penny.

I don't know about 50bn, I've seen 40bn, 50bn, 60bn, I've seen no explanation for any of them, Mr Davis told BBCs Question Time programme.

We'll of course meet our international obligations but we expect also our rights to be respected too. I don't think we're going to be seeing that sort of money change hands.

That is nothing like what we're talking about here - indeed the House of Lords committee on this subject reckoned that that was zero only a few weeks ago.

A Government spokesman quoted by The Times dismissed threats of a legal challenge to force Britain to pay a Brexit divorce bill.

We have also been very clear that when we leave the European Union, decisions over where UK taxpayers' money is spent will be made inside the UK, he said.

The paper drawn up for Mr Schauble also says Britain must make a financial contribution if it wishes to retain access to the EU single market.

It reveals that Germany fears a hard Brexit could trigger a financial crash, with the countrys financial regulator working on ways to offer a transitional arrangement to Britain as a solution.

The document is sceptical that the EU and the UK can agree a new trade deal in the two-year timetable that starts with the triggering of Article 50 tomorrow.
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Ken Livingstone has claimed only a biased or rigged jury could conclude he breached Labour party rules ahead of his suspension hearing later this week over anti-Semitism claims.

In his 17-page submission to the partys national constitutional committee (NCC), which will decide on Thursday whether to expel Mr Livingstone, he said it has been an absurd waste of Labours resources for its staff to assemble a 500 page dossier of material to attack me.

But the former Mayor of London added he had no intention to cause offence and was sorry if his remarks did so.

Mr Livingstone was suspended from the party 11 months ago for bringing the party in disrepute after he was accused of anti-Semitism and making offensive comments about Hitler supporting Zionism.

In the submission to the NCC Mr Livingstone says it is unfortunate that Labour party officials are pursuing this disciplinary against me, particularly in such a partisan way.

He adds the case against him is a political charge and not whether Labours rules have been broken. Mr Livingstone continued, claiming he had raised the issue of collaboration between Hitler and a section of Zionism in the early 1930s as a result of misunderstanding during a BBC London interview.

He said "supporters of Israel" had called on Labour to expel him to "silence" his criticism of "Israeli aggression".

In a reference to the US anti-Communist witch-hunts of the 1950s, he said: "Some are seeking a type of McCarthyism, where accusations are made without proper regard for evidence in order to restrict political discussion."

Mr Livingstone said: "I did not say or suggest that Hitler was a Zionist. I did not make any equation of Hitler and Zionism. I neither criticised the transfer agreement or the section of Zionism that participated in the agreement. I did not draw any historical parallels with the situation today anywhere, including with the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

"Any suggestion that my intention was to draw equivalence between Nazism and Zionism is entirely false.

"It has been suggested that my comments were offensive. For the sake of absolute clarity, I reiterate that I had absolutely no intention for my remarks to cause offence, least of all to Jewish people, and I am sorry if they did."

In an interview with The Independent Mr Livingstone also compared the NCCs quasi-judicial practices to the North Korean regime. The hearing will be in private and the committees 11 members are not publicised to avoid outsider influence.

Its absolutely outrageous that such a serious smear is made and then the hearing is going to be in private, he said. I mean, its more like North Korea. Its literally the sort of hearing youd expect in some dictatorship  not in a modern democracy.

Mr Livingstone, who also hired Michael Mansfield QC to represent him, added he was expecting to be expelled from the party at the hearing but vowed to challenge the decision in a judicial review.
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Former deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has suggested there is an inner Remainer within Theresa May as he recalled her warnings of the perils of Brexit during the 2016 referendum.

Speaking on the eve of Article 50 being triggered by the Prime Minister  triggering Britains withdrawal from the EU  the former Liberal Democrat leader encouraged the public to read Ms Mays speech during the referendum campaign.

There was a speech by a prominent Conservative, which as one of the most thoughtful and thorough arguments Ive read in a long time in favour of our continued membership of the European Union, Mr Clegg said.

He added: It was a thoughtful exposition about the constraints on sovereignty. It was delivered by Theresa May less than a year ago  its well worth reading.

So I guess the question that hangs over all of us is either she didnt believe a word she said or there is still an inner remainer within her soul struggling to come out  and shes just been forced by circumstances to do something contrary to her view.

"It's either an act of spectacular insincerity when she said those words or she is acting diametrically contrary to her stated and - in my view - very thoughtfully expressed views about Britain's role in Europe of less than a year ago."

His comments came at an event hosted by Open Britain, a campaign group against a hard Brexit, alongside Nicky Morgan, the former Conservative Education Secretary and Labours Chris Leslie.

When asked whether they had allies in Government willing to resist mounting right-wing pressure from the UK to quit the EU without a deal, Ms Morgan replied: In terms of allies in Government, I can't give you names and I don't know whether others are having discussions, but yes, there are absolutely members of the Government who very much want a deal, who were staunch Remain campaigners and will appreciate the importance of things like [maintaining] the exact same benefits that we currently get in the single market."

The senior MPs also published a document outlining ten promises made to the British people by the Government or by Vote Leave during the EU referendum campaign.

They include the pre-referendum pledge to provide the NHS with an extra 350m a week, delivering the exact same benefits as the UK currently has within the single market and customs union, and no changes to the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

The unveiling of what they describe as the Brexit contract comes as the Prime Minister prepares to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, triggering Britains two-year withdrawal process from the EU.

During the event, the Conservative MP Ms Morgan also warned that the idea of a no deal  a threat to the EU nations proposed by Ms May during her keynote Lancaster House speech on Brexit  would be the worst of all worlds and should not be entertained.

In their Brexit contract foreword, the MPs add: Vote Leave and the Government have made specific promises: leaving is a cost-free option; trade will be enhanced not hampered; there will be major savings from the EU budget; core arrangements with the EU, for example over national security, will remain unchanged; and the integrity of the United Kingdom will be protected.

"Now that Article 50 is being triggered, people will expect these promises to be delivered: this is the Government's Brexit contract with the British people.

"In our view, political choices have been made that potentially undermine these ambitions and which make the path ahead riskier than necessary.
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Nigel Farage has said he will go and live abroad" if Brexit is a disaster.

The four-time UKIP leader made the declaration to listeners to his LBC radio show on Monday night. But he added: It isnt going to be a disaster. Weve just managed to get ourselves in a lifeboat off the Titanic. The EU does not work.

A Remain-supporting caller asked him if he would apologise and quit politics if Brexit did become the economic disaster" that has been predicted.

Mr Farage told him: "There isnt much of a tradition [of apologising] here" and then blamed Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell for not apologising over the Iraq war.

Mr Farage and Mr Campbell, now editor at pro-Remain newspaper The New European, had a heated row on the Good Morning Britain sofa on Monday morning. Mr Campbell argued that the people of Britain are "changing their mind" over Brexit.

Farage responded by saying: "The war is over. Come out of that foxhole, recognise it's done. But you're right about one thing  people do have the right to change their minds and they are in a big, big way.

"The last opinion polling I saw said if there was a referendum tomorrow 68% would vote to leave. And millions of people have realised the pack of lies that were told, that our house prices would collapse... the stock market is through the roof."
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The Scottish parliament has backed Nicola Sturgeons call for a second independence referendum, in a landmark vote that could eventually see Scotland leave the UK.

The vote, which was postponed until Tuesday following the attack on Westminster last week, was passed by MSPs in Holyrood by 69 to 59  providing the Scottish First Minister with the mandate to seek a second referendum between autumn 2018 and spring 2019.

Ms Sturgeons minority government was able to win the vote after the Scottish Green Party backed the move, which was described as deeply regrettable by the Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson.

But Theresa May has already ruled out holding a second referendum on Scotlands future while the Brexit negotiations are underway adding, now is not the time for another vote.

Responding to the vote in Holyrood, a UK Government spokesperson said Ms May would not be entering into negotiations on the Scottish governments proposal. At this point, all our focus should be on our negotiations with the European Union, making sure we get the right deal for the whole of the UK, the spokesperson said.

It would be unfair to the people of Scotland to ask them to make a crucial decision without the necessary information about our future relationship with Europe, or what an independent Scotland would look like.

We have been joined together as one country for more than 300 years. We've worked together, we've prospered together, weve fought wars together, and we have a bright future. At this crucial time we should be working together, not pulling apart.

Recommended May to meet Sturgeon after independence referendum clash

Labour and Liberal Democrats MSPs voted against the second referendum alongside the Conservatives. Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, added there is no evidence of an appetite for another vote among Scots, who voted against independence by 55 per cent to 44 per cent in 2014.

She added: There absolutely should not be another independence referendum until after Brexit. We have no idea what Brexit looks like, or how it will impact our economy and families in Scotland.

If there is to be another vote, the people of Scotland deserve clarity on what they are being asked to vote on.

But Mike Russell, the Scotland governments Brexit minister, said: Its a question now of how, rather than if, on a second vote. The real issue now is no one can stand against it. It's the choice of the Scottish parliament, it's the choice of the Scottish people, and that will be recognised globally. So what we now need to do is have a sensible discussion about how this proceeds.

Theresa May has succeeded in creating constitutional chaos throughout the UK. I hope there will come a moment, and perhaps this is that moment, in which she recognises this is a foolish way to operate.

On Monday the Prime Minister visited Ms Sturgeon as part of her 11th-hour dash around Britain before invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and triggering the UKs two-year countdown to leave the EU on Wednesday.
Amazon.com has agreed in principle to acquire Souq.com, the largest online retailer in the Middle East, the two companies said in a joint statement on Tuesday.



The value and terms of the agreement were not disclosed by the two companies.



The deal is expected to be finalized this year "subject to closing conditions," the statement said.



"We are guided by many of the same principles as Amazon, and this acquisition is a critical next step in growing our e-commerce presence on behalf of customers across the region," said Souq.com chief executive officer and co-founder Ronaldo Mouchawar.



"By becoming part of the Amazon family, we'll be able to vastly expand our delivery capabilities and customer selection much faster, as well as continue Amazon's great track record of empowering sellers."



Earlier this year, Amazon pulled out of talks with Souq.com, but later restarted discussions. Although neither company confirmed the final figure agreed upon, earlier reports on the negotiations had involved a figure of around $650 million.



In clinching the deal, the US e-commerce giant beat off competition from Dubai-based Emaar Malls, which had bid $800 million to acquire Souq.com.

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Theresa May has dismissed the row over a newspaper front page focusing on her legs, describing the coverage of her appearance as a bit of fun.

Tuesdays Daily Mail front page was dominated by a large picture of Ms May and Nicola Sturgeon wearing tights, with the caption Never mind Brexit, who won Legs-it!

The photograph was from a meeting between the two top politicians regarding Scotlands role in Brexit and trailed an article by columnist Sarah Vine.

Recommended Daily Mail reported to press regulator over May legs front page

The front page triggered formal complaints to the press regulator Ipso and outrage on social media, with some critics likening the commentary to something out of the 1950s.

However a visit to the West Midlands today, Ms May told the Wolverhampton Express and Star newspaper that the coverage was a bit of fun.

You will notice that I am wearing trousers today! she said.

As a woman in politics throughout my whole career I have found that very often, what I wear - particularly my shoes - has been an issue that has been looked at rather closely by people.

Obviously what we do as politicians is what makes a difference to people's lives. I think that most people concentrate on what we do as politicians.

But if people want to have a bit of fun about how we dress, then so be it.

Downing Street had this morning declined to criticise the newspaper front page, while a spokesperson for the newspaper itself told critics to get a life.

Green Party deputy leader Amelia Womack wrote to Ipso this morning arguing that the front page broke Clause 12 of the Editors' Code because of its treatment of women.

A spokesperson for the Daily Mail said: For goodness stake, get a life! Sarah Vines piece, which was flagged as light-hearted, was a side-bar alongside a serious political story. It appeared in an 84-page paper packed with important news and analysis, a front page exclusive on cost-cutting in the NHS and a health supplement devoted to womens health issues.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures 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 UK news in pictures 15 September 2022 Members of the public in the queue on in Potters Fields Park, central London, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA

For the record, the Mail was the paper which, more than any other, backed Theresa May for the top job. Again for the record, we often comment on the appearance of male politicians including Camerons waistline, Osbornes hair, Corbyns close - and even Boriss legs.

Is there a rule that says political coverage must be dull or has a po-faced BBC and left-wing commentariat, so obsessed by the Daily Mail, lost all sense of humour and proportion?
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Major international tech firms will be asked at a meeting this week by the Government to combat terrorists' use of their products amid accusations that the investigation into the London attacks was being hampered by the privacy rules applied by internet companies.

It has emerged that the killer, British Muslim convert Khalid Masood, used the messaging service WhatsApp just minutes before slamming his car into the crowds on Westminster Bridge.

The Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, has complained that the security agencies have been unable to access the message because of the use of encryption.

However, the Governments and the polices position on the issue appears to be confusing and contradictory.

Scotland Yard, in public statements made by Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, has declared that there is no evidence that Masood was involved with Isis or al-Qaeda.

There have, however, been repeated recent atrocities  two in France and two in Germany just in the last year  in which terrorists initially written off as "lone wolves" were subsequently found to have been guided through messaging services by Isis "handlers" until just before they carried out their attacks.

It is highly surprising if the police, analysts point out, made such a firm assertion about the lack of outside involvement had the security agencies not found out the contents of Masoods WhatsApp message.

MI5 has refused to confirm or deny that the WhatsApp message has been accessed.

Brian Paddick, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman and former Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner, said: My understanding is that there are ways security services could view the content of suspected terrorists encrypted messages and establish who they are communicating with.

Robert Emerson, a security analyst, said: If the police made the statements about lack of outside influence on Masood without accessing the WhatsApp message then they are at risk of holding themselves hostage to fortune in what may come out in the future.

If they have accessed the material, then why are ministers saying what they have been saying? 

The polices statements on Masoods motivation are unclear. On Saturday, Mr Basu stated that we must accept that there is a possibility we will never understand why he did this.

By Monday this had become: There is clearly an interest in jihad. Having said that Masood had acted alone on Saturday, the police carried out another arrest, that of a 30-year-old man the following day, and extended the time in custody of a 52-year-old man.

Amber Rudd on WhatsApp - social media giants must do more in terror fight

Meeting her European Union counterparts days before Theresa May triggers Article 50 on Brexit, the Home Secretary called for European Union action to tackle online terrorism.

Before leaving for Brussels she had said:  Its completely unacceptable. There should be no place for terrorists to hide.

"We need to make sure that organisations like WhatsApp, and there are plenty of others like that, dont provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other ...

"On this situation we need to make sure that our intelligence services have the ability to get into situations like encrypted WhatsApp.

However, asked whether she opposed the use of end-to-end encryption, Ms Rudd, who herself uses WhatsApp, said: 'End-to-end encryption has a place, cyber security is really important and getting it wrong costs the economy and costs people money.

Brad Smith, chief executive of Microsoft, said: We will not help any government, including our own, hack or attack any customer anywhere. We will turn over data when we are legally compelled to do so.

There have been number of warnings against rushing through legislation from people highly experienced in the security field. Mr Paddick stressed: These terrorists want to destroy our freedoms and undermine our democratic society.

"By implementing draconian laws that limit our civil liberties, we would be playing into their hands.

Major General Jonathan Shaw, a former Downing Street adviser on cyber security and former head of the SAS, pointed out: Theres a debate in Parliament about the whole snoopers charter and the rights of the state and I think they are trying to nudge the debate more in their line.

"The problem will mutate and move on. We are aiming at a very fluid environment here. We are in trouble if we apply blunt weapons to this, use absolutist solutions.

The criminal and political risks which will come with lack of encryption were pointed out by Sam Dumitu, from the think tank the Adam Smith Institute. It is mathematically impossible to build a back door for just the good guys. It means building a back door to your private messages for Putin's favourite hacker, Guccifer. It means opening up your private photos to perverts like the iCloud hacker. End-to-end encryption keeps us safe.
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This time, Gabriel Fernandez was not breathing.

The 8-year-old California boy had been on everyones radar: He went to school with bald spots and bruises, black eyes and split lips, according to court testimony. Once, he told his teacher that his mother had shot him with a BB gun.

Twice, he asked his teacher to call a social worker, saying, Can you call that lady?

The Los Angeles Times cited court testimony alleging that when authorities arrived that Wednesday in May 2013, at a home in Palmdale, outside Los Angeles, Pearl Fernandez told them her son had fallen while roughhousing with his siblings and struck his head on a dresser.

The paramedics found the boy naked in a bedroom with a fractured skull, several broken ribs and burns all over his body, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office.

He had BB gun pellets embedded in his lung and groin, according to the Times. Two days later on May 24, 2013, Gabriel died.

His 33-year-old mother and her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, 36, are accused of beating him to death. The two were indicted in 2014 on murder charges.

But what makes Gabriels tragic story so uncommon is that the four social workers who were responsible for his health, welfare and safety are set to stand trial for felony child abuse and falsifying documents.

Superior Court Judge Mary Lou Villar ruled Monday that there was enough evidence to charge the four former social workers and move forward with a trial, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The judge said that red flags were everywhere  the injuries, the absences from school, the calls Gabriels teacher made to child protective services  and that social workers should have seen them.

When the judge announced it, I wanted to throw up, Patricia Clement, one of Gabriels social workers, said after the hearing, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Defense attorneys argued that it was after the case was closed that things got worse.

Clements attorney, Shelly Albert, disputed the accusations against her client, saying that Gabriel had no physical injuries while Clement was his case worker and that the boy repeatedly denied any abuse each time authorities questioned him.

It is an understatement that my client and I are both in shock and disbelief that the judge has held her to answer to these ridiculous, groundless criminal charges of child abuse and falsification of records, Albert said in a written statement.

The Peoples case against Ms. Clement (as well as the other three DCFS employees charged along with her), is based entirely on speculation, 20/20 hindsight, and arbitrary what if scenarios following minor Gabriels tragic and unforeseen death, and NOT on facts existing or known to Ms. Clement during the brief period of time she was his assigned social worker, she wrote in an email Wednesday to The Washington Post.

Another social worker, Stefanie Rodriguez, and two supervisors, Kevin Bom and Gregory Merritt, also have been charged in connection with Gabriels death.

Los Angeles Countys Acting DCFS Director Brandon T. Nichols said in a statement, The courts ruling involves a unique case, and, as previously indicated, DCFS will have no specific comment on People v. Bom as it moves through the courts. That said, this ruling does not cast doubt on the high quality of work done daily by our social workers, who are saving lives and strengthening families, day in and day out.

According to a January report in the Los Angeles Times:

A Times review of grand jury testimony, child welfare records and recently filed court documents shows that deputies visited Gabriels home multiple times during the eight months prosecutors say he was being tortured and beaten. But the deputies found no signs of abuse and did not file paperwork that would have led specially trained detectives to do more investigating.

One deputy went to the boys Palmdale home after his teacher said he had been beaten with a belt. Another deputy, responding to a report that Gabriel was suicidal, left the home without examining or interviewing him.

When a security guard called to report that Gabriel had bruises on his face and what looked like cigarette burns all over his scalp, he was rebuffed by a sheriffs deputy who screamed that a child being burned was not an emergency, according to court records. Another deputy who eventually went to check on the boy decided that the injuries were caused by a fall from a bicycle.

The departments final investigation came a week before Gabriels death. A sheriffs deputy tried to find him after school officials reported that he had been absent for a long period and might be a victim of abuse. Gabriels mother said that her son had moved to Texas, and the deputy soon halted the inquiry. In fact, Gabriel was still in Palmdale, being beaten with a bat, shot with a BB gun, starved, locked in a small box and forced to eat cat feces, according to prosecutors.

When filing criminal charges against the social workers in 2016, Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said, Social workers play a vital role in society.

We entrust them to protect our children from harm, she said in a statement at the time. When their negligence is so great as to become criminal, young lives are put at risk. By minimising the significance of the physical, mental and emotional injuries that Gabriel suffered, these social workers allowed a vulnerable boy to remain at home and continue to be abused.

We believe these social workers were criminally negligent and performed their legal duties with willful disregard for Gabriels well-being. They should be held responsible for their actions.

Legal experts say this may be the first time in California that social workers have been criminally charged in performing their job, and it has not been much more often in other states. When it does happen, it has mixed results.

In Philadelphia, a case worker and others were sent to jail when a child they were responsible for starved to death in 2006. In 2013, a New York case worker and his supervisor, who were indicted on charges of criminally negligent homicide in a 4-year-old girls death, took a deal and pleaded guilty to misdemeanors, according to the New York Times. And when a 3-year-old boy was found dead in Michigan in 2016, prosecutors charged two social workers with involuntary manslaughter.

The manslaughter charge, however, was thrown out this year, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Youre talking about something thats very rare, David LaBahn, president of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, told The Post. Its very uncommon in the United States that we prosecute people for actions that theyre doing as part of their profession. We dont typically prosecute doctors because somebody dies, we dont prosecute dentists  we dont prosecute engineers or architects when a building falls down. Thats why we have the civil courts.

But LaBahn said that Gabriels case sounds like a systemic failure and that there has to be some accountability.

Rebecca Gonzales, director of government relations for the California chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, said the outcome could have consequences for child welfare agencies.

It is disturbing to us and we do think it could have a negative effect on social workers wanting to pursue the profession, especially in child welfare, she told The Post. Child welfare is a very difficult area of social work. It takes a special person who is educated in these issues and is able to work in a very high-pressure job. We do think that across the country, most child welfare agencies, those social workers have very high case loads. So they work in a system where its very difficult to be successful because theyre expected to track so many cases and be on top of so many family situations.

LaBahn, a former child-abuse prosecutor in California, acknowledged that social workers have a really, really tough job. He said prosecuting the four in California could have mixed results.

It drives a huge wedge between the prosecutors office and whatever that public agency is, he said. At the same time, he said, it makes everybody do a better job.

Especially if theres a conviction, he said, theres going to be a lot of other social workers in California wondering, How did that happen? and wanting to make sure theyre not doing the same thing.

Copyright: Washington Post
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She maybe 94, but Lorraine Maurer is still "lovin' it" at McDonalds, where she recently celebrated her 44th year of work.

The 5am starts have not put off the veteran server, who said she has eaten the restaurant's food on every shift she has worked at the branch in Evansville, Indiana.

If you dont like your job, its a job, but I love it, she told People magazine.

Ms Maurer was 50 when started working at the chain after her husband Kenneth was forced to retire due to disability.

The great-grandmother of seven soon rose to manager level and although she has cut back to two shifts a week, she is there to open up for breakfast on Friday and Saturday.

"I get in here at 5 o'clock when they open. I have to get up at three," she told a customer, as reported by the Evansville Courier & Press.

Chip and Katie Kenworthy, the owners of the branch where Ms Maurer works, wrote in a statement: After all these years, she remains committed to serving her customers with one of the most delightful smiles around. Loraine has a loyal following of customers.

Ms Maurers husband Kenneth passed away in 1980 and since then she has been travelling the world quite a bit, always visiting a McDonalds when she can.

Ive been to Australia, Russia, Greece, Rome, and Id always look when I could fly over the cities. Id look for the arch, she said.

She eats McDonalds food every shift as well, saying there isnt anything I dont like, but the fish sandwich is her favourite.

My customers make my life, she said. I have travelled with them, gone to ball games with them. Theyre friends, not just customers.
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Steve Eimers knew something was wrong before he opened the envelope with his daughters name on it.

It was from the Tennessee Department of Transportation, and it was about Hannah Eimerss crash a few months earlier.

Because she was at fault in the November crash in her fathers Volvo, the letter said, the state wanted her to pay up: $2,600 to install a new guardrail end terminal and $231 to get the highway safety device inspected  nearly $3,000 in total.

The invoice shocked Steve so much that he dropped a page of the letter onto the floor, he told The Washington Post.

Hannah had been dead nearly four months.

Its obscene, he told The Post. They will kill you and then they will bill you. The bill was absolutely tasteless  Its almost comical. Its like the most obscene comedy skit you can come up with.

Hannah was the oldest child in the Eimers family, a patchwork of biological and adopted children.

Steve said she had taught herself to play guitar and piano, and spoke several languages. Her heart was in acting and in cosplay. Costume parties around Halloween were always a big deal.

The 17-year-old had been to a costume party the night before the crash and stayed over at a friends house. The next morning, the pair was on Interstate 75, headed to school.

Steve said he isnt sure exactly what happened, but the Highway Patrol told him that she drove off the road, then tried to correct before the drivers side door slammed into the guardrail end terminal.

Hannah died instantly.

For a month, Steve said, he was in a fog. He thought of his daughter all the time, especially when he drove on the highway.

But over time, something about the circumstances of Hannahs crash irked him. Hes an emergency medical technician and has seen his share of highway wrecks. A sudden impact on a highway can kill, but the end terminal is supposed to crumple, dissipating the force from a crash and making the collision survivable.

But Hannah was dead.

It should have been, at worst, a minor-injury accident with property damage  probably little to no injury, Eimers said. The girl that was with her in the other seat had a little, tiny cut.

So the Loudon County dad became an amateur sleuth, researching other crashes like his daughters. Hes convinced that the guardrail system, the Lindsay X-Lite terminal, was at fault. He accuses the Tennessee Department of Transportation of not doing more.

They knew it was dangerous, he said. They left it in place. They played Russian roulette with her life.

Mark Nagi, a spokesman for TDOT, said the Lindsay X-Lite terminal was removed from the states qualified-products list on Oct. 25, just days before Hannah died.

The department had concerns about how the terminals held up over time, particularly the parts that are supposed to crumple on impact. A spokesperson for Lindsay Barrier Systems didnt respond to messages seeking comment on Sunday.

Removing the companys barrier from the qualified-products list meant TDOT wouldnt install new ones, but existing ones were still peppered across highways statewide.

Later in 2016, TDOT decided to remove the end terminals entirely from places where the speed limit is greater than 45. The process has started, but it could be early summer before the replacement is complete, Nagi said.

CBS affiliate WVLT reported that there are currently 1,000 similar end pieces on Tennessee roadways.

Eimers said he is skeptical that the state will do the right thing. He sees TDOTs letter to his dead daughter as a sign of incompetence at the agency.

Nagi, the TDOT spokesman, said the letter was sent due to an error in processing. A new letter has been sent to the family to apologise, to explain the error, and instruct that there is no billing.

TDOT greatly apologises for this mistake. There is no excuse for the letter/bill that was sent, and we will take measures to make sure that this never happens again.

Eimers said he also plans to go to the Tennessee State Capitol, 175 miles away in Nashville, to tell legislators about the dangers of the guardrail in Hannahs crash and to advocate for safer ones.

I was invited to a state House hearing, he said. Im anticipating a meeting with the governor, but Id like federal oversight on this. This could be an extraordinarily deadly device.

If my daughter lived in Virginia and this happened, shed still be alive.

This post has been updated.

Copyright: Washington Post
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A couple who tried to sell their five-month-old baby on Craigslist for $3,000 (2,400), have been arrested after a sting operation.

John David Cain, 26, and Deanna Lynn Greer, 37, were taken into custody after exchanging the infant with undercover agents.

Detective captain Jeff Morgan of the Greene County Sheriffs Office, told the Independent the advert had been spotted by a couple who were just perusing Craigslist.

The unnamed pair notified the police, who enlisted the help of the FBI and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

Agents contacted Mr Cain and Ms Greer, and a meeting was arranged in the car park of a discount store.

After the swap, the child taken into protective custody.

The babys fine, its with foster parents now, Detective Morgan said.

 Pakistan child abuse activists push for government action

The pair have been charged under Tennessees Hayleys Law, which made child abuse a Class A felony in the state after it was introduced in 2010.

It is named after a young girl who was found with her eyes swollen shut, ears bleeding and burns all over her body after being abused by her father and stepmother.

Mr Cain and Ms Greer are being held in jail on $150,000 (120,000) bonds.
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The chairman of the house committee that is looking into Trump aides ties to Russia should recuse himself from the investigation due to his concerning behaviour, according to his counterpart.

Adam Schiff, the top ranking Democrat in the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that Devin Nunes should step down.

After much consideration I believe Chairman should recuse himself from involvement in investigation/oversight of Trump campaign & transition, he wrote on twitter alongside a longer statement.

Mr Nunes, a member of the Trump transition team, admitted to holding a secret meeting with an unnamed White House source this week.

He then held an impromptu conference to reveal he had obtained dozens of documents which allegedly proved the Presidents aides were not the deliberate target of any US intelligence investigation; rather they had been caught in the cross-hairs during US surveillance of Russian operatives.

The claim was in contrast to FBI Director James Comey who said last week at a senate hearing that US agencies were investigating the aides ties to Russia before and after the election.

 FBI chief confirms Russia election interference probe

Yet Mr Nunes did not show these documents to the committee and instead went to brief the President.

Whether the documents support the argument that names were improperly unmasked or distributed, it is impossible to judge, but one thing is very clear: There was no legitimate justification for bringing that information to the White House instead of the committee, Mr Schiff wrote on Monday.

That it was also obtained at the White House makes this departure all the more concerning.

Mr Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said in a statement that the Chairman met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source.

Mr Schiff said he did not take the decision lightly to call for his counterparts recusal and had worked well with his Republican counterpart for several years.

Despite saying earlier this week that he would solider on with the committee after it was revealed Mr Nunes met with the White House, the target of their bipartisan investigation, Mr Schiff insisted on Monday that the chairman should recuse himself.

It follows similar calls from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his predecessor, Nancy Pelosi.

Chairman Nunes is falling down on the job and seems to be more interested in protecting the president than in seeking the truth, Mr Schumer said in a Senate speech.

Trump Inauguration protests around the World Show all 14 1 /14 Trump Inauguration protests around the World Trump Inauguration protests around the World Activists from Greenpeace display a message reading "Mr President, walls divide. Build Bridges!" along the Berlin wall in Berlin on January 20, 2017 to coincide with the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United State Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World An activist holds up a sign at the "We Stand United" rally on the eve of US President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration outside Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York on January 19, 2017 in New York Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World Protesters burn a U.S. flag and a mock flag with pictures of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump outside the U.S. embassy in metro Manila, Philippines Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World Filipino protestors hold placcards during a protest rally in front of the US embassy in Manila, Philippines, 20 January 2017. On the eve of President-elect Donald Trump's inaguration as the 45th president of the United States, Filipinos and Fil-Americans held a protest in front of the US embassy in Manila to denounce the incoming US president. Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World Hong Kong police officers and security guards look on as an anarchist protester belonging to the Disrupt J20 movement sits after using a heavy duty D-lock and motorcycle lock to chain himself to a railing at the entrance gate to the Consulate General of the United States of America in Hong Kong to protest the inauguration of United States President-elect Donald Trump, Hong Kong, China, 20 January 2017. Two activists were arrested and taken away by Hong Kong police during the demonstration. Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World A banner is unfurled on London's Tower Bridge, organised by Bridges Not Walls - a partnership between grassroots activists and campaigners working on a range of issues, formed in the wake of Donald Trump's election, which aims to build bridges to a world free from hatred and oppression. Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World Protesters chain themselves to an entry point prior at the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in Washington, DC, U.S. Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World Bridges Not Walls banner dropped from Molenbeek bridge in Brussels, Belgium, 20 January 2017, in an Greenpeace action part of protests Wolrd protest in solidarity with people in the US, the day Donald Trump sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World A woman holds an anti-U.S. President-elect Donald Trump placard during a rally in Tokyo, Japan, Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World A Palestinian protester holds a placard during a demonstration against the construction of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and against US President-elect Donald Trump, on January 20, 2017, near the settlement of Maale Adumim, east of Jerusalem Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World Banners on North Bridge in Edinburgh as part of the Bridges Not Walls protest against US President Donald Trump on the day of his inauguration Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World Russian artist Vasily Slonov (L) and his assistant carry a life-sized cutout, which is an artwork created by Slonov and titled "Siberian Inauguration", before its presentation on the occasion of the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, in a street in Krasnoyarsk, Russia Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World A woman holds a banner during a march to thank outgoing President Barack Obama and reject US President-elect Donald Trump before his inauguration at a park in Tokyo, Japan, 20 January 2017. EPA Trump Inauguration protests around the World Palestinian demonstrators protesting this week against a promise by Donald Trump to re-locate the US embassy to Jerusalem Reuters

The House Intelligence Committee has stalled its investigation following an unusual series of events. Mr Nunes' twitter feed has gone quiet since 19 March.

Following Mr Comeys hearing, Mr Schiff and Mr Nunes were given a classified briefing which gave them, according to the Democrat, more than circumstantial evidence of US-Russia collusion.

 Republican says there is 'more than circumstantial evidence' of Trump-Russia collusion

They both put in a joint request to Mr Comey to share with their committee the information given to them in the classified briefing. Mr Nunes cancelled a second scheduled hearing for 28 March, where intelligence chiefs were expected to speak, to have what he described as more time to confer with Mr Comey and the National Security Agency director Michael Rogers.

Mr Trumps Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently recused himself from the investigation as it was revealed he had also met with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak before the election and had allegedly misled Congress about it. A similar series of events led to the resignation of Mr Trumps former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn in February.

"Let me be clear: I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign," Mr Sessions said earlier this month at the Justice Department. "I should not be involved in investigating a campaign I had a role in."

Mr Trumps son-in-law and Senior Adviser, Jared Kushner, is also expected to be questioned on his meeting with Mr Kislyak and the head of a state-owned Russian bank.

Mr Trump sent a series of angry tweets around 2.30am on Tuesday morning, accusing the media and authorities of bias over their favourable treatment of Hillary Clinton and her husbands alleged ties to Russia.

He and the Kremlin have strongly denied any collusion to boot Ms Clinton out of the race.
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The night after a growing number of officials called for the chairman of the Trump-Russia investigation to recuse himself and the news that the Presidents son-in-law will be hauled in for questioning, the President expressed his frustration through social media.

"Why isn't the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech, he wrote on Twitter about 2am, money to Bill, the Hillary Russian reset, praise of Russia by Hillary, or Podesta Russian Company. Trump Russia story is a hoax. #MAGA!.

It is little wonder that the President was losing sleep.

Devin Nunes, his former adviser and now chairman of the congressional investigation into alleged ties between Trump aides and Russia, has faced demands to step down, including from his Democratic counterpart Adam Schiff.

Mr Trumps senior adviser and family member, Jared Kushner, will be questioned at a senate hearing over his meeting with the Russian ambassador and a Russian bank. His Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from the Justice Departments oversight of the findings as he was revealed to have also met with the ambassador. And his former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign following similar meetings and phone calls and allegedly misleading him and Vice President Mike Pence.

But the President's targeting of his old rival for the White House, Hillary Clinton, is based on an inaccurate claim he first made during the campaign trail about former administration deals between 2009 and 2013.

Hillary Clinton gave them 20 per cent of our uranium  gave Russia for a big payment, he said at a 2016 rally, echoing his tweets this March.

When Ms Clinton was Secretary of State, the State Department and eight other government agencies sanctioned the Russian nuclear agencys purchase of a controlling stake in Uranium One. The Toronto-based company owns mines, mills and tracts of lands across the US, equal to 20 per cent of US uranium capacity.

The New York Times reported that the Russian deal did not raise so many red flags concerning national security but more about US dependence on foreign suppliers of uranium. While the US gets a fifth of its electricity from nuclear power, it only generates a fifth of its required uranium.

The Russia nuclear agency, which bought the stake, also builds nuclear weapons. But it does not have licences to export uranium outside of the US, and could have been interested in Uranium Ones assets in Kazakhstan in a quest for Vladimir Putin to obtain control of the global uranium supply.

 Trump's presidency could be finished by Russia investigations, former NSA analyst says

Only former President Barack Obama had the power to veto the deal.

At the time, his government wanted to reset its relationship with Russia to get it on board with the Iran nuclear deal.

Mr Trump called the nuclear deal a disaster, prompting critics to fear his part in destabilising relationships in the Middle East.

 Republican says there is 'more than circumstantial evidence' of Trump-Russia collusion

In his late-night tweets, the President also called for people to pay attention to John Podestas links to a Russian company.

Conservative website The Daily Caller found that Ms Clintons former campaign chair failed to disclose 75,000 shares in a Russian-financed energy company, Joule, the same month he took a role in the Obama administration. Mr Podesta became a member of the board of directors in early 2011, according to a press release. Months afterwards, the US branch of a Russian state-owned enterprise invested $35 million in the company, found McClatchy reporters. Mr Podesta left in January when Mr Obama appointed him as a special counsellor.

Another focus of Mr Trumps displeasure was Bill Clintons making money from Russia for giving speeches.

Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Show all 15 1 /15 Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Andrew Harnik/AP Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Darren McCollester/Getty Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Mary Schwalm/Reuters Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Brian Snyder/Reuters Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Brian Snyder/Reuters Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Brian Snyder/Reuters Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Brian Snyder/Reuters Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Brian Snyder/Reuters Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Andrew Harnik/AP Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Andrew Harnik/AP Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Darren McCollester/Getty Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Andrew Harnik/AP Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Andrew Harnik/AP Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Andrew Harnik/AP Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Andrew Harnik/AP

Mr Clinton gave speeches all over the world, many of which fetched $500,000 a time. This included Russian finance corporate Renaissance Capital in 2010 when his wife was Secretary of State. The White House denied at the time that there was any quid pro quo arrangement.

Mr Trump also criticised Ms Clinton for "praising Russia". Yet he has also come under fire for calling Mr Putin "very smart" for not retaliating to Mr Obama's sanctions and praising the way Russia has dealt with Syria, despite being accused of committing war crimes.

The President's feud with Ms Clinton appears far from over.

During the campaign trail, Mr Trumps supporters chanted lock her up and he encouraged Russian operatives to hack Ms Clintons computer server to find the 33,000 emails that she allegedly deleted. He also vowed during a debate to hire a special prosecutor to investigate her alleged misuse of her personal email server when she was at the State Department.

When he became President, he told the New York Times that he didnt want to hurt the Clintons and would not pursue any such investigation.

He has since dismissed and downplayed reports from the CIA and the FBI that Mr Putin allowed a campaign of influence over the 2016 election to give Mr Trump a helping hand. He also denied having any business or interest in Russia, but vowed it was better to be friendly with the leader than not.
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President Donald Trump has signed new legislation repealing regulation designed to protect workers from wage theft. The Obama-era rule penalised businesses that violated wage and safety laws by pulling their government contracts if they racked up too many offences.

Those employee protections are now a thing of the past and, as the Huffington Post reports, Congressional Republicans argued that the regulation were too restrictive and killed jobs. Lawmakers used the Congressional Review Act on Monday to effectively repeal the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule. Republicans have employed the rarely used law to revoke more than a dozen Obama-era policies since Mr Trump took office.

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On Monday evening, President Trump commended the new resolution. Today I'm signing 4 bills under the Congressional Review Act that cancels regulations & eliminates unnecessary, job-killing rules," he wrote on Twitter.

The regulation forced businesses to disclose each time they broke a law in the past three years, including violations relating to civil rights, health and safety, and minimum wage and overtime violations.

But White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer argued that the protections were making it difficult for businesses to grow.

The rule simply made it too easy for trial lawyers to go after American companies and American workers who contract with the federal government, he said in a briefing. The president saw that workers, tax and businesses truly suffered under this rule.

People strike across America for A Day Without Immigrants Show all 16 1 /16 People strike across America for A Day Without Immigrants People strike across America for A Day Without Immigrants Demonstrators march during the "Day Without Immigrants" protest in Chicago, Illinois, February 16, 2017. Theopolis Waters/Reuters People strike across America for A Day Without Immigrants Demonstrators march during the "Day Without Immigrants" protest in Washington, DC, U.S., February 16, 2017. Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters People strike across America for A Day Without Immigrants Protesters march in the streets outside the Texas State Capital on 'A Day Without Immigrants' February 16, 2017 in Austin, Texas. The crowd, which grew to well over a thousand participants, marched from the Austin City Hall to the Texas State Capital. Across the country hundreds of restaurants and eateries are closing for the day to protest President Trump's immigration policies and to highlight the contributions of immigrants to U.S. business and life. Drew Anthony Smith/Getty People strike across America for A Day Without Immigrants Protesters march in the streets outside the Texas State Capital on 'A Day Without Immigrants' February 16, 2017 in Austin, Texas. Drew Anthony Smith/Getty People strike across America for A Day Without Immigrants AUSTIN, TX - FEBRUARY 16: Protesters march in the streets outside the Texas State Capital on 'A Day Without Immigrants' February 16, 2017 in Austin, Texas. Drew Anthony Smith/Getty People strike across America for A Day Without Immigrants Demonstrators march during the "Day Without Immigrants" protest in Chicago, Illinois, February 16, 2017. Theopolis Waters/Reuters People strike across America for A Day Without Immigrants Demonstrators march during the "Day Without Immigrants" protest in Chicago, Illinois, February 16, 2017. Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters People strike across America for A Day Without Immigrants Protesters march in the streets outside the Texas State Capital on 'A Day Without Immigrants' February 16, 2017 in Austin, Texas. The crowd, which grew to well over a thousand participants, marched from the Austin City Hall to the Texas State Capital. Across the country hundreds of restaurants and eateries are closing for the day to protest President Trump's immigration policies and to highlight the contributions of immigrants to U.S. business and life. Drew Anthony Smith/Getty People strike across America for A Day Without Immigrants Protesters march in the streets outside the Texas State Capital on 'A Day Without Immigrants' February 16, 2017 in Austin, Texas. Drew Anthony Smith/Getty People strike across America for A Day Without Immigrants Protesters march in the streets outside the Texas State Capital on 'A Day Without Immigrants' February 16, 2017 in Austin, Texas. Drew Anthony Smith/Getty People strike across America for A Day Without Immigrants Protesters march in the streets outside the Texas State Capital on 'A Day Without Immigrants' February 16, 2017 in Austin, Texas. Drew Anthony Smith/Getty People strike across America for A Day Without Immigrants Protesters march in the streets outside the Texas State Capital on 'A Day Without Immigrants' February 16, 2017 in Austin, Texas. Drew Anthony Smith/Getty People strike across America for A Day Without Immigrants Protesters march in the streets outside the Texas State Capital on 'A Day Without Immigrants' February 16, 2017 in Austin, Texas. Drew Anthony Smith/Getty People strike across America for A Day Without Immigrants Protesters march in the streets outside the Texas State Capital on 'A Day Without Immigrants' February 16, 2017 in Austin, Texas. The crowd, which grew to well over a thousand participants marched from the Austin City Hall to the Texas State Capital. Across the country hundreds of restaurants and eateries are closing for the day to protest President Trump's immigration policies and to highlight the contributions of immigrants to U.S. business and life. Drew Anthony Smith/Getty People strike across America for A Day Without Immigrants High school student Kathia Suarez holds up a sign as she protests with others outside the Grayson County courthouse in downtown Sherman, Texas, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017. LM Otero/AP People strike across America for A Day Without Immigrants High school senior Vicky Sosa holds a sign outside the Grayson County courthouse in downtown Sherman, Texas, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017. In an action called "A Day Without Immigrants," immigrants across the country are expected to stay home from school, work and close businesses to show how critical they are to the U.S. economy and way of life. LM Otero/AP

Shortly after the President signed the resolution, Democratic leaders and left-leaning think tanks slammed the Presidents decision, calling him an enemy of the everyday American worker.

When President Trump has a chance to stand with workers, he chooses not to, Heidi Shierholz, the chief economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said in a statement. By blocking this rule, the president and congressional Republicans will ensure that taxpayers will continue to support contractors with a history of wage theft and health and safety violations.

Nanci Pelosi of California, the House Democratic Leader, said that the President has "proved yet again that he will choose his wealthy corporate friends over hard-working American families each and every time."

Under President Trump, working families are first to have their rights to affordable health care targeted; first to have their safety protections cut; and first to see their access to fair wages and civil rights laws besieged, she continued.

By repealing the commonsense Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule that ensured government contractors treat their workers fairly, President Trump and Congressional Republicans are again expressing their disdain for working families across America. Republicans long-standing anti-worker agenda weakens our nation and undermines Americas middle-class.
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The state of Michigan has agreed to fund the replacement of thousands of lead-tainted water lines to settle a lawsuit filed by Flint residents and an environmental group last year.

Michigan will be paying $87 million to replace more than 18,000 galvanised-steel water lines by 2020 in the struggling city, the Associated Press reports. The 92-page settlement will be presented to a judge for his approval on Tuesday morning.

Under the agreement, the state will still provide free bottled water distribution centres and delivery services for Flint residents. Officials will also set aside another $10 million in case more pipes need replaced.

In pictures: Flint water crisis Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Flint water crisis In pictures: Flint water crisis Anthony Fordham picks up bottled water from the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan to deliver to a school after elevated lead levels were found in the city's water in Flint Reuters In pictures: Flint water crisis Michigan National Guard Staff Sergeant William Phillips (L) assists a Flint resident with bottled water at a fire station in Flint Reuters In pictures: Flint water crisis Flint residents Arthur Woodson, left, and Tony Palladino Jr. protest the arrival of Flint native and filmmaker Michael Moore as Moore accuses Gov.Rick Snyder of poisoning Flint water during a rally outside of city hall in Flint AP In pictures: Flint water crisis Flint residents pick up bottled water and water filters at a fire station in Flint. Michigan National Guard members were set to arrive in Flint to join door-to-door efforts to distribute bottled water and other supplies to residents coping with the city's crisis over lead-contaminated drinking water Reuters In pictures: Flint water crisis Soldiers from the Michigan Army National Guard Flint prepare to give Flint residents bottled water at a fire station in Flint Getty Images In pictures: Flint water crisis Justin Roberson (L), age 6, of Flint, Michigan and Mychal Adams, age 1, of Flint wait on a stack of bottled water at a rally where the Rev. Jesse Jackson was speaking about about the water crises at the Heavenly Host Baptist Church in Flint Getty Images In pictures: Flint water crisis A man sits next to a stack of bottled water at the Heavenly Host Baptist Church in Flint 2016 Getty Images In pictures: Flint water crisis The top of a water tower is seen at the Flint Water Plant. President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in Michigan and ordered federal aid to be used to help state and local response efforts to an area affected by contaminated water Reuters In pictures: Flint water crisis Rosie Wright, center, rallies with the crowd over Flint's water crisis in Ann Arbor, Michigan AP In pictures: Flint water crisis Rick Catherman participates in a rally around Flint's water crisis in Ann Arbor, Michigan AP

The man-made water crisis began in 2014 when city officials swapped the water supply from the Detroit River to the Flint River. Lead soon began contaminating the citys water source. Authorities also failed to treat the corrosion.

The proposed agreement is a win for the people of Flint, Dimple Chaudhary, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which represents Flint citizens, told the AP. It provides a comprehensive framework to address lead in Flint tap water and covers a number of critical issues related to water safety.

In January of this year, the water quality in Flint improved to federal standards but officials still warned residents not to drink the water, deeming it unsafe because the pipes still needed to be replaced.

We are not out of the woods yet, Mayor Karen Weaver then said in a statement to the New York Times. We still need help and support from the state and federal government so that all of the estimated 20,000 lead-tainted pipes remaining in the city will be replaced.
Egyptian Minister of Investment and International Cooperation Sahar Nasr promised at a meeting by the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt on Tuesday legal reforms that would support investors and minimise obstacles they currently face.

Nasr said that new legislation should include incentives for investors in certain fields, particularly those that create more job opportunities, increase exports or offer products that Egypt currently imports.

During the Tuesday meeting, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt Anis Aclimandos expressed optimism over increasing US investments to Egypt.

Aclimandos said that the planned visit by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to the US in April to meet US President Donald Trump will improve relations between the two countries, especially in the political and economic fields.

According to Aclimandos, El-Sisi will be accompanied by representatives from the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt and the US-Egypt Business Council. The representatives will be meeting with US businessmen to explain Egypts economic reform plans.

Trade between the two countries has exceeded $5.5 billion and involves 1,000 American companies investing in Egypt, Aclimandos added, highlighting what he described as strong relations between the two countries.

Head of the Egyptian American Council Omar Mehanna said that the visit will be different from previous visits, since it comes amid improved relations with the US under the Trump presidency.

Egypt had strained relations with former US President Barack Obama's administration, which had temporarily suspended military aid after the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

Following Trumps electoral win, the White House said that Trumps administration is committed to maintaining the US's annual military aid to Egypt. Trump also commended El-Sisi on the country's economic reform programme.

Egypts economic reform plan includes cutting state subsidies and increasing taxes. Egypts Central Bank also freely floated the pound last November as part of the reform plan.

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Ivanka Trump has been accused of unfairly profiting from her political connections in a class action lawsuit against her clothing brand.

San Francisco based fashion boutique, Modern Appealing Clothing (MAC), has filed a class action suit on behalf of all womens clothing brands in California.

It claims that sales of Ms Trump's brand have surged several hundred per cent since her father was elected as President in November.

It attributed the rise in part to Donald Trump and his employees using their White House platform to promote the 35-year-olds products.

 Trevor Noah attacks Ivanka Trump over 'possible conflict of incest'

President Donald J Trump and his individual and White House employees and agents have, since the elections promoted defendant Ivanka Trump brand by exploiting the power and prestige of the White House, the lawsuit says.

It also accuses them of piggy-backing promotion" of Ms Trump's products at government events.

MAC is seeking unspecified damages and a restraining order against Ms Trump preventing her from selling her lines in California.

My clients just want an even playing field, the company's attorney R Michael Lieberman told Courthouse News.

 Kellyanne Conway tells Americans to 'go buy Ivanka's stuff'

Ms Trump has been mentioned by both her father and members of his staff since he entered the White House.

The President's senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, triggered an ethics review in February after she endorsed Ms Trumps clothing brand from the White House briefing room.

Im going to give a free commercial here, she told Fox & Friends. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online.

Her comments echoed those of the President, who had previously taken to Twitter to condemn clothing retailer Nordstrom after they decided to top stocking Ms Trumps clothing, Marks LLC.

Despite other retailers including Neiman Marcus, Sears and Kmart dropping Ms Trumps brand in the past year, sales of her clothing lines were up by 346 per cent between January and February compared to the same period last year, according to retailing data tracker Lyst.

Ms Trump has nonetheless distanced herself from her business since the November election and it is now run day-to-day by executive Abigal Klem, according to The New York Times.

She has also placed the firm's assets in a trust overseen by relatives of her husband, Jared Kushner, a senior White House adviser.

However, she maintains control of the brand.

President Donald Trump life in pictures Show all 16 1 /16 President Donald Trump life in pictures President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump poses in a rocking chair once used by President John F. Kennedy at his New York City residence Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Developer Donald Trump with his new bride Marla Maples after their wedding at the Plaza hotel in New York Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Celina Midelfart watch the match between Conchita Martinez and Amanda Coetzer during U.S. Open. She was the date whom Donald Trump was with when he met his current wife Melania at a party in 1996 Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas serving as the grand marshal for the Daytona 500, speaks to Donald Trump and Melania Knauss on the starting grid at the Daytona International Speedwa Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Developer Donald Trump talks with his former wife Ivana Trump during the men's final at the U.S. Open Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and his friend Melania Knauss pose for photographers as they arrive at the New York premiere of Star Wars Episode : 'The Phantom Menace,' Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump talks with host Larry King. Trump told King that he was moving toward a possible bid for the United States presidency with the formation of a presidential exploratory committee Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump answers questions as Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura looks on in Brooklyn Park. Trump said on Friday he 'very well might' make a run for president under the Reform Party banner but had not made a final decision Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire Donald Trump makes a face at a friend as he sits next to Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso before the start of the 2003 Miss Universe pageant in Panama City Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Entrepreneur Donald Trump is greeted by a Marilyn Monroe character look-a-alike, as he arrives at Universal Studios Hollywood to attend the an open casting call for his NBC television network reality series 'The Apprentice.' Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Simon Cowell present an Emmy during the 56th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Megan Mullally perform at the 57th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump, poses with his children, son Donald Trump, Jr., and daughters Tiffany and Ivanka Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire Donald Trump told Miss USA 2006 Tara Conner on Tuesday she would be given a second chance after reported misbehavior Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump holds a replica of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as his wife Melania holds their son Barron in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures U.S. property mogul Donald Trump stands next to a bagpiper during a media event on the sand dunes of the Menie estate, the site for Trump's proposed golf resort, near Aberdeen, north east Scotland Reuters

The lawsuit is the latest court challenge to allege that Mr Trump and his associates' businesses have gained an unfair advantage since he entered the White House.

Earlier his month, a wine bar in Washington DC filed a lawsuit claiming it was impossible to compete with a nearby multi-million dollar hotel and restaurant owned by the President.

A spokesperson from Ms Trump's clothing brand has declined to comment on the MAC lawsuit.
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A Russian bank under Western economic sanctions over Russia's incursion into Ukraine has disclosed that its executives met Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a top White House adviser, in December.

A US Senate committee investigating suspected Russian interference in the election wants to interview Trump associates, including Kushner, 36, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and has agreed to testify.

Kushner previously acknowledged meeting the Russian ambassador to Washington last December and only on Monday did it emerge that executives of Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) had talks with Kushner during a bank roadshow last year.

The bank said in an emailed statement that as part of its preparing a new strategy, its executives met representatives of financial institutes in Europe, Asia and America.

It said roadshow meetings took place with a number of representatives of the largest banks and business establishments of the United States, including Jared Kushner, the head of Kushner Companies. VEB declined to say where the meetings took place or the dates.

There was no immediate comment from Kushner.

Allegations by US intelligence agencies that Russian actors were behind hacking of senior Democratic Party operatives and spreading disinformation linger over Trump's young presidency. Democrats charge the Russians wanted to tilt the election toward the Republican, a claim dismissed by Trump. Russia denies the allegations.

But there has been no doubt that the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, developed contacts among the Trump team. Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign on February 13 after revelations that he had discussed US sanctions on Russia with Kislyak and misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations.

US officials said that after meeting with Russian Kislyak at Trump Tower last December, a meeting also attended by Flynn, Kushner met later in December with Sergei Gorkov, chairman of Vnesheconombank.

White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks confirmed the meetings, saying nothing of consequence was discussed.

Gorkov was appointed head of VEB in early 2016 by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He graduated from the Federal Security Service, or FSB, Russia's internal security agency. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Merit for Services to the Fatherland, according to the bank's website.

According to two congressional staffers, some Senate investigators want to question Kushner and Flynn about whether they discussed with Gorkov or other Russian officials or financial executives the possibility of investing in 666 Fifth Avenue in New York or other Kushner Co or Trump properties if the new administration lifted the sanctions.

VEB, aside from being under sanctions, has been grappling with bad debt after financing politically expedient projects such as construction for the Sochi Winter Olympics.

It received 150 billion roubles ($2.6 billion) in support from the Russian budget in 2016, when its senior management was sacked and replaced by a team of executives from Russia's biggest lender Sberbank.

In an article posted on December 18, Forbes estimated that Jared Kushner, his brother Josh and his parents, Charles and Seryl, have a fortune of at least $1.8 billion, more than half of which Forbes estimates is held in real estate.

Forbes did not provide a specific estimate for Jared Kushner's net worth on his own.

On Monday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters that Kushner is willing to testify to the Senate Intelligence Committee chaired by US Senator Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican.

"Throughout the campaign and the transition, Jared served as the official primary point of contact with foreign governments and officials... and so, given this role, he volunteered to speak with Chairman Burr's committee, Spicer told reporters at his daily briefing.

The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate panel also said Kushner had agreed to be interviewed but no date had yet been scheduled.

Simply meeting with representatives of a US-sanctioned entity is not a violation of sanctions or against the law.

Evgeny Buryakov, 41, a Russian citizen who worked at Vnesheconombank and whom US authorities accused of posing as a banker while participating in a New York spy ring, pleaded guilty to a criminal conspiracy charge on Friday. Buryakov admitted in federal court in Manhattan to acting as an agent for the Russian government without notifying US authorities.

He was prosecuted by the office of the US attorney in Manhattan under Preet Bharara, who was among several chief prosecutors fired or asked to resign earlier this month by the new administration.

Also on Monday, a mystery rooted in Trump's claim that he was wiretapped by then President Barack Obama during the election campaign deepened with the disclosure that a top congressional Republican reviewed classified information on the White House grounds about potential surveillance of some Trump campaign associates.

US Representative Devin Nunes, chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, visited the White House the night before he announced on Wednesday that he had information that indicated some Trump associates may have been subjected to some level of intelligence activity before Trump took office on January 20.

Democrats have said Nunes, who was a member of Trump's transition team, can no longer run a credible investigation of Russian hacking, the US election and any potential involvement by Trump associates.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, have urged Nunes to recuse himself from the Russia probe.

Nunes told CNN on Monday that he went to the White House grounds because the intelligence information was not available to Congress. He said he did not meet with Trump or his aides at that time and did not coordinate the release of information with the Trump administration.

In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Show all 30 1 /30 In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump President-elect Donald Trump acknowledges guests as he arrives on the platform at the US Capitol in Washington DC Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States by Chief Justice John Roberts as Melania Trump looks on during the 58th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington AP In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump President Donald Trump shakes hands with Justice John Roberts after taking the oath at inauguration ceremonies swearing in Trump as the 45th president of the United States Reuters In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump President Donald Trump raises his fists after his inauguration on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol Getty In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump U.S. President-elect Donald Trump greets outgoing President Barack Obama before Trump is inaugurated during ceremonies on the Capitol in Washington Reuters In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump resident-elect Donald Trump arrives on the platform of the US Capitol in Washington DC Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Attendees partake in the inauguration ceremonies to swear in Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States at the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC Reuters In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump US President Donald Trump delivers his inaugural address during ceremonies at the US Capitol in Washington DC Getty In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump U.S. President Donald Trump waves with wife Melania during the Inaugural Parade in Washington DC Reuters In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Protesters registered their rage against the new president Friday in a chaotic confrontation with police who used pepper spray and stun grenades in a melee just blocks from Donald Trump's inaugural parade route. Scores were arrested for trashing property and attacking officers AP In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Demonstrators protest against US President Donald Trump in Washington DC Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump A woman holds a sign before the start of the Presidential Inauguration of Donald Trump at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Anti-Trump protesters prepare banners for a protest against the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump, in Berlin REUTERS In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Demonstrators shout slogans against US President-elect Donald Trump in Washington DC Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Demonstrators march, block foot traffic and clash with U.S. Capitol Police at the entry checkpoints for the Inauguration of Donald Trump Alamy Live News In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Demonstrators display a banner as people arrive for US President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration in Washington DC Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump A man displays a placard as people lineup to get into the National Mall for the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump in Washington DC Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Protesters demonstrating against U.S. President Donald Trump raise their hands as they are surrounded by police on the sidelines of the inauguration in Washington DC Reuters In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump A demonstrator wearing a mask depicting Donald Trump protests outside the US Embassy in London Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Demonstrators hold placards as they protest outside the US Embassy in London Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Former US President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush arrive for the Presidential Inauguration at the US Capitol Rex In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden share an umbrella as President Donald Trump delivers his inaugural address at the inauguration in Washington DC Rex In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton arrive on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington Reuters In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump U.S. Vice President Mike Pence takes the oath of office on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Advisors to President-elect Donald Trump, Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon depart from services at St. John's Church during the Presidential Inauguration in Washington Reuters In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Protesters demonstrating against U.S. President Donald Trump take cover as they are hit by pepper spray by police on the sidelines of the inauguration in Washington DC Reuters In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump An activist demonstrating against U.S. President Donald Trump is helped after being hit by pepper spray on the sidelines of the inauguration in Washington DC Reuters In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump A police officer tries to tackle a protester demonstrating against U.S. President Donald Trump Reuters/Adrees Latif In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Police arrest and detain a protester in the street in Washington DC Rex In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump A police officer falls to the ground as another shoots pepper spray at protesters demonstrating against U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the inauguration in Washington DC Reuters

Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said in a statement that Nunes met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source.

White House spokesman Spicer did not shed any light on who at the White House helped Nunes gain access to a secure location.

It was the latest twist in a saga that began on March 4 when Trump said on Twitter without providing evidence that he just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory.

FBI Director James Comey told Congress last Monday he had seen no evidence to support the claim.

Reuters
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A couple are taking the US state of Georgia to court after they were banned from naming their daughter Allah.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia filed the lawsuit in Fulton County Superior Court on behalf of the couple, Elizabeth Handy and Bilal Walk.

Georgia's Department of Public Health refused to grant the 22-month-old child a birth certificate, saying state law requires a baby's surname to be either to be either that of the mother or father for the initial birth record.

State officials say the child's name  ZalyKha Graceful Lorraina Allah  should either be Handy, Walk or a combination of the two.

Allah is the Arabic word referring to God.

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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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. 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The couple told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution they gave their child the name Allah because it is "noble" but has nothing to do with religion.

The unmarried couple already have a young son called Masterful Mosirah Aly Allah, the lawsuit states.

"Simply put, we have a personal understanding that we exercise in regards to the names," Mr Walk told the paper.

"It is nothing that we want to go into detail about, because it is not important. What is important is the language of the statute and our rights as parents."

The ACLU of Georgia filed the lawsuit on behalf of the couple, who said they can't get a Social Security number for their daughter because they don't have a birth certificate.

They also anticipated problems with access to health care, schools and travel, The Journal-Constitution reported.

"It is just plainly unfair and a violation of our rights," Mr Walk said.

The state's decision is an example of government overreach and a violation of the First and 14th Amendments, ACLU of Georgia Executive Director Andrea Young said.

"The parents get to decide the name of the child. Not the state. It is an easy case," said Michael Baumrind, another attorney representing the family.
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Three teenagers who allegedly broke into a house in Oklahoma have been shot dead by the homeowners son using an AR-15 assault rifle.

The three teenagers were aged 16, 17 and 18-years-old and two of them were armed, police said, one with a knife and another with brass knuckles, ABC Tulsa reported.

The son of the Wagoner County homeowner, aged 23, had been asleep when he heard loud bangs coming from the back door, officers told NewsOn6.

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He reportedly armed himself with an AR-15 rifle and walked towards the back door, where he found the three teenagers wearing masks and gloves. They had shattered the back door as they entered the home, officers alleged.

A spokesperson for Wagoner County Sheriffs office said in a statement the three suspects forced entry into the home in Broken Arrow through the back door.

Upon making entry to the home one of the residents fired a rifle striking all three of the suspects.

Two of the suspects died inside the home while one was able to run to the driveway before succumbing to his injuries, the statement read.

Police have not released the identities of the suspects.

A 21-year-old getaway driver, Elizabeth Marie Rodriguez, turned herself into police hours after the incident claiming she had information.

She has been arrested on three counts of first degree murder and three counts of first degree burglary.

The law in Oklahoma allows a person believed to be committing a felony that results in death to face murder charges even if they did not commit murder, FoxNews23 reports.
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The push to end homelessness among veterans would suffer without the US Interagency Council on Homelessness, which is up for elimination under President Donald Trump's proposed budget, non-profits and local officials say.

The council coordinates the efforts of 19 federal agencies that play a role in preventing and ending homelessness among all Americans. But the strides made with the subset of veterans - for whom homelessness has been effectively ended in three states and dozens of communities amid a concerted effort - make the proposed cuts particularly upsetting to advocates.

Homeless advocates in any given state consult the council, whose annual budget is about $3.5 million, on which strategies are working elsewhere as they seek to house veterans. They worry momentum will slow.

We've learned how to end homelessness, said Nonie Brennan, chief executive of the nonprofit All Chicago. It would be a tremendous shame if we were not able to continue to implement these strategies in our communities across the country.

Adding to the ire and confusion, the budget proposal also says the Trump administration will support Department of Veterans Affairs programmes for homeless and at-risk veterans and their families, but doesn't elaborate. Trump, who promised on the campaign trail to support veterans, wants to give the VA a 6 percent increase.

Still, the federal government needs someone to make sure housing resources are well spent, and to look across agencies for solutions instead of just down at their own, advocates say.

Without coordination and oversight and giving some thought to how the money should best be spent, the money may not go to the people who need it most, said Hank Hughes, of the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness.

The White House's $1.15 trillion plan, released this month, emphasises military and other security-related spending and slashes many domestic programmes. The proposal is the first step in a lengthy process that requires congressional approval.

Proponents of small government praised it. The interagency council, created during the Reagan administration, is one of 19 independent agencies for which Trump proposed eliminating funding.

The federal government needs to prioritise what it does, said Dan Holler at Heritage Action for America, the advocacy arm of the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation.

It's the community groups and local officials who know best how to help homeless people and other underserved groups in their area, he added. The White House Office of Management and Budget didn't respond to a question about the rationale for eliminating the council.

Navy veteran Stephen Matthews, 55, doesn't want to see a system changed that has helped him and many others.

Recommended Army veteran faces deportation to Mexico after serving two tours

There are other programmes they could cut. We don't need to go to Mars, he said, referring to legislation Trump signed last week adding human exploration of the red planet to Nasa's mission. Don't eliminate these programmes that are helping people.

Matthews was homeless last year and now uses a federal rental assistance voucher to help pay for his apartment in Rhode Island. Some advocates fear that in addition to the loss of the council, fewer rental assistance vouchers will be available for the homeless. The budget proposes a 13.2 percent cut to the Housing and Urban Development Department.

The number of homeless veterans nationwide is down 47 percent, or about 35,000 people, since 2010, but there are roughly 40,000 more, HUD said in August. Homelessness among veterans is effectively ended in Virginia, Connecticut and Delaware and in about 40 communities, according to the council, including New Jersey's most populous county.

We would not have dared to attempt such a bold goal without their leadership, said Julia Orlando, director of the Housing, Health and Human Services Center in Bergen County.

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 council ensures agencies aren't duplicating spending and efforts, or spending money at cross-purposes, and it serves as a clear way into the federal process for communities tackling the issue, said Jake Maguire, spokesman for the nonprofit Community Solutions, which does similar work to tackle homelessness.

He's hopeful the president, a businessman, will learn more about the council and keep it.

I think anyone who has worked in business knows that if you have 19 people working on something, he said, you need someone coordinating that work.

Associated Press
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The US has joined Russia, China and several other nuclear states in sitting out of the latest UN talks on banning nuclear weapons.

Supporters of nuclear disarmament say it is time to push harder to eliminate the weapons than nations have done in the nearly 50 years since the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed.

But the nuclear powers say an outright ban would not work and they should stick with the gradual approach.

The treaty, signed in 1968, recognised five nuclear states  the US, the UK, the USSR (now Russia), China and France  and agreed to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and the gradual decommissioning of atomic weapons.

But India and Pakistan are also believed to have nuclear weapons and refused to sign it. Israel, another a non-signatory, remains deliberately opaque about its nuclear status and has never carried out a public test, but is believed to have at least some weapons of mass destruction.

North Korea withdrew from the treaty in 2003 and has been carrying out nuclear tests with increasing frequency over the past few years.

More than 100 countries voted for a UN General Assembly resolution last year to start discussions, with nations including Austria, Brazil and Ireland leading the effort.

 Films of nuclear bomb tests from mid-20th century become declassified and accessible

With international tensions rising while public awareness of the nuclear threat has waned, the need for progress on nuclear disarmament has rarely been as urgent as it is today, UN under-secretary general for disarmament Kim Won-soo said as the talks opened.

US ambassador Nikki Haley said that as a mother, as a daughter there was nothing I want more than a world without nuclear weapons but they had to be realistic.

She joined colleagues from the UK, France and around 20 other nations, including non-nuclear states, in gathering outside the UN General Assembly Hall in New York to show opposition to the talks.

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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. 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Ms Haley, the former governor of South Carolina who was appointed by Donald Trump in January, said the move would mean disarming nations that were trying to keep peace and safety while bad actors could continue on unchecked.

She said: North Korea would be the one cheering, and all of us and the people we represent would be the ones at risk.

Opponents of the ban say gradual disarmament has made a difference. The US has reduced its nuclear arsenal by 85 per cent under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Ms Haley said, and the UK has cut its nuclear forces by over 50 per cent since the height of the Cold War, according to ambassador Matthew Rycroft.

"Our countries continue to rely on nuclear deterrence for security and stability," French deputy ambassador Alexis Lamek said.

Chinese and Russian representatives did not join the boycotters news conference but said they would not participate in the talks.

The negotiations aim to create "a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination". Backers hope a document will be produced by July.

Any treaty would bind only nations that ratified it, but despite the opposition from key nuclear players, supporters of the ban feel it could help create a new international norm of rejecting atomic arms.

Additional reporting by AP
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The swirling controversy over possible links between Donald Trumps campaign team and Russia has taken a new twist after it was claimed the White House sought to stop a former senior official from testifying before congress.

The House Intelligence Committee has cancelled all meetings scheduled for this week, where it was due to hear testimony from, among others, former acting attorney general Sally Yates.

Ms Yates was forced to step down after refusing to enact Mr Trumps Muslim travel ban. She had earlier told the Trump campaign that security advisor Michael Flynn may have left himself vulnerable to blackmail attempts from Moscow after lying about conversations with the Russian Ambassador to Washington.

The Washington Post said it had reviewed letters from the Department of Justice in which it told Ms Yates it considered much of her possible testimony to be barred from discussion at the committee hearing. It said this was because the topics were covered by the presidential communication privilege.

Ms Yates and other former intelligence officials had been asked to testify before the House Intelligence Committee this week, a hearing that was cancelled by the panels chairman, Congressman Devin Nunes.

The decision to cancel the hearing came amid criticism from Democrats after it was revealed that Mr Nunes, a Republican, travelled to the grounds of the White House to review intelligence reports and meet a secret source to bolster his claim that communications involving associates of Mr Trump were caught up in incidental surveillance.

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Adam Schiff, as well as the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, have called on Mr Nunes to recuse himself from the committee's Russia probe.

In January, Ms Yates warned White House Counsel Don McGahn that statements made by White House officials about Mr Flynns contacts with the ambassador were incorrect, and could therefore expose the national security adviser to future blackmail.

 Jeff Sessions presses Sally Yates on her need for independence from the White House

Jeremy Bash, a former chief of staff at both the Defence Department and CIA under Barack Obama, claimed Mr Nunes had come up with the story about travelling to the White House to block the testimony of Ms Yates.

The real story, the real issue here, is not so much about the midnight run by the chairman onto the White House grounds, its really that they wanted to cancel the hearing this week, Mr Bash told MSNBC.

The hearing this week was going to hear from Sally Yates, the former acting attorney general, and Im told that she had some very interesting things to tell the committee, to tell the public about when she told the White House counsel that Mike Flynn had, in fact, been lying to the vice president.

He added: She was only going to be able to speak those things in the context of a congressional hearing, and so the White House and the chairman needed to shut her down. This was an elaborately choreographed gag order on Sally Yates.

CNN said the White House has denied the allegation.
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Russias alleged interference in last years US presidential election could be considered an act of war, according to former US Vice President Dick Cheney.

Mr Cheney, who was George W Bushs deputy between 2001 and 2009, said there was no question that Vladimir Putin had attempted to influence the election outcome.

Theres no question there was a very serious effort made by Putin and his government, his organisation, to interfere in major ways with our basic fundamental democratic processes, Mr Cheney said during a speech at a business conference in New Delhi, India.

In some quarters, that would be considered an act of war. I think its a kind of conduct and activity we will see going forward. We know hes attempted it previously in other states in the Baltics.

"I would not underestimate the weight that we, as Americans, assign to the Russian attempts to interfere with our internal political processes," he added.

US intelligence agencies have claimed Moscow was responsible for several hacks on computers belonging to the Democratic Party and senior members of Hillary Clintons campaign team  the contents of which were later released by Wikileaks.

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

A number of congressional committees are carrying out investigations into the allegations, and last week James Comey, the Director of the FBI, announced his organisation had also launched an inquiry.

Russia has consistently denied having any involvement in the election and says it was not behind the hacks.

During his speech, Mr Cheney also accused Mr Putin of trying to destabilise the Nato military alliance of Western countries.

"He is doing everything he can to find ways to undermine Nato, he said.
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President Donald Trump has signed an executive order rolling back Obama-era rules aimed at tackling global warming.

The order seeks to suspend, rescind or flag for review more than a half-dozen measures in an effort to boost domestic energy production in the form of fossil fuels.

As part of the roll-back, Mr Trump will initiate a review of the Clean Power Plan, which restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants. The regulation, which was the Barack Obama's signature effort to curb carbon emissions, has been the subject of long-running legal challenges by Republican-led states and those who profit from burning oil, coal and gas.

President Trump signed the order at the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), saying that this is the start of a new era in energy production. He also said that his administration was going to end the war on coal.

Mr Trump has previously called global warming a hoax, and has repeatedly criticised Mr Obama's efforts as an attack on American workers and the struggling US coal industry.

Environmental advocates are not surprised by the order  given such remarks  but say Mr Trump has not considered the public health and economic implications of not fighting climate change or how the order negatively affects US standing in the world.

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

Laurence Tubbiana, formerly the top French diplomat on climate change and now the CEO of the European Climate Foundation, said in a statement that the order will propel the economy backwards.

Anne Kelly a Senior Director at Ceres, a coalition of investors and business that promote sustainability, told The Independent that the Clean Power Plan was the crown jewel of the Obama administrations climate plan.

Ms Kelly said it was possibly the most important thing any nation had ever done to reduce carbon emissions.

She explained the Clean Power Plan had bipartisan support and its rollback would hurt not only job creation in renewable energy sector but sends the wrong signal to investors in the private sector.

Mr Trump gave his statement after an off-camera signing ceremony, flanked by coal miners from West Virginia.

He said the order would start a new era[in] making America wealthy again.

Green group Earthjustice was one of many organizations that said it will fight the order both in and out of court. This order ignores the law and scientific reality, said its president, Trip Van Noppen.

Given that private sector investment in the renewable energy industry hit $350 billion in 2016 globally, outpacing new investment in the oil and gas sector for the first time, Ms Kelly said she expects the marketplace is going to go forward regardless of what the White House does.

Several of the countrys largest pension funds, accounting for tens of billions in investment, have already begun divesting money from oil and gas companies in order to ensure a more profitable future for their investors.

Interactive map of US shows how climate change will affect health Show all 2 1 /2 Interactive map of US shows how climate change will affect health Interactive map of US shows how climate change will affect health NRDC Interactive map of US shows how climate change will affect health NRDC

In 2007, under Republican George W. Bushs administration, the Supreme Court ruled that carbon emissions were essentially a pollutant, Ms Kelly explained.

The ruling made it the EPAs responsibility to regulate carbon pollution as a matter of public health after a series of endangerment hearings. Ms Kelly said states were given quite a bit of flexibility in how to reach the goal of reducing carbon emissions as well.

Mr Trump also said during his speech that safety, clean water, and clean air are still priorities, but that his latest order will eliminate the crushing attack on economic freedoms, jobs in coal mining, and American manufacturing by the bad regulations.

Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City and the United Nations Special Envoy on climate change, said rescinding regulations on health and markets is not going to put miners back to work.

Market forces, including consumer preferences and technological advancement, are the primary reason for the surge in cleaner forms of energy, said Mr Bloomberg.

Solar and wind industries are creating jobs at nearly 12 times faster than the rest of the American economy and an overwhelming majority of wind farms in the US are in Republican districts.

Some see Mr Trumps push to bring back coal jobs as a way to gain support he needs from coal district members of Congress, like Democrat Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Additionally, Mr Trumps proposed federal budget makes deep cuts to the EPA  removing 28 per cent of funding.

The cuts, if the budget is approved by Congress, will result in the loss of over 2000 jobs and curtails several key programmes.

Mr Trumps proposed budget also has cuts of $100 million across all agencies to programmes related to stemming global warming or combating the effects of climate change.

This includes cuts to the US Coast Guard. It is primarily a maritime security agency but does extensive work in ocean life preservation and monitoring of oil spills and illegal dumping in US waters.

The Trump administration plans on rolling out a more complete federal budget in May.
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Donald Trumps Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross will retain his stake in a shipping company that sails under foreign flags, the Center for Public Integrity reports.

Mr Ross, a billionaire who made his fortune in the private equity business, had said he would divest millions in assets when he took the Cabinet-level position.

However, he will keep his share of Diamond S Shipping Group Inc, which owns and operates one of the worlds largest fleets of medium-range tanker vessels.

The company is based in Greenwich, Connecticut but incorporated in the Marshall Islands. Their ships transport billions in goods across oceans.

Mr Ross's purview as Commerce Secretary includes all cross-border trade involving the US, litigation matters involving anti-dumping in which China is often the opposing party, US exports promotion, the US Census as well as the National Oceanic Atmospheric Agency.

He will also play a prominent role in Mr Trumps proposed re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

According to the Center for Public Integritys investigation, cited by NBC News, Diamond S Shipping sails under Chinese flags, ties to a major Chinese investment fund, and one of its ships has travelled to an Iranian port.

In 2014, Diamond S Shipping filed a document with the Securities and Exchange Commission stating that it will call on ports located in countries subject to sanctions and embargoes imposed by the US government and countries identified . . . as state sponsors of terrorism, such as Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria.

The Center for Public Integritys report also revealed that one of the shippers largest customers has part ownership of a Russian state-owned oil company.

Norman Eisen, chief ethics lawyer during former President Barack Obamas administration, told the Center for Public Integrity that is a challenging situation because Mr Ross investment is so closely related to critical issues in his official portfolio."
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Donald Trumps plan to ditch Barack Obamas flagship policy on climate change is based on a flawed study paid for by the coal industry, a leading environmental think tank has claimed.

The President is expected to issue an Energy Independence executive order which could significantly undermine measures introduced by the Obama administration to reduce carbon emissions. The announcement is also expected to include a review of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan.

The current administration hopes the changes will enable the US to become self-sufficient in energy, create jobs in the coal industry and mean cheaper energy costs for consumers.

However the latter claim is controversial.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) said that, in briefings about the executive order, Trump administration officials had cited only one debunked study as evidence that the Clean Power Plan would lead to increased bills.

The research, detailed in a report called Energy and Consumer Impacts of EPAs Clean Power Plan, by consultancy Nera, concluded the policy would lead to large reductions in carbon dioxide of 36 to 37 per cent by 2031.

But it also added: Energy sector expenditure increases range from $220 to $292bn (spending from 2022 through 2033). For the overall economy, losses to US consumers range from $64bn to $79bn on a present value basis over the same time period.

However the WRI has previously examined the Nera reports figures as part of a review of studies into the effects of the Environmental Protection Agencys Clean Power Plan (CPP).

Of the four studies, only one study [Nera] showed electricity bills increasing unequivocally as a result of the CPP, and it was funded by an advocacy group representing American coal producers, Noah Kaufman of the WRI wrote in January.

The EPA study found that bills would initially increase, then fall. The other two studies, both funded by groups that support action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, found electricity bills would unequivocally fall on account of the CPP.

He criticised the Nera study for using assumptions at or above the top of the range expert forecasts or empirical estimates of the costs of clean energy, but conceded there was a need for truly independent studies.

Andrew Steer, the WRIs president, made clear its opposition to the Presidents plans.

The Trump administration is failing a test of leadership to protect Americans health, the environment and economy, he said.

Its been shown time and again that sustained economic growth and national security are intertwined with good environmental stewardship.

In taking a sledgehammer to US climate action, the administration will push the country backward, making it harder and more expensive to reduce emissions.

Climate science is clear and unwavering: mounting greenhouse gas emissions are warming our planet, putting people and business in harms way. The Clean Power Plan is a flexible and common-sense approach to reduce emissions from the power sector.

10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Show all 10 1 /10 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A group of emperor penguins face a crack in the sea ice, near McMurdo Station, Antarctica Kira Morris 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Floods destroyed eight bridges and ruined crops such as wheat, maize and peas in the Karimabad valley in northern Pakistan, a mountainous region with many glaciers. In many parts of the world, glaciers have been in retreat, creating dangerously large lakes that can cause devastating flooding when the banks break. Climate change can also increase rainfall in some areas, while bringing drought to others. Hira Ali 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Smoke  filled with the carbon that is driving climate change  drifts across a field in Colombia. Sandra Rondon 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Amid a flood in Islampur, Jamalpur, Bangladesh, a woman on a raft searches for somewhere dry to take shelter. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to sea level rise, which is expected to make tens of millions of people homeless by 2050. Probal Rashid 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Sindh province in Pakistan has experienced a grim mix of two consequences of climate change. Because of climate change either we have floods or not enough water to irrigate our crop and feed our animals, says the photographer. Picture clearly indicates that the extreme drought makes wide cracks in clay. Crops are very difficult to grow. Rizwan Dharejo 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Hanna Petursdottir examines a cave inside the Svinafellsjokull glacier in Iceland, which she said had been growing rapidly. Since 2000, the size of glaciers on Iceland has reduced by 12 per cent. Tom Schifanella 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A river once flowed along the depression in the dry earth of this part of Bangladesh, but it has disappeared amid rising temperatures. Abrar Hossain 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A shepherd moves his herd as he looks for green pasture near the village of Sirohi in Rajasthan, northern India. The region has been badly affected by heatwaves and drought, making local people nervous about further predicted increases in temperature. Riddhima Singh Bhati 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A factory in China is shrouded by a haze of air pollution. The World Health Organisation has warned such pollution, much of which is from the fossil fuels that cause climate change, is a public health emergency. Leung Ka Wa 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Water levels in reservoirs, like this one in Gers, France, have been getting perilously low in areas across the world affected by drought, forcing authorities to introduce water restrictions. Mahtuf Ikhsan

Its already helping to shift markets toward clean energy, which is good for the economy and American competitiveness.

Make no mistake, this Executive Order will undermine peoples health and the US economy. It hands moral authority and global leadership over to others, leaving America behind.

However Myron Ebell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institutes Centre for Energy and Environment and a key Trump adviser, welcomed the prospect of the executive order.

It takes the necessary first steps in undoing President Obamas energy-rationing agenda, he told Bloomberg.

Of course, there is more work to be done down the road, most importantly withdrawing from the Paris climate treaty and reopening the endangerment finding.

Shortly after Mr Trump took office, Mr Ebell, who led the Republican transition team in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency, visited 10 Downing Street. It was unclear who he met while there.

In 2005 he described the then UK Chief Scientist, David King, as an alarmist with ridiculous views who knows nothing about climate change. Mr King is now Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's special representative for climate change.


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The House Intelligence Committee has cancelled all meetings scheduled for this week, as mounting hostility threatens to wreck its investigation into links between Russia and the Donald Trump campaign.

The move comes amid criticism from Democrats in the wake of chairman Devin Nunes acknowledging he went to the White House grounds to review intelligence reports and meet a secret source behind his claim that communications involving associates of President Donald Trump were caught up in incidental surveillance.

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Adam Schiff, as well as the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, have called on Mr Nunes to recuse himself from the committee's Russia probe. However, Mr Nunes has rebuffed calls to step aside from the investigation.

It's the same thing as always around this place  a lot of politics, people get heated, but I'm not going to involve myself with that, he said on Tuesday, adding that he would not share his sources with other members of the committee.

Mr Schiff said Mr Nunes' connections to the White House have raised insurmountable public doubts about whether the committee could credibly investigate the president's campaign associates.

I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the president's campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman, Mr Schiff said.

The full committee meetings were cancelled over an increasingly tense back-and-forth that intensified over Mr Nunes' decision to cancel a public hearing set for Tuesday, two sources on the committee told CNN.

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

House Speaker Paul Ryan continued to express confidence in Mr Nunes, saying on Tuesday that there is no need for the chairman to resign.

Mr Nunes confirmed on Monday that he met with the source at the White House complex, but he denied coordinating with the president's aides.

After reviewing the information last week, Mr Nunes called a news conference to announce that US spy agencies may have inadvertently captured Mr Trump and his associates in routine targeting of foreigners' communications. Mr Trump quickly seized on the statements as at least partial vindication for his assertion that President Barack Obama tapped his phones at Trump Tower  though Mr Nunes, Mr Schiff and FBI Director James Comey have said there is no such evidence.

The Senate intelligence committee is also conducting an investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible ties with the Trump campaign.
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The US Secret Service (USSS) has taken a suspect into custody after the White House was put on lockdown when a suspicious package was found near the grounds.

The USSS tweeted:"Suspicious package investigation continues; suspect in custody!"

It came less than an hour after an investigation into the suspicious package was announced and members of the public and media were moved to a safe distance.

"USSS is investigating suspicious package; security perimeter established and members of the public and media are being moved to [a] safe distance," another tweet said.

The north lawn was reportedly evacuated and NBC News reported the south lawn was on "lockdown" due to the package.

It comes after an intruder managed to roam the grounds for more than 15 minutes before being arrested on 10 March.

A California man carrying Mace roamed inside the secured White House perimeter before he was taken into custody near the South Portico entrance, the Secret Service acknowledged.

The man did not enter the White House, the agency said, without further explaining the delay in his capture or details about alarms, protocols or responses that may have failed.

President Donald Trump was in the residence at the time of the breach.
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A white supremacist accused of stabbing a 66-year-old black man to death has been charged with murder as an act of terrorism.

James Harris Jackson, 28, allegedly selected his victim at random in Manhattan, New York, and has said the attack was a practice run for a larger attack.

Jackson, a former army veteran, told the New York Daily News he was on a mission to prevent interracial relationships.

 CCTV shows James Harris Jackson running moments after stabbing Timothy Caughman

He said he envisioned a white woman thinking: Well, if that guy feels so strongly about it, maybe I shouldn't do it.

The victim, Timothy Caughman, who was described a gentleman and a good neighbour, was alone collecting bottles to recycle last week when he was attacked from behind with a sword with an 18-inch blade.

Jackson appeared in court on Monday, as prosecutors charged him with murder as an act of terrorism in addition to the murder as a hate crime charge he already faced.

He faces life in prison without a chance of parole.

Jackson did not speak, and his attorney did not comment.

James Jackson prowled the streets of New York for three days in search of a black person to assassinate in order to launch a campaign of terrorism against our Manhattan community and the values we celebrate, District Attorney Cy Vance said in a statement.

Last week, with total presence of mind, he acted on his plan, randomly selecting a beloved New Yorker solely on the basis of his skin colour, and stabbing him repeatedly and publicly on a Midtown street corner."

He added: James Jackson wanted to kill black men, planned to kill black men, and then did kill a black man.

Childhood friends of Mr Caughman, who grew up in Queens, attended the hearing and said he was a kind man.

Tim Caughman did not deserve to die like that, said Portia Clark. Nobody does. I mean, come on, we're black, white, yellow, brown  that's ridiculous. We're trying to get along.

Carl Nimmons, a friend of Mr Caughman, cried outside the courthouse. It really hurt me to see that man [Jackson], because I can't do nothing about it. I don't have the power to do anything about it, he said.

In the interview, Jackson said in retrospect, he would rather have killed a young thug or a successful older black man with blondes [...] people you see in Midtown. These younger guys that put white girls on the wrong path.

He complained that on television, it's like every other commercial in the past few years has a mixed-race couple in it.

The white race is being eroded [...] No one cares about you. The Chinese don't care about you, the blacks don't care about you, he said.

He claimed to have had racist thoughts since the age of three, but described his family as being as liberal as they come.

Jackson said he had turned to online forums to discuss his racist views with like-minded people instead.

Jackson, who was raised in what was described as a churchgoing, liberal family in a Baltimore suburb, said his ideal society was 1950s America.

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

Jackson was in the army from 2009 to 2012 and worked as an intelligence analyst, the army said. Deployed in Afghanistan in 2010-11, he earned several medals and attained the rank of specialist.

The military training, Jackson said, helped him plan the bloodshed.

I had been thinking about it for a long time, for the past couple of years, he said.

I figured I would end up getting shot by police, kill myself, or end up in jail.

Additional reporting by agencies
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Italian police have confirmed they foiled a plot to steal the body of legendary Formula One racing pioneer Enzo Ferrari and demand a ransom.

Ferrari, founder of the company that produces some of the world's fastest and most expensive cars, died in 1988 at the age of 90 after making the company's prancing horse logo an internationally recognised brand.

Investigators in Nuoro, on the island of Sardinia, said 34 people had been arrested as part of a massive operation involving helicopters and parachute regiment officers.

 Geneva Motor Show 2017: Ferrari launches 812 Superfast

They suspected a gang had planned to demand a ransom from the Ferrari family or company after spiriting away the body.

Police said the plot was discovered during an investigation into arms and drug trafficking.

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

Ferrari is buried in an above-ground family tomb in the San Cataldo cemetery in Modena, near the Ferrari plant at Maranello in central Italy.

The gang members had allegedly inspected the site several times.

Hugh Jackman was reportedly in talks to play Mr Ferrari in a Michael Mann-directed film.

Christian Bale was originally set to play the entrepreneur but reportedly quit over concerns about how much weight he would have to gain for the role.

Robert De Niro has also been reported to have links with a different biopic about Mr Ferrari, but it is unclear how far the project has progressed.
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Muslims living in Germany are twice as likely as Christians to say they have helped refugees, a new survey has found, but volunteers who are not religious give up the most time on average.

The research by the Bertelsmann Stiftung foundation showed that followers of Islam were more socially engaged than any other group, with 44 per cent reporting they had worked to help refugees in the last year.

About one in five Christians (21 per cent) also said they had helped refugees, while 17 per cent of non religious respondents had volunteered.

In total, one-fifth of Germans said they had donated time to assist refugees.

This voluntary involvement shows that our society sticks together in difficult times, regardless of religion or backgrounds, said Bertelsmann Islam expert Yasemin El-Menouar in a statement.

The survey was the third of its kind by the non-profit, analysing the role of religion in society.

In 2015, Germany opened its doors to refugees, leading 1.1 million asylum seekers to arrive in the country, many from Syria. About 900,000 have been give refugee status.

But Angela Merkel has come under intense criticism for the policy after radicalised asylum seekers carried out three terror attacks claimed by Isis in the country.

In September 2016, the Chancellor admitted she had lost control of the situation and said she wished she could turn back the clock several decades in order to better prepare for the influx of refugees.

For some time, we didn't have enough control, Ms Merkel said in a speech. No one wants a repeat of last year's situation, including me.

Bertelsmann experts said that one reason why Muslims are more engaged than other religious groups could be due to their sense of shared origins: many who volunteer came from the same country as the refugees they helped, such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Bangladesh.

The experts noted that German Muslims can be "important bridge-builders in our society" because they often share language and culture with refugees.

Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Show all 13 1 /13 Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Volunteers walk a group of refugee children towards their school on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Refugee children pose at a makeshift camp on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees A Syrian Kurd mother combs Roza's hair, as she prepares to go to a volunteer-run school in a refugee camp on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Refugee children attend an English language class at the volunteer run school on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Refugee children carry vegetables in a refugee camp on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees A newly arrived Syrian refugee, 13, holds her sister, 2, in a makeshift camp on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Refugee children pretend they go to school as they play in a refugee camp in the island AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees A Greek girl walks past a graffiti on her way to a school on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees A Malian refugee child poses from behind a fence in a makeshift camp AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees A Syrian Kurd mother combs Roza's hair, as she prepares to go to a volunteer-run school in a refugee camp on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees A Syrian family from Aleppo newly arrived to Greece sits in a makeshift camp on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees A child carries a broken blackgammon game in a makeshift camp on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees A child holds onto her mother, Djeneba from Mali, before attending school in a refugee camp on the island of Chios AFP/Getty

Around 28 per cent of Muslims who helped refugees said they volunteered about once a week, compared to 20 per cent of Christians.

Of unaffiliated respondents who said they had helped refugees, more than a third reported doing so at least once a week.

Women were more likely to volunteer than men, and people with a higher level of education or more money were also more likely to have helped refugees.
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A German politician has accused Turkey of carrying out unacceptable spying on its soil amid allegations Recep Tayyip Erdogans government sent agents after more than 300 people.

It is accused of conducting espionage in more than 200 associations and schools linked to supporters of the exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Boris Pistorius, the interior minister for Lower Saxony State, said the move was "intolerable and unacceptable".

"The intensity and ruthlessness with which people abroad are being investigated is remarkable," the minister told a press conference on Tuesday.

He said there was no evidence that Gulen supporters in Germany had anything to do with the attempted coup.

Mr Pistorius accused the Turkish government of having an almost paranoid fear of conspiracy and of trying to silence its critics, with 41,000 arrested in the post-coup crackdown on Gulen supporters.

German media reported that the head of Turkey's MIT intelligence agency demanded help spying on hundreds of suspected Gulenists from Germany's Federal Intelligence Service during last month's Munich Security Conference.

Some of the images included on a list of names were allegedly secretly recorded using CCTV and other means, showing they had been gained using espionage.

 Turkey issues arrest warrant against US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen

"We are horrified at how openly Turkey reveals that it is spying on Turks living here," a German security official was quoted as saying.

Prosecutors are already investigating the use of imams to transmit information on Gulenists to Ankara from German mosques.

Authorities in Lower Saxony and elsewhere are planning to warn those named on the list not to travel to Turkey, fearing they will be detained.

Ankara has accused Mr Gulen of plotting an attempted coup against the Turkish President in July, but he has denied involvement and the allegations are doubted by much of Europe and the US.

His Hizmet movement admits some of its supporters may have been involved in the failed uprising, which left hundreds dead, but ensuing purges seeing thousands jailed and newspapers shut down have been seen as a wider crackdown on dissent.

The Turkish President hit out at the head of Germanys BND foreign intelligence service on Friday for suggesting Berlin is not convinced that Mr Gulen orchestrated Julys coup.

In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Show all 17 1 /17 In pictures: Turkey coup attempt In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish President Erdogan attends the funeral service for victims of the thwarted coup in Istanbul at Fatih mosque on July 17, 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey Burak Kara/Getty Images In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Soldiers involved in the coup attempt surrender on Bosphorus bridge with their hands raised in Istanbul on 16 July, 2016 Gokhan Tan/Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt A civilian beats a soldier after troops involved in the coup surrendered on the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey, 16 July, 2016 REUTERS/Murad Sezer In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Surrendered Turkish soldiers who were involved in the coup are beaten by a civilian Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Soliders involved in the coup attempt surrender on Bosphorus bridge Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wave flags as they capture a Turkish Army vehicle Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt People pose near a tank after troops involved in the coup surrendered on the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey, 16 July, 2016 Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish soldiers block Istanbul's Bosphorus Brigde Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt A Turkish military stands guard near the Taksim Square in Istanbul Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Pierre Crom/Twitter In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish soldiers secure the area as supporters of Recep Tayyip Erdogan protest in Istanbul's Taksim square AP In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Murad Sezer/Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish soldiers detain police officers during a security shutdown of the Bosphorus Bridge Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish Army armoured personnel carriers in the main streets of Istanbul Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Chaos reigned in Istanbul as tanks drove through the streets EPA/TOLGA BOZOGLU In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks to media in the resort town of Marmaris Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Supporters of President Erdogan celebrate in Ankara following the suppression of the attempted coup Reuters

Bruno Kahl told Der Spiegel magazine that Turkey tried to convince us on a number of different levels. But they havent yet been successful.

A report by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee found that evidence of the Gulen movements involvement in the group was anecdotal and circumstantial, as was evidence used for its terrorist designation by the Turkish government.

While some of the individuals involved in the coup may have been Gulenists, given the large number of Gulenist supporters and organisations in Turkey, it does not necessarily follow that the Gulenists were responsible for the coup or that their leadership directed the coup, MPs concluded last week.

A lack of evidence caused Barack Obamas administration to refuse Ankaras calls to extradite Mr Gulen from his home in Pennsylvania but there has been speculation that Donald Trump may not share the position.

Refusals by the American government and much of Europe to recognise the accusations has worsened relations with Turkey amid Mr Erdogans anger over international criticism of crackdowns in the military, government and media since the coup.

Turkey has also been angered by the cancellation of rallies in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, by Turkish government ministers aiming to drum up support for a constitutional referendum being held on 16 April.

Eligible voters living in Europe have started casting ballots, which could swap Turkey's parliamentary democracy for an executive presidency that has generated international alarm over the prospect of dramatically increased powers for Mr Erdogan.
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The Russian Defence Ministry has said the US's deployment of an anti-missile system will spark a new arms race.

The ministry also warned the deployment is a threat to world security designed to contain Russia and China.

The presence of the global ABM [anti-ballistic missile] system lowers the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, because it gives the US the illusion of impunity for using strategic offensive weapons from under the protection of the ABM umbrella, Viktor Poznikhir told a disarmament conference in Genev, according to a translation by the state broadcaster RT.

The ABM shield is a symbol of the build-up of rocket forces in the world and a trigger for a new arms race."

 Cheney: Russian hacking could be 'act of war'

The US has deployed its THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile system in South Korea in response to North Korea's increasingly provocative ballistic missile tests.

It is designed to shoot down short, medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles.

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 Russian defence ministry also said it regarded US naval patrols in the Black Sea as a potential threat to its safety, because it was unclear what kind of missiles the ships were carrying.

Russia, which illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimea in 2014, has its own Black Sea Fleet based at Sevastopol.
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The world is facing a humanitarian crisis bigger than any in living memory, the UN has said, as four countries teeter on the brink of famine.

Twenty million people are at risk of starvation and facing water shortages in Somalia, Nigeria and Yemen, while parts of South Sudan are already officially suffering from famine.

While the UN said in February that at least $4.4 billion (3.5 bn) was needed by the end of March to avert a hunger catastrophe across the four nations, the end of the month is fast approaching, and only 10 per cent of the necessary funds have been received from donor governments so far.

The United Nations and humanitarian partners continue to scale up operations [in the four countries]... Life-saving assistance in the critical areas of food and livelihoods, nutrition, health, and water, sanitation and hygiene is being prioritised within the 2017 humanitarian response plans, UN humanitarian agency spokesperson Jens Laerke said on Tuesday.

Humanitarians need funds and access to do more. The crises are preventable and it is possible to avert this looming humanitarian catastrophe.

 2.1 million children are facing famine in Yemen

"We stand at a critical point in history," the UN's humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien told the Security Council earlier this month. "Without collective and coordinated global efforts, people will simply starve to death. Many more will suffer and die from disease."

Up to 1.4million children will die this year as a result of inaction, Unicef has said.

Of the four famine alerts, only Somalia's is primarily caused by drought, although experts say that climate change has contributed to the deteriorating situation in all four. For many in the impoverished country, the memory of the 2011 famine which killed 250,000 people is still raw.

South Sudan, Nigeria and Yemens food shortages stem from conflicts - something the UN terms man-made food crises.

Nigeria has been battling the Boko Haram insurgency in the countrys north east since 2009, while the newly created South Sudan has been plagued by internal conflict since late 2013.

In Yemen - which has just entered its third year of civil war - over 80 per cent of the population is in need of humanitarian assistance, and 7.3 million have a severe level of food insecurity.

South Sudan situation Show all 7 1 /7 South Sudan situation South Sudan situation A woman waits to be registered prior to a food distribution carried out by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Thonyor, Leer state, South Sudan, Reuters South Sudan situation Women and children wait to be registered prior to a food distribution carried out by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Thonyor, Leer state, South Sudan Reuters South Sudan situation Two women hold their acute malnourished children Getty Images South Sudan situation Two women hold their acute malnourished children, in a stabilisation centre in Ganyiel, Panyijiar county, in South Sudan Getty Images South Sudan situation A woman holds her malnourished child in a stabilisation center in Ganyiel, Panyijiar county, in South Sudan Getty Images South Sudan situation Men unload boxes of nutritional supplements from an helicopter prior to a humanitarian food distribution carried out by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Reuters South Sudan situation A woman collects grains left on the ground after a food distribution Getty Images

The crises are growing at the same time that the US looks to slash its foreign aid budgets under the protectionist revisions of newly elected President Donald Trump.

In 2016, the US was the UNs biggest single donor and also provided more than $2 billion (1.6 bn) to the World Food Programme (WFP) - a quarter of its total budget.

The more dramatic cuts in any aid budgets the more suffering there is going to be, WFPs Africa spokesperson David Orr said in a statement last week.

Without significant contributions from the US government, [the UN] is less able to catalyse contributions from other donors and meet even minimal life-saving needs, Nancy Lindborg, President of the United States Institute of Peace, said in prepared remarks to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last Wednesday.

The plight of the four nations affected will have far-reaching consequences for both their neighbours and the wider world.

Resources in bordering countries - many of which also grapple with food stresses - are likely to be stretched as refugees seek food and water elsewhere. Uganda is already at breaking point, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last week, as it copes with an influx of more than 570,000 South Sudanese refugees since July last year.

It is also expected that many people could join the established migration route from through the Sahel to Libya, and then to Europe. Such movement lines the pockets of traffickers and armed groups, including Isis.

The UN and partner aid groups have plans ready to action to stem the multiple crises, Mr Guterres said, but need funds to be able to carry out the work.

Somalia in a Snapchat, more than just violence

These crises remain among the least discussed and most underfunded in the world despite their extraordinary scale, scope and man-made origins. This is absurd, Ciaran Donnelly, international programmes director at the International Rescue Committee, told the AP.

The IRC and other aid groups have been raising the alarm of an impending famine in South Sudan for months, and instead of taking the warnings seriously, it fell largely on deaf ears, he added.
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British volunteers fighting alongside Kurdish forces in Syria are finding inventive ways of tormenting Isis as they prepare for the assault on the groups de-facto capital of Raqqa.

Members of the socialist Bob Crow Brigade (BCB) told The Independent that while sweeping retaken villages in northern Syria for militants, they had been trolling terrorists over their own communication channels.

We spent some time in the first stage of the Raqqa offensive tuning into Isis frequencies to troll any Isis English volunteers, saying we were MI5 and they had a full pardon waiting for them if they just walked towards our position with their hands up, a spokesman said.

Members of the Bob Crow Brigade at the YPG's International Freedom Battalion headquarters on the Raqqa front (Supplied)

No one fell for it surprisingly enough. Then we learned the name of the Isis commander and just kept saying: Commander Omar come in. Can you hear me? Come in please in Arabic.

He kept yelling: Yes I can f***ing hear you! Who is this? It was a great afternoon.

Fighters with the BCB have fought in the former Isis stronghold of Manbij, where they witnessed evidence of jihadis brutal punishments including amputations and beheadings, and have come under attack at their bases.

A member said no comrades had yet been killed or injured but listed fellow IFB members who had been killed and injured in battles with Isis or by mines and suicide attacks.

Asked whether he was concerned for his safety, he replied: Neverdying in a car crash is a tragedy, dying for socialism is an honour.

Members of the Bob Crow Brigade on the Raqqa front (Supplied)

Three British volunteers  a former Royal Marine, a chef and a dairy farmer - have already been killed fighting alongside the YPG in Syria, while other fighters have been prosecuted upon their return to the UK.

The socialist volunteers, who named themselves in honour the late trade union leader Bob Crow, have drifted apart since their formation last year, with some returning home, some working in the civilian wing of the revolution and others remaining on the frontline.

Like other British volunteers, they are fighting not just to defeat Isis but for a socialist revolution they see as the future for a peaceful and democratic Syria.

The BCB is part of the International Freedom Battalion, a wing of the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG).

The group is a component of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) coalition, which has been battling to isolate Raqqa for months, seizing swathes of territory from militants while surrounding their stronghold from three sides.

Also fighting alongside the Kurds is Kimmie Taylor, the only British woman known to be fighting against Isis in Syria.

The Blackburn-born former student told The Independent she expects a bloodbath of Isis mines, suicide bombs, booby traps, drones and mortars.

Timeline: The emergence of Isis Show all 40 1 /40 Timeline: The emergence of Isis Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2000 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (pictured here) forms an al-Qaeda splinter group in Iraq, al-Qaeda in Iraq. Its brutality from the beginning alienates Iraqis and many al-Qaeda leaders. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2006 Al-Zarqawi is killed in a U.S. strike. Al-Zarqawis successor, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, announces the creation of the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI). Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2009 Still al-Qaeda-linked ISI claims responsibility for suicide bombings that killed 155 in Baghdad, as well as attacks in August and October killing 240, as President Obama announces troop withdrawal from Iraq in March. Getty Images Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2010 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi becomes head of ISI, at lowest ebb of Islamist militancy in Iraq, which sees last U.S. combat brigade depart. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2012 In Syria, protests (pictured here starting in Daree) have morphed into what president Assad labelled a real war with emergence of a coalition of forces opposed to Assads regime. Syria group Jabhat al-Nusra are among rebel groups who refuse to join, denouncing it as a conspiracy. Bombings targeting Shia areas, killing more than 500 people, spark fears of new sectarian conflict. Sunni Muslims stage protests across country against what they see as increasingly marginalisation by Shia-led government. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2013 Al-Baghdadi renames ISI as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or Isis, as the group absorbs Syrian al-Nusra, gaining a foothold in Syria. In response, al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri (Bin Ladens successor) concerned about Isis expansion orders that Isis be dissolved and ISI operations should be confined to Iraq. This order is rejected by al-Baghdadi. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - January Isis fighters capture the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, giving them base to launch slew of attacks further south. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Isis declares itself the Caliphate, calling itself Islamic State (IS). The group captures Mosul, Iraqs second largest city; Tal Afar, just 93 miles from Syrian border; and the central Iraqi city of Tikrit. These advances sent shockwaves around the world. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Around the same time Isis releases a video calling for western Muslims to join the Caliphate and fight, prompting new evaluations of extremists groups social media understanding. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Isis take Baiji oil fields in Iraq - giving them access to huge amounts of possible revenue. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - August James Foley is executed by the group as concerns grow for second American prisoner, fellow reporter Steven Sotloff. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - August Obama authorises U.S. airstrikes in Iraq, helping to stall Isis along with action by Kurdish forces following the deaths of hundreds of Yazidi people on Mount Sinjar. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Isis release video showing Steven Sotloffs murder prompting Western speculation his executioner is same man who killed Mr Foley. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Obama tells us that America will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Isis release a video appearing to show David Haines, who was captured by militants in Syria in 2013, wearing an orange jumpsuit and kneeling in the desert while he reads a pre-prepared script. It later shows what appears to be the aid worker's body. Rex Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Peshmerga fighters scrabble to hold positions in the Diyala province (a gateway to Baghdad) as Isis fighters continue to advance on Iraqi capital. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - October Aid worker Alan Henning is killed. Self-imposed media blackout refuses to show images of him in final moments, instead focuses upon humanitarian care. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - October Isis raise their flag in Kobani, which had been strongly defended by Kurdish troops. The victory goes against hopeful western analysis Isis had overextended itself, while alienating much of the Muslim population through the murder of Henning. Victory causes fresh waves of Kurdish refugees arriving in Turkey. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - November American hostage, who embarced values of Islam, Peter Kassig and 14 Syrian soldiers are shown meeting the same fate as other captives. But intelligence agencies will be poring over the apparently significant discrepancies between this and previous films. Seramedig.org.uk Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis has released a video revealing the murder by burning to death of a Jordanian pilot held by the group since the end of December 2014. Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis militants have released videos which appear to show the beheading of Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February American aid worker, Kayla Mueller was the last American hostage known to be held by Isis. She died, according to her captors, in an airstrike by the Jordanian air force on the city of Raqqa in Syria, though US authorities disputed this. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis militants have posted a gruesome video online in which they force 21 Egyptian Coptic Christian hostages to kneel on a beach in Libya before beheading them. Egypt vowed to avenge the beheading and launched air strikes on Isis positions. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February The British Isis militant suspected of appearing in videos showing the beheading of Western hostages has been named in reports as Mohammed Emwazi from London. Rex Features Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - March Isis triple suicide attack has killed more than 100 worshippers and hundreds of others were injured after the group members targeted two mosques in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Iraqi forces have claimed victory over Isis in battle for Tikrit and raised the flag in the city. EPA/STR Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Isis has claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan that killed at least 35 people queuing to collect their wages and injured 100 more. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Isis media arm released a 29-minute video purporting to show militants executing Ethiopian Christians captives. The footage bore the extremist groups al-Furqan media logo and showed the destruction of churches and desecration of religious symbols. A masked fighter made a statement threatening Christians who did not convert to Islam or pay a special tax. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis has been "incapacitated" by a spinal injuries sustained in a US air strike in Iraq. He is being treated in a hideout by two doctors from Isis stronghold of Mosul who are said to be "strong ideological supporters of the group". Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis has also claimed responsibility for killing 300 of Yazidi captives, including women, children and elderly people in Iraq AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis attack on Prophet Mohamed cartoon contest in Texas was its first action on US soil. Two gunmen were shot and killed after launching the attack at the exhibition. Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi have been named as the attackers at the Curtis Culwell Centre arena in Garland. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isiss deputy leader, Abu Alaa Afri, a former physics teacher who was thought to have taken charge of the deadly terrorist group, has been killed in a US-led coalition airstrike. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May US special forces have killed a senior Isis leader named as Abu Sayyaf in an operation aiming to capture him and his wife in Syria. Getty Images Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Iran-backed militias are sent to Ramadi by the Iraqi government to fight Isis militants who completed their capture of the city. Government soldiers and civilians were reportedly massacred by extremists as they took control and the army fled. Charred bodies were left littering the city streets as troops clung on to trucks speeding away from the city. Ramadi is the latest government stronghold to fall to the so-called Islamic State, despite air strikes by a US-led international coalition aiming to stop its advance in Iraq and Syria. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis rounded up civilians trapped in Palmyra and forced them to watch 20 people being executed in the historic citys ancient amphitheatre. The Unesco World Heritage site was overrun by militants, threatening the future of 2,000 year-old monuments and ruins. Thousands of Palmyras residents fled but many are still living within the city walls, while the UN human rights office in Geneva said it had received reports of Syrian government forces preventing people from leaving until they retreated from the city. Getty Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May A group of Isis-affiliated fighters have captured a key airport in central Libya. The militants took control of the al-Qardabiya airbase in Sirte after a local militia tasked with defending the facility withdrew from their positions. Affiliates of Isis, already control large parts of Sirte, the birthplace of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and a former stronghold of his supporters. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June The US Air Force has destroyed an Isis stronghold after an extremist let slip their location on social media. According the Air Force Times, General Herbert "Hawk" Carlisle, commander of Air Combat Command, said that Airmen at Hulburt Field, Florida, used images shared by jihadists to track the location of their headquarters before destroying it in an airstrike. Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Kurdish forces captured a key military base in a significant victory in Raqqa as well as town of Tell Abyad. YPG fighters, backed by US-led airstrikes and other rebels, consolidated their gains, when they seized the key town on the Syria-Turkey border. They are now just 30 miles to the north of Raqqa and have cut off a major supply route deep inside Isis-held territory. Ahmet Silk/Getty Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Isis has released gruesome footage claiming to show the murder of more than a dozen men by drowning, decapitation and using a rocket-propelled grenade as it seeks to boost morale among its fanatical supporters. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Isis has begun carrying out its threat to destroy structures in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, blowing up at least two monuments at the Unesco-protected site as Syrian government troops made advances on the Islamists positions. AFP

I know a lot of friends will die, especially in the city - its going to be a bloodbath really, the 27-year-old said.

This is inevitable, these things going to happen so we have to deal with them.

The US is backing the SDF as its most effective ally on the ground against Isis, but Turkey labels Turkish components of the alliance terrorists and is backing opposition rebels to push them away from its border.

The YPG hopes to strike a deal with Bashar al-Assads regime to secure the models continued existence after his expected victory over opposition rebels.

Only a handful of British citizens are known to be fighting against Isis alongside Kurdish groups, compared to at least 800 jihadis who have travelled from the UK to Syria and Iraq.

A spokesperson for the Home Office said anyone travelling to Syria for whatever reason, is putting themselves in considerable danger.

Anyone travelling abroad to participate in conflict can be prosecuted for crimes including murder and terror offences.
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British volunteers fighting alongside Kurdish forces in Syria are preparing for a bloodbath in the looming assault on Isis de-facto capital of Raqqa.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) coalition has been battling to isolate the city for months, seizing swathes of territory from militants while surrounding their stronghold from three sides.

With the capture of the strategic Tabqa air base along the Euphrates River, the long-awaited offensive on Raqqa city appears imminent but fighters watching the gruelling battle in Mosul know that recapturing the Syrian capital of the so-called Islamic State will come at a high cost.

Kimmie Taylor, the only British woman fighting alongside anti-Isis forces in Syria, expects a bloodbath of Isis mines, suicide bombs, booby traps, drones and mortars.

I know a lot of friends will die, especially in the city - its going to be a bloodbath, the 27-year-old said.

This is inevitable, these things going to happen so we have to deal with them.

Speaking to The Independent from a base held by the Kurdish Womens Protection Units (YPJ) outside Raqqa, she was certain of Isis eventual defeat.

Kimberly Taylor, 27, left the UK in March 2016 and joined the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) in Syria (Facebook)

Armed with a Kalashnikov and two grenades, Ms Taylor will be fighting alongside the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) and their SDF comrades, with the backing of US-led coalition firepower and special forces.

Also known by her Kurdish name Zilan Dilber, she joined the officer training corps while at university but turned down a place at Sandhurst because she didnt agree with the British politics of war.

Recommended First British woman joins Kurds to fight Isis in Syria

Having grown up near Blackburn and moved to Merseyside as a teenager, she studied maths at Liverpool University and then business and politics in Stockholm, before starting to volunteer in countries hit by the refugee crisis and writing for a Swedish socialist newspaper.

Ms Taylor decided to join the YPG after visiting the de-facto Kurdish region of Rojava to report on female anti-Isis fighters, and has not returned home since.

Like other British volunteers, she is fighting not just to defeat Isis but for a feminist and socialist revolution they see as the future for a peaceful and democratic Syria.

Nearby, British and Irish members of the Bob Crow Brigade (BCB) are also preparing for the assault on Raqqa as part of the YPGs International Freedom Battalion.

The socialist volunteers, who named themselves in honour the late trade union leader Bob Crow, have drifted apart since their formation last year, with some returning home, some working in the civilian wing of the revolution and others remaining on the frontline.

A member of the Bob Crow Brigade at the YPG's International Freedom Battalion headquarters on the Raqqa front (Supplied)

The spokesman told The Independent no comrades had yet been killed or injured but listed fellow IFB members who had fallen in battles with Isis or in mine blasts and suicide attacks.

Asked whether he was concerned for his safety, he replied: Neverdying in a car crash is a tragedy, dying for socialism is an honour.

Recommended The British volunteers prepared to die fighting Isis in Syria

Three British volunteers - a former Royal Marine, a chef and a dairy farmer - have already been killed fighting alongside the YPG in Syria, while other fighters have been prosecuted upon their return to the UK.

Ms Taylor had a close brush with Isis when her base came under attack earlier this month, with one comrade shot in the arm as a suicide bomber infiltrated the camp six miles behind the frontline.

She said that although most Isis fighters had been running away from the SDF advance towards Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, the group had been sending militants wearing suicide vests to ambush bases, while littering former strongholds with mines and explosives.

The group is conducting more suicide bombings than ever before as it attempts to defend its territories, including devastating car bombs packed with explosives and driven into enemy lines.

Ms Taylor said she had seen the devices take out a whole street, with steel shields ranged around windows and on wheels aiming to prevent them being stopped by gunfire.

Isis make mines themselves, they make explosives themselvesthey make it out of anything, she added, recounting seeing mines and IED workshops.

In pictures: Isis' weapons factories Show all 11 1 /11 In pictures: Isis' weapons factories In pictures: Isis' weapons factories A mortar round fin manufactured by Isis in Gogjali, Mosul, November 2016 Conflict Armament Research In pictures: Isis' weapons factories Isis rocket components discovered in Gogjali, Mosul, Iraq in November 2016 Conflict Armament Research In pictures: Isis' weapons factories Isis mortars discovered near Karamlais, Iraq, in November 2016 CAR In pictures: Isis' weapons factories An Isis rocket launch frame in Qaraqosh, November 2016 Conflict Armament Research In pictures: Isis' weapons factories A memo from Isis' COSQC on quality control at a manufacturing facility in Gogjali, Mosul, November 2016 Conflict Armament Research In pictures: Isis' weapons factories Electrically-operated initiators manufactured by Isis in forces Gogjali, Mosul, November 2016 Conflict Armament Research In pictures: Isis' weapons factories Isis mortar tubes at a manufacturing facility in Karamlais, November 2016 Conflict Armament Research In pictures: Isis' weapons factories An Isis mortar production facility discovered in Gogjali, Mosul, in November 2016 Conflict Armament Research In pictures: Isis' weapons factories An Isis weapons manufacturing facilities near Mosul in November 2016 Conflict Armament Research In pictures: Isis' weapons factories Stocks of French-manufactured Sorbitol, Latvian potassium nitrate and Lebanese sugar at an Isis weapons factory in Iraq Conflict Armament Research In pictures: Isis' weapons factories A destroyed Isis weapons facility in Qaraqosh, Iraq, November 2016 Conflict Armament Research

They put explosives in doors, in windows, in anything. Weve even had shops where they attach a wire to a Coca Cola can, for example, and if someone is stupid enough to take, it explodes.

Despite the dangers, Ms Taylor said the SDF will inevitably take Raqqa, even if hundreds of fighters die in the process.

But she sounded a warning over the groups equipment, saying they had no tanks and that Guardian police armoured vehicles would be destroyed in the event of a mine blast.

We have no new weapons at all, Ms Taylor added, listing Soviet-era Kalashnikovs and Dushka heavy machine guns as weapons of choice.

Ms Taylor has seen some of hundreds of US Marines deployed to support the SDF ahead of the Raqqa offensive but said they were only advising and conducting limited artillery strikes.

Turkey has called on the US to stop supporting Kurdish elements of the alliance, which Ankara has labelled as terrorists while backing opposition rebels to push them back from the Turkish border.

American forces have made no move to change the strategy drawn up under Barack Obamas administration, but Ms Taylor and the BCB now see Turkey as a main enemy, amid a growing rift with the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq.

The BCB denounced Recep Tayyip Erdogans intervention as an opportunistic attempt to expand Turkish territoryas part of an all-out war on Kurds and accused it of driving new conflict in northern Syria.

 Turkey in largest-ever offensive against Kurdish fighters

As for Mr Trump, it is hard to work out what his policy is on anything, said the groups spokesman, labelling the President a bigoted, ignorant clown who was born into power by way of money.

Mr Trump has not yet announced details of his plan to defeat Isis, but the British volunteers see a long fight ahead to defeat not just the groups fighters but their ideology.

Ms Taylor argued that capitalism has no alternative to the Islamist vision it prevents, claiming that the Kurdish revolution was inspiring Syrian people in a model that could spread across the Middle East.

The YPG has been setting up federalist systems of government throughout its territories in northern Syria and hopes to strike a deal to secure their existence with Bashar al-Assads regime, which has long turned a blind eye to Kurdish governance de-facto anonymous region of Rojava.

The prospect is keeping British fighters in Syria, with the BCB hoping to inspire a new generation of revolutionaries.

Furthermore, we are here for the revolution, not simply 'the war', so no clear end will ever be in sight, their spokesman said.

Ms Taylor hopes to return to Europe after the Raqqa offensive but fears visiting Britain after her parents had their home searched and laptops and phones confiscated by police.

I think its ridiculousits about control, she added. No way am I going home if Im going to go to prison for 10 or 20 years.

A spokesperson for the Home Office said anyone travelling to warzones abroad may be committing criminal or terrorism offences and could face prosecution when they return to the UK.
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The Iraqi government made a mistake that will allow Isis to survive by seeking to capture Mosul before eliminating other Isis safe havens in northern and western Iraq to which its fighters can retreat, according to a senior Iraqi leader.

It would have been better first to eliminate Daesh (Isis) sanctuaries to which they can retreat when Mosul falls, says Najmaldin Karim, the Governor of the oil province of Kirkuk, in an interview with The Independent. He says that half of Kirkuk province is still held by Isis and cited, in particular, the Hawija area, a notorious stronghold south west of Kirkuk city of Isis and previously of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Iraqis in general are wondering if the long-delayed capture of Mosul will prove to be a decisive defeat for Isis and the self-declared Caliphate or will it return to guerrilla warfare and terrorism. Mr Karim believes that it will not be able to capture territory as it once did, but it will go on fighting. There has been an upsurge in pin-prick Isis attacks in places that has been quiet over the last year.

Recommended More than 300 civilians killed in just one month of Mosul offensive

Mr Karim says that not only does Isis still have sanctuaries, but it can draw on a disaffected Sunni Arab population who have been displaced by the war. He points out that in Kirkuk province alone there are 500,000 Sunni Arabs who had to leave their homes and are not being allowed to return. Most come from Baghdad and the provinces around it from which the Sunni have been forced to flee by Shia militia, the Hashd al-Shaabi, and the Shia-dominated security forces. He said that 200,000 people who came from solidly Sunni towns and villages were being permitted to go back, but not the larger number who came from previously mixed communities of Sunni and Shia.

The great majority were displaced when Isis began a series of offensives in early 2014 which culminated in the fall of Mosul in June and brought Isis fighters to within an hours drive of Baghdad at the height of their success. Isis has since lost much, but by no means all, of the territory that it seized then which was largely inhabited by Sunni Arabs.

Isis terrorist tactics, and especially the thousands of suicide bombing attacks on Shia civilians, provoked sectarian hatred or at least deep suspicion directed against Sunni Arabs on the part of Shia, Yazidis and Christians that has not dissipated. These atrocities are still continuing.

There is no reconciliation [between Sunni and Shia], says Mr Karim and this provides fertile ground for Isis to recruit fighters. The number of these may be growing in places like Hawija and Tal Afar west of Mosul as Isis loses ground elsewhere. He adds that the Prime Minister [Haider al-Abadi] issues directives saying that places have been liberated and their people can go home, but nothing happens. He suggested that the motive was to make these areas pure or, in other words, cleansed of Sunni Arabs who might support Isis or some similar militarised Sunni fundamentalist movement.

Mosul is a mess, says Mr Karim, referring to the deep divisions between Sunni, Shia, Kurds, Yazidis and Shabak as well as interference by outside powers such a Turkey. Once Isis is defeated in the city, then each will demand a cut of the cake or a restoration of their previous position. When I was student in Mosul [in the 1960s] the city was 40 per cent Kurdish, but they all had to get out, says Mr Karim.

A problem in Iraq is that reconciliation will require reconstruction of wrecked Sunni cities and towns and this is not happening in Fallujah and Ramadi. Not only is the Iraqi government corrupt and dysfunctional, but it is very short of money because of the fall in the price of oil and the cost of the war. It only just has enough money to pay salaries and pensions, says Mr Karim. There is nothing left for rebuilding. We have not received any money for this from Baghdad since 2014.

The decision to attack Mosul first before mopping up several other areas with a strong Isis presence was largely an American one. Previously senior Iraqi officials had spoken of a slower approach. But the campaign to capture Mosul has been very much a US organised operation, though US generals have tried to give the impression that they are in a supporting role. The US also created the political conditions for an offensive, by brokering an agreement between the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which has powerful military forces, and the Baghdad central government.

Baghdad and the Kurds have long been in dispute over a swathe of territory, which includes operating and potential oilfields, stretching across northern Iraq from the Syrian to the Iranian frontier. The Arab-Kurdish confrontation, which had at times come close to a shooting war prior to the rise of Isis in 2014 has hitherto been out to one side.

But this forced collaboration may weaken as fear of Isis subsides. There was a large crowd of Iraqi media and officials outside Mr Karims office on Tuesday as the red, white and green Kurdish flag was officially unfurled beide the flag of Iraq for the first time in Kirkuk, which is the most important of the disputed territories. Mr Karim played down the immediate significance of the flag raising, but it is clear evidence that as the Isis threat subsides, even if it does not disappear, Iraq remains a deeply divided country.
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More than 300 civilians have been killed by US-led air strikes, Isis bombs and snipers, shelling and fighting in the advance on western Mosul, the UN has said.

The deadliest single incident reported so far was in the al-Jadida district, where up to 240 civilians were killed in suspected bombing by the US-led coalition targeting Isis fighters.

The Pentagon admitted it carried out strikes that correspond to allegations of civilian casualties, insisting they struck Isis fighters and equipment, and has launched an investigation.

Zeid Raad al-Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, condemned the massive loss of civilian lives caused by both Isis and the forces fighting to drive militants out of Mosul.

The conduct of air strikes on Isis locations in such an environment, particularly given the clear indications that Isis is using large numbers of civilians as human shields at such locations, may potentially have a lethal and disproportionate impact on civilians, he said.

Mr al-Hussein also condemned Isis cowardly and disgraceful use of human shields, which amounts to a war crime under international law.

And shooting civilians in the back as they flee for their lives is an act of monstrous depravity, he added.

Those attempting to cross the Tigris River told The Independent people were being shot dead on bridges by both Isis and Iraqi army snipers suspicious of Isis infiltrators.

In pictures: Mosul offensive Show all 40 1 /40 In pictures: Mosul offensive In pictures: Mosul offensive A doctor carries an Iraqi newborn baby at a hospital in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi girls play at a yard of a school in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017alal Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A woman on crutches who is a relative of men accused of being Islamic State militants is seen at a camp in Bartella, east of Mosul, Iraq July 15, 2017. Picture taken July 15, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A displaced girl, who fled from home carries a doll at Hamam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq July 13, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi federal police members and civilians celebrate in the Old City of Mosul on 9 July 2017 after the government's announcement of the "liberation" of the embattled city. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said he was in "liberated" Mosul to congratulate "the heroic fighters and the Iraqi people on the achievement of the major victory" AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken on 9 July 2017, shows a general view of the destruction in Mosul's Old City. Iraq will announce imminently a final victory in the nearly nine-month offensive to retake Mosul from jihadists, a US general said Saturday, as celebrations broke out among police forces in the city. AFP In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of the Iraqi federal police raise the victory gesture as they ride on a humvee while advancing through the Old City of Mosul on 28 June 2017, as the offensive continues to retake the last district held by Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Smoke billows as Iraqi forces advance through the Old City of Mosul on 26 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district held by the Islamic State (IS) group. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi man wearing the green scarf of the Shi'ite faith kisses an Iraqi Army soldier on safely reaching the Iraqi forces position as Iraqi civilians flee the Old City of west Mosul where heavy fighting continues on 23 June 2017. Iraqi forces continue to encounter stiff resistance with improvised explosive devices, car bombs, heavy mortar fire and snipers hampering their advance. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken from the inside of an Iraqi forces armoured vehicle shows residents walking through a damaged street as troops advance towards Mosul's Old City on 18 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district still held by the Islamic State (IS) group. Military commanders told AFP the assault had begun at dawn after overnight air strikes by the US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces. They said the jihadists were putting up fierce resistance. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi Army soldiers advance in a destroyed street after an Iraqi forces airstrike targeted an Islamic State sniper position 17 June 2017 in al-Shifa, the last district of west Mosul under Islamic State control. IS snipers, as well as car and suicide bomb attacks continue to hinder the Iraqi forces efforts to retake the final district. A series of airstrikes by Iraqi helicopter gunships attempted to hit multiple Islamic State sniper positions in al-Shifa. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier frisks a displaced Iraqi man at a temporary camp in the compound of the closed Nineveh International Hotel in Mosul on 16 June 2017 which was recovered by Iraqi troops from Islamic State group fighters earlier in the year. A screening centre set up in the compound's fairgrounds sees a constant stream of Iraqis fleeing the battle for Mosul, awaiting their turn to be checked by the Iraqi forces who are searching for suspected Islamic State (IS) group members. The small fairground lies at the end of a pontoon bridge across the Tigris recently opened to civilians that is the only physical link between the two banks of the river. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis staying at the al-Khazir camp swim in a river near the camp for internally displaced people, located between Arbil and Mosul on 11 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi government forces drive on a road leading to Tal Afar on 9 June 2017, during ongoing battles to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi policeman carries a poster bearing an image of Mosul's iconic leaning minaret, known as the "Hadba" (Hunchback), on 22 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis stand in line to receive food aid in western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood on 7 June 2017, during ongoing battles as Iraqi forces try to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. Living conditions in Mosul have again deteriorated since the start of the Iraqi government's offensive on the city in October in which they retook a large part of the west of the city. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced Iraqis carry lightbulbs and sacks as they evacuate from western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood as government forces advance in the area during their ongoing battle against Islamic State (IS) group fighters on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) flashes the victory gesture as he patrols in western Mosul's al-Islah al-Zaraye neighbourhood on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi army soldiers from the 9th armoured division on a truck flash the sign of victory as they drive back from Mosul to the town of Qaraqosh (also known as Hamdaniya) Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of Iraqi forces flash the sign of victory on their vehicle as they advance towards Hammam al-Alil area south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi security forces gestures in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi children, one flashing the sign of victory, greet Iraqi army's soldiers from the 9th armoured division in the area of Ali Rash, adjacent to the eastern Al-Intissar neighbourhood of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Peshmerga forces look at a tunnel used by Islamic State militants near the town of Bashiqa, east of Mosul, during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier takes a photograph with his phone as his comrade stands next to a detained man, whom the Iraqi army soldiers accused of being an Islamic State fighter, who was fleeing with his family in the Intisar disrict of eastern Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iranian Kurdish female members of the Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAK) hold a position in an area near the town of Bashiqa, some 25 kilometres north east of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families, who fled their homes in Hamam al-Alil, gather on the outskirts of their town Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced people walk past a checkpoint near Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families who were displaced by the ongoing operation by Iraqi forces against jihadists of the Islamic State group to retake the city of Mosul, are seen gathering in an area near Qayyarah In pictures: Mosul offensive A boy who just fled Abu Jarbuah village is seen with his family at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi child eats a pomegranate upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive People who just fled Abu Jarbuah village sit as they eat at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A couple who just fled Abu Jarbuah village are escorted by Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Women carry a boy over a wall as civilians flee their houses in the village of Tob Zawa, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier and a civilian ride a motorbike as smoke rises behind them, on the road between Qayyarah and Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces, wearing a skull mask, waits at a checkpoint for people fleeing the main hub city of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier sits at a checkpoint in an area near Qayyarah Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi men prepare food portions for Iraqi forces deployed in areas south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi forces celebrate upon the arrival of vehicles bringing food to them Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi childen smoke cigarettes upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces distributes drinks to children in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty

According to information verified by the UN Human Rights Office and the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq, at least 307 civilians were killed and another 273 wounded between 17 February and 22 March.

At least 61 people have been confirmed dead in the al-Jadida strike on 17 March, although survivors said up to 240 people died after Isis snipers used their roof and bodies are still being pulled from the rubble.

Other witnesses told the UN that Isis had booby trapped houses with explosives, causing them to collapse  an allegation repeated by the Iraqi defence ministry.

Mr al-Hussein said he did not underestimate the enormity of the challenges facing Iraqi government forces and the international coalition but called on all sides to protect civilians.

This is an enemy that ruthlessly exploits civilians to serve its own ends, and clearly has not even the faintest qualm about deliberately placing them in danger, he added.

It is vital that the Iraqi security forces and their coalition partners avoid this trap, review how their procedures comply with their obligations under the international humanitarian law principle of precautions, and consider all tactical options available with a view to avoiding civilian loss of life.

 Iraqi forces launch push to retake western Mosul from IS

He urged investigations underway by Iraqi authorities and the US-led coalition to be thorough and transparent, as well as calling for an "urgent review" of tactics as soldiers push into densely populated parts of western Mosul.

The Pentagon insisted its rules of engagement had not been loosened amid speculation over a potential link between rocketing civilian casualty reports and Donald Trumps presidency.

US-led air strikes called in by Iraqi forces on the ground were blamed for many civilian deaths, which have also been caused by Isis IEDs, shelling and gunfire from both sides.

The UN listed another serious incident on 22 March, where an air strike hit a residential building in Rajm Hadid killed a seven-year-old girl and injured several other children.

Isis reportedly filled the house with people from the surrounding neighbourhood, including children, and then used the house to launch rocket-propelled grenades against the Iraqi Security Forces, the report said.

At least 95 civilians were allegedly killed between Thursday and Sunday in the districts of Risalah, Nabils, Uruba and Sainaah al-Qadimah as a result of shelling, vehicle-based and other explosive devices planted by Isis and by the groups snipers.

Men, women and children were pulled from the rubble in the latest strike (AP)

The UN has received reports of the terrorist group forcibly moving civilians around western Mosul to use as human shields, ordering them inside buildings and then using them as sniper and mortar positions.

There have been numerous reports that Isis snipers have shot at, and in some cases killed or wounded, civilians attempting to flee towards the Iraqi Security Forces, and that Isis has also shelled civilians in areas of the city retaken by Government forces, a spokesperson said.

The US official civilian death toll from the air campaign against Isis in Syria and Iraq stands at 220, although monitors say the real total is far higher and Airwars warned of record deaths passing the 1,000 mark.

Casualties caused in the incident and many others in western Mosul forced a temporary pause in the advance by Iraqi government forces over the weekend.

Iraqs federal police announced a new push into south-western parts of the Old City on Monday, heading towards the al-Nuri mosque where Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the formation of his caliphate in 2014.

Isis has been fortifying Mosul for almost four years and its militants are deploying suicide car bombs, mines, booby traps, ambushes, mortars and drones to defend their last city stronghold in Iraq.

Faced with their toughest battle yet, Iraqi and coalition forces have increasingly turned to air strikes and artillery to clear and hold territory in densely-populated western districts.
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The only surviving animals at an Isis-controlled zoo in Iraq have been rescued as bombs continued to rain down on the surrounding city.

Iraqi forces cleared a timeslot of a few hours to allow rescue workers to enter Mosul's Motazah Al-Morour zoo and prepare a bear, named Lula, and a lion, Simba, for transport out of the war-stricken city, which is suffering its fifth month of a brutal offensive.

Dr Amir Khalil, veterinarian and head of Four Paws, which led the mission said: We have to act quickly, because Mosul is a dangerous crisis area

Lula, an abandoned bear (Getty)

Lula and Simba dont have any chance of survival unless we can take them out of the zoo and bring them to safety.

Four Paws said three monkeys, three peacocks, two goats and a pregnant horse were bought to the zoo by desperate private owners after they discovered it was still open, and that those animals remain trapped in the zoo.

'Large wild animals such as bears and lions kept in desolate cages, can pose a threat to humans,' says Dr Khalil (Four Paws)

We are trying also to provide help for the other animals, but unfortunately we only have limited capabilities with the short time slot we were given, Dr Khalil said.

Large wild animals such as bears and lions, who are kept in desolate cages, can also easily pose a threat to humans.

Dr Khalil visited the zoo last February to examine the animals and to organise for them to be fed by volunteers, but since the battle to seize Mosul from the extremist group began, some 40 animals have starved to death or been killed by airstrikes.

The animals, were to be brought to Erbil, to the east of Mosul for a stopover, and were eventually be taken to a centre that can take care of them permanently.

Pro-government forces launched an offensive to recapture the city in October (Getty)

Pro-government Iraqi forces launched an offensive to recapture the city  the last major Isis stronghold in the country  in October.

In pictures: Mosul offensive Show all 40 1 /40 In pictures: Mosul offensive In pictures: Mosul offensive A doctor carries an Iraqi newborn baby at a hospital in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi girls play at a yard of a school in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017alal Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A woman on crutches who is a relative of men accused of being Islamic State militants is seen at a camp in Bartella, east of Mosul, Iraq July 15, 2017. Picture taken July 15, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A displaced girl, who fled from home carries a doll at Hamam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq July 13, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi federal police members and civilians celebrate in the Old City of Mosul on 9 July 2017 after the government's announcement of the "liberation" of the embattled city. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said he was in "liberated" Mosul to congratulate "the heroic fighters and the Iraqi people on the achievement of the major victory" AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken on 9 July 2017, shows a general view of the destruction in Mosul's Old City. Iraq will announce imminently a final victory in the nearly nine-month offensive to retake Mosul from jihadists, a US general said Saturday, as celebrations broke out among police forces in the city. AFP In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of the Iraqi federal police raise the victory gesture as they ride on a humvee while advancing through the Old City of Mosul on 28 June 2017, as the offensive continues to retake the last district held by Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Smoke billows as Iraqi forces advance through the Old City of Mosul on 26 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district held by the Islamic State (IS) group. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi man wearing the green scarf of the Shi'ite faith kisses an Iraqi Army soldier on safely reaching the Iraqi forces position as Iraqi civilians flee the Old City of west Mosul where heavy fighting continues on 23 June 2017. Iraqi forces continue to encounter stiff resistance with improvised explosive devices, car bombs, heavy mortar fire and snipers hampering their advance. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken from the inside of an Iraqi forces armoured vehicle shows residents walking through a damaged street as troops advance towards Mosul's Old City on 18 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district still held by the Islamic State (IS) group. Military commanders told AFP the assault had begun at dawn after overnight air strikes by the US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces. They said the jihadists were putting up fierce resistance. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi Army soldiers advance in a destroyed street after an Iraqi forces airstrike targeted an Islamic State sniper position 17 June 2017 in al-Shifa, the last district of west Mosul under Islamic State control. IS snipers, as well as car and suicide bomb attacks continue to hinder the Iraqi forces efforts to retake the final district. A series of airstrikes by Iraqi helicopter gunships attempted to hit multiple Islamic State sniper positions in al-Shifa. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier frisks a displaced Iraqi man at a temporary camp in the compound of the closed Nineveh International Hotel in Mosul on 16 June 2017 which was recovered by Iraqi troops from Islamic State group fighters earlier in the year. A screening centre set up in the compound's fairgrounds sees a constant stream of Iraqis fleeing the battle for Mosul, awaiting their turn to be checked by the Iraqi forces who are searching for suspected Islamic State (IS) group members. The small fairground lies at the end of a pontoon bridge across the Tigris recently opened to civilians that is the only physical link between the two banks of the river. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis staying at the al-Khazir camp swim in a river near the camp for internally displaced people, located between Arbil and Mosul on 11 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi government forces drive on a road leading to Tal Afar on 9 June 2017, during ongoing battles to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi policeman carries a poster bearing an image of Mosul's iconic leaning minaret, known as the "Hadba" (Hunchback), on 22 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis stand in line to receive food aid in western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood on 7 June 2017, during ongoing battles as Iraqi forces try to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. Living conditions in Mosul have again deteriorated since the start of the Iraqi government's offensive on the city in October in which they retook a large part of the west of the city. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced Iraqis carry lightbulbs and sacks as they evacuate from western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood as government forces advance in the area during their ongoing battle against Islamic State (IS) group fighters on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) flashes the victory gesture as he patrols in western Mosul's al-Islah al-Zaraye neighbourhood on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi army soldiers from the 9th armoured division on a truck flash the sign of victory as they drive back from Mosul to the town of Qaraqosh (also known as Hamdaniya) Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of Iraqi forces flash the sign of victory on their vehicle as they advance towards Hammam al-Alil area south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi security forces gestures in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi children, one flashing the sign of victory, greet Iraqi army's soldiers from the 9th armoured division in the area of Ali Rash, adjacent to the eastern Al-Intissar neighbourhood of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Peshmerga forces look at a tunnel used by Islamic State militants near the town of Bashiqa, east of Mosul, during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier takes a photograph with his phone as his comrade stands next to a detained man, whom the Iraqi army soldiers accused of being an Islamic State fighter, who was fleeing with his family in the Intisar disrict of eastern Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iranian Kurdish female members of the Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAK) hold a position in an area near the town of Bashiqa, some 25 kilometres north east of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families, who fled their homes in Hamam al-Alil, gather on the outskirts of their town Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced people walk past a checkpoint near Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families who were displaced by the ongoing operation by Iraqi forces against jihadists of the Islamic State group to retake the city of Mosul, are seen gathering in an area near Qayyarah In pictures: Mosul offensive A boy who just fled Abu Jarbuah village is seen with his family at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi child eats a pomegranate upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive People who just fled Abu Jarbuah village sit as they eat at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A couple who just fled Abu Jarbuah village are escorted by Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Women carry a boy over a wall as civilians flee their houses in the village of Tob Zawa, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier and a civilian ride a motorbike as smoke rises behind them, on the road between Qayyarah and Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces, wearing a skull mask, waits at a checkpoint for people fleeing the main hub city of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier sits at a checkpoint in an area near Qayyarah Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi men prepare food portions for Iraqi forces deployed in areas south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi forces celebrate upon the arrival of vehicles bringing food to them Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi childen smoke cigarettes upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces distributes drinks to children in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty

A US-led coalition has supported the assault by carrying out hundreds of air strikes and sending military advisers and special forces officers

More than 286,000 civilians living in the city have fled their homes, but many more have followed the Iraqi government's repeated instructions to in their homes until they are reached by troops.
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Turkeys April 16 referendum on whether to give sitting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan the ability to stay in office until 2029 will go down to the wire, the latest polling figures show.

Gezici Research, a respected polling outlet, has found that while the no camp was ahead in January by 58 per cent to 42 per cent for yes, the gap had narrowed to just 51 per cent in favour of a no vote as early voting began on Monday.

The polling company found the change is partly due to the fact that 45 per cent of young voters (18 - 27) do not plan to vote at all.

 Hundreds of pro-Turkey protesters clash with police in Rotterdam

Out of 28 recent public opinion polls, 12 predict a no vote and eight yes, news outlet T24 found - another finding that has given Mr Erdogans ruling AK party hopes of winning.

Bekir Agirdir, the director of respected polling firm Konda, told Hurriyet newspaper on Monday that the race would be neck and neck.

The proposed changes to Turkeys executive branches of government would effectively abolish the position of prime minister, giving the sitting president the power to appoint and fire ministers, hold the leadership of a political party while in office, and possibly stay in power for another 12 years.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes Show all 8 1 /8 Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes Just a week before he was elected President, he called Erdogan Amberin Zaman, the Turkey correspondent for 'The Economist', a "shameless militant woman disguised under the name of a journalist" after she had asked an opposition leader whether "Muslim society is able to question" the authorities. "Know your place," Erdogan said. "They gave you a pen and you are writing a column in a newspaper. "And then they invite you to a TV channel owned by Dogan media group and you insult at a society of 99 per cent Muslims," he said he said according to Today's Zaman newspaper. Sascha Schuermann/Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes Turkish people are pictured chanting slogans during an anti-government protest on Taksim square in Istanbul, on 29 June, 2013. The protests were sparked by brutal police action against a local conservation battle to save Istanbul's Gezi Park, and soon turned into nationwide demonstrations against the government. Amid the protests - the worst in Turkey for years - Erdogan accused demonstrators of being "arm-in-arm with terrorism," according to Reuters. "This is a protest organized by extremist elements. We will not give away anything to those who live arm-in-arm with terrorism," he said. GURCAN OZTURK/AFP/Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes During last years protests, activists used social media to organise and disseminate information. Several dozen tweeters were arrested following the protests, according to local media reports. Erdogan responded by calling the technology a "menace". "There is now a menace which is called Twitter," Erdogan said. "The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society," BBC New reported. Vladimir Astapkovich/RIA Novosti via Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes Not helping to allay accusations of authoritarianism, after Turkish police detained 49 people, including well-known business people and those close to the ruling party, Erdeogan ominously told reporter that Turkey "is not a banana republic" that can be affected by unnamed "operations", according to Today's Zaman newspaper. People who are backed by the media and certain funders cannot change this country," he said. "People backed by certain dark gangs both inside and outside Turkey cannot mess with the country's path. They cannot change conditions in Turkey. Turkey is not a country that anyone can launch an operation into. The [Turkish] nation will not allow that. The AK Party, which is governing this nation, will not allow this." Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes Friends and relatives of the miners who died in an explosion at the Soma mine are pictured praying following the burial in Soma cemetery of the last body to be recovered from the mine in May 2014. At the time, the then-Prime Minister badly misjudged the Soma mining disaster, in which 301 workers died. He told the relatives of dead and dying miners that "these types of incidents are ordinary things", following allegations that the government had ignored safety concerns about the privately owned mine, the Guardian reported. In his defence, Erdogan recounted in a separate speech a list of mining disasters which occurred abroad, including a British disaster in 1862, and one in America "which has every kind of technology". Oli Scarff/Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes Palestinians pictured attending Friday noon prayers in a destroyed mosque that was hit by Israeli strikes, in Gaza City. As Prime Minister, Erdogan has condemned Israel, accusing it of deliberately killing Palestinian mothers and warned that the it would "drown in the blood it sheds." Speaking to thousands of supporters during a rally in Istanbul ahead of the 10 August election, Reuters reported him as saying: "Just like Hitler, who sought to establish a race free of all faults, Israel is chasing after the same target." "They kill women so that they will not give birth to Palestinians; they kill babies so that they won't grow up; they kill men so they can't defend their country ... They will drown in the blood they shed," he said. AP Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes Amid the worst protests in Turkey for years which had spread across dozens of cities last June, Erdogan accused demonstrators of being "arm-in-arm with terrorism," according to Reuters. A demonstration to halt construction in a park in an Istanbul square grew into mass protests against a heavy-handed police crackdown and what opponents called Erdogan's authoritarian policies. "This is a protest organized by extremist elements," Erdogan said before departing on a trip to North Africa. "We will not give away anything to those who live arm-in-arm with terrorism," he said. Sascha Schuermann/Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes In March 2014, Erdogan accused a 15-year-old boy who died from injuries sustained in last year's anti-government protests of being linked to terrorism. Berkin Elvan, who became a symbol of anti-government protests, had gone to pick up bread when he was hit with a teargas canister - sending him into a nine-month coma before he passed away. In a speech broadcast on state TV, Erdogan said of Berkin: "This kid with steel marbles in his pockets, with a slingshot in his hand, his face covered with a scarf, who had been taken up into terror organisations, was unfortunately subjected to pepper gas. How could the police determine how old that person was who had a scarf on his face and was hurling steel marbles with a slingshot in his hand? ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images

Mr Erdogans party argues that Turkeys current fragile security situation needs strong leadership. Opponents, however, have already voiced fears that the president already holds too much power, and a yes vote puts Turkey at risk of becoming an authoritarian state.

There has been a particular crackdown on members of the opposition, academics, journalists and rights activists since a failed military coup in July last year, after which the government declared a state of emergency.

Opposition politicians have also complained that the AKs yes campaign has received biased media coverage given the governments influence over news outlets, making it difficult to put their side across.

Regardless of the outcome of Aprils nationwide vote, Mr Erdogan appears intent on pushing through other reforms to Turkeys political landscape, suggesting last week that the country could hold another referendum on whether to quit its decades-long accession bid to the EU.
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The United Arab Emirates forecasts that savings generated by switching half its power needs to clean energy by mid-century will outstrip the investment costs.

The Gulf state plans to invest 119bn ($150bn) in renewable power to 2050, weaning the country from dependency on subsidised natural gas power in stages, Minister of Energy Suhail Al-Mazrouei said at a conference in Berlin. Clean energy sources will help it save 153bn ($192bn), he said.

The UAE leadership is bullish about achieving the goal after realising that the nation can forgo subsidies in the switch to clean power from liquid natural gas (LNG), Al-Mazrouei said. Sticking to the strategy will save the environment and at the same time save us lots of money, he said.

As the costs for solar power fall rapidly, Gulf and Middle East states are reevaluating their power strategies, which currently rely subsidiaries for electricity generated with LNG. The UAE has set an incredibly ambitious clean power target, starting from scratch just a few years ago, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Recommended Denmark runs entirely on wind energy for a day

In September, Chinese panel maker JinkoSolar and Japanese developer Marubeni won a tender for a solar plant in Abu Dhabi with a record bid of 2.42 US cents a kilowatt-hour. About 795 million ($1bn) has been invested in utility-scale solar in the UAE since 2007.

Middle East states need to break their reliance on subsidised gas power, where inefficiencies are endemic in the Middle East, Al-Mazrouei said.

We have so many open-cycle power plants it doesnt make sense to continue with them - theyve very low efficiency, said the former Abu Dhabi Investment Authority executive. The reason they are there is because gas is subsidised.

In future, the UAE will review every proposed LNG power project as a project thats not subsidised, he said. The government also wants to drop support for power tariffs, he said.

10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Show all 10 1 /10 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A group of emperor penguins face a crack in the sea ice, near McMurdo Station, Antarctica Kira Morris 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Floods destroyed eight bridges and ruined crops such as wheat, maize and peas in the Karimabad valley in northern Pakistan, a mountainous region with many glaciers. In many parts of the world, glaciers have been in retreat, creating dangerously large lakes that can cause devastating flooding when the banks break. Climate change can also increase rainfall in some areas, while bringing drought to others. Hira Ali 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Smoke  filled with the carbon that is driving climate change  drifts across a field in Colombia. Sandra Rondon 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Amid a flood in Islampur, Jamalpur, Bangladesh, a woman on a raft searches for somewhere dry to take shelter. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to sea level rise, which is expected to make tens of millions of people homeless by 2050. Probal Rashid 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Sindh province in Pakistan has experienced a grim mix of two consequences of climate change. Because of climate change either we have floods or not enough water to irrigate our crop and feed our animals, says the photographer. Picture clearly indicates that the extreme drought makes wide cracks in clay. Crops are very difficult to grow. Rizwan Dharejo 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Hanna Petursdottir examines a cave inside the Svinafellsjokull glacier in Iceland, which she said had been growing rapidly. Since 2000, the size of glaciers on Iceland has reduced by 12 per cent. Tom Schifanella 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A river once flowed along the depression in the dry earth of this part of Bangladesh, but it has disappeared amid rising temperatures. Abrar Hossain 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A shepherd moves his herd as he looks for green pasture near the village of Sirohi in Rajasthan, northern India. The region has been badly affected by heatwaves and drought, making local people nervous about further predicted increases in temperature. Riddhima Singh Bhati 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A factory in China is shrouded by a haze of air pollution. The World Health Organisation has warned such pollution, much of which is from the fossil fuels that cause climate change, is a public health emergency. Leung Ka Wa 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Water levels in reservoirs, like this one in Gers, France, have been getting perilously low in areas across the world affected by drought, forcing authorities to introduce water restrictions. Mahtuf Ikhsan

Many low hanging fruits exist as potential savings in gas-powered generation, transmission and demand-side management, the minister said.

Bloomberg
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Amid growing international alarm over rising civilian casualties in the battle to drive Isis out of Mosul, allegations have emerged that American forces destroyed a cluster of houses packed with families to kill a handful of Isis fighters.

Some survivors of air strikes that killed up to 240 civilians in the al-Jadida district said they had been forced inside by militants, while others were obeying leaflets dropped by Iraqi forces telling them to remain at home during battles.

As hundreds of men, women and children sheltered in rooms and basements, their homes were hit on 13 March and then again four days later, reducing the buildings to rubble.

Recommended Civilians in west Mosul being shot by Isis and Iraqi forces alike

Several residents said Isis snipers had taken up positions on the roofs of their homes, parked a car bomb outside and set fire to vehicles, believing the militants were the target of the US-led coalitions firepower.

Not all of the houses had Daesh [Isis] on the roof, Ali Abdulghani told the New York Times. Why, just because of one Daesh, kill everyone?

Munatha Jasim, who lost nine relatives including her four-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son when her home was destroyed, said a sniper had set up across the street from her house.

Just because one Isis [fighter] was on our house, the aircraft bombed us, she told the LA Times.

Nael Tawfiq Abdel Hafez, whose 23-year-old son Mosab was killed in the strike, told Amnesty International they were surrounded by fighting for months, with Isis snipers on rooftops and Iraqi soldiers firing mortars into the district.

Relatives mourn next to bodies of Iraqi residents of west Mosul killed in an air strike targeting Isis on 17 March 2017 (AFP/Getty)

There was nothing we could do, we are civilians; we could not stop Daesh, he added.

When they entered my home, shortly before the strike, I tried to challenge them, to plead with them; I told them what are you doing, I have a family here.

They left but as they were leaving, the house was bombed.

The Pentagon previously announced four strikes near Mosul on 17 March, saying they destroyed 25 fighting positions, 56 vehicles and a suicide car bomb.

Journalists, who have since been banned from visiting the site and other parts of western Mosul, saw a pregnant woman and children among at least 50 bodies recovered by Saturday, with limbs and shoes protruding from destroyed houses.

Local estimates of the death toll range between 130 and 240, with the true figure difficult to confirm as the recovery of bodies continues.

The Iraqi defence ministry confirmed that at least 61 civilians died but accused Isis of causing the devastation by rigging the walls of homes with explosives, in a possible move to delay the offensive.

But the US-led coalition has admitted its air strikes hit targets that correspond to allegations of civilian casualties, insisting they struck Isis fighters and equipment.

A spokesperson for the US-led Operation Inherent Resolve said an investigation had been opened to determine the validity of the claims.

The Pentagon has insisted its rules of engagement had not been loosened amid speculation over a potential link between rocketing civilian casualty reports and Donald Trumps presidency.

 Iraqi forces launch push to retake western Mosul from IS

The US official civilian death toll from the air campaign against Isis in Syria and Iraq stands at 220, although monitors say the real total is far higher and Airwars warned this week of record deaths passing the 1,000 mark.

If confirmed, the al-Jadida strike would be one of the deadliest single incidents for civilians in recent memory in any major conflict involving the US, which has repeatedly boasted of waging the most precise air campaign in history against Isis.

Casualties caused in the incident and many others in western Mosul forced a temporary pause in the advance by Iraqi government forces over the weekend.

Iraqs federal police announced a new advance into south-western parts of the Old City on Monday, heading towards the al-Nuri mosque where Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the formation of his caliphate in 2014.

Amnesty International accused the US-led coalition and its allies for failing to take adequate precautions to prevent civilian deaths in densely populated parts of Mosul, possibly amounting to a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.

Residents told the group civilians had been killed by coalition air strikes as well as indiscriminate mortar fire by both Isis and Iraqi forces.

The fact that Iraqi authorities repeatedly advised civilians to remain at home instead of fleeing the area, indicates that coalition forces should have known that these strikes were likely to result in a significant numbers of civilian casualties, said the groups senior crisis response adviser Donatella Rovera.

In pictures: Mosul offensive Show all 40 1 /40 In pictures: Mosul offensive In pictures: Mosul offensive A doctor carries an Iraqi newborn baby at a hospital in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi girls play at a yard of a school in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017alal Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A woman on crutches who is a relative of men accused of being Islamic State militants is seen at a camp in Bartella, east of Mosul, Iraq July 15, 2017. Picture taken July 15, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A displaced girl, who fled from home carries a doll at Hamam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq July 13, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi federal police members and civilians celebrate in the Old City of Mosul on 9 July 2017 after the government's announcement of the "liberation" of the embattled city. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said he was in "liberated" Mosul to congratulate "the heroic fighters and the Iraqi people on the achievement of the major victory" AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken on 9 July 2017, shows a general view of the destruction in Mosul's Old City. Iraq will announce imminently a final victory in the nearly nine-month offensive to retake Mosul from jihadists, a US general said Saturday, as celebrations broke out among police forces in the city. AFP In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of the Iraqi federal police raise the victory gesture as they ride on a humvee while advancing through the Old City of Mosul on 28 June 2017, as the offensive continues to retake the last district held by Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Smoke billows as Iraqi forces advance through the Old City of Mosul on 26 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district held by the Islamic State (IS) group. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi man wearing the green scarf of the Shi'ite faith kisses an Iraqi Army soldier on safely reaching the Iraqi forces position as Iraqi civilians flee the Old City of west Mosul where heavy fighting continues on 23 June 2017. Iraqi forces continue to encounter stiff resistance with improvised explosive devices, car bombs, heavy mortar fire and snipers hampering their advance. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken from the inside of an Iraqi forces armoured vehicle shows residents walking through a damaged street as troops advance towards Mosul's Old City on 18 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district still held by the Islamic State (IS) group. Military commanders told AFP the assault had begun at dawn after overnight air strikes by the US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces. They said the jihadists were putting up fierce resistance. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi Army soldiers advance in a destroyed street after an Iraqi forces airstrike targeted an Islamic State sniper position 17 June 2017 in al-Shifa, the last district of west Mosul under Islamic State control. IS snipers, as well as car and suicide bomb attacks continue to hinder the Iraqi forces efforts to retake the final district. A series of airstrikes by Iraqi helicopter gunships attempted to hit multiple Islamic State sniper positions in al-Shifa. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier frisks a displaced Iraqi man at a temporary camp in the compound of the closed Nineveh International Hotel in Mosul on 16 June 2017 which was recovered by Iraqi troops from Islamic State group fighters earlier in the year. A screening centre set up in the compound's fairgrounds sees a constant stream of Iraqis fleeing the battle for Mosul, awaiting their turn to be checked by the Iraqi forces who are searching for suspected Islamic State (IS) group members. The small fairground lies at the end of a pontoon bridge across the Tigris recently opened to civilians that is the only physical link between the two banks of the river. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis staying at the al-Khazir camp swim in a river near the camp for internally displaced people, located between Arbil and Mosul on 11 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi government forces drive on a road leading to Tal Afar on 9 June 2017, during ongoing battles to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi policeman carries a poster bearing an image of Mosul's iconic leaning minaret, known as the "Hadba" (Hunchback), on 22 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis stand in line to receive food aid in western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood on 7 June 2017, during ongoing battles as Iraqi forces try to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. Living conditions in Mosul have again deteriorated since the start of the Iraqi government's offensive on the city in October in which they retook a large part of the west of the city. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced Iraqis carry lightbulbs and sacks as they evacuate from western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood as government forces advance in the area during their ongoing battle against Islamic State (IS) group fighters on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) flashes the victory gesture as he patrols in western Mosul's al-Islah al-Zaraye neighbourhood on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi army soldiers from the 9th armoured division on a truck flash the sign of victory as they drive back from Mosul to the town of Qaraqosh (also known as Hamdaniya) Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of Iraqi forces flash the sign of victory on their vehicle as they advance towards Hammam al-Alil area south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi security forces gestures in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi children, one flashing the sign of victory, greet Iraqi army's soldiers from the 9th armoured division in the area of Ali Rash, adjacent to the eastern Al-Intissar neighbourhood of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Peshmerga forces look at a tunnel used by Islamic State militants near the town of Bashiqa, east of Mosul, during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier takes a photograph with his phone as his comrade stands next to a detained man, whom the Iraqi army soldiers accused of being an Islamic State fighter, who was fleeing with his family in the Intisar disrict of eastern Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iranian Kurdish female members of the Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAK) hold a position in an area near the town of Bashiqa, some 25 kilometres north east of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families, who fled their homes in Hamam al-Alil, gather on the outskirts of their town Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced people walk past a checkpoint near Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families who were displaced by the ongoing operation by Iraqi forces against jihadists of the Islamic State group to retake the city of Mosul, are seen gathering in an area near Qayyarah In pictures: Mosul offensive A boy who just fled Abu Jarbuah village is seen with his family at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi child eats a pomegranate upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive People who just fled Abu Jarbuah village sit as they eat at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A couple who just fled Abu Jarbuah village are escorted by Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Women carry a boy over a wall as civilians flee their houses in the village of Tob Zawa, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier and a civilian ride a motorbike as smoke rises behind them, on the road between Qayyarah and Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces, wearing a skull mask, waits at a checkpoint for people fleeing the main hub city of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier sits at a checkpoint in an area near Qayyarah Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi men prepare food portions for Iraqi forces deployed in areas south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi forces celebrate upon the arrival of vehicles bringing food to them Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi childen smoke cigarettes upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces distributes drinks to children in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty

Mohammed, a resident of the Hay al-Dhubbat district who lost several relatives in a coalition air strike, told Amnesty Isis fighters were everywhere and any residents who attempted to stop them using their homes were killed.

They ran this city for years and they were rarely targeted during all that time, he added.

Why now [are they] destroying our homes with our families inside, just to eliminate two or three [Isis fighters] on the roof?

The UN also it was profoundly concerned by the reports emerging from al-Jadida, calling for all parties to do everything possible to protect civilians as an estimated 400,000 people remain trapped in dire humanitarian conditions in Mosul.

At at least 307 people were killed and another 273 wounded between 17 February and 22 March, according to UN figures, with the deadliest single incident on 17 March.

Isis has been fortifying Mosul for almost three years and its militants are deploying suicide car bombs, mines, booby traps, ambushes, mortars and drones to defend their last city stronghold in Iraq.

Faced with their toughest battle yet, Iraqi and coalition forces have increasingly turned to air strikes and artillery to clear and hold territory in densely-populated western districts.

Progress has faltered in the last two weeks as fighting enters the narrow alleys of the Old City, where thousands of civilians have been fleeing every day.

Those attempting to cross the Tigris River told The Independent people were being shot dead on bridges by both Isis as it tries to keep its human shields in place, and Iraqi army snipers suspicious of Isis infiltrators.
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Civilians trying to flee the besieged Isis-held enclave in west Mosul are being shot dead by Isis and Iraqi army snipers as they try to cross the Tigris River, says an eyewitness trapped inside the city with his family.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Jasim, a 33-year old Iraqi Sunni living in west Mosul near the 5th Bridge, said: I want to rescue my mother and take her to the eastern part, but it is dangerous. Three people were killed in our neighbourhood trying to cross the river to the eastern side. They were shot dead by the snipers.

Jasim explained that Daesh (Isis) have snipers who cover the river bank between the 5th and 6th bridges".

"The problem is that even at night things are not that easy," he said. "The Iraqi army, the federal police and counter-terror forces shoot anyone coming from the western side as there is curfew at night and they believe anyone coming from the western side must be a Daesh fighter. As a result, civilians are being killed by both Iraqi army mortars and Isis snipers when they try to escape. On several occasion in the past, the Iraqi security forces have announced that they have killed Isis infiltrators seeking to cross the Tigris from the west and these may have been civilians trying to escape.

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Speaking about civilian casualties inside his neighbourhood, Jasim says that dozens of civilians are killed every day, including children. Yesterday, two children were killed by a mortar shell of the Iraqi Army coming from the eastern part. He says that Iraqi government media claims that they have "smart artillery" is quite untrue. This is confirmed privately by senior Iraqi officers, one saying that many of the civilian casualties are not being caused by air strikes, but by Tuz Russian-made rockets mounted on the back of vehicles, which have no guidance systems.

In a grim demonstration of the danger from air attack facing anybody living in west Mosul, Jasim was himself injured in a drone attack hours after he spoke to The Independent. He has been removed to hospital but the extent of his injuries are not known.

Jasim gives one of the few accounts from inside the closely besieged western part of Mosul still held by Isis, describing the increasingly desperate living conditions of at least 300,000 people trying to survive there. The interview was conducted by mobile phone late at night from inside the west part of Mosul, though Isis has in the past shot or hanged people using mobiles whom it suspects of spying on them. Though the signal was weak, messages can be passed to east Mosul, captured by government forces after three months of heavy fighting that finished in January.

Referring to the growing shortage of food, Jasim says that people in our neighbourhood are searching in the garbage to find something that can be eaten to take it to their children. There have been no vegetables or fruit available for over a month. He and his family have a little flour and rice stored, but they want to keep it as a last resort to feed their children. He says they roam other neighbourhoods to see if they can find food there so as not to use up these last reserves before they have to.

Where food is available, it is often too expensive for most people to buy. Jasim says that where bakeries work, many women beg and ask those who have money to buy some bread for their children. Most of my neighbours eat bread only; they live on bread and water. Even water can be difficult to obtain because the only source is neighbourhood wells from which it is pumped. But those who get water here need to provide petrol, which costs the Iraqi dinar equivalent of $15 a litre, to run the pump.

In pictures: Mosul offensive Show all 40 1 /40 In pictures: Mosul offensive In pictures: Mosul offensive A doctor carries an Iraqi newborn baby at a hospital in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi girls play at a yard of a school in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017alal Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A woman on crutches who is a relative of men accused of being Islamic State militants is seen at a camp in Bartella, east of Mosul, Iraq July 15, 2017. Picture taken July 15, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A displaced girl, who fled from home carries a doll at Hamam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq July 13, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi federal police members and civilians celebrate in the Old City of Mosul on 9 July 2017 after the government's announcement of the "liberation" of the embattled city. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said he was in "liberated" Mosul to congratulate "the heroic fighters and the Iraqi people on the achievement of the major victory" AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken on 9 July 2017, shows a general view of the destruction in Mosul's Old City. Iraq will announce imminently a final victory in the nearly nine-month offensive to retake Mosul from jihadists, a US general said Saturday, as celebrations broke out among police forces in the city. AFP In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of the Iraqi federal police raise the victory gesture as they ride on a humvee while advancing through the Old City of Mosul on 28 June 2017, as the offensive continues to retake the last district held by Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Smoke billows as Iraqi forces advance through the Old City of Mosul on 26 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district held by the Islamic State (IS) group. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi man wearing the green scarf of the Shi'ite faith kisses an Iraqi Army soldier on safely reaching the Iraqi forces position as Iraqi civilians flee the Old City of west Mosul where heavy fighting continues on 23 June 2017. Iraqi forces continue to encounter stiff resistance with improvised explosive devices, car bombs, heavy mortar fire and snipers hampering their advance. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken from the inside of an Iraqi forces armoured vehicle shows residents walking through a damaged street as troops advance towards Mosul's Old City on 18 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district still held by the Islamic State (IS) group. Military commanders told AFP the assault had begun at dawn after overnight air strikes by the US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces. They said the jihadists were putting up fierce resistance. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi Army soldiers advance in a destroyed street after an Iraqi forces airstrike targeted an Islamic State sniper position 17 June 2017 in al-Shifa, the last district of west Mosul under Islamic State control. IS snipers, as well as car and suicide bomb attacks continue to hinder the Iraqi forces efforts to retake the final district. A series of airstrikes by Iraqi helicopter gunships attempted to hit multiple Islamic State sniper positions in al-Shifa. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier frisks a displaced Iraqi man at a temporary camp in the compound of the closed Nineveh International Hotel in Mosul on 16 June 2017 which was recovered by Iraqi troops from Islamic State group fighters earlier in the year. A screening centre set up in the compound's fairgrounds sees a constant stream of Iraqis fleeing the battle for Mosul, awaiting their turn to be checked by the Iraqi forces who are searching for suspected Islamic State (IS) group members. The small fairground lies at the end of a pontoon bridge across the Tigris recently opened to civilians that is the only physical link between the two banks of the river. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis staying at the al-Khazir camp swim in a river near the camp for internally displaced people, located between Arbil and Mosul on 11 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi government forces drive on a road leading to Tal Afar on 9 June 2017, during ongoing battles to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi policeman carries a poster bearing an image of Mosul's iconic leaning minaret, known as the "Hadba" (Hunchback), on 22 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis stand in line to receive food aid in western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood on 7 June 2017, during ongoing battles as Iraqi forces try to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. Living conditions in Mosul have again deteriorated since the start of the Iraqi government's offensive on the city in October in which they retook a large part of the west of the city. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced Iraqis carry lightbulbs and sacks as they evacuate from western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood as government forces advance in the area during their ongoing battle against Islamic State (IS) group fighters on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) flashes the victory gesture as he patrols in western Mosul's al-Islah al-Zaraye neighbourhood on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi army soldiers from the 9th armoured division on a truck flash the sign of victory as they drive back from Mosul to the town of Qaraqosh (also known as Hamdaniya) Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of Iraqi forces flash the sign of victory on their vehicle as they advance towards Hammam al-Alil area south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi security forces gestures in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi children, one flashing the sign of victory, greet Iraqi army's soldiers from the 9th armoured division in the area of Ali Rash, adjacent to the eastern Al-Intissar neighbourhood of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Peshmerga forces look at a tunnel used by Islamic State militants near the town of Bashiqa, east of Mosul, during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier takes a photograph with his phone as his comrade stands next to a detained man, whom the Iraqi army soldiers accused of being an Islamic State fighter, who was fleeing with his family in the Intisar disrict of eastern Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iranian Kurdish female members of the Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAK) hold a position in an area near the town of Bashiqa, some 25 kilometres north east of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families, who fled their homes in Hamam al-Alil, gather on the outskirts of their town Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced people walk past a checkpoint near Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families who were displaced by the ongoing operation by Iraqi forces against jihadists of the Islamic State group to retake the city of Mosul, are seen gathering in an area near Qayyarah In pictures: Mosul offensive A boy who just fled Abu Jarbuah village is seen with his family at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi child eats a pomegranate upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive People who just fled Abu Jarbuah village sit as they eat at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A couple who just fled Abu Jarbuah village are escorted by Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Women carry a boy over a wall as civilians flee their houses in the village of Tob Zawa, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier and a civilian ride a motorbike as smoke rises behind them, on the road between Qayyarah and Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces, wearing a skull mask, waits at a checkpoint for people fleeing the main hub city of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier sits at a checkpoint in an area near Qayyarah Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi men prepare food portions for Iraqi forces deployed in areas south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi forces celebrate upon the arrival of vehicles bringing food to them Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi childen smoke cigarettes upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces distributes drinks to children in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty

Surprisingly, there is a limited supply of electricity, though not in all areas according to Jasim. He says that we have electricity for about two hours every three days, though in some areas they havent had electricity since last month. People move during the day into other neighbourhoods to charge their phones. The mobile network is available only at night time because it is then that there is electricity in the eastern government-held part Mosul where there are mobile phone towers mounted on trucks.

The Isis-held enclave in Mosul, centred on the impenetrable warren of street and alleys so narrow that two people cannot walk abreast, is being heavily bombarded and is very dangerous. But people are still dying even in districts in east Mosul where fighting is supposed to have ended. An example of this happened on Monday in the east of the city in Nabi Yunus covered market, which is full of tiny booths and small shops, and which was crowded with shoppers when it was hit by the first of three Isis mortar bombs at 10 am. It struck a shop selling perfumes, which burst into flames, killing eleven adults and a child who were caught by the blast or burned to death by the fire which followed. Two more mortar bombs fired by Isis from the other side of the Tigris fell in the same area over the next hour, killing another child and two adults.

A small crowd was looking at the blackened burned out little shops when we arrived as a soldier in a red cap and a policeman tried with limited success to disperse them. Go home and dont stand here because Daesh (Isis) might send a suicide bomber! shouted the soldier angrily and some in the crowd looked worried, recalling that this is a favourite Isis tactic, and quickly walked away. The policemen said that many of the injured had been badly burned by the blazing perfume shop and were unlikely to survive.

Still from a video shows multiple market stalls on fire during the blaze at Nabi Yunus market in east Mosul, Iraq, on Sunday, 26 March (AP)

The mortar attack on Nabi Yunus market is only one incident out of dozens that are killing people every day in Mosul. There are at least 300,000 people packed into houses in the Old City of Mosul, which is still held by Isis and where it is impossible to distinguish fighters from civilians since they occupy the same houses which are often ancient and of flimsy construction. Some of these houses are so old that they would fall if you raised your voice, says Yohanna Towaya, a Christian leader who owns a house in the city.

Controversy continues to rage over the death of as many as 240 civilians, many hiding in cellars, killed during an air strike by the US-led air coalition on the Jadida district on 17 March which reduced three buildings to heaps of rubble. The coalition says it did carry out air strikes called in by Iraqi ground forces on this area at that time, but the Iraqi Defence Ministry claims that only 61 civilians were killed and these died because Isis had booby trapped the walls of the buildings in which they had taken shelter. Since Saturday it has banned journalists from entering those parts of west Mosul that it holds, making it difficult to verify how many bodies have been taken from the rubble. The online news letter Shaafaq News, which first broke the story of the Jadida air strike, says that it has been told by a security source that the true figure for casualties in west Mosul since the start of the offensive is 3,864 dead and 22,759 injured.

The best place from which to see what is happening in west Mosul is from the hill-top site once occupied by the Nabi Yunus shrine in east Mosul that was blown up by Isis as heretical in 2014. From there one can see the city on the western side of Tigris spread out like a map and, at first glance, the signs of war are not obvious aside from four plumes of smoke rising in the distance. Then there was the crash of Iraqi artillery firing nearby and, a few seconds later, another cloud of smoke rose in the distance. At one point, two helicopters passed over Isis-held territory and there was the sound of heavy machine gun or cannon fire.

There are not many soldiers or police in east Mosul, most of the elite units that captured it having moved on to take part in the fighting on the far side of the Tigris. Traffic is heavy, many shops are open and occasionally one can see workers with heavy construction equipment filling craters or replacing sewage pipes that have been severed by bombs or shells. Even small bridges were destroyed by air strikes and there are frequent craters at cross roads.

Ahmed, an architect who made a living in Mosul during the two-and-a-half year occupation by Isis by illegally selling cigarettes - for which he was repeatedly lashed - says that the main problem is the lack of electricity and fresh water aside from that pumped from wells. There are plenty of fruit and vegetables for sale on street stalls, but they are imported from Turkey and are expensive. Salaries for government employees, much the biggest source of employment all over Iraq, are only starting to be paid. Ahmed said that the behaviour of the Iraqi army at checkpoints is 90 per cent better than it was before Daesh captured the city in 2014, but the failure of the Iraqi government to provide services or salaries for people is making them unpopular.

Ahmed fears that west Mosul will be totally destroyed, saying that seven of my friends living in that part of the city have been killed this month alone  one by a Daesh sniper as he tried to escape and the six others by air strikes. It may be that the siege of west Mosul still has a long way to go. Hoshyar Zebari, the former Iraqi Foreign and Finance Minister, says west Mosul is not yet completely surrounded and Daesh are still sending in reinforcements, mostly from Central Asia. Citing an Iraqi general with whom he had just been talking, he said that there had been no relaxation of the rules of the engagement for the conduct of US-led air strikes since Donald Trump became President, something confirmed by other sources. The bad news for Mosul is that the siege of any city, defended by well-trained fanatics who will not surrender and are intermingled with a large population, makes it tragically inevitable that the civilians will suffer heavy loss of life.
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Hitler almost died from a cocaine overdose during the last days of the Second World War, a controversial new book has claimed.

German author Norman Ohler said that the Nazi leader almost stopped breathing after receiving an injection of the drug through his nose in September 1944.

His book, Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich, will be released in paperback this month.

It claims Hitler suffered a burst eardrum after a failed military plot to assassinate him inside his Wolfs Lair headquarters in what is now Poland in July 1944.

In order to alleviate the pain he got his personal physician, Dr Theodor Morell, to give him cocaine injections  despite the Nazis publicly denouncing the drug as a symptom of moral decay.

One account, written by his assistant physician Dr Erwin Giesing, said that he administered the drug to Hitler at least 50 times between July and September in the form of nose and throat dabs.

But after becoming concerned that the dictator was becoming dependent and it was affecting his decision making, on 1 October, it said Dr Morell refused to give him anymore until he had a full medical check up.

During the examination Hitler is reported to have said: Look in my nose again and put that cocaine thing in to get rid of the pressure in my head. I have important things to do today.

The subsequent dose was then apparently so strong Hitler lost consciousness and was briefly at risk of respiratory paralysis.

Hitler links: A Wagner, and not proud of it Show all 2 1 /2 Hitler links: A Wagner, and not proud of it Hitler links: A Wagner, and not proud of it 23106.bin Getty Images Hitler links: A Wagner, and not proud of it 23107.bin Justin Thomas

In an extract of the book published by Vice News, Mr Ohler wrote that this if this was true, it meant that "the self-described abstainer almost died of an overdose.

Published in Germany last year, the book has drawn criticism from some historians who said it was crass and overstated its central argument that the Nazis drugged the German public into compliance using a type of methamphetamine (crystal meth) called Pervitin.

A review by Cambridge historian, Professor Richard J Evans, said the claims implied the German people were not really responsible for the atrocities committed by the Nazis.

He rejected the notion that Hitler was in a state of chemically induced confidence which made him less likely to listen to generals advocating tactical withdrawals on several fronts when the war went against them.

Professor Evans also dismissed the idea that the euphoria brought on by the drug, fuelled his genocidal aggression which led to the mass extermination of Jewish people and vulnerable minorities in the death camps.

Mr Ohler does state the drugs did not exonerate Hitler from his decisions and he concluded that the Nazi leader was anything but insane.

But Professor Evans said the book read too much like a revisionist account of Nazi history.

Similarly Birbeck College Professor Nikolaus Wachsmann, in a review for the Financial Times, said that Mr Ohler, a former journalist and novelist, had sexed up his research and it was not true that the German public had easy access to drugs.

But one of the worlds leading experts on the Third Reich, Professor Sir Ian Kershaw, said the book was "a serious work of scholarship".
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There are still plenty of Spaniards who would pay good money to spit on the grave of General Francisco Franco, more than 40 years after his death. There are others who would happily part with the 9 admission fee to come and lay flowers on the plain stone that bears his name  but not his rank  inside the Basilica of the Holy Cross of the Valley of the Fallen. Neither form of tribute is now permitted in the church, where Spains former military leader lies surrounded by the bones of followers and enemies alike.

Security is tighter than it used to be at this vast and divisive monument to the Spanish Civil War, located an hour's drive north-west of Madrid. The site was bombed by Maoist anti-fascists as recently as 1999. Flag-waving Francoists and Catholic-authoritarian Falangists from the other side of the spectrum were known to get a bit over-enthusiastic while paying their respects here, before new rules were brought in about 10 years ago. Today, it stands as Spains most sombre tourist attraction.

You can see the place from miles out on the A-6 motorway. A huge granite cross rises straight up from the rock of the Sierra de Guadarrama, with a colossal esplanade carved out to make a platform for the basilica beneath. The vaulted crypt below was bored into the mountain as part of the construction  which took almost two decades across the 1940s and 50s. The whole thing was Francos idea.

The Civil War was not long over and WWII was well underway when the Generalissimo commissioned what he called a national act of atonement. Designers Pedro Muguruza and Diego Mendez were ordered to create a quasi-mythic space that would resonate with the grandeur of monuments of old, which defy time and memory.

The architecture is reminiscent of Hitler's favourite designer (Kavyanjali Kaushik)

They revived the sepulchral style of 16th-century Spanish architect Juan de Herrera, while the centrepiece resembles the ancient rock crosses raised by early Christians around Kerala in the first century A.D. But driving up from the main gate, along the winding access road that leads through thick pine forest and over worn stone bridges, the complex comes to look like something even older and weirder. A Mayan temple, maybe. A Babylonian ziggurat. A mountain altar for arcane rituals, or human sacrifices.

Even those who dont subscribe to the theory of psycho-geography might start to feel a spooky twitching in their compass on approach. Anyone whos ever read For Whom The Bell Tolls will recognise this terrain from that novel, which was set amid the fighting that occurred in these hills and trees between Madrid and Segovia around May 1937. No doubt there are still bullet casings and blasting caps out there under the pine needles, left behind by the republican partisans upon whom Ernest Hemingway based his story.

Some of those guerillas, if captured, may have helped with the building of this monument as prisoners-of-war. Francos regime offered to reduce the sentence of every convict who volunteered to join a work detail, though allegations persist of wholesale forced labour. The term slave labour has been used too, and Catalan politician Jaume Bosch recently went on record to describe this site as something like a Nazi concentration camp.

Which gives you some idea of the strength of feeling concentrated on this valley even now. The surrounding forest floor is said to hold about 40,000 bodies from both sides of the conflict, while only Franco and the like-minded Falangist leader Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera had the honour of burial inside the church itself.

There's an eerie feel to the site (Kavyanjali Kaushik)

To reach their tombs, a visitor first has to walk under the cross, held up by granite giants representing the apostles and virtues. Then into the edifice itself, reminiscent of Hitlers building planner Albert Speer. Then through the airport-style security gate, and past the militaristic icons and apocalyptic tapestries that decorate the interior  statues of angels with swords, images of the beast and the false prophet, chapels for the patron saints of the army, navy and air force.

The main lights are dimmed for morning mass, the black marble floor shines like a lake at night, the walls echo with Latin choral singing from the purple-robed priests on the distant altar. The effect is powerful, mesmeric, and unnerving. Franco is on the far side  furthest from the daylight, and the sunny Spain that so many come to visit. This is Spain too, though, and the past is still present. To be fair to the dead General, he never chose this as his final resting place. And that bolsters the case of those who want him out of here.

The memorial dominates the landscape around it (Kavyanjali Kaushik)

Earlier this year, the socialist opposition party PSOE put forward a resolution for the removal of his remains from this basilica, and the launch of a new truth commission into his regime. It was rejected by the conservative Peoples Party, leaders of the current ruling coalition, on the grounds that it might stress and divide the nation.

But standing over the crypt in the Valley of the Fallen, you might reflect on all the living Spaniards who will tell you over sherry that the civil war never really ended.

Travel essentials

Valley of the Fallen is open 10am-6pm October to March, and 10am-7pm April to September, admission 9. Autocares Herranz bus 664 from Madrid stops at the main gate; its a three-mile hike to the basilica from there.

More information

valledeloscaidos.es
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Tomorrow Theresa May will send her letter to Donald Tusk, notifying him that Britain is leaving the European Union. The clock has already started ticking. And you could be forgiven for thinking its going to be easy.

The Prime Minister herself declared at Lancaster House that she intends to define a new, positive and constructive partnership between Britain and the European Union by the time the two-year Article 50 process has concluded. This is ambitious. Indeed, it is probably hopelessly unrealistic.

Even if all goes smoothly, there are good reasons to doubt the Prime Ministers optimism. Leaving the EU involves two sets of negotiations. One  the Article 50 or divorce talks  is about the modalities of ensuring a smooth exit. The other will be about the nature of any future relationship between Britain and the EU.

Even assuming the other member states are willing to accede to the British desire to talk about a trade deal at the same time as we negotiate the Article 50 agreement, this might not be straightforward. Time will pose one immediate problem. Article 50 gives us two years to sign the two agreements. What with pauses for elections, for unexpected  though highly probable  crises involving the eurozone, or migration, or whatever  and, of course, for summer holidays, not to mention the period required for any deals to be ratified, were talking a maximum of 18 months for the negotiations themselves.

Even settling the divorce in such a time frame would be impressive. Agreeing on a comprehensive trade deal would be miraculous. And this, remember, is assuming the best of all possible worlds. More realistic scenarios imply far less salutary outcomes.

 Article 50: What will happen after it's triggered?

The British Government has repeatedly underlined its determination to negotiate a trade deal simultaneously with the Article 50 divorce settlement. Other member states, however, are more inclined to carry out the talks sequentially, sorting out the exit before turning to the future.

Given this, it makes sense for those other states to make talks on trade conditional on an agreement over at least the principles governing the Article 50 agreement. Prime Minister, wed like nothing more than to sort out our economic future. Can you just sign this agreement first, and well get onto that?

Unfortunately, the agreement promises to be deeply problematic. Weve all heard the numbers being bandied about, which range from 20bn to 60bn. Other member states want what they feel is their due. And this is all the more important in that they now have to adjust to life without a net contributor, which means difficult decisions about either who pays more or who gets less from the next budget round. As negotiations about the next Multi-Annual Financial Framework for the period 2020-2026 are about to start, these issues will be very much in their minds.

Coming to an agreement acceptable to both sides will not be easy. Indeed, even agreeing which issues should figure in the negotiations  whether they should, for instance, include British liabilities for the loans the EU has provided  will be far from straightforward.

There is every chance, then, that the talks might not even reach the trade agreement. As word of the sums being discussed leak to the British press, the political pressure will mount. Hardline Eurosceptics in Parliament will balk at the idea of paying for the privilege of leaving the EU. And the Prime Minister may decide, in her own words, that no deal is better than a bad deal.

Yet assume that this does not happen, that the Article 50 talks go well, and that a clever way is found to breach the divide over money. Payments could be staggered. They could be dressed up as a British contribution to poorer member states rather than a compulsory payment to the EU budget. The potential fudges are endless.

At this point, attention turns to trade. Here, too, time will be an issue. I do not know a single expert on trade who thinks a comprehensive deal could be struck within the available time.

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

As for substance, the Prime Minister has stated that she wants Britain to be able to trade with the EU as freely as possible, while refusing free movement and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. Yet for some member states  including, crucially, Germany  this latter condition precludes much of what might be reconcilable with the former. In particular, it is hard to see how the kind of sectoral arrangements with the single market that British Ministers have hinted at will be possible without some kind of ECJ oversight.

Leaving aside the time constraints, then, there are practical barriers standing in the way of the negotiation of the kind of outcome the Prime Minister is after. If, after all this, the deal she gets is not one that provides the kind of trade of which she has spoken, what then?

One option would be to take whatever deal is on the table to Parliament. Yet if the political mood has shifted (possibly because of similar shifts in public opinion) this would be a risky tactic.

At this point, it will be Remainers and Leavers keen to maintain something as close as possible to single market membership who will form the roadblock. The promised parliamentary vote would indeed be meaningful if the Prime Minister were to lose it. At that point, given the credibility she has staked on this negotiation, she might have no choice but to resign. Following that, no option is off the table.

Consequently, Theresa May has very little incentive to take anything but the sort of stellar deal it is hard to see being negotiable before the House. Should she fail to achieve this, the temptation of resorting to the no deal is better than a bad one approach will again be overwhelming.

The stakes are high and the risks of failure equally so. At either stage of the talks, formidable hurdles stand in the way of the Prime Minister being able to come up with a deal acceptable to a domestic audience. The cliff edge looms ever larger.

Anand Menon is director of the UK in a Changing Europe initiative and professor of European politics and foreign affairs at Kings College London
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I am dead worried about Jared Kushner. There are whispers  from Fox News, and they should know  that hes struggling in his new perch at the White House and losing weight. Those shoulders of his werent too broad in the first place. But the burden on them just keeps growing.

Look at what he has going on, not including the demands of a family with three children under the age of six. Responsibility number one: restraining the more self-destructive instincts of his swerving father-in-law, the President. You know he understands the perils of Twitter because when you look up his own handle, it just reads: @jaredkushner hasn't Tweeted. Smart man.

Yet each time his Make America Great Again edifice loses a cornice, Donald Trumps default response is to push Kushner onto an ever-higher pedestal upon it. It has been a dizzying rise for the dauphin prince. But he should ask: how will I survive if it all comes crashing down?

Trump has done it again. Reeling from the replace-Obamacare debacle, hes just unveiled something called the White House Office of American Innovation, with Kushner in charge. The wheeze: to make the federal government act more like a private company. Our hope is that we can achieve successes and efficiencies for our customers, Kushner told The Washington Post.

So we are citizen-customers now. Is there a cash-back guarantee if Product Trump, PT, under-performs? Look at LL Bean, the venerable outdoor clothing supplier. It refunds anything regardless of when you bought it. If somethings not working or fitting or standing up to its task or lasting as long as you think it should, well take it back, it pledges. Tempting, but with PT its the other way about: no returning it for four years (exceptional circumstances excluded).

Kushners innovation white-board squiggles will be migraine-inducing. His remit includes nurturing the 100 business titans  Bill Gates-grade folk  who have already visited the White House to mine their brains on how to make government more efficient. It must streamline, notably, the Department of Veterans Affairs. As if that wasnt enough, it will also take on the scourge of opioid abuse. And odd fit with everything else, but never mind.

That, you imagine, is enough about Jared for one week. I fear not. As a direct result of yet another set of responsibilities that were thrust upon him even before the inauguration  setting up channels of communication with foreign powers  he is being drawn into the one affair he'd absolutely prefer to stay away from: the alleged links between the Trump campaign and Russia.

It is as private ambassador for Trump that Kushner has also found himself tasked with brokering peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Honestly. If you can't produce peace in the Middle East, nobody can, Trump was heard telling him before his swearing-in. Such faith in his son-in-law, who is just 36, notwithstanding his comprehensive dearth of experience, is touching. Kushner is an observant Jew  his wife, the Presidents daughter, Ivanka, converted before their marriage  but it isnt clear if that will help or hinder him in this particular endeavour.

But back to Russia. How big a problem this is about to become for Kushner is not clear. What we know so far: during the transition he met with Moscows ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, something he reportedly omitted to mention when the White House was dealing with crisis that led to the resignation of Mike Flynn as national security adviser when it emerged that he too had spoken with Kislyak and that his conversations had included discussions of the eventual lifting by Trump of sanctions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration.

Contact with Kislyak by itself may not be a problem. But what has piqued the interest of a Senate panel probing the whole issue of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election is a subsequent meeting, that was requested by Kislyak, between Kushner and a fellow called Sergey Gorkov. He is chief of Vnesheconombank, which is directly controlled by the Putin government and is one of the banks that was hit with Obama sanctions after Russian intrusions into Ukraine. Kushner only owned up for the first time to that second meeting this week.

Mike Flynn was ousted as national security adviser after revelations of conversations with Russian Ambassador Kislyak (Evan Vucci/AP)

The White House insists Kushner was merely doing his job  smoothing the way with foreign governments ahead of the Trump team taking power. There is a problem with that, however: the Russian bank issued a statement saying that Gorkov met with Kushner in his capacity as head Kushner Companies, the giant property development firm founded by Kushners father in the 1980s, of which Kushner Jr was still CEO at the time ahead of his stepping down in January.

Even before trying to get to the bottom of what was discussed by the two men, this returns the spotlight to the conflict-of-interest questions that cling to Kushner as they do to Ivanka. Remember when Kellyanne Conway urged TV viewers to buy her jewellery from the West Wing? We recently learned of talks going on between the Kushner clan and Anbang Insurance Group, the giant Chinese company with direct links to the leadership in Beijing, to buy a $400m (321m) stake in a Kushner-owned sky-scraper in Manhattan. They are happening as both countries are preparing for a first meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping next month.

Kushner is the closest person to Trump himself to be summoned to testify on the Russia affair. (The White House says he volunteered, rather than was summoned.) As far as we know he has not yet been similarly approached by the FBI, which has been pursuing its own Russia investigation since July. If it turns out he offered any kind of reassurance to Gorkov of sanctions on his bank being lifted by Trump then he will face pressure to walk the same plank that Flynn had to.

Its no wonder if Kushner is starting to look peaky. The man was overworked already and now this Russia cloud has blown in. He has that baby complexion, but just how concerned you choose to be for his health and his sanity is entirely up to you.
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In an era of unprecedented turmoil in British politics, it was perhaps only a matter of time that one of the many precariously plates being juggled by Theresa Mays Government would come crashing down. That seems to have emphatically happened with power-sharing in Northern Ireland, which has now clattered to the ground.

Northern Irish politics is in full blown crisis. In January of this year, the leading republican party Sinn Fein pulled out of power-sharing with their unionist counterparts, the DUP. Sinn Fein was protesting what the party termed DUP arrogance over its leader Arlene Fosters refusal to step aside while she is investigated over allegations that she was responsible for a botched government scheme which cost the Northern Irish taxpayer half a billion pounds.

Under rules outlined by the peace process, both nationalist and unionist politicians have to share power at all times for Stormont to remain standing. As a result, without Sinn Fein, power-sharing collapsed.

In response to this, the British Government called a snap election in Northern Ireland, in the hope a new government would be returned to Stormont by the electorate which would be willing to share power.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 7 November 2022 Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of a protester who has climbed a gantry on the M25 between junctions six and seven in Surrey, leading to the closure of the motorway PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2022 A grey seal with its pup, at the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in north Lincolnshire, where they come every year in late October, November and December to give birth to their pups near the sand dunes, the wildlife spectacle attracts visitors from across the UK PA 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 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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 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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

After six weeks of canvassing, Northern Ireland went to the polls for a historic vote. After ballots were counted with bated breath, the same titans of Northern Irish politics returned, with the DUP remaining the largest unionist party and Sinn Fein persisting as the largest nationalist one. The status quo was back, and with it, the same stalemate.

A mandatory three-week period of negotiations ensued in which the DUP and Sinn Fein thrashed out whether they could return to power-sharing. Neither of them would back down. The DUP has insisted its leader does not need to step aside during an investigation into the financial scandal and Sinn Fein will not backtrack on it being a red line issue. The official deadline for an agreement was 4pm on Monday; perhaps inevitably, the time has come and gone with no resolution.

What happens next is up to the British Government in Westminster. Realistically, Theresa May has three options. She can ask her Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire to call yet another election in Northern Ireland. But he himself has announced there is no appetite within the Northern Irish electorate for a third election in just 12 months.

The second option is that Northern Ireland would be ruled directly from London for a period of time, in a process known as Direct Rule. Such a step would be a huge blow to the peace process and could cause disillusionment among locals for the democratic process. This sense of frustration and being sidelined would be particularly acute for Northern Irish people as they would be left without a government during Brexit negotiations, meaning no local representatives would get to advocate on their behalf.

Northern Ireland voted to remain, and the second largest nationalist party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, has said it will no longer accept direct rule from London solely, as the Conservatives have lost their credibility over Brexit. The SDLP says it will now only accept joint rule by London in partnership with Dublin. This would be extremely contentious at any time but particularly during Brexit, as an EU country (the Republic of Ireland) would be helping to run a part of the UK.

The third option seems the most likely, although by no means palatable or even logical. The British Government could simply stall for time and refuse to make a decision over eventual elections or direct rule. By essentially kicking the issue into the long grass and not making an announcement either way, Prime Minister May could wait until her main political focus, triggering Article 50, is at a less crucial stage.

As the 4pm deadline came and went without agreement, Brokenshire solemnly took to the steps of Stormont House to issue his statement on the British Governments plans. While the Northern Irish media waited for clarification, none was forthcoming. He ruled out an immediate election but appeared to be choosing his words carefully in not indicating whether a new election in a few months was on the cards. Similarly, he wouldnt reveal whether direct rule will now be imposed from London, or on a joint basis of London and Dublin.

Either the Conservatives did not realise the magnitude of recent events in Northern Ireland and the inevitable path the region has been hurtling towards, and were genuinely shocked to see Stormont collapse, or they are simply pretending to be so in order to buy time.

Continuing to ignore the Northern Ireland crisis until the most delicate stages of Brexit are out of the way might be whats best for the Conservative Party, but it could do irrevocable harm to Northern Irelands peace process. Theresa Mays failure to engage with fundamental flaws in the regions politics is one of the reasons why the crisis occurred  the same approach certainly will not remedy it.

As Mays time at Number 10 becomes increasingly defined by how she does or doesnt handle Brexit, she might very well continue to sideline Northern Ireland in her pursuit of this one policy. A political vacuum now exists in Northern Ireland and it is up to the Prime Minister to fill it.
Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, warned transport chiefs it has the 'financial might' to sustain the striking workers

Walkout workers at Bus Eireann have been bolstered by a 40 million euro strike fund, it has been revealed.

Trade union Unite says it will open its massive war-chest to support the all-out industrial action as it entered its fifth day.

Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, warned transport chiefs it has the "financial might" to sustain the striking workers.

"Over a number of years, Unite has amassed a 40 million euro strike fund to support members during industrial disputes," he said.

"I am sending a clear message to employers: when our members are in dispute, they not only have right on their side - they also have financial might on their side."

The manoeuvre is the latest in an increasingly bitter stand-off between Bus Eireann bosses and workers.

On Monday, directors at the State bus company said they could not sign off on their accounts or set a budget for the year ahead - as is required - because of the deepening crisis.

The bosses also warned a voluntary redundancy scheme - which was expected to shed about 300 jobs - could not be funded without a financial plan in place.

Trade union Siptu retaliated with a threatened escalation, announcing that Dublin Bus and Irish Rail workers will vote on a "sympathy" strike in support of the walkout at Bus Eireann.

Unite's vowed financial backing will further boost morale on picket lines around the country.

"They are fighting not only for their own futures, but for the right of communities throughout Ireland to a decent public transport system that provides a quality service and quality jobs," said Mr McCluskey.

"They have my full support in that battle - and the backing of a 40 euro million strike fund."

Bus Eireaan bosses said they are "gravely concerned" at losses continuing to accelerate at the company, which it says has been exacerbated by strike action to date.

They appealed for union leaders to agree a survival plan to prevent the company collapsing.

The row centres on millions of losses run up at Bus Eireann in recent years, with management warning the company is at risk of going bust.

Unions involved in the action include the National Rail and Bus Union, Siptu, Unite and the Transport and Salaried Staff Association (TSSA).

The TSSA branded the failure of Bus Eireann bosses to sign off on its accounts as "unedifying shenanigans" being played out "ahead of probable privatisation".
Fianna Fail said it could not express confidence in Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has promised a "thorough, independent and comprehensive" review of An Garda Siochana following a welter of scandals in the force.

Amid the latest controversies - the gross exaggeration of drink-driving statistics and thousands of drivers being wrongly prosecuted for motoring offences - Mr Kenny warned policing will be put through a "root-and-branch" examination.

In a statement, the Government said the recent revelations were so unacceptable and public concerns were so profound that it was opening talks with the opposition on how it would carry out the review.

"I'm very unhappy about this situation," Mr Kenny said.

Last week an audit revealed almost one million fewer drink-driving breath tests were carried out from 2012 to 2016 than gardai had claimed.

The Garda also admitted 146,000 people were taken to court and 14,700 people were wrongly convicted of motoring offences because of issues with the fixed penalty system.

One of the force's official watchdogs, the Policing Authority, said the discrepancies raised widespread concern about how gardai go about their work on a daily basis.

It said it was not just a statistical matter but "an ethical one".

The Taoiseach said Government has confidence in embattled Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan despite damning criticism over the failure to explain clearly how the gross exaggeration of data and mistakes on the fixed charge penalty system happened.

He said the issues were causing serious concerns.

"We continue to see a list of unacceptable revelations about the operation of An Garda Siochana," Mr Kenny said.

"The Government believes that the level of public concern is now so profound that it's now time to conduct a thorough, comprehensive and independent, root-and-branch review of An Garda Siochana."

Mr Kenny told the Dail the exact detail of the review of the force will be decided by the Government next week.

In the meantime, an external inquiry is being set up into the erroneous garda statistics and prosecutions.

Fianna Fail said it cannot express confidence in the commissioner following the latest scandal but called for the Government to reveal when the Garda notified the Tanaiste and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald.

Party leader Micheal Martin said: "The public are genuinely shocked by the revelations of last week."

The Garda Commissioner has been called before the Oireachtas Justice Committee on Thursday over the affair and she is also due to meet the chairwoman of the Policing Authority Josephine Feehily over her handling and the force's handling of the scandal before the end of the week.

Sinn Fein deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said the bogus statistics showed the scandal was endemic and claimed there was a " rotten management culture" in the force.

"Anyone who thinks the dysfunctional culture in An Garda Siochana wi ll change while the current commissioner remains is, frankly, living in cloud cuckoo land.

"The game is up. This is an absolute mess."
Formal exit talks between the UK and the EU can commence (Stock photo)

Prime Minister Theresa May signs the Article 50 letter in her London office yesterday before it was dispatched to Brussels to be handed over this morning. Photo: PA

The triggering of Article 50 today means that formal exit talks between the UK and the remaining 27 members of the EU can commence.

It is hoped, rather than expected, that the UK will have a trade deal negotiated with the EU prior to exiting the union.

Over the coming months we can look out for the following:

1. Will we have a clearer insight into Britains negotiation?

It is not expected that Prime Minister Mays letter to formally trigger Article 50 will provide much detail in respect of the British negotiation, however crucial things to look out for are hints in respect of how much Britain is willing to pay to exit the EU.

Also will Britain wish to engage in negotiating a transitional deal to prevent the immediate introduction of trade barriers should a formal deal not be reached prior to Britains exit?

2. Or a better understanding of the EUs negotiation stance?

EU leaders are expected to meet in April to discuss negotiation guidelines which the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, has said he will provide within 48 hours of Article 50 being triggered.

High on Irelands agenda at the April meeting will be the issue around the Border with Northern Ireland and the ability of Irish people to live and work in the UK visa free (and vice versa).

Read More

3. What kind of market reaction can we expect?

Todays event has been on the horizon since the referendum on Brexit, therefore a severe market reaction tomorrow is unlikely.

However, the performance of the sterling over the coming weeks and months will be of critical importance to Irish exporters, in particular the food and drink industry.

A continued fall in the value of sterling will have serious consequences for Irish exporters and the Irish economy.

4. What impact will this have on elections in Europe?

While Brexit did not appear to have much influence on the result of the Dutch general election in March, many believe that the expected battle between Le Pen and Macron in the French presidential election is a referendum on Frances future in Europe.

Le Pen has promised to hold a referendum on France withdrawing from the EU should she get elected, while Macrons pro-Europe position has been a major feature of his campaign to-date.

Meanwhile in Germany, Brexit and the future of Europe is expected to feature strongly in Septembers Federal Elections as Angela Merkel seeks a fourth term in office.

5. Will a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland return?

There are concerns that once Britain leaves the EU a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will return.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has warned the re-establishment of a hard border in the wake of Brexit could lead to an upsurge in criminality and even armed conflict.

"The Irish people didn't cause this problem; the challenge is not just psychological - it's also political," he said.

"I don't want to be alarmist about it but this is a political challenge here."
Consultants acting for businessman Denis O'Brien's Purleigh Holdings have rejected a call from Dublin City Council that the firm's 50m D4 luxury apartment plan should include a childcare facility.

Earlier this year, Dublin City Council put the 90 unit-development on hold after local opposition to the plan - with one residents' group declaring "enough is enough".

The 90 apartments are contained in five five-storey blocks.

Putting the plan on hold, the City Council pointed out for new residential schemes a child-care facility will be required unless there are significant reasons to the contrary, with a benchmark of one childcare facility per 75 dwellings.

Now, in response, consultants for Mr O'Brien's firm, Hughes Planning and Development Consultants, had said that the provision of a childcare facility "is not warranted".

The consultants state that based on census data, the apartments will accommodate 246 people including only nine children aged up to fours years of age.

"We would not consider it practical to cater for such low child care demand. In addition, the site location, being backfill or infill in nature would not be conducive to offering a childcare facility to the wider community," they said.

The consultants state that any demand for childcare from residents from the development can be absorbed by existing childcare facilities in the area.

Hughes Planning and Development Consultants lists 34 childcare facilities operating in the Dublin 4 area with seven located in Donnybrook.

The consultants state: "On review of this data, we would submit that given the number and variety of child-care providers in the area, that any demand for childcare generated by the proposed development can be met locally."

The consultants also point out that 10 of the 18 three bedroom units in the development lie within the area of Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown and this application was granted planning on February 24th last.

The apartment plan to be decided by Dublin City Council is facing stiff opposition from locals.

A strident objection from the Greenfield Residents Group followed 30 residents from Nutley Square opposing the plan.
The European Central Bank (ECB) crossed the line into improper political activity during the Eurozone crisis, according to a report by anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International.

Actions, including former ECB President Jean Claude Trichets controversial secret letters to the late Brian Lenihan ahead of the Irish bailout in 2010 and letters to the governments of Spain and Italy insisting that support for banks was linked to policy actions, were cited in the report.

Transparency International found that the ECBs institutional independence gave the bank an extraordinary degree of latitude. It said the organisation should be more answerable, and recommended that the ECB no longer form part of the Troika overseeing bank bailouts.

In a statement the ECB, which cooperated with the original research, said steps had been taken since the crisis to further enhance its transparency, accountability and integrity mechanisms.
Jurys Inn hosted a record five million guests in 2016 with the company posting growth of 13.6pc for 2016 in Ireland and the UK.

Interestingly, Argentina was the country from which visitor numbers grew fastest, with growth up by 124pc compared to 2016.

Jurys said that the first quarter of last year saw the highest rate of growth, with visitor numbers up by 15.6pc in March.

The company's parent, Amaris Hospitality, has spent 50m in the past two years on rebranding and renovating the Jury's portfolio.

"Overall 2016 was a very good year for Irish tourism and we were delighted to have welcomed over five million guests to a Jurys Inn hotel in Ireland and the UK," said company managing director Jason Carruthers. "It was encouraging to see high levels of growth in both domestic and international visitors throughout the whole year and further sign of the increasing strength of the Jurys Inn brand," Mr Carruthers added.

Jurys said that it had also experienced strong growth in traffic from the Czech Republic last year. Visits from Portugal were also up, while German tourists also arrived in increasing numbers.

Jurys Inn has four hotels in Ireland as well 31 in the UK and one in the Czech Republic. The company's last set of financial figures for 2015 showed revenues of 193m(233m).

The company said the figures for the first months of this year were "encouraging", adding that it expected to drive further growth in the year ahead.

Company research found that overseas trips to Ireland rose overall by 10pc last year to 9.5 million.
A number of EU countries are reportedly lending support to Ireland in its appeal over the Apple tax ruling.

Last year, the European Commission found that the State gave the tech giant 13bn in illegal tax aid.

According to the Irish Times, Luxembourg plans to make an 'intervention' in support of the Government in its case against the Commission.

Luxembourg's tax treatment of multinationals has also been targeted by EU competition authorities.

A spokesman for the Grand Duchys finance ministry told the paper that they will be lending support - but declined to say on what aspects they will be weighing in on.

It is understood that a number of other countries who have been under investigation for alleged sweetheart deals will also become involved.

More to follow...
European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager holds a news conference after Dow Chemical gained conditional EU antitrust approval on Monday for their $130 billion merger by agreeing to significant asset sales, one of a trio of mega mergers that will redraw the agrochemicals industry, in Brussels

Dow Chemical and DuPont have won European Union approval for a $77bn (70bn) merger, overcoming regulators' concerns with concessions, including the sale of large parts of DuPont's pesticide business.

The takeover, announced a year ago, is the first to win EU approval out of a trio of mega-deals that would reshape the global agrochemicals industry. The transactions, including Bayer AG's plan to buy Monsanto and China National Chemical's agreement to buy Syngenta, would whittle down six players to three behemoths in the US, Germany and China.

The EU said the combination could have halted work on new chemical products in areas where Dow and DuPont currently compete head-to-head. "We always look at what a merger would change not just today but also tomorrow," EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said. "It is just as important to make sure" mergers don't "reduce innovation".

DuPont has agreed to divest "a significant part" of its existing pesticide business, including R&D activities. That covers herbicides for cereals, oilseed rape, sunflower, rice and pasture as well as insecticides used for fruit and vegetables. DuPont's "global R&D organization" will mostly be sold too. Dow will sell two plants in Spain and the U.S. that make acid co-polymers.

In a joint statement they described the "regulatory milestone" as "a significant step toward closing the merger transaction".

Attention now moves to the US, where the Justice Department is also expected to require divestitures before approving the tie-up.

Environmental campaigners had renewed calls to block all three deals. (Bloomberg)
The Daily Mail's coverage of a meeting between Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May has sparked widespread condemnation.

The British newspaper featured the meeting as its front page story next to the headline: "Never mind Brexit, who won Legs-it!"

The front page, which was taken from the newspaper's UK edition, circulated on Twitter in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

It referred to a meeting in Glasgow between the Scottish First Minister and the British Prime Minister a day before the Scottish Parliament is expected to pass a vote in favour of seeking another independence referendum, and two days before Ms May is due to trigger Article 50.

But it wasn't just the front page that caused outrage. Inside the newspaper, a headline read: "Finest weapons at their command? Those pins!"

A column by Sarah Vine referred to Sturgeon's legs as "altogether more flirty, tantalisingly crossed... a direct attempt at seduction".

Some of the first people to criticise the newspaper's choice of words was former Tony Blair spin doctor Alastair Campbell who labelled the paper "utter scum" and urged anyone who came across the newspaper to rip it up.
Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft in Warner Bros. Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures action adventure Tomb Raider,. Photo by Graham Bortholomew.

Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft in Warner Bros. Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures action adventure Tomb Raider. Photo by Graham Bortholomew.

Alicia Vikander is playing Lara Croft in an origins tale about the Tomb Raider character.

Alicia Vikander has been shown as Lara Croft in a first-look image from the Tomb Raider reboot.

The Swedish actress is taking over from Angelina Jolie in a new action film about the video game character, which is being released 15 years after Angelinas last outing as Croft.

The image shows Alicia, 28, clad in the characters trademark vest and covered in dirt and dust.

Expand Close Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft in Warner Bros. Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures action adventure Tomb Raider,. Photo by Graham Bortholomew. / Facebook

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The latest movie is said to be an origins tale drawn from the 2013 Tomb Raider game.

Director Roar Uthaug said Oscar winner Alicia, who won the award for her role in The Danish Girl and played Vera Brittain in Testament Of Youth, is a brilliant Lara Croft.

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She brings great depth to a complex role that is both physically and emotionally demanding, he said.

He said the film is an origin story for the big screen, focusing not only on Laras strength and physical accomplishments but her humanity.

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We see Lara as a young woman, smart and capable but largely unfocused, and follow her on a dangerous journey that will push her to her limits in every sense, and allow her to hone the skills she needs to ultimately become who she was meant to be, he added.

Angelina played Lara Croft in Tomb Raider in 2001, then reprised the role in The Cradle Of Life in 2003.

The film is due to be released in 2018.
South Asian cities will likely remain the most stressed over the coming century, but others including Lagos in Nigeria and Shanghai in China may become newly heat stressed. Photo: Stock

More than 350 million people living in the world's biggest cities face being hit with deadly heatwaves every year even if climate change targets are reached.

Researchers in Maynooth University say that even if global temperature rise is limited to no more 2C, as required under the Paris Climate deal, 40pc of the world's 44 megacities will be hit with annual heat waves.

Megacities are defined as urban areas with populations of 20 million or more. In 2015, thousands of people were killed in Karachi in Pakistan and Kolkata (Calcutta) in India after a deadly heatwave.

In a world which is 2C warmer, these cities could experience similar heat episodes every year, according to a study published in 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS)'.

Undertaken by scientists from Liverpool John Moores University, Loughborough University in the UK and Maynooth University, it examined data from recent projections of climate change and population growth and found that more than 350 million people could be exposed to heat stress every year.

South Asian cities will likely remain the most stressed over the coming century, but others including Lagos in Nigeria and Shanghai in China may become newly heat stressed.

For global warming of 2.7C, which tallies with current commitments to greenhouse gas reduction, the world's largest city - Tokyo in Japan - is likely to be affected. With a 4C hike, New York will be hit.

Senior lecturer in geography in Maynooth University Dr Conor Murphy said that around 20pc of the world's mega- cities already experienced heat stress but this was expected to increase.

"One thing we're confident about in future climate change is temperature," he said. "Heat stress is a combination of temperature and humidity, and these findings highlight how sensitive heat stress is to climate change.

"We show that for even modest warming amounts, the global burden of heat stress will likely grow considerably. For each fraction of a degree the climate warms, the increase in heat stress is ever greater. That translates into progressively heavier impacts globally if the Paris targets are missed."

The work was undertaken to explore the extent to which the ambitious climate change targets agreed in Paris might avoid impacts dangerous to society.

The report comes as Ireland is criticised for failing to do enough to ramp-up efforts to tackle global warming, being ranked 18th out of 27 EU countries for its efforts.

Carbon Market Watch ranks Sweden, Germany and France as the top performing countries, and said Ireland has not set an adequate long-term target to reduce emissions and help implement the Paris Climate deal.
The young son of tragic Captain Dara Fitzpatrick paid a heartbreaking tribute to his mum on Mother's Day.

The three-year-old released a balloon for his mum to "catch in the sky", according to Cpt Fizpatrick's sister Niamh.

As is Mother's Day we gave Fionn a balloon to release for his Mama to catch in the sky. It just about broke my own mother's heart #Rescue116  Niamh Fitzpatrick (@NFitzPsychology) March 26, 2017

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"As is Mother's Day we gave Fionn a balloon to release for his Mama to catch in the sky. It just about broke my own mother's heart," Niamh Fitzpatrick wrote on Twitter.

She also asked the public to continue praying for the recovery of the missing crew members of Rescue 116, Ciaran Smith and Paul Ormsby, and for all the crew member's families.

Capt. Mark Duffy is back with his family. Please keep praying for recovery of Ciaran Smith & Paul Ormsby. We need them home #Rescue116 #RIP  Niamh Fitzpatrick (@NFitzPsychology) March 26, 2017

Search teams have been examining underneath the wreckage of the Rescue 116 helicopter in the hope of recovering the two missing Irish Coast Guard members.

Winch operator Ciaran Smith (38) and winch man Paul Ormsby (53) have still not been found after their Sikorsky S-92 helicopter collided with Blackrock Island off the Co Mayo coast in the early hours of March 14.

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Their colleague Captain Mark Duffy (51) was brought to shore on Sunday afternoon after Naval Service divers recovered his body from the cockpit of the helicopter wreckage.
Eamon McGann from Bluebell, Adam Ferguson from Cabra and Gerard Hudson from Inchicore with striking colleagues at the Broadstone Depot. Photo: Gareth Chaney

Passengers face public transport chaos as workers at Dublin Bus and Irish Rail are set to ballot for industrial action in sympathy with their colleagues at Bus Eireann, who have mounted an all-out strike.

Following a meeting of representatives from the three CIE companies yesterday, Siptu said it had a mandate for a vote.

The union's transport organiser, Willie Noone, said it was a legitimate trade dispute because members believe they are "next in the firing line" if Bus Eireann forces through pay cuts and changes to terms and conditions.

"If Bus Eireann becomes insolvent and 2,600 people have no jobs, their CIE colleagues are not going to sit back and take that," he said.

However, it could be a couple of weeks before they could mount pickets to allow time for balloting and the legal requirement to give one week's notice of industrial action.

Bus Eireann is losing 500,000 a day during the strike that began last Friday after it imposed cuts to earnings. Acting chief executive Ray Hernan has warned it will be insolvent in May but industrial action means it could happen more quickly.

Siptu representatives have also decided to join a protest in support of Bus Eireann workers outside Leinster House tomorrow, which could lead to disruption at Irish Rail and Dublin Bus.

CIE drivers who are rostered to work are expected to attend the protest that will coincide with an appearance by Transport Minister Shane Ross at an Oireachtas transport committee.

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Mr Noone said representatives agreed the protest was a means of highlighting the "failure" of the minister to take responsibility for the "dysfunctional state" of the public transport service.

The general secretary of the National Bus and Railworkers Union, Dermot O'Leary, warned that it would be difficult to maintain industrial peace across CIE if Bus Eireann imposes compulsory redundancies. He was commenting after the company revealed it may have to "consider other measures" to avoid becoming insolvent after a crucial board meeting yesterday.

Following the meeting, the company said it will not be able to fund a voluntary redundancy scheme, which was designed to cut 300 jobs under a 30m cost-cutting plan. It was unable to sign off on its accounts and could not pass a budget for next year because it did not have agreement with staff.

"This is a very serious matter as the board must now formally advise CIE that this governance requirement will not be met," it said in a statement.

It said management presented a plan that would secure the future of the company that included the elimination of "grossly inefficient" work practices, which had been acknowledged by unions.

"Without a plan which encompasses the necessary work-practice changes to generate savings, it will not be possible to fund a voluntary redundancy scheme and, faced with that scenario, the board of directors will have no option but to consider other measures to prevent the business becoming insolvent," it said.

"The board remains gravely concerned that losses continue to accelerate at Bus Eireann, exacerbated now by four days of strike action."

It urged unions to engage in talks on a survival plan.

Mr O'Leary said compulsory redundancies would be unprecedented in the semi-state sector.

He said such job losses "open a completely different and potentially uncontrollable" dimension to the dispute and present severe difficulties maintaining the "already fragile" industrial peace across CIE.
Anna Finnegan wrote a letter to her former partner, who is accused of her murder, where she stated that he had beaten her, made her life "hell" and had almost killed her a few times, a jury has heard.

Videos of Vesel Jahiri's fifth and sixth garda interviews were shown to a Central Criminal Court jury today in the fifth week of the 35-year-old's trial.

Mr Jahiri, 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.

Mr Jahiri has dismissed his legal team and is now representing himself at the trial.

Inspector Ann Ellis previously gave evidence in the trial that she was involved in a search at Allendale Glen on September 23. The witness said she located a handbag in the kitchen that contained a three-paged letter which may have been written by Anna Finnegan. Insp Ellis also located a protection order in a press.

Today, prosecution counsel Mr Patrick Marrinan SC played the fifth and sixth videos of interview, recorded in Blanchardstown Garda Station on September 23.

Mr Jahiri told gardai that he had received a protection order in the post two weeks previously. The court heard the accused had also received summonses for a barring order and a safety order.

The accused denied to gardai that he was a jealous boyfriend and said he and Anna "sometimes" had arguments.

Detective Garda Bernard Connaughton told Mr Jahiri that gardai had found a letter located in Annas handbag in Allendale Glen. It was a letter she (Anna) wrote to you, it wasnt sent to you, said Det Gda Connaughton.

The court heard that there was no date on the letter but it was written two or three weeks previously, before Anna moved to Bray Womens Refuge with her two children.

Det Gda Connaughton told Mr Jahiri that this letter showed how possessive, controlling and jealous he was of Anna Finnegan. Det Gda Connaughton then read the letter to Mr Jahiri.

"Vesel, before you assume Im running off with your kids Im not. Im minding them for a couple of weeks. You promised me you would let me go when you were ready. This is me doing this. I havent said it to anyone, this is me and you and no one else. Im staying at a womens shelter until we sort this out," she wrote.

Ms Finnegan wrote that she did not want to continue being "controlled, threatened, called names and beaten" by Mr Jahiri. You have almost killed me a few times and I dont deserve it, she wrote.

Ms Finnegan stated in the letter that she could not live with Mr Jahiri as he made her life hell. She asked him to stop blaming her as it was not her fault.

The mother-of-two said she did not deserve to live like this. You owe me a solution after all the bad things you did to me over the years. I know youre not a bad person and need help but you are dangerous until you see a doctor. We made a deal three months ago and you broke it, she wrote.

Ms Finnegan said that Mr Jahiri was ok twenty percent of the time" and she felt "bad" for doing this. You should never hit a woman unless they hit you first and you have too many times, its no excuse, she wrote.

Ms Finnegan stated in the letter that she had told no one else that she was going to Bray Womens Refuge. Im not a bad person and dont deserve any of this but you living here and controlling me is not an option. I lived with you long enough to know its going to get worse," she wrote.

Mr Jahiri told gardai that Anna had not written this letter on her own. The accused denied that he had almost killed his former partner a few times and said he did not really do bad things.

When gardai put it to Mr Jahiri that it was as if Anna was forecasting her own death, the accused said he had told Anna that maybe it was better for them both if he left.

Gardai also put it to the accused that he had manipulated Anna from the day he met her. Mr Jahiri denied this and said Anna wanted to be with him and she would not leave him alone.

Opening the prosecution case to a jury five weeks ago, Mr Marrinan said that Mr Jahiri and Anna Finnegan were in a relationship for about ten years and had two children together. However, their relationship turned sour prior to September 2012 and they ended up separating. It is alleged that Mr Jahiri stabbed Ms Finnegan to death after he battered down her front door and attacked her and her brother.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Paul Coffey and a jury of nine men and two women.
A carpenter, who fell off a ladder and injured his neck, ribs and back, has lost a 60,000 damages claim against his former employer. A judge said he had been the author of his own misfortune.

Gerard Hyland told the Circuit Civil Court that his fall had been caused by a loose hinge on a 10-feet-high A-frame. He said he had been knocked to the ground when a leg of the ladder had moved suddenly.

Hyland, of Shangan Green, Ballymun, Dublin, sued Limosa Limited which trades as Extraspace, Clondalkin Industrial Estate, Dublin, alleging they had been guilty of negligence.

Barrister Kevin Byrne, who appeared with Pembroke Solicitors for the defendant, told the court it was the defence case that the accident happened because the ladder had been improperly positioned by Mr Hyland who had earlier received on-job training regarding his work.

Hyland (35) said he was on the top of the ladder in June 2013 when it moved because of the loose hinge. He had fallen heavily to the ground injuring himself and had attended Tallalght Hospital where x-rays had been taken.

He said his contract with the defendant had been terminated after the accident and he had been unable to get work. He had been depressed and had lost interest in his fitness training regime.

Circuit Court President Mr Justice Raymond Groarke said the ladder had fallen for one of two reasons, either it was defective or put up by Mr Hyland in a position which rendered it to be unsteady.

It seems to me on balance of probabilities that this ladder was not defective and was placed in a position which meant it had not been properly footed, Judge Groarke said.

The judge said Mr Hyland knew of the precautions required in setting up the ladder so he could work carefully. He did not accept it had been caused to topple because of a loose hinge and was of the opinion the ladder had not been set up safely by Mr Hyland in the first place.

Dismissing his claim Judge Groarke said: He should have known better than to do what he did and the accident was a result of his own misfortune.

He made no order as to costs.
The deportation of a convicted Islamic terrorist has been temporarily halted after the Supreme Court granted him leave to appeal.

The High Court had cleared the way for his deportation last Friday after hearing evidence the man raised money for jihadists and was a follower of al-Qa'ida.

However, his lawyers successfully argued yesterday in the Supreme Court that the case raised an issue of general public importance.

The matter will now return to the court on Thursday.

Both the name of the man and his country of origin are subject to reporting restrictions.

The 53-year-old gave a false name and lied about his background when he secured refugee status in Ireland in 2000. He claimed his parents and brother were killed by extremists.

It would later emerge he had convictions for terrorism and murder in his home country and had three life sentences and two death sentences hanging over him there.

A report compiled for Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald said he had been involved in an Islamist organisation whose aim was the introduction of sharia law.

He turned up in France in 2002 and was later convicted of terror offences there in a trial which heard he had been raising money for a major international terror network.

After serving that sentence he was returned to Ireland in 2009. His refugee status was revoked and he has been battling efforts to deport him since 2012.

A Supreme Court made up of Mr Justice Donal O'Donnell, Ms Justice Mary Laffoy and Mr Justice Peter Charleton heard the man was currently being held in Cloverhill Prison on foot of a deportation order.

He was brought to the prison last Friday within minutes of being released from the adjacent Wheatfield Prison, where he had just completed a six-month sentence for possession of a false Belgian passport.

The court heard the deportation order must be implemented within 56 days.

Remy Farrell SC, for the Justice Minister, said that it was likely his deportation could not take place until at least Friday as various arrangements needed to be put in place.

The man's counsel, Michael Lynn SC, appearing with solicitor Gavin Booth of KRW Law, told the court that a refugee appeals tribunal found there was a real risk of harm to the man if he was to be returned to his home country.

However, the Justice Minister reached a different conclusion.

Mr Lynn argued the minister should have been bound by the findings of the tribunal.

He also said the reasons given for the minister's decision were "inadequate".

"The minister gave no real reasons for departing from the tribunal decision," he said.

"The tribunal having made this decision, it was not for another arm of the State to diverge from it."

Questioned by the court about the position regarding the death penalty in the man's home country, Mr Lynn said it was still part of the law there, but in practice no executions had taken place since 1993.

A fortnight ago in the High Court, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys refused to overturn the order for the man's deportation.

Last week the same judge also refused to give the man leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal. He also refused to place a short stay on the deportation order to allow for an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Mr Justice Humphreys said the man's credibility was minimal as he had lied to gain refugee status in Ireland.

The judge said the man had committed a fraud on the immigration system and had used his presence in Ireland to commit terrorism offences here and in other states.
A HIGH Court judge unfairly disparaged key witness Marie Farrell during Ian Baileys civil case for damages against the Garda Commissioner and State, the Court of Appeal has been told.

Mr Justice John Hedigans refusal to discharge the jury after warning Ms Farrell about perjury in front of them irreparably damaged Mr Baileys case, his lawyers submitted.

Ms Farrell was a witness for Mr Bailey.

Mr Bailey also claims the judge's handling of the case meant the jury never got to address a range of matters which he alleges demonstrated a conspiracy to frame him for the 1996 murder in west Cork of French film maker Sophie Toscan du Plantier.

Those alleged acts included leaking his name to the media the night before his first arrest and paying former British soldier Martin Graham cash and drugs to implicate him.

They also included the arrest of his partner Jules Thomas and her daughter Fenella with a view to pressuring him and persisting in advancing Marie Farrell as a witness against him despite "clear warnings and misgivings" from the DPP's office about her evidence.

Evidence from former DPPs Eamonn Barnes and James Hamilton, along with evidence of Robert Sheehan, a solicitor in the DPP's office who was critical of the Garda file relating to Mr Bailey, was wrongly curtailed by the trial judge, it is argued.

Mr Sheehan was not permitted to refer to his own contemporaneous notes, the court was told.

These are among 17 grounds advanced in Mr Baileys appeal over the jurys dismissal in March 2015 of his claim gardai conspired to frame him for the murder of Ms du Plantier, whose battered body was found hear her holiday home near Schull in late December 1996.

Mr Bailey, who has always denied any involvement in the murder, was in court with his partner Jules Thomas on Tuesday for the opening of the appeal before a three judge Court of Appeal.

Several grounds of appeal concern Mr Justice Hedigans decision not to allow most of Mr Baileys case, including his claims of wrongful arrest, be decided by the jury on grounds those were statute barred, brought outside the relevant six year time limit for such claims.

The defendants, relying on the statute of limitations, had applied towards the end of the 64 day case to remove it from the jury.

Tom Creed SC, and Ronan Munro SC, for Mr Bailey, said the judges ruling on day 62 meant the jury got no opportunity to consider the conspiracy claims in full or to decide important issues relating to the alleged conspiracy.

Mr Creed said the States application was made too late and involved an abuse of process for reasons including substantial costs had been incurred by then.

The claim of an over-arching Garda conspiracy against Mr Bailey was not statute barred but the ruling removed important issues from the jury relating to the alleged conspiracy, he argued.

Mr Bailey's claim for damages for breach of constitutional rights, including to his reputation and to privacy, also did not go to the jury which had no opportunity to consider whether or not they accepted aspects of the Garda evidence, he said.

Mr Munro said the conspiracy claim left to the jury was too narrow in the context of the case being advanced by Mr Bailey and there was ample evidence of a residual conspiracy which did not go to them.

They got no opportunity, for example, to consider claims Marie Farrell was pressurised to give evidence against Mr Bailey in separate libel proceedings brought by him.

Earlier, Mr Baileys side got a brief adjournment to examine an affidavit of the State and Garda Commissioner arising from a recent Sunday Times article concerning examination by the Fennelly Commission of tapes of phone calls to and from Bandon garda station.

The article raised issues whether a number of tapes of calls had been discovered for Mr Baileys case.

After the adjournment, Mr Creed, for Mr Bailey, said he was not raising any issue at this point while Paul OHiggins SC, for the State, said the matter was of no relevance to the appeal. The Commission had reviewed some, but not all, of 45,000 hours of calls, he said.

Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan said, even if there was something there, it could not affect the grounds of appeal.

Separately, a decision is pending by the High Court on a European Arrest Warrant issued by the French authorities aimed at having Mr Bailey extradited to stand trial in France for voluntary homicide.

The appeal continues before the three-judge court.
A woman reversed a stolen car into the smoking area of a pub while a man held on to the roof of the vehicle, a court has been told.

Ross Kelly was stopped at a junction next to the Dropping Well Pub in Milltown when he saw Helen Hourigan (34) driving a Mercedes-Benz at speed towards him.

She drove into the back of his vehicle and Mr Kelly got out to speak to her, leaving his wife in the passenger seat.

Hourigan rammed Mr Kelly's car a second time, at which point he opened the driver's door and told her to get out.

Hourigan, of Moreen Avenue, Sandyford, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal to stealing the Mercedes and to criminal damage of Mr Kelly's VW Beetle in 2015.

Garda Rory Vaughan said Mr Kelly had his arm on the roof of the Mercedes and his foot on the doorsill when Hourigan reversed the car at speed into the smoking area of the Dropping Well, smashing a glass partition and pinning Mr Kelly against a wall.

A few seconds later, Hourigan drove off and Mr Kelly fell to the ground. He was taken to hospital and treated.

Gda Vaughan told the court that Hourigan had stolen the Mercedes earlier that day, when the owner left it unlocked with the keys in the ignition.

Diana Stuart, prosecuting, handed the court victim impact reports from Mr Kelly and his wife, but they were not read out.

Injuries

Judge Martin Nolan sentenced Hourigan to two-and-a-half years in jail, the final year of which was suspended.

He accepted that Hourigan has since "taken steps to deal with drug addiction".

Gda Vaughan said that, later that night, he attended the scene of an accident and found the stolen Mercedes had crashed into a wall at a housing estate.

Gda Vaughan agreed with Michael Hourigan, defending counsel, that witnesses to both crashes said Hourigan was "clearly intoxicated".

He accepted she had a serious drug problem at the time. This had developed after her brother died in a drug-related incident.

Mr Hourigan told Judge Nolan that the mother-of-four - who is currently serving a jail sentence - now wanted to deal with her addiction so she could be reunited with her children.
An IT expert who began to trawl the Darknet for child pornography websites has avoided a jail term after he downloaded over 300 images.

Richard Coghlan (37) had recently lost his job and was sleeping all day and accessing these websites at night. He later told gardai he went into a hollow.

Detective Garda Kieran Murphy told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that the Garda Computer Crime Investigation Unit had such a backlog of cases in 2010 that he didn't receive any results until November 2015.

Dt Gda Murphy told Dara Hayes BL, prosecuting, that in August 2010 Interpol provided gardai with an IP address that officers suspected had downloaded child pornography.

The address was traced back to Coghlan and when gardai arrived at his Dublin home to search it a month later, he immediately handed over two laptops.

It took five years for the two machines to be forensically analysed but in the meantime Coghlan came voluntarily to the station and admitted that images of child pornography would be found.

Coghlan of Glenbrea Court, Shankill, Dublin pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of 325 images on his computers on September 21, 2010. He has no previous convictions.

Det Gda Murphy said of the 325 images found, 52 fell into the lowest category of seriousness, 175 were in the second lowest category and 98 fell into the second highest category. There were also a number of movie files that fell into those categories.

Det Gda Murphy said Coghlan had also visited a number of known child pornographic websites after doing a search on the Darknet for girls of a young age, 5 yo to 12 yo  penetration.

Judge Martin Nolan sentenced Coghlan to two and half years in prison which he suspended in full on strict conditions.

He said he had based his sentencing on previous child pornographic case law which concluded that in incidences of a low number of images and when an accused had no previous convictions, a suspended sentence should be handed down.

Judge Nolan said that just over 300 images was not a high number in comparison to cases that had previously come before him when people have been caught with thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of images.

It's an odious crime to have committed and he should be ashamed of himself. I've no doubt that people who know him, think less of him now, the judge commented before he added that Coghlan was an intelligent man and a man of ability.

He also accepted that in the seven years since Coghlan was caught he had not re-offended.

Det Gda Murphy agreed with James McCullough BL, defending, that his client never sought to take advantage of the delay in analysing his computers and made admissions before the results came back.

He accepted that Coghlan doesn't seem to be a person at risk of future offending

Mr McCullough said that Coghlan had come to realise himself in a real way that this is not a victimless crime and that young children are hurt.

He carries the shame of these activities, counsel continued before he submitted that Coghlan would benefit from psychotherapy.
A Dunlaoghaire news vendor, whose staff pin-pointed the whereabouts of double murderer Malcolm MacArthur for gardai almost 35 years ago, has to wait until Friday to see if he is to be turfed off his newspaper sales pitch at the entrance to Dunlaoghaire Shopping Centre.

Judge Francis Comerford was to have today delivered judgment on the legalities of George Daviss news stand at the centre but adjourned his decision for further consideration until Friday.

A former employee of Mr Davis, now retired in Co Tipperary, recognized MacArthur when he bought a newspaper from one of Daviss two news stands at the shopping centre in 1982. He and Davis tipped off the gardai that MacArthur was hiding somewhere in Dunlaoghaire.

Gardai, led by Detective Sergeant John OMahony, who later became head of the Criminal Assets Bureau and is currently an Assistant Commissioner, set a trap for the killer and eventually traced him to and arrested him in the home of the then Attorney General Paddy Connolly who passed away in January last year.

MacArthur later admitted the murder of 27-year-old nurse Bridie Gargan who had been sunbathing near her car in the Phoenix Park. While on the run MacArthur three days later shot dead farmer Donal Dunne, in Edenderry, Offaly, while inspecting a shotgun he said he wished to buy from the farmer.

George Davis today said that as a result of the tip-off Detective OManony set up a garda hide-out van to look out for MacArthur. He was traced to the home of the Attorney General who was on holiday in the US at the time and was recalled by Taoiseach Charles Haughey. MacArthur was arrested on August 13, 1982.

He was released after 30 years imprisonment in September 2012.

George Davis, of Hadleigh, Ballybride Road, Rathmichael, Dublin, spent a day in the Circuit Civil Court last week resisting a bid by Dunlaoghaire Shopping Centre owners Coltard to have his mobile news stand banned from the entrance doors of the centre.

He has been selling newspapers around the shopping centre and other areas of Dunlaoghaire for almost 40 years. Barrister Raymond Delahunt, who appeared with Baily Homan Smyth McVeigh solicitors, told the court Davis at best only had only a licence to sell papers that could be revoked at any time.

Coltard claimed it had received a complaint from a shopping centre tenant about Daviss trolley-type news stand attracting third parties, including cigarette smokers, congregating around it and causing an obstruction and potential fire risk.

Barrister Mark ORiordan, who appeared with Kenny Sullivan Solicitors, for Davis, claimed that in the late 70s during legal proceedings involving the previous owners of the centre, a compromise had been reached allowing Davis a life-long contract to sell papers at the entrance to the centre.

Coltard, which acquired the centre in 1998, plans a 10million redevelopment of the centre involving the creation of two large anchor stores fronting on to Marine Road and onto Georges Street.

Davis said today at the adjournment of Judge Comerfords judgment that when news of his legal battle with the owners broke at the week-end it went viral on the internet and led to 30,000 emails from all over the world from former customers supporting him. He said public protests were being planned by others.
Vera Biskupova (54), who now lives in Co Kerry, leaves court after the case. Photo: Courtpix

A 54-year-old catering assistant, who claimed she has ongoing back pain since she slipped and fell on a gravy spillage two years ago, has been awarded more than 25,000 damages against Dunnes Stores.

Vera Biskupova told the Circuit Civil Court that on January 13, 2015, she had been cleaning the deli counter at Dunnes Stores, Cornelscourt, Bray Road, Foxrock, Dublin, when she suddenly slipped and fell.

Ms Biskupova, with an address at Strollers Place, Ballyedmonduff Road, Stepaside, Dublin, but who now lives in Killarney, Co Kerry, said she fell heavily on her back and banged her head on the floor.

She told her barrister Paul Gallagher that she managed to get up and noticed that her hair, shoulder and back had been wet.

She said the large spillage smelled like gravy. She had not seen it on the floor before falling.

The court heard she finished her shift that day but had not been able to get out of bed the next day.

Mr Gallagher, who appeared with Mannion Solicitors, said Ms Biskupova had ongoing intermittent pain in her back.

She sued ex-employer Dunnes Stores for negligence, breach of contract and breach of duty.

Dunnes had denied all her allegations in a full defence. The company alleged that, following her accident, Ms Biskupova had not mentioned that she had slipped on gravy.

Awarding Ms Biskupova 25,234 damages, Circuit Court President Mr Justice Raymond Groarke said the place of work had been unsafe.

He said she could not be expected to be constantly looking at the floor and he therefore could not find any contributory negligence against her.
Captain Mark Duffy's funeral mass will take place on Thursday as searches for the remaining wreckage of Rescue 116 continues.

Rescue members recovered Capt Duffy (51) from the wreckage of R116 on Sunday.

The father-of-two was one of four crew members on board tragic R116.

The search for his crew members Ciaran Smith (38) and Paul Ormsby (53) has been postponed until Wednesday due to deteriorating weather conditions.

Mr Duffy's remains will be reposing at his home from 1pm until 7pm on Wednesday.

The Funeral Mass is set for Thursday at 11am in St. Oliver Plunkett Church, Blackrock, followed by Cremation in Dardistown Crematorium at 2pm.

Expand Close Family members or Rescue 116 missing crewmembers look on as an Irish Coast Guard Helicopter takes off at Blacksod Pier . Pic Steve Humphreys / Facebook

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His family has asked for no flowers and any donations, if desired, to be made to the RNLI.

Captain Duffy, from Co Louth, has been described as an "absolute gentleman" by members of his community.

Cllr Mark Dearey, chairperson of the Dundalk Municipal District, previously said: "We are proud of him and people think Mark and his colleagues are heroic.

"We are so aware that he put himself in danger to save others."

Capt Duffy, a co-pilot aboard the Rescue 116 aircraft, is survived by his wife, Hermione, daughter Esme (14) and son Fionn (12).

Meanwhile, an operation to raise the wreckage of the Rescue 116 helicopter to search for two missing Irish Coast Guard members has been cancelled due to deteriorating weather.

It was hoped that search teams could examine underneath the aircraft's wreckage but spring tides have forced rescue workers to postpone the operation.

It is now planned to take place tomorrow morning, weather dependant, while an ROV will also be unable to operate tonight due to the challenging conditions.

Debris from the aircraft have been recovered as far north as Killybegs, Co Donegal but investigators said that the hope is that the missing men are still with the wreckage of Rescue 116.

Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, the first crew member to be recovered, was laid to rest last week.
Up to one-fifth of people develop hypoxia, or oxygen deficiency, after surgery, which can lead to symptoms such as wheezing, confusion, high blood pressure and even heart failure and death (Stock picture)

Surgical operations involving general anaesthetic may damage mental ability by starving the brain of oxygen, researchers fear, after conducting tests on climbers as they scaled Mount Everest.

Up to one-fifth of people develop hypoxia, or oxygen deficiency, after surgery, which can lead to symptoms such as wheezing, confusion, high blood pressure and even heart failure and death.

Research from City, University of London and University College London suggests the condition can also have a significant impact on brain function, with effects lasting at least 11 days after oxygen deprivation. The study monitored 198 climbers, and found significant cognitive decline.
A revolutionary new test, which takes the "guesswork" out of deciding what treatment will be most effective for a cancer patient, has been launched in Ireland.

Dr David Fennelly, oncologist at St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin, said the Oncofocus test has great potential to improve the survival of cancer patients.

This will include not just the newly diagnosed but also those with advanced cancer who have already undergone chemotherapy and are desperately running out of options.

The genetic test allows doctors to match the individual patient's cancer with targeted therapies, which are modern drugs that work in a different way to conventional chemotherapy by going after the cancer cells' inner workings.

"Without the test you have a response of less than 5pc. If you have this test it increases your response rates by 30pc to 50pc. It is a huge step forward," Dr Fennelly said.

The test was developed by Oncologica UK and Dr Fennelly has recently applied it to a number of his patients.

"I get a report back with a list of mutations and potential targeted therapies," he said.

The technique sees a patient's individual genetic mutation, which is causing the cancer, tested in a laboratory.

The screened tissue sample is the same they provided for a biopsy so they do not have to submit to any blood test. It works for all cancers with solid tumours.

"What we are doing with the test is personalising the treatment.

"It does not matter if it is breast or colon cancer or whatever - what matters is the kind of mutation and how am I going to target it. The drugs are there and this allows us to find the right patients for them."

He is seeking a meeting with Health Minister Simon Harris to ask that this test, which is now available through Oncologica Ireland, be free to public patients.

Health insurance companies are also to be presented with the findings in a bid to secure cover for private patients.

It costs around 1,800 but other tests which have less range are more expensive.

The right targeted therapy treatment means a patient also suffers fewer side-effects when compared to chemotherapy drugs.

The evidence-based test is currently carried out at a laboratory in Cambridge in England and it has a turnaround time of around 10 days.

In Ireland an average of 40,000 cases of cancer are diagnosed each year.

Patients who gain particular benefit are those for whom several rounds of chemotherapy have failed.

"By putting them on targeted treatment you can improve their response and survival," Dr Fennelly said.

He said personalised medicine is the way of the future.

The hope is that one hospital laboratory here can eventually do the work.

More information about the test is available here
Fianna Fail said it could not express confidence in Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan

A root and branch review of An Garda Siochana is to be carried in order to restore pride to the uniform, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said.

Ministers have agreed to establish an independent study of the force in a bid to overhaul culture problems that led to one million phantom breath tests being recorded.

The Cabinet agreed to maintain its confidence in Garda Commissioner Noirin OSullivan  but wants an external probe of the breath test controversy and a separate scandal that saw 14,7000 wrongful convictions.

Its a matter of grave importance to our country that the Government, the Oireachtas and members of the public have faith and trust in members of An Garda Siochana to carry out their jobs fairly and impartially, Mr Kenny told the Dail.

Expand Close Fianna Fail justice spokesman Jim OCallaghan. Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins / Facebook

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He said it is absolutely essential that a process of reform is implemented.

The Government will meet next week to devise a format for the independent review of the force, but it is likely to based on the Patten Commission which led to the establishment of the PSNI.

Mr Kenny said he is very unhappy with the situation, adding: We will find out the truth about the discrepancies here.

Despite pressure from Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein and the Labour Party the Taoiseach refused to criticise the leadership of the Garda Commissioner.

This is not about an individual. This is about the structure and all the men and women who serve in An Garda Siochana, he said.

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin said the public are genuinely shocked by the revelations which undermine the criminal justice system.

He demanded to know when Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald first learned of the discrepancies and what she did about it.

Sinn Feins Mary Lou McDonald said malpractice in the force was endemic.

She argued the Government should call time on the rotten management culture.

You know that the Commissioner has to go. You know that the fish rots from the head down, Ms McDonald said.

She said that only in Ireland would politicians be standing up debating whether the Commissioner should remain in her job.

This is not about Noirin OSullivan as a women. This is about Noirin OSullivan as the Commissioner, the Sinn Fein deputy leader said.

Labours Brendan Howlin described the Taoiseachs answers as entirely inadequate.

Is it good enough that nobody takes accountability for what we know that 14,700 of our citizens were wrongly convicted? he asked.

Earlier today, Fianna Fails frontbench formally agreed that it has no confidence in Garda Commissioner Noirin OSullivan.

The party demanded further answers from Ms OSullivan as it warned that the breath test controversy could bring down the current administration.

At a meeting of Fianna Fails frontbench TDs in Leinster House, there was blanket agreement that Ms OSullivan does not have the partys confidence.

But the party has now piled the pressure on Tanaiste and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald in relation to her knowledge of the 937,000 false breath tests being recorded.

Fianna Fails Justice spokesperson Jim OCallaghan told reporters that the controversy could have implications for the Tanaiste.

Regrettably, I dont think weve been given the answers as of yet, Mr OCallaghan said.

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And he indicated that the issue could place the future of the Government in jeopardy, saying that the confidence and supply agreement with Fine Gael clearly states that there should be no surprises.

But Mr OCallaghan said his party can not remove the Commissioner because this is a role solely for the Government. He said there were strict statutory tests that must be met for such a scenario to happen. He also raised questions of the response to the controversy by the Policing Authority.

I havent heard from them, he said.

There is only so much that opposition parties can do and we feel we have been quite effective in holding the gardai to account in the way the Government should have been doing so.

Mr OCallaghan, a Dublin Bay South TD, said Ms OSullivan would likely not be Commissioner if Fianna Fail were in power.

Ms OSullivan is due to appear in front of the Oireachtas Justice Committee on Thursday where she will face further questions. Last night, she said she has no intention of stepping down.

Earlier, the Labour Party agreed its own Dail motion of no confidence in the Commissioner.

Labour leader Brendan Howlin called for fundamental change in garda management.

Sinn Fein and the Solidarity Party, formerly the AAA/PBP, are also putting forward motions.

Explainer: Everything you need to know about the penalty points blunder

A staggering 14,700 were wrongly convicted of motoring offences after they weren't given the opportunity to pay a Fixed Charge Notice, it has emerged.

An Garda Siochana have released a lengthy statement explaining how 14,700 people were wrongly convicted of driving offences and what measures are being put in place to help those affected.

Here's all you need to know about the controversy:

1. What is a Fixed Charge Notice?

A Fixed Charge Notice (FCN) is issued to a person who a member of An Garda Siochana has reasonable grounds to believe breached Section 103 of the Road Traffic Act 1961, it can be delivered in person or by post. Over 10.5 million FCN have been issued since 2006.

2. How did this all kick off?

In December 2014 failing to have an NCT became a FCN, from then on no summons could be issued unless the driver has been issued with a FCN and subsequently failed to pay it. In February 2016 it emerged Garda Information Services Centre became aware of an issue regarding summonses for NCTs and ordered members to stop issuing them for this specific offence.

Two months later, in April 2016, a person appeared before court after being summonsed for not having an NCT Certificate, it emerged that they had already paid a FCN. As a result Gardai launched a preliminary review to determine how this happened.

3. What did the initial probe discover?

The initial probe found 759 cases where a person had paid a FCN for not having a valid NCT Cert and then been summonsed to court.

4. So, what happened then?

The investigation was widened to include all fixed charges offences and 1,130 cases were found where summonses had been issued for offences where the person had already paid the FCN. The Assistant Commissioner, Roads Policing and Major Event/Emergency Management decided to carry out an extended review to see if there were any issues regarding the operation of the FCPs, it was carried out in conjunction with Garda IT.

5. And...?

From an examination of 830,687 summonses, which were issued between January 2006 and May 2016, they found 146,865 were brought before the court incorrectly - in other words when the person was given a summons without being given a chance to pay an FCN - 14,700 of these cases resulted in a penalty being imposed.

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6. What were the main offences relating to the summonses?

The main offences relating to the 146,865 summonses are set out below:

Non Display Of TAX Disc (Use) - 68,664

Non Display Of Insurance Disc - 42,462

Use Vehicle without NCT - 4,511

Learner Driver Failing to Display L Plates on a vehicle - 1,000

Non Display Of Insurance Disc Owner - 6,782

Driving Without Reasonable Consideration - 5,932

Failing To Stop For Garda - 3,658

Driving Past A Red Traffic Light - 1,903

Holding a Mobile Phone While Driving - 1,217

Other offences: Speeding, Lighting, bus lanes, Parking offence - 10,729

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7. What's happening now?

An Garda Siochana spoke to the DPP and the Court Services about how to address incidents where a penalty has been issued and these cases will be brought before the Courts and requested that the convictions are set aside. An Garda Siochana are also writing to all those affected to explain what happened and outline how they plan to rectify the situation. Any fines will be reimbursed and all records will be corrected.

8. Any reason how this could have occurred?

Gardai explained there are multiple reasons why the situation occurred:

The measurement from the breath testing device wasn't being read properly by Gardai before April last year, there was also no correlation between roadside breath tests returned entered on PULSE and the paper based returns as part of the monthly device test.

Paper records for these monthly device tests were not retained by An Garda Siochana.

Scheduled MAT Checkpoints were created on PULSE in advance but the results of the checkpoint may not be recorded until days afterwards, because of this inadequate record keeping updating the MAT Checkpoints was based on estimated rather than factual returns.

Instructions issued in the 2011 Garda Professional Standards Unit to include MAT Checkpoints weren't fully implemented.

Based on data from last year less than half of MAT Checkpoints are performed due to different reasons - as a result each cancelled incident is now recorded on each PULSE incident

9. Anything else?

A dedicated support service for those affected has been set up for anyone who has any queries, to get in touch email FCN.Helpline@garda.ie
An Irish woman says her "head can't stop spinning" after a chance DNA test led to her brother that she never knew existed getting in touch

After Cathy Hanley Drury's friend asked her to do a test with Ancestery.com last year, the last thing she expected was for her long-lost brother Jim Smith to contact her.

It emerged that Cathy and Jim's late mother Mary Jo Hanley (nee Higgins) gave birth to her son in a mother and baby home in London in 1948, before she later returned to Ireland.

Cathy is set to fly to Ireland from her New Jersey home this weekend, when she will meet London-based Jim, 68, for the first time.

The 54-year-old told Independent.ie: "I did the test last year and didn't even get the result because it was posted to a friend, I wasn't bothered.

"I had a few cousins get in touch but on March 7 my friend said someone claiming to be a very close relative of mine had contacted her, I then spoke to my brother for the first time on March 7."

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Jim never knew he had siblings so when he had also happened to do a DNA test on Ancestry.com, he was shocked when Cathy's results appeared in the database and were so similar to his own.

Jim told Cathy that his mother Mary Higgins lived with him in the south London home for six months until he was adopted.

Cathy, who was born and raised in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon, said that although he always knew he was adopted, discovering he has siblings has given motivational speaker Jim a new lease of life.

Cathy said: "I can't begin to tell you how happy he is, our heads have just been spinning since we first spoke.

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"He'd always thought he was an only child, now he suddenly has nine siblings.

"He told us he always felt incomplete, he was adopted by a loving family but it was hard not knowing who his birth parents were.

"His daughters said he always had a sadness in his eyes but now he's laughing and happy all the time."

Cathy says the first time they talked earlier this month was extremely emotional and she expects meeting for the first time this weekend will be too.

She said: "My mother never mentioned my brother, although I suspect my father might have known.

"She passed away two years ago this week and my father's anniversary is also around this time so I'm coming home for that and I asked Jim if he would like to join us.

"It's just going to be the siblings, it would probably be a bit overwhelming for him to meet all his nieces and nephews yet, but we're going to meet him at Knock Airport with a huge sign and t-shirts saying, 'Welcome to our family', we'll also bring him to her grave.

"My niece is getting married in October and she lives 15 minutes away from him in London so he's going to come to her wedding and bring his daughters.

"It's just so surreal."
The great financial crash has taught policy makers in Ireland and around the world that you cant obtain positive policy outcomes that protect public interest without adequate and quality data (Stock picture)

"These extremely high profitability rates subject to low effective tax rates suggests Ireland is facilitating significant corporate tax avoidance by Europe's leading banks."

After the Apple tax ruling last year it seemed that Ireland would be forced to begin an honest conversation about corporate tax avoidance. However, Oxfam's new report - 'Opening the Vaults' - shows that this conversation has yet to really begin.

This report has found that a disproportionate amount of the profits of top European banks are reported in Ireland where they are paying very little tax, in some cases as low as 2pc, on these inflated profits.

While there may be legitimate business reasons for booking high profits in some cases, these extremely high profitability rates subject to low effective tax rates suggest Ireland is facilitating significant corporate tax avoidance by Europe's leading banks.

It is seriously damaging to Ireland's reputation, and calls into question the effectiveness of the Irish Government's measures to tackle corporate tax avoidance.

This practice also contradicts Ireland's role as a champion of human rights at a multilateral level and an active supporter of some of the world's poorest countries. Tax avoidance by European banks is a global issue negatively affecting developing countries. Banks operating in many developing countries report significantly lower profits. For example, banks' profitability is 4pc in Indonesia, 14pc in Tanzania, and 15pc in Senegal - all significantly below Ireland's average profitability ratio of 76pc. Although EU banks' activities are not that important in all developing countries, millions in profit shifting out of these countries could be very damaging in relation to the size of their economies.

Oxfam's report uses data made available by the EU's country-by-country reporting legislation that requires large banks operating in the EU to disclose key information about their financial activities, including their profits, turnover and tax liabilities, which became available for the first time in 2015. By making this data publicly available the operation of Ireland's tax laws, at least relating to the financial sector, is being opened up to public scrutiny for the first time. Without this same transparency about the tax affairs of all large companies it is impossible to know the full extent of corporate tax avoidance and how best to tackle it.

The Irish Government claims it already fulfils the highest levels of tax transparency. Yet the Irish Government has legislated for the country-by-country reports (which see companies provide information to tax authorities about where they make their profits and pay their taxes) not being made public. This falls short of real transparency, or what most people would understand as transparency, as none of this limited information will be available for public scrutiny by legislators, policy makers, civil society watchdogs or the media.

More worryingly, the Irish Government does not support the EU's plan to extend public transparency to all big companies. And the EU's proposal is minimal and limited to companies with a turnover of 750m or more, a measure that would exclude up to 90pc of multinationals, and does not require companies to report on their activities in all the countries in which they operate - including developing countries.

If the Irish Government is serious about tackling corporate tax avoidance and showing the world that it is not operating as a tax haven, this needs to change.

The great financial crash has taught policy makers in Ireland and around the world that you can't obtain positive policy outcomes that protect public interest without adequate and quality data. In the area of corporate taxation, it is still very hard to get a true picture of what is really happening in Ireland. This is starting to change, and must continue. The best antidote to tax avoidance is public transparency.
Flowers left for the victims of the R116 helicopter crash at Blacksod, Co Mayo Picture: Keith Heneghan / Phocus

Family members or Rescue 116 missing crewmembers look on as an Irish Coast Guard Helicopter takes off at Blacksod Pier . Pic Steve Humphreys

An operation to raise the wreckage of the Rescue 116 helicopter to search for two missing Irish Coast Guard members has been cancelled due to deteriorating weather.

It was hoped that search teams could examine underneath the aircraft's wreckage but spring tides have forced rescue workers to postpone the operation.

It is now planned to take place tomorrow morning, weather dependant, while an ROV will also be unable to operate tonight due to the challenging conditions.

It is hoped that winch operator Ciaran Smith (38) and winch man Paul Ormsby (53) can be located in or near the Sikorsky S-92 wreckage.

However, if dive teams are unable to recover the two Irish Coast Guard members then the search area will be expanded with the assistance of divers from the Garda Water Unit.

Debris from the aircraft have been recovered as far north as Killybegs, Co Donegal but investigators said that the hope is that the missing men are still with the wreckage of Rescue 116.

Supt Tony Healy said that sea conditions caused delays to the flotation device being deployed.

"This morning the Garda underwater divers conducted a number of underwater searches and covered a large area peripheral to the crash site itself underwater.

"Currently the navy divers are operating the lifting bag to lift the wreckage slightly off the seabed to inspect under the wreck itself. That's ongoing as we speak. There was a number of delays this morning in relation to the flotation device and the flow of water there. There's an immense flow of water at this time of the year when there are spring tides," Supt Healy said.

"That means there's three times the amount of water flowing through that channel than there normally would be. The conditions are hugely challenging for the divers at present.

"We're talking about the next hour or two that we should have that operation concluded

"It will take a visual inspection once the wreck has been lifted to inspect what is under that portion of the wreck.

Gerard O'Flynn, incident manager with the Irish Coast Guard said that further searches had been conducted off the Donegal coastline where debris from the aircraft had been located, but stated that nothing more of significance had been found.

"Again we did some searches along the north Donegal coast, east of Killybegs on the basis that debris has been found on that shore and just to see if there were reasons to justify a more intensive search in that area so that was the basis of that search. Nothing (more) of significance has been recovered.

"The visual inspection will be conducted by the ROV, the preparation work was conducted by navy divers so depending on how's it goes- as we're speaking this is ongoing- so I don't know what particular complications they are encountering. They may have to dive, they may not have to dive. It depends on how this work progresses as we speak right now," Mr O'Flynn said.

He added that rescue workers were motivated by the desire to find their missing colleagues and by the local community on what is day 15 of the intense and arduous search operation.

"I think people are motivated by he desire to assist. I think they're very conscious of the families being here. There is huge sympathies for the families, obviously were coming up to the second funeral on Thursday.

"Everybody is motivated by the desire to remain committed and you can see this huge community support. So motivation comes pretty easy in situation like this and particularly volunteers deserve tremendous credit for the commitment that they are making."

Weather conditions previously hampered the airbags being inflated, but rescue workers managed to insert the devices yesterday evening.

Operations were due to begin last night to slightly raise the aircraft's main section off the seabed with the help of flotation devices.

Winch operator Ciaran Smith (38) and winch man Paul Ormsby (53) have still not been found after their Sikorsky S-92 helicopter crashed at Black Rock island off the Mayo coast in the early hours of March 14.

The body of their colleague, Capt Mark Duffy (51), was brought to shore on Sunday afternoon. Naval Service divers recovered the body from the cockpit of the helicopter wreckage. A post-mortem examination was carried out by the State Pathologist yesterday morning and Capt Duffy's remains were returned to Co Louth ahead of his funeral on Thursday morning at St Oliver Plunkett Church, Blackrock.

The fourth crew member, Capt Dara Fitzpatrick (45), was found by an RNLI lifeboat, but was later pronounced dead in hospital.
Households that wilfully abuse water or permit wastage should be prosecuted and have sanctions imposed, according to a draft report being considered by TDs and senators.

The report, seen by Independent.ie, aims to form the basis of a compromise between the main political parties.

Crucially, it states that existing laws can be used to tackle wastage. This has been a sticking point between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail for several weeks.

Lawyers for the Oireachtas were asked to consider whether introducing changes to a 2007 law called the Water Services Act will ensure Ireland complies with its EU obligations known as the Water Framework Directive.

It seems to me that the Water Services Act of 2007 can be amended to meet the overall obligations arising from the Water Framework Directive and comply with the and to address and comply with the polluter pays provisions in it, stated Oireachtas lawyer Ramona Quinn.

However, sticking points still remain between members of the committee, who have been given a deadline of Good Friday to strike a deal on water.

According to the document, circulated to members by committee chairman Padraig O Ceidigh, those who waste water should face prosecutions.

The Committee recommends that the Water Services Act 2007 be amended to ensure that those who wilfully abuse water or permit wastage can be prosecuted and that sanctions can be imposed, the document states.

It also recommends that households that have paid all or some of their bills should be compensated.

In respect of those who have paid some or all of the domestic water charges, the Committee recommends that, following consideration of and taking into account the fiscal implications and the most effective refund methods, such households should be compensated in an equitable manner.

The committee also recommends the introduction of a scheme for waivers for domestic users who use water excessively for medical reasons.

However, there remains bones of contention between the two main parties on the issue of metering.

The draft document recommends that all new dwellings and dwelling refurbishments should be required to have water meters installed. This to date has been opposed by Fianna Fail.

The committee says that bulk metering should be installed doe apartment blocks. And it calls on the Government to consider how best to incentivise the voluntary take up of meter installation.
DUP leader Arlene Foster arrives to speak to the media at Stormont yesterday, with DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Parties in Northern Ireland have a "short few weeks" to strike a deal to save power sharing at Stormont, Secretary of State James Brokenshire has said.

With a deadline for forming a new ruling executive following this month's snap election having elapsed yesterday without agreement, the UK government now either has to call yet another poll or potentially reintroduce direct rule from Westminster.

Mr Brokenshire indicated he will delay taking action to allow the region's political leaders some more time to resolve their differences.

Without an executive or agreed budget for the upcoming financial year, control of Stormont's finances will be handed to a senior civil servant tomorrow, albeit subject to tight spending constraints.

Drift

Mr Brokenshire said that was "not sustainable", making clear the final window for negotiations would not be allowed to drift. "I think there are a short few weeks in order to resolve matters," he said.

"The reason I say that is because of the stark issue in relation to public services here in Northern Ireland and the lack of a budget having been set, and therefore it is the impact on public services on having an extended period that is very much at the forefront of my mind in terms of the responsibilities that we have as the UK Government to provide that assurance to the public here."

The Democratic Unionist Party/Sinn Fein administration collapsed in January amid a bitter row over a botched green energy scheme. The subsequent snap election campaign laid bare a range of other contentious issues dividing the parties.

The Secretary of State rejected criticism of the UK government's handling of the talks to form a new executive and defended the fact UK Prime Minister Theresa May did not participate. He said the government had played a "positive and active" role and Mrs May had been kept updated throughout.

He declined to be drawn on calls for an independent mediator to be appointed to inject fresh impetus to negotiations that some politicians have described as a "shambles" to date.

Under current legislation, the UK government is required to call another snap election if a deadline for forming an executive passes. However, there is some room for manoeuvre, as there is no obligation to set a poll date immediately, rather within a "reasonable period".

Making a public statement at Stormont House, Belfast, after the 4pm deadline passed yesterday, Mr Brokenshire said there was "no appetite" for an immediate election.

'Nuclear'

The UK government could also theoretically go for the 'nuclear' option of reintroducing direct rule, but that move - which would require emergency legislation - looks unlikely at this stage at least.

Mr Brokenshire said there was "an overwhelming desire" among politicians and the public for "strong and stable devolved government".

Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan said the context of Brexit made it all the more imperative that a new executive was formed as soon as possible.

"The absence of agreement on the establishment of an executive is, for many reasons, deeply regrettable," he said.

"However, it is particularly concerning that a vacuum in devolved government in Northern Ireland should now be occurring just as the island of Ireland faces up to the many serious challenges represented by the UK exit from the EU."
PSNI officers visited the factory in the Knockmore industrial estate after the shocking discovery Photo: Bloomberg

Police have launched an investigation after what appears to be human waste was found in a shipment of drinks cans at a Coke factory.

Multinational Coca-Cola said it was probing the matter with the PSNI. It added products currently on sale were not affected.

The night shift at the plant in Lisburn, Co Antrim, was disrupted last week when a container of tins thought to have arrived from Germany clogged up the machines - only for workers to discover a number were filled with what looked like human waste.

"It was absolutely horrible, and the machines had to be turned off for about 15 hours to be cleaned," a source said. "It was unusual because normally the cans come from somewhere else in the UK, but this time they apparently came from Germany.

"The rumour is that some poor immigrants could have made that long journey in the lorry and that in their desperation were forced to use the cans instead of a toilet.

"It's really shocking - and beyond the shock of finding something pretty disgusting in the cans is the thought there could have been poor people in that situation. And if they did make that journey, where are they now?"

The source explained the cans arrive at the factory without tops on, to be filled with the fizzy drink before they are sealed and sold across Northern Ireland.

Alliance councillor Amanda Grehan said she was dumbfounded by the news.

"That's really shocking, and if the drinks cans were to get out into shops then it could be extremely dangerous for people," she said.

"But Coca-Cola are a big business in the area and I'm sure they'll do everything necessary to make sure the affected ones don't get out.

"That illegal immigrants could be involved in some way is worrying too, although we're not sure yet if that's the case.

"But rather than condemn anyone who might have found themselves in this situation, I think it's far more important that we help anyone who is that desperate and make sure they're safe."

Police visited the factory at the city's Knockmore industrial estate after the discovery.

The PSNI said: "Detectives are investigating an incident at commercial premises in the Lisburn area following reports that a consignment of containers delivered to the premises had been contaminated.

"The investigation is at an early stage and there are no further details available at this time."

The soft drinks giant said: "Coca-Cola take the safety and quality of our products extremely seriously.

"We are aware of an incident involving empty cans at our plant in Knockmore Hill, Lisburn.

"We are treating this matter extremely seriously and are conducting a thorough investigation in co-operation with the PSNI.

"The problem was identified immediately through our robust quality procedures and all of the product from the affected production was immediately impounded and will not be sold. This is an isolated incident and does not affect any products currently on sale."

The Food Standards Agency said: "The FSA in NI is aware of a physical contamination incident at Coca-Cola Hellenic in Lisburn. There is no evidence to suggest that any affected product has reached the market.

"The incident is subject to an investigation by the PSNI and the environmental health unit of Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council."
Some of Europe's leading banks with bases here are paying tax at a rate as low as 2pc, according to a new report.

The report from Oxfam, entitled 'Opening the Vault', states that Barclays, RBS and Credit Agricole paid an effective tax rate here of just 2pc in 2015.

Overall, the report noted that 16 of the top 20 European banks operating in Ireland were paying an effective tax rate of 6pc or less.

That is well below the levels outlined by the Government and IDA when attracting companies here.

Five banks - RBS, Societe Generale, UniCredit, Santander, and BBVA - recorded profits here that were higher than their turnover, which, Oxfam says, "potentially suggests that they are artificially shifting profits to Ireland".

A department spokesman rejected the assertions in the report: "We only have and want real substantive FDI, the kind that brings real jobs and investment into Ireland.

Read More

"Ireland is also fully compliant with all international best practices in the areas of tax transparency and exchange of information."

Irish officials have steadfastly defended the country's tax regime in the face of criticism following the European Commission's 13bn Apple tax ruling last year amid claims the company received "illegal state aid".

The revelation that many banks are paying an effective tax rate of 6pc or less will not be looked upon favourably in other European capitals.

The report rated Ireland as the fourth worst tax haven in the world, according to banks' reported profits, behind Hong Kong, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Ireland was second only to the Cayman Islands when it came to bank profitability.

The report stated that "the massive profitability levels of European banks in Ireland suggests that large profits may be reported in Ireland as a tax avoidance strategy".

Barclays is singled out for particular scrutiny.

Oxfam said that the bank recorded 900m worth of profits in three countries - Ireland, Switzerland and Luxembourg - but paid just 11m on those profits.

In a statement to this newspaper, the bank said: "Barclays pays corporation tax at the standard corporation tax rate in Ireland and does not have any special arrangements in place."

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Spanish bank BBVA was found to have made profits of 27m from turnover of just 12m. The bank has just four employees stationed here.

BBVA said: "The activity of BBVA in Ireland is not comparable to that of the rest of the group since in this country it is dedicated to Investment Banking and Reinsurance, activities that do not require a large number of employees."

The group of 20 leading European banks featured in the report were found to derive 7pc of their collective total turnover and 19pc of their collective total profits from just three countries: Luxembourg, Ireland and Hong Kong.

The banks were found to have just 0.3pc of their workforces situated in Ireland, with "a disproportionately large 2.5pc of their profits" located here.

It said that Ireland had recouped just 129m from the banks on reported turnover of in excess of 3bn in 2015. Recorded profits during the period were 2.3bn.

In a statement, RBS said it "does not take steps to artificially shift profits into the countries alleged to be tax havens in the Oxfam report".

Calls to Credit Agricole's Dublin office went unanswered.
Premium

Ian ODoherty Opinion Toxic Tory leadership debate reminds us they couldnt give a damn about Ireland

And then there were... How many is it again? Oh, yes, and then there were three. After an initial 11 hopeful (and, some might say if they were feeling less than charitable, hopeless) Tory leadership candidates, its now down to the final three as we reach a sort of X-Factor-style finale.
'Angela Merkel thinks we're at work' was the hilarious banner held up by Ireland fans at Euro 2012 in Poland.

Not quite as witty was Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan's assertion yesterday that her reforms of An Garda Siochana are "working".

If this was intended as a joke, this was roll-in-the-aisles laughing material. Give the Commissioner a stand-up comedy gig as soon as possible.

The Garda chief is expected to survive calls for her head today.

No doubt the Independent ministers will march to the top of the hill at the Cabinet meeting this morning.

How tedious.

There'll be a statement full of reservations issued later.

Fianna Fail will hum and haw about its support.

But Taoiseach Enda Kenny and the favourite to succeed him, Leo Varadkar, yesterday stood full square behind the Commissioner. So she's safe for now.

On the substantive issue of Garda blunders around prosecutions for penalty points offences and inflated breath test figures, Ms O'Sullivan admits the discrepancies are unacceptable.

"It is a matter of huge disappointment to us that this has occurred," she said.

Despite knowing about the problem for a number of years, it didn't dawn on Garda management to notify any regulatory authorities.

The Commissioner is now going to seek to establish why it happened, with reports due in a week, a month and three months.

As for the buck stopping at the top: not a hope.

The Commissioner is not for resigning.

Banking tax report hurts Ireland's reputation again

And there goes our reputation again.

The Department of Finance contests it. But accusations of Ireland being a tax haven are bound to follow a report saying European banks based here are paying tax rates well below Ireland's headline corporation tax rate of 12.5pc.

The report from Oxfam, entitled 'Opening the Vault', states that Barclays, RBS and Credit Agricole paid an effective tax rate here of just 2pc in 2015. The report for the charity says 16 of the top 20 European banks operating in Ireland were paying an effective tax rate of 6pc or less.

That is well below the levels outlined by the Government and the IDA when attracting companies here.

The activities of five banks - RBS, Societe Generale, UniCredit, Santander and BBVA - recorded profits in Ireland higher than their turnover. The data resulted in Oxfam concluding it "potentially suggests that they are artificially shifting profits to Ireland".

Predictably, the Department of Finance rejected the assertions in the report: "We only have and want real substantive FDI, the kind that brings real jobs and investment into Ireland. Ireland is also fully compliant with all international best practices in the areas of tax transparency and exchange of information."

However, this latest report comes in the wake of the European Commission's 13bn Apple tax ruling.

Being ranked as the fourth worst tax haven in the world won't do a lot for Brand Ireland.
Once again, we are reminded of our vulnerability due to the latest terror attack in London. Once again, we are bombarded on the airwaves, TV screens and in newspapers, the Irish Independent included, with extensive coverage of the victims, the timeline of events and the perpetrator's background and alleged motives, a quite understandable response in many respects.

However, like with previous terror attacks in France, Belgium and Germany, the media coverage is striking in two aspects. Firstly its lack of analysis on the root causes of terrorism and secondly its imbalance when compared to the coverage of terror attacks in those parts of the world in which the major world powers are the prime purveyors of terrorism.

Military air strikes, artillery bombardments, small weapons fire and suicide bombings throughout the Middle East, kill and maim men, women and children on a daily basis. These events, if reported at all, are now usually buried in small columns deep in the middle pages. Scores of women and children were killed two weeks ago in a double suicide bombing at a wedding in a village near Tikrit in Iraq. Hundreds were killed in Syria last week. Many are yet to be killed, under US President Donald Trump's influence in the wars of the Middle East, and thousands were killed under Barack Obama's drone strikes.

Last week was the 14th anniversary of the disastrous US-led invasion of Iraq. Fourteen years later, the Middle East and the wider region is a cauldron of violent instability, sectarian strife and open territory for perpetual and proxy warfare by imperial powers. Meanwhile, Western governments and the media are in denial about why terror attacks have increased in Western cities.

It is time to heed the words of US intellectual Noam Chomsky, who noted that the best way to stop terrorism is to "stop participating in it". All the victims of terrorism, wherever in the world, deserve no less.

Jim Roche

PRO, Irish Anti-War Movement, PO Box 9260, Dublin 1

Garda bosses don't deserve respect

A report by the Irish stockbroker Davy has found that average public sector wages amounted to 47,400 in Ireland, 40pc more than the average wage in the private sector.

In addition, Davy's calculations indicated that a private sector worker would need to save 590,000 to buy an annuity on retirement that matched public sector career-average salary pensions of 23,000 a year.

It also noted that public servants in Ireland were better paid on average than their counterparts in many other European countries. In the UK, average public sector wages are 26,200 (30,800), which is on a par with what their counterparts in the private sector earn.

Members of An Garda Siochana had the highest average pay in 2016 at 64,700, or almost twice the average private sector wage. Surely one could expect extraordinary efficiency and competence for such generous remuneration?

Not a bit of it. Garda management is now known to have inflated its breath test statistics by almost 100pc and caused the wrongful conviction of thousands of motorists.

Even more worryingly, it is claimed that senior officers have no idea how this happened, and it seems they have no interest in investigating further. Those in private sector management would be sacked for allowing such conduct on their watch.

It seems clear that Garda management is incapable of running an efficient or truthful operation.

How is the public supposed to respect the law and the law-enforcers when the law enforcers themselves have shown such contempt for their responsibilities to the public?

I have no difficulty with gardai and public sector workers in general being well paid, but they should have to earn it through the quality and integrity of the services they provide.

Frank Schnittger

Blessington, Co Wicklow

RTE's licence fee and laptops

It was with utter disbelief that I read of the Communications Minister's ludicrous plan to extend the TV licence to people who own laptops.

Just how much blood does RTE think it can squeeze out of this particular stone?

My laptop is used by me for work, not as a TV set. The closest I have ever come to using it as such is by using websites like YouTube.

If Minister Denis Naughten or any RTE executive thinks I will pay them 160 for the privilege of using the internet on my laptop, then I have a bridge to sell them.

Sean Slattery

Newport, Co Tipperary

Rather than levying a TV licence on portable computers and other devices, wouldn't a fairer and simpler solution be to ban RTE from the internet?

There would then be no possibility of such devices accessing television services funded by licence payers, and it would also help RTE address its financial problems by becoming more focused.

R Blackburn

Naul, Co Dublin

Thank God for sport

It was sad to have such a weekend of sport marred by the terrible injury to Seamus Coleman in the Ireland versus Wales game.

Everyone is praying that he makes a full recovery.

Ireland, though some may think otherwise, did well to get a draw against Wales, with so many of our key players missing.

Elsewhere, GAA was king - it was like sitting at a feasting table and not being able to decide what to eat, with everything on the menu superb.

Sadly, Roscommon did not cause the surprise that so many had hoped for. Mini-tremors were felt elsewhere, with Mayo gifted their victory, and Kerry perhaps showing that that's as good as they are. Kildare have improved but how far will they go? Waterford versus Clare was simply terrific. Cork versus Tipp reminds everyone of the old saying, 'Cork beat and the hay saved'.

Thank God we have the GAA.

Thank God we have Katie Taylor - she brings a freshness to the fight game that's so badly needed.

Thank God for sport, otherwise we'd only have a crisis to read or hear about.

And it's been so long since we last had a crisis!

Fred Molloy

Dublin 15

Canonisation of McGuinness

Last week we witnessed the canonisation of Martin McGuinness after his death.

If that is deserved, then John Hume is already in heaven.

Damien Carroll

Kingswood, Dublin 24
Tara Palmer Tompkinson walks down the runway at the Tristan Webber fashion show as part of London Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2005 at the BFC Tent, Duke of York's HQ, Kings Road on September 23, 2004 in London. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

Tara Palmer-Tomkinson attends the Service of Prayer of Dedication following the marriage of TRH Prince Charles and The Duchess Of Cornwall, Camilla Parker Bowles at The Guildhall, at Windsor Castle on April 9, 2005 in Berkshire, England. (Photo by Dave Hogan/Getty Images)

Tara Palmer-Tomkinson attends the opening night launch party for Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park on November 17, 2011 in London, England. (Photo by Ben Pruchnie/Getty Images)

When Clara Bow sauntered on to the silver screen in 1927 film It, all lick-spit curls and bee-stung lips, she was everything 1920s gals wanted to be.

She was, in a word, sex.

She may not have been glamorous in the conventional sense  playing the part of a department store clerk  but she was wide-eyed, sexy and perky.

At that moment she was the female embodiment of the 1920s zeitgeist. Sitting right at the top of every Whats Hot list alongside Charleston dance moves and cloche hats.

While Clara is seen as the original It Girl, the term was first used by Rudyard Kipling in his 1904 short story Mrs Bathurst.

Tisnt beauty, so to speak, he wrote. It just is it. Some womenll stay in a mans memory once they walk down the street.

Since then It Girls have continued to crowd gossip columns; from Mae West, and Jean Harlow to Marianne Faithful, Julie Christie and the late, lamented TPT.

In Britain, It Girls tend to be associated with parties and privilege.

In the 1930s the term celebutante was used to describe well-heeled ladies known for attending riotous shindigs.

Evelyn Waugh dubbed them bright young things.

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In the aftermath of World War II, these society gals became bigger news still  offering a little glitz after all that war time rationing.

A new breed of It Girl emerged in the 1990s. Tara Palmer-Tomkinson was the ring leader of the toffs about town brigade.

Expand Close Tara Palmer Tompkinson walks down the runway at the Tristan Webber fashion show as part of London Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2005 at the BFC Tent, Duke of York's HQ, Kings Road on September 23, 2004 in London. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Tara Palmer Tompkinson walks down the runway at the Tristan Webber fashion show as part of London Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2005 at the BFC Tent, Duke of York's HQ, Kings Road on September 23, 2004 in London. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

Her weekly Sunday Times column, which she said she lived rather than wrote, was filled with salacious snippets of a gilded life style. She was funny, self deprecating, and a lot smarter than she was often portrayed in the tabloid press. She once described herself as a broad with a broad mind.

In the nineties, TPT appeared to possess a cornucopia of confidence  remember when she showed up to her 27th birthday party in a bikini, fur coat and snorkel? Iconic.

Turns out her confidence was bolstered by a 400-a-day cocaine habit and soon things began to unravel.

After a year or two something changed, TPTs former editor Jeremy Langmead said. Tara was lost.

She eventually kicked her drug habit and her life seemed to be calming down in recent years.

So her death, at the age of 45, came as a shock.

She was remembered by those who knew her for her kindness, vulnerability and compassion.

When Langmead paid tribute to her he said her talents never got to shine quite as brightly as her Versace dresses in her 1990s heyday.

I hate that statement and would like to think its untrue.

It fits all too easily into the predictable narrative of the tragic party girl. We like that-story arc  that the traits that built them up, also brought them down.

Its something of which TPT was no doubt well aware.

In a column in The Spectator she wrote: The archetype of the dim society girl is everlasting. Whether she is Daisy in The Great Gatsby or this years gossip-column fodder, the accusations rarely change.

Like urban myths, they recur generation after generation, attached to one unfortunate female after another, she added.

We like pushing people into these roles partially because were still fascinated by the dichotomy at the core of being It.

Elinor Glyn, who wrote about It way back in the 1920s, said It Girls must be entirely unselfconscious... indifferent to the effect she is producing. Self-consciousness destroys It immediately.

It seems the minute you figure out that youve got it, youve lost it. Talk about a headf**k. Perhaps thats why the original It Girl Clara Bow said the title was a heavy load to carry  especially when one is tired, hurt and bewildered.

Why sex and chocolate do not a happy marriage make

Perhaps it was the run up to Valentines Day or Dawn Frenchs TV series Delicious but recently I have been thinking a lot about sex and food.

And how people (well, advertising agencies) seem to think the two are inextricably linked.

This week, I was sent a pint of melted ice cream with a note informing me that most Irish men and women would like to spend V-Day eating a gallon of the stuff before getting down to business.

Really? Would anyone  aside from those weird feeders on TLC documentaries  find this appealing?

Meanwhile, Valentines Day themed photoshoots featuring lingerie models posing with strawberries landed in magazines.

Okay, I get that eating and shagging are both sensual acts but I cant believe that people find food this much of an aphrodisiac.

Personally speaking, I have never, in my life, thought Oooooooh Id murder a bag of Revels right now! while having sex.

Aside from the fact that it unnecessarily complicates things, and would ruin a perfectly good set of sheets, surely doing this would spoil food for you, forever.

Any time you saw someone with a punnet of strawberries youd be thinking, I know where I last saw those.

The bombardment of Valentines Day ad campaigns left me so perplexed that this week, I found myself turning to lifestyle guru Gwyneth Paltrow for help. Yes, thats how desperate I felt.

Expand Close Actress Gwyneth Paltrow attends a front row during La Perla Fall/Winter 2017 RTW Show at SIR Stage 37 on February 9, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for La Perla) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Actress Gwyneth Paltrow attends a front row during La Perla Fall/Winter 2017 RTW Show at SIR Stage 37 on February 9, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for La Perla)

And what does Gwynnie recommend we invest in on February 14? Why vegan, fair trade condoms of course.

She also recommended splashing out on sex dust, a Tiffany harmonica (control yourselves), a 200 champagne napkin set (what?) or a 346 gold-plated necklace in the shape of a mans arse (wait a minute.)

Thankfully, Gwyneths unique brand of cosmic wisdom and questionable sanity brought me back to reality with a jolt.

The PR guff lifted, and I concluded that anything associated with Valentines day  solitary roses, caramel hearts, ice cream, or gold plated arses  are the antithesis of sexiness and romance.

This year, I hope you did the smart thing and invested in a decent bottle of gin.

TOPS:

Kylie vs Kylie

Kylie Jenner, who once claimed she started wigs, lost her petition to have the name trademarked. Thus Ms Minogue reigns supreme.

Miriam OCallaghan in Vegas

So much fun.

FLOPS:

Po faced Des Cahill

Last weekends tango was a snorefest. More gimmicks please.

The Donald in the bathrobe

Cant be unseen.

SAY WHAT?

Sure I wouldnt know a TD if I came across them in the street

Star of the Gaiety Theatres production of The Successful TD, Mary McEvoy, admits politics arent her forte.
Actress Meghan Markle attends Glamour and L'Oreal Paris Celebrate 2016 College Women Of The Year at NoMad Hotel Rooftop on April 27, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images for Glamour)

Meghan Markle is set to move into Kensington Palace with Prince Harry this summer, according to reports.

Renovations are currently under way at Harry's new Kensington Palace apartment, and the prince is eager for the work to be complete so he and Meghan can move in, according to the Mail Online.

"He keeps popping round and asking when it will be ready," a source told the publication.

"He seems in a real hurry to move in with Meghan."

Expand Close Actress Meghan Markle attends Glamour and L'Oreal Paris Celebrate 2016 College Women Of The Year at NoMad Hotel Rooftop on April 27, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images for Glamour) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Actress Meghan Markle attends Glamour and L'Oreal Paris Celebrate 2016 College Women Of The Year at NoMad Hotel Rooftop on April 27, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images for Glamour)

The Suits actress (35) has reportedly been a "regular visitor" to Nottingham Cottage, where Prince Harry (32) currently lives, while the new apartment is said to be much closer to Prince William and Kate Middleton's new home, where they will move in September when Prince George begins school.

The fifth in line to the throne confirmed he was dating Meghan in an official Kensington Palace statement in November and the pair was photographed hand-in-hand for the first time in December.

The couple reportedly met back in May in Toronto, Canada while Harry was visiting the city to promote the 2017 Invictus Games.
Henri Van Breda arrives at court for his trial for allegedly killing his parents and brother with an axe. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

A 22-year-old South African man appeared in court yesterday on charges of murdering three members of his family with an axe in their luxury home in Cape Town in January 2015.

Henri Van Breda, who handed himself over to police in September last year, is accused of murdering his father Martin (54), a wealthy businessman, his mother Teresa (55) and older brother Rudi (22) in a frenzied early morning axe attack in the heart of South Africa's western Cape vineyard area.

His younger sister Marli, who was 16 at the time of the attack, was left for dead on a balcony. She survived, despite a cut to her jugular vein and severe head injuries.

Smiled

Mr Van Breda appeared calm and smiled briefly as he appeared in the packed court room wearing a blue suit.

The case was postponed to April 24 because the defence said it had not received crucial DNA reports about the murder weapon from the state.

Mr Van Breda, who is out on bail, has agreed not to contact witnesses, including his sister. He is also forbidden from being within 500 metres of an airport or a harbour.

According to police, when officers arrived at the crime scene they found Mr Van Breda sitting outside the house, wearing sleeping shorts and white socks stained with the blood of the victims.

He was taken in for questioning and later brought back to the house, where investigators found a bloodstained axe and kitchen knife. He was later released into the care of an uncle.

Marli Van Breda, who has been living with other members of the extended family, is suffering amnesia and unable to recall the incident.

On the morning of the attack Mr Van Breda had phoned his girlfriend at 4am but only called paramedics three hours later.

A recording of Mr Van Breda phoning the emergency services emerged in which he can be heard telling the operator: "My family and me were attacked by a guy with an axe."
Even politicians have got involved.

Prime Minister Theresa May held talks with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in a hotel in Glasgow yesterday on the topic of Brexit.

But the way the Daily Mail chose to cover the meeting has left people feeling pretty annoyed.

The newspaper coined a new term, Leg-sit in reference to the leaders legs which were in shot of the photograph used on the front page alongside the headline.

People have not taken kindly to the cover, to say the least.

Some have also taken issue with the use of the English language.

Several politicians have hit out at the cover, too.

Though as some have pointed out, this extent of this outrage seems to be working in the Mails favour.
Family members of Westminster Bridge attack victims Melissa and Kurt Cochran attend a news conference at New Scotland Yard, in London. Photo: REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

The mother of the Westminster terrorist has said she is "deeply shocked, saddened and numbed" by his actions and has "shed many tears" for his victims.

Speaking for the first time since the car and knife attack that left her eldest son, Khalid Masood, and four others dead, Janet Ajao condemned the "atrocity" in a statement via the Metropolitan Police.

Mrs Ajao, who lives in Wales, said: "I am so deeply shocked, saddened and numbed by the actions my son has taken that have killed and injured innocent people in Westminster.

"Since discovering that it was my son that was responsible I have shed many tears for the people caught up in this horrendous incident...I wish to make it absolutely clear, so there can be no doubt, I do not condone his actions nor support the beliefs he held that led to him committing this atrocity."

Masood injured another 50 people as he drove along the pavement of Westminster Bridge mowing down pedestrians in a rented Hyundai that reached 120kmh before crashing into railings. Masood (52) then ran to the Palace of Westminster and fatally stabbed Pc Keith Palmer before he was shot dead.

Isil has called father-of-four Masood "a soldier of the Islamic State", but police can find no direct links to the group.

The family of one of Ajao's victims, US tourist Kurt Cochran (54), spoke in London yesterday of the "love of so many people" during a "humbling and difficult experience".

Read more: Tourist killed in London terror attack 'would not have borne ill feelings towards attacker', family claim

Kurt's wife Melissa (46) is recovering after the couple from Utah were run down while on a 25th anniversary trip.

Flanked by a dozen relatives, Clint Payne, Mrs Cochran's brother, said: "It's been a tender experience...so many have been so kind, we are deeply touched by their goodness and generosity." ( Daily Telegraph, London)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Simone Gbagbo still must serve 20 years in prison after being found guilty in 2015 of offences against the state

An Ivory Coast court on Tuesday acquitted former first lady Simone Gbagbo for war crimes and crimes against humanity after a trial on her alleged role in post-election abuses that led to the deaths of thousands.

Judge Kouadio Bouatchi said a jury unanimously voted to free Mrs Gbagbo.

The prosecution had asked for a life sentence, saying she participated on a committee that organised abuses against supporters of her husband's opponent after the 2010 election.

More than 3,000 people were killed after former president Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept defeat to current President Alassane Ouattara.

Simone Gbagbo, however, still must serve 20 years in prison after being found guilty in 2015 of offences against the state.

She also has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, but Ivory Coast has refused to transfer her.

The former president's ICC trial began in January.

Tuesday's acquittal was a surprise for many.

Mrs Gbagbo did not attend the trial in protest and was not present for the verdict.

"I'm disappointed and sad for the victims today.

"Only international justice can fight against impunity, it seems. We can no longer trust Ivorian justice," said Issiaka Diaby, president of the association for victims of the crisis.

Lawyer Soungalo Coulibaly did not immediately say if they would appeal.

AP
Members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) inspect the Tabqa dam, which has been partially recaptured. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

US-backed forces in Syria are rushing to retake its biggest dam from Isil, amid warnings it could collapse within 30 days.

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were air-dropped by the US just south of the Euphrates river last week in an effort to secure the Tabqa Dam. They inched nearer yesterday, retaking a strategic air base close by.

The dam, which has been in Isil hands for two years, was put out of service last Sunday by fighting. Water levels behind the structure have now risen enough to put it at risk of collapse. Isil issued a statement ordering residents of Tabqa and nearby Raqqa to leave, blaming US air strikes.

And the UN has also warned that damage to the dam, which supplies electricity to much of Syria, could lead to "massive scale flooding" across Raqqa and three other major Syrian cities downstream.

SDF forces do control a spillway to the north which can alleviate pressure on the dam if needed. But Haytham Bakkour, an engineer at the dam for 10 years, said the situation was "critical" and he warned that unless it was made safe for staff to get in to manoeuvre the floodgates, there could be a "critical overflow" within 30 days. ( Daily Telegraph London)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
The Roman Catholic Church in Mexico has condemned as "traitors" any local companies or people who help build US President Donald Trump's proposed border wall.

As some Mexican firms considered profiting from the multibillion dollar project, the Archdiocese of Mexico, which covers the capital city, described them as "immoral".

An editorial in 'Desde la fe', the archdiocese's weekly journal, was titled "Treason against the Homeland" and lambasted Mr Trump as a "fanatic".

It said large numbers of Mexican companies were interested in supplying cement, paint, lighting and other raw materials for the wall.

"It is not two or three, but more than 500 companies. For them, the end justifies the means," the archdiocese said.

"Any company intending to invest in the wall of the fanatic Trump would be immoral. But, above all, its shareholders and owners should be considered traitors to the homeland."

The Church also criticised the Mexican government for "timidity" and called on it to clamp down on Mexican construction firms getting involved. "In practice, signing up for a project that is a serious affront to dignity is shooting yourself in the foot," the archdiocese added. "The wall is a monument of intimidation and silence, of xenophobic hatred."

Cemex, the Mexican cement maker, is among those considering providing quotes to supply raw materials for the wall, but has said it will not take part in the bidding process to build it.

Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua, another construction company, has also indicated a willingness to be involved.

Last week Ildefonso Guajardom, Mexico's economy minister, warned the country's construction firms it would not be in their "interests" to work on the wall. Mr Trump's pledge to build the wall to stop illegal immigrants crossing the border was a key campaign promise.
A senior Russian general has accused the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State of targeting Syria's infrastructure - including a key dam - in territory held by the Sunni extremist group.

Colonel General Sergei Rudskoi, of the military's General Staff, said the coalition was trying to "completely destroy critical infrastructure in Syria and complicate post-war reconstruction as much as possible".

A US-backed Syrian opposition force has insisted it is taking care to preserve vital infrastructure as it steps up military operations in northern Syria ahead of a push on Raqqa, the de facto capital of the IS group's self-styled caliphate.

Col Gen Rudskoi further claimed that coalition jets had destroyed four bridges over the Euphrates River in Syria and hit the Tabqa dam to the west of Raqqa.

The collapse of the dam would cause an "ecological catastrophe" and lead to "numerous" civilian deaths, he said.

On Monday, the US-led coalition reiterated that it is taking every precaution to ensure the integrity of the dam. "To our knowledge, the dam has not been structurally damaged," it said on its Twitter account.

A spillway north of the structure is under control of the US-backed and Kurdish-led opposition group known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, and can be used to relieve pressure behind the dam, the coalition told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Engineers who used to work at the site have expressed doubt that the spillway could accommodate the water flow but said it will still take at least a month for the lake to reach critical levels if the gates are not opened. IS has warned that the dam's main gates are out of service, causing water levels to rise.

Pressure on IS has intensified in recent months as the group has suffered a series of battlefield reverses in both Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

With SDF forces to the north and west of Raqqa, a push on the city is shaping up to be the next major battle. Last week, US aircraft ferried hundreds of SDF fighters, as well as American artillery and military advisers, behind IS lines.

President Bashar Assad's government has objected to US involvement, saying that American forces are not authorised to be on Syrian soil. For its part, Moscow prefers seeing Syrian government forces leading the assault on Raqqa.

Activist groups said on Monday the city itself has been without electricity and municipal water for three to five days.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the cuts are due to the fighting around Tabqa Dam, 25 miles west of Raqqa.

Col Gen Rudskoi said on Tuesday that Syrian government forces, with Russian military assistance, are making progress against IS. Russia has been Mr Assad's main backer and has played a key role in turning the tide of war in his favour.

Syrian forces now control of territory up to 13 miles around the historic town of Palmyra, Col Gen Rudskoi said, adding that they recently seized control of high ground held by IS along a highway connecting Palmyra and the capital, Damascus.

Syrian troops fully recaptured Palmyra earlier this month after a push that saw IS defences crumble and their fighters flee in the face of artillery fire and intense Russia-backed air strikes. The Syrian government had seized the town from Islamic State militants last March, only to lose it again 10 months later.

Separately on Tuesday, reports emerged that an agreement has been reached for the surrender and evacuation of four besieged areas in Syria.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the agreement stipulates the evacuation of the rebel-held Damascus suburbs of Madaya and Zabadani, besieged by government forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters for the past two years, in return for the evacuation of the north-western villages of Foua and Kfarya, which have been besieged by insurgents since early 2015.

Some 60,000 people live in the four besieged areas, according to the UN.

Muhammad Darwish, a doctor from Madaya, confirmed an agreement to evacuate rebels had been struck and that it would likely be implemented a week from now. He said the evacuation was voluntary, and that civilians could stay.

The Washington-based Siege Watch monitoring group said in a series of Tweets that the deal, which would result in massive forced population transfers, was mediated by Iran and signed in Qatar.

Such deals have become common in Syria, where rebels surrender following years of siege and bombardment, and are allowed safe passage to opposition-held areas further north in return.

The Syrian government has rejected allegations that such deals amount to the forced displacement of civilians.

AP
Jared Kushner is the fourth Trump associate to offer to be interviewed by the congressional committees (AP)

House intelligence chairman Devin Nunes has rebuffed calls to step aside from the Russia investigation as demands grew for him to recuse himself as head of that probe.

"Why would I?" Mr Nunes said. The calls for him to resign came after revelations about his meeting with a secret source on White House grounds raised questions about his and the panel's independence.

Mr Nunes said the pressure for him to resign was typical politics.

"It's the same thing as always around this place - a lot of politics, people get heated, but I'm not going to involve myself with that," he said.

Mr Nunes acknowledged that he reviewed intelligence reports at the White House complex and met a secret source behind his statement that communications involving associates of President Donald Trump were caught up in "incidental" surveillance.

The Republican congressman's disclosure prompted the top Democrat on the committee, Rep Adam Schiff, as well as the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, to call on Mr Nunes to recuse himself from the committee's Russia probe.

Mr Schiff said Mr Nunes's connections to the White House have raised insurmountable public doubts about whether the committee can credibly investigate the president's campaign associates.

"I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the president's campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman," Mr Schiff said in a statement.

After reviewing the information last week, Mr Nunes called a news conference to announce that US spy agencies may have inadvertently captured Mr Trump and his associates in the routine targeting of foreigners' communications.

Mr Trump quickly seized on the statements as at least partial vindication for his assertion that President Barack Obama tapped his phones at Trump Tower - though Mr Nunes, Mr Schiff and FBI Director James Comey have said there is no such evidence.

Mr Nunes has denied coordinating with the president or his aides.

But Rep Jackie Speier, a member of the committee, said that Mr Nunes should step down "in the interest of our integrity."

She said his actions raise questions about whether the panel's investigation can be unbiased and independent.

"If you become a White House whisperer, you are not independent," she said on CNN.

The Senate intelligence committee is also conducting an investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible ties with the Trump campaign.

On Monday, it announced that Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has agreed to be interviewed.

The White House confirmed that Mr Kushner, a senior Trump adviser, had volunteered to be interviewed about arranging meetings with the Russian ambassador and other officials.

Mr Kushner is the fourth Trump associate to offer to be interviewed by the congressional committees looking into the murky Russia ties.

President Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, Trump adviser Carter Page and Trump associate Roger Stone last week volunteered to speak as well.

Meanwhile, a Russian state bank says it has met with Mr Kushner as part of a series of meetings on future business strategies.

Vnesheconombank, or VEB, said in Monday's statement carried by state RIA Novosti news agency that it met with Mr Kushner last year as part of "road show" discussions with representatives of leading financial institutions in Europe, Asia and the United States.

It said the meetings focused on global development banks' strategies. VEB provided no further details.

President Trump suggested late Monday that the House panel should investigate Bill and Hillary Clinton's dealings with Russia.

"Trump Russia story is a hoax," he tweeted.

Besides the two congressional committees, the FBI is also investigating connections between the Trump campaign and Russia.

AP
New Delhi, Mar 28 (IBNS): General Bipin Rawat, the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) is visiting Nepal and Bangladesh from Mar 28 to Apr 2 on his first foreign visit after assuming office. COAS will be visiting important military installations and meeting high ranking dignitaries including the Prime Minister, Defence Minister and the Chief of Army Staff.

The delegation will also visit Nepalese Army Mountain Warfare School at Jomsom and the Pension Paying office at Pokhra where the COAS will address the Indian Army ex-servicemen of Nepalese origin.

The visit to Nepal assumes importance as the President of Nepal will confer the title of Honorary General of the Nepalese Army to the COAS at a special investiture ceremony on Mar 29.

This historic tradition is a reciprocal arrangement that is continuing uninterrupted since its inception in 1969 and has been a hallmark of the special relationship between the Indian and the Nepalese Army.

General Rajendra Chettri, the Chief of Army Staff of Nepalese Army was conferred the title of Honorary General of the Indian Army on 03 February 2016, during his first visit to India after assuming office.

Nepal visit will be followed by a visit to Bangladesh, where COAS will be meeting the President, the Prime Minister and the Chief of Army Staff of Bangladesh Army. The delegation will also visit Headquarters of an Infantry Division and Armoured Corps Centre at Bogra.

This visit will help strengthen mutual trust with immediate neighbourhood particularly in the field of defence cooperation.
Dhaka, Mar 28 (IBNS): A trawler carrying 100 passengers drowned in Panguchi River in Morelganj upazila of Bangladesh, killing at least three people on Tuesday, media reports said.

Md Rashedul Alam, officer-in-charge of Morelganj Police Station, was quoted as saying by Prothom Alo that the trawler sank in the river around 10:30 am while heading towards Purano thana ghat from Srombaria.

Authorities have recovered three bodies so far.
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Only people who study medicine understand how vast and difficult the field is. From treating patients to finding a cure to a deadly diseases, doctors have a lot to give to the human kind. Here are eleven doctors who made an impact with their great contribution to the field of medicine.

1. Dr Anandi Gopal Joshi, the first female of Indian origin to study and graduate with a degree in medicine in the United States

alchetron

Dr Anandi Gopal Joshi is believed to have been the first woman from India to set foot on American soil and study medicine there. The fact that she fought the orthodox, conservative society to get a medical degree makes her a great achiever. She began her medical education at the age of 19 and graduated with an MD on March 11, 1886, three years after landing in America.

2. Dr Levi Watkins Jr., the first cardiac surgeon who implanted an automatic defibrillator in a human

YouTube

We should thank Dr Levi Watkins Jr. for an automatic defibrillator, a device millions of people use today to survive. He was the first black student at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Apart from being a cardiac surgeon, he was also a civil rights activist who stood against racism and injustice. Dr Watkins became the first doctor to put an automatic defibrillator in a human heart in 1980.

3. Dr Mae Jemison, the physician who also became the first black female astronaut in NASA history

sundance.tv

Accomplishments of Dr Mae Jemison must be lauded as she did not stop after getting a doctors degree, but she also strived hard to become an engineer in NASA! She first got her chemical engineering degree at Stanford and later on, she studied medicine at Cornell Medical college. After getting inspired by African-American actress Nichelle Nichols, who portrayed Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek, Dr. Mae decided to apply to NASAs astronaut program. She then became the first black woman to go to space in 1992.

4. Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, after whom Doctors' Day is celebrated in India

Life

It was Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy who first established the Indian Medical Association in 1928. In his memory, 1 July, his birth and death anniversary, is celebrated as Doctors' Day in India. A close friend and doctor of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr Bidhan has a big contribution behind opening the Indian Institute of Mental Health and Kolkatas first postgraduate medical college. He was also West Bengals second Chief Minister, and a Bharat Ratna awardee.

5. Dr Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon who successfully separated conjoined twins

huffingtonpost

In 1986, Ben Carson became the first neurosurgeon who performed the first intrauterine surgical procedure on the brain of a fetal twin. He also led a team of surgeons who completed the first successful separation of twins conjoined at the cranium. At the age of 33, he achieved the feat of being the chief paediatric surgery in US.

6. Dr Barry Marshall, a Noble Prize winner who made the historic scientific discovery, which stated the presence of bacterium Helicobacter pylori as the root cause for most peptic ulcers

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The Australian physician, along with Dr Robin Warren performed the initial culture of H. pylori and developed their hypothesis related to the bacterial cause of peptic ulcer and gastric cancer. Many experiments were held to prove him wrong, but they only confirmed his findings.

7. Dr "Patch" Adams, a doctor and a comedian who made his patients smile

ComediHa!

A physician who is also a comedian is a rare combination. Hunter Doherty "Patch" Adams is one such doctor who organises a group of volunteers from around the world to travel to various countries where they dress as clowns in an effort to bring humour to orphans, patients, and other people. He gained popularity when the Hollywood movie Patch Adams, loosely based on his life, was released.

8. Dr Denton Cooley, the surgeon who performed the worlds first implantation of a total artificial heart

YouTube

In 1969, Dr Denton Cooley successfully implanted an artificial heart. He accomplished the almost impossible task without the supervision of his senior, which created a rift between them. The patient, Haskell Karp, lived for 64 hours with the implanted device before it could be replaced with a donors heart. However, he died a day after the second operation and questions were raised about the doctors decision to implant the artificial device in the first place.

9. Max Theiler, a South African-American virologist who developed a vaccine against yellow fever

proudlysa.biz

For his crusade against Yellow fever, Max Theiler received a Nobel Prize in 1951. The Yellow Fever which claimed many lives was almost undefeatable. Theiler and his team developed the first strain of the virus which led to the development of a vaccine against yellow fever in 1937.

10. Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician who founded the system of alternative medicine called homeopathy

clinicalhomeopathiccollege

A physician who was also a language translator, Samuel Hahnemann developed homeopathy as a system of alternative medicine. He first used the term 'homeopathy' in his essay Indications of the Homeopathic Employment of Medicines in Ordinary Practice, published in Hufeland's Journal in 1807.

11. Dr Upendranath Brahmachari, who discovered Urea Stibamine, an organic antimonial compound that played a vital role in the treatment of Kala-azar

thefamouspeople

Dr Brahmachari is renowned for his outstanding contributions to medical science, particularly in the treatment of Kala-azar by discovering Urea Stibamine. Around 1924, he founded the Brahmachari Research Institute at his own residence in Kolkata. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize, however he didnt win the prestigious prize.
TVF CEO Arunabh Kumar has finally now breathe a sigh of relief as there are no charges levied on him by the police.

Earlier this month, 50 women had come forward on social media and complained about Arunabh for sexually harassing them at workplace. But so far none of the women have filed any compliant with the cops.

Twitter

Most have anonymously posted on social media about Kumars behavior.

The cops have been trying to get in touch with these women, five of whom are anonymous, to come out and file a proper complaint. No action can be taken unless a complainant comes forward and registers an FIR, said senior PI Shailesh Pasalwar of MIDC police station to Mumbai Mirror.

Kumar had stated he was open for any investigation on the matter.
Do you often take a nap at your desk and bullied by colleagues for it? Tell them to shut up because a 20-minute power nap in the afternoon is good as it helps people to be more creative and even improves their problem-solving ability.

www.saga.vn

According to scientists from the University of Leeds in England, this nap could reduce the risks of diabetes, heart problems and depression, which are more likely when you do not get enough sleep. The loss of an hour in bed is particularly detrimental to individuals that already struggle with their sleep, said lead study author Nerina Ramlakhan. Adding, If you are one of the 25% of the nation that gets less than five hours sleep a night, this time change could see you drop down to as little as four hours, which is a dangerously low amount.

Bosses should consider allowing staff to take a short nap in the office. It can make a huge difference, suggests researchers, reports the Independent. The findings indicated that napping between 2 pm and 4 pm for just, 20 minutes nap can make a huge difference.

poskotanews.com

Naps have been scientifically proven to boost creativity and problem-solving ability and they can even rebalance the immune system, meaning staffs are less likely to take sick days.

Allowing staff to indulge in a nap during the working day might sound unusual, but considering the country will be losing an hour of sleep over the weekend its a fair request, Dr Ramlakhan stated.
After the arrest of African nationals for their alleged participation in the death of a class 12 student in Greater Noida, Sushma Swaraj sought a report from the Uttar Pradesh government.

AFP

The incident occurred when a protest march held by the locals turned violent, resulting in the assault of several Nigerians by the angry mob.

Yesterday, Swaraj wrote in a tweet,

I have asked for a report from Government of Uttar Pradesh about the reported attack on African students in Noida.  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 27, 2017

Today morning, she assured an international student who expressed concern over the tense situation in Noida,

@SushmaSwaraj as an international student in noida, you need to act fast as living for us in Noida is becoming a life threatening issue  Sadiq Bello (@Sadiq8800) March 28, 2017

Sadiq - Government of India is seized of the matter. We are taking immediate action. https://t.co/SRdS2QGuj1  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

Afterward, she followed up with a series of tweets apprising the public of her conversation with the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister,

I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath ji Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh about attack on African students in Greater Noida. /1  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident. /2  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

Locals say that the student who died, Manish Khari, was drugged by the Nigerians. The 17-year-old passed away after a cardiac arrest on Saturday. Two Africans were assaulted by the locals when they were out shopping. Police had to bring the situation under control by using baton charge. Three Nigerians were admitted to a hospital.

ani

An investigation is underway to find out if drugs were used. According to reports, five Nigerian students have been picked up by the police.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) might be obsessed with banning beef consumption and cow slaughter in states which they are in power.

PTI

But the party it seems will not enforce the same in the northeast. With the BJP's somewhat surprise victory in the recent Manipur assembly elections, the party is betting big on the region as three more northeastern states, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram will go to polls next year.

BCCL

With all the three being majority Christian, and beef being an integral part of the local cuisine, the BJP has said that there won't be implementing any UP-like ban on cow slaughter in northeast.

Reuters

Ban on cow slaughter like the one in UP wont take effect in Nagaland if our party comes to power next year. The reality here is very different and our central leaders are aware of that, Nagaland BJP chief Visasolie Lhoungu told Hindustan Times.

There would be no ban on cow slaughter in Mizoram and other states in the region where there is a majority Christian population, Mizoram BJP president JV Hluna said.

BCCL

Meghalaya BJP General Secretary Devid Kharsati made it clear that the situation of Uttar Pradesh differs vastly from that of the northeastern states. Census data from past years shows that all the three states Mizoram, Nagaland, and Meghalaya have majority Christian population.

While the Congress is in power in Meghalaya and Mizoram, the BJP is a part of the coalition in the NPF-led Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) in the state.
One of the most iconic aeroplanes, first designed built during the golden age of aviation in the 1930s, attempting a round the world trip landed in India yesterday. The DC-3, designed by the Douglas aircraft company, revolutionised air travel back in in the 30s and 40s. Even the Indian Air Force operated the aircraft in a troop and material transport role.

This March 1940-make Dakota DC-3 is the oldest aircraft ever to attempt a circumnavigation of the globe. These planes played a key role in India's wars with Pakistan in 1947 and 1965.

Breitling DC-3 World Tour

The present aircraft, owned by Aeropassion, a Swiss firm, flew in here from Karachi last night, its 11th halt on the 55-city tour during which it would circumnavigate the globe. The aircraft, manufactured by the now extinct US-based Douglas Aircraft Company, were extensively used by the Allied forces during the World War II.

Among other missions, they were used to airdrop the troops during the landing on the Normandy coast in France on the 'D-day'.

The 'Breitling DC-3 World Tour' started off from Geneva on March 9, the 77th birthday of the 36-seater aircraft with a 3-member crew, said Captain Francisco Agullo, the pilot. Agullo (48), a Swiss national, has experience of 28 years.

The tour is sponsored primarily by the Swiss watchmaker Breitling. The other two crew members are co-pilot Paul Bazeley from Britain and engineer Daniel Meyer, a Swiss, who doubles up as the official photographer of the tour.

Breitling DC-3 World Tour

Agullo said DC-3 was the first aircraft to be commercially viable when made in 1935 by the Douglas Aircraft Company, which went on to make as many as 16,000 of them between 1935 and 1950. To put it in perspective, Airbus, the world's largest aircraft-maker, has made only 10,000 planes so far. The aircraft on the world tour has two Pratt & Whitney piston engines, Agullo said, adding that it has flown 74,500 hours. Engines of this make have to be changed after every 1200 hours, he said.

The DC-3 was also the first plane to complete the US east-west journey with just one stop. Out of the 16,000 DC-3 built, 10,000 were in the US, 487 in Japan and the rest in Russia. The Breitling DC-3 World Tour will end in Geneva in September after covering 24,000 nautical miles. Bezeley said the plane chose Nagpur for a halt because the city is at the heart of India, and also because of the 'aviation gas', its fuel, is not available at large airports.

Breitling DC-3 World Tour

On Wednesday the plane will fly off to Chittagong in Bangladesh, from where it will head to Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Japan. It will be stationed in Japan for a month before heading for the west coast of the US.

In Tokyo, the plane will offer a joy ride to the child victims of the 2013 tsunami. Civil DC-3 production stopped in 1942 with 607 aircraft made.

However, the production of its military derivative, the C-47 Skytrain (designated as Dakota by the UK's Royal Air Force), and the Russian and Japanese versions continued till 1950.
With just months to go for incumbent President Pranab Mukherjee's term to end, Delhi's political circles are abuzz with names of possible successors. On Monday, BJP's ally Shiv Sena, to the surprise of many has proposed the name of Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent of the BJP for the top job. Read more

Here are other top stories of the day:

1) Double Standards: BJP Promises 'No Ban' On Beef If It Wins Polls In Northeast States

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) might be obsessed with banning beef consumption and cow slaughter in states which they are in power. But the party it seems will not enforce the same in the northeast. Read more

2) Facebook Accidentally Deletes Bengali Poem Criticising Yogi Adityanath, Restores It With An Apology

Srijato Bandopadhyay's poem titled "Abhishaap" (Curse) was taken down by Facebook authorities two days after a Siliguri student lodged a criminal case against the poet for allegedly hurting the sentiment of the Hindus. Read more

3) Monsoon Expected To Be Weak Again, Will Affect Everything From Food Prices To Bank Rates!

Monsoon is expected to be feeble again. Skymet, a private weather forecasting agency, in its report, yesterday, said that monsoon in India this year is likely to be below normal at 95% of the long average period (LPA). Read more

4) Hate Crimes Against Africans Continue As Another Man Thrashed Badly By A Mob In Greater Noida

A video of an African man being beaten up by Indians at Ansal Plaza mall in Greater Noida is making rounds on the internet. The man can be seen lying on the floor being beaten by around 18-20 Indians using steel dustbins. The brawl reportedly took place for no reason. Read more





5) Journalist Booked Under Official Secrets Act, Abetment To Suicide After Soldier's Death Over Sting Video

The journalist who conducted a sting operation about the 'sahayak system' in the Indian Army has been booked by Maharashtra Police after a soldier featured in the video committed suicide last month. Read more
Even after Indian Army Chief General Vipin Rawat warning tough action against stone-pelters in Kashmir disrupting the security forces, it seems the warning have little effect on them.

ANI

On Tuesday, the stone pelters disrupted a counter-terrorism operation in Chadoora area of Budgam in Jammu and Kashmir.

The security forces had launched a search operation after receiving information about the presence of terrorists there.

"The search operation turned into a gunbattle after militants opened fire on security forces."

ANI

However, it turned fatal as dozens of youths began pelting stones at the forces, disrupting the operation. At least two civilians have been killed and four others have been injured in the clashes which followed.

ANI

Last month, the army had warned stone pelters against helping terrorists flee from the security forces. This came after incidents of stone-pelting during security operations increased in the recent times.

The army was forced to warn the stone pelters as the terrorists began using them as a cover to target the army, knowing that they won't retaliate fearing civilian casualties.
The Russian state media has released a picture of the Zircon hypersonic anti-ship missile and claimed that it can fly at hypersonic speeds of up to 4,600 mph (7,400 km/h). Obviously, it has sent shock-waves around the world.

Russian state media

A missile, at that speed, will be almost impossible to stop. The speed gives it so much kinetic energy that if it was somehow intercepted just before impact, the debris will still cause unprecedented damage to the target. American aircraft carriers are pretty much, sitting ducks.

Jalopnik

The missile reportedly has a range between 150 and 250 miles (240 and 400 km) and is likely to be inducted by 2022. The missile is said to be powered by a scramjet engine that uses oxygen from the air and has no moving parts. The first ship to be equipped with the Zircon is likely to be one of the Kirov-class nuclear-powered battle cruisers, two of which are in service with the Russian navy.

Global Military Review

India too will have a hypersonic cruise missile in the coming time. The second generation Brahmos-2 missile, being developed by India and Russia will be powered by a scramjet engine.
Were excited to announce that indmin.com is now part of fastmarkets.com.

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One person has died while 16 others are being treated for severe burns in Calabar the Cross River state capital.

The death and injuries occurred following an explosion linked to kerosene adulteration.

The states Commissioner for Health, Dr. Asibong Inyang, who visited the victims at the hospital said the government is investigating the incident to find the root cause of the explosions.

She said the Ministry of Health would also educate residents on the dangers of using adulterated products, and promised to donate medical accessories to the ward in support of their treatment.

Also, while speaking to journalists, the State Commissioner for Petroleum, Itaya Asuquo Nyong, gave the assurance that his ministry would investigate those behind the adulteration and bring the culprits to book.

We will set up an investigative panel cos we want to get to the root cause of the matter and find out where this product is bought and I intend to involve the services of the operative agencies in this operation, because we intend to ensure that adequate punishment is given. We should never experience such in the state.

Some of the victims who spoke to Journalists, expressed that they were in deep pains as a result of the burns from the explosion.

Source: ( Channels Television)
Have you ever wondered why the Senate failed to confirm Ibrahim Maguas Chairman of The EFCC. Here are some facts that shows Ibrahim Magu is corrupt.

The Department of Security Service (DSS) recently released a 7-page letter which sheds more light on the corruption allegations against Ibrahim Magu, the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The letter appeared to have been written in response to a request by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, who called for documentary evidence of the allegations raised by the DSS in its letters to the Senate.

Here are 15 indicting items in the report

1) Magu was indicted after a disciplinary process and awarded Severe Reprimand for Action prejudicial to state security, Withholding of EFFC files, Sabotage, Unauthorized removal of EFCC files and Acts unbecoming of a Police Officer.

2) A copy of the confessional statement of Air Commodore Mohammmed Umar (Rtd), a suspect hitherto detained and currently being prosecuted by the Police Commission Service. The statement affirms his ownership of Valcour S.A Nigeria Limited, a company awarded the contract of securing and furnishing an official residence for Ibrahim MAGU by the FCTA. Investigation revealed that this was facilitated after Magu was earlier shown the residence by one Uche ALEKA, a close business associate of UMAR, who was introduced to MAGU by the former.

3) A forged memo which supposedly originated from the Office of the Vice President and addressed to Mr. President. This was recovered from the private residence of Umar during a search operation by this Service. The document is a request for approval to commence further investigation into financial activities of Honourable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe KACHIKWU. Also attached to the Memo are two (2) genuine investigation reports by EFCC on the Honourable Minister, dated 24th March, 2016 & 13th April, 2016 and duly signed by 1VIAGU. One of the two (2) attachments indicates that the original investigation report earlier was purportedly received in the VPs office by one Folabo KAY.

4) A copy of Progress report with reference number SH/ COS/ 24/ A/ 7277 dated 25th May, 2016 on NNPC/ NLG Brass Investment Accounts in Nigerian Commercial Banks from Chief of Staff to Mr. President, Abba KYARI to the Acting EFCC Chairman. The letter is an official/ classified document of the EFCC which was duly received by the Commission as indicated by the stamp on the document. However, it was recovered at Umars residence.

5) Photocopies of Managers cheques of First Bank PLC and Zenith Bank PLC, issued in favour of EFCC Recovery Funds Account on 13/ 05/2016 and 16/65/ 2016, respectively. These are all sensitive official documents of the EFCC found in Umars residence during the search.

6) A classified letter from the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) to the EFCC Chairman titled Re: Request to Freeze Accounts Messers Bebey: Merchant Ltd and 20 others, dated 7th March, 2016. This document was also duly received by EFCC but found in Commodore Umars house during the search.

7) A document which emanated from Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and addressed to the EFCC Chairman on 6th May, 2016 with the subject, Re: Stop Debit Order on all NNPC Accounts and Subsidiaries- A case for Joint Venture & NNPC Pension Funds Accounts. The document was recovered at Umars residence.

8) NNPC Letter GED/ F86A/ 08.26 dated 5th May, 2016 addressed to the EFCC Chairman and titled Re: Stop Debit Order on all NNPC Accounts and Subsidiaries. This was also discovered during the search of Umars residence.

9) Copy of Confessional Statement by Umar to the Service stating that his trip to Maiduguri for condolence visit to Ibrahim Magu, sequel to the loss of a close relative, was made on behalf of the Presidential Committee on Audit of Arms Purchase. Cross examination of the Chairman of the Committee, AVM John ODE (Rtd) revealed that the committee did not send any of its members on such an assignment. The visit of Umar to Magu is therefore assessed as an expression of their close sinister relationship at the detriment of National Security interests.

10) An officer appointed as Ag. Chairman of EFCC should by all means be one of impeccable credentials, with proven integrity and capacity to lead the nations fight against graft in high and low places. Thus far, it is evident from MAGUs antecedents that he is by no means that kind of officer.

11) His relationship with Umar MOHAMMED which involved disclosure of very sensitive and classified official documents in his possession shows lack of professionalism and assails his integrity. Moreso, for an officer who was indicted and nearly dismissed six (6) years ago, to again be involved in similar circumstances, it is clear that MAGU is a perennial offender and cannot change.

12) Also worthy of note is the fact that MAGU exhibited a total lack of judgment where it matters most. He accepted to move into a tastily furnished accommodation without any scrutiny of how it was furnished. This is curious and speaks volumes of his personality.

13) The recovery of sensitive and classified documents from the residence of Umar further underlays his close affinity to Magu and an apparent penchant for sabotaging official processes and administrative protocols, just to further the latters personal material and pecuniary agenda. Such mutually beneficial relationships as with Umar, who by his confession, approaches clients for possible exploitation, favours and associated returns is unprecedented and very damning for an anti-graft top official. It has exposed Magu as a fraudulent officer and betrays the high confidence reposed in him by Mr. President.

14) A further demonstration of Magus questionable credibility as an untainted anti-corruption official is his failed bid to settle personal scores with one Stanley Inye Lawson lacing him on Security Watch Action. It was however discovered that Lawson was actually working in the interest of the Federal Government and the Action was subsequently expunged.

15) This reinforces the view that Magu may continue to exploit his official position, if confirmed as EFCC Chairman and indulge in other unprofessional and criminal conducts for personal aggrandizement contrary to his oath of office.

Source: ( Bounce News )
There were many of us contesting for the hand of my wife. I wanted to marry a beautiful princess but I was the least qualified among the many suitors. Out of the number, three of us were in the forefront. But I was a student, while one of us was a lawyer who owned a car. All I had was a foot wagon (moving around on foot). I decided to let her know my financial status.

I said to her, Please, listen. I have nothing; no money, no house, no influence, nothing. I told her that if I had anything at all, it was the little brain God gave to me. I have nothing to offer you except myself. If you will marry me, you will have me to yourself completely.

This is a part of the story of the life of the General Overseer Worldwide of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, as revealed in Stories of Pastor E.A. Adeboye: The Power of Testimony, a new book on him, written by seasoned writer and journalist, Bisi Daniels.

According to the publishers, the publication tells the story of his amazing transformation from debilitating poverty into a powerful man of God revered by millions of people across the world.

The 350-page book, which shows for the first time the house in which Adeboye was born and the primary school he attended in Ifewara, Osun State, was released two weeks ago to mark his 75th birthday.

The writer adds that the story becomes a compelling read on learning that, after breaking free from the vicious cycle of poverty in his family to become a lecturer at the university and living in a palatial home, Adeboye abandoned all that to live in a one-bedroom apartment in Mushin, Lagos, as the General Overseer of the RCCG.

Daniels, who had published some novels under the name, Bisi Ojediran, says Daddy G.O., as the man of God is fondly called, confesses that at that point he was scared but God assured him of His support. Instructively it was at that point God promised him a city, which has turned out to be the now famous Redemption Camp.

Gods response to me was, Son, dont ask for a house because I have decided to build you a city. That response was beyond what I could comprehend. After this encounter, I began to dream of a city where everybody would be a Christian; a city where there would be no molestation; a city where there would be no power failure or water shortages. God began to stretch my mind to see a city where His praises would fill every mouth, he is quoted as saying.

The church had only 40 parishes then but it now has over 32,000 in Nigeria, over 700 parishes in the United Kingdom, and many more spread across over 196 countries including Samoa, Fiji, Serbia, Pakistan, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates.

The subjects covered in the book include the transformation of The RCCG, testimonies on faith, salvation, miracles, marriage, fruit of the womb, temptation, un-forgiveness, the dark world of power and principalities among others.

Daniels feels privileged to have worked on the project that he calls a great book of a very great man of God; a rare person of our time, who so many people around the world are grateful to be alive to see at work for God.

He adds, I have written many books but this is the most important and most impactful of them all, with the promise to touch lives of many people around the world. Sometimes I get the sense that I was specifically prepared by the circumstances of my life in the last nine years to write this particular book.

He explains that working on the book has transformed him, got him closer to God, and equipped him with greater understanding of the spiritual realm.

In the foreword he wrote just before he was sworn in as the Vice President of Nigeria, Professor Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) recommends the book highly.

He notes, The sharing of what (Daniels) calls stories is an integral part of the sermons of Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye, General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, who is fondly called Daddy G.O.

Most of Daddys stories are indeed miracles, used to illustrate his sermons and show the power of God, rather than his own achievements.

But what was lady Folus response to the then bachelor Adeboyes passionate plea decades ago?

Daddy G. O. further notes in the book, Surprisingly, she replied, Because you are so honest, I will marry you.

Source: Punch
President Muhammadu Buhari believes that Nigeria has benefitted a lot from the Asiwaju Bola Tinubus personal sacrifices, political experience and intellectual foresight and still stands to gain more.

President Buhari said this on Tuesday when he congratulated Tinubu, on his 65th birthday.

Buharis goodwill message was contained in a statement made available to journalists by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina.

The statement read, President Buhari joins all members of the APC, political and business associates of the Asiwaju of Lagos, his friends and family, in celebrating another milestone in the life of the great leader, whose foray into politics ushered in a better understanding of building consensus to achieve historical feats, like unseating an incumbent government.

As he turns 65 years, the President believes the Asiwaju raised the bar for many political leaders across the country as a two-term governor of Lagos State, and also bequeathed a style of leadership that completely altered the landscape of the commercial capital.

Recalling his pleasant and intellectually enriching encounters with the Jagaban of Borgu Kingdom over the years, the President reaffirms that the nation has benefitted a lot from the personal sacrifices, political experience and intellectual foresight of the APC chieftain, and still stands to gain more.

President Buhari prays that the almighty God will grant the Asiwaju good health, longer life and more wisdom to serve his country and humanity.

Source: TheSun
Benins defence minister announced his resignation on Monday to protest President Patrice Talons plans to overhaul the constitution.

Candide Armand-Marie Azannai wrote on his Facebook page that he had decided to quit because of recent developments in this countrys politics.

Businessman Talon, who was elected last year, has proposed amending the constitution to limit presidents to a single term of office in the tiny West African nation, which is dwarfed by its giant neighbour Nigeria to the east. They can currently serve a maximum of two.

Such a measure, if passed, would be in direct contrast to a number of other African countries where leaders have sought to remain in power at all costs.

But Talons critics, some of whom have taken to the streets to protest, point out that single-term presidencies were open to abuse, as the president would not have to court the favour of voters at the end of his term.

The president has summoned the national assembly for an extraordinary session to vote on the issue, which is one of 43 changes he has proposed to the 160-article constitution.

Talon, who has not commented on Azannais resignation, also wants to set a cap on political party funding and promote positive discrimination for women in politics.

The president has widespread support in parliament. Any change in the constitution needs the approval of 4/5ths of the national assembly.

Source: AFP
Guinness World Records has presented The Dubai Police force a certificate for having the worlds fastest police car in service  a Bugatti Veyron  just one of its 14-strong fleet of supercars.

The police fleet includes a bespoke Aston Martin One-77, of which only 77 were ever built, a Bentley Continental GT, three hybrid Porsche Panameras and two BMW i8s.

The previous record holder belonged to the Italian police force with the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4, which has a top speed of 230 mph (370 km/h).

But Dubais police superfleet isnt used for high-speed chases down Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Boulevard, or very many police duties at all for that matter. Instead, the cars cruise around the Dubai Mall area and Jumeirah Beach Residence in search of tourists and attention.
Indian authorities, on Tuesday, ordered an investigation into a mob attack on several African students near New Delhi, a crime for which seven people have been arrested.

The incident occurred in the Delhi suburb of Noida late Monday when locals staging a protest about the death of a teenage boy turned violent, leading to attacks on African students, mostly Nigerians, shopping in the area.

The attackers alleged the dead boy, Manish Khari, 16, was drugged by Africans who live in the area. He died of a cardiac arrest on the weekend after a suspected drug overdose.

Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj promised immediate action after a Nigerian student begged her for help, saying living in the area had become a life-threatening issue.

I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh about the attack.

He has assured that there will be fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident, she said on Twitter, referring to the state in which the incident occurred.

Noida police chief Dharmendra Singh said four Nigerians were admitted to hospitals and seven locals were arrested for the mob violence.

Some people tried to give the incident a racial twist and there has been hate-mongering over the social media.

Three hundred people are listed in the police complaint and more arrests are likely soon in raids, he said.

Attacks on Africans have been reported at regular intervals in India in recent years.

Last May, a Congolese student was beaten to death in Delhi.

Earlier, a Tanzanian student was attacked and partially stripped by a mob in the city of Bangalore.

Source: NAN
A 31-year-old salesman, Onwuma Uche, has been arrested by the police for allegedly converting his boss N53m into personal use.

The suspect was said to be running a business venture on behalf of the boss, Onyeka Nkem, at Imo Plaza, Balogun Market, Trade Fair on the Lagos-Badagry Expressway, Lagos State.

It was gathered that cosmetics, perfume, among other items, were traded in the shop in large quantities.

PUNCH Metro learnt that Nkem stocked the shop with cartons of perfume valued at N43.4m, and cartons of Shampoo valued at N60m, sometime in 2013.

It was, however, alleged that Uche tampered with the ventures account books and invoice, and failed to remit N53m to the owners account.

Our correspondent was told that after fruitless efforts to retrieve the missing sum from the salesman, Nkem petitioned the Federal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Ikoyi, leading to the suspects arrest.

He was subsequently charged with stealing and obtaining money under false pretences by the Inspector-General of Police in a case with charge number D/17A/2017.

A police prosecutor, Inspector Ingobo Emby, on Friday brought Uche before an Igbosere Magistrates Court on four counts bordering on the offences.

Emby told the court, presided over by Chief Magistrate S.A. Sonuga, that the offences contravened sections 390, 421, 438 and 409 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

The charges read in part, That you, Onwuma Uche, sometime in 2013, at Shop A14, Imo Plaza, Balogun Market, Trade Fair, along Lagos-Badagry Expressway, Lagos, in the Lagos Magisterial District, did obtain cartons of perfume valued at N43.397m and 1,047 cartons of Shampoo worth over N60m under the pretext that you will sell and return the proceeds to the owner, which you failed to do.

That you, during the same time and place, in the aforementioned magisterial district, did cheat your boss, Onyeka Nkem, by not remitting the proceeds of goods sold by you, worth N53m.

That you did fraudulently omit the invoice and other account books of your boss, thereby committing an offence punishable under Section 438 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

However, the accused pleaded not guilty to the charges and elected summary trial.

The magistrate, Sonuga, granted him bail in the sum of N10m with two sureties each in like sum, adding that one of the sureties must be the defendants blood relation.

The case was adjourned till April 27, 2017 for mention.

Source: Punch
The Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, has vowed to resign from his position, if the six-week deadline for the rehabilitation of the runway of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja is not fulfilled.

The minister, who said this on Monday during a meeting with Aviation Round Table (ART) in Lagos, noted that the level of work done in the first three weeks since the runway was closed on March 8, had shown that the work would be completed at the given date.

He explained that the Kaduna airport was chosen as alternative to Abuja airport because the other airports around Abuja, including the airports in Minna, Jos, and Makurdi do not provide adequate security and safety measures.

He said Kaduna has dual carriageway to Abuja and the road could easily be rehabilitated within the period the airport in Abuja would be closed.

He also noted that while the Minna airport is closer to Abuja, the road is a single lane, filled with potholes and along undulating topography and hills, adding that it is insecure and unsafe compared to Kaduna.

The minister said while there was immediate plan to rehabilitate the Kaduna-Abuja road, there was no plan to rebuild the Minna-Abuja road.

Mr. Sirika added that he knew that the Abuja airport runway was bad even before he became the minister, noting that closing down the airport became inevitable when there was no other alternative to do a thorough and efficient rehabilitation.

I knew the runway was bad before I became the minister. It was shown to me when I was a senator. It was a similar experience with Port Harcourt airport runway.

The runway became so bad that it caved in. The airport was closed for two years. We cannot afford to close the Abuja airport for two years; that is why it became expedient that we do the job now. We are going to meet the deadline.

Whatever work that would be done is going to be done without closing down the runway, he said.

Commenting on why the runway was shut down at the time it was done, Mr. Sirika said the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) gave the projection of rainfall for the year, adding that the government had to do the work before the rains set in.

Speaking earlier at the event, the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, said the meeting was aimed at correcting the false information making the rounds that the deadline for the completion of the runway rehabilitation had been extended.

Mr. Mohammed lamented that since the 30 years the runway was built, no major work was done on it, noting that the development was why it degenerated so badly and needed the closure of the airport to ensure it was fully rehabilitated.

Gbenga Olowo, the president of ART, said the nations aviation industry has not advanced in the last 40 years.

He explained that while international airlines are generating huge revenues from their Nigerian operations, Nigerian airlines have only eight per cent of the market, which has started dwindling now that the operations of many Nigerian airlines are dwindling.

In 2000, there were 12,000 weekly seats on the Nigerian routes; it became 30,000 in 2012, Mr. Olowo said.

In 2015, the number of seats increased to 48,000, but Nigerian airlines are only contributing eight per cent to this market. But they are losing that small segment of the market because they are now lying prostrate with what is happening to Arik Air, he added.

Source: ( Premium Times )
The management of Melrose General Services Limited, whose name featured in the alleged N19bn Paris Club scam involving the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has denied any wrongdoing, stating that the companys role in the transaction was professional and legitimate.

The company, in a statement on Monday, urged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission not to drag it into the politics being played by the Senate and the EFCC.

Melrose General Services, which described itself as a highly reputable firm consisting of partners who are experienced bankers and professionals in their fields, said it was legitimately engaged by the Nigeria Governors Forum and the services it rendered were legitimate.

Following a proposal we submitted to the Nigeria Governors Forum last year, our firm was duly engaged by the NGF to carry out a legitimate service leading to a refund of foreign loan over-deductions made by the States.

The details, purposes, award and contractual terms of our engagement are properly documented.

Also, the process of execution of this contract was duly documented and approved by the Federal Government.

Subsequent benefit was received by the states under the first tranche of release. All the relevant documents have been made available to the EFCC.

The companys management said that at no time was our firm paid N19bn as being alleged in the report given to the media by the EFCC.

Having performed and executed the terms of agreement, Melrose was duly paid the agreed consultancy fee structured purely on a success basis. This effort eventually gave rise to the refunds made to the states, the company stated.

Melrose General Services Limited assured its clients, local and foreign partners of its professionalism, stressing that the relationship between Melrose and NGF is purely a contractual relationship which meets every global best practice.

As at today, we are still engaged as consultants to NGF and there has never been a time the forum raised any complaints about our services.

Source: Punch
One person has been confirmed killed after suspected Fulani herdsmen invaded the Nigerian Prisons, Jato-Aka Farm Centre in Benue State.

The Public Relations Officer, Benue Prisons Service, ASP Stephen Nwanchor, gave the name of the victim as Tersoo Agidi.

He told newsmen in Makurdi that the invasion was not a failed jail break attempt.

This is a new farm centre established in January, 2017. The herdsmen invaded the place, destroyed property, shot and killed one Tersoo Agidi, an inmate.

We have evacuated all the remaining inmates from the farm centre to Gboko, pending the outcome of the investigation.

We are not taking anything for granted. My Controller of Prison is on top of the issue, and all relevant security operatives in the state have been notified, Nwanchor said.

The PRO said investigation was still on to ascertain the real cause of the incident.

He added that no arrest had been made so far.

Nwanchor said the service had tightened security in and around all its facilities in the state, assuring that there was no cause for alarm.

The incident is coming few days after suspected gunmen attacked Zaki Biam area of the state, killing no fewer than 52 persons.

Source: Dailypost
Weeks after the tragic death of a Nigerian Air Force personnel, Solape Oladipupo. The Sun Newspaper conducted an interview with the parent of the deceased, who was killed by her colleague and jealous lover, Bernard Kalu, have revealed that their daughter ended the relationship after they told her about a prophecy they received in church, which warned the deceased against engaging in any romantic relationship at her work place. Read excerpts of the interview from her mother below

How did you get the news of your daughters death?

When I received the new I became unconscious and fainted immediately. When I was resuscitated, it was still like a dream to me. I still spoke with her the day before she was murdered. I have lost over 70% weight, right now. When we were talking that night, she even said was going to speak with her daughter, and she did.

You mean she had a child already?

Yes (showing our reporter the child).

Whats the name of her child?

Her name is Bisola Ogunyemi.

And as it is now, how are you taking the loss?

The person who killed my daughter wont go unpunished. He has said he was going to die too and he should be made to die. In a situation where Kalus family hires a lawyer to defend him, I will view it as an attempt to cheat us. I know justice would still prevail.

Did you have any premonition that such a thing would happen?

I have never thought I would lose anyone of them at all. In our church, we were given a prophecy to tell her not to ever date anyone where she worked and we told her. That was when she decided to part ways with Kalu. We didnt know it was going to lead to this. Even one of her uncles called her to tell her. I think that was how she took the bold step to tell Kalu she wasnt interested in the relationship any more.

We didnt know it would result in this. Her father and I gave her a stern warning not to ever get involved in any romantic relationship with anyone within her base. That was the prophecy we had. Yes, she told me about Kalu and that was why we had to accept one Sola, who was always calling me, although I have never met him.

Would you say you regret allowing your daughter join the military?

I wont say that. No regret because the people there are humans too. There is no job that doesnt come with its own risk. The rest there are humans too and some even grew very old on the job and retired. She had got an admission into the Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education before she was recruited into the Nigerian Air Force.

So, you dont have any regret whatsoever?

No, I dont have any regret. In fact, I dont mind if the government can compensate the family by recruiting some of her siblings into the military.

Speaking in an emotion-laden voice shortly after Solapes remains were interred, the deceaseds father, Mr. Tolani Oladidupo, who described her death as a huge loss said getting justice for the deceased would be a major source of succour for the family.
Korea may have overtaken Japan in terms of sovereign credit rating, but Japan is still a formidable economic powerhouse. A higher credit rating simply means that a country is more capable of repaying its debts but does not mean economic superiority.

Japan still trounces Korea in terms of economic size and productivity. Japan's GDP stood at US$5.87 trillion last year, more than five times Korea's $1.12 trillion. Japan's per-capita GDP was $44,600 last year, twice as much as Korea's $21,500.

Korea's major businesses still depend on Japan for a large number of core technologies and key components. As a result, Korea still buys more products from Japan than it sells, and its trade deficit stood at $28.6 billion last year.

"Japan's economic decline started in 1992, when Sony overtook U.S. businesses to become the world's No. 1 company. Japan was unable to deal with the economic slump and low growth that began at the time," said Prof. Oh Jung-keun of Korea University. "Now the economic situation facing Korea is said to be similar to Japans [in those days]."

"Korea won't overtake Japan in terms of industrial competitiveness and productivity anytime soon," said Kim Hyung-joo at LG Economic Research Institute.
The Police Command, Onikan, Lagos has arrested 2 persons, a Togolese woman, Idowu Dado, and a Chadian, Abdullahi Mohammed for tbe abduction of a business mans daughter.

The suspects were arrested by operatives of the Zone 2 Police Command, Onikan, Lagos, while plotting to kidnap a 15-year-old girl in the Ilasamaja area of Lagos State

PUNCH Metro learnt that 26-year-old Dado, who was married with two children, contacted Mohammed, 26, who worked in a sachet water factory owned by the girls father, Mike Ogbuachara.

The duo then co-opted Ogbuacharas security guard, Peter Okechukwu, into the plot.

The gang reportedly planned to demand N10m as ransom for their victim.

However, Okechukwu was said to have leaked the secret to his boss, who then alerted the police.

The two suspects, who were arrested by detectives, were paraded before journalists at the Zone 2 Command headquarters, Onikan.

Okechukwu said Dado promised to give him N2m if the plan succeeded.

He said, Dado came to meet me on March 8, 2017 and asked if I was close to my boss daughter and I said yes. She said she had a business for me and asked if I was ready for it. She said she would come back the following day so we could discuss the business.

The following day, she said she wanted us to kidnap my boss daughter. She said she planned to demand N10m as ransom and if my boss refused to pay the money, we would kill the girl and sell her body parts.

Because I was not comfortable with the idea, I went to tell my boss and he asked me to play along and videotape the discussion.

I went back to meet her and agreed to the idea. When I asked what my share would be, she said she had a gang and we would be five. She said we would share the money N2m each. I told her to introduce me to other members. She said one of them was working with my boss in the factory. She didnt tell me his name. She promised to call me later so we could all meet in a hotel to perfect the plan.

He explained that he continued to update his boss every time he spoke with Dado.

Okechuwkwu said he was surprised when the suspect suddenly cut off communication with him.

I went to see her and asked about the meeting. She began to threaten me, saying if I ever leaked the secret, she would kill me. I was scared, he added.

The guard said he started monitoring the moves of Dado, who lived beside the factory, adding that he advised his boss to report to the police before it was too late.

The factory worker, Mohammed, said he was deceived by Dado because they both were of Togolese descent.

He said, My mother is a Togolese, while my father is a Chadian. I met Dado after joining the factory three months ago. We only talk once in a while. She called me sometime in March and said she wanted us to kidnap my boss daughter.

She said I should not bother myself much because she would arrange two other boys to join us and after doing the business, we could return to Togo to enjoy our loot. She said each of us would get N2.5m. She promised to involve the factorys security man. I did not see her again until I was arrested.

Dado, however, denied the allegations, saying Mohammed was the leader of the gang.

She said, Mohammed came to meet me and said they delivered over N800,000 to his boss every day and asked if the man would feel any pain if we removed N10m from his account. I said I did not know.

He suggested that we should kidnap the mans daughter and I agreed. He promised to arrange boys to do the job. I went to meet the security man to seek his opinion and he agreed to join us. When Mohammed learnt that I had informed the security man, he became angry and said the man didnt know how to keep secrets.

The mother of two children, who claimed to be a hair dresser, said she planned to start a business with her share of the ransom.

The spokesperson for the Zone 2 Police Command, SP Dolapo Badmos, said investigations revealed that Dado was the leader of the gang.

She said, It is a case of attempted kidnap. While Mohammed is a Chadian, Dado, the brains behind the kidnap, is from Togo. Mohammed lied that he was a Nigerian and used fake names, until his real identity was uncovered.

The AIG Zone 2, Kayode Aderanti, has ordered that discreet investigation be done. We are working on getting their sponsors and we will bring them to justice.

Source: (Punch Newspaper )
A youth in Tamil Nadu was murdered for his atheist views allegedly by a Muslim radical group and his father has said that if his son was killed for being an atheist, he would become an atheist too.

Hameed, the father of the young man was quoted as saying, If the police version is true, that he was murdered by a radical Muslim group, then they killed my son using wrong interpretations of the Quran.

The Quran is one holy book that insists on and allows the right of dissent since the time of the Prophet. If they killed him for being an atheist, I have decided to join his organisation and do what he did,  the Indian Express reported.

Farook was killed on the night of March 16, reportedly by a gang of four because of being an atheist. The Times of India had reported that Farook used to post rationalistic views about his religion on his Facebook page and was also the administrator of a group where he used to express his views.

The 30 year old used to run a business in Ukkadam near Coimbatore and was also a part of the group Dravidar Viduthalai Kazhagam.

Hameed told The Indian Express, that Farook despite being non-religious, did not force his views on others and had often refused to take part in family functions because he would have to pray there.

His friend Abdul Munaf and former business associate, S Jaffar Ali, may be involved in his killing, some reports have suggested.

Police are investigating his death.

Farook is survived by his wife, a daughter and a son.

Source: Punch
The Senate has protested against the retention of Mr. Ibrahim Magu as the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission despite the rejection of his nomination by the lawmakers.

Several senators, at the plenary on Tuesday, spoke against the consideration of a letter from the Presidency requesting legislative approval for the nomination of 27 Nigerians as Resident Electoral Commissioners of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

They insisted that the process be abandoned until Magu was removed.

According to the lawmakers, the rejection of Magus nomination by the legislature meant that he could not remain the Acting Chairman of EFCC.

President of the Senate, Senator Bukola Saraki, had, last Thursday, read a letter from Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, while he was Acting President, in which he sought legislative approval for the nominations.

But on Tuesday, the lawmakers rejected the consideration of the request, insisting that their earlier decision on Magu be effected by the Executive.

Raising a point of order when the session got to the consideration of the request, Senator Peter Nwabaoshi, urged the lawmakers to consider the example of the United States of America where, recently, the National Security Adviser was sent to the Senate but due to his belief in Russia, he was disqualified.

He said, Recently in this Senate, we have dealt with the issue of confirmation but where are we today? The Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Anti-Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay, went to the press and said that the Senate merely confirms. This is unexpected of somebody who had lectured Constitutional Law in the university; a Professor of Law; a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and, of course, the chairman of such a big body to say that the legislature merely confirms; that is, the legislature has no power.

Here are we again today, now being given a list to confirm and we merely confirm. Look at the list here, we have eight of them here out of 27 for reappointment, which means they are acting already; they are already working and they are still in position.

Prof. Sagay will cite, again, Section 171 of the Constitution. You can imagine the kind of advice that this kind of persons are giving to Mr. President. They are telling Mr. President to disregard and disrespect the institution the legislature.

Let us not take such a precedence. We cannot destroy our democracy because certain persons or individuals feel that it is only their belief or what they want is what will happen in this country. This country does not belong to them; this country belongs to the Nigerian people. The Nigerian people have elected us; they have given the power to look into those names sent to us for confirmation; to look into their credentials.

Nwabaoshi said the Senate should not ignore Sagays choice of words on the legislature.

My position on this matter is that since our confirmation is merely, let us suspend it until we know whether we have the power as given to us by the Constitution to look into confirmation matters or any other status.

Source: Punch
The Nigerian Senate on Tuesday stood down the confirmation of nominees for positions of Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs).



This appears to be the Senates way of expressing misgivings about President Muhammadu Buharis alleged refusal to sack Mr Ibrahim Magu as acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), despite his repeated rejection by the lawmakers.

The Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, however, urged the lawmakers to apply some moderation to allow the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, convey their feelings to President Buhari on the issue of the appointment.

He also advised the Upper Chamber to stand down the confirmation of REC nominees for about two weeks.

Those who drafted this constitution are not stupid, we didnt draft it ourselves. We are here to protect the law which we all swore to.

We said we are going to defend our constitution and defend the laws of this country and we must be seen to be doing that.

But in doing this, I want to appeal that we apply some moderation to allow Mr President (Senator Saraki) to convey our feelings to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on this issue of appointment.

I just want to appeal that we leave it for one week or at most by two weeks, the Deputy Senate President said.

The Senators also accused some appointees of the President of disrespecting the National Assembly.

This comes barely a week after Dr. Saraki read a letter seeking the confirmation of 27 nominees for the position of RECs in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The letter was dated February 27, 2017, and signed by the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, while acting as Nigerias President.

The list, which asked the lawmakers to consider the nominees for the positions, had eight former RECs who were reappointed and 19 new appointees.
Students of the University of Ibadan said since members of the non academic staff of the university began their strike, they have been living in difficult conditions on campus, as sources of water and electricity have been switched off by the striking staff.

Academic and administrative activities at the university was halted on March 20, 2017, when the staff declared indefinite strike because of what the union described as illegal deductions of pension money from their salaries.

Aside the pension deduction issue, the workers are also asking for unpaid promotion arrears, shortfall in salary payment, and better welfare for staff, among other issues.

Some of the students who spoke with our correspondent on Monday said there was no water and electricity in the hostels and in all the classrooms.

Each time there is crisis between the school administration and the staff, the students are always at the receiving end, said Kayode Onifade, a 300 level student of the Faculty of Arts.

Our lecturers now combine their work with that of non academic staff because they get the keys to open the classrooms for lectures to hold and lock them after.

In the hostel, we sleep in darkness. Many of us attend classes without taking our bath because there is no water. Both parties must reach an agreement for the sake of the students. The living condition is terrible, added Onifade.

Since the strike began a week ago, gates to the institution have been locked, while lectures only resumed today (Monday).

Efforts to speak with the chairman of the institutions branch of Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, Wale Akinremi, by our correspondent proved abortive; as he refused to answer his mobile telephone.

The institutions Director of Public Communication, Mr. Olatunji Oladejo, told our correspondent that efforts were being made by both parties to resolve the crisis.

Source: Punch
A Kano Magistrates Court on Tuesday remanded in prison a 30-year-old businessman, Lawan Zubairu, over alleged rape of 11-year-old set of twins.

Zubairu, who lives at Hotoron Fulani Quarters, Kano, is facing a charge of rape to which he pleaded not guilty.

Chief Magistrate Muhammad Jibril, who gave the order, said the accused should remain behind bars pending advice from the State Director of Public Prosecutions.

Earlier, the prosecutor, ASP RufaI Inusa, told the court that the complainant, Ibrahim Musa, of Hotoron Fulani Quarters reported the case on March 18.

Inusa alleged that the accused lured the complainants daughters into his room and defiled them.

The offence contravened Section 283 of the Penal Code, Laws of the Federation.

The case was adjourned until April 27 for mention. (NAN)
An alliance of Tunisian human rights groups on Monday called on authorities to scrap a 1973 decree that bans Muslim women from marrying non-Muslims.

The alliance of some 60 groups signed a statement calling for the decree to be revoked, saying it undermines a fundamental human right: which is the right to choose a spouse.

Sana Ben Achour, president of the Beity association, told a news conference it is inadmissible today for a simple decree, which has almost no judicial value to command the lives of thousands.

The decree issued in 1973 by the justice ministry stipulates that a non-Muslim man who wishes to marry a Tunisia woman must convert to Islam and submit a certificate of his conversion as proof.

Wahid Ferchichi, of the Adli association for the defence of individual liberties, said the decree violates Tunisias constitution which promotes equality between all citizens, regardless of gender.

The coalition said it would mount a campaign to mobilise public opinion and seek meetings with the ministers of justice, interior and the head of government, hoping the decree will be scrapped by November.

Tunisia is viewed as being ahead of most Arab countries on womens rights.

The North African country and birthplace of Arab Spring protests that ousted several regional autocratic, adopted a new constitution in 2014 which guarantees equality between men and women.

Article 21 of the constitution states: All citizens, male and female, have equal rights and duties, and are equal before the law without any discrimination.

But discrimination against women in Tunisia remains rife, particularly in matters of inheritance and the countrys Code of Personal Status designates the man as the head of a family.

Source: AFP
Pablo Escobar could be described as a legend to the rap world. His story was the ultimate romanticized rise-and-fall piece, a symbol of ambition and its seemingly boundless rewards. To residents of Medellin Colombia, however, he was an infamous drug dealer who ruined thousands of lives before his death in 1993.

For reasons unknown, Wiz Khalifa recently laid flowers on the grave of the notorious gangster and documented the experience with a series of Instagram posts. In each photo, Wiz can be seen standing a few feet away from the late drug dealers grave, and in one pic, we see the flowers Wiz laid on Escobars grave, something Medellin Mayor Federico Gutierrez apparently wasnt too pleased about.

According to the BBC, Mayor Gutierrez says the See You Again rapper should apologize for advocating crime, and that his actions showed a lack of sensitivity toward Escobars many victims.

It shows that this guy has never had to suffer from the violence inflicted by these drug traffickers, Gutierrez said. One Twitter user commented on the matter saying, Its embarrassing that @wizkhalifa honors Pablo Escobar. What a lack of respect with the people of Colombia.

According to the BBC, Escobar was responsible for 4,000 killings, including the bombing of an airliner in which all 107 people on board were killed. The thing is, that doesnt even account for people who became addicted to his drugs.

Wiz has yet to comment on the matter, but you can see his Instagram posts that sparked Mayor Gutierrezs outrage below.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSEQ-pbjDHU/
Ex-President Park Geun-hye spent all night inside the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office on Tuesday, answering questions about the massive corruption scandal that led to her ouster and reviewing her statement. Outside, detractors and die-hard supporters chanted slogans while Park answered questions "clearly and calmly," according to prosecutors, and did not insist on her right to remain silent. Park left her home in Samseong-dong in southern Seoul at around 9:15 a.m. on Tuesday and finally emerged from the prosecutors' office some 22 hours later.



Former President Park Geun-hye enters the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office on Tuesday. /Yonhap

Questioning lasted until 11:40 p.m., but Park and her lawyers took another six-and-a-half hours to review the written statement. She left at 6:55 on Wednesday morning. "Questioning took so long since there are many issues that need to be investigated and time was also needed to read the written evidence," a prosecution spokesman said. Park, who had refused to be questioned while she was protected by her presidential immunity, appeared 11 days after the Constitutional Court upheld her impeachment. Prosecutors went out of their way to accommodate her, backing down on a plan to record the entire interrogation on video. A female prosecutor took down her statement in consideration of Park's gender. Her lawyer Sohn Beom-kyu said, "We checked her physical condition during every rest period, but overall questioning progressed smoothly."

Former President Park Geun-hye leaves the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office on Wednesday. /Yonhap

Prosecutors accuse Park of eight criminal offenses, including colluding with her friend Choi Soon-sil to extort W77.4 billion in donations for the dubious Mir and K-Sports foundations, telling staff to hand over classified government documents to Choi and pressuring state-run telecom KT and other businesses to sign business deals with an advertising company owned by her crony. A separate probe by independent counsel Park Young-soo also accused Park of bribery after concluding that W20.4 billion donated by Samsung to the two nonprofits and another W22.9 billion in pledged donations were in return for Park's help in easing the illegal ascent to the conglomerate's leadership of Samsung scion Lee Jae-yong. The independent counsel also indicted former Cheong Wa Dae chief of staff Kim Ki-choon and ex-culture minister Cho Yoon-sun of compiling, at Park's orders, a blacklist of artists and cultural figures critical of her administration that aimed at cutting them off from public funding. Park so far denied all the charges. Prosecutors will decide either this weekend or early next week whether to indict Park. Legal experts believe the indictment will come before April 15, when candidate registration for the next presidential election begins.
Three people from Illinois last week sued Microsoft, claiming that the free Windows 10 upgrade they had installed on their PCs caused "data loss and damage to their computers."

Lawyers for the trio asked a Chicago federal court Thursday to grant the case class-action status, which would allow other Americans to join the litigation.

"Many consumers have had their hard drives fail because of the Windows 10 installation," alleged the complaint. "Many consumers have had their existing software and data rendered inoperable by the Windows 10 installation."

All three of the plaintiffs asserted that after accepting the free Windows 10 upgrade -- a one-year deal that ran from 2015 to 2016 -- some data on their Windows PCs had been destroyed. One said that she had had to purchase a new personal computer after the one upgraded to Windows 10 was crippled.

Howard Goldberg of Highland Park, Ill. -- a suburb north of Chicago -- had a particularly tough time with the Windows 10 upgrade. "After three attempts to download Windows 10, each of which tied up his computer for extended periods of time, Goldberg's computer was damaged, and Windows 10 was not actually downloaded and functional," the complaint read. "Goldberg contacted Microsoft about the problems, and was told his computer was out of warranty, and that he would have to pay them for any assistance with the problems. Goldberg therefore had to have somebody repair the computer to make it functional."

Many of the plaintiffs' complaints resembled the general malaise widely reported during the one-year upgrade plan. For example, the lawsuit cited the insistent on-screen upgrade nag notices Microsoft placed on consumers' Windows 7 and 8.1 desktops, the limited-time window when the PC could be rolled back to its previous operating system, and the shifty reversal of the close-window operation in a critical dialog box.

"We believe the plaintiffs' claims are without merit," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. Microsoft also pointed out that "customers had the option not to upgrade to Windows 10" and added that users also could contact the company's free technical support.

Others have taken Microsoft to court over Windows 10. In July, three Florida men alleged that the company "coerced" them into upgrading to Windows 10 and that the "unintentional" upgrades damaged their PCs. That case was dismissed last month.

Also in 2016, a California woman took Microsoft to small claims court, where she was awarded $10,000 after she convinced a judge that an unauthorized upgrade to Windows 10 had crippled her work PC.

The lawsuit filed last week asked that Microsoft pay both actual and punitive damages.

This story, "Consumers sue Microsoft, allege Windows 10 upgrade destroyed data, damaged PCs" was originally published by Computerworld .
Apple has fended off a claim that the iPhone 6s design infringed a patent from a little-known local company in China.

Shenzhen Baili had claimed that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus bore striking similarities to the products from its parent company, Digione. But on Friday, Beijings intellectual property court disagreed and ruled in favor of Apple.

The product designs of the two companies contain differences, the court said. For instance, Apples iPhone 6 contains a symmetrical exterior curve on the device, while the design patent from Baili uses an asymmetrical curve.

"This one difference has a significant impact on the overall look," the court said in a statement.

The two designs also feature other differences that average consumers can easily identify, the court added.

State Intellectual Property Office The smartphone design patent held by Shenzhen Baili.

According to the courts statement, Baili said it will look over the judgment, before deciding whether to appeal.

The Chinese company has been warning Apple since 2014 about possible patent infringement. However, while smartphone competition in China has been fiercely competitive, the companys handset business appears to be nonexistent. The site for its 100C smartphone is no longer online and social media promotion for its products has remained inactive for over two years.

Baili filed its lawsuit against Apple last year, asking the court to halt iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus sales in the country. In response, Apple appealed the court order, which put the sales ban on hold.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But its not the first time that U.S. tech giant has faced lawsuits with local Chinese companies over Apple products.

In 2012, it paid $60 million for ownership of the iPad trademark in China, following a legal battle with another little-known Chinese firm called Proview, which was facing financial struggles.
Microsoft has quietly released the full, original disk images (ISOs) for build 15063 of Windows 10 version 1703the Creators Update, codename Redstone 2and yesterday Windows fan Steve Truman, @KPRP42, published a list of links to Microsofts Techbench download servers.

I recommend that you do not install these ISOs. In fact, over the course of the week I will describe how to avoid the Creators Update, at least until its ready for prime time. No matter how you slice it, Creators Update isnt ready for any PC that you rely on.

That said, if you have a sacrificial machine and dont want to join the 10 million Windows Insiders in their unpaid beta testing, you can see a description of the downloads along with their links in Andy Weirs Neowin article from last night.

Microsoft has already pushed build 15063 onto Windows Insider PCs in both the Fast and Slow rings. If this rollout mimics previous ones, three more steps are likely, in this order:

Build 15063 will roll out to those in the Windows Insider Preview ring. I expect to see a Release Preview announcement any day.

The ISO files will be posted on the MSDN site for paying customers to download.

At about the same time well get some sort of official acknowledgment that this is the real Creators Update, along with general availability of the ISOs. Itll be interesting to see how Microsoft words the announcement, having spent more than a week dodging questions as to whether build 15063 is in fact RTM.

Much more is yet to come. While the Windows lemmings rush to install the latest, developers at Microsoft still have their heads down, building a big first-time patchor series of patchesfor Creators Update. When version 1703 hits, it will likely incorporate build 15063 and some aggregation of patches. Look for build 15063.x, where x is greater than 1. Those who already have 15063 installedfrom the Insider Program or by downloading and installing the ISOswill have to apply outstanding cumulative updates in order to get their systems brought up to speed.

We saw this happen with the Anniversary Update. The base build 14393, released on July 19, was bumped up to 14393.3 the week before release on July 25, then 14393.10 finally emerged as the real released version at general availability, on Aug. 2.

You may also recall that 14393.10 brought with it an astounding number of drop-dead bugs, which I wrote about on Aug. 4, Sept. 13, Sept. 15, Sept. 30, and even as late as Oct. 13more than two months after the original release. Thats in addition to the minor bugs and self-inflicted bugs introduced by interim fixes and patches.

This is the way its always been. There were even more bugs with the Fall (renamed November) Update, build 10586I counted nine cumulative updates in the first three weeks. Microsoft has conveniently pulled the list of released build numbers for version 1511.

Its still hard to believe, but this behaviora massive numbers of bugs seen in the first few months after releaseis by design; its part of Windows as a Service.

InfoWorld

This cannon-fodder phase, officially designated Pilot in this slide from a presentation by Microsoft Product Manager Nic Fillingham, spans the time from general availability until the version is anointed with the Current Branch for Business designation. That typically takes four months, during which time those who install the latest version of Windows 10 are, by hook or by crook, part of the pilot program.

When can we expect the final version of the Creators Update to roll out to the hoi polloi? Tero Alhonen may have nailed the RTM release date last Saturday, when he discovered a line inside a new program released by Microsoft, that says:

<PublishedMedia id=1355 release=20170411 RS2_RTM WU>

The reference to 20170411 strongly suggests the Creators Update will be released on April 11. Thats also Patch Tuesday, so were gonna be busy.

After Creators Update hits general availability, it will start appearing on unprotected Win10 systems. Gregg Keizer posted an in-depth review of the process yesterday on Computerworld:

According to advertising network AdDuplex, 60 days after the Aug. 2, 2016, introduction of Windows 10 1607aka Anniversary Updatejust 35% of measured Windows 10 PCs were running the upgrade. By the 90-day mark, however, that number had soared to 80%, showing that Microsoft, after a purposefully slow start, had stomped on the update accelerator.

I think of it as a remotely controlled extended beta test, where the paying testers generally have no idea theyre running on a rat wheel.

For now, you dont need to do anything except watch and wait. And tell your friends.

Discussion continues on the AskWoody Lounge.
Hog Commentary Walsh Trading - Mon Nov 7, 5:00PM CST Hog markets rallied significantly today with the Dec contract up over $4 and the Feb contract up over $2.50, hitting a high of $89.65 before settling at 89.05 on the day. This rally comes after speculation...

Cotton Closes in Black on Monday Barchart - Mon Nov 7, 4:46PM CST Mondays cotton trade added 16 to 87 points to the rally. December ended the day up by 56 points and to levels not seen since 10/11. NASS reported 62% of the cotton crop was harvested through 11/6. That... CTZ22 : 87.49s (+0.64%) CTH23 : 85.83s (+0.19%) CTK23 : 85.07s (+0.52%)

Cattle Close Higher on Monday Barchart - Mon Nov 7, 4:46PM CST Live cattle futures ended the week with $0.47 to $1.40 gains led by the Dec contract. Feeder cattle closed the day with 30 to 70 cent gains. Cash trade was quiet on Monday. Last weeks cash price was... LEZ22 : 153.050s (+0.92%) LEG23 : 155.025s (+0.42%) LEJ23 : 158.550s (+0.35%) GFX22 : 178.225s (+0.22%) GFF23 : 179.925s (+0.17%)

$4 Gain for Dec Hogs Barchart - Mon Nov 7, 4:46PM CST December hogs rallied $4.60 of their $4.75 limit at the high on the day, and closed with a $4.07 gain. That took the contract back to 10/27 levels. The other front months also closed higher, but the gains... HEZ22 : 87.050s (+4.91%) HEJ23 : 94.350s (+2.11%) KMZ22 : 96.200s (+2.48%)

Double Digit Pullback for Soy Futures Barchart - Mon Nov 7, 4:46PM CST The new week of soybean trading ended with beans 8 1/4 to 12 cents in the red. Jan beans closed near their low on a 22c range. Meal prices bounced in the afternoon to end mixed within $1.50/ton of UNCH.... ZSX22 : 1440-4 (unch) ZSPAUS.CM : 14.1524 (-0.72%) ZSF23 : 1450-6 (unch) ZSH23 : 1459-6 (+0.12%)

Wheats Fade into Close Barchart - Mon Nov 7, 4:46PM CST Afternoon action in Mondays wheat market left the board mixed but mostly higher. CBT prices went home with a penny to 3 cent losses. Dec closed mostly mid ranged on the 30 cent range. KC HRW futures... ZWZ22 : 848-4 (+0.33%) ZWH23 : 866-2 (+0.26%) ZWPAES.CM : 7.7799 (-0.24%) KEZ22 : 961-6 (+0.47%) KEPAWS.CM : 9.1529 (+0.44%) MWZ22 : 964-4 (+0.44%)

Corn Market Closes Monday Red Barchart - Mon Nov 7, 4:46PM CST Mondays corn futures market ended the session with 2 to 5 1/4 cent losses for the front months, For December that was the weakest close since 10/6. The December to December premium tightened to now... ZCZ22 : 675-2 (unch) ZCPAUS.CM : 6.7306 (-0.72%) ZCH23 : 681-2 (unch) ZCK23 : 681-6 (unch)

Livestock Report Walsh Trading - Mon Nov 7, 4:26PM CST Cattle rallies
The United States, Russia, China and more than a score of other countries are sitting out new talks at the United Nations toward a treaty that would ban nuclear weapons.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley and colleagues from Britain, France and about 20 other nations gathered Monday outside the General Assembly to show opposition to the talks starting inside. Haley says the U.S. wants a nuclear-weapons-free world but has to be "realistic'' about how to get there while protecting its people.


The Iowa Public Employees Retirement Systems Investment Board has voted to lower its assumed annual rate of return to 7 percent, from 7.5 percent, in the most recent rate cut by public pensions grappling with expectations that are set too high.

With the new assumed return and using data from 2016, IPERS funded ratio is now 80 percent, down from 84 percent, the pension system said March 24. Iowa Governor Terry Branstad said this week that he supports the move, including using increased contributions from workers and state and local governments to cover the additional $1.3 billion in unfunded liabilities.

The rate assumption is an important metric used to determine how much taxpayer money is set aside to pay future pension checks, with lower expected return rates often meaning higher contributions into the system from workers and governments. Several other pension systems have already lowered their expected investment returns over the past year, including the Illinois Teachers Retirement System and the California Public Employees Retirement System, while the Houston Firefighters Relief and Retirement Fund may be next.

Too many states have overestimated the revenue in their pension funds, and as a result are in big trouble, Branstad said Monday at the Iowa Capitol, as reported by The Des Moines Register. We have seen what has happened with many cities. We have seen what has happened in the neighboring state of Illinois, and it has happened in many other states around the country.

Most public pension plans in the U.S. have an assumed investment return between 7 percent and 7.5 percent as of February, according to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. The Houston Firefighters Relief and Retirement Fund has the highest assumed rate of return at 8.5 percent, though this could be lowered to 7 percent as part of the City of Houstons proposal to reform its pension plans. The proposed cut comes after the fund suffered net losses of 1.23 percent in fiscal 2016 and returns of just 1.29 percent in 2015. The rate cut will be considered by the Texas Legislature this year.

Illinois Teachers Retirement System cut its assumed rate of return to 7 percent, from 7.5 percent, in August 2016. ITRS is the largest of the states five state-run retirement systems, which are among the most underfunded in the country. Illinois pension debt jumped to $130 billion in 2016, up from $111 billion the year before, according to Illinois Policy, a nonprofit public policy institute in the state.

The California Public Employees Retirement System, the countrys largest public pension fund, followed suit in December, voting to lower its 7.5 percent rate in increments reaching 7 percent by 2020, after failing to reach the 7.5 percent target in the previous two years.
This content is from: Video

The president will take a more aggressive stance with China and Russia if Republicans win the House or the Senate, according to BCA Researchs Matt Gertken.
Camp said, according to The Guardian.

The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) has declared a catastrophe as Tropical Cyclone Debbie makes landfall between Bowen and Airlie Beach in North Queensland.Whilst it is still too early to gauge the full extent of the damage the category 4 storm could wreak on the region, Rob Whelan, CEO of the ICA, said insurers are expecting claims in the thousands.Insurers are already taking calls from policyholders, and many have teams standing by to enter the impact zone, assess claims and deliver assistance to their customers, Whelan said.At midday, more than 30,000 people were without power in Airlie Beach, Proserpine, Bowen, Mackay and Cannonvale as winds in Hayman Island hit 263 km/h, according to theIn their latest update, the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) said that damaging winds will impact far beyond the eye of the storm and flooding and tidal surge also remain likely.Severe Tropical Cyclone Debbie will deliver significant rainfall as it tracks over land, with flooding another major impact of the system, Bruce Gunn, Queensland regional director of the BoM said."Gales are forecast to impact communities between Lucinda and St Lawrence and inland to Mount Coolan and Moranbah for up to 36 hours after the system makes landfall.Since 2006, insurers have paid more than $3.6 billion in cyclone-related claims in Queensland and more than $3.2 billion due to flood claims.Northern region SES manager, Dale Camp, said that the fact that the cyclone is moving slowly could also heighten the impact of the storm.Its a very slow-moving cyclone, so were talking anywhere between six and 14 hours until its completely over in each location,The cyclone tore through Hamilton Island and the Whitsundays earlier this morning and is currently tracking to move inland between Bowen and Airlie beach before continuing inland towards Collinsville.John Collins, Whitsundays councillor, said that whilst the storm is still raging the damage is already evident.This is going to be a terrible disaster when it is all over and done with, Collins said, according to
Small businesses are turning their backs on brokers and are increasingly moving online for their insurance needs, according to the latest Vero SME Insurance Index.The survey of 1,500 small business owners found that the proportion of SMEs who bought their insurance policy through a broker decreased from 40% in 2013 to 31% in 2016.The number of business owners who bought their last insurance policy online rose from 20% in 2013 to 27% in this years survey.Online channels are having a significant impact on the way that Australian small businesses buy insurance, with more than one in four businesses buying their policies online, Anthony Pagano , Veros head of commercial intermediaries, said of the results.There is no silver bullet solution, but current best practice suggests brokers who develop proactive strategies to embrace change will be the ones best equipped to grow and thrive.The index found that SMEs that seek professional advice, such as from accountants, lawyers, business advisers and industry bodies, as well as insurance brokers and insurance companies, had fallen from 84% in 2015 to 79% this year.Respondents are increasingly receiving advice from peers such as friends and family, colleagues and other business owners. This years index found 52% seek this informal advice, compared with 46% last year.Pagano said that this increase in informal advice is another worry for brokers, as it means SMEs are making complex decisions on their risk profile and insurance needs without seeking the correct advice.However, the Index is not all bad news. The satisfaction of clients that do use a broker increased and Pagano noted that brokerages can consider two key strategies to help boost their SME business.Brokers should look to embrace and integrate digital capabilities and reinforce the benefits that using a broker can bring to a business owner.Advice can be a valuable way of demonstrating expertise and to be most effective, it needs to be tailored to suit the clients size and needs, Pagano continued.Brokers could consider a more collaborative approach to delivering advice to some clients, so that these SMEs feel more involved in the process.
The role of the broker in the claims space needs to change as technology will help the industry to speed up the process, an international expert has said.



Simon Powell, head of claims at UK insurance company Endsleigh, said that the use of technology in the form of live streaming video will see the role of the broker change in the claims cycle.



Endsleigh uses a live streaming video platform called RescueLens to speed up the claims process for individual claims on personal electronics.



Powell stressed that brokers should embrace video as a way to help clients through the claims cycle but said that the technology could mean a change in their role.



Ultimately, as a broker, they want to provide the customer with a good experience, Powell told Insurance Business.



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If a customer is going to get a better experience by using something like RescueLens and by speaking directly with the actual insurer then why dont they embrace that and go down that route?



I dont think it replaces brokers but I do think there is potentially a change needed in that respect to make sure that brokers are adding the right value, making sure they are selling the right products to customers and not being so involved in the claims experience because sometimes that can duplicate and overlap.



Powell, who was visiting Australia as part of the Future of Insurance conference held in Sydney last week, said that while Endsleigh has used live streaming video technology in claims around personal devices such as iPads and laptops, the possibilities for the technology appear endless.



By using live streaming, a claims handler is able to see damage in real time and guide a customer through a claim. Less complex claims can potentially be settled in minutes.



With the prevalence of smart phones meaning that customers almost always have access to a camera, the use of photography or video could revolutionise the claims arena.



Related stories:

Cost of dodgy claims revealed

The term broker needs to die
The former CEO of Zurich s business in Australia and New Zealand has revealed his next move with the announcement of a new insurtech start-up.Daniel Fogarty, who left the local arm of the international giant in 2015, will head up a new insurtech firm aimed at simplifying the purchase and management of business insurance, while aiming at the key SME market.The firm will officially launch in mid-2017 and will be called Evari.I know first-hand the challenges that incumbents have trying to get innovation into the insurance process, and I firmly believe there is a better way of servicing the needs of small businesses, Fogarty said of his latest venture.Fogarty will be joined in the venture by co-founders from outside of the insurance industry. This external influence has helped shape the direction of the new venture.Robert Jeffrey and Brack Norris are listed on the Evari website as co-founders and will take on the roles of chief operating officer and chief digital officer of the firm respectively, with Fogarty as CEO.Having joined Zurich in 2009, Fogarty led the firm from 2012. He was eventually replaced by Rajbir Nanra Evari will launch with offices in both Sydney and Perth.
Satellites will boldly launch into orbit from Canada for the first time in 2020 when the countrys first spaceport commences operations from the tiny fishing village of Canso, Nova Scotia.



According to plans from Maritime Launch Services Ltd., the 400-year-old town, made up of 500 people, will host launches of Ukraine-made Cyclone 4M rockets carrying commercial satellites into orbit. The town was chosen for its unique geographic location, the deep point of a sizeable cove with most of the North Atlantic as its backyard, and its proximity quality infrastructure.



Learn more about aerospace insurance here.



Maritime Launch Services Ltd. is based in Halifax but is a venture of 14 American companies who chose Canso out of 14 other North American locations and plan on constructing a rocket launch pad and a command centre.



All of this is putting stars in the eyes of space enthusiasts, catching the skeptical eye of local residents and giving insurers an opportunity.



One provider whos covered the Cyclone 4M rockets is XL Catlin and their head of head of space underwriting, Chris Kunstadter, said everything from the payload to third party liability is available.



There have been a few accidents at launch sites in the past five years, where either during preparations for launch or immediately after launch there has been damage to property in and around the launch space. Its obviously not a trivial risk, Kunstadter said.



Kunstadter explained that each country develops its own launch licenses that include Maximum Probable Losses - and the operator must provide proof of their insurance capability to cover those losses.



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Though Kunstadter mentioned Canada has previously launched rockets for atmospheric testing from the coast of Hudsons Bay, this project will mark the first time Canada is liable for space-bound ships.



Under The Outer Space Treaty, founded in 1967, the responsibility for any accident for a rocket with a satellite is the responsibility of the country from which it was launched, Kunstadter said. So if you have an American satellite on a Russian rocket built by a French company, launched from Canada, then ultimately, despite all of those other involvements, the Canadian government is responsible.



The many moving parts of constructing satellites, rockets, running a launch operation and designing the whole feat of final frontier-trekking, means each stage of space exploration needs coverage.



Its a different type of risk, Kunstadter explained. When youre dealing with something sitting on the ground, the explosive capability of it is limited by the fact that youre on the ground and its a well-protected, remote area; whereas once you lift off you may have a potential area that can be affected. Once the launch vehicle gets up into a very low orbit, if theres a failure, it shouldnt cause damage on the ground because it will burn up before it hits the ground.



Environmental impact studies, and other regulatory analysis by the Canadian government, will determine what standards Maritime Launch Services Ltd. needs to meet - and the companys CEO, John Isella, promised not to send satellites into space during lobster season.



Liabilities for the impact on nearby regions of Nova Scotia, and indeed the world, are all part of the space insurance equation.



There are several types of insurance that apply, typically, Kunstadter said. Up until the moment of launch the responsibility of the launch vehicle is with the launch operator in terms of damage to property and third party liability, and after the launch the operator will be responsible. In both those cases the launch operator will procure operators insurance.


A powerful cyclone tore into Australias northeastern coast on Tuesday, forcing thousands of people to flee, shuttering coal to gold mines and prompting insurers to declare a catastrophe.

Cyclone Debbie made landfall near Airlie Beach, a tourist resort and gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, at midday with wind gusts up to 260 kilometers per hour (162 mph), according to the Bureau of Meteorology. Airlines canceled flights, as emergency services braced for flooding and destruction.

We are going to get lots of reports of damage, Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart told reporters. Sadly, I think that we will also receive more reports of injuries, if not death.

Its the worst storm to hit Queensland since Cyclone Yasi  the most severe at category five  badly damaged sugar- and banana-producing regions in 2011. Debbie, which made landfall as a category four cyclone, was downgraded one step as the weather system moved inland, bringing heavy rainfall thats expected to cause flash flooding.

The Insurance Council of Australia declared a catastrophe, with insurers anticipating thousands of claims. As many as 25,000 residents evacuated low-lying areas due to an expected storm surge. One man was taken to hospital Tuesday after being badly injured by a collapsing wall, police said.

The cyclones wind speeds have peaked, though the storm will continue to deliver gusts of up to 165 kilometers per hour and heavy rainfall through Wednesday thats likely to cause major river flooding, the bureau said in a statement posted to its website Tuesday.

Bowling Club

In the town of Bowen, close to where Debbie made landfall, the bowling club was turned into an emergency shelter for nursing home residents. The storm has been blowing its head off, said club vice chairman Ron McGree, who was sanguine about the disruption. We only get one or two cyclones every now and again. We pay a lot more in our insurance of course, he said by telephone.

Australian Army Brigadier Christopher Field will coordinate recovery efforts, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said in an emailed statement. Field served as chief of operations following Yasi six years ago, she said.

More than 45,000 properties had power outages, according to Ergon Energy. Vodafone Australia said customers may be experiencing little or no mobile service due to the outages.

Coal Operations

BHP Billiton Ltd., the worlds biggest miner, said it was suspending operations at five coal mines due to the storm. Glencore Plc. and gold miners Evolution Mining Ltd. and Resolute Mining Ltd. were among other firms impacted. Rail freight operations and shipping were also affected, while industry group Canegrowers said sugar-cane crops could be damaged.

There should be minimal impact on broader economic growth as the storm is hitting late in the March quarter, Craig James, a senior economist at the securities unit of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, said in a note. Any delays to production should be caught up over the June quarter. Any repairs to damaged buildings and infrastructure will boost economic activity over coming quarters.

With assistance from Ben Sharples, Perry Williams, Hannah Dormido, Brian K. Sullivan and David Stringer.

Related:

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Catastrophe Australia
Lloyds of London, the worlds largest specialty insurance market, will this week pick Brussels or Luxembourg for its planned European Union subsidiary, after Dublin had been an early favorite, sources say.

Lloyds has been one of Londons most vocal financial services firms about the need for an EU subsidiary if Britain has no access to the single market after leaving the bloc.

It will announce its choice on Wednesday after its council meets, a Lloyds spokesman said, the same day British Prime Minister Theresa May triggers Article 50 of the EUs Lisbon Treaty.

Lloyds shortlist of six locations has been reduced to Brussels and Luxembourg, three sources said. Alongside Dublins removal, Frankfurt, Malta and Paris have also been dropped.

Lloyds could move dozens of staff to its subsidiary, rather than the hundreds some banks plan to shift, the sources said.

The choice by Lloyds could affect other insurers plans.

As other larger insurers announce their decisions on this matter, it helps inform our choice  we are happy to benefit from their analysis, said one insurance CEO.

Factors influencing the choice include tax, regulation, proximity to clients, as well as staff-related issues such as the presence of international schools and good restaurants, consultants say.

Lloyds insurer Beazley is turning its Dublin operations into an insurance subsidiary, while Hiscox is choosing between Luxembourg and Malta.

U.S. insurer AIG chose Luxembourg for its EU hub this month.

Nicolas Mackel, head of Luxembourgs financial development agency, said three to four insurers in addition to Lloyds were close to deciding a location, with Luxembourg among their choices.

Dublin said this month it had received five Brexit-related applications for authorisation by insurance or reinsurance firms and five more had signaled a firm intention to apply.

Dublin Loses

Dublin was initially seen as first choice for Lloyds and other UK-based insurers after the Brexit vote, helped by its proximity to Britain and use of English.

Ireland, the European hub for insurers Zurich and Metlife, identified insurance as an area where it could win new business.

But Brussels and Luxembourg showed more flexibility on capital, allowing Lloyds to use reinsurance to transfer a larger amount of capital needed for an EU subsidiary back to its London headquarters, two sources said.

This cuts the cost of setting up the subsidiary and prevents capital from becoming trapped in Europe, restricting its use for investment elsewhere.

Insurers are keen to work with regulators that  show some flexibility in tailoring the approach in particular circumstances, said Paul Merry, partner at KPMG, adding regulators were generally comfortable with using reinsurance for 90 percent of an insurers capital.

Lloyds is home to around 100 insurance syndicates, but does not underwrite insurance itself.

A spokesman for Luxembourgs regulator said it was not its policy to grant a license for an insurer which reinsured 100 percent of its insurance liabilities. Each case has of course to be examined on its own merits, he added.

The Brussels regulator did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Additional reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek in Brussels, Padraic Halpin in Dublin and Jonathan Saul in London; editing by Edmund Blair)

Related:

Topics Carriers Excess Surplus Europe Reinsurance Lloyd's London
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday struggled over whether to upend nearly 30 years of law governing patent lawsuits that critics say allows often-baseless litigants to sue in friendly courts, giving them the upper hand over high-technology companies such as Apple Inc. and Alphabet Incs Google.

The justices heard an hour of arguments in an appeal by beverage flavoring company TC Heartland LLC to have a patent infringement suit brought against it by food and beverage company Kraft Heinz Co. moved from federal court in Delaware, where it was filed, to Heartlands home base in Indiana. TC Heartland is challenging a lower court ruling denying a transfer to Indiana.

Even though the case did not involve a lawsuit filed in Texas, the arguments involved the peculiar fact that the bulk of patent litigation in the United States is occurring in a single, rural region of East Texas, far from the centers of technology and innovation in the United States.

Critics have said the federal court there has rulings and procedures favoring entities that generate revenue by suing over patents instead of making products, sometimes called patent trolls.

The outcome of the TC Heartland case could be profoundly felt in the East Texas courts. The justices could curtail where patent lawsuits may be launched, limiting them to where a defendant company is incorporated and potentially making it harder to get to trial or score lucrative jury verdicts.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington last year denied the transfer request by TC Heartland, a subsidiary of Heartland Consumer Products Holdings, relying on one of its precedents from 1990, which loosened the geographic reins on patent cases.

On Monday, the justices acknowledged the difficulty of changing the rules at this stage. When 30 years of practice goes against you, what happens? Justice Elena Kagan asked TC Heartlands attorney, James Dabney.

Dabney said the high court previously ruled in 1957 that patent cases are governed by a specific law allowing suits where defendants are incorporated.

Responding to a Kraft attorneys argument that the U.S. Congress later amended venue rules to cover all cases, Chief Justice John Roberts suggested the changes were minor.

More than 40 percent of all patent lawsuits are filed in East Texas. Of those, 90 percent are brought by patent trolls, according to a study published in a Stanford Law School journal.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

Related:

Topics Lawsuits USA Texas
"It happens to be what people are saying, what they're interested in the most," he said.

The company has found that one of the most used phrases on Messenger as people talk to friends and family is "How far away are you?" or some variation, Stan Chudnovsky, head of product for Messenger, said in an interview.

Facebook Inc will add a feature to its Messenger app Monday to allow users to share their locations, the company said, ramping up competition with tools offered by Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google Maps.

Sharing location information will be optional, he said, but it will also be live, so that once a user shares the information with a friend, the friend will be able to watch the user's movement for up to 60 minutes.

Messenger was once part of the core Facebook smartphone app, but the company broke it out as a separate app in 2014 and has since invested in frequent changes to build a service distinct from the massive social network.

Google Maps said last week that it was adding a similar feature, an attempt to boost engagement on a product of increasing strategic importance to that company.

The close proximity of the announcements tells Facebook "that we're working on the right things," Chudnovsky said. The Messages app on Apple's iPhone has such a feature, too.

Facebook has been testing its change in Mexico, he said. It was ready as long ago as October, he added, but the company worked on it for five more months to minimize the impact on the battery life of phones.
The AFL-CIO will sue if the Department of Labor tries to water down a boost in overtime eligibility put in place by the Obama administration, the chief of the labor federation said in an interview.

Anything that dilutes it is bad, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said in his Washington office. Taking Obamas overtime expansion away from even one worker could have devastating consequences, he said. Think about the effect that itd have on that persons family, their lives.

Millions of additional white-collar workers were poised to gain overtime eligibility last December under Obamas change until it was blocked by a federal judge in Texas. If allowed to take effect, the change would double, to $913 per week, the threshold beneath which employees must be paid time-and-a-half even if designated as managers.

At his confirmation hearing Wednesday, Trumps nominee to be Labor secretary, Alexander Acosta, deflected repeated attempts by senators to ascertain whether the government would continue to defend that rule in court.

Acosta did tell senators that it was unfortunate the threshold had languished at the same rate for over a decade, though doubling it creates a stress on the system, and might exceed the departments legal authority. Those comments seemed to signal an interest in moving the threshold to some level in between the one currently in effect, which was set by George W. Bush in 2004, and the one chosen by Obama.

Legal Challenge

Trumka said the AFL-CIO was prepared to bring legal challenges to any such attempt to set a new rule lower than Obamas, along with its current efforts to defend Obamas standard in court, where the federations Texas branch has petitioned to join the litigation. Overtime was one of several issues on which the labor chief criticized the new president, who drew a larger share of the union vote than any Republican since Ronald Reagan, and has made a point of courting union leaders since taking office.

Weve been disappointed in a number of areas, said Trumka, who since the election has met repeatedly with Trump and praised some of his moves, such as exiting the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The fact that he has more Goldman Sachs people over there than Goldman Sachs now has is a disappointment. And its going to make it difficult for him to live up to the promises of helping workers.

Trumka described Trumps executive action requiring two old regulations be ditched for every new one being created as a particularly odious thing for workplace safety, said his proposed 21 percent budget cut for the Labor Department would leave it debilitated, and said his new office highlighting crimes by immigrants helps distort reality.

Trumka criticized Trump fiercely during the campaign, calling him a con artist who was making racist, sexist statements fashionable and sowing fear and division in a manner sort of like Adolf Hitler. Asked about those statements, Trumka said, I think hes probably doing less of that now, but is still causing fear among groups like immigrant workers and senior citizens who rely on Medicare.

Were not going to flush our values, said Trumka. Well work with him when its consistent with our values and helps workers.

He named trade and infrastructure as areas where he saw a good chance of accomplishing progress with Trump, while warning that the White Houses Wall Street wing could hijack the trade agenda and that the AFL-CIOs support on infrastructure would depend on inclusion of labor protections and investment of significant public dollars.

Crisis Moment

Trumps election worsened what was already a crisis moment for the AFL-CIO as well as the broader labor movement. Union membership fell in 2016 to 10.7 percent of the workforce, a record low that follows a decade-long decline.

From his first days in office, Trump has sought to enlist union support even as hes maintained his commitment to anti-union policies like right-to-work laws banning mandatory fees. The AFL-CIOs unions, which have long held conflicting views on how to defend and deploy their clout, have taken divergent approaches to the new reality.

Labor leaders expect Trumps Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch will provide the fifth vote necessary to ban mandatory union fees throughout the public sector, where about half of union members now work. Trumka said the AFL-CIO has developed contingency plans for the potential loss of funds from an adverse Supreme Court ruling, and takes the threat of a private sector right-to-work bill seriously as well.

The AFL-CIO has already moved to cut costs, dismissing several dozen staff last month as part of a restructuring that Trumka said includes dropping some activities like recruiting and training political candidates, and dissolving standalone departments like the federations safety department, with some functions shifted elsewhere.

Coalescing Priorities

Trumka said the labor leaders on the federations 53-member executive council, who met in Texas this month, coalesced behind plans to emphasize their focus on good jobs and to work together on priority campaigns. Among the first are resisting Mondelez International shift of jobs from a unionized Chicago bakery to Mexico, and fighting state and national right-to-work laws  including an effort to identify states where existing right-to-work laws could be repealed, something that hasnt been accomplished successfully in the past 50 years.

The consensus, said Trumka, was that unless we really change, and focus on our priorities, were not going to be able to ultimately drill our way back.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Lawsuits Texas
Sajeo Arguelles has joined Alliant Insurance Servicess employee benefits group as vice president in its New Orleans office.

Arguelles will work with clients throughout the Southeast to design and deliver benefits solutions that reduce cost, increase coverage, and maximize value.

In his new role with Alliant, Arguelles will service clients from a broad range of industries, focusing on programs and solutions that leverage the financial markets to optimize performance, including self-funded and captive programs.

Prior to joining Alliant, Arguelles was vice president with a New Orleans-based financial institution providing a range of benefits solutions, including program design, account servicing, claims management, and ACA compliance consulting. This followed a multifaceted and successful career as a financial advisor.

Headquartered in Newport Beach, Calif., Alliant Insurance Services Inc. provides property/casualty, workers compensation, employee benefits, surety, and financial products and services to clients nationwide.

Source: Alliant Insurance Services Inc.

Topics Alliant
The smell of smoke is in downtown Orlando.

On Sunday, a brush fire caused a part of State Road 528 to be shut down between Orlando and the Space Coast. A fire burned last week near the north-central Florida town of Bunnell and another one destroyed 10 homes near Jacksonville.

Parts of Florida are under a drought, and firefighters worry that dry conditions, strong winds and low humidity are increasing the chances of wildfires.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Florida has seen about 30 percent more fires in the first three months of 2017 than the year before,

Forest Ranger Mike Facente of the Florida Forest Service said there have been 1,000 wildfires in Florida so far this year, compared to 700 fires from January to March last year. So far in 2017, 46,000 acres have burned, compared to 12,900 acres during the same period last year.

With the conditions right now with these winds, (fire) hits the ground and its gone, Facente said.

Firefighters, landowners and farmer typically conduct prescribed burns to eliminate vegetation that could fuel a wildfire.

But the Forest Service last week temporarily stopped authorizing the controlled burns because of the dry conditions. The Forest Service will likely begin authorizing planned burns again once the state gets at least another inch of rain, Facente said.

The Forest Service recommends keeping some water nearby when burning anything outside and also not burning on windy days. The service also recommends keeping vegetation away from homes.

No Central Florida counties are currently under burn bans, which are issued by county governments, but residents should use caution, Facente said.

We need a lot of self-awareness right now, Facente said. Be mindful of your barbecue grills and dont leave fires unattended.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Florida Wildfire
Police in Alabamas two largest beach towns say theyre arrested more than 450 spring breakers so far this year, and thats a big improvement from last year.

Police in both Orange Beach and Gulf Shores are implementing get-tough policies this year to keep young vacationers under tabs, and they say the change has resulted in far fewer problems.

Orange Beach police tell WALA-TV they made 287 arrests so far this spring, which is far fewer than last year.

Grant Brown with the City of Gulf Shores says police there have made 173 arrests during the first four weeks compared to 372 during the same period last year.

Orange Beach Police Chief Joe Fierro says the biggest problem is minors in possession of alcohol.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Law Enforcement Alabama
Fitbit Inc. is headed toward a trial over claims it stole rival Jawbone Inc.s trade secrets, after failing to persuade a judge to throw the case out.

A California state judge on Friday rejected Fitbits argument that the lawsuit is merely an attempt to rehash claims that were already analyzed and rejected by the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington in October.

The jurisdiction of the court is of a much broader scope than the trade agency, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Ulmer said Friday before issuing a final decision.

The two pioneers in wearable activity trackers have been embroiled in legal battles since May 2015, when Jawbone accused Fitbit in a lawsuit of plundering employees and critical proprietary information.

Matt Larson, a litigation analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, said Fridays ruling will give Jawbone another swing at trade secrets claims nearly identical to its failed ITC suit.

Trial is still a long way off, he said. Absent an out-of-court settlement, the lawsuit will continue to be a distraction and pose headline risk for Fitbit.

Larson also said he wouldnt be surprised if Fitbit tries to appeal Ulmers decision.

A spokesman for Fitbit declined to comment on the ruling.

Jawbone said its pleased the court didnt let Fitbit escape liability for its conduct.

We look forward now to focusing on presenting our case to a California jury, which will not be bound by the strict procedural limitations that we faced in the ITC, a company spokesman said. We will push the case to trial as quickly as possible and are confident that justice will be done.

Mark Reiter, a lawyer for Fitbit, argued at a hearing Friday that Jawbone shouldnt get a chance to retry its claims in state after first going to the International Trade Commission.

Jawbones lawyers contended that the agency looked only at a limited number of allegations against Fitbit and had no authority to consider claims against the former employees who are also defendants in the suit. In February, Jawbone said in a court filing that its rival was under investigation by a criminal grand jury for theft of trade secrets. Fitbit said at the time that it was cooperating with prosecutors.

The judge said that while companies often go to the ITC because its a faster way to resolve disputes, that doesnt mean they cant come back later and ask for a hearing in court.

In the tentative ruling issued at the start of Fridays hearing, Ulmer said the ITC proceeding didnt reach conclusions about various trade-secret claims, and noted that the agency didnt consider whether Jawbone was entitled to monetary damages.

On the other hand, our California courts have unlimited jurisdiction to adjudicate all of the issues and remedies plaintiff asserts here, Ulmer said.

Jawbone was an early maker of wearable devices, but lost market share as competition from Fitbit and tech giants like Apple Inc. increased. The company started in 1999 as a maker of Bluetooth headsets and wireless speakers and later pivoted to make fitness trackers.

Jawbone has long suffered from financial instability, despite raising multiple new rounds of funds over a span of more than a decade.

The case is Aliphcom Inc. v. Fitbit Inc., CGC15-546004, California Superior Court, San Francisco County (San Francisco).

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics California Claims Fraud
Un ottobre da sogno per Antonio Conte: lex ct della Nazionale italiana, attualmente alla guida del Chelsea, nelle ultime quattro gare di Premier League ha collezionato solo successi, conditi da 11 reti segnate e addirittura nessuna incassata. Numeri da record che non sono certo passati inosservati alla Federazione inglese, la quale ha conferito al tecnico leccese lambito premio di Manager del mese.

Unavventura oltremanica iniziata in sordina, quella di Conte, pur a fronte di tre vittorie nelle prime tre gare di campionato. A far vacillare, anche se solo per un momento, le certezze del patron del club londinese, Roman Abramovich, i risultati conseguiti tra la 4a e la 6a giornata, coincisi con un pareggio sul campo dello Swansea City e, soprattutto, con le due pesanti sconfitte subite dal Liverpool, sul terreno casalingo di Stamford Bridge, e dallArsenal. In particolare, la debacle interna coi Reds, aveva irritato non poco il numero uno russo, poiche occorsa proprio nel giorno della sua 250esima partita da presidente della societa.

Come detto, solo un momento. Dopo lincontro dellEmirates, il tecnico salentino cambia modulo, adottando un piu equilibrato 3-4-3 e inserendo elementi di corsa come lo spagnolo Pedro. Una svolta totale perche, di li in poi, il Chelsea inanellera solo e soltanto vittorie: 2 gol allHull City e al Southampton in trasferta, 3 ai campioni dInghilterra del Leicester e 4 allo United in casa, con un meraviglioso numero zero nella casella delle reti subite. Un fantastico poker, ottenuto tra l1 e il 29 ottobre. Un cambio di marcia sbalorditivo, confermato dal 5 a 0 rifilato ai toffees dellEverton nel primo match di novembre, e una scalata che, man mano, ha portato i blues al secondo posto in classifica, a soli 2 punti dal Liverpool capolista.

E allora, non poteva mancare il riconoscimento di migliore allenatore del mese, ottenuto surclassando tecnici del calibro di Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool), Arsene Wenger (Arsenal) e Mark Hughes (Southampton). Tanta, ovviamente, la soddisfazione: E un grande onore e voglio condividerlo con i giocatori e con la societa  ha dichiarato Conte sul sito ufficiale della Premier League -. E la prima volta che lavoro in un altro Paese, con una cultura diversa, e portare la propria filosofia non e facile, ma ora sono contento di questa scelta.

A completare la festa, la premiazione del fantasista belga, Eden Hazard, come miglior giocatore di ottobre. Due risultati importanti per il club, ottimo incentivo per la rincorsa al trono dei campioni, occupato dal Leicester di Ranieri. Il prossimo appuntamento per l11 di Conte sara al Riverside Stadium, tana del Middlesborough neopromosso. Il tempo di festeggiare e gia finito.
A 401(k) and a pension are both employer-sponsored retirement plans. Each can be used by savvy investors to save for their retirement and can capitalize on contributions or benefits from their employer. So, how do these two retirement plans differ?

Key Takeaways A 401(k) is a retirement plan to which employees can contribute; employers may also make matching contributions.

With a pension plan, employers fund and guarantee a specific retirement benefit for each employee and assume the risk of the financial obligation.

Once common, pensions in the private sector are rare and have been replaced by 401(k)s.

The shift to 401(k)s has placed the burden of saving and investing for retirementand the risk involvedon employees.

A pension plan might be better suited for investors wanting a fixed income for life, while a 401(k) plan might be better for investors wanting greater control over their retirement funds.

401(k) vs. Pension Plan: An Overview

The most significant difference between the two is that a 401(k) is a defined-contribution plan, and a pension is a defined-benefit plan.

A defined-contribution plan allows employees and employers (if they choose) to contribute and invest funds to save for retirement, while a defined-benefit plan provides a specified payment amount in retirement. These crucial differences determine whether the employer or employee bears the investment risks.

Pensions have become less common, and 401(k)s have had to pick up the slack, despite having been designed originally as a supplement for traditional pensions rather than as a replacement. As of March 2022, 66% of United States private industry workers reported having access to defined contribution plans, while only 15% reported access to defined benefit plans.

This is stark contrast to state and local government workers. As of March 2022, 86% of state and local government workers reported having access to defined benefit plans. Meanwhile, only 39% said they had access to defined contribution plans.

401(k) Plans

A 401(k) plan is primarily funded through employee contributions via pretax paycheck deductions. Contributed money can be placed into various investmentstypically mutual funds, though stocks, bonds, other securities, and annuities may also be available. Any investment growth in a 401(k) occurs tax-free, and there is no cap on the growth of an individual account.

Many employers offer matching contributions with their 401(k) plans, meaning they contribute additional money to an employee account (up to a certain level) whenever the employee makes their own contributions. For example, assume your employer offers a 50% match of your individual contributions to your 401(k) up to 6% of your salary. You earn $100,000 and contribute $6,000 (6%) to your 401(k), so your employer contributes an additional $3,000.

Unlike pensions, 401(k)s place the investment and longevity risk on individual employees, requiring them to choose their own investments with no guaranteed minimum or maximum benefits. Employees assume the risk of both not investing well and outliving their savings.

401(k) Plans Pros Protection under federal law (ERISA from 1974). This protection does not protect against investment losses.

Matching funds (matches may vary by employer, including some that do not match).

High annual contribution limit.

Free investment advice (depending on your provider and company plan).

Loans on 401(k) balance in case of emergency

Tax benefits for pre-tax or post-tax contributions Cons Potentially limited investment options (depending on the plan provider).

Higher fees than other or self-managed investment accounts.

Fees and penalties on early withdrawals

Payout lasts until the plan runs out of money

There's a limit to how much you can contribute to a 401(k) each year. In 2022, the annual contribution limit for an employee was $20,500. In 2023, the limit is $22,500. Those aged 50 or older can also make a catch-up contribution, which is $6,500 for 2022 and $7,500 for 2023.

Pension Plans

Employees do not have control of investment decisions with a pension plan, and they do not assume the investment risk. Instead, contributions are made by the employer to an investment portfolio that is managed by an investment professional. In some cases, employees may also make contributions, which can be either required or voluntary.

The sponsor, in turn, promises to provide a certain monthly income to retired employees for life. This amount is usually determined by the number of years an employee has worked, a final average salary based on the last three to five years of the employees service, and a percentage multiplier, typically 2%. The pension must be vested, meaning that the employee is eligible to receive the full amount. Vesting can happen immediately or after a set number of years, often five to seven.

The guaranteed income comes with a caveat: If the companys portfolio performs poorly or the company declares bankruptcy or faces other problems, benefits may be reduced. However, almost all private pensions are insured by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, with employers paying regular premiums, so employee pensions are often protected. Ultimately, pension plans present individual employees with significantly less market risk than 401(k) plans.

Pension Plans Pros Compound returns on earliest investments.

Employer contributions up to a certain level (depending on employer).

Guaranteed income via annuity at retirement.

Simplistic approach to investing as the benefit is defined.

Easier to plan knowing what your retirement benefit (i.e. monthly payment) will be.

Plan payout upon achieving retirement is for life. Cons Inaccessibility until you're closer to retirement.

Lack of control over your account (as its managed by your employer/pension provider).

Risk of company bankruptcy resulting in reduced pension benefits.

Employer retains control over money until the employee retires.

Though they are rare in the private sector, pension plans are still somewhat common in the public sectorfor government jobs, in particular.

Pension vs. 401(k): Which Is Better?

Though there are pros and cons to both plans, pensions are generally considered better than 401(k)s because all the investment and management risk is on your employer, while you are guaranteed a set income for life. However, a 401(k) does offer some upsides.

A 401(k) can be more aggressively managed, and you control the growth, which can be greater than that of a pension fund, whose growth you dont control. It can start earning money immediately, while a pension usually takes five to seven years before you are vested.

A 401(k) is also more portable; you can take it from one employer to another by rolling it over into a new 401(k) at your new job. You can also roll it over into an individual retirement account (IRA). A pension stays with the employer who provides it if you switch jobs. You must keep track of it, and when you are ready to retire, you have to apply for the pension before you can get your payments.



Can a Pension Plan Go Belly Up? If it is not insured with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, it theoretically could if a company goes bankrupt. Fortunately, most private pensions are insured, so though payments might possibly be reduced in the event of a financial calamity, the pensioner is protected.

Can I Take My Pension Early? Generally, the answer is no. You must wait until the retirement age specified in the pension plan. However, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, some unscrupulous operators have come up with the idea of a pension advance. In order to get some ready cash, future pensioners can use as collateral some or all of their as-yet-unreceived pension payments. This only eats into your retirement fund, and the offers usually come attached to high fees and interest rates. If you have a military pension, the offer is actually illegal.

Can I Get Early Payments From My 401(k)? In most cases, if you make a withdrawal from your 401(k) before age 59, you will have to pay a 10% early withdrawal fee (as well as pay taxes on the amount withdrawn). The Internal Revenue Service does have some exceptions to this rule listed on its website. They vary depending on the kind of retirement plan in question.

Is a Pension Better Than a 401(k) Plan? A pension plan differs from a 401(k) plan, and different investors may be better suited for either option. A pension plan is usually better for investors who are interested in securing a fixed, stable income during their retirement. However, there is more risk involved regarding the pension plan as it is overseen by your company. Investors who want more control over their retirement plan without a guarantee of an income might prefer a 401(k).

Can I Have Both a Pension and 401(k)? Yes, you can have both a pension plan and a 401(k) plan at the same time. It's more likely to only have one active through your current employer, so it's most often the case to have a pension plan you've vested for through a previous employer. In this situation, you can make contributions to your 401(k), and your pension plan benefits when you retire have already been established (ignoring any underlying changes to the plan).

The Bottom Line

Your employer is much more likely to offer a 401(k) than a pension in its benefits package. If you work for a company that still offers a pension plan, you have the advantage of a guarantee of a given amount of monthly income in retirement, with investment and longevity risk placed on the plan provider. If you work for a company that offers a 401(k), youll need to take on the responsibility of contributing and choosing investments on your own.
What Is a Unicameral System?

A unicameral system is a government with one legislative house or chamber. Unicameral is the Latin word that describes a single-house legislative system. Countries with unicameral governments include Armenia, Bulgaria, Denmark, Hungary, Monaco, Ukraine, Serbia, Turkey, and Sweden. Unicameral systems became more popular during the 20th century and some countries, including Greece, New Zealand, and Peru, switched from a bicameral to a unicameral system.

Smaller countries with long-established democracies tend to have unicameral systems while larger countries may have either a unicameral or bicameral system.

Key Takeaways: A unicameral system is a government with one legislative house or chamber.

Armenia, Bulgaria, Denmark, Hungary, Monaco, Ukraine, Serbia, Turkey, and Sweden have unicameral systems.

Smaller countries with long-established democracies tend to have unicameral systems.

Advantages of a unicameral system are that laws may be passed more efficiently and they can be less costly.

Understanding a Unicameral System

To understand how a unicameral system works, consider the national government of Sweden. Sweden has a parliamentary system with a king as the formal head of the country and the prime minister serving as the seat of executive power. There are 349 seats in the Parliament and any political party that receives at least 4% of the vote during the national vote is granted seats. The number of seats each party receives is based on the number of votes received and proportional representation by electoral district. In 2020, nine parties had seats in Parliament, led by the Social Democrats with 100 seats, or 28.7%, and closely followed by the Moderates, with 70 seats, or about 20.1%. The Green Party and the Independents had the smallest share at 4.6% and 0.6% seats, respectively.

Parliament votes on legislative bills, which are proposed by Members of Parliament (MPs) or by government. All bills except the budget and changes to the Constitution are approved by a simple majority vote of the Parliament. Parliament also approves the prime minister. The Parliament meets annually and elections are held every four years. Neither the prime minister nor MPs have term limits.

Advantages of a Unicameral vs. Bicameral System

While the major advantage of a bicameral system is that it can provide for checks and balances and prevent potential abuses of power, it can also lead to gridlock that makes the passage of laws difficult. A major advantage of a unicameral system is that laws can be passed more efficiently. A unicameral system may be able to pass legislation too easily, however, and a proposed law that the ruling class supports may be passed even if the majority of citizens do not support it. Special interest groups may influence a unicameral legislature more easily than a bicameral one, and groupthink may be more likely to occur. Because unicameral systems require fewer legislators than bicameral systems, however, they may require less money to operate. These systems may also introduce fewer bills and have shorter legislative sessions.

A unicameral system for the U.S. government was proposed by the Articles of Confederation in 1781, but the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 created a plan for a bicameral system that was modeled on the English system. Americas founders could not agree on whether the states should each have the same number of representatives or whether the number of representatives should be based on population. The founders decided to do both in an agreement known as the Great Compromise, establishing the bicameral system of the Senate and the House that we still use today.

The U.S. federal government and all the states except Nebraska use a bicameral system while U.S. cities, counties, and school districts commonly use the unicameral system, as do all the Canadian provinces. Initially, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Vermont had unicameral legislatures based on the idea that a true democracy should not have two houses representing an upper class and a common class. Instead, a democracy should have single house representing all people. Each of these states turned to a bicameral system: Georgia in 1789, Pennsylvania in 1790, and Vermont in 1836. Similar to the United States, Australia also has just one state with a unicameral system: Queensland.

A Republican named George Norris successfully campaigned to change Nebraskas legislature from a bicameral to a unicameral system in 1937. Norris claimed that the bicameral system was outdated, inefficient, and unnecessary. Norris said a unicameral system could maintain a system of checks and balances by relying on the power of citizens to vote and petition and by relying on the Supreme Court and the governor on matters that required another opinion. Further, a bill may only contain one subject and may not pass until five days after its introduction. Most Nebraska bills also receive a public hearing and each bill must be voted on separately three times.

Some countries with unicameral systems have always held such a system while others have changed at some point by merging two houses or abolishing one. New Zealand abolished its upper house in the early 1950s when the Opposition party took control from the Labour party and voted to do away with the upper house.
Britain's Northern Ireland minister must decide whether to call another election, return to direct British rule of the province or give parties more time after talks to form a new regional government failed.

Northern Ireland's parties had until Monday at 1500 GMT to form a new power-sharing government but all said a deal would not be reached after making little progress on a range of issues deeply dividing the two main nationalist and unionist parties.

The failure to restore the province's administration after its collapse in January prolongs a period of political paralysis just as Britain starts talks to leave the European Union that will determine Northern Ireland's political and economic future.

"We regret very much that there wasn't sufficient progress made but I think we will return to these issues whenever we get the space to do so," Conor Murphy, a senior member of Northern Ireland's largest nationalist party, Sinn Fein, told BBC Radio.

Murphy said Britain's Northern Ireland Minister James Brokenshire told the parties he would make a statement in the British parliament on Tuesday. A spokeswoman for Brokenshire had no immediate comment on the timeline.

By law, Brokenshire must go the polls again in "a reasonable time" once the three weeks of post-election talks elapse.


Cathay Pacific Airways Limited

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 27 March 2017

Cathay Pacific and Lufthansa Group Sign Co-operation Agreement



New Partnership will See Cathay Pacific Expand its Network to More Continental European

Destinations through Codeshare Arrangements with Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian Airlines



Cathay Pacific Chief Executive Ivan Chu and Carsten Spohr, Chairman of

the Executive Board and CEO of the Lufthansa Group, signed a new

co-operation agreement at today's press conference in Frankfurt, Germany.

Cathay Pacific today signed a co-operation agreement with the Lufthansa Group that will see the airline codeshare on flights operated by Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian Airlines to a number of destinations in continental Europe. Reciprocally, the Lufthansa Group will codeshare on Cathay Pacific services to four of the airline's most popular destinations in Southwest Pacific.

Under the agreement, Cathay Pacific will offer 14 new destinations in Germany, Belgium, Hungary, Norway, Italy, Switzerland and Austria with the "CX" code placed on the following services operated by airlines in the Lufthansa Group:

Lufthansa

Between Frankfurt and:

Berlin, Brussels, Budapest, Dresden, Hannover, Hamburg, Munich, Nuremberg, Oslo and Stuttgart.

Swiss

Between Zurich and:

Berlin, Brussels, Florence, Geneva, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Venice.

Austrian Airlines

Between Vienna and:

Frankfurt, Zurich and Dusseldorf.

The Lufthansa Group will place its airlines' codes on services operated by Cathay Pacific between Hong Kong and Auckland as well as between Hong Kong and Cairns, Melbourne and Sydney. Under a single booking, passengers from Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna and Zurich will be able to check through and seamlessly transfer to their final destination in Auckland or Australia via Hong Kong International Airport.

Today's co-operation agreement also extends to both airlines' frequent flyer programmes. Passengers who are members of Cathay Pacific's travel and lifestyle rewards programme, Asia Miles and Lufthansa Group's loyalty programme, Miles and More, will be eligible to earn and redeem miles when travelling on the above codeshare routes. Members of Cathay Pacific's loyalty programme, Marco Polo Club, can also earn Club Points when travelling on codeshare flights marketed by Cathay Pacific and operated by Lufthansa Group.

Cathay Pacific Chief Executive Ivan Chu said the airline is delighted to grow its relationship with the Lufthansa Group, one of world's largest and most respected airline groups.

"This new codeshare agreement will offer Cathay Pacific passengers enhanced connectivity to destinations in continental Europe through flights operated by Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian Airlines via our gateways in Frankfurt, Dusseldorf and Zurich. At the same time, Lufthansa Group customers travelling from Europe to Southwest Pacific will have more convenient access to flights to Australia and New Zealand through our super hub in Hong Kong."

Carsten Spohr, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of the Lufthansa Group, said: "Cathay Pacific Airways and the Lufthansa Group, two of the world's leading aviation groups, are forming a ground-breaking partnership. I am particularly pleased because it strengthens our global network of strategic partnerships and further improves our airlines' offering on Asian routes in the interest of our passengers. The codeshare and frequent flyer agreement between Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines and Cathay Pacific Airways brings advantages for the passengers of all the partners, because the airlines' route networks complement each other perfectly. The co-operation with Cathay Pacific is another key building block in our Asia strategy."

Tickets for the new codeshare destinations will be available for sale from 5 April 2017 for travel commencing from 26 April 2017 at www.cathaypacific.com.

The Cathay Pacific Cargo and Lufthansa Cargo airfreight subsidiaries signed a co-operation agreement back in May 2016 and, since February 2017, have been jointly marketing their capacities on flights between Hong Kong and Europe. Cathay Pacific has also taken over Lufthansa's airfreight handling operations in Hong Kong; in Frankfurt, Lufthansa has taken over those of Cathay Pacific. Joint shipments from Europe to Hong Kong are planned from 2018.




2016 FULL-YEAR FINANCIAL RESULTS

NET PROFIT UP 28% TO US$103.2 MLN ON STRONGER RUPIAH

RECURRING PROFIT DOWN 8% AT US$264.9 MLN

CONTRIBUTION FROM OPERATIONS DOWN 6% AT US$400.2 MLN

FINAL DIVIDEND UNCHANGED AT 5.5 HK CENTS/SHARE

FULL YEAR DIVIDEND UNCHANGED AT 13.5 HK CENTS/SHARE

Hong Kong, 28th March, 2017 - First Pacific Company Limited (HKSE: 00142) ("First Pacific" or the "Company") today reported its audited financial results for the year ended 31st December 2016, showing a 28% rise in net profit even as contribution from operations fell 6%. To signal optimism over the medium term, First Pacific's Board of Directors recommended no change to the dividend on expectation of improved earnings going forward.

Total contribution from operations fell 6% to US$400.2 million from US$426.5 million, pulled down primarily by PLDT Inc. ("PLDT"), hurt by a changing business model and competitive market conditions. Stronger results from PT Indofood Sukses Makmur Tbk ("Indofood"), Goodman Fielder Pty Limited ("Goodman Fielder") and Philex Mining Corporation ("Philex") offset much of the decline in PLDT's contribution. Recurring profit fell 8% to US$264.9 million from US$287.5 million a year earlier on lower contribution from operations, partly offset by lower corporate overhead.

First Pacific is a leading investment management and holding company focused on the economies of emerging Asia, and is a major or controlling shareholder in the Philippines' biggest/leading telecommunications, infrastructure and mining companies and in Indonesia's biggest vertically-integrated food company as well as in one of Australia's and New Zealand's biggest food companies.

Net profit after exceptionals rose 28% to US$103.2 million from US$80.6 million on lower foreign exchange losses. Turnover rose 5% to US$6.78 billion from US$6.44 billion largely as a result of continuing sales growth at Indofood and Metro Pacific Investments Corporation ("MPIC").

"Lower revenues and margins at PLDT hurt profit at one of our bigger investments, and this was enough that strong results at other companies couldn't lift the overall contribution in 2016," said Manuel V. Pangilinan, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of First Pacific. "However, we are confident that PLDT is on track to stability and a return to earnings growth. Notwithstanding a disappointing 2016, we are confident in the prospects for the First Pacific Group moving forward."

First Pacific has committed since 2010 to a dividend payout ratio of at least 25% of recurring profit as a key plank in a capital management program balanced between returns to shareholders and new investments for growth.

"As a sign of our confidence in the outlook for the First Pacific Group over the medium term, we consider it prudent to leave the distribution unchanged on a per-share basis and declare a final distribution of 5.5 HK cents per share," he said. "This will leave our full-year distribution unchanged at 13.5 HK cents in 2016 and represent a payout ratio of 28% of recurring profit."

In U.S. dollar terms, the final dividend recommended by First Pacific's Board amounts to 0.71 U.S. cents per share, and brings the full-year regular dividend to 1.74 U.S. cents.

PLDT saw its contribution decline to US$127.7 million from US$180.7 million a year earlier while the negative contribution from FPM Power, the holding company for PacificLight Power Pte. Ltd., Singapore's newest power plant, rose to US$13.9 million from US$10.7 million. The contribution from MPIC fell to US$117.2 million from US$118.2 million owing to a decline in First Pacific's economic interest in the company at the end of May last year. However, in local currency terms, MPIC recorded its highest-ever earnings in 2016.

Indofood saw the largest increase in contribution, rising to US$137.9 million from US$123.9 million as stronger sales and margins lifted its bottom line. Goodman Fielder was next, lifting its contribution to US$24.0 million from US$13.3 million on stronger earnings and a full year of ownership in 2016 compared with just nine months in 2015. Goodman Fielder, one of Australia's biggest food producers, is owned by a 50:50 joint venture between First Pacific and Wilmar International Ltd.

The contribution by Philex rose to US$10.2 million from US$4.9 million on stronger prices for the gold and copper it produces slightly offset by poorer grades of ore.

FP Natural Resources Limited, the holding company for sugar and coconut investments in the Philippines, reduced its negative contribution to US$2.9 million from US$3.8 million in 2015 on stronger sales volumes and prices for refined sugar and ethanol, offset by losses at the coconut business.

Foreign exchange losses narrowed sharply to US$9.1 million in 2016 from US$48.5 million in 2015.

Non-recurring losses in First Pacific's full-year earnings were little changed at US$155.2 million versus US$158.6 million in 2015. The 2016 figure is made up mainly of impairment provisions for assets, including goodwill related to the investment in PLP (US$44.8 million), PLDT's investment in Rocket Internet shares and other intangible assets (US$35.4 million), and Philex's deferred exploration costs and other assets (US$31.4 million). The 2015 figure principally reflects the impairment provision for the Group's investments in Philex and PLDT's investment in Rocket Internet and network assets.

First Pacific received US$199.7 million in dividend and fee income from its operating companies in 2016, down from the US$268.9 million received in 2015 mainly due to lower earnings and payout ratio at PLDT and lower earnings at Indofood owing to foreign exchange losses.

At 31st December 2016, gross debt at the Head Office stood at US$1.8 billion and net debt at US$1.5 billion. Fixed-rate debt made up 82% of the total, with floating-rate debt making up the remaining 18%. First Pacific's blended interest cost amounted to 5.3% and the average maturity of its debt was 3.1 years. Just US$218.5 million of the July 2017 bonds remain outstanding following a tender in January 2017. Committed banking facilities have been arranged to finance the full redemption of the bonds due July 2017.

Further details of earnings by First Pacific's subsidiary and associated and joint venture companies follow.

REVIEW OF OPERATIONS

PLDT reported a 21% decline in core income last year to 27.9 billion from 35.2 billion in 2015 owing mainly to lower wireless service revenues due to intense competition, and higher depreciation and financing costs, partly offset by an increase in other income in relation to the sale of the 25% interest in Beacon Electric to MPIC, lower provision for income tax and higher revenues from the fixed line business.

More details are available at www.pldt.com.

Indofood reported a 12% rise in core income to Rp4.0 trillion from Rp3.6 trillion a year earlier on higher average selling prices for its noodles and Agribusiness products, higher sales volumes by the Dairy division and improved margins at the Bogasari group.

More details are available at www.indofood.com.

MPIC reported a 17% increase in core income to 12.1 billion from 10.3 billion in 2015 as each of its main businesses delivered strong growth in spite of regulatory challenges. The contribution by Maynilad Water Services, Inc. declined owing to the expiration of its income tax holiday in December 2015.

More details are available at www.mpic.com.ph.

Philex reported an 83% jump in core income to 1.7 billion from 905 million in 2015 on higher metal prices and lower operating costs.

More details are available at www.philexmining.com.ph.

Goodman Fielder contributed a profit of US$24.0 million in its first full-year contribution compared with its first-ever contribution of US$13.3 million to the Company for operations in the last nine months of 2015.

More details are available at www.goodmanfielder.com.au.

OUTLOOK

As an investment management and holding company focused on the markets of emerging Asia, First Pacific has always maintained a long-term investment perspective. In 2016, telecommunications brought in 32% of total contribution, the food businesses 40%, followed by infrastructure with 26%, and natural resources with the remaining 2%. A year earlier, these numbers were quite different, with telecommunications contributing 42% of the total.

We have observed a sharp change with the continuing growth in demand for quality food products in Asia, particularly Indonesia, and in the many markets served by Goodman Fielder. The economies we serve can look forward to steadily rising disposable incomes in the years ahead and as we keep seeing, consumers are spending more on themselves when they can. We can safely expect to continue seeing strong demand for the kind of high-quality food products made in the kitchens and bakeries of Indofood and Goodman Fielder.

For more information, please visit http://doc.irasia.com/listco/hk/firstpacific/annual/2016/respress.pdf.
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In 1980, Japan accounted for 9.8 percent of global GDP compared to Korea's 0.6 percent, but by 2016 that narrowed to 6.3 percent for Japan and 1.9 percent for Korea. And the difference in per-capita GDP stood at only US$9,671, compared to a $30,196 difference in 1995.

The institute said Korea's potential economic growth rate continues to decline while Japan's is inching up. The gap has been narrowing gradually since the 1980s.

The economic gap between Korea and Japan may widen again, according to Hyundai Research Institute on Monday.

But Korea remains behind Japan in terms of technological competitiveness and ability to respond to the fourth industrial revolution, raising concerns that the gap could widen again.

First of all, the portion of domestic consumption in Korea of value-added products fell from 45.1 to 40.2 percent between 2000 and 2014, but in Japan it only inched down from 53.6 to 51.8 percent.

Japan is still ahead of Korea in its ability to produce value-added products, while Korea's is deteriorating quickly.

The gap also remains wide in terms of scientific and technological prowess. In an evaluation in 2009 by the Swiss Institute for Management Development, Japan ranked second and Korea third, but Korea's ranking slid to eighth last year while Japan's remained the same.

Investment bank UBS ranked countries last year based on its ability to respond to the fourth industrial revolution gauged by labor market flexibility, technology, education, infrastructure and legal frameworks, and Korea fell behind Japan in all areas.

Lee Bu-hyung, an HRI economist, said, "We need to fundamentally reconsider the strategies necessary to boost industrial competitiveness to narrow the gap with Japan."
The action has been brought by Highfield Solar Limited against Bord Pleanala over the decision of the planning authority last month to refuse the company permission to construct a photovoltaic energy development on a 90-hectare site near Killinick, Co Wexford.

The proposed facility, known as Grahormick Solar Farm, contains a single storey 38kv electrical substation building, electrical building, solar photovoltaic panels ground mounted on steel supports, 6km of new roads, and 13km of electric cabling. If constructed, the solar panels would be assembled in rows over the property. The site is now used for grazing cattle.

Wexford County Council, which in August 2016 refused to grant permission for the development, is a notice party to the proceedings.

The company has a registered address at Old Castle View, Kilgobbin Road, Dublin 18. It claims the board abdicated its responsibility by refusing permission on the basis it would be premature to develop the solar farm before any national or regional strategy on such developments had been adopted.

There is no provision in the planning laws that allows the board refuse or defer consideration of a planning application for a solar farm development, as no national strategy is in place, the company claims.

Irrelevant considerations were also taken into account, the company also claims. The company further argues the boards decision is inconsistent as it has granted permission for other solar developments in other parts of the country including one in Co Longford and at another location in Co Wexford.

In addition to seeking an order setting aside Bord Pleanalas refusal, the company seeks declarations including that the board failed to give adequate reasons for its decision. It further seeks a declaration that the board acted ultra vires [beyond its powers] in refusing permission from the proposed development on the basis it would be premature pending the adoption of national, regional or local guidance strategy on solar power.

Permission to bring the action, was granted on an ex-parte basis yesterday by Mr Justice Seamus Noonan. It will come back before the court in May.
The additional 3m is on top of an extra 2.5m which was announced in last Octobers budget to increase funding to schools already in the School Meals Programme.

The aim is to provide breakfast or lunch, or both, at nearly 250 more schools from the next school year. These will include 64 schools added recently to the Department of Educations DEIS programme, which offers help to schools catering for pupils with the most disadvantaged pupils.
While Ireland and England are horrified at the thought of eating horses, 1bn people do so all over the world.

Some 6,033 horses were slaughtered for meat in 2015, so last years figure is a 25% increase. However, at the height of the recession, in 2011, 24,000 unwanted horses were slaughtered for meat here.

Many thoroughbreds who failed to make it on the racing track ended up in abattoirs at the start of this decade, when the Irish economy began to slide. Most of the carcasses are exported to Europe, where they are eaten as burgers or steaks, or even roasts.

ISPCA chief inspector Conor Dowling said it can be kinder to euthanise an animal humanely rather than leave it open to neglect or abuse.

Weve seen so many animals abandoned in bad condition over the past 10 years, said Mr Dowling. It is certainly favourable for an animal to be humanely destroyed, or slaughtered for meat or put to sleep by a vet.

It is a sad situation that this is what is required, because of over-population, but, sometimes, it might be the responsible thing to do.

Globally, consumption has been on the rise since 1990, with horse meat commonly served in China, Russia, Central Asia, Mexico, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Japan, Belgium, and Argentina.

Mr Dowling said sport and race horses are now being slaughtered for food in Ireland.

It could be horses who have reached an age where they cant perform anymore, or who dont make the grade, he said.

Some might have some sort of injury and be healthy enough to make the trip to the slaughterhouse, but not to live on indefinitely.

The recent scandal of horse DNA found in frozen beef burgers sold in Irish supermarket chains has affected the demand for the meat, and has tightened up regulations on the traceability of meat ingredients all over Europe.

In 2016, 1.6m cattle and 2.7m sheep were killed at Department-approved slaughter establishments.

A Department of Agriculture spokesperson said all slaughter plants whose meat is destined for human consumption must meet EU regulations relating to food safety and animal health and welfare.

France recently became the first country in Europe to vote to make CCTV mandatory in abattoirs.

Installation of CCTV is not mandatory in Ireland, but the Department of Agriculture said the slaughter process, and the handling of animals going to slaughter, takes place under strictly supervised conditions.

Veterinary Ireland said that Irelands meat inspection service, operated independently by the Department of Agriculture, ensures animals are inspected prior to slaughter and post-mortem.

Veterinary Ireland maintains that veterinary involvement in the Meat Inspection Service provides the worlds highest standard of ante-mortem and post-mortem inspection, standards which most other countries can only aspire to, said the chief executive of Veterinary Ireland, Finbarr Murphy.

Mr Dowling said the ISPCA would support CCTV regulation, but that the vets in abattoirs are the best way of ensuring animal welfare.

An image used earlier with this story was used in error and does not in any way suggest a link between its contents and the content of the story.
Cork County Council members were told of the schemes introduction after councillors complained the authority was ignoring its own policies on house building and rural regeneration. It was claimed housing and purchasing for social housing in Co Cork had been confined to larger urban areas.

A likely solution to the regeneration of villages and small town is the Repair and Leasing scheme.

It is aimed at owners of properties that have been vacant for a minimum of 12 months and who wish to enter into a leasing arrangement with the county council or a voluntary housing agency to make the property available for social housing.

It is part of the Governments Rebuilding Ireland programme, with 140m allocated towards the cost of funding necessary repairs to properties up to 2021. Some 32m will be made available this year to aid 800 likely properties.

It has been piloted in Carlow and Waterford local authorities since October.

The update on the scheme came as Cllr Gerard Murphy (FG) accused Cork County Council of ignoring house-building projects in small towns and villages.

In terms of providing social housing, the council said it was ahead of targets to build new homes and buy others in an effort to address the housing crisis. The progress in social housing is mainly confined to larger urban areas, councillors were told.

Mr Murphy, based in Newmarket, said concentrating new projects on larger towns would contribute further to the decline in rural populations.

He said: This contradicts the councils own policy for the regeneration of villages and smaller towns.

Cllr Melissa Mullane (SF) agreed, noting there were a lot of vacant premises in villages that were crying out for regeneration.

The councils director of housing, Maurice Manning, said there was merit in what councillors were saying. He said the Repair and Leasing scheme would be ideal for regenerating rural areas and providing additional housing for the 4,241 applicants currently on the councils housing waiting list.

Under the scheme, property owners agree to lease a grant-aided house for a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of 20 years.

A local authority or voluntary housing agency can pay a maximum of 40,000 for repair works necessary to bring the property up to standard.

The maximum payable rent is 80%, or 85% in the case of apartments, of the current market rent, with the cost of repairs offset against the rental payment until the value of the refurbishment works is repaid.

Mr Manning produced a list of schemes showing progress with social housing in north Cork, though most of these were in larger urban areas.

Cllr John Paul OShea (Ind) said Co Corks municipal districts should ensure private property owners are made aware of the scheme.

Cllr Ian Doyle (FF) said the region is crying out for the scheme and that he knows of many areas where it could be taken up.
Vera Biskupova told the court that, on January 13, 2015, she had been cleaning the deli counter at Dunnes Stores, Cornelscourt, Bray Rd, Foxrock, Dublin, when she suddenly slipped and fell.

Ms Biskupova, with an address at Strollers Place, Ballyedmonduff Rd, Stepaside, Dublin, but who now lives in Killarney, Co Kerry, said she fell heavily on her back and banged her head off the floor.

She told her barrister, Paul Gallagher, she managed to get up and noticed her hair, shoulder, and back had been wet. She said the large spillage smelled like gravy. She had not seen it on the floor before falling. The court heard that she finished her shift but had not been able to get out of bed the next day. She had headaches, and pain in her head, neck, shoulders, and lower back. She said she later attended her GP who prescribed her anti-inflammatories. She had been out of work for several weeks and had needed physiotherapy.

Ms Biskupova sued ex-employer Dunnes Stores for negligence, breach of contract, and breach of duty. She claimed the gravy had leaked from a bin bag. She alleged the bags had been unfit for purpose. She claimed Dunnes had failed to have any appropriate system of cleaning and inspection in place to ensure that employees were not at risk of slipping.

Dunnes denied all her allegations. They claimed she had been trained extensively in relation to health and safety procedures and had not been vigilant that day. The company alleged that following the accident, Ms Biskupova had not mentioned she had slipped on gravy. They also claimed she was guilty of contributory negligence.

Circuit Court President Mr Justice Raymond Groarke said he was satisfied the system of training had been of a high standard but believed Ms Biskupovas account of what happened.

It is quite an interesting feature that the accident report documentation filled in after Ms Biskupovas incident has no question as to how or why it happened. That is rather curious, Judge Groarke said. I would expect this question to be in the documentation to make sure that steps are taken so that this type of accident does not occur again.

Awarding 25,234 damages, the judge said the place of work had been unsafe. He said Ms Biskupova could not be expected to be constantly looking at the floor and therefore could not find any contributory negligence against her.
Anti-vaccine campaigners plan to screen Vaxxed: From Cover-Up To Catastrophe in Ireland on May 5.

The film was directed by Andrew Wakefield, who was struck off the UK medical register in 2010 after being found guilty of professional misconduct in his research into a possible link between vaccines and autism.

Organisers have kept the location of the screening under wraps for fear it would be disrupted by protesters, with ticketholders due to receive just two hours notice of where it will be shown.

However, the Irish Examiner can reveal that the organisers last week told someone who intended to travel to the screening that the Helix venue in DCU would be hosting the film on the day.

A spokesperson for DCU confirmed the university was approached with a view to hosting the film.

I can confirm that the Helix was approached by organisers about hosting this screening but a decision was made to decline the booking, said the spokesperson.

The spokesperson said it was incorrect to say that a booking had been accepted and subsequently cancelled following complaints, and that no booking was made or accepted by the Helix at any stage.

Asked to comment on the proposed Vaxxed tour around Ireland, a Department of Health spokesperson said: It is important to counter misinformation in relation to the safety of vaccines, and to increase the uptake rates of all vaccines in the States immunisation programmes.
Fines day for not wearing safety belts

From:Shanghai Daily | 2017-03-27 02:40

ABOUT 450 car passengers found not wearing seat belts were fined 50 yuan (US$7) on Saturday  the first day the new traffic law in Shanghai came into force Shanghai traffic police said.

At Wujiaochang, Yangpu District, police discovered more than a dozen passengers sitting in the back and not wearing seat belts over a 90-minute period on Saturday morning. Traffic police in suburban Songjiang District said at the weekend it was a common occurrence to find back-seat passengers were unaware of the new rule.

Another new rule requiring children under four to be seated in a safety seat when driven also caught some unprepared.

A police officer in Yangpu told Shanghai Daily that traffic police would not ask for evidence of a childs age from adults in the car and would only issue a fine if it was obvious the child was under four, such as being held in the arms.

The new law also imposes a 200 yuan fine and two demerits on driving licenses for those who making or receiving telephone calls or browsing digital devices.

Yesterday morning, police in Pudong discovered four drivers checking WeChat messages or in cases of taxi drivers, checking mobile apps for orders.

A Pudong traffic police officer said drivers using one hand to touch screens of mobile devices were also considered to be offenders.

Up till 3pm on Saturday, police around the city discovered more than 20,000 traffic offenses, a 10.6 percent rise from March 25 last year, according to Shanghai traffic police.

Among the offenders were 116 changing two or more lanes at a time  another of the new offenses stipulated in the law. Those caught were fined 200 yuan. The offense is rampant on elevated roads and expressways.
A decision on abolishing water charges has been delayed after disagreement among TDs and senators on an Oireachtas committee examining the future of spending on water services.

The committee is set to receive legal advice today on Irelands obligations to comply with EU environmental law and whether existing 2007 legislation can be used to penalise home-owners.

The Irish Examiner understands that senior counsel advice to the committee will suggest that the existing legislation is insufficient. It will say Ireland must be cognisant of the EUs polluter pays principle, a position advocated by the Government.

Confirmation that existing laws are not adequate will mean they will have to be changed  this will also be addressed by lawyers to the committee.

Fianna Fail is refusing to back any proposals by the Fine Gael-led Government for an excess charge and instead wants fines imposed through the 2007 legislation.

Threats of the Government support deal with Fianna Fail collapsing resulted in the special legal advice being sought last month.

The issue of metering and long-term funding of water services has also still to be agreed by the committee, ahead of a deadline for it to produce a report by mid-April and make final recommendations to the Dail on the future of water charges.

Charges are currently frozen until the vote is held.

Housing Minister Simon Coveney insists that the Government will not introduce a system that would be contrary to EU law and potentially leave Ireland open to being fined tens of millions of euro.

Fianna Fail wants the domestic metering programme to be abandoned and more community or district meters installed which, it says, could identify leaks and even homes where there is an excessive use of water.

Fianna Fail has also dismissed a letter from EU environment commissioner Karmenu Vella in which he warned its plan would breach European law.
Nearly one-third of students who came to third-level college had experienced fraud while looking for accommodation. The 29% figure was the highest rate, and more than double the average of 12% for all 8,000 students who had studied at 600 institutions in almost 30 European countries.

The types of fraud mentioned in survey responses included being asked for a deposit in return for a key being sent by post. Other students referred to fake advertisements for accommodation on social media.

The findings are from preliminary results of the survey by HousErasmus+, which works to identify challenges and best practices around accommodation for international students.

It also found Irish accommodation costs were higher than expected for 77% of the 108 visiting students who took part in the survey. This was the highest proportion in Europe who faced unexpectedly high costs, and compared to an average of 43%.

Around two-thirds of overseas students found that the extra cost of accommodation here, considered most expensive alongside the UK, made it difficult to finance studying in Ireland.

University College Cork Students Union reported last summer that a small number of intending international students had been caught out by fake ads and some may have paid deposits to fraudsters, leading to cautions about verifying authenticity of accommodation offers.

Irish Council for International Students director Sheila Power said the levels of fraud experienced by those coming here is particularly concerning. The affordability of accommodation, including rooms in purpose-built facilities, was also a big issue for this country.

Ireland is rated among the worst in Europe when it comes to the experience of international students trying to find accommodation. This is hardly compatible with our international education strategy to increase international student numbers by 27% over the next couple of years.

Ireland fared much better on the question of discrimination, with just 12% of students saying they faced problems over their international status. This was the sixth-lowest level of discrimination, such as higher rents or less friendly treatment than domestic students.
St Vincents is a designated facility for the elderly and people with intellectual disability. It is based at the Sisters of Charity, St Marys Rd, and was the subject of an ex parte (only one side represented) court application made by the HSE last week.

Judge Aingil Ni Chonduin said she almost expected to see the families of the 39 residents outside the courthouse with placards in advance of yesterdays hearing.

Felix McEnroy, for St Vincents, said the HSE, with its application, was looking for something the district court had no jurisdiction to give.

Of the HSE bid, Mr McEnroy told the court: I say it is illegal and demonstrably illegal and I do not make that statement lightly.

Diarmuid Cunningham, for the HSE, said the executive must take over the running of the facility through another registered provider but that this required the co-operation of the present registered provider. Such co-operation was not present, he said. Mr McEnroy disputed that assertion.

Judge Ni Chonduin said the new registered provider needed to get in the door of St Vincents first. Mr McEnroy said there was no issue with that. Mr Cunningham disagreed and said there had been an issue with the new provider getting access.

After almost an hour of legal arguments in relation to the jurisdiction of the court to hear the application, Judge Ni Chonduin said it was time for common sense.

In the past, I have adjourned for people to knuckle down, talk, and get on with it, she said. Someone has to come in and run it. Charity does not come into it anymore. This is about liability, insurance, whatever. It is about 39 vulnerable people and how we look after them.

I want a plan. What is that plan going to be? Do it now. Go to the High Court if you like and spend a fortune on costs if you like. Off with you. I am going to give you 24 hours to file an agreement.

That is the first leg of it. When that is done I will put it back and keep the finger on the button to make sure something is done. There are 39 vulnerable people out there. They cannot go home.

You have 24 hours to do something about this. Take your courage in your hands and sign on the dotted line. You can do anything by agreement.
If your dream is to leave life as an employee behind and strike out on your own, then you are far from alone. Whether its turning a sideline or hobby into a main income source or offering expertise on a consultancy basis, more and more of us are choosing to be our own boss.

It is not surprising that people are drawn to the many obvious benefits of self-employment. Who wouldnt want to decide their own working schedule and choose to focus on a project that interests them? But there is a lot of work to be done before someone is ready to hand in their notice.

It is crucial to thoroughly research the business area you are considering moving into and ensure there is the potential to earn a full-time income. Talk to peers in the industry who have done it. Ask about their pricing structure and work out what is feasible for you to charge. Work out a business plan and have a think about how you will fund yourself. If you have savings, are you prepared to bury them all in the business? Will you need a business loan?

The good news for budding entrepreneurs is there is a wealth of advice and assistance available.

Your first port of call should be your Local Enterprise Office (LEO). There is a nationwide network of 31 LEO branches and in 2016 more than 27,600 people availed of training programmes facilitated by them, with almost 7,500 people availing of one-to-one business mentoring. You can find out about the training support available at localenterprise.ie.

In addition to advice, you may also be able to avail of financial support from them. In 2016, 1,040 business projects around Ireland were supported by LEOs to the value of 11.4m.

When it comes to money, budding entrepreneurs to be prepared for several months before their income starts. So when considering finances it is important to factor in what you will need to live on during the early days, not just what the business will need. Regardless of the area you are going into, you can expect to have to invoice for work and then allow a certain length of time for payment. Thinkbusiness.ie, which is powered by Bank of Ireland, is another site with useful information. When talking finance, it asks: Can you make sure the bills, both personal and business, are paid each month for the first year?

If the answer is no, you should do more work on your plan and consider additional finance.

Not every business will be eligible for grant support, you may have to look for investment and/or a business loan. The Halo Business Angel Network is a nationwide group that works to put angel investors, those willing to take a chance on innovative startups, in contact with entrepreneurs in need of support. They have articles and videos giving advice to potential business owners at www.hban.org.

There is also a Government initiative that may help  Microfinance Ireland offers loan funding of up to 25,000 to both new and existing small businesses. Your LEO can help you prepare an application. If you are applying for a business loan with your bank, www.thinkbusiness.ie offers advice on how to get your plan and financial forecast ready.

When planning to go into business it is as important to be aware of your weaknesses as your strengths. In addition to whatever area you choose to work in, running your own business means you also have to be aware of tax law, health and safety rules and potentially employment law. If you are going to have employees you will have to operate PAYE for them. The LEOs Start Your Own Business courses cover some of these areas but you may also have to consider getting specialist advice in certain areas. An accountant can also help you with the decision of whether to operate as a sole trader or set up a limited company.

A final point to consider is that when you walk away from paid employment you are saying goodbye to more than your salary. Annual leave, sick pay, pension, health cover  you are leaving vital benefits behind and should consider replacing them as a priority.

DEAL OF THE WEEK

Consumers keen to reduce their home entertainment costs should check out Eirs latest bundle, offering TV, broadband and home phone for an introductory rate of 49 per month for the first 12 months. The deal includes unlimited fibre broadband, Eir Vision essential TV package and unlimited anytime calls to mobiles and landlines in the UK and Ireland.

The TV package has 54 channels, including UTV Ireland and Disney, plus the Eir Sport Pack, which includes Eir Sport 1 & 2, plus four BT Sport channels and BoxNation. If customers want more sport they can add Sky Sports 15 for 1 per month for six months. Included in the price is an Eir Vision+ Box which allows viewers pause, rewind, and record, a wifi modem, free installation, and TV on the go.

The bundle is offered on an 18-month contract and for the final six months customers will pay 85 per month. Eir are also giving customers who sign up 100 cashback but that offer ends tomorrow.
This familiar resident of city parks fouls paths and lawns. Bossy and aggressive, its accused of bullying the Greenland whitefronted goose, a vulnerable species. Eight years ago, Canadas were implicated in a notorious aviation accident which inspired a major film (Sully). Now the birds are in trouble again; the authorities at one of the worlds great seats of learning, Kings College Cambridge, claim that geese there have become a threat to health and safety.

Canada honkers are native to North America; those on this side of the Atlantic are descendants of ones brought to England in the 17th Century. Charles II introduced Canadas to his wildfowl collection at St. Jamess Park in 1665. The greyish brown body, black head and neck, are distinctive. Gleaming white face patches extend up from the chin. Breeding throughout England and Wales, Canadas have doubled their numbers in recent decades. We havent many in Ireland; breeding is mostly confined to the Erne catchment area and the lakes of drumlin country in the northwest. American vagrants are seen occasionally among visiting whitefronts on the Wexford slobs.

This large vegetarian, with a liking for man-made environments, thrives wherever there is open water and swards suitable for grazing in the northern United States and Canada. Although often deemed a pest, local people generally oppose culling it. Exasperated at seeing other waterfowl compromised by the geese, swan expert Bill Sladen once told me that he wanted people to eat these nuisance geese.

Increases in goose numbers have led to crowded skies in some areas. On the afternoon of January 15th 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 took off from La Guardia Airport, New York. Three minutes later, flying above the Bronx, the airbus slammed into a flock of Canada geese. The turbine blades of jet engines can withstand collisions with medium-sized birds but a large goose might weigh 5kg. Power was lost in both engines. Pilot Chesley Sullenberger, with extraordinary judgement skill and incredible luck, managed to land his plane smoothly in the Hudson River close to the George Washington Bridge. Miraculously, all 155 souls on board climbed out onto the wings and survived. There were no serious injuries.

We cant blame the geese for the New York crash, but we must take sides in the ongoing war between Canadas and their neighbours in Greenland. Theres an Irish dimension to the conflict. According to BirdWatch Ireland, almost 36,000 Greenland whitefronted geese came here for the winter of 1999/2000. By 2010, there were less than 23,000. Crucially, juvenile birds were virtually absent from the flocks; not enough youngsters are being raised to compensate for the deaths of older birds. The culprits appear to be climate change and Canada geese.

Canada goose numbers migrating to Greenland seem to be causing habitat problems for whitefronted geese

Prior to the 1970s, few Canadas visited west Greenland where the whitefronts breed. The rising temperatures of recent years have made conditions there more suitable for honkers. Colonisation has been rapid. The aggressive invaders monopolise resources and the whitefronts are losing out. Breeding success is reduced and parents are being forced from their traditional brood-raising sites.

Compared to the Greenland problem, the row in Cambridge is a storm in a teacup. Geese convert large amounts of grass into long soft turds. These faecal creations are deposited indiscriminately at rates of up to one a minute; people can slip and injure themselves on the resulting mess. Sports fields, its alleged, are becoming virtual skating rinks and theres a risk that disease will spread.

Some of the dominant birds, its reported, have become aggressive and are biting people. Cleaning up after geese is time-consuming and expensive.

Proposals to cull the geese have angered students, who consider it unnecessary and cruel. A letter, signed by a quarter of the student population, has been sent to the authorities in defence of the birds.
HUMANKIND has always had a tricky relationship with forests. We depend on them to regulate the climate and rainfall, clean our air and water, sustain myriad species of plants and animals, and support the livelihoods of over a billion people.

Yet we continue to destroy them, to the point that only half the worlds original forest cover remains.

The price of deforestation can hardly be overstated. Trees consume large amounts of carbon dioxide as they grow, making them vital tools for absorbing the greenhouse-gas emissions  from cars, factories, power stations, and livestock  that result in climate change.

If we continue to lose forest cover, the Paris climate agreements goal of limiting global warming to less than 2C Celsius (above pre-industrial levels) by 2050 will be impossible to achieve. In fact, to meet that target, we will need to restore a significant amount of forest cover that is already gone.

There are two ways to approach reforestation. The first is to allow agricultural lands to fall into disuse, and then wait for them to revert naturally to forest. This wouldnt cost much, but it would take decades. The second option is more proactive: Plant billions of new trees.

As part of the New York Declaration on Forests, signed in 2014, governments pledged to restore hundreds of millions of hectares of forests. But, with most governments short on cash these days, financing the pledge has proved challenging. Against this background, we must try to engage the private sector to deliver the needed investment.

When forests have an economic value, they are more likely to be cultivated than destroyed. And, indeed, trees have been cultivated for profit for millennia.

Today, productive forests cover an area of more than 1bn hectares, or about one quarter of the worlds forested land.

Such forests produce fuelwood, which accounts for about half of tree removals. They also produce materials for clothes, oils for soaps and lubricants, fruits, and other foods, such as cocoa.

Demand for these products is growing, though not as fast as demand for newspaper print falls as a result of computerization.

How can demand for forest products be increased? A promising opportunity lies in construction.

Timber has always been an important building material, and remains so for residential construction in places like the United States, Scandinavia, and parts of Southeast Asia.

But most buildings today are constructed using bricks and mortar, concrete, and, for larger structures, steel  all materials that produce substantial carbon emissions during the manufacturing process.

While it is unlikely that timber can fully replace any of these materials, new types of engineered wood are making it more competitive. One of these is cross-laminated timber (CLT), which is made by gluing together layers of wood to create panels that are as strong as steel or concrete, and thus can replace those materials in buildings.

More research is required to determine the precise benefits of using timber to cut CO2 emissions. One estimate comes from architect Anthony Thistleton-Smith, one of the United Kingdoms leading experts on wooden buildings.

He recently noted that, whereas a typical British home has a carbon footprint of around 20-21 tonnes, a CLT home has a negative footprint of 19-20 tonnes. In other words, every home built with CLT saves 40 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

If the 300,000 new homes targeted for completion in the UK this year were built using CLT, it would be like taking 2.5m cars off the road. The climate benefits could be massive.

As with so many climate measures, cost can be a major barrier to implementation. And, according to a United Nations report, CLT is more expensive than concrete in Europe.

But CLT is still in its infancy, with only a handful of factories in operation. As the CLT supply chain develops, costs will inevitably fall, as has happened with renewable energy. Moreover, builders report that the total costs of building with CLT already end up similar to those of building with concrete, because it takes less time. After all, unlike concrete, CLT doesnt need time to set. Of course, delivering such a transformation will not be easy. Vested interests  pressure from industries producing traditional building materials  must be overcome, including by ensuring a level playing field in terms of subsidies.

Furthermore, public concerns  for example, regarding fire safety or infestation prevention  must be addressed, and builders will have to learn new skills. Most important, monitoring will have to be improved considerably, so that increased demand does not result in more deforestation.

For many countries, the economic opportunities should be sufficient to make addressing these challenges worthwhile. New plantations could regenerate rural areas, as new factories created opportunities.

Governments and larger companies would be able to tap the fast-growing green-bond market to fund the early transition, including the creation of systems using drones and satellite imaging to monitor for unsustainable forestry practices. Opportunities to align economic development with the reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions are rare. Yet that is what reforestation offers. We must take advantage of this opportunity, by pursuing a construction transformation based on restoring trees, the worlds most effective carbon-capture tool.

In this new age of timber, we would grow wood, build with wood, and allow our forests to thrive.

Justin Adams is global managing director for lands at the Nature Conservancy. Project Syndicate 19952017
Officials from Taiwan, Shanghai exchange ideas on neighborhood management

From:Shanghai Daily | 2017-03-28 02:40

MORE than 90 neighborhood officials and directors of community development associations in Taiwan visited communities in Shanghai over the weekend to exchange experiences in neighborhood service and management.

Besides working on the position of their counterparts in Shanghai for one day to exchange work experiences, they also made Chinese cuisines, such as dumplings and qingtuan (a kind of sweet green rice ball usually made around Tomb-Sweeping Day), with them to experience the common culture across the Strait.

The exchange scheme was launched in 2013. In the following four years, a total of 221 Shanghai community officials have visited Taipei while 226 neighborhood wardens have come to Shanghai.
Certainly by now weve all seen enough empirical and anecdotal evidence in support of the value to the business of diversity in the workplace to dispel any notion that its just another HR inconvenience to deal with. But given the fact that if youre human, youre biased, how can we take bias out of the hiring equation so that its not a factor? Can artificial intelligence help us accomplish that?

I recently had the opportunity to discuss that question with Brian Delle Donne, president of Talent Tech Labs, a talent acquisition tech incubator in New York. I opened the discussion by asking Delle Donne, who has been exploring the role of AI in talent acquisition, how pervasive he has found bias to be in the IT hiring process. He said its very pervasive:

Its probably not because of the way hiring goes on, as much as a skewing in the candidate pool of qualified people. Of course, the IT community is largely male-dominated, so at least as it relates to gender, the pool started off skewed in that direction. I think the bigger question for today is, if theres going to be a concerted effort to create diversity, how to best do that. The notion of diversity, as its being talked about now, has fallen back into the traditional EEOC terminology. We believe thats a significant component of it, but we also think its important to achieve cognitive diversity. That doesnt just map back to things like religion, race and gender, but also work experience and collaboration with people who have had different experiences, that help to make for a better-performing organization.

So what is the role of artificial intelligence in diminishing bias in the tech hiring process? Delle Donne said there are two ways to look at it:

The way AI works is largely predictive, and has to do with pattern-recognition types of tools being applied. Its very good at coming up with correlations or causalities that map back to the historical data set. So if you just take it on its face, it can be very limiting if youre just trying to replicate or accelerate hiring based on the way things have been done in the past. There are some initiatives going on that are actually trying to eradicate that algorithmic bias  its all about the need to have transparency in algorithms for other people to be aware of whats going on inside this black box. Theres a lot of academic work being conducted on ways to use AI to eliminate biases that are otherwise going to naturally grow up in the AI datasets. That whole body of thinking is one side.

The other side, Delle Donne said, involves recognizing that candidates are coming with all types of backgrounds and diversity:

You can use AI to adjust the filters that you use when you do your searches and make your matches, where artificial intelligence helps to match applicants or personal profiles to roles that youre trying to fill in an organization. One of the companies leading in that space, HiringSolved, has taken that approach, recognizing that bias is pre-existing. In order to help overcome it, you set up filters that you can manually toggle to overcome what your perceived biases are. So if youre trying to get diversity into a particular hiring process, and youre emphasizing women and minorities, you can actually set filters on the way the artificial intelligence scrapes the profiles and surfaces people who will fit those criteria. So its used to enhance the filtering by first recognizing youve got a deficiency that youre trying to overcome.

Finally, I asked Delle Donne if he foresees a day when all jobs will be filled with AI alone, or if there will always need to be a human element in some form. His response:

I dont think its all going to be solved by technology. I think bias-busting is going to mostly come to pass by a combination of technology, adapting human processes, and applying a strong dose of training. So I do believe the human element is going to continue to be there, not just for the adjudication of potential bias, but just because you are dealing with human capital. I dont think the technology can go the last mile. But I can foresee a day when the machine-learning aspect of AI is trained in a way that it can eliminate some of the data contamination  thats probably too strong a word  from the correlations that have historically prevailed. And I think we can foresee a day when you can design algorithms to oversee those algorithms and undo them when they come up. But keep in mind, those are going to be programmed by programmers who are going to have to be extremely mindful of the biases they unintentionally might bring to that situation.

A contributing writer on IT management and career topics with IT Business Edge since 2009, Don Tennant began his technology journalism career in 1990 in Hong Kong, where he served as editor of the Hong Kong edition of Computerworld. After returning to the U.S. in 2000, he became Editor in Chief of the U.S. edition of Computerworld, and later assumed the editorial directorship of Computerworld and InfoWorld. Don was presented with the 2007 Timothy White Award for Editorial Integrity by American Business Media, and he is a recipient of the Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for editorial excellence in news coverage. Follow him on Twitter @dontennant.
Kim Kardashian was recently headlined on several news reports saying she ruined the reality show "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" which she shares with her other family members. However, a rumor debunking site pointed out how the statements were made up saying that Kim and Kourtney's feud is not real.

Rumors that Kim Kardashian is damaging the performance of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" started to swirl around when her Paris robbery incident was featured in a previous episode of the show. The network also promised to tackle the aftermath of the Paris incident which some rumors claim is destroying the interest of the fans. Ratings of "Keeping Up with the Kardashian's" season 13 then were said to drop down, now relating the values to Kim's life story.

This then sparked the buzz that Kourtney is "livid" with Kim whom they supposedly rely on to keep the family under the spotlight. Outlets even pointed out that among the Kardashians, Kourtney has the most to lose since she reportedly does not have a modeling career, a business, and a famous boyfriend that will keep her in the circulations. Furthermore, it was said that Kim does not really care about the future of the reality show since she invested well on her popularity and is confident that she will still be famous even if the show gets canceled.

However, it was recently reported that all of these allegations were only made up and the insider who reportedly hinted on the feud is fake. It was also pointed out that Kim's robbery feature attracted the most viewers in "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" season 13, so it is not possible that she is blamed by her family for the show's performance. The rumor debunking site also said that it asked directly from their Kardashian and E! network sources about the rumors and found out that nothing like that is happening and that the sisters are close as ever.

The webloid then is accused of fabricating reports about the Kardashians where it also reportedly gave a fake tip in the past. The publication is said to have reported on Kourtney's supposed flee from their show in 2015 followed by another misleading report about Kim Kardashian quitting the series.


Microsoft is facing charges for installing a Windows 10 update that destroyed data and damaged the computers of three plaintiffs. The class action suit was filed against the corporation on March 23 at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division. The plaintiffs are Howard Goldberg of High Land, Robert Saiger of Urbana and Stephanie Watson of Northfield, all in Illinois.

According to the three, the Microsoft Windows 10 upgrade is a defective product. According to The Register, the complainants stressed that the defendant "failed to exercise reasonable care in designing, formulating, and manufacturing the Windows 10 upgrade and placing it into the stream of commerce". As a result of this failure, the plaintiffs' data saved in their computers were lost while the drivers were damaged. The plaintiffs also claimed that the company failed to offer sufficient warning about the possible risks of installing the update.

It is also further specified in the complaint that the defendant accounts for 85 percent of operating systems used in computers across the globe including those of the plaintiffs. All three purchased computers from 2013 to 2014 with the Windows 7 OS. Microsoft offers free upgrades to their operating systems via the internet which the plaintiffs took advantage of.

ARS Technica noted that Microsoft aggressively pushed for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users to upgrade to Windows 10. Offering the upgrade for free was just the first yet most important step by the company. A number of users, including Watson, experienced getting the Windows 10 upgrade automatically. In Watson's case, her computer was upgraded without her accepting it. The result was that her data were lost and her computer was damaged in a way that it became unrepairable even by Geek Squad. Saiger, meanwhile, chose to upgrade which resulted in his software ceasing to work as well as loss of data. Goldberg declined the upgrade for six months but eventually relented. However, the upgrade failed to download and install thrice leading to damage to his device and loss of data. In all three cases, the plaintiffs were forced to spend for the repair of the damaged computers and, in Watson's case, buy an entirely new unit.
Toshiba is contemplating on filing for bankruptcy for its Westinghouse unit. A source privy to the matter reported that the Japanese company will likely file for Chapter 11 protection on Tuesday or even later.

Toshiba will be forced to take such drastic action in its effort curb its losses. According to Fortune, the company is looking at a couple of dates to possibly file for bankruptcy. Aside from the March 28 filing, the company is supposedly also thinking about filing for bankruptcy for Westinghouse on March 31. The bankruptcy filing may or may not include both Japanese and U.S. governments though Westinghouse's U.S. board will be the one to file for Chapter 11. Despite having no need for Toshiba shareholders to give their approval, the company's banks would prefer the filing to take place after the shareholder meeting.

Reuters noted that the failure of Toshiba's U.S. nuclear unit and its impending bankruptcy may be used by Donald Trump to call out Japanese companies on American soil. The huge financial loss forced Toshiba to sell its prized memory chip. It also failed to file earnings on time which could have resulted in the company's delisting. Toshiba also thought of offering a majority stake in the U.S. nuclear unit for sale and now it looks like at least one investor is interested. An activist investor from Singapore, Effissimo Capital Management, now has 8.1 percent stake in Toshiba's shares.

News of a possible bankruptcy erupted in February after Toshiba revealed that it lost $63 billion due to bad investment particularly Westinghouse's foray into U.S. nuclear power stations. The company's chairman of the board, Shigenori Shiga, resigned as a result of the fiasco though he stayed on as an executive of Toshiba. A couple of months later and more bankruptcy rumors are being heard.
Nigeria seeks Chinese funding to complete rail projects

From:Xinhua | 2017-03-28 09:40

LAGOS, March 27 (Xinhua) -- The Nigerian government has concluded plans to borrow 6.1 billion U.S. dollars from Chinese Exim Bank to complete all rail projects in the country by 2019.

Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi made the remarks during the Ministry's 2017 budget proposal defense at the National Assembly in Abuja, the nation's capital city on Monday.

Amaechi said the government had targeted the construction of Lagos - Ibadan, Kano - Kaduna rail projects and the first phase of the Coastal Rail (Lagos-Calabar) in the 2017 budget.

The minister told lawmakers that President Muhammadu Buhari insisted that all rail projects in the country that had been awarded by previous administrations must be resuscitated and completed on or before December 2019.

Amaechi said rail projects needed to be completed due to the economic importance of these projects and the benefits to be derived by the generality of Nigerians.
Apple yesterday patched a bug in the iOS version of Safari that had been used by criminals to spook users into paying $125 or more because they assumed the browser was broken.

The flaw, fixed in Monday's iOS 10.3 update, had been reported to Apple a month ago by researchers at San Francisco-based mobile security firm Lookout.

"One of our users alerted us to this campaign, and said he had lost control of Safari on his iPhone," Andrew Blaich, a Lookout security researcher, said in a Tuesday interview. "He said, 'I can't use my browser anymore.'"

The criminal campaign, Blaich and two colleagues reported in a Monday post to Lookout's blog, exploited a bug in how Safari displayed JavaScript pop-ups. When the browser reached a malicious site implanted with the attack code, the browser went into an endless loop of dialogs that refused to close no matter who many times "OK" was tapped. The result: Safari was unusable.

At the same time, the attack showed a message, purportedly from a law enforcement agency, demanding payment to unlock the browser for, in one instance at least, simply steering to a URL that suggested the site's content was pornographic. Payment was to be made by texting a 100 ($125) iTunes gift card code to a designated number.

Blaich stressed that the attack was as much scam as scare: To regain control of Safari, all one had to do was head to Settings, tap Safari, then Clear History and Website Data.

"This was a scareware attack, where [the attackers] were trying to get people to not think and just pay," said Blaich.

Scareware is a label applied to phony security software that claims a computer is heavily infected with malware. Such software nags users with pervasive pop-ups and fake alerts until they fork over the "registration" fee, sometimes in the hundreds of dollars.

Ransomware has largely replaced scareware as the go-to shakedown; the former compromises a computer, encrypts some or all the contents of the local storage, then promises to hand over an encryption key in return for a large payment.

What Lookout found was definitely not a ransomware attack against iOS. "The device was never compromised nor was its data exposed to the hackers," Blaich said. "You would have to compromise the device and encrypt the data [to conduct a ransomware attack]. The app sandbox prevented this from happening."

In iOS 10.3, Apple re-engineered Safari so that it handles JavaScript pop-ups on a per-tab basis. iOS 10.3 also patched 84 security vulnerabilities.

"[The hackers] hoped you would just react, want to cover it up, then pay and move on," Blaich said.

Lookout Scammers hobbled Safari with an endless loop of pop-ups, then tried to scare iPhone users into paying $125.

This story, "Scammers scare iPhone users into paying to unlock not-really-locked Safari" was originally published by Computerworld .
S.Africa's trade ministry signs MOU on cooperation with Bank of China

From:Xinhua | 2017-03-28 11:40

JOHANNESBURG, March 28 (Xinhua) -- South Africa's Ministry of Trade and Industry on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on strategic cooperation with Bank of China in Johannesburg to strengthen the relations between the two entities.

The MOU will enable both parties to treat each other as a preferred partner and share information on investment opportunities.

It will also enable both parties to optimize their own advantages in initiating mutual investment promotion campaigns and to join hands in supporting enterprises of the two countries for more profound investments, as well as economic and trade cooperation.

Dr. Rob Davies, minister of trade and industry, said the signing of the MOU will enhance cooperation between the two countries. "The MOU will allow and strengthen the relations between the government of South Africa and Bank of China, joint sponsorship of seminars and marketing activities."

He also said that both parties will hold a joint investment seminar on May 8-11 in China to promote opportunities in the interests of both countries.

Davies said South Africa will use the opportunity to promote the Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and try to attract investment, noting that South Africa's relationship with China is bearing fruit with investments from Chinese companies.

He said that the MOU is also the "fruition" of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which was held in his country in 2015.

"This is a step forward in the bilateral relations, many of which are at different stages nearing fruition. The MOU will allow for joint promotion of the Special Economic Zones, important developmental projects critical to the realization of our shared dreams. Bank of China is critical in facilitating investment projects and industrial finance," he said.

He said they would need China's assistance to realize their dream of economic development through SEZ. South Africa will send 40 government officials this year to be trained for SEZ development in China.

"The MOU will enable both parties to establish much closer coordination scheme(s), focus on the plan of 10 major cooperation projects, and give full support to the mutual investment and market expansion of enterprises from (the) two countries," he said.

Bank of China chairperson, Tian Guoli, said Sino-South African cooperation is growing very fast. He agreed with Davies that the 2015 FOCAC promoted comprehensive development of the bilateral relations.

"Though geographically far apart from each other, the friendship between the peoples of China and South Africa has endured the test of time and has grown deeper and stronger."

The Sino-South African relations have great potential to grow, said Tian, adding that Bank of China has played a pivotal role in facilitating China's African strategies and building a bridge of friendship and economic and trade cooperation between the two countries.

The bank has established branches in seven African countries and has networks in Africa among Chinese commercial banks.

"Bank of China has confidence in Africa's development. Through the operation of these banks, we have constructed a financial service network covering mainly African regions to (use) China's financial strengths and contribute to the economic and social development of African countries," Tian said.
Premier Li Keqiangs humorous talk of beef and chicken showed his diplomatic wisdom and opened the door for cooperation between China and Australia.

At the welcome ceremony on March 23, Premier Li displayed his humor while addressing the event.

I saw a copy of The Australian on the table in my room when I checked in yesterday. The headline of a report covering my visit said I came here for the beef market. So I asked the waiter just now if there is beef on the menu today, and he said no beef, only chicken, he said.

The hall then burst into laughter.

As you know, Australias beef is attractive in price and quality, and so is Chinas chicken. My visit is not only for the free trade of beef and chicken but also for many other issues. I come for free trade. Its a pity that I dont have beef today, but this will not shake our resolution in opening up, he added.

Premier Lis humorous remark left a deep impression on Australias political and business leaders, as Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull mentioned the beef-and-chicken remark at the beginning of their meeting the next day.

He joked about the beef and chicken again in a speech at a forum on China-Australia economic and trade cooperation in Sydney on March 24.

There was no beef in yesterdays lunch. According to Australias vice prime minister, all the good beef has been exported to China. But we were served chicken. I guessed that the host wanted to show the principle of fair trade. As Chinas chicken is competitive in the world market, I believe that Chinese chicken can also be served on tables in Australia.

Premier Lis humor diluted skepticism about pushing back against globalization. In fact, his humor became a key point at diplomatic events, opening doors for people to understand the future of free trade between China and Australia and showing the promise that free trade can bring benefits to people.

It also sent a signal to the world that China and Australia will firmly maintain free trade and promote economic globalization.
As Premier Li Keqiang started his official visit to New Zealand, Prime Minister Bill English opened a WeChat account and wrote his first post: Welcome Premier Li Keqiang.

Im very glad to have welcomed Premier Li Keqiang in Wellington tonight. Premier Li is to start a four-day visit in New Zealand, wrote the New Zealand PM on the WeChat account NZPMBillEnglish on March 26.

He also mentioned that Premier Li had visited New Zealand in 2009. He knows New Zealand well, and I look forward to discussing with him opportunities for our two countries and the region.

A group of photos were also posted along with the article showing English and his wife, Mary, greeting Premier Li and his wife, Cheng Hong, at the airport.

On March 20, New Zealands official website of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet published an article expressing their anticipation of the Premiers approaching visit.

On the site, English is quoted as saying, The visit is an important opportunity to set the agenda for the next stage of our strong relationship and demonstrates our shared commitment to open trade and economic growth.

In 2009, Premier Li visited New Zealand as vice-premier at the invitation of English, then New Zealands deputy prime minister.

During Premier Lis visit, we will recall the meeting in 2009. I look forward to seeing him again in New Zealand, English said in an interview.

Upon Premier Lis arrival, Wellington, known as windy city, experienced some rare sunny weather, and English wrote on Twitter, Nice to see Premier Li and Madam Cheng brought the better weather with them to Wellington. Great to have them in the country.

On March 27, English wrote another article on his WeChat account, saying, Today, Premier Li and I held formal talks in Wellington. After the talks, I am pleased to announce that New Zealand and China will launch negotiations on the upgrade of the FTA on April 25.

The two prime ministers also witnessed the signing of a cooperation agreement between China and New Zealand under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative on March 27. It was the first agreement of its kind with a developed Western economy.
Over the past few weeks, Uber has been in the spotlight as employees have been complaining about the ride-sharing apps negative work culture. Recently, another employee has come forward and revealed details of a company night out at a South Korean escort bar.

According to The Information (via Engadget), violinist Gabi Holzwarth, the former girlfriend of company CEO Travis Kalanick, recalled a 2014 trip by a group of employees to a Seoul karaoke-escort bar. Kalanick and Holzwarth left after an hour, while a visibly unhappy female Uber manager in the group quickly left and reported the incident to HR a year later.

The Verge reports that the manager complained to the companys HR department, saying that she was uncomfortable at how her male co-workers picked out women working at the bar out of a lineup.

[I]t made me feel horrible as a girl (seeing those girls with number tags and being called out is really degrading, the manager noted in the exchange with HR. In another conversation with Holzwarth, the employee said that she didnt know what was going on until they got into the room.

It also appears that Ubers senior vice president of business, Emil Michael, has contacted Holzwarth in the last month in an attempt to stop the trip from becoming public knowledge. It appears that Michael told the violinist to simply say that she went to karaoke and had a good time.

Feeling uneasy at the exchange, Holzwarth spoke with the companys public relations executive, Rachel Whetstone, and she also did the same with Kalanick. She told the two that she wouldnt lie about the incident if asked. Holzwarth also told The Information that she wouldnt have considered speaking out had Mr. Michael not attempted to silence her.

Michael spoke with the news outlet, saying that he thought to reach out to Holzwarth was the right thing to do since reporters might try to contact her.

Her recollection of this conversation was different from mine and I am very sorry if the purpose of my call was misunderstood, he said.

Meanwhile, a statement from Uber said that the incident happened about three years ago and was previously reported to human resources.

For more, check out Jobs & Hires report on Ubers new teen program.
In recent years, brick-and-mortar stores have been competing with online shopping sites for customers loyalty, and some sites, such as Amazon, are winning the consumer wars. Recently, it was reported that some retailers are shuttering their doors in locations all over the world, but now, Amazon appears to be taking the battle to the streets as the online vendor is planning to open furniture and appliance stores.

According to the New York Times, sources said that Amazon is planning to explore the idea of creating stores to sell furniture and appliances. One of the several people with knowledge of the discussions within the company spoke with the media outlet on condition of anonymity because the plans were confidential.

The planned furniture and appliance stores are additions to the companys physical stores, which include bookstores in Seattle, San Diego, and Portland, with five more stores opening in Chicago, New York City, Massachusetts, and New Jersey in the coming months, according to USA Today. The online retailer also unveiled a cashier-less grocery store called Amazon Go in Seattle last December.

It was reported that the stores will serve as showrooms where people could view furniture and appliances in person, and orders will be delivered to customers homes.

Apparently, the new stores will be equipped with high-tech touches which will set them apart from Home Depot and Walmart. The source revealed that Amazon has considered using forms of augmented or virtual reality to allow people to see how couches, dining sets, stoves, and refrigerators will look in their homes.

The company is also said to be planning an electronics store, and Amazon will be taking cues from Apples retail shops. It was said that the stores will carry Amazon devices such as the Echo smart home speaker and Prime video streaming service. Its also likely that the store will carry Amazon Fire phones and the companys best-selling Kindle e-readers.

Amazon has yet to confirm the reports. However, the media outlet points out that electronic commerce company may not push through with the plans for the said physical stores, as ideas could be easily vetoed by executives after further study.

For more, check out Jobs & Hires report on Bebe, which is said to be closing down its physical stores to focus on online sales.
Samsung has revealed its plans to sell the refurbished versions of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones. The decision comes after internal and independent investigations found no other problems in the devices except for the batteries.

As reported by Reuters, there are speculations that the tech giant could recoup some of its losses by selling the refurbished Galaxy Note 7. Last year, Samsung was forced to pull out the model from the market due to fires caused by defective batteries. It happened just two months after the launch of the device. Samsung lost an estimated $5.5 billion in profits due to the scandal.

Aside from selling refurbished Galaxy Note 7, Samsung also plans to reuse some parts of the device such as camera modules and semiconductors. It will also extract metal parts, such as copper, gold, nickel and silver, from the devices that can no longer be revamped, as reported by The Verge.

However, Samsung is only planning to sell revamped devices in its home country, South Korea. According to reports, the company is aiming to sell up to 500,000 Note 7 sometime in July or August. Samsung told The Verge that it will not offer refurbished Note 7 in the United States. It will also not come to India.

In addition, the company said it will change the model's name, specifications and price range, which will be announced when the devices are already available. "The objective of introducing refurbished devices is solely to reduce and minimize any environmental impact," the company added.

Environmental group Greenpeace, who has been pressuring Samsung to find ways to deal with the waste of its Note 7s, welcomed the news. "Greenpeace will make sure Samsung takes into account the voice of millions of our supporters and abides by its commitment," it added.

Samsung's announcement regarding its Galaxy Note 7 came just before the launch of its newest flagship device, the Samsung Galaxy S8. The new smartphone is slated to come out on Wednesday in the U.S.
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Susan Cameron, executive chairwoman of Reynolds American Inc., did not receive a salary increase in her final year as company president and chief executive.

Cameron had an overall 2.1 percent decline in total fiscal 2016 compensation to $13.17 million.

Cameron transitioned to her current duties Jan. 1, with Debra Crew taking over as president and chief executive.

The executive compensation was disclosed in a 2016 annual report.

Reynolds traditionally holds its annual shareholder meeting in May.

However, the company said it will not hold a 2017 meeting if it completes its proposed $49.4 billion sale to British American Tobacco Plc. on the current projected timeline by the end of the third quarter. Analysts projected shareholder meetings in mid-August.

Cameron returned to the company in May 2014, in large part to guide Reynolds through the $29.25 billion megadeal for Lorillard Inc., to acquire top-selling menthol brand Newport. The deal closed in June 2015.

The current plan is for Cameron to transition to non-executive chairwoman May 1 after her employment contract expires. She is expected to serve in that role until the sale to BAT is completed.

Camerons salary remained at $1.38 million. At the time of Camerons rehiring in May 2014, she signed a two-year contract, with a mutual renewal, that set a full-year base salary of $1.3 million. She received a $78,000 addition to her 2015 and 2016 base salaries for reaching performance goals.

For 2016, Cameron received nonequity incentive-plan compensation of $2.91 million, down from $3.33 million a year ago. Cameron received stock awards valued at $8.17 million on the date they were awarded.

She received $651,316 in all other compensation, which included $362,250 as a nonqualified excess benefit plan; $214,331 in value for the use of personal flights on R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. aircraft; $23,850 in qualified plan contribution; $20,000 in cash payments that included cost of financial planning and counseling services; and the cost of excess liability insurance.

The company reported for fiscal 2016 a 31.6 percent increase in adjusted net income to $3.03 billion.

Crew received a 17.4 percent increase in salary for 2016 to $787,525. Her incentive pay jumped 57.4 percent to $1.58 million. Her total compensation jumped overall 32.1 percent to $4.93 million.

Andrew Gilchrist, chief financial officer duties, received a 3.7 percent raise in salary to $720,025, a 29.6 percent increase in incentive pay to $1.33 million and total compensation of $5.06 million, up 7.5 percent.

Martin Holton III, general counsel, received a 6.3 percent raise in salary to $635,990, a 33.1 percent increase in incentive pay to $1.13 million, and total compensation of $3.82 million, up 5 percent.

Jeffrey Gentry, former executive vice president of Reynolds Tobacco, received $249,319 in salary, $388,015 in incentive pay, $2.47 million in all other compensation, and total compensation of $5.75 million.

Joseph Fragnito, named as president and chief commercial officer in 2016, was paid $95,238 in salary, a $350,000 bonus and total compensation of $2.79 million.
GameStop Corp. plans to close between 150 and 225 stores, or 2 percent to 3 percent of the store count in its 14-country network, as part of balancing decreased in-store consumer demand for its products.

The company did not disclose which stores it would close or a closing timetable.

The Grapevine, Texas, company has six stores in Greensboro, four in Winston-Salem, two in Burlington and one each in Asheboro, High Point, Kernersville, Lexington, Mebane, Mocksville, Mount Airy, Randleman and Wilkesboro.

Offsetting the closings are plans to open 35 collectibles stores and 65 technology brand stores globally.

GameStop projected a fiscal 2017 sales forecast of up 2 percent to down 2 percent compared with $8.61 billion in fiscal 2016. The fiscal 2016 sales were down 8 percent from fiscal 2015.

The company projects fiscal 2017 net income of $320 million to $354 million, compared with $353.2 million in 2016.
A Kernersville man was seriously injured Monday when a train struck him in the 300 block of East Bodenhamer Street, authorities said.

Mike Gonzalez Quiroz, 27, was taken to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center with life-threatening injuries, Kernersville police said. Quiroz is in serious condition at the hospital, police said.

Quiroz was lying on the railroad tracks behind several businesses before a Norfolk Southern train hit him shortly after 2 p.m., police said.

Police are investigating the circumstances that led to the incident. Norfolk Southern Corp. is assisting the police in their investigation.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to contact police at (336) 992-5475.
Fans of the namaste bow or tree pose will soon have a new studio to practice their regular stretching and breathing techniques, as Essential Yoga recently held its soft opening at 140 West Richardson Street (upstairs from Katie Mae's) in Summerville's historic downtown area. Read moreEssential Yoga debuts in Summerville
The Kochi native Sanu Jose is the Chief Officer of the ship 'MT Heroic Idun'.
[JURIST] Former Bosnian prison guard Slobo Maric was stripped [press release] of his US citizenship and sentenced to 18 months in prison on Monday after failing to disclose his membership in the Bosnian Army and war crimes he committed during the Bosnia-Herzegovina Conflict [BBC backgrounder], according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement [official profile]. Maric became a US citizen in 2002, after serving in a detention facility in Bosnia where he subjected detainees to physical abuse and psychological damage. According to the press release, [t]he Bosnian government charged Maric for his criminal conduct and, after Maric immigrated to the United States, Bosnia indicted and convicted Maric in absentia for war crimes against prisoners. According to the plea agreement, Maric knew about the Bosnian court proceedings, yet he failed to disclose the proceedings and lied about his conduct on his application for U.S. citizenship. Judge James Klindt of the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida [official website] heard the plea [press release] in July sentencing Maric Monday.

Prosecutions continue for those accused of committing war crimes during the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s. Earlier in March the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) began hearing an appeal [JURIST report] by Jadranko Prlic, Prime Minister of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, an unrecognized entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina, and five of his former senior military officials for crimes against humanity. In February the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina formally asked [JURIST report] the International Court of Justice to review a 2007 ruling clearing Serbia of genocide during their 1990 civil war. The same month the trial [JURIST report] of eight former Bosnian Serb police officers charged with participating in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre began before the Higher Court in Belgrade.
[JURIST] The UK Court Martial Appeal Court on Tuesday reduced the sentence [sentencing remarks, PDF] of former Royal Marine [official website] Alexander Blackman, who was convicted of killing an injured Taliban militant in Afghanistan in 2011. His murder conviction that carried a sentence of life imprisonment was reduced to manslaughter this month, and this sentencing decision reduces his imprisonment [Guardian report] to only seven years. The judges noted that while his service without issue before the killing is a factor weighing against dismissal with disgrace from the Royal Marines, the severity of the crime supports that he should remain dismissed. The charge was reduced to manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility, as the killing occurred after the British base came under fire and he was under significant mental impairment from adjustment disorder. Given that he has served nearly half of his new seven-year sentence already, Blackman may be eligible for release within weeks.

In December 2013 the Military Court Centre in Bulford [official website] sentenced [JURIST report] Blackman to life in prison for the murder of the Taliban insurgent that occurred during the his overseas deployment. Blackman, along with four other individuals, was charged with killing a wounded Taliban fighter, who appeared in a video that features marines debating whether to give the fighter medical care. The video then shows Blackman shooting the Afghan individual [BBC report] with a pistol. This decision occurred only one day after three judges of the Court Martial Appeal Court lifted the anonymity order that had been protecting Blackmans identity until that point. Blackmans sentence came after a long battle to remain anonymous throughout the court proceedings for the 2011 murder. The Service Prosecuting Authority [official website] initially charged [JURIST report] the five marines with murder in October 2012. A Judge Advocate General for the Military Court Centre in Bulford ruled [JURIST report] the following month that the five marines charged with murder could remain anonymous throughout their court martial. Thursdays order, which lifted Blackmans anonymity order, allowed those for the other four marines to remain in place, at least temporarily, while the court proceedings continue.
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Dallas, 03/28/2017 /SubmitPressRelease123/

Texas truck accident lawyer Amy Witherite explains, Many people jump aboard a bus without thinking about whether the bus company or the driver is qualified to operate the bus safely. By taking advantage of the free tools available to help you do a quick background check on the charter company, you can have some extra peace of mind before your trip.

Are you planning a cross-country bus trip this summer, or maybe just a charter bus ride to a nearby attraction?

In many cases, bus travel is more affordable than purchasing a plane ticket. Many people also assume its safer than getting behind the wheel and driving themselves.

Before you ride, however, its important to make sure the company youre entrusting with your safety will make your safety its top priority.

Check the Saferbus App Before Your Trip

A recent charter bus crash in Biloxi, Mississippi highlights the dangers of bus travel. In that case, four people were killed and 40 others were injured when a charter bus headed home from a casino trip became stuck on train tracks and was struck by a train.

Although nothing in the case so far indicates that the bus company or the driver had a poor safety record, there have been plenty of situations in which either a bus driver or the charter company responsible for a devastating accident had a history of safety violations.

Any time you or a loved one plans to take a bus, its important to check the safety record of the company. You can do this with a free app provided by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).

The SaferBus app is available for both iPhone and Android devices, and it allows users to:

Find out if an interstate bus company has been placed out of service for operating illegally.

Determine if a bus company has an unsatisfactory safety rating.

Find out if a bus company is not allowed to transport passengers due to inadequate insurance.

Check the status of the bus companys inspections

View the operating status of the bus company by Company Name, Department of Transportation number, or MC number.

The app also displays information about a charter companys history of unsafe driving, hours-of-service compliance, driver fitness, controlled substances and alcohol, and vehicle maintenance.

If you have been injured in a semi-truck accident, or a collision involving a bus or charter bus, you may be entitled to compensation for your injuries and other losses. Dont wait to speak to an attorney. Call an experienced Texas truck accident lawyer as soon as possible to discuss your case.

Media Contact:

Lucy Tiseo

Eberstein & Witherite, LLP

Phone: 800-878-2597

Email: [email protected]

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source: http://www.1800truckwreck.com/texas-truck-accident-lawyer-discusses-saferbus.html

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Begum aka Vidya Balan and her jaans are all busy in the promotion of their film Begum Jaan. After seeing the trailer for the film, it is confirmed that the film going to be great.

But as per latest development, the film has been banned in the neighboring country Pakistan. The film is said to be revolved around India - Pakistan partition, so it wont be released in Pakistan.

However, Mahesh Bhatt has sent a letter to Pakistan asking permission to release the film there but he is in wait for the response.

Also read:

Begum Jaan's 'Prem Mein Thore' will leave you spellbound

This actress will play Akshay's love interest in Gold

Watch Nawazuddin Siddiqui in and as Manto
WASHINGTON, D.C.  Constituents of 3rd District Rep. Adrian Smith can meet with a representative of his office at mobile offices on April 4 in Franklin and Alma.

At mobile offices, 3rd District residents can meet directly with one of Smiths staff members about federal issues and take advantage of the services available through his office.

Residents can meet with Smith representatives from 11 a.m. to noon at the Franklin County Courthouse County Courtroom in Franklin and from 3-4 p.m. at the Harlan County Courthouse in Alma.

For more information, call Smiths Grand Island office at 308-384-3900 or his Scottsbluff office at 308-633-6333.
Starting April 1, CHI Health facilities and affiliated doctors will join the health care network for people covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraskas Medicare Advantage plans.

Steve Grandfield, Blue Cross executive vice president, said in a press release Monday that the expanded network means more health care options for clients of Blue Cross Medicare Advantage plans, which are available in Cass, Dodge, Douglas, Lancaster, Sarpy and Saunders Counties.

Dr. Cliff Robertson, chief executive of CHI Health, said the partnership will bring value to health care. As we promised our community three years ago, CHI Health is committed to delivering the highest quality of care at the lowest cost.

The CHI network is called UniNet. CHI Health is part of Catholic Health Initiatives, a national nonprofit health system based in Englewood, Colorado.

This is the first year for Blue Cross Medicare Advantage plan, although several other insurance companies offer the plans in parts of Nebraska.

Original Medicare has three benefits: Part A, for hospital coverage; Part B, for medical coverage; and Part D, for prescription drugs. Medicare Advantage plans combine the three into one package and can include extra benefits, such as vision, hearing and gym memberships.

The annual enrollment period is Oct. 15 to Dec. 7, although people who become eligible for Medicare can sign up at other times.
LINCOLN  A Gretna lawmaker is calling on the chairwoman of the Nebraska Democratic Party to disclose the names of refugees who may have received voter registration forms.

State Sen. John Murante on Monday said a list of their names should be provided to county election officials so the names of any refugees who may have registered to vote can be removed from the rolls and any applications not yet received can be rejected.

Time is of the essence, and we need to make sure our voter registration rolls are clean, he said.

The voter registration forms, along with letters explaining what it means to be a Democrat, were included in care packages that the party donated to refugee resettlement groups.

Jane Kleeb, the Democratic Party leader, said no such list of refugees exists because the forms were removed from the packages before they were handed out.

The party donated about 50 baskets of items to Lutheran Family Services and the Refugee Empowerment Center. Both organizations have said they did not give out the voting materials.

I can give Sen. Murante a list of people who are sending me death threats, Kleeb said Monday.

Murante said that he did not know if any forms were submitted to county election officials by refugees and that he appreciates steps taken by organizations to remove the forms.

Still, he said, he has heard from numerous Nebraskans who are deeply concerned about voter fraud.

The people of Nebraska are watching, and we as a state need to take action, he said, noting the coming city elections in Omaha and Lincoln.

In a letter, Murante also asked Kleeb to contact refugees who may have received the forms and tell them that they are ineligible to vote.

Refugees who submit voter registration forms could face a felony charge, and anyone who aids, counsels, procures or advises a person to commit voter fraud also could face a felony, he said.

Kleeb maintained she committed no illegal act, noting that the form explained that only citizens are eligible to vote.

Its absolutely ludicrous, and it is a sad state of affairs that this is where the GOP is going right now, she said.

Murante, a Republican, chairs the Nebraska Legislatures Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee, which deals with election and voter registration-related legislation.

His name also has been floated as a possible candidate to replace Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale, who isnt seeking re-election next year.
LEAGUE CITY, Texas  Edith Marguerite Youngmark, 88, of Holdrege, Neb., died Friday, March 24, 2017, at her daughters home in League City.

Services will be at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Spirit of Grace Lutheran Church in Holdrege with the Rev. Ted Carnahan officiating. Burial will be at Prairie Home Cemetery near Holdrege with military honors by Martin-Horn American Legion Post 66 in conjunction with the U.S. Army Funeral Honors Team.

Visitation will be from 4-8 p.m. Friday at Nelson-Bauer Funeral Home in Holdrege with the family present from 6-7:30 p.m.



Edith was born on Aug. 14, 1928, on the family farm in Phelps County northwest of Wilcox, Neb., the only child born to Vernon V. and Marguerite A. (Danielson) Farm.

She received her primary education from country schools in Phelps and Harlan counties, attended Ragan High School and graduated with the class of 1945.

Edith pursued higher education at Hastings College for one year then attended Mary Lanning School of Nursing. She graduated in 1949 as a registered nurse.

Edith served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Nursing Corps during the Korean War.

On Jan. 1, 1951, Edith married Bernard Oscar Ben Youngmark at Bethel Lutheran Church in Holdrege. To this union were blessed two children: Bradley and Laura.

Edith worked for 49 years as a registered nurse. After graduation, she worked at Holdreges Brewster Hospital for 19 years before the opening of Phelps Memorial Hospital where she served as head nurse. She then worked as Dr. Stuart Emburys office nurse for the next 10 years until she returned to Phelps Memorial Hospital where she had a variety of titles, including infection control and quality assurance coordinator, until her retirement.

Edith had a love for her rose garden, vegetable garden and all plants. After retirement, she became a Master Gardener and thoroughly enjoyed being a member of the Holdrege Garden Club. In addition, she also enjoyed cooking, collecting cookbooks, reading and traveling with her husband and later with her daughter. Edith was actively involved with the Nebraska Nursing Association, serving an integral role of the 1950s-1960s grassroots movement to acknowledge the career of nursing, which ultimately raised wages to a more professional level. She was honored as the Nebraska Nurse of the Year in 1969.

She was a member of Spirit of Grace Lutheran Church, serving in the Stephen Ministries and participating in other activities and Bible studies. She loved the service projects, especially the Backpack Project. Before that, she was a member of Bethel Lutheran Church where she served on the church council board, was active with various Bible studies and church circles, and served as a Stephen minister. Edith volunteered with the Bloodmobile and enjoyed annual trips to her daughters residence near Houston. She volunteered in her daughters classroom as a tutor and mentor periodically through the years after Bens passing.

Edith had a special place in her heart for animals, especially shelter dogs, for whom she lovingly cared  including her current faithful friend, Baby. She also cherished the time spent with her four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, cousins and many friends. Being an only child, Ediths cousins felt like siblings to her. She was also blessed by many special friendships through the years, all of whom had a special place in her heart throughout her lifetime.

In addition to her husband and parents, Edith was preceded in death by her sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Elaine and Earl Carlson; and aunts, uncles and many cousins, including Robert Bob Winkler and Richard Dick Winkler of Loomis, Alan Farm of Minden and others from the Omaha area, Connecticut and California.

Edith persevered through physical health hardships throughout her life, knowing that the Lord would carry her. Her life is a testimony of faith, determination, work ethic, perseverance, prioritizing family and loved ones, and keeping an eye on the positives and on Jesus instead of obstacles.

She leaves to celebrate her life her children, Laura Youngmark of League City and Bradley Youngmark and his wife, Patricia, of Abilene, Kan.; four grandchildren: Jennifer Winters and her boyfriend, Mike Broman of Kearney, Neb., Kimberly Peters and her husband, Christian of Omaha, Neb., and Brooks Youngmark and Benjamin Youngmark, both of Abilene; four great-grandchildren: Hannah, Jacob and Abigail Winters of Kearney and Emilia Peters of Omaha; along with a nephew, other cousins and many beloved friends.

Memorials are suggested to the Bernard and Edith Youngmark Scholarship Fund for Nursing and Law Enforcement, c/o the Phelps County Community Foundation or to Spirit of Grace Lutheran Church in Holdrege.

Go to www.nelsonbauerfh.com to send expressions of caring and kindness to the family.
It often takes baby steps to make changes in state laws and thats what former state Sen. Lowen Kruse was doing when he co-sponsored a bill in 2005 that resulted in the current law that allows convicted felons to regain their voting rights two years after they have completed their sentences, including parole or probation.

Now its time that the state take another step and drop that two-year waiting period, restoring former prisoners right to vote immediately after they complete their sentences.

Thats what Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha has proposed in LB75, which has been advanced by a legislative committee and is awaiting debate on the floor of the Legislature.

Its estimated that, if this bill is passed, it would affect about 7,800 felons in the state, not counting all the prisoners to be released from state prisons in the future.

If LB75 becomes law, the state would become the 25th to restore felons voting rights immediately after they have completed parole or probation. Another 13 states and the District of Columbia allow ex-cons to vote as soon as they are released from prison.

The high percentage of criminals who return to prison is a serious problem that Nebraska must continue to work to address. This bill is one way to encourage community involvement.

Grand Island Independent
Perhaps the best thing about the budget bill the Kansas Senate approved last week is that it wasnt as bad as it might have been.

Senators didnt, for example, cut funding for public schools; thats largely because they have learned better than to cross the Kansas Supreme Court, which recently ordered lawmakers to increase funding. Senators also turned down not one, not two, but three attempts at across-the-board spending cuts.

Senate President Susan Wagle argued for a 2 percent cut to help offset a budget shortfall of $281 million by June 30. She said that when Kansas families find themselves in financial trouble, cutting spending is among their first options.

Shes right, but legislators didnt buy it because theyve already cut spending multiple times in recent years and in the process created hardships for many Kansas families.

Whats more, Wagles proposed 2 percent cut would have forced agencies to make drastic reductions because almost three-fourths of the fiscal year has gone by. Senators overwhelmingly rejected her amendment as well as proposals by state Sen. Dennis Pyle for 1 percent and 0.5 percent across-the-board funding cuts.

Manhattan Mercury, Manhattan, Kan.
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I was surprised when the emergency doctor at Cityside Hospital said he was going to call you to discuss my case, Farmer Carr said when I saw him today. I figured youd be asleep at that hour.

I smiled as I recalled the cell phone call that had come in at 9:30 the night I had sent him back to the hospital for a reassessment.

No, I was sitting in my camping recliner in the tack room in our horse barn, writing on my iPad and listening to the barn animals chewing their hay.

I saw his eyes soften. He no longer had a hundred head of cattle, but he was still Farmer Carr, and he loved animals.

I had been working on my post This is America, You Dont Have to Do Anything, and I kept thinking about Farmer Carr. He had been hospitalized with pneumonia, and when I saw him in follow-up he was weak, pale, short of breath and tachycardic; his resting pulse was 125 and after I had him walk down the hall, he reached 145. His EKG showed sinus tachycardia. His oxygen saturation was in the low 90s, which wasnt bad, but he had a little swelling and tenderness in his left calf, so a blood clot was a possibility. His white blood cell count was elevated, and his chest X-ray had some hilar fullness and some streaking in the mid right lung. I didnt have access to his hospital X-ray, but even if I did, he looked like there was more going on than slow-to-resolve pneumonia. He agreed to return to the hospital for reevaluation, and I called ahead and sent my records.

I remember, working on my post, hoping I would get a call from the hospital. My mind wandered further back in time to call nights over the years when I had wished the opposite  that no one would call me.

When I started working at our clinic thirty years ago, one year out of residency, our town had a volunteer ambulance corps without Advanced EMTs. It was the on-call doctors duty to meet the ambulance at the scene of car accidents, cardiac arrests and other calls that could use skilled care during transport to the hospital. It was also our duty to open the office, with no staff to help, for emergency cases that requested that we do so.

I remembered cleaning a facial road rash on a mean looking leather-clad motorcyclist from Massachusetts in the middle of the night. He was twice my size, and he didnt like the way I caused him pain picking out the pavement residue from his scraggly chin.

I remembered treating allergic reactions and asthma attacks with injectable medications alone with the patient in the clinic.

I remembered the times I had to do CPR, in a motel room off Route 1, in a trailer at the end of a dirt road and in the jalopy town ambulance with howling sirens over icy and snowy roads.

I remembered the sense of dread on call nights when anything could happen. I remembered trying to quiet my crying infant son late at night. With the little black Motorola beeper on my belt every cell in my body knew that at any moment the shrill beeping might tear me away from him and out into the night to face situations I may or may not be able to handle with little equipment and little assistance.

Times have changed. We have a professional ambulance service. The hospital has full-time hospitalists, and we dont open the office at night anymore. Some people miss the old days when we were available for emergencies right here in town, but most know that medical technology and the standard of care have advanced over the thirty years that have passed. A normal EKG doesnt rule out a heart attack anymore, and no one rules out a fracture in a trauma case without X-rays anymore.

We are still available to triage and coordinate care after hours. And with remote access to our EMR, I can even send a patient summary to the emergency room from my iPhone. Primary care doctors dont try to do everything themselves anymore. But we take our job of coordinating care seriously.

Oh, I almost forgot: Farmer Carrs CT scan didnt show a pulmonary embolus, just an almost resolved pneumonia; his pulse was normal in the ER, and when I saw him back today at the emergency doctors request, he looked a lot better.

Today, youre able to walk and talk at the same time, I pointed out as we walked down the hall together.

A Country Doctor is a family physician who blogs at A Country Doctor Writes:.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
With county commissioners cracking down on employees clocking in and out with the biometric system, one of the county departments is choosing not to meet the requirements - and they are speaking out.

According to Webb County Tax Assessor Collector Patricia Barrera, the current system in use to track employees' time punches has been reliable for over 20 years.

Barrera says they didn't want to upgrade to a more expensive software, so they stuck to the one they have and they have no plans on changing this: "It's out there in the market. We didn't have to pay millions of dollars, just a few hundred dollars. And it works fine. So I'm sticking to this. I don't need the other one."

Other departments not using the biometric system are the Justice of the Peace in Precinct One, Places One and Two.

Webb County commissioners approved the enforcement of a county-approved biometric system last November.
Following a record breaking crowdfunding campaign in 2015, the company behind Sugru - which was invented by Kilkenny woman and CEO Jane ni Dhulchaointigh - the worlds first mouldable glue, is opening up to investors once again to support expansion overseas and new product innovation.

Since overfunding on its first Crowdfunding round in 2015 by 355%, Sugru has been successfully launched in France and South Africa with plans to launch this year in Canada, Australia and New Zealand whilst extending its reach in Europe. Retail giants including the Adeo and Kingfisher Groups along with two of the largest retailers in the US are expected to boost growth in 2017.

Strategic investment in the companys research and development has resulted in a brand new formula being developed, allowing children as young as eight years old to use the product. Scheduled to launch later this year as the first in a series of new formulations designed to encourage more people to fix and repair their things, the new technology is expected to open up significant opportunities within the craft and stationery markets.

Sugru inventor and CEO, Jane ni Dhulchaointigh comments: Weve come an awfully long way since we tested the waters with our first crowdfunding campaign back in 2015. As well as launching overseas and working on new products and technologies, weve enjoyed huge milestones with our loyal community of over two million users around the world. Celebrating ten million Sugru fixes last year not only indicated the publics increasing appetite for wanting to fix and improve the things around them but also reflected the communitys enthusiasm and energy for sharing tips on how to best use the product. The company wouldnt be anywhere without these people so it makes sense to have them on board as we launch Sugru to the next generation of makers and creators.

Invented to help people repair and improve things, Jane ni Dhulchaointigh and her team has developed an award-winning material that moulds like play dough, sticks to almost anything and turns into a strong flexible rubber overnight.

Sugru is widely regarded as an essential tool for small DIY projects within the home and much used by technology, craft and maker communities. The company has recently doubled its manufacturing space in Hackney East London where it employs 70 staff.

Working with equity crowdfunding platform, Crowdcube, the Hackney based manufacturer plans to raise 1.5 million and is offering fans of the brand the opportunity to invest as little as 10 to stake a claim in the companys future growth. People can find more details at www.crowdcube.com/sugru
Investors, leggo of the leggings. United Airlines' decision to bar two teenagers dressed in leggings from boarding a plane Mar. 26 put a harsh spotlight on United Continental Holdings (symbol UAL (opens in new tab)) for all the wrong reasons. UAL and other airline stocks appear to be ready for a smooth rise in share price.

In case you missed it, social media lit up after another passenger tweeted about the incident Sunday morning. Soon, celebrities such as model Chrissy Tiegen and actor Seth Rogan weighed into a firestorm of outrage. United defended its decision, which violated a dress code.

This distraction is a shame because what people should really be talking about is United's attractiveness as an investment.

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Airline stocks are in favor these days thanks to lower fuel prices, industry consolidation and firmer ticket prices. After decades of criticism, even Warren Buffett has turned bullish on airline stocksand thats no small feat.

Buffett once famously quipped that "if a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down." Hes since come around (Buffett, not the Wright Brothers).

In November, Buffett disclosed new stakes in United, American Airlines (AAL (opens in new tab)) and Delta Air Lines (DAL (opens in new tab)). A February regulatory filing revealed that he also started a position in Southwest Airlines (LUV). Part of the appeal is that with only four major carriers left -- down from seven in 2000 -- the industry isn't struggling with too much competition.

Even if you dont follow Warren Buffett, you should still understand why United, Delta, American and Southwest Airlines look like good bets.

United Continental (symbol UAL)

Lets start with United. Shares are actually up 2.5% since leggings-gate started trending.

Smart investors were right to stand fast. Analysts at UBS call shares in United Continental a "buy" in part because the airline is on target for better earnings growth vs. peers, even as the shares offer a better bargain.

The stock is priced at 10 times expected earnings, according to Zacks Investment Research. Those same earnings are expected to rise by 20% year-over-year in 2018. Of the 13 analysts covered by Zacks, seven have it at "buy" and four call it a "hold." Their average price target of $80.62 implies a gain of 17% in the next 12 months or so.

American Airlines (symbol AAL)

It's not hard to see why Buffett likes American Airlines as well. Analysts at investment bank powerhouse Stifel say its stock is "seriously mispriced."

Investors have yet to fully grasp the value of the company's loyalty program, a Stifel analyst argues. The companys AAdvantage program generates approximately half of the airlines operating profits. Revenue is growing 10% and it has very high margins, Stifel notes. Once investors realize the profit potential of the loyalty program, the stock should soar, Stifel says.

Stifel set its price target at $95 a share. That implies shares will more than double in the next year. No wonder Stifel named American as its top airline pick and assigned it a "buy" rating.

Delta Air Lines (symbol DAL)

Analysts likewise remain bullish on Delta Air lines. Of the 11 analysts reporting to Zacks, eight have it at "strong buy," two call it a "buy" and one has it at "hold." In part that's because Delta is relatively cheap vs. its rivals.

Both Delta and the broader industry are forecast to generate annualized growth of 9% over the next five years, according to Zacks. But Delta's stock trades at 9 times expected earnings, while the industry goes for almost 20.

Analysts average price target of $59.55 implies upside of 29% over the next 12 months.

Southwest Airlines (symbol LUV)

Southwest Airlines is different from the other three. Its not a network carrier, which operate major hubs for domestic, regional and international flights. Such operators also tend to have large, complex fleets, alliances with other airlines and a host of other services.

Although that makes Southwest the smallest of the major carriers by revenue, analysts still like the stock, albeit with less ardor. Seven analysts rate it a strong buy and one calls it a buy. But six say its a hold.

Analysts, on average, project annualized earnings growth of 10% over the next five years, vs. 9% for the wider industry. Analysts average price target of $60.30 implies upside of 11% over the next year.
By Krishna V Kurup

March 28 (Reuters) - Australian shares clawed back lost ground on Tuesday, with financials and energy stocks outperforming the index, as investors shifted their focus back to the regional market.

Shares had fallen as much as 1 percent in the previous session taking cues from Wall Street's fall on Friday, with miners accounting for most of the losses. The S&P/ASX 200 index gained 1 percent, or 56.10 points to 5,802.80 by 0052 GMT.

What's driving the market "is a more inward looking view on the Australian market," said James McGlew, executive director of corporate stock-broking at Argonaut adding that the market "doesn't necessarily have to get dragged along by what's happening on the Wall Street."

Financials led the gains, with the index rising 1.5 percent. The "Big Four" banks rose 1.4 percent to 1.8 percent.

On Friday, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group hiked mortgage rates for speculative buyers as part of an intensifying campaign by regulators to hose down a heated housing market. Earlier, National Australia Bank and Westpac Banking Corp made similar hikes, citing regulations, higher funding costs and intense competition. The energy index rose as much as 1.3 percent to its highest in over a month, with Woodside Petroleum , Oil Search and Origin Energy rising 0.9 to 1.4 percent.

Material stocks rose 0.7 percent with miners BHP Billiton , Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals Group gaining between 1.1 to 1.4 percent.

"Material stocks are moving on the positive sentiment in the market," McGlew added.

Bucking the broader trend, gold stocks fell 0.8 percent, even as gold prices rose more than 1 percent. The gold index had finished nearly 2 percent higher on Monday.

Gold miner Newcrest Mining , St Barbara and Northern Star Resources fell between 0.7 percent to 3.5 percent.

Shares of department store giant Myer Holdings fell 3.6 percent, after it said it had not received any communication related to any corporate activity on Monday. On Monday, the Australian Financial Review quoted sources as saying 10 percent of Myer's shares were bought by Australian businessman Solomon Lew at a premium. ( )

New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index declined marginally, with losses in telecom and real estate stocks erasing gains in healthcare and financial sectors.

Spark New Zealand and Mercury NZ dragged the index down, losing 1 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively.

For more individual stocks activity click on (Reporting by Krishna V Kurup in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Sandhya Sampath; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)




Educators, who acknowledge the importance of sex education and the teaching of skills to prevent sexual abuse, said teachers do not mention the issues during lessons unless they talk about related issues, such as biology or citizenship education.

How many schools teach students the skills to protect themselves from sexual abuse? an education expert asked.The expert commented that in many countries, sex education is a part of the official curriculum, but in Vietnam it is not considered an important school subject.Educators, who acknowledge the importance of sex education and the teaching of skills to prevent sexual abuse, said teachers do not mention the issues during lessons unless they talk about related issues, such as biology or citizenship education.It is also difficult to arrange time and money for seminars and to persuade parents to attend.The headmaster of a primary school said that many parents disagree with the schools sexual education plan. One time, we intended to invite a psychologist to the school to talk about the issue. But some parents strongly opposed the idea, saying that such a delicate subject must not be mentioned in front of small children, she said.Parents continue to be conservative. They believe that Vietnam should follow the traditional education method, and that the topic cannot be approached in the same way in western countries, she said.Hoang Thuy Hoa, a parent in Cau Giay district, who has a master's degree, admitted that she doesnt know how to deal with the issue in the best way.My colleagues at the office said modern parents need to have straight talk with children about the issue. Children in modern times need to be equipped with the knowledge about psychology of sex. But I am afraid that sexual education would do more harm than good, if the teaching method is improper, Hoa said.Hoa is not alone. In fact, not only parents in rural areas, but the ones in large cities with high education levels like Hoa also find it difficult to deal with the problem.A MOLISA report showed that child sexual abuse is on the rise in Vietnam. About 2,000 Vietnamese children face violence and abuse annually, including 1,200 suffering from sexual abuse.In related news, Hanoi police have arrested Cao Manh Hung, 34, for the alleged sexual abuse of an eight-year-old girl in Hoang Mai Districts Thinh Liet Ward. As per the familys complaint, the incident took on January 8.





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(Updates prices)

SAO PAULO, March 28 (Reuters) - Brazilian shares rose on Tuesday, supported by rising shares of Vale SA after the world's No. 1 ore producer tapped a commodities industry veteran as its next chief executive officer.

Preferred shares in Vale rose 1.93 percent, boosting the benchmark Bovespa stock index , following the appointment of Fabio Schvartsman, who has been chief executive of Klabin SA , Brazil's largest paper and cardboard producer, for the past six years. Klabin units , a blend of common and preferred shares, were the biggest gainers on the index. The company has not yet announced his replacement.

Klabin's "succession plan will have to be expedited, but the issue was already on the radar," Itau BBA analysts led by Marcos Assumpcao wrote in a note to clients.

The Brazilian real was nearly flat, in line with other Latin American currencies.

After a recent sell-off, traders have erred on the side of caution as they await further clues over whether U.S. President Donald Trump will manage to get Congress to approve tax cuts and massive spending on infrastructure.

Doubts over Trump's ability to keep those 2016 campaign promises have grown following his failure to get enough support from his own Republican Party to pass a bill overhauling the U.S. healthcare system. Latin American stock indexes and currencies at 2240 GMT: Stock indexes daily % YTD %

Latest change change MSCI Emerging Markets 970.32 0.48 12.53 MSCI LatAm 2639.24 0.47 12.76

Brazil Bovespa 64640.45 0.52 7.33

Mexico IPC 49339.24 0.05 8.10

Chile IPSA 4868.88 2.3 17.28

Chile IGPA 24335.42 2.12 17.37

Argentina MerVal 20022.42 1.11 18.35

Colombia IGBC 10147.67 0.75 0.19

Venezuela IBC 41078.20 3.68 29.56

Currencies daily % YTD %

change change

Latest Brazil real 3.1390 -0.06 3.51

Mexico peso 19.0200 0.03 9.06

Chile peso 665.8 -0.24 0.74

Colombia peso 2904.82 0.00 3.33 Peru sol 3.241 0.34 5.34

Argentina peso (interbank) 15.5350 0.23 2.19 Argentina peso (parallel) 16.02 0.56 4.99 (Reporting by Bruno Federowski; editing by Grant McCool and Jonathan Oatis)
LONDON, March 28 (Reuters) - A sale of two-year German government bonds on Tuesday was the first technically failed auction of its maturity since last November, Germany's debt management agency said.

Just over 3 billion euros of bids were received for Germany's two-year auction earlier on Tuesday, below the 4 billion euro target. That makes it the first technical failure at an auction of two-year bonds since November, a spokeswoman for Germany's debt management office told Reuters.

She said the last failed auction for a German bond of any maturity was a five-year bond sale earlier this month.

(Reporting by Dhara Ranasinghe)
JOHANNESBURG, March 28 (Reuters) - South Africa's National Treasury said on Tuesday investors at a confidence-building roadshow abroad had expressed concerns about the country's political enviroment. Amid reports that he was about to be sacked, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan flew back from Britain to South Africa early on Tuesday, following an abrupt recall by President Jacob Zuma that caused the roadshow to be aborted. (Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

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.
LONDON, March 28 (Reuters) - Nigeria's crude oil exports are set to rise to 1.66 million barrels per day (bpd) in May, according to a loading programme compiled by Reuters on Tuesday.

The programme for the month is up from April's revised loadings and also puts Nigeria just above Angola's planned exports of 1.61 million bpd in May. While Nigeria had consistently been Africa's largest oil exporter, its loadings have fallen below those of Angola several times over the past year as it dealt with militant attacks on oil infrastructure in the Niger Delta.

The increase to 54 May cargoes from 52 in April, or 1.61 million bpd, came in part from rising exports of Bonga and Antan, both of which were hit earlier in the year by scheduled maintenance.

Exports of Qua Iboe were expected to be either flat or lower. April's export plans for Qua Iboe were uncertain, with some traders showing a programme with nine cargoes and others with eight.

Field operator ExxonMobil has re-issued the Qua programme several times as it grappled with loading delays of as much as two weeks. Traders said the problem stemmed from pumping issues and metering issues on the export pipeline. Exxon has declined to comment. Grade May Barrels revised Barrels

cargoes per day April per day

cargoes Abo 1 23,000 1 23,000 Agbami 8 252,000 7 228,000 Amenam 4 123,000 2 63,000 Antan 2 42,000 0*** 0*** Bonga 6 184,000 4*** 127,000*** Bonny Light 6 189,000 8 232,000 Brass River 5 112,000 4 108,000 EA 1 31,000 1 32,000 Ebok 1 21,000 0 0 Erha 4 129,000 4 133,000 Escravos 5 153,000 6 190,000 Forcados** 0 0 0 0 Okono 1 29,000 Okwori 0 0 1 22,000 Oyo* Pennington* Qua Iboe 8 245,000 9 285,000 Usan 3 97,000 4 133,000 Yoho 1 31,000 1 32,000 Total 56 1.66 mln 52 1.61 mln *Not yet available **Grade under force majeure ***Field maintenance

(Reporting by Libby George; editing by David Clarke)
(Kitco News) - Rhodium is gaining a lot of market attention as some spot exchanges show prices are pushing above $1,000 an ounce, its highest level since June 2015.

Johnson Matthey, a major rhodium refiner, shows spot prices Tuesday were at $1,015 an ounce, unchanged from Mondays price.

However, some analysts warn that the market is notoriously small and that can cause significant discrepancies in prices. Rhodium price charts on Kitco.com show that rhodium is trading at a near-term high of $910 an ounce.

According to Kitcos prices, rhodium is up 30% on the year, while Johnson Matthey shows a gain of almost 32% year-to-date. Regardless, at current prices rhodium is so far the best performing precious metal, outshining gold futures, up 9% since the start of the year; platinum future, futures are up more than 5.6% since the start of the year; and palladium futures, which is up 16.5% year-to-date.

Rhodium is a strategic metal that is used in catalytic converters, together with platinum and palladium and the market is so small that it only trades in spot markets  there are no futures contracts for the metal. Phillip Streible, market strategist at RJO Futures said that he is not surprised that prices are so high, as he expects demand is coming from Mexico, which is reporting record vehicle production.

In February, according to numbers from the Mexican Association of the Automotive Industry, country exported 240,909 vehicles, an increase of 9.7% compared to exports recorded in 2016.

We are seeing Mexico buying a whole bunch of commodities to create stockpiles. They are ramping up production and selling their products to the U.S. with bulk discounts. This could be happening in the rhodium market as well, he said.

Streible also noted that there is a huge spread between the bid price and the ask price in the spot market, which indicates that the rally could be a short-term phenomenon.

One New York trader said that because the rhodium market is so small there can be huge volatility and gains can evaporate just as quickly as they were made.

This is just end of quarter buying. Someone has a little bit of money and is looking to spend. Once demand dries up the price can drop like a stone.
By Andrew Torchia

DUBAI, March 28 (Reuters) - Growth in Saudi Arabian bank lending almost halted in February, central bank data showed on Tuesday, with companies holding back from investment in the face of stubbornly low oil prices and concern over government austerity policies.

Bank lending to the private sector showed year-on-year growth of only 0.3 percent in February, slowing from 1.8 percent in January and down sharply from the 10 percent registered a year earlier.

Bankers say part of the reason for the lending slowdown is that state money is flowing more freely through the economy than it was for most of last year, when the government stopped paying many of its bills as low oil prices took a heavy toll on public coffers.

The lack of government payments forced companies to draw on credit facilities for operating funds, inflating loan growth. In the past few months, Riyadh has resumed bill payments, easing the pressure on companies.

However, companies remain nervous about investing as the government plans fresh austerity measures in coming months, including domestic fuel price rises and a tax on tobacco and sugary drinks, which will increase companies' costs and weigh on consumer demand.

In a sign of sluggish consumer spending, cash withdrawals from automated teller machines dropped to the lowest level for more than a year in February, the central bank data showed, while the government continued to draw down foreign assets to help pay its bills.

Net foreign assets at the central bank fell by $9.8 billion from the previous month to $506.9 billion, their lowest level since August 2011. They reached a record high of $737 billion in August 2014 before starting to fall.

Among those assets, most of which are believed to be in U.S. dollars, deposits with banks abroad dropped by $5.2 billion to $95.1 billion. Investments in foreign securities shrank by $4.3 billion to $355.3 billion.

(Editing by David Goodman)
HANOI, March 28 (Reuters) - Here's a snapshot of Vietnamese dong exchange rates in the official and unofficial markets, indicative SJC gold prices in Hanoi and interbank offered rates at 0406 GMT.

March 28 USD/VND mid-point 22,253 USD/VND interbank 22,770/22,780 USD/VND unofficial 22,760/22,780 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.42/36.64

Interbank offered rates Overnight 4.8-5.2

1 week 5.0-5.3

1 month 5.0-5.3

3 months 5.0-5.3

NOTES: As of Jan. 4, 2016 the State Bank of Vietnam has begun setting the mid-point rate on daily basis, allowing dollar/dong transactions to move in a band of +/- 3 percent around the mid point. The dong's exchange rate against other currencies is not restricted by a band. Interbank offered rates are the latest indicative bid/ask prices, quoted from market sources.

One tael is equivalent to 37.5 grams or 1.21 troy ounces. SJC gold prices are quoted by state-owned Saigon Jewelry Co.

For more interbank rate fixings released at 0400 GMT, click on .

For Vietnam market overview click on: Vietnam's bonds market auctions: Bonds auction results: (Compiled by Hanoi Newsroom; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri)
JOHANNESBURG, March 28 (Reuters) - South Africa's rand and government bonds extended losses early on Tuesday after President Jacob Zuma asked Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan to return early from an investor roadshow, triggering speculation of an imminent cabinet reshuffle.

* At 0645 GMT, the rand traded at 12.9950 per dollar, 2 percent weaker from its New York close on Monday.

* In fixed income, the yield for the benchmark government bond due in 2026 rose 18 basis points to 8.89 percent.

* Gordhan is set to return to South Africa early on Tuesday, hours before a court hearing over the closure of accounts belonging to friends of the president. * Stocks were set to open higher at 0700 GMT, with the JSE securities exchange's Top-40 futures index up 0.81 percent.

(Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
* Zuma recalled Gordhan from roadshow

* Gordhan says he is still Finance Minister

* Rand falls 5 percent from Monday's high

* Stocks up led by gold and platinum shares

(Updates levels)

By Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo and Tanisha Heiberg

JOHANNESBURG, March 28 (Reuters) - South Africa's rand extended losses on Tuesday after President Jacob Zuma ordered Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan to return early from an investor roadshow, sparking speculation of an imminent cabinet shake-up.

Gordhan cut short the roadshow, which had been organised to reassure investors, and flew back to South Africa on Tuesday, saying he was still the finance minister when asked about reports that he was about to be sacked. His recall on Monday rattled investors who see him as a focus of stability, widely respected in financial markets.

But the country's stocks rose, with gold and platinum shares feeling the benefit of a weaker rand and firm commodity prices.

The rand has weakened nearly 5 percent from a 20-month high of 12.3125/$ on Monday morning. It fell to a session low of 13.1150/$ on Tuesday, before regaining some ground.

At 1525 GMT, the rand traded at 12.8875 per dollar, 1.16 percent weaker from its New York close on Monday.

"We have come back from our worst levels but we are only going to recover properly when we fully understand what's going on," George Glynos, director at ETM Analytics, said.

Government bonds weakened further, and the yield for the benchmark instrument due in 2026 rose 3 basis points to 8.74 percent.

On the bourse, the benchmark Top-40 index rose 1.24 percent to 45,215 points while the All-Share index gained 1.13 percent to 52,309 points.

"You have a stronger gold price and a weaker rand, and it is a welcome relief to both the gold and the platinum sector. Lonmin for example is outperforming, it is the more marginal players who benefit in this sort of market," Investec fund manager Hanre Rossouw said.

Spot gold was up 0.13 percent at $1,255.38 an ounce by 1518 GMT, having touched its highest in a month at $1,261.03 on Monday, while platinum gained 0.88 percent to $955.00 an ounce.

The biggest gainers included Lonmin , which rose 5.56 percent to 14.43 rand, while Anglo American Platinum gained 4.68 percent to 306.18 rand and African Rainbow Minerals lifted 8.28 percent to 94.80 rand.

(Editing by Alexander Smith)
The Herald reports:

Goff is pinning his hopes on the targeted rate to replace ratepayer spending by Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (Ateed) to attract visitors and fund major events. It would free up $28 million to fund transport and housing infrastructure and help Goffs election pledge to hold rates to 2.5 per cent.

If the accommodation providers are forced to fully fund ATEED, they should then get to decide what level of funding it gets. Allow them to appoint a majority of the board and youd soon get better value for money.

Goff said 75 per cent of the feedback so far on the draft budget supported the targeted rate.

Of course it is. You are proposing a tiny number of ratepayers pick up the bill for the other million ratepayers.

Last night, Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive Chris Roberts said the targeted rate would be a disaster for Auckland and should be withdrawn. He said visitors to Auckland spend $7.5 billion a year, of which the accommodation sector only accounted for 9 per cent but which is being asked to pay 100 per cent of the targeted rate.

Im all for user pays, but it should be on all tourism businesses, not just hotels and motels. And they should then get to decide what level of funding for ATEED is deemed worthwhile.

Last week, motel owner Troy Clarry told councillors his Whangaparaoa 14-room motels rates would rise from $13,600 a year to just under $40,000. In 2015-16 he made $529,000 from the motel on 65 per cent occupancy and after taking a $52,000 salary for two people net profit before tax was $27,000.

Much of this was reinvested in the business but the new rate would swallow nearly all of this.

So Goffs tax will mean the motel is no longer profitable.

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Bryce Edwards writes:

Does New Zealand still have political parties on the left in parliamentary politics? Do the poor and working classes have anyone to vote for this year? These are some of the key questions being asked in the wake of the Labour-Green announcement that they will restrain themselves in government from any significant deviation from the economic status quo.

The hardest hitting response has come from former Green MP Sue Bradford, who gave an extraordinary interview on RNZs Morning Report today. Bradford rounded on her former party, saying The Greens have completely sold out on where they started from in my generation of MPs in 1999  you can listen to her seven-minute interview with Guyon Espiner: What Price Power Former Green MP Sue Bradford slams Greens deal with Labour.

Bradford explains that the new rules adopted by the left parties  which she calls a totally business-friendly policy  will constrain them in being able to depart from the National Governments main economic settings.

She despairs of what this means: So what you see here is the Green Party deciding to go after votes on the centre and the right of the New Zealand political spectrum. It wants business in its corner. It wants your National blue-green voters in its corner. And completely abandoning the huge number of people who are in desperate need in the areas of housing, welfare, jobs, and education.

To Bradford, its about political opportunism by the Greens, in order to get into government. She asks: At what price power, if you sell out everything that your party was originally set out to achieve? I mean, this Green Party here is following the same trail as green parties all over the world  some of who have ended up in coalitions and alliance with really rightwing governments.

She suggests that some Green Party supporters are going to end up like some of us already, who have no one to vote for this year. The Greens was perhaps the last hope. This is the death knell for the Greens as a left party in any way, shape or form. They are a party of capitalism. Theyre a party that Business New Zealand now loves

Bradford also expressed her protest on Facebook. This led one Green Party activist and candidate at the last election to comment: Frankly, Im very disappointed with the party I belong to for doing this! In fact, I know that many other members (like me) are disappointed and angry. I am reassessing my membership. I knew that this statement was being developed but party members seem to have been largely bypassed in doing so.

Also on Facebook, Laila Harre, who has now rejoined the Labour Party, questions the apparent assumptions behind the announcement: Who says voters wont buy into tax increases on high incomes? Im sad that our redeemers are capitulating to that rather than making the case for it. Elections are an opportunity to win support for ideas. Not just frame ideas around putative support.

In a unique move, the Council of Trade Unions has also come out against the announcement, with president Richard Wagstaff giving a CTU perspective: We support higher levels of Government activity and investment than these rules permit. There is an urgent need. Many countries who are more successful than us socially and economically have much greater government activity  see Isaac Davisons Higher spend needed than under Labour/Green rules: Council of Trade Unions.

Wagstaff elaborates: If an incoming Labour/Green Government is serious about fixing the problems we have in our education, health, housing and other public services, if its going to correct the imbalances we have in terms of pay equity, if we are going to really tackle income inequality and our environmental challenges together as a nation, then it will need to be prepared to invest significantly. That will test these rules as they stand.
One News reports:

Now with the Paris-based OECD group, Mr Upton, a former National Party minister, was in Wellington last week to launch a progress report on New Zealands environment.

The Offices of Parliament committee has recommended that he be appointed for a five year term, beginning October 9.

Former Environment Minister Simon Upton is all but confirmed as the new Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

Normally it would be unusual for a former Minister to be appointed an Officer of Parliament, but the fact Labour and Greens support the appointment shows they think Simon Upton will be independent.

Simon has been head of the OECDs Environment Division since 2010 and prior to that was Chair of the OECD Round Table on Sustainable Development. He was also theNZ Minister for the Environment from 1990 to 1999 so he has around 25 years of experience in environmental issues.
Actor Jin Goo poses during an interview at a cafe in Samcheong-dong in Seoul, Tuesday. / Courtesy of NEW



By Kim Jae-heun

Actor Jin Goo returns with the new action crime movie "One Line," portraying the role of professional swindler Suk-goo on the big screen.

It has only been a year since the actor achieved critical success with the TV series "Descendants of the Sun" and he is more humble than ever.

"It would be a lie if I say I don't feel burdened on this film after such a big success with Descendants of the Sun," Jin Goo said during the interview with The Korea Times at a Samcheong-dong cafe in Jongno, Seoul, Tuesday.

"But I try to act like I don't feel pressure. I learned a lesson when I rose to stardom with the movie All In. I gained so much love for half a week and it disappeared instantly. It was the moment that I received the biggest popularity and love in my life and at the same time, I felt great frustration when they were gone all of sudden. I told myself that if I achieve any big success again, I won't enjoy it too much," said Jin Goo.

The 2003 film "All In" was his very first starring role along with veteran actors Lee Byung-hun, Song Hye-kyo and Ji Sung. At the time, it was only four months after his debut and he participated in the screen audition. Jin reminisced that he was a fool to believe success was easy.

He was jobless for two and a half years until he rose back again with noir film "A Dirty Carnival" in 2006 when he was close to giving up his career.

"I failed to make auditions for two and a half years until I was cast for A Dirty Carnival. I was in despair then and thought I wouldn't make it. But the director told me he wants to cast me because I look unselfish. Since then, I learned that people like my look without greed and arrogance," Jin said.

Jin's swindler role in the upcoming film "One Line," somehow reflects his kind characteristics. The actor said not all charlatans show their jobs on their faces and some swindlers have trustworthy appearances like his character do.

Based on a real fraud case that occurred in 2005, the scenario depicts the story of a group of fraudsters taking out loans from banks, hiding their identities. "One Line" is a slang word to describe an act of fraud to get a loan from the bank.

Actors Lim Siwan, Park Byung-eun and Lee Dong-hui also star in the film.



Q. Could you explain the new film briefly?

A. It's a movie with a good scenario and a good message. You can find out about our rookie director Yang Kyeong-mo and comparatively unknown actors like Park Jong-won and Lee Dong-hui. They are very entertaining actors.

Q. How similar are you to the character Suk-goo you portrayed onscreen?

A. When I was first cast for the film, the director told me to be myself. I don't know how he knew me, but he told me if I speak and behave like I normally do, I will be the character in the scene.

I at first didn't believe that because I am not a swindler and I don't lie in my life, but later, when I watched the film, I realized that a swindler doesn't have to act like a typical swindler.

Q. How do you normally engross yourself in the character?

A. I talk a lot with the director and actors. I think communication is very important. I used to study my characters a lot, but it always fails when shooting begins because directors have a fixed image of my character in their head. In the end, you have you act how the director wants.

Drinking alcohol the night before I shoot an emotional scene is one of my methods too. I am not comfortable acting romantic scenes so a hangover helps me partially overcome the awkward feeling.

Q. What did you focus on mostly when you acted the character Suk-goo?

A. I wanted to deviate from a typical swindler character. I tried to play him as a protagonist on the screen. He has the ability to carry out inhumane acts somehow humanely.

Q. You said you want to act until you die?

A. Yes. I love this job because I become a different person every day. I think this is the advantage of becoming an actor. You are always acting someone else.

Q. How do you choose your scenario?

A. If I enjoy the scenario very much, then I go for it. The shorter it takes for me to finish the story, the more I enjoyed the story. If I enjoyed it much, it also means I understood the story well. This is important for me because I need to make audiences understand the plot with my acting.

Q. In which film or TV series do you think you are most attractive?

A. I looked attractive in the thriller Truck. There is a scene where I am looking outside the truck and I am lying to counterpart actor Yoo Hae-jin saying I am not a killer.' It's a wonderful shot.

My character in the Descendants of the Sun was also cool.
AMCHAM Chairman James Kim FKI Chairman Huh Chang-soo

By Lee Hyo-sik

The scandal-ridden Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) has belatedly accepted the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) in Korea and four other foreign chambers of commerce as new members.

It expressed hopes the chambers will help boost its network with foreign entities, but industry officials are skeptical about their entry working as a catalyst for this.

The FKI, headed by Chairman Huh Chang-soo, has been reeling from its involvement in the Choi Soon-sil scandal which led to the removal of former President Park Geun-hye.

It has been facing calls for dismantlement for pressing 19 business groups to donate 77.4 billion won ($70 million) to the Mir and K-Sports foundations, which were established and controlled by Choi. On top of AMCHAM, the European Chamber of Commerce in Korea (ECCK), the French-Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the British Chamber of Commerce in Korea and the Indian Chamber of Commerce in Korea joined the business lobby.

"At a Feb. 24 general meeting, we accepted membership applications from five foreign business chambers to expand our network with non-Korean companies operating here and abroad," an FKI official said.

"It was a rather belated decision because they had submitted applications a year ago. We will work together with foreign business associations to create a more business-friendly environment and more effectively deliver our opinions to policymakers and lawmakers."

However, officials familiar with the matter said AMCHAM and other foreign chambers of commerce will not be of much help to the FKI.

"AMCHAM and other foreign business associations are only involved in representing the interests of their members," said an official from a business association, who declined to be named.

"I heard that the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) once tried to work with foreign chambers but it decided not to go forward after holding a couple of meetings with them because they were also self-centered. I don't think the FKI will get what it wants by working with them."

Ever since the Choi scandal erupted, more than 100 companies, including affiliates of Korea's top four conglomerates, have given up their membership.

Despite the FKI's involvement in the unprecedented scandal, AMCHAM, headed by Chairman James Kim, said it will continue to work closely with the federation.

"We submitted an application early last year before the Choi scandal erupted," an AMCHAM official said. "For years, we have had close business ties with the FKI and will further bolster that partnership in the future."

But the ECCK said it has not yet decided whether it will be part of the disgraced business lobby group.

"We filed an application early last year. We didn't know the FKI just approved our membership last month," an official said. "We don't understand why it took a year for the business association to pass our membership. We haven't decided yet whether we will remain part of the FKI or not."

Last Friday, the FKI said it will change its Korean name but keep its current English name to maintain and expand its international business network. It also plans to downsize its organization and cut its budget by 40 percent, as part of its struggle to survive the biggest crisis in its 55-year history.
Korea Development Bank (KDB) Chairman Lee Dong-geol, right, poses with Kang Myung-hee, head of the Daddy Long Legs School, at the bank's headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul, Monday, after delivering 10 million won to the school as part of the bank's philanthropy program. / Courtesy of KDB



The Korea Development Bank (KDB) said Tuesday that it delivered 10 million won ($9,000) to an after-school tutoring program operator in Seoul, as part of its KDB Daddy Long Legs philanthropy program for the underprivileged.



According to the bank, it selected the Daddy Long Legs School, which operates the after-school class in Seongbuk-gu, as the eighth beneficiary of the bank's philanthropy program, and delivered the funds to support it.



The after-school class has been providing free tutoring services to children from single-parent and other underprivileged families since 2012.



Twelve tutors, including students of Korea University and other volunteers, are teaching 15 elementary, middle and high school students. Kang Myung-hee, head of the after-school class has been running the program at her own expense.



"Thanks to the KDB's support, the class can provide tutoring for more children who have been deprived of opportunities to study more," said Kang.



KDB's Daddy Long Legs program was proposed by KDB Chairman Lee Dong-geol in order to help people neglected by the government's welfare plans or companies' corporate social responsibility activities. So far, the bank has selected eight beneficiaries, including Kang's class, and the total amount of support stands at 90 million won.



"Through the program, KDB will offer a hand to children who need more opportunities for education and will expand the range of support down the road," Lee said.



(advertorial)
South Korea said Tuesday that now is the time to focus on applying pressure on North Korea, but viewed as valid former President Park Geun-hye's key 2014 proposals on reunification with the North in the German city of Dresden.



Tuesday marked the third anniversary of Park unveiling a package of proposals calling for bolstering exchanges with North Korea, commonly called "the Dresden Declaration." She said that boosting inter-Korean exchanges will be the first step toward building trust between the rival Koreas.



But her proposals aimed at laying the groundwork for unification have lost the limelight, as North Korea has not stopped its nuclear and missile development programs.



South Korea's unification ministry said that now is the time to focus on making North Korea reverse the course of pursuing provocative acts by applying strong sanctions and pressure on Pyongyang.



"But the government believed that the policy direction sought by the Dresden Declaration is still valid, as the proposals called for efforts to boost inter-Korean exchanges and restore national unity," a ministry official said.



The official expressed regret that inter-Korean exchanges remained tepid due to heightened tensions sparked by North Korea's nuclear and missile provocations.



"It is regrettable that the government's efforts to boost exchanges with the North could not bear fruit because of North Korea's two nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches," she added.



Seoul has suspended almost all civilian inter-Korean exchanges in response to Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test and long-range rocket launch in early 2016.



North Korea has condemned Park's proposals, saying that they are a push to reunify the countries by force.



Park's Dresden speech came under the spotlight last year as television network JTBC reported that her long-time confidante Choi Soon-sil allegedly had received and edited drafts of presidential speeches before they were publicly delivered.



The ministry rejected the speculation, saying that the main ideas contained in the speech were discussed among officials at the office of foreign affairs and security aides.



"They were reported to Park through the usual process of writing a presidential speech," the official said.



Chang Si-ho, Choi's niece who is also standing trial over the scandal, claimed that Choi also coined Park's iconic phrase about unification.



Park made strong pitches for unification, saying that inter-Korean unification would be an economic "bonanza" for the two Koreas and a blessing for neighboring countries as it will bring about the chance of massive investments in North Korea.



Jailed Chang told a TV program that Choi made the catchphrase with the idea of Park serving as the president of both Koreas after unification.



The ministry official rejected Chang's claim, adding that the phrase was picked from the title of a book written by Shinn Chang-min, honorary professor at Chung-Ang University in Seoul.



The scandal led Park to be removed from the presidency in early March. (Yonhap)




By Kim Se-jeong

Police are investigating a pet school employee for abusing animals in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province.

According to the local police agency, the 29-year-old male employee is accused of throwing and beating a dog, a violation of the Animal Protection Law.

The suspect's brutality is featured on a YouTube video where he grabs a dog by its collar, drags it, hits it against the wall and kicks it. As the dog runs away, the man pulls it back and beats it again, this time with a white object. While all this is happening, other dogs surrounding them are running around nervously.

When the video footage was released on social media Thursday, it instantly went viral, drawing strong reactions. On Facebook, the video footage received more than 3,500 likes and 350 comments.

"That man has a problem," one wrote. "We need a law to ban people like him from looking after dogs."

Another Facebook user wrote about her own experience: "My dog was sent to a dog school and died after one day. The owner didn't explain to me why. I think I now know what might have happened to my dog."

The video footage prompted Care, a Seoul-based animal rights group, to complain to the police. Care's online board was bombarded with related complaints. It also began its own investigation.

The dog school owner came forward online to excuse himself, but that drew a stronger backlash.

Although tragic, the incident reflects the changing perception of animal rights in Korea, which was long notorious for animal abuse. Korea was _ and still is _ mentioned as a dog-eating country by outsiders.

However, inside the country, this is slowly changing.

As individualism and capitalism spread, more people adopt dogs and cats as companion animals. Some estimates say one out of five citizens now have a companion animal.

More groups advocate for animal rights and police have gotten tougher on animal abusers.
The Linton House in Daejeon, mixing U.S. mid-century modernism and traditional Korean hanok architecture, was built in the 1950s by William Alderman Linton, a Presbyterian minister who founded Hannam University. / Courtesy of Nate Kornegay



By Jon Dunbar

In his search for historic sites, U.S. expat Nate Kornegay found himself drawn to Korea's early modern buildings.

He shares pictures and history online of the places across the country he has visited. Most were constructed by Japanese imperialists during the 1910-45 occupation, but his focus includes the entire early modern era, built not just by the Japanese but also Western missionaries.

"My interest in colonial era architecture was fueled by a desire for authenticity," Kornegay told The Korea Times. "Authenticity comes from a space being kept in as original a state as possible. If we tear down the original hanok of a Joseon official in which historic events occurred, and then build a copy in its place, is it the same place where all that history happened?"

Many of Korea's historic structures have been torn down in the name of urban renewal or radically altered by gentrification or heavy-handed preservation rules.

"During my first year here, I spent a lot of weekends visiting temples and fortresses," Kornegay said. "I quickly realized that much of Korea's tangible historical remains are now gone and the places I had been visiting were reconstructions. After reading more of the country's history, I started to give up on finding anything authentically' old."

But then he found the Marmot's Hole, a now-defunct blog by longtime U.S. expat Robert Koehler, which pointed him toward hanok in Daejeon constructed in the 1950s by a member of the Linton family.

"I had never seen anything like it," he said. "It had a giwa roof and Western-styled red brick walls and glass windows. How did this mixed style come about? Are there others like it? The rabbit hole went deeper."

He studied Korea's history and language and covered more ground. He visited historic sites designated by the Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) and tracked down unregistered sites.

As colonial foreign-built buildings are remembered less fondly than local heritage sites, decades of neglect have helped preserve them in their original state. But lately, many colonial buildings have been restored and converted into museums, galleries and cafes, and cities such as Gunsan and Incheon promote their colonial heritage to tourists. Kornegay even sees the recent surge of Korean movies set during the occupation as stimulating interest in the era's remaining physical places here.

Still, he suspects public opinions on colonial buildings "sit somewhere on a spectrum between apathy and nationalistic disdain."

Kornegay is wary his journey into colonial architecture may stir up unpleasant memories for Koreans, though he says he has yet to meet anyone blatantly upset by his interest.

"In small villages, I have a sense that locals are unsure of my intentions  perhaps questioning whether I want to paint Korea in a bad light  which is not at all my intention  or am attempting to glorify the Japanese occupation, which is untrue. I have a great fondness for Korea and thus am interested in all of its history."

Visit colonialkorea.wordpress.com for Kornegay's site.
By John Redmond



Goh Travel will host a tour to a cherry blossom festival along the Seomjin River in South Jeolla Province this weekend.

The tour to Seomjin Riverside Cherry Blossoms Flower Festival will be combined with stops at Suncheon Bay and Boseong green tea plantation, where participants can make green tea chocolate, drink green tea and visit Suncheon Bay.

Highlights of the trip include walking along the Seomjin riverside teemed with beautiful cherry blossoms, viewing Mount Osan, Suncheon Bay wetlands and a visit to Hwaeom Temple.

Located close to Mt. Osan on the foothills of Mt. Baekun and the Saseongam hermitage, the festival attracts numerous visitors every year.

"The festival has been named one of the most beautiful cherry tree paths in Korea. Various performances and experiences invite the tourist, including walks down the cherry blossom path and the cherry blossom concert," the organizer says on its website.

The tour costs 85,000 won and includes the round trip private chartered bus, guest house, fees for the green tea chocolate, green tea, one dinner, one breakfast, entrance fees and English-speaking tour guides.

The group will travel south overnight by a chartered private bus to save time.

The group will meet on Friday at 11.15 p.m. at exit 3 of Hongik University Station or at 11.45 p.m. at exit 14 of Seoul National University.

Visit gohtravelkorea.net/ for more.
A 43-year-old judge to decide on whether to issue warrant



By Jung Min-ho and Lee Han-soo

Kang Bu-young

Former President Park Geun-hye will attend a court hearing Thursday to defend herself against the prosecution's request for an arrest warrant.

According to the prosecution, Park will attend the session scheduled for 10:30 a.m. at the Seoul Central District Court when Judge Kang Bu-young will review the validity of the warrant.

The decision came after she had an emergency meeting with her lawyers for several hours after the prosecution asked the court Monday for the warrant, saying it had no other choice given the seriousness of her alleged crimes and the risk of her destroying evidence.

Her fate is now in the hands of the 43-year-old judge, who will decide whether to detain her on 13 charges, including bribery and abuse of power.

The decision will be given between late Thursday night and early Friday morning.

Kang is the youngest judge of the three judges the court assigned to handle arrest warrant-related issues. He was born on Jeju Island, graduated from Korea University's college of law and passed the bar exam in 2000. He started his judicial career at the Busan District Court in 2004. He has dealt with arrest warrant-related issues at the Seoul court since February.

His close friends described him as a "conservative but reasonable" judge who "won't make a decision that defies dominant public opinion."

"Although Judge Kang is conservative, he does not tend to go against the general trend," a close friend told The Korea Times. "It is unlikely he will make a controversial ruling."

He refused to elaborate further because of the issue's sensitivity.
By Kim Rahn



Government agencies are likely to start sending presidential records produced during the Park Geun-hye administration to the National Archives in late April.



The transfer, however, is likely to reignite controversy over Cheong Wa Dae's possible attempts to destroy evidence of the presidential corruption scandal which led to Park's ouster.



Officials at the Presidential Archives within the National Archives said Tuesday they recommended related government bodies begin the records transfer around April 20.



According to law, documents produced at Cheong Wa Dae, presidential security offices and presidential advisory organizations, which are worthy of being preserved as historical records, should be sorted and moved to the archives before the president's term ends. So Park's records should be transferred by May 9 when a new president is elected.



Relevant organizations, such as Cheong Wa Dae's security and secretarial offices, will have discussions this week and confirm the exact dates of the move.



"Previous governments used to transfer documents in January and February ahead of the new president's inauguration on Feb. 25, but this time we have only about 20 days even if we start the work on April 20," an official of the Presidential Archives said. cannot delay the work anymore."



But the transfer work is drawing concerns from liberal parties and civic groups over possible destruction of evidence.



As the prosecution is still investigating the corruption allegations involving Park and a dozen of her aides, the government may damage  either deliberately or accidentally  records which may become key evidence of their alleged bribery, abuse of power and influence peddling.



When requesting an arrest warrant for the former president Monday, prosecutors said she is strongly denying all allegations and it is feared she has destroyed evidence.



"We sent staffers to presidential organizations to give advice about the sorting, and they also checked what records should be left behind. We don't think necessary documents will be destroyed," the official said.



But even if key documents are not destroyed, they could become inaccessible: according to law, presidential records can be sealed for up to 30 years at the president's discretion.



As Park is gone, the Presidential Archives said acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn has the authority to decide which documents to preserve and seal.



But liberal parties say Hwang, who is loyal to Park, may exploit this authority in favor of Park, banning investigators from accessing the documents.



Rep. Yun Ho-jung of the Democratic Party of Korea said it would be the same as the destruction of evidence if Hwang designates documents related to the scandal as presidential records and seals them to protect Park and her longtime confidant Choi Soon-sil, the central figure in the scandal.



"The prosecution sought Park's arrest warrant mainly out of concerns over the possible destruction of evidence, and a large part of the evidence for the corruption is presidential documents subject to preservation," Yun said in a party meeting.



"If the evidence is sealed for decades as presidential records, it would be buried in history. The related law stipulates it is a principle to make public as many presidential records as possible and manage them transparently."




Four presidential hopefuls of the conservative Liberty Korea Party, from left  South Gyeongsang Gov. Hong Joon-pyo, Rep. Kim Jin-tae, North Gyeongsang Gov. Kim Kwan-yong and former six-term lawmaker Rhee In-je  pose ahead of a televised debate on SBS, Monday. / Yonhap



By Choi Ha-young

The primary race of the Liberty Korea Party (LKP) is drawing little public attention, largely due to the fallout from the removal from office of former President Park Geun-hye, analysts said Tuesday.

Park's influence is palpable in the primary race with three of four contenders being loyal to the former leader. South Gyeongsang Province Governor Hong Joon-pyo is the only contender who is not tied to Park, but he is off kilter, too. He is now awaiting the Supreme Court's ruling as a defendant in a bribery trial.

In sharp contrast to the active participation of voters in the primaries of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and the People's Party, only 18.7 percent of eligible LKP voters cast their ballots, Sunday.

Hong is the frontrunner in the nationwide opinion poll with 9.5 percent of the vote. Rep. Kim Jin-tae, infamous for his verbal abuse of the bereaved families of the Sewol ferry victims, stands at 5 percent, primarily backed by pro-Park far-right supporters.












By Jun Ji-hye

Former President Chun Doo-hwan plans to publish his memoir next month, a move expected to cause an uproar and division among the public ahead of the presidential election.





Chun Doo-hwan

According to sources, Chun's memoir will be in three volumes which will contain his diary of the past 10 years, various records written during his presidential term and the investigation conducted into his role in suppressing the Gwangju democratic uprising of May 18, 1980.

The publication comes after his wife published her 720-page memoir, Friday, in which she claimed she and her husband were also "victims" of the civil uprising.

The wife's memoirs are already provoking huge criticism from Gwangju-based civic groups that are calling it "outrageous logic" and "shameless excuses."

According to the May 18 Bereaved Family Association, military forces commanded by Chun killed at least 165 civilians and left 76 unaccounted for, presumed dead.

Liberal lawmakers are also speaking up. Rep. Kang Chang-il of the Democratic Party of Korea said, "I will submit a bill to prevent Chun from being buried in the National Cemetery."

They said the timing of the publication is also improper as the nation has already been suffering huge confusion and division after former President Park Geun-hye was ousted on March 10 for a massive corruption scandal.

In 1995, the National Assembly passed a special law that enabled those responsible for the May 18 massacre to be prosecuted.

Chun, an army general-turned-dictator, was sentenced to death for conspiracy and insurrection, later commuted to life in prison. His successor Roh Tae-woo was sentenced to a 22-and-a-half-year prison term, shortened to 17 years on appeal.

Former President Kim Young-sam pardoned them in 1997 based on the advice of then-President-elect Kim Dae-jung.
By Jun Ji-hye

South Chungcheong Province Governor An Hee-jung got off to a rough start in the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) primaries, garnering considerably fewer votes than expected in the first round of the elections Monday.





An Hee-jung

In the first race of a four-round battle, held in Gwangju, home turf of Korea's liberal forces, An won only 20 percent of the votes compared to Moon Jae-in's 60.2 percent.

The results were apparently poorer than An and his aides expected, given that he has been following Moon mostly within a gap of only about 10 percentage points in various opinion polls of the potential presidential candidates.

Experts said An's previous remarks that have stirred controversies among liberals would have affected the hearts and minds of voters in Gwangju.

The governor invited criticism when he said if elected president, he would form a grand coalition government, even with allies of former President Park Geun-hye who was removed from office earlier this month over a massive corruption scandal. An's remarks were in stark contrast to those made by other liberal candidates who vowed to clean up the deep-rooted evils of the Park administration.












By Ted Gover





US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made headlines during his first Asia trip by stating the Trump administration's intentions of abandoning prior American approaches to North Korea and adopting a hard line against the rogue state. Secretary Tillerson's public and firm remarks were crafted for one purpose: to exact from Beijing necessary measures to rein in North Korea's nuclear program.



Tillerson's March 17 statement in Seoul  that all options are on the table and pre-emptive US military action against Pyongyang may be necessary if the threat from its weapons program reaches a certain level  effectively ended over two decades of failed US policy on North Korea.



China's role in propping up North Korea is well known. Beijing's policy of supporting Pyongyang reflects its strategic decision to maintain a North Korean buffer state out of territorial sovereignty concerns. The idea of a reunified Korean Peninsula under control of US ally Seoul is anathema to Beijing, as is the prospect of a flood of North Korean refugees into China following a potential collapse of the country's rule.



Taking into consideration Secretary Tillerson's March 17 comments, going forward US policy towards North Korea's nuclear program may unfold in the following ways:



THAAD: Accompanying Tillerson's statements is the installation of the US anti-ballistic missile system, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), in South Korea over objections by Beijing. While Washington and Seoul have explained THAAD is necessary to counter North Korean aggression, Beijing has opposed the defensive missile system, fearing it can be used against them.



To bolster its case for THAAD, the Trump administration may argue that Beijing's intransigence on North Korean has had consequences, namely, THAAD's installation itself.



Deploying additional US assets: Some have opined that the Trump administration may go further by threatening to also station THAAD in Japan, rotate Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarines in regional waters and reinstall nuclear weapons at US-operated Kunsan Air Base in South Korea all while arguing that these measures  while not aimed at China  are taken out of necessity due to Beijing's refusal to stop Pyongyang.



Trade war and sanctions: Some analysts have argued for a US trade war and the levying of sanctions and tariffs on China as ways to exact action on Pyongyang. Such measures, it is explained, would use American economic leverage to impose a cost on Chinese inaction on the issue, forcing Beijing to cooperate when the price of not cooperating becomes inhibitive.



Washington's hardened approach towards Pyongyang brings dynamics on the Korean Peninsula to a new phase. As President Trump at times prefers to keep his cards close to his chest, it is unclear whether Secretary Tillerson's remarks serve as initial positioning in negotiations or as first steps towards resolving the North Korean nuclear problem through force.



Either way, Washington's intended audience, Beijing, is watching closely.





Ted Gover, PhD is instructor of political science at Central Texas College, US Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California. Write to tedgover@gmail.com.
Court's decision should be based solely on law

Prosecutors said Monday they will seek to arrest former President Park Geun-hye to further question her over allegations that she took bribes and abused presidential power. A warrant hearing will be held Thursday at the Seoul Central District Court to review the validity of the application.

The prosecution's decision came less than a week after it first questioned Park, who was officially removed from office on March 10, for more than 20 hours on March 21. The swift application for an arrest warrant for Park reflects Prosecutor General Kim Soo-nam's determination to conclude the probe early and prosecute her by early April to minimize the impact of the case on the rescheduled presidential election on May 9.

The prosecutors' decision to take the ousted president into custody has triggered mixed responses. The Democratic Party of Korea, previously the largest opposition party, lauded it as a historic decision. The former ruling Liberty Korea Party, which was hoping for an investigation without detention, expressed regret about the decision.

Some of her supporters have stressed that her status as a former president should be considered and that is not desirable for the nation's reputation to arrest Park. Such claims are irrational from the perspective of rule of law.

The prosecution's request for an arrest warrant for the disgraced leader is inevitable given Park's shameless responses to the wide-ranging allegations of bribery and abuse of power. She has denied all charges and she has refused to openly acknowledge the legitimacy of the Constitutional Courts' ruling to uphold the National Assembly's impeachment vote.












By Bernard Rowan





Korea is nearing a three-year anniversary of the Sewol tragedy. This past week's raising of the vessel's hull marks an important moment, but that moment isn't impeaching and removing Park Geun-hye. It isn't the presidential candidates' intent to "get to the bottom" of various allegations. I think most facts already are available for all to understand.

No, the moment of this two-year anniversary marks sluggish action by Korean lawmakers, liberal and conservative. The morass of bad decision-making that stands behind the ferrying industry in South Korea needs control. The poor disaster readiness of Incheon and Coast Guard authorities wants reforms to inspections and procedures. I think a lot more vehemence should occur around pressing the interim and next governments to strengthen rules governing the industry.



Many stories focus on the anguish of families, in particular those still looking for their loved ones. Others concern alleged cover-ups of information and reopening the investigation. I see little discussion of increasing oversight of the ferrying vessels or of introducing new kinds of inspections, checking, and disaster readiness.



This loss of life shouldn't have occurred. A retrofitted vessel exceeding proper capacity took the passengers into danger. Lack of controls and lack of enforcement made this possible. An aging vessel with mechanical flaws and changes to increase carrying capacity and gorge extra profits made any journey on the Sewol a risk at best.



A crew that lacked experience, training, and drilling for disasters joined a national coast guard and emergency staff ill-equipped and sluggish to respond. Port authority protocols for inspections were lax and poorly carried out. Whoever took a trip with these increased human capital problems was taking a risk before they stepped on the vessel.



Among many excellent discussions, the posts on a site called "Ask A Korean!" (askakorean.blogspot.kr) provide excellent summaries of this horrible event's causes. They point to the legal and other reforms needed to prevent another Sewol. What's the legacy of Sewol?



Neoconservative ideologies of "free market economics" fascinate South Koreans. I'd argue some ills in Korea arise from copying it. If ever an incident proved the need for industrial regulation, the Sewol tragedy does so. No one can read the accounts of what had happened to prepare this tragedy and consider deregulation and profit-making not among the chief causes. The public good of safety for passengers and property shows governments must limit the "free" actions of shipbuilders, owners, and port authorities to protect the public interest and consumers.



South Korea carried out such wonders in development last century. The public and the government should develop 21st standards and carry out best practices for this industry. Continuing to leave it to politics and scapegoating of one captain, one ferry company owner, one disgraced president, and the like doesn't assure safety. It likely guarantees a future reoccurrence.



Creating a Ministry of Public Safety and Security is a beginning. However, Korean passengers deserve better standards and investments in trained staff. Regulating ferry crews needs more public and private budgeting. Airline pilots are no more important than crews of ferrying vessels. However, they're better-trained, better-paid, and better-regulated in their work.



I once wrote (Korea Times, 4/29/2014) that Korea should consult the International Maritime Organization and Interferry for construction and operating protocols that none rival. Since South Korea's government needs to operate ferry transport for passengers and cargo, the public must insist on safe operation of ferries. Creating this legacy can expiate the failings of the Sewol. Korean lawmakers and candidates should speak more to this national interest.















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 Hanyang University. Reach him at browan10@yahoo.com
Pio Schunker, senior vice president of Samsung Electronics' mobile communications business, speaks during a press conference at the firm's experience center named Samsung 837 in New York, Monday (local time). / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics



By Kang Seung-woo

NEW YORK  Setting aside its image as a global tech company, Samsung Electronics seeks to stand out as a "human global brand," its ranking officials said, Monday (local time).

Pio Schunker, senior vice president of the company's mobile communications business, and Lee Young-hee, executive vice president of global marketing at the company's mobile communications business, held a press briefing at Samsung 837 in Manhattan, the firm's flagship experience center.

"As we look to appeal to the millennial audience and to the generations that come after that, there are two very important things we have to do," Schunker said.

"The first thing is we no longer can afford to be just a tech company. In order to grow our business globally, we have to become a lifestyle brand. That is a very big priority. The second priority is we have to grow brand love."

Schunker, a veteran marketer who has worked for Coca-Cola, American Express and Mercedes-Benz, joined Samsung in March 2015.

Lately, Samsung has been trying to define its corporate philosophy after Koh Dong-jin, president of its mobile division, first proposed some ideas at last year's Mobile World Congress.

"With the millennial generation, it is no longer enough to just tell them this is what we sell. We are no longer in the business of selling information. We are in the business of selling emotion. And that's what all iconic brands do," he said.

"In the past few years, I frequently received questions from clients and the media about the brand personality of Samsung. They tended to call us just a big-sized company without the brand personality, which gave us a wakeup call," Lee said.

"Since then, all communications personnel of Samsung Electronics and its 70 branches across the globe have made continuous efforts to show the brand's philosophy."

According to Lee, the tech giant began to prepare for the job four years ago, which was accelerated after Schunker joined them.

It marked the first time for the world's largest smartphone maker to unveil its brand philosophy in what seems to be an effort to improve its marketing for the upcoming Galaxy S8 handset, to be introduced here Wednesday, and regain consumer confidence after the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco.

Samsung recalled the jumbo phones, some of which caught fire while charging, only two months after the Note 7's global release.

"The Note 7 recall eroded loyalty and confidence among Samsung's fans," Lee said. "But since we introduced our eight-point safety measures on Jan. 23, we have engaged in campaigns to bring back the customers."
MAN Truck & Bus Korea's new headquarters in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province / Courtesy of MAN Truck & Bus Korea



By Jhoo Dong-chan

MAN Truck & Bus Korea, the German commercial vehicle maker's local affiliate in Korea, is set to introduce new city bus models this year, the company said during an opening ceremony for its new headquarters in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday.

"The company will unveil new city bus models during the upcoming Seoul International Motor Show starting March 30," MAN Truck & Bus Korea President Max Burger said.

The German commercial vehicle maker's local affiliate sold 1,545 commercial vehicles last year, marking its record-high sales performance since it entered the Korean market in 2001. The sales figure is also up 36 percent from a year ago and up 450 percent from five years ago.

MAN Truck & Bus Korea introduced tour bus as well as double-decker models last year, but it is the first time for the commercial vehicle maker to introduce a city bus model here.

The company official said it will unveil four city bus models, including the MAN Lion's City CNG premium bus, during the Seoul International Motor Show held between March 30 and April 9.

"Korea is one of our seven main target markets in the world, but is a tough market. Customer demands are rigorous, especially in quality. MAN Truck & Bus respects such demands and shares their values," MAN Truck & Bus Sales and Marketing Director Heinz-Jurgen Low said.

"The German headquarters has expanded its investments to meet their demands, and the Yongin headquarters is a part of the company's commitments to upgrade its service infrastructure."

About 200 reporters and carmaker executives, including Low and Burger, participated in its headquarters opening ceremony. Gyeonggi Province Deputy Governor Kim Dong-keun and Yongin City Mayor Jung Chan-min also joined the event.

The official said MAN Truck & Bus Korea has established the nationwide customer network by opening new service centers in Yongin, Jeju and Gimhae. It also plans to open additional centers in Busan and Jeonju by the end of this year.
Park Sam-koo,

Kumho Asiana Group chairman

By Lee Hyo-sik

Kumho Asiana Group Chairman Park Sam-koo is moving closer to staging a legal battle with the Korea Development Bank (KDB) and other creditors of Kumho Tire over the terms of his buyback right for Korea' second-largest tire maker.

On Tuesday, the Kumho chief rejected creditors' proposal to allow him to form a "conditional" consortium, saying it was not worth considering.

Park did not say what would be his next step to force the KDB and other creditor banks to permit him to take back control of Kumho Tire through a standard consortium.

But industry officials say he will likely file a suit with a court in the coming days to stop the creditors from selling the tire maker to a Chinese company.

Earlier the same day, the KDB said Kumho Tire creditors will decide whether to allow Park to form a consortium to buy back the tire company, only after reviewing his acquisition plan,

The creditors would require the Kumho chairman to submit a plan of how he would set up a consortium with other entities and raise the necessary funds. If deemed viable and non-controversial, the creditors would discuss again whether to allow Park to exercise his buyback right for a 42.1 percent stake in Korea's second-largest tire maker through the consortium.

"The creditors decided to again discuss whether to allow the Kumho chairman to form a consortium after checking his acquisition plan," a KDB official said. "If the plan turns out to be reasonable, the creditors will discuss it again. But he must submit the plan by April 13."

However, Kumho Asiana Group dismissed the KDB offer, arguing that the creditors had decided not to allow Park to form a consortium.

"Kumho Tire creditors decided not to permit the Kumho chairman to buy back the tire maker through a consortium," a Kumho Group official said. "While disallowing Park's consortium, they asked the chairman to submit his acquisition plan so that they may allow him to acquire Kumho Tire with other corporate entities. This is total nonsense. We will not respond to that."

Given that Park has been threatening over the past few weeks to file a complaint against the creditors with a court if they don't allow him to make a consortium, he will likely ask the court to suspend the sales procedure and nullify the creditors' agreement with Double Star Tires. Double Star offered to buy the Kumho Tire stake for 955 billion won ($840 million).

Raising issue with the creditors' decision that allowed Double Star to form a consortium with five other companies, Park has been insisting that he should be allowed to do the same. He said he cannot raise nearly 1 trillion won as an individual.

The KDB and other creditors have been facing growing pressure from politicians and Kumho Tire workers not to sell the company to the mid-tier Chinese tire maker.

On Tuesday, the company's union issued a statement, urging the creditors to suspend the sales process until a new president is elected on May 9. The tire maker's business partners also called on the KDB not to sell the company to Double Star.

Presidential hopeful Moon Jae-in and other politicians have made remarks opposing the sale.

Among others, they expressed concerns about possible job losses if Double Star Tires takes control of Korea's second-largest tire maker, which employs more than 3,800 workers here.

They argued that Kumho Tire could face the same fate as Ssangyong Motor, which was acquired by Shanghai Automotive Industry in 2004.

The Chinese company fired hundreds of workers to cut costs and allegedly stole Ssangyong's core technologies while not investing enough to strengthen the Korean carmaker's competitiveness.

As well as four plants in China, Kumho Tire operates three plants in Korea and one each in Vietnam and the U.S. In 2016, the company had 2.95 trillion won in sales and posted a 120 billion won operating profit.
By Park Jae-hyuk





Kim Jang-hwan

Amway Korea appointed former chief operating officer Kim Jang-hwan, 53, as its new CEO, Tuesday. He will take lead of the local unit of the U.S.-headquartered multi-level marketing firm in June to succeed incumbent head Park Se-joon.

After joining the company in 1993, Kim worked for divisions such as finance, personnel, procurement, sales and marketing. One of his major achievements was establishing a logistics center in Busan which deals with distribution in the Asia-Pacific region. Cooperating with government-related organizations in 2003, he also improved awareness of multi-level marketing.

Observers point out that the new CEO is expected to satisfy the company's business partners and consumers, as well as spur growth.

According to Amway Korea, Kim has been known as an active leader who respects outside-the-box ideas from his staff and understands other people's emotions. Based on the company's vision, "Helping people live better lives," he has tried to bring a work-life balance to the firm.

"Regardless of their academic background, age and sex, I hope everyone lives better lives through Amway's vision and values," Kim said. "Through the servant leadership which offers a better future and sustainable growth to our consumers and 1.2 million partners, I promise to make Amway enjoyable."
2NE1 may have been disbanded last year and its members CL, Sandara Park, Minzy and Park Bom may be busy with their solo careers but this doesn't mean that the girls don't stay in touch. Fans recently witnessed some social media banter that proves that the 2NE1 friendship is still very much alive.

According to Soompi, Park Bom received much love from her 2NE1 sisters during her recent birthday. Sandara Park, who is set to star in the movie "One Step" on April 6, thoughtfully sent her a cute cake designed like a corn all the way to Busan to greet her on a special day.

Sandara chose the corn design because of Park Bom reportedly loved corn. During her recent photoshoot in Thailand, Sandara also brought home McDonald's corn pies from Bangkok and promised to get her friend even more when she returns. The interaction was also via Twitter because of the pair's schedules.

CL, who is currently working on completing her solo album and is working with Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande's agent Scooter Braun to spread her music to the US, also did not forget Park Bom's birthday. She made sure to tweet her greetings with a lot of emojis, to which Bom replied with "Thank you sis."

CL and Dara also remain close. In a recent Marie Claire interview, Sandara shared that she is an expert on the route to the airport because she always picks up CL from her trips. Recently, CL shared an Instagram Live of herself and Sandara at the car from the airport.

CL was holding up the phone while driving and was saying how she wasn't so good at live feeds. Sandara was telling her that she was surprised that her plane arrived thirty minutes early and CL proceeded to tease Sandara about not bringing her juice this time. Sandara responded by saying she was pressed for time because of CL's early arrival. After a few minutes, the two friends decided to sign off and say goodbye to the fans. Some of the fans were super happy to see them get together, leaving hearts, emojis and well wishes in the live thread.
Hyolyn of the hit girl group, SISTAR, is indeed experiencing massive success abroad, showing that she has the guts and the talent to take the world by storm. To prove this, Billboard even praises Hyolyn for her talent, saying that she has a very recognizable voice in the K-pop industry.

With this, one can see how she has differentiated herself from the rest of the other K-pop idols. Billboard further adds that the husky and airy tone of Hyolyn's voice is what makes her stand out among the rest.

Her versatility in the industry is also a testament to her prowess be it in her solo career or through collaborations with other artists and celebrities. Just recently, Hyolyn signed with Spinnin' Records, a globally renowned EDM label company.

She also successfully took the stage during the SXSW 2017 last March 17, further skyrocketing her career. During the said event, she majestically performed a cover of Ariana Grande and Nick Minaj's "Bang Bang", which further catapulted her popularity in the U.S. and other western countries.

According to Korea Herald, Hyolyn also had a performance in New York last March 18, and another one in Los Angeles on March 19. This is a testament that she is indeed an in demand K-pop idol even in the U.S.

The reason behind her standing out among the rest of the other K-pop idols may be more than just sheer charm and talent, as her look undeniably has an effect on it. Having a tanned skin is probably one of the reasons why she is distinguished among the rest of the other Korean celebrities who are all sporting a pale white skin complexion.

Surely, Hyolyn has a perfect mix of charm, physical look and talent. With this, she got what it takes to even further properl her international success.
A senior State Department official says Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet with President Donald Trump in the first full week of April.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson originally planned to skip a meeting of NATO foreign ministers scheduled for April 5-6 in Brussels. The meeting was rescheduled for Friday after Tillerson told NATO he had a scheduling conflict.

The official told reporters on Tuesday that the reason Tillerson couldn't make the original date is because Xi will visit the United States then. The official says Tillerson must be part of Xi's discussions with Trump.

The visit will be Trump's first with Xi since taking office.

The official briefed reporters on a conference call on condition of anonymity, even though Trump has criticized reporters for using anonymous sources.
U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions sounded passionate, wrathful and confident when he appeared at the White House press room Monday to deliver a blistering attack on sanctuary jurisdictions across the nation.

States and cities that thwart the federal governments policies against illegal immigrants, Sessions said, would face severe consequences. He talked as though jurisdictions across the nation were actively violating federal immigration laws, pumping undocumented immigrants back onto the streets even after their convictions for serious crimes.

Sessions threatened to withhold or terminate federal grants from cities that do so or declare them ineligible for future funding. He even threatened to claw back funds that already have been advanced.

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Unfortunately, some states and cities have adopted policies designed to frustrate the enforcement of immigration laws, he said. Failure to deport aliens who are convicted of criminal offenses puts whole communities at risk.

Sanctuary cities are saying, We want every member of the community to trust us, and that can be only if were not viewed as partners of ICE.  Bill Ong Hing, University of San Francisco law school

These were strong words, but legal experts say theyd be stronger if they more accurately reflected the true nature of many sanctuary policies, the limits of their required compliance with federal law, and the reasons that many have been adopted.

Sessions remarks aimed to expand on a Jan. 25 executive order by President Trump that put sanctuary jurisdictions squarely in the administrations crosshairs. Sanctuary jurisdictions across the United States willfully violate Federal law in an attempt to shield aliens from removal from the United States, the order said. These jurisdictions have caused immeasurable harm to the American people and to the very fabric of our Republic. The order required the Department of Justice and other agencies to ensure that jurisdictions that fail to comply with applicable Federal law do not receive Federal funds, except as mandated by law.

Sessions statement was felt especially strongly in California, where the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has identified at least 19 non-cooperative counties and cities. Legislation under consideration in Sacramento would bar police statewide from enforcing federal immigration law.

Instead of making us safer, the Trump administration is spreading fear and promoting race-based scapegoating, Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon said after the Sessions statement.

There are several problems with Trumps words, and Sessions. To begin with, Trump misrepresents the rationale for sanctuary policies in many jurisdictions. Theyre not designed specifically to shield aliens from deportation, but rather to create a working relationship between the police and the communities they serve.

Nor, as Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has observed, is there any legal definition of the term sanctuary city. There are almost as many variations of sanctuary policies as the jurisdictions themselves, with wide variations on the conditions under which local law enforcement will handle requests for assistance from immigration authorities.

Three California municipalities  San Francisco, Santa Clara, and Richmond  already have filed lawsuits challenging the legality of Trumps executive order. This is all politics, aiming to divide people, says Joseph Cotchett, who represents Richmond in a lawsuit filed last week in San Francisco federal court. The lawsuit calls the order an unconstitutional effort to coerce Richmond into enforcing federal immigration law.

Sanctuary cities are saying, We want every member of the community to trust us, and that can be only if were not viewed as partners of ICE, says Bill Ong Hing, a law professor and expert in immigration law at the University of San Francisco. And since police powers are understood under federal case law to be specifically reserved to the states, thats a high bar for the federal government to overcome.

That points to some important flaws in the governments insistence that sanctuary policies necessarily violate federal laws. Defenders of states and cities point to the 10th Amendment, which has been widely interpreted as protecting state and local law enforcement agencies from being commandeered by the federal government to enforce federal law  such as immigration law. That places serious limits on the governments ability to demand cooperation from localities for immigration sweeps or even detention of suspected undocumented immigrants.

Moreover, as experts at the Congressional Research Service observed in 2015, rounding up suspected illegal immigrants for possible deportation doesnt even amount to enforcement of a criminal statute: deporting aliens for being in the country in violation of immigration rules is a civil action, rather than a criminal sanction, because the main purpose is not to punish wrongdoing but to end a continuing violation of the nations immigration laws, they wrote  making even more questionable the dragooning of local police into such work.

Sessions spent a lot of time Monday on the supposed thwarting of two aspects of federal law, Section 1373 and immigration detainers. The first, enacted in 1996 under Bill Clinton, is a section of the federal code that prohibits anyone from interfering with the exchange of information with federal authorities about the immigration status of any person.

Nothing in the law, however, requires local officials to collect information about the immigration status of anyone they have in custody. It says merely that once local officials have that information, they cant be stopped from trading it to the feds. Hing says this points to a dont ask, dont tell, policy. The Los Angeles Police Departments Special Order 40 policy, which dates to 1979, bans police actions aimed solely at determining anyones immigration status  dont ask. But federal law protects local officials who are aware of someones immigration status and wish to tell the feds. Hing says such policies are almost certainly protected from federal attack.

Detainers are requests by immigration officials that local police hold suspected illegal immigrants suspected or accused of a serious crime for 48 hours, or until the immigration authorities can decide if they want to take further action themselves. The CRS found that local policies vary widely about when to honor detainers, with many honoring those for people held for serious felonies but not for suspects in minor misdemeanor cases. Some require commitments from the federal government to cover the cost of detention or even the localitys legal liability. Demanding compliance with all detainers, some experts say, raises the possibility of unconstitutional commandeering of local resources.

Sessions assertion that resisting detainers puts communities at risk by allowing violent criminals to go free is highly dubious. Police who have suspects in major crimes in custody arent likely to let them go free just because theyre undocumented. We hand over dangerous criminals to our immigration officials, Garcetti told CNN earlier this year. But, but we dont do that without a warrant or without a constitutional process, just based on the way somebody looks or where they live or who they are.

As Hing explains, a detainer is an allegation that someone is deportable. Its a violation of the 5th Amendment to be detained without reasonable suspicion.

The most questionable aspect of Sessions statement is his threat to end funding for supposed sanctuary jurisdictions, deny them grants, or even claw back already disbursed dollars. Cotchett maintains that its unconstitutional to impose new conditions on already-appropriated federal funds. In any event, the funding programs at issue are created by Congress, not the executive branch. What makes Sessions think that he can override Congress? he asks.

Congress could impose conditions on future funding, but its authority to do so is also constitutionally limited; any conditions have to be germane to the purpose of the funding, Hing says. That means that Congress conceivably could predicate law-enforcement funds, say, on local cooperation with immigration enforcement. But the Trump executive orders implication that a wide variety of federal funds might be denied to sanctuary jurisdictions is probably unconstitutional. As for clawing back existing grants, Hing says that retroactive rule-making is clearly out of bounds. Its too late for that.

He cites New Haven, Conn., which has a heavily Latino population and thousands of undocumented residents, and where police are forbidden to ask crime victims, witnesses or anyone seeking assistance from an officer about their immigration status. Since the policy was put in place, local officials say, cooperation with police has increased dramatically.

Even taking away law-enforcement funding from local jurisdictions would be counterproductive, since much of the funding pays for equipment and training for community policing. But thats a lesson that seems to have escaped Sessions and Trump: The essence of making communities safe is to improve the relationship of the policed with the police, rather than making crime victims and witnesses as fearful of the knock on the door as criminals are.

Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.

Return to Michael Hiltziks blog.
Hundreds of Amgen employees in Thousand Oaks will relocate to other cities or change jobs, and some will be laid off, the biotech giant has said.

The company sent an announcement to staff last week, saying that it notified almost 500 people about changes to their roles over the next year and a half.

However, Amgen spokeswoman Kristen Davis said in an email that the actual number of employees departing Amgen will be significantly below this by the completion of the transition, as some will relocate and others will change jobs in Thousand Oaks.

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Amgen plans to relocate about 50 people from Thousand Oaks to Tampa, Fla., to join the companys new capability center there. That center is set to open in October and will provide business services, such as staff and business support.

By bringing these services together under one roof, the center creates the opportunity to improve collaboration, share best practices, innovate and streamline in a more competitive way, Amgen said in a statement.

Amgen said it expects to have about 450 employees at the Tampa facility.

In addition, Amgen said it plans to shuffle employees in the companys Discovery Research and Translational Sciences sector to optimize its geographic footprint. More than 100 people in that Thousand Oaks department will be affected.

The company said some staff members were given the option of relocating to Cambridge, Mass., or San Francisco, while others will continue to work for Amgen for varying lengths of time while we make this transition.

Amgen said affected employees that are eligible to apply for other roles in the company can do so.

Thousand Oaks, where the company is based, will still be an important research site for the company, Amgen said. There are 5,500 Amgen employees in Thousand Oaks.

Last month, Amgen Chief Executive Robert Bradway told President Trump that the company planned to add 1,600 jobs. That hiring increase is expected to occur this year.

samantha.masunaga@latimes.com

Twitter: @smasunaga
Soon after President Trump took office, an executive order was quietly drafted to suspend talks with China on an obscure but potentially far-reaching treaty about bilateral investment.

After eight years and two dozen rounds of negotiations, the treaty terms were almost in final form. Pulling out after so much time and effort would be a clear message that the Trump administration meant to take a new and tougher approach to China.

But the executive order never even got to the presidents desk. It was quietly shelved, according to sources inside and outside the White House, at the behest of former Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn, now Trumps top economic advisor.

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Killing the order was a small victory for a White House faction that supports free trade and the global economy. But it was only an opening skirmish in what promises to be a long and bitter struggle over trade policy that so far is being waged behind the scenes in the Trump administration.

There are significant internal differences within the White House, said C. Fred Bergsten, an economist, political advisor and founding director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. I think its all very much still up for grabs.

Two distinct camps have formed inside the upper reaches of the new administration, which was elected partly on a vow to crack down on U.S. trading partners. One side is committed to the protectionist and nationalistic policies of Trumps campaign and the other to the free-trade strategy underpinning the current global economy.

Trump on Friday signed two executive orders on trade that could be seen as laying the groundwork for stronger trade actions. One launches a 90-day examination of the causes of the U.S. trade deficit, and the other calls for steps to halt the under-collection of billions of dollars of duties on unfairly traded imports, although the second order sounds similar in purpose to a bill that passed last year.

The pro-free trade faction appears to have scored another clear victory in shaping the early blueprint on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump had promised a sweeping overhaul of NAFTA or even withdrawal from it, but the administrations draft letter circulated in Congress this week proposes relatively modest changes to the pact with Canada and Mexico.

Who will ultimately win this struggle of ideologies is far from clear. But while the details of trade policy are often arcane, the real-world consequences are profound. Millions of American jobs may have been moved overseas as a result of free-trade policies, and millions more are tied directly or indirectly to that same trade.

Even the most high-profile American companies, from Ford, Chevrolet and General Electric to Apple and Google, are inextricably tied to the global economy.

Goldman Sachs alumnus Cohn, who heads Trumps National Economic Council, leads the faction in the administration that favors open-trade policies that have been a hallmark of Republican and Democratic presidents alike for more than half a century.

Most of Wall Street and leaders of many large American corporations argue that open borders expand markets and the global economic pie, enhancing overall U.S. economic and national interests. Goldman Sachs has been a strong advocate for the U.S.-China investment treaty.

Cohns team, ensconced on the second floor of the West Wing, is stacked with like-minded veterans of investment banking and noted internationalists, such as Kenneth Juster, a former partner at the global private equity firm Warburg Pincus, and Andrew Quinn, a top negotiator of the Trans-Pacific Partnership that President Obama orchestrated. The pact failed to win congressional approval and Trump buried it when he became president.

At the other camp, Peter Navarro presides over a tiny staff as director of the newly created White House National Trade Council, which operates out of a large office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door to the White House. So far, Navarros office boasts only two desks and a large oil painting depicting an earlier industrial age of blue-uniformed workers building ships in America.

Provocative and hard-edged, the longtime UC Irvine business professor has turned off some lawmakers on Capitol Hill and in business circles with his abrasive manner and focus on protectionist policies he says would lower U.S. trade deficits and help American businesses and workers.

Yet much as he may turn off traditional free traders, Navarro is closer in style and substance to Trump and his chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon.

Navarro has been a particularly outspoken critic of Chinas economic policies and, like Trump, has advocated large tariffs and other unilateral actions to counter a global trade system that he sees as ineffective in advancing U.S. interests.

On China and Trumps Buy America principle in general, the protectionists are likely to find an ally in Wilbur Ross, the new Commerce secretary, and in Robert Lighthizer, nominated to be the U.S. trade representative, historically the main White House spokesman on trade. Ross and Lighthizer are sharply critical of Chinas business practices and have advocated much tougher measures to protect Americas steel industry, for example.

At the same time, the pair are expected to add a more nuanced and realpolitik dimension to Trumps often obstreperous threats to impose tariffs and blow up trade deals. Ross is a billionaire and turnaround specialist, and Lighthizer is a former Senate counsel and seasoned trade negotiator.

After meeting with Ross last week, Myron Brilliant, the U.S. Chamber of Commerces head of international affairs, says he doesnt see Trumps trade squad pursuing blanket tariffs on imports. Still, what worries many economists, as well as many business leaders and foreign trading partners, is that excessively hardball tactics by the administration could start a trade war that could lay waste to half a century of economic progress here and around the world.

Although Trumps campaign rhetoric was filled with grim warnings about what he said was the disastrous condition of the American economy, defenders of the global economy point out that the U.S. as a whole and most of its citizens are several times more prosperous than they were even a few decades ago.

Free trade and, perhaps more important, technological advancements have no doubt displaced many U.S. workers. And the economic slowdown, along with increasing concentration of wealth, has left many Americans anxious and pessimistic about the future.

Overall, however, the evidence is far from clear that reverting to the nationalistic and protectionist policies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries would alleviate those problems.

Nikia Clarke, executive director of World Trade Center San Diego and a Commerce Department advisory council member, is particularly concerned about the fate of NAFTA, the 23-year-old pact that Trump has repeatedly characterized as a disaster.

Making it go away would be devastating, she said, noting that the uncertainty has prompted companies in her area to put their Mexico expansion plans on ice.

No one can say at the moment which of the two White House camps has the upper hand  the Wall Street wing or the economic nationalist wing, as AFL-CIO economist Thea Lee describes them.

So analysts are forced to sift the tea leaves for signs of what the future may bring.

For example, although Cohn is known to have Trumps ear, the president, in one incident last month, stepped in and openly defended Navarro when he and Cohn clashed over a series of trade ideas. Cohn and Navarro declined to comment, and White House spokespeople would say only that both men are valued members of the presidents economic team.

The presidents proposed budget, however, suggests that departments such as Commerce may be gearing up to be much more active on trade enforcement than trade promotion.

Whats more, analysts point out that upending the status quo on trade was a signature campaign promise and a key plank in Trumps economic platform to boost growth and jobs, particularly for his blue-collar and rural base in industrial states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio that catapulted him to victory.

Hes got to deliver on that stuff, said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizens trade program.

She noted that Trump has been remarkably consistent over the years in his claims that other countries take advantage of the U.S. And his appointment of Navarro and others suggests the president has staffed up for change, Wallach said.

At the same time, Trump did not keep his promise to label China a currency manipulator as soon as he took office. In fact, for all of Trumps China bashing during the campaign  accusing it of dumping goods and robbing the U.S. of intellectual property and many jobs  the president has been unusually silent on China since taking office.

Nor has he offered anything about trade with Japan, which Trump has been critical of since the 1980s.

Trump did withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as he said he would do, but the 12-nation deal was already moribund by the time he settled in his Oval Office desk. And although Trump also renewed his vow to overhaul NAFTA, the White House has yet to provide the required 90 days notice to open up the agreement.

One substantive sign of where the administration may be headed will come on April 15, when Trumps Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, must decide whether to formally label China, or any other nation, a currency manipulator.

Neither Obama nor President George W. Bush ever did so, even when Beijing clearly held down its currency value to support its exporters. Bush and Obama worried about embarrassing the Chinese and souring bilateral relations.

More recently, China has made an effort to let the yuan float more freely, and if there is any manipulation it has been to prop it up against free-market forces that have devalued the currency.

Mnuchin has not shown his hand. Hard-liners against free trade took encouragement after Mnuchin, at the Group of 20 finance ministers meeting in Germany this month, declined to sign off on language disavowing protectionism in the groups communique.

Still, many analysts are betting that Mnuchin, a banker, Hollywood producer and another Goldman Sachs alumnus, will side with Cohn in not wanting to rock the boat.

don.lee@latimes.com

Follow me at @dleelatimes

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UPDATES:

March 31, 1:25 p.m.: This article was updated with the announcement of President Trumps trade-related executive orders.

This article was originally published at 3 a.m. March 28.
Amazon purchased the Middle Easts biggest online retailer, Souq.com, on Tuesday for an undisclosed amount, a day after a state-backed firm disclosed an $800-million counteroffer.

A joint statement described the purchase as expanding Amazons influence into the Mideast as the chairman of the state-supported firm Emaar prepares to launch his own retail website in a country known more for its luxury malls than online shopping.

That could put Seattle-based Amazon in a head-to-head competition with a firm helmed by one of the sheikhdoms favored business magnates.

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This is a milestone for the online shopping space in the region, Souq.com cofounder and Chief Executive Ronaldo Mouchawar said in a statement.

The announcement said the two companies expect the sale to close this year.

Together, well work hard to provide the best possible service for millions of customers in the Middle East, Russ Grandinetti, a senior vice president at Amazon, said in a statement.

In buying Souq.com, Amazon will leapfrog into the crucial Mideast markets of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, where the Dubai-based retailer already has local operations.

As a private company, Souq.com hasnt had to file public earning reports, though the website last year raised more than $275 million in a round of financing that the company said would help fuel its future growth.

Souq.coms status as a free-zone firm also means Amazon will be able to run a 100% foreign-owned operation. Amazons entry into the UAE comes after Apple Inc. opened its first stores in the Arab world in Dubai and the UAE capital of Abu Dhabi in October 2015.

The websites major investors have included Tiger Global Management LLC and South Africa-based Naspers Ltd.

Rumors about Amazons interest in Souq.com have circulated for months. In November, Emaar chairman Mohamed Alabbar reportedly met Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos at the state-backed firms cavernous Dubai Mall, in the shadow of its Burj Khalifa, the worlds tallest building.

On Monday, Emaar Malls PJSC made public its $800-million bid for Souq.com in a filing on the Dubai Financial Market. The short filing, signed by Emaar Malls Vice Chairman Ahmad Thani Matrooshi, said the bid was made in line with the strategy to align e-commerce with physical shopping.

Last year, Alabbar received a $1-billion investment in a forthcoming e-commerce venture from the Saudi governments Public Investment Fund, the same sovereign wealth fund that invested $3.5 billion in the ride-hailing app Uber. That project, called noon.com, has yet to begin operations.

Alabbar also holds stakes in the delivery company Aramex, which could prove useful for his online retailer.

Dubai, the commercial capital of the United Arab Emirates, home to the long-haul carrier Emirates and the worlds busiest international airport, also has luxury malls that even include an indoor ski slope. Its summer heat of over 122 degrees Fahrenheit makes malls a major attraction for both shopping and leisure time in the city.

While Uber and other online service firms work in Dubai, online retail shopping has yet to truly take off like it has in Western countries. Amazons entry into the market likely will change that.
Uber Technologies Inc. shed light on the gender and racial diversity of its workforce for the first time Tuesday, releasing a batch of data that even its recruiters reportedly couldnt access.

The numbers show the ride-hailing giant is enduring the same struggles as much of the tech industry to attract Latino, black and female employees. But the findings are likely to cut a sharper path through Uber, which has faced damaging accusations in recent months about discrimination in the workplace.

The San Francisco companys reputation  long stung by Chief Executive Travis Kalanicks penchant for brash remarks  has suffered further in the month since a former employee alleged that company officials covered up her complaints of sexual harassment. More stories from around the world have followed, claiming an uncomfortable work environment at Uber, and more than one high-level executive has departed the company over similar concerns.

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Uber has said that by the end of April, it wants to publicize the results of an investigation into its culture thats being led by former U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. The diversity data released Tuesday was cast as a first step toward being more transparent about its inner workings.

Ubers global workforce of about 12,000 people is 64% male, and only 15% of its technology workers are women. Men hold 78% of the leadership roles in the company, and among Ubers technology workers, men hold nearly 89% of the leadership roles.

The company didnt release data about the racial makeup of its global workforce. But it offered that of its 5,900 U.S. employees, 50% are white, 31% are Asian, 9% are black and 6% are Latino.

About 77% of its U.S. leadership roles are held by whites. And nearly 95% of its U.S. technology workers are white or Asian. The U.S. customer support teams, meanwhile, appear to have the greatest racial and gender diversity.

Ubers data doesnt include information about its drivers, who are classified as independent contractors rather than employees.

Uber released figures to show that its pace of hiring women and racial minorities has picked up in the last 12 months. And the company announced it is overhauling recruiting strategies. Bloomberg reported last week that even people in charge of trying to bring in more diverse job candidates didnt have data about the diversity of the companys workforce.

On Tuesday, Kalanick said Uber was late in releasing the numbers, and his human resources chief thanked employees for pushing the company to publish the data as many other tech firms have done.

Lyft, Ubers top U.S. rival in ride-hailing, declined Tuesday to immediately release comparable demographic data about its employees.

Uber executives introduced a pledge to spend $3 million over the next three years with organizations trying to help underrepresented groups in tech break into the industry.

The privately held firm has raised about $12 billion from investors, valuing it at $69 billion.

Freada Kapor Klein, an Uber investor who co-runs a diversity institute and has demanded changes to the companys hard-charging culture, expressed disappointment Tuesday that Ubers leadership seemed to become galvanized only after several public crises. But, she said, Uber executives have a big opening to get this right and a big strategic advantage over other tech companies.

For instance, Klein said, Uber employs many minorities in nontechnical jobs. (Indeed, Latino and black workers make up a larger share of Ubers nontechnical workforce than Googles or Facebooks.) She said that by providing proper training and mentorship, Uber could usher such employees into technical fields.

Uber also said Tuesday that 15% of its U.S. employees are in the country on work visas  information that most other companies do not publish in their diversity reports. The disclosure comes as numerous companies in the tech industry and beyond worry about how the Trump administration will affect their workforces. President Trump has called for tightening the United States borders.

paresh.dave@latimes.com / PGP

Twitter: @peard33

UPDATES:

2:05 p.m.: This article was updated with comment from an Uber investor and with Lyfts declining to immediately release demographic information.

This article was originally published at 11:10 a.m.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

So begins George Orwells dystopian drama 1984, his 1949 novel whose popularity has surged since President Donald Trump took office earlier this year. The book climbed to the top spot of Amazons bestseller list in January after Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway defended false claims about the inauguration crowd as merely alternative facts.

1984 has been made into a film on two occasions, first in 1956 and later in  you guessed it  1984. The latter version is now heading back into theaters, this time as a pointed commentary on our modern times.

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On April 4, more than 180 art-house theaters around the country  along with five locations in Canada, one in England and one in Sweden  will screen the film in protest of Trumps administration. Theaters in 165 cities and 43 states will host the screenings as part of a joint effort by the Art House Convergence and United State of Cinema organizations.

A lot of us have felt that [with] the current administration, a lot of our most essential values are sort of under assault, said Dylan Skolnick, co-director of Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, N.Y., and one of the organizers of the national screening. In particular, things like the existence of actual facts. And 1984 has had this sudden uptick in popularity because it really explores a lot of those issues.

Originally released in its namesake year, the more recent film version of the book stars the late John Hurt as Winston Smith, a propagandist tasked with rewriting history to align with the dictates of the Party and its omniscient figurehead known as Big Brother. (The timing of the screenings is not random: April 4 is the date of the first entry in Smiths resistance diary.)

Orwells portrait of a government that manufactures [its] own facts, demands total obedience and demonizes foreign enemies has never been timelier, a press release for the event stated, adding that the screenings encourage theaters to take a stand for our most basic values: freedom of speech, respect for our fellow human beings and the simple truth that there are no such things as alternative facts.

Two locations in Los Angeles and one in Santa Monica will screen 1984: the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum (home to UCLAs Film & Television Archive), the Cinefamily, and Santa Monica Public Library.

Obviously 1984' is a nightmare, but its also a warning, said Hadrian Belove, co-founder of Cinefamily and its executive creative director. We felt that thinking about what all this means is a good thing right now.

The screenings are free, though theaters such as Cinefamily are asking guests to donate to the American Civil Liberties Union. (United State of Cinemas website has a full list of participating theaters, including several in California.)

In these times its important to think about supporting our nonprofit arts institutions, because theyre going to be receiving less support than ever, Belove said. I think thats something even Orwell could not have predicted  how weird things have gotten.

sonaiya.kelley@latimes.com

follow me on twitter @sonaiyak
Jean Rouverol, who died Friday at age 100, was well acquainted with how the blacklist era divided Hollywood.

An actress-turned-screenwriter, she and her screenwriter husband, Hugo Butler, were targeted by the House Un-American Activities Committee and went into exile with their children for 13 years in Mexico.

After their return to the U.S., she became a writer on the soap operas Guiding Light and As the World Turns.

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According to the Horn and Thomes Funeral Home in Pawling, N.Y., she died of unknown causes in Wingdale, N.Y.

Born in St. Louis on July 8, 1916, Rouverol was the daughter of Joseph Rouverol and Aurania Ellerbeck Rouverol, who, like her daughter, was an actress turned writer  though the elder Rouverols first medium was the theater. For the 1928 play Skidding, she created the Andy Hardy character at the center of the MGM films and went on to write the 1931 Joan Crawford film Dance, Fools, Dance.

Following in her mothers path, young Rouverol, started acting. The summer she turned 18, on break from Stanford, she was pulled from a Max Reinhardt production of A Midsummer Nights Dream at the Hollywood Bowl (with Mickey Rooney as Puck), to star in the 1934 Paramount movie Its a Gift as W.C. Fields daughter.

I remember being so insulted, Rouverol said in a Writers Guild Foundation interview recorded in 2000. My feeling was they took me out of a Shakespeare play to make me act with this drunken vaudevillian?! And of course, thats now a classic! Very few people remember Max Reinhardt and his plays. (Reinhardt, who established the world-famous Salzburg Festival, went on to co-direct the 1935 film production of A Midsummer Nights Dream with James Cagney, Dick Powell, Olivia de Havilland in the role Rouverol was going to play at the Hollywood Bowl, and Rooney still as Puck.)

I considered movies a kind of vulgar variant, on the theater, Rouverol said in the Writers Guild interview.

Even so, Rouverol acted in another dozen films, including 1936s The Leavenworth Case and Fatal Lady, 1937s Stage Door with Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers, plus 1938s Annabel Takes a Tour with Lucille Ball and Western Jamboree with Gene Autry. Her most recent role was in a short titled Finding Jean Lewis in 2009.

Except for that last role, she had stopped acting in the movies by 1940 after starting a family with Butler. She continued to perform on radio during the 40s, including the role of Betty Carter on the NBC radio serial One Mans Family.

While Butler served in World War II, Rouverol wrote her first novella and sold it to McCalls magazine in 1945. By 1950, her first screenplay had been made into a movie, So Young, So Bad, about a girls reform school, starring Paul Henreid and featuring the film debut of Rita Moreno as a suicidal teen.

But Rouverols screenwriting career was halted after it was discovered that in 1943, when the U.S. was still allied with the Soviet Union during World War II, she and Butler had joined the American Communist Party.

In 1951, the House Un-American Activities Committee attempted to subpoena the couple. Rouverol and Butler chose to self-exile with their four children in Mexico rather than face a possible prison sentence as endured by some of their friends who were part of the so-called Hollywood Ten.

Rouverol and Butler were labeled as subversives and dangerous revolutionaries by the government and didnt return permanently to the U.S. until 1964. Acclaimed screenwriter Dalton Trumbo came to live with the couple in Mexico after he was released from an 11-month sentence in a federal penitentiary for contempt of Congress when he refused to give information to the committee.

While in exile, Rouverol had two more children and continued to write screenplays, short stories and magazine articles to earn money. Three screenplays she co-wrote with Butler were accepted for filming by Hollywood studios, only because agent Ingo Preminger, brother of director Otto Preminger, arranged for others from the Writers Guild of America to put their names on the scripts.

The couple settled in California upon their return from Mexico. The two continued to collaborate on scripts, and Rouverol wrote the book Harriet Beecher Stowe: Woman Crusader.

Butler died in 1968. And Rouverol returned to writing in the 1970s, penning an episode of Little House on the Prairie and being hired as co-head writer for the soap opera Guiding Light. The latter earned her two Daytime Emmy nominations and a Writers Guild award. Rouverol left the show in 1976 when she was 60.

In 1984, she penned Writing for the Soaps and taught at USC and UCLA Extension. Three years later, she received the Writers Guilds Morgan Cox Award.

In 2000, at age 84, she published Refugees From Hollywood: A Journal of the Blacklist Years about her familys life in exile, in which she spoke about the blacklisted artists refusal to plead the 5th Amendment against self-incrimination.

The 5th Amendment implied guilt, so nobody took the 5th initially, she recalled. It implied that they were ashamed of their political activities. . . . They all thought that standing on the 1st Amendment [instead] would keep them out of jail. It didnt. The Supreme Court refused to hear it.

Rouverol moved to Pawling in 2005, where she lived with her partner Clifford Carpenter, another former blacklisted artist. He died in 2014.

Rouverol is survived by her son Michael Butler; five daughters, Susan Butler, Becky Butler, Mary Butler, Emily McCoy and Deborah Spiegelman; eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

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Santiago Barberi Gonzalez, president and creative director of Nancy Gonzalez, the luxury handbag firm he founded with his mother, died Friday.

A spokeswoman for the Gonzalez family confirmed his death but said no further details were available at this time.

Barberi Gonzalez said his mothers taste inspired him in 1998 to conceptualize Nancy Gonzalez, which he started while he was a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

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The creative force at the label, Barberi Gonzalez is credited with being the architect of its global expansion and was said to be involved in every decision for the brand, from business strategies to sales to visual presentation.

Nancy Gonzalez, which is known for its crocodile totes and elaborate python satchels, is sold in the U.S. at Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus, among other retailers.

Barberi Gonzalez in June unveiled a 25-style range of exotic skin shoes that he designed for the label in Italy. The launch was celebrated at Bergdorfs in December with a party attended by customers, many of them carrying signature Nancy Gonzalez crocodile handbags.

Barberi Gonzalez was proud of the shoe expansion, pulling out his phone at the Bergdorfs event to show off designs in development, including, for fall 2017, a handbag collection that incorporated mink fur.

While he was key to the brands designs, Barberi Gonzalez felt a filial duty to discuss strategy with his mother and was careful to mention that the shoe designs were created with her approval in mind.

Like his mother, Barberi Gonzalez was born in Colombia. He enjoyed maintaining residences in several cities around the world, including at the Plaza Athenee in Paris.

Barberi Gonzalez appreciated his mothers aesthetic  timeless and over-the-top, often at the same time  but he had a modernist streak that he displayed at the companys first showroom on 57th Street, where he fused high design with a sense of ease. Its the real definition of exotics, everything that reroutes from the ordinary, he said of the shoes. As with our bags, theres no hardware and only the most luxurious materials have been used such as silk, white oak, horsehair, shagreen and, of course, crocodile.

Tributes on Instagram included a message from Brian Atwood: So saddened by the news of my dear friend. I still cant believe it. You were larger than life and always made me laugh. You will be missed so much.

We are deeply saddened by the sudden loss of Santiago Gonzalez, said Roopal Patel, senior vice president, fashion director at Saks Fifth Avenue. Santiago was a true pioneer, leader and entrepreneur.

Patel said she met Barberi Gonzalez at the start of her career and considered him to be a dear friend. He had a larger-than-life personality, she said. His family was everything to him. He was one-of-a-kind and unique.

Barberi Gonzalez held a seat on the board of the Accessories Council.

Misty White Sidell also contributed to this story.

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I have daydreamed about a possible graduate course on the semiotics of Pok Pok LA, unpacking the levels of meaning one by one as if the Chinatown restaurant were Moby Dick or at least Paradise Lost: Book 1. What does it mean to drink water infused with pandan leaf? Is the Chiang Mai-style noodle dish khao soi gai more or less authentic when it is made with freshly expressed coconut milk than with the nondairy creamer that is standard in some local restaurants. Does a Thai-fluent non-Thai have anything to teach a thriving Thai American community, or is Andy Rickers northern Thai gospel better suited for his other restaurants in Portland and Brooklyn?

I loved Pok Pok LA, although I was as confused as anyone else whenever I juxtaposed it with Night + Market Song, which in so many respects approached a similar pop-Thai aesthetic but in radically different ways. The food-as-culture crowd seemed to embrace Night + Market Song, and I cant say that I blamed them. I mostly used Pok Pok LA as a bar. It was open late, the gin and tonic with makrut lime was brilliant, and the Singha beer on tap was tooth-numbingly cold. And the bar snacks  grilled dried cuttlefish, peanuts fried with lime leaf and chile, chewy strips of grilled boar collar, the famous chicken wings sticky with fish sauce  were delicious.

Ikes Vietnamese fish sauce wings, (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

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Pok Pok LA was a splendid place to end the evening after a show, nursing Japanese whisky, listening to 70s Thai R&B music and staring out at the neon lit pagoda across the street. It was my teenage fantasy of what a Chinatown bar might be.

So when Ricker announced a couple of weeks ago that Pok Pok LA would be shutting down, that business at the north end of Chinatown was never quite as robust as hed hoped, I felt as if I was losing a perfect Third Place, something more than a catfish salad and a tamarind whisky sour on the way home. It hadnt been open that long, but a lot of my life had spun out there  the japes about the fancy vinegars and rambutan charcoal were meant as gentle kidding. I never thought the restaurant would go away.

On the night before closing, Pok Pok LA was more crowded than Id seen it since its first days, and people waited hours outside for a shot at a last meal. Providences Michael Cimarusti was holding court at a front table, and Guerrilla Tacos Wes Avila was distributing whisky shots. Cookbook writer Andrea Nguyen came over to the table to report that Ricker was doing the catfish dish Cha ca La Vong correctly; that he had dragged her into the kitchen to point out the house-made khao mahk, the fermented sticky rice that is an important part of the fishs marinade.

Ricker himself came over at one point to note that the top-floor dining room he could never quite fill might be too apt a metaphor, the heavy weight from above crushing the rest of the operation.

The upstairs dining area. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

The landlord suggested that we turn the second floor into a nightclub, Ricker said. I hate nightclubs.

I got a jackfruit sandwich and one last whisky sour for the road. (I wasnt driving.) Im betting Rickers nightclub might have been fun.

jonathan.gold@latimes.com

@thejgold
From Peruvian quinoa bowls in Hollywood to excellent pastrami in Century City, heres whats happening in the Los Angeles food and drink world:

Pastrami king: Chef Micah Wexler and partner Michael Kassar, the duo behind the Wexlers Deli inside Grand Central Market and another location in Santa Monica, have announced a third Wexlers Deli in the Westfield Century City mall. The restaurant is scheduled to open in the malls renovated dining terrace in August. You can expect the pastrami, smoked fish, breads and bagels the deli is known for, and Wexler is promising some new items exclusive to the location. The 400-square-foot restaurant, designed in partnership with Otto Design Group, will have counter seating for 10 plus communal seating and will feature hand-painted illustrations by Gregory Siff. Wexlers Deli will be open 7 days a week, from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. 10250 Santa Monica Blvd., FC22, Los Angeles, www.wexlersdeli.com.

Things in a bowl: Ricardo Zarate, the former chef at Picca as well as the now-closed restaurants Mo-Chica and Paiche, is back with a new restaurant called Mamacita. Named after mother Earth, the Hollywood restaurant is serving what its calling Peruvian-style BBQ bowls, featuring skirt steak on top of quinoa with a fried egg; and Peruvian poke ceviche on top of choclo and rice. Zarate is also making Peruvian-style wraps filled with chicken, steak or portobello mushrooms, as well as sashimi and kale salads. To drink, theres purple corn tea and strawberry horchata. Zarate is also scheduled to open a restaurant in the space formerly occupied by Comme Ca on Melrose Avenue called Rosaline. 6801 Hollywood Blvd., #418, Hollywood, (323) 698-1100, www.mamacitacantina.com.

Going rogue: Wolfgang Puck has opened a new restaurant called the Rogue Experience inside his West Hollywood test kitchen and corporate headquarters. The restaurant will serve a tasting menu for eight guests each night, and it will change from week to week. Test kitchen chef Dave Beran and his team will design the menus, but Puck will make appearances in the kitchen as well. Seatings are available at 7:30 p.m. every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Saturday seatings are available for full buy-outs only. Reservations start April 19. Tickets start at $155 per person and can be purchased at rogue-exp.tocktix.com. Email wptestkitchen@wolfgangpuck.com to learn more. 8687 Melrose Ave., Blue Building, West Hollywood.

Thai street food: Chefs David Tewasart (Sticky Rice and Side Chick) and Bryan Sharafkhah-Sharp (White Guy Pad Thai food truck), have opened So Long, Hi, a Thai street food restaurant in the former Soi7 space in downtown L.A. Menu highlights include Thai jerky with a spicy tamarind dipping sauce; green curry with deep-fried roti; traditional pad Thai and Crying Tiger. The restaurant has also already launched a happy hour weekdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. with $2 beers, $6 bar bites and $5 pad Thai. 518 W. 7th St., Los Angeles, (213) 537-0333.

New to the market: Three new food vendors have joined the Original Farmers Market in Fairfax, including Local Ice, a small-batch ice cream and Italian ice shop from Studio City; Michelina Artisan Boulanger, a French bakery; and Nonnas Empanadas, the empanada restaurant that started on 3rd Street in 2009. Nonnas Empanadas is now open; Local Ice and Michelina Artisan Boulanger are scheduled to open soon. 6333 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles, (323) 933-9211, www.farmersmarketla.com.

OC food hall: McFadden Public Market, a new food hall in downtown Santa Ana by restaurateur Leonard Chan and partner Phillip Kwan, is scheduled to open April 8. Some of the food vendors include a fried chicken stand called Rooster Republic; an ice cream shop called Milk Man; and a Vietnamese pho spot called Bone Stock. In addition to food stalls and bars, the hall will also feature vintage arcade games. 515 N. Main St., Santa Ana, www.mcfaddenmarket.com.

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Nowruz dinner: Chef Tony Esnault, his wife and business partner, Yassmin Sarmadi, and her mother, Shamsi Katebi, will host a series of Nowruz dinners to celebrate the Persian New Year at Spring restaurant downtown. The dinners will take place Wednesday through Friday and will replace the restaurants regular menu for those evenings. The prix-fixe menu will include five courses, including a traditional Persian dish of sabzi polow ba mahi (crispy rice with herbs and white fish), tea and cookies. There will also be a trio of classical Iranian musicians. The menu is priced at $66, and optional wine pairings are also available. 257 S. Spring St., Los Angeles, (213) 372-5189, springlosangeles.com.

Still hungry? A location of Alvin Cailans Eggslut has opened at Rick Carusos 252 S. Brand in Glendale, next to Shake Shack. E.P. & L.P. restaurant in West Hollywood has launched a new brunch menu with banh mi and Indonesian classics such as nasi goreng. Hinoki & the Bird in Century City has a tasting menu available every Wednesday night. Water Grill downtown is now serving brunch. CREAM, which stands for cookies rule everything around me, the shop known for its ice cream cookie sandwiches, will open a location in North Hollywood in April. The Guild Club, a new members-only, reservation-only club by husband-and-wife team Noah and Marin von Blom, is now open in the Costa Mesa South Coast Collection. Thomas Kellers the French Laundry is now using the Tock ticketing system for reservations.

Jenn.Harris@latimes.com

@Jenn_Harris_

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The father of a teenager accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in a bathroom stall at a Maryland high school has been arrested by federal authorities for being in the U.S. illegally, officials said.

Adolfo Sanchez-Reyes, a 43-year-old citizen of Guatemala, is being held at a Maryland detention center and was ordered to appear in immigration court, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

His sons case was highlighted by the Trump administration as evidence of a need for stricter immigration laws as local jurisdictions across the country declare themselves sanctuary cities.

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The son, Henry E. Sanchez-Milian, 18, along with a classmate, approached the victim earlier this month in the hallway at Rockville High School, where the classmate asked her to have sex, according to the Montgomery County Police Department.

She told police she refused.

Authorities say the classmate, 17-year-old Jose O. Montano, pushed the girl into a boys bathroom. She said she grabbed onto a sink to avoid being forced into a stall, but Montano pulled her in, according to court records.

Sanchez-Milian entered the stall, where he and Montano took turns raping the girl while she repeatedly told them to stop, the documents said.

Montano denied having sexual contact with the girl, telling authorities they went into the bathroom to tell jokes.

Sanchez-Milian initially said nothing happened, but later admitted to having sex with the victim with his friend Montano, according to court records.

Both teens were charged with one count of first-degree rape and two counts of first-degree sex offense.

An attorney representing Sanchez-Milian said text messages showed the girl was planning a sexual encounter with Montano at the time of the incident.

Everybody has jumped to an understandable conclusion, but the strong evidence indicates that both young men are innocent, said the attorney, Andrew Jezic. All parties were willing participants.

Federal immigration authorities detained Sanchez-Milian in August on suspicion of being in the country illegally, but let him go after 12 days, Jezic said.

ICE investigated Henry thoroughly, found out he had no criminal history, he had no gang ties, he was no threat to the national safety, Jezic said.

Sanchez-Milian was released to live with his father and ordered to appear before an immigration judge, though a date was not set because his case was not considered a priority because he had no criminal record or previous encounters with immigration officials, according to Gillian Christensen, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security.

Given his recent criminal arrest, ICE is filing charging documents in immigration court this week, Christensen said.

Jezic said the teens father, who was arrested Friday, is just a very humble, hardworking guy. He would not comment on the mans immigration status.

Maryland court records show that in 2011 the father pleaded guilty to driving without a license.

Montgomery County has a longstanding policy of not enforcing federal immigration laws. Local police do not ask individuals about their immigration status or target people based on their race or ethnicity.

In defiance of President Trumps pledge to crack down on illegal immigration, Maryland is considering implementing a state law that would prohibit law enforcement from stopping, arresting or searching individuals to investigate immigration violations.

The proposal came under fire Monday when Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions said making Maryland a so-called sanctuary state would be such a mistake.

I would plead with the people of Maryland to understand that this makes the state of Maryland more at risk for violence and crime, he said. It is not good policy.

alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @AleneTchek

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UPDATES:

5:15 p.m.: The story was updated with additional details about the rape, as well as a statement from the Department of Homeland Security.

The story was originally published at 12:20 p.m.
A sudden abundance of snowmelt has rendered a stunning spring landscape in the Owens Valley.

In sleepy towns such as Lone Pine, Big Pine and Independence, an all-but-forgotten sound adds to the serenity, as water again gurgles in every ditch and drain pipe.

But those welcome sounds of water have triggered a cacophony throughout the valley. Crews with chain saws clear culverts, bulldozers reshape reservoirs and backhoes clank and roar in the century-old aqueduct that is a key source of Los Angeles water.

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With snowpack levels at 241% of normal, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti recently issued an emergency declaration allowing the Department of Water and Power to take immediate steps to armor the aqueduct system. This means reinforcing ditches and stream banks with rocks and boulders, and bulldozing up new berms to protect the lattice of plumbing and acres of gravel beds the DWP built as part of its $1-billion dust-control project on dry Owens Lake, which L.A. drained to slake its thirst.

If the work crews lose the race, the 1 million acre-feet of water expected to flow through the century-old aqueduct system this spring and summer could overflow, damaging the web of earth and concrete channels and inundating not just the sprawling lake bed, but fields, homes and businesses.

DWP activities, however, have elicited concern in the Owens Valley since the turn of the 20th century, when Los Angeles agents posed as ranchers and farmers to buy land and water rights in the area. Their goal was to build the aqueduct system to meet the needs of the growing metropolis 200 miles to the south.

I want every DWP facility, ditch, diversion bypass, canal and conveyance structure available and operating as soon as possible.  Inyo County Administrator Kevin Carunchio

A tree branch sways in the breeze while water flows down Lone Pine Creek in Lone Pine. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

The stealth used to obtain the regions land and water rights became grist for books and movies  most famously Chinatown  that portrayed the dark underbelly of Los Angeles formative years and inspired deep-seated suspicions about the citys motives that linger to this day.

Officials insist that the current emergency poses a real threat not just to urban Los Angeles residents water supply, but to the ranchers, farmers, outdoor enthusiasts and small-business owners living in the sage-scented high desert gap between the peaks that frame the valley, some taller than 14,000 feet.

Conditions of extreme peril threaten the aqueduct system and valley residents, Garcetti said.

Im going to declare a state of emergency if our tourism industry goes down the toilet.  Tawni Thompson, director of the Bishop Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau

 With snowpack levels at 241% of normal, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti a week ago issued an emergency declaration allowing the Department of Water and Power to take immediate steps to shore up its aqueduct and its $1-billion dust-control project on

The crews swarming the valley are focused on protecting DWP infrastructure and a 110-mile stretch of U.S. 395, the principal route between Southern California and eastern resort areas. This leaves some folks living in the valleys bucolic towns fretting that they are being overlooked.

The emergency is already taking a toll on the tourism industry.

The Bishop Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau, for example, was forced to cancel the 50th annual Blake Jones Trout Derby scheduled for March 11 after the DWP rescinded its permission to hold the event because of dangerously high waters jumping the banks of the Owens River, just north of town.

Losing the derby was a $300,000 hit to the local economy, said Tawni Thompson, director of the chamber. Well never know how many vacationers decided not to come through Bishop because they were scared of dying in a flood.

Im going to declare a state of emergency, she added, if our tourism industry goes down the toilet.

Bernadette Johnson, superintendent of the Manzanar National Historic Site on U.S. 395, has been getting nowhere with requests for additional flood control measures along streams on DWP land just outside the boundaries of the location that was a Japanese American internment camp during World War II.

We were hit by destructive flooding earlier this year, and in 2013 and 2014, Johnson said. But the DWP is saying that when all hell breaks loose they wont have enough resources and manpower to help us. We have to wonder about their priorities.

In long legal battles spanning decades, the DWP was eventually forced to give up significant amounts of water to steady water levels in Mono Lake, re-water parts of dry Owens Lake to help prevent dust storms and restore a 62-mile stretch of the Lower Owens River.

Many residents suspect that the DWP plans to use emergency declarations to bypass rules and regulations that have prevented it from constructing paved roads, pumps and other infrastructure that would make it easier to do the dust control work on Owens Lake, which is owned by the State Lands Commission.

Richard Harasick, head of the DWPs water system, dismissed that notion: The department is not using this emergency declaration to take some sort of advantage or build special projects that would otherwise have to go through the normal regulatory process.

It is as much to help us manage the anticipated floodwaters as to aid in public safety, he said. It allows us to get goods, services and contracts faster, from heavy equipment to riprap needed to shore up banks and channels.

This week, Inyo, Kern and Mono counties were expected to issue their own emergency declarations, making them eligible for state and federal assistance in the event of flooding.

My proclamation will ask for critical resources, Inyo County Administrator Kevin Carunchio said. In the meantime, I want every DWP facility, ditch, diversion bypass, canal and conveyance structure available and operating as soon as possible.

The region has a history of destructive floodwaters rushing off the High Sierra.

In August 1989, for example, cloudbursts driven by 60-mph winds gouged out the dirt that held up the aqueduct near Cartago and closed a 63-mile stretch of U.S. 395.

Jon Klusmire, administrator of the Eastern California Museum in Independence, isnt taking any chances along a usually docile creek.

Ive devised a survival strategy for a worst-case scenario, he said. Im going to jam some boards in a nearby DWP diversion gate, then dig a ditch to divert the water away from the museum and into the streets.

How could it be that Los Angeles never developed a Plan B in a place where massive snowpack and destructive flooding go with the terrain?  Kathy Jefferson Bancroft, tribal historic preservation officer for the Lone Pine Paiute-Shoshone Reservation

Kathy Jefferson Bancroft stands in the middle of the dusty, saline Owens Lake. With a season of record snowfall in the Sierras, the Owens Valley is preparing for possible floods when everything starts melting. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

The big question for Kathy Jefferson Bancroft, tribal historic preservation officer for the Lone Pine Paiute-Shoshone Reservation, is this: How could it be that Los Angeles never developed a Plan B in a place where massive snowpack and destructive flooding go with the terrain?

Over the last 20 years the DWP has used shallow flooding, gravel and plots of vegetation to cut the dust across 50 miles of dry lake bed.

Bancroft surveyed some of the work from a dirt berm. Theyve reduced dust pollution here by 96% with these projects, she said. And theyre all going to be underwater soon.

Honestly, Im looking forward to seeing this lake filled up again, like it is supposed to be, she said.

That vista will be short-lived. The runoff is expected to evaporate within 12 to 18 months, leaving Los Angeles to repair damage to its dust abatement work and aqueduct system that could cost up to $500 million, officials said.

The rebuilding effort will be done in cooperation with state and federal regulatory agencies, local authorities and stakeholders, the State Lands Commission, which owns the lake bed, and the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District, which is responsible for protecting the health of Owens Valley residents.

When were done, itll be something different than what exists today, Harasick said. Thats because we plan to make it more flood-resilient.

Louis.Sahagun@latimes.com

@LouisSahagun

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Two Orange County residents are suing the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, alleging that a Mission Hills cemetery has misused maintenance funds and left their familys gravesites in ruins.

Jodi Howard and William Howard, whose relatives are buried at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, filed the class-action suit March 21 after they had difficulty finding the grave markers of their loved ones.

They allege breach of contract, negligence and fraud by concealment.

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Along with what they claim is the generally poor state of the cemetery grounds, the plaintiffs said grave markers were either missing, damaged or covered in overgrown weeds during their repeated visits.

Both of William Howards parents and his brother are buried at the site, as are the sister, the maternal grandfather and one great-grandparent of Jodi Howard. Jodi is Williams daughter-in-law.

Jeffrey Spencer, the attorney for the plaintiffs, said the poor state of the site is not relegated to one area, as the Howards relatives are buried in various locations.

The class relied upon the defendants agreement and duty to maintain their burial plots at the cemetery in  a dignified and respectful manner, and the complaint alleges that the archdiocese did not do that, Spencer said.

According to the lawsuit, arrangements with the archdiocese require that 15% of the amount paid for burials goes toward a cemetery maintenance fund to assure the care of gravesites.

Adrian Alarcon, a spokesperson with the archdiocese, said that despite its status as a religious ministry  state law exempts it from creating a financial reserve for an endowment care fund  the archdiocese voluntarily maintains a similar reserve.

We are not aware of any of the damage alleged in the litigation, Alarcon said. We want to assure our patrons that our cemeteries are committed to the steadfast care of the resting places of their loved ones.

The lawsuit seeks damages for emotional distress and the creation of a constructive trust that would replenish the cemetery maintenance fund for eventual restoration of the site.

Click here for a Spanish version of this story

jeff.landa@latimes.com

Twitter: @JeffLanda
A California State Parks police official said that the agency was not investigating a videotaped attack on an OC Weekly reporter and two photographers at a Make America Great Again rally over the weekend in Huntington Beach.

Parks police have not received any reports seeking an arrest or investigation into the alleged assault, nor have they reviewed videos of the attack at Bolsa Chica State Beach, said Capt. Kevin Pearsall, public safety superintendent for Orange Coast District of California State Parks.

The Huntington Beach Police Department said Tuesday that it did not get involved in the violent demonstration or make any arrests.

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Everything was handled by State Parks, said Jennifer Marlatt, a spokeswoman for the police department.

Three people were taken into custody at the event for suspected illegal use of pepper spray, Pearsall said. A fourth person was arrested on suspicion of assault and battery.

Nearly 2,000 people attended Saturdays noontime event, which was one of dozens of similar marches held nationwide to show support for first responders, military veterans, President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence .

But the beach rally turned violent when clashes erupted between marchers and anti-Trump protesters.

In the midst of the chaotic scene, Frank Tristan, a 21-year-old intern at the weekly paper, and photographers Julie Leopo and Brian Feinzimer said they were attacked.

A video of the confrontation showed a Trump supporter pushing and shoving Feinzimer. Feinzimer was taking photographs of Leopo, who was being struck with an American flag.

I grabbed [the flag] and threw it to the ground and then she grabs my arm, Feinzimer said in a phone interview Sunday. It just got so chaotic. There was so much rage and anger in the air.

When Tristan tried to defend Feinzimer, a man in a blue cap and white shirt can been seen in the video repeatedly punching Tristan in the face and head.

Thats when Jennifer Sterling, one of the events organizers, tried to intervene, but she and others were doused with pepper spray. The video showed Sterling staggering around and rubbing her eyes before falling to the ground.

It was a quick reaction, Sterling said. There was about 12 of them.

Leopo said she reported her attack to an officer at the scene but that the officer did not write up a report. On Sunday, she posted a photograph of the man in the blue cap and white shirt on her Facebook page and asked for help in identifying him.

Other demonstrators said they were also attacked during the rally.

According to witnesses, a group of flag-waving Trump supporters tackled a masked man who had wielded the pepper spray and started punching and kicking him.

The crowd chased the man, who jumped over a fence and started running along Pacific Coast Highway, where he was detained by California Highway Patrol officers.

About two dozen counter-protesters, some of whom dressed in black and wore face masks, said they were overwhelmed by Trump supporters and posed no threat. One insisted that the group used pepper spray only after they were attacked by their rivals.

The turmoil lasted about 10 minutes, and the marchers continued on with their rally, Pearsall said.

He said the event went better than expected, except for a moment of people misbehaving.

Staff writers Angel Jennings, Anh Do and Ruben Vives contributed to this report.

Click here for a Spanish version of this story

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

Twitter: VeronicaRochaLA
More than 13,000 customers across Southern California lost power Monday as gusty winds between 40 mph and 50 mph damaged trees, downed power lines and fanned small fires.

The National Weather Service issued high wind advisories and warnings Monday for the valleys, mountains and coastal areas that are expected to last until Tuesday morning. The warning indicates strong winds of up to 58 mph and possibly 65 mph for some areas.

By Monday evening the Los Angeles Fire Department had reported several incidents of structural damage due to high winds.

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More than 2,700 lost power in Mid-City, and more than 3,100 were without power in Lake Balboa, Van Nuys and Valley Village, according to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

Terry Schneider, a spokeswoman for the DWP, said most of the outages were probably weather related and caused by downed trees and loose palm fronds.

Crews are going to be working through the night to get customers power restored, Schneider said. The utility was working as quickly as possible, she added.

Wires were downed after a large oak fell, affecting three power poles in the 4000 block of North Sunnyslope Avenue in Sherman Oaks.

Strong winds downed two wires behind a two-story home in the 400 block of South Arden Boulevard in Hancock Park, resulting in several large trees catching fire. There were no injuries, according to the LAFD.

Southern California Edison said that the heavy winds caused small pockets of outages across Southern California: 153 customers lost power in El Monte; 88 in Lancaster; and nearly three dozen in Upland.

In Whittier, downed trees left two people with injuries, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

A person was injured after a tree fell about 5:10 p.m. in the 12400 block of Washington Boulevard, near Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital.

A second person was injured about half an hour later near Norwalk Boulevard and El Rancho Drive, a fire official said. A vehicle struck a downed pine tree; the driver was taken to a hospital. The condition of each of the two people was not available.

jeff.landa@latimes.com

Twitter: @JeffLanda

matt.hamilton@latimes.com

Twitter: @MattHjourno

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The story was originally published at 10:40 p.m.
Utility crews on Tuesday were working to restore electrical service to thousands of customers in Southern California after high winds knocked down trees and power lines.

Terry Schneider, a spokeswoman with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said about 6,000 customers were without power, mostly in the Mid-City area. She did not have an estimated time for full restoration of service, but said crews were working around the clock.

About 958 Southern California Edison customers remained without power, spokeswoman Maureen Brown said. She also could not estimate when full service would be restored.

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At its peak, Schneider said about 13,000 DWP customers went dark Monday as gusty winds between 40 mph and 50 mph damaged trees, downed power lines and fanned small fires.

TheNational Weather Service had issued wind advisories and warnings Monday for the valleys, mountains and coastal areas. Warnings indicate winds of from 58 mph to 65 mph are possible for some areas.

Schneider said the outages were most likely caused by fallen trees and loose palm fronds.

By Monday evening the Los Angeles Fire Department had received several reports of structural damage due to the high winds.

Wires were downed after a large oak fell, affecting three power poles in the 4000 block of North Sunnyslope Avenue in Sherman Oaks.

Winds downed power lines behind a home in the 400 block of South Arden Boulevard in Hancock Park, resulting in several large trees catching fire. There were no injuries, according to the LAFD.

In Whittier, downed trees left two people with injuries, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

A person was injured after a tree fell about 5:10 p.m. in the 12400 block of Washington Boulevard, near Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital.

About half an hour later a vehicle struck a downed pine treen ear Norwalk Boulevard and El Rancho Drive and the driver was taken to a hospital, a fire official said.

Neither injured persons condition was not available.

Forecasters say the winds are expected to diminish for most of the region late Tuesday morning.

ruben.vives@latimes.com

For more Southern California news, follow @latvives on Twitter.

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A woman was in stable condition Tuesday after she was stabbed inside her hospital room during a domestic dispute in the early morning, according to the Long Beach Police Department.

Police officers responded about 2:50 a.m. to St. Mary Medical Center in the 1000 block of Linden Avenue to investigate a stabbing inside a hospital room. Arriving officers learned that a female patient had been stabbed during a domestic dispute, according to a department statement.

Officers were able to locate the man suspected of stabbing the woman a short distance from the hospital and took him into custody. The man, whose identity was not being released by police, was booked on suspicion of attempted murder and domestic violence.

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The man is being held at Long Beach city jail pending $1-million bail. The incident remains under investigation.

Police said the woman suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was in stable condition.

ruben.vives@latimes.com

For more Southern California news, follow @latvives on Twitter.
On a recent day, three UC Berkeley researchers scanned the leaf-strewn campus hunting for treasures.

They were armed with equipment that looked like metal detectors, but their quarry wasnt dropped coins or jewelry. Doctoral student Mikel Delgado and her team were searching for hazelnuts theyd embedded with microchips to help them answer the question: How do squirrels decide where to bury their nuts?

Got one! called out Aryan Sharif, a senior studying ecology, as a number popped up on his microchip reader. Daniel Petrie, a research assistant, clipboard in hand, recorded that 5D49, buried by a squirrel nine months earlier, remained just where it had been, undisturbed.

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Squirrels are so ubiquitous, theyre easy to ignore. But Delgado and others at the Jacobs Lab for Cognitive Biology say theyre more than bright-eyed and bushy-tailed; theyre brainy enough to deserve a close look.

The rodents have figured out how to survive for millions of years, adapting on five continents to diverse terrain including tropical rainforests and semiarid deserts. They like nuts and seeds, but theyll eat bird eggs, tree bark, insects  and, at Berkeley anyway, French fries and chocolate.

They are relentless robbers of seeds from bird feeders, deftly defying attempts to deter them, as recorded in countless home videos and even a British documentary, Daylight Robbery. Lab founder Lucia Jacobs has been able to document that squirrels remember where they hide their nuts  no small feat, considering experts estimate each squirrel could stash as many as 10,000 a year. Researchers believe squirrels use large landmarks to narrow down their search and probably use smell and trial-and-error to find them. When they think competitors are spying, theyll even stage fake burials  digging a hole and pretending to drop a nut in it while hiding the loot in their mouths.

Each of 350 hazelnuts buried by Delgados squirrel study participants contains a microchip and was painted yellow and numbered. (Peter DaSilva / For The Times)

All of which drew Delgado, a punk-rock bass guitar player and lifelong animal lover, to devote herself to studying them at Berkeley for her psychology doctorate. The campus is an outdoor laboratory of hundreds of tree-dwelling fox squirrels, so popular that theyve inspired coverage by student journalists and their own Facebook page, Berkeley Squirrels. One Daily Californian article compared them to freshmen in their typical winter weight gain and endless search for free food.

You could probably study squirrels for 20 years and still have questions, Delgado said. Theyre fun to study. Theyre gregarious. They tease dogs. Theyve found a niche in this very unnatural urban environment and have thrived in it.

For her dissertation, titled Cache decisions, competition and cognition in the fox squirrel, Delgado is exploring where squirrels bury their nuts, how long those nuts stay buried and whether they get moved or stolen. Her work, which she began in 2014, is supported by a $20,000 National Science Foundation grant, which enabled her to purchase the microchip reader and pay for research assistance.

One line of inquiry is whether squirrels who are related bury their caches close to one anothers to promote their group survival. Another is the effect that having their nuts stolen has on squirrels long-term memory. She has yet to reach firm conclusions, although findings from computer simulations suggest that squirrels whose nuts are frequently pilfered may have shorter memories, because they have less need to remember their cache locations.

As Delgado strolls the campus, making clicking noises, squirrels bound toward her and stand on their hind legs to catch nuts she drops into their paws. She knows many of them, as they know her. Flame, easily identified by a crooked tooth, comes running. Shes a badass mama squirrel who is known for chasing competitors away when they get too close to her nuts, Delgado says.

Aryan Sharif, a senior studying ecology at UC Berkeley, uses a device to locate microchipped hazelnuts buried by squirrels. (Peter DaSilva / For The Times)

Her research team lures the squirrels with the nuts, then sprays the animals for tracking purposes with a nontoxic dye. Each is given a name: Flame, Autumn, Cookie, Britney Spears. The team collects data between moltings in order to keep the squirrels straight.

Delgado gave 350 nuts to Flame in 2014 and 300 nuts to 21 squirrels last year to monitor where they buried them and what happened afterward. An initial attempt to tag the nuts failed because the squirrels kept chewing off the tags. So Delgado moved to the microchips, thin cylinders as long as a thumbnail, slipping them into holes drilled in the nuts.

To test the question of how related squirrels behaved, Delgado lured nearly two dozen squirrels though a tunnel lined with double-sided tape and collected the tail hair stuck to it. She and another researcher are working with Berkeleys Evolutionary Genetics Lab to analyze the DNA.

The Jacobs Labs work on squirrels is helping scientists understand how animals exploit complex environments to survive, said John Koprowski, a University of Arizona professor of wildlife conservation and management.

Often humans view animals as not being as adept at handling challenges they face and dont have an appreciation for their incredible complexity, he said. The work at Berkeley enables us to look at the psychology, sensory abilities and learning of squirrels to find resources and deal with a complex, 3-D environment.

Delgado, 45, hardly expected to find herself studying squirrels. Shes a cat lover who grew up in Maine and dropped out of college there at 21 to join the punk-rock scene in San Francisco. She started a band, the Cinnamon Imperials, began working at a health food co-op and volunteered at the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Eventually, the SPCA gave her a job as a cat behavior specialist who socialized shelter cats to prepare them for adoption.

Squirrels in Delgados studies are marked with a nontoxic fur dye so theyre easier to spot. (Peter DaSilva / For The Times)

She returned to school at Cal State East Bay, where she majored in psychology and worked in a lab with pigeons and zebrafish. By graduation, shed gotten very interested in animal behavior, though not in those animals in particular.

I loved the birds and the fish, but I wanted to do something a little fuzzier, she said.

Delgado, a Mexican American, was recruited to the federally funded McNair Scholars Program, which seeks to prepare underrepresented minorities and first-generation college students for doctoral studies. She considered programs with pigeons at Cornell University and cats at Washington State University and the University of Nebraska. But Berkeley had Jacobs, a top-notch doctoral advisor, and the best financial package  a $24,000 annual stipend that allowed her to focus on her research, without teaching, for two years.

Today, Delgado splits her affections. Her Tolman Hall office is decorated with squirrel paraphernalia  squirrel-sized underpants, a squirrel nutcracker, squirrel cookie cutters. But she also has two pet cats and a tattoo on her leg in memory of Kittums, the grey and white tabby who made the trek with her from Maine.

In her free time, on her blog catsandsquirrels.com, she chronicles the exploits of squirrels  stealing Christmas bulbs, getting stuck in manholes  and reports on the perils of feline pudginess. She also co-runs a cat consulting business.

On track to finish her dissertation this fall, she is applying for various jobs, including postdoctoral and faculty positions. She isnt sure shell continue to study squirrels  but shes certain, based on her observations, that theyll continue to thrive.

Even if we disappear, squirrels will keep doing what theyve been doing for millions of years, she said.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

teresa.watanabe@latimes.com

Twitter: @teresawatanabe
On his drive to Calipatria State Prison, Ricardo Perez thought of the couple hed met a few months earlier and their desperate plea: Can you help us get our innocent relative out of prison?

It was spring 2012. Perez was fresh out of Loyola Law School and yearning for a meaningful case, so he agreed to look into their relatives conviction. After reading the trial transcript, he went to meet Marco Contreras.

Are you innocent? he asked him. If youre not, I wont judge you and I wont tell your family. But if Im going to spend the next several years on this, I need to know for sure.

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Contreras looked him dead in the eye, Perez recalled, and said, Im innocent.

That conversation led to years of investigation and, ultimately, Contreras release from custody on Tuesday  the second time this month that a team of lawyers and students from Loyola have helped free a wrongfully convicted man.

After spending 20 years behind bars, Contreras used the moments after his release to speak to others in his situation.

Keep fighting, he said in Spanish. Be patient and keep fighting.

Contreras, 41, who maintained his innocence, was convicted in 1997 of attempted murder and attempted robbery for a shooting at a Compton gas station a year earlier. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Superior Court Judge William Ryan ruled last week that Contreras was factually innocent, and Deputy Dist. Atty. Bobby Grace said Tuesday that prosecutors lost faith in Contreras conviction, adding that other men have been linked to the crime.

Attempted murder and conspiracy charges were filed Thursday against Antonio Salgado, 41; Antonio Garcia, 61; and Ricardo Valencia, 46. Both Garcia and Valencia pleaded not guilty Monday, and Salgado hasnt been arraigned.

Contreras attorneys say an eyewitness inaccurately identified him as the gunman, although hed been at home sleeping at the time. Its an example of the unreliability of witness misidentification, said Adam Grant, another Contreras attorney.

This is a huge problem, he said. Its a thorny problem because the public considers it reliable.

Marco Contreras, right, with attorney Ricardo Perez, who worked with Loyola Law Schools Project for the Innocent depart Los Angeles Superior Court after a judge released Contreras on Tuesday. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Loyola Law Schools Project for the Innocent began looking into the case in 2012 after Perez put them in touch with Contreras family. During their investigation, lawyers and students found new evidence, including a striking physical similarity between Contreras and Salgado. The team of attorneys then presented its findings to the district attorneys conviction review unit  a crew of prosecutors and investigators dedicated to overturning wrongful convictions  which conducted its own investigation, along with sheriffs investigators, into the shooting.

In a letter to the judge made public this week, prosecutors laid out the facts of the case, which they say point to Contreras innocence.

At a Mepco gas station on a September morning in 1996, a man fired several shots at Jose Garcia, who was wounded but survived after a month-long hospital stay. While stopped at a red light nearby, Alicia Valladolid, an intern for the L.A. County Sheriffs Department, saw the gunman run into a getaway car  a blue and beige Bronco.

She jotted down the license plate number and investigators tracked the car to Contreras. When his brother, Miguel, told police he owned the Bronco, he was charged with attempted murder, attempted robbery, as well as being an accessory after the fact. At Miguels preliminary hearing, Valladolid spotted Marco in the audience and told a detective he was the shooter shed seen. Marco was arrested and charged as the gunman.

At his trial, the victim expressed some doubt in identifying him as the shooter, saying, Im not sure about the face. And defense witnesses testified that Marco was home at the time of the shooting. But jurors found him guilty.

Miguel pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact and was sentenced to a 16-month prison sentence. His other charges were dropped as part of his plea deal.

After his release, he told Compton police that his brother  who had a clean criminal record  wasnt the gunman. Around that time, a detective had been trying to interview Salgado, a documented gang member the detective believed was the true gunman. Salgado fled to Missouri, records show, after realizing police were looking for him.

Although Miguel had long resisted being viewed as a rat, according to court records, he eventually told his family that Salgado was the gunman and agreed to help authorities with an undercover sting operation.

During a secretly recorded conversation with Valencia, Miguel brought up the shooting. Valencia told him it was an orchestrated hit likely tied to a drug dispute and said Salgado had admitted to being the gunman.

During a 2014 interview with prosecutors and Loyola attorneys, Miguel said he and Salgado had been hired by Antonio Garcia, another co-worker, to carry out a murder-for-hire plot. Miguel  who described his role in the crime as merely assisting a friend  said he believed Antonio Garcia had promised to pay Salgado $10,000.

Contreras release is the second big reversal handled by the district attorneys conviction review unit since its creation in 2015. Last year, prosecutors asked the same judge to throw out the murder conviction of a man charged in the 2000 slaying of a college student in a Palmdale parking lot. Earlier this year, Ryan tossed the conviction and declared Raymond Lee Jennings factually innocent.

In the other Loyola case from two weeks ago, a different judge threw out the murder conviction of Andrew Leander Wilson, who served 32 years behind bars after being convicted of a 1984 stabbing.

As Marco Contreras was escorted into court Tuesday, he turned to look at his family in the audience. He nodded at them several times, and tears welled in his eyes. Perez patted him on the back.

At the end of the hearing, Contreras  dressed in a black suit  stood to address the judge.

Id like to thank you for allowing me to be here, he said. Also the D.A.  Id like to say thank you to everybody.

The judge smiled and told Contreras he hoped he had a good support system to help him adjust to life outside of custody. The world, the judge warned him, had changed a lot in 20 years.

This is a new chapter, Ryan said. Good luck to you, sir.

The audience of Loyola students and Contreras family burst into applause, shouting, Woo! Woo! Woo! Contreras threw his fist in the air in celebration, and the courtroom bailiff smiled. Perez said a single word  surreal  was running through his mind.

During a news conference after the hearing, Contreras mother, Maria, walked slowly toward her son. She embraced him in a tight hug and congratulated him in Spanish.

Felicidades, hijo! she told him. Felicidades, mi hijo!

She told reporters shed always known he was innocent, saying before his arrest that hed never gotten in trouble  not even a traffic ticket, she said.

Asked whether he felt any rancor, Contreras shook his head: No, none. Theres no reason.

For now, he said, he was looking forward to two things: good Mexican food and April 11. Hes a Jehovahs Witness, and thats the day his denomination will remember the anniversary of Jesus death.

His faith, he said, had kept him from spiraling into depression.

marisa.gerber@latimes.com

For more news from the Los Angeles County courts, follow me on Twitter: @marisagerber

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UPDATES:

7:10 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details about the case and quotes from Perez and Marco Contreras.

This article was originally published at 2 p.m.
Ahmed Kathrada, a close confidante of Nelson Mandela who dedicated his life to opposing apartheid and racism, died in Johannesburg on Tuesday morning. He was 87.

Kathrada died after suffering a short period of illness, according to a statement from the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation. He was hospitalized earlier in March to receive treatment for blood clotting in his brain.

Kathrada, or Kathy as South Africans affectionately called him, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island during the apartheid era, with Nelson Mandela and 10 other anti-apartheid activists, all arrested in a 1963 police raid on their hideout at Liliesleaf Farm, north of Johannesburg.

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Kathrada, an African National Congress activist, played a major role in South Africas liberation struggle. He called Mandela his elder brother, and mourned his 2013 death with the words, My life is a void.

He got his first taste of politics when he was 12 and served his first stint in jail for political activism at 17. He was banned from political activities but continued to play cat-and-mouse with South African police. He was arrested 18 times.

Kathrada was the son of Indian migrants, Mohamed and Hawa Kathrada, who arrived from Gujarat in India and set up a small shop in 1919 in the modest town of Schweizer Reneke, 200 miles from Johannesburg, in what is now North West Province. Barred from the local primary schools as an Indian, he went to Fordsburg, Johannesburg, to live with his aunt, Fatima, and attend an Indian school.

At 12, he joined a nonracial youth group run by the Youth Communist League and he soon volunteered to hand out leaflets.

He left school in his final year to work for the Transvaal Passive Resistance Council, an organization that led peaceful protests against the racist segregation laws that preceded apartheid (which came in 1948) and barred blacks, Indians and people of color from voting, living and doing business in certain areas or buying land.

Thousands of Indians marched in Durban, staging a national strike and pitching tents in the citys center, which they called Resistance City. Police arrested 2,000 people over several months in 1946, including Kathrada, who was jailed for a month. From then on, Kathrada was in and out of trouble with the law for political resistance.

To Kathrada, a life of humiliation and without dignity is not worth living, words he wrote in one of his letters from Robben Island. He ignored the racist Europeans Only signs and laws that enforced segregation and prohibited blacks, Indians and other people of color from traveling freely. Once, when he got onto a Europeans-only bus, an indignant white woman told him and his colleagues to read the sign.

We responded by saying that, We do not mind sharing a lift with Europeans, and that she was welcome to join us, he wrote last year on the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation website. Of course, she must have been horrified at the attitude of us non-Europeans and chose not to take the lift. But, we asserted our dignity, and made our point.

In 1951, Kathrada traveled to an international student congress in Poland and visited Auschwitz, which he said had a profound effect on him, encapsulating the evil of institutionalized racism.

A year later, he helped organize the Defiance Campaign, a peaceful protest campaign, and was one of 20 leaders convicted and given a suspended sentence of nine months hard labor.

He was banned from attending gatherings or participating in politics, but that didnt slow his activism.

In 1955, he was one of the organizers of a peoples congress in Kliptown, Soweto, that proclaimed the Freedom Charter  a document demanding a nonracial South Africa where all races were equal. It later became the foundation of South Africas constitution. Banned from political activity, Kathrada had to hide in a storeroom during the event.

In the early 1960s he began dating a white girlfriend, Sylvia Neame, another anti-apartheid activist. Such relationships were illegal under apartheid laws. When he was jailed on Robben Island in 1963, Neame told him that she would wait for him, but in 1965 she was jailed for two years for her political activities, and she fled South Africa soon after her release.

Kathrada, along with Mandela, was one of 156 anti-apartheid activists charged in the four-year Treason Trial in 1956. All were eventually acquitted.

But Kathrada was continually harassed by police, arrested, banned and placed under house arrest. Friends advised him to flee into exile but he said he was determined to stay and continue resisting the regime. He went underground in 1962, adopting disguises when he wanted to move about, but was arrested again in 1963 with Mandela and 10 others and convicted of sabotage.

The prisoners were shackled and flown to Robben Island, where he would spend 18 years of a 26-year sentence. Family members and friends were often barred from visiting him. Newspapers and radios were banned in the prison and Kathrada was allowed to receive only one letter every six months.

When prison authorities gave Mandela and the other black prisoners shorts and Kathrada got trousers, he intended to insist on wearing shorts too. Mandela urged him not to give up any benefit he had, but instead to fight for all to have the same benefit. Kathrada and other Indian and colored prisoners shared food rations with black prisoners who were given less.

The prisoners concealed items in secret compartments and bribed or blackmailed guards to get hold of newspapers or smuggle out letters. Kathrada spent six months in solitary confinement for smuggling a letter to another prisoner.

In prison he wrote to his mother that he regretted neglecting his formal education. He made up for it, becoming the first prisoner on Robben Island to get a degree, a bachelor of the arts in history and criminology. Later he received three additional degrees.

He kept a secret collection of letters and notebooks of inspiring quotations, but they were confiscated in 1972, along with a photograph of his girlfriend. A warden destroyed the photograph in front of him, saying Kathrada had no right to keep a photograph of a white woman.

Later, Kathrada and another prisoner took advantage of the weekend guards shift, offering to clean out the cell where the confiscated items were being held. They recovered many of his letters and notebooks.

The injustices of apartheid  some petty, some large  always hurt, but Kathrada wrote from prison that my nature will not allow me to harbor hatred for anyone, no matter how deeply he may have wounded my feelings.

In 1989, at the age of 60, he was released from prison and soon met a woman who would be his life partner, Barbara Hogan, another ANC activist. She had been jailed for 10 years for high treason. The couple never had children.

Kathrada was elected to parliament in the first democratic elections in 1994 and became an advisor to Mandela.

Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, believes South Africa could have been plunged into civil war in the 1990s if not for Mandela, Kathrada and other activists.

People like Kathy have helped because of their lack of bitterness, their magnanimity and generosity of spirit and willingness to forgive, even after so much suffering, Tutu said.

After his release, getting used to devices such as cellphones and computers, Kathrada occasionally missed the calm reflective moments of prison.

I missed prison. There, they open the gates for you and close the gates. They provide food. There was a lot of time to think and discuss. That time was gone, he told one journalist.

He believes Robben Island, now a museum, should not be seen as a memorial to the brutality of apartheid.

We would want it to be a triumph of the human spirit against the forces of evil, a triumph of wisdom and largeness of spirit against small minds and pettiness, a triumph of courage and determination over human frailty and weakness, he said. The words are inscribed near the entrance of Robben Island prison.

Kathrada is survived by his partner, Hogan.

robyn.dixon@latimes.com

Twitter: @RobynDixon_LAT

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Christine Kaufmann, an Austrian-born actress who became the countrys first Golden Globe winner and was married to Tony Curtis in the 1960s, has died. She was 72.

Kaufmann died in Munich, Germany, after a battle with leukemia, her management company told the dpa news agency Tuesday.



For the record: This article incorrectly state that Bagdad Cafe was released in 1997. It was released in 1987.

Born in 1945, Kaufmann made her acting debut in 1952 and won a Golden Globe for her 1961 Hollywood debut, Town Without Pity, in which she played, alongside Kirk Douglas, a German girl raped by American soldiers.

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She met Curtis a year later while filming Taras Bulba and the two married in 1963. They had two daughters before divorcing in 1968.

Kaufmann also appeared in the 1997 cult classic Bagdad Cafe, an offbeat comedy set in a desolate truck stop cafe and motel in the Mojave Desert.

While continuing to act, Kaufmann later in life also wrote health and beauty books, and established her own line of cosmetics.
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee acknowledged Monday that he had made a secret visit to the White House last week to view intelligence files he then cited as proof of potentially improper spying activity against President Donald Trump, casting new doubt on the independence of a congressional investigation into Russian election interference.

The admission by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., triggered calls among Democrats for his removal as chairman of the House panel and bipartisan appeals for an independent probe of Kremlin meddling in the 2016 election and potential connections between Russia and Trump associates.

The committees ranking Democrat, Adam Schiff, Calif., called late Monday for Nunes to recuse himself from any further involvement in the Russia investigation and all oversight matters pertaining to any incidental collection of the Trump transition, noting Nunes was a member of Trumps transition team.

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Nunes has denied any wrongdoing and dismissed calls for him to step down Monday night, saying on Fox News that Im sure that the Democrats do want me to quit because they know that Im effective at getting to the bottom of things.

The development coincided with the disclosure that Trumps son-in-law and close adviser, Jared Kushner, had privately met in December with the chief executive of a Russian bank being targeted by U.S. sanctions and that Kushner has agreed to discuss such contacts with the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Trump administration officials sought to play down the significance of both developments, describing Kushners contacts as inconsequential and refusing to answer questions about the Nunes visit. Im not going to get into who he met with or why he met with them, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said.

Trump, in his response, sought to pressure the House committee, arguing that the panel should be probing Bill and Hillary Clintons ties to Russia instead of those of his campaign advisers.

In a pair of evening tweets, Trump wrote that the Trump Russia story is a hoax and listed a string of financial and other connections the Clintons have had over the years with Russia. He asked why the House Intelligence Committee is not investigating the former president and former secretary of state.

Nunes meeting with a source and his review of intelligence material apparently occurred in a secure space for handling classified files within the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House. Nunes returned to the White House the next day - bypassing colleagues on the House committee - supposedly to brief Trump on what he had learned.

The attempts to keep such matters hidden from public view, however, added to the perception that the Trump administration has failed to be forthcoming about contacts with Russia and is working with allies on Capitol Hill to blunt congressional probes.

The Senates top Democrat said that House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., should remove Nunes to salvage that chambers investigation of Moscow influence. If Speaker Ryan wants the House to have a credible investigation, he needs to replace Chairman Nunes, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said.

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.

Asked about Nunes White House visit, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said, Not good. Its not a confidence builder. He said were rapidly getting to the point where a select committee or independent commission is need to conduct the investigation into Russian meddling.

Nunes said in an interview Monday that no one in the Republican leadership had asked him to step aside, and he defended his actions as part of an attempt to investigate potential misconduct by U.S. spy agencies against Trump associates.

Everybody is worried by process and they should be worried about what Ive actually said about what Ive seen, Nunes said, when asked whether it was proper for him to visit the White House under those circumstances. Why all the worry about where I saw information? We go to the White House all the time, our job is providing oversight of the executive branch.

Nunes had previously refused to say how or where he had seen classified files he cited in a hastily arranged news conference last week, saying that he had obtained troubling evidence that U.S. spy agencies incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition.

At a time when the White House was struggling to defend Trumps baseless accusation that he had been wiretapped under orders issued by then-President Barack Obama, the Nunes assertion helped shift public attention and, to some, cast Trump as a victim of espionage abuse.

In reality, Nunes appeared to be referring to legitimate intelligence operations against foreign individuals who were either in contact with Trump associates or mentioned them in conversations that were monitored as part of routine U.S. surveillance. Nunes reiterated Monday that he has seen no evidence of illegality.

Current and former national security officials described Nuness trip to the White House complex, apparently late in the evening after he had slipped away from his staff, as highly unusual. Doing so would ordinarily require Nunes and the person he met with to have been cleared in advance and accompanied by an escort - requirements that seemed to undercut White House claims to have no information about the encounter.

How incredibly irregular, said Matt Olsen, who served in the Obama administration as the head of the National Counterterrorism Center and the general counsel at the National Security Agency. The only explanation youre left with is that this is all being orchestrated by the White House.

Nunes again declined to disclose with whom he met, citing the need to protect people who bring information to the committee, and Im going to protect my source. His office said he met the source on the White House grounds.

The House Intelligence Committee is authorized to handle classified information and routinely meets with officials - including whistleblowers - from U.S. spy agencies.

Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said that because of limitations on House computer systems, Nunes could not have used secure facilities at the Capitol to review the files. He added that the White House grounds was the best location to safeguard the proper chain of custody and classification of these documents.

Nunes has said that the documents include references to Trump advisers and associates, but do not pertain to Russia. In the past few days, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former campaign advisers Carter Page and Roger Stone volunteered to make themselves available for interviews with the Senate and House Intelligence committees.

On Monday, officials from the White House and Senate said that Kushner had also offered himself for an interview with the Senate Intelligence Committee, at a date yet to be determined. The development was first reported by the New York Times.

A senior congressional official said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., spoke with the White House counsel some weeks ago to warn that the panel would be seeking to speak with administration officials, including Kushner. The White House indicated to the committee over the weekend that Kushner would be willing to participate.

The White House had previously disclosed that Kushner met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at Trump Tower in December, a session also attended by former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was fired for lying about the nature of his contacts with Kislyak.

On Monday, the White House acknowledged a previously undisclosed meeting between Kushner and Sergey Gorkov, chief of Russian government-owned Vnesheconombank. The bank, which handles Russias pension funds and deals with development activity for the state, including foreign debts and investments, has been under U.S. sanctions since July 2014, in response to Russias intervention in Ukraine.

The bank also has been tied to Russian intelligence services.

In early 2015, one of the banks New York-based employees, Evgeny Buryakov, was arrested and accused of being an unregistered spy for Russias foreign intelligence service, working with two Russian diplomats who were also secretly acting as spies. According to the U.S. government, they collected information about U.S. sanctions against Russia, and American efforts to develop alternative energy resources.

Buryakov pleaded guilty in March 2016 to conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government, though he never admitted to being an employee of Russias foreign intelligence service.

Spicer defended Kushners meetings, saying that he was the official primary point of contact with foreign governments and officials during the campaign and transition period.

The Washington Posts Robert Costa and Devlin Barrett contributed to this report.
The idea of Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions going to the White House to announce the continuation of an Obama administration policy related to immigration would have been unthinkable months ago. But thats what happened Monday.

Sessions, decrying the safety risk posed when cities dont cooperate with federal immigration authorities, repeated previous statements that the Trump administration would seek to deny so-called sanctuary cities some federal grant funds. He offered no new policies, simply reiterating an Obama administration directive from the previous summer. But he did so with stark rhetoric intended to resonate with fellow advocates of aggressive moves to target illegal immigration.

Countless Americans would be alive today and countless loved ones would not be grieving today if these policies of sanctuary cities were ended, Sessions said.

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His statement was the most visible sign of how the White House hopes to regain its footing after the collapse of its healthcare bill  returning to the types of largely symbolic gestures on campaign promises that were a staple of its early weeks.

In his first full week in office, President Trump used executive authority to target a slew of Obama priorities, seeking to restart construction of oil pipelines, review new overtime pay rules and formally break from the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership. Many of those orders did not actually change policies, but did highlight issues Trumps voters care about.

On Monday, Trump was back at it  rescinding Obama-era regulations through a 1996 law that sought to give Congress an effective veto of executive directives.

The Congressional Review Act had been used just once before Trump took office; he signed four at once, addressing regulations on government contracting, development on public lands and education that the White House said hurt the economy and further centralized power in Washington.

This was a lot of work for a lot of people to get this done, but its going to lead to a lot of good jobs and a lot less regulation, Trump said at a signing ceremony attended by Republican lawmakers.

Only days earlier, a more somber president admitted that enacting more far-reaching legislation was a much heavier lift. A three-week sprint to pass the first major plank of his legislative agenda ended with GOP leaders calling off a vote on the American Health Care Act, the long-promised mechanism for repealing and replacing Obamacare.

The White House on Monday still had little appetite for dwelling on that setback, setting it aside as they re-calibrate strategy on an equally daunting task: a rewrite of the federal tax code. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer only tentatively stood by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchins previously stated August target date for legislation.

Spicer also didnt rule out renewing efforts to address Obamacare, either with the cooperation of Democrats or with new ideas from fellow Republicans.

Obamacare had a ton of fits and starts during its process. It was left for dead multiple times, but they pressed forward, he said. There are people coming to the table, but hes going to listen to all good ideas across the spectrum to figure out what it takes to get to 218.

But the highest-profile symbolic move came from Sessions. He noted that any jurisdiction applying for grants from his department would have to certify that it was in compliance with federal immigration law. He didnt mention that the Justice Department already has been requiring that at least since July, so police and sheriff departments that currently have Justice Department grants already have been asserting that they meet the requirements of federal law.

Although many cities have policies that they, or critics, characterize as sanctuary, those policies do not necessarily mean they are violating the law.

Sessions did say that the Justice Department could impose additional requirements later, but announced none.

Fundamentally, we intend to use all the lawful authority we have to make sure that our state and local officials, who are so important to law enforcement, are in sync with the federal government, he said.

He also warned against jurisdictions adopting sanctuary status. The California Legislature is considering a proposal to institute the designation statewide; Sessions, though, singled out Maryland, which has a similar proposal.

That would be such a mistake, Sessions said, while noting Marylands Republican governor opposes the change proposed by the heavily-Democratic Legislature.

California Senate leader Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles), author of the sanctuary state legislation, said Sessions announcement amounted to blackmail, and accused him of using alternative facts to describe immigrants and sanctuary counties and cities.

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.

michael.memoli@latimes.com

For more White House coverage, follow @mikememoli on Twitter.

Times staff writer Jazmine Ulloa contributed to this report.

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A lawyer for former deputy Atty. Gen. Sally Yates wrote in letters last week that the Trump administration was trying to limit her testimony at congressional hearings focused on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The hearing was later canceled by the House intelligence committee chairman.

In the letters, attorney David ONeil said he understood the Justice Department was invoking further constraints on testimony Yates could provide at a committee hearing that had been scheduled for Tuesday. He said the departments position was that all actions she took as deputy attorney general were client confidences that could not be disclosed without written approval.

We believe that the Departments position in this regard is overbroad, incorrect, and inconsistent with the Departments historical approach to the congressional testimony of current and former senior officials, ONeil wrote in a March 23 letter to Justice Department official Samuel Ramer.

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The White House said Tuesday it did not interfere with Yates plans to testify.

We have no problem with her testifying, plain and simple, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.

Yates lawyer said she still intended to testify and would not disclose any classified information. A requirement that she not discuss even nonclassified material is particularly untenable given that multiple senior administration officials have publicly described the same events, ONeil said.

House committee Chairman Devin Nunes announced on Friday he was canceling the hearing, days after the committees first hearing in which FBI Director James Comey confirmed that the bureau was investigating President Trumps associates ties to Russia. Cancelling the hearing was one of several moves that have sparked outrage among Democrats on the committee. The typically bipartisan panel has been torn by disputes over Nunes ties to Trumps campaign and questions about whether he can lead a probe independent of White House influence.

On Tuesday, Nunes rebuffed calls to step aside from the investigation.

Its the same thing as always around this place  a lot of politics, people get heated, but Im not going to involve myself with that, he said.

House Speaker Paul Ryan continued to express confidence in Nunes on Tuesday, saying there is no need for the chairman to resign.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee  which is also investigating the Russia ties  said White House meddling in Congress Russia investigations is not helping to remove the cloud that increasingly is getting darker over the administration.

The Washington Post first reported on the letters from Yates attorney. The missives were posted online and a person familiar with the situation confirmed them as authentic to The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the correspondence.

The White House called the Post story entirely false and said the administration had not taken any steps to block Yates from testifying at the hearing at which other Obama administration officials were also scheduled to testify.

ONeil declined to comment Tuesday, and a Justice Department spokeswoman did not return a message seeking comment.

Yates, who was fired in January as acting attorney general after she refused to defend the Trump administration travel ban, was expected to be questioned about her role in the firing of Trumps first national security advisor, Michael Flynn. Yates alerted the White House in January that Flynn had misled the White House about whether he had discussed sanctions in a December phone call with the Russian ambassador to the United States. Flynn was not ousted from the White House until the discrepancies were made public.

The hearing would have been another public airing of the infighting within the committee. Democrats on Monday called on Nunes to recuse himself from the investigation after he acknowledged he went to the White House complex to review intelligence reports and meet a secret source. Shortly afterward, Nunes announced that Trump associates communications had been caught up in incidental surveillance, a revelation Trump used to defend his unproven claim that his predecessor tapped the phones at Trump Tower.

The Republican congressmans disclosure prompted the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of Burbank, as well as the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, to call on Nunes to recuse himself from the committees Russia probe.

Schiff said Nunes connections to the White House have raised insurmountable public doubts about whether the committee can credibly investigate the presidents campaign associates.

I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the presidents campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman, Schiff said in a statement Monday.

But Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), a member of the committee, said Tuesday that Nunes should step down in the interest of our integrity. She said his actions raise questions about whether the panels investigation can be unbiased and independent.

If you become a White House whisperer, you are not independent, she said on CNN.

Nunes argues he had to review classified, executive branch documents from a secure facility at the White House because the reports had not been provided to Congress and could not be transported to the secure facilities used by the House intelligence committee. It is very unusual for a committee chairman and ranking member not to coordinate meetings related to an investigation.

Nunes would not name the source of the information, nor would he disclose who invited him on the White House grounds for the meeting. He described the source as an intelligence official, not a White House official. In an interview on CNN, he suggested the presidents aides were unaware of the meeting.
Jae Lee suspected that criminal charges the government had filed against him could lead to deportation, something he desperately wanted to avoid.

Born in South Korea, Lee had moved to the United States in 1982 at age 13 and had never returned. He received lawful permanent resident status, which allowed him to live and work in the United States legally, and as an adult, he forged a career as a successful restaurateur in Tennessee. But he never sought U.S. citizenship. So when he was arrested in 2009 on felony charges of possession of Ecstasy with intent to distribute, one of his top concerns was whether the charges could lead to his deportation to a country he barely knew.

Lee repeatedly expressed this concern to his lawyer. But even though the lawyer had more than two decades of criminal law experience, he knew little of the separate and arcane civil immigration codes. Federal prosecutors were not seeking deportation as part of the deal, the lawyer told Lee  so he had nothing to worry about. The lawyer persuaded Lee to plead guilty to an aggravated felony and serve a year and a day in prison, rather than go to trial and face a possible three-to-five year sentence if convicted. What the lawyer didnt know was that under immigration law, the guilty plea made Lee ineligible to remain in the country. When Lee entered the plea, the judge asked Lee if he understood he could face deportation. Lee expressed confusion, but the lawyer again told him not to worry about it  he had been in the country for three decades and the government couldnt deport him. So Lee took the deal.

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His lawyers lack of legal knowledge meant Lee was unable to make the best decision for his defense, as is his right in a criminal proceeding.

Lee only learned the lawyer was wrong when he arrived at a prison for inmates who face deportation once their sentences are up. Lee filed a legal challenge seeking to rescind his guilty plea, arguing that his lawyers erroneous understanding of immigration law had led him to accept a plea deal he otherwise would have rejected.

It seems obvious that a lawyer should be required to explain to his client the full ramifications of such a decision. But a federal district court and the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals both rejected Lees argument under the U.S. Supreme Courts 1984 Strickland vs. Washington decision, which said that such ineffective counsel appeals must clear two hurdles: They must prove that the legal counsel was ineffective, and that the ineffectiveness affected the outcome of the case. The lower courts  and the prosecution  agreed that Lees lawyer had failed to give him the information he ought to have received, but they also said that the evidence against Lee  that he sold Ecstasy to a government informant, and that agents armed with a search warrant found 88 pills at his home  meant he likely would have been convicted anyway, at which time he would have become ineligible to stay in the country. Given that, the courts concluded that a reasonable person would have taken the plea bargain because it meant less prison time before deportation.

The Supreme Court, which hears oral arguments in Lees case Tuesday, should overturn those decisions. The decisions hinge on speculation about what would have happened at trial if Lee had rejected the plea bargain. Lee rightly argues that anything can happen in court  evidence could be suppressed, witnesses could change stories, fickle juries may not believe a prosecutors narrative. Lee, fearing deportation more than a few additional years of prison, argued that if he had understood the certainty that his guilty plea would lead to a deportation order, he would have either held out for a better plea bargain that wouldnt have affected his legal status or rolled the dice at trial. His lawyers lack of legal knowledge meant Lee was unable to make the best decision for his defense, as is his right in a criminal proceeding.

In the Supreme Courts 2010 Padilla vs. Kentucky decision, Justice John Paul Stevens said that deportation is an integral part  indeed sometimes the most important part  of the penalty that may be imposed on noncitizen defendants who plead guilty to specific crimes, and that obtaining accurate legal advice has never been more important. Lees lawyer failed to perform that fundamental function, and Lee should not be held to a decision he made based on demonstrably wrong legal advice.

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The U.S. Supreme Court did the right thing Tuesday when it rejected Texas absurd approach to determining whether a convicted murderer is too intellectually disabled to be executed. Too bad the court still supports the underlying absurdity, the death penalty itself.

The case, Moore vs. Texas, centers on Bobby James Moore, who was convicted and sentenced to death in the 1980 robbery-murder of a supermarket employee. Moores lawyers argued that his intellectual disability makes him ineligible for the death penalty under the courts 2002 Atkins vs. Virginia decision, which found that executing the intellectually disabled violated the 8th Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. But that decision left it up to states to determine the threshold for eligibility.

That didnt go well. Florida set a hard line at an IQ score of 70, even though IQ tests have a margin of error and the contemporary medical standard for assessing intellectual disability involves more than IQ tests.

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Condemned inmate Freddie Lee Hall, whose IQ scores were within that margin of error, challenged his death sentence. The Supreme Court subsequently ruled in Hall vs. Florida (2014) that an IQ level of 70 alone was insufficient to determine eligibility for execution and that adaptive functioning  the ability to sufficiently understand the world to navigate it  must be considered, too. But again, the court left it up to the states to define who would be exempted informed by the medical communitys diagnostic framework.

Rather vague, that, and Tuesdays decision didnt offer much clarity, other than to tell Texas that the way it was making such decisions was wrong.

Moores involvement in the killing isnt at issue, and his disabilities are indisputable. He twice failed first grade and still could not understand the concept of telling time at age 13. He also suffered a severe brain injury when he was struck in the head with a brick and a chain during a violent clash over school integration (Moore, who is African American, was trying to board a school bus).

Further, Moores father kicked him out of the house when he was 14 because of his poor school performance, and Moore quit school altogether when he flunked every class in his freshman year of high school. Soon after, he was using drugs and engaging in petty crimes. The robbery in which the killing occurred was an effort by Moore and two friends to come up with cash for a car payment.

Texas decided that those disabilities werent bad enough to save Moore, based on its criteria. But those are rooted in outdated clinical definitions established in 1992, and the Briseno factors, a set of seven determinations the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals came up with to measure how the average Texan would assess someones intellectual capacity.

The court told Texas that while states have leeway in determining eligibility for death, the process must be rooted in reality.

As The Times editorial board said last year in urging the Supreme Court to throw out Texas procedure, the Texas court developed the standards to reflect its view that not everyone who is diagnosed as intellectually disabled for clinical purposes necessarily deserves to be spared from execution. But defining intellectual disability should be based on scientific and medical standards, and its preposterous that Texas determines life or death based in part on what an average person might think.

In Tuesdays ruling written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the court told Texas that while states have leeway in determining eligibility for death, the process must be rooted in reality. And Texas was not.

That instruction cannot sensibly be read to give courts leave to diminish the force of the medical communitys consensus, Ginsburg wrote. Moreover, the several factors Briseno set out as indicators of intellectual disability are an invention of the CCA untied to any acknowledged source. Not aligned with the medical communitys information, and drawing no strength from our precedent, the Briseno factors creat[e] an unacceptable risk that persons with intellectual disability will be executed.  Accordingly, they may not be used, as the CCA used them, to restrict qualification of an individual as intellectually disabled.

Murder is a heartless crime, robbing the victims of life and thrusting their families and friends into unfathomable depths of grief, anger, and loss. They are entitled to those emotions, but it is not in societys best interest to execute those found guilty.

Beyond the basic immorality of killing, and the unreliability of the criminal justice system, executions are the ultimate government intrusion. They neither deter future crimes and only occur after unconscionably long delays that undermine the death penaltys penological purpose, as Justice Steven J. Breyer wrote in questioning the constitutionality of capital punishment.

Its bad enough that we still cling to this medieval practice, and I hope the Supreme Court sooner rather than later follows Breyers skepticism and ends it. But at least now Texas cant go even deeper in the realm of the cruel and execute people who dont understand what is happening to them, or why.

Scott.Martelle@LATimes.com

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To the editor: This editorial misleadingly implies that I am blocking consideration of SB 57 and ignores my continued commitment to renewable energy and, above all else, the safety and well-being of consumers. (Dont reopen Aliso Canyon until we know what caused the worst methane leak in history, editorial, March 23)

I do not oppose SB 57, which would prohibit the reinjection of gas into the Aliso Canyon facility until the completion of an independent study. The amendments that I (and not the Southern California Gas Co.) proposed reflect my concern for the health and safety of all Californians.

State regulators say there is not enough gas to ensure the reliability of the electric grid in Southern California during extreme heat events. As history has tragically proved, blackouts during severe heat waves threaten health and can cost human lives. It would be irresponsible of the Legislature to fail to prevent such harmful outcomes.

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SB 57 would neither close nor reopen Aliso Canyon. Its open and will remain open even if the bill is signed. The amendments would simply limit the amount of gas that can be injected or withdrawn, provided state regulators determine it is safe.

State Sen. Ben Hueso (D-San Diego)

The writer is chairman of the Senate Energy Committee.

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To the editor: The Times righteous indignation is an example of why our government is paralyzed. (Its not Neil Gorsuchs fault, but we cant support his ascension to a stolen Supreme Court seat, editorial, March 25)

Although it acknowledges that Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch is qualified, The Times urges a refusal to move this process along simply to stay focused on what the GOP did despite the fact such refusal will accomplish little but increased rancor. This petulance is simply unacceptable from leaders who must ensure that the electorates needs are addressed.

We need a Supreme Court that is not split for our system to work. If the nominee is qualified, then political payback should be of no concern.

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Our leaders need to grow up and deal with the realities of our current government and try to work within those parameters for the benefit of the American people.

Rena Kreitenberg, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: Democrats must not back Gorsuch and should fight this nomination even if it results in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) invoking the anti-filibuster nuclear option.

Gorsuch shouldnt get a vote until Judge Merrick Garland, President Obamas nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy, gets one. We cannot allow Republicans to subvert the Constitution and steal this seat.

If Hillary Clinton had been elected president with the help of a foreign power, would the GOP have allowed her to fill this seat? Absolutely not. I am tired of the Democrats always being the grown-ups in the room.

Coleen Barker, San Juan Capistrano

..

To the editor: The reason that you cant endorse Gorsuch, an eminently qualified candidate, is payback for a slight given to Obama?

Our current president is Donald Trump. No matter how much you dislike him, you should be able to recognize that he has nominated a fine, highly qualified candidate to the Supreme Court.

Unless you can find something lacking in his qualifications, you should either support Gorsuch or withhold comment.

Larry Hart, Tarzana

..

To the editor: While it could turn out that Gorsuch will ally himself with the courts conservatives, resulting in more 5-4 decisions that Democrats abhor, I see another strong possibility supported by how similar his career is to that of retired Justice John Paul Stevens.

When he was nominated in 1975, Stevens was ensconced firmly in the Republican establishment. His main opposition came from the National Organization for Women, which was certain he would oppose womens movement for equality. Upon his retirement 35 years later, he was celebrated by NOW.

Given his erudition and character, Gorsuch could very well turn out to be a bulwark against the blind partisanship that is at the root of our countrys current existential crisis.

Al Rodbell, Carlsbad

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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
President Trump on Tuesday will order the Environmental Protection Agency to dismantle his predecessors landmark climate effort, backing away from an aggressive plan to cut emissions at power plants that had been the foundation of Americas leadership on confronting global warming.

The work of reducing such emissions will continue in California and many other states  and around the world. But the move by Trump threatens to cede the role America had established in leading the global environmental fight, and further cements the Trump administrations alliance with a fossil fuel industry that has long resisted climate action.

The directive that administration officials said Trump will issue takes aim at the Clean Power Plan, a far-reaching initiative former President Obama signed in 2015. The program mandates a substantial reduction of utility plant emissions by 2030. The plants account for nearly a third of the greenhouse gas released in the United States, making them the nations most potent accelerator of global warming.

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We are going to go in a different direction, said a senior administration official who briefed reporters ahead of the presidents announcement under the condition of anonymity. The president has been very clear that he is not going to pursue climate or environmental issues that put the U.S. economy at risk.

Trumps order to retreat from the plan places in jeopardy the ability of the United States to meet its obligations under the international climate change accord Obama took a lead in negotiating in Paris, which EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt criticized over the weekend as a bad deal. It also invites a years-long legal and political battle with well-funded environmental groups and states embracing the targets.

Trumps plans to curb climate action also reach well beyond power plants. A pioneering EPA rule that sets a social cost for carbon, placing a dollar value on the long-term damage caused by each ton of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, will be eliminated. An Obama-era requirement that all government agencies factor climate effects into their decision making, particularly as they launch new projects, is also targeted. Trump will also lift a moratorium on coal leasing on federal land.

But it is the power plant rules that have been the cornerstone of federal efforts on climate change. Trump will join 27 states that were already fighting the Clean Power Plan, characterizing it as an overreach of federal authority  even as many of the states resisting it were already on track to meet the plans requirements. Pruitt was a leader of the crusade to scuttle the plan in his previous job as attorney general of Oklahoma.

The Supreme Court put the power plant rules on hold last year to allow states to make their case before federal judges. Trump is expected to ask a Washington, D.C., circuit court to put off an imminent ruling on the legality of the Clean Power Plan while the EPA drafts new, weaker rules.

Its clear that the past administration had a very anti-fossil-fuel strategy, Pruitt said when asked about Trumps pending order on ABC on Sunday. This is a promise hes keeping to the American people to say that we can put people back to work and be pro-environment as well.

The effect Trumps action would have on the economy is very much in dispute. Energy experts warning that the clean power rules raise prices, inhibit job growth and constrain the ability of companies to pivot as market conditions change are countered by others reporting that the rules are helping drive a robust green energy sector and that innovations are lowering the cost of power. Several large corporations point to cost savings as a factor in their own pursuit of green energy.

The Trump administrations effort will be met with lawsuits from environmental groups and liberal states arguing it is legally bound to enforce the power plant rules, which were drafted through an extensive regulatory process that ultimately involved 4.3 million public comments and endless hours of hearings and workshops. They will point to the EPAs finding in 2009 that greenhouse gases endanger the public health and welfare and must be controlled, and the Clean Power Plan is an essential part of controlling their release.

There is a real question of whether they can legally dismantle the Clean Power Plan and replace it with nothing, said Jody Freeman, who was Obamas advisor on climate change and now directs the environmental law program at Harvard. Before the plan was put in place, she said, utilities found themselves exposed to potentially costly nuisance lawsuits from states demanding they take action to limit exposure to the public health threat of carbon. Those suits could reemerge, she said, if the revised EPA plan lifts greenhouse gas restrictions on power companies.

The utilities may find themselves opening a Pandoras box, Freeman said.

Several Western state governors and big-city mayors, including Gov. Jerry Brown and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, have already made clear that Trumps order will not discourage their eager embrace of clean energy. Too much is at stake  from our health and safety to our jobs and livelihoods  for us to move backwards, their joint statement said.

In California, the state was already so far ahead in reducing emissions by the time the Clean Power Plan was signed that it had no effect on the states energy plans. In many ways, the Obama plan was a vindication of Californias own landmark climate efforts, launched in large part to motivate nationwide action at a time when the White House  then occupied by George W. Bush  was resistant to joining the international climate fight.

Now, liberal coastal states are no longer alone in having invested heavily in lower-emissions plants. As prices for natural gas plunged in recent years, moving companies to abandon coal-burning facilities, even states that sued the Obama administration find themselves far along in meeting the goals the EPA laid out for them under the Clean Power Plan. Some of those states also embraced their own aggressive targets for emissions reductions, as part of an effort to bolster homegrown renewable energy industries and promote domestic energy independence.

Even without the Clean Power Plan, the U.S. Energy Information Administration anticipates renewable electricity generation will grow by 3.9% a year. With the Clean Power plan in place, it would grow even faster, the agency found, at 4.7% annually through 2030.

evan.halper@latimes.com

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When House Speaker Paul D. Ryan pulled the plug on the GOPs Obamacare overhaul, lawmakers spilled out of the Capitol basement, angry, frustrated and stunned.

But Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), leader of the conservative and rebellious House Freedom Caucus that led the fight against the bill, was uncharacteristically quiet, downplaying his political victory and mulling over the next move.

After coming together to battle President Obama and becoming a driving force in the Republican Party, this 30-member-plus bloc of deficit hawks and right-flank conservatives had appeared for a while to be pushed aside by the movement that swept President Trump into office.

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But after helping defeat the GOP healthcare overhaul, the Freedom Caucus has roared back to relevance as a political power in the Trump era. It has reasserted itself as not just a renegade assemblage of mostly back-bench lawmakers, but as a core block of votes that Trump will need to push past the healthcare debacle to tax reform, budget battles and other issues.

These guys saved the Republicans, said Adam Brandon, president of FreedomWorks, a group that organized a North Carolina rally on Monday in honor of Meadows. As beaten and battered as they are, weve got a group thats willing to take the hard decisions. If youre going to drain the swamp, these are the guys who are going to do it.

Perhaps unintentionally, the White House opened the door for the groups resurgence by allowing the Freedom Caucus to bypass Ryan and negotiate directly with Trump on the healthcare bill, even though the president in the end failed to close the deal with them.

Fellow GOP lawmakers  accustomed to battling the Freedom Caucus over spending bills, the debt ceiling and the ouster of former House Speaker John A. Boehner  are now blaming the group for botching the partys best chance to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

The blowback reached a peak over the weekend as Trump tweeted critically about the group, essentially accusing them of helping Democrats.

For some members, the fallout has been difficult, especially because, as the most conservative lawmakers, they largely come from red districts Trump won handily.

It was one thing to confront a Democratic president or even to defy GOP leaders in Washington. But as shown by Meadows reluctance to take a victory lap, going head-to-head with Trump carries greater risk.

Already one member, Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), has quit the group in the aftermath of the health fight, complaining that the caucus knows only how to oppose initiatives, not to build them.

Other Republicans and some in the White House have wondered whether it is time to leave the right flank behind and start working with Democrats to advance shared goals.

Caucus members have been careful not to gloat since the healthcare clash, blaming the bills failure on GOP moderates and the partys leaders, but never Trump, despite his missives against them.

Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) was careful to praise Trump repeatedly during an interview Monday on CNN. Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio said he would welcome Trump to visit his district. Meadows and others say they still want to work with the president to craft a healthcare bill.

They may have their chance. We still have a promise to keep, so the speaker wants members to continue discussing this issue until we can find a path ahead, Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said Monday after the speaker visited the White House.

The return of the Freedom Caucus has forced some soul-searching among the Republican majority that controls the House and Senate, and it has left the White House to wonder whether Trump should continue to negotiate with them or look elsewhere for votes.

Some Republicans have suggested they start working more closely with moderate Democrats, a case made by Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), a Trump ally who is co-chairman of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, during a weekend interview on National Public Radio.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Monday the administrations strategy and future alliances would depend on the legislation.

Were going to work with anybody who wants to work with us on achieving the goals the president set out, Spicer said.

Of course it wasnt just the caucus that doomed the healthcare overhaul, the American Health Care Act, which was also panned by centrist Republicans.

But after Republicans repeated battles with the rebellious caucus over the years, patience has grown thin. There is a growing realization that the groups unwillingness to bend on conservative principles often leaves it unable to compromise to pass legislation.

Theyd vote no against the Ten Commandments if it came up for a vote, Poe said on CNN. So Im angry about that. I think its time we lead and continue not to say no on everything that takes place when bills come forward.

The White House also appears to have gained some experience in dealing with the bloc. Administration officials came to see the members as moving the goal post during final hours of negotiations and making new demands. They understand what theyre working with now, one GOP source said.

The caucus has never been popular among rank-and-file Republicans, and slipped from prominence after they forced Boehner into early retirement in late 2015.

Ryan for a time had been able to work around the restive bloc, in part because Congress undertook few serious legislative lifts that required direct confrontation with the most conservative among them.

But as Ryan and the White House watched their hopes of quickly overhauling Obamacare slip amid Republican infighting, they brought Meadows and others to the bargaining table to negotiate.

Meadows and his allies took on starring roles in talks over the American Health Care Act, at one point whisking off to Mar-a-Lago, the presidents Florida resort, where he had retired for the weekend, to work directly with White House aides on the bill.

To many, the ability of the Freedom Caucus to leave the sidelines and negotiate directly with the president changed the status quo, said a GOP aide familiar with the group who requested anonymity to assess the situation. Negotiating with the president? Thats a game changer.... Thats a huge, huge symbolic and strategic victory. I think theyre stronger than ever coming out of this.

But whether Trump will continue to court the group as he pursues a tax deal and his budget remains to be seen. A clue will come next month when Congress will need to pass a spending bill to avert a government shutdown after April 28.

As Republicans begin to tackle the next big agenda item  tax reform  Meadows appeared to offer an overture toward compromise when he suggested that tax cuts would not need to be strictly revenue-neutral, or fully offset with spending reductions elsewhere.

But the chairmans offer is not one that all members of the caucus share, so his ability to bring along about 30 votes on that would not be guaranteed.

After the healthcare battle, rank-and-file Republicans have little patience with the caucus.

A handful of ideologues are locking up the will of most of the country, Rep. Steve Russell (R-Okla.) said. They have a propensity for no and they find a way to get to no.

Staff writer Brian Bennett contributed to this report.

Devin Nunes spokesman confirms he met source for surveillance claim at White House 

In healthcare defeat, President Trump learns a costly lesson that could imperil his agenda 

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State and local leaders in California struck a defiant tone Monday, saying they would continue to protect people in the country illegally despite an announcement by U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions that the U.S. Department of Justice would soon cut federal grants from so-called sanctuary cities.

During an appearance in the White House briefing room, Sessions repeated previous statements from the Trump administration decrying the danger of sanctuary cities, which limit cooperation between local and federal authorities on immigration enforcement. He did not offer new policies, and Justice Department officials said any new measures would be weeks or months in the future.

But in Sacramento the swiftest reaction came from state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles), who is championing legislation that would effectively make California a sanctuary state by prohibiting state and local police from enforcing federal immigration laws. He called Sessions statements nothing short of blackmail.

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Instead of making us safer, the Trump administration is spreading fear and promoting race-based scapegoating, De Leon said in a statement. 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.

#JeffSessions and @WhiteHouse continue #AlternativeFacts streak. Truth is sanctuary cities are less dangerous than nonsanctuary cities.  Kevin de Len (@kdeleon) March 27, 2017

Through an executive order in January, President Trump first put cities and counties on notice that they would lose federal funding if they didnt cooperate with immigration agents. The move has broad implications for California, a state that aggressively protects its immigrant population from deportation.

Sessions reiterated old policy during his appearance Monday. The administration of former President Obama issued instructions last July that required any cities applying for Justice Department grant programs to comply with a federal immigration law that requires local, state and federal agencies respond to requests from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Although many municipalities have policies that could qualify them as sanctuary cities, those policies do not necessarily mean they are violating the law.

Still, officials in sanctuary cities across California scrambled to touch base on Monday with attorneys to explore their legal options. For most cities, the move to declare themselves sanctuary jurisdictions largely serves as a message of political support for immigrants in the country illegally.

But some cities have adopted specific sanctuary policies, most notably San Francisco, which took steps to cut ties with federal immigration officials and refused to fully cooperate with them.

The citys stance has come under criticism from Trump and was revisited Monday during Sessions briefing. The attorney general cited a high-profile case in San Francisco, where a 32-year-old woman was killed by man who had been previously deported multiple times despite a request by immigration authorities to continue his detention.

Countless Americans would be alive today and countless loved ones would not be grieving today if these policies of sanctuary cities were ended, Sessions said.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee could not be reached for comment, but he sent a tweet soon after Sessions announcement.

#SF knows that #SanctuaryCities are safer, more productive, healthier places to live. We work for all our residents. #SFStandsAsOne, he said.

Sessions comments also stirred opposition from leaders in California still calculating the fiscal impact of federal funding cuts on the state. And the move could further fuel tensions over a bill from De Leon that would prevent state and local law enforcement agencies from using resources to enforce federal immigration laws.

Law enforcement officials have said they are torn on whether the proposed state law, Senate Bill 54, would hinder public safety. But it has attracted a long list of supporters who say the state must ensure tax dollars are not used to assist mass deportations under the Trump administration.

The tension over immigration enforcement will take center stage in the state capital Tuesday night as Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, a former Republican candidate for Congress and staunch critic of illegal immigration, is scheduled to host a community forum with Thomas Homan, the acting ICE director.

Here are the real facts on Sanctuary Counties.



-Household income is $4,353 higher



-Poverty rate is 2.3% lower



-Unemployment is 1.1% lower  Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) March 27, 2017

On Monday, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom took to Twitter to rebuke Sessions, citing statistics showing that sanctuary cities have lower crime rates.

State Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, a strong supporter of sanctuary cities, said Sessions is overstepping his authority.

In California, we respect the Constitution and abide by federal law; we expect the federal government to do the same, Becerra said in a statement. The Trump administration should rethink its plan to force state and local governments to do the federal governments bidding on immigration.

Becerra said he wants to make sure violent criminals who are in the country illegally are removed from the streets, but said the federal government should not undermine local law enforcement by withholding money.

Last week, he filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Santa Clara Countys lawsuit challenging the Trump administrations threats to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities and counties.

I will continue to work with our federal law enforcement partners for the good and safety of all our people, Becerra said. But its a low blow to our brave men and women in uniform to threaten to withhold public safety funding that they have earned unless Donald Trump gets his way on immigration. We will fight to protect those policing resources, just as we will protect all the residents of our state against unconstitutional overreach by our federal government.

Gov. Jerry Brown refrained from responding to Sessions comments Monday. But in an appearance Sunday on NBCs Meet the Press, taped during Browns visit to Washington last week, he forcefully defended Californias acceptance of immigrants, including those who are in the U.S. illegally.

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.

Times staff writers Patrick McGreevy, Michael Memoli and John Myers contributed to this story.

Tensions flare as state Senate committee takes up sanctuary state bill 

jazmine.ulloa@latimes.com

@jazmineulloa

cindy.carcamo@latimes.com

Twitter: @thecindycarcamo

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ALSO:

Nothing short of blackmail: California Senate leader denounces plan to cut funding from sanctuary cities

Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions criticizes sanctuary cities but offers no new policies

Heres why law enforcement groups are divided on legislation to turn California into a sanctuary state

California lawmakers advance proposals to strengthen states protections for immigrants facing deportation

Updates on California politics
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
Adam Schiff views documents White House says back Trump surveillance claim By Michael A. Memoli (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press) Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) traveled to the White House Friday to view documents President Trump has said partially vindicate his claim that his predecessor ordered surveillance of him during the campaign. In a statement, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said he was told they were precisely the same materials viewed previously by the committees chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), which Schiff said should now be shared with the full panel membership. Nothing I could see today warranted a departure from the normal review procedures, Schiff said, adding that he could not discuss the contents of the documents, which remain classified. Nunes was shown the documents last week by White House officials surreptitiously, then announced to reporters the next day that he needed urgently to go to the White House to brief Trump about them. Schiff, in his statement, said that the White House has yet to explain why senior White House staff apparently shared these materials with but one member of either [Intelligence] committee, only for their contents to be briefed back to the White House. Schiff also had a brief but cordial meeting with Trump during his time at the White House, a spokesman said. White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters earlier Friday that other Democrats have been invited to the White House to view the materials, which he said would shed light on their investigation. Both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees are conducting separate reviews of Russian interference into the 2016 election; Trump has asked each panel to also probe his own claim that his predecessor engaged in wire tapping of his phones at Trump Tower during the campaign, an assertion that has been denied by Nunes as well as the heads of the FBI and intelligence agencies. Facebook

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Mnuchin regrets plugging The Lego Batman Movie, pledges to exercise greater caution in the future By Jim Puzzanghera Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Friday told a top government ethics official he should not have publicly plugged The Lego Batman Movie  a film in which he has a financial stake  and promised to exercise greater caution in the future. I take very seriously my ethical responsibilities as a presidential appointee and the head of the Department of the Treasury, Mnuchin wrote to Walter Shaub, director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. On Monday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Shaub to determine whether Mnuchin had committed an ethics violation last week when he discussed the movie during an event hosted by the Axios news website that aired on C-SPAN2. Read More Facebook

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Rep. Adam Schiff says its too early to consider an immunity deal for Michael Flynn By Associated Press The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee says its too early to consider an immunity deal for President Trumps former national security advisor. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) says that Michael Flynn even discussing possible immunity in exchange for protection from prosecution is a grave and momentous step because of the seniority of his former position. Schiff says the House Intelligence Committee is interested in hearing Flynns story, but there would have to be coordination with the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Justice Department on the terms. The House and Senate intelligence committees and the FBI are investigating Russias meddling in the 2016 election. The investigation includes scrutiny of Flynns ties with Russia. Read More Facebook

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Trump administration admonishes California chief justice over claim that agents are stalking immigrants By Del Quentin Wilber U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions (Mark Wilson / Getty Images) The Trump administration on Friday fired back at Californias top judge, disputing her characterization this month that federal immigration agents were stalking courthouses to make arrests. In a letter to Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, leaders of Trumps Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security objected to her description of federal agents conduct. As the chief judicial officer of the state of California, your characterization of federal law enforcement is particularly troubling, wrote Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, objecting to Cantil-Sakauyes use of the word stalking. They said agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were using courthouses to arrest immigrants in the U.S. illegally, in part, because California and some of its local jurisdictions prohibit their officials from cooperating with federal agencies in detaining such immigrants under most conditions. Sessions and Kelly told Californias top judge that she should consider taking her concerns to Gov. Jerry Brown and the cities and counties that limit local law enforcements involvement with immigration agents. Cantil-Sakauye, a former prosecutor who rose through the judicial ranks as an appointee of Republican governors, said through a spokesman that she appreciated the Trump administrations admission that they are in state courthouses making federal arrests. Making arrests at courthouses, in my view, undermines public safety because victims and witnesses will fear coming to courthouses to help enforce the law, she said Friday. She expressed disappointment that courthouses, given local and state public safety concerns, were not listed as sensitive areas offlimits to agents. Federal policy lists schools, churches and hospitals as sensitive areas. The letter from the Justice Department officials defended the arrests of immigrants at courthouses. By apprehending suspects after they have passed through security screening at courthouses, federal agents are less likely to encounter anyone who is armed, the letter said. The arrest of individuals by ICE officers and agents is predicated on investigation and targeting of specific persons who have been identified by ICE and other law enforcement agencies as subject to arrest, they wrote. Cantil-Sakauye had asked the Trump administration on March 16 to stop immigration agents from seeking immigrants at the states courthouses. Courthouses should not be used as bait in the necessary enforcement of our countrys immigration laws, she wrote in a letter to Sessions and Kelly. Her letter did not say which courthouses had been the location of such stalking, but judges and lawyers in Southern California have complained of seeing immigration agents posted near courts. She said she feared the practice would erode public trust in the state courts. Sessions and Kelly urged Cantil-Sakauye to speak to Brown and other officials who have enacted policies that occasionally necessitate ICE officers and agents to make arrests at courthouses and other public places. Facebook

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Back in the spotlight, Hillary Clinton takes aim at Trumps budget By Evan Halper Hillary Clinton stepped back into the spotlight this week after laying relatively low since the election, and she had some advice for President Trump: Tear up the White House budget plan. Clinton was at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security to bestow an award named in her honor to Colombian leaders who helped bring an end to war in that country and elevate the role of women in the peace process. She spoke of the progress the world has made in advancing womens rights since she spoke forcefully on the issue two decades ago when the U.N. gathered world leaders to address it in Beijing. But she warned that progress is threatened by Trump. We are seeing signals of a shift that should alarm us all, Clinton said. This administrations proposed cuts to international health, development and diplomacy would be a blow to women and children and a grave mistake for our country. Clinton then raised the letter signed by 120 former generals and admirals beseeching the Trump administration not to make the cuts. These distinguished men and women who have served in uniform recognize that turning our back on diplomacy wont make our country safer. It will undermine our security and our standing in the world. A lot has changed since Clinton was on the campaign trail, but some things about her style on the stump havent. She pulled out a favorite line from last year as she began to talk about a study that backed up her point about the damage Trumps budget plan could do. Here I go again, Clinton said to whooping and cheering from an audience of mostly female students, talking about research evidence and facts. Facebook

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Seeking a way forward, Trump increasingly finds himself at odds with his own party By Michael A. Memoli (Evan Vucci / Associated Press ) President Trump won his office in spite of the best efforts of some in his party. Now, the tenuous nature of the bonds between Trump and the GOP are increasingly on public display as the president openly feuds with conservatives and White House officials debate whether to reach out to Democrats in order to restart his domestic agenda. The latest and strongest evidence came Thursday as Trump escalated his political battle against the members of the House Freedom Caucus, the conservative lawmakers who helped block the healthcare bill he backed. Early in the morning, he said on Twitter that the caucus would hurt the entire Republican agenda if they dont get on the team. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018! he added. It was an extraordinary message, suggesting that Trump might try to back challengers in primaries against lawmakers of his own party  something few presidents have tried, none with much success. Read More Facebook

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Tillerson tells NATO allies to pay more, do more to fight terrorism By Catherine Stupp Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday promised NATO allies that the United States will stand by their side but also expected them to spend more on defense and do more to fight terrorism. Tillerson participated in a day of discussions with foreign ministers from the 27 other NATO member nations, his first with the full roster of allies, who were sent scrambling last week to accommodate the top U.S. diplomat after he said he could not attend the meeting originally planned for early April. The United States is committed to ensuring NATO has the capabilities to support our collective defense. We understand that a threat against one of us is a threat against all of us, Tillerson said. But, he added, as President Trump has made clear, it is no longer sustainable for the U.S. to maintain a disproportionate share of NATOs defense expenditures. The United States is amping up pressure on NATO members to increase their defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product, in line with a 2014 agreement among the alliances 28 member countries to meet the target by 2024. Only five NATO countries meet the 2% threshold. The U.S. spends 3.61% of its GDP on defense, more than any other member of the alliance. Tillerson said that if countries have not met the 2% spending goal by the end of the year, they should at least have a concrete plan that clearly articulates how, with annual milestone progress commitments, the pledge will be fulfilled. Pressure to meet that strict deadline is likely to upset some allies. German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel told reporters before Fridays meeting that he thinks it would be completely unrealistic for Germany to bring its military defense spending up to 2% of GDP. I dont know any politician in Germany who thinks that this would be reachable or desirable, Gabriel said. Germany is increasing its military spending this year to $39 billion, or 1.2% of its GDP. Gabriel rejected the Trump administrations focus on military expenditures, arguing that humanitarian aid and Germanys spending to take in refugees should be considered part of the defense budget. Tillerson also called on allies to take a greater role in the fight against terrorism. NATO can and should do more, he said. Fighting terrorism is the top national security priority for the United States, as it should be for all of us. Tillersons earlier announcement that he would skip the meeting struck a nerve among the alliance members, coming at a sensitive time when tensions between the Trump administration and NATO allies have soared. The schedule change caused an awkward protocol shuffle, with a handful of foreign ministers unable to make it to Brussels. What was supposed to be a two-day meeting was compressed into half of a day. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg tried to cast optimism on the last-minute schedule change, calling it a sign of the strong transatlantic unity and flexibility of our alliance that we were able to find a date. The foreign ministers meeting is crucial because it lays the groundwork for a NATO summit with heads of state in May, which will be President Trumps first overseas trip since taking office. Tillersons day of talks at NATO headquarters in Brussels follows visits from Defense Secretary James Mattis and Vice President Mike Pence, who attempted to dispel fears that the Trump administration will seek to loosen ties with the alliance. Trump called NATO obsolete in an interview published days before his inauguration. He later insisted, during German Chancellor Angela Merkels visit to the White House earlier this month, that the U.S. will maintain its strong commitment to the alliance. Tillerson arrived in Brussels on Friday morning after meeting Thursday in Ankara, Turkey, with that countrys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to discuss terrorism and Syria, though the leaders failed to reach an agreement on how to combat Islamic State. Facebook

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Trump weighs in on Michael Flynns request for immunity President Trumps former national security advisor, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, is seeking immunity from prosecution in return for testifying to the House and Senate intelligence committees, a congressional aide said. The development was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Gen. Flynn certainly had a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit, his lawyer, Robert Kelner, said in a statement. No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch-hunt environment without assurances from unfair prosecution. On Friday morning, Trump tweeted his support for Flynns request. Flynn was ousted as Trumps national security advisor last month after news reports disclosed that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about phone conversations with Sergey Kislyak, Russias ambassador to the U.S. The calls were picked up by U.S. surveillance targeting the Russian envoy, and a description of the contents was leaked to the Washington Post after the Justice Department warned the White House that Flynn could be subject to blackmail. Read More Facebook

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Former national security advisor Michael Flynn seeks immunity By David S. Cloud President Trumps former national security advisor, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, has been seeking immunity from prosecution in return for testifying to the House and Senate intelligence committees, a congressional official confirmed Thursday. The negotiations were first reported by the Wall Street Journal. In a statement, Flynns lawyer, Robert Kelner, said Gen. Flynn certainly had a story to tell and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit. No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch-hunt environment without assurances from unfair prosecution. Trump fired Flynn three weeks into the new administration after news reports disclosed that he had lied to White House colleagues, including Vice President Mike Pence, about his contacts with Sergey Kislyak, Russias ambassador to the U.S. In December, Flynn had telephone conversations with Kislyak in which he discussed sanctions that the Obama administration had recently imposed on Russia to punish Moscow for its interference in the 2016 presidential election. Flynn denied to Pence and other officials that he had discussed the sanctions with Kislyak. So far, the committees, which are investigating Russian interference and whether anyone close to Trump colluded with Moscow, have not taken Flynn up on his offer, the Journal reported. Facebook

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Trump administration appeals Hawaii judges order against travel ban By Jaweed Kaleem The Department of Justice has appealed a Hawaii court order that brought President Trumps travel ban to a national halt. The government has argued that the president was well within his authority to restrict travel from six Muslim-majority countries and put a pause on refugee resettlement. The appeal Thursday to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals came a day after U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu refused to dismiss his temporary block of the travel ban that he issued on March 15. With the appeal, the government is now fighting to reinstate the travel ban in two appeals courts on opposite ends of the country. That increases the likelihood that one of the cases will make it to the U.S. Supreme Court. Earlier this month, the Department of Justice appealed a Maryland district judges order against the travel ban to the U.S. 4th District Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. Both rulings in Hawaii and Maryland said Trumps executive order discriminated against Muslims. Watson and U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland cited Trumps campaign promises to suspend Muslim travel to the U.S. as proof of his orders anti-Muslim bias. The Hawaii ruling is broader than the Maryland one. It blocks a 90-day pause on travel to the U.S. from nationals of six majority-Muslim countries and a 120-day moratorium on new refugee resettlement. The Maryland ruling only halted the ban on travel into the U.S. by citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The 9th Circuit, which has jurisdiction over nine Western states, is the same court where a panel of three judges denied a government request last month to reverse ruling against the first travel ban by a federal judge in Washington state. Trump, in turn, lambasted the bad court and signed a new executive order on travel on March 6 that was modified in an attempt to survive court challenges. Facebook

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Senate heads for nuclear option if Democrats filibuster Gorsuch nomination By Lisa Mascaro One of the Senates most serious jobs  confirming the presidents choice for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court  has devolved into a game of political chicken. Senators are heading toward an institution-defining showdown next week as Democrats promise to try to block President Trumps nominee, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, with a filibuster, a rarely seen maneuver for high court appointments. Republicans are threatening to respond by changing long-standing Senate rules to circumvent the 60 votes that would be needed to overcome a filibuster. Instead they would allow confirmation with a simple majority. The outcome has the potential to not only shape the future of the Supreme Court  which has been without a full bench since the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia last year  it also could crush one final vestige of bipartisanship in the Senate, altering the upper chamber for years to come. The battle over the Supreme Court seat was always expected to be a partisan affair in todays heated political climate. But the polemics intensified after the Republican majority denied President Obamas nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, a confirmation hearing ahead of last years presidential election. Read More Facebook

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Scalias seat has been vacant longer than any Supreme Court justices in nearly 50 years By Colleen Shalby (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) Its been more than 400 days since Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalias death left his seat vacant. With Republicans having blocked a vote on then-President Obamas nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, and with Senate Democrats now making plans to filibuster President Trumps nominee, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, it could take even longer to replace Scalia. Its not unheard of for a justices seat to remain empty for a considerable amount of time. Pew Research Center did the math and found that the longest gap was 841 days, in the mid-1840s, from the time of Henry Baldwins death to his replacement Robert Griers confirmation. But the last time in recent history that a vacancys duration in this range occurred was after Abe Fortas resigned in 1969. It took 391 days to fill that seat, an interval that ended in 1970 when Harry Blackmun  the justice who authored the courts landmark opinion in Roe vs. Wade  was confirmed. Blackmun was President Nixons third pick to fill that seat. The second-longest vacancy in recent years occurred in 1988. It took 237 days to fill Lewis Powells seat after he retired, with Anthony Kennedy succeeding him. Its been 58 days and counting since Trump nominated Gorsuch. Heres how his waiting time from nomination to confirmation stacks up against the current justices: Elena Kagan: 87 days

Sonia Sotomayor: 66 days

Samuel A. Alito Jr.: 82 days

John G. Roberts Jr.: 23 days

Stephen G. Breyer: 73 days

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: 50 days

Clarence Thomas: 99 days

Anthony M. Kennedy: 65 days If Gorsuch is confirmed soon, he wont start considering cases until the courts new term in October.

And if hes not confirmed? Trump would nominate another successor to Scalia  theres no limit on how many times he can do that. Until Scalias seat is filled, lower courts decisions serve as tie-breakers. Facebook

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Sens. Manchin and Heitkamp become first Democrats to announce support for Gorsuch By David Savage Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota became the first Democrats to say they will vote for Judge Neil Gorsuch and not support the effort to filibuster his confirmation to the Supreme Court. Their announcements came as no surprise. Both are centrists who have to run for reelection next year in states that voted overwhelmingly for Trump. After considering his record, watching his testimony in front of the Judiciary Committee and meeting with him twice, I will vote to confirm him to be the ninth justice on the Supreme Court, Manchin said. I have found him to be an honest and thoughtful man.... I have not found any reasons why this jurist should not be a Supreme Court justice. Heitkamp said she was impressed with Gorsuchs record as a judge. This vote does not diminish how disturbed I am by what the Republicans did to Judge [Merrick] Garland, referring to the GOP-led Senates refusal last year to consider President Obamas choice to fill the seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. But I was taught that two wrongs dont make a right, she said. The Republican majority in the Senate needs six more Democrats to join with them if they hope to stop the expected filibuster of President Trumps Supreme Court nominee. It takes 60 votes to end the debate under the Senates current rules. But the 52 Republicans may vote to simply eliminate this requirement if the Democrats stand firm against Gorsuch. On Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to approve Gorsuch on a party line vote and send the nomination to the Senate floor. A final vote is expected April 7. Facebook

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White House invites lawmakers to see intelligence material after New York Times report By Noah Bierman The White House has invited House and Senate intelligence committee chairs to review documents that it says were recently discovered by national security staff that could help determine whether information gathered about American citizens was mishandled. White House spokesman Sean Spicer would not say whether these are the same documents that Rep. Devin Nunes, the Tulare Republican who chairs the House intelligence committee, said he reviewed last week. Nunes has refused to identify his sources. Some saw his disclosure as an attempt to give credence to President Trumps widely refuted claim that President Obama had ordered wiretaps on his phone during the campaign. Nunes said the material he reviewed suggested that intelligence agencies had incidentally collected information about Trump or his associates. He has declined to be more specific or share the information with the committee. But the New York Times reported Thursday, citing unnamed sources, that two White House officials helped Nunes get access to the documents. And now the same information may be provided to other members of the Intelligence committee. In a letter to the bipartisan group of intelligence leaders sent Thursday, White House Counsel Donald McGhan said administration lawyers would supervise the review given the sensitivity of the documents to protect the extremely sensitive intelligence sources and methods. The letter calls on the committee to investigate the possibility that classified information was inappropriately gathered and handled and whether civil liberties of American citizens were violated. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters that he welcomed the chance to review the materials, though he said he would be obligated to share them with the rest of his committee. More troubling to Schiff, he said, was the cloak and dagger stuff and circuitous route that the White House national security staff appears to have used to disseminate the materials in that secret meeting with Nunes. Schiff said White House staff may have been trying to launder information through the committee, rather than simply providing it directly to the president. If that was designed to hide the origin of the materials, that raises profound questions about just what the White House is doing, Schiff said. We need to get to the bottom of whether this was some sort of stratagem by the White House. In a letter to McGhan, Schiff said answering the White Houses questions would require asking intelligence agencies how the information in the documents was gathered. I hope you will confirm to the committee whether these materials are the same as those first shared with Nunes, Schiff wrote. 2:11: This story was updated with staff reporting Facebook

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Trumps team: A network of ties to Russia By Angelica Quintero The FBI is investigating possible coordination between people associated with the Trump campaign and Russian authorities during the 2016 election. The U.S. intelligence community has said it is confident that the Russian government directed hacking operations and intended to interfere with the U.S. election process. Take a look at how some high-profile people have been drawn into the investigation. See the graphic  Facebook

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Former RNC official is first to depart senior West Wing staff By Michael A. Memoli A former top Republican National Committee official and ally of White House chief of staff Reince Priebus will depart her West Wing post in the first significant shake-up of President Trumps senior staff. Politico first reported that Katie Walsh, the deputy White House chief of staff, will leave to take on an advisory position with political groups that were formed to support the presidents agenda from the outside. Walsh had served as chief of staff at the RNC when Priebus was party chair. At the White House, she served in a similar capacity under Priebus, tasked with overseeing the senior staff and the scheduling operation. Though White House officials denied the move was a signal of disharmony within the senior ranks, her departure spoke to issues dogging the new administration  a top-heavy operation in the West Wing and also the inability of the president to sustain the kind of grassroots support for his agenda that proved key to his electoral win. It was abundantly clear we didnt have air cover when it came to the calls coming into lawmakers, and nobody can fix this problem like Katie Walsh, Priebus told reporters later, according to Time. Facebook

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Putin: Read my lips, there was no Russian meddling in U.S. vote By Ann M. Simmons Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto during the International Arctic Forum in Arkhangelsk, Russia, on Thursday. (Sergei Karpukhim / AFP/Getty Images) Calling the accusations lies, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday denied that Moscow meddled in last years U.S. elections. Read my lips, no, Putin said during a panel moderated by CNBC, according to a report on the news agencys website. All those things are fictional, illusory and provocations, lies, the Russian president said. All these are used for domestic American political agendas. The anti-Russian card is played by different political forces inside the United States to trade on that and consolidate their positions inside. Putins comments came as the Senate Intelligence Committee was set to begin a hearing entitled Disinformation: A Primer in Russian Active Measures and Influence Campaigns, which will focus on understanding the method of Russias active disinformation campaign and assess the extent of Moscows interference. FBI Director James Comey confirmed earlier this month that his agency was investigating Russias intrusion into the 2016 poll and whether there was any collusion between Moscow and President Trumps campaign. Read More Facebook

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Trump levels extraordinary threat against GOP conservatives; Ryan says he understands presidents frustration By Noah Bierman House Speaker Paul D. Ryan commiserated with President Trump Thursday after the president launched a Twitter assault on the group of rebellious Republicans known as the Freedom Caucus. I understand the frustration, I share the frustration, Ryan told reporters Thursday, when asked to respond to Trumps threat to campaign against fellow Republicans. Freedom Caucus members, who back limited government and have defined themselves in opposition to the Washington establishment, have been a major headache for GOP leaders. Ever since the Republicans took control of the House in 2010, conservative refusal to back key bills to fund government agencies has forced GOP leaders to negotiate with Democrats for the votes they need. Freedom Caucus members helped lead the charge against former Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). The caucus was blamed by many Republicans last week for torpedoing the leaderships plan, backed by Trump, to make significant changes to Obamacare. Still, Trumps threat to fight them in the 2018 elections was an extraordinary step. Trump had previously made electoral threats against wayward members of his party, but Thursdays tweet was especially direct, threatening to treat them the same way as Democrats. The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2017 Freedom Caucus members have begun pushing back aggressively. A spokeswoman for the group argued on Twitter that Trump did not have his facts right and that Republican moderates were equally responsible for sinking the healthcare bill. View Twitter post Finding Trump supporters to challenge Republicans in a primary would be hard and could further thrust the GOP into civil war. Trump, despite low poll numbers nationally, remains popular in core Republican districts. Many members of Congress, however, ran ahead of him in their districts in the last election. The president has also suggested he might be open to cutting deals with Democrats, something the White House has discussed but not followed through on. That would also be difficult, given the rancor on the left. Ryan said Thursday that the best path is for Republicans to come together on healthcare and other issues About 90% of our conference is for this bill to repeal and replace Obamcare, and about 10% are not. And thats not enough to pass a bill, he said. What I am encouraging our members to do is to keep talking with each other until we can get the consensus to pass this bill. But its very understandable that the president is frustrated that we havent gotten to where we need to go, because this is something that we all said we would do. Facebook

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Pence casts tie-breaking vote to advance bill that would let states withhold federal funds from Planned Parenthood By Lisa Mascaro Republicans needed Vice President Mike Pence to cast a tie-breaking vote Thursday in the Senate to advance legislation that rolls back rules preventing states from withholding certain federal funds to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. With opposition from two Republican women, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Republicans did not have enough votes with their slim 52-seat majority to advance the bill. Pence, a longtime opponent of abortion, arrived to cast the vote breaking the 50-50 tie  and will be expected to do so later Thursday on final passage. We just saw a historic moment, said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) It is a sad day for the United States Senate. The measure rolls back a regulation finalized at the end of President Obamas administration that explicitly prevented states from denying federal Title X family planning funds to clinics, like Planned Parenthood, that also provide abortion services. Under longstanding practice, no federal funds can be used for abortions, but federal family planning money can flow to the clinics to provide other healthcare services. Some Republican-led state governments had been moving in recent years to choke off Title X funds from any clinics that offered abortion service. The Obama rule sought to prohibit such practices. The bill Thursday, sponsored by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), has already cleared the House. It is part of a series of bills being passed by Congress under the so-called Congressional Review Act, which allows federal regulations put in place during the final days of the previous administration to be undone by simple majority passage. Passage by the Senate later Thursday would send it to the White House for President Trumps signature. Busy day in D.C., but always happy to make time to meet visitors touring the Capitol. pic.twitter.com/4q6JG8wP0E  Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) March 30, 2017 Facebook

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Senate committee narrowly approves Acostas nomination to be Labor secretary By Jim Puzzanghera (Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP) A Senate committee on Thursday narrowly approved R. Alexander Acosta to be Labor secretary, moving to fill one of President Trumps few remaining vacant Cabinet posts. The nomination of Acosta, a law school dean and former Justice Department official, was approved by a 12-11 vote by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. All of the panels Republicans supported the nomination; all of the Democrats were opposed. If confirmed in a full Senate vote, which is expected soon, Acosta will be the only Latino in Trumps Cabinet. A date for the final vote hasnt been set. Read More Facebook

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Follow the money and the trail of dead Russians, expert urges senators By Del Quentin Wilber (Susan Walsh / Associated Press) The Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday into Russian efforts to influence the November elections has been a long history lesson, tracing Moscows decades-long efforts to use misinformation to undermine democracies. But Clinton Watts, of the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University, provided a roadmap to better understanding the Kremlins efforts. He urged senators and the U.S. government to follow the money to figure out how misinformation websites and social media outlets are being funded. While the Russians conducted their hacking in the Internets shadows, their efforts to influence the election was hardly a secret, he said. You can hack stuff and be covert, but you cant influence and be covert, he said. You have to ultimately show your hand. And thats why we have been able to discover it online. The second way to trace Russian influence was more ominous: Follow the trail of dead Russians, he said. There have been more dead Russians in the past three months that are tied to this investigation, he added. They are dropping dead, even in Western countries. Watts didnt finish the thought but was likely referring to a spate of deaths of high-profile Russians, some of which appeared to be assassinations although others appear to have been from natural causes. With the daytime execution of a Russian politician in Ukraine last week, at least eight Russian politicians, activists, ambassadors and a former intelligence official have died since the U.S. election. Facebook

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Russia has stepped up efforts to influence elections, experts tell Senate panel By David S. Cloud (Susan Walsh / Associated Press) Moscow has stepped up its interference in U.S. and European elections, using social media, hacking and other tools to undermine public confidence and to raise doubts about the U.S as an ally, Russia experts told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. The committee was taking testimony from experts in Russian propaganda and intelligence operations as part of its investigation into Moscows meddling in the 2016 election. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the panel, emphasized that in addition to examining the broad topic of Russian efforts to influence the election, the panel also must seek to answer whether President Trumps campaign had contact with Russian officials last year, noting the the FBI has opened its own probe. I will not prejudge the outcome of our investigation. We are seeking to determine if there is an actual fire, but there is clearly a lot of smoke, Warner said. Dr. Eugene Rumer, Director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the panel that Russian President Vladimir Putin probably viewed Moscows meddling in the U.S. election as an unqualified success. Facebook

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Tillerson meets Turkish officials to seek support for battle against Islamic State in Syria By Umar Farooq Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Thursday met for more than two hours with Turkeys president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as they hoped to shore up troubled relations between their nations. Making his first trip to Turkey, Tillerson became the highest-ranking Trump administration official to hold a face-to-face session with Erdogan, an increasingly authoritarian leader who is also a NATO member and key ally in the fight against Islamic State in Syria. The meeting went longer than planned. Turkey and the United States disagree sharply on how to combat Islamic State: Washington supports Kurdish militias that Erdogan regards as an arm of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which Turkey and the U.S. consider a terrorist organization. Trying to fight against Daesh through terrorist organizations such as ... extensions of the PKK, would be like shooting yourself in the foot, Erdogans senior advisor, Ibrahim Kalin, said ahead of Thursdays meeting. Daesh is a pejorative Arabic acronym for Islamic State. Read More Facebook

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Hawaii judge extends national halt on Trumps travel ban By Jaweed Kaleem Donald Trump in San Diego in May. (John Gastaldo / San Diego Union-Tribune)) The Hawaii federal judge who brought President Trumps revised travel ban to a national halt this month extended his order blocking the bans enforcement. The move Wednesday sets the stage for the Justice Department to appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the ruling. U.S. District Judge Derrick Watsons original order halting the travel ban was issued March 15, a day before the ban was to go into effect, in the form of a temporary restraining order. At a hearing in Honolulu on Wednesday, federal lawyers asked Watson to either dismiss that order or narrow the restrictions to apply to fewer parts of the travel ban. Instead, Watson said he would turn the order into a preliminary injunction, which has the effect of extending his order blocking the travel ban for a longer period. Watson said he would keep intact the restrictions on the travel ban -- a block of its 90-day moratorium on travel to the U.S. from nationals of six majority-Muslim countries and its 120-day pause on new refugee resettlement. If the Justice Department appeals the case, it will be heard in the same court that upheld a national halt to Trumps first travel ban last month after a Seattle federal judge ruled against it. The administration has already appealed to the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals a Maryland judges more limited March 16 ruling that stopped enforcement of the travel orders country-specific ban. Both the Hawaii and Maryland judges found Trumps executive order to discriminate against Muslims. They used the presidents campaign statements promising to suspend Muslim travel to the U.S. as evidence of the orders anti-Muslim bias. Government lawyers have argued that the president is not singling out Muslims but instead acting within his power to restrict immigration and safeguard national security while better vetting procedures are developed to prevent potential terrorists from entering the U.S. Trump has said hell take the case over the travel ban to the U.S. Supreme Court. Facebook

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Ivanka Trump gets formal White House role, with ethics obligations but no pay By Michael A. Memoli (Brendan Smialowski / AFP-Getty Images) Ivanka Trump is taking on a more formal White House role  with a title but not a paycheck  a move intended to quell ethics concerns raised about her status in her fathers administration. In a statement, the White House noted that the presidents elder daughter already had an unprecedented role in the administration different from that of previous presidential children. She now will take the title of special advisor to the president, and therefore assume the same responsibility to abide by ethics standards that other federal employees have, the statement said. The decision demonstrates the administrations commitment to ethics, transparency and compliance, the administration said. Although Ivanka Trump already had a West Wing office  as does her husband, senior advisor Jared Kushner  she now will have increased opportunities to lead initiatives driving real policy benefits for the American public that would not have been available to her previously, a White House spokesman said. The announcement came on a day when President Trump sought to promote his administrations commitment to empowering women. He delivered remarks at an East Room event that included other top women in his Cabinet, including U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Small Business Administration head Linda McMahon. Ivanka Trump held a roundtable with female business owners earlier, Press Secretary Sean Spicer said. Earlier Wednesday, leading Senate Democrats sent a letter to the Office of Government Ethics raising concerns about the increasing, albeit unspecified position Ivanka Trump had held and the potential conflicts of interest that her government position might trigger with her personal businesses, including a retail clothing brand. The letter from Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) asked the agency whether Trump would be required to divest herself of personal assets or if she could be required to recuse herself from certain functions. Trumps new position was first reported by the New York Times. In a statement to the paper, Trump said she was acting in response to ethics concerns, but noted she already had been voluntarily complying with all ethics rules. Facebook

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Russia inquiry one of the biggest congressional probes in decade, senators say By David Lauter Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), right, and Mark Warner (D-Va.). (Susan Walsh / Associated Press) The Senate Intelligence Committees probe into Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election will be one of the biggest investigations in years and has already involved an unprecedented level of cooperation between Congress and U.S. spy agencies, the panels chairman said Wednesday. At a Capitol Hill news conference, the committee chairman, Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, and its ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, emphasized the bipartisan nature of the panels efforts, drawing a determined, though unstated, contrast with the partisan dysfunction of a parallel investigation in the House. The committee will go wherever the intelligence leads us, Burr said. And he pointedly refused to endorse White House statements that investigators inevitably will find that there was no collusion between President Trumps campaign and the Russians. It would be crazy to try to draw any conclusions at this point, Burr said. We know that our challenge is to answer that question to the American people, Burr said, referring to the issue of Trumps involvement. Warner said he had confidence in Richard Burr to run a fair investigation and produce a bipartisan conclusion. Warner said Americans should not lose sight of what the investigation is about: An outside foreign adversary effectively tried to hijack the election and favor one candidate over the other. They didnt do it because it was in the best interest of the American people, he said. "[Russian President] Vladimir Putins goal is a weaker United States. The Russian action should be a concern of all Americans regardless of party affiliation, he added. The committee staff already has reviewed thousands of pages of intelligence documents and has begun scheduling interviews with a list of 20 preliminary witnesses, who will be questioned in private before the panel holds public hearings, Burr said. He strongly implied that one of the potential witnesses is retired Gen. Michael Flynn, who was fired from his post as national security advisor to Trump after the disclosure that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence and others about his contacts with Russias ambassador to the U.S. You would think less of us if the committee had not talked with Flynn, Burr told reporters. The witnesses, including Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law and advisor, will be questioned when the committee is ready, he said. Facebook

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Justice Department watchdog finds DEA cash seizure program may pose risk to civil liberties By Del Quentin Wilber A Ukiah, Calif., police officer works with a dog to search for drugs or cash in a motorists car on May 14, 2014. (Francine Orr/ Los Angeles Times) The way the Drug Enforcement Administration seizes cash and other assets may pose a risk to civil liberties, the Justice Departments internal watchdog reported Wednesday. The Justice Departments inspector general also determined that the agency does not measure or track how its asset seizure activities advance criminal investigations. Over the last decade, more than $28 billion has been seized through the departments asset forfeiture program. The effort and others in states have generated intense controversy in recent years, with critics contending that many seizures are unfair because some who lose their assets are never charged with crimes. Law enforcement officials, however, say that seizing property and cash is a key tool in disrupting criminal organizations and compensating the victims of crimes. Former Atty. Gen. Eric Holder in 2015 limited how state and local authorities can obtain seized funds by working with federal agents. In its report released Wednesday, the inspector general examined 100 cases in which the DEA seized cash. Eighty-five of the cases involved interdiction at transportation hubs, such as airports or parcel centers. Nearly 80 of those seizures resulted from the direct observation of agents or local police. The inspector general and the Justice Department have raised concerns in the past about such stops and searches, in part, due to the potential for racial profiling. Of the 100 cases, the DEA could verify that only 44 advanced ongoing investigations, led to a new investigation, or resulted in an arrest or prosecution, the inspector general found. When seizure and administrative forfeitures do not ultimately advance an investigation or prosecution, law enforcement creates the appearance, and risks the reality, that it is more interested in seizing and forfeiting cash than advancing an investigation or prosecution, the report said. The inspector general also found that the Justice Department does not provide enough training or require state and local officers working on federal task forces to be trained on asset forfeiture policies. The Justice Department responded in a letter to the inspector general that its analysis was flawed and its sample significantly underreported the amount of seized funds that are ultimately returned. In a statement, Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said, Asset forfeiture is a powerful and effective law enforcement tool, allowing the department to compensate victims, deprive criminals of the proceeds of their crimes, remove the tools of crime from criminal organizations, and deter crime. The department believes that the ongoing public debate about asset forfeiture is healthy, she added, but as outlined in our formal response, we strongly disagree with large swaths of this report and its flawed methodology that failed to address the essential role asset forfeiture plays combating some of the most sophisticated criminal actors and organizations, including terrorist financiers, cyber criminals, fraudsters, human traffickers, and drug cartels. 9:23 a.m.: This story was updated with Justice Department comment. Facebook

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Hoax. Con job. Chinese plot. Trump tweets have bashed climate science for years By Michael Finnegan President Trump signs an executive order Tuesday to rescind Obama administration policies on climate change. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press) As President Trump moved to halt federal efforts against global warming on Tuesday, he avoided an important phrase: climate change. It was the same story during his campaign for president; Trump rarely mentioned it. When he pledged in May to withdraw the United States from the Paris treaty, a pact among nearly every nation on Earth to reduce the carbon emissions that cause global warming, it was one of the few occasions when Trump broached the topic. Trumps muted approach made political sense. To reject science is to risk alienating millions of moderate voters who support action to stop global warming. But before Trump started running for president, he often bluntly attacked climate science. Some highlights from his Twitter feed: Read More Facebook

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Supreme Court rules in favor of merchants who want to advertise credit card fees By David Savage Supreme Court rules on swipe fees (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)) Merchants may soon have the right to tell customers that they will pay a surcharge if they use a credit card rather than pay with cash. The Supreme Court cast doubt Wednesday on laws in California, New York, Florida and seven other states that make it illegal for sellers to impose a surcharge on credit card sales. In a 8-0 decision, the justices said these laws regulate speech and may be challenged as violations of the 1st Amendment. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said these laws do not prevent merchants from offering a discount for those who pay cash. Rather, they simply forbid disclosing that a posted price includes a surcharge of 2% to 3% for using a credit or debit card. Merchants want to pass the fees along only to their customers who choose to use credit cards, he said. They also want to make clear that they are not the bad guys -- that the credit card companies, not the merchants, are responsible for the higher prices. But the ruling Wednesday was only a partial victory for the five New York businesses, including a hair salon and an ice cream parlor in Brooklyn, that sued to challenge the ban on advertising or disclosing surcharges for using credit cards. The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York had upheld the law on the grounds it was a price regulation, not a speech restriction. Roberts and the high court disagreed. What the law does is regulate how sellers may communicate their prices, he said. A merchant who wants to charge $10 for cash and $10.30 for credit may not convey that price any way he pleases. He is not free to say '$10, with a 3% credit card surcharge. But the justices did not strike down the state laws, instead sending the case back to the New York court to decide whether this speech regulation could be justified. Sometimes, laws are used to regulate the words of commercial transactions to prevent buyers from being fooled or confused. Until recently, the major credit card companies had imposed contract restrictions that prevented merchants from disclosing surcharges. But those provisions have challenged and knocked down. That in turn led to new legal challenges against the state laws which forbid sellers from disclosing these surcharges. The case decided Wednesday was Expressions Hair Design vs. Schneiderman. Facebook

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Trumps poll numbers are low. But the people who put him in office say its not time to judge him  yet By Noah Bierman Its been five months since the euphoria of a Donald Trump rally at the local arena brought optimism to this former Democratic stronghold. The snow from a long winter has begun melting into the rocky soil, and the digital sign in a torn-up parking lot blinks hopefully: Warm days are coming. President Trump has yet to deliver jobs or the repeal of Obamacare. But here, in an area crucial to his unexpected election victory, many residents are more frustrated with what they see as obstruction and a rush to judgment than they are with Trump. Give him six months to prove himself, said an information technology supervisor. Give him a year, said a service manager. Give him four years, said a retired print shop owner. Give the man a chance, said Crystal Matthews, a 59-year-old hospital employee. Theyre just going to fight him tooth and nail, the whole way. Read More Facebook

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To fight womans defamation claim, Trump cites the Bill Clinton-Paula Jones case  which the president lost By David Savage President Trump is citing Bill Clintons famous sexual harassment battle in his effort to block a California womans lawsuit claiming Trump lied about groping her in the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2007. Problem is, Clinton lost that bid for legal immunity when the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1997 that the chief executive is not shielded from responding to a civil suit regarding his private behavior. Read More Facebook

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House sends Trump bill to kill landmark broadband privacy regulations By Jim Puzzanghera Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) sponsored the repeal bill. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) The House voted Tuesday to kill landmark privacy restrictions for Internet service providers and sent the bill to the White House, which indicated President Trump would sign it and invalidate the rules before they go into effect. The measure, approved largely along party lines, repeals tough new Federal Communications Commission regulations that would require broadband companies to get explicit customer permission before using or sharing most of their personal information. The data include health information, website browsing history, app usage and the geographic information from mobile devices. The rules also tighten data security requirements. Republicans, along with AT&T Inc., Charter Communications Inc., Comcast Corp. and other providers of high-speed Internet service, strongly opposed the rules. They argued that the restrictions are tougher than those for websites and social networks that also collect and use the highly valuable consumer data, which companies use to target advertising. Read More Facebook

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U.S. commander says theres a fair chance that coalition airstrike is responsible for civilian casualties in Mosul By W.J. Hennigan Rescuers are still recovering bodies from a suspected U.S. airstrike in the Iraqi city of Mosul. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) The top U.S. general commanding the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria said that the U.S.-led coalition was probably responsible for a blast that killed more than 200 people. If we did it, and I would say theres at least a fair chance that we did, it was an unintentional accident of war and we will transparently report it to you, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend told reporters Tuesday via teleconference from Baghdad. He made the comments in response to witness reports that an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition leveled a large apartment block and killed scores of civilians, including women and children, in west Mosuls Jadidah neighborhood on March 17. My initial assessment is that we probably had a role in these casualties, Townsend said. But investigators are still trying to determine whether other factors -- possibly including repeated airstrikes in the neighborhood or an explosive device accidentally or deliberately planted near the building -- could have led to its collapse. The fact that the whole building collapsed contradicts our involvement, Townsend said. The munition that we used should not have collapsed an entire building. So thats one of those things were trying to figure out in the investigative process. Read More Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown calls Trump energy plan a colossal mistake that will galvanize climate change activists By Evan Halper Gov. Jerry Brown. (Gregory Bull / Associated Press) 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 counter-movement, 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, 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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Trump orders government to dismantle Obamas climate change policies By Evan Halper  President Trump ordered an abrupt halt to Americas crusade against climate change. (March 29, 2017) (Sign up for our free video newsletter here http://bit.ly/2n6VKPR) President Trump on Tuesday ordered the federal government to retreat from the battle against climate change launched by President Obama, issuing a directive aimed at dismantling the core policies that have made the U.S. a global leader in curbing emissions. The plan unveiled by Trump reflects an about-face for the U.S. on energy, and it puts into jeopardy the nations ability to meet the obligations it agreed to under the global warming pact signed in Paris with 194 other nations. It would shelve the landmark Clean Power Plan that mandates electricity companies reduce their emissions. It seeks to dislodge consideration of climate throughout the federal government, where it has been a factor in every relevant decision in recent years. My administration is putting an end to the war on coal, Trump said. I am taking historic steps to lift the restrictions on American energy to reverse government intrusions and to cancel job killing regulations. Under the order, the government will abandon the social cost of carbon that regulators had painstakingly calculated and begun factoring into their decision on permit applications and rulemaking. Restrictions on methane releases at oil and gas drilling facilities would be eased. Agencies will also stop contemplating climate impacts as they launch into new projects, and restrictions on coal leasing and fracking on federal lands will be lifted. The directive, for which progressive states and environmentalists have been preparing for months, is certain to set off years of litigation and conflicts between Washington and state capitols. Some of the most far-reaching policies Trump is seeking to bring to a halt cannot be canceled unilaterally and require lengthy administrative proceedings. But others he can end with the stroke of his pen. Smoke rises from the Colstrip Steam Electric Station, a coal-burning power plant in Colstrip, Mont., on July 1, 2103. (Matt Brown / Associated Press) Facebook

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A trade war is brewing inside the White House between rival camps By Don Lee Soon after President Trump took office, an executive order was quietly drafted to suspend talks with China on an obscure but potentially far-reaching treaty about bilateral investment. After eight years and two dozen rounds of negotiations, the treaty terms were almost in final form. Pulling out after so much time and effort would send a clear message that the Trump administration meant to take a new and tougher approach to China. But the executive order never even got to the presidents desk. It was quietly shelved, according to sources inside and outside the White House, at the behest of former Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn, now Trumps top economic advisor. Killing the order was a small victory for a White House faction that supports free trade and the global economy. But it was only an opening skirmish in what promises to be a long and bitter struggle over trade policy that so far is being waged behind the scenes in the Trump administration. Read More Facebook

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Supreme Court reverses death sentence for Texas inmate who could not tell time or name the days of the week By David Savage The Supreme Court set aside a death sentence on Tuesday for a Texas inmate who as a 13-year-old could not tell time or name the days of the week, concluding he should not be executed in light of his mental disability. In a 5-3 decision, the justices reversed the Texas state appeals court that had restored a death sentence given to Bobby James Moore, a 57-year old prisoner who shot and killed a store clerk in a botched robbery in 1980. At issue was whether Moore had a mental disability that would make his execution cruel and unusual punishment under the 8th Amendment. The justices banned states from executing prisoners with a mental disability, but they left states some flexibility to set the standards. But three years ago, the justices faulted Florida authorities for relying almost entirely on I.Q. scores. In the Texas case decided Tuesday, the justices said state judges had ignored ample evidence that Moore had severe mental disability as a child. That evidence was not overcome by the fact that he had adapted well in prison, they said. At 13, Moore lacked the basic understanding of the days of the week, the months of the year and the seasons; he could scarcely tell time or comprehend the standards of measure, said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. After failing every subject in the ninth grade, Moore dropped out of high school. Cast out of his home, he survived on the streets, eating from trash cans, even after two bouts of food poisoning. After fatally shooting the clerk in the 1980 robbery, he was sentenced to death. The Texas courts reexamined his sentence after the high court abolished capital punishment in 2002 for defendants with a mental disability. A state judge listened to experts and set aside Moores death sentence, But the states criminal appeals court disagreed. Its judges said Moore had demonstrated adaptive strength by living on the streets and carrying out a robbery, and therefore did not qualify as having a severe mental impairment. Ginsburg said the state judges had relied on an outdated understanding of mental disability, and her opinion in Moore vs. Texas said the state court must reconsidere its decision. Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan agreed. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. dissented. While he agreed the states authorities may have used outdated standards, Moore had I.Q. scores ranging from 69 to 79 that show he did not have the significantly sub-average intellectual functioning that would exempt him from the death penalty. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito agreed. Facebook

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The Freedom Caucus roars back to relevance to challenge Trumps agenda and strategy By Lisa Mascaro When House Speaker Paul D. Ryan pulled the plug on the GOPs Obamacare overhaul, lawmakers spilled out of the Capitol basement, angry, frustrated and stunned. But Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), leader of the conservative and rebellious House Freedom Caucus that led the fight against the bill, was uncharacteristically quiet, downplaying his political victory and mulling over the next move. After coming together to battle President Obama and becoming a driving force in the Republican Party, this 30-member-plus bloc of deficit hawks and right-flank conservatives had appeared for a while to be pushed aside by the movement that swept President Trump into office. But after helping defeat the GOP healthcare overhaul, the Freedom Caucus has roared back to relevance as a political power in the Trump era. It has reasserted itself as not just a renegade assemblage of mostly back-bench lawmakers, but as a core block of votes that Trump will need to push past the healthcare debacle to tax reform, budget battles and other issues. These guys saved the Republicans, said Adam Brandon, president of FreedomWorks, a group that organized a North Carolina rally on Monday in honor of Meadows. As beaten and battered as they are, weve got a group thats willing to take the hard decisions. If youre going to drain the swamp, these are the guys who are going to do it. Read More Facebook

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White House stopped Yates testimony about Russian meddling in presidential election, lawyer says By Associated Press A lawyer for former Deputy Atty. Gen. Sally Yates said in letters last week that the Trump administration had moved to squelch her testimony in a hearing about Russian meddling in the presidential election. In the letters, attorney David ONeil said he understood the Justice Department was invoking further constraints on testimony she could provide at a House Intelligence Committee hearing that had been scheduled for Tuesday. He said the departments position was that all actions she took as deputy attorney general were client confidences that could not be disclosed without written approval. The Washington Post first reported the letters. A person familiar with the situation confirmed them as authentic to the Associated Press. The White House called the Post story entirely false. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and part of Trumps transition team, last week announced that the committee was canceling the planned public hearing with Yates and two former Obama administration intelligence officials  the former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, and former CIA Director John Brennan. Read More Facebook

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Did Mnuchin cross an ethical line in plugging The Lego Batman Movie? A senator wants to know By Jim Puzzanghera (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press) A Democratic senator wants to know if Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin committed an ethics violation when he publicly plugged The Lego Batman Movie, a film in which he has a financial stake. A former Hollywood financier, Mnuchin was asked at the end of a question-and-answer session on Friday hosted by the Axios news website to name a movie people should see. Well, Im not allowed to promote anything that Im involved in. So I just want to have the legal disclosure, youve asked me the question and I am not promoting any product, Mnuchin said at the event, which aired on C-SPAN2. But you should send all your kids to Lego Batman,  he said. The crowd laughed. But Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, wasnt amused. Hes asking the U.S. Office of Government Ethics to look into the comments. Read More Facebook

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Venezuela hits back in showdown with OAS, U.S. over democracy By Tracy Wilkinson The Venezuelan foreign minister had harsh words Monday for the regional organization that is considering sanctioning her country for its failure to hold democratic elections. Delcy Rodriguez, the foreign minister, accused the Organization of American States of wanting not to punish Venezuela but to destroy it. Rodriguez appeared at an OAS panel convened in Washington. D.C., after the United States and 13 other of the hemispheres nations united to demand the leftist Venezuelan government free political prisoners and set a date for long-overdue elections. Failure to do so, the 14 countries warned, could trigger a decision to suspend Venezuela from the 69-year-old regional body. OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro, a former Uruguayan foreign minister, has been especially critical of Venezuelas embattled government. He noted that President Nicolas Maduro canceled both a referendum that could have recalled his government and later regional elections, after the opposition made huge gains in parliamentary voting in 2015. In addition, thousands of people have been arrested for their political beliefs, Almagro said, including opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who has been in jail for three years. But Rodriguez, in a speech to the OAS panel, said Venezuelas revolution continues strong. She accused Almagro of being a stooge of the U.S. government, a lying mercenary who is a traitor to everything a Latin American diplomat should represent. He lacks independence when he voluntarily bows to the wishes of the most powerful nation of this organization -- and becomes its spokesman, Rodriguez said. Although the OAS has often been accused of pro-Washington tendencies, 13 nations in addition to the United States have joined to condemn Venezuela, a significant shift in Latin America away from populist regimes. Other leftist-ruled countries, like Bolivia, have said they will support Venezuela. Rodriguez said the accusations against her government were unilateral, unjustified and biased. She called on the OAS to suspend discussion of Venezuela, but another session was scheduled to proceed on Tuesday -- the same day Maduros Socialist Party is planning big anti-imperialism marches at home. All of the countries most critical of Venezuela, including the United States, say suspension of the oil-rich, Caribbean country from the OAS should be a measure of last resort. Despite its oil wealth, Venezuela is in the throes of an economic and humanitarian disaster, with severe shortages of food and medicine and skyrocketing inflation and homicide rates. Facebook

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Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions criticizes sanctuary cities but offers no new policies By Michael A. Memoli  Decrying the safety risk posed when cities dont cooperate with federal immigration authorities, Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions repeated previous statements that the Trump administration would seek to deny so-called sanctuary cities some federal grant fun Decrying the safety risk posed when cities dont cooperate with federal immigration authorities, Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions repeated previous statements that the Trump administration would seek to deny so-called sanctuary cities some federal grant funds, but offered no new policies. Despite his high-profile appearance at the White House briefing room, Sessions merely reiterated Obama administration policy related to immigration. Justice Department officials said any new measures would be weeks or months in the future. The Obama administration issued instructions last July that required any cities applying for Justice Department grant programs be in compliance with federal law requiring cooperation between local, state and federal agencies with requests from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Sessions noted that any jurisdiction applying for grants from his department would have to certify that compliance. The Justice Department already has been requiring that, which indicates that police and sheriff departments which currently have Justice Department grants already have been asserting that they are meeting the requirements of federal law. Although many cities have policies that they, or critics, characterize using the label sanctuary, those policies do not necessarily mean they are violating the law. Sessions did say that the Justice Department could in the future institute additional requirements, but announced none. Fundamentally, we intend to use all the lawful authority we have to make sure that our state and local officials, who are so important to law enforcement, are in sync with the federal government, he said. He did offer a warning to jurisdictions considering adopting sanctuary status. The California legislature is considering a proposal to institute the designation statewide; Sessions, though, singled out Maryland for a similar proposal. That would be such a mistake, Sessions said, while noting Marylands Republican governor opposes the change proposed by the heavily-Democratic legislature. Sessions cited a high-profile case in San Francisco where a 32-year-old woman was killed by man who had been previously deported multiple times despite a request by immigration authorities to continue his detention to illustrate the administrations case against such policies. Countless Americans would be alive today and countless loved ones would not be grieving today if these policies of sanctuary cities were ended, Sessions claimed. Facebook

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Devin Nunes plot thickens, as his spokesman concedes he met source for surveillance claim at White House By David S. Cloud The day before the House Intelligence Committee chairman revealed that conversations by Trump transition officials may have been inadvertently picked up by U.S. surveillance, he met with the source of the information at the White House, his spokesman said Monday Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), went to the White House because there was a facility there for reviewing classified information, said Jack Langer, a spokesman for Nunes, who has refused to divulge the identity of his source. Chairman Nunes met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source, Langer said. The latest news added another twist to a bizarre series of events last week: On Monday, FBI Director James Comey testified before Nunes committee that his investigators were looking at possible coordination during the presidential campaign between Russian officials and people close to Preisdent Trump. Tuesday night, Nunes went to the White House where someone showed him documents related to U.S. intelligence surveillance, according to his statement. On Wednesday, Nunes announced to reporters that he had seen evidence indicating that people close to Trump had been subjects of surveillance during the transition. He then went to the White House, saying that he needed to brief Trump about the revelations. On Thursday, Nunes apologized to committee members for not having shown the evidence to them before briefing the president. Later that day, his spokesman conceded that Nunes did not know for sure that any Trump aides had actually been subject to surveillance, just that their names had appeared in intelligence reports, which could have resulted from other people talking about them. That sequence of events could buttress Democrats claims that the episode last week was a White House ploy to shift attention away from the FBI investigation. Democrats already have been saying Nunes should be disqualified from heading an inquiry into whether Trumps aides had improper contacts with Russia. Nunes statement left several questions unanswered. One is why he would have had to go to the White House unless his source worked there, because members of Congress have access to a secure facility at the U.S. Capitol. Asked to explain Nunes actions, Langer said in an email, The information comprised executive branch documents that have not been provided to Congress. Because of classification rules, the source could not simply put the documents in a backpack and walk them over to the House Intelligence Committee space.  He added: The White House grounds was the best location to safeguard the proper chain of custody and classification of these documents, so the Chairman could view them in a legal way. Last week, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer had dismissed speculation that the White House had supplied Nunes with the information, saying that the suggestion did not pass the smell test. He added, however, that he did not for sure what Nunes had told Trump or where his information came from. After Nunes apologized to members of his committee Thursday and promised to thoroughly investigate the surveillance, several lawmakers said Nunes had promised to provide them the surveillance information he had received. That has not occurred yet. In his first statement last week, Nunes said he was concerned that some Trump transition officials identities might have been improperly revealed in intelligence reports, despite rules requiring them to be kept confidential in most cases. The Chairman is extremely concerned by the possible improper unmasking of names of U.S. citizens, and he began looking into this issue even before President Trump tweeted his assertion that Trump Tower had been wiretapped, Langer said. Whether any officials names actually were unmasked is unclear. The ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) has questioned Nunes assertions about improper unmasking. But Schiff noted that he has not seen the documents Nunes claims to have seen. Schiff had no comment on the news that Nunes had seen the documents at the White House. UPDATES 10:20 a.m.: This article was updated with staff reporting. This article was originally published as an Associated Press report at 9:06 a.m. Facebook

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Venezuela in showdown with OAS, U.S. over political prisoners By Tracy Wilkinson The besieged leftist government of Venezuela is under mounting pressure after the United States and 13 of the hemispheres other leading nations demanded the release of political prisoners and other pro-democracy concessions. The Organization of American States, the regions main collective body, has threatened to suspend Venezuela because of what it called the autocratic repression imposed by President Nicolas Maduro. Maduros foreign minister, Delcy Rodriguez, will appear Monday before an OAS panel in Washington to plead her governments case. This comes after members of the Venezuelan delegation stormed out of OAS meetings last week, according to diplomats. OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro, in a report on Venezuela, noted that Maduro canceled both a referendum that could have recalled his government and later regional elections, after the opposition made huge gains in parliamentary voting in 2015. A Maduro-controlled Supreme Court then stripped the parliament of much of its power. In addition, thousands of people have been arrested for their political beliefs, Almagro said, including opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who has been in jail for three years. The OAS is demanding Venezuela hold elections or risk suspension from the group, a drastic measure. The last time a country was suspended was when the military and right-wing politicians staged a coup against the elected president in Honduras in 2009. Under OAS regulations, a country can be suspended when the democratic order is altered. Venezuela is in the throes of a devastating economic and humanitarian crisis. The oil-rich country has among the highest homicide and inflation rates in the world and suffers from severe shortages of food and medicine. The Maduro government angrily condemned the OAS actions as imperialist interference and vowed to resist. Adan Chavez, brother of the late Hugo Chavez, the socialist strongman who set Venezuela on its revolutionary path, claimed the OAS was plotting a coup against Maduro. Maduro views much of his opposition as right-wing oligarchs who have long repressed the poor. Although the OAS has often been accused of pro-Washington tendencies, it is significant that 13 nations in addition to the United States are united in condemning Venezuela. This marks a shift away from populist regimes in much of Latin America. The Trump administration, which has shown little interest in Latin America beyond Mexico, did issue instructions to diplomats to find ways through the OAS to put pressure on Venezuela, according to people familiar with the matter. Those instructions came despite parallel administration plans to slash funds to the OAS and other multilateral institutions like the United Nations. Trump recently spoke by telephone to the presidents of Chile and Brazil and in both cases discussed Venezuela, the White House said. And he met at the White House with Lilian Tintori, the wife of Lopez, the jailed opposition leader, as she lobbied for her husbands freedom. The Treasury Department earlier this year slapped sanctions on Venezuelas vice president, Tareck El Aissami, alleging he was a major drug trafficker, charges he denied. Were not pushing for Venezuelas expulsion from the OAS at this time, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said late last week. However, we do think the OAS is the appropriate venue to deal with the ongoing situation in Venezuela, he said. Elections are essential to securing accountability, and the Venezuelan people deserve a voice in creating solutions to the myriad economic, political, and social and humanitarian challenges that they face. Facebook

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Trump takes to Twitter to blame GOP hard-liners over healthcare failure By Laura King (Mandel Ngan / AFP-Getty Images) President Trump on Sunday blamed fellow Republicans and two influential conservative advocacy groups for last weeks failure of the GOP healthcare plan. The president had said on Friday that it was the fault of Democrats that House Speaker Paul D. Ryan pulled the measure from consideration rather than putting it forth for a floor showdown that the GOP leadership would have lost. In a Sunday morning tweet, the president appeared to shift culpability to the House Freedom Caucus, a conservative group of GOP lawmakers who were key to depriving Trump and his camp of the votes needed for passage. Democrats are smiling over the bills failure, Trump declared on Twitter. The Freedom Caucus, he said, had saved President Obamas Affordable Care Act with the help of Heritage Action and the Club for Growth, two organizations that had opposed the GOP measure. The chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), declined to engage in any sparring with the White House, instead predicting that a Trump-led Republican effort to overhaul Obamas signature healthcare legislation eventually would move ahead. At the end of the day, the most valuable player will be President Trump, he said on ABCs This Week. Meadows also insisted there had been no conversation about any attempt to force out Ryan, who is being blamed for failing to marshal sufficient support for the measure he had spearheaded. Trump so far has refrained from public criticism of the speaker, but  again on Twitter  he specifically urged followers to watch a Fox News segment on Saturday night, featuring commentator Jeanine Pirro excoriating Ryan and calling for him to be ousted. That gave rise to speculation that Trump would seek to force the speaker to take the fall for the debacle. Read More Facebook

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After the GOP healthcare bill fizzles, Trump blames the Democrats and says he learned a lot about loyalty By Brian Bennett  President Trump addresses the cancellation of a vote Friday on the GOPs plan to overhaul the Affordable Care Act. After failing to land a deal on the healthcare bill, President Trump on Friday blamed Democrats, even though the GOP controls Congress and the White House, and made few overtures across the aisle when pushing the bill. When you get no votes from the other side -- meaning Democrats -- it is really a difficult situation, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after a revolt by Republican lawmakers forced House leaders to stop a vote in their bid to overhaul the Affordable Care Act. Trump insisted that the current healthcare law, commonly known as Obamacare, will collapse under its own weight, and then Democrats will want to make a deal with the White House. I truly believe the Democrats will come to us, Trump said. In the meantime, Trump is moving his attention to pushing through a tax reform bill, he said. We will probably be going really hard for the big tax cuts and tax reform -- thats next, he said. Trump, who has spent decades negotiating real estate deals and seeing many of them fall through, seemed sanguine discussing the effort he put into getting a healthcare reform bill passed. This was an interesting period of time, Trump said. We learned a lot about loyalty and we learned a lot about the vote-getting process. Trump stopped short of blaming House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and avoided singling out the group of conservative Republican lawmakers, who dug in their heels in opposition. Lawmakers in the House Freedom Caucus that largely stood against the bill are very good people and friends of mind, he said. I was disappointed because we could have had it, he said. Im a little surprised, he said. When asked by a reporter if he would reach out now to Democrats for ideas on how to get a deal, Trump said, No, I think we need to let Obamacare go its way for a little while. Then well see how things go. Facebook

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Tillerson will meet with NATO counterparts, after all By Tracy Wilkinson Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet with NATO allies next week in Brussels, a move that could quell controversy over his earlier decision to skip a long-planned summit of the transatlantic alliance. The State Department said Friday that Tillerson added a stop at NATO headquarters in Brussels to a previously scheduled trip to the Turkish capital of Ankara. Tillerson will be in Ankara on Thursday to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other senior Turkish officials to discuss the fight against Islamic State militants in Syria and to reaffirm Turkeys important role in ensuring regional stability, the State Department said. The next day, he will go to NATO, the State Department said. NATO officials were attempting to put together a session with the other 27 allied nations. Earlier this week, news that Tillerson would miss the NATO ministerial meeting set for April 5-6, roiled the alliance. Administration officials said Tillerson would have to be in Washington to attend President Trumps first face-to-face meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping on April 6-7. At the same time, Tillersons aides announced he would be traveling to Moscow the following week. Criticism was swift from European allies but also from several former American diplomats and key U.S. lawmakers, who said the decision raised questions about the Trump administrations commitment to NATO. During his campaign, Trump called the alliance obsolete, although more recently he has voiced support for it while also demanding members spend more money on defense. In response, Tillersons aides said they were exchanging possible alternative dates with NATO to attempt to arrange a meeting in which all parties could participate. It was not yet clear if next Fridays meeting will take the place of the April 5-6 session, which as of late Friday remained on NATOs formal calendar. Diplomats considered the ministerial meeting as especially important because it will lay the groundwork for a May 25 NATO summit of heads of state and government, which Trump has said he will attend. Facebook

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Charter promises Trump something new ($25-billion investment) and something old (20,000 jobs) By Jim Puzzanghera Charter Communications Chief Executive Thomas Rutledge. (Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images) The chief executive of Charter Communications committed in a meeting with President Trump on Friday to invest $25 billion on broadband infrastructure while joining a trend of business leaders touting previously announced job creation at the White House. In the case of Charter  Southern Californias dominant cable-TV and Internet service provider  Chief Executive Thomas Rutledge said he expected to hire 20,000 new U.S. employees over the next four years. Charter had made the hiring promise in 2015 when it was purchasing Time Warner Cable. The new development was the time period in which it will occur. Nevertheless, Trump indicated the job creation was triggered by his election. Read More Facebook

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Threats made against Hawaii judge who ruled against travel ban By Jaweed Kaleem (George Lee / The Star-Advertiser via AP) The Hawaii federal judge who brought President Trumps revised travel ban to a national halt last week has become the target of threats. U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson has received the threats since his March 15 ruling, according to FBI spokeswoman Michele Ernst. Ernst said the FBI is ready to assist but declined to provide more information. The U.S. Marshals Service also said it would not give details. The U.S. Marshals Service is responsible for the protection of federal judicial officials, including judges and prosecutors, and we take that responsibility very seriously, the agency said in a statement. While we do not discuss our specific security measures, we continuously review the security measures in place for all federal judges and take appropriate steps to provide additional protection when it is warranted. Watson, a judge in the U.S. District Court of Hawaii in Honolulu, issued a scathing 43-page opinion against the travel ban the day before it was to go into effect. He wrote that, despite the bans stated secular purpose, Trumps own words marked the executive order as a fulfillment of the presidents campaign promise to temporarily bar Muslims from coming to the U.S. The illogic of the governments contention is palpable, Watson said. In response, Trump said Watsons ruling was terrible and makes us look weak. Trump has vowed to take the travel ban case to the U.S. Supreme Court. An appeal of a separate Maryland federal judges ruling against the travel ban is currently pending in the U.S. 4th District Court of Appeals. Facebook

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House GOP gives up on healthcare bill as Trump suffers first legislative defeat By Lisa Mascaro Unable to muster enough support from his own party, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan again postponed a vote Friday on the GOPs plan to overhaul the Affordable Care Act. The move came at the request of President Trump, who just Thursday night issued an ultimatum that lawmakers should hold the vote regardless of the outcome. It was the second time House GOP leaders had to delay a final reckon
President Trumps proposed budget includes cuts to foreign aid  a move that threatens to harm the countrys critical role in fulfilling the moral responsibility of all Americans to help those less fortunate, write Richard Stearns, president of World Vision U.S., and Sean Callahan, president and chief executive of Catholic Relief Services.

In their opinion piece, The Christian, conservative case for foreign aid, they write about the achievements America has made in helping people and nations less fortunate around the globe. One effect of helping those in crises, they say, is that it may lead to stabilizing situations and building diplomatic relations.

In an increasingly unstable world, this small but vital account is the ounce of prevention that is worth a pound of cure, they write. Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said, Economic development is a lot cheaper than sending soldiers.

Q. What do you think of Stearns and Callahans commentary and of President Trumps proposed cuts to foreign aid?

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International relations today resemble a poorly supervised playground. Of the 195 countries in the world, most are like smaller kids who dont have lunch money. Some are better off, and a few of them are bullies. One  lets call him Sam  has more toys and money than everybody else. Rather than mellowing with age, Sam wants to rule by fear and steals the lunches of the weakest while demanding everyone cry Uncle.

Worthy nongovernmental organizations like World Vision and Catholic Relief Services are like overwhelmed playground monitors struggling to help amid the chaos. They can distribute snacks and supplies provided by the more generous kids, but without Sams cooperation, their efforts fall short. Alas, Sam has decided to buy more slingshots and firecrackers to enrich his cronies, hurting his own family in the process. So suffering spreads, while Sams family is also deprived.

But Sam protests, I give more than the other kids. While the total amount Sam contributes is larger than the donations of his peers  some $31 billion a year, measured as the percentage of total national income donated  Sam lags behind 19 others who have far fewer funds. While stingy Sam spends more on slingshots, conditions continue to deteriorate and the playground monitors fall further behind.

We shouldnt romanticize the past. There was never a completely just, fair golden age. I do mourn the demise of a more idealistic civil religion, through which the leading lights in politics pointed toward a brighter future. Todays degraded discourse, where the most powerful man in the world starts each day spewing hateful lies through Twitter, is depressing indeed.

When John F. Kennedy said Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable, he did it with the help of speechwriter Ted Sorensen, a lifelong Unitarian. Together Kennedy and Sorensen crafted some of the most inspirational prose in our national canon. Kennedy initiated the Peace Corps, through which the U.S. can exert the soft power of relief and development rather than just imposing its will through force.

Sam, no one likes or trusts a bully. Give, so others can live.

David L. Hostetter, Ph.D.

Vice President, Unitarian Universalist Church of the Verdugo Hills

La Crescenta

..

The great medieval philosopher Maimonides places at the top of his several levels of giving, loaning or entering into a business agreement with those in need, for it maintains the receivers sense of self-worth. While it may not lessen the financial amounts, America needs to rethink its aid programs to be ones of matching funds or if not possible ones where American businesses can partner with native businesses not to have jobs leave America but to have more jobs created for the target population.

Another example is Afghanistan, where American soldiers with farming backgrounds were sent to show Afghan farmers how to grow foods in order to replace the poppy crop which they had been raising and had become the source for terrorist funds. The funds for this could come out of the military budget as well as the drug prevention budget.

The benefit of a multiagency financing of aid to other countries and the self-worth concept of financing would free funds for domestic needs. We could then use the same two procedures to help our own population, both financially and spiritually.

Rabbi Mark Sobel

Temple Beth Emet

Burbank

..

The proposed cuts to foreign aid would eliminate almost a third of the State Department budget, which is barely 1% of all federal spending currently.

In contrast, our already robust military spending stands to be increased by 9%. Military and homeland security take up either about 30% or almost 60% of the federal budget, depending on whether or not Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spending, which comes from those programs trust funds, is counted.

Even if you buy that the Trump administrations budget plan genuinely represents America First, despite its cuts to domestic health, education, nutrition and housing spending, the huge sums flowing away from needy Americans are for the most part paying for our imperial military interventions, not the widows mite going for humanitarian and development assistance overseas.

Roberta Medford

Atheist

Montrose

..

While I can feel for those in foreign nations whose governments are terrible and whose productivity is meager, I cant say that we owe it to them to fix their problems. Uncle Sam keeps being referred to as some sort of single entity that has a big wallet with the fatherly responsibility of doling out allowances to all the neighborhood waifs, while his own children remain in dire need. The moral responsibility of all Americans is not in helping the less fortunate everywhere in the universe, but helping the less fortunate generally, and we have plenty of those to keep us busy.

Has anyone gone to downtown Los Angeles lately? Skid Row has become Skid Block, and nearby is Skid Under the Bridge, and Skid Park, as well as Skid Any Grassy Median. We have a serious problem, and instead of pointing at the speck in the eye of Timbuktu, we ought to rally our forces and pull the log out of our own right here on this continent. There are only so many resources to go around, and right now, Americas debt is upward of $20 trillion. Can you wrap your head around that? Should we give more of what we dont have, far away and continue to back-burner what needs to be given nearby? And by nearby, I mean we have to understand that our 50 states are like 50 countries in other places. We already have a giant plate of due diligence to them which were ignoring for the sake of what we hope well achieve by funding foreign governments that have failed their own. And yet, when we send tax money to help lead the moral brigade, the governments use it to buy weapons, and a year later are burning our flag on YouTube.

I just mentioned Skid Row, but do you know that in Appalachia, whole communities have no running water or electricity? In America? Yes! And our Indian reservations are rife with poverty, and their suicide rate is about double the rest of the population. There are states where water is toxic with lead and contaminants, where kids dont get good education, where nobody can rise above the poverty level, where you name it, and they dont have it. Its disgusting.

We are not one big family. We are a nation of neighbors, of strangers, of people gathered for the big American dream, but were shipping it elsewhere for God knows why.

Rev. Bryan A. Griem

Tujunga
Last summer, as city officials were in the midst of shaping the South Glendale Community Plan, Rondi Werner, president of the Adams Hill Neighborhood Assn., attended a City Council meeting where she spoke about the plan.

Afterward, a Glendale Community College professor passed Werner a note, suggesting she run for a District 4 seat on the schools board of trustees.

I thought, wow. Me? she recalled.

Later, she realized she would make the perfect person for the role, she said.

District 4 encompasses all of Glendale south of Colorado Street, and since 1999, Werner has lived in Adams Hill, where shes belonged to the neighborhood association for more than a decade.

Shortly after she moved to Glendale in the 1980s, she took courses at the college: three semesters of Armenian, one semester of French, as well as astronomy, aviation and music classes.

Join the conversation on Facebook 

Her day job as a construction contract administrator would enable her to ask the right questions as the college begins taking on extensive upgrades and construction funded by a $325-million Measure GC bond that voters approved in November.

Werner said shell be able to ask the right questions during construction projects to avoid what the college is facing now with its lab/college services building nearly complete but more than a year behind schedule.

Its a skill set that I think will be really vital as they expand and upgrade, she said.

Werner views Glendale Community College as offering something for everyone, saying middle-class families can save on tuition costs by enrolling their children there. Low-income families can take advantage of the colleges training programs to secure higher-paying jobs, and older residents can take extended learning courses.

Right person. Right time.  Rondi Werner

Shes not confident that all residents are aware of what the colleges Verdugo and Garfield campuses have to offer.

Many residents shes met told her they are unaware of tuition-free or workforce training programs, or that college officials plan to expand the Garfield campus, which is located in District 4.

She also views the colleges lower enrollment numbers in recent years as a communication issue.

If people say declining enrollment is the major problem with the college, its a symptom of a problem, and that bigger problem is the lack of communication, she said.

As a trustee, she said she would engage the community to share whats being offered, from adult education programs to dual-enrollment courses that high school students can take to earn college credit before they even receive their high school diploma.

For years, shes held community colleges in high regard for the way they enable people to earn higher-paying jobs. After Werners parents divorced when she was 9 years old, her mother, raising three daughters on her own, enrolled in business administration courses at a community college and went from working as a secretary to earning more income as a financial controller.

In her run against two fellow newcomers for a District 4 seat, Werner also sums up her candidacy this way: Right person. Right time.

kelly.corrigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @kellymcorrigan

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The Guardians of the Galaxy ride opening May 27 at Disney California Adventure will replace the venerable Twilight Zone Tower of Terror as the anchor of a new Marvel themed land.

The 2004 Tower of Terror indoor elevator drop ride will be re-skinned with a back story loosely based on the original 2014 movie and the upcoming sequel, which feature a mismatched team of intergalactic misfits who band together to save the universe.

Mission: Breakout, as the new Guardians ride will be known, will take visitors on a comical and thrilling ride with new visual effects and music from the films soundtrack, according to Disney.

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Disney Imagineer Joe Rohde, who is supervising the makeover, has spoken extensively about the Guardians overlay to numerous publications and in prepared statements and videos.

Spoiler alert: What follows is a detailed look at what we know so far about the Guardians ride.

Backstory

The new rides backstory introduces visitors to the Collector and his unorthodox collection of extraterrestrial artifacts and creatures.

The Hollywood Tower Hotel will be transformed into a fortress-like museum run by the mysterious Collector. The Guardians of the Galaxy have become the Collectors latest prized possession, suspended in display cases over a vast abyss. Rocket Raccoon escapes and hatches a plan to rescue his fellow Guardians that involves park visitors and the museums elevator.

Characters

The roles of Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista) and the Collector (Benicio del Toro) will be reprised in the ride by the actors from the films.

Star-Lord and Gamora characters will host a Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Dance Off starting May 27 near the new ride in DCAs Hollywoodland. A Groot character will be available for meet-and-greet photo opportunities in the land.

Ride Exterior

The exterior of the haunted hotel is currently being transformed into an imposing space age fortress covered in power plant-like piping and shimmering earth tones.

The new intimidating facade no longer seamlessly blends with the Art Deco surroundings of the nearby faux Hollywood Boulevard.

Like stepping through a magic portal into another universe, the Collectors warehouse has mysteriously appeared out of nowhere, Rohde told IGN.

Museum Collection

The former lobby of the Hollywood Tower Hotel is being converted into a museum housing the Collectors prized possessions.

Passing through a vault door, visitors will enter the Collectors museum where artifacts from the Marvel universe are arrayed on the walls and in display cases. Via a television screen, the Collector welcomes his guests and boasts about his collection.

Die-hard Marvel fans will spot Rocket Raccoons gun, a Chitauri blaster, a Nova Corps helmet and Asgardian weaponry, according to IGN.

The regularly rotating collection will be culled from props and artifacts featured in Marvel films, television shows and comic books.

Collectors Office

The hotel library that once included a narration by Twilight Zone host Rod Serling will be transformed into the Collectors office.

Inside the office, the Collectors desk will be covered with Easter eggs that provide clues to the upcoming mission.

Rocket Raccoon has escaped and is hiding in the overhead ventilation system. He lays out a plan for a high-stakes prison break to free his fellow Guardians and asks for the visitors help. But first he needs the visitors to scan their human hands at the security checkpoint station because his raccoon paw wont work, according to Nerdist.

Except for some minor rethemeing, the industrial-looking boiler room portion of the Tower of Terror queue will remain largely unchanged.

Ride Experience

The drop-in-the-dark attraction will feature randomized drop sequences with at least three different ride profiles, according to IGN. The elevator doors may or may not open at the top of the ride for a panoramic view of the park as they did on Tower of Terror.

The insane chaos of Mission: Breakout will have a much faster pace than Tower of Terror. As the story goes, Rocket disarms a control tower, unleashing all of the museums caged aliens and causing the elevator to go haywire, Rohde told Slashfilm.

Soundtrack

Expect songs from Star-Lords Awesome Mix Vol. 1 mix tape to play a prominent role in the ride.

A variety of music from the films soundtrack and other retro-1970s songs will accompany the drop sequence, Rohde told Slashfilm.

The mostly-mellow soundtrack features a few uptempo songs, including I Want You Back by the Jackson 5, Cherry Bomb by the Runaways and Aint No Mountain High Enough by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell.

Gift Shop

Visitors will exit through a gift shop filled with Guardians of the Galaxy merchandise from the Collectors collection.

The shop will be themed as the fortress-like museums shipping and receiving garage that doubles as a shady black market, according to Nerdist.

Themed Land

The updated attraction will anchor a broader Marvel universe at Disney California Adventure that will expand over time, according to Disney officials.

The new Guardian ride sits north of the 4-acre Timon parking lot that represents the last significant parcel of unused land in the Disneyland resort. The Marvel-themed land could also take over portions of the parks Hollywoodland and Bugs Land, according to MiceChat.

Still need more theme park news? Check out the Los Angeles Times Funland theme park blog on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Instagram.

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While taking this image, former Los Angeles Times staff photographer Art Rogers remembers someone was using a jackhammer and suddenly stopped and all the rabbit ears went up.

This photo ran the width of the page across the top of the daily L.A. Times picture page. It was well-received by editors and readers everywhere  except at City Hall.

Los Angeles Times columnist Gene Sherman explained Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Bowrons reaction in 1948:

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About two years ago you may recall the startling picture taken by Times Photographer Art Rogers. It showed Los Angeles Airport framed above a row of bunnies alert along the east end, ears aloft. For some peculiar reason the picture created quite a stir.

 Setting some kind of precedent, Mayor Bowron categorically denied the photograph. When the picture later appeared in a national magazine, the mayor again challenged the integrity of photographic plate and flash bulb and informed the world that the idea of jackrabbits on the airport was pure poppycock

. From time to time passengers in giant air liners are amused when giant jacks race the plane on take-off. Until now, none of the rabbits has left the ground. 

A week later Mayor Bowron capitulated and visited Sherman at The Times office. Bowron presented Sherman with a real airport bunny. Sherman named the rabbit Poppycock.

In a 1955 column, Sherman wrote:

Mr. Robert A. McMillan, general manger of International Airport, received a desperate request from a lady named Willie Mae Rogers in New York who happened to mention over a lunch table that shed seen hundreds of rabbits scampering over the runways down in Inglewood during a take-off some years ago. Apparently everyone had laughed at her. 

 Mr. McMillan got a copy of [Art Rogers] picture and dispatched it hurriedly to Miss Rogers with a letter.

Yes Willie Mae, there are rabbits at Los Angeles International Airport.

In 1959, The Times published a full page of photos by Art Rogers of wildlife  including more rabbits  at the airport. A week later Sherman followed up with:

Art Rogers, the Audubon of the airport, had a fascinating page of pictures of various fauna that inhabit L.A. International in The Times last week.

It was Rogers, who can shoot A-bombs and zebras with equal skill, who straggled Angeltown a few years ago with a picture showing a horde of cottontails hippity-hopping down the airplane trails.

Much to the consternation of former Mayor Bowron, the place thereafter was referred to as International Hareport.

In a 1961 publicity stunt for dedication of a new terminal, a 6-foot-tall rabbit named Harvey joined the festivities. As reported in The Times:

A 6 ft.-1 in. rabbit named Harvey Lepodorae flew into Los Angeles International Airport by jet Thursday to attend opening ceremonies for the $70 million new terminal. 

When I left here in 1946, he said  this place was strictly Rabbitsville.

He was referring to the embarrassing fact that when the airport first became a terminal for major airlines back in 1946 there probably were more rabbits on the scene than passengers.

The rabbits were such a feature of the early days that they became nationally famous through a prize-winning picture made by Times photographer Art Rogers, who crept up on the airfield one day at dawn and caught hundred of them flocking around a couple of DC-3s.

By 1990, the wildlife at LAX had changed. Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Harvey reported that pigeons had replaced rabbits as the scourge of LAX. He wrote:

Four decades ago, Times photographer Art Rogers (now retired) took a striking shot of the fearless intruders.

Most of the rabbits, says Mario Polselli, the chief of airport operations, were eventually eliminated by a local force: Foxes.

Now, however, most of the foxes are gone as well, Polselli noted this week. Some of them were run over, I guess. I hadnt seen any for a long time and then one day, three or four weeks ago, I saw one running parallel to the runways.

Destination unknown.

The jackrabbit photo by Art Rogers was published as a double-page spread in the Dec. 2, 1946, edition of Life magazine.

Rogers died on Dec. 20, 2011. His obituary appeared in The Times: Art Rogers dies at 93; L.A. Times photographer.

This post was originally published on Aug. 4, 2011.

See more from the Los Angeles Times archives here
Ahmed Kathrada, a close confidante of Nelson Mandela who dedicated his life to opposing apartheid and racism, died in Johannesburg on Tuesday morning. He was 87.

Kathrada died after suffering a short period of illness, according to a statement from the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation. He was hospitalized earlier in March to receive treatment for blood clotting in his brain.

Kathrada, or Kathy as South Africans affectionately called him, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island during the apartheid era, with Nelson Mandela and 10 other anti-apartheid activists, all arrested in a 1963 police raid on their hideout at Liliesleaf farm, north of Johannesburg.

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Kathrada, an African National Congress activist, played a major role in South Africas liberation struggle. He called Mandela his elder brother, and mourned his 2013 death with the words, My life is a void.

He got his first taste of politics when he was 12, and served his first stint in jail for political activism at 17. He was banned from political activities but continued to play cat-and-mouse with South African police. He was arrested 18 times.

Kathrada was the son of Indian migrants, Mohamed and Hawa Kathrada, who arrived from Gujarat in India and set up a small shop in 1919 in the modest town of Schweizer Reneke 200 miles from Johannesburg, in what is now North West province. Barred from the local primary schools as an Indian, he went to Fordsburg, Johannesburg, to live with his aunt, Fatima, and attend an Indian school.

At 12, he joined a nonracial youth group run by the Youth Communist League and he soon volunteered to hand out leaflets.

He left school in his final school year to work for the Transvaal Passive Resistance Council, an organization that led peaceful protests against the racist segregation laws that preceded apartheid (which came in in 1948) that barred blacks, Indians and people of color from voting, living and doing business in certain areas or buying land.

Thousands of Indians marched in Durban, staging a national strike and pitching tents in the citys center, which they called Resistance City. Police arrested 2,000 people over several months in 1946, including Kathrada, who was jailed for a month. From then on, Kathrada was in and out of trouble with the law for political resistance.

To Kathrada, a life of humiliation and without dignity is not worth living, words he wrote in one of his letters from Robben Island. He ignored the racist Europeans Only signs and laws that enforced segregation and prohibited blacks, Indians and other people of color from traveling freely. Once, when he got on a Europeans-only bus, an indignant white woman told him and his colleagues to read the sign.

We responded by saying that, We do not mind sharing a lift with Europeans, and that she was welcome to join us, he wrote last year on the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation website. Of course, she must have been horrified at the attitude of us non-Europeans and chose not to take the lift. But, we asserted our dignity, and made our point.

In 1951, Kathrada traveled to an international student congress in Poland and visited Auschwitz, which he said had a profound effect on him, encapsulating the evil of institutionalized racism.

A year later, he helped organize the Defiance Campaign, a peaceful protest campaign, and was one of 20 leaders convicted and given a suspended sentence of nine months hard labor.

He was banned from attending gatherings or participating in politics, but that didnt slow his activism.

In 1955, he was one of the organizers of a peoples congress in Kliptown, Soweto, that proclaimed the Freedom Charter  a document demanding a nonracial South Africa where all races were equal. It later became the foundation of South Africas constitution. Banned from political activity, Kathrada had to hide in a store room during the event.

In the early 1960s he began dating a white girlfriend, Sylvia Neame, another anti-apartheid activist. Such relationships were illegal under apartheid laws. When he was jailed on Robben Island in 1963, Neame told him that she would wait for him, but in 1965 she was jailed for two years for her political activities and fled South Africa soon after her release.

Kathrada, along with Mandela, was one of 156 anti-apartheid activists charged in the four-year Treason Trial in 1956. All were eventually acquitted.

But Kathrada was continually harassed by police, arrested, banned and placed under house arrest. Friends advised him to flee into exile but he said he was determined to stay and continue resisting the regime. He went underground in 1962, adopting disguises when he wanted to move about, but was arrested again in 1963 with Mandela and 10 others and convicted of sabotage.

The prisoners were shackled and flown to Robben Island, where he would spend 18 years of a 26-year sentence. Family members and friends were often barred from visiting him. Newspapers and radios were banned in the prison and Kathrada was allowed to receive only one letter every six months.

When prison authorities gave Mandela and the other black prisoners shorts and Kathrada got trousers, he intended to insist on wearing shorts too. Mandela urged him not to give up any benefit he had, but instead to fight for all to have the same benefit. Kathrada and other Indian and colored prisoners shared food rations with black prisoners who were given less.

The prisoners concealed items in secret compartments and bribed or blackmailed guards to get hold of newspapers or smuggle out letters. Kathrada spent six months in solitary confinement for smuggling a letter to another prisoner.

In prison he wrote to his mother that he regretted neglecting his formal education. He made up for it in prison, becoming the first prisoner on Robben Island to get a degree, a bachelor of the arts in history and criminology. Later he received three additional degrees.

He kept a secret collection of letters and notebooks of inspiring quotations, but they were confiscated in 1972, along with a photograph of his girlfriend. A warden destroyed the photograph in front of him, saying Kathrada had no right to keep a photograph of a white woman.

Later, Kathrada and another prisoner took advantage of the weekend guards shift, offering to clean out the cell where the confiscated items were being held. They recovered many of his letters and notebooks.

The injustices of apartheid  some petty, some large  always hurt, but Kathrada wrote from prison that my nature will not allow me to harbor hatred for anyone, not matter how deeply he may have wounded my feelings.

In 1989, at the age of 60, he was released from prison and soon met a woman who would be his life partner, Barbara Hogan, another ANC activist. She had been jailed for 10 years for high treason. The couple never had children.

Kathrada was elected to parliament in the first democratic elections in 1994 and became an advisor to Mandela.

Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, believes South Africa could have been plunged into civil war in the 1990s if not for Mandela, Kathrada and other activists.

People like Kathy have helped because of their lack of bitterness, their magnanimity and generosity of spirit and willingness to forgive, even after so much suffering, Tutu said.

After his release, getting used to devices such as cellphones and computers, Kathrada occasionally missed the calm reflective moments of prison.

I missed prison. There, they open the gates for you and close the gates. They provide food. There was a lot of time to think and discuss. That time was gone, he told one journalist.

He believes Robben Island, now a museum, should not be seen as a memorial to the brutality of apartheid.

We would want it to be a triumph of the human spirit against the forces of evil, a triumph of wisdom and largeness of spirit against small minds and pettiness, a triumph of courage and determination over human frailty and weakness, he said. The words are inscribed near the entrance of Robben Island prison.

Kathrada is survived by his partner, Hogan.

robyn.dixon@latimes.com

Twitter: @RobynDixon_LAT
When Laszlo Szabo, Hungarys deputy minister for foreign affairs and trade, visited the United States this month, he made a point of including Los Angeles on his itinerary.

I wanted to come to L.A. because there is a huge community of Hungarian origin, said Szabo, who is also his countrys minister of state for parliamentary affairs.

Part of that community was historically associated with the film industry, including Bela Lugosi, the Gabor sisters and Drew Barrymore, among others.

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But Szabos mission to the City of Angels was not to talk film. He came to push investment and trade, and during his mission stopped by The Times to share his views on these and other issues.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Why should U.S. companies invest in Hungary?

They are already doing so. We already have more than $18 billion coming from U.S. companies. The U.S. is our No. 2 investor in the country, after Germany.

What kinds of U.S. business are investing in Hungary?

Pharmaceuticals, for example. The automotive industry is quite heavily there. But also digital technologies [and] shared service centers. Were talking about 1,750 companies employing 93,000 people.

How would you characterize the relationship between the U.S. and Hungary?

Traditionally, we have been great allies, especially since Hungary joined NATO. Hungary is very, very active on many fronts. We have our troops in Afghanistan. We have troops in Iraq. We have been helping [the North Atlantic Treaty Organization] in policing the airspace in the Baltic states.

So this is one side of the collaboration. The other side is the economic collaboration. Theres quite significant trade between the two countries.

Is the Trump administration one Hungary can work with?

We certainly hope so. It will still take a few months until we see how things will work out. But we are very glad that Prime Minister [Viktor] Orban of Hungary had a telephone conversation with President Trump quite early after his election and its quite clear that in many, many challenges the approach of Hungary and the U.S. are quite similar right now.

We have had our [frictions] with the previous administration, but this doesnt mean that we were not allies all the way through. From time to time we felt that theres unnecessary pressure from the previous administration.

 I wanted to come to L.A. because there is a huge community of Hungarian origin, said Laszlo Szabo, who is also his countrys minister of state for parliamentary affairs. (Christina House / For the Times)

How do you respond to the criticism that Hungary is violating human rights in its treatment of migrants?

Hungary is trying to [uphold] the regulations of the Dublin treaty [which determines where an asylum seekers application should be processed] and the Schengen treaty [which abolishes border checks among certain European nations].

We are letting anyone into the country who is trying to cross the border legally. If they dont have any papers, we try to provide asylum for those who are seeking asylum, according to the Geneva treaty, naturally.

But there is one thing that is often misinterpreted in the press. Hungary actually never closed its borders to refugees or migrants. Anyone, even in the last two years, who wanted to cross the border legally [could use] border crossing stations. You provide your papers, your passport, and if you dont have one, you basically play by the rules of the authorities and by the legislation of the European Union. You provide a photo and you provide fingerprints  just like entering into the U.S.

It was very strange for us to be singled out at the very beginning of the migration crisis in 2015. The black sheep in the family was the one country that kept the regulations and the rules, and those who completely disregarded them  Italy, Greece  they were wonderful people, wonderful countries, everything is shiny and peachy.

Hungarian soldiers build a fence at the border with Croatia near Kulked village in September 2015. (LASZLO LAUFER / AFP/Getty Images)

When Hungary started to build a wall, not to close the border [but] to protect the green border so people cannot cross illegally, just like the European Union mandates us, [then-]Chancellor [Werner] Faymann of Austria, for example, called us fascists. When Austria started to build a fence two months later, that was [considered] a gate with long wings. So this is what I call hypocrisy.

So youve closed the border to those you consider to be illegal migrants?

Its very clear. If someone wants to cross cornfields during the night, I dont think even the U.S. would call that legal migration. Also, lets not forget that those people who originally ran for their lives because of their political beliefs, or because of the war situation in their home country, they are only considered refugees  based on the Geneva Convention  until they get to the next safe place, closest to their home country. So basically, this is where they need support, this is where they need humanitarian help.

If you start marching through six, seven safe countries, by the time you reach Hungary or Austria or Germany, you have basically walked thousands of miles going through safe countries clearly looking for a better life. So youre not running for your life anymore.

So this is where the definition of a refugee and a migrant gets confused very easily, and we are quite disturbed by this fact.

Migrants walk on the road of Asotthalom village, near the Hungarian-Serbian border, in June 2015 after illegally crossing the border. (CSABA SEGESVARI / AFP/Getty Images)

Whats the solution for the EU?

First, lets talk about the damage. We believe theres lot of wasted energies within Europe, because many of the politicians try to gain an internal political advantage from the migration crisis. Quite simply, facts are sometimes distorted for that reason.

For us, it was a shock to see that Greece just let [migrants] through without any questions, put them on boats, on buses, on trains, and just sent them through to Germany or Sweden. And now look at Germany, look at Sweden. They have already decided that 50% of those people are not eligible for asylum.

In our view, you have to be smarter than this. You have to decide whether a person is a refugee or economic migrant outside the borders of the European Union. They are already in a safe place in Serbia. They are already in a safe place in Greece. Even better for Europe if they stay in Turkey, for example, or in Libya, or in Jordan. There, we have to provide humanitarian aid.

We need international collaboration in stopping the [Syrian] war. This is very, very important. We believe Europe as a whole, NATO, even Russia, has to chip in and has to collaborate to find a common solution to the war.

So is the EU to blame for the migrant crisis?

No, its not the EU, its Brussels [the de facto capital of the EU]. Its how Brussels is completely incompetent in answering a crisis like this.

ann.simmons@latimes.com

For more on global development news, see our Global Development Watch page, and follow me @AMSimmons1 on Twitter
Russian anti-corruption crusader and opposition leader Alexei Navalny was sentenced to 15 days in jail Monday, one day after rallies he organized attracted tens of thousands of people and resulted in hundreds being detained by authorities.

The Tverskoy district court also fined Navalny $350 for organizing an unsanctioned rally in Moscow on Sunday, during which he was arrested just minutes after arrival for purportedly resisting police orders.

The rallies in Moscow and dozens of Russian cities and towns were the countrys largest since the 2012 protests against President Vladimir Putins return to the Kremlin for a third presidency. They took many people in Russia by surprise with their scope and demographics.

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Many protesters were youths, unusual in Russia, where protests are mostly attended by older people.

I am very glad and happy to see the emergence of a generation in the country that is not ready to just abide by this attitude of the authorities, Navalny, 40, said in court.

The Kremlin said Navalny and his supporters attracted youngsters to rally with them by promising them money. Authorities and pro-Kremlin parties routinely offer around $10 for taking part in pro-government marches.

Underage participants of the rally in Moscow were promised monetary awards in case of their detention by law enforcement officers, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists in a conference call.

Peskov declined to answer a question about a documentary released on YouTube by Navalnys anti-corruption fund about Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedevs alleged involvement in corruption schemes that purportedly made him a billionaire. The 50-minute-long documentary has been viewed more than 11 million times and was shared by hundreds of thousands of users of social networking websites.

The Kremlin and state-controlled television ignored the documentary. Some of the officials and Medvedev relatives mentioned in it denied involvement in the schemes.

Navalny is a lawyer by training whose political career is rooted in dozens of investigative reports about corruption among top Russian officials and in state-run companies.

The Kremlin usually snubs the reports and is widely seen as a power behind the accusations Navalny faced in courts.

In February, he was given a suspended sentence of five years in jail for alleged fraud. The legal process was a retrial of a 2013 fraud case that initially ended with a five-year sentence, but was overturned by Russias Supreme Court after massive riots in Moscow.

The suspended sentence is widely seen as a way for the Kremlin to ban Navalny from running for office  under Russian election law he cannot run because of his criminal record.

The trial Monday was also widely seen as Kremlin-orchestrated.

Junior Judge Alesya Orekhova said Navalny was accused of disobeying the orders of police officers during the Sunday rally.

Navalny pledged to defend activists who were detained or arrested by filing a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights and appealing detentions in Russian courts.

Last year, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia violated Navalnys right to a fair trial in 2013.

However, Navalnys legal team is currently decimated. His fund was raided by police Sunday, several staffers were arrested for resisting a rescue operation that followed an alleged bomb threat, and the organizations computers and paperwork were confiscated without a court order, he said.

Most of them have been arrested for up to 25 days, his lawyer Olga Mikhailova said.

The Kremlins response to Sundays rally seemed rather mild in comparison with a massive crackdown that followed the 2012 anti-Putin protests.

Hundreds of protesters were arrested, and dozens faced trial and were sentenced to jail; one of the defendants committed suicide. Opposition leaders, including Navalny, were interrogated and had their offices and apartments searched.

Pro-Kremlin media ran reports vilifying the opposition and saying they received funding from Washington. The Kremlin toughened punishment for holding unsanctioned rallies and labeled Western-funded non-government organizations foreign agents.

Mirovalev is a special correspondent.
Carlos the Jackal, the self-proclaimed professional revolutionary who was once the most-wanted man in the world, was sentenced to a third life sentence Tuesday for the 1974 bombing of a Paris shopping arcade.

The Venezuelan-born criminal denied the charges and criticized the court for the absurdity of a trial 43 years after the events, but was found guilty by five judges after a two-week hearing and more than four hours of deliberation.

He has always denied the charges and his lawyers have indicated that they will appeal.

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George Holleaux, the lawyer for the families of two of his victims, said todays verdict is proof that there is nowhere, never, impunity if one is ready to fight.

Let perpetrators of terrorist crimes know it: Now the victims will never give up, he added.

Carlos, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, has already been behind bars for 23 years in France after receiving two life sentences for crimes committed in the 1970s and 80s in the name of the Palestinian cause or the Communist revolution.

He was found responsible for the 1975 murders of two French police officers and an informant.

And in 1982 and 1983, he masterminded a series of attacks in Paris and Marseille, some of which targeted trains, leaving 11 people dead and 150 wounded.

Carlos, now 67 with graying hair, appeared in court wearing a black shirt and jacket with a handkerchief in his breast pocket. He kissed the hand of his wife and lawyer, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, and made a show of blowing kisses to the media from the confines of the glass box where he sat surrounded by law enforcement.

This courtroom sketch created in Paris on Tuesday shows Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a.k.a. Carlos the Jackal, during his trial for the deadly bombing at a Paris shopping arcade more than 40 years ago. (BENOIT PEYRUCQ / AFP/Getty Images)

This latest trial relates to the grenade attack that killed two people and wounded 34 at the popular Drugstore St. Germain, a Left Bank cafe and boutique complex popular with tourists. The blast shattered windows and left a large hole in the marble floor. The deceased suffered massive internal bleeding after metal chips perforated their vital organs.

There was, however, a lack of hard evidence linking him to the scene: no DNA, fingerprints or surveillance footage. Despite this, prosecutor Remi Crosson du Cormier told the court that all evidence gathered in this investigation points to Carlos.

Carlos lawyers argued for an acquittal and said the case should never have been brought against his client.

The magistrates didnt dare acquit Carlos, attorney Francis Villein said. Lets meet again in one year, for the appeal trial and for a new performance in this justice drama.

Carlos was born into a well-to-do Venezuelan family and spent time studying in Moscow before joining the militant group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as a young man. He earned his nickname from the media because of the fictional terrorist in Frederick Forsyths book The Day of the Jackal, which was found in a property where he had stayed.

He quickly earned a reputation as a ruthless terrorist who orchestrated hostage-takings, assassinations and deadly bomb blasts, but he was not captured until 1994 by elite French police in Sudan.

When his latest trial began he boasted that no one has executed more people than me in the Palestinian resistance, and defended any killings as carried out in the name of the revolution.

Boyle is a special correspondent.

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Extreme weather has battered many parts of the world this year, but few countries have suffered more in lives, homes and crops lost than Peru, the Andean country that has been beset with torrential rains and massive flooding for much of this year.

On Tuesday, the Peruvian government raised the death toll from floods to 94 while relief agencies estimated that 700,000 persons have been left homeless in 12 of the countrys 25 regions. The cost to Perus economy in lost productivity has been estimated at $3.1 billion, or 1.6% of the countrys annual output of goods and services.



For the record: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Chongoyape, a town in the Lambayeque region, as Changoyape.

The price tag for fixing roads and bridges is at least $1 billion and the work will take two to three years to complete, Transportation Minister Martin Vizcarra said Tuesday.

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Widespread damage to roads and highways has isolated many victims, hampering relief efforts. In Catacaos, floodwaters reaching 6 feet high have killed four people and left much of the riverside city inundated. Five hundred people there were evacuated Tuesday morning, with many others still awaiting rescue.

We have lost everything.  Carmela Calle, flood victim

Were trapped and we cant get out, said Carmela Calle, a 43-year-old homemaker in Catacaos who spoke to The Times by phone. Please help us. We are on the roof with a newborn baby and two elderly relatives. We are desperate and without food. We have lost everything.

The governments meteorological service said there is little chance of a respite in the near future, as heavy rains are forecast to continue through this weekend. Rains have been unseasonably intense since January, with the most severe damage reported in the countrys northwestern coastal areas as a result of what has been described as a coastal El Nino.

Eight people have been reported killed in Lima, the capital, with 8,400 homes destroyed by the flooding. Some southern and central parts of the capital have gone six days without drinking water.

Damage was worse in the northwestern city of Piura, a metropolis of 1.8 million, where rising floodwaters reached the central square known as Plaza de Armas, killing four and forcing hundreds of families to abandon their homes. Four bridges connecting the center of town with outlying districts were reported washed out.

More than 1,200 people in Piura have been rescued from flooded homes, according to Gen. Jorge Chavez of the National Center for Emergency Operations. Military and police personnel were using inflatable boats to reach areas left isolated by floods, he said.

Two men make their way in Piura, where more than 1,200 people have been rescued from flooded homes. (Edwin Zapata Alvarado / EPA)

Some buildings in Piura collapsed when floodwaters hit the city. (PATRICIA LACHIRA / AFP/Getty Images)

We know this is an extreme situation, but we are pleading for calm. Please be confident that all will be taken care of, Chavez said. But there were widespread complaints that officials were responding too slowly.

We dont know where to turn because no one is helping us. We hear on TV that the government is sending support but until now we have seen nothing, said Hector Santos, a Piura resident and owner of a flooded house. We have no place to sleep, he said, telling a radio reporter he was speaking from his roof.

Reynaldo Hilbck Guzman, governor of the Piura region, said the volume of water coursing through the Piura River is unprecedented and overwhelming levees. Floods already have destroyed 15,000 acres of crops, he said.

A spokesman for President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said the government has sent hundreds of military and police personnel to help in relief efforts. He also appointed special ministers in each province to manage relief efforts. The national emergency operations center reported that a total of 150,000 houses and businesses have been flooded out.

I have lost my grocery store and my house, which no longer exists, said Mariano Carreras of Chongoyape, a town in the Lambayeque region.

My children have no clothes to wear, and the flood took away all their school books, he told The Times by phone. We are desperate and having nothing. Who will help us?

International aid has begun to arrive, with the United States pledging $525,000 in relief. Chinas ambassador to Peru, Jia Guide, said his country will donate $1.5 million to relief efforts. Also pledging aid are France, South Korea, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and the Vatican, among others.

Special correspondents Leon and Kraul reported from Lima, Peru, and Bogota, Colombia, respectively.

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All material is subject to strictly enforced copyright terms & conditions and cannot be repurposed or reproduced.  19882022 Latin American Financial Publications Inc.
Fourteen nations including U.S., Mexico, and Canada will work together to restore Venezuela's democracy. The joint effort of these countries will call on Nicolas Maduro's government to return full powers to National Assembly, release political prisoners and bring back holding of regional elections that have not enjoyed today.

Although it is unusual for a nation to interfere internal affairs of another state which Mexico has avoided for the past years but Mexico and other thirteen states have agreed to act together to prevent possible influence Venezuela's authoritarian regime could give to other surrounding countries, such as Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Ecuador as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said they feel the time has come to act. He further confirmed U.S. and Mexico's alliance regarding this issue. It is not related to trade, immigration or border wall issue. "It's not the motivation, but it helps to have a common cause", he said.

The situation in Venezuela is getting worst. Suppression of dissent has escalated. Maduro's government continues to imprison opposition leaders, indefinitely postponed gubernatorial elections and also scuttled a recall referendum by the opposition. While political situation has gone like these, Venezuela's economy continued to shrink. The number of people getting poorer is surging. Other Latin American nations were shocked to know that many people in the oil-rich country spend their days searching for food in the garbage.

According to MBNews, the 14 nations would submit the statement for a vote as a resolution at the Organization of American States. Members are asked to pass a resolution calling on Maduro's government to permit elections and ease the clampdown on the opposition within 30 days, otherwise lost membership of the organization.

The countries included in the 14 nations are the U.S. countries, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, Canada, Paraguay, Chile, Panama, Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala. They are expected to sign the letter, while the countries who refused to sign are Venezuela's closest allies such as Ecuador, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Bolivia and El Salvador.
Cersei and Euron may be teaming up in "Game of Thrones" season 7, according to Nikolaj Coster-Waldau's almost slip up. The actor who plays Jaime Lannister in the HBO show nearly revealed an important plot of the show but managed to hold himself back in the nick of time.

In a recent interview regarding the upcoming "Game of Thrones" season 7, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau may have revealed too much. Mail Online reports that the Danish actor revealed that his character has an incestuous but unconditional love for his sister Cersei Lannister (played by Lena Headey).

He accidentally revealed that Cersei may have a new suitor in "Game of Thrones" season 7. However, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau admitted that he was about to reveal an important plot but stopped himself. The actor adds that Jaime Lannister will be playing an important role involving take over his house from his father.

"Game of Thrones" season 7 will debut in July 2017 and will contain lesser episodes and pushed back farther than the past seasons. E News reports that there have been rumors that Euron Greyjoy (played by Pilou Asbaek) will be wooing Cersei Lannister as the plot thickens over the war for the Seven Kingdoms.

Euron Greyjoy who is the uncle of Yara and Theon has taken over as the king of the Iron Islands in the last season. The theory goes that since Yara and Theon have gone over to Daenerys Targaryen (played by Emilia Clarke) to form an alliance, Euron will instead forge a pact with Cersei via marriage in "Gae of Thrones" season 7.

The suspected new "husband" for Cersei was introduced in season 6. Euron Greyjoy was last seen ordering his men to build a thousand ships which were supposed to be his gift for the Mother of Dragons. However, he wasn't seen in the last few episodes and many suspect that he will be making a grand entrance in "Game of Thrones" season 7.
The Liberal government of Canada will announce legalize recreational marijuana in Canada by July 1, 2018. A senior government official has reported the news on Monday.

According to CBS News, the legislation on recreational marijuana will be announced during the week of April 10 and will broadly follow the recommendation of a federally appointed task force. The task force was chaired by former liberal justice minister Anne McLellan.

The Prime Minister of Liberal government Justin Trudeau has long promised to legalize recreational pot use and sales. Canada would be the largest developed country to end a nationwide prohibition of recreational marijuana.

CBC News has reported that the US voters in California, Massachusetts, Maine, and Nevada voted last year for the approval of the use of recreational marijuana. The others joining states are Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska. However, Uruguay in South America is the only nation to legalize recreational pot.

The news report has stated that the federal government will be in charge of making the country's recreational marijuana supply is safe and secure and Ottawa will license producers. Ottawa will set a minimum age of 18 to buy and use marijuana and the provincial government will also have the right to set the price of marijuana.

The warning became more concrete a week later when police in Toronto, Vancouver, and other cities have carried out raids on recreational marijuana dispensaries. They have also charged several people with possession of trafficking, including noted pot advocates Marc and Jodie Emry.

The Liberal government had promised to introduce the legislation on recreational marijuana by the spring of 2017. They will be announcing the legislation the week of April 10 and that will allow the party to hit the deadline.

However, the Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould has declined to confirm the dates provided by the official. But in a statement the government said, the government is committed to introducing the legislation on recreational marijuana in this spring.


On Friday, California has approved vehicle pollution targets that were put on hold by the Trump Organization. California Air Resources Board members condemned the auto industry for requesting that government regulators should re-evaluate vehicle emissions targets for 2022-2025.

Reports say that the board unanimously decided that there should be a set vehicle pollution rules for the state. They concurred to set a mandate for zero-emission sales over a similar time, and requested its staff to start work on targets after 2025, reports Reuters.

The auto industry's recommendation for implementation changes that would not undermine the program's objectives was welcomed by Board Chair Mary Nichols. Mary likewise scrutinized the automakers' goal in requesting federal intervention in the event that they would not like to undermine California's power. Many are certainly not happy with the vehicle pollution rules.

California has a long notoriety as an environmental pioneer, and state authorities say they will lead the resistance of that and other liberal issues against President Donald Trump. The state is permitted to set its own particular air quality guidelines, with federal approval, and around twelve different states take after its lead in entirety or part, reports Washington Post. Many believe vehicle pollution rules will curb the pollution in the region.

Reports claim that a two-track emissions regulatory system would leave purchasers with possibly higher costs and could entangle their capacity to move cars between states. Board member Hector De La Torre thought about a potential split amongst federal and state regulators to a separation. He said that on the off chance that a separation might occur sooner or later, they will contest that separation legally. Meanwhile, the results of vehicle pollution rules are yet to seen.

A White House official, reckoning the California vote, revealed to Reuters that the Trump organization was focused on ensuring jobs and providing consumers with moderate autos. He said that they are disillusioned that California has denied their great confidence to cooperate with every pertinent partner on this essential matter. Stay tuned for more vehicle pollution rules updates.
North Korea's military said Tuesday it has never exported weapons or ammunition to Russia and has no plans to do so, accusing the United States of spreading "groundless" rumors aim...
Mar 28, 2017, 1:57pm ET

Faraday Future drops plans for California factory

The company will focus on restarting construction \"very soon\" at its North Las Vegas site.

Faraday Future is no longer planning to build a second factory in Vallejo, California to supplement its planned North Las Vegas production facility.

The company early last year moved to acquire a 157-acre parcel on Mare Island, envisioning a production plant and "customer experience and delivery center" on the former military site.

The Bay Area production intention has been easily forgotten as Faraday Future's financial viability continues to be shrouded in doubts. The plan came to light just one month after FF 'broke ground' at its Nevada factory early last year. Amid reports of overdue payments to contractors, the company scaled back its plans from 3 million square feet to 650,000 square feet but no buildings have been erected yet.

In a statement to TechCrunch, Faraday Future confirmed that it has terminated its negotiations with Vallejo city officials "to focus corporate efforts on development of its first production vehicle and plant in North Las Vegas." The company says it remains interested in restarting the process in the future, however.

"FF's new multi-phased manufacturing strategy in Nevada is designed to bring FF 91, the company's flagship vehicle, to production more quickly, allowing FF to fill vehicle reservations that were collected following the car's launch at CES 2017," the statement added. "FF plans to restart construction at the North Las Vegas site very soon."
Mar 28, 2017, 12:48pm ET

Italian gang accused of plot to steal Enzo Ferrari's corpse

The gang allegedly planned to demand a ransom from the Ferrari family.

An Italian gang has been accused of a far-fetched plot to steal Enzo Ferrari's corpse.

Founder of the Prancing Horse marque, Ferrari died nearly three decades ago at the age of 90 -- not long after the company celebrated its 40th birthday by creating the iconic F40.

The conspiracy to steal Ferrari's body was allegedly uncovered when police launched an unrelated investigation into suspected drug and weapon trafficking, according to a Reuters report citing an official statement.

Ferrari is said to be buried above ground in a tomb located in Modena, the city of his birth in 1898.

Police claim the gang planned to seek ransom payment from the Ferrari family.
Land Rover planning more off-road-focused Discovery

Mar 28, 2017, 4:57am ET

The model will be \"in between Paris Dakar and Camel Trophy,\" according to SVO boss.

Land Rover will soon introduce a more extreme, off-road-focused variant of the brand-new 2017 Discovery.

Jaguar - Land Rover's Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) division is in charge of developing the yet-unnamed model. While the sub-brand has typically focused on making high-performance variants of cars like the Range Rover Sport and the F-Type, it's eager to show what it can do in the off-road department.

"I can't tell you what the SV version of the Discovery will be like, but in my mind it will be in between Paris Dakar and Camel Trophy. Somewhere in there is a product waiting to get out," SVO boss John Edwards revealed in a recent interview with British magazine Auto Express.

SVO's variant of the Discovery will be the most capable model customers can buy from the factory. Auto Express believes it will get additional protective cladding on the body, spot lights, and off-road-specific tires. It will also feature a model-specific suspension and a re-worked chassis, though full details are still being kept under wraps.

Edwards promised Jaguar - Land Rover will introduce at least one SVO-tuned model per year in the next three or four years. A hot, 570-horsepower version of the F-Pace is expected to arrive next, so we might not see the Discovery until late this year or early next year. When it lands, the off-road model will be positioned at the very top of the lineup.

Exterior photos by Byron Hurd. Interior photos by Land Rover.
Mar 28, 2017, 5:06pm ET

Model X hits police motorcycle; driver blames Autopilot

Police were unable to corroborate the claim that Autopilot was active, but the minor \'tap\' will not be investigated.

A Tesla Model X driver has allegedly blamed Autopilot for a collision with a police motorcycle in Phoenix.

The electric crossover struck the rear end of the on-duty officer's motorcycle at an intersection after exiting the Black Canyon Freeway, according to an Arizona Republic report citing an official police confirmation.

The officer quickly dismounted and moved out of the way before the Model X hit the dropped bike at around three miles per hour.

The Model X driver allegedly told the officer that the vehicle was in Autopilot mode when the accident occurred. Tesla's latest Autopilot system is designed to maneuver the vehicle from a highway to an off ramp, but humans are required to take the wheel during the transition to side streets.

Police were unable to corroborate the driver's claim that Autopilot was active. With no injuries or significant damage to the vehicles, the department will not pursue any investigation.

The Norwegian Motorcyclists' Union last year raised concerns after a female rider was allegedly severely injured after her motorcycle was struck from behind by a Tesla vehicle with Autopilot engaged. The organization asked Tesla and European regulators if Autopilot and similar semi-autonomous systems have been thoroughly tested for effectiveness in avoiding collisions with motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians.
Mar 28, 2017, 7:57am ET

Uber files motion to move Waymo lawsuit into arbitration

Mobility giant wants to keep parts of Waymo\'s I.P. suit out of public court.

Uber filed a motion in a San Francisco court Monday to request that parts of Alphabet Inc. subsidiary Waymo's intellectual property theft suit against the mobility giant be handled in arbitration rather than in open court.

In effect, Uber's lawyers are arguing that Waymo is accusing its employees of theft, citing as grounds the fact that its "[...] employment agreements contain very broad arbitration provisions," Automotive News reports.

However, Waymo did not name the individuals in the suit. It named only Uber and the now-defunct autonomous truck developer Otto (which was purchased by the former). Uber's lawyers have argued that this was done deliberately to circumvent arbitration.

This is merely the latest in a series of recent developments in the brewing Silicon Valley legal drama.

Earlier in March, Daniel Compton, a self-described "independent software consultant" based in Morrinsville, New Zealand, theorized that Waymo is planning to reveal the presence of a deliberate conspiracy between former Waymo employees (lead by engineer Anthony Levandowski) 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.

If that is true, it would be added incentive for Uber to keep as much of the suit as possible out of the public eye.
A homeless man was arrested after repeatedly threatening to kill a crisis counselor at an Allentown hospital, telling the woman he would "find her and murder her," city police said.

Edward Acevedo, no current address, was arrested and charged with making terroristic threats and disorderly conduct stemming from the Sunday night incident at Sacred Heart Hospital.

The 60-year-old Acevedo was sent to Lehigh County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bail.

Police said they were called at around 6:30 p.m. Saturday for a berserk patient at the hospital.

The crisis counselor, who dealt with Acevedo before, reported he became angry with her. The counselor was sitting in a room across from Acevedo's, behind a glass window, when he threw a trash can at the window, police said.

Acevedo reportedly yelled he would kill the counselor, "give me 24 hours and I'll find you and kill you," and that he would "find her and murder her."

Acevedo again threatened to kill the counselor, then threw the trash can against the window a second time, police said. An emergency room doctor confirmed Acevedo repeatedly threatened to kill the counselor, police said.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Three men behind a driveway scam in Lower Saucon Township were foiled when the great niece of one of the victims confronted them and called the police, prosecutors said.

Richard Attenborough, 19; John Williams Jr., 57; and Stevee Castle-Lagerquist, 25, were all arraigned Monday on charges stemming from the alleged scam.

Williams, of Troy, New York, is charged with theft by deception, receiving stolen property and conspiracy. He was sent to Northampton County Prison in lieu of $10,000 bail.

Attenborough, of Bethlehem, is charged with two counts of conspiracy and two summary counts of peddling/soliciting without a license. He is free on $5,000 unsecured bail.

Castle-Lagerquist, of Baldwinsville, New York, is charged with conspiracy to commit theft, and was free after posting 10 percent of $5,000 bail.

Attorney John Francis Rooney V represents the trio. He declined to comment about the cases.

Lower Saucon Township police said they were called by a couple's great niece on Jan. 27 for a report of suspicious activity.

The woman reported she drove to the relatives' home on Springtown Hill Road and found four men, a red pickup truck and a white dump truck there.

The woman confronted the group, and one of the men told her his father told them to do driveway paving at the residence, police said. When the woman said police were on their way, the men fled, but not before she got the license plate of the dump truck, police said.

The plate number was traced to Tri State Paving in Bethlehem, which is the same address for Attenborough, police said.

The woman's relatives, who are 81 and 78, said the group showed up at their house unexpectedly and claimed they were hired to do work on the driveway. Police said the couple was asked for $6,000, and the group got a check for $4,500, which was immediately cashed after the group fled, according to police.

Two days later another township resident, who lives on Drifting Drive, reported being victim to a similar scam on Jan. 26, with a group in a red pickup truck and a white dump truck.

This time five men were at the property, according to police, and they took a check for $800, dumped asphalt millings on the driveway and then left. The 87-year-old man put an immediate stop payment on the check, police said.

In an interview with police, Attenborough reportedly admitted there was no intent to do the driveway work after the group got the payments. Attenborough also told police his "uncle," Williams, was at the victims' homes at the time, police said.

Video cameras at Wells Fargo bank caught Castle-Lagerquist trying to cash the $800 check on Jan. 29, police said.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Bethlehem high schools evacuated after threat

An 18-year-old Freedom High School student was taken into custody the morning of March 28, 2017, authorities say. (lehighvalleylive.com file photo)

An 18-year-old Freedom High School student was taken into custody Tuesday morning, authorities said.

She was "arrested for possession of marijuana and a cutting instrument," Bethlehem Area School District Superintendent Joseph Roy said in a text. The potential weapon was apparently similar to a box cutter, Roy said.

The student was suspended, the superintendent added.

Bethlehem Township police Chief Dan Pancoast confirmed the arrest by his department but didn't immediately have more details.

The teen was taken into custody at Freedom, Pancoast added.

The student, identified as Shawntiana Angel Gregory, of Bethlehem, was arraigned at 11:15 a.m. before District Judge Patricia Broscius on charges of possession of a weapon on school property and possession of a small amount of marijuana, according to court records.

She was released on $1,000 unsecured bail pending a preliminary hearing tentatively scheduled April 5.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Gardai are appealing for information after 500 litres of kerosene were stolen from a house in the Wolfhill area of Ballylinan.

This significant burglary took place some time between Monday, March 20 and Wednesday, March 22, at a rural home. Given the large amount of fuel taken, the gardai believe that either a van must have been used, or the culprits came back to the premises a number of times.

Anyone who may have seen any suspicious vans in the area is asked to contact the gardai.

Another house was broken into in the Ballylinan area on Monday, March 20, at Milltown. The alarm was activated after thieves knocked the alarm box off the wall and the house ransacked.

A small quantity of cash was taken.

Also on March 20, a house at Lake Vale in the Portlaoise estate of Kilminchy was broken into at around 2.45pm. The householder returned home to disturb the thief and nothing was taken from the premises.

There is no description of the burglar as the homeowner just heard the sound of running from the house.

Investigations are underway following break-ins at two Laois pubs.

The Wheel Inn at The Heath was broken into last Tuesday, March 21, sometime between 11am and 3pm. The property was ransacked and a quantity of tools was taken.

Meanwhile, poor weather conditions were not enough to deter burglars at Fleming's Bar at Newtown last Wednesday morning, March 22.

The raiders gained entry after breaking a window, and took a quantity of alcohol. It is believed the incident occurred sometime around 4am.

Portlaoise Gardai are appealing for witnesses or information to both incidents.

On Saturday, March 25, an unoccupied house at Redcastle, Mountrath was broken into, some time between 9am and 6pm. A rear door was forced and cash and other incidentals were taken.

Anyone who can assist with any of these crimes should call Portlaoise Garda Station on 05786 74100.
Illegal dumping is blighting the maintenance of St Peter and Pauls Cemetery in Portlaoise, with one thoughtless dumper even disposing of a fireplace in the corner of the graveyard.

This piece of recklessness was revealed at the recent meeting of the Portlaoise Municipal District in Laois County Hall.

Proposing a notice of motion, Cllr Willie Aird asked Laois County Council to indicate its plans for the collection of waste material in St Peter and Pauls Cemetery.

He received a written response from Ms Martina Bracken, of the council's environment section.

Ms Bracken said that Laois County Council are working with the Portlaoise Cemetery Committee in relation to the upkeep and maintenance of St Peter and Paul's Cemetery.

These works include the removal of waste materials from the Portlaoise cemetery, Ms Bracken revealed.

Remarked Cllr Aird: Any date when it will be sorted? It seems to be going on a long time.

He continued:  Theres an awful lot of stuff up there, it needs to be collected every week or every fortnight.

He said the cemetery was a destination for a lot of people, some on a daily basis and many going at least once a week.

Saying that it had previously taken him three months to get a leaky tap fixed in the cemetery, he told the meeting that resolving the issue of maintenance shouldnt have to be dragged on for weeks.

Supporting the motion, Cllr Noel Tuohy said a lot of progress had been made in the cemetery, but waste was still a problem with illegal dumping rearing its ugly head.

I saw a fireplace dumped in the corner of the cemetery, he said.

Waste is a problem, he concluded.
A Laois man has been given a jail sentence for shouting abuse at the Portlaoise Circuit Court judge and threatening both court staff and gardai.

Before last weeks sitting of Portlaoise District Court was Robert Dwane (22), with previous addresses in Portlaoise and Ballinakill.

Inspector Maria Conway gave evidence that on December 1 last year, during a sitting of Portlaoise Circuit Court, the accused became very aggressive toward the judge and had to be removed from the court.

He was very abusive, shouting and roaring at the judge, and was threatening both the court staff and the gardai.

He was very persistent in his abuse toward a garda detective, and continued to be abusive toward the gardai.

The accused had ten previous convictions, including hit and run, criminal damage, and bringing drugs into a place of detention.

He is currently serving a sentence previously imposed in the district court, for dangerous driving, with a release date of June 2.

Defence, Mr Barry Fitzgerald said his client had appeared regularly before the court, and his life was chaotic.

He is completely rebellious towards everybody, said defence, adding that the accused's life is completely out of control.

Mr Fitzgerald said that since going into custody, his client has undertaken a detox programme.

Judge Catherine Staines asked had the accused undertaken anger management, to which Mr Fitzgerald replied that the accuseds heroin addiction feeds the anger.

Mr Fitzgerald said that the accused had now got away from the peer group he had associated with, and was using his time well in prison.

Judge Staines said the court had given the accused every opportunity to get help with his problems.

There must be respect for the court, otherwise there could be anarchy, she said.

Judge Staines went on to say the accused had serious anger management issues that he needs to address.

The judge imposed a three-month sentence, to run concurrent to the sentence Dwane is already serving.

There was a separate charge of trespassing against the accused, on February 23.

It was alleged that the accused and another male entered a house without permission and were asked to leave.

Mr Fitzgerald said his client was pleading not guilty and the matter was put in for hearing on June 6.
Rubbish is no joke and the people of Portarlington will prove this on April Fools day when they embark on a mass clean up around the town on the Laois Offaly border.

Portarlington Tidy Towns is organising the cleaning of several areas in the town on Saturday April 1 from 10am.

Anyone who wishes to have their road or housing estate included in the clean up contact David Maher (086) 3475357. Previous years David has been involved in several big clean ups and helps co-ordinate the big effort.

The Portarlington Tidy Towns are asking people on the day to give an hour or two to help in this voluntary effort to clean up your local area.

Gloves, rubbish bags and a truck to transport away the rubbish will be available on the day.

The event co-incides with Clean up Laois Week runs from April 3-7 next. For other communities who wish to register a form can be downloaded from Laois County Council's website www.laois.ie or call the Enviornment Section on 057867330.

AES is supporting the week hosted by the council. Litter pickers, gloves and bags will be made available to all groups who register. Bags or rubbish collected during the week will be collected afterwards.

The public are asked to report illegal dumping by contacting 1800323230
A protest by members of the Travelling Community is on the cards in Portlaoise over an alleged ongoing refusal by pubs in the town to serve them.

The campaign to protest is being led by Mr Ger Nevin who claims to have been refused entry to local pubs over many years in the Laois town.

Mr Nevin is calling for a "public and peaceful" protest after matters came to a head on St Patrick's Day when he claims himself and his family were refused entry to four pubs in the town. He said he does not drink and had never been in some of the pubs that he claims refused him on the day.

He alleges that when he was asked why he and his family were refused he said the pubs said no reason was needed.

He told the Leinster Express that he wants a meeting with a representative of publicans in the town which would also be attended by local politicians and gardai to end Travellers being refused admission to pubs.

He said meetings progress is being made in Newbridge were a meeting is organised with councillors to move things forward.

Mr Nevin said a similar protest took place in Kerry in recent years which has led to the county's Travellers being served. He said his family have experienced the problem in Portlaoise over the years but he said it is now "the 21st century not the 19th".

"I don't want my sons to have to go through this as they grow up," he said.

Mr Nevin would not give a date when the protest would take place. He said he would be taking the issue up with Pavee Point the representative group for Irish Travellers.

He said he would go to court to object to licence being reviewed by pubs when the applications come before Portlaoise District Court.

The Laois branch of the Irish Vintners Association declined to comment.
It seems to me it sits on a desk and nothing happens, exclaimed Cllr Aidan Mullins at the Graiguecullen/Portarlington Municipal District meeting.

He had asked Laois County Council for a progress report on the taking in charge of Spindlewood Estate, Graiguecullen. Cllr Mullins said when he had raised the issue last May, it had been indicated that the matter would be resolved by the summer.

It just seems to me that Im getting a standard answer and nothing happens. I could have written the answer before I came in, he said.

He said there was a question of an unauthorised connection to a water pipe on the estate which, also needs speed ramps.

Planning Officer Pat Delaney wrote that it was hoped outstanding works on the estate would be completed circa May/June 2017 with a view to advertising for taking in charge.

Cllr Mullins also called for a progress on the taking in charge of Crossneen Manor in Graiguecullen. Mr Delaney said the developer had not complied with all the planning permission conditions work had to be finished.

He added: There is a bond currently in place until 7th Sept. It is hoped that progress will be made prior to the expiry of the bond. Should this not be the case, the Council will look at calling in the bond closer to expiry date.

Cllr Mullins: Is it not possible to call in the bond now?

Cllr Tom Mulhall: Developers need to get their act together.
Fresh from the UK, Australian and US tours of his award-winning show, Selfie, Pat Shortt returns with a brand new show, Hows Tings, coming to the Portlaoise Heritage Hotel on April 1.

In his inimitable high energy anarchic style of performance Pat brings his unique comic look at every day Irish characters and turns the normal to abnormal.

In Hows Tings, Pat introduces us to a variety of new characters, such as Eugene, the chairman of the local drama committee and every other committee in the parish who shares with us his mundane insight into parish politics; and Sr Eucharia with her hilarious look at religious life in small town Ireland.

Pat Shortt has in the past few years won critical praise for his stage appearances in the West End in London and on Broadway in New York for his portrayal of Johneen Pateen Mike in Michael Grandage's production of The Cripple Of Inishmaan.

Following that Pat toured to packed theatres in Australia and North America and won awards for his one-man show Selfie.

Back home he recently won critical acclaim for his role in the TV drama Small Town and will shortly be seen in cinemas playing the lead role of Harry Hambridge in the hilarious comedy caper movie The Flag.

Tickets for the show on April 1 are priced 29 per person.
A Kildare businesswoman has made an impassioned plea for local businesses to organise and fight back against controversial rates increases.

Marcella OReilly, owner of the popular Buy Design boutique in Crookstown, posted a video to social media last week, describing how her rates assessment had increased by 115%. She said she had spoken to other businesses whose rates have been increased by ten times as much as last year.

The video has gone viral, with over 23,000 views so far.

I was devastated when I got it, she said of the rates demand. This is one of our main overheads. To double somebodys overheads, or to go as far as (increase them) ten-fold is unbelievable.

Marcella is organising a public meeting this Thursday, March 30, at 8pm in the Clanard Court Hotel, Athy, at which ISME, County Kildare Chamber, The Racehorse Trainers Association and politicians will be present.

Several other meetings on the recent increases in rates demanded from some businesses will take place in Kildare in the coming weeks.

READ MORE: Kildare businesses furious over rate hikes

Deputy James Lawless will host meetings in the Glenroyal Hotel on March 30 at 6.30pm and in the Kildare Chamber offices, Naas, on April 6 at 6.30pm.

The Ceann Comhairle, Sean o Fearghil, will host an information workshop next Monday, April 3, at 4.30pm in the Church of Ireland Hall, Athy.

The Valuation Office is holding two extra days of walk-in clinics at the Kildare County Council offices, Aras Chill Dara, Naas, today, Tuesday, March 28 and Wednesday, March 29.

READ MORE: Kill horsetrainer Ted Walsh lambasts rates hike
The family of a brave 34-year-old Newbridge mum, who is battling cancer, has launched a fresh appeal to fund treatment in Turkey that may save her life.

Colette Nolan had been living in Bristol, but has now traveled to Istanbul to undergo ChemoThermia. She was diagnosed last July with triple negative rapid inflammatory breast cancer and is gravely ill.

Her sister Yvonne (nee Nolan) Carey said; We would like to thank everybody who finds it in their heart to donate something, anything, 1, 5, every penny counts.

We are begging you all to dig deep to help our daughter, sister, to fight this horrible disease, to be able to enjoy her life with her husband and little boy, who is one in April. She has missed out so much on his first year.

Colette is the most amazing, beautiful, bravest, strongest person I know, and I am honoured to say she is my little sister.

Continuing reading below

Colette is posting an online blog about her experiences in Turkey (see below).

The Nolan family are well known in the local community. Colette and Yvonnes mother, Margaret, ran a playgroup in Moorefield Drive for nearly 40 years. She is the chairperson of the local fundraising committee for the Alzheimer's association.

Their dad, Eamonn, worked in Curragh Carpets for over 40 years and undertakes voluntary work for the Parish Meals on Wheels, and is the treasurer for the graveyard committee.

We need to raise at least 100,000 to get Colette the life saving treatment she needs. Colette was told a few months ago that she has a hereditary gene called Brca1, explained Yvonne.

Our whole family had to be tested for this gene. There is a 50/50 chance myself and my brother could have this gene, which in turn, means we could develop breast, or ovarian cancer. Each test cost 500 as we had to go private as the waiting list was over 18 months.

Colette recently had to postpone the treatment in Turkey due to infection.

Last November, her sister Yvonne and a group of friends, Jenny Marsh, Angela, Hilda and Carol Whelan organised a special Shave or Dye night in Johnsons pub in Newbridge to raise funds for Colettes treatment.

Yvonne spoke of the shock of the diagnosis when Collettes little boy, Zebedee, was just six months old.

People have just been amazing. You really get to know who your friends are when something like this happens, added Yvonne.

This is the second time for tragedy to strike the Nolan family with the girls losing their sister Darina White in a tragic accident 20 years ago.

This latest nightmare began when Colette discovered she had a cyst while living in Spain. Yvonne explained she had it checked out and was told it was benign. However, doctors became concerned when it started to grow during her pregnancy.

She returned to England and was diagnosed with breast cancer on July 26 2016. On August 19, a follow up scan revealed the cancer had spread to her lungs, liver, spine and lymph nodes. Since then, Colette had been undergoing chemotherapy, but recently doctors in England said they could do no more for her.

All funds raised will finance this new treatment in Turkey and help Colette fight the battle of her life, supported by her husband Tim.

The family will be organising a number of fundraisers in the coming weeks including charity walks, karaoke night and the local schools are having civvies day.

A special bank account has been set up at the Bank of Ireland in Newbridge if anyone would like to make a donation. The account number is 22547306 and NSC is 901263.

People can also donate online at on https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/colettejoannolan#donationSummary.

For further information call Yvonne on 085 1242371.

Colette with her baby son
Pauline Goff - Curragh View, Brownstown, The Curragh

Peacefully at Naas Hospital surrounded by her loving family. Sadly missed by her loving sisters Mag, Marie and Liz, brothers Denis and Sean, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, relatives, neighbours and friends. Reposing at her family home from 6pm on Monday and from 2pm on Tuesday with Rosary on Tuesday night at 8pm. Removal on Wednesday afternoon at 1.15pm to arrive at Saint Brigid's Church, Curragh Camp for Requiem Mass at 2pm. Burial afterwards in St. Conleth's Cemetery, Newbridge. Donations, if desired, to "The friends of Naas Hospital and the Oncology Department at St. James Hospital". Donations Box in Church.

Benjamin (Ben) Reilly - Ryans Field, Newbridge

Reilly (Ryans Field, Newbridge, Co. Kildare) 26th March 2017. Benjamin (Ben), Retired BSM; deeply regretted by his loving family, relatives and friends. Reposing at Anderson & Leahy's Funeral Home, Newbridge on Tuesday from 4 o'clock with prayers at 7.30 o'clock. Removal on Wednesday morning at 10.15 o'clock to arrive at the Dominican College Church for Mass at 11 o'clock. Funeral afterwards to St. Conleth's Cemetery, Newbridge. Family flowers only please. Donations, if desired, to the Irish Cancer Society. Donations Box in the Church

Ellen Wall (nee Howe) - Carna, Suncroft

Predeceased by her husband Bill. Deeply regretted by her loving daughters Rose and Kay, son-in-law Eugene, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, relatives and friends. Reposing at home on Tuesday, 28th March, from 2 o'clock with rosary there at 8 o'clock. Removal on Wednesday at 10.30 o'clock to St. Brigid's Church, Suncroft arriving for Mass at 11 o'clock. Burial afterwards in Holy Cross Cemetery, Suncroft. Family flowers only please. Donations if desired to the Friends of Naas Hospital. Donation box in church.

George N. Conlon - The lawn, Cnoc na Greine, Kilcullen/Kimmage

Formerly of Poddle Park, Kimmage, Dublin 12, Old Jurys and Doyles Hotels. Beloved husband of Alice and father of Ann-Marie, Liam, Dave, Suzanne and Louise. Sadly missed by his loving wife and family, sister Frances, sons-in-law Seanie and Ben, daughters-in-law Mary and Aggie, grandchildren, extended family and friends. Reposing at his home on Tuesday from 4pm to 8pm. Removal on Wednesday morning at 10.30am to arrive at The Church of The Sacred Heart and St. Brigid, Kilcullen for Funeral Mass at 11am followed by Burial in St. Brigids Cemetery, Kilcullen. Family flowers only please. Donations, if desired, to Thrombosis Ireland. Donation box in church.

John (Jack Clare) Behan - St. Brigid's Terrace, Sallins

Removal from Murphy Brother's Funeral Home, Naas, this morning, Saturday, to The Church of the Guardian Angels, Sallins, for Requiem Mass at 11am. Cremation at Newlands Cross Crematorium at 1pm. Donations, if desired, to the Friends of Naas General Hospital. House private, please.

Patrick Byrne - Maryville, Kildare Town

Deeply regretted by his loving mother B.B., brother, sisters, brothers-in-law, sister-in-law, nephews, nieces, extended family, relatives and friends. Reposing at Mc Wey's Funeral Home, Abbey View, Kildare Town on Sunday, 26th March, from 12 o'clock with Rosary there at 8 o'clock. Removal on Monday at 10.45 to arrive at St. Brigid's Parish Church, Kildare for Mass at 11 o'clock. Burial afterwards in St. Conleth's Cemetery, Kildare. Donations if desired to St. Brigid's Hospice, Moore Abbey, Monasterevin. Donation box in church.

For more recent deaths in Kildare, click here.
The body of Douglas Ward, who pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Niall Dorr in 2012, was discovered in his Mountjoy Prison cell in the early hours of Friday morning last, May 8.

The body of Douglas Ward, who pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Niall Dorr in 2012, was discovered in his Mountjoy Prison cell in the early hours of Friday morning last, May 8.

Both Nialls parents, Veronica (nee Foy) and David are originally from Mohill.

Mr Ward is understood to have died following alcohol poisoning having ingested what is popularly known as prison hooch which can be made from fruit, ketchup, sugar and milk.

The sugar then turns into alcohol, which is strictly banned in Irish jails. He was sentenced to 13 years three years ago following the manslaughter of Mr Dorr in October 2010 who was 18-years-old at the time of his death.

This was reduced to ten years by the Court of Appeal in January.

Niall was trying to stop a row when Ward punched and kicked him in the head. Niall sustained irrevocable brain damage and surgery was not possible. Ward, who had been in Dundalk for a bail hearing on the day of the horrific incident, had been drinking since the pubs opened that morning. It has been reported that Ward was found sitting up in his bed with a cup of the illegal alcohol in his hand when his body was found.
Eight states of the USA have already legalised cannabis and Canada is set to follow suit in 2018. The Liberal government. elected in 2015, had a manifesto commitment to do so. Unlike the pledge to scrap first past the post and introduce a new electoral system, it is a promise that looks set to be kept.

There are various arguments for legal cannabis.

First, it has been shown to be an effective pain killer, for example for MS patients, and may ease symptoms of conditions like Parkinsons. It is cruel and unfair to deny patients access.

Second, it is a question of personal freedom. Cannabis is a harmful drug. But so are tobacco and alcohol. Excessive caffeine is bad for you. Most of us consume a health damaging amount of sugar  and generally too much food of all types. People have freedom to consume all of these and we protect this freedom because it is a better world where people can make their own decisions and live with the consequences than one where freedom is denied. We balance that with laws to protect people from the tobacco smoke of others information on food, so peoples choice are informed.

Third, legalising supply takes it and the profit out of the hands of criminals. Billions of pounds of cannabis is sold every year. Because it is criminalised no tax is paid. The supply is controlled by people willing to break to law and who often use the proceeds to fund other criminality.

The main argument against legalisation is health. There is no doubt that it is bad for your health and it leads to crime. Cannabiss connection to crime is different to that of cocaine or heroin. Someone can take cocaine and immediately become more violent, as they can with alcohol. Heroin addiction can drive people to commit burglaries and thefts. Cannabis usually makes people more mellow rather than violent. In 14 years as a lawyer in criminal law I have not seen many people who have committed crime while high on cannabis. Many more do so while drunk. But I have seen many defendants commit crimes, including rape and serious violence, who are long term cannabis users. Their long term use appears to have a serious effect on their thinking skills especially in traumatic situations.

We should never be seen to encourage its use. But legalisation is not to encourage. It is to recognised that choice belongs to the individual not the government.

Public opinion is probably more willing than ever to accept legalisation of cannabis.

We have a Conservative Prime Minister who has upheld is Class B status against scientific advice, like Labour before her.

The question for Liberal Democrats is whether to match the brave pledge of our radical Liberal Canadian cousins.

* Antony Hook was #2 on the South East European list in 2014, is the English Party's representative on the Federal Executive and produces this sites EU Referendum Roundup.
It was never going to be any other day, but the writ for the Manchester Gorton by-eleciton has now been moved and the poll will take place on 4th May.

Lib Dem candidate Jackie Pearcey had this to say on Twitter:

Not exactly a secret BUT Byelection will take place on Thursday, May 4th. We've been at it for weeks though and ready to beat Labour!  Jackie4MP (@JackieP4MP) March 28, 2017

Tim Farron sent members an email asking them for money to boost Jackies campaign. He said:

Weve already been hard at work for weeks, and we now have another 36 days to pull off something incredible.

In contrast, Labour has only just selected its candidate. George Galloway cancelled an event in Paisley last weekend due to unforeseen circumstances. Presumably that meant he was in the constituency over the weekend. I am sure we are all waiting to see Jackie take him on at hustings.

4th May is going to be a tad busy, shall we say. As well as the by-election, there is a council by-eelction in a ward in the constituency and the Greater Manchester mayoral election.

Want to get involved in the campaign?

All the information you need to help Jackie in Gorton can be found here.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
Whos Eve, I hear you ask? Well, for me, as an ardent pro EU supporter, tonight feels a bit like Christmas Eve when you know that somehow you have found your way on to the Naughty List and all thats going to be in your stocking in the morning is a lump of coal.

For those Leave voters who were duped into thinking that everything was going to be hunky dory if we could just get rid of that pesky EU, the reality may well prove far worse than that.

One thing is for sure. The Brexiteers will be held rigorously to account by the one party which has opposed them from the start  us.

Labours six tests unveiled on Sunday were, to paraphrase the old Commodores song, too much, too little, too late to ever trust them again. Their best chance of success would have been to support the Liberal Democrats bid to add a parachute to the Article 50 Bill, but they chose not to do so. They will not be easily forgiven.

Tomorrow is a very big day. Its much more than the delivery of a letter. Its the first step on a perilous journey, driven by people who havent got a clue what they are doing. The Government approaches the negotiations in such a mean-spirited, graceless fug of self-righteousness. I have rarely had such little confidence in any group of people as I do in them.

Ahead of Article 50 being invoked tomorrow, Tim Farron had this to say:

Theresa May is about to take the plunge on the biggest decision to hit the UK in modern times. She is pulling the trigger that will set in motion a chain of events which will change this country forever, and doing so without a proper plan, without a proper team of negotiators and without proper protections for millions of people who have been left in the lurch. It is still possible for the British people to stop a Hard Brexit and keep us in the Single Market. And if they want, it is still possible for the British people to decide to remain in the European Union. Democracy didnt end on 23rd of June  and it hasnt ended today either. Only the Liberal Democrats are fighting to make sure the people can have their say over what comes next.

There are some serious worries out there that the Government, rather than face up to its own shortcomings, will flounce off from the negotiations towards the end of this year, saying that the EU is being so intransigent that theres no point sticking with it and were just leaving with no deal. Nick Clegg has set out why that is a bad idea on the Liberal Democrats website. Heres a couple of examples:

UK trade in goods with the EU would be immediately subject to tariffs. This would not be a matter of choice on the part of the EU, as some pro-Leave advocates have claimed. Once we leave the Customs Union, we would become a third country according to EU law. WTO rules mean that the EU couldnt offer the UK special rates unless and until it had signed a full Free Trade Agreement with the UK. Tariffs in some sectors such as food and agriculture would be crippling to UK businesses. Not only would UK businesses lose beneficial access to the Single Market, but the UK would also drop out of all the FTAs agreed by the EU with more than 50 countries around the world. These will need to be painstakingly renegotiated. In the meantime, valuable trade with booming economies with whom we have trade agreements via the EU, like South Korea, would be disrupted as tariffs are re-introduced. Immediate customs checks would be required at the EU border, including on the border of Northern Ireland and Ireland. This would cause huge disruption, especially to cross-border supply chains, for example in the car and food industries.

Nick said:

The EU have said they wont discuss a future trading relationship between the UK and EU until the terms of the divorce are settled, and with both sides miles apart on that, Theresa May is risking taking us out of the worlds largest market without any idea whether new trading relationships will be in place. That would mean that UK exports would immediately be subject to tariffs. We would fall out of the single market and the customs union, and we would also lose free trade agreements with more than 50 countries. To trigger Article 50 knowing that any new deal will require agreement with 27 EU countries in a totally unrealistic timescale would be an act of recklessness of historic proportions. Theresa May has chosen the hardest and most divisive Brexit, to take us out of the single market before she has even tried to negotiate. The people should have the final say. Someone will have that say, so why not the people? They should have the option to remain in the EU. Only Liberal Democrats are fighting for a UK which is open, tolerant and united.

Lib Dem Peer Roger Roberts had the idea that we should all try to wear blue tomorrow. He explained why on Facebook:

Wednesday March 29th Mrs May signals that UK leaves the European Union. The EU colour is blue.Colleagues get out that blue tie or scarf or . Lets make it a BLUE day !

It would certainly sum up the emotions of the day. Blue Wednesday could signify sadness and defiance.

The reckless action to be taken by our Government is not done in my name, and I will use every possible peaceful means to resist it.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
You can read part 1 here.

You were up against a well-supported, well-known and well-funded opponent in Zac Goldsmith, how did you win?

I was very lucky. I wont deny it. I had the full Lib Dem by-election machine behind me. Because we thought we could win, they decided to really go for it. I had a group of people who knew what they were doing. They built a fabulous team and mobilised all those volunteers. I was very fortunate to have that support. We were also able to fundraise. This was important, as we managed to neutralise Zac Goldsmiths advantage over us. You would think finances would be his huge advantage, but there is only a certain amount you are allowed to spend, and, through fundraising, we were able to spend as much as he was. It was so important to have all those thousands of volunteers descend to Richmond Park. They pounded the pavements. They delivered leaflets and canvassed. There is no substitute for doing all the door-to-door work over many weeks. I was so so lucky that so many people came and helped. I think Zac helped too by running his own not so good campaign. And having run that mayoral campaign, it did put a lot of people off.

Are you not missing something?

Am I? What?

I feel you are being rather modest. As important as those youve just mentioned may be, you were the candidate, and the public voted for the person standing. What do you feel you brought to the campaign?

Its really difficult for me to say for two reasons. Firstly, its never easy to be objective about yourself. Secondly, I have no experience of any other previous campaign. This is the first parliamentary campaign Ive been involved in. I do not have a frame of reference as to how much impact the candidate has. I guess I must have been a positive influence in some way. I think it may have something to do with being the non-political politician, if you know what I mean. I dont feel Im the right person to ask about the impact I personally had.

Some people revel in talking about themselves!

Not me.

Did you expect to win?

I had a funny feeling we might, but I had that from when the by-election was called. At that time, there was no reason whatsoever to think we would win. We always knew there was a chance, a road to victory, if we just kept getting the leaflets out and pushing it as much as possible. If we did that, we knew we could win. The campaign team were tracking the numbers as they went through. Sometimes they shared them with me, sometimes not. So throughout, we always knew there was a possibility we could win. It wasnt like it dawned on us at midnight on polling day. I was sitting in my living room watching the coverage on the tele. That was when I realised we probably had won.

Were you prepared when you won on that night?

No. I wasnt remotely prepared. Not just because I was an accountant when elected, but I had very little experience in the field of politics. I hadnt been a councillor, never worked around parliament, never worked in a public policy or PR role and had no lobbying experience. I had none of those experiences to draw upon. Im still trying to figure out how it all fits together and the role of an MP within that. In a way, its an advantage. I havent come in with an expectation of what an MP is supposed to do. I havent, for example, crossed the floor from being a lobbyist to being an MP and havent responded to lobbyists the way that they expect to be responded to. As an MP, Im a blank slate. Im learning as I go along.

So your lack of experience is working for as well as against you?

I think so. I get many responses from people who say they voted for me or like me because I am a bit of a fresh face. They feel they can relate to me more because Im a normal person whos gone into politics rather than a politician, and that does work quite well. Obviously, theres a limit. At some point, peoples expectations of their MPs need to be fulfilled, so I do need to figure out quite quickly what those are.

In his speech to Conference yesterday, introducing you, Nick Clegg said it was the most remarkable by-election victory hed ever known. He also lauded you personally. How did praise like that feel coming from someone with the stature of Nick?

I was watching my toes curl as I sat there. I find it difficult to listen to people saying that kind of thing. It is nice. Im obviously very flattered. As I say, I have no frame of reference. I havent sat in the hall and listened to other by-election candidates being applauded before.

But when somebody who was the Deputy Prime Minister and one of the most successful leaders of the party in history, says that about you, someone who wasnt even involved in politics two years ago, it must be almost surreal?

It is very strange. I think thats one of the things Im struggling with because everything has happened so fast. Im still putting one foot in front of the other. Im yet to be able to step back and look at the wider picture. So when Nick says that, its like Thats just Nick, my new colleague, the guy I sit next to in the Commons. Thats what I think. Not Oh my God, thats Nick Clegg, the former Deputy PM. It just doesnt work on that level. Its more like Thanks Nick, thats nice of you!

Did you thank him afterwards?

I dont think I saw him afterwards. I was whisked away for selfies and various other things.

(To be continued tomorrow.)

* Rob May is a Political History PhD student and Lib Dem activist.
9 Things You Should Know About Cardiac Arrest

Brush up on your knowledge of cardiac arrest and you may be able to help save someones life.
TWO young men who were recorded while fighting in the middle of William Street last year have pleaded guilty to affray charges.

Ray Dore, aged 21, of Dromroe, Rhebogue and Hayden McCallig, aged 21, of Sunnyside Court, John Carew Park were identified by gardai and prosecuted after footage of the fight was uploaded to social media.

The footage, which was recorded on a mobile phone, was uploaded to Facebook where it was viewed thousands of times before being removed.

Throughout the video, another man can be heard shouting instructions to the men as the fight moves between the footpath and the road.

He can be heard encouraging them to throw punches uppercuts and jabs at each other.

Sergeant Donal Cronin told Limerick District Court the prosecution was highly unusual given that footage of the fight had found its way onto social media.

He said there were members of the public present in the area at the time and that a number of people appeared to have been discommoded during fight which happened at around 3.50pm on May 23, 2016.

He said the footage was uploaded to Facebook by another individual and that neither defendant has any previous convictions.

Solicitor John Herbert said the two men were passing each other on the street when something was said which resulted in fist fight.

He said there was no explanation for what happened and that neither man has come to the attention of gardai since.

Its not something thats going to happen again, he said.

Judge Marian OLeary indicated she will strike out the matter if each of the defendants pays 200 to the court poor box by June 16, next.
IN the heat of an argument, did you ever hear anyone called a Baluba? Did you give the word a second thought? Probably not.

For many of us, it is one of those words that has seeped into everyday usage (for those given to hurling insults, at least) without us knowing why. However, this word was thrust most disagreeably into the Irish consciousness in November 1960 when nine Irish soldiers on peacekeeping duty with the UN in the Republic of the Congo were killed in the brutal attack at Niemba by a 100-strong party from the local Luba (or Baluba) tribe.

Twenty five Balubas died also in the encounter. Historian, John Dorney, remarks: The heavy casualties, as well as the manner of the deaths  the Irishmen were hacked and clubbed to death  caused great shock in Ireland, but also a certain amount of odd pride. The manner of the killings also ensured that ever since the Balubas have become synonymous in this part of the world with all that is boorish, ignorant and even barbaric.

Tragically for all concerned, the attack was the result of a case of mistaken identity, the Balubas it seems believing that the peacekeepers were, in fact, European mercenaries hired by Katangan secessionists, with whom they were engaged in a bloody civil conflict. The mercenaries had previously burnt down several of the Balubas villages, hence the ferocity of their retaliation.

Recently, while trawling through our photographic archive, we came upon some wonderful images of soldiers returning from a tour of duty in the Congo which we bring to you today and hope that for some they bring back memories of a very proud phase in the history of the Irish army and for others it will raise awareness of one of the armys first and best campaigns.

Previously known as the Belgian Congo, the Congo gained its independence from Belgium in June 1960 and, as so often has happened in the past when a country gained independence from a colonising power, the resultant power vacuum led almost immediately to a vicious civil war.

The UN mission was to prevent the secession of the province of Katanga from the Congo, as Katanga had important mineral resources which were seen as vital to the prosperity of the fledgling country. The crisis in the Congo took on international significance as the Katangans were backed by the Belgians, the Congolese under Patrice Lumumba by the Russians and, later, when a rift came in the main Congolese force, the Americans backed the removal of the Russian-backed Lumumba. Dorney said the Congo became, in effect, a front of the Cold War.

Irish soldiers applied in their thousands for the chance to serve with the UN. Contrary to what one might expect, it was married men with large families who were most anxious to travel and not young, single men looking for adventure. Financial considerations accounted for this. The Limerick Leader reported at the time that the wages for serving in the Congo were expected to be about double that for a soldier serving at home - around 27 per week for a six-month tour of duty. One veteran of the Congo mission, who does not wish to be named, explained to the Leader that though many volunteered, only the best marksmen were chosen to go. For instance, those who won the All-Army Shooting Competitions in 1961 were asked to serve in the Congo without necessarily having volunteered.

All those destined for the Congo were sent first to the Curragh where no special training was given, bar shooting exercises. The vaccinations were very severe. Our veteran recalls TABT (a combined vaccine against Diphtheria, Tetanus Toxoids, typhoid, paratyphoid A, paratyphoid B and Poliomyelitis) was administered by injection in the arm, the limb invariably swelling up hugely, becoming desperately sore and making it impossible for a time for some to even put on a shirt.

Our veteran served with the 2nd infantry; his commander was Rocky Sullivan. He first landed at Elizabethville and was housed at the Kolwezi camp for his first night or two, with the remainder of his tour from late 1961 into 1962 spent at Camp Reuiwe. The Canadians were responsible for the mail which came and left though the camps airstrip.

The Limerick Leader, at around this time, carried a story about the disappearance of gifts posted from Ireland to the peacekeepers. Our veteran friend confirms that this was indeed a problem.

Many of his friends and family sent him parcels but the only gift to reach him in the Congo was a box of chocolates sent by his sister - a disastrous present in the Congolese climate. The chocolates were liquid in the box when they arrived, seeping out of their wrappers. The chocolates were duly placed in the only cold room (there were no fridges) in the camp. When the sweets had set, they were attacked with gusto by the men who had to put them in their mouths, papers and all, and spit out the papers when they had succeeded in abstracting the chocolate.

The main duty of the soldiers was to prevent the Congolese, who tended to live nomadically in camps, from moving towards each other, joining up with other camps, and forming significant threats to the peace. The Irish soldiers patrolled the district every day and noted where each camp was located.

If a camped moved it was imperative to discover to where they had gone and make sure they were not congregating in threatening numbers.

When asked if he enjoyed his time in the Congo, the former soldier replied that he did, very much, and that it was a great experience. He feels that at just 18 years of age he was too young to see the dangers although he did say that uncertainty hung over them every day - you never knew what tomorrow would bring. Luckily for him, he escaped the worst engagements.

After Niemba, the probably the second most infamous episode in the history of the Irish peacekeepers in the Congo was the Siege of Jadotville in September 1961.

"A" Company of the 35th Battalion was attacked by Katangan Gendarmerie troops near the town, a major centre for mining. 157 ill-equipped Irish soldiers under Commandant Quinlan, resisted the Katangese assaults for six days, while Irish and Swedish troops unsuccessfully attempted to reach them.

Eventually, A Company was forced to surrender after ammunition and supplies ran out, but not before inflicting about 300 casualties on the Katangese and their mercenaries. They were held as prisoners of war for approximately one month. Fortunately, there were no Irish fatalities. They appear to have been protected to a degree by the European mercenaries and were eventually traded in a ceasefire agreement.

In December 1961, Irish troops were involved in heavy fighting in the Battle of the Tunnel, a UN attempt to re-open lines of communications into Elizabethville. Three Irish soldiers died in that engagement. Again, Irish troops are said to have given a good account of themselves.

In December 1962, the Katangans signed a treaty giving up their aspiration to independence and UN forces occupied the main towns, including Jadotville. The UN force remained deployed in the Congo until 1964.

In all about 6,000 Irish soldiers served in the Congo between 1960 and 1964; 26 did not come home alive. Though frequently under-resourced, without a clear mission and, sometimes unsupported (particularly at Jadotville), the Irish soldiers served their country with honour.

Historian John Dorney also remarked: The Irish Army tends to view the Congo mission as a watershed, its coming of age as a modern force and establishing itself as a credible component for future UN peacekeeping missions.
LIMERICK'S most senior garda David Sheahan has been selected to be promoted to the rank of assistant commissioner in the force.

Chief Superintendent Sheahan is one of five garda chief superintendents to be promoted to the rank by the Policing Authority.

However, only one of the panel of five can be promoted at present because of an embargo imposed by the Department of Public Expenditure.

A total of 31 chief superintendents applied to take part in the selection competition, which was the first to be held by the Policing Authority since it was given responsibility for senior promotions at the start of the year.

A native of Wexford, Chief Supt Sheahan moved to Waterford in 1997. He has been stationed in Limerick for the past seven years.

During that time he has overseen a major crackdown on crime in the city which has resulted in the prosecution of major figures on both sides of Limericks gangland feud.

My vision in 2010 was to make Limerick a safe place to live and the challenge was to work tirelessly for the citizens of Limerick to achieve that goal," said Chief Supt Sheahan of his selection to the rank of assistant commissioner.

"We all embarked on a journey a number of years ago and through all the troubles we experienced here in Limerick I received tremendous support from all communities and agencies alike. I certainly want to say a sincere thank you to them. That is the real reason I take such satisfaction from doing my job. I never took on this job to get promoted, I took on the challenge to make a difference and to provide policing leadership for the people of Limerick.

Promotion has already been sanctioned for Det Chief Supt Michael O'Sullivan.

The Policing Authority said the remaining four would be appointed if and when positions in the rank were to be filled.

If the remaining positions do not become available before March 23 next year, then promotion will not take place and candidates will have to reapply.
FOR THE best part of 64 years the Limerick Leader has been winging its way over the Irish Sea into the eager hands of Mike Neylon.

But a recent edition will come as an extra surprise as we wish him a happy 90th birthday. Mike, who was born and bred in Caherconlish, moved to England in 1953.

To keep in touch with home his mother Margaret posted it to him every week and when she passed away his late sister Peggy Nash continued with the task. When she died in 2013 the paper stopped coming for a while.

Mikes daughter Maggie, who made this all happen by contacting local notes correspondent Pat Hourigan, said her father was bereft without the Leader.

He felt really cut off after all those years so I contacted an old friend and neighbour, Anthony Ryan, from High Street, and pay him to send it to dad now.

There is a special place in his heart for his home village of Caherconlish. With so many family members and old friends now passed on, the Limerick Leader is a vital link to home for him and keeps him apprised of all the local and county news.

Im very grateful to Anthony for doing this as dad cant get along with the digital version and doesnt have broadband anyway! So the physical version of the paper is everything to him. said Maggie.

She got Mike to pose with a copy of the Leader under a different guise and emailed it on in time for his birthday on March 31.

The Caherconlish of today is far removed from the one of Mikes childhood.

His first job, aged 14, was at Lynchs pub. His second one was on the farm at Garrett Aherns. Mike rose at 5.30am to milk the cows, then take the milk to the creamery, return and wash all the churns out before getting on with other farm duties. He remembers particularly the hard winter of 1947. He said you couldn't break the water in the bucket to make tea because it was frozen solid.

After that he went to work at the cement factory in Limerick city.

Again, it was hard work, lifting hot slabs of concrete with just your fingertips, or else it would shatter, then run 100 yards to load it on a pallet before running back again to get the next one - all day long. The money was an improvement though - 5 a week - and he bought the family their first radio and paid two shillings a week for it. He brought it all the way home on his bike, said Maggie.

Like countless others, Mike left these shores in 1953. He met his late wife, Margaret, in the same year as they went to the same church.

Mike worked for a variety of building contractor companies over the years. He was a skilled pipe layer and eventually sub-contractor of groundwork. Although hed no formal training as such he could read plans better than the surveyors.

After retiring, he worked as a security guard in a factory then as a chucker out at a local pub and finally in the stores of a building supplies merchant. After starting work at 14 he finally gave it up aged 77 and now resides in the seaside resort of Bognor Regis.

I am so proud of my dad for achieving the fantastic age of 90. He worked hard all his life and I am pleased that he has been able to enjoy so many happy years of retirement.

He has been the most wonderful father to me. He really has been the guiding light in my life, always with his kind manner and selfless attitude. Apart from being so thoughtful and considerate, he has a wonderful sense of humour too, which has brightened the lives of all that know him, said Maggie.

And hopefully a surprise appearance in the Limerick Leader, just in time for his 90th birthday, will brighten up Mikes day in Bognor Regis.
LIMERICKS councillors have called on the Minister for Education to include in the redress scheme the victims of physical and sexual abuse at Creagh Lane national school in the 1950s and 1960s.

The victims have fought long and hard and their lives have been undermined and in some cases destroyed as a result of what they suffered as innocent children in the care of the State, Mayor Kieran OHanlon said, opening the debate in the council chamber on Monday.

And he called on the Minister for Education to remove all barriers to redress for those children, now adult men.

I have met with the Creagh Lane victims, he added. They have a very moral and just case.

School should have been a place of hope, learning and sanctuary, Cllr John Costello SF said, seconding the motion.

Not so in Creagh Lane for a certain few unfortunately.

The victims had shown bravery in coming forward, he said and it was time to end their nightmare. But, he charged, the system had left these former pupils down and the State has circled the wagons.

Those who had suffered horrendous abuse in the 50s and 60s had faced huge obstacles in coming forward, Cllr Cian Prendiville, Solidarity (formerly AAA), said, but they had also faced bullying and intimidation at the hands of the State and had been threatened with legal fees.

It is absolutely despicable, he said. Nobody contests the abuse took place. Nobody contests the abuser was in the pay of the State when the abuse took place.

I survived Creagh Lane, Cllr John Gilligan Ind said, describing a place where 50 children were crammed into a classroom and where dreadful physical abuse as standard.

I had to have an operation to open my hand after being beaten with the leg of a chair, he said. This was allowed to go on. It was accepted.

Referring to the victims group,he said: These people have to be looked after. These people were in the care of the State when this happened. The State is responsible.

It is not good enough for the government to hide behind excuses and technicalities to exclude the victims of Creagh lane from the redress scheme, Cllr James Collins FF said.

It is horrific the treatment ye have endured, Cllr Frank Daly said.

Summing up the debate, Mayor OHanlon addressed the victims group, some of whom were in the public gallery, saying: Ye can hold your heads high in Limerick. It is wrong ye have to go through this process for justice. Every party supports your case 100%.

And in a spontaneous move, the Creagh Lane group clapped the councillors as the local representatives showed their solidarity by clapping them.
BUS Eireann services in the city remain halted as drivers strike for the fifth day in a row.

Dozens of bus drivers and clerical staff have been manning picket lines since early this morning at three locations  Roxboro Road, Sexton Street and Colbert Station.

The industrial action is over cost cutting proposals at the stricken firm, and is being led by the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU).

Among the proposals which would affect Limerick is the cutting of the X12 Limerick to Dublin Expressway route.

Normally, the state bus company runs seven regular bus services covering the city and its surrounds, as well as other irregular services covering rural Co Limerick. On top of this, it normally operates twice hourly services to Shannon Airport.

The board of the state bus firm yesterday warned that it could not sign off on its 2016 accounts, or pass this years budget without staff approval, and maintained its stance that the company could face insolvency by May is the crisis is not resolved.

Bosses also warned of up to 300 redundancies at the firm, a move described by NBRU general secretary Dermot OLeary as something which could open completely different and potentially uncontrollable dimension to this dispute, and will present severe difficulties in trying to maintain the already fragile industrial peace across other companies within the CIE Group.

Meanwhile, Limerick commuters could face further travel misery in the coming weeks, with Siptu balloting its members at Irish Rail on taking industrial action in support of their colleagues at Bus Eireann.

Mr OLeary has indicated his union will also explore that option.

Irish Rail services were affected on the first day of the strike last Friday as some staff members refused to pass the picket at Colbert station. But they have since returned to normal.

Separately, Manuel Cortes, of the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association will join workers on the picket line later today.

Mr Cortes was a key figure in disputes which have seen services on the London Underground halted in recent years.
TWO men have been arrested by Bruff gardai in connection with a handgun being produced at a 21st birthday party in County Limerick.

Revellers at a 21st celebration at a house in Doon ran for their lives after the firearm was produced in the early hours of Sunday, February 26.

It is understood that the perpetrator was one of three men who gatecrashed the party.

According to a local, the uninvited guests, who are not from Doon, started causing trouble.

They were asked to leave and they wouldnt. Then there was a bit of a scuffle. One of the three pulled out a handgun, pointed it at one individual at the party and he said, Ill blow your f***ing head off. This caused consternation and everybody ran for their lives. There was huge panic, said the local.

No shots were discharged and the three men then left.

The person who spoke to the Limerick Leader at the time stressed that the family and the young man, who was celebrating his 21st birthday, are hard-working and highly respected in the community.

They have no links with crime or anything like that. The lads who caused the trouble werent invited and then wouldnt leave, he added.

Following lengthy investigations by Bruff gardai, they swooped on Wednesday, March 15.

Gardai confirmed two males, aged in their twenties, were arrested in the Pallasgreen area.

They were detained under Section 30 of the Offences Against State Act and questioned for upto a day in Bruff garda station.

They were released without charge with a file being sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
MORE THAN 15.4m has been allocated for the provision of two roads in Limerick, which will help to facilitate the construction of new houses.

The funding under the Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund will see in the construction of distributor roads in both Mungret and Greenpark in the west of the city.

Mungret has received 10.5m in funding for a distributor road, which its hoped will facilitate the construction of 450 houses by 2021 and 2,700 houses over the next 10 years.

Greenpark has also received 4.93m for a distributor road, which will facilitate the construction of 400 new houses by 2021 and 700 houses in the longer term.

This is very welcome news and an endorsement of Limerick in terms of growing the city and providing much needed housing, said Senator Kieran ODonnell.

One of the key areas that we need to address in Limerick city is the provision of homes. This 15.4m in funding will facilitate the putting in place of the roads and other necessary infrastructure to make it possible for the construction of much required houses to get underway, added Mr ODonnell.

Under the scheme, the Government provides two thirds of the funding with the local authority providing a third.

It is part of the Government's Rebuilding Ireland programme, and it aims to target the provision of necessary physical infrastructure to activate large housing development.

Senator Maria Byrne said: This funding will help deliver a strong mix of private, rental and social housing delivery at appropriate locations and create new and attractive local communities to live in at affordable prices and rents.

Together with other complementary and targeted measures under the Governments Action Plan for Housing, the delivery of this housing in the next four years will have an extremely positive impact on the availability of housing in the short to medium term, she added.

Local councillor Daniel Butler also welcomed news of the roads, saying that he was delighted that Mungret has received one of the highest allocations nationally.

This road will not only help activate housing development but will help alleviate the growing traffic problems in the area, added Mr Butler.

The Greenpark Distributor Road is one that has been also long-awaited and will help to open up that whole area for development, and importantly alleviate the need to use the South Circular Road for any future developments which is a huge concern locally, he continued.

It is important to note this funding is to open lands for developments and we now need to see developers respond in kind and provide much needed housing and make their contributions also towards the creation of local infrastructure and facilities.

Cllr James Collins warned that those in charge should "learn from the mistakes of the past".

"At Mungret we started by putting in the parks, playground and schools first. These distributor roads will now allow housing development to happen, but to be a success it must be in a controlled manner," he said.

"Any new housing developments must meet the needs of families and communities of the future. These developments need to be well planned, coordinated, delivered and managed. If so, I believe it will bring housing in Limerick well into the future and cater for families that are currently crying out for quality housing and amenities," added Mr Collins.
GARDAI have arrested one male in connection with an attempted armed robbery in county Limerick.

The incident occurred at St Ailbe's Credit Union in Caherconlish at 3.20pm on Friday, March 24.

It is understood two males, armed with handguns, entered the Credit Union and threatened staff, while a getaway driver waited outside. The perpetrators left the premises, empty handed, shortly after entering the Credit Union.

Garda Louise Jordan said gardai are particularly interested in a red/wine coloured Ford Focus that was seen in the area in the lead up to this robbery.

We have information to hand that the partial registration number of this vehicle was 00- C. This vehicle then was observed driving up the hill towards Bohermore shortly after the robbery. Gardai at Roxboro Road are investigating this incident.

They are very keen on receiving information regarding this vehicle particularly. Maybe some of the locals from the area may have seen this vehicle acting suspiciously in the area a short time before the robbery or observed the occupants in it after the robbery, said Garda Jordan.

One male was arrested shortly after the incident and was charged with attempted robbery at Limerick District Court on Monday. He has been remanded in custody.

Gardai ask anyone with information regarding this incident to contact Roxboro Road Garda Station on 061 214340.
PEOPLE and places are at the heart of this years Eigse Michael Hartnett which kicks off in the late poets home town of Newcastle West next month.

This is particularly evident in the person of Philomena Lee, the real-life heroine of the Oscar-nominated film Philomena starring Judi Dench. Philomena, born in Newcastle West but living most of her adult life in England, returns to her home place on the opening night of Eigse to tell her life story and the lifelong search for her first-born, Anthony.

Launching the programme for this years Eigse, Cllr John Sheahan, chairman of the Newcastle West Municipal District, linked Philomenas story and what has recently emerged about the mother-and-baby home in Tuam and asked: What would Michael have said about Tuam? He could be acerbic. He didnt pull back.

Harnett, he added, was one of Irelands most important poets.

He had a talent for raising the mirror and showing people what society was really like. He had amazing insights into life, both in the English and Irish language.

This years programme has a very strong line-up, poet Gabriel Fitzmaurice, said. Among others it includes one of the greats of Irish literature, Jennifer Johnston, who will give a reading on the Saturday night of Eigse along with poet Paddy Bushe with music from Diarmuid OBrien of Glin.

And this year, poet and writer Dermot Bolger, who was close to Hartnett and published some of his work will deliver the Michael Hartnett Memorial Lecture.

Poets Bernard ODonoghue and Caitriona OReilly have also been lined up and a new departure takes place on Friday morning when Gabriel Fitzmaurice will lead a coffee and favourite poem session at Marguerites coffee shop.

In a bid to give a higher profile to the Irish language, the organisers have brought on board well-known travel writer, TV presenter and broadcaster, Manchan Magan and his Gaeilge Tamagotchi. This fascinating event is about preserving the thousands of words that are at risk of being lost to the Irish language and encourages people to take just one of them into their care as a lifetime commitment.

A key feature of the Eigse Michael Hartnett festival is the Michael Hartnett Poetry Award. This years substantial prize goes to a book of poetry in Irish by Wexford born poet and editor Seosamh OMurchu for his collection Taisi Tosta,published by Coisceim in 2015.

Im really delighted to receive this award, Seosamh said this week. Not only is it a great source of encouragement for me but is also a wonderful recognition and affirmation of my work. Its made all the more special by the fact that the award remembers and honours one or our truly great poets, Michael Hartnett, who proudly has taken his place in the pantheon of the Munster poetic tradition.

Another highlight of the weekend will be the integrated dance, involving Hazelwood College and Desmond College students and residents of Rathfredagh Cheshire Home. In Time, and Silently is inspired by a poem Seamus Heaney wrote for his granddaughter just before his death and choreographed by Mary Hartney. The weekend will also be enlivened by street performances of poetry by Stanzas and Micheal Rowsome and a tour of Hartnetts Newcastle West led by Des Healy.

"What makes Eigse special is the intimacy that you feel as you travel around the town, where you can bump into someone who knew Michael or you can see for yourself the places that Michael immortalised in his poetry, Sheila Deegan, Arts Officer with Limerick City and County Council said at the launch.

Eigse Michael Hartnett is supported by the arts office and by the Arts Council.
LIMERICK based art exhibition EVA International has announced the appointment of a new director.

Matt Packer has taken over as the director of the biennial, which returns in April 2018 under the curatorship of Inti Guerrero.

A previous curator of exhibitions and projects at Lewis Glucksman Gallery, UCC, Mr Packer takes over from the departing Woodrow Kernohan and was most recently director at the CCA Centre For Contemporary Art Derry.

I am delighted to be announced as Director of EVA International, an organisation that I have seen transform since I first arrived in Ireland almost ten years ago, he said.

Now approaching its 40th anniversary, its remarkable how EVA has continued to set the horizon for changing ideas of artistic and curatorial practice, while also being respondent to broader cultural and political changes that have impacted Ireland and its relations to the wider world.

Given its enormous legacy, I am very proud to be entrusted with the job of developing EVA over the coming years, strengthening its voice and deepening its impact at local, national and international levels.

After five years in the role, Woodrow Kernohan stepped down from Irelands pre-eminent exhibition of visual art late last year to become the new Director of the John Hansard Gallery in Southampton, UK.

Hugh Murray, Eva chairman, said the board was very happy and fortunate to have Matt Packer as our new director.

His predecessor, Woodrow Kernohan, set a very high standard and we are confident that we have found, in Matt, the right person to lead the development of Irelands Biennial of Contemporary Art to even greater recognition as a cultural event of international significance, he added.

The most recent exhibition in 2016, Still (the) Barbarians, was curated by Koyo Kouoh and featured 57 artists, with a tie-in to the 1916 Easter Rising centenary celebrations.

Eva received annual funding of 222,000 from the Arts Council of Ireland this year and annually over the last two years. It was restructured as a biennial at the State agencys request a number of years ago.
Mar 27, 2017, 11 PM

By Michael Baadke

French political leader, peace advocate, and Nobel Prize laureate Aristide Briand was born March 28, 1862, in Nantes, France.

Briand entered politics soon after obtaining his law degree and became a leader of the French Socialist Party. As a member of the Chamber of Deputies in the French Parliament, he was instrumental in the 1905 passage of the law on the separation of the churches and the state.

Briand served in a number of ministerial positions during his lifetime, and beginning in 1909 he served 11 terms as prime minister, though not all consecutively.

He was an advocate for the formation of the League of Nations, and as Frances foreign minister he worked with German foreign minister Gustav Stresemann and British foreign secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain to forge the 1925 Pact of Locarno in an effort to establish peaceful relations among European nations.

With United States Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg, he developed the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, an agreement signed by 60 nations in an effort to legally abolish war.

Jointly with Stresemann, Briand was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926, and he was the subject of the Time magazine cover feature of Dec. 19, 1927.

Briand died in Paris March 7, 1932. The following year, he was honored on a 30-centime French stamp (Scott 291), and was honored again on a French Europa series stamp issued April 26, 1980 (1699).
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Do you know what obesity looks like? Medical professionals and the public alike currently judge whether someone is obese based on his or her size, but a change quietly gathering steam among doctors would ensure that no one is gauged as obese by just one metric.

Doctors, researchers and policymakers need to ditch the concept of using body mass index, or BMI, to diagnose obesity, according to an opinion piece published today (March 28) in the journal Obesity.

"BMI is not a good criteria to be diagnosing a disease," said Arya Sharma, one of the authors of the piece and an obesity researcher at the University of Alberta in Canada.

BMI's limits

Body mass index is a measure of body size based on a person's weight and height. It is useful for tracking population trends in body weight, but it has well-known limitations when it's applied to individuals, Sharma told Live Science. For example, many professional athletes qualify as overweight or obese based on only their BMI, simply because they have so much muscle mass, which weighs proportionally more than fat.

For the average person, other problems apply. For example, people with a BMI of 30 or above are typically considered obese. But some people with BMIs over 30 are perfectly healthy, metabolically speaking, Sharma said: Their blood pressure is good, their livers are functioning well and their cholesterol levels are within normal limits. On the other hand, some people with BMIs below 30 have health problems that could improve if they were to lose weight. [8 Reasons Our Waistlines Are Expanding]

The American Medical Association classifies obesity as a disease, but size alone isn't a disease, Sharma said.

"BMI is a clothing size.  It tells me how big you are," he said. "It doesn't tell me how sick you are."

Beyond BMI

Nevertheless, BMI has become an easy benchmark in medicine. Drug and medical device companies use BMI cutoffs to decide who to include in their studies of obesity treatments; insurance companies use BMI to determine coverage. In many workplace wellness programs, the rewards and benefits that people can earn are based on BMI.

Even for many primary care doctors who don't have extensive training in obesity treatment, BMI is a quick and objective number to cite to tell patients whether they have a weight problem, the researchers said.

"What any obesity specialist should do is use BMI as a first step, and then go beyond BMI as needed," said Dr. Scott Kahan, director of the National Center for Weight and Wellness and a researcher at The George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health in Washington, D.C. Professional guidelines for obesity treatment already call for this approach, said Kahan, who was not involved in the new opinion piece.

"The concern is in primary care, where inevitably a lot of weight management has to happen," Kahan told Live Science. [American Obesity Rate Continues to Rise (Infographic)]

A shift from a BMI-based diagnosis of obesity to a more holistic, health-based diagnosis of obesity would involve taking a patient's physical, mental and functional health into account, Sharma said. He and his colleagues have developed a scale called the Edmonton Obesity Staging System that includes all three.

In this view, a diagnosis of obesity would involve a check for physical health problems, such as diabetes or joint problems, plus a look at mental health issues, such as depression or social anxiety, that might arise from a person's body image. It would also involve looking at a person's "functional health," meaning the ability to move around and take care of day-to-day activities.

A major shift

Some doctors have suggested drop-kicking BMI from the obesity diagnostic criteria entirely, Kahan said. But he argued that the number still has a place in the clinic. For example, if a patient has high blood pressure and high cholesterol but a BMI of 21  at the low end of normal  it would be unreasonable for a doctor to expect that person to lose weight to solve those problems. In that case, it would make the most sense to treat the high blood pressure and high cholesterol directly, Kahan said. If, on the other hand, a patient came in with identical blood pressure and cholesterol numbers but a BMI of 31, weight-loss treatments would probably be part of the picture.

Putting BMI in the background would drastically alter the way obesity is handled within the medical system, the researchers said. Right now, a BMI of 40 marks the lower cutoff for recommending a patient for bariatric surgery, which decreases the size of the stomach, Sharma said. The surgery is also recommended for people with a BMI of 35 if they have serious weight-related health issues. But a more holistic approach to diagnosing obesity could mean that people with lower BMIs could also qualify for the surgery based on other health factors, while those with higher BMIs but good overall health numbers could avoid the risk of the surgery, since they have less to gain from undergoing the procedure.

Drug companies and regulatory agencies like the Food and Drug Administration would have to rethink who is included in clinical trials; professional organizations that set quality measures for doctors' care would have to expand their definition of the disease beyond BMI alone.

In many ways, this is not that unusual, Sharma said. Disease classifications change all the time. Obesity is just more fraught given the cultural focus on weight and body size.

"Definitions of diseases have to grow with our understanding of what the disease actually is," Sharma said.

Original article on Live Science.
A crater on the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia. Scientists aren't sure what caused these craters to form in the Siberian Arctic, where the permafrost is thawing.

Is the Siberian permafrost exploding? Recent reports out of the Arctic Circle suggest that methane pockets are erupting and causing huge craters, but scientists aren't so sure that these features are necessarily the result of detonations  or that they are even new.

A Siberian Times article suggested that 7,000 underground gas bubbles are set to "explode" on the peninsulas of Yamal and Gydan as a result of melting permafrost. The article differentiates these small gas bubbles from enormous craters in the tundra landscape, but asserts that the huge craters are the result of subsurface methane gas exploding as global warming heats up Earth. That is far from certain, scientists told Live Science. In fact, the craters may be thousands of years old.

"These craters are recently discovered by scientists," said Katey Walter Anthony, a biogeochemist at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, who studies methane release from permafrost. "It doesn't mean they are new." [See Photos of Siberia's Mysterious Craters]

Thawing Siberia

First, the facts: The permafrost of the Siberian tundra is definitely thawing. Permafrost is soil that stays frozen year-round; it locks up organic materials like dead plants (or the corpses of mammoths) and keeps them from rotting. When the permafrost thaws, all that organic material starts to decompose, like food left too long in a broken refrigerator. The decomposition releases carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, all potent greenhouse gases. Climate scientists agree that the permafrost melt will amplify the effects of greenhouse gases released by human activities, which could worsen the amount of warming the planet experiences.

This methane from decomposition of ancient organic material shouldn't be confused with methane hydrates, which are ice lattices that have methane trapped inside. Melting methane hydrates are another concern for the climate because their thaw could also release more of that greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.

The most pervasive route for permafrost thaw in Siberia is what's called active-layer deepening, said Ben Abbott, a postdoctoral researcher at Michigan State University. Every summer, the top layer of permafrost that thaws gets deeper and deeper.

"That's happening across the Arctic and boreal forests," Abbott told Live Science.

More dramatic are collapse features, known as thermokarsts. When frozen-solid soil melts, it can collapse in many ways, Walter Anthony told Live Science, creating landslides, lakes, pits, even underground tunnels. [Mysterious Giant Hole In Siberia Investigated By Scientists | Video]

Vasily Bogoyavlensky, a researcher at Moscow's Oil and Gas Research Institute, told the Siberian Times that giant craters observed in Siberia over the past few years could be thermokarsts created when decomposition gases, such as methane, put pressure on the overlying earth, causing dirt-covered ice hills called pingos to explode. But even if the craters are caused by melting permafrost, that mechanism of formation is just speculation, Abbott said.

"Nobody has seen one [form], so we don't know it if is an explosion or just a collapse," Abbott said.

Nor are the craters necessarily human-caused. After all, permafrost has been melting since the end of the last ice age more than 10,000 years ago.

"I am thinking that people need to be a little more careful about claiming that we have methane explosions," Walter Anthony said.

A changing tundra

Meanwhile, researchers with the Russian Academy of Sciences said they have found thousands of small underground gas pockets with high levels of methane and carbon dioxide dotting the landscape and are assessing these spots for stability, the Siberian Times reported. Another recent article claims that more than 200 Arctic lakes are "bubbling like Jacuzzis" with methane gas.

It's not time to panic, though. The aerial images used to find the bubbling lakes reveal little about what's actually bubbling up, Walter Anthony said: The seeps could be methane, or other gases, or just groundwater. Without fieldwork, she said, any attempt to identify the bubbles is just guesswork.

Of course, thousands of gas pockets in the tundra could be alarming, Abbott said, but given the size and inaccessibility of the Siberian Arctic, researchers have little knowledge of what a normal number of these features might be.

"I certainly don't want to give the impression that we should dismiss these features or not think they are potentially dangerous in terms of the climate system and in terms of local ecosystems, but I also don't think it's the beginning of the end," Abbott said.

Though permafrost melting could be a scary contributor to climate change, Abbott and his colleagues surveyed permafrost researchers last year for a paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters; they found that most believed the tundra has not yet hit the "point of no return" at which runaway melt is inevitable.

Permafrost is sensitive to temperature, Abbott said, but it also has a huge amount of momentum: There are places where deep permafrost is actually getting colder because it is only now "feeling" the chill of the last ice age through the intervening layers of soil. If humans were to control greenhouse gas emissions so that they begin to decline by the middle of the century, most of the carbon in the permafrost will stay frozen.

"The key is really limiting human emissions as quickly as possible, because in 30 or 40 or 50 years from now, if we have gone past that point, there will be nothing we can do about it," Abbott said. "The flip side of a system with a lot of momentum is that once it starts moving, there is little you can do to slow it down."

Original article on Live Science.
Sequoia trees seen along the Trail of the 100 Giants in the Sequoia National Monument in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains.

After the conservationist John Muir devotedly hiked the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the late 19th century, he penned some of the greatest American nature writing ever put to paper and launched the Sierra Club, which remains one of the most influential members of the nation's conservation movement.

Thanks to his efforts and those of generations that followed, the wild beauty of Muir's beloved Sierra Nevada and its giant sequoias continues to thrive, albeit with a much greater amount of stress due to human-caused climate change. But new research suggests an unlikely ally in the preservation of Muir's iconic muse.

Credit, it seems, must be given to dust.

In a paper published today in the journal Nature Communications, a team of researchers found that dust provides a much greater amount of nutrients to vegetation in the Sierra Nevada than previously thought. The dust comes from as far away as the Gobi Desert in Central Asia and as nearby as California's Central Valley.

Phosphorus, along with nitrogen and carbon, is crucial to the survival of life on Earth. It is generally supplied to plants as bedrock is broken down into soil over the slow machinations of geologic time. Researchers have long considered the granite formations of the Sierra Nevada to be limited in phosphorus.

"In recent years it has been a bit of mystery how all these big trees have been sustained in this ecosystem without a lot of phosphorus in the bedrock," Emma Aronson, an assistant professor of plant pathology and microbiology at UC Riverside, said in a statement. "This work begins to unravel that mystery and show that dust may be shaping this iconic California ecosystem."

RELATED: Extreme Climate Change Millions of Years Ago Caused Mammals to Shrink

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of drought around the world, which will likely mean more dust moving around in the atmosphere. Understanding the role of dust migration in providing nutrients to plants will help researchers anticipate the effects of global warming.

The team, which included researchers from University of California campuses in Riverside and Merced, collected dust samples from four locations in the Sierra Nevada mountains, ranging in elevation from 1,300 to 8,800 feet.

Nicholas Dove, a UC Merced graduate student, was responsible for collecting the dust.

"Harvesting dust for scientific purposes is surprisingly rudimentary," he said in a statement. "We use many household supplies: Wooden posts hold up bundt pans filled with marbles, and the dust settles in the marble matrix. We collect this dust by 'washing' the marbles with sterile water. The water is filtered and, voila, you have your dust."

The pans were fixed atop 6-foot-high poles in order to avoid dust contamination from the researchers' boots.

The scientists identified the geographic origin of the dust samples by examining their isotopes.

They found that dust from Asia accounted for an average of 20 percent of the dust at the lowest elevation and 45 percent of the total amount at the highest elevation. The greater amount of Asian dust in the higher locations, the researchers said, is because dust travels high in the atmosphere and only falls to the ground when it comes into contact with an object such as a mountain.

Dust from the Central Valley was greater at lower elevations, which was expected. But the team found more Central Valley dust at higher elevations later in the dry season, which is significant because their study took place during the peak of what is likely the worst drought to hit California in a millennium.

"Considering we took our measurements in 2014, in the middle of the drought, this makes us think that the drought is a factor here," Aronson said.

Funding for the study was provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

"This research reveals that the transport of dust in the atmosphere is important for the ecological health of many parts of our planet," said Richard Yuretich, program director for the NSF's Critical Zone Observatory Network. "Complex cycles and feedbacks regulate conditions at the surface of the Earth. This study adds a significant piece to our knowledge of how the Earth works and what we can do to keep it functioning properly."

WATCH: Using Drones to Predict the Future of Climate Change

Originally published on Seeker.
The last time Kambalny volcano erupted, the United States was not yet a country. But the Russian volcano awoke last week, after a nearly 250-year snooze, with a violent eruption.

Kambalny is the southernmost volcano on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, an area about the size of California that is home to more than 300 volcanoes. In fact, the peninsula hosts the world's highest concentration of active volcanoes, and so eruptions are common. But Kambalny surprised scientists when it shook awake on March 24 and began to erupt.

Since 1993, researchers with the Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT) of the Russian Academy of Sciences have monitored volcanic activity in the area. [Images: Journey to Kamchatka's Volcanoes]

"Nothing pointed to a possible eruption of the Kambalny," Olga Girina, head of KVERT, told Russian news agency TASS, according to Russia Beyond the Headlines. "It is a pure surprise for us. We continue the monitoring and will analyze possible threats as data come in."

The thick, ash-laden plume that erupted from Kambalny could be seen from space. A day after the eruption began, NASA's Terra satellite captured an image of the volcano and its plume, which stretched about 60 miles (100 kilometers) southwest, according to NASA's Earth Observatory. Kamchatka Peninsula is largely covered in snow at this time of year, and the NASA image also includes the dark stain of ash covering the snow to the west. According to NASA researchers, by March 26, ash covered the ground all around the volcano.

Though the ash is visible, NASA researchers warned that volcanic eruptions also pose the invisible threat of sulfur dioxide, which can harm the human respiratory system. NASA's Aura satellite, which carries an ozone-monitoring instrument, detected an airborne plume of sulfur dioxide moving south.

"The higher SO2 amounts downwind could be due to multiple factors, including variable emissions at the volcano (such as an initial burst), increasing altitude of the plume downwind or decreasing ash content downwind," Simon Carn, an atmospheric scientist at Michigan Technological University, told the Earth Observatory.

A KVERT alert also noted that sporadic ash plumes reaching up to 26,200 feet (8 km) above sea level are expected and could affect aircraft flying in the region, according to NASA.

Original article on Live Science.
President Donald Trump giving a speech before he signed the Energy Independence Executive Order at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Headquarters on March 28 in Washington, DC. From left to right: Vice President Mike Pence; the President; EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt; US Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke; and US Secretary of Energy Rick Perry.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order today (March 28) that dismantles the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era regulation that would have set limits on emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants from power plants.

The executive order is aimed, in part, at reviving the coal industry, according to Trump. But it's doubtful that this measure is more than a stopgap, as natural gas and renewable energies, including wind and solar, are already making strides toward supplying electricity on a large scale, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

If the Clean Power Plan were to stay in place, natural gas generation would continue to outpace that of coal, as it is now, the EIA reported in February. However, even without the plan, coal is expected to overtake natural gas in 2019 and remain the top generator of U.S. electricity through 2032, when natural gas will likely exceed it in the amount of electricity supplied, according to the EIA. [The Year in Climate Change: 2016's Most Depressing Stories]

Moreover, many future coal jobs will likely be automated, rather than employ people in coal country, Robert Godby, an energy economist at the University of Wyoming, told The New York Times.

This chart shows the course that coal and other electricity generators may take with and without the Clean Power Plan's implementation. (Image credit: U.S. Energy Information Administration ( EIA ))

Scientists react

When coal is burned, it emits carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that warms the planet, as well as other pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxides, which can lead to soot and smog.

"Burning coal to produce electricity produces about twice the carbon dioxide as compared to burning natural gas," said Jennifer Francis, a research professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University in New Jersey. "Coal extraction is also more energy-intensive and destructive to the environment."

Francis added that she's disappointed the plan is being repealed. Enacted in 2015, the plan had yet to be put in place because of legal challenges, according to news sources.

"The Clean Power Plan was a step toward the future: away from destructive and costly pollution, away from environmentally damaging fuel extraction and away from emissions of heat-trapping gases," Francis told Live Science in an email. "Dismantling this plan slows our transition to a clean-energy nation, along with the explosion in new jobs and economic benefits that go with it."

Michael Mann, a distinguished professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University, said the executive order is a sign that the current government cares more about fossil fuel energy profits than the health of the planet.

"Fortunately, others, like China, are actually stepping up, decommissioning coal-fired power plants and flooding the global market with cheap solar panels," Mann said. "They recognize that the U.S. vacuum in leadership provides them the opportunity to lead, both morally and economically, while we get left behind."

The Clean Power Plan would have aimed to cut power-plant carbon emissions by 32 percent of 2005 levels by 2030  a reduction that would have alleviated many health problems, including 3,600 fewer premature deaths; 1,700 fewer heart attacks; and 90,000 fewer asthma attacks in 2030 and every year after it, the Environmental Protection Agency reported.

"This rollback will mean more asthma and other breathing disorders associated with air pollution, more contamination of water supplies by residue from mining fossil fuels and more money wasted on infrastructure for a dying energy industry," Francis said.

The rollback and other policies that ignore climate change "do an enormous disservice to the public by denying or minimizing the urgency of human-caused climate change," said Pushker Kharecha, a climate scientist at The Earth Institute at Columbia University. "This is likely to lead them to delay or completely avoid taking the types of mitigation measures that are vitally needed, such as rapidly and massively scaling up renewables along with nuclear [energy]."

Meanwhile, the free-market conservative group the Heartland Institute praised the repeal.

"President Trump stressed that this isn't about lowering standards for protecting health and safety, whether for miners or the public, but about ending unnecessary and costly regulations that kill jobs without producing any benefits," the group said in a statement. "His executive order will 'end the theft of American prosperity' and make EPA 'focus on its primary mission of protecting our air and water.'"

Original article on Live Science.
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A 21-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly chatting in a sexually explicit manner with an 11-year-old girl, according to Laredo police.

Jose Luis Ceja and the girl became Facebook friends in August, police said.

But around November or December, Ceja allegedly sent the girl a message asking her if she wanted to chill with him in person, according to a criminal complaint.

On Saturday, Ceja was served with an arrest warrant in the 1000 block of San Enrique Ave. He was charged with online solicitation of a minor.

RELATED: Teacher accused of using racial slurs, making lewd remarks will appeal termination

Webb County Jail records show Ceja was behind bars, held on a $75,000 bond.

The case unraveled when police responded to a domestic disturbance at about 4 a.m. Jan. 17 in the 2300 block of Cassata Lane.

The mother of the girl told police that she noticed her daughter had been chatting on Facebook with Ceja. Some messages were sexually explicit, according to the criminal complaint.

Ceja allegedly sent the girl at least two messages mentioning a couple of sexual acts, according to court documents. An investigation revealed the girl was outside in a car for about five minutes with Ceja when her mother was looking for her, records state.

Ceja had allegedly texted the girl to meet her outside.

She got into the passenger side and stated that he grabbed her hand and was going to place it on his (private part) over his clothing, but she pulled her hand away, the complaint states.

She then exited the car and went back inside the home, where her mother confronted her, according to court documents.

Click the gallery above to see 12 sex offenders captured in Texas in 2016.

RELATED: Judge won't release Mexican man jailed near Seattle
Texas native Selena Gomez and her boyfriend since January, The Weeknd, traveled to Brazil as a part of his world tour last weekend. As they left the airport, video shared on Twitter shows the pair being swarmed by dozens of fans in Brazil trying to get a glimpse of the pop stars.

COME AND GET IT: Selena Gomez is selling her $2.9 million Fort Worth mansion
Albany

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is going after Rep. John Faso, R-Kinderhook, as part of a national digital ad campaign targeting 14 Republican districts in the wake of last week's collapse of the American Health Care Act.

The digital ads  which are to run on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in the 19th District  provide numerous clips of Republicans  including President Donald Trump  touting the AHCA, contrasted with news coverage of the more negative potential impacts of the bill.

"And John Faso voted yes?" a narrator says. "You deserve better."

As a member of the Budget Committee, Faso voted to move the bill to the Rules Committee.

"The American Health Care Act now heads to a fourth committee and, likely, the floor of the House for a full vote," Faso said at the time. " ... I will continue to carefully review the legislation and gather input from constituents, providers, and insurers about how this reform plan will affect them. I will remain focused on keeping what works in the original Affordable Care Act while offering improvements to fix what has failed too many of our fellow Americans. Given these circumstances, simply doing nothing is neither practical nor responsible."

Days later, Faso said he would vote for the bill in its amended form, which included a provision that would have required New York state to pick up the share of Medicaid costs that currently falls on New York's counties, something he has been pushing since his campaign last year.

Lacking votes for passage, Republicans scrapped the AHCA vote on Friday.

The DCCC said the ads will be targeted at swing voters ages 35 and older, grassroots activists and those who have engaged with the topic of health care on social media.

The ads are targeted at Republican members of three House committees: Budget, Ways and Means, and Energy and Commerce.

Energy and Commerce Committee member Rep. Chris Collins, R-Erie County, is the only other New York congressional representative being targeted by the campaign.

mhamilton@timesunion.com  518-454-5449  @matt_hamilton10
Michael Minasi/Staff Photographer

State Rep. Mark Keough, R-The Woodlands, is being described as in "good shape medically" after he was involved in a head-on crash with a cement truck while on his way to the Texas Capitol building Tuesday morning.

Chief of Staff Jason Millsaps says Keough was driving his Lexus when it collided with the truck at the intersection of South First and West Mary in Austin. Although it's believed Keough's car was totaled in the crash, Millsaps says the lawmaker suffered only scrapes and bruises.
LUBBOCK  Is now the time to price your 2017 cotton crop? That question and many more will be addressed by experts during the cotton marketing workshop held in conjunction with the Texas Cotton Ginners Association Annual Meeting and Trade Show in Lubbock.

The free Bayer-sponsored workshop will run from 1-4 p.m. in Room 107-108 of the Lubbock Civic Center April 5, which is the afternoon prior to the opening of the ginners trade show.

Dr. Jackie Smith, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service economist at Lubbock, said the primary topics to be discussed will be the cotton and grain market outlook and pricing strategies.

Well also be looking at possible opportunities for producers found in the farm bill to improve their bottom line by planting program crops on cotton generic acres to qualify for program payments, Smith said. But the main item of workshop business will be helping producers through the dilemma surrounding current cotton prices, which are at a level now that have many trying to decide if they should forward price some or all of their expected production.

Along with Smith, who has served Lubbock area farmers for over 30 years, speakers will include Dr. John Robinson and Dr. Mark Welch, AgriLife Extension cotton marketing specialist and economist, respectively, from College Station. Also scheduled to speak is Kelli Merritt, president of CropMark Select.

Smith maintains the profitability website http://southplainsprofit.tamu.edu/ where the budget spreadsheet to be discussed during the workshop can be found.

Robinson has been the state cotton marketing specialist for more than 12 years and his Cotton Market Outlook is available at http://cottonmarketing.tamu.edu/. He also provides daily crop market news on Twitter @aggie_prof.

Merritt, a licensed commodity broker and cotton grower in Dawson County who serves as a liaison between farmers and spinning mills, will speak on the various marketing tools that can be used to forward price cotton to take advantage of favorable prices, Smith said.

More information on the Texas Cotton Ginners Association Annual Meeting and Trade Show is available at: http://www.tcga.org/ .
Begining April 3, three major cancer centers will merge to become Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas Regional Cancer Network.

On Tuesday, Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas held a press conference to announce their partnership with Cancer Center of Southeast Texas and Altus Cancer Center.

All three locations will continue to operate with a mission to reduce Houston trips to MD Anderson for Southeast Texas cancer patients.

"This combined effort between three well-known facilities strengthens the future of cancer care for our community," David Parmer, CEO, Baptist Hospital of Southeast Texas said. "All three organizations will work together to develop the best evidence-based patient care models while providing cancer services at home from physicians they know and trust."
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One Shell Plaza through the years
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AUSTIN -- An emotional fight over plans to build a new state music museum in Austin flared anew Wednesday as big-name icons of Texas music, from Asleep at the Wheel's Ray Benson to Freddy Fender's daughter, showed up to take sides.

Benson told the Senate Business and Commerce Committee that he supports locating the museum in Austin, "in the state capital where people come, where it should be." Tammy Huerta-Fender, the daughter of the late Tejano star Freddy Fender, was just as adamant in her opposition.

"This is something that towns across Texas should be allowed to compete for, to participate in," Huerta-Fender, of Houston, told the committee during the standing-room-only hearing. "This is not a fair process."

Under Senate Bill 1147, the State Preservation Board -- an agency originally established to restore and maintain the State Capitol that now oversees the Bullock State History Museum -- would create a new private foundation to create the Texas State Music Museum.

HIGH-PROFILE MEASURES: Here's the status of controversial bills in Austin

The new museum would be located on a few floors of a new 14-story state office building to be builtacross from the Bullock and the Blanton Museum of Art, in what local officials say would create a cultural destination for tourists.

The museum would be operated by the foundation, which would raise private donations to cover all expenses. "No state money would go into this," said state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, a sponsor of the bill.

Benson told the committee that the Austin museum should be a first-class operation to showcase the rich music history of Texas. The nationally known recording star drew laughter when he introduced himself as: "I'm Ray Benson, and you're not."

"You wouldn't be elected if you were me," he laughed.

Just as adamant in their support for the Austin site were Gilbert Velasquez, a San Antonio recording industry icon and 14-time Grammy winner, and Gary Hartman, director of the Center for Texas Music History at Texas State University in San Marcos.

FREE RIDE: Lawmaker wants to end vehicle inspection law in Texas

"There needs to be a central museum. There is a huge well of interest by collectors" of Texas music memorabilia in a state museum, Hartman said.

Clay Shorkey, co-founder and president of the Texas Music Museum, a privately-run venue about a mile from the proposed Austin music museum site, said he has come to support the bill with some sadness. "It's bittersweet for me and our board to support this . . . It may be an end to our Texas Music Museum," he said.

Stephen Williams, a founding member of the American Music History in Houston, told he committee that his planned Houston museum received state designation several years for the project that Austin is now in line for under the bill.

The state never turned over the $10 million in federal funding required to get the project off the ground, however. Nonetheless, he said the group has about $50 million pledged for the Houston museum, and may make an announcement on a site in the coming months.

"This is about the state reneging on its promise to Houston. This is about the state competing against private museums," he said. "This is about Austin wanting to get something through a law that it couldn't get through a statewide competition."

NO PHONES: Texas House passes tentatively passes ban on texting while driving

Thomas Kreason, founder of the Texas Musicians Museum in Irving, said the proposed bill will hurt and perhaps run out of business dozens of private music museums across Texas such as his, by diverting private donations and artifacts.

"On something this important, we should have a statewide competition rather than give it to Austin that doesn't need any economic help," he said.

The hearing closed with a guitar-and-flute serenade by opponents Rickey Ford, with the Jazz Heritage Society of Texas, and longtime Austin musician and songwriter Gustavo Rodriguez.

Afterward, the committee left the bill pending -- likely a prelude to being brought up and passed at a subsequent meeting. Nonetheless, the more than two dozen opponents who packed the meeting claimed an initial victory and pledged to derail the bill and an identical measure pending in the Texas House.

"There are so many other music museums in Texas, and to arbitrarily select one city over the others for this state museum is unfair -- unfair to the people who have been involved in making this history, and unfair to the people of Texas who don't live in Austin," said Jim O'Cherry, president of the Houston-based Texas Music Library and Research Center.

>>>Scroll through the gallery above to see which surprising musicians aren't in the Country Music Hall of Fame
The Lanesboro Traditional Horse Fair is taking place on Saturday, April 1 and since its revival back in 1999 the annual event has gone from strength to strength.

Much of that success rests with the people of Lanesboro who have put their shoulder to the wheel in the intervening years and placed the Lanesboro Horse Fair on the map.

It is a unique event in Co Longford and celebrates Irish rural traditions dating back to 1615 when we suspect that the first Fair was held in the town, Brigid Mullooly told the Leader.

It is one of Irelands oldest Fairs and takes place at a new venue this year in a scenic location on the banks of the Shannon at Gills field.

The traditional Horse Fair in Lanesboro has always been a celebration of everything that is good about rural Longford life.

It brings back local people who have moved away to other parts of the country for this exceptional event, continues Brigid who hails from the locality herself.

This years Fair will be no different and the top award is going to the Best Horse of the Fair.

This award is kindly sponsored by Leavy Memorials and the event itself will be a fun-filled family day out with amusements and sideshows for the children.

No Fair would be complete without a dog show and this particular feature is an integral part of the traditional Horse Fair in Lanesboro.

The annual dog show will take place on the Fair field at 12.30pm and there will be 18 different classes.

The entry fee for each class is 3 or 10 for four classes.

The dog show will be sponsored by John Grennan & Sons, Rath, Birr, Co Offaly.

Meanwhile, it is thanks to all the sponsors that the Fair is in a position to proceed with each passing year.

This, adds Brigid, Is very much appreciated and we thank everyone for all their support.

To book stalls at the Lanesboro Horse Fair 2017 please contact Basil Mitchell on (087) 688 9056 and for further details, phone Gerald Farrell on (086) 874 5180.

All Fair horse boxes must strictly park in the public local authority car park behind St Marys Hall or at the Quarry, and attendees on the day are asked to conform to stewards instructions.
Tech & Science, Nature & Weather, Local News, National & World News, Health & Wellness

By Long Island News & PR Published: March 28 2017

New York and California lead the nation in ground-breaking policies to combat climate change.

New York and California lead the nation in ground-breaking policies to combat climate change.

Albany, NY - March 28, 2017 - With the announcement that the United States will begin to dismantle the Clean Power Plan, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today issued the following statement reaffirming their ongoing commitment to exceed the targets of the Clean Power Plan and curb carbon pollution:

"Dismantling the Clean Power Plan and other critical climate programs is profoundly misguided and shockingly ignores basic science. With this move, the Administration will endanger public health, our environment and our economic prosperity.

"Climate change is real and will not be wished away by rhetoric or denial. We stand together with a majority of the American people in supporting bold actions to protect our communities from the dire consequences of climate change.

"Together, California and New York represent approximately 60 million people  nearly one-in-five Americans  and 20 percent of the nations gross domestic product. With or without Washington, we will work with our partners throughout the world to aggressively fight climate change and protect our future."

New York and California lead the nation in ground-breaking policies to combat climate change. Both states  which account for roughly 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States  have adopted advanced energy efficiency and renewable energy programs to meet and exceed the requirements of the Clean Power Plan and have set some of the most aggressive greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in North America  40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. New York and California will continue to work closely together  and with other states  to help fill the void left by the federal government.

New Yorks Climate Leadership

Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions: Established ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction targets to reduce emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050. These targets have made New York a leader across the country in fighting climate change.

Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI): Spearheaded the formation of the successful RGGI cap-and-trade program between northeast and mid-Atlantic states, led effort to reduce RGGIs carbon emission cap by 45 percent in 2014, and recently called for an additional cap reduction of at least 30 percent between 2020 and 2030.

Reforming the Energy Vision: Established a comprehensive energy strategy to make the vision for a clean, resilient, and affordable energy system a reality, while actively spurring energy innovation, attracting new jobs, and improving consumer choice.

Clean Energy Standard: Established the most comprehensive and ambitious clean energy mandate in the state's history, requiring that 50 percent of electricity in New York come from renewable energy sources like wind and solar by 2030.

Clean Energy Fund: Established a $5 billion fund that is jump-starting clean-tech innovation, mobilizing private investment, capitalizing the nation's largest Green Bank, and helping eliminate market barriers to make clean energy scalable and affordable for all New Yorkers.

Coal-Free New York: Committed to close or repower all coal-burning power plants in New York to cleaner fuel sources by 2020.

Offshore Wind: Approved the nation's largest wind energy project off the Long Island coast in 2017 and made an unprecedented commitment to develop up to 2.4 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030.

Californias Climate Leadership

Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions: Established ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction targets to reduce emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050. These targets have made California a leader across the country in fighting climate change.

Cap-and-Trade: Established the most comprehensive carbon market in North America, investing more than $2.6 billion from the Cap-and-Trade program in programs and projects that reduce emissions and support communities disadvantaged by pollution.

Renewable Energy: Established landmark targets that require at least 33 percent of Californias electricity comes from renewable energy sources by 2020, and 50 percent by 2030.

Energy Efficiency: Established targets that double the rate of energy efficiency savings in California buildings and require residential buildings to be Zero Net Energy by 2020, and all commercial buildings to be Zero Net Energy by 2030.

Super Pollutant Reduction: Established the nation's toughest restrictions on destructive super pollutants, such as methane, black carbon, and hydrofluorocarbon gases.

Low Carbon Fuel Standard: Established requirements for producers of petroleum-based fuels to reduce the carbon intensity of their products, helping drive the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable natural gas and diesel, low-carbon ethanol, and clean electricity, giving consumers more clean fuel choices while driving significant clean fuel investment and creating new economic opportunities.

Zero Emission Vehicles: Established a program requiring increased sales of zero emission vehicles  a policy adopted by 10 states  resulting in more than 30 new models of clean and affordable vehicles that are reducing consumer gasoline and diesel costs. California also adopted North Americas first greenhouse gas emission car standards  later adopted as a national program  and adopted the nations first heavy-duty vehicle and trailer greenhouse gas emission reduction requirements, which led to similar national requirements.
Local News, Crime

By Long Island News & PR Published: March 28 2017

Unidentified man walked into Bethpage Federal Credit Union on W. Merrick Road and demanded cash, officials say.

NCPD reports the details of a Bank Robbery which occurred on Monday, March 27 in Freeport.

Freeport, NY - March 28, 2017 - The Major Case Bureau reports the details of a Bank Robbery which occurred on Monday, March 27, 2017 at 12:35 pm in The Major Case Bureau reports the details of a Bank Robbery which occurred on Monday, March 27, 2017 at 12:35 pm in Freeport

According to Robbery Squad detectives, a male black suspect, 6 to 6 1 tall and 180 pounds wearing a blue hooded jacket and black square rimmed glasses entered the Bethpage Federal Credit Union located at 210 W. Merrick Road. He approached a teller and produced a demand note. The teller complied giving the suspect and undisclosed amount of cash.

The suspect fled the bank in an unknown direction. There were 10 customers and 8 employees in the bank at the time of the incident. No injuries were reported.
Local News, Crime, Community, Charity & Cause

By Long Island News & PR Published: March 28 2017

Jennifer Steinert-Vanoss, 15, last seen on March 27; police seeking public's help in locating her.

Syosset, NY - March 28, 2017 - The Missing Persons Squad reports the details of a Missing Juvenile that occurred in The Missing Persons Squad reports the details of a Missing Juvenile that occurred in Syosset on Monday, March 27, 2017 at 9:55 pm.

According to detectives, Jennifer Steinert-Vanoss, 15, who resides at the Mercy First Youth Facility, was last seen leaving the residence. She is described as being female, white, 56 tall, 133 Lbs., and having purple/pink hair. A possible destination is Queens, N.Y.
The Taliban issued a report that attempts to determine areas in Afghanistan it controls as well as contested areas and areas under the influence of the Afghan government. While the report may be seen as propaganda to bolster its claims of controlling territory, it does not inflate or exaggerate the Talibans control of districts centers and contested areas throughout the country, compared to data compiled by FDDs Long War Journal. The report was actually a rather conservative estimate, painting a dire but realistic picture of the security situation in Afghanistan. The Taliban also admits that there are large areas in Afghanistan where it has only a minimal presence.

The report, entitled Percent of Country under the control of Mujahideen, was released on Voice of Jihad, the groups official website. It was published by the Commission for Cultural Affairs of the Islamic Emirate after a long rigorous research on March 26.

Of the 400 known districts in Afghanistan, 349 are covered by the report. FDDs Long War Journal was unable to match 38 districts listed by the Taliban with known districts throughout the country, and the Taliban did not provide the status of an additional 13 districts; therefore, the status of 51 districts could not be determined.

FDDs Long War Journal mapped the Talibans report (see map above) and color-coded and categorized the districts as follows:

According to the Taliban, it fully controls 34 districts, including the district centers, and contests another 167 districts (these are districts where the Taliban claims it controls between 40 to 99 percent of the territory). The Taliban has a significant presence (10 to 39 percent) in another 52 districts, and a minimal presence in six more districts (1 to 9 percent). The Taliban said it has no presence in 89 districts, however, in some of those provinces it says it is conducting guerrilla activities.

Additionally, the Taliban claims it controls areas in 16 of Afghanistans 34 provinces. The percentages range from 10 in Maimana, Faryab to 97 in Tarinkot, Uruzgan.

According to the Taliban, it controls or contests nearly all of the districts in the southern provinces of Helmand, Nimroz, Uruzgan, Zabul, and Ghazni, and half of Kandahar. Eastern and northwestern Afghanistan look equally bleak, as do the northern provinces of Kunduz and Baghlan.

The Taliban report may be dismissed as propaganda by Resolute Support, however its claims of district control largely match with press reporting from Afghanistan. Additionally, in early Feb., the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) issued a report stating that the Taliban controls, contests, or influences 171 districts. By contrast, the Taliban report, as of March 26, claims that 211 districts are controlled or contested.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of 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.
At least two Iranians have been killed in combat in the central Syrian province of Hama, according to Iranian officials. The Assad regime and its allies are attempting to counter a major insurgent offensive, which was launched earlier this month in the northern part of the province.

The two recently killed Iranians were members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Basij paramilitary, according to Iranian media. The Basij is an all-volunteer force whose members can undergo military training by the IRGCs ground forces branch. The IRGC commands the Basij and its members have deployed to Syria and Iraq as part of IRGC-led expeditionary forces.

Saeed Khajeh Salehani, whose death was announced on Mar. 25, was the commander of a Basij base located in a county on the outskirts of Tehran and had four tours in Syria under his belt, according to officials. The following day, officials announced the death of Hossein Moez-Qolami, who was a member of a Basij based in the capital.

Pro-regime forces, including Harakat al Nujaba (an Iranian-controlled Iraqi militia) and the Tiger Forces have deployed to bolster the northern Hama front against the opposition assault. The insurgents include a number of jihadist, Islamist and Free Syrian Army-branded groups. Al Qaedas joint venture, Hayat Tahrir al Sham, is playing a significant role.

The death of the two Iranians indicates that elements of the IRGCs ground forces have continued to deploy to Syria. Since the early phases of the Syrian war, that IRGC branch has been augmenting the Qods Force, which is the Guards extraterritorial arm. Regular Iranian forces operate alongside the IRGC-led foreign militias and other pro-regime fighters. The IRGC prefers to rely on foreign proxies as foot soldiers, with Iranian officers advising and leading complex operations. However, the Guards top command has not hesitated to inject its forces in larger numbers, such as during its peak deployment from the fall of 2015 to mid-2016.

Amir Toumaj is a independent analyst and contributor to 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.
Member from the Nogai Jamaat training with an M16 assault rifle

A small group comprised of ethnic Nogais from the North Caucasus has recently released a video showing its fighters in training, joining a plethora of other groups originating from the North Caucasus that now operates in Syria.

In the new video, nearly a dozen fighters are seen training in a wooded environment in Syrias northwestern Latakia Province. Other training videos of the group were likely filmed in Idlib Province. The members are seen receiving weapons training with Kalashnikovs, small unit training, as well as training in explosives. Prior to the release of the video, photos have depicted members of the group training with sniper rifles while posts on its Telegram channel have detailed training with other groups. Members have also been seen with American-made M16 assault rifles.

The Nogai Jamaat is a small group with operations based in Latakia Province. It is likely only a few dozen members strong and often fights alongside other groups in Latakia, such as Ajnad Kavkaz, another North Caucasian group in Syria.

The Jamaat has portrayed itself as an independent entity through the media. However, this is unlikely. In one video, members of the Jamaat can be seen wearing Caucasus Emirate shirts; while in other photos, Caucasus Emirate logos can be seen in the background. In one photo of its operations, it appears to be alongside Liwa al Muhajireen wal Ansar, a Russian-speaking brigade within Hayat Tahrir al Sham, al Qaedas re-branded branch in Syria.

The Caucasus Emirate (CE), itself, is an al Qaeda-affiliated organization that has had official representation in Syria fighting alongside Jabhat Fatah al Sham (formerly the Al Nusrah Front). Its first group was the Chechen-led Jaysh al Muhajireen wal Ansar (JMA), which was founded by Omar Shishani, who later went on to be the Islamic States military leader. JMA would then be led by Salahuddin Shishani, who was eventually removed from the post with the help from Al Nusrah. JMA then subsequently pledged allegiance to the Al Nusrah Front.

Salahuddin would then go on to form the Caucasus Emirate in Syria. While he was eventually removed from this post, the CE in Syria continues to exist. Last month, Vilayat Kabarda, Balkaria, and Karachay (KBK), a branch of the Caucasus Emirate, released a video showing its fighters partaking in battles in northwestern Syria. The members were seen fighting under the flag of the CE in Syria. (See Threat Matrix report, Caucasus Emirate branch highlights fighters in Syria.)

Joanna Paraszczuk of From Chechnya to Syria, has also documented fighters from CE proper who fought and died with both JMA and the CE in the Syria. Fighters from the Nogai Steppe vilayat of the Caucasus Emirate were also reportedly documented in the aforementioned JMA, forming a Nogai faction of that group.

Former fighters of the CE can be found in several other Caucasian groups operating in Syria, as well. This indicates that a large number of members of the Caucasus Emirate have migrated to Syria to join the fight there. It is possible that the Nogai Jamaat is a new incarnation of the Nogai faction in JMA.

A Nogai Jamaat has also existed within the Caucasus Emirate in the North Caucasus. The group fought with Ibn Khattab, al Qaedas first official representative in the Caucasus, and Shamil Basayev in the conflict in Chechnya in the early 2000s before merging with others to form the Caucasus Emirate, according to The Jamestown Foundation. The Nogai Jamaat was also linked by Russian authorities to the 2011 suicide attack at the Domodedovo airport in Moscow.

However, it remains to be seen if the Nogai Jamaat in Syria is the same group that has historically operated in the North Caucasus. Given the Syrian groups affiliation to the Caucasus Emirate in its media, jihadists from the Caucasus migrating to Syria, as well as a Nogai faction from a branch of the CE existing in a prior incarnation in Syria, this could be a strong possibility.

Sniper training:

Nogai Jamaat photos showing Caucasus Emirate affiliation:

Scenes from the training camp video:

Caleb Weiss is a research analyst at FDD's Long War Journal and a senior analyst at the Bridgeway Foundation, where he focuses on the spread of the Islamic State in Central Africa.

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.
Culture / Art Republik

Mar 28, 2017 | By Luxuo

Since 2012, Intersections Gallery has been quietly building a growing repertoire of quality art and a deep commitment to nurturing artists. The Gallerys upcoming shows Burning Landscapes from March 17 to April 30, and Beyond The Surface from May 3 to June 18, showcase collaborations that create a dialogue among Chinese ink, Western painting, video, installations and ceramics.

Burning Landscapes

Often seen as an unforgiving, destructive force, the artworks in Burning Landscapes transmute fire into a life-giving force that has an aesthetic element of beauty, a creative medium that balances yin and yang, and an expression of serenity and positivity. The exhibition showcases artistic statements of freedom by two French Lebanese artists, Tania Nasr and Hanibal Srouji. Both Nasr and Srouji were forced to flee Lebanons Civil War, which lasted from 1975 to 1990, and Nasrs ceramic works, with Sroujis paintings and installation, speak of remembered and discovered geographies together with intimate emotional landscapes.

When they met in 2014, both artists instantly saw a synergy between their creative processes and the role of art as beyond mere self-expression and as an articulation of a larger, global vision of art and art making.

United by fire, the painters circular form in Sroujis Tondos series responds to the form and intention of Nasrs spherical ceramic works. Srouji sees the circular forms as openings of the soul from which we can look beyond and begin to dream and hope again. It is with this shared vision of artworks that convey peace and optimism that their collaboration flowed harmoniously. Each artist intuitively echoed the other in exchanges that went beyond language; how a colour directly applied on canvas echoed the sensuality of hands working on clay.

They both express, through their respective mediums, a means to transcend the swift brutality of fires destruction, taking their time to coax a sublime expression of creation and resilience. Where fire births Nasrs ceramics with form and colour, Srouji marks the canvas with a trail of fire from a blowtorch. If fire can be seen as pure energy, then its potential to build or annihilate lies in the choices that mankind makes.

The free-floating strips of canvas that comprise Sroujis Healing Bands series and Nasrs ceramics have a horizontal flow as the pieces work together as one; an allegory of humankinds strength in unity. Both Nasr and Srouji remind us how art can celebrate light and offer us a meditative space to heal and elevate our existence.

Beyond The Surface

Exploring the human body as a repository of memories, Beyond the Surface employs Chinese ink paintings, video, sculpture and installation and conceptual art to delve into the subconscious. This new series by Helene Le Chatelier illustrates the internal landscapes that emerge when we sink into our bodys wisdom; revealing the multiplicity of our frailties and strengths, ego and fear, and love and shadows. Questioning the intimacies of our time, her artworks hold space for introspection, so that each person can experience the vastness of their secret inner selves. Here, Le Chatelier observes our sense of oneness vis-a-vis the metamorphosis of our inwardness and relationship with our bodies.

To reflect the blurring of boundaries between skin and screen in the social media age, this exhibition marks the first time that Le Chatelier will feature video as part of an installation. She explains, Each medium allows me to explore a different aspect of a single concept. Its like pulling different strings from the same ball of wool. Collaborating with Butoh dancer Syv Bruzeau, the video calls for us to listen to the darkness and nuances of our bodies. Le Chatelier also collaborated with Virgile Viasnoff, a scientist and researcher, to include images of cells reacting to their environment. In the face of social medias overexposure, the video brings people back to the space in their inner worlds.

The complexity of the self is a composite of personal experiences and is personified by the sculpture Le Chatelier created for this exhibition. Outer layers of newspaper representing daily events are coated in layers of ink, mirroring our social facades, while the heart is a hidden message and inner core of clay. Le Chatelier likens this to love being an acceptance of the unknown in our deepest relations.

Le Chateliers show questions the dichotomy between the freedom of data and debatable intimacy, as well as the volatility of human bonds and the connection with self. The human condition might seem enduring, when it is actually constantly transforming and therefore transitional and ephemeral.

This article is written by Pamela Ng and was originally published in Art Republik 14.
Lifestyle / Travel

An incredibly diverse country, Chile is a bucket-list worthy destination. Home to the driest desert and the most beautiful beaches, this country is a must to visit

Mar 26, 2017 | By AFP Relaxnews

Chile is a fast rising travel destination, with visitors to Chile up from 26% in 2016 to 5.64 million. European travelers, in particular  with Italians leading the way (+24%)  are boosting tourism to the country. From the various volcanoes scattered across this South American country  which stretches more than 2,600 miles (4,000km) from north to south  to the arid Atacama desert and its salty scenery, Chile promises stunning natural scenery and unforgettable travel experiences.

Mysterious Easter Island

More than 2,000 miles (3,000km) off the Chilean coast, one of the worlds most remote inhabited islands intrigues travellers with its mysterious stone statues. Whether arriving on Easter Island by plane from Santiago or by boat, visitors are curious to find out how these monumental statues, known as moai, ended up on this isolated island. With a total area of just 63.2 square miles (163 square kilometers) the island can be easily explored by scooter, for example. It has a selection of hotels, most of which require a comfortable budget, but lower-cost campsites are also available.

Sunset at the Salar dAtacama

Starting from San Pedro de Atacama, adventurers can enjoy a day filled with amazing sights as they head off to discover one of Chiles most iconic natural attractions. This salt flat, which is one of the worlds largest sources of lithium, is at its most stunning at sunset. The landscape seems unreal and otherworldly, with salty deposits that look almost like snow. Pink flamingoes are the star attraction, often seen strolling around the lagoon.

Climbing the Villarrica volcano

Look out for organised hiking and trekking trips to the summit of one of Chiles most active volcanoes, rising to an altitude of 2,847 meters (9,341 feet). Accompanied by a professional guide, travellers can get an up-close look at the volcanic crater. The summit is reached by ski lift or on cross-country skis. In winter, its possible to descend by snowboard or sledge. Once at the summit, visitors are rewarded with incredible views, looking out over the regions lakes and volcanoes.

Chilean wine tasting in the Colchagua Valley

The Colchagua Valley is a great place to combine wine tasting with a scenic excursion. Chilean wine is recognised for its quality all around the world, and the Colchagua Valley  a two-hour drive from the capital, Santiago  is a perfect place to sample the countys delights. Day trips take visitors around the regions cellars, sampling its renowned cabernet sauvignon.

Experience the El Tatio geyser field

San Pedro de Atacama, which shares its name with the famous Chilean desert, is also the starting point for excursions to another of Chiles sensational natural sights: its geysers. In general, tourists arrive before sunrise to admire the columns of steam rising from the geysers in the cool morning air. The steam plumes then disappear as the air warms up. Visitors can even take a dip in a thermal pool of hot geyser water.
If the Republicans get a majority in the US House of Representatives, as is expected, theyll focus on lawsuit investment transparency and Chinas IP practices
Wendy Carrillo won a special election in Los Angeles on December 5th, 2017, the last in a series of four special elections that effectively reshuffled the political landscape in L.A.

Have you ever met someone whose story makes you feel like you can do anything? Meet Wendy Carrillo. And thank me later.

Wendy is a formerly undocumented Latina and indigenous journalist and activist. She is also one of the over 4,000 women who expressed an interest in running for office after Novembers election. Shes never run for office before and is engaged in a fierce campaign in Los Angeles 34th Congressional district  shaking up the old guard and engaging new voters at a surprising rate.

Her story of how she got the call to run, literally and metaphorically, is the stuff of myths. I cant wait for you to hear it. I also cant wait for you to hear just how fearless she is.

Have you seen that tote bag/coffee mug/IG post going around that says, Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man? (If youre reading this and youre a white man, dont be offended. Unless, deep down inside, you know youre arrogant and mediocre, in which case*Kanye shrug*)

Thats the kind of confidence it takes to run for office, a confidence I wish more of us had. Its a confidence that says, I dont really care what anyone else says about me, I dont care if the establishment recognizes my experience as good enough, I dont care if Im doing something that isnt the norm for someone with my background. I will not wait to be asked. I may not have a million dollars (which, as it turns out, is pretty helpful in running an election), but I am competent, passionate and committed.

Who wouldnt want that?

Let this weeks episode light a fire under your ass to do more, be more and run. If not for office, than towards your wildest dreams.

Erica: Theres a big leap between [journalism] and deciding to run for Congress. How did you get to that place [where you decided to] run for Congress? A year ago, you were a journalistYoud been a journalist for many, many years. Then, what happened? Where did this turning point happen?What was that moment like?

Wendy: Coming of age in a time when the economy kind of fell apart, as soon as Obama got into office  and I worked my ass off to ensure that a little-known senator with a funny name got elected in a time when that wasnt popular  even back then, Hillary Clinton was still at the forefront of the conversation. (Im so glad that he won, because I would have for sure been blackballed out of politics forever!) For me, the call to action comes when I continue to see weak-sauce Democrats that need to be lobbied and called and persuaded to push for policy that their community will benefit from. Democrats that need to be lobbied and asked to support the DREAM Act. Democrats that need to be lobbied and asked to support DACA. To not support Jeff Sessions as our new Attorney General. The fact that the Democratic party is no longer a party that represents the people is at the forefront of the conversation.

My call to action to run for Congress actually came at Standing Rock.

Erica: Tell me about Standing Rock. How you got there.

Wendy: Sadly, the social-news startup we founded closed its doors in August. This was obviously after the primary. I was very disappointed with the Democratic party and what happened during the primary election. I decided to get out of my little bubble in LA, and I rented a car and drove across the country and talked to voters. Outside of Los Angeles, and outside of California, all I saw were Trump signs. I drove from LA to Louisiana, to New Orleans specifically, and I passed through Texas (and Texas seemed like it was never going to end). And all I saw were Trump billboards.

People say lawn signs dont make a difference, but you know what, they sure do make an impact. They give a tone to something. I didnt see any Hillary signs when I was driving through Arizona, or Texas, or Louisiana

From Louisiana, I drove up to North Dakotato Standing Rock. I was supposed to be there for about a week and a half, and ended up [being there] for close to two months. I could not leave. I had been covering human-rights violations around the world, and to see them happening here at home, to see the development of a militarized police state that caused chaos against people that were only praying and trying to preserve water and sacred land, and who were constantly threatened by rubber bullets and tear gas and maceto see police do that to elderly women, to young women, to men and young boys, to hit horses with rubber bullets at close rangethese are all things that I saw when I was there.

Collage by Maria Jia Ling Pitt.
The gargantuan building of Parkview Square has seen a number of new concepts taking residence. We recently mentioned the gorgeous new Parkview Museum Singapore, which were sure has captured the attention of contemporary art lovers across the island. The other recent addition is one that will keep the drinking and dining crowd happy. Parkview Square now houses a grand ceiling-high lobby bar that celebrates the chic sophistication of Europes Art Deco period, entirely fitting of Parkview Squares unmistakeable aesthetic.

ATLAS is the place to be if youre looking for an experience like no other. With a massive gin collection assembled and artfully displayed in an impressive tower to form the lobbys centrepiece, expect everything from the likes of 1910 London dry gins to modern craft gins from all over the globe in this extensive treasure trove. Head Bartender Roman Foltan aims to serve up elegant Art Deco-inspired cocktails, while Executive Chef Daniele Sperindio has you covered on the culinary side of things with a continental menu that will take you from day to night.

Oh, and if champagne is your weakness, a bespoke rose gold walk-in Champagne Room awaits guests beneath the bar. Housing some of the worlds most sought-after champagnes, true connoisseurs will need to make a stop here.

Now open to the public, ATLAS makes a grand addition to Singapores ever-growing bar scene, and with its expressive concept and plush interior, were certain it will continue to garner plenty of attention. For now, we invite you to head up to the gallery to have a sneak peek at the ATLAS experience.

ATLAS is located at Parkview Square, 600 North Bridge Road, Singapore 188778.

Angela Goh

Photos: ATLAS

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STUART - Spencer resident Muriel Waldron used to serve as principal at Stuart Elementary School until April 24, 2015, when she was reassigned. That change, and the circumstances around it, are the focus of a lawsuit Waldron filed against Patrick County Superintendent William Sroufe. Testimony started Monday in the case.

The only thing both sides agree on is the face that Waldron was reassigned on that date in 2015. Waldron and her attorney, Roger B. Willets, claim the superintendent made false statements against her, reassigning her to a lower job and that she has been defamed, humiliated and had her job opportunities hurt. Sroufes attorney Jim H. Guynn Jr. claims the principal failed to fulfill some of her responsibilities, was insubordinate, that the superintendent had absolute right to reassign the principal to a different job, and that Sroufe acted in the best interests of students and without malice against Waldron.

In testimony Monday, Waldron said that she received a performance evaluation letter from Sroufe when he removed her as principal in 2015. That letter, she claimed, contained several provably false statements, including that Waldron failed to ensure that all eligible students were screened for Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS); that Waldron failed to ensure an administrator from Stuart Elementary School attended required training to help improve student skills in reading; and that Waldron failed to ensure the Individualized Education Program (IEP) teams understand Virginia Alternate Assessment Program (VAAP) participation criteria and apply them appropriately.VAAP is designed to evaluate the performance of students with significant cognitive disabilities who are working on academic standards that have been reduced in complexity and depth, according to the Virginia Department of Education.

As for Sroufes claim that Waldron failed to ensure that all eligible students were screened for Phonological Awareness Screening (PALS), Waldron testified, among other things, that the screening was done in accordance with state regulations.

As for Sroufes claim that Waldron failed to ensure an administrator from Stuart Elementary School (SES) attended required training to help improve student skills in reading, Waldron said, among other things, that the assistant principal who was scheduled to go to the training was busy at SES working on academic review that day. According to the Virginia Department of Education, the school-level academic review is designed to help schools identify and analyze instructional and organizational factors affecting student achievement. The focus of the review process is on the systems, processes, and practices that are being implemented at the school and division levels.

Waldron also said another representative of the school attended that training and claimed her own name had never been on the list to attend. Waldron said it was not until the night before the training that a school division official sent out an email indicating that the official expected school principals to be there. Waldron said she did not receive the email that night, and it was not until the day of the training that she received a surprise phone call asking why an administrator from SES was not at the training. Waldron said before the division official sent an email the night before the training, previous communications indicated it was the principals discretion whom to send to the training.

As for Sroufes claim that Waldron failed to ensure the Individualized Education Program (IEP) teams (for intellectual disability students) understand Virginia Alternate Assessment Program (VAAP) participation criteria and apply them appropriately, Waldron said, among other things, that proper state procedures were followed. However, at one point, when questioned by Sroufes lawyer, Waldron agreed that reasonable people could disagree about that point.

Waldron alleged at one point during her testimony that after she was removed as principal and reassigned to another position with PCPS, some personnel at Stuart Elementary were pressured into changing their procedures for intellectually disabled students. No evidence was presented to support this claim during Mondays hearing. Instead, Waldrons lawyer, who is also her father, claimed that the district changed procedures so that students test scores would be higher. Guynn called that claim absurd.

Waldron said she was not allowed to return inside Stuart Elementary School after Sroufe told her he was reassigning her and that her email was promptly cut off. Willetts alleged that Sroufe or his associates told dozens of people that Waldron had been removed as principal. Because of the manner in which she was removed, Willets argued, some people think she might have committed a crime.

Waldron testified that the experience was emotionally devastating for her , humiliating, that some of her friends believe she committed a crime as a result of the manner in which she was reassigned, and she has applied for number of other jobs since then (including in other localities) without success.

Judge Martin F. Clark Jr. told the jury this is not an employment or contract lawsuit but a defamation lawsuit.

The trial will continue today (Tuesday) in Patrick County Circuit Court.

Kandy Burnett, vice chair of the Patrick County School Board, previously was dropped as a co-defendant in the lawsuit.

Paul Collins reports for the Martinsville Bulletin and can be reached at paul.collins@martinsvillebulletin.com.
COLLINSVILLE  Following the death of Reed Creek district school board member Betsy Mattox, the Henry County School Board met on Monday to discuss the election of an interim member to fill the vacancy.

School Board Attorney George Lyle discussed the legal aspects of selecting an interim board member by May 2 and also covered aspects of the countywide election of a board member in November.

From the date of Mattoxs death on March 18, the Henry County School Board has 45 days to name an interim member to serve in Mattoxs position. The person selected will exercise all the authorities of the office.

At the meeting, the board voted to petition the Henry County Circuit Court to issue a writ of election for the special election of a school board member, who will complete Mattoxs term, expiring on Dec. 31, 2019. While it is possible that the interim member selected by the school board could assume the role for the next couple of years, the ultimate decision is up to the voters in Henry County.

While the election for the new Reed Creek district member will be held on the countys general election day, Nov. 7, the interim position must be filled no later than May 2. The individual elected on Nov. 7 will take the oath of office and will assume their role immediately.

Lyle offered guidance to the board, noting that in prior vacancies of elected board members in Henry County, the remaining board members proceeded with a process in which qualified applicants could express their interest.

The school board decided to open the interim position to residents of the Reed Creek district, who must submit a letter of interest to the board no later than 5 p.m. April 4.

The board will then assess the qualifications of each applicant and potentially invite possible interim members to a scheduled meeting where they will get to know the person and learn more about their interest in the position.

While there are a limited number of requirements for those interested in serving on the school board, Monica Hatchett, director of communications and organizational learning, advised that applicants study the position and its associated responsibilities before submitting a letter of interest.

All interested applicants must reside in the Reed Creek district and must be a qualified voter in the school district for which they will serve. If a board member ceases to reside in the district of representation, the seat on the school board becomes vacant.

Upon selection, each new board member will receive an intensive orientation under the direction of Superintendent Dr. Jared Cotton and officers of the board. The member will receive a copy of the policy manual, the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, the budget, a directory of the division, the Virginia school laws and other documents deemed essential to an understanding of the operation of the school division.

In addition to certain expenses  such as mileage driven as a result of a school board meeting  each member of the Henry County School Board will receive an annual salary. They also will be able to participate in the divisions group insurance plans. Other fringe benefits include workers compensation and IRS Section 125 pre-tax options.

Those wishing to fill the vacancy on the school board may drop off a letter of interest, as well as any other documents they deem pertinent, such as a resume, to the Henry County Administration Building, located at 3300 Kings Mountain Road. Office hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Interested applicants also may mail a letter to P.O. Box 8958, Collinsville, VA 24078, ATTN: Dr. Jared Cotton or email documents to asksup@henry.k12.va.us

If the board does not act to fill the vacancy with an interim member within a 45-day period, the responsibility will be assumed by the Henry County Circuit Court.

For more information, contact Hatchett at (276) 634-4766.
WESTFIELD -- Walmart plans to sell beer, wine and liquor at its Westfield Supercenter and is the process of buying the package store license from Pop The Cork, a family-owned store located just 2.5 miles away near the East Silver Street Big Y World Class Market.

If the mega-retailer's plan comes to fruition, Westfield will be its third Massachusetts location selling alcohol, joining stores in Raynham and Ware, according to the state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission.

Those licenses, like the one Walmart bought in Westfield, allow for the sale of beer, wine and liquor for off-premises consumption.

Walmart has been expanding its alcohol business in recent years. The company is involved in a years-long federal court battle with the state of Texas over liquor laws Walmart says are too restrictive.

The license transfer is pending with the city. A public hearing is scheduled for April 10 at 6 p.m. at Westfield City Hall, said Kimberly Jarret of the Westfield License Commission.

Walmart isn't saying when its liquor department will open.

"We have applied for a full license that is going through the review process, and if approved, we will develop a timeline on when we can start these sales," spokesman Chris Buchanan wrote in an emailed statement.

City and state records show Walmart owns its liquor licenses under the name Westborough Beverage Corp.

Walmart plans a 5,000-square-foot alcohol sales area at its Westfield store, said Craig Worrall, owner of Pop the Cork with his wife, Bethany.

Worrall's store is less than half the size at about 2,000 square feet. The size differential alone, Worrall said, is a reflection of how hard it is for an independent liquor store to compete with big box retailers coming to dominate the trade.

"Their buying power is tremendous," he said. "They sell product for less than it costs me to buy that same product."

Pop the Cork has been at the East Silver Street location for more than 30 years, he said. He and his wife, who live in Monson, bought it 15 years ago after he'd worked for more than 20 years at MassMutual.

"They were going through cutbacks at MassMutual," he said. 'I'd always had an interest in wine and liquor."

Business was good, he said, with a solid neighborhood following.

But expenses are high. His rent is $3,500 a month.

He and his wife never got time off. When they bought the store they figured they'd get Sundays off. But then the state allowed Sunday liquor sales.

"So then everyone had to be open on Sunday to compete," he said.

It's also hard to find help, he said.

Besides competition from chains, sure to increase because Walmart would have bought a license from someone if not from him, Westfield's convenience stores now offer beer and wine.

"That's the volume part of the business. If they can get beer at a gas station or corner shop, they never come here," he said.

He said he tried to sell the business with the license. There were interested parties, but the potential buyers never carried through with the deal.

He and his wife sold the license to Walmart for $140,000. They negotiated with a lawyer representing an unknown buyer and didn't know the buyer was Walmart until the sale closed.

They'd bought the license, along with the rest of the business, for $250,000.

Pop the Cork will close Friday. The Worralls are selling off all the equipment, shelves, coolers and other property from the store at an auction on April 8.

"It's another small business gone," Craig Worrall said.

Claire D'Amour-Daley, Big Y vice president of corporate communications, said the supermarket will look for a new tenant once Pop the Cork is gone. The shopping plaza, which already has a Rite-Aid drug store, gets a lot of traffic. The Big Y there does well.

New tenants could be a bank or a laundromat, she said.

"It could be a liquor store if somebody has a license," D'Amour-Daley said. "It certainly makes for convenient shopping. They have been a good tenant. We are sad to see them go, frankly."

Big Y couldn't sell alcohol at that location by making it one of its Table & Vine stores, D'Amour-Daley said, because the chain is at its state-imposed limit of seven licenses. Big Y has Table & Vine locations in West Springfield, North Quincy, Holden, Greenfield, Northampton, Wilbraham and Franklin. All but the West Springfield Table & Vine are inside Big Y supermarkets.

A 2001 state law increased the cap on liquor-license ownership from three to five in 2012, to seven in 2016 and will raise it to nine in 2020.
To say Steven Latham is an animal lover would be an understatement.

As evidenced by the director's latest documentary, "Shelter Me: Community Matters," which airs Thursday night at 9 p.m. on WGBY-57, Latham's intent is to open eyes and challenge beliefs about the impact shelter dogs can have on others.

In a recent interview, the Los Angeles-based director, a graduate of Hadley's Hopkins Academy, gave an overview of what he hopes viewers take away from the program.

"'Shelter Me' focuses on formerly homeless animals doing great things. This episode has three stories - one of the stories involves shelter dogs being trained to do conservation work," said Latham. "Vicka, the dog in the film, was found in Nevada, trained in Montana and sent to Zambia to protect animals from poachers."

Latham said that the upcoming episode, the series' seventh, took more than a year to complete and displays Vicka's journey from a shelter dog in Nevada, to her training with non-profit organization Working Dogs for Conversation, based in Montana, to working to combat the poaching of endangered animals in Africa.

Steven Latham

"When we started filming in Montana, there was no guarantee any of the dogs would even make it through the program, instead being adopted and going to a great home. We filmed it over an extended period of time, and Vicka was just a rock star. She was sent to Zambia and immediately had an enormous impact, finding guns and uncovering poachers," he said, adding that famed wildlife conservationist Jane Goodall will narrate the episode.

"The other two stories are about communities working together. What we like to do is tell stories about smart, progressive programs that shelters can replicate. One involves reading to pets - kids go to the shelter, go up to the cage and read for the animals. It relaxes them and calms them. It's an amazing thing. And we did a story about a high school cross-country team that, during practice, goes to the shelter and takes the animals for a run with them. They get to be seen by the public," he said.

Latham said that having four dogs of his own and experiencing first-hand the difficulties that shelters face in large cities, raising awareness about shelter dogs in particular is a cause he holds close.

"I have four big shelter dogs - I have a pitbull, a bulldog and pitbull mix, a lab mix and a great dane mix. I personally feel an obligation and a responsibility to help these animals. My dogs have brought so much joy to my life, and I really love telling these stories. I want more people going to their shelters, I want more people to adopt, and I want more people to experience the joy of a shelter pet," he said.

Moving forward, Latham said viewers could expect more uplifting stories in that vein coming up, with the next episode slated to air this fall.

"We're jumping right into production for a fall episode, it's going to be highlighting an incredible story in Durham, North Carolina where a woman builds fences for dogs chained up in their backyard. Coalition to Unchain dogs works with underserved communities to provide amazing help - instead of judging them, they help them," he said.

"Shelter Me: Community Matters" will air Thursday at 9 p.m. on WGBY-TV.

For more information or to watch previous episodes of "Shelter Me," visit www.shelterme.tv or www.facebook.com/ShelterMeTV.
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Lauren Zeitels and Victor Fedorov.

(Facebook / LinkedIn)

The bodies of two snowshoers reported missing in the Canadian Rockies have been identified as Lauren Zeitels and Victor Fedorov, of Boston.

Both were second year medical residents at Massachusetts General Hospital, in the hospital's internal medicine residency program.

Katrina Armstrong, physician-in-chief, and Jatin Vyas, residency program director, said in a statement the pair were "dedicated and promising physicians who were full of life and embodied the kind of devotion, compassion, and brilliance that represent the best of medicine and humanity."

Fedorov and Zeitels were reported missing in mid-March after failing to check out of their hotel in Alberta on Tuesday. The pair had spent the day snowshoeing near Lake Louise.

Their car was located in Banff National Park on the Icefields Parkway. Several days after they were reported missing, their bodies were recovered by Parks Canada staff.

Robert Goldstein, the hospital's chief resident for internal medicine, told the Boston Globe that the pair were close friends who founded the "pathways program" at Massachusetts General, which sought to bring new ideas to complicated cases.

"They were sort of this incredible pair that really built off each other," he told the Globe. "They were able to make each other better by the work they did."
GREENFIELD -- Two police officers suffered injuries Sunday morning while they were chasing a juvenile suspected of stealing a vehicle in New Hampshire.

The officers, who were able to catch the suspect with the aid of a state trooper, suffered moderate injuries while falling during the foot chase that required treatment at Franklin Medical Center. They have not yet been able to return to work, according to a Tuesday morning post on the department's Facebook page.

The incident began shortly before 11:20 a.m. when police received a BOLO (be on the lookout) from Brattleboro police regarding a stolen car, fleeing south on Interstate 91, that they had been unable to stop.

They reported that the driver was a danger to himself and others, according to the post.

State and city police learned around noon that the suspect, a 17-year-old male, may have been in the area of Franklin Medical Center.

Sgt. Stephen Westerling, first on the scene, found a suspect matching the given description. The suspect, asked for his name, gave a false one.

As Westerling continued to investigate, Officer Patrick Buchanon and two state police units arrived on scene.

When Westerling moved to place the juvenile into custody, the suspect broke out of his grasp and ran away. Westerling, attempting to regain control of the suspect, fell and was injured.

During the ensuing chase, Buchanon also fell and suffered injuries.

Both of the injured officers were able to continue with the foot chase and the suspect was arrested in the area of Madison Circle.

Police determined the car had been stolen in Stoddard, N.H. and was recovered near Franklin Medical Center. The juvenile was reported missing from Somerworth, N.H.

The juvenile is being charged with resisting arrest, receiving a stolen motor vehicle and being a fugitive from justice. Additional charges will be filed by law enforcement in New Hampshire and Vermont.
Ali Mahfuz

Ali Mahfuz booking photo from Chelmsford Police

(Chelmsford Police)

A school bus driver accused of using marijuana while on the job appears to have come under the influence of the drug after he picked up and dropped off students at a school in Tyngsborough and while waiting to drive another group in Chelmsford on a field trip, according to a statement issued by police and school officials.

Tyngsborough Police Chief Richard D. Howe, Tyngsborough Public Schools Superintendent Michael Flanagan, and Greater Lowell Technical High School Superintendent/Director Roger Bourgeois issued a statement Tuesday afternoon after the arrest of 63-year-old bus driver Ali Mahfuz of Nashua, New Hampshire.

"The safety and security of our students is first and foremost on our minds today," the statement reads. "While there is much we cannot say, due to the ongoing police investigation, we are confident, based on information that has been presented to us, that the driver did not come under the influence of marijuana until after the morning run and drop off at GLTHS (Greater Lowell Technical High School)."

Mahfuz was arrested on charges of driving under the influence of marijuana, driving negligently as to endanger and reckless endangerment after students in Chelmsford noticed an odd smell on the bus that police said turned out to be marijuana.

"We have been made aware that a bus driver for North Reading Transportation Inc. was arrested in Chelmsford earlier today for allegedly driving a school bus while under the influence of marijuana," the joint statement said. "The driver was preparing to take Chelmsford High School students on a field trip. We have been notified that the suspect had also driven Greater Lowell Technical High School students to school this morning on a regular bus route."

North Reading Transportation Inc. provides the busing services for the Greater Lowell Technical High School, located in Tyngsborough, but a different company serves the Tyngsborough school system.

Police said students from Chelmsford got on the bus this morning as they prepared to leave for a field trip and noticed a strange odor. School officials checked the bus, driven by Mahfuz, and determine the smell was marijuana.

Officers determined Mahfuz was under the influence of marijuana.

The students were taken off the bus and the bus company sent another driver.
Sheriff Thomas Hodgson

Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson faced a television camera after testifying in front of a Congressional subcommittee on immigration. (Via Bristol County Sheriff's Department Twitter feed.)

(Twitter)

Hours after Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson called for the arrest of public officials from "sanctuary cities," one of them fired back and taunted him.

Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone derided Hodgson's statements as "ridiculous" and referred to him as a "thug." He added: "[C]ome and get me."

Mayors of "sanctuary cities" aren't breaking any laws, Curtatone said in a Facebook post.

Amherst, Northampton, Boston, Cambridge and Somerville were recently on a list of cities federal officials said were not cooperating with the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

"Sanctuary cities aren't hiding. We know the law," Curtatone said.

"More importantly, we know we're not violating the law," he added. "So officials like Hodgson should feel free to keep blowing hot air. By all means expose yourself as the sort of jack-booted thug who wants to jail your political opponents for made-up offenses."

Curtatone included in his Facebook post a screen grab from "The Simpsons" show, a newspaper clipping about Grandpa Simpson titled "Old Man Yells at Cloud."

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh also responded to the sheriff. "He should focus on being sheriff," Walsh told reporters, according to WCVB-TV.

Newton Mayor Setti Warren, who is weighing a run for governor, also issued a statement through social media, saying on Twitter that he isn't intimidated by Hodgson's remarks.

My dad was arrested for the jail-able offense of sitting at a lunch counter. He wasnt afraid of threats like this, neither am I. #mapoli https://t.co/X2xHTSVnpf  Setti Warren (@settiwarren) March 28, 2017

Hodgson made his remarks in testimony to a Congressional subcommittee on immigration.

"If these sanctuary cities are going to harbor and conceal criminal illegal aliens from ICE...federal arrest warrants should be issued for their elected officials," Hodgson said.

Sanctuary cities will fade away "if their leaders start running into legal trouble," Hodgson said.
WESTFIELD- A PVTA bus was the transportation choice of the day as Massachusetts State Senators toured Western Mass. as a part of the 2017 Commonwealth Conversations forum.

Transportation issues were a major topic of discussion during the day-long event.

Tuesday was the sixth stop of a four-month tour which began at the Suffolk Law School on January 31. Three more tour dates are scheduled, with the final stop being in Worcester on April 25.

"The best ideas are often found not within these halls but in our neighborhoods and our coffee shops, in our board rooms and union halls, in our office break rooms and at our family tables." said Senate President Stan Rosenberg in a statement.

Stops in Western Mass. included Conway Town Hall, Barnes Municipal Airport, Umass-Springfield and MGM-Springfield.

The tour concludes Tuesday evening with a Town Hall Forum At the Student Union Ballroom on the campus of Umass Amherst. The event runs from 6:15 to 8:15 p.m.

The Western Mass. tour was hosted by Sen. Don Humason, R-Westfield; Sen. Adam Hinds, D-Pittsfield; Sen. Eric Lesser, D-Longmeadow; Sen. Jim Welch, D-West Springfield and Senate President Stan Rosenberg, D-Amherst.
Authorities have identified the 24-year-old pizza delivery driver fatally shot in Lynn Monday as Sina Zangiband.

Zangiband was found dead in his car on Bowler Street in Lynn around 5:50 p.m. Monday after police responded to a report of gunshots. He had been shot multiple times.

The man being called a person of interest in the shooting by the Essex County District Attorney's Office was caught Monday night in Peabody by Massachusetts State Police.

Brian Brito, the 21-year-old Manchester, New Hampshire man being eyed for the killing, is also accused of raping a convenience store clerk in North Andover around 10:20 p.m. Monday.

"Mr. Brito remains a person of interest in the Lynn homicide, which remains under investigation by the Essex District Attorney's Office, the Essex State Police Detective Unit and the Lynn Police," the district attorney's office said in a statement.

After the shooting, police began searching for a 2004 Audi A4 with New Hampshire plates and notified other law enforcement agencies.

State Police stopped the Audi on Route 1 in Peabody around 10:40 p.m. The driver, identified as Brito, had a gun in the car, authorities said.

He was arraigned in Peabody District Court Tuesday on firearm and motor vehicle charges. Brito is being held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing scheduled for April 10.

North Andover Police obtained an arrest warrant for Brito charging him with aggravated rape, armed robbery while masked and kidnapping in connection with their case.

Police said Brito entered the Richdale variety store in North Andover around 10:20 p.m. while carrying a gun and wearing a mask.

"The store clerk was ordered at gunpoint to lock the doors, and was taken to a back room where she was sexually assaulted," police said. "The gunman then emptied the cash drawer and took numerous lottery tickets before fleeing the scene in an unknown direction."

Police then learned State Police had a person in custody matching their suspect.

Brito is expected to be arraigned in Lawrence District Court next week on the North Andover charges.
jules.png

Undated photo of U.S. Army Cpl. Jules Hauterman Jr. of Holyoke, Massachusetts.

(SUBMITTED PHOTO)

HOLYOKE -- Veterans service agents are asking again that people gather on South Street at noon Wednesday to welcome home the remains of U.S. Army Cpl. Jules Hauterman Jr. who was killed 67 years ago in the Korean War.

"They'd like to line the street from there going all the way to the Barry Farrell Funeral Home" at 2049 Northampton St., said James Mahoney, director of the Holyoke Veterans Services Department.

Hauterman, who grew up here in a third-floor apartment at St. Jerome Avenue and Monroe Street, was reported missing in action as of Dec. 2, 1950 in North Korea. The U.S. Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency recently said that testing had identified remains as those of Hauterman.

The remains of Hauterman are scheduled to be flown into Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut early Wednesday from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. The remains, in a military coffin draped in the American flag, will be driven in a process that includes relatives of Hauterman and representatives of local veterans organizations into Holyoke where Interstate 391 meets High Street.

At the Save-A-Lot parking lot at 235 South St., Interstate Towing will display a large American flag and small flags will be distributed to people who attend to welcome the procession.

"My understanding is that they won't stop but they will slow down," said Eric Segundo, Ludlow Veterans Services director, of the procession. "The procession will slow down."

Such a welcoming is what defines Holyoke, Mayor Alex B. Morse said.

"My thoughts and prayers go out to the friends and family of Cpl. Hauterman as this son of Holyoke finally comes home. While nothing can make up for the loss, I hope his long awaited homecoming brings comfort to those who loved him. I applaud the organizers of this week's event, including tomorrow's standout, and I join with people throughout the community in honoring this courageous Holyoker," Morse said.

Calling hours for Hauterman will be at the funeral home from 4 to 6 p.m. on Thursday.

Final respects will be paid at the funeral home from 8:45 to 9:15 a.m. on Friday. A funeral Mass will be held at 10 a.m. at Blessed Sacrament Church, 1945 Northampton St., followed by burial in St. Jerome's Cemetery, 1666 Northampton St.

Hauterman was a medic. He died in the devastating battle at Chosin Reservoir in North Korea when American forces were surprised by the attack of hundreds of thousands of Communist Chinese troops. He was with the Medical Platoon, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, when his unit was attached to the 31st Regimental Combat Team as one of its infantry battalions for the mission. More than 1,300 American troops were captured or killed.

Hauterman was born in Holyoke on Sept. 10, 1931 to the late Jules and Madline (Whelihan) Hauterman and graduated from Holyoke High School before enlisting in the army.
The man being questioned in connection with the fatal shooting of a 24-year-old pizza delivery driver in Lynn, Massachusetts, is also a suspect in a North Andover, Mass., rape and robbery, according to police.

Brian Brito had an arrest warrant issued for him in connection to a Monday rape at the Richdale variety store, North Andover Police said in a news release.

Authorities accuse Brito of entering the store around 10:20 p.m. Monday with a gun. He was wearing a mask.

"The store clerk was ordered a gunpoint to lock the doors, and was taken to a back room where she was sexually assaulted," police said. "The gunman then emptied the cash drawer and took numerous lottery tickets before fleeing the scene in an unknown direction."

Police began searching for the suspect and learned the Massachusetts State Police had a person in custody matching the suspect's description. Police said Brito, 21, of Manchester, New Hampshire, was the person responsible for the rape and robbery in North Andover.

An arrest warrant was issued out of Lawrence District Court charging Brito with armed robbery while masked, aggravated rape and kidnapping. Brito will be arraigned in Peabody District Court.

Brito is being questioned in connection with the Monday night fatal shooting of a pizza delivery driver in Lynn. The Salem man had been shot several times and was found dead in his car.

Police were called to the area of 49 Bowler St. around 6 p.m. for a report of gunshots. The delivery driver was then discovered.

The victim was a delivery driver for Atha's Famous Roast Beef & Pizza in Lynn, police said.

Brito was stopped in a vehicle matching the description of the one involved in the fatal shooting, according to authorities. Massachusetts State Police stopped the vehicle on Route 1 in Peabody.

"During the vehicle stop, they determined that the operator, Brian Brito, was in possession of an illegal firearm and was driving with a revoked license," according to the Essex County District Attorney's Office.

Brito was taken into custody and on the gun and motor vehicle charges. As of this morning, he has not been charged with the killing.
scales of justice via masslive.jpg

Kent Oldfield, owner of a Fitchburg engineering firm, has been indicted on charges that he falsified environmental records from several private wastewater treatment plants. March 2017.

(The Republican file photo)

BOSTON -- The president of a private wastewater treatment and engineering firm in Fitchburg stands accused of faking environmental test results.

Kent Oldfield, 52, operated wastewater treatment plants at condominium complexes in Dover, Holliston, and Lunenburg. He allegedly delivered swapped-out water samples to a testing laboratory and forwarded the results to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.

Oldfield allegedly falsified the data to cover up permit violations at the plants between 2013 and 2015.

The samples should have been taken from each facility's treated wastewater. Instead, they were taken from somewhere else, according to prosecutors with the office of Attorney General Maura Healey.

Oldfield is president of SRA Inc. and New England Engineering Group, LLC.

He was indicted Friday by a statewide grand jury on six charges of knowingly tampering with wastewater test methods, and 52 counts of knowingly making false reports to MassDEP. He is expected to be arraigned in Norfolk, Worcester, and Middlesex Superior Courts.

"The public relies on certified operators like the defendant to ensure that harmful pollutants are removed from wastewater discharged directly into the ground in our communities," said Healey in a statement. "Those who falsify these reports, which can have significant public health and environmental consequences, are violating the law."

The investigation was conducted by the Massachusetts Environmental Strike Force, an interagency unit overseen by Healey, Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Matthew A. Beaton, and MassDEP Commissioner Martin Suuberg.

"We rely on certified operators to test discharge water, factually report their findings to us, and ensure that wastewater is properly treated before it is discharged," said Suuberg. "Most operators do it right, but we will enforce on those that do not."

In Massachusetts, the certification of wastewater treatment plant operators is coordinated by the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission on behalf of MassDEP and the Board of Wastewater Operator Certification.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker isn't on board with Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson's cry for the arrest of public officials who support "sanctuary cities."

Hodgson, a fellow Bay State Republican, testified before a Congressional subcommittee on immigration and border security on Tuesday, saying if sanctuary cities plan to "harbor and conceal criminal illegal aliens" from immigration officials, "federal arrest warrants should be issued for their elected officials."

A Baker spokesman said the governor doesn't agree.

"Governor Baker disagrees with Sheriff Hodgson on this issue and the Baker-Polito Administration deeply values Massachusetts' rich, global community," Billy Pitman, Baker's press secretary, said in an emailed statement.

"Governor Baker fully supports the discretion of local officials to make their own decisions on public safety policies and the administration opposes making Massachusetts a sanctuary state," he said.

"The administration will continue to enforce policies giving the State Police the tools necessary to detain violent criminals or suspected terrorists wanted by federal authorities," Pitman added.

After Hodgson's comments, the mayor of Somerville blasted back at the sheriff on Facebook and on Twitter.

Hodgson is "spouting nonsense again," Somerville's Joe Curtatone said on Twitter, referring to the sheriff's offer of free inmate labor to help President Donald Trump build a border wall between US and Mexico.

Somerville - along with Boston, Cambridge, Northampton and Amherst - is listed as among the communities that limit cooperation with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
Kancamagus Highway, 6 AM II

White Mountain National Forest, New Hampshire.

(Roger H. Goun (flickr))

An overdue hiker from Massachusetts was able to use extra clothing and a trash bag to stay safe while he waited for help in New Hampshire's White Mountain National Forest, according to fish and game officials.

The New Hampshire Fish and Game Law Enforcement Division said Robie Gould, 58, of Westford, Massachusetts was hiking alone in the Pemigewasset Wilderness area on Sunday.

He left from the Lincoln Woods trail parking area in Lincoln, New Hampshire around 5 a.m. and had arranged for a friend to pick him up at a campground in Bethlehem, New Hampshire around 6 p.m. the same day.

Gould, according to a news release, texted his friend at 2:45 p.m. from West Bond and said he would be late and not to pick him up. Gould said he would find a ride back to his car.

The following morning, Monday, his friend called New Hampshire authorities asking for help in order to find Gould. Fish and game officers were able to find Gould around 2 p.m. on the Zealand trail.

"Gould was an experienced hiker and carried all the essential equipment for staying overnight in a winter environment," fish and game officials said. "He was able to put on dry cloths and additional layers to stay warm. In addition he covered up in a poncho and had a large commercial trash bag that he was able to get into to stay protected from the environment."

Gould was unable to contact anyone because he had no cell phone reception in the area he was hiking.
Emerging Chinese artists will be invited to take part in an art event being held in the industrial city of Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States in 2018, the organizers said during their visit to Beijing on Saturday.

The event, Front International: Cleveland Exhibition for Contemporary Art, is a three-month citywide triennial planned to open in July 2018.

It will display works by more than 55 artists across the world in various public spaces in the city, including art museums, churches and markets.

Preparations for the new triennial began in 2014 and the organizers then started to tour the world to meet artists and invite them to produce works for the Cleveland event.

Jens Hoffmann, an artistic director of the triennial, says that the invited artists will include both established and emerging ones from across the world.

Chinese artists are definitely on the list, he says.

"Chinese artists are playing a very important role on the global art scene. You would miss a part of the world if you don't include them, given that the triennial is global in scope," says Hoffmann, adding that the organizers plan to invite five or six emerging Chinese artists.

The Cleveland organizers held an event at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing's 798 Art Zone to promote the show.

Fred Bidwell, who came up with the idea of the triennial in the "rust-belt of the US", says that it is inspired by Documenta, a famous art exhibition held every five years in Kassel, a city in Germany.

A once wealthy industrial city, Cleveland used to have many businesspeople and philanthropists who loved to collect art. But the city has suffered a decline and population loss in recent years.

The city now needs a boost and the triennial is one such effort, says Bidwell.

"Our mission is to generate new economic activity and opportunity through cultural tourism. We hope people from in and outside the country fly to the city to enjoy the art," says Bidwell.

He says the art event is scheduled from July to September, as it is the best time of the year in Cleveland.

He says that with the show the organizers want to hold an art event in a relatively small US city instead of New York, Los Angeles or Chicago, where major exhibitions are frequently held.

To an extent, the Cleveland event is expected to be the US' Documenta, adds Bidwell, saying that the inaugural show will be titled An American City.

Meanwhile, art museums and institutions in Cleveland are also participating in the project and a series of related activities will be held, including an art residency project, and public education.

Separately, Michelle Jeschelnig, deputy president of the triennial, says some museums in Cleveland have large collections of Chinese and Asian art.

The Cleveland Museum of Art owns lots of Chinese art donated by philanthropists in the city.

Jeschelnig says she is sure that the participation of Chinese artists in the triennial will offer a good opportunity for a dialogue between China and the US city.

dengzhangyu@chinadaily.com.cn

The Cleveland Museum of Art (left) is one of the venues to host the triennial. Jens Hoffmann (center) and Fred Bidwell are two major figures behind the art event. Photos Provided To China Daily

(China Daily 03/28/2017 page20)
Receiving an invitation to a job interview is both exciting and nerve-racking. It can also be highly competitive depending on the industry and economy. Thats why its necessary for you to prepare to impress the interviewer as soon as you sit down for the interview.

While having an effective resume, dressing appropriately, and doing your research on your prospective employer are all essential components in making a solid first impression, you also want to avoid using the following 5 words during your interview to increase your odds of getting hired.

BY JOHN RAMPTON

Full Story: http://mashable.com/2017/03/27/5-words-you-should-never-use-job-interview/?utm_cid=hp-r-1#Y3Aa45Xs_sqK
With a market capitalization of close to $9 billion and more than 170 equity listings, the Stock Exchange of Mauritius (SEM) is one of the most vibrant in Africa.

It is also where many of Mauritius ultra-high net-worth individuals store significant portions of their fortunes through equity stakes in their own and other companies, which they typically hold via both direct and indirect investments. Based on figures derived from investment agencies, the latest annual reports and confirmations from capital market registrars, these are the 15 richest people who own stocks listed on the Stock Exchange of Mauritius.

Billionaires.Africa lists individuals rather than multigenerational families who share large fortunes, but in cases where ownership breakdown among siblings and couples arent clear, we attribute the fortune to the most visible-prominent member of the family. The value of their shares is based on prices at the end of trading on Aug. 20, and valuations are converted to U.S. dollars at current exchange rates

#1 Arnaud Lagesse & family

Net worth on SEM: $130.4 million

Holdings: Ireland Blyth Limited (IBL)

Arnaud Lagesse is the CEO of Ireland Blyth Limited (IBL Group), a family-controlled business that has been in existence for close to two centuries. IBL is Mauritius largest conglomerate with more than $900 million in annual revenues. Through its subsidiaries, it engages in the agro and energy, building and engineering, commercial and distribution, financial, hospitality, life and technologies, logistics, seafood, and properties businesses. Lagesse and his brothers Benoit, Hugues, Jean-Pierre, Thierry and Stephane own a joint ownership stake of 16.81 percent of the groups total issued ordinary shares. The stake is worth $130.4 million.

#2 Desmond de Beer

Net worth on SEM: $80.04 million

Holdings: Lighthouse Capital

Property tycoon Desmond de Beer was a founder of Resilient REIT Limited, a South African Real Estate Investment Trust, where he has served as CEO since listing in 2002. He was also a founder of New Europe Property Investments Plc and its successor NEPI Rockcastle Plc. He is the largest individual shareholder of Lighthouse Capital Limited, a company that invests globally in direct property in developed and developing markets, as well as listed real estate and infrastructure securities. He owns a 13.71-percent stake in Lighthouse Capital  a stake that is worth $80,044,840

#3 Barry Stuhler

Net worth on SEM: $36.7 million

Holdings: Lighthouse Capital

South African-born Barry Stuhler is a chartered accountant who a 6.29-percent stake in Lighthouse Capital worth $36,726,456. He is the managing director at Capital Property Fund in South Africa.

#4 Norbert Dentressangle

Net worth on SEM: $24,227,818

Holdings: CIEL, Sun Mauritius

French billionaire Norbert Dentressangle, who built his fortune in transport and logistics, owns a 5.11-percent stake in CIEL worth $11.983 million  as well as a 17.32-percent stake in Sun Mauritius worth $12.24 million.

#5 Chian Ah Teck

Net worth on SEM: $23,678,632

Holdings: Gamma Civic, Lottotech

Chian Tat Ah Teck is the executive chairman of Gamma Civic. He was previously managing director of the company from 1987 to January 2011. Gamma Civic is an investment holding. It operates in the following sectors: building materials, contracting, investments, lottery and corporate services. Chian Ah Teck owns a 6.93-percent stake in Gamma Civic worth $9,253,664.45 and also owns a 19.6-percent stake in Lottotech worth $14,424,968.

#6 Dominic Galea

Net worth on SEM: $22,827,748

Holdings: Mauritius Union Assurance Company, United Docks

Dominique Galea is chairman at Mauritius Union Assurance Company where he owns a 15.75-percent stake worth $21.1 million. He also owns 6.6 percent of United Docks, a leading real estate developer that owns around 100,000 square meters of prime freehold land in Port-Louis.

#7 Louis Boulle

Net worth on SEM: $18.4 million

Holdings: Ireland Blyth Limited (IBL Group)

Louis Gaetan-Jan-Fredrik Boulle is a prominent boardroom guru who serves on dozens of corporate boards in Mauritius. He is the chairman of Ireland Blyth Limited (IBL Group), where he owns a 2.33-percent stake worth $18.33 million. He also owns 0.05 percent in Lux Island resorts worth $58,925.53

#8 P. Arnaud Dalais

Net worth on SEM: $18.6 million

Holdings: Ciel Group

The Mauritian businessman is non-executive chairman of Ciel Group, one of the island nations largest business conglomerates. He owns an 8.02-percent stake in CIEL.

#9 Jean-Pierre Dalais

Net worth on SEM: $11.9 million

Holdings: Ciel Group

A member of the Dalais family, the controlling shareholders of the Ciel Group, Jean-Pierre Dalais owns a 5.46-percent stake in the company worth $11.9 million.

#10 Pierre De Speville

Net worth on SEM: $14,927,013

Holdings: Pierre De Speville holds a 12.83-percent stake in Medine, a Mauritian conglomerate with interests in agro, leisure, property, and education.

#11 Pierre-Emile Latour

Net worth on SEM: $14,594,674

Holdings: Pierre-Emile Latour holds a 10.89-percent shareholding in Mauritius Union Assurance Company, worth $14,594,674.03

#12 Timothy Taylor

Net worth on SEM: $12,164,585

Holdings: Timothy Taylor holds a 9.27-percent stake in Cim Financial Services, a non-banking deposit-taking institution that avails individual consumers, SMEs and large corporates with financial services such as consumer finance, credit cards, forex, leasing and factoring.

#13 Vincent Ah-Chuen

Net worth on SEM: $6,698,653

Holdings: Vincent Ah-Chuen holds a 16.41-percent stake in ABC Motors, a Mauritian company that markets, distributes and repairs automobiles; a 1.13-percent stake in Mauritius Union Assurance Company and a 25.04-percent stake in P.O.L.I.C.Y Limited, an investment company in Mauritius.

#14 Cyril How Kin Sang

Net worth on SEM: $9,284,305

Holdings: Cyril How Kin Sang holds a 6.94-percent stake in Gamma Civic, an investment holding company.

#15 Pierre-Guy Noel

Net worth on SEM: $9,062,745

Holdings: Pierre-Guy Noel is the CEO of MCB, one of Mauritius largest banking groups. He owns a 0.55-percent stake in the company.

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Kavi Ramano a repondu lors de la seance parlementaires du 4 aout 2020 a des interrogations de Fabrice David et du depute Leopold.

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Description

The worldwide leader in One-to-One MBA events is returning to NYC on March 28, 2017. The worlds top business schools will soon be within your reach!

Date: Tuesday, March 28, 2015

Time: From 4:30pm to 9:30pm (upon invitation)

Place: Warwick New York Hotel

Registration link:

http://www.accessmba.com/tour/events/new-york/index.html?ui=52P5L71489686501&utm_source=Internet&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Long+Island

Each participant will have the chance to benefit from:

 One-to-One* Meetings with MBA Admissions Directors

 Individual Consulting Sessions with Access MBA Experts

 Free GMAT Courses to win  worth $2,500

 Over $1 million in scholarship opportunities

By registering for the One-to-One MBA event, your profile will be carefully matched and selected for individual meetings with the business schools that correspond to your expectations.

Why get an MBA?

 88% of employers planned to hire MBA graduates in 2016 (GMAC 2016 Corporate Recruiters Survey)

 MBA graduates attain an average salary of 135,000 USD three years after graduation (Financial Times 2016 Global MBA Rankings)

 78% of MBA graduates claim that they have managed to climb the career ladder as a result of their studies (Advent Group 2016 Survey)

 Flexible MBA programmes provide a work-life balance that is compatible with personal and professional obligations

Among the prestigious business schools participating in the Access MBA Tour: Among the participating Business Schools:

Fordham University  Gabelli School of Business (New York), Baruch College  Zicklin School of Business (New York), Georgetown University  McDonough School of Business (Washington), Boston University  Questrom School of Business, Suffolk University  Sawyer Business School (Boston), Brandeis International Business School (near Boston), Northeastern University (Boston), Syracuse University  Whitman School of Management, University of Rochester  Simon, ESSEC Business School (France, US, China, Singapore), IESE Business School (Spain, US, Brazil, China), Hult International Business School (US, UK, UAE, China), IE Business School (Spain), SDA Bocconi (Italy, US, Brazil, China, Denmark), University of St. Gallen (Switzerland, US, Brazil, China, Turkey, South Africa), EADA Business School Barcelona (Spain), EDHEC (France), Tel Aviv University and many more.
Although water covers 70 percent of Earths surface, drinkable freshwater is incredibly scarce. And at the current consumption rate, this scarcity is expected to deepen  causing two-thirds of the worlds population to face devastating water shortages by 2025.

Colorado State Universitys June Medford believes water scarcity is one of the worlds many critical problems that can be solved with synthetic biology. She described her work, in which she is turning plants into desalination circuits, at the Engineering Biology Research Consortium (EBRC) retreat.

One of the greatest limits to humanity is water, said Medford, biology professor and pioneer in plant synthetic biology. There is plenty of water on Earth, but the vast amount is too salty.

Northwestern hosted this years EBRC retreat, which took place March 24-25 in the Norris University Center. Nearly 170 faculty, researchers, and students attended from multiple universities including MIT, Harvard, Columbia University, Caltech, Cornell, Stanford, and the University of California at Berkeley.

The retreat corresponded with the one-year anniversary of Northwesterns launch of its new Center for Synthetic Biology, which Northwestern Engineerings Milan Mrksich directs with co-director Michael Jewett.

Overall, this was a fantastic event for the Center for Synthetic Biology and Northwestern, said Jewett, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering in Northwesterns McCormick School of Engineering. Indeed, showcasing the exciting developments happening at Northwestern was a terrific way to spend our one-year anniversary.

Medford and Mrksich, the Henry Wade Rogers Professor of Biomedical Engineering, professor of chemistry, and cell and molecular biology, delivered the events keynote talks.

To combat water scarcity, Medford took inspiration from mangrove trees, which she calls ultra filters. Growing in salty coastline water, mangroves have evolved to contain a complex salt filtration system within their roots. By engineering plants to filter salt water in similar ways, Medford believes that researchers could use plants as a cheaper, more sustainable way to filter seawater, making it drinkable. (Current desalination factories cost $1 billion each, use the same energy of a city of 50,000 to 100,000 residents, and emit tons of brine waste.)

Mangroves have a waterproofing substance, called suberin, in their roots, which acts as a barrier to salt. Medfords team engineered plants to control and produce suberin. The engineered plants secreted fresh water comparable in quality to bottled water.

Mrksich followed Medford with a talk about new technologies in synthetic biology, including SAMDI mass spectrometry. Standing for self-assembled monolayers desorption ionization, SAMDI can rapidly screen a diverse library of 100,000 small molecules, allowing researchers to identify novel or optimized enzyme substrates within hours.

Developed by Mrksich, SAMDI combines surface chemistry and mass spectrometry and eliminates the need for toxic and limiting labels.

Because were not working with labels, were not only observing activities that were specifically looking for, Mrksich said. We can discover unanticipated activities.

A non-profit organization, the EBRC aims to bring together synthetic biologists to address national and global needs. Through retreats and workshops, it showcases research, identifies challenges and opportunities, and develops programs to address new research goals. EBRC also works to promote interdisciplinary collaborations and educate the larger public about engineering biology.

We are thrilled to host the event to help EBRC achieve its mission, Jewett said.

Northwestern is known for collaboration. We take pride in driving topics and activities that connect each other, said Julio M. Ottino, dean of Northwesterns McCormick School of Engineering. Synthetic biology is the kind of research that can emerge through collaboration.

In addition to research talks, the EBRC retreat also featured breakout sessions, updates about the EBRC, social events, and a student poster competition. Ashty Karim in Jewetts laboratory, Taylor Dolberg in associate professor Joshua Leonards laboratory, and Angela Yu in associate professor Julius Lucks' laboratory, all received honorable mention awards for their posters.

Other Northwestern Engineering participants included Lucks, who chaired a session called Tools for Engineering In and Out of the Cell; Leonard, who chaired the students poster presentations; and assistant professor Neda Bagheri, who presented her research titled Analysis of emergent dynamics in heterogeneous cell populations.
If you are worried about the future of the Affordable Care Act, then you can get information and make your voice heard Monday, April 3.

An informational meeting about the future of the Affordable Care Act, which some call Obamacare, is set for Monday, April 3 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Corpening Memorial YMCA.

Lonnie Bewernitz is one of those residents of McDowell County concerned about the ongoing efforts by President Trump and other leaders in Congress to repeal the ACA and replace it with something else.

Politicians in Washington are currently trying to TAKE AWAY the Health Care Benefits currently provided to you through the Affordable Care Act, reads an email sent out by Bewernitz. To help retain the current health benefits provided through the Affordable Care Act and Medicare, and preserve Social Security, I have become a volunteer for AARP. AARP is organizing efforts to challenge the changes to our benefits that the politicians in Washington are currently trying to TAKE AWAY from us.

In an interview, Bewernitz said the AARP will host this meeting next week in order to give the public the latest information about changes in health care legislation.

This is an effort to inform the public about the ACA and how it impacts Medicare, he said to The McDowell News. Its important to know this is a non-partisan meeting. If you look at it from a non-partisan standpoint, everybody needs healthcare.

Rebecca Chapman, associate state director of community outreach and advocacy for AARP, will lead the meeting.

During the meeting, local residents will be able to:

* Meet members of the N.C. Mountain Region AARP Advocacy team

* Get information about the current federal and state legislative priorities

* Learn how they can make a difference and make their voices heard

And even though this is being held by AARP, the meeting is open to concerned citizens of all ages. Light healthy food and beverages will be provided.

Your participation makes all the difference, Bewernitzs said. Join other concerned McDowell County residents interested in Preserving Our Health Care Benefits.

Interested persons are asked to contact Bewernitz by Thursday 30 via email or phone to let him know if they are interested in attending this information meeting. You can RSVP through either lonniebewernitz@andwireless.net or 828-668-9660.
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Bloomberg, Tuesday, March 28, 2017 9:43 AM

A major watchmaker has decided to go it alone when it comes to an operating system for watches. As Bloomberg reports: "Swatch Group AG said its developing an alternative to the iOS and Android operating systems for smartwatches as Switzerlands largest maker of timepieces vies with Silicon Valley for control of consumers wrists. The companys Tissot brand will introduce a model around the end of 2018 that uses the Swiss-made system, which will also be able to connect small objects and wearables, Swatch Chief Executive Officer Nick Hayek said in an interview Thursday. The technology will need less battery power and it will protect data better, he said later at a press conference."

Read the whole story at Bloomberg 
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, March 27, 2017

The advertising boycott related to extremist content on YouTube will cost Alphabet $750 million, an analyst predicted Monday -- and another, Pivotal Analyst Brian Wieser, just doesn't think Google is working quickly enough to solve the problem.

"CMOs were genuinely unaware of the problem and related risks given the range of issues they are charged with managing," Wieser wrote in a research note published Monday. He estimates about a 1% revenue impact this year and next, assuming that the problem is settled soon.

The issue is quickly spreading from Google to Facebook, according to Eric Feinberg, founder of Global Intellectual Property Enforcement Center (Gipec). The former Madison Avenue executive turned tech geek set out several years ago to find ad-supported content linked to terror and hate groups. He co-developed a patent issued in December that relies on deep Web integration to find keywords and coding linked to terrorism and hate speech on sites.

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"We're not going after one tree at a time," Feinberg said. "We understand how the root structure and the soil interact to make the whole forest work. That's how the patent was designed."

In the patent's abstract, the inventors describe it as a "computerized system and method for detecting fraudulent or malicious enterprises."

Feinberg said this patent will only work if it is allowed to integrate with Google's and Facebook's advertising and content technology. "We don't say certain words and phrases that ISIS uses, so we built a database of key communication strands and certain keywords used by hate groups and extremists and certain characteristics of the videos to identify them," he said.

Advertising agencies have recently come forward admitting that Google DoubleClick has technology within the platform to block ads from serving on specific sites, but Feinberg -- who is co-author of the patent -- said that's not enough.

Feinberg recently connected with Dallas Police Department Sergeant Demetrick Pennie, president of the Dallas Fallen Officer Foundation, to further the cause.

"Facebook created a phenomena in streaming media the world is not ready for," Pennie said. The content also indexes and serves up in Google search queries based on keywords and hashtags.

Google has posted several blogs detailing changes to their policy, and Facebook interrupts the live streams as quickly as possible when they are reported to the company when someone violates its Community Standards.

Facebook has given people a way to report violations during a live broadcast, and it also monitors live videos if they hit a certain threshold of popularity. The team works around the clock to review content and urges people to contact law enforcement directly if they become aware of a situation where the authorities can help.

But Pennie said all this is not enough. On YouTube and Facebook and other social media sites, certain hashtags tie content about killing police to advertisements from automotive manufacturers like Ford and Dodge, Pennie said. "Some are rap videos," he said. "I'm just trying to get someone to pay attention."

Based on Pennie's personal interactions with the Dallas 2016 shooter ambush in which several officers were killed, he brought two lawsuits against Google, Facebook and Twitter, the latest in January. He attributed the murders to the hate content on these Internet sites and each company's refusal to take down the content.

In the past year there have been more than a half a dozen suicides broadcast live and a couple of attack on Facebook, Pennie said, where brands subsidize extremist and disturbing content.
by Philip Rosenstein , March 28, 2017

AdTheorent and the United States Air Force (USAF) on Tuesday announced initial results from a digital advertising campaign titled: We Need People Who Can Do This. The partnership combined 360-degree video ads with AdTheorents machine-learning capabilities.

The ad buy lasted a year and was placed through AdTheorents platform, which uses machine learning to predict the right audiences for the campaign, serve those individuals the creative they are most likely to respond to, and then learn from the results, Patrick Albano, CRO of AdTheorent told Real-Time Daily via email.

Machine learning helps advertisers make sense of all of the data signals that are important. Predictive targeting looks ahead to determine who will take an action in the future (vs. relying on past behaviors), and new forms of creative, like 360 video, help advertisers catch the attention of hard to reach mobile consumers, Albano added.

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The 360-degree video campaign engaged users by showcasing the mental and physical toughness required of Air Force Special Operations personnel. Built on the Celtra Creative Management platform, the campaign drove stronger than typical engagement.

USAF found that the mobile click-through rate (CTR) was 242% higher than industry averages, and CTR on desktop was 286% higher than the average.

There was also strong engagement retention. On average, consumers spent more than 10 seconds with the 360 ad, with completion rates at 50% for desktop, and 49% for mobile.

For our brand, its all about reaching a specific target audience at scale to drive recruitment efforts. Education is key part of this, as a career in the Air Force requires mental and physical toughness -- and in this case, a 360-degree video speaks a thousand words, stated Melissa Walther, chief, internal information, at the USAF.




by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, March 28, 2017

Social media advertising is the fastest-growing digital marketing segment, but search engine optimization and paid search still lead when it comes to investments.

The study from the Search Marketers Professional Organization (SEMPO) released Tuesday shows a huge jump in growth for social media advertising among agencies and marketers. From 65% in 2015 to 76% in 2016 for agencies, and from 57% in 2015 to 69% in 2016 for marketers.

The eleventh annual edition of the non-profits search report  2016 State of Search Report  surveyed nearly 500 respondents from marketers and advertisers to agencies and consultants. This year, the report adds feedback from ecosystem suppliers.

The report analyzes channel-specific activities, trends, investments, and metrics. Findings confirm the continued rise of agency investment in Google for paid search fielded in 2016, but also reveal significant differences between agency and brand challenges, such as hiring talent and content marketing integration, respectively.

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There are no surprises here. Agencies are still investing more in Google than marketers, but Bing is a solid choice for No. 2. Some 70% of agencies said they are investing more in Google last year compared with 2015; Bing, 27%, and Yahoo, 8%. Marketers said they invested more in Google; 29% said they invested more in Bing, and 16% they invested more in Yahoo, respectively.

In terms of measuring the return on investment of campaigns, 47% of agencies find social to be the most difficult, followed by search engine optimization at 42%, display at 39%, email at 29%, and paid search at 24%. Marketers also find social to be the most difficult channel to measure for ROI at 51%, followed by SEO at 44%, display at 40%, paid search at 26%, and email at 26%.

When asked to name the greatest challenges in managing email marketing efforts, agencies and consultants pointed to budgets at 38%, followed by measuring ROI and integration tying at 29%, and hiring talent at 21%. Marketers cited integration at 35% the most challenging, followed by generating content at 27%, measuring ROI at 26% and hiring talent at 13%.

Mobile use continues to rise. At 71% it is the most significant emerging search trend. Placing campaigns in AdWords on the right rail follows at 44%, AdWords ETAs at 40%, content marketing integration at 36%, integration remarketing at 32%, social ads at 27%, programmatic buying at 19%, and use of ad blocking at 18%.

The SEMPO Research Committee will provide a detailed look at the report at SEMPOs 2017 Search Industry Forum in May at the Hyatt Regency in Miami.
by Thom Forbes @tforbes, March 28, 2017

Elon Musks latest company will endeavor to enhance a solar-powered machine that he fears may otherwise become obsolete in the face of rapidly advancing Artificial Intelligence. The human brain.

California-based Neuralink is pursuing what Mr. Musk calls neural lace technology, implanting tiny brain electrodes that may one day upload and download thoughts, sources tell the Wall Street Journals Rolfe Winkler, who broke the story yesterday.

Speaking at the Code Conference in 2016, Musk said to think of the arrangement this way: "You have your limbic system, the cortex, and then a digital layer, sort of a third layer above the cortex that could work well and symbiotically with you, explainsCNBCs Robert Ferris. Though the lace would interact directly with a persons brain, Musk said implanting it might not require extensive surgery, remarking that it could be injected into the veins.

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The WSJs Winkler writes that Musk, who may play a significant leadership role [in the company], according to people briefed on Neuralinks plans, could not be reached for comment. Winkler did speak to team-member Max Hodak, who confirmed the companys existence and Mr. Musks involvement. He described the company as embryonic and said plans are still in flux but declined to provide additional details.

Musk later tweeted: Long Neuralink piece coming out on @waitbutwhy in about a week. Difficult to dedicate the time, but existential risk is too high not to.

The content Web sites Tim Urban writes: So theres this secret thing Ive been secretly working on for the past few weeks and it was a secret. But then today I guess some parts of the secret thing that was secret were leaked and now its not really a secret anymore. In the meantime, you can catch up on Urbans previous insights into Musks unenhanced neural pathways, including The Cook and the Chef: Musks Secret Sauce for November.

The field of A.I. is rapidly developing but still far from the powerful, self-evolving software that haunts Musk, writes Maureen Dowd in a piece for the April Vanity Fair titled, Elon Musks Billion-Dollar Crusade to Stop the A.I. Apocalypse.

Facebook uses A.I. for targeted advertising, photo tagging, and curated news feeds. Microsoft and Apple use A.I. to power their digital assistants, Cortana and Siri. Googles search engine from the beginning has been dependent on A.I. All of these small advances are part of the chase to eventually create flexible, self-teaching A.I. that will mirror human learning, Dowd reminds us.

But if you think that getabsafter40 ad thats following you around the Web is annoying, obtrusive or creepy, you aint seen nothing yet.

Dowd writes: Musk told Bloombergs Ashlee Vance, the author of the biography Elon Musk, that he was afraid that his friend Larry Page, a co-founder of Google and now the CEO of its parent company, Alphabet, could have perfectly good intentions but still produce something evil by accident  including, possibly, a fleet of artificial intelligence-enhanced robots capable of destroying mankind.

As for the name of his new company, Musk's projects are frequently inspired by science fiction, and this one is a direct reference to a device called a neural lace, invented by the late British novelist Iain M. Banks for his Culture series. In those books, characters grow a semi-organic mesh on their cerebral cortexes, which allows them to interface wirelessly with AIs and create backups of their minds, writes Annalee Newitz for Ars Technica.

 Though he's said publicly several times that he'd like to upload and download thoughts, possibly to fight against evil AI, he imagines that Neuralink's proof-of-concept products will be implanted electrodes for treating epilepsy and depression, Newitz continues.

Neuralink is registered in California as a medical research company and has reportedly already hired several high-profile academics in the field of neuroscience: flexible electrodes and nano technology expert Dr. Venessa Tolosa; UCSF professor Philip Sabes, who also participated in the Musk-sponsored Beneficial AI conference; and Boston University professor Timothy Gardner, who studies neural pathways in the brains of songbirds, reports Andrew Dalton for Engadget.

Writing for The Verge, Nick Statt points out the hurdles involved in developing these devices are immense. Neuroscience researchers say we have very limited understanding about how the neurons in the human brain communicate, and our methods for collecting data on those neurons is rudimentary. Then theres the idea of people volunteering to have electronics placed inside their heads.

Then again, folks like @waitbutwhys Urban might welcome an internal bot that will effortlessly churn out posts for him and, if itll let me sleep past 5 a.m. again, I might be inclined to agree.
by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, March 28, 2017

In a bid to broaden diversity efforts Grey London has adapted a new plan that includes establishing a cross-industry task force designed to assess roadblocks and potential solutions.

And in a nod to its own roots, the agency is changing its name (for 100 days) to Valenstein & Fatt, after the Jewish founders (Lawrence Valenstein and Arthur Fatt) who established the agency 100 years ago. The founders selected the non-ethnic-sounding name Grey due to what the agency said was the prevailing attitude of anti-Semitism and general discrimination against minorities at the time.

The diversity plan was unveiled a week after the latest terrorist attack in London, which left several dead, including the attacker and scores injured.

Recent events have sent shivers through our society and businesses, but they should also inspire a collective and determined attitude that our country and our companies will not change for the worse, stated the agencys CEO Leo Rayman.

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Added Joint Chief Creative Officer Vicky Maguire: Difference isnt a fucking business problem. Its the solution that will drag this industry into the 21st century."

In addition to the joint task force, the agency said it would make a push for more transparent diversity data across the industry. It also intends to work with 100 elementary and secondary schools to inspire a career in the creative industries, and is establishing a stipend to pay rent for aspiring young talent in the business from less privileged backgrounds.

The shop also said it would establish diversity workshops and an executive level mentor program for top diverse talent.
by Sara Guaglione , March 28, 2017

The second-largest shareholder of Tronc, which owns The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune, among other newspapers, has criticized the company of poor corporate governance in a letter sent to Troncs board.

Earlier this week, biotech entrepreneur Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong revealed in regulatory filings that he had increased his stake in Tronc from 16% to 24%, after buying 950,000 shares from the investment firm Oaktree Capital, a longtime Tronc shareholder.

That puts Soon-Shiong just a hairs' breadth away from owning as much of the company as its current largest shareholder, non-executive chairman Michael Ferro, whose Merrick Ventures owns 24.8%.

In the letter from Soon-Shiong sent Monday, his lawyer John B. Quinn says Nant Capital, Soon-Shiongs investment firm, is troubled by the companys corporate governance, or lack thereof, according to a New York Times report.



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He asked Troncs board to share the companys books and records with him. The letter suggests that the mismanagement of the company is a reason for Troncs stock trading at a meaningful discount to the price Nant paid for its shares. Last May, Nant Capital invested $70.5 million to acquire about 13% of Tronc, then called Tribune Publishing, at $15 a share, fending off a takeover by Gannett.

Soon-Shiong added he was "surprised to learn Tronc was raising the cap on the stake that Ferro can acquire to 30%, from 25%. According to The Wall Street Journal, Soon-Shiongs lawyers plan to request his contract also be amended to allow his stake to also be increased to 30 percent from 25 percent.

In a statement acquired by the NYT, Tronc said it had reviewed Soon-Shiongs letter and found it to be filled with misstatements and baseless innuendo, and added that it intends to respond to Nant Capital soon.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Tronc stock is sitting at $13.84.

This month, Tronc unexpectedly removed Soon-Shiong from the list of directors that shareholders can elect at the companys annual meeting in April. He will no longer serve on Troncs board.

Tronc also announced that it was buying back the 3.75 million shares held by Oaktree Capital.

Ferro, a technology entrepreneur, wants Tronc to use artificial intelligence and new technology to spice up its journalism. Last summer, he shared his idea for the company to produce 2,000 videos a day using artificial intelligence.

The companys total revenue last year was down 4%, to $1.6 billion. Advertising revenue for the publishing businesses dipped by 11%, while digital ad revenue was up 1%.
Three nonprofit news organizations  The Center for Investigative Reporting, the Center for Public Integrity, and ProPublica  will each receive $3 million in grants.

The role of journalism in our democracy is facing unprecedented challenges," Democracy Fund wrote in a statement, adding that the grants are to help ensure journalists have the resources to "meet the reporting challenges of todays political landscape.

The organization's president Joe Goldman added that investigative journalists "play a crucial role in our political system."

The political attacks that journalists have faced over the past 18 months represent something wholly new and potentially toxic to a free and open society. A robust free press is essential. We must not take it for granted," he stated.

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The organizations are likely referring to the White House's recent hostility toward the press, as well as the President and his surrogates touting "fake news."

Democracy Fund and First Look Media, both created by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, are also giving $500,000 in grants to the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University to expand accountability reporting collaborations between university students and professional journalists.

A $275,000 grant is supporting a collaboration between New York University professor Jay Rosen and Dutch news site De Correspondent to test new models of community support for investigative reporting.

Independently, Democracy Fund announced an $800,000 grant to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to help ensure investigative journalists have legal support and First Amendment protections.

Democracy Fund is also putting $1 million into the establishment of a new fund for local and state investigative reporting, and inviting others to join them.

In the weeks and months to come, we hope to work with partners from all sectors to find other ways to do our part to ensure that journalists can play their rightful role in our democracy, Goldman wrote in a memo.

The organization also contributed $200,000 to the Knight Prototype Fund.

First Look Media is providing a grant of $550,000 over two years to support The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute to support investigative reporting on Wall Street, as well as on environmental issues for The Intercept, one of First Look Medias investigative brands.
by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, March 28, 2017

Former J. Walter Thompson Asia Pacific CEO has joined global brand and marketing consultancy Prophet as a partner.

Doctoroff, well known as an authority Chinese consumershes written two books on the subject and speaks Mandarin Chinese--was with JWT for two decades before departing last June. He was based in Asia during most of his time at the WPP network.

Doctoroff will now split his time between Prophet offices in the U.S. and China, working with both local Chinese companies and multinational brands.

Jay Milliken, senior partner and head of Prophets Asian region said that Doctoroffs expertise would add enormous value to our clients as they look to increase their relevance in Asia. Toms specific knowledge of Chinese brands and consumers will be a critical part of Prophets continued expansion in the region.
by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, March 28, 2017

Facebook plans to argue that it is not legally responsible for ads on its platform that may violate civil rights laws, the company said in a court filing submitted late last week.

The social networking service said in a letter to U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen that it will seek dismissal of a class-action filed last year on the grounds that Communications Decency Act protects Web platforms from liability for material posted by third parties.

"Stripping away plaintiffs legal conclusions, the properly pleaded factual allegations ... show that all decisions about the ads at issue, including whether and how to target them, are made solely by advertisers, not by Facebook," lawyers for the company write in a letter asking Keulen to put the case on hold. The company is expected to more fully develop its argument in a motion due next Monday.

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The letter comes four months after three Facebook users -- New York resident Karen Savage, Gretna, Louisiana resident Victor Onuoha and Suzanne-Juliette Mobley of New Orleans -- sued over the company's race-based targeting platform, which allows advertisers to block their ads from users with certain "ethnic affinities."

The users claim that the race-based ad-targeting options violate the Fair Housing Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Those laws prohibit companies from publishing housing or job ads that discriminate based on factors including race, religion, sex and national origin.

Onuoha and the others filed suit shortly after ProPublica reported that Facebook enables advertisers to prevent their ads from being shown to users who belong to certain "ethnic affinity" groups -- including people the social networking platform believes have an ethnic affinity of black, Asian-American and Hispanic.

Facebook recently updated its ad guidelines, which specifically prohibit advertisers from discriminating against users based on race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family status, disability, or medical or genetic condition. The company also says advertisers must comply with civil rights laws.

When an advertiser attempts to show an ad that we identify as offering a housing, employment or credit opportunity and either includes or excludes our multicultural advertising segments -- which consist of people interested in seeing content related to the African American, Asian American and US Hispanic communities -- we will disapprove the ad, Facebook wrote last month in a blog post.

When advertisers try to show an ad that Facebook identifies as offering a housing, employment or credit opportunity and uses any other audience segment on Facebook, it will show those advertisers information about its updated anti-discrimination policy. Facebook will then require advertisers to certify they comply with that policy, along with all applicable anti-discrimination laws.

It's not clear whether Facebook is liable for discriminatory housing or job ads posted by outside companies. The federal Communications Decency Act broadly immunizes Web services providers from liability for activity by users. But in 2008, a federal appellate court refused to dismiss a lawsuit accusing Roommates.com of offering discriminatory housing ads. The court said in that case that Roommates may be responsible if it helped "develop" illegal ads.
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, March 28, 2017

A decade-long partnership between Publicis Groupe and Microsoft has recently grown stronger. The holding company and its agency businesses will gain access to data capabilities and artificial intelligence designed for marketing with Microsoft Azure and the Cortana Intelligence Suite.

"This partnership is critical for us because it's one of the biggest bets we're making on the Microsoft platform," Samih Fadli, chief intelligence officer at SapientRazorfish, told Media Daily News. "There's Google, Microsoft and AWS, but we made a decision  that Microsoft Azure would become our preferred platform to build assets."

Fadli said the agency created a customized version of Cortana, Microsoft's virtual assistant, specifically for Publicis with the algorithms and data models embedded into COSMOS, the holding company's cognitive intelligence marketing platform.

The two companies will jointly create new consumer interfaces and interactions such as facial recognition, natural-language processing and voice recognition.

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"We are talking about a new breed of artificial intelligence that brings a new set of marketers that eliminates the need to hire PhDs," Fadli said.

SapientRazorfish leverages COSMOS AI, the artificial intelligence part of the platform, to help brands create custom apps. In one instance, the technology helps to create a custom version of a mobile app that lets the brand's consumers snap a photo of themselves. Based on their location, weather, skin tone, facial features, and eye and hair color, the app would make a product recommendation.

The relationship began in 2009 when Publicis acquired Razorfish from Microsoft. That acquisition turned into a partnership that now supports artificial intelligence through Publicis' marketing cloud COSMOS.

COSMOS, like the universe, creates one view of the consumer by integrating data across a company's network of businesses. "Each star in the universe is a business problem," he said. "The idea is to solve each business problem individually and connect them."
by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, March 28, 2017

The House of Representatives today voted 215-205 to repeal sweeping broadband privacy rules that were passed last year.

Last week, the Senate passed a similar measure by a vote of 50-48. The bill now heads to President Donald Trump for signature.

The measure overturns the rules under the Congressional Review Act -- a 1996 law that allows federal lawmakers to vacate recent agency decisions. When Congress uses that vehicle to scrap rules, the agency that issued them is prohibited from crafting replacement regulations. The House's Tuesday evening vote came several hours after the White House officially endorsed a repeal.

The broadband privacy rules, passed by the FCC 3-2 last October, impose a host of new requirements on Internet service providers. Among the most controversial are provisions requiring carriers to obtain opt-in consent before drawing on data about subscribers' Web-browsing history and app usage for ad targeting.

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Trade groups representing the ad industry and broadband carriers oppose those rules, as does FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. Critics argue that the opt-in consent requirement subjects carriers to tougher standards than search engines, social networking services and other Web companies. Those companies -- which are not regulated by the FCC -- typically allow consumers to opt out of the collection and sharing of most types of Web-browsing data.

But supporters of the rules, including lawmakers like Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) counter that broadband carriers are not comparable to other online companies -- largely because broadband carriers can glean detailed knowledge about subscribers' online activity by examining all unencrypted traffic that passes through their networks.

"Broadband providers know deeply personal information about us and our families," Pelosi said on the floor Tuesday afternoon. "They can even track us when we're surfing in private browsing mode. Americans private browser history should not be up for sale."

She added: "If the Republicans are allowed to do this, we have surrendered all thoughts of privacy for the American people."

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-California) argued that broadband providers should be subject to tough rules because they serve as gatekeepers. "You don't have to go to Google, you don't have to go to Facebook, you don't have to go to Netflix, in order to get your Internet service," Eshoo said on Tuesday. "To equalize and say that Google [and Facebook] are equal to your Internet service provider, suggests to me that some people just don't know what they're talking about."

Colorado's Jared Polis questioned why Congress would "hamstring the agency" by adopting a resolution that bans the FCC from imposing future privacy rules. "If this bill were to become law, it would essentially become impossible for the FCC to act to protect the privacy of Americans who use broadband ever again," he said Tuesday afternoon.

Bill Flores (R-Texas), who urged repealing the rules, argued that the FTC already has jurisdiction over privacy. "Two cops on the beat create confusion," he said.

Despite Flores' statement, a federal appellate court ruled recently that the FTC lacks jurisdiction to bring enforcement actions against broadband providers.
There is currently no vaccine or medicine against Zika  a mosquito-borne virus that causes birth defects and, in its recent outbreak, has infected more than 1 million people in the Americas and Caribbean. Now, by mapping a protein that helps the Zika virus to replicate and spread, researchers take a significant step toward a cure. Share on Pinterest The researchers mapped the structure of the Zika virus protein NS5, which helps the virus to replicate and spread.

Image credit: Cheng Kao, Indiana University A study focusing on mapping the protein structure  led by Indiana University (IU) in Bloomington in collaboration with Texas A&M University in College Station  is published in the journal Nature Communications. Although most commonly spread through bites from Aedes mosquitoes, Zika virus can also spread through sexual activity. Symptoms of infection last for 2 to 7 days and include mild fever, a skin rash, eye inflammation (conjunctivitis), headache, and muscle and joint pain. The symptoms of Zika virus infection are often so mild that people barely notice them. Zika virus belongs to the genus Flavivirus, which includes viruses that cause yellow fever, West Nile virus, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis, hepatitis C, and other significant diseases in humans. It was first identified in monkeys in Uganda in 1947. Scientists now agree that Zika virus can cause microcephaly in babies born to women infected during pregnancy. They also agree that it causes Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare and serious autoimmune disorder.

Tropical diseases moving into new parts of the globe In the recent outbreak, Zika virus has spread through the Americas, with more than 1 million cases reported in the latest World Health Organization (WHO) and Pan American Health Organization update. These include cases of local, mosquito-borne Zika virus spread in Texas and Florida in the continental United States. At present, there is no vaccine or medication against Zika infection, so currently the best way to prevent infection is by avoiding mosquito bites and practicing safe sex. Cheng Kao, a professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at IU and one of the senior investigators on the new study, says: We need to do everything we can to find effective drugs against the Zika virus, as changes in travel and climate have caused more tropical diseases to move into new parts of the globe. Prof. Kao has spent the past 15 years studying the virus that causes hepatitis C virus and has also worked on HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. He says that this experience has helped to increase understanding about how to fight Zika.
Researchers have shown for the first time that Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Motor Neurone Disease (MND) and schizophrenia have a shared genetic origin, indicating that the causes of these diverse conditions are biologically linked. The work has just been published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications.

By analyzing the genetic profiles of almost 13,000 ALS/MND cases and over 30,000 schizophrenia cases, the research led by scientists from Trinity College Dublin in Ireland confirms that many of the genes that are associated with these two very different conditions are the same.

In fact, the research which involved collaborators from the University of Utrecht, Kings College London and members of the Project MinE and Psychiatric Genome Consortia has shown an overlap of 14% in genetic susceptibility to the adult onset neuro-degeneration condition ALS/MND and the developmental neuropsychiatric disorder schizophrenia.

While overlaps between schizophrenia and other neuropsychiatric conditions including bipolar affective disorder and autism have been shown in the past, this is the first time that an overlap in genetic susceptibility between ALS/MND and psychiatric conditions has been shown.

Dr Russell McLaughlin, Ussher Assistant Professor in Genome Analysis at Trinity College Dublin, and lead author of the paper said: "This study demonstrates the power of genetics in understanding the causes of diseases. While neurological and psychiatric conditions may have very different characteristics and clinical presentations, our work has shown that the biological pathways that lead to these diverse conditions have much in common."

Professor of Neurology in Trinity and Consultant Neurologist at the National Neuroscience Centre, Orla Hardiman, who is the senior author and lead investigator on the project said: "Our work over the years has shown us that ALS/MND is a much more complex disease than we originally thought. Our recent observations of links with psychiatric conditions in some families have made us think differently about how we should study ALS/MND. When combined with our clinical work and our studies using MRI and EEG, it becomes clear that ALS/MND is not just a disorder of individual nerve cells, but a disorder of the way these nerve cells talk to one another as part of a larger network."

She continued: "So instead of thinking of ALS/MND as a degeneration of one cell at a time, and looking for a 'magic bullet' treatment that works, we should think about ALS/MND in the same way that we think about schizophrenia, which is a problem of disruptions in connectivity between different regions of the brain, and we should look for drugs that help to stabilize the failing brain networks".

"The other significant issue that this research brings up is that the divide between psychiatry and neurology is a false one. We need to recognise that brain disease has many different manifestations, and the best way to develop new treatments is to understand the biology of what is happening. This will have major implications for how we classify diseases going forward, and in turn how we train our future doctors in both psychiatry and neurology. That in itself will have knock on consequences for how society understands, approaches and treats people with psychiatric and neurological conditions," Professor Hardiman added.

The new research was prompted by earlier epidemiological studies by researchers at Trinity, led by Professor Hardiman. These studies showed that people with ALS/MND were more likely than expected to have other family members with schizophrenia, and to have had another family member who had committed suicide. This was first noted as family histories were ascertained from people with ALS/MND in the Irish National ALS Clinic and was subsequently investigated as part of case control studies in Ireland in which over 192 families with ALS/MND and 200 controls participated. Details of over 12,000 relatives were analysed and the rates of various neurological and psychiatric conditions calculated in family member of those with ALS/MND and controls. This work was subsequently published in the prestigious American journal the Annals of Neurology in 2013.

This led the Trinity group to team up with European collaborators in ALS/MND to see if these epidemiological observations could be due to a genetic overlap between ALS/MND and schizophrenia.

The Trinity group, along with their partners in the University of Utrecht, will continue to study the links between ALS/MND and psychiatric conditions using modern genetics, epidemiology and neuroimaging, and in this way will develop new and more effective treatments that are based on stabilizing disrupted brain networks.
Researchers from Emory University have found that specific patterns of activity on brain scans may help clinicians identify whether psychotherapy or antidepressant medication is more likely to help individual patients recover from depression.

The study, called PReDICT, randomly assigned patients to 12 weeks of treatment with one of two antidepressant medications or with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). At the start of the study, patients underwent a functional MRI brain scan, which was then analyzed to see whether the outcome from CBT or medication depended on the state of the brain prior to starting treatment. The study results are published as two papers in the online issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

The MRI scans identified that the degree of functional connectivity between an important emotion processing center (the subcallosal cingulate cortex) and three other areas of the brain was associated with the treatment outcomes. Specifically, patients with positive connectivity between the brain regions were significantly more likely to achieve remission with CBT, whereas patients with negative or absent connectivity were more likely to remit with antidepressant medication.

"All depressions are not equal and like different types of cancer, different types of depression will require specific treatments. Using these scans, we may be able to match a patient to the treatment that is most likely to help them, while avoiding treatments unlikely to provide benefit," says Helen Mayberg, MD, who led the imaging study. Mayberg is a Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology and Radiology and the Dorothy C. Fuqua Chair in Psychiatric Imaging and Therapeutics at Emory University School of Medicine.

Mayberg and co- investigators Boadie Dunlop, MD, Director of the Emory Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program, and W. Edward Craighead, PhD, J. Rex Fuqua Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, sought to develop methods for a more personalized approach to treating depression.

Current treatment guidelines for major depression recommend that a patient's preference for psychotherapy or medication be considered in selecting the initial treatment approach. However, in the PReDICT study patients' preferences were only weakly associated with outcomes; preferences predicted treatment drop-out but not improvement. These results are consistent with prior studies, suggesting that achieving personalized treatment for depressed patients will depend more on identifying specific biological characteristics in patients rather than relying on their symptoms or treatment preferences. The results from PReDICT suggest that brain scans may offer the best approach for personalizing treatment going forward.

In recruiting 344 patients for the study from across the metro Atlanta area, researchers were able to convene a more diverse group of patients than other previous studies, with roughly half of the participants self-identified as African-American or Hispanic.

"Our diverse sample demonstrated that the evidence-based psychotherapy and medication treatments recommended as first line treatments for depression can be extended with confidence beyond a white, non-Hispanic population," says Dunlop.

"Ultimately our studies show that clinical characteristics, such as age, gender, etc., and even patients' preferences regarding treatment, are not as good at identifying likely treatment outcomes as the brain measurement," adds Mayberg.

This study is supported by the following NIH grants: P50 MH077083; RO1MH080880; UL1 RR025008; M01 RR0039; and K23 MH086690.

Articles: Functional Connectivity of the Subcallosal Cingulate Cortex And Differential Outcomes to Treatment With Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy or Antidepressant Medication for Major Depressive Disorder, Boadie W. Dunlop, M.D., M.S., Justin K. Rajendra, B.A., W. Edward Craighead, Ph.D., Mary E. Kelley, Ph.D., Callie L. McGrath, Ph.D., Ki Sueng Choi, Ph.D., Becky Kinkead, Ph.D., Charles B. Nemeroff, M.D., Ph.D., Helen S. Mayberg, M.D., American Journal of Psychiatry, doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2016.16050518, published online 24 March 2017.

Effects of Patient Preferences on Outcomes in the Predictors of Remission in Depression to Individual and Combined Treatments (PReDICT) Study, Boadie W. Dunlop, M.D., Mary E. Kelley, Ph.D., Vivianne Aponte-Rivera, M.D., Tanja Mletzko-Crowe, M.A., Becky Kinkead, Ph.D., James C. Ritchie, Ph.D., Charles B. Nemeroff, M.D., Ph.D., W. Edward Craighead, Ph.D., Helen S. Mayberg, M.D., for the PReDICT Team, American Journal of Psychiatry, doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2016.16050517, published online 24 March 2017.
Tau pathology is one of the defining features of Alzheimer disease (AD), which is the most common form of dementia in older age. While symptomatic treatments exist, there are currently no preventive therapies for AD. Investigators at BWH and Rush University Medical Center reported the discovery of a new gene that is associated with Tau accumulation. Published in Molecular Psychiatry, the paper describes the identification and validation of a genetic variant within the protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor-type delta (PTPRD) gene.

Tau accumulates in several different conditions in addition to AD, including certain forms of dementia and Parkinsonian syndromes as well as chronic traumatic encephalopathy that occurs with repeated head injuries.

"Aging leads to the accumulation of many different pathologies in the brain; one of the most common forms of pathology is the neurofibrillary tangle (NFT) that was at the center of our study," said co-principal investigator David Bennett, MD, who directs the Alzheimer Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. "The NFT is thought to be more closely related to memory decline than other forms of aging-related pathologies, but there are still very few genes that have been implicated in the accumulation of this key feature of Alzheimer disease and other brain diseases."

Leveraging autopsies from 909 individuals participating in studies of aging based at Rush University, the team of investigators assessed the human genome for evidence that a genetic variant could affect NFT.

Lead author Lori Chibnik, PhD, of BWH said, "The variant that we discovered is common: most people have one or two copies of the version of the gene that is linked to accumulating more pathology as you get older. Interestingly, tangles can accumulate through several different mechanisms, and the variant that we discovered appears to affect more than one of these mechanism."

The reported results offer an important new lead as the field of neurodegeneration searches for robust novel targets for drug development. In addition, the advent of new techniques to measure Tau in the brains of living individuals with positron emission tomography (PET) offers a biomarker for therapies targeting Tau.

"This study is an important first step; however, the result needs further validation and the mechanism by which the PTPRD gene and the variant that we have discovered contribute to the accumulation of NFT remains elusive," said Phil De Jager, co-principal investigator at BWH. "Other studies in mice and flies implicate PTPRD in memory dysfunction and worsening of Tau pathology, suggesting that altering the level of PTPRD activity could be helpful in reducing an individual's burden of Tau pathology."

The study was supported by the National Institute on Aging.
A new analysis raises concern over high prescription rates in the USA of a common drug used to treat overactive bladder. The drug, oxybutynin, when taken orally, is consistently linked with cognitive impairment and dementia in the elderly. The analysis shows that oxybutynin, is prescribed in more than a quarter of cases of overactive bladder (27.3%), even though other more suitable drugs are available. This work is presented at the European Association of Urology conference in London, where concerns are also being expressed about the lack of funded alternatives to oxybutynin in Europe.

Overactive bladder (OAB) is extremely common in persons over 65. Initial treatment is normally via behavioural modifications, which can then be followed by first-line medical treatment such as antimuscarinic medications, including oxybutynin. Antimuscarinic drugs are synthetic compounds, originally derived from mushrooms, which block the activity of the muscarinic acetylcholine receptor. They have several uses, including control of OAB. Oxybutynin is the least expensive antimuscarinic used for OAB, and so tends to be the drug of choice for health care plans such as Medicare. However, a body of evidence has shown that oxybutynin is linked to greater cognitive decline in the elderly1.

An international group of clinicians, led by Dr Daniel Pucheril (Vattikuti Urology Insitute, Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit), looked at evidence from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, where 1,968 patients had received antimuscarinic medications. They found that oxybutynin was prescribed to 27.3% of patients aged over 65 receiving a new antimuscarinic prescription for OAB. Additionally, despite the United States Food and Drug Administration recommendation that patients starting oxybutynin be closely monitored for adverse central nervous system side effects, the authors found that only 9% of elderly persons received a neurologic exam at the time of drug prescription.

Around 16% of US adults suffer from overactive bladder, which translates into tens of millions of sufferers in the US.

According to Dr Pucheril, "We looked at a representative sample, but when you extrapolate to the US population the figures are huge. We estimate that over the six years of our analysis, 47 million individuals in the USA were taking various types of antimuscarinic drugs for OAB, with around 55% of new prescriptions going to the over 65's.

After lifestyle modifications, antimuscarinic medications constitute the most common first line therapies. In the United States, the majority of elderly persons are insured by Medicare. Medicare insurance plans have often have tiered medication formularies to minimize drug expenses. Oxybutynin is the least expensive antimuscarinic drug available, but its pharmacologic properties may cause significant cognitive side effects in elderly persons. Despite evidence of these side effects, physicians are not commonly checking for cognitive effects in those using these medications".

Dr Pucheril continued "We're not saying that everyone should change from oxybutynin to another drug - it still has its uses, and coming off the drug without medical supervision is not recommended. Nevertheless, doctors need to look closely at the levels of prescribing. More than anything else, the funding bodies have to make it easier for doctors to prescribe newer antimuscarinics which are much less likely to cause cognitive dysfunction".

Commenting, on the European situation, Professor Helmut Madsbacher (Innsbruck) said:

"This new work from the US highlights a more general problem which also exists here in Europe. In Europe, oxybutynin use varies from country to country. What we find is that where a range of antimuscarinic drugs is funded, as for example happens in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, then oxybutynin use is low, at around 5% to 7%, for obvious reasons. However, in some countries only oxybutynin is funded, and this creates a problem. For example, the only antimuscarinic funded by Italian health Authorities is oxybutynin, and this leads to some areas with around 70% of antimuscarinic prescriptions being oxybutynin".

Professor Andrea Tubaro (Sapienza Universita, Roma) added:

"If an alternative drug is not funded by the health system then it becomes too expensive for a patient to buy themselves. In Italy generic oxybutynin costs around 5/month, but someone wishing to pay for a different antimuscarin or an up-to-date alternative such as a beta3 agonist will end up paying around 50/month. Even in strictly economic terms, there's no sense in saving a few Euros on a drug which risks worsening dementia, one of the most costly conditions which medicine can treat. This is a problem in Italy, but funders in all countries really need to support the use of a range of drugs".
Scientists are reporting a test which can predict which patients are most at risk from aggressive prostate cancer, and whether they suffer an increased chance of treatment failure. This test, reported at the European Association of Urology conference in London, and published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, may give men a better view on how to deal with their prostate cancer risk.

Prostate cancer is the most common male cancer, killing almost 100,000 men each year in Europe. But it is not invariably fatal, in fact more men die with prostate cancer than of prostate cancer. Current screening methods, and in particular the well known PSA blood test, can identify prostate cancers, but are not good at identifying how dangerous they are or even whether they should be treated. This makes if difficult to identify which men with prostate cancer are at real risk and need rapid treatment, and which don't.

Prostate cancer is has a genetic component but it has until now been impossible to understand how aggressive the cancer might be Now a new multi-national study has discovered the basis of a simple blood test which can predict whether a man is susceptible to aggressive prostate cancer.

Recent years have seen extensive research on the genetics of prostate cancer, with over a hundred mutations identified, however most of these are only present in a small number of men. Recently there has been a particular focus on the "Kallikrein" region of chromosome 19. This is a group of 15 closely-linked genes which code for proteases - molecules which break down proteins. In fact, the well-known test for prostate cancer, the PSA test (Prostate Specific Antigen), is based on one of the Kallikrein genes, KLK3.

The researchers, led by Dr Alexandre R. Zlotta, of the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute (Toronto, Canada) and Paul Boutros (Ontario Institute for Cancer Research) intensively searched for small single-point inherited mutations in the whole Kallikrein region, in a large group of 1858 men with aggressive prostate cancer (defined as having a Gleason score above 8). The men came from three independent groups, in Switzerland (part of the European Randomized Screening Study for Prostate Cancer, Pr Recker and Dr Kwiatkowski), Canada, and the USA. They were able to show that variants of the Kallikrein 6 gene were associated with more aggressive prostate cancer.

"These genes are found in between 6 and 14% of men" said Alexandre Zlotta, "This makes it one of, if not the, most common genes yet found to be associated with aggressive prostate cancer. Even if we take the lower, 6% figure, then that means around 17m North American men and 22m European men carry these gene variants".

The KLK6 variants also independently predicted treatment failure after surgery or radiation for prostate cancer in a Canadian cohort of men from the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC).

Dr Zlotta said "We found that in those men with prostate cancer treated by surgery or radiation, who had these inherited gene variant mutations had a three-fold increase in the risk of treatment failure, which means that after treatment, they were three times more likely to have the cancer recurring1 than the rest of the population. This is really a quite significant increase in risk. Similarly men with these gene variants were three times more likely to be diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer (Gleason 8 or more). To put this into context, around 10 to 15% of all prostate cancers are the aggressive prostate cancer we are dealing with here, but of course they lead to a greater mortality.

"What does this mean? Firstly the test has only just been developed - it's still science, rather than something which is generally available. So it needs to be further validated and costed. It should mean that if you have a high PSA level but are unsure about having a biopsy to confirm whether you have cancer, this test could help you decide. It also means that we can begin to look at better screening for those who are at risk, for example among those men with a family history. As the test is refined we may be able to move towards more intelligent prostate screening".

Prof Ros Eeles of The Institute of Cancer Research London commented:

"It is very important to try to identify markers of aggressive disease in prostate cancer patients as these will help us to target treatments to those most likely to benefit. Genetics is increasingly being brought into the management pathway and this result if validated will be important in adding to the algorithm of a panel of genetic variants which may be become part of routine testing in the coming years".




Coming Wednesday (29 March 2017), Dutch pharmacist Emilia Sawicki will be defending her doctoral thesis in which she describes how some anticancer medicines can be formulated in such a way that patients take chemotherapy orally as a tablet, rather than as an intravenous infusion at the hospital. One of the anticancer medicines for which she developed a tablet formulation is the widely used drug docetaxel. The formulation is a tablet which is made as a solid dispersion, and was co-developed by Sawicki at the Slotervaart Medical Centre and the Netherlands Cancer Institute  Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital in Amsterdam. The discovery has already progressed to an advanced stage in the clinical development: shortly, a clinical trial will be opened at several Dutch hospitals where patients with prostate cancer will be treated with the solid dispersion tablet of docetaxel.Anticancer medicines are increasingly being used as capsules or tablets. Oral medicines are more patient-friendly than the traditional way of administration the chemotherapy as an intravenous infusion. Patients can take the medicine at home as a tablet and no longer have to travel to a hospital to receive chemotherapy. One of the requirements is that the anticancer medicine dissolves in water in order to be effectively taken up in the blood. Dissolution is better if a solid dispersion is used: a mixture of tiny particles of powdered medication, which dissolve faster and better in water than larger particles, such as crystalline powders.In her doctoral thesis, Sawicki describes a new production method for solid dispersions of docetaxel and paclitaxel, two anticancer medicines that are often prescribed to patients with prostate cancer, breast cancer and lung cancer. For example, docetaxel is prescribed approximately 24,000 times a year to cancer patients in the Netherlands. As a solid form docetaxel and paclitaxel are not well absorbed in the blood. This is because they are very poorly soluble in water and because they are broken down by enzymes in the gastrointestinal tract and liver. The solid dispersion method increases the dissolution of docetaxel and paclitaxel 40 to 100 times and when co-administered with enzyme inhibitor ritonavir these anticancer medicines are then effectively absorbed in the blood. As a result, many patients experience a highly promising anticancer effect.Moreover, the production method for the solid dispersion tablet of docetaxel is suitable to supply the medicine on a large scale and this makes it possible to conduct large clinical trials. Amsterdam-based biopharmaceutical company Modra Pharmaceuticals is launching shortly several clinical trials with the solid dispersion tablet of docetaxel.In addition, Sawicki also used the solid dispersion technique to develop a tablet formulation of elacridar, a medicine predominantly used in studies focusing on brain tumours, since elacridar promotes the absorption of other anticancer medicines in the brain


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Alternate Foreign Minister Giorgos Katrougalos met on 23 March 2017 with the Secretary General of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Fang Liu, within the framework of Mrs Liu's visit to Athens.



During their meeting, which took place in a very positive atmosphere, issues pertaining to international cooperation on civil aviation were discussed. The discussion was focused on ICAO's current priorities and our country's contribution to those priorities, particularly security and environmental protection issues.

Mr. Katrougalos expressed our county's pledge to continue promoting international cooperation on civil aviation as well as its laudable cooperation with the ICAO.
Alternate Foreign Minister Giorgos Katrougalos met on 23 March 2017 with the Secretary General of the Austrian Foreign Ministry, Michael Linhart. During their meeting, which took place in a friendly atmosphere, they exchanged views regarding the future of Europe and a more efficient response to the refugee crisis.
I. KASOULIDES: I welcome our friend the Foreign Minister of Greece, Nikos Kotzias. Before our consultations here, Mr. Kotzias had a very productive meeting with the President of the Republic, focused on the Cyprus problem.

As you know, the Greek government is making tireless and unstinting efforts towards the finding of a viable and European solution to the Cyprus problem, without anachronistic systems of military guarantees.

Mr. Kotzias himself has developed relevant ideas on the issue, and I would like to reiterate my warm thanks for his personal involvement in the issue.

Here at the Foreign Ministry, we reviewed and analysed the joint efforts, including a mutual briefing on our meetings with various countries we have visited. But what I wanted to stress here is that it is now being shown that all of these efforts towards a joint policy in the Eastern Mediterranean, the trilateral cooperation schemes that were formed with the moderate states of the Eastern Mediterranean, our joint and our separate efforts to participate in the Coalition against terrorism and the collaboration we have carried out  proving that we are important countries and 'bulwark' countries, as I have often said, against the asymmetrical threats in the region  are today proving how useful all of this is and how we can reap rewards in the service of the national issues of Greece and Cyprus.

Mr. Minister, welcome once again.

N. KOTZIAS: Being here generates two feelings in me: The one is that I am moved to be in Cyprus, and the other is joy and great respect at being at the Foreign Ministry of Cyprus, together with my dear friend, whom I respect deeply for his experience and knowledge, Ioannis Kasoulides.

As the Minister said, we talked about where our region is heading, about how we can even better ensure security and stability in this region. We looked at where our trilateral cooperation schemes stand, and we talked about extending this cooperation with new countries; extending this whole security system.

We briefed each other on our trips, the talks we had with Foreign Ministers and National Security Advisors, in a number of countries where I and Mr. Kasoulides went for meetings, and we examined the new potential opening up for our foreign policy and for the interests of the two states and Europe. Naturally, we talked about the course of the Cyprus issue, on which we have excellent cooperation and common concerns.

In addition to the Minister, I also want to thank the President of the Republic, with whom I had a long and, as always, interesting and friendly discussion. I thank the government of Cyprus very much, and in particular the Foreign Minister, for the good talks we are having on the island.

JOURNALIST: Questions for both ministers.

I. KASOULIDES: The two leaders will meet for the first time  following interruption of the negotiations for what we consider an unimportant reason  in a meeting of a social nature, at a dinner, and they will have the opportunity for a sincere exchange of thoughts and intentions, and whatever they decide they will announce to us at that time. What more can I say than, when you have differences, the differences are resolved at the negotiating table, and not away from it.

N. KOTZIAS: I will agree in any case with everything the Minister said with regard to his question. Regarding the relationship between Greece and Cyprus, it is well known that the Cyprus problem has two dimensions: an internal dimension and and international dimension. Greece never got involved in the internal dimension, and, like me personally, nor did it express an opinion. Because we fully  I underscore, fully  and completely support the policy of the Republic of Cyprus.

Regarding the external aspect, the sense I gathered from the negotiations in Geneva was that Turkey was not ready. It also may be the case  and this will become apparent in the future, at the negotiating table  that it doesn't really and essentially want to discuss the so-called guarantees issue, the issue of the treaty of guarantees and, under today's conditions, its obligation to renounce the so-called rights of intervention, which in my opinion are non-existent and illegal.

Turkey left the negotiating table in Geneva at precisely this point, on which it does not have answers or does not want to have answers. And as I expected  it was my prediction  it is raising other issues, like the four freedoms, for example, so that any continuation of the talks concerns issues irrelevant to the Cyprus problem, and not the core of the Cyprus problem, which is the occupation of northern Cyprus.

Regarding the second part of your question, I support one's keeping the talks going and keeping the channels of communication between Greece and Turkey open. It is a policy the development of which I myself contributed to in the 1990s. It was a time when, together with Giannos Kranidiotis, we worked for Cyprus's accession to the European Union, and since that time I have been a supporter of our keeping the dialogue going.

Turkey has a difficulty at this time, because it isn't talking but, sometimes, yelling. Yelling because it is  as we in Greece have analysed the situation, and as is internationally accepted at this time  a restless power.

I hope it overcomes its domestic issues and its restlessness so that we can return to a substantial and rational dialogue based on international law and the real rights of states.

JOURNALIST: Mr. Minister, you had meetings in the U.S. with the new Trump administration. I would like your assessment as to the extent there is an upgrading of the U.S.'s relations with Greece and Cyprus, the extent to which they are seen as countries that can play a role of stability and security for the region, and whether the U.S. can be expected to intervene on the Cyprus issue. Thank you.

N. KOTZIAS: I am a supporter of multi-dimensional, proactive foreign policy, democratic foreign policy. And I believe that U.S. foreign policy is currently in time of transition, and it is worth our effort to try to make them aware and show the reach of the views and proposals we have for the region.

To show that, in this region of great instability, Greece and Cyprus, Cyprus and Greece, are an axis of stability that can contribute to the stabilisation of the whole region, and especially the countries of current interest to American foreign policy, Egypt and Israel.

We aren't passively observing U.S. foreign policy. We are trying to be an active participant in this policy; that is, to explain, to propose and to make gains through our arguments. That does not mean that this is always possible. But we are pursuing it.

I. KASOULIDES: Thank you very much.
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...
The commander of U.S military forces in Europe told lawmakers Tuesday that he needs a larger combat force, including an armored division and increased naval power, to deter Russian military forces on the continent.

"We need a greater force there, I think, potentially in the land component," said Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, commander of U.S. European Command, testifying before the House Armed Service Committee.

The general said he needs the "enablers of an armored division -- a fires brigade, an engineer brigade, air defense -- those kinds of systems in the numbers that I need there."

Currently, the Army has one armored brigade combat team on a continuous rotation to Europe to bolster the Stryker and airborne infantry brigades stationed there permanently.

"I am suggesting an additional division because ... I need armored and mechanized brigades," Scaparrotti said.

"The reason a division is so important is at that level you can then have the command and control, communications capability to integrate the different domains in the way we fight. And that division brings the enablers like appropriate artillery, engineers, air defense, etc. that fill out a proper defense."

Scaparrotti said he could also use an "additional naval component on rotation through Europe to deter specifically with respect to anti-submarine warfare," an area Russia continues to modernize.

"It would be wonderful to have a carrier support group with amphibious forces, more than I have now," he said.

In addition to modernizing conventional ground, naval and air forces, Russia is refining the capability of its nuclear arsenal, Scaparrotti said.

"One of the things that you see that is disturbing is the fact that they are using similar weapon systems that can either be conventional or nuclear, which then makes it difficult for us to clearly understand what they have employed," he said.

"And secondly, within their doctrine, they have made the statement openly again that they see a use for nuclear tactical capabilities within what we would consider a conventional conflict, which is very alarming."

Rep. Mike Turner, a Republican from Ohio, asked Scaparrotti if he believes forward stationing an armored unit on a permanent basis rather than rotational would be helpful in deterring Russia.

Though that is a U.S. Army decision, "I would prefer to have an enduring armored force in Europe," Scaparrotti said.

"I would prefer to have an enduring one; then the force becomes accustomed to the environment. It forms relationships with our allies and they become well known over the period of time in the several years our service members are stationed there," Scaparrotti said.

The one upside of the rotational force is "much more of our force structure then becomes familiar with the environment, the people, the challenges ... that's the benefit to it," he said.

Aside from armor, Scaparrotti said he needs greater intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets.

"To deter properly, I have to be able to have a good baseline of Russia in particular, so that I know when things change so I can posture my forces properly," he said.

Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, a Democrat from Hawaii, wanted to know why Russia did not come up as a threat during the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review.

"I don't recall in that QDR or in the QDR before that  there was a major concern about Russia," Hanabusa said. "The philosophy was more along the lines of we thought we could kind of bring them around; they would become an ally.

"Then it seems like something occurred and, all of the sudden, they are viewed by some as our greatest threat, so can you explain to me, general, how we go from thinking that maybe they will even become part of NATO and all of the sudden we've got to protect NATO?"

Scaparrotti said the "real trigger" was Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea.

"The occupation of Ukraine, for instance, was an act that clearly set out that we have Russia as a competitor that is willing and did break international law," he said.

"And I think what you see in their activities today often is pushing whenever they can against the international norms. They still occupy Ukraine and Georgia with troops without invitation."

Russia has also been behind cyber-attacks that are "criminal in some cases," such as the attack on the Ukranian power grid and attempts to impact elections in the United States, France and Germany, Scaparrotti said.

"So I think if you look their actions, it tells us that we have a nation here that we need to be very sober about," he said. "We don't seek conflict with them; deterrence in fact has its mission to prevent conflict of war. But at this point, Russia has not been very responsive to the international community."

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.
The Navy wants annual training on topics such as suicide prevention and operations security to be more than a glassy-eyed annual ritual of clicking and scrolling.

In a sweeping move Monday, the service announced it is eliminating online General Military Training requirements entirely, leaving cybersecurity as the only GMT course requiring a computer.

While annual GMT requirements will remain, the move, announced in a Navy administrative message, will also build flexibility into the curriculum. Individual commands can determine when and how to complete training on other topics, and commanders can choose to make use of available online resources or go in a different direction.

"Topics such as Suicide Awareness, Equal Opportunity and Sexual Harassment, and Sexual Assault Prevention and Response require a more formal setting," the NavAdmin states, "while other topics such as Records Management, Operations Security, and Privacy and PII, for example, may be conducted at quarters, all-hands calls, divisional training, etc., using existing learning objectives and material as springboards to elicit discussion to the point that the leader is satisfied that the learning objectives are understood."

In an outdoor town hall meeting with sailors in Rota, Spain, on Tuesday morning, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said he wants to give troops more opportunities to practice small-unit leadership, even when completing routine annual training.

"By telling people to go to a computer and page through some kind of a brief, I see that as denying us, particularly you junior leaders, opportunities to get with your teams and lead. Okay?" Richardson said. "You can't lead with somebody staring at a computer. And you get no sense of team if everybody is off in a carousel or on a laptop somewhere, going through it on their own. These are opportunities for us to come together. This is how you build trust and confidence in your team."

This is the second change the Navy has made to the generally unpopular GMT system in two years.

In 2016, the service released a message announcing that it would build more flexibility into requirements, making seven courses mandatory to be completed online, including cybersecurity and OpSec briefs, but leaving the implementation of another nine courses to the discretion of the commander, encouraging leaders to have briefings and bring in outside experts to address topics including alcohol, drugs and tobacco awareness, and hazing prevention.

In a statement, Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Robert Burke said the change is thanks in part to sailors who expressed frustration with the lack of effectiveness and impersonal nature of the online training.

"I want sailors to know we've heard them," Burke said. "This is about restoring an important leader engagement opportunity -- an opportunity to talk about integrity, accountability and character -- something today's online products are missing. There is no doubt this approach will yield an even greater competitive edge for the Navy."

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck.
March is Women's History Month and the perfect time to recognize female veterans who have played an important role in our nation's history. Not only did they set the stage for future generations who wanted to serve their country, like me, but proved that women could be as resilient and inspiring as men in times of conflict.

Here's a look at just a few of these women who voluntarily put themselves in harm's way -- many suffering life-altering disabilities and illnesses or giving the ultimate sacrifice -- to protect our way of life.

Pvt. Cathay Williams, aka William Cathay (1844-1892)

Post-Civil War

Born a slave near Jefferson City, Missouri, Cathay Williams was the first known Black woman to serve in the United States Army -- enlisting under the name "William Cathay" to hide the fact she was a woman.

"The regiment I joined wore the Zouave uniform, and only two persons, a cousin and a particular friend, members of the regiment, knew that I was a woman," Williams said, according to Army archives. "They were partly the cause of my joining the Army. Another reason was, I wanted to make my own living and not be dependent on relations or friends."

Documents show Williams served alongside the men in her unit -- without being recognized as a woman -- until she contracted smallpox and became ill. The disease caused her to be in and out of military hospitals until it was discovered she was female and immediately discharged.

Col. Ruby Bradley (1907-2002)

World War II and Korean War

A West Virginia native, Bradley joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corps as a surgical nurse in 1934. In 1941, she was taken captive by Japanese forces while serving in the Philippines. She and fellow imprisoned nurses continued to care for their fellow prisoners, earning them the nickname "angels in fatigues."

In February 1945, U.S. troops stormed the gates of the Japanese camp and liberated Bradley and her fellow prisoners, where she had been held captive for three years. Bradley continued serving in the Army Nurse Corps after her release and then in the Korean War. She dedicated 30 years to the military, becoming only the third woman in U.S. history to be promoted to the rank of colonel.

Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum (1954-Present)

Persian Gulf War

Cornum joined the U.S. Army in 1978. While serving as a flight surgeon with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq in 1991, her UH-60 Black Hawk was shot down by enemy forces when on a mission to rescue a downed fighter pilot. Cornum was one of three soldiers to survive the 140-mph crash. She sustained two broken arms, a bullet wound to her shoulder and knee damage, only to be dragged from the wreckage and taken into Iraqi captivity. On her way to confinement, she was sexually assaulted by one of her captors.

Cornum survived her eight-day captivity and was released back to the Army, where she recovered well enough to continue her military career. She retired with the rank of brigadier general in 2012.

1st Lt. Ashley White Stumpf (1987-2011)

Afghanistan War

U.S. Army 1st Lt. Ashley White Stumpf was assigned to a National Guard unit from Goldsboro, N.C., and served as a member of a cultural support team (CST) attached to a joint special operations task force in Afghanistan. As part of a CST, she took on a new role for women in the military, involving special units of female Army soldiers meant to build relationships with Afghan citizens. She was killed during combat operations in October 2011, when the assault force she was supporting triggered an improvised explosive device.

"This was 2011; the combat ban was still in place," said author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, who wrote a book about Stumpf and the CSTs. "Most of America still doesn't know that these women were out there. So they knew that everything they did would be not just their mistake, but every female's mistake, and so I think they worked even harder."

As a female veteran, I'm inspired by the contributions these women have made. We owe them and others like them -- such as U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Megan McClung, who became the highest-ranking female in any service and the first female Marine officer to be killed during the Iraq War -- a world of gratitude. To learn more about women's veterans, visit www.dav.org/women-veterans. Together, we can ensure our women in uniform are remembered, and earn the recognition and support they need for their selfless valor.

Mary Dever is a veteran of the United States Air Force and currently serves as the assistant national communications director for DAV (Disabled American Veterans). She resides in Maryland with her husband and young son.

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Hinduja flagship firm Ashok Leyland will invest Rs 400 crore to develop new light commercial vehicles (LCVs) within the next two years and plans to triple its sales in the segment by 2019-20.

The company, which had last year parted ways with Nissan after a tumultuous relationship, is now looking to make up for the lost time, eyeing export markets with new models to be developed on two new platforms.

In order to accelerate product development, the company is also re-hiring a number of employees who had left the erstwhile joint ventures with Nissan.

"For the medium term between 12 months to two years, we have allocated fresh fund of Rs 400 crore on product development for LCVs," Ashok Leyland President (LCV & Defence) Nitin Seth told PTI.

"We will have two new platforms on which we can develop several models -- from right hand drive to the left hand drives with different powertrains, as we will be targeting not only the domestic market but overseas as well," he said.

When Ashok Leyland was in partnership with Nissan, their joint venture agreement prevented it from developing its own LCV nor was it allowed to export.

Last September, ending their 8-year-old partnership, Ashok Leyland and Nissan Motor Co agreed to part ways with the Japanese partner agreeing to sell its stake in three joint ventures to the Indian partner.

In May 2008, the two partners had formed three JVs -- Ashok Leyland Nissan Vehicles Ltd (ALNVL); Nissan Ashok Leyland Power Train Ltd (NALPT); and Nissan Ashok Leyland Technologies Ltd (NALT). The partners had invested about Rs 1,000 crore as equity between them.

With the three JVs becoming history and having bought out the Japanese partner's stake while getting licence to its technology, the Chennai-based firm is now looking ahead to becoming a significant player in the LCV segment behind Mahindra & Mahindra and Tata Motors.

"We believe we can be a significant player in the LCV segment. Our target is to achieve annual sales of one lakh units by 2019-20," Seth said.

Exuding confidence of "tripling sales" from the current 35,000-36,000 units a year, he said: "It is possible for us, we have the infrastructure ready all we need is new products to push volumes."

With faster product development becoming crucial to its plans, the company is re-hiring some of the ex-employees of the erstwhile JVs with Nissan, who had left during the uncertain times.

"They were a part of the system and they know our requirements," Seth said without sharing the number of people who are joining back.

When asked about exports, he said: "We have divided the target markets into four clusters -- SAARC, GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council), Africa and the Asean."

With many of the international markets being left hand drive markets, he said LCVs on the two new platforms will be developed with a consideration to address those markets, he said.

"Our new products will be able to address markets like Indonesia, Malaysia and Africa, SAARC region which are very similar to India. Even for GCC, we will be able to meet the standards there with our new products," Seth said.

Ashok Leyland's focus on exports is keeping with the top management thinking that to overcome risk of the cyclical nature of commercial vehicles market, overseas markets contribute around 33 per cent of its total sales.

Currently, around 10-12 per cent of its total sales come from exports.

For the domestic market, Seth said the company's current LCVs -- Dost, Partner and Mitr are doing well.

"Our dealers have been longing for new products, which we will deliver. There will be variants of existing models in short term while the roll out of brand new products will happen in the medium term," Seth said.

Along with the new models, he said the plan is to expand sales network to 450 outlets with 150 dealers across India within the next two years from the current 370 outlets and 113 dealers.
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Axis Bank today said its board has approved raising USD 10 million by allotting debt securities through MTN programme to be launched from Dubai international centre.

The board of directors of the bank has passed a resolution approving the allotment of 3 year senior floating rate notes aggregating to USD 10 million under the MTN programme, the bank said in a regulatory filing.

It said the capital will be raised through its Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) branch.

Last week, the private sector Axis Bank had informed about raising USD 16.2 million by floating bonds through its Dubai financial centre branch.
Answer: Air Odisha.

China Southern Airlines Co Ltd said on Tuesday it would issue HK$1.55 billion ($199.6 million) worth of shares to a subsidiary of American Airlines Group Inc, giving the U.S. airline a stake in China's largest carrier.

The deal would make American Airlines the second U.S. carrier to own part of a Chinese airline after Delta Air Lines Inc bought 3.55 percent of China Eastern Airlines Corp for $450 million in 2015.

In a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange, China Southern said it would issue 270.61 million Hong Kong-listed H-shares, representing 2.68 percent of the enlarged share capital of the airline.

The shares would be issued at HK$5.74 apiece, or at a 4.6 percent premium to the previous close.

Among other things, the deal would help China Southern improve its governance, strengthen management, boost its competitiveness and help "achieve the strategic goal of building a world-class aviation industry group", the filing said.

It said the two airlines may also increase cooperation in code-sharing and other areas, including staffing, sales, passenger loyalty programmes and airport facilities sharing.

China Southern's Hong Kong-listed shares jumped as much as 5.3 percent in early morning trading on Monday before closing at HK$5.49, while its mainland-listed shares remained suspended.

The airline is China's biggest in terms of passenger numbers. It is a member of the SkyTeam airline alliance and is based in the southern city of Guangzhou.

The tie-up comes as Beijing has vowed to shake up Chinese airlines by implementing mixed-ownership reforms and introducing private capital and strategic investment into its state-owned enterprises in a bid to improve efficiency and competitiveness.

Chinese airlines have been aggressively expanding their fleet and increasing the number of their international routes as they seek to capitalise on strong growth in outbound Chinese travel that has far outpaced tourism at home.

For American Airlines, the deal could widen access to China, one of the biggest sources of tourists to the United States, and will help it compete with rival Delta, which has invested in foreign carriers in Mexico, Brazil and Britain in recent years.
India's internet CEOs once again raised their voice on the issue of discrimination against local firms, whereas MNCs are often allowed to operate in a free manner when it comes to government regulations.

Speaking at a panel of the ET Global Business Summit, CEOs and founders of companies like Flipkart, Paytm, MakeMyTrip and Amazon India spoke on the issues in operating an online business in India.

"What is happening in India is pretty unprecedented. Such a situation has not happened anywhere in the world so far. A significant amount of capital is being dumped in India to win market share. We should create a digital economy. But not by creating an unfair playing field for local companies against those companies coming from other countries," said Sachin Bansal, co-founder of Flipkart.

"We in India will be able to create companies which will go global overtime," he added. Bansal outlined an incident where the company was asked to pay 20 percent more by a local tenant in Bangalore, than the price that was being offered to an MNC player.

Echoing similar sentiments, MakeMyTrips co-founder Deep Kalra said, "I totally agree with Sachin when it comes to a level playing field. We are very fortunate that we are in India. However, there is actually not a level playing field. Foreign companies don't have to abide by a two-factor authentication for payments, we do so. Similarly, there are foreign companies in India who do not pay service tax."

MakeMyTrip is stiff facing competition from companies such as Expedia, Trivago, Airbnb, etc which have entered the India market.

"All I am asking is for level playing field," he added.

Replying to Bansal and Kalra, Amazon India head Amit Aggarwal said that Amazon India as a company is incorporated in India and it completely abides by the laws of the land and pays taxes duly.

"The company was started with a mission of being earth's most consumer-centric company. Every city and state have a different consumption pattern. You start identifying the nuances. You have to be very open minded and learn what you don't know. That is true for whichever country you are in," Aggarwal added.

priyanka.sahay@nw18.com
Air India is projected to post an operating profit of Rs 300 crore in the current fiscal and there is no plan to privatise the airline, the government said today.

"The operating losses of the company have been steadily coming down over the past few years and the same have converted into operating profits," Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha told the Rajya Sabha.

In a written reply, he also said the carrier's net losses are also reducing gradually on account of the overall improvements in the "operational and financial performance".

As per provisional figures for 2016-17, the airline is projected to see an operating profit of Rs 300 crore and net loss after tax of Rs 3,643 crore. Last fiscal, Air India had an operating profit of Rs 105 crore and a net loss after tax of Rs 3,836.77 crore.

On whether there is any proposal to either disinvest or privatise Air India, the minister replied in the negative. In a separate written reply, Sinha said various steps are being taken to improve the airline's revenues.

These include introduction of new routes, flash sale of seats, dynamic pricing and introduction of advance purchase fare. The government's Turnaround Plan (TAP) or Financial Restructuring Plan (FRP) provides for equity infusion worth Rs 30,231 crore in the airline up to 2021 subject to achieving certain milestones.

To another query, Sinha said that as per records, no request for 'no objection certificate' has been received from pilots of B-787 Dreamliner to quit Air India.
Hyperlocal startup Scootsy is planning to bring the 100-year old d Delhi restaurant Karims to Mumbai by setting up cloud kitchens.

We will launch a sub-brand under Scootsy and will bring the best of Delhi restaurants to Mumbai and vice versa in 2017, Sandeep Das, co-founder and CEO of Scootsy told Moneycontrol.

Started in 1913, by descendants of a royal Mughal cook, Karims does not have a branch in Mumbai. This service by Scootsy will enable local restaurants to test markets in other cities before launching an offline presence.

The company is also in talks with celebrity chefs such as Vicky Ratnani for the cloud kitchen model. The service with celeb chefs is expected to be launched within two months.

We will rope in about 3-4 will be celebrity chefs. The rest of them will be renowned chefs from India. This offer per chef will be limited to just about a month, Das said.

The startup will set-up standardised kitchens for these chefs for this purpose.

Started in 2014, Scootsy competes with the likes of well-funded restaurant aggregators such as Swiggy, Foodpanda and Zomato in the segment.

Currently bootstrapped and limited to Mumbai, Scootsy delivers same day parcels in categories such as fashion, food, beauty, books and gifting.

The company has about 600 bikers in Mumbai and claims to have an order value of about Rs 800 in the restaurant aggregation segment.
Jet Airways is working on a big fund-raising plan. Sources tell CNBC-TV18 that several interested suitors are in talks with Naresh Goyal's aviation firm for investments.

The aviation company is in talks with investors to raise funds via minority stake sale, sources say.

People privy to the development have told the channel that Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) and sovereign wealth funds are in talks with Jet Airways.

Jet Airways plans to utilise funds received from the stake sale to reduce its debt.

Jet Airways, ADIA did not offer any comment on CNBC-TV18s query.

The stock was up 1.5 percent post the newsbreak.

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The total cost of operation of Jan Dhan accounts by State Bank of India is Rs 774.86 crore, Parliament was informed today.

"Bank-wise and year-wise information on the cost of operation of Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan accounts is not maintained. However, the total cost of operation of Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) accounts as reported by State Bank of India as on December 31, 2106, is Rs 774.86 crore," Minister of State for Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

To a separate query, the minister said the number of zero balance Jan Dhan accounts was 5.93 crore as on November 9, 2016, and 6.32 crore as on December 28, 2016.

"The balance of deposit in PMJDY was Rs 45,636 crore as on November 9, 2016 and Rs 71,036 crore as on December 28, 2016. Replying to another query, Gangwar said public banks, regional rural banks and 13 private lenders have reported that as on March 24, 2017, 92,52,609 accounts were frozen under the PMJDY due to lack of transaction in the last one year

. The minister further noted that as per report received from public sector banks, RRBs and 13 private banks, as on March 15, there are 28.02 crore Jan Dhan accounts and 1.8 crore operational ones have deposits of more than Rs 5,000.
Nearly 400 companies together shelled out about Rs 5,857 crore towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in two years, Parliament was informed today.

Under the Companies Act, 2013, a certain class of profitable companies is required to spend at least 2 per cent of their three-year annual average net profit towards CSR works in a fiscal. The norm came into effect on April 1, 2014.

An assessment of CSR expenditure of 172 companies indicates that these firms spent Rs 3,360 crore in 2015-16 against the mandated Rs 2,660 crore on such activities, Minister of State for Corporate Affairs Arjun Ram Meghwal said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

In 2014-15, 226 companies spent a total of Rs 2,497 crore, less than the mandated amount of Rs 3,499 crore, on CSR activities. In a separate reply, Meghwal said the ministry has not been informed of any malpractices by companies while implementing their CSR policies.

To facilitate effective implementation of CSR activities by the companies, the government has issued frequently asked questions and organised workshops.
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India will soon launch the second round of auction of discovered oil and gas fields of state- owned ONGC and Oil India Ltd, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said.

As contracts for 31 small discovered oil and gas fields auctioned in the first bid round in more than six years were signed, he said a nation that is 80 per cent import dependent cannot afford to see its largest lease holder sit idle.

"There has to be accountability (for ONGC)," he said at the signing ceremony. The government, he said, is also looking at giving incentives for enhanced and improved oil recovery schemes to help reverse the declining trend in output from ageing fields.

"Discovered Small Fields (DSF) round-II is coming soon," he said. Also, on cards is production enchancement contract (PEC) for producing fields of ONGC where operations can be outsourced after setting a minimum benchmark output level. State-owned oil firms IOC, BPCL and HPCL cornered a third of the fields whose contracts were signed.

Touted as an auction round that would replicate the shale gas revolution of the US, half of the fields went to new and lesser known entrants like engineering company Megha Engineering & Infrastructure, KEI-RSOS Petroleum, Enquest Drilling and Nippon Power.

These fields, which hold in-place reserves of 62 million tonnes of oil and oil equivalent gas, can cumulatively produce a peak of around 15,000 barrels of oil per day and 2 million standard cubic meters per day of gas, Pradhan said. The peak oil and gas output envisaged is about 2 per cent of India's current oil and gas production.

"It has been estimated that the indicative gross revenue over economic life would be approximately Rs 46,400 crore of which royalty collection and government's revenue share is expected to be around Rs 5,000 crore and Rs 9,300 crore, respectively," the minister said.

In all 46 idle fields, which were taken away from state- owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL), were put on bidding in DSF-I. 34 of them received bids. Of these, 14 were single bids. All the 26 onland areas had received bids, although 9 had only single bidders.

"We have completed the DSF-I in just under 10 months time from the date it was launched in May last year," Pradhan said. The last auction of oil and gas acreage happened in 2009-10.
Vinod Rai, Chairman of the Banks Board Bureau, said on Tuesday that should the government create a "bad bank" to tackle bad loans, it would be essential to empower and capitalise it.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18 on the sidelines of Credit Suisse's 20th Annual Investment Conference in Hong Kong, Rai said that while bad banks had been a success in countries such as Spain and Indonesia, its success in India would depend on appointing qualified personnel.

"Valuation is a key factor and professionals will need to be appointed to ensure that guidelines are adhered to," said Rai.

A key factor in the decision on setting up a bad bank would be the 18 existing Asset Reconstruction Companies (ARCs). "In the last 14-15 years, the ARCs have resolved only limited stressed assets," said Rai.

Rai said efforts had been made to carry forward the intermediate mechanism of an oversight committee, adding he had recommended more discretionary powers.

He said there had been talk of replicating the oversight committee experience across many committees. Given the huge chunk of bad loans, a single committee would not be able to do the job, he said further.

Rai added, however, that banks would only need to approach a single committee assigned to them. "If the government creates these bodies, resolution will happen in quick time," Rai said.

The government in its Economic Survey ending January had suggested the creation of a bad bank in the form of a public sector asset rehabilitation agency (PARA).

Gross NPAs of public sector banks increased to Rs 606,911 crore while total stressed assets (gross non-performing assets and restructured standard advances) of scheduled commercial banks were Rs 9.64 lakh crore as on December 31, 2016.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told CNBC-TV18 last week that a policy announcement on NPAs would be announced in a "couple of days".

Meanwhile, the annual banking Gyan Sangam has been deferred as the government wants to monitor the health of banks before planning a future roadmap. The meeting usually takes place in March but is now likely to be deferred to after the first quarter of the next financial year.

Below is the transcript of the interview

Q: Could you explain to us the resolutions that you suggested to the RBI and the government for resolving the non-performing asset (NPA) issues?

A: What I had written to the Finance Minister was not only on resolution, a meeting had been taken by the honourable Prime Minister in February some time where all the elements in government, we got together and discussed the banking setup as a whole. And some of the issues on which we needed to prepare a roadmap for ourselves with certain timelines, that is the issue on which I had written to the Honourable Finance Minister.

Q: So, where are they stuck right now?

A: That was roughly about a month back and I am very happy that from whatever news we are getting from the media and you also talked about it, the government seems to be taking a lot of very good steps in the direction of trying to resolve those problems.

Q: The Finance Minister has raised a lot of expectations with regards to some easy resolutions or quick resolutions to this whole banking mess. Some new instrument is what he spoke about at the CNBC event as well a few days back. Anything that probably you can shed light on? What sort of new instruments because the earlier instruments of Scheme for Sustainable Structuring of Stressed Assets (S4A) and other things have really not given that sort of returns or resolutions which a lot of the experts were hoping for.

A: We did experiment with the intermediate mechanism of the oversight committee and we have tried to carry that experiment forward and entrust the oversight committee with some more discretionary powers and that is what I had recommended. What exactly the steps the government is going to take, I am not privy to it, but there has been talk in replicating the oversight committee experience over many more committees and that will, be a very good move because there is a huge chunk bad loans or stressed assets which the banks carry on their balance sheet.

And if these have to be resolved, one oversight committee may not be sufficient. It will have to go to a few more committees. And I am pretty sanguine of the fact that if the government does create those bodies, it will see resolution in quick time.

Q: Are you hopeful given that historically in the past, if there are too many opinion makers or decision makers, it actually delays the whole process which actually led to a bit of further NPA stress. Too much of committees, do you think that is a solution to this mess?

A: No, it will not be too many committees that the banks will approach. It will be only many more committees because the flow of these bad loans is large, so if each bank or each joint lender's forum will have to approach only one committee. And if there are four committees and there are 100 cases, each committee will be handling 25 cases. But if one committee has to handle 100 cases, it becomes that much more difficult. That is why we are hoping that by this process, the resolution agenda will be taken forward in quick time.

Q: The one big thing which I want to ask you is your opinion on bad banks. It has been talked about a lot. Personally, what is your belief and is it a good move. If it indeed happens?

A: Bad banks have succeeded in lots of countries where we have studied there, maybe in Spain, maybe in Indonesia, wherever it is. But once you create a bad bank, you have to empower it. You have to capitalise it properly. You have to give it a huge amount of discretion. So whether it is in the private sector or in the public sector, it will have to be peopled with persons who have got the professional skills. So, that government must ensure before we create all that.

The other issue is who are the people who are going to be actually managing these assets? Do they have the skill sets and then, if possible they are going to be people to whom it will be transferred. The valuation becomes a key factor in each of these. And on that, a huge amount of discretion will be required. Probably if the bank is created, it will have to be at an arm's length distance where professionals manage it and professionals ensure that the valuation is done along the guidelines that bad banks normally function.

Q: You spoke about bad bank concept being there in many countries. Given the India situation and you are so hands-on currently on what the entire mess on the banking system is, is bad bank a good idea for India or one should not venture into this?

A: India already had about 18 asset reconstruction companies and I have watched them over the last 14-15 years. Some of them have come up only recently. Now, one problem that they face is that the amount of stressed assets that they have been able to resolve in the last 15 years is very limited.

So, that factor will have to be taken into account before we decide on the creation of the bad bank and that is the issue on which I would like to concentrate a lot before we take a firm decision that the bad bank must be created. Because once the assets are hived off, maybe it has become business as usual to the banks, but once the assets are hived off, it is a huge amount of debt that the banks carry. And that must be resolved to the satisfaction of the economy or the country. It should not be allowed to just deteriorate in terms of asset value over there.
Credit Suisse who is underweight on the region says that it is purely a valuation call but it is constructive on India based on return on equity (RoE) perspective, Sakthi Siva, Head of Asia Pacific Equity Strategy, Credit Suisse said on the sidelines of 20th Annual Asia Conference in Hong Kong.

India does have improving RoE which has risen by 1-2 percentage points, but the reason for an underweight stance is that a lot of this as already priced in. It is more of a valuation call, explains Siva.

Commenting on the earnings front, Siva said that earnings will improve going forward not just for India but across the region as well. There are markets which are not factoring in an improvement in earnings.

If we look at the Asia-pacific region for the whole, the consensus has picked up to 15 percent growth in the region. The last time we had double digit earnings growth for the region was back in 2010, explains Siva.

Commenting on global markets, Siva said US President Donald Trump is a major risk factor and if there is any correction due to his policies in the region, it could be an excellent opportunity to buy.

What drives markets is RoE and in our view, this has been the best fundamentals in 6 years. For 6 years RoE in Asia pacific has been coming down and thus time we have seen first signs of improvement, said Siva.

She further highlighted that we are starting the year with earnings upgrades after 6 years which also makes us confident on the Asia Pacific region.

Commenting on US Federal Reserve stance on the rate hike, Siva said that any hike by the US central bank is not good for emerging markets. There will be a correction after US Fed hike, but you should buy on dips, she said.

The other phase when the Fed hikes but the real fund rates are actually negative. This is when the policy is accommodative and becoming less accommodative and this is the period which I think is good for EMs and we are currently in that phase, added Siva.

Below is the verbatim transcript of the interview.

Q: I do not know how much you know, but there is a huge fan following for your calls as far as emerging markets and India is concerned. First question which probably even your investors have been asking you off late, why underweight India?

A: I would think for the region, it is actually the best return on equity (RoE) fundamentals in 6 years and India actually does have improving RoE, so we are constructive on India from an RoE perspective, but the reason for our caution and the reason for our underweight in India is we think a lot of this is already priced in. So, if you look at India RoE has actually risen by above 1-2 percentage points from the low and that is as I said our theme for the year. But unfortunately, what we think is already being priced in is something like a 19 percent recovery in RoE so what I emphasise is really a valuation call so it is not that we dont agree with RoE improvement and whatever, it is very much a valuation call.

Q: While everybody debates that valuation for India at 17-18 times forward earnings look expensive, but the flip side to this is there is an argument that the earnings are going to pick up in the second half of this financial year is that something which you are of doubt that earnings will not actually come up for India?

A: We think earnings will improve, but our argument is earnings are improving across the region as well and there are markets that are not pricing is as much of an improvement in earnings. So, if we look at Asia Pacific region as a whole the consensus has now picked up to a 15 percent earnings growth for the region. Remember for the last three years earnings have only averaged around 2 percent. So, 15 is a huge improvement and the last time we had double digit earnings growth was back in 2010.

So, again it is not that we are not positive on Indian earnings it is just that we think that a lot of other markets are also seeing improvements in earnings. So, Indias RoE is rising but so is Koreas RoE, so is RoE in Australia, Taiwan and even if we look at MSCI China if we exclude the financials RoE also starting to pick up.

Q: The big sector call that I read in your report off late is that you are looking to advise clients to buy the cyclicals especially in Asia, what is the view there and probably what are the key themes that you think investors should look at?

A: We are still keen on cyclicals; a lot of clients have been worried that rally in cyclicals has been quite a lot, has been quite large, cyclicals have outperformed defensives by over 20 percent over the last 18 months. So, some clients are saying maybe there is lot of optimism about Trump and his policies already being baked into the cyclical prices.

Our argument is that if you feel that the cyclicals have run high instead of buying defensives maybe look at a switch from some of the North Asian cyclicals which have done particularly well to some of ASEAN cyclicals which have actually been kind of laggards. So if you look at North Asia, cyclicals have actually outperformed defensives by as much as 35 percent. In ASEAN the outperformance is only around 10 percent.

So, in December last year one of the big changes we did was to take a little bit of profits in some of the tech stocks, we are still overweight but we took a bit of profits in some of the North Asian tech stocks and we have actually been adding some ASEAN cyclicals which havent done at least as well as the North Asian ones.

Q: A word on the Trump policies and the global markets because last year they saw two unprecedented events in terms of Brexit in terms of Trump victory and still the global markets have rallied pretty hard. In that context how are you mapping up the global set up and what this could mean for emerging markets like India?

A: I still consider Trump as a set of major risk factor, obviously the border tax which we have heard a lot about is a source of concern. But we are also saying on the other side as I said domestic fundamentals and our view is what drives market is actually RoE or return on equity and in our view this is the best RoE fundamentals in 6 years. For 6 years RoE in Asia pack has been coming down and we are now seeing the first signs of what we call an inflection or turning point.

So, we are kind of trying to advise the investors that we get a pullback because of Trumps policy whether it is a border tax, or tariff or protectionism then also focus on the fact that it could be a buying opportunity given that we are seeing this inflection point and as an Asia Pacific strategist we have been waiting for 6 years to see this inflection point. So, we are highlighting best earnings growth since 2010. First pick up in RoE since 2010 and the other real surprise has been this year we are staring the year with earnings upgrades. Again the last time we saw that was 2010.

Q: Even last time when I met you at this conference and we spoke about the markets and all the one big theme you had was some sort of global commodities cycle and the commodity plays. I guess one of the big call last year for you in that model portfolio is Hindalco and that has actually given 4x return in the last one year itself. From a global commodities point of view what is your view there and you think there is still money to be made in some of the global commodity plays?

A: The commodity stocks have done very well, so potentially going forward the upside may not be as large as last year. We have been a bit more kind of saying buy the pullbacks, buy the dips rather than just buy the cyclicals. Our argument on commodities and the reason we like commodity stocks was not actually because of Trump. If you remember last year my argument was that we are seeing supply cuts so our argument has not been focused on demand rising our focus has always been that because of pollution because of policy and because of I guess funding, China is actually kind of cutting back on supply. So we are still of that view. We are happy to buyers of the dips.

Q: Big call from the whole Credit Suisse, whether it is Neelkanth Mishra or whether it is you, you all predicted the big slowdown in terms of supply from China and that actually helped a lot of the commodity stocks. In fact Neelkanth tracks commodity stocks very closely, he has been bang on as far his calls in the Indian commodity stocks. The other interesting part of your report was that typically you have seen when Fed rates hikes it helps emerging market sentiments and in terms of flows as well. Will you just explain that rationale ones?

A: The question is you need to break up the Fed hike actually into what I call three phases actually. So, going into the Fed hike is actually not positive for emerging markets, we tend to normally see a correction in markets going into the Fed hike and if you recall going into the first hike in December of 2015 we did get a correction. So, the first part I always say there is a correction but we should buy the dip. Then there is a second phase when the Fed hikes which is when we call it the real Fed fund rate is actually negative. So, this is when policy is accommodative and becoming less accommodative, this is the period where I think is actually very good for emerging markets and this is the period that we are currently in.

So, if you look at the real Fed fund rate today, it is about minus 0.5 percent. So, we are still in negative rates, we still have policy that is accommodative. The part that is very negative for emerging markets is when the real Fed fund rate is above 2 percent. Depends on when we think we are getting towards restrictive policy. So, as I said, we are still at minus 0.5 percent so we still thing there is upside, there is still room for markets to go up.

Q: What, to your mind, could be the key risk for emerging markets equities in 2017 because India has rallied pretty hard, some of the emerging markets have rallied pretty hard in the last 2-3 months, in the last few months? Broadly, what to your mind are the key risks that investors should watch out for?

A: The key risk still in the short-term is still with Trump now saying after healthcare has not done well, he is going to focus on tax. I still think less over India, because India is more domestically driven, but some of the more export driven markets like Korea which and Taiwan which we are overweight, that is still the key risk. And obviously, I guess beyond November after the politics, the congress in China, then there is also a risk on China, but at the moment, the Chinese numbers are looking good. So, that is not so big a risk at this point. But that could obviously change as well down the track. So, shorter-term, we think is actually not the Fed because the real Fed fund rate is still negative. So, shorter term, we think the key risk is still Trump and any protectionist policies that come out as a result of that.

Q: In that four expensive basket, you classify the two baskets, the four cheap and the four expensive, in that four expensive, India is probably at the top of the four countries that you identified. Still you have got some exposure in the model portfolio of some of the cyclical Indian stocks. So, two part question. How much downside risk do you see for the Indian equities given that it is so expensive and there is a risk of earnings not coming through and how are you tactically positioned in terms of individual stocks in the model portfolio, as far as India is concerned.

A: We are underweight India, so that means, because we are constructive on markets, it is not that we think India is going to fall. Actually our view is that India is likely to rise by less than the other markets. So, if you look at the expensive four basket, India has done well, but we look at the basket and the other three markets which are in the expensive four, Indonesia, Philippines and Australia have underperformed. So, the basket as a whole has actually underperformed by around 3 percent and the cheapest four which is Korea, China, Hong Kong and Singapore has actually outperformed. So again it is difficult to get every market right, but our argument is that if you overweight the cheapest four and you underweight the expensive four, you have pretty much consistently added alpha over the time period.

Q: I know within the cyclicals you have tried to play some of the IT stocks and some of the commodity stocks in India. Has that been pretty much the portfolio construction in the last one year or have you looked to change a little bit after a big rally especially in commodity stocks in India.

A: In terms of the regional portfolio as well as in India, our focus has actually been on cyclicals and within cyclicals actually on tech and materials, that has been our two big overweights. The other sector that we also like is actually financials. So we also have a fairly big overweight within financials in the region. The only real big change as I mentioned, that we have done over the last three to four months is to take a little bit of profit in the North Asian cyclicals and to add a bit of the ASEAN cyclicals. So, not many changes beyond that actually.

Q: When you spoke about financials and India has a very large share of financials in the index as well. And that is one big barometer of how the economy is performing. Anything that stands out within the Indian financials that you probably have in the model portfolio.

A: I think because the Credit Suisse team is still fairly cautious on the Indian financials, we actually do not have, we are not recommending Indian financials, but we like financials in Korea, in China even in Indonesia, Singapore and so on.

Q: The one big call that I got from Neelkanth last week is that he has turned bullish on the Indian technology stocks. I know there are a couple of stocks that you hold in your model portfolio as well, but broadly, from an Indian tech point of view, is there a view that you hold which probably is pretty much in line with what Neelkanth's view is?

A: We both feel that with a pullback in Indian IT, it looks interesting, but we are overweight tech. And it is not just Indian IT, we also like a lot of Korean tech stocks, Taiwan tech stocks as well which actually the problem is the other side. They have actually done so well that, as I said, we have been taking some profits in some of those names.

Q: I asked you this question last year as well. What will make you bullish on India? I know you are underweight India, but what will make you overweight India in the medium to near-term?

A: As I said, the reason for the underweight call is valuations. So if valuations correct, we are happy to overweight. People forget that India was one of our biggest overweights after the taper in 2013. Certainly was a big overweight. Asia was our biggest overweight market in 2014 prior to the election. And as I said, Indian ROE is picking up nicely, so the fundamentals are good. It is just a question of valuations.
Each one of us has a debt of Rs 54,000. Wondering how?

Heres the answer. The government borrows funds from external agencies for development purposes, which it divides by the total number of citizens to get the per capita debt. Since the funds borrowed are for the people and hence, the government calculates per person average cost. And this is the debt that comes on each persons head.

According to a Finance Ministry report, per capita debt (calculated on basis of Union Government debt) is at Rs 53,796 as on March 31, 2016, as against Rs 49,270 on March 31, 2015.

Analysts expect that the debt figure will only rise each year as the countrys development model is based on borrowing.

In a reply to a question asked in Parliament on March 10, Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal said that per capita debt has risen by 9.2 percent in per capita total debt (internal and external debt) as on 31st March 2016. The per capita internal debt rose by 9.3 percent while the per capita external debt increased by 5.1 percent in the same period.

The primary reason for the increase in debt has been increase in government borrowings, majority of which has been due to increase in internal debt, which contributes to 97% of total debt, Meghwal had told Lok Sabha.

The government has further asked for USD 9,432 million for developmental policies, he added.

This includes assistance of USD 500 million for Pune metro project, USD 375 million for development of waterways, USD 500 million for skill development, USD 400 million for development of Uttar Pradesh road network and USD 500 million for Smart City project.

Why government borrows

The government has to borrow to ensure smooth flow of its work. In a case of fiscal deficit, the government has to borrow to meet demand for crucial expenditures.

A major part of governments revenue comes from taxes, and when these earnings are not adequate, Centre and states are allowed to borrow to bridge the fiscal deficit gap.

As of March 2016, the general government debt (GGD) to gross domestic product (GDP) stood at 68.6 percent, which means that the amount of debt was 68.6 percent of the GDP.

GGD is an indicator of the indebtedness of the government sector.

Per capita debt

The external debt is the outstanding amount of the actual current (not contingent) liabilities that need to be repaid  either the principal or interest amount  in the future and that is owned by the residents to non-residents.

The government borrows from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and International Monetary Fund for development purposes.

Internal debt, on the other hand, is debt owned by residents of an economy to other residents who lend funds to the government.

As per the borrowings of central and state government, total debt is calculated and then, the per capita debt is calculated. The total outstanding debt of the government is divided by the total number of residents to calculate per capita debt.

This number includes both the funds borrowed from external sources as well as internal debt.
The GST Bills in their present form were "not acceptable" to the Congress, but the party sought to tread cautiously to avoid being seen as against the tax reform measure.

At a key strategy meeting of Congress MPs in the Lok Sabha chaired by party vice president Rahul Gandhi, it was decided to raise the concerns of the public on the GST Bills and seek necessary amendments.

According to sources, Gandhi told the members that the party should play the role of a constructive opposition and should not be seen as against the GST legislations.

He also told the members to raise the issue of the farmers' distress and press for a farm loan waiver in Parliament.

Senior party leaders in the Lok Sabha suggested that the Congress should not be seen as the one opposing the tax reform legislation as it was during the UPA government that the GST Bill was initiated to simplify tax structure.

The meeting that lasted around 30 minutes was also attended by Leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge.

After the meeting, Rahul did not answer any queries pertaining to the meeting or about the structural changes that are required to be carried out in the party post the party's poor show in Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.

This was Rahul's first meeting with the party MPs after the Uttar Pradesh poll debacle. After the election results, he had gone abroad to bring back his mother and Congress President Sonia Gandhi after medical treatment.
India Economy

India and Colombia held extensive talks to ramp up cooperation in diverse areas including trade and investment.

The two sides explored ways to deepen engagement during the 7th Foreign Office consultations.

The Indian delegation was led by Preeti Saran, Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs while Colombian side was headed by its Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Patti Londono.

"Building stronger bridges with Bogota! Secretary (East) leads the 7th round of Foreign Office Consultations with Colombia in Delhi today," MEA Spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted.

After the talks, the Colombian Minister called on Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh and discussed a range of bilateral issues.
Driven by a rally in banking stocks, the market closed the day in the green zone, with the Nifty reclaiming 9100. The rally was also seen on the back of domestic developments on the GST front. This, coupled with strong Asian market movements, pushed the indices higher here.

At the close of market hours, the 30-share Sensex was up 172.37 points at 29411.56, while the Nifty was up 61.55 points at 9100.80.

The market breadth through the day was positive but was seen narrowing with every trading hour. At 3:30 pm, 1,439 shares had advanced against a decline of 1,405 shares, while 207 shares remained unchanged.

The midcap indices also had a good day, with the BSE midcap index closed 0.72 percent higher, while the NSE midcap index clocked a record-high mark.

Meanwhile, the Bank Nifty was nearly a percent higher at 21225.40.

"We expect volatility to increase in the next two sessions due to scheduled derivatives expiry. Even liquid stocks are witnessing erratic intraday swings, which is normal during consolidation phase. Traders should continue with positive yet cautious approach and refrain from going overboard," said Jayant Manglik, president, retail distribution of Religare Securities in a statement.

Dishman Pharma, Bharti Infratel, Axis Bank, Jet Airways, and Aurobindo Pharma were among the stocks that were in the news.

Shares of Dishman Pharmaceuticals rose as much as 20 percent intraday on the news that one of its contract research and manufacturing services (CRAMS) customer Tesaro got an approval from US FDA to market its new ovarian cancer drug Zeluja.

"We believe that the increase in the stock price is based upon market estimation that we are one of the suppliers of the API for Zeluja capsules, which got approved by the US FDA," the company said in a clarification to stock exchanges.

Bharti Infratel rose nearly 4 percent intraday on Tuesday as investors cheered the buzz of stake purchase by KKR. KKR and a Canadian pension fund purchased 10.3 percent stake in the firm from Bharti Airtel at a price of Rs 325 per share.

Meanwhile, Aurobindo Pharma rose 2 percent intraday Tuesday on USFDA approval for Meropenem Injection. The company received final approval from the US Food & Drug Administration (USFDA) to manufacture and market Meropenem Injection 500 mg/ vial and 1g/vial.

Meanwhile, Axis Bank was the steady gainer through the day, possibly on the buzz of a deal with Kotak Mahindra Bank. The latter, however, ended the day lower ahead of the crucial board meeting to discuss fundraising plans.

This week will also see derivatives expiry of March series. During the same time, the market sees some volatility as traders roll over their contracts.

Going forward, experts also see some risks to the street. Sanjay Mookim, Director, India Equity Strategy at BofA ML feels there is very little room for an upside at the moment. In the best case scenario, Sensex could hover around 29,000 by December end. We advise investors to stay liquid at these prices and stay with large-cap growth sector. They should avoid adding risk at current levels, said Mookim in an interview to CNBC-TV18.
3:30 pm Market at Close: After ending Monday on a slightly weak note, the market on Tuesday as ended on a very positive note. Equity benchmarks have gained on the back of a rally in banks, which saw stocks surging on the back of M&A buzz.

The Sensex was up 172.37 points at 29411.56, while the Nifty was up 61.55 points at 9100.80. The market breadth, however, was very narrow with 1,439 shares advancing against a decline of 1,405 shares, while 207 shares remained unchanged.

Axis Bank, HDFC and Eicher Motors were the top gainers on both indices, while ONGC, Lupin, Tech Mahindra and Kotak Mahindra Bank were among the top losers.

Jet Airways gained nearly 2 percent in the last hour of trade after reports indicated a fundraising by selling a minority stake.

3:10 pm Betting on approval to merger: From the side-lines of 20th Annual Asian Investor Conference, Amitabh Chaudhry, MD & CEO, HDFC Life speaks about the procedural hurdles and timeline of HDFC-MAX Life merger.

HDFC-MAX Life merger was announced in August 2016. Post this announcement, the company ran into some hiccups with the regulator Insurance Regulator and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) regarding structure which is to be used for the merger to

take place.

2:55 pm Buzzing Stock: Shares of Jet Airways gained nearly 2 percent intraday as investors cheered the buzz of the airline looking to raise funds.

The carrier is said to be in talks with investors to raise money through a minority stake sale, sources told CNBC-TV18. The funds are likely to be used to reduce its debt. Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and sovereign wealth funds are in talks with the airline.

2:35 pm Puravankara exits Raidurg Investments: Puravankara has successfully exited from Raidurg for Rs 475 crore. The company had invested Rs 403 at Raidurg, Panamaktha Village, Ranga Reddy district.

2:20 pm Drug approval: Drug firm Suven Life Sciences has received one product patent from New Zealand for its molecule to be used in the treatment of neuro-degenerative diseases.

With this new patent, Suven has a total of 26 patents from New Zealand. The new patent is valid through 2033, Suven Life Sciences said in a BSE filing.

"We are very pleased by the grant of these patents to Suven for our pipeline of molecules in CNS arena that are being developed for cognitive disorders with high unmet medical need with huge market potential globally," Suven CEO Venkat Jasti said.

2:10 pm Market Check: Equity benchmarks were trading range-bound in the afternoon session with a slight selling pressure. The Nifty fell below 9100 as well.

The Sensex was up 152.30 points at 29389.45, while the Nifty was up 48.90 points at 9094.10. About 1,495 shares advanced against a decline of 1,170 shares declined, and 192 shares remain unchanged.

Axis Bank, HDFC and Tata Motors (D) continued to gain, while ONGC, Hero MotoCorp and Tech Mahindra were the top losers.

Nifty Bank has been an outperformer on the back of a merger buzz after Kotak Mahindra Bank has called for a press conference on Wednesday.

Shares of Bharti Infratel rose nearly 4 percent intraday on Tuesday as investors cheered the buzz of stake purchase by KKR.

According to reports on CNBC-TV18, KKR has purchased 10 percent stake in the firm from Bharti Airtel at a price of Rs 325 per share.

Shares of Dishman Pharmaceuticals & Chemicals locked at 20 percent upper circuit on Tuesday after its partner received USFDA approval for its cancer drug.

The company has received United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) approval for cancer drug Zejula Capsules, for Tesaro Inc.

1:58 pm Do you own these stocks? As much as 85 stocks are trading above their 5-year average price and out of that 15 stocks more than doubled from their average price recorded in the last five years, according to data compiled by Moneycontrol.com team.

Most of the stocks which have doubled from their average price of last five years include quality franchises like Bajaj Finserv, HPCL, MRF, Ajanta Pharma, Havells India, Berger Paints, TVS Motor, Biocon, UPL, Rajesh Exports, Biocon, Petronet LNG etc. among others. You can read the full story here.

1:33 pm Expert Speak: V Srivatsa, EVP & Fund Manager, UTI MF in an interview to CNBC-TV18 shared his views on portfolio preferences.

The house is upbeat on the pharma space and thinks it is more insulated from US risks compared to the IT space.

Currently, their holdings are scattered over 6-7 stocks. Some are stocks that do not have any USFDA issues with good growth visibility. There are also stocks in the midst of FDA issues but hopes are that we will find a resolution over 2-3 quarters, says Srivatsa.

1:08 pm Market Check: Bulls continued to rule the Street, with the indices holding on to its morning gains. The rally was driven by banks as the Bank Nifty surged. The Nifty midcap index had also touched a record high.

The 30-share Sensex was up 173.93 points at 29411.08, while the Nifty was up 58.00 points at 9103.20. The market breadth was slightly narrow as 1,572 shares advanced against a decline of 1,006 shares, while 177 shares are unchanged.

Axis Bank, HDFC and Zee Entertainment were the top gainers on both the indices, while ONGC, GAIL and Tech Mahindra continue to fall the most.

Oil prices rose on Tuesday, supported by a weaker dollar, but crude continued to be weighed down by surging U.S. production and uncertainty over whether an OPEC-led supply cut is big enough to rebalance the market.

Prices for front-month Brent crude futures, the international benchmark for oil, had gained 18 cents from their last close to $50.93 per barrel by 0652 GMT.

In the United States, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up 20 cents at $47.93 a barrel.

12:38 pm NTPC gets nod to invest Rs 3,004 crore in mining project: State-run power giant NTPC today said its board has approved investment of Rs 3,004 crore for Talaipalli Coal Mining Project which has an estimated 18 million tonnes per annum capacity in Chhattisgarh.

"In line with the Corporate Disclosure requirements, we wish to inform that the Board of Directors of the Company has accorded investment approval for Talaipalli Coal Mining Project (18 Million Tonnes per annum) at an appraised current estimated cost of Rs 3,004 crore," NTPC Ltd said in a statement.

According to the statement, coal mining is integral to NTPCs fuel security strategies. NTPC realises that greater self reliance on coal will go a long way in ensuring the sustained growth of power generation.

12:26 pm EPFO investment in mutual funds: Retirement body, Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is looking to start investing Rs 20,000 crore or 10 percent of its investible deposits annually starting FY18 in liquid mutual fund schemes. The decision is likely to be approved when EPFO's apex decision body Central Board of Trustees (CBT) meets on March 30, sources told CNBC-TV18.

The fund managers of CBT will select ten liquid mutual funds with ratings of AA+ or better. The investment tenure in liquid MFs is going to be 30 days.

EPFO will be investing in liquid mutual funds for the very first time, adding a new category nto its existing portfolio. It currently deploys around half of its investible income in government bonds and around 40 percent in corporate bonds.

12:05 pm Market Check: Continuing with the trends from previous session, the market held steady and traded in a range after seeing an uptick in the morning trade. The Nifty continued to trade around 9100 range.

The Sensex was up 164.41 points at 29401.56, while the Nifty was up 54.90 points at 9100.10. The market breadth was narrowing compared to morning movements. About 1,539 shares advanced against a decline of 920 shares, while 160 shares were unchanged.

Axis Bank, Asian Paints and Tata Motors (D) were top gainers on both the indices, while ONGC, GAIL and Tech Mahindra were among the top losers.

Vadilal industries has been buzzing in trade and has witnessed 38 percent gains this month and is up 86 percent this year.

To meet the expected demand for the summer season the company has already commissioned three production lines, said Rajesh Gandhi, CMD, Vadilal Industries, adding that distributors now have increased to 850 from 800 and retail outlets have increased to 60,000 from 55,000.

With the sugar and milk prices on the rise, the company had taken price hike of around 5 percent in the month of February and now the realisations are around Rs 110 per litre compared to the earlier Rs 81/litre.

Also Read: Need cos to start delivering on growth; see Sensex at 29K by Dec: Sanjay Mookim

11:43 am Japanese market closes: Japan's Nikkei has closed with gains of over a percent. The index soared over 200 points to end at 19202.87

11:37 am Management Speak: Sanjiv Bajaj, MD, Bajaj Finserv is confident of the general insurance business growing above 20 percent in the fourth quarter of FY17 and the life insurance business also growing in double digits.

The whole general insurance industry has seen a very healthy growth in the last few years, he said in an interview to CNBC-TV18. The Company is most profitable in the general insurance entity in India, he said.

When asked if the house was looking at listing option, he said there were no plans to list either the life or the non-life insurance business. However, there will be quite a few other companies in the general insurance space that may list soon, he said.

11:28 am ICICI Lombard shortlists PE funds for stake sale: Three private equity funds - Warburg Pincus, Carlyle and Temasek - have been shortlisted to acquire a 35 percent stake in ICICI Lombard General Insurance, according to a report in The Economic Times.

The three PE funds were selected from four potential investors who had bid for a stake which could be worth close to USD 1 billion. Others who had earlier bid for the stake include Blackstone, KKR, Advent and General Atlantic.

The shortlisted funds will now conduct a round of due diligence before they give their final binding offer before April end.

11:10 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks built on the gains from the morning session, with major stocks on the Nifty being in the green. The broader index touched 9100 during the session.

The 30-share Sensex was up 182.58 points at 29419.73, while the Nifty was up 58.10 points at 9103.30. The market breadth was healthy with 1,506 shares having advanced, against a decline of 765 shares, while 133 shares were unchanged.

Axis Bank, Tata Motors and Tata Motors (D) were among top gainers on both the indices, while ONGC, GAIL and Tech Mahindra were the top losers.

Share price of Aurobindo Pharma rose 2 percent intraday Tuesday on USFDA approval for Meropenem Injection.

The company received final approval from the US Food & Drug Administration (USFDA) to manufacture and market Meropenem Injection 500 mg/ vial and 1g/vial.

Dilip Buildcons shares added 3 percent intraday as investors cheered the companys order win from roads and highways ministry.

The company was declared the lowest bidder for two projects of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in Maharashtra.

10:55 am Buzzing stock: Shares of Intellect Design Arena added more than 3 percent intraday Tuesday on order win from Mongolia's Khan Bank.

Khan Bank, the largest commercial bank in Mongolia, has selected company's debt management platform to centralize operations and digitalize its collections process.

10:48 am Block trade: Delta Corp witnesses a block trade on both the exchanges. 31 lakh shares (1.36 percent of equity) trade In 3 blocks on the NSE and BSE at Rs 177-177.25 per share.

10:44 am Rajiv Bajaj speaks ahead of SC verdict: In the final hearing on the unsold BS-III inventory, the Supreme Court today will decide whether auto manufacturers will be able to register vehicles under BS-III norms beyond April 1.

What will be the impact of the judgement on the auto firms? Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Rajiv Bajaj of Bajaj Auto said that the impact depends on quantum of stocks each company has. For example, Toyota has no such stocks as they changed long time ago and Bajaj will have zero stocks of BS-III vehicles by April 1, he said.

10:30 am KKR on Bharti Infratel stake buy: Speaking on the investment in Bharti Infratel, Sanjay Nayar of KKR told CNBC-TV18 that he liked the team and management of the firm. He expects it to be a good investment.

KKR and Canadian Pension Fund together purchased 10.3 percent stake in the firm from Bharti Airtel at Rs 325 per share.

10:20 am Management Interview: Private life insurance company Birla Sun Life Insurance, which has adopted a cluster approach to distributing products, has seen an improvement in persistency and reduction in complaints.

In an interview with M Saraswathy of Moneycontrol, Pankaj Razdan, MD & CEO of the insurer talks about the new product plans of the company and business growth strategies. You can read the whole interview here.

10:10 am Market Check: After opening the session on a strong note, positive momentum continued in the market, driven by a rally in banks and midcaps. The Nifty midcap index clocked a record high figure.

The Sensex was up 144.74 points at 29381.89, while the Nifty was up 50 points at 9095.20. The market breadth indicated firm hand of the bulls as 1,410 shares advanced against a decline of 503 shares, while 83 shares were unchanged.

Axis Bank, Wipro, Idea Cellular and Bharti Infratel were among top gainers on both the indices, while ONGC, Coal India and Tech Mahindra were the top losers.

Shares of Bharti Infratel rose nearly 4 percent intraday on Tuesday as investors cheered the buzz of stake purchase by KKR.

According to reports on CNBC-TV18, KKR has purchased 10 percent stake in the firm from Bharti Airtel at a price of Rs 325 per share.

Clean energy player Greenko announced raising USD 155 million in equity funding from an affiliate of GIC and an entity wholly-owned by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA).

GIC is investing USD 123.9 million and the ADIA subsidiary the remaining USD 31.1 million, a company release said here.

Axis Bank today said its board has approved raising USD 10 million by allotting debt securities through MTN programme to be launched from Dubai international centre.

The board of directors of the bank has passed a resolution approving the allotment of 3 year senior floating rate notes aggregating to USD 10 million under the MTN programme, the bank said in a regulatory filing.

9:47 am Bharti Infratel spikes: Shares of Bharti Infratel rose nearly 4 percent intraday on Tuesday as investors cheered the buzz of stake purchase by KKR.

According to reports on CNBC-TV18, KKR has purchased 10 percent stake in the firm from Bharti Airtel at a price of Rs 325 per share.

9:39 am Expert Speak: From the side-lines of 20th Annual Asian Investment Conference, Helman Sitohang, CEO-Asia Pacific at Credit Suisse talks about the geopolitical risks and how the markets are coping with the uncertainty post events like Brexit and Trump's election.

Investors are getting used to the new populist approach in the politics and are adjusting to it. They will start focusing more on the value than the politics, he said.

Speaking about India, he said, "India for us has been an important country, I am a big believer in the country, it is one of the largest and fastest growth globally and definitely in Asia. We have seen it growing faster than China".

9:25 am Buzzing Stock: Shares of Dishman Pharmaceuticals & Chemicals were locked at 20 percent upper circuit on Tuesday on the back of USFDA approval for its cancer drug Zejula Capsules.

At 09:22 hrs, the stock was quoting at Rs 278.20, up Rs 46.35, or 19.99 percent. It touched a 52-week high of Rs 278.20.

Also Read: Higher premiums, dearer products to pinch insurance policyholders from April

After ending Monday on a lower note, the market opened on a positive note, driven by a rally in the banks.

The 30-share Sensex was up 109.42 points at 29346.57, while the Nifty was up 43.15 points at 9088.35. The market breadth was healthy as 746 shares advanced against a decline of 189 shares, while 39 shares were unchanged.

Banking stocks such as Axis Bank, ICICI Bank were among the top gainers on both the indices, while GAIL and ONGC were a drag.

IndusInd Bank, HDFC, DCB Bank and Cimmco touched their 52-week highs. Dishman Pharma surged 20 percent and was locked in upper circuit on the back of a product approval by the US drug regulator.

The currency market was closed on account of Gudi Padwa holiday.

Asian markets gained in early morning trade morning as investors shrugged off the disappointment from the current US administration's ability to push through legislation to repeal and replace the Obama-era health-care law. Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 0.82 percent, recovering most of its losses of 276 points, or 1.44 percent, seen yesterday.
Rajat Bose of rajatkbose.com told CNBC-TV18, "I am looking at two stocks, one is a sell on BPCL. It tried to post a recovery today but could not sustain at higher levels and I am putting a stop loss above Rs 647. My downside targets are Rs 635 and Rs 632."

"The other stock is Bharat Forge . There is a likelihood that Bharat Forge can scale up to Rs 1,050 levels. I have kept two targets of Rs 1,047 and Rs 1,051 and given the kind of chart set up on intraday charts, I would put a stop loss below Rs 1,033. So one buy and one sell call," he said.
Bull's Eye, CNBC-TV18's popular game show, where market experts come together to dish out trading strategies for you to make your week more exciting and compete with each other to see whose portfolio is the strongest.

Remember these are midcap ideas not just for the day, but stocks that look attractive in the medium-term as well.

This week, Ruchit Jain, Sumeet Jain and Ashish Kyal battle it out for top honours.

Below their top stock picks and analysis:

Ruchit Jain of Angel Broking

Buy Federal Bank with a stoploss at Rs 86 and target of Rs 96

Buy Petronet LNG with a stoploss at Rs 393 and target of Rs 427

Buy Godrej Industries with a stoploss at Rs 484 and target of Rs 534

Sumeet Jain of Destimoney Securities

Buy Finolex Cables with a stoploss at Rs 482 and target of Rs 528

Buy Ashiana Housing with a stoploss at Rs 213 and target of Rs 242

Buy Sintex Industries with a stoploss at Rs 100.70 and target of Rs 112

Buy Inox Liesure with a stoploss at Rs 252 and target of Rs 278

Ashish Kyal of Waves Strategy Advisors

Buy DCB Bank with a stoploss at Rs 165 and target of Rs 176

Buy Dish TV with a stoploss at Rs 106 and target of Rs 116

Buy Jubilant Foodworks with a stoploss at Rs 1070 and target of Rs 1160

Sell Apollo Hospitals with a stoploss at Rs 1200 and target of Rs 1115
SP Tulsian of sptulsian.com is upbeat on the airline space on back of holiday season. He especially likes SpiceJet and Jet Airways in that order.

He is also of the belief that consolidation is very likely in the banking and NBFC space going forward.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, he also tells you it is time to book profit in tyre stocks

Below is the transcript of the interview

Sonia: Today we are seeing a lot of these mergers and acquisition (M&A) hopefuls rise, Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services, Bharat Financial Inclusion. Would you put any stock into this or this is something that could be just up in the air so better to just stay away?

A: This seems to be the time of consolidation and when the government also rightly so, when they start taking up or exercising this theme, we have seen that having taken place of State Bank of India (SBI), five associate banks seen having got merged, now the government is contemplating maybe to merge the NHPC and SJVN with NTPC

We have also been hearing the consolidation in the oil and gas segments also, maybe the exploration acquiring the oil marketing companies. I think this is overdue and when you have heard Uday Kotak saying that the animal spirit has to get revived in the private sector, probably because this has been long overdue.

If you take more specifically the banking and non-banking finance company (NBFC) space, both are becoming synonymous. Earlier there used to be a clear Chinese wall that if you are a bank, you do not look for NBFC or maybe the NBFC is a proxy that those who cannot enter into the banks, then they have all been going with NBFC.

But practically, the business operations and everything is complementing each other and that is the reason we have been hearing that sometimes, IndusInd Bank is looking to acquire Bharat Financial Inclusion or maybe RBL Bank is looking to acquire Bharat Financial Inclusion. Similar is the case with Kotak Bank that they are looking to acquire M&M Financial.

So, this time if I just first focus on Kotak Bank, the board meeting is due tomorrow, they have clearly stated so many methods of raising the capital. In that background, rights issue seems impossible or ruled out because when you say rights issue and even if it is of a size of about maybe USD 1 billion or Rs 10,000 crore of a market cap of Rs 1,60,000 crore and in that case, one-third is held by promoters, even they have to bring in the equal money. On the other hand, the promoter have to reduce their stake.

So, taking all this into account, something will definitely be happening on that front, and even this bank and NBFC is a very happening place now because the kind of contribution of these both sectors in the index and the kind of returns which they have given to the investors and I think the situation going forward is seen quite positive.

So yes, I am quite hopeful and maybe many players are lined up, either in the smaller private sector banking space where there are no promoters or maybe in the NBFC space. It is very difficult to rule out, but yes, things are looking quite positive on that front.

Tomorrow, no specific announcements but Kotak has definitely the appetite to look for the inorganic growth. Maybe tomorrow, the things will be discussing only on the raising of the capital, so we have to look for the quantum and the mode whether that happens with the QIP or what is the amount and all that. There is a lot of things happening in that space out on that front.

Anuj: Post demonetisation, you had said Bharat Financial Inclusion was a great buy at Rs 400-450, I think it was. At Rs 830, what is the call now?

A: Actually after crossing Rs 800 or maybe Rs 810, if you see, the stock has been moving in a range. And actually I have always said that probably I do not attribute much value beyond Rs 870-875 and from there, it has corrected. Because a stock which has risen from Rs 470 where we have given a buy call, about three months back to Rs 870, I do not think that one can really expect much.

And the second thing is about the stock is that what I feel that the hot money or maybe the hedge funds seem to be quite active in this stock because they enjoy the volatility, which we see into the stock price on a weekly basis. You can easily make money of Rs 25-30 in a week if you are an investor. If you are holding a chunk of delivery, release it, if you have the fund, look to remain prepared to buy it.

So maybe once the stock comes to a level of Rs 810, as I said, I am attributing a range of Rs 810-870, probably that will be the entry point I will take at Rs 810-815 considering that this news is very much on of the company getting acquired largely by IndusInd Bank, I will not say that RBL Bank seems to be a serious buyer. So yes, Rs 810-815 to Rs 870 can be taken as the range for the time being for Bharat Financial Inclusion.

Anuj: You used to like Jet Airways. But at Rs 510, is it still a buy?

A: I do like both, SpiceJet and Jet Airways and earlier, we have been giving buy calls on Jet Airways but for the last 2-3 months, we have flipped and we say that our prime pick is SpiceJet followed by Jet Airways because the softening crude prices and coming holiday season will be seen both quite positive for the airlines. I am keeping positive stance on both.

Anuj: Time to book profit in tyre stocks? Is that your sense as well?

A: Yesterday we have discussed tyre stocks and I have said that probably they are all ruling at a peak of their range because Ceat or MRF or maybe JK Tyre, Apollo Tyre practically all of them have been ruling at the upper end of the range. So definitely this is the time to book profits.

Anuj: Eicher Motors is now within 6 percent of its all time highs, Rs 68,000 crore marketcap?

A: This 6,60,000 target which the company has given for FY17 is going to be seen and thereafter the competition which will be seen from Bajaj Auto but I am not too much worried. Before FY18 they may be able to set the target of Rs 7 lakhWhat is happening is that in the case of Eicher Motor, when the monthly sales numbers came in for February, where I have given a positive outlook and the share was ruling at Rs 23,500 and if you take average with 28 days, the numbers were seen very good. So maybe the stock should be bought at the level of Rs 24,000 and should be sold at a level of Rs 25,500. So I think that is a range and you cannot go wrong on buying on a fall and booking profits on the rise.
The world's largest humanitarian crisis in 70 years has been declared in three African countries on the brink of famine, just as President Donald Trump's proposed foreign aid cuts threaten to pull the United States from its historic role as the world's top emergency donor.

If the deep cuts are approved by Congress and the US does not contribute to Africa's current crisis, experts warn that the continent's growing drought and famine could have far-ranging effects, including a new wave of migrants heading to Europe and possibly more support for Islamic extremist groups.

The conflict-fueled hunger crises in Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan have culminated in a trio of potential famines hitting almost simultaneously. Nearly 16 million people in the three countries are at risk of dying within months.

Famine already has been declared in two counties of South Sudan and 1 million people there are on the brink of dying from a lack of food, UN officials have said.

Somalia has declared a state of emergency over drought and 2.9 million of its people face a food crisis that could become a famine, according to the UN And in northeastern Nigeria, severe malnutrition is widespread in areas affected by violence from Boko Haram extremists.

"We are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations," Stephen O'Brien, the UN humanitarian chief, told the UN Security Council after a visit this month to Somalia and South Sudan.

At least USD 4.4 billion is needed by the end of March to avert a hunger "catastrophe" in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in late February.

But according to UN data, only 10 per cent of the necessary funds have been received so far.

Trump's proposed budget would "absolutely" cut programs that help some of the most vulnerable people on Earth, Mick Mulvaney, the president's budget director, told reporters last week. The budget would "spend less money on people overseas and more money on people back home," he said.

The United States traditionally has been the largest donor to the UN and gives more foreign aid to Africa than any other continent.

In 2016 it gave more than USD 2 billion to the UN's World Food Program, or almost a quarter of its total budget. That is expected to be reduced under Trump's proposed budget, according to former and current US government officials.
Bombay Rayon's lenders have proposed to recast its Rs 5,000 crore debt via the Scheme for Sustainable Structuring of Stressed Assets (S4A), officials privy to the developments told CNBC-TV18.

Of the entire debt, 10 percent could be converted into equity, sources said. Nearly 55-60 percent of its debt will be considered sustainable and could be treated as standard after putting S4A scheme.

Bombay Rayon has debt of little over Rs 5,000 crore. In the October-December 2016 quarter, the company had reported losses of about Rs 4,500 crore.

A 23-member bank consortium, headed by the State Bank of India, has approved the proposal for implementing S4A for the company. The case is now pending with the Oversight Committee (OC) for S4A clearance.

The consortium also comprises lenders such as ICICI Bank , Citibank, Standard Chartered and Axis Bank
Clean energy player Greenko announced raising USD 155 million in equity funding from an affiliate of GIC and an entity wholly-owned by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA).

GIC is investing USD 123.9 million and the ADIA subsidiary the remaining USD 31.1 million, a company release said here.

Definitive agreements have been signed with them in this regard, it added.

With this transaction, GIC continues to be the majority shareholder of the city-based renewable energy company.

The funds will contribute to the continued growth of Greenko's platform through the development of new renewable energy projects, including recently acquired Solar Projects and low-risk expansions of existing wind farms, it said.

The transaction demonstrates Greenko's continued ability to attract long-term infrastructure capital and commitment from the existing shareholders on business, the release said.

Greenko is a owner and operator of renewable energy assets in India. The company has a utility scale portfolio of over 2,000 MW of wind, solar and small hydro assets.
Friends In Pink is still on the radar and growing every year
Letter to editor: Voting is necessary to protect democracy
Rabbis installation at Keneseth Israel will get a boost of student creativity
March 28, 2017 Democrats: "Russia Ate Our Homework" TRUMP increases sanctions on Russia. DEMOCRATS: "Putin installed this president! Trump is illegitimate!" TRUMP expands wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Syria DEMOCRATS: "Russia is out to get us!" TRUMP dismantles environmental regulations. DEMOCRATS: "White House distracts from Russia investigation!" TRUMP kills worker protection, lowers billionaire taxes. DEMOCRATS: "Putin's interference cost us the election!" TRUMP launches nuclear war with North Korea. DEMOCRATS: "Russia ate our homework!" Posted by b on March 28, 2017 at 17:15 UTC | Permalink Comments
The Morganton man who is accused of killing his neighbor and pleaded guilty to terrorism is closer to being sentenced on his federal case.

Justin Nojan Sullivan, through his attorney, filed an objection to his presentence investigative report on March 17. A presentence report has to be completed before a federal sentencing occurs. Sullivan pleaded guilty in November to one count of attempting to commit an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries.

Federal authorities filed a draft presentence report on Feb. 23. Sullivan filed a motion on March 8 for an extension of time to be able to file any objections to the presentence report. The reason given for the extended time was because his attorney, Fredilyn Sison, was tied up with other cases, as well as having trouble reserving a lone contact visit room to meet with her client, according to court documents. Sullivan is being held at Buncombe County Jail, say the documents.

Sison expected to meet with Sullivan on March 13.

On March 17, an objection to the presentence report was filed.

The charge Sullivan pleaded to carries a sentence of between 30 years to life and a fine of $250,000, according to federal court officials. However, under the plea agreement, both sides have agreed that a sentence of life in prison is an appropriate one, according to federal officials.

Federal documents previously have said Sullivan told an undercover FBI agent that he was a Muslim convert, wanted to kill as many as 1,000 people using cyanide-laced bullets and a vehicle filled with bombs. A criminal complaint at the time of his arrest alleged that the FBI became aware of Sullivans plans to obtain a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle at the Hickory Gun Show, which he planned to use to kill a large number of U.S. citizens on behalf of ISIL. He was arrested before getting the chance to attend the gun show in Hickory, according to federal documents.

Federal documents alleged Sullivan told an undercover agent, Our attacks needs to be as big as possiblewe can do minor assassinations before the big attack for training. He talked about using a moving van filled with explosives and detonating it, the documents said.

The federal government said that no later than June 7, 2015, Sullivan conspired with Junaid Hussain, a prominent ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) member responsible for online recruitment and providing directions and inspiration for terrorist plots in western countries, to plan mass shooting attacks in North Carolina and Virginia. Hussain was one of ISILs prominent members in Syria who asked Sullivan to make a video of the deadly attack, according to federal officials. Hussain has since died, say officials.

John Bailey Clark, who was 74 years old when he died, lived a few houses down from Sullivan and was found buried in a shallow grave behind his house on Dec. 18, 2014. He had been shot in the head three times with a small-caliber gun. Ballistics testing on the rifle that federal agents seized from Sullivan's home showed it was used to murder Clark, according to federal officials.

In February 2016, a grand jury in Burke County indicted Sullivan for the murder of Clark. District Attorney David Learner previously has said that he will seek the death penalty against Sullivan.

Sharon McBrayer is a staff writer and can be reached at smcbrayer@morganton.com or at 828-432-8946.
NEBO  After heavy rains doused the area Sunday, officials with the United States Forest Service deemed the White Creek Fire 100 percent contained Tuesday morning.

The fire at Shortoff Mountain ignited March 16 and grew to 5,538 acres. It burned near Wolf Pit Road at the south end of Linville Gorge on the Grandfather Ranger District of Pisgah National Forest. While burning actively, the fire created large amounts of smoke that both rose in plumes visible for miles away and settled into Morganton and surrounding areas, dropping ashes as well.

Lisa Jennings, a public information officer with the USFS, said the weekend precipitation was very helpful to weekend firefighting efforts.

We checked our rain gauges around the fire and we got about an inch of rain (Sunday), Jennings said. That was a huge help. We are calling (the wildfire) 100 percent contained at this point. We will be lifting the trail closure.

Itll be open, but there will still be hazards out there, obviously, in the burned area. Were trying to let people know to be aware of their surroundings. There can be things like stump holes where fire has burned down in a stump. Its a bad place to twist an ankle up on Shortoff.

Five official trails and all social trails in the area will reopen as a result of the closure being lifted. These include Shortoff Trail (Trail No. 235), Rock Jock Trail (Trail No. 247), Pinch-In Trail (Trail No. 228), Linville Gorge Trail (Trail No. 231), Conley Cove Trail (Trail No. 229) and Mountains to Sea Trail (Trail No. 240).

All USFS lands east of State Road 1238 (Old N.C. Highway 105/Kistler Memorial Highway), south of Conley Cove Trail (Trail No. 229), south of Table Rock Picnic Area, west of Back Irish Creek Forest Service Road No. 118 (Blue Gravel Road) and Roses Creek Forest Service Road No. 99 and north of N.C. Highway 126 are reopened as well.

(The fire is) 100 percent contained, but there could still be a few logs smoking and that kind of thing, Jennings said. Its not necessarily 100 percent out. But it is to the point where we feel safe enough to let folks back in the area, so there is no active flame or anything at this point.

Additionally, information released by the USFS cautioned folks to look out for damaged trees and rolling rocks. The road to the Table Rock Picnic Area will reopen Friday, the USFS said.

Firefighters will continue to monitor the area and complete fire line repair, according to a release from the USFS. Long-term plans for rehabilitation also are in place. A USFS Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) Team will be surveying the fire area to identify areas that may need further monitoring or active rehabilitation. Efforts will focus on areas where the fire burned with high intensity that may be at risk for increased erosion or invasion by non-native plants, the release said.

The release said that while fighting the blaze, firefighters utilized indirect suppression techniques to contain the fire, working from defensible fire lines. Use of existing natural barriers, roads and containment lines minimized impacts to the landscape from fire line construction, the USFS said.

Burnout operations to remove fuels within the established containment area starved the fire of fuel, according to the release Burnouts were conducted in stages in an effort to limit smoke in the area. This indirect approach followed incident objectives of protecting public and firefighter safety and minimizing impacts in the wilderness, the USFS said. No firefighters were injured and no structures were damaged or lost.

At the peak of firefighting activities, more than 170 personnel members were on scene. Responding agencies included the USFS, the North Carolina Forest Service, North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, Burke County Emergency Management, McDowell County Emergency Management, North Carolina Emergency Management and local departments.

Justin Epley can be reached at jepley@morganton.com or 828-432-8943.
The North Carolina Center for Missing Persons has issued a Silver Alert for a missing endangered man from Burke County, Tyler Isiah McCormick.

Citizens are asked to be on the lookout for Tyler Isiah McCormick, who is believed to be suffering from dementia or some other cognitive impairment.

McCormick, 26, is said to be 5' 8" and weighing approximately 130 pounds. He has brown hair and eyes.

Anyone with information about Tyler Isiah McCormick should call Deputy Bryant Baker at the Burke County Sheriff's Office at 828-437-1911.

See Picture and get the latest information on the NC Silver Alert Website

 Name: Tyler Isiah McCormick

 Gender: Male

 Other Distinguishing Physical Characteristics: unknown

 Clothing Description: unknown

 Location of Incident: 1375 Washboard Lane in Morganton.

 Location Last Seen: unknown

 Direction of Travel: unknown

 Possible Destination: unknown

Reporting Law Enforcement Agency: Burke County Sheriffs Office

Contact Information: Deputy Bryant Baker at 828-437-1911
New Ratings

Dimitar Boyadzhiev

The iShares Edge MSCI USA Value Factor ETF offers a low-cost and reasonably diversified approach to deeper-value US stocks. The funds ongoing charge of 0.20% is amongst the lowest in its category. Its benchmark, the MSCI USA Enhanced Value Index, is a solid value index strategy that adopts the markets sector weightings and targets the cheapest stocks within each sector, limiting its holdings to a fixed number of 150 US large and mid-cap stocks. However, relative to its category peers, the fund has taken greater risk. Besides, the fund has a short record tracking its current index and has yet to prove its worth over longer periods.

Randal Goldsmith

Pyrford uses a basic asset allocation approach between equities, government bonds and cash, duration management, currency positioning and security selection to deliver its objective of stable real returns. We like the experience and stability of Pyrfords investment team, and the clear and transparent investment approach in use, which has proved effective over a period exceeding 20 years.

Jeffrey Schumacher

This quant strategy is developed and managed by an experienced, large, and stable team of portfolio managers and quant researchers. The strategy exploits the low volatility anomaly by using a time-tested and distinctive proprietary quant model. The strategy mainly seeks low-risk stocks as measured by their volatility and distress metrics, but valuation and momentum factors are also taken into account. The robust and repeatable process has led to a strong track record since inception. Over the past five years to January 2017, the fund has largely outpaced its peers as well as the MSCI ACWI Index with less volatility and smaller drawdowns. The funds low fees are another attractive feature.

Mathieu Caquineau

We think Uni-Global Equities Emerging Markets is a strong choice for investing in global emerging markets equities with lower risk than some peers. The investment process blends strong quantitative optimisation techniques with fundamental risk assessments to produce a diversified portfolio with low volatility and reduced drawdowns compared with the broad market. The strategy is constantly being fine-tuned with the aim of better identifying and controlling risks such as valuation risk and interest-rate sensitivity. We appreciate the quality and depth of resources available to run this fund and other regional offerings. Under the leadership of Alexei Jourovski since 2010, the team has gradually been reinforced and now includes seven managers and eight analysts who implement the process in a very disciplined manner.

Downgrades

Fatima Khizou

While the fund continues to benefit from an experienced management team, despite the impending departure of Hersh Cohen, the returns delivered to fund holders here have been disappointing. The investment approach is centred on the identification of high quality stocks that exhibit lower volatility so as to provide investors with competitive risk-adjusted returns. However, through the funds life, volatility (as measured by the standard deviation) has been higher than the benchmark, resulting in a less compelling risk/return profile than many peers.

Ratings moved to Under Review

Carlos Lucar

Following the news that Owen Murfin has stepped down from his role as the lead portfolio manager of this fund, we have placed the funds Morningstar Analyst Rating Under Review. Murfin had been at the helm of the fund and part of BlackRocks global bond team since October 2007. Andreas Doerrenhaus has assumed the role of lead portfolio manager, effective March 17, 2017. Doerrenhaus is the head of global unconstrained strategies in Europe and is a comanager of BlackRocks Absolute Return Bond and Fixed Income Global Opportunities funds. Prior to joining BlackRock in 2010, he was a credit portfolio manager at Deutsche Asset Management.

Murfins departure coincides with changes in the team structure--BlackRock has announced that the credit team led by Murfin within the Global Bond group will merge with a dedicated credit team led by Doerrenhaus. That said, the global bond team will continue to operate under the leadership of Scott Thiel, BlackRocks deputy CIO for fundamental fixed income. We will be meeting with Doerrenhaus soon to discuss the changes to the team and their impact on the strategy, and we will update our take on the fund accordingly.

Peter Brunt

The Board has announced a planned change in portfolio manager for this fund. James Goldstone will replace Mark Barnett as its manager on 1 April 2017. Goldstone has worked alongside Barnett on UK equity strategies for the past five years and has been responsible for managing a UK equity pension fund since April 2014. We understand that Goldstone will be applying a similar approach to Barnett, but plan to speak with the incoming manager in the next couple of weeks to gain a better insight. Until then, the fund is placed Under Review.
Maintaining independence and editorial freedom is essential to our mission of empowering investor success. We provide a platform for our authors to report on investments fairly, accurately, and from the investors point of view. We also respect individual opinionsthey represent the unvarnished thinking of our people and exacting analysis of our research processes. Our authors can publish views that we may or may not agree with, but they show their work, distinguish facts from opinions, and make sure their analysis is clear and in no way misleading or deceptive.

To further protect the integrity of our editorial content, we keep a strict separation between our sales teams and authors to remove any pressure or influence on our analyses and research.

Read our editorial policy to learn more about our process.
In yet another mainstream media article about rising housing prices, brokers bare the unfair brunt of the blame.Brokers weighed in following an opinion piece in the CBC that argued for a clamp down on alternative lending  and suggested brokers were to blame for its proliferation.Mortgage brokers are the intermediary but we did not create the need for the product. In our culture today there is an incredible need to blame someone for something, nothing can ever be the confluence of trends and events there always needs to be a villain, Ron Butler , a broker with Butler Mortgage, wrote in the MBN forum in response to the article. Well not this time; mortgage brokers are just doing their job of bringing together borrowers and lenders. He needs to find out why there is such a need for non-bank lending before he points the finger at mortgage brokers.Butler was responding to a CBC opinion piece by a financial advisor who argued the government should target alternative lenders in a bid to address housing affordability.If we want to address the underlying causes of irrational price increases in housing, we should stop looking for convenient bogeymen like foreign buyers and house flippers. Soheil Karkhanechi, a private investor, writes in a recent opinion piece for the CBC. Instead, we need to tighten credit conditions for speculative transactions in a targeted manner that does not negatively impact other parts of the economy. The best way to do that: make nonconforming mortgages more expensive.Karkhanechi suggested the alternative market is less prudent than the A side and that brokers have a vested interest in offering alt-A loans.Much of the nonconforming loan market is brokered and there is often no direct contact between the borrower and the lender, but there is significant economic incentive for the broker to complete the transaction, he writes.The article, understandably, drew the ire of MBN readers."If you reform institutional alternative lending, clients will go to the private market which brokers also serve," one commenter wrote. "Does the writer also want the government to tell private individuals how to lender their money? Brokers don't set the rules and the products, we service the market."
The recent announcement of this years federal budget drew praise from a national group of housing co-operatives, which has pledged its willingness to work with the federal government in alleviating the worst impacts of the Canadian housing affordability crisis.



In a March 22 CNW press release, the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada (CHF Canada) said that it welcomed the long-term, new investments aimed at addressing affordable housing challenges outlined in the budget.



Housing co-ops applaud the federal government's significant new investment in housing, CHF Canada executive director Nicholas Gazzard said. The lack of choice and affordability in housing for low- and moderate-income Canadians is a major issue, and housing co-ops offer a proven solution. Were ready to partner with the federal government to leverage our successful model to create new affordable co-op homes for Canadians.



According to the budget, the federal government intends to preserve a baseline of funding related to these agreements so that affordability is preserved, with details to be defined this year, CHF Canada explained in its news release.



At present, roughly a quarter million Canadians reside in housing co-operatives, with as much as 20,000 households depending on government subsidies to remain solvent.



Existing funding programs are ending in large numbers, and CHF Canada has called on the federal government to recommit long term support starting in budget 2017 in order to protect affordability for low-income households, CHF Canada stated.





Related Stories:

National mortgage professionals group reacts to 2017 federal budget

Land trusts emerging as a potential housing affordability solution in Vancouver
Mount Pleasant, SC (29464)

Today

A few passing clouds. Low around 65F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

A few passing clouds. Low around 65F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph.
Education awards to be presented

The Midland Chamber of Commerce will honor 82 teachers and non-classroom personnel at the 25th annual Excellence in Teaching & Unsung Hero Awards in a ceremony at 5 p.m. today at Green Tree Country Club.

Each Midland County school submitted a nominee and a panel of judges determines an overall winner in each of three categories: elementary, secondary and Unsung Hero (a non-classroom staff member whose efforts contribute to the campus overall success).

During todays ceremony, all campus winners will be presented with a gift valued at $50, and each of the three overall category winners will receive a check for $2,500.

H-E-B is the events presenting sponsor. The Unsung Hero awards have been underwritten by the Abell-Hanger Foundation.

Leadership program accepting nominations

Nominations and applications are being accepted for the Four Star Leadership with General Tommy Franks, a summer leadership program planned for July 9-14 at Oklahoma Christian University in Hobart, Oklahoma. Seventy high school students from around the world will be selected. Students will have a chance to earn more than $15,000 in scholarships.

Program curriculum is designed around the four core principles of the four stars of leadership: character, common vision, communication and caring, according to a press release.

Application and nomination deadline is May 8. For more information, to apply or to nominate, visit FourStarLeader.com or call 580-726-5900.

UTPB student to present research

ODESSA -- A chemistry major at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin is among 63 students representing 51 universities who will participate today in Texas Undergraduate Research Day at the Capitol.

Jason Snitker is presenting An Alternative Technique for the Control of Biofilm Growth Caused by Anaerobic Sulfate Reducing Bacteria: Applying Rational Design of Silver Nanopartitcles.

The biennial event showcases research of students across the state. The presentations are through poster displays, according to a press release from UTPB.
Midland County commissioners on Monday voted against the resolution as described for the proposed transport of high-level nuclear waste through the county. The decision was based on five points members outlined to consider in the discussion.

Judge Mike Bradford said the language of the resolution included the word consent, but the county doesnt have authority over the railways.

We cant prohibit this, Bradford said. We can only voice what our community says they dont want. It is at this point a federal government project.

The court is scheduled to take action on April 10 on a resolution that addresses five points.

Bradford said the court is considering the following points: local hearings along the proposed route; federal funding and training for first responders before the first shipment and for the duration of the transport; inspections and upgrades of rail capacity if its the chosen shipment method; explanation for not storing waste at closer sites; and explanation for moving the waste.

We would like these questions answered and become a participant in the discussion  not a legal intervener, Bradford said. Talking with the legal community, theyre saying, Youre going to have a hard time getting legal standing because theres not a route now.

Proposed federal legislation would allow interim storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel, according to a previous Reporter-Telegram report. Spent nuclear fuel rods from more than 62 sites could be transported on rail lines through Midland County to a site in Andrews. Waste Control Specialists has applied for a license to store high-level nuclear waste at the site temporarily.

Luis Sanchez, commissioner for Precinct 3, said residents called him to express concerns about the proposal.

Some fears are possible terrorist attacks or any accidents, Sanchez said. Accidents can happen at 0.001 percent. Still, if one was to occur, how would we handle that? We talk about unfunded mandates. We would have to train local law enforcement and firefighters.

Before the vote, about a dozen people addressed the court  including Karmen Bryant, president of the League of Women Voters of Midland, and David Rosen, chairman of the Midland County Democratic Party.

Local scientist Steven Schafersman said there are risks associated with transporting radioactive waste. He said bringing it to the interim storage site opens the possibility for additional shipments through the county.

Its not going to be permanent storage like Yucca Mountain, Schafersman said. You only want to have to move it once. You dont want to have to move it twice.

But Tom Jones, vice president of community relations for Waste Control Specialists, said safety hasnt been a problem when transporting radioactive material in the United States.

Thousands of shipments of nuclear fuel have gone safely, Jones said. Shipping containers have been designed almost indestructibly.
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Microphone and US Flag View Photos

Congressman Adam Schiff, Ranking Member on the House Intelligence Committee, delivered the Weekly Democratic Address.

Schiff was Tuesdays KVML Newsmaker of the Day. Here are his words:

Last summer, a foreign power intervened in our presidential election in an effort to influence the outcome on behalf of one of the candidates.

That power was Russia, and the candidate was Donald J. Trump, now President of the United States. This is not a story made up to discredit Mr. Trump, but the consensus conclusion of the entire U.S. intelligence community.

More ominously, the intelligence community has concluded Vladimir Putin ordered this meddling and will do it again.

Congress launched an investigation into how the Russians intervened, how we must protect our democracy in the future, and whether persons affiliated with the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in this effort to undermine our democracy.

During this weeks hearing, FBI Director Comey revealed for the first time that he is conducting an investigation into whether Trump campaign personnel coordinated their efforts with the Russians, or acted as agents of a foreign power.

The FBI investigation began in July of last year, based on credible information or evidence to warrant that extraordinary step. That timing is significant.

It was in July that Paul Manafort was Trump campaign manager, that Trump foreign policy advisor Carter Page travelled to Moscow, that the Trump campaign intervened to defeat a provision in the Republican party platform hostile to Russian interests in Ukraine, and most significant, it was July when Russia began weaponizing the information it had stolen in an effort to attack Hillary Clinton.

Congress should establish an independent commission that has the staff, resources and single-minded focus necessary to investigate this matter.

Most important, as the events of this week demonstrate, an independent commission will be able to conduct its work insulated from any political interference.

The President believes this investigation as an attempt to undermine his legitimacy or credibility. It is not. Only the President is capable of doing that, and regrettably, he is at great risk of doing so.

During our hearing, Director Comey also testified that there was absolutely no basis for the Presidents startling accusation that his predecessor had wiretapped him in Trump tower.

This was revealed to be utter nonsense.

When a President of the United States makes claims that are proved baseless, it weakens the Presidency and undermines our security and standing in the world.

Presidential credibility, once squandered, may never be fully regained.

If the President should one day assert that North Korea has placed a nuclear weapon on a ballistic missile and action is necessary, it will be an enormous problem should that be untrue.

If it is true, it may be an even bigger problem if the President has lost the capacity to persuade our allies of the facts, let alone the American people.

Mr. President, I implore you, the country implores you, you have chosen two superb people to guide you, in General Mattis and General McMaster.

Seek their counsel. Listen to what they have to say.

And cherish the trust and hope that was placed in you by virtue of your office, by never again advancing claims that you know  or should know  are simply not true.

Thank you.
Sacramento, CA  President Donald Trump is planning to sign an executive order to rollback many federal environmental rules put in place by the Obama Administration, which the President claims will help the country gain energy independence.

The Executive Order includes dismantling the Clean Power Plan, which put in place new rules regulating energy plants powered by fossil fuels. The Obama Administration had been pushing to reduce the countrys reliance on fossil fuels. The plan has been tied up in court over the past year after 28 states and industry officials filed a lawsuit arguing that it is unconstitutional. President Trump was a sharp critic of the Clean Power Plan on the campaign trail.

This morning California Governor Jerry Brown and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo put out a joint statement in opposition to the Presidents Executive Order.

It reads, Dismantling the Clean Power Plan and other critical climate programs is profoundly misguided and shockingly ignores basic science. With this move, the Administration will endanger public health, our environment and our economic prosperity. Climate Change is real and will not be wished away by rhetoric or denial. We stand together with a majority of the American people in supporting bold actions to protect our communities from the dire consequences of climate change. Together, California and New York represent approximately 60 million people  nearly one-in-five Americans  and 20 percent of the nations gross domestic product. With or without Washington, we will work with our partners throughout the world to aggressively fight climate change and protect our future.

White House officials briefed the media on the Executive Order last night, noting that it is part of President Trumps desire to make the United States more energy independent and help the economy.
Sonora City Council Chambers View Photos

Sonora, CA  The Sonora City Council has called for a special meeting on Thursday to have further discussion about how the city may respond to Proposition 64.

City Administrator Tim Miller notes that this marks the second city workshop on the topic. Proposition 64, approved in November, legalizes marijuana for recreational use in California. Cities and counties still have the ability to pass localized rules and regulations in regards to marijuana, as long as they do not prevent residents from individually growing and/or possessing up to six plants, which is the core protection implemented by Proposition 64.

City Administrator Tim Miller notes, Well be looking at areas that the council might want to consider regulating. This could include everything from dispensaries to commercial growing, to manufacturing, testing and distribution. Well also be discussing what other cities are doing in respect to those areas of the proposition. Then public safety staff, and building staff, will be sharing some concerns that they may have in the areas like dispensaries and cultivation.

The public will also have an opportunity to comment at the meeting, and if the council is ready, may direct the staff on how it would like to proceed with an ordinance.

The open to the public meeting will get underway at 5pm on Thursday at Sonora City Hall, located at 94 North Washington Street.

We also reported earlier that the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors approved a temporary ban on the commercial sale of marijuana for recreational use in the unincorporated areas of the county. The supervisors have put together a marijuana working group to review more long-term solutions. The actions of the county supervisors do not cover the City of Sonoras jurisdiction, which is why the council is reviewing the issue separately.
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During the 2016 presidential election, immigration ranked as one of the most discussed and debated issues.

Fast forward to 2017, President Donald Trump is now in office and immigration continues to be one of the more prevalent topics of discussion, not only at the federal level, but the state level as well.

During a recent Florida House of Representatives subcommittee meeting, representatives from the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops argued that merely existing in the United States is not wrong. They said, Unlawful presence (in the United States) is not a crime.

PolitiFact Florida heard the claim and gave it a MOSTLY TRUE rating on their Truth-O-Meter.

PolitiFact writer Allison Graves says legal experts confirm the statement made by the organizations representatives. As a general rule, unlawful presence is not a crime. There is one caveat.

It should be noted, however, sometimes when people are here unlawfully, its possible that they got here in an illegal way, Graves said. So, for instance, if youd already been deported and then had reentered the country, then that would be a crime.

It is for that reason the claim received a MOSTLY TRUE rating.

SOURCES: Catholic bishops say presence not unlawful
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Editors note: Today, we look back at Week 12 of 365 Days of Tacos, in which food writer and restaurant critic Mike Sutter reports on a different taqueria, restaurant or truck every day on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com/Tacos . Sign up for our taco newsletter while youre there.

Taco of the Week

Mollejas, Mittman Fine Foods: Sweetbreads make great tacos, and Mittman serves its mollejas chopped, seared, tender and spiked with pico de gallo on one of the citys best corn tortillas.

The week in tacos, March 19-25

Taqueria El Charro De Jalisco: El Charro capitalizes on its proximity to Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland with a clean space, all-day breakfast, low prices and a crispy taco that honors the buildings former life as a Dairy Queen. Best taco: Beef crispy taco. 150 Valley Hi Drive, 210-645-0085, no web presence

Sustenio: From 2-7 p.m. for Social Hour, this upscale La Cantera restaurant sells $2 tacos, just like a mom-and-pop taqueria. The difference? Ones packed with fried oysters, the other with deliciously complex 72-hour brisket. Best taco: Fried oyster. 17103 La Cantera Parkway at the Eilan Hotel & Spa, 210-598-2950, eilanhotel.com/sustenio-restaurant.php

Mittman Fine Foods: This is the place Mayor Ivy Taylor chose to represent San Antonio at the Texas Taco War peace summit in Austin. We wont say Mittman won the war singlehandedly, but the other guy showed up with storebought tortillas. Best taco: Mollejas. 1125 S. Mittman St., 210-532-3318, no web presence

Que Taco: This strip-mall shop specializes in small, Mexico City-style tacos ready for you to dress out from a well-stocked salad and salsa bar, along with elaborate alambres with grilled onions, peppers and Chihuahua cheese. Best taco: Al pastor. 18360 Blanco Road, 210-384-2525, que-taco.com

Andreas Mexican Restaurant: The patchwork of painted-over vandalism makes Andreas look rough on the outside, but the inside is home to friendly service, low prices and good tacos. Best taco: Crispy tripas. 2525 SW Loop 410, 210-645-7315, no web presence

Vida Mia: This family-run taqueria has added a second location and branched into vegetarian and vegan options for healthier eating. That philosophy dovetails with the shops happy explosion of colors. Youll forgive me for passing up jicama tortillas in favor of tacos dorados, right? Best taco: Tacos dorados. 19141 Stone Oak Parkway #803, 210-490-2011, vidamiacuisine.com

Taqueria Jalisco #7: With locations dotted around the city, this chain is part of the patchwork quilt of taquerias that namecheck the Mexican state. What they generally share is a devotion to grilled meat, tacos, tortas and good value. Best taco: Carnitas. 7504 Marbach Road, 210-674-1398, no web presence

Week 11 winner: Sabinas Coffee House

Week 10 winner: Dannys Cocina Mexicana

Week 9 winner: The Original Donut Shop

Week 8 winner: Claudias Restaurant

Week 7 winner: Don Jose Mexican Cafe

Week 6 winner: Paloma Blanca

Week 5 winner: Mendez Cafe

Week 4 winner: Tacos Y Burritos Metro Basilica 2

Week 3 winner: El Buen Gusto Mexican Cafe

Week 2 winner: Taco Haven

Week 1 winner: Rays Drive Inn

msutter@express-news.net

Twitter: @fedmanwalking
Albany

Though the proposal to raise New York's age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18 remains a sticking point in what's slated to be the final week of state budget negotiations, other criminal justice issues remain on the table as Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders hammer out a final package.

On Monday, advocates worked to put faces on two of those initiatives.

Former Troy resident Adrian Thomas, who was initially charged with second-degree murder in the 2008 death of his infant son, came to the Capitol to press for reforms that would greatly expand and codify the use of video recording in police interrogations.

After more than nine hours of police interrogation over two days, Thomas had acted out throwing his 4-month-old  the scenario police had put before him to explain the baby's injury.

His 2009 conviction was set aside after the state Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that investigators used improper techniques to push Thomas toward his confession. He was acquitted in a second trial, where Thomas' defense team argued the baby had died as the result of a bacterial infection.

"The Troy police tormented Adrian unbelievably," said attorney Arthur Frost, who helped defend Thomas in his 2014 retrial. Frost said that without the "spoon-fed" confession, Thomas would never have faced charges.

Thomas, who now lives in Georgia and has remarried, and members of his legal team joined other advocates at the news conference to support a bill currently moving through the Assembly that would require videotaping police interrogations whenever a serious felony is suspected.

"I was very lucky that the Troy Police Department videotaped my interrogation," said Thomas. "But it shouldn't come down to luck."

The advocates were also there to criticize Cuomo's proposed videotaping expansion measure, which is currently wrapped into the public protection section of his executive budget plan. The governor's bill, they believe, is rife with loopholes that could lead to other wrongful convictions.

Cuomo's bill  which mirrors legislation that has already passed the Republican-controlled Senate  would require recording only when a suspect is officially in custody. Frost noted that Thomas was never technically in custody during his two-day interrogation.

"The governor ... wants to stop wrongful convictions of innocent men  we know that," Frost said. "The problem is the bill that he's choosing." The state District Attorneys Association is backing Cuomo's bill, he said; the same organization objected to the overturning of Thomas' conviction by the Court of Appeals.

Meanwhile, Cuomo spokesman Jason Elan said, "No matter the details, there will always be criticism from the fringes, but this proposal has received broad support from the Innocence Project, the District Attorneys Association and the New York State Bar Association, among others."

Also Monday, the brother of a man who was incarcerated in New York City's infamous Rikers Island jail complex for three years without going to trial pushed for speeding up the wheels of justice.

Kalief Browder was arrested at age 16 for allegedly stealing a backpack. He spent two years of his time in Rikers in solitary confinement. He was released just days after his 20th birthday. Beset by mental problems, he committed suicide two years later.

"Kalief was not a blip in the system, it's how the system runs," his brother Akeem Browder told the Times Union. "We have people coming home that (have been) falsely assessed, or diagnosed as (having) mental psychosis or paranoid schizophrenia. Meanwhile, it's just from the trauma they're suffering on Rikers and other facilities like Rikers. They wouldn't go through this PTSD ... if they were given their chance to at least have their day in court."

Akeem Browder was in Albany on Monday to lobby for legislation named after his brother that's aimed at reducing undue trial delays.

The state's speedy trial statute focuses on prosecutorial readiness  that is, when prosecutors simply say they are ready for trial  rather than commencing a trial within a certain number of days.

Dubbed "Kalief's Law," the bill would toughen up the rules that allow judges to set the deadlines by which prosecutors have to state that they're ready to proceed to trial.

Often referred to as the "trial clock," the system currently excludes certain periods of time due to factors such as court congestion from the length of time allowed for prosecutorial preparation.

As a result, the clock often remains effectively stopped for months or longer.

Under the proposed bill, judges would have the power to determine whether a period of adjournment following a defendant's court appearance is to be included or excluded from the trial clock.

The bill has languished at the Capitol, despite receiving overwhelming bipartisan support in the Democrat-dominated Assembly.

It has never come up for a vote in the state Senate. Asked on his way out of a Monday meeting with the governor and other legislative leaders Monday afternoon if reforms to the speedy trial statute were being discussed, Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan replied, "None that I'm aware of."

The District Attorneys Association is opposed to Kalief's Law.

Cuomo's budget proposal includes appropriation authority necessary to provide funding to get trials on a speedier track, as well as $100,000 for research and development of administrative guidance to ensure the right to a speedy trial.

The new fiscal year begins Saturday. Negotiations are ongoing.

cseiler@timesunion.com  518-454-5619
Albany

An international drug dealer who threatened to kill an Albany County jail inmate  and the man's family members  if he testified against the dealer was convicted Tuesday of witness tampering but acquitted of witness intimidation.

Manuel Luna, 50, who was already serving 15 years in prison for moving upward of $6 million worth of heroin and cocaine, now faces more time behind bars after a two-day trial before state Supreme Court Justice Thomas Breslin.

The jury, which began deliberating at 10:40 a.m., delivered its verdict after 4 p.m.

Luna, a native of the Dominican Republic, threatened to kill the inmate, a longtime drug dealing associate, in November 2015 when both men were at the jail in the same tier. The victim and a third inmate both testified Monday that Luna made the threat after Luna learned the man had pleaded guilty to second-degree conspiracy in the drug case and planned to testify against Luna at trial.

At the time, Luna, the victim and the third inmate were playing dominos and talking about the drug case, the victim testified.

"He told me, 'You guys have to stop talking (expletive) ... if I can't get you, I'm going to get one of your family members,'" the victim testified Luna told them.

"What does 'get' mean to you?" Assistant District Attorney Megan Spillane asked the victim.

"Kill," the victim responded.

"How did the threat make you feel?" the prosecutor asked.

"Scared," the man replied.

The man and several other associates of Luna testified against him before a grand jury and at trial.

In closing arguments Tuesday, Luna's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Michael Jurena, questioned why nobody at the jail other than the two inmates testified against Luna.

"We didn't hear anyone from the jail testify because there was no threat," Jurena told the jury.

Jurena suggested Albany County prosecutors only brought the case because they were upset after state Supreme Court Justice Richard Mott sentenced Luna to just 15 years as a convicted "major trafficker." Luna had faced 25 years to life for conviction last year of orchestrating the shipment of heroin and cocaine from South America and Mexico. The drugs were headed to Buffalo from New York City. The case was tried in Albany because State Police stopped a "mule" transporting the narcotics for Luna on the Thruway in Bethlehem.

Spillane told the jury that Luna, fearing he could spend the rest of his life in prison, issued the threat to avoid a "death sentence" behind bars.

"(Luna) took care of the one thing that he felt could take him down," she said.

rgavin@timesunion.com  518-434-2403  @RobertGavinTU
The movement to boycott state tests appears to be fizzling at Capital Region schools, as superintendents reported more students sitting for state reading exams on Tuesday.

Students in grades 3 through 8 will undergo three days of testing this week in English Language Arts. Another three-day round of testing kicks off May 2 in math.

Thirty out of the 41 districts in the four-county Capital Region reported fewer students boycotting the exam. Two districts  Menands and Hoosick Falls  reported more boycotts. Nine districts did not respond to the survey by the end of the day Tuesday.

Averill Park Superintendent James Hoffman attributes the drop-off in boycotts to efforts by the state to address testing concerns.

"There has been a steady drumbeat of information from the state Education Department saying, 'Look, it's a different company designing these tests and we've made changes,'" he said. "Another piece of it is just time. Time has passed and parents aren't seeing as many issues."

A nationwide movement against state testing had grown steadily since the late 2000s, as states began swapping out old learning standards for new ones known as the Common Core. In some states, like in New York, state officials attempted to tie student outcomes on those tests to a teacher's job evaluation  prompting outcry from teachers unions and parents, who said children were stressed out and under intense pressure to do well or risk their teacher losing their job.

It didn't help that in New York, teachers reported a messy rollout of new curricula and little help getting trained in the new standards. With encouragement from the teachers unions and parent groups, the number of parents opting their children out of the exams climbed to about 250,000 last year, or one out of every five students in New York.

The arrival of a new education commissioner in 2015 and changes on the Board of Regents have helped to calm the waters, though. Commissioner MaryEllen Elia announced a new state testing vendor, shortened tests and no more time constraints for students taking the tests. A moratorium on the use of test scores in teacher evaluations was imposed, as well.

In the Capital Region, these changes helped to soften the boycotts last year. This year, they continued to drop.

The biggest decline in opt-outs was reported in Edinburg, a tiny district in rural Saratoga County where 100 percent of students took the state ELA exams on Tuesday. Last year, 87 percent of students took the ELA exams.

Other large declines were reported in South Colonie (Albany County) and Scotia-Glenville (Schenectady County). In South Colonie, the percentage of students boycotting the exams fell from 25 percent to 15 percent. In Scotia-Glenville, it fell from 39 percent to 29 percent.

Some districts continue to see a large number of students refusing the tests, even as those numbers shrink. These include Brunswick-Brittonkill in Rensselaer County, where 50 percent of students refused to take the exams; Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk in Albany County, where 39 percent refused; and Waterford-Halfmoon in Saratoga County, where 32 percent refused.

Other regions of the state reported a similar drop-off in test refusals Tuesday, including Queensbury and Rochester, according to local news reports. It's unclear yet what rates were like in Long Island, where the boycotts have been the largest and most vocal.

"Day one reports show a continued trend against opt outs and toward even greater participation, and that's good for students and for New York's future," said Steve Sigmund, executive director of High Achievement New York, a group that supports raising K-12 learning standards. "These assessments provide an annual checkup for students, identify achievement gaps so they can be closed, and have gotten better through listening to the concerns of parents and educators."

bbump@timesunion.com  518-454-5387  @bethanybump
Albany

A New York court has ordered the state budget director to release more than $69 million in grants for 20 school districts, including Albany, one year after the funds were frozen in a dispute with the state Education Department.

A judge had ordered the funds released on Dec. 28, 2016, but the state appealed the decision, which triggered an automatic stay of the ruling and again tied up the funds. On Monday, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court approved a request to lift the stay and ruled the funds must be immediately disbursed so that they can be used toward programs in the upcoming 2017-18 school year.

"These grants were frozen illegally, forcing the schools to discontinue vital academic and support services in the current school year," said Wendy Lecker, senior attorney for the Education Law Center, which represented parents in a lawsuit seeking a release of the funds. "These schools can now plan to restore these programs to improve performance and help their students succeed."

The decision to freeze the grant funding dates to spring 2016, when the state Education Department announced some 70 schools across New York would be released from its receivership program. The program required struggling schools to boost student achievement within a one- or two-year time frame or face the possibility of an outside takeover.

The department released the schools based on updated test scores, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office objected on the grounds that the schools had not been in the program for a full year yet  as the program was originally envisioned. In turn, he ordered budget director Robert Mujica to withhold "improvement" grants the state had made available for 20 of the most-struggling schools in the program, even though only nine of them had been released from the program.

Hackett Middle School in Albany lost out on more than $2 million when the grants were frozen and canceled an extended-day program that had been in place for a year thanks to the funding. Part of the lost grant money included about $545,000 that the state had approved for the 2015-16 school year but did not reimburse following the dispute, district spokesman Ron Lesko said.

Parents from Hackett and two other schools in New York sued the state several months later in September 2016, arguing it was unfair to promise funding and take it away as soon as schools showed any sign of progress. The December 2016 ruling sided with parents, as did the state Education Department, which was named a defendant in the suit.

"We are pleased with the court's decision to lift the stay and allow for the release of funding for these at-risk schools," said department spokeswoman Emily DeSantis on Monday.

A Cuomo spokesman said his office is reviewing the decision.

The state's appeal will be heard in May.

Should the state win its appeal, the schools could be ordered to pay back the grants, Lecker said. But part of the grounds for granting the motion to release the funds was a burden on the plaintiffs to show they were likely to win on appeal, she said.

"So the fact that they granted our motion to vacate is a signal they think we will prevail," she said.

bbump@timesunion.com  518-454-5387  @bethanybump
On this date in ...

1917: While 23-year-old Carl Rank was arrested on the technical charge of intoxication, Albany police admitted that Rank, a native German, had been under surveillance for some time due to his outspokenness in support of Germany in the war in Europe, outspokenness that had cost him several jobs in the city. The seizure of his belongings in his rooms at a State Street office building  including chemicals, photographs of public buildings and three pocket cameras  indicated to city detectives that Rank was a German spy.

1967: The Colonie Village Board approved a two-year contract to buy water from the town of Colonie for 34 cents per 1,000 gallons. The contract represented a 7-cent increase per 1,000 gallons over the five-year agreement that had terminated in the fall. One village official asserted that the town was charging its own customers 4 cents less for the basic rate while it claimed that even the 34-cent rate would pose a financial drain on the town's Latham Water District.

1992: By most accounts, Jerry Brown, after his surprise win last week over Bill Clinton in Connecticut, had the momentum going into New York's April 7 primary. Brown was witnessing the media go from ignoring him to stumbling over one another to grab an interview. Brown's rallies, like the one at the state Capitol, were jammed with supporters and the curious. Standing in Brown's way, however, was a highly organized Clinton team filled with seasoned campaign workers who had been tapping into New York's labor, political and ethnic leadership.

Want to read more about the Capital Region's past? Have any memories or thoughts about how our history relates to today's events? See http://blog.timesunion.com/history/
Some University of Texas at Austin graduate students have been holding office hours in a campus bar called the Cactus Cafe since August, when the states campus carry law allowed concealed handguns to be carried nearly everywhere on Texas university campuses.

It was a way to hold academic meetings in a gun-free space, because it's illegal to bring a concealed handgun into a venue that primarily serves alcohol.
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AUSTIN  In a surprise move, the Texas House approved a proposal that would target so-called sanctuary businesses that hire immigrants who are in the country illegally.

An amendment by Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, required businesses with Texas Railroad Commission contracts -- and those that the agency regulates -- to attest under penalty of perjury that they have not hired immigrants who are not legally authorized to work in the United States. It also directed the agency to report businesses to local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities if they fail to comply, and to publish a list of their names on the commission's website. Violating the measure would be a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail and a $4,000 fine.
Michael Ciaglo/Staff

AUSTIN -- The Texas Senate on Tuesday added its support to construction of the so-called Ike Dike coastal barrier to mitigate damage from future hurricanes and floods in Houston and surrounding coastal areas.

Without debate, Senate Concurrent Resolution 32 was approved, calling on Congress to expedite construction of the coastal barrier by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
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AUSTIN -- The Texas House hastily avoided a vote Tuesday on a proposal that would have regulated transgender Texans' bathroom use in some government buildings.

Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, nixed an amendment by Rep. Matt Schaefer, R-Tyler, which would have directed the Texas Railroad Commission to require that people use bathrooms matching their biological sex, as stated on their birth certificate, in agency-owned buildings. The measure was aimed at Railroad Commission facilities because Schaefer tried to include his amendment on House Bill 1818, the commission's sunset bill.

SPEAKING OUT: Texans' Bob McNair weighs in on Texas bathroom bill

However, Straus determined that Schaefer's proposal was not germane to the bill, telling Schaefer that at least since 1913 the speaker has had the authority to knock off amendments he determines are not related to the bill's substance.

From the speaker's dais, Straus said a House parliamentarian discussed Schaefer's amendment at length with the Tyler Republican, but Straus' move still sparked a tense exchange with a group of far-right Republicans known for their opposition to the speaker.

They questioned Straus' authority to make such a ruling before the sponsor had a chance to introduce the amendment and argue for its passage. Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford, tried to find a procedural mechanism that would allow a group of at least 10 House members to challenge the speaker's ruling, but Straus said no such maneuver existed. That left Stickland questioning what rights individual members have when they disagree with the speaker, who is elected by the 150-member body.

UNSUNG FIGHT: State music museum site riles up heated debate in Austin

"I will not recognize you to challenge the germaneness," Straus responded. "You have the right to vote on this bill."

A broader proposal, covering bathrooms in public colleges and all government buildings, passed the Senate in a nearly party-line vote earlier this month. House leaders, however, repeatedly have said they do not think the bill is a priority in their chamber, where it is unlikely to get a floor vote.

>>>Scroll through the gallery to see 10 things to know about the Texas 'bathroom bill'
This week brought several challenges that had me pulling my hair out. Well not literally, but close.

I want to share them with you, in case you ever run across the same situation you will know what to do. A customer called and said he was having problems with his wood floor. He has been using The Bona Spray Mop for years and just recently started getting hazing across the floor. There can be several reasons for this.

If you do not use enough product when you are cleaning it will cause a haze. Give the floor a good spray every four square feet, and don't scrimp just because you want the floor to dry faster. Clean your pad after you do the floors. Throw it in the wash by its self and let it air dry. Dirt and grime build up on the pad, and cleaning with a dirty mop head is not good. Instead of cleaning, you just spread the grime around and it leaves a shadow.

If you use the Bona, and use a dry Swiffer sheet to apply the cleaner it might haze. There is a wax on the dry Swiffer sheets. When you spray on the cleaner, it will break down the wax on the Swiffer and put it on the floor.

Also if you normally use Bona, and then use another cleaner it might haze because the products don't mix well. If this happens to you, remove the haze with Power Plus from Bona. Power Plus is a deep cleaner and anyone that carries Bona will carry it, or can get it for you. So it's an easy fix! The customer service representatives at Bona were amazing and helpful in solving this problem. I like Bona. I use it on my new wood floors and have never had any problem. It's easy, the fragrance is pleasant, and it dries quickly.

Now to the email ...

Question: I want to update my brick fireplace. I want to paint the bricks, clean up the interior of the box and paint it also. What products do I use?

Answer: Since this is a wood burning fireplace with no gas insert this will be simple. Use a shop vac to clean out any dust left over in the fireplace box from the winter. (What winter?) Wipe down the interior with a damp sponge and then paint with a high temp black paint. This will make the interior look brand new. Then clean the brick on the outside of the fireplace with TSP. TSP comes in a liquid or a granule. Use a stiff brush to clean with and then rinse with clear water. After the clean brick is dry prime with Grip and Seal. Paint the brick with any latex paint, 2 coats. Great Project!

Question: I want to clean and polish some silver that I inherited from my in-laws estate. I don't know whether it's sterling or silver plate. So what is best to clean and polish with if you don't know?

Answer: If you can't see any marking, assume its silver plate, and then just use a cleaner instead of a polish. If you use a polish you run the risk of removing the plating and getting down to the base metal. Polishing actually removes a tiny amount of the surface of the silver and if it is sterling, that's no problem. So to be on the safe side, just use a cleaner.

Question: Hi Trudy! I have a interesting question. A contractor that was working in our home accidently got a red waterproofing product on the porcelain bathtub. He left and I did not see it until later the next day. Do you know of any product that would remove it without damaging the tub surface?

Answer: I would use Tub O Towels in the original yellow container. It shocks me how well it will clean even the toughest spots. I have seen it clean dried spray paint that was 2 years old off of a commercial vinyl floor tile. It will remove grease, tar, oil off of hard surfaces so I am sure that it would take off the water proofer off the porcelain tub. If you have any questions, call me at the San Antonio store - 210-341-1573.

If you cannot find the products mentioned here locally, you can find them at www.happyhandyman.com. Click on Shop Johnnie's Favorites, or call the store at 210-341-1573. Email Trudy Chuoke Lesage at happyhandyman2@yahoo.com. Mail can be sent to Johnnie Chuoke's Home and Hardware, 2361 NW Military, San Antonio, TX 78231.
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With several food and drink options opening in Tomball along Main Street in recent years, the city strip is central to its downtown revitalization and overall plans for growth.

As many suburban towns look to expand, Tomball wants to revitalize its downtown to accentuate that growth and focus it around the vision of a thriving downtown district highlighted by staples like the Tomball depot and its signature antique shops.

From the mid-1980s until the late-2000s, downtown Tomball was little more than a quaint collection of antique shops that closed early, said Chamber of Commerce President Bruce Hillegeist.

In recent years, the city's made a number of improvements to the area including the construction of new restrooms, a splash pad and sidewalks connecting the depot to Main Street. The city gradually intends to add more sidewalks according to Tomball's city manager, George Shackelford, who said the initial depot changes were in response to a Houston-Galveston Area Council study.

"With Fire Ant (Brewing Co.), that in and of itself is a draw. People like breweries and food trucks," Shackelford said, adding that the city's recent move to annex 65 acres of land for the Grand Parkway Town Center project - which allows the city to collect tax on the area - is another example of this strategic growth.

At the turn of the decade, Tomball began reviewing and creating zoning ordinances to promote downtown redevelopment, and find ways to promote tourism and marketing.

One of those ordinances recently cleared the way for "mobile food courts" like 403 Eats, which the mayor runs with her husband on the east end of Main Street. It overturned a previous ordinance which limited food trucks to four hours of in-city parking from just two years ago.

At the turn of the decade, the downtown area saw a burst of small business growth highlighted by Cisco's Salsa Co. in 2011. In 2012 the Turquoise Door, Nonnie's Soda Fountain, and the Empty Glass opened.

Jane and John Dough Bakery and Tejas Chocolate Craftory opened in 2015.

Last year, Fire Ant Brewing Co., at 308 Market St., debuted after its owners transitioned from homebrewing to a commercial business.

All are on or adjacent to Main Street.

"Around Brautigams, they were empty barns." Shackelford said, "It takes someone with a special vision."

Shackleford was referring to Bryan Hutson, a former attorney who sold his law practice in Dallas and returned to Tomball to focus on developing its downtown. He said Hutson envisioned Tejas, which operates out of the oldest standing building in the city, built in 1907, when it was just an old house.

"It's the heart of town," Shackleford said of Main St. "Hutson saw the vision to recapture some of those older buildings."

He added that an important aspect of that vision was to create a family-friendly atmosphere. It's why their festivals end around six to eight at night.

"There were a lot of vacant places around Main Street, but even in those times, the dream was for Tomball to be a destination location," Hillegeist said.
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A wave of local outrage is growing over a proposal by Conroe state lawmaker Brandon Creighton that critics fear would allow commercial development in Jones State Forest, one of Montgomery County's most pristine and popular parks.

However, Creighton said his Senate bill is intended only to allow a small portion of the park to be used for educational purposes and that the language is too broad and he would remove the word "commercial" from the bill.

Under SB 1964, the Republican senator earlier this month proposed a measure amending the state Education Code so that the construction of buildings, including some for "private commercial use," would be allowed on the grounds of the sprawling pine forest.

Creighton said his proposed bill comes at the request of the Texas A&M University system, the owner of the 1,722-acre forest park along FM 1488 in Montgomery County. Texas A&M wants to use 5-10 percent of the southern end of the park for educational use, according to the senator.

"This is a Texas A&M request for Texas A&M use within a Texas A&M asset," Creighton stated in a letter sent to constituents Monday, a day before his office announced he would drop the word "commercial" from the legislation.

"Whether or not the University uses a portion of the forest should be a public discussion," wrote Creighton, who said his predecessor in the Senate, Tommy Williams, now vice chancellor for State and Federal Relations at the Texas A&M University System, requested the legislation. "My intent with Senate Bill 1964 was to honor the request to begin this conversation."

"The Texas A&M System would like to further our land grant mission by using a limited portion of Jones State Forest for educational purposes beyond the current use." Williams stated in a release sent out Tuesday afternoon by Creighton's office. "We appreciate Senator Creighton's help in facilitating the process to obtain feedback from locals in the community on this proposal."

The bill has been referred to the Senate Higher Education Committee, where it awaits a hearing. Under Senate rules, the bill's language cannot be altered until that public hearing.

Opened in 1926 and operated by what was previously known as the Forestry Department of Texas A&M University System, but is now known as the Texas A&M Forest Service, the park features two lakes and nearly 15 miles of trails that wind through its towering pine trees, some of which are about 100 years old.

The forest service, because it is a state agency, has no public position on the bill, spokeswoman Linda Moon told The Courier. But as word of the bill's introduction spread through social media, the electronic equivalent of howls of protest, as well as questions about the motivation behind the bill, were heard across the region.

One of those people spurring the cries of protest is longtime area resident Sarah Palacios-Wilhelm, whose back yard runs up against the south side of the forest. She initiated a change.org petition urging Creighton to withdraw the bill. Posted on Sunday, by Tuesday afternoon more than 5,300 people had added their electronic signatures to the petition.

"There are so many people that are working to fight this," Palacios-Wilhelm told The Courier.

And she's not convinced by the senator's letter claiming that his proposal would be limited to a small portion of the park.

"The way he's written the bill, it's much broader than that," she told The Courier. "He wrote the bill and in it the bill specifically says commercial use."

In her petition, Palacios-Wilhelm also questions Creighton's motivations, including his legal work for a real estate developer.

"It is also concerning that Sen. Creighton, as VP of The Signorelli Company a real estate development firm, and his business could benefit financially from this bill," she wrote in her petition.

Indeed, it's no secret that Creighton works as general counsel for The Signorelli Company, one of the largest privately held development companies in Texas. Headquartered in The Woodlands, the company boasts on its website that it has built more than 10,000 homes and 5 million square feet of retail, multifamily and medical development.

Speaking by phone to The Courier from the floor of the Senate in Austin Tuesday, Creighton acknowledged that he is aware of the petition, but had not seen it. He dismissed the claim that if the bill is eventually passed that it would result in any sort of financial gain.

"I don't use, and never have used, my public service for any type of personal gain," he said.

Creighton also admitted the wording of the bill was broad, but also pointed out the measure was in its early stages, with it still sitting in committee.

"The bill creates the conversation. The process allows the ideas to evolve and to be changed in accordance with the public's feedback," Creighton said.

Later Tuesday, his office issued a statement saying he would remove the "commercial" language from the bill.

Meanwhile, the Lonestar Chapter of the Sierra Club, the Texas branch of the nationwide Sierra Club, is opposed to the measure, with a representative in its Houston office pointing to the dwindling amount of open space in the region, and noting there have been moves to develop parts of the park before.

"It's about the third or fourth time in the past 20 years there's been an attempt to sell off or destroy Jones State Forest," Brandt Mannchen, a forest manager issues chairman for the club, told The Courier.

Also acknowledging concerns about the measure, but saying she was unable to provide a full comment, was the president of the nonprofit group Friends of Texas Wildlife, the only wildlife rescue group in Montgomery County.

"We're kind of concerned and questioning as well," Marcia Bartos told The Courier, noting the state forest is home to the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker, while also saying her group had to remain neutral on the topic because of its nonprofit status.

Indeed, the woodpecker, which was listed as endangered in 1970, is only one of two woodpecker species protected by the Endangered Species Act.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says though the bird's population has been on the rebound since it was listed as endangered, it will still take decades to restore the species to a secure status in the wild.

As the debate over SB 1964 intensifies, area residents stream into the park on warm spring days. About 100,000 people visit the preserve on an annual basis, including longtime county resident Rick Jones, who frequently heads to the forest to enjoy a mountain bike ride.

Jones tells The Courier parking spaces are hard to come by at the park now, which he describes as a place that "kind of gets you out of the rat race."

Senate Bill 1964 Text

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED AN ACT

relating to the use of land in Jones State Forest for academic and economic purposes.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

SECTION 1. Section 88.1015, Education Code, is amended by adding Subdivision (4) to read as follows:

(4) "Jones State Forest" means the real property owned by The Texas A&M University System consisting of approximately 1,733 acres in Montgomery County and referred to as the William Goodrich Jones State Forest.

SECTION 2. Subchapter B, Chapter 88, Education Code, is amended by adding Section 88.1085 to read as follows:

Sec. 88.1085. USE OF LAND IN JONES STATE FOREST.

(a) Notwithstanding any other provision in this subchapter, the board may use or lease land in Jones State Forest for the construction of buildings or improvements for multipurpose uses, including academic, research, and private commercial uses, when in its judgment it is advantageous to the state to do so.

(b) Net profits accruing from use or lease of land in Jones

State Forest under the authority of this section shall be used at the discretion of the board.

SECTION 3. This Act takes effect September 1, 2017.
An inmate at the Beaumont Federal Correction Complex will spend an additional 33 months in custody for biting a corrections officer in late December 2015 as the officer was transporting the inmate to the unit's medical facility.

Montreal Delaney, 38, was scheduled for release on July 6, but will spend almost three years more in lockup for the current offense.
NORWALK  A Nathan Hale Middle School student was arrested Monday after bomb threats against the school were posted on social media Monday, police said.

Police said they determined the threats to be unfounded. They were dispatched to the school at 10:44 a.m. on a report of threats regarding a bomb that were received from the student by email, and also posted on social media.

Police said they responded rapidly and investigated thoroughly before determining there was no bomb at the school.

Investigators spoke to school staff, as well as the parents of the unnamed student. Police said that the parents were cooperative. An assessment by police determined that the student had no means of possessing a bomb.

Police said that at no time was there a threat to the community.

The student, whose age and gender were not disclosed by police, was charged as a juvenile with breach of peace and two counts of threatening.

Brenda Wilcox Williams, a spokeswoman for the school district, presented a slightly different version of events than the police departments account of what led to the students arrest.

According to Williams, administrators at Nathan Hale received a report about an incident involving students that took place on the ride home from school Friday afternoon. A student reported about a possible threat that was made during the course of a disagreement about where students sit on the bus, she said.

Consistent with district safety protocols, the schools resource officer (SRO) and Norwalk Police Department were immediately notified, Williams said in an email. Our district school safety coordinator was also at the school to assist. It was quickly determined that the threats were unfounded.

Nathan Hale families were notified Monday night about the report in an email from the schools principal, Williams said.

llake@hearstmediact.com
AUSTIN -- The Senate on Monday tentatively passed a bill that would bring Texas Voter ID law into compliance with federal court rulings. Passed originally in 2011, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last July that the law requiring use of a government photo ID violated provisions of the Voting Rights Act. In order to update the law and allow enforcement, SB 5, by Houston Sen. Joan Huffman, would bring the law into compliance with the ruling. Huffman believes her bill meets the standards laid out by the court while protecting against voter fraud. "The intent of Senate Bill 5 is to follow all constitutional direction that we've received from the federal courts to achieve a bill that is fair to all who want to vote, yet retains the integrity of the vote," she said.

The bill would expand a pilot program that created mobile ID certification service that offers an ID suitable for voting at no charge. It would also create a way for people without a photo ID to still vote a full ballot. A person would have to sign an affidavit affirming that they have a reasonable impediment to obtaining a photo ID, such as a lack of transportation, work schedule, or lack of a birth certificate. Then they would present an official document verifying their name and address, like a bank statement, pay stub or utility bill, and can cast a regular ballot. The penalty for intentionally lying on this affidavit would be a third degree felony. It would also allow use of an expired photo ID for up two years after it lapses, and allows those older than 70 to use an expired photo ID indefinitely. The bill will face a final vote later in the week.
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From digital technology to neighborhood revitalization, an educational forum Monday attended by two of San Antonios mayoral candidates stood as a testament to the far-reaching role education plays in a community  something that both Ron Nirenberg and Mayor Ivy Taylor agreed upon.

Throughout the 90-minute forum at the KIPP Cevallos Campus, Taylor stressed continuing her role in San Antonio education as mayor, including replicating her work on the East Side to other neighborhoods, while Nirenberg, councilman for District 8 who is running for mayor, stressed the importance of new partnerships and new beginnings.

I think there is a reticence (on Taylors part) to believe the city has an opportunity to influence better school outcomes for children and families, when in fact we have an extraordinary role to play, Nirenberg said after the forum on Monday.

He said she seemed to deflect responsibility to state and federal policies.

Meanwhile, Taylor frequently referenced her experience as mayor throughout the forum.

I dont think there is a difference in philosophy, she said later. There is a difference in experience.

Mayoral candidate Manuel Medina was also invited to the forum, but chose not to attend, according to the event moderator, Robert Rivard.

The role of charter schools in the community was brought up on more than one occasion. On the federal level, the issue has come up with the new secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, who has advocated for school choice.

Taylor also expressed advocacy for school choice, saying that as a former urban planner, she saw the good education that charter schools could provide to children in lower-income communities.

I saw the charter schools as an opportunity to give options to people who had been in those neighborhoods and were left behind, and folks who maybe are moving into the neighborhood and setting down stakes and wanting to be a part of revitalization, she said. Thats why I have been a supporter of high performing charter schools that have graced our community.

Taylor said she put her child in charter schools on the East Side because she wanted to support her local neighborhood but didnt feel comfortable with the public schools that were available to her there.

Nirenberg said that while charters can be used to pilot innovative curricula, public schools deserve priority.

Public charters are here to stay, Nirenberg said. But we want to make sure were working with them as complements to high quality public school as opposed to a replacement for one.

San Antonio has also been nationally recognized for Pre-K 4 SA, a city-wide program that is largely funded by a 1/8th of a cent sales tax. The program also serves as an example of how the city government can impact education.

Nirenberg was adamant about continuing, and possibly expanding the program.

Our goal needs to be that every child in San Antonio is enrolled in or has some sort of early childhood education, he said.
ACAPULCO, MEXICO--(Marketwired - March 28, 2017) - In the framework of the 2017 "Tianguis Turistico" edition, Aeromexico, Mexico's global airline, announced that its growth strategy has allowed it to maintain its position as the largest global airline network in Mexico serving 44 domestic and 45 international destinations.

This leadership position is grounded in the carrier's strategy to continue increasing its domestic and international connectivity options along with its fleet renewal plan for its more than 130 aircraft, including the Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 Dreamliner, considered the most modern commercial aircraft in the sky.

In the last two years, the airline has added 12 new international destinations to its network spanning three continents, including Boston, Medellin, Panama, Toronto, and Vancouver in 2015; Amsterdam, Austin, and Santo Domingo in 2016; and Calgary, Detroit, Seoul, and San Jose, California this year.

It is also important to note that Aeromexico's international consolidation strategy for this year, is centered on strengthening its route network with a 150% increase in the number of flights offered to Canada, a 120% increase in the number of seats offered to Asia, a 30% increase in the number of flights it operates to Europe, and a nearly 15% increase in its service to Central and South America, as the carrier maintains its position as the only Latin American airline with a presence in Asia.

In the domestic market, Aeromexico was one of the first companies to join the Viajemos Todos por Mexico (Let's All Travel Through Mexico) Program implemented by the Ministry of Tourism, reporting a 100% growth in its Gran Plan package bookings to destinations like Huatulco, Los Cabos, Merida, Puerto Vallarta, and Zihuatanejo in the First Quarter of 2017.

Thus, Aeromexico continues to significantly strengthen its flight connection network by offering customers more options with the quality service the carrier features on each one of its flights.

Story continues

About Grupo Aeromexico

Grupo Aeromexico, S.A.B. de C.V. is a holding company whose subsidiaries are engaged in commercial aviation in Mexico and the promotion of passenger loyalty programs. Aeromexico, Mexico's global airline, operates more than 600 daily flights and its main hub is in Terminal 2 at the Mexico City International Airport. Its destinations network features more than 80 cities on three continents, including 44 destinations in Mexico, 19 in the United States, 15 in Latin America, four in Canada, four in Europe and three in Asia.

The Group's fleet of more than 130 aircraft is comprised of Boeing 787, 777 and 737 jet airliners and next generation Embraer 145, 170 and 190 models. In 2012, the airline announced the most significant investment strategy in aviation history in Mexico, to purchase 100 Boeing aircraft including 90 MAX B737 jet airliners and 10 B787-9 Dreamliners.

As a founding member of SkyTeam, Aeromexico offers customers more than 1,000 destinations in 177 countries served by the 20 SkyTeam airline partners rewarding passengers with benefits including access to 672 premium airport lounges around the world. Aeromexico also offers travel on its codeshare partner flights with Delta Air Lines, Alaska Airlines, Avianca, Copa Airlines and Westjet with extensive connectivity in countries like the United States, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia and Peru. www.aeromexico.com www.skyteam.com

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A former "America's Next Top Model" contestant was among the four wounded in a Sunday night shooting that left two dead in northern Harris County, a family member confirmed Monday.

Brandy Rusher, 32, was rushed to the hospital after an unidentified suspect fired off 15 to 18 shots at the Haverstock Hill apartments on Aldine Bender.

SHOCKING: Sources: Montrose Veteinarian in murder-for-hire

Christopher Beatty was slain in the gunfire and a 31-year-old man - whose name was not immediately released - died at the scene, according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

The chaos kicked off around 6:30 p.m., after a call for a neighbor disturbance. Witnesses later told sheriff's deputies that three people had pulled up to the complex in a white four-door car. Two men got out and started arguing with the victims and eventually one suspect grabbed a semi-automatic rifle from the trunk and opened fire, deputies said.

All three men hopped in the car and fled the scene in an unknown direction, leaving fear and chaos in their wake.

"People were running everywhere," said Deputy Thomas Gilliland. A sheriff's office official later added that is an ongoing investigation and authorities have not ruled out the possibility that the violence could be gang-related.

The Haverstock Hills complex has long been a source of problems in the community.

In 2010, the county filed for its first ever gang injunction after law enforcement responded to more than 3,000 calls at the property in a single year.

"It's too dangerous, even, to go in and buy drugs," HCSO Lt. Jesse Incencio said at the time.

The legal move banned dozens of gang members from a 57-acre zone including the 700-unit complex. The so-called "safety zone" was later expanded to 217 acres and in 2014 a judge made the injunction permanent.

MURDER: Teen accused in fatal stabbing may have suffered battered woman syndrome

Long before the most recent outburst of of violence at Haverstock, Rusher nabbed her 15 minutes in the spotlight when she competed on "Top Model" in 2005. She was ultimately booted from the contest after host Tyra Banks doled out a stern warning about her "negative attitude."

Rusher said at the time that she'd just been portrayed badly through editing.

"I don't believe I have anger-management issues," she told the Chronicle in 2005. "I believe my biggest problem was being defensive. When I felt someone was coming at me wrong, I would defend myself. It's all a part of how I grew up."

Since ending her run on the show, Rusher has lived an apparently quiet life in the Houston area, outside the limelight. She designs and makes her own clothes and works braiding hair, according to long-time friend Lessie Williams.

"If you meet Brandy and her family, they are so polite and they are so respectful and that's kind of hard to find nowadays," she said.

"That's why it was so hard for me to see this happen."

Peter Dutton, who went to Booker T. Washington High School with Rusher, described her as a "fun-loving person.

"Her smile was always infectious," he said. "She always looked for a good time."

GUNFIRE: Retired HPD officer shoots machete-wielding neighbor

The 29-year-old said it was a victory for the whole school when one of their former students made it on the show.

"It's almost like a 'We made it' type thing,'" he said.

Dutton described Rusher's family as close and said the news surprised him.

"The first thing I did was just stop and just pray for the family, because I know that they are a big and close-knit family," he said.

Local court records show that Rusher was collared in 2010 for a resisting arrest charge after she was accused of "swinging her arms" at a police officer, but the case was dismissed a few months later.

ESCAPE: 29 inmates tunneled out of a Mexican prison

Representatives for VH1, which now airs the modeling show, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A rep for former "Top Model" judge Nole Marin offered condolences in a statement released Monday.

"Nole's heart goes out to Brandy and her family during this tragic time," the statement said. "While on the show Nole says he remembers her shining personality and glowing smile. She is in his thoughts and [he] is sending well wishes."

As Rusher's friends offered well-wishing posts online, Beatty's took to Facebook to mourn.

"I don't want to believe it but you in a better place RIP," wrote one friend.

"Another honestly good man gone too soon," wrote another.

On Monday, a GoFundMe campaign sprang up to cover funeral costs.

"As you know a beautiful soul was taken from us so suddenly," the page notes.

"Please help us raise money for his final farewell during this painful time as we grieve."
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Though frail and having trouble standing during Mass, Monsignor Lawrence J. Stuebben helped coordinate a vigil in January for his longtime friend, the late Archbishop Patrick Flores.

He also insisted on speaking at Flores burial. It was one of his last public appearances, said Father David Garcia, who met him in the 1960s.

Stuebben died Tuesday at 84, described as an old-school priest who loved people and history and embraced change even when it was difficult, leading parishioners to adapt and not divide.

His funeral Mass is set for Friday morning at St. Joseph Catholic Church downtown. Public visitation and a vigil service is set for Thursday.

Stuebben, a San Antonio native who was hospitalized for various serious illnesses shortly after Flores funeral, was remembered for his zest for life  he enjoyed hunting, could prepare the classic dessert cherries jubilee and marveled at the beauty of nature.

He advised people to go fishing, be still and reflect. But Stuebbens career also covered major moments in the life of the church, including Vatican II reforms, civil rights movements, the dramatic demographic shifts of the Archdiocese of San Antonio and the 1987 visit by Pope St. John Paul II.

An archdiocesan administrative leader for decades, hell go down in history as one of our legends, Garcia said.

He was a tremendous leader of his generation. They were born in the Depression, lived through World War II and became priests after the war. Then they saw the transition from a pre-Vatican (II) church to full-scale modernization of church practices, Garcia said.

More Information Msgr. Lawrence J. Stuebben Born: April 4, 1932, San Antonio Died: March 28, 2017, San Antonio Survivors: A brother, Thomas L. Stuebben, and sister-in-law Jane. Services: Visitation will be 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday in the chapel of Angelus Funeral Home at 1119 N. St. Mary's St. A 7 p.m. vigil service follows at St. Matthew Church at 10703 Wurzbach Road. Funeral Mass is 9:30 a.m. Friday at St. Joseph Church, 623 East Commerce St. with a reception to follow at San Fernando Cathedral Hall. The funeral liturgy will be broadcast live on CTSA, Spectrum Cable Channel 15. Details on a vigil at St. Louis Church in Castroville is pending. See More Collapse

It was a different church and a different world.

Garcia said Stuebben helped congregants deal with seismic cultural changes, telling his own parish that the wall between their Anglo and Mexican cemeteries had to come down.

Larry was ordained at a time when San Antonio was slowly desegregating. It was painful, but we did it without violence in part because religious leaders of all stripes stepped in, Garcia said.

According to the archdiocese, Stuebben graduated from Central Catholic High School, attended St. Johns Seminary and Assumption Seminary and was ordained in 1955.

He started and ended his career as a parish priest but held a great number of leadership posts, including as Bishop Stephen A. Levens secretary, on the archdiocesan Matrimonial Tribunal and as a chaplain and theology teacher at Incarnate Word High School. He taught at St. Johns and Assumption seminaries, too.

Stuebben earned a masters in education at Our Lady of the Lake University, studied at the North American College in Rome and last year received an honorary doctorate from the Oblate School of Theology.

He worked at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Bloomington, which is now in the Diocese of Victoria; St. Louis Catholic Church in Castroville and St. Matthew Catholic Church in San Antonio.

Stuebben served as rector at Assumption Seminary and chaired its board of directors. He was Archbishop Flores administrative assistant and later was appointed vicar general and moderator of the curia.

He helped found Catholic Television of San Antonio and served on numerous boards, including the Texas Catholic Conference on Ethnic and Community Affairs and the Bexar County Detention Ministry Board.

Coordinating the papal visit to San Antonio in 1987 demanded diplomacy and patience. Garcia called it the highlight of Stuebbens career.

He did a tremendous amount of work, appeasing numerous competing interests that wanted to be part of the occasion, Garcia said. He handled it so well and with tremendous skill.

The core of Stuebbens ministry was his way with people of all kinds, even those outside the church, observers said.

Local writer Barbara Stanush recalled Stuebbens long conversations with her and her late husband Claude Stanush, a celebrated author and an editor of Life Magazine.

When Claude was thinking about his own death as he got older, he must have been close to 90, he decided he better think about who he wanted to bury him, she said. Claude wrote him and asked him if he would officiate at his funeral.

Stuebeen asked to come by, to get to know Claude Stanush better, and for the next two years the three would meet regularly, Barbara Stanush said.

Though he was not Catholic, Claude lived those last two years largely because of Father Larry, she said. He was able to reconcile deep questions of God and life with his help.

He was so much bigger than the church, said their daughter, Michele Stanush, a former newspaper reporter and author.
AUSTIN - Some of Gov. Greg Abbotts top priorities are getting short shrift from legislative budget writers who are wrestling with meeting the needs of a growing state with diminished revenues.

Among them are key programs overseen by Abbott's office for which he requested substantial funding, such as the deal-closing Texas Enterprise Fund and an initiative to bring the best researchers to Texas universities. Under legislative budget proposals as they now stand, the programs would get millions less than Abbott is seeking. Budget-writers also have abandoned Abbotts much touted high-quality pre-kindergarten grant program in favor of other approaches, at least at this point in the process of writing a spending plan for the next two-year budget period.

Senators plan to vote on their budget proposal today, and the House is expected to take up its spending plan next week. Differences between the plans will be worked out later in a joint Senate-House committee.

Budget chiefs attributed the difficulty some of Abbotts proposals are facing as normal in this tight budget year. Many programs face cutbacks thanks to the uncertain oil and gas economy and lawmakers past decisions to cut taxes and set aside big money for transportation.

But at least one observer notes a lack of personal rapport between Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Joe Straus. Patrick and Straus have been publicly outspoken on hot-button issues; Abbott largely has stayed out of the legislative fray unless he is pushing his own priorities.

We expect there to be some pretty hard bargaining under ideal circumstances, and these circumstances are much less than ideal, said James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Expect it to get worse before it gets better.

House Appropriations Chair John Zerwas, R-Richmond, told the San Antonio Express-News that the trimming just reflects the magnitude of the revenue deficiency that we have this year and the need to really address this budget in an aggressive way.

A lot of us have had that experience from back in 2011, where we had a much worse situation. But many that are in the Legislature, including the governors office, have not had to deal with this before. And its a stark contrast to 2015, Zerwas said.

Lawmakers faced a big revenue shortfall in 2011. In 2015, Abbotts first legislative session as governor, the state was in a relatively flush period and lawmakers put billions of dollars into cutting taxes

I think thats really the situation here, is that some people may just not really comprehend the magnitude of this revenue shortfall, and the impact that it can have on programs across the board the states involved in, Zerwas said.

Abbotts staff remains optimistic.

Governor Abbott expects his priority programs to be fully funded, and he will continue to work with the legislature to ensure they are included in the final budget, said Abbott press secretary John Wittman.

Henson said this is still the early negotiating phase between the two chambers and the governor.

That said, the fiscal situation is leading to some very hard bargaining by all three of the institutional leaders, Henson said. We're in a situation this time where there are three factors converging in a way that is making for a lot of conflict between the governor, the House and Senate: First, a tight budget; second, a system that by design pits the three against each other in something that can feel like a war of all against all; and third, what certainly appears to be a, shall we say, lack of personal rapport between the governor, lieutenant governor and the speaker of the House.

As it stands, its not great for a number of Abbott priorities.

The budget proposal that the Texas Senate plans to take up today doesnt put any money into the high-quality pre-K grant program championed by Abbott. He had sought $236 million for that program over the next two-year budget period.

Instead, the Senate committee proposal includes $65 million for a new high-quality pre-kindergarten program that includes a partnership with private organizations.

We were trying to figure out a way during tough times that we could look at things differently, said Senate Finance Committee Chair Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound. She said senators examined the most important features of a high-quality program and how we can implement that across all pre-K programs.

The House Appropriations Committee budget proposal  which hasnt yet received a final committee vote  would put the extra pre-K money into a program that would allow school districts to decide how best to provide prekindergarten services.

Abbott has requested $108 million for the Enterprise Fund; $40 million for the Governors University Research Initiative; and more than $56 million for film incentives.

The governor has asked for $105.4 million for disaster grant funds and $33 million for grants to help military communities pay for infrastructure improvements and other projects to increase their military value and protect them from adverse base realignment decisions.

The Senate committee proposal would provide nothing directly for the university research initiative and $3.5 million for the film incentives program, keeping the employees but not funding any grants. It estimates the Enterprise Fund will have $43 million unspent at the end of the current budget cycle, and would allow that money to remain in the fund.

On top of this, the Senate committee plan would set aside $65 million for economic development and business retention that could be applied to any of the three programs.

With regard to military grants, the Senate committee plan wouldnt provide funding but points to a military revolving loan program that could be used. It would give Abbott $124.8 million in general revenue for disaster grants, while requiring the governors office to notify the Legislative Budget Board 15 days before any disaster grants are awarded.

The House committee proposal, which is awaiting a formal committee vote, also would allocate to the Enterprise Fund only its unexpended balance, Zerwas said. It would allocate $10 million for film incentives and $15 million for the governors university initiative.

The House plan would provide $30 million in funding for the military grants, and just $15 million in new money for disaster grants, which Zerwas said he expects to be sufficient given the money that the disaster fund typically has unspent at the end of a budget period.

pfikac@express-news.net

Twitter: @pfikac
AUSTIN  Former Spurs center David Robinson caused a stir when he stopped by the Texas Senate Thursday, as lawmakers hurried to shake his hand, pose for photos and generally gush.

Id like to give an official welcome to one of the greatest players in the NBA, said Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate and had a photo with The Admiral.
Mixed Martial Arts meets 6-8 p.m. Mondays in St. Michaels Catholic Church hall, 418 Indiana St. Classes are taught by Mike Ortiz, a mixed martial arts champion. Contact: 264-5291.

Masonic Anchor Lodge 424 meets 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays at 700 Hot Wells Blvd.

Free meditation classes based on Deepak Chopras Getting Unstuck series are open to all seniors at Copeland Senior Activities Center, 5703 S. Flores St. (corner of South Flores and Southcross Boulevard; parking entrance on Southcross). Classes are at 10:30 a.m.-noon Wednesdays. No need to bring anything or wear special clothing. Contact: 927-1112.

Truckin Tomato hosts Mid-Week Market, an indoor farmers market, 3-7 p.m. Wednesdays at 503 Chestnut St. Contact: 241-3545.

Out of Darkness depression support group meets 7-8 p.m. Wednesdays at Mayfield Park Church, 700 W. Hutchins Place. Ongoing short- and long-term support sessions. Child care available. Contact: 923-2241.

Families Recovering Group meets 7 p.m. Thursdays at Brookhill Baptist Church, 631 Utopia Lane. Free 12-step program is similar to Al-Anon and open to all. Contact: 863-1813 or 861-4161.

City Base Cancer Support Group meets 7 p.m. Thursdays at Brookhill Baptist Church, 631 Utopia Lane. Contact: Brenda Fox, 415-2830.

Celebrate Recovery is a support group for people struggling with hurts, hang-ups and habits that meets on Fridays at Mayfield Park Church, 700 W. Hutchins Place. Meetings begin with a meal at 6:30 p.m. in the fellowship hall. Large-group time starts at 7:15 p.m., followed by smaller groups at 8:15 p.m. Child care available. Contact: 923-2241.

Wednesday, March 29

Cesar Chavez Movie Screening 5:30-7:30 p.m. Bazan Library, 2200 W. Commerce. View the award-winning 2014 film Cesar Chavez, a biography of the civil-rights activist and labor organizer. The film is rated PG-13. Free. Contact: 207-9160.

Thursday, March 30

Nutella & Concrete @ Teen Library 5-6:30 p.m. Central Library, 600 Soledad. Make a simple, sweet snack with Nutella. Then make something small using concrete mix. Gloves and face masks provided. Free. Contact: 207-2500.

Friday, March 31

3rd Annual Dinner in Travis Park 6-9 p.m. Join the celebration of the parks third anniversary since it reopened. Guests may picnic basket dinners or purchase from food trucks. Guests are encouraged to wear white. The event is free and open to the public.

Movie Night: Selena 7-10 p.m. Friday, March 31, Arneson River Theatre, 418 Villita St. The free movie screening of the 1997 biopic of Tejano superstar Selena is open to the public. Seating is first come, first served. The film is rated PG. For more information, visit the La Villita Facebook page.

Saturday, April 1

Free Clothes Closet held every first Saturday of the month at Brookhill Baptist Church, 631 Utopia Lane. Free clothing distributed 9 a.m.-noon for those in need. Contact: 333-4947.

April Fool: How to spot fake news 2-2:45 p.m. Central Library, 600 Soledad. The program will focus on information literacy. Participants will learn how to determine the veracity of breaking news and how to spot hoaxes. Contact: 207-2500.

Monday, April 3

Highland Hills Neighborhood Association hosts a Candidate Forum at 6:30 p.m. at Highland Hills Elementary School, 734 Glamis Ave. The night includes a forum of candidates running for District 3 City Council, followed by a forum of candidates trying to secure a seat on the SAISD Board, District 3.

Tuesday, April 4

Trinkets and Treasures Resale Shop 9:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. at San Antonio State Hospital (in Logan Hall), 6711 S. New Braunfels Ave. Run by the Volunteer Services Council of the San Antonio State Hospital, the store opens once a month to sell gently used items, including clothing. All proceeds benefit patients. Contact: 531-8004.

Tuesday Nights at the Briscoe 4-9 p.m. every Tuesday throughout the year. Enjoy free admission and extended hours at the museum, 210 W. Market St. Contact: briscoemuseum.org

Upcoming

Villa Coronado Neighborhood Association meets at 6 p.m. April 12 at the Villa Coronado Park, 11030 Ruidoso St. Guest speakers will discuss World Heritage and wills and trusts. Contact: 393-6944.

Good Friday Fish Fry 3-6 p.m. April 14 at St. Michaels Catholic Church, 418 Indiana St. at South Cherry Street. Plate includes fish, fries, corn, bread and tartar sauce. $7. Contact: 532-3707 or 379-3846.

McCollum High School Class of 1977 will hold its 40th reunion 7-11:45 p.m. at Villita Assembly Hall, 401 Villita St., on July 29. Admission costs $50 per person by June 16; $60 per person afterward. Mail checks payable to McCollum Class of 1977 Reunion may be mailed to Liz Leal Gonzalez, 818 Saipan, San Antonio, TX 78221. No refunds will be given.

Compiled by Melissa Renteria

All phone numbers are in the 210 area code unless noted. Send details and a phone number to mrenteria@express-news.net. Deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. Thursday before publication.
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SAN ANTONIO  One woman was detained Tuesday on the North Side after she allegedly stabbed her relative's girlfriend in the arm during an argument over furniture, according to police.

Officers responded to the reported stabbing around 10 a.m. in the 300 block of Nassau Drive, where they found a woman suffering from a sliced artery on her arm.

"She bled pretty good," said SAPD Sgt. Mike Guzman. "I wouldn't say it was a life-threatening injury, but she could've died without a tourniquet.

RELATED: BCSO: S.A. Univision sports anchor arrested after fleeing police on far West Side

Police say the victim was stabbed by her boyfriend's relative, who lives down the street from the victim, during an argument over furniture that the relative had loaned her.

The two allegedly got into a physical altercation during the argument, during which the suspect pulled out what police believe was a small pocket knife and cut the victim.

The victim's boyfriend told police he was inside the home during the argument and came outside to find the two women "rolling around on the ground" fighting, Guzman said.

The suspect fled from the scene, but was later arrested at a residence about a block away.

Police aren't sure whether the stabbing was made in self-defense, so it is currently unclear if the woman will face any charges.

RELATED: Man thrown from motorcycle, loses helmet in wreck with SUV on Northwest Side

Officers at the scene said the victim will be taken to University Hospital for treatment.

Text "Breaking" to 48421 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

cdowns@mysa.com

Twitter: @calebjdowns
LEVEL and Wow Air are both offering rock-bottom fares from the US to Europe this summer.

At a time when major airlines are hiking up airfare for the summer rush, several low-cost carriers are offering rock-bottom prices for long haul flights.

On Monday, Icelandic discount carrier Wow Air announced that a new route from Chicagos OHare International Airport to Reykjavik will open on July 13. This is the 10th destination in North America for the airline, which already operates in nine US cities including Newark, Los Angeles and Miami. One-way tickets for the new route debuted at $99, and for an additional $149, travelers can connect to one of 23 other cities like London, Paris or Amsterdam.

Wow has been building its presence as a low-cost carrier with competitive base rates since 2011, but the field is widening fast.

On March 17, Level Airlines burst onto the scene, promoting one-way tickets from the US to Europe for an impressive $149. While flights wont start until June, tickets can be purchased now from Barcelona to Los Angeles (June 1), San Francisco (June 2), Punta Cana (June 10) and Buenos Aires (June 17). After announcing these rock-bottom prices, Levels website had issues processing requests, and managed to sell 52,000 tickets in just 24 hours.

Level was launched by the International Airlines Group (IAG), which is the parent company of British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, and Vueling. For them, offering a low-cost option provides more options to the growing number of consumers willing to fly on a no-frills airline.

Long-haul, low-cost is a segment of the market that will experience significant growth and that we can operate profitably, IAG said in an email to Yahoo Finance. Level complements our current portfolio of airlines and further diversifies our existing customer base.

Travelers may have to pay for hot meals when flying on a low-cost carrier. (Getty)

Being a part of the IAG network is one of the reasons Level is able to offer such competitive fares. For now, travelers can only book flights out of Barcelona, which is the home base for Vueling. This allows Level flights to feed into Vuelings extensive network that currently includes more than 100 destinations around the world. While the new airline does have two new Airbus A330 aircraft, initial flights will be operated by Iberias flight and cabin crew.

Story continues

Level ticket costs include space in the overhead compartment, but customers have to pay additional fees to check a bag. Airlines typically provide a blanket, pillow, drinks and a hot meal on long-haul flights, but travelers will have to pay for these add-ons when flying on Level.

Also churning out cheap tickets is Norwegian Air, which last month announced that it will offer one-way transatlantic tickets for $64. The new routes take travelers from small regional airports in the Northeast, to small regional airports in cities like Dublin and the UK, requiring some logistical maneuvering to get to your final destination. Still, the tickets are cheap, and will be available from July through October.

Major US carriers like United, Delta and American Airlines havent announced plans to launch their own low-cost carriers, but they have introduced lower-fare options for cost-conscious travelers. All three airlines offer a basic economy option, which allows fliers to take advantage of cheaper fares if they follow certain restrictions, like forgoing seat selection and not putting a bag in the overhead bin. That said, Delta did start a no-frills airline in 1996 called Delta Express, and shut it down in 2003.

Brittany is a reporter at Yahoo Finance.

More:

Basic economy seats: Is the discomfort worth the savings?

American Airlines introduces Basic Economy class. Is it worth it?

Airfare to these cities is expected to drop in 2017
This is a story about a pair of pants and betrayal.

When an Arizona man tried to escape from the scene of a possible crime, he assessed his environment. There he was at Miles Elementary School with one way out up and over a fence. He leaped and it seemed maybe he'd successfully jumped to his freedom, when his pants got caught, flipping him heels over head and rendering him useless until police arrived.

A Tucson Unified School District spokesperson told ABC 15 the police were called after the man was seen trying to enter classrooms on the campus on March 24. The spokesperson said the man tried to hop the school's fence when he realized he'd been seen.

RELATED: Surveillance camera captures S.A. home break-in that left owner rattled

"One more reason not to jump fences in baggy pants," Jesse Sensibar said on Facebook. "I saw this homie hanging around at the Miles School this morning when I was rolling eastbound on Broadway Avenue. I was going to help him off the fence but by the time I got back around the block, the cops were rolling up two cars deep."

Sensibar said the man smiled for her photo. Her post has since been shared more than 500 times and is riddled with comments.

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
Thumbs up to Norwalk parents Sascha Carr, Mark DAmico, Barbara Meyer-Mitchell and Drew Todd for caring about their childrens education enough to go to Hartford and testify at a public hearing last Monday for more education funding for Norwalk. They joined Schools Superintendent Steven Adamowski in saying that the present formula used by the state has resulted in inequitable funding for the citys schools. It gives much weight to property values, and while Norwalk does have decent property values thanks to its location, the median income of residents is close to the bottom third of the state. Fixing that formula is one of the most important issues facing the General Assembly this session, considering a state Superior Court judge ruled it irrational last year.

Thumbs up to the Norwalk League of Women Voters for organizing its 10th annual Pie and Politics breakfast Saturday morning at the police department. The program gave residents the chance to tell six state legislators who represent the area whats on their minds and question them about issues from taxes to high speed rail.
Judges at San Antonio Municipal Court should reconsider their blanket ban on recording at the Frank D. Wing Municipal Court Building.

The digital age presents new challenges. Anyone with a phone and an internet connection can be their own little media outlet. Sometimes people use these new tools in aggressive and intimidating fashion. In that sense, its understandable that municipal court judges would have concerns about two men with cameras who have harassed staff in the building and posted videos on YouTube.
WASHINGTON  President Trump promised coal miners he would save their jobs Tuesday as he ordered a sweeping rollback of U.S. efforts to address climate change.

I made my promise, and I keep my promise, Trump said, declaring a new era in American energy production and job creation.

Trumps executive order to eliminate a requirement that power plants reduce carbon emissions begins the reversal of a raft of Obama administration rules aimed at moving the U.S. economy toward renewable energy. His order would also end a moratorium on coal leasing on federal lands and calls for a review of restrictions on leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, at oil and gas facilities.

The order also instructs federal agencies not to include the cost of carbon pollution in weighing new regulations.

If it is carried out as intended, it is likely to cede U.S. leadership on climate change and clean-energy production, and raise the likelihood that carbon dioxide emissions will breach dangerous thresholds that scientists warn will lead to catastrophic warming of the planet. Even with the Obama-era rules that Trump is setting out to reverse, the United States was on course to miss its greenhouse gas emissions targets under the 2015 Paris climate accord, a U.N. agreement to curtail greenhouse gas emissions that was adopted by nearly 200 countries.

Condemnation of the presidents order was swift, coming from California officials, Democrats in Congress and environmental groups, who promised immediate litigation.

In a joint statement, Gov. Jerry Brown and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo reaffirmed their commitment to go further than the limits set by the Obama administration on carbon dioxide emissions. The governors noted that the two states are home to 60 million people and their combined economies make up a fifth of the nations gross domestic product, in effect signaling that they would leverage their states economic power to thwart Trumps energy agenda.

Brown said Trumps move to dismantle climate regulations is profoundly misguided and shockingly ignores basic science.

On the Republican side, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, whose Bakersfield district is home to an oil and gas field near Wasco (Kern County), praised Trumps order as a way to keep the lights on in our homes, our factories, and throughout our economys supply chain.

Rolling back limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants could take as long as three years, according to a top administration official, briefing reporters late Monday in advance of the presidents order, which Trump signed in the Environmental Protection Agencys Map Room. He was joined by Vice President Mike Pence, Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and more than a dozen coal miners.

Looking over his shoulder at the miners, Trump promised, Youre going back to work.

Many energy analysts are skeptical. The coal industry has been in a decades-long decline, displaced first by cheaper natural gas and in recent years by a boom in solar and wind production. Coal industry employment is now fewer than 70,000 workers compared with just over 80,000 four years ago. By contrast, the solar industry alone employs 374,000 workers, according to a 2016 report by the Department of Energy, while the wind turbine industry employs 102,000. Solar now makes up 43 percent of jobs in electrical generation, compared with 22 percent for fossil fuels, the report found.

We dont see any indication of a revival of the coal industry, said Tom Steyer, a former hedge fund manager who now heads the climate advocacy group NextGen Climate. This is a brazen and cynical attempt by this administration to do the bidding of oil and gas companies at the expense of the health and prosperity of American citizens. That is all that is going on here.

Taken in total, the executive order sets out to dismantle the Obama administrations efforts to address climate change throughout the federal government. It follows the Trump administrations move last week to roll back limits on vehicle exhaust, which now contribute more carbon dioxide emissions than power plants.

Democrats on Capitol Hill reacted with outrage, but have little power by themselves to alter the administrations course. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco said the order is a prime example of why elections have consequences and predicted that the administrations moves on climate policy will meet a public backlash.

This will be, again, a national debate, and of course it has global ramifications and we look like fools, she said. What the president is doing is severe damage to the planet.

The order comes at a time when scientists and other experts are warning of the high costs of failing to act against climate change  from the effects of extreme weather on crops, to the loss of millions of acres of U.S. forest to pine beetle infestations, to rising sea levels that threaten major coastal cities. A 2015 Citibank report projected losses of $44 trillion worldwide by 2060.

Trump did not mention climate change in his announcement, and his order makes no mention of the Paris climate accord. The administration is still wrestling with a decision over whether to withdraw from the pact, as Trump promised to do during the campaign.

Although the Clean Power Plan was under a court stay after several states and hundreds of companies and industry groups sued to stop it, reversing the rule would be no small feat. It would require the EPA to write a new rule based on scientific findings explaining why the old rule was unfounded. The Supreme Court has ruled that the agency must regulate carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act, and the EPA has already determined that carbon pollution is a threat to public health. The Clean Power Plan was intended to address those issues.

They do need to regulate carbon emissions, said Dan Kanninen, a former Obama White House liaison to the EPA. He said Trumps executive order is drafted as a broad political action and does not have the force of law Its biggest effect, he said, is on the authority and leadership the U.S. exhibits globally on climate change and innovation.

Carolyn Lochhead is The San Francisco Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carolynlochhead
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday pinpointed just what funds sanctuary cities and states stand to lose if they continue to protect immigrants in the country without proper documentation.

Cities and states that dont fully cooperate with federal immigration officials would be prohibited from applying for Department of Justice grants, Sessions said at the White House. He also indicated those cities and states would have to return any grant money they had already received.

San Francisco and Richmond could each lose more than $2 million, while Berkeley would lose just $34,000. Oakland did not respond to a request for information. The grants fund everything from body cameras for police officers to alternative court programs that emphasize rehabilitation over incarceration.

I strongly urge our nations states and cities and counties to consider carefully the harm they are doing to their citizens by refusing to enforce our immigration laws, and to rethink these policies, Sessions said. Such policies make their cities and states less safe  public safety, as well as national security, are at stake  and put them at risk of losing federal dollars.

Local and state officials vowed to fight any attempt to take away that money.

Its a low blow to our brave men and women in uniform to threaten to withhold public safety funding that they have earned unless Donald Trump gets his way on immigration, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement. We will fight to protect those policing resources, just as we will protect all the residents of our state against unconstitutional overreach by our federal government.

Deirdre Hussey, a spokeswoman for San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, said in a statement that Sessions was attempting to coerce cities into enforcing federal immigration laws.

Hussey gave no indication that the city would change its policy.

As we have always asserted, sanctuary cities are safer cities, she said. It is shocking that the U.S. attorney general, the nations top law enforcement official, does not agree with this basic principle of public safety.

San Francisco receives $1.77 million through two programs  the Office of Justice Programs and Community Oriented Policing Services  singled out by Sessions. That includes money for police overtime for drug investigations and enforcement, substance abuse treatment for underserved populations and for ending sexual assault in prisons.

On top of that, San Francisco Superior Court receives around $400,000 for innovative programs that emphasize rehabilitation, such as veterans justice court and behavioral health court. A spokeswoman for the court did not respond to a request for comment.

Richmond receives around $2.6 million in Justice Department grants, although its unclear if all of that money would be affected by Sessions directive. But at least some of it would be, including $150,000 to outfit police officers with body cameras.

Political analysts said President Trumps decision to go after public safety money carries a political risk, both for Trump because he has championed a law-and-order agenda, as well as for city officials who may have to justify why their immigration policies are putting at risk money for popular causes.

Shortly after Sessions announcement, the International Association of Chiefs of Police criticized the directive.

Penalizing communities by withholding assistance funding to law enforcement agencies and other critical programs is counter-productive to our shared mission of reducing violent crime and keeping our communities safe, the organization said in a statement.

Jason McDaniel, an associate professor of political science at San Francisco State University, said cities refusal to cooperate with Trumps immigration policies marks a turning point in the fight between the administration and sanctuary cities.

Its no longer symbolic, McDaniel said. If this starts being about policing funds, about transportation funds and all the things that the city relies upon ... its going to be a tough balancing act for mayors like Ed Lee.

While any future loss of funds would present a challenge for Bay Area cities, the most immediate question will probably be whether the Trump administration could claw back  as Sessions put it  money it had already given to sanctuary cities.

Pratheepan Gulasekaram, a Santa Clara University law professor, said that would be difficult.

Its not clear that the attorney general and Department of Justice can make up these interpretations as they go along, he said.

Bill Ong Hing, University of San Francisco law professor and director of the law schools Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic, was even more critical.

They definitely cannot take away money that they already gave, he said. He can threaten all he wants, but he actually needs to go through Congress to get the authority.

And even then, Hing said, it was questionable whether the Trump administration could force local law enforcement to carry out federal immigration policy.

They simply cannot commandeer local law enforcement to do their work. he said.

The latter argument is also made, Hing said, in the lawsuits filed by San Francisco, Santa Clara County and Richmond against Trumps executive order to withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities. Those lawsuits are ongoing.

Emily Green and Bob Egelko are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: egreen@sfchronicle.com, begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @emilytgreen, @egelko

Where the Justice Department grant money goes

San Francisco programs funded through grants by the U.S. Justice Departments Office of Justice Programs for fiscal year 2016-17:

Grant type Amount Purpose Bureau of Justice Assistance $200,000 Behavioral Health Court Byrne Anti-Drug Grant $82,238 Trauma access for transitional-age youths in custody Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Program $249,304 Funding for staff, evaluation firm, supplies and grants to local nonprofits to provide trauma-informed services for Bayview victims of crime Byrne Justice Assistance Grant $800,961 Reducing recidivism for transitional age youth, preventing school to prison pipeline, gang task force, police overtime for drug investigations, social work support, other support for individuals in criminal justice system Byrne Program $325,344 Probation program funds Drug Elimination Team $77,670 Abates drug activity and reduces violence in high-crime neighborhoods Federal Byrne Justice Grant $20,932 Provide substance abuse treatment for underserved populations Veterans Justice Court $350,000 Collaborative court providing veterans in the criminal justice system with social services Young Adult Court $162,119 Reduce recidivism for disconnected transitional-age youth Young Adult Court Attorney $113,086 .85 full-time equivalent attorney for the Young Adult Court Prison Rape Elimination Act $42,495 Federal rape elimination act Total $2,424,149

Source: San Francisco Budget & Legislative Analysts Office
Scandinavian Home has paid advertising banners and product affiliate links, which means I earn a very small amount of money if you click through and buy an item - these are stated with and asterisk and at the bottom of each post.
The Second Circuits ruling that the settlement did not sufficiently protect the interests of some merchants will stand.

WASHINGTON  Yesterday, the nations highest court declined to hear appeals from Visa, MasterCard and certain retailers to reinstate a $5.7 billion antitrust settlement over whether the card networks unfairly fixed interchange fees. The decision means the Second Circuits ruling that the settlement did not sufficiently protect the interests of some merchants will stand, allowing current lawsuits to proceed.

The settlement, one of the largest in history, was approved by Judge Gleeson of the Eastern District of New York in December 2013 over the objections of thousands of retailers, including NACS and many of its members.

Those retailers opposed the settlement because accepting it would have ended the case and permitted Visa, MasterCard and the banks to continue to price-fix swipe fees and to use rules to block competition in the payment card market. In other words, the settlement would have done nothing to fix the antitrust problems with credit and debit cards.

The Courts decision ensures that retailers will continue to be able to challenge the card networks unfair price fixing of credit card fees. If the justices had come down in favor of the settlement, the card companies would have been insulated from lawsuits challenging improperly set fees.
By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and cfounder of Bank Whistleblowers United. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives

The New York Times editorial board published an editorial on March 12, 2017, praising Preet Bharara as the Prosecutor Who Knew How to Drain a Swamp. I agree with the title. At all times when he was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (which includes Wall Street) Bharara knew how to drain the swamp. Further, he had the authority, the jurisdiction, the resources, and the testimony from whistleblowers like Richard Bowen (a co-founder of Bank Whistleblowers United (BWU)) to drain the Wall Street swamp. Bowen personally contacted Bharara in 2015.

You were quoted in The Nation magazine as saying that if a whistleblower comes forward with evidence of wrongdoing, then you would be the first to prosecute [elite bankers]. I am writing this email to inform you that there is a body of evidence concerning wrongdoing, which the Department of Justice has refused to act on in order to determine whether criminal charges should be pursued.

Bowen explained that he was a whistleblower about Citigroups senior managers and that he was (again) coming forward to aid Bharara to prosecute. Bowen tried repeatedly to interest Bharara in draining the Citigroup swamp. Bharara refused to respond to Bowens blowing of the whistle on the massive frauds led by Citigroups senior officers.

Bharara knew how to drain the Wall Street swamp and was positioned to do so because he had federal prosecutorial jurisdiction over Wall Street crimes. Whistleblowers like Bowen, who lacked any meaningful power, sacrificed their careers and repeatedly demonstrated courage to ensure that Bharara would have the testimony and documents essential to prosecute successfully some of Wall Streets most elite felons. Bharara never mustered the courage to prosecute those elites. Indeed, Bharara never mustered the courtesy to respond to Bowens offers to aid his office.

The editorial lauds Bharara for his actions against public corruption in New York.

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.

We are all for rooting out public corruption. The editorial ignores three key facts. First, New York politics are less corrupt than many other states, but Wall Streets leaders created the swampiest region in American business. Further, the Northern District of New York has jurisdiction over Albany, so the swampiest part of New York State politics did not lie in Bhararas jurisdiction. Second, Wall Street CEOs created, and infest, the swampiest of regions over which Bharara had jurisdiction. They led the epidemics of control fraud that hyper-inflated the housing bubble, drove the financial crisis, and caused the Great Recession. Third, Bharara did not prosecute any of them even when whistleblowers brought him the cases on platinum platters. Indeed, Bharara did not prosecute even low-level bank officers who were minor leaders in implementing those fraud epidemics.

I will summarize briefly Bowens story as it intersects Bharara. Bowen held a senior position with Citigroup supervising a staff of several hundred professionals that conducted risk assessments on roughly $100 billion in annual mortgage purchases  a majority of which Citigroup resold to Fannie and Freddie or mortgage securitizers. Citigroup was exposed to enormous losses on these mortgages because the sellers had strong incentives to provide false reps and warranties to Citigroup and sell them fraudulently originated loans that were particularly likely to default and suffer larger losses upon default. Citigroup could only sell these fraudulently originated mortgages to others through making essentially the same fraudulent reps and warranties that it received from the original sellers. Bowens staff found originally that 60% of the loans it was buying had false reps and warranties. He warned his superiors about the problem, but they responded by weakening Citigroups already inadequate underwriting by buying pervasively fraudulent liars loans. Bowen put Citigroups senior management, including Robert Rubin, on written notice of the growing crisis and called for immediate intervention to stem the crisis. Citigroups senior management responded by removing Bowens staff and responsibilities. The incidence of fraud grew to 80 percent.

Bowen was blowing the whistle internally at Citigroup and acting exactly as he was supposed to do  as Citigroup articulated what an officer should do in such circumstances. He was not looking for money or a lawsuit. He was the opposite of a disgruntled employee. He had never gone public.

Citigroups top leaders forced Bowen out  for doing exactly the right think according to Citigroups own policies. Bowen did eventually blow the whistle to the public about the Citigroups top leadership and the banks hundreds of billions of dollars in sales of mortgages through false reps and warranties. Those sales, because of the losses they caused to Fannie and Freddie, were substantial contributors to Fannie and Freddies failures and the public bailout of both firms. Bowen met with the SEC staff and Assistant U.S. Attorneys (AUSAs) in several districts to provide them with the critical facts and documents. Bowen also testified before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC), which made multiple criminal referrals against Citigroup, including a referral based on Bowens testimony. Bowen was the perfect witness for a criminal prosecution of Citigroups senior managers and for an SEC enforcement action against Citigroup for securities fraud.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys (AUSAs) in Denver, the Eastern District of New York (where Loretta Lynch was then the U.S. Attorney), and Bhararas office told Bowen that the Department of Justice (DOJ) had never sent the criminal referrals that FCIC made about Citigroup to them. Bowen met with the AUSAs to assist them in what he had expected to be a series of prosecutions in 2016. Phil Angelides, FCICs Chairman, made public in 2016 the fact that the FCIC had made a criminal referral about Citigroup based on Bowens testimony before the inquiry. Bowen was by 2016 one of the best-known and most respected whistleblowers in America. FCICs chair found his testimony about Citigroups leaders highly credible, leading him to make the criminal referral, but DOJs leadership not only refused to prosecute, but also buried the criminal referrals to discourage any U.S. Attorney from prosecuting Citigroups fraudulent leaders.

AUSA Jonathon Schmidt (San Francisco) called Bowen on July 10, 2010. Bowen gave him everything. Schmidt was excited and said that they were going to pursue the claims that Bowen had laid out, particularly Citigroups fraudulent reps and warranties. Bowen challenged Schmidt, telling him that I believed that once he talked to DC DOJ that Bowen would never hear from him again. Schmidt promised he would be back to Bowen within a week. Bowen never heard from him again.

Alayne Fleischmann, also one of the most famous whistleblowers to emerge from the crisis, provided vital information and documents to DOJ prosecutors about frauds led by JPMorgans senior managers. Fleischmann continued to seek to aid a DOJ prosecution after the Attorney General transferred responsibility for the case to Bhararas office. No prosecution has occurred.

Bharara is like every other federal prosecutor and the SECs top leaders. Bowen met with the SEC staff and five Assistant U.S. Attorneys (AUSAs) in four different districts (including Bhararas) to provide them with the critical facts and documents. Each failed to prosecute the elite Wall Street officials who drove the three epidemics of fraud that drove the financial crisis. What is different is that because his office had jurisdiction over the elite frauds and the staff to conduct sophisticated investigations and prosecutions he could have drained the Wall Street swamp. Bharara simply had to take advantage of the courage and competence of whistleblowers like Bowen and Fleischman who brought him cases against the top managers of two of the worlds largest banks on a platinum platter. Bharara also could have taken advantage of the expertise and experience of regulators and prosecutors who worked together to produce over 1,000 felony convictions in major cases against financial executives and their co-conspirators in the savings and loan debacle. Bharara (and Lynch and their counterparts) failed to take either approach.

Bharara knew how to drain the Wall Street swamp. He had the facts, the staff, and the jurisdiction to drain the Wall Street swamp. Bharara refused to do so.
Im giving a brief overview of an important, well written article at Washington Monthly, The Decline of Black Business. It traces the precipitous decline in the number of black-owned businesses, and links it to a diminished ability to engage in political activism. The piece, by Brian Feldman, describes in detail how black-owned enterprises played a key role in the civil rights struggle, both by virtue of allowing owners and employees to participate visibly in the struggle (blacks working for whites risked being fired) and via black businessmen contributing important resources, such as office space, to organizers.

The data and anecdotes on both of his major threads, the collapse in black entrepreneurship, and the role they played in the Civil Rights movement, are striking. For instance:

The last thirty years also have brought the wholesale collapse of black-owned independent businesses and financial institutions that once anchored black communities across the country. In 1985, sixty black-owned banks were providing financial services to their communities; today, just twenty-three remain. In eleven states that headquartered black-owned banks in 1994, not a single one is still in business. Of the fifty black-owned insurance companies that operated during the 1980s, today just two remain. Over the same period, tens of thousands of black-owned retail establishments and local service companies also have disappeared, having gone out of business or been acquired by larger companies. Reflecting these developments, working-age black Americans have become far less likely to be their own boss than in the 1990s. The per capita number of black employers, for example, declined by some 12 percent just between 1997 and 2014.

Weve discussed some of the drivers of the fall in startups, which has become an economy-wide phenomenon: banks withdrawing almost entirely from character-based small business lending; weak demand in the economy post-crisis making it unattractively risky in many sectors of the economy; shortened job tenures making it harder for employees to identify the sort of unfilled niche opportunities which have proven to be the most successful startup formula; and as Feldstein stresses, the rise of monopolies making it much harder for small business to survive and thrive. As he writes:

The decline of black-owned independent businesses traces to many causes, but a major one that has been little noted was the decline in the enforcement of anti-monopoly and fair trade laws beginning in the late 1970s. Under both Democratic and Republican administrations, a few firms that in previous decades would never have been allowed to merge or grow so large came to dominate almost every sector of the economy.

This change has hurt all independent businesses, but the effects have disproportionately hit black business owners. Marcellus Andrews, Bucknell University professor of economics, says that pulling back on anti-monopoly enforcement was a catastrophic intellectual and political policy mistake, and that for the black community, the presumed price advantages of concentration often do not translate into better economic opportunities. In 1969, J. Bruce Llewellyn grew ten Bronx supermarkets into the nations largest minority-owned retail business. By the 1990s, however, a retreat from antitrust enforcement and other fair trade laws permitted a few giant corporations like Walmart to engage in anticompetitive behaviors that in previous decades would have resulted in civil and criminal prosecution. These included undermining the pricing power of suppliers and loss leading, or the practice of selling below cost in order to drive competitors out of business. In 1999, Llewellyn sold his last remaining stores to the Dayton-Hudson Corporation, now known as the Target Corporation. In 1986, a top executive at Revlon made a prediction about the future of the beauty and hair care industry. In the next couple of years, he told Newsweek, the black-owned businesses will disappear. Theyll all be sold to white companies. The prediction proved accurate. In 1993, IVAX Corp. purchased Johnson Products Co., the thirty-nine-year-old maker of Ultra Sheen, beginning a decade-long series of acquisitions that wiped out remaining black ownership in the hair care industry. One consequence was fewer new hair care products for black customers. Funds once channeled into research and development, University at Buffalo professor Robert Mark Silverman explains, now were accrued as profits by the larger firms.

And lack of economic independence constrains political expression:

The role of market concentration in depressing black-owned businesses is also troubling because of the critical role that such enterprises have played in organizing and financing the struggle for civil rights in America. In the 1950s and 60s, black Americans employed by whites, including professionals like teachers, often faced dismissal if they joined the civil rights movement, whereas those who owned their own independent business had much greater freedom to resist. In 1928, W. E. B. Du Bois validated the black communitys embrace of anti-monopolism when he wrote, To ask the individual colored man . . . to sell meat, shoes, candy, books, cigars, clothes or fruit in competition with the chain store, is to ask him to commit slow but almost inevitable economic suicide. In 1932, the Associated Negro Press and the National Negro Business League, with the cooperation of the U.S. Department of Commerce, printed a newspaper column called Business and Industry. One article in the series noted that an embarrassing problem confronts the 70,000 or more Negro-owned individual enterprises in the U.S. today[:] . . . Big Business, which so perceptibly handicaps the small industrial business units in which category Negro enterprise unquestionably belongs. Independent business owners also played a key role in financing civil rights protests, especially during their peak in the 1950s and 60s. In Tallahassee, black grocery store owner Daniel Speed bankrolled a bus boycott similar to that in Montgomery, and his shop served as a meeting ground for black leaders. In Biloxi, Gilbert R. Mason, owner of Modern Drug Store, led a wade-in against the whites-only section of a federally funded Gulf Coast beach. In his autobiography, Mason wrote, Pharmacists represented an economically independent class of black businessmen who might have been thought difficult for the white establishment to control. In many cases, the black-owned pharmacy was itself a nexus in black communities. Funeral home owners emerged as another powerful bloc of civil rights activists. In 1956, funeral home owner William Shortridge cofounded the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, a group that sought to end employment discrimination and abolish segregation in public accommodations. A. G. Gaston, who built his business empire as the owner of the Smith and Gaston Funeral Home, threatened to transfer his accounts from a white-owned bank unless it removed a Whites Only sign from a water fountain. In 1963, he lent Martin Luther King Jr. a room at his Gaston Motel. Soon known as the War Room, it was there that King decided to submit himself to arrest in Birmingham, a galvanizing moment in the civil rights movement.

These excerpts only scratch the surface of this meaty, well-reasearched article. Go read it now.
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.
While there was no winner of Saturdays (March 26) massive 5,030,097 Lotto jackpot, one lucky couple from Tipperary won 500,000!

A Cork winner also scooped an incredible 236,254 Lotto Match 5 + Bonus prize.

The delighted couple from Tipperary who wish to remain private won the Lotto Plus 1 top prize of 500,000.

The Lotto Plus 1 top prize was won by a recently married couple from Tipperary who dropped into National Lottery headquarters today (Tuesday) to pick up their cheque for a whopping 500,000.

The winning Tipperary man admitted that he was knocked for six when he discovered his Lotto Quick Pick was worth a half million euro - "I was working on Saturday evening and before I went home, I quickly scanned my ticket on the National Lottery App on my phone. Up popped a message which instructed me to contact the National Lottery. I went absolutely numb, it was like an outer body experience! I got straight into my car and I almost drove into a ditch on the way home. I had to completely stop and compose myself if I was to get home in one piece," he smiled.

The winning Lotto Plus 1 Quick Pick selection ticket was sold at the Centra Store in Parkmore in Roscrea in Co. Tipperary on the day of the draw. At a cost of just 1 extra per line, the Lotto Plus games gives players an extra chance to win 500,000.

"The timing of the win couldnt be more perfect. We have just been married and we only recently started looking for houses to buy. It is a great comfort knowing that we will be able to buy our dream house without a mortgage," added the lucky Tipperary player.

Another delighted Cork man made the journey to National Lottery offices today (Tuesday) after he won the Lotto Match 5 + Bonus prize of 236,254 in Saturdays (March 26) Lotto draw.

The winning Quick Pick ticket was sold at the Centra Quick Stop on Grand Parade in Cork on the day of the draw. Previously, the Lotto Match 5 + Bonus prize was guaranteed at 25,000. Following game changes, the prize fund is now carried forward in each draw, if there are no winners, meaning the possibility of bigger prizes.

The National Lottery has again reminded players to check their Christmas Millionaire Raffle tickets. The winner(s) of the 1 million National Lottery Christmas Millionaire Raffle has just days left to claim their prize. The deadline of Friday 31 March is fast approaching.

The Christmas Millionaire top prize winning ticket of 1 million, was ticket number 179740. The lucky ticket was purchased at the Topaz Service Station on Lower Tivoli Road in Cork on 21 December 2016.

Playing National Lottery funds good causes across Ireland. In 2016 alone, the National Lottery raised over 200 million good causes. This level of funding has made a significant difference to communities, projects and individuals in the areas of Youth, Sports, Recreation, Amenities, Health, Welfare, Arts, Culture, National Heritage and the Irish Language.
A Drangan woman who never drank and smoked and was a great believer in hard work celebrated her 100th birthday surrounded by family and friends last Wednesday .

It was an emotional and proud day for the family of Dolly Meagher as they gathered to celebrate and reminisce on a wonderful and contented life.

Apart from making the journey to card venues to meet friends and play 25, Dolly rarely ventured far from the area where she was born in Crohane and nearby Cloughtaney where she reared a family of three sons with her husband Joseph who predeceased her twenty five years ago.

Hard work never killed anybody, and she lived by that. She was a great believer in working hard on the farm and in the home, said her son Joseph.

Dolly travelled off to well known card venues such as Clerihan and Urlingford playing cards four nights a week and making great friends and enjoying a night out.

In recent years she confined herself to playing cards in the community hall in Drangan but always had a deck of cards in her hands playing Patience at home up to last year when she moved to Strathmore Lodge nursing home in Callan.

Her lifelong card friends joined the Meagher family for the celebrations on the day of Dollys birthday on Wednesday of last week at the home.

It was a great occasion and she had a great day. We thought she would fall asleep at some stage but she was able to keep going for the day talking to friends and family about her life, said Joseph.

Mass was celebrated by Rev. Fr. Tony Lambe PP, Drangan, Rev. Fr. John McGrath PP, Mullinahone and Rev. Fr. William Dalton PP, Callan, followed by refreshments.

An enjoyable day was had by all and well wishers who called to see Dolly on the day, instead of bringing presents, made donations of over 1,000 to the Alzheimers Society of Ireland, which is an organisation the Meagher family are supportive of.

Dolly,pictured above with some of her grandchildren, was born Kathleen Blanchfield on March 22, 1917, to William and Ellen Blanchfield. She is the fifth born of eight children and is the last surviving member of her family. She moved from Crohane to Cloughtaney in the 1950s. She married Joseph Meagher and had three sons - Liam, Joseph and Michael and resided there until 2016 when, due to ill health, she moved to Strathmore Lodge Nursing Home in Callan, where she is being lovingly cared for by Sarah and her wonderful staff.
(Natural News) Will unvaccinated children soon be banned from daycare centers and preschools in the land down under? Australias Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has taken it upon himself to call upon state and territory leaders to move towards nationally consistent laws regarding vaccination. According to The Guardian, Turnbull intends on taking his sweeping jab initiative to the next Council of Australian Governments.

Turnbull has not beaten around the bush when it comes to the intent of the proposed law, which is disturbingly called No Jab, No Play. Under this new proposal, the vaccination rates of all preschools and daycare centers would be made available to the public and parents  and the right to make a formal objection would end.

At our next Coag meeting I propose we agree that all jurisdictions implement legislation that excludes children who are not vaccinated from attending childcare or preschool, unless they have a medical exemption, Turnbull writes in his letter to state and territory officials. He also proclaims that vaccine objection is not a valid reason to keep children from getting vaccinated. In other words, Turnbull believes that Australian parents should not have the right to medical freedom and the ability to choose what kind of so-called medical care is administered to their children.

Australia has been inching closer to total vaccine tyranny over the last several years, with outlandish bills that increasingly strip parents of their rights to care for their children in the way they see as the best fit. In 2015, the government took away welfare and tax benefits from parents with unvaccinated children. Their action led to an additional 200,000 child vaccinations, but it seems that this increase was just not enough.

In their insatiable quest for more power over their constituents, Turnbull and the Australian Medical Association are seeking to make laws that restrict unvaccinated children from attending schools a national endeavor. Laws prohibiting unvaccinated kids from attending schools already exist in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland.

Michael Gannon, the president of the Australian Medical Association, reportedly told Fairfax Media, If you, as a parent, expect the community to support you by either welfare payments or access to care, then you need to do your bit to contribute to that community by protecting other children. Apparently, paying taxes doesnt count as your community contribution in Australia.

Mandatory vaccination bills are not just a concern for Australians; the United States has also seen a massive flood of similar bills introduced across the country. In March, the National Vaccine Information Center reported that 134 bills regarding vaccination had been introduced in 34 states. While there a few bills that were aiming to actually increase parental rights and medical freedom, the overwhelming majority sought to restrict access to vaccine exemptions, publicize school vaccination rights and other such drivel. And in 2015, the state of California made headlines with the passing of Senate Bill 277, which eliminated personal and religious beliefs as reasons for vaccine exemption.

While these bills are often introduced under the guise of public health, the fact remains that such legislation does little more than to create a witch-hunt against people who dare to dissent from the norm. These governments are not trying to protect anyone; theyre just trying to impose their will upon their constituents. Take the state of New York, for example, one bill recently introduced there calls for the forced detention and treatment on suspicion of vaccine-preventable disease. Since when is the forced detention of free and innocent citizens permissible in the so-called land of the free  and at what point does this suspicion arise?

This kind of legislation treads on very thin ice, and we the people need to stop this kind of absurd action from being taken in our countries.

Sources:

TheGuardian.com

BigThink.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) Elderly women who take statins have an increased risk of developing type-2 diabetes, an Australian study found. Researchers at the University of Queensland examined more than 8,000 elderly female pensioners and found that those who took the cholesterol-lowering drug had a 33% increased risk of diabetes. The experts also found that taking higher doses of statins further elevated the increased risk to more than 50%.

Statins are highly prescribed in this age group but there are very few clinical trials looking at their effects on older women. What is most concerning was we found a dose effect where the risk of diabetes increased as the dosage of statins increased. Over the ten years of the study most of the women progressed to higher doses of statins. Those elderly women taking statins should be carefully and regularly monitored for increased blood glucose, said Dr. Mark Jones of the University of Queensland.

The findings were published in the journal Drugs and Ageing.

More studies link statins to higher diabetes risk

A 2015 study in Diabetologia showed that statin treatment was associated with a 46% increased risk of type-2 diabetes, even when other risk factors were taken into account. The researchers have also noted a dose-dependent effect on those taking atorvastatin and simvastatin. The study was based on a respondent population of more than 8,700 nondiabetic men aged 45 to 73 years old. Senior author Markku Laakso of the University of Eastern Finland and Kuopio University Hospital suggested that patients with preexisting risk factors such as obesity and a family history of diabetes should try to lower their statin doses if possible.

Another study looked into the effects of statin therapy on nearly 7,000 middle-aged men and women. Research data showed that 31% of those who were on statin treatment developed diabetes after a follow-up period of 5.5 years, compared with only 19% of those who did not take the cholesterol-lowering drug. The findings were published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Research published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine also revealed that statins may double the risk of developing diabetes. Data on nearly 26,000 respondents showed that those who took statins were more than twice as likely to develop diabetes during a follow-up period of 10 years than those who did not. The study also revealed that patients who were on statin therapy had a 250% increased odds of suffering diabetes-related complications compared with the control group. Weight gain was also more pronounced in those who were on statin therapy compared with the controls, researchers said.

A review of 13 randomized, controlled clinical trials also revealed that nearly 5% of respondents who took various types of statins  including atorvastatin, rosuvastatin and simvastatin  developed diabetes after four years, compared with only 4.5% of those who skipped the treatment. The results of the meta-analysis were published the the journal The Lancet.

Statins halt insulin from doing its function

A study published in the journal Diabetes has identified the mechanism behind the increased risk of diabetes following statin therapy. Researchers found that statins activated a specific immune response that inhibited insulin from functioning properly. However, taking glyburide alongside statins may suppress this effect, researcher noted.

In January 2014, the FDA has required manufacturers of the cholesterol lowering drug to add diabetes risk in their warning labels. Clearly we think that the heart benefits of statins outweighs this small increased risk. But what this means for patients taking statins and the health care professionals prescribing them is that blood-sugar levels may need to be assessed after instituting statin therapy, said Dr. Amy G. Egan, deputy director for safety in the FDAs Division of Metabolism and Endocrinology Products.

Discover more reports about dangerous medicine at DangerousMedicine.com.

Sources:

DailyMail.co.uk

ConsumerReports.com

MedicalNewsToday.com
Tuesday, March 28, 2017 by: Earl Garcia Tags: colon cancer , curcumin , diabetes , GERD , turmeric This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author

(Natural News) Turmeric continues to prove that its benefits go beyond its culinary use. Various studies have linked turmeric to a plethora of health benefits, especially when it comes to the digestive system. Thousands of peer-reviewed reports and studies have demonstrated that turmeric and its healing compound curcumin are more potent in preventing diseases compared with conventional drug treatment.

Turmeric protects the body from digestive issues

A meta-analysis of more than 6,000 studies revealed that curcumin in turmeric exhibited utmost efficacy in managing a host of intestinal conditions including inflammatory bowel disease, Chrons disease and ulcerative colitis. Data showed that curcumin supplementation helped patients stop corticosteroid therapy. Corticosteroids may induce damage to the intestinal lining over time. Taking curcumin supplements did not result in intestinal damage in patients. The compounds anti-inflammatory properties were even shown to heal the guts and promote the growth of probiotics.

Aside from being a potent anti-inflammatory spice, turmeric was also touted for its strong astringent properties. The spice can help soothe the bowel and digestive tract lining, thereby reducing the risk of a condition called leaky gut syndrome. Turmeric may also inhibit the excess production of acid in the stomach. Overproduction of stomach acids can lead to chronic stomach upset and intestinal damage. Regular turmeric consumption is also tied to reduced odds of gastro-esophageal reflux. Turmeric has also showed protective properties against gastric and duodenal ulcers.

Turmeric was also shown to prohibit enzymes that negatively impact stomach health. Turmeric also promotes the secretion of stomach mucous, which in turn helps protect the body from damage caused by gastric acid and other irritants. The spice also contains an antispasmodic property, which helps the smooth digestive muscles to relax. This helps keep digestive spasms at bay.

According to the Global Healing Center, the curcumin compound in turmeric aids in digestion by keeping the smooth muscles of the digestive tract relaxed. This then helps food to pass gently though the guts, which discourages gas and bloating symptoms. Turmeric was also found to promote cholesterol excretion by increasing bile production in the liver. Incorporating turmeric in high-fiber meals can result in more effective liver cleanses and subsequent cholesterol elimination.

Curcumin also facilitates the regeneration and healing of colonic crypts. Colonic crypts are glands found on the inner surface of the colon. The turmeric compound was also found to suppresses EGR-1, a protein that enabled damaged DNAs to be expressed. Curcumin regulates the cells and ensures that proper protein replication takes place.

A 2009 study published in the journal Biochemistry and Biophysical Research Communications also found that turmeric supplementation helped reverse insulin resistance and hyperglycemia in patients with diabetes. Researchers at the Auburn University in Alabama also found that curcumin in turmeric is up to 400 times more potent in improving insulin sensitivity in patients compared with the diabetes drug metformin. The compounds anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties were also shown to prevent the onset of diabetes-related complications.

Super spice triggers suicide in colon cancer cells

Colon cancer remains to be the second most common cause of cancer-related death in the U.S. More than 50,000 Americans were affected by colon cancer in 2013 alone. Previous studies have established curcumins efficacy in preventing colon cancer. To test this, researchers at the Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada examined three types of colon cancer cells. The researchers found that the compound caused all three cancer cells to self-destruct.

Data also showed that curcumin triggered a process called phosphorylation in the cancer cells. The process was characterized by a complete change of function and activity in certain protein enzymes. This effect proved beneficial as oxidative stress was relieved while superoxide anion production was promoted.

Follow more discoveries about turmeric at Turmeric.news.

Sources:

GlobalHealingCenter.com

Botanical.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) In 2015, the world was finally given what its been waiting for: the truth. Thats right, the World Health Organizations (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) conducted a comprehensive review on the safety of the worlds most pervasive crop chemical, Roundup (glyphosate), and the jury is in: this ubiquitous herbicide does, indeed, appear to cause cancer in humans, affirming what independent science has been saying for years.

This announcement by the IARC is very good news for the millions of folks whove expressed concerns about Roundup being doused all over the food supply at the same time that chronic disease rates have soared, because it now means more scrutiny over its use. But this is also very bad news for Monsanto, the purveyor of Roundup, which is now actively countering the truth with more lies, going even so far as to push its own fake science in response.

Being the leader that it is on many human safety fronts, the state of California is pushing to have the IARCs findings emblazoned on every single Roundup container sold in stores. Something along the lines of this product may cause cancer is what state officials hope to see present on Roundup products in the interest of public safety. And this is precisely the type of warning that Monsanto doesnt want to print, as it means the corporations days are numbered.

The multinational chemical giant now resembles a feral animal thats been backed into a corner, as its having to defend itself in court against thousands of lawsuits alleging that Roundup caused people to develop cancer. According to reports, Monsanto has banded together with other chemical companies to develop its own ministry of propaganda, known as the Campaign for Accuracy in Public Health Research (CAPHR), which is pushing the narrative that Roundup is safe.

Formed back in February by the American Chemistry Council, CAPHR represents the chemical industry at large, and has basically taken an offensive position against both the IARC and the WHO, which are no longer pushing the pro-chemical narrative. By bullying these United Nations entities, Monsanto and CAPHR are hoping to dispel the truth and keep on with business as usual.

The purpose of the CAPHR is essentially to combat and discredit the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) which is a unit of the World Health Organization, writes Brandon Turbeville for Natural Blaze.

Back in March 2015, an IARC scientific team declared glyphosate to be a probable human carcinogen. The declaration came after an extensive review of the research published on the subject  Ever since, Monsanto and other multi-national chemical giants have gone after the IARC.

Exposed court documents show Monsanto colluded with EPA to hide cancer-causing effects of Roundup

Another Monsanto ally  and the entity with perhaps the most power, at least in the U.S., to keep the lid on Roundups carcinogenicity for as long as possible  is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA has been peddling fake science on Roundup for many years, and evidence suggests that the agency has worked very closely with Monsanto to manufacture fake science in favor of Roundup.

Both the EPA and Monsanto are pegged in a new lawsuit as having colluded together to block attempts at investigating Roundups safety from taking place. Documents revealed before the court show that Monsanto even went so far as to ghostwrite fake science papers, with doctors names on them, that were actually written by Monsanto employees.

The records suggested that Monsanto had ghostwritten research that was later attributed to academics and indicated that a senior official at the Environmental Protection Agency had worked to quash a review of Roundups main ingredient, glyphosate, that was to have been conducted by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, a New York Times report explains.

In one email unsealed Tuesday, William F. Heydens, a Monsanto executive, told other company officials that they could ghostwrite research on glyphosate by hiring academics to put their names on papers that were actually written by Monsanto, the report adds, quoting Mr. Heydens as saying, We would be keeping the cost down by us doing the writing and they would just edit & sign their names so to speak.

A leaked phone conversation between a former EPA manager and a Monsanto regulatory affairs manager further indicts the chemical giant for illegally trying to thwart the safety testing process. Monsanto has apparently, on numerous occasions, sought the EPAs help in stopping investigations into the safety of glyphosate, and this was just one of many instances that just so happened to be caught on tape.

Keep in mind that the EPA determined back in 1985 that glyphosate causes cancer, only to reverse that decision just six years later. Everyone whos been paying attention knows why this decision was reversed, and it appears that the cat is finally out of the bag: Monsanto lied, and the truth is finally coming out.

Follow more news on glyphosate at Glyphosate.news.

Sources for this article include:

NaturalBlaze.com

Esquire.com

NYTimes.com
(Natural News) Chemical-laden hairsprays prove detrimental to the reproductive health of male infants, according to a new study. Researchers at the Amiens University Hospital in France found that exposure to hair chemicals during early pregnancy may elevate the risk of a genital defect called hypospadias in male infants by up to 80%. In contract, no correlation was seen with exposure to other industrial chemicals such as paint, gasoline, ink, solvents and other household products.

This is the first study to demonstrate a link between maternal household exposure to these two hair cosmetics during early pregnancy and the incidence of hypospadias. The precautionary principle should apply to pregnant women and they should be advised to limit their use of hair cosmetic, the researchers wrote in the International Journal Of Environmental Research And Public Health

Researchers said the endocrine-disrupting chemicals found in hairsprays and coloring shampoos could negatively affect the development of genitalia in fetus during the early stages of pregnancy. Renowned urologist Paul Anderson said the causes of hypospadias remain unknown, but hormones may play a key role in the development of the birth defect. At a very early stage in the pregnancy, the urethra is flat but at a critical point in development, it becomes a tube. If the hormonal mix in the womb is not right, that development may not happen or may be abnormal, said Anderson.

The findings coincide with a 2008 study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Researchers at the Imperial College London examined 471 women who gave birth to male infants with hypospadias and a similar number of women with healthier babies, and found that more than twice as many women in the hypospadias group were exposed to hairsprays throughout their job compared with unaffected controls.

Data also revealed that women who were exposed to hairspray in their workplace during the first trimester of pregnancy had a two to threefold increased odd of delivering baby with hypospadias. However, researchers found that taking folic acid supplements during pregnancy may help mitigate the risk of hypospadias onset by up to 36 percent.

Hypospadias fast facts

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), hypospadias is a genital condition where the opening of uretha is not located at the tip of the penis. The abnormal uretha development takes place during weeks eight to 14 of pregnancy. Hypospadias is classified into three categories, depending on the location of the urethra: subcoronal, midshaft and penoscrotal. Subcoronal hypospadias is characterized by the urethra opening being located somewhere near the head of the penis. On the other hand, midshaft hypospadias occurs when the urethra is located along the shaft of the penis. Penoscrotal hypospadias occurs when the urethra is found where the scrotum and the penis meet.

Risk factors associated with the onset of hypospadias in male infants include the mothers age and weight, fertility therapies, and certain hormones.

CDC data also showed that about five in every 1,000 male infants born in the U.S. have hypospadias, which makes it one of the most common birth defects in infants. Hypospadias treatment depends of the type seen in patients. Most cases require corrective surgery. Surgeries done on male infants happen when they are between three to 18 months old. These procedures are done in a series of stages to correct the defect, such as placing the urethra to its right position, correcting the curve of the penis, and repairing the skin around the urethras opening.

Hypospadias was also associated with undescended testes and fertility problems in men.

Sources:

DailyMail.co.uk

BBC.co.uk

Imperial.ac.uk

CDC.gov
Recent surveys suggest that China's attraction to industrial robots may create a boom in the industry and begin replacing manufacturing laborers with that of automated machines.

This is through an FTCR survey which revealed that local governments are actually subsidizing companies that are willing to develop these robots. A lot of companies are already reporting gains as they begin to reduce frontline workers and replace them with automated machinery.

This means 72.7 percent of companies pushing for more automated machines will more or less have to lay off workers.

According to Retirement Genius, industrial automation is often seen as the answer to finding an efficient economy and solve the country's problem with its lack of workers of the working age.

As of this moment, the government is trying to create a robot population to fit a 150 unit per 10,000 worker scale by 2020, which according to some, is something that is very close to happening.

Of course, this is alarming some local government units as they may not have the necessary funding to compete with other businesses. However, China is already poised to dominate the automated industry regardless. Financial Times said that by 2019, China may account for 40 percent of the market for industrial robots worldwide.

The robots in China appears to be a "solution" to the growing complaints about low wages and the pressures to give a raise for workers -- a lost cause for some as there is a clearer sign of improvement when robots were installed.

Sadly, this also means that robots started to replace workers as well. According to the Development Research Center, robots have reduced labor demand by 40,000 positions per year. Now, even local governments are encouraging downsizing, much to the expense of migrant workers.
While this is not the first time a build-up of green slime has appeared in a body of water, there is no reason you should not be alarmed about the algae bloom in the Arabian Sea.

Science Alert noted that Noctiluca scintillans, also known as "sea sparkle," is blooming in the Arabian Sea towards India. The Mexico-sized algae bloom is reportedly caused by the algae bloom in the Gulf of Oman, which occurs twice a year.



Though the bioluminescent color may be attractive to the eyes, experts assert that the displays are a sign of climate change.

Associated Press reported that scientists from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory blame the algae blooms to climate change, specifically melting ice in the Himalayas. The rise in ocean temperature has suffocated the ocean.



The rapid increase in the amount of CO2 emitted in the atmosphere makes the algae more poisonous. They eliminate marine population, including diatoms, which previously lies at the base of the Arabian Sea food chain.

Given that fishing sustains around 120 million people living on the edge of the Arabian Sea, the algal bloom is a massive threat in the local industry. Inhabitat notes that in 2008, an eruption of a different type of algae beached 50 tons of fish, which were starving for oxygen and rotted along the coast of Oman.

For the last decades, these dinoflagellate blooms were practically invisible. However, in the past years, they are becoming more common. The mass algae proliferation causes colossal ecosystem shift that bring about an alternate food chain altogether.

Effects of climate change in different bodies of water have become apparent for the past years. Few months ago, researchers at Griffith University in Australia found out that the brown algae has killed the corals of the Great Barrier Reef at a faster rate, citing that poison from the algae weakens the coral and supports the algae in expanding its territory.
THE TRUTH OF IT... is this: If you want to go to brunch at the home of a winery owner, you probably have to be friends with the winemaker, or have some acquaintances in common, or some history together. But that doesn't mean that an oenophile with a devotion to local vittles can't find their way to such a table, and memorable meal, in one of California's great wine countries, no less. Look to kukkula, and the new "Experience kukkula" tour, which makes its official debut at the vine-nice destination on Saturday, Feb. 18. The tour begins with an into-the-vines hillside hike at the Adelaida District winery, with peeks at, and information on, the Syrah and Grenache vines (just to name a few varietals that start on the spread).

AFTER SOME FRESH AIR, and some Grenache-tastic, Syrah-sweet gabbing, tour participants shall head indoors for a locavore brunch at Kevin Jussila's home. Mr. Jussila is co-owner of kukkula, and winemaker, too, and he'll not only lead the hike but he'll join guests for the delish dishes, dishes prepared by Mr. Jussila's wife and winery co-owner Paula. While wineries typically offer an array of traditional outings and ways to get closer to the wine vibe, a brunchy gathering at the owners' own home, on the property, has to be one of the more vibrant and unusual.

THE COST? It's $40, and it is set to happen a few more times in 2017, following the Feb. 18 debut (March 19 is next, then May 21, Aug. 20, and Oct. 22). Definitely wear tennies or comfortable hiking boots, and don't feel as if you'll need to fancy up, too much, for brunch. Put your mind to the hike first, as that will include "a little exercise," and then the eating, and the private tasting back at the winery which will follow brunch. "kukkula" is "high place" in Finnish, and guests on the new tour should expect, and anticipate, some Paso-pretty, vines-all-around vistas.
A mother is "livid" after she said her young son was detained for more than an hour at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Sunday morning.

Jennifer Williamson posted a video on Facebook Sunday that shows her son, Aaron, being patted down by a TSA agent in the security line.

In the post, Williamson writes that she asked TSA agents to screen her son in "other ways" because he has Sensory Processing Disorder. Those who suffer from the condition can be overly sensitive to environmental stimuli, such as sounds, lights and textures.

The video shows the TSA agent patting Aaron down thoroughly along his back from his neck to his knees. The agent then pats down the front of Aaron's body, including the front of his shorts, his waistband and in between his thighs. The agent is then seen checking the boy's waistband again and patting down the front of his shorts for a second time.

Williamson said that two DFW Airport police officers were also called in to pat down her son, "flanking him on each side."

"He set off NO alarms. He physically did not alarm at all during screening, he passed through the detector just fine," she said, adding that several hours later her son is still saying "I don't know what I did. What did I do?"

Williamson said her family was "treated like dogs" and that "these power tripping TSA agents who are traumatizing children and doing whatever they feel like without any cause, need to be reined in."

She noted that the video only shows a portion of the interaction with TSA agents, and wished she had recorded it from the beginning "because it was horrifying." The incident also caused them to miss their flight.

The TSA released the following statement in response:

"TSA allows for a pat-down of a teenage passenger, and in this case, all approved procedures were followed to resolve an alarm of the passengers laptop.

"The video shows a male TSA officer explaining the procedure to the passenger, who fully cooperates. Afterward, the TSA officer was instructed by his supervisor, who was observing, to complete the final step of the screening process.

"In total, the pat-down took approximately two minutes, and was observed by the mother and two police officers who were called to mitigate the concerns of the mother.

"The passengers were at the checkpoint for approximately 45 minutes, which included the time it took to discuss screening procedures with the mother and to screen three carry-on items that required further inspection."

After a former Dallas radio host criticized D/FW Airport and TSA on Twitter, calling the pat down "pedophilia not security," the airport wrote: "@CarlaMarionNews @TSA We understand your concerns and we have notified @AskTSA. To file a formal complaint, visit: https://www.tsa.gov/contact/customer-service"
Potential White House entanglement in Congress' investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election brought new cries of protest from Democrats on Tuesday as fresh political allegations clouded the probe.

Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House intelligence committee which is conducting one of the congressional investigations, turned aside calls to step aside. Later in the day, the White House vehemently denied a report that it had sought to hobble the testimony of a former acting attorney general before Nunes canceled the hearing where she was to speak.

President Donald Trump's spokesman, Sean Spicer, lashed out at reporters, claiming they're seeing conspiracies where none exist.

"If the president puts Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that's a Russian connection," he suggested.

The embattled House committee is conducting one of three probes into the election campaign, its aftermath and potential contacts between Trump officials and Russians. The Senate intelligence committee is doing its own investigation, and since late July the FBI has been conducting a counterintelligence investigation into Russia's meddling and possible coordination with the Trump campaign.

Nunes' decision to cancel Tuesday's hearing was the latest in a series of actions that Democrats contend demonstrate that his loyalty to Trump is greater than his commitment to leading an independent investigation. The California Republican, who was a member of Trump's presidential transition team, has said he met with a secret source last week on White House grounds to review classified material that showed Trump associates' communications had been captured in "incidental" surveillance of foreigners in November, December and January.

Nunes would not name the source of the information, and his office said he did not intend to share it with other members of the committee.

Nor would he disclose who invited him on the White House grounds for the meeting. He described the source as an intelligence official, not a White House official. In an interview on CNN, he suggested the president's aides were unaware of the meeting.

Trump has used Nunes' revelations to defend his unproven claim that Barack Obama tapped phones at Trump Tower. In a series of tweets Monday night, Trump said that instead of probing his associates, the committee should be investigating his Democrat opponent Hillary Clinton's ties to the Kremlin.

"Trump Russia story is a hoax," he tweeted.

Adding to the swirl of questions was the publication of a series of letters dated March 23 and March 24 involving a lawyer for former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates.

Yates, along with former CIA Director John Brennan and former director of national intelligence James Clapper, had agreed to testify publicly before the House intelligence committee.

The canceled hearing would have been the first opportunity for the public to hear Yates' account of her role in the firing of Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

The letters from lawyer David O'Neil, published by The Washington Post, appeared to be in response to a meeting O'Neil had at the Justice Department on March 23 in advance of the hearing.

In them, O'Neil pushes back against what he says is Justice Department guidance on what Yates could say about conversations she had with Trump  conversations the department indicated could be covered by executive privilege.

"We believe that the Department's position in this regard is overbroad, incorrect, and inconsistent with the Department's historical approach to the congressional testimony of current and former senior officials," O'Neil wrote in a March 23 letter to Justice Department official Samuel Ramer. He also wrote that Yates' testimony would cover details that others have publicly recounted.

The Justice Department responded to O'Neil saying that the question of what privileged conversations Yates could discuss was ultimately up to the White House.

Spicer on Tuesday said the White House never sought to stop her. "We have no problem with her testifying, plain and simple," he said.

O'Neil declined to comment Tuesday, and a Justice Department spokeswoman did not return a message seeking comment.

Yates was fired in January as acting attorney general after she refused to defend the Trump administration's first travel ban. She alerted the White House in January that Flynn had been misleading in his account of a December phone call with the Russian ambassador to the United States in which economic sanctions against Russia were discussed. Flynn was ousted after those discrepancies were made public.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said that White House meddling is not helping to "remove the cloud that increasingly is getting darker over the administration."

Democratic members of Nunes' House committee said his ability to lead a bipartisan probe is compromised.

"It's irregular, to be benign about it, to have a lead investigator kibitzing with the people being investigated," said Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn.

House Speaker Paul Ryan reiterated his support for Nunes, and Nunes himself said all of the controversy was standard for Washington.

"It's the same thing as always around this place  a lot of politics, people get heated, but I'm not going to involve myself with that," he said.
A homicide investigation is underway in Manchester, New Hampshire, after a dead body was found in a home early Tuesday morning.

Police responded around 3 a.m. to a home on Douglas Street, where authorities say a man was killed overnight.

"I heard banging," next door neighbor Shellie Roux said. "It was uncomfortable."

She says it was an alarming wake-up call around 2:30 a.m.

"I looked out my bedroom window and saw a short person, chunky, with a black hoodie, and black pants on, walking out of the house and down the driveway," Roux explained.

Patricia Hayward watched the investigation unfold from her kitchen window Tuesday.

"When I looked out, there was a car with the lights on bright," Hayward said.

In fact, she's been keeping a close eye on this same house for years.

"Several times, the police were there because of domestics," she said.

The attorney general's office is investigating this as a homicide.

"I was like, 'wow, that doesn't happen around here,'" said William Morrill, who leaves nearby.

His friend, Travis Janvris, agreed.

"It seems there is a lot more crime in this area than we originally thought," Janvris said.

For the last 55 years, Hayward has sat in the same kitchen chair, but only recently, she said, her view has started to change.

"Very disappointed, this is a nice quiet neighborhood, and beautiful in the summer," she said, looking out at the police cruisers. "It's sad."

The victim's identity is being withheld until next of kin can be notified. The cause of his death has not been revealed.

No arrests have been announced, but authorities say the public is not in any danger.
President Donald Trump once again bemoaned violence in Chicago on Tuesday, asking whats going on in the city during a meeting with national police union leaders.

The White House meeting was a listening session with members of the Fraternal Order of Police, including Chicagos FOP President Dean Angelo.

In too many of our communities, violent crime is on the rise and in too many places, our citizens have not been safe for a very, very long time, Trump said.

Last year in Chicago, 4,368 people were shot. Nearly 700 more have already been shot since January this year alone. I ask, what's going on in Chicago? he continued. What is going on there? There's no excuse for it. I'm sure you're asking the same question: What's going on in Chicago?

Trump has repeatedly mention the citys increase in gun violence on Twitter and in speeches since taking office  calls that have prompted officials like Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson to ask for more federal law enforcement resources.

In January, Trump tweeted that he would "send in the feds" if Chicago didnt fix the "horrible carnage going on."

Emanuel responded by urging the president to just send them, before meeting with Attorney General Jeff Sessions in February to present a wish list and discuss "what might be done to combat the shootings and murders in that city and bring back proactive community policing," according to a readout from the Department of Justice.

Johnson also met with Sessions earlier this month, requesting additional assistance to help curb the citys violence during a meeting with several other police officials from across the country.

Angelo said his purpose in attending Tuesdays meeting was a continuation of those discussions and that he hoped to ensure that any federal resources gets to where it's supposed to go."

Vice President Mike Pence attending the listening session, as did Sessions, who briefly asked Angelo about Chicago before the event officially began.

Hows the Chicago world? Sessions inquired.

A little crazy. A little upside down right now, Angelo responded, adding, We have people that are afraid theyre going to lose their job for doing their job.

Trump opened the gathering by thanking law enforcement for their support and in turn, pledging his own. The FOP, which represents more than 330,000 members nationwide, endorsed Trump for president ahead of the election.

As I traveled the country during the campaign, I had the great privilege to spend time with our amazing police officers who risk their lives every day to keep us safe and I made a crucial pledge: We will always support, and you people know that better than anybody, you know me, the incredible men and women of law enforcement, Trump said. I will always have your back, 100 percent, like you've always had mine, and you showed that on November 8th.

Other participants in the meeting included National FOP President Chuck Canterbury, as well as several other members of the leadership team and Philadelphias FOP President Jason McDonald, the only other local leader in attendance alongside Angelo.

My highest duty as president is the security of our people, the security of our nation, Trump said in closing. As president, I will work night and day to make America safe again.
Police are warning drivers in northwest Indiana after a wild turkey collided with a vehicle in LaPorte County Tuesday morning.

The LaPorte County Sheriffs office said the incident happened on US 20 near Wilhelm Road, where they found a large wild turkey lodged in the windshield of a 2016 GMC Yukon.

The turkey was flying across the roadway when it was hit by the vehicle, authorities said.

The vehicle was being driven by a family who was visiting the University of Notre Dame following their teenage sons acceptance.

They had just finished visiting Notre Dame and were in the process of driving back to OHare International Airport in their rental vehicle, police said in a release.

The family suffered minor cuts from the glass and refused medical treatment at the scene.

While vehicle versus deer crashes are common place, it is very rare to see a vehicle strike a turkey, police said in a statement.

Authorities noted, however, that mating season has begun and, during this time, more turkeys are spotted close to roadways.
Unbeknownst to most citizens of Illinois--- a group of history detectives has been working for more than 30 years, scouring courthouse basements, court files, even the national archives, for treasures relating to Americas sixteenth president.

The project is simple: to track down every word written by, or even to, Abraham Lincoln.

Now that, is a monumental task, exclaims Dr. Samuel Wheeler, the Illinois State Historian. But Ill tell you when its over, were going to revolutionize Lincoln studies.

The project actually began in 1985 as the Lincoln Legal Papers project, an effort to track down every document associated with the 5,200 cases in which Lincoln was involved during his 25 years as a lawyer in Illinois.

They actually would go down into courthouses and dig out old stacks of legal documents that hadnt been gone through in decades, Wheeler said. Many of these courthouse basements were damp. These documents were stored directly on the floor sometimes, not in ideal conditions."

That project ended in 2000, with a database of some 100,000 documents---all searchable online. But it morphed into something bigger: a search for everything Lincoln ever wrote, or even received.

During the presidency, you can imagine, Mr. Lincoln is receiving scores of letters every day, he notes. During the Civil War, how do you knock down this rebellion? You must attack slavery. The next letter you read is, dont do anything about slavery."

Sitting at a table at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Wheeler produces just a few of his treasures. One of them, a page from a scrapbook written when Abraham Lincoln was a teenager.

It is the earliest known Lincoln document. Yellowed but remarkably well preserved, the page shows the young Lincolns efforts at long division, penmanship, even poetry.

Abraham Lincoln is my name, and with my pen I wrote the same, reads one paragraph. I wrote in both haste and speed, and left it here for fools to read."

Next Wheeler pulls out a letter written by Lincoln just a month before he was assassinated, to a woman named Amanda Hall. In it, he complies with her request to a portion of the text of his second inaugural address. The passage the President chose was his now well-known rumination on whether the Civil War might have been divine punishment for the sin of slavery.

The war had brought him to his knees, Wheeler observes. He had spent time talking with God. We know that."

Some documents are lost to time. History notes that individuals doing legal research would sometimes stumble across a Lincoln document in a court file and simply take it. Or even cut out the signature.

Today when new documents are located, the standard procedure of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln Project is to scan them, and return them to their rightful owners. And yes, Wheeler says new ones do turn up all the time.

If you have a Lincoln document thats been handed down, generation upon generation, call us, he said. The historians dream is that you find a hidden cache of letters and documents that are in a trunk in someones attic, and they havent gone thru them and they call you up and say, hey will you come take a look.'

In addition to the original documents of the Legal Papers Project, the larger effort has now catalogued an additional 106,000 items. Each document is scanned, transcribed, and annotated. This month, the library announced that a new team of experts will review the project for advice on the best way to structure the papers for future generations.

The Papers of Abraham Lincoln Project is a joint undertaking of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, the University of Illinois at Springfield, and the Abraham Lincoln Association. It is based at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, which draws some 300,000 visitors a year.

Its a huge undertaking, in the sense that all of the editorial work is going on concurrently with the search for documents, Wheeler says. If history is any indicator, 500 years from now, people are still going to be really interested in Abraham Lincoln."
American rapper Wiz Khalifa is stirring controversy in the South American nation of Colombia, where he laid flowers and smoked what looks like a joint at the tomb of cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar.

The rapper is an avid marijuana smoker and used his Instagram account to post several photos of him smoking at Escobar's tomb in Medellin. He played a concert in the city last week.

Colombians took to social media to express outrage.

Medellin's Mayor Federico Gutierrez called the rapper a "scoundrel." He suggested that instead of paying homage to Escobar, the performer should've brought flowers to Escobar's thousands of victims killed during the height of Colombia's drug violence in the late 1980s.
The news of potentially dozens of teacher positions cut has Bristol parents concerned about what it could mean for their child's future.

"It's a lot. It's a lot. It's going to affect a lot of people in Bristol," said Kaylee West, whose child attends South Side School.

On Wednesday, the Bristol Board of Education decided to postpone sending out notices of non-renewal to 104 teachers and five administrators who have not attained tenure.

Members who argued for postponement said they want to wait and see what the board of finance has to say regarding the budget. The board of finance will meet next week.

The superintendent calls it a "procedural recommendation" due to state regulations requiring non-tenured teachers to be notified by May 1 of the possibility that they may lose their jobs.

"That's very disappointing to hear," said Adam Whitlock.

Two of Whitlock's children attend Edgewood School, and he describes it as a fantastic place to learn. He worries about the impact fewer teachers could have on the quality of education.

"You don't want to see larger classroom sizes. You want to see as much dedicated attention to your child as possible- 104 jobs, that's a big concern," said Whitlock.

The district places the blame on the uncertain budget projections on state and local levels but noted that typically some staff is rehired after a budget passes.

The superintendent and the district's director of human resources plan to meet with non-tenured staff on Tuesday to explain the details of the procedure.

Parents said they'll fight to try and make sure financial concerns don't end up hurting their children's education.

"I'm sure that those at the state level have children and would want the very best for them as well. I hope they hear from the parents here in Bristol, Connecticut, that education is something we value very highly," said Whitlock.

In a statement, Board Chairman Christopher Wilson wrote, "It greatly saddens us to even be considering this. We are in the business of fostering our teachers as professionals. We should not be in the business of having to lay teachers off."
House Democrats want the money pouring in to state races to be traceable, and for the groups spending it to be held accountable.

The proposed instituting a cap of $70,000 on groups making independent expenditures, and requiring disclosure of donors.

We understand that we are limited in what we can regulate and what you spend and how you spend on elections but there is a story you can tell," said Rep. Matt Ritter, (D - Hartford) the House Majority Leader. "People can at least know where that money is coming from.

The proposal stems from the 2014 state election, specifically, when Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley had a PAC supporting him with funds that were untraceable. Even today, it's unknown where the money came from.

House Democrats say they think voters have a right to know who is funding campaigns, and who paid for particular ads that they may come across.

Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz said, Their name should be clearly listed whether its an internet ad, a TV commercial, or print media and then the voters should be able to go back very easy and look at the reports.

Republicans wouldn't rule out backing more accountability in state elections.

I know theres good intent in there somewhere," said Rep. Jason Perillo, (R - Shelton). Anything that provides greater transparency and lets residents of Connecticut know where donations are coming from is absolutely good for the process.
The East Lyme school district hopes to fix broken ceiling tiles, broken windows, poor airflow and other problems associated with three of its elementary schools with a $37.5 million referendum was up for a vote on Tuesday.

The referendum passed with a 1247-430 vote.

About 100 people have piled into the East Lyme Community Center each hour to cast their ballots, according to Town Meeting Moderator Gene Cushman. Its a solid turnout considering the vote was postponed two weeks because of a snow storm and state-wide travel ban, he said.

I think the schools are in bad shape, said one voter, Brooke Stevens of Niantic.

We need to provide the best that we can for our upcoming generation, said voter Anne Calanquin, also from Niantic.

A vote in favor of the referendum pays for renovations to Niantic Center, Flanders and Lillie B. Haynes elementary schools.

School officials took NBC Connecticut inside Lillie B. Haynes last month and said all three schools need better air flow, need to become compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and need new flooring, ceiling tiles and lighting.

Flanders needs a new roof; the windows at Niantic Center are close to 50 years old, said East Lyme Public Schools Superintendent Jeffrey Newton.

Currently the schools house about 850 students. Newton said hes expecting that to increase to 900 to 1,000 students very soon, and wants to make sure the schools are ready.

We want to make sure the Niantic Center School, the fish school as we call it, is ready for when (my son Jack) and his brother go in the next couple of years, said Colleen Hayes who voted Tuesday afternoon.

In the future it would be cool to see my kid go to the same school I went to, said Rob Cunningham about Niantic Center School and why hes voting in favor of the referendum.

East Lyme First Selectman Mark Nickerson said the average household would have to pay $400 a year for the next 20 years.

Im totally against this, said voter Joseph Mingo of East Lyme. Its like taking a 50-year-old car and spray painting it, and thinking you got a new car. Total waste of the taxpayers money.

Mingo said he would rather see one brand new school that houses all elementary school students.

James Goode is the head custodian at Lillie B. Haynes. He didnt share how he voted, but said the schools definitely need upgrades.

Things can be fixed, but I would love a new school, personally, Goode laughed. I would love a brand new school!

If the referendum passes, Newton said the next step is to file all the paperwork for the project with the state by June 30, and construction should begin in June 2018.

If it doesnt pass, Newtown said the design steering committee would have to start over. But their plan would likely involve less money and smaller-scale fixed for the schools.

The last time there was a big renovation on all three schools dates back to the early 1970s, Newton said. There was a little bit of work done on Lillie B. Haynes 15 years ago.

As of 5 p.m. almost 1,050 people cast their ballots. Polls are open until 8 p.m.
Connecticut State Police have arrested a man accused of driving over 100 miles per hour on Interstate 84 Monday night.

Khalid Rajab, 21, of Manchester, NH faces charges of reckless driving, operation of a motor vehicle without a license, and failure to have lights lit.

Police said that around 11:15 p.m. troopers saw a Dodge Challenger speeding on I-84 east near exit 62 in Manchester. The trooper tried to pull over the vehicle, but the car hit speeds over 125 miles per hour and the trooper pulled back.

According to police, a short time later another trooper on speed enforcement in Vernon clocked the charger driving 136 miles per hour. The trooper radioed in a description to other troopers in the area.

Police said they caught up with the Challenger when the driver, later identified as Rajab, pulled into the Willington rest area and tried to flee on foot.

Rajab was held on a $5,000 bond and is expected to appear in court on April 10.
A North Texas woman was willing to go the extra mile to find love, but it came at a huge cost.

Lisa Curiel grew up in a town with one blinking light.

"Yeah, I'm like a country girl," Curiel said.

When the dating website Dallas & Fort Worth Singles promised high quality guys just for her, she bit.

She wanted someone financially stable, a Christian and a cowboy.

"I wanted somebody who could dance," Curiel said.

Her contract essentially promised 15 names and phone numbers for $15,000.

"They said the background checks, that they're good men, you know, good jobs and they're upstanding citizens," Curiel said.

She was set up on three dates.

"I would ask them, 'Do you know how to country western dance?' And they're like, 'No,'" she said.

She says the guys would say, "If that's what you're looking for, we might as well just hang up now."

She claims none of them fit her requirements, not even remotely.

"I wanted somebody that was definitely Christian, and none of those men went to church," Curiel said.

A representative for the dating company says the men didn't connect with Curiel for various other reasons, but they matched her correctly based on preferences.

And in one case, she had several dates with a gentleman before they both agreed to go in another direction.

The company says when that relationship failed, Curiel wanted her money back. Curiel says that's when Dallas & Fort Worth Singles started insulting her.

"She said that she had a recorded conversation from the third guy that I dated that said that we were sexual, and that he told her that all I wanted was a bed buddy," Curiel said.

Right off the bat, Curiel denied that, but was shocked by the claim.

An attorney for Dallas & Fort Worth Singles said they were wrong to say it, the staff would be counseled and it wouldn't happen again, but it did happen again.

Staff members at the dating company said the same thing to us repeatedly via text message.

"They prey on people," Curiel said.

The company's lawyer wouldn't give a refund, but he agreed Curiel didn't get all she paid for. They promised to restart their client relationship and promised entirely new staff members to help match Curiel with someone new.

Curiel decided to decline the offer and find love in a simpler way  love for the life she leads, as the country girl with goats.

Before signing up with a dating service, here's what you should keep in mind:
The city of Fort Worth has hired a crisis communications company to help deal with a controversy at the police department that started with a viral video of a mother's arrest and led to a leak investigation and the suspensions of two top commanders.

City Manager David Cooke said the city has hired The LeMaster Group in Dallas for six months at a cost of $37,500.

In an email, Cooke said company owner Lisa LeMaster will assist us with a number of issues regarding communications.

The controversy started in December when Officer William Martin arrested a woman who had complained her neighbor choked her 8 year old son for littering in his yard.

The officer, who was later suspended for 10 days, asked her why she didnt teach her son not to litter and suggested the neighbor had the right to grab him.

Cell phone video taken by Craigs daughter was viewed millions of times on social media.

The mother, Jacqueline Craig, and her supporters have protested, repeatedly demanding that Martin be fired and charged with a crime.

Charges against Craig were later dropped and the neighbor was charged with misdemeanor assault.

The case took another twist recently when an assistant chief and deputy chief were placed on detached duty amid a criminal investigation into who leaked Officer Martins body camera footage and documents from his confidential personnel file.

LeMaster is a well-known communications consultant in Dallas. She has recently been hired by Dallas County Schools to deal with fallout from a financial mismanagement scandal.

LeMasters website bills her as an expert In crisis communications.

Crises happen even to good companies and causes, the website says. It offers to help customers develop a crisis communications plan. Its an important exercise to war-game likely or unlikely events.
Studies Show that Parasitic Mites on the Eyes Contribute to Eyelid Inflammation, Including Ocular Rosacea; Two Top Eye Doctors Explain that Avenova Lid & Lash Hygiene can Help Ameliorate the Health of the Eyelids in Patients with this Common form of Blepharitis

MINNEAPOLIS, MN / ACCESSWIRE / March 28, 2017 / Dr. Richard L. Lindstrom, founder and attending surgeon of Minnesota Eye Consultants, and Dr. Ahmad Fahmy, immediate past director of Optometric Services at Minnesota Eye Consultants, today are making a public service announcement about the problem of eyelid inflammation and how this common eye condition can be managed with Avenova Lid & Lash Hygiene from NovaBay Pharmaceuticals (NYSE MKT: NBY).

Millions of Americans - up to 6% of the population - suffer from ocular rosacea, an inflammation that causes redness, burning, and itching of the eyes, explains Dr. Lindstrom and Dr. Fahmy. A clinical study has identified one important contributor: parasites called Demodex mites that infest the skin around the eyes and the eyelids and that carry bacteria like Bacillus oleronius. "This pivotal study showed that the bacterium carried by the mites stimulates an immune response that can often be uncomfortable," says Dr. Fahmy. "The study also showed that patients may suffer from inflammatory reactions to the release of a large load of Bacillus antigens after the death of the mites."

The authors of the study noted that, because this eye condition is exacerbated by mites and their associated bacteria, it is effectively treated by decreasing the mite count and the microbial symbiote.

Avenova is the only eye hygiene product to contain Neutrox, a pure 0.01% solution of hypochlorous acid. Hypochlorous acid is a substance naturally made by our own immune system as a first defense against invaders. Lab tests have shown that Neutrox kills bacteria and neutralizes the toxins bacteria produce, making it a key component in a comprehensive treatment for Demodex blepharitis.

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"We've had excellent results with our own patients," says Dr. Lindstrom. "Wiping eyes twice daily with Avenova sprayed on a cotton pad can bring quick relief from ocular rosacea, as well as other conditions like blepharitis and dry eye."

Contact:

Dr. Ahmad Fahmy, OD, FAAO, Minnesota Eye Consultants, P.A.; amfahmy@mneye.com; 612-813-3600

Dr. Richard L. Lindstrom, M.D., Minnesota Eye Consultants, P.A.; rllindstrom@mneye.com; 952-888-5800

SOURCE: NovaBay Pharmaceuticals
A mother said a pat-down given by a TSA agent to her teenage son at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport left her son feeling "extremely violated," wondering what he did to deserve that kind of treatment.

In an interview with NBC Nightly News in San Diego Tuesday, Jennifer Williamson said her 13-year-old son, Aaron, "left the area and was upset for quite some time.

Williamson said her son was detained for more than an hour Sunday morning at the airport while being screened at the security line as the family traveled to San Diego. The mother captured video of her sons pat-down on her cellphone, posting the video to Facebook as she expressed her outrage over the incident.

In her social media post, Williamson said she had asked TSA to screen her son in other ways because he has sensory processing disorder, a condition that can make one sensitive to stimuli like sounds, lights, touch and textures.

"I asked the agent if there was some type of way we could conduct it in a different manner than patting him down. I was then told that we could either be patted down or we could be escorted out by the DFW Police," Williamson told NBC Nightly News.

The program, organized by the Carlsbad Fire Department, will run from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

The video shows a TSA agent telling Aaron about the screening process before the pat-down begins. The teenager nods as he stands with his legs and arms extended to his side. The agent proceeds to thoroughly touch the teens body, moving his hands onto Aarons shoulders and armpits, then down his back several times, down the sides of his upper body.

The TSA agent then checks all the way around the teens waistband, down his legs and the back of his shorts before touching in between the teens thighs. Aaron looks straight ahead. The agent walks to the boys front and pats him down for a second time before completing the screening.

Williamson said the pat-down was horrifying and left her son feeling confused, as if hed done something to warrant it. She called it "extremely excessive."

Weve dealt with questions for several days now asking why that happened, and what he did wrong, she told NBC Nightly News.

Aaron told NBC Nightly News that the pat-down did not feel right to him, but all he could think about was going on vacation with his family.

"Whenever this officer was touching me in certain areas, I was taught that nobody should touch you in that area," the teenager said. "And whenever someone's touching you like that you would think, 'Oh, Who is this person and why are they doing this?' And for all that reason I didn't want to make a big scene, because my Mom got asked, 'Be escorted out with the police or go to San Diego...' And I really wanted to go to San Diego and I wanted to go to Disneyland and all of that stuff."

In trying to make sense of the incident, Williamson said she's watched the video again.

"I noticed very quickly that my son was pat down in private and sensitive areas repeatedly," she added. "They did not go over those areas one time, they went over them four times. They opened the back of his pants... They opened the front of his pants. They grabbed his arms on either side and grabbed his legs on either side. I don't know what they thought would've been under his skin, but I didn't think that was appropriate, and especially after I had told them that sensory issues were a challenge for him."

In response to the high-profile incident, the TSA released this statement:

TSA allows for a pat-down of a teenage passenger, and in this case, all approved procedures were followed to resolve an alarm of the passenger's laptop.

"The video shows a male TSA officer explaining the procedure to the passenger, who fully cooperates. Afterward, the TSA officer was instructed by his supervisor, who was observing, to complete the final step of the screening process.

"In total, the pat-down took approximately two minutes, and was observed by the mother and two police officers who were called to mitigate the concerns of the mother.

"The passengers were at the checkpoint for approximately 45 minutes, which included the time it took to discuss screening procedures with the mother and to screen three carry-on items that required further inspection.

Williamson said Aaron set off no alarms prior to the pat-down, adding: He physically did not alarm at all during the screening, he passed through the detector just fine.

The mother said her family was treated like dogs and the incident caused them to miss their flight.

These power tripping TSA agents who are traumatizing children and doing whatever they feel like without any cause, need to be reined in, she added.

She said as Aaron's mother, the screening was difficult to watch.

"As a mother I think any mother that saw their child being handled in that way would feel uncomfortable. I think most of the people that have read and commented and been commenting on this situation, that have children, or are involved with children, felt exactly the same way," Williamson said. "It seemed like a gross violation for a child to have to go through."

Williamson said she wants an apology from TSA and for the supervisor in this case to be reprimanded.
A 35-year-old man was arrested Sunday in connection with the murder of an 8-year-old boy who was shot and killed in Pomona in February.

Sengchan Houl, 35, was arrested in Pomona Sunday and booked at the Pomona City jail, Pomona police said. He was stopped as he left his house in Pomona, police said at a Monday news conference.

Jonah Hwang died Feb. 20 after being shot in the head during a suspected drive-by shooting. At least three bullets hit the Pomona home but no one else was struck.

"It was a tragedy what happened to the little kid," said resident Trevor Carson. "And them making an arrest, I guess police are doing their job."

The shooting was one in a series of four reported at the home, including one on Saturday at 7 a.m., when bullets hit the home in the 1100 block of West 11th Street. No one was home at the time of the latest shooting and neighbors said the family moved out of their home immediately after the killing.

Detectives with Pomona police were reviewing surveillance footage Sunday to figure out who keeps shooting at the home. Authorities said they believe all the shootings are connected.

"Four shootings at one location, I would not call that random," said Pomona Police Chief Paul Capraro. "We do not know what that connection is at this point."

Resident Tinita Williams said she heard about four rounds of gunfire on Saturday.

"That could have been my son," she said. "That could have been anyone's kid."

Jonah's adoptive parents had brought him from an orphanage in Taiwan less than three years ago to begin a new American life. Jonah's family attends church at Pomona Presbyterian and Pastor Adam Donner says the family still has a long road of healing.

"It doesn't answer a lot of questions. I think they're grateful for the work police have done and grateful that this ends this part of it, but they still don't have a child," Donner said.

A $20,000 reward was offered late February for information leading to the killer. Early March, the community rallied together at a "super hero" inspired funeral service for the boy.

NBC4's Jonathan Lloyd contributed to this report.
As two undercover Miami-Dade Police detectives continue to recover after being shot Monday night, their co-workers and officials from several agencies have begun the process of figuring out what took place outside a Northwest Miami-Dade apartment complex.

Crews from Miami-Dade Police and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement remained at the scene of the shooting off Northwest 62nd Avenue and 20th Street Tuesday morning.

Officers Charles Woods, 37, and 47-year-old Terence White were taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where White is listed in stable condition while Woods was treated and released.

"This is a brazen act of violence committed against two of our finest police officers there protecting us in this community," Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said. "They were ambushed and we're not going to tolerate it."

Cameras caught the detectives undercover van riddled with bullets  the result of what officials are calling an "ambush style attack."

"I can tell you from looking at the crime scene that these officers are lucky to be alive," said Miami-Dade Police Chief Juan Perez, who arrived at the scene after being at Jackson Memorial Hospital with the detectives  who were transported in a pickup truck by another group of officers who responded to the scene.

"Its been a while since Ive seen a car hit with so many bullets," Perez added. He would go on to say he is hopeful that the community will help them find the person or people responsible.

"It's just a clear indication of how violent, how mean and how unsafe the streets of Miami-Dade County are," said John Rivera, President of the county's PBA.

"Last night we had two Metro Dade police officers involved in a shooting and thank God they're okay and we're here supporting them," Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Joe Sanchez said. "We all realize this is a dangerous profession, we leave work every morning and we don't know if we're going to come back, that's why it's so important to say goodbye to our family. Our philosophy is we're always coming back. These officers were blessed to come back."

Witnesses say they heard the sound of gunshots inside their homes  some saying they have had enough.

"Im ready to leave Miami. Its too out of hand and they need to really do something about this," said Michelle Brown. She added that while she wants officers to become more involved in the community in stopping the violence, everyone needs to help each other.

"What did those two officers do to them? We need the officers so that doesnt make sense," Brown said. "We cant do this by ourselves and not all police are bad."

Police agencies and officials throughout South Florida and the country were sending messages of support to the Miami-Dade Police Department Tuesday.

We stand with our brothers and sisters @MiamiDadePD we are a family and we are in this together.  Miami-Dade SchoolsPD (@MDSPD) March 28, 2017

Heartened, relieved that our MDPD colleagues are okay. Support law enforcement's hunt for the attackers. Share any tips with Crimestoppers. https://t.co/HrEj52tdIp  Daniel J. Oates (@DanielJohnOates) March 28, 2017

NMBPD send prayers and love to @MDPDmedia @MiamiDadePD . We are here for you and will be praying for your officers. #BlueLivesMatter  North Miami Beach PD (@myNMBPolice) March 28, 2017

Our prayers with the officers from@MiamiDadePD ambushed last night by thugs. Need public help to find the attackers.  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) March 28, 2017

Anyone with information is asked to call Miami-Dade Police or Miami-Dade CrimeStoppers.
Police made an arrest early Wedensday morning in the "ambush style attack" on two Miami-Dade detectives late Monday night outside a Northwest Miami-Dade apartment complex.

Miami-Dade Police tweeted the new details, while NBC 6 has confirmed that a 19-year-old suspect has been charged in the shooting.

Several people were detained Tuesday in connection to the shooting, which happened just before 10 p.m. near Northwest 62nd Street and 20th Avenue.

Miami-Dade police said the two officers were investigating gang activity in the area as part of a multi-agency task force. The detectives were in an unmarked police vehicle when, according to officials, several suspects "ambushed" the car and opened fire. The officers returned fire, Miami-Dade Police Maj. Hector Llevat said.

"They were ambushed in their vehicle, unprovoked," Llevat said.

Miami-Dade Police Department

The wounded officers were rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital in the bed of a pickup truck and were being helped inside by their colleagues, NBC 6 video shows.

The officers, Charles Woods, 37, and Terence White, 47, were reported in stable condition and in good spirits, police said. Woods was treated for his injury and released, police said.

Hialeah Police said a person of interest in the shooting later showed up at Hialeah Hospital while another was detained at the Hyatt Place on Northwest 35th Street across from Miami International Airport.

Late Tuesday, Miami-Dade Police said one of the people detained and being questioned in the shooting was arrested for unrelated charges. He was identified as 18-year-old Alexander Stalling.

Woods is an 11-year veteran of the department and White has been on the force for 26 years.

[NATL] Top News Photos: Pope Visits Japan, and More

"Our prayers go out to the speedy recovery of our officers and their families that really had the scare of their life tonight," Perez said.

Miami Beach Police Chief Daniel Oates offered support to the injured officers on social media, tweeting: "@MiamiDadePD prayers for our partners and ready to offer any needed support from @MiamiBeachPD."

"We need you to step up to the plate. If you know something, if you saw something then say something. Today is the day to step up," Perez told reporters in pleading for help finding whoever is involved.
A South Carolina man who wrapped electrical tape around a dog's muzzle to stop her from barking has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Media outlets report William Dodson's sentence Friday represented the state's maximum for animal cruelty. However, Dodson's sentence for mistreating Caitlyn won't extend his prison time.

The 43-year-old North Charleston man was sentenced a day earlier in federal court to 15 years on a gun charge stemming from a traffic stop months before Caitlyn was found in spring 2015. Under a plea agreement, the two sentences will run simultaneously.

"I wish I could give you more," Judge Markley Dennis told Dodson in court Friday.

Still, the sentence sends a message that animal cruelty won't be tolerated, said Aldwin Roman, Charleston Animal Society's director of anti-cruelty and outreach.

"We're going to do everything we can within the law to stop this, and then we're going to go beyond and change our laws and make them stronger," he told The Post and Courier of Charleston.

Dodson, who was free on bail from the traffic stop, had chained Caitlyn outside after wrapping her muzzle nine times. But the then-15-month-old Staffordshire bull terrier mix escaped and was found in critical condition. The tape cut off blood flow to her tongue. Veterinarians at the Animal Society unraveled it after an estimated 36 hours.

"I remember seeing the fear ... in her eyes," Roman said. "That was 36 hours of torture."

The case sparked international outrage after photos of Caitlyn's tightly bound snout spread on social media. She required repeated surgeries and lost part of her tongue. Her snout is still scarred.

Dodson pleaded guilty to felony animal cruelty last August. Charleston Animal Society CEO Joe Elmore said at the time that Caitlyn was living with a new family but continued to suffer from anxiety and stress.

Dodson still faces state drug charges stemming from the March 2015 traffic stop. Prosecutors say he tossed a loaded pistol, along with cocaine and marijuana, as he ran from North Charleston police officers.
What to Know The first ferry in a fleet set to hit New York City waters this summer began its journey from Alabama this weekend

The ferry hit a bit of a snag in Florida when it got stuck in shallow mud in a narrow channel

Citywide ferry service will cost taxpayers $335 million, a price tag a NYC deputy mayor called cost reasonable and well worth it

This weekend the first ferry in New York Citys new fleet began its journey north to the city, where an ambitious plan is underway to bring ferry service to residents across the five boroughs.

After the new ferry was built outside Mobile, Alabama, it traveled down to Fort Myers, Florida, and traversed part of the state via the swampy Caloosahatchee River.

But as the ferry was passing through Moore Haven, just ahead of Lake Okeechobee, it encountered a narrow channel and got stuck in shallow mud, said Anthony Hogrebe, a spokesman for New York City's Economic Development Corporation who was on board the vessel.

The captain had to turn the $4 million boat around as a curious alligator watched from the water.

I heard somebody say gator and saw a head sticking up out of the water, Hogrebe said. It definitely reminded you we are in Florida and anything can happen.

Despite the hitch, the ferry was soon on its way.

To see them assess the situation and get moving again without damaging the propellers gave me confidence we have the right people doing the job, Hogrebe said.

Hogrebe and his team at the EDC are in charge of carrying out Mayor de Blasios vision of citywide ferry service. Announced last year, the ferry service will operate from 21 landings across the city, including in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, by the time it is fully operational in 2018. It will carry an estimated 4.6 million trips per year across six routes.

Hogrebe says the snag in Florida wont have an effect on this summers launch of the ferry service and that the launch is on schedule.

On Friday, Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen told NBC 4 New York that citywide ferry service will cost taxpayers about $335 million, including $180 million for operating costs, $84 million for new boats, $59 million for new docks and landings, and $11 million to buy existing East River Ferry boats and routes.

Glen defended the price tag to taxpayers, saying its cheaper to run ferries than other forms of transportation and that routes will reach under-served communities.

The per cost tax dollar for this form of transportation is less than the express buses we run in other parts of the city, Glen said. This is an absolutely cost reasonable approach.

The city hasnt announced an official opening date for the ferry service, but its expected to hit the first site, the Rockaways, in June and Astora in late summer.
A young woman was gunned down in a Bronx apartment building when she went to protect a friend who was in some sort of trouble, friends and law enforcement sources say.

Aaliyah Alder, 21, was found dead with a single gunshot wound to her head Monday night on the eighth floor of the Forest Houses building on Tinton Avenue in Morrisania, police said.

Davaughn Johnson, 22, was arrested Tuesday evening on charges of murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon.

Law enforcement sources say Alder may have gone to the building to help her best friend. An argument led to Alder slashing a man in the hand and jacket, police say. That's when another man, believed to be Johnson, shot her in the head.

"There was a lot of noise, a lot of fighting," said neighbor Lourdes Lobledo. "I was sitting right here and I told my cousin to call the cops."

Johnson is the boyfriend of Alder's best friend, police say. He didn't speak to reporters as he was led out of the police station Tuesday evening.

Alder's boyfriend was at her home on Tuesday, too distraught to talk.

Speaking on Tuesday morning, Alder's stepfather Patrick Murray told NBC 4 New York she was an aspiring model.

"She was a hard-working person. A good personality. A good person, a person you can trust," he saud.

"This is so sad, we are so shocked, hurt, because we can't bring her back," he said.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions can't follow through  at least for now  with his threat to withhold public safety grant money to Chicago and other so-called sanctuary cities for refusing to impose new tough immigration policies, a judge ruled Friday in a legal defeat for the Trump administration.

In what is at least a temporary victory for cities that have defied Sessions, U.S. District Judge Harry D. Leinenweber ruled that the Justice Department could not impose the requirements.

He said the city had shown a "likelihood of success" in arguing that Sessions exceeded his authority with the new conditions. Among them are requirements that cities notify immigration agents when someone in the country illegally is about to be released from local jails and to allow agents access to the jails.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel called the ruling a victory for cities, counties and states nationwide and "a clear statement that the Trump administration is wrong."

"It means essential resources for public safety will not come with unlawful strings attached, and the Trump justice department cannot continue to coerce us into violating and abandoning our values," Emanuel said.

The city had asked the judge for a "nationwide" temporary injunction this week, asking the judge not to allow the Justice Department to impose the requirements until the city's lawsuit against the department plays out in court.

City officials have said such a ruling would prevent the Justice Department from withholding what are called Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants to the cities based on their refusal to take the steps Sessions ordered.

Chicago has applied for $2.2 million in the federal grant money  $1.5 million for the city and the rest for Cook County and 10 other suburbs. But in a recent court hearing, attorneys representing the city said that more than 30 other jurisdictions across the United States filed court briefs supporting Chicago's lawsuit and have up to $35 million in grants at stake. At least seven cities and counties, including Seattle and San Francisco, as well as the state of California, are refusing to cooperate with the new federal rules.

Leinenweber's ruling was not welcomed at the Justice Department.

"By protecting criminals from immigration enforcement, cities and states with 'so-called' sanctuary policies make their communities less safe and undermine the rule of law," spokesman Devin O'Malley said. "The Department of Justice will continue to fully enforce existing law and to defend lawful and reasonable grant conditions that seek to protect communities and law enforcement."

Though the $1.5 million is just a tiny fraction of the city's budget, the ruling could be a major victory for a city that has been in a public fight with Sessions. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has said the city would not "be blackmailed" into changing its values as a city welcoming of immigrants, and Sessions responded that the Trump administration would not "simply give away grant money to city governments that proudly violate the rule of law and protect criminal aliens at the expense of public safety."

The city argued that it would suffer "irreparable harm" if it lost the funds that are earmarked to expand the city's use of "ShotSpotter " technology to detect when someone fires a gun. And it has made a similar argument if the city were to follow the new requirements. Doing so, Emanuel said Friday, would "drive a wedge of distrust" between the immigrant community and the police force, which needs that community to trust police enough to come forward to report crimes and help officers solve them.

The judge agreed, saying, "The harm to the City's relationship with the immigrant community if it should accede to the conditions is irreparable," wrote the judge.

The ruling is another blow to Sessions, a longtime champion of tougher immigration laws. Earlier this month, Sessions announced that the administration would end a program that protects young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or came with families who overstayed their visas. Trump later announced he was working on an agreement to protect them.

Whether or not the ruling means that Leinenweber will ultimately decide in favor of the city is unclear, but he did make clear the city has a good case.

During a hearing, Ron Safer, an attorney representing the city, said that if the Justice Department prevailed, it could use the same argument to "seize" even more authority to tie grant money to doing what he wants.

On Friday afternoon, Emanuel declined to speculate on whether the Trump administration would find another rationale to deny the city the grant  something that has never happened. Nor would he say if he thought that the administration would find another way to punish the city, such as pull the 20 Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents that were recently assigned to the city this year as part of a new Chicago Crime Gun Strike Force.
What to Know Police say they thwarted a high school girl's imminent threat to bomb her high school and shoot people.

Nicole Cevario, 18, kept a diary with detailed plans on how she would attack Catoctin High School in Thurmont, Maryland, police say.

She will be charged with a crime once she is released from a hospital.

A female high school student had immediate plans to bomb her school in Frederick County, Maryland, and shoot students and teachers, police say.

Nicole Cevario, 18, stockpiled bomb-making materials and had a shotgun to attack Catoctin High School on April 5, the Frederick County Sheriff's Office said Monday. She wrote about her plans in detail in a diary her father found.

Police believe the diary entries were not empty threats, Sheriff Charles A. Jenkins said at a news conference.

"We felt this was going to be carried out. There is no doubt in our minds that we diverted a disaster up there," he said.

Cevario "had the means and equipment to have caused a significant life safety event at the school, police said in a statement.

Frederick County Sheriff's Office

Police learned of Cevario's plot after her father read her diary and called the school. Within hours, the honor student was pulled out of a classroom and involuntarily taken to a hospital for a psychological evaluation.

Police searched Cevario's home in Thurmont, Maryland, and found weapons and the diary. In the home, police say they found a 12-gauge shotgun with ammunition and bomb-making materials including pipes with end caps, shrapnel, fireworks, magnesium tape and fuse material. The gun and other items were purchased legally, police said.

In the diary, police say Cevario "spelled out a detailed shooting event that she planned to execute on a specific date in April," police said.

Officials later said that date was April 5. It was not immediately clear whether that date had any significance.

The diary showed the high schooler, who had been taking college classes in criminal justice, had been planning the attack for some time, police said. She compiled information on the school's emergency procedures and the school resource deputy on duty.

"The journal was very detailed, including a time line that revealed how she was going to execute the plot, and her expectations at each stage of the event," police said.

Officials say Cevario acted alone and never took a weapon or explosive device to the school. It was clear she had mental health issues, the sheriff's office said.

"Obviously, this was a student who needed some intervention and some help, and I think the silver lining is she's going to get the help she needs now," Frederick County Public Schools spokesman Michael Doerrer said.

The tip police received from Cevario's father may have saved lives, officials said.

"The Sheriffs Office is extremely appreciative of the parents actions in bringing this potentially deadly incident to the proper authoritys attention, promptly, so that a positive conclusion could be achieved," the statement said.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Maryand State Fire Marshal's bomb squad assisted the sheriff's office.

The school's principal assured parents that students are secure there.

"We keep our school safe, and we will continue to work together as a community to keep it safe," Principal Bernie Quesada said in a letter sent Monday.

Counselors were available at the school.

Once Cevario is released from the hospital, she will be charged with possession of explosive and incendiary material with intent to create a destructive device.

Law enforcement and school officials said they had no sign Cevario had any problem.

Anyone with information for police is asked to call 301-600-2583.
A Bergen County sting netted 1,000 bags of heroin and the arrest of two alleged drug dealers who were purportedly running narcotics out of Paterson.

The Bergen County Prosecutor's Office said authorities arrested Tony Crowe, 24, and Makia Reed, 22, last Thursday after an undercover operation.

They were allegedly carrying the heroin to distribute to what turned out to be an undercover officer.

They each face one count of possession with the intent to distribute. Information on lawyers for the two was not immediately available.
At a time of dicey issues between the U.S. and Mexico, political observers have been speculating that the two countries' relationship could be at risk.

But right now there's a strong local outreach across the border.

Business and government leaders from San Diego and Baja California are meeting with top lawmakers in Mexico City this week, to strengthen economic and diplomatic ties.

Especially after Tijuana's big sewage spill that polluted South County beaches and even San Diego Bay.

Nearly 90 people are on the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce's trip to Mexico's capital, including not only elected officials such as San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and County Supervisor Ron Roberts, but representatives of the Airport Authority, Port of San Diego, and Baja California Railroad.

The delegates are emphasizing the value of cross-border commerce and collaboration on infrastructure projects.

According to the Chamber, California and Baja combine for a $230 billion economy, with San Diego's annual exports to Mexico totaling upwards of $5.5 billion.

Among other issues on the table are upgraded sewage systems, high-tech employment and another border crossing.

All this comes against a backdrop of President Trump touting the prospect of a "border tax" on Mexico imports to pay for a controversial wall, and re-negotiating NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.

South of the border, those are not exactly popular themes.

"Our story is about putting aside differences, finding common ground and working together, Faulconer told reporters at a news conference Monday.  We're neighbors, and we're very proud of that."

Faulconer pointed out that San Diego and Tijuana comprise the worlds largest hub of medical manufacturing.

Said chamber president Jerry Sanders, a former San Diego mayor: Im confident well overcome the obstacles we face and tap into the potential in our region, growing together as a top global competitor.

The chamber will take another binational delegation to Washington D.C. in the fall.
Seven months after a devastating explosion at a Maryland apartment, one survivors recovery continues with help from the community and a local hospital.

On Aug. 10, a massive explosion at the Flower Branch Apartments complex in Silver Spring killed seven people, displaced at least 80 families and injured more than 30 people, including 32-year-old Memar Ayalew.

Ayalew, of Ethiopia, was visiting his aunt and uncle on a break from a Ph.D. program in Italy. He came home about 11:45 p.m. that night.

I was sitting next to him and I was planning for tomorrow, Ayalew said. I heard a gigantic explosion and I don't remember what happened after that.

He woke up 15 hours later at Washington Adventist Hospital.

I had a breathing tube, I inhaled so much gas and smoke, and I was like, Oh, I am going to die, and I was praying to God, he said.

Ayalew had a serious injury to his left leg, a deep cut on his back and he hurt everywhere. He struggled to recover in the hospital in the following days.

At that moment I didnt know what happened to my uncle and my aunt, he said. I was so worried.

His aunt and uncle were among the seven people who died.

He was my brother, Ayalew said of his uncle. I lost my uncle and I lost my aunt.

Ayalew also lost his entire body of research for his international relations program. All of his work was destroyed in the explosion.

And although his other injuries healed over time, his left leg had been badly damaged and required constant physical therapy, making it impossible to travel.

It was my impression that he had a tear of the cartilage or the ligament in the knee, and so initially we treated him with physical therapy, and Adventist Health Care was willing to provide him with care, said Ayalews orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Christopher Magee.

But physical therapy did not take care of the problem. Ayalew and Magee realized he needed surgery.

Recently, Magee performed an arthroscopy to evaluate and repair damage in the knee. He believes Ayalews ACL also needs repair, but he is optimistic he can get his patient back to living a normal life.

Ayalew is grateful for how much the community has helped him and to Washington Adventist Hospital for providing him with care free of charge.

I never expected this to happen to me and to my relatives, he said. I mean, its incredible, but I am still alive.

Ayalew set up a GoFundMe page for assistance continuing his education.
UPDATE: Police said Taejuon Lloyd was located in good health on April 1, 2017.

=====================

A 15-year-old boy has been missing from Southwest D.C. since Friday, police said.

Taejuon Lloyd was last seen in the unit block of Galveston Street SW. He was not reported missing until Sunday, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.

Taejuon is described as a black male with medium brown complexion who is 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs 160 pounds. He has brown eyes and black hair and was last seen wearing a blue shirt, gray pants, black shoes and a black jacket.

D.C. police are asking anyone with information about Taejuon's location to call the department at 202-727-9099, the Youth and Family Services Division at 202-576-6768 or 911.
Adil Hasan and his wife, Enas Ibrahim, came to the U.S. in 2008 as refugees from Iraq, and have been living peacefully in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., ever since.

To get here, though, they faced a dilemma as they sat in a camp in Jordan, where they were required to fill out their family trees to apply for refugee status: Should they include Hasan's brother, Majid Al Mashhandani, who participated in the 2004 kidnapping of American contractor Roy Hallums?

In a phone interview Tuesday, Ibrahim said they decided to keep that relationship a secret.

"We just wanted to leave our country," she said. "When we started the process, we were just scared to add his name."

Ibrahim, her husband and her husband's brother, Yousif Al Mashhandani, 35, of Vienna, Virginia, are charged with immigration fraud for failing to disclose the relationship. The three made their initial appearance in federal court Tuesday. All face up to 10 years in prison and eventual deportation.

Yousif and Hasan were detained pending a hearing scheduled for Friday. Ibrahim was allowed to remain free and return to her home in Burke, Virginia, where she cares for the couple's two children, ages 5 and 6, who are natural born U.S. citizens.

The case comes in the midst of national debate over U.S. authorities' ability to effectively vet refugee applicants. President Donald Trump has issued an executive order that temporarily suspends the nation's refugee program to allow time for a review of the screening process. Refugee advocates argue that the vetting process is already very strict, and a federal judge has temporarily blocked Trump's executive order from taking effect.

The charges against the three make no allegation that any of them were involved in Hallums' kidnapping, though a court affidavit said Yousif's fingerprint was found in the building where Hallums spent nearly a year in captivity before he was freed in an Army raid.

Hallums, though, said his kidnapping was largely a family affair perpetrated by the Mashhandani clan.

"The gang that had me was all one family," Hallums said in a phone interview from his home in Memphis, Tennessee. "There were so many people involved in this kidnapping."

Hallums said he was surprised to learn Tuesday that the three had been able to enter the U.S., given the fact that Yousif's fingerprint had been on file with authorities for years when he made his refugee application in 2007.

When all three applied for U.S. citizenship, they had to answer whether they had ever given false or misleading information while applying for any immigration benefit.

When the FBI came calling last year, Ibrahim said they came clean, giving agents Majid's address and every bit of information they had about him. Ibrahim said she even offered to go with agents to Iraq to help them find him.

"I thought we were OK," she said. "The agent was very nice. He said, 'We know you are good people.' I told him, 'Just put yourself ... if you were us, and you had someone behind you who wants to kill you."

She said her husband worked in Baghdad's Green Zone and was a target for terrorists.

In court papers, prosecutors alleged that Ibrahim and her husband embellished the threat they faced, saying that Hasan had been kidnapped, tortured by a Shia militia and released after paying a $20,000 ransom. In reality, they alleged Hasan later acknowledged that he was only once stopped at a Shia militia checkpoint for five hours and slapped once on his shoulder with an open hand.

As for Yousif's fingerprint, Ibrahim said that her husband's father kept all the family paperwork in the same place, and it's not surprising that some of Yousif's and Majid's paperwork was commingled.

She wept as she contemplated the implications of the criminal case on her family.

"I don't want to go back to Iraq," she said through sobs. "It's my nightmare."
The North Carolina artist found bound and stabbed to death inside a row house in northeast Washington last week may have been tortured for access to her ATM card, according to court documents.

El Hadji Alpha Madiou Toure, 28, of no fixed address, was arrested Monday night and has been charged with first-degree murder while armed and theft one in connection with Corrina Mehiel's death.

It doesn't appear Mehiel and Toure knew one another, Acting Police Chief Peter Newsham said at a news conference Tuesday.

The doctor who performed the autopsy found defensive wounds on the palm of Mehiels left hand and puncture wounds to her neck, suggesting torture, according to court documents.

Police have pictures of Toure using Mehiels ATM card at several locations around the area, court documents said. Her card was used seven times to withdrawal a total of $4,000 in the days before and after her death, beginning March 20 -- the afternoon before her body was found -- and continuing until about 1 a.m. Friday.

Surveillance video also shows Toure walking in Mehiels block the morning of her murder and driving away in her 2004 Toyota Prius, according to court documents.

Police received a tip Monday morning that Toure was sitting in a Ford Taurus in the 1700 block of Hamlin Street NE. He was arrested on an outstanding warrant for a probation violation in Bradley County, Tennessee, Newsham said.

A search of the Taurus found paperwork showing Toure bought the vehicle Friday, making a $1,000 payment.

Newsham said Toure may have been staying in local homeless shelters.

Mehiel, 34, was found unconscious and suffering from several stab wounds to the neck and torso in a basement apartment in the 600 block of 14th Street NE, near the busy H Street corridor, about 4:30 p.m. March 21. She was pronounced dead after midnight March 22, one day before her birthday.

Police found no signs of forced entry in the apartment where her body was found.

Mehiel was an artist and art teacher who was working at the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design. She was last seen at the school March 19. She talked with her father by phone that night, too, her stepmother said.

Her boyfriend told investigators he last had contact with her at 1:24 a.m. March 21, police said.

Mehiel, who originally was from Burnsville, North Carolina, was living in D.C. temporarily. She specialized in art that engaged communities and was working with the artist Mel Chin.

"She was full of life, full of plans," Mehiel's stepmother, Lari Mehiel, said last week by phone.

She sobbed as she spoke about the artist's murder.

"I think some heinous, hate-filled, evil person killed her. I don't know why. Why would he kill her?" she said.

Toure served one year of an eight-year sentence in Tennessee after pleading guilty to two robbery charges in 2006 before he was put on probation, according to the Bradley County Sheriff Office. He has an outstanding violation of probation warrant.
UPDATE: Rape charges against Jose Montano and Henry Sanchez Milian were dropped, prosecutors said May 5, 2017.

The father of one of the Rockville High School rape suspects was taken into custody after it was discovered he was in the United States illegally, according to a statement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Adolfo Sanchez-Reyes, 43, from Guatemala, was arrested by ICE agents on Friday, March 24. He is being held at the Howard County Detention Center after a review of his immigration history revealed his illegal status.

An ICE spokesman confirmed that Sanchez-Reyes is the father of Henry Sanchez-Millian, a Rockville High School student who was charged with first-degree rape and two counts of first-degree sexual offense in connection with an attack on a 14-year-old classmate.

Sanchez-Millan, who also is from Guatemala, entered the U.S. illegally in August and was encountered in Texas by a U.S. Border Patrol agent, federal immigration officials said. He was eventually released to live with his father.

Another student, Jose Montano, 17, faces the same charges in the attack on the girl.
What to Know A Muslim family in Northern Virginia say they returned home to find their apartment had burglarized and their Quran was destroyed.

Fairfax County police are investigating the crime as a burglary and bias incident.

The parents, who are originally from Pakistan, said they felt safe in the neighborhood.

A family returned home from a weekend away and found their apartment ransacked, their Quran torn to pieces and the words "F--- Muslims" scrawled on a wall, they told police.

The residents of an apartment in the Huntington section of Fairfax County, Virginia, told News4 their home was burglarized and vandalized over the weekend. The apartment still was in shambles Tuesday afternoon.

Their ornate Quran was torn up, and artwork with religious calligraphy was bent and thrown to the ground.

"I was crying. It was bad. It was bad," one of the victims, Mahrukh, said. She and her husband, Shoaib, asked that News4 use only their first names, for their safety.

The family members' green cards were taken, along with more than $25,000 worth of gold they received as wedding gifts, as is common among many Muslim families.

Police are investigating the crime as a burglary and a bias incident.

Courtesy of family

Photos show the hateful graffiti and torn-up Quran pages alongside children's toys.

The parents, who were born in Pakistan, got a call about 9:30 a.m. Monday from the apartment complex's management. A worker who entered the apartment to do maintenance discovered the damage.

Police believe the burglar or burglars entered through a patio door. The door lock was broken inside the frame.

Mahrukh said her first thought when she saw the damage was of their two young children.

"We did not want our kids to find out or look at this mess," she said.

"We were in complete shock. It's a dream. We're just going to open our eyes and it's all going to go away," Mahrukh continued. "Especially when we saw that written on the wall and the Quran torn to pieces on the floor, and my painting just torn apart and on the floor, that was just shocking."

NBC Washington

The drawers and cupboards had been emptied, the beds were stripped, and the mattresses were overturned. But the discovery of the torn-up Quran was the most painful discovery, the family said.

Shoaib said the crime stunned him. He had felt safe in the neighborhood, where his family moved just last month from Dubai.

"Never in a million years would I imagine something like this would happen in the area. It's such a safe place and everyone we've ever met has been so nice," he said. "Apparently, bad people, they can be found anywhere."

A Muslim couple returns from a trip to find their #Fairfax Co home ransacked, the Quran torn, a slur on the wall. The story #NBC4DC@6 pic.twitter.com/fgLu66PWim  Julie Carey (@JulieCareyNBC) March 28, 2017

Mahrukh and Shoaib said they believe who ever damaged their home meant to burglarize it and then vandalized it once they realized they were in a Muslim home.

Shoaib addressed why he chose to speak publicly about the crime.

"We wanted to get the word out there that this cannot be normalized. This cannot become a normal thing," he said.

Fairfax County police are investigating. No information on a suspect was released.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights organization, is calling for a hate crime investigation.

"What may have begun as a break-in clearly ended as a possible hate crime," CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said in a statement. "The message of hate left at the scene and the damage done to religious texts indicate the need to investigate a bias-motive for this crime."

Elected officials and faith leaders met in Fairfax County, Virginia, and Montgomery County, Maryland, on Friday amid a rash of threats and hate crimes. "We're going to use every resource we can to bring those people who are causing these crimes to justice," Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin said. News4's Chris Gordon reports.

The number of bias incidents reported in Fairfax County increased from 60 in 2015 to 83 in 2016, Patch reported.

A Jewish day school in Fairfax was evacuated last month due to a bomb threat. A mosque in Falls Church received an envelope that said "Kill all Muslims" earlier this month. And officials from across the D.C. region say they are addressing a spike in hate crimes.

Friends of Mahrukh and Shoaib's family started a GoFundMe page to help them rebuild.

"You matter to this community and to this country," one donor wrote.
D.C. police officers will not be charged in the fatal shooting of a man pointing a weapon that turned out to be a BB gun last summer.

Police shot and killed 63-year-old Sherman Evans in self-defense the night of June 27 near his apartment in northeast D.C., according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.

Police encountered Evans after he called 911 to report a man with a gun in the 100 block of Varnum Street NE, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

"Yes, miss, look. Uh, uh, it's a man out in front of the building brandishing a gun," he said. "It's a man out in front of the building brandishing a gun."

Officers found Evans standing on the sidewalk with a weapon pointed toward the ground, the U.S. Attorney's Office said, but he repeatedly raised the barrel of the gun and pointed it at police.

Officers repeatedly ordered him to drop the gun, but after several minutes, Evans pointed the gun at police again and moved toward them, at which point police shot him, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

He was taken to MedStar Washington Hospital Center where he was pronounced dead.

Evans was shot once in the right forearm, once in the right buttock and once in the chest, which possibly was a reentry wound from the bullet that struck his arm, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

His weapon was a Marksman Repeater .177-caliber BB gun almost identical to a real firearm, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. The investigation determined the 911 call was made from Evans' phone and his voice was authenticated.

The investigation, which included police body camera video, found the officers did not use excessive force when they shot Evans, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
The female high school student who was planning to bomb her school and shoot students and teachers referenced the Columbine and Newtown attacks in her diary and believed she would be the first female mass shooter, police say.

Frederick County Sheriff Charles A. Jenkins revealed new details on Tuesday about what investigators found in Nicole Cevario's diary. The 18-year-old was pulled out a classroom at Catoctin High School after her father read threats in the diary and contacted the school.

Cevario referenced the horrific school shootings in Columbine, Colorado, and Newtown, Connecticut, Jenkins said. She focused on mistakes those shooters made, the sheriff said.

Also, she said she believed she would be the first female mass shooter.

A 16-year-old girl opened fire at an elementary school in San Diego in 1979, and a woman was one of the shooters in the San Bernardino attack in 2015, among other examples.

Cevario stockpiled bomb-making materials and had a shotgun to attack Catoctin High on April 5, the Frederick County Sheriff's Office said Monday.

Police believe her diary entries were not empty threats, Sheriff Charles A. Jenkins said at a news conference Monday.

"We felt this was going to be carried out. There is no doubt in our minds that we diverted a disaster up there," he said.

Cevario "had the means and equipment to have caused a significant life safety event at the school, police said in a statement.

How the Investigation Unfolded

Police learned of Cevario's plot after her father read her diary and called the school on Thursday. Earlier, he found shotgun shells in her backpack, Jenkins said. He had noticed a change in her behavior. She already was seeing a counselor outside school.

Within hours of the father's phone call, the honor student was pulled out of a classroom and involuntarily taken to a hospital for a psychological evaluation.

Police searched Cevario's home in Thurmont, Maryland, and found weapons and the diary. In the home, police say they found a 12-gauge shotgun with ammunition and bomb-making materials including pipes with end caps, shrapnel, fireworks, magnesium tape and fuse material.

The gun and other items were purchased legally, police said. Cevario reportedly planned to saw off the shotgun.

What Cevario's Diary Said

Cevario's diary "spelled out a detailed shooting event that she planned to execute on a specific date in April," police said.

Officials later said that date was April 5. It was not immediately clear whether that date had any significance.

The diary showed the high schooler, who had been taking college classes in criminal justice and working at a carryout restaurant, had been planning the attack for some time, police said. She expressed frustrations about her personal life and compiled information on the school's emergency procedures and the school resource deputy on duty.

"The journal was very detailed, including a time line that revealed how she was going to execute the plot, and her expectations at each stage of the event," police said.

The sheriff said in an update Tuesday that Cevario named one male classmate and two female classmates in the diary. All three people were friends. Police believe they were neither targets nor accomplices, but did not release additional information.

Investigators believe she had a second diary they cannot find.

What's Next

Officials say Cevario acted alone and never took a weapon or explosive device to the school. It was clear she had mental health issues, the sheriff's office said.

"Obviously, this was a student who needed some intervention and some help, and I think the silver lining is she's going to get the help she needs now," Frederick County Public Schools spokesman Michael Doerrer said.

Once Cevario is released from the hospital, she will be charged with possession of explosive and incendiary material with intent to create a destructive device.

Law enforcement and school officials said they had no sign Cevario had any problem.

Life at Catoctin High was returning to normal Tuesday.

"It's crazy to think that this could be happening in such a small community," one student said. "I feel like you know the people at your high school, but really you might not."

Anyone with information for police is asked to call 301-600-2583.

How to Tell If Your Child Needs Help

Dr. Mary Alvord, a psychologist, said parents should watch for dramatic changes in their children's behavior. Note if children or teens suddenly withdraw from friends, hole up in their rooms for hours or fail to come home, she said. Changes in sleep patterns and eating habits, or increased irritability also can be signs something is wrong.

"We're really looking for patterns of change," Alvord said.
Prosecutors have dropped charges against a 17-year-old in the fatal stabbing of two men at the Westfield Wheaton mall in Montgomery County, Maryland.

The teen, Angelo Lamont Jackson, of Montgomery Village, was charged as an adult with two counts of first-degree murder. However, a spokesman with the Maryland State's Attorney's Office said Tuesday that prosecutors dismissed the charges last week.

The incident happened Jan. 10 on the lower level of the mall, near the Hollister clothing store, police have said.

The two men who died -- Kevin Siloe Moya Cruz, 22, and Angel Alfredo Gomez-Pineda, 24 -- were stabbed after they were involved in a fight.

Police said that four young men broke bamboo sticks that were in a planter inside the mall and wielded them against a young man. The conflict died down, but then the man who had been attacked with the sticks returned with a knife, police said.

Officers arrived to find the victims with life-threatening stab wounds. They later died.

The mall, also known as Wheaton Plaza, is located at 11160 Veirs Mill Road in Wheaton, Maryland.
Elected officials in Massachusetts are launching a new effort to fight the opioid crisis.

A new campaign backed by business leaders, elected officials, and health care professionals is relying heavily on some of the area's biggest businesses like Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and General Electric.

Guillermina Montanez, of Chelsea, knows the perils of addiction all too well.

At three months of being drug-free, she is a testament to the success that can be achieved with the right programs and support system in place.

You think youre all alone but youre not, Montanez said.

But a big obstacle in achieving widespread recovery, especially with the opioid crisis, has been the lack of funding for organizations like Community Action Programs Inter-City, or CAPIC.

They go into detox, after detox they have nowhere to go, so we have to try to get them into sober living and thats always a challenge, said Gladys Valentin-Agneta with CAPIC.

And thats where Rize Massachusetts comes in.

This is the opportunity for us in Massachusetts to do what weve long needed to do, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said.

The newly formed independent non-profit is a partnership of healthcare professionals, community organizations and business leaders that has pledged to raise $50 million over the next three years to fight opioid addiction.

Its important for us to make sure that not only do we provide the treatment that people need, but we need to make sure that we start to continue to work on the prevention that people need as well, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said.

That infusion of funding and resources could help recovering addicts like Montanez continue down the path of recovery.

It really is about time that people realize that just because we do drugs were not bad people, we just, were dealing with problems, and dont sometimes know how to deal with it, Montanez said.

Rize Massachusetts has already secured commitments for $13 million of the $50 million in funding the group hopes to raise.

It will then award grants to take a more targeted approach to addiction treatment and prevention.
A fire broke out Monday at a large apartment complex in Waltham, Massachusetts, destroying one building's roof.

No one was injured in the blaze at the Windsor Village Community, a complex on Hardy Pond, but police say most of the building that caught fire is a total loss.

Firefighters worked to prevent the blaze from spreading to other buildings in the complex.

Waltham Fire is working to determine the cause.
Officials at Massachusetts General Hospital have identified two of its doctors killed in an avalanche in Canada earlier this month.

Victor Fedorov and Lauren Zeitels, internal medicine residents at the hospital, died when they were buried in an avalanche while snowshoeing in the area of Banff National Park in Alberta. Federov and Zeitels were described by MGH President Peter Slavin as "rising stars" at the hospital. They were both in the second year of the hospital's internal medicine residency program.

Fedorov and Zeitels were seasoned outdoor enthusiasts, and the hospital said they had extensively planned their trip and taken every possible safety precaution.

"The last two weeks have been extremely difficult and emotional for our community as together we waited, hoped and prayed for a different outcome," MGH Physician-in-Chief Katrina Armstrong and Residency Program Director Jatin Vyas said in a joint statement. "We mourn these dedicated and promising physicians who were full of life and embodied the kind of devotion, compassion and brilliance that represent the best of medicine and humanity."

Fedorov was born in Moscow, Russia, and grew up in Richmond, Virginia. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Richmond and received his medical and doctoral degrees at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York.

Zeitels grew up in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Cambridge and completed her medical and doctoral degrees at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Zeitels' parents said their daughter loved the outdoors and hiked all over the world.

"She was just one of the most loving, thoughtful, and benevolent people that you could ever want to know," said Susan Zeitels, Laurens mother.

She said the two friends took all sorts of safety gear for what was supposed to be a 20-minute walk.

"They read books on avalanche control, they were very safe and thats the main thing that we want everyone to know is that she took every safety precaution that was possible," Susan Zeitels said.

Laurens family members say they take comfort in that she was doing what she loved, and they dont believe she suffered.

"She was happy, it was a beautiful day, and thats what we think of," said Susan Zeitels. "She was out in the beautiful sunshine with the sparkling snow and she really didnt know what happened to her."

"She was a loving daughter," said Jerrold Zeitels, Laurens father. "We loved her more than anything in the world."

Hospital officials said the friends "enthusiastically embraced all life had to offer."

"They loved people, science, travel, and experiencing new cultures. They cherished interacting and connecting with all they encountered  patients, families, colleagues, mentors, unit staff, support staff, researchers, trainees," said Armstrong and Vyas. Their dedication to delivering compassionate care of the highest quality coupled with a resolve to understand and find answers to poorly understood diseases are the legacy they leave at MGH  indeed, at every place they touched."

The hospital said that memorial services are in the works, and donations can be made to the Lauren Zeitels Memorial Pathways Fund and the Victor Fedorov Memorial Fund at MGH.
A 25-year-old man has been arrested after allegedly slapping a 5-month-old baby several times in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, according to NBC affiliate WJAR.

Authorities responded to an East Street home Sunday to find the infant boy unconscious and unresponsive with facial bruising.

The child was taken to Landmark Medical Center before being sent to Hasbro Children's Hospital. His condition was not clear.

According to WJAR, Bernier claimed the baby had fallen off the couch. Police, however, believe Bernier had slapped the baby repeatedly because he would not stop crying. Police say Bernier told them he had "lost it."

Bernier faces charges of first-degree child abuse. He was arraigned Monday and held on $25,000 bail with surety.
A Scituate, Massachusetts, driver faces a DUI charge after a plumbing company van smashed into the side of a Providence, Rhode Island, restaurant.

Police say a van belonging to Statewide Plumbing & Heating Inc. crashed into several parked cars before plowing into the entrance of El Chapin Restaurant at about 6 p.m. Monday. Several people, including children, were inside the building at the time but none was hurt.

Officials say 56-year-old Michael Ducharme was found unconscious behind the wheel of the van and given a dose of naloxone, an overdose reversal drug.

Officials say he wasn't seriously hurt.

Firefighters installed wooden supports to keep the structure from collapsing.

Ducharme is charged with driving under the influence and refusal to give blood.

It was not immediately clear if he has a lawyer.
A firefighter was hospitalized after crews rescued an 82-year-old man from a burning apartment building on Tuesday afternoon.

Brockton Fire said the man was removed from a third floor porch of a building at 685 Oak St. using a ground ladder around 4 p.m.

"The fire was blowing out on the second floor porch and some of the bystanders said there was somebody up there," recalled Brockton firefighter Ben Denny.

Video from the scene showed firefighters attending to the man on the ground. The man, who was identified by family as Paul Mulloy, appeared to be conscious and alert.

"It was just an incredible rescue," Mayor Bill Carpenter said. "They got up there really quickly and got him out. There's no doubt in my mind that they saved his life."

According to Brockton Fire Deputy Chief Charles Davis, a passerby noticed the fire and reported it.

According to Mulloy's daughter-in-law, Mulloy has burns on 35 percent of his body and is still being treated.

Lieutenant Christopher O'Reilly and Firefighter Zachery Davis suffered second degree burns and were taken to a hospital for treatment.

Multiple other firefighters suffered lesser burn injuries and were treated at the scene.

Smoke and flames could be seen shooting from the building. The extent of the damage is not yet known, but the fire marshal's office is responding.

"My husband was out of the car and screaming and opened the doors because he saw the flames coming out and my neighbor was on the deck," said Emilia Deoliveira, a resident of the Madrid Square Apartments. "The firefighters went up and got him really quick, and the fire was all the way outside already. It was really, really, really bad. I'm shaking still."

John O'Brien, who lives in an adjoining building, said he smelled and saw smoke and came outside to see what was going on. He said the building was "totally covered in flames" and was spreading rapidly.

"The next thing I knew, the guys on the truck went up there," he said. "While they were trying to get him out they were covered with flames. It was unbelievable. It was a scary thing to watch."

Most of the 12 units in the apartment complex suffered extensive damage. At least 30 people were displaced by the fire.

The fire has been ruled as accidental. Brockton fire says it started in the area of electrical appliances in the kitchen.
A person of interest in the slaying of a restaurant delivery driver in Lynn, Massachusetts, is also wanted in connection to an armed robbery and aggravated rape in North Andover.

The person of interest in the Lynn murder, 21-year-old Brian Brito of Manchester, New Hampshire, is being questioned, but has not been arrested for the murder, according to the Essex County district attorneys office. North Andover police say Brito is also wanted for aggravated rape, kidnapping and armed robbery in connection to a convenience store robbery late Monday night.

The shooting happened just before 6 p.m. Monday. Authorities in Lynn say police found 24-year-old Sina Zangiband dead in his car with several gunshot wounds. The Salem man worked as a delivery driver for Atha's Famous Roast Beef.

Family and friends said police told them Zangiband may have been a victim of road rage.

Friend Marven Abda said he met Zangiband delivering food for Atha's.

"Every time he sees me he said he doesnt have a brother he says 'I love you just like my brother' and tell him the same," said Abda. "I lost part of me basically. Not just a friend  part of me."

Police found a vehicle on Route 1 southbound in Peabody matching the description of the one involved in the shooting Monday night.

The driver, Brito, had an illegal loaded firearm and was driving with a revoked license. He also had a loaded magazine in the left cargo pocket of his sweatpants and a box with more ammunition in the right pocket.

Brito was taken into custody and was arraigned on the gun and license charges Tuesday morning.

North Andover police say that Brito also robbed a convenience store on Chickering Road just after 10 p.m. on Monday. Investigators say Brito ordered the store clerk at gunpoint to lock the doors and took her to a back room, where she was sexually assaulted. He then emptied the cash drawer and stole lottery tickets before fleeing.

The homicide and convenience store assault and robbery remain under investigation.
A Manchester, New Hampshire, woman is facing multiple charges after she allegedly threatened to defecate on a police officer trying to arrest her early Monday morning.

Kristina Roberts, 18, is charged with simple assault and two counts of resisting arrest/detention. Her boyfriend, Samuel Caraballo, 19, is charged with criminal threatening, resisting arrest/detention and simple assault. Both suspects appeared in court Monday. Bail information was not available.

Manchester police said they were called to 70 Dover St. around 3 a.m. after a neighbor complained about tenants in a second floor apartment.

The neighbor said he heard the tenants fighting and asked them to quiet down. In response, they allegedly threw eggs at his vehicle.

Police responded, and said a male - later identified as Caraballo - came to the door and immediately became confrontational. He backed out of the doorway and Roberts, his girlfriend, blocked the door frame and continued arguing with police.

One of the officers then noticed Caraballo walking toward a long gun located next to a bed. The officer pushed past Roberts, even though she grabbed his jacket to keep him from entering. Another officer then started to place Roberts under arrest for trying to keep the officers from entering the apartment.

By this time, Caraballo and the officer who had entered the apartment were fighting for control of the shotgun. Caraballo kicked the officer in the chest, but another officer was able to incapacitate him with a Taser, and he was taken into custody.

Roberts was also placed under arrest. As they waited for the transport wagon, Roberts allegedly placed her buttocks on the officer's leg and threatened to defecate on her.

It was not immediately known whether Roberts or Caraballo had retained attorneys.
Despite Attorney General Jeff Sessions' threats of cutting federal funds to sanctuary cities, some Massachusetts communities like Cambridge and Somerville say they won't change their policies.

Mayor Denise Simmons is standing strong that Cambridge will continue to be a sanctuary city despite Sessions' threats.

"One thing I can say, Cambridge will maintain it's its stance as a sanctuary city," Simmons said.

Sanctuary cities provide a safe haven for undocumented workers that could be deported.

Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone is following suit with Cambridge.

"We're not going to tear a family apart because someone was pulled over for a broken tail light," said Curtatone.

Chelsea City Manager Thomas Ambrosino released a statement reading in part, "Our position in Chelsea is not going to change, regardless of what is said and what actions are taken by the Trump Administration. Our sanctuary city designation in Chelsea reflects a core value of the City  to treat all residents with dignity and respect, regardless of nation of origin or immigration status."

Some Cambridge residents said they don't like the threats and are happy with Simmon's stance.

"Boston itself is a very diverse city - that's one of the beauty of Boston," said Cambridge resident Abhi Thaem.

"I think that's the right thing to do. I think that's the kind of state that Massachusetts is and the kind of cities that Boston and Cambridge are," said Cambridge resident Brittany Cullen.

Mayors Simmons and Curtatone said if they do lose federal funding for essential programs, they will just have to do a little belt tightening and find the funds from other sources.
As the confirmation process of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch moves forward, a key member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee still wants more information from President Trumps pick.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, already said he plans to vote against Gorsuch to sit on the nations highest court.

Monday, Leahy said that he still has more questions for the nominee, and released a seven-page list of 21 questions he sent to Gorsuch on Friday.

Judge Gorsuchs answers to the questions will be under oath, and Leahy expects to receive the responses ahead of next weeks Senate Judiciary Committee vote on the nomination.

The questions run the gamut from the nominees stance on campaign finance rules, to rights for LGBT Americans, to his views on medical aid in dying for people already in the final days of their fights with terminal illnesses.

Unless he had an amazing confirmation conversion over the weekend and answered these questions with a different view than he had during the hearing, Ill vote against him, Sen. Leahy said Monday in response to a question from necn.

Leahy also said he is not ready to sign onto Senate minority leader Chuck Schumers call for the Democrats to filibuster the Gorsuch vote. Leahy said he first has to speak to the rest of the caucus about it.

The full list of follow-up questions Leahy sent to Gorsuch can be viewed on Leahy's website.

Leahy has been known to request more in-depth information from other nominees following their confirmation hearings.

Official questions following another recent confirmation hearing, for now-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, included one on any contact between Sessions and members of the Russian government before or after election day.

In response to the Leahy question, Sessions denied having any contact with Russian officials.

However, Sessions would later change his answer, leading many to view the change as a factor in the attorney general recusing himself from investigations pertaining to Russias interference in U.S. elections.
Traditionalists are notoriously hard sells. I dont mean politically; I mean technologically.

While remote working might not sound controversial, the ideological divides are clearly drawn.

Over the past few years, Google, Yahoo and Best Buy have all made headlines with their no remote working policies. The most recent entry into this hardline approach is IBM. Just last month, CMO Michelle Peluso announced in a private video to marketing staff: Move on site, or move out.

After 19 straight quarters of declining revenue, the decision to relocate their dispersed teams to one of six strategic offices is driven not just by the bottom line, but by an underlying assumption about what makes great teams great. As Peluso explained:

There is only one recipe I know for success  and that is by bringing great people with the right skills, give them the right tools, give them a mission, make sure they can analyze their results, put them in really creative inspiring locations and set them free. [T]here is something about a team being more powerful, more impactful, more creative, and frankly hopefully having more fun when they are shoulder to shoulder.

The deep irony of this announcementas well as the larger controversy surrounding remote workingis that data-driven companies all too often make these decisions without data.

Does remote working undercut creativity and innovation?

Does it weaken team morale?

Does it negate the human elements so vital to strong partnerships?

Is it a strain on the bottom line?

In a nutshell: Does remote working work?

These are serious questions that deserve serious answers. Thats why we at Polycom, with the help of Morar Consulting, launched a global study of 25,234 workers to find out.

The results are in, and the data is definitive. In fact, our findings from the The Changing World of Work: A Global Survey reveal two truths no leader can afford to ignore.

1. Flexibility is the new normal

Call it telecommuting, digital-hybrid employment, or plain-old remote, only 23 percent of employees say their company does not offer some form of flexible working. Moreover, 32 percent said they work this way often, and another 29 percent say they work this way from time to time. Most revealing, over three-fourths reported they work with at least one person who isnt located in the same office.

Not surprisingly, this work anywhere trend spikes among younger generations. While 49 percent of employees 50 years or older said they often work away from traditional offices (just barely outside the majority), a full 70 percent of millennials identified themselves within this category. This finding not only reinforces earlier data from sources such as the Canadas Telecommunications Industry Report, but it does so on a global scale.

Naturally, the rise of flexibility does not in and of itself prove its value. What it does establish is the dominant role it now plays, as well as what a pressing expectation its become for workers. This is especially true for organizations in competitive industries such as technology where fresh talent is crucial to innovation and success.

The world beyond our physical locations is replete with talent. People are not widgets, easily substituted or swapped out. Whats more, many of them love the place they already live. Attracting and retaining top talent demands widening the pool, not limiting it by geography. Such benefits are well worth the investment in supporting and promoting a flexible work environment.

2. Remote working is about both happiness and productivity

As for the value of remote working, three benefits stood out. First was control, namely, the choice to take control of your work-life balance. Seventy percent of respondents identified this as the single biggest advantage.

Psychologists and business leaders have long known that control is a huge driver of personal and professional happiness. In his TEDTalk and book-length treatment, Daniel Pink summarized the case for autonomy:

According to a cluster of recent behavioral science studies, autonomous motivation promotes greater conceptual understanding, better grades, enhanced persistence at school and in sporting activities, higher productivity, less burnout, and greater levels of psychological well-being.

Secondand flowing directly out of the firstproductivity. In fact, both the second and third benefits revolved around productivity: You can work anywhere to be more productive (64 percent) and You can care for children and still work productively (37 percent). Other benefits included time to enjoy exercise and hobbies (33 percent), avoid the stress of commuting (26 percent), and better meetings (24 percent).

Whats important to see is how overlapping and interlocking choice, happiness, productivity, and remote working have become. Peluso was half right when she said success comes from bringing great people with the right skills together and then setting them free. It turns out, however, that setting them free has just as much to do with where someone works as with who and how.

The meetings that matter

Perhaps the studys findings wont be enough to change the minds of traditionalists. So rather than close with more data, Ill close with this:

Today Ive met with team members and outside stakeholders in many different cities and countries. Ive met all of them, without leaving my office in Colorado. In fact, right now Im sitting in my home office waiting for a text message from my daughter that will take me to the local hospital to meet my first grandchild.

In a very real sense, remote working has made writing this possible. But even more important, because I didnt have to be there for those meetings, I get to be here for this one. And thats what makes remote working work.
The recent document leak detailing CIA spying campaigns and hacking techniques has fostered conversations and news stories on how to balance intelligence gathering with privacy, as well as discussions on the agencys extensive spying capabilities. What hasnt been discussed as much is what enterprises (and governments in one case) can learn from the WikiLeaks Vault 7 leak.

To me, three key takeaways are that leaks can happen to any organization, figuring out what entity carried out an attack is difficult to do, and were in an era when nation-state weapons end up in the hands of criminals. Collectively, these development make practicing information security more complex than ever. Now, lets explore each one in more detail.

Figure out the impact of a leak on your organization

Every company is vulnerable to leaks. Whether a disgruntled employee releases your companys secret sauce recipe or theres a whistleblower who thinks your company has lost its way, theres the potential for trade secrets to end up in the public sphere.

From a technical standpoint, preventing leaks from happening is challenging. You can prevent employees from using USB drives and FTP or monitor their email to see if any sensitive information is being improperly shared with outside entities. But just like a motivated hacker, a motivated employee will figure out how to get this information out of the company.

While taking proactive steps to prevent leaks is highly important, companies should also run scenarios that look at how they would be impacted by a leak that exposes key data and develop a response plan in the event of a leak.

Could there be public backlash if the leak shows the company was engaged in activities that some people would consider unethical? After Edward Snowden, for example, leaked information on U.S. government intelligence operations, civil liberty groups, law makers, tech companies and foreign governments demanded accountability. Companies involved in projects that could spark ethical concerns should talk about the potential fallout if the public learned about this work and how to quickly recover. Would the stock price tumble? Would revenue be hit? Would customers cancel contracts?

Or could a leak seriously jeopardized the organizations main mission? The CIA may find itself in this situation after the Vault 7 leak. With information about the tools and techniques the CIA used to conduct operation publicly available, companies will use this information to patch flaws and harden the security of their products. This would force the CIA to develop new tools and procedures for carrying out its objectives. Companies need to consider how to react if their intellectual property were shared publicly, providing competitors with a chance to study their plan and even incorporate them into their products.

You may never know who attacked you

While every company would like to learn who attacked them, attribution is complicated to nearly impossible to pull off. Often, hackers make every effort to hide their tracks, and deception is an essential component of any campaign. Attackers want to make sure that if theyre discovered, someone else is blamed. Thats why Russian hackers include snippets of Chinese in their malware code. This give the appearance that China is the perpetrator.

Deception is also part of the CIAs campaigns, according to WikiLeaks. Supposedly, an internal CIA group called UMBRAGE steals the tactics used by nation-states attackers to fool security analysts into wrongly attributing CIA attacks to those countries.

For organizations, this should drive home the point that they may never truly know who attacked them. The reality is bad guys have too many methods for deceiving the good guys. Not placing so much emphasis on attribution may go against human nature, since people want some form of justice after a crime is committed. But attribution, Ive said before, does nothing to bolster a companys security.

Businesses need to be ready for when nation-state exploits are used against them

Nation-states hoard hardware and software zero-day exploits and use them in their operations to take full control of devices. If these exploits or knowledge of them is leaked to the public, attackers have access to this information, as well, and could use it to attack organizations.

This happened with the Vault 7 leak. At the moment, WikiLeaks isnt disclosing the technical details of the zero-day exploits contained in the leaked documents. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has promised to shares this information with vendors, allowing them to fix the vulnerabilities in their software and hardware. But the documents WikiLeaks did release describe these exploits.

Theoretically, attackers could use this information to reverse-engineer the exploit. In fact, two weeks ago Cisco warned customers that a software flaw discussed in the Vault 7 leak allows the CIA to fully take over more than 300 of the companys switches. Theres no fix to address the issue, but Cisco said it will release a software update that patches the vulnerability.

When a nation-state, zero-day exploit becomes public information, companies need to be prepared. They should immediately contact the impacted vendor to see if a patch is available, and if one has been developed, apply it immediately. And if a patch isnt available, businesses need to find out if theres a work-around they can use.

This a good time to stress that every organization needs to develop a complete incident response plan, test it at least once a year, and modify it as new threats emerge or the business changes. An incident response plan is especially prudent if threat actors end up leveraging a nation-state zero-day exploit in an attack.

Security incidents, especially ones that involve zero days, are already stressful. Not having a detailed plan in place for how to handle these situations only adds to the stress and confusion. Your companys executives' and security teams' first exposure to the incident response team shouldnt be when theres breach

Consider how a security incident could impact your business

Whether a security incident is as severe as a data breach or something that seems less harmful, like a leak of CIA spying tactics, companies should always consider how it will impact them. And if companies dont see a connection between their defense and a security incident, they shouldnt be afraid to ask, Could this happen here? Use an event as an opportunity to bolster your organizations protection capabilities.
* May signs formal Brexit divorce papers

* Two years of talks loom; exit planned in 2019

* United Kingdom's future unclear, banks eye exiting London (Adds May signing letter, quotes, call with Merkel)

By Guy Faulconbridge and Elizabeth Piper

LONDON, March 28 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May will file formal Brexit divorce papers on Wednesday, pitching the United Kingdom into the unknown and triggering years of uncertain negotiations that will test the endurance of the European Union.

Nine months after Britons voted to leave, May will notify EU Council President Donald Tusk in a letter that the UK really is quitting the bloc it joined in 1973.

The prime minister, an initial opponent of Brexit who won the top job in the political turmoil that followed the referendum vote, will then have two years to settle the terms of the divorce before it comes into effect in late March 2019.

"Now that the decision has been made to leave the EU, it is time to come together," May will tell lawmakers, according to comments supplied by her office.

"When I sit around the negotiating table in the months ahead, I will represent every person in the whole United Kingdom  young and old, rich and poor, city, town, country and all the villages and hamlets in between," May will say.

On the eve of Brexit, May, 60, has one of the toughest jobs of any recent British prime minister: holding Britain together in the face of renewed Scottish independence demands, while conducting arduous talks with 27 other EU states on finance, trade, security and a host of other complex issues.

The outcome of the negotiations will shape the future of Britain's $2.6 trillion economy, the world's fifth biggest, and determine whether London can keep its place as one of the top two global financial centres.

For the EU, already reeling from successive crises over debt and refugees, the loss of Britain is the biggest blow yet to 60 years of efforts to forge European unity in the wake of two devastating world wars.

Story continues

Its leaders say they do not want to punish Britain. But with nationalist, anti-EU parties on the rise across the bloc, they cannot afford to give London generous terms that might encourage other member states to follow its example and break away.

BREXIT DEAL?

May's notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty is due to be hand-delivered to Tusk in Brussels by Tim Barrow, Britain's permanent representative to the EU.

May, who on Tuesday signed the Brexit letter and spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel about the future talks, will update the British parliament on Wednesday while Tusk is due to give a briefing to reporters.

EU officials expect May's notice of intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to be hand-delivered by British diplomats on Wednesday, when May will

The Brexit letter will seek to set a positive tone for the talks and recap 12 key points which May set out as her goals in a speech on Jan. 17.

Within 48 hours of reading the letter, Tusk will send the 27 other states draft negotiating guidelines. He will outline his views in Malta, where from Wednesday he will be attending a congress of centre-right leaders. Ambassadors of the 27 will then meet in Brussels to discuss Tusk's draft.

The course of the Brexit talks is uncertain.

May has promised to seek the greatest possible access to European markets but said Britain will aim to establish its own free trade deals with countries beyond Europe, and impose limits on immigration from the continent.

She has acknowledged that those measures would require withdrawing from the EU 'single market' of 500 million people, founded on the principles of free movement of goods, services, capital and people.

Her priorities also include leaving the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and securing "frictionless" trade with the bloc while ending full membership of the customs union that sets external tariffs for goods imported into the bloc.

She wants to negotiate Britain's divorce and the future trading relationship with the EU within the two-year period, though EU officials say that will be hard.

"It was you, the British, who decided to leave, not us who wanted you to go," said one senior EU diplomat. "The trading relationship is going to be the most difficult bit to solve - I don't see how that will be done in that time frame."

A huge number of questions remain, including whether exporters will keep tariff-free access to the single market and whether British-based banks will still be able to serve continental clients, not to mention immigration and the future rights of EU citizens in the UK and Britons living in Europe.

Global banks such as Goldman Sachs are considering moving staff out of Britain due to Brexit, and some major companies and banks could use the Article 50 trigger date to update investors on their plans.

UNITED KINGDOM?

At home, May's United Kingdom - a nuclear power with a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council - is divided and faces strains that could lead to its break-up.

The results of the Brexit referendum called the country's future into question because England and Wales voted to leave the EU but Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay.

Scottish nationalists have demanded an independence referendum that May has refused, saying the time is not right. In Northern Ireland, rival parties have been unable to end a major political crisis for over two months and Sinn Fein nationalists are demanding a vote on leaving the UK and uniting with the Republic of Ireland.

"May's job is just so difficult - keeping the UK together while Brexiting - that I am not sure anyone would want it," said a senior non-EU diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"After Brexit, the future of almost everything is completely unclear and that is extremely worrying for the UK, the EU and the West as a whole." (Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Louise Ireland)
By PTI

DUBAI: Amazon.com has agreed to buy Middle East online retailer Souq.com, thwarting a last minute bid by Dubai billionaire Mohamed Alabbar's Emaar Malls.

The value and terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition is expected to close in 2017, according to a joint statement on Tuesday.

Reuters reported last week that Amazon had agreed in principle to buy Souq.com, which was founded 12 years ago by Syrian-born entrepreneur Ronaldo Mouchawar.

Amazon is paying less than Emaar's offer of $800 million, sources said, making it lower than the $1 billion valuation at the time of Souq.com's funding round last year.

The deal appeared to get the endorsement of the Dubai government which is increasingly focusing on technology.

Dubai's Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum said Amazon's entry into the region showed "Dubais position as a regional and global hub for the worlds biggest and leading organisations."

Dubai is a global trade, transport and tourism hub, hosting regional headquarters for many multinational firms.

"By becoming part of the Amazon family, we'll be able to vastly expand our delivery capabilities and customer selection much faster, as well as continue Amazon's great track record of empowering sellers," Souq.com Co-Founder Ronaldo Mouchawar said in the statement.

The Emar offer was not the first online move to be made by Alabbar, who made his name as chairman of Emaar Properties, the Dubai government-linked developer of the worlds tallest building. Emaar Malls is the retail unit of Emaar Properties.

Alabbar announced last year he plans to launch his own e-commerce firm Noon in partnership with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF).

DUBAI: Amazon.com has agreed to buy Middle East online retailer Souq.com, thwarting a last minute bid by Dubai billionaire Mohamed Alabbar's Emaar Malls. The value and terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition is expected to close in 2017, according to a joint statement on Tuesday. Reuters reported last week that Amazon had agreed in principle to buy Souq.com, which was founded 12 years ago by Syrian-born entrepreneur Ronaldo Mouchawar. Amazon is paying less than Emaar's offer of $800 million, sources said, making it lower than the $1 billion valuation at the time of Souq.com's funding round last year. The deal appeared to get the endorsement of the Dubai government which is increasingly focusing on technology. Dubai's Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum said Amazon's entry into the region showed "Dubais position as a regional and global hub for the worlds biggest and leading organisations." Dubai is a global trade, transport and tourism hub, hosting regional headquarters for many multinational firms. "By becoming part of the Amazon family, we'll be able to vastly expand our delivery capabilities and customer selection much faster, as well as continue Amazon's great track record of empowering sellers," Souq.com Co-Founder Ronaldo Mouchawar said in the statement. The Emar offer was not the first online move to be made by Alabbar, who made his name as chairman of Emaar Properties, the Dubai government-linked developer of the worlds tallest building. Emaar Malls is the retail unit of Emaar Properties. Alabbar announced last year he plans to launch his own e-commerce firm Noon in partnership with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF).
By Express News Service

KOCHI : The growth of the education sector on the back of increasing number of students enrolling for higher education each year has caused the emergence of a new sector  student housing.

Cities such as Pune, Bengaluru and Chennai see high annual student enrollments. There are 34 million students in India for higher education, of which 76 per cent (26.6 million) migrate from different states to these cities and invariably require accommodation. A broad estimate indicates that currently, cities such as Pune and Bengaluru can only accommodate 18-20 per cent of students.

To tap the opportunity, Kerala-based Asset Homes has already announced such projects in Karnataka and Telangana. Bengaluru-based Brigade Group also has such plans.

Student housing as a product is severely undersupplied in the major markets, and has the potential of high and sustained occupancy rates. The demand for student housing in India will continue, Said Subhankar Mitra, local director (strategic consulting), JLL.

According to Suresh Hari, secretary, CREDAI Bengaluru, with the advent of international students entering the academic arena of the country, the concept of dedicated students hostel is the next big bet for developers.

We intend to build rooms with 100 sq ft area with bathroom for students. There is a huge opportunity in this segment, said V Sunilkumar, managing director, Asset Homes.

KOCHI : The growth of the education sector on the back of increasing number of students enrolling for higher education each year has caused the emergence of a new sector  student housing. Cities such as Pune, Bengaluru and Chennai see high annual student enrollments. There are 34 million students in India for higher education, of which 76 per cent (26.6 million) migrate from different states to these cities and invariably require accommodation. A broad estimate indicates that currently, cities such as Pune and Bengaluru can only accommodate 18-20 per cent of students. To tap the opportunity, Kerala-based Asset Homes has already announced such projects in Karnataka and Telangana. Bengaluru-based Brigade Group also has such plans. Student housing as a product is severely undersupplied in the major markets, and has the potential of high and sustained occupancy rates. The demand for student housing in India will continue, Said Subhankar Mitra, local director (strategic consulting), JLL. According to Suresh Hari, secretary, CREDAI Bengaluru, with the advent of international students entering the academic arena of the country, the concept of dedicated students hostel is the next big bet for developers. We intend to build rooms with 100 sq ft area with bathroom for students. There is a huge opportunity in this segment, said V Sunilkumar, managing director, Asset Homes.
By Express News Service

KOCHI: The Iranian naval ships that called at the Kochi port the other day left on Tuesday.

Commander Behnam Hoseinpur and Lieutenant Commander Soroush Hendian are the commanding officers of the vessels, Naghdi and Tonb respectively. They visited the Southern Naval Command accompanied by Captain Reza Ghorbani, a senior officer onboard the visiting ships, and around 232 cadet trainees.

The ships arrived in Kochi on March 21.

During their stay in the city, the Iranian officers and trainees visited various training facilities here, including INS Dronacharya, Navigation and Direction school, water survival training facility, school for oceanography and meteorology and the SNC Maritime Museum.

On Monday, the officers called on Southern Naval Command Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Vice Admiral A R Karve and discussed issues of mutual interest.

Trainees from both the sides had a detailed discussion on the training practices followed by the navies of India and Iran.

KOCHI: The Iranian naval ships that called at the Kochi port the other day left on Tuesday. Commander Behnam Hoseinpur and Lieutenant Commander Soroush Hendian are the commanding officers of the vessels, Naghdi and Tonb respectively. They visited the Southern Naval Command accompanied by Captain Reza Ghorbani, a senior officer onboard the visiting ships, and around 232 cadet trainees. The ships arrived in Kochi on March 21. During their stay in the city, the Iranian officers and trainees visited various training facilities here, including INS Dronacharya, Navigation and Direction school, water survival training facility, school for oceanography and meteorology and the SNC Maritime Museum. On Monday, the officers called on Southern Naval Command Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Vice Admiral A R Karve and discussed issues of mutual interest. Trainees from both the sides had a detailed discussion on the training practices followed by the navies of India and Iran.
Suhas Yellapantula By

Express News Service

It was the culmination of five years of hard work, perseverance, commitment and passion as Team Baahubali came together for one last time to thank their fans for the support and seek their blessings in a special pre-release event at Ramoji Film City, Hyderabad recently.

A visibly emotional Rajamouli reflected on the incredible journey and gave fans a sneak peek into the world of Mahismathi Kingdom.



Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty, Tamannaah and Karan Johar were present. The entire crew took a trip down memory and celebrated the phenomenon that is Baahubali. I had always wondered what made Prabhas dedicate five years to this film.

When I went to Mumbai for the trailer launch, fans were screaming for Prabhas, and that was the answer to my question, said Rajamouli.



Thanking every member of his crew, Rajamouli said that the film was a combined effort of the entire production unit. We are delighted with the success of the trailer, because there was so much hard-work behind it. The technicians even worked on individual songs for each important character over the last 10 days, the director shared.



He also shared how there were moments where he stumbled, but his crew lifted him up. Sabu Cyril made sure that I had my eye on the ball and never slacked off. My choreographer Prem not only put together a dance sequence, but also something called an arrow dance, which is a fight sequence, he said.



While Baahubali turned out to be one of Indian cinemas biggest box-office hits, producer Shobu Yarlagadda said that money was not the biggest driving factor behind making this two-part epic. Passion for cinema was the driving factor for all of us.

If it was just money, we wouldn't have been able to stand together and achieve what we had done, he expressed



While Tamannaah called the movie an unforgettable experience, Anushka said that everybody could learn from others during the shoot. Rana said, I felt sad that I wont be going back to Mahismathi. I don't think I will ever get to play a character like Bhallaladeva again.

Prabhas was the man of the hour. As long as you are by my side, no person can kill me, he said while addressing his fans, in a clear reference to the iconic Katappa killing Baahubali situation. Baahubali: The Conclusion will hit screens on April 28.

It was the culmination of five years of hard work, perseverance, commitment and passion as Team Baahubali came together for one last time to thank their fans for the support and seek their blessings in a special pre-release event at Ramoji Film City, Hyderabad recently. A visibly emotional Rajamouli reflected on the incredible journey and gave fans a sneak peek into the world of Mahismathi Kingdom. Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty, Tamannaah and Karan Johar were present. The entire crew took a trip down memory and celebrated the phenomenon that is Baahubali. I had always wondered what made Prabhas dedicate five years to this film. When I went to Mumbai for the trailer launch, fans were screaming for Prabhas, and that was the answer to my question, said Rajamouli. Thanking every member of his crew, Rajamouli said that the film was a combined effort of the entire production unit. We are delighted with the success of the trailer, because there was so much hard-work behind it. The technicians even worked on individual songs for each important character over the last 10 days, the director shared. He also shared how there were moments where he stumbled, but his crew lifted him up. Sabu Cyril made sure that I had my eye on the ball and never slacked off. My choreographer Prem not only put together a dance sequence, but also something called an arrow dance, which is a fight sequence, he said. While Baahubali turned out to be one of Indian cinemas biggest box-office hits, producer Shobu Yarlagadda said that money was not the biggest driving factor behind making this two-part epic. Passion for cinema was the driving factor for all of us. If it was just money, we wouldn't have been able to stand together and achieve what we had done, he expressed While Tamannaah called the movie an unforgettable experience, Anushka said that everybody could learn from others during the shoot. Rana said, I felt sad that I wont be going back to Mahismathi. I don't think I will ever get to play a character like Bhallaladeva again. Prabhas was the man of the hour. As long as you are by my side, no person can kill me, he said while addressing his fans, in a clear reference to the iconic Katappa killing Baahubali situation. Baahubali: The Conclusion will hit screens on April 28.
By ANI

NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Friday said the Parliament cannot take a suo-moto cognizance of the incident of Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad assaulting an Air India Duty Manager as the incident happened outside the House.



Talking to the media outside the Parliament, Mahajan said We cannot take suo-moto cognizance as the incident happened outside the Parliament, so will ascertain details and act on any complaint.



Meanwhile, Dispelling reports that Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad had been barred from flying after he assaulted a a 60-year-old Air India staffer, the Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA) has asserted that they do not have the power to ban anyone, adding that Air India was not part of the FIA in the first place.



We have not banned the MP. We do not have powers to ban anyone. In any case, Air India is not part of the FIA. The body represents IndiGo, Go Air, SpiceJet and Jet Airways, FIA Association Director, Ujjwal Dey told ANI.



Earlier, the Centre also took cognisance of the incident and assured a thorough probe into the matter.



Meanwhile, Gaikwad today remained unapologetic about the incident and dared the Delhi Police to arrest him.



"I will not apologise. It was not my fault, it was his fault. He should apologise. First ask him to apologise then we will see," Gaikwad told the media here.





I will not apologize, why should I? First ask him(victim) to apologize then we will see: Ravindra Gaikwad,Shiv Sena MP pic.twitter.com/tbB0aQ5IUk  ANI (@ANI_news) March 24, 2017

NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Friday said the Parliament cannot take a suo-moto cognizance of the incident of Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad assaulting an Air India Duty Manager as the incident happened outside the House. Talking to the media outside the Parliament, Mahajan said We cannot take suo-moto cognizance as the incident happened outside the Parliament, so will ascertain details and act on any complaint. Meanwhile, Dispelling reports that Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad had been barred from flying after he assaulted a a 60-year-old Air India staffer, the Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA) has asserted that they do not have the power to ban anyone, adding that Air India was not part of the FIA in the first place. We have not banned the MP. We do not have powers to ban anyone. In any case, Air India is not part of the FIA. The body represents IndiGo, Go Air, SpiceJet and Jet Airways, FIA Association Director, Ujjwal Dey told ANI. Earlier, the Centre also took cognisance of the incident and assured a thorough probe into the matter. Meanwhile, Gaikwad today remained unapologetic about the incident and dared the Delhi Police to arrest him. "I will not apologise. It was not my fault, it was his fault. He should apologise. First ask him to apologise then we will see," Gaikwad told the media here. I will not apologize, why should I? First ask him(victim) to apologize then we will see: Ravindra Gaikwad,Shiv Sena MP pic.twitter.com/tbB0aQ5IUk ANI (@ANI_news) March 24, 2017 "Let the Delhi Police arrest me. Uddhav ji will decide the course of action," he added. The MP from Osmanabad in Maharashtra also downplayed reports suggesting that Air India is considering banning him from boarding its flights. "I have the tickets, they can't blacklist me. I will board the Delhi-Pune Air India flight this evening. How can they not allow me?" he said. Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has sought a report to determine the facts before he decides on what happens next for Gaikwad. The Shiv Sena yesterday said that it does not tolerate violence. Gaikwad was travelling from Pune to New Delhi when scuffle broke out over the sitting arrangement. The MP claimed that his ticket was for business class but Air India provided him economy class.

"Let the Delhi Police arrest me. Uddhav ji will decide the course of action," he added.The MP from Osmanabad in Maharashtra also downplayed reports suggesting that Air India is considering banning him from boarding its flights."I have the tickets, they can't blacklist me. I will board the Delhi-Pune Air India flight this evening. How can they not allow me?" he said.Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has sought a report to determine the facts before he decides on what happens next for Gaikwad.The Shiv Sena yesterday said that it does not tolerate violence.Gaikwad was travelling from Pune to New Delhi when scuffle broke out over the sitting arrangement.The MP claimed that his ticket was for business class but Air India provided him economy class.
R Anantha Subramanian By

Express News Service

If there is one law that causes the maximum discomfort to people in Indias borderlands, it is the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, or AFSPA as it is more popularly known. Any discussion on Jammu & Kashmir or the northeastern states normally ends up as a debate on whether AFSPA is draconian or justified. The Act gives sweeping powers to the armed forces in these regions to quell insurgency.

What is AFSPA?

Passed in 1958 by Parliament, the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act was initially imposed in the Northeastern region and Punjab to tackle insurgency in what are called disturbed areas. Most of these border Pakistan, China, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Where is AFSPA applicable?

AFSPA can be invoked anywhere the government certifies as a disturbed area due to differences or disputes between members of different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities.

What are the powers under AFSPA?

The Act gives absolute powers, in other words legal immunity, to Army personnel to crack down on insurgents in conflict areas. These powers include shooting to kill those believed to be acting against the Indian state. They can search and detain anyone on the mere basis of suspicion. The law assures them that there wont be any legal backlash for such actions. The law also allows the Army to launch targeted strikes in areas declared disturbed under the Act

How is AFSPA officially declared?

Section (3) of the Act empowers the governor of the state or union territory to issue a notification in The Gazette of India, following which the Centre can send armed forces to the state for civilian aid. The grey area, however, is whether the Union government sends the forces on its own or only after the Governors request.

A state government can also suggest if the Act needs to be in force, though it can be overturned by the Governor or the Centre.

AFSPA states

Jammu and Kashmir

Assam

Nagaland

Manipur (except the Imphal municipal area)

Arunachal Pradesh (Tirap, Changlang and Longding districts and a 20-km area bordering Assam)

Meghalaya (a 20-km belt bordering Assam)

How Tripura bested AFSPA

AFSPA was initially imposed in Tripura in 1997 when militancy was at its extreme. That the State shares an 856-km border with Bangladesh did not help the situation much. The National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) wanted the State to secede from the Union. However, almost two decades later, with the situation remaining calm and less reports of terrorist incidents, the Act was finally lifted on May 28, 2015. It was in force for 18 years. The proof of decline in terrorism and separatism is usually attributed to the high voter turnout in the 2014 Assembly polls, which witnessed 84% of voting. Though earlier also there were efforts to repeal the Act, voter anger seemed have nudged the government to lift it.

Question of alienation

The armed forces believe the AFSPA helps it in counter-insurgency operations effectively, but the local populace in the disturbed areas is usually alienated due to the incursive nature of the Act Manipur and AFSPA Deeming Manipur to be a disturbed area, the government imposed the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) in the State in 1980.

Formed in 1949, the State has a long history of insurgency. The trouble that was rampant during the British rule intensified after Independence with at least 30 insurgent groups laying down different claims. Most of the rebel groups have their base in Myanmar.

Violence peaked during the 1990s with armed conflict among ethnic as well as infighting among the predominant Naga groups.

Where do the ultras get their funds?

They generate funds by imposing illegal taxes on National Highways in the State. Their other key fund source is drug trafficking.

What was the Malom Massacre?

Things came to a head on Nov. 2, 2000, when 10 civilians were killed by Assam Rifles personnel while waiting at a bus stop at Malom in the Imphal Valley. The security forces had opened fire indiscriminately after they heard an explosion which damaged one of the vehicles in their convoy. The deceased included a 62-year-old woman, a National Child Bravery Award winner and a a boy who was waiting to go to Imphal for his tuition. Later, 42 people were dragged out of their houses and severely beaten up by the personnel. The Army personnel had reportedly believed that they were being ambushed and thought the residents of Malom were protecting the insurgents.

That the security forces had the authority to shoot to kill on mere suspicion and conduct invasive searches, highlight the over-arching powers vested on them by the AFSPA.

Enter Irom Sharmila

Following the killings, activist Irom Chanu Sharmila, then 28, began a hunger strike demanding that the government repeal the draconian act. She was arrested and re-arrested several times over her 16-year-long hunger strike that she decided to finally end on August 9, 2016. However, even this superhuman effort by a woman of modest means who survived just on fluids given through the nasal passageway failed to make the government yield.

After she ended her hunger strike, Sharmila announced her intention to join politics and floated her own Peoples Resurgence and Justice Alliance party. She contested against what many believed to be a formidable opponent - erstwhile Manipur CM Okram Ibobi Singh.

Ironically, the worlds longest hunger strikers activism went in vain, as she got only about 90 votes in the recently-concluded Assembly election.

If there is one law that causes the maximum discomfort to people in Indias borderlands, it is the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, or AFSPA as it is more popularly known. Any discussion on Jammu & Kashmir or the northeastern states normally ends up as a debate on whether AFSPA is draconian or justified. The Act gives sweeping powers to the armed forces in these regions to quell insurgency. What is AFSPA? Passed in 1958 by Parliament, the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act was initially imposed in the Northeastern region and Punjab to tackle insurgency in what are called disturbed areas. Most of these border Pakistan, China, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Where is AFSPA applicable? AFSPA can be invoked anywhere the government certifies as a disturbed area due to differences or disputes between members of different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities. What are the powers under AFSPA? The Act gives absolute powers, in other words legal immunity, to Army personnel to crack down on insurgents in conflict areas. These powers include shooting to kill those believed to be acting against the Indian state. They can search and detain anyone on the mere basis of suspicion. The law assures them that there wont be any legal backlash for such actions. The law also allows the Army to launch targeted strikes in areas declared disturbed under the Act How is AFSPA officially declared? Section (3) of the Act empowers the governor of the state or union territory to issue a notification in The Gazette of India, following which the Centre can send armed forces to the state for civilian aid. The grey area, however, is whether the Union government sends the forces on its own or only after the Governors request. A state government can also suggest if the Act needs to be in force, though it can be overturned by the Governor or the Centre. AFSPA states Jammu and Kashmir Assam Nagaland Manipur (except the Imphal municipal area) Arunachal Pradesh (Tirap, Changlang and Longding districts and a 20-km area bordering Assam) Meghalaya (a 20-km belt bordering Assam) How Tripura bested AFSPA AFSPA was initially imposed in Tripura in 1997 when militancy was at its extreme. That the State shares an 856-km border with Bangladesh did not help the situation much. The National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) wanted the State to secede from the Union. However, almost two decades later, with the situation remaining calm and less reports of terrorist incidents, the Act was finally lifted on May 28, 2015. It was in force for 18 years. The proof of decline in terrorism and separatism is usually attributed to the high voter turnout in the 2014 Assembly polls, which witnessed 84% of voting. Though earlier also there were efforts to repeal the Act, voter anger seemed have nudged the government to lift it. Question of alienation The armed forces believe the AFSPA helps it in counter-insurgency operations effectively, but the local populace in the disturbed areas is usually alienated due to the incursive nature of the Act Manipur and AFSPA Deeming Manipur to be a disturbed area, the government imposed the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) in the State in 1980. Formed in 1949, the State has a long history of insurgency. The trouble that was rampant during the British rule intensified after Independence with at least 30 insurgent groups laying down different claims. Most of the rebel groups have their base in Myanmar. Violence peaked during the 1990s with armed conflict among ethnic as well as infighting among the predominant Naga groups. Where do the ultras get their funds? They generate funds by imposing illegal taxes on National Highways in the State. Their other key fund source is drug trafficking. What was the Malom Massacre? Things came to a head on Nov. 2, 2000, when 10 civilians were killed by Assam Rifles personnel while waiting at a bus stop at Malom in the Imphal Valley. The security forces had opened fire indiscriminately after they heard an explosion which damaged one of the vehicles in their convoy. The deceased included a 62-year-old woman, a National Child Bravery Award winner and a a boy who was waiting to go to Imphal for his tuition. Later, 42 people were dragged out of their houses and severely beaten up by the personnel. The Army personnel had reportedly believed that they were being ambushed and thought the residents of Malom were protecting the insurgents. That the security forces had the authority to shoot to kill on mere suspicion and conduct invasive searches, highlight the over-arching powers vested on them by the AFSPA. Enter Irom Sharmila Following the killings, activist Irom Chanu Sharmila, then 28, began a hunger strike demanding that the government repeal the draconian act. She was arrested and re-arrested several times over her 16-year-long hunger strike that she decided to finally end on August 9, 2016. However, even this superhuman effort by a woman of modest means who survived just on fluids given through the nasal passageway failed to make the government yield. After she ended her hunger strike, Sharmila announced her intention to join politics and floated her own Peoples Resurgence and Justice Alliance party. She contested against what many believed to be a formidable opponent - erstwhile Manipur CM Okram Ibobi Singh. Ironically, the worlds longest hunger strikers activism went in vain, as she got only about 90 votes in the recently-concluded Assembly election.
Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: As the meat crisis intensifies in UP with over 100 slaughterhouses and thousands of meat shops sealed by the authorities, Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court on Monday sought an explanation from Uttar Pradesh Government and the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) over the provision under which meat shops in the State capital were being forced to shut down.

Granting three days time to the state government and LMC to file their response, the court also took the Lucknow civic authorities to task over their lackadaisical approach to the whole issue. Why did the civic authorities concerned not take any initiative in time to renew the licences of meat shops, asked the court. The next hearing in the case will be on April 3.

Hearing a fresh application filed on Monday in a case which had been pending in HC since 2015, a bench of Justice AP Sahi and Justice Sanjai Harkauli passed the above order. The petitioners -Shahbuddin and nine other meat traders-had pleaded in the court that they had the licence to run the shops.

As their licences expired two years ago, they applied for renewal but the LMC seemed reluctant under the National Green Tribunal (NGT) guidelines, which say that the slaughterhouses should be run by the municipal authorities.

Since the LMC had no slaughterhouse in the city so they said that licences could not be renewed, the petitioners said.

The petitioners counsel GC Sinha in his submission said that if LMC did not have any slaughterhouse, it was not the fault of innocent traders who were doing business legally. The petitioners also charged the MC officials with taking money in lieu of permission to run the shops even after the expiry of licences.

The petition in this regard had been pending in the HC since 2015 wherein the court had directed the then dispensation and LMC to file the reply but court order had not been complied with till date.

However, the petitioners filed a fresh application in the pending case on Monday alleging that on the one hand the LMC failed to grant or even renew licences, on the other they started the crackdown on shopkeepers forcing closure of their shops without any prior notice or information.

The court expressed concern over the fact that neither the state government nor LMC filed a reply in the matter even after two years. It also made a point about the forced closure of shops without any order of the competent authorities.

LUCKNOW: As the meat crisis intensifies in UP with over 100 slaughterhouses and thousands of meat shops sealed by the authorities, Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court on Monday sought an explanation from Uttar Pradesh Government and the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) over the provision under which meat shops in the State capital were being forced to shut down. Granting three days time to the state government and LMC to file their response, the court also took the Lucknow civic authorities to task over their lackadaisical approach to the whole issue. Why did the civic authorities concerned not take any initiative in time to renew the licences of meat shops, asked the court. The next hearing in the case will be on April 3. Hearing a fresh application filed on Monday in a case which had been pending in HC since 2015, a bench of Justice AP Sahi and Justice Sanjai Harkauli passed the above order. The petitioners -Shahbuddin and nine other meat traders-had pleaded in the court that they had the licence to run the shops. As their licences expired two years ago, they applied for renewal but the LMC seemed reluctant under the National Green Tribunal (NGT) guidelines, which say that the slaughterhouses should be run by the municipal authorities. Since the LMC had no slaughterhouse in the city so they said that licences could not be renewed, the petitioners said. The petitioners counsel GC Sinha in his submission said that if LMC did not have any slaughterhouse, it was not the fault of innocent traders who were doing business legally. The petitioners also charged the MC officials with taking money in lieu of permission to run the shops even after the expiry of licences. The petition in this regard had been pending in the HC since 2015 wherein the court had directed the then dispensation and LMC to file the reply but court order had not been complied with till date. However, the petitioners filed a fresh application in the pending case on Monday alleging that on the one hand the LMC failed to grant or even renew licences, on the other they started the crackdown on shopkeepers forcing closure of their shops without any prior notice or information. The court expressed concern over the fact that neither the state government nor LMC filed a reply in the matter even after two years. It also made a point about the forced closure of shops without any order of the competent authorities.
Fayaz Wani By

Express News Service

SRINAGAR: Three civilians were killed and over a dozen injured in security forces firing on protestors near an encounter site in Chadoora area of central Kashmirs Budgam district on Tuesday. A militant was also killed in the gunfight.

An army official said acting on specific information about presence of militants, police, army and paramilitary personnel laid siege around Durbugh area of Chadoora in Budgam district at around 5.30 am.

He said they had information that one or two militants were hiding in a house in the area. When the security men zeroed-in on the house, they came under fire from militants. The fire was returned by the troops triggering an encounter.

As the encounter started, people of the area took to roads and tried to march towards the encounter site to allow militants a chance to escape from the besieged area.

Chanting pro-freedom, pro-Pakistan and anti-India slogans, the protestors clashed with the security personnel, who fired dozens of tear smoke shells. As the clashes intensified, the security men fired on the protestors.

At least 22 people sustained injuries in the security forces firing. 17 of the injured were shifted to SMHS hospital, Srinagar where three of the critically injured youth succumbed to injuries.

The deceased were identified as 21-year-old Zahid Rashid Bhat, Saqib Ahmad, 20, and Ishfaq Ahmad, 24.

According to doctors, the deceased had firearm injuries.

After the civilian killings, people of Durbugh and adjoining areas in Chadoora took to roads and staged massive protest demonstration. Chanting anti-India and pro-freedom slogans, the protestors pelted stones on the security men, who fired tear smoke shells to disperse them.

The clashes continued till late evening.

Defence spokesman in Srinagar Colonel Rajesh Kalia said a militant was killed during the encounter.

A weapon has been recovered from the encounter site, he said.

The slain militant was identified as Tauseef Ahmad Wagay resident of Kanjikulla village of Yaripora in South Kashmirs Kulgam district.

The clashes also broke out at the slain militants native place after the news reached there that Touseef was killed in the encounter with security forces.

The protestors pelted stones on police station at Yaripora and the cops deployed inside fired tear smoke shells and resorted to aerial firing to disperse the agitating youth.

Meanwhile, separatist leaders Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik, who spearheaded over five months long agitation in Valley last year, have called for shutdown tomorrow and protests on Friday against killing of three civilians in security forces firing.

They said civilian killings at the encounter site are fallout of Army Chief General Bipin Rawats threat.

The Army chief had warned that youth interfering in anti-militancy operations in the State would be dealt with sternly.

Under well thought design, forces and state police is killing innocent civilians, the separatist leaders said and warned that incase killings are not stopped, they will call people to resist the killing spree.

They said the State administration and Government of India was gagging genuine voices through barrel of gun and pushing people to the wall.

The men involved in these killings are neither tried for their crimes nor till now even a single official was punished or brought to book, the separatist leaders said and demanded an impartial probe into the civilian killings.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti expressed deep anguish over death of youth at Chadoora saying it is highly painful to see the young boys losing their lives.

She said violence has given people innumerable miseries and it is high time that peaceful means are given a chance for the resolution of the issues. The solution to problems can be found only through political means and not through violence.

The opposition parties including National Conference and Congress have slammed the PDP-BJP government on the civilian killings.

Time has come to understand that the political issue in Kashmir cannot be addressed through rhetoric, operational measures or development. There is no alternative to talks. You have to talk to the people of Kashmir and the stakeholders of all shades of opinion with an honest intent to resolve the political issue, NC president Farooq Abdullah said.

SRINAGAR: Three civilians were killed and over a dozen injured in security forces firing on protestors near an encounter site in Chadoora area of central Kashmirs Budgam district on Tuesday. A militant was also killed in the gunfight. An army official said acting on specific information about presence of militants, police, army and paramilitary personnel laid siege around Durbugh area of Chadoora in Budgam district at around 5.30 am. He said they had information that one or two militants were hiding in a house in the area. When the security men zeroed-in on the house, they came under fire from militants. The fire was returned by the troops triggering an encounter. As the encounter started, people of the area took to roads and tried to march towards the encounter site to allow militants a chance to escape from the besieged area. Chanting pro-freedom, pro-Pakistan and anti-India slogans, the protestors clashed with the security personnel, who fired dozens of tear smoke shells. As the clashes intensified, the security men fired on the protestors. At least 22 people sustained injuries in the security forces firing. 17 of the injured were shifted to SMHS hospital, Srinagar where three of the critically injured youth succumbed to injuries. The deceased were identified as 21-year-old Zahid Rashid Bhat, Saqib Ahmad, 20, and Ishfaq Ahmad, 24. According to doctors, the deceased had firearm injuries. After the civilian killings, people of Durbugh and adjoining areas in Chadoora took to roads and staged massive protest demonstration. Chanting anti-India and pro-freedom slogans, the protestors pelted stones on the security men, who fired tear smoke shells to disperse them. The clashes continued till late evening. Defence spokesman in Srinagar Colonel Rajesh Kalia said a militant was killed during the encounter. A weapon has been recovered from the encounter site, he said. The slain militant was identified as Tauseef Ahmad Wagay resident of Kanjikulla village of Yaripora in South Kashmirs Kulgam district. The clashes also broke out at the slain militants native place after the news reached there that Touseef was killed in the encounter with security forces. The protestors pelted stones on police station at Yaripora and the cops deployed inside fired tear smoke shells and resorted to aerial firing to disperse the agitating youth. Meanwhile, separatist leaders Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik, who spearheaded over five months long agitation in Valley last year, have called for shutdown tomorrow and protests on Friday against killing of three civilians in security forces firing. They said civilian killings at the encounter site are fallout of Army Chief General Bipin Rawats threat. The Army chief had warned that youth interfering in anti-militancy operations in the State would be dealt with sternly. Under well thought design, forces and state police is killing innocent civilians, the separatist leaders said and warned that incase killings are not stopped, they will call people to resist the killing spree. They said the State administration and Government of India was gagging genuine voices through barrel of gun and pushing people to the wall. The men involved in these killings are neither tried for their crimes nor till now even a single official was punished or brought to book, the separatist leaders said and demanded an impartial probe into the civilian killings. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti expressed deep anguish over death of youth at Chadoora saying it is highly painful to see the young boys losing their lives. She said violence has given people innumerable miseries and it is high time that peaceful means are given a chance for the resolution of the issues. The solution to problems can be found only through political means and not through violence. The opposition parties including National Conference and Congress have slammed the PDP-BJP government on the civilian killings. Time has come to understand that the political issue in Kashmir cannot be addressed through rhetoric, operational measures or development. There is no alternative to talks. You have to talk to the people of Kashmir and the stakeholders of all shades of opinion with an honest intent to resolve the political issue, NC president Farooq Abdullah said.
Fayaz Wani By

Express News Service

SRI NAGAR: In yet another weapon snatching incident in Jammu and Kashmir, militants snatched at least four rifles from policemen guarding the residence of senior PDP leader and MoS for Hajj and Auqaf, Farooq Andrabi, by attacking them late on Sunday night. Two policemen were injured in the militant attack.

According to the J&K Home Department, at least 62 rifles, six pistols and 182 magazines were looted by militants and unruly mobs from security personnel in Kashmir last year.

Regarding the latest incident, a police officer said militants fired from towards a police post at the ancestral house of Andrabi at Shishtergam village of Dooru in South Kashmirs Anantnag district. He said there was heavy firing on the policemen and they sustained bullet injuries in the attack. Before fleeing from the spot, the militants decamped with 4 SLR rifles and other ammunition from the police post.

The injured policemen were referred to an Army hospital in Srinagar, where the condition of one of them is critical.

Immediately after the attack, police, paramilitary CRPF and Army personnel launched a massive combing and search operation to nab the militants. However, no arrests have been made.

The Hizbul Mujahideen terror outfit has claimed responsibility for the weapon snatching. Hizbul operational spokesperson Burhan-ud-din said militants of the outfit attacked the police post at the ministers residence and decamped with four rifles. He said after carrying out the attack, the militants reached their hideouts.

Last year, the militants had attacked the residences of two PDP leaders and snatched weapons from their security guards.

The residences of PDP Rajya Sabha MP Nazir Ahmad Laway at Chawalgam in Kulgam district and PDP leader Sheikh Javed Ahmad at Boni Dialgam in Anantnag district were attacked on August 31 and September 18 last year respectively.

At both places, militants snatched four rifles each from the policemen.

Sixteen incidents of weapon snatching and looting took place in the Valley between January 1 and December 31 last year, reveals the data.

Of the 16 weapon snatching incidents, 13 took place in four south Kashmir districts of Kulgam, Anantnag, Pulwama and Shopian while two incidents took place in central Kashmirs Budgam district and a solitary incident took place in Srinagar.

Of the 62 weapons snatched, 19 were AK-rifles, 22 SLRs, 18 Insas rifles, a carbine, .303 rifle and Pika gun, the State Home Department has revealed.

Meanwhile, the police on Monday claimed to have busted a module of the Hizbul Mujahideen by arresting seven suspected militants in Kashmir who were allegedly tasked to disrupt the upcoming Lok Sabha bypolls due in April. The arrests were made in Kulgam district, 70 km from here.

(With inputs from agencies)

SRI NAGAR: In yet another weapon snatching incident in Jammu and Kashmir, militants snatched at least four rifles from policemen guarding the residence of senior PDP leader and MoS for Hajj and Auqaf, Farooq Andrabi, by attacking them late on Sunday night. Two policemen were injured in the militant attack. According to the J&K Home Department, at least 62 rifles, six pistols and 182 magazines were looted by militants and unruly mobs from security personnel in Kashmir last year. Regarding the latest incident, a police officer said militants fired from towards a police post at the ancestral house of Andrabi at Shishtergam village of Dooru in South Kashmirs Anantnag district. He said there was heavy firing on the policemen and they sustained bullet injuries in the attack. Before fleeing from the spot, the militants decamped with 4 SLR rifles and other ammunition from the police post. The injured policemen were referred to an Army hospital in Srinagar, where the condition of one of them is critical. Immediately after the attack, police, paramilitary CRPF and Army personnel launched a massive combing and search operation to nab the militants. However, no arrests have been made. The Hizbul Mujahideen terror outfit has claimed responsibility for the weapon snatching. Hizbul operational spokesperson Burhan-ud-din said militants of the outfit attacked the police post at the ministers residence and decamped with four rifles. He said after carrying out the attack, the militants reached their hideouts. Last year, the militants had attacked the residences of two PDP leaders and snatched weapons from their security guards. The residences of PDP Rajya Sabha MP Nazir Ahmad Laway at Chawalgam in Kulgam district and PDP leader Sheikh Javed Ahmad at Boni Dialgam in Anantnag district were attacked on August 31 and September 18 last year respectively. At both places, militants snatched four rifles each from the policemen. Sixteen incidents of weapon snatching and looting took place in the Valley between January 1 and December 31 last year, reveals the data. Of the 16 weapon snatching incidents, 13 took place in four south Kashmir districts of Kulgam, Anantnag, Pulwama and Shopian while two incidents took place in central Kashmirs Budgam district and a solitary incident took place in Srinagar. Of the 62 weapons snatched, 19 were AK-rifles, 22 SLRs, 18 Insas rifles, a carbine, .303 rifle and Pika gun, the State Home Department has revealed. Meanwhile, the police on Monday claimed to have busted a module of the Hizbul Mujahideen by arresting seven suspected militants in Kashmir who were allegedly tasked to disrupt the upcoming Lok Sabha bypolls due in April. The arrests were made in Kulgam district, 70 km from here. (With inputs from agencies)
By Express News Service

MUMBAI: BJP MLA Mangal Prabhat Lodha on Tuesday demanded that the Jinnah House located at Malabar Hill be demolished and a cultural centre be constructed at the site. Incidentally, an unidentified woman tried to put up a Gudi (flag) at the gate of the Jinnah House to mark the beginning of the Maharashtrian New Year on Gudi Padwa. Police said they promptly removed the Gudi.

Lodha, while speaking to the media, said that he had raised the issue in the Legislative Assembly and also wrote a letter to Union Defense Ministry to this effect. Lodha called Jinnah House a symbol of Indias partition and said it needed to be brought down.

It may be recalled that Pakistan had been demanding for several years that it should be allowed to open a consulate at the Jinnah House. Former Pakistan External Affairs Minister Khurshid Kasuri demanded last week that the house built by the founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah at Malabar Hill be given to Pakistan to open its consulate in Mumbai.

The iconic Jinnah House is located opposite the official residence of the chief minister of Maharashtra on Malabar Hill in South Mumbai. Jinnah, after returning from England in 1936 with a law degree, constructed the bungalow. After partition, Jinnah left for Pakistan and his daugther Dina Wadia staked claim as the legal heir to the property. Since then, the property has been in the possession of the central government.

MUMBAI: BJP MLA Mangal Prabhat Lodha on Tuesday demanded that the Jinnah House located at Malabar Hill be demolished and a cultural centre be constructed at the site. Incidentally, an unidentified woman tried to put up a Gudi (flag) at the gate of the Jinnah House to mark the beginning of the Maharashtrian New Year on Gudi Padwa. Police said they promptly removed the Gudi. Lodha, while speaking to the media, said that he had raised the issue in the Legislative Assembly and also wrote a letter to Union Defense Ministry to this effect. Lodha called Jinnah House a symbol of Indias partition and said it needed to be brought down. It may be recalled that Pakistan had been demanding for several years that it should be allowed to open a consulate at the Jinnah House. Former Pakistan External Affairs Minister Khurshid Kasuri demanded last week that the house built by the founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah at Malabar Hill be given to Pakistan to open its consulate in Mumbai. The iconic Jinnah House is located opposite the official residence of the chief minister of Maharashtra on Malabar Hill in South Mumbai. Jinnah, after returning from England in 1936 with a law degree, constructed the bungalow. After partition, Jinnah left for Pakistan and his daugther Dina Wadia staked claim as the legal heir to the property. Since then, the property has been in the possession of the central government.
By Express News Service

RAIPUR: A Canadian citizen has gone missing mysteriously in the Maoist heartland of Sukma on Tuesday while the Chhattisgarh police are trying to trace his identity and whereabouts in south Bastar.



According to the information that reached the State capital, a foreign national named John Szlazak, who is reported to be a member of Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), went missing from Singamadugu village in Sukma district, some 450 km south of Raipur.



Unconfirmed reports said that John left Mumbai for Bastar and reached Sukma from Jagdalpur on a motorcycle.



John Szlazak

Some foreign national has been spotted in south Sukma area. Every effort is on trace him. We are also trying to find out why he was there, and the route he took to reach that place, Bastar zone deputy inspector general of police, P Sunderraj told The New Indian Express.



Police are collecting information about John from the travel agent who may have planned his itinerary from Mumbai to Bastar.



Usually, the foreign national has to get themselves registered in the police station of the district where he or she is visiting. But no police station has any such record. So how he reached Sukma, if at all, is being explored and who accompanied him. Hopefully later today (Tuesday) we will access some input, Sunderraj said.



Amid the apprehension of John Szlazak being taken hostage by the outlawed rebels, the forces are carrying out search operations across the inhospitable forested terrain of the district to locate him.



The police, though, had ruled out any information about the Canadian citizen being taken hostage by the naxals, but security forces have nevertheless been put on high alert.



The Maoists have a strong presence in the seven districts of restive Bastar, which shares borders with Odisha, Telangana and Maharashtra.



In March 2012, two Italian tourists were abducted by Maoists from Kandhamal in Odisha and were freed after twelve days.

RAIPUR: A Canadian citizen has gone missing mysteriously in the Maoist heartland of Sukma on Tuesday while the Chhattisgarh police are trying to trace his identity and whereabouts in south Bastar. According to the information that reached the State capital, a foreign national named John Szlazak, who is reported to be a member of Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), went missing from Singamadugu village in Sukma district, some 450 km south of Raipur. Unconfirmed reports said that John left Mumbai for Bastar and reached Sukma from Jagdalpur on a motorcycle. John SzlazakSome foreign national has been spotted in south Sukma area. Every effort is on trace him. We are also trying to find out why he was there, and the route he took to reach that place, Bastar zone deputy inspector general of police, P Sunderraj told The New Indian Express. Police are collecting information about John from the travel agent who may have planned his itinerary from Mumbai to Bastar. Usually, the foreign national has to get themselves registered in the police station of the district where he or she is visiting. But no police station has any such record. So how he reached Sukma, if at all, is being explored and who accompanied him. Hopefully later today (Tuesday) we will access some input, Sunderraj said. Amid the apprehension of John Szlazak being taken hostage by the outlawed rebels, the forces are carrying out search operations across the inhospitable forested terrain of the district to locate him. The police, though, had ruled out any information about the Canadian citizen being taken hostage by the naxals, but security forces have nevertheless been put on high alert. The Maoists have a strong presence in the seven districts of restive Bastar, which shares borders with Odisha, Telangana and Maharashtra. In March 2012, two Italian tourists were abducted by Maoists from Kandhamal in Odisha and were freed after twelve days.
By IANS

NEW DELHI: Interpol has given a major reprieve to graft tainted former Indian Premier League (IPL) Chairman Lalit Modi denying a Red Notice against him.

"I just got off from a flight from Barcelona through which I sat completely numb. Just as I was boarding the flight I got the news that the Interpol had finally investigated and concluded and reached a verdict in my favour with a detailed letter of rejection of India's request for issuing of a Red Notice," Modi wrote on his Instagram account.

He also posted Interpol documents, which were not for public dissemination, at his Instagram and Twitter accounts.

"The sword that was hanging over my head has suddenly gone," Modi said.

The Interpol document dated March 24 said: "Lalit Kumar Modi... is not subject to an Interpol Red Notice or diffusion and not known in the Interpol's database."

The organisation however clarified that "in the past the individual (Lalit Modi) was subject of data record in Interpol's database, yet the data was later cancelled".

Lalit Modi had fled India in 2010, after facing charges of financial irregularity in IPL. He is currently living in Britain. His extradition process is still pending.

The authenticity of the documents could not be verified as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said they had no such information yet.

CBI spokesperson R.K. Gaur told IANS: "The agency is authenticating the Interpol documents."



NEW DELHI: Interpol has given a major reprieve to graft tainted former Indian Premier League (IPL) Chairman Lalit Modi denying a Red Notice against him. "I just got off from a flight from Barcelona through which I sat completely numb. Just as I was boarding the flight I got the news that the Interpol had finally investigated and concluded and reached a verdict in my favour with a detailed letter of rejection of India's request for issuing of a Red Notice," Modi wrote on his Instagram account. He also posted Interpol documents, which were not for public dissemination, at his Instagram and Twitter accounts. "The sword that was hanging over my head has suddenly gone," Modi said. The Interpol document dated March 24 said: "Lalit Kumar Modi... is not subject to an Interpol Red Notice or diffusion and not known in the Interpol's database." The organisation however clarified that "in the past the individual (Lalit Modi) was subject of data record in Interpol's database, yet the data was later cancelled". Lalit Modi had fled India in 2010, after facing charges of financial irregularity in IPL. He is currently living in Britain. His extradition process is still pending. The authenticity of the documents could not be verified as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said they had no such information yet. CBI spokesperson R.K. Gaur told IANS: "The agency is authenticating the Interpol documents."
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: In no mood to back down on its stand, state-run carrier Air India has once again cancelled a ticket issued to Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad, who had assaulted an Air India manager at the IGI airport here last week.

Air India canceled Gaikwads ticket from Mumbai to Delhi, booked on flight AI 806 for Wednesday. This was followed by another attempt to book a seat on AI 551 from Hyderabad to Delhi, again on Wednesday, which was also canceled. Air India officials said they will not allow Gaikwad to travel with the airline.

He has no regrets, he has not even apologised for his misbehavior even after a case has been registered against him by Delhi police, an Air India official said.

Gaikwad has been banned by all domestic carriers forcing him to travel by train. The ticket has been canceled, an Air India (AI) statement said.

Meanwhile, the Delhi Police crime branch is investigating the case slowly giving enough time to Gaikwad. So far, the police have not issued any summons to Gaikwad to join the investigation. The police are claiming that they are analysing CCTV footage of the incident, and after that they will ask Gaikwad to join the investigation.

The Shiv Sena MP, who is at the centre of a storm for assaulting an elderly Air India employee last Thursday, was earlier barred from flying by all major domestic airlines in an unprecedented step in Indian aviation history.

A day after the incident, the Air India had canceled a return ticket of the MP. Private carrier IndiGo too had followed suit, forcing him to take a train to Maharashtra.

The MP from Osmanabad, however, has continued to remain unapologetic about his conduct.

NEW DELHI: In no mood to back down on its stand, state-run carrier Air India has once again cancelled a ticket issued to Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad, who had assaulted an Air India manager at the IGI airport here last week. Air India canceled Gaikwads ticket from Mumbai to Delhi, booked on flight AI 806 for Wednesday. This was followed by another attempt to book a seat on AI 551 from Hyderabad to Delhi, again on Wednesday, which was also canceled. Air India officials said they will not allow Gaikwad to travel with the airline. He has no regrets, he has not even apologised for his misbehavior even after a case has been registered against him by Delhi police, an Air India official said. Gaikwad has been banned by all domestic carriers forcing him to travel by train. The ticket has been canceled, an Air India (AI) statement said. Meanwhile, the Delhi Police crime branch is investigating the case slowly giving enough time to Gaikwad. So far, the police have not issued any summons to Gaikwad to join the investigation. The police are claiming that they are analysing CCTV footage of the incident, and after that they will ask Gaikwad to join the investigation. The Shiv Sena MP, who is at the centre of a storm for assaulting an elderly Air India employee last Thursday, was earlier barred from flying by all major domestic airlines in an unprecedented step in Indian aviation history. A day after the incident, the Air India had canceled a return ticket of the MP. Private carrier IndiGo too had followed suit, forcing him to take a train to Maharashtra. The MP from Osmanabad, however, has continued to remain unapologetic about his conduct.
Sanjib Kumar Roy By

Express News Service

PORT BLAIR: The Andaman and Nicobar Islands recently hogged the limelight after a BJP Rajya Sabha MP demanded that Havelock Island be renamed. The MP argued that a place should not be named after someone who fought against Indian freedom fighters in 1857. (READ HERE)

But the local populationdependent on tourismfeels changing the name is definitely not the need of the hour. Can a name change really make a difference?

The genesis of the name

Havelock Island is named after Sir Henry Havelock, an English general who served in India starting late 1822 during the British administration. He was known for his role in the First Afghan War and later in the Indian mutiny of 1857. Havelock died the same year due to dysentery.

What's with his name?

BJP MP LA Ganesan raised the matter in the Rajya Sabha saying Havelock fought against Indians during the 1857 mutiny. He said a statue of the British officer stands at Trafalgar Square in London for his role in crushing the Indian revolt. Ganesan questioned the fact that even after 60 years of Independence, there is still an island named after such a person. Can there be a greater insult than this to our patriots? he asked.

What do people feel in the Andamans?

The demand for a name change has created ripples in the atoll. Various associations feel it will not only result in confusion about the names of various islands in the Andamans but will also hit the tourism industryHavelock being the most sought-after tourist spot. Locals believe changing the name may not be a good idea at a time when the tourism industry is trying to gain traction. Why is there a need to rename any island? The best solution is to put a signboard about the atrocities done by the British officers and let the whole world see. That will be a slap in their face, said a senior historian of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands who didn't want to be quoted. Local residents argue places like the Cellular Jail in Port Blair do pay tribute to the freedom fighters of India and there is no further need to rename any islands.

Social media response

Social media users did not take the news well. There are other burning issues which the government must look into instead of thinking about changing the name of prominent islands, said Abhay Kumar, president of LOTE (Living on the Edge), a social group active in the Andamans. A Facebook user named Clint Pinto wrote: Change everything, after all we are so insecure. Keep raising issues like this and wasting my taxes on trivial issues instead of debating how to improve our standard of living. How long are we gonna tolerate this? This is why we never progress and we continue to see a brain drain in this country.

What does the tourism industry think?

The tourism industry in the islands is not happy with the renaming demand. According to many, such a name change may just about trigger a renaming spree. The islanders also feel changing the name of one island will not yield any result when there are several islands named after British personalities. In fact, all the islands belonging to the Ritchies archipelago like Havelock, Neil, Sir Hugh Rose, Sir William Peel, John Lawrence, Sir John Lawrence, Outram Island etc were named after British generals, civil servants, politicians. We are already struggling to promote brand Andaman and islands like Havelock and Neil at the international level and a sudden change of name will create confusion. Instead of changing names, the government should focus on creating better facilities for tourists, said M Vinod, the president of Andaman Association of Tourism Operators (AATO).

Elephant Beach (Courtesy: www.andamans.gov.in)

FAQs

Who was Sir Henry Havelock?

Major General Sir Henry Havelock was a British general. He took part in the First Afghan war in 1839 and later was involved in the celebrated passage of the defiles of the Ghilzais. Years later, he was chosen to by the British to quell the Indian mutiny of 1857. Despite being outnumbered, Havelock marched northwards towards the Oudhpresent-day Uttar Pradeshtaking on the rebel forces. He managed to capture Lucknow in September 1857. However the town was besieged by the arrival of a second rebel force with Havelock and his troops stuck inside the blockade. A few days post the lift of the blockade, Havelock died of dysentery.

What did he have to do with the Andamans?

Nothing! In fact, a memorial to him exists in Lucknow to commemorate his victory over the Indian mutineers in 1857. Havelock Island was named after the general as an acknowledgement to his exploits elsewhere.

Legacy

He wasn't the only Havelock who served in India. His nephew Arthur Elibank Havelock, an engineer, built an iconic bridge over the Godavari at Rajahmundry, which stands to this day and is a tourist draw.

Havelock Islands transformation

The island  once home to settlers from Bengal its partition  slowly attracted the worlds attention because of its beauty. Today, a good part of the islands population is dependent on tourism. Many have transformed their land obtained from the government into guest houses while others sold it at astronomically high rates for the construction of hotels. Today, real estate prices on Havelock Island are sky-high.

Renaming vs ground reality

It is interesting to note that very few people in the island seem to care about Sir Henry Havelock or his legacy. There is not even a memorial of the British officer.

Kala Pather Beach (Courtesy: www.andamans.gov.in)

Other islands in named after Brits

Neil Island

Smith Island

Stewart Island

Aves Island

John Lawrence

Rutland Island

Curlew Island

Ross Island

Outram island

Radhanagar Beach (Courtesy: www.andamans.gov.in) All about Havelock Island

(Text source: www.andamans.gov.in)

How to reach?

Government ferries run by the Directorate of Shipping Services connect Phoenix Bay jetty, Port Blair to Havelock daily. Private luxury boats and coastal cruise ferry tourists to Havelock daily. Auto rickshaws, taxis, buses, motorbikes are available for transport within the island.

Radhanagar Beach

It lies on the south coast of Havelock Islandabout 12 kilometers from the Islands ferry pier. This beach is also rated as one of the best beaches in Asia by the TIME Magazine. It has an overall length of two kilometers and an average width of 30 to 40 meters. The sand is white and very fine in grain.

Vijaynagar Beach

It is a long stretch of sand on the east coast of the Island, punctuated occasionally by rock section. Most of the beach is lined by mahua trees. These trees have lent a distinct character to the sea-front and provide shade, close to the water. Vijaynagar Beach is perfect for long walks along the sea.

Elephant Beach

This beach is another ideal site for snorkeling. It has a rich coral reef formation and amazing underwater marine life. One can reach Elephant beach by a small cruise boat from Havelock Jetty in about 40 minutes. By road, one can go up to the Forest Camp which is eight kms from the jetty towards Radhanagar side and from there by walk to the Elephant beach which will take another 40 minutes. Private ferry operators organise tours to Elephant beach from Havelock.

Kalapather Beach

This beautiful silver sandy beach located 12 km from Havelock jetty is slowly gaining visitor-footfalls, though proper facilities are yet to be established.

PORT BLAIR: The Andaman and Nicobar Islands recently hogged the limelight after a BJP Rajya Sabha MP demanded that Havelock Island be renamed. The MP argued that a place should not be named after someone who fought against Indian freedom fighters in 1857. (READ HERE) But the local populationdependent on tourismfeels changing the name is definitely not the need of the hour. Can a name change really make a difference? The genesis of the name Havelock Island is named after Sir Henry Havelock, an English general who served in India starting late 1822 during the British administration. He was known for his role in the First Afghan War and later in the Indian mutiny of 1857. Havelock died the same year due to dysentery. What's with his name? BJP MP LA Ganesan raised the matter in the Rajya Sabha saying Havelock fought against Indians during the 1857 mutiny. He said a statue of the British officer stands at Trafalgar Square in London for his role in crushing the Indian revolt. Ganesan questioned the fact that even after 60 years of Independence, there is still an island named after such a person. Can there be a greater insult than this to our patriots? he asked. What do people feel in the Andamans? The demand for a name change has created ripples in the atoll. Various associations feel it will not only result in confusion about the names of various islands in the Andamans but will also hit the tourism industryHavelock being the most sought-after tourist spot. Locals believe changing the name may not be a good idea at a time when the tourism industry is trying to gain traction. Why is there a need to rename any island? The best solution is to put a signboard about the atrocities done by the British officers and let the whole world see. That will be a slap in their face, said a senior historian of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands who didn't want to be quoted. Local residents argue places like the Cellular Jail in Port Blair do pay tribute to the freedom fighters of India and there is no further need to rename any islands. Social media response Social media users did not take the news well. There are other burning issues which the government must look into instead of thinking about changing the name of prominent islands, said Abhay Kumar, president of LOTE (Living on the Edge), a social group active in the Andamans. A Facebook user named Clint Pinto wrote: Change everything, after all we are so insecure. Keep raising issues like this and wasting my taxes on trivial issues instead of debating how to improve our standard of living. How long are we gonna tolerate this? This is why we never progress and we continue to see a brain drain in this country. What does the tourism industry think? The tourism industry in the islands is not happy with the renaming demand. According to many, such a name change may just about trigger a renaming spree. The islanders also feel changing the name of one island will not yield any result when there are several islands named after British personalities. In fact, all the islands belonging to the Ritchies archipelago like Havelock, Neil, Sir Hugh Rose, Sir William Peel, John Lawrence, Sir John Lawrence, Outram Island etc were named after British generals, civil servants, politicians. We are already struggling to promote brand Andaman and islands like Havelock and Neil at the international level and a sudden change of name will create confusion. Instead of changing names, the government should focus on creating better facilities for tourists, said M Vinod, the president of Andaman Association of Tourism Operators (AATO). Elephant Beach (Courtesy: www.andamans.gov.in) FAQs Who was Sir Henry Havelock? Major General Sir Henry Havelock was a British general. He took part in the First Afghan war in 1839 and later was involved in the celebrated passage of the defiles of the Ghilzais. Years later, he was chosen to by the British to quell the Indian mutiny of 1857. Despite being outnumbered, Havelock marched northwards towards the Oudhpresent-day Uttar Pradeshtaking on the rebel forces. He managed to capture Lucknow in September 1857. However the town was besieged by the arrival of a second rebel force with Havelock and his troops stuck inside the blockade. A few days post the lift of the blockade, Havelock died of dysentery. What did he have to do with the Andamans? Nothing! In fact, a memorial to him exists in Lucknow to commemorate his victory over the Indian mutineers in 1857. Havelock Island was named after the general as an acknowledgement to his exploits elsewhere. Legacy He wasn't the only Havelock who served in India. His nephew Arthur Elibank Havelock, an engineer, built an iconic bridge over the Godavari at Rajahmundry, which stands to this day and is a tourist draw. Havelock Islands transformation The island  once home to settlers from Bengal its partition  slowly attracted the worlds attention because of its beauty. Today, a good part of the islands population is dependent on tourism. Many have transformed their land obtained from the government into guest houses while others sold it at astronomically high rates for the construction of hotels. Today, real estate prices on Havelock Island are sky-high. Renaming vs ground reality It is interesting to note that very few people in the island seem to care about Sir Henry Havelock or his legacy. There is not even a memorial of the British officer. Kala Pather Beach (Courtesy: www.andamans.gov.in) Other islands in named after Brits Neil Island Smith Island Stewart Island Aves Island John Lawrence Rutland Island Curlew Island Ross Island Outram island Radhanagar Beach (Courtesy: www.andamans.gov.in) All about Havelock Island (Text source: www.andamans.gov.in) How to reach? Government ferries run by the Directorate of Shipping Services connect Phoenix Bay jetty, Port Blair to Havelock daily. Private luxury boats and coastal cruise ferry tourists to Havelock daily. Auto rickshaws, taxis, buses, motorbikes are available for transport within the island. Radhanagar Beach It lies on the south coast of Havelock Islandabout 12 kilometers from the Islands ferry pier. This beach is also rated as one of the best beaches in Asia by the TIME Magazine. It has an overall length of two kilometers and an average width of 30 to 40 meters. The sand is white and very fine in grain. Vijaynagar Beach It is a long stretch of sand on the east coast of the Island, punctuated occasionally by rock section. Most of the beach is lined by mahua trees. These trees have lent a distinct character to the sea-front and provide shade, close to the water. Vijaynagar Beach is perfect for long walks along the sea. Elephant Beach This beach is another ideal site for snorkeling. It has a rich coral reef formation and amazing underwater marine life. One can reach Elephant beach by a small cruise boat from Havelock Jetty in about 40 minutes. By road, one can go up to the Forest Camp which is eight kms from the jetty towards Radhanagar side and from there by walk to the Elephant beach which will take another 40 minutes. Private ferry operators organise tours to Elephant beach from Havelock. Kalapather Beach This beautiful silver sandy beach located 12 km from Havelock jetty is slowly gaining visitor-footfalls, though proper facilities are yet to be established.
By Express News Service

LUCKNOW: With meat traders up in arms against the crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses, the Yogi government on Monday toughened its stand, saying anything running illegally in the State cant be allowed to continue.

However, a majority of meat sellers associations proceeded on an indefinite strike on Monday, indicating that the meat crisis would intensify in the State.

While on one the hand, most dealers and suppliers of mutton and white meat in Lucknow, Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Allahabad and other districts have been keeping their shutters down for the past three days, fish vendors are also contemplating joining the statewide agitation.

Backing the government action against unlicensed meat traders, UP health minister Siddharth Nath Singh said anything illegal had to be stopped even if it was a slaughterhouse mechanised or manual.

Trying to clear the air, the minister reiterated the governments stand that only unlicensed slaughterhouses and buffalo meat shops would face action. He clarified that the government did not intend to act against mutton, chicken and egg shops.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) had issued guidelines two years ago in this regard. Authorities concerned then did not pay any heed to the implementation of NGT rules. But we cant let it continue like this. Ban has to be there on illegal concerns. This practice has to stop, the minister maintained. He also expressed the governments concern over the risk to peoples health these slaughterhouses were posing by flouting rules of cleanliness and solid waste disposal.

Singh added that the government would not touch any manual or mechanised slaughterhouse and meat shop which is legal and running after following all the norms of slaughtering.

However, he also cautioned officers concerned to respect their jurisdiction and ambit of duties while taking action. Overzealous officers should not go overboard in excitement of performance. They need to adopt a balanced and well thought out approach, he stated.

Over 100 unlicensed slaughterhouses of 145 running across the State have already been sealed by the authorities concerned, pushing the state into scarcity of all kinds of meat, including buffalo, mutton and chicken.

Consequently, not only retailers, but restaurants, hotels and eateries are facing a drastic fall in their business.

A lot of food joint owners say that in the given situation they may be required to get supply of meat from Delhi and other places.

It will certainly cost us more but what is the option, says the owner of a prominent non-vegetarian eatery. Moreover, scores of people employed in the slaughterhouses have also become jobless.

LUCKNOW: With meat traders up in arms against the crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses, the Yogi government on Monday toughened its stand, saying anything running illegally in the State cant be allowed to continue. However, a majority of meat sellers associations proceeded on an indefinite strike on Monday, indicating that the meat crisis would intensify in the State. While on one the hand, most dealers and suppliers of mutton and white meat in Lucknow, Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Allahabad and other districts have been keeping their shutters down for the past three days, fish vendors are also contemplating joining the statewide agitation. Backing the government action against unlicensed meat traders, UP health minister Siddharth Nath Singh said anything illegal had to be stopped even if it was a slaughterhouse mechanised or manual. Trying to clear the air, the minister reiterated the governments stand that only unlicensed slaughterhouses and buffalo meat shops would face action. He clarified that the government did not intend to act against mutton, chicken and egg shops. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) had issued guidelines two years ago in this regard. Authorities concerned then did not pay any heed to the implementation of NGT rules. But we cant let it continue like this. Ban has to be there on illegal concerns. This practice has to stop, the minister maintained. He also expressed the governments concern over the risk to peoples health these slaughterhouses were posing by flouting rules of cleanliness and solid waste disposal. Singh added that the government would not touch any manual or mechanised slaughterhouse and meat shop which is legal and running after following all the norms of slaughtering. However, he also cautioned officers concerned to respect their jurisdiction and ambit of duties while taking action. Overzealous officers should not go overboard in excitement of performance. They need to adopt a balanced and well thought out approach, he stated. Over 100 unlicensed slaughterhouses of 145 running across the State have already been sealed by the authorities concerned, pushing the state into scarcity of all kinds of meat, including buffalo, mutton and chicken. Consequently, not only retailers, but restaurants, hotels and eateries are facing a drastic fall in their business. A lot of food joint owners say that in the given situation they may be required to get supply of meat from Delhi and other places. It will certainly cost us more but what is the option, says the owner of a prominent non-vegetarian eatery. Moreover, scores of people employed in the slaughterhouses have also become jobless.
By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: The bodies of Narra Sasikala and Anish Sai are expected to arrive in India from New Jersey on Thursday morning. The Burlington Police Department completed their legal formalities and the bodies have been preserved after post mortem.

Once the death certificate is issued, Telugu Association of North America (TANA) with the help of Sasikalas family friends will make arrangements to shift bodies to India.

Sasikala and her six-year-old son Anish Sai were found dead in a pool of blood last Thursday night in their flat located at Fox Meadows Apartment Complex in Burlington of New Jersey, USA. The police geared up their investigation to trace out the murderer.

According to information, the police department came to the conclusion that the offence was not murder for gain.

As there are no evidences of property theft in incident, the police are leading their investigation in multiple directions.

The police inquired the office staff of Narra Hanumatha Rao, Sasikalas husband, and registered that he was in the office from 9 am to 8 pm. After office, he attended a promotion party of his colleague organised on office premises.

At about 7.45 pm, Hanumantha Rao left office and reached home only to find his wife and son lying dead in a pool of blood. Meanwhile, police are collecting data of Sasikalas telephone conversations and her e-mail chats to unearth accused details. They also recovered CCTV footage from Hanumantha Raos office and Fox Meadows Apartment Complex for probe.

The police noticed that there were incidents of domestic violence between Hanumantha Rao and Sasikala. However, Burlington police officials are looking about the possibilities of the third party in incident.

However, with no valuables stolen from Sasikalas residence and even the boy suffering multiple stab injuries, the police suspect that the miscreants might know her family. However, Hanumantha Rao did not report of any suspected hands or rivalries.

There are multiple stab injuries on the bodies. The accused brutally murdered the woman and her son. No valuables have been stolen from Sasikalas residence. The post-mortem has been completed and the bodies preserved. We hope that the death certificate will be issued by Tuesday so we can make arrangements to airlift the bodies to India, TANA president Mohan Nannapaneni told Express over telephone.

TEAM Square is coordinating with the US officials and Burlington Police Department to airlift the bodies to India.

VIJAYAWADA: The bodies of Narra Sasikala and Anish Sai are expected to arrive in India from New Jersey on Thursday morning. The Burlington Police Department completed their legal formalities and the bodies have been preserved after post mortem. Once the death certificate is issued, Telugu Association of North America (TANA) with the help of Sasikalas family friends will make arrangements to shift bodies to India. Sasikala and her six-year-old son Anish Sai were found dead in a pool of blood last Thursday night in their flat located at Fox Meadows Apartment Complex in Burlington of New Jersey, USA. The police geared up their investigation to trace out the murderer. According to information, the police department came to the conclusion that the offence was not murder for gain. As there are no evidences of property theft in incident, the police are leading their investigation in multiple directions. The police inquired the office staff of Narra Hanumatha Rao, Sasikalas husband, and registered that he was in the office from 9 am to 8 pm. After office, he attended a promotion party of his colleague organised on office premises. At about 7.45 pm, Hanumantha Rao left office and reached home only to find his wife and son lying dead in a pool of blood. Meanwhile, police are collecting data of Sasikalas telephone conversations and her e-mail chats to unearth accused details. They also recovered CCTV footage from Hanumantha Raos office and Fox Meadows Apartment Complex for probe. The police noticed that there were incidents of domestic violence between Hanumantha Rao and Sasikala. However, Burlington police officials are looking about the possibilities of the third party in incident. However, with no valuables stolen from Sasikalas residence and even the boy suffering multiple stab injuries, the police suspect that the miscreants might know her family. However, Hanumantha Rao did not report of any suspected hands or rivalries. There are multiple stab injuries on the bodies. The accused brutally murdered the woman and her son. No valuables have been stolen from Sasikalas residence. The post-mortem has been completed and the bodies preserved. We hope that the death certificate will be issued by Tuesday so we can make arrangements to airlift the bodies to India, TANA president Mohan Nannapaneni told Express over telephone. TEAM Square is coordinating with the US officials and Burlington Police Department to airlift the bodies to India.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Why shouldnt the Centre ask every State in the country to set up a medical college in each district?

This was the question that Justice N Kirubakaran, who also wondered how students scoring low marks in Board exams are able to join medical courses in foreign institutions when those having more than 95 per cent in class 12 alone are able to get admissions to MBBS courses in India.



It is not understandable as to how moneyed persons, who get comparatively low marks, are allowed to get admission in foreign medical colleges or universities with lesser marks and they are able to get medical degrees which are also permitted by the Medical Council of India (MCI) by recognising degrees granted by those foreign institutions. Only meritorious students should be allowed to enter any medical college as the lives of the patients or citizens are with the prospective doctors. Further, our country needs more doctors and hence urgent measures have to be taken to establish more government medical colleges so that medical education is not commercialised, he said.



The judge was passing interim orders on a writ petition from Thamarai Selvan, who did his MBBS at the West Indies-based International University of the Health and Sciences, St Christopher and Nevis. He completed the course in 2011 and cleared the MCIs screening test for Indian nationals with foreign medical qualifications in 2016.



But, Thamarai Selvans application for provisional registration certificate was not considered by the Tamil Nadu Medical Council. Hence, the present petition.



Pointing out that the institution has been recognised by the Medical Council of India and the candidate has only about 77 per cent marks in Class 12 board examinations, the court raised a set of questions, which included the number of medical graduates from foreign medical colleges who had taken screening tests conducted in the past 10 years, the number of students qualified to undergo compulsory rotatory residential internship and to get enrolled as doctors in the past 10 years.



The court also asked whether or not the Medical Council of India was aware that students who get less marks are able to get admission in foreign medical institutions in foreign countries and get medical degrees and whether allowing such students to get medical degrees will not go against the public interest.

Justice N Kirubakaran adjourned the petition hearing to April 10.

CHENNAI: Why shouldnt the Centre ask every State in the country to set up a medical college in each district? This was the question that Justice N Kirubakaran, who also wondered how students scoring low marks in Board exams are able to join medical courses in foreign institutions when those having more than 95 per cent in class 12 alone are able to get admissions to MBBS courses in India. It is not understandable as to how moneyed persons, who get comparatively low marks, are allowed to get admission in foreign medical colleges or universities with lesser marks and they are able to get medical degrees which are also permitted by the Medical Council of India (MCI) by recognising degrees granted by those foreign institutions. Only meritorious students should be allowed to enter any medical college as the lives of the patients or citizens are with the prospective doctors. Further, our country needs more doctors and hence urgent measures have to be taken to establish more government medical colleges so that medical education is not commercialised, he said. The judge was passing interim orders on a writ petition from Thamarai Selvan, who did his MBBS at the West Indies-based International University of the Health and Sciences, St Christopher and Nevis. He completed the course in 2011 and cleared the MCIs screening test for Indian nationals with foreign medical qualifications in 2016. But, Thamarai Selvans application for provisional registration certificate was not considered by the Tamil Nadu Medical Council. Hence, the present petition. Pointing out that the institution has been recognised by the Medical Council of India and the candidate has only about 77 per cent marks in Class 12 board examinations, the court raised a set of questions, which included the number of medical graduates from foreign medical colleges who had taken screening tests conducted in the past 10 years, the number of students qualified to undergo compulsory rotatory residential internship and to get enrolled as doctors in the past 10 years. The court also asked whether or not the Medical Council of India was aware that students who get less marks are able to get admission in foreign medical institutions in foreign countries and get medical degrees and whether allowing such students to get medical degrees will not go against the public interest. Justice N Kirubakaran adjourned the petition hearing to April 10.
By AFP

JOHANNESBURG: South Africa's anti-apartheid icon Ahmed Kathrada, who was jailed alongside Nelson Mandela, was feted as a humble liberation hero who shunned the power and glory that came with freedom.

Unlike many struggle veterans, Kathrada, who was imprisoned on Robben Island, never held public political office after the fall of apartheid and Mandela's election as president in 1994.

He choose instead to serve as one of Mandela's closest advisors during his time as the country's first black leader.

When Mandela left office in 1999, after serving a single four-year term, Kathrada also stepped away from politics -- immersing himself in activism through his Ahmed Kathrada Foundation.

Released from prison in 1989, the softly-spoken Kathrada commanded huge respect within the African National Congress (ANC) party, belonging to the golden generation of freedom fighters untainted by later corruption scandals.

He was often described as Mandela's "trusted lieutenant", an "unsung hero" and "humble icon".

To those close to him, he was known as "Kathy" or "Uncle Kathy".

In his book "Long Walk to Freedom", Mandela recalled meeting a young and impassioned Kathrada during the early days of the struggle, and then their later time on Robben Island.

"Kathy was a slender fellow unused to hard physical labour," Mandela said, referring to the back-breaking daily work of crushing rock at the prison quarry.

Mandela recounted how Kathrada was mocked by prison warders when he could not move a wheelbarrow laden with rocks, while the guards prevented Mandela from helping his friend.

Strategic thinker

In the cells, "Kathy" was a teacher for fellow prisoners and a strategic thinker who later formed part of the ANC delegation in the negotiations that finally ended apartheid.

Born on August 21, 1929 in Schweizer-Reneke, a small rural town in what was then known as Western Transvaal, Kathrada was a second generation South African of Indian descent.

In his youth, he joined apartheid resistance movements, including the South African Indian Congress, which followed the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi's passive resistance.

"Even as a young man, he stood out as a leader," said retired Constitutional Court judge Albie Sachs.

Kathrada's arrest with other anti-apartheid activists in a 1963 police raid at Liliesleaf Farm, a secret safe house outside Johannesburg, was a turning point in his life.

He was arrested along with Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Denis Goldberg, Elias Motsoaledi and Andrew Mlangeni and charged with sabotage.

"There was nothing I could do," said Kathrada, remembering how a police team burst out of a laundry van and surrounded the property.

Sacrifices for freedom

Those arrested were tried at what became known as the Rivonia trial, including Mandela, who was already in prison.

The trial drew worldwide attention to the brutal legal system under the apartheid regime.

In 1964, Kathrada and his co-accused were convicted and sentenced to life on Robben Island prison.

"From the word go, the message was, you are going to die," said Kathrada in 2016 at a screening of a documentary about his life.

"What we were being arrested for already warranted the death sentence."

In 1982, after spending 18 years on Robben Island, he was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town, serving a total of 26 years and three months in jail.

Since Mandela's death in 2013, Kathrada was one of the three surviving members of the Rivonia trial.

"Freedom did not fall from heaven, our freedom was fought for, sacrificed for," he once said.

In recent years, Kathrada was a fierce critic of the ANC government under President Jacob Zuma, himself a fellow Robben Island inmate.

In 2016, Kathrada wrote an open letter to Zuma urging him to resign after the country's highest court found the president in breach of the constitution for using public funds to upgrade his private home.

Kathrada also spoke out against corruption, offering support to Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan when he faced possible prosecution for fraud.

After being released unconditionally from prison in 1989, Kathrada applied for amnesty in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) over his conviction in the Rivonia trial.

In a formality, the commission granted him a pardon in 1999.

The Kathrada foundation said he was survived by his wife, Barbara Hogan, also an ANC stalwart.

JOHANNESBURG: South Africa's anti-apartheid icon Ahmed Kathrada, who was jailed alongside Nelson Mandela, was feted as a humble liberation hero who shunned the power and glory that came with freedom. Unlike many struggle veterans, Kathrada, who was imprisoned on Robben Island, never held public political office after the fall of apartheid and Mandela's election as president in 1994. He choose instead to serve as one of Mandela's closest advisors during his time as the country's first black leader. When Mandela left office in 1999, after serving a single four-year term, Kathrada also stepped away from politics -- immersing himself in activism through his Ahmed Kathrada Foundation. Released from prison in 1989, the softly-spoken Kathrada commanded huge respect within the African National Congress (ANC) party, belonging to the golden generation of freedom fighters untainted by later corruption scandals. He was often described as Mandela's "trusted lieutenant", an "unsung hero" and "humble icon". To those close to him, he was known as "Kathy" or "Uncle Kathy". In his book "Long Walk to Freedom", Mandela recalled meeting a young and impassioned Kathrada during the early days of the struggle, and then their later time on Robben Island. "Kathy was a slender fellow unused to hard physical labour," Mandela said, referring to the back-breaking daily work of crushing rock at the prison quarry. Mandela recounted how Kathrada was mocked by prison warders when he could not move a wheelbarrow laden with rocks, while the guards prevented Mandela from helping his friend. Strategic thinker In the cells, "Kathy" was a teacher for fellow prisoners and a strategic thinker who later formed part of the ANC delegation in the negotiations that finally ended apartheid. Born on August 21, 1929 in Schweizer-Reneke, a small rural town in what was then known as Western Transvaal, Kathrada was a second generation South African of Indian descent. In his youth, he joined apartheid resistance movements, including the South African Indian Congress, which followed the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi's passive resistance. "Even as a young man, he stood out as a leader," said retired Constitutional Court judge Albie Sachs. Kathrada's arrest with other anti-apartheid activists in a 1963 police raid at Liliesleaf Farm, a secret safe house outside Johannesburg, was a turning point in his life. He was arrested along with Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Denis Goldberg, Elias Motsoaledi and Andrew Mlangeni and charged with sabotage. "There was nothing I could do," said Kathrada, remembering how a police team burst out of a laundry van and surrounded the property. Sacrifices for freedom Those arrested were tried at what became known as the Rivonia trial, including Mandela, who was already in prison. The trial drew worldwide attention to the brutal legal system under the apartheid regime. In 1964, Kathrada and his co-accused were convicted and sentenced to life on Robben Island prison. "From the word go, the message was, you are going to die," said Kathrada in 2016 at a screening of a documentary about his life. "What we were being arrested for already warranted the death sentence." In 1982, after spending 18 years on Robben Island, he was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town, serving a total of 26 years and three months in jail. Since Mandela's death in 2013, Kathrada was one of the three surviving members of the Rivonia trial. "Freedom did not fall from heaven, our freedom was fought for, sacrificed for," he once said. In recent years, Kathrada was a fierce critic of the ANC government under President Jacob Zuma, himself a fellow Robben Island inmate. In 2016, Kathrada wrote an open letter to Zuma urging him to resign after the country's highest court found the president in breach of the constitution for using public funds to upgrade his private home. Kathrada also spoke out against corruption, offering support to Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan when he faced possible prosecution for fraud. After being released unconditionally from prison in 1989, Kathrada applied for amnesty in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) over his conviction in the Rivonia trial. In a formality, the commission granted him a pardon in 1999. The Kathrada foundation said he was survived by his wife, Barbara Hogan, also an ANC stalwart.
By PTI

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani man suffocated his 16-year-old daughter in Islamabad because he suspected she was in a relationship with a boy in the neighbourhood.

"The man, a father of six, killed his daughter by choking her and then called 15 to inform the police of his crime," the Express Tribune quoted a homicide investigator as saying.

He was arrested soon afterwards.

The officer said that trouble had been brewing in the family for the last two to three days over the issue.

The body was shifted to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences where the doctors confirmed that the girl was suffocated to death.

"There was bruising on her neck and signs of light bleeding from her lips. It seems the girl's throat and mouth were squeezed, which led to her death," a doctor said.

Doctors also collected samples from the girl's stomach, liver and spleen and sent them for a chemical examination to determine the cause of death.

On Monday, a beauty salon owner was stabbed to death in Lahore, allegedly by her in-laws, who doubted her character.

Hundreds of women are killed every year in Pakistan often by their family members on the pretext of defending what is seen as family honour.

Pakistan's National Assembly in October last year passed a much-anticipated new law that mandates a minimum 25-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of carrying out an honour killing, and prohibits families of victims from forgiving the killer, a common occurrence in these tragic crimes.

At least 40 clerics of the Barelvi school of thought in Pakistan on June 12 last year issued a fatwa against honour killing, declaring it 'un-Islamic and unpardonable sin'.

The clerics under the banner of Sunni Itehad Council said that honour killing is kufr (infidelity).

The Conservative Council of Islamic Ideology - an Islamic body that enjoys constitutional status and gives non-binding proposals to Parliament to make laws according to Islam - last year declared killing of women in the name of "honour" as un-Islamic.

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani man suffocated his 16-year-old daughter in Islamabad because he suspected she was in a relationship with a boy in the neighbourhood. "The man, a father of six, killed his daughter by choking her and then called 15 to inform the police of his crime," the Express Tribune quoted a homicide investigator as saying. He was arrested soon afterwards. The officer said that trouble had been brewing in the family for the last two to three days over the issue. The body was shifted to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences where the doctors confirmed that the girl was suffocated to death. "There was bruising on her neck and signs of light bleeding from her lips. It seems the girl's throat and mouth were squeezed, which led to her death," a doctor said. Doctors also collected samples from the girl's stomach, liver and spleen and sent them for a chemical examination to determine the cause of death. On Monday, a beauty salon owner was stabbed to death in Lahore, allegedly by her in-laws, who doubted her character. Hundreds of women are killed every year in Pakistan often by their family members on the pretext of defending what is seen as family honour. Pakistan's National Assembly in October last year passed a much-anticipated new law that mandates a minimum 25-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of carrying out an honour killing, and prohibits families of victims from forgiving the killer, a common occurrence in these tragic crimes. At least 40 clerics of the Barelvi school of thought in Pakistan on June 12 last year issued a fatwa against honour killing, declaring it 'un-Islamic and unpardonable sin'. The clerics under the banner of Sunni Itehad Council said that honour killing is kufr (infidelity). The Conservative Council of Islamic Ideology - an Islamic body that enjoys constitutional status and gives non-binding proposals to Parliament to make laws according to Islam - last year declared killing of women in the name of "honour" as un-Islamic.
By PTI

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin today was hosting his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani for talks that are being closely watched for signs of their next moves in Syria. Rouhani's first official visit to Russia comes as the two backers of the Syrian regime push for ways to end the six-year conflict in the country, having done much to marginalise US influence in peace talks.

At the start of their meeting, Putin told Rouhani that Moscow and Tehran "work very effectively, practically on all fronts, in international action and the resolution of major and very grave international problems," state television showed. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said ahead of Rouhani's trip that the leaders would discuss "regional issues especially the Syrian crisis, solutions to end it quickly," as well as ways to counter "terrorism and extremism".

The visit also comes as splits emerge between the countries, the primary allies of Syria, over the role to be played by Turkey, which is backing opponents of the regime. Moscow has formed an unlikely alliance with Ankara since 2016, envisioning Turkey as part of a solution to the Syrian conflict.

But Iran has been more wary about Turkey's involvement in efforts to end hostilities, with tensions mounting after Moscow and Ankara left Tehran out of a truce they brokered in December. Rouhani -- accompanied by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh and other high-ranking officials -- is expected to sign a slew of economic cooperation agreements with Russia, according to Iranian state media.

The Kremlin said in a statement this month that Rouhani's trip would focus in part on "the prospects of expanding trade, economic and investment ties." It said that a "variety of bilateral documents" would be signed at the end of the meeting but did not specify in which fields. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier Tuesday that Moscow was striving to bolster its relations with Tehran, which he said had "very solid potential".

After arriving on Monday, Rouhani met Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, with the Iranian president saying he hoped his visit would mark a "new turning point" in relations, Russian state media reported. In addition to cooperation on Syria, energy and defence ties have deepened between Iran and Russia despite meagre trade relations. Russia is to build nine of Iran's 20 proposed nuclear reactors and has emerged as a long-term arms partner, supplying Tehran with its S-300 air defence missile system. The relationship has blossomed under Rouhani despite the countries having a complicated history over territory, oil and Communist ideology.

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin today was hosting his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani for talks that are being closely watched for signs of their next moves in Syria. Rouhani's first official visit to Russia comes as the two backers of the Syrian regime push for ways to end the six-year conflict in the country, having done much to marginalise US influence in peace talks. At the start of their meeting, Putin told Rouhani that Moscow and Tehran "work very effectively, practically on all fronts, in international action and the resolution of major and very grave international problems," state television showed. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said ahead of Rouhani's trip that the leaders would discuss "regional issues especially the Syrian crisis, solutions to end it quickly," as well as ways to counter "terrorism and extremism". The visit also comes as splits emerge between the countries, the primary allies of Syria, over the role to be played by Turkey, which is backing opponents of the regime. Moscow has formed an unlikely alliance with Ankara since 2016, envisioning Turkey as part of a solution to the Syrian conflict. But Iran has been more wary about Turkey's involvement in efforts to end hostilities, with tensions mounting after Moscow and Ankara left Tehran out of a truce they brokered in December. Rouhani -- accompanied by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh and other high-ranking officials -- is expected to sign a slew of economic cooperation agreements with Russia, according to Iranian state media. The Kremlin said in a statement this month that Rouhani's trip would focus in part on "the prospects of expanding trade, economic and investment ties." It said that a "variety of bilateral documents" would be signed at the end of the meeting but did not specify in which fields. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier Tuesday that Moscow was striving to bolster its relations with Tehran, which he said had "very solid potential". After arriving on Monday, Rouhani met Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, with the Iranian president saying he hoped his visit would mark a "new turning point" in relations, Russian state media reported. In addition to cooperation on Syria, energy and defence ties have deepened between Iran and Russia despite meagre trade relations. Russia is to build nine of Iran's 20 proposed nuclear reactors and has emerged as a long-term arms partner, supplying Tehran with its S-300 air defence missile system. The relationship has blossomed under Rouhani despite the countries having a complicated history over territory, oil and Communist ideology.
By AFP

ANKARA: Turkey sent a team of experts to Britain Tuesday to try to pursuade London to lift a ban on passengers carrying large electronic devices on flights from Istanbul, the Turkish transport minister said.

Britain issued a ban last week on laptops and tablet computers in the passenger compartment of flights from five countries from the Middle East and northern Africa as well as Turkey.

Ahmet Arslan told CNN Turk he "felt" Britain would shortly lift the ban "because our meetings suggest this" but said talks with the US would likely be "longer-running."

"What I expect from the UK especially is for the ban to be lifted as soon as possible," Arslan said.

The British move came after Washington banned electronic devices larger than mobile phones on direct flights to the US from 10 airports in seven Middle Eastern countries and Turkey, allowing them only in hold luggage.

The UK ban affects 14 airlines including British Airways, EasyJet and flag carrier Turkish Airlines, whose profits have already been hit by a slew of terror attacks in 2016.

In a bid to make passengers "more comfortable" after the bans, the airline said passengers could use their laptops until they board.

The devices would then be placed in a special area in the cargo hold of the aircraft and returned to their owners upon arrival at the destination, Turkish Airlines said.

ANKARA: Turkey sent a team of experts to Britain Tuesday to try to pursuade London to lift a ban on passengers carrying large electronic devices on flights from Istanbul, the Turkish transport minister said. Britain issued a ban last week on laptops and tablet computers in the passenger compartment of flights from five countries from the Middle East and northern Africa as well as Turkey. Ahmet Arslan told CNN Turk he "felt" Britain would shortly lift the ban "because our meetings suggest this" but said talks with the US would likely be "longer-running." "What I expect from the UK especially is for the ban to be lifted as soon as possible," Arslan said. The British move came after Washington banned electronic devices larger than mobile phones on direct flights to the US from 10 airports in seven Middle Eastern countries and Turkey, allowing them only in hold luggage. The UK ban affects 14 airlines including British Airways, EasyJet and flag carrier Turkish Airlines, whose profits have already been hit by a slew of terror attacks in 2016. In a bid to make passengers "more comfortable" after the bans, the airline said passengers could use their laptops until they board. The devices would then be placed in a special area in the cargo hold of the aircraft and returned to their owners upon arrival at the destination, Turkish Airlines said.
AYR: A "monster" cyclone smashed into northeast Australia Tuesday, cutting power, damaging buildings and uprooting trees, with coastal residents battling lashing rain and howling winds.

Great Barrier Reef islands popular with foreign tourists were battered by the category four storm which slammed into the coast of Queensland state with destructive wind gusts of up to 270 kph (167 miles) near its broad core.

There were fears its arrival would coincide with early morning high tides and cause severe flooding, but it slowed before making landfall between the towns of Bowen and Airlie Beach in the early afternoon.

By early morning Wednesday it had been downgraded to a tropical low system.

At least one person was seriously injured, but the extent of damage was not expected to be known until daybreak with conditions too dangerous for emergency crews to venture outside despite hundreds of calls for help.

"At first light tomorrow, we'll be sending people in to do a rapid assessment of the damage," said Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, with flash flooding and still powerful winds making it hard to do this at night.

"Everyone is going to be in shock tomorrow, just to see the full impact of this cyclone. I'm bracing myself for it."

The federal government said it was on standby to help with the clean-up, with soldiers, helicopters and planes ready to mobilise.

The effects of the storm were felt across a huge swathe of coast that would span the distance between London and Berlin, although not all areas were badly hit.

"It felt like we were underneath a freight train for most of the night, strong bass rumbles as the... wind rattled past and made the buildings shake," Cameron Berkman, who is holidaying on Hayman Island, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Queensland politician Mark Ryan said it was also chaotic at Airlie Beach, the mainland holiday gateway to the Whitsunday islands.

"Trees down in Airlie Beach and reports of windows shattering and some roofs starting to cave in," he tweeted.

Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said there was "certainly structural damage", and at least one person had been badly hurt by a collapsing wall.

"I think the public and the community of Queensland need to understand that we are going to get lots of reports of damage and sadly I think we will also receive more reports of injuries, if not deaths," he said.

The Bureau of Meteorology, which forecast up to 50 centimetres (20 inches) of rain, urged people to stay calm but not be complacent.

- 45,000 homes without power -

Palaszczuk, who called the storm a "monster", said at least 45,000 homes were without power with communications down in many areas and hundreds of schools and childcare centres closed.

People sandbagged and boarded up homes after warnings to prepare for the worst weather to pummel the state since Cyclone Yasi in 2011, which ripped houses from their foundations and devastated crops.

Yasi, which struck less populated areas, caused damage estimated at Aus$1.4 billion. Debbie has officially been declared a catastrophe by the Insurance Council of Australia, allowing them to prioritise claims from the disaster.

Some 3,500 people were evacuated between the towns of Home Hill and Proserpine, around 100 kilometres (62 miles) south of Townsville, a tourist hotspot and access point to the Great Barrier Reef.

Another 2,000 people in Bowen also moved, officials said, with many camped in cyclone shelters. Up to 25,000 more in low-lying parts of Mackay headed to higher ground.

In the small town of Ayr, the main shopping street was deserted with buildings boarded up.

Farmer Anthony Quirk's main concern was for his 150 hectares of mung beans.

"If it comes through here it will be over. It will lay flat on the ground, we won't be harvesting, we will have no crops left," he said.

"It means we start from scratch again. All the money down the drain. That is not good."

AYR: A "monster" cyclone smashed into northeast Australia Tuesday, cutting power, damaging buildings and uprooting trees, with coastal residents battling lashing rain and howling winds. Great Barrier Reef islands popular with foreign tourists were battered by the category four storm which slammed into the coast of Queensland state with destructive wind gusts of up to 270 kph (167 miles) near its broad core. There were fears its arrival would coincide with early morning high tides and cause severe flooding, but it slowed before making landfall between the towns of Bowen and Airlie Beach in the early afternoon. By early morning Wednesday it had been downgraded to a tropical low system. At least one person was seriously injured, but the extent of damage was not expected to be known until daybreak with conditions too dangerous for emergency crews to venture outside despite hundreds of calls for help. "At first light tomorrow, we'll be sending people in to do a rapid assessment of the damage," said Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, with flash flooding and still powerful winds making it hard to do this at night. "Everyone is going to be in shock tomorrow, just to see the full impact of this cyclone. I'm bracing myself for it." The federal government said it was on standby to help with the clean-up, with soldiers, helicopters and planes ready to mobilise. The effects of the storm were felt across a huge swathe of coast that would span the distance between London and Berlin, although not all areas were badly hit. "It felt like we were underneath a freight train for most of the night, strong bass rumbles as the... wind rattled past and made the buildings shake," Cameron Berkman, who is holidaying on Hayman Island, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Queensland politician Mark Ryan said it was also chaotic at Airlie Beach, the mainland holiday gateway to the Whitsunday islands. "Trees down in Airlie Beach and reports of windows shattering and some roofs starting to cave in," he tweeted. Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said there was "certainly structural damage", and at least one person had been badly hurt by a collapsing wall. "I think the public and the community of Queensland need to understand that we are going to get lots of reports of damage and sadly I think we will also receive more reports of injuries, if not deaths," he said. The Bureau of Meteorology, which forecast up to 50 centimetres (20 inches) of rain, urged people to stay calm but not be complacent. - 45,000 homes without power - Palaszczuk, who called the storm a "monster", said at least 45,000 homes were without power with communications down in many areas and hundreds of schools and childcare centres closed. People sandbagged and boarded up homes after warnings to prepare for the worst weather to pummel the state since Cyclone Yasi in 2011, which ripped houses from their foundations and devastated crops. Yasi, which struck less populated areas, caused damage estimated at Aus$1.4 billion. Debbie has officially been declared a catastrophe by the Insurance Council of Australia, allowing them to prioritise claims from the disaster. Some 3,500 people were evacuated between the towns of Home Hill and Proserpine, around 100 kilometres (62 miles) south of Townsville, a tourist hotspot and access point to the Great Barrier Reef. Another 2,000 people in Bowen also moved, officials said, with many camped in cyclone shelters. Up to 25,000 more in low-lying parts of Mackay headed to higher ground. In the small town of Ayr, the main shopping street was deserted with buildings boarded up. Farmer Anthony Quirk's main concern was for his 150 hectares of mung beans. "If it comes through here it will be over. It will lay flat on the ground, we won't be harvesting, we will have no crops left," he said. "It means we start from scratch again. All the money down the drain. That is not good."
Getty Images. A repurposed rodent trap might be the best way to control the spread of dangerous, even fatal, tick-borne diseases across the United States.

The trick to killing disease-carrying ticks may lie in building a better mouse trap.

Deer are often blamed for carrying the diseases, such as Lyme, that ticks spread to humans, but research has shown mice and other rodents are far more effective hosts for the insects.

So scientists have been testing a device made by a small Connecticut company that tricks ordinary wild mice into becoming tick-killing machines, offering what some researchers think could be the best hope for controlling the ticks spreading dangerous, even fatal, diseases across an ever-broadening portion of the United States.

The Select TCS Tick Control System is a commercially available box researchers are deploying in field studies, and results suggest the box could control tick populations without the environmental and health concerns typically associated with covering areas in pesticides.

The boxes are a variation on the "bait boxes" exterminators use to lure and catch mice and rodents. However, instead of luring and containing the rodents or killing them with bait, these "tick boxes" are booby-trapped with a piece cloth soaked in insecticide that the animals are forced to come in contact with as they enter and leave the box.

Mice, and other small animals then become walking lethal traps for ticks, but are not harmed themselves  the insecticide used in these studies is the same kind used in anti-tick medications for household pets.

A study published this month in the Journal of Medical Entomology showed tick numbers on several properties in New Jersey dropped by 97 percent in 2014, after two separate 9-week tick box treatments in the prior two years. It is the latest of several studies, often sponsored by or done in collaboration with the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The box, is made by a small Connecticut company called Tick Box Technology Corporation. David Whitman, who owns the company as well as a collection of pest control businesses with his twin brother Richard, told CNBC he had worked on the development of the box from the very beginning, circa the year 2000.

Story continues

The Whitman brothers acted as consultants for the CDC researchers who had developed and patented the original concept, and then also with scientists from Aventis CropSciences (now owned by Bayer (XETRA: BAYN-DE)), who first acquired the commercial rights.

Being professional exterminators, the Whitmans were the ones who installed the boxes in early CDC field trials, and they provided advice on the product and how it should be deployed.

Dave also invented and began manufacturing a two-piece metal shroud for the box, to protect it from the squirrels that were ripping open the box to get at the bait and ruining field trials.

Bayer sold the rights back to the Whitmans in 2011.

"At the time, it was a niche product," Whitman told CNBC in an interview. "Now ticks and tick-borne diseases are spreading across the country like wildfire."

The box can only be sold to pest control professionals, but Whitman said sales of the product are climbing every year. They are registered to sell the box in 26 states.

Felicia Keesing, an ecologist who is running a similar ongoing test with the Whitmans' boxes, said the New Jersey study looked convincing, despite a few "quirks," such as using a nearby wildlife area as a control space, when they were putting the bait boxes in people's yards.

"Normally when you think of a control, you would think of using the same type of location" as the area you are testing, she said in an interview.

"The most important part is this is yet another demonstration that these tick boxes reduce the number of ticks in people's yards, and particularly reduce their numbers on rodents," Keesing said.

Keesing, along with her husband and research partner Rick Ostfeld, are treating whole neighborhoods with the boxes, rather than the 12 properties in the study above. They are also comparing the effectiveness of the boxes with a commercially available fungal insecticide spray.

They chose both of those products because they were among a small set of chemicals that were already commercially available, environmentally safe, and they had to have been shown to be effective already.

That was because Keesing and Ostfeld wanted something that people can go out and begin using as soon as the study's results are available.

That is in part because the problem of tick-borne disease, once a regional problem, is becoming ever more urgent.

Lyme has spread into new regions of the country, and become more of a problem in its historical strongholds.

Lyme is not the only disease ticks and their rodent hosts can spread, either. Others, such as Powassan virus, are far more rare, but can be brutal  Powassan in particular swells the brain, causing neurological damage in about half of the patients lucky enough to recover. The virus is fatal in others.

Other dangerous diseases include Anaplasmosis and babesiosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, southern tick-associated rash illness and others, depending on the region of the country. Some of them are not even well known to science.

Then there are other diseases researchers know are out there, but are not well known to science.

Keesing and Ostfeld are in the second year of their five-year study.

"We are throwing everything we can for the next four years at these ticks, and then we will have results," she said. "If this doesn't work, then environmental interventions are not going to be the way to solve this problem."





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Arun Jaitley tables Central GST Bill in LS

New Delhi (India), Mar. 27 : Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday tabled the Central Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill 2017 in the Lok Sabha.





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Looking forward to a consensus on GST Bill, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar earlier in the day expressed hope that the above legislation is passed in the ongoing Budget Session of Parliament.Kumar told the media here that all parties have been consulted on the GST."Hope everyone will support the government on it. The government is committed to ensure the passage of GST in the ongoing Budget Session," he added.The GST Council and Union Cabinet have already given their nod to the Central GST, Integrated GST, Union Territory GST and Compensation Bill.Along with these four bills, amendments to the Excise and Customs Act to abolish various cess as well as furnishing bills for exports and imports under the new GST regime will be placed before the Parliament.The Business Advisory Committee of the Lok Sabha is likely to meet on Monday to decide on the duration of discussion on the Bills. States cabinet too will need to approve the State GST and then need the same to be passed by respective state assemblies to roll out the new tax regime.
Why only Gaikwad, why not act against Kapil Sharma: Shiv Sena

Mumbai (Maharashtra) , Mar. 27 : Extending his support to Ravindra Gaikwad, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Monday asked as to why there is no action taken by the airline against comedian Kapil Sharma and others who had also misbehaved with their staff in the past.





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"If airline can ban MP for slapping someone 2-3 times, then there are cases of Kapil Sharma and others, how many have you banned?," Rawat told ANI.He also said that the ban called by Airlines goes on showing their boorish and bullying attitude."He is not denying that he didn't do anything. Investigation should be made and after that we will accept whatever decision is made. But banning like this is 'dadagiri' (bullying)," he added.Earlier in the day, coming out in support of party Gaikwad by calling the airlines ban on him 'illogical', Shiv Sena spokesperson Manisha Kayande said that it looks like somebody is trying to defame party leaders.Kayande told ANI, "It seems that somebody is behind this and trying to defame Shiv Sena leaders, because if Shiv Sena opposes something, it is twisted and presented in a different way to the country."The Shiv Sena has given a shutdown call in Maharashtra's Osmanabad in support of Gaikwad, who had assaulted an Air India staffer last week.Air India and six private airlines banned the 56-year-old MP from flying as he refused to apologise for the incident that triggered nationwide outrage.The Osmanabad MP after being blacklisted by the top airlines boarded a train to Mumbai earlier on Friday evening.The MP refrained from commenting further on the row and said Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray would speak on the matter.Earlier, the MP, while showing no regret for his action had said, "What is there to repent? I will not apologise. He (Sukumar) should come and apologise.then we will see."
China voices opposition to Japanese official's Taiwan visit

Beijing [China], Mar. 28 : China has expressed firm opposition and lodged representations over a Japanese official's visit to Taiwan saying the visit breaches the commitment made by Tokyo to interacting with Taiwan only at non-governmental level.





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"An incumbent senior vice minister visiting Taiwan obviously breaches the commitment made by Japan to interacting with Taiwan only at non-governmental and local levels and seriously counters the spirit of the four political documents between China and Japan," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a press briefing.According to a Kyodo News report, Japanese Senior Vice Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Jiro Akama visited Taiwan on Saturday, becoming the highest-level Japanese government official to visit the island in an official capacity since 1972."The Taiwan question is a major matter of principle concerning the political foundation of China-Japan relations. China is firmly opposed to the visit and has lodged serious representations with Japan," she added.The spokesperson further noted that since earlier this year, Japan has repeatedly taken provocative actions with regard to the Taiwan question while it has verbally promised to honor its commitment saying this has already caused grave disturbances to the improvement of China-Japan relations.Warning that Japan should be aware of the consequences, she urged Tokyo to "stop its duplicity approach to Taiwan-related issues and not go further down the wrong path."
PM Modi to hold meeting with full Council of Ministers

New Delhi , Mar. 28 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a meeting with full Council of Ministers on Tuesday.





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During the meeting, progress of different flagship schemes and development initiatives taken by the government are expected to come up for discussion.This would be the first meeting of the full council after the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) massive victory in the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand Assembly elections.
SP-MAGTF Djibouti Africa

The US's Camp Lemonnier, a special-operations outpost in the sweltering East African country of Djibouti, will soon have a new neighbor.

China will open a new naval base  what it has called "logistical support" facilities  nearby, bringing the US into closer proximity with a rival power than some officers have ever experienced.

"You would have to characterize it as a military base," Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, chief of US Africa Command, told reporters in Washington this week. "It's a first for them. They've never had an overseas base."

"We've never had a base of, let's just say a peer competitor, as close as this one happens to be," Waldhauser told Breaking Defense. "So there's a lot of learning going on, a lot of growing going on."

The base, which Waldhauser said would likely be finished sometime this summer, will be several miles away from Lemonnier.

Lemonnier, and Djibouti, are strategically located in the Horn of Africa. They sit on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a gateway to Egypt's Suez Canal, which is one of the world's busiest shipping corridors.

They're also close to the restive country of Somalia and a short distance from the Arabian Peninsula  particularly Yemen, where the US has for some time been supporting a Saudi Arabian military campaign and before that was carrying out operations against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Djibouti Camp Lemonnier East Africa US military base

More than 4,000 US personnel are at Lemonnier, the US's largest permanent base on the continent, and it has long hosted sensitive US drone and air operations. The US also has run drone operations out of East Africa, and China has 2,400 peacekeepers on the continent.

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"Yes, there are some very significant operational security concerns, and I think that our base there is significant to US because it's not only AFRICOM that utilizes" it, Waldhauser told Breaking Defense, but also US Central Command, which operates in the Middle East, Joint Special Operations Command, and European Command.

The French and Japanese militaries are also present in Djibouti. The country has been used as a base of operations against piracy in nearby waters. China has said its ships have escorted more than 6,000 vessels through the Gulf of Aden.

US Air Force 2014 predator drones

Beijing has described the new facility as a support base for its operations with countries in the region.

"China and Djibouti consulted with each other and reached consensus on building logistical facilities in Djibouti, which will enable the Chinese troops to better fulfill escort missions and make new contributions to regional peace and stability," Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hong Lei said in January 2016, when the Chinese lease was announced.

Concern in Washington and elsewhere may be that the base will eventually take on a larger role in Beijing's foreign military operations. A 2015 US Defense Department report, cited by The Diplomat, confirmed that Chinese attack and missile submarines were operating in the Indian Ocean.

Countries along the Indian Ocean may also look upon the base warily, suspicious that it could be an anchor in a chain of bases and facilities along the ocean's coast, supplementing outposts like the port at Gwadar in Pakistan.

"It's naval power expansion for protecting commerce and China's regional interests in the Horn of Africa," Peter Dutton, a professor of strategic studies at the US Naval War College, told The Hindu in February. "This is what expansionary powers do. China has learned lessons from Britain of 200 years ago."

The US "has spoken to the Djiboutian government about it," Waldhauser said, "and they know what our concerns are."

NOW WATCH: Watch a demonstration of the Pentagon's new drones that can attack an enemy like a swarm of bees





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PM Modi extends greetings on Gudi Padwa, Cheti Chand

New Delhi , Mar. 28 : Extending his greetings to the people of Maharashtra on the special occasion of Gudi Padwa, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said may the coming year bring happiness, good health and prosperity.





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"People across India are celebrating the start of the new year. New year greetings to everyone. May the year bring peace, joy & prosperity," Prime Minister Modi tweeted.In a series of tweets, the Prime Minister also wished on the occasion of Navreh and Ugadi."On the auspicious occasion of Navreh, my greetings to everyone celebrating. May the year ahead be characterised by positivity & good health. Ugadi greetings to all those celebrating. May the coming year fulfil all your wishes & may there be happiness all around," he tweeted.He also extended his greetings to Manipur on the occasion of Sajibu Cheiraoba."Sajibu Cheiraoba wishes to my sisters & brothers in Manipur. Have a cheerful & harmonious year ahead. Cheti Chand greetings to the Sindhi community. May Lord Jhulelal bless us and the year ahead be a happy as well as memorable one," Prime Minister Modi tweeted.The New Year festivals of Chaitra Sukladi, Ugadi, Gudi Padwa, Cheti Chand, Navreh and Sajibu Cheiraoba are being celebrated in different parts of the country today.Prime Minister Modi will observe Chaitra Navaratri fast from today for nine days.He has been following this practice for more than four decades.President Pranab Mukherjee and Vice-President Hamid Ansari have greeted the nation on the occasion.In his message, the President said these festivals mark the onset of spring and promise fresh beginnings of growth, prosperity and well-being.President Mukherjee expressed hope that these festivals will spread peace and friendship, inspiring people to rededicate themselves to the service of the country.In his message, the Vice-President said that these festivals mark the beginning of traditional New Year and reflect the composite culture and rich heritage of the country.He hoped that the festivals bring peace, harmony, prosperity and happiness in people's lives.
UN agency chief urges stronger cooperation to aid refugees' transfer from Greek islands

New York, Mar 27 : The head of the United Nations refugee agency on Monday noted the need for more accommodations on the Greek mainland to help improve conditions at reception centres on the Greek islands.





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The effort is one of eight recommendations eight recommendations issued by the UN refugee agency, or UNHCR, to move from an emergency response to longer-term sustainability where asylum-seekers and refugees have access to care and support.The situation in Greece can be managed, said Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees. But to achieve this, firm commitment is needed on all sides.Grandi called on European Union Governments to provide strong support for Greece: More solidarity and responsibility sharing among across Europe is needed.The High Commissioner also renewed his call to the Greek Government for clear coordination structures, with well-defined roles and responsibilities for all actors.As of 20 March, only 10,000 asylum-seekers had left Greece for other European countries.The UN agency said that is has been working with the Greek Government over the past months to find alternative sites for temporary housing, as well as to help some refugees who were to remain in Greece to more easily integrate to the countrys social culture.Progress in reception conditions will also help prevent and fight sexual and gender based violence, to which many vulnerable asylum-seekers, including women and children, are exposed in the sites.More attention is needed to the length and quality of the asylum procedures and reception conditions on the islands, said the High Commissioner.This will allow for more and faster transfers to the mainland and prevent sites on the islands from falling back into the dire conditions and the overcrowding we have witnessed in the past months, he added, noting that UNHCR supported some 7,000 of the more than 10,000 transfers organized since June 2016.The UNHCR recommendations also include accelerating the pace of reuniting people with their families and building self-reliance among refugees.Photo: UNHCR/Achilleas ZavallisSource: www.justearthnews.com
PM Modi greets nation on Ugadi

New Delhi, Mar 28 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday greeted the people of India on the occasion of Ugadi.





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Ugadi, the first day of the lunar new year, is celebrated by Hindus in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka.Ugadi greetings to all those celebrating. May the coming year fulfil all your wishes may there be happiness all around, PM Modis tweet read.
PM Modi greets Sindhi community on Cheti Chand

New Delhi, Mar 28 : Wishing for a prosperous new year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, greeted the Sindhi community on the occasion of Cheti Chand.





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Cheti Chand greetings to the Sindhi community. May Lord Jhulelal bless us and the year ahead be a happy as well as memorable one, the Prime Minister tweeted.Cheti Chand is the first day of the Sindhi lunar new year.
(Adds Pentagon comment)

By David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON, March 27 (Reuters) - China appears to have largely completed major construction of military infrastructure on artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea and can now deploy combat planes and other military hardware there at any time, a U.S. think tank said on Monday.

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), part of Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the work on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reefs in the Spratly Islands included naval, air, radar and defensive facilities.

The think tank cited satellite images taken this month, which its director, Greg Poling, said showed new radar antennas on Fiery Cross and Subi.

"So look for deployments in the near future," he said.

China has denied U.S. charges that it is militarizing the South China Sea, although last week Premier Li Keqiang said defense equipment had been placed on islands in the disputed waterway to maintain "freedom of navigation."

A Pentagon spokesman, Commander Gary Ross, declined to comment on the specifics of the AMTI report, saying it was not the Defense Department's practice to comment on intelligence.

But he said that "China's continued construction in the South China Sea is part of a growing body of evidence that they continue to take unilateral actions which are increasing tensions in the region and are counterproductive to the peaceful resolution of disputes."

AMTI said China's three air bases in the Spratlys and another on Woody Island in the Paracel chain further north would allow its military aircraft to operate over nearly the entire South China Sea, a key global trade route that Beijing claims most of.

Several neighboring states have competing claims in the sea, which is widely seen as a potential regional flashpoint.

The think tank said advanced surveillance and early-warning radar facilities at Fiery Cross, Subi and Cuarteron Reefs, as well as Woody Island, and smaller facilities elsewhere gave it similar radar coverage.

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It said China had installed HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles at Woody Island more than a year ago and had deployed anti-ship cruise missiles there on at least one occasion.

It had also constructed hardened shelters with retractable roofs for mobile missile launchers at Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief and enough hangars at Fiery Cross for 24 combat aircraft and three larger planes, including bombers.

U.S. officials told Reuters last month that China had finished building almost two dozen structures on Subi, Mischief and Fiery Cross that appeared designed to house long-range surface-to-air missiles.

In his Senate confirmation hearing in January, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson angered China by saying it should be denied access to islands it had built up in the South China Sea.

Tillerson subsequently softened his language, saying that in the event of an unspecified "contingency," the United States and its allies "must be capable of limiting China's access to and use of" those islands to pose a threat.

In recent years, the United States has conducted a series of what it calls freedom-of-navigation operations in the South China Sea, raising tensions with Beijing.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Richard Chang and Leslie Adler)
NuSTAR probes puzzling galaxy merger

Washington, Mar 28 : A supermassive black hole inside a tiny galaxy is challenging scientists' ideas about what happens when two galaxies become one.





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Was 49 is the name of a system consisting of a large disk galaxy, referred to as Was 49a, merging with a much smaller dwarf galaxy called Was 49b.The dwarf galaxy rotates within the larger galaxys disk, about 26,000 light-years from its center. Thanks to NASAs Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission, scientists have discovered that the dwarf galaxy is so luminous in high-energy X-rays, it must host a supermassive black hole much larger and more powerful than expected,read the NASA website.This is a completely unique system and runs contrary to what we understand of galaxy mergers, said Nathan Secrest, lead author of the study and postdoctoral fellow at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington.Data from NuSTAR and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey suggest that the mass of the dwarf galaxys black hole is huge, compared to similarly sized galaxies, at more than 2 percent of the galaxys own mass.We didnt think that dwarf galaxies hosted supermassive black holes this big, Secrest said. This black hole could be hundreds of times more massive than what we would expect for a galaxy of this size, depending on how the galaxy evolved in relation to other galaxies.The dwarf galaxys black hole is the engine of an active galactic nucleus (AGN), a cosmic phenomenon in which extremely high-energy radiation bursts forth as a black hole devours gas and dust. This particular AGN appears to be covered by a donut-shaped structure made of gas and dust. NASAs Chandra and Swift missions were used to further characterize the X-ray emission.Normally, when two galaxies start to merge, the larger galaxys central black hole becomes active, voraciously gobbling gas and dust, and spewing out high-energy X-rays as matter gets converted into energy. That is because, as galaxies approach each other, their gravitational interactions create a torque that funnels gas into the larger galaxys central black hole. But in this case, the smaller galaxy hosts a more luminous AGN with a more active supermassive black hole, and the larger galaxys central black hole is relatively quiet.An optical image of the Was 49 system, compiled using observations from the Discovery Channel Telescope in Happy Jack, Arizona, uses the same color filters as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Since Was 49 is so far away, these colors are optimized to separate highly-ionized gas emission, such as the pink-colored region around the feeding supermassive black hole, from normal starlight, shown in green. This allowed astronomers to more accurately determine the size of the dwarf galaxy that hosts the supermassive black hole.The pink-colored emission stands out in a new image because of the intense ionizing radiation emanating from the powerful AGN. Buried within this region of intense ionization is a faint collection of stars, believed to be part of the galaxy surrounding the enormous black hole. These striking features lie on the outskirts of the much larger spiral galaxy Was 49a, which appears greenish in the image due to the distance to the galaxy and the optical filters used.Scientists are still trying to figure out why the supermassive black hole of dwarf galaxy Was 49b is so big. It may have already been large before the merger began, or it may have grown during the very early phase of the merger.This study is important because it may give new insight into how supermassive black holes form and grow in such systems, Secrest said. By examining systems like this, we may find clues as to how our own galaxys supermassive black hole formed.In several hundred million years, the black holes of the large and small galaxies will merge into one enormous beast.NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by Caltech and managed by JPL for NASAs Science Mission Directorate in Washington. NuSTAR was developed in partnership with the Danish Technical University and the Italian Space Agency (ASI).The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences Corp., Dulles, Virginia. NuSTARs mission operations center is at UC Berkeley, and the official data archive is at NASAs High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center. ASI provides the missions ground station and a mirror archive. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.Image: DCT/NRL
Donald Trump calls PM Modi, congratulates him on recent poll victories

Washington/New Delhi, Mar 28 : US President Donald Trump on Monday called Prime Minister Narendra Modi and congratulated the latter on his recent poll success.





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The BJP, under the leadership of Modi, has registered an impressive performance in the recently concluded polls.While it captured Uttar Pradesh with a landslide win and registered another comfortable win in Uttarakhand, the party managed to turn Manipur saffron, as N Biren Singh was sworn-in as the first saffron Chief Minister of the state.BJP also managed to retain Goa, though they did not fare well in Punjab, which now belongs to arch rival Congress.Trump spoke to Modi over the phone, a White House statement said.On the other hand, PMO India tweeted: US President HE Mr. @realDonaldTrump called PM @narendramodi to convey his felicitations on the electoral results. @POTUS.
Indian gem and jewellery industry finds Make in India campaign encouraging

Kolkata, March 28 : Impact of Goods and Services Tax (GST) on the gem and jewellery sector, charges applied on credit or debit card purchases and demonetisation effects were some of the key issues discussed at the Preferred Manufacturer of India (PMI) programme recently held in Kolkata.





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Organised by the All India Gem and Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF), the fifth PMI regional networking meet held at the JW Marriott hotel, was the first after the demonetisation scheme was declared in November last as well as the first under the new Committee of Administration (COA).Present at the meet were members of GJF, including Director Sanjay Jain, Chairman Nitin Khandelwal, Immediate Past Chairman GV Sreedhar, and former Chariman Bachhraj Bamalwa.The PMI program brought under one roof leading Indian manufacturers of gold, diamond, and studded jewellery and a large number of retailers so that participants can discuss how they can support industry-wide business efforts.According to the organisers, the regional meet is expected to benefit local jewellers and craftsmen, especially those expert in creating handmade jewellery designs.West Bengal has the largest number of goldsmiths and craftsmen in India, whose work is recognised across the world and their jewellery sell very fast, the organisers said.Nitish Khandelwal, chairman, GFI, said that it is not possible to put a figure to the business conducted. The main thing is to have a good and long-term relationship which will be good for future business, he said.G.V Sreedhar, Immediate Past Chairman, said, This networking business is a new age mantra for successful enterprises and PMI offers manufacturers a dedicated platform that facilitates better relationship building with the countrys most prominent jewellery retailers. We are uplifting the skills of karigars of the entire country.The dream of our Prime Minister Narendra Modis Make in India project that the employment of more and more karigars, many people are taking part in this industry,: said Sreedhar.Sankar Sen, Zonal Chairman - Eastern Region said, The platform provides an opportunity to interact directly with the manufacturers who have thorough knowledge, which enhances the exchange of ideas, and learn about trends, innovation and best practices.(Reporting by Camellia Chatterjee)
Congress leader congratulates PM Modi for overwhelming victory in assembly elections

Bengaluru (Karnataka) , Mar. 28 : Congress leader from Karnataka and former union minister M.V. Rajasekharan praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for winning the assembly elections with the support of young leaders.





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"I congratulated and complimented him for getting 2/3rd majority and particularly for winning and securing the support from the younger generation who matters. I have conveyed my frank views," Rajasekharan told ANI.He said that it is not good to politicise every issue and look from the point of politics, adding that if a party does something good then they should be appreciated for it."If one political party at some point of time is running the government and doing well then we must pay complement to them. At the same time, if they are not doing something good and it should be criticised, tear them into pieces. This is an essential feature of the parliamentary system of the government," he added.While discussing the drawbacks of his party, Rajasekharan said Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi needs experience if he wants to come to power."Rahul Gandhi needs good background of every state. One has to give importance to the leaders at the district levels as one cannot sit at Delhi and do things. Congress needs leader who are very close to the grass root level. I am very sure that very shortly he is going to take proper decisions," he said.He however declined any speculation of joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unlike other senior Congress leaders and said, "I was born as Congressmen and will die as Congressmen. I am pleading that the Congress secular ideology should be protected at any cost."Earlier on Monday, Rajasekharan wrote a letter to Prime Minister Modi lauding him for the overwhelming victory in the recently concluded assembly elections.
Frontier Lifeline Hospital, LSMU sign MoU for research improvement

New Delhi , Mar 28 : In pursuance with the decision of Dr. K M Cherian, Chairman and CEO of Frontier Lifeline Hospital (FLL) and Remigijus Zaliunas, Rector Professor of the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LSMU), a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) has been signed between both the institutions, for promoting and reinforcing cooperation, mutual exchange of views and information, improvement of research and academic programmes and also exchange of experts and researchers.





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The purpose of the MOU signed between Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LSMU) and Frontier Lifeline Hospital (FLL) is to have knowledge and skills transfer, as well as the capacity building between the two institutions.Under this MoU, there would be a wide exchange of educational program where Lithuanian University of Health Sciences would be sending their certain doctors, nurses and paramedical staff to India to get trained and Frontier Lifeline's team would also get an exclusive opportunity to get acquainted with the education and health care systems in Lithuania."The new Memorandum of Understanding marks an important step forward in our ongoing collaboration with Frontier Lifeline Hospital. It's an exclusive opportunity for us to get acquainted with the education and healthcare systems in India and to establish contacts with the higher authorities," said Minister of Health of the Republic of Lithuanian, Aurelijus Veryga."We hope that this partnership of our institutions will lead to a positive contribution and a productive collaboration for both Lithuanian and Indian healthcare systems," added Aurelijus Veryga.
Emotional SS Rajamouli thanks team of 'Baahubali: The Conclusion'

New Delhi , Mar. 28 : As he wrapped up the shoot of the most anticipated film of the year 'Baahubali: The Conclusion', filmmaker SS Rajamouli got emotional and thanked the entire team with heartfelt messages.





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In a series of tweets, he began with leading lady Anushka Shetty saying, "Sweetu...thank u so much for ur contribution to Baahubali. I believe all your fans will be even more enthralled with your presence in Part2."The director also spoke warmly of Rana Daggubati and Prabhas. He said, "Rana I was surprised that i didn't feel emotional on the last day of our shoot. Your speech yesterday triggered it and was like opening the floodgates of a dam. Will Miss you. Thanks a million for being my Bhallaladeva...:)," and added, "I am not able to frame my words for prabhas here.. my interviews will explain what he is to Baahubali.. why he is BAAHUBALI..."Rajamouli and team recently hosted a grand pre-release event at Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad, where 'Baahubali 2' album was also launched, for which he thanked Karan Johar and Anil Thadani."Thank you @KaranJohar & Anil Thadani for gracing our #Baahubali2PrereleaseEvent last night.. and for a great association.. I carried him in my arms since he was an infant. Today when I see my @kaalabhairavudu being praised that he sang better than peddanna, the pride is unexplainable.... One guy who delivered on his promise 100% is Anand..fantastic on stage sfx & fireworks in sync with the music. TQ for the glorious display. And our digital marketing team #ArkaConnect who worked tirelessly in expanding brand baahubali to all corners of the world..," he concluded.On a related note, 'Baahubali: The Conclusion' will hit the screens on April 28.
BOAO, China  China's economic reform efforts could create hardship, said Hans-Paul Burkner, chairman of Boston Consulting Group.

The government is working to transition the economy away from China's old growth model  driven by manufacturing and exports  toward one supported via services sectors like healthcare and IT. But that means cutting back on overcapacity in areas like coal and steel, and retraining millions of workers to take on new vocations  a major challenge that could create social unrest.

"Some people will lose jobs  it creates hardship," Burkner told CNBC. "It's not easy to train coal miners and make them become software engineers. I've never seen that happening anywhere in the world."

It will take delicate maneuvering, and it's these painful strategic reforms that Beijing must implement in order to sustain economic momentum and to continue attracting foreign investment into China.

Multinational companies in China have long complained of protectionism, saying that the government supports only its own, which creates unfair competition. The murky regulatory environment has also made operating in the world's second-largest economy a bit of a minefield.

But this also needs to change, Burkner said, explaining that China will need to open up to more trade and investment in order to shore up continued growth. Allowing a more level playing field for companies to compete in all sectors is necessary "to make sure millions of companies will come up and to create jobs," he said.

Managing unemployment is an issue that Beijing has long identified as an area for progress. This year, the government has pledged to create 11 million new urban jobs, and has set aside funds for resettling laid-off workers. But the question remains whether that will be enough to keep pace with the number of displaced workers, and the skilled graduates coming from universities each year.

Despite the headwinds, Burkner sounded a positive tone, saying "there's a lot more confidence today and this year ... that China will deliver 6.5 percent growth."

Story continues

Correction: This article and its headline have been altered to accurately reflect what Hans-Paul Burkner, chairman of Boston Consulting Group, told CNBC.





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A new restaurant has plans to move into the former Carmella's Pizzeria
(Adds detail, quote, context)

By Reem Shamseddine, Saeed Azhar and Tom Arnold

KHOBAR/DUBAI, March 28 (Reuters) - Citigroup has formally applied for a licence to conduct capital markets business in Saudi Arabia, two sources familiar with the matter said, in a move to return to the country after an absence of nearly 13 years.

The application has been made with Saudi Arabia's Capital Market Authority (CMA), whose primary role is to regulate and develop the capital market in the oil-rich kingdom, the sources said.

Investment opportunities in the kingdom are opening up as the government diversifies its economy away from oil under its National Transformation Plan. The government is also preparing to list up to 5 percent of oil giant Saudi Aramco in an initial public share offering that could raise as much as $100 billion.

Citi declined to comment on its Saudi plans. No one at the CMA was immediately available to comment.

Citi is "positive" that it will gain a licence this year, a third source said.

If successful, Citi could also pursue with the Saudi central bank permission for a full bank branch licence, potentially joining other banks such as JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank .

After operating in the oil-rich kingdom for five decades, Citigroup pulled out of Saudi Arabia in 2004 when it sold its 20-percent stake in Samba Financial Group, saying then it was reallocating capital to core investments.

In 2015 it won permission from the Saudi Arabian regulator to invest directly in the local stock market, the first step towards returning to the country.

Citi had approached bankers about potential jobs in anticipation of the bank gaining a licence and building a team in the kingdom, one of the sources said.

Citi is not the only global bank looking to expand in Saudi Arabia. Credit Suisse is also seeking a banking licence, as it wants to build a fully-fledged onshore private banking business there, the bank told Reuters in an email in late February.

Story continues

Goldman Sachs is also exploring the possibility of gaining a licence from the CMA to conduct share sales and trading in Saudi Arabia, a source briefed on the plan said.

The Wall Street bank has held preliminary talks with regulators, the source said. Bloomberg earlier reported Goldman's plans. Goldman declined to comment on that report. Saudi Arabia has ambitious plans to establish industries and privatise companies led by the Aramco initial public offering, which attracts a lot of attention of banks," said Reinhold Leichtfuss, senior partner and managing director at The Boston Consulting Group's Middle East office. "Saudi Arabia is also the biggest market in the Gulf in terms of population and corporates so it makes sense for banks to be there.

There are 13 licensed foreign bank branches in the kingdom, including Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, JPMorgan Chase and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, according to the central bank's website.

Citi chief executive Michael Corbat met with Saudi Arabias Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman earlier this month on a visit to the kingdom, in addition to Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud, a shareholder in the bank.

(Reporting by Reem Shamseddine in Khobar, Saeed Azhar and Tom Arnold in Dubai; Additional reporting by Marwa Rashad in Riyadh; Editing by Mark Potter)
Columnist

Tom Kacich is a columnist and the author of Tom's Mailbag at The News-Gazette. His column appears Sundays. His email is tkacich@news-gazette.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@tkacich).
One of Editor & Publishers 10 That Do It Right 2021
Emil Bogenmann, PhD, EdD, at The Saban Research Institute of Children's Hospital Los Angeles, received a five-year renewal grant of $1.3 million from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to provide biomedical research training to disadvantaged college undergraduates. The new funding supports continuation of the Short-Term Research Experience for Underrepresented Persons (STEP-UP).

Initially started in 2007, STEP-UP is a national research training and career development summer program for undergraduate students enrolled at colleges and universities in the United States and its Territories. The purpose of the training program is to promote careers in biomedical research and academic medicine and increase the number of individuals from underserved communities among the workforce in these fields.

Each year, the program recruits up to 24 highly qualified undergraduate students with an interest in research and academic medicine from underrepresented minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged communities nationwide.

During an intensive 10-week summer program, students participate in hands-on biomedical research in the laboratories of federally funded scientists in research areas relevant to the mission of the NIDDK. The program culminates in a trip to the National Institutes of Health for a science symposium where all students present their research.

The STEP-UP center at The Saban Research Institute of CHLA is one of only three such sites in the nation and has trained more than 230 students over the past ten years. Of the students that completed their undergraduate degrees, 80 percent have successfully enrolled in doctoral or professional degree programs, with a majority attending medical schools.

According to Bogenmann, founder and director of the program, more than 70 percent of the program's participants have continued to do research after their STEP-UP experience and more than 33 percent of them have published an article in a peer-reviewed journal.

"We're providing students with the opportunity to perform cutting-edge biomedical research under the mentorship of faculty at research institutions around the country," said Bogenmann who is also an associate professor in the department of Pediatrics and holds a secondary appointment in the department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. "The unique part of the program is that it allows and encourages participating students to decide at which institution they will work as well as what kind of the research they would like to perform."

The renewed grant enables the STEP-UP program to continue its mission to advise and support the next generation of scientists and academic physicians by improving scientific knowledge, strengthening academic self-confidence, and creating a personal career vision that motivates minority students in these fields.
Written by Ophir Gottlieb

LEDE

Nvidia Corporation (NVDA) got a big win for its cloud computing business by signing up Chinese Internet company Tencent Holdings which will deploy Nvidia GPUs as a public cloud computing service to customers (Source: Nvidia).

PREFACE

Theres a lot more to this story than the lede, but this a snippet from the announcement, just to warm up the story:

NVIDIA today announced that Tencent Cloud will adopt NVIDIA Tesla GPU accelerators to help advance artificial intelligence for enterprise customers.

Nvidia Corporation was the top performer in the S&P 500 last year as it has easily become the crown jewel of technology powering the self-droving car, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, gaming and machine learning realms of technology. Here is a chart of the companys revenue (TTM) in the blue bars and net income (TTM) in the orange line.

In a recent research dossier published by CML Pro, Nvidia Corporation Widens its Lead in Self-driving Cars, we noted that the company has been making quick and abrupt progress in the burgeoning field of self-driving cars.

While revenue grew to a record $128 million, up 38% year-over-year, in the space, the company has leaped forward with new partnership s in the self-driving truck space and a partnership with the largest auto supplier in the world. This is in addition to its existing relationship with Tesla Inc (TSLA) and more than 50 other auto-manufacturers.

But today we focus on yet another fast growing business segment  the cloud.

CLOUD COMPUTING

While Amazon.com (AMZN), Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) and Alphabet Inc (GOOGL) all battle to become the top cloud platform provider, Nvidia Corporation has its sights set much higher.

The worldwide public cloud market is forecast to rise from $154 billion this year to nearly half a trillion dollars by 2026. That market has three dominant providers:

But, irrespective of the provider, each computer in the cloud runs on a processing unit (or several processing units)  most of which are powered by Intel Corporation (INTC). In fact, latest data reveals that Intels Xenon processor has a 99% market share.

Story continues

Even given that moat built by Intel Corporation (INTC), Nvidia saw its data center revenue more than triple year-over-year to $296 million.

Growth was driven by AI, cloud service providers deploying GPU instances, High Performance Computing, GRID graphics virtualization, and our DGX AI supercomputing appliance business.

Source: Nvidia Earnings Transcript

There is too much data and too many connected devices even today, not to speak of the absurdity that is to come, to not have a machine learning driven technology to balance the needs of every website, every app, all the data in complete harmony. This is where Nvidia Corporation (NVDA) enters the picture, and why its already seeing 200% growth rates.

Companies around the world are harnessing their data with our AI computing technology to create breakthrough products and services

Source: Nvidia Corporation

Intel Corporation (INTC) Xenon processors cannot compete, as of today, with the GPUs technology invented by Nvidia. The datacenter and cloud realm is an enormous opportunity for Nvidia and a partnership with the Chinese giant Tencent Holdings is yet more evidence of this reality.

Nvidias GPUs are now run in all of the major cloud platforms  and its for a simple reason  there is growing demand for more sophisticated computing within the cloud, and that means Nvidia is seeing demand for its hardware.

With all of the opportunities that Nvidia has ahead, let us not lose sight of the cloud as well.

WHY THIS MATTERS

So, this is what institutional research reads like  we hope you enjoyed it. Our research sits side-by-side with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and the rest on professional terminals. We, at Capital Market Laboratories, identify the companies that have the potential to become the next Apple, or the next Google, just like when we identified Nvidia for $32.

Another company that will power the half a trillion-dollar cloud platform market irrespective of which of the mega-vendors Amazon, Microsoft or Google end up being the leaders  another tech gem, and no, its not Nvidia.

Or, the small genomics company growing revenue at over 100% a year that has openly stated its goal of becoming the Amazon of genomics. Or the one company that will power every drone, or the company that will be the brains behind every self-driving car.

Market correction or not, recession or not, the growth in these areas is a near certainty.

For a limited time the precious few thematic top picks for 2017, research dossiers, and alerts are available at an 80% discount of $19/mo. Join Us: Discover the undiscovered companies that will power technologys future.

Thanks for reading, friends.

The author is long shares of Nvidia Corporation Inc (AAPL) in his personal account and has no position in Amazon.com (AMZN), Alphabet Inc (GOOGL), Tesla Inc (TSLA) or Intel Corporation (INTC).



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Delaying school start times in the UK is unlikely to reduce sleep deprivation in teenagers, research from the University of Surrey and Harvard Medical School has found. The research, conducted in collaboration between mathematicians and sleep scientists, predicts that turning down the lights in the evening would be much more effective at tackling sleep deprivation.

Teenagers like to sleep late and struggle to get up in time to go to school. The commonly accepted explanation for this is that adolescents' biological brain clocks are delayed. It has been suggested that to remedy this, school start times should be delayed for older teenagers so that they are again in tune with their biological clock.

The study, which is published today in Scientific Reports, used a mathematical model that takes into account whether people are naturally more of a morning or evening person, the impact of natural and artificial light on the body clock and the typical time of an alarm clock, to predict the effects of delaying school start times.

The mathematical model showed that delaying school start times in the UK would not help reduce sleep deprivation. Just as when clocks go back in the autumn, most teenagers' body clocks would drift even later in response to the later start time, and in a matter of weeks they would find it just as hard to get out of bed. The results did, however, lend some support to delaying school start in the US, where many schools start as early as 7am.

The mathematical explanation has its roots in the work of the 17th century Dutch mathematician Huygens. He saw that clocks can synchronise, but it depends on both the clocks and how they influence each other. From research over the last few decades we know that body clocks typically run a little slow, so they need to be regularly 'corrected' if they are to remain in sync with the 24-hour day. Historically, this correcting signal came from our interaction with the environmental light/dark 'clock'.

The mathematical model shows that the problem for adolescents is that their light consumption behaviour interferes with the natural interaction with the environmental clock - getting up late in the morning results in adolescents keeping the lights on until later at night. Having the lights on late delays the biological clock, making it even harder to get up in the morning. The mathematics also suggests that the biological clocks of adolescents are particularly sensitive to the effects of light consumption.

The model suggests that an alternative remedy to moving school start times in the UK is exposure to bright light during the day, turning the lights down in the evening and off at night. For very early start times, as in some US regions, any benefit gained from delaying school start times could be lost unless it is coupled with strict limits on the amount of evening artificial light consumption.

Lead author Dr Anne Skeldon said: "The power of the mathematics is that we are able to use existing knowledge about how light interacts with the biological clock to make predictions about different interventions to help reduce 'social jetlag'.

"It highlights that adolescents are not 'programmed' to wake up late and that by increasing exposure to bright light during the day, turning lights down in the evening and off at night should enable most to get up in time for work or school without too much effort and without changing school timetables."

Co-author Dr Andrew Phillips said: "The most interesting part of this analysis for me was the counter-intuitive finding that the most extreme evening types are predicted to derive the least benefit from a delay in school start times, because they tend to use evening artificial light for a longer interval of time.

"For evening types, it is critical to keep evening light levels low to derive any of the potential benefits of a delay in morning alarm times, otherwise their bed time is very prone to shifting later. Understanding these individual differences, and how they are influenced by light consumption, is necessary to maximize the effects of any policy change."

Co-author Prof Derk-Jan Dijk said: "Just as mathematical models are used to predict climate change, they can now be used to predict how changing our light environment will influence our biological rhythms.

"It shows that modern lifestyles make it hard for body clocks to stay on 24 hours, which shifts our rhythm of sleepiness and alertness to later times - meaning we are sleepy until late in the morning and remain alert until later in the evening.

"As a result, during the working week our alarm clocks go off before the body clock naturally wakes us up. We then get insufficient sleep during the week and compensate for it during the weekend. Such patterns of insufficient and irregular sleep have been associated with various health problems and have been termed 'social jet lag'."

The mathematical understanding of biological clocks suggests that adolescents are particularly sensitive to the effects of light consumption. However, the model can be applied to other age-groups as well. It can be used to design new interventions not only for sleepy teenagers but also for adults who suffer from delayed sleep phase disorders or people who are not synchronised to the 24-hour day at all.

The research draws attention to light, light consumption and darkness as important environmental and behavioural factors influencing health. This has implications for how we design the light environment at work and at home in our modern light-polluted societies.

Source: University of Surrey
According to the American Cancer Society, there will be an estimated 1,688,780 new cancer cases diagnosed and 600,920 cancer deaths in the U.S. in 2017.

These numbers are stark and sobering, and worse yet, we still do not know exactly why cancer develops in its victims or how to stop it.

An online publication in Nature Nanotechnology this week by Kent State University researchers and their colleagues at Kyoto University in Japan, however, may offer new understanding about what turns good cells bad.

Hanbin Mao, Ph.D., professor of chemistry and biochemistry in Kent State's College of Arts and Sciences, co-authored a paper with his graduate students, Prakash Shrestha and Sagun Jonchhe, along with four Kyoto University colleagues, titled "Confined Space Facilitates G-quadruplex Formation," which was published March 27 on the esteemed journal's website. The article discusses the genetic factors that influence formation of cancer cells.

"Traditionally, DNA has a two-strand shape -- the double helix -- and its purpose is to code the proteins that form life," Mao said. "But recently, people have discovered that some DNA has four strands, and we call this the G-quadruplex. This is associated with the inhibition of cancer cells."

However, while most G-quadruplex DNA is beneficial, Mao said some strands go bad and such mutations actually will enable cancer cell growth. To understand why this happens, scientists first had to learn why DNA sometimes develops into four-strand structures.

All DNA is generated by enzymes and operates like an assembly line. However, Mao said, there comes a point where DNA makes a decision to form a double helix or a quadruplex. He said most DNA takes the two-strand route simply because it is the easiest path.

Mao said nanometer-sized (one billionth of meter; 25,400,000 nanometers = 1 inch) spaces inside the enzymes are where these formations occur. The inability to mimic these spaces in laboratory settings has prohibited deeper study of the G-quadruplex formation. That is, until now.

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With help from chemists and engineers at Kyoto University in Japan, Kent State's Mao and graduate students Shrestha and Jonchhe used "DNA origami" to create a "nano cage." They accomplished this through single-molecule mechanochemical sensing -- a technology Mao's lab developed in 2014. Over the past few years, he has published several studies involving the use of "laser tweezers," a tool that provides the ability to hold micrometer- and nanometer-sized biological materials in place.

That technology allowed Mao to create 6-by-6 nanometer-sized cages, then observe how DNA folded into different shapes inside the space.

"It's easier for the DNA to fold inside the cage," he said. "It folds to adapt to the small space, and here DNA naturally folds into the G-quadruplex."

He said the process occurs two to three orders of magnitude faster inside the cage than out, folding 100,000 per second -- a speed that makes forming G-quadruplex as fast and easy as forming a double helix.

"With that observation, we may follow the fate of the cell to be cancerous or healthy," he said. "So we can perhaps learn how to introduce molecules or chemicals to interfere with that process."

He said scientists can use ligands -- bonded molecules -- to facilitate this effect with greater potency, thereby reducing the likelihood that cancer cells will form.

"We can prevent or better treat cancer by stabilizing G-quadruplex structures," Mao said.
Proton therapy is a promising form of radiation treatment used to kill cancerous cells and effectively halt their rapid reproduction. While this treatment can also be delivered in different modalities (i.e. electrons and X-rays), proton therapy limits damage to healthy tissue by depositing energy in a highly localized dose volume.

The fundamental understanding for proton therapy is contained in the radiation induced water chemistry that occurs immediately after the interaction. This is because as much as 66 percent of the radiation deposited into a tumor volume is initially absorbed by water molecules in the cancer cells. The ensuing processes are therefore a subject of considerable scientific interest.

"It is at those fundamental levels that the seeds for the subsequent radiation chemistry are sown," explained Brendan Dromey, the lead researcher on this project and a reader in the Centre for Plasma Physics at Queen's University Belfast. "And it's from there that we can begin to build models from first principles that will allow us to gain a full understanding of how these early processes ultimately affect tumor cell death."

When energetic protons enter water, they can ionize the water molecules generating free electrons. In response, nearby water molecules can shift themselves so that their positive sides orient towards these freed electrons and shield their negative charge. To date, methodology to monitor the earliest stages of this process relied on "indirect scavenging techniques." This, however, requires the use of chemical additives that simultaneously increase the complexity of the observation. The new approach substitutes chemical scavengers for an experimental setup with enhanced temporal resolution.

Dromey and his colleagues in Sweden, Germany and Northern Ireland describe their work this week in the journal Applied Physics Letters, from AIP Publishing.

"To use an analogy from photography, the existing methodology had a time resolution that functioned like a camera with slow shutter speed. If processes, such as these initial chemical changes, were progressing quickly, the slow shutter speed meant that one wouldn't capture the details of the movement and the image generated would be blurred. The new set-up and methodology that we outline in our article operates like a camera with a fast shutter speed. It allows us to capture rapid chemical evolution in high detail," Dromey said.

"Since our methodology does not use scavenging chemicals, we can work with water molecules in a pristine, controlled environment. Moreover, our technique features a fundamental time resolution that is less that one picosecond or one trillionth of a second. Even when we factor in diagnostics, the time resolution is less than five picoseconds. We can now track the radiation chemistry that follows the initial ionization of water molecules as they unfold in real-time," Dromey said, whose research is also funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in the U.K.

"Two major innovations account for this improvement. First, we use bursts of protons accelerated by the high power TARANIS laser facility in Queen's University Belfast. The sub-picosecond acceleration of an initially cold proton population permits the generation of an ultrafast pulse with low inherent thermal spread. Second, we use the same laser to generate both the pulse of protons and the probe that allows us to track the progress of the radiation chemistry. This eliminates the electrical jitter that one finds in more traditional, radiofrequency cavity based systems," Dromey said. "That said, it is important to note that in terms of energy stability and beam quality there is still significant development required for laser-based accelerators to match the performance of these machines."

Lovisa Senje, a doctoral student from the Department of Physics at Lund University and lead author on the paper, added, "The ultrashort proton pulses produced in our experimental set-up, in combination with the high number of protons per pulse, lead to a unique possibility of studying how water reacts to extreme irradiation by protons. We can actually see that under these conditions the processes following energy deposition of protons in water change."

"One of the most interesting things that we have discovered with the benefit of better temporal resolution is that there appears to be a delay in the formation of the absorption band of solvated electrons after exposure to protons," Dromey said. "This was surprising because past research suggests that you don't typically see this delay when you expose water molecules to X-rays or electrons. Our future work will focus on systematically exploring this delay further."
How does type 2 diabetes develop? A team of researchers headed by the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen and the Technical University of Munich has come closer to finding an answer to this problem. The team examined the functional effects of exemplary genetic variations relevant for type 2 diabetes. Their approach can be applied to many clinical pictures.

The team used highly sensitive mass spectrometric methods to identify previously unknown proteins and protein complexes, whose binding to DNA is influenced by SNPs.

The risk of complex diseases such as type 2 diabetes increases by changes in our genetic makeup  our DNA. One contributing factor in the development of diseases are single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP), which scientists call snips for short. SNPs are variations of a single base pair occuring in a DNA molecule, but the modulated mechanisms remain elusive in most cases.

It is known that some of these risk SNPs influence the regulation of genes. Furthermore, it is also known that special proteins control gene regulation. Risk SNPs probably influence how these proteins or protein complexes bind to DNA. So far scientists have only rarely succeeded in detecting a differential binding of gene-regulating protein complexes at disease-specific SNPs, explained Dr Helmut Laumen of the Clinical Cooperation Group (CCG) Nutrigenomics and Type 2 Diabetes and the Department of Pediatric Nutritional Medicine at the Technical University of Munich. The CCG is a cooperation project between the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen (Institute for Epidemiology 2) and the Technical University of Munich (Else Kroner-Fresenius Center for Nutritional Medicine, EKFZ).

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It would be particularly interesting to learn more about the different involved proteins that have a strong influence on gene regulation, said Laumen. A team from the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen and TUM performed a closer analysis of these mechanisms influenced by SNPs and published a study on the topic in Nucleic Acids Research.

Gap closed between genetic variations and an understanding of their function

The team has successfully used highly sensitive mass spectrometric methods to identify previously unknown proteins and protein complexes, whose binding to DNA is influenced by SNPs. Here we could close the gaps that exist today between genetic variations and an understanding of their functional effect on the organism, explained Dr Stefanie Hauck, head of the Research Unit Protein Science and Core Facility Proteomics at the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen.

Concretely, we apply these methods to SNPs that are relevant to type 2 diabetes and to age-related macular degeneration (AMD), said Hauck. In the future, the method will make it possible to identify functionally relevant proteins for all disease-associated SNPs, in order to uncover the mechanisms behind a clinical picture. An exact understanding of the molecular mechanisms that are modulated by regulatory SNPs can contribute to further development of personalized medicine.
Low-level laser therapy has been shown by recent studies to be a non-invasive and effective alternative for treating neuropathic pain, a chronic condition caused by nerve damage, spinal cord injury or diseases such as diabetes.

Recent studies performed at the University of Sao Paulo's Biomedical Science Institute (ICB-USP) in Brazil helped elucidate the mechanisms behind the effect of low-level laser therapy. This research has been conducted as part of a project supported by FAPESP, with Professor Marucia Chacur as the principal investigator.

"We tested laser therapy in different rat neuropathy models, and behavioral responses improved in all of them," Chacur told. "One of the beneficial effects observed was myelin sheath recovery. The myelin sheath is a lipid layer that covers the axon and acts as electrical insulation to assist nerve impulse propagation."

The treatment in a model of diabetic neuropathy, one of the most common chronic and incapacitating complications of diabetes was tested. The problem occurs when the disease is not properly controlled and excessive amounts of blood sugar cause oxidation of the myelin sheath, damaging the structure of peripheral nerves. As well as causing pain, this degenerative process impairs communication among neurons and can even lead to amputation of the lower limbs.

To induce a condition similar to type 1 diabetes, the researchers injected the rats with streptozotocin (STZ), a chemical that destroys the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas. In this model, the animals became diabetic approximately one week later.

"We began the treatment after 45 days, when the neuropathic condition was well-established and had become chronic," Chacur said. "We used a 904-nanometer laser, which can penetrate deep into tissue."

The degree of pain was evaluated before and after the start of treatment by behavioral tests such as the von Frey hair test, in which nylon filaments of different thicknesses are pressed against the rat's paw. Each filament represents a force in grams and indicates the pressure tolerated without signs of discomfort. There are similar tests that use thermal and mechanical stimulation.

"We plan to apply the technique to humans, so we used similar therapeutic protocols," Chacur said. "We initially scheduled ten sessions of phototherapy applied to the thigh every ten days, each lasting one minute, but we observed an improvement shortly after the fourth session and sacrificed the rats to analyze their sciatic nerves."

With the aid of a transmission electron microscope, the researchers found that as diabetes progressed, the structure of the sciatic nerve's myelin sheath changed. After four sessions of the treatment, however, the myelin had almost completely recovered.

"The condition of the nerve practically returned to baseline levels after treatment. We're now continuing the study by analyzing protein expression and the release of inflammatory cytokines to understand exactly what's happening," Chacur said.

In another study, treatment again focused on the sciatic nerve, but the injury was induced by compression to simulate what happens in patients with spinal stenosis or disc herniation.

"The nerve was ligated and kept compressed for two weeks until the injury became chronic. Phototherapy began on the 14th day," Chacur explained. "Shortly after the second session, we observed a behavioral improvement, which persisted until the end of the treatment."

After the tenth session of phototherapy, the animals were sacrificed for analysis of the dorsal root ganglion, a cluster of nerve cell bodies located in the posterior region of the vertebrae along the spinal cord and conveying sensory and motor information.

The researchers used immunoblotting to scan the dorsal root ganglion for the presence of astrocytes, star-shaped cells that play an active role in brain function and inflammatory responses.

"Astrocytes are the first type of cell to migrate to the site of a nerve injury or inflammatory process," Chacur said. "They're like a sort of macrophage for the central nervous system, the first line of defense."

The analysis showed smaller numbers of astrocytes in rats treated with laser therapy than in untreated rats.

"These cells release several inflammatory mediators, including interleukin-1 (IL1), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-) and glutamate. These mediators in turn trigger the release of other inflammatory substances. We believe the laser curtails this chain reaction as if it were anti-inflammatory medication, by reducing the migration of astrocytes to the site of the injury," Chacur said.

The next step is to measure the concentration of each inflammatory substance separately, she added. The third model used to test low-level laser therapy focused on orofacial pain. In this model, a lesion was induced by crushing the inferior alveolar nerve, one of the branches of the trigeminal nerve responsible for innervating the face.

"This type of injury can occur during extraction of a wisdom tooth, for example. Many dentists are using low-level laser therapy for patient pain relief," Chacur said.

Phototherapy began two days after the nerve was injured. An improvement in pain-related behavior was observed after two sessions and persisted throughout the treatment, which comprised ten sessions (one every two days).

The animals were sacrificed, and then Western blotting was used to analyze the treated tissue for the presence of certain proteins.

"We set out to understand the mechanisms and mediators involved because we believed phototherapy could be used in association with pharmacological treatment because it acts via a different pathway. In this way, it may be possible to reduce the drug dose and mitigate the systemic effects of the treatment," Chacur said.

The results suggest that all three models of neuropathic pain studied share a common mechanism involving myelin sheath regeneration and reduced astrocyte migration to the site of the lesion, she added.

"Evidence in the literature also suggests an effect on mitochondria. The laser apparently facilitates the flow of calcium in these organelles, boosting production of ATP [adenosine triphosphate, the body's cellular fuel] and leading to enhanced healing as well as the release of mediators that assist remodeling. In future studies, we plan to investigate this effect on mitochondria more thoroughly," Chacur concluded.
New research conducted by Leukaemia CARE into the lives of older people living with blood cancers has uncovered vast inequalities in cancer care for the elderly compared with younger patients.

This new research has exposed differences in the quality of care experienced by people living with leukaemia, finding that older patients do not receive the same levels of information and support as younger patients. New analysis of existing data has also found that each year up to 740 deaths of people over the age of 65 could be prevented if UK survival rates for leukaemia matched the best in Europe.

In the UK, inadequate treatment (known medically as undertreatment) is just one factor contributing to poor survival rates in the older population. While this can be medically justifiable, there is growing evidence which suggests that many older patients who could benefit from treatment are simply not being offered it. As potentially curative stem cell transplants are considered a viable option for patients over 70, age alone shouldnt be a barrier to treatment.

In a report published today, Leukaemia: I wasnt born yesterday, Leukaemia CARE is calling for older patients needs to be prioritised in line with younger patients. This should include measures to improve the information provided to older patients about their condition, and for decisions about treatment to be made based on patients fitness rather than their chronological age.

Commenting on these findings, Henry Smith MP and Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Blood Cancer states:

These findings confirm that older patients with leukaemia are not treated with the same priority and urgency as younger patients, which is unacceptable. This inequality in care and treatment is one of the reasons why the APPG on Blood Cancer has announced an inquiry into blood cancer care in the NHS. We need to find ways to increase awareness of this condition, as well as improve diagnosis rates and overall care for the elderly.

Zack Pemberton-Whiteley, Head of Campaigns and Advocacy at Leukaemia CARE adds:

These survey findings really opened our eyes to inequalities faced by many elderly patients with blood cancers. Awareness of leukaemia in the elderly and amongst GPs needs to be improved so that testing can be carried out quickly and patients have the best chance of accessing treatment which will improve their chances of survival.

Further findings include:

Only 37% of older patients have access to a nurse who specialises in blood cancers, compared with 49% of under 65s

Older patients are less likely than younger patients to know that leukaemia is a type of cancer, only 77% knew this before they were diagnosed (compared to 81% in under 65s)

Older leukaemia patients are far less likely to be given advice on using the internet to research their condition (56% compared to 81% of under 65s)

Today, leading blood cancer clinicians will meet at the British Society of Haematology to discuss the reports findings and consider its recommendations.
Since the ancient times, mankind has used plants to treat diseases. An example is the plant Artemisia annua, used for over 2,000 years in traditional Chinese medicine to treat intermittent fevers. Nowadays, the artemisinin molecule - the active ingredient synthesized in the microscopic hairs (trichomes) of this plant - is the main component of malaria treatments worldwide. In fact, the Chinese scientist Youyou Tu was awarded in 2015 with the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery of artemisinin and its application in therapies against malaria.

Regardless of artemisinin's effectiveness against malaria and other diseases caused by parasites and despite its anti-tumour potential, its usage faces a problem: the low content produced by the plant and the high cost of its chemical synthesis result in a scarce and expensive drug.

Now, an international research team led by researchers from the Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG) and Sequentia Biotech S.L. has been able to obtain, through genetic engineering, Artemisia annua plants that produce twice as much artemisinin. The work, published today in The Plant Journal, identifies a gene involved in the formation of plant trichomes and in the synthesis of terpenes, such as artemisinin. "We have discovered that the AaMYB1 gene has a dual function: it promotes trichome formation in the leaves and artemisinin synthesis inside the trichomes", explains Soraya Pelaz, ICREA researcher at CRAG and senior author of the article. "By manipulating this gene, we have managed to grow plants which contain much more artemisinin than their wild-type counterparts," she adds. Noting that 90% of malaria cases and 92% of deaths caused by this disease occur in sub-Saharan Africa, this finding could be a major step towards reducing the production costs of such a necessary drug.

The plant as a factory

This study is a perfect example of knowledge transfer. Luis Matias-Hernandez, first author of the discussed work, began to study the formation of trichomes in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana when he was a postdoctoral researcher at the CRAG group led by Soraya Pelaz. The acquired insight made him think that the formation of trichomes could be manipulated in plants with industrial applications. For the past two years, and thanks to a Torres Quevedo contract, Luis Matias-Hernandez has been directing a line of research aimed at obtaining Artemisia plants that produce large amounts of artemisinin at the spin-out Sequentia Biotech, from which he keeps collaborating with CRAG.

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"One of the main goals of Sequentia Biotech is to produce artemisinin of the same quality but at a lower cost. Our ambition is to reduce the price of the drug, so it can be accessible to everyone in the future", underlines Luis Matias-Hernandez. "We want to use Artemisia as a natural low-cost factory for antimalarials, and we are testing different strategies to do it," adds the researcher.

Beyond artemisinin

Collaborating with Peter E Brodelius, researcher at the Linnaeus University in Sweden, the scientists were able to identify the gene AaMYB1 among the array of genes expressed in Artemisia trichomes. At CRAG, the researchers designed transgenic plants that overexpressed this gene and found that they accumulated larger doses of artemisinin than non-genetically modified plants.

But the investigation went further. To confirm the role of the AaMYB1 gene in the formation of plant trichomes, the researchers searched for similar genes in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and found the gene AtMYB61. When this gene was overexpressed in the model plant, it also produced a higher amount of trichomes on its leaves, demonstrating that these genes play a key role in the formation of trichomes in evolutionarily distant species. Soraya Pelaz explains that "in addition to its role in Artemisia, the identification of this gene can also be useful for other plants whose trichomes produce substances of interest". Luis Matias-Hernandez adds "There are many plants that produce substances of interest in their trichomes. For example, menthol and thymol are terpenes produced in the trichomes of mint and thyme, respectively."
The US has emerged an early leader in the World's 50 Best Restaurants awards, taking nine spots on the second half of the list which ranks the top 51-100 restaurants.



In advance of the 2017 edition of the awards set to take place in Melbourne next week, organizers of one of the world's most influential gastronomy rankings released the bottom half of the list, which represents 24 countries.



After the US, Spain and France tied with the second-highest number of restaurants with four addresses each.



Notable movers and shakers this year include chef David Chang's New York hotspot Momofuku Ko, which leapfrogged 39 spots to No. 58 --the highest-ranking US restaurant on the list so far.



The highest new entry, and also the recipient of the "One to Watch" award which was previously announced, is Barcelona restaurant Disfrutar, where El Bulli alumni Mateu Casanas, Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatruch serve unexpected dishes like transparent, gelatine penne pasta and deconstructed whisky tart, which invites guests to wash their hands in whisky and inhale the scent as they eat.



A total of 11 new restaurants managed to crack the top 100 list, including Atelier Crenn in the US by chef Dominique Crenn (No. 83), Mingles in South Korea (No. 89), Kadeau in Denmark (No. 94) along with Sushi Saito and Florilege in Japan (No. 97 and No. 99).



Likewise, Hisa Franko in Kobarid, Slovenia made its debut this year at No. 69, while chef Ana Ros bagged the title of world's best female chef 2017.



This year, 1,040 food writers, critics, chefs, restaurateurs and "gastronomes" cast their votes for their favorite dining destinations.



Next Wednesday, all eyes will be on Italian chef Massimo Bottura, whose Modena restaurant Osteria Francescana is currently the titleholder of the world's best restaurant.



For the full list of 51-100 restaurants, visit http://www.theworlds50best.com/blog/News/everything-about-the-worlds-50-best-restaurants-51-100-list.html.



The results will be announced out of Melbourne April 5, and the event livestreamed beginning at 11 am GMT at https://www.finedininglovers.com/tag/50-best-restaurants.


Indore: BJPs Indore mayor inadvertently paid floral tributes to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan during a function.



Malini Gaud, wife of former Madhya Pradesh cabinet minister late Laxman Singh Gaud, who is also a BJP MLA from Indores assembly constituency number 4, was participating in a function at her residence in Indore on Monday.



After garlanding her late husbands picture, she went on to garland pictures of Modi and Chauhan which were next to it.



Jitu Patwari, a Congress MLA, brought attention to the goof up. Whoever had put garland around pictures of the PM and chief minister, should be punished, he demanded, adding that how could the mayor overlooked this as she herself is a member of BJP.



The local BJP unit in Indore did not comment on the incident.



Such incidents have also happened in the past. A Jharkhand minister had drawn flak by offering floral tribute to former President APJ Abdul Kalam when he was alive. In another such incident, a school principal was suspended in Gwalior in 2015 after he had convened condolence meet to condole the demise of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The Allahabad High Court on Tuesday sought a reply from the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) by April 3 about renewal of licences of meat shops in the state capital.The Lucknow bench of the court asked why the LMC had not renewed the licences of meat shops, which expired in 2014.A division bench of justices Amreshwar Pratap Sahi and Sanjay Harkauli gave the order on an application moved in a writ petition of 2015 filed by Shahabuddin and many other meat sellers.Meanwhile, UP health minister Siddharth Nath Singh is scheduled to meet a delegation representing slaughterhouse owners at 3 PM at his office in the Vidhan Sabha in a bid to resolve the situation.Meat sellers across Uttar Pradesh went on an indefinite strike from Monday against the crackdown on illegal and mechanised slaughterhouses.Fish vendors also resolved to join the stir which has seen non-vegetarian delicacies go off the menu in several parts of the state.Due to the strike, non-vegetarian food outlets, including the famous Tunday and Rahim's have shifted to mutton and chicken dishes after buffalo meat became scarce.
This hate bubbled over again in a horrific attack on Nigerian students in Greater Noida, outside of New Delhi, on Monday, after a family complained that five Nigerians had cannibalised their son. The boy was later found to have died from a suspected drug overdose. Since then, reports have been coming in of Nigerian students being attacked, and a video surfaced of a mob attacking a lone African man in Greater Noida mall.

Community architect and social designer Swati Janu, who has been working on migrant groups in Delhi's Khirki colony with the art collective Khoj Studios, is also confronted with casual racism in her work. Khirki is a hub for African communities in the capital. It became infamous after Aam Aadmi Party leader Somnath Bharti led a midnight raid here in January 2014 against African women, accusing them of running a prostitution ring.

"The only people standing up for African residents here are the real estate agents, who can charge them higher rents than they can Indians," said Shantaram. He marked out a trajectory that he found in too many African students in India, from excitement to anxiety at having to spend many years studying in such a hostile environment, to withdrawing in their shells with only other African students for friends and no Indians.

: From the heights of excitement to the depths of depression and despair, this is how dreams of many students from African countries crash when they start living in India. That is what photographer Mahesh Shantaram found when he travelled to meet and photograph African students in different Indian cities."India is their land of dreams, they see it in movies and they're so excited before they get here," said Shantaram, "but from the moment they land, they're forced to ask themselves, why does everyone hate me here?"Shantaram's work, The African Portraits started a year ago, after a mob in Bengaluru attacked a Tanzanian woman and her friends, after a Sudanese man ran over and killed a local woman."Rage and logic don't go together," said Shantaram, "the mob just wants to catch hold of the first black person." Travelling over Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Manipal, Delhi, NCR, Jalandhar, and many more cities documenting African students, Shantaram found that nothing riled them up as much as how their countries seemed to not matter to Indians. The Indian communities, he realised were deeply racist and threatened by black skin, but the concept of race and racism was unknown to them."We lack the education to understand the idea of race," he said, "but we are united in our racism." No city, he found, could claim to be innocent of racism and hostility to anyone who is the other, who doesn't conform."Imagine being black and a woman in a small Indian town like Jalandhar. The students are fighting for their dignity, but they feel themselves being exploited by their colleges and universities."The residents, for a long time remained grateful to Bharti, saying he had made their area safer. Janu recalls an incident where an Indian man in Khirki told her that he knew only a few Nigerians were bad but since they all looked the same, he treated them all the same. When Janu tried to point out how wrong this statement was, the man laughed it off."People don't realise they're being racist in everyday life," she said, "that's why dialogue is more important than confrontation. To create empathy and show people that they're not so different from each other.Through her projects of running a phone shop in Khirki, Janu has been able to observe the area at close quarters, and found that people treat Nigerians with more hostility as they came across as physically more intimidating, economically better off and Nigerian women dress in western clothes. This breeds resentment. This, she found, contrasted with the comparatively better treatment of Somalis, who were mostly refugees, Muslim and conservative, with many women wearing burkas.The events of the past two days have only confirmed Shantaram's views, that Africans have an agency in India. The frenzy of the mob, it's "animalistic nature" as Janu calls it, seizes on anyone who is most vulnerable. "Africans on Indian streets can't even defend themselves, as no one here will stand up for them," Shantaram said.
I am also warned not to criticize Narendra Modi and Amit Shah who "are blessed & divine chosen one by Divine Mahakal to change the world".  Ramachandra Guha (@Ram_Guha) March 28, 2017

Writer-historian Ramachandra Guha on Tuesday tweeted that he has been getting "identical" threat mails warning him not to be critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP.Guha, 58, claimed that the mails also warned him against criticising BJP President Amit Shah."Many people/ids sending identical mails warning me to "get ready to be punishment (sic) by Divine Mahakal" for being critical of the BJP," the tweet read."I am also warned not to criticize Narendra Modi and Amit Shah who 'are blessed & divine chosen one by Divine Mahakal to change the world'," he tweeted.Guha could not be immediately contacted for a comment.
New Delhi: In the first indication of political realignment after the UP polls, the Mandal Parties in Rajya Sabha joined hands to question the proposed constitutional amendment to provide constitutional status to the National Commission for the Backward Classes.



The Union Cabinet last week approved the changes in the statute, and government is all set to follow it up with the introduction of the bill this week itself.



In the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, SP leader Prof Ram Gopal Yadav, while raising the issue, alleged that the government move may be intended to "nullify all castes notified by the Mandal commission" and they will be replaced by new castes.



"We know which all communities are being targeted to be excluded," alleged Yadav.



The SP general secretary in his submission was supported by BSP leader Mayawati. She sought to know from the government the reason for delay caused in appointment of the chairman for SC, ST and Minorities Commission.



After the zero hour, JDU leader Sharad Yadav joined the chorus as he gave details of what he called under representation of SC, ST and OBCs in top educational institutions including IITs , Delhi University and JNU.



Intervening in the debate from the government side, Information and Broadcasting Minister Venkaiah Naidu refuted allegations by SP, BSP and JDU leaders.



"The people have rejected them in the elections. They want to misuse the forum of the house," Naidu said.



The proposed legislation aims at giving powers to the Parliament to include or exclude castes from the central OBC list and will vest powers of a civil court on the BC commission to issue summons like SC and ST commissions.
Days after the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath banned illegal slaughterhouses in the state, a Muslim man was denied permission to serve buffalo meat at his daughter's engagement ceremony in Moradabad district.Sarfaraz Hussain told CNN-News18 that he had written to the local police seeking permission to slaughter a buffalo at his house, in order to serve meat to the guests at the ceremony, but it was denied. Instead, the police advised him to serve chicken instead of buffalo meat in the function.In the letter it has been mentioned, that the ceremony was scheduled to be held on March 26 at BK marriage hall in Peerzada locality. In fact, the slaughterhouses are not operational in the district from March 23 following the governments crackdown on the same, it added.Letter seeking permission to slaughter buffalo.Following the ban on illegal slaughterhouses, there has been great confusion in the state and meat sellers are facing a hard time. Meat sellers across the state have now gone on strike against what they are calling harassment following the governments crackdown.
Hyderabad: The citizens of Hyderabad are familiar with the controversy around the "Anti-Romeo" squad introduced by the new BJP regime in Uttar Pradesh with many sections labelling the move as moral policing.



They too had the same apprehensions when "SHE Teams" were launched in Hyderabad in October 2014, to control the menace of eve-teasing at public places.



The question asked then was in an attempt to stop harassment of women at public places, how it will be ensured that innocent men will not be harassed?



However, since its launch, SHE Teams have made a mark by bringing about a sense of safety and security among women and has created deterrence among men who indulge in indecent acts of eve-teasing, stalking, harassment and so on.



Till date, no case has come into light where an innocent was harassed by police in the name of women safety.



The modus operandi of these special SHE Teams explains it all. Everyday each team identifies incident prone areas like bus stops, railway stations, colleges, schools, parks, ladies hostel and keeps a watch around them. Dressed in civilian clothes, the teams are provided with secret cameras to record the whole incident. The teams catch the offenders red-handed and are brought to the police station with proper evidence, proving their acts.



With increased awareness among women about SHE Teams, many complaints are received on social media platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter apart from dial 100. Every complaint is immediately responded to, giving confidence to women approaching SHE teams.



In many cases, if the victim does not wish to file complaint, the police has been registering sou-motu cases after investigation. Offenders who harass women through phone calls, e-mails, social media, are tracked down by dedicated officers using the latest technology.



Depending on the nature and gravity of stalking/eve-teasing appropriate section of laws are booked against the offender. SHE Teams maintain a digital record of all offenders. First time offenders are booked under petty cases. If found habitual or victim complaints against eve-teaser, relevant sections of law are registered, including Nirbhaya Act.



Applauding the model of SHE TEAMS that is being replicated across states, IT Minister of Telangana KT Rama Rao said, "In Uttar Pradesh anti-Romeo squad is nothing but She TEAMS. We are happy that other states also taking up such initiatives.



In Telangana, our police and government has ensured sense of safety and security to every citizen. A close friend of mine told me when his wife was in troubled situation, instead of calling me for help, he dialed 100. He said he was impressed with immediate response from SHE teams, as within two hours the culprits were detained. Every distressed call is responded within minutes," he added.



As per Telangana police records, 221 SHE teams are operating across the state. In Hyderabad city alone, over 6000 cases have been registered till now and the impact is visible. Harassment cases against women are reduced by 18 percent and overall crime against women has gone down by 12 percent.



For their swift response, SHE TEAMS have received huge appreciation from citizens too. Karishma, a college student said, "Earlier I and my friends would ignore incidents of eve teasing. But after SHE TEAMS came into being we report it. Once we were being followed by some boys. We informed police and we were helped immediately."



Gaura, another student recounted her experience, "There was a man who got my phone number and would call and harass me. I even thought of changing my number. But SHE TEAMS responded to my complaint and he was caught."



The accused are also counselled along with the parents or family members so that the offender does not repeat his acts. Professional counselling is conducted for minors who are caught eve-teasing. Most offenders after counselling felt guilty of their acts. SHE TEAMS can be seen across city regularly creating awareness in crowded areas.



Telangana police was the first to start this unique initiative and has successfully managed to ensure guilty are punished. Uttar Pradesh and other states who wish to replicate the initiative must learn from the working of SHE TEAMS that can help in ensuring safer environment for women.
Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee acting president M M Hassan said that women are impure during menstruation and they should not enter any place of worship during that time.



Haasan made the comments on Monday while speaking at a media camp organized by the youth welfare board. The participants of the camp were media students.



The students reacted to statement and asked him what he thought impure? Blood or the organ it came from?



They further said that if Hassan thought both are impure then he also consider himself as impure as the came from the same organ and blood.







Hassan was recently appointed interim President of the KPCC following the resignation of V M Sudheeran.



Hassan also claimed that his statement had been distorted by a section of media.



"My remark about impurity is not my opinion..I only said (about) the social condition prevailing in the society", he told reporters.



"Whether I am supporting it or not is not the point. It is the social situation," Hassan said adding "political parties cannot change the customs and traditions of religions."



(With PTI inputs)
An exhibition focused on the work of eminent Indian theatre exponent Ebrahim Alkazi takes a retrospective view of his journey over 50 years.



Curated by Amal Allana and designed by Nissar Allana, the exhibition, a part of the celebrations of Rajasthan Divas and World Theatre Day, will be on display till May 6 at Jawahar Kala Kendra (JKK) here.



Alkazi is a legendary figure of Indian theatre whose remarkable achievements have earned him the India's second highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan, among a vast number of Lifetime Achievement Awards.



The exhibition features multiple rooms of rare photographs, objects, archival documents, models of stage sets, using a multi media approach to exposing Alkazi's vision and ideas. The exhibition shows, for the first time, Alkazi's work from the 1940s and 1950s work that has rarely been seen anywhere in India, and brings a vast treasure of archival material into the public domain.



"A hushed silence enveloped our home. Beethoven, Stravinsky, Begum Akhtar, Ravi Shankar the gramophone playing 45's winds on. My father absorbed in the music, eyes shut, a notebook and a well-sharpened pencil are neatly placed in front of him, aligned at a perfect 90-degree angle to the corner of the table! His body, in the pose of Rodin's Thinker', is relaxed, but at the same time suffused with a contained energy. Daylight breaks with its soft, pink light, the sound of the sea and the sparrows melt away to be overtaken by the cacophony of BEST buses. He has been awake since at least 5 a.m., reading, and has already made himself a pot of tea. In a few moments he will offer a fresh cup to my mother, in bed, a small luxury that she appreciates without fail," said curator Amal Allana, Alkazi's daughter.



Alkazi's story runs parallel to the Independence Movement and the birth of Indian modernism in theatre. He introduced revolutionary ideas in theatre as early as the 1950's in scenic design, lighting, modern ideas of acting drawing from international traditions and linking these ideas to the performing folk traditions of India. He evolved new training methodologies for student actors, directors and stage designers and spoke of a new ethics and philosophy in theatre.



"We are honored to have an exhibition of works by E. Alkazi here at JKK. Alkazi is the doyen of theatre who pushed the boundaries of Indian theatre and brought it in line with its international counterparts," said Pooja Sood, Director General, JKK.



The exhibition will be on display at the refurbished Museum Galleries of Jawahar Kala Kendra. These Galleries are equipped with state of the art lighting systems matching international gallery standards.




New Delhi: Information & Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu today launched the online film certification system, 'e-cinepramaan', with an aim to censor corruption and promote clean cinema.



Naidu said the new system of Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) will make the entire process of certification transparent and efficient.



"The new online certification system will be an important step in making the CBFC office paper less and would enable effective monitoring and real-time progress tracking for both CBFC officials and the applicant (producers)," Naidu said.



"The payments made during the process by the producers will go to Bharatkosh portal," he added. Naidu said the status of each application would be visible online in the dashboard of the producer and the concerned CBFC official.



The producers will be informed by SMS or e-mail about the status of their application.



In case of short films, promos and trailers of duration less than 10 minutes, the producer will be able to submit their creations online. For films longer than 10 minutes, the applicant will only have to show the film at the examining theatre and will not have to visit the CBFC offices except to collect their certificates.



The certificates issued by the online system will have a QR code, which would help in eliminating fraudulent certificates.



Naidu said the changes in the current processes of CBFC will ensure better facilitation and technological up-gradation to match-up with the pace of growing Indian cinema." First look of the new CBFC website was also shared at the event.



Chairperson FCAT Justice Manmohan Sarin, Minister of State I&B Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Secretary I&B Ajay Mittal and CBFC CEO Anurag Srivastava were also present during the launch of the e-cinepramaan.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali has been in news since the first-day of the shoot of his next big project Padmavati. First, the film's set was attacked in Jaipur, and after much debate, Bhansali shifted his shoot to Kohlapur . Here, again the sets were attacked by petrol bombs thrown by fringe groups protesting against the film.After facing sharp criticism and violence from different Rajput groups for 'distorting' proud history of Mewar and Rani Padmini, Bhansali has released a statement slamming the attacks on his sets. The statement reads-There are too many misconceptions and misunderstandings surrounding my film, Padmavati. I feel the need to clear the air once and for all. Padmavati is a film about a revered Rajput Queen and her valiant fight for honour and dignity. Its a film that every Indian will be proud of.My team and I have carefully researched every aspect of information available on Rani Padmavati for making the film. There was never any alleged romantic scene, dream sequence or imaginary song between Rani Padmavati and Alauddin Khilji in the script. I repeat, there NEVER was and NOR is there any such scene between Rani Padmavati and Alauddin Khilji.While we have clarified this multiple times across various media platforms , the vandalism against the film deeply pains me. This violence is unjustified and not acceptable as it is merely based on hearsay, allegations and accusations, and not on facts. As an artist, I too believe in the freedom of expression, but Im also aware of the responsibility that comes along with this freedom. We do not intend to hurt the sentiments of any community and can confidently say that Mewar will be proud of the film.My team and I have met with some of the Rajput leaders, who, upon receipt of our clarification, have agreed to support us and have also signed our letter and promised cooperation in support of the making of the film. I hope this puts to rest all the misconceptions regarding the film. I take this opportunity to thank the film fraternity and the media, who have constantly spoken in support of the film and protested against any kind of violence/ vandalism against artists and their freedom to express.In January this year, Karni Sena assaulted the crew members over alleged distortion of facts in Padmavati on the sets of Jaipur. They had raised an objection to a romantic dream sequence between Allaudin Khilji and Rani Padmini. Later, Bhansali cleared the air and stated that no such scene was being shot.Padmavati, is a fictionalised account of the life of Rani Padmini, a legendary queen mentioned in Padmavat and 1303 siege of the Chittor fort in Rajputana by Alauddin Khilji, the Turkic ruler of the Delhi Sultanate. According to Padmavat, Khilji led the invasion motivated by his desire to capture the beautiful queen Rani Padmini, the wife of Rana Rawal Ratan Singh, the ruler of Mewar. However, Rani Padmini sacrificed herself even before Khilji could enter her fort.The film stars Deepika Padukone as the Mewar Queen, Shahid Kapoor as her husband Raja Ratan Singh and Ranveer Singh as Alauddin Khilji.
New Delhi: Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad - who drew ire from all quarters after hitting an Air India staffer last Thursday - had booked a ticket with Air India, but it was cancelled by the airline on Tuesday.



Sources told PTI that the MP had purchased an open ticket prior to the ban, which his staff had booked for Wednesday morning to travel from Mumbai to Delhi.



The ticket "has been cancelled", an Air India (AI) statement said.



Earlier, the Shiv Sena MP was barred from travelling on all major airlines for his unruly behaviour, a move unprecedented in India aviation history.



A day after the incident, the national carrier had cancelled a return ticket of the MP while IndiGo too had followed suit, forcing him to take a train to Maharashtra.



The MP from Maharashtra's Osmanabad, however, has continued to brazen it out and remained unapologetic about his conduct.



An FIR has been registered against him on the basis of the complaint lodged by Air India for repeatedly hitting 62-year-old Duty Manager R Sukumar with sandals on a Pune-Delhi flight after it landed. The MP was angry at not being given a business class seat though he had boarded an all-economy flight.



(With inputs from PTI)
: Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Tuesday said she was considering a privilege motion by the Shiv Sena on the ban by all airlines on party member Ravindra Gaikwad.The issue was raised by Sena member Anandrao Adsul when Zero Hour started.Adsul, who had raised the issue on Monday as well, was seen speaking even though his microphone was not working.Mahajan said a privilege motion notice had been received. "I have received your notice of motion of privilege, it is under my consideration."A Lok Sabha member from Osmanabad in Maharashtra, Gaikwad last week abused and assaulted a 60-year-old duty manager of Air India with a slipper.Air India then refused to fly Gaikwad, after which other private airlines too blacklisted him. An FIR was also registered against him.
Facebook is heeding to Pakistan's request over blasphemous content from the social networking site and almost 85 percent of such material has been taken down, an official said on Monday.The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Chairman informed a bench of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) that a team of 25 people is searching sacrilegious material on social media, the News International reported.According to the regulator, the PTA has initiated action against owners of 40 such pages.The bench was informed this when it resumed the hearing of a petition filed against blasphemous content on social media.Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui had earlier observed that the court would decide whether Facebook should be banned in Pakistan.The court had directed the PTA to present a fresh report about the measures taken to stop the practice on social media."Facebook has now removed blasphemous material from its platform and the company is now acting on our request. It is our success that they are doing this as earlier the company was not even considering it a serious matter," he said.The Interior Secretary apprised the court about the steps taken by the government in this regard. The law enforcement agencies have arrested three persons who were involved in this heinous crime, he said.The government has formed an investigation committee. Almost 85 percent of blasphemous content has been removed, and shutting down Facebook is not the solution, he said.
Islamabad: Pakistan's Senate on Tuesday passed a constitutional amendment bill to revive the controversial special military courts for a period of two years amidst a surge in terror attacks across the country.



Law minister Zahid Hamid presented the 28th Constitutional Amendment Bill in the Senate last week but it could not be voted as the required number of lawmakers were not present in the House.



The Senators from the both sides of the aisle discussed the bill in detail before voting.



Finally, the House passed the bill with 78 Senators supporting it while only three opposed the amendment in the House of 104. The amendment was thus adopted by the required two-thirds majority.



The bill has already been passed by the National Assembly and will become a law after President Mamnoon Hussain gives his assent.



The bill was opposed by three Senators of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party.



The military courts were first set up in January 2015 for a two year term after a constitutional amendment following a terror attack on an army-run school in Peshawar in December 2014 that killed over 150 people, mostly students.



Since their expiry in January, government has been trying to bring the political parties around the idea of another tenure for military courts.



The military courts awarded death sentence to 161 militants and so far only 21 have been executed. Army had demanded to revive the courts for another two years to try more militants and punish them.



The military courts work in secrecy due to fear of backlash by militants. Rights group have slammed the military courts.



The courts were given 275 cases during two years and they sentenced 161 terrorists to death, whereas another 116 were given varying jail terms, mostly life sentences.



Pakistan this year witnessed a surge in terror attacks. Over 80 people were killed after an Islamic State (IS) suicide bomber blew himself up at the Lal Shahbaz Qalander dargah in Sehwan on February 18.



A suicide bomber attacked a protest rally outside the Punjab assembly in Lahore on February 13, killing 14 people and injuring dozens.
Beijing: Dozens of aircraft hangars and high-end radar capabilities on China's man-made islands in the South China Sea are almost operational, according to new satellite imagery released by a US-based think tank.



The new facilities will further establish China's military dominance over the highly-contested region, experts said, and could help China establish a controversial Air Defence Identification Zone in the area, reported CNN on Tuesday.



Images released by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), taken in early March, show nearly-completed defence infrastructure on three of China's largest artificial islands in the disputed Spratly chain: Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi reefs.



Each of the islands has new aircraft hangers, capable of holding 24 military aircraft, as well as several larger hangars that can hold bombers or surveillance planes, said the report.



Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Tuesday she wasn't aware of the report's details but reiterated the Spratly Islands were Chinese territory.



"Whether we decide to deploy or not deploy relevant military equipment, it is within our scope of sovereignty. It's our right to self-defence and self-preservation as recognised by international law," Hua said.



Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi reefs are the largest of seven artificial islands built by China in the Spratlys.



China claims most of the South China Sea as its territory, despite overlapping claims by a number of other Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines and Vietnam.



Four bigger hangars have already been completed on Subi Reef, AMTI said, as well as four more on Fiery Cross Reef. Hangars to accommodate five larger planes, such as bombers, were in the final stages of construction on Mischief Reef, reported CNN.



"China's three military bases in the Spratlys and another on Woody Island in the Paracels will allow Chinese military aircraft to operate over nearly the entire South China Sea," AMTI said in a statement.



In addition to the hangars, new radar domes are in various stages of construction on each artificial island, about three arrays on each reef. Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief reefs now all also have shelters for mobile missiles launchers, according to AMTI.



Though the infrastructure is almost completed, no military aircraft has been deployed to the islands yet, said Carl Thayer, a regional security analyst and emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales, and Ian Storey, an expert at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Yusof Ishak Institute.



If China deploys aircraft, "there will be pro forma protests from certain countries, Vietnam in particular. There will be grumbling from certain ASEAN members," Storey said, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Washington: US President Donald Trump called up Prime Minister Narendra Modi and congratulated him on his recent electoral success, the White House said.



Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters on Tuesday that Trump congratulated Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on their electoral victories. The White House said the leaders spoke by phone.



"The president spoke with German Chancellor Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Modi earlier today to congratulate them on their parties' success in recent elections," Spicer said.



Following the elections held in five states that begun on February 4 and ended on March 9 after polling was rescheduled in some constituencies, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party formed the government in four states: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.



It, however, lost Punjab to main rival Congress in the results announced on March 11.



Anchored mainly by Modi and his aide Amit Shah, the BJP juggernaut rolled on in Uttar Pradesh and in the neighbouring state of Uttarakhand, bagging three-fourth majority.

The BJP returned to power in the politically-crucial state of UP after a gap of 15 years during which regional parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party held sway.



Goa and Manipur had hung assemblies after the polls, but the BJP managed to form the government with support from other regional parties.



The elections in the five states had turned into a virtual referendum on Modi's popularity following his much-debated decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.



Previously, Modi and Trump talked by phone on January 24, when they had resolved to stand "shoulder-to-shoulder" in the global fight against terrorism and for defence and security.



According to a White House statement then, Trump had "emphasised that the US considers India a true friend and partner in addressing challenges around the world".



The two leaders had exchanged invitations for visits.



"President Trump looked forward to hosting Prime Minister Modi in the US later this year," the statement had said.



Prime Minister Modi was the fifth foreign leader Trump had spoken to on phone after he was sworn-in as the US president on January 20. He had by then spoken to British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canada's Justin Trudeau, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.



After his surprise victory in the November 8 elections in the US, Modi was among the first world leaders to congratulate Trump. And during the gruelling election campaign, India and Israel were the two prominent countries Trump spoke of strengthening ties if he were to become the president.
Berlin: A German state minister on Tuesday accused Turkey of "unacceptable" spying on alleged followers of exiled preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blames for a failed coup attempt last year.



"It is notable with what intensity and ruthlessness the people living abroad are being investigated," said Boris Pistorius, interior minister of the northern German state of Lower Saxony.



"It's intolerable and unacceptable," he said at a press conference.



Ankara had asked Berlin to help spy on about 300 alleged Gulen supporters, Pistorius said, adding that the list was handed to Germany's spy service, which turned it over to state governments.



But Pistorius's state decided instead to inform the more than 10 targets, including a school and at least two companies, fearing people could suffer "retaliation" if they travelled to Turkey while unaware they were on a watch list.



Turkish authorities were acting with "something close to paranoia," he said, adding that "all Gulen supporters are assumed to be terrorists and enemies of the state even though there is not the tiniest scrap of evidence."



"Until today, we have no evidence whatsoever that Gulen supporters have violated any rules in any way."



Although US-based cleric Gulen, 75, has always denied charges that he was involved in the failed coup last July to overthrow Erdogan, Ankara has cracked down hard on his followers.



More than 41,000 people in Turkey have been arrested over suspected links to Gulen's movement, and 100,000 fired or suspended from their jobs. Many of them are teachers, police, magistrates and journalists.



In February, German police raided the homes of four Turkish Muslim preachers suspected of spying on alleged Gulen supporters for Erdogan's government.



Erdogan has in turn accused Germany of harbouring Kurdish and other "terrorists", claiming that Berlin is refusing to hand over alleged suspects.



Germany's foreign intelligence chief Bruno Kahl also raised heckles in Turkey last week when he said he was unconvinced Gulen was behind the failed coup of July 15.



Ankara had repeatedly tried to convince Berlin that Gulen, who lives in a secluded compound in Pennsylvania, was behind the coup, "but they have not succeeded", Kahl told Der Spiegel magazine.



Kahl said that the putsch was launched by a "part of the military" that expected to be targeted in an ongoing government purge.



The latest German accusations came as ties are already badly strained over a wide range of issues surrounding human rights, particularly after the failed coup.
Washington: North Korea has conducted another ballistic missile engine test, US defence officials told CNN.



The officials on Monday said the latest engine trial is the third such test using similar technology.



The initial assessment indicates that the engine technology could possibly be used in an eventual intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).



However, it was not clear whether the engine would require some adjustment to be used in an ICBM, if it can indeed be used that way at all.



Possession of an ICBM could allow North Korea to threaten the continental US, the officials said.



Meanwhile, Washington announced on Monday that the US Marines have deployed F-35Bs to South Korea for the first time as part of an exercise that began on March 24.



"This is the first time we have operated the F-35B in South Korea," CNN quoted Pentagon spokesman US Navy Captain Jeff Davis as saying.



The new short takeoff and vertical landing capable stealth strike fighter was only first declared operational in July of 2015.



The deployment is part of a training exercise with the South Korean military, an exercise Davis called "defensive in nature".


This month, Expedia (EXPE) killed off the worlds best app for air travelers: FlightTrack Pro, which it had bought in 2010. (Why do companies do that!?)

Among frequent flyers, cries of mourning fill the airspace.

Im among them. FlightTrack Pro was amazing. Heres how I described it back in 2009:

Its attractive, tidy screens show you far more detail than the airline generally providesnot just the departure and arrival times, but also the terminals, gates, flight maps, aircraft type, speed and altitude, weather radar, and so on.

The Pro version costs $10. Its worth every penny, because it offers push alerts when anything changes. That is, your iPhone [or Android phone] buzzes and wakes up and, no matter what you were doing, shows on the screen the details of your flights delay, gate change, or whatever.

FlightTrack Pro, dead at age 8.

Ill never forget the first time FTP blew my mind. I was with a TV crew for a layover at Chicago OHare. The airport monitor said our connecting flight was at gate D6, but the app said it was gate B3, only 50 yards away. The crew insisted that the monitor was correct, and went off D6. I stayed put.

Fifteen minutes later, they sheepishly returned. FlightTrack Pro had been right.

Then there was the time in Dallas when the gate agent announced a fog delay; she said she didnt know how long it would last. Well, I did! FTP said it would be 45 minutesand it was!

Considering how much time, trouble, and money this little app saves travelers, it was beyond forehead-smacking that Expedia killed it off.

Now, FlightTrack was around for eight years. Surely, in that time, something similar has come along? I decided to find out.

Todays flight apps can access real-time FAA databases, to your benefit.

(Note: The following review covers apps that manage flights for travelers. Other apps, like FlightAware, are designed to reveal details about one particular plane in the air; others, like FlightRadar24 and Planes Live, show you all planes in the air. But those are really a different deal.)

(Other note: Except as noted, all of the following apps are available for iPhone and Android.)

Story continues

What made FlightTrack so good?

Yes, of course, FTP showed terminal, gate, and baggage-claim information. Yes, it notified you in real time when your gate changed, or when a flights takeoff or landing time changed.

But it also offered all of these features:

Automated data entry. Truth to tell, FTP wasnt so great when it came to manually entering your flights. You had to tap in the airline, flight number, and date, and then search for a match, and then tap the match. Too many steps. Until version 5, though, it spared savvy travelers that effort because it synced with Tripit.com. Thats an ingenious free service that builds a tidy itinerary for youall you have to do is forward your travel receipts to Tripits e-mail address (plans@tripit.com). So when you buy a ticket online (Travelocity.com, an airline, or whatever), you forward it to Tripit, and boomthe flight was wirelessly auto-entered on your calendar, and also in FlightTrack. Layover calculations. Such a little thing, but so valuable: You could glance at the app to see how much time youd have in the connecting city. Delay history. FTP even knew the on-time history of your flight. It would let you know that, for example, this flight is over 45 minutes late 33% of the time, so you could manage your expectations. Aircraft details, including seating charts and WiFi information. For example, youd know that youd be sitting right by the bathroom. In-flight details, like speed, altitude, and a real-time map showing the plane en route. Airport details, like the weather, current airport delays, and terminal maps. Alternate flights. When yours is canceled, you want to be able to see what else is available with a single tap. Info sharing, so you can email or text the flight information to family, friends, or whoevers picking you up.

Is there an app that offers all of thatin a well-designed, attractive package?

As it turns out, yes.

Here are the leading contenders, listed from worst to first.

Attractive, with easy navigation; but feature-poor and loaded with ads. (At one time, you could pay $2 for an ad-free version; no longer.)

Missing features: 1 (automated data entry), 2 (layover calculations), 4 (plane info), 7 (alternate flights), 8 (send info).

Flight Stats. Good-looking but loaded with ads.

FlightHero (Free with ads, $10 without)

Not a bad attempt! Syncs with Tripit, adds flights to your calendar, offers easily accessible maps for airports, seating, and flights.

But the master flight list has tiny, eye-deadening type (below, left). Some features are completely broken (like the flight boards for your airports and the Radar). And the ad-laden version is almost unusable.

Missing features: 2 (layover calculations), 3 (delay history), 7 (alternate flights)

Flight Hero. A few broken and missing features.

To record your flights (and hotel and car reservations) in this app, you can forward your confirmation emails either to trips@tripcasecom or to Tripit, which is great. Also excellent: Buttons for plane layout, alternate flights, and directions to the airport appear right there under the name of your fight, so you dont have to hunt.

The app bends over backward to give you the information youll want, in the places youll want iteven information about the city youre visiting. Unfortunately, the good info is interspersed with commercial items. On the main screen for every flight, for example, you have the opportunity to Find a great audiobook before your flight or buy luggage insurance (below, right).

Sure, they have to pay for this free app somehowbut Id rather pay a few bucks to get rid of the ads.

Missing features: 2 (layover calculations), 3 (delay history), 5 (flight details).

TripCase. Clear, complete, and ad-pocked.

The FlightTracker (Free with ads, or $4 without)

This app (formerly called Flight+) really packs in the featuresnot only can you see the seating chart for your flight, but you even get a photo and writeup of the aircraft. Theres Tripit integration, copious data on airports and airlines, current weather, and much more.

My one gripe is the design. There are tabs across the bottom, a menu at top left, and some kind of overlapping-card interface for the main screen. It makes sense after awhile, but your first few days will leave you scratching your head, and it takes a lot of taps.

Missing features: 3 (delay history).

The Flight Tracker. Rich with features, hard to navigate.

FlightView (free with ads, $2 without)

This app gets off to a great start with its own built-in version of Tripit: You can forward email flight confirmations to trips@flightview.com, and BOOMthat flight is now listed in the app, with all details.

The design is clear, weather delays at specific airports are colorfully represented, and offering a tile for your home airportshowing weather and delay statusis a great touch.

Theres also a $4 version, FlightView Elite, which adds a super-cool Flight board: a list of all incoming and outgoing flights for a certain airport, just like youd see on the monitors there. Great for finding alternate flights.

Missing features: 2 (layover calculations), 3 (delay history), 4 (plane info), 7 (alternate flights).

Flight View. Great appbut missing a few key features.

This app offers features 1 through 8, making it one of the most complete apps in the air; alas, its available only for iPhone.

It starts with Tripit integration, so you dont have to enter your flights manuallybut if you do enter your flights manually, airline logos and national flags make the process quick and easy. And once youve entered a flight, the app can add it to your calendar automatically.

A few app-store reviewers gripe that you must first define a trip, and then add flights to it. As a result, your list of upcoming flights is grouped by trip, instead of being just a continuous list of flights. I prefer it listed by trip, actually (below, left).

Flight Update Pro. Every feature you can think of.

Once the app has received aircraft details for your flightwhich doesnt happen until the departure is imminentyou can open a map of the seats (data courtesy of SeatGuru), find out what amenities (like WiFi) are offered, read about the aircraft, and even see photos taken inside it. In-flight details include airspeed, altitude, time remaining, and, of course, a map. You can specify exactly which kinds of notifications you want to receive (Gate changes? Landed? 1, 2, 3, 4, or 8 hours before departure?).

Overall, it seems clear that Flight Update Pro is indeed the rightful heir to FlightTrack Pronot identical, but damn close, and superior in some ways. The developer says that an even better version is coming next month.

Missing features: None.

A wonderland of detail.

This app is eyebrow-raisingly complete, customizable, and expensive. Frequent flyers online either love it (because its so rich) or despise it (because its got more than they need).

The free version will make you crazy, its so full of ads and come-ons to upgrade. You can pay $2 to get rid of the ads, but important features still dont work until you subscribe. And subscribing costs $3.50 a month, $30 a year, or $50 for life. (A two-week free trial is available.)

Thats right. This is a $50 app. Well, beyond a good punny name (App in the Air, get it?), what on earth could $50 get you?

For starters, real time savings on data entry. This app connects to Tripit, of course, and also has its own email forward confirmations to me address (myflight@appintheair.mobi). But it can also scan your Inbox, looking for travel receipts to parse automatically. (That works with Outlook, Windows Live, Google, Yahoo Mail, iCloud, or any other IMAP account.) It can grab travel details from your calendar, too.

Incredibly, this app can receive notifications about gate changes and flight delays even when youre abroad without an internet connection; it receives this data via text messages.

App in the Air: A towering, very expensive achievement.

You can read tips about airports (where to get the best food, etc.) left by other frequent fliers. Theres an Apple Watch app, too.

And the record-keeping module is unbelievablesomething you wont find in any other app. It tracks how many flights, miles, and hours in the air youve spent in planeskeeps a list of the airports, countries, and airlines youve hit. I was aghast to see my lifetime accumulation of flight hours.

Each flight presents a scrolling list of tiles, or widgets, containing details like the flight map, current security-line times at the airport, airline contact information, packing checklist, hotel information, rental-car details, and so on. You get to choose which of these tiles appears (above, right).

Your world of airports and planes, at your fingertips.

But heres the most mind-blowing part: If youve paid up, this app can even check you in automatically. To set this up, you enter the confirmation code for your reservation, specify aisle/middle/window, and confirm your passport or license number; the rest is automatic. As soon as your flight opens for check-in, the app does it automatically.

Automatic check-in!

Each auto-check-in saves you a bunch of taps in your airlines appand another thing to remember to do. This is a killer feature in a killer app.

At $50, its safe to say that this is an app for the ridiculously frequent flyersay, someone who flies every week.

Missing features: None.

Grieve no more

So there you go, mourners.

FlightTrack is dead. Long live FlightView, Flight Update Pro, and App in the Air!

More from David Pogue:

David Pogue tested 47 pill-reminder apps to find the best one

The little-known iPhone feature that lets blind people see with their fingers

I paid $3,000 for my MacBook Pro and got emotional whiplash

Heres the real money-maker for the Internet of Things

David Pogue, tech columnist for Yahoo Finance, welcomes non-toxic comments in the Comments below. On the web, hes davidpogue.com. On Twitter, hes @pogue. On email, hes poguester@yahoo.com. You can read all his articles here, or you can sign up to get his columns by email.
Lahore: A Pakistani court has asked the Punjab government to explain under what authority it has detained Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed "without a trial".



A Lahore High Court's two-judge bench headed by Justice Syed Kazim Raza Shamsi yesterday was hearing a petition of Saeed, his aides - Prof Malik Zafar Iqbal, Abdur Rehman Abid, Qazi Kashif Hussain and Abdullah Ubaid - who had challenged their detention under the anti-terrorism law.



After hearing the arguments of advocate AK Dogar, counsel for Saeed, Justice Shamsi observed the government should tell about its powers to detain a citizen like Saeed without trial.



Referring to an Indian movie wherein Saeed was portrayed as a villain, the judge said the government should see if there is any "international conspiracy" against Pakistani citizens.



Dogar concluded his arguments saying the government had detained the JuD leaders without any justification.



Dogar also questioned the powers of the provincial government to include any citizen in the fourth schedule of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA). He said such powers were solely vested with the federal government.



He said the government had detained him (Saeed) and others to please India and the US.



He further argued that the UN resolution followed by the government action did not seek detention of any citizen. He said the detention of the JuD leaders is a case of mala fide intention and ulterior motive on part of the government.



Dogar said the government had no evidence that the petitioners were a risk to security of Pakistan, and merely on the basis of UN resolutions their liberty could not be curtailed.



The government on January 30 had put Saeed and the four leaders of JuD and Falah-e-Insaniat (FIF) under house arrest in Lahore under the country's anti-terrorism act.



The court adjourned the hearing till April 4.
Edinburgh: Just a day before Britain kick-starts Brexit proceedings, the Scottish parliament is expected to dismiss Prime Minister Theresa May's overtures and back calls for a fresh independence referendum.



Lawmakers in Edinburgh are due to vote on Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon's bid for a new referendum, despite the Prime Minister's last-minute appeals.



The Scottish vote had been scheduled for last Wednesday but was postponed after the terror attack near the British parliament in London, the same day, in which four people were killed and dozens more injured.



The attack has not, however, put the brakes on Britain's EU divorce, with May vowing to stick to her timetable of invoking Article 50 of the European Union's Lisbon Treaty on Wednesday and thus triggering two years of Brexit negotiations.



The Brexit vote last year has spurred the independence campaign of Sturgeon, head of the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP), who argues that Scotland is being forced out of the European bloc against its will.



Both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU, but they were outnumbered by voters in England and Wales who backed Brexit.



Sturgeon and May met in Scotland on Monday, with the prime minister reiterating that "now is not the time" for a referendum and describing the four nations of the United

Kingdom as an "unstoppable force".



The SNP leader has suggested an independence vote should be held by spring 2019 at the latest -- before Britain leaves the EU -- although after winning the backing of Scottish parliament she needs approval from London for a referendum to take place.



Rejecting such a request would be politically risky for May, whose government is also trying to prevent the collapse of the power-sharing arrangement which governs Northern

Ireland.



The Northern Ireland executive collapsed in January following a dispute between the two main parties, the Democratic Unionist Party and Irish nationalists Sinn Fein, which failed to reach a new power-sharing deal by the Monday deadline.



The British government has extended the talks and, if a resolution is not reached, fresh elections could be called or London could resume direct rule over Northern Ireland.
Not too long ago, solar installers and manufacturers were heavily reliant on a mix of state and federal government incentives to make the arrays and the installations affordable enough to be attractive to consumers.

Though a federal tax credit remains in place until 2021, with the prices of panels and installation falling about 63 percent over the past five years, per the Solar Energy Industries Association trade group, members of the industry in Virginia will not hold their breath for the state tax breaks or mandatory utility renewable energy portfolio standards that exist elsewhere.

Rather, they would be happy with a level regulatory playing field, something they say Virginias large incumbent utilities have thus far fought to block.

Right now, were fighting for market access, said Aaron Sutch, a program director for Virginia Solar United Neighborhoods, a nonprofit pushing to expand access to solar in Virginia.

Sutch was speaking to a group of about two dozen people who had come to the Henrico County Public Librarys Glen Allen branch this month for an informational session on the Greater Richmond Solar Co-op, a group-purchasing program that vets and solicits bids from installers who drop their usual prices in exchange for a steady stream of customers.

The group says the purchasing program can shave up to 20 percent off the price of a system, which can cost anywhere from $9,000 to $20,000 depending on size before the federal tax credit is included.

But a piece of legislation that did emerge from the most recent General Assembly session, part of a package pushed by GOP lawmakers and developed by a consensus group consisting of utility representatives and renewable energy advocates, could budge open the door for more work for the solar industry after it takes effect in July.

***

The bill by state Sen. Frank W. Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, which was signed by the governor this month, requires Dominion Virginia Power and Appalachian Power to establish pilot community solar programs in their service territories, selling power generated from solar arrays under two megawatts that are built by third parties to customers who subscribe.

The concept is that customers will not have to agree to a long-term commitment and take their subscriptions with them if they move.

Its designed to be very flexible for customers, said Will Cleveland, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charlottesville who participated in the working group. Its intended to encourage construction of smaller facilities.

Though the programs details are still being developed, the idea is that Dominion will issue a request for proposals to build the solar arrays, which will be considerably smaller than the utility-scale projects the company is building. As of mid-February, about 400 megawatts of solar generation, enough to power about 100,000 homes, either had been built or are under development by Dominion in Virginia.

Its basically anyone who wants access to solar to satisfy some of their energy needs, regardless of what housing type theyre in, regardless of socioeconomic bracket and regardless of location, said Katharine Bond, Dominions director of public policy.

Wagners bill was the product of months of meetings of the consensus group, led by Mark Rubin, executive director of the Virginia Center for Consensus Building at Virginia Commonwealth University.

We learned a lot through the collaborative process, and we still have a lot to learn. We see the benefit for continuing with the same and additional stakeholders, Bond said. This legislation demonstrates what can happen when we work together. ... There is common ground to be found.

One of the key details will be whether customers who sign up for the program pay a premium for the solar program, which must be approved by the State Corporation Commission.

My hope is that the subscription price that you pay, even if its a premium, will only be a little bit of a premium. ... That should be the case if its a properly designed program, Cleveland said. I think everybody has a vested interest in making this thing work. I think the utilities recognize that solar is here to stay and the costs are continuing to fall. And if they dont get a piece of it and make it work for them and their customers, then someone else is going to make it work for their customers.

***

Though many solar advocates and businesses called the bill progress, they said it would still leave Virginia lagging in embracing an industry that employed 260,000 nationwide last year, according to the Solar Foundations Solar Jobs Census, which defines solar workers as those who spend at least 50 percent of their time on solar-related work.

Virginia counted 3,236 such workers, up 65 percent from 2015 and ranked 20th among U.S. states and Washington, D.C. Maryland counted 5,429 solar workers, ranking 12th, and North Carolina had 7,112, ranking at No. 8.

That takes the thunder right out of community solar, when the utility administers it, said Bernie Stanley, president of Hanover County-based installation company Shockoe Solar.

A more traditional understanding of community solar is when the community members, such as apartment dwellers or others unable to host solar panels on their own property, can buy or lease part of the solar project and capture the savings from the electricity generated, Stanley and other solar industry members noted.

Any forward progress is forward progress. But do we think that its enough? No, said Logan Landry, CEO of Waynesboro-based Sigora Solar, which has completed nearly 500 residential and commercial solar installations in Virginia. Were happy to see the advancement of community solar. But were not going to stop pushing for community solar that is not utility-owned.

The hurdles for solar developers in Virginia involve a lack of legal clarity around third-party financing and power-purchase agreements, arrangements that can take various forms but generally involve a developer arranging for the design, permitting, financing and installation of a solar system on a customers property at little or no up-front cost.

The developer then sells the power to the customer at a fixed rate that is usually lower than the local utility, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. The developer gets income from the energy sale as well as any tax incentives generated by the system.

Solar developers are pushing such models because they allow access to customers who may not have or want to spend the upfront money for a new system.

The utilities are very hostile to power-purchase agreement. They consider it to be a third party engaging in retail electricity sales in their exclusive service territories, Cleveland said.

No one knows how the utilities feel about such arrangements better than Tony Smith, CEO of Secure Futures, a Staunton solar development company that focuses on commercial-scale projects that was hit with cease-and-desist letters from Dominion in 2011 when it tried to enter into a power-purchase agreement with Washington and Lee University for a solar installation, a project that ultimately went forward under a lease agreement.

This so-called community solar program fits into the utility business model of central generation and utility ownership, Smith said. I think its a boon for the utilities and the utility-scale developers. It creates the impression in the public mind that its about community and its more about utilities. Im all for solar in every form. ... We would just like to see more of a level playing field. ... The challenge that we have in Virginia is to change the economic incentives so the utilities are rewarded for encouraging solar regardless of who owns it.

In 2013, the state legislature created a pilot power purchase agreement program in Dominions service area, which is limited to a minimum of 50 kilowatts and a maximum of 1 megawatt per system, among other restrictions. And this year, a bill extended the pilot program to Appalachians service area.

The Southern Environmental Law Center and the state attorney general have argued that the states existing net metering law, under which customers who have generating facilities on their properties only pay for their net electrical usage, already permit third-party arrangements.

We argue that the net-metering laws says you can contract with a third party, Cleveland said. The utilities disagree with the plain language of the statute. ... With robust third-party financing options, solar is available to everybody, and the utilities dont like that.
border park

According to the White House budget plan released on March 16, Trump is seeking to spend $2.6 billion to plan, design, and start constructing a wall along the US-Mexico border. An additional $3.3 billion would go toward building new detention facilities for undocumented immigrants, hiring 1,500 immigration and border control agents, and expanding a digital system, called E-Verify, that allows employers to see if people are eligible to work in the US.

This is just a preliminary proposal. The US Department of Homeland Security says the total cost of the border wall project could be around $21.6 billion.

The wall  and everything that would come with it  is easily one of the largest infrastructure investments in the president's plan.

Three New York City-based designers have envisioned a more cost-effective (and amiable) alternative: a bi-national park that runs the entire length of the US-Mexico border.

The designers, Wesley Thompson, Hiroshi Kaneko, and Josie Baldner, won second place in the international design competition "Building the Border Wall." The jury, made up of architects and artists, asked for "bold humanitarian solutions, creativity, and innovation to bear on alternative ideas of a border wall."

border park

The Border Park designers propose a nature reserve where people from both sides could hike and camp. The national park services from the US and Mexico would maintain the area equally, Thompson tells Business Insider. Both countries would generate money from visitors like any other national park.

"It would only make sense to have both the US and Mexico invest in something together," the designers say. "Its a shared resource with shared benefits and ownership. Ultimately, we believe mutual cooperation can destigmatize the border, promoting communication, and a greater respect for each country."

Story continues

Spanning around 1,900 miles, the Border Park would feature native flora and fauna, including cacti, dunes, rivers, a beach, and agricultural fields. In addition, the team considered animals, like ocelot, lizards, desert bighorn sheep, and bison, for the park. (A wall, on the other hand, would likely disrupt migratory and habitual patterns.)

Right now, the design is just a concept. Building a park rather than Trump's proposed 55-foot-tall fence is most likely an impossibility. But with the design, the creators hope to "break down the binary that the wall represents."

"We have friends who have crossed the border. We dont want something so aggressive or imposing to continue to be the first experience people have coming into this country," they say. "Its a broken system."

border park

For the designers, a shared park is the antithesis of a wall.

"We engage with parks in a very different way: they are places we protect, have a desire to maintain, places we visit and enjoy. This creates a zone to interact with and explore. A park is, in a way, a dynamic and diverse boundary that can still demarcate and serve as a national border," the designers say.

The Border Park designers haven't calculated how much it would cost to create their nature reserve, but estimate it would be much less that Trump's proposal.

Map 1

If the proposal for the border wall moves forward, there is no shortage of construction firms vying to build it. Over 700 contractors have expressed interest in the Trump's administration's proposal for the project.

The Border Park's designers say that Trump should re-consider his plans for the wall.

"Either way, we think its shortsighted to assume that the tables wont turn, and Mexico could at some point have an immigration problem with the US," they say.

NOW WATCH: People on Twitter are mocking Trump for pretending to drive a big rig truck





More From Business Insider


- By Alberto Abaterusso





Endeavour Silver Corp. (EXK) (EDR.TO) announced Monday it has completed an initial National Instrument 43-101 Mineral Resource Estimate and a Preliminary Economic Assessment for its El Compas project in Mexico.

According to the assessment, the project is economically robust and the company decided to proceed with mine development. Management stressed this decision was not made purely off the results of the assessments however. Rather, the company based its decision on the fact it has successfully developed similar mines in Mexico, the total capital required is low and it has enough experience to build and operate a mine of this size.





Bradford Cooke, Endeavour's CEO, expressed the company's excitement for its new mine, which will be its fourth. He highlighted El Compas and El Orito, another one of its projects, are relatively shallow and high grade, indicating they will be profitable.

"The operation is very scalable if we discover or purchase additional mineral resources in the Zacatecas district and refurbish the second ball mill to double the plant capacity to 500 tonnes per day (tpd)," Cooke said. "With the low capital investment of $10 million funded by existing cash and the short timeline of only six months to initial production once we receive the explosives permit and tax clarity, the El Compas mine has the near-term potential to become a healthy contributor to our consolidated cash flow."

Endeavour has 100% interest in the El Compas mine. It is a gold and silver deposit located in the Mexican state of Zacatecas.

The company plans to process 200 tonnes of mineral per day at the mine or "will process 300,000 tonnes over the 4.3-year mine life grading 86.4 grams per tonne (gpt) silver and 6.3 gpt gold." The total life of mine production will be 583,000 ounces of silver and 49,400 ounces of gold.

Story continues

In regard to the project's economic valuation, considering an average price per ounce of silver of $18 and an average price per ounce of gold of $1,260, the project is estimated to have an internal rate of return (or IRR) of 42%, a net present value of $12.6 million and a payback period of 2.1 years.

Usually when a project has an IRR of 30% to 35%, it is considered to be a financially robust operation. Therefore, we can find a valuation of the El Campos project using the following net present value (NPV) calculation to see how much this project can add to the value of the stock.

The preliminary economic assessment estimates a NPV of $12.6 million and a 5% discount rate. Considering the company has 127.08 million shares outstanding, we can calculate the net present value per share as: $12.6 million divided by 127.08 million shares, which equals 10 cents per share.

Assuming analysts' average target price for Endeavour is based on a valuation model like the DCF, if we add 10 cents to the average target price of $4.31, we will get a new target price of $4.41 per share. This new target price represents a 41% upside from the current share price of $3.13.

Recently, another analysis firm began covering Endeavour Silver and released a buy rating. The current recommendation rating is 2.8, which ranges between 1.0 (Strong Buy) and Sell (5.0).

Endeavour Silver is currently trading with a price-earnings (P/E) ratio of 2.59 and a price-book (P/B) ratio of 2.98. The EV/EBITDA ratio is 9.93.

Disclosure: I have no positions in Endeavour Silver.

Start a free seven-day trial of Premium Membership to GuruFocus.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






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
Nation must assist people with disabilities

Little Shannen suffers from thalassemia major, a blood related disorder which requires a monthly blood transfusion. According to the Thalassemia Foundation of Canadas website, thalassemia major occurs when a child inherits two mutated genes, one from each parent. Children born with thalassemia major usually develop symptoms of severe anaemia within the first year of life.

They lack the ability to produce normal, adult haemoglobin and experience chronic fatigue. They may also fail to thrive. Two major consequences of the disorder are severe anaemia and expansion of the bone marrow in the bodys effort to produce more red blood cells. This leads to poor growth, impaired physical activities, facial and other bone deformities, fragile bones and enlargement of the liver and spleen. In some cases, it can be fatal.

Speaking to Newsday yesterday, Michelle said she and her husband learnt their daughter had the disorder when she was nine-monthsold.

She said when they visited the paediatrician, Shannen was placed on a scale and the doctor noticed she had lost weight. He sent her a blood test and the diagnosis was later made. Since January 2014, Shannen has received a blood transfusion monthly at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EWMSC) in Mt Hope.

The family began consultations with Dr Waveny Charles who in the past, sent children to Italy to have the same procedure done.

She told us about the transplant and the family got tested but none one of us were a 100 percent match.

We were all half matches, but she told us about this new technology with half match transplants and there have been really good results. Dr Charles recommended the hospital and the doctor and we have been raising funds since last year, the mother of two said. The procedure will be done at the Bambino Gesu Hospital in Rome, Italy on May 2. That procedure will cost 158,000 which is approximately TT$1.2 million. In addition to the transplant, the family will need to stay in Italy for seven months to ensure Shannen recovers fully.

The Luke family has since mortgaged their home and have held a fund-raising barbeque.

Last weekend they organised a calypso show in their neighbourhood in Brazil Village where several calypsonians including Eric Pink Panther Taylor, Devon Seale, Karene Ashe, Duane OConnor and Sasha Moses all performed for free. The family has also planned a cruise on the Harbour Master this Sunday from 10 am to 2 pm.

The Rotary Club of Chaguanas has also stepped in to assist the parents in raising $250,000. President of the Rotary Club of Chaguanas Michael Ibrahim said that since hearing of Shannens plight, the Rotary Club has come up with a plan to raise funds. Earlier this month, the Rotary Club together with the Catholic Church in Freeport held a garage and clothes sale.

He said a barbeque would be held on April 28. Ibrahim said they have also reached out to the Chaguanas Regional Corporation, the Couva/Tabaquite Regional Corporation and corporate companies for assistance. We accepted this responsibility knowing the country is in a contraction. We accepted this responsibility knowing our corporate friends who have supported us in the past are now (cash) strapped. We accepted the responsibility because it is a child and the Rotary Club continues to work in the protection of the nations children. So we are requesting a small individual contribution of $20 per person by approximately 12,000 people. Many of the rotary clubs are supporting as well together with friends and well wishers.

Every bit will help, Ibrahim said.

The Club is also inviting people to make any contribution they can to any Republic Bank branch account number 660297924401.

Michelle said she was thankful for all the assistance she has received from everyone and it made her see that there are a lot of good people out there. You see sad news everywhere and it has really opened my eyes to see that there is so many good people out there that have come forward to help in anyway they can and we are very thankful, she said
Tom Brady Just Became

First NFL Player to Do This
A woman accused in a murder-for-hire plot committed suicide Monday, police confirm. Houston veterinarian Valerie Busick McDaniel and boyfriend Leon Jacob were accused of hiring a hitman to kill their exes; what they didn't realize is that "hitman" was actually an undercover police officer. Both were charged with soliciting capital murder; McDaniel, 48, was free on bond and due in court Tuesday. She jumped to her death from the high-rise building where she lived, Click2Houston reports. McDaniel has an 8-year-old daughter with the ex-husband she allegedly tried to have murdered, the Houston Chronicle reports, but no one was at home when she killed herself.

Jacob, 39, is being held without bond and is due in court Wednesday. Prosecutors say police arranged for an undercover officer to pose as a hitman, and that at a meeting at Olive Garden the couple offered to pay $20,000 and hand over two Cartier watches. McDaniel's husband was allegedly to be killed in what was supposed to appear as a bungled carjacking; he and Jacob's ex were alerted as to what was going on and agreed to pose for photographs that supposedly depicted their murder and kidnapping, respectively. McDaniel and Jacob allegedly then forked over part of the payment, and were arrested earlier this month. More on their story here. (Read more suicide stories.)
To err is human, and a major bank is reminding the world of this for the second time after once again accidentally transferring a massive sum of money it shouldn't have. The blunder occurred on Feb. 20, when Frankfurt-based lender KfW, a German government-owned development bank, transferred $5.4 billion to four other banks, reports Deutsche Welle. Germany's central bank identified the mishap, which was caused by an "experienced" programmer's "configuration error" made while working on the bank's payment software, the FT reports. That contributed to the creation of an "automatic loop" in which duplicate payments were made.

While the bank says it "launched a comprehensive international and external investigation" to identify the exact error and avoid ones like it moving forward, it says all the money was returned promptly. Two side notes most media are reporting: One, that newspaper Bild called KfW "Germany's dumbest bank" in 2008 after it transferred 320 million euros to Lehman Brothers on the day the US investment bank filed for bankruptcy. Second, that the German bank doesn't stand alone. In 2015 Deutsche Bank AG wrongly sent $6 billion to a hedge fund client, though it got the money back the next day. It happened when a junior foreign-exchange trader's boss was on vacation. Read about the mishap here. (Read more bank malfunction stories.)
"North Korea is continuing its activities to sophisticate its missile capability," a rep for South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff says, and the latest report from CNN seems to back that up. It cites two unnamed defense officials in reporting that North Korea performed another test of a ballistic missile engine Friday; that follows a ground test of a new type of high-thrust rocket engine earlier this month, which Kim Jong Un called "a great event of historic significance." Few details are known about the latest test, and it isn't clear if the same device and technology were used in both tests, reports Yonhap News. One official tells CNN that early indications suggest the engine, perhaps with a few modifications, could be used as part of an "eventual" intercontinental ballistic missilewhich could be capable of reaching the US.

With American F-35Bs taking part in military exercises in South Korea, a Pentagon rep adds the US is committed to defending South Korea and Japan "against any North Korean aggression." Members of the ruling party's security committee in Japan, meanwhile, are discussing how it might respond to a possible North Korean strike. Per its post-war constitution, Japan can only take a defense position, not an offensive one, and that's created a problem, says the head of that committee. "Its legally possible for Japan to strike an enemy base thats launching a missile at us, but we dont have the equipment or the capability," he tells the Washington Post. "I'd like to encourage the party to have this discussion and am keeping an eye on how it's going," says Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. (Read more North Korea stories.)
A floating suitcase found in an Italian harbor presented police with a horrific mysterybut not, as first believed, proof of another murder. Police say the suitcase brought ashore by sailors held the body of an Asian woman who had probably died of starvationand who may have been alive, though already severely malnourished, when she was put in the case, the BBC reports. Investigators say they've determined that the body is not that of Li Yinglei, the woman who disappeared during a Mediterranean cruise last month, the Irish Independent reports. Her husband, German citizen Daniel Belling, was arrested after trying to board a flight out of Italy with their two children and is still being held in a Rome prison.

Investigators say the woman in the suitcase is 6 or 7 inches taller than Li. The case had only been in the water for around 10 days, while Li vanished more than six weeks ago. Belling, who failed to raise the alarm after his wife disappeared, has told investigators she disappeared from earlier family vacations and he thought she might be hiding out somewhere on the ship. The Daily Beast reports that there are suspicions the woman in the suitcase might have been one of the thousands of undocumented Chinese immigrants working in illegal factories in Italy, where former workers say conditions are harsh and the bodies of workers who die tend to disappear. (Read more Italy stories.)
The Ferrari driver who allegedly slammed into a motorcycle cop, dragged him along the road and then sped away from the mangled body took just hours to find, as investigators followed a trail of brake fluid into the gated estate of one of Thailand's richest families. The prosecution of Red Bull heir Vorayuth "Boss" Yoovidhya, however, has been delayed for close to five years. The times when Vorayuth has been called in on charges over the Sept. 3, 2012, incident that killed police Sgt. Maj. Wichean Glanprasert, he hasn't shown up, claiming he was sick or out of the country on business. It's been widely assumed that he's been in hiding. He hasn't. The AP has found Vorayuth was back to enjoying his family's jet-set life within weeks of the accident, and has been to at least nine countries since then.

He flies around the world on private Red Bull jets and cheers their Formula One racing team from Red Bull's VIP seats. Just last month, Vorayuth and his family vacationed at a $1,000-a-night resort in Luang Prabang, Laos. A speeding charge Vorayuth faced has now expired. The more serious charge of deadly hit-and-run, which carries a maximum six-month sentence, expires in September. Police say they're doing everything they canVorayuth has been summoned again and is due at the prosecutors' office Thursdaybut an arrest warrant has not been issued as is normal when people don't show up for court. One expert says it's simply a sign of Thailand's "culture of impunity" for people of wealth or influence: "This happens so often." Read the full story for more on Vorayuth's activities at places like Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in London and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Osaka. (Read more Thailand stories.)
President Trump took to Twitter Monday night to weigh in on Congress' investigation of possible ties between Russia and his election campaign: The "story is a hoax," he tweeted. In a pair of tweets, here and here, Trump also criticized US policies toward Moscow while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. "Why isn't the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech ... money to Bill, the Hillary Russian 'reset,' praise of Russia by Hillary, or Podesta Russian Company. Trump Russia story is a hoax. #MAGA." The uranium line refers to Russia's nuclear power agency being allowed to buy the controlling stake of a Canadian mine company that also has US operations, reports Politico.

Trump used that criticism several times on the campaign trail, though it was called out as false by the Washington Post fact-checker blog, in part because the approval required the green light from nine separate federal agencies, not just the State Department. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi joined the calls for GOP Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House intelligence panel, to recuse himself from the investigation over criticism that he's too close to the White House. On CNN Monday night, Nunes defended his meeting with someone at the White House the day before he called a news conference to allege that Trump associates might have been picked up in "incidental" surveillance. "The Congress has not been given this information, these documents, and that's the problem," he said to justify his trip to the White House. "This is executive branch." (Read more President Trump stories.)
An airstrike in Mosul 10 days ago reportedly killed dozens of civilians, and now an Amnesty International investigation says the US-led coalition wasn't careful enough in protecting locals as it fought ISIS in the Iraq city, the Guardian reports. The human rights group says up to 150 civilians were killed in the March 17 attack in the western Jadida neighborhood, though that figure has yet to be verified by US officials. Related coverage:

Most of the casualties came when bombs destroyed houses. They did not try to flee as the battle got underway because they received repeated instructions from the Iraqi authorities to remain in their homes," per the Amnesty report. It also faulted ISIS for using civilians as human shields.

The UN's human rights chief has asked US and Iraq to review its tactics and avoid ISIS "traps" that can lead to mass civilian casualties, reports the BBC.

Survivors of the attacks offer their own insights to the New York Times, expressing confusion as to why so many buildings were destroyed when ISIS fighters had been narrowed down to being at just a few. "Why, just because of one [Islamic State fighter], kill everyone?" one local asks.

Two war correspondents describe the devastation for the Intercept, with one calling it a "humanitarian disaster." Journalist Anand Gopal says that there's been an "extraordinary number" of civilian casualties and that coalition forces are "hitting pretty much everything in sight" in densely packed neighborhoods.

An op-ed at the National Review says the airstrike must be investigated, but adds, "the pursuit of victory must not be diverted by civilian casualties, which are sometimes unavoidable."

About 275 more US soldiers are being sent Tuesday to northern Iraq to bolster the coalition's fight against ISIS, NBC News reports.

Newsweek reports on the new black uniforms that some US service members have been spotted wearing, ostensibly to blend in with those worn by elite Iraqi units so they're not targeted as Americans.

The editorial board of the Sacramento Bee serves up a warning to President Trump to steer clear of getting involved in an "intractable" war. "If Trump thought the blowback to taking away people's health insurance was bad, he'd better not send thousands more Americans into battle," they write.

(Read more Mosul stories.)
Dogs were the first domesticated animal, but they may not have been the first to mooch off humans. Scientists previously believed mice started congregating around farms to snatch grain about 12,000 years ago. But new research out of Israel's University of Haifa suggests mice were interacting with humans in the region that is now Israel, Lebanon, and Syria, some 3,000 years before the dawn of agriculture and before domesticated dogs appeared, per the BBC. Researchers say fossil mouse teeth at archaeological sites of the Natufian culture of hunter-gatherers suggest the number of common house mice around humans increased as once-nomadic humans started to settle in one area and build houses 15,000 years ago, reports National Geographic. But the number of short-tailed micea species that is wilder and less tolerant of humansdwindled.

House mice were essentially out-competing the others, eating the food the newly sedentary Natufian people stored. When sites were occupied by humans, the mouse population was about 80% house mice and 20% short-tailed mice. Only when the Natufians moved on did the proportion of short-tailed mice in the area increase. The study author tells Gizmodo the house mice weren't exactly "domesticated" as they offered no benefit to humans. However, the research shows "we've been changing them and they've been changing us" for a very long time. Adds a researcher, "Thanks to this relationship, house mice have colonized almost every corner of the globe to become almost as ubiquitous as humans." One researcher notes that the study offers a "new, detailed window" into the shift from hunter-gatherer societies to more sedentary societies. (A recent study probed the origin of dogs.)
Flint residents battling tainted water may finally get some resolution on Tuesday. A federal judge is expected to approve a sweeping settlement that spells out a plan to replace water lines for thousands of homes, reports the AP. Under the deal, Flint would replace at least 18,000 lead or galvanized-steel water lines by 2020, and the state would pick up the bill with state and federal money. The cost is expected to be about $100 million. The settlement calls for the replacement of 6,000 lines in each of the next three years, with all the work done by Jan. 1, 2020, reports the Detroit Free Press. More than 700 water lines already have been replaced and work is ongoing, but the agreement would end the uncertainty over how to pay for the enormous task.

The state will set aside $87 million and keep another $10 million in reserve if necessary. Another part of the deal revolves around bottled water. The state would deliver it for free to homebound residents and continue running at least nine distribution centers, reports the Detroit News. But if demand peters out and tests improve, the state can begin shutting down the distribution centers later this year. Plaintiffs wanted door-to-door delivery of bottled water, but the agreement rejected that. Instead, residents can continue to call the city's 211 service and get free bottled water within 24 hours. (Read more Flint water crisis stories.)
Monday saw the start of UN talks focused on a noble goal: banning nuclear weapons across our planet. It was the result of a 2016 vote that saw more than 100 countries in favor of a UN General Assembly resolution to kick off such talks, which are aimed at ultimately establishing an international treaty that would prohibit the development and possession of such weapons, CNN reports. By extension, using them would also be banned. The AP reports Austria, Brazil, and Ireland were at the forefront of the effort. Wondering where the US is? Boycotting. US Ambassador Nikki Haley was present Mondaybut remained outside the General Assembly hall with other boycotting nations in a sign of opposition.

One big quote: "As a mom, as a daughter, there is nothing I want more for my family than a world with no nuclear weapons. But we have to be realistic." Her view is that the nearly 50-year-old Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is doing its job, with the US slashing its nuclear arsenal by 85% under it, and that North Korea is too big a loose cannon for this to be a responsible or feasible endeavor. "North Korea would be the one cheering, and all of us and the people we represent would be the ones at risk," she said. By the Guardian's count, 113 countries are participating, but 40 are boycotting, and that list includes the US, China, France, Britain, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea, which the paper points out are the nine states known to have nuclear weapons. (Read more nuclear weapons stories.)
If James K. Polk doesn't already hold the record for most burials of a former US president, there's little doubt he soon will. The Tennessee Senate voted 20-6 Monday to allow the remains of the 11th president to be exhumed and reburiedfor the third time, the AP reports. Unsurprisingly, the repeated digging up of a president hasn't been without controversy. According to the Washington Post, Polk died of cholera in 1849 and was quickly buried in a mass grave in Nashville City Cemetery. Laws at the time required people who died of infectious diseases to be buried within 24 hours. A year later, his body was reburied at his home in Nashville as specified in his will, the Tennessean reports. Polk's remains were moved again in 1891 after a family fight resulted in his home being sold and eventually becoming a hotel.

The idea to move Polk's remains a third timefrom the grounds of the state Capitol to his family's home in Columbiacomes from Tom Price, the curator of the James K. Polk Home and Museum. He says the move will help better preserve Polk's legacy and improve awareness of the former presidentand maybe even increase visits to the museum, which lag far behind those to Andrew Jackson's nearby home. But some of Polk's descendants are against the move, calling it "degrading" and akin to "grave robbery." The resolution to exhume and relocate Polk's remains still needs to be approved by a court, the state's House of Representatives, and the Tennessee Historical Society. (Read more Tennessee stories.)
Uber is ceasing operations in Denmark in April thanks to a new law that requires taxi services to follow stricter guidelines. New regulations include mandatory seat sensors and costly fare meters, reports Reuters. Additionally, a cap on the number of licenses doled out each year would make it impossible for the company to get all of its 2,000-plus drivers on board anytime soon, reports City.AM. Since launching in Denmark in 2014, Uber has attracted over 300,000 Danes to its app. But competitors considered Ubers successful entry unfair to the countrys 6,000 taxi drivers, who were already following stricter regulations.

"When they [Uber] started two and a half years ago it was illegal and was ruled illegal several times, says Jan Villadsen, president of a Denmark union transportation section. The new law has not changed that." Denmarks regulations are yet another whopper to add to Ubers woes in 2017, which include losing its president, allegations of sexist practices at the company, and a crash that has halted self-driving car testing. But Uber remains hopeful. It is not necessarily a farewell to Denmark, but a message to politicians that we must draw consequences from the law that is on the table, and that we cant live with it as it appears now, said an Uber spokesperson, per the Financial Times. (Read more Uber stories.)
Police are investigating after suspected human waste was found inside cans at a Coca-Cola plant in Ireland, the Belfast Telegraph reports. Topless cans arrive at the factory to be filled by Coca-Cola products and sealed before they're sold around Northern Ireland. The cans in questionbelieved to have come from Germanyjammed the plant's machines during the night shift. Apparent human waste in the cans was determined to be the culprit. An unnamed source describes an "absolutely horrible" scene that resulted in the machines being turned off for 15 hours for cleaning. The Guardian specifies the type of human waste found in the cans was feces.

One Irish politician tells the BBC the incident "beggars belief" because Coca-Cola "are sticklers for hygiene, cleanliness, and about contamination." The drink giant says all the tainted cans were caught and no products available to the public were affected. While the investigationby both police and Coca-Colais ongoing, one rumor is that the human waste came from immigrants attempting to enter the UK in the back of the truck and using the cans as toilets out of desperation. (Read more Coca-Cola stories.)
President Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order to unwind many of the environmental rules put in place by President Obama. The big change is that he ordered a review of the Clean Power Plan, which was designed to curb emissions at coal-fired power plants. The president celebrated "the start of a new era" in energy production, while environmentalists called it both "dangerous" and "embarrassing." A look at coverage:

Trump signed the "Energy Independence" executive order at the EPA while surrounded by coal miners. "Today I'm putting an end to the war on coal," he declared. See coverage of the event at the Guardian.

The Clean Power Plan hadn't actually taken effect yet because it had been held up in the courts, explains the New York Times in a primer.

Despite the move to ease up on coal regulations, the utility industry is expected to continue its shift toward natural gas, wind, and solar, reports the Wall Street Journal. It points out that US utilities generated more electricity last year from natural gas than coal, and that trend is expected to continue.

The AP takes a look at the effect on the coal industry and doesn't see a quick turnaround in the cards. In terms of jobs, it notes that more efficient ways of extracting coal have reduced the need for miners.

Amplifying the point is a quote from Robert Murray, chief executive of coal giant Murray Energy. These actions are vital to the American coal industry, to our survival, and to getting some of our coal families back to work," he said of Trump's action. But he added: "I really dont know how far the coal industry can be brought back." See the New York Times.

Trump's move does not pull the US out of the 2015 Paris climate accord, but it seriously undermines the promises made at the forum by President Obama. An NPR interview explains.

Not far enough? Conservative critics are unhappy Trump did not order the EPA to re-evaluate a 2009 "endangerment finding" that greenhouse gas threatens human welfare, notes Politico. A writer at Breitbart makes the case that EPA chief Scott Pruitt should resign over this.

A takeaway from a Washington Post analysis: "While Trump can unwind Obamas climate legacy to some extent, the economic and political forces that have spurred those underlying shifts are largely beyond his control."

Now comes the hard part, warns CNBC: Tuesday's move provides a framework, but the White House must still come up with a detailed replacement for the Clean Power Plan.

One of the Obama orders being repealed directed federal agencies to coordinate and prepare for extreme weather, reports Bloomberg, which looks at the ramifications.

(Read more President Trump stories.)
In the hopes of clearing the air, United Airlines issued a statement clarifying what happened about the "leggings" issue that hounded the headlines and made a buzz in the social media scene.

According to a report, Shannon Watts, presumably a fellow passenger saw that the gate agent of United Airlines refused two girls to board their flight. The girls both wore leggings and one was asked to change before she could board the Denver to Minneapolis flight. Watts was at the Denver International Airport at that time and posted on her Twitter account that the gate agent won't allow the girls to board because "spandex is not allowed" on board.

An uproar on social media ensued and prompted a lot of responses from the netizens. Even the actress Patricia Arquette joined the fray and said that "leggings are business attire for 10 year olds. Their business is being children."

Finally, an official word from United Airlines was published on their twitter account and they explained their side of the story. According to United's post, the passengers who were asked to chance their attire were not their regular paying travelers but were "United pass riders."

United pass riders are family members or friends of United employees who avail of the benefits that are accorded to United Airlines workers. According to the explanation of United, these United pass riders have to follow their rules on flying, including dress codes.

To our customers...your leggings are welcome! Learn more about our company's pass travel privilege: https://t.co/5e3euG1H9G.  United (@united) March 27, 2017

United has explained that regular paying passengers wearing leggings are welcome. They are saying that the dress code is simply for those who are availing of the perks of being an employee of United. They are saying that as a United pass rider, the person is projecting the image of United as well and should dress that will "meet or exceed the casual standards" for the public.
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BERLIN (Reuters) - The German Finance Ministry is worried there will be turbulence on the financial markets if there is a 'hard Brexit', a German newspaper reported on Monday - two days before Britain triggers divorce proceedings with the European Union.

Handelsblatt daily cited a risk analysis from the Finance Ministry as saying that if Britain and the EU do not strike a deal about Britain's exit in time, it could threaten the stability of financial markets.

The ministry is also worried that the two-year negotiation period between Britain and the EU will not suffice to conclude a free trade deal with Britain and that would mean there are "significant" risks for the financial markets, it said.

For that reason, there should be interim solutions, said the analysis, which talked about "phasing out".

An abrupt exit could "trigger dislocations", with British banks no longer able to offer their services in the EU and banks in the EU finding they no longer have access to the financial centre in London, the report said.

That would result in "grave economic and systemic consequences" for Europe, the newspaper added.

It said that Germany had a strong interest in having an "integrated financial market" with Britain but for that London would need to fulfil conditions such as accepting the EU's basic freedoms as well as strict regulatory standards.

The German government is taking a tough line on the EU budget and wants Britain to promise, at the start of negotiations, that it will meet all of its obligations, including after quitting the EU, and Britain should pay to have access to the European Single Market, the newspaper said.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by Ken Ferris)
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Snow flurries and snow showers. Low 13F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 40%. Snow accumulations less than one inch..

Tonight

Snow flurries and snow showers. Low 13F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 40%. Snow accumulations less than one inch.
New Delhi:

Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has sought a report from Uttar Pradesh government over arrest of some African nationals for their alleged role in death of a class 12th student in Noida.

"I have asked for a report from Government of Uttar Pradesh about the reported attack on African students in Noida," she said in a tweet.

Sadiq - Government of India is seized of the matter. We are taking immediate action. https://t.co/SRdS2QGuj1  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath ji Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh about attack on African students in Greater Noida. /1  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

So far, five people have been arrested in connection with the assault on Nigerian nationals in Greater Noida. According to media reports, five Nigerian students were picked by the police for their role in the death of the class 12th student reportedly due to drug overdose on March 25.

ALSO READ | Sushma Swaraj tries to help kidnapped man in Serbia, later finds video fake
New Delhi:

African students living in Delhi-NCR region termed Tuesday's attack on students at a Greater Noida mall as hate crime and demanded that they be provided adequate security in the country.

"In Greater Noida, they (locals) say that Africans 'we don't want you to be here anymore'. These are actually hate crimes towards African community. Africans are not secure in this country," Association of African Students president Samuel Jack said.

He said Africans may not come to India for studies due to safety concerns in the wake of such incidents. "I urge them (Africans), wherever they are, to stop making India their destination of study until and unless there is proper security," he added.

Jack claimed that the alleged attack on African students last night was mobilised by local youths and police have arrested six of them while two others were absconding.

Four Nigerian students were allegedly attacked by residents who took out a candle-light march for a 17-year-old boy who had died last week due to suspected drug overdose.

The boy's parents had alleged that the foreigners had kidnapped him and given him drugs which led to his death. One of the injured Nigerians alleged that he was assaulted for no reason.

"I don't go to club in this country. I don't drink. They assaulted me for no reason. I don't know what to say. They do not want us to be in this country," he claimed.

Read | African nationals arrested for alleged role in class 12th student's death in Noida, Sushma Swaraj seeks report



External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj said the central government was taking immediate action and that she had spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who had assured her of a fair and impartial investigation into this "unfortunate" incident. PTI MP RT 03281522
New Delhi:

At least once in your life, you all must have gone to the Cafe Coffee Day outlet. One may have a lot of reasons to remember CCD, for some first dates, for others friendship or even professional meets or get together. But a recent incident proves CCD's tagline the best possible way, A lot can happen over coffee.



A video has been doing rounds on social media in which a lady staff member of one of CCD outlets in Jaipur slaps a consumer after he spotted cockroaches in their fridge.



Customer, Arpan Verma shoots the breeding ground of cockroaches in the refrigerated counter of CCD. As soon as the recording starts, a lady staff member throws a tight slap on Verma's face. Later, Nikhil Anand Singh, a friend of Verma tweeted the video.



ALSO READ | Viral Video: Neem tree offers 'free beer' in Delhi Universitys north campus

The Indian coffee chain has released a statement on the matter. "We have escalated the recent issue at our Jaipur outlet, and are in talks with the consumer & the internal team to ascertain facts," company tweeted from official handle.
Bikaner/Jaipur:

Rajasthan Commission for Women on Monday filed the complaint in the alleged gang rape of a 13-year-old cancer-affected girl in Bikaner. However, they cited that the girls father was in an unstable state of mind which shrouds mystery in the case.

The father of the girl said that his mental condition was not good, therefore, he lodged the case, Sushma Kumawat, member of the state commission for women, told PTI.

However, she said, it could not be concluded whether the case was fake or genuine until the girls statement was recorded.

The Commission also visited the victims village and spoke to the locals and her family members.

Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria said in Jaipur that the medical report of the girl was not clear as the alleged incident had happened two years back.

Also Read: Delhi witnesses dip in rape cases, rise in murder in 2017 first quarter

Women and Child Development minister Anita Bhadel also questioned the delay in reporting the matter to the police.

Facts have emerged contrary to the allegations of the father, which in turn raise doubts, she told reporters, adding that the final report would make things clear.

Circle Officer Banwari Lal said the girls statement will be recorded on Tuesday.

Also Read | Nirbhaya gangrape case: SC reserves order over plea of four death row convicts

The matter of the gang rape came to light on Friday last after the minor girls father alleged that his daughter was raped by eight teachers of a private school. He also alleged that the accused made a video of the heinous act.

The alleged incident occurred in April 2015 and the FIR was registered against the teachers after the girls father gave a complaint to the SP.

Before the rape FIR, one of the accused teachers had filed a case against four persons including two brothers of the girl on March 20 for allegedly thrashing him.

The state government has maintained that the case has many chinks.

Kataria had said that the case was lodged by the father of the girl as a counter to another case and the examination by the medical board will only verify the allegations.

I cannot understand if eight people rape a girl and she does not inform the (family) the same day. However, the allegations are serious and we have formed the medical board and only after the medical examination, it will become clear, he had said.

Manan Chaturvedi, the chairperson of the state commission for protection of child rights, also said the matter should be thoroughly and impartially investigated as to why the father did not approach the police to file a case earlier.
New Delhi:

Kriti Sanon has rubbished the reports of her break-up with Sushant Singh Rajput and stated that one can't plan a relationship.

It was reported that the rumoured couple had parted ways after dating each other for over a year.

The media reports also suggest that Kriti had a tough time dealing with Rajput's frequent mood swings and temperamental issues.

However, the 'Dilwale' actress has clearly dismissed the reports and asserted that she wasn't even dating SSR.

Also Read: Kriti Sanon-Sushant Singh Rajput call it QUITS! Is this the reason?

Sanon also avered that while she is single, she wouldn't mind dating someone from the industry.

You cant plan a relationship. You connect with people or you dont. Im single, honestly. But Im okay dating someone from the industry, a boyfriend would have to understand my profession and its not an easy one to understand unless youre a part of it, Kriti told a leading daily.

Interestingly, reports of Kriti and Sushant's relationship are rife ever since the two began shooting for their upcoming movie 'Raabta'.

Also Read: Say what! Sushant Singh Rajput celebrates his birthday with rumoured girlfriend Kriti Sanon

In fact, it was also speculated that Rajput's growing proximity was one of the reasons behind his break-up with long-time girlfriend Ankita Lokhande.

However, both Sushant and Kriti had always maintained the just friends stance.

On the work front, Kriti Sanon will be seen in Ayushamann Khurrana starrer 'Bareilly Ki Barfi', which is slated to release in July.

Besides, Sushant is busy with two of his upcoming movies - 'Chandamama Door Ke' and 'Romeo Akbar Watler'.

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Thane:

Non-bailable warrants were issued by a district court in Thane to Vicky Goswami, the alleged international drug-lord and his partner and Bollywood actor Mamta Kulkarni in an ephedrine haul case.

Both are believed to be outside India.

District Judge H M Patwardhan issued the warrants on Tuesday.

Thane police raided Avon Lifesciences in Solapur in 2016 and seized around 18.5 tonne of ephedrine worth Rs 2,000 crore.

As per the police, ephedrine was being diverted from Avon Lifesciences to a Kenya-based drug cartel headed by Goswami where it was used to make party-drug Methamphetamine.

The police have arrested more than 10 persons in the case.

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New Delhi:

Ex-Bigg Boss contestants Sapna Bhavnani and Bani J recently took the internet by storm when a photo of them kissing each other went viral on social media.

It was reported, that the two ladies were were partying together at a posh hotel in Mumbai and even shared some fun moments together.

However, it was this picture of Sapna and Bani that created a buzz as the two were seen locking lips.

Celebrity hairstylist Sapna shared a video of herself with Bani the two girls moving in really close to each other, so much so that it appears the two ladies are apparently kissing each other. However, from the video, it is clearly evident that they are just pretending to do so as it was just the boomerang effect.

Boomerang allows users to create and share mini-videos. The video loops, much like a gif, plays the images backwards and forwards for a "Boomerang" effect.

She captioned the video as, You are my Sunshine Bani.

The picture has become the talk of the town ever since Sapna dropped it on her Instagram account. Sapna later took to social media shut down the people who publicized the picture.

She wrote, Just finished yoga and saw that Bani J and I are trending for a kiss which I wish was a kiss but really just a snapshot of a boomerang. India when will we move forward. Really! Sooooooooo Much attention for a KISS??? Dang people fighting for world peace dont trend so much!!! lol. Hope more women and men come out and kiss and show yall love does not have a gender. My life. My rules. Kisses to all. Men and Women and the Transgender.

Read more: Sunil Grover row: Mashoor Gulati to be back on 'The Kapil Sharma Show'! Is the fight over?

Both Bani and Sapna have voiced their opinions against the voices of the society. While Sapna has been vocal about being bisexual, Bani is rumored to be dating television actor Yuvraj Thakur, who shot to fame with a show on MTV India.

On the work front, Bani J is a ex-Bigg Boss contestant and was one of the finalists on the show. Now Bani is all set To make acting debut on TV with the same role that Angelina Jolie Played in 'Alexander'. The show is apparently based on the life of Alexander the Great, and Bani will play the role of his mother Queen Olympias.
New Delhi:

The Government on Tuesday informed the Parliament that as many as 19 cases related to ISIS activities have been registered in the country by National Investigation Agency (NIA).

The central probe agency has filed charge sheets in eleven of these cases, Minister of State for Home Hansraj GAhir told the Lok Sabha in a written reply.

"The NIA has registered 19 cases related to ISIS/IS and out of these, charge sheets have been filed in 11 cases.

"Two of these cases relate to missing of 22 persons fromKerala and their subsequent travel to ISIS-controlled territory in Afghanistan," he said.

Replying to a related query, the Minister said Shahjeer Mangalassery, son of Abdulla, is an "accused in a case registered by the National Investigation Agency regarding the ISIS/IS inspired activities of some youths from Kerala and Tamil Nadu."

Also Read: Kerala IS module had plans to attack Hindu leaders, Ahmadiyya mosques: Nabbed terrorist to NIA

During investigation, it has been revealed that he had gone from UAE to IS controlled territory in Afghanistan inJune, 2016.

A non-bailable warrant against him has been obtained from the special NIA court at Ernakulam," he said.

Ahir added that the central and state agencies are"monitoring the cyber space which is being used to radicalise and recruit persons by ISIS and the law enforcement agencies take action as per law."

Also Read: UP police receives threat letters citing destruction of Purvanchal by 'Pakistan ISIS'

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New Delhi :

Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad booked an Air India ticket from Mumbai to Delhi, but the state-run carrier cancelled his ticket if sources are to be believed.

In an ongoing feud between the official air carrier and Shiv Sena MP, the latter's party backed him in the Parliament and his party leaders had met Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Union aviation minister Ashok Gajapati Raju in their respective chambers on Monday.

It was said that Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad may be allowed to fly again soon after the Parliamentarians defended the unfazed leader which puts pressure on the government considering amendments in the rules.

On Monday, the Delhi police crime branch had recorded statements of 15 Air India persons in connection with assault case of a staff by Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad.

Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad booked an Air India ticket from Mumbai to Delhi but Air India cancelled it (file pic) pic.twitter.com/c6ObgNUC20  ANI (@ANI_news) March 28, 2017

The police had recorded statements of 15 persons including the victim, Sukumar, who was allegedly thrashed by Osmanabad MP Ravindra Gaikwad a few days back.

Also Read: SP leader Naresh Agrawal defends Ravindra Gaikwad in Rajya Sabha

The police had also sought details of the video and CCTV footage. DCP (crime branch) Ram Gopal Naik spearheaded the team that recorded the statements of 15 persons.

An FIR was registered against him on the basis of the complaint lodged by Air India for repeatedly hitting with sandals 62-year-old duty manager R Sukumar on a Pune-Delhi flight after it landed in Delhi over not being able to fly business class despite having boarded an all-economy flight.

Gaikwad had to left for Maharashtra by train after Air India, along with four other private airlines banned him from flying on their aircraft.

Also Read : Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad-Air India row: Delhi police records statements of 15 persons

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New Delhi:

A Canadian citizen on a bicycle tour of Maoist-affected Chhattisgarh has gone missing from the insurgency-hit Sukma district, sources said on Tuesday. The citizen named John, was last traced in Sukma through a GPS tracking system installed on his bike.

Johns disappearance sent the police department into a tizzy and a massive search operation was launched to locate him.

People have expressed their concern for the Canadian and they fear that Maoists might capture him to press for their demands.

Read | Canadian researcher feared abducted by maoists, Sushma Swaraj seeks report from Odisha CM

However, police officials have said that John is safe and is staying with villagers as he is not familiar with the area.

Sukma SP Abhishek Meena said that police are trying to communicate with John through local traders and villagers to assure him of his safety.

John had entered Chhattisgarh from Andhra Pradesh border and headed towards Bastar region that is marred by the Maoists violence for years.

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(Adds stock moves, analyst comment)

By Nicole Mordant

VANCOUVER, March 28 (Reuters) - More partnership deals are likely in the gold industry as miners start investing in new projects again but are keen to lower the risk, analysts said after Goldcorp Inc and Barrick Gold Corp's announced a 50-50 joint venture in Chile.

The joint venture will work on developing gold mines in northern Chile's Maricunga belt and includes the Cerro Casale project, one of the world's biggest undeveloped deposits.

After five years of painful belt-tightening as the price of gold fell, the industry's biggest companies have started to loosen their purse strings to build mines and find new deposits to replenish falling production and reserves.

But miners remain cautious after Barrick and others suffered high-profile cost blowouts on developments during the last boom.

"The last thing the industry needs is another Sudbury (in northern Ontario), another Nevada, where you are building duplicate infrastructure on the same deposits," Goldcorp Chief Executive Officer David Garofalo said in an interview.

Shares of Goldcorp were down 5.8 percent in midday trading, falling more than other gold stocks as investors remained unsure whether what was likely to be a big capital project would have a high enough rate of return to be built, Gabelli Gold Fund research analyst Chris Mancini said.

Barrick, the largest gold miner, was down 1.7 percent.

Development partnerships could make sense on other big gold projects, such as Seabridge Gold Inc's KSM project in Canada and Northern Dynasty's Pebble deposit in Alaska, Mancini said.

As part of a complex series of transactions costing Goldcorp about $445 million up front, the Vancouver-based company is buying fellow Canadian miner Kinross Gold's 25 percent stake in Cerro Casale and all of its Quebrada Seca exploration project for an initial $260 million in cash.

Simultaneously, Goldcorp will also buy mine exploration and development company Exeter Resource Corp and its flagship Caspiche project 10 km (6 miles) from Cerro Casale for about $185 million in stock. Exeter shares surged 56 percent.

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Goldcorp will also acquire a 25 percent stake in Cerro Casale from Barrick, whose holding in the project will decrease to 50 percent. The company will pay for the stake by funding all initial expenditures on Cerro Casale and by contributing the Caspiche project into the joint venture.

Barrick President Kelvin Dushnisky said the company looked forward to the "fresh perspective" Goldcorp could bring to the Cerro Casale project. The agreement also meant Barrick could direct its capital to other ventures while retaining exposure to the big deposit.

Cerro Casale contains proven and probable reserves of 23.2 million ounces of gold and 58.7 million ounces of silver. It also contains 5.8 billion pounds of copper.

A decision on whether to go ahead with mine construction is five to seven years away, Garofalo said, noting that Goldcorp and Barrick must still do several years of studies.

Kinross will enter into a water supply agreement with the joint venture as part of the sale, it said in a statement.

The company suspended operations at its Maricunga gold mine in Chile last August after a regulator's decision to shut down the water system to the mine on environmental grounds.

Kinross said it expected to use the sale proceeds for in-house projects and to strengthen its balance sheet. Its shares were down 1.9 percent.

In 2015, Goldcorp partnered with diversified miner Teck Resources to develop neighboring mines in Chile to cut costs on building roads and other infrastructure, and to reduce their environmental footprint.

(Reporting by Nicole Mordant in Vancouver; Editing by Leslie Adler and Lisa Von Ahn)
Lucknow:

The Director General of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) Archana Ramasundaram requested Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to provide land for various establishments of the force.

She called on the Chief Minister at his office on Monday. Besides briefing the Chief Minister on important issues, the DG requested him to provide land for various establishments of the SSB, proposals for which are already under consideration, an official statement released by the SSB said.

It said, "The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister responded favorably to the request of the DG SSB." Ramasundaram was in the state capital to participate in a workshop on 'Interrogation - Methodology and Skills', which aimed at training 30 Inspectors and Sub-Inspectors of the SSB.

ALSO READ | Tale of two bans: Illegal slaughterhouses closed in UP, liquor ban in Bihar | Where's the plan to deal with job loss?

In her inaugural address, she said, "A proper approach to interrogation is the need of the hour to elicit maximum information from the accused and victims of border crime, so as to get the forward and backward linkages and information about any other associates involved in crime."

IG Lucknow Frontier Alok Sharma emphasized on the need to learn the interrogation skills and techniques to discharge the duties on the porus India-Nepal border.

ALSO READ | PM Narendra Modi, UP CM Yogi Adityanath begin nine-day long Navratri fasts, Here's what they eat!

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New Delhi:

After the entire row over Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad' who assaulted an Air India staffer, the govt is likely to provide more clarity on norms to deal with disruptive fliers.

While aviation regulator DGCA has guidelines in place to deal with unruly passengers, there is no specific mention about the possibility of barring any individual from flying for disruptive behaviour.

A senior Civil Aviation Ministry official said the current Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) on 'Handling of unruly/ disruptive passengers' has "some gaps" which needs to be plugged.

Read More: Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad-Air India row: Delhi police records statements of 15 persons

The Ministry will work towards making some changes in the CAR, which was issued back in November 2014. The revised norms would provide more clarity on preventive measures that can be initiated against any unruly passenger, the official said.

Even though there is no particular mention of regulatory provisions to bar an unruly passenger from boarding an aircraft, the 2014 CAR mentions that "every reasonable effort to protect passengers and personnel against any offence by unruly and disruptive passengers shall be made".

Among others, the CAR provides for airlines to establish the mechanism to detect and report unruly passenger behaviour at check-in, in the lounges, and at the boarding gate in order to prevent such people from boarding.

"In a case of occurrence of an act of unruly behaviour while the aircraft is on the ground, such cases shall be reported immediately in writing and First Information Report (FIR) lodged with security agency at the aerodrome for assistance," as per the CAR.

Later in the evening, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju evaded a direct reply to a query on whether the government would be revising the existing CAR.

"What I have told Parliament holds good," he said in response to the query on the sidelines of an event to launch a music video.

On whether he had discussions with Shiv Sena members, the Minister said, "We have discussions" and did not elaborate.Earlier in the day, Raju had made a statement regarding the incident involving the Shiv Sena MP.

"I never in my wildest dreams thought that an MP will get caught in such an incident... violence of any kind can be disastrous," he told the Lok Sabha.

Suggested Read: I was asked not to speak with media till Wednesday, says Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad

Following the assault of a 62-year-old Air India staffer by Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad at the Delhi airport last week, the national carrier, as well as six other domestic airlines barred him from taking any of their flights.

The incident, as well as the action by the airlines, have triggered a controversy on whether an elected representative can be barred from flying in the absence of any specific legal provisions.

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Srinagar:

Indian Army on Monday rescued 71 tourists who were stranded in Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir due to an avalanche between Chang La Pass and Tangtse village.

Indian Army troops deployed in eastern Ladakh responded to help civilians trapped at the Chang La Pass due to an avalanche that struck between Chang La and Tangtse.

Also Read: Militants open fire on CRPF camp in J-K's Kulgam, no casualties reported

Seventy-one tourists, including 21 women and children, were rescued and provided medical assistance, food, clothing and accommodation, a defence spokesman said today in a statement issued in Ladakh.

The spokesman did not give details as to when the incident took place.

Also Read: 'High danger' avalanche warning for some areas in J&K, HP

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New Delhi:

At least 43 personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and about 20 policemen sustained injuries after some local Kashmiris started pelting stones at them at an encounter site in Budgam.

Three youth were killed when security forces, engaged in an encounter with militants at Durbugh village of Chadoora, opened fire to chase away protesters attempting to break the cordon around a house where militants had taken shelter. A militant was also gunned down during the encounter.

"43 CRPF jawans were injured and police reported that 20 of their men also sustained injuries in the stone pelting today, ANI quoted CRPF DIG Sanjay Kumar as saying.

Few people really made our day difficult. Lot of commotions, stone pelting, abusing and injuring our people. The operation was really difficult, we had to fight it on two different platforms, against militants and local people, Kumar said.

Read | After Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat's warning, public asked to stay away from encounter sites in Kashmir

Security forces had launched a cordon and search operation in the village early on Tuesday following information about the presence of militants, a police official said.

The search operation turned into a gunbattle after militants opened fire on the security forces, he added. As the security forces exchanged fire with the holed up militants, a large number of protestors started pelting stones at the law enforcing agencies, the official said.

Meanwhile, separatists have called for a general strike on Wednesday against the killing of civilians during Tuesday's protests and have sought an impartial inquiry into the incident.

"There should be a complete strike tomorrow and peaceful protests after Friday prayers against the incident," chairmen of both factions of Hurriyat Conference, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and JKLF chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik said in a joint statement in Srinagar.

The separatists alleged that the Chadoora incident was the outcome of the Army chief General Bipin Rawat's statement warning local youth against creating hurdles during anti-militancy operations early this year.

Read | Pellet guns may be used by security forces to control unruly mobs in Kashmir if chilli-filled PAVA shells fail: Govt

(With inputs from PTI)

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Sant Kabir Nagar (UP):

A person was injured when a low-intensity crude bomb exploded near a railway track in Khalilabad town in Sant Kabir Nagar, UP on Tuesday morning, police said.



Raju Thapa, who hails from Nepal, was collecting trash lying near the railway track when a low-intensity crude bomb exploded, SP Hiralal said.



A police team reached the spot and found three more live bombs in the bag in which Thapa had collected the waste, the SP said.



He said that the bombs look like low-intensity sutli bombs or crude bombs.



The injured has been rushed to a hospital and police are probing the matter.

(With PTI Inputs)

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Lucknow :

Agitating meat sellers and exporters held talks with Uttar Pradesh health minister Siddhartha Nath Singh on the second day of their strike but no rapprochement appeared in sight.

We have noted all the issues raised by them with an open mind. The Uttar Pradesh government will not allow anything illegal to happen, Singh said after the meeting as he directed officials not act in over-zealousness or overstep their jurisdiction.

The office bearers of the associations have submitted a memorandum to the state government and now want to meet Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Aditya Nath Yogi.

We look forward to working with them within the system. If needed, we will meet again, Singh said. He said the government is acting only against illegal abattoirs.

Also read: Illegal slaughterhouses closed in UP, total liquor ban in Bihar: Where's the plan to deal with job loss?

We are acting only against illegal abattoirs. Licenced slaughter houses are requested to stick to the norms. The licenced slaughter houses should comply with the norms mentioned in the licence and need not to fear. No orders have been issued to take any action against any shop selling chicken, fish or eggs, he said.

Singh however said that if officials were insisting on checking the licence of meat shops, there was nothing wrong in it. We are acting as per the provisions of the law and not on the basis of any pre-conceived notions, he said.

Meanwhile, the indefinite strike called by meatsellers and mutton shop owners entered its second day and threatened to go on for much longer.

The strike called by mutton sellers would continue at least till the end of Navaratra (April 5). It may be extended further depending upon the outcome of talks, Mubeen Qureshi, an office bearer of Lucknow Bakra Gosht Vyapar Mandal said.

The sale of fish, egg and chicken was normal in the state capital but mutton lovers continued to be disappointed. As the hindu festival of Navratras has begun, the demand for non-vegetarian food is expected to relatively come down for the next few days.

Iqbal Qureshi, president of Meat-Murga Vyapaari Kalyan Samiti, UP, said the state government has started initiating action against the illegal slaughter houses, but the action has affected the shopkeepers and their livelihood.

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Noida :

A major backlash erupted at a Chinese mobile company's office in Noida on Tuesday after a company official allegedly "tore the national flag and dumped it in a dustbin." Soon after which, a number of people reached the site and staged a protest for allegedly disrespecting the national flag.

The company officials have offered an unconditional apology after the district authorities and Deputy Labour Commissioner intervened in the matter, officials said.

Also Read | Budgam encounter: 43 CRPF men injured in stone-pelting by protesters, civilian death toll reaches 3

Company officials and agitating employees were taken to the discussion table. Both promised to resolve the issue amicably, city magistrate Ramanuj Singh said.

Singh said the employees demanded that the CCTV footage should be checked to identify the Chinese official who threw the Indian flag in the dustbin and a FIR be lodged against him. Company officers have offered apology.

Read More | MCD Polls 2017: Yogi Adityanath among eight BJP CMs to seek vote for party as star campaigners

There was a labour dispute between workers and the Chinese company, Deputy Labour Commissioner too was called to settle the matter amicably, according to district officials.

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Washington:

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday called up Prime Minister Narendra Modi and congratulated him on his recent electoral success, the White House said.



Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump congratulated Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on their electoral victories.



The White House said the leaders spoke by phone. The president spoke with German Chancellor Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Modi earlier today to congratulate them on their parties success in recent elections, Spicer said.



Following the elections held in five states that begun on February 4 and ended on March 9 after polling was rescheduled in some constituencies, Modis Bharatiya Janata Party formed the government in four states: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.



It, however, lost Punjab to main rival Congress in the results announced on March 11.

Read | Modi among the probable names for Time magazine's most influential



Anchored mainly by Modi and his aide Amit Shah, the BJP juggernaut rolled on in Uttar Pradesh and in the neighbouring state of Uttarakhand, bagging three-fourth majority.



The BJP returned to power in the politically-crucial state of UP after a gap of 15 years during which regional parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party held sway.



Goa and Manipur had hung assemblies after the polls, but the BJP managed to form the government with support from other regional parties.



The elections in the five states had turned into a virtual referendum on Modis popularity following his much-debated decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.

Read | Trump Govt targets 270 Indians in US for deportation, India demands more info to establish they're Indian nationals



Previously, Modi and Trump talked by phone on January 24, when they had resolved to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the global fight against terrorism and for defence and security.



According to a White House statement then, Trump had emphasised that the US considers India a true friend and partner in addressing challenges around the world.



The two leaders had exchanged invitations for visits.



President Trump looked forward to hosting Prime Minister Modi in the US later this year, the statement had said.



Prime Minister Modi was the fifth foreign leader Trump had spoken to on phone after he was sworn-in as the US president on January 20. He had by then spoken to British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canadas Justin Trudeau, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.



After his surprise victory in the November 8 elections in the US, Modi was among the first world leaders to congratulate Trump. And during the gruelling election campaign, India and Israel were the two prominent countries Trump spoke of strengthening ties if he were to become the president.

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New Delhi:

Pappu Yadav's arrest issue was on Tuesday raised by his wife Ranjit Ranjan in the Lok Sabha who accused Bihar police of violating the lawmaker's rights.

The Madhepura MP and Jan Adhikar Party leader was arrested on Monday from his residence in Patna's Mandiri locality in connection with an old case related to causing nuisance near the state capital's Kargil Chowk on January 24.

"One of the members of the House was arrested in Patna yesterday. He was arrested for staging a peaceful protest. Is it not violation of his democratic rights? He was wrongfully confined," Ranjan, a Congress MP, said during the Zero Hour.

The arrest of Yadav came after some of his party workers clashed with the police yesterday while they were staging a dharna over various issues including the proposed hike in power tariff.

ALSO READ | Delay in vacancy filling for SCs, Sts and OBCs rocks Rajya Sabha proceedings

Another Congress leader and Vadakara MP Mullappally Ramachandran spoke about "rising" cases of atrocities against women in Kerala and asked the Centre to seek a report on the issue from the state government.

"Kerala has been witnessing a sudden spurt in incidents of assaults on women. Even little girls aged 4 to 5 are not spared. The state government has miserably failed to contain the assaults," he said.

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New Delhi:

The White House on Tuesday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to visit United States this year. US President Donald Trump spoke to Narendra Modi over phone and said that he looked forward to play host this year.

"President Trump also said he looks forward to hosting Prime Minister Modi in Washington later this year," the White House said in a statement.

The dates for Modis visit to US is yet not decided.

Trump congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the outcome of recent state elections and expressed his support to the Indian leader's economic reform agenda, the White House said.

Also read: PM Modi, Prez greet nation on Gudi Padava and Navreh

Earlier, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump congratulated Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday on their electoral victories.

Also read: Modi gets a congratulatory call from Trump for electoral success

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Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., joined by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif., talks about getting past last week's failure to pass a health care overhaul bill and rebuilding unity in the Republican Conference, Tuesday, March 28, 2017, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Speaker Paul Ryan said Tuesday he's going to give battered House Republicans another crack at a health care overhaul. But he offered no timeline, and leaders haven't resolved how to overcome the deep GOP divisions that crumpled their legislation last week in a humiliating retreat for themselves and President Donald Trump.

"We are all going to work together and listen together until we get this right," Ryan told reporters after House Republicans met for the first time since he averted a Friday vote on a GOP health care bill that faced certain defeat. "It is just too important."

The doomed GOP bill would have eliminated former President Barack Obama's mandate for people to carry insurance or face fines and would have shrunk a Medicaid expansion. It relied on tax credits to help consumers purchase insurance that for many people would be less generous than under Obama's statute.

Republican lawmakers, conservatives and moderates alike, emerged from Tuesday's meeting saying there was a consensus to address the issue again, preferably soon. The closed-door meeting lasted nearly two hours, causing Ryan to delay his news conference.

"You don't go anywhere until this is accomplished. That's how we do things on the battlefield, that's how things should be done here," said freshman Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., an Army veteran who lost both legs after being wounded in Afghanistan.

After the meeting, Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., said that unless the issue is revisited in a month, he would force the House to vote on a bill that goes further than Ryan's derailed measure in repealing Obama's 2010 law.

Brooks is in in the conservative House Freedom Caucus, most of whom opposed the failed GOP bill, which was pivotal in the collapse of the party's top priority so far this year. They complained it didn't go far enough in erasing Obama's statute.

"We'll find out who is truly for repeal of Obamacare and who is not," Brooks said.

The leader of the Freedom Caucus, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said his group was talking to moderate Republicans. Many of them also opposed the leadership's failed bill because it would have pried health coverage from millions of voters.

Story continues

"Obviously everybody wants to find a way to get this passed and we're going to work real hard to do that," said Meadows.

Republicans say they will now pivot to tax cuts and other issues while they try working out their differences. And they've offered mixed messages on what comes next.

Trump tweeted Monday evening that Democrats will cut a health care deal with him "as soon as Obamacare folds - not long. Do not worry."

He also attacked anew the House Freedom Caucus, about three dozen hardcore conservatives who largely opposed the GOP bill. He wrote that they snatched "defeat from the jaws of victory."

House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, an author of the failed legislation, told reporters that Republicans "are turning the page and moving on toward tax reform." He said he's encouraging the Senate to produce its own health care package, and he and others suggested that lawmakers may produce several smaller bills addressing pieces of the issue.

But the Senate GOP's No. 2 leader, John Cornyn of Texas, showed little appetite to plunge ahead.

"My hope is that Democrats will quit gloating at our inability to get it done on a party-line basis and join us in fixing" Obama's law, Cornyn said. He said he didn't expect that to happen until "our Democratic friends have to start answering to the people who are being hurt by the failures of Obamacare."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats will address Obama's overhaul only when Republicans drop their repeal effort. He accused Trump of using executive actions to destabilize the health care system. "That's not presidential," he said, "that's petulance."

Obama's overhaul has provided insurance to 20 million additional people and forced insurers to provide better coverage to many more, but it's also left some markets with soaring premiums and fewer insurers.

The health care strategizing comes as the GOP has one clear bright spot: Trump's nomination of conservative appeals court Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. The Senate plans to consider Gorsuch next week.

Brady wants his panel to produce a bill overhauling much of the nation's tax code this spring. But Republicans must overcome internal differences on that issue too, including whether to impose taxes on imports to encourage manufacturers to produce products domestically and whether the measure should drive up deficits.

Congress is fast approaching a deadline to pass government-wide spending legislation or face a shutdown. In the past such deadlines have prompted brinkmanship that sometimes led to shuttering agencies.

___

Associated Press writers Erica Werner, Kevin Freking and Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.
Jamshedpur:

Seven quintals of ganja were seized during a raid by police at a village in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand on Tuesday and four persons were arrested in connection with it.

Acting on a tip-off, a police team arrested one per with 2.5 kg of the narcotic, said Superintendent of Police Anish Gupta.

Based on information got from the man during interrogation, Gupta said the police team conducted a raid at Baralagura village and recovered seven quintals of ganja from the houses of three other persons, who were also arrested.

The ganja seized from the village is valued at aboutRs 25 lakh. The SP said the accused had illegally planted poppy and stored the narcotic to sell it at Chaibasa and adjoining areas.

Also Read: Pics | More than 2500 kg cannabis seized from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in two separate raids by DRI officials

Also Read: Andhra Pradesh: Ganja smuggler held, 120 kg contraband seized

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New Delhi:

Supreme Court on Monday reserved its verdict on a plea seeking ban on registration of BS III vehicles from April 1, 2017.

Supreme Court bans sale of BS III vehicles from April 1

The apex court was to decide whether or not old and polluting Bharat Stage-III vehicles should be allowed to be registered after end of March.

The central government came out in support of vehicle makers arguing before the Supreme Court that the March 31 deadline is for manufacturing and not sales or registration.

Quoting same changes in emission norms (from BS-II to BS-III for instance) the government stated that in each case the deadline was meant for manufacturing while sales and registration of previous generation vehicles were allowed even after April 1.

Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV) on Monday said that BS3 vehicles should not be allowed to sell in the country after April 1, the deadline for a move to BS4 norms, as it is already scaling down such vehicles.

The Supreme Court is seized of the matter where automobile manufacturers are seeking permission for disposing of around 8.2 lakh BS3 vehicles in stock.

Also Read: Stop selling of BS3 vehicles after April 1, says Daimler India Commercial Vehicles

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New Delhi:

In his first decisions, Yogi Adityanath after taking oath as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh on March 19 directed top police officials to prepare action plan for closure of all illegal slaughterhouses running in the state with immediate effect.

The government went into crackdown mode after CM Adityanaths order and began to shut down all illegal slaughterhouses which were running without necessary licences and for not following National Green Tribunal (NGT) guidelines.

Later, clearing confusion over its action against slaughterhouses, the Uttar Pradesh government said it was acting only against the illegal abattoirs.

Also Read | Crackdown only against illegal slaughter houses in Uttar Pradesh: Govt

We are acting only against illegal abattoirs. Licenced slaughter houses are requested to stick to the norms, Health Minister Siddhartha Nath Singh told reporters in Lucknow.

What is being done in Uttar Pradesh is on illegal slaughter houses. We dont want anything illegal. The Chief Minister has also said that the action is only against illegal slaughter houses, Nirmala Sitharaman said during Question Hour replying to a supplementary asked by AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi on Monday.

Against Adityanath governments decision to ban all illegal slaughter houses, meat sellers across the state went on an indefinite strike on March 27 but the state government made it clear that it will not allow illegal things in any case.

Also Read: Uttar Pradesh meat sellers begin indefinite strike in protest of crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses

Some experts say that the decision taken by the Adityanath government is not good for state economy as its already in poor condition and the decision will also result in massive job loss.

According to UP Pollution Control Board based on NoCs issued, there are 72 government-approved abattoirs in India and 38 out of those 72 slaughter houses are in Uttar Pradesh.

Out of 38, four are government-run, and just two out of four based out of Agra and Saharanpur are functional. The remaining two are proposed in Lucknow and Bareilly. Hind Agro IMPP in Aligarh is one of the first plants set up in 1996.

Uttar Pradesh is the market leader in production and export of meat, but there is no record of illegal animal slaughter houses available in the state.

Also Read: Nitish Kumar government declares total ban on alcohol in Bihar

According to a report published in Times of India, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had informed National Green Tribunal (NGT) in April this year that only one out of 126 slaughterhouses in Uttar Pradesh was operating with valid permission and only 21 have effluent treatment plants on the premises.

NGT in January 2016 had issued notices to the Centre and state government over illegal slaughterhouses being run in the state, especially Aligarh, Ghaziabad, Sambhal and Bulandshahr.

A report in Hindustantimes.com says Uttar Pradesh is the highest producer of meat with 19.1 per cent share and the state accounts for nearly 50 per cent of Indias total meat exports.

Some media reports say the ban on illegal slaughterhouses will heavily affect the states economic health as meat exports account for Rs 26,685 crore annually. And a ban on meat exports would mean a loss of at least Rs 11,350 crores of revenue for the state. With this rate, the revenue loss will cross Rs 50,000 crore in the next five years.

Also Read | Watch: Unfazed Nitish Kumar reimplements alcohol prohibition with a more stringent law after HC order

As a result, more than 25 lakh people, who are indirectly or directly associated with the industry, will be affected because of UP governments decision to close all illegal slaughterhouses in Uttar Pradesh.

Now the question arises that why should the government allow the slaughterhouses to run their businesses without having the license and without following the NGT guidelines?

In November 2015, Nitish Kumar government in Bihar had imposed a partial ban on liquor and it turned into total ban in April 2016 when the state government imposed blanket ban all kinds of liquor in the state.

Total liquor prohibition in Bihar dealt the states coffers Rs 5,400 crore in revenue losses from excise and value added tax (VAT), besides directly stripping around 35,000 people of their livelihood. Bihar almost 19 per cent of the states total revenue from its own sources in financial year 2015-16.

But financial prudence suggests the state compensate for revenue loss by other ways and means, including the imposition of cess, increasing the level of taxes.

The state government was fully geared to meet the revenue loss by increasing VAT on over 600 items. As a result, Bihar witnessed over 26 per cent growth in VAT collection, the highest in the country, in 2015-16.

According to a report in The Telegraph, Bihar government imposed and increased VAT on 600 items, including 5 per cent on saris priced over Rs 2,000 and textiles costing Rs 500 per metre or above and 13.5 per cent VAT on branded, packaged snacks like samosas, potato chips, peanuts and dry fruits.

The state governments would have got revenue from other sources, but the loss of jobs did have an auxiliary impact on the economy.

In Bihar, around 35,000 persons lost their livelihood and it affected their families also. Those selling snacks around liquor shops were also hit. A conservative estimate suggests they would number over 11,000.

The Adityanath government should have given a similar thought and followed the Bihar Model before taking such decisions to deal with revenue loss.

But, if we talk about job loss, even Nitish Kumar government in Bihar was not able to provide new job opportunities to those people who were employed in the liquor industry in the state.

The same happened in Uttar Pradesh where Chief Minister Adityanath didnt think about the lakhs of people who were earning their livelihoods and many people have lost their jobs because of the sudden ban on illegal slaughterhouses. The state should have given them some time to either speed-up their license application or go into other business to continue their earnings

Before taking such decisions, the governments should first create new job opportunities for those people who are employed in these businesses and should give them preferential treatment by way of bank loans to help them start their own small ventures.

Its perfectly fine if the governments do an advance planning to deal with the revenue loss by increasing taxes on other commodity items before taking such decisions. But, who will think about the people and their families who face unexpected job loss and get no help from the government?

All Stories on Slaughterhouse Ban in UP

With inputs from PTI



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New Delhi:

US space agency NASAs Juno mission performed its fifth close flyby of Jupiter on Monday as it successfully completed its fourth science orbit. According to NASA, all the science instruments of Juno and the JunoCam were functional when the flyby took place. NASA Juno spacecraft collected data during the flyby which has been beamed back to the Earth.

NASA Juno spacecraft was closest to the gas giant at 4:52 am (0852 GMT) as it skimmed 2,700 miles over Jupiters cloud tops, travelling about 129,000 mph (208,000 km/h) relative to the planet, the US space agency officials said.

The science instruments of NASA Juno spacecraft collected data about the atmosphere, gravity and electromagnetic fields of Jupiter. The JunoCam atop the NASA Juno spacecraft has meanwhile, clicked close-up pictures of the planet.



"This will be our fourth science pass  the fifth close flyby of Jupiter of the mission  and we are excited to see what new discoveries Juno will reveal," Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, said.



"Every time we get near Jupiter's cloud tops, we learn new insights that help us understand this amazing giant planet."

On July 4, 2016, NASA Juno spacecraft was placed in orbit around Jupiter after it made a 5-year journey through the deep space. Since then the NASA Juno spacecraft has successfully provided several information about the composition, cloud structure and the magnificent auroras and magnetic fields of Jupiter.

NASA Juno probes close encounters with Jupiter take place only once in every 53 days as the spacecraft is in a highly elliptical orbit around the planet.

In February, a problem was detected with two helium valves of NASA Juno probe because of which the space agency had to scrap the plans of brining Juno into a closer orbit around Jupiter with a maneuver that would have brought the time it takes to circle the planet to 14 days.

"During these flybys, Juno is probing beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and studying its auroras to learn more about the planet's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere," NASA officials said in the statement.

The NASA Juno mission team is still analysing data from this flyby and the last four and are expected to publish new research papers with science results within the next four months, they added.

The NASA Juno Mission will come to an end in February 2018 when the probe will plunge into Jupiter and will intentionally crash-land after 20 months in orbit.

ALSO READ | NASA's JunoCam captures breath-taking image of white oval storms, cyclone swirls on Jupiter

The NASA Juno spacecraft will perform the next flyby of Jupiter on May 19 this year.

Like a galaxy of swirling storms, this color-enhanced image of Jupiter was acquired by our @NASAJuno spacecraft: https://t.co/721smt4ifq pic.twitter.com/Mk5Hy7prZy  NASA (@NASA) March 27, 2017

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United Nations:

Even after objections from the major nuclear powers, more than 100 countries are all set to kick off the first UN talks on a global nuclear weapons ban. In October, around 123 UN members announced that they would start the UN conference to negotiate a legally binding nuclear ban treaty even as most of the worlds declared and undeclared nuclear powers voted against the talks.

While China, India and Pakistan abstained, Britain, France, Israel, Russia and the United States voted against the talks.



Even Japan, the only country to have suffered atomic attacks in 1945, voted against the talks. It said the lack of consensus over the negotiations could undermine progress on effective nuclear disarmament.



However, the countries that led the effort include Austria, Ireland, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa and Sweden. Hundreds of NGOs back their efforts.



They say because of the increasing tensions fanned by North Koreas nuclear weapons program and an unpredictable new administration in Washington, the threat of nuclear disaster is growing.

ALSO READ | 'Bad actors' cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons: US envoy to UN



Supporters point to successful grassroots movements that led to the prohibition of landmines in 1997 and cluster munitions in 2008.



I expect that this will take a long time, lets not be naive, Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said at the UN last week.



But its very important in these days when you see more of this rhetoric, and also sort of power demonstrations, including threatening to use nuclear weapons.



Quite a high number of countries are actually interested in saying we have to break the deadlock that has been on this issue for so many years, she added. So its also the expression of frustration.

ALSO READ | Iran will never get to build nuclear weapon: Trump tells Netanyahu



No progress has been made on nuclear disarmament in recent years despite commitments made by the major nuclear powers to work toward disarmament under the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), said Beatrice Fihn, director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, an international coalition of NGOs.



There was disappointment with the Obama administration, which made some pledges, but then ignored most of them, she said. And now there are raised worries with the new US president.



In 2009, the then president Barack Obama initiated a drive to reduce the role of nuclear weapons and eventually eliminate them.



But his administration strongly encouraged NATO allies to vote against this years UN negotiations, saying a ban would obstruct cooperation to respond to nuclear threats from adversaries.



(With inputs from PTI)

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Johannesburg:

Ahmed Kathrada, 87, a veteran Indian-origin anti-apartheid activist in South Africa and one of closest aids of Nelson Mandela, died on Tuesday at the Donald Gordon Hospital in Johannesburg.

"This is a great loss to the ANC (African National Congress), the broader liberation movement and South Africa as a whole. Internationally, he was staunch in his support for the Palestinian struggle," Neeshan Balton, Executive Director of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, said.

"'Kathy' was an inspiration to millions in different parts of the world," said Balton.Kathrada, who frequently referred to Mandela as his 'elder brother', was among three political prisoners who were sentenced to life imprisonment together with the South African anti-apartheid icon after the infamous Rivonia Trial of 1964.

The two others were Andrew Mlangeni and Denis Goldberg.They played major roles in shaping the country's policies after Mandela's election as the first democratic President of South Africa.

Also Read: Iconic US newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin dies at 88

"We are deeply saddened to learn this morning of the passing on of our dear friend and founding trustee, Ahmed Kathrada," said the Nelson Mandela foundation on Twitter.

Kathrada was born on August 21, 1929 in Schweizer-Reneke, a town in the North West Province of South Africa, and introduced to politics as a young boy when he joined a non-racial youth club run by the Young Communist League.

At the tender age of 17, Kathrada participated in the 1946 Passive Resistance Campaign led by the South African Indian Congress.He was among 2,000 people who were arrested and imprisoned for defying a law that discriminated against South African Indians.

In July 1963, the police swooped on Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, a Johannesburg suburb where Kathrada and other banned persons had been meeting secretly.

This led to the famous Rivonia Trial in which eight accused were sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour on Robben Island.Kathrada spent 26 years and 3 months in prison, including 18 years on Robben Island.

While in prison, he obtained four university degrees.Kathrada also received the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award, India's highest honour for foreign nationals of Indian- origin, in 2005 from the President of India.

Read Also: Actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's father passes away in Mumbai

Despite having left the political arena, Kathrada has maintained a hectic schedule of local and international travel for the past few years in pursuit of the objectives of a non-racial society espoused by the Foundation that bears his name.

A prolific writer, Kathrada penned six books himself or with co-authors. He is survived by his wife Barbara Hogan, also an ANC stalwart and veteran.Kathrada will be buried according to Muslim religious rites.

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Washington:

A former police officer in the US has filed a discrimination lawsuit after being fired from his job, alleging that his collegues in the police department used to call him an Islamic State leader.



Ramtin Sabet, who was fired last month, has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that he was fired after he complained that he was constantly harassed for practicing his Muslim faith.



He alleged that he was repeatedly called a terrorist by his co-workers at the North Chicago Police Department, told he was an "ISIS leader working as a police officer" and asked if he rode a goat to work, according to the lawsuit.



Sabet, an Iranian immigrant, is suing the city of North Chicago and its former and current police chiefs, the Chicago Tribune reported.



He has alleged that he complained both formally and informally to his supervisors but they did nothing to deter or investigate his claims.



Sabet joined the department in 2007 and later filed two separate complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging discrimination at work.



North Chicago officials denied that harassment or discrimination against Sabet occurred.



Police chief Richard Wilson, in a statement on Friday, said the city embraces diversity. "Officer Sabet was terminated for violations of police department rules and regulations," he was quoted as saying. "He has challenged that determination. The city plans to vigorously defend its decision," Wilson said.



Sabet contends in the lawsuit that he was fired for complaining to the EEOC about what he called "severe and pervasive" discrimination and harassment that went on for years and included mocking of his religion, culture and food.



North Chicago officials responded in court records by saying that Sabet's performance kept him from becoming a field training officer and attending supervisor school. "It was like I was being hazed all the time," Sabet was quoted as saying.



He said the officers, whom he considered his "brothers in blue," told him he held his gun like a "terrorist Muslim".



Sabet said they made derogatory comments about him in public and while dealing with suspects. Sabet, who has worked as a police officer for 15 years, pulled a colleague out of a fire and assisted others when they were injured or shot on the job, he said in a statement released by the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which is representing him.



"We trust our police departments to keep us safe. We trust that they have moral fortitude that they should practice within their own departments, as well as with the citizens that they serve," CAIR-Chicago executive director Ahmed Rehab said.

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London:

Police on Monday said the terrorist who carried out attack outside UK Parliament last week was fascinated by 'Jihad' but no evidence so far suggests his links with Islamic State Group, which had claimed him as its "Soldier".

The Scotland Yard's Indian-origin deputy assistant commissioner, Neil Basu, in a statement said Khalid Masood's attack had echoes of the rhetoric of the Islamic State but no evidence at this stage suggests he was linked to the group.

"His attack method appears to be based on low sophistication, low tech, low cost techniques copied from other attacks, and echo the rhetoric of IS (ISIS) leaders in terms of methodology and attacking police and civilians, but at this stage I have no evidence he discussed this with others," he said.

Also Read: Islamic State group claims responsibility for shooting outside UK Parliament

"There is no evidence that Masood was radicalised in prison in 2003, as has been suggested; this is pure speculation at this time. Whilst I have found no evidence of an association with IS or AQ (Al Qaeda), there is clearly an interest in Jihad.

"Basu added there has been much speculation about who Masood was in contact with immediately prior to the attack and his communications that day remain a line of enquiry and called on the public to report if they heard from him on March 22, the day of the attack.

"I know when, where and how Masood committed his atrocities, but now I need to know why. Most importantly, so do the victims and families," he said.

Basu's statement came as Masood's mother expressed her shock at the attack. Janet Ajao said she had "shed many tears for the people caught up in this horrendous incident".

Read More: UK Parliament shooting: No Indian casualty so far, says Sushma Swaraj

"I wish to make it absolutely clear, so there can be no doubt, I do not condone his actions nor support the beliefs he held that led to him committing this atrocity," she said in reference to her son, 52-year-old Masood, born Adrian Russell Ajao before he converted to Islam.

Masood was shot dead by security officials after he plough through pedestrians and fatally stabbed a policeman just outside the British parliament on Wednesday.Four people were killed and dozens more injured.

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Edinburgh:

Scottish lawmakers voted on Tuesday to seek a new referendum on independence, to be held within the next two years. The call has become an unwanted headache for the British government as it prepares to push the European Union exit button. The Edinburgh-based legislature voted 69-59 to back First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's call to ask the British government for an independence vote.



Outside, several dozen independence supporters bearing Scottish and EU flags broke into cheers and tears of joy as the news broke.



Sturgeon says Scots must be given the chance to vote on their future before Britain leaves the European Union. British Prime Minister Theresa May plans to launch the UK's two-year process of exiting the EU on Wednesday by triggering Article 50 of the bloc's key treaty.



Britain as a whole voted to leave the bloc in a referendum last year, but Scots voted by a large margin to stay.



"Scotland's future should be in Scotland's hands," Sturgeon told lawmakers before the vote. Scottish voters rejected independence in a 2014 referendum that Sturgeon's Scottish National Party called a once-in-a-generation vote.



But Sturgeon says Brexit has changed the situation dramatically. She says there should be a new vote on independence between fall 2018 and spring 2019, when details of Britain's divorce terms with the bloc are clear. Sturgeon said that whatever the final terms, Brexit would mean "significant and profound" change for Scotland.



"That change should not be imposed upon us," she said. "We should have the right to decide the nature of that change." May, whose government must approve the referendum for it to be legally binding, says the time is not right. She says all parts of the UK, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, must pull together to get the best-possible deal with the EU.



Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson agreed, saying today that Scots do not want "the division and rancor of another referendum campaign." The Scottish parliament had been due to vote on Sturgeon's referendum demand last week, but the session was adjourned after Wednesday's extremist attack in London.



Sturgeon's referendum call was backed by the governing Scottish nationalists and the Greens, and opposed by the Conservative and Labour parties.



It's unclear what could break the stalemate between Edinburgh and London. British officials have indicated they would not agree to another independence referendum until Britain's EU exit is over and done with a process that could take longer than two years.



"It's not appropriate to have a referendum whilst people do now know what the future relationship between the UK and the EU will be," David Mundell, the British government's Scotland minister, said. Sturgeon told Scottish lawmakers she would seek to negotiate with the British government, "in good faith and with a willingness to compromise."



Should that fail, she promised to inform the parliament of next steps after its Easter break next month.

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Washington:

Indian women university students will recieve a scholarship and mentoring programme in science and technology-related fields, as announced by a top US body in international education and global investment banking.

Under the scholarship - 'WeTech Goldman Sachs Scholars' - announced by the Institute of International Education (IIE) and Goldman Sachs, 25 Indian women will receive a merit-based USD 1,500 scholarships for the 2017-18 school year and be connected with an experienced mentor from Goldman Sachs for a six-month mentorship from June through December 2017, a statement said on Monday.

Read more: Five persons arrested in connection with assault on Nigerian nationals in Noida, Swaraj assures fair probe

"Engaging women at various stages from their academic years to a career is a critical step in addressing the gender gap often seen in the technology industry", said Shubha Iyer, managing director in the Technology division at Goldman Sachsin Bengaluru.

"IIE and Goldman Sachs believe that providing young women university scholarships toward a degree in a STEM field and offering real-world career advice has tremendous impact on their ability to thrive in the global workforce", said Allan Goodman, IIE president and CEO.

"This comes at a time when the tech industry around the world needs more women who are educated and trained to entering into STEM careers and work with peers across many different countries and cultures", Goodman added.

Read more: IIT Roorkee will not hire its PhD students as faculty members on completion of course

The winners will be announced in June.

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(Adds European Commission and HeidelbergCement decline comment, no one responded at Cemex Croatia)

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS, March 28 (Reuters) - A joint bid by German cement producers HeidelbergCement and Schwenk for Cemex's Croatian business faces a European Union veto, two sources said on Tuesday.

The European Commission, which opened an investigation into the deal in October, has not been convinced so far by their offer to lease a terminal on the Dalmatian coast to a rival to address its concerns, the sources said.

There is still a chance that European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager may be convinced by the concession, the people said. She told lawmakers last week that it was important for companies to have access to affordable prices in Croatia.

But if the deal is vetoed, it would be third for Vestager after she scuppered CK Hutchison Holdings' bid to buy Telefonica's O2 UK last year. She is due to reject on Wednesday the proposed merger of Deutsche Boerse and the London Stock Exchange.

The EU competition authority has said the Cemex Croatia deal may eliminate a significant player in a concentrated regional market, boost Cemex Croatia's market power in southern Croatia and lead to price hikes in grey cement.

HeidelbergCement and Schwenk want to buy Cemex Croatia from Mexico's Cemex through their Hungarian joint venture Duna Drava Cement (DDC) in a deal worth about 250 million euros. DDC is the largest importer in the region and Cemex Croatia its biggest producer.

The Commission, which is scheduled to decide on the merger by April 18, and HeidelbergCement declined to comment. Cemex Croatia did not respond to requests for comment.

In December HeidelbergCement and Schwenk challenged the Commission's decision to review the case rather than leaving it to the Croatian competition agency. It will take months before a lower court in Luxembourg hears the cases.

(Additional reporting by Georgina Prodhan in Frankfurt and Igor Ilic in Zagreb; editing by Alexander Smith)
(Adds missing time reference in Rio Tinto quote on Chinese iron ore)

LAUSANNE, Switzerland, March 28 (Reuters) - Top executives from the world's largest commodity trading houses discuss trends in trading at the FT Commodities Global Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland, this week.

The following are highlights:

DAVID MACLENNAN, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, CARGILL:

"Trade policies coupled with foreign aid and sound development policy is critical. Today's global proliferation of a me-first trade posture threatens to destabilise decades of progress in negotiating."

"We all have to make the case for free trade," he said, arguing that "we have to help political leaders speak to their base".

MacLennan has yet to be invited to meet U.S. President Donald Trump but would engage in debate with the U.S. administration over trade and immigration. "I don't want to sit in the bunker for 4 years," he said.

Cargill sees the United States as a clear beneficiary of global trade, and in agriculture one-third of farmland is planted for exports, while the NAFTA agreements has helped Canada become the No. 1 market for U.S. agricultural exports and Mexico the No. 3. "Countries can source their agricultural products elsewhere if they're not getting them from the United States," he said.

Training would be important to adapt to the uneven benefits of trade, while "inclusive and responsible" immigration policy would also be vital, he said. Cargill has 1,000 unfilled positions at meat plants in the United States.

RUSSELL HARDY, EMEA CEO, VITOL

"This year we're expecting around 1.4 million barrels per day of product demand growth - that's very similar to last year, in line with GDP growth which is pretty positive everywhere. Overall that's a very good story and that's going to allow, will allow markets to begin (the) stocks draw that everyone is forecasting."

"Border tax is complicated. It's tricky to assess impact on oil price. If it were to be implemented, it would create a lot of arbitrage on imports in the first period of time and a price increase in the U.S. I don't think it's a great idea as U.S. consumers will have to foot the bill."

Story continues

"There's a feeling that stocks aren't really drawing as they were expected, so (there's a) need to extend (production cuts) a bit further to eat into 300 million barrel cushion ... At $50 per barrel there's a lot of incentive to continue policy, at $60 per barrel, no. It'll depend on how fundamentals exert themselves in the second quarter."

Brent oil futures were at $51.17 a barrel at 1035 GMT.

MARCO DUNAND, CEO, MERCURIA

"I think a lot of eyes are looking at Russia at the moment ... Russian compliance hasn't been 100 percent. I think a lot of the onus is on Russia to show that they are serious about this. If Russia comes to the fold with non-OPEC then we'll see a floor of $60 per barrel."

"Clearly, we saw a reaction to higher prices following the last OPEC meeting and a pickup in (U.S. shale) production no doubt. But at the same time, because the cycle for shale is very short, what it does is it prevents companies to invest a large amount of money into bigger projects that have a longer cycle."

"While the shale producer responds very quickly to the higher price, most of them are hedged, therefore they have pushed the back end of the curve down. In the same way, this is going to prevent bigger projects coming around the world and I think we are going to have a supply shock probably in next two to four years."

TORBJORN TORNQVIST, CEO, GUNVOR GROUP

"Our company has concluded transactions with Iran, it's very complicated ... Very strict regulations on what you can do - has to be absolutely without any touching of U.S. dollar."

Tornqvist added it was easier to sell to Iran, which Gunvor does in euros, but harder to buy. He does not see any improvement in the short term.

"There is an underestimation of how much electric cars can penetrate mainstream driving. Not everywhere, but in places like Europe where you use cars for short driving ... Like Holland. Costs are coming down."

JEREMY WEIR, CEO OF TRAFIGURA:

Called Trafigura's acquisition of Indian refiner Essar Oil in partnership with Rosneft and investment fund UCP as a strategic investment for both international trade and domestic consumption.

"We just have to see a slight increase in (vehicle) demand numbers to see an enormous increase in gasoline consumption," he said of Indian demand.

WILLIAM REED, CEO, CASTLETON COMMODITIES

"We don't have plans to add big a acquisition to that. We'll bring in a strategic partner at some point to help us grow the asset," he said, referring to the acquisition of Anadarko's East Texas gas producing assets.

ERNIE THRASHER, CEO, XCOAL ENERGY & RESOURCES ON TRUMP:

"I think he'll get the infrastructure through because it means jobs to people, and maybe that's where the coal miners go to work, fixing infrastructure. The infrastructure in the U.S. is a North American phenomenon, not a global phenomenon.

But I think indirectly the impact on the global commodity markets could be the U.S. dollar. If you get this strong dollar from the loose monetary or fiscal policies it will have a bigger effect on global commodity markets than the actual infrastructure spending in the U.S.

Regarding U.S. coal mining, he said: "You have an industry that was producing 1.1 billion tonnes, it's on track to produce 680-700 million, so there has been tremendous rationalisation and consolidation.

"However on the demand side the customers have found an easy exit from coal with low cost natural gas and we have prolific reserves of cheap low cost natural gas," he said.

"I would like to think that President Trump's intentions are good to put miners back to work, but the government can't dictate to the market."

JAY HAMBRO, CHIEF EXECUTIVE INDUSTRY, ENERGY & MINING, SIMEC GROUP LIMITED:

"I think he (Trump) is doing and says about doing infrastructure investments that obviously drives demand and makes the investment less risky. But I wouldn't follow his lead on a commodity price bump any further.

JEAN-SEBASTIEN JACQUES, CEO RIO TINTO

Jacques said that the price of iron ore later this year would be hard to predict owing to Chinese spare capacity.

"Chinese domestic iron ore production three years ago was slightly more than 400 million tonnes a year ... Today, we believe production is at 260-270 million tonnes a year ... but there's a lot of idle capacity and the big question is, as and when winter is behind us, are they going to restart capacity? It's difficult to read the situation ... a lot is privately owned."

"Licenses are under threat. Even in Australia, yes the outcome was a positive one, but until two weeks ago there was a risk of a potential big tax burden. Across all geographies ... government and communities want a bigger share of the cake."

Jacques said that the above issue has become heightened due to the increased use of technology as it impacts jobs.

"We have the largest fleet of autonomous trucks ... There will be fewer and different ones so we'll need to retrain those people ... We will not be able to or slow down the rise of technology."

(Reporting by Julia Payne and Gus Trompiz; Editing by Mark Potter and Louise Heavens)
The Royal Mint

The U.K. pound has gotten a makeover. But it's not because the country thought it needed a new look -- the one pound coin got a revamp to combat counterfeits. The Royal Mint claims it's the most secure coin in the world due to features such as a non-symmetrical shape and two metals in its makeup.

With the old pound, an estimated one in 30 were found to be fakes, CNBC reports. The new coin is 12-sided, features a hologram and has grooved edges. The coin also has a hidden high security feature that's detectable by payment machines and coin counting systems.
Everyone needs a little change in their lives from time to time -- even science legend Stephen Hawking. After decades of communicating via a computerized speech synthesizer, Hawking recently auditioned A-list actors and leaders around the world to temporarily update his voice.

Related: Stephen Hawking Says Humans Have 1,000 Years Left on Earth

From Liam Neeson to Lin-Manuel Miranda to Bill Gates, some of the worlds most successful people competed for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

As the video below shows, Hawking was ruthless in his reviews of the audition tapes. In Gatess video, the Microsoft co-founder exclaims, I mean, who wouldnt want to sound like me! Hawkings response? Not a chance!

Even Eddie Redmayne, who played Hawking in the biopic The Theory of Everything, auditioned for the role. Redmayne jokingly asked, So  what is it? Like a sequel?

Hawking wasnt sold on Taken star Neeson, either, even though Neeson explained to the professor, Surely its got to be me. Listen to my voice. Its deep, its sexy, its got a tinge of  physics.

Related: Stephen Hawking: The Obesity Epidemic Is a Problem 'Beyond My Understanding'

Hawking went on to reject various other members of the Hollywood elite, with criticisms such as, its not looking good and Id sound like an idiot if that was my voice, before selecting one of the worlds most recognizable British voices -- Michael Caine.

Caine stood onstage at an event for Comic Reliefs biannual Red Nose Day fundraiser and spoke on behalf of Hawking. The audition videos promoted Red Nose Day, which aims to help struggling people in countries around the world.

Related:

Watch Stephen Hawking Audition A-List Actors to Be His New Voice

Stephen Hawking: The Obesity Epidemic Is a Problem 'Beyond My Understanding'

"Solo nos quedan mil anos en la Tierra": Stephen Hawking



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One of President Donald J. Trumps first interior decorating decisions in the Oval Office was installation of a large portrait of Andrew Jackson, who served between 1829 and 1837 as the United States seventh president. The portrait became a familiar fixture as President Trump showed off his executive orders for the cameras. A no-nonsense former Army general, Jackson led an insurgency by frontier farmers, miners, and traders (the forgotten men of the 1820s) against the East Coast elite, led by former President John Quincy Adams.

Jackson was a self-made millionaire (worth billions in todays money), gained by trading in the two most valuable commodities of his pre-industrial time, real estate and human beings. Jackson had a temper, and was generally intolerant of contrary opinion. He was accustomed to issuing orders, not seeking consensus. He provided the Democratic Party with its iconic donkey, co-opting it after an opponent called him a jackass.

Jacksons main campaign pledge involved his own deportation policy, called Removal, which required forced marches of southeastern Native American peoples (and others) westward to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. The best-known of many forced marches involved the Cherokees, about 16,000 of them, of whom a quarter died on the trail, and an equal number died of starvation and disease within two years of arrival in what was, to them, a foreign land. Men, women and children, deprived of sufficient food, clothing, and shelter, died by the thousands.

Jackson had an inflated self-image, imagining himself as a friend of the Native peoples he was forcing into exile. Removal was an act of paternal kindness, and certainly preferable to extermination, Jackson argued. In todays language, Jackson employed alternative facts, and his base, whose members stood to receive the lands that had belonged to the Native peoples, supported him fervently. The Indians relocation relieved the evil of their presence.The safety and comfort of our citizens have been greatly promoted by their removal, he said. The paternal care of the Government will thereafter watch over them and protect them.

Jacksons racism is raw to our ears  no political correctness here. He proclaimed that Native peoples were incapable of civilization, as he proclaimed: What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms...filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion? The policy [of Removal] is not only liberal, but generous.

The Cherokees did not leave their homeland without opposition. They sued the state of Georgia, and the U.S. Supreme Court under its founding Chief Justice John Marshall, largely upheld their position. President Jackson then ignored Marshalls majority opinion. A constitutional scholar might argue that Jackson had engaged in contempt of the Supreme Court, an impeachable high crime or misdemeanor. There is no contemporary evidence that Jackson said The chief justice has rendered his decision, now let him enforce it. The outcome was the same, however. Jackson was no stickler for constitutional fine points.

Despite considerable opposition to his stiffing of the Supreme Court, Jackson was not impeached by the House of Representatives. As today, the United States was deeply divided during the 1830s. One of the most divisive issues, especially among Jacksons southern base, was states rights. When Jackson ignored the U.S. Supreme Court in the Cherokee case, he was taking the side of the state of Georgia, which sought to seize their land and give it away to non-Indians in a lottery. Had Jackson sided with the Court (and Marshalls ruling in favor of the Cherokees), the Civil War might have started in the 1830s, rather than the early 1860s.

This is the face into which President Trump has chosen to look when he walks into the Oval Office.

Bruce E. Johansen is the Frederick W. Kayser University Research Professor in the Communication and Native American Studies Department at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Email him at bjohansen@unomaha.edu.
DANBURY  Two men were taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Monday, sending shock waves through an already anxious immigrant community.

In one case, Danbury Police were called to a Franklin Street apartment building around 11:30 a.m. Monday and assisted ICE in transporting a man to Danbury Police headquarters. The detained man was then transferred to an immigration vehicle and taken to an unknown location, police said.

Later in the day, ICE agents handcuffed a second man as he lay on the ground in front of the Old Oak Restaurant on Liberty Street. Danbury Police said they had no involvement in that detainment, which a passerby captured on video and shared widely on social media.

Contributed video /Tribuna

As news and the video spread, fear began to set in and questions about whether Danbury police were working with ICE began to surface.

Parents are afraid to send their kids to school. Kids are afraid to come home and find their parents gone, said Angelica Idrovo, a community organizer for CT Students for a Dream. Idrovo, who is undocumented, moved to the Danbury from Ecuador with her parents and two younger brothers in 2009.

That is why we are calling for clear answers from the City of Danbury regarding the extent of Danburys cooperation with ICE, Idrovo said in a statement. Our city officials have a responsibility to stop misinformation and ensure that all our residents are able to live a life with dignity and a life without fear.

Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton said the police chief and he have been very clear about what the city of Danburys policy is regarding ICE ... we will assist and we will cooperate, but we dont initiate ... thats all you saw yesterday in one case. In the other, we didnt have any information at all that they were looking for someone on a warrant.

Criminal records

Boughton said he had not spoken to ICE, but understood that both men had extensive criminal records.

In terms to what they actually did, while I dont have all the details, as I understand it, both individuals were not people you would want in the community, Boughton said. This is definitely a more aggressive posture that ICE is taking, especially for those accused with crimes or convicted.

ICE confirmed late Tuesday that they arrested Julio Virgilio Paida-Morquencho, 22, a citizen of Ecuador, on Monday.

ICE spokesman Shawn Neudauer said in a statement that Paida-Morquencho was considered an ICE fugitive at the time of his arrest for failing to voluntarily leave the United States as ordered by a federal immigration judge in 2013. He will remain in ICE custody pending removal from the United States.

According to state court documents, Paida-Morquencho faced numerous charges from 2014, including fourth degree sexual assault and illegal sexual contact with the victim. He pleaded guilty to risk of injury to a child and was scheduled to appear in court on Monday.

The second man ICE arrested has not been identified.

New battlegrounds

President Donald Trump has made one of his top priorities a crackdown on undocumented immigration. Last month, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly called for the hiring of 10,000 new ICE officers and more coordination with municipal law enforcement agencies. This week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he would follow up Trumps executive order and begin withholding money from sanctuary cities that refuse to cooperate with immigration authorities.

Dan Barrett, the legal director of the ACLU of Connecticut, said on Tuesday that no legal requirement exists for local law enforcement to participate in deporting community members and that doing so could violate the Constitution and Connecticut TRUST Act.

Unless the Danbury police had probable cause to believe that the person at the Franklin Street apartment building had committed a crime, or they had an arrest warrant for him, they were acting as a lawless taxi service for ICE in that instance, Barrett said.

Without guidance from the City of Danbury regarding the extent of its relationship with ICE, community fears will remain, he added. Drawing a clear line between immigration and local law enforcement protects constitutional rights, public safety, and community. We strongly urge city officials to draw that line now.
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A New Hampshire man was clocked going 136 mph on I-84 late Monday night, according to State Police.

The 21-year-old driver was first spotted near Exit 62 in Manchester and was finally stopped - 17 miles away - at a rest area in Willington, not far from the Massachusetts border.

At one point while being pursued by troopers, the operator driver turned off the vehicle lights as he continued at a high rate of speed east on I-84, state police said.

Amazingly, no one was killed in the high-speed chase. At times, troopers had to break off the chase for the safety of other motorists.

The driver, Khalid Rajab of Manchester, N.H., was taken into custody and charged with with reckless driving, operation of motor vehicles without license (suspended out of N.H). and failure to have lights lit. He was held on $5,000 bond.

The incident began at 11:14 p.m., after troopers from Troop H-Hartford observed a Dodge Challenger traveling at a high rate of speed on I-84 eastbound in Manchester. The trooper attempted to stop the Challenger, however the operator accelerated to speeds over 125 mph. The trooper broke off the attempted traffic stop for the safety of other motorists, state police said in a release.

A short time later a trooper from Troop C-Tolland near Exit 66 in Vernon observed a vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed.

Using laser, the trooper clocked the vehicle's speed at 136 mph. As the vehicle passed the cruiser the trooper observed that it was a Dodge Challenger, and as the Challeger passed the operator, turned off the vehicle lights as he continued at a high rate of speed east on I-84. The trooper radioed the description of the vehicle to troopers who were positioned further east on I-84 in Tolland and Willington.

Upon approaching the I-84 eastbound rest area in Willington, another trooper captured the speed of the Challenger at 106 mph, troopers said.

As the trooper activated his emergency lights, the Challenger quickly exited I-84 and entered the rest area, stopped and attempted to flee from the vehicle. Troopers, with assistance from K9 Rocky, were then able to quickly apprehend the operator as he attempted to flee from the vehicle on foot.
SASKATOON, SASKATCHEWAN--(Marketwired - Mar 28, 2017) - International Road Dynamics Inc. (IRD) (IRD.TO) announced today that it has been awarded a contract to supply, install and maintain a Weigh-in-Motion (WIM) Sorting System at the Blunt Port of Entry on US Highway 14 and US Highway 83 east of Pierre, South Dakota. The project is valued at approximately USD$1.1 million with installation to be completed by October 2017. This project is the fifth Port of Entry WIM system supplied by IRD to South Dakota, as South Dakota Department of Transportation continues the deployment of additional systems throughout the State.

The Port-of-Entry Commercial Vehicle Identification System protects highway infrastructure by weighing all commercial vehicles, capturing license plate numbers and directing suspected violators to report to the Truck Inspection Station. The project includes IRD's Single-Load-Cell (SLC) WIM, intelligent Roadside Operation Credentialing (iROC) system, and License Plate Reader (LPR) technology. Commercial vehicles are automatically identified, and their safety, operating authority and credentials are verified, while confirming compliance with weight regulations. The combination of screening technologies improves highway safety and provides efficient enforcement of credentials and overloaded trucks.

Mr. Terry Bergan, IRD's President and CEO stated: "We are pleased to have been awarded this new contract in South Dakota, which demonstrates the growth of our commercial vehicle screening system deployments throughout the US. In addition to making the station more efficient, South Dakota's roadway infrastructure will be better protected from truck overloading, traffic safety will be improved, and weight enforcement will be enhanced."

IRD is a highway traffic management technology company specializing in supplying products and systems to the global Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) industry. IRD is a North American company based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada with sales and service offices throughout the United States and overseas. Private corporations, transportation agencies and highway authorities around the world use IRD's products and advanced systems to manage and protect their highway infrastructures.

Story continues

The Company's shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol IRD.

IRD is listed on the TSX - trading symbol - IRD

www.irdinc.com
SEA OF GALILEE, Israel, March 28, 2017 /CNW/ -- The state of Israel, in an unprecedented decision, has allocated a radio broadcast frequency to an American Christian evangelical radio network that will broadcast messages of hope and peace to the people in Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus and Jordan and expanded night-time coverage into Turkey and Egypt. This is the first time a Christian broadcast frequency has been granted in Israel and the first domestic radio station with international purpose.

Israel's Minister of Communication, Tzachi Hanegbi and John Tayloe, Founder and President, Strategic Communications Group (VOICE OF HOPE).

The VOICE OF HOPE  AM 1287 broadcasts in Arabic and some English to the Arab population, much of which is in a dire situation in the countries surrounding Israel and who are under religious persecution in Syria.

The radio station is a continuation of the VOICE OF HOPE, which was established in 1979 by Christian businessman George Otis, and which broadcast until 2000. The new VOICE OF HOPE is owned and operated by Strategic Communications Group, a global Christian Evangelical radio network with radio stations reaching Latin America and Africa.

"I am excited that this powerful Christian radio station was licensed by the State of Israel to deliver a message of hope and encouragement to the people of the Middle East. The Voice of Hope is established in support of Christians of the Middle East and is a gift of love from Christians in the United States and Canada." - John Tayloe, Founder and President.

The VOICE OF HOPE was inaugurated this week in the presence of Israel's Minister of Communication, Tzachi Hanegbi who said, "This radio station exemplifies the deep connection and unique bond that Israel has with the American people and between Jews and Christians. We are certain that the message of hope that will be brought by the station will be an uplifting tool and a benefit to our neighbors. The State of Israel supports any message of peace to the people in neighboring countries and this is why we decided to support the reestablishment of the Voice of Hope."

The VOICE OF HOPE broadcast studios are located on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Israel. The programming will include Christian Arabic presenters, Arabic Christian music, news, education, drama and inspirational messages.

For interviews contact: John D. Tayloe

Title: Founder and President

Organization: Strategic Communications Group

Voice of Hope Radio Network

Tel: +1 805-338-0075

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.voiceofhope.com

SOURCE Strategic Communications Group

Related Links

http://www.voiceofhope.com


Government of Canada to expand existing flexibilities within Employment Insurance to support adult learners and create a new organization for skills development

TORONTO, March 28, 2017 /CNW/ - Budget 2017 is the next step in the Government's long-term plan to create jobs and strengthen the middle class. Canada is home to a well-educated and highly skilled workforce, but as the demands of the workplace change, so too must the education and skills workers bring to their jobs. The changes in the economy - both here at home and around the world - present incredible opportunities for the middle class and those working hard to join it.

Today in Toronto, the Honourable Patty Hajdu, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, announced Budget 2017 measures that will create opportunities for lifelong learning, so that the next job is also a better job.

Currently, unemployed workers taking self-funded training may become ineligible for Employment Insurance (EI) benefits if they are not available to accept work that becomes available. However, without EI benefits, many unemployed Canadians can't afford to pay the bills and support their families while also pursuing the training they need to improve their skills and find new work.

Budget 2017 will help unemployed adults go back to school while remaining eligible for the EI benefits they need to support themselves and their families. This means greater security for Canadian families when they need help the most and more flexibility to find better jobs through a combination of job search and training while unemployed.

In a spirit of renewed collaboration with the provinces and territories, the Government of Canada is also working with its counterparts, as well as the private sector, educational institutions, and not-for-profits, on a new organization that will:



apply evidence to identify the skills sought and required by Canadian employers;

explore new and innovative approaches to skills development; and

share information and analysis to help inform future evidence-based skills investments and programming.

Details on this new organization will be determined in the coming months.

As part of Canada's Innovation and Skills plan, Budget 2017 also proposes further measures encouraging lifelong learning by expanding eligibility for post-secondary supports and working with provinces and territories to reform Labour Market Transfer Agreements, which will ensure that more Canadians get the assistance they need to find and keep good jobs in the new economy, and build better lives for themselves and their families.

Quotes



"Budget 2017 continues our plan to strengthen the middle class  the heart of Canada's economy. In a job market that's changing fast, lifelong learning matters. That's why we're helping people of all ages develop the skills they'll need to find and keep good, well-paying jobs."

 The Honourable Patty Hajdu, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour

"The IUPAT and Canada's Building Trades Unions congratulate the federal government on their announcement to provide $132.4 million over the next four years, and then subsequently, an additional $37.9 million thereafter to allow Canadians to pursue self-funded training. We applaud and support the new initiatives the Government is adopting to address skills gaps and support lifelong learning."

 Robert Bronk, Executive Director, Ontario Industrial and Finishing Skills Centre

Quick Facts

Budget 2017 will help more unemployed adults by providing $132.4 million over four years and $37.9 million per year ongoing to expand flexibilities within the Employment Insurance (EI) program so that eligible claimants can pursue self-funded training and maintain their EI status.

over four years and per year ongoing to expand flexibilities within the Employment Insurance (EI) program so that eligible claimants can pursue self-funded training and maintain their EI status. The Budget also proposes $225 million over four years and $75 million per year ongoing to create a new organization to support skills development and measurement in Canada .

Associated Link

Budget 2017

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SOURCE Employment and Social Development Canada

For further information: For media enquiries, please contact: Matt Pascuzzo, Press Secretary, Office of the Honourable Patty Hajdu, P.C., M.P., Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, [email protected], 819-654-4183; Media Relations Office, Employment and Social Development Canada, 819-994-5559, [email protected]
OTTAWA, March 28, 2017 /CNW/ - The 31 official members of WorldSkills Team Canada 2017 recently gathered at the Fairmont Chateau Montebello, in Montebello, Quebec to participate in team-building activities and mental preparation exercises as part of their training for WorldSkills Abu Dhabi 2017.

The WorldSkills Competition, held every two years, is the biggest vocational education and skills excellence event in the world that truly reflects global industry standards. This event will host 60 WorldSkills Member countries and regions, over 1,000 experts, and approximately 100,000 spectators including educational, government and industry leaders. The competition represents the pinnacle of excellence in skilled trades and technology.

The WorldSkills Team Canada 2017 competitors represent several regions across Canada, and were the top medalists at the 2016 Skills Canada National Competition (SCNC) held in Moncton, New Brunswick. Following SCNC, they completed their final qualification during the WorldSkills Canadian Trials, meeting pre-established Canadian standards in their respective sectors. At WorldSkills Abu Dhabi 2017, they will compete with more than 1,300 competitors for a chance to be named world champion.

Skills/Competences Canada (SCC) would like to congratulate these competitors and wish them well at WorldSkills Abu Dhabi 2017: "The WorldSkills Team Canada 2017 competitors are the most talented youth in this country in the skilled trade and technology sectors," says Shaun Thorson, CEO of SCC. "They are tomorrow's workforce and will contribute to Canada's vibrant economy, ensuring its future prosperity in the global job market."

The 44th WorldSkills Competition will be held October 14-19, 2017, at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC) , in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

For more information on WorldSkills Team Canada 2017, check out the Twitter conversation at #WSTC2017 and on SCC's Facebook page. Follow their journey to WorldSkills Abu Dhabi 2017 and read their biographies at skillscompetencescanada.com. For more information on WorldSkills Abu Dhabi 2017, visit: worldskillsabudhabi2017.com.

SCC is pleased to introduce the official members of WorldSkills Team Canada 2017:

About Skills Canada

Skills Canada was founded in 1989 as a national, not for profit organization that works with employers, educators, labour groups and governments to promote skilled trade and technology careers among Canadian youth. Its unique position among private and public sector partners enables it to work toward securing Canada's future skilled labour needs while helping young people discover rewarding careers. Skills Canada offers experiential learning opportunities including skilled trades and technology competitions for hundreds of thousands of young Canadians through regional, provincial/territorial, national and international events, as well as skilled trades awareness programs. Headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Skills Canada is the Canadian Member organization of WorldSkills. For more information, visit www.skillscanada.com or call 877-754-5226.

SOURCE Skills/Competences Canada

For further information: Michele Rogerson, [email protected], T. 613-266-4771.

Related Links

http://www.skillscanada.com


TORONTO, March 28, 2017 /CNW/ - Encouraging workplace diversity isn't so much a radical idea as it is an everyday reality for Canadian employers seeking to recruit and retain the best talent. That's the key lesson from the winners of this year's Canada's Best Diversity Employers competition, announced this morning by Mediacorp Canada Inc.

"Employers that ensure their workforces reflect the community have an advantage," says Kristina Leung, Senior Editor of the Canada's Top 100 Employers project, which manages the competition. "These organizations benefit from a wider range of perspectives, which inevitably brings new and innovative ideas."

Additionally, Leung notes, this year's winners are eager to address inclusiveness subjects beyond the competition, including mental health, recent immigrants and veterans. "Increasingly, we see a desire by employers to have open and frank conversations about how they can enable employees to bring their 'whole selves' to work and tap into their full potential."

Now in its 10th year, the Canada's Best Diversity Employers competition recognizes the nation's leaders in creating inclusive workplaces for employees from five diverse groups: women; visible minorities; persons with disabilities; Aboriginal peoples; and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) peoples. The annual competition is open to any employer with its head office or principal place of business in Canada. Employers of any size may apply, whether private or public sector. The winners of this year's competition will be recognized at a luncheon in downtown Toronto today.

Founded in 1992, Mediacorp Canada Inc. is the nation's largest publisher of employment periodicals. Since 1999, the company has managed the Canada's Top 100 Employers project, which includes 19 regional and special-interest editorial competitions that reach over 15 million Canadians annually through a variety of magazine and newspaper partners. Mediacorp also operates Eluta.ca, the largest Canadian job search engine, which includes editorial reviews from the Canada's Top 100 Employers project and is used by 7 million Canadians annually. Together with Willis Towers Watson, Mediacorp also hosts the Top Employer Summit, Canada's largest conference for senior-level HR professionals.

The full list of Canada's Best Diversity Employers for 2017 is attached. The winners were announced in a special magazine published in The Globe and Mail this morning. Detailed reasons for selection with hundreds of additional stories and photos were released this morning at: http://www.canadastop100.com/diversity

CANADA'S BEST DIVERSITY EMPLOYERS

2017 WINNERS



Accenture Inc. (Toronto ON)

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (Ottawa ON)

Agrium Inc. (Calgary AB)

Air Canada (Saint-Laurent QC)

Amex Bank of Canada (Toronto ON)

Bell Canada (Montreal QC)

Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP (Toronto ON)

Boeing Canada Operations Limited (Winnipeg MB)

Cameco Corporation (Saskatoon SK)

Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp. / CMHC (Ottawa ON)

Canadian National Railway Company / CN (Montreal QC)

Capgemini Canada Inc. (Toronto ON)

Capital One Bank (Canada Branch) (North York ON)

Centre for Addiction & Mental Health (Toronto ON)

Children's Aid Society of Toronto, The (Toronto ON)

CIBC (Toronto ON)

Dentons Canada LLP (Vancouver BC)

Edmonton, City of (Edmonton AB)

Enbridge Inc. (Calgary AB)

General Motors of Canada Company (Oshawa ON)

Health Canada / Sante Canada (Ottawa ON)

Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Canada (Mississauga ON)

Home Depot of Canada Inc. (Toronto ON)

Island Health (Victoria BC)

Jazz Aviation LP (Dartmouth NS)

KPMG LLP (Toronto ON)

Loblaw Companies Limited (Brampton ON)

Manitoba Hydro (Winnipeg MB)

Manitoba Public Insurance (Winnipeg MB)

Manitoba, Government of (Winnipeg MB)

McCarthy Tetrault LLP (Toronto ON)

Mount Sinai Hospital (Toronto ON)

National Bank of Canada (Montreal QC)

Northwest Territories, Government of (Yellowknife NT)

Ontario College of Trades (Toronto ON)

Ontario Public Service / OPS (Toronto ON)

Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP (Toronto ON)

Ottawa, City of (Ottawa ON)

PepsiCo Canada (Mississauga ON)

Procter & Gamble Inc. (Toronto ON)

Public Services and Procurement Canada (Gatineau QC)

RBC (Toronto ON)

Red River College (Winnipeg MB)

Rogers Communications Inc. (Toronto ON)

Ryerson University (Toronto ON)

Saskatchewan Government Insurance / SGI (Regina SK)

Saskatoon, City of (Saskatoon SK)

SaskPower (Regina SK)

SaskTel (Regina SK)

Shaw Communications Inc. (Calgary AB)

Shell Canada Limited (Calgary AB)

Sodexo Canada Ltd. (Burlington ON)

TD Bank Group (Toronto ON)

TELUS Corporation (Vancouver BC)

Toronto, City of (Toronto ON)

Toyota Motor Mfg. Canada Inc. / TMMC (Cambridge ON)

UBC / University of British Columbia (Vancouver BC)

University of Calgary (Calgary AB)

University of Manitoba (Winnipeg MB)

University of Toronto (Toronto ON)

University of Victoria (Victoria BC)

Vancouver, City of (Vancouver BC)

William Osler Health System (Brampton ON)

YMCA of Greater Toronto (Toronto ON)

York, Regional Municipality of (Newmarket ON)

SOURCE Mediacorp Canada Inc.

For further information: Richard Yerema, Managing Editor, 416-964-6069 x1464

Related Links

http://www.canadastop100.com


New TRADFRI app offers three light settings to create atmosphere for different moods

BURLINGTON, ON, March 28, 2017 /CNW/ - On April 1st, IKEA takes the next step in the smart home journey by releasing its first completely digital home furnishing product. The TRADFRI app allows people to design their lighting the way they want through their phone or tablet. The app is part of the new Smart Lighting collection which includes solutions for dimming lighting, switching from warm to cold light, remote steering and personalization of lighting.

The Smart Lighting collection enables people to create atmosphere and adapt their lighting to the activity they are doing. The technology has been around for some years but has not yet been adopted by many consumers. Through home visits and customer surveys, IKEA identified two key challenges to solve in order to enable smart lighting for the many: the existing technology was perceived as being too expensive and also difficult to understand. With these two challenges in mind, the Smart Lighting collection was created to be affordable and simple to understand.

"We're thrilled to introduce the new TRADFRI app as part of the innovative Smart Lighting collection," says Mathias Karlsson, Lighting Sales Leader, IKEA Canada. "With the TRADFRI app, customers will be able to personalize their lighting and set it for different moods. For instance they can choose a light setting for early mornings, another for late evenings and a third for cooking or working at home. Just as with our other Smart Lighting products, we've strived to make the app as simple and easy to use as possible. We hope our customers will be excited about the new collection and app."

IKEA's Smart Lighting collection is a plug and play solution, which does not require hardwiring or hiring an electrician. All it takes is replacing a light bulb with a TRADFRI LED bulb. As of April 1st, the Smart Lighting collection of bulbs, along with the wireless dimmers, motion sensor and gateway will be available in all IKEA stores across Canada. There will also be panels and doors as part of the collection, which will be launched within Canada in the fall of 2017.

Smart Lighting is IKEA's second step in the smart home business, which started with the launch of wireless charging products for mobile phones in 2015. IKEA sees a great potential in the smart home business. In the years to come, there will be additional launches, enabling people to build onto their smart home solution.

ABOUT IKEA CANADA

IKEA Group is a leading home furnishing retailer with 343 stores in more than 28 countries worldwide, which are visited by 783 million people every year. IKEA Canada has 12 stores, an eCommerce virtual store, 6 Pick-up and order points and nine Collection Points. The company also recently announced plans to open stores in Halifax and Quebec City. Last year, IKEA Canada welcomed 28 million visitors to its stores and 88 million visitors to the IKEA.ca website. Founded in 1943, IKEA's business philosophy is to offer a wide range of products of good design and function at prices so low, the majority of people can afford them. For more information on IKEA Canada, please visit: www.IKEA.ca.

SOURCE IKEA Canada

For further information: Alicia Carroll, Commercial Public Relations Manager, (416) 646-8182 ext. 2338, [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.ikea.ca


OTTAWA, March 28, 2017 /CNW/ - The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today announced that he will participate in the Women in the World Summit in New York City on April 6. The Prime Minister will take part in this event to continue to champion women's rights, and to emphasize the important role we all have to play to advance gender equality.

He will join CEOs, artists, and other activists to discuss how women's economic empowerment accelerates economic growth and the progress still needed to achieve gender equality.

While in New York City, the Prime Minister will also meet with United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to reaffirm Canada's strong commitment to the UN and its mission around the world.

Quotes

"We have achieved real progress in advancing women's equality, especially in the past decades, but there is still a lot of work to be done. We need the full and equal participation of women around the world. Our government is determined to continue being a leader on gender equality, preventing gender-based violence, and empowering women in the workplace, so we can all realize our full potential, and create a stronger, more prosperous economy."

 Rt. Honourable Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

"At the United Nations, we will continue working with the international community to stand up for human rights, protect the most vulnerable, and champion core Canadian values like diversity and inclusion, gender equality, and respect for peace worldwide."

 Rt. Honourable Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

Quick Facts

Budget 2017's Gender Statement is a first for Canada . It aims to provide a frank and honest analysis of how all measures in the budget affect women.

. It aims to provide a frank and honest analysis of how all measures in the budget affect women. The Women in the World Summit will have meaningful and transparent discussions around gender and other identities, which will help the Government of Canada better understand the challenges faced and will help it make informed decisions to advance the goals of gender equality, fairness, and stronger workforce participation.

better understand the challenges faced and will help it make informed decisions to advance the goals of gender equality, fairness, and stronger workforce participation. Canada was a founding member of the UN in 1945, and since then, has worked closely with the UN and its agencies to advance key international objectives, including those related to human rights, democracy and governance, development, humanitarian assistance, and international peace and security.

was a founding member of the UN in 1945, and since then, has worked closely with the UN and its agencies to advance key international objectives, including those related to human rights, democracy and governance, development, humanitarian assistance, and international peace and security. Last year, Canada was elected to hold a seat on the UN Commission on the Status of Women for the 2017-21 term. This leadership role will provide Canada with a valuable opportunity to shape the Commission's future work on issues that affect women and girls globally.

Associated Links

This document is also available at http://pm.gc.ca

SOURCE Prime Minister's Office

For further information: PMO Media Relations: 613-957-5555

Related Links

http://pm.gc.ca/


TSX: ELD NYSE: EGO

VANCOUVER, March 27, 2017 /CNW/ - Eldorado Gold Corporation will release its Q1 2017 Financial and Operational Results after the market closes on Thursday April 27, 2017 and will host a conference call on Friday April 28, 2017 at 8:30 am PT (11:30 AM ET). The call will be webcast and can be accessed at Eldorado Gold's website: www.eldoradogold.com

Conference Call Details Replay (available until May 12, 2017)



Date: Friday April 28, 2017 Toronto: 416 849 0833 Time: 8:30 am PT (11:30 am ET) Toll Free: 1 855 859 2056 Dial in: 647 427 7450 Pass code: 92644727 Toll free: 1 888 231 8191



About Eldorado Gold

Eldorado is a leading low cost gold producer with mining, development and exploration operations in Turkey , Greece, Romania, Serbia and Brazil. The Company's success to date is based on a low cost strategy, a highly skilled and dedicated workforce, safe and responsible operations, and long-term partnerships with the communities where it operates. Eldorado's common shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: ELD) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: EGO).

SOURCE Eldorado Gold Corporation

For further information: Krista Muhr, Vice President Investor Relations & Corporate Communications, Eldorado Gold Corporation, 604 687 4018 or 1 888 353 8166, [email protected], www.eldoradogold.com
Get the right digital skills to grow your foodservice business

TORONTO, March 28, 2017 /CNW/ - Are you ready to flex your digital muscle? Restaurants Canada invites restaurant owners and operators to train with us at our Digital Bootcamp on March 30.

What will you learn?

Find out how to grow your business and gain customers using your website. Topics include increasing your local search presence, social media marketing, and easy branding ideas.

When and where?

Date: March 30

Time: 8 to 11.30 a.m.

Location: 1155 Queen Street West, Toronto (Restaurants Canada head office)

Cost

Restaurants Canada members: $10 per person

Non-members: $15 per person

Breakfast is provided.

Sign up

To learn more and register, click here.

Restaurants Canada is a growing community of 30,000 foodservice businesses, including restaurants, bars, caterers, institutions and suppliers. We connect our members from coast to coast, through services, research and advocacy for a strong and vibrant restaurant industry.

SOURCE Restaurants Canada

For further information: BOOTCAMP CONTACT: Anita Chauhan at 416-649-4250 or [email protected]; MEDIA CONTACT: Prasanthi Vasanthakumar, Communications Specialist at 1-800-387-5649 ext. 4254, or [email protected]

Related Links

https://www.restaurantscanada.org/


TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Mar 28, 2017) - Ivanhoe Mines (IVN.TO)(IVPAF) today announced its financial results for the year ended December 31, 2016. All figures are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated. Ivanhoe Mines is a Canadian mining company focused on advancing its three mine-development projects in Sub-Saharan Africa: the Platreef platinum-palladium-gold-nickel-copper discovery in South Africa; and the Kamoa-Kakula copper discovery and the Kipushi zinc-copper-lead-germanium mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

HIGHLIGHTS

On March 21, 2017, Ivanhoe announced that a new discovery hole had intersected a shallow, 3.8-kilometre extension of the Kakula Copper Discovery at the Kamoa-Kakula Project, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This latest extension has been named Kakula West. The new discovery hole, DD1124, essentially doubled the presently-defined length of the copper-rich mineralized system at Kakula to more than 10 kilometres.





Discovery hole DD1124 is 3.8 kilometres west of the current limit of Kakula drilling and 4.1 kilometres west of the last drill hole with returned assays - DD1093 - that was announced on January 23, 2017. DD1124 also extended the length of the Kakula mineralized trend a further six kilometres longer than the 4.1-kilometre strike length that was used to calculate the initial Kakula resource estimate in October 2016. Up to five rigs are being mobilized to Kakula West to accelerate delineation of the new discovery.





On October 12, 2016, Ivanhoe released an independently verified, initial Mineral Resource estimate for the exceptionally-high-grade Kakula Discovery - the second major discovery at the Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project. Kakula's Indicated Resources presently total 192 million tonnes at a grade of 3.45% copper, containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper. Inferred Resources total 101 million tonnes at a grade of 2.74% copper, containing an additional 6.1 billion pounds of copper. Both estimates are at a 1.0% copper cut-off.





At a higher 3% copper cut-off, Kakula contains Indicated Mineral Resources estimated at 66 million tonnes at 6.59% copper, plus Inferred Resources of 27 million tonnes at 5.26% copper.





The combined Kamoa-Kakula Indicated Mineral Resources now total 944 million tonnes grading 2.83% copper, containing 58.9 billion pounds of copper at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres. Kamoa-Kakula also has Inferred Mineral Resources of 286 million tonnes grading 2.31% copper and containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper, also at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres.





With the addition of Kakula's Mineral Resources, Wood Mackenzie - a prominent, international industry research and consulting group - independently demonstrated that the Kamoa-Kakula Project is the largest copper discovery in Zambia and the DRC, making it the largest copper discovery ever made on the African continent. In addition, Wood Mackenzie's research also shows that Kamoa-Kakula already ranks among the 10 largest copper deposits in the world.





The Kakula Discovery remains open for significant expansion along trend to the west and the southeast, while the remainder of the Kakula Exploration Area remains virtually untested. Fourteen rigs now are drilling in the Kakula Exploration Area. More than 63,000 metres have been drilled since the Kakula drilling campaign began in May 2016. Ivanhoe expects to issue an updated Mineral Resource estimate for the Kakula Discovery early in Q2 2017.





Nearly 200 square kilometres of the approximately 400-square-kilometre Kamoa-Kakula project area remain untested. The Kamoa-Kakula geology team, with the assistance of its technical advisors, has intensively evaluated the structural and stratigraphic controls on mineralization of the broader Kamoa-Kakula basin. This work has highlighted at least nine high-priority targets located in the untested parts of the Kamoa-Kakula project area that are planned to be drill tested this year.





Kamoa Copper has retained OreWin Pty. Ltd., of Australia, to prepare a follow-up economic assessment (PEA) for the development of the Kakula and Kamoa deposits. The new PEA will assess the economic parameters of an eight-million-tonne-per-annum (Mtpa), stand-alone Kakula Mine, plus expanded, combined mining scenarios of up to 16 Mtpa from mines at both the Kakula and the adjacent Kansoko Sud deposits.





Underground mine development at Kamoa's Kansoko Mine has made good progress and is expected to reach the high-grade copper mineralization at the Kansoko Sud Deposit within the next two months. The service and conveyor declines each have been advanced more than 670 metres through underground development work.





Specialist engineering firm DRA Global is finalizing the design of the Kakula box cut. Construction of the box cut is expected to begin in Q2 2017 and take approximately six months to complete. Engineering and design work of the planned twin declines at Kakula also is well advanced.





In October 2016, the Kamoa-Kakula Project began drawing clean, hydroelectric power from the DRC national grid for development and construction activities. In September 2016, ongoing upgrading work financed by Ivanhoe at the Mwadingusha hydropower plant began supplying an initial 11 megawatts of electricity to the national grid.





Bench-scale metallurgical flotation test work at XPS Consulting and Testwork Services laboratories in Falconbridge, Canada, achieved copper recoveries of 87.8% and produced a concentrate with an extremely high grade of 56% copper using the flowsheet developed during the Kamoa pre-feasibility study. The material tested was a composite of chalcocite-rich Kakula drill core, assaying 8.1% copper.





On February 8, 2017, Ivanhoe received the fourth of five scheduled $41.2 million installment payments from a Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. subsidiary as part of a strategic co-development agreement under which Zijin acquired 49.5% of Ivanhoe's majority stake in the Kamoa-Kakula copper discovery. Zijin  through its subsidiary, Gold Mountains (H.K.) International Mining Company Limited - agreed to pay a total of $412 million for the interest in Kamoa Holding Limited, beginning with an initial payment of $206 million in 2015. The fifth and final US$41.2 million installment payment from Zijin is due on May 23, 2017.





Following the signing of an agreement with the DRC government in November 2016, Ivanhoe and Zijin Mining each now hold an indirect 39.6% interest in the Kamoa-Kakula Project, Crystal River Global Limited holds an indirect 0.8% interest and the DRC government holds a direct 20% interest. Kamoa Holding Limited continues to hold an 80% interest in the Kamoa-Kakula Project.





A pre-feasibility study for the redevelopment of the Kipushi zinc-copper-germanium-lead-silver mine is being prepared by OreWin, of Australia. The comprehensive study will refine Ivanhoe's May 2016 preliminary economic assessment of Kipushi's proposed redevelopment. The upgraded mine is expected to produce an annual average of 530,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate over a 10-year mine life at a total cash cost, including copper by-product credits, of approximately $0.54 per pound of zinc.





At the Platreef platinum-palladium-gold-nickel-copper project in South Africa, sinking of Shaft 1 has reached a depth of more than 283 metres below surface. Sinking of Shaft 1 is proceeding at an average rate of approximately 45 metres per month and is expected to reach the Flatreef Deposit, at a depth of 777 metres below surface, in the first half of 2018. Sinking will continue to a planned final depth of 980 metres below surface. Development work will include four shaft stations at depths of 450 metres, 750 metres, 850 metres and 950 metres below surface. Shaft 1 will provide development access into the Flatreef Deposit while Shaft 2 is being developed.





The design has been completed for Platreef's Shaft 2, which will have a total hoisting capacity of six million tonnes per annum and an internal diameter of 10 metres. Construction of the box cut for Shaft 2 is expected to begin in Q2 2017; when completed, Shaft 2 will be the main production shaft at the Platreef Mine.





On February 24, 2017, the five-million-volt-ampere power line connecting the Platreef site to the South African national grid was energized and now is supplying electricity to Platreef for shaft sinking and construction activities. The new line, a collaboration between Platreef, the South African government and local authorities, also is providing energy to the neighbouring community of Mzombane, which previously was without electricity.





The feasibility study for the first phase of underground mine development at Platreef, which is being finalized by DRA Global, is expected to be completed in Q2 2017.





Ivanhoe Mines' three projects achieved a combined 10.98 million work hours free of lost-time injuries (LTIF) by the end of 2016. Ivanhoe had recorded 25,973 LTIF hours at Platreef, 4.94 million hours at Kipushi and 6.01 million hours at Kamoa-Kakula to the end of 2016.





Story continues

Principal projects and review of activities

1. Platreef Project

64%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines

South Africa

The Platreef Project is owned by Ivanplats (Pty) Ltd, which is 64%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines. A 26% interest is held by Ivanplats' historically-disadvantaged broad-based, black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) partners, which include 20 local host communities with a total of approximately 150,000 people, project employees and local entrepreneurs. In January 2017, Ivanplats reconfirmed its Level 3 status in its third verification assessment on a B-BBEE scorecard. A Japanese consortium of ITOCHU Corporation and its affiliate, ITC Platinum, plus Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation and JGC Corporation, owns a 10% interest in Ivanplats, which it acquired in two tranches for a total investment of $290 million.

The Platreef Project hosts an underground deposit of thick, platinum-group metals, nickel, copper and gold mineralization in the Northern Limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex, approximately 280 kilometres northeast of Johannesburg and eight kilometres from the town of Mokopane in Limpopo Province.

On the Northern Limb, platinum-group metals mineralization is hosted primarily within the Platreef, a mineralized sequence that is traced more than 30 kilometres along strike. Ivanhoe's Platreef Project, within the Platreef's southern sector, is comprised of three contiguous properties: Turfspruit, Macalacaskop and Rietfontein. Turfspruit, the northernmost property, is contiguous with, and along strike from, Anglo Platinum's Mogalakwena group of mining operations and properties.

Since 2007, Ivanhoe has focused its exploration and development activities on defining and advancing the down-dip extension of its original discovery at Platreef, now known as the Flatreef Deposit, which is amenable to highly mechanized, underground mining methods. The Flatreef area lies entirely on the Turfspruit and Macalacaskop properties, which form part of the company's mining right.

Health and safety at Platreef

The Platreef Project reached a total of 6,686,087 million hours worked in terms of the Mines Health and Safety Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) by the end of December 2016.

A Lost Time Injury (LTI) occurred to one of the shaft-sinking contract employees in December 2016. Various remedial actions have been implemented to prevent a re-occurrence. The Platreef Project continues to strive toward its workplace objective of an environment that causes zero harm to any employees, contractors, sub-contractors and consultants.

Shaft 1 construction now in fast-sinking mode

Shaft 1, with an internal diameter of 7.25 metres, will provide access to the Flatreef Deposit and enable the initial underground capital development to take place during the development of Shaft 2, the main production shaft.

Following the successful commissioning of the stage and kibble winders and ancillary equipment, the permanent sinking phase started in July 2016. The initial sinking phase was completed to 107 metres below surface and the main sinking phase has been initiated. Shaft 1 had reached a depth of 283 metres below surface on March 27, 2017.

An average sinking rate of 45 metres per month is expected during the main sinking phase. The shaft includes a 300-millimetre concrete lining to prevent loose rock from falling into the shaft. The main sinking phase is expected to reach its projected, final depth of 980 metres below surface in 2018. Shaft stations to provide access to horizontal mine workings for personnel, materials and services will be developed at depths of 450 metres, 750 metres, 850 metres and 950 metres below surface.

Figure 1. Platreef Project's Shaft 1 head gear, showing removal of excavated rock from shaft-sinking operations: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F1.pdf

Figure 2. Shaft-sinking crew operating jumbo drill rigs underground in Shaft 1: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F2.pdf

Eskom's 5MVA line supplying grid power to the Platreef Project

Work is complete on the Platreef electrical substation, which has a capacity of five million volt-amperes (MVA). Construction recently was completed on the power transmission lines from Eskom, South Africa's public electricity utility, which now is supplying the electricity for shaft sinking. Back-up generators have been installed to ensure continued sinking operations during any interruptions in Eskom's supply. The new transmission lines also are expected to provide power to an adjacent community near the Platreef Project, which will be a major, added community benefit.

Figure 3. Eskom's five-million-volt-ampere power line, energized last month, now is supplying electricity from the national grid for shaft sinking and construction activities at Platreef: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F3.pdf

Platreef implementing a phased approach to a large, underground, mechanized mine

Ivanhoe plans to develop the Platreef Mine in phases. The initial annual rate of four million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) is designed to establish an operating platform to support future expansions. This is expected to be followed by a potential doubling of production to eight Mtpa; and then a third expansion phase to a steady-state 12 Mtpa, which would establish Platreef among the largest platinum-group-metals mines in the world.

Ivanhoe has made good progress on advancing the feasibility study of the first phase, which began in August 2015. The study is being managed by DRA Global - with specialized sub-consultants including Stantec Consulting, Murray & Roberts Cementation, SRK, Golder Associates and Digby Wells Environmental - and is expected to be completed in the first half of 2017.

Planned mining methods to incorporate highly productive, mechanized methods

The selected mining areas in the current mine plan occur at depths ranging from approximately 700 metres to 1,200 metres below surface. The main access to the Flatreef Deposit and ventilation system is expected to be through four vertical shafts: 1, 2, 3 and 4. Shaft 2 will host the main personnel transport cage, material and ore-handling system; shafts 1, 3 and 4 will provide ventilation to the underground workings. Shaft 1, now under development, also will be used for initial access to the deposit and early underground development.

The planned mining will incorporate low-cost, mechanized mining methods, including long-hole stoping and drift-and-fill mining. Mined-out areas will be backfilled with a mixture of tailings from the processing plant and cement. The ore will be hauled from the stopes to a series of ore passes that will connect to a main haulage level at Shaft 2, from where it will be hoisted to the surface for processing.

Bulk water and electricity supply

The Olifants River Water Resource Development Project (ORWRDP) is designed to deliver water to the Eastern and Northern limbs of South Africa's Bushveld Complex. The project consists of the new De Hoop Dam, the raised wall of the Flag Boshielo Dam and related pipeline infrastructure that ultimately is expected to deliver water to Pruissen, southeast of the Northern Limb. The Pruissen Pipeline Project is expected to be developed to deliver water onward from Pruissen to the municipalities, communities and mining projects on the Northern Limb. Ivanhoe is a member of the ORWRDP's Joint Water Forum.

The Platreef Project's water requirement for the first phase of development is projected to peak at approximately 10 million litres per day, which is expected to be supplied by the water network. Ivanhoe also is investigating various alternative sources of bulk water, including an allocation of bulk grey-water from a local source.

The Platreef Project's electricity requirement for a four-million-tonne-per-year underground mine, concentrator and associated infrastructure has been estimated at approximately 100 million volt-amperes. An agreement has been reached with Eskom for the supply of phase-one power. Ivanhoe chose a self-build option for permanent power that will enable the company to manage the construction of the distribution lines from Eskom's Burutho sub-station to the Platreef Mine. The self-build and electrical supply agreements are being formulated.

First phase of the relocation of informal graves completed

On February 2, 2017, a South African judge issued a ruling in favour of Ivanplats clearing the way for the company to proceed with the relocation of informal graves in the vicinity of its Platreef Mine development project.

A total of 75 informal graves were successfully relocated from land outside the perimeter of the active mine development site to new burial plots in a formal cemetery. An additional 19 locations were investigated and found not to contain human remains. The Ivanplats support program included assistance in providing new burial plots in a formal cemetery, tombstones and related services.

Ivanplats plans to relocate an estimated 27 additional informal graves as part of the second phase of its relocation program after the permits for the exhumations and reburials have been received. Further phases on peripheral infrastructure areas also are planned. The relocation of informal graves will not impact on the development of the Platreef Project.

Development of human resources and job skills

Work is progressing well on the implementation of Ivanhoe's Social and Labour Plan (SLP), to which the company has pledged a total of R160 million ($11 million) during the first five years, culminating in November 2019. The approved plan includes R67 million ($4 million) for the development of job skills among local residents and R88 million ($6 million) for local economic development projects.

2. Kipushi Project

68%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines

Democratic Republic of Congo

The Kipushi copper-zinc-germanium-lead mine, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is adjacent to the town of Kipushi and approximately 30 kilometres southwest of Lubumbashi. It is located on the Central African Copperbelt, approximately 250 kilometres southeast of the Kamoa-Kakula Project and less than one kilometre from the Zambian border. Ivanhoe acquired its 68% interest in the Kipushi Project in November 2011; the balance of 32% is held by the state-owned mining company, La Generale des Carrieres et des Mines (Gecamines).

Health, safety and community development

The Kipushi Project achieved a total of 4,943,935 work hours free of lost-time injuries, equivalent to 1,604 days, to the end of 2016. Malaria remains the most frequently occurring health concern at Kipushi with approximately 200 cases reported in 2016 - an average of approximately 17 cases per month.

In an effort to reduce the incidence of malaria in the Kipushi community, a Water Sanitation and Health (WASH) program has been initiated in cooperation with the Territorial Administrator and the local community. The main emphasis of the program's first phase is cleaning storm drains in the municipality to prevent accumulations of ponded water, where malarial mosquitos breed.

The Fionet program to improve malaria diagnostics and treatment expanded to 300 Deki readers installed in 252 medical service providers in Haut-Katanga and Lualaba provinces in Southern DRC, which host Ivanhoe's Kipushi and Kamoa-Kakula Projects. Deki readers provide automated readings of rapid diagnostic tests to remove the human-error factor and avoid prescription of unnecessary medication. The data is uploaded to a cloud server for analysis by the Ministry of Health in planning malaria-control measures. There were more than 30,000 patient encounters, where Deki readers provided diagnostic testing, during the past year, with approximately 63% of patients testing negative for malaria.

Road and drainage rehabilitation on the main thoroughfare through the centre of Kipushi municipality was completed by the Haut-Katanga Office of Roads and Drainage (Office des Voires et Drainage) following the civil works completed by MCK on behalf of the Kipushi Project.

Project development and infrastructure

The Kipushi Mine, which had been placed on care and maintenance in 1993, flooded in early 2011 due to a lack of pump maintenance over an extended period. At its peak, water reached 851 metres below the surface. Ivanhoe restored access to the mine's principal haulage level at 1,150 metres below surface in December 2013; since then, crews have been upgrading underground infrastructure to permanently stabilize the water levels.

Since completion of the drilling program, water levels have been lowered to the bottom of Shaft 5, which is planned to be the mine's main production shaft. The shaft is eight metres in diameter, 1,240 metres deep and approximately 1.5 kilometres from the planned main mining area. It provides the primary access to the lower levels of the mine, including the Big Zinc Deposit, through the 1,150-metre haulage level and underground ramp decline.

Engineering work has focused on the upgrading of Shaft 5 conveyances and infrastructure, cleaning the shaft bottom to facilitate the installation of new hoist ropes, repairs and upgrades to the hoisting infrastructure and cleaning and stripping of the main pump station at the 1,200-metre-level. A new, high-volume ventilation fan also has been installed and commissioned on surface at Shaft 4 to provide fresh air to the underground workings.

Figure 4. New high-capacity water pumps at Kipushi's 1,200-metre level: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F4.pdf

Pre-feasibility study underway at Kipushi

In September 2016, Ivanhoe began a pre-feasibility study (PFS) on the Kipushi Project that will further refine the optimal development scenario for the existing underground mine at Kipushi. Orewin, of Australia, has been appointed the main engineering firm for the preparation of the PFS. Golder Associates, MDM, SRK, DRA, Murray & Roberts and Grindrod also have been engaged to complete various aspects of the study.

The PFS will refine the positive preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for the redevelopment of the Kipushi Project that was announced on May 2, 2016. The PEA was prepared in compliance with Canadian National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

Highlights of the 2016 PEA, prepared by OreWin and the MSA Group (Pty) Ltd, of Johannesburg, South Africa, include:

After-tax net present value at an 8% real discount rate is $533 million.





After-tax real internal rate of return is 30.9%.





After-tax project payback period is 2.2 years.





Leveraging existing surface and underground infrastructure significantly lowers the redevelopment capital compared to a greenfield development project, as well as the time required to reinstate production.





Life-of-mine average planned zinc concentrate production of 530,000 dry tonnes per annum - with a concentrate grade of 53% zinc - is expected to rank Kipushi, once in production, among the world's major zinc mines.





Life-of-mine average cash cost of $0.54/lb. of zinc is expected to rank Kipushi, once in production, in the bottom quartile of the cash-cost curve for zinc producers globally.





3. Kamoa-Kakula Project

39.6%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines

Democratic Republic of Congo

The Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project, a joint venture between Ivanhoe Mines and Zijin Mining, has been independently ranked as the largest copper discovery ever made on the African continent, with adjacent prospective exploration areas within the Central African Copperbelt in the Democratic Republic of Congo, approximately 25 kilometres west of the town of Kolwezi and about 270 kilometres west of Lubumbashi.

Ivanhoe sold a 49.5% share interest in Kamoa Holding Limited to Zijin Mining in December 2015 for an aggregate consideration of $412 million. In addition, Ivanhoe sold a 1% share interest in Kamoa Holding to privately-owned Crystal River Global Limited for $8.32 million - which Crystal River will pay through a non-interest-bearing, 10-year promissory note. Since the conclusion of the Zijin transaction in December 2015, each shareholder has been required to fund expenditures at the Kamoa-Kakula Project in an amount equivalent to its proportionate shareholding interest in Kamoa Holding.

A 5%, non-dilutable interest in the Kamoa-Kakula Project was transferred to the DRC government on September 11, 2012, for no consideration, pursuant to the DRC Mining Code. Following the signing of an agreement with the DRC government in November 2016, in which an additional 15% interest in the Kamoa-Kakula Project was transferred to the DRC government, Ivanhoe and Zijin Mining now each hold an indirect 39.6% interest in the Kamoa-Kakula Project, Crystal River Global Limited holds an indirect 0.8% interest and the DRC government holds a direct 20% interest. Kamoa Holding Limited continues to hold an 80% interest in the project.

New discovery hole intersects a thick, shallow, 3.8-kilometre extension - now known as Kakula West - of the Kakula Copper Discovery

On March 21, 2017, Ivanhoe announced that a new step-out hole - drilled 5.4 kilometres west of the present boundary of Kakula's current Inferred Resources - intersected a relatively shallow, 16.3-metre zone of typical Kakula-style, chalcocite-rich copper mineralization similar to holes drilled in the centre of the high-grade Kakula Deposit on the Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project.

The DD1124 discovery hole is 3.8 kilometres west of the current limit of Kakula drilling and 4.1 kilometres west of the last drill hole with returned assays - DD1093 - that was announced on January 23, 2017.

The target area where DD1124 was drilled - now named Kakula West - was selected by the Kamoa-Kakula geological team at the intersection of the axis of the interpreted Kakula trend with a southwesterly-northeasterly-trending antiform (the Kakula West antiform). DD1124 intersected 16.3 metres of visually moderate-strong chalcocite copper mineralization, similar to the mineralization encountered within the core of the chalcocite-rich Kakula Deposit, beginning at a downhole depth of 422.2 metres (410 metres below surface), which included a 4.0-metre zone of strong-to-very-strong mineralization beginning at a downhole depth of 432.4 metres. Assays for DD1124 are expected early next month. Up to five rigs are being mobilized to fast-track the drilling at the Kakula West discovery.

Hole DD1124 has extended the length of the Kakula mineralized trend to approximately 10.1 kilometres, essentially doubling the previously estimated strike length of 5.5 kilometres contained in Ivanhoe's January 23, 2017 news release. The continuing success also means that the discovery has grown to become six kilometres longer than the deposit's 4.1-kilometre strike length that was used in calculating the initial Kakula resource estimate in October 2016.

The Kakula Discovery remains open along a westerly-southeasterly strike. Importantly, the chalcocite-rich zone of mineralization in DD1124 was intersected at a depth of approximately 400 metres below surface, significantly shallower than several of the mineralized intercepts announced in January 2017 that were drilled closer to the western boundary of the Kakula Inferred Resource (See Figure 7).

Figure 5. Kamoa-Kakula mining licence - showing copper grade of Indicated and Inferred Resources at a 2% copper cut-off, untested areas, current target areas and location of Kakula West Discovery: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F5.pdf

Figure 6. Planned drilling over the Kakula Exploration Area for Q1 2017 and Q2 to Q4 2017, showing current and future drilling areas and location of recent significant intersections: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F6.pdf

Figure 7. Section along the axis on the Kakula Deposit on the section A - A'- A" - B showing drilling completed to date and composites at a 2.5% copper cut-off: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F7.pdf

October 2016 Kakula Resource estimate significantly boosts project's tonnes and grade

Ivanhoe issued an updated Mineral Resource for the Kamoa-Kakula Project on October 12, 2016. The updated Mineral Resource included the initial Kakula Mineral Resource estimate, prepared by Ivanhoe Mines under the direction of Amec Foster Wheeler E&C Services Inc., of Reno, USA, in accordance with the 2014 CIM Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. The Qualified Persons for the Kamoa-Kakula Mineral Resource estimate are Dr. Harry Parker, RM, SME and Gordon Seibel, RM, SME both of Amec Foster Wheeler E&C Services Inc.

The combined Kamoa-Kakula Project's Indicated Mineral Resources now total 944 million tonnes grading 2.83% copper, containing 58.9 billion pounds of copper at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres. Kamoa-Kakula now also has Inferred Mineral Resources of 286 million tonnes grading 2.31% copper and containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper, also at a 1.0% copper cut-off grade and a minimum thickness of three metres.

The Kakula Indicated Mineral Resources total 192 million tonnes at a grade of 3.45% copper, containing 14.6 billion pounds of copper at a 1% copper cut-off. At a 2% copper cut-off, Indicated Resources total 115 million tonnes at a 4.80% copper grade, containing 12.1 billion pounds of copper. At a higher cut-off of 3% copper, Indicated Resources total 66 million tonnes at a grade of 6.59% copper, containing 9.6 billion pounds of copper. Kakula has Inferred Mineral Resources totalling 101 million tonnes at a grade of 2.74% copper, containing 6.1 billion pounds of copper at a 1% copper cut-off. At a 2% copper cut-off, Inferred Resources total 51 million tonnes at a 3.92% copper grade, containing 4.4 billion pounds of copper. At a higher cut-off of 3% copper, Inferred Resources total 27 million tonnes at a grade of 5.26% copper, containing 3.2 billion pounds of copper. Kakula's Indicated and Inferred resources are included in the combined Kamoa-Kakula Project resources.

The average true thickness of the Kakula selective mineralized zone (SMZ) at a 1% cut-off is 14.27 metres in the Indicated Resources area and 10.33 metres in the Inferred Resources area. At a higher 3% cut-off, the average true thickness of the SMZ is 5.91 metres in the Indicated Resources area and 5.15 metres in the Inferred Resources area.

Kamoa-Kakula studies present two initial development scenarios

On December 13, 2016, Ivanhoe Mines announced the results of a positive, independent, preliminary economic assessment of initial options for the start-up of world-scale copper mining on the Kakula and Kamoa deposits. The PEA presented two initial development scenarios for the Kamoa-Kakula Project.

One initial option analyzed in the PEA is the development of a four-million-tonne-per-annum (Mtpa) Kakula Phase 1 Mine at the Kakula Deposit, in the southerly portion of the project's discovery area. For this option, the PEA envisaged an average annual production rate of 216,000 tonnes of copper at a mine-site cash cost of $0.37/lb copper for the first 10 years of operations and peak copper production of 262,000 tonnes by year three.

A pre-production capital cost of $1.0 billion for this option would result in an after-tax net present value at an 8% discount rate (NPV8%) of $3.7 billion with an after-tax internal rate of return (IRR) of 38%.

The PEA also analyzed an alternative initial option that could involve a two-phase, sequential expansion of production to eight Mtpa from the proposed Kakula Phase 1 Mine at the Kakula Deposit and also the Kansoko Mine at the adjacent Kamoa Deposit. Under this alternative, the PEA envisaged $1.0 billion in capital costs and an average annual production rate of 292,000 tonnes of copper at a mine-site cash cost of $0.42/lb copper during the first 10 years of operations and peak production of 370,000 tonnes by year seven. This would result in an after-tax NPV8% of $4.7 billion, an after-tax IRR of 34.6% and payback period of 3.5 years.

Kamoa-Kakula surpassed six million hours worked without a lost-time injury in 2016

Health and safety remain key priorities for all people working at the Kamoa-Kakula Project. A noteworthy milestone of six million hours worked without a lost-time injury was achieved at the project on December 29, 2016.

Exploration activities lead to a substantial expansion of the Kakula Discovery

During Q4 2016, a total of 13,508 metres of exploration drilling was completed at the new Kakula Discovery. A further 11,678 metres were completed by the drilling contractor, Titan Drilling SARL, utilizing up to six drill rigs; an additional 1,831 metres were completed using company-owned drill rigs. Included in the drilling program were holes drilled for geotechnical studies to help find a suitable location for the Kakula box cut. Exploration drilling for 2016 totalled 45,853 metres.

Expanded exploration to target untested parts of the Kamoa-Kakula licence

A decision was made at the end of Q4 2016 to increase exploration diamond drilling activity into 2017. The intention is to accelerate the resource expansion drilling planned for Q1 and Q2 2017 to establish sufficient resource for an expansion of the four Mpta production plan option examined in the December 13, 2016, PEA. The PEA examined two possible development options for the Kakula Deposit, and the Kakula Deposit together with the adjacent Kamoa Deposit. A total of nine rigs now are dedicated to the resource expansion drilling program. The current plan is to update the Mineral Resource in early Q2 2017.

Geological investigations of the untested parts of the Kamoa-Kakula licence are ongoing and a number of significant targets have been identified. Five rigs now are dedicated to drill testing regional targets on the Kamoa-Kakula licence, including Kakula West, bringing the total number of rigs active at Kamoa-Kakula to 14. Locations of the delineated resources, drill-tested areas and targets for future exploration are shown in Figure 5.

Excellent copper recoveries and concentrate grades confirmed by preliminary metallurgical tests on drill core from Kakula

In July 2016, initial metallurgical test results from a sample of exploration drill core from the Kakula area achieved copper recoveries of 86% and produced a copper concentrate with a grade of 53% copper.

Due to high-grade intercepts consistently achieved at Kakula, an additional sample of higher grade was selected and shipped to the XPS laboratories for preliminary floatation tests. DD1012 and DD1036 composite grading 8.1% copper produced a recovery of 87.8% at an extremely high concentrate grade of 56% copper.

These positive preliminary Kakula metallurgical test results indicate that the metallurgy is very similar to that at Kansoko Sud and Centrale, and that mineralization from these three areas could be successfully processed through the same concentrator plant.

A metallurgical drilling campaign for a representative composite sample is planned for Q2 2017 for PFS circuit development and optimization in line with the defined Kakula resource. Earlier metallurgical testwork indicated that the Kamoa and Kakula concentrates contain extremely low arsenic levels, by world standards - approximately 0.02%. Given this critical competitive marketing advantage, Kamoa-Kakula concentrates are expected to attract a significant premium from copper-concentrate traders for use in blending with concentrates from other mines. The concentrates will help to enable the other concentrates to meet the limit of 0.5% arsenic imposed by Chinese smelters to meet China's environmental restrictions.

Mine development at Kansoko Sud nearing zone of high-grade mineralization

Byrnecut Underground Congo SARL progressed well with the decline development at Kansoko Sud during Q4 2016. The service and conveyor declines each have been advanced more than 670 metres through underground development work.

Development of the underground mine is designed to reach the high-grade copper mineralization at the Kansoko Sud Deposit during Q2 2017.

Figure 8. Ongoing construction of access declines for the Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project's high-grade Kansoko Mine: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F8.pdf

Development of Kakula box cut and decline advancing

The Kamoa-Kakula technical team has identified a location for a box cut for the initial portal to planned decline ramps that will provide underground access to the Kakula Deposit. The design of the box cut has been completed and the excavation, support and civil works have been tendered. Bids have been received and adjudicated and Kamoa-Kakula now is in a position to award the work. Construction of the Kakula box cut is expected to take approximately six months, after which development of the set of twin declines can commence.

A tender document is under preparation for the Kakula decline development and is expected to be issued to prospective contractors in April 2017.

Kamoa mine site connected to the national hydroelectric grid

The construction of the 120 kilovolt (kV) power line that branches off from the main supply at Kisenge has been completed. A 120kV mobile substation was installed, commissioned and energized on October 30, 2016. The Kamoa mine site now is connected to the national electrical grid and is receiving hydropower for work on site.

An eight-kilometre, 11kV overhead power line with mini substations has been constructed from the mine site to the Kamoa camp and is supplying hydropower from the mine to the camp. The supply of electricity from the grid has resulted in significant savings from reduced use of diesel fuel.

Figure 9: Kamoa-Kakula Project team members working on the 11-kilovolt mobile substation that is connected to the DRC national electricity grid now supplying power to develop the access declines for the planned mine: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F9.pdf

Initial repair work enables Mwadingusha power station to supply electricity to grid

The Mwadingusha Unit 1 repair work was completed in August 2016 and the official inauguration ceremony was held at the Mwadingusha power station on September 7. The Mwadingusha G1 unit, supplying 11 megawatts, was synchronized to the SNEL national interconnected grid on September 6.

Preparations for permanent power progressed well during Q4 2016. The contract to purchase four turbines for the Mwadingusha power plant upgrades was awarded and the contract signed between SNEL and the consortium Andritz Hydro & CEGELEC. A site visit by the consortium took place in December in preparation for demolition work to start in August 2017.

Continued focus on community and sustainability

The number of unskilled job opportunities from the Kamoa-Kakula Project and contractors has risen during Q4 2016 due to the increase in activity around the camp and mine area. Preference is given to local job-seekers and numerous positions have been filled.

The sustainable livelihoods project is largely aimed at economically empowering communities in the vicinity of the planned mine. The project, which has been in place for the past five years, successfully implemented the following programs in benefiting communities during 2016:

a small-holder maize (corn) production program yielded maize from 16 communities;





a vegetable program supplying produce to the Kamoa-Kakula Project camp kitchen;





a poultry project now is self-sustaining and supplies the Kamoa-Kakula Project camp kitchen with chickens and eggs;





a beekeeping program managing 50 honey-producing hives; and





aquaculture production that is reducing the cost of fish for the Kamoa-Kakula Project and empowering involved communities through nutrition enhancement and economic growth.





Community projects in 2016 also included the construction of a secondary school at the local Kaponda village.

Figure 10: One of the community maize (corn) plantations in the vicinity of the Kamoa-Kakula Project: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1090018-F10.pdf

SELECTED ANNUAL FINANCIAL INFORMATION

This selected financial information is in accordance with IFRS as presented in the annual consolidated financial statements. Ivanhoe had no operating revenue in any financial reporting period and did not declare or pay any dividend or distribution in any financial reporting period.

For the year ended December 31, 2016 2015 2014 $'000 $'000 $'000 Exploration and project expenditure* 32,426 40,751 97,933 Share-based payments 5,977 7,722 97,294 General administrative expenditure* 18,835 17,445 30,998 Finance income (29,902 ) (2,204 ) (1,041 ) Finance costs 1,798 1,674 2,241 Share of losses from joint venture 21,732 1,030 - Deferred tax expense (recovery) 790 (1,624 ) (46 ) Gain on partial sale of subsidiary - (357,671 ) - Re-measurement to fair value of the interest retained in joint venture - (376,148 ) - Mark-to-market gain on revaluation of warrants - (6,945 ) (9,524 ) (Gain) loss from subsidiary held for partial sale - (4,319 ) 38,537 Total comprehensive loss (profit) attributable to: Owners of the Company 23,011 (681,274 ) 227,347 Non-controlling interest 12,739 12,969 32,863 Loss (profit) per share (basic and diluted) 0.04 (0.93 ) 0.34 Total assets 1,002,230 1,022,578 253,077 Non-current liabilities 28,957 28,103 23,603 * Prior period amounts have been amended to show the (gains)/losses from subsidiary held for partial sale separately in order to improve comparability.

DISCUSSION OF RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

Review of the year ended December 31, 2016 vs. December 31, 2015

The company recorded a total comprehensive loss of $35.8 million for the year ending December 31, 2016, compared to a total comprehensive profit of $668.3 million for the year ending December 31, 2015. The profit in 2015 was attributable mainly to the gain on the partial sale of Kamoa Holding of $357.7 million and the re-measurement to fair value of the interest retained in the joint venture of $376.1 million.

In 2015, the company sold a 50.5% stake in Kamoa Holding, the company that owned 95% of the Kamoa-Kakula Project. The company sold a 49.5% stake to Gold Mountains (H.K.) International Mining Company Limited, a subsidiary of Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. (Zijin), for an aggregate consideration of $412 million. Zijin paid an initial $206 million at closing in December 2015, followed by the payment of the first three of five scheduled $41.2 million installments in March, July and October 2016 and the fourth installment in February 2017. The fifth and final $41.2 million installment payment is due on May 23, 2017.

In addition, the company sold 1% of its share interest to Crystal River Global Limited. Crystal River paid its purchase consideration of $8.32 million through a non-interest-bearing, 10-year promissory note.

The present value of the purchase consideration at the closing date, net of transaction costs, amounted to $390.4 million. As a result of the partial sale, the company derecognized the assets, liabilities and non-controlling interest of Kamoa Holding, recognized the investment retained at its fair value, deemed to be $408.2 million at the time. This resulted in the gain associated with the sale of $357.7 million and the re-measurement to fair value of the interest retained in the joint venture of $376.1 million.

Subsequent to the partial sale, the company accounted for Kamoa Holding as a joint venture using the equity method of accounting.

When excluding the 2015 gain on the partial sale of Kamoa Holding of $357.7 million and the re-measurement to fair value of the interest retained in the joint venture of $376.1 million, the company's total comprehensive loss for the year ending December 31, 2015, amounted to $65.5 million. This is $29.7 million higher than the total comprehensive loss for the same period in 2016 of $35.8 million. The decrease mainly was due to exchange gains on translation of foreign operations of $10.2 million recognized in 2016 compared to an exchange loss on translation of foreign operations of $20.7 million in 2015, as well as the company's share of losses from the Kamoa Holding joint venture that increased from $1.0 million in 2015 to $21.7 million in 2016.

The increase in finance income of $27.7 million, together with an $8.3 million decrease in exploration and project expenditure, also contributed to the decreased comprehensive loss for the period, but was partly offset by the company's mark-to-market gain on revaluation of warrants of $6.9 million that expired during December 2015.

Finance income for the year ending December 31, 2016, amounted to $29.9 million, and was $27.7 million more than for the same period in 2015 ($2.2 million). The increase mainly was due to interest earned on loans to the Kamoa Holding joint venture that amounted to $16.2 million in 2016, together with deemed finance income on the purchase price receivable from the partial sale of the Kamoa-Kakula Project, of $11.0 million.

The following table summarizes the company's share of the comprehensive loss of Kamoa Holding for the year ending December 31, 2016, and for 2015, from December 8, when the company sold 50.5% of its interest in Kamoa Holding:

Year ended December 31, 2016 Year ended December 31, 2015 $'000 $'000 Interest expense 32,438 1,806 Interest income (111) - Exploration costs 14,743 482 Foreign exchange loss (gain) 187 (117) Loss for the period 47,257 2,171 Loss attributible to non-controlling interest (3,354) (89) Loss for the period attributible to joint venture partners 43,903 2,082 Company's share of losses from joint venture (49.5%) 21,732 1,030

The costs associated with mine development are capitalized as development costs in Kamoa Holding, while the exploration expenditure at Kakula is expensed. The interest expense in the Kamoa Holding joint venture relates to shareholder loans where each shareholder is required to fund Kamoa Holding in an amount equivalent to its proportionate shareholding interest.

Exploration and project expenditures for the year ending December 31, 2016, amounted to $32.4 million and were $8.4 million less than for the same period in 2015 ($40.8 million). The $4.1 million retrenchment costs incurred in 2015 relating to the closure of Ivanhoe's regional exploration company in the DRC was the main reason for the decrease, together with reduced expenditure at the Kipushi Project.

With the focus at the Platreef Project on development and the Kamoa-Kakula Project being accounted for as a joint venture, $31.7 million of the total $32.4 million exploration and project expenditure related to the Kipushi Project. Expenditure at the Kipushi Project decreased by $2.0 million compared to the same period in 2015.

Financial position as at December 31, 2016 vs. December 31, 2015

The company's total assets decreased by $20.3 million, from $1,022.6 million as at December 31, 2015, to $1,002.2 million as at December 31, 2016. This resulted from the company utilizing its cash resources in its operations. The company's total liabilities increased by $2.2 million to $46.0 million as at December 31, 2016, from $43.8 million as at December 31, 2015.

The remaining purchase price receivable due to the company as a result of the sale of 49.5% of Kamoa Holding decreased as the company received $134.3 million from Zijin during 2016. The present value of the remaining consideration receivable, net of transaction costs, was $76.2 million as at December 31, 2016. Ivanhoe received $41.2 million of the remaining consideration receivable subsequent to December 31, 2016, on February 8, 2017, and the last installment is due on May 23, 2017.

The company's investment in the Kamoa Holding joint venture increased by $61.6 million from $412.0 as at December 31, 2015, to $473.6 million as at December 31, 2016, with the current shareholders funding the operations equivalent to their proportionate shareholding interest. The company's portion of the Kamoa Holding joint venture cash calls amounted to $58.4 million during 2016, while the company's share of comprehensive loss from joint venture amounted to $21.7 million. At Kamoa-Kakula, the focus remained on development, together with an exploration program at the Kakula Discovery.

Property, plant and equipment increased by $48.4 million, with a total of $43.5 million being spent on project development and to acquire other property, plant and equipment, $40.3 million of which pertained to development costs of the Platreef Project.

The company utilized $31.0 million of its cash resources in its operations and earned interest income of $2.7 million in 2016.

SELECTED QUARTERLY FINANCIAL INFORMATION

The following table summarizes selected financial information for the prior eight quarters. Ivanhoe had no operating revenue in any financial reporting period and did not declare or pay any dividend or distribution in any financial reporting period.

3 Months ended December 31,

2016 September 30,

2016 June 30,

2016 March 31,

2016 $'000 $'000 $'000 $'000 Exploration and project expenditure 9,507 7,769 8,233 6,917 General administrative expenditure 7,272 4,213 3,657 3,693 Share-based payments 1,442 1,750 1,312 1,473 Finance income (6,827 ) (7,239 ) (7,367 ) (8,469 ) Finance costs 471 454 445 428 Total comprehensive loss (profit) attributable to: Owners of the Company 14,101 (1,860 ) 6,568 4,203 Non-controlling interest 3,914 2,445 3,483 2,897 Loss per share (basic and diluted) 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.01 3 Months ended December 31,

2015 September 30,

2015 June 30,

2015 March 31,

2015 $'000 $'000 $'000 $'000 Exploration and project expenditure * 10,271 8,553 9,009 12,918 General administrative expenditure * 5,833 4,430 1,323 5,859 Share-based payments 2,345 1,655 1,736 1,986 Gain on partial sale of subsidiary (357,671 ) - - - Re-measurement to fair value of the interest retained in joint venture (376,148 ) - - - Finance income (1,191 ) (273 ) (445 ) (295 ) Finance costs 1,556 36 48 34 Mark-to-market gain on revaluation of warrants (429 ) (970 ) (1,334 ) (4,212 ) Loss (gain) from subsidiary held for partial sale 755 (7,958 ) 2,675 209 Total comprehensive loss attributable to: Owners of the Company (717,213 ) 9,420 11,008 15,511 Non-controlling interest 2,468 3,439 3,564 3,498 (Profit) loss per share (basic and diluted) (0.93 ) 0.00 0.01 0.02 * Prior period amounts have been amended to show the (gains)/losses from subsidiary held for partial sale separately in order to improve comparability.

LIQUIDITY AND CAPITAL RESOURCES

The company had $285.0 million in cash and cash equivalents as at December 31, 2016. Certain of the company's cash and cash equivalents, having an aggregate value of $19.8 million, are subject to contractual restrictions as to their use and are reserved for the Platreef Project.

As at December 31, 2016, the company had consolidated working capital of approximately $364.8 million, compared to $424.6 million at December 31, 2015. The Platreef Project working capital is restricted and amounted to $14.8 million at December 31, 2016, and $53.2 million at December 31, 2015. Excluding the Platreef Project working capital, the resultant working capital was $350.0 million at December 31, 2016, and $371.4 million at December 31, 2015. The company believes it has sufficient resources to cover its short-term cash requirements. However, the company's access to financing always is uncertain and there can be no assurance that additional funding will be available to the company in the near future.

On December 8, 2015, Zijin, through a subsidiary company, acquired a 49.5% interest in Kamoa Holding for a total of $412 million in a series of payments. Ivanhoe received an initial $206 million from Zijin on December 8, 2015, and a further $41.2 million on each of March 23, 2016, July 8, 2016, October 25, 2016, and February 8, 2017; the last remaining $41.2 million is scheduled to be received on May 23, 2017. Since December 8, 2015, each shareholder in Kamoa Holding has been required to fund Kamoa Holding in an amount equivalent to its proportionate shareholding interest.

The company's main objectives for 2017 at the Platreef Project are the completion of the phase one feasibility study, the continuation of Shaft 1 construction and commencement of construction of Shaft 2. At Kipushi, the principal objective is the completion of the pre-feasibility study and continued upgrading of mining infrastructure. At the Kamoa-Kakula Project, priorities are the continuation of drilling, the continuation of construction of the twin declines at Kamoa and the commencement of a box cut at Kakula. The company expects to spend $60 million on further development at the Platreef Project; $33 million at the Kipushi Project; and $15 million on corporate overheads in 2017 - as well as its proportionate funding of the Kamoa-Kakula Project, expected to be $55 million for 2017.

This news release should be read in conjunction with Ivanhoe Mines' audited 2016 Financial Statements and Management's Discussion and Analysis report available at www.ivanhoemines.com and at www.sedar.com.

Qualified Person

Disclosures of a scientific or technical nature in this news release have been reviewed and approved by Stephen Torr, who is considered, by virtue of his education, experience and professional association, a Qualified Person under the terms of NI 43-101. Mr. Torr is not considered independent under NI 43-101 as he is the Vice President, Project Geology and Evaluation. Mr. Torr has verified the technical data disclosed in this news release.

Ivanhoe has prepared a current independent NI 43-101-compliant technical report for each of the Platreef Project, the Kipushi Project and the Kamoa-Kakula Project, which are available under the company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com:

Technical Report dated January 20, 2017 prepared by OreWin Pty. Ltd., AMEC and SRK Consulting Inc. covering the company's Kamoa-Kakula Project;





Technical Report dated April 22, 2016 prepared by OreWin, AMEC, Stantec Inc., SRK and DRA Projects (Pty.) Ltd. covering the company's Platreef Project; and





Technical Report dated March 11, 2016 prepared by MSA Group (Pty) Ltd and OreWin covering the company's Kipushi Project.





These technical reports include relevant information regarding the effective dates and the assumptions, parameters and methods of the mineral resource estimates on the Platreef Project, the Kipushi Project and the Kamoa-Kakula Project cited in this news release, as well as information regarding data verification, exploration procedures and other matters relevant to the scientific and technical disclosure contained in this news release in respect of the Platreef Project, Kipushi Project and Kamoa-Kakula Project.

Forward-looking statements

Certain statements in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such statements and information involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company, its projects, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. Such statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "expect", "believe", "plan", "anticipate", "estimate", "scheduled", "forecast", "predict" and other similar terminology, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. These statements reflect the company's current expectations regarding future events, performance and results and speak only as of the date of this news release.

Such statements include without limitation, the timing and results of: (i) statements regarding Shaft 1 providing initial access for early underground development at the Flatreef Deposit; (ii) statements regarding the station development of Shaft 1 at the 450, 750, 850 and 950-metre levels; (iii) statements regarding the sinking of Shaft 1, including that a sinking rate of 45 metres per month is expected; (iv) statements regarding Shaft 1 reaching the planned, final depth at 980 metres below surface in 2018; (v) statements regarding the timing of the commencement of Shaft 2 development, including that construction is to commence in 2017; (vi) statements regarding the operational and technical capacity of Shaft 1; (vii) statements regarding the internal diameter and hoisting capacity of Shaft 2; (viii) statements regarding the company's plans to develop the Platreef Mine in three phases: an initial annual rate of four million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) to establish an operating platform to support future expansions; followed by a doubling of production to eight Mtpa; and then a third expansion phase to a steady-state 12 Mtpa; (ix) statements regarding the planned underground mining methods of the Platreef Project including long-hole stoping and drift-and-fill mining; (x) statements regarding the expectation to start the construction of the Platreef Project's box cut for Shaft 2 in Q2 2017; (xi) statements regarding peak water use of 10 million litres per day at the Platreef Project and development of the Pruissen Pipeline Project; (xii) statements regarding the Platreef Project's estimated electricity requirement of 100 million volt-amperes; (xiii) statements regarding the completion of a feasibility study at the Platreef Project in the first half of 2017; (xiv) statements regarding the declines having been designed to intersect the high-grade copper mineralization in the Kansoko Sud area during the first quarter of 2017; (xv) statements regarding the timing, size and objectives of drilling and other exploration programs for 2017 and future periods including a metallurgical drilling campaign at the Kakula deposit planned for the second quarter of 2017 and increased exploration diamond drilling activity in 2017; (xvi) statements regarding the implementation of Social and Labour Plan at the Platreef Project and pledged expenditure of R160 million; (xvii) statements regarding the expectation to have an updated mineral resource for the Kakula Discovery released in early Q2; (xviii) statements that the Kakula box cut is expected to take approximately six months; and (xix) statements regarding expected expenditure in 2017 of $60 million on further development at the Platreef Project; $33 million at the Kipushi Project; and $15 million on corporate overheads - as well as its proportionate funding of the Kamoa-Kakula Project, expected to be $55 million in 2017.

As well, all of the results of the pre-feasibility study of the Kamoa-Kakula Project and preliminary economic assessment of development options for the Kakula deposit, the pre-feasibility study of the Platreef Project and the preliminary economic assessment of the Kipushi Project constitute forward-looking statements or information, and include future estimates of internal rates of return, net present value, future production, estimates of cash cost, proposed mining plans and methods, mine life estimates, cash flow forecasts, metal recoveries, estimates of capital and operating costs and the size and timing of phased development of the projects. Furthermore, with respect to this specific forward-looking information concerning the development of the Kamoa-Kakula, Platreef and Kipushi Projects, the company has based its assumptions and analysis on certain factors that are inherently uncertain. Uncertainties include: (i) the adequacy of infrastructure; (ii) geological characteristics; (iii) metallurgical characteristics of the mineralization; (iv) the ability to develop adequate processing capacity; (v) the price of copper, nickel, zinc, platinum, palladium, rhodium and gold; (vi) the availability of equipment and facilities necessary to complete development; (vii) the cost of consumables and mining and processing equipment; (viii) unforeseen technological and engineering problems; (ix) accidents or acts of sabotage or terrorism; (x) currency fluctuations; (xi) changes in regulations; (xii) the compliance by joint venture partners with terms of agreements, (xiii) the availability and productivity of skilled labour; (xiv) the regulation of the mining industry by various governmental agencies; and (xv) political factors.

This news release also contains references to estimates of Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. The estimation of Mineral Resources is inherently uncertain and involves subjective judgments about many relevant factors. Estimates of Mineral Reserves provide more certainty but still involve similar subjective judgements. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The accuracy of any such estimates is a function of the quantity and quality of available data, and of the assumptions made and judgments used in engineering and geological interpretation (including estimated future production from the company's projects, the anticipated tonnages and grades that will be mined and the estimated level of recovery that will be realized), which may prove to be unreliable and depend, to a certain extent, upon the analysis of drilling results and statistical inferences that ultimately may prove to be inaccurate. Mineral Resource or Mineral Reserve estimates may have to be re-estimated based on: (i) fluctuations in copper, nickel, zinc, platinum group elements (PGE), gold or other mineral prices; (ii) results of drilling; (iii) metallurgical testing and other studies; (iv) proposed mining operations, including dilution; (v) the evaluation of mine plans subsequent to the date of any estimates and/or changes in mine plans; (vi) the possible failure to receive required permits, approvals and licenses; and (vii) changes in law or regulation.

Forward-looking statements and information involve significant risks and uncertainties, should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results and will not necessarily be accurate indicators of whether or not such results will be achieved. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements or information, including, but not limited to, the factors discussed below and under "Risk Factors", as well as unexpected changes in laws, rules or regulations, or their enforcement by applicable authorities; the failure of parties to contracts with the company to perform as agreed; social or labour unrest; changes in commodity prices; and the failure of exploration programs or studies to deliver anticipated results or results that would justify and support continued exploration, studies, development or operations.

Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the company believes are reasonable assumptions, the company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Subject to applicable securities laws, the company does not assume any obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this news release.

The company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of the factors set forth in the "Risk Factors" section and elsewhere in the company's MD&A.
TORONTO, March 28, 2017 /CNW/ - Symbility Solutions Inc., ("Symbility") (TSX.V: SY), announced today their completion of another insurtech project for their fourth insurance brand of 2017 - this on the heels of the successful deployment of a First Notice of Loss (FNOL) application for a major global carrier in late 2016.

Through Symbility's services division, Symbility Intersect, the company is experiencing significant growth in their scope of projects and new product offerings focused in the Fintech and Insurtech industries. Some of Symbility's other projects includes helping one of Canada's top auto insurers build the country's first mobile auto claims submission experience, working with a global leader in HR and Benefits to launch 24 projects in three years through their product discovery and prototyping process, and creating an API for one of Canada's top banks that connects to over 160 international banks allowing for easy and safe currency transfers.

"Regardless of the industry, one of the big challenges that we find large organizations are facing in regards to taking advantage of the opportunities that mobile and IoT offer, is being back-end ready," said Paul Crowe, CEO, Symbility Intersect. "From API development to microservices architecture strategy, our team supporting these areas is consistently growing and always finding new and better solutions. Helping our clients modernize their legacy back-ends has a real organizational impact for them, while also enabling the rest of our mobile, web, and IoT development teams to bring innovative ideas to the table."

Symbility's expertise in designing data-driven UI/UX and adaptable infrastructure has made the company a much sought after partner for many organizations. While approximately 75 percent of Symbility's service division's revenue is made up of Fintech and Insurtech clients, their track record in bringing new and exciting innovation to current clients is quickly catching the eye of many players in other verticals as well, including retail, QSRs, mobile gaming, and even with some promising startups.

"The impact that we are seeing in our clients' businesses never ceases to amaze me," said James Swayze, CEO, Symbility Solutions. "We've built an incredible team here that does everything from leading edge UI builds to creating backend technology that works now and can be easily adapted in the future, it's no wonder that we're seeing organizations from all over wanting to partner with us. We're incredibly excited about what the future holds for both us and our partners."

CAUTION REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

This press release may contain forward-looking statements with respect to the Corporation, its products and operations. These statements generally can be identified by use of forward looking words such as "may", "will", "expect", "estimate", "anticipate", "intends", "believe" or "continue" or the negative thereof or similar variations. The actual results and performance of the Corporation discussed herein could differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Such statements are qualified in their entirety by the inherent risks and uncertainties surrounding future expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations include, among other things, general economic and market factors, competition, changes in government regulations, and the factors described under "Risk Factors" in the Management's Discussion and Analysis and Annual Information Form of the Corporation which are available at www.sedar.com. The cautionary statements qualify all forward-looking statements attributable to the Corporation and persons acting on their behalf. Unless otherwise stated, all forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release and the Corporation has no obligation to update such statements.

ABOUT SYMBILITY

Symbility (TSX.V: SY) believes in creating world-class experiences that simplify business and improve lives. With a history in modernizing insurance claims solutions for the property and health industries, Symbility has established itself as a partner that puts security, efficiency and customer experience first. Symbility PROPERTY brings smarter thinking to property insurance. Symbility HEALTH helps benefits professionals build their brands and businesses. Our strategic services team, Symbility INTERSECT empowers a variety of businesses with smarter mobile and IoT product development strategy, design thinking and engineering excellence. With our three segments pushing industries forward, Symbility proves that change for the better is entirely possible. symbilitysolutions.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

All trade names are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Symbility Solutions Inc.

For further information: James R. Swayze, Chief Executive Officer, (647) 775-8603, [email protected]ons.com; Blair R. Baxter, Chief Financial Officer, (647) 775-8608, [email protected]; Lucy De Oliveira, Global Marketing Director, (647) 775-8607, [email protected]; Babak Pedram, Investor Relations, (416) 644-5081, [email protected]

Related Links

www.symbilitysolutions.com


Automobile Journalists Association of Canada award recognizes a winning combination of versatility, fun and efficiency

TORONTO, March 28, 2017 /CNW/ - The Toyota RAV4 Hybrid is Canada's choice for fun, with an advanced and efficient edge  and with good reason, because the RAV4 Hybrid is more than an impressively efficient compact crossover. It features the innovative technologies and comfortable ride that Canadians love, plus the safety features and built-in-Canada quality that provide great peace of mind.

It's also a winning combination with the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC), which named the 2017 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid the Canadian Green Utility Vehicle of the Year.

"The RAV4 Hybrid combines Toyota's top-selling compact utility vehicle in Canada with the fuel efficiency and low emissions of the world's most proven hybrid power train  and the result is a win for drivers, for communities, and for the planet," said Cyril Dimitris, Vice-President, Toyota Canada Inc. "We're delighted that members of AJAC agree, and thank them for this important award."

The 2017 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid delivers advanced power and even more efficiency through a Hybrid Synergy Drive built around a 2.5L four-cylinder, Atkinson Cycle engine, continuously variable transmission with transmission cooler and gate-type shifter. Coupled to a powerful electric motor, power storage batteries and powertrain management systems, this combination delivers 194 net system horsepower and an impressive fuel efficiency of just 7.3L / 100km city/highway combined.

In addition to impressive performance, every 2017 RAV4 Hybrid offers generous comfort, convenience, technology and safety features as standard. These include many features unique to hybrids  from the added power and efficiency of regenerative braking to four driver-selectable powertrain options (Normal, Power and ECO, plus Electric Vehicle mode for short distances) that tailor the RAV4 Hybrid to suit any driving style and road or weather condition.

Additional features include Dual Zone Automatic Climate Control, a Display Audio system with Bluetooth capability, heated front seats, a 60/40 split folding rear seat to open up 2.0 cubic metres (70.6 cubic feet) of cargo capacity, fog lamps, rain-sensing wipers, power-adjustable and heated exterior mirrors, and much more.

Equally impressive safety systems include Toyota Safety Sense P  a bundle of advanced safety systems including Pre-Collisions System with Pedestrian Detection function, featuring forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking Lane Departure Alert with Steering Assist function Automatic High Beams and full speed Dynamic Radar Cruise Control. Other features include the six active technologies of the Toyota Star Safety System, eight standard airbags, a backup camera, vehicle proximity notification system, and more.

The built-in-Canada 2017 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid is available in a single model with four trim levels. For complete and up to date details and specifications, visit www.toyota.ca/rav4

About Toyota Canada Inc.

Toyota Canada Inc. (TCI) is the exclusive Canadian distributor of Toyota and Lexus vehicles. Toyota has sold over 5 million vehicles in Canada through a national network of 286 Toyota and Lexus dealerships. Toyota is dedicated to bringing safety, quality, dependability and reliability in the vehicles Canadians drive and the service they receive. TCI's head office is located in Toronto, with regional offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Halifax and parts distribution centres in Toronto and Vancouver. Toyota operates two manufacturing facilities in Canada. Having produced more than seven million vehicles, popular Canadian models built at these facilities include Toyota RAV4, Toyota Corolla, Lexus RX 350 and RX 450h hybrid. For more information on Toyota and Toyota products, please visit: www.toyota.ca.

SOURCE Toyota Canada Inc.

For further information: For more details, including a full list of media contacts, digital images and product details please visit media.toyota.ca. To unsubscribe or update your profile, please send an email to [email protected] Toyota Canada Inc. | 1 Toyota Place | Toronto, ON | M1H 1H9 | Canada

Related Links

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India and Russia have failed to make progress on one of their most prestigious defense dealsthe co-development and production of the Sukhoi/HAL Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA), known in India as the Perspective Multi-role Fighter (PMF).

The most recent stumbling block to a successful continuation of the project has been Russias unwillingness to share sensitive aircraft technology with India. New Delhi is demanding a full-scale transfer of technology in order to boost Indias domestic fighter-manufacturing capabilities.

Russia and India have a 650 page detailed plan that specifies exactly what all will be shared. India has not signed it.

The Russian version of the new fifth generation fighter jet appears to be doing better. According to Russias Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov, the Russian Air Force could start receiving the first serial-produced T-50 (PAK FA) multi-role fighter jet already in 2018. However, Russian defense officials admit that Russia has so far failed to develop a new engine, called Product 30, for the aircraft, which could potentially push back the induction date.
Novartis found that giving low doses of a drug called everolimus to people over 65 increased their response to flu vaccines. It did, by about 20 percent. Yet behind the test was a bigger question about whether any drug can slow or reverse the symptoms of old age. Novartiss study on everolimus, which looked at whether the immune system of elderly people could be made to act younger, has been called the first human aging trial.

RAD001 (everolimus) also appeared to broaden the serologic response, causing enhanced seroconversion to heterologous influenza strains not in the chosen influenza vaccine. This finding is also suggestive of enhanced protection against influenza illness. Unlike the study with rapamycin administration in aging mice, no increase in naive lymphocytes (no cancer concerns) was detected in humans.

Other clinically approved drugs have been linked to lifespan extension and protection against age-related diseases in animal models, including metformin and NSAIDs that have been prescribed millions of people. A recent retrospective examining patients with type 2 diabetes compared the effects on mortality rate of patients taking metformin or sulfonylurea monotherapy. Not only did patients taking metformin have a lower mortality rate than those taking sulfonylurea, they had a lower mortality rate than other patients seeing the same doctor who did not have a diagnosis of metabolic syndrome. While there are caveats with any study of this nature, the findings suggest that metformin may be affecting basic aging processes that underlie multiple chronic disease and not just type II diabetes. One wonders whether many of the drugs used to treat early stage chronic disease may be effective at least in part because they target the biggest risk factor for these diseases: aging itself.

Last week a Boston company, PureTech Health, said it was licensing two drug molecules, and the right to use them against aging-related disease, from Novartis and making the research the basis of a startup company, resTORbio. The company says it will further test whether such drugs can rejuvenate aged immune cells.

The immune-enhancing potential of mTORC1 inhibitors has been explored in a Phase 2 program at Novartis that included two successful Phase 2a studies in hundreds of elderly patients. Results will be detailed in an upcoming peer-reviewed publication. The results of these studies form the foundation for further clinical development in immunosenescence and other aging-related diseases by targeting the mTOR pathway.

The drug Novartis tested is a derivative of rapamycin, a compound first discovered oozing from a bacterium native to Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, and named after it. Thanks to its broad effects on the immune system, rapamycin has already been used in transplant medicine as an immune suppressant and a version is sold by Novartis as the anticancer prescription Afinitor.
Five teenage girls at Unguwar Kaye of Tarasa in Birnin Kebbi Local Government Area of Kebbi State have been reported drawn on Tuesday in ...

Five teenage girls at Unguwar Kaye of Tarasa in Birnin Kebbi Local Government Area of Kebbi State have been reported drawn on Tuesday in the Tafkin Madobiya, popularly known as Indian water.The girls are out of 10 girls resident in the area that decided to go for a swim after collecting vegetables for their meals at River Rima banks.The Deputy Governor of the state, Alhaji Samaila Yombe, led top government officials to attend the funeral prayers and commiserate with the families of the deceased. Two of the deceased girls were from the same family.The deceased were aged between 10 and 15 years.Some residents of the area expressed shock at the death of the teenage girls and prayed that no more lives would be lost in the river.
Jared Kushner

The Senate Intelligence Committee will question President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as part of its investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election and whether any collusion occurred between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

"Mr. Kushner has volunteered to be interviewed as part of the committee's investigation into the Russian activities surrounding the 2016 election," Sens. Richard Burr and Mark Warner, the committee's chairman and vice chairman, told The New York Times in a statement.

"From the beginning of this investigation we have committed to follow the facts wherever they lead us. This announcement serves to demonstrate that commitment," the Senators said in a join statement released on Monday afternoon.

"Mr. Kushner will certainly not be the last person the committee calls to give testimony, but we expect him to be able to provide answers to key questions that have arisen in our inquiry," the statement continued. "The timing of Mr. Kushners testimony is still being determined."

The interview will center on Kushner's meeting with Russia's ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, in December at Trump Tower with Gen. Michael Flynn, according to The Times. Kushner, a White House senior adviser, will also be asked about a previously undisclosed meeting he had in December with the head of Russia's state-owned Vnesheconombank, which was sanctioned by President Barack Obama after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

A White House official told Business Insider that Kushner took the meetings as part of his role as "the official primary point of contact with foreign governments and officials."

"Throughout the campaign and transition, Jared Kushner served as the official primary point of contact with foreign governments and officials," the official said. "Given this role, he has volunteered to speak with Chairman Burr's Committee but has not yet received confirmation."

Kushner's meeting with Vnesheconombank's chief, Sergey Gorkov, came at the request of Kislyak, White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks told The Times. Kislyak delivered the message to Kushner via Avrahm Berkowitz, an aide whom Kushner sent to meet with Kislyak in his place.

Story continues

At the time, Kushner was trying to find investors for a Fifth Avenue office building in Manhattan that is set to be heavily financed by Anbang Insurance Group, a firm with ties to the Chinese government. Hicks told The Times that the "Kushner Tower" project wasn't discussed during his meeting with Gorkov.

Kushner is the closest person to Trump to be swept up in the Senate or House committees' investigations so far.

At least five other Trump associates  Flynn, the former national security adviser; Attorney General Jeff Sessions; Roger Stone, an early Trump campaign adviser; Carter Page, an early foreign-policy adviser; and JD Gordon, the campaign's national-security representative at the Republican National Convention  have been asked to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee and preserve any relevant documents about contact they may have made with Russians during the election.

All are now reported to have met with Kislyak in the latter half of 2016 as Russia was attempting to sway the outcome of the election in Trump's favor.

Flynn resigned as national security adviser after he misled Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Kislyak, and Sessions recused himself from the Department of Justice's Russia-related investigations after The Washington Post reported that he met with Kislyak twice last year and failed to disclose those meetings during his confirmation hearing.

On Friday, Stone, Page, and Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, sent letters to the House Intelligence Committee volunteering to be interviewed as part of that committee's investigation into Russia's election interference.

While Stone, Manafort, and Page all have connections to Russia, they have all denied that they helped facilitate any collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow during the election.

The FBI is investigating the Russian interference separately from Congress, FBI Director James Comey confirmed last week. The investigation has been examining whether members of Trump's campaign team colluded with Russian officials to undermine Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee.

NOW WATCH: Watch Trump's budget director explain proposed cuts for after-school programs that feed children





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Suspected Boko Haram fighters stormed a village in northeast Nigeria and killed three people on suspicion of collaborating with the mili...

Suspected Boko Haram fighters stormed a village in northeast Nigeria and killed three people on suspicion of collaborating with the military, security sources told AFP on Monday.A group of jihadists stormed Kalari Abdiye village, in the Konduga area of Borno state, between 2:00 am and 3:00 am (0100-0200 GMT) on Saturday.Three locals had their throats cuts while the fourth was left severely wounded, according to a member of the civilian militia assisting troops and a military officer. The gunmen identified themselves as being from the Boko Haram faction headed by Abu Musab Al-Barnawi, which has vowed to hit military and government targets, the militia member said.They singled out the four men whom they accused of collaboration with the military. They accused the men of passing information to the military, he added, asking not to be identified.The gunmen took the men outside the village where they slaughtered three of the men. Long-time Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq in March 2015, at a time when it was losing captured territory to government forces. But last year IS announced that it recognised Barnawi  the son of Boko Harams founder Mohammed Yusuf  as being in charge of its West Africa province.Barnawi has criticised Shekaus indiscriminate attacks on civilians. The security sources said the gunmen seized livestock from the nearby village of Dekete but told the villagers not to panic, that they were not going to touch anyone.Fighters from the Barnawi camp employed a similar tactic on Friday, when they raided a village for food and medical supplies southwest of the Borno state capital, Maiduguri. Analysts suggest that in doing so, he may be trying to bolster public support for the group, which if successful would make the government and military fightback harder.AFP
The comptroller-general of customs (CGC) compliance task force has sealed off the residence of a senator from Kano state after seizing 13 ...

The comptroller-general of customs (CGC) compliance task force has sealed off the residence of a senator from Kano state after seizing 13 vehicles allegedly hidden there.Bala Dole, task force zonal commander, made this known on Monday, revealing that the vehicles were 12 new Toyota Hilux and one Land Cruiser Jeep.Dole, who declined to name the senator, said the vehicles were trailed from Maigatari in Jigawa, following an intelligence report.He said 210 other vehicles were seized, alongside other items, including foodstuff worth N269.5 million in Kano and Jigawa states, within eight months.Based on the intelligence report, the vehicles were 30 in number but we were able to trail 13 of them 12 of which were hidden in the senators compound, he said.We sealed the house and retrieved the vehicles and they are now in our custody.He said the other items the task force confiscated during special operations include; 9,757 bags of rice, 2,916 of foreign supergetti, 2,770 cartons of foreign vegetable oil and 999 cartons of macaroni.Dole said others were; 889 veils of second hand clothes, 50 used school bags, 110 cartons of new foreign shoes, 956 bags of mosquito coil and six fairly used cars.The total value of the seizure made by the task force since it was established in July 2016, excluding the 13 Senators vehicles, is N269.5 million, he said.We are yet to determine the cost of the 13 vehicles belonging to the senator.
Dino Melaye, senator representing Kogi west, on Tuesday attended the senate plenary session clad in an academic gown.

Dino Melaye, senator representing Kogi west, on Tuesday attended the senate plenary session clad in an academic gown.Melaye had on Monday been cleared by the senate committee on ethics and privileges over his certificate controversy.Ibrahim Garba, vice-chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, informed the committee that Melaye was a graduate of the school.From the records, distinguished senator Dino Melaye graduated as Daniel Jonah Melaye during the 3rd semester with a 3rd class degree, Garba had said.Subsequently, the senator released a video where he danced and sang to celebrate the confirmation of his university attendance and graduation.
There was an outbreak of fire at the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday.

There was an outbreak of fire at the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday.The fire was said to have started from a spark from an air conditioner in the office of the personal assistant to Mahmoud Yakubu, the chairman.The fire was later put out before it could do a severe damage to the office it started in.In an interview with NAN, Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, director of voter education and publicity, said the incident was minor.He said no life or sensitive materials was lost.It was a minor fire incident and the officers of the fire service and staff of the commission put it off with the use of fire extinguisher, Osaze-Uzzi said.There is nothing to worry about the incident; nobody was injured, no loss of life, and no loss of sensitive documents to the fire outbreak.
Dino Melaye, senator representing Kogi west, on Monday said he had five credits and one distinction in his Olevel result.

Dino Melaye, senator representing Kogi west, on Monday said he had five credits and one distinction in his Olevel result.The outspoken lawmaker also said he had enough evidence to show that he was a proud graduate of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and currently undergoing a masters degree programme.Melaye said this when he appeared before the senate committee on ethics and privileges, which is probing an allegation that he did not graduate from the school.Earlier, Ibrahim Garba, vice-chancellor of ABU, had certified Melaye as a product of the school.Melaye, who was at that time named Daniel Jonah Melaye, graduated with a third class degree of the Bachelor of Arts in Geography in 2000. And by this, he is a graduate of the university, he said.In my honour, I reaffirm that Melaye graduated as Daniel Jonah Melaye during the third semester of the 1998/1999 academic session with a 3rd class degree in geography, that is Bachelor of Arts in Geography.Responding to questions from the committee, Melaye said he was in possession of a document to back up his Olevel result.I thank you for the invitation and I want to state my unequivocal confidence in this committee to do justice to this matter, he said.I have few documents I would also want to tender to the committee and before I do that, I also want to state with every sense of responsibility that I am a graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.I gained admission on the 6th of September, 1994 and the admission was to study Bachelor of Arts, Geography and a copy of that admission letter will be tendered.I also have a second document to tender, my acceptance offer by the university. I also have the third document to tender which is my result from the Ahmadu Bello University certifying me a graduate of the school.I also have here a document for my registration that I tendered where I have C5 in CRS, A3 in Agriculture, C6 in Economics, C6 in Geography, C6 in Biology and a credit in English Language.After my graduation for the Ahmadu Bello University, the school sent my name to the NYSC for the mandatory service and I participated in the one year NYSC.I served in Police College, Kaduna and by the grace of God, that year I won the National Prize of the DG and it is on record and verifiable and I beg to tender my Discharge Certificate from NYSC.The lawmaker added that with the desire to further his education, he applied to the school to send his transcript to University of Jos, where he studied Law, Security and Conflict Management.He said he also applied to the school to send his transcript to University of Abuja where he gained admission to study Masters in Policy Analysis.On allegations that he bore several names at different times, Melaye said, When I went back to Ahmadu Bello University to study for masters in International Relations and Diplomacy, I was already known all over as Dino Melaye.My name as an undergraduate was Daniel Jonah Melaye. Jonah is actually my fathers name, so that is what I have on my university certificate.But Because I am now popularly known as Dino, I applied to the court and asked that I needed an affidavit for change of name before my admission and I submitted it to ABU.I will tender my identity cards and I came here with a copy of my final year project duly signed by my head of department in the Faculty of Arts as it was then called.While fielding questions from the committee, Ali Ndume, senator representing Borno central, said he did not write any petition against Melaye as alleged.According to him, he only raised a point of order following publications alleging certificate forgery against Melaye, adding that I didnt raise petition, I only raised point of order 14 and 15.At the end of the interrogation, Ndume said his doubt about the allegation had been cleared since Melaye presented documents to show he actually graduated from the school.He also said the attestation of the ABU VC further cleared his doubt.I commend the way the chairman of the committee conducted the proceedings of this investigation, he said.I did not petition Melaye, I only felt it was part of my responsibility as former leader and someone who has been in the National Assembly since 2003 to ensure the right thing was done to protect the image of the institution.With these evidences, the judgment is now that of the public.
The Minister of State for Aviation Hadi Sirika, has said that he will resign if the Abuja International Airport is not opened by April 19,...





The Minister of State for Aviation Hadi Sirika, has said that he will resign if the Abuja International Airport is not opened by April 19, 2017.The minister made this known at a meeting between the Ministry of Information and an Aviation Industry Pressure Group in Lagos.The Minister said the level of work on the Abuja runway in the past three weeks shows that the re-opening will be on schedule.At the same meeting, the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed debunked social media reports saying the runway will be closed for an extended 18 weeks.The Federal Government had on March 8, 2017 closed the Abuja International Airport for six weeks, to enable repair works on the runway which is said to be dysfunctional.
Narendra Mishra, a journalist with Times of India, has released a video of an assault on a student identified as a Nigerian.

Narendra Mishra, a journalist with Times of India, has released a video of an assault on a student identified as a Nigerian.

Mishra, who was at the scene of the attack, captured the incident.

He later tweeted: Sorry world, we are not like this. Shocking incident in Greater Noida. Three attacks on Nigerians in one day. Where are we heading?

In the video, about 20 young men are seen attacking a defenceless black man.

The youths not only pounced on him at intervals, they also hurled objects at the victim.

He managed to stand up and tried to escape but his attackers caught up with him, and pulled him to the ground as the assault continued.

At a point, the man was motionless, but the attackers will not stop. A young man in white shirt tried to pacify the rampaging mob, but did not succeed.

Sushma Swaraj, Indias minister of external affairs, has demanded a report of the incident.

I have asked for a report from government of Uttar Pradesh about the reported attack on African students in Noida, she wrote on Twitter.

The cause of the incident is not clear, but Scroll.in, an Indian website , reported that residents of Greater Noida staged a protest after a student identified as Manish Khari, died of drug overdose.

Khari was said to have last been seen with a group of Nigerians.

A crowd had reportedly raided the home of African students, asking all Africans living in residential colonies in Greater Noida to vacate their rented houses immediately.

Five Nigerian students were said to have been detained in the case, but the police released them for lack of evidence.
A delivery agent working for popular e-commerce mall, Jumia has been killed in Rivers state, after delivering two iPhones. The suspects al...

A delivery agent working for popular e-commerce mall, Jumia has been killed in Rivers state, after delivering two iPhones. The suspects alleged to have murdered the courier have been rounded up by men of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, in the state.The Jumia agent was allegedly killed after delivering two iPhones to the suspects at the Ada-George area of Port Harcourt.Rivers State Commissioner of Police, CP Zaki Ahmed, expressed how unfortunate the situation is. A statement from the Spokesman of the Command, DSP Nnamdi Omoni said the arrested suspects include two males and a female accomplice.The suspects, Sodienye Mbatumukeke, Excel Naabe and Joy Eluwa were said to have dumped the corpse of the yet to be identified Jumia agent in a septic tank within the compound.The Statement from the police reads, Operatives of SARS R/S, acting on credible Intelligence today 27/4/2017 at about 0300 hrs arrested three suspects, two males and a female, identified as Sodienye Mbatumukeke m 28yrs Excel Divine Naabe m 25yrs and Joy Eluwa f The Suspects are alleged to have robbed and murdered a Courier who had gone to deliver two Phones and a Super Bike that were ordered Online by them.The Corpse of the Dead Courier was recovered from a Septic Tank at No.4 Adaede Street by Location,Off Ada George Rd PH, where they had hidden him after killing him.His body has been deposited in the Mortuary.Meanwhile the Suspects are helping the Police and efforts are on to arrest others fingered in the dastardly act.The Commissioner of Police, CP Zaki M. Ahmed who led other Senior Police Officers to the scene is appealing to the public to always help the Police solve crimes by sharing useful Information with the Police, promising to flush out all criminal elements in the State.
Audu Maikori, Chocolate City Boss was on Monday granted bail by a Kaduna Chief Magistrate Court.

Audu Maikori, Chocolate City Boss was on Monday granted bail by a Kaduna Chief Magistrate Court.Maikori was arraigned alongside his driver Simon Joseph on a two-count charge of attempt to incite the general public through false information contrary to Section 24 of Cyber Crime Act Law of the Federation of Nigeria 2015.After granting them bail, to the tune of N100,000 each on self-recognition, the court adjourned to the 20th of April, 2017, for mentioning.
Dino Melaye, a senator from Kogi west, has petitioned the Department of State Services (DSS) against Omoyele Sowore, publisher of Sahara R...

Dino Melaye, a senator from Kogi west, has petitioned the Department of State Services (DSS) against Omoyele Sowore, publisher of Sahara Reporters, alleging cyberstalking.According to the Cybercrimes Act, 2015, any person found guilty of cyberstalking is liable to pay a fine of not more than N7 million or imprisonment for a term of not more than three years or to both such fine and imprisonment.Sahara Reporters had run a series of reports in which it alleged that Melaye did not graduate from Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria.But on Monday, Ibrahim Garba, vice-chancellor (VC) of the university, told the senate committee on ethics and privileges, which is investigating the allegation, that the lawmaker graduated from the institution.From the records, distinguished senator Dino Melaye graduated as Daniel Jonah Melaye during the 3rd semester with a 3rd class degree, he had said.But even after the testimony of the VC, Sowore insisted that the lawmaker did not graduate.We knew and tweeted since last week that the VC rushed to the Geography Department to ask for records, and when he was told that the full records of the Department could not sustain a public claim that Melaye graduated, he cherry picked the 400 Level 3rd Semester results, Sowore had said.In that results (record), Dino (formerly known as Daniel Jonah Melaye) and his former HOD David Okoro Ogbonna connived to get him graduated (discharged) after clearing carry overs courses he never wrote. Those were Mr. VCs available records to make his declaration before the Nigerian Senate today.However, the authentic records in our possession shows that Melaye couldnt have graduated, he did not fulfill some core course requirements of which, for example, Geog 307 (Long Field Trip) handled by one Dr. Bello had to be met. I studied Geography and Planning at UNILAG, it was a compulsory course, and my colleagues and I did ours in Benue State.Daniel Jonah Melaye never fulfilled this core requirement, and further, several other carryovers were directly fixed for him by Ogbonna and some unscrupulous lecturers.Melaye had also filed a N5bn libel suit against Sahara Reporters and its publisher at a federal capital territory (FCT) high court in Abuja.In the petition dated 24 March, Melaye accused Sahara Reporters of libel.Sometime this month (March 2017), the above listed individuals and organisations caused certain false and vexatious information to be sent by means of electronic communications, computer systems and network against my person that I did not graduate from Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, he alleged.
President Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner will head a new White House office focused on innovation. Source: AP

On Monday, President Donald Trump will announce a new White House office led by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner that will be charged with reforming aspects of the federal government using lessons from the business world.

The office will be called the White House Office of American Innovation, and it follows up on the Trump campaigns assertion that the country be run by more like a businesswith Trump should as its CEO, putting the executive back in the executive branch. According to the Washington Post, which first broke the news on Sunday, the office will be like a SWAT team of strategic consultants, and will be staffed with former business executives.

Joining Kushner to advise are a cast of the tech worlds usual suspects, including Apples (AAPL) Tim Cook, Microsofts (MSFT) Bill Gates, Salesforces (CRM) Marc Benioff, and Teslas (TSLA) Elon Musk, many of whom could see their companies products implemented as solutions, as technology and data are of particular interest to the new office. About 100 others are involved as well.

The agency will be staffed full-time by aides Chris Liddell and Reed Cordish. Liddell has had roles at Microsoft, International Paper, and General Motors, according to the Wall Street Journal. Cordish has worked as a real estate developer and his family is close to the Trumps. Gary Cohn and Dina Powell, two ex-Goldman Sachs (GS) executives who are now director of the National Economic Council and deputy national security advisor, respectively, will be contributing.

By looping in tech giants like Gates, Cook, Musk, and Benioff, Kushner hopes to utilize these present and former tech CEOs for their experience in software that has shaped business and individuals workflow, productivity, payments, and many other activities. Trump is putting faith in the ability of modern technology and innovation to solve the problems of bureaucracy, and the group will first look at modernizing IT and in particular the Veterans Administration. Before assuming his present role, Kushner worked as a real estate investor, running his familys company, and was publisher of the New York Observer.

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Reached for comment, a Gates Foundation spokesperson told Yahoo Finance, Bill was briefed on the creation of the office during his meeting with administration staff last week. We look forward to learning more about the goals and priorities of the office, and how they fit into the administrations policy and budgetary priorities.

In a statement to Yahoo Finance, a Salesforce spokesperson said, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff doesnt have a formal role in the Trump Administration but offers his thoughts and ideas when they are sought on topics on which he can be helpful. He recently suggested a moonshot of 5 million apprenticeships by 2020 at a recent White House roundtable on workforce development with President Trump, German Chancellor Merkel and a few other CEOs.

Requests for comment from Cook, and Musk went unanswered.

The timing of this initiative is curious; it comes on the same day as reports that Kushner has volunteered to speak with the Senate Intelligence Committee over meetings between Russia and members of the Trump campaign and a Russian banks acknowledgement that Kushner had met with the bank in 2016. Monday, It also comes just after Trump attempted and failed to use his dealmaking skills to cajole an unwilling legislature to pass an unpopular bill replacing Obamacare. As the former CEO and owner of a private family company, Trumps previous position could not have been more unilateral or executive, requiring far less oversight and cooperation than the office of the president of even CEOs of public companies with shareholders and boards.

The vote or Im gonna come after you approach, which Trump used unsuccessfully on Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), may not be the type of business leadership that can work in Washington, but the pivot to new tactics like management consulting has the potential to produce results through more achievable wins in the realms of technology and streamlining a bureaucracy.

The government should be run like a great American company. Our hope is that we can achieve successes and efficiencies for our customers, who are the citizens, Kushner, who is officially senior advisor to the president, told the Post.

Benioff told the Post that Kushner does remind me of a lot of the young, scrappy entrepreneurs that I invest in in their 30s. But it may be tricky to lead a suite of chief executives used to leading themselves. To make matters trickier, the group, which is proud of its lack of government experience, will be auditing a government about which they must learn and master.

In my experience: Jared will give people who have experience in an industry hes never worked in advice re: how to do their jobs, tweeted Elizabeth Spiers, who worked under Jared Kushner as editor-in-chief of the New York Observer from 2011 to 2012. And I appreciate the value of fresh eyes but you generally dont assign a layman heart surgery bc you need a fresh perspective.

Updated 4:53 p.m.: A statement from the Gates Foundation added.

Updated 3/27: A statement from Salesforce added.

Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumer issues, tech, and personal finance. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann. Got a tip? Send it to tips@yahoo-inc.com.

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Academics have said that Dino Melayes donning of an academic gown to the Senate plenary session on Tuesday is a juvenile attempt at pro...

Academics have said that Dino Melayes donning of an academic gown to the Senate plenary session on Tuesday is a juvenile attempt at proving that he attended the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.Senator Melaye had stormed the National Assembly Plenary Session on Tuesday (today) in what academics described as ceremonial gown, rather than an academic robe.The senator representing Kogi West has been under fire in the past week, as critics allege that he did not earn an academic degree from the ABU as claimed.In his defence, the Vice Chancellor of the institution, Prof. Ibrahim Garba, had deposed before the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions on Monday that Melaye earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography from ABU, with a Third Class.Speaking to newsmen, Professor of History and a former Dean of Faculty of Arts at the Lagos State University, LASU, Ojo, Abolade Adeniji, said if Melaye felt that his appearing in what he thought was an academic gown would confirm his claim that he attended ABU, it is juvenile.Adeniji said, This is a juvenile attempt at justifying his claims that he attended ABU. He has only made a fool of himself.What the senator has done is unusual, and this should be a source of concerns to his fellow senators.The senatorial position is an exalted one that should not be trivialised the way Senator Melaye is doing.The appearance he assumed today is not for an adult, much less a senator. He looks so cheap. Its a political drama that was meant to prove that he has a degree.Another academic, the Dean of Arts Faculty and Associate Professor of English Language at LASU, Dr. Adeleke Fakoya, said the gown that Senator Dino Melaye wore is a ceremonial one.This is a ceremonial gown and not an academic robe. It is a ceremonial uniform usually worn during formal ceremonies in any Ivory Tower.Ive decided to speak the truth and die, Melaye replies AGFEven then, you can only wear such ceremonial robes if you are a part of the procession in the academic environment; never in the context in which Senator Melaye wore it today.The type of gown that the senator wore in that photograph is usually worn by vice-chancellors, registrars, deans, etc.If Melaye intended it to prove that he graduated from ABU, then he missed it big time because the type of gown he is wearing is not for someone being conferred with a first degree, to start with.It is a ceremonial costume that should not be worn in frivolous manner as this senator has done. Its either hired or stolen.Certificate scandal: Melaye sues Sahara Reporters for N5bnOn the implications of Senator Melayes action, Fakoya said it wouldnt change anything.He said its like the case of a church leader who chooses to wear a Popes gown.It wont make that person a Pope, because we know the processes involved towards becoming a Pope.Ditto for academics. You must earn what you claim to possess, academically or by way of honorary bestowal.The onus is on anyone to justify his claims to any degree, instead of treating sacred objects with frivolity as we have here.
The Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, on Monday explained why he has a strained relationship with Nigerian billionaire, Aliko Dangote.

The Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, on Monday explained why he has a strained relationship with Nigerian billionaire, Aliko Dangote.According to reports, Amosun gave the explanation during a press conference in his office in Abeokuta. The Governor said, Why I am against Dangote is that the heavy trucks of the company damage the roads. An example is Ilaro-Papalanto road. Is it the cars of our people that destroyed the roads? No! It is the heavy trucks of the company.''The Governor said the company has refused to contribute to fixing the bad roads.Dangote Cement is located at Ibese/Ilaro axis of Ogun West Senatorial District.
A student from the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria, who is on scholarship in Birmingham, United Kingdom (UK), has reportedly attempted suici...

A student from the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria, who is on scholarship in Birmingham, United Kingdom (UK), has reportedly attempted suicide.The student, identified as Nsima UEkere, is said to be on Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), scholarship in the United Kingdom. He is reported to have gone suicidal after the funds he was supposed to receive from NDDC to fund his scholarship stopped coming.According to a social media user, @ensydave, who posted the story online, the incident occurred last night in Birmingham.Nsima is reported to have run into huge debts, with no maintenance fee for almost a year. The fellow student who witnessed the incident also appealed o Nigerian Senator, Ben Murray Bruce, to raise awareness on the issue.
Popular Yoruba actress, Moji Olaiya has welcomed her first child in Canada months after dumping her husband for a new man.A few months after she officially divorced her first husband to marry another man, 42-year-old Nollywood star has delivered a bouncing baby girl.The daughter of highlife music legend, Victor Olaiya, put to bed at a hospital in Canada on Friday, March 17th at exactly 8 pm.Moji's first marriage fell apart in 2008, and the Yoruba actress decided to give love another go when she sealed her new union months ago at a quiet ceremony.
The Nigerias Senate has stood down the confirmation of nominees for positions of Resident Electoral Commissioners, after expressing misgi...

The Nigerias Senate has stood down the confirmation of nominees for positions of Resident Electoral Commissioners, after expressing misgivings about President Muhammadu Buharis refusal to sack Ibrahim Magu as acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission despite his repeated rejection by the lawmakers.The Senators also accused nominees of the president of disrespecting the National Assembly.The Senate therefore resolved to suspend the confirmation in protest.Mr. Buhari had last week nominated 27 persons for appointment as Resident Electoral Commissioners of INEC.More to come.
United States and almost 40 other nations have boycotted the first-ever United Nations talks on an international treaty to ban nuclear wea...

United States and almost 40 other nations have boycotted the first-ever United Nations talks on an international treaty to ban nuclear weapons.US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley who announced this noted that nuclear powers Russia and China also are also not taking part in the meeting.Flanked by ambassadors from about 20 nations, including nuclear powers United Kingdom and France, Haley couched the decision not to attend the talks, which began Monday, in personal terms.As a mom and daughter, there is nothing I want more for my family than a world with no nuclear weapons, the former South Carolina governor said. But we have to be realistic.Is there anyone that believes that North Korea would agree to a ban on nuclear weapons? Haley asked.President Barack Obamas administration also opposed the talks, which the General Assembly voted to approve in December.United Kingdom Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said his country also would not attend the talks because we do not believe that those negotiations will lead to effective progress on global nuclear disarmament.President Donald Trump told Reuters last month that he would prefer a nuclear-free world, but otherwise the United States should be at the top of the pack.The boycott on Monday drew criticism from backers of the treaty, who called it an unhelpful distraction.Todays last minute protest by Ambassador Haley and others standing with the American president demonstrates how worried they are about the real impact of the nuclear ban treaty, Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said.It is an unhelpful distraction from the important work of banning nuclear weapons.Treaty supporters say the risk of a nuclear detonation are higher than at any time since the end of the Cold War.But Haley said of the foreign officials joining the discussions, you have to ask yourself, are they looking out for their people? Do they really understand the threats that we have?If adopted, the treaty would outlaw the use, possession and development of nuclear weapons and set up their eventual elimination.
The erstwhile Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Andrew Yakubu, has withdrwan his suit against th...

The erstwhile Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Andrew Yakubu, has withdrwan his suit against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).Yakubu, had asked a Federal High Court sitting in Kano to order the Federal Government to return to him, over N3billion that was found in his home in Kaduna.Mr.Yakubu dragged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, before the Federal High Court in Abuja, demanding public apology and N1billion as damages for his continued detention. Yakubu, in a motion on notice with suit number FHC/ICN/CS/24/2017, filed by his lead counsel, Mr. Ahmed Raji, SAN, asked the court to set aside the forfeiture order that granted FG ownership of the money which was discovered by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on February 9.
Bill Brennan

Bill Brennan, of Wayne, who filed a citizen's complaint accusing Gov. Chris Christie, is now suing Bergen County over a political t-shirt ban.

((Bob Sciarrino/NJ Advance Media))

TRENTON -- The activist who made headlines after filing an official misconduct complaint against Gov. Chris Christie over his ties to the Bridgegate scandal is suing Bergen County, claiming the county violated the Constitution, according to court documents.

Activist Bill Brennan is suing Bergen County and officials, alleging the county violated the Constitution when it prevented people who were wearing campaign t-shirts from entering a county building, according to documents.

His lawsuit, filed in October, was moved last week to the United States District Court for the district of New Jersey from the Superior Court in Bergen County.

Brennan learned that people wearing t-shirts supporting Jim Tedesco, who at the time was running against incumbent Kathleen Donovan for county executive, were denied entry into One Bergen County Plaza.

Brennan, wearing his own pro-Tedesco shirt, "to challenge the suppression of expression by defendants" walked into the same county building on October 25, 2014, days ahead of election day.

He was allegedly told that he wasn't allowed in the building and was violating the law because of his shirt that read, "Tedesco for County Executive."

State law dictates conduct on Election Day at polling locations, but Brennan argued that it wasn't an election day when he entered the county building.

Brennan named several county officials in his suit, including Donovan, then-Bergen County Chief of Police Brian Higgins and now-County Executive Tedesco.

On October 31, 2014, the U.S. District Court for the district of New Jersey ordered a preliminary injunction preventing the local officials from "threatening or engaging in disciplinary action against Plaintiffs, or any other member of the public, for expressing support for candidates in public office other than Election Day," according to the documents.

The county and Tedesco have not converted the preliminary injunction into a permanent one, Brennan alleges.

Brennan seeks a permanent injunction, a judgment that the county's prevention of him entering the county building was unconstitutional and awards for compensatory and punitive damages.

Brennan recently made headlines when he asked for an independent counsel to handle a criminal complaint against Gov. Chris Christie related to the Bridgegate incident.

A state Superior Court judge denied his motion March 17. Brennan has said he will seek the Democratic nomination for governor.

Sara Jerde may be reached at sjerde@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SaraJerde.
PARAMUS-- Veterinarians say they have seen a marked increase in cases of leptospirosis, a bacterial disease carried by squirrels and rats, News 4 New York reported.

"We've probably had five or six cases of leptospirosis over the course of the winter," vet Tara Fetzer of BluePearl Veterinary Partners told the station, a "much higher" number of cases than normal.

The disease is transmitted by urine, which dogs may lap up from puddles while out for a walk. The illness is also potentially fatal to humans.

Experts believe cases are on the increase due to the mild winter, which has resulted in dogs spending more time outside.

Symptoms in dogs include fever, lethargy, loss of appetite and either an increase in urination or difficulty urinating. The disease can also pass from one dog to another.

Paul Milo may be reached at pmilo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@PaulMilo2. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
MAPLE SHADE -- Tears started to form in Abdul Salam's eyes Monday morning when he talked about what happened to his 6-year-old neighbor last week.

"I'm really upset about that kid," Salam said about Anish Narra who was discovered dead Thursday evening along with his mother, Sasikala Narra, 38, in the unit below his at Fox Meadow Apartments. They had both been stabbed multiple times in what local investigators said was a double homicide.

"He didn't do nothing," Salam said, standing in front of his Hamilton Road home in a steady drizzle of rain. "He had no chance to live his life."

Investigators said Sasikala's husband, who has been identified in published reports as Hanumantha Rao Narra, reported the incident to police around 9:30 p.m. Thursday. He told authorities he arrived home and found the bodies.

The Burlington County Prosecutor's Office, the lead investigators, have not announced any arrests or suspects.

"Our focus is on solving these homicides and there are certain details about the investigation that cannot be revealed at this time," said Joel Bewley, a spokesman for the prosecutor. "The victim's husband has not been charged. His name has not been made public by our office."

Salam, 47, a supervisor in a local manufacturing plant, said he immediately left work that night when he heard what happened. On Monday morning, he admitted he was still having a hard time believing it.

"I'm used to that kid, every time I come home, speaking to him," Salam said. "I just called him 'little man.' That kid always seemed to know when I was coming home. He would peek out of the door when I went by. He was always happy."

But that wasn't the case for his parents, Salam said.

"They argued so much," he said. "It was more him than her. He treated her like s--t. They hardly ever left the house. When they rode in a car, he used to make her sit in the back seat, even if it was just the two of them."

Salam said he would speak to Sasikala while coming and going, but noticed a change recently.

"You could see it in her face, sadness, very unhappy," Salam said. "She told me she wanted to go home to India. She told me she was going to leave him."

According to reports in Indian news sites, the couple hailed from the Prakasam district in Andhra Pradesh, on India's eastern coast.

Telugas Today spoke with Sasikala Narra's parents, who said their son in law, whom they identified as Hanumantha Rao Narra, called them briefly Friday morning to tell them that their daughter and grandson were dead.

They told the news site that the couple had moved to the United States nine years ago and both worked for the technology company Cognizant.

Hanumantha Rao Narra's parents told The New Indian Express that their son said he came home from the office Thursday night and found that his wife and son's throats had been cut.

They also told the site that they were working with the embassy and several other groups to ensure that their bodies could be returned to India as soon as possible.

A small vase of flowers with a tiny stuffed teddy bear and a foil helium balloon with Spiderman on the front, sat in front of the door of the Narra apartment Monday morning. No one answered the door and shades were drawn with no light visible from inside.

"We learned with great sadness on March 24 about the deaths of our student, Anish Narra, and his mother. We ask all those in the Our Lady of Perpetual Help School community and the public at large to join in praying for Anish and Sasi, and we offer our deepest condolences to all those who mourn them during this time of great loss. May they rest in peace."

Bill Duhart may be reached at bduhart@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @bduhart. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
CAMDEN -- An Oaklyn man received an $800,000 settlement after being hit by a car while riding his bike in 2013, according to New Jersey Law Journal (NJLJ).

Harry Hinshilwood, now 70, was seriously injured while riding on Elbo Lane in Mount Laurel in August of 2013. The last in a line of cyclists, Hinshilwood was struck by a vehicle from behind. The driver of the vehicle, Elijah Thielman, claimed he did not see Hinshilwood due to sun glare, the law journal reported.

After being knocked from his bike, Hinshilwood hit the windshield and then the ground. As a result of the crash, he had a concussion, several injuries to his spine, numerous broken bones and abrasions on the right side of his body, the journal reported. His injuries left him with no memory of the accident.

Hinshilwood filed a lawsuit in Camden County and it was settled before the case received a trial date.

Hinshillwood agreed to the $800,000 settlement on Dec. 20, 2016 and was paid the funds from Allstate Insurance Co., the carrier for Thielman, on Jan. 6, the report said.

Caitlyn Stulpin may be reached at cstulpin@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitstulpin. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
UPDATE: Officials said the babies died from natural causes.

LINDENWOLD -- Twin 7-month-old girls who passed away Wednesday will be remembered at a funeral service Saturday.

Jessenia and Juliana Rodriguez-Garnett were discovered not breathing by their mother, Alexandria Garnett, at her apartment in The Pines around 8 a.m. Wednesday morning. She called 911, hysterical, and said CPR wasn't working.

The Camden County prosecutor's office, which is heading the investigation, said autopsy results are pending. The office has not said whether foul play is suspected.

An obituary for Jessenia and Juliana Rodriguez-Garnett said that they leave behind four siblings.

The obituary says relatives and friends are invited to the viewing at Ora L. Wooster Funeral Home in Clementon Saturday from 11 a.m. to noon, followed immediately by funeral services. In lieu of flowers, the family specified that memorial donations can be made to family via the funeral home.

Their father, Daniel Rodriguez, declined to comment, as did their grandmother, Regina Garnett, who answered the door of the Lindenwold apartment Monday. A message sent to Alexandria Garnett Monday afternoon was not answered.

Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
(Adds Chinese Foreign Ministry comment)

KUALA LUMPUR, March 28 (Reuters) - The body of Kim Jong Nam, who was murdered in Malaysia last month, is still in Kuala Lumpur, health minister Health Minister Subramaniam Sathasivam said on Tuesday, amid reports the remains of the estranged half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will soon leave the country.

What Malaysia eventually does with the body, and how far it pursues three North Koreans wanted for questioning, and believed to be hiding in the North Korean embassy, are central to negotiations to resolve a diplomatic row between the two formerly friendly governments, sources aware of the talks have told Reuters.

Malaysia is trying to secure the release of nine nationals who have been stranded in Pyongyang after North Korea, angered by the suspicion cast by the police investigation, imposed a travel ban on Malaysians leaving its borders.

In response, Malaysia imposed a tit-for-tat travel ban, and called on North Korea to immediately release all its citizens.

There was speculation that some deal had been worked out on Monday, sparking media reports that the body was moved out of the hospital to a funeral parlour, and later was being prepared to be taken on a flight to Beijing.

Malaysia's New Straits Times newspaper reported on Tuesday that the body was expected to go from Beijing to North Korea, without disclosing its source for the information.

But the health minister said the situation was unchanged.

"We have to check with the forensics department if there was any requirement to bring the body out, but as far as we are concerned there is no change in status quo," Subramaniam told reporters.

Subramaniam said the ministry cannot do anything with the body until they are given instructions by "those responsible for the body."

"But the next of kin have not come forward to provide assistance on how the body is to be treated," he said.

China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she had noted the reports about talks between Malaysia and North Korea, but did not know any details.

Story continues

"We hope that the relevant parties can appropriately resolve the issue via dialogue and consultation," she told a daily news briefing.

Subramaniam said the negotiations were being held by the ministry of foreign affairs and the Prime Minister's department, but the government has otherwise declined to comment.

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's body has since been at a morgue in Kuala Lumpur, with Malaysia saying it will only hand it over to the next-of-kin.

U.S. and South Korean officials say the North Korean regime was behind the murder of Kim Jong Nam, who had been living in exile in Macau and had criticised his family's dynastic rule of North Korea in the past.

Two women, an Indonesian and a Vietnamese, were charged for the murder. Both have claimed they were unwitting pawns in an assassination that U.S. officials and South Korean intelligence have said was organised by North Korean agents.

(Reporting by Joseph Sipalan; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Writing by Praveen Menon and A. Ananthalakshmi; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
By Jamie Freed

SYDNEY, March 29 (Reuters) - U.S. private equity firm KKR & Co LP is preparing a potential consortium bid for Australia's Quintis Ltd backed by the sandalwood plantation group's managing director, a source said.

The source, who was not authorised to speak publicly, told Reuters that a consortium was being formed with the aim of presenting a formal proposal to the Quintis board within weeks.

"Several parties are stepping forward," the source said.

Quintis, formerly known as TFS Corp, has Indian sandalwood plantations; oil from the trees is sold to India and China for fragrances, cosmetics and medicinal uses.

Quintis Managing Director Frank Wilson, who owns about 13 percent of the company, on Tuesday said he would resign to consider making a takeover offer alongside an unnamed group.

KKR has a controlling stake in Santanol Group, which owns and operates Indian sandalwood plantations in the same part of Western Australia as Quintis. Combining the operations could result in cost savings, the source said.

Quintis, which had a market value of A$487 million ($372.07 million) at Tuesday's close, is one of the last remaining publicly-listed managed investment schemes in Australia.

The collapses of Timbercorp Ltd and several other large forestry investment schemes, starting in 2009, drew widespread criticism of an investment model which frequently involved small investors borrowing money for high-risk operations.

Quintis lost 24 percent of its value last week after the publication of a highly negative report by short-seller Glaucus Research Group.

A spokesman for KKR declined to comment. A Quintis spokesman said the company had no immediate comment. ($1 = 1.3089 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Jamie Freed; Editing by Andrew Hay)
NEW JERSEY FILES FORMAL APPEAL OF SUMMER FLOUNDER QUOTA REDUCTIONS

STATES REPRESENTATIVES ARGUE ASMFC DECISION WILL CAUSE ADVERSE IMPACTS TO FISHERY AND INDUSTRY

(17/P25) TRENTON  New Jersey representatives to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission have filed an appeal requesting the commission reconsider its vote significantly reducing the states recreational-fishing quota for summer flounder this year, Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin announced today.

The 34-percent quota reduction ASMFC approved in February will have a devastating impact on the states fishing industry and tourism economy while paradoxically harming the long-term health of the states summer flounder stocks, Commissioner Martin said.

We are appealing the ASFMC decision because of the numerous process, data, policy and regulatory issues that will significantly impact New Jerseys fishing industry, Commissioner Martin said. The ASFMC decision will actually result in anglers in New Jersey having to throw more dead fish back into the water than they can keep to eat, and the fish they can keep overwhelmingly will be reproductive females. This is not sound fishery management.

Recreational and commercial fishing employs 65,000 people and generates some $2.5 billion in annual economic benefits to the state. Summer flounder, also known as fluke, is one of the states most sought-after recreational fish species, prized for its delicate flavor and easily found close to beaches and in bays and creeks.

To achieve the 34-percent reduction, New Jersey faces increasing the minimum size limit for summer flounder from 18 inches in most state waters to 19 inches, making legally sized fish more difficult to keep. Additionally, the number of fish that could be kept under the new restrictions would be reduced from five to three.

The petition from New Jerseys three representatives to ASMFC Chairman Douglas E. Grout cites technical, scientific and procedural flaws as reasons for reconsideration of the vote. The commission was formed by compact to manage nearshore fisheries from Maine to Florida.

A DEP analysis of the quota reduction determined that the number of undersized, or discarded, fish that die after being returned to the water will be greater than the number of fish that will be harvested. This would be the first-ever such imbalance for the state. Flounder, like all fish, are susceptible to mortality from hook wounds and stress.

Discard mortality that exceeds harvest is not acceptable from a fishery management standpoint and will not be well received by the recreational fishing sector, the states representatives wrote, adding that such waste would be inconsistent with goals established by federal law. New Jersey representatives to ASMFC are New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife Director Larry Herrighty, Governors appointee Thomas P. Fote of the Jersey Coast Anglers Association, and Legislative Commissioner Assemblyman Bob Andrejczak (District 1).

They noted that summer flounder in New Jersey tend to be smaller than in states to the north due to the species biological needs and migration patterns. Moreover, more than 90 percent of summer flounder in New Jersey waters that are greater than 19 inches in length are females, meaning an increase in size limits would encourage higher harvests of reproductive fish, which would also be counterproductive to sound fishery management.

In their letter, the representatives argue that ASMFC did not properly consider comments made by the public opposing the reduction during a Jan. 5 hearing in Galloway Township, Atlantic County. They further state that ASFMC staff found numerous mathematical calculation errors after the hearing that resulted in substantive revisions to the draft quota-reduction plan and did not provide the public an opportunity to review the changes and provide additional comments.

In addition, ASMFC did not properly apply technical information gathered through the federal Marine Recreational Informational Program, which surveys anglers and members of the fishing industry to provide more complete assessments of the health of fisheries, the representatives wrote.

Commissioner Martin testified before ASMFC in opposition to the quota reduction and recently sent a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross requesting that 2016s quotas remain in effect pending development of a benchmark stock assessment to better understand and manage the resource. Any quota reduction this year would be on top of a 27 percent quota reduction in 2016.

For a copy of the appeal filed with ASFMC, visit: www.nj.gov/dep/docs/asmfc-appeal-letter-20170324.pdf

For a copy of Commissioner Martins letter to Commerce Secretary Ross, visit: www.njfishandwildlife.com/pdf/2017/flndrletter02-28-17.pdf

PHOTO/John DeBona

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British Airways already has plans to expand its nonstop flight from New Orleans to London
U.S. Postal Service letter carrier Mitchell Molitor, 55, of Metairie, was arrested and booked with DWI-third arrest, accused of delivering mail and driving his mail truck while intoxicated.(JPSO)
Phillip Brenckle Sr., 51, of Marrero was booked Saturday (March 25, 2017) on conspiracy and accessory charges after detectives determined that he picked up his son, Phillip Brenckle Jr., 19, also of Marrero and the other accused burglars and helped them escape to the West Bank following the March 5 home invasion and shooting on Oaklawn Drive. The blown-out tire prompted the younger Brenckle to call his father for a ride. (JPSO )
In this Thursday, March 2, 2017, file photo, Middlebury College students turn their backs to author Charles Murray during his lecture in Middlebury, Vt. The college says it has initiated an independent investigation into the protest in which the author of a book discussing racial differences in intelligence was shouted down during the guest lecture and a professor was injured. (AP Photo / Lisa Rathke)
WASHINGTON (AP)  The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has issued a subpoena to Donald Trump. The nine-member panel sent a letter to the former president's lawyers on Friday, demanding his testimony under oath by mid-November and outlining a series of corresponding documents. The decision by lawmakers to exercise their subpoena power comes a week after the committee made its final case against the former president, who they say is the "central cause" of the multi-part effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It remains unclear how Trump and his legal team will respond to the subpoena, if at all.
OKLAHOMA CITY, OK / ACCESSWIRE / March 28, 2017 / Medically Minded, Inc. (OTC PINK: MMHC) now named Medically Minded Holding Corp. and to be renamed Sixty Six Oilfield Services, LLC announces that it has added Mr. Gary Holley as an Advisor to the Board. Mr. Holley has been in the oil and gas drilling industry for 36 years, first at Parker Drilling Company, Tulsa, Oklahoma, until 1993, then to President and COO of Cougar Drilling Company in 1997. In 2008, Mr. Holley was Senior Vice President of Drilling Operations for NOMAC Drilling and in January 2009 Mr. Holley was promoted to President. In July 2009 Mr. Holley left NOMAC and was named President and CEO of Canyon Drilling Company. In 2015, Mr. Holley left Canyon and began his own consulting company, lending his vast experience to top Drilling Contractors Worldwide.

James Frazier, President and Chief Financial Officer of the Company, said: Mr. Holley has been a long time friend of the Company's principal stockholders and we welcome him as an advisor. His experience and knowledge of the industry is invaluable. Mr. Holley will be working closely with our team, as we expand our operations in the heavy oilfield equipment marketplace worldwide.

On March 27, 2017, the Company filed its annual list with Nevada to restore its good standing. The Company plans to file a Certificate of Amendment with Nevada on or about March 28, 2017 to change its name and increase its authorized common stock. After the amendment is accepted, the Company intends to submit an application to FINRA for announcement of its name change and for a new ticker symbol to reflect its new name.

The Company is planning to publish its Rule 15c2-11 Information Statement for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016 not later than March 31 at www.microcapreporting.com. The Companys financial statements will reflect the exchange of its Series A-1 Preferred stock for the members interest in 66 Oilfield Services, LLC completed March 14, 2017 as a reverse merger.

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SAFE HARBOR AND INFORMATIONAL STATEMENT

This press release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the Exchange Act), including all statements that are not statements of among other things: (i) the Company's financing plans; (ii) trends affecting the Company's financial condition or results of operations; (iii) the Company's growth strategy and operating strategy; and (iv) the declaration and payment of dividends. The words "may", "would", "will", "expect", "estimate", "anticipate", "believe", "intend" and similar expressions and variations thereof are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company's ability to control, and that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors including the risk disclosed in the Company's reports filed with the SEC. The Company is not eligible to rely on the safe harbor provided by Section 21E(c) of the Exchange Act because it is not subject to filing periodic reports under Sections 13 or 15(d) of the Exchange Act.

For more information, contact:

Jim Frazier, President, Jim@66oilfield.com

info@66oilfield.com

405.735.6666

855. DRL.PIPE (375-7473)

Only information that is publicly available will be provided.

SOURCE: Medically Minded, Inc.
Are you up-to-date on your vaccines?

This is a common question for Tanya French, public health nurse with the City of Council Bluffs, to ask.

French coordinates immunization services for children who are underserved in Pottawattamie County.

This program includes weekly clinics held at the WIC office and city hall in Council Bluffs (by appointment only). She also works with school nurses and daycares on a regular basis to ensure children are up-to-date on their vaccines, schedule appointments for children who need to be vaccinated and provide communicable disease information for distribution to parents.

As an integral part of the community and the Public Health Department, French has served on the Pottawattamie County Tobacco Coalition Board, the Shaken Baby Task Force and Prevent Child Abuse Pottawattamie County since 2003. She also serves on the Pottawattamie County Immunization Task Force and the Pottawattamie County Bio-Preparedness Planning Team.

You may have seen French at one of the flu shot clinics for the public or for city employees. She is continually working to keep Council Bluffs and Pottawattamie County safe and healthy.

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. On Saturday, a free Family Fun Fair will be held from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the Charles E. Lakin Human Services Campus located at 815 N. 16th St.

Prevent Child Abuse Pottawattamie County invites the public to wear blue on April 7 and to attend a mayoral proclamation and Pinwheels for Prevention Fun Run at 11 a.m. April 8 on the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge. For both events, the public is encouraged to wear royal blue to help increase awareness.

For more information, contact Jordan Morse at 712-355-2615.
DES MOINES (AP)  The death of a 16-year-old girl has led to finger-pointing at the Iowa Legislature, and its an indication of how much has changed in the 17 years since the death of another child prompted a bipartisan inquiry and passage of legislation to protect children from abuse.

Five months after the death of Natalie Finn, Republican lawmakers have been split over whether to investigate her treatment.

The governor has criticized a senator who spoke out about the case and Democrats have accused GOP leaders of being reluctant to take up the matter because of possible questions about reduced state staffing.

The response was different after the January 2000 death of Shelby Duis, a 2-year-old from Spirit Lake. Her killing prompted then-Gov. Tom Vilsack to speak at a public hearing in the northwest Iowa city and discuss the case on national television.

The matter dominated that years legislative session, resulting in legislation that today allows lawmakers to review confidential child abuse records. It eventually led to a tougher child endangerment law and a commitment from Vilsack to spend millions more combating abuse.

Sen. David Johnson, an independent who served in the House in 2000, said at that time, both parties worked to understand why Shelby died despite warnings to the Department of Human Services.

Johnson recalled former Senate President Mary Kramer, a Republican, encouraged bipartisan cooperation.

Do you see that here today? No, you dont, he said. You dont see that with Natalie Finn.

Following Shelbys death, police charged her mother and live-in boyfriend. Her mother was convicted and the boyfriend was acquitted.

In the Finn case, the West Des Moines teenager died last October from what a medical examiner called denial of critical care. Prosecutors say the girl was starved and tortured by her parents, who have pleaded not guilty to charges related to her death.

Though school administrators reported suspected abuse to officials, she wasnt removed from her home.

Sen. Matt McCoy, a Des Moines Democrat, has been seeking Senate oversight committee hearings about the matter, and hes criticized the panels Republican chairman for not organizing meetings.

That lawmaker, Sen. Michael Breitbach, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

McCoy and other Democrats organized informal hearings, and DHS officials attended at least one.

But DHS Director Charles Palmer recently declined to send agency staffers to a follow-up meeting. Gov. Terry Branstad has claimed McCoy is politicizing the girls death.

On Thursday, Republican Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, who chairs the House oversight committee, announced hed hold hearings to examine child welfare services following Natalies death, but he also criticized McCoy, saying he had shared confidential information.

McCoy denied that and accused Branstad and DHS of trying to avoid questions about the agencys role in keeping track of Natalie, who had been cared for through Iowas foster care and adoption program.

Johnson, an independent from Ocheyedan, said a nonpartisan response to Natalies death has been especially hard to achieve during a legislative session in which Democrats have been angered over Republican moves on a number of bills.

The budget also plays a role in the discussion, said Sen. Bill Dotzler, a Waterloo Democrat who was in the House in 2000. He noted Branstad has prioritized reducing the size of government since returning to office in 2011.

Dotzler argued that ensuring children are safe would require DHS to hire more workers, a move that could be difficult as the state deals with budget shortfalls and Republicans look for ways to reduce taxes.

They dont want us talking about it because it points out the real flaws in their philosophy, he said.

Branstad spokesman Ben Hammes didnt comment on the budget but emphasized the governor believes legislative action should wait amid a criminal investigation.

The last thing we ought to do is have the politicians screw this up and not cause justice to be done for this tragic incident, Branstad said this month.

After Kaufmanns announcement, Hammes said in an email the administration would support an effort by legislators to learn more information about the overall adoption, child welfare and foster care systems at the Department of Human Services.

DHS spokeswoman Amy McCoy said the agency has met with some lawmakers for confidential briefings about the case, and she said the House committee investigation will allow DHS to let the public know about its processes, though the state will be prohibited by law from discussing Natalies case.

She also said reductions in DHS staffing have not affected social workers. She noted the department took personnel action after Natalies death, and there is an ongoing investigation into the case by the independent ombudsmans office.

Ombudsman Kristie Hirschman said last week she couldnt provide a timetable on a pending report because her office was still collecting information.

The ombudsmans office also investigated Shelbys death and released a report in December 2000. Legislation that changed Iowas child endangerment law passed in 2001.

Liz Cox, executive director of Prevent Child Abuse Iowa, said the correct legislative response is probably somewhere in the middle of seeking immediate action and carefully reviewing what went wrong. She noted the issue is complicated.

If this is truly a systemic issue, its going to take more than one legislative action to address the problem, she said.

Kaufmann, of Wilton, said his oversight committee can meet year-round, meaning his investigation can continue after the current session wraps up.

Sen. McCoy, who was in the Legislature in 2000, questioned Branstads leadership and said rather than criticize him, Branstad should work to improve the child welfare system.

I resent the governors tactics, he said. Its part of an effort to conceal and cover up, and I use those words knowing full well what that means.
The Council Bluffs City Council hopes to meet with Iowa West Foundation officials to discuss potential grant funding for the beautification aspects of the citys West Broadway master plan.

At the end of the study session for Mondays council meeting, Councilwoman Melissa Head suggested the city propose a public meeting between the council and Iowa West board to discuss the revised West Broadway plan.

I would rather us as a whole talk to all of them, Head said.

At its March 13 meeting, the City Council voted 3-2 on an amendment to the West Broadway master plan that would remove all medians from the project. Council members Al Ringgenberg, Roger Sandau and Melissa Head voted in favor of the amendment, while Nate Watson and Sharon White were opposed.

Last week, the Iowa West board unanimously approved continued funding of the first phase, which was not materially changed by the amendment. The board said it was unable at the present time to reach a decision on whether to make a funding commitment on phases two through five.

The foundation board left the door open for further discussion.

At the study session, Head reiterated a hope for the two sides to come together on the topic.

Watson proposed the idea of Sandau, Head and Ringgenberg working with business owners on West Broadway to see what space on their properties could be used for beautification in lieu of medians.

Watson suggested the council have something beyond the current master plan to present to the Iowa West board.

We need a bit more to it if youre going to try to convince them to fund it, he said. I dont think theyre going to fund the current (plan).

Watson suggested a compromise was needed to meet the foundation boards goals.

Sandau brought up the fact that the foundation board had approved funding of phase one, and phases two through five will now follow a similar plan.

Walsh suggested the three council members who were against medians reach out to Iowa West to ask how the foundation would like to proceed. Sandau said he hadnt reached out yet because, I thought wed have this conversation today.

Both Ringgenberg and Sandau mentioned they were willing to reach out to Iowa West.

Walsh said that a meeting where the council discussed the adjusted master plan could help alleviate concerns.

That could do it for them, he said.

A message left for Iowa West President and CEO Pete Tulipana Monday evening wasnt immediately returned.

During Monday nights council meeting, the issue was not on the agenda and no members of the public brought it up.
SIOUX CITY -- Though attendees of Thursday's rally for former President Donald Trump at the Sioux Gateway Airport came from a variety of cities and states, his supporters all had very similar answers when asked whether or not they would back a 2024 run by him.
A man who faces two counts of attempted murder after he allegedly shot at a house with people inside appeared in court Monday for a bond revocation hearing.

Vaughn White, 23, of Council Bluffs, also faces a charge of intimidation with a dangerous weapon stemming from an Oct. 18, 2016, incident.

White paid 10 percent of his $100,000 bond Wednesday. However, White was charged with first-degree harassment while he was in jail the night before he posted bond, police said.

According to authorities, White told a fellow inmate that he was going to put a bullet in the inmates girlfirends head.

The defendant told (the inmate) that he knew where she lived and was going to bond out and handle her, the report stated.

Pottawattamie County Attorney Jon Jacobmeier asked Fourth District of Iowa Judge Greg Steensland to revoke Whites bond in light of the threats.

He and the inmate have had previous cases together, Jacobmeier said. Theres cause for concern here.

Whites attorney Robert Nelson argued that White is being monitored via an electronic ankle tracker and has had constant contact with him throughout the court proceedings.

Steensland decided not to revoke Whites bond. However, he did quote western movie legend John Wayne to White.

Anything goes wrong, anything at all. Your fault, my fault  if something happens to this guy, youre going to be at fault, Steensland said to White, who replied Yes, sir.

Whites trial for the attempted murder charges is scheduled for May 16.

If convicted, he faces 50 years in prison.
One day late last July, the family of the late U.S. Army Sgt. Donald Noehren of Harlan finally received the news they had been seeking since the Korean War.

Through DNA testing at a lab in Hawaii, bone fragments found in a North Korean prisoner camp in 2005 were determined to be those of Noehren.

Donalds nephew, Bruce Noehren said his father, Robert, and his wife, Letha, attended POW/MIA meetings sponsored by the accounting agency for years, hoping to find out more about Donalds fate. So did other family members. Several relatives gave DNA samples hoping to help.

Nephew Rick Chipman vividly recalled on Monday the moment he learned of the news from his sister, Pat.

This weekend, Donalds remains will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Chipman and other relatives are to travel there on Thursday.

He is finally going to be coming home, said Chipman of rural Harlan. I wish my mother  his sister  would have been alive for this.

Chipman, who never knew his uncle, said Noehren has a small headstone in the Shelby Cemetery in Shelby.

Donald was one of six children born to Henry and Helen Noehren of Harlan. He served in the Navy in World War II and then enlisted in the Army as a combat engineer shortly before the outbreak of the Korean War.

He was a member of the 2nd Infantry Divisions 2nd Engineer Combat Battalion when he arrived in Korea in July 1950. Four months later, his unit was overrun by Chinese army forces near Kunu-ri, and many soldiers were taken prisoner.

According to the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the 23-year-old Donald Noehren was declared missing in action Nov. 30, 1950.

They were in charge of the rear and right flank of the 8th Army upon retreat from the Chinese, Chipman said. The push-back by the Chinese was overwhelming.

His status was changed from missing in action to deceased the next year after two repatriated U.S. soldiers reported that Donald had died at at the Hofong Camp prisoner camp on Jan. 22, 1951.

The agency said several remains were recovered from the camp area in 2005, after permission was given by the North Korean government to enter the camp. Agency scientists later matched DNA from relatives to help confirm that some of the remains found were those of Donald.

Its not clear why the identification took so long. Staff Sgt. Kristen Duus said she doesnt know the reason in this specific case, but delays are sometimes attributable to the lack of a suitable family DNA sample or because DNA identification methods arent yet good enough to obtain a match for a specific sample.

Twelve years ago, we didnt have the technology we have now, Duus said.

 BH News Service reporter Steve Liewer contributed to this report.
Sophomore Morgan Hanslip knows she wants to go to college.

But where?

A finalist for a Pottawattamie Promise Scholarship, Hanslip and her mom, Danielle, decided to attend Monday nights College Crossroads event held at Thomas Jefferson High School.

Were just getting an idea of whats available for her out here, Danielle said. You can go online and look at any college you want, but its nice to meet the people and get an idea of what they have to offer you.

The third annual college career fair brought out more than 300 people and featured more than 60 booths with representatives from area colleges, military branches and career organizations.

One of the reasons we started College Crossroads is because we wanted kids to start earlier with college and career planning, so that they would have doors of opportunity available to them, said Carla Hartenhoff, counselor for Thomas Jefferson. Were really pushing not just the senior high (students), but the middle school, too.

The event, open to Council Bluffs and surrounding communities, featured a college fair and offered informational sessions on scholarships, filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, the importance of getting involved at school, playing collegiate sports, college entrance exams and college admission processes.

Even though Thomas Jefferson freshman Mason Strong knows that he wants to be a firefighter when he graduates, he and his family still wanted to attend Monday nights event.

Its a good event to go to get a picture of what they have to offer and who offers what careers, Mason said. Its a good place to go if you dont know what you want to do and if you want to figure out what careers could benefit you.

South Dakota State University admissions counselor Sanna Strenge kept busy at her booth with a continuous flow of students and families. She spent time talking to students about the school and the different programs that are available.

Its a good way to connect with students who are little further from South Dakota, Strenge said. I like that this fair invited eighth-grade through eleventh-grade too.

While many students might not start thinking about college until their junior years, Strenge said theres no such thing as starting the college planning process too early.

Everyone should be thinking about their futures and how college is going to play into that, she said.
It borders on preposterous that the highly politicized atmosphere of the current Iowa Legislature is inhibiting  at least certainly seems to be inhibiting  a much-needed discussion of the circumstances that resulted in the death of 16-year-old Natalie Finn five months ago.

Finn, a West Des Moines teenager, died last October from what a medical examiner called denial of critical care. Prosecutors say the girl was starved and tortured by her parents, who have pleaded not guilty to charges related to her death. While the criminal investigation is outside lawmakers purview, the fact that school administrators reported suspected abuse to officials and she wasnt removed from her home is not.

Sen. Matt McCoy, a Des Moines Democrat, has been seeking Senate oversight committee hearings about the matter, and hes criticized the panels Republican chairman, Sen. Michael Breitbach, for not organizing meetings. Breitbach did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Associated Press.

McCoy and other Democrats organized informal hearings, and Department of Human Services officials attended at least one. But DHS Director Charles Palmer recently declined to send agency staffers to a follow-up meeting. Gov. Terry Branstad has claimed McCoy is politicizing the girls death.

Last Thursday, Republican Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, who chairs the House oversight committee, announced hed hold hearings to examine child welfare services following Natalies death, but he also criticized McCoy, saying he had shared confidential information. McCoy denied that and fired his own political broadside by accusing Branstad and the human services department of trying to avoid questions about the agencys role in keeping track of Natalie, who had been cared for through Iowas foster care and adoption program.

Yet another Democrat, Sen. Bill Dotzler of Waterloo, noted  and correctly so  that the states budget plays a role in the discussion but added to the pointless political rhetoric by observing that Branstad has prioritized reducing the size of government since returning to office in 2011.

The question, and we think its a crucial one, is whether the states budget woes are impacting DHSs ability to protect children who must be protected. Branstad spokesman Ben Hammes emphasized the governor believes legislative action should wait amid a criminal investigation.

That advice  bad advice, in our view  could postpone any action that might be needed to protect children facing similar circumstances until the next session; or for years to come.

If changes are needed to enhance the ability of DHS to protect vulnerable children, those changes are needed sooner rather than later; and taking real action in an effort to prevent additional deaths wouldnt be politicizing Finns death and the governor should know better than to suggest otherwise.
A Senate committee is investigating whether practices at five of the top makers of opioids in the United States fueled an epidemic of painkiller abuse that has led to the fatal overdoses of tens of thousands of Americans.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., on Tuesday sent letters to the companies seeking information about sales and marketing materials, internal studies on addictions, details on their compliance with legal settlements and donations to advocacy groups.

The companies are Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)'s Janssen division, Insys (INSY),Mylan (MYL) and Depomed (DEPO). McCaskill is the ranking Democrat on the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

By late morning, Depomed's stock was down 3.3 percent; Insy shares were down 1.8 percent and J&J was down about 0.5 percent. Mylan's price rose 0.6 percent.

Here's a link to the latest prices.

The companies targeted are the makers of the top five opioid products by sales.

"The investigation will explore whether pharmaceutical manufacturers  at the head of the opioids pipeline  have contributed to opioid over-utilization and over-prescription as overdose deaths in the last 15 years have approached nearly 200,000," said a press release announcing the probe.

The statement notes that in 2015 alone, more than 30,000 people died from overdoses of either prescription opioids or of heroin.

And since 1999, the release says, sales of prescription opioids have increased four-fold.



"This epidemic is the direct result of a calculated sales and marketing strategy major opioid manufacturers have allegedly pursued over the past 20 years to expand their market share and increase dependency on powerful  and often deadly  painkillers," McCaskill wrote in her letters to the companies.

"To achieve this goal, manufactures have reportedly sought, among other techniques, to downplay the risk of addiction to their products and encourage physicians to prescribe opioids for all cases of pain and in high doses," she wrote.

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McCaskill said she often hears stories about "drug overdose deaths, the vast majority of them related to prescription opioids or heroin," which are "single-handedly destroying families and communities across Missouri and the country."

"And I refuse to just stand by and watch. We have an obligation to everyone devastated by this epidemic to find answers," McCaskill said. "All of this didn't happen overnight. It happened one prescription and marketing program at at time."

Her letters note that in 2007, Purdue Pharma paid $635 million in fines to settle criminal and civil charges related to the company's misrepresentation of the addictive qualities of its OxyContin painkiller medication, and that three executives of the firm pleaded guilty to criminal misbranding.

They also note that the city of Chicago sued Purdue Pharma, Janssen, and several other opioid makers in 2015, claiming the companies deceptively marketed their painkillers.

The Chicago lawsuit alleges that Purdue and Janssen have sponsored continuing medical education activities for doctors "that were delivered thousands of times promoting chronic opioid and supporting and disseminating ... deceptive and biased messages."

The sessions "inflate the benefits of opioids, and frequently omit or downplay their risks or adverse effects," the complaint claims.

Purdue Pharma and Janssen have denied the claims.

Purdue Pharma, in response to McCaskill's letter, told CNBC, "The opioid crisis is among our nation's top health challenges, which is why our company has dedicated itself for years to being part of the solution."

"OxyContin accounts for only 2 percent of the opioid analgesic prescription market nationally, but we are an industry leader in the development of abuse-deterrent technology and advocating for the use of prescription drug monitoring programs," the company said. "We are reviewing Senator McCaskill's letter and will respond accordingly."

Janssen spokeswoman Jessica Castles Smith said, "We received the letter from Senator McCaskill and we plan to address her request."

"We believe that we have acted appropriately, responsibly and in the best interests of patients regarding our opioid pain medications, which are FDA-approved and carry FDA-mandated warnings about the known risks of the medications on every product label," said Smith.

In response to the letter Mylan said: "We welcome the senator's interest in this important matter and we share her concerns regarding the misuse of prescription opioids. We very much hope that the senator expands her interest to include the top 10 suppliers of opioid drugs to the U.S. market. In 2016, Mylan ranked as the No. 17 supplier of opioids sold in the U.S., representing approximately 1 percent of the entire U.S. opioid market. Despite being a small player in this area, we are committed to helping find solutions to the issue of opioid abuse and misuse."

Depomed confirmed receipt of the letter from McCaskill, but had no immediate comment. Insys has not yet responded to CNBC for comment.

 Additional reporting by CNBC's Natalia Wojcik.





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The last guests have checked out.

The grand ballrooms have closed. The chatter of the many conferences at the Radisson at Star Plaza hotel in Merrillville has given way to silence, become a fading memory.

The landmark hotel at U.S. 30 and Interstate 65 shut down for good on New Year's Eve, to be replaced with a more modern hotel that potentially could stand six stories tall. It's since been fenced off, and signs warn "no trespassing."

Now the iconic Radisson at Star Plaza, which has been one of Northwest Indiana's most prominent and popular gathering places for decades, has a date with the wrecking ball.

White Lodging plans to commence demolition this week, with work starting inside the 330-room building Friday. Demolition is expected to take four months.

This is a bittersweet moment because this hotel is such an important part of the history of our company and more importantly, the Northwest Indiana community, said Deno Yiankes, White Lodging President and CEO of investments and development. However, we are proud that this work marks the beginning of a new era for the Region as we look at the best way to honor the community and to continue to make contributions that carry on the legacy of pioneer Dean White and his vision for the intersection of I-65 and U.S. 30.

White  the billionaire, philanthropist, and hotel and billboard mogul who died last year  built the Radisson at Star Plaza as a Holiday Inn on a cornfield in 1969. It helped transform the area around it into the biggest commercial zone in Northwest Indiana, and make Merrillville into a "hospitality mecca" that now has more than 2,100 hotel rooms.

His son Bruce White's company, White Lodging, said the demolition is necessary to prepare the site for new development, and that the nearly 50-year-old hotel must be replaced with more contemporary lodging.

"Northwest Indiana residents will start to see a lot of activity at the iconic Radisson Hotel at Star Plaza with demolition beginning this week," the company stated in a press release. "Equipment will arrive on site mid-week, with actual work starting inside the building on Friday, and continuing through the rest of spring and during the summer."
Another mobile ride-hailing service has officially arrived in Northwest Indiana.

Lyft entered the Northwest Indiana market last month in an expansion to more than 50 cities at a time when more dominant rival Uber has been faltering because of various scandals and controversies. Uber rolled into Northwest Indiana in 2015, and competes with established taxi companies like Yellow Cab and Limousine of Northwest Indiana in Dyer, Reliable Taxi Service in Crown Point and Krazy Cab of NWI in Valparaiso.

"In our largest launch to date, Lyft rolled out the welcome mat to 50-plus new cities today," the San Francisco-based company said in a statement. "The move is part of this years massive expansion, which we kicked off with a 40-city launch just one month ago. Now, millions more people across the US have access to reliable, affordable transportation."

Lyft, which was once known for bright pink mustaches on the hoods of cars but which has since rebranded, also launched in other Indiana cities, including Evansville, Terre Haute and Muncie. It's already popular in Chicago.

A report by 7Park Data last August found the much larger Uber has 87 percent of the U.S. market share, but Lyft has been gaining ground. It has grown to 131 more cities over the last three months, adding 37 million more users and entering seven more states. Lyft now says it covers 67 percent of the United States.

The company added Gary to the list of cities, and a coverage map on its website shows that it serves Lake and Porter Counties, as well as Michigan City. Service would depend on where Lyft drivers are operating at any given time.

The company has an app customers download on their phones and use to hail rides 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The base fare in the Gary metro area is $2, with an additional $1.50 per mile and $0.20 per minute. The maximum fare is $200, and there's a cancellation penalty of $5.

Payment is automatic after summoning a driver one one's phone because the customer's credit card information is already entered in the system.

For more information, visit lyft.com.
Purdue University Northwest's "PNW Big Sell" wants your start-up business ideas.

Entrepreneurs have until noon Saturday to apply for entry into the annual contest, where they can test their ideas on a stage and compete for cash awards. The best idea for a new business will get $5,000 in start-up funding.

Anyone interested needs to submit a two-minute video pitch. The entry fee is $100, or $25 for college students who don't attend Purdue Northwest. It's free for Purdue students.

My advice to entrepreneurs is to critically look at their product/service the way an investor will look at it, PNW Big Sell coordinator and entrepreneur Mont Handley said. Try to find the flaws of your business plan or product and work to overcome them prior to an investment pitch. If you dont pick your own plan or product apart, then be prepared for investors to do that.

The PNW Big Sell will take place at 1 p.m. April 29, at Purdue Northwests Commercialization and Manufacturing Excellence Center, 7150 Indianapolis Blvd., in Hammond.

For more information, visit, www.pnw.edu/ThePNWBigSell.
MICHIGAN CITY  A 38-year-old was arrested last week after police found cocaine and marijuana in his vehicle during a traffic stop, the LaPorte County Drug Task Force announced Tuesday.

Jason Anderson, of Michigan City, was arrested Friday. He faces charges of dealing cocaine, a level 2 felony, and dealing marijuana, a level 5 felony, according to a Michigan City Police Department news release.

The task force started investigating Anderson months ago after receiving complaints about his alleged involvement in illegal narcotics sales in the Michigan City area, according to police.

Police initiated a traffic stop Friday on Anderson near 10th and Tennessee streets. The news release did not indicate why police conducted the stop, but Sgt. Andrew Hynek later told The Times Anderson allegedly "committed several traffic violations."

A K-9 police dog conducted a free air sniff, which indicated the presence of illegal drugs around Anderson's vehicle, police said. A subsequent search of the vehicle revealed cocaine and marijuana, police said.

After establishing probable cause with a judge Friday night, police executed a search warrant for a garage in the 600 block of Carlon Court in Michigan City. The LaPorte County Drug Task Force conducted a search of the building, where a "large amount" of marijuana was located.

Sgt. Andy Hynek, commander for the drug task force, said the case originated from several neighborhood residents reporting tips.

"We rely heavily on residents to report abnormalities within their communities; they know their neighborhoods better than we do," Hynek said.
CROWN POINT  Hundreds of blue pinwheels will decorate the fields outside the Lake County Juvenile Justice Complex next month to raise awareness about child abuse and neglect.

The pinwheels, which serve as a national symbol for child abuse prevention, will decorate the building's northeast grounds at 3000 93rd Ave., in Crown Point, beginning April 7 in recognition of Child Abuse Prevention Month.

Elizabeth Theodoros, volunteer recruitment coordinator for the Court Appointed Special Advocate, or CASA, program in Lake County, said the pinwheels will remain outside the complex throughout the month.

She said this is the second year that local judicial and child welfare officials have decorated the complex to raise awareness about child abuse and neglect.

The officials will decorate the grounds at 12:30 p.m. and a reception will be held afterward on the second floor of the Juvenile Justice Center.

The Times reported in November that the number of child abuse and neglect cases filed in Indiana courts almost doubled between 2006 and 2015, to 17,491 cases in 2015 from 8,861 cases filed in 2006.

The increase, which some officials attribute to the opioid epidemic, has resulted in an increased burden on the state's juvenile court judges and CASA, an organization that trains volunteers to advocate on behalf of abused and neglected children.

Theodoros said CASA will hold training sessions April 18 to May 18 for local residents interested in becoming a child advocate.

Anyone interested in learning more about the application process can contact Theodoros at 219-660-6978.
INDIANAPOLIS  Northwest Indiana municipal and business leaders enthusiastically endorsed legislation Tuesday that would establish transit development districts along the current and future routes of the South Shore Line.

From Gary to South Bend, Schererville to Michigan City, and seemingly every point in between, the message to the Senate Committee on Tax and Fiscal Policy was the same: Pass House Bill 1144.

"This is the future," Michigan City Mayor Ron Meer said. "As I look at this, I think that they'll still be talking about this when we begin the 22nd century."

The proposal authorizes the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority to use increment financing to develop areas near South Shore stations to maximize the economic benefits of double-tracking the commuter rail line between Gary and Michigan City and extending service from Hammond to Dyer.

"This is a game-changer," said Don Babcock, NIPSCO director of economic development. "We need to take advantage of this opportunity."

LaPorte Mayor Blair Milo said even cities not directly on the rail line connecting the Region to high-paying Chicago jobs, including hers, are eager for the ancillary projects set to follow the coordinated transit-oriented development.

"By unlocking these kinds of opportunities with the double-tracking, it greatly provides for our communities to enhance so many different areas of quality-of-life," Milo said.

The sponsor of the measure, state Rep. Hal Slager, R-Schererville, projected that altogether the rail construction, TDD projects and related residential and commercial development are expected to have an economic impact of more than $3 billion over the next two decades.

"This will help transform Northwest Indiana," Slager said.

However, the committee postponed its vote on the legislation until Thursday to give senators time to review a lengthy revision proposed by Slager.

His amendment does not change the underlying purpose of the legislation, but it reduces the maximum initial size of a TDD to a half-mile, instead of one mile, and makes clear that TDDs will not usurp local control over planning and zoning, or sap funds that otherwise would go to local schools.

In addition, it creates a steering committee for each TDD to give local officials a direct line to the RDA to specify the types of development they want to see.

"The RDA and the local community will have to work collaboratively," Slager said.

Slager's revised proposal also creates a process for LaPorte and St. Joseph counties to participate in the TDD opportunity without joining Lake and Porter counties as full members of the RDA.
HOBART  The taste of the Caribbean is coming to downtown Hobart.

Teddian Jackson is remodeling space at 322 Main St. to open the Montego Bay Grille.

Citrus glazed salmon, lobster ravioli, sesame seared ahi tuna and a variety of burgers are among the menu items.

Meals will be moderately priced with offerings for every palate, said Jackson, a certified executive chef through the American Culinary Federation.

The base of the dishes are Caribbean, but Jackson said he is bringing in my wealth of experience to fuse other flavors in the meals.

I still have to keep the Midwest in mind, he said.

Jackson, 33, said he has nearly 20 years of culinary experience. It all started in his teenage years when he worked summer jobs in restaurants.

His work in the culinary field later took him to the tourism industry in Jamaica. His previous work as a sous chef on a cruise line allowed him to travel throughout the world.

I decided after all these years, I want to do my own restaurant, he said.

Jackson said there will be an extensive wine and craft beer menu to pair drinks with the meals offered at Montego Bay Grille.

He's planning to open the eatery in April, and he believes downtown Hobart is a great location to for his eatery.

Jackson will draw on the natural beauty of that area to give customers a visually pleasing experience.

The facility's proximity to Lake George is a key feature, and Jackson will offer outdoor dining that will put customers right along the lake.

The outdoor dining required city approval, and Hobart leaders seemed excited about Jackson's restaurant when hearing the request.

Mayor Brian Snedecor told Jackson he views the restaurant as a good addition to the downtown.
ST. JOHN  Exclusive automobile condominiums in town?

It's the dream of one local resident for the triangle-shaped property his family owns just north of Aspen Cafe at U.S. 41 and Wall Street.

Mike Gelatka presented his idea at a recent Plan Commission study session. He said his family's original concept was for retail tenants, but now that appears unlikely after being told by real estate representatives that finding a good retail tenant in that location "would be a difficult haul."

"We're here putting forth an idea, and we want to get your thoughts for the space," Gelatka told the commission. "Something that would use up the space and create a nice attraction for the town."

That attraction would be motor condos. The concept already exists in Naperville, Illinois. Gelatka said Iron Gate Motor Condos there is similar to what some people do to their home garages or basements, as a "man cave kind of thing."

He said people purchase the units and make what they want of the inside. Its main use in Naperville is for auto and other collectors.

"It ends up being a kind of automobile enthusiasts country club," he said.

Gelatka said he believes there is a potential market for motor condos in St. John.

"We see it as an opportunity to bring something nice and unique to the town we want to keep nice and unique," he said.

Gelatka said the condos are used not only by individuals but also by car dealers who host VIP events there.

"It's not just some guy's garage," he said. "The intent is to make it so people want to spend money in it. And that you can bring businesses into it, and I think there's an opportunity for that."

Gelatka told the commission if he gets their approval he would move forward on the project. He said they have more than $1 million waiting to be invested in the project.

"We really want to do something with it," he said.

Gelatka had previously brought the concept to Town Manager Steve Kil who said he was "not sure this is going to fly."

Kil said the area under discussion is a retail corridor, so the condos and streetscapes would have to be tailored to look like retail buildings.

"You can't have garage doors facing U.S. 41," Kil said. "There's just some obvious hurdles here for something like this."

Plan Commission President Michael Forbes said it's the first he's heard of such an establishment, and he can see the potential for both high and low volume. He said he's considering going to Naperville to see how the business there operates.

"Let us get more familiar with this type of business," he said. "Maybe at our next study session we can have a little bit better conversation and more ideas flowing about the actual operation."
WASHINGTON  The chairman of the House intelligence committee refused Tuesday to step away from its investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, as fresh political allegations brought new cries of protest from Democrats.

Asked if he should recuse himself, committee chairman Devin Nunes responded, "Why would I?" Later in the day, the White House vehemently denied a report that it had sought to hobble the testimony of a former acting attorney general before Nunes canceled the hearing where she was to speak.

President Donald Trump's spokesman, Sean Spicer, lashed out at reporters, claiming they're seeing conspiracies where none exist.

"If the president puts Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that's a Russian connection," he suggested.

The embattled House committee is conducting one of three probes into the election campaign, its aftermath and potential contacts between Trump officials and Russians. The Senate intelligence committee is doing its own investigation, and since late July the FBI has been conducting a counterintelligence investigation into Russia's meddling and possible coordination with the Trump campaign.

Nunes' decision to cancel Tuesday's hearing was the latest in a series of actions that Democrats contend demonstrate that his loyalty to Trump is greater than his commitment to leading an independent investigation. The California Republican, who was a member of Trump's presidential transition team, has said he met with a secret source last week on White House grounds to review classified material that showed Trump associates' communications had been captured in "incidental" surveillance of foreigners in November, December and January.

Nunes would not name the source of the information, and his office said he did not intend to share it with other members of the committee.

Nor would he disclose who invited him on the White House grounds for the meeting. He described the source as an intelligence official, not a White House official. In an interview on CNN, he suggested the president's aides were unaware of the meeting.

Trump has used Nunes' revelations to defend his unproven claim that Barack Obama tapped phones at Trump Tower. In a series of tweets Monday night, Trump said that instead of probing his associates, the committee should be investigating his Democrat opponent Hillary Clinton's ties to the Kremlin.

"Trump Russia story is a hoax," he tweeted.

Adding to the swirl of questions was the publication of a series of letters dated March 23 and March 24 involving a lawyer for former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates.

Yates, along with former CIA Director John Brennan and former director of national intelligence James Clapper, had agreed to testify publicly before the House intelligence committee.

The canceled hearing would have been the first opportunity for the public to hear Yates' account of her role in the firing of Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

The letters from lawyer David O'Neil, published by The Washington Post, appeared to be in response to a meeting O'Neil had at the Justice Department on March 23 in advance of the hearing.

In them, O'Neil pushes back against what he says is Justice Department guidance on what Yates could say about conversations she had with Trump  conversations the department indicated could be covered by executive privilege.

"We believe that the Department's position in this regard is overbroad, incorrect, and inconsistent with the Department's historical approach to the congressional testimony of current and former senior officials," O'Neil wrote in a March 23 letter to Justice Department official Samuel Ramer. He also wrote that Yates' testimony would cover details that others have publicly recounted.

The Justice Department responded to O'Neil saying that the question of what privileged conversations Yates could discuss was ultimately up to the White House.

Spicer on Tuesday said the White House never sought to stop her. "We have no problem with her testifying, plain and simple," he said.

O'Neil declined to comment Tuesday, and a Justice Department spokeswoman did not return a message seeking comment.

Yates was fired in January as acting attorney general after she refused to defend the Trump administration's first travel ban. She alerted the White House in January that Flynn had been misleading in his account of a December phone call with the Russian ambassador to the United States in which economic sanctions against Russia were discussed. Flynn was ousted after those discrepancies were made public.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said that White House meddling is not helping to "remove the cloud that increasingly is getting darker over the administration."

Democratic members of Nunes' House committee said his ability to lead a bipartisan probe is compromised.

"It's irregular, to be benign about it, to have a lead investigator kibitzing with the people being investigated," said Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn.

House Speaker Paul Ryan reiterated his support for Nunes, and Nunes himself said all of the controversy was standard for Washington.

"It's the same thing as always around this place  a lot of politics, people get heated, but I'm not going to involve myself with that," he said.

___

Associated Press writers Stephen Ohlemacher and Erica Werner contributed to this report.
Some 23 towing firm contractors are bidding to be on a list of preferred towing companies for Lake County government work. This is a big improvement in the way these contracts have been handled in the past.

Though it may not be perfect, its a change in the right direction from the private deals cut by Lake County Sheriff John Buncich, who now is under federal indictment for bribery in the matter. Buncich pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

The Lake County Council voted in January to reform the county's towing business by shifting authority to award contracts to the commissioners, rather than the sheriff.

The commissioners, to their credit, had promised to use the Indiana State Police vendor qualifications as a guide for setting up the new system.

Commissioner President Mike Repay, D-Hammond, said this month the county would create a new map of districts where an undetermined number of winning firms will operate. That's fair, as tow operators must be available to respond quickly whenever police need their services. The sheriff had set nine districts.

The new boundaries are to be apportioned equally to avoid creating some districts that were more lucrative than others for tow operators.

Earlier this month, 23 tow operators submitted their bids. Repay said at least five of the applicants had done work for the sheriff, and will continue to do so until the new system is in place.

The new system has more transparency, under a bidding process that is easier for the public to see and understand. The possibility of backroom deals is lessened under this system.

Throughout this process, the county should keep in mind that the goal is to get traffic moving again quickly. It is not about how much revenue the county can get out of the deal. Customers should be treated fairly in the process.
The Army veteran accused of killing Timothy Caughman because of his race was indicted on terrorism charges Monday. NY1's Michael Scotto filed the following report.

Appearing in court, James Jackson was hit with a new charge, first-degree murder as an act of terrorism.

Prosecutors say Jackson, a white supremacist, sought to use murder as a weapon of intimidation when he came to New York to kill black men and stabbed Timothy Caughman to death in Midtown.

Caughman's childhood friend Carl Nimmons says the killing has horrified him.

"He was a nice guy, you know. He was very intelligent," Nimmons said. "I just can't believe this happened this way, that he had to go out like that. Somebody just hate black people. It's unbelievable."

Born in Queens, the 66-year-old Caughman lived here on West 36th Street. Friends say he was a good guy who liked posing with celebrities and collecting their autographs, and worked hard to pay his rent after falling on hard times.

Caughman was looking for bottles to recycle when Jackson is said to have approached and killed him.

Prosecutors say Jackson wanted to kill here because the crime would attract more attention.

"It just tore me up, really tore me up. Every time I think about it, thinking about him getting stabbed like that," Nimmons said.

Advocates had argued for the upgraded charge of terrorism, which carries a top sentence of life in prison without parole.

The head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational fund tweeted,

Gratified that @ManhattanDA has taken this important step. White supremacist violence is domestic terrorism. https://t.co/iwEgFtsVW5  Sherrilyn Ifill (@Sifill_LDF) March 27, 2017

Jackson is due back in court next month

Nimmons had recently gotten back in touch with Caughman and had been planning to meet him again. Now, he his mourning the loss of his friend.
* PM to formally deliver Brexit divorce papers

* Two years of talks loom; exit planned in 2019

* United Kingdom's future unclear, banks eye exiting London

By Guy Faulconbridge and Elizabeth Piper

LONDON, March 28 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May will file formal Brexit divorce papers on Wednesday, pitching the United Kingdom into the unknown and triggering years of uncertain negotiations that will test the endurance of the European Union.

Nine months after Britons voted to leave, May will notify EU Council President Donald Tusk in a letter that the UK really is quitting the club it joined in 1973.

The prime minister, an initial opponent of Brexit who won the top job in the political turmoil that followed the referendum vote, will then have two years to settle the terms of the divorce before it comes into effect in late March 2019.

"We stand on the threshold of a significant moment for Britain as we begin the negotiations that will lead us towards a new partnership with Europe," May said on Monday. "We are going to take this opportunity to forge a more global Britain."

On the eve of Brexit, May, 60, has one of the toughest jobs of any recent British prime minister: holding Britain together in the face of renewed Scottish independence demands, while conducting arduous talks with 27 other EU states on finance, trade, security and a host of other complex issues.

The outcome of the negotiations will shape the future of Britain's $2.6 trillion economy, the world's fifth biggest, and determine whether London can keep its place as one of the top two global financial centres.

For the EU, already reeling from successive crises over debt and refugees, the loss of Britain is the biggest blow yet to 60 years of efforts to forge European unity in the wake of two devastating world wars.

Its leaders say they do not want to punish Britain. But with nationalist, anti-EU parties on the rise across the bloc, they cannot afford to give London generous terms that might encourage other member states to follow its example and break away.

Story continues

BREXIT DEAL?.

EU officials expect May's notice of intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to be hand-delivered by British diplomats on Wednesday, when May will also speak to parliament.

The Brexit letter will seek to set a positive tone for the talks and recap 12 key points which May set out as her goals in a speech on Jan. 17.

Within 48 hours of reading the letter, Tusk will send the 27 other states draft negotiating guidelines. He will outline his views in Malta, where from Wednesday he will be attending a congress of centre-right leaders. Ambassadors of the 27 will then meet in Brussels to discuss Tusk's draft.

The course of the Brexit talks is uncertain.

May has promised to seek the greatest possible access to European markets but said Britain will aim to establish its own free trade deals with countries beyond Europe, and impose limits on immigration from the continent.

She has acknowledged that those measures would require withdrawing from the EU 'single market' of 500 million people, founded on the principles of free movement of goods, services, capital and people.

Her priorities also include leaving the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and securing "frictionless" trade with the bloc while ending full membership of the customs union that sets external tariffs for goods imported into the bloc.

She wants to negotiate Britain's divorce and the future trading relationship with the EU within the two-year period, though EU officials say that will be hard.

"It was you, the British, who decided to leave, not us who wanted you to go," said one senior EU diplomat. "The trading relationship is going to be the most difficult bit to solve - I don't see how that will be done in that time frame."

A huge number of questions remain, including whether exporters will keep tariff-free access to the single market and whether British-based banks will still be able to serve continental clients, not to mention immigration and the future rights of EU citizens in the UK and Britons living in Europe.

Global banks such as Goldman Sachs are considering moving staff out of Britain due to Brexit, and some major companies and banks could use the Article 50 trigger date to update investors on their plans.

UNITED KINGDOM?

At home, May's United Kingdom - a nuclear power with a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council - is divided and faces strains that could lead to its break-up.

The results of the Brexit referendum called the country's future into question because England and Wales voted to leave the EU but Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay.

Scottish nationalists have demanded an independence referendum that May has refused, saying the time is not right. In Northern Ireland, rival parties have been unable to end a major political crisis for over two months and Sinn Fein nationalists are demanding a vote on leaving the UK and uniting with the Republic of Ireland.

"May's job is just so difficult - keeping the UK together while Brexiting - that I am not sure anyone would want it," said a senior non-EU diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"After Brexit, the future of almost everything is completely unclear and that is extremely worrying for the UK, the EU and the West as a whole." (Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Rising seas are eating away at ocean-front sand at a pace that could leave Southern California with few usable beaches by the end of this century, scientists announced Monday.

Research based on information from the U.S. Geological Surveys newly created computer model, the Coastal Storm Modeling System, shows that with little human intervention up to 67 percent of the beaches in Southern California could erode completely in less than 100 years, according to a paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

Conversely, a majority of SoCal beaches recently have grown in size because of artificial beach nourishment that has kept many shorelines flush with sand. But that trend would change, beaches could vanish entirely, if sea levels rise between one and two meters, scientists said. Beaches currently are being rebuilt at a pace that might not be fast enough to stave off long-term erosion.

If more than half the sand on local beaches goes away, so would a natural buffer that currently protects about 18 million people from rising seas and increasingly powerful storms. Also, because the coast generates about $40 billion in tourism and other revenues, scientists said beach erosion of a level described in the report could be an economic catastrophe.

This study indicates that we will have to perform massive and costly interventions to preserve these beaches in the future under the erosive pressures of anticipated sea level rise, or risk losing many of the economic and protective benefits beaches provide, said Patrick Barnard, the studys coauthor and a geologist with USGS.

Scientists reached their conclusion, in part, on historical shoreline data. Typically, its difficult to predict shifts in the shoreline, but scientists said their new methodology is sound, in part, because of how accurately it was able to replicate the shoreline changes that occurred regionally between 1995 and 2010.

In response to the study, the California Coastal Commission on Monday urged coastal communities to take action against sea level rise by replenishing beach sand, elevating (or relocating) some structures and and building some seawalls. But Coastal Commission scientists warned that seawalls should be used sparingly, noting that by slowing water flow and wiping out waves seawalls can hinder natural sand replenishment. The Commission also said new buildings should be constructed to withstand rising tides.

The prospect of losing so many our beaches in Southern California to sea level rise is frankly unacceptable, said the commissions Executive Director Jack Ainsworth in a statement Monday.

The beaches are our public parks, and (the) economic heart and soul of our coastal communities. We must do everything we can to ensure that as much of the iconic California coast is preserved for future generations.

Contact the writer: lawilliams@scng.com
Rodgers & Hammerstein have written some of the most heart-wrenching musicals ever to grace the American stage, none more tragic or poignant than Carousel.

Its romantic protagonists are ashamed to admit their love for each other, and the story, based on Ferenc Molnars 1909 play Liliom, is as cruel, stark and unforgiving as any R&H opus: The hero slaps his girlfriend around, plans a violent robbery when he discovers shes pregnant, and fatally stabs himself to avoid police capture.

As Musical Theatre Wests revival proves, Carousel is R&Hs most moving show  as heartfelt as South Pacific or The King and I but minus much of the schmaltz.

In fact, MTWs revival is beautifully directed by Joe Langworth, music-directed by Dennis Castellano and choreographed by Daniel Smith for maximum dramatic and musical impact.

The stagings success is bolstered by top-notch lead performances  Doug Carpenter and Amanda Leigh Jerry as doomed lovers Billy Bigelow and Julie Jordan; Amanda Hootman and Justin Cowden as Carrie Pipperidge and Enoch Snow; and Sarah Uriarte Berry as Nettie Fowler, Erica Hanrahan-Ball as Mrs. Mullin and Jeff Skowron as Jigger Craigin  but that only partly explains its considerable strengths.

Karen St. Pierres costumes cover two distinct eras  1879 and 1894  and two distinct social classes  the workaday sailors, fishermen and mill workers of a small Maine coastal town, and their wealthier neighbors.

The opening scene introduces the characters as they interact in pantomime to the haunting Carousel Waltz, its climax shrewdly using the stages turntable to create the illusion of a working carousel, replete with colorfully painted horses.

Director Langworth doesnt overplay the shows comedic aspects  Carousel is, after all, essentially a late 19th-century soap opera; he sets the stage early on by playing the light comedy, yet ratcheting up the palpable tension between Mrs. Mullin and Billy and her antagonism toward Julie and Carrie.

MTWs staging fairly crackles with tension and atmosphere, and it doesnt hurt that the shows book and dialogue favor realism over artifice. The bulk of the actors deliver spot-on New England/Maine dialects, in pleasing contrast to Carpenters New Yorkese as Billy, who hails from Coney Island.

Billy Bigelow is one of theaters most ambivalent characters, a roustabout who wants to turn his life around and do right by Julie but isnt up to the task. In Carpenters hands, this casually flirty ladies man is foolhardy, yet hard to dislike  brimming with bravado thats mostly a pose.

Carpenters moving, powerhouse tenor takes the harsh edges off of Billys rough persona, finding its apex in the climactic Soliloquy, as Billy fervently, even defiantly, sings of his determination to do right by his and Julies as-yet unborn child.

If I Loved You is one of the most haunting musical theater ballads ever written, and as sung by Carpenter and Jerry, its touchingly melancholy  the musical cry of two hearts ashamed to admit their feelings for each other.

Jerry is a soft-spoken, self-assured Julie, a model of selfless empathy for the hotheaded Billy, her gorgeous vocals on full display in the solo Whats the Use of Wondrin?

Hootman ably captures Carries serene contentment over her and Enoch Snows storybook romance. Through his portrayal and operatic tenor vocals, Cowden displays Enochs cheerfully optimistic business ambitions. Skowron makes a sleazy little Jigger  a shifty, scheming small-time crook only too eager to suck the reluctant Billy back into disreputable doings, and wholly blase about murder for profit.

Berrys Nettie leads the way in the lively June Is Bustin Out All Over and the tear-drenched, always stirring Youll Never Walk Alone. The shows well-known, large scale musical numbers  June, A Real Nice Clambake and Blow High, Blow Low  are all dazzlingly staged, given a huge boost by Smiths choreography and the tireless work of the talented, versatile 22-person ensemble.

The fluid, mostly abstract scenic design (the combined work of Kevin Clowes, Ana Martinez and Shawn Pryby, with the breathtaking flats uncredited) blossoms in Act Two during the magically surreal ballet, danced with grace by the lovely Allyson San Ramon as Louise Bigelow, Billys troubled 15-year-old daughter.

The result of MTWs musical theater expertise is a sweeping, sad, delicate tale of doomed love, further proof of the 1945 shows status as a masterpiece.

Contact the writer: emarchesewriter@gmail.com
ANAHEIM  The family of a girl severely injured when struck by a red-light runner while crossing the street to Juliette Low Elementary School would receive $15.9 million from the city, a school district and a company that staffs crossing guards under a tentatively approved deal, the familys lawyer said Monday.

In 2014, 11-year-old Paulina Perez was in a crosswalk on Lincoln Avenue at 7:08 a.m. when the accident occurred  seven minutes before a crossing guard was to take a position there, according to the Orange County Superior Court case.

She, like other children, was on her way to a daily free breakfast at the school that began at 7 a.m.

They were playing with fire, said Mark Robinson, the familys lawyer. For nine months (before the accident), they didnt have someone on that busy intersection.

Why would they put the crossing guard to work at 7:15, when they knew most of the kids would be coming between 6:45 a.m. and 7:15 a.m. for the free breakfast? It didnt make sense.

In the tentative agreement, Anaheim and the city-hired All City Management Services would cover $12.9 million, mostly through insurance, Robinson said. The Magnolia School District would pay an additional $3 million, the attorney said, with his fee 25 percent of the total.

The sixth-grader suffered traumatic head injuries and broken bones that require constant care. The left side of her body is paralyzed, and she has limited mobility on the right side, Robinson said, adding that she is mostly confined to a bed or wheelchair. She cant speak.

City officials, declining to talk about the settlement numbers, said the deal has not been finalized. The City Council has yet to take official action on the lawsuit.

Our hearts go out to Paulina and her family, Anaheim spokeswoman Erin Ryan said in a statement. We do not have a finalized settlement agreement but expect to see one in the coming weeks.

In the lawsuit, filed in 2015, among those sued were the city, its Police Department, the school district, the crossing guard company and the driver, Thalia Sanchez Siles, who, the lawyer said, didnt have insurance, didnt have money and wont be paying the family anything.

According to court records, she plead guilty to driving without a license and running a red light.

For years, the free lunch was offered at 7:30 a.m., Robinson said, with a crossing guard usually appearing at 7:15.

In January 2014, he said, the breakfast time was changed to 7 a.m. Neither the city or district told the crossing guard company, Robinson said.

Patricia Pohl, vice president of operations with All City Management Services, said there was some confusion.

We receive our instructions and directions from the police department, Pohl said. The police department arranges our shift time relative to the bell time, not breakfast time.

And so there was confusion there as this tragedy came as Paulina was traveling to school for breakfast, outside of that protected time when we were asked to be on duty, she said. We were on duty as designated and approved by the city, but that did not put us there to protect Paulina.

I only wish we would have been there, she said. We regret and lament this every day.

The lawsuit says that some schools in Anaheim with the same breakfast program had crossing guards ready at least 5 minutes before the campus opened.

Annette Cleveland, an assistant superintendent with the Magnolia School District, declined comment, citing the pending lawsuit.

After all of the parties officially agree to the settlement, a judge must sign off and finalize a life-care plan for the girl, who is now 15.

This money will go towards her physical therapy, said Robinson, adding that the family at this time prefers not to talk to the media. If you ever meet her, her smile is so infecting. Shes a special girl. She was doing well in school, everything was going well. 

This will get her the care she needs, he said.
SANTA ANA  A 60-year-old Newport Beach man made his first appearance in court Monday, March 27, on charges of stealing more than $124,000 from a victim, who gave the defendant a check, but wasnt able to get the money back when he changed his mind.

Donald Jerry Cole is charged with multiple felony counts of money laundering as well as a single count of grand theft, according to court records. The charges, which include sentencing enhancement allegations of money laundering between $50,000 and $150,000, were filed Feb. 17.

Cole was arrested Saturday, March 25, and was being held without bail, according to jail records.

Cole allegedly took a check for $124,630 from a man as an investment into the defendants alleged business, according to a motion prosecutors filed to enhance Coles bail.

The contract allegedly allowed the victim to withdraw the money at any time, but Cole ignored multiple requests for a refund, prosecutors alleged.

Cole subsequently moved the investment money into an account, which (the victim) had no access to, according to prosecutors.

A search warrant of Coles bank accounts revealed that Cole has spent all the investment money on personal items that were non-business related, according to prosecutors. Cole moved the money from several different bank accounts through cash withdrawals and deposits.

An investigator working on the case also alleged that Cole fled the state of California and his last known location was in Kentucky, according to court papers.

Coles arraignment was rescheduled for April 14.
Congressional Republicans failed to unite around a passable health care bill, and must now brace for the political consequences.

The preponderance of that burden falls on the House, where the more moderate and wonky leadership has to recognize that the conservative caucus is not going away, and substantive reforms will have to involve real trade-offs.

The problem began when Speaker Paul Ryan and company put forward a bad bill undeserving of support. A period of debate and tweaking is a natural part of any typical legislative process, but the rush toward passage that the House leadership pushed for belied the extraordinary character of this particular bill. Rather than just another routine piece of legislation, it was emblematic of the whole GOPs standing vow to repeal and replace Obamacare, a malfunctioning and cronyistic law with shaky constitutionality that didnt deliver on its basic promises.

Yet instead of a bold alternative, or even just an effort to reset the clock, the House bill offered what many perceived as the worst of both worlds: watered-down Obamacare with an added layer of complexity. Such a bill could not be tweaked and debated without embarrassment.

But this is President Donald Trumps failure as much as Ryans. The presidents seemingly halfhearted argument to secure votes boiled down to a harsh judgment of the House. Ryan is your leader, the White House suggested; let him lead. But repeal and replace was a promise that helped get Trump elected too. A president known for his deal making surely could have mustered a better defense for a cornerstone piece of legislation of his administration. Instead, he shrunk from battle, preferring to let Obamacare explode.

Fear of being punished at the ballot box was partly reasonable too. But if a few voters might have lost out on entitlements under the new system, lots of Republicans now see their representatives as having betrayed them.

To be sure, there are some aspects of Obamacare that are almost universally supported, like rules on pre-existing conditions, but that one positive does not in any way diminish the damage this bill has otherwise done. Its difficult to imagine how the GOP could have taken control of the legislative and executive branches without Obamacare to run against. And now, its difficult to see how congressional Republicans can survive the next election cycle undiminished.

The president and GOP lawmakers must craft a new bill. Obamacare has driven up premiums too frequently. From 2013 to 2015, monthly costs per member jumped 70 percent, according to the S&P Global Institute. Middle-class families are now more apt to pay more and get less than before. As a Kaiser study determined, in 2015, 46 percent of uninsured couldnt find an affordable plan.

The solution is an entitlement for catastrophic injury and pre-existing conditions, a hold on Medicare expansion, and a repeal of whats left of the Affordable Care Act. This is a plan that could even attract some support from Democrats, especially if it included some cost controls. After all, about half of health care in the United States is now paid with public dollars.

The biggest beneficiaries of Obamacare have been the biggest insurance companies and hospital systems. But Republicans need to do more than run against that kind of state-managed crony capitalism.
While U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions warned sanctuary cities Monday that they could lose some federal funding if they didnt cooperate with immigration officials, experts and local officials said California cities are already complying with federal law.

Sessions statement echoed President Donald Trumps campaign pledge to defund sanctuary cities, which are typically defined as those that largely do not pursue immigration-related enforcement.

Unfortunately, some states and cities have adopted policies designed to frustrate the enforcement of our immigration laws, Sessions said. This includes refusing to detain known felons under federal detainer requests.

Sessions pointed to a recent report that said 206 out of 3,083 detention requests nationwide over a weeklong period were not honored by local law enforcement, including four in Los Angeles and one in Anaheim. Crimes ranged from drunken driving and drug possession to homicide, though its unclear how many involved felonies.

The federal requests ask local police to hold those suspected of immigration violations for up to 48 hours beyond the time theyre jailed for their arrests, giving immigration officials additional time to pick up the suspects.

Local jurisdictions that dont cooperate often say that a warrant should be required for such an action, and that otherwise detaining undocumented immigrants erodes community trust with local police.

But Sessions said that not retaining those suspects jeopardizes public safety. He pointed to a 2015 incident where Kate Steinle was shot and killed in San Francisco by an illegal immigrant with seven felonies and five deportations who had not been retained as requested 11 weeks earlier.

Such policies cannot continue, Sessions said. They make our nation less safe by putting dangerous criminals back on our streets.

Sessions noted that the federal requirement was instituted by President Barack Obama in July.

Kamal Essaheb of the National Immigration Law Center was among those that said sanctuary cities are already in compliance with federal law.

The legality of community trust policies (that) cities have instituted is clear, he said, citing several lawsuits in which such cities prevailed. The Trump administrations attempt to circumvent the law is yet another example of this presidents commitment to overreach and abuse of power.

Among sanctuary cities that said they were in compliance with the federal law cited by Sessions was Santa Ana.

What (the law) says is that if we have a formal request from the federal government to provide information about a detainee, that we have to provide that information  and we do that already, said Santa Ana Councilman Sal Tinajero. What we dont do as a sanctuary city is voluntarily give you someones immigration status that you havent asked for.

In fact, the statewide TRUST Act bans local police from enforcing immigration laws beyond notifying federal authorities of who enters their jails. Experts say the state statute does not violate federal law.

The counties of Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino, which have not declared themselves sanctuary jurisdictions, also said they are in compliance with both state and federal laws. Riverside and San Bernardino counties include no sanctuary cities.

At stake is $4.1 billion in Department of Justice grants nationwide, largely used for one-time expenses and not daily operating costs.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti also said his city cooperates with immigration authorities as required by law.

We will fight to protect the safety and dignity of all Angelenos and we will work closely with our representatives in Congress to make sure that Los Angeles does not go without federal resources that help protect million of people every day, Garcetti said.

Despite the widespread belief that California jurisdictions are in compliance with state law, Garcetti is not alone in expressing concern that the Trump administration could reach beyond current enforcement parameters.

I will respect what Mr. Sessions says and be on the lookout, said Rep. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana. It may not change anything, but we have to pay attention. Were working well in California. Undocumenteds are part of our workforce. Theyre integrated into our society.

California Attorney General Javier Becerra also defended current practices in the state.

In California, we respect the Constitution and abide by federal law; we expect the federal government to do the same, Becerra said. I will continue to work with our federal law enforcement partners for the good and safety of all our people.

We will fight to protect those policing resources, just as we will protect all the residents of our state against unconstitutional overreach by our federal government.

Staff writers Doug Saunders, Elizabeth Chou, Ryan Hagen, Jeff Horseman, Alicia Robinson, Liset Marquez, Rachel Uranga and City News Service contributed to this report.

Contact the writer: mwisckol@scng.com
Ask the residents of San Joses drying-out Rock Springs neighborhood and other nearby areas if it pays to ignore warnings about future disasters that seem in normal times to be nothing more than distant, negative fantasies.

During the heavy rains of February, when a crisis caused by a poorly built spillway at the Oroville Dam drew worldwide headlines, the San Jose neighborhood and areas around it suffered at least $50 million of avoidable damage to private property and about $23 million in public property damage. Some estimates of the total toll come to more than $100 million.

Thats in addition to $22 million in emergency fixes the city and the Santa Clara Valley Water District now propose.

Avoidable? Unnecessary? You bet. Even as 14,000 residents of the flood plain of San Joses Coyote Creek were forced to flee, local water district officials remembered their early 2000s dealings with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with managing flood controls all over the country.

But the Corps opted not to work on Coyote Creek. After five years of negotiating with the Santa Clara Valley Water District to create levees and other improvements keeping water away from low-lying Rock Springs, the Corps begged off. It cited an obscure rule forbidding projects when their cost is more than the likely damage from a single major flood.

Oops. The cost of the improvements protecting Rock Springs would have been about $7.4 million. Thats less than 10 percent of the damage inflicted by Coyote Creek in February.

The total of actual damages and possible new flood control measures make the 2003 statement of Lt. Col Michael McCormick, then the Army Corps district commander in San Francisco, look silly: The economic evaluation found the benefits, i.e. the reduction in flood damages, were not significant enough to justify the costs of improvement, he said.

McCormick is long gone, but residents are still trying to replace or repair cars that were flooded up to the hoods and homes and contents flooded and muddied well up their interior walls. Theres also the coming issue of mold.

In a way, this was similar to what happened at Oroville, where environmental groups warned in 2005 that inadequate spillways could cause damage to the dam itself and lead to Feather River flooding downstream. The fix they recommended would have addressed precisely the problems behind this winters almost 200,000 evacuations and would have cost far less than the $200 million to $600 million that repairs and restructuring will now run. But the state Water Project, which operates the dam, and the water districts benefiting most from supplies it captures, downplayed potential damages.

Both scenes resemble the old television commercials where a mechanic held up an oil filter while intoning You can pay me now (for this), or you can pay me later (much more).

Californians will be paying much more now than if warnings had been heeded.

Other warnings exist all over California. More than 1,000 bridges need seismic updating to avoid major damage in earthquakes. Potential future consequences of ignoring that kind of warning were clear in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which knocked down freeway bridges and impeded traffic for months. Also in the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, which led to the hyper-expensive rebuilding of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and destroyed the top level of the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland, killing 39 persons.

There are also many warnings about dams: An example is Santa Clara County, where five of 10 existing reservoirs cannot be filled to more than two-thirds capacity for fear of seismic collapse. Wasted capacity there could provide enough water for 280,000 persons for a full year.

And there are warnings about many thousands of homes and buildings not yet retrofitted to withstand the next large nearby earthquake. This may cost homeowners several thousand dollars each, exact amounts varying, but a fix could keep them in homes that might otherwise be red-tagged as unfit for human occupation.

None of these other items are drawing anything like the emergency response they should, nor will they until or unless theres a crisis.

At which point, like Coyote Creek and the Oroville Dam, theyll have to be fixed fast, at a much higher cost than todays estimates.

Thomas D. Elias is a writer in Southern California.
A day after several videos surfaced of angry marchers punching and cursing at protesters, journalists and others at the Make America Great Again rally in Huntington Beach on Saturday, those who were assaulted are asking why police didnt act to stop the violent brawl that broke out minutes into the march.

The event, billed as the MAGA March, was one of about 50 organized across the country to support President Donald Trump, the military, veterans, law enforcement and emergency responders. Organizers said they were hoping for a family-friendly, kid-friendly march.

But that wasnt what they got.

Marchers are shown on video attacking two photographers and an intern from the OC Weekly and Angie LaPorte-Domkus, of Sunset Beach, who said she was there to observe and record the march.

It didnt look like the cops were interested in doing anything at all, she said. They were just standing there watching.

California State Parks Police Capt. Kevin Pearsall said Monday his officers saw a lot of people punching, and it was chaotic.

When you have that many people going at the same time, its difficult, he said. We went into this with the thinking that if a situation became life-threatening, we would act.

The violent brawl lasted about 30 minutes as marchers and protesters, who initially blocked the march, clashed. It ended with three of the protesters pepper-spraying some on the other side, including Jennifer Sterling, one of the marchs organizers who was trying to break up the fight.

Officials charged three males with felony illegal use of pepper spray and one woman with misdemeanor assault and battery. Their names were not available Monday.

(Warning: Video contains foul language.)

The march continued without further incident, but the violence set the tone for the event with some marchers continuing to intimidate protesters and some of the protesters were yelling in response.

A few people on either side attempted to engage in peaceful dialogue and debate, but the environment was generally one of animosity between the two contingents.

A group calling itself Chinese Americans for Trump chanted Build that wall. Some participants carried signs with Nazi, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim symbols.

Pearsall said his department monitored social media before the event, which alerted them that weapons may be brought to the march.

The only weapon that was used (Saturday) was pepper spray, he said. Use of pepper spray is really serious because it can do permanent damage. Our goal was to ensure that no one was hurt and in the end no one was seriously hurt.

Photos also captured one marcher wearing brass knuckles.

As of Monday, no one had called his department or requested further investigation, Pearsall said. He said there were reports of two people suffering small cuts that did not require treatment.

The department was criticized on social media for estimating the crowd at 2,000, with many saying the number seemed much lower. Pearsall said he stands by his departments count.

We counted from four stories above the ground and we counted as the crowds walked by, he said. There were about 1,700 to 1,750 people and we rounded the number to 2,000.

The incident will not change in terms of the permitting process at Bolsa Chica, Pearsall said. Any person or group is still welcome there as long as they meet the California State Parks special event requirements, he said.

We have over 100 special events annually at the state park beaches in Huntington Beach, Pearsall said. It is not the first, but it has definitely received the most media attention.

The march was moved from the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa to Bolsa Chica State Beach over fears that marchers and counter protesters might clash.

The marchs organizers called it a huge success and Sterling said she washed the pepper spray out of her eyes and continued on with it.

I think it was a beautiful event, she said.

John Beaman, 54, of Tustin, a marcher who was trying to break up fights Saturday, said he was not surprised by the turn of events.

You get a bunch of testosterone going and people getting in each others faces, this is what you get, he said. (The marchers) werent there to cause trouble. The protesters were the ones who came to try and stop us. They were looking for trouble and they found it.

Jordan Hoiberg, a member of the Socialist Party USA and one of the protest organizers, said Saturday that the group wasnt there to stir up trouble, but simply to exercise their right to free speech.

LaPorte-Domkus, 52, said she was not among the protesters, but was filming a verbal fight on her phone when a woman punched her in the face. Thats caught on video, too. (See below.)

Ive lived here for 18 years and Ive never seen anything like this, LaPorte-Domkus said. It blew me away that this rally was even held here because this is a tight-knit community where we have pancake breakfasts and family events. Ive never witnessed so much hatred and I was shocked to see it.

Huntington Beach has witnessed bigger brawls, such as the July 28, 2013 incident during the U.S. Open of Surfing, when a fight sparked a riot with crowds tipping over porta potties, tearing down street signs, smashing shop windows and looting.

The three OC Weekly journalists including a 21-year-old intern who were all shown on video getting punched by marchers during Saturdays brawl, are doing well, but are shaken and physically sore, said editor Gustavo Arellano.

Were still exploring our options on how to proceed, he said. Its unfortunate that we have to ask the police to do their jobs when there is clear video evidence of the attacks.

Photographer Julie Leopo asked one of the officers to pursue the man who punched intern Frank Tristan, but the officer refused, Arellano said.

Im proud of our reporter and photographers for standing strong and doing their jobs, he said.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7909 or dbharath@scng.com
On a recent morning, a woman holding a shopping basket filled with cereal, Polish sausage and Caesar salad, walked upstairs to a condo unit in Laguna Woods.

As usual, Kim Roberts, 62, and her cat, Scout, were waiting on the other side of the door to receive Roberts meals for the day.

Roberts smiled and motioned Regina Granville, a Meals on Wheels volunteer for seven years, inside her home. The two exchanged pleasantries and Granville set the food in the kitchen. Then she walked over to stroke the black and white cats back.

Granville is one of 100-plus volunteers from Laguna Hills-based Florence Sylvester Memorial Senior Center who brings Roberts and 170 other people in the area food to their kitchens five days a week.

Its helped me immensely because I had a stroke, said Roberts, a Meals on Wheels recipient for nearly 10 years. I do have help, but (groceries) would be a lot to carry upstairs for me.

Meals on Wheels is a nationwide program that provides meals to 2.4 million seniors each year for little to no cost. For the homebound seniors who rely on the program, many claim it is their lifeline for food and human interaction.

Now the program may be in jeopardy. At a White House briefing on March 16, the Trump administrations Budget Director Mick Mulvaney revealed Meals on Wheels and similar programs may be cut with the new budget blueprint, specifically the Community Services Block Grant that funds many such programs.

This could affect 3,000-plus people in Orange County who receive more than 1.4 million meals per year through its Meals on Wheels programs, Renee Ramirez, director of OC Community Services, said.

Nothing is official, Ramirez said. The county hasnt decided if there are truly cuts, can they use other monies, maybe reserves.

Additionally, the countys Senior Nutrition Program serves 9,000-plus seniors who rely on congregate meals  a program in which mobile seniors can come to senior centers to receive meals. If budget cuts do happen, it could also affect congregate meals, Ramirez said.

Obviously if meals are cut and thats one of the things that comes out in the final budget, then the county will have to decide how to deal with it, she said. I havent heard yet if the county would try to find other monies to subsidize (Meals on Wheels).

Program saves lives

Roberts originally enrolled in Meals on Wheels with her mother after moving to Laguna Woods in 2008. Since, her mother died, Roberts has continued the program due to her health issues.

I sprained my ankle and I was in a care house, she said. If youre going through a surgery or transition phase and you cant drive, its a big help.

Roberts will likely be on the program for the rest of her life, said Chris Etcheverry, Meals on Wheels manager at the senior center.

She cant shop or cook, because shes paralyzed on one side, Etcheverry said.

The Florence Sylvester Memorial Senior Center Meals on Wheels program relies on half its budget from government funding.

For seniors to qualify for the program they must meet some criteria, such as inability to drive, health status and age. There is a suggested donation of $7.50 for the three meals per day delivered, but most of the Meals on Wheels recipients do not pay the full price.

We are one of the few programs who never have a waiting list, said Shirley Witt, program director of Age Well Senior Services and the Florence Sylvester Memorial Senior Center.

We will always feed and serve seniors in this community, regardless of their ability to pay.

Recipients vary from people with short-term needs, such as a person who just got out of the hospital, to long-term recipients like Roberts.

Laguna Woods resident Stephen Preston, 76, has been on the program for more than six years.

I wouldnt be alive without them, Preston said. Everything is excellent, the food portions are good and its healthy stuff.

Meal providers concerned

Age Well Senior Services is the second-largest Meals on Wheels provider in the county, with more than 1,000 recipients in 11 cities in south Orange County. CEO Marilyn Ditty said if there are budget cuts to the Meals on Wheels program and others like it, the result will be more government spending in the long run.

If a person winds up in the hospital because they dont have anything to eat, the cost to the government will be extremely high, Ditty said. It needs to be made aware that we have more elderly people today living at home alone and needing support.

If budget cuts do happen, the program would likely cut the number of home deliveries per week, or cut the number of meals given for each delivery, Ditty said.

The Meals on Wheels programs are always in need of funding, Ditty said, but budget cuts would prompt a major fundraising campaign like they have had in the past. A few years ago Age Well didnt receive government funding for three months, but was able to keep the programs fully-functional due to grants from a corporate donor.

Well have to jump on the fundraising bandwagon and get the word out to the community, Witt said. The community has always been wonderful in stepping up to the bat and helping us in the past and Im sure they will do that in the future.

The community already has. Since the announcement on March 16, Age Well has received donations of $1,000 each from four seniors, who said they wanted to give some of their savings money toward Meals on Wheels after hearing about the potential budget cuts, Ditty said.

Volunteers benefit, too

Not only do Meals on Wheels volunteers bring food to homebound seniors, but they are sometimes the only person a recipient will see that week, Witt said.

Many times on a Monday morning our volunteers will go into a house and find somebody whos been on the floor for 48 hours, Witt said. We have saved lives that way, but most importantly we have saved lives by feeding seniors who are homebound and have no other ways of getting food.

Granville first got involved with Meals on Wheels when her two children volunteered for the program in high school. After they were finished, she decided to start volunteering and has stuck with it since.

Almost all of the people I see dont have family, or at least family close by, she said. I think just to see somebody else in the course of a day is, I think, life affirming for them  theyre very lonely.

We cant just let our elderly go by the wayside, Granville added. These are people who built this country and laid a foundation for everybody, ourselves and future generations. Its impossible to think (the program cut) could happen.

Contact the writer: rasmussen.emily22@gmail.com
COSTA MESA  A 34-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of stabbing two people at random in Costa Mesa, one just outside outside a 99 Cents Only store, police said on Tuesday.

The most recent attack was Monday morning outside the 99 Cents Only store near Harbor Boulevard and Victoria Street.

Jose Oscar Medina has been accused of stabbing a 63-year-old man twice in the lower back, leaving the victim with non life-threatening injuries.

Police, after chasing Medina around the shopping center, arrested him, said Roxi Fyad, a Costa Mesa police spokeswoman.

After arresting Medina, officers came to suspect him of another stabbing. The night before on Sunday, at around 8:40 p.m., officers found a 30-year-old man in the 1800 block of Park Avenue with stab wounds on his right arm and chest.

By the time officers had arrived, the suspect had fled on a bicycle.

Investigators say Medina didnt know the victims and stabbed them without provocation.

He was being held on two counts of attempted murder and one count of elder abuse. Bail was set at $500,000.

Orange County court records show Medina has several felony drug convictions dating back to 2002.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7865 or afausto@scng.com
WASHINGTON  Declaring the start of a new era in energy production, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that he said would revive the coal industry and create jobs.

The move makes good on his campaign pledge to unravel former President Barack Obamas plan to curb global warming. The order seeks to suspend, rescind or flag for review more than a half-dozen measures in an effort to boost domestic energy production in the form of fossil fuels.

Environmental activists, including former Vice President Al Gore, denounced the plan. But Trump said the effort would allow workers to succeed on a level playing field for the first time in a long time.

That is what this is all about: bringing back our jobs, bringing back our dreams and making America wealthy again, Trump said, during a ceremony at the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters, attended by a number of coal miners.

The order initiates a review of the Clean Power Plan, which restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants. The regulation, which was the former presidents signature effort to curb carbon emissions, has been the subject of long-running legal challenges by Republican-led states and those who profit from burning oil, coal and gas.

But just as Obamas climate efforts were often stymied by legal challenges, environmental groups are promising to fight Trumps pro-fossil fuel agenda in court.

Trump has called global warming a hoax invented by the Chinese, and has repeatedly criticized the power-plant rule as an attack on American workers and the struggling U.S. coal industry.

In addition to pulling back from the Clean Power Plan, the administration will also lift a 14-month-old moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands.

The Obama administration had imposed a three-year moratorium on new federal coal leases in January 2016, arguing that the $1 billion-a-year program must be modernized to ensure a fair financial return to taxpayers and address climate change.

Trump accused his predecessor of waging a war on coal and boasted in a speech to Congress that he has made a historic effort to massively reduce job-crushing regulations, including some that threaten the future and livelihoods of our great coal miners.

The order will also chip away at other regulations, including scrapping language on the social cost of greenhouse gases. It will initiate a review of efforts to reduce the emission of methane in oil and natural gas production as well as a Bureau of Land Management hydraulic fracturing rule, to determine whether those reflect the presidents policy priorities.

It will also rescind Obama-era executive orders and memoranda, including one that addressed climate change and national security and one that sought to prepare the country for the impacts of climate change.

The administration is still in discussion about whether it intends to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Trumps order could make it more difficult, though not impossible, for the U.S. to achieve its carbon reduction goals. The presidents promises to boost coal jobs run counter to market forces, such as U.S. utilities converting coal-fired power plants to cheaper, cleaner-burning natural gas.

Trumps Environmental Protection Agency chief, Scott Pruitt, alarmed environmental groups and scientists earlier this month when he said he does not believe carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming. The statement is at odds with mainstream scientific consensus and Pruitts own agency.

The overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed studies and climate scientists agree the planet is warming, mostly due to man-made sources, including carbon dioxide, methane, halocarbons and nitrogen oxide.

Opponents say Obamas effort would have killed coal-mining jobs and driven up electricity costs. The Obama administration, some Democratic-led states and environmental groups counter that it would spur thousands of clean-energy jobs and help the U.S. meet ambitious goals to reduce carbon pollution set by the international agreement signed in Paris.

Trumps order on coal-fired power plants follows an executive order he signed last month mandating a review of an Obama-era rule aimed at protecting small streams and wetlands from development and pollution. The order instructs the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers to review a rule that redefined waters of the United States protected under the Clean Water Act to include smaller creeks and wetlands.

While Republicans have blamed Obama-era environmental regulations for the loss of coal jobs, federal data shows that U.S. mines have been shedding jobs for decades under presidents from both parties as a result of increasing automation and competition from natural gas, which has become more abundant through hydraulic fracturing. Another factor is the plummeting cost of solar panels and wind turbines, which now can produce emissions-free electricity cheaper than burning coal.

According to an Energy Department analysis released in January, coal mining now accounts for fewer than 75,000 U.S. jobs. By contrast, renewable energy  including wind, solar and biofuels  now accounts for more than 650,000 U.S. jobs.

The Trump administrations plans drew praise from business groups and condemnation from environmental groups.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J. Donohue praised the president for taking bold steps to make regulatory relief and energy security a top priority.

These executive actions are a welcome departure from the previous administrations strategy of making energy more expensive through costly, job-killing regulations that choked our economy, he said.

Former Vice President Al Gore blasted the order as a misguided step away from a sustainable, carbon-free future for ourselves and generations to come.

It is essential, not only to our planet, but also to our economic future, that the United States continues to serve as a global leader in solving the climate crisis by transitioning to clean energy, a transition that will continue to gain speed due to the increasing competiveness of solar and wind, he said in a statement.

Associated Press writer Michael Biesecker contributed to this report.
SANTA ANA A couple dozen immigrants rights activists marched from Sasscer Park to Santa Ana Jail on Monday evening in solidarity with the Coming Out Of The Shadows 2017 Caravan of 15 to 20 undocumented immigrants and their supporters set to travel across California. The caravan, covering cities from as far south as San Diego to Sacramento, began its journey in Santa Ana.

Resilience OC, a local coalition of organizations that have been fighting for the release of Santa Ana Jail detainees for more than four years, partnered with the caravan to call for continued resistance against the criminalization of immigrant communities, and on the Orange County Sheriffs Department to stop collaborations with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The reason why stopping in Santa Ana is important is because one, we declared ourselves a sanctuary city and second, because of the transgender detention issues, said Carlos Perea, 25, policy and programs director for Resilience OC. Transgender detention is coming to an end because of the ending of the (ICE) contract, and were still demanding the release of some transgender women left inside.

714-796-7762 or jkwong@ocregister.com or on Twitter: @JessicaGKwong
LAGUNA BEACH A new security screening beginning in April will require all visitors to Laguna Beach Unifieds four schools to show state or federal identification  and be run through a national sex offender data base  before being allowed to enter.

The visitor registration system was approved earlier this month by Laguna Beach Unified trustees as part of an upgrade to the schools safety plan. Officials say they are concerned about the remote location of some schools and easy access to all campuses.

We have very open campuses and theres not much we can do to secure them, said Leisa Winston, the districts assistant superintendent of human resources. Laguna Beach High School has multiple points of entry. El Morro (Elementary School) backs up to the park.  Top of the World and Thurston back up to open space.

The Raptor Technologies system is already in place in Irvine, Santa Ana and an Anaheim elementary school, Winston said. It is being used in 17,000 K-12 schools nationwide, according to the Houston-based company.

The system, which will cost the district $8,250 to install and yearly payments of $2,700, is expected to be in place by the end of April, Winston said.

For this community, its a response to general changes everywhere, said Jan Vickers, a Laguna Beach Unified trustee for 26 years. Its preventative because thats the way things are now. We try to have parents and others sign in but that doesnt always happen.

At present, visitors to Laguna Beach schools sign in without providing any identification and are given a sticker on which to write their names. About 500 people visit the districts schools each week, Winston said.

With the new system, visitors will be required to show a drivers license, state identification or passport. Each school will have a kiosk to scan the documents that will be input into the district-wide system.

Once scanned, a real-time check will be done on the visitors name, address and photograph against a nationwide sex offender database, Winston said.

If the system identifies a match between the visitor and the database, the schools administrator is alerted. The system only stores a persons name and whether or not they are listed as a sex offender, Winston said.

On subsequent occasions, visitors will provide their name and a badge will be printed. The badge will include a photo, name, date, time and the area of the school the person is visiting, she said. If a parent has children at more than one school, ID will have to be provided the first time at each school.

In November, two mothers  Allison Trotter and Angela Harris  asked district board members to step up safety during a school board meeting. The new security system was already in the works.

At both of our past school districts, they did volunteer screening, said Trotter, speaking jointly with Harris at the meeting. It was just harder to get in. There were locked doors and you got checked at the front desk. I would feel more comfortable if this was in place here for the safety of our children and the faculty.

District officials said the March 14 vote to add the system was part of a review of the volunteer policy and a response to a recent school safety committee report.

Laguna Beach police responded to five trespass calls at schools in 2016, said Laguna Beach police Lt. Tim Kleisser.

When California State Parks made plans to create the Moro Campground in 2008 at the site of the former El Morro Village mobile home park, parents complained about how close it would be to the elementary school. Parents expressed concerns that campers would trespass and interfere with school functions.

But Vickers said there have been none of those issues at El Morro Elementary. She said El Morro principal Chris Duddy has been proactive in looking out for his students. There have been some occasions where people were found sleeping in their cars in the morning when the school opened, Vickers said.

The district has installed extra gates at El Morro because of the close and open access to Pacific Coast Highway.

Irvine Unified School District has used the Raptor visitor registration system since 2015, when it was a pilot program. Last year, 35 of the districts 38 schools were put on the system, with plans to add it at the remaining three high schools in the summer, said Annie Brown, a spokeswoman for the Irvine Unified School District.

The district has spent $71,000 to install the system and $18,000 each year, she said.

The systems real-time checks have been very helpful in making sure the school was updated on the status of a person coming into volunteer or visit the school, Brown said. So far, no one has been flagged by the system, she said.

Andrea Ballesteros, who has a son in kindergarten at El Morro, said she likes the districts new security plans.

I think security is super important, she said. I was at the school the other day and didnt have a visitor pass and just got in. I dont know if they just recognized us?

We live in a beautiful community but strange things can happen, she added.
A former aide to Orange County Supervisor Todd Spitzer has sued the county and her ex-boss alleging that Spitzers raging temper toward employees caused her health problems and that when she requested to transfer to a new county position she was instead fired.

Christine Richters, 50, who was Playboys Playmate of the Month in May 1986 and later worked in Spitzers office from February 2013 through October 2016, said in her lawsuit, filed Friday, that Spitzers excessive time demands and practice of running his office through means of fear and aggression, caused her to experience anxiety, depression, hair loss and other health issues. She also alleges she was wrongfully terminated.

Richters lawsuit mentions no specific hostile interaction with Spitzer. But she provided a memo from Spitzer threatening to dock workers pay if they failed to respond to a text message within 15 minutes of receipt as evidence of an environment that required employees to be on stand-by 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

Richters also accused the county of failing to take reasonable corrective measures when it had knowledge of Spitzers unlawful conduct.

Spitzer did not return a request for comment. County spokeswoman Carrie Braun said the county does not comment on pending litigation.

Richters, who worked under Spitzers chief of staff and not directly under the supervisor, said workplace stress caused her to take time off for various periods in 2016, though she doesnt mention whether that contributed to her firing.

She said her doctor recommended she seek a transfer to another county job due to the stress. But when she requested a transfer, citing her doctors recommendations, Richters said Spitzer told her, No one leaves Spitzer unless theyre fired. The lawsuit said she was fired soon after.

Richters earned a salary of $41,000 and $24,000 in benefits in 2015, her last full year with the county, according to Transparent California.

She is suing for unspecified monetary damages.

Spitzers Third District office has experienced a high rate of turnover in the last five months, during which it has lost two chiefs of staff, including Irvine City Councilman Jeff Lalloway, who resigned after four months saying he missed practicing law.

Contact the writer: jgraham@scng.com or 714-796-7960
Two schools in Anaheim were on lockdown briefly Monday afternoon while police searched for armed suspects who they believe robbed an illegal marijuana dispensary.

Ball Junior High School was locked down at about 1:40 p.m. and Palm Lane Elementary School did the same about 10 minutes later after as many as three males with handguns robbed the illicit establishment in a nearby area.

When officers arrived, all they found was the security guard who had been disarmed by the suspects, said Sgt. Daron Wyatt, spokesman for the Anaheim Police Department.

Everyone else inside the dispensary had either fled or was uncooperative, Wyatt said.

The lockdowns were lifted shortly before 2 p.m. after authorities didnt find any of the 2 or 3 male suspects.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7865 or afausto@scng.com
NEW YORK  Fearless Girl, the wildly popular statue that has spent the last few weeks staring down the financial districts well-known Charging Bull, has received a new lease on life. Originally scheduled to be removed next week, it will now remain in place until early 2018, officials said Monday.

Fearless Girl was created by the sculptor Kristen Visbal and erected in Bowling Green, a small park, by the financial firm State Street Global Advisors in honor of International Womens Day in March.

The statue was an immediate hit, drawing crowds who snapped selfies or stood alongside the bronze child and mimicked her pose: hands on her hips, slight smile on her face, and her skirt and pony tail seeming to blow in the breeze.

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York stood beside the statue during a news conference Monday as he announced the decision to extend its stay until the next International Womens Day, on March 8, 2018. He called the statue a symbol of standing up to fear, standing up to power, being able to find in yourself the strength to do whats right.

De Blasio said the presidency of Donald Trump and the nationwide womens rights marches the day after his inauguration had given the statue a special power.

Right after that, this miraculous girl appears and creates such a powerful sensation because she spoke to the moment, the mayor said. That sense that women were not going to live in fear, that women were going to teach their daughters and all the women in their lives to believe in themselves.

Sometimes, a symbol helps us become whole, and I think the Fearless Girl is having that same effect, he added. She is inspiring everyone at a moment when we need inspiration.

Calls for Fearless Girl to become a permanent part of the financial district began almost immediately after it appeared, including an online petition that had garnered more than 28,000 signatures by Monday morning. Those calls continued after the decision to extend the statues stay for one year became known, including from the New York City public advocate, Letitia James.

Fearless Girl is a powerful symbol to women young and old, James wrote on Twitter. Empowering women shouldnt be temporary  she must be a permanent piece of NYC.

State Street Global Advisors said in a statement that it had commissioned the statue to celebrate the power of women in leadership and the potential of the next generation of women leaders. It called the public response to the statue overwhelming.

We are encouraged by the positive response, as our goal was to raise awareness and drive a conversation around the need to improve gender diversity in corporate leadership roles, the company said.

Not everyone has been pleased with the statue, however. Writing in The Guardian, Cara Marsh Sheffler denounced the statue as an act of corporate feminism and a marketing coup by State Street Global Advisors, which manages $2.5 trillion in assets. Of the 28 people on its leadership team, only five are women, according to its website.

Feminism is about human decency, Sheffler wrote. Not molding young girls in the image of a banking industry that bets against us, shorts us, and then receives government bailout money.

Arturo Di Modica, the sculptor who created the bronze Charging Bull sculpture in the 1980s, also fumed about Fearless Girl in a recent interview with MarketWatch.

He called it an advertising trick by a financial firm and said it was a mistake for activists to see it as a symbol for womens empowerment. He said he had put his sculpture in the financial district for art.

My bull is a symbol for America, he said. My bull is a symbol of prosperity and for strength.

Di Modica spent $350,000 of his own money to create the sculpture, which he installed without a permit in front of the Stock Exchange in 1989. The city moved it briefly to Queens before installing it in its current location in Bowling Green.

Gail A. Brewer, the Manhattan borough president, said at Mondays news conference that she thought Fearless Girl also sent a message about gender equality to the financial industry.

This girl  young  taking on the bull in terms of a symbol also says to Wall Street that we need more diversification on some of the boards of these companies, she said.

I believe the reason the artist did it as a girl, not a woman, is she wanted to show inspiration, she added. Its possible to take on the bull.
If youre looking for a unique but sure way to let loose and forget about the stress of your daily life, head off to the Swiss country side for a session of cow cuddling therapy. Its sure to do the trick!

Sibylle Zwygarts family runs a dairy farm in Tenniken. Switzerlands Basel-Landschaft canton. Three years ago she and her father were watching over one of their cows during calving, and while the birth of three adorable calves was usually a joyous event, this time was different. Her fathers trained eyes immediately noticed that two of the calves were sterile females, and the third was a bull, so none of them were of any use for their dairy business. Sibylles father planned to sell them all to the slaughterhouse, but she pleaded with him to let her keep them.

It took some convincing, but the farmer finally gave in to his daughters heartfelt pleas, on one condition  that she somehow find the money to cover the cost of their feed and veterinary bills. Sibylle agreed, and has spent most of her time since then looking after and training the three animals, which she named Svea, Sven and Svenja. As soon as they were old enough, she started putting them to work.

Photo: Buure TV screengrab

First, she decided to make one of her childhood dreams a reality, so she opened a cattle-themed adventure park for kids, where children as young as seven could come and learn about cows as well as interact with them. Many kids today dont even know where milk comes from, and some have never experienced country life, Zwygart told BZ Basel. This is also about getting children into a relationship with agriculture again.

Kids would come and feed the three friendly cows, clean them, walk them around the farm and learn all kinds of interesting things about them. But this was only the beginning of Sibylles project. She soon started looking for sponsors, animal lovers willing to pitch in 5 Swiss francs a month to cover the costs of raising them, in exchange for cow cuddling sessions.

Photo: Buure TV screengrab

The 25-year-old came up with the idea for cow cuddling therapy after reading about it being used in the Netherlands to help people slow down their hectic lifestyle and relax. She thought Svea, Sven and Svenja were perfect for the job and for the last year, Zwygart has been organizing cow cuddling sessions on her familys farm in Tenniken.

Cows are particularly suitable for cuddling, as they like body contact and are quiet animals, Sibylle Zwygart told Buure TV. Because of their peaceful nature, they also help people close to them relax.

Photo: Buure TV screengrab

A cow cuddling session starts with a brief theoretical introduction, where visitors learn about the animals. Then, they get to know the animals better and earn their trust by patting and cleaning them. Once a mutual trust between the cow and the person has formed, its time for the most enjoyable part, the cuddling. The whole things takes about two hours.

Cow cuddling on the Gisiberg farm is available to everyone, even kids above the age of seven. Each session costs 50 francs ($50), which is not very much by Swiss standards, but Sibylle says that she has only had 10 takers in the last year.

Photo: Buure TV screengrab

It is unfortunately that not many people in Switzerland know about my cow cuddling sessions, Zwigart said. Thats why I was not able to earn enough to cover the cost of raising the cows, so my father has had to help me.

Mario Becker, an animal behavior expert, doesnt agree with Sibylles idea, arguing that cows are not cuddly animals. Its true that cows are quiet and enjoy body contact, but they can be unpredictable dont feel a natural need to cuddle with people.

However, the expert agrees that cows can be trained to accept cuddling, but cautions people to earn the trust of the animals before getting to close to them and avoid making sudden and large gestures with their hands so not to scare them.

If cows just arent your kind of animals, perhaps youd be interested in a session of goat yoga instead. Or if youre more of a pig person, head over to this pig sanctuary in Holland, where you can chill with friendly hogs.


On the Move: TEAM Lewis Hires Weber Shandwick's Sam Mazzarelli Thu., Nov. 3, 2022 TEAM LEWIS hires Weber Shandwick's Sam Mazzarelli as a SVP in its consumer practice... PAN Communications adds Juliana Allen as EVP to lead the technology practice... My Code appoints Victoria Jordan as GM of branded content and creative... SutherlandGold Group brings on Aditi Roy, who has worked at NBC News, ABC News and CNBC, as head of content and strategy.
A Film On Yasuke, Japans First Black Samurai, Is In The Works Elijah C. Watson Elijah Watson serves as Okayplayer's News & Culture Editor. When

A movie centered around the historical tale of Yasuke, the reputed first black samurai to serve a warlord in Japan, is currently in development.

Titled Black Samurai, the films script is being written by Highlander creator Gregory Widen, and being produced by Mike De Luca and Stephen LHeureux.

[Black Samurai] is based on the true story of an African whose journey to Japan comes with conflicting background stories, Widen said in a report from Deadline. The one Ive chosen is that he was a slave soldier after the fall of Abysinnian Bengal, a black kingdom run by Ethiopians. He was sold into slavery and found himself in the care of Alessandro Valignano, an Italian missionary. They formed a bond, and when there were complications in Rome, he was sent to Japan and took Yasuke with him. There he met Oda Nobunaga, who was interested in all Western things, and through a series of bizarre events, the Jesuit left Yasuke with the warlord.

According to various sources, Yasuke was likely from Portuguese Mozambique and served Nobunaga from 1581 to 1582. When Valignano arrived in Japan with Yasuke, the latters presence reportedly caused some commotion. Black people at that time were not discriminated but admired, with many depictions of Buddha being portrayed as black in Japanese temples. Yasukes skin color became of interest to Nobunaga, who thought Yasuke was covered in black ink (and even made him scrub himself to prove he was black).

No other information is know about the forthcoming film, but it will be interesting to see who will be selected for the lead role of the film.

Maybe Common could take on Yasuke, considering he is set to star in the titular role of Black Samurai, a TV adaptation of the 1974 book of the same name (but is unrelated to film).
EverQuote ad

Youve likely seen the above photo of two fresh-faced and hoodie-clad Asian women on your Facebook feed, your email inbox, your Google searches, this Yahoo article  wherever your web browsing may take you.

EverQuote, the company advertising this photo, is a legitimate company based in Cambridge, Mass., that helps you choose the best car insurance policy with the right price and coverage for you. Founded in 2011, the company partners with over 5,000 insurance agencies and serves 5 million unique customers every month. The companys annual revenue came in at $100 million and raised $36 million in Series B funding last month.

The glaring problem is these programmatic ads are misleading. These two women arent founders of the company as the ad might suggest. Moreover, other ads for the same company feature other fresh-faced young people.

Riffing off variations of two super smart college grads changing the auto industry, here are a few of the headlines that I have seen:

How 2 Boston grads are disrupting the auto insurance industry

Boston grads are disrupting a $200B industry

New York, New York: This brilliant company is disrupting a $19 billion industry

How 2 math grads are disrupting the insurance industry

You get the point.

Beyond the headlines, the tweaks are small but significant  changing the location, individuals and even hairstyles of the same individuals in the photos that have proliferated online.

So who exactly are these people? Are they stock photo models? Unassuming college students who thought they were being photographed for a blog? It turns out they all do work at EverQuote.

The campaigns primary ad features two Asian women who are both EverQuote employees and 2016 graduates of MIT. While the ad makes it seem they are founders, or, at the very least, executives of the company, Laura Zhang (L) and Denise Tang are both senior quantitative analysts.

The two Caucasian guys are Connor Reck, a manager of media analytics and Rob Costa, a quantitative analyst. The Indian guy who accompanies Laura in several ads is Rohan-Kabir Amin, a former quantitative analyst in remarketing, whose last day was February 28.

Story continues

EverQuotes head of communications told Yahoo Finance the company is in the process of removing the ad with Armin. Moreover, the spokesperson said the company paused the campaign two weeks ago.

The ads are slowly being phased out because of the confusion that it has created (and inevitably lots of traffic to its site  with people Googling, What is EverQuote?)

So why arent EverQuotes illustrious founders  the true disruptors who are both MIT grads  featured in ads of their own company?

EverQuote co-founders Seth Birnbaum (L) and Tomas Revesz (Photo source: John Reynolds for The Boston Globe).

CEO Seth Birnbaum told Yahoo Finance that the average age of an EverQuote employee is 27, and their young employees are the true face of the company.

We wanted to showcase very real employees of our company. Especially because we are based in Cambridge, we have access to all kinds of great colleges in the area and we want to represent our young, diverse and exciting team in our advertising, EverQuote co-founder and CTO Tomas Revesz told Yahoo Finance.

The spokesperson said the company has considered using Seth and Tomas, and that ad set is currently being developed.

Zhang, the main face of the EverQuote ads, said she actually helped devise the ad strategy.

All of us on the search engine marketing team went to lunch and they were wondering who at the company attended MIT and we came up with a list. Since I also went to MIT, my coworkers asked if Id like to take part in some photos for a test that was running, she said.

After taking the photos in August, the company started circulating the ads on October 28, 2016.

What may seem even more confusing, however, is that the ad redirected to sites like Provide Savings and Live Smarter Daily.

The companys director of communications told Yahoo Finance that similar to companies like Wayfair, we started originally under a few other domains and brands before we settled on EverQuote and started to migrate our campaigns to it a year ago. Provide-savings is one of those legacy brands and will be phased out as we continue to consolidate our efforts on EverQuote.

The ads may have posed problems beyond misleading consumers into thinking employees were co-founders. These ads were so ubiquitous, and had ties to so many sites, that internet surfers may have considered them spam. In reality, many people might not have realized EverQuote was a legitimate company providing a helpful resource  particularly for young adults looking for car insurance for the first time.

Melody Hahm is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering entrepreneurship, technology and real estate. Follow her on Twitter @melodyhahm.

Read more:
Anyone counting on picking up some bargain-priced designer shoes at Gordmans going-out-of-business sale might be out of luck.

The shoe departments in the bankrupt Omaha-based retailers 100 or so stores are operated by an outside company  DSW, the Ohio firm that also has about 500 stores of its own.

But that all might be over. Sometimes known as Designer Shoe Warehouse, DSW said in court filings last week in the Gordmans bankruptcy that it should be allowed to go in and recover its merchandise  with a retail value of about $24 million  along with shelving and fixtures it says it owns.

Quite simply, the DSW merchandise and fixtures are not property of the bankruptcy estate, the company wrote in court documents filed with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Omaha late last week, citing about $800,000 owed to it by Gordmans for unpaid shoe-sale remittances. They are the property of DSW.

Gordmans outside public relations firm didnt respond to requests for comment Monday. The 102-year-old company with department stores in 22 states filed for bankruptcy protection this month, citing cratering sales and heavy competition from online retailers.

The DSW spat is just one of the moving parts: As is typical in such consignment arrangements, Gordmans collects a fee from the net revenue of the shoe sales in its stores. But depending on what happens next, there might not be any more Gordmans stores in which to operate shoe departments.

As of late Monday, two tracks are anticipated going forward in the effort to wrap up the bankruptcy, according to court filings.

One: the liquidation of all inventory in a massive, nationwide going-out-of-business sale. That could start as soon as Friday.

Two: the continued operation of at least some stores under new ownership, along with liquidation of inventory at other locations. Two bidders have emerged that might conduct such an effort. They are Houston-based Stage Stores and a group led by Jeff Gordman, former chief executive and great-grandson of the company founder.

The results of offers by liquidators and the going-concern bidders are scheduled to be shared with the bankruptcy court Thursday.

Gordmans has already planned for the possibility of ceasing operations. It told the Nebraska Labor Department it plans to permanently close its Omaha warehouse and headquarters in May, costing 450 jobs. That could change if an operating bidder prevails at the bankruptcy auction for Gordmans assets.

Shares of Gordmans have continued their slide into oblivion  common shareholders rarely recover a dime in corporate bankruptcies. They were down to about 3 cents Monday, having fallen from around $2 a year ago after sales at Gordmans continued a years-long slide. The company in February projected sales to fall 10 percent, but they slumped twice that. The company had a loss of almost $13 million over the last nine-month period for which it reported, more than triple that of the year-earlier period.

As for DSW, it told investors last week in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing  the company is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange  that the Gordmans bankruptcy might sting a little.

Our current estimated annual after-tax loss as a result of Gordmans actions is approximately $4 million to $8 million, which includes projected loss in operating profit, additional markdowns of inventory, and the write-down of other assets, wrote DSW, which appears able to weather the crisis, with 2016 sales of $2.7 billion and profit of $125 million.

The DSW filing asking for permission to recover its property does include some information of possible interest to shoe aficionados curious about the markups and gross profits in such merchandise.

DSW said in SEC filings that Gordmans stores contain $8 million of its merchandise at cost. Since the company also said in court filings that the merchandise is worth about $24 million at retail, all that suggests shoes are marked up about three-fold.

That means the Aerosoles Seascape Shootie  a black high-heeled womens shoe with a buckle on it  originally priced at $50 on Gordmans.com cost DSW about $17.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND / ACCESSWIRE / March 28, 2017 / About 2 months ago, Pistol Bay Mining Inc. (PST.V) reported that mining giant Rio Tinto has started to drill 4-6 holes on the C5 uranium property in the prolific Athabasca Basin. Today, Pistol Bay announced to have entered into an amending agreement with Rio Tinto Exploration Canada Inc. with regard to the C 4, 5, and 6 Uranium properties, whereby Rio Tinto will make an initial cash payment of $750,000 to Pistol Bay within the next 3 weeks.

Under the amending agreement, Rio Tinto will acquire an additional 25% interest in the Property (thereby increasing its aggregate interest to 100%), by:

(a) paying Pistol Bay $750,000 on or before April 17, 2017; and

(b) paying Pistol Bay one of the following payments:



(i) $1,500,000 on or before 31 December 2017;

(ii) $2,000,000 on or before 31 December 2018; or

(iii) $2,250,000 on or before 31 December 2019.

Pistol Bay will retain a 5% net profits interest in the Property.

Charles Desjardins, CEO of Pistol Bay, commented today:

"Rio Tinto's payment does not dilute the Company and allows Pistol Bay to expand the scope of its upcoming exploration work, including drilling, on its Confederation Lake greenstone belt zinc-copper-gold project. We look forward to continuing our working relationship with Rio Tinto."

The full report can be accessed with the following links:

English (PDF): http://rockstone-research.com/images/PDF/PistolBay5en.pdf

English (web version): http://rockstone-research.com/index.php/en/research-reports/2801-Rio-Tinto-injects-cash-into-Pistol-Bay

German (PDF): http://rockstone-research.com/images/PDF/PistolBay5de.pdf

Disclaimer: Please read the full disclaimer within the full research report as a PDF as fundamental risks and conflicts of interest exist.

SOURCE: Rockstone Research
The Sarpy County Board is still weighing its options for expanding or building a new county jail, but members have an idea of who will run it.

Preliminary plans call for control of the jail to shift from the Sarpy County Sheriffs Office to a civilian corrections staff and director in the coming years. Currently, deputies manage the 148-bed facility in Papillion.

There has been talk of such a transition in the past, and its been revived now that county officials are discussing costly jail expansion options.

The jail has routinely exceeded its capacity since the 1990s. Sarpy County has paid other jails to house inmates, but its been harder to find space nearby in recent years.

A task force to examine jail options has been formed. It is made up of county staff, representatives from the Sheriffs Office and County Board members Jim Warren and Brian Zuger. The options range from doing nothing to adding on to the current jail or building new. Warren said architects are being interviewed to help review options.

All of the expansion options require increased staffing, so the time to begin a transition is now, Sarpy County Deputy Administrator Scott Bovick told the County Board last week.

Newly hired deputies typically spend about two years working in the jail, said Chief Deputy Greg London of the sheriffs office. To change positions within the department, deputies bid on jobs and those with seniority get priority.

London said if more deputies were added to staff a new or expanded jail, then the jail staff would outnumber the road patrol. That would mean it could take six to eight years before deputies could move out of the jail.

Most of the people interested in law enforcement careers want to be on the street, said Matt Barrall, president of the Sarpy County Sheriffs Office Fraternal Order of Police, the deputies union.

In the past five years, the sheriffs office has missed out on qualified candidates because they went to other agencies where they didnt have to work in a jail, Barrall said.

Its night and day, Barrall said of the difference between working in the jail or on the street. Working in corrections is very difficult. Its heavily scrutinized. And youre always dealing with a population of offenders. When youre working patrol, you have more of an interaction with law-abiding citizens.

Zuger said the change would save the county operational costs without having a negative impact on public safety. He also pointed out that Douglas County has had correctional officers in its jail for years.

Bovick proposed an initial transition plan that has corrections officers replacing deputies on shifts over the course of four years. Deputies would be moved to jobs outside of the jail. And deputy positions inside the jail would not be filled as attrition occurs.

Bovick said the plan retains experienced employees in the jail and brings on corrections officers in an orderly fashion to slowly populate the ranks.

Currently, the jail has a part-time corrections director. The new plan calls for a full-time director.

At last weeks meeting, the County Board told Bovick to continue working on the transition but took no formal action on it.

In the long term, switching from deputies in the jail to corrections officers would save the county money, Bovick said. A corrections officer would be paid a minimum of $19.25 an hour to a maximum of $28.00 an hour compared to $24.86 to $34.89 for a deputy.
House Speaker Paul Ryan backed the embattled chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, as Devin Nunes lashed back Tuesday at Democratic calls for him to recuse himself from his panel's investigation of Russian meddling in the U.S. election.

"No," Ryan said Tuesday when asked whether Nunes should step aside from the probe.

Nunes told reporters Tuesday he wouldn't. "What's the purpose?" the California Republican asked.

Congressional Democrats, including the panel's top Democrat, Adam Schiff of California, and party leaders, said that Nunes should remove himself from the committee's Russia probe after admitting Monday that he visited the White House grounds to meet with a source to view intelligence documents that he used to bolster President Donald Trump's claims of surveillance by the previous administration.

Asked Tuesday if the committee's investigation can continue with him as chairman, Nunes asked. "Why would it not?"

As for Democrats' claims the probe has been compromised by his action, Nunes said: "That sounds like their problem. My colleagues are perfectly fine."

Some Republicans have criticized Nunes, including Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who said on NBC Tuesday that Nunes's trip to the White House was "a little bizarre" and that "he has to repair the damage." Graham stopped short of calling for Nunes to recuse himself from leading the investigation.

While members of the House committee were mired in partisan discord, their Senate counterparts continued to send signals of cooperation. Republican Richard Burr of North Carolina, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Mark Warner of Virginia, the panel's top Democrat, announced plans for a joint press conference on Wednesday afternoon to provide an update on their investigation of Russian meddling.

As calls grew on Capitol Hill for an expanded probe, the House Intelligence Committee canceled its remaining meetings for the week, including a closed-door session that was expected so that panelists could question FBI Director James Comey and former National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers. They "could not come in" as hoped, committee spokesman Jack Langer said. He said the committee was trying to schedule a new time for the meeting.

The panel had earlier canceled a planned public hearing for Tuesday with several former Obama administration officials, including former acting attorney general Sally Yates.

"We are aware that former AG Yates intended to speak on these matters, and sought permission to testify from the White House," Schiff said Tuesday in a statement. "Whether the White House's desire to avoid a public claim of executive privilege to keep her from providing the full truth on what happened contributed to the decision to cancel today's hearing, we do not know."

Langer said Tuesday that neither the chairman nor the panel's staff has been in contact with the White House about Yates' appearance.

"The only person the committee has spoken to about her appearing before the committee has been her lawyer," he said. "The committee asked her to testify on our own accord and we still intend to have her speak to us."

Nunes defended his panel's work, despite the new questions about how Nunes received intelligence intercepts, which he described as routine, legal surveillance that picked up conversations with Trump aides during the transition.

"We're doing a very thorough job on this investigation. As you know, this Russia issue we've been on it for many many years. So, we'll continue to be on it," Nunes said.

He added, "I don't think that's any different politics than normal, which is fine, you guys know how this place works."

Nunes told Bloomberg View's Eli Lake on Monday that he went to the White House grounds last Tuesday because it was the most convenient secure location with a computer connected to the system that included the reports, which are only distributed within the executive branch. The next day, Nunes visited the White House again to brief Trump personally on the intercepts he saw, before briefing fellow panel members.

"We don't have networked access to these kinds of reports in Congress," said Nunes. The White House said it learned from public reports that Nunes confirmed he was on White House grounds last Tuesday.

The way Nunes got the information and whom he got it from has emerged as a new twist in the attempt by the White House to bolster a Trump tweet accusing his predecessor of spying on him.

Several congressional committees, as well as the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, are investigating Russian meddling in the U.S. election, including the hacking and release of Democratic emails. For the House Intelligence Committee, that probe has expanded into the explosive question of whether anyone close to Trump abetted the effort. Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman, and veteran Republican operative Roger Stone offered Friday to testify before Nunes's committee.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday at a news conference that the administration had no reason to take issue with Nunes's explanation of the visit and declined to "get in the middle" of the committee investigation. He added that there's a difference between a leak and a review of the situation.

"Someone who is cleared to share classified information with someone else cleared is not a leak," Spicer said.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently announced charges against a Florida-based company, its chief executive and its top sales agent in regards to conducting a boiler room scheme that solicits investments in a business purportedly facilitating online and cell phone sales of lottery tickets in various states.

The agency obtained an emergency court order freezing the assets of LottoNet Operating Corp., David Gray and Joseph A. Vitale.

According to the report, the SEC alleges that they misrepresented to investors that their money would be used to develop and market LottoNet and that sales agents did not receive commissions. At least 35% of investor proceeds were allegedly paid to boiler room sales agents in the form of commissions, and LottoNet allegedly siphoned investor funds for personal spending on clothing, wedding-related expenses and strip clubs.

ALSO READ: 10 Disappearing Car Brands

Among the pitches used in sales agent scripts prepared for cold calls to investors was "youre looking at a monthly dividend payout of $8,500 every month" on a $25,000 investment if LottoNet reaches 1% market share. Also the scripts allegedly touted the purported safety of the investment, noting a 60% return as a "worst case" scenario if the company was ever sold.

The SEC has alleged that while LottoNet has raised a total of roughly $4.8 million from investors, the company had only paid $10,525.43 in investment returns to investors through the end of February. Sales agents allegedly have been paid more than $1.1 million out of investor funds.

ALSO READ: 9 Countries That Control the World's Nuclear Weapons

Furthermore it was alleged that Vitale, who personally raised at least $1.4 million from investors, used the alias Donovan Kelly in an apparent attempt to hide from investors that he is permanently barred by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

Eric I. Bustillo, director of the SECs Miami Regional Office, commented:

Story continues

As alleged in our complaint, little did investors know they were being duped with a script based on misrepresentations while investor funds were being spent in strip clubs.

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FM Nirmala Sitharaman hints at possibility of Centre considering restoration of state status to J&K

1 terrorist, 3 civilians killed in encounter at J&K

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

One terrorist and three civilians were killed in an encounter that took place at Budgam in Jammu and Kashmir. As the encounter began, scores of locals came out on the streets and began pelting stones at the security forces. In the clashes two civilians were killed.

The encounter began early Tuesday morning and after hours, security forces managed to gun down one terrorist.

Security forces launched a search operation and cordoned off the area after information regarding the presence of terrorists was received. The militants opened fire on the security forces.

The encounter comes just two days after two Hizbul Mujahideen militants were killed in an encounter at Pulwama. The two militants were killed when they tried to ambush a police vehicle.

OneIndia News
Romeos must be controlled

"Not just in Bihar, this should be replicated in the whole country; Romeos must be controlled," said Ilyas Hussain of RJD on anti-Romeo Squads in Uttar Pradesh. Now, we have to wait and watch if similar squads are formed across the country for safety of harassed women'. In this image, RJD leader Hussain was seen speaking to reporters regarding the anti-Romeo squad formed in Uttar Pradesh recently.

Picture credit: Social Media

Anti-Romeo squads: BJPs poll manifesto

Just two days after Adityanath Yogi took oath as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, anti-Romeo squads '"to protect the honour of women' started their operation across the state. In its election manifesto for Uttar Pradesh, the BJP promised to create anti-Romeo Dals (or squads) near colleges to 'ensure the safety of college-going girls' and 'check eve-teasing'. In this image, the anti-Romeo squad of police hauled up a youth in Lucknow recently.

Picture credit: PTI

What is an anti-Romeo squad?

For those who are unaware about the latest measure in Uttar Pradesh, an anti-Romeo squad consists of two policemen -- mostly one male and one female. In this image, an anti-Romeo squad was seen on duty outside a women's college in Varanasi recently.

Picture credit: PTI

Beware! Eve-teasers

In this image, an anti-Romeo squad of police detained a youth in Lucknow recently.

Picture credit: PTI

Moral policing or protection of women?

The latest initiative of the Uttar Pradesh CM has created a lot of controversy as many say anti-Romeo squads are allegedly indulging in moral policing by controlling youngsters in the state.

Picture credit: PTI
Air India cancels Gaikwad's ticket again

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Air India has cancelled the tickets booked by Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad yet again on Tuesday. He had booked a ticket on Air India between Mumbai and Delhi. However, the airline which had placed him on the no-fly list has cancelled his ticket.

Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad to sue Air India

It may be recalled the Gaikwad had assaulted an Air India staffer. He had bragged about the incident and said that he hit the 60-year-old staffer 25 times with his slipper.

The airline took strong objection to the incident and put him on the no-fly list. He had decided to sue to the airlines and said that it was their staff who spoke rudely and did not provide the service that had been offered.

The matter had been debated in Parliament as well. The Delhi police before which a complaint was filed by Air India, has launched an investigation into this matter.

OneIndia News
No fly-list rules in effect from today: Your guide to passenger ban on airlines

Air India slapgate controversy over? R Gaikwad celebrates Gudi Padwa with pomp

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Mumbai, March 28: On the occasion of Gudi Padwa on Tuesday, Shiv Sena Member of Parliament Ravindra Gaikwad hosted a massive celebration in his native town Umarga in Maharashtra. On Tuesday, the nation celebrated the New Year. In Maharashtra, the New Year is marked as Gudi Padwa.

"Maharashtra: #GudiPadwa2017 celebrations outside Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad's residence in Umarga," tweeted news agency ANI.

Maharashtra: #GudiPadwa2017 celebrations outside Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad's residence in Umarga pic.twitter.com/YKLq6NzytP  ANI (@ANI_news) March 28, 2017

The celebrations at Gaikwad's residence came days after he was accused of assaulting and slapping an Air India staff member. After the incident, almost all the major airline carriers in India barred the Osmanabad MP from flying.

Thus he had to board a train from Delhi to Mumbai recently after two major airlines cancelled his booking. Meanwhile, Gaikwad's party -- the Shiv Sena -- is firmly backing their man and saying that the airlines can't ban a person from boarding their flights.

Although two FIRs have been registered against Gaikwad, he is still a free man. Moreover, Gaikwad is adamant on suing the Air India as he accused the 'victim' of denying him a business class seat in the aircraft.

Meanwhile, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Tuesday called for resolving the issue of Shiv Sena MP Gaikwad's 'flying ban' by several airlines through amicable talks.

"MPs need to attend Parliament and they cannot travel by train always. At times, they need to travel by plane also. I feel that this issue (blanket ban) should be resolved amicably through talks," said Mahajan after a meeting attended by Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Sena MPs.

OneIndia News
No news about 2 Arunachal youths who went missing from near China border in August

Arunachal Pradesh deputy speakers son arrested for murdering youth Congress leader

India

oi-Madhuri

Kajum Bagra, son of Deputy Speaker of Arunachal Pradesh assembly Tumke Bagra was on Tuesday arrested in connection with murder of Congress leader Kenjum Kamsi.

Kenjum Kamsi was shot dead by Tumke Bagra, the son of the deputy speaker, in front of a hotel at Aalo on Monday night at around 10 pm.

The incident is believed to have been a fallout of a scuffle between the two. The matter is being further probed. The accused has been arrested with the arm by Aalo police and a case has been registered.

Meanwhile, the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee has condemned the incident and said Kajum using his father's official vehicle and committing such "heinous crime" proved the saying 'like father like son'. "The tragic incident also reflects the true colour of the BJP to which the deputy speaker belongs. It raises a serious question," the party said.

OneIndia News (with PTI inputs)
As China slows down, Economists praise India's effort in economic reforms

India

oi-Madhuri

Noted economist Martin Feldstein on Tuesday said that India need to do more if we want to get more investment as wages rise in China and businesses exploring other manufacturing bases.

While speaking at panel discussion at the Economic Times Global Business summit, Feldtein said that India has a huge opportunity to be part of the global supply chain activities which means importing components, machines, etc as rival China is losing its competitive edge.

In India, with 1.3 billion consumers, there is now a real desire to embrace digitisation, led by companies with the vision and enthusiasm. And with this tremendous opportunity, India should take advantage of the massive digitization which are the signs that the global economy was turning.

Anil Agarwal, chairman of Vedanta Plc said that India can only be transformed if it trusts its own entrepreneurs because they have built across world cross roads, airports and other facilities. Talking about bad loans, Agarwal said issues such as bad loans are part of the development process of a country ."When you build the country, the episodes such as bad loans have to come. It has happened everywhere. You cannot hold a gun you have to hold machine gun. You cannot count bullets when you are building a nation. The law will take its own course but it cannot hold our development," the Vedanta chief said.

Along with Anil Agarwal, Rich Lesser, Global CEO of consulting firm BCG, also appeared optimistic about India.

Ajay Piramal, chairman Piramal group, also said India can't grow unless the public sector banks are well funded. He also said that the government need to pay more attention to the state-run banks. He further said that non performing assets are the major issue which needs to be resolved.

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 28, 2017, 15:22 [IST]
Azam Khan wants nationwide ban on animal slaughter; asks Muslims to stop eating meat

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Lucknow, March 28: Controversial Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan on Monday said that animal slaughter -- both legal and illegal -- should be banned across the country. Khan was commenting on the debate over ban on illegal slaughterhouses across Uttar Pradesh after the newly-formed government of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the state is taking strict action against slaughterhouses that are found flouting government rules and regulations.

The former Uttar Pradesh minister demanded uniformity in laws and said that there should be a nationwide ban on slaughter of animals and not just in one state. "Cow slaughter should be banned across the country. Why is it so that it is legal in states such as Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura, but not in other states? I am not only in support of banning slaughter but for very long I have been saying this that we should stop slaughter. No one should be slaughtered. What is legal and illegal slaughter? I want all slaughterhouses to be banned. No animals should be cut," Khan told ANI.

"This means it is ok if the animals are butchered in legal slaughterhouses and not ok when they meet the same fate in an illegal place. All slaughterhouses should be shut. No animal should be slaughtered," he added.

Khan also asked the Muslim community to stop eating meat. "I appeal to the Muslim fraternity that they think upon it... It is not mandated in Islam that Muslims should eat meat. I appeal to the people that they should stop eating meat," he said.

Speaking on UP government's policy of forming anti-Romeo squads, Khan said Muslim folks found in parks should be dealt with strictly. "I want strict actions to be taken even against Muslim brothers and sisters who are found in parks," Khan told ANI.

Thus the senior Samajwadi Party leader supported two of the most prominent policies adopted by state chief minister Adityanath Yogi after the saffron party formed government in the state recently.

OneIndia News
Man rapes 8-year-old to use her blood for removing obstacles to his marriage

Bihar: Madhepura MP Pappu Yadav arrested

India

oi-Gulam Rabbani

Patna: The Patna police on Monday night arrested Madhepura Member of Parliament Pappu Yadav was arrested on Monday night in Patna in connection an old case relating to creating ruckus with policemen the near Kargil Chowk on January 24.

The arrest order came after Pappu and his supporters clashed with police during the protest march to the state assembly. The Madhepura MP and his supporters were protesting against the recent hike in power tariff by 55 per cent in the state. They demanded a Crime Bureau Investigation probe into question paper leak case of Bihar Staff Selection Commission.

According to the police, the Jan Adhikar Party-Loktantrik leader is believed to have provoked his supporters to attack the policemen who tried to stop the JAP-L workers marching towards state assembly.

Around 11 pm in the night, the police took the MP into custody from his residence in Mandiri while hundreds of his supporters raised slogans in his favour. The police produced the MP before the magistrate court who sent him to Beur Central jail in Patna. Pappu is likely to appeal to court on Tuesday against the police action on him.

Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav is the husband of Congress MP Supaul Ranjit Ranjan.

OneIndia News
What is Anti-doping bill? Does India really have a doping crisis?

Bill to form commission for backward castes soon

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, March 28: The government will bring in the Lok Sabha a bill for the formation of a commission for backward castes on the lines of the ones for scheduled castes and minorities in the next few days, Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said on Tuesday.

The Minister of Information and Broadcasting also slammed the opposition parties for disrupting the Rajya Sabha over the issue of various commissions, including formation of OBC commission, and appointments in the scheduled castes and minorities commissions.

"Truth is not palatable to the Opposition. They are disrupting the House but they don't want a debate on the issue because they know the truth will be out," the minister said.

The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday witnessed repeated disruptions as opposition members protested the delay in filling vacancies in statutory commissions for different castes, tribes and minorities. The upper house was finally adjourned for the day around 3 p.m.

Samajwadi Party's Ram Gopal Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati raised the issue during the Zero Hour.

Yadav said the government's idea behind renaming of the National Commission for Backward Classes was to "target certain castes by excluding them from the list of backward castes".

Naidu, however, said that once the commission would be formed, Parliament will have the power to add or remove castes from the list, just like the SC and ST Commissions.

"The power to add or remove castes will be with Parliament, not with the government. Why should Opposition have objection to that," the minister asked.

He added that the castes, which were already in the list of backward castes, will be protected.

The bill comes after the Union Cabinet on March 24 cleared a proposal for setting up of the National Commission for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes, a new constitutional body to address grievances and claims of backward classes.

The minister also said that appointments in the other commissions were delayed because the government wanted the term of all members to end, so that the whole commission could be appointed in one go.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi also slammed the Opposition for disrupting the upper house over the issue.

"In the last two days, the Opposition has stalled Rajya Sabha on the issue of SC, ST and minority commission appointments, and they are coming up with all sorts of stories," Naqvi said.

"In the past, posts in these commissions have stayed vacant for a long time without any genuine reason for the delays. But, under the present regime, since the Code of Conduct was in force due to elections, appointments couldn't be made," he added.

IANS
Blast near railway track at Sant Kabir Nagar, UP

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

A minor-intensity blast has been reported near a railway track at the Sant Kabir Nagar in Uttar Pradesh. One person was reportedly injured in the blast. The police have recovered four crude bombs from the spot, and are investigating the matter. A forensic sciences team is also at the spot.

Initial reports suggest that crude bombs were used in the explosion. The police have kept the probe open-ended and have not commented if it is a terror attack.

#SpotVisuals One person injured after a low-intensity explosion near railway track in Sant Kabir Nagar, UP. Police have seized 3 crude bombs pic.twitter.com/awrX7AZxkj  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 28, 2017

There have been several incidents in the past few months where the Indian Railways have been targetted. Earlier this month, a blast was reported on a train at Madhya Pradesh in which nine persons were injured. Following that incident, a major encounter took place in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh in which an alleged member of an Islamic State-inspired module was killed. It was said that Saifullah, who was killed in the encounter, was behind the blast.

The NIA too is investigating two cases in which the railways were targetted. While one probe relates to a failed plot in Bihar the other is a sabotage at Kuneru in Andhra Pradesh. The NIA has probed several persons in this regard and even found a Inter-Services Intelligence link to the incident in Bihar. The Kuneru incident, in which a train derailed is suspected to be the handiwork of the Naxals.

OneIndia News
Several Democratic senators pressed billionaire investor Carl Icahn on Monday to clarify his role as an adviser to President Donald Trump, saying his position in the administration raised alarming questions about potential conflicts of interest with his stakes in the biofuels and pharmaceutical industries.

The senators, led by Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, sent a letter to Icahn pointing out that, as a Trump adviser on regulation, he has made policy proposals that benefit his own investments which range from an oil refinery to an nutritional supplement manufacturer.

We write because we are increasingly concerned about the role you are playing in the Trump Administration and the possibility that you are breaking federal conflict of interest laws, the seven senators wrote in the letter, seen by Reuters.

Calls to Icahns office and lawyer were not immediately answered.

Icahn has been thrust into the limelight in recent weeks after the Renewable Fuels Association said he had informed them that Trump was preparing an executive order to overhaul the U.S. biofuels program in a way that benefited refiners.

The White House quickly denied it had an executive order in the works, and pointed out that Icahn held an informal, unpaid role as adviser to Trump.

The senators said that despite the administration downplaying his role, Icahn has disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that he was a special adviser, meaning it is important to shareholders of the companies in which he holds stakes in.

Icahn owns an 82% stake in CVR Energy, which along with other refining companies, has called for changes to the Renewable Fuel Program to shift the burden of blending biofuels into gasoline away from refiners and further down stream to marketers. Icahn has said the change would help the entire refining industry, not just CVR.

Icahn also owns stakes in Herbalife and Bristol Meyers-Squib. The senators said Icahn had helped Trump pick the heads of the Treasury, Commerce, and the SEC, which have some oversight over the companies in which he has a stake.

Story continues

Your ownership of each of these companies and others raises alarming questions about how you, and the Trump Administration, are handling your many conflicts of interest, the senators wrote.

In their letter, the senators said Icahn should be re-classified by the Trump administration as a special government employee, making him subject to ethics requirements.

When Trump announced in December that Icahn would be a special adviser, Trump made clear he would not be serving as a federal employee or a Special Government Employee and will not have any specific duties.

The letter also includes over a dozen questions about Icahns ties to the administration, including whether he has received waivers from ethics requirements, and whether he has divested from some of his financial holdings.

This article was originally published on FORTUNE.com
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Caught on camera: Mass cheating, Munna Bhai impersonators make mockery of exams in UP

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Lucknow, March 28: Cheating during exams has become a common practice across the country. Every year, several reports of cheating by students from across the nation come to light during the board exam season.

On Monday, examination for English paper was postponed after mass cheating incidents came under notice at two centres in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, reported ANI. The cheating episodes were caught on camera, as relatives and friends of examinees were seen helping them giving notes openly.

Uttar Pradesh: Examinations for English paper was postponed after mass cheating incident came under notice at 2 centres in Mathura yesterday pic.twitter.com/gYfalmteRb  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 28, 2017

According to a report by Times of India, two Munna Bhai style impersonators were caught after they were found writing exams on behalf of two students in Mainpuri. Meanwhile, to put a check on cheating in the board examinations, newly-formed Uttar Pradesh government under Adityanath Yogi government has issued helpline numbers on Tuesday.

The state government has issued two numbers--one, WhatsApp 9454457241--and another landline-0522 2236760-to prevent copying.

WhatsApp number 9454457241 released for registering cheating related complaints in order to check incidents of cheating in UP Board Exams  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 28, 2017

Earlier, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma, who also holds the education portfolio, asserted that all is well as far as the ongoing Uttar Pradesh board examinations are concerned.

Sharma made the assertion after making surprise inspections of at least three examination centres in Lucknow and in neighbouring Barabaniki district in the wake of reports of 'mass copying' in the board examinations on March 25.

"Today, I conducted surprise inspections at three colleges, where students were appearing for the UP Board examinations. As far as the conduct of examinations is concerned, I am satisfied," the minister told PTI.

OneIndia News
CBI Recruitment 2022 Out: Check salary, eligibility, and how to apply

Great tolerance, the CBI is sitting idle in Goa says its SP

CBI seeks cancellation of Jaganmohan Reddy's bail

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Hyderabad, March 28: The CBI on Tuesday moved a petition in a special court here, seeking cancellation of bail of YSR Congress chief Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy in illegal assets case for allegedly violating bail conditions.

The investigating agency filed the petition in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special court to seek cancellation of bail on the ground that he is allegedly trying to influence the witnesses.

It cited an interview given by former Chief Secretary of undivided Andhra Pradesh, Ramakanth Reddy to 'Sakshi', a Telugu daily and news channel owned by Jaganmohan Reddy.

The court asked the YSR Congress leader to file a counter and adjourned the hearing till April 7.

Jaganmohan Reddy, currently Leader of Opposition in Andhra Pradesh assembly, was arrested by the CBI in May 2012. He spent 16 months in jail before he was granted bail in September 2013.

While setting him free on bail, the court had asked him to appear before the court whenever the proceedings required his presence and said if the accused violates the conditions, the CBI could approach the court for cancellation of bail.

The CBI has so far filed 13 chargesheets in the case against Jagan, his aides, former state ministers, IAS officers, corporate entities and businessmen.

The case relates to alleged investments made by private firms and individual investors in Jagan's companies in return for the favours they received when his father Y.S.Rajasekhara Reddy was Chief Minister between 2004-09.

Jagan's father died in a helicopter crash in September 2009, a few months after he led Congress party to a second consecutive term in power. Following differences with Congress leadership, Jagan quit the Congress in 2010 and floated the YSR Congress.

IANS
Bharat Jodo Yatra will proceed to Srinagar, come what may, says Rahul Gandhi as march enters Maharashtra

Congress accuses Modi government of showing double standards over Lokpal

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, March 28: The Congress on Tuesday accused the Narendra Modi government of double standards on the Lokpal issue by saying that the ombudsman can't be appointed in the absence of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

The Congress said it seems the Modi government does not want to be held accountable to, and stand scrutiny by, an independent institution such as Lokpal.

"The BJP government is systematically dismantling the checks and balances in our democracy and dismantling the pillars of transparency and accountability," Congress spokesman and Lok Sabha MP Gaurav Gogoi told the media here.

The government, through Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, on Tuesday told the apex court that the Lokpal cannot be appointed in the present situation as amendment regarding the definition of Leader of Opposition in the Lokpal Act was pending in Parliament.

As per the Lokpal Act of 2013, the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha has to be part of the Lokpal selection panel.

At present, there is no Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha as no party -- including the Congress -- has the requisite number of MPs to qualify for the status. The Congress is the largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha at present.

Rohatgi said that "unless the proposed amendment making the leader of the largest opposition party as Leader of Opposition is passed by Parliament, the Lokpal can't be appointed".

However, Gogoi said it was a "delaying tactic" by the government.

"How is it possible that the Centre can amend the Leader of Opposition clause when it comes to other bills such as the Delhi Special Police Establishment Bill or in the selection of CBI Director where the definition of Leader of Opposition was changed to say 'leader of largest opposition party'?" he said.

"So, when it suits the government it amends the Leader of Opposition clause but when it wants to block the appointment of Lokpal it becomes rigid," Gogoi added.

Gogoi said the Whistleblower Protection Act, 2011, has been similarly diluted by the government by moving amendments to the effect that documents classified under the Official Secrets Act, 1923, cannot be released by a whistleblower even if his intentions are to expose corruption or misuse of power.

"The government never rewards a whistleblower, it punishes the whistleblower. And where exactly is the Lokpal Bill passed on August 27, 2013? There is total ambiguity over the status of this bill," Gogoi said.

He demanded the government should appoint a Lokpal as soon as possible.

IANS
Bharat Jodo Yatra will proceed to Srinagar, come what may, says Rahul Gandhi as march enters Maharashtra

Congress leader Deepender Singh Hooda demands new law on data privacy

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, March 28: Congress leader Deepender Singh Hooda on Tuesday urged the government to bring a new legislation on data privacy, pointing out that people are facing the risk of data theft, especially with a system like Aadhaar in place.

Participating in a debate on the Collection of Statistics (Amendment) Bill, 2017, Hooda pointed out that the Unique Identification Authority of India had to go to police to file a complaint against data misuse by Axis Bank, business correspondent Suvidhaa Infoserve and e-sign provider eMudhra.

"You are making Aadhaar mandatory. You are collecting so much data and last month the UIDAI authorities had to go to police and report three companies that used the data for unauthorised transaction by bank employees," Hooda said.

"People don't have the right to know how much donation a political party gets and from whom, but you want all information about people," the Congress member said.

He pointed out that hearing was on in a case in the Supreme Court where the Attorney General had taken a position that data privacy was a right, but not a fundamental right.

"Ultimately the Supreme Court will decide. But the government must study data privacy policy in other countries. The European Union has declared data protection a fundamental right," he said.

The MP went on to ask why the government was collecting all the data, but added that he did not doubt their intention.

"Bring a new legislation on data privacy," he said.

Talking about the Collection of Statistics (Amendment) Bill, 2017, Hooda said the bill had a provision under which refusal to give government details for the National Sample Survey Organisation would invite fine and punishment.

"This is a finance bill-like story. You are compelling people to give information," Hooda said.

The bill amends the Collection of Statistics Act, 2008.

The 2008 Act provides that the information collected under it can only be used for statistical purposes. The bill removes this provision and allows the central government to determine the manner in which such information collected would be used for statistical purposes.

The 2008 Act was not applicable to Jammu and Kashmir, but now the bill seeks to extend its jurisdiction to Jammu and Kashmir for collection of statistics pertaining to subjects under the Union or the Concurrent list of the Constitution, as applicable to the state. These subjects would include citizenship, education, banking, labour and forests.

IANS
Congress neta praises Modi for connecting with youth; slams Rahul for being Delhi centric

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Bengaluru, March 28: The discontentment within the Congress is not yet over as veteran leaders, one after another came out in the open to express their grouses against the party's top leadership, after facing a humiliating defeat in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand assembly elections recently.

The latest leader to join the rebel group is MV Rajasekharan from Karnataka, who was also a former union minister. The veteran leader has also written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi where he has profusely praised the Prime Minister for connecting with the electorate and achieving massive victories in the assembly polls in five states held recently.

"Conveyed my frank views. Congratulated for winning support of younger generation," said senior Congress leader Rajasekharan on his letter to the PM. Regarding Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi's style of functioning, the veteran Congress leader said "One can't sit in Delhi and do things."

"He needs good feedback. You have to project local leaders, one can't sit in Delhi and do the things," he added.

Rajasekharan remarks against his party came days after former chief minister and former Congress leader from Karnataka SM Krishna joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Congress in Karnataka is experiencing severe turbulence as many leaders are leaving the party to join the BJP. The assembly elections in Karnataka are scheduled in 2018.

In his letter, Rajashekaran said, "I would like to take this opportunity to convey my heartiest congratulations on the tremendous success of the BJP in the recent assembly elections in the five northern states, especially on getting two-thirds majority in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand."

"Your kind self has been able to establish direct rapport with the electorate, especially the younger generation, who constitute nearly 82 percent of our electorate. Your kindness has been able to get support from the poor people and from women cutting across caste, region, religion and ethnic groups," he said.

OneIndia News
Congress to flag Hindutva theme in Gujarat elections

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The BJP is in election mode once again and this time it is battle Gujarat. The party has set a target of 150 seats and will have Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP's national president Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi as the star campaigners. With Hindutva becoming the central theme, the Congress too is likely to rope in the same strategy during the Gujarat assembly elections slated to be held at the end of this year.

Both the Congress and BJP are expecting early elections in the state. The Congress think-tank has advised leaders to adopt the Hindutva plank during the Gujarat polls. The BJP's campaign, on the other hand, would focus on development laced by Hindutva.

The BJP is already in campaign mode. During a recent breakfast meeting of BJP legislators from Uttar Pradesh where the BJP won over 300 seats, Shah said that they must always be in election mode. On Sunday, the Virat Hindu Sammelan will be held in Ahmedbad.

During that meet, the emphasis would largely be on stricter cow protection laws. This is a clear indicator that the BJP would be pushing the Hindutva plank hard to retain Gujarat.

OneIndia News
Bharat Jodo Yatra will proceed to Srinagar, come what may, says Rahul Gandhi as march enters Maharashtra

Congress will not back Mohan Bhagwat as president

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, March 28: The Congress on Tuesday said that there was no question of it backing the Shiv Sena's suggestion to consider RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for the post of President and said it will spell out its stance on a candidate at the right time.

Party leader Gaurav Gogoi told reporters here that the party's views about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were well known.

"It is very clear that we do not support RSS ideology and when it comes to appointing our President, at the right time, we will, of course, have our own internal discussion first and then share," Gogoi said in response to a query.

President Pranab Mukherjee's present term in office will end on July 24.

The Shiv Sena had on Monday urged the Modi government to consider Bhagwat for the post.

Sena MP and Saamana Executive Editor Sanjay Raut said the National Democratic Alliance - of which Sena is a member - and the BJP in particular should think of the RSS Sarsanghchalak if it wanted to fulfil its dream of achieving a "Hindu Rashtra".

IANS
Demand for buffalo meat from Gulf led to rise of illegal slaughterhouses in UP

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

There are protests in Uttar Pradesh by meat sellers against a government order that ordered the closure of illegal slaughterhouses in the state. In the country there are 72 government-approved slaughterhouses, of which, 32 are in Uttar Pradesh.

Out of the 32, there are four government-run abattoirs of which only the units in Agra and Saharanpur are functional. The remaining two at Lucknow and Bareilly are in the process of being set up.

The big fight is about the closure of the slaughterhouses as per the orders of the Adityanath Yogi government. Statistics available with the UP Pollution Control Board show that there are just 32 government approved abattoirs in the state.

There is no official figure on the number of illegal slaughterhouses in UP. Across the state, the number could be anything between 150 to 200. The government has repeatedly made it clear that action is being taken only against the illegal abattoirs. This means the 32 government-run abattoirs ones can function.

However, the problem that is being cited is that of shortage. UP alone can manage with the 32 legal slaughterhouses. However, the real problem for these meat sellers running illegal units is the high demand from the Gulf nations.

Why are illegal abattoirs thriving?

There is a high demand from the Gulf nations for the buffalo meat from India. One is the low-cost meat, and the sellers in UP have assured of providing halal meat which is mandatory in the Gulf. Due to this, the legal slaughterhouses are unable to cater to the needs of the Gulf and this has led to the illegal ones thriving.

Meat exports account for Rs 26,685 crore annually in UP. The closure of these illegal slaughterhouses causes a loss of RS 11,350 crore. The meat that is being exported both from legal and illegal abattoirs is 5,65,958.20 metric tonnes.

OneIndia News
Elevating Rahul Gandhi is the only strategy Congress has to win elections

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The Congress is likely to urge its vice president Rahul Gandhi to take complete control over the party. Rahul, who will be addressing the Congress MPs for the first time after the big Uttar Pradesh debacle is likely to be urged to take over the mantle completely.

The Congress feels that there is no point in dragging the issue and Rahul must not waste time anymore. Instead, he should take over the party, the Congress MPs would urge him.

The meeting to be held on Tuesday would see the Congress chalking out a strategy for the upcoming elections in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka. The focus would however largely be on the 2019 elections. The Congress wants Rahul to be at the helm, but also insists that the team around him be cleaned up.

The Congress had devised a strategy to re-brand Rahul. While the first part of the plan was for him to take over as the president of the party, the other was to clean the team around him.

Many in the Congress feel that the older members around Rahul should be dropped. He should rope in the younger leaders such as Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sachin Pilot instead.

Only if a young team is formed will there be enthusiasm, many Congress leaders feel. The older team has been tested over and over again. The team has failed repeatedly. It may be recalled that an application was also filed with the Guinness Book of World Records to include the name of Rahul for losing the most number of elections.

OneIndia News
Analysing rain water harvesting project:

Shivkumar started building his house in 1995. After doing a lot of research work, he decided to analyse the water bills of the residents living in the locality. He found that as mentioned by the World Health Organisation, the amount of water consumption by a family of four should be approximately 500 litres/day. He then tabulated the rainfall data in the city over last 100 years. It showed that the amount of rainfall in the city was more than enough.

How rain water harvesting works:

The tank which is built in his home has been fitted with an innovative filter device called Pop-UP Filter. This pop-up filter has a silver sheet to remove the impurities from the collected rain water.

Rain water harvesting idea also used in other countries:

This idea of rain water harvesting are already being used in several parts of Africa and European counties. The Norwegian government has also selected it for its joint project with the Indian government.

Awards Shivkumar won:

Shivkumar has been honoured with several awards such as the Central government's National Innovation Award, Karnataka government's Ammulya award and Rotary International's Citizen Extraordinary award.

Impact of rain water harvesting:

The Karnataka government has also passed an amendment to the (BWSSB) Act that made rain water harvesting compulsory for houses and offices with an area greater than 2,400 sq. ft. in the core of Bengaluru.
How surgical strikes spooked terrorists and forced a change in plan

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Terrorists across the border live in the constant fear that they may be targetted in another surgical strike. India carried out a surgical strike September 2016 following the Uri attack as a result of which the number of infiltrations and cease fire violations by Pakistan dropped.

During the strike, the Indian soldiers were easily able to identify the terrorist camps that were set up across the Line of Control. It was a brazen display, officials say while stating that not once did these Pakistani terrorists realise what was about to fall on them.

Today, the camps have shifted. In fact, the terrorists have come up with a new strategy in which they have shifted their camps to civilian areas in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. They feel that by living among the civilians, the India Army would find it hard to identify them. They would not be able to tell between the civilians and terrorists.

[Statistics: How surgical strikes pushed Pakistan to the wall]

An Intelligence Bureau report states that new camps are coming up in PoK. All the camps are situated in residential zones. Those camps that were destroyed in the surgical strikes have been discarded by terrorist groups. "Since the strikes, they have not even revisited those sites," an Intelligence Bureau official says.

However, the terrorists are these camps are smaller in number. They feel that if there is increased presence then they would be spotted easily. Terrorists are sent out from Pakistan into PoK depending on the requirement. They have been told to restrict the number of camps to four in which 20 terrorists could be accommodated, officials also say.

[Surgical Strike - How the drama unfolded]

Statistics would reveal that the number of violations has come down drastically after the surgical strikes. Prior to the surgical strikes, violations by Pakistan were reported almost every single day. There were 228 ceasefire violations at the Line of Control and 221 at the International Border. However, post the surgical strikes in November 2016, the number of violations at the LoC was 22 and on the IB, 6.

The number of civilian casualties in 2017 has been nil at both the LoC and IB. Prior to the surgical strikes, there were 13 casualties and 83 persons had been injured at the LoC. At the IB, there were 74 persons who were injured while five BSF jawans were martyred and 25 others injured prior to the surgical strikes.

The number of terror strikes too came down drastically. Prior to the November surgical strikes, there were 110 terror incidents just in three months. After the strikes, the number came down to 87.

OneIndia News
PM Modi to visit Himachal Pradesh on Oct 5; to launch various projects and inaugurate AIIMS Bilaspur

Weather update: IMD issues yellow alert for U'khand, Himachal, UP for next 2-3 days

4th Vande Bharat train to be unveiled by PM Modi in Himachal

Himachal was valued less on strength, more on Parliament seats before: PM Modi

HP spends Rs 26,000 per person on health

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Shimla, March 28: Himachal Pradesh is spending Rs 26,000 per capita on health, the highest in the country, and its budget allocation is 1.43 per cent of the State Gross Domestic Product, State Health Minister Kaul Singh said in the assembly on Tuesday.

"We are spending the highest amount of Rs 26,000 per capita on health services in the entire country," the minister said in reply to the debate on the demand for grants for health in the assembly.

He said Himachal is the only state after Delhi that is focusing on providing the best medical care facilities.

"1.43 per cent of the State Gross Domestic Product is our health budget," Kaul Singh said.

The minister's one-hour reply was marred by heated arguments between him and opposition BJP member Mohinder Singh Thakur. Later, the BJP staged a walkout.

Earlier, Thakur alleged the state was misusing the funds allocated by the Central government for providing healthcare.

Joining him, BJP member Suresh Bhardwaj said the government was focusing on opening six medical colleges in the state whereas it has disturbed the premier Indira Gandhi Medical College in Shimla.

The minister denied the opposition's allegations that National Health Mission funds were lapsing in the state.

"The infant mortality rate in the state has come down from 36 to 28 as per the recent sample registration survey," he said.

Leader of Opposition Prem Kumar Dhumal told reporters that the state was not properly utilising the funds allocated by the Central government to the health sector.

He said there was a huge shortfall of doctors and para-medical staff in most of the government hospitals and dispensaries.

"Rather than expressing gratitude to our (Union) Health Minister J.P. Nadda for allocating special funds to this hill state, the state is harping on the funds allocated by previous Health Minister Gulam Nabi Azad during the UPA regime," he said.

Dhumal said the walkout was staged to lodge their protest over deterioration in health services, including lack of dialysis centres in districts.

IANS
RBI to soon launch e-rupee on pilot basis for specific use cases

RBI rate hikes to contain price rise; inflation to fall below 6 pc next year

Ineligible people queuing up at RBI to deposit old notes: Government

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, March 28: Several "ineligible" people were queuing up at Reserve Bank of India counters to deposit demonetised notes, Parliament was informed on Tuesday.

"Several people who are ineligible queuing up at RBI counters making the queue longer," Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.

"As each application has to be checked at the counters for his/her absence from the country from passport stamp marks, it is taking considerable time for counter staff. It is compounded by the incomplete documentation," he said.

Long queues are formed at Mumbai and Delhi only as large number of persons from the neighbouring states are turning up and several staff members have been engaged to attend to the large number of people turning up at the counters, Meghwal said.

"An officer of the rank of General Manger has been assigned the task at Mumbai Office. Department of Currency Management, Central Office have been advising the specific offices to deal with applicants with more sensitivity," he said.

As the last date for deposit by residents, who were not in India during the period from November 8 to December 30, 2016, is approaching more people are turning up, the Minister added.

The grace period for Indian citizens residing in India, who were abroad during November-December, 2016, is upto March 31, 2017 and for Indian citizens resident outside is up to June 30.

The facility for exchange of Old currency notes is available at the RBI offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Nagpur.

IANS
Interpol drops red corner request notice against Lalit Modi

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

In what could be considered as a setback to Indian agencies, the Interpol has dropped a request to issue Lalit Modi a red corner notice. Lalit Modi, the former boss of the Indian Premier League wrote a long and emotional post in which he announced that the request for a red corner notice had been dropped.

The Enforcement Directorate has been probing alleged irregularities and claimed that Modi had cheated the BCCI-IPL in granting overseas telecast rights of the tournament in 2009. Modi has however denied any wrongdoing in this regard.

Modi wrote on his social media, "I just got off from a flight from Barcelona through which I sat completely numb. Just as I was boarding the flight I got the news that Interpol had finally investigated and concluded and reached a verdict in my favour with a detailed letter of rejection of India's request for issuing of a red notice. The sword that was hanging over my head had suddenly gone. At first I did know what to do or say."

"I Just forwarded the notice to a few people who were either involved, supported or were well-wishers without a word from me. The flight was on the runway. I shut the phone.

And the whole flight I sat completely numb overcoming with so many emotions and a sense of anger at first and then a greater sense of gratitude. I had finally achieved the mantra -- that this shall pass too". I had always in my heart known truth will prevail."

"But never in my wildest dream think it would be so so on. I am just so thankful to my immediate family and friends and well-wishers for being there and want to say thank you for standing by me. I now can peacefully chart my next step in life. Thank you. Are over and new chapter ready to begin. It's been 6 years 9 months and 12 days to this day and now ready for a new beginning."

Officials with the ED, however, refused to comment on the matter. They said that they still looking into it. "The next course of action would be to send another request with more documentation for a red corner notice," ED officials stated.

OneIndia News
JNU Admissions 2022: PG First merit list to be released today; how to check

JNU got best varsity award for good work: Prakash Javadekar

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, March 28: Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Tuesday that Jawaharlal Nehru University got the best university award for its good work and not for the controversy last year during which the Vice Chancellor was taken hostage.

"Recently JNU was given best university award. This was not given for making the Vice Chancellor hostage but for the good works done by the university. These good works don't come into the limelight," Javadekar said in the Lok Sabha while concluding the debate on the National Institutes of Technology, Science Education and Research (Second Amendment) Bill, 2016.

Javadekar's remarks came after Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge objected to the Minister's reference of vacancies in JNU.

Pointing out to the vacancies of professors in JNU, Javadekar said: "There are over 100 vacancies for SCs/STs in JNU while around 25 posts of disabled professors are vacant since long ago."

Kharge objected to it saying, not only in JNU but several posts are lying vacant in Central Universities, and the minister should respond to such vacancies.

"I know why you are raking up JNU only," Kharge said.

JNU, which has been at the centre of controversies for over a year, has bagged the annual 'Visitor's Award' for the best varsity in the country.

Students of JNU had in October last year staged protests outside the administrative Block, forcing the Vice-Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar and Rectors to remain confined inside the building, over the disappearance of student Najeeb Ahmed.

Earlier, three of its students were arrested on sedition charges in connection with an event on the campus during which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised.

Responding to members' queries, Javadekar said that vacancies in universities are a serious issue and there are many reasons for it.

"There are vacancies in central universities, state universities and also in private universities. We are trying to constitute a dynamic platform where all vacancies will be exhibited on our website," he said.

The Minister said that for filling up the vacancies the government needs to create an atmosphere where students prefer to be teachers and professors.

''We need to create interest among students so they could prefer this profession," he said.

Javadekar said that whenever he visited any university, he always asked students: "Who wants to be a teacher? Who wants to be a professor?"

"Recently I visited an IIT where I asked the same question to students. I was very happy when majority of students said they want to join the teaching line," he said.

He also expressed concern over the cases of suicides on campuses.

"Even a single case of suicide in campuses is unfortunate," the minister said.

IANS
Justice Katju reveals he had a crush on Jayalalithaa

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Justice Markandey Katju is known for his bold statements. He is always in the news for his outspoken and very often controversial views. This time around he is making news after posting on Facebook that he had a crush on Jayalalithaa.

On his Facebook profile, Justice Katju wrote:

When I was young I had a crush on Jayalalithaa, whom I thought very beautiful, though of course it was unrequited love, and she had no idea about it.

She was born in February 1948, while I was born in September 1946 I met her for the first time in November 2004 in Raj Bhawan in Chennai where I went to take oath as chief justice of Madras high court, and she was then the chief minister. Even then she was beautiful, though, of course, I could not tell her about my feeling for her in my youth, as that would have been inappropriate.

He then posts a song, Paarvai Ondre Pothume - Yaar Nee

OneIndia News
Mamata Banerjee asks for crack-down on child trafficking

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Kolkata, March 28: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday directed the state police and the bureaucracy to responsibly monitor the issue of child trafficking and stop the traffickers at all costs.

"The police and the block development officers have to take responsibility to thoroughly monitor the issue of child trafficking in the state. Whoever is involved in trafficking should not be spared," Banerjee said during an administrative meeting in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri district.

She also asked the the other departments associated with the matter to play their role so that trafficking can be stopped.

"Apart from the police and the BDOs, those who are associated with child welfare have to look into the issue. This is also a responsibility of the Social Welfare Officers. The Women and Child Department also has to play the role they are expected to," the Trinamool Congress supremo said.

Banerjee's comments come against the backdrop of a recent crackdown at a Jalpaiguri-based child adoption centre, for its alleged involvement in several cases of child trafficking.

According to CID sources, 17 newborns were trafficked to various parts of India and abroad in the name of adoption by producing manufactured documents.

Several persons, including political leaders, child protection officers, doctors and owners of the accused child adoption centre, were arrested by the sleuths earlier this month for involvement in the case.

IANS
'Two-finger test' should be banned in matrimonial dispute cases too, says Maharashtra doctor

Mumbai: Police nabs six people in trolley murder case

India

oi-Gulam Rabbani

Mumbai: The Mumbai police on Monday arrested six accused involved in the murder case known as the trolley murder case. The body of a 12 year old boy was found stuffed inside the trolley bag and the same was found near the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus in Mumbai on January 8, 2017.

According to police, the boy identified as Randheer Sahani from Bihar was working as child labour in a small jewellery manufacturing unit in Kurar village near Malad of southern Mumbai.

The police identified the six accused as Shivnath Sahani, 36, his wife Renudevi, 35, son Ranvijay, 20 and accomplices Krishna Sahani, 28, Ramanand Sahani, 45 nad Vinay Sahani 33.

A senior police official said that the supporters were the relatives of Ranvijay and used to work in the same unit

Police added that on January 7, Ranvijay slapped Randheer for waking up late and not helping him with work. The next day Ranvijay tried waking Randheer up, but learnt that he had died. With the help of his parents and relatives, the boy's body was stuffed in the trolley bag.

Randheer had come to the city six months ago. After his death, the family of the accused allegedly went to the deceased parents and offered a bribe of Rs 1.11 lakh and said that their son died of some disease.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, March 28, 2017, 16:01 [IST]
NCW issues notice to Rajasthan minister over insensitive remarks

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, Mar 28: Taking cognisance of 'insensitive' remarks by a Rajasthan Minister in the Bikaner alleged gangrape case, the National Commission for Women on Tuesday shot off a notice to him, saying those in public life should be 'gender sensitive'.

The 13-year-old girl was allegedly gang raped in April 2015 and an FIR was registered against the teachers after her father recently gave a complaint to the local superintendent of police. Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria had raised questions over the delay on part of the family in reporting the case.

The NCW, which has asked Kataria to reply to the notice failing which he will be summoned, said that its member will visit the survivor's family as it suspects a 'cover-up'.

"We have sent Rajasthan Home Minister G Kataria a notice after his remarks on Bikaner alleged gangrape survivor. He has been asked to reply immediately, failing which we will summon him and later decide on what action to take," the NCW said.

According to reports, Kataria had told reporters that, "normally, if eight people rape together, and the child does not inform the parents on the same day, then it doesn't make much sense to me. I can say this after years of experience".

NCW chairperson Lalitha Kumaramangalam said, "We have also decided to send an NCW member to visit the survivor's family. It seems there is some kind of a cover-up because the father wants to withdraw the case. The family is not letting anyone meet the child."

"People in public life should be gender sensitive. To make off the cuff remarks is not just condemnable but is also callous and insensitive. A victim is always questioned and no one gives her the benefit of doubt. This is a very regressive attitude," she said.

PTI
No night shifts for women in IT firms says legislature panel

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

There should be no night shifts for women working in Information and Bio-Technology companies, a legislature panel in Karnataka has said. It cited security, safety and privacy needs as the reasons for discontinuing the night shifts for women in IT-BT companies.

The legislature committee on women and child welfare headed by N A Harris said that women in IT-BT companies must be allocated day or afternoon jobs. Men should be made to work in the night shifts and companies must prefer this, he also said.

The recommendations were made on the basis on the interactions the committee held during its visits to several IT-BT firms in Bengaluru. The recommendations are contrary to what the state government had decided last year. It had removed restrictions and allowed women to work in night shifts. The government had amended the Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1961 and the Factories Act 1948 to allow women to work in night shifts.

OneIndia News
Portals of Gangotri shrine close for winters, devotees can worship at Mukhba village now

Anand Mahindra's tweet about UPI at country's 'last tea shop' is every Indian's emotion

No tolerance to illegal mining: Uttarakhand CM

India

oi-PTI

Dehradun, Mar 27: Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Tuesday asked officials to adopt zero-tolerance towards illegal mining, days after a forest department employee was killed allegedly by mining mafia in Ramnagar.

Rawat asked Secretary, Mining, Shailesh Bagoli, to take stern actions against anyone found involved in illegal mining in the state. Bagoli said measures are being put in place to help the checkposts personnel distinguish easily between vehicles loaded with legal and illegal mining material.

He said better coordination between police and district magistrates will be established to nab those engaged in illegal mining.

Earlier, terming as highly condemnable the alleged murder of the forest beat watcher in Kosi river mining area on March 24, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prakash Pant told the Assembly the government will adopt a policy of "no tolerance" towards illegal mining.

In reply to an adjournment motion proposed on the issue by opposition Congress MLA Pritam Singh, he said the state government has spared no effort in taking quick action on the incident.

"One of the named accused in the case, Jaswant Singh alias Jassi, has already been sent to jail under judicial custody, whereas the rest will also be arrested soon," he said.

Immediate action was taken in the matter despite the accused trying to seek protection from some powerful connections, Pant said.

He said the chief minister gave a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to the family of the deceased on the day of the incident. Seeing the economic condition of the family, the CM has also announced another Rs 4 lakh as compensation and a government job to his wife, the Minister said.

Moral responsibility for the crime is also being ascertained, he said.

PTI
Sushma seeks report on attack on Nigerians, Yogi promises action

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi on Tuesday assured action in connection with the attack on Nigerian students in Greater Noida. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj earlier spoke to Adityanath over the incident following which he assured of an impartial probe.

Several Nigerians were beaten up in Uttar Pradesh's Greater Noida area on Monday after a class 12th student allegedly died of drug overdose. The locals have accused Africans living in the area of being responsible for the death of Manish Khari, who died on Saturday.

Reports say that five Nigerians were apprehended by the police but were later let off due to lack of evidence.

According to reports, Khari was found in a state of narcotic induced haze near his colony on Friday evening following which he was rushed to a hospital where he died. Although there is no clear evidence, locals suspect the Nigerians living in the building of drugging the boy.

Nigerian nationals attacked in Greater Noida: Locals allege 19 yr old Manish had died after Nigerians forced him to inhale drugs pic.twitter.com/GixQKOg7Gr  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 28, 2017

People then decided to take out a protest march demanding the arrest of those involved in the incident, but it suddenly turned violent near Pari Chowk when some of the agitators attacked the Africans shopping at a market.

The situation remains tense in Greater Noida and police have been deployed in large numbers in localities where African students reside. Many African students live in Greater Noida, where several international universities have come up of late.

Meanwhile, Sushma Swaraj took to Twitter to assure the Africans that 'immediate action' would be taken and that she has spoken to UP Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi about the issue.

I have spoken to Yogi Adityanath ji Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh about attack on African students in Greater Noida. /1  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident. /2  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

Responding to a tweet by an international student #Sadiq Bello (@Sadiq8800), who said that the situation has become 'life threatening' for them, Swaraj assured of action.

Sadiq - Government of India is seized of the matter. We are taking immediate action. https://t.co/SRdS2QGuj1  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

OneIndia News
Triple talaq: Don't go against mandate of Almight, Muslim board tells SC

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board has once again reiterated that triple talaq is not illegal and the courts have no powers to scrutinise it. Do not go against the mandate of the Almighty, the AIMPLB told the Supreme Court which is hearing a batch of petitions seeking to declare triple talaq illegal.

All Muslims are bound to accept the command of the Messenger and should avoid whatever the Messenger forbids. The board also said that any deviation from Quranic injunctions would go against the mandate of the Almighty.

The board also went to state that disobeying the Quran would lead to serious consequences. The consequence of committing such a sin would be adverse as children born out of such relationships would be illegitimate and their rights of inheritance in their father's estate would be questionable the board argued.

Triple talaq has been mandated by the Holy Quran. The Quran has said that once three pronouncements of talaq are made, the wife becomes unlawful or haraam to the former husband. This has been mentioned in the Quran. The objective is to enable a divorced woman to remarry out of her own will and choice, the board also said in written submissions before the SC which will hear the matter in the next three days.

The board urged the Supreme Court not to interfere in the matter. The board says that any change would amount to re-writing the Quran and would force Muslims into committing a sin.

OneIndia News
COVID-19: 100 more beds in Greater Noida's GIMS from May 10

UP police confirms arrest of 5 persons over attack on Nigerians in Greater Noida

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

The Uttar Pradesh police on Tuesday confirmed that five people have been arrested in connection with the attack on Nigerians in Greater Noida. The situation there is tense after locals began targeting the Africans after the death of a class 12th student due to drug overdose.

Police have arrested 5 persons. FIR registered, action will be taken accordingly: Daljeet Chaudhary (ADG, Law&Order) on attack on Nigerians pic.twitter.com/rs00krq2rM  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 28, 2017

The locals have accused Africans living in the area of being responsible for the death of Manish Khari, who died on Saturday.

According to reports, Khari was found in a state of narcotic induced haze near his colony on Friday evening following which he was rushed to a hospital where he died. Although there is no clear evidence, locals are suspecting the Nigerians of drugging the boy.

UP Minister Siddhart Nath Singh termed the incident as 'serious issue' and ensured a thorough probe into the matter.

Attack on Nigerian students a serious issue. Proper probe will be done. Report will be provided to centre at earliest: UP Min S Nath Singh pic.twitter.com/T7UwB3ZqWT  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 28, 2017

Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj sought information from the Uttar Pradesh government over the incident following which Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi assured of 'impartial probe'.

[Sushma seeks report on attack on Nigerians, Yogi promises action]

Responding to a tweet by an international student #Sadiq Bello (@Sadiq8800), who said that the situation has become 'life threatening' for them, Swaraj assured of action.

Sadiq - Government of India is seized of the matter. We are taking immediate action. https://t.co/SRdS2QGuj1  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 28, 2017

OneIndia News
'We cried for help, but no one came forward': Nigerian who was attacked

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

Amid alleged racial attacks on Africans in Uttar Pradesh's Greater Noida, a Nigerian national, who was thrashed by a mob, on Tuesday said no one came forward to help when they were beaten up with 'rods, bricks and knives'.

[Sushma seeks report on attack on Nigerians, Yogi promises action]

Speaking to the media at a hospital, the Nigerian student said even their college has not come forward to help so far.

We don't know why we were assaulted, the mob hit us with rods, bricks and knives: Nigerian national who was attacked pic.twitter.com/PaN6V5AC3l  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 28, 2017

We asked people around for help, but not one called the police. Even our college did not help: Nigerian national who was attacked pic.twitter.com/nTsen47zZ5  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 28, 2017

Several Nigerians were beaten up in Greater Noida on Monday after a class 12th student allegedly died of drug overdose. The locals have accused Africans living in the area of being responsible for the death of Manish Khari, who died on Saturday.

The Uttar Pradesh police on Tuesday confirmed that five people have been arrested in connection with the incident.

According to reports, Khari was found in a state of narcotic induced haze near his colony on Friday evening following which he was rushed to a hospital where he died. Although there is no clear evidence, locals are suspecting the Nigerians of drugging the boy.

Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj sought information from the Uttar Pradesh government over the incident following which Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi assured of an 'impartial probe'.

OneIndia News
What is keeping Sasikala's aide Ilavarasi busy in jail? Reading hate letters

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Ilavarasi who along with Sasikala Natarajan was convicted in the disproportionate assets case has a new job to do at Central Prison, Parappana Agrahara, Bangalore 560100. Serving a simple imprisonment of four years, Ilavarasi has her hands tied as she screens the 100s of letters that Sasikala receives in jail.

At least six out of the 10 letters spew venom at Sasikala. Letters blaming her for the death of Jayalalithaa have become a norm. Ilavarasi, however, does not want all the letters to be read by Sasikala. She sorts them out carefully, screens them and only then passes it on to Sasikala.

Since Sasikala was sent to jail by the Supreme Court in February, she has been getting 100s of letters blaming her for the death of Jayalalithaa. All the letters written in Tamil call her as an ungrateful woman who backstabbed Jayalalithaa. The letters state that Jayalalithaa had no reason to die. One letter states that Sasikala had hatched a plan to murder Jayalalithaa. "She had no reason to die, it was a planned murder," the letter states.

"You are a back-stabber, you have killed our Amma and you will pay for this another letter states. Jayalalithaa had given you life and you betrayed her and you will pay for your sins," the letters state.

At first, she would read through most of the letters. However, now the job has been given to Ilavarasi. It is her job now to screen through all the letters and pass them on to Sasikala. Jail authorities say that not all letters are given to Sasikala. Ilavarasi only gives out select letters to her after screening them.

OneIndia News
What Trump told Modi after big win in the Uttar Pradesh elections

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

United States President Donald Trump was impressed with the manner in which the Bharatiya Janata Party won the elections in Uttar Pradesh. He took time off to call Prime Minister Narendra Modi and congratulate him on the big UP victory.

The White House said that Trump called Modi and congratulated him on the big wins in the recently held assembly elections. It was a short call and Trump sought to congratulate Modi.

The BJP earned big victories in UP and Uttarakhand. The party also managed to form governments in Goa and Manipur. However, in Punjab it was the Congress that formed the government after winning a clear majority.

Trump also rang German Chancellor Angela Merkel and congratulated her on her election victory. Her conservatives won a regional election in the western state of Saarland on Sunday. The win was a significant one as it boosts her chance of winning a fourth term in the elections to be held in September. Her party the Christian Democrats won 40.7 per cent of the vote, up from 35.2 per cent in the previous election in Saarland in 2012.

OneIndia News
When IS module members from MP had sought help in Kerala

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The members of the Islamic State-inspired module which was busted following the Ujjain train blast had visited Kerala to find ways of joining the Caliphate. The questioning of Syed Mir Hussain, one of the module members who was arrested has revealed that the four-member gang had tried several times to either cross over into Pakistan or Syria.

They made several attempts to first cross over into Pakistan. They visited Rajasthan, Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir. But their attempts failed. The members then paid a visit to Kozhikode in Kerala and met with several persons who they thought would help them cross over into Syria.

In Kerala, they met with several like-minded persons. They stayed there a couple of weeks trying to get out of the country. However, they were unsuccessful. During their meetings with other members who were also inspired by the IS, they discussed plans on setting up a major IS module. One of the module members, Atif, was declared as the 'emir' or chief of this module.

The visit by this group of men from Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh is interesting considering the NIA is probing a similar case in Kerala. During the probe there, it was revealed that the module had successfully managed to send out 22 persons to Afghanistan. It was also learnt that the module had devised a plot in which they would target Hindu leaders, their functions and also religious places.

OneIndia News
New slogan, new image

Former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party on Monday released a poster with the slogan--Aapki Cycle sadaa chalegi aapke naam se, fir pradesh ka dil jeetenge hum milkar apne kaam se (Your cycle will always be yours, we will win the hearts of the people again in the state with our work).

Picture credit: Social Media

The bicycle party

The party-which symbol is bicycle-saw several ups and downs in the recent times. Earlier, the current head of the Samajwadi Party, Akhilesh, fought a bitter battle with his father and party founder, Mulayam Singh Yadav, to take control over the 25-year-old political outfit. However, the party managed to win only 47 seats in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections recently.

Picture credit: Facebook account of @samajwadiparty

Forget the past, welcome the future

For the assembly elections, the Samajwadi Party came up with the slogankaamboltahai (Work speaks). However, the slogan failed to create any magic and the party lost the elections to the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP and its allies won 325 seats.

Picture credit: Facebook account of @samajwadiparty

Latest membership drive

Recently, the Samajwadi Party leaders addressed the media. The party also hosted a national executive meeting in Lucknow. "We would undertake a membership drive afresh from April 15," Akhilesh told the media.

Picture credit: Twitter account of @yadavakhilesh

Relevance of party patriarch

In this image, party supremo Mulayam is seen paying tribute to Late Ram Manohar Lohia, the great socialist leader. These days, Mulayam is hardly seen in public space as his son Akhilesh is running the Samajwadi Party.

Picture credit: Facebook account of @samajwadiparty
Creating additional posts for women

All the state governments have been requested to create additional posts of women constables and sub-Inspectors by converting the vacant posts of men constables into the posts of women constables, Ahir added.

Image:Women police officers during the full dress rehearsal for the Republic Day parade at Historical Ridge in Shimla. All photographs: PTI

A link between police and community

The minister said his ministry in collaboration with the ministry of women and child development has envisaged engagement of Mahila Police Volunteers in states and UTs who will act as a link between police and community and help women in distress.

Image:A woman with her baby coming out of a women's police station after she was freed from the Central Jail in Bhopal.

Encouraging women to come forward

"The MPV will encourage women to come forward with complaints of violence and discrimination, provide information to them on remedies for this and assist them in taking their cases to police authorities," he said.

Image: Assam Police's women commandos 'Viranagana' performing at the closing ceremony of Rongali Festival 2017 in Guwahati

Haryana the first state

"Haryana has become the first state to operationalise the MPV scheme. It was launched jointly by the Ministry of WCD and Government of Haryana at Karnal on December 14, 2016 for the districts of Karnal and Mahendragarh," he said.

Image: Security personnel check the weapons of women police before rehearsal of guard of honour in civil secretariat in Jammu
Israel committed to working with US for peace: Netanyahu

International

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Washington, March 28: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that he is committed to working with US President Donald Trump to achieve peace with the Palestinians and all of the Jewish state's neighbours.

"Israel's hand and my hand is extended to all of our neighbours in peace," EFE news quoted Netanyahu as saying in a video conference address to the annual meeting of the American-Israel public affairs committee, the main pro-Israeli pressure group in the US, in Washington.

"I believe that the common dangers faced by Israel and many of our Arab neighbours now offer a rare opportunity to build bridges towards a better future -- a future more prosperous, more secure, more peaceful," he said.

Netanyahu urged the Palestinian National Authority to 'stop teaching hatred to its children'. It must stop paying terrorists. It must stop denying our legitimacy and our history. It must above all, once and for all, recognise the Jewish state, he said.

The Israeli leader said that 'Israel has no greater friend than America and America has no greater friend than Israel', and he added that he was certain that the alliance between the two nations will grow even closer in the coming years.

He also referred to Iran as the greatest threat to Israel and appealed to the Trump administration to prevent 'Iran from ever ... developing nuclear weapons. That ... will always be our policy'.

The PM said that 'our partnership with the US means also confronting Iran's aggression in the region and its terrorism around the world' and he added that 'it means utterly vanquishing ISIS' and "building alliances with ... those moderates who seek to build a better future and embrace modernity and peace."

"In this battle between modernity and medievalism, more and more countries in the region and outside the region, around the world, realise that Israel is on their side," the PM said.

Netanyahu delivered his speech after US Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday spoke on the first day of the conference, reaffirming Trump's commitment to achieving "lasting" peace in the Middle East.

Trump welcomed the Israeli premier to the White House in February.

IANS
Legendary South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada passes away

International

oi-Madhuri

The Ahmed Kathrada Foundation has confirmed that 87-year-old stalwart Ahmed Kathrada died in the early hours of Tuesday morning at the Donald Gordon Hospital in Johannesburg.

Kathrada had been ill for the last month with his condition deteriorating in the last 24 hours. He was taken in for surgery for surgery linked to blog clotting on the brain.

The Ahmed Kathrada Foundation's Director Neeshan Balton said that the veteran had "experienced several post-operation complications rendering his condition serious".

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Tuesday, March 28, 2017, 10:44 [IST]
Scottish Parliament backs referendum call

International

ians-IANS

By Ians English

London, March 29: Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's call for a second referendum on independence for Scotland has been formally backed by the Scottish Parliament. MSPs voted by 69 to 59 in favour of seeking permission for a referendum before Britain leaves the EU, BBC reported.

Sturgeon said the move was needed to allow Scotland to decide what path to follow in the wake of the Brexit vote.

But Britain government has already said it will block a referendum until after the Brexit process has been completed.

Prime Minister Theresa May, who met Sturgeon for talks in Glasgow on Monday, has repeatedly insisted that now is not the time for a referendum.

Her Scottish secretary, David Mundell, has said that the timescale could include "the Brexit process, the journey of leaving and people being able to understand what Britain's new relationship with the EU is, so they can make an informed choice if there was ever to be another referendum".

But Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, said her mandate for another vote was now beyond question, and warned it would be democratically indefensible and utterly unsustainable to attempt to stand in the way.

She told a debate ahead of the Holyrood vote that she was not seeking confrontation with Britain government, and only wanted sensible discussions.

Sturgeon said: "My argument is simply this: when the nature of the change that is made inevitable by Brexit becomes clear, that change should not be imposed upon us, we should have the right to decide the nature of that change.

"The people of Scotland should have the right to choose between Brexit - possibly a very hard Brexit - or becoming an independent country, able to chart our own course and create a true partnership of equals across these islands."

She added: "I hope the UK government will respect the will of this parliament. If it does so, I will enter discussion in good faith and with a willingness to compromise.

"However, if it chooses not to do so I will return to the parliament following the Easter recess to set out the steps that the Scottish government will take to progress the will of parliament."

Sturgeon's minority SNP government was backed by the pro-independence Scottish Greens in the vote, with the Conservatives, Labour and Lib Dems opposed.

The first minister is now expected to make the formal request for a section 30 later this week - after May formally starts the Brexit process on Wednesday by triggering Article 50.

Scottish voters rejected independence by 55 per cent to 45 per cent in a referendum in 2014, but Sturgeon believes Britain voting to leave the EU was a material change in circumstances which means people should again be asked the question.

IANS
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Pennsylvania's Online Gambling Bill Runs Into an Old Problem

Published March 27, 2017 by Elana K

Pennsylvania's proposed online gambling bill has run into an old problem: VGTs, video gaming terminals, the issue that almost single-handedly derailed the states online gambling initiative last year.

Over the past few months, it seemed like Pennsylvania had been making great strides toward legalizing online gambling, with one of its main selling points being the possibility to cushion the states budget deficit. Yes, the issue of taxes is still being debated - how much, the differential between land-based and online gambling, and more. Now, however, the proposed online gambling bill has run into an additional problem, albeit an old one: VGTs, video gaming terminals, the issue that almost single-handedly derailed the states online gambling initiative last year.

Now, however, the proposed online gambling bill has run into another problem, albeit an old one: VGTs, video gaming terminals, the issue that almost single-handedly derailed the states online gambling initiative last year.

Recent History of VGTs

Last year, two nearly-identical bills were introduced to the House of Representatives. Both were initially voted against because of some apparent confusion regarding the two. One of the bills allowed VGTs to exist at licensed bars and taverns, the other did not. Ultimately, the House held a re-vote and voted in favor of the bill that did not allow VGTs, but then neither bill ended up being passed.

Most Casinos Oppose VGTs

In the joint hearing of the Pennsylvania House Gaming Oversight Committee and the Senate Community on March 7, four out of five casinos voiced their opposition to VGTs (the fifth didnt address the issue). Eric Pearson, CEO of Valley Forge Casino Resort, expressed succinctly why his casino opposes VGTs: VGTs put the health and well-being of Pennsylvanias gaming industry at risk.

The Argument in Favor of VGTs

Proponents of VGTs argue that there already exist an estimated 40,000 illegal VGT machines, and they have not cannibalized the casino industry so far. A bill that allows VGTs would just be legalizing the ones that already exist, and making profit for the state along the way.

While arguments exist both in favor and against, one thing is certain: If an agreement is not reached, Pennsylvania will experience a bout of deja vu - the issue of VGTs once again ruining the chances for state-regulated online gambling.
Adam Schiff Devin Nunes

The House Intelligence Committee's ranking Democrat on Monday called on the committee's Republican chairman to recuse himself from the committee's investigation into President Donald Trump's connections with Russia.

The statement by Rep. Adam Schiff followed news reports that Rep. Devin Nunes, the committee's chairman, had visited the White House grounds with a source who showed him secret intelligence reports the day before he briefed Trump that Trump and his advisers may have had their communications picked up "incidentally" as part of intelligence-community surveillance of foreign targets.

"After much consideration, and in light of the chairman's admission that he met with his source of information at the White House, I believe that the chairman should recuse himself from any further involvement in the Russia investigation, as well as any involvement in oversight of matters pertaining to any incidental collection of the Trump transition, as he was also a key member of the transition team," Schiff said in a statement.

Schiff said he worried the public was losing faith in Nunes' ability to conduct an unbiased investigation.

"I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the president's campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman," Schiff said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi echoed Schiff's sentiments and those of other Democrats who had increasingly been urging Nunes to step aside.

"The chair of the House Intelligence has a serious responsibility to the Congress and to the country," she said. "Chairman Nunes' discredited behavior has tarnished that office."

Nancy Pelosi

Story continues

"Speaker Ryan must insist that Chairman Nunes at least recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation immediately," Pelosi said. "That leadership is long overdue."

Nunes defended his White House visit by saying he wanted "to have proximity to a secure location" where he could view information provided by a source. The Trump administration was not aware of his visit, he said.

Democrats have seized on Nunes' announcement, accusing the Republican of attempting to give political cover for Trump, who claimed in a series of shocking, unsubstantiated tweets in early March that President Barack Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower during last year's presidential campaign.

Last week, Schiff said Nunes' actions had thrown "great doubt" on the committees ability to conduct a fair investigation.

Numerous lawmakers have called for a select committee to carry out the investigation, and the effort received bipartisan support when Republican Sen. John McCain questioned Nunes' credibility in an interview on Wednesday.

Trump appeared to complain about controversy surrounding Nunes on Monday night. In a series of tweets, the president said, "Why isn't the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech money to Bill," referring to Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The Washington Post reported in October last year that there was no evidence Clinton was personally involved in the uranium deal, to which Trump had previously referred.

Trump called the Russia investigation a "hoax" and has denied his team had any untoward interactions with the Kremlin. The FBI  along with the House and Senate intelligence committees and the Senate Judiciary Committee  are investigating whether Trump or his associates colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign.

Read Schiff's entire statement below:

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

NOW WATCH: Watch Trump's budget director explain proposed cuts for after-school programs that feed children





More From Business Insider


From Strategic Culture

There was a time when Russophobia served as an effective form of population control -- used by the American ruling class in particular to command the general US population into patriotic loyalty. Not any longer. Now, Russophobia is a sign of weakness, of desperate implosion among the US ruling class from their own rotten, internal decay.

This propaganda technique worked adequately well during the Cold War decades when the former Soviet Union could be easily demonized as godless communism and an evil empire. Such stereotypes, no matter how false, could be sustained largely because of the monopoly control of Western media by governments and official regulators.

The Soviet Union passed away more than a quarter of a century ago, but Russophobia among the US political class is more virulent than ever.

This week it was evident from Congressional hearings in Washington into alleged Russian interference in US politics that large sections of American government and establishment media are fixated by Russophobia and a belief that Russia is a malign foreign adversary.

However, the power of the Russophobia propaganda technique over the wider population seems to have greatly diminished from its Cold War heyday. This is partly due to more diverse global communications which challenge the previous Western monopoly for controlling narrative and perception. Contemporary Russophobia -- demonizing Russian President Vladimir Putin or Russian military forces -- does not have the same potency for scaring the Western public. Indeed, due to greater diversity in global news media sources, it is fair to say that official Western depictions of Russia as an enemy, for example allegedly about to invade Europe or allegedly interfering in electoral politics, are met with a healthy skepticism -- if not ridicule by many Western citizens.

What is increasingly apparent here is a gaping chasm between the political class and the wider public on the matter of Russophobia. This is true for Western countries generally, but especially in the US. The political class -- the lawmakers in Washington and the mainstream news media -- are frenzied by claims that Russia interfered in the US presidential elections and that Russia has some kind of sinister leverage on the presidency of Donald Trump.

But this frenzy of Russophobia is not reflected among the wider public of ordinary American citizens. Rabid accusations that Russia hacked the computers of Trump's Democrat rival Hillary Clinton to spread damaging information about her; that this alleged sabotage of American democracy was an act of war; that President Trump is guilty of treason by colluding with a Russian influence campaign -- all of these sensational claims seem to be only a preoccupation of the privileged political class. Most ordinary Americans, concerned about making a living in a crumbling society, either don't buy the claims or view them as idle chatter.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov this week dismissed the Congressional hearings into alleged Russian interference in US politics. He aptly said that US lawmakers and the corporate media have become entangled in their own fabrications. They are trying to find evidence for conclusions that they have already made, said Peskov.

Other suitable imagery is that the US political class are tilting at windmills, chasing their own tails, or running from their own shadows. There seems to be a collective delusional mindset.

Unable to accept the reality that the governing structure of the US has lost legitimacy in the eyes of the people, that the people rebelled by electing an outsider in the form of business mogul-turned-politician Donald Trump, that the collapse of American traditional politics is due to the atrophy of its bankrupt capitalist economy over several decades -- the ruling class have fabricated their own excuse for demise by blaming it all on Russia.

The American ruling class cannot accept, or come to terms, with the fact of systemic failure in their own political system. The election of Trump is a symptom of this failure and the widespread disillusionment among voters towards the two-party train wreck of Republicans and Democrats. That is why the specter of Russian interference in the US political system had to be conjured up, by necessity, as a way of explaining the abject failure and the ensuing popular revolt.

Russophobia was rehabilitated from the Cold War closet by the American political establishment to distract from the glaring internal collapse of American politics.

The corrosive, self-destruction seems to know no bounds. James Comey, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, told Congress this week that the White House is being probed for illicit contacts with Russia. This dramatic notice served by Comey was greeted with general approval by political opponents of the Trump administration, as well as by news media outlets.

The New York Times said the FBI was in effect holding a criminal investigation at the doorstep of the White House.

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Cloud computing is an innovation for data storage. It generally consists of three services software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS). Cloud computing is growing due to increasing expense in ICT spending and trend of big data and analytics.Cloud infrastructure refers to the software and hardware components such as networking, storage, servers, and virtualization software that are required for a cloud computing model to operate. Cloud infrastructure also includes an abstraction layer of software that virtualizes resources and presents them to the users in a programmatic manner.Browse Market Research Report:Virtualized resources are hosted such as an IT department or service providers and delivered to the final user through the medium of a network or internet.These virtualized resources include virtual machines which have components such as memory, computer, servers, firewall, network switches, storage, and load balancers. In cloud computing architecture (that refers to the back end and front end of the whole cloud computing environment), the cloud infrastructure generally includes the back end components.Organizations make use of cloud infrastructure to take help of cloud computing to perform their day to day work to continue their operations. Cloud infrastructures are typically accessed using a pay-per-use model, unlike structures of payment that enable users to subscribe to vendor services for a set price or subscription-based pricing models. Instead of purchasing cloud infrastructure from a provider, organizations can also build their own cloud infrastructure in their premises.An organization using a service provider cloud is termed as public cloud; when an organization uses its own infrastructure, it is termed as a private cloud; and when an organization uses bits of public and private infrastructure, it is termed as a hybrid cloud.Cloud infrastructure empowers the organization or company to manage traditional workload data by using an open private cloud deployment model. Organizations deliver cloud constructed cohesive infrastructure as a service in order to make new investments, technologies, and upgrade to better capture and position them in the market and to improve manageability.Cloud infrastructure services are generally used across all major verticals such as government, telecom, healthcare, banking, manufacturing, financial services, and others.The global adoption rate of cloud infrastructure services is increasing due to the growing implementation rate in Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and Latin America regions.Major drivers of the cloud infrastructure market are mobility of data accessibility, business continuity, cost saving from buying physical storage devices, and on-demand business scalability. Thus, demand for cloud infrastructure is set to grow in the near future due to increase in demand for cloud computing.However, infrastructure complexity, data security implications, and limited control of cloud resources are acting as the restraints of the global cloud infrastructure market.The cloud infrastructure market can be divided into hardware components, software, and application. Hardware components are generally categorized as servers, computers, storage devices, memory, and CPU among others.The software segment can be divided into Ajax, and Ruby on Rails. The application category can be further divided into private cloud & hybrid cloud, backup, disaster management, big data analytics, file storage, and test & development.Make an Enquiry:In terms of region, the cloud infrastructure market is divided into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. North America led the cloud infrastructure market followed by Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World.The major players in this industry are Hewlett-Packard (U.S.), AWS (Amazon Web Services) (U.S.), Dell, Inc. (U.S.), Cisco Systems, Inc. (U.S.),Quanta Computer Inc. (Taiwan), Foxconn Technology Group (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.) (Taiwan), Intel Corporation (U.S.), and NetApp, Inc. (U.S.) among others.About TMRTMR 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.Contact TMR90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email:sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Industry Insight: Process Automation and Instrumentation Market Size, Share, Development, Growth and Demand Forecast to 2020

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One of the major factors driving the growth of the global process automation and instrumentation market is the increasing demand for automated processes and instruments from operators. The growing demand for integrated packaged solutions and advanced software tools and services is influencing the growth of the global process automation and instrumentation industry. The reduction in operational and maintenance cost, maximized efficiency, improved quality of a plant, and protection to people and environment are some of the other factors, which are driving the growth of the global process automation and instrumentation market. The maintenance cost of companies reduces with the incorporation of process automation and instrumentation systems, as they allow the companies to monitor operations in real time and improve on-site decision-making, in order to maximize production and raise facility uptimes.To Browse Full Report Visit Here:The oil and gas extraction is the largest segment in the global process automation and instrumentation market. This segment is estimated to account for over half of the global energy demand of the process automation and instrumentation market. The growing demand of oil and gas, exploration and extraction of 'shale' gas, increasing emphasis on safety and security, up gradation of old oil and gas platforms, and exploration and extraction from aging oil and gas wells are the major factors, driving the growth of the oil and gas extraction segment in the global market.Browse For Related Research Visit Here:The process automation and instrumentation helps in minimizing the overall cost of the final product, as it helps in minimizing the costs expenses related to energy, infrastructure and manpower. Automation is a set of technologies required to achieve high grade performance by systems and machines with minimum human intervention. Instrumentation is the backbone for any process of automation industry. It a process, which goes parallel to automation and is used in automation to monitor, measure, and analyse the level of products performance. Process automation and instrumentation becomes efficient after installing instruments at set locations and the gathered data is sent to a group of experts, who facilitate monitoring by eliminating any type of errors.About P&S Market ResearchP&S Market Research is a market research company, which offers market research and consulting services for various geographies around the globe. We provide market research reports, industry forecasting reports, business intelligence, and research based consulting services across different industry/business verticals.As one of the top growing market research agency, were keen upon providing market landscape and accurate forecasting. Our analysts and consultants are proficient with business intelligence and market analysis, through their interaction with leading companies of the concerned domain. We help our clients with B2B market research and assist them in identifying various windows of opportunity, and framing informed and customized business expansion strategies in different regions.Contact:AbhishekExecutive  Client Partner347, 5th Ave. #1402New York City, NY - 10016Toll-free: +1-888-778-7886 (USA/Canada)Email: enquiry@psmarketresearch.comWeb:
Wind Lidar Market Global Analysis & 2017-2022 Forecast Report

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Wind Lidar is a type of lidar which can be used to measure wind speed and to provide information about vertical distribution of the aerosol particles. It is a new atmospheric remote sensing equipment, and semiconductor wind lidar the only effective tool to achieve remote sensing for the three-dimensional atmospheric wind field.Scope of the Global Wind Lidar Market ReportThis report focuses on the Wind Lidar 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 full report @This report covers Analysis of Global Wind Lidar Market Segment by ManufacturersZephIRLeosphereSgurrEnergyLockheed MartinAventMitsubishi ElectricPentalumWindar PhotonicsGlobal Wind Lidar Market Segment by regional analysis coversNorth America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Request a Sample of this Report @Global Wind Lidar Market Segment by TypesCompact LidarLarge-scale Coherent Doppler Lidar SystemGlobal Wind Lidar Market Segment by Applications, can be divided intoWind PowerAviation WeatherWeather & ClimateOtherMake an enquire before buying this report @Some of the Points cover in Global Wind Lidar Market Research Report is:Chapter 1: Describe Wind Lidar Industry Introduction, Product Scope, Market Overview, Market Opportunities, Market Risk, Market Driving ForceChapter 2: To analyze the top manufacturers of Wind Lidar Industry in 2016 and 2017 Sales Revenue and priceChapter 3: Competitive analysis among the top manufacturers in 2016 and 2017 Sales Revenue and market shareChapter 4: Global Wind Lidar Market by regions from 2012 to 2017 Sales Revenue and market shareChapter 5, 6, 7 and 8: Global Wind Lidar Market by key countries in these regions Sales Revenue and market shareChapter 9 and 10: Global Wind Lidar Market by type and application from 2012 to 2017 Sales Revenue and market share Growth rateChapter 11: Wind Lidar Industry Market forecast from 2017 to 2022 Regions Type and application with sales and revenueChapter 12 and 13: Wind Lidar Industry Sales channel Distributors Traders and dealers Appendix Data sourceFor more press releases visit @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 customized 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 specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Contact Us:Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas - 75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +912064101019Follow Us on LinkedIn:Follow us on Twitter:Follow us on G+ :
U.S. Commercial Refrigeration Systems Market projected to expand at a healthy CAGR of 3.2% in terms of value over 2015-2025

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Commercial refrigeration systems are refrigerators with remote or self-contained condensing units. These refrigerators are designed especially for commercial use with a wide range of temperature control (typically from -18C to +10C) options. Commercial refrigeration systems are mainly used in hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience stores, warehouses & distribution centers, foodservice industry and food & beverage production units. Commercial refrigeration systems include various products such as ice machines, vending machines, beverage refrigeration equipment, refrigerated display cases, trailers, trucks, containers and walk-in & reach-in refrigerators. Commercial refrigeration system includes various components such as compressors and refrigerants. Refrigerants mainly used in commercial refrigeration systems include R507A, R417A and R422A. The selection for a refrigerant depends on various properties such as non-corrosiveness, global warming and ozone depletion potential, inflammability, toxicity, cost, erosional properties, leak-detection capability and thermodynamic properties.Drivers & TrendsGrowing demand for frozen and chilled products, expansion of cold chain capacity, technological advancements in commercial refrigeration systems and rebates on energy-efficient products and practices are some of the major underlying factors anticipated to fuel growth of the U.S. commercial refrigeration systems market between 2016 and 2025. This is forecast to create unprecedented opportunities for commercial refrigeration system manufacturers, distributors and HVAC contractors.Request Report Sample@Key trends identified in the U.S. commercial refrigeration systems market include rapid adoption of Internet of Things (IoT), compatible commercial refrigeration systems for enhancing system output, government initiatives to support utilisation of eco-friendly refrigerants and continued advancements in energy-efficient products. However, declining replacement rate of commercial refrigeration equipment and stringent government regulations could pose major challenge for tier II & III players.Market SegmentationThe U.S. commercial refrigeration systems market is projected to expand at a healthy CAGR of 3.2% during the forecast period. The U.S. commercial refrigeration systems market is segmented on the basis of application and product type. By application, the market is segmented into foodservice, food & beverage distribution, food & beverage retail and food & beverage production. On the basis of product type, the market is classified into transportation & refrigeration systems, refrigerator & freezers, beverage refrigeration equipment, refrigerated display cases, ice machines and refrigerated vending machines.U.S. Commercial Refrigeration System Market Analysis, By End-use ApplicationFoodservice segment accounted for the highest share of 30% in terms of value in the U.S. commercial refrigeration systems market in 2014. This segment is expected to remain dominant in the market over the forecast period. Ice machines segment and beer dispensing equipment sub-segment are projected to play an important role in the foodservice industry due to various factors such as increasing per capita food consumption and rising number of foodservice restaurants in the country.U.S. Commercial Refrigeration System Market Analysis, By RegionSoutheast region represents the largest market potential, followed by the Middle-east and Far West regions. California, Texas and Florida represent a huge potential for refrigerated systems due to high density of restaurants and convenience stores in these states. Other high-growth markets include Arizona, Georgia and Utah due to rapid growth in the restaurant industry in these states.Send An Enquiry@U.S. Commercial Refrigeration System Market Analysis, By Product TypeBy product type, transportation refrigeration systems segment is projected to expand at the highest CAGR of 5.5% during the forecast period due to expansion of cold chain capacity in the U.S. It is observed that customisation holds the key for tier 2 and tier 3 players in order to further penetrate into the market, thus creating a competitive threat for tier 1 suppliers in the market. Meanwhile, key players are strengthening their market positions through both organic and inorganic growth. Also, acquisition of HVAC contractors is leading to the addition of a new customer base for commercial refrigeration systems manufacturers.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.616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.compress@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Demand for Widefield Imaging Systems Remains High in Diabetic Retinopathy Treatment

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There is a huge opportunity in the global widefield imaging systems market owing to increasing cases of visual impairment and rising prevalence of diabetes causing diabetic retinopathyGlobal widefield imaging systems market revenue is expected to register a CAGR of 8.0% over the assessment period (20162026). The global widefield imaging systems market was valued at more than US$ 380 Mn in 2016. The market is projected to be valued at more than US$ 510 Mn in 2020 and will rise to nearly US$ 850 Mn in the year 2026.Request Report Sample@North America Widefield Imaging Systems Market Analysis, 2016  2026In 2012, around 75% of adults in the U.S. opted for some form of vision correction treatmentThe U.S was expected to account for 90.5% market share of the North America widefield imaging systems market by 2016 end and is likely to experience a decline of 60 BPS in its market share by 2026 over 2016. The U.S widefield imaging systems market is expected to register moderate Y-o-Y growth throughout the forecast period. The U.S. widefield imaging systems market is estimated to account for the highest market share with a value of nearly US$ 150 Mn in 2016 and is projected to remain dominant during the forecast period.Canada is expected to register higher Y-o-Y growth as compared to the U.S market throughout the forecast period. Revenue contribution of the Canada market to the North America widefield imaging systems market is expected to exhibit a CAGR of 8.8% over the forecast period.The U.S. widefield imaging systems market is the most lucrative market in North America owing to increasing number of FDA approvals for widefield imaging systemsThe U.S. widefield imaging systems market is estimated to create absolute $ opportunity of nearly US$ 15 Mn in 2017 over 2016Revenue from the U.S. market is projected to register a CAGR of 8.1% from 2016 to 2026 to reach more than US$ 300 Mn by 2026The Canada widefield imaging systems market is estimated to create absolute $ opportunity of US$ 1.3 Mn in 2017 over 2016Revenue from the Canada market is projected to expand at a CAGR of 8.8% from 2016 to 2026 to reach nearly US$ 40 Mn by 2026North America Widefield Imaging Systems Market Attractiveness Analysis, 2016  2026Rise in incidence of chorioretinal disease is expected to drive demand for widefield imaging systems during the forecast periodThe U.S. market dominated the North America widefield imaging systems market in revenue terms in 2015 and is projected to continue to do so throughout the forecast period. The U.S. widefield imaging systems market is the most attractive regional market in the North America widefield imaging systems market with an attractiveness index of 1.8 during the forecast period. The diabetic retinopathy segment dominated the North America widefield imaging systems market in revenue terms in 2015 and is projected to continue to do so throughout the forecast period.Specialty clinics end user segment is expected to emerge as the most lucrative segment owing to increasing number of specialty clinics during the forecast periodThe hospitals segment dominated the North America widefield imaging systems market in revenue terms in 2015 and is projected to continue to do so throughout the forecast period. The standalone segment is the most attractive modality segment in the North America widefield imaging systems market, recording an attractiveness index of 1.0 during the forecast period.global widefield imaging systems marketNorth America Widefield Imaging Systems Market  TrendsTracking changing customer preferences in real time and addressing the same could help in generation of higher salesSend An Enquiry@Increased preference for outright owning of devices over leasing is fuelling the installed base in North America, especially the U.S. For example, companies have noted that the installed base of new products witnessed a sales volume growth of up to 15% per year in the last two fiscalsThere has also been significant traction in the number of customers possessing financial leases for devices; but this is only applicable for devices with RTO (rent-to-own) optionChanging customer preferences indicate a favourable capital-based market for these devices in North America over the forecast periodIncrease in the number of corporate account renewals and new corporate accounts are fuelling the sales volume and revenue growth from the devices in the U.S.Contributing factors include price erosion of existing devices and attraction towards availing device up gradation free of cost with a renewal of contractIncreasing distributor base is another factor expected to contribute significantly towards revenue growth in the near futureAnalyst ViewpointCalifornia technology offered by Optos plc. is the future of the global widefield imaging systems marketOptos Plc. is a renowned provider of retinal imaging devices for ultra-widefield, high resolution digital images. The company started operating in the global widefield imaging systems market in 2000 with the launch of P200 in the U.S. and U.K. Subsequently in 2004, the company expanded the availability of widefield imaging products in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Korea, China and Australia. The companys most advanced imaging devices for disease management and treatment support ophthalmologists and retinal specialists in the medical care market. The latest products of the company viz. Daytona and California represent the newest generation of the companys ultra-wide field imaging technology. California is the most advanced technology offered by the company offering Indocyanine Green angiography while retaining all other features of 200Tx.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.616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.compress@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Instrumentation Valves and Fittings Market

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Instrumentation Valves and Fittings Market: IntroductionInstrumentation valves and fittings are plumbing components that regulate the flow of liquid or gases in the plumbing system or plumbing circuit. While valves help in maintaining and controlling the rate of flow from one point to another, fittings are less complicated components that help in connecting two different points of the plumbing system such as establishing a connection between two different diameter pipes. High quality metals are utilized as building materials of instrumentation valves and fittings that are resistant to rusting, do not warp under high stresses and last longer. The demand for instrumentation valves and fittings is likely to improve on global level owing to developments in the manufacturing sector, healthcare services and power sector. Well-knit chain of instrumentation valves and fittings suppliers delivering the components to the end users and the availability of online methods for both standalone and bulk purchases are also some of the factors enhancing the market growth.TOC of this report is available upon request @Instrumentation Valves and Fittings Market: DynamicsVarious factors influence the demand for instrumentation valves and fittings, the primary being the rise in activities in the petroleum industry especially in the upstream section of the industry. The instrumentation valves and fittings market is also further driven by the growth of chemical industry across the world where valves and fittings are utilized for experimentation, storage and controlling the flow of materials during transportation. The prevalence and growing use of automation in manufacturing units across various industries are also important factors driving the growth of instrumentation valves and fittings market. The pharmaceutical industry demands for extremely precise, sterile and high quality instruments for the manufacture of medicines and relevant products, which can be attributed as an important element for the healthy sustenance of the instrumentation valves and fittings market in the forecast period. The growing trend of utilizing confined chambers, also known as hyperbaric chambers, which are used for remedying various disorders and illnesses in hospitals including Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT), where the internal air pressure differs from ambient atmospheric pressure calls for instrumentation valves and fittings for its construction, affecting the growth of its market in the future. Other trends include designing valves and fittings that seamlessly integrate each of its functions in order to gain higher number of customers in the market. Some of the factors that restrict the growth of the market include higher cost involved in the manufacturing of precision components, unavailability and growing cost of high quality raw materials.Instrumentation Valves and Fittings Market: SegmentationOn the basis of product type, instrumentation valves and fittings market can be segmented as: Valveso Ball Valveso Needle Valveso Toggle Valveso Metering Valveso Check Valveso Excess Flow Valveso Relief Valveso Plug Valveso Others (Ultraclean Valves etc.) Fittings and Connectorso Tube Fittingso Pipe Fittingso Flare Fittingso Ferrule Fittingso Others (Swivel Connectors etc.) In-Line Filters Actuators Manifolds Others (Glands, Gaskets etc.)On the basis of End Use, the market can be segmented as: Petroleum Industry Chemical Industry Healthcare Pharmaceuticals Electronic Industry Pulp and Paper Industry Food and Beverage Industry Others (Power Sector, etc.)Sample of this report is available upon request @Instrumentation Valves and Fittings Market: Regional OutlookExponential growth of manufacturing sector in China poses as an attractive prospect for the growth of the market in the upcoming years while growing number of petroleum refineries in the Latin America and Middle East & Africa region is also likely to influence the demand for instrumentation valves and fittings, thereby improving the market further.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 Dentistry Porcelain Furnace Market 2017- Dentsply, Nissin-Dental, Programat, Zubler and Sintering Ovens

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This report studies sales (consumption) of Dentistry Porcelain Furnace 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, covering1. Dentsply2. Nissin-Dental3. Programat4. Zubler5. VITA Zahnfabrik6. Sintering OvensThe market research report by QY Research provides detailed study on the overall Dentistry Porcelain Furnace market size, its financial positions, its unique selling points, key products, and key developments. This research report has segmented the Dentistry Porcelain Furnace market based on the segments covering all the domains in terms of type, country, region, forecasting revenues, and market share, along with analysis of latest trends in every sub-segment.Click Here to FREE Sample Report @The qualitative segmentation of Dentistry Porcelain Furnace market covered in the report gives in-depth information of the overall market. Furthermore, the market size, share, forecast trends, analysis, sales, supply, production, demand, major manufacturers, end-users, and many other vital factors are comprised in the Market Research Dentistry Porcelain Furnace report by QY Research. By these comprehensive data, it is simple to take and make precise and accurate decisions taking into consideration the present market situation and the forecasts of the global market, which in turn may result into profitable step for our clients.A competitive landscape that identifies the major competitors of the global market and their market share are further highlighted in the research report. A deliberate profiling of major competitors of the Dentistry Porcelain Furnace market as well as a inclusive analysis of their current developments, core competencies, and investments in each segment are also elaborated in the research report.Browse Complete Report with TOC @The overall information of the Dentistry Porcelain Furnace market provided in the report helps our client to make precise and accurate decisions in order to gain maximum profit in this cutthroat competition in the global market. The report comprises various elements such as table, figure, charts, TOCs, chapters, and so on so as to provide a crystal clear data to the client giving a brief of the market and its trends. Thus, the report provides in-depth information of the Dentistry Porcelain Furnace market in terms of revenue, value, volume, region, and many more.About Us:QYResearch Group is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. QYResearch Group also carries the capability to assist you with your customized market research requirements including in-depth market surveys, primary interviews, competitive landscaping, and company profiles. We feature large repository of latest industry reports, leading and niche company profiles, and market statistics. QYResearch Group is the comprehensive collection of market intelligence products and services available on air.Contact US:Joel John3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442,United StatesTel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No. 1-855-465-4651
Majority of Surgical Stapling Devices will be consumed in North America & APEJ Region

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Two U.S. based companies are likely to dominate the global surgical stapling devices market in terms of market shareIn 2015, two leading U.S based companies Johnson and Johnson and Medtronic plc held around 80% share of the global surgical stapling devices market. Although the global surgical stapling devices market is not very niche, other vendors are scattered and focus only on certain countries for the expansion of their business. For instance, vendors in the global surgical stapling devices market are focussing on India and a few other countries in the Asia Pacific region except China and Japan to explore hitherto untapped markets for expanding their business. One such vendor is India based surgical stapling devices company Meril Life Sciences Pvt. Ltd., which exports around 90% of its surgical stapling devices along with its other products to the MEA region.Request Report Sample@Rising prevalence of obesity and a geriatric population requiring surgical procedures anticipated to fuel the growth of the global surgical stapling devices marketA sedentary lifestyle leads to higher BMI, as a result, a large number of people are opting for bariatric surgeries. This is a major factor driving adoption of surgical stapling devices over conventional suturing. The increasing prevalence of obesity drives the incidence of bariatric surgeries. Moreover, healthcare professionals, especially in developed regions, are increasingly inclined towards the adoption of surgical stapling devices for bariatric surgeries, which is creating a positive impact on the global surgical stapling devices market. Another factor driving the growth of the global surgical stapling devices market is an increasing geriatric population across the globe. This population is expected to drive demand for surgical stapling devices due to increasing number of surgeries performed for the prevention of various diseases related to old age.Surgical stapling devices are preferred over conventional suturing devices during laparoscopic surgeries, as suturing becomes difficult when a surgeon is operating on the 3-dimensional plane while concentrating on the 2-dimensional plane. Surgeons get the required accuracy and precision while operating with surgical stapling devices. This factor is fuelling the growth of the global surgical stapling devices market. Besides, reusable surgical stapling devices are preferred by the procurement team of hospitals as it labelled under the category of green products, resulting in considerably less impact on the environment, compared to plastic single-use disposable surgical stapling devices. These products can be easily cleaned and sterilised by standard hospital processes, commonly used for all other stainless steel surgical instruments, thereby creating robust development in the global surgical stapling devices market. Though suturing is considered to be a gold standard in wound closures, stapling devices yield similar and comparable results involving less time to complete the process. Hence the use of stapling devices yields similar results to that of the suturing process with less time required to heal the wound.Send An Enquiry@Regional overview of the global surgical stapling devices marketThe global surgical stapling devices market revenue is expected to increase at a CAGR of 7.6% over the forecast period. In terms of revenue, Powered Surgical Stapling Devices segment is projected to remain dominant among product types. This segment is expected to further gain traction, owing to increasing demand for advanced technology. The North America surgical stapling devices market accounted for the largest revenue share of a little more than 30% in 2015. Increasing geriatric population and growing demand for advanced medical technology in the U.S. present key growth opportunities for manufacturers of surgical stapling devices. The APEJ surgical stapling devices market is slated to register a CAGR of 8.6% over the forecast period due to rising healthcare awareness and demand for advanced medical technology.surgical stapling devices marketRemarkable development in the global surgical stapling devices marketOne of the key players operating in the global surgical stapling devices market  Dextera Surgical Inc. collaborated with Intuitive Surgical in August 2016 for research and development of new robotic stapler products. The U.S. based Dextera Surgical Inc. is a core surgical stapling manufacturing company whose key product is surgical stapling devices. In September 2016, the company introduced micro cutter technology at the annual meeting of the German Society for Thoracic Surgery. This new technology will decrease the pain of cancer patients by reducing the invasiveness of lung surgery. The effectiveness of this technology does not stop here. Micro cutter technology has the potential to improve recovery time after lung surgery. In October 2016, just a month after introducing the micro cutter technology, Dextera Surgical Inc. signed an exclusive agreement with B.Braun Surgicals S.A. for the distribution of its micro cutters in Spain.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.616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.compress@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
By Kentaro Hamada and Taro Fuse TOKYO (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp <6502.T> wants its U.S nuclear unit to file for Chapter 11 protection from creditors as early as Tuesday, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter, seeking a quick ringfencing of losses before the Japanese parent's financial year ends. While a Westinghouse bankruptcy filing would help limit future losses for Toshiba, it still falls far short of drawing a line under its problems. Any filing would trigger complex negotiations between Toshiba, the nuclear unit and creditors, and could embroil the U.S and Japanese governments given the scale of the collapse and U.S. state loan guarantees for new reactors. A worry for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is that a bankruptcy would give President Donald Trump cause to criticize Japanese firms operating in the United States. "Westinghouse is a major employer and nuclear industry company with ongoing nuclear new build projects in two different states, one of which is supported by U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantees," said George Borovas, the global head of nuclear at law firm Shearman & Sterling. The future of Toshiba and Westinghouse has already been raised in bilateral talks, with Japan's Trade Minister Hiroshige Seko agreeing to share information on developments during talks in Washington with his U.S. counterparts Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. The source said Toshiba is keen on a Tuesday filing as it would prefer to avoid a day close to a shareholders meeting on Thursday that will seek approval for the sale of its prized memory chip unit. "A March 28 filing is one proposal. The thinking is that it would great if we could pull that off but whether it goes that well or not, is another issue," said the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter and declined to be identified. The Japanese conglomerate wants to avoid upsetting investors as it seeks to sell more than half of its chips unit and gain funds that would allow it to remain viable as it absorbs losses at Westinghouse. Toshiba on Monday reiterated a previous statement that it was premature to comment on a potential bankruptcy. The company's main lenders, including Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp <8316.T> and Mizuho Bank Ltd <8411.T> may also balk at a Tuesday filing. They favor an even more cautious approach to shareholders, said a financial source familiar with the matter. "Lenders are aware that Toshiba wants to file by the end of the month, but if possible would like to see it after the meeting," the source said. Separate sources with knowledge of the matter said last Friday Toshiba had informed its main banks that it was planning a March 31 filing for Westinghouse. Toshiba shares closed down 2.1 percent. $9 BILLION CHARGE A Chapter 11 filing for Westinghouse would be decided by the U.S. unit's board and would not require approval by Toshiba's shareholders, It could increase charges related to the unit to 1 trillion yen ($9 billion) from a publicly flagged 712.5 billion yen estimate, sources have said. While that would be a much bigger-than-expected hit in the short-term, it could limit the risk of future losses at two U.S. nuclear projects in Georgia and South Carolina. The power plants Westinghouse is building are called the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station in Fairfield County, South Carolina and the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Burke County, Georgia. Scana Corp and Santee Cooper own the plants in South Carolina, and Georgia Power leads a consortium that commissioned the Georgia plants. In any Westinghouse bankruptcy, the utility companies would be among the largest creditors of the developer, owed the work that has yet to be completed and potential penalties, sources have said. The Nikkei business daily reported on Monday that Toshiba has asked South Korea's Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) <015760.KS> to sponsor its Westinghouse bankruptcy reorganization. A Seoul-based KEPCO spokesman said that no request had been made. (Additonal reporting by Makiko Yamazaki in Tokyo and Jane Chung in Seoul)
Global Elevation Gimbal System Market

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Elevation Gimbal System Market: IntroductionTracking systems are used to measure the relative position and velocity of the target, which in turn, is monitored by keeping track of their future values. Elevation gimbal system is concerned with generation of targets angular position in the elevation and azimuth coordinates through continuous measurements. The elevation gimbal system incorporates a mirror that is used for characterization of precision optical sensors, target tracking and laser based qualification. The system provides high accuracy, movement and direct-reading rotary encoders over the full travel range due to features such as RV Series Rotation Stages. The major application of elevation gimbal system is in military and commercial use. In military use, elevation gimbal systems are used for missile guidance and fire control. Other than this, these tracking systems finds commercial usage in civilian airport traffic control depicting the incoming and departing airplanes.TOC of this report is available upon request @Elevation Gimbal System Market: DriversFor efficient & effective monitoring of the terrorists, a proper elevation gimbal system is a much necessary device. It will be more convenient for armies to fight with the terrorists using elevation gimbal systems. The aforementioned reason is expected to boost the demand for elevation gimbal system and thus in turn, propel the growth of elevation gimbal system market. Moreover, since its precise mechanical design, motion and fabrication control meet the requirements of customer, these features are anticipated to fuel the demand of elevation gimbal system market in near future.Elevation Gimbal System Market: RestraintsInaccuracy of device and its inability to work in critical environmental conditions remain as one of the major challenges to the elevation gimbal system market for target tracking. Further, high initial cost of the system is also restraining the growth of the elevation gimbal system market. These reasons are expected to hinder the growth of elevation gimbal system market.Elevation Gimbal System Market: SegmentationThe global elevation gimbal system market can be segmented on the basis of axis, operation type, weight, range, application and regions. On the basis of axis, the market can be segmented into single axis and double axis. On the basis of operation type, the global elevation gimbal system market can be segmented into manual operation and automatic operation. On the basis of weight, the market can be segmented into super lightweight (less than 1 lb), light weight (1 lb  10 lb), medium weight (10 lb -50 lb) and heavy weight (more than 50 lb). On the basis of range, the market can be segmented into long slant range and short slant range. On the basis of application, the global elevation gimbal system market can be segmented into defence and military and commercial vehicles. On the basis of regions, the global elevation gimbal system market can be segmented into North America, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Japan and Middle East & Africa.Elevation Gimbal System Market: Region wise OutlookBased on regions, North America is expected to be the most promising revenue generating region for global elevation gimbal system market. However, during the forecast period, this region is expected to witness sluggish growth owing to reduction in the defence budget of many countries. Asia Pacific is forecasted to witness significant growth in near future due to continuous increase in the defence budget of many countries. Moreover, China dominates the worlds in terms of troops. This, coupled with the increasing adoption of elevation gimbal system is expected to fuel the growth of elevation gimbal system market in APAC. Europe is expected to show steady growth over the forecast period. Middle East & Africa is anticipated to witness significant growth in near future.Elevation Gimbal System Market: Market ParticipantsSome of the prominent players identified in the global elevation gimbal system market are as follows: 3 Axis Inc. Icecam Gimbal DJI Embention Moog Inc. Deplot Octopus ISR Systems Aerotech Inc.The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections done using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, geographies, type, machine size and end use.The report covers exhaustive analysis on: Market Segments Market Dynamics Market Size Supply & Demand Current Trends/Issues/Challenges Competition & Companies involved Technology Value ChainRegional analysis includes North America Latin America Europe Asia Pacific Middle East and AfricaSample of this report is available upon request @The report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides an in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macro-economic indicators, and governing factors, along with market attractiveness as per segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various factors on market segments and geographies.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
Crop Sprayers Market Growth, Trends, Absolute Opportunity and Value Chain 2016-2026

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Sprayers are devices that used to apply pesticides, insecticides on plants to control pastes and diseases. Sprayers are also use to apply herbicides to control weeds and micronutrients to promote growth of plants. The sprayers breaks the chemical solution into fine droplets and distribute the insecticides uniformly over the plant. A good sprayer should produce steady stream of liquid in desired droplet size so that plants to be treat get covered uniformly. The sprayer should convey adequate pressure so that sprayer should reach all foliage over the plant. The sprayer are operated manually as well as by power.Crop Sprayers Market: Drivers & RestraintsFood drives the world. In addition to clean water, acquire sufficient food is major concern for majority of peoples in the world which makes the agriculture one of the biggest and important industry in the world. Agricultural productivity is not only the prime factor for countries economy but also for the health and security of its population. So importance of agricultural in countries economy is major driving factor for crop sprayer market.Request Report Sample@Population explosion, increasing incomes, declined natural sources and changing climate conditions affected food prices to rise and agricultural productivity once again become a major concern. Strategies to increase food productivity imparts the use of technology in agriculture. Such strategies will helps to drive crop sprayers market.Green revolution have changed the concept of traditional farming. Extensive efforts to modify farming methods assisted to increase the food production in Asia Pacific and Latin America. There are some regions in Middle East and Africa where many effort were taken to apply the green revolution approaches but failed. So there is need to help the farmers to use farming equipment in farming. Farmers in undeveloped countries does not have disposable income to use modern techniques in farming. So there is need of government initiatives to assist the farmers.Crop Sprayers Market: Market SegmentationCrop sprayers market can be segmented on the basis of Capacity of SprayersUltra Low Volume Sprayers (less than 5liters/hectare)Low Volume Sprayers(5 to 400 liters/hectare)Manually OperatedKnapsack SprayersRocker SprayersPedal Operated SprayersStirrup SprayersPower Driven SprayersKnapsack Power SprayersHigh Volume Sprayers(More than 400 liters/ hectare)Self-Propelled SprayersMounted SprayersTrailed SprayersVisit For TOC@Crop Sprayers Market: Regional-OutlookThe global Crop Sprayers market has been divided into seven key geographical regions which includes, North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. Asia Pacific will be dominating market for Crop Sprayers. Countries like India, China, and Indonesia are major agricultural promoting countries in Asia Pacific. There will be demand for Low volume sprayers in India as there is farming in small plots. Farming land in India is bisected. China and Indonesia will demand High volume sprayers. Asia Pacific is followed by North America. North America is major producer of wheat, corn and soybean. Latin America is also the lucrative market for crop sprayers market. Green revolution have lead the Latin America as prime agriculture region. Brazil and Mexico will be important countries for Crop sprayers market. Western Europe also contributes for Crop sprayers market. Germany and Netherlands. Netherlands is one of the prominent producer of vegetables and flowers. Eastern Europe also important market for Crop Sprayers. Middle East and Africa is lags behind in Agriculture. But countries like Israel, South Africa, and Nigeria have proved the development in Agriculture. So there is opportunity to expand the crop sprayers market in this region.Crop Sprayers Market: Key playersSome of the identified players in the global Crop Sprayers market are,Chafer Machinery GroupHousehamJohn Rhodes AS limitedBoston Crop SprayersCleveland crop sprayers limitedAvison SprayersS & K sprayersFoggers India Pvt ltd.ASPEE IndiaCrystal Crop Protection Pvt LtdTaizhou Sunny Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd.,Zhejiang Ousen Machinery Co., Ltd.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comPress: press@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Endoprosthesis Market Size, Analysis, and Forecast Report 2016-2026

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An endoprosthesis is an artificial device which replaces a missing body part such as lower and upper body extremities and other organs or parts of the body. It is a science which deals implantation of mechanical devices within human skeleton, peripheral vascular system, cardiovascular system and nervous systems, and other body parts to assist the motor control lost by any disease or disorder. Prosthesis find its application as replace component in missing extremity, such as knee, femur, and wall stent endoprosthesis. Endoprosthesis needed for a variety of reasons, accidents, diseases and disorders, and congenital defects. Endoprosthesis market has huge potential in terms of revenue generation and its fuelled by growing demand for novel technologies and treatment methods.Endoprosthesis Market: Drivers and RestraintsTechnological advancements in endoprosthesis enables effective treatment, rising awareness for prosthetics in orthopedic injuries are fuelling the growth of end prosthesis market and is expected to exhibit a significant growth in near future. Increasing prevalence of orthopedic disorders and peripheral vascular diseases is another major factor. Knee and hip osteoarthritis prevalence is increasing at rapid pace owing to increase in number of geriatric population. Rising awareness among patients and healthcare service providers pertaining to advanced technologies, would provide long term opportunity to growth of endoprosthesis market. However, limited reimbursement policies in low and middle income countries and substandard performance of local product are the major bottlenecks of the market.Request Report Sample@Endoprosthesis Market: SegmentationGlobal endoprosthesis Market can be segmented into product types, end user and region:By Product Type:Wall Stent Endo prostheticsProsthetics Aortic ValvesProsthetics Mitral ValvesProsthetics Pulmonary ValvesProsthetics Tricuspid ValvesBiliary Endo prostheticsUpper Extremity ProstheticsShoulder ProstheticsElbow ProstheticsHand ProstheticsLower Extremity ProstheticsFoot & Ankle ProstheticsKnee ProstheticsTotal Rotational KneeTotal Hinge KneeTotal Femur ReplacementDental ProstheticsBy End user:HospitalsAmbulatory Surgical CentersClinicsEndoprosthesis Market: OverviewGlobally, growing demand for endoprosthesis products such as total knee replacement prosthetics, total femur replacement prosthetics, peripheral vascular prosthetics has been estimated to represents significant growth in overall endoprosthesis market. Increasing the severity of diseases witnessed to a robust market growth in forecasting period. The market is expected to exhibit to a significant CAGR and annual growth rates over the forecast period.Visit For TOC@Endoprosthesis Market: Region-Wise OutlookDepending upon the geographic regions endoprosthesis market is segmented into seven key regions: Those are North America, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Asia pacific excluding japan, Japan, Middle East and Africa. North America witnessed for a high potential endoprosthesis market due to the increased awareness among the people towards advanced technologies. Asian-Pacific region expected to provide lucrative growth of endoprosthesis market due to rapidly evolving healthcare infrastructure, and favorable reimbursement policies in specific countries.Endoprosthesis Market: Key PlayersKey players in endoprosthesis market include Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc., Smith & Nephew Plc, Acumed, LLC, Stryker Corporation, Boston Scientific, Inc., Wright Medical Technology, Inc., and BARD Peripheral Vascular 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:
AIDS Related Primary CNS Lymphoma Market 10-Year Forecast and Trends Analysis Research Report

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Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a viral disease of immune system caused by the infection of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL) is a primary intracranial tumor occurs mostly in patients suffering from severe immunosuppression specifically AIDS. The pathogen responsible for primary CNS lymphoma is Epstein-Barr virus. AIDS associated primary CNS lymphoma diffuses large-cell lymphoma of B-cell which usually occurs in brain or spinal cord. Patients suffering from CNS lymphoma complain about lethargy, headache, neurologic symptoms and signs and changes in mental status. For diagnosing AIDS associated primary CNS lymphoma, Computed Tomography (CT) scan or Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is performed. Biopsy diagnosis is also performed to confirm the results as the lesions reported in MRI and CT scan sometimes generate confusion between toxoplasmosis, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) lesions and lymphoma.AIDS - Related Primary CNS Lymphoma Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe market is expected to witness high growth during the forecast period as number of AIDS patients are increasing across the globe. Likewise, increasing awareness initiatives by government authorities would propel the growth of AIDS - related primary CNS lymphoma market. Also, many pharmaceutical companies are entering into market for developing and manufacturing drugs for preventing and treating AIDS- related primary CNS lymphoma.Request Report Sample@AIDS - Related Primary CNS Lymphoma Market: SegmentationAIDS - related primary CNS lymphoma market is classified on the basis of drug type, distribution channel and geography.Based on the drug type, the global market for AIDS - related primary CNS lymphoma is segmented into the following:MethotrexateThiotepaProcarbazineTemozolomideBased on the distribution channel the global market for AIDS - related primary CNS lymphoma is segmented into the following:Hospitals ClinicsPrivate ClinicsRetail Pharmacies and Drug Storese-commerceBased on the geography the global market for AIDS - related primary CNS lymphoma is segmented into the following:North AmericaLatin AmericaWestern EuropeEastern EuropeAsia PacificJapanMiddle East and AfricaVisit For TOC@AIDS - Related Primary CNS Lymphoma Market: OverviewChemotherapy and radiation therapy are administered for treatment of AIDS - related primary CNS lymphoma. AIDS - related primary CNS lymphoma. Various drugs have been utilized during chemotherapy sessions include methotrexate, thiotepa and procarbazine. For increasing treatment efficiency, rituximab is combined with methotrexate. Temozolomide is also used with those patients who demonstrate fair response to the treatment. The major therapy used for treating AIDS associated primary CNS lymphoma is Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART). Moreover, several clinical trials are being conducted in order to develop and commercialize more precise and exclusive treatments for the condition.AIDS - Related Primary CNS Lymphoma Market: Region-wise OutlookDepending on geographic regions, global AIDS - related primary CNS lymphoma market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan, Japan and Middle East & Africa. North America and Eastern Europe markets are currently at the maturity stage for clinical research and methods for treating AIDS associated primary CNS lymphoma due to their position to use expensive drugs and treatment. However, Asia-Pacific market looks attractive for AIDS associated primary CNS lymphoma treatment owing to increasing awareness among the people about the treatment availability. Considering the treatment types, HAART occupies the major market share among the other available treatments. The institutes which are majorly involved in clinical research for AIDS associated primary CNS lymphoma treatments are the National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases, AIDS Malignancy Clinical Trials Consortium, European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group.AIDS - Related Primary CNS Lymphoma Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players in global AIDS - related primary CNS lymphoma market are Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA, Amgen Inc., Dr. Reddys Laboratories Ltd., Cipla Inc., Celon Laboratories Limited among several 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:
Automotive Stamping Market to Witness Steady Growth through 2026

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Stamping is a metal working process by which a desired shape and structure of a material is achieved. This metal working process is adopted in manufacturing industries engaged in processing of hardened surfaces such as sheet metal and plastics components. Stamping process forms the base of all the building process in automotive industry as more than 80 percent of the components that make up a vehicle is produced by stamping. Both the interior structural components and the exterior build components are produced by this process.Since 2010, the demand for automobiles has increased exponentially after the global economic downturn during 2009. This has led to an increase in demand of the stamping machines so as to meet the demand of an impeding growth in the automotive sector. The increase in usage of stamping machines in the automotive sector attributed to the growth of stamped automotive parts and is forecast to expand at a increasing growth rates during 2016-2026.Request Report Sample@Automotive Stamping Market DynamicsThe market for stamping machines in the automotive sector is driven by reduced lead times required for manufacturing vehicles. The machines are extremely versatile as different modules can be achieved by changing the necessary die. This process has also led to reduced labor requirements as the process can be automated with the help of computers thereby reducing the labor costs. The process helps in reducing scrap wastage as precise amount of raw material is utilized. The production cost incurred in the stamping process is very low and is replacing other metal working processes such as forging and die-casting.Automotive Stamping Market: SegmentationOn the basis of forming temperature, Automotive Stamping Market can be segmented as:Hot StampingCold StampingOn the basis of Stamping process, Automotive Stamping Market can be segmented as:Mechanical ProcessHydraulic ProcessPneumatic ProcessOn the basis of the number of stations required, Automotive Stamping Market can be segmented as:Single Tool StationProgressive StationsVisit For TOC@Automotive Stamping: Regional OutlookThe Global automotive stamping market can be divided into seven geographical locations such as North America, Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific region, Japan, Middle East and Africa. Asia-Pacific market is anticipated to grow steeply in the stamped components, as the automotive sector in China, Japan and India is growing at a rapid pace. In Latin America, Brazil is the strongest automotive stamped components market preceded by Mexico and Argentina, due to improved production and sales of automobiles in these regions. European countries such as U.K. and Germany are also expected to grow in the stamped component market as demand for vehicles in these regions has increased exponentially.Automotive Stamping Market: Key PlayersSome of the major players which provide the Automotive Industry with Stamping Presses areSchuler GroupAIDA GlobalOrchid InternationalEagle Press & Equipment Co. Ltd.Hyundai RotemMacRodyne Hydraulic Presses & AutomationSantec GroupJier North AmericaRidgeview IndustriesBliss-Bret IndustriesABOUT 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 E. Coli Testing Market To Reach USD Around 2.0 Billion by 2021

E. Coli Testing Market

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Zion Research has published a new report titled E. Coli Testing (Membrane Filtration (MF), Enzyme-Substrate Methods, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Tests, And Others) Market for Diagnostic Laboratories, Hospitals, Waste Water Treatment Organizations, Bottle Water Suppliers And Other End-user: Global Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis and Forecast, 2015  2021 According to the report, the global E. coli testing market was valued at around USD 1.2 billion in 2015 and is expected to reach approximately USD 2.0 billion by 2021, growing at a CAGR of around 6.5% between 2016 and 2020.Escherichia coli (E. coli) are a large and diverse group of bacteria which are found in the environment, foods, and intestines of people and animals. The membrane filtration technique is widely used for E. coli test. E. coli are used as indicator organisms to test the effectiveness of effluent disinfection in a wastewater treatment plant. While these organisms are generally harmless to human, that live under the same conditions that human pathogens live.Get a copy of Sample Report:The major driving factor for the global E. coli testing market is increasing government support for E. coli tests and the rising occurrence and high morbidity of E. coli. The development of drug-resistant species is another key factor is anticipated to drive the market growth in the years to come. However, high cost of enzyme-substrate test is expected to curb the market growth in the near future. Nonetheless, technological advancement coupled with increasing use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests for environment water testing is projected to open up new growth opportunities during the forecast period.Based on testing methods, the E. coli testing market can be segmented into membrane filtration (MF), enzyme-substrate methods, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, and others. Enzyme substrate tests accounted for largest share of the total market in 2015. Membrane filtration is another leading segment and expected to exhibit strong growth in the near future.The E. coli testing market is segmented on the basis of different end-user such as diagnostic laboratories, hospitals, waste water treatment organizations, bottle water suppliers and others. Bottle water suppliers segment accounted for large chunk of the market share in the 2015. This growth is mainly attributed to increasing water pollution. Diagnostic laboratories segment is another key outlet and is expected to witness significant growth within the forecast period.Browse the full report at:The E. coli testing market was dominated by Europe with largest share of the total market in 2014. Europe is followed by Asia Pacific and North America in terms of revenue. This growth is mainly due to the occurrence of food borne infections within Germany in 2011 due to the E. coli bacteria.Furthermore, Asia Pacific was another leading regional market in 2015. With increased government support coupled with increasing population, Asia Pacific is expected to witness robust growth during 2015 to 2021. However, Latin America and Middle East & Africa are also expected to exhibit significant growth over the forecast period.Some of the key players including in the E. coli testing market such as Abbott Laboratories, Danaher Corporation, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Enzo Life Sciences, Inc., and Hologic, Meridian Bioscience, Inc., Dickinson and Company among others.This report segments the global E. coli testing market as follows:Global E. Coli Testing Market: Testing Segment AnalysisMembrane Filtration (MF)Enzyme-Substrate MethodsPolymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) TestsOthersGlobal E. Coli Testing Market: End-user Segment AnalysisDiagnostic LaboratoriesHospitalsWaste Water Treatment OrganizationsBottle Water SuppliersOthersGlobal E. Coli Testing Market: Regional Segment AnalysisNorth AmericaEuropeAsia PacificLatin AmericaMiddle East and AfricaAbout UsZion Research 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. Zion Research experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants uses 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 US:Joel John3422 SW 15 Street,Suit #8138Deerfield Beach,Florida 33442United StatesToll Free: +1-855-465-4651 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-386-310-3803Email: sales@marketresearchstore.comWebsite:
More Electric Aircraft Market is Expected to Grow at a CAGR of 4% by 2021

More Electric Aircraft Market

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More Electric Aircraft Market:The Global More Electric Aircraft Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 4% during 2016-2021. This growth is driven due to production of next generation aircraft with more electric capabilities.As per the MRFR analysis, the use of electrical system has reduced the overall cost, thus result in improved operation. This also helps to control emission. The challenges associated with the market are the issues with electrical power system, issues in electrical generator associated with civilian and commercial usage of more electric aircraft.The Americas is leading the global more electric aircraft market; however the demand has increased from emerging nations such as EMEA and Asia Pacific in relation to growing demand for more electric aircraft in civil as well as military aircraft.Key Players of More Electric Aircraft Market: Airbus Honeywell International Raytheon Safran The Boeing Company United Technologies Corporation Thales Group Zodiac Aerospace SA Bombardier TTTech ComputertechnikRequest a Sample Copy @Study Objectives of More Electric Aircraft Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 5 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the Global More Electric Aircraft Market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To analyse the Global More Electric Aircraft 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 types and applications. 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 More Electric Aircraft Market.Browse Full Report @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 AnandMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
APAC Gas Leak Detector Market on Track to US $3143.67 Million by the End of 2020

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Global gas leak detectors market accounted for US$ 2,312.2 Mn in 2014 and while exhibiting a CAGR of 5.3% over the forecast period. The Global Gas Leak Detector Market is expected to reach US$ 3143.67 Mn by the end of 2020, representing a CAGR of 5.29% through 2015 to 2020.A sample of this report is available upon request @Key driving factors, identified in the global gas leak detectors market are stringent government safety norms, growing investment in oil & gas and chemical Industries and increasing commercial and residential infrastructure development. However, lower profit margin due to intense competition, deferred investments in oil and gas might pose a challenge towards the growth of the global gas leak detector market. Some of the major trends identified in the global gas leak detector market are the use of internet of everything (IoT) and artificial neural network technology and gas leak detectors.The global gas leak detector market report is categorically split under four sections namely: market analysis by region, applications, product type and technology. The report analyses the global gas leak detector market in terms of market value (US$ Mn) and volume (Million Units).From a regional perspective, North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Western Europe together contributed 50% of the global gas leak detector market value in year 2014. Whilst Asia Pacific excluding Japan contributed total 35%, making it the largest geographical segment in the global gas leak detector market. The Middle East and Africa gas leak detector market is projected to grow at promising CAGR of 6.27% through the forecast period.From the product type perspective, Portable type gas leak detectors accounted a leading share in the global gas leak detector market value in 2014, which is projected to remain dominant throughout the forecast period. The fixed type gas leak detector market is projected to exhibit CAGR of approximately 3.8% for the year 2015 to 2020.On the basis of technology type, the electrochemical based gas leak detector is the predominant segment with total share of about 38%, whilst the ultrasonic, semiconductor and infrared based gas leak detector cumulatively accounted for 46.6% % in the global gas leak detector market value in 2014. When compared with other remaining technology segment the infrared based gas leak detectors is projected to grow at higher CAGR of 6.30% over the forecast period.Request to view Table of content @From an application perspective, the Industrial application segment of the gas leak detector is the largest segment of the global gas leak detector market in 2014. Out of the sub-segment oil & gas is the major segment, holding the largest market share as compared with other remaining sub-segment. On the other hand, the market value accounted in year 2014 by commercial establishment application segment is approximately 2.5X of the value registered by the residential segment. Others application segment is expected to grow with a CAGR of 7.1% from 2015 to 2020.Key market participants covered in the report include MSA Safety Inc., Honeywell International Inc., TycoInternational plc, Dragerwerk AG & Co. KgaA, Emerson Electric Company and other players.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @About Persistence Market ResearchPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each PMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With a wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports strive to serve clients and satisfy their overall research requirement.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
2017 Research: Global UHP Tyres Market Forecast 2021 Report

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UHP Tyres Report by Material, Application, and Geography  Global Forecast to 2021 is a professional and in-depth research report on the world's major regional market conditions, focusing on the main regions (North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific) and the main countries (United States, Germany, united Kingdom, Japan, South Korea and China).Request a sample of Global UHP Tyres Market Research Report @The report firstly introduced the UHP Tyres basics: definitions, classifications, applications and market overview; product specifications; manufacturing processes; cost structures, raw materials and so on. Then it analyzed the world's main region market conditions, including the product price, profit, capacity, production, supply, demand and market growth rate and forecast etc. In the end, the report introduced new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis.Browse the full Global UHP Tyres Industry Research Report @The report includes six parts, dealing with: Basic information The Asia UHP Tyres Market The North American UHP Tyres Market The European UHP Tyres Market Market entry and investment feasibility The report conclusionSome of the points from table of content:Part I UHP Tyres Industry OverviewChapter One UHP Tyres Industry Overview1.1 UHP Tyres Definition1.2 UHP Tyres Classification Analysis1.2.1 UHP Tyres Main Classification Analysis1.2.2 UHP Tyres Main Classification Share Analysis1.3 UHP Tyres Application Analysis1.3.1 UHP Tyres Main Application Analysis1.3.2 UHP Tyres Main Application Share Analysis1.4 UHP Tyres Industry Chain Structure Analysis1.5 UHP Tyres Industry Development Overview1.5.1 UHP Tyres Product History Development Overview1.5.1 UHP Tyres Product Market Development Overview1.6 UHP Tyres Global Market Comparison Analysis1.6.1 UHP Tyres Global Import Market Analysis1.6.2 UHP Tyres Global Export Market Analysis1.6.3 UHP Tyres Global Main Region Market Analysis1.6.4 UHP Tyres Global Market Comparison Analysis1.6.5 UHP Tyres Global Market Development Trend AnalysisChapter Two UHP Tyres Up and Down Stream Industry Analysis2.1 Upstream Raw Materials Analysis2.1.1 Upstream Raw Materials Price Analysis2.1.2 Upstream Raw Materials Market Analysis2.1.3 Upstream Raw Materials Market Trend2.2 Down Stream Market Analysis2.1.1 Down Stream Market Analysis2.2.2 Down Stream Demand Analysis2.2.3 Down Stream Market Trend AnalysisPart II Asia UHP Tyres Industry (The Report Company Including the Below Listed But Not All)Chapter Three Asia UHP Tyres Market Analysis3.1 Asia UHP Tyres Product Development History3.2 Asia UHP Tyres Competitive Landscape Analysis3.3 Asia UHP Tyres Market Development TrendChapter Four 2012-2017 Asia UHP Tyres Productions Supply Sales Demand Market Status and Forecast4.1 2012-2017 UHP Tyres Capacity Production Overview4.2 2012-2017 UHP Tyres Production Market Share Analysis4.3 2012-2017 UHP Tyres Demand Overview4.4 2012-2017 UHP Tyres Supply Demand and Shortage4.5 2012-2017 UHP Tyres Import Export Consumption4.6 2012-2017 UHP Tyres Cost Price Production Value Gross MarginThe Report Contains: 165 Pages.Price of the report: 2850$ (single user license)Make an enquire of this 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 customized 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 specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Contact Us:Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas - 75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +912064101019Follow Us on LinkedIn:Follow us on Twitter:Follow us on G+ :
APAC Broadcasting Equipment Market to be Worth US$ 5,104.8 Million by 2024

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According to the latest report published by Persistence Market Research, titled Broadcasting Equipment Market: Asia Pacific Industry Analysis and Forecast, 20162024, the broadcasting equipment market in APAC region is expected to be valued at US$ 5,104.8 Mn by 2024.A sample of this report is available upon request @The broadcasting equipment market in APAC region was valued at US$ 2487.5 Mn in 2015 and is expected to register a CAGR of 8.1% from 2016 to 2024. The growth of broadcasting equipment market in APAC region is primarily driven by convergence of high definition technologies such as 4K with IP. As per the report, 4K services are expected to be available on IP networks over the next four to five years via satellite launching and cable platforms.The report has segmented the APAC broadcasting equipment market into traditional TV broadcast, traditional radio broadcast, IP converged broadcasting and asset management systems.Traditional TV broadcast segment was valued at US$ 1123 Mn in 2015 and is anticipated to register a CAGR of 8.1% during the forecast period (20162024). The traditional radio broadcast segment was valued at US$ 544 Mn in 2015 and is anticipated to register a CAGR of 7.5% during the forecast period. The IP converged broadcasting is projected to be the fastest growing segment in APAC broadcasting equipment market, exhibiting a CAGR of 10.0% during the forecast period.Traditional TV broadcast segment accounted for 45.1% share in terms of value of the total APAC broadcasting equipment market in 2015. Consumption of high definition content in APAC region is increasing at a rapid pace, supported by rising sales of HD ready TVs.The traditional TV broadcast equipment market is further segmented into camera, monitors, routers, switchers, cable, transmitter, receiver and other accessories. Routers sub-segment is projected to expand at the highest CAGR of 9.2% during the forecast period. Content creators across the region are shifting towards 4K cameras in order to capture high definition video. This is being supported by sales of 4K UHD television that has gained momentum due to rising disposable income in the region.Key players of the APAC Broadcasting Equipment market include Media Excel Inc.(US), ChyronHego Corporation (US), TVU Networks Corporation (US), XOR Media Inc.(US), FOR-A Company (Japan), ORACLE Corporation (US), Unlimi-Tech Software Inc. (US), Grass Valley (Canada) and General Dynamics Mediaware (Australia).Request to view Table of content @This report covers trends that are driving each segment and offers analysis and insights regarding the potential of the broadcasting equipment market in APAC regions.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @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 Public Safety LTE Devices Market 2017 - Alcatel-Lucent, General Dynamics Mission Systems, Harris, Motorola Solutions, Raytheon

Public Safety LTE Devices

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LTE is widely used among enterprises as well as public safety agencies for communicating with convenience. Due to the bandwidth limitations of traditional voice-centric LMR networks, public safety agencies are interested in leveraging commercial cellular network technology to support the growing requirement of broadband applications. Considering its booming network, spectrum flexibility, and performance metrics, LTE has emerged as the leading entrant for public safety mobile broadband networks.Do Enquiry For Sample Report @Technavios analysts forecast the global public safety LTE devices market to grow at a CAGR of 18.52% during the period 2016-2020.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global public safety LTE devices market for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from sales of public safety LTE devices, sales of Enhanced Node B (eNB), handheld devices, routers, and modules.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography: APAC EMEA North America South and Central AmericaTechnavio's report, Global Public Safety LTE Devices Market 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Do Enquiry Before Purchasing Report @Key vendors Alcatel-Lucent General Dynamics Mission Systems Harris Motorola Solutions RaytheonOther prominent vendors Airbus Airspan Networks Cisco Systems Ericsson Huawei Technologies ZTEMarket driver Rise in demand for emergency communication solutions For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challenge Cross-border security issues For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trend Rise in number of devices supporting LTE and LMR networks For a full, detailed list, view our reportBrowse Complete Report @Key questions answered in this report What will the market size be in 2020 and what will the growth rate be? What are the key market trends? What is driving this market? What are the challenges to market growth? Who are the key vendors in this market space? What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?You can request one free hour of our analysts time when you purchase this market report. Details are provided within the report.About US:Big Market Research uniqueness lies in its highly ethical reports at economical rates because we value your relationship and growth more than money. Your growth is our aim. With the arsenal of different search reports, we help you here to look and buy research reports that will be helpful to you and your organization. Our research reports have the capability and authenticity to support your organization for growth and consistency.Contact US:Dhananjay Potle5933 NE Win Sivers Drive,#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesDirect :+ 1-503-894-6022Toll Free : + 1-800-910-6452Email: help@bigmarketresearch.comWeb:
Security-as-a-Service Market to Value at 17.1% CAGR by 2026

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Adopting the business model of Security-as-a-Service (SaaS) has become a pragmatic choice for companies looking at integrating security with their business infrastructure. Furthermore, emerging technological trends related to the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud-computing will continue to compel more businesses towards implementation of a Security-as-a-Service business model, which will incidentally benefit them through cost savings. Persistence Market Researchs report on the global Security-as-a-Service market titled Global Market Study on Security-as-a-Service: IT & Telecom and BFSI Industry Segments Major Adopters of Security-as-a-Service Solutions , includes a comprehensive study that has predicted the market to attain US$ 3.3 billion in value by the end of 2016. Over a ten-year forecast period of 2016-2026, the global Security-as-a-Service market is projected to expand at a staggering CAGR of 17.1%.Telecom & IT remains the largest industry for SaaS. Healthcare, Retail & Consumer Goods, and BFSI are the other prominent industries for the global SaaS market. The risks of data loss in the healthcare industry can disrupt dozens of associated businesses such as insurance reimbursement and drug development, and with it, compromise the health of millions of patients. Cloud computing is being merged in the global finance industry, but protection of electronic transactions has necessitated the need for amalgamating a Security-as-a-Service business model. By the end of the forecast period, Healthcare and BFSI industries will account for a market value share of 20.3% and 17.7% respectively, with the global IT & Telecom sector accounting for a revenue share of nearly 30%.Providing security services to large enterprises remains a lucrative revenue-generation business model for leading players. By 2026, large enterprises such as conglomerates or multinational corporations will procure about 50% share of global market value, higher than the collective revenue share of small and medium enterprises. Meanwhile, companies in the global Security-as-a-Service market have transformed from being service providers, software developers, and security platform providers to managed security service providers and integrators of Security-as-a-Service for client enterprises. Some of the leading market players profiled in this report include Intel Security, Oracle Corporation, Cisco Systems, Inc., Gemalto NV, Qualys Inc., Alert Logic Inc., Trend Micro Inc., Proofpoint Inc., Zscaler, Inc., and Okta, Inc.Interlinked businesses within a company or within multiple corporations are exposed to the threats of network breach, now that cybercrime is at large. As a countermeasure, business operations need to be integrated with security services that safeguard the companies, not just at the firewall level, but at an out-and-out networking parameter. Fusing a security-based business model in an existing and complicated corporate structure can be really formidable for companies, considering the added expenditure of developing an individual security service.Request to view table of content @Additionally, companies are not looking to further implicate their operational accountabilities by gaining a total ownership of such developed security services. Ergo, the growth of the global market for Security-as-a-Service will be primarily driven by increasing partnerships of companies with service providers offering subscription-based security. So, cost advantages of integrating a Security-as-a-Service business model will encourage more companies to upgrade security measures of their businesses.A sample of this report is available upon request @Cloud-based security services are proliferating the US corporate world; from budding startups to established conglomerates. North Americas robust Telecom and IT infrastructure aids the extension of its Security-as-a-Service market, which is anticipated to garner revenues worth US$ 8 billion by 2026-end. With an estimated global market revenue share of 36.4% in 2016, North Americas Security-as-a-Service market will account for nearly half of the global market by the end of 2026, growing at the fastest CAGR among all the regions. Meanwhile, the Security-as-a-Service market in Western Europe will expand gradually, generating an opportune incremental value of an estimated US$ 3,059.6 million over the forecast period. Other regions analyzed in the report include Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa (MEA).Buy Now: You can now buy a single user license of the report @The final report customized as per your specific requirement will be sent to your e-mail id within 7-20 days, depending on the scope of the report.For more information, please e-mail us at sales@persistencemarketresearch.comAbout UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Global Cyclic Olefin Polymer (COP) Market Analysis, Trend and Forecast to 2021

Cyclic Olefin Polymer (COP) Analysis Market

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Market Research Future provides a detailed analysis of 10 years forecast of Cyclic Olefin Polymer market research between 2011 and 2021 and it is expected that Cyclic Olefin Polymer market will register the CAGR of more than 1.25% during the forecast period.Market Highlights:Cyclic Olefin Polymer (COP) also known as Ethylene Copolymer, Clyclon Olefin Copolymer and Ethylene-norbornene Copolymer, is a chemical substance which is precisely used in the manufacturing of packaging of materials mostly used in the healthcare, pharmaceutical, electronic and optical industries among others. Cyclic Olefin Polymer (COP) is an amorphous polymer made by several polymer manufacturers. Cyclic Olefin Polymer (COP) is a relatively new class of polymers as compared to commodities such as polypropylene and polyethylene. Increasing demand from end-user industries such as lenses, packaging films, displays, vials and medical devices is escalating the demand for Cyclic Olefin Polymer market.Moving ahead, the report offers comprehensive analysis of industry overview of Cyclic Olefin Polymer (COP) which includes classification, chemical structure, application analysis, supply chain management and key regulations in various regions along with the COP distributor analysis.Request a Sample Copy @Nextly, the report covers geographical analysis of countries includes China, India, Japan, US and Rest of the World. Furthermore, the report has been bifurcated on the basis of by technology (ring-opening materials polymerization (ROMP) and non-ring opened products), chemical structure (A-Series, B-Series, C-Series, and D-Series), by application (packaging, healthcare and optical and electronics industries).Afterwards, the report provides manufacturing cost analysis of Cyclic olefin Polymers (COP) which includes raw material suppliers, equipment suppliers, process analysis along with their pricing analysis. Additionally, it provides the different types of COPs with their market size, technical and manufacturing plants analysis includes capacity and commercial dates of manufacturers along with R&D status and raw material supplier data.Regional Analysis:Global Cyclic Olefin Polymer market has been seen a prospective growth in the US and Europe in recent year as these regions have captured a large number of industries such as pharmaceutical, electronic, optical and others. The megatrends which may become a global market influencer for this product are global connectivity and rapid growth in North America and Latin America because of the huge demand for electronic products. In the Middle East & Africa and Asia-Pacific, the market of Cyclic Olefin Polymer (COP) is also generating huge demand from the emerging middle-class population and rapid urbanization. Also, the scenario has taken place due to increase in purchasing power of the customer in some parts of the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East & Africa includes South Africa, India, China and others.The Cyclic olefin polymers analysis market research report provides detail analysis of market in terms of value market. The report also provides the future outlook of the market till 2021. Moreover, the global as well as market share of various players based on methods is also analyzed in the report. Lastly, the report provides company profiles of major players in the market.Lastly, the report provides trends, drivers and restraints along with the conclusion.Browse full report @Research Methodology:To calculate Cyclic Olefin Polymer Market size, we have considered revenue and capacity of top players in the market and to offer accuracy, our research is supported by industry experts who offer insight on industry structure and technology assessment, competitive landscape, penetration, emerging products and trends. Their analysis is based (80 to 85%) on primary & (15 to 20%) on secondary research as well as years of professional expertise in their respective industries. In addition to analyze current and historical trends, our analysts predict where the market is headed over the next five to ten years. It varies by segment for these categories geographically presented in the list of market tables. Top-down and bottom-up are important strategies of processing the information and knowledge ordering, used in a variety of fields including humanistic, software and scientific theories and management and organization. In practice, they can be seen as a style of thinking, teaching, or leadership.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 AnandMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Global Escherichia Coli (E. Coli) Diagnostic Testing Market

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The Escherichia Coli Diagnostic Testing Market report provides in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macro-economic indicators and governing factors along with market attractiveness as per segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and geographies.Escherichia coli (E. coli), is a bacterium which normally lives in the intestines of humans and animals. Some types of E. coli are an important part of a healthy human intestinal system. However, others are pathogenic and can cause illness and diarrhea. E. coli that cause diarrhea can be transmitted through contaminated water and food or through contact with animals or persons. Pathogenic E. coli strains are categorized into pathotypes. Six pathotypes of E. coli are associated with diarrhea and are collectively referred to as diarrheagenic E. coli. They are diffusely adherent E. coli (DAEC), enteroinvasive E. coli (EIEC), enteroaggregative E. coli (EAEC), enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC), enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC), and shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC). Major sign and symptoms of E. coli infection include abdominal pain, diarrhea, and nausea and vomiting. Cases of E. coli infection are usually confirmed by the detection of bacteria in stool samples of infected individuals.A sample of this report is available upon request @E. coli is mainly found in contaminated food, especially undercooked ground beef, soft cheese made from raw milk, unpasteurized (raw) milk and juice, raw fruits and vegetables (such as sprouts), contaminated water, including untreated drinking water, and feces of infected people. Moreover, the bacterium is also present on the body surface of animals, such as sheep, cows, and goats.The global E. coli diagnostic testing market is categorized on the basis of various types of emerging diagnostic procedures and end users. Based on type of technology, the report covers monoclonal antibodies, molecular diagnostics, differential light scattering, immunoassays, flow cytometry, chromatography, gel microdroplets, diagnostic imaging, and others. Based on end user, the report covers commercial or private labs, physician offices, hospitals, public health labs, and academic research institutes.In terms of geography, North America dominates the global E. coli diagnostic testing market. This is due to increased government funding on healthcare infrastructure in the region. In addition, technological advancement in E. coli diagnostic procedures has also propelled the market in North America. The U.S. represents the largest market for E. coli diagnostic testing in North America, followed by Canada. In Europe, Germany, France, and the U.K. hold major shares of the E. coli diagnostic testing market. The E. coli diagnostic testing market in Asia is also expected to show high growth rates in the next five years. This is due to various initiatives undertaken by governments to increase awareness about E. coli infections. In addition, increased investments by many foreign diagnostic instrument companies have also propelled the growth of the E. coli diagnostic testing market in the region. India, China, and Japan are expected to be the fastest growing markets for E. coli diagnostic testing in Asia.Advanced application of bacterial diagnostic instruments is a key driver for the global E. coli diagnostic testing market. Also, increased government support in the form of funding and rapid technological advancement has fueled the growth of this market.Increasing number of mergers and acquisitions of diagnostic consumables manufacturing companies and rapid product launches are key trends of the global E. coli diagnostic testing market.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @The major companies operating in this market are Abbott Laboratories, Beckman Coulter, Wako, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Affymetrix, Inc., bioMerieux, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific, Siemens AG, F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Cepheid, Inc., GenBio, Olympus Corporation, Novartis, and Johnson & Johnson.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Global Cell Culture Market Growth, Size or Share Estimated to increase by 2016  2024

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Zion Market Research, the market research group announced the analysis report titled "Cell Culture Market: Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecasts 20162024"Global Cell Culture Market: OverviewThe global cell culture market is escalating due the high demand for cell cultures throughout the global. The culturing of the live animal and plant cells in an artificial environment is called as cell culture. The culturing of the cells has a number of applications such as growing viruses, production of vaccines, enzymes, immunobiological products, anticancer agents, hormones and also for carrying out a number of molecular biology experiments, that is, gene expression.Request Free Sample Report @Global Cell Culture Market: Growth FactorsThe factors such as the increasing demand for monoclonal antibodies, technological advancements in the product of the cell culture, funding for research which are cell-based, high use of single-use technologies, increasing occurrence of chronic diseases and the increasing regulatory or government approvals for vaccines that are cell culture based are influencing the global cell culture market growth.Global Cell Culture Market: SegmentationThe global cell culture market is categorized based on products, end-users, applications and regions. The product segment is divided into two the instruments and consumables. The instruments segment is further bifurcated into bioreactors, cell culture supporting instruments, cell culture storage equipment, and cell culture vessels and bioreactors. The bioreactor subsegment is further segmented into single-use bioreactors and conventional bioreactors. The subsegment cell culture supporting instruments segment is further divided into cell counters, filtration systems, centrifuges, biosafety cabinets, microscopes, autoclaves, CO2 incubators and other supporting instruments. The cell culture storage equipment segment is further bifurcated into cryostorage systems, and freezers and refrigerators. The cell culture vessel segment is sub segmented into Petri dishes, flasks, multi-well plates, roller bottles/Roux bottles and cell factory/cell stacks. The consumables segment is further subdivided into seria, media and reagents and bioreactors accessories. The seria segment is sub-segmented into fetal bovine sera, adult bovine sera and other animal sera. The media segment is bifurcated into classical media and salts, serum-free media, stem cell media and speciality media. The reagents is categorized into cryoprotective agents, contamination detection kits, buffers and chemicals, cell dissociation reagents, supplements and growth factors, balanced salt solution, antibiotics/antimycotics and other reagents. The application segment is bifurcated into biopharmaceuticals/therapeutics, cancer research, stem cell technology, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, drug screening and development and other applications. The biopharmaceuticals/therapeutics is sub-segmented into vaccine production, therapeutic protein and diagnostics. The end-user segment is further divided into research institutes and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Out of these, the end-user segments pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies subsegment is the one expected to witness highest growth rate.Request Report TOC (Table of Contents) @Global Cell Culture Market: Regional AnalysisNorth America dominates the global cell culture market due to the high demand for the market in this region. However, the Asian cell culture market is also a emerging due to the demand for low-manufacturing costs, favorable regulatory or legislative guidelines, regulatory bodies support for the production of vaccines, which are cell culture-based and the focus of the global market players on emerging Asian economies. The European region is following the footsteps as well.Global Cell Culture Market: Competitive PlayersThe major players in the global cell culture market include Merck KGaA, Sartorius AG, GE Healthcare , Lonza Group AG Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., Becton, Dickinson and Company, Eppendorf AG, Corning, Inc., Hi-Media Laboratories and Promocell GmbH. The global market is a highly influencing market as the emerging as well as the well-established players show tremendous changes in the growth.Browse detail report @Global Cell Culture Market: Regional Segment AnalysisNorth AmericaU.S.EuropeUKFranceGermanyAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaLatin AmericaBrazilThe Middle 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 Antithrombin III Deficiency Testing Market

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The Antithrombin III Deficiency Testing Market report provides in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macro-economic indicators and governing factors along with market attractiveness as per segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and geographies.Antithrombin deficiencies are mainly divided into two types: type I and type II. The type I antithrombin deficiency is characterized by an inadequate amount of normal antithrombin present in the bloodstream. In this condition, there is simply not enough antithrombin present to inactivate the coagulation factors. The type II antithrombin deficiency is characterized by adequate amount of antithrombin present in the bloodstream. However, it does not function properly and is unable to carry out its normal functions.A sample of this report is available upon request @Antithrombin III is a non-vitamin, K-dependent protease that naturally blocks abnormal blood clot formation in the bloodstream. Deficiency of antithrombin III causes various blood clot disorders in the human body. For instance, congenital antithrombin III deficiency is a common antithrombin deficiency, which usually occurs when individuals receive the abnormal antithrombin III gene from their parents. This abnormal gene causes abnormal blood clots in the human body which block blood flow and damage organs.The major symptoms of blood clotting include fainting, coughing up blood, shortness of breath, pain when taking deep breaths, and swelling of legs. In addition, some physical symptoms of blood clots are abnormal lung sounds, fast breathing, swollen foot or leg, and fast heart rate.The global antithrombin III deficiency testing market is categorized on the basis of various types of deficiencies, diagnostic procedures, and end users. Based on the type of deficiencies, the report covers type I antithrombin deficiency and type II antithrombin deficiency. Based on the type of technology, the report covers monoclonal antibodies, molecular diagnostics, differential light scattering, immunoassays, flow cytometry, chromatography, gel micro droplets, diagnostic imaging, and others. Based on end users, the report covers commercial or private labs, physician offices, hospitals, public health labs, and academic research institutes.In terms of geography, North America dominates the global antithrombin III deficiency testing market. This is due to increased government funding on healthcare infrastructure in the region. In addition, technological advancement in antithrombin III diagnostic procedures has also propelled the market in North America. The U.S. represents the largest market for antithrombin deficiency testing in North America, followed by Canada. In Europe, Germany, France, and the U.K. hold the major shares of the antithrombin III deficiency testing market. The antithrombin III deficiency testing market in Asia is also expected to show high growth rates in the next five years. This is due to the various initiatives undertaken by governments to increase awareness about blood clotting disorders in the region. In addition, increased investments by many foreign diagnostic instrument companies have also propelled the growth of the antithrombin III deficiency testing market in the region. India, China, and Japan are expected to be the fastest-growing markets for antithrombin III deficiency testing in Asia.Advanced applications of antithrombin deficiency diagnostic instruments and increasing prevalence of blood clot disorders are the key drivers for the global antithrombin III deficiency testing market. Also, increased government support in the form of funding and rapid technological advancements have fueled the growth of this market.An increasing number of mergers and acquisitions involving diagnostic consumables manufacturing companies and rapid product launches are the key trends in the global antithrombin III deficiency testing market.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @The major companies operating in this market are Abbott Laboratories, Avocet Medical Inc., Axis-Shield plc, Beckman Coulter Inc., Becton, Dickinson and Company, Trinity Biotech PLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., Siemens AG, Roche, Chrono-log Corporation, Sysmex Corporation, Hyphen Biomed and American Diagnostica GmbH.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Dry Eye Syndrome Treatment Market : Latest Innovations, Drivers and Industry Key Events 2016 - 2026

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Dry eye syndrome (DES) refers to the condition of lack of tears to lubricate and provide sufficient moisture to the eye. Tears help to maintain eye health and provide clear vision. Some of the symptoms of dry eye syndrome are irritation, itching, pain, burning, watery eyes and unclear vision. Some of the treatment options to control these symptoms of dry eye syndrome are lubricant treatments, anti-inflammatory treatments, autologous serum eye drops and surgery.Currently, the companies which are operates in dry eye syndrome treatment, entering into the mergers and acquisition with other companies and launching new products to expand its dry eye syndrome treatment business. For instant, in June 2015, Allergan plc, a pharmaceutical company acquired Oculeve Inc, a medical device company that focuses on new technologies for dry eye disease for increasing its position in the dry eye syndrome treatment market. In addition, in October 2015, Allergan plc launched artificial tear REFRESH OPTIVE gel drops to provide artificial tear option to relieve dry eye symptoms. In 2014, Nicox S.A. a French pharmaceutical company launched AdenoPlus and Xailin to relief of dry eye symptoms.Globally, increasing patient population with dry eye syndrome and rising need for better healthcare facilities for eye disease treatment, which results the dry eye syndrome treatment market is also increasing.Request Report Sample@Dry Eye Syndrome Treatment Market: Drivers and RestraintsIncreasing number of patient with dry eye syndrome, growing awareness about syndrome, rising demand for advanced treatment for dry eye syndrome, growing patient population of various diseases that can causes dry eye syndrome such as diabetes, lupus, scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren's syndrome, thyroid disorders and vitamin A deficiency, increasing research and development activities, government initiative and growing elderly population are some of the factors that drive the growth of the dry eye syndrome treatment market.However, expiration of blockbuster drug patents and self-medication by patients act as an inhibitor for this market.Dry Eye Syndrome Treatment Market: SegmentationGlobal dry eye syndrome treatment market is further segmented into following types:By Treatment TypeLubricant Eye DropsPreservative-Free DropsOily Tear Eye DropsEye OintmentsAnti-inflammatory DrugsCorticosteroidTetracyclines OralAutologous Serum Eye DropsDry Eye Syndrome Treatment Market: Region- wise OutlookThe global dry eye syndrome treatment market is expected to register a healthy CAGR for the forecast period. Depending on geographic regions, global dry eye syndrome treatment market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan and Middle East & Africa.North America followed by Europedominates the global dry eye syndrome treatment market due to increasing number of patients with dry eye syndrome, developed healthcare infrastructure, increasing various diseases that causes dry eye syndrome such as diabetes, lupus, scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren's syndrome, thyroid disorders and vitamin A deficiency in these region and rising the usages of certain medicines such as pain relievers, antihistamines, decongestants, blood pressure medications, antidepressants as these medicines can reduce the amount of tears produced in the eyes result in dry eyes. Asia-Pacific is the fastest emerging market for global dry eye syndrome treatment due to rising cases of dry eye syndrome, developing healthcare infrastructure, increasing disposable income and growing patient population for various diseases that causes dry eye syndrome such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, etc. and rising government spending in healthcare industry in this region.Request For TOC@Dry Eye Syndrome Treatment Market: Key PlayersSome of the key market players in global dry eye syndrome treatment market are Novartis, Allergan Inc., Otsuka Holdings Co., Ltd., Santen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Nicox, ArGentis, Auven Therapeutics (Celtic), Bridge Pharma Inc. and Cellzome GmbH.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:
Latin America Capnography Equipment Market Expected to be Valued US$ 30.2 Million by 2021

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According to a new market report published by Persistence Market Research Latin America Capnography Equipment Market: Brazil to Witness Highest Growth by 2021, the capnography equipment market for Latin America was valued at USD 9.7 million in 2014 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 17.5 % from 2014 to 2021, to reach USD 30.2 million by 2021.The capnography equipment market is growing rapidly in Latin America majorly due to the recommendations to use capnography in routine hospital settings by esteemed organizations and government bodies. The World Health Organization (WHO), in its 2009 report on safe surgery, recommended the use of capnography monitoring during endotracheal tube placement, hypoventilation, and esophageal intubation for better outcome. The Uruguayan Society of Anesthesiologists and the American Society of Anesthesiologists recommended capnography monitoring in routine-use during procedural sedation and anesthetics. These guidelines substantiate the importance of capnography equipment in hospital use. Moreover, high impact of the U.S. health care system on the health care market in Latin America is augmenting the capnography equipment market in this region.Based on types of capnograph, the sidestream capnograph segment dominated the capnography equipment market in 2014, with a share of around 52.9%. Easy-to-use and capability to monitor the patient in non-intubated condition are the major factors that contributed to the high demand for sidestream capnograph. Additionally, presence of large number of players including local companies offering sidestream capnograph in their portfolio has increased the awareness and demand for sidestream capnograph in Latin America. The microstream capnograph segment has been projected to witness high growth during the forecast period in Latin America as these are cost-effective and offer several advantages in all hospital settings. The device could also be used for monitoring both non-intubated patients and neonates. However, sidestream capnograph cannot be used to monitor neonatal patients and mainstream capnograph lack the capability to monitor non-intubated patients.Based on countries, Brazil held the largest share of around 31.4% of the capnography equipment market in Latin America in 2014. High demand for plastic surgery, rising medical tourism for various types of dental surgeries, cosmetic surgeries and cardiac procedure, and large proportion of GDP expenditure on health care in Brazil are the major factors propelling the capnography equipment market in the region. Brazil is anticipated to be the fastest growing market for capnography equipment in Latin America during the forecast period.A Sample of this report is available upon request @Key players operating in the capnography equipment market in Latin America include Dragerwerk AG & Co. KGaA, Masimo Corporation, Medtronic, Inc., NIHON KOHDEN CORPORATION, Nonin Medical, Inc., Philips Healthcare, Smiths Medical, and Welch Allyn, Inc. Market players are continuously engaged in developing new and advanced capnography equipment along with additional features to strengthen their position in the capnography equipment market.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Halal Pharmaceuticals Market : Value Chain, Dynamics and Key Players (2016 - 2026)

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Halal pharmaceuticals are those medicines that stringently adhere to Shariah law. More specifically, halal pharmaceuticals refer to medicines that should not contain any parts of animals (dogs, pigs and ones particularly with pointed teeth), insects (bees), alcohol and other substances prohibited as haram under the Shariah law. Competent religious local regulatory bodies in countries generally provide a better segregation regarding the classification of drugs as halal or haram (unlawful) across the world. Halal pharmaceuticals are subject to normal pre-marketing and post-marketing controls by the relevant national pharmaceutical regulators such as the National Pharmaceutical Control Bureau in case of Malaysia. Halal medicines market has vast potential globally in terms of revenue generation supported by growing demand for faith-compliant medicines from an expanding Muslim population. Drugs approved by halal drug certifiying agencies such as Lembaga Pengkajian Pangan Obatobatan dan Kosmetika Majelis Ulama Indonesia (LPPOM MUI) of Indonesia and Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia are expected to witness rising consumption globally. Currently, halal medicines are estimated to have contributed close to one-third of the total revenue from the global halal market, posing an extremely attractive opportunity for Shariah compliant drugs. This is supported by the fact that demand outstrips supply of halal medicines by a significant margin, creating potential for future economic value added in the industry.Halal Pharmaceuticals Market: Drivers and RestraintsDrivers of the halal pharmaceuticals market include a growing Muslim population. Given that Muslims have been estimated to account for close to 25% of the global population in 2015~1.6 billion people (PewResearch)  the annual growth rate of the Muslim population has been estimated to be ~1.6%, which is higher than the growth rate of the world population (1.1% per annum). Increasing awareness among Muslims regarding wellness and medicines is propagating mainly through increased education. This is another prime factor contributing to growth of the halal medicine market. Other socio-economic factors driving the need and uptake of halal medicines include rising purchasing power parity, increasing access to critical medicines in resource-constrained nations supported by public organizations such as World Health Organization, safety of consumption, assurance of product efficacy and hygienic processing among others. Increasing need to get medicines certified from an approved regulatory body is driving regulatory convergence in the halal medicines market among countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, Turkey, France and others.Request Report Sample@Key restraints include lack of adequate infrastructure in non-Islamic countries to avoid cross-contamination between halal and non-halal production lines, and lack of sufficient halal advisory and certification agencies to approve medical products. Other restraints include dearth of sufficient R&D for halal medicines globally and omission of critical medicine classes such as vaccines and biologics as they do not comply with Shariah norms. Ban on use of forbidden components such as porcine excipients also limit the number of drugs that can be produced. Industry experts have noted that formation of a proper, well-regulated and harmonized accreditation and halal management system could serve a long way in raising demand for halal medicines.Halal Pharmaceuticals Market: SegmentationHalal pharmaceuticals market can be segmented as indicated below:Segmentation by drug classesRespiratory drugsCardiovascular drugsEndocrine drugsPain medicationsAllergies (cough &cold)OthersSegmentation by product typeTabletsSyrupsCapsulesOthersSegmentation by source materialPlant and plant derivativesAnimals (compliant under religious laws)Synthetic and semi-synthetic sourcesRecombinant DNASegmentation by regionsRequest For TOC@Halal Pharmaceuticals Market: OverviewUptake of Halal medicines is gaining major traction globally, primarily due to two reasons. Firstly, these medicines are fully compliant with faith and so are readily acceptable under religious laws. Secondly, these medicines are very well assessed for quality and certification before being released into the market and are mostly made using herbal and synthetic materials. The market for halal pharmaceuticals is expected to register a significant CAGR as well as annual growth rates over the forecast period. Regulatory harmonization and regional regulatory convergence is expected to emerge as the key market trends in the near future.Halal Pharmaceuticals Market: Region-wise OutlookOn the basis of geographic regions, halal drug market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan and Middle East & Africa.In terms of geography, Asia Pacific region is the main region exhibiting development and uptake of halal medicines, particularly in countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. However, R&D activities related to halal medicines are gaining traction in the European and North American regions. Discussion on formation of halal medicine certification agencies and guidelines are key features found in the traditionally pharmaceutically developed markets. Companies producing halal medicines are expected to enter Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Turkey, Iran, Qatar, Russia, France, Libya, Algeria and Singapore as well as the UAE to cater to the high demand base for better revenue generation, either through distributor route or via tie-ups with established players.Halal Pharmaceuticals Market: Key PlayersSome key accredited players in the halal medicine market include Chemical Company of Malaysia Berhad (CCM Pharmaceuticals Sdn Bhd), Pharmaniaga Bhd, Simpor Pharma Sdn Bhd, EMBIL Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, Nutramedica Incorporated, etc. 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:
Now Available Global Process Liquid Analyzer Market Forecast And Growth 2015-2025

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Process Analyzers are engineering precision equipment used for incessant monitoring of parameters such as gas and liquid content during the manufacturing process. It has redefined the way by which companies carry out their production and improve the overall efficiency of the products by its accurate analysis and intelligence.They are widely used to analyze and identify the physical, chemical, molecular, and elemental properties of a sample of the products. These instruments are majorly being used in Chemical and Petrochemical, Oil and Gas, and Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology industries.Process liquid analyzer include monitoring of sulfur, water, olefins, aromatics, BTX, calorific value, many of which are crucial in the refining, processing and treatment of oils, fuels and petrochemicals.Request For Report Sample@Process Liquid Analyzer Market: Drivers and RestraintsProcess liquid analyzer market is globally driven by the developing countries, increase in the number of mergers and acquisitions, huge development and advanced in global industries, and intense competition in the global market with the presence of many international and local vendors. However, shortage of skilled process technicians, and need for continuous support and maintenance act as a major barrier for this market.Process Liquid Analyzer Market: SegmentationThe global market of process liquid analyzer is segmented into following types:PH/ORP analyzersConductivity analyzersNear infrared analyzersTurbidity analyzersDissolved oxygen analyzersChlorine analyzers.Process Liquid Analyzer Market: OverviewWith the rapid technological advancement and intense competition in the global market between international and local vendors. The global process liquid analyzer market is expected to grow at a healthy CAGR in the forecasted period (2015-2025).Process liquid analyzers are used extensively in the chemical process, food & beverage, power, mineral processing, petroleum refining, pharmaceutical, primary metals, pulp and paper, semiconductor, textile, water and wastewater industries which helps to boost the growth of this market globally.Process Liquid Analyzer Market: Region-wise OutlookDepending on geographic regions, process liquid analyzer market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa.North Americais the largest region in terms of market revenue for this market followed by Japan. However, Asia Pacific and European countries represent emerging markets, due to a rise of pharmaceutical giants and biotechnology industries, and growing industry demand for standardization and accreditation.Request For TOC@Process Liquid Analyzer Market: Key PlayersSome of the key participating players in global process liquid analyzer market are Yokogawa Electric Corporation (Japan), Emerson Electric Co. (U.S), Cemtrex Inc. (U.S), AMETEK Process Instruments (U.S.), ABB Ltd. (Switzerland) and others.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.616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Trump EPA climate sign executive order

Sitting at a desk at the Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that attacks the heart of former President Barack Obama's climate legacy: the Clean Power Plan.

The order will set the EPA on course to scrap the regulation, and begin dismantling many of the federal government's other policies for addressing climate change.

This will bend the curve of US greenhouse gas emissions upward. And like any move from an impactful president, its biggest consequences would likely be felt not in the next year but in the coming decades and centuries.

'We will put our miners back to work'

Trump can't simply scrap a federal regulation like the Clean Power Plan with a stroke of his pen. Instead, he has ordered his EPA chief, Scott Pruitt, to begin the process of doing away with it.

The Clean Power Plan is a regulation created by the agency under Obama. It targets power plants in 47 states (Hawaii, Alaska, and Vermont, which don't have power plants covered by the regulation, are excepted), aiming to cut their carbon emissions to 32% below 2005 levels by 2030.

Each state has specific short and long term goals, based on its existing needs and infrastructure.

In a series of remarks before the signing, top Trump administration officials laid out the case for the plan.

"You know, our nation cant run on pixie dust and hope," said Ryan Zinke, the Secretary of the Interior, "And the last eight years showed us that."

Vice President Mike Pence said that West Virginia had lost over a third of its coal mining jobs, with 130 plants closing in recent years

"Those days are over, because the war on coal is over," Pence said.

Story continues

Trump echoed the statement.

"I made them this promise: We will put our miners back to work," he said, to applause from the crowd, which included group of coal miners who had been brought up on stage.

Many analysts disagree with the claim that deregulating coal will do much to increase the number of coal mining jobs, given the rise in automation and the availability of cheap natural gas. Robert Murray, founder and chief executive of Murray Energy  America's largest privately held coal company  has said that lost coal mining jobs aren't coming back. Murray was in the front row of the audience at the EPA for the signing.

A broad attack on climate regulations

The President's order also targets fossil fuel rules, lifting a moratorium on new coal mining leases on federal land, beginning to relax limits on new coal power plant construction, and rolling back rules designed to limit methane emissions in oil and gas extraction. (Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, though less common than carbon dioxide.)

Obama's Climate Action Plan, a blueprint for preparing the country for the impacts of climate change and mitigating them before they happen, is also expected to be scrapped, along with the former president's other executive orders on climate issues.

The final key aspect of the order is an effort to lower the "social cost of carbon." That's a court-mandate metric the federal government uses to judge the climate impact of decisions that impact carbon. Right now, the social cost of carbon dioxide is set at $36 per ton, so projects and regulations that will drive carbon emissions have to factor in that cost. If the administration lowers it, carbon emissions will play a smaller role in federal decision making.

There are limits on its effectiveness

The important thing to understand is that this is a first step. Environmental lawyers who we have interviewed in the weeks leading up to this order point out that the president doesn't have the authority to unilaterally set US environmental policy.

Congress writes the laws that govern the EPA and other agencies, and mandate the actions they take. In this case, the most important law to keep in mind is the Clean Air Act, which mandates that the EPA safeguard the atmosphere in the US. Any effort to roll back greenhouse gas rules would be potentially subject to a court challenge.

In addition, Trump's power is limited by natural forces in the economy. As the Associated Press points out, renewable-energy jobs already outnumber coal jobs, and many renewable-energy technologies are on their way to being cheaper than coal.

It's also not clear that the public will support a return to a higher-emissions era. In every congressional district in the US, a majority of Americans support strict CO2 limits on coal plants.

Still, this is an ambitious plan to reshape the future, and it might work

Trump doesn't have unlimited power, but he has a lot of power, as well as a Congress that broadly supports his climate agenda.

Soon after the election in November, Business Insider reporter Kevin Loria wrote that a Trump presidency means billions more tons of CO2 could be released into the atmosphere. This order is a big step in that direction, and the largest salvo yet in a battle over the future of US climate policy.

In signing this order, Trump has turned turning sharply away from the commitment the United States made in Paris, along with 185 other countries, to dramatically reduce carbon emissions.

This also means that the US will go four more years without taking further steps to cut carbon emissions. Even if Trump were to fail to roll back most of the regulations, that would be a big deal.

Climate scientists broadly agree that time is running out to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change, and that even with dramatic efforts  like the 80% cut in emissions by 2050 proposed by Trump's opponent  it's likely already too late to prevent some impacts.

Trump's executive order is designed to set the US on course for a world with far more greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.

NOW WATCH: Ocean dead zones exist  and there are more of them than scientists thought





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Bromine Market, 2015-2025 by Segmentation: Based on Product, Application and Region

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The Global bromine market has made remarkable growth over the past few decades. This market has largely been driven by the increased usage of bromine in various applications such as flame retardant, photographic chemical, bleaching & oxidizing chemical, precision cleaning, monomers for specialty polymers, organic intermediates and lot more. The growing demand for flame retardants by textile and electronic industries is anticipated to offer outstanding opportunities for bromine market.Bromine belongs to halogen group and is the only liquid nonmetallic element. It is volatile element that is reddish-brown in color and is extracted from seawater, salt lakes, and brine wells. In seawater bromine appears in very small amount and it is recovered through the treatment of seawater with chlorine gas. There is no need to produce the bromine in laboratory as it is present commercially in the market. The bromine vapor may cause throat and eye irritation so maximum precautions are taken while handling it.The growing consumption of bromine in various industries such as pharmaceuticals, Pesticides and water treatment industry is poised to show an impressive growth for global bromine market during the forecast period 2015-2020.Request For Report Sample@Bromine Market: Drivers & RestraintsThe demand for global bromine market is anticipated to show considerable growth during the forecast period 2015-2020 due to its increased demand in several applications such as biocides, flame retardants, oil & gas drilling, plasma etching, and PTA synthesis. The growth in Bromine consumption by numerous industries such as cosmetic industry, textile industry, pharmaceuticals and Agro-Fumigants is set to fuel the demand for bromine market. Though bromine is very vital element for various industries and used in large scale, it has some negative effects also. Brominated flame retardant are considered toxic in nature. Thus, rising environmental concern such as water and soil pollution due to bromine may affect the demand for global bromine market.Bromine Market: Market SegmentationThe global bromine market is broadly classified into six segments by applicationsFlame retardantsBiocidesOrganic IntermediatesPTA synthesisPlasma etchingOil & Gas drillingFlame retardants is the biggest application among all other bromine applications and expected to show tremendous growth during the forecast period.The global bromine market is broadly classified into five segments by end user industryPharmaceuticalsCosmeticsTextilePesticidesAutomotiveOthersThe global bromine market is broadly classified into five segments by derivativesClear brine fluidsHydrogen bromideOrganobrominesAmong all Organobromines is the largest derivative for bromine.Bromine Market: Regional OutlookDepending on geographic regions, global endoscopy visualization systems and components market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. As of 2015, Asia-pacific is the largest market in global bromine industry followed by North America and Western Europe. In Asia Pacific region China is the largest market for bromine and it is the worlds third largest producer of Bromine after U.S. and Israel. Growing automotive and construction industries in Asia Pacific region and their increasing consumption of bromine are the major drivers for Asia Pacific bromine market.Request For TOC@Bromine Market: Market PlayersMajor players operating in Global bromine market are, Israel Chemicals Limited (Israel), Albemarle Corporation (U.S.), Tosoh Corporation (Japan), , Tata Chemicals Limited (India), Chemtura Corporation (U.S.), Jordan Bromine Company Limited (Jordan), Gulf Resources Inc. (China), and Hindustan Salts Limited (India), Tetra Technologies Inc. (U.S.), are some of the major manufacturers of bromine in the world.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.616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Heat Stabilisers Market to Witness Steady Growth through 2026

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Heat stabilisers play a key role as an additive in the processing of PVC polymer, and the global market of heat stabilisers is largely dependent on the status of PVC market. While heat stabilisers play a key role in prevention of the decomposition chain reaction in PVC processing, there are several other reasons they are predominantly used in the PVC industry. Stabilisers are one of the decisive factors influencing the physical properties and quality of PVC, as well as their formulation costs. Moreover, they impart enhanced resistance against heat ageing, weathering, daylight effects, and other environmental conditions.Although these advantages and a wide range of commercial applications of heat stabilisers support their demand in the market, FMIs research indicates moderate growth of the global heat stabilisers market over the forecast period 2016-2026. The report focuses on assessment of various drivers and restraints impacting the market outlook, regional analysis, extensive segmentation, and major players participating in the market growth.Heat Stabilisers Market: DriversIntrinsic Properties of Heat StabilisersCompared to other stabilisers, which are used as additives in the PVC industry, heat stabilisers have a strong hold in the market owing to their advantages, high compatibility and lasting heat stability to mention the top two. Due to this competitive edge, the demand for heat stabilisers is higher.Request Report Sample@Widespread Applications of PVCBurgeoning demand for PVC for vital applications in construction, electronics, electrical, fashion, medical and healthcare, automotive, furniture, packaging, and commercial and consumer products industries, is a key driver bolstering the demand for heat stabilisers as additives.Growing Consumption of PlasticWith increasing population and urbanisation worldwide, the need for plastic products is also elevating. The growth of plastic industry is estimated to drive demand for heat stabilisers in the near future.Key RestraintsStern regulatory processes associated with the approval of heat stabilisers are estimated to pose a challenge to the market growth in the near future, especially in case of lead-based stabilisers. The approval processes differ with each country, restricting the international market from thriving. Other limiting factors include volatile prices of raw materials and poor SCM capabilities.Global Heat Stabilisers Market: SegmentationFMIs research on the global heat stabilisers market provides a 10-year forecast, segmenting the market, based on the type of stabiliser.Tin stabiliserLead stabiliserMixed metals stabiliserOrganic stabiliserOthers (calcium stabiliser, barium stabiliser)The choice of heat stabilisers for specific applications depends on multiple factors such as the PVC products technical requirements, formulation costs, and regulatory approval processes. This influences the demand for a particular stabiliser in the market. Out of the most prevalent stabilisers available globally, the lead heat stabilisers segment currently has the largest market share but is expected to witness decline in the near future owing to various health, regulatory, and environmental monitoring processes. However, the organic stabilisers segment is estimated to exhibit rapid uplift during the forecast period.Request For TOC@Regional Outlook: Global Heat Stabilisers MarketOn the basis of geography, the market of heat stabilisers is segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Japan, Asia Pacific, and Middle East and Africa. While Europe and Asia Pacific collectively account for more than 80% of the profit share in the global market revenues for lead heat stabilisers, the tin heat stabilisers segment is led by North America. China is foreseen as the strongest and most lucrative market for heat stabilisers, over the forecast period. Asia Pacific is particularly anticipated to have high untapped potential of market growth.Key Players in the MarketSome of the important players competing in the market include Akcros Chemicals Ltd., Albemarle Corporation, Arkema Group, Cytec Industries Inc., Baerlocher GmbH, Ferro Corporation, and BASF SE.Most of the leading industry brands are expected to shift their manufacturing base for heat stabilisers, as lead-based stabilisers are consistently facing critisisation in terms of environmental impact. Mergers and acquisitions among major brands in the industry will aid them in enhancing their products portfolio and retain strong presence in the global market.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:
Macadamia Market : Facts, Figures and Analytical Insights, 2016 to 2026

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Macadamia nut was introduced in the early 1960s to the Kenyan highlands from Australia. Macadamia is a member of the family Proteaceae, native to Australia. Australia and Hawaii are the major producing areas of macadamia with others including eastern and southern Africa, and Central and Latin America. Several species of macadamia exist in Australia but only two species such as M. tetraphylla and Macadamia integrifolia and their hybrids are grown commercially. Production of macadamia nuts in Australia is mainly in eastern shore of Australia (northern New South Wales and south-eastern Queensland). Currently, Hawaii is the largest producer of global macadamia, accounting for around 70 percent of total macadamia production worldwide followed by Australia, around 22 percent, rest is produced by other countries including Malawi, South Africa, Kenya, Guatemala, Mexico, California, Costa Rica, Brazil, New Zealand and China.Request Report Sample@Tree nuts include almond, cashew, hazelnut, pistachio, walnut, macadamia, and pecan. Currently, macadamia accounts for around only one percent among all the tree nuts available across the globe. Almond nut dominates the nut segment, accounting for around 34 percent. Increasing health claims for macadamia have witnessed a surge in recent years, which if succeeded is expected to increase the consumption of macadamia nuts among consumers.Global Macadamia Market Segmentation:On the basis of application the global macadamia market is broadly segmented into food industry, and cosmetics industry. In food industry macadamia is widely used in confectionaries including chocolate bar, chocolate covered candy, ice cream and other baking products. In cosmetics industry it is used in shampoos, sunscreens, soaps and others.Geographically, global macadamia market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan and Middle East & Africa. Currently, North America and Western Europe account for major market share for macadamia however, Asia Pacific excluding Japan is expected to grow significantly in the forecasted years.Global Macadamia Market Dynamics:Owing to increasing variety of applications of macadamia, various workshop are taking places in order to increase the international trade for macadamia and since capitalise the growing demand for macadamia. Adoption of macadamia in chocolate and ice cream among consumers is expected to drive the demand for global macadamia in the near future. The biggest restraint for macadamia market is increasing crop losses due to immature nuts and moldy / rotten nuts. The crop losses due to these type of nuts accounts for around 50 percent of the total macadamia wastage globally. Thereby, reducing inclination of crop growers for macadamia and thus, hampering the market growth.There is a high opportunity to increase the market share of macadamia in terms of revenue across countries such as Mexico, China, South Africa and others. Companies are investing in these countries through promotional activities in order to increase the footprint of macadamia worldwide.Request For TOC@Global Macadamia Market Key Players:Some of the key players operating in the global macadamia market are Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corp., Hamakua Macadamia Nut Company, MacFarms, Wondaree Macadamias, NAMBUCCA MACNUTS Pty Ltd, Golden Macadamias, Royal Macadamia (Pty) Ltd., Kenya Nut Company Ltd. and MWT Foods Australia.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:
CHRISTOPHE RICCARDI TO BECOME CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER OF WAVECELL

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4kpzACNtu1uc25nV0VYQnNFZ2cWavecell, a leading cloud communications provider in Asia, strengthens its management resources to further scale up companys global initiativesSINGAPORE, March 27, 2017  Wavecell, Asias leading cloud communications provider, announced the addition of Christophe Riccardi as Chief Operating Officer whom will be based in Singapore, further filling out its team of cloud communications and messaging industry veterans. He has over 20 years of experience in Telecommunication and Mobile industry and was most recently leading an international sales organisation as VP Head of Sales for SAP within the SAP Mobile Services business unit.Riccardi will focus on driving Wavecells innovation in the multi-channel communications space in APAC. He will bring a combination of extensive sales experience and international business strategy expertise to ensure Wavecells operational success during a period of rapid growth. Additionally, Riccardi will accelerate the companys expansion further into Asia Pacific.Riccardi is Wavecells highest profile hire in the recent year and it is fitting to the industrys potential growth where it was recently announced that 2017 will be the year of the cloud-based communications provider, which is a timely news for Wavecell. With Riccardis knowledge and experience in Europe and in North America whilst leading global organisation, Wavecell is reinforcing its executive team to support global initiatives.I have known Christophe as a prominent and respected leader in mobile space for more than 17 years and have worked closely with him for several years, said Wavecell CEO and Co-Founder, Olivier Gerhardt. Christophe joins Wavecell with a wealth of business development and operational management experience with a vast understanding of the cloud communications industry. We are thrilled to have a steady hand in the executive team as we continue to expand our product line and broaden our customer base.What I found most compelling about Wavecell is its constant drive to be the cloud communications leader in Asia Pacific, said Christophe Riccardi. I am excited and honoured to take on this role to deliver our vision and to spearhead our strategies to reach as many milestones as possible. Besides, it is a tremendous opportunity to be working alongside with a strong and passionate team that Olivier had painstakingly built over the years.###About WavecellWavecell simplifies real-time communications using Video Live-Interaction, IP notification and messaging for any platforms such as applications, websites, and services. Our strength lies in offering cloud-based multi-channel communications to developers and enterprises for them to build better services by integrating our APIs and SDKs. Wavecell ensures first-class connectivity to many countries while maintaining high-security standards on the platform.Media ContactEliza KooHead of Marketing and CommunicationsEliza.koo@wavecell.comTel: +65 6221 1521
Market Research on Energy Intelligence Solution Market 2015 and Analysis to 2025

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Energy intelligence solutions provide an intelligent way to deal with energy crisis. Energy intelligence solutions includes tools and services which collect and analyse the energy data. Energy intelligence solutions can be considered as advanced form of energy management solutions. As compared to energy management software, it provide two fold benefits; first it is not only a visualization tool for meter data but also provides intelligence to reduce energy waste. Second, it offers advanced domain knowledge to utilize collected energy data for energy management. Energy intelligence solutions provides support for open standards, measure and verify results, insights and analysis of recorded data, accessibility and portability, control and automation, an integrated platform. Energy intelligence solutions finds applications in food & beverages industry, automotive industry, metal manufacturing industry, oil & gas industry, petrochemicals, electronics & telecommunication industry and utilities etc.Global Energy Intelligence Solution Market SegmentationGlobal energy intelligence solution market is segmented on the basis of service type, deployment model and end-user. On the basis of service type, global energy intelligence solution market is segmented into  system integration service, consulting services, support & maintenance service. Energy intelligence solutions are segmented into two ways by which it can be deployed  on-premise deployment and cloud based deployment. Energy intelligence solution provide assistance for energy saving along different industry verticals. Various end-users of energy intelligence solutions are residential buildings, offices & commercial areas, manufacturing units and others.Request For Report Sample@Global Energy Intelligence Solution Market: Region-wise OutlookThe global energy intelligence solution market is divided into seven geographical regions  North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and Middle East & Africa. The global energy intelligence solution market is expected to reflect a double-digit CAGR over the forecast period. At present, North America is dominating the market followed by Western Europe. Among all the regions, APEJ is expected to create huge market opportunity for major players operating in the energy intelligence solution market during the forecast period. Latin America and Middle East & Africa regions are reflecting comparatively slow growth during forecast period.Global Energy Intelligence Solution Market: DriversIncreasing energy consumption and rising need for advanced energy management solutions for residential, commercial and industrial areas are the prominent factors responsible for evolution of energy intelligence solutions. Organizations around the world are focusing on significantly reducing their energy consumption bills through efficient utilization of energy. Energy intensive applications such as power & energy, industrial manufacturing and telecommunication need to control their CO2 emissions in order to comply with existing legislations and standards. Energy intelligence solutions not only provide competitive advantage to business but also extends its responsibility towards sustainable economic development. Aforementioned are some of the factors that are expected to drive the global energy intelligence solution market growth in near future.On other hand, long period on return of investment, lack of knowledge and difficulties in handling technical issues related to energy intelligence solutions limits its full-fledged market growth.Tremendous opportunities lies in developing standardized foundation for deploying and leveraging energy intelligence solutions.Request For TOC@Global Energy Intelligence Solution Market: Key PlayersThe energy intelligence solution market is highly competitive and diversified market, characterised by active presence of many big players. EnerNOC, Inc., Rockwell Automation, Schneider Electric, and GridPoint, Inc are some of the major players in global energy intelligence solution market.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.616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Dry Bean Market  Share, Size, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017-2025

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IndexBox has just published a new report "World: Beans (Dry) - Market Report. Analysis And Forecast To 2025" (This report provides an in-depth analysis of the global dry bean 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:Beans (Dry)Data coverage: Dry bean market size and value; Per Capita consumption; Forecast of the market dynamics in the medium term; Global dry bean production, split by region and country; Global dry bean trade (exports and imports); Producer, export and import prices for dry bean; Dry bean 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 SlideShareIndexBox is a leading market research publisher in the world. We conduct market research and publish reports.You 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:
Emerging Opportunities in Radiology Information System RIS Market with Current Trends Analysis

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Radiology Information System is a software which manages the data for physicians, hospitals radiology department and clinics in an electronic form. Data could be in any form like billing, scheduling and medical imaging. Radiology information system is very useful to track radiology imaging orders and to track reports of patients. Patients entire radiology history, from admission to discharge could be track. Statistical reports for a patient or for a group of patients can be generated. The radiology information system also allows the staff to make appointments for outpatient and inpatients. Radiology Information system also provides the detailed financial recording, electronic payments and automated claims.Recently, Singapore based healthcare groups called SingHealth and Eastern Health Alliance (EH alliance) and Singapore Health Ministrys IT arm, IHis purchased Carestreams Vue Radiology (Radiology Information System) and Vue PACS (Picture Archiving and Communications System) for better result, access and management of radiology results and patient imaging data. Almost 4 million patients visits every year in SingHealth Group. Carestreams Vue RIS+PACS are in few other hospitals too in Singapore like Singapore General Hospital, KK Womens and Childrens Hospital, National Cancer Centre Singapore, National Heart Centre Singapore and SingHealth Polyclinics. By this software, one can access data from any location and create one unified imaging of patient file.Request For Report Sample@Radiology Information System Market: Drivers & RestraintsTechnological advancement, rising ageing population, consolidation of healthcare providers, innovation, improved efficiency and better results, increasing demand for better healthcare systems, cost-effectiveness, increase usage of cloud computing and web based solutions, increase number of chronic diseases, are the most important driving factors in radiology information system market. Since radiology information system maintains the data for physicians and hospitals to get access form anywhere, the demand for radiology information system has increased.With so many advantages and splendid features of radiology information system, it has few disadvantages too. Lack of inexperienced professionals and interoperability issues are acting as a barrier for radiology information system market.Radiology Information System Market: SegmentationRadiology Information System Market is broadly classified on the basis of the following segments By Deployment:Web based RISCloud based RISOn-premise RISBy Product:Integrated RISStandalone RISBy End-User:HospitalsEmergency Healthcare Service ProvidersOffice Based PhysiciansRadiology Information System Market: OverviewThe radiology information system has grown substantially at a healthy CAGR due to increasing need of integrated healthcare system and rise in demand of diagnostic industry. With rapid technological advancement and innovation, radiology information system market is expected to grow globally. North America and Europe region will be dominating radiology information market in the forecast period.Radiology Information System Market: Region-wise OutlookThe radiology information system market is expected to register a double-digit CAGR for the forecast period. Depending on geographic regions, radiology information system market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. North America has the largest market for radiology information system and is contributing the most as compare to other regions. This is due to the increase demand of diagnostic industry go get better, fast and effective results.Request For TOC@Radiology Information System Market: Key PlayersSome of the key market players in radiology information system market are Cerner Corporation, Siemens Healthcare, Carestream Health, Mckesson Corporation, GE Healthcare, Merge Healthcare, Allscripts and Epic Systems.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.616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Clinical Data Analytics Market By Model, Services, Technology, Industry, Geography, Trends and Forecast to 2022

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The Global Clinical Data Analytics Market is valued at USD 2.25 billion in 2016 and is expected to reach a value of USD 24.03 billion by the end of 2022, growing at a Projected CAGR Of 41.50% During The Forecast Period of 2017  2022. Big data in healthcare is overwhelming not only because of its volume but also because of the diversity of data types and the speed at which it must be managed. The totality of data related to patient healthcare and well-being make up big data in the healthcare industry. By discovering associations and understanding patterns and trends within this data, big data analytics can help in improving care, save lives, and lower costs.Download PDF Clinical Data Analytics Market@North America will be the biggest market for these solutions with a share of 55%, followed by Europe, Asia-Pacific and rest of the world.Clinical data analytics help physicians to take decisions about the patient's care or aid in better understanding of the health of their covered populations. The technology can vary according to the data involved or the users of the information or the actions which are at the discretion of decision makers who can be anyone like nurses, doctors, public health officials and senior management, etc.Browse Full Report with TOC:The report focuses on different industry policies and factors which are driving the market growth. The report also provides key insights into strategies, market shares and solutions of key vendors like IBM, Caradigm, CareEvolution, Cerner, Explorys, InterSystems, McKesson, Wellcentive, athenahealth and Truven Health Analytics.Some of the major vendors who are providing stiff competition to existing players mentioned in the report are ActiveHealth Management, The Advisory Board Company, Humedica Inc., Comprehend Systems and Forte Research Systems.Place Purchase Order for this Report@DRIVERS Increasing focus of the population towards health management Supportive government policies Cost benefits The opportunity to provide better quality services to the patientsRESTRAINTS Fragmented end-user market Software related privacy Security issues are some of the challenges of the clinical data analytics marketWHAT THE REPORT OFFERS Market definition for the clinical data analytics market along with identification of key drivers and restraints for the market. Market analysis for the clinical data analytics market, with region-specific assessments and competition analysis on a global and regional scale. Identification of factors responsible for changing the market scenario, rising prospective opportunities and identification of key companies that can influence the market on a global and regional scale. Extensively researched competitive landscape section with profiles of major companies along with their strategic initiatives and market share. Identification and analysis of the macro and micro factors that affect the clinical data analytics market on both global and regional scale. A comprehensive list of key market players along with the analysis of their current strategic interests and key financial information."Table of Contents1. Introduction2. Current Market Trends3. Market Overview4. Market Insights Shares, Forecasts and Trends5. Clinical Data Analytics Vendor Profiles6. The Challengers7. Competitive Landscape8. The Future of Clinical Data Analytics Market"Orbis Research is a single point aid for all your Market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering customised reports as per the requirements of our clients. We have complete information about our publishers and hence are sure about the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialisation. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required Market research study for our clients.Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas - 75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +912064101019Email ID: sales@orbisresearch.com
Surgical Stapling Devices Market Analysis Will Expand at a CAGR of 7.6% from 2016 to 2026

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Two U.S. based companies are likely to dominate the global surgical stapling devices market in terms of market shareIn 2015, two leading U.S based companies Johnson and Johnson and Medtronic plc held around 80% share of the global surgical stapling devices market. Although the global surgical stapling devices market is not very niche, other vendors are scattered and focus only on certain countries for the expansion of their business. For instance, vendors in the global surgical stapling devices market are focussing on India and a few other countries in the Asia Pacific region except China and Japan to explore hitherto untapped markets for expanding their business. One such vendor is India based surgical stapling devices company Meril Life Sciences Pvt. Ltd., which exports around 90% of its surgical stapling devices along with its other products to the MEA region.Rising prevalence of obesity and a geriatric population requiring surgical procedures anticipated to fuel the growth of the global surgical stapling devices marketA sedentary lifestyle leads to higher BMI, as a result, a large number of people are opting for bariatric surgeries. This is a major factor driving adoption of surgical stapling devices over conventional suturing. The increasing prevalence of obesity drives the incidence of bariatric surgeries. Moreover, healthcare professionals, especially in developed regions, are increasingly inclined towards the adoption of surgical stapling devices for bariatric surgeries, which is creating a positive impact on the global surgical stapling devices market. Another factor driving the growth of the global surgical stapling devices market is an increasing geriatric population across the globe. This population is expected to drive demand for surgical stapling devices due to increasing number of surgeries performed for the prevention of various diseases related to old age.Surgical stapling devices are preferred over conventional suturing devices during laparoscopic surgeries, as suturing becomes difficult when a surgeon is operating on the 3-dimensional plane while concentrating on the 2-dimensional plane. Surgeons get the required accuracy and precision while operating with surgical stapling devices. This factor is fuelling the growth of the global surgical stapling devices market. Besides, reusable surgical stapling devices are preferred by the procurement team of hospitals as it labelled under the category of green products, resulting in considerably less impact on the environment, compared to plastic single-use disposable surgical stapling devices. These products can be easily cleaned and sterilised by standard hospital processes, commonly used for all other stainless steel surgical instruments, thereby creating robust development in the global surgical stapling devices market. Though suturing is considered to be a gold standard in wound closures, stapling devices yield similar and comparable results involving less time to complete the process. Hence the use of stapling devices yields similar results to that of the suturing process with less time required to heal the wound.Regional overview of the global surgical stapling devices marketThe global surgical stapling devices market revenue is expected to increase at a CAGR of 7.6% over the forecast period. In terms of revenue, Powered Surgical Stapling Devices segment is projected to remain dominant among product types. This segment is expected to further gain traction, owing to increasing demand for advanced technology. The North America surgical stapling devices market accounted for the largest revenue share of a little more than 30% in 2015. Increasing geriatric population and growing demand for advanced medical technology in the U.S. present key growth opportunities for manufacturers of surgical stapling devices. The APEJ surgical stapling devices market is slated to register a CAGR of 8.6% over the forecast period due to rising healthcare awareness and demand for advanced medical technology.Remarkable development in the global surgical stapling devices marketOne of the key players operating in the global surgical stapling devices market  Dextera Surgical Inc. collaborated with Intuitive Surgical in August 2016 for research and development of new robotic stapler products. The U.S. based Dextera Surgical Inc. is a core surgical stapling manufacturing company whose key product is surgical stapling devices. In September 2016, the company introduced micro cutter technology at the annual meeting of the German Society for Thoracic Surgery. This new technology will decrease the pain of cancer patients by reducing the invasiveness of lung surgery. The effectiveness of this technology does not stop here. Micro cutter technology has the potential to improve recovery time after lung surgery. In October 2016, just a month after introducing the micro cutter technology, Dextera Surgical Inc. signed an exclusive agreement with B.Braun Surgicals S.A. for the distribution of its micro cutters in Spain.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.616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Automotive Air Conditioning Market  Industry Challenges, Key Vendors, Drivers, Trends and Forecast to 2022

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Market HighlightsAutomotive air conditioning is a system which includes factors such as changing preferences towards automotive as well as thermal and acceptable air condition in vehicles is likely to boost the market. Recent trend of preferring enhanced vehicle comfort with better overall experience and environmental protection measures for noise reduction and the elimination of fluorinated greenhouse gases will drive the growth of the market. Moreover, Due to least level of human intervention, automatic air conditioning systems are being installed at large, especially in the premium and luxury segments of passenger vehicles, ultimately pushing the market towards growth. Additionally, the R&D focus on automotive air conditioning market for improving fuel efficiency, reducing environmental effect are contributing to the market growth. Governments want to see the rapid emergence of technology in automotive sector, which acts as a driving factor for the growth of the market. Concerns about the environment in countries such as China and India are also lead to the growth of automotive air conditioning market.Key Players Denso Corporation (Japan), Hanon Systems (South Korea), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.(Japan), MAHLE GmbH (Germany), Valeo SA (France), Keihin Corporation(Japan) Calsonic Kansei Corporation (Japan)Request a Sample Copy @Market Research Analysis:Asia-Pacific is dominating the automotive air conditioning market due to the presence of automobile manufactures in the region as well as the growing demand for automotive. Vehicles require low-temperature cooling equipment along with normal equipment for regulated battery cooling. Shifting preference towards more features for comfort & convenience, is driving the automotive air conditioning market. Whereas, Japan is referred to as the largest automobile manufacture due to the presence of major air conditioner system suppliers. Increasing production capacity, and investments in R&D for new technology drive the market for automotive air conditioning market. Moreover, demand for effective thermal systems in electric and hybrid powertrains are giving a new way for market growth. Increasing vehicle production and government initiatives for advanced technology in automotive sector are also drivers of the market.Target Audience Manufactures Raw Materials Suppliers Aftermarket suppliers Research Institute / Education Institute Potential Investors Key executive (CEO and COO) and strategy growth managerBrowse full report @Taste the market data and market information presented through more than 50 market data tables and figures spread in 115 numbers of pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth table of content TOC & market synopsis on Global Automotive Air Conditioning Market Research Report - Forecast to 2022Scope of the reportThis study provides an overview of the global automotive air conditioning market, tracking three market segments across four geographic regions. The report studies key players, providing a five-year annual trend analysis that highlights market size, volume and share for North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. The report also provides a forecast, focusing on the market opportunities for the next five years for each region. The scope of the study segments the global automotive air conditioning market as technology, application and component. On the basis of technology it is segmented as manual and automatic. On the basis of Vehicle type it is segmented as passenger vehicle and commercial vehicle. On the basis of component it is segmented as Compressor, Evaporator, Receiver and Condenser.List Of TablesTable 1 Global Automotive Air Conditioning Market, By TechnologyTable 2 Global Automotive Air Conditioning Market, By Vehicle TypeTable 3 Global Automotive Air Conditioning Market, By ComponentTable 4 Global Automotive Air Conditioning Market, By RegionsTable 5 North America Automotive Air Conditioning Market, By TechnologyContinue.List Of FiguresFigure 1 Research MethodologyFigure 2 Global Automotive Air Conditioning Market: By Technology (%)Figure 3 Global Automotive Air Conditioning Market: By Vehicle Type (%)Figure 4 Global Automotive Air Conditioning Market: By Component (%)Figure 5 Global Automotive Air Conditioning Market: By RegionContinueRelated ReportGlobal Automotive Alternator Market Information by Type (Single Phase and Three Phase), by Technology (Belt-driven alternator and), by Vehicle Type (Passenger and Commercial) and by Region - Forecast to 2022.Know more about this report @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 FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Haul trucks move coal as seen during a tour of Peabody Energy's North Antelope Rochelle coal mine near Gillette, Wyoming, U.S. June 1, 2016. REUTERS/Kristina Barker

By Timothy Gardner and Richard Valdmanis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has billed his move to reopen federal lands to new coal leases as a win for miners seeking to expand production. But a review of company filings shows that coal miners with the most to gain already have enough leases in hand to last well over a decade.

Trump signed a decree on Tuesday to reverse former President Barack Obama's 2016 ban on new federal coal leases, part of a wide-ranging executive order to sweep away green regulations his administration says have hobbled the drilling and mining industries.

"You know our nation can't run on pixie dust and hope, and the last eight years showed that," Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said before Trump signed the executive order on a stage at the Environmental Protection Agency lined with coal miners.

But companies focused on coal deposits below federal lands, such as Peabody Energy Corp (BTUUQ.PK), Arch Coal Inc (ARCH.N), and Cloud Peak Energy Inc (CLD.N), have enough coal in the ground on existing leases to last an average of more than 17 years at 2015 sales levels, earnings reports show. (Graphic: http://tmsnrt.rs/2lr2p5o)

That suggests miners could already ramp up production levels immediately if the market demanded more coal. Energy experts say that is unlikely on a large scale due to stiff competition from cheap and abundant natural gas.

"These initiatives prevent things from getting worse for coal, but they won't help much," said Charles Dayton, vice president of market analytics at Doyle Trading Consultants in Colorado, which has been tracking reserve levels on public lands.

Shares of Cloud Peak closed 4.9 percent higher at $4.51 after the executive order. Arch closed 1.8 percent higher at $69.00 and Peabody gained 6.8 percent to end at $2.22.

The current level of reserves appeared to be within historical norms. A decade ago, under Republican President George W. Bush when there were no bans on federal coal leasing, the industry had about 18 years' worth of leases on federal lands, according to a Reuters examination of securities filings.

Story continues

Arch Coal and Peabody confirmed they have substantial reserves on their federal leases already, but nonetheless welcomed Trumps move.

"Peabody has a comfortable amount of reserves in the Powder River Basin, although we recognize the poor public policy represented by the leasing moratorium put into place by the prior administration," Peabody spokesman Vic Svec told Reuters in an email.

Arch Coal has "sufficient permitted reserves to sustain our operations on federal lands for a number of years to come," spokeswoman Logan Bonacorsi said. "But as with all producers we will need to add reserves over time, and the ability to obtain those reserves when needed is important."

Cloud Peak spokesman Rick Curtsinger said his company has leases pending at all three of its mines in the Powder River Basin in the U.S. West and welcomed Trump's rescinding of the moratorium.

Another coal company, Contura Energy Inc (CNTE.PK), did not respond to requests for comment.

Trump's executive order will also seek to undo Obama-era rules limiting carbon emissions. One example is the Clean Power Plan, a regulation that would have increased pressure on states to replace coal-fired power stations with ones using cleaner fuels like natural gas, wind and solar.

'SIGNAL TO MARKETS'

Obama's administration imposed the temporary ban on new federal coal leases in January 2016 as part of a broad environmental and economic review to ensure royalties from lease deals provide fair returns to taxpayers.

It was not immediately clear whether the royalty review would continue even with the ban on leases lifted. Some analysts said this scenario could trigger a near-term land rush by companies fearing higher royalty rates in the future.

Coal accounts for about a third of U.S. electricity production, down from about half one decade ago. About 40 percent of all U.S. coal comes from federal lands, mainly in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana.

Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association industry group, said he expected Trumps executive order to have symbolic impact, at least.

"Lifting the moratorium would strengthen the signal to markets that the federal government is not any longer standing in the way of fossil energy," he said.

He added that reopening federal lands to new leases could also play into a production upswing if demand ultimately increases. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has forecast a 9 percent increase in western coal production to 443.4 million short tons by 2018, driven mainly by higher natural gas prices.

Others were less optimistic about the U.S. coal industry's outlook, saying the best Trump could do is slow the sectors decline. Since 2012, coal production has plunged more than 25 percent to the lowest levels since 1978 due to falling prices. The industry has been hit with massive layoffs and bankruptcies.

(Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by David Gregorio and Matthew Lewis)
Global Genetically Modified Foods Market Set for Rapid Growth And Trend, by 2025

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The global genetically modified food market has been significantly growing due to the rise in demand for healthy and nutritional food products by consumers of different age group. Genetically modified (GM) foods are foods which are derived from organisms whose genetic material (DNA) has been modified in such a way that it does not occur naturally, e.g. through the introduction of a gene from a different organism (i.e. plants, animals or microorganisms). Foods produced from by using GM organisms are often referred to as GM foods. The major advantages of genetically modified foods are better texture, flavor and high nutritional value along with longer shelf life. However, unusual taste over non-GM food and safety concerns as it might interfere with the body normal functioning are some of the disadvantages of genetically modified food.Genetically Modified Foods: Drivers and RestraintsThe major factors driving the genetically modified food market are high nutritional content in the food, high production quantity and less requirement of pesticides. However, damage to beneficial insects and soil fertility coupled with genetic pollution, absence of any centralized government regulation and lack of awareness about the benefits of GMO are factors which are restraining the market potential growth. Rising demand for healthy food products, year round and easy availability of genetically modified food are main trends in the genetically modified food market globally.Request For Report Sample@Genetically Modified Foods: SegmentationGenetically modified food market is segmented on the basis of type and region. On the basis of type genetically modified food is segmented into crops, vegetables, fruits and animal products. Corn and Soya are widely cultivated in genetically modified form as compared to other crops in the US. Furthermore, on the basis of region the market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan and Middle East and Africa.Genetically Modified Foods: Key PlayersMajor players operating in this category are Monsanto US, DuPont US, Syngenta Switzerland, Bayer Crop Science Germany, Sakata Japan, BASF Gmbh, Group Limagrain France to name a few. The global players are focused on partnership and collaboration with other companies in order to increase its product portfolio, industry offering and global presence. The global giant in genetically modified food are actively involved in collaboration with the Advanced Research Institutes (ARIs) in the industrial countries such as Brazil, Argentina, China, India, Malaysia and the Philippines for significant R&D program in biotechnology and transgenic crops. Companies are also increasing their R&D in some of the African countries such as South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Mali, Nigeria, Egypt and Uganda in order to cater the growing demand for genetically modified food in AfricaRequest For TOC@Genetically Modified Foods: Regional OutlookIn 2014, North America was the largest market for genetically modified food and likely to remain as market leader in terms of revenue during the forecast period. China and India are the major countries in Asia-Pacific which is expected to emerge as major market for genetically modified food market. Also, other developing countries such as Brazil is anticipated to growth at a robust CAGR over the forecast period. The US government is focused towards the safety of GM products. The industry is regulated by the Department of Agriculture, for farm biotechnology, and the Food and Drug Administration, which governs food and its ingredients. The developers of the genetically modified food products are intensely involved in certifying their safety. For instance, FDA depends on a consultative process with developers who voluntarily present their plans to the agency before marketing the productsFuture 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.616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Iodine Market Expected to Hit US$ 1,679.4 Mn by 2024

Iodine Market, Iodine, Iodines Market

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According to a new market report published by Persistence Market Research titled, Iodine Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 20162024, the global market for iodine is estimated to be valued at US$ 1,679.4 Mn by 2024, Driven by Increasing Use of Iodine as Contrast Imaging Agent across the Globe and as Industrial Catalyst and Sterilizing Agent.Sample of this report is available upon request @Iodine is a halogen element in group seven of the periodic table, with atomic number 53. It is blue-black in color and has shiny lustre. Iodine and its derivatives are widely used as an intermediate in industrial chemicals and for human nutrition. The element is sourced from water bodies such as oceans and water pools as well as from seaweed. Iodine deficiency in humans results in various health-related issues such as goiter, mental retardation, heart diseases, and eyesight problems.In this report, the global iodine market has been segmented on the basis of regions. By 2024, the market in North America is expected to account for 21.6% volume share of the overall global iodine market, followed by APAC and Western Europe. Due to increasing prevalence of thyroid disorders among the aging population, especially in developing regions such as APAC, the iodine market in the region is projected to expand at a higher than average CAGR of 9.0% over 20162024 in terms of revenue. The market in MEA, which is anticipated to account for 7.0% revenue share of the overall global market by 2024 end, is expected to be driven by increasing use of iodine as catalysts in industries in the region. The iodine market in Latin America is estimated to register an average increase in revenue due to lower GDP growth in the region.Request to view Table of Content @The global iodine market has also been segmented on the basis of various applications. Catalysts segment in the global iodine market is expected to expand at a lower than average CAGR of 2.2% in terms of volume over 20162024, while X-ray contrast media segment is expected to expand at a CAGR of 4.4% over the same period. Extraction of iodine from nitrite ores is expected to be the highest in APAC due to abundance of caliche ores in the region. Extraction of iodine from natural brines in North America is expected to increase at a CAGR of 3.6% in terms of value during the forecast period.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @Increase in GDP output is one of the major factors driving the iodine market. The market in APAC, which is expected to register exponential increase in GDP among various developing economies in the region, is expected to witness high revenue growth during the forecast period. Meanwhile, the market in developed economies is expected to decline in the near future due to lower GDP growth, thereby implying lower consumption compared to other economies.By Source Natural Brines Nitrite Ores Others (Seaweed)By Application X-Ray Contrast Media Catalysts Biocides LED/LCD Polarizing Films Feed Additives Human Nutrition OthersBy Region North America Latin America Europe APAC MEAAbout UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Absorption Chillers Market is Expected to Expand 12,203 Units in 2016

Absorption Chillers Market, Absorption Chillers, Absorption Chiller Market

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According to the latest market report published by Persistence Market Research, titled Global Market Study on Absorption Chillers: Increasing Demand for Renewable Energy Based Air-conditioning Systems to Drive Growth during Forecast Period. Global demand for absorption chillers market is estimated to reach 12,203 units in 2016, up from 11,875 units in 2015. Demand is expected to be impeded by lacking technical know-how regarding absorption chillers maintenance and high installation cost, thereby leading to longer payback period.Sample of this report is available upon request @Chemical segment is expected to continue to remain the largest application segment, accounting for 2,442 units in terms of volume in 2016, a Y-o-Y increase of 2.5% over 2015. Use of absorption chillers in the food & beverages application segment is expected to continue its upward momentum in 2016, growing at 4.8% in terms of volume  the fastest among all the application segments.Non-industrial segment is expected to register highest CAGR in terms of unit volume, accounting for 1,342 units in 2016 and reaching value of US$ 134.2 Mn. Use of absorption chillers in the food & beverages industry is also expected to continue steadily, as combined heat & power (CHP) systems are gaining traction. Demand will be offset by sluggish adoption in end-use industries due to lacking consultation and training services regarding maintenance and operation of absorption chillers. Consumption demand for absorption chillers from the industrial segment will witness a growth rate of 4.9% in 2016 over 2015.Asia Pacific is expected to remain the largest market for absorption chillers, reaching value of US$ 387.4 Mn in 2016, up from US$ 369.7 Mn in 2015. This is primarily due to expansion of end-use industries such as chemicals, pharmaceuticals, food & beverages, and power in APAC. MEA will continue to offer growth opportunities to manufacturers, with global demand expected to witness a 2.7% volume growth in 2016 over 2015. Demand is expected to be constrained in mature markets of North America and Western Europe in 2016 as well.Request to view Table of Content @Broad Air Conditioning Co. Ltd., Carrier Corporation, EAW Energieanlagenbau GmbH, Hyundai Climate Control Co., Ltd., Johnson Controls, Kawasaki Thermal Eng. Co. Ltd., Robur Group, Shuangliang Eco-Energy Systems Co. Ltd., Thermax Inc., Trane Inc., and Yazaki Corporation are the key players in the market. Top players are continuously focusing on improving COP and developing renewable energy-based absorption chillers. Collaborations and joint ventures with technology providers (renewable energy) are key business strategies being adopted to increase market share.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @Long-term Outlook: PMR projects the global absorption chillers market to witness moderate growth during forecast period 20162024. APAC will continue to remain the largest market for absorption chillers, registering a CAGR of 6.4% during the forecast period.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Global Bismuth Market Expected to Account US$ 226.1 Mn by 2016

Bismuth Market, Bismuth

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Global demand for bismuth is expected to grow at a Y-o-Y growth rate of 4.9% by 2016 end. China is a major consumer, producer, and exporter of bismuth and is anticipated to maintain its dominance in the global market in the near future. The country is estimated to account for 27.0% share of overall bismuth sales by the end of 2016. The increasing use of bismuth oxide in growing manufacturing industries is anticipated to drive consumption in the region. The rapid growth of the automobile end-use industry is expected to drive further market growth.Sample of this report is available upon request @Increasing environmental regulations regarding lead usage in various end-use industries would drive demand for bismuth and bismuth derived compounds. Stringent regulations and initiatives by leading manufacturers in end-use industries to phase out lead production is expected to spur bismuth market growth. Major paints & coatings manufacturers such as BASF SE and PPG Inc. are actively offering bismuth-based products replacing their lead based portfolio, in order to provide environmentally-friendly product offerings.The bismuth market in APAC is anticipated to witness higher growth rates due to increasing manufacturing activities in China and India. Demand in Europe is also anticipated to be above average due to stringent lead restricting directives in the region, while demand in North America, Latin America, and MEA is expected to be moderate. Declining lead production due to regulations and declining consumption of lead-acid batteries is anticipated to be a major restricting factor for the global market. The increasing use of bismuth alternatives in pharmaceuticals and alloys is also a major obstacle to market growth.Request to view Table of Content @Hunan Jinwang Bismuth Industry Co. Ltd., Hunan Bismuth Co. Ltd., and Nui Phao Mining Company Limited are some of the top producers of bismuth, with a cumulative annual production capacity of 11,000 metric tons.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @PMR Long-term Outlook on Global Bismuth Market: The global bismuth market is expected to reach US$ 400.0 Mn expanding at a CAGR of 6.7% during the forecast period (20162024). Asia Pacific is anticipated to be the largest market for bismuth, with a market share of 46% in overall sales by the end of 2024.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Sickness Bag Market by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022

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MRC announces the addition of new study based research report on Sickness Bag market to their suite of offerings.Where the Sickness Bag market is heading? If you are involved in Sickness Bag sector, the report brings to your attention a basic overview of the Sickness Bag market with market definition, classification, applications, segmentation, plans, manufacturing processes, product specifications, cost structures, regional analysis, and value chain analysis. Equipped with all vital stats and information with current scenario, insights, forecasts and future outlook, it offers highlights to foretell opportunities and challenges.Download Sample Report @The Sickness Bag research report highlights key dynamics of Sickness Bag sector.The report features in-depth analysis of the global market with a focus on factors that influence the market, such as drivers, restraints, and key trends. The report will let you discover the future market prospects along with the most lucrative areas in the industry. This research based study lets you assess forecasted sales at overall world market and regional level with the interviews, financial results, and revenue predictions. It also analyses the import and export and draws a market comparison focused upon the Development Trend.The report features: Overview of the industry, including definitions, classification and segmentation on the basis of application, product, geography and competitive market share All-inclusive assessment of the market Industry validated and statistically-supported market data Facts and statistics Business outlook and developments Market forecasts for the projected time frame Qualitative analyses (including SWOT analysis), product profiles and commercial developments. Key pSickness Bagicipants, company profiles, market trends, and business strategiesComplete Report Details @Regional Insights:The report lets you have an edge across the targeted regions with the comprehensive competitive framework. It analyzes the market on the basis of segmentation at a regional level coupled with price rate, profit, forecast, and estimates. The report studies the use of Sickness Bag across several sectors to study and projects the future growth prospects. The report covers regional analysis of the market with respect to the existing market size and future prospects. It features historical stats, data and revenue estimation of the market segments and sub-segments in accordance with the top geographic regions and their countries. It discusses the current scenario of the Sickness Bag market across major geographic segments North America, China, Europe, Asia (Ex. China) along with analysis of various country level markets for the demand of Sickness Bag across each of these regions.Competitive Landscape: The Sickness Bag market is characterized by the presence of a significant number of market pSickness Bagicipants. The research report lets you identify key organizations holding the greatest potential. Is also helps you stay ahead by figuring out capabilities, commercial prospects and progress of the key players. It also analyzes latest advancements in technology along with major industry pSickness Bagicipants profiled in the report. A review of macro and micro factors vital for the present market pSickness Bagicipants and new companies lets you evaluate competitive dynamics.The commercial analysis and insights of Sickness Bag market will let you stay well-versed with valuable business intellect on Sickness Bag market...CONTINUEDCheck Discount On This Report @For more information, please visitMarket Reports Center is an e-commerce platform obliging the needs of knowledge workers, experts, professionals who are subject to market research information for their work, or to make strategic business decisions. Market Reports Centers team consistently works to update and extend our existing repository of market research reports by partnering with new publishers and adding their studies to our website.303, Astral Court,Aundh, Pune,MH - 411045, Indiainfo@marketreportscenter.com
In 2016, Global Parboiled and White Rice Market Reached 206 Million Tons and 253 Million Tons, Respectively

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Parboiled rice refers to a variety of rice which goes through the parboiling process, which originated in the Persian Gulf thousands of years ago. The process drives the nutrients, particularly thiamine, from the bran into the grain, and thus, increases its nutritional value and reduces the chances of breakage.To get sample of the report, click here:Parboiled rice is a good source of antioxidants, phytonutrients, calcium, fibre, potassium, vitamins such as B-6 and contains low amount of starch. This makes it suitable for diabetic patients. White rice is a normally processed grain and most of the minerals, vitamins, fibre and proteins are removed during the processing.As parboiled rice has non-sticky texture, takes less time to cook and can be easily digested, it is widely utilised in frozen foods and as dry powders in instant soup mixes. Further, it helps in lowering blood pressure, reducing risks of heart attacks, reducing inflammation, preventing cancer and boosting immune system. Although white rice has less nutritional content, it offers a number of health benefits such as treating gastrointestinal distress, preventing kidney problems and assisting muscle growth. According to a new report by Expert Market Research, the global parboiled rice market reached a volume of 206 Million Tons in 2016, while the global white rice market reached 253 Million Tons in 2016. The market growth can be majorly attributed to the thriving fast food industry where there is an increasing demand for high nutritional rice. Some of the other growth inducing factors include population growth, rising disposable incomes and growing health consciousness among the consumers.Read full report with TOC:Key findings from the report:Some of the major producing countries for rice are China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar.The top importers of rice include Nigeria, South Africa, the Middle East, Yemen and Bangladesh.The top exporters of rice include India, Thailand, Brazil, the United States of America, Pakistan, Vietnam and China.Expert Market Research has analysed the global rice market according major countries and key import and export countries:Market breakup by Major CountriesChinaIndiaIndonesiaBangladeshVietnamThailandMyanmarTop exporting countriesNigeriaSouth AfricaThe Middle EastYemenBangladeshTop importing countriesIndiaThailandBrazilThe United States of AmericaPakistanVietnamChinaFind more reports related to food & beverage industry:Expert Market Research (EMR) is a market research and consultancy firm providing syndicated and custom research along with consultancy services to a wide clientele base which includes Fortune 1000 companies as well as small and medium enterprises. With our tailored approach, the clients gain valuable and unbiased insights that help to improve their competitive edge and realize sustainable growth.With a keen focus on the qualitative aspect as well as accuracy of the reports, we align our resources and services as per the clients requirement and offer a flexible engagement model that best suits their needs. We offer market intelligence across a range of industry verticals which include Pharmaceuticals, Food and Beverage, Technology, Retail, Chemical & Materials, Energy & Mining, Packaging and Agriculture.Expert Market Research85 Broad StNew York, NY 10004United StatesWebsite:Email:sales@expertmarketresearch.comUS & Canada Phone no: +1-415-325-5166UK Phone no: +44-702-402-5790
Australia Lime Market Expected to Reach US$ 211.0 Mn by 2016 End

Australia Lime Market, Australia Lime, Australia Limes Market, Lime Market, Limes Market

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The lime market in Australia is expected to expand at a CAGR of 1.7% in terms of value over the forecast period, 20162024. The market has been segmented by product type and application. The application segmentation consists of mining & metallurgy, building materials, agriculture, water treatment and others of which the mining & metallurgy segment is expected to account for the highest share of the lime market in Australia throughout the forecast period, to account for 31.4% by 2024.Sample of this report is available upon request @Demand for energy-efficient and cost-effective solutions is expected to be a priority for lime manufacturers in the country over the forecast period. By product type, slaked/hydrated lime segment is expected to continue to dominate the market in terms of both value and volume throughout the forecast period. The segment is estimated to be valued at US$ 146.7 Mn and account for volume share of 68% in 2016. By application, mining & metallurgy and building materials, segments in the Australia lime market are expected to account for significant volume shares of 38% and 35%, respectively.New South Wales is expected to be the largest market for lime in Australia throughout the forecast period. The market in the region is estimated to be valued at US$ 59.1 Mn by 2016 end. In terms of production, Western Australia is expected to be a major producer, contributing over 65% to the total lime production in the country, and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 0.8% over the forecast period.Request to view Table of Content @Key players in the Australia lime market include Adelaide Brighton Ltd., Boral Limited, Sibelco Australia, Omya Australia Pty. Ltd, Wagners, and Lime Group Australia. Key players in the Australia lime market are focusing on enhancing their product portfolios. They are focusing not only on basic lime products but also on importing quicklime from ASEAN countries such as Thailand and Vietnam and Southeast Asian countries such as China to minimize a cost of raw materials involved in a lime production. Manufacturers are focusing on capitalizing on economies of scale to increase production, profitability, and offer cost-effective products in order to target cost-sensitive population in the region. Joint ventures, acquisitions, and strategic collaborations in terms of production and distribution of lime have been the common strategies employed by these companies to achieve their production objectives.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @Long-term Outlook: The long-term outlook on the Australia lime market remains on the conservative side, with the market expected to expand at a modest CAGR of 1.7% in terms of value during the forecast period. The revival of the mining sector in the country, increasing demand from the construction sector, particularly in the countrys east coast region, and demand from the water treatment industry are some of the factors expected to sustain a growth of the lime market in Australia.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Parking Management Market to Exceed US$ 9.0 Billion Globally by 2021

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New York, March 28: Market Research Engine has published a new report titled as Parking Management Market by Software (Payment and Information Systems), by Verticals (Corporate and commercial parks, Retail, Hospitality, Healthcare, Recreations)  Global Industry Analysis, Trends and Forecast 2015 - 2021The parking management market is expected to exceed more than US$ 9000 million by 2021.Browse Full Report:The number of vehicles are growing on road rapidly which increases problem regarding to the shortage of parking space. Scarcity of parking spaces or parking problems is increasing globally so that parking management is best solution for this problem. Parking management contains various solutions such as it provides information of current parking space existence which results in less traffic congestion to the driver. It also provides efficient and effective use of parking spaces.The major driving factors of parking management market are as follows:Requirement of smooth traffic flowFalling connectivity and hardware costsThe restraining factors of parking management market are as follows:System inter-operabilityCost sensitivity of parking space machinistsDownload Free Sample Report:The parking management market is segmented on the lines of its software, system device, and service, parking site type, solutions and verticals. Based on software segmentation it covers payment system and information system. Under system device segmentation it contains automated gates, surveillance cameras and digital video recorders, radio frequency identification transponders, ultrasonic occupancy sensors, handheld ticket writers and parking management meters. The parking management market is segmented on the lines of its services like maintenance and support and deployments and customization. Based on parking site type segmentation it covers off street parking and on street parking. Under solution segmentation it covers parking guidance and slot management, parking enforcement and slot management, valet parking management, parking reservation management, security and surveillance, parking and revenue management and access control. Parking and revenue management is further segmented into pay by plate, smart card based and coin based. Access control segmentation covers LPR based automatic vehicle identification, ID management and biometric. Under verticals segmentation it covers BFSI, corporate and commercial parks, retail, hospitality, healthcare, recreations, transportation transits, government and municipalities and academia. The parking management market is geographic segmentation covers various regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. Each geography market is further segmented to provide market revenue for select countries such as the U.S., Canada, U.K. Germany, China, Japan, India, Brazil, and GCC countries.This report provides:1) An overview of the global market for parking management and related technologies globally.2) Analysis of global market trends, with data from 2013, estimates for 2014 and 2015, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2021.3) Identifications of new market opportunities and targeted promotional plans for parking management.4) Discussion of research and development, and the demand for new products and new applications.5) Comprehensive company profiles of major players in the industry.REPORT SCOPE:The scope of the report includes a detailed study of global and regional markets for various types of parking management solutions with the reasons given for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions.The report covers detailed competitive outlook including the market share and company profiles of the key participants operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include Tyco Security Products (Nedap AVI), 3M Company, Siemens AG, HCL Technologies Ltd., TCS International Inc, Integrapark, LLC, Complus Data Innovations, Inc., Amano Corporation, Passport Parking, LLC, TransCore LP, Vodafone Group PLC, Affiliated Computer Services, Group Techna, Inc., Netpark, LLC, Data Ticket, Inc., Parkopedia Inc. and Energy Development Corporation. Company profile includes assign such as company summary, financial summary, business strategy and planning, SWOT analysis and current developments.The Top Companies Report is intended to provide our buyers with a snapshot of the industrys most influential players.The Parking Management Market has been segmented as below:By Software AnalysisPayment systemInformation systemBy System Device AnalysisAutomated gatesSurveillance cameras and digital video recordersRadio frequency identification transpondersUltrasonic occupancy sensorsHandheld ticket writersParking management metersBy Service AnalysisMaintenance and supportDeployments and customizationBy Parking site type AnalysisOff street parkingOn street parkingBy Solution AnalysisParking guidance and slot managementParking enforcement and slot managementValet parking managementParking reservation managementSecurity and surveillanceParking and revenue managementPay by plateSmart card basedCoin basedAccess ControlLPR based automatic vehicle identificationID managementBiometricBy Verticals AnalysisBFSICorporate and commercial parksRetailHospitalityHealthcareRecreationsTransportation transitsGovernment and municipalitiesAcademiaBy Regional AnalysisNorth AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificRest of the WorldReasons to Buy this Report:1) Obtain the most up to date information available on all parking management market globally.2) Identify growth segments and opportunities in the industry.3) Facilitate decision making on the basis of strong historic and forecast of parking management market data.4) Assess your competitors refining portfolio and its evolution.About MarketResearchEngine.comMarket Research Engine is a global market research and consulting organization. We provide market intelligence in emerging, niche technologies and markets. Our market analysis powered by rigorous methodology and quality metrics provide information and forecasts across emerging markets, emerging technologies and emerging business models. Our deep focus on industry verticals and country reports help our clients to identify opportunities and develop business strategies.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862, +91-860-565-7204Country: United StatesWebsite:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States
Refrigerated Mortuary Cabinets Market by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022

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MRC announces the addition of new study based research report on Refrigerated Mortuary Cabinets market to their suite of offerings.Where the Refrigerated Mortuary Cabinets market is heading? If you are involved in Refrigerated Mortuary Cabinets sector, the report brings to your attention a basic overview of the Refrigerated Mortuary Cabinets market with market definition, classification, applications, segmentation, plans, manufacturing processes, product specifications, cost structures, regional analysis, and value chain analysis. Equipped with all vital stats and information with current scenario, insights, forecasts and future outlook, it offers highlights to foretell opportunities and challenges.Download Sample Report @The Refrigerated Mortuary Cabinets research report highlights key dynamics of Refrigerated Mortuary Cabinets sector.The report features in-depth analysis of the global market with a focus on factors that influence the market, such as drivers, restraints, and key trends. The report will let you discover the future market prospects along with the most lucrative areas in the industry. This research based study lets you assess forecasted sales at overall world market and regional level with the interviews, financial results, and revenue predictions. It also analyses the import and export and draws a market comparison focused upon the Development Trend.The report features: Overview of the industry, including definitions, classification and segmentation on the basis of application, product, geography and competitive market share All-inclusive assessment of the market Industry validated and statistically-supported market data Facts and statistics Business outlook and developments Market forecasts for the projected time frame Qualitative analyses (including SWOT analysis), product profiles and commercial developments. Key pRefrigerated Mortuary Cabinetsicipants, company profiles, market trends, and business strategiesComplete Report Details @Regional Insights:The report lets you have an edge across the targeted regions with the comprehensive competitive framework. It analyzes the market on the basis of segmentation at a regional level coupled with price rate, profit, forecast, and estimates. The report studies the use of Refrigerated Mortuary Cabinets across several sectors to study and projects the future growth prospects. The report covers regional analysis of the market with respect to the existing market size and future prospects. It features historical stats, data and revenue estimation of the market segments and sub-segments in accordance with the top geographic regions and their countries. It discusses the current scenario of the Refrigerated Mortuary Cabinets market across major geographic segments North America, China, Europe, Asia (Ex. China) along with analysis of various country level markets for the demand of Refrigerated Mortuary Cabinets across each of these regions.Competitive Landscape: The Refrigerated Mortuary Cabinets market is characterized by the presence of a significant number of market pRefrigerated Mortuary Cabinetsicipants. The research report lets you identify key organizations holding the greatest potential. Is also helps you stay ahead by figuring out capabilities, commercial prospects and progress of the key players. It also analyzes latest advancements in technology along with major industry pRefrigerated Mortuary Cabinetsicipants profiled in the report. A review of macro and micro factors vital for the present market pRefrigerated Mortuary Cabinetsicipants and new companies lets you evaluate competitive dynamics.The commercial analysis and insights of Refrigerated Mortuary Cabinets market will let you stay well-versed with valuable business intellect on Refrigerated Mortuary Cabinets market...CONTINUEDCheck Discount On This Report @For more information, please visitMarket Reports Center is an e-commerce platform obliging the needs of knowledge workers, experts, professionals who are subject to market research information for their work, or to make strategic business decisions. Market Reports Centers team consistently works to update and extend our existing repository of market research reports by partnering with new publishers and adding their studies to our website.303, Astral Court,Aundh, Pune,MH - 411045, Indiainfo@marketreportscenter.com
Smart Contact Lenses Market 2017 Global Share, Trends, Opportunities & Forecast

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In our aim to provide our erudite clients with the best research material with absolute in-depth information of the market, our new report on Global Smart Contact Lenses Market is confident in meeting their needs and expectations. The 2017 market research report on Global Smart Contact Lenses Market is an in-depth study and analysis of the market by our industry experts with unparalleled domain knowledge. The report will shed light on many critical points and trends of the industry which are useful for our esteemed clients. The report covers a vast expanse of information including an overview, comprehensive analysis, definitions and classifications, applications, and expert opinions, among others. With the extent of information filled in the report, the presentation and style of the Global Smart Contact Lenses Market report is a noteworthy.Request a sample of this report @The Global Smart Contact Lenses Industry report provides key information about the industry, including invaluable facts and figures, expert opinions, and the latest developments across the globe. Not only does the report cover a holistic view of the industry from a global standpoint, but it also covers individual regions and their development. The Global Smart Contact Lenses Industry market report showcases the latest trends in the global and regional markets on all critical parameters which include technology, supplies, capacity, production, profit, price, and competition. The key players covered in the report provide a detailed analysis of the competition and their developments in the Global Smart Contact Lenses Industry. Accurate forecasts and expert opinion from credible sources, and the recent R&D development in the industry is also a mainstay of the Smart Contact Lenses Market report.The report also focuses on the significance of industry chain analysis and all variables, both upstream and downstream. These include equipment and raw materials, client surveys, marketing channels, and industry trends and proposals. Other significant information covering consumption, key regions and distributors, and raw material suppliers are also a covered in this report.Browse the complete report @Finally, the Smart Contact Lenses Market report ends with a detailed SWOT analysis of the market, investment feasibility and returns, and development trends and forecasts. As with every report on Orbis Research, the Smart Contact Lenses Industry is the holy grail of information which serious knowledge seekers can benefit from.If you have any enquiry before buying a copy of this report @Major Points from Table of Content:Chapter One: Smart Contact Lenses Market OverviewChapter Two: Global Smart Contact Lenses Market Competition by ManufacturersChapter Three: Global Smart Contact Lenses Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)Chapter Four: Global Smart Contact Lenses Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2012-2017)Chapter Five: Global Smart Contact Lenses Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by TypeChapter Six: Global Smart Contact Lenses Market Analysis by ApplicationChapter Seven: Global Smart Contact Lenses Manufacturers Profiles/AnalysisChapter Eight: Smart Contact Lenses Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter Nine: Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream BuyersChapter Ten: Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/TradersChapter Eleven: Market Effect Factors AnalysisChapter Twelve: Global Smart Contact Lenses Market Forecast (2017-2022)Chapter Thirteen: Research Findings and ConclusionChapter Fourteen: AppendixList of Figure:Figure Smart Contact Lenses Picture 2Table Product Specifications of Smart Contact Lenses 2Table Applications of Smart Contact Lenses 3Figure North and South America Smart Contact Lenses Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022) 4Figure Asia Pacific and Middle East Smart Contact Lenses Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022) 5Figure Europe Smart Contact Lenses Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022) 6Figure Global Smart Contact Lenses Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022) 7Table Global Smart Contact Lenses Production of Key Manufacturers (2015 - 2017)?Unit? 8Table Global Smart Contact Lenses Revenue (M USD) by Manufacturers (2015 - 2017) 8Table Global Market Smart Contact Lenses Average Price of Key Manufacturers (2015 - 2017) ?USD/Unit? 8Figure Global Market Smart Contact Lenses Average Price 2012-2017 (USD/Unit) 9Table Manufacturers Smart Contact Lenses Manufacturing Base Distribution 9Table Industry Policy of Smart Contact Lenses 10Table Industry Technological Research Article of Smart Contact Lenses 11Table Global Smart Contact Lenses Production by Regions (2012-2017) (K Unit) 17Figure Global Smart Contact Lenses Production Market Share by Regions (2012-2017) 17Figure Global Smart Contact Lenses Production Market Share by Regions (2012-2017) 18Table Global Smart Contact Lenses Revenue by Regions (2012-2017) (M USD) 18Table Global Smart Contact Lenses Revenue Market Share by Regions (2012-2017) 18Figure Global Smart Contact Lenses Revenue Market Share by Regions (2012-2017) 19Table Global Smart Contact Lenses Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017) 19Table Europe Smart Contact Lenses Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017) 20Table Global Smart Contact Lenses Consumption Market by Regions (2012-2017) (K Unit) 21Continued..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 customized 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 specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Contact Us:Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas - 75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +912064101019Email at: sales@orbisresearch.com
Roller Conveyors- Manufacturers & Suppliers in India

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Technovision Engineers PVT. LTD. is one of the well-established manufacturer and supplier of Roller Conveyors.Roller conveyors are used to convey products which have defined shape, like, pallets, cartons, boxes, etc.This type of conveyors are used for Light, Medium & Heavy Duty applications.Each Roller is machined from ERW pipe & provided with bearings at both the ends & a stationary shaft.This shaft is bolted onto the frame of the conveyor.These conveyors are modular in construction & Frames are manufactured in Modules of 2500 MM.Rollers can be supplied in MS Galvanized, MS Chrome Plated, SS 304 or SS 316. MOC for the conveyors is MS-Powder coated, SS 304 or SS 316.Roller diameter, Roller Pitch & Roller width is designed as per load & application requirements.Roller conveyors are classified into 2 types :I) Gravity type Roller ConveyorII) Powerised Roller conveyorApplication:Widely used for handling of unit loads, high-volume materials. There are two types of Roller Conveyors: One is Gravity type Roller Conveyor which requires no operational external power, another is Powerised Roller conveyor which is provided with electrical motor for its operation.Gravity roller conveyors are a very economical and versatile form of conveyance and have many applications.Do Enquiry before buying:About UsTEPL is one of the leading manufacturer of material handling equipment's. The core focus of the company lies in superior quality and excellent customer service. With expertise in the industry and constant innovation in the industry, the company also undertakes turnkey projects with design, manufacturing, supply, erection and commissioning activities. The company is one of the front runners in Lean Manufacturing Solutions in India with an ISO 9001-2008 certification. The production house has the capability to conduct in-house R & D and the company possesses exceptional talent for designing in terms of manpower, knowledge and technology. The company owns two manufacturing set-ups and total area of 28000 sq. ft. with all manufacturing and design equipment's. TEPL is known to deliver state of the art contemporary designs with their range of material handling equipment's.Contact UsTechnovision Engineers Private LimitedGat No. 1559-1560,Dehu Alandi Road, Shelarvasti, ChikaliPune, Maharashtra- 412114, IndiaPhone- 020- 66346500 / 66346502Email- contactus@technovisionengrs.comWebsite-
Global Connected Logistics Market 2017 Industry Growth with CAGR in Forecast-2022

Connected Logistics

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The latest report Connected Logistics Market by QY Research added to it's database and brings to light the comprehensive study and factual information of global market. The report also provides the global market segmentation based on applications, end-users, technology, and geography. The Connected Logistics research report offers a comprehensive assessment of the Connected Logistics market and consists of historical data, scope, significant approaches and statistical data of the global market. Besides these, it also includes anticipated facts that are assessed with the aid of an appropriate set of postulations and techniques.Request for FREE SAMPLE Report @The report includes rigorous data, in-depth analysis in two ways, namely, quantitative and qualitative, industry professionals inputs and data given by the industry members and industry analysts involved in the complete value cycle. The report features thorough study of important market and their current trends, coupled with respective market segments. Information about the numerous factors and their influence on the global market and its segments is also mentioned in the Connected Logistics report.SummaryNotes:Sales, means the sales volume of Connected LogisticsRevenue, means the sales value of Connected LogisticsThis report studies sales (consumption) of Connected Logistics 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, coveringCisco SystemEurotechGT NexusInfosysIBMOracleSAPSecurerfZebra TechnologiesBrowse Complete report With TOC available @MRS Research Group is the worlds giant collection of the Market research Reports. Where we specialized in global publisher, tailor made reports and specialists consulting. Global Publisher provides in-depth analysis of global and Chinese market. Tailor-made reports represent methodologies deliverable to proper insight of the client. While, expertise research specialist helps to provide strategic solution in specialists consulting. It consists of head such as, latest report, category, niche market and news.Joel John3422 SW 15 Street,Suit #8138Deerfield Beach,Florida 33442United StatesToll Free : +1-855-465-4651 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-386-310-3803Email: sales@mrsresearchgroup.com
Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) Market Analysis to 2022 in Construction Industry  Types and Geography Overview 2017

Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) Market

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The Global Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) Market was valued at USD 3,375 million in 2015 and is projected to reach USD 5,182.53 million by 2021, at an estimated CAGR of 7.41%, during the forecast period.AAC, a versatile, lightweight construction material, is manufactured from cement, lime, sand (or fly ash), aluminum powder (expansion agent), and anhydrite (or gypsum). It is a low-density concrete that differs from traditional concrete masonry units (CMUs) in the manner that the final product contains no aggregates.Browse Report at:AAC is used extensively in the European region for construction activities due to its superior resistance to fire, wind, solar damage, seismic fluctuations, and pests. Moreover, AAC is a green construction material (recyclable and no VOC) and also provides the end-users with substantial water and energy savings.Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) is primarily used for replacing traditional building materials (CMUs) in repair and new construction activities in various application areas.In this market report, we have considered the following major construction application areas: residential, industrial, commercial, and others. The residential segment accounted for the majority of consumption in the global AAC market in 2015. The market has also been divided by product type into blocks, lintels, panels, tiles, and others. The market in the panels segment has been further sub-segmented into wall, roof, and floor segments. The market for AAC specialty shapes, including U-shaped, tongue and groove, and cored blocks, have also been included while calculating the market size of the blocks product segment.Market DynamicsThis market is driven by a few factors, such as increased emphasis on green buildings (LEED Ratings), use of recycled material for AAC production, and the superior characteristics of AAC, in comparison to traditional building materials. Moreover, growth is also augmented by the growing emphasis on constructing sound-proof buildings in the developed countries. However, this market faces certain drawbacks, primarily the high initial costs associated with using AAC, and the limited number of AAC manufacturing facilities in the United States, which have resulted in the limited adoption of the product in North America.Market SegmentationThe Global Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) market, by type, is broadly segmented into blocks, lintels, panels (further segmented into wall floor, roof, and floor), tiles, and others. The panels segment is expected to witness the highest growth rate of 7.56% during the forecast period (2017 - 2022). Additionally, the market has also been segmented by the application (construction), into residential industrial, commercial, and others. Regarding revenue, the residential sector dominated the market in 2015, with a share of 30%.Request Sample of the Report at:The market has also been geographically segmented by consumption into Asia-Pacific, North America, Europe, South America, and the Middle-East and Africa.In terms of revenue, in 2015, Europe dominated the global autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) market with a share of 46.33%; however, Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at a fast pace, at an estimated CAGR of 10.81% during the forecast period.Opportunities and Major Players -The global consumer emphasis on using fire-retardant building materials, increase in AAC usage in India and China, and the growing need for disaster-resistant structures, are expected to offer major growth opportunities for players in the global AAC market.Some of the major producers in the global AAC market include:1. ACICO Industries2. Biltech Building Elements Limited (Avantha)3. H+H International4. Ultratech5. Xella Group6. Aeroc International and More 18 CompaniesBuy this Report at:Key Deliverables in the Study: Analysis for the global autoclaved aerated concrete market, with region specific assessments and competition analysis on a global and regional scale. Market definition along with the identification of key drivers and restraints. Identification of factors instrumental in changing the market scenario, rising prospective opportunities, and identification of key companies that can influence this market on a global and regional scale. Extensively researched competitive landscape section with profiles of major companies along with their market share. Identification and analysis of the macro and micro factors that affect the global autoclaved aerated concrete market on both global and regional scales. A comprehensive list of key market players along with the analysis of their current strategic interests and key financial information. A wide-ranging knowledge and insights about the major players in this industry and the key strategies adopted by them to sustain and grow in the studied market. Insights on the major countries/regions where this industry is growing and also identify the regions that are still untapped.Table of Contents:1. Introduction2. Executive Summary3. Global Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) Market4. Market Dynamics5. Market Segmentation and Analysis6. Regional Analysis7. Future of Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) Market8. Competitive Landscape9. Company Profiles10. DisclaimerCheck for Discount on Report Purchase at: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 customized 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 specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas  75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +9164101019Email: sales@orbisresearch.comFor More Press Releases, visit:
Diagnostic Ultrasound Devices Market Report - Latest Release By DecisionDatabases

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The new research report on Diagnostic Ultrasound Devices Market offered by DecisionDatabases.com provides Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast Till 2022.The report on global diagnostic ultrasound devices market evaluates the growth trends of the industry through historical study and estimates future prospects based on comprehensive research. The report extensively provides the market share, growth, trends and forecasts for the period 2015-2022. The market size in terms of revenue (USD MN) is calculated for the study period along with the details of the factors affecting the market growth (drivers and restraints).Get FREE Sample Report Copy @Highlighted below are some prominent market drivers and restraints:A. Market Drivers> Rising demand for non-invasive diagnostics devicesB. Market Restraints> Strict regulatory frameworkFurthermore, the report quantifies the market share held by the major players of the industry and provides an in-depth view of the competitive landscape. This market is classified into different segments with detailed analysis of each with respect to geography for the study period 2015-2022.The comprehensive value chain analysis of the market will assist in attaining better product differentiation, along with detailed understanding of the core competency of each activity involved. The market attractiveness analysis provided in the report aptly measures the potential value of the market providing business strategists with the latest growth opportunities.The report covers following company profiles (can be customized as per requirement):> Analogic Corporation> GE Healthcare> Hitachi Medical Corporation> Koninklijke Philips N.V.> Mindray Medical International Limited> Samsung Medison> Siemens Healthcare GmbH> SonaCare Medical, LLC> Toshiba Medical Systems CorporationSee the complete TOC and segmentations @The report classifies the market into different segments based on product and application. These segments are studied in detail incorporating the market estimates and forecasts at regional and country level. The segment analysis is useful in understanding the growth areas and probable opportunities of the market.Table Of Contents - Overview1. Introduction2. Executive Summary3. Market Analysis4. Diagnostic Ultrasound Devices Market Analysis By Product5. Diagnostic Ultrasound Devices Market Analysis By Application6. Diagnostic Ultrasound Devices Market Analysis By Geography7. Competitive Landscape Of The Diagnostic Ultrasound Devices Companies8. Company Profiles Of The Diagnostic Ultrasound Devices IndustryPurchase Complete Global Diagnostic Ultrasound Devices Market Research Report At: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.3rd Floor,Fountain chambers,Nanabhai Lane,Fort, Mumbai - 1E-Mail: sales@decisiondatabases.comPhone: +91 99 28 237112Web:
Hydraulic Fracturing & Services Market Size, Share, Analysis, Report and Forecast to 2022

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According to Stratistics MRC, the Global Hydraulic Fracturing & Services market is accounted for $49.1 billion in 2015 and is expected to reach $94.76 billion by 2022 growing at a CAGR of 9.85%. Healthy increase of exploration & production activities in unconventional oil & gas reserves is expected to remain a key factor in driving the market growth. However high water usage, environmental concerns, and concerns about seismic activities are seen as major restraints to the hydraulic fracturing market.Exploration & Production activities in unconventional resources segment such as shale gas and tight oil are expected to maintain the momentum over the next few years. North America has been driving the market since its inception as it is the epicentre of shale reserves exploration. However Asia Pacific is anticipated to have an exponential growth in the market for the forthcoming years.Some of the major players in the global Hydraulic Fracturing & Services market include Baker Hughes Inc., Weatherford International Inc. , C&J Energy Services Inc., United Oilfield Services, RPC Inc., Superior Well Services Inc. , Cudd Energy Services, Schlumberger, Patterson-Uti Energy Inc., Halliburton, Calfrac Well Services Ltd. , Trican Well Technology Ltd. , FTS International, Tacrom Services S.R.L. and Keane Group.For More, Please Visit:Material covered: Proppanto Frac Sando Ceramico Resin Coated Sand Other MaterialsFluid Type covered: Gelled Oil-based. Foam-based Water basedTechnology covered: Sliding sleeve Plug & PerfApplications covered: Onshore Offshore Conventional Reserves Unconventional Reserveso Tight Oilo Tight Gaso Shale oilo Shale gaso Coalbed methaneo OthersDrilling types Covered: Vertical Drilling Horizantal DrillingRegions Covered: North Americao USo Canadao Mexico Europeo Germanyo Franceo Italyo UKo Spaino Rest of Europe Asia Pacifico Japano Chinao Indiao Australiao New Zealando Rest of Asia Pacific Rest of the Worldo Middle Easto Brazilo Argentinao South Africao EgyptWhat our report offers:- Market share assessments for the regional and country level segments- Market share analysis of the top industry players- Strategic recommendations for the new entrants- Market forecasts for a minimum of 7 years of all the mentioned segments, sub segments and the regional markets- Market Trends (Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, Investment Opportunities, and recommendations)- Strategic recommendations in key business segments based on the market estimations- Competitive landscaping mapping the key common trends- Company profiling with detailed strategies, financials, and recent developments- Supply chain trends mapping the latest technological advancement.For More, Please Visit:We offer wide spectrum of research and consulting services with in-depth knowledge of different industries. We are known for customized research services, consulting services and Full Time Equivalent (FTE) services in the research world. We explore the market trends and draw our insights with valid assessments and analytical views. We use advanced techniques and tools among the quantitative and qualitative methodologies to identify the market trends. Our research reports and publications are routed to help our clients to design their business models and enhance their business growth in the competitive market scenario. We have a strong team with hand-picked consultants including project managers, implementers, industry experts, researchers, research evaluators and analysts with years of experience in delivering the complex projects.STRATISTICS MRC17049 King James Way, Gaithersburg,MD, 20877, USA
2-shot Injection Molding Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024

MRH

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2-shot injection molding is used to manufacture a single component using a single injection molding machine using two different materials. The process is used to add ergonomic and aesthetic value to molded products. Generally a soft touch polymer such as silicone or TPE is used in combination with a hard thermoplastic such as PC and PP. the use of the process is more prevalent in developed countries due to the higher initial startup costs and more challenging technical expertise needed for 2-shot molding. However, molders in countries such as China, India and Brazil are rapidly adopting this process and these countries are likely to provide lucrative opportunities to the 2-shot injection molding market during the next decade.Request Free Sample Report@This report analyzes and forecasts the market for 2-shot molding at the global and regional level. The market has been forecast based on revenue (US$ Mn) from 2016 to 2024, considering 2015 as the base year. The study includes drivers and restraints of the global 2-shot injection molding market. It also covers impact of these drivers and restraints on demand for 2-shot injection molding during the forecast period. The report also highlights opportunities in the 2-shot injection molding market at the global and regional level.The report includes detailed value chain analysis, which provides a comprehensive view of the global 2-shot injection molding market. Porters Five Forces model for the 2-shot injection molding market has also been included to help understand the competitive landscape in the market. The study encompasses market attractiveness analysis, wherein end-users are benchmarked based on their market size, growth rate, and general attractiveness.Global 2-shot Injection Molding Market: SegmentationThe study provides a decisive view of the global 2-shot injection molding market by segmenting it in terms of applications such as medical, automotive, consumer goods, electrical & electronics, industrial, packaging and others. These segments have been analyzed based on present and future trends. Regional segmentation includes current and forecast demand for 2-shot injection molding in North America, Europe, Asia Pa cific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa.The report provides the actual market size of 2-shot injection molding for 2015 and estimated market size for 2016 with forecast for the next eight years. The global market size of 2-shot injection molding has been provided in terms of revenue and volume. Market revenue is given in US$ Mn. Market numbers have been estimated based on key applications of 2-shot injection molding. Market size and forecast for numerous applications have been provided in terms of global, regional, and country level markets.Global 2-shot Injection Molding Market: Research MethodologiesIn order to compile the research report, we conducted in-depth interviews and discussions with a number of key industry participants and opinion leaders. Primary research represented the bulk of research efforts, supplemented by extensive secondary research. We reviewed key players product literature, annual reports, press releases, and relevant documents for competitive analysis and market understanding. Secondary research includes a search of recent trade, technical writing, Internet sources, and statistical data from government websites, trade associations, and agencies. This has proven to be the most reliable, effective, and successful approach for obtaining precise market data, capturing industry participants insights, and recognizing business opportunities.Secondary research sources that are typically referred to include, but are not limited to company websites, annual reports, financial reports, broker reports, investor presentations, SEC filings, Plastemart magazine, TPE magazine, internal and external proprietary databases, and relevant patent and regulatory databases such as ICIS, Hoovers, OneSource, Factiva and Bloomberg, national government documents, statistical databases, trade journals, market reports, news articles, press releases, and webcasts specific to companies operating in the market.We conduct primary interviews on an ongoing basis with industry participants and commentators to validate data and analysis. These help validate and strengthen secondary research findings. These also help develop the analysis teams expertise and market understanding.Key Players Mentioned in this Report are:The report comprises profiles of major companies operating in the global 2-shot injection molding market. Key players in the 2-shot injection molding market are Rogan Corporation, Bemis Manufacturing Company, Nyloncraft, Inc., Gemini Group, Inc. Biomedical Polymers Inc., Carclo Technical Plastics, Yomura Technologies and Evco Plastics. Market players have been profiled in terms of attributes such as company overview, financial overview, business strategies, and recent developments.The global 2-shot injection molding market has been segmented as follows:2-shot Injection Molding Market - Product AnalysisPolypropylenePolycarbonateAcrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS)PolystyreneOther Plastics (Nylons, PBT etc.)SiliconesStyrene Butadiene Rubber (SBR)Thermoplastic Elastomers (TPE)Other Elastomers (Nitrile Rubber, Natural Rubber etc.)2-shot Injection Molding Market - Application AnalysisMedicalAutomotiveConsumer GoodsElectrical & ElectronicsIndustrialPackagingOthersBrowse Full Report with TOC@2-shot injection molding Market - Regional AnalysisNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaEuropeGermanyItalyFranceU.K.SpainRest of EuropeAsia PacificChinaIndiaJapanASEANRest of APACLatin AmericaBrazilMexicoRest of LATAMMiddle East & AfricaGCCSouth AfricaRest of MEAAbout Market Research Hub:Market Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of Market research reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps.MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clients.Contact Details:90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (US-Canada)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Email: press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite:Follow Us on:LinkedIn:Facebook:Twitter:
Service Packaging Market: Industry Analysis, Future Growth, Business Prospects and Global Forecast to 2022

Service Packaging Market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1677

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/service-packaging-market

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https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/food-packaging-market

Market Scenario:Service packaging is used at the point of sale to consumers of goods or services. It is any kind of packaging used in a same manner and type. Service packaging aims at the convenience of the end consumers by offering them a handy, durable and flexible packaging. Such packaging is used extensively across applications such as food, beverages and consumer goods. Food as an application has a prominent market for service packaging in various categories such as bakery items, vegetables, fruits, fresh meat, etc.Furthermore, the emerging nations of APAC have shown rapid urbanization along with changing lifestyles. This has fueled the demand for convenience bakery and confectionery items which are extensively available in the retail outlets. This further augments the demand for service packaging in the region.Major Key players Amcor Ltd. Mondi Group Smurfit Kappa Group Bemis Company Inc. Georgia-Pacific Corporation ITC Ltd. Cascades Inc. International Paper Graphic Packaging International Inc. DS Smith Plc Crown Holdings, Inc. Graphic Packaging International Inc. AptarGroup Inc. Sonoco Products Company Nippon Paper Industries Co. Ltd.Request a Copy of Sample Report @Target Audience Manufactures Raw material Suppliers Aftermarket suppliers Research Institute / Education Institute Potential Investors Key executive (CEO and COO) and strategy growth managerGlobal Service Packaging Market:Service packaging is used at the point of sale to consumers of goods or services. It is any kind of packaging used in a same manner and type. Service packaging aims at the convenience of the end consumers by offering them a handy, durable and flexible packaging. These standouts in the packaging market across all applications such as foods, beverages and consumer goods among others. With rapid economic development in emerging nations, there is a change in lifestyles of common people.The report for Global Service Packaging Market 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.Taste the market data and market information presented through more than 100 market data tables and figures spread in 119 numbers of pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth table of content TOC & market synopsis on Global Service Packaging Market Research Report - Forecast to 2022"Access Report Details @Study Objectives of Global Service Packaging Market To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 6 years of various segments and sub-segments of the global service packaging market To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth To analyze the global service 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, APAC, 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 material, product, application and by region. To provide strategic profiling of the key players in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market To track and analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the global service packaging marketMake an Enquiry @This research report has provides the insights, on various levels of analyses such industry analysis, market share analysis leading market players and their profiles. This report also helps in studying the target segments by providing views on emerging & high-growth segments and market conclusion. Together the market data comprise and discuss with the basic assessments on the competitive scenarios & strategies, of the global service packaging market, including the high-growth regions, countries and their political, economic and technological environments. Furthermore the project report also provides the views over the historical market values as well as, pricing and cost analysis of the same.Browse Related ReportGlobal Food Packaging Market Information by Material (Glass, Paper & Paperboard, Plastic, and Metal), by Type (Bottles, Cans, Pouches, Boxes, and Others) by Application (Bakery & Confectionery, Dairy, Meat, Fruits & Vegetables, and others) and Region - Forecast to 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.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research Future+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Technology Spending on Core Administration in Healthcare Market Growth and Forecast 2016 - 2024

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This report provides forecast and analysis of the "Technology Spending on Core Administration in Healthcare 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). The report also includes macroeconomic indicators along with an outlook on core administration systems in healthcare. It includes drivers and restraints of core administration in healthcare and impact on each region during the forecast period. The report also comprises the study of applications and opportunities for core administration solutions and services vendors. It also includes detailed analysis by deployment, solution, end users and the workflow process.In order to provide users of this report with a comprehensive view of the core administration landscape, we have included a detailed competitiveness analysis and company players with unique propositions. The dashboard provides a detailed comparison of core administration solution and services vendors on parameters such as revenue sales, ranking of global players, strategic consolidations, i.e. mergers & acquisitions, licensing activities, and R&D activities. The study encompasses market attractiveness analysis, by solution, deployment, end-user and region.Global Technology Spending on Core Administration in Healthcare: SegmentationThe report includes the revenue generated from sales of core administration solutions in all regions and important countries in these regions. By solution, the technology spending on core administration in healthcare has been segmented into in-house and outsource. The in-house segment is further divided into hardware, software, and services. By deployment, the technology spending on core administration in healthcare is segmented into cloud-based and on-premise. On the basis of end users, the technology spending on core administration in healthcare is segmented into payers and providers. The payer segment is further divided into insurance companies, government, and others and the provider segment is further divided into hospitals and others. On the basis of region, the technology spending on core administration in healthcare is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East and Africa.Global Technology Spending on Core Administration in Healthcare: Research MethodologyMarket numbers have been estimated based on technology spending on core administrative solutions in healthcare by solution, and the revenue is derived from regional pricing trends. Technology spending and forecasts for each segment have been provided in the context of global and regional markets. The technology spending on core administration in healthcare has been analyzed based on expected demand. Prices considered for the calculation of revenue are regional average prices obtained through primary quotes from numerous regional core administration solutions vendors, suppliers, and system integrators. 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 spending on various solutions marketed in different regions. Top-down approach has been used to estimate the technology spending on core administration in healthcare by regions. Market numbers for solution, deployment, end-user and regional segments have been derived using the bottom-up approach, which is cumulative of each regions demand. The company-level market share has been derived on the basis of revenues reported by key vendors. 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, press releases, company news, Google Books, company annual reports, white papers, other websites, and publications.Global Technology Spending on Core Administration in Healthcare: Competitive DynamicsThe report provides detailed competitive and company profiles of some of the key participants operating in the global market. Some of the players in core administration systems in healthcare include Plexis Healthcare Systems, DST Systems, Inc., HealthEdge Software, Inc., ikaSystems Corporation, TriZetto Corporation, Health Solutions Plus, Inc., Aldera Holdings, Inc., Wonderbox Technologies, UPP Technology, Inc., and HealthAxis Group, LLC.The market has been segmented as below:Global Technology Spending on Core Administration in Healthcare  By SolutionIn-HouseHardwareSoftwareServicesOutsourceGlobal Technology Spending on Core Administration in Healthcare  By DeploymentCloud-BasedOn-PremiseGlobal Technology Spending on Core Administration in Healthcare  By End UsersPayersInsurance CompaniesGovernmentOthersProvidersHospitalsOthersBrowse Full Report with TOC:Global Technology Spending on Core Administration in Healthcare By RegionNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaEuropeGermanyU.KFranceItalySpainRest of EuropeAsia Pacific (APAC)ChinaIndiaJapanAustraliaNew ZealandRest of Asia PacificLatin AmericaBrazilMexicoRest of Latin AmericaMiddle East & Africa (MEA)Saudi ArabiaUAERSARest of Middle East & AfricaAbout Market Research Hub:Market Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of market research reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps.MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clients.Contact Details:90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (US-Canada)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Email: press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite:Follow Us on:Twitter:LinkedIn:Facebook :
$ 4 Billion Non Invasive Prenatal Testing Market: Global Demand, Growth Potential & Opportunity Outlook 2017 - 2021

www.dpiresearch.com/report-details.php?P_ID=93

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The Potential Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing(NIPT) Market is expected to reach more than USD 4 Billion across the 15 major markets(15MM) by the year end of 2021.Complete Report DetailsLongterm Growth Projection:More than 2.5 Million tests will be conducted by the 11 major NIPT test by the year end of 2021.Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) market size was valued at nearly USD 1 Billion in 2016 and market is expected to grow at the CAGR of XX% during 2017-2021.Market growth can be attributed to factors such as high incidence rate of babies born with Down syndrome, no risk of miscarriage with NIPT and shifting trend towards child bearing at advanced maternal age (35 years or older). With increased patient access to NIPT test, the NIPT test market is anticipated to have a positive outlook in the coming years. High test cost, strict regulatory requirements and ethical hurdles is restraining the growth of NIPT test market.NIPT Test Market: Testwise OutlookNatera Panorama test will lead the NIPT test market with the market share of more than 25% by the year end of 2021.MaterniT21 Plus and Bambini test have shown its potential to become 2nd and 3rd popular NIPT test. Harmony test is the fourth leading test in the NIPT test market. NIFTY and Verifi test hold the fifth and sixth highest share of the NIPT test market. Other emerging tests such as Prena, IONA, VisibiliT, Veracity and informaseq NIPT test which is likely to affect the market share during the forecast period.NIPT Test Market: Countrywise Outlook:United States is the most attractive market with market share of more than 50% in 2016. China will be the second largest market for NIPT test which is expected to grow at a CAGR of XX% by 2021. United Kingdom is expected to be third largest NIPT test market being followed by Germany by the end of the forecasted period.This is the 3rd edition report on NIPT Test Market by DPI Research.The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industryvalidated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, country wise actual and potential market, NIPT test analysis with volume and market revenue and competitive landscape. The report also covers market growth drivers, challenges, current and upcoming trends of the NIPT test marketGLOBAL NON-INVASIVE PRENATAL TESTING (NIPT) MARKET SEGMENTATIONGlobal Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) Market  By Test Type1. MaterniT21 PLUS2. Harmony3. NIFTY4. Verifi5. Panorama6. PrenaTest7. BambniTest8. informaSeq9. VisibiliT10. Veracity11. IONA TestGlobal Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) Market  By Country1. United States2. United Kingdom3. Germany4. Italy5. Spain6. France7. Switzerland8. Sweden9. Belgium10. Australia11. New Zealand12. Japan13. China14. India15. BrazilContact Info:Name: Maria Rai,Sales ManagerEmail: sales@dpiresearch.comOrganization: DPI ResearchPhone: + 91 728-994-9987DPI Research is a business solutions firm which offer bespoke syndicated research reports, custom research solutions, marketing services and social research across multi geographies and industry verticals. We deliver wide range of cutting-edge research solutions that helps organizations in making better decisions of the business to business needs.DPI Research provides high standard of business research reports to the clients across industry verticals comprising Life Sciences, Information Technology, Telecom & Internet, Food Beverages & Agriculture, Travel & Tourism, Consumer Goods & Retail, Education and Social Sciences. We are committed to use advanced analytical tools and methodologies to help clients with crucial industry information for decision making.DPI Research approaches for the business research led by a team of dynamic industry experts. DPI Research provides a real insight for effective decisions to help business with the help of current source and accurate data available in the market. DPI Research reach across the globe with global standards from established markets in the North America and Europe to emerging markets in South America, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa to provide the best business solutions.Vasant Kunj, New Delhi - 110070press@dpiresearch.com(+91) 7289949987
American Tubs Adds MicroBubbles by CG Air to List of Features

http://americantubs.com/walk-in-baths/

https://www.prlog.org/12629368-american-tubs-adds-microbubbles-by-cg-air-to-list-of-features.html

http://americantubs.com/

City of Industry, California - March 16, 2017 - American Tubs, walk-in tub manufacturer has partnered with CG Air Systemes Inc., a company that designs, manufactures and distributes components for massage systems for bathtubs, showers and spas, by adding the Pure Bubbles System to their varied list of features, which deep cleanses the skin during bathing without harsh chemicals or soap.American Tubs is making a splash on the walk-in tub industry by adding new features to their already long list of available trademark options that each customizable tub can come equipped with. While keeping in mind the cost of a tub along with installation fees, American Tubs is constantly seeking out innovative designs and craftsmanship that will increase the health benefits of their walk-in tubs.All tubs are cost efficient when compared to other tubs along with being eco-friendly and energy efficient. This is why American Tubs has partnered with CG Air, a leader in sustainable living. Their Pure Bubbles System heralds the use of water and air as its key component in providing healthier skin.Chemical-free oxygenation of the skin provides the user with cleaner skin, exfoliation, reduction of skin problems such as psoriasis and eczema, making you look years younger. The use of micro-bubbles creates a natural cleansing of any skin pore impurities while removing the fatty acid and bacteria that cause body odor. Perfect for elderly or impaired individuals that need extra assistance while bathing.MicroBubbles System is a combination of water pressurized with ambient air. A pressure pump propels the mixture of air and water into a special patented fitting that breaks down each air bubble into micro-bubbles creating a dense white cloud within the bath water. A natural solution without harsh soaps and other chemically ridden cleansing products.American Tubs offers customizable walk-in tubs () with an array of features such as Air Massage, Hydro Massage, Chromatherapy, Aromatherapy, MicroBubbles System, and quick drain - patented 2 Hurry Drain system. Made in the U.S.A.PR Resource -American Tubs designs and manufactures a complete line of premium quality Walk In Bathtubs that are ideal for people with Limited Mobility, Seniors, Disabled and people with pain, arthritis, stress and other debilitating conditions.American TubsRichard Gearldrgearld@americantubs.com626-581-358817940 Ajax Circle ,City of Industry, CA 91748
Admission Open in Ajay Satya Prakash Senior Secondary School for Session 2017-18

http://aspsss.in

Everybody knows that school education is an essential part for their children. People choose the best school for their kids better career. This is the reason; there are lots of schools available in every city. In the queue, Ajay Satya Prakash Senior Secondary School also offers the great opportunities to its students in the Jabalpur, India. Now, it opened admission for session 2017-18. So, students have the great chance to build an incredible career in Ajay Satya Prakash Senior Secondary School. It provides world class education that is accepted by the educational institutions all over the globe. This school offers its students the chance to increase global coverage by associate itself with the high-quality learning knowledge.Admission Process of The SchoolThere are admission processes in the Ajay Satya Prakash Senior Secondary School for the students that are given below: As per Government regulations, only above 5 years of age students will get admission in Class first. It requires Transfer Certificate (TC) from the last school attended. No applicant will be admitted without transfer certificate. It is necessary to higher classes include one year for every class. In the case of late admission, the fees will be charged from the first session according to the decision of the school principal. If students Transfer Certificate is from outside of the Madhya Pradesh then it must be countersigned by the Educational authorities of the respective city where the school is placed.Unique Features of Ajay Satya Prakash Senior Secondary SchoolTransport Facility: This is the CBSE school in jabalpur and offers the well-organized transport facilities to the students, workers and staff. There is no doubt; the schools transport section superbly holds the overall responsibility to arrange vehicles.Huge Class Rooms: In the school, all section classrooms are huge with sufficient ventilation and furniture suitable for the age of the students.Laboratories & Auditorium: The school in Jabalpur has 4 various types of labs. In addition, this school also has its own auditorium that is used to meet students for different motivational actions and seminars.Medical Facility: The school administration also has appointed a doctor on the regular basis who stays in the campus with medicines. There are also various checkup camps organized on regular basis.Ajay Satya Prakash Senior Secondary School was established on 2012 and the C.B.S.E. board authorize on 5th November 2014. It provides the high quality educational environment that provides the utmost positive outcome on the life of a scholar. It creates an atmosphere of liberty, care and protection in that they are cared to increase their horizons. The aim of the school is to increase the aptitude and the kindness of strength in the students thus they become proficient in meeting a progressively more complex world with no losing their uniqueness.School Name: Ajay Satya Prakash Senior Secondary SchoolAddress: Panagar, Gram Kevlari, Jabalpur, MP, IndiaPin Code: 483220Phone: 0761-2350211Website:Email ID: ajaysatyaprakash81@gmail.com
Smart Phone Enabled Healthcare Diagnostic Services Market

http://www.sa-brc.com/Global-Smart-Phone-Enabled-Healthcare-Diagnostics-Market-Assessment--Forecast-2016-2020/sample26

http://www.sa-brc.com/report/Global-Smart-Phone-Enabled-Healthcare-Diagnostics-Market-Assessment--Forecast-2016-2020/26

www.sa-brc.com

SA-BRC announces the release of market assessment report on Global Smart Phone Enabled Healthcare Diagnostics Market Assessment & Forecast: 2016-2020.Asia-Pacific was pegged as the fastest growing market with a growth of 21.6% from 2016 to 2020. Translated into revenues, the region contributed to sales of US$ xx million in 2015 and is forecast to grow to US$ xx million by 2020 according to the new report Global Smart Phone Enabled Healthcare Diagnostics Market Assessment & Forecast: 2016-2020 by SA-Business Research & Consulting group.Request Free Report Sample@The smart phone enabled cardiovascular diagnostics accounted for the largest share of 31.5% in 2015. Miniaturization of sensors has greatly influenced the availability of these devices today. Existing and forthcoming smart phone enabled healthcare diagnostics devices include multiple technologies such as ECG, pulse oximetry, vascular and cardiac ultrasound among others. ECG has developed leaps and bounds in this area. Leading companies such as AliveCor offer smart phone enabled ECG monitors that communicate directly with the phone for providing insights. The device is FDA approved and has also provided platform for competitors. Other devices include smart patches that communicate with companion apps in phones as well as tablets and provide a method of continuous monitoring of a patient.Patients have grown extremely cautious in terms of permitting data collection, privacy and medical advice. Having smart phone enabled diagnostics provides empowerment to the patients on a greater scale. Patients are able to monitor themselves and thus become more and more aware of their conditions. Analysts believe that this trend will lead to a surge in revenue generated from online consultations and medical advice. True potential will be showcased when these devices, software and services start being regulated by governments and when developing regions begin providing high speed internet and wireless communication infrastructure. It is also anticipated that consolidation of market will begin with increasing regulatory approvals as this will increase authenticity and confidence of patients in the system.More Report Description@About UsSpearhead Acuity Business Research & Consulting Private Limited (SA-BRC) is a premium Life Science business intelligence and data analytics firm. SA-BRC team offers a wide range of business intelligence services to multiple stakeholders such as Medical Device Manufacturers, Service Providers (Hospitals, Payers, etc.), Suppliers, Group Purchase Organizations, Distributors and all other individuals in the entire value chain of healthcare industry. Our research and consulting capabilities extend across several sub-domains within the sphere of Life Sciences such as Biotechnology, Healthcare IT, Medical Devices, Veterinary Sciences, Wellness Products and Pharmaceuticals.Contact UsJohn WhitmoreOffice No. 14,Hermes Kunj, Mangaldas Road,Pune, 411001IndiaPhone: +91-02041210872Email: support@sa-brc.comWebsite:
Wood Pellets Market is Expected to Reach US$ 20 Billion by 2023

https://www.marketresearchengine.com/reportdetails/wood-pellets-market

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New York, March 28: Market Research Engine has published a new report titled as Wood Pellets Market, by Application (Power Plants and Heating) - Global Industry Analysis, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2023The wood pellets market is expected to exceed more than US$ 20.0 Billion by 2023 growing at a CAGR of more than 14% in the given forecast period 2016 to 2023.Browse Full Report here:Wood pellets are a form of biomass fuel produced from wood waste products, sawdust, industrial byproducts and forestry wastes. The virgin trees are specially grown for producing pellets. The shape of wood pellets is cylindrical in shape and having diameter between 6-12m.m and length is 1-3c.m. After manufacturing of wood pellets it should be used as fuel for commercial building, homes or in power plants. Wood pellets are dry, easy to store and hydraulic rate of wood pellets is stable as compare to other biomass fuel. It has high energy density so it can be transported long distance at once. Wood pellets is burnt it generates very small amount of carbon dioxide that is CO2 so this fuel broadly standardized as more eco friendly fuels.The major driving factors of wood pellets market are as follows:Government rules and contractFinancial inducement by centralized agenciesLong term supplyLow price of wood pelletsThe restraints factors of wood pellets market are as follows:Flue Gas Release during Storage of Wood PelletsDownload Free Sample Report:The wood pellets market is segmented on the lines of its application and regional. Under application segmentation wood pellets market covers power plants and heating. The wood pellet market is geographic segmentation covers various regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. Each geography market is further segmented to provide market revenue for select countries such as the U.S., Canada, U.K. Germany, China, Japan, India, Brazil, and GCC countries.This report provides:1) An overview of the global market for wood pellets and related technologies.2) Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2013, estimates for 2014 and 2015, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2023.3) Identifications of new market opportunities and targeted promotional plans for wood pellets4) Discussion of research and development, and the demand for new products and new applications.5) Comprehensive company profiles of major players in the industry.REPORT SCOPE:The scope of the report includes a detailed study of global and regional markets for various types of coatings with the reasons given for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions.The report covers detailed competitive outlook including the market share and company profiles of the key participants operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include Andritz AG, Drax Group plc, Enito Singpellet Pte Ltd, Enviva LP, F.E. Wood & Sons, German Pellets GmbH, Georgia Biomass, LLC, Allance Pellet Machinery, The Westervelt Company, Pinnacle Renewable Energy Group, Rentech, Inc., Energex, and Wood Pellet Energy (UK) LTD.. Company profile includes assign such as company summary, financial summary,business strategy and planning, SWOT analysis and current developments.The Top Companies Report is intended to provide our buyers with a snapshot of the industrys most influential players.The Wood Pellets Market has been segmented as below:By Application AnalysisPower PlantsHeatingBy Regional AnalysisNorth AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificRest of the WorldReasons to Buy this Report:1) Obtain the most up to date information available on all Wood Pellets Market globally.2) Identify growth segments and opportunities in the industry.3) Facilitate decision making on the basis of strong historic and forecast of coating industry and unit capacity data.4) Assess your competitors refining portfolio and its evolution.About MarketResearchEngine.comMarket Research Engine is a global market research and consulting organization. We provide market intelligence in emerging, niche technologies and markets. Our market analysis powered by rigorous methodology and quality metrics provide information and forecasts across emerging markets, emerging technologies and emerging business models. Our deep focus on industry verticals and country reports help our clients to identify opportunities and develop business strategies.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862, +91-860-565-7204Country: United StatesWebsite:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States
Why Prosecutions Of Cops Almost Always Fail - Author And Police Training Expert R. Barry Andrews Releases Statement

Author R. Barry Andrews

http://www.rbarryandrews.com

Over and over again today the headlines are filled with stories about police officers who are prosecuted in relation to shootings. The numbers are staggering. Is this due to more cops turning bad? Or could it be something else? R. Barry Andrews recently released a statement in which he addressed some important issues."Prosecutors and District Attorneys are elected by the voters while States Attorneys are generally appointed by the Governor of the State," Andrews stated. "The commonality is that their livelihood hinges on their political support. The result is that they literally throw cops 'under the bus' to appease a segment of the community who are screaming for blood.""This began in 1991 with the Rodney King case. The Los Angeles District Attorney got a Grand Jury to indict four LA cops, only to lose the case at trial. It is widely known that a skilled prosecutor can get a seated Grand Jury to indict a ham sandwich and that has proven out in case after case throughout the country. As the prosecution determines what evidence the Grand Jury will hear, their ability to obtain indictments is skewed.""When a prosecutor actually presents all of the available information, as in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases, the likelihood is no indictment. When prosecutors decide to play politics with hot-button cases, as in Baltimore and Cincinnati, indictments that are destined to fail is the result.""Marilyn Mosby, the Baltimore City States Attorney stood before a press conference and made it clear that she was willing to railroad cops to appease the protestors. She charged six officers with felony crimes in the death Freddie Gray. One officers trial ended in a hung jury, two others resulted in not guilty verdicts and then she decided to forgo the rest.""Joe Deters, the Hamilton County, Ohio prosecutor stood before a press conference in the death of Samuel Dubose by Raymond Tensing, a University of Cincinnati police officer, and called for the disbanding of a State University Police Department. Tensings first trial ended in a hung jury and his second trial is scheduled for late May, 2017.""What would appear to the easiest of the high profile cases also resulted in a hung jury. A North Charleston, South Carolina police officer was captured on video shooting an unarmed man running away from him. His retrial will be coming sometime in 2017.""Charging officers with Murder for an on-duty shooting is an extremely high bar for the prosecution to reach. It requires the intent of 'purposeful' or proving that the death occurred during the commission of a felony. ""Murder charges have resulted in not guilty verdicts in Texas and Kentucky. The South Carolina and Ohio cases have yet to reach a conclusion, and the Illinois case has yet to go to trial."R. Barry Andrews spent twenty-one years as the Executive Director of Police Training Institute, Inc., a non-profit advanced law enforcement training organization. In the tradition of great police novel writers, his police fiction novels are gritty, raw and real. Though he writes works of fiction, they are based on real world facts. Andrews is the author of two police novels:The New Recruit - Set in Cincinnati, this is a fictional novel which introduces the realities of becoming and being an urban American cop. Matt Davis is a 23 year old who has just graduated from UCLA with a degree in criminal justice. His parents tell him its time to find a job and he applies to be a cop in Cincinnati, Ohio. The reader follows Matt through the rigorous pre-employment testing and while in Cincinnati, he witnesses a murder. The book follows the investigation of the homicide while Matt waits to hear if he has been selected.The Female Recruit - The second of a three book fictional series about the realities of becoming (being) a cop in urban America. Lissa Harding is a powerful woman whose only career aspiration is to be a cop. She moves to the big city after finishing college and takes a job as a security guard where she is assaulted at work. She turns this tragic event into a positive when she takes a position as a sex crimes investigator because of her ability to relate to the victims.R. Barry Andrews is available for media interviews and speaking engagements. He can be reached using the information below or by email at coptrainer56@yahoo.com. All of his books are available at online book retailers. More information, including a number of pieces that address police shootings and the realities of being a cop today are available at his website.R. Barry Andrews spent twenty-one years as the Executive Director of Police Training Institute, Inc., a non-profit advanced law enforcement training organization. He now writes police novels based on his experiences in the field and in the classroom. He resides in Ohio.PO Box 1613Shallotte, NC 28459
Near Field Communication (NFC) Market to Exceed US$ 21 Billion Globally by 2021

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New York, March 28: Market Research Engine has published a new report titled as Near Field Communication (NFC) Market by Device Types (Smartphone, Tablets, PCs & Laptops), by Product Types (Non-auxiliary Products, Auxiliary Products) and by Applications (Mobile/Contactless payment, Healthcare) - Global Industry Analysis, Trends and Forecast 2015 - 2021The Near Field Communication (NFC) market is expected to cross USD 21.00 Billion by 2021.Browse Full Report:NFC  Near Field Communication Market is based on wireless interface which enables all communication devices and electronic gadgets to get connected with each other by establishing radio connectivity under proximity. This technology is mainly used for smartphones, laptops and tablets for Short range of data exchange. The near field communication market is expected to grow at a very fast space in the forecast period.The major driving factors of Near Field communication Market are as follows: Convenient transfer and security of data Increasing penetration of smartphones Contactless paymentsThe restraining factors of Near Field communication Market are as follows: High costs of installations Security concernsDownload Free Sample Report:The Near Field communication Market is segmented based on Product type as Non Auxillary Products as  NFC Tags, NFC Readers, NFC Chips; Auxillary Products as  NFC enabled mobile sim, others (NFC cover). The Near Field communication Market is segmented based on Devices as smartphones & tablets, PCs & Laptops, Others (Infotainment and Stereo Headphone). The Near Field communication market is segmented based on application as Mobile/ Contactless payment, Information sharing, user authentication & access control, Monitoring Healthcare systems & others.The Near Field Communication Market geographic segmentation covers various regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. Each geography market is further segmented to provide market revenue for select countries such as the U.S., Canada, U.K. Germany, China, Japan, India, Brazil, and GCC countries.This report provides:1) An overview of the global Near Field communication Market and related technologies.2) Analyses of global market trends and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2020.3) Identifications of new market opportunities and targeted promotional plans for Near Field Communication Market.4) Discussion of research and development, and the demand for new products and new applications.5) Comprehensive company profiles of major players in the industry.REPORT SCOPE:The scope of the report includes a detailed study of global and regional markets for various types of Near Field communication Market with the reasons given for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions.The report covers detailed competitive outlook including the market share and company profiles of the key participants operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include NXP Semiconductors (Netherland), Broadcom Corporation (U.S.), STMicroelectronics NV (Switzerland), MediaTek, Inc. (Taiwan), Renesas Electronics Corporation (Japan), Gemalto NV (Netherlands), and Texas Instruments (U.S.)are provided in the report. Company profile includes assign such as company summary, financial summary, business strategy and planning, SWOT analysis and current developments.The Top Companies Report is intended to provide our buyers with a snapshot of the industrys most influential players.The Market Segmentation of Near Field communication is as follows:MARKET BY PRODUCT TYPE Non-auxiliary productso NFC Tagso NFC Readerso NFC Chip Auxiliary productso NFC enabled Mobile simo Others (NFC cover)MARKET BY DEVICES Smartphone & Tablets PCs & Laptops Others (Infotainment and Stereo Headphone)MARKET BY APPLICATION Mobile/Contactless Payment Information Sharing User Authentication & Access Control Monitoring Healthcare system OthersBY GEOGRAPHY North America Asia Pacific Europe Latin America and Africa Middle EastReasons to buy this Report:1) Obtain the most up to date information available on all active and planned Near Field Communication Market globally.2) Identify growth segments and opportunities in the industry.3) Facilitate decision making on the basis of strong historic and forecast of Near field communication market and unit capacity data.4) Assess your competitors refining portfolio and its evolution.About MarketResearchEngine.comMarket Research Engine is a global market research and consulting organization. We provide market intelligence in emerging, niche technologies and markets. Our market analysis powered by rigorous methodology and quality metrics provide information and forecasts across emerging markets, emerging technologies and emerging business models. Our deep focus on industry verticals and country reports help our clients to identify opportunities and develop business strategies.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862, +91-860-565-7204Country: United StatesWebsite:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States
Aerosol propellants Market to Cross US$ 24 Billion Globally by 2021

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New York, March 28: Market Research Engine has published a new report titled as Aerosol, SPF (Spray Polyurethane Foam) and Aerosol Propellants (Hydrocarbons, CFC, DME) Market for Household, Paints & Coatings and Medical Applications - Global Industry Analysis and Forecast 2016  2021How Big is the Aerosol Propellants Market?The aerosol propellants market is expected to exceed more than US$ 24 Billion by 2021; Growing at a CAGR of more than 5% in the given forecast period.Browse Full Report:A propellant is one type of gas in which it is positioned under pressure in aerosol container and once it is released from the nozzle it sprays out the contents. It is chemical used for creation of pressurized energy and gas to produce movement of a liquid inside an object. Propellants are mainly in two types such as liquefied gas propellants and compressed gas propellants. Ethers, hydrocarbons and fluorocarbons are the examples of liquefied gas and nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide are example of compressed gas. Strict environmental policy restrict the use of CFCs have increased the demand for aerosol propellants.The major driving factors of aerosol propellants market are as follows:Increase in consumption of aerosol propellants in paints and coatings, medical applications and household applications.Increase of aerosol market globally.The restraining factors of aerosol propellants market are as follows:Different health hazard and environment risk related with propellants used in aerosol.Download Free Sample Report:The aerosol propellants market is segmented on the lines of its product segment, application and regional. Based on product segmentation the aerosol propellants market covers nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide, dimethyl ether (DME) and methyl ethyl ether and Hydrocarbons such as propane, isobutane and n-butane. Under application segmentation it covers households, medical, paints and coatings and other applications. The aerosol propellants marketis geographic segmentation covers various regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. Each geograpic market is further segmented to provide market revenue for select countries such as the U.S., Canada, U.K. Germany, China, Japan, India, Brazil, and GCC countries.This report provides:1) An overview of the global market for aerosol propellants and related technologies.2) Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2013, estimates for 2014 and 2015, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2020.3) Identifications of new market opportunities and targeted promotional plans for aerosol propellants.4) Discussion of research and development, and the demand for new products and new applications.5) Comprehensive company profiles of major players in the industry.REPORT SCOPE:The scope of the report includes a detailed study of global and regional markets for Aerosol propellants with the reasons given for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions.The report covers detailed competitive outlook including the market share and company profiles of the key participants operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include AkzoNobel NV, AVEFLOR, a. s., Aeropres Corporation, Bayer MaterialScience AG, Honeywell International Inc, Lapolla Industries Inc, National Gas Company S.A.O.G and Royal Dutch Shell plc. Company profile includes such as financial summary,business strategy, Company summary and planning, SWOT analysis and current developments.The Top Companies Report is intended to provide buyers with a snapshot of the industrys most influential players.The Aerosol propellants Market has been segmented as below:By Product Segment AnalysisCFCNitrous oxide and carbon dioxideDimethyl ether (DME) and methyl ethyl etherHydrocarbons (propane, isobutane and n-butane)By Application AnalysisHouseholdsMedicalPaints and CoatingsOthersBy Regional AnalysisNorth AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificRest of the WorldReasons to Buy this Report:1) Obtain the most up to date information available on all aerosol propellants market globally.2) Identify growth segments and opportunities in the industry.3) Facilitate decision making on the basis of strong historic and forecast of aerosol propellants data.4) Assess your competitors refining portfolio and its evolution.About MarketResearchEngine.comMarket Research Engine is a global market research and consulting organization. We provide market intelligence in emerging, niche technologies and markets. Our market analysis powered by rigorous methodology and quality metrics provide information and forecasts across emerging markets, emerging technologies and emerging business models. Our deep focus on industry verticals and country reports help our clients to identify opportunities and develop business strategies.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862, +91-860-565-7204Country: United StatesWebsite:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States
Paints and Coatings Market Is Expected to Cross $153.0 Billion by 2020

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Florida, March 28: Market Research Engine has published a new report titled as Paints & Coatings Market by Resin Type (Epoxy, Acrylic, Polyurethane, & Others), by Technology (Waterborne, High Solids, Powder, Solvent Borne, & Others), by Application (Architectural & Paints) - Global Forecasts to 2020The global paints and coatings market is expected to reach $125.0 billion by the end of 2015 and further increase to $153.6 billion by 2020, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.9% over the next five-year period of 2015 through 2020.Browse Full Report here:A coating is a covering that is applied to the surface of an object, usually referred to as the substrate. The purpose of applying the coating is protective, decorative, functional, or both. The coating itself may be an all-over coating, completely covering the substrate, and cover parts of the substrate.The paint and coating market segmented in High Solids/Radiation Cure, Powder Coatings, Waterborne Coatings, and Solvent Borne Technologies. Also for the automotive sector it segmented for Aviation, Medical & Healthcare, Residential, Commercial uses.This report provides: An overview of the global market for paints and coatings and related technologies. Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2013, estimates for 2014 and 2015, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2020. Identifications of new market opportunities and targeted promotional plans for paints and coatings. Discussion of research and development, and the demand for new products and new applications. Comprehensive company profiles of major players in the industry.Download Free Sample Report:REPORT SCOPE:The scope of the report includes a detailed study of global and regional markets for various types of coatings with the reasons given for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions.The report covers detailed competitive outlook including the market share and company profiles of the key participants operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include AkzoNobel N.V., Asian Paints Ltd., Bergers Paints India Ltd., Deutsche Amphibolin-Werke Von Robert Murjahn Stiftung & Company, Diamond Vogel, Dow Corning, Helios Group, KCC Corporation, Masco Corporation, PPG Industries etc. company profile includes assign such as company summary, financial summary, business strategy and planning, SWOT analysis and current developments.The Top Companies Report is intended to provide our buyers with a snapshot of the industrys most influential players.The market has been segmented as below:Paints and Coatings Market: by Product Segment Analysis High solids/radiation cure Powder coating Waterborne coating Solvent-borne technologies Others (including specialty coatings, etc.)Paints and Coatings Market: by End-user Analysis Automotives & aviation Medical & healthcare Residential Commercial Others (including other industries, special purpose, etc.)Paints and Coatings Market: by Regional Analysis North America Europe Asia-Pacific Rest of the WorldReasons to Buy this Report Obtain the most up to date information available on all active and planned coating industry globally Identify growth segments and opportunities in the industry Facilitate decision making on the basis of strong historic and forecast of coating industry and unit capacity data Assess your competitors refining portfolio and its evolution.About MarketResearchEngine.comMarket Research Engine is a global market research and consulting organization. We provide market intelligence in emerging, niche technologies and markets. Our market analysis powered by rigorous methodology and quality metrics provide information and forecasts across emerging markets, emerging technologies and emerging business models. Our deep focus on industry verticals and country reports help our clients to identify opportunities and develop business strategies.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862, +91-860-565-7204Website:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States
Steel segment in global metal packaging accounted for USD 76,065.20 Million in 2015 with 3.19% CAGR.

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https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/statistical-reports/metal-packaging-material-segment-market-2225

The Global Metal Packaging Market Material Segment Outlook (2016-2022) statistical report, published by Market Research Future contains succinct information on global metal packaging market, segmented by material (steel and aluminum). Rise in consumption of beverages and in use of aerosol cans are major drivers of global metal packaging market. However environmental issues related to steel mining and increase in the cost of materials are certain restraints that will hinder the growth of this market. The report provides information on global metal packaging market and forecast from 2016 to 2022.Get a Sample Report @Steel segment in global metal packaging accounted for USD 76,065.20 Million in 2015 with 3.19% CAGR.Browse Report @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.Market Research Future Office No. 524/528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar Pune - 411028 Maharashtra, India
Auto Cyber Security Market - North America to Dominate the Market by 2021

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Florida, March 20: With its recently published study on Global Auto Cyber Security Marker Trends & Forecast  2015-2020,Global Auto Cyber Security market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 13.2% during the period 2015-2020.Browse Full Report:MRE predicts wireless security is set to be the higher priority for the automakers to leverage the advanced connected vehicle technology market growth in upcoming years (2015-2020). The increasing demand for the connected vehicle for the consumers is expected to impact on the automotive industry ecosystem. As per the market study, North America set to be a leading continent for this market growth followed by Asia Pacific and Western Europe regions.In near future, billions of the connected cars and driverless car will be on road as this technology grows that exponential increasing the concern regarding security. Due to this, automakers and cyber security vendors are need to working together to understand about scenarios to reduce the security issues.The increasing demand for digital technology from the consumers leads automakers to consider the connected vehicle technology as a new business model for their future growth. In the next five years, connected vehicle technology is expected to positively impact on automotive industry market growth.Download Free Sample Report:Key Insights of Global Auto Cyber Security Market reports 2015-2020 The Global Auto Cyber Security Market is analyzed by Security Types, Solutions, Services and Regions. Latest trends, Current market scenario, government initiative and technologies related to the Auto Cyber Security market. The regions covered in this report are North America, Western Europe, Asia-Pacific, Central Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa and Latin America. Connected vehicle and security market outlook.About Market Research EngineMarket Research Engine is a global market research and consulting organization. We provide market intelligence in emerging, niche technologies and markets. Our market analysis powered by rigorous methodology and quality metrics provide information and forecasts across emerging markets, emerging technologies and emerging business models. Our deep focus on industry verticals and country reports help our clients to identify opportunities and develop business strategies.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862 | +91-860-565-7204Country: United StatesWebsite:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States
Global Aortic Coarctation Market Information, By Treatment (Balloon angioplasty, Patch Aortoplasty, Subclavian Flap Aortoplasty), By End User (Hospital, Clinic, Cardiac Institutes) - Forecast to 2022

Global Aortic Coarctation Market Share, by type (USD Million)

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Market Synopsis of Global Aortic Coarctation MarketMarket ScenarioCoarctation of the aorta (CoA) is a type of defect which causes narrowing of aorta and accounts for nearly 5-8% of all congenital heart defects. It may occur as an isolated defect or may occur in association with various other lesions such as commonly bicuspid aortic valve and ventricular septal defect (VSD). It may be found more frequently in infants with symptoms prior to age one year.The global market for Aortic Coarctation is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of the forecasted period and is expected to grow at a CAGR of ~3.8%.Request a Sample @Intended Audience Medical device manufacturers Medical device suppliers Government Research Laboratory Research and Development (R&D) Companies Market Research and Consulting Service Providers Medical Research LaboratoriesKey Finding The global Aortic Coarctation market and is expected to reach USDXX million by 2022. Regionally, North America holds the largest market share for global Aortic Coarctation market and is expected to reach USDXX million by 2022. Asia Pacific market is expected to be the fastest growing market, and expected to reach at USD XX million by 2022. On the basis of type, Balloon angioplasty segment holds largest market share.Key PlayersSome of the key players in this market are: Creganna (Ireland), Medtronic (Ireland), Freudenberg Medical, LLC (Germany), Clada Medical Devices (Ireland), B. Braun Melsungen AG (Germany), Braile Biomedica (Brazil) and others.SegmentsGlobal Aortic Coarctation market has been segmented on the basis of type which comprises of Balloon Angioplasty, Patch Aortoplasty, Subclavian Flap Aortoplasty and others. On the basis of end user; market is segmented into Hospital, Clinic, Cardiac Institute and others.Study Objectives To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 7 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the Global Aortic Coarctation Market To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth To analyze the 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- Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. 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 segments by type, by end user and other sub segments. To provide overview of key players and their strategic profiling in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market To track and analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments globally.Access Report Details @Regional AnalysisGlobally North America is the largest market for Aortic Coarctation. The North American market for Aortic Coarctation is expected to reach at USD XX Million by the end of the forecasted period.Europe is the second-largest market for Aortic Coarctation which is expected to grow at a CAGR of XX%. Asia pacific region is expected to be fastest growing region in Aortic Coarctation market.The report for Global Aortic Coarctation Market 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 markets segments and regions.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 FutureOffice No. 524/528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Blood Glucose (SMBG) (Test Strips, Lancet, Meter) Market and Forecast - Global Analysis

https://www.reportsworldwide.com/report/blood-glucose-smbg-test-strips-lancet-meter-market-and-forecast---global-analysis

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ReportsWorldwide has announced the addition of a new report title Blood Glucose (SMBG) (Test Strips, Lancet, Meter) Market and Forecast - Global Analysis to its growing collection of premium market research reports.The report titled Blood Glucose (SMBG) (Test Strips, Lancet, Meter) Market and Forecast  Global Analysis is a 376 Page report with 305 Figures and 16 Tables and is currently in its third editionThis report analyses the Country Wise Diabetes Population, Country Wise SMBG Users and Market, Company Wise SMBG Revenue and the driving factors and challenges for the SMBG market.The SMBG Market covered in the report is analyzed from 4 viewpoints follows:1. Country Wise Diabetes Population and Forecast (2008 - 2021)I. Type 1 Diabetes PopulationII. Type 2 Diabetes Population2. Country Wise SMBG Users and Forecast (2008 - 2021)3. Country Wise SMBG Market and Forecast (2008 - 2021)I. Blood Glucose Test Strips MarketII. Blood Glucose Lancet MarketIII. Blood Glucose Meter Market4. Company Wise SMBG Revenue and Forecast (2007 - 2021)Detailed description and table of contents of this report is available here:Key Highlights of the Report United States, Russia and United Kingdom are the top three leading countries in the Global SMBG market accounting for over 60% market share in 2016. China and India are the leading diabetic countries in the world. China has the highest number of self-monitoring of blood glucose users. The market size of SMBG devices in Brazil has increased to US$ XXX Million in 2016. Blood glucose test strips market is mainly dominated by developed countries. Blood glucose meter is the second leading product segment while lancet captures the least share of the SMBG market. In 2014, Life Scan became the leading player in SMBG market. In the SMBG segments, big players such as Roche and Abbott Laboratories are continuously losing its market share.To Get Sample Copy of Report please visit @The 18 Countries analyzed in the reports are as follows:1. United States2. Brazil3. United Kingdom4. Germany5. Spain6. Italy7. Netherlands8. Norway9. Sweden10. Switzerland11. Russia12. India13. China14. Thailand15. Korea16. Malaysia17. Australia18. KuwaitThe 4 Companies analyzed in the reports are as follows:1. Roche Diagnostic2. LifeScan Inc3. Bayer HealthCare4. Abbott LaboratoriesAbout ReportsWorldwide.comReportsWorldwide.com is a leading provider of global market intelligence reports and services. With research reports from top publishers, consulting and advisory firms, ReportsWorldwide.com offers instant online access to a growing database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, geographies and trends.Press Contact:Abigail CrastoSenior Vice President101, Arch StreetBoston, MA 02110USPhone +1 (617) 398-4994Fax +1 (617) 398-4995abigail@reportsworldwide.com
Global Enterprise Software Market Forecast to reach $500 Bn by 2022

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ReportsWorldwide has announced the addition of a new report title Global Enterprise Software Market (By Segment, Industry Verticals, Geography and Vendors) and Forecast to 2022 to its growing collection of premium market research reports.The report titled Global Enterprise Software Market (By Segment, Industry Verticals, Geography and Vendors) and Forecast to 2022 provides a comprehensive assessment of the fast-evolving, high-growth Enterprise Software MarketKey Highlights of the Report: It is anticipated that the global enterprise software market will exceed US$ 500 Billion by 2022. Countries in North America and Europe have been identified as early adopters of enterprise software. The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) are the leading application segments of the enterprise software market. Business intelligence is the third largest segment for enterprise software being followed by Supply Chain Management (SCM) applications. Web Conferencing Collaboration/Social Software Suites captured least share of the enterprise software market Banking & Securities, Communications, Media & Services, and Manufacturing & Natural Resources are the top three industry for enterprise software market. Insurance and Retail industries are competing very closely with each other to grab maximum share of the enterprise software market. North America is the largest market for enterprise software accounting for XX percent share in 2016. Western Europe is the second largest market for enterprise software capturing XX percent share in 2016. Asia Pacific enterprise application market is anticipated to witness growth owing to rising number of startup and presence of large number of small scale industries. The top five (Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, IBM and EMC) enterprise software vendors accounted for over 40 percent of the total market in 2016. Microsoft dominated the enterprise software market with XX percent share in 2016.Detailed description and table of contents of this report is available here:This 122 Page report with 71 Figures and 13 Tables has been analyzed from 7 viewpoints:1. Global Enterprise Software Market and Forecast (2010 - 2022)2. Global Enterprise Software Market and Forecast - By Segment (2010 - 2022)3. Global Enterprise Software Market and Forecast - By Industry Verticals (2014 - 2022)4. Global Enterprise Software Market and Forecast - By Geography (2012 - 2022)5. Global Enterprise Software Market and Forecast - By Vendors (2014 - 2022)6. Global Enterprise Software Market - Recent Developments7. Global Enterprise Software Market - Growth Drivers and ChallengesGlobal Enterprise Software Market and Forecast - By Segment1. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)2. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)3. Business Intelligence (BI)4. Supply Chain Management (SCM)5. Web Conferencing Collaboration/Social Software Suites6. Other SoftwareGlobal Enterprise Software Market and Forecast - By Industry Verticals1. Banking and Securities2. Communications, Media and Services3. Manufacturing and Natural Resources4. Insurance5. Retail6. Transportation7. Healthcare8. OtherGlobal Enterprise Software Market and Forecast - By Geography1. North America2. Western Europe3. China4. India5. Asia Pacific6. Eastern Europe and MEA7. Rest of the WorldGlobal Enterprise Software Market and Forecast - By Vendors1. Microsoft2. IBM3. Oracle4. SAP5. Amazon6. EMC7. Salesforce.com8. Adobe9. FIS/SunGuard10. Dassault11. Other VendorsTo Get Sample Copy of Report please visit @About ReportsWorldwide.comReportsWorldwide.com is a leading provider of global market intelligence reports and services. With research reports from top publishers, consulting and advisory firms, ReportsWorldwide.com offers instant online access to a growing database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, geographies and trends.Press Contact:Abigail CrastoSenior Vice President101, Arch StreetBoston, MA 02110USPhone +1 (617) 398-4994Fax +1 (617) 398-4995abigail@reportsworldwide.com
China uses a 'Great Firewall' to block VPN providers, who supply virtual tunnels that allow users to evade the country's vast censorship system (AFP Photo/GREG BAKER) (AFP/File)

People in the Chinese megacity Chongqing could be fined for using VPNs to jump over the country's "Great Firewall" that blocks access to forbidden websites from Google to Facebook.

The punishment would be meted out to people using virtual private networks to access banned sites for commercial purposes, but Amnesty International said the wording was vague enough that it could affect any business or individual.

Anyone who skirts censorship controls in the southwestern metropolis of 30 million people will receive a warning to disconnect from the internet, the Chongqing government said Monday.

Those who make a profit of more than 5,000 yuan ($730) while using VPNs will be fined 5,000-15,000 yuan, according to the updated internet security regulation which came into effect in July but only announced this week.

The move is a departure from authorities' previous approach of reinforcing the government's "Great Firewall" to block VPN providers, who provide virtual tunnels that allow users to evade China's vast censorship system.

"It looks like such practices might be extended to other parts of China if Chongqing police succeed in punishing people using VPNs," Amnesty International's China researcher Patrick Poon told AFP.

In January Beijing launched a campaign to crack down on such tools.

While China is home to the world's largest number of internet users, a 2015 report by US think tank Freedom House found that the country had the most restrictive online use policies of 65 nations it studied, ranking below Iran and Syria.

But China has maintained that its various forms of web censorship are necessary for protecting its national security.

Sites blocked due to their content or sensitivity, among them Facebook, Twitter, Google Search and Gmail, cannot be accessed in China without VPNs.

The national VPN crackdown and Chongqing campaign come after the passing of a controversial cybersecurity bill last November that tightened restrictions on online freedom of speech and imposed new rules on service providers.

Earlier this month, Beijing said it would push a "China solution" to global cyber governance after releasing a strategy paper outlining a vision of the web where individual countries control the information that flows across their borders.
By Scott DiSavino

March 28 (Reuters) - Electric bills in Georgia and South Carolina could rise more than customers expect if state utilities are left stranded by a Westinghouse Electric Co bankruptcy filing expected this week, consumer advocates said.

U.S. nuclear developer Westinghouse is the lead contractor building two nuclear reactors each in Georgia and South Carolina, both of which are billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.

Westinghouse was expected to file for bankruptcy protection as it struggles to limit losses that have thrown its Japanese parent Toshiba Corp into crisis, people familiar with Toshiba's thinking said.

If Westinghouse is unable to complete the reactors, it puts the states in an unenviable position. They would either have to go ahead with another contractor - which would cause delays - or stop work, and find another solution for growing power demand.

"Neither scenario sounds good for ratepayers. People will either be forced to pay for something they never got or pay more to complete something that does not make economic sense," said Liz Coyle, executive director of consumer advocacy group Georgia Watch.

Rates were already anticipated to rise per the terms of the agreement with Westinghouse in coming years, as customers move from paying for the financing costs for the reactors to paying for construction costs when the plants go into service.

However, if the utilities - Georgia Power and South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCE&G) - elect to stop building, customers are still on the hook for what has already been spent on the unfinished reactors. In addition, whatever replaces that power generation will also need to be paid for.

"Were getting briefings about what were facing and at this point I dont think any of the options are terrific," said Stan Wise, chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC), which regulates rates in Georgia.

The reactors at Georgia's Vogtle plant were expected to cost about $14 billion and enter service in 2016 and 2017. Now they are not expected to be finished until at least 2020, with expected costs around $19 billion.

Story continues

The typical Georgia Power residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt hours pays about $122 per month. Of that, almost $7 is covering financing costs for Vogtle. Georgia Power, a unit of U.S. power company Southern Co, serves almost 2.5 million homes and businesses in the state.

Once the project is complete, rates are expected to rise by 6 percent to 8 percent as customers have to cover the project's capital costs. Coyle said cancelling or delaying the completion would likely end up boosting customer bills by more than Georgia Power's estimate.

The utility would have to go back to the Georgia PSC, which would determine whether to complete the project or stop work.

"Knowing what we know today, we might not choose to build the new reactors," the Georgia PSC's Wise said. Since the commission approved construction a decade ago, natural gas prices and renewable technologies have become less expensive.

Jacob Hawkins, a spokesman at Georgia Power, said the company is monitoring the situation and is "prepared for any potential outcome."

The reactors at South Carolina's Summer plant were expected to cost about $9.8 billion, excluding certain costs, and be completed in 2016 and 2019; current estimates are around $22 billion and completion in 2020.

SCE&G, a unit of Scana Corp, serves about 714,000 customers. A typical residential customer using 1,000 kWh per month pays about $148. Of that, about $27, or 18 percent, is for construction, according to the South Carolina PSC.

"The financing cost of the new reactors alone will account for over 25 percent of a typical customer's bill by 2020," said Tom Clements, director of Savannah River Site Watch, a public interest group monitoring energy and nuclear issues. He said he expects "big rate hikes" when the reactors enter service or if SCE&G stops work.

Rhonda Maree O'Banion, a Scana spokeswoman, would not comment on possible rate hikes, saying they are "preparing for a variety of possible outcomes."

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
Eclectic entrepreneur Elon Musk sure had plenty of things to say on Twitter late last week and into the weekend, what with spilling more details about Teslas eagerly anticipated electric-vehicle-for-the-rest-of-us Model 3 (theres even a video) and hinting that homeowners may be able start ordering SolarCitys solar-integrated roof shingles as early as next month. One thing you wont hear him championing is the unfettered rise of artificial intelligence, which he once described as the biggest existential threat to humankind.

Musks prejudice prompted him to donate millions to the ethics think tank OpenAI-and its why hes urging other billionaire techies like Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg and Alphabets Larry Page to proceed with caution on their myriad of machine learning and robotics experiments. OpenAI is both an ethics and a research institution. Its mandate (plucked from its website): Because of AIs surprising history, its hard to predict when human-level AI might come within reach. When it does, itll be important to have a leading research institution which can prioritize a good outcome for all over its own self-interest.

For more insight into Musks motivation, I recommend Maureen Dowds treatise in the latest issue of Vanity Fair. Ostensibly, her article is about Musk, but she also does a masterful job of revealing where noted AI enthusiasts stand on the ethics debate. For example, Ray Kurzweil, who writes often about the coming merger of man and machine as part of his Singularity thesis, says both the promise and peril are deeply intertwined.

Get Data Sheet, Fortunes technology newsletter, where this essay originated.

My gut reaction after reading Dowds feature was this: Methinks Musk doth protest too much. After all, Teslas autonomous vehicles are inherently dependent on machine learning software. Ditto, the rockets being developed by his SpaceX venture. Or as newly unemployed AI expert Andrew Ng, who quit his job at Baidu last week, told her: I think its fascinating that in a rather short period of time hes inserted himself into the conversation on A.I. I think he sees accurately that A.I. is going to create tremendous amounts of value.

Is Musk really that frightened or is he just putting on a show to stoke our innate paranoia about smart machines? Im not sure the answer really matters. Either way, hes raising our collective consciousness.

This article was originally published on FORTUNE.com
Shares of Sun Life Financial Inc. SLF gained 14.5% over a one year period. Though the stock underperformed Zacks categorized Life Insurance industrys gain of 28.11%, the Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) life insurers diversified business profile positions it well for the long term.





In a bid to expand internationally, Sun Life  the third-largest insurer in Canada  has been focusing on the emerging economies of Asia. Also, the company believes that these markets are likely to provide higher return and growth than the North American markets. The company has a strong presence in China, Philippines, India, Hong Kong and Indonesia. It has forayed into Malaysia and Vietnam in recent times, increasing its presence to seven markets. No wonder, this has been supporting the companys bottom-line growth.



We note that the company often undertakes strategic buyouts to expand its footprint. It had adopted the same strategy to expand its presence in Vietnam, India, and Hong Kong.



Sun Life has consciously revamped its business mix to increase profitability. The company deploys capital in businesses that have the potential to generate a higher return on equity. It also engages in shareholder-friendly moves to cement investor confidence on the stock.



Sun Life is shifting its focus toward products that require lesser capital but offer more predictable earnings, such as mutual funds and group benefits. The company is also growing its voluntary benefits business (came up with new products in this line) and targeting a place among the top five players.



Sun Life is concentrating on the growth of its Global Asset Management Business, which has been witnessing an increase in asset base over the past many quarters. The life insurer targets Sun Life Investment Management asset under management of approximately $100 billion over the next five years.



Banking on its operational strength, Sun Life reiterated its medium-term financial objectives. The company still expects earnings per share to increase 810%. Return on equity is estimated between 12% and 14%, while the dividend payout ratio is likely to be 4050% of the underlying net income. Sun Life Financial remains focused on expanding the U.S. Group margins to a range of 56% in the medium term. The company is also on track to integrate and deliver on the synergies of its employee benefits acquisition.



Stocks to Consider



Some better-ranked stocks from the insurance are American Financial Group, Inc. AFG, Argo Group International Holdings, Ltd. AGII and The Progressive Corporation PGR. Each of these stocks flaunts a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.



American Financial Group engages primarily in property and casualty (P&C) insurance with focus on specialized commercial products for businesses. Shares of the company gained 31.93% in a years time.



Argo Group underwrites specialty insurance and reinsurance products in the P&C market worldwide. Its shares rallied 26.12% in a years time.

Story continues

Progressive offers personal and commercial P&C insurance, and other specialty P&C insurance and related services, primarily in the U.S. Shares of the company gained 12.74% in a years time.

More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone!

It could become the mother of all technological revolutions. Apple sold a mere 1 billion iPhones in 10 years but a new breakthrough is expected to generate more than 27 billion devices in just 3 years, creating a $1.7 trillion market.

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Sun Life Financial Inc. (SLF): Free Stock Analysis Report



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Zacks Investment Research
Loretta Niedbala (pronounced Niedbawa) met Dick Miller at the Argonaut Ballroom in Houghton Lake on a summer evening in 1956. On Sept. 14, 1957 they were married at St. Marys Catholic Church in Estey. Their wedding reception was the next day at Lockwood Beach and one gift was a grill.

Loretta said, Dick and I decided that we would do all of our own cooking on our honeymoon. She paused for a moment. The grill was never unwrapped. We ate all our meals in restaurants.

Thats how things turn out sometimes. And this is the story of Dick and Loretta and how their life turned out.

Loretta Niedbalas roots go back to her-Polish grandparents Frank and Sophie Gontarz who had five daughters. Two died young. Julia was born in Pennsylvania but by the time Sophie was pregnant for Josephine they were back in Poland. Loretta said, They went back and forth to Poland. Back and forth. A third daughter, Blanche, was born in America but before long, Sophie Gontarz for unknown reasons left daughters Josephine and Julia with their grandparents, the Ratajs who had remained in Poland. Only Blanche was raised by her mother Sophie Gontarz.

Josephine Gontarz was born in Poland in 1909 and left for America on a freighter where she met Michael Niedbala. They fell in love and were married in Hamtramck. Hamtramck was the center of Polish American life and culture at the time with Polish immigrants settling in there where work was abundant in the Dodge Brothers car manufacturing plant and in the five tobacco factories bounded by Milwaukee, Grandy, St. Aubin and Warren Avenues  an area of four square miles.

Close to Ontario, it was easy for Detroit to buy Canadian tobacco and Polish immigrants (mostly women) labored in cigar companies named Mazer Kressman, Essex Cigar, Bernard Schwartz, Tegge-Jackson, General Cigar and San Telmo. Josephine Niedbala was one of thousands of young Polish immigrants who worked in a tobacco factory.

Initially cigar making in Hamtramck had been a mom and pop business with the entire cigar being made by one person. Buying cigars from Detroit became a status symbol and they were considered the best cigars available in the states. But as demand increased, sales increased and cigar factories became necessary to fulfill the increasing demand by the public for cigars. Before Henry Ford began the assembly line in his car factory, cigar factories had turned to the assembly line system in making cigars.

The young women working in cigar factories contended with inhaling tobacco dust all day, every day. Poor facilities. Cheap wages. And sexual harassment. By 1937 women working in cigar factories went on strike and were so successful that they were unionized and became part of the CIO.

But Josephine Niedbala worked in a cigar factory in 1930, long before strikes and unions took place. Michael Niedbala meanwhile stayed home and raised their baby daughter Genevieve who was born in 1929. In 1934 a second daughter was born to the Michael and Josephine Niedbala family and she was named Loretta.

Michael dreamed of becoming a farmer and by 1940 he had purchased forty acres of farmland in Gladwin County. Loretta was six years old. She said, I dont really have any memories of living in Hamtramck. A third daughter was born in 1940 in the new house near Estey that Michael had built for his family. A midwife delivered the baby girl they named Gladys.

Loretta has vivid memories of growing up on the farm in Gladwin County. She said, My dad picked and canned 99 quarts of huckleberries one summer. Now we call them blueberries.

Since there were no sons, the daughters were expected to do farm work, too. Loretta learned to milk cows and use the separator that separated the cream from the milk. Loretta said, The cream was sold to buy necessities like flour, sugar and lard. We mostly lived on what we raised. When Michael and Josephine went to the Gladwin Stockyards, Loretta made sure that she had the nine cows milked and the cream and milk separated by the time her folks returned home because she wanted to go to the movies at the Gem Theatre in Beaverton,

Josephine made most of their clothing, shopping at the little Ben Franklin store in Beaverton. Loretta said when she went out to the barnyard, she wore rubber boots and thick woolen socks. She remembers her sister Gladys, six years younger than she was, saying, Nobody loves me. Im all alone. You have a horse.

Loretta had a Pinto pony and rode with a friend named Mary Jones. Mary Jones rode bareback but Loretta had a saddle for her pony. Loretta said, We would ride all over on Sunday afternoons. Wed ride to Albright Shores. All around Wixom Lake. I was about 13 at the time.

Loretta attended grade school in East Billings and today one of her keepsakes is her diploma signed by her teacher at East Billings School. Now ready for high school, Loretta wanted to attend Midland Senior High School where her Aunt Julias two sons Sylvester and Gerald Poltorak attended. Since she couldnt attend Midland Senior High School unless she lived in Midland, she was able to get a job taking care of the four children of Delores Cassidy and doing the washing, ironing, housework and cooking. She got her room and board and $5 each week but the work was hard and left little time for schoolwork or participating in school activities.

The next year she found a job working for the Roberta and Robert Good family. They had a daughter Janice and a baby named Mary. Loretta did the housework, cared for the baby and Mr. Goods mother. This time she got her room and board and $2.50 each week but the job was less stressful. Mrs. Good worked at the Community Drug Store, then on the Circle in Midland.

After graduation from high school Loretta got a job doing the window displays for the J. C. Penney Company. Loretta said, Remember when they had the containers you put the money in and pulled a cord and the thing zipped up to where a woman took the money out, made the right change and sent it back to the clerk waiting on the customer? It was at J. C. Penneys that she met Phil Sumera who was head of the mens department. He secured an interview for Loretta with Dr. George Stanford, the dentist, and worked for him for the next five years until her marriage in 1957.

In 1956 she and friends went to the Argonaut Ballroom in Houghton Lake and she met the young man whom she would marry, Richard Miller.

This ends Part I. Part II will continue in two weeks.
I am very happy to say that since this column started, I have actually lost weight. I know that sounds counter-intuitive when you look at all the decadent items I force on my delicate system every week, but believe me, the pants are getting looser.

One of the reasons is that although I love food that may not always love me, I dont eat so heavy every day. So since I needed some new threads, I headed down to Birch Run for some deals, and stumbled on a very good, out of the way place called Goal Post Pizza and Family Restaurant.

Located at 12035 Church Street in Birch Run, Goal Post Pizza is a quiet little place that really knows how to make some wonderful food, and in my case, the best stromboli I have had in a long time.

I have always struggled to remember the difference between a stromboli and a calzone (I know, First World problems). Depending on whom you ask the difference can be as simple as the shape, since Stromboli is usually folded or rolled into a long tube where a calzone is formed into a crescent. It gets more complicated from there. Depending on the geographical location and size of the dish, strombolis and calzones can be considered a sandwich. Some people break the distinctions down further based on the type of dough used, ingredients or even the type of cheese selected.

There is also a volcanic island in Italy named Stromboli, for what thats worth. For me, with similar ingredients, I consider both dishes to be a folded pizza, for lack of a better explanation. In my Michigan travels, it seems that strombolis come with sauce on the side, whereas local calzones seem to have the sauce baked in. I prefer sauce on the side, as I can control how much I use, and it makes reheating easier.

Confused yet? Me too, so lets make it simple: the stromboli at Goal Post Pizza is amazing. It gets a big smiley emoji from me because you get good value for your dining dollar, great service and incredible eats. My stromboli, which came loaded with bacon, black olives and pepperoni came to my table fast, and that golden, brown and delicious crust was baked perfectly. The sauce was perfect, with just a hint of sweetness and no acidity at all.

Oh, by the way, you will need to ask your server for a box because few humans I know will be able to finish that stromboli in one sitting. The specimen you see in my photo was a medium, and I got three toppings (cheese comes free!) for a Ten Spot. Again, great taste and value.

Goal Post Pizza has an extensive menu, and if you arent in the mood for stromboli you will certainly find a burger, wrap, salad or full-blown dinner that will put a smile on your face without breaking the bank. The breadstix were awe-inspiring as well, and my server said many people come in and make the appetizer into a meal.

So next time you find yourself shopping for new clothes in the land of the outlet mall, keep heading west into cute little downtown Birch Run and check out Goal Post Pizza. You might be heading back with a takeout box loaded with stromboli, and your next two meals at home already taken care of.

See you at the table.

Matthew Woods writes about his favorite lunch finds. His column, Out to Lunch, will appear here on a regular basis.
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Michigan State University will host a family astronomy and telescope event from 8-9:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 29, at the MSU-St. Andrews facility located at 1910 West St. Andrews Road.

The event is ideal for older elementary, middle and high school students and their families, but all ages are welcome.
Midland County deputies will be safer after the Midland County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a grant last week from the Midland Area Community Foundation. The $37,482.90 grant will allow the Midland County Sheriffs department to purchase critical incident response go bags for its deputies.

Each bag will contain a ballistic helmet, ballistic rifle plate carrier, extra rifle magazines/ammunition and an individual first aid kit.

The plan was to do it in stages. But, the grant allows us to get it done all at once, said Capt. Tracy Thomas. We feel this is a complete go bag.

The county had budgeted $15,000 for the gear in 2017. Now, the sheriffs office can take the original budgeted amount and apply that to purchasing 10 new rifles.

They will be coming back to you for approval of another capital purchase for patrol rifles, said County Administrator/Controller Bridgette Gransden.

Thomas stated that rifles currently being used by deputies are M16A1s from the Vietnam War. The M16A1 replaced the M14 rifle, in 1969, as the standard service rifle for the U.S. military.

They were on a loan program through the U.S. Army, he said. The Army owns them and weve had them for the last 12 years. Theyre outdated and sometimes it is hard to get parts for them.

The $15,000 will allow the sheriffs office to purchase 10 new rifles.

The board also approved a $2,500 grant from U.S. Food and Drug Administration - 2017 Retail Program Standards Programs. The vote was 6-1, with Commissioner Steve Glaser, R-3rd District, voting against.

I know that this is a comparatively small grant. This is a matter of principle for me, Glaser said. Our nation is trillions in debt and I know people say, If we dont take it, someone else will. But, if we dont take it, then I think we start to draw a line in the sand.

The grant would fund county environmental health staff in conducting self-assessments of the departments current food policies in meeting national program standards.

In other items, the board unanimously approved:

 A $5,000 grant from the Mary C. Currie Foundation to the Midland County Parks and Recreation Department for the purchase of a tandem axle trailer. The trailer will be used to haul infrared equipment necessary for the maintenance of the Pere Marquette Rail-Trail.

 A 7-year affiliation agreement between Central Michigan University and the Midland County Health Department for the placement of student interns within the county.

 An agreement between the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the county to contract with Nancy Ohle to facilitate services in conducting maternal and child health needs assessment in 2017.

Every five years, a comprehensive Maternal and Child Health needs assessment is required and $15,000 in additional grant funding from the state of Michigan has been provided to the county.

Ohle will be paid an amount not to exceed $12,000. The remaining $3,000 will be used for supplies and other incidental costs related to the needs assessment.

 Reappointed Douglas Ward for a seventh term to the Community Mental Health for Central Michigan Board of Directors.

Due to spring break, the next regularly scheduled board meeting will be Tuesday, April 18.
The following list includes recent reports from the Midland County Sheriffs Office and the Midland Police Department.

Sunday, March 26

3 a.m.  A Jerome Township man, 26, was arrested for domestic assault.

11:29 a.m.  Gasoline, valued at $15.01, was stolen from a Greendale Township gas station.

Saturday, March 25

2:48 a.m.  A Jerome Township woman, 63, was arrested in Lee Township for drunken driving.

4:07 a.m.  A Sanford woman, 39, was arrested on a warrant for retail fraud after she was stopping in Midland for speeding. She was given a warning for the speeding infraction.

6:12 a.m.  A deputy was sent to Ingersoll Township for a report of a woman who asked a stranger for help because shed gotten her car stuck. The deputy found the intoxicated Midland woman, 37, had crashed her car into a dead end road. She was arrested for drunken driving.

12 p.m.  A Jerome Township woman, 88, reported she gave an unknown person her bank account information and the suspect took money from her account. The case is being investigated.

2:42 p.m.  Deputies were sent to a report of a woman walking in traffic on U.S. 10 near West River Road. The woman was picking up cans, and was informed it was unsafe to do so at the location.

5:34 p.m.  A deputy found a loose dog running in traffic in Homer Township. The dog was taken to the humane society until the owner can be located.

8:20 p.m.  The clerk of a Greendale Township store called deputies after confronting a man for stealing beef jerky. The man paid for the jerky.

Friday, March 24

12:39 a.m.  A motorist was arrested in the 1800 block of South Saginaw Road for driving on a suspended license.

1:23 a.m.  Property was stolen from the 700 block of Joe Mann Boulevard.

7:53 a.m.  Police were sent to a hit and run traffic crash at North Saginaw Road and West Main Street.

10:11 a.m.  Police investigated a case of fraud in the 1300 block of Carolina Street.

12:43 p.m.  Deputies investigated a domestic assault at a Warren Township home. A report is being sent to the prosecutor.

1:33 p.m.  Officers assisted probation agents in the 200 block of West Ellsworth Street.

6:30 p.m.  Police made arrests for drugged driving and marijuana possession at North Saginaw Road and Orchard Drive.

7:38 p.m.  Police investigated a case of fraud in the 3900 block of Todd Street.

10:33 p.m.  A deputy was sent to a report of a disorderly person at a car fire in Lee Township. The man left before the deputy arrived.

11:14 p.m.  A Jerome Township man, 36, was arrested in Lee Township for driving while his license was suspended.
The Michigan State Police is urging residents to be safe and smart when using social networking applications, especially the ones their children are using.

By design, social networking apps allow users to communicate and share information. They can be accessed using a variety of devices and are often free of charge. Some examples are Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Kik Messenger. Using social networking apps can be positive. However, there are dangers. Unintended use of these apps has resulted in children finding themselves in unsafe situations, a media release states.
Nearly 1 million low-income Michigan children under age 21 enrolled in Medicaid have dental coverage at no cost to their families through Healthy Kids Dental (HKD.)

Healthy Kids Dental is a partnership between the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and Delta Dental of Michigan designed to help children with Medicaid receive dental care.

HKD expanded in October 2016, so more children now have access to dental exams, cleanings, X-rays, fillings, fluoride treatments, sealants and more at no cost to their families.

Based on studies affirming HKDs effectiveness in improving access to dental care, Michigan lawmakers and governors on both sides of the aisle have expanded the program through the years. Its now available in every Michigan county. And while a growing number of children are participating in HKD since its launch 17 years ago, many more could receive dental care if we spread the word about the program. Its up to us to make sure that children with Medicaid receive quality dental care. If you work in any capacity with children who may have Medicaid, you can spread the word. Lets make sure every child who has HKD, uses it.

This is a goal worth reaching since good oral health is important to overall health and well-being. Children miss 51 million hours of school every year due to dental problems, which means they miss critical instruction time. Further, tooth decay is the most common chronic childhood disease in America, affecting 50 percent of first-graders and 80 percent of 17-year-olds. Increasing access to dental care produces healthier children who are more likely to succeed in school and in life.

And because more than 80 percent of Michigans dentists participate in HKD, finding a dentist close to home is easy. Studies show children with HKD coverage are more likely to receive dental treatment than those with traditional Medicaid fee-for-service dental coverage. In fact, dental visits are substantially higher for children who have HKD, and children are more likely to have a dental home.

Its the perfect time to talk about the importance of good oral health and to encourage regular dental visits. With a former U.S. surgeon general calling oral disease a silent epidemic, its imperative that we to take even more steps to improve dental health for children and adults alike.

Lets start by encouraging all parents and caregivers to make their childrens dental health a priority, and for those with HKD, lets encourage them to use it.

To learn more about HKD or to find an HKD dentist nearby, visit healthykidsdental.org

Laura Czelada is president and chief executive officer of Delta Dental of Michigan.
Lifepoint Church leverages small groups to reach the community through service projects.

The Church: Lifepoint Church in Lewis Center, Ohio

The Challenge: Encouraging church members to serve their local community.

One Big Idea: Leverage small groups to reach the community through service projects.

Lifepoint Church in Lewis Center, Ohio, operates under five core values, and one of them is serving others.

Serving keeps us from turning inward as a church, says Executive Pastor Troy Palermo. We want to build a church culture of service.

Lifepoints small groups, called Lifegroups, are a big part of this community-minded culture. Kristy Low, the director of missions, says, From the beginning, we wanted to do local outreach through our small groups. We know we can do more through our Lifegroups than we ever could using only a centralized corporate outreach model.

Lifegroups include 12 to 14 people and last for 12 weeks. During that time, groups complete a ministry project. They choose their own project and the church encourages them to serve where the Lord is leading. Past projects include volunteering at the food pantry or homeless shelter, providing makeovers to single moms, baking cookies for police officers and firefighters, providing groceries to families during breaks when the school breakfast and lunch programs are not available, and providing for the needs of children in the foster-care system.

The church provides a list of pre-approved organizations to partner with, should a Lifegroup not know how or where to start serving. But groups take ownership of their projects, and if they know of a worthy cause or needy person, they are free to choose that as their service project.

The church asks families to perform service projects together, whenever possible.

We want to include children in service projects to help them develop a service-minded attitude, teach them selflessness and show them that being generous can be fun, Palermo says.

In 2016, the Lifegroups completed more than 70 service projects. Between 80 and 85 percent of the congregation of 2,100 participates in a Lifegroup.

We want to meet spiritual needs, not just physical ones, Palermo says. We want to share the gospel and make our culture of service contagious.

Find more ways to serve your community 

LIFEPOINT CHURCH

Lewis Center, Ohio

LifepointOhio.com

A 2016 OUTREACH 100 CHURCH

Attendance: 2,112

Growth in 2015: +405 (24%)

Fastest-Growing: 58
NORMAL  Fear can cause minority groups  religious, ethnic or others  to pull inside themselves, but it is important to reach out and challenge stereotypes, said a panel of religious leaders participating in Social Work Day on Monday at Illinois State University.

More than 250 ISU students and social workers from around the state took part in the daylong conference at ISU's Alumni Center.

Other speakers included Chad Broughton, senior lecturer at the University of Chicago and author of Boom, Bust, Exodus: The Rust Belts, the Maquilas and a Tale of Two Cities about the impact of globalization, and Charlotte Alvarez, staff attorney with the Immigration Project.

Archana Shekara, representing the Hindu Temple of Bloomington-Normal, said last month's shooting of two engineers from India in a Kansas bar, killing one of them, has other South Asians on edge. The shooter reportedly yelled, Get out of my country, before opening fire.

But, said Shekara, Being afraid and staying inside is not the answer.

Shaykh Khalid Herrington, resident scholar of the Islamic Center of Bloomington-Normal, said, You begin to segregate and seclude yourself," not because you want to be separate, but out of a very real possibility of harm.

However, Herrington said, What I have to fear is the ignorance; that is the greatest enemy.

He said the way to combat ignorance is destroying the stereotypes.

Prejudice, racism and bigotry in this country is not new, he said. But it's you and I that can change the narrative.

Rabbi Rebecca Dubowe of the Moses Montefiore Temple in Bloomington, said being involved with the local anti-racism, anti-bullying group Not In Our Town has been very helpful because it lets her know I'm not alone.

Dubowe said those in the Jewish faith "have great empathy and realize we are not the only ones who have suffered at the hands of tyrants."

Diane Zosky, director of ISU's School of Social Work, said planning for the conference began in August after the national political party conventions.

We all realized as we were sitting there,  no matter what happened in this election, there are deep divisions that will need to be healed, said Zosky.

Organizers chose Shaping the Narrative: Social Work Action for Engaged Citizenship as this year's theme. Zosky said a goal of the conference was to see the faces, see the people behind the stories, rather than just look at impersonal statistics.

Herrington said what bothers him personally is "the middle ground is quickly dissipating."

He said people should make an attempt to understand and respect each other.

"If we do that on a personal level, the politicians have to follow," said Herrington. "Politicians want to keep their jobs."

In his keynote address, Broughton talked about how globalization and factories moving to other countries affected Galesburg, Ill., and Reynosa, Mexico.

Rather than pitting the white working class against workers from or in Mexico and elsewhere, Broughton said, people on both sides of the border could be helped by improving labor standards in Mexico and bringing unauthorized workers out of the shadows in the United States.

I hope that we can move away from political rhetoric that seeks to divide us along racial lines and along nationalities, Broughton said after this talk. Right now, we're heading in the wrong direction.

Alvarez said a major concern with recent changes in immigration enforcement is the lack of due process.

Under the Obama administration, there was a tiered process of deportation that required a conviction first and put priority on the most serious offenses, she said.

Now, deportation priorities have been expanded, proceedings can begin as soon as someone is charged and a drunken-driving arrest is treated the same as a more serious criminal offense, according to Alvarez.

This has a chilling effect on immigrants interacting with police, even if they are victims of crime, for fear of being deported, she said.
BLOOMINGTON  The Bloomington city budget will be revised slightly upward, to $214.1 million, to reflect nearly $296,000 in new grants for renovating housing, the City Council was told Monday.

Prior to a public hearing on Bloomington's proposed fiscal 2018 budget of $213.8 million, Finance Director Patti-Lynn Silva said the city needs to add the money from two Illinois Housing Development Authority grants received after the budget was posted last month.

The city will use the additional money to pay for fixing up low-income, single-family housing and cleaning up abandoned lots.

The added grants mean the budget now will be 3.1 percent  about $6.5 million  higher than the fiscal 2017 adopted budget. The increase, which had been $6.2 million, is being covered in part by drawing from various funds that have accumulated reserves, city officials said.

The budget is expected to be voted on April 10.

In what Silva described as a "housekeeping" move, the latest version of the budget shows a slightly lower increase in the general fund. It will increase $519,965 to $105.3 million  a 0.4 percent increase from this year; the increase had been $635,391, which would have taken the general fund to $105.4 million next year  a 0.61 percent increase.

The general fund, which is the city's main operating fund, makes up 49 percent of the budget.

"I want to thank all of the staff because this budget reflects $2 million in cuts that every department has made on their own," said Ward 5 Alderman Joni Painter. "I know that was really difficult to do, and I want to express my appreciation."

Ward 7 Alderman Scott Black said he opposes a provision in the budget to spend $300,000 to enlarge the sewer serving the Grove on Kickapoo Creek subdivision in east Bloomington. Black said he would rather see the money spent in the city's historic core neighborhoods where residents have been waiting much longer for sewer upgrades.

"I think we've got to be careful that we're one team up here and not ward-oriented," said Ward 9 Alderman Jim Fruin. "I think if we start looking at neighborhood issues, ward issues we're only going to be headed down the wrong path.

"Let's be careful that we don't pull the plug on things we've debated and approved in the past."

"What I hear Scott saying and what I've heard other aldermen say is that we need to take care of what we've got, and taking care of what we've got is looking at what's been neglected for many, many years," said Ward 6 Alderman Karen Schmidt.

Bloomington resident Donna Boelen said she is concerned about the ability of people with low or fixed incomes to pay increased city fees.

"From my playbook, the quality of life is directly related to the cost of living," she said.

The proposed budget also includes $24 million in infrastructure spending and other capital projects, including $5 million for street resurfacing.
BLOOMINGTON  A seven-month resurfacing project by the Illinois Department of Transportation, scheduled to begin next week on Veterans Parkway in Bloomington, will be an asset to the community when it is completed, according to Bloomington Public Works Director Jim Karch.

This is going to be beneficial to everyone once it is finished, he said. I for one, am anxious to see this project be done.

Work will begin on Veterans from Hamilton Road/Fox Creek Road north and then east to Bunn Street on April 3, weather permitting. The project includes almost three miles of patching, milling, resurfacing and safety upgrades.

It is not expected to be completed before late October, said IDOT officials.

There are a lot of different state routes in Bloomington that really need a lot of work and if you drive this very much, you can tell that this is one of those in need, Karch said.

Lane width restrictions will be posted at 9 feet, 6 inches and motorists should remain alert, said IDOT, urging drivers to follow all signs and be cautious of flaggers, workers and equipment using median crossovers and trucks entering and leaving the job site.

Bloomington's Rowe Construction Co. is the contractor for the $4.7 million project. A spokesman for the company said work will most likely begin on both lanes on April 3.

While it is an IDOT project, Karch said Bloomington officials need to be aware and on the lookout for any potential problems that could arise during the project.

We dont anticipate this will cause any major issues for us at all, he said. There will be no additional planning that needs to happen. For the most part, this project will mainly slow down traffic, but it is not going to shut down any roads.

Businesses contacted by The Pantagraph also said they didn't expect to see any major problems while the work was going on.

Karch added that Hamilton Road may see more traffic.

Residents who live in the southwest part of the community might use Hamilton road more and all that does is put more of an emphasis on that Hamilton Road project that we have talked about for awhile, he said. Its very much needed and this might show that a little more.

The proposed extension of Hamilton has been a high priority for the city for several years, but the project has yet to be approved. The city is trying to find $10 million in funding for a four-lane, east-west arterial route.
It should come as no surprise to anybody with eyeballs that 90s-00s nostalgia, particularly of the middlebrow mall aesthetic variety, has been on the upswing for some time now. Since 2016, distinctive aesthetic cliques have been forming around the fashion food court  there are the Pac Sun people (Thrasher tees, Vans Sk8 shoes), the Claire's crowd (tinted lenses, fuzzy accessories, tattoo chokers), the Bloomingdales label whores (Calvin Klein bras, Juicy sweats, Tommy Hilfiger shirts), the Hot Topic Xx_FrEAks_xX (Vetements, XL sleeves, Pablo merch), and the Spencer's Gift psychopaths (we don't talk about them).

Turns out these casual observations are backed up by cold hard facts, because according to a recent study by Cambridge Analytica, nostalgia-peddlers Urban Outfitters and Hot Topic are the two most popular retailers among millennial shoppers! From a survey of over 220 million shoppers across America asking where they shopped in the last six months, 23% of millennials reported they had shopped at UO (presumably to grab some of these Juicy reissues), and 17% had taken a walk on the wild side into Hot Topic. These were the two most frequently visited shoppes by the children of the 90s, followed up by Charlotte Russe in third place.

Placing bets now on a 2017 appearance of Emily the Strange on the runway, a Kylie Jenner RAWRing incident, and a My Chemical Romance reunion.





Splash image via Hot Topic

[h/t Fashionista]
Our hearts are still heavy from the 49 members of the LGBTQ community we lost during the tragically fatal mass shooting that happened at Orlando's Pulse Nightclub on June 12, 2016. Sure, the pledge from Orlando hospitals to waive medical fees for the survivors, the touching videos celebrities left and the speeches they made in honor of the victims, and, of course, the city's decision to turn the nightclub into a memorial all have helped to ameliorate our distraught hearts. But nevertheless, it always seemed like things would never truly feel normal again  particularly when some people were using the attack as inspiration to engage in some anti-gay terrorism of their own.

This latter feeling will probably never fully go away, but at least there are efforts continuously being made to honor the innocent men and women we lost on that day. Today, Buddy Dyer, the mayor of Orlando, teamed up with Teresa Jacobs, the Mayor of Orange County, to officially declare June 12th "Orlando United Day," which is slated to be "A Day of Love and Kindness." Meant to commemorate the victims and their families, Orlando United Day will feature "a number of community events and activities." Both mayors and One Orlando Alliance also urge citizens to treat Orlando United Day as a special day for focusing on doing acts of love kindness.

Watch a promotional video announcing the new holiday below and look at the events on the website.

Mayor Jacobs joins @OrlandoMayor to announce #OrlandoUnitedDay | A Day of Love and Kindness on June 12, 2017. https://t.co/26Ziakjqpu pic.twitter.com/dyIzj8jcOH

 Mayor Teresa Jacobs (@Mayor_Jacobs) March 27, 2017

[h/t The Daily City]

Splash photo via Instagram


A fertility doctor in New York laid out his plans to build a special center for undertaking a groundbreaking procedure. If approved, this center will help women with cancer get pregnant naturally.

Dr. George Kofinas submitted his proposal for approval with the New York Health Department. He wanted the city to have its reproductive surgery center for ovarian tissue harvesting and transplantation. Health Department officials, however, were still mulling its feasibility considering doctors and surgeons can perform the specific procedure in other accredited hospitals anyway.

The procedure involves taking a slice from woman's ovarian tissue before she undergoes chemotherapy. The tissue is then stored and frozen, which will be used when the woman successfully finishes chemo and goes into remission. The tissue will be transplanted back to the ovaries, according to New York Post.

One of the adverse effects of chemotherapy among women with cancer is ovarian damage or failure, according to the American Cancer Society. Experts also advise against women getting pregnant during chemotherapy as it can affect the growing fetus and could likely result in a birth defect, so some turn to donors or surrogacy.

Kofinas said because of these limitations, his proposal has a potentially high demand which justifies building a center. "We have an ever-growing number of cancer survivors that come to us now and their ovaries have been completely destroyed by chemotherapy and other kinds of treatment and we can't help them unless we use donor eggs," he said.

Kofinas also plans on building a laboratory in this center so that tissue preservation is immediate. He will be hiring additional staff and surgeons once the Health Department signs on.

Aside from Kofinas, Dr. Sherman Silber offers this procedure in his St. Louis Infertility Center. He told NY Post his center's success rate is at "75 percent pregnancy with a live baby," but acknowledged that the idea has not caught on in other fertility sites elsewhere.
Angelina Jolie reportedly fired her brother James Haven as the head nanny for the actress' six kids. Haven assumed the role of looking after the children and he also supervised the other nannies following Jolie's divorce from Brad Pitt.

The siblings have a tight relationship and Haven is often seen among the actress' entourage following and keeping watch over the kids Maddox, 15, Pax, 13, Zahara, 12, Shiloh, 10 and twins Knox and Vivienne, 8. Sources said, however, Jolie fired Haven because of exhaustion.

Looking after six children took a "heavy toll" on him, as per Stuff New Zealand. Haven also managed the rest of the household, especially when his sister is out of the country.

"He's loved spending so much time with his nieces and nephews, but it's hard work and he's absolutely shattered," a source revealed, as per Be Yahoo. "She was worried about how exhausted he looked and realized he needed a break."

The firing comes following reports Jolie and Pitt are on speaking terms again after their September split and custody battle, People reported. Since the former couple is okay, the actor and dad is able to spend more time with the kids.

Meanwhile, the "Maleficent" star recently revered her own mother Marcheline Bertrand during the launch of Guerlain's new fragrance, Jolie's newest gig. She said she remembered her mother also patronized Guerlain.

"One of those special items - and I remember it because it seemed so elegant - was her Guerlain powder," she said, as per ET Canada. "I think it speaks of all women having those few special things that make them feel feminine," she added. "When I was a little girl I would associate Guerlain with that."

Jolie's fee as a spokesperson for the brand will reportedly go to her charities. Check out Jolie in Guerlain's new advertisement below.
South Florida health officials announced their plans in order to prevent the spread of Zika virus during the rainy season. The plan included fumigating more breeding grounds and beefing up more laboratories.

Governor Rick Scott worked with community leaders and told residents to remain aware and take precautionary measures against the virus. They discussed the plans at a community roundtable on Monday at the Department of Health in Miami. Scott said although they have plans for the whole community, residents should individually take action by not allowing standing water, wearing protective clothing and using bug repellents.

For the year 2017, the Florida Department of Health reported 18 travel-related cases in the Miami-Dade and Broward counties. In 2016, officials recorded 525 travel-related cases in the same counties. He said if people will travel to Zika-infected countries, they should take extra precaution for the next three or four weeks in order to prevent the spread of the virus, Miami Herald shared.

Scott also discussed the $25 million grant they received, which is used in speeding up the vaccine process. Scott and Miami-Dade Mayor, Carlos Gimenez, assured more resources to control mosquitoes and more income to address medical care for infants and families infected with Zika. Miami-Dade county also planned to hire 42 more workers for mosquito control, WLRN revealed.

The new plans laid out by the local government unit of the state came after officials announced that three counties, including Miami-Dade, might have their sperm donations infected with the virus. They urged women to take precaution and think about getting pregnant at this time. One of the most common effects of the virus is microcephaly in babies infected with the virus.

There are no current active transmission zones in Florida. Health officials continue to make improvements regarding the efforts to fight Zika, which started in Florida last year due to travel-related transmission.
Tennessee health officials claimed in a new study that the old sleeping practices of infants contributed to the high mortality rate. The findings came amid the growing number of states adopting Finland's baby box project.

The new research found older parents advised their kids who had their own children to let babies sleep on their stomachs and share the bed with their newborns. Due to the many cases regarding infant deaths, however, officials advised new parents to follow the ABCs of safe sleeping habits.

These safe sleeping practices include letting babies sleep alone, on their backs and in cribs. These habits are reportedly part of the Safe Sleep program that was launched in 2013.

Rachel Heitmann, the director of injury retention and detection with the Tennessee Department of Health, said they have very few deaths in Tennessee classified under Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS after the program. The nurse manager for labor and delivery at Erlanger East hospital, Angie Phillips, said they also urged parents not to rely on the advice of older people to let babies sleep on their stomach as it is a contributory factor to deaths related to SIDS, Times Free Press reported.

The clinical administrator for women's services at Erlanger, Traci Josephsen, added, "At that time, we didn't know which way was best, but now we have the statistics. What I say to my moms is that your parents did the best they knew at the time, but now we know this is the best way to raise our children to keep them safe." Statistics showed many deaths of infants were due to parents accidentally rolling over them or they died from suffocation because of the blanket their parents used.

It seems that Tennessee is the next state to follow the footsteps of New Jersey, Alabama and Ohio regarding the use of baby boxes. Tennessee officials advised parents not to place toys inside their baby's cribs but they did not officially announce if they will also give baby boxes to new parents, Chronicle Council shared.

The other causes of death in infants in Tennessee include smoking of the mother and being prematurely born. Genetic defect is also one of the causes.
DailyFX.com -

Talking Points:

Yen may fall as US Dollar rebounds with markets in digestion mode

British Pound eyes Johnson comments as Brexit trigger looms ahead

NZ Dollar drops with local yields, hinting at softening RBNZ outlook

Currency markets lingered in digestion mode in Asian trade as markets digested the aftermath of last weeks failure the AHCA healthcare reform measure in the US and its impact on the so-called Trump trade. The New Zealand Dollar narrowly underperformed as local bond yields declined, pointing to near-term deterioration in the RBNZ policy outlook.

Looking ahead, the absence of top tier economic data will probably put comments from UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson initially into focus. He is scheduled to answer questions in Parliament, with Brexit-related queries likely to predominate as the government prepares to formally begin divorce proceedings this week. A long negotiation is ahead but Mr Johnson may yet offer tidbits potent enough to move the Pound.

The spotlight then turns to Fed-speak. Comments from Fed Chair Janet Yellen will probably take top billing. Governor Jerome Powell as well as Kansas City and Dallas Fed Presidents Esther George and Robert Kaplan are also schedule to speak. Fiscal policy uncertainty is no less a problem for central bank officials than it is for markets however, so clear-cut guidance with lasting US Dollar follow-through seems unlikely.

On the sentiment front, futures tracking top European and US equity index benchmarks are pointing convincingly higher. This hints that the lull in big-ticket event risk may offer space for a corrective recovery in sentiment and the broader Trump trade. That probably bodes ill for the anti-risk Japanese Yen while the greenback edges higher, at least in the very near term.

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Yen May Weaken as US Dollar Gains with Markets in Digestion Mode

European Session

Yen May Weaken as US Dollar Gains with Markets in Digestion Mode

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http://www.reuters.com/article/uk-israel-palestinians-churches-idUSKBN15227H

We always take our Israel tour groups to visit this site, which I like. Sometimes we talk with other tourists who are across the Jordan River (in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan). The river is very narrow here  as, these days, it is everywhere else.

I believe that I first visited this specific site from the Jordanian side, with President Merrill J. Bateman of BYU and the president of the University of Jordan. Prior to that, I dont think that we could approach the site very closely, on account of the mines around it and its location right on the boundary of Israel and Jordan, which were still in a formal state of hostility until 1994.
Check out this tweet, from earlier this month:

Text of tweet by @SteveKingIA: Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies.

How is it now publicly acceptable for a U.S. Congressman to tweet something like this? The nativism, xenophobia, and racism incumbent in such a statement is startling. This isnt marginal figure. This is a U.S. Congressmen from Iowa.

Who are our babies? Because last I checked, children born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens regardless of where their parents are fromthey are Americans. This is how it has been for centuries.

The children of Irish immigrants werent someone elses babies, they were Americans. The children of Italian immigrants werent someone elses babies, they were Americans. The children of Jewish immigrants werent someone elses babies, they were Americans.

None of this comes without a fight. Irish, Italian, and Jewish immigrants, too, faced nativism and xenophobia. The children of Japanese immigrants werent someone elses babies, they were Americans, but they were still imprisoned in camps during WWII. The children of Chinese immigrants werent someone elses babies, they were Americans, but they faced horrific discrimination nonetheless. But today, Irish and Italian immigrants are not distinguished from others of European descent, Jewish Americans are (mostly) accepted as part of the fabric of our country, and Asian Americans thrive.

In the same way today, the children of Muslim immigrants arent someone elses babies, they are Americans.

In some sense, I suppose, the history of the U.S. is one of twinned immigration and xenophobia. Things can and do sometimes go backwards, such as after the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, passed during the heyday of the Ku Klux Klan. We face just such a crisis today. Which direction will we gobackwards, closed to future immigration, or forward, with an understanding that we are a nation of immigrants?

I live in a city. My daughter attends school with immigrants and the children of immigrants. When I last canvased for a political candidate, I went with the knowledge that many of those living here are recent immigrants, and that not every home held an eligible voter. I can scarcely go out in public without hearing other languages, or English spoken with accents. But this is how it has always beenwe are not and never have been a nation formed by any one culture or demography.

Perhaps someday Rep. King will learn that we are not a nation united by a common past or a common race, but rather by common values.

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Patna: Several activists belonging to Pappu Yadav's Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) were hurt in Patna when the police resorted to lathi-charge and fired water cannon during a march to the state Assembly on Monday.

Some reports suggested that Pappu Yadav was also hurt in the incident though PatnaDaily could not verify that claim independently.

The protestors were rallying against the whopping 55% hike in power tariff while also demanding a thorough CBI probe into the Bihar Staff Selection Commission (BSSC) paper leak scam insisting the Nitish government was protecting those, including many legislators and ministers, who were involved in the one of the worst scams to ever hit the education in Bihar.

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As reported, when the police stopped the procession from entering the Assembly campus, Yadav's supporters became belligerent and started to throw stones and other objects at the law enforcement officers.

With the protestors, egged by vitriolic speech by the MP from Madhepura, showing no sign of retreat, police summoned anti-riot unit to tackle the mob. First the police used water cannon to disperse the crowd but when that failed, police swung into action and resorted to lathi charge in which dozens of protestors were hurt.

Meanwhile, Yadav himself left the scene and held a press conference before a media office during which he claimed over 100 party workers were hurt in today's lathi charge.

The JAP leader who spent a good deal of his life in Delhi's Tihar Jail in the case of the murder of a CPI-ML leader several years ago, said that some of his supporters heard two DSPs about a government order to have him killed during the rally in Patna today.

"This is clearly dictatorship. As a citizen, we have a right to protest when our democracy is under threat by our leaders," he said.

The former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and an ex-protege of Lalu Prasad Yadav also took shots at the opposition parties in Bihar calling them 'spineless' who, he said, were only concerned about soundbites and getting their names in the newspapers and other media.

The police later filed an FIR against Pappu Yadav and 14 others on various charges, including assault on police officers.

Yadav, meanwhile, said that he would hold even a bigger rally in Patna on April 14 to protest against the corrupt government in Bihar and the attack on his party workers today.
Patna: Just hours after he claimed he got seriously hurt in a police lathi-charge in Patna and accused the Nitish government of trying to get him assassinated, Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) leader and MP from Madhepura Pappu Yadav on late Monday evening was arrested from his residence in Patna on a charge going back to January of this year.

According to reports, hundreds of policemen arrived at Yadav's residence in the Mandiri area of the state capital on Monday evening to arrest the MP for creating ruckus near Kargil Chowk in Patna on January 24.

Yadav first resisted arrest saying the police did not have enough evidence to support their allegations but later allowed himself to be taken to a jail as he and his wife and fellow MP Ranjit Ranjan prepared to post the bail.

As reported, the former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader was leading a protest rally on Monday morning in Patna that took a violent turn when his supporters engaged with the law enforcement officials by pelting rocks, stones, and bricks on them. The police reacted first by launching water cannons but when that did not work, it resorted to lathi charge in which several of JAP activists were said to be hurt.

Meanwhile, Yadav's wife raised the issue of the arrest of her husband in Patna in the Lok Sabha accusing the police of brutality and violating the right of a member of the Parliament.

"A Member of the Parliament was arrested in Patna on Monday. His only crime was to organize a peaceful protest to expose the failure of the current state government. Isn't this the violation of his democratic rights? He was also confined wrongfully in a jail. This is an absolute outrage and must be condemned by one and all," she said in the Parliament.
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Microsoft has brought live, collaborative editing to its Excel app for Windows through a beta update it launched on Tuesday. The new feature lets testers collaborate with one another on the same file from inside the app.

Live collaboration has been a major focus of Office 2016, which Microsoft released roughly a year and a half ago. The suite first offered real-time co-authoring for the desktop version of Word, then expanded those capabilities to PowerPoint. Its a major change for Microsofts client applications, which previously kept editing to a fairly solitary experience.

Its worth noting that just starting a file in Excel doesnt automatically bestow real-time co-authoring capabilities on it. Using Offices real-time collaboration also requires keeping files in one of Microsofts online file storage systems.

Microsofts support for real-time collaboration is key to keeping up with Googles G Suite offering. Google Sheets has offered real-time collaboration for years and the Mountain View-based tech giant has been pushing hard to attract enterprise customers who would ordinarily use Microsoft Office.

When using the co-authoring features, users profile pictures will appear at the top of the ribbon in the Excel window. Clicking on a profile picture will let users jump to where another person is working on the spreadsheet, so its possible to keep tabs on what is changing.

Microsoft also introduced a new AutoSave feature in beta for Word, Excel and PowerPoint on Windows, which is designed to automatically save files stored in the companys cloud storage services as users are editing them. Its supposed to cut down on that sinking feeling that comes from realizing that an Office app has crashed with unsaved data inside it. Google, Apple and other players in the productivity industry have already supported similar functionality using their cloud services.

Right now, the Excel for Windows desktop apps real-time collaboration capabilities are only available to people who are a part of the Office Insider Programs Fast ring, though Microsoft expects to roll the feature out to more users soon. Its possible to work with people who dont have a beta version of the desktop app using Excel Online, along with Excel for Android, Windows Phone and iOS (though that last one is also in beta).
For Riverside County residents seeking help from social service agencies, assistance with housing and food continue to be the biggest needs, a new report shows.

Help with utility bills and mental health or addiction services were the next most common inquiries, according to 2016 data from Community Connect, the nonprofit agency that runs Riverside Countys 211 information line.

The 211 line is a free, confidential, phone number that gives residents information on services such as rental assistance and food pantries. Community Connect operates a help line to address callers mental health concerns.

Community Connect gathered data from more than 52,000 calls to 211 in 2016 and issued a report on the results earlier this month.

The call data shows that affordable housing in Riverside County is still an issue, said Marie Davis, executive director of the Riverside-based Community Connect.

The greatest number of calls came from Riverside city residents, which isnt surprising since its the countys largest city. When the number of times a citys residents called and visited the 211 website was compared to the citys population as a whole, Hemet had the highest rate  8.1 percent  of residents seeking help or information.

Connie Hall, vice president of operations for Central County United Way in the Hemet-San Jacinto area, said the No. 1 inquiry her agency gets is for assistance in paying rent, but they also refer many callers to the Hemet Community Pantry for food.

The vast majority those calling 211 were women. Most callers reported living alone, the report showed. Among calls to the help line for a mental health, domestic abuse or other crisis, 95 percent were conducted in English, though Davis said translation is available into Spanish and more than 100 other languages.

RELATED: Heres how Riverside Countys homeless count could help solve the problem

While a cultural stigma around mental health issues could discourage some people from calling, Davis said, Obviously theres more work that needs to be done in diverse communities to make people aware of the help line.

Davis also noted that, while the call volume decreased since 2015, visits to the online database of services grew.

Aaron Norris, who chairs Community Connects board of directors, said the agency launched a chat function this year and plans to add a texting feature, both to help reach younger people who prefer not to call 211.

Community Connect officials will be reaching out to cities and others who could use the data to figure out what services their community needs, he said.

Reach the reporter: 951-368-9461, arobinson@scng.com or @arobinson_pe on Twitter
Part of the reason the San Bernardino terrorist attack didnt lead to more loss of life started years before.

San Bernardino, we didnt see that coming, said Stephen Woolery, special agent in charge of the FBIs Counterterrorism Division in Los Angeles. You had a married couple that, Enrique Marquez aside, had kept it all fairly secret.

Marquez purchased the rifles that Redlands couple Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik used to kill 14 people and wound 22 others at San Bernardinos Inland Regional Center on Dec. 2, 2015.

Inland Empire law enforcement were able to hit the ground running during the attack because it wasnt the first time the agencies had interacted, which Woolery said proved beneficial during the crisis.

Partnerships are the only thing that keep us in the fight, he said.

Those partnerships between law enforcement agencies were years in the making, agreed San Bernardino County Assistant Sheriff Steve Higgins.

Local, state and federal law enforcement officials came together Friday, March 24, at Claremont McKenna College for a conference on Homeland Security at the Local Level, hosted by the Inland Empire Center for Economics and Public Policy.

Lessons learned from previous mass shootings were also invaluable.

The people who live through these attacks dont care about how we label them, said Jim Bueermann, the former chief of police in Redlands and the president of the Police Foundation. The reality is a crazy person went in and started shooting.

The incident that changed how law enforcement handles such events was the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, according to the officials at the Claremont conference.

Columbine, in many ways, was a watershed event, San Bernardino police Chief Jarrod Burguan said. Our typical law enforcement response when Columbine happened  was to set up and contain.

Which, that day, resulted in high school students left trapped inside with gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. The two high school seniors murdered 12 of their fellow students and a teacher, and wounded 21 additional people.

That incident, overnight, changed how we do things, Burguan said. Theres not a cop in this country who hasnt had Columbine-inspired training, he added.

Law enforcement has learned a great deal from these past incidents, including the 2013 rampage of former Los Angeles Police Department officer Christopher Dorner.

Prior to Dorners shooting spree, during which he killed four people, including two law enforcement officers, local law enforcement officials had used different radios, making it difficult for them to coordinate during the manhunt. Today, all but federal agents and the California Highway Patrol use the same radio, which made a difference during the San Bernardino attack, when Fontana police and other agencies suddenly found themselves involved.

Prior training and discussion before an incident is critical, those in attendance agreed.

We do a really good job in some aspects, like narcotics, Higgins said. But we do those sorts of cases a lot.

In contrast, law enforcement doesnt have much experience with actual mass shootings.

Those incidents are rare, thank God, but we dont have the opportunities to get better, Higgins said.

Still, its critical that they work together and prepare as much as possible, he said.

Our greatest threat is our inability to work together, Woolery said.
How to spend millions of sales tax dollars from Measure Z will be discussed this week by a city panel.

The topic is on the agenda for Riversides Budget Engagement Commission, which meets at 5 p.m. Thursday, March 30, in the mayors ceremonial room at Riverside City Hall, 3900 Main St.

The commission, which includes residents and business people, will address priorities for the new revenue. Suggestions include building a new main library, replacing the police headquarters with a new facility that would include 40 to 50 holding cells, and expanding the convention center.

The discussion is expected to continue at the commissions April 6 meeting. Recommendations to the Riverside City Council are expected in May.
The leader of an Inland Empire burglary crew that stole millions of dollars by cutting through building roofs and rappelling into banks to gain access to cement vaults and safety deposit boxes was sentenced Monday, March 27 to 20 years behind bars.

Alceu Johnny Andreis, 48, of Banning was also ordered by U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer to pay more than $12 million in restitution and serve three years of supervised release after he is set free, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

Andreis was convicted by a jury in Los Angeles federal court last year of two counts of bank burglary. The sentence will run consecutively with a 51- month federal prison sentence he received previously after pleading guilty to related charges.

Wearing the same-size shoes and identical clothing, the robbers developed a coded language to use on walkie-talkies, making several dry runs before cutting and sealing holes in bank rooftops and returning later, court papers show.

This is a man whose entire adult life has revolved around burglary and stealing things from other people, prosecutors wrote in pre-sentencing papers. They said the defendant has shown he cannot be rehabilitated and will continue to commit crime.

Andreis and four others were arrested in April 2013 following a year- long investigation that involved a surveillance operation by Los Angeles County sheriffs deputies, who were on hand when the crew tried to rob a Citibank branch in Diamond Bar.

Recovered evidence included a portion of the banks roof, roofing material, two-way radios, power tools, gloves and ski masks.

Andreis had special knowledge of how to break into bank vaults through the roof, a method perfected during nearly two decades of cutting holes in roofs and burglarizing businesses, including a branch of the Department of Motor Vehicles and a church, according to court papers.

The men knew how to select a bank with a penetrable roof; locate the vault from overhead using a sonar device; cut a hole in the roof and install braces to keep the removed section in place until their subsequent return, a prosecutor wrote.

Andreis ran a precise operation that included scouting banks to determine optimal conditions, including prime lookout spots, easy getaway routes and secluded rooftops; purchasing all necessary construction equipment and later wiping it down for fingerprints and DNA; and training together and conducting surveillance.

He knew how to cut holes in bank rooftops, then patch them up so nobody suspected the bank was on the brink of being robbed. The holes were usually placed above alarm systems and vaults.

The defendant had the patience and knowledge to jackhammer a hole in the banks thick concrete vaults, according to court papers. The identically attired five-member crew did not carry cell phones so law enforcement could not use cell site information to place the crew at the burglaries.

Prosecutors said Andreis was responsible for about two dozen rooftop bank burglaries throughout Southern California over the course of at least a decade. The 20-year maximum sentence was recommended to to keep the defendant away from society as long as is permissible under the law, they wrote.

Four co-defendants have been convicted and sentenced in the case.

Daniel Soto of Riverside, 40, was sentenced last week to nearly four years in prison after pleading guilty and cooperating with authorities.

Lucian Gabriel Isaia of Beaumont, 36, and Laurentiu Penescu of Yucaipa, 42, each pleaded guilty to conspiracy and attempted bank burglary and were each sentenced in June 2014 to three-year federal prison terms for the failed Diamond Bar heist.

A fifth man, Dean Dino Muniz of Fontana, 49, was sentenced to a 10- year prison term after pleading guilty to bank burglary.

Investigators believe the veteran burglars had been slicing through rooftops late at night to access vaults for years.

Prosecutors said the crew was linked to a 2011 heist at an East West Bank branch in Rowland Heights, in which $1 million in cash was stolen and safety deposit boxes containing $14 million in valuables were emptied.

A Preferred Bank location in Diamond Bar was hit a few months later, but the job was abandoned. In September 2012, thieves broke into the vault of the BBCN Bank branch in Diamond Bar, taking $2.43 million in valuables.

Andreis, Isaia and Penescu were convicted a decade ago of several Riverside County rooftop thefts. In those heists, more than $3.5 million in cash and gems were stolen from jewelers and other businesses in Palm Springs and Temecula.
Gorsuch principled

Sen. Diane Feinstein says that the United States has a living Constitution. Many legislators advocate this belief and find it useful when they cannot get bills passed in Congress. These legislators depend on judges to go outside their constitutional powers and decide cases based on popular culture or personal whim. When judges insert into the law a decision that creates a new law, it effectively takes away the peoples right to decide.

In the case of federal judges, it gives the power to legislate law to unelected judges with lifetime appointments. It is a violation of the Constitution when law is created like this. America is a stronger nation when law is created through the legislative process based on constant principles contained in the Constitution.

Judge Neil Gorsuch has testified that he will adhere to the Constitutions original intent. He is a principled individual that will be a great addition to the Supreme Court.

 Bonnie Parsley, Murrieta

Queen Mary important in this immigrants life

Sunday, Aug. 28, 1960 at exactly 2:08 p.m., yours truly sailed past the Statue of Liberty on the Queen Mary heading toward the massive doors of Ellis Island. It is well remembered the conversation this author had with the great statue: No son or daughter of yours will ever put a shilling in this 18-year-old Irish immigrants pocket that he does not earn. Tis blessed he is that that is how it has always been.

A leaking hull (referenced in your editorial) has resonance with this author because in the hull is where he lightly bunked crossing the Atlantic. The trip was fun and exciting; he didnt want to get off.

After recently visiting her Royal Majesty, walking the halls and viewing the ocean brought back memories of place and time, faces remembered, conversation had that can only be classified as unforgettable; however, leaving Ireland and thinking about five younger siblings and two wonderful parents were indelible sad thoughts stored for all time.

Most TV weather reports show a picture of Queen Mary; hopefully theyll reciprocate in her restoration.

Queen Mary brought many to and fro, thread and thrum; shes experienced joy and sorrow via immigrants and soldiers. She is a priceless image of Long Beach and Southern California. Long may she float in style, because shes one of a kind.

 Matthew McDonagh, Rancho Cucamonga

Southland showed signs of war during WWII

Re: Some observations [Letters, March 21] and Japanese invasion was perceived as a real threat [Letters, March 17]: Like the two letter writers regarding the Japanese interment during World War II, I too remember the air raid sirens blasting, searchlights scanning the night sky and blackouts. I remember a small oil refinery north of Santa Barbara being shelled by a Japanese submarine.

I also remember the gun emplacements on the palisades in Santa Monica and up and down our coastline. You could still see them in the 1950s with doors chained over the caves.

You can call it war hysteria if you wish. Hindsight does not change history.

 M. Gardner, Upland

War was a different time

I was about to have my 10th birthday when World War II broke out. I lived in Roscoe (now Sun Valley). The letter writer states there was never an attempt by the Japanese to infiltrate America. This well-meaning writer really misses the point. The motivation for taking this action was based in the reality of the time.

The produce clerk at a local market said to my mom, just wait, youll be serving us soon. Our only recourse was to report it to the local air raid warden. The large Japanese population in and around Roscoe were not passive or loyal to their adopted country. They were Japanese first. That was where their loyalty was.

The drastic action of mandatory internment seems like overreaction today. Not in 1942. We saw it as a very real threat to our safety and security. Nobody questioned FDRs action. It was a necessity of war. Much like the netting over the parking lot at Lockheed in Burbank to make it look like open area from the air.

Japan of today is not the same nation it was in 1942. Read any story of a POW in a Japanese POW camp. While it is politically correct to be tolerant and understanding of all today, yesteryear was not the same. The internment of Japanese in WWII was necessary and correct.

 Arthur Liebman, Redlands

SPLC has good rating

Re: Southern Poverty Law Center: Hate group that incited Middlebury College melee [Opinion, March 18]: As one who has made small contributions to Southern Poverty Law Center, I was disturbed to read this well-written, critical assessment of Alabama civil rights lawyer Morris Dees and the SPLC.

I was particularly concerned by his statement that the charity has been given an F rating by an assessment agency.

I decided to check this with the highly respected Charity Navigator and found that SPLC has a rating of 86 percent  the same rating as CARE, Oxfam and Public Citizen, and higher than the Red Cross (83 percent) or the American Cancer Society (72 percent). I believe all are excellent charities and it leads me to question whether other parts of Cannons article are equally misleading.

I do not condone the behavior of the Middlebury students who prevented American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray from completing his invited talk and who accosted him and the professor who invited him. I assume the college will address their unacceptable behavior.

But it is also legitimate for any group, including the SPLC, to criticize Murray for his controversial writings that attempt to justify the growing economic inequality in the United States.

 Sam Tanenbaum, Claremont

Positive change for U.S.?

Despite two months in office under his belt, President Donald Trump still seems reluctant to act the part of commander-in-chief.

While the country is not yet in complete ruin, as some feared, the president has yet to Make America Great Again. It would be nice to see some positive signs for our nation.

In spite of this, I intend to keep a positive attitude in the coming months in hopes of some positive change.

 Matthew Belknap, Chino Hills

Keep North Korea in line

With Donald Trump agitating for more national security and boosting the hegemony of our military even more, it becomes clear that North Korea is in the presidents crosshairs.

To prevent this predictable and costly massacre, cooler heads should exert pressure on North Koreas big sister, China, to tell her little brother to behave or else no more welfare for him.

The U.S. should recognize Chinas permissiveness with North Korea as being an obvious form of passive-aggressiveness towards the U.S.

 George Chung, Redlands

Bankruptcy before tax deductions

A key part of the American Health Care Act relies on tax cuts. Lets consider this real case scenario: Without health insurance, a patient who needs prostate surgery to take care of prostate cancer would have to pony up at least $24,000 for the now common Da Vinci robotic procedure at Kaiser Permanente. Some renowned hospitals in Los Angeles may charge anywhere between $40,000 and $60,000 for the same procedure.

This is similar for other health conditions that require surgery. This situation by itself is insane, i.e., hospitals being allowed under the current U.S. health system to charge any amount for any procedure!

President Trump and House congressional Republicans are claiming that under the proposed AHCA these amounts will be tax deductible. The key question is apart from the top 5 percent of income earners earning $1 million a year, who else among the 95 percent middle- to low-income workers can afford to write a check for these amounts?

It is estimated that one in four adult males may need the above cancer treatment in their lifetime. By the time the patients income tax returns are filed the following year the patient would be bankrupt! This is only one example of the bankruptcy of the proposed AHCA.

What happened to President Trumps campaign promise that all Americans would be covered by a beautiful health insurance with greater access to better health care at less cost?

 Charles Blankson, Fontana
Hundreds of thousands of Southland motorists are risking serious injury or death because theyre driving recalled vehicles with faulty air bag inflators, a coalition of civic and community leaders said Monday, March 27.

Speaking at a news conference at Los Angeles Trade Technical College in downtown Los Angeles, the group said its looking to get the word out that defective Takata air bag inflators could potentially send a blast of jagged shrapnel into a cars passenger compartment, even minor collisions.

The ongoing air bag inflator recall is the largest auto recall in U.S. history and it demands immediate attention, especially here in Southern California, said Curren Price, a member of the Los Angeles City Council. More than 1 million defective air bag inflators in Southern California remain unrepaired, putting far too many members of our community at risk.

And some are deemed to be at greater risk than others.

RELATED: Many Inland cars still have faulty air bags

While the recall affects as many as 42 million vehicles and 19 automakers, the air bag inflators in certain 2001-2003 Hondas and Acuras pose the biggest threat. The U.S. Department of Transportation says the inflators in those cars have as high as a 50 percent chance of exploding, even during a fender bender.

Those models include the 2001 and 2002 Honda Civic, the 2001 and 2002 Honda Accord, the 2002 Honda Odyssey, the 2002 Honda CR-V, the 2003 Honda Pilot, the 2002 and 2003 Acura TL and the 2003 Acura CL.

Owners of those vehicles are advised to schedule a free repair by calling 800-234-2138.

The leaders who gathered Monday in Los Angeles have launched a mobilization effort called Airbag Recall: Southern California to educate communities in the region about the potential risks of the defective inflators.

Leticia Barajas, vice president of academic affairs and workforce development at Los Angeles Trade Technical College, said the school is getting firmly behind the recall effort.

We are integrating the whole community awareness campaign to promote the recall, she said. Its especially important given the Spanish speaking community we have in our communities.

At least 11 Americans  including three Californians  have been killed by faulty air bag inflators and an estimated 180 Americans have suffered serious injuries, including lacerations to the face or neck, broken or fractured facial bones, loss of eyesight and broken teeth. The risk for Southern California motorists is especially high as the regions summer temperatures can exacerbate the hair-trigger defect in Takatas inflators.

A TRAGEDY BECOMES REAL

Araceli Cazales, an agent with State Farm Insurance, was also on hand at Mondays news conference. She had been friends with Corona resident Delia Robles, who was killed in September of last year when the air bag inflator in her 2001 Honda Civic exploded.

Robles was driving along when a Chevy Colorado pickup truck turned in front of her, causing a collision.

Id like everyone to think about this, Cazales said. Its Friday and you go about your normal day. Then you leave work and on your way home you decide to stop and get a flu shot. But before you make it to the clinic you get into a minor fender bender  and you are only driving 25 miles an hour. But your air bag explodes and shoots sharp pieces of metal toward your face and neck. These are the circumstances under which my friend Delia Robles lost her life.

Robles was pronounced dead shortly after the accident at Parkview Community Hospital. Her son, Joe Contreras, 26, had purchased his mothers car a year before the accident and it was later discovered that the vehicle had been resold three times at used-car auctions before he bought it.

The other two California deaths involved Hai Ming Xu, 47, of Rosemead who was killed Sept. 13, 2013 in Alhambra when he lost control of his 2002 Acura TL and sideswiped three parked cars before hitting the wall of a building, and Jewel Brangman, 26, of San Diego who lost her life on Sept. 7, 2014 when she rear-ended a van in her 2001 Honda Civic rental car.

Attorney John Buretta, who was selected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to be an independent monitor for Takata and the Coordinated Remedy Program, showed photos of others who have been killed as a result of Takatas defective air bag inflators.

Parents have died, grandmothers have died  all-American gymnasts have died, he said. All walks of life are affected by this recall. Over a million unrepaired inflators are here in Southern California and were so grateful on behalf of the U.S. Department of Transportation that this coalition has come together to take on this issue, to raise awareness and to get the repairs done.
Cesar Chavez Days are here again.

To mark the civil rights and labor leaders birthday and legacy, Latino Network is again organizing a host of activities, which will honor the 90th anniversary of his birth. Chavez died in 1993 at 66.

Though sold out, the centerpiece is the 18th Annual Cesar E. Chavez Memorial Breakfast, which this year will bring Chavezs granddaughter, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, to Riverside.

Rodriguez, California state director for Sen. Kamala Harris, will speak at the Friday, March 31, event at the Marriott hotel. She worked in the Obama White House as principal deputy director of public engagement, a policy adviser and a special assistant to the president. Rodriguez is expected to share memories of her grandfather and his work.

Later that day, free birthday cake will be distributed at the Chavez Memorial Statue on the Main Street pedestrian mall. The statue is on Main Street at University Avenue. The hour-long celebration begins at noon.

A third tribute on Friday will be on the radio airwaves, as Radio Aztlan on KUCR 88.3 FM presents Cesar E. Chavez: Remembering a Hero, Celebrating a Legacy. The 6 p.m. program will include music and speeches.

Activities continue next week.

David Bacon will give a Wednesday, April 5, lecture accompanied by photographs called Trajabamos/We Work: In the Fields of the North. The event is set for 6 p.m. to 8 pm. at the Riverside Art Museum, 3425 Mission Inn Ave. It features photos of farm workers and their lives.

The art museum will present a community art project on Friday, April 7, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Riverside artist Cynthia Huerta created an altar working with five community groups, will discuss the work.

The 15th annual Cesar E. Chavez 5K Run/Walk is set for Saturday, April 8, at UC Riverside. The event begins at the campus bell tower and runs from 7:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. Information: Chicano Student Programs, 951-827-3821.

The groups Chavez Days 2017 also include a sixth-grade student essay, poetry and art contest called Embracing the Legacy.

In San Bernardino, organizers are preparing the Sixth Annual Cesar E. Chavez Memorial Breakfast, which is set for Saturday, April 1. The event is from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Santos Manuel Student Union at Cal State San Bernardino.

Scheduled speakers will included Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute; Antonio Villaraigosa, a former Los Angeles mayor and assemblyman; Cruz Reynoso, former California Supreme Court Justice; and Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farm Workers.

The Chicano Latino Caucus of San Bernardino County is sponsoring the event. Tickets are $50.

Information: George Aguilar, 951-906-3130 or chicanolatinocaucus@aol.com
The current ordinance regulating massage parlors in Hemet is rubbing some the wrong way, so the City Council will look at revisions when it meets at 7 p.m., Tuesday, March 28, in Council Chambers, 450 E. Latham Ave.

The amendments are aimed at making massage regulations consistent with current state law, eliminating requirements that are not easy to enforce and ensuring massage technicians are state certified.

The council Tuesday also is expected to allow the police chief to offer monetary rewards of up to $10,000 for crime tips in certain investigations.
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that will roll back many of former President Barack Obamas efforts to curb global warming. The order is aimed at helping spur American energy jobs.

The president signed the order at the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Trump says this is the start of a new era in energy production.

RELATED: California officials vow to continue clean-energy projects after Trump undoes Obama effort

The order will mandate a review of the Clean Power Plan, which restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants. It will also lift a 14-month-old moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands.

Trump has called global warming a hoax, and has repeatedly criticized Obamas efforts as an attack on American workers and the struggling U.S. coal industry.

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Even though President Donald Trump just signed an executive order undoing former President Barack Obamas climate change initiatives, dont expect solar and other clean-energy projects in California to stop.

Even before Trumps signing ceremony  ironically held at U.S. Environmental Protection Agency headquarters  California Gov. Jerry Brown and New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo put out a joint statement, saying their states will continue with clean-energy development and other programs to slow global warming.

With or without Washington, we will work with our partners throughout the world to aggressively fight climate change and protect our future, the governors said in the statement Tuesday, March, 28.

The two states combined are home to approximately 60 million people and produce about 20 percent of the nations gross domestic product.

Both states have clean-energy laws and policies that are more aggressive in reducing greenhouse gas than Obamas Clean Power Plan, which Trumps order targets. The plan was the centerpiece of Obamas policies to fight global warming.

James Rubin, a Washington attorney who served 15 years in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, said that California and several Northeast states are well ahead of the requirements that had been outlined in the Clean Power Plan.

California, in particular, appears to be setting itself up as a bulwark of climate regulation, whether through carbon controls or tailpipe or renewable fuel standards, Rubin said in an email. So I would expect the state to continue taking a lead in the development of low-emission technologies and generation, which may lead to interesting confrontations with the federal government.

Brown and Cuomo had harsh world for Trumps actions Tuesday.

Dismantling the Clean Power Plan and other critical climate programs is profoundly misguided and shockingly ignores basic science. With this move, the administration will endanger public health, our environment and our economic prosperity, they said.

Climate change is real and will not be wished away by rhetoric or denial.

Business groups supported Trumps action.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J. Donohue praised the president for taking bold steps to make regulatory relief and energy security a top priority.

These executive actions are a welcome departure from the previous administrations strategy of making energy more expensive through costly, job-killing regulations that choked our economy, he said.

Trump was flanked by coal miners at the EPA when he signed the Energy Independence executive order. It directed the agency to start the legal process of withdrawing and rewriting the Clean Power Plan.

The order also takes aim at a suite of narrower but significant Obama-era climate and environmental policies, including lifting a short-term ban on new coal mining on public lands.

The order appears to fulfill Trumps campaign promise to bring back mining and other jobs lost from the declining use of coal to fuel Americas power plants.

But Sarah Feakins, an associate professor of earth sciences at the University of Southern California, said that Trumps energy policy just doesnt make a lot of sense.

The decline of coal use in the United State is mostly attributable to the rise of fracking methods to tap reserves of natural gas, a cheaper and cleaner fuel than coal. Meanwhile, greenhouse gas levels are still rising, creating climate change, said Feakins, who specializes in climate history.

We cant turn the clock back to jobs that dont exist, she said in a telephone interview. We have a lot of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, and we urgently need to change our path, she said.

The focus now should be on expanding solar and wind capacity and developing batteries and other storage systems to save the solar electricity made during the midday peak times for later use.

Feakins added that California leads in solar production and Texas leads in wind development because these clean technologies are profitable.

Californias grid system, which excludes Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Imperial Valley area utilities, last year got 11.9 percent of its electricity from solar plants, up from 9 percent in 2015 and 6.3 percent in 2014.

In the past two and half years, several large-scale solar plants have gone into operation in the deserts of Riverside and San Bernardino counties. These include the Ivanpah solar tower project off Interstate 15 near the Nevada border. In eastern Riverside County, the Desert Sunlight, Genesis, Blythe and McCoy solar projects have been built north of and along the Interstate 10 corridor.

In California, the solar energy industry now employs about 153,000 people, according to U.S. Department of Energy numbers cited by the World Resources Institute, a research group based in Washington, D.C.

Trumps executive order does not address the United States participation in the 2015 Paris Agreement, the landmark accord that committed nearly every country to take steps to reduce climate-altering pollution. But experts note that if the Trump program is enacted, it will all but ensure that the United States cannot meet its clean-air commitments under the accord.

Trump advertised the move as a way to decrease the nations dependence on imported fuels and revive the flagging coal industry.

 The Associated Press and New York Times News Service contributed to this report.
The $510million power deal between AMERI Energy and the Government of Ghana (GoG) was clean and also helped to solve the prevailing power crisis (dumsor) at the time, former Communication Minister Dr Edward Omane Boamah has said, further refuting claims that it was overpriced by $150 million.



In Dr Omane Boamahs view, the overpricing allegation, which was concocted by the 17-member Philip Addison Committee set up by Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko to review the deal cannot hold because plants are not sold at ex-factory prices. Moreover, in Ghana thermal plants are normally not procured directly from the manufacturers. Eg. KTPP, TT1PP, Tico etc.



In a statement, he said the Government of Ghana made no payments to the Dubai-based energy company prior to the procurement, installations and delivery of power.



Apart from the overpricing allegation, the Addison report also said some aspects of the deal either did not get parliamentary approval or were injurious to the state, thus, needing renegotiating.



According to Dr Omane Boamah, however, Per the agreement with AMERI, the Government of Ghana through the Volta River Authority (VRA) will only make payments to AMERI for power produced and supplied to the VRA just like any other Independent Power Producer (IPP).



According to him, the VRA will pay through tariffs charged on the end consumer.



Also, per the agreement, Government was required to provide a standby Letter of Credit (LC) for an amount of US$51 million, which LC has been raised, Dr Omane Boamah pointed out.



In his view, the findings of the committee, chaired by a known NPP fanatic were not surprising since it is well-known the NPP made it clear before the elections that they were determined to find faults with the AMERI deal at all cost. Hence one is not surprised by their conduct.



In his judgment, the failure by the committee to contact or speak to any former Minister in the Mahama administration for clarification renders the report one-sided. At least natural justice demands that!



He has, therefore, urged Ghanaians to reject the cooked report, which in his view, is a hatchet job initiated by Mr Boakye Agyarko.



Below is the full statement from Dr Edward Omane Boamah:



AMERI AGREEMENT WAS CLEAN AND HELPED SOLVE DUMSOR -----------------------------------------------------------------



The agreement with AMERI is a Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (BOOT) agreement and not an outright purchase of generating plants by the government of Ghana.



Government of Ghana made no payments to AMERI prior to the Procurement, Installations and delivery of power by Ameri.



Per the agreement with AMERI, the Government of Ghana through the Volta River Authority (VRA) will only make payments to Ameri for power produced and supplied to the VRA just like any other Independent Power Producer (IPP).



Indeed VRA will pay through tariffs charged on the end consumer.



Also, per the agreement, Government was required to provide a standby Letter of Credit (LC) for an amount of US$51 million, which LC has been raised.



The committee set up by the Minister of Energy was chaired by a known NPP fanatic, Mr. Phillip Addison.



It is well-known the NPP made it clear before the elections that they were determined to find faults with the Ameri deal at all cost. Hence one is not surprised by their conduct.



The committee never contacted or spoke to any former minister or appointee of the NDC for clarification, thereby making the report one-sided. At least natural justice demands that!



***When compared to seven (7) comparable plants in Ghana, the composite generation tariff for the AMERI project of about USc14.59kWh is lower than the average approved composite tariff for the seven plants at USc14.94kWh.



5years versus 20years compared (levelised) ........................................................................



***The levelised tariff for AMERI is the lowest (USc11.46kWh) compared to the tariffs for seven (7) comparable plants.



Levelised tariff is the approved tariff adjusted over the concession/contract period. In other words, when comparing the AMERI project (contract period of 5 years) to the other plants that have a concession or contract period of twenty (20) years, you either have to spread AMERIs cost over a 20-year period.



Or, compact the other plants cost into a five-year period, to be able to make an acceptable comparison.



The 3 options: namely, Outright purchase, Rental and BOOT.



Nominal costs for the 3 options are US$438.9m, US$477.3m and US$516.3m respectively.



 GoG could not choose the option of outright purchase because we did not have the funds.



 For the rental option, it meant GoG will not own the plant.



 BOOT will result in GoG owning the plant at the end of five years. This would help develop the capacity of the countrys power generation company and increase the portfolio of generating plants in the country.



The thermal generation plants are not sold off the shelves and could take up to a lead time of 2 years to procure these plants. This certainly defeats the emergency solution for dumsor envisaged.



The Deputy Attorney general was part of the negotiation team and even witnessed the agreement so there was no need for another legal opinion.



Engineers and Planners was awarded a contract to prepare the site for the installation of the plants. GoG has paid E&P for all works undertaken to date by Engineers and Planners. It is therefore not true they have been paid for no work done.



Ameri has so far performed above the guaranteed performance at site conditions. The power outputs of the 10 units were between 26,322kW and 27,222kW, the net of which is higher than the Guaranteed Net Power Output of 256,347kW in the agreement.



The Ameri technology is well-proven with more than 1,800 units deployed worldwide and almost 69 million hours of operation. Its modular concept and factory-tested components allow for fast installation. This technology therefore lends itself to emergency applications.



AMERI has successfully provided the 250MW fast track power generation solution via the installation of ten (10) GE TM 2500 aero derivative gas turbines in Ghana (the Project or the AMERI Project) which has impacted positively on the generation capacity in the country.



The NPP and Philip Addison concocted 150 million dollar overpricing allegation cannot hold because plants are not sold at ex-factory prices, moreover in Ghana thermal plants are normally not procured directly from the manufacturers. Eg. KTPP, TT1PP, Tico etc.



Ameri took the decision to assume the risk by procuring, installing, operating and maintaining these plants with the hope of recovering their investment through tariffs over five years after which Ghana takes delivery and ownership of these plants. Government of Ghana took no such risk.



From the foregoing reject The NPP cooked Philip Addison Committee Report. It is a hatchet job initiated by Mr. Boakye Agyarko

Source: Classfmonline









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President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has assured entrepreneurs and the business community of his administrations determination to eliminate the impediment to business growth to accelerate Ghanas economic development.



According to the President, the sector holds the key to solving the countrys numerous economic issues and the consequent hike in unemployment.



He stated emphatically that it was in the interest of stakeholders, that businesses grow and generate wealth to improve Ghanas economic fortunes and the quality of life of the people.



It is in all our interests that those who set up ventures and take business risks are able to generate wealth.



This is the sector that must grow, for it is the sector that will provide the cure for our unemployment crisis, he said on Monday at the opening of the International Conference on Entrepreneurship, Business and Technology, organised by the Methodist University College Ghana, in Accra.



A business venture might employ three or twenty or four hundred people, but, if it flourishes, we can be sure that our aspirations for a prosperous Ghana are becoming a reality.



President Akufo-Addo noted that successful economies had been dependent on entrepreneurs running successful businesses, saying, It is time to take entrepreneurship seriously.



He said the private sector was the undisputed instrument of growth and his administration would leverage on entrepreneurship, business and technology to bolster Ghanas economy.



He said the recent Asempa Budget, has shown that my government is serious about its part of the bargain and is committed to strengthening business and the private sector.



President Akufo-Addo raised issues with the curricula of educational institutions, insisting that universities should align their curriculum with present day realities.



He said more and more these days across the globe, the value of a university is measured by how easily its graduates find jobs. This is a challenge that our own universities must face.



There is work to be done on all sides, if we are to achieve our goals; work by government, work by the educational institutions and work by the business community, he said.



The President also urged businesses to employ the use of technology in the running of their businesses as it formalises their operations without much cost.



It is time to utilise them to the full, instead of the one-upmanship gadgets they tend to be currently. A smart phone can enable a market woman decide when the best time is to make the planned trip to the orange farm for her purchases, because she can see the state of the oranges from her home or office 200 kilometers away.



That same smart phone would hold all the records of her previous transactions and enable her conduct her banking. The possibilities are endless and we have the opportunity to make rapid progress, with the aid of technology to create wealth, he said.



President Akufo-Addo called on industry and universities to develop partnerships to ensure that the next generation of business leaders were appropriately trained.



He said: Our educational institutions need to know, at first hand, what is happening in industry and train their students accordingly. This is a fundamental imperative if we are to achieve best practice and create jobs. We ignore the teachings of two of the most powerful economies of our era, the German and the Chinese, to our cost.



President Akufo-Addo said he was pleased that the Methodist University College Ghana, through its Centre for Entrepreneurship Education, Research and Training , had developed programmes aimed at developing skills for the business community, and creating entrepreneurial managers for corporate, as well as for individual businesses.



It is equally good to learn that the entrepreneurship training the University College offered national service personnel in the Brong- Ahafo Region in 2014, as part of the Universitys social responsibility and extension services, is turning out to be a success.



I would want such a programme to be rolled out nationally to affect a greater number of service personnel. The new leadership of the National Service Scheme will be alerted to the potential of this programme, he said.

Source: GNA









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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.
Kwadwo Bamba, the leader of the Delta Force, a vigilante group within the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has apologised to the President after being granted bail following an attack he led on newly-appointed Regional Security Coordinator, George Agyei, on Friday.



Bamba, 37, an auto mechanic, led some well-built men of the group to remove Mr Agyei from his office on March 24 on the grounds that he was not a native of the region and played no part in the 2016 election campaign, hence merits no appointment in the Akufo-Addo administration.



He was arrested a day later by the Ashanti Regional Police Command.



Speaking in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom, on Accra100.5FM after being released on bail on Monday, March 27, Bamba apologised for his actions and those of the group.



I have been granted bail by the police this morning, he said.



Let me use your platform to apologise to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and the Vice President. Let me also apologise to the Ashanti regional chairman of the NPP, Chairman Wontumi, Dr Amoako Tuffuor, Sammi Awuku, and all Ghanaians for what has happened.



We (Delta Force) were totally wrong, we are sorry for what happened.

Source: classfmonline.com









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At least, 213, 000 households in all 216 districts are to be paid cash grants from the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme with effect from today.



At a press conference in Accra last Friday, the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP), Ms Otiko Afisa Djaba, said an amount of GH16 million had been earmarked for the 47th payment cycle of the LEAP cash grant.



The minister said the government was in the process of refocusing the LEAP programme to ensure that it did not become a source of political patronage.



In that regard, she said her outfit was adopting effective and accurate means-testing to identify and enrol deserving beneficiary households onto the programme.



Programme



The LEAP programme, which was started in 2008, was designed not to create life long dependents but to help households to LEAP out of poverty.



In this regard, we are working on skills training modules which our current beneficiaries will be taken through, she indicated.



The minister added that: We will continue to effectively and efficiently implement our various social protection interventions to ensure we contribute to national development through poverty alleviation.



Evaluation



Ms Djaba said preliminary results from the 2016 evaluation of the LEAP programme indicated that it had encouraged social inclusion of poor households as they were able to participate fully in the economic, religious and social life in their respective communities.



And in 2016, three out of five respondents on the impact assessment on LEAP agreed that they were happy with their lives.



Responding to questions, the National Manager of LEAP, Mr Dzigbordi Agbekpornu, said the skills development exercise for beneficiaries to LEAP out of poverty had already started in the Upper East Region, with sponsorship from the Japanese government.

Source: Daily Graphic









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The Minister of State designate for Procurement, Ms Sarah Adjoa Safo, has reiterated President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addos declaration to safeguard the public purse by ensuring that sole sourcing and restrictive tender are used sparingly in the procurement process.



She said the government was committed to ensuring transparency, fairness and value for money in the procurement processes through an open tender procedure to create equal opportunities for Ghanaians to win government contracts.



Ms Safo, who appeared before the Appointments Committee of Parliament yesterday, explained that sole sourcing could be applied as the last resort.



Answering questions from members of the committee as the first minister of state designate, she indicated her willingness to work to achieve the governments aim of ensuring that 70 per cent of Ghanaians won government contracts and of the number, 30 per cent should be women and other vulnerable people, such as persons with disability and institutions established under the youth enterprise support.



No conflict



Asked whether her mandate as Minister in charge of Procurement would not conflict with that of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA), Ms Safo answered in the negative and explained that her job was strictly to advise the government on procurement issues which, in her opinion, had nothing to do with interfering with the functions of the PPA.



The nominee, who was the first legal advisor at the PPA, parried the suggestion that her decision to advocate for more women to win government contracts was unethical, since it could amount to a conflict of interest and indicated that allowing women to win government contracts was a move geared towards improving the business climate in the country.



Sanctions



Ms Safo, who is a graduate of the George Washington University Law School in Washington DC with a degree in Procurement Law, served the strongest notice that any state entity that would breach the Procurement Law would be severely punished.



She spoke about the fact that the government had decided to set a GH50 million sealing for any procurement by state agencies and any amount beyond that figure must be brought before Cabinet.



On the issue of promoting local participation in the procurement processes, Ms Safo said a World Bank Report had established that between 70 and 80 per cent of local revenue went down the drain through bad procurement practices in the country by some entities.



The minister designate, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Dome/Kwabenya, touched on the relevance of contract administration in the country, saying that it was relevant for the effective implementation of government contracts because contracts got signed and the absence of a contract administrator caused financial wastage as it involved renegotiating contracts which was expensive.



Minister of State



The next to appear before the committee was Mr Bryan Acheampong, a Minister of State designate, who was asked questions mostly bordering on cyber security and how to use information technology to facilitate the work of state agencies.



As an IT and security expert, Mr Acheampong said Ghana had major gaps in terms of security and told the committee that he had made some recommendations to the appropriate agencies on how to use security to counter cyber terrorism.



Mr Acheampong asked the National Information Technology Agency (NITA) to ensure that facilities were in place in government agencies and regular refresher training programmes organised for staff in a bid to embrace what he described as a project of change management approach.



When asked what his mandate as a minister of state was going to be, Mr Acheampong, who is also the MP for Abetifi, said he would receive directions from the President, if his nomination was approved.

Source: Daily Graphic









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The Minister for Gender and Social Protection, Otiko Afisa Djaba, over the weekend urged girls not to attract rape by wearing provocative clothing to the outrage of some Ghanaians.



During her opening address as the Co-Chairperson at the 90th anniversary and Speech and prize giving day for Krobo Girls Presbyterian Senior School, Madam Djaba intimated that girls wearing short dresses could attract a rapist.



In conclusion, I want to say to you, be bold, be confident, be respectful. If you wear a short dress, its fashionable but, know that it can attract somebody who would want to rape or defile you. You must be responsible for the choices you make, she said.



Madam Djaba also had some words for teachers who sexually assaulted girls saying it is an abuse of their rights and you are their role model you must not be the one to abuse the rights of the young girls, she stated.



But her correlation between rape and girls dressing rubbed some Ghanaians the wrong way with many taking to social media to express their displeasure with the Gender Minister with a number of them questioning her logic and others accusing her of victim blaming and shaming.



Some have called on the president to remove her from her position as her comments suggest women are responsible for preventing rape, which they consider a crime borne out of violence and power.



This is would not the first time the minister has provoked the ire of the public. Recently, her delay in condemning the violent sexual attack on a woman suspected in Kumasi also angered many.

Tweets below-

Source: citifmonline.com









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Former President John Dramani Mahama will Tuesday, 28 March, begin a series of lectures at various universities in the country and also begin a round of readings from his book titled My First Coup d'Etat and Other True Stories from the Lost Decades of Africa.



Mr Mahama announced the event in a tweet.



He said: Starting a round of readings from my book and a series of university lectures this Tuesday, first at my alma mater University of Ghana.



My First Coup d'Etat and Other True Stories From the Lost Decades of Africa, Mr Mahama's first book and memoir, was published by Bloomsbury on 3 July 2012.



In the book, Mr Mahama recalls being the son of an affluent government minister who spent his childhood shuttling between his elite boarding school, Achimota School in Accra, and his many homes in his father's chauffeur-driven cars.



He recalls in its first chapter the day in 1966 when he learned of the ousting of Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah, in a military coup and how his father suddenly went missing, not knowing he had been imprisoned for more than a year.



Mr Mahamas reading will take place at the J.H Kwabena Nketia Conference Hall, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, at exactly 3:00pm.















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A Ghanaian lady who had a weird experience with a Police Officer took to Twitter to narrate the incident in a series of tweets on Sunday. According to @JunkieOnMars, she claimed she was heading home when she was stopped at a police checkpoint in Dworwulu before one of the officers pulled her over for questioning. Surprisingly, during the interrogation, she said she got kissed by the Police officer who still couldn't explain his action.

In her attempts to report the matter at several police stations have seen many officers bursting into laughter as they find it hard to believe. Despite narrating the shocking experience on Twitter, she says she still doesn't feel better about it.

See her tweets below....









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Akin to the adage which says once the mushroom has sprouted from the earth, there is no turning back, Ghanaian Clergy, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), Academia and supposed neutral people in society who harassed the one-term Mahama administration out of power, interestingly are now the ones staunchly defending the three-month-old fumbling Akufo-Addo government.



While these bodies and personalities were very critical of President Mahama and his NDC-led government and did everything possible to march his administration out of power, they have suddenly become reluctant doing same to the Akufo Addo government even in the face of the many glaring faux pas.



Some of these supposed political neutrals have even resorted to shielding the NPP government whenever it comes under attack while others have simply refrained from speaking to the ills of the ruling party unlike in the past.



Whereas Ghanaians have roundly rebuke President Akufo-Addo for plagiarizing his inaugural speech, criticized the various error laden statements from the Flag Staff House, the physical assault of ASP Nanka Bruce by members of Invincible Forces right in front of the seat of government and attempts to belittle the achievements of Dr Kwame Nkrumah in the Presidents independence day address as well as the elephant size Ministers and deputies; these supposed neutrals have either remained silent or have been rationalizing these unfortunate happenings.



These so-called neutrals of the Ghanaian society subtly and overtly led unrestrained onslaught on former President Mahama, blaming him for all the negatives that happened under his regime. They blame him for the increases in tariffs; dumsor, corruption; hardships, and even in times of force majeure.



They insisted the buck must stop with the leader of a country; hence President Mahama must take blame for all happenings in Ghana.



However, since Mr Akufo-Addo was sworn into office on the 7th of January 2017, these same people would rather be advising Ghanaians to hold Heads of state institutions and appointees of government for happenings in the country and to leave the President alone.



In many instances, even as the Akufo-Addo led-government came under harsh censure from the public; the clergy, CSOs, the Academia etc., abstained from taking on the NPP government as they did to the Mahama administration leading to its exit from power.



Paradoxically, they have instead been putting up spirited defense to parry attacks on the ruling party they clandestinely shepherded to power.



Though President Akufo-Addo himself has implored Ghanaians to criticize him when he is going wrong, the countrys clergy, CSOs, University Lecturers and others including the media have not only ignored the presidents call, they are most often heard explaining or rationalizing the presidents actions and inaction condemned by Ghanaians.



Their sudden change in behavior has forced sections of the populace to be questioning whether they are competing with government spokespersons as far as painting a good picture about President Akufo-Addos administration is concern.



When Mahama was in power, these so-called neutral people were very vocal in criticizing almost all his policies and programs. Now that Akufo-Addo and NPP are in power, these same people have not only turned a blind eye, indeed; they have turned themselves in spokespersons of government. They are quick to say things to defend government when it comes under attack. Those who are shy of doing this have decided to remain silent even though they were very vocal when Mahama was in power, Kofi Kyei Acheampong recently wrote on his facebook wall.



Ironically, the Christian Council of Ghana, Catholic Bishops Conference, Pentecostal and Charismatic Council, Ghana Bar Association and other religious groups which were very critical of the immediate past NDC government have gone mum in the midst of apprehensions of President Akufo-Addos policies.



The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Accra, Archbishop Charles Palmer-Buckle; The Founder and Head Pastor of Life International Church, Bishop Gordon Kisseih; The founder and Head Pastor of the Glorious Word Ministry International Rev Owusu Bempah; Political Science lecturers; Civil Society Groups and several others have instead been explaining why the president took some decisions roundly condemned by many Ghanaians.



In an attempt to quell the public uproar that greeted President Akufo-Addos record breaking 110 Ministers and deputies, these men of God, Civil Society Organizations and some University dons have been calling on Ghanaians to hold on with their disapprovals.



Reacting to critics of President Akufo-Addos 110 Ministers, Bishop Gordon Kisseih recently said it is too early to criticize the President, insisting, he is still in the process of forming his government and does not warrant such early criticism.



Bishop Kisseih, particularly, urged the media to reduce their reportage on negative news and move their focus to issues that would help develop the nation. The media has a large role to play in all this and we call on them to shift their attention to areas of development, he added.



A Political Science lecturer at the University of Ghana, Dr. Isaac Owusu Mensah has also jumped to the defense of the President, saying Akufo Addos 110 appointments are in order.



According to him the appointees were supposed to prosecute the government's agenda and considering the enormity of that agenda, it was prudent to appoint as many competent people as possible to ensure its effective prosecution.



If I was the President, I will appoint a Minister of State in charge of the one-district one-factory and another Minister in charge of Free Secondary Education to fulfill the political objectives of the party, he charged.



A non-profit CSO, Penplusbytes, also in a statement said the President may have genuine concerns appointing a record number of 110 ministers to help him administer the country for the next four years.



Penplusbytes is deeply excited about the vision of Ghanas President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to ensure progress and economic and social growth of the country. However, we have significant concerns about the size of this government currently at 110 Ministerial and Deputy Ministerial positions the organization stated.

A former Rector of GIMPA, Prof Stephen Adei, who didnt disappoint his admirers in unjustifiably accusing President Mahama of practicing nepotism, gave a frail response to President Akufo-Addos appointment of the unprecedented110 ministers and their deputies.



According to Prof. Adei, he is as surprised as everybody but will rather tarry in jumping to conclusion since President Akufo-Addo knows the strategy he wants to rollout.



When a section of the public started blaming the president for sudden rise in accidents, baffling increase in number of suicides in the country and mysterious deaths, Rev Owusu Bempah, who in past heaped all misfortunes in the country on President Mahama, said President Akufo-Addo cannot be blamed for unexplained happenings in the country.



He observes that the president is committed to his Christian faith and has always dedicated himself to it almost all the time wondering why people are trying to cast a slur on his image by linking him to occultism and voodoo.



Dont blame Akufo-Addo. He doesnt associate himself with these gods thingy. Hes a president for all but a true Christian. Hes like a god; he is not discriminating against any race or tribe. We should never say Nana Addo has a bad spirit taking blood from the citizens. He didnt go to priests to aid him win elections. He was with true great pastors, who helped him win the 2016 elections, he insisted.



Archbishop Charles Palmer-Buckle, who also in the past has been breathing on the neck of the Mahama government, is now urging Ghanaians to contribute to national development and stop the blame game.



He said Ghana had reached the stage where blame games were not necessary; instead we should focus on contributing to national development as individuals.



We should stop playing politics with everything and understand that whoever comes to power is our leader, therefore our contribution is needed, and the contribution goes beyond financial contribution. Each and everyone have a role to play in developing the country, not the President alone, he recently counseled.



Field President of Women Home and Overseas Missionary and Society of West Ghana Conference of AME Zion Church, Mrs Grace Love has also been urging Ghanaians stop exerting pressure on President Akufo-Addo to fulfill his campaign promises overnight.



Though same breathing space was not given to the NDC administration, Mrs Love assured that President Akufo-Addo as a visionary leader and a man of integrity would never depart and disappoint social contracts made to people of Ghana during electioneering campaign.

Source: The Al-Hajj









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Sarah Adwoa Safo, Presidents nominee for Minister of State in-charge of Public Procurement has defended the decision of President Akufo-Addos government to create the new position.



She said that her responsibility was to advise government on public procurement, adding that she would be an internal check within the administration.



Adwoa Safo made the statement when he appeared before the Appointment Committee of Parliament in Accra.



Ms Adwoa Safo, who is also the Deputy Majority leader is among the last batch of 54 ministers and deputy ministers to be vetted by the Appointment Committee.



Answering questions about a potential clash of roles between her role as Minister in-Charge of Public Procurement and the Public Procurement Authority (PPA), Ms Adjoa Safo stated that there would be no conflict because her ministry would rather empower the PPA.



She emphasised that the government had put in place measures it believed would address the potential abuse of the law through sole-sourcing.



She said government had placed a GHC 50 million ceiling for contracts awarded through sole-sourcing and any cost beyond that level would be brought to cabinet for parliamentary approval.



I can assure Ghanaians we will minimise the use of sole-sourcing" she added.



Ms Adjoa Safo also stated that, she would help to ensure that government met its campaign promise to reserve 70percent of all taxpayer funded contracts and procurement for local businesses.



She stated that the party's policy direction to give at least 30 percent the required seven percent of these contracts would be sourced to entities owned by youth, women and people living with disabilities.



Professor Kwesi Yankah, Minister of State in-Charge of Tertiary Education also stated that he would ensure that Public Universities stuck to their core mandate for which they were established.



He explained that many of the Public Universities had evolved over the years and in so doing left behind their original mandate.



The nominee who is also the President of the Central University is expected to bring his vast experience on board in his new portfolio in terms of working in both the Public and Private University environment.



Professor Yankah said there was little differentiation in terms of course content that every university was doing adding that for the university to be able to meet the competition there was the need for it carve a niche for itself.



He said the impression that Private Universities were more expensive was almost a myth in that over the years the gap in fees within private and public universities were narrowing.



He said there were a number of courses in the sciences especially where the Public Universities charged higher than the private ones.



On the three-year or four-year Senior High School (SHS) duration, Professor Yankah stated that his critical analysis of the issue showed that in almost every subject from eight to twenty-five subjects the four year SHS were doing much better across the board.



He said with the exception of certain high schools like the Wesley Girls among others it did not matter whether the duration of SHS was three or four years as they would still score high marks, but the rest of the schools who were in the majority would need more time to perform.



He called for a critical look at the internship system to ensure that they were relevant to small scale businesses.



Professor Yankah said the public over the years believed that the GETFund was setup for only Public Universities rather than all tertiary institutions both public and private.



He said apart from the areas of infrastructure within the Public Universities which was stated in the law, both the public and private universities had the right to access the fund.



Mr Bryn Acheampong, Minister of State at the Office of the President designate who also appeared before the Appointment Committee of Parliament called for Change Management in the deployment of ICT at the ministries, department and agencies.



He urged the Ministry of Communications to play a leading role to ensure that when the Change Management process was undertaken before the deployment.

Source: GNA









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Assin Central Member of Parliament (MP), Kennedy Ohene Agyapong has said he always feels sorry for President Akufo-Addo anytime he sets eyes on him.



The reason, Ken Agyapong speaking on Adom TVs Bedwam said is as a result of the fact that persons who hitherto turned down offers to contribute towards the victory of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) are now trooping to his residence and office to lobby for appointments and contracts.



When I get to Nana Addos residence and Flagstaff House and I take a look at the huge number of persons who are there lobbying for positions, I begin to wonderI pity Nana Akufo-Addo, he said.



The people, Ken said include persons who turned down offers to help the party when they were in opposition.



When I see the people, I remember what Ken Ofori Atta said some time ago when companies turned down our calls for them to help us buy vehicles, he said these people would be trooping after we have won power and indeed it has come to pass, he stated.



The huge numbers notwithstanding, Ken Agyapong called on President Akufo-Addo to always remember to consider strong and loyal people who stood by him and the NPP when they were in distress.



He further urged the supporters of the party who feel neglected to exercise some level of restraint as the party would offer everyone work and also create the enabling conditions for people who would want to engage in private businesses to do so.



The NPP, he said are also working to block all the loopholes in the system especially the ones at the ports.

Source: adomonline









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An Australian woman has died at a Balinese resort of suspected alcohol poisoning, after she allegedly drank more than an entire bottle of vodka over the course of Sunday evening.

Police claim 38-year-old Cairns woman Summa Jean Simmonds was drinking with two friends at the luxury Peppers Seminyak resort in the islands southern region.

via Google Maps.

Authorities believe she consumed a full bottle of the spirit, plus six additional shots. That quantity has been equated to 27 full shots.

Simmonds returned to her villa to get some cash, at which point she collapsed. Badung Police Precinct Chief Budi Setiawan said that after she passed out her pulse became weak. The victims face and lips turned blue.

After unsuccessfully administering CPR, her friends alerted reception. A doctor attended to Simmonds, who pronounced her dead shortly after.

Police suspect alcohol poisoning was the cause of her death. Simmonds family say she was not known to be a heavy drinker, and believe she may have been the victim of an adverse reaction to the drinks.

Authorities are also testing samples of the drinks she consumed, and have requested permission to perform an autopsy.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald.

Photo: Facebook.
People from down south ask me all the time what I love so much about living in Brisbane and the answer is quite straightforward: our unusually high concentration of accidentally racist restaurants.

Between the restaurant formerly known as Uncle Ho (after the Vietnamese dictator Ho Chi Minh) and British Colonial Co. (Inspired by the stylish days of the empirical push into the developing cultures of the world), weve found a brand new way to distinguish ourselves from Sydney and Melbourne that isnt just affordable rent and theoretically impossible humidity.

This weeks foray into cultural insensitivity comes to us courtesy of Master Toms on Albert Street in the CBD, who accidentally made an extremely unpleasant association with slavery in the naming of one of their burgers.

The Uncle Tom, like all of their burgers, comes from being a play on either Master or Tom  unfortunately, it is also something else, according to our dear friend Merriam-Webster:

A black who is overeager to win the approval of whites (as by obsequious behavior or uncritical acceptance of white values and goals).

The term originates from the titular character of the slavery-era novel Uncle Toms Cabin and is used as a slur against people who are complicit with their oppressors, especially in the case of African-Americans.

Its not a particularly common term in Australia and its fairly reasonable that the people at Master Toms would be completely unfamiliar with it. Its not, however, a great mistake to make when you very prominently have Master in the the name of your restaurant. Awkward.

The owners apologised for the accident through Facebook (in a post that has since been deleted), claiming they had no idea about the terms significance. Ideally, this would be where the story ends, settled like reasonable adults because thats what we all are.

Unfortunately, the internet got involved. As part of their apology, they asked FB commenters to come up with a replacement name:

Please help us re-name the most offensive burger in Australia! It will be Uncle Tom no more. The offending burger is the one pictured with all the extras. The winner who comes up with the new name for the burger will win free burgers for a year, which means one free burger of your choice from the menu each week for one full year. On a serious note we would like to offer up an open and public apology to anyone who has actually been offended to the name Uncle Tom. We were completely unaware that this is an old racist term. Certainly there has been no racist connection to this term at Master Toms. The venue is named after the owners son whose middle name is Tom, the same as the owners middle name. The menu was written after the venue was named and throughout the menu there is a play on the two words Master and Tom.

Because the worst thing some people can imagine is a restaurant having to change the name of a burger because it was accidentally kind of racist, the biggest dipshits in the world jumped into the comments to prove that its not racist by being (wait for it) super racist. What a bunch of strategic geniuses.

Clearly, someone tipped off some 4chan / alt-right dickheads who, instead of just letting this be a pleasant learning moment for all of us, decided to start getting extremely upset about how lefties are always upset about things. What a bunch of gronks.

Well done to Master Toms for handling that gracefully, not so well done to the neckbeards who are trying to make this into a huge deal for no reason.

The post has since been removed, along with all the comments from Australias wildest fuckheads. In a follow-up, they declared that the short-lived competition was over, and that they wouldnt have to fork out any extra for updating the menus because they had to change them anyway, what a treat:

A huge congratulations to all the thin-skinned weirdos who think PC culture gone mad!!! is a burger place making a stuff-up, being politely informed about the stuff-up, and just fixing it and apologising. Madness.

Photo: Master Toms.
I dont pretend to be some sort of politics genius. Im not in any way qualified to tell someone how they should go about the business of doing whatever it is that people who are involved in politics do. Thats just not my area of expertise (as far as I know, I dont even have an area of expertise). I will offer one teeny-tiny piece of advice, though: dont publicly broadcast that you believe you would have been a Nazi in the 1930s.

While Im sure it must be tempting to tell people that, were you in Germany at the right place and time, you would have been complicit in a fascist regime that killed millions, I urge you to consider not doing this. Unfortunately, president of the UQ LNP Club Kurt Tucker did not read this advice of mine in time.

Tucker raised a fair few pairs of eyebrows (and maybe even some individual ones) with a Facebook comment saying he had made peace with his probable membership with the Nazi Party:

I openly accept I would be a Nazi Party member if this was 30s Germany, despite obviously opposing a lot of their core ideology. Im political, and to succeed in politics, public service, military, or even industry you had to be a NSDAP member. I also believe 90 per cent of ALP and LNP members would be the same.

There are a few things to unpack here. Firstly: this is an absurd hypothetical.

For this to make sense, one would have to assume that not only are you in 1930s Germany, but youre someone who was born and raised in that era, with no complete knowledge of the atrocities of Nazi Germany and without the benefit we have now of being able to view it in its full historical context. The question is essentially asking: Would you be a member of the Nazi Party if you were in 1930s Germany and also not you?

Secondly: it seems kind of insane to ascribe your own pathological drive for success at the expense of your ideals to 90 per cent of ALP and LNP members. While I highly, highly recommend not saying this about yourself, I would recommend even more not saying the same about the overwhelming majority of your political colleagues. They might not like it if you do.

Tucker issued an apology to The Herald Sun that seems to imply he only very recently (like in the last 24 hours) realised that the Nazis were quite bad actually:

On reflection of my comments, I realise I was totally wrong. I find the Nazi party to be totally morally abhorrent and I would never willingly engage with them. The comment made was in response to a statement by another person that all young political party members would have joined the Nazi Party in the 1930s due to the fact that it was the only way to get ahead in the public sphere at the time. While I initially agreed  I now realise how incorrect I was.

An LNP spokesperson said that Tucker had resigned from all positions within the LNP, but remains as a member.

Source: Brisbane Times.

Photo: Facebook.
When you see Australia in tourism ads, it looks like a bonafide adventure land.

Its full of white sand beaches, ruby red plains and bush-lined rivers. We all ride kangaroos everywhere. Wrestling crocs is part of the national curriculum.

While most of that isnt true (and the majority of us live pent up in derelict inner-city dwellings that fetch far more than theyre worth), theres no denying Straya is packing some serious natural beauty. The most traditional way to take it all in is to rent a holiday house for the weekend and get some flora and fauna up you.

Thats where Stayz comes in. The holiday rental site is trailing a new payment system called StayzFit that converts your steps into currency you can use to earn yourself a free holiday.

Yahuh. This Easter break, when you book one of their participating homes, youll get two step trackers upon arrival and the more activity you and your companion do, the cheaper your holiday.

If youre true energiser bunnies, you can step, jump and hop your way to an entirely free stay.

It works on a sliding scale. If you do 30,000 steps over two days, youll get 10% off your stay. Do 80,000 steps and youll get 50% off. Manage to clock 120,000 steps? Totally free, babey.

I tried it a couple of weekends ago in Victorias stunning Portsea and racking up bulk steps was surprisingly easy. Instead of driving to the pub for a parma, I walked. I (attempted to) shoot hoops on the houses bball court with my Dad. I went crabbing with my cousin at the crack of dawn.

we didnt catch any

I ended up clocking 68,000 steps over the two day trip, and my legs werent even sore. The best bit? Getting out and about meant I actually spent good quality time with my family. In the end, the heavily-discounted trip was just a bonus.

The StayzFit listings go live on Tuesday 28th March and are available to travellers looking to book an escape during 10  24 April, 2017. You can read up on the participating homes and finer details here.

Photo: Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants.

Disclaimer: this article was not paid for, but pedestrian.tv was a guest of Stayz.
If youre headed overseas and have designs to catch Drake play live at some fancy exotic location, maybe consider striking Amsterdam off your shortlist.

Drake and the Dutch capital have had a reasonably rocky relationship as of late, and overnight it appears its only gotten worse.

Late last night AUS time, Drizzy cancelled a planned performance in the city  the third time this year hes been unable to perform as planned in Amsterdam. The kicker here being that this latest cancellation didnt come until doors had opened and punters had been inside waiting for well over an hour.

The packed crowd booed mercilessly as a show promoter gamely informed the waiting masses that Drake had fallen ill and would not be appearing on stage. Punters threw drinks and voiced their extreme displeasure at the announcement, flooding social media with angry messages.

#PressPlay: #Drake cancelled his #Amsterdam show because he wasnt feeling well and his fans were not happy pic.twitter.com/eaqeeabMwh  The Daily 411 (@TheRealDaily411) March 27, 2017

crowds reaction after we waited 75 mins without announcement and then drake cancelled his show for the third time because hes sick pic.twitter.com/3DNarG7M4X  Wessel (@theiWessel) March 27, 2017

Drake has cancelled his Amsterdam show 3 times ???? I am shooketh  lewis andrews (@lewisandrews_) March 27, 2017

So its fair to say fans arent happy to hear of Drakes Amsterdam cancellation pic.twitter.com/8NZdEBWunn  OhSoDJ Editor (@gossip_vixen) March 27, 2017

Biggest L: this boy flew from London to Amsterdam for @Drake and it got cancelled ?????? pic.twitter.com/Vky8UxKXIs  Brittany (@BrittanyMMDuffy) March 27, 2017

DRAKE IS FUCKING CANCELLED, AND WE ARE STOOD IN FUCKING AMSTERDAM ARENA  Shannagh McGahan (@Shannaghmcgahan) March 27, 2017

Imagine the people who caught a flight to Amsterdam, got accommodation all for Drake to cancel the concert. Fucked up man  Ryan (@kaiibur) March 27, 2017

Drake cancled his show in Amsterdam AGAIN! A whole damn arena was waiting for him tonight & they let those people wait for 2+ hours.. ??????  Yonslay ? ? (@Diyonslay) March 27, 2017

theres no fucking way we flew all the way to amsterdam for drake to cancel whilst everyone is in the arena WHAT A MUG  carla ?? (@anythingirwin) March 27, 2017

OI HOW CAN DRAKE CANCEL HIS AMSTERDAM SHOW AGAIN AND THIS IS THE SECOND TIME MY COUSIN FLEW OUT TO SEE HIM, HE GAVE THEM 10 MINUTES NOTICE ??  not tyra banks (@sleazyweasleys) March 27, 2017

You get the picture: The fans, they arent happy.

This is the third time Drakes postponed shows in Amsterdam this year alone. He was originally supposed to perform in the city on January 20th and 21st. Those two shows got pushed back to the 26th and 27th, but were rescheduled again for March 27th and 28th  the ones he just canned for a third time. Two other scheduled shows in the city  set for January 28th and February 26th  did go ahead as planned.

Officials asserted that Drake simply fell ill this time around, and Doctors ordered him to not perform. But canny fans have put two and two together and come up with the theory that Drake might have been feeling a little green, if you catch our bong.

So Drake cancelled an Amsterdam show because he smoked weed before and had a bad trip?   (@peejhuncho) March 27, 2017

Drake just cancelled his Amsterdam show for the 3rd time 1 hour after it was meant to start cus he was pullin a whitey backstage ?? #morelife  Lenzman (@thelenzman) March 27, 2017

So Im hearing Drake just cancelled his last show in Amsterdam tonight. pic.twitter.com/a3U2jfq3up  Stephen Dacres (@SRDtv) March 27, 2017

Drake smoking weed and becoming ill is everything that I expect from someone like him. If you get what I mean then you get what I mean ??  #BWIGM (@JamzLdn) March 27, 2017

Drake threw up off weed? Is this brudda 12 lmaoo  Gomez Savage (@GomezApe_) March 27, 2017

The weed drug, folks. Not even once.

Source: Pitchfork.

Photo: Ross Gilmore/Getty.
HOOLEY BLOODY DOOLEY do we ever have the hot scoop for you!

Splendour in the Grass is preparing to drop its (weve heard) STACKED 2017 lineup early tomorrow morning. But this afternoon weve gone ahead and gotten the inside track for you.

While the festival will not reveal who is and isnt on the bill for the biggest non-touring Australian music festival this year, one artist has gone ahead and erased all doubt for us.

Folks, hold on to your butts, because the almighty PHOENIX

will NOT be appearing at Splendour this year.

Theyll be in Austria instead.

A U S T R I A.

Big bloody Europe.

The band fronted by Thomas Mars announced a sweeping world tour today after months of teasing potential new music. The band hasnt released an album since 2013s Bankrupt! but this quite all-encompassing tour indicates that something might not be too far off.

And as it turns out, when Splendour rolls into Byron Bay from July 21 until July 23, Phoenix will be visiting our similarly-named brethren in Austria for the Out of the Woods festival alongside Alt-J, Feist, and Foals.

That fest runs from July 20th until the 22nd, but the band also has a date on the 22nd in Rome, all-but ruling out the possibility of a flying visit to northern NSW in time to close out the festivals Sunday night proceedings; a 20-odd hour flight time from Rome to Sydney puts paid to that.

The slightly better news, however, is that they are kind of coming to our part of the world a little later in the year. The band is visiting Indonesia from August 11th onwards, taking in Bali and Jakarta, before moving on up to the Philippines and Japan. Were not say theres an Australian-tour sized gap in their schedule between Rome and Bali. But were not not saying that, either.

If youre planning on flying overseas, you can line up your dates around their huge world tour by checking them all out at Phoenixs website.

Now then. Are we sorry for the merciless bait-and-switch headline? A little.

But in a much more honest way, we are not.

Not even at all.

Cheers.

Source: Pitchfork.

Photo: FilmMagic/Getty.
PAMG_Prods_7319035733284c85.JPG

Marcellus fracking at a site in Pennsylvania

(Donald Gilliland)

Maryland legislators voted Monday to ban fracking for natural gas. The state Senate voted 35-10 in support of a bill that has already passed in the state House and which the governor, a Republican, has said he will sign, according to The Washington Post.



Fracking uses pressurized water and chemicals to break up rock and release natural gas trapped deep underground. Environmental activists contend it poses assorted hazards including water and air pollution.



The Washington Post quoted Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, as stating: "Let the news go forth to Congress and the White House: Fracking can never be done safely. The Republican governor closest to D.C. -- Larry Hogan of Maryland -- has joined scientists and health leaders in agreeing that fracking must be banned."



Supporters say allowing fracking could create thousands of jobs in the western part of Maryland, which sits over the same Marcellus Shale that led to a substantial fracking industry in Pennsylvania. Like Pennsylvania, West Virginia allows fracking, while New York and Vermont have banned it, the Post reported.
The late Cardinal William Keeler is remembered as a brilliant evangelist who never forgot his roots this evening in Lebanon, the town where he grew up.

A Mass of Remembrance for Keeler is being held at 7 p.m. tonight in Assumption Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Lebanon.

Keeler, 86, who was seventh bishop of the Diocese of Harrisburg from 1984-89 before becoming Archbishop of Baltimore and then cardinal in 1994, died March 23 at 86 in his home in Catonsville, Md.

Keeler was a teacher and an evangelist, said Father Michael Rothan, celebrant of the Mass and pastor of the Lebanon church.

"He's a native son of Lebanon, and he celebrated Mass at class reunions in the chapel at Lebanon Catholic," Rothan said. "He never lost his roots in that way."

One of Keeler's gifts was his memory, Rothan said. At Rothan's ordinantion, he said Keeler recalled he had confirmed him at St. Anthony's in Lancaster.

"He could remember everything. He could remember these details," he said. "This is kind of his legacy - those intimate encounters he had with people is how he spread the gospel...He wanted to draw other people closer to Christ."

Keeler attended Lebanon Catholic School before entering the seminary his junior year and was ordained in 1955. In 1948 his peers at Lebanon Catholic High School named him an honorary member of the class.

Keeler was "brilliant," said Mary Boeshore, a member of his high school class.

"If you were in his class and you didn't know the answer, nobody else did, he did," she said. "He was a wonderful classmate."

"He always came to the reunions, no matter what. It was wonderful," she said. "He was a genuinely nice person."

Michael Ciccocioppo of Camp Hill was an altar server for Keeler when he was pastor of Our Lady of Good Counsel parish in Marysville.

"We always thought he was going to be the Pope," he said.

"He was very good to me and my family - I have 14 younger brothers and sisters. He was the formative person in our lives."

He recalls Keeler's homilies being "so strong, so communicative, that he could help you understand very deeply."

"When he did start rising, we were sure he would be the first American Pope," Ciccocioppo said.

Earlier Tuesday a viewing was held at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Homeland, which was followed by a Mass of Christian burial and Rite of Committal in Crypt in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore.

Monday, services were held at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore, followed by a public viewing.

Keeler will also be remembered at a Mass at 4 p.m. April 23 in St. Patrick's Cathedral in Harrisburg.

Keeler was the seventh bishop of the Harrisburg Diocese, serving in that capacity from 1984 to 1989. He served in Baltimore first as archbishop, and then elevated to cardinal 1994 by Pope John Paul II in a Mass at St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican.

When Keeler retired in 2007 he had logged 51 years in the ministry, including 33 years in the Harrisburg diocese and 18 years in Baltimore.
Phillip Benight.png

Phillip Benight

(Provided photo)

Philip Benight is still facing charges for aiding in his wife's suicide attempt, but officials say he will not be charged with criminal homicide related to her death.

Benight is charged with a felony count of aiding suicide, stemming from the January death of his wife, Rebecca Benight. Charges against the 60-year-old Manor Township man likely will not be changed to include criminal homicide, said Brett Hambright, a spokesman with the Lancaster County district attorney's office.

"We recently obtained information about Mrs. Benight's history, particularly her state of mind prior to her death, which is of importance when deciding the appropriate charges," Hambright said in an email. "As we understand, Ms. Benight would have at least had instances when decision-making was clear and of her own will."

On Jan. 22, the Benights were found unconscious in a car at their home after overdosing on prescription pills. First responders administered Narcan and both were revived. Philip Benight took his wife, a dementia patient, from a care home in Manheim Township prior to the incident.

Police said they seized a note Benight wrote before the couple took the pills.

"The woman made multiple statements previously about not wanting to live in her current condition. Efforts are ongoing to conduct a complete interview with her at the hospital," police said on Jan. 26.

Benight is scheduled for a status conference April 27 in Lancaster County Court. A family friend launched a fundraising campaign for Benight's legal defense.
seth williams AP.jpeg

(Associated Press)

The lawyer representing Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams has asked a judge to excuse him from the case, citing a heavy caseload as well as the belief Williams can't afford him,

Williams was recently indicted on 23-counts alleging he engaged in acts of corruption including selling the influence of his office and seeking bribes.

Federal prosecutors allege Williams, a two-term Democrat, did so to fund a lavish lifestyle, but also resorted to stealing from his mother's Social Security and pension income to pay his mortgage and electricity bill.

Philly.com wrote that Williams' financial problems are well known, stating, "In the past, Williams has blamed his inability to pay his own bills -- despite his $175,572 annual salary -- on alimony payments stemming from a 2011 divorce and private school tuition for his daughters."

Williams says he's innocent of the charges.

A federal judge has thus far denied the request of defense lawyer Michael Diamondstein to be allowed to step aside, but a hearing on the matter is scheduled for Tuesday.

Williams, 50, has ignored calls for him to resign, although it's unclear if he continues to go to his office and carry out duties, according to Philly.com.
PA-woman-murdered-in-Florida-boyfriend-charged.jpg

Brooke Preston, 21, originally from Bradford County, Pa., left, was stabbed to death by roommate Randy Allen Herman Jr., 24, also from Pa., police say.

(screen shot/WNEP)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- A Florida man is accused of fatally stabbing his roommate when she stopped by his home on Saturday morning to say goodbye before moving back to Pennsylvania where she grew up, according to sheriff's investigators.

Palm Beach County Sheriff's deputies said in an arrest report that Brooke Preston, 21, had recently moved out of the home she'd shared with Randy Herman Jr., 24. Preston hugged Herman, who gave her a T-shirt commemorating the death of a mutual friend. Then, according to deputies, Herman stabbed her repeatedly in the abdomen, back and throat. She also had defensive wounds on her hands.

Herman then drove Preston's vehicle to a park near West Palm Beach, where he dialed 911, the report said.

"Someone's been murdered," Herman told the dispatcher. "Just send the police. It was me. I'm sorry."

According to investigators, Herman texted his mother while waiting at the park for deputies to arrive. He told her he loved her, the report said. When deputies got to the park, Herman told them to go to his house because someone there was badly hurt.

The Palm Beach Post reports Herman was covered in blood and had a cut on the webbing between his left thumb and pointer finger. He also had scratch marks on his chest, investigators wrote in the arrest report.

Randy Herman Sr.

During questioning by detectives, Herman cried and apologized, the report said. He was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. He's being held without bond and records don't list an attorney for him.

Neighbors told the newspaper that the two were not romantically linked.

In February 2015, Herman's 53-year-old father Randy Herman Sr. was accused of killing his 50-year-old girlfriend Gail Monahan in Hanover Township, Pa.

Two months later, as law enforcement officers closed in on him in Marshall County, Alabama, Herman Sr. was found dead inside a pickup truck. Officials said they also found two handguns missing from the couple's home and a wallet containing Monahan's ID.
The man charged in the stabbing death of a former midstate artist in Washington, D.C., last week was wanted in Tennessee on a probation violation following a robbery sentence.

Elhadji Alpha Madiou Toure A.K.A. Elie Brown

El Hadji Alpha Madiou Toure, 28, was charged Monday in the stabbing death of Corrina Mehiel, 34, in a basement apartment in the 600 block of 14th Street NE about 4 p.m. on March 21.

Toure had served one year in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of robbery in 2006. He was sentenced to eight years but was placed on probation after one year.

Toure had several aliases, including Elie Brown, said James Bradford Jr., said spokesman for the Bradley County, Tennessee, sheriff's department.

He had "a substantial arrest history" under these names, Bradford said, at an address in Lawrenceville, Georgia. He provided no other information.

Acting Metropolitan police Chief Peter Newsham said Tuesday in D.C. that Toure did not know Mehiel prior to the attack. He said tips came in after police circulated Toure's photo and a description of Mehiel's car, a Toyota Prius. The car was found over the weekend but police have not said where.

Toure is charged with first-degree murder while armed and theft.

Mehiel, a 2000 graduate of Trinity High School who had previously lived in Burnsville, North Carolina, was working in Washington, D.C., on an art exhibit at Corcoran School of the Arts and Design. In the midstate, she had lived in Carlisle and Dillsburg.

The Washington Post reports Mehiel had been living in the District for several months and was working with artist Mel Chin on the Corcoran exhibition, titled "The Fundred Reserve."
jonathan mercado.png

Jonathan Matthews Mercado

(Lancaster police)

A Lancaster man has been arrested and charged with attempted statutory sexual assault charges, according to a Lancasteronline report.

Jonathan M. Mercado, 26, of the 500 block of West Orange Street, was arraigned on Saturday and sent to Lancaster County Prison on $250,000 bail after police said he attempted to have sex with a 14-year-old girl.

The teen met Mercado and the two exchanged Facebook information as she walked home from a corner store on an unspecified date, she and her mother told police on March 3.

She told police that she and Mercado engaged in a sexual act in an alley near her home the month prior to reporting the incident, according to the report.

The teen permitted police to use her Facebook account to communicate with Mercado, while pretending to be her, court documents state.

During the Facebook exchanges, Mercado told the girl he wanted to have sex with her and said he had marijuana they could smoke together, according to charging documents. He also sent the girl a picture of his genitals on her Facebook messenger account, police said.

In one of the messages, police said Mercado wrote, "nobody can know we talking either right baby."

Mercado agreed to meet the girl in the 500 block of West King Street in Lancaster on March 24.

When he showed up for the rendezvous, police arrested him. He was carrying marijuana at the time, police said.

Mercado admitted to engaging in a sex act with the girl, police said, and he also copped to telling her on Facebook that he wanted to have sex with her, police said. He also admitted to bringing marijuana with him when he attempted to meet the teen on March 24, according to police.

Mercado is charged with:

Attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.

Attempted statutory sexual assault.

Attempted indecent assault.

Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.

Unlawful contact with a minor.

Corruption of minors.

Criminal use of a communication facility.

Dissemination of sexually explicit material.

Possession with intent to deliver marijuana.

His preliminary hearing is scheduled for April 5.
heroin treatment

Jennifer Smith, Pennsylvania's acting secretary of drug and alcohol programs, and Dr. Rachel Levine, the physician general, discuss an effort to connect heroin overdose survivors to immediate help during an event at York Hospial on March 28, 2016.

(David Wenner/PennLive)

Police, family and friends are saving heroin addicts' lives by the thousands with naloxone, an overdose reversal drug Pennsylvania has made available without a prescription.



Yet many of those addicts quickly resume heroin use, even after ending up in the emergency room following a near-death experience. One often-cited reason for that has been the unavailability of a treatment bed or similar help immediately following the overdose.



Pennsylvania is trying to remedy that by expanding availability of treatment and connecting overdose survivors with offers of treatment before they leave the hospital. "This is their teachable moment, their opportunity to turn their lives around," said Dr. Erik Kochert, an emergency physician at York Hospital.



York Hospital is an early adopter of the process, known as a "warm-handoff." Since the hospital began using warm-handoffs in December, 14 of 60 overdose victims brought there have agreed to enter treatment. Dr. Rachel Levine, the state physician general, said that with the overdose crisis killing ten people per day in Pennsylvania, getting overdose victims into treatment at a rate of nearly 25 percent makes a substantial difference.





Levine said the goal is to make warm-handoffs available all over the state. But one obstacle that must be addressed first is a shortage of treatment beds in some areas. In York County, which has one of the highest rates of overdoses in the state, White Deer Run York added capacity to ensure that anyone who wants treatment following an overdose can immediately be placed.



Another early adopter of warm-handoffs is Reading Hospital in Berks County. And York Hospital is helping to launch programs at Gettysburg, Hanover, Memorial and Ephrata hospitals. Meanwhile, the state has asked county agencies across the state that oversee drug treatment to develop a plan for warm-handoffs, and the state is helping, Levine said.



In addition to treatment availability, warm-handoffs require a well-coordinated effort between the hospital and a fast-acting outside team of recovery specialists.



At York Hospital, a call is placed to the recovery team as soon as the hospital knows it has an overdose survivor. Overdose survivors are typically observed for about two hours, Kochert explained. At the conclusion of that, the recovery team meets the survivor with an offer of treatment, which the addict can accept or decline.



The recovery team is provided by the RASE Project, which formed two teams to ensure availability at all hours, including weekends and holidays.



Team members try to build rapport and trust with the survivor. If the survivor wants to enter treatment, someone from the team stays with the survivor until they enter detox or a treatment facility. Teams also stay in contact with the survivor throughout their recovery, and try to steer them back into treatment if they relapse, explained the RASE Project's Kristen Varner.



If the survivor is unwilling to go into treatment, the team will still provide information about treatment and recovery to the survivor and their family.



State and county officials and other professionals gathered at York Hospital on Tuesday to discuss warm-handoffs.



Levine said treatment will be available to anyone regardless of their ability to pay. She said that's possible due to Pennsylvania's acceptance of the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion, which has made health care including addiction treatment available for about 760,000 state residents. She further said there are government funds available to cover costs, including insurance co-pays, for others who face financial barriers.



The state recently established 45 "Centers of Excellence" around the state to connect addicts with treatment and many other supports, Levine noted.





Levine called the opioid addiction crisis, which includes addiction to heroin and opioid painkillers such as oxycontin, is the worst public health crisis Pennsylvania has ever faced. She said the 2016 overdose total, still not finalized, is expected to surpass the 3,500 overdose deaths of 2015.



York County, which had 99 overdoses in 2015, recorded 123 in 2016, with 116 of them involving heroin, Levine said.



Levine stressed that, for the sake eliminating stigma that can further harm addicts, it's important that everyone recognize addiction is a chronic medical condition, not "a moral failing."



"We really need to break this cycle of repeat overdoses," she said.
Domestic violence bills presser

State Sen. Tom Killion, R-Delaware County, introduces legislation requiring defendants in protection from abuse cases to relinquish any firearms if and when court's issue a final order against them. It's a matter of court's discretion at present.

Every elected politician in Pennsylvania is a committed foe of domestic violence.

Most elected lawmakers in Pennsylvania are committed supporters of gun owners' rights.

So what happens when these two popular causes clash?

That could be one of the interesting subplots of the Pennsylvania Legislature's 2017-18 session.

Victims right advocates threw their support Tuesday behind a package of bills designed to strengthen the future value of protection-from-abuse orders won by victims of domestic violence.

At the heart of the package is a bill that would make surrender of firearms by a PFA defendant mandatory upon receipt of a final order, with a requirement that the guns be turned over to law enforcement or a licensed firearm dealer.

It is, advocates say, the upgrade they want most.

"We know that firearms in the hands of domestic violence abusers can turn deadly, and we want that option completely removed," said Ellen Kramer, deputy director of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

But it is also one that is sure to draw pushback from the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups.

Here's all the proof you need of that:

Prime sponsors of two of the other three bills in the anti-domestic violence package unveiled Tuesday haven't even signed on as co-sponsors to Sen. Tom Killion's Senate Bill 501.

Under current state law, judges have discretion to order a surrender of weapons when a final PFA is granted. When that happens, the defendant has the option to turn them over to a third-party safekeeper, which can be parents, a close friend or another relative.

It has not proven to be a fail-safe.

PCADV points to at least three cases over the last decade where homicides were committed after a PFA defendant either convinced or coerced a family member in charge of their guns to give them back.

The current law was the result of protracted negotiations over the last major changes to PFA policy in Pennsylvania, completed in 2005.

With domestic violence cases still resulting in more than 50 shooting deaths a year in Pennsylvania, advocates are anxious to take more steps. Killion's bill would do that in two ways:

It would make surrender of firearms mandatory with entry of a final protection from abuse order.

Now, victims have to ask the courts to consider it.

"This is the first time that they're probably making a signal that they're getting out of this relationship," Kramer said. "For a victim to have to say: 'Well, yeah, he has guns, and I'm afraid, and you need to take them away' just ramps up the danger... We're trying to get the victim out of that process."

Final PFA orders, Kramer added, only come after both sides have had a chance to be heard in the courts, and a judge has found a clear risk that the victim needs protection.

Confiscated weapons would have to go to either a local police agency or a licensed firearms dealer. Supporters say this provision would drastically lower the risk of access to confiscated guns.

Killion, a Republican from Delaware County, defended the proposals as reasonable.

"If a PFA is issued by a court it's issued for a reason. There's obviously some concern about violence and I think you should make sure the gun, if they own weapons, that they're in a safe place. That's all.

"Not taking it away forever. Once the issue is resolved and the PFA is lifted they can get their weapons back."

But advocates for gun owners rights see intrusion.

Kim Stolfer, president of Firearm Owners Against Crime, noted Tuesday the current system is part of a carefully negotiated agreement that included an extension of the duration of PFAs from 18 months to three years.

It's unfair to change that type of deal unilaterally, Stolfer said, especially when the current system has been shown to work in almost all cases.

Stolfer said it's much fairer to let courts decide this on a case-by-case basis, and argued that if anything is ripe for a set of reforms it is the underlying protection from abuse process.

Some PFA critics have argued that protection from abuse orders are sometimes sought as "weapons" in divorce or child custody matters.

Even senators who prime-sponsored other bills in Tuesday's domestic violence package showed their hesitancy about Killion's bill.

"I have some issues pertaining to PFA's that are filed fraudulently," said Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Washington County. "I've been aware of instances when a man will file a false PFA against a woman so as to disarm her."

Killion acknowledged there will need to be give-and-take in the months ahead. But, he said, this is an issue worth fighting for.

"We're taking the guns away from someone who has a court order saying that they are a threat to another person. I don't think that's too unreasonable."

Other bills in the domestic violence package include:

A measure sponsored by Bartolotta that would give district justices, in cases involving domestic violence, the latitude to use an approved risk assessment tool when setting bail for defendants.

A bill granting courts new powers to extend the duration of PFA orders beyond 36 months in certain circumstances.

A bill requiring law enforcement presence with PFA plaintiffs for service of orders, retrieval of property or other encounters that leave the abuse victim in fear of assault.

Most of the bills pick up on recommendations of a 2016 Joint State Government Commission staff study on the effectiveness of protection from abuse orders in Pennsylvania.

According to the Coalition Against Domestic Violence, there were 37,563 requests for PFAs filed in Pennsylvania courts in 2015. Those resulted in 32,356 temporary orders, and 5,817 final orders.

PCADV has attributed 139 deaths to domestic violence last year, including 102 victims and 37 perpetrators. Among the victims were two police officers who were killed while responding to domestic violence-related calls.
The Post reports:

President Trump plans to unveil a new White House office on Monday with sweeping authority to overhaul the federal bureaucracy and fulfill key campaign promises -- such as reforming care for veterans and fighting opioid addiction -- by harvesting ideas from the business world and, potentially, privatizing some government functions. The White House Office of American Innovation, to be led by Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, will operate as its own nimble power center within the West Wing and will report directly to Trump. Viewed internally as a SWAT team of strategic consultants, the office will be staffed by former business executives and is designed to infuse fresh thinking into Washington, float above the daily political grind and create a lasting legacy for a president still searching for signature achievements.

The timing of this announcement, coming on the heels of Trump's high-handed and





ultimately losing strategy on health care, could not be less propitious. Kushner's time might be better spent teaching his father-in-law how government cannot be run like a business.

As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) put it on Sunday,

"You cannot run the presidency like you run a real estate deal. You can't tweet your way through it. You can't threaten and intimidate and say I'll walk away. It's more complicated."

He might have added:

You cannot run the presidency by hiring inexperienced relatives and political propagandists with no governing skill.

You cannot run government without transparency and accountability. This is not a family real estate operation.

You cannot run government with the attention span of a 3-year-old, unable to be bothered with details or stick with one topic for very long.

You cannot run government by intimidation and insult. Governing is an activity involving persuasion and conciliation.

And you obviously cannot run the White House, as Trump is trying to, with overlapping and conflicting power centers, including Kushner's SWAT team, that undermine the authority of Cabinet secretaries.

In the most pedestrian sense, executive skills including team-building, drive and determination can be applied in both public and private spheres.

But frankly, after the cliches have been spouted, it should become readily apparent that government is not at all like a business and cannot be run as a business.

The president does not have the power to unilaterally hire and fire thousands of people in his own branch, let alone control the other branches.

In government, you have the obligation to turn over harmful information to critics.

In government, you do not have the luxury of discontinuing certain functions (e.g., Social Security, the military) because they are too complicated or expensive.

This is not to say that government cannot be reformed. However, reform of government (in, say, education and criminal justice) requires subject-matter expertise of which Kushner has none.

Reform in government entails policy objectives (what is the outcome you want?) rather than simply rewriting org charts.

We are quickly learning that "making it more like business" is a misguided notion. The aim for this administration should be to be better at governing and not spend years fruitlessly attempting to turn the federal government into Trump Inc.

Kushner would be wise to:

Recommend that Trump fire those who have contempt for democratic values and good governance (e.g., Stephen K. Bannon).

Urge Trump to let Cabinet secretaries develop policy and run their departments without White House "spies" looking over their shoulders.

Tell the president to get cracking on hiring career people and churning out political appointments. No more beachhead teams.

Tell Trump to start learning policy and stop tweeting.

In other words, Kushner should tell his father-in-law he is doing just about everything wrong.

Then, if Trump has not fired him, Kushner should resign because he has no expertise and contributes to the overlapping spheres of power and ill-defined roles of Trump officials.
shutterstock_452922220.jpg

By Kellen Edmondson

Hot Dog Day was like Christmas morning for my friends and me during elementary school. We'd cut to the front of the entree line, ignore the canned peaches and lukewarm green beans, and go straight for the main event.

Kellen Edmondson (submitted photo)

After grabbing a carton of chocolate milk and paying for my meal, I'd eagerly run back to my seat. Instead of eating what I had just been served, however, my friends and I would take the hot dogs and see how high we could bounce them off the cafeteria floor.

I remember one day in the third grade, when the teacher on lunch duty went for a bathroom break, I grabbed my hot dog and threw it with so much force against the floor that it bounced and hit the 15-foot ceiling of our cafeteria.

I was greeted with a standing ovation from my classmates.

Everyday, when I would go home and my parents would ask me about my day, I told them that I learned a lot and ate a full, nutritious lunch. I definitely did not tell them what happened on Hot Dog Tuesdays.

After three years of coming home hungry, I asked my parents to pack me a lunch.

Lunchtime was different now. I actually went to the cafeteria excited to eat. I was lucky that my family had the resources available to accommodate this shift.

A few of my friends at the time did not, and many kids that come from low-income families in the United States do not have this privilege.

They have parents who cannot prepare a lunch for them because they don't have the time or the money, and frequently both.

The Free and Reduced School Meal program, part of the National School Lunch Act passed in 1946 during Harry Truman's presidency, has been a safety net for children from low-income families.

The program, costs $11.3 billion and compensates schools for the free or reduced meals that they provide. The quality of these lunches has been subpar.

As part of her "Let's Move!" initiative, former First Lady Michelle Obama spearheaded the enactment of the bipartisan 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which set nutritional guidelines on what children ate at school.

The legislation allowed the USDA to be much more aggressive in responding to obesity and hunger challenges for America's kids and attempted to address the inadequacy of school lunches.

What has resulted, despite higher nutritional content in these lunches, are less palatable entrees.

In response, students took to social media with the hashtag #ThanksMichelleObama to express their discontent.

The inclusion of mandated fruits and vegetables in school lunches has not helped beneficiaries of the program.

Our state has seen no improvement in health as a result of the program, as high school obesity rates in Pennsylvania have increased, and food insecurity in Cumberland County is still in the double digits.

As a nation, diabetes and obesity come at alarming estimated annual price tags of $322 billion and $200 billion respectively.

Dedicating more money to school lunches, which will require raising taxes, is a small price to pay to nip epidemics such as diabetes and obesity in the bud.

The National School Lunch Act and the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act provide an essential service to low-income families in the United States. However in their current form, these programs are not providing kids with adequate meals.

Thus, increasing funding to our public schools for healthier and tastier school lunches will ensure the wellbeing of our children.

In a White House press release published after the passing of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, two former White House Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that passing the National School Lunch Act of 1946 addressed a national security issue.

They were strong advocates of the 2010 bill, stating that obesity rates "threaten[ed] the overall health of America and the future strength of our military".

I wholeheartedly agree with this notion that hunger and obesity threatens the future security of the United States.

However, the National School Lunch Act and the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act are underfunded and do not do enough to address nutritional deficiencies.

Under President Trump and the Republican-controlled House and Senate, many of President Obama's landmark policies have been threatened with repeal and complete overhaul.

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act is no exception. Instead of eliminating this well-intentioned policy, action must be taken to distribute more funds to this program to ensure that kids aren't playing with their food, but eating it and enjoying it.

Kellen Edmondson is a senior Political Science and American Studies major at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa.
Here, there, everywhere  why car washes seem to be on every corner
PM says handling of oil resources in Guyana will be transparent and accountable

OPM photo



Oil Rig, Stena Carron is conducting exploratory drilling operations on the Snoek well, a new reservoir within the Stabroek Block 130 miles off the Atlantic sea-coast of Guyana. Exxon will invest $5 billion US dollars on oil production in Guyana by 2010.

GEORGETOWN

Petroleumworld 03 28 2017

CITING the resource curse that many petroleum producing countries have experienced, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo says that the government is committed to ensure transparency and accountability as Guyanas petroleum sector evolves.

The Prime Minister was at the time speaking at the opening of the Guyana Oil and Gas Association (GOGA) conference and exhibition at the Georgetown Marriot Hotel in Kingston on Monday morning. The conference is being held under the theme The initiation of a transformative industry.

The Prime Minister noted that in his responsibility for governance, he wishes to see a governance structure in which officials are accountable. He pointed to the administration's early move, since it assumed office in pursuing constitutional reform which he noted is to ensure that there is no political one-man-ship.

He said the constitution needs to guarantee that there would not be practices of authoritarianism. We are very uncompromising as regards the avoidance of sleaze and maleficence in public office, he said, noting that there are many stories of the resource curse where the governance structure could not support the viability of the petroleum sector in some countries.

According to Nagamootoo, the government will work towards ensuring that there is public accountability in which the government sets the example. While addressing the packed room, the Prime Minister also noted that when the portfolio of governance was provided to him, one of the first initiatives pursued was Guyana's preparation to become a member of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). He said that the move was to ensure that the petroleum industry be one which is characterised by transparency and accountability.

The Prime Minister, during his address, also commended subject Minister, Raphael Trotman, whom he noted has reassured that a sovereign wealth fund will be established.

He said the government considers that a proportion of the proceeds of the industry should not only be expended on the future of the country but must also be invested in the development of resources, as well as in the infrastructure, education and health sectors. To this end, he pointed to an integration of other sectors of the economy with that of the petroleum industry.

He noted too that the government wants to see resources spread into the future and not just gobbled up by any administration that would feel the proceeds should be for short term gains. He added that it must not transform into votes, but a viable future.

The conference was officially opened on Sunday afternoon and a number of entities with direct and indirect connection to the sector are participating in the exhibition.

During Monday's agenda of the conference, presentations are expected to be made on the Guyana Basin, technologies in the sector, as well as on environmental, regulatory and safety standards. According to GOGA, the two-day event is set to promote long-lasting business relationships and unlock possibilities that will deliver the ultimate business setting to succeed in today's competitive hydrocarbons marketplace.






Update (1:11 p.m. Wednesday):

Hanumantha "Hanu" Rao Narra, who found his wife and 6-year-old son stabbed to death in Maple Shade, can leave the United States to attend their funerals if needed. The bodies are expected to be sent back to India, where the Narras have family.

"He has not been charged with a crime. His movements are not restricted in any way by the criminal justice system," Joel Bewley, a spokesman for the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office, said Wednesday.

Earlier story:

The man who found his wife and 6-year-old son stabbed to death in their Maple Shade, Burlington County, apartment last week had just come home from a work happy-hour party, according to family friends and an interview the husband gave on a YouTube channel.

Narra said police questioned where he had been that day and whether he had issues with neighbors or suspected anyone was responsible.

"They asked every single question, and then they let me go," he said in the video, which was published Friday, a day after the murders.

Authorities said his wife, Sasikala Narra, 38, and son, Anish Narra, 6, had been stabbed multiple times in the Fox Meadow Apartments just off Route 73, where police responded around 9 p.m. Thursday.

Hanumantha Narra, who goes by "Hanu," told philly.com in a brief call Tuesday that he was speaking to family in India and couldn't talk at the moment. He did not answer a call later in the day.

Anish was a student at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic School in Maple Shade, where officials are mourning the tragedy.

"He was a beautiful child of God that we will miss dearly," Principal Carl Jankowski said Tuesday. "And our prayers are with the Narra family."

Friends of the family said they had many questions.

"The family is really devastated," said Mohan Nannapaneni, former president of the Telugu Association of North America, which is helping send the bodies back to relatives of both the husband and wife in India. Telugu is a language native to India that the Narra family speaks.

Nannapaneni said Hanu Narra and several of his wife's relatives viewed the bodies Monday at the Hindu Funeral Home in Highland Park, N.J., where a private service is expected to be held this week. Nannapaneni said the mother and son had stab wounds to their faces and hands.

Hanu and Sasikala Narra both worked at Cognizant, a technology services company. Hanu Narra's LinkedIn says he is also a consultant for Comcast. Officials at Comcast did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. Cognizant officials confirmed Hanu and Sasikala Narra's employment with their company.

The Burlington County Prosecutor's Office, which is leading the murder investigation, declined to comment Tuesday.
A Lowndes County, MS, deputy has been wounded and a suspect is dead following a chase that ended with a shooting on Highway 82 on the east side of Columbus, according to the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.

Deputy Kevin Forrester was shot in the leg, but the injury is not believed to be life-threatening. He is in stable condition, reports WTVA.

The suspect is identified as Pryor Spencer Bailey, IV, 45, of Starkville.

MBI spokesman Warren Strain says at 10:07 a.m. Monday, the Webster County (MS) Sheriff's Department attempted a traffic stop near Mathiston. The suspect fled in a vehicle and successfully avoided spike strips. Later, his vehicle was stopped by a second set of spike strips deployed by the Lowndes County Sheriff's Department.

Strain says the driver of the vehicle got out and opened fire before being fatally shot.
A suspect was killed late Sunday night after a shootout with officers from the Anderson (CA) Police Department. One officer was shot but the bullet was stopped by his bulletproof vest.

It happened just before 10 p.m. at the Motel 6 on McMurry Drive near Balls Ferry Road and I-5. Officials say three officers and one sergeant with the Anderson Police Department were investigating a possible stolen vehicle in the area.

During the investigation, officials said the officers exchanged gunfire with the suspect, and both the suspect and an officer were shot. They said the officer was not injured because his U.S. Armor ballistic vest stopped the bullet. The suspect was shot and killed, KRCR TV reports.
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GOP Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, told Fox News commentator Bill OReilly on Monday that he will definitely not be recusing himself from the Trump-Russia investigation, instead accusing the Democrats of playing politics with the issue.

Everything is politics here, Nunes said with a straight face, days after he went out of his way to provide political cover for Donald Trump.

Video:

.@Rep_DevinNunes: Im sure that @TheDemocrats do want me to quit because they know Im quite effective at getting to the bottom of things. pic.twitter.com/q8rfNfLHzc  Fox News (@FoxNews) March 28, 2017

During the softball interview, Nunes told OReilly, Well, Im sure that the Democrats do want me to quit, because they know Im quite effective at getting to the bottom of things.

The goal of this investigation is to get to the bottom of why so many Trump associates  and even Trump himself  have ties to Russia. When Nunes snuck over to the White House last week and tried to hand the president a political shield for making the still-ridiculous claim that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower, he showed he cannot be trusted to run an independent probe or get to the bottom of things.

Not to mention something that often goes unnoticed these days: Nunes himself was a member of the Trump transition team. Why should anybody trust him to run a credible investigation into the presidents team on which he served?

As Nunes refuses to back away from an investigation he cant be trusted to run, Democrats are right to continue to put pressure on him to step aside.

On Monday, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, called for Nunes to recuse himself. Shortly after that, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urged Nunes to do the same.

The only person in this scenario whos playing politics is Devin Nunes, who refuses to run an investigation in a credible way. Democrats calling for his recusal arent playing politics; theyre doing their jobs.
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Democrats arent backing down on their commitment to give the American people a fair and independent investigation into Donald Trumps ties to Russia, with ranking Democrat Adam Schiff of the House Intelligence Committee now urging the GOP committee chairman Devin Nunes to recuse himself from the probe.

Video from MSNBCs Hardball with Chris Matthews:

In a statement released earlier, Schiff said, I believe that [Nunes] should recuse himself from any further involvement in the Russia investigation, as well as any involvement in oversight of matters pertaining to any incidental collection of the Trump transition, as he was also a key member of the transition team.

This is not a recommendation I make lightly, as the Chairman and I have worked together well for several years, Schiff said.

The statement comes after Nunes tried to give Trump political cover last week by revealing irrelevant information  from the White House, mind you  that the intelligence community picked up incidental evidence from the Trump transition team.

The information does nothing to vindicate Trumps insane claim about President Barack Obama wiretapping Trump Tower, but it gave the president just enough cover to claim he was right all along.

The high-ranking Democrat went on to say that Nunes has compromised himself when it comes to the Russian investigation in the same way Attorney General Jeff Sessions did when he lied during his confirmation hearing.

Schiff said: In much the same way that the Attorney General was forced to recuse himself from the Russia investigation after failing to inform the Senate of his meetings with Russian officials, I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the Presidents campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the Chairman.

Clearly, Democrats are not rolling over when it comes to keeping Russia front and center until the American people get the answers they deserve.

Republicans in Congress continue to make it their priority to protect Trump instead of getting to the bottom of what is potentially the biggest scandal in American history. Its increasingly clear not just that Nunes should remove himself from this inquiry, but also that an independent commission is needed to make sure the investigation is fair and thorough.

Democrats need to keep the heat on Republicans and urge them to put country, not party, first.
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By Julia Harte

WASHINGTON (Reuters)  A U.S. government watchdog has agreed to review how classified information is kept secure at President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, the agency said on Monday, after Democratic lawmakers raised concerns about the issue last month.

The Government Accountability Offices review will examine whether Secret Service agents subject Mar-a-Lago guests to any security screening, and evaluate the expenses incurred by government employees who travel with Trump to Mar-a-Lago, according to a letter the agency sent the lawmakers on Friday.

The GAO will also check whether Trump has made any payments to the U.S. Treasury from profits at his hotels, the letter said. Trumps lawyer pledged at a Jan. 11 news conference to donate Trump Hotel profits from foreign governments to the Treasury.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trumps handling of U.S. security information at Mar-a-Lago came under congressional scrutiny in February after photos taken by private guests in the clubs public dining area showed Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reviewing documents following a North Korean missile launch.

The White House denied afterward that any classified material was present in the dining room.

Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said on Monday the GAO would be able to conduct an independent review of how Trump spends his weekends at the resort, which the Republican president has dubbed his Winter White House.

In a Feb. 16 letter, Cummings and Democratic Senators Tom Udall, Elizabeth Warren and Sheldon Whitehouse asked the GAO to assess whether Trump and his staff had violated security protocol when hosting foreign dignitaries and handling classified information at the Florida resort.

Udall said on Monday the American people deserved to know who has access to the president, how much its costing to protect him and whether the Trump Organization is benefiting from that protection.

He introduced a bill on Friday that would require the White House to publish logs of people who meet with Trump there and at other locations.

The GAO is expected to begin the review in a few months.

(Reporting by Julia Harte; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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California Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff, Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, released a statement this morning on Rep. Devin Nunes abrupt decision to cancel hearings this week, just as former acting attorney general was scheduled to speak:

Was today's open hearing cancelled because WH did not want Sally Yates to testify re Gen Flynn's deception? Didn't want to assert privilege? pic.twitter.com/qO63IfPtAP  Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) March 28, 2017

Schiffs question is a good one, and he is not alone in demanding answers Nunes has so far been refusing to give. He was joined this morning by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) who told CBS This Morning,

I think there needs to be a lot of explaining to do. Ive been around for quite a while and Ive never heard of such thing.

McCain added, Theres so much out there that needs to be explained by the chairman.

After all that weve seen from the conduct of Nunes, McCains call, blunt as it was, is an understatement. As Schiff explained in his statement this morning, Sally Yates has valuable information to impart to the American people.

This is information Donald Trump clearly does not want to see revealed, and as Rep. Eric Swalwell told Morning Joe this morning, everything that we are seeing has been done because the White House wanted it to be done.

Trumps desperation is showing and it is not fooling anyone who doesnt want to be fooled. If he learned any lessons from Richard Nixon, this amateurish political theater shows they were all the wrong lessons.

Whatever it is that Donald Trump wants so badly to cover up that he is still ranting about Hillary Clinton at this late date, it must be explosive. Nunes has done his best to protect the president, but his prevarications can succeed for only so long before the call for an independent commission pays dividends for the American people.
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Fox News is targeting Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) with a series of racist on air attacks because she is a vocal critic of Donald Trump who thinks that he will be impeached.

Here is Bill OReilly on Fox and Friends attacking Waters:

Transcript via Media Matters:

BILL OREILLY: I didnt hear a word [Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)] said. I was looking at the James Brown wig. If we have a picture of James, its the same wig.

BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): Its the same one.

BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): And hes not using it anymore. They just  they finally buried him.

[CROSSTALK]

AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): No. OK, Ive got to defend her on that. I have to defend her on that. She a  you cant go after a womans looks. I think shes very attractive.

OREILLY: I didnt say she wasnt attractive.

EARHARDT: Her hair is pretty.

OREILLY: I love James Brown, but its the same hair, James Brown  alright, the godfather of soul  had.

EARHARDT: So he had girl hair.

OREILLY: Whatever it is, I just couldnt get by it.

Racism is not a new tactic for Fox News.

Also from Fox and Friends in 2012, here is Eric Bolling comparing Waters to Witney Houston and telling her to step away from the crack pipe:

Nothing new from Fox News, here is another Fox host telling Maxine Waters to "step away from the crack pipe" pic.twitter.com/p6R4SMrRD2  Media Matters (@mmfa) March 28, 2017

The reason why Fox is attacking Waters is that she has been a consistent and vocal critic of Trumps corruption and the Russia scandal.

Rep. Waters believes that Republicans are going to have no choice but to impeach Trump after all of the information on the Russia scandal comes out.

Waters told Joy Reid recently on an episode of MSNBCs AM Joy, I think in the final analysis they are going to have to move away from him, and we will see that he will be in a position where he will meet the standards for high crimes and misdemeanors, and I maintain thats where impeachment comes in.

The Fox News attacks on Rep. Waters are a sign that the scandal is gaining traction as Fox is going to lowest low in an attempt to save Donald Trumps sinking presidency. The Russia scandal is consuming the Trump presidency, and Fox is going racial in an attempt to silence an outspoken critic of Trump.

Update: Bill OReilly has issued an apology for his statement. OReily said in a statement provided to PoliticusUSA, As I have said many times, I respect Congresswoman Maxine Waters for being sincere in her beliefs. I said that again today on Fox & Friends calling her old school. Unfortunately, I also made a jest about her hair which was dumb. I apologize. OReilly will also address the issue tonight on his Fox News program at 8 PM ET.
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By giving a three-word answer at his weekly press conference, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan revealed that he is using his power to assist President Trump with his Russia cover-up.

Video:

Ryan was asked by NBCs Kasie Hunt if Nunes should recuse himself from the Russia investigation, and if he knew who Chairman Nuness source was. Ryan answered, No and no.

Speaker Ryan is putting his partisan politics ahead of the fact that the President and members of his administration may have colluded with an enemy of the United States to win a presidential election. Ryan is using his power as Speaker of the House to assist President Trump in covering up his potential crimes. Paul Ryan has no interest in finding out the truth about the Russia/Trump relationship. He is allowing the White House to sabotage the only House investigation into the matter by allowing a Trump transition official to chair the investigative committee.

No one in the mainstream media will say it out loud, but Paul Ryan is assisting the White House cover-up, which means that the Russia scandal is no longer an Executive Branch issue. The Legislative Branch of the US government has also been compromised.

Rep. Ryan (R-WI) is not going to let the truth be discovered because doing so might jeopardize his legislative agenda and House majority.

Speaker Ryan has made the House Intelligence Committees investigation irrelevant. He has also harmed the integrity of the House.

The Russia scandal now has the reach, not just to bring down Trump, but to also take out the House Republican majority, because Paul Ryan has chosen to help the Trump White House cover-up their Russian crimes.
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Its no surprise to most Americans that Donald Trump is oblivious about the way government operates according to the U.S. Constitution, or any non-dictatorial form of governance. Trump is still under the delusion that because he gets to live in the White House, he gets to run America as its do-nothing except profit CEO like he does his hotel empire. An empire, by the way, where uses other peoples money, offers and does nothing except take profits, all while wreaking economic damage on any and every one remotely connected to his project; including the poor saps giving him investment money. Trump hasnt declared bankruptcy seven times for any other reason than to screw contractors, suppliers, labor, and the banks fronting him money.

Trump has been raking in tens-of-millions of taxpayer dollars for Trump business-related profits, so now he wants to transform the government into a business and abuse the people his son-in-law Jared Kushner referred to as our customers. Of course Trump will not be the only profiteer off the taxpayers, there is a long list of corporate heads and business executives lining up to advise Kushner on how they too can profit more off of America and its people in an admitted privatization scheme, a term that may be a monumental understatement.

In another blatant act of nepotism, it was announced yesterday that Trump appointed his daughter Ivankas husband, Jared Kushner, to another very senior government position with an unprecedented level of authority rivaling the United States Congress. Kushner will lead a SWAT team to overhaul the peoples government into a business in the CEO Trump mold.

Kushner said the new office will be comprised of an aggressive team to run the government like a great American company. The team will be staffed with strategic corporate consultants, CEOs and former business executives to harvest ideas from the business world and potentially privatize government functions; privatization decisions will rest with the SWAT team-leader Jared Kushner. Kushner will report and answer directly to Trump from his West Wing office barely a few feet from the Oval.

One of the issues Trump cannot, and will not, accept is that America is a representative democracy and governed by the people via three separate, but equal, branches of government.

That democracy and separate but equal branches is what Trump and his corporate cabal regard as friction against achieving their corporate goals. Friction is something a corporate CEO would never have to deal with. The Trumps means of getting around that friction very quickly and succinctly is running America exactly like a business. One of the Kushner teams advisors, Stephen A. Schwartzman, is a chief executive of the investment firm the Blackstone Group and he said:

There is a need to figure out what policies [regulations and agencies] are adding friction to the system without accompanying it with significant benefits [profits]. Its easy for the private sector to see where the friction is, and to do that very quickly and succinctly.

As anyone conscious understands, the Trump team will eliminate whichever policies, regulations, departments and agencies they deem are adding friction to their corporate demands for significant benefits for the privatized company. Of course Republicans will give Trump whatever he wants to privatize America because that has been one of their longstanding goals, and particularly so since the ascendancy of the Koch brothers.

One of the primary tasks of Kushners office would be directing that government functions be privatized, and deciding which existing contracts be awarded to new bidders. It is likely that any new contract awards will go to members of Kushners team of business advisors. What Trump intends in setting a Kushner-led SWAT team on the people and their government is to transfer even more of their tax dollars directly into corporate coffers with no input, or friction whatsoever from the people, Congress, or the Supreme Court.

As Bob Cesca at Daily Banter wrote, a government functions on democratic consensus, while a business runs on the plans of its CEO. Cesca cited Forbes writer John T. Harvey to further explain why a government cannot be run like a corporation, no matter what Trump, Kushner or Republicans claim. Mr. Harvey wrote:

Bear in mind, first, that efficiency in the private sector means profit. Hence, to ask that the government be run like a business is tantamount to asking that the government turn a profit. The problem in a nutshell, is that not everything that is profitable is of social value and not everything of social value is profitable. Reality TV, pornography, fashion, sports, and gambling are all of questionable social value, but each is quite profitable and exists in the private sector. Meanwhile, few would argue that the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, police department, fire department, libraries, parks, and public schools are of no social value, and yet they could not exist if they were required to be profitable.

All of those endemic economic and social issues of transforming a government of, by, and for we the people into a company founded on profiting off its citizens for the financial benefit of a CEO ultimately means that America will be an authoritarian plutocracy; with a tyrannical dictator as its CEO.

As many commenters have already noted, the concept of a business is inherently contrary to a democracy or any form of representative government. In any business, the CEO, boss, or whatever theyre called is the first and last word on everything without input from employees, the customers or ethics rules; what Trumps business people regard as friction. That is all well and good for a business to be run by a dictator, but it cannot work in a democracy which is precisely why the Trump-Kushner business executives intend on eliminating regulations, departments, agencies and likely branches of government they consider friction to their well-oiled profit generating machine.

Trump warned he would eviscerate the government, and his Heritage Foundation cabinet appointees were chosen specifically to achieve that purpose on a departmental level according to Trump advisor Stephen Bannon. However, the idea of giving his son-in-law, a business executive, purview over which regulations, agencies, and departments to either privatize or eliminate is another story altogether. America is a country and its government exists solely to advance the general welfare of the people as well as to serve the peoples best interests; what Trump considers friction to eliminate.
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That hearing that House Intel Chair Devin Nunes so abruptly canceled? It was the hearing during which we were going to hear fired United States Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates testify.

Shes the person who told the White House that Donald Trumps National Security Adviser had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his talks with Russia. This testimony would be awkward for the Trump White House, because when Flynn was busted for lying about his talks with Russia weeks after Yates briefed the Trump people, the Trump White House claimed they had no knowledge of Flynns talks with the Russians.

But they did, according to Sally Yates. A fact that the public wont hear about today, due to the canceled hearing.

Yates was going to talk until she was blocked.

But wait. The news this Tuesday morning is that Yates wasnt going to let that happen. Apparently, she was going to testify despite the attempt to block her, and her lawyers informed the Trump White House of her intentions to do so on March 24th.

And then, on March 24th, the hearing was canceled by Devin Nunes. Nunes, who ran to the White House to supposedly brief President Trump on some evidence he found that he wont share with members of his committee. That happened on the 22nd.

Sally Yates lawyers sent a letter to the Trump White House stating that she intended to testify despite the attempt to block her, according to a letter obtained by NBC.

NBC obtains letter from Yates lawyers to WH stating her intent to testify despite attempt to block her Same day: Nunes canceled her hearing pic.twitter.com/AsfrLSEuEe  Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) March 28, 2017

According to former CIA chief of staff, Jeremy Bash, Yates has revelations about when she told the White House that Flynn lied:

InterestingJeremy Bash implies Sally Yates had revelations for House Intel about when she told WH that Flynn lied. Nunes nixed the hearing. pic.twitter.com/vKCd1jdoc5  Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) March 28, 2017

Bash said on MSNBC, I think the real story, the real issue here is not so much about the midnight run by the chairman onto the White House grounds, its really that they wanted to cancel this week. This hearing this week was going to hear from Sally Yates, the former acting attorney general, and I am told that she had some very interesting to tell the committee to tell the public about when she told the White House counsel that Mike Flynn had in fact been lying to the Vice President. She was only going to be able to speak those things within the context of a congressional hearing, and so the White House and the chairman needed to shut her down. This was an elaborately choreographed gag order against Sally Yates.

Ranking Member House Intel committee Rep. Adam Schiff asked the obvious question that hints at a possible White House cover up when he wondered if the white House canceled Tuesdays open hearing because they didnt want Sally Yates to testify regarding General Flynns deception.

Was today's open hearing cancelled because WH did not want Sally Yates to testify re Gen Flynn's deception? Didn't want to assert privilege? pic.twitter.com/qO63IfPtAP  Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) March 28, 2017

A spokesperson for Nunes denied that the Republican Chair coordinated with the White House to block Yatess testimony.

Intel committee chairman Nunes, through a spokesman, denied coordinating with the White House to block Yates's testimony. pic.twitter.com/E4g0fkWmri  Byron Tau (@ByronTau) March 28, 2017

The Republican backing of Devin Nunes chairing this committee is so absurd as to color each Republican doing it with the stink of the Russian scandal.

There was quite literally no reason Nunes should have ever been heading a probe that possibly implicates himself.

But there is even less cause now that Nunes has interfered in this investigation, snuck over to the White House for a weird pow wow followed by a press conference in which he tried very, very hard to blow smoke around the wrong issue to exonerate Donald Trumps false allegations against President Obama, and clearly has no interest in getting to the bottom of the actual Russia scandal.

People need to hear what Sally Yates has to say. But instead, the man in charge of the probe into Trumps Russia connections made sure to gag her so the public couldnt hear from her through his committee.

Smoke and circumstance became direct evidence of a cover-up as the Trump White House has made the fatal mistake that could bring his presidency down.

Update 1:40 PM: White House press secretary Sean Spicer vehemently denied that the Trump White House had anything to do with the cancellation of the hearing at which Yates was determined to testify. Spicer made a bizarre accusation about Trump using Russian salad dressing and the press turning it into Russian collusion.
Pizza has been a constant in Brian Kesslers life, from the time he got a job in a pizzeria as a teenager until the day he met his wife in a pizza joint. Read moreIggy's Pizza Shop is now open in Mount Pleasant
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen speaks at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition annual conference in Washington, Tuesday, March 28, 2017. Yellen said that U.S. banks must do all they can to promote economic development in low-income areas where high unemployment has persisted despite the overall job market's significant gains. (Susan Walsh/AP)
Construction of two nuclear units at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station near Jenkinsville is shown in December. Westinghouse, the lead contractor on the $14 billion project, filed for bankruptcy protection Wednesday. File/Provided/SCANA Corp.
Andrew Ross Scott was booked into the Charleston County jail the evening of Nov. 6 on the charge of second-degree domestic violence. The 37-year-old man, who has been employed with the Mount Pleasant Police Department since 2009, has been placed on administrative leave, according to Inspector Don Calabrese. Read moreMount Pleasant police officer placed on leave after domestic violence arrest
South Carolina voters head to the polls Nov. 8, casting ballots in midterm elections that will not only determine the state's next governor but will also act as the first major referendum on the Biden era. Read moreYour voter guide to top races, key issues in South Carolina's 2022 midterm elections
A Rochester woman has been accused by her former employer of stealing more than $11,000 from the business, court documents show.

Jessica Lynne Carter, 27, faces one count of financial transaction card fraud and two counts of theft, all felonies. Her first appearance in Olmsted County District Court is set for April 13.

The investigation began at the end of November, when one of the owners of the business  which wasn't identified in the criminal complaint  contacted Rochester police about an employee theft.

The man said he'd noticed the store's profit was not where it should be, and checked the store's credit card statement. Carter, who was a manager for the store, had use of the company card for business purchases only, the owner said.

When he confronted Carter about unauthorized purchases, "she was crying and admitted to making the charges and said she would pay it all back," the complaint says. When she learned it was thousands of dollars, Carter allegedly asked for a few hours, and said she'd have the money. When the owner said he was calling law enforcement, Carter left.

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The owners reviewed the store's books, court documents say, and noted Carter didn't make cash deposits into the business account on three occasions, for a total of $2,433.19.

An investigation of the store's financial documents provided by the owners revealed $8,639.09 in fraudulent charges between Sept. 30 and Nov. 30, the reports say, including payments to a phone/internet company.

The investigator was allegedly able to confirm through surveillance video and receipts that several of the transactions were made by Carter.
Man who fatally beat toddler sentenced to 30 years in prison

MINNEAPOLIS  A man who pleaded guilty in the fatal beating of his girlfriend's 3-year-old son in western Minnesota has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Twenty-four-year-old Sterling Andersen, of rural Ogema, avoided a possible life prison term by pleading to second-degree murder in the October 2015 death of Steven Warren at the couple's home on the White Earth Indian Reservation.

Andersen told authorities he punched and kneed the toddler because the boy wouldn't stop crying. Andersen was sentenced in federal court in Minneapolis last week.

Another lawsuit seeks to block PolyMet mine land exchange

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MINNEAPOLIS  Environmentalists have filed another lawsuit seeking to prevent the U.S. Forest Service from swapping land for the planned PolyMet copper-nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota.

PolyMet needs the land for its mine near Babbitt. The deal calls for trading 6,650 acres of federal land for a similar amount of private land.

But a lawsuit filed in federal court Monday by the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Duluth chapter of the Izaak Walton League says the Forest Service badly undervalues the land at $550 per acre. Attorney Kathryn Hoffman says it's a bad deal for taxpayers.

Another group, WaterLegacy, filed a similar lawsuit in January. The Forest Service has yet to file its response to that lawsuit, and PolyMet has asked to have it dismissed.
A Byron man was hospitalized Monday morning after colliding with another vehicle on U.S. Highway 14 west of Rochester.

According to the Minnesota State Patrol, Wyn Mitchell Alexander, 49, of Byron, was eastbound on U.S. 14 when he collided with another vehicle while making a left turn on Olmsted County Road 5. The incident occurred just before noon and resulted in Alexander being transported to Saint Marys Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, according to the State Patrol report.

Isaiah Lamar Moss, 22, of Rochester, was traveling west on U.S. 14 when he collided with Alexander at the intersection. Moss was not injured, nor was his passenger, 2-year-old Kalia Moss.

Gold Cross Ambulance and Byron Fire Department assisted at the scene.
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PINE ISLAND  "The kids."

That's the answer when Mark Aarsvold and Dorothy Walston are asked what they'll miss the most next year.

The Pine Island Elementary teachers are retiring at the end of the school year, taking their decades of experience with them as they head off to the next chapters of their lives.

Aarsvold is looking forward to spending more time in Mexico when he takes a mission trip to build houses. He's traveled south of the border each of the last four years during MEA break, but not had the time to hang out and get to know the culture. Having been raised for four years in Brazil during his teens, taking time to experience the culture will be a big part of retirement, he said.

That, and his grandchildren who live near Des Moines, Iowa.

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"I plan on some long weekends, spending time with them," he said.

Walston, a special education teacher, also plans to travel once her days at Pine Island are done. She and her husband are learning German for a trip this summer.

"We're going to Austria," she said. "We've been there two years ago. We'll go and work for a couple of weeks then go to Venice and back to tour Vienna."

In between, there will be time for quilting, reading and, like Aarsvold, the grandkids.

What she won't miss is the paperwork.

"You take a lot home," Walston said. "It requires a lot of work after hours." Not that she minded all of it. The learning for her autism certification was interesting, and she hopes to keep learning even in retirement.

'We are left with a void'

Pine Island Elementary Principal Cindy Hansen said it is that dedication to learning, and the knowledge and wisdom of the pair that she will miss.

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"The collective wisdom of our veteran staff is priceless," she said. "Their life and teaching experience give them a big-picture perspective on education, kids, and the world."

That perspective helps guide the school  especially their colleagues.

Aarsvold has 37 years of experience in the classroom, the last 17 in Pine Island where he retires as a fourth-grade teacher. Walston has taught for more than 20 years total, and she has been a special education teacher since 2005.

Hansen said Walston is especially hard to replace, a sentiment echoed by Superintendent Tammy Berg-Beniak.

"Any time we have veteran teachers retire, we are left with a void," the superintendent said. "It is certainly a challenge to find qualified candidates when a specific license is required, specifically in the area of special education."

Minnesota has struggled for years to address teacher shortages but hasn't found a consistent solution. Demands for science, math and special needs teachers have leaped, but the supply has yet to catch up. Despite the state's increasing diversity, the teaching pool remains overwhelmingly white.

Attempts to ease shortages by tinkering with the state teacher licensing system have fallen short. The Minnesota legislative auditor's office in March criticized the system as "confusing" and "broken."

An MPR News analysis of state data shows teacher turnover is higher in smaller districts. While just under half the state's teachers work in districts of fewer than 300 teachers, since 2010 those districts have accounted for more than 60 percent of the teachers who left for other districts.

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A 2013 legislative audit of Minnesota's special education program devoted a whole section to paperwork burdens and suggested the Education Department work to reduce them. Last year the Legislature mandated that reduction.

The department took some steps, including reducing the number of documents it checks when it monitors school districts. But requirements are set out in law, and some Minnesota-specific requirements go beyond what's federally required.

Bonuses for hires

How hard is it these days to find special education teachers? Cherie Johnson understands the competition, and the costs, as well as anyone.

She directs the Goodhue County Education District, a cooperative of six southeastern Minnesota school districts that shares some services, like classes for high-needs special education kids.

Johnson has a facility most teachers would envy: a big red-brick building up a small hill outside Red Wing that opened last year with floor-to-ceiling windows and freshly painted hallways.

But in the fierce competition for special needs teachers, money talks right now.

On a recent day as she watched a dodgeball game, Johnson rattled off a handful of nearby school districts she says will give qualified special ed teachers a $15,000 boost on the salary grid.

Districts increasingly offer bonuses right off the bat to new hires, she added: "$5,000 signing bonuses. I've even seen a $10,000 signing bonus."

She said she's had a position open all year without a single applicant.

GCED has not gone down the bonus route, yet, "but certainly we're going to have to consider everything that the entities around us are using."

Closer to Med City

For Pine Island, being close to Rochester helps, Berg-Beniak said.

"There are many rural districts reporting few to zero applicants in a number of areas," she said. "We have been extremely fortunate to have outstanding candidates; however, the reality is that this could change for all districts."

Mark Roubinek oversees such a district in St. Charles. The soon-to-retire superintendent said it can be hard to find teachers in specialties ranging from agriculture and industrial technology to speech pathology, and math or science.

"The regular job sector really seems to gobble these up by offering higher wage and benefit packages," he said. "There are cases where students graduate with a teaching degree and go into another vocation because the starting pay may be double or more than what they would receive as a teacher."

Again, being close to Rochester helps, but Roubinek said it can be hard to get teachers out to rural districts.

"We may have received 100, 40 or 15 applicants for various jobs 15 years ago," he said. "Today, those same positions may draw 22, 11 and four applicants."

That means finding that teacher with experience can be more difficult as well when replacing a long-term educator.

"Accruing decades of knowledge and experience is impossible to fully replace (when experienced teachers retire)," said Red Wing Superintendent Karsten Anderson.

Every time a teacher leaves, that creates a change in the dynamic of the school and the grade-level team or department, Anderson said.

"We value the wisdom our more experienced teachers bring to school daily," he said. "But we also value the fresh perspectives and different experiences that newcomers share with the staff."

Walston said spending time with her colleagues also ranks high on what she will miss.

"You miss sharing ideas and brainstorming, and being there to support one another because we are a team," she said.

Aarsvold said agreed, adding with a laugh that his younger colleagues certainly bring something to the table.

"I'm definitely the dinosaur of the bunch," he said. "They help me with technology, and I help them with experience.

"I will miss them so much," Aarsvold said. "They are good dedicated people to these kids."

Minnesota Public Radio contributed to this report.
The times are no doubt exciting.

For arts, education and cultural groups, these are indeed heady days. It's hard not to be swept away by the visions of growth and dynamism many believe Destination Medical Center is destined to deliver to their communities. They see DMC bringing in more of everything: More students and faculty, more artists and patrons, more cultural opportunities and talent.

They see the $6.5 billion economic development initiative as a time to think big.

Yet voices of caution and moderation are emerging that say DMC has created a mythology, a set of unrealistic expectations.

Count Gregory Stavrou, executive director of the Rochester Civic Theatre, among the latter group. His concern, he said, is DMC has created visions of "imminent radical change" for arts organizations. Some have come to believe Rochester's growth during the next decade will fuel a tidal wave of audience members for arts groups.

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"Part of this mythology is this idea that there are going to be patients who are using all their free time to come and participate in the arts," Stavrou said. "This is not realistic. It's, frankly, silly."

Stavrou's tempered attitude toward DMC is based on the city's growth projections. The city is projected to reap a windfall of growth and new jobs, but Stavrou noted those projections aren't out of line with those of the previous decade. In other words, Rochester will continue to grow robustly but no faster than before.

But those projections haven't stopped arts organizations from dreaming big. They see an influx of patients and their families looking for something to do and arts organizations stepping into to fill that need.

"We do have some Mayo patients that come here and that's great, and we respond to them," Stavrou said. "But that's not going to drive (the civic theatre's) evolution over the next 10 years. What's driving our work is the residents of Rochester.

"I think it's easy to get caught in the momentum of an idea that is legit and exciting," Stavrou said. "But one can lose one's way because one is kind of swept away by the momentum. Mission creep can occur with organizations. And bigger is not necessarily better."

Some dare to dream big

Even so, there is undeniable excitement that attaches to DMC, every bit as vibrant as when it passed the Legislature in 2013. Some are daring to dream big.

Bari Amadio, CEO of the Greater Rochester Arts and Cultural Trust, said DMC creates an opportunity to expand the creative offerings in Rochester. Some people want Rochester to have a ballet company, others an opera.

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"With DMC bringing new faces to Rochester and, in turn, new cultural opportunities, the attraction of the arts will assist in the retention of these new faces," Amadio said.

DMC has also become a recruiting tool for some organizations to draw talent and employees. Jay Hesley, University of Minnesota Rochester's chief of staff, said DMC is a definite selling point that UMR uses when recruiting faculty and students.

"We certainly talk about it significantly as we try to recruit people," Hesley said. "And it does resonate that the community is ready to make significant investments to improve what we have."

If DMC unfolds as many hope, it could feed the development of UMR and its proposed campus along First Avenue Southwest in downtown Rochester. But UMR officials are quick to note that the new UMR campus, when it does begin to develop, won't be a traditional school. Development will involve other players. It will be collaborative in nature.

"For us, DMC is a significant component of UMR's growth and development. It's just not going to come in the flavor (some expect)," Hesley said.

Library anticipates growth

When DMC released one of its early master plans for the downtown, the Rochester Public Library wasn't even included. The map showed a bend in the road where the library now sits. But for now, the library looks to be anchored at its 101 2nd St. Southeast location.

For library supporters, DMC has become an argument for greater investment in community assets -- such as the library.

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Although the library failed to win support for a proposed $60 million expansion last year, a growing community will need a library that serves its needs," said library director Audrey Betcher.

"We're on a great trajectory here with how the community has embraced the library," Betcher said. "And as we continue to grow, the pressure on the library is going to continue to grow as well."

The library has seen a sizable boost in patrons over the years. More than 110,000 people used the library in 2015, nearly three times the 39,000 patrons in 2012. Betcher sees evidence of the library's popularity every day in the queue of people waiting inside lobby for the library to open.

And in an increasingly diversified community, Rochester will need assets that bring people together. Betcher sees the library playing that role.

"I contend that we are the only place in the community where all income levels interact very productively," she said. "We look at the labor gap coming. We need people to move into Rochester. But people have to find ways to really connect with each other, and the library is absolutely one of those places."

Ever the voice of caution, Stavrou says it's important to take a wait-and-see approach.

"I think DMC remains very much a conceptual title for a long, 20-plus year project that has many parts that are yet to be defined," Stavrou said.
Walter Hanson doesn't see downtown Rochester's transportation and parking issues as a new concern.

The co-owner of the Nordic Shop in the Shops at University Square downtown mall said downtown businesses were raising concerns when he opened his first shop in 1974.

"Way back then, transportation and parking was an issue," he said, noting the Downtown Business Association was formed at that time and sought to tackle some concerns.

While many of the concerns were addressed, such as Mayo Clinic employees who frequently were seen filling parking meters for co-workers, other issues linger, such as making sure employees have parking or bus access when it's needed.

Hanson said the Nordic Shop pays for employee parking spaces in nearby ramps, but other businesses can't based on employee numbers or business volume.

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"We don't have that many full-time employees, so it's doable for us," he said, pointing to a variety of nearby businesses that aren't in the same situation.

Hanson said he hopes the transportation planning effort connected to Destination Medical Center will create ramps that allow employees and others to park outside the downtown core and take regular shuttles downtown.

'Park-once' philosophy

Beth Bartz, of SRF Consulting Group, which has been tapped to assist with transportation planning in the DMC corridor, said that's the goal of a park-once philosophy, which is part of the planning effort.

"Park-once is really looking for that opportunity for those who are coming from farther out to just drive to one location and leave their vehicle there throughout the course of the day, understanding they may have a number of places they need to go," she said.

Study has shown the downtown workforce is expected to grow by 30,000 in connection to DMC efforts, which would require 20 blocks of surface parking or 101 levels of the Graham parking ramp at 121 Third Ave. NW, based on current practices.

Since the space isn't likely to be found downtown, transportation planning efforts are taking a two-prong approach: building parking opportunities outside the downtown and developing transit and other alternatives so commuters can leave their cars and trucks at home.

"If we don't change anything about how people are traveling to downtown Rochester or in downtown Rochester, we're going to have a lot of congestion," Megan Moeller, of Rochester Public Works, told members of Rochester's Commission on Urban Design and Environment recently.

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Public Works Director Richard Freese said today's problems could have been worse. He credits Mayo Clinic policies with limiting downtown parking and encouraging employees to use Rochester Public Transit, which has reduced stress on the system.

"If they didn't have that in place, the mountain would have been a lot taller; the climb would be a lot more difficult," he said, noting the clinic has an estimated 28,000 downtown employees, but 10,000 other downtown workers are not being addressed.

Steering commuters in new ways

Talk of shifting transportation practices frequently draws concerns about changing traffic patterns.

Rochester City Council Member Mark Hickey raised such concerns during a February DMC Corp. board meeting.

"I want to make sure we don't unnecessarily choke down traffic lanes to punish vehicle drivers," he said.

Bartz acknowledged the concern but said potential changes aren't about punishing current practices. Rather, they likely will be incentives seeking to encourage other practices.

"We're really looking at access  getting people access to downtown  not necessarily vehicles," she said.

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Freese also said planning will take into account all transportation options, but he noted the estimated workforce increase means all new downtown employees won't be able to drive themselves into downtown and find parking places.

"We have a peak-flow traffic concern. We don't have a problem yet," he said. However, he pointed to recent studies that show potential for bottlenecks in parts of the city, especially for morning traffic heading downtown from the north and west.

Bartz said the concern is moving at a faster pace than expected a couple of years ago.

"The traffic capacity is diminishing more quickly than we anticipated in the DMC plan," she said.

Freese said addressing the concern can take one of two approaches: build more lanes for cars or provide options for entering downtown.

With limited options for constructing wider streets, Freese said DMC planners initiated a goal of bringing more people downtown using public transit and other means, such as walking and biking.

"It's going to have to happen over time because people are not going to give up their vehicles," he said.

Guiding principles

How it will happen is part of the ongoing discussion being guided, in part, by a study framework approved by the DMCC board and Rochester City Council.

The framework designed for the planning process will be used to evaluate proposals along the process to ensure they meet DMC needs.

The four guiding concerns are economy, community and experience, health and wellness and delivery.

Freese said the goal is to provide a consistent reminder for making informed decisions and guiding planners as studies determine how transportation and parking needs will be met.

The economy principle recognizes DMC is an economic driver, while the community and experience focus seeks to put priority on creating infrastructure that benefits residents and visitors. Meanwhile, the health and wellness element keeps focus on patients and community health, while the delivery element seeks to ensure strategies can be implemented with public and private investment.

When presented to the DMCC board last month, members said they appreciated the mix of literal elements, such as economic impact, and abstract benefits, such as creating quality experiences.

"We're really looking at what kind of community we want and how does that fit the value of this being the healthiest city in America," DMCC board member R.T. Rybak said.

Plenty of studies

Freese said the framework will be used to guide and evaluate decisions as city staff and DMC consultants continue to narrow options for transportation and parking practices within the initiative's footprint.

Studies underway include:

 Transit circulation, which would provide a way to help people access downtown and move throughout the district, including moving patients and employees between Saint Marys Hospital and the downtown, connecting employees to remote parking structures and circulating people, including students and shoppers, between downtown locations.

Bartz said planners are working to narrow options, which include elevated, surface and below-ground circulators, as well as multiple potential routes.

"Some of them are more flexible, and some are more restrictive," she said.

 Parking, which seeks to develop a customized approach tailored to goals established by the city and in the DMC plan. Last month, a set of eight policies were approved, which include finding shared-parking opportunities, developing a management organization and leveraging investment.

 Street use, which seeks to ensure the streets are being used as effectively as possible.

 A city loop, which would create walking and biking facilities that connect residents, employees, visitors and patients with places throughout the DMC footprint.

With the approved study framework in hand to help guide efforts, city staff and consultants are narrowing options and studying alternatives, with plans for more public engagement in late April and May, when they will share results of their continued efforts.
I want to apply to Qatar airways but I feel like they will reject me.

Hi everyone,



Qatar airways is coming to my country El Salvador and as many of you this is my dream job nad I really wish so bad to be hired.



I'm afraid that they will reject me because of the way I look. I'm very tall however I'm very skinny and I will not gain any weight in 1 week and a half. I consider that I'm a good looking person and I know I'm healthy as well. The thing is that I'm so afraid because I just got a haircut in order to look good the day of the interview but with my hair shorter and after shaving my beard I feel like I look so skinny they will reject me.



I know I have everything they need, I'm a very good english speaker with plenty of experience, I'm tall and a very outgoing person but I feel so ugly the way I look without a beard and short hair and I don't have a problem with that but I feel like I won't be even given a chance. Literally hundreds of people will apply for that position and I know I will be really sad if they don't hire me.



Any advise you can give me?



Thank you.
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Three talented Nigerian artists, Victor Ehikhamenor, Peju Alatise and Qudus Onikeku, have been selected to showcase their unique works centered on the theme How About NOW? at the 57th Venice Biennale.

Nigeria will also be making her debut at the worlds most prestigious contemporary visual art exhibition, which holds on May 13 in Venice, Italy.

The project manager of Nigeria in Venice, Wunika Mukan, disclosed this at a press conference held in Lagos on Friday.

In her speech, Ms Wunika said that Nigerias journey to the event, themed Viva Arte Viva, has been one of great perseverance in reference to the efforts it has cost the steering committee to realise the dream.

Nigerian Pavilion is themed How About Now and will be curated by Adenrele Sonariwo and Emmanuel Iduma. Two visual artists, Victor Ehikhamenor and Peju Alatise, and performance artist, Qudus Onikeku, will represent Nigeria at the exhibition which previews on May 10, opens to the public on May 13 and runs till the end of November.

I will like to acknowledge the support of the Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, who commissioned the Nigerian pavilion in Venice, partners and the steering committee for knowing that collaborating and creating new opportunities will add tremendous value to the art scene in Nigeria and Africa.

On how the three artists were selected, Miss Wunika said, We did our research and realised that countries have various approaches in determining who participates on behalf of their respective countries. We took a cue from the British Pavilion, which has participated since 1907.

The curatorial team nominated the artists, accomplished artists of repute both locally and abroad, who are able to deliver an exhibition worthy of Nigerias first showing. We looked at the artists CV, their track record, where they are career-wise and also how well they can respond and execute on the curatorial direction How About NOW?

The lead curator,Adenrele Sonariwo, disclosed that the aim of the Nigerian Pavilion in Venice is to reflect on the question of now, and of narratives firmly rooted in the present.

The Nigerian Pavilion will feature an exhibition of installations and performance, developed by two visual artists and one performance artist.

Ehikhamenor will present The Biography of the Forgotten, a large-scale work fusing abstract shapes with traditional sculpture, informed by an investment in classical Benin art and the effect of colonialism on cultural heritage.

Alatise, on her part, will present Flying Girls, an installation of eight winged life-size girls, based on the story of a 10-year-old girl, who works as a housemaid in Lagos while dreaming of a realm where she is free and can fly.

Onikeku will showcase Right Here, Right Now a trilogy of performance films, presented as an investigation through dance of the workings of body memory and its connection to national consciousness.

On why performance art was included in Nigerias presentation, Mr. Sonariwo said, We believe strongly that art is not just one thing, and even in the larger sense, the Curator of the Biennale, Christine Macel, selected a performance artist [Jelili Atiku] from Nigeria to participate in the Biennale.

The Venice Biennale is the oldest cultural biennale, started in 1895 and has gone to become one of the most prestigious large-scale art exhibitions, with countries officially represented by their pavilions. Every odd year, Venice becomes the world capital of contemporary art. However, from time, there has been a lack of representation of the African continent at the Venice Biennale, currently only seven

African countries out of 54 will be represented with national pavilions at the Biennale.

The Nigerian pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale is curated by Adenrele Sonariwo and Emmanuel Iduma, and commissioned by Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State with the support of the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture.

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Shareholders and directors of Arik Air Limited have dragged the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority before the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court, accusing the federal authorities of mismanagement.

In suit number FHC/L/CS//2017, filed on March 27, the shareholders prayed the court to hold AMCON and NCAA responsible if there is any case of air accident or other serious damages in the airlines operation.

A declaration that the defendants would be personally liable for any Air crash arising from non-compliance with the NCAA Act and regulations including any claims for compensation and criminal liability arising therefrom, court papers showed.

The case, which is the latest in a string of lawsuits between Arik and AMCON, came two months after AMCON took over management Arik Airline, the largest in the country. The move followed an ex-parte order of the Federal High Court.

The agency cited poor mismanagement on the part of the companys owners, saying it assumed control of the troubled airline in order to reposition it. Amcon said Arik was indebted to it up to the tune of N300 billion.

But the airline shareholders and management vowed to challenge the takeover. The Federal High Court is expected to rule on two pending applications that stemmed from the takeover in the coming weeks.

In their latest suit, Arik directors, Joseph Arumemi-Ikhide, Michael Arumemi-Ikhide and engineer, Sangowawa Olubiyi, said AMCON had violated the countrys air traffic laws which could result in air accidents.

Arik Aircrafts are not receiving adequate and scheduled maintenance as well as regular supply of proper spare parts, the plaintiffs said. Over 10 aircraft parked at the Arik Air hanger are not on a maintenance and storage program and thus the safety of passengers currently being ferried on board the aircraft cannot be guaranteed.

No date has been fixed for hearing on the matter.

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The European Court of Justice (ECJ) on Tuesday ordered that a travel ban imposed on the daughter of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi be lifted.

The EU had imposed sanctions during the Libyan revolution in February 2011, banning Mr. Gaddafi and members of his family from entering or transiting through EU member states.

The travel ban was renewed in June 2014.

The ban was challenged by Mr. Gaddafis daughter, Aisha, who currently lives in Oman with her family.

The ECJ said the European Council had justified the ban by citing the involvement of Gaddafi loyalists in the use of force, repression and violent attack against civilians.

The court found that not enough information as to Aisha Gaddafis individual, specific and concrete role, was made available to support the ban.

(dpa/NAN)

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A former Personal Assistant to Governor Ayo Fayose during his first tenure, Goke Olatunji, was on Tuesday arraigned at an Ado Ekiti High Court over alleged double murder.

The offences were allegedly committed 11 years ago.

Also charged with him is a member of House of Representatives, Thaddeus Aina.

He was absent in court.

The two men were charged with the murders of the then Holland-based Tunde Omojola and a World Bank Consultant, Ayodeji Daramola.

The trial was, however, stalled because of the absence of Mr. Aina, said to have gone abroad for medical treatment.

The two murder cases were consolidated at the request of the lawyers to both parties.

Mr. Omojola was killed in Ifaki Ekiti in 2006 during a councillorship election while Mr. Daramola was murdered in Ijan Ekiti on August 14, 2006.

Both murders were committed under the first term Governor Fayose.

When the case was brought before Justice Adewale Fowe on Tuesday, the prosecuting counsel, Adekunle Adetowubo, told the court that Mr. Aina, who is currently representing Ekiti North Federal Constituency II, had been flown abroad for medical treatment over undisclosed ailment.

Both Mr. Adetowubo and counsel to the defendants, Adedayo Adewumi, sought a brief adjournment and also prayed the court to issue a Witness summon, so that all the witnesses can be brought to court at the next adjournment date.

Mr. Adetowubo said: My lord, the counsel to the 2nd respondent had told me that he was sick

The purpose of this case is to prosecute and not to persecute. Again, only the living can be tried and not the dead

We pray that he recovers soon and by the time he will appear, the trial can be heard expeditiously

We cant continue with this case until the 2nd defendant appears in court, because this is a criminal case

Ordinarily, we would have requested for a Bench Warrant to bring him to court, but we have done our own findings and we found out that he was truly flown abroad for treatment

My lord, this adjournment does not mean we are withdrawing the charges against him, we are not even ready for that.

Some of those granted bail in this case could not be found now, but the 2nd respondent has consistently been coming to court. So, we want him granted this opportunity to appear when his health is restored.

What we intended to do today is to mention the case, but under this circumstance, we oblige your lordship to give us a new date so that we can come with our witnesses

We know that this case has a chequered history but we still need patience since the defendant was only exercising his fundamental rights, he added.

The counsel to the respondent aligned with the submission of the prosecuting counsel that a brief adjournment is needed under this circumstance, urging them to tidy up their case for speedy trial of the accused persons.

In his ruling, Justice Fowe, who had earlier objected to adjournment said: This matter has stayed for long and I wish we continue now

But since both parties had sought for this adjournment under the circumstance, I hereby adjourn the case to April 27, 2017 for hearing.

I also direct that all processes be served on the prosecuting witnesses to appear in court on that day, he ruled.

(NAN)

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Suspected Boko Haram members attacked communities in Konduga Local Government Area of Borno State kidnapping 10 people, an official has said.

Ibrahim Abdullahi, the Commandant of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, in Borno, said the terrorists invaded Konduga and abducted four women and six youths.

Mr. Abdullahi told the News Agency of Nigeria in Maiduguri on Tuesday that the insurgents had also invaded Mittiri, Akalli and Arribbari villages in the same Konduga local government area.

Our intelligence report had indicated that the insurgents are now operating in Dalla Fatimiri on about 10 motorcycles.

Our men of Anti-vandalism and Intelligence Unit of the Command on Friday reported the kidnapping of four youths in Kalari village in Konduga local government area, he said.

He explained that the remnants of the insurgents were desperately recruiting more youth to sustain their fight in the state, having been effectively decimated and degraded by the Nigerian military.

This is a clarion call to Nigerians to be on the alert at all times and always report any suspicious activities around them to the security agencies.

Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who are desperate to return to their liberated communities should desist from living in areas that are not properly secured by armed personnel, the commandant said.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Internally Displaced Persons from Konduga, a town located few kilometers away from Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, have been returning home with the hope of rebuilding their lives.

Millions of people have been displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency since 2009, while about 100,000 have been killed, according to official estimates.

Hundreds of people including scores of female secondary school students kidnapped in 2014 from their school in Chibok, Borno State, are still being held by the Boko Haram.

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The Senate on Tuesday suspended the confirmation of President Muhammadu Buharis nominees for Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, after expressing concerns with the continued stay of Ibrahim Magu as acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

The lawmakers had twice rejected Mr. Magus nomination as EFCC chairman, basing their decisions on a report compiled by the State Security Service, SSS, accusing the acting EFCC chairman of corruption.

The Senators also accused some appointees of the president of disrespecting the National Assembly. The Senate therefore resolved to suspend the confirmation of REC nominees, in protest.

Mr. Buhari had last week nominated 27 persons for appointment as Resident Electoral Commissioners of INEC.

Earlier Tuesday, Senate President Bukola Saraki said senators had at a closed-door meeting resolved to defend the integrity of the Senate. The decision to suspend the confirmation process was taken at that meeting, PREMIUM TIMES learnt.

After the closed-door session, as the Senates proceedings progressed to Mr. Buharis confirmation request for the state electoral officials, RECs, Peter Nwaoboshi, Delta-PDP, moved a motion that the process be suspended, saying that appointees of the president had shown disregard for the Senate.

He was supported by Matthew Urhoghide, who specifically cited Mr. Magus continued leadership role at the EFCC despite being rejected twice by the Senate.

Other Senators, including Samuel Anyanwu, PDP-Imo, Francis Alimikhena, APC-Edo and Ike Ekweremadu, PDP-Enugu, backed the call for the suspension of the confirmation process.

Mr. Alimikhena said Mr. Magu is terrorising us, because we disqualified him.

In his contribution, Mr. Ekweremadu, the deputy Senate President, suggested that Mr. Saraki should convey the displeasure of the Senate to Mr. Buhari.

In its resolution, the Senate resolved to suspend the confirmation process for two weeks.

In the previous weeks, the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Hameed Ali, had sparred with the Senate over the now suspended policy on vehicle duty payment and the lawmakers insistence that he wears uniform to appear before them.

When Mr. Ali was scheduled to appear before the Senate again last week, after he was driven away for not wearing Customs.

Later, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, wrote the lawmakers, informing that they should not expect the Customs boss in view of a lawsuit on the matter.

The AGFs letter was rejected by the Senate.

Another appointee of the President, the Secretary-General of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, has also been not been having it smooth with lawmakers who accused him of contract fraud.

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Former governor of Adamawa State, Bala Ngilari, convicted and jailed for corruption recently, is now facing allegation of forgery.

Nigerian Prison authorities said Mr. Ngilari tabled a fake letter purportedly from the Prisons Service, alleging ill health, in order to regain freedom after being sentenced without option of fine, to five years in prison, by a Yola High Court.

Justice Nathan Musa convicted Mr. Ngilari on March 6 for failing to adhere to the procurement laws of the state when he served as governor.

He found the former governor guilty of four charges, and discharged him on one, which bordered on conspiracy.

Anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, had charged Mr. Ngilari and two others for awarding N167 million contract without due process.

The judgment is the first since 1999 in which a former civilian governor is sent to prison without an option of fine.

However, Justice Musa on Monday granted bail to the convicted governor on health grounds, but an official in the prison services in the state said the letter used by Mr. Ngilari, to secure bail was forged.

Grace to grass

Mr. Ngilari, a lawyer, was not much known in Adamawa politics until he was elected to represent Michika/Madagali//Maiha Federal Constituency in 2003.

Before then, he was based in neighbouring Borno State, where he had his law chamber.

Before his election into the House of Representatives, Mr. Ngilari also served as a member of the Constitutional Conference between 1994 and 1995, and was a member of the Human Rights Violation Investigation Committee, popularly known as Oputa Panel, created by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Mr. Ngilari won re-election into the House of Representatives in 2007, but former Governor Murtala Nyako picked him as his running mate in the 2007 governorship election in the state.

The Nyako/Ngilari team won the election and Mr. Ngilari became the deputy governor of Adamawa State.

They won re-election in 2011,/but Mr. Nyako got into trouble with the State Assembly, leading to his impeachment in 2014.

The speaker of the State Assembly, Ahmadu Fintiri, later took over as governor, claiming Mr. Ngilari had resigned to avoid being impeached alongside his principal.

When the lawmakers declared his office vacant on July 15, 2014, Mr. Ngilari approached a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja challenging the legality of his resignation. He asked the court to declare him governor because his resignation did not follow due process.

Mr. Ngilari argued that the law required him to resign by submitting his letter of resignation to the governor, not to the speaker of the state Assembly, as was the case.

The High Court ruled in his favour and declared that his resignation was not in line with the Nigerian constitution.

The court declared that the speaker, Mr. Fintiri, should vacate office, while Mr. Ngilari be sworn in to continue Mr. Nyakos tenure.

Mr. Ngilari therefore competed the tenure of Mr. Nyako and led the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to lose the governorship election in 2015 to the All Progressives Congress, APC.

Trouble started for Mr. Ngilari when he was first picked by the EFCC on June 16, 2016 for his alleged role in the distribution of N450 million for the re-election of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Mr. Ngillari was subsequently detained at the Gombe zonal office of the EFCC.

His detention followed information provided by a former Nigerian ambassador to the U.S., Hassan Adamu, who told the EFCC that when the chairman of PDP in Adamawa, Joel Madaki, and himself took custody of the money from Fidelity Bank, it was taken to the government House in bullion vans by officials of the bank.

Mr. Adamu also told investigators that the chief of staff to Mr. Ngilari, Alhaji Hamman, and the accountant to the government house, Aisha Waziri, counted the money and confirmed the figure.

The duo became custodians of the fund based on the directive of their boss, the governor, Mr. Adamu said.

The EFCC arraigned Mr. Ngilari on September 21, 2016 before Justice Nathan and charged him for violation of procurement laws in the award of contract of N167 million to El-Yadi Motors Limited for supply of 25 units of operational vehicles (Toyota Corolla).

The Commission had instituted a 19-count charge against Mr. Ngilari, his former Secretary to the State Government, Ibrahim Welye, and his former Commissioner of Finance and Budget, Sanda Lamurde.

The EFCC also accused them of conspiracy, lack of No Objection Certificate, no competitive bidding and others in procurement process.

The Court, the following day, granted the former governor bail along with his administrations Commissioner for Finance, Mr. Lamurde.

Mr. Musa granted Mr. Ngilari bail in the sum of N100 million.

While in EFCC custody in Gombe, Mr. Ngilari reportedly fell ill and was hospitalised.

He told PREMIUM TIMES in June 2016 that EFCC operatives rushed him to the hospital where he spent one day on admission.

Mr. Ngilari also said although he was treated well by the EFCC, the commissions detention facilities needed to be upgraded.

I should have had my pictures snapped when I was in that cell because it would have been a good memoir, that I would anchor in my life for my children yet unborn, for my grandchildren yet unborn to see and juxtapose the picture against the fact of what truly happened.

All Im saying is that, a lot can be done to make the place more habitable, I dont blame the EFCC for that, it could be as a result of paucity of funds but I believe the place can be made more habitable, Mr. Ngilari said.

The former governor also said external forces were responsible for his ordeal with the EFCC.

Well, whatever it is, whoever might have been responsible, I dont put the blame on the EFCC, but I do know that there are other forces, I have forces in Adamawa, who never wished me well, they are there, it is a notorious fact that they are there, who would do anything to bring me down, even to the point of threatening to kill me, he said.

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Five deputy directors of the Pensions Transitional Arrangement Directorate, PTAD, have been fired for alleged employment fraud, the agency said Tuesday.

The officials were sacked after a staff verification exercise revealed they breached established regulations prior to their employment, the chairperson of the directorate told journalists.

PTAD is a Federal Government agency established in August 2013 under the Pension Reforms Act of 2004 to take over the functions of the defunct pension offices of the police, paramilitary services, civil service and government agencies.

The agency is responsible for the administration of pension for about 223,000 retirees who left federal government service on or before June 30, 2007.

The Executive Secretary of PTAD, Sharon Ikeazor, who was reviewing the operations of the agency since her assumption of office in September 2016, said the five directors had to be compelled to disengage from service at the end of the staff verification exercise, which commenced in 2014.

They affected directors, according to Ms. Ikeazor were Godson Ukpevo, who until his disengagement was in charge of Civil Service Pension department; Uloma Uruakpa (Customs, Immigrations and Prisons Pension department); Taiwo Ogundipe (Parastatals Pension department); Atiku Saleh (Police Pension department), and Roz Ben-Okagbue (Pension Support Service department).

In line with public service regulations, prospective employees into the service must meet the minimum entry qualification of not being below 18 years, or not more than 50 years of age on the date of first appointment.

Mrs. Ikeazor said the verification exercise uncovered that at the time the five directors were employed, they were already above the mandatory age limit of 50. Also, some of them were already retired from public service elsewhere.

The Executive Secretary said the affected officials may be prosecuted and made to refund all government monies they earned illegally during the period they occupied their positions.

Mrs. Ikeazor said although PTAD inherited about 160,000 pensioners at inception, the directorate is now saddled with the responsibility of administering the pensions of about 223,000.

She attributed the increase in the population of pensioners to the rapid consolidation of 253 parastatals and agencies under PTAD, saying in spite of this the monthly pension obligations have been met since inception.

PTAD did not inherit a credible database from any of the pension offices it took over from, Mrs. Ikeazor lamented. There were nominal rolls, but no complete database. The lack of database and information on pensioners in general makes it very difficult to resolve complaints.

On the ongoing verification exercise, Mrs. Ikeazor said apart from the police and paramilitary pensions that have since been completed in 2015, the verification of next of kins from North Eastern part of the country has so far been completed, with a capture rate of 70 per cent, or 6,445 pensioners covered.

This, she said, was in line with her commitment to prioritise the verification of the nationwide civil service pensioners, particularly in the North East, to meet President Muhammadu Buharis goal to end the insurgency in the region.

Besides, she said about 55,400 pensioners have been verified under the civil service nationwide, with those in the South-south geopolitical zone being about 21,123. Verification of pensioners in Lagos and other South West and North central regions would follow.

In addition, the Executive Secretary said about 4,000 new pensioners were brought unto the payroll in late 2016 following the field verification conducted in 2015.

During the verification, about 15,000 unverified names from the payroll, mostly those who were not able to provide their bank verification numbers, BVN, linked to their bank accounts, were removed. Those who were able to provide their BVNs later were reinstated, Mrs. Ikeazor said.

On the recovery of legacy assets, following the takeover of all pension assets, funds and liabilities of the former pension offices and Boards of Parastatals, Mrs. Ikeazor said legacy pension funds of about N19.14 billion belonging to Parastatals, Universities and colleges of Education has remained in the custody insurance companies.

Despites several requests, she said only Leadway Assurance has so far paid funds in PTADs custody.

We are working with the Minister of Finance to ensure that all outstanding legacy funds are transferred to us to enable us defray some of governments liabilities arising from the non-payment of pensions, she said.

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The Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, on Tuesday said the Nigerian armed forces had successfully suppressed Boko Haram insurgency.

Mr. Dan-Ali, a retired brigadier general, who had a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja, also reassured Nigerians that the army would soon apprehend the sects leader, Abubakar Shekau.

If you have had the opportunity to go to Sambisa (forest in Borno), you will know that Boko Haram has been defeated, go and see what is happening in Sambisa.

We have dominated the whole stronghold where they used to be, there is where we call camp zairo where their spiritual and their strong headquarters that they were using as communication base was destroyed and as at the same time occupied by our men of the armed forces.

So, I believe its just a matter of time, it took America about seven to 10 years to get Bin Laden so we will get Shekau as soon as possible.

I told you before now, the spiritual headquarters has been ransacked and vandalized. He (Shekau) is on the run, so he may be hiding in one of the enclaves of Sambisa forest that we are dominating.

We have opened up the place; we are using it as a training area whereby the army engineers will open roads. We shall be patrolling and be ransacking that forest for the whereabouts of Shekau, he said.

The Nigerian military has repeatedly claimed to have killed Shekau. Those claims were false, apparently.

On the outcome of the meeting with Mr. Buhari, the minister said the president was impressed with the operational successes of the armed force.

Generally, we spoke about the security situation across the nation and I believe we had a fruitful discussion and he was impressed with the performance of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Security situation is something that you cannot get 100 per cent and remember that Nigeria has been having these turbulences for a very long time.

We are trying to manage it and we are trying to make it solvable whereby every Nigeria will have peace and tranquillity and do his normal business, he said.

The minister said the President Buhari also directed all military establishments to redouble their efforts in consolidating the relative peace and stability achieved in the northeastern part of the country. (NAN)

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The Nigerian Senate is an arm of government that must be respected in any decision it takes in the course of exercising its powers as an independent institution, the presidency said Tuesday.

The comment came in reaction to the decision of the upper legislative chamber to suspend consideration of his nominees for Resident Electoral Commissioners in protest against Ibrahim Magus continued stay in office as the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

The senators had declined to confirm Mr. Magu as substantive chairman of the anti-graft office after two requests by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The president sent a list of 27 nominees to the Senate last week.

The senators also protested alleged disrespect of the National Assembly by appointees of the president.

The Senate has been locked in prolonged supremacy battle with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, and Comproller-General of Customs, Hameed Ali.

Mr. Lawal and Mr. Ali declined separate summons of the Senate last week, over issues bordering on alleged corruption and non-compliance official dress code, respectively.

But speaking in response to the lawmakers, President Buharis Senate liaison officer, Ita Enang, said the administration will respect the decision of the lawmakers and pursue dialogue with them.

We will not question the power of the senators to take decision on how they want to conduct nomination hearings, Mr. Enang told PREMIUM TIMES by telephone Tuesday afternoon. We will not go fighting with them.

Instead, we will listen to their grievances and reason along with them, Mr. Enang said shortly after the Senate took the decision to protest Mr. Magus continued stay in office.

He declined to say if the president will now ask Mr. Magu to step aside, saying he will not go into specifics.

Shortly after rejecting Mr. Magu penultimate Wednesday, the senators urged the president to relieve the EFCC chief of his job and name a temporary replacement pending fresh nomination of a substantive chairman.

Todays development marked the second time in recent months that the Senate would move to force the hands of the executive on national issues.

In November 2016, the senators threatened to boycott plenary to protest a prolonged delay in conducting re-run elections in Rivers State.

The Independent National Electoral Commission swiftly announced dates for the elections, which held the following month.

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Four persons were on Tuesday burnt to death in a petrol tanker fire along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

The Public Relations Officer of Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Corps, TRACE, Babatunde Akinbiyi, told PREMIUM TIMES that the accident occurred at Fidiwo axis of the road.

He said six persons were in the tanker heading towards Ibadan when the driver lost control while speeding.

Mr. Akinbiyi said the tanker fell down and went up in flames, burning four occupants to death while two others escaped with injuries.

He said the victims were dead before the fire service arrived to control the fire.

The spokesperson said the families of the deceased had claimed their corpses.

In a related development, a lone accident was recorded at the scene of the tanker crash, with three occupants in the car.

Mr. Akinbiyi said the driver of the car with registration number AGL 958 XL was impatient and driving dangerously when the auto crash occurred.

He said the three occupants of the car sustained minor injuries.

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A Nigerian Army officer, Patrick Falola, who was demoted from the rank of Major General to Brigadier-General September last year, on Tuesday withdrew the case he filed over the demotion at the Court of Appeal, Abuja.

The development followed the restoration of Mr. Falola to the rank of Major General by the Army Council, PREMIUM TIMES learnt.

A military court martial had last year found Mr. Falola, who is the director, 68 Military Reference Hospital, Yaba, Lagos State, guilty on a two-count charge for allegedly using the military facility for training clinical students from Espan Formation University, Cotonou, Benin Republic, without permission from higher authorities.

Mr. Falola subsequently wrote a petition against the judgement of the court martial and filed an appeal before the Court of Appeal.

However, on Tuesday, his counsel, Enokela Onyilo-Uloko, a retired Wing Commander, and legal representative of the general, announced the decision to withdraw the appeal.

Today we are here to withdraw the appeal; we are no longer maintaining any appeal against the Nigerian Army, we are grateful to them for hearing our protest, Mr. Onyilo-Uloko told the appellate court.

We wrote a petition to the Army Council, we wrote a petition to the relevant authorities, and we also filed appeal at the Court of Appeal. Of recent, the Army Council met and reversed the decision of the Court Martial and then his rank was restored.

He is still now a Major General but they severely warned him and it ends there. Now he can go on serving the army at the rank of Major General and also retire with full benefit at the rank of Major General when it is time.

To this effect, I am here to withdraw the appeal we have filed in respect of the case. This is because it is no longer necessary.

We are also very grateful to the Army Council for reversing the decision of the Special Court Martial. We are particularly very grateful to the Minister of Defense, Chief of Defense Staff, Chief of Army Staff and we are also grateful to the Director of Legal Services of the Nigerian Army, who actually ensured that his team worked round the clock to make good recommendations to the Army Council concerning our case.

We are also particularly very grateful to the following people too: the Chief of Administration of the Nigerian Army, Judge Advocate at the Court Martial. We are also grateful to the prosecutor too who also saw reason with us in our struggle and all those that have contributed one way or the other to the pleasant ending of this case. We are also very grateful to the press who have done us a good job, they stood by us throughout the whole time, the counsel said.

The retired wing commander noted that appeals cannot be withdrawn automatically, but must follow a motion being moved.

We are waiting to move the motion; that is why we are here for now. But the case is presumably withdrawn, he added.

Efforts made to confirm the defense counsels claims were unsuccessful as the armys spokesperson did not return calls and messages by our reporter.

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The House of Representatives has on Tuesday ordered the investigation of the non-remittance of N5.6 billion by the federal mortgage bank of Nigeria.

This was contained in a motion jointly moved by Nicholas Ossai and Victor Nwokolo (both from Delta-PDP)

Speaking on the motion, Mr. Ossai said between 2011 and 2015, the bank generated N44.073 billion, with N13.17 billion of it having been generated in 2015.

He said the bank defaulted on remittance of the value added tax (VAT) collections of N2.2 billion to the Federal Inland Of Revenue Service (FIRS).

During the period under review, the bank also defaulted in remittance of withholding tax deductions to the FIRS to the tune of N3.4 billion, Mr. Ossai said.

Mr. Ossai added, Due to poor management by successive managements of the bank, there had been unimaginable high volume of non-performance of 70% of the Banks risk assets and loans, thus resulting in sharp erosion of its capital structure and the National Housing Fund deposits.

Mr. Ossai stressed on the urgent need to recover the un-remitted sum from the bank for injection into the Nigerian economy.

The speaker mandated the Committees on Finance, Housing and Urban Development and Regional Planning to investigate the allegations and report back to the House within four (4) weeks for further legislative action.

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The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has eulogized former Lagos State governor and a national leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, on the occasion of his 65th birthday.

In a statement by his Special Adviser on Media & Public Affairs, Turaki Hassan, the Speaker described Mr. Tinubu as a leader, man of vision, and dogged fighter for democracy who has and continued to make invaluable contributions to democratic governance of Nigeria.

The speaker likened Mr. Tinubu to the proverbial elephant that cannot be described and argued that any attempt to describe him will amount to grave injustice.

He is undoubtedly one of the leading lights of our modern democracy. I can only say this based on the part I have touched. I see him as someone who is demonstrating the attributes of a true leader, he said.

He is not a regional leader. Some who thought he had everything cut out for him in the South-West and he may not be able to play on a more national platform, got it wrong as they saw how together with some other committed leaders in this country, how they midwifed a political organization that so many pundits believed it was impossible for them to midwife, they midwifed it and in the history of this country, for the first time, an opposition party which was built on some blocks including the great Asiwaju himself succeeded in wrestling power from the hands of the ruling party.

The statement continued, Like wine which they say tastes better with age, the Speaker, prayed for Senator Tinubu to age gracefully and in good health, so that some of us who have come to see him as a mentor will continue to learn more and drink from the fountain of his wisdom.

As you celebrate another dawn in your life, I congratulate you and pray the Almighty God to continue to keep you in good health and strengthen you as you continue in your contribution to the giant strides our nation is making.

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A former governor of Akwa Ibom State, Victor Attah, has weighed in on the Senates rejection of the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, saying that it was now left for the country to take a stand either for or against corruption.

The senate, which has twice refused to confirm Mr. Magus nomination by President Muhammadu Buhari, stepped up their rejection of the EFCC boss, Tuesday, by resolving not to screen President Buharis nominees for Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, because of Mr. Magus continuous stay in office.

Mr. Attah on Tuesday expressed critical views about the senates handling of Mr. Magus nomination.

For goodness sake, if the reason you dont want to confirm Magu is because he is fighting corruption honestly, then you are on the side of those who are really saying that corruption must remain, Mr. Attah said on Tuesday in an interview with Planet 101.1 FM in Uyo.

This country has to make up its mind whether it wants to endorse corruption or it wants to accept Buharis fight against corruption.

Why would he select somebody that he knows is capable of fighting corruption, and we refuse to confirm him, Mr. Attah said, adding that he wasnt saying that the senate must confirm every nominee of the president.

I read certain things even while I was away (outside the country) that greatly disturbed me. Unless somebody tells me that those things were false, then I remain greatly disturbed.

I read that even the DSS had advised Magu to discontinue his investigation of certain senators. I read that the DSS told Magu to discontinue the investigation of governors who are accused of having diverted this Paris Club refund.

Why would you select certain people and say dont investigate them?

The former Akwa Ibom governor attacked the argument that Mr. Buhari was being selective in his war against corruption.

The people with the easiest opportunity to be corrupt are people who were in government.

The people who were in government before Buhari came were PDP people. So, should Buhari now say I want to fight the APC people who were not in government and didnt have the opportunity to indulge in this corruption?

He has to fight those who were indulging in this corruption, and it happens that PDP were the ones in government and they were doing all kinds of things with money. How can that translate to being selective?

When reminded that there were some former PDP members who were part of the previous administration, but were now serving in the Buhari administration, Mr. Attah said he was looking forward to a time where such people would be investigated as well and be prosecuted if they are found wanting.

When you hear the amount of money recovered from certain individuals, and then organisations, and what is being hidden away in several places, then youll know that we have been most unfair to ourselves by supporting those types of actions.

I feel very saddened that because we dont like Buhari, we dont even want to support his fight against corruption.

Although he applauded the administrations successes against Boko Haram, Mr. Attah said President Buhari hasnt done much to check the menace of the Fulani herdsmen in the country.

Why are the herdsmen being allowed to run riots, and kill people, rape women, and do all kinds of things, and we dont pursue them with the same kind of force that we pursue the Boko Haram people?

I have heard all kinds of things like they are not from Nigeria, they are from Niger! Do we have such a loose border, that we cannot control them? Mr. Attah said.

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An FCT High Court on Tuesday admitted some bank documents from an official of Diamond Bank as evidence against former Chief of Naval Staff, Usman Jibrin.

The witness, Margret Enena, the manager of a branch of Diamond Bank in Abuja, told the court that the account of Naval Engineering was domiciled in her branch.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the first defendant is standing trial on alleged N600 million fraud.

Mr. Jibrin, a retired vice admiral, was on May 25 arraigned on a four-count charge bordering on alleged criminal conspiracy and purchase of a property valued at N600 million while in service.

He was charged alongside two retired rear admirals, Bala Mshelia and Shehu Ahmadu, as well as Harbour Bay International Limited.

The witness said she had collated the document when EFCC requested for them.

She listed a set of documents which also included the statement of account which she said was not signed by her.

During cross examination by counsel to the first defendant, Yakubu Maikyau, the witness said she was not in that branch of the bank when the account was opened.

I have not had any transaction with the first defendant.

I am in the court because the court has ordered us to provide all documents relating to the account, she said.

When cross examined by the second defendant`s counsel, Olatunji Salawu, the witness told the court that Naval Engineering International Ltd was a limited company.

According to her, she does not know the directors of the company nor witnessed the signing of the transfer of property.

The witness said the third defendant was a co-signatory, adding that by the nature of the account, the cheque of N600 million could not have been raised unless mandated by a superior person.

Ms. Enena, however, said she did not know anything about the fourth defendant, Harbour Bay International Ltd.

The EFCC had alleged that the three defendants who were signatory to the account of Naval Engineering Services Limited paid for a property.

The EFCC also said the property located at Plot 2717 Cadastral Zone, AOC, Maitama, Abuja was handed over to Harbour Bay International instead of Naval Engineering Services which developed and funded the construction.

The EFCC had further alleged that the former Chief of Naval Staffs wife was among the directors of Harbour Bay International.

The presiding judge, Sadiq Umar, adjourned the case till May, 22, May 23, and May 24 for continuation of trial.

(NAN)

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The Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday said the 2016 budget would run for 12 months and, therefore, expire on May 5 2017.

President Muhammadu Buhari assented to the budget on May 6, 2016, after a long delay amid allegations of budget padding and fraud.

According to the chairman of the Senate committee on appropriations, Danjuma Goje, the law backing the 2016 budget, 2016 Appropriations Act, provides that the budget shall run for 12 months, starting from the date it was promulgated.

As far as the Bill that was signed into law by Mr. President is concerned, there will be no mop up on 31st March 2017 since the validity period for the 2016 budget ends midnight May 5th, 2017,  said Mr. Goje.

If that is done, it will be a violation of the Act. We carefully created the clause that made provision for May 5, 2017. The Act says that the 2016 budget will run for 12 months starting from the date the bill was assented to and it was assented to on May 6th 2016.

The lawmaker assured that before expiration of the 2016 budget, the National Assembly would have passed the 2017 budget proposal by Mr. Buhari.

It is necessary for Nigerians to know that there should be no anxiety about mopping up of funds by March 31, he said. We do not have to extend the 2016 budget. If May comes and there is need to extend, then we can do otherwise. I believe before that date the 2017 budget must have been passed. We dont have to do any extension because we have taken care of that. Therefore no anxiety, no mopping up of funds before 12 months period.

The 2017 budget process is still at committee level, after which the appropriations committees of the House and the Senate will report to their respective Chambers before passage and transmission to the president for assent.

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The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corp (NSCDC) on Tuesday paraded a 17-year-old Boko Haram suspect, who admitted killing 18 people since he joined the group three years ago.

The suspect, Ali Mustafa, said he was forced to join the deadly group when Boko Haram terrorists attacked his village in Monguno and left with many boys.

The teenager said he gained skill handling assault rifles, with which he executed his victims.

I was forced to join Boko Haram about three years ago, he said.

Boko Haram insurgents came to our village and forcefully took many of us away. We were kept in the bush camp near Kala Balge and from there we carried out various operations, during which I personally killed 18 persons.

I can handle all kinds of guns including AK-47 and AA (anti aircraft) rifle.

The boy said his last mission was to go to Maiduguri to spy for his group, as he often did before attacks were carried out. He said he decided to change his mind on the way to Maiduguri.

I was tired of killing people against my wish, so I told my two other colleagues with whom we were asked to go on a spying mission that we should abandon the mission and run.

So I came to Maiduguri to search for my parents in the camps. But some IDPs who knew me as member of Boko Haram decided to report me to the security people, he said.

The teenager, who looked unkempt, said he belonged to the Mamman Nur group of Boko Haram.

He said there were hundreds of young boys like him currently in the bush working for Boko Haram.

The Commandant of NSCDC, Ibrahim Abdullahi, paraded the young boy alongside other nine criminals who were arrested for other offences.

He said the young man had initially denied being a member of Boko Haram.

But after a thorough interrogation he gave up his denial and confessed to be a Boko Haram member and that he had carried out many execution of innocent persons, he said.

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Shehu Sani (APC-Kaduna Central), on Tuesday said state governors lacked the moral right to criticise President Muhammadu Buhari for non-perfomance.

Mr. Sani, who is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign and Domestic Debts, made the remark in a chat with journalists after a meeting with community leaders in Chikun Local Government Area of the state.

I will say it well; no governor in Nigeria has any moral right to call President Muhammadu Buhari a failure.

You collect Federal allocation and local government allocation every month, so you cannot call President Buhari a failure.

You collect Ecology fund, Paris Club fund and bailout fund so you cannot call Mr. President a failure, Mr. Sani said.

According to him, President Buhari has achieved a lot in government better than most state governors.

If you dont want Buhari to have a cabal, you should dissolve the cabal in your own houses; and if you want Buhari to have listening ears of Nigerians, you must perform.

I want to call on the president, as we gear up towards 2019, he should never recommend anybody for election again to the public; he should allow people to decide who they want to vote in and who they want to vote out.

President Buhari should forget the culture of raising the hands of people; we are supporting him to contest 2019, but he should stop the culture of raising Mr A or Mr Bs hand; most of the time he is raising the hands of people who betrayed him and Nigeria.

Earlier during the meeting, the Senator said he was in the area to aggregate the opinion of the people on the Kaduna Eastern by-pass road project.

He criticised recent hike in the cost of the contract to N42 billion.

I am here to listen to your request over the Eastern by-pass contract, which the Federal Government has now jacked up to over N40 billion.

I must be very clear to you that none of the federal legislators, especially those from Kaduna Central, was consulted when the issue was to be discussed.

I knew very well that in 2016-2017 budget, I insisted that Kaduna Eastern by-pass must be included in the budget, but I read in the pages of newspapers like any one of you that the contract was jacked up to N42 billion.

I dont know how the Federal Ministry of Works arrived at such amount of money, but I believe for a project like this, there could have been the need to consult the communities where this road passed through and also the elected representatives of the people, he said.

NAN recalls that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) recently approved the resuscitation and completion of the 50 kilometre dual carriage highway.

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, had said that the road has nine bridges over rivers and rail crossings.

It was first awarded in 2002 at the cost of N12 billion, to be completed within three years.

The minister explained that already the government had paid N11 billion to the contractor since the project was initiated, adding that N32 billion was approved to complete the road.

However, Mr. Sani said he would present a request on behalf of the community and the people of his senatorial zone to the Senate Committee Chairman on Works, Kabiru Gaya, for details of the contract review.

I am going to demand from the minister of works to brief the Senate on how such a project arrived at over N40 billion, in this era of anti-corruption and transparency, since it is the tax payers money that is involved.

The senator, however, commended the government for the efforts to complete the road.

(NAN)

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The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Mathew Hassan Kukah, has criticised the perception that he was close to former President Goodluck Jonathan for what he could get.

Despite my friendship with Jonathan over this long period of time, we never discussed a penny, we never discussed one dollar; we never exchanged a penny, and we never exchanged a dollar, Kukah said.

In an interview in the current edition of The Interview, Kukah said those who thought they could smear him by warming up to President Muhammadu Buhari were responsible for fantasizing his relationship with Jonathan.

Suddenly, journalists whom I knew were writing, hoping they would be given positions (by Buhari) and all those who were abusing me have gone full cycle, he said.

He continued: Those who should be ashamed of themselves are those who took money from Jonathan, tons of it, and have decided to lie, buried under the table; they have decided to change course in the middle of the race. Those are the guys who you should be talking about.

In a statement, the MD/Editor-In-Chief, Azu Ishiekwene, said, This is Kukah with his gloves off. Anti-Kukahs of every stripe have their match in this issue.

The clergyman revealed that certain people in the PDP have been telling him that Jonathan should have had a long-drawn-out exit, like the disgraced Gambian President Yahaya Jammeh.

He spoke about the continuing detention of the Shiite leader, El-Zakzakky, and the bill for a Christian court, expressing concern that, We are going back, were not getting better.

The edition also explores the love language of public figures, including advertising icon, Lolu Akinwunmi; journalist Funke Treasure-Durodola; the director of Leventis Food, Tasos Amanatidis; and author and celebrity, Teju Babyface.

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The Nigerian government has pledged to support small and medium scale businesses in the country as a way of reducing the foreign exchange burden.

President Muhammadu Buhari made this promise at the fourth annual Tinubu Colloquium in Lagos on Tuesday.

The Tinubu Colloquium is usually held to mark the birthday of a leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and a former governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu.

The theme of this years colloquium, which marked the 65th birthday of Mr. Tinubu, Make it in Nigeria: Use What We Make and Make What we Use is targeted at the entrepreneurial effort of Nigerians and highlights the successes of local businesses.

The president, who was represented by the minister of interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau, lamented the situation where 35 per cent of the countrys foreign exchange earnings is used for the importation of petrol and 20 per cent used on imported food.

He said that at the core of the governments economic policy is the support of small and medium scale businesses and that the government will do everything to promote the use of made in Nigeria goods as a means of reviving the ailing economy.

Speaking at the event, the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, said the country is on its way out of the economic recession and the federal government is applying the Lagos template in jumpstarting the economy.

Mrs. Adeosun said the government recently released N1trillion for capital expenditure in other to boost productivity. She also said the government has taken measures to increase its stream of revenue.

Oil is an unreliable source of revenue, she said.

The economic template we copied from you (Lagos) is now being implemented for economic recovery of the country and we are not ashamed to say it. The impact of that template is that many of the states are now copying it especially in the area of IGR, Mrs. Adeosun added.

The Minister of Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah, said in order to achieve the desired economic growth, the government is building an environment where businesses can thrive. He said decisions are already being taken that will improve the countrys ranking in the World Banks Ease of Doing Business Index.

Nigeria is currently ranked 169 out of 190 countries in the Ease of Doing Business Index.

Mr. Tinubu, who was the last to speak at the event, advised the government to encourage financial institutions to provide funding for infrastructure. He also advised the government to relentlessly push its national industrial policy and infrastructural plan.

Some owners of mostly small and medium scale local businesses were invited to speak about their experience as entrepreneurs and the growth of their businesses.

Notable among business owners that spoke at the event were the founder of Innoson Group of Companies, makers of made-in-Nigeria IVM vehicles, Innocent Chukwuma, whose story of how he rose from a motorcycle spare parts dealer to a vehicle manufacturer roused the crowd who gave him a loud ovation.

We manufacture, not assemble vehicles in Nigeria and our target is to dominate the Nigerian market, the businessman said.

Africas wealthiest man, Aliko Dangote, also spoke at the event, saying opportunities abound for young entrepreneurs as Nigeria moves towards economic recovery.

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The legal team of ex-governor Bala Ngilari of Adamawa said on Tuesday that the controversial letter from Yola Prison was not responsible for the granting of bail to their client.

The News Agency of Nigeria recalls that the Yola High Court 1 presided by Justice Nathan Musa had on Monday granted Mr. Ngilari bail pending trial based on health ground.

Mr. Ngilari, who was earlier convicted for five years without option of fine by a Yola High Court, later appealed against the judgment.

The Attorney General of Adamawa, Bala Sanga, had criticised the bail, saying that the High Court granted the bail acting on the letter from the prison read in the court.

Mr. Sanga noted that the letter was not only disowned by the Controller of Adamawa Command of the Nigeria Prisons Service, Peter Tenkwa, but was also not contained in the appellants (Ngilari) application.

Reacting to the development, Obed Wadzani, who spoke on behalf of all the counsel to Mr. Ngilari, said that the letter from Yola Prison signed by John Bukar, who is in charge of health, was addressed to the court to justify why Mr. Ngilari who ought to be in court that day was not there.

It is a response to the courts Warrant of Production of Ngilari in court written to the prison.

The letter which the judge ordered to be read to the open court was to explain why the prison authority could not present Ngilari who has serious health problem in court.

So, it is erroneous to say that the bail granted Ngilari yesterday was fraudulent or solely based on the letter that came from the prison; it is based on exercise of discretion from his lordship, the judge that is in charge of High Court 1, Mr. Wadzani explained.

However, Mr. Wadzani said that he could not speak for the prisons when asked to comment on the controversy surrounding the letter from Yola Prison.

Mr. Tenkwa had disowned the letter which he said was not authorised by him.

He told journalists in Yola that he was not aware of the letter and had communicated to the prison headquarters.

He said the headquarters directed him to issue a query to the officials involved in the matter, including the Deputy Controller in charge of Yola Prison, Abubakar Abaka, and a Superintendent of Prisons, John Bukar, in charge of health in the prison.

Nigeria Prisons Service, as I stated, knows nothing about this letter; whoever wrote that letter is on his own. I have been directed to query the officers involved, said the prisons controller.

Mr. Tenkwa said that all he knew was that he got a letter dated March 23 from Adamawa Ministry of Justice on health facilities in Yola Prison where Mr. Ngilari was remanded and that after accessing the facilities, he replied to the letter, informing the ministry that the facilities were okay.

We have enough medical facilities to handle high profile inmates like Ngilari; we even received some supply of drugs on Friday, Mr. Tenkwa said.

(NAN)

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A former Governor of Benue State, Gabriel Suswam, is in for another round of troubled waters as the Federal Government, on Monday, accused him and two others of diverting N9.79 billion.

The funds, part of which was meant for a police reform programme and Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme, SURE-P, were allegedly diverted between 2012 and 2015 while Mr. Suswam was the governor of Benue State.

The SURE-P scheme was set up by the then President Goodluck Jonathan administration following the partial removal of fuel subsidy in 2012.

According to the Punch Newspaper, the allegations are contained in the 32 fraud and money laundering charges filed against Mr. Suswam and two others on Monday.

A former commissioner of finance in Benue State under the Suswam administration, Omadachi Oklobia, and the then accountant, Benue State Government House Administration, Janet Aluga, were also named as defendants in the charge, filed before the Federal High Court in Abuja and marked FHC/ABJ/CR/48/2017.

The prosecution accused the defendants of conspiracy, conversion of property derived directly from corruption; collaboration to conceal property derived from corruption; obtaining by false pretences and accepting cash payments, exceeding the amount authorised by law.

Earlier this year, a six-count charge bothering on alleged N7.5 billion fraud was filed against Mr. Suswam by the office of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) at the Federal High Court, Abuja.

The former governor was alleged to have conspired with Mr. Oklobia and Ms. Aluga to launder the money.

Messrs. Suswam and Oklobia are already standing trial before Justice Ahmed Mohammed of the same division of the court for allegedly diverting about N3.1 billion, belonging to the Benue government.

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Human rights group, Amnesty International, has condemned the recent wave of evictions of residents of waterfront communities by the Lagos State government.

In a statement on Monday, the group noted that the latest forced eviction of residents of Otodo Gbame community was carried out despite an ongoing legal suit and mediation process.

Over 30,000 thousand residents of Otodo Gbame, Ilubirin and Ebute Ikate waterfront communities in Lagos State were forcibly evicted by Lagos State authorities on 9 and 10 November 2016 respectively, Amnesty International noted in the statement.

Officials of the Lagos State government environmental task force and armed police officers on March 17 began a fresh demolition of houses and destruction of properties at Otodo Gbame, a fishing settlement on the edge of Lagos lagoon, ignoring a court ruling against the forceful eviction of residents.

The Lagos State government denied flouting a court order, insisting it acted to ensure public health and safety.

The recent demolitions came months after a similar exercise by the state government destroyed about 800 homes and rendered almost 10,000 people homeless.

Amnesty International said more than 4,700 people lost their homes and livelihoods during the latest forced eviction.

In September 2015, approximately 10,200 residents of Badia-East community in Ijora area of Lagos were forcibly evicted, and many of them remain homeless and dependent on family and friends. In September 2016, residents of Ilubirin community were also forcibly evicted from their homes without prior notice.

The state government is yet to provide any compensation or resettlement to evictees from these demolitions. The Lagos State authorities stated that the forced evictions and demolitions in the waterfront communities is because of the environmental risks these waterfront communities. Over 40 communities and tens of thousands of residents are currently at risk of imminent eviction across the state.

Nigeria is a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and other international and regional human rights treaties, which require it to realize the right to adequate housing, and to prevent and refrain from carrying out forced evictions.

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The Senator representing Ondo North senatorial district, Ajayi Boroffice, has lauded the quashing of the impeachment of former deputy governor of Ondo State, Ali Olanusi, saying it was consistent with the beliefs of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and the majority of the people of the state.

He also described the impeachment of the APC chieftain by the seventh Ondo assembly as a kangaroo exercise, stating that he had warned the former governor, Olusegun Mimiko, against it.

Mr. Olanusi was impeached by the house of assembly in April 2015 shortly after he defected from the Labour Party to the APC.

But the appeal court in Akure concluded that the impeachment was a nullity as the former deputy government was not given fair hearing in the case against him.

Speaking through his media aide, Kayode Fakuyi, Mr. Boroffice said he received the news of the appeal court decision with delight, adding that the Justice Muhammad Danjumas judgment was not surprising.

The judgement has merely reinforced my firmly held conviction that the kangaroo impeachment violated provisions of sections 188(2) (b), 188(3), 188(6) and 188(7) (b) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), Mr. Boroffice said.

Before the kangaroo impeachment, as the Asiwaju of Akokoland, I had warned ex-governor Olusegun Mimiko against making attempt to frustrate an industrious and prominent Akoko man out of government simply because he exercised his right to defect to another party.

The Mimiko-led administration failed to listen and dismissed my warning as alarm without substance. However, barely few days after the warning, the kangaroo impeachment was executed.

Meanwhile, since Justice Muhammad Danjuma has ordered the restoration of the privileges and entitlements due to the Alhaji Ali Olanusi from the time of his removal from office till February 24, 2017, I am confident that the Ondo State government will consider and act on the issue with utmost diligence and swiftness.

Incumbent governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, has also praised the outcome of the judgment, saying Mr. Olanusis impeachment was done in utter disregard to the constitution.

Mr. Olanusis in his reaction, said he bore no grudges against those responsible for his ordeal.

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The pan Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has called on the police to return the suspects arrested in connection with the crisis in Ile-Ife to Osun State where the incident took place.

The group also accused the police of bias in the way it handled the ethnic clash, largely between Hausas and Yorubas in Ile-Ife, Osun State.

It urged the police to investigate the crisis with utmost fairness and in line with the ethics of the profession.

It condemned the parade and trial of the suspects in Abuja, insisting that they should be brought to Osun for trial.

The group made the declarations after a meeting at the Akure home of the leader, Reuben Fasoranti, on Tuesday.

The publicity secretary of the group, Yinka Odumakin, while reading the communique after the meeting, said Afenifere condemned the actions of the police, especially the arrest of only Yorubas. It accused the police of bias and sectionalism in the way it handled the matter based on the order from above.

Afenifere becomes worried with the way the police handled the Ife crisis, especially considering the fact that the leadership of the presidency and that of the police are from one of the sections involved in the crisis, he said.

The group asked the police to stop dehumanizing the suspects.

The police intimidated, harassed and embarrassed the Yoruba people of Ile-Ife. They arrested some Yoruba people in the town and even pronounced them guilty without any trial, Mr. Odumakin said.

Up till now, the suspects are not arraigned, neither were they tried, yet the police pronounced them guilty.

The police remains a federal institution which is for all Nigerians regardless of tribe or ethnic affiliation. The police should not be seen as an institution for a particular ethnic group, as we are being made to understand through their actions now.

The suspects should be brought to Osun State where the offence was allegedly committed and they should be tried there. If they are found guilty, they should be punished in line with the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. We are not in support of criminal acts, neither are we in support of cheating, like the police are doing.

While sympathising with the victims of the Ife crisis, including the Hausas and the Yorubas, especially those who lost their lives, we call for thorough investigation into the matter to determine the cause of the crisis and also punish those involved to serve as deterrent for others.

However, we condemn the police for arresting only Yoruba people and also parading them. We are worried with the way the police pronounced them guilty without being tried. This shows that the police are sectional in the handling of this matter involving two different ethnic groups. How could people be called criminals without being tried?

The office of the state Attorney General should be given roles to play in our constitution. In the case of the Ife crisis, the office of the Attorney General of Osun State and the Ministry of Justice as a whole should be the one to advise the police on the matter. The Osun State Police Command should be the one to investigate the crisis with the state Ministry of Justice and not the police headquarters.

Those penalized should be brought back to Osun State forthwith. They should not be tried in Abuja or any other place where the offence was not committed. Also, the police should stop dehumanising the suspects and show that they are for all Nigerians and not for a particular ethnic group in the country.

The group had earlier constituted a legal team to defend the suspects yet to be arraigned by the police.

However, the police had denied the allegation of bias, claiming it carried out a thorough job and arrested those found culpable.

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A Dearborn Heights man accused of supporting the terrorist group ISIS will have to wait a while longer to learn his fate.

The sentencing for Khalil Abu-Rayyan, 22, was postponed Monday for another week after a hearing in front of U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh.

Abu-Rayyan pleaded guilty in September 2016 to illegal firearm possession and has been imprisoned on those charges since.

But FBI agents say he was plotting to attack a Detroit church and commit violent crimes against police officers and others on behalf of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Investigators began monitoring him in May 2015 via social media, telephone and surveillance. Officials said the alleged threats became increasingly violent. Authorities say Abu-Rayyan had been communicating with an undercover agent.

According to the complaint, Abu-Rayyan was chatting with an undercover officer daily and allegedly expressed his support for ISIS and his interest in committing an act of martyrdom.

He also told the agent he had an AK-47 and planned to shoot up one of the biggest churches in Detroit. If I cant go do jihad at the Middle East, I would do my jihad over here, Abu-Rayyan said.

The complaint says Abu-Rayyan posted pictures of himself firing AK-47 style and AR-15 type guns at a local firing range. In another conversation, about a week later, he told the agent he often carries a large knife or sword in his car, just in case he gets into a fight, and that he enjoys hearing about guns and violence.

Authorities believe Abu-Rayyan was acting on his own in supporting ISIS and sharing its propaganda.

Abu-Rayyan is not jailed on charges related to terrorism, but for owning a gun illegally. He was arrested Feb. 4, 2016 by FBI agents for being the unlawful user of a controlled substance in possession of a gun.

According to court records, Abu-Rayyan purchased a .22 caliber revolver from a sporting goods store in Dearborn Heights in October 2015, and allegedly made a false statement on his ATF Form 4473, stating he was not using a controlled substance, despite being a marijuana user. A month later he attempted to purchase another pistol from a different store, but due to pending state charges was unable to complete the sale.

He again stated he was not an unlawful user of a controlled substance, though he later admitted to law enforcement that he was a habitual marijuana user during the time period in which he purchased the .22 caliber revolver.

Defense attorneys are asking for a 15-month sentence for Abu-Rayyan while prosecutors seek an eight-year prison term. A sentence is supposed to be handed down next week.
GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP  Two primary debates for the states highest political office will be streamed live on Facebook from Stockton University, a unique concept that helped the institutions bid to publicize this years governors race.

The New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission on Tuesday selected Stockton to host a Republican and a Democratic primary gubernatorial debate at the universitys Campus Center Theatre, which seats 254. An additional 500 people can watch a closed-circuit screen from the adjacent Campus Center Event Room. No dates have been set.

But anybody can watch live on Facebook, a Stockton proposal that intrigued the board of the election commission, said Jeff Brindle, executive director of ELEC.(tncms-asset)c1ac48d6-10b5-11e7-8812-00163ec2aa77(/tncms-asset)

We are moving into a digital age, and the commission decided to do something new, Brindle said following the hearing.

By using Facebook, Sharon Schulman, executive director of the schools William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy, hopes to attract a younger audience.

I dont have any statewide television broadcast media down here, nor can I interest anyone, Schulman said. So we came up with this novel way of doing it.

Hosting the debates will allow South Jersey residents to hear from future policymakers.

The debates will also serve as an opportunity for the candidates to reach the southern region of our state, she said.

The school has hosted legislative, congressional and senatorial debates.

Most recently, the Hughes Center sponsored a 2nd Legislative District debate in 2015 with Republican Assemblyman Chris Brown and running mate Will Pauls and Democratic Assemblyman Vince Mazzeo and running mate Colin Bell.(tncms-asset)6c51f820-0ff4-11e7-bbfa-00163ec2aa77(/tncms-asset)

Since its founding, Stockton has emphasized the importance of political education and dialogue, the role of civic activism and voters rights and responsibilities, university President Harvey Kesselman said.

NJTV also was selected to host a Democratic and a Republican primary debate.

Republican Kim Guadagno and Democrat Phil Murphy have a sizable lead over their primary opponents, according to a Fairleigh Dickinson University Public Mind Poll.

Guadagno, a two-term lieutenant governor, is the front-runner among Republicans with 24 percent support, according to the poll. Guadagno will be challenged on the Republican side by Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, Nutley Commissioner of Public Affairs Steven Rogers, businessmen Joseph Rudy Rullo and Linwood resident Hirsh Singh.

On the Democratic side, Phil Murphy, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany, garnered 23 percent support, with his closest competitors significantly behind.

Murphy will be challenged on the Democratic side by LGBT activist and nightclub manager Paul Binetti, activist and former firefighter Bill Brennan, pharmaceutical sales representative Monica Brinson, former U.S. Undersecretary of the Treasury for Enforcement Jim Johnson, state Sen. Ray Lesniak, businesswomen Lisa McCormick, businessman Titus Pierce, Assemblyman John Wisniewski and Tenafly Borough Council President Mark Zinna.(tncms-asset)3ae2eacc-0e7f-11e7-8e1f-00163ec2aa77(/tncms-asset)

In 2011, Stockton put in to host a 2012 presidential debate. The nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates selected other schools to host the three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate. They were the University of Denver in Colorado; Centre College in Danville, Kentucky; Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York; and Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida.
PLEASE BE ADVISED: Soon we will no longer integrate with Facebook for story comments. The commenting option is not going away, however, readers will need to register for a FREE site account to continue sharing their thoughts and feedback on stories. If you already have an account (i.e. current subscribers, posting in obituary guestbooks, for submitting community events), you may use that login, otherwise, you will be prompted to create a new account.
A former Egg Harbor Township man faces more than 90 years in prison for allegedly illegally importing thousands of generic drugs used to treat erectile dysfunction and induce abortions.

Merwin Marc Snyder, 64, made his first appearance Tuesday in federal court in Camden after being deported from China, according to acting U.S. Attorney William Fitzpatrick.

Snyder is charged with one count of conspiracy, three counts of smuggling of misbranded drugs, one count of receipt and delivery of misbranded drugs, four counts of misbranding by dispensing prescription drugs without a valid prescription and four counts of introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce. He was located in Chinas Jiangsu Sheng province earlier this month.

Beginning in May 2010, Snyder received wholesale packages of prescription drugs from India, including unapproved generic versions of Viagra, Cialis and Levitra, as well as unapproved Mifepristone and Misoporstol, according to a December 2015 indictment. The latter two drugs, when used together, can induce abortions, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

He would then repackage the drugs into smaller amounts and sell them to consumers online, usually shipping the packages with a fake return address. Over the next three years, Snyder received 27 packages at his Egg Harbor Township address, totaling more than 53,000 generic male-enhancement tablets, according to a news release.

Snyder faces a maximum 92 years in prison if convicted of all charges. All nine counts carry a fine of up to $250,000, or twice what Snyder allegedly made from the scheme.

In a 2003 story in The Press of Atlantic City, Snyder said he retired after making more than $1 million from various novelty inventions, including talking popcorn, talking fortune cookies and condoms in a fortune cookie.

In retirement, he continued to produce a string of quirky ideas, including a protest against the high cost of prescription drugs. Snyder sent {span data-mce-mark=1}100 rolls of toilet paper to Congress with the words Wipe Out as part of a plea for cheaper prescriptions.{/span}

{span data-mce-mark=1}The weirdness of his invention was enough for his story to get picked up by national wire services at the time.{/span}

{span}As part of his battle against high prescription drug prices, Snyder set up a service to help people get lower-cost prescription drugs from overseas markets. According to the 2003 story, he ran a {/span}six-telephone shop in his kitchen with a list of 3,000 drugs and pharmacy information for distributors in Germany, Canada, Sri Lanka and Australia.

{span}{span} {/span}{/span}
Health care for everyone

I remember when we didnt have health care. A visit to the doctor cost $15 back then. Today, the word benders in Washington are saying access is different than care. Of course we had access, we werent in a Third World country; but it was difficult to afford the available care.

Availability, accessibility, affordability; what nonsense, how evil; word bending when peoples lives are on the line. All of the legislators arguing whether Americans live or die have access to, availability of and money for treatment. If they were so callous as to be willing to exit millions of people from realistic health care treatment, one would have to wonder whom they were representing. Certainly not the people. The legislative agenda seems to have a life of its own.

When will people understand they are all in this together? If you cant have health care, neither should I; most emphatically, neither should our legislators. Take away care for them and their families, then let them talk. I predict the discussion would be far different and more meaningful.

Jim McManus

Ocean City

Complaints about Trump

What has Donald Trump done during his first 60 days to make America great again?

He has alienated major allies like Australia, Sweden and Mexico. And now he reportedly wants coastal residents to pay for the wall through a surcharge on their flood insurance. I thought Trumps campaign promise was to have Mexico pay for this infamous structure.

He has introduced two grossly flawed executive orders regarding immigration that target only selective countries with known terrorists. Why exclude Saudi Arabia, home of the infamous Osama Bin Laden? In fact, just ban all Muslim countries so that we can feel totally safe.

The intrigue surrounding the administration and Russia is perhaps the most disturbing situation that is pervading the Trump White House. Every day more details of the inappropriate interactions between Trump, his staff and the Russians are revealed. The appointment of a special prosecutor is the only way to guarantee a full and impartial investigation into these nefarious connections.

Trump and his regime have also blatantly waged a war on the press. Freedom of the press is a guaranteed constitutional right. Calling the fake news media the enemies of the people is abhorrent and diametrically opposed to democratic values.

Finally, there is the proposed replacement to the Affordable Care Act. Trumpcare would disenfranchise 10 to 24 million Americans that currently have health care coverage. Making America great again? For whom?

Trump needs to renounce Twitter and read the Constitution. The fate of U.S. democracy depends on it.

Stephen Gring

Ocean City

Trump fans questioned

Regarding the March 18 letter, Forgiving beats hating:

The letter claimed some people dont like President Trump because they hang onto every bad statement made in his campaign. Seriously? Trumps divisive, vindictive statements come so fast and furiously that there will be many more in a day.

People are also advised to stop complaining and unite with the world instead of trying to destroy it. Maybe the writers not listening, but Trump routinely insults other nations, damaging U.S. leadership and causing the world to question how Americans could be so misled.

Trumps recent rants are disheartening; he continues campaigning against Hillary Clinton, insulting former President Obama, and disparaging his detractors. He fixates on crowd size, imagined wiretaps and still promises to make America great again while his appointees demolish what makes it so.

Although he loves the power, actual governing seems to stress him. He makes decisions without vital information and plans to increase the already bloated military budget while cutting vital environmental and humanitarian programs.

His detractors are not ignorant and hateful, but are energized and will continue to question his actions that damage us all, but mostly the voters who bought his deceitful promises to make their lives better.

Bettie J. Reina

Milmay
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.




Australian Men's Underwear Company Aussiebum Has Created The World's Most Expensive Men's Underwear From 24k Gold Fabric.

LONDON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Australian underwear brand aussieBum has created the most expensive men's underwear ever in history and selling at AUD RRP $14,695. One pair has already been sold to an international customer. The customer, who wishes remain anonymous, has been a huge fan of the brand since its inception in 2001.

For broadcast quality video and high-res images, please visit the Multimedia News Release:

http://news.medianet.com.au/aussiebum/24k-gold-men-underwear-created

To give other underwear collectors the opportunity to own a pair of the 24K Gold underwear, aussieBum is running a competition where three lucky people will win a pair of the limited edition 24K Gold underwear. The 24K Gold yarn was developed in Germany and knitted into fabric in Queensland. It was designed by company founder Sean Ashby, and made in Sydney, Australia.

Sean Ashby, founder and Managing Director of aussieBum shared; 'The Gold Rush era was one of the most exciting and prosperous times of Australian history. I'm mesmerized by the thought that people travelled from around the world to seek their fortunes in Australia. Now, people don't have to travel down under to find their fortunes, they can find it online at aussieBum.com.'

aussieBum, proudly manufactures its underwear in Sydney, Australia, and continues to enjoy international success. In the last financial year the company sold more than one million pairs of underwear and swimwear around the world -- a statistic very few Australian fashion companies can boast.

Cheeky, irreverent and always sexy, Australian owned aussieBum stands by the mantra; 'If you doubt yourself, wear something else'.

For further information, digital video, images or editorial content, please contact;

Jonathan Marsh jonny@aussieBum.com

M: +61406873282

John Scott john@aussieBum.com

M: +61409177777

Watch the aB 24K Gold video: http://bit.ly/aB24KGoldVideo

Download Media Kit: http://bit.ly/ab24KGoldMediaKit

SOURCE aussieBum
The VOICE OF HOPE  AM 1287 broadcasts in Arabic and some English to the Arab population, much of which is in a dire situation in the countries surrounding Israel and who are under religious persecution in Syria.

The radio station is a continuation of the VOICE OF HOPE, which was established in 1979 by Christian businessman George Otis, and which broadcast until 2000. The new VOICE OF HOPE is owned and operated by Strategic Communications Group, a global Christian Evangelical radio network with radio stations reaching Latin America and Africa.

"I am excited that this powerful Christian radio station was licensed by the State of Israel to deliver a message of hope and encouragement to the people of the Middle East. The Voice of Hope is established in support of Christians of the Middle East and is a gift of love from Christians in the United States and Canada." - John Tayloe, Founder and President.

The VOICE OF HOPE was inaugurated this week in the presence of Israel's Minister of Communication, Tzachi Hanegbi who said, "This radio station exemplifies the deep connection and unique bond that Israel has with the American people and between Jews and Christians. We are certain that the message of hope that will be brought by the station will be an uplifting tool and a benefit to our neighbors. The State of Israel supports any message of peace to the people in neighboring countries and this is why we decided to support the reestablishment of the Voice of Hope."

The VOICE OF HOPE broadcast studios are located on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Israel. The programming will include Christian Arabic presenters, Arabic Christian music, news, education, drama and inspirational messages.

For interviews contact: John D. Tayloe

Title: Founder and President

Organization: Strategic Communications Group

Voice of Hope Radio Network

Tel: +1 805-338-0075

Email: jdtayloe@voiceofhope.com

Web: www.voiceofhope.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/482345/Voice_of_Hope.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/482346/Strategic_Communications_Group_Voice_of_Hope_Logo.jpg

Related Links

http://www.voiceofhope.com



SOURCE Strategic Communications Group
Anaplan platform brings together data, people, and plans

SAN FRANCISCO, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Anaplan, a leading platform provider driving a new age of connected planning, today announced significant innovations to drive connected planning in large and fast-growing organizations around the world. The announcement, made at Hub17, Anaplan's premier global user conference, marks a transformation in the way organizations model the future, collaboratively plan, make decisionsand rapidly put them into action.

"Connected planning is a way of thinking about and doing planning," said Michael Gould, Anaplan's Chief Technology Officer and Founder. "It's the creation of fundamental connections between data, people, and plans in an organization. Anaplan's highly scalable platform continues to become more open and collaborative, empowering people across the organization to make informed decisions that drive faster, more effective planning."

Data: Single, secure source of planning information

The Anaplan platform expands on the company's existing open integration approach. For example, Anaplan HyperConnect leverages the technology of Informatica Cloud. Now, users can easily connect to hundreds of data sources, bringing data into a planning model with just a few clicks. In addition to providing strong data governance, this enables plans to be connected via a data hub within Anaplan. These features further enable business ownership, a highly desired feature of the Anaplan platform, meaning people can own and manage business processes with less dependence on IT.

People: Greater collaboration, deeper insights, faster alignment

Several new capabilities allow decision-makers to visualize and share insights to better answer key business questions. With a newly supported connector from Tableau, users can extract information from Anaplan for self-service visualization within Tableau, allowing them to easily share insights and results with others. Additionally, new administration governance features ensure that the right people have access to the right information.

The Anaplan Community, the company's relaunched collaboration portal, provides a destination for sharing best-practice planning ideas and information. Anaplan customers, partners, and employees can connect, engage, and share how they plan and make mission-critical business decisions.

Connected planning enables a significantly larger group of people to be involved in planning and decision-making within organizations, resulting in faster responses and course corrections.

Plans: Analyze and refine plans dynamically in one area or across the business

Anaplan's powerful modeling engine allows business users to own the process of creating a planning solution and adapting it to the changing needs of the organization. Users can develop planning applications on their own or leverage pre-built apps. Ninety-nine new apps have been published since January 2016, including 23 new apps published so far in 2017. In total, there are over 195 apps in the Anaplan App Hub.

Business planning is enhanced under the connected planning paradigm with Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), a new capability that allows users to easily manage the design, development, testing, and delivery of planning apps, making them easier to manage. Anaplan is the only cloud vendor in its market with this capability.

"Connected enterprises make faster, better, and more timely decisions," said R "Ray" Wang, CEO of Constellation Research. "A company's value today is increasingly based not only on the things its people know, but also how efficiently employees can connect with each other to share and augment their knowledge. Organizations can make connected enterprises a reality through next-generation planning and decision-making."

Today, Anaplan also unveiled a new visual identity at Hub17.

Industry visionaries, leaders, and experts, as well as people looking to be inspired, are gathering at Hub17 through March 29 in San Francisco to share the vision of connection. Visit the Hub17 site to learn more.

About Anaplan

Anaplan is driving a new age of connected planning. Large and fast-growing organizations use Anaplan's cloud platform in every business function to make informed decisions and drive faster, more effective planning processes. Anaplan also provides support, training, and planning transformation advisory services. Anaplan is a private held company based in San Francisco with 16 offices and over 150 expert partners worldwide. To learn more, visit anaplan.com.

Related Links: http://www.anaplan.com

Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/482892/Anaplan_Logo.jpg

Related Links

http://www.anaplan.com



SOURCE Anaplan
LONDON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The BE OPEN foundation - a charitable organisation designed to foster creativity and innovation, is set to roll out its Ranking of Educational Programs in Architecture and Design to the 'richest' and most complicated region for research - Europe.

The Rankings research, conducted by BE OPEN, has already mapped 208 educational design programs in North America (Canada, Mexico and the US), 34 educational design programs in Africa (Egypt, South Africa, Morocco, Ethiopia, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya and Liberia), 102 programs in South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chili and Colombia) and 96 programs in Asia (India, China, Japan, Thailand and Singapore).

Yelena Baturina, international philanthropist and founder of BE OPEN said: "The landscape of European creative education is incredibly diverse and significant. The European art, design and architecture schools train more young creatives than any other region of the world. With our research we hope to produce the Ranking System that will provide the universal and objective picture to those who will greatly benefit from it - young people who aspire to professional careers in creative disciplines."

She explains that in each region the educational programs are arranged into groups according to specific sets of relevant criteria, such as 'the most frequently referenced educational programs', 'the most practice-oriented programs' and 'the most capitalized programs'. The comprehensive ranking takes a number of variables into account with statistics relating to the universities' educational and research activities complemented by the opinions of key reference groups: namely, employers, professors and graduates gathered by BE OPEN through interviews with key decision makers and industry leaders, including heads of design studios and architectural bureaus.

Significantly, unlike most of the research in the educational sphere, the system developed by BE OPEN evaluates not the schools and their material resources, but the value of educational programs they offer. BE OPEN reviews both the traditional curricula - such as Architectural Design, Interior Design and Product Engineering - and the relatively new and developing disciplines of Industrial, Multimedia and Interactive Design, Sound Design and Communicative Design.

The Ranking is part of BE OPEN's educational initiative Inside the Academy and was conceived for two main groups: applicants to academic programs in design and architecture around the world, and potential employers. The prestigious Ranking helps applicants choose where to study and influences employers looking for the future stars of architecture and design.

SOURCE BE OPEN Foundation
LONDON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Forecasts by Vehicle Type (Passenger Car, LCV, HCV, Two Wheeler) by Product Type, (Radial, Bias) by Type of Sale (Replacement, OEM), by Tire Aspect Ratio (<60, 60-70, >70) and by Geography (North America, Europe, APAC, LAMEA) Plus Analysis of Top Companies

Visiongain assesses that the worldwide automotive tire market will achieve a value of $219bn in 2017. The global automotive tire market is of course strongly correlated with the production and sales of vehicles including two wheeler, passenger car, heavy vehicle and other commercial vehicles.

However total mileage per vehicle, especially amongst transport & logistics companies is increasing, thus increasing the attractiveness of tire retreading, which impacts upon the sale of new replacement tires. Furthermore, the raw materials required for automotive tire manufacturing are crude derivatives therefore linked to crude oil prices. Crude oil prices have fallen in recent years worldwide. Therefore, prices of synthetic rubber and other crude derivatives used in the manufacturing of tires are expected to rise in the coming years, which could impact the global tire market.

Visiongain's automotive tire report keeps you informed of these factors and ahead of your competitors. Gain that competitive advantage.

5 Reasons why you must order and read this report today:

1) The report provides detailed profiles of 10 leading automotive tire companies

- Bridgestone Corporation

- Continental AG

- Cooper Tire and Rubber Company

- Hankook Tire

- Michelin

- Pirelli & C.S.p.A

- Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd.

- The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company

- Toyo Tire

- Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd.

To see a report overview, please email Sara Peerun on sara.peerun@visiongainglobal.com

2) The study reveals where the demand is for automotive tires. We show you the prospects for the following regions:

North America Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- US Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Canada Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Mexico Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

Europe Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Germany Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- UK Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- France Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Russia Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Italy Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Rest of Europe Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

APAC Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- China Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- India Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Japan Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- South Korea Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Australia Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Rest of APAC Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

LAMEA Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Brazil Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Argentina Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Saudi Arabia Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- UAE Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- South Africa Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Egypt Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Rest of LAMEA Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

3) Our analysis forecasts the automotive tire market by vehicle type from 2017-2027

- Passenger Car Tire Market 2017-2027

- LCV Tire Market 2017-2027

- HCV Tire Market 2017-2027

- Two Wheeler Tire Market 2017-2027

4) Our overview also forecasts and analyses the automotive tire market by product type from 2017-2027

- Radial Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Bias Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

5) Our study also forecasts and analyses the automotive tire market by tire aspect ratio from 2017-2027

- <60 Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- 60-70 Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- >70 Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

Competitive advantage

This independent 165 page report guarantees you are better informed than your competitors. With 155 tables and figures examining the automotive tire market space, plus analysis, from 2017-2027 keeping your knowledge that one step ahead of your rivals.

Who should read this report?

 Anyone within the automotive industry

 Automotive OEM's.

 Tire manufacturers

 Re-treading companies

 Raw material suppliers

 Car servicing companies

 Automotive component suppliers

 Transport & logistics companies

 Companies looking to enter this market

 R&D Scientists & Technologists

 NPD specialists

 Petrochemical companies

And also

 Analysts

 Consultants

 Executives

 Investors

 Business development managers

 Marketing managers

 Banks

 Industry associations

 Government agencies

This report answers questions such as:

 What are the prospects for the overall automotive tire industry?

 Which automotive tire segments have the most promising growth prospects?

 Where are the greatest regional automotive tire opportunities?

 Who are the key players in the automotive tire industry?

 What are the demand and supply dynamics underpinning the automotive tire sector?

 How consolidated is the sector amongst the automotive tire industry players?

Don't miss out

This report is essential reading for you or anyone in the automotive sector with an interest in automotive tires. Purchasing this report today helps you to recognise those important market opportunities and understand the possibilities there. Order the Automotive Tire Market Report 2017-2027: Forecasts by Vehicle Type (Passenger Car, LCV, HCV, Two Wheeler) by Product Type, (Radial, Bias) by Type of Sale (Replacement, OEM), by Tire Aspect Ratio (<60, 60-70, >70) and by Geography (North America, Europe, APAC, LAMEA) Plus Analysis of Top Companies report now. Get our new report now.

To request a report overview of this report, please email Sara Peerun at sara.peerun@visiongainglobal.com or call Tel: +44-(0)-20-7336-6100

Or click on https://www.visiongain.com/Report/1826/Automotive-Tire-Market-Report-2017-2027bn

Companies & Organisations Mentioned

Aircraft Service International Group

Alliance Tire Group

Apollo

Audi

Avon

BFGoodrich

Big Easy Motors

BMW

Bridgestone

Chrysler Canada Inc.

Continental AG

Continental Corporation

Cooper Tire and Rubber Company

Dunlop

Dupont

Euromaster

European Automotive Manufacturing Association

Falken

FCA

Firestone Tire & Rubber Company

Fuji Heavy Industries

Fulda

General Motors

General Tyre & Rubber Company of Pakistan

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company

Hankook

Haq Tyres & Rubber Industries

Honda

Hyundai

Isuzu

JK Tire and Industries Ltd

Johnson Controls Inc.

Kenda Rubber Industrial Company

Kumho tires

Lanxess

Lexus

Magna International Inc.

Martinrea International Inc.

Maxxis

Mercedes Benz

Mexican Automotive Industry Association

Michelin Group

MRF Limited

Nankang Rubber Tire

Nexen Tire

Nissan

Nokian Tyres Group

PanAridus

Petlas Tire Industry abd Trade co.

Pirelli

Qingdao Ge Rui Da Rubber Co. Ltd.(GRT) GRT

Rosneft

Sascar

Saudi Arabian Standards Organization (SASO).

Scania

Scantyre AB

Subaru

Sumitomo Rubber Industries

Tata Motors

TCI

Tesla

The Bridgestone Group

Toyo Tire and Rubber Co., Ltd.

Toyota

Trenco Transport and Engineering Co

TVS Tyres

U.S. Department of Transportation

U.S. Energy Information Administration

Volkswagen

Vredestein

Yokohama Tire Corporation

To see a report overview, please email Sara Peerun on sara.peerun@visiongainglobal.com

SOURCE Visiongain Ltd
LONDON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

BCRE - Brack Capital Real Estate Investments N.V.

("BCRE" or the "Company")

Associate undertaking Reports for 2016

The Company announces that Brack Capital Properties N.V. ("BCP"), an associate undertaking of the Company whose shares are traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, has published the following in relation to the year ended 31 December 2016:

Board of Directors' report on the Corporation's state of affairs Consolidated financial statements Presentation of financial data from the consolidated financial statements attributed to BCP itself

For ease of reference, the uncertified English translation of the above documents along with the Hebrew certified versions, are available on the Company's website www.brack-capital.com.

Key highlights relating to the principal results for the year ended 31 December 2016 are:

Profitability - for 2016, BCP's net income attributed to BCP's shareholders amounted to c. EUR 76.3 million compared to a net income of c. EUR 63.4 million for 2015. Contribution from the income producing real estate assets and the residential development activity to BCP's results were:

Income producing real estate assets - for 2016, the Funds From Operations ("FFO") amounted to c. EUR 29.3 million compared to c. EUR 24.3 million for 2015. The FFO in the fourth quarter of 2016 amounted to c. EUR 8 million , which grosses up to an annualized FFO of c. EUR 32.1 million .

Residential development activity - for 2016, the contribution to profit from the Grafental project amounted to c. EUR 15.4 million (consolidated) from the completion of the delivery of the remaining 55 flats, out of 118 in total, of phase B1 and the delivery of 93 flats, out of 107 in total, of phase B3.

2. Balance sheet structure and financial strength:

Equity and EPRA NAV2 - the equity attributed to the shareholders of BCP amounted to c. EUR 419.2 million and to c. EUR 466.2 million , as of the report date and as of the report signing date1, respectively. The EPRA NAV amounted to c. EUR 491.2 million and c. EUR 538.2 , as of the report date and as of the report signing date1, respectively Debt ratios - the LTV ratio3 is 51.3% and 47.5% as of the report date and as of the report signing date1, respectively. The EBITDA (only from the income producing portfolio, excluding operating profit from the development activity) to interest expense is c. 3.25x in the fourth quarter of 2016. Liquidity - cash and liquid assets amounted to c. EUR 89.3 million and c. EUR 136 million as of the report date and as of the report signing date1, respectively.

1 Include the net consideration of the public offering completed by BCP in January 2017. For additional information regarding the public offering see material events section of the consolidated financial statements.

2 EPRA NAV - for information regarding the index and the calculation method see section 5 of part A of BCP's Board of Directors' report on the Corporation's state of affairs.

3 Net debt to net total balance sheet.

ENQUIRIES:



BCRE - Brack Capital Real Estate Investments N.V.

Ariel Podrojski, Chief Executive Officer

Nansia Koutsou, Chief Financial Officer / Chief Operating Officer, +31 20 514 1004

Novella Communications

Tim Robertson

Toby Andrews, +44 203 151 7008

About BCRE

BCRE is an international real estate development and investment group, headquartered in the Netherlands and listed on the London Stock Exchange. Through its subsidiary and associated undertakings, the Company is interested in, develops and operates and international portfolio of real estate assets, predominantly located in the USA, Germany and Russia.

The Company has established local management team platforms with significant local market expertise in the US, Germany, Russia, India and the UK with exclusive access to over 550 staff. At present, the Company has offices and teams in New York, London, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Moscow, Kazan, New Delhi, Amsterdam and Limassol.

This is a disclosure announcement from PR Newswire.

SOURCE BCRE - Brack Capital Real Estate Investments N.V.
SAN FRANCISCO, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The global flavors and fragrance market is expected to reach USD 28.65 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. Flavors & fragrances provide lasting sensory impressions, often determined when subtly applied via food, beverage, medical products, and other substances. These products enhance the overall appeal and aesthetic value of consumer goods.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150105/723757 )



Flavors & fragrances are mostly prepared using volatile chemicals and essential oils to deliver a particular flavor or enhance existing flavors. The products are mainly categorized into natural and synthetic. Increasing consumer demand for fresh and natural products has contributed to exponential segment growth.

Rising demand for convenience and ready-to-eat meals, health, and wellness foods, as well as technological advancements, are expected to boost market growth. Rapid industrialization and increasing consumer disposable incomes in emerging economies such as China and India are also projected to foster the global food flavors market over the forecast period.

Owing to the enormous demand for natural products, many forests have been chopped down to derive minuscule amounts of oil. Several arable lands have also been converted into monoculture farming lands to cultivate a single plant or crop to obtain particular oil. This, in turn, has resulted in limited availability of raw materials for natural products.

Flavors & fragrances manufacturers operate through collaborations with scientists, artists, musicians, writers, and filmmaker to tap into creative minds to expose perfumes to new and constantly evolving creative territories and approaches. Manufacturers also form creative teams that comprise fragrance evaluators, perfumers, and flavorists.

Browse full research report with TOC on "Flavors And Fragrances Market Analysis By Product (Natural, Aroma), By Application (Flavors, Fragrances), By Region (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, Central & South America), And Segment Forecasts, 2014 - 2025" at: http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/flavors-fragrances-market

Further key findings from the report suggest:

Aroma chemicals are expected to maintain the largest market share and are likely to account for 64.6% of the revenue generated in 2025

Increasing research expenditure on developing fragrance compounds is expected to support the demand for aroma chemicals in upcoming years

Essential oils are expected to emerge as the largest as well as fastest growing natural product segment

Orange essential oil demand was valued at USD 1,404.8 million in 2015

in 2015 Fragrances application segment is estimated to dominate the market while the valuation of flavors is projected to grow at a CAGR of 4.1% from 2016 to 2025

Asia Pacific is projected to grow at the highest CAGR on account of availability of the raw material and increasing demand

Browse related reports by Grand View Research:

Feed Acidifiers Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/feed-acidifiers-market

Agar Agar Gum Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/global-agar-agar-gum-market

Fragrance Ingredients Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/fragrance-ingredients-market

Grand View Research has segmented the flavors and fragrances market on the basis of product, application and region:

Flavors and Fragrances Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) Natural Essential Oils Orange Limonene Myrcene Others Corn Mint Menthol Menthone Others Eucalyptus Eucalyptol Limonene Others Pepper Mint Menthol Menthone Others Lemon Pinene Limonene Camphene Oleoresins Paprika Piperine Others Black Pepper Piperine Others Turmeric Curcumin Others Ginger Gingerol Others Others Aroma Chemicals Esters Ethyl acetate Benzyl acetate Ethyl benzoate Methyl decanoate Others Alcohol Lauryl alcohol Menthol Others Aldehyde Benzaldehyde Vanillin Others Phenol Ethylvanillin Others Others

Flavors and Fragrances Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) Flavors Confectionary Convenience Foods Bakery Food Dairy Food Beverages Others Fragrances Fine fragrances Cosmetics and Toiletries Soaps & Detergents Others

Flavors and Fragrances Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) North America U.S Europe Germany UK France Asia Pacific China India Japan Middle East & Africa Saudi Arabia Central and South America Brazil



Read Our Blog: Trends in Flavors and Fragrance Market

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.
VANCOUVER, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Fineqia International Inc. (the "Company" or "Fineqia") (CSE: FNQ) (OTCPink: FNQQF) (Frankfurt: FNQA) today welcomes Dr. Tryggvi Thor Herbertsson, financial advisor and investor, to its board of advisors.

Dr. Herbertsson is an independent investor and financial advisor at his own company, Taurus SLF and a senior advisor to GAMMA Capital Management HF. Prior to that he was a Member of Parliament (MP) in Iceland for the Independence Party and a Professor of Economics at the University of Reykjavik.

Before becoming a MP he was the CEO of Askar Capital Ltd, an Icelandic investment bank. He served as the Special Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister of Iceland during the collapse of the Icelandic banking system in 2008. He was the Director of the Institute of Economic Studies and a Professor of Economics at the University of Iceland before joining Askar Capital Ltd. He has published over 50 scholarly papers and is the editor, author, and co-author of 13 books and monographs on various topics in economics.

Dr. Herbertsson has been on the Board of Directors and a consultant to many private companies, banks, and pension funds in Iceland and internationally. He has been a consultant to institutions and international organizations, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission, the Nordic Council of Ministers, the OECD, and the World Economic Forum. He has been a consultant to the governments of Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Uganda. He has also been a consultant to Fortune 500 companies.

"We're excited to have a person of such caliber on our advisory board," said Fineqia's CEO Bundeep Singh Rangar. "Tryggvi's extensive experience in the financial sector will ensure we stay ahead of the curve in our strategy of making Fineqia a go-to investment platform."

Fineqia's board of advisors and its members are not officers or directors of the company.

About Fineqia International Inc.

Fineqia's business model is to provide an online platform and associated services for the placement of debt and equity securities, initially in the UK. The platform will transparently highlight the risks and objectively outline opportunities involved. For more information, visit http://www.fineqia.com.

NEITHER THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATORY SERVICE PROVIDER HAS REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THE CONTENT OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.

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 to complete the Change of Business, failure to obtain sufficient financing, and other risks disclosed in the Company's public disclosure record on file with the relevant securities regulatory authorities. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and except as may be required by applicable securities laws. The Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement.

Karolina Komarnicka, Chief Marketing Officer, T: +1(778)654-2324, E: info@fineqia.com, W: http://www.fineqia.com

SOURCE Fineqia International Inc.
Highlights:

Experts on-hand at AACR to discuss expanded next generation sequencing service offerings for cancer researchers including single-cell sequencing with the 10x Genomics Chromium, and whole genome sequencing with the Illumina HiSeq X Ten and the PacBio Sequel.

Show-only discounts on GENEWIZ's complete service offering including: next generation and Sanger sequencing, gene synthesis, and GLP-compliant services.

Poster presentation in conjunction with Celsee Diagnostics:

"Enrichment and Mutation Detection of Circulating Tumor Cells from Blood Samples"

Liquid Biopsies 1: Circulating Tumor Cells

Monday, April 3 -- 8 a.m. to Noon

Poster Section 30 / Poster Board 10

"We are excited to introduce our new single-cell sequencing workflow at AACR as it will bring cancer researchers complete access to critical molecular information down to the cellular level," said Dr. Ginger Zhou, director of genomics and molecular genetics, GENEWIZ. "AACR brings together the best and the brightest in cancer research, making it an excellent opportunity for us to collaborate on new technologies and proprietery protocols that will help scientists advance their discoveries faster than ever before and ultimately transform cancer genomics."

About GENEWIZ

GENEWIZ is a global leader in genomics services that enable research scientists within pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agriculture, environmental and clean energy, academic, and government institutions to advance their discoveries. Customers rely on our unique and proprietary genomics technologies and services, backed by our specialized experts in DNA sequencing, gene synthesis, molecular biology, high throughput sequencing, bioinformatics, and GLP regulatory-compliant services.

Headquartered in South Plainfield, NJ, GENEWIZ is privately-held with a global network of laboratories in Boston, MA; Washington, D.C. Metro; Research Triangle Park, NC; San Diego, CA; Los Angeles, CA; San Francisco, CA; and Seattle, WA. International locations include Beijing, Suzhou, and Tianjin, China; Takeley, United Kingdom; and Tokyo, Japan. For more information, visit www.genewiz.com, and connect with us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, WeChat, and Weibo.

Related Links

http://www.genewiz.com



SOURCE GENEWIZ
STOCKHOLM, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Progressive dairy farmers, Mike and Sue McCloskey, convinced automated dairies are a big part of the equation for the future of milk production



Fair Oaks Farms in Indiana, one of the biggest dairy operations in America, announced its intention to expand from conventional milking systems by signing an agreement for 12 DeLaval voluntary milking system VMS. The robots are for Prairie's Edge Dairy Farms llc, one of the nine partnerships that comprise Fair Oaks AG tourism experience, which attracts more than 500,000 visitors annually.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/482698/FairOaks_DeLaval.jpg )



This move further supports a recent shift in the business plans of large-scale milk producers exploring robotics as a viable solution for addressing issues like animal welfare, milk quality, production and labor.

The Fair Oaks Farms dairy attraction is represented by nine families milking 36,000 cows. Mike and Sue McCloskey, well-known visionaries of progressive and sustainable dairy farming, are one of these nine families. "These DeLaval robotic solutions are unbelievably productive and efficient," said Mike McCloskey. "On top of that, the level of cow comfort that robotic milking brings is very attractive."

"All of these things are coming together at the right time. It's pretty exciting," he continued. "The DeLaval team has gone above and beyond by assisting with the design process and implementation, helping our people - and eventually our cows - approach this new way of farming. The depth of knowledge DeLaval shows from a milk quality point-of-view and their understanding of milk's physiology is fascinating."

The decision to add on to Fair Oaks Farms' rotary-based milking systems with an automated one is rooted in the Grass to Glass ethos of fairlife milk, a nutrient-dense, lactose-free beverage the McCloskeys co-created with their Select Milk Producer partners. Fair Oaks Farms operates as a closed-loop system where they grow their own feed, never mix milk from other dairies, and process and bottle the milk at their dairy cooperative's facilities. Twelve VMS will help harvest enough milk to fill one tanker truck a day, helping to control milk quality and traceability.

"We are very pleased to be a part of Fair Oaks Farms' journey in going robotic. At DeLaval we are committed to helping our customers remain progressive and future-oriented, and we feel that robotic milking matched with outstanding cow comfort and excellent milk quality are the prerequisites for this," said Fernando Cuccoli, DeLaval Vice President, Market Area North America.

Start-up of Fair Oaks Farms' new robotic milking facility is planned for December 2017 and will serve 780 cows.

DeLaval VMS

DeLaval VMS (voluntary milking system) allows cows to be milked automatically, whenever they like, in a calm, quiet and stress-free environment.

It identifies the cow as it enters the system and feed is dispensed before the teats are cleaned and prepared, and milking begins. Dual lasers on the robotic arm enable quick, precise teat detection.

When milking is complete, both the animal's teats and the system itself are cleaned, ensuring the highest standards of hygiene are maintained at all times.

The world's largest automated milking operation with 64 DeLaval VMS came on-line at the end of last year in Chile, and another large robotic facility in Michigan with 24 DeLaval VMS will start milking later this year.

About DeLaval



DeLaval is a worldwide leader in milking equipment and solutions for dairy farmers, which make sustainable food production possible, warranting milk quality and animal health. Our solutions are used by millions of dairy farmers around the globe every day.



DeLaval was founded more than 130 years ago in Sweden, when the visionary Gustaf de Laval patented the cream separator. Today, DeLaval has 4,500 employees and operates in more than 100 markets. DeLaval, alongside Tetra Pak and Sidel, is part of the Tetra Laval Group. See more at www.delavalcorporate.com.

SOURCE DeLaval
TOKYO, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tokyo's landmark, 126-year-old Imperial Hotel has been ranked the highest luxury-class hotel in Japan for customer satisfaction in J.D. Power's "Japan Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study in 2016." The Imperial was ranked top in the segment of guestroom rates of over 35,000 Japanese yen per night, the first time since the studies began in 2006. Guests identified The Imperial's Front Desk Services and the attention of its staff as favorable points. The quality of staff attention extended to patrons is extremely influential in forming guest evaluations regardless of room rates.

(Photo:

http://prw.kyodonews.jp/prwfile/release/M100617/201703270285/_prw_PI1fl_bOYghFvn.jpg)

The Imperial was acclaimed by respondents for the quality of care provided by the staff, the accommodations themselves, and the hotel hardware in general. The Imperial was recognized as providing a very high caliber of staff attention. Comments were evaluated highest in the areas of Hotel Services, Hotel Facilities, Reservation, Check-In/Check-Out and Cost & Fees. This year marked the first year The Imperial took this position as the highest-ranking Japanese hotel, as well as ranking first in a separate Japanese Customer Satisfaction Index (JCSI) for eight consecutive years. The Imperial brand was ranked far above other first-class city properties in the JCSI, to which some 120,000 respondents replied. Rankings related to tourism include budget hotels, airlines and travel agents, in addition to major city hotels. Only The Imperial Hotel and a delivery service company have ranked in the top place for eight consecutive years.

The hotel's "Imperial Club" was also highly evaluated in the J.D. Power study for 2016 for the high degree of customer service, maintaining its top position for the second straight year.

Tokyo's Imperial was founded by Japanese aristocracy in 1890 as a venue to receive an increasing number of foreign dignitaries visiting Japan in the Meiji Period. It initiated many new services and facilities which have since become standard services for major Japanese hotels, such as all-inclusive Shinto and Christian wedding services, shopping arcades, and in-house laundry service, and introduced diverse Western cuisine to the Japanese public. It is the traditional favorite of dignitaries and celebrities from abroad visiting the Japanese capital.

Website: http://www.imperialhotel.co.jp/e/

SOURCE Imperial Hotel, Ltd.
LONDON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, today announced new business and tourism collaborations to attract international visitors to both cities and help companies based in London and Paris to expand into new international markets.

The agreement will, for the first time, jointly showcase London and Paris to overseas visitors, while a new initiative called the Paris-London Business Welcome Programme will encourage and facilitate the flow of trade and investment between the two cities.

The announcement comes just one day before the UK government triggers Article 50, beginning the formal process of withdrawing the UK from the European Union.

The cities of Paris and London have made a choice to focus on constructive alliance, rather than competition. Since the EU referendum the two cities have been working to facilitate the joint domiciliation of companies in London and Paris, to ensure that entrepreneurs are able to develop their business in both markets.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: "London and Paris are two of the greatest cities in the world and we have so much to gain from joining forces. Never underestimate the incredible benefits to be found when major cities do business together. Our great friends in Paris and across the continent are well aware that working closely together remains to our mutual benefit."

The Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, said: "Paris and London share common values and willpower. We want to be attractive to companies all over the world. Since the election of Sadiq, our two cities have been working better together. We are developing new exchanges and new projects. All these initiatives will create employment, activity and economic growth. It is a very positive dynamic that the Brexit will not change."

Developing tourist exchanges between the two cities

Visitors to London and Paris spend in excess of 30bn (34 billion Euros) per year and the tourism economy in both cities supports 1.2million jobs.

The tourism agreement, which will launch in 2018, will focus on key drivers for international visitors to both cities, such as culture and heritage, and combine the resources of VisitLondon.com and Parisinfo.com.

An ambitious partnership for start-up exchanges

The Paris-London Business Welcome will build on both cities' business strengths and follows a statement last year from both Mayors that Paris and London would work more closely together to make the London-Paris' 'win-win partnership' even stronger.

The Paris-London Business Welcome programme will include assistance with company set-up, access to co-working space, introduction to the local tech ecosystem and networking, and discounted accommodation. Eurostar will also provide entrepreneurs with preferential rates on their services.

A common economic dynamic

London receives more inward investment from Paris than any other global city, attracting 2.6bn and generating almost 10,000 jobs over the last ten years. Paris, in comparison, is the largest European destination for foreign direct investment from London. Since January 2006, over 160 London-based companies have set up in Paris, creating 7,500 jobs in the city.

As part of the Mayor's International Business Programme, Sadiq was accompanied by a trade delegation of 15 of London's fastest growing companies on his visit to Paris. The companies were given the opportunity to showcase their innovations, meet with leading investors and explore export opportunities in the city.

SOURCE London & Partners
Marinol (generic name: Dronabinol) is used to treat nausea and vomiting caused by cancer chemotherapy. It is usually used when other drugs to control nausea and vomiting have not been successful. Dronabinol is also used to treat loss of appetite and weight loss in patients with HIV infection. Dronabinol (also called THC) is a man-made form of the active natural substance in marijuana. AXIM will pursue these same indications in its clinical research on the chewing gum replacement.

In its current form, Marinol is delivered through a gel capsule where 90% of the dronabinol is metabolized into 11-OH- THC due to the first-pass (liver) metabolism. This causes significant side effects for patients including impaired thinking and other adverse reactions. AXIM's patented control-release chewing gum largely bypasses the first pass metabolism in the liver to the point where AXIM believes their new formulation will improve efficacy while simultaneously reducing side effects for patients who utilize this new delivery method.

AXIM will work with an API-manufacturing company that will supply AXIM with the synthetic dronabinol (delta-9-THC) for use in these trials. AXIM will then conduct a bio-equivalency study and will eventually seek FDA approval to bring this chewing gum product to market.

"AXIM has once again expanded its clinical research program in an impressive and important way that will greatly benefit this population of patients," said Dr. Stuart Titus, PhD, CEO of Medical Marijuana, Inc. "With more than a third of patients discontinuing use of Marinol as prescribed due to adverse side effects, it is encouraging that AXIM will research and attempt to bring to market an improved medication that may provide expanded therapeutics while allowing for a better quality of life for this patient population."

About AXIM

AXIM Biotechnologies, Inc. (OTC: AXIM) focuses on the research, development and production of cannabis-based pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and cosmetic products. Our flagship products include CanChew, a CBD-based controlled release chewing gum, and MedChew Rx, a combination CBD/THC gum that is undergoing clinical trials for the treatment of pain and spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis. We prioritize the well-being of our customers while embracing a solid fiscal strategy. For more information, please visit www.AXIMBiotech.com.

About Medical Marijuana, Inc.

Our mission is to be the premier cannabis and hemp industry innovators, leveraging our team of professionals to source, evaluate and purchase value-added companies and products, while allowing them to keep their integrity and entrepreneurial spirit. We strive to create awareness within our industry, develop environmentally-friendly, economically sustainable businesses, while increasing shareholder value. For details on Medical Marijuana, Inc.'s portfolio and investment companies, visit www.medicalmarijuanainc.com.

To see Medical Marijuana, Inc.'s video statement, click here.

Shareholders are also encouraged to visit the Medical Marijuana, Inc. Shop for discounted products.

FORWARD-LOOKING DISCLAIMER AND DISCLOSURES This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements and information, as defined within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the Safe Harbor created by those sections. This material contains statements about expected future events and/or financial results that are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements by definition involve risks, uncertainties.

The statements in this press release have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease. The Company does not sell or distribute any products that are in violation of the United States Controlled Substances Act. The Company does sell and distribute hemp-based products.

PUBLIC RELATIONS CONTACT:

Andrew Hard

Chief Executive Officer

CMW Media

P: 888-829- 0070

andrew.hard@cmwmedia.com

www.cmwmedia.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/483165/Medical_Marijuana_Inc_Axim_Biotech_Infographic.jpg

Related Links

http://cmwmedia.com



SOURCE Medical Marijuana, Inc.
LAUF A. D. PEGNITZ, Germany, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Mother's Day is a celebration of unconditional love, affection and trust: time to say thank you from the heart! THOMAS SABO is offering a 15 per cent discount on all of their engravable designs; perfect unique gifts for mothers everywhere.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/482343/THOMAS_SABO_Mother_s_Day_Designs.jpg )



From the Infinity symbol, to the small heart, to classic pearls - each detail of the engravable jewellery items from THOMAS SABO stands for the endless love between a mother and child. Individual, filigree messages, symbols or numbers are engraved on bracelets and pendants as highly personal gestures of love and gratitude. Presented in the gorgeous THOMAS SABO gift wrapping with a greeting card, the personalised jewellery items are designed to bring joy to wonderful mothers.

The exclusive Mother's Day promotion with 15 per cent discount on all designs of the Love Bridge line is valid in the respective periods* in all THOMAS SABO stores, THOMAS SABO shop-in-shops, at selected partners and in the online shop. The promotion is not valid in the THOMAS SABO shops Wertheim Village, Ingolstadt Village, Neumunster Designer Outlet and Factory Outlet Lauf.

Image material and prices are available for download here.

#infinityoflove #THOMASSABO #mothersday

About THOMAS SABO

THOMAS SABO is one of the globally-leading jewellery, watches and beauty companies, designing, selling and distributing lifestyle products for women and men. The company, established in 1984 by Thomas Sabo in Lauf an der Pegnitz, southern Germany, operates around 300 of its own shops across all five continents with a total of around 1,860 employees. At its headquarters, THOMAS SABO employs a staff of around 490. THOMAS SABO also collaborates globally with approximately 2,800 trade partners as well as leading airlines and cruise operators.

*Promotion period:

Hungary, Spain, Portugal, Lithuania: 17.04. - 07.05.

Asia, USA, Canada, Australia: 24.04. - 14.05.

Europe (with exceptions listed): 24.04. - 14.05.

France, Sweden: 08.05. - 28.05.

Press contact

THOMAS SABO GmbH & Co. KG

Felizia Kindermann

Head of International & Corporate PR

Tel: +49-(0)-9123-97150

Mail: press@thomassabo.com



SOURCE THOMAS SABO GmbH & Co.KG
Drop in US drug approvals but no similar trend is seen in EU

GLASGOW, Scotland, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- NDA Group announced findings from their fourth annual comparison of drug approvals in Europe and the United States, ahead of this year's DIA EuroMeeting in Glasgow. This year's Status of New Drug Approvals report emphasises the need for a streamlined global development and commercialisation process across the world's two biggest markets.

The report  based on preliminary research figures from the EMA and FDA websites in January 2017  found that there has been a drop in US approvals but not in EU. For 2016 there were 74 new drug approvals granted in the US and EU. Of these new products, 19 were approved only in the EU, 19 only in the US, and 36 were granted in both regions. However 17 drugs that were approved in the EU in 2016 had received prior approval in 2015 or earlier in the US, while only six products registered in the US in 2016 were previously approved in the EU.

Johan Stromquist, CEO, NDA Group "Understanding the evolving regulatory landscape and requirements is a key concern for the drug developing industry, as is it for us at NDA. It is intriguing to see how expedited pathways shape this year's statistics just like it did last year, but with a very different outcome. It's also interesting to see the continued rise of smaller companies in the percentage of products taken to market."

"Our analysis for 2016 shows that NDA maintains an exceptional position in supporting new drug product approvals in Europe. During the last four years NDA supported over 40% of the new drugs approved with a broad range of services. I'm also excited to see the increase of products going through the FDA that received NDA's support. NDA supported over 20% of new drugs that achieved approval by the FDA during 2016."

Terese Johansson, PhD, NDA's consultant behind the research commented: "The findings show that FDA has had a significant drop in drug approvals but continues to grant more expedited and nonstandard review approval status than the EMA. The drop is not as pronounced in the EU but is likely to be more prominent in 2017. Expedited drug development and nonstandard review approval pathways are the new norm in the US, but in the EU special approval procedures are not as common. The US situation could be explained by the increased use of the shorter nonstandard approval pathways since there has also been a significant increase in complete response letter (CRL). During 2016 FDA issued 14 CRLs, compared to just two in 2015."

"The report also highlights the continued trend that many companies first seek approval in the US. Both the EU and US show increases in drug approvals from small and medium sized pharma but big pharma still dominates the drug approval statistics. The busiest therapeutic area was oncology."

Click here for Infographic.

The pooled statistics showed that of the new drug approvals, 35 were classified as novel drugs (e.g. NAS, NME or BLA), nine were approved only in the EU, nine only in the US and 17 in both regions. For the EMA, the number represents the fewest NASs approved since 2011, while the FDA has not approved this few NMEs/BLAs since 2010. Big pharma represented 53% of the new drug approvals in 2016 vs 47% from small and medium sized pharma. For big pharma this is a decrease compared to previous years. Of all new products that received marketing approval in 2016, 30 products underwent special approval procedures like Conditional, Fast Track, Breakthrough, Accelerated Approval and Priority Review, 18 in the US, seven in EU and five in. In many cases more than one of these pathways was granted per product.

NDA Strategic Advisor and former Chief Exec of the EMA, Dr. Thomas Lonngren, as well as the company's Scientific Director, Dr. Markku Toivonen and the Director of NDA's Regulatory Advisory Board, Prof. Steffen Thirstrup will be present at DIA EuroMeeting together with a line-up of experts, and available to discuss these findings.

NDA staff can be found at booth C 10, 11 of the Congress Center and in the following presentations:

Shelley Gandhi & Bill Richardson - Ex MHRA Regulators

(Pre-Conference Short Course) Short Course 4 | Wed, 29th March - 09:00-12:30

Moving from Risk Management to Benefit / Risk Management - Embedding Pharmacovigilance Principles into the product life cycle

Dr Mira Pavlovic - HTA Expert, Session Chair

Session 0101 | Wed, 29th March - 16:30-18:00

Global dossier for clinical development

Prof. Steffen Thirstrup  Director NDA Regulatory Advisory Board  Session Chair

Session 0302 | Thurs, 30th March - 11:00-12:30

EU clinical trial regulation and its implications

Prof. Beatriz Silva Lima - Non clinical Expert

Session 1002 | Thurs, 30th March - 11:00-12:30

Optimising the development of paediatric medicines

Dr Markku Toivonen - Scientific Director & Medical Advisor - Session Chair

Paul Chamberlain - Biopharmaceutical Development & Immunology Specialist - Session Speaker

Session 0303 | Thurs, 30th March - 14:00-15:30

Immunogenicity assessment-risked-based approaches

For more about NDA's involvement with the 2017 DIA EuroMeeting, visit http://www.ndareg.com/meet-nda-at-the-dia-euromeeting-2017/.

To explore the full Status of New Drug Approvals for 2016 report, visit http://www.ndareg.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/NDA-Infographic-2016.pdf.

About NDA

NDA Group is a leading global drug development consultancy providing small as well as large, multi-national pharmaceutical companies with strategic advice and operational support to get good medicines to market and keep them there. Based in Boston, London, Munich, New Jersey, Stockholm and Zurich, NDA offers a range of professional drug development consulting services that spans from early development phase to lifecycle management of a medicinal product. These services span Development Strategy, Translational Science, Procedure & Submission Management, High-Stakes Meetings and Process Design & Optimisation. Clients are supported by a team of over 150 regulatory affairs, health technology assessment, pharmacovigilance, quality assurance and strategic communications professionals. Backing all major NDA projects is the unique NDA Advisory Board comprising industry experts, many of whom are ex- European Agency and FDA staff. Learn more at www.ndareg.com and follow them at www.linkedin.com/company/nda-group-ab.

About PharmApprove

The NDA PharmApprove team comprises leading strategic, regulatory, and scientific communications professionals. PharmApprove focuses on strategic and tactical support to companies facing high-profile, high-stakes events and engagements anywhere along the road to approval and commercialization  including FDA Advisory Committee meetings. PharmApprove helps clients win health authority approvals, deliver compelling regulatory communications, and make persuasive pharmacoeconomic arguments to payers and HTAs. Learn more at http://www.pharmapprove.com/ and follow them socially at twitter.com/pharmapprove.

Related Links

http://www.ndareg.com



SOURCE NDA Group
DUBLIN, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The new research portal has an extensive collection of company research on the Chevron Corporation, including in-depth analysis of their current market position and future outlook within the crude oil, gas and petroleum industries.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160330/349511LOGO )



Owing to decline in global crude oil prices, investments in oil & gas exploration and transportation declined over the last few years. However, with global crude oil prices stabilizing in 2016, expanding city gas distribution network and increasing digitization being witnessed in pipeline infrastructure, the global oil & gas pipeline market is expected to exhibit growth over the next five years. According to the Global Oil & Gas Pipeline Market, the market is projected to surpass $61 billion by 2022.

"The portal is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking information on Chevron Corporation and their activities in various industries. It provides quick, and easy access to information on their performance as a company and their overall impact on the market," says Ross Glover, CEO of Research and Markets.

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/companies/chevron-corporation?cid=d7qt63

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.

Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com

For E.S.T. Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716



SOURCE Research and Markets
DUBLIN, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The new research portal will provide visitors with unparalleled access to company research on Exxon Mobil, alongside comprehensive market research on their position within the global oil and gas industry.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160330/349511LOGO )



According to the Transmission Fluids Market - Global Forecast to 2021, the market is projected to reach USD 8.43 billion by 2021. There is an increase in the demand for automobiles and heavy machinery for construction in the emerging Asia-Pacific region and Middle Eastern & African markets which is leading to the growth of the overall transmission fluid market. The market is expected to grow at a nominal rate as the automotive market in North America is mature, which is also a major factor restraining the growth of the transmission fluids market.

"Exxon Mobil is a leading player within the transmission fluids market and the new portal provides easy access to information on their performance as a company and their impact on the overall oil and gas industry," says Ross Glover, CEO of Research and Markets.

For more information visit: http://www.researchandmarkets.com/companies/exxon-mobil-corp?cid=342jpr

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.

Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com

For E.S.T. Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716



SOURCE Research and Markets
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A travel firm building strong services and travel packages for the last two decades, Satguru Travel is marking its presence in the travel industry. The company assures end-to-end services for hassle-free vacations; services boasting of systematic planning, hotels and accommodation, corporate travel, car rentals, visa and insurance among others. Started in a small office in Kigali, Satguru Travel has grown to headquarter in Dubai and has established over 81 branches in 60 different countries with plans of further expansion.

Digging its roots deeper in the travel and tourism industry, Satguru Travel has committed itself in crafting exclusive packages and services for special events and fairs taking place in different countries.

The most recent were the packages especially created for Easter and Canton Fair. Satguru Travel offered its customers with exclusive Easter packages that enable them to celebrate Easter in various locations, namely Dubai, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Paris and Singapore. The packages ranged from basic to premium. Similarly for Canton Fair, exclusive packages were crafted for customers who wanted to attend the fair in China. Customers had a variety to choose from hotels, number of days to stay and exclusive pick and drop services.

The Regional Marketing Head Gaurav Saxena said, "We are working with the aim to provide customers with a large variety of options to choose from. Also we wish to take traveling standard to a new level to benefit our customers. We don't want to stay limited to some specific destinations, we want to cover a variety of places and provide exclusive packages and services for fairs, shows and more. We have some more product launches coming up soon."

The company is constantly improving and expanding its portfolio. The services include hotels and flight bookings, holiday packages, car rentals, chauffeur services, visa assistance and MICE. Portfolio will also find place for packages ranging from basic to premium travel packages. The extensive expert team will provide tailor-made packages to meet the demands of customers. Satguru Travel is also taking part in the latest technologies in the travel industry, to speed up the booking process and make it more convenient for the customer.

Customers will receive the benefit of choosing their specific itinerary from a wide range and also the benefit to get it tailor-made from the company. These transformations are being done keeping in mind the customers and their requirements, the services will be enhanced and polished to make them easier for customers.

Contact Information

Gaurav Saxena: Regional Marketing Head - Africa

Unit No.2101, 21st Floor, Business Tower By DAMMAC, Business Bay, Dubai - U.A.E

Tel: +91 7030050222

Email: gaurav.saxena@satgurutravel.com

http://www.satgurutravel.com

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qmupCeFn0I&t=1s

Related Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qmupCeFn0I

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com

Related Links

http://www.satgurutravel.com



SOURCE Satguru Travel
Easily publish Microsoft Office and other files for universal viewing via a browser

- One-click server deployment via AWS

- Easy integration with web apps via API

- Outputs Microsoft Office files as PDF, HTML, text, and image files

SEOUL, South Korea, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Thinkfree, a Hancom company, announced today the availability of Thinkfree DocsConverter on AWS Marketplace. Built to meet the needs of a wide range of organizations - including cloud service providers and web-based solution providers - DocsConverter quickly converts Microsoft Office documents to formats suitable for viewing on the web - including PDF, HTML, TXT, JPG, and PNG formats. Thinkfree DocsConverter has simple APIs that can be easily called from existing web and mobile applications to enable instantly-viewable documents.

The popularity of solutions built on AWS is expanding, and web service developers and SaaS providers need easy way to implement document conversion from proprietary formats - such as .docx, .xlsx, or pptx - to formats that anyone could view instantly in a web browser. Custom document conversion systems could be built using commercial or open-source desktop applications, but such systems are neither designed nor optimized to run in a server environment with stability and scalability. Thinkfree DocsConverter provides AWS customers with the ability to implement document conversion capabilities - with full control over scalability and security - into their services and workplaces with single click.

"The availability of Thinkfree DocsConverter on AWS Marketplace is a big step towards the idea of universal access to information," says Bruno Lowagie, Chief Strategy Officer of Thinkfree. "Information that mobile ISVs and service providers want to share - both internally and externally - but that until now has been locked up in proprietary document formats can now be published quickly and easily for universal consumption."

"Thinkfree DocsConverter makes it easy for our customers and partners to incorporate Office document conversion functionality into their infrastructures and solutions," says Steve Koliha, AWS Marketplace and Catalog Services, Amazon Web Services, Inc. "The Thinkfree DocsConverter server is available for immediate purchase and deployment in Marketplace."

Adds Bruno, "With Thinkfree DocsConverter on AWS, all the headaches previously associated with custom conversion systems are gone. Click. Deploy. Publish. It's that easy."

Product Availability and Pricing

Thinkfree DocsConverter is available today through the AWS Marketplace. Pricing varies by subscription terms and the underlying AWS instance types one selects. Visit the Thinkfree DocsConverter page on AWS Marketplace for information about server configurations and pricing.

Thinkfree customers who have already licensed DocsConverter but who would like to apply that license within AWS can take advantage of a customizable "bring your own license" option. Visit the Thinkfree DocsConverter (BYOL) page for information on customized licensing and pricing.

For more information on Thinkfree, visit www.thinkfree.com.

About Thinkfree

Thinkfree, a global brand of Hancom, has its headquarter in Seongnam, South Korea. Thinkfree has global offices in the US, Belgium and Australia. With investment of Hancom, Inc., South Korea's leading productivity software provider, Thinkfree is continuously growing and developing its technologies.

Thinkfree and Thinkfree Office are registered trademarks of Hancom, Inc. All other trademarks and/or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Media Contact:

Edward S. Coloma

Thinkfree, Inc.

(408) 313-7583

Email Contact: media@team.thinkfree.com

Related Links

http://www.thinkfree.com



SOURCE Thinkfree
Made for Mums is a parenting web site facilitated by a small group of journalists who are mostly mothers, who want to create a top online home for parents and caregivers. The team of experts tests hundreds of products each year to create the UK's biggest and most comprehensive parenting product reviews section.

"We are thrilled to get this recognition from such a prominent parenting site," says Brett Lacey, CEO of Puro Sound Labs. "Our headphones look, feel and sound great  and pass the safety test with flying colors. No wonder moms and parents everywhere love them."

The BT2200 model has volume-limiting capabilities that limit the volume to 85 decibels. This is the maximum safe listening level as recommended by the Hearing Health Foundation, the World Health Organization and the American Speech Pathology Association.

This award comes on the heels of another top honor: The BT2200 headphones were also named the safest and best headphones for kids through independent testing completed by The Wirecutter, a product recommendation site owned by the New York Times. More than 50 types of headphones were tested in the study.

From the Wirecutter article: "The Puro Sound headphones not only met our volume-limiting test standards but also were the only pair liked by both the toddlers and the big kids who helped us test. They support Bluetooth (which can provide more effective volume limiting than traditional headphone tech), but they also work corded (so you can use them with lots of devices), and they sound good enough for adults to use, too."

The article cites a recently released CDC study that concludes that noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is a significant, often unrecognized health problem among U.S. teens and adults. It also states that damage to hearing accumulates over time, so damage that occurs earlier in life has the potential to be more damaging as people age.

"Hearing loss is a growing epidemic for our youth, with one in five teens suffering from some form of hearing loss," says Puro Sounds Labs founder, Dave Russell. "The reason is exposure to unsafe levels of sound from their personal music players. This CDC study and others prove that we need to protect our kids' ears from an early age."

Puro Sound Labs started when founder Russell learned that his youngest daughter had developed NIHL due to excessive volume from her headphones. He pledged to create a safe solution for other kids. In 2014, Puro Sound Labs introduced the world's only studio-grade Bluetooth headphone that puts hearing safety first.

Puro Sound Labs has local distribution in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, New Zealand, Singapore and Australia, offering both children and adult models ranging from $29.99 to $149.99 USD. The BT2200 Bluetooth model comes in black, white, blue and purple.

Two other audio products round out the lineup. The IEM200, an in-ear studio grade headphone and the OEH200, an over the ear headphone, were developed specifically for schools and institutions to allow for the safest listening experience at a lower cost.

For more information visit: www.purosound.com.

Contact:

Erin Mathe

Media Relations Manager

Cell: 952-261-8148

erin.mathe@gmail.com

Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/483391/Puro_Sound_Labs_Blue_headphones.jpg

Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/483415/Puro_Logo.jpg

Related Links

https://www.purosound.com



SOURCE Puro Sound Labs
TEL AVIV, Israel, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Globally recognized SoM design and manufacture company, Variscite, announces extensions to its popular DART-6UL platform this month. New configurations will support 696MHz Cortex-A7 speed grade and the low-power i.MX 6ULL variants. Measuring only 25 mm x 50 mm, this highly optimized cost and power platform is commonly used in fast emerging applications, such as the Internet-of-Things. The DART-6UL accommodates the rapidly growing network of connected objects from smart homes, to wearables and white goods, as well as many other portable and battery operated embedded systems.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20131119/653802 )



(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/482122/Variscite_DART_6UL.jpg )



Introducing the enhanced 696MHz processor speed grade and the 6ULL variants enables Variscite to further optimize its SoM offering to customers in various embedded segments. A wide range of interfaces, fully certified WiFi/BT connectivity, low size and low power can all be satisfied within a very attractive price range - starting from only 24USD.

The DART-6UL offers full -40 to 85oC temperature range and 15-year longevity commitment, thus making it an ideal solution for industrial-grade embedded applications.



Variscite's production-ready software suit for the DART-6UL, covering Linux Yocto, Linux Debian and Android, delivers an all-inclusive solution, significantly easing development efforts and shortening time-to-market.

DART-6UL key features include:

Small size: 25 mm x 50 mm x 4 mm

NXP i.MX 6UltraLite and 6ULL 528MHz/696MHz ARM Cortex-A7 with optional security features

Up to 512 MB DDR3L and 512 MB NAND / 32 GB eMMC

Certified Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n

Bluetooth 4.1/BLE

Dual 10/100Mbps Ethernet

2D Pixel acceleration engine

Display: 24-bit parallel RGB up to WXGA

Touchscreen controller

Dual USB 2.0 OTG (Host/Device)

Audio In/Out

Dual CAN, UART, I2C, SPI, PWM, ADC

Parallel camera input

Industrial temperature grade

OS: Linux Yocto, Linux Debian, Android

Availability and pricing:

The DART-6UL SoM and associated development kits are available now for orders in production quantities, starting at only 24 USD per unit.

About Variscite:

Variscite is a leading System on Modules (SoM) and Single-Board-Computer (SBC) design and manufacture company. A trusted provider of development and production services for a variety of embedded platforms, Variscite transforms clients' visions into successful products.

Learn more about Variscite, visit Variscite's website

Email sales@variscite.com or call +972-9-9562910 for more information

SOURCE Variscite
In 2017, Dow will support 42 Habitat projects in 19 countries through employee volunteerism, product donations and financial support. Dow has committed more than $1.4 million to support these projects and more than 2,000 employees are anticipated to volunteer building homes alongside future homeowners.

"We are so grateful for partners like Dow. Their multi-dimensional relationship with Habitat  from products to people to expertise  benefits families and communities in countless ways," said Jonathan Reckford, CEO, Habitat for Humanity International. "Amazing things happen worldwide when partners want to make a positive difference in the lives of their employees, in the communities where they operate and serve, and around the globe."

For the first time, Dow will support Habitat builds in the Republic of the Union of Myanmar by donating water filtration systems in the towns of Thanatpin and Dala, where 28 percent of homes get their drinking water from unsafe sources. In another build in Tenjo, Colombia, Dow will pilot a project where its polyurethane materials will be used in PVC panels to build walls. In addition to building a home, volunteers in South Africa will use soap containing Dow technology in an educational campaign to reinforce the importance of hand-washing to help curb the spread of infectious diseases.

With the addition of Myanmar, Dow will raise the number of countries where the company partners with Habitat to 33.

"Our Habitat collaboration gives us an opportunity to demonstrate the ways Dow can use the passion and talents of our people to help transform society at the intersection of sustainability, innovation and citizenship," said Rob Vallentine, director of Dow Global Citizenship and president of The Dow Chemical Company Foundation. "We are thrilled that our partnership continues to bring value to individuals and families in our communities and around the world, and look forward to another year of collaboration with Habitat, our employees, customers and businesses to enable affordable, sustainable housing."

As Habitat's national insulation partner, $4 million of Dow Building Solutions gift-in-kind product donations including STYROFOAM Brand XPS Insulation, GREAT STUFF and GREAT STUFF PRO Insulating Foam Sealants and WEATHERMATE Housewrap will be used on home builds throughout the U.S. and Canada to help build strength, stability and self-reliance through shelter. These products were provided to 3,179 homes last year, offering energy efficiency and comfort to Habitat homeowners.

In addition, Dow employee volunteers and product contributions will be part of the 34th Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project, July 9-14, 2017, at locations across Canada, helping 150 families access affordable homeownership.

About Habitat for Humanity

Driven by the vision that everyone needs a decent place to live, Habitat for Humanity began in 1976 as a grassroots effort on a community farm in southern Georgia. The Christian housing organization has since grown to become a leading global nonprofit working in nearly 1,400 communities throughout the U.S. and in more than 70 countries. Families and individuals in need of a hand up partner with Habitat for Humanity to build or improve a place they can call home. Habitat homeowners help build their own homes alongside volunteers and pay an affordable mortgage. Through financial support, volunteering or adding a voice to support affordable housing, everyone can help families achieve the strength, stability and self-reliance they need to build better lives for themselves. Through shelter, we empower. To learn more, visit habitat.org.

About Dow

Dow (NYSE: DOW) combines the power of science and technology to passionately innovate what is essential to human progress. The Company is driving innovations that extract value from material, polymer, chemical and biological science to help address many of the world's most challenging problems, such as the need for fresh food, safer and more sustainable transportation, clean water, energy efficiency, more durable infrastructure, and increasing agricultural productivity. Dow's integrated, market-driven portfolio delivers a broad range of technology-based products and solutions to customers in 175 countries and in high-growth sectors such as packaging, infrastructure, transportation, consumer care, electronics, and agriculture. In 2016, Dow had annual sales of $48 billion and employed approximately 56,000 people worldwide. The Company's more than 7,000 product families are manufactured at 189 sites in 34 countries across the globe. References to "Dow" or the "Company" mean The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries unless otherwise expressly noted. More information about Dow can be found at www.dow.com.

SOURCE Habitat for Humanity International

Related Links

http://www.habitat.org


SEA OF GALILEE, Israel, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The state of Israel, in an unprecedented decision, has allocated a radio broadcast frequency to an American Christian evangelical radio network that will broadcast messages of hope and peace to the people in Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus and Jordan and expanded night-time coverage into Turkey and Egypt. This is the first time a Christian broadcast frequency has been granted in Israel and the first domestic radio station with international purpose.

Israel's Minister of Communication, Tzachi Hanegbi and John Tayloe, Founder and President, Strategic Communications Group (VOICE OF HOPE).

The VOICE OF HOPE  AM 1287 broadcasts in Arabic and some English to the Arab population, much of which is in a dire situation in the countries surrounding Israel and who are under religious persecution in Syria.

The radio station is a continuation of the VOICE OF HOPE, which was established in 1979 by Christian businessman George Otis, and which broadcast until 2000. The new VOICE OF HOPE is owned and operated by Strategic Communications Group, a global Christian Evangelical radio network with radio stations reaching Latin America and Africa.

"I am excited that this powerful Christian radio station was licensed by the State of Israel to deliver a message of hope and encouragement to the people of the Middle East. The Voice of Hope is established in support of Christians of the Middle East and is a gift of love from Christians in the United States and Canada." - John Tayloe, Founder and President.

The VOICE OF HOPE was inaugurated this week in the presence of Israel's Minister of Communication, Tzachi Hanegbi who said, "This radio station exemplifies the deep connection and unique bond that Israel has with the American people and between Jews and Christians. We are certain that the message of hope that will be brought by the station will be an uplifting tool and a benefit to our neighbors. The State of Israel supports any message of peace to the people in neighboring countries and this is why we decided to support the reestablishment of the Voice of Hope."

The VOICE OF HOPE broadcast studios are located on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Israel. The programming will include Christian Arabic presenters, Arabic Christian music, news, education, drama and inspirational messages.

For interviews contact: John D. Tayloe

Title: Founder and President

Organization: Strategic Communications Group

Voice of Hope Radio Network

Tel: +1 805-338-0075

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.voiceofhope.com

SOURCE Strategic Communications Group

Related Links

http://www.voiceofhope.com


PHILADELPHIA, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Aberdeen Singapore Fund, Inc. (the "Fund") (NYSE: SGF), a closed-end equity fund, announced today Martin Gruber has resigned as a Director of the Fund. Mr. Gruber served on the Fund as both a Director and member of the Audit Committee since 2000.

The Board would like to extend their sincere gratitude to Mr. Gruber and acknowledge the invaluable contribution he has made to the Fund during his tenure and wish him the best of success in all his future endeavors.

Important Information

Closed-end funds are traded on the secondary market through one of the stock exchanges. The Fund's investment return and principal value will fluctuate so that an investor's shares may be worth more or less than the original cost. Shares of closed-end funds may trade above (a premium) or below (a discount) the net asset value (NAV) of the fund's portfolio. There is no assurance that the Fund will achieve its investment objective.



If you wish to receive this information electronically, please contact: [email protected]

aberdeensgf.com

SOURCE Aberdeen Singapore Fund, Inc.
SAN RAMON, Calif., March 27, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Accela, the leading provider of cloud-based productivity and civic engagement solutions for government, today announced the appointment of Ed Daihl as Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Effective immediately, Daihl will join Accela's executive team to lead the next phase of growth for the company. Mark Jung, former acting CEO and Chairman, will remain with Accela as Executive Chairman to help focus on strategic growth opportunities for Accela's market leading cloud platform.

"Last August, when I accepted the role of acting CEO in addition to serving as Accela's Chairman, it was with the intention to identify a seasoned leader with a passion for transforming government, to take Accela to the next level. I have every confidence we have found that person in Ed Daihl," said Mark Jung, Executive Chairman of Accela.

As CEO, Ed Daihl brings four decades of government, SaaS and systems integration experience to Accela. Most recently, Daihl served as Senior Vice President for Epicor, where he managed a P&L of ERP and retail software solutions spanning 5,000+ clients in 11 international markets. From 2006 to 2014, Daihl served as CEO for Surgical Information Systems (SIS), a leading provider of software solutions for the healthcare industry. Following SIS' spinout from Jackson Health Care, Daihl led the release of numerous new product lines that enabled substantial revenue growth for the company, as well as significant reduction in implementation time and complexity for SIS' customers. Previously, he also served in various executive positions at Manugistics, CAPS Logistics, BaaN Supply Chain and MCI/WorldCom/EDS. Daihl holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Data Processing from the University of Baltimore.

"We have reached a technology crossroads in government; one where the adoption of the right solutions will impact citizen satisfaction, as well as the financial success and internal productivity of governments of all sizes," said Ed Daihl, CEO of Accela. "With a personal passion for improving civic engagement through technology, I've closely followed Accela's innovations in the government sector for quite some time. I'm thrilled to assume the role of CEO, and look forward to working with the company's employees and customers to realize our joint vision and growth potential."

To learn more about Accela and the Civic Platform, visit www.accela.com.

About Accela

Accela provides a platform of cloud-based productivity and civic engagement software to governments of all sizes. The Accela Civic Platform includes solutions to cost-effectively manage critical enterprise functions and mobile apps to foster greater citizen engagement. From asset, land and legislative management to licensing, finance, environmental health and more, Accela's software drives efficiency for approximately 2,200 governments and is accessible to more than 160 million citizens worldwide. More than 80% of America's 50 largest cities have implemented at least one of Accela's many solutions. In 2017, the Company was named to Government Technology's GovTech100 for the second straight year. In 2016, it was ranked as one of Inc. Magazine's Fastest-Growing Private Companies in America, listed as a Top 50 Private Company in the East Bay by SF Business Times, named one of the 50 Highest Rated Private Cloud Companies to Work For, and designated a Certified Great Workplace by independent analysts at Great Place to Work. Accela is headquartered in San Ramon, California, with offices in New York, Boston, Portland, Salt Lake City, Melbourne and Dubai. For more information, visit www.accela.com.

Media Contact:

Rachel Fukaya

Barokas PR for Accela

(831) 229-5761

[email protected]

SOURCE Accela

Related Links

http://www.accela.com


"I hope that by visiting my elected representatives on Wednesday that I can encourage them to help the people of Ohio get the resources we need to bring real suicide prevention to our community," said Heather Conroy, AFSP volunteer advocate . Ms. Conroy lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, and became involved with suicide prevention in 2013 when she lost her nephew, Braden Johnson to suicide.

Health Professionals Training

Health professionals regularly encounter patients who are suicidal. According to a study published in the Annuals of Psychiatry, in the month prior to their death, 45 percent of people who die by suicide had contact with a primary care physician, and 19 percent had contact with mental health services. In the year prior to their death, 77 percent of people who die by suicide had contact with a primary care physician, and 32 percent had contact with mental health services. But there is not a mandatory suicide prevention training session that health professionals are required to attend, so they are left untrained in how to deal with people who are suicidal. Six states currently require this training via statute including Kentucky, New Hampshire, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Washington and Utah.

College Campus Mandates

Life-saving information, such as improving access to crisis intervention hotlines or text services, the availability of mental health programs and services, and suicide prevention resources both on and off campus, could be made easily accessible by all college and university students, faculty and staff. Schools could also improve communication standards and a protocol for support of students, faculty and staff following a suicide death on campus. If schools were more transparent about mental health services they offer, it would reduce the fear and misinformation surrounding mental health and reinforce help-seeking behavior.

This is the third time advocates from AFSP have visited Columbus. Ms. Conroy is part of a larger national contingent of AFSP volunteer advocates who will be visiting 35 state capitols across the United States in the spring of 2017 to bring best practices in suicide prevention to state legislators and their staff.

Suicide in Ohio

Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death overall in Ohio. For people aged 15-34 in Ohio, it is the second leading cause of death. For those aged 10-14, it is the fourth leading cause of death. More than twice as many people die by suicide in Ohio than by homicide.

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is dedicated to saving lives and bringing hope to those affected by suicide. AFSP creates a culture that's smart about mental health through education and community programs, develops suicide prevention through research and advocacy, and provides support for those affected by suicide. Led by CEO Robert Gebbia and headquartered in New York, AFSP has local chapters in all 50 states with programs and events nationwide. AFSP celebrates 30 years of service to the suicide prevention movement. Learn more about AFSP in its latest Annual Report, and join the conversation on suicide prevention by following AFSP on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

SOURCE American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

Related Links

http://www.afsp.org


MIAMI, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The investment firm, Alexander Alternative Capital, is pleased to announce founder Michael Corcelli is featured on the cover of the March 2017 South Florida Business & Wealth Magazine.

As the lead commentator for the cover article entitled, "More Than a Dream, Hedge Funds & Other alternative investment firms flood into Florida," Corcelli notes that fund managers based in the Northeast, California, Europe, and Latin America are increasingly finding Florida as an attractive location for bases of operations or satellite offices.

Michael Corcelli Leading the Alternative Investment Wave. "More Than a Dream, Hedge Funds & Other alternative investment firms flood into South Florida."

"The number of firms in our association has doubled in the last three years," Corcelli told the magazine. "And so have assets under management."

The article cites Newlink Group of Miami, which calculates that Florida is now the home to more than 200 family offices, almost 20 private equity firms and more than 50 hedge funds.

In the article, Corcelli notes that there are multiple factors that have made Florida attractive to hedge fund and money management firms.

Florida's "friendly tax environment (no personal income tax and estate tax).

"friendly tax environment (no personal income tax and estate tax). The low cost of office space when compare to larger metropolitan areas such as New York .

. A large number of wealthy retirees and "snowbirds" or seasonal residents who live in Florida .

Since 2007, Corcelli, who is the founder of the Florida Alternative Investment Association, has worked tirelessly to market Florida as a highly desirable location for the alternative investment industry. He has also served as a point man for firms expressing interest in learning more about the advantages the state has to offer.

Nanette Aguirre, a shareholder at the law firm of Greenberg Traurig, a specialist in derivatives contracts and a board member of FLAIA, told South Florida Business & Wealth that the trend toward Florida started with the federal Dodd-Frank reforms after the financial crisis. She said taxes for managers can be much lower for those domiciled in Florida.

For further information about Florida's investment climate for money managers, contact Michael Corcelli, 786-574-5165; or [email protected].

ABOUT Michael Corcelli:

Michael Corcelli is the Chief Investment Officer of Alexander Alternative Capital, a global asset manager since 2006. Corcelli is the founder of the Florida Alternative Investment Association (FLAIA).

ABOUT FLAIA

Founded in 2007, the Florida Alternative Investment Association is an exclusive not-for-profit trade association, dedicated to informing and uniting the growing population of Florida's Alternative Investment cluster. For more information, visit http://flaia.org/

SOURCE Alexander Alternative Capital GP, LLC
BRIDGEWATER, N.J., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Amneal Biosciences has launched levoleucovorin for injection, an AP-rated generic equivalent to Fusilev, in 50 mg strength. Each 50 mg single-dose vial contains a sterile lyophilized powder consisting of levoleucovorin calcium mixed hydrates (equivalent to 50 mg levoleucovorin) and 50 mg mannitol. The product is latex- and preservative-free. It was approved on February 13, 2017 and is now available through wholesalers, distributors and directly to the trade.

Levoleucovorin for injection is the fifth parenteral medication in the market from Amneal Biosciences following eptifibatide, meropenem, fosphenytoin, furosemide and methylprednisolone sodium succinate. The subsidiary also markets oral solids such as temozolomide capsules for the institutional market.

Annual U.S. sales of Fusilev were $51 million according to December 2016 IMS market data.

Visit https://prd02.apsiva.net/210/GenericCategory/LevoleucovorinforInjection-pi.pdf to view full prescribing information for levoleucovorin for injection.

Amneal Biosciences, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amneal Pharmaceuticals LLC, is dedicated to the commercialization of high-barrier-to-entry generic and specialty pharmaceuticals such as injectables, oncologics, anti-infectives and support care for healthcare providers and patients of all ages. The company's expertise and focus on the unique needs and logistics of this market ensure the same level of quality and service for healthcare institutions and professionals that Amneal delivers to its retail customers.

About Amneal

Amneal Biosciences is a wholly owned subsidiary of Amneal Pharmaceuticals LLC, a privately-held company headquartered in Bridgewater, New Jersey. Amneal Pharmaceuticals is one of the largest and fastest growing generic pharmaceutical manufacturers in the United States. Founded in 2002, Amneal now has more than 4,000 employees in its operations in North America, Asia, Australia and Europe, working together to bring high-quality, affordable medicines to patients worldwide. Amneal has significantly expanded its portfolio of generic products to include complex dosage forms in a broad range of therapeutic areas.

All trademarks listed in this release are property of their respective owners.

CONTACTS:





John Niemi (sales) Cheryl Lechok (media) Vice President, Sales President, Cheryl Lechok Communications Amneal Biosciences Dir: 203.961.9280 [email protected] [email protected]

SOURCE Amneal Biosciences

Related Links

http://www.amneal.com/biosciences


SAN FRANCISCO, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Anaplan, a leading platform provider driving a new age of connected planning, today revealed new branding at Hub17, the company's annual global user conference. "This new, versatile, and modern brand identity is more reflective of the successful cutting-edge organization we are," said Anaplan Chief Marketing Officer Grant Halloran.

The centerpiece of the new visual identity is a powerful logotype with the letter A, rendered at an angled perspective. The logotype illustrates a key differentiator of the Anaplan platform. "Anaplan's flexible planning platform addresses a huge range of business planning use cases," Halloran explained. "All of our customers use the same software platform, but each of them has their own outlook and perspective on Anaplan. It's one platform with unlimited possibilities."

The new brand architecture includes logos, a color palette, typography, and other imagery, and applies to every facet of Anaplan, including digital properties, collateral, offices, and the Anaplan platform itself. Anaplan's rebranding effort was led by Anaplan's Creative Director, Alvin Perry, and executed by the company's in-house design team.

Today, Anaplan also announced innovations that are driving a new age of connected planning at Hub17. Industry visionaries, leaders, and experts, as well as people looking to be inspired, are gathering at Hub17 through March 29 in San Francisco to share the vision of connection. Visit the Hub17 site to learn more.

About Anaplan

Anaplan is driving a new age of connected planning. Large and fast-growing organizations use Anaplan's cloud platform in every business function to make informed decisions and drive faster, more effective planning processes. Anaplan also provides support, training, and planning transformation advisory services. Anaplan is a privately held company based in San Francisco with 16 offices and over 150 expert partners worldwide. To learn more, visit anaplan.com.

SOURCE Anaplan

Related Links

http://www.anaplan.com


LONDON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Forecasts by Vehicle Type (Passenger Car, LCV, HCV, Two Wheeler) by Product Type, (Radial, Bias) by Type of Sale (Replacement, OEM), by Tire Aspect Ratio (<60, 60-70, >70) and by Geography (North America, Europe, APAC, LAMEA) Plus Analysis of Top Companies

Visiongain assesses that the worldwide automotive tire market will achieve a value of $219bn in 2017. The global automotive tire market is of course strongly correlated with the production and sales of vehicles including two wheeler, passenger car, heavy vehicle and other commercial vehicles.

However total mileage per vehicle, especially amongst transport & logistics companies is increasing, thus increasing the attractiveness of tire retreading, which impacts upon the sale of new replacement tires. Furthermore, the raw materials required for automotive tire manufacturing are crude derivatives therefore linked to crude oil prices. Crude oil prices have fallen in recent years worldwide. Therefore, prices of synthetic rubber and other crude derivatives used in the manufacturing of tires are expected to rise in the coming years, which could impact the global tire market.

Visiongain's automotive tire report keeps you informed of these factors and ahead of your competitors. Gain that competitive advantage.

5 Reasons why you must order and read this report today:

1) The report provides detailed profiles of 10 leading automotive tire companies

- Bridgestone Corporation

- Continental AG

- Cooper Tire and Rubber Company

- Hankook Tire

- Michelin

- Pirelli & C.S.p.A

- Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd.

- The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company

- Toyo Tire

- Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd.

To see a report overview, please email Sara Peerun on [email protected]

2) The study reveals where the demand is for automotive tires. We show you the prospects for the following regions:

North America Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- US Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Canada Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Mexico Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

Europe Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Germany Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- UK Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- France Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Russia Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Italy Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Rest of Europe Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

APAC Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- China Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- India Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Japan Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- South Korea Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Australia Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Rest of APAC Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

LAMEA Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Brazil Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Argentina Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Saudi Arabia Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- UAE Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- South Africa Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Egypt Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Rest of LAMEA Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

3) Our analysis forecasts the automotive tire market by vehicle type from 2017-2027

- Passenger Car Tire Market 2017-2027

- LCV Tire Market 2017-2027

- HCV Tire Market 2017-2027

- Two Wheeler Tire Market 2017-2027

4) Our overview also forecasts and analyses the automotive tire market by product type from 2017-2027

- Radial Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- Bias Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

5) Our study also forecasts and analyses the automotive tire market by tire aspect ratio from 2017-2027

- <60 Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- 60-70 Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

- >70 Automotive Tire Market 2017-2027

Competitive advantage

This independent 165 page report guarantees you are better informed than your competitors. With 155 tables and figures examining the automotive tire market space, plus analysis, from 2017-2027 keeping your knowledge that one step ahead of your rivals.

Who should read this report?

 Anyone within the automotive industry

 Automotive OEM's.

 Tire manufacturers

 Re-treading companies

 Raw material suppliers

 Car servicing companies

 Automotive component suppliers

 Transport & logistics companies

 Companies looking to enter this market

 R&D Scientists & Technologists

 NPD specialists

 Petrochemical companies

And also

 Analysts

 Consultants

 Executives

 Investors

 Business development managers

 Marketing managers

 Banks

 Industry associations

 Government agencies

This report answers questions such as:

 What are the prospects for the overall automotive tire industry?

 Which automotive tire segments have the most promising growth prospects?

 Where are the greatest regional automotive tire opportunities?

 Who are the key players in the automotive tire industry?

 What are the demand and supply dynamics underpinning the automotive tire sector?

 How consolidated is the sector amongst the automotive tire industry players?

Don't miss out

This report is essential reading for you or anyone in the automotive sector with an interest in automotive tires. Purchasing this report today helps you to recognise those important market opportunities and understand the possibilities there. Order the Automotive Tire Market Report 2017-2027: Forecasts by Vehicle Type (Passenger Car, LCV, HCV, Two Wheeler) by Product Type, (Radial, Bias) by Type of Sale (Replacement, OEM), by Tire Aspect Ratio (<60, 60-70, >70) and by Geography (North America, Europe, APAC, LAMEA) Plus Analysis of Top Companies report now. Get our new report now.

To request a report overview of this report, please email Sara Peerun at [email protected] or call Tel: +44-(0)-20-7336-6100

Or click on https://www.visiongain.com/Report/1826/Automotive-Tire-Market-Report-2017-2027bn

Companies & Organisations Mentioned

Aircraft Service International Group

Alliance Tire Group

Apollo

Audi

Avon

BFGoodrich

Big Easy Motors

BMW

Bridgestone

Chrysler Canada Inc.

Continental AG

Continental Corporation

Cooper Tire and Rubber Company

Dunlop

Dupont

Euromaster

European Automotive Manufacturing Association

Falken

FCA

Firestone Tire & Rubber Company

Fuji Heavy Industries

Fulda

General Motors

General Tyre & Rubber Company of Pakistan

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company

Hankook

Haq Tyres & Rubber Industries

Honda

Hyundai

Isuzu

JK Tire and Industries Ltd

Johnson Controls Inc.

Kenda Rubber Industrial Company

Kumho tires

Lanxess

Lexus

Magna International Inc.

Martinrea International Inc.

Maxxis

Mercedes Benz

Mexican Automotive Industry Association

Michelin Group

MRF Limited

Nankang Rubber Tire

Nexen Tire

Nissan

Nokian Tyres Group

PanAridus

Petlas Tire Industry abd Trade co.

Pirelli

Qingdao Ge Rui Da Rubber Co. Ltd.(GRT) GRT

Rosneft

Sascar

Saudi Arabian Standards Organization (SASO).

Scania

Scantyre AB

Subaru

Sumitomo Rubber Industries

Tata Motors

TCI

Tesla

The Bridgestone Group

Toyo Tire and Rubber Co., Ltd.

Toyota

Trenco Transport and Engineering Co

TVS Tyres

U.S. Department of Transportation

U.S. Energy Information Administration

Volkswagen

Vredestein

Yokohama Tire Corporation

To see a report overview, please email Sara Peerun on [email protected]

SOURCE Visiongain Ltd
WELLESLEY, Mass., March 28, 2017 Newswise -- Entrepreneur and international business leader Harry Susilo has been honored by Babson College with induction into the Academy Of Distinguished Entrepreneurs during ceremonies at Babson Connect: Worldwide Entrepreneurial Summit in Thailand on March 25, 2017.

Established in 1978 by Babson College, the Academy Of Distinguished Entrepreneurs is the world's first entrepreneurship hall of fame. It includes more than 100 notable business figures such as Robert Kraft H'02, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of the Kraft Group; Ray A. Kroc, former CEO of McDonalds; Richard Branson, Chairman of the Virgin Group; and Steve Forbes, President and Chief Executive Officer of Forbes.

"Babson College is pleased to induct an extraordinary business leader and entrepreneur, Harry Susilo, into the Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs," said Babson President Kerry Healey. "Mr. Susilo is a valued member of our Babson community and an exceptional global leader. He exemplifies Babson's vision of entrepreneurship as a force for positive change and joins an accomplished roster of academy members who have created millions of jobs and improved societies around the world."

Harry Susilo

Harry Susilo, PBM is the founder of the Sekar Group of Companies, an Indonesian based international conglomerate whose core business is in food production but also has significant interests in property and mining.

He started his company in 1966, as a small fishing operation in a poor rural village in East Java. Gradually building the company up over 50 years, it now employs around 20,000 people and exports its products worldwide. The Group's FINNA brand is a household name in populous Indonesia.

He is a strong advocate of business being more effective when adopting a "win-win" philosophy so that all parties benefit. In this way Harry's businesses' have contributed to improving the lives of over 400,000 people.

The Groups' contribution to Indonesia and its local community, is recognized through the government commissioned Jayandaru monument in their hometown of Sidoarjo.

An active supporter of international trade, he and has represented Indonesia and Singapore as part of numerous trade delegations, including to the USA, China and Europe. He is also a regular attendee of the China Overseas Exchange Association and the Sichuan Provincial Overseas Exchange Association.

He is a firm believer in pedagogical causes and has sponsored the building of educational facilities in the USA, China and Indonesia. He has served on advisory boards at Boston University, Babson College and the Beijing Language and Cultural University. He is the founder and benefactor of the Harry Susilo Institute for Ethics in the Global Economy at Boston University's Questrom School of Business.

He is active in social advancement programs and in 2015 was awarded Singapore's Public Service Medal (PBM), the highest honor given by the President, for contributions to Singapore's society and outstanding public service.

He is Chinese, born in Indonesia. His eldest daughter Finna attended Babson College and graduated Magna Cum Laude with double majors in Entrepreneurship and Economics. He has an honorary degree from Babson and now lives in Singapore.

About Babson Connect: Worldwide

The third annual Babson Connect: Worldwide (BCW) took place in Bangkok, Thailand March 24-26, 2017. This premier global business summit featured prominent entrepreneurs and international business leaders from the region, as well as Babson alumni, faculty, parents, administrators, and friends discussing and celebrating Entrepreneurship of All Kinds.

About Babson College

Babson College is the educator, convener, and thought leader for Entrepreneurship of All Kinds. The top-ranked college for entrepreneurship education, Babson is a dynamic living and learning laboratory where students, faculty, and staff work together to address the real-world problems of business and society. We prepare the entrepreneurial leaders our world needs most: those with strong functional knowledge and the skills and vision to navigate change, accommodate ambiguity, surmount complexity, and motivate teams in a common purpose to make a difference in the world, and have an impact on organizations of all sizes and types. As we have for nearly a half-century, Babson continues to advance Entrepreneurial Thought & Action as the most positive force on the planet for generating sustainable economic and social value. Visit www.babson.edu

Provided by Newswise, online resource for knowledge-based news at www.newswise.com

Contact: Michael Chmura, 781-239-4549, [email protected]

SOURCE Babson College

Related Links

http://www.babson.edu


WASHINGTON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Just in time for families making spring travel plans, Amtrak is collaborating with DreamWorks Animation on the release of its animated family comedy The Boss Baby to promote Amtrak's year-round discount of 50 percent off travel for kids ages 12 and under on board Amtrak trains nationwide. Children under the age of two ride free.

"Amtrak and DreamWorks Animation share a long history of connecting families and enriching their experiences so teaming up for The Boss Baby was a natural fit," said Jason Molfetas, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Business Development. "Whether playing games on board, enjoying a snack in the cafe or dining car, or taking a moment to enjoy the scenery out the window, we offer families and kids the opportunity to be the boss of fun and affordable Amtrak adventures."

The Boss Baby, which opens nationwide in theaters March 31 by 20th Century Fox, is about how a young boy's life is turned upside down when his parents bring home a new suit-wearing, briefcase-carrying, sarcastic baby brother. The film features an all-star voice cast including Alec Baldwin (The Boss Baby Templeton), Jimmy Kimmel and Lisa Kudrow (Ted and Janice Templeton), Steve Buscemi (Francis E. Francis), Miles Bakshi (young Tim Templeton), and Tobey Maguire (adult Tim Templeton). The film is directed by Tom McGrath, who co-directed the 2005 comedy Madagascar and its sequels, and was written by Michael McCullers (based on the award-winning picture book by Marla Frazee) and produced by Ramsey Ann Naito.

Kids can also enjoy The Boss Baby activity sheets now available in Amtrak stations across the country as well as aboard Acela Express trains and other trains operating on the Northeast Corridor.

With affordable and convenient travel to more than 500 destinations including national parks, monuments, historic sites and other popular family-friendly locations, America's Railroad is the smarter way for families and kids to travel. Plus, parents don't have to worry about the hassles of baggage fees or traffic stops.

To learn more about Amtrak's 50 percent off discount for kids, visit Amtrak.com/TheBossBaby or call 1-800-USA-RAIL.

About Amtrak

Amtrak  America's Railroad  is dedicated to safe and reliable mobility as the nation's intercity passenger rail service provider and its high-speed rail operator. With our state and commuter partners, we move people, the economy and the nation forward, carrying more than 30 million Amtrak passengers for each of the past six years. Formally known as the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Amtrak is governed by a 10-member board of directors, nine of whom are appointed by the President of the United States plus the Amtrak CEO. Anthony R. Coscia is board chairman and Jeffrey R. Moreland is vice chairman. Amtrak operates more than 300 trains daily  at speeds up to 150 mph (241 kph)  connecting more than 500 destinations in 46 states, the District of Columbia and three Canadian Provinces. Learn more at Amtrak.com or call 800-USA-RAIL for schedules, fares and other information. Check us out at blog.Amtrak.com, Like us on Facebook.com and Follow us on Twitter @Amtrak.

SOURCE Amtrak

Related Links

http://www.amtrak.com


NEW YORK, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced What Works Cities Certification, a new effort which will publicly recognize the municipal governments that most effectively use data to allocate resources and improve residents' lives. A team of national experts will assess each city's data practices, and then award cities with a "platinum," "gold" or "silver" certification status for achieving excellence in applying data to how they govern. Like a Good Housekeeping Seal or ENERGY STAR rating for data-driven governance, What Works Cities Certification will provide cities with a new, rigorous benchmark to assess their own practices against.

What Works Cities Certification extends the impact of Bloomberg Philanthropies' existing What Works Cities initiative, which has already helped more than 75 American cities better understand their cities' data and use the insights to improve citizen life. What Works Cities Certification will be open to all cities in the United States with 30,000 or more residents. Certified cities will be announced annually and any cities that do not initially qualify can reapply every other year. Cities are invited to express interest starting today at whatworkscities.bloomberg.org/certification.

"Mayors are eager to find new ways to put data to work on all the big challenges we face  and that's why we created the What Works Cities program," said Michael R. Bloomberg, the former three-term mayor of New York City. "What Works Cities is helping cities use data to save money, time, and resources  and it is producing powerful results across the country."

Leading experts from more than a dozen organizations that support cities  including Code for America, the National League of Cities and the Ash Center at the Harvard Kennedy School  have endorsed and lent their knowledge and experience to What Works Cities Certification, and will be involved in the assessment of certified cities.

"I'm excited to see What Works Cities Certification help all cities improve by providing workable models for outcomes-focused government," said Jennifer Pahlka, founder and Executive Director of Code for America. "Standards can be transformative for local government, especially when married with helpful guidance on how to meet those standards."

"There hasn't been a national standard setting a bar for excellence for this method of governing," said Clarence Anthony, CEO and Executive Director of the National League of Cities. "What Works Cities Certification has created this standard. I'm optimistic that this roadmap for success will improve outcomes in our cities, and we are looking forward to working with What Works Cities to support data-driven decision-making."

The Certification program will build on the success of participating cities, which are using performance management, open data, performance-based contracting and behavioral insights to deliver better results for their residents.

The program was announced at the second annual What Works Cities Summit, which is convening more than 350 city leaders and experts in the field. At the event, Bloomberg Philanthropies also announced that ten new cities have been selected to join What Works Cities, bringing the initiative to a total of 77 cities, more than three quarters of the way toward its goal of 100 cities.

About Bloomberg Philanthropies:

Bloomberg Philanthropies works in more than 400 cities around the world to ensure better, longer lives for the greatest number of people. The organization focuses on five key areas for creating lasting change: Arts, Education, Environment, Government Innovation and Public Health. Bloomberg Philanthropies encompasses all of Michael R. Bloomberg's charitable activities, including his foundation and his personal giving. In 2016, Bloomberg Philanthropies distributed over half a billion dollars. For more information, please visit bloomberg.org.

About What Works Cities:

What Work Cities, launched in April 2015, is one of the largest-ever philanthropic efforts to enhance cities' use of data and evidence. Through the initiative's expert partners, which are providing technical assistance to 100 cities on a rolling basis through 2018, cities around the country are receiving support, guidance and resources to succeed. In 2016, What Works Cities was named by Forbes as "one of the ten most promising philanthropic bets" of the year and by Engaging Local Government Leaders as the "most important company operating in the local government arena." For more information, please visit whatworkscities.org.

The current participants in the What Works Cities program include Albuquerque, NM; Anchorage, AK; Augusta, GA; Baltimore, MD; Birmingham, AL; Boise, ID; Boulder, CO; Buffalo, NY; Bellevue, WA; Boston, MA; Cambridge, MA; Cape Coral, FL; Chattanooga, TN; Charlotte, NC; Corona, CA; Denton, TX; Denver, CO; Des Moines, IA; Downey, CA; Durham, NC; Fargo, ND; Fort Lauderdale, FL; Fort Worth, TX; Gilbert, AZ; Glendale, AZ; Greensboro, NC; Gresham, OR; Hartford, CT; Independence, MO; Indianapolis, IN; Jackson, MS; Kansas City, KS; Kansas City, MO; Knoxville, TN; Laredo, TX; Las Vegas, NV; Lewisville, TX; Lexington, KY; Lincoln, NE; Little Rock, AR; Louisville, KY; Madison, WI; Mesa, AZ; Miami, FL; Milwaukee, WI; Minneapolis, MN; Modesto, CA; Naperville, IL; Nashville, TN; New Orleans, LA; Norfolk, VA; Olathe, KS; Orlando, FL; Portland, OR; Providence, RI; Raleigh, NC; Riverside, CA; Salinas, CA; Salt Lake City, UT; San Francisco, CA; San Jose, CA; Seattle, WA; Scottsdale, AZ; Saint Paul, MN; South Bend, IN; Syracuse, NY; Tacoma, WA; Tempe, AZ; Topeka, KS; Tulsa, OK; Tyler, TX; Victorville, CA; Virginia Beach, VA; Waco, TX; Washington, DC; West Palm Beach, FL; and Wichita, KS.

SOURCE Bloomberg Philanthropies

Related Links

http://www.bloomberg.org


PALO ALTO, Calif., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- BloomBoard, the leading competency-based professional development platform has partnered with a select group of accredited higher education institutions to offer teachers the opportunity to earn graduate-level credit for completed micro-credentials. Graduate credit is available for a wide range of micro-credentials on the BloomBoard platform, enabling educators the ability to work toward salary advancement and/or recertification as they improve their practice through competency-based professional development.

Four accredited higher education institutions have currently partnered with BloomBoard including Brandman University, Fresno Pacific University, Portland State University, and University of the Pacific. Graduate-level professional development credit offered by each partner is non-degree bearing and available for select micro-credentials on the BloomBoard platform. To-date, over 150 micro-credentials have graduate credit available from at least one higher education institution partner. Micro-credentials are issued by leading educator development organizations including eSpark Learning, Future Ready Schools, Trellis Education, and World Savvy and focus on a variety of skills such as building classroom culture, collaborative problem solving, growth mindset, and managing change.

"BloomBoard is committed to providing educators with meaningful professional learning experiences and empowering growth," said BloomBoard CEO, Sanford Kenyon. "Through these new partnerships, micro-credentials not only provide educators with the opportunity to gain recognition for the skills they develop throughout their career, but as an added incentive, a pathway to compensation advancement and recertification."

In partnership with Digital Promise, the thought-leader in competency-based educator development, BloomBoard launched its micro-credentialing platform in 2015. Since then, momentum for educator micro-credentials has been steadily rising with approximately three to four percent of U.S. school districts having implemented professional development programs supported by micro-credentials. In addition, five states are running micro-credential based professional learning programs including the Tennessee, Florida, Washington, Arkansas, and Delaware Departments of Education.

To earn a micro-credential from the BloomBoard platform, educators must submit artifacts of learning from work in their classrooms, such as student work samples, classroom videos, or reflections, as evidence that they have achieved competency of the discrete skill outlined by the micro-credential. Certified assessors will review this evidence and award the micro-credential once the competency is demonstrated. Upon confirmation that the micro-credential has been earned, the educator can complete the university's process for applying for non-degree bearing graduate-level credit.

Educators who have earned a micro-credential and wish to apply for graduate credit can visit bloomboard.com/graduate-credit.

Schools and districts interested in learning more about BloomBoard's graduate credit offering can visit schools.bloomboard.com/incentives.

About BloomBoard

Founded in 2010, BloomBoard is the leading professional development platform for empowering continuous, personalized, competency-based learning for K-12 educators. With BloomBoard, district administrators can provide meaningful professional learning experiences, improving how they support, scale, and grow effective teachers. For educators, BloomBoard provides a place to build their teaching skills and earn recognition through micro-credentials. For more information, visit bloomboard.com.

BloomBoard media contact:

Lucia Giacomantonio

[email protected]

SOURCE BloomBoard

Related Links

http://www.bloomboard.com


Children's drawings brought to life with Lego in hospital's pediatric wing

First wish selected from more than 8,800 wishes made across Canada and the U.S.

Wishing it forward is easy: choose your category, write your wish, and toss your digital coin online at www.BMO200.com

TORONTO and SYDNEY, NS, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Thousands of wishes have been cast into the #BMO200 fountain since its launch in January, and BMO Financial Group announced today that the opening wish of the year has been fulfilled at Cape Breton Regional Hospital in Sydney, Nova Scotia. The interactive Lego city for children showcases the bank's vision to roll out meaningful community initiatives that will continue over the course of this year.

BMO employees from Sydney and Halifax came together over four days in March to help grant Anne Luker's wish for her son, who is a patient at the hospital. The wish called for a "Lego city in the Cape Breton Regional Hospital's pediatric wing for all the kids to enjoy." In order to involve the patients, BMO worked with the hospital to use the children's drawings of their homes as inspiration for the Lego community, creating a home away from home for the kids.

BMO helped to bring the drawings to life with more than 35,000 Lego pieces, building a bustling town complete with a ferris wheel, BMO branch, and special touches unique to the area like the iconic 60 foot fiddle located at the Port of Sydney. The Lego community play area was unveiled at the hospital, surrounded by the kids, Anne and her three children.

"I can't think of a more deserving first wish to kick off our milestone year and continue with our legacy of giving back," said Connie Stefankiewicz, Chief Marketing Officer, BMO Financial Group. "Thousands of wishes have been made at our BMO200 fountain and we wanted to ensure that the first one reflected the spirit of what we're aiming to accomplish, by wishing it forward and helping our communities and individuals in a meaningful way."

"Our patients and their families are incredibly thankful to BMO for building this Lego community play area in our atrium for so many to enjoy  it's bringing a piece of home to them while they are at the hospital," said Mickey Daye, Manager, Maternal Child Services, Cape Breton Regional Hospital. "BMO has really made a difference here in Sydney and the impact will ripple through our community."

Since launching in January, the #BMO200 fountain has captured the imagination of people across North America with more than 8,800 wishes cast as of March 27, 2017. The top three wish categories so far are Family, Happiness and Community.

BMO continues to encourage North Americans to make wishes for an opportunity to be selected and have their wish realized. Individuals and organizations can wish it forward by visiting www.BMO200.com or visiting one of the interactive BMO200 fountains which will be in Chicago, Illinois next month and Montreal, Quebec during the fall.

To watch the unveiling of the Cape Breton Regional Hospital Lego City, please visit https://youtu.be/f8Gc_EgA9cM and join the conversation on social using #BMO200.

For more stories from BMO and the impact it's making in communities, visit history.bmo.com.

About BMO Financial Group

Established in 1817, and currently marking its 200th year of operations, BMO Financial Group is a highly diversified financial services provider based in North America. With total assets of $692 billion as of January 31, 2017, and more than 45,000 employees, BMO provides a broad range of personal and commercial banking, wealth management and investment banking products and services to more than 12 million customers and conducts business through three operating groups: Personal and Commercial Banking, Wealth Management and BMO Capital Markets.

Media Contacts:

Matthew Duffin, [email protected], (416) 867-3996

Michelle Agnelo, [email protected], (416) 867-3996

Web: www.bmo.com Twitter: @BMOmedia

SOURCE BMO Financial Group

Related Links

http://www.bmo.com


SYDNEY, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Strategic Capital Management LTD (SCM), owner of 21,038,678 shares of Irvine-based technology company, Ubiquity, Inc. (OTC: UBIQ), and representative to a large group of shareholders, announced today that it has made a written demand to Ubiquity for its mandatory annual shareholders meeting in order to address shareholders' proposals to immediately replace the management of Ubiquity, while addressing executive self-dealing and failing finances.

David Ledger, of SCM said, "It's deeply concerning that Ubiquity has not held a shareholders meeting in its multi-year existence, never filed even a preliminary proxy statement and awards executives special multi-million voting shares without shareholder consent. The annual meeting is many years delinquent."

The proposals, submitted in a formal letter to the board, are to remove all members of the board, Chris Carmichael, his wife Connie Jordan and Bola Ajere; elect a new independent board of directors and to void the award to married senior executives Carmichael, CEO and Jordan, senior vice president, of 500 preferred shares; each 1 preferred share now owned by the executives equals 1 million shares of common voting stock for a total of 500 million voting shares.

Ledger added, "We believe the management of the company has not acted in the best interests of shareholders, is in disarray and must be replaced for the company to survive. This is demonstrated by Ubiquity's representation to the SEC that it may be unable to continue as a going concern, the out of control executive compensation, self-dealing transactions, missing and outstanding government filings, board resignations, executive arrests and recent lawsuits filed against the Company alleging securities fraud and breach of fiduciary duty."

The compounding of these issues has now resulted in the SEC suspending the shares of Ubiquity on 20 March 2017 citing a lack of current and accurate information due to delinquent requisite periodic filings. The last filed report in the SEC announcement is claimed to be at the end of the September quarter 2015. Further, the Commission states that it is their opinion that in the public interest and for the protection of investors the stock remain suspended until further review on 31 March 2017.

A $7.7 million judgment against Ubiquity was issued by the U.S. District Court in Illinois on October 28, 2016. Ubiquity did not contest the litigation. Additional cases are pending in U.S. District courts in California against Ubiquity and its senior management, Carmichael, Jordan and Garrison, alleging fraud, violations of the securities laws and breach of fiduciary duty.

In August 2016, the FBI arrested Ubiquity's board co-chair and interim chief executive officer, Nicholas Mitsakos, for securities fraud associated with his hedge fund. Mitsakos had been Ubiquity's co-chair of the board of directors since March 2013. Also in 2016, the SEC filed a complaint for securities fraud against Ubiquity's general counsel, Gregg Jaclin.

OTC Markets suspended stock quotes for Ubiquity in 2016, labeling it "Caveat Emptor (Buyer Beware)," citing numerous possible reasons, including, "Investigation of Fraud or Other Criminal Activities" and "Promotion/Spam without Adequate Current Information." According to Ledger, "this unacceptable level of legal liabilities, including intervention by federal regulators and the SEC, greatly damages the company and demonstrates the complete incompetence of current management."

Shareholders propose to void the creation and award to married executive couple Jordan and Carmichael of 500 preferred shares equivalent to 500 million common voting shares. SEC public records show that 500 preferred shares were created in February 2015; all 500 shares were given to them on March 6, 2015 without shareholder approval. The transaction was not disclosed to shareholders until a delinquent filing on February 1, 2016. Ledger stated, "This is a self-dealing, hidden transaction which eliminates the voting rights of shareholders and must be voided to protect their best interests."

Ubiquity informed the SEC in 2016 that it had negative working capital, operating losses and no continuing revenue from operations. It also reported that the salaries of CEO Carmichael and his wife, executive senior vice president Jordan, both members of the board, increased by 25% -- to $525,000 and $250,000 annually, and gave the couple a collective 5% of the company's gross revenues. "This executive compensation is completely uncorrelated to the company's dismal performance and is out of control," stated Ledger. "Carmichael gets more than the $503,205 salary of the CEO of Snapchat, one of the world's hottest apps. We've got to put a stop to this now. We must have completely new management."

Shareholders also demand that the Chief Financial Officer, Garrison and the latest new accounting firm, Hall & Company, attend the meeting to explain the reasons for the lack of audited financial statements for Ubiquity and its missing SEC filings. SEC public records state Ubiquity has not filed an annual report since 2014 and other required financial statements are delinquent or missing. "The lack of audited financial statements deprives both shareholders and potential investors of critically important and legally required information," stated Ledger, "It is completely unacceptable."

Media Contact:

Jennifer Skorlich

(650) 302 1716

[email protected]

SOURCE Strategic Capital Management
Mr. Lambert, on a continuous basis from the summer of 2015 to the spring of 2016, was subjected by his co-workers on the assembly line, to racial slurs and lewd behavior. They would call him the N-word throughout his workday, talk about the size of his penis and even placed a drill gun into his buttocks.

Today, Lambert filed a 11-count suit in Alameda County Superior Court alleging Race Harassment, Race Discrimination, Sexual Harassment, Retaliation, Failure to Prevent Harassment, Discrimination and Retaliation, Threats of Violence in Violation of the Ralph Act, Violation of the Bane Act, Failure to Accommodate, Failure to Engage in the Interactive Process, and Assault and Battery.

"This was my dream job and it turned into a nightmare," said DeWitt Lambert. "When I began working at Tesla I was happier than I've ever been. Now, I've experienced discrimination worse than anything I experienced growing up in Alabama and I'm scared for my safety every evening when I leave the plant. I asked for help from Tesla's management and it never came."

In approximately October 2015, a video camera caught the harassment and violent threats taking place on Lambert's iPhone:

Nigger, we take your ass home, nigger. Shred you up in pieces, nigger. Cut you up, nigger. Send your ass so everyone in yo family so everybody can have a piece of you, nigger. Straight up, nigger. We get down like that, nigger.

Larry Organ, attorney with The California Civil Rights Law Group, said, "the harassers went out of their way to document their racist and sexist behavior by leaving video recordings on Lambert's phone even going so far as to say that they would cut him up into pieces and send the body parts to his family members." Lambert has five children.

Despite Lambert's pleas to get upper management and the human resources department to take appropriate action, nothing was done to prevent further racial harassment and discrimination and the abuse intensified. In fact his harassers were promoted and then supervised him.

"The complaint alleges that Tesla failed, under California law, to take immediate and appropriate corrective action on Mr. Lambert's behalf," said Organ. "Because of this inaction my client is claiming psychological harm and medical problems. Tesla is liable for Mr. Lambert's damages because it failed to adequately investigate and prevent damaging abuse from taking place in the workplace."

Timeline

2012:

Lambert moves from Alabama to California, applies to work for Tesla. Works in various jobs while applying to Tesla.

June 26, 2015:

Lambert hired as Production Associate at Tesla

June 26, 2015 - April 2016:

Lambert works with the harassers

Fall 2015:

Lambert complains to a Supervisor about being called the "N" word, and asks "why do they use the word so freely here?"

Winter 2015:

Again Lambert complains to a Supervisor about being called the "N" word, and that harassers threatened to get him fired.

Winter 2015  Present:

Continued complaints to HR about the harassment and "N" word

Winter 2015  Present:

Lambert applies for numerous positions to try to get away from the harassers, and also for promotions (which harassers received and he has not)

Approx. February 2016:

Most, if not all, harassers promoted

Spring 2016:

At least one harasser, if not more, promoted again.

April 2016:

Lambert is finally transferred to another line

June 2016:

HR views the racist videos. Harassers still employed, and make Lambert feel uncomfortable at work.

About California Civil Rights Law Group

The California Civil Rights Law Group, led by prominent trial attorney Larry Organ, is dedicated to furthering the cause of employee civil rights throughout the state. The legal team has made it its priority to provide help to those who need it the most, and specializes in representing plaintiffs in matters involving race, sex and disability harassment, discrimination, retaliation and wrongful termination. http://www.civilrightsca.com/

SOURCE California Civil Rights Law Group

Related Links

http://www.civilrightsca.com


NEW YORK, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The global cannabis testing market is expected to reach USD 1,416.3 million by 2021 from USD 822.0 million in 2016, at a CAGR of 11.5% during forecast period (20162021). The growth in this market is mainly driven by factors such as legalization of medical cannabis, coupled with the growing number of cannabis testing laboratories (specifically in the U.S.); growing adoption of LIMS in cannabis testing laboratories; and increasing awareness through conferences, symposia, and workshops. On the other hand, the high cost of analytical instruments, presence of alternative technologies, and dearth of skilled professionals are some of the major factors that are expected to restrain the growth of this market in the coming years.



Rising funding for cannabis testing laboratories is one of the major trend observed in the cannabis testing industry. Growing legalization of cannabis for medicinal purpose has attracted various prominent market players and investors to invest in cannabis testing laboratories to develop and improve analytical testing to ensure consumer safety. For instance:



- In February 2017, Cannabi-Tech Ltd. (CBT) (Israel) received funding of USD 1 Million from Agrinnovation. The company intends to utilize these funds for the North American launch of its testing platform for medical cannabis labs and dispensaries.

- In November 2015, Steep Hill Labs, Inc. (U.S.) received funding of USD 2 Million from Delft Blue Horizons (Netherlands), Phyto Partners (U.S.), and Poseidon Asset Management (U.S.) to support the expanded testing services in addition to new research and product development.



The cannabis testing market is segmented on the basis of product & software, service, end user, and region. The cannabis testing services market (services offered by cannabis testing laboratories) is segmented into potency testing, terpene profiling, pesticide screening, residual solvent screening, heavy metal testing, microbial analysis, and genetic testing. The potency testing segment accounted for the largest share in 2016 and also expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period as a majority of the end users primarily test their cannabis plants for cannabinoids and look for evaluating the strength of cannabis and the effect it will have on medical marijuana users.



North America is expected to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period. This can be attributed to growing legalization of cannabis for medical use; rapid growth in the number of cannabis testing laboratories; the presence of prominent players in this region; growing awareness regarding medical cannabis through various seminars, conferences, and symposia; and rising funding for the cannabis industry in this region.





Research Coverage:

This market is categorized on the basis of product & software, service, end user, and region. Apart from the comprehensive regional analysis, product analysis, and market sizing, the report also provides a competitive landscape that covers growth strategies adopted by industry players over the last three years. The company profiles comprise basic views on key players and their product portfolios, developments, and strategies adopted. The above-mentioned market research data, current market sizes, and forecast of future trends will help key players and new entrants make informed decisions regarding product offerings, geographical focus, changes in strategic approach, R&D investments, and levels of output in order to remain successful.





Reasons to Buy the Report:

The report will enrich both established firms as well as new entrants/smaller firms to gauge the pulse of the market, which in turn will help firms, garner a greater market share. Firms purchasing the report can use any one or a combination of the below-mentioned five strategies (market penetration, product development/innovation, market development, market diversification, and competitive assessment) for strengthening their market shares.





The report provides insights on the following pointers:

- Market Penetration: Comprehensive information on the product portfolios of the top players in the cannabis testing market. The report analyzes the cannabis testing market by product & software, service, end user, and region.

- Product Development/Innovation: Detailed insights on upcoming technologies, R&D activities, and new product launches in the global cannabis testing market.

- Market Development: Comprehensive information about the cannabis testing market across countries.

- Market Diversification: Exhaustive information about new products, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments in the global cannabis testing market.



Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04799014-summary/view-report.html



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



http://www.reportlinker.com





__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

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SOURCE Reportlinker

Related Links

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MIAMI, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK) announced U.S. GAAP net income of $352 million, or $0.48 diluted EPS, for the first quarter of 2017 compared to U.S. GAAP net income for the first quarter of 2016 of $142 million, or $0.18 diluted EPS. First quarter 2017 adjusted net income of $279 million, or $0.38 adjusted EPS, compared to adjusted net income of $301 million, or $0.39 adjusted EPS, for the first quarter of 2016. Adjusted net income excludes unrealized gains and losses on fuel derivatives and other net charges, totaling $73 million in gains for the first quarter 2017 and $159 million of losses for the first quarter 2016. Revenues for the first quarter of 2017 of $3.8 billion were higher than the $3.7 billion in the prior year.

Carnival Corporation & plc President and Chief Executive Officer Arnold Donald noted, "We are off to a good start delivering another quarter of operational improvement on top of a very strong first quarter last year. Our performance was driven by increased demand, particularly for our core Caribbean itineraries, leading to higher year-over-year ticket prices which enabled us to overcome the significant negative impact of both fuel and currency to exceed the high end of our guidance range."

Key information for the first quarter 2017 compared to the prior year:

Gross revenue yields (revenue per available lower berth day or "ALBD") increased 0.1 percent. In constant currency, net revenue yields increased 3.8 percent for 1Q 2017, better than December guidance of up 1.5 to 2.5 percent.

Gross cruise costs including fuel per ALBD increased 2.9 percent. In constant currency, net cruise costs excluding fuel per ALBD increased 3.2 percent, compared to December guidance of up 1.5 to 2.5 percent, due to the timing of certain expenses.

Changes in fuel prices (including realized fuel derivatives) and currency exchange rates decreased earnings by $0.13 per share.

Highlights during the first quarter included the January announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada of a potential breakthrough guest experience innovation the Ocean Platform -- featuring Ocean Medallion. The experience will debut on Princess Cruises' Regal Princess in November 2017 followed by additional Princess ships in 2018.

Fleet enhancement milestones included the official debut of Seabourn Cruises' newest ship, Seabourn Encore, with its naming ceremony in Singapore. International recording artist and world's best-selling soprano Sarah Brightman presided over the naming ceremony as godmother of the stunning new 600-guest ship. Additionally, the company signed a memorandum of agreement with Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri to build two new cruise ships. The first is designated for Holland America Line to be delivered in 2021 with the second for Princess Cruises in 2022.

Also during the quarter, following the Corporation's historic sailings from the U.S. to Cuba through its Fathom brand, Carnival Cruise Line received approval to begin operating cruises to Cuba. Carnival Paradise will be the largest cruise ship to sail to Cuba from the U.S. when it begins calling in Havana in June 2017.

2017 Outlook

At this time, cumulative advance bookings for the remainder of 2017 are well ahead of the prior year at considerably higher prices. During the quarter, both booking volumes and pricing for the remainder of 2017 have been running ahead of last year.

Donald commented, "Wave season, our peak booking period, was strong leaving us well positioned with bookings at considerably higher prices and with less inventory remaining for sale in 2017 compared to the prior year, resulting in increased earnings guidance. We are clearly benefiting from our efforts to increase cruise consideration through guest experience innovations, creative marketing, and public relations programs. We are reaching consumers through multiple touch points and laying the foundation for continued earnings improvement and sustained double digit returns on invested capital."

The company expects full year 2017 net revenue yields in constant currency to be up approximately 3 percent compared to the prior year, better than December guidance of up approximately 2.5 percent. The company continues to expect full year net cruise costs excluding fuel per ALBD in constant currency to be up approximately 1 percent compared to the prior year. Changes in fuel prices (including realized fuel derivatives) and currency exchange rates compared to the prior year are expected to decrease earnings by $0.35 per share.

Taking the above factors into consideration, the company expects full year 2017 adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $3.50 to $3.70 compared to December guidance of $3.30 to $3.60 and 2016 adjusted earnings per share of $3.45.

Second Quarter 2017 Outlook

Second quarter constant currency net revenue yields are expected to be up approximately 2.5 to 3.5 percent compared to the prior year. Net cruise costs excluding fuel per ALBD in constant currency for the second quarter of 2017 are expected to be higher by approximately 1.5 to 2.5 percent compared to the prior year. Changes in fuel prices (including realized fuel derivatives) and currency exchange rates compared to the prior year are expected to decrease earnings by $0.12 per share. Based on the above factors, the company expects adjusted earnings per share for the second quarter 2017 to be in the range of $0.43 to $0.47 versus 2016 adjusted earnings per share of $0.49.

Selected Key Metrics





Full Year 2017

Second Quarter 2017 Year over year change:

Current Dollars

Constant Currency

Current Dollars

Constant Currency Net revenue yields

Approx 1.5%

Approx 3.0%

0.5 to 1.5%

2.5 to 3.5% Net cruise costs excl. fuel / ALBD

Approx flat

Approx 1.0%

(0.5) to 0.5%

1.5 to 2.5%



Full Year 2017

Second Quarter 2017 Fuel price per metric ton $362

$359 Fuel consumption (metric tons in thousands) 3,310

840 Currency: Euro $1.07 to 1

$1.08 to 1 Sterling $1.25 to 1

$1.25 to 1 Australian dollar $0.76 to A$1

$0.76 to A$1



Three Months Ended

February 28/29,











2017

2016









Net income (in millions) $ 352



$ 142











Adjusted net income (in millions) (a) $ 279



$ 301





























Earnings per share-diluted $ 0.48



$ 0.18











Adjusted earnings per share-diluted (a) $ 0.38



$ 0.39













(a) See the net income to adjusted net income and EPS to adjusted EPS reconciliations in the Non-GAAP Financial Measures included herein.

Conference Call

The company has scheduled a conference call with analysts at 10:00 a.m. EDT (3:00 p.m. BST) today to discuss its 2017 first quarter results. This call can be listened to live, and additional information can be obtained, via Carnival Corporation & plc's Web site at www.carnivalcorp.com and www.carnivalplc.com.

Carnival Corporation & plc is among the largest, most profitable and financially strong leisure travel companies in the world. With a portfolio of 10 cruise brands in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia, comprised of Carnival Cruise Line, Fathom, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, Seabourn, AIDA Cruises, Costa Cruises, Cunard, P&O Cruises (Australia) and P&O Cruises (UK).

Together, these brands operate 102 ships visiting over 700 ports around the world and totaling 226,000 lower berths with 19 new ships scheduled to be delivered between 2017 and 2022. Carnival Corporation & plc also operates Holland America Princess Alaska Tours, the leading tour companies in Alaska and the Canadian Yukon. Traded on both the New York and London Stock Exchanges, Carnival Corporation & plc is the only group in the world to be included in both the S&P 500 and the FTSE 100 indices.

Additional information can be found on www.carnival.com , www.fathom.org , www.hollandamerica.com , www.princess.com , www.seabourn.com , www.aida.de , www.costacruise.com , www.cunard.com , www.pocruises.com.au and www.pocruises.com .

Cautionary Note Concerning Factors That May Affect Future Results

Carnival Corporation and Carnival plc and their respective subsidiaries are referred to collectively in this release as "Carnival Corporation & plc," "our," "us" and "we." Some of the statements, estimates or projections contained in this release are "forward-looking statements" that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions with respect to us, including some statements concerning future results, outlooks, plans, goals and other events which have not yet occurred. These statements are intended to qualify for the safe harbors from liability provided by Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. All statements other than statements of historical facts are statements that could be deemed forward-looking. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about our business and the industry in which we operate and the beliefs and assumptions of our management. We have tried, whenever possible, to identify these statements by using words like "will," "may," "could," "should," "would," "believe," "depends," "expect," "goal," "anticipate," "forecast," "project," "future," "intend," "plan," "estimate," "target," "indicate" and similar expressions of future intent or the negative of such terms.

Forward-looking statements include those statements that may impact our outlook including, but not limited to, the forecasting of our:

 Net revenue yields  Net cruise costs, excluding fuel per available lower berth day  Booking levels  Estimates of ship depreciable lives and residual values  Pricing and occupancy  Goodwill, ship and trademark fair values  Interest, tax and fuel expenses  Liquidity  Currency exchange rates  Adjusted earnings per share

Because forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, there are many factors that could cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied in this release. This note contains important cautionary statements of the known factors that we consider could materially affect the accuracy of our forward-looking statements and adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial position. It is not possible to predict or identify all such risks. There may be additional risks that we consider immaterial or which are unknown. These factors include, but are not limited to, the following:

Incidents, such as ship incidents, security incidents, the spread of contagious diseases and threats thereof, adverse weather conditions or other natural disasters and the related adverse publicity affecting our reputation and the health, safety, security and satisfaction of guests and crew

Economic conditions and adverse world events affecting the safety and security of travel, such as civil unrest, armed conflicts and terrorist attacks

Changes in and compliance with laws and regulations relating to environment, health, safety, security, tax and anti-corruption under which we operate

Disruptions and other damages to our information technology and other networks and operations, and breaches in data security

Ability to recruit, develop and retain qualified personnel

Increases in fuel prices

Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates

Misallocation of capital among our ship, joint venture and other strategic investments

Future operating cash flow may not be sufficient to fund future obligations and we may be unable to obtain financing

Overcapacity in the cruise ship and land-based vacation industry

Deterioration of our cruise brands' strengths and our inability to implement our strategies

Continuing financial viability of our travel agent distribution system, air service providers and other key vendors in our supply chain and reductions in the availability of, and increases in the prices for, the services and products provided by these vendors

Inability to implement our shipbuilding programs and ship repairs, maintenance and refurbishments on terms that are favorable or consistent with our expectations and increases to our repairs and maintenance expenses and refurbishment costs as our fleet ages

Failure to keep pace with developments in technology

Geographic regions in which we try to expand our business may be slow to develop and ultimately not develop how we expect and our international operations are subject to additional risks not generally applicable to our U.S. operations

Competition from the cruise ship and land-based vacation industry

Economic, market and political factors that are beyond our control

Litigation, enforcement actions, fines or penalties

Lack of continuing availability of attractive, convenient and safe port destinations on terms that are favorable or consistent with our expectations

Union disputes and other employee relationship issues

Decisions to self-insure against various risks or the inability to obtain insurance for certain risks at reasonable rates

Reliance on third-party providers of various services integral to the operations of our business

Business activities that involve our co-investment with third parties

Disruptions in the global financial markets or other events that may negatively affect the ability of our counterparties and others to perform their obligations to us

Our shareholders may be subject to the uncertainties of a foreign legal system since Carnival Corporation and Carnival plc are not U.S. corporations

Small group of shareholders may be able to effectively control the outcome of shareholder voting

Provisions in Carnival Corporation's and Carnival plc's constitutional documents may prevent or discourage takeovers and business combinations that our shareholders might consider to be in their best interests

The DLC arrangement involves risks not associated with the more common ways of combining the operations of two companies

The ordering of the risk factors set forth above is not intended to reflect our indication of priority or likelihood.

Forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as a prediction of actual results. Subject to any continuing obligations under applicable law or any relevant stock exchange rules, we expressly disclaim any obligation to disseminate, after the date of this release, any updates or revisions to any such forward-looking statements to reflect any change in expectations or events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statements are based.



CARNIVAL CORPORATION & PLC

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF INCOME

(UNAUDITED) (in millions, except per share data)



Three Months Ended

February 28/29,

2017

2016 Revenues





Cruise





Passenger tickets $ 2,804



$ 2,718

Onboard and other 978



923

Tour and other 9



10



3,791



3,651

Operating Costs and Expenses





Cruise





Commissions, transportation and other 569



582

Onboard and other 125



117

Payroll and related 519



492

Fuel 297



187

Food 251



247

Other ship operating 661



604

Tour and other 13



14



2,435



2,243

Selling and administrative 549



551

Depreciation and amortization 439



423



3,423



3,217

Operating Income 368



434

Nonoperating Income (Expense)





Interest income 2



2

Interest expense, net of capitalized interest (51)



(52)

Gains (losses) on fuel derivatives, net (a) 27



(236)

Other income (expense), net 8



(5)



(14)



(291)

Income Before Income Taxes 354



143

Income Tax Expense, Net (2)



(1)

Net Income $ 352



$ 142

Earnings Per Share





Basic $ 0.48



$ 0.18

Diluted $ 0.48



$ 0.18









Dividends Declared Per Share $ 0.35



$ 0.30

Weighted-Average Shares Outstanding - Basic 725



766

Weighted-Average Shares Outstanding - Diluted 728



769



(a) During the three months ended February 28/29, 2017 and 2016, our gains (losses) on fuel derivatives, net include net unrealized gains (losses) of $72 million and $(145) million and realized (losses) of $(45) million and $(91) million, respectively.

CARNIVAL CORPORATION & PLC

CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

(UNAUDITED) (in millions, except par values)



February 28,

2017

November 30,

2016

ASSETS







Current Assets







Cash and cash equivalents $ 437



$ 603



Trade and other receivables, net 307



298



Inventories 361



322



Prepaid expenses and other 492



466



Total current assets 1,597



1,689



Property and Equipment, Net 32,328



32,429



Goodwill 2,911



2,910



Other Intangibles 1,279



1,275



Other Assets 588



578

(a)

$ 38,703



$ 38,881



LIABILITIES AND SHAREHOLDERS' EQUITY







Current Liabilities







Short-term borrowings $ 169



$ 457



Current portion of long-term debt 1,127



640



Accounts payable 669



713



Accrued liabilities and other 1,766



1,740



Customer deposits 3,734



3,522



Total current liabilities 7,465



7,072



Long-Term Debt 7,796



8,302

(a) Other Long-Term Liabilities 782



910













Shareholders' Equity







Common stock of Carnival Corporation, $0.01 par value; 1,960 shares authorized; 655 shares at 2017 and 654 shares at 2016 issued 7



7



Ordinary shares of Carnival plc, $1.66 par value; 217 shares at 2017 and 2016 issued 358



358



Additional paid-in capital 8,660



8,632



Retained earnings 21,939



21,843



Accumulated other comprehensive loss (2,440)



(2,454)



Treasury stock, 118 shares at 2017 and 2016 of Carnival Corporation and 28 shares at 2017 and 27 shares at 2016 of Carnival plc, at cost (5,864)



(5,789)



Total shareholders' equity 22,660



22,597





$ 38,703



$ 38,881





(a) On December 1, 2016, we adopted the Financial Accounting Standards Board's Interest - Imputation of Interest and reclassified $55 million from Other Assets to Long-Term Debt on our November 30, 2016 Consolidated Balance Sheet.

CARNIVAL CORPORATION & PLC

OTHER INFORMATION



Three Months Ended

February 28/29,

2017

2016 STATISTICAL INFORMATION





ALBDs (in thousands) (a) 20,024



19,290

Occupancy percentage (b) 104.6 %

104.0 % Passengers carried (in thousands) 2,769



2,559

Fuel consumption in metric tons (in thousands) 818



816

Fuel consumption in metric tons per thousand ALBDs 40.9



42.3

Fuel cost per metric ton consumed $ 362



$ 229

Currencies





U.S. dollar to euro $ 1.06



$ 1.10

U.S. dollar to sterling $ 1.24



$ 1.45

U.S. dollar to Australian dollar $ 0.75



$ 0.71









CASH FLOW INFORMATION (in millions)





Cash from operations $ 932



$ 798

Capital expenditures $ 412



$ 330

Dividends paid $ 254



$ 232



Notes to Statistical Information



(a) ALBD is a standard measure of passenger capacity for the period that we use to approximate rate and capacity variances, based on consistently applied formulas that we use to perform analyses to determine the main non-capacity driven factors that cause our cruise revenues and expenses to vary. ALBDs assume that each cabin we offer for sale accommodates two passengers and is computed by multiplying passenger capacity by revenue-producing ship operating days in the period.



(b) In accordance with cruise industry practice, occupancy is calculated using a denominator of ALBDs, which assumes two passengers per cabin even though some cabins can accommodate three or more passengers. Percentages in excess of 100% indicate that on average more than two passengers occupied some cabins.

CARNIVAL CORPORATION & PLC

NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES

Consolidated gross and net revenue yields were computed by dividing the gross and net cruise revenues by ALBDs as follows (dollars in millions, except yields) (a):



Three Months Ended February 28/29,

2017

2017

Constant

Dollar

2016 Passenger ticket revenues $ 2,804



$ 2,881



$ 2,718

Onboard and other revenues 978



993



923

Gross cruise revenues 3,782



3,874



3,641

Less cruise costs









Commissions, transportation and other (569)



(587)



(582)

Onboard and other (125)



(127)



(117)



(694)



(714)



(699)

Net passenger ticket revenues 2,235



2,294



2,136

Net onboard and other revenues 853



866



806

Net cruise revenues $ 3,088



$ 3,160



$ 2,942

ALBDs 20,024,045



20,024,045



19,289,910













Gross revenue yields $ 188.87



$ 193.44



$ 188.77

% increase vs. 2016 0.1 %

2.5 %



Net revenue yields $ 154.22



$ 157.75



$ 152.50

% increase vs. 2016 1.1 %

3.4 %



Net passenger ticket revenue yields $ 111.60



$ 114.53



$ 110.71

% increase vs. 2016 0.8 %

3.4 %



Net onboard and other revenue yields $ 42.62



$ 43.22



$ 41.78

% increase vs. 2016 2.0 %

3.4 %









Three Months Ended February 28/29,

2017

2017

Constant

Currency

2016 Net passenger ticket revenues $ 2,235



$ 2,308



$ 2,136

Net onboard and other revenues 853



861



806

Net cruise revenues $ 3,088



$ 3,169



$ 2,942

ALBDs 20,024,045



20,024,045



19,289,910













Net revenue yields $ 154.22



$ 158.25



$ 152.50

% increase vs. 2016 1.1 %

3.8 %



Net passenger ticket revenue yields $ 111.60



$ 115.26



$ 110.71

% increase vs. 2016 0.8 %

4.1 %



Net onboard and other revenue yields $ 42.62



$ 42.99



$ 41.78

% increase vs. 2016 2.0 %

2.9 %





(See Notes to Non-GAAP Financial Measures.)

CARNIVAL CORPORATION & PLC

NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES (CONTINUED)

Consolidated gross and net cruise costs and net cruise costs excluding fuel per ALBD were computed by dividing the gross and net cruise costs and net cruise costs excluding fuel by ALBDs as follows (dollars in millions, except costs per ALBD) (a):



Three Months Ended February 28/29,

2017

2017

Constant

Dollar

2016 Cruise operating expenses $ 2,422



$ 2,478



$ 2,229

Cruise selling and administrative expenses 546



558



549

Gross cruise costs 2,968



3,036



2,778

Less cruise costs included above









Commissions, transportation and other (569)



(587)



(582)

Onboard and other (125)



(127)



(117)

Gain on ship sale (c) 







2

Restructuring expenses (c) 









Other (c) 1



1



(16)

Net cruise costs 2,275



2,323



2,065

Less fuel (297)



(297)



(187)

Net cruise costs excluding fuel $ 1,978



$ 2,026



$ 1,878

ALBDs 20,024,045



20,024,045



19,289,910













Gross cruise costs per ALBD $ 148.24



$ 151.60



$ 144.02

% increase vs. 2016 2.9 %

5.3 %



Net cruise costs excluding fuel per ALBD $ 98.81



$ 101.13



$ 97.35

% increase vs. 2016 1.5 %

3.9 %







Three Months Ended February 28/29,

2017

2017

Constant

Currency

2016 Net cruise costs excluding fuel $ 1,978



$ 2,012



$ 1,878

ALBDs 20,024,045



20,024,045



19,289,910













Net cruise costs excluding fuel per ALBD $ 98.81



$ 100.47



$ 97.35

% increase vs. 2016 1.5 %

3.2 %





(See Notes to Non-GAAP Financial Measures.)

CARNIVAL CORPORATION & PLC

NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES (CONTINUED)

Adjusted fully diluted earnings per share was computed as follows (in millions, except per share data) (a):



Three Months Ended

February 28/29,

2017

2016 Net income





U.S. GAAP net income $ 352



$ 142

Unrealized (gains) losses on fuel derivatives, net (b) (72)



145

Gain on ship sale (c) 



(2)

Restructuring expenses (c) 





Other (c) (1)



16

Adjusted net income $ 279



$ 301

Weighted-average shares outstanding 728



769









Earnings per share





U.S. GAAP earnings per share $ 0.48



$ 0.18

Unrealized (gains) losses on fuel derivatives, net (b) (0.10)



0.19

Gain on ship sale (c) 





Restructuring expenses (c) 





Other (c) 



0.02

Adjusted earnings per share $ 0.38



$ 0.39











Notes to Non-GAAP Financial Measures



(a) Non-GAAP Financial Measures





We use net cruise revenues per ALBD ("net revenue yields"), net cruise costs excluding fuel per ALBD, adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share as non-GAAP financial measures of our cruise segments' and the company's financial performance. These non-GAAP financial measures are provided along with U.S. GAAP gross cruise revenues per ALBD ("gross revenue yields"), gross cruise costs per ALBD and U.S. GAAP net income and U.S. GAAP earnings per share.





We believe that gains and losses on ship sales and ship impairments and restructuring and certain other expenses are not part of our core operating business and, therefore, are not an indication of our future earnings performance. As such, we exclude these items from non-GAAP measures. Net revenue yields and net cruise costs excluding fuel per ALBD enable us to separate the impact of predictable capacity or ALBD changes from price and other changes that affect our business. We believe these non-GAAP measures provide useful information to investors and expanded insight to measure our revenue and cost performance as a supplement to our U.S. GAAP consolidated financial statements.





The presentation of our non-GAAP financial information is not intended to be considered in isolation from, as substitute for, or superior to the financial information prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. It is possible that our non-GAAP financial measures may not be exactly comparable to the like-kind information presented by other companies, which is a potential risk associated with using these measures to compare us to other companies.





Net revenue yields are commonly used in the cruise industry to measure a company's cruise segment revenue performance and for revenue management purposes. We use "net cruise revenues" rather than "gross cruise revenues" to calculate net revenue yields. We believe that net cruise revenues is a more meaningful measure in determining revenue yield than gross cruise revenues because it reflects the cruise revenues earned net of our most significant variable costs, which are travel agent commissions, cost of air and other transportation, certain other costs that are directly associated with onboard and other revenues and credit and debit card fees.





Net passenger ticket revenues reflect gross passenger ticket revenues, net of commissions, transportation and other costs.





Net onboard and other revenues reflect gross onboard and other revenues, net of onboard and other cruise costs.





Net cruise costs excluding fuel per ALBD is the measure we use to monitor our ability to control our cruise segments' costs rather than gross cruise costs per ALBD. We exclude the same variable costs that are included in the calculation of net cruise revenues as well as fuel expense to calculate net cruise costs without fuel to avoid duplicating these variable costs in our non-GAAP financial measures. Substantially all of our net cruise costs excluding fuel are largely fixed, except for the impact of changing prices once the number of ALBDs has been determined.





We have not provided a reconciliation of forecasted gross cruise revenues to forecasted net cruise revenues or forecasted gross cruise costs to forecasted net cruise costs without fuel or forecasted U.S. GAAP net income to forecasted adjusted net income or forecasted U.S. GAAP earnings per share to forecasted adjusted earnings per share because preparation of meaningful U.S. GAAP forecasts of gross cruise revenues, gross cruise costs, net income and earnings per share would require unreasonable effort. We are unable to predict, without unreasonable effort, the future movement of foreign exchange rates and fuel prices. While we forecast realized gains and losses on fuel derivatives by applying current Brent prices to the derivatives that settle in the forecast period, we do not forecast the impact of unrealized gains and losses on fuel derivatives because we do not believe they are an indication of our future earnings performance. We are unable to determine the future impact of gains or losses on ships sales, restructuring expenses and other non-core gains and charges.





Constant Dollar and Constant Currency





Our Europe. Australia & Asia ("EAA") segment and Cruise Support segment operations utilize the euro, sterling and Australian dollar as their functional currencies to measure their results and financial condition. This subjects us to foreign currency translational risk. Our North America, EAA and Cruise Support segment operations also have revenues and expenses that are in a currency other than their functional currency. This subjects us to foreign currency transactional risk.





We report net revenue yields, net passenger revenue yields, net onboard and other revenue yields and net cruise costs excluding fuel per ALBD on a "constant dollar" and "constant currency" basis assuming the 2017 periods' currency exchange rates have remained constant with the 2016 periods' rates. These metrics facilitate a comparative view for the changes in our business in an environment with fluctuating exchange rates.





Constant dollar reporting is a non-GAAP financial measure that removes only the impact of changes in exchange rates on the translation of our EAA segment and Cruise Support segment operations.





Constant currency reporting is a non-GAAP financial measure that removes the impact of changes in exchange rates on the translation of our EAA segment and Cruise Support segment operations (as in constant dollar) plus the transactional impact of changes in exchange rates from revenues and expenses that are denominated in a currency other than the functional currency for our North America, EAA and Cruise Support segments.





Examples :





The translation of our EAA segment operations to our U.S. dollar reporting currency results in decreases in reported U.S. dollar revenues and expenses if the U.S. dollar strengthens against these foreign currencies and increases in reported U.S. dollar revenues and expenses if the U.S. dollar weakens against these foreign currencies.





Our North American segment operations have a U.S. dollar functional currency but also have revenue and expense transactions in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. If the U.S. dollar strengthens against these other currencies, it reduces the U.S. dollar revenues and expenses. If the U.S. dollar weakens against these other currencies, it increases the U.S. dollar revenues and expenses.





Our EAA segment operations have euro, sterling and Australian dollar functional currencies but also have revenue and expense transactions in currencies other than their functional currency. If their functional currency strengthens against these other currencies, it reduces the functional currency revenues and expenses. If the functional currency weakens against these other currencies, it increases the functional currency revenues and expenses.



(b) Under U.S. GAAP, the realized and unrealized gains and losses on fuel derivatives not qualifying as fuel hedges are recognized currently in earnings. We believe that unrealized gains and losses on fuel derivatives are not an indication of our earnings performance since they relate to future periods and may not ultimately be realized in our future earnings. Therefore, we believe it is more meaningful for the unrealized gains and losses on fuel derivatives to be excluded from our net income and earnings per share and, accordingly, we present adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share excluding these unrealized gains and losses.



(c) We believe that gains and losses on ship sales and ship impairments and restructuring and other expenses are not part of our core operating business and are not an indication of our future earnings performance. Therefore, we believe it is more meaningful for gains and losses on ship sales and ship impairments and restructuring and other non-core gains and charges to be excluded from our net income and earnings per share and, accordingly, we present adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share excluding these items.

SOURCE Carnival Corporation & plc

Related Links

http://www.Carnivalcorp.com


NEW YORK, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- On March 29th, Cake & Arrow Director of User Experience, Christina Goldschmidt will join John Tramonti, Assistant Vice President at MetLife to speak at Insurtech Silicon Valley 2017 Summit. The theme of the conference is Core Systems and Insurtech Fusion: Roadmap for Rapid Innovation and Transformation and will focus on how insurtech is driving a paradigm shift in product innovation and core systems transformation.

Core Systems and Insurtech Fusion: Roadmap for Rapid Innovation and Transformation

"I'm so excited to be speaking with MetLife's John Tramonti at this insurtech conference and to share how our great partnership is transforming their business and will make them the carrier of choice for customers and agents!" stated Ms. Goldschmidt.

Ms. Goldschmidt and Mr. Tramonti will be speaking alongside other panelists, including Andrea P Eichorn, Cognitive Solutions, Global Executive at IBM and Dustin Yoder, Founder and Head of Product and Strategy at Sureify about how the insurance value chain is shifting and what it will take to compete as the insurance industry goes digital.

Learn more about the conference and how you can you attend our panel here.

About Cake & Arrow

Cake & Arrow is a customer experience agency that builds digital products and services for the ecommerce, fashion, insurance, and a handful of other key industries. We focus on helping companies who spend over $1 million a year on digital initiatives, honing in on what motivates their customers and creating transformational experiences that deliver it. We have partnered with leading and specialty ecommerce and retail brands across the nation, including KIND Snacks, Catbird, Lowe's, Sacks Fifth Avenue, Louis Vuitton and others.



Press Contact:

Emily Smith

Cake & Arrow

646.738.6179

SOURCE Cake & Arrow
ZURICH, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Chubb Limited (NYSE: CB) will hold its first quarter earnings conference call on Wednesday, April 26, 2017, beginning at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.

The company expects to issue its first quarter earnings release and financial supplement after the market closes on Tuesday, April 25, 2017. These documents will be available on the company's investor website at investors.chubb.com.

The earnings conference call will be available via live webcast at investors.chubb.com or by dialing 888-452-4034 (within the United States) or 719-325-2482 (international), passcode 5632455. Please refer to the Chubb website under Events and Presentations for details. A replay of the call will be available until Thursday, May 11, 2017, and the archived webcast will be available on our website for approximately one month. To listen to the replay, please click here to register and receive dial-in numbers.

About Chubb

Chubb is the world's largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company. With operations in 54 countries, Chubb provides commercial and personal property and casualty insurance, personal accident and supplemental health insurance, reinsurance and life insurance to a diverse group of clients. As an underwriting company, we assess, assume and manage risk with insight and discipline. We service and pay our claims fairly and promptly. The company is also defined by its extensive product and service offerings, broad distribution capabilities, exceptional financial strength and local operations globally. Parent company Chubb Limited is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: CB) and is a component of the S&P 500 index. Chubb maintains executive offices in Zurich, New York, London and other locations, and employs approximately 31,000 people worldwide. Additional information can be found at: www.chubb.com.

SOURCE Chubb Limited

Related Links

http://new.chubb.com


WASHINGTON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- CCABLAC - Citizens Campaign Against "Big Lick" Animal Cruelty  animal welfare advocates will present a 100,000+ signatures Change.Org Petition at the White House on Wednesday morning, March 29, 2017.

https://www.change.org/p/president-of-the-united-states-mr-president-please-publish-federal-rule-save-the-horses-from-big-lick-animal-cruelty

The Petition asks: "Mr President, Please Publish Federal Rule Save "The Horses" From "Big Lick" Animal Cruelty  the establishment" will not protect "The Horses" who cannot speak for themselves. This is a marvelous opportunity for you to "Make America Great Again" by taking the side of these magnificent horses who cannot speak for themselves."

At 1:00 P. M. (EDST) Wednesday, CCABLAC will hold a Press Conference in The Edward R. Murrow Room (13th Floor) at The National Press Club. The 2017 CCABLAC Awards will be presented.

CCABLAC provided footage for "The DoDo" to produce "Here's What Soring Does To Horses". Released on March 7, 2017, the video went viral with over ELEVEN (11) MILLION views.

https://www.facebook.com/DodoImpact/videos/1602145449802542/

CCABLAC is "WE, The People" grassroots organization. Citizens have peacefully assembled and protested "Big Lick" Animal Cruetly from Gulf of Mexico at Panama City Beach, Florida to Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville, NC  from Delta farmland of Tunica, Mississippi to Times Square in New York City  Nashville, Tennessee to the White House in Washington, D.C.

Background: On January 20, 2017, the Trump Administration stopped a new Federal Regulation from going into effect which would remove the "Pads and Chains" to end the "Big Lick" Animal Cruelty. The "Big Lick" is created when Tenneessee Walking Horses have 8+ pound shoes nailed to their front feet, the sensitive skin on their front feet "SORED" (blistered) with chemicals. In the show ring, the chains hit the horses "SORE" front feet causing the horses to step high. This is the "Big Lick".

The proposed Federal Regulation had strong bi-partisan support with conservative Republican Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) and Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-OR), both large animal vets in favor.

Native Tennessean, MTSU (Middle Tennessee State University) Horse Science Professor Equine Vet Dr. John Haffner, says - "It is a business built on the suffering and pain of horses. . The "Big Lick" is a learned response to pain and if horses have not been sored, they do not learn it."

CCABLAC (Citizens Campaign Against "Big Lick" Animal Cruelty)

"We Speak FOR 'The Horses' Who Cannot Speak For Themselves"

Contact: Clant M. Seay

Phone: 662-380-3367

E-mail: [email protected]

SOURCE Citizens Campaign Against "Big Lick" Animal Cruelty
PHOENIX, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of Directors (the "Board") of Cole Office & Industrial REIT (CCIT II), Inc. ("CCIT II" or the "Company"), a publicly registered non-listed real estate investment trust ("REIT") focused on investing in high-quality, single-tenant, income-producing necessity office and industrial properties, today announced an estimated per share net asset value ("NAV") of the Company's Class A and Class T common stock of $10.32 as of December 31, 2016. This represents an increase over the previous per share NAV determined by the Board of $10.00 as of February 29, 2016, which was the first valuation that the Company had conducted.

"We continue to be pleased with the performance of CCIT II and the strength of the net-leased office and industrial assets in the portfolio," said Bill Miller, Chief Executive Officer and President of Cole Capital. "We will continue our focus on active management to maximize the value of the portfolio for our stockholders."

Estimated Per Share NAV

The Company engaged Cushman & Wakefield of Illinois, Inc., Valuation & Advisory group ("Cushman & Wakefield"), an independent global advisory and real estate services firm, to assist the Board with determining an estimated per share NAV and a valuation range of CCIT II. Using the NAV Methodology, Cushman & Wakefield arrived at a valuation range of $9.64 to $11.05 per share. The estimated per share NAV for Class A and Class T shares of $10.32, which is the approximate mid-point of the valuation range from Cushman & Wakefield, was determined and approved by the Board based on the recommendation of its valuation committee, which is comprised solely of independent directors, including the independent Chairman of the Board. The Board is ultimately and solely responsible for the establishment of the estimated per share NAV.

The estimated per share NAV was based upon the estimated market value of the Company's assets, less the estimated market value of the Company's liabilities, divided by the total shares outstanding, and was performed in accordance with the valuation guidelines established by the Investment Program Association Practice Guideline 2013-01, Valuations of Publicly Registered Non-Listed REITs. The estimated per share NAV does not reflect any "portfolio premium," nor does it reflect an enterprise value for the Company. The Board intends to determine an updated estimated per share NAV on at least an annual basis.

To date, CCIT II has paid 38 consecutive monthly distributions to its stockholders, with a current distribution rate equal to an annualized amount of $0.63 per share for Class A shares and Class T shares (less, in the case of Class T shares, the per share distribution and stockholder servicing fees that are payable with respect to the Class T shares). The distribution amount per share declared by the Board is not affected by the determination of the NAV.

About Cole Office & Industrial REIT (CCIT II), Inc.

CCIT II is a public, non-listed REIT formed in 2013 that invests primarily in single-tenant, income-producing, necessity office and industrial properties that are leased to creditworthy tenants under long-term, net leases. CCIT II seeks to provide access to high-quality commercial real estate assets, providing current income, reduced overall portfolio volatility and the potential for capital appreciation for its shareholders.

About Cole Capital

Cole Capital is the investment management business of VEREIT, Inc. An industry leading non-listed REIT sponsor, Cole Capital creates innovative net lease real estate products that serve individual investors and financial professionals. Cole Capital's business model is built upon the simple objective of collecting rent from some of the biggest corporations in America and passing it on as a stream of distributions to investors. Additional information about Cole Capital and its products can be found on its website at www.colecapital.com.

Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release, other than historical facts, may be considered 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. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements related to the Company's expectations regarding the performance of its business and the methodology and assumptions used in determining the most recent estimated per share NAV of the Company's common stock, and the Company's ability to maximize the value of the Company's portfolio. Cushman & Wakefield relied on forward-looking information, some of which was provided by or on behalf of the Company, in preparing its valuation materials. Therefore, neither such statements nor Cushman & Wakefield's valuation materials are intended to, nor shall they, serve as a guarantee of the Company's performance in future periods. You can identify these forward-looking statements by the use of words such as "outlook," "believes," "expects," "potential," "continues," "may," "will," "should," "seeks," "approximately," "projects," "predicts," "intends," "plans," "estimates," "anticipates" or the negative version of these words or other comparable words. Such forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those described under the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). These factors should not be construed as exhaustive and should be read in conjunction with the other cautionary statements that are included in this release and in the Company's filings with the SEC. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Actual events occurring after the Company's determination of an estimated per share NAV may cause the value of, and returns on, the Company's investments to be less than those used for purposes of determining the Company's estimated per share NAV.

SOURCE Cole Capital

Related Links

http://www.colecapital.com


New capacity, including prime space at 151 Front St., to support growing demands from cloud providers and enterprises that need low latency connections to them

DENVER and TORONTO, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Cologix, a network neutral interconnection and data centre company, announced today that it has signed leases to expand its downtown Toronto data centre footprint by 30K SQF and 3MW. The long term leases secure the last available 10K SQF at Canada's largest carrier hotel at 151 Front St. and double Cologix's 20K SQF footprint 2km away at 905 King St. In addition, the leases confer control over a high count fibre ring connecting the two buildings Meet-Me-Rooms for certain connectivity between the sites.

"Cologix is delighted to expand its relationship with Allied Properties in Toronto," explains Grant van Rooyen, president and chief executive officer, Cologix. "Toronto is a foundational pillar for Cologix's Canadian presence, supported by the tight relationship with our friends at Allied. For data centre customers who value neutral access to 160+ networks and a variety of cloud providers, there is not a more important pair of buildings in Toronto than 151 Front St. and 905 King St."

"We are seeing three key demand drivers from our customers in Toronto that amplify the importance of certainty of access to many networks with low switching costs," notes Sean Maskell, president, Cologix Canada. "Online video caching closer to end users, the rise of cloud computing and enterprises trading server closets for colocation facilities all place a premium on scalable, low latency, low cost access to networks and cloud providers. Combining resilient infrastructure with this neutral marketplace is what Cologix specializes in at our two Toronto data centres."

"Cologix's growth in Toronto has been noteworthy and in our estimation reflects their strong operations and strategic vision to pair up 151 Front St. and 905 King St.," says Tom Burns, chief operating officer, Allied Properties. "We look forward to our expanded partnership with one of our strategic tenants."

Cologix expects to bring the 10K SQF at 151 Front St online in 2017.

For more information or to request a tour, please contact [email protected].

About Cologix Inc.

Cologix provides reliable, secure, scalable data centre and interconnection solutions from 24 prime interconnection locations across 9 strategic North American edge markets. Over 1,600 leading network, managed services, cloud, media, content, financial services and enterprise customers trust Cologix to support their business critical infrastructure and connect them to customers, vendors and partners. Our dedicated, experienced local teams and scalable solutions enable us to provide industry-leading customer service and the ability to successfully support customers at the Internet's new edge. For a tour of one of our data centres in Columbus, Dallas, Jacksonville, Lakeland, Minneapolis, Montreal, New Jersey, Toronto or Vancouver visit www.cologix.com or email [email protected]. Follow Cologix on LinkedIn and Twitter.

SOURCE Cologix

Related Links

http://www.cologix.com


CLIFTON, N.J., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Comodo, a global innovator and developer of cybersecurity solutions and the worldwide leader in digital certificates, today announced that it is making Comodo Dome Shield, its DNS- and cloud-based web security offering, available free of charge. Dome Shield avoids the need for on-premise web gateway hardware and serves as a first line of defense to protect enterprises, small businesses and individuals from web-borne threats.

Malicious websites provide a well-known haven for malware and other threats to lurk. Unsuspecting users may inadvertently visit these sites after receiving an email containing a link. These sites are at their most dangerous when they contain unknown or zero-day threats. Such files can bypass conventional signature-based approaches because no malware signature is available.

Comodo Dome Shield provides a baseline level of web security by blocking access to sites where malware resides. It offers a first layer of protection that prevents users from accessing known malware sites. If users cannot access the site where a malware threat is housed, they avoid downloading the malicious fileeven if it is a zero-day threat. Organizations that want to take advantage of the Comodo offer simply point their DNS settings to the Comodo IP address to activate the DNS-based security provided by Comodo Dome Shield. The service also provides web domain filtering and advanced reporting and analytics.

"We are pleased to extend this offer of an unlimited user license for Comodo Dome Shield at no charge. A layered defense is essential for maximum security, and our cloud-based web security provides an easy way to roll out a first line of defense against web threats while providing upgrades to more robust security features," said Melih Abdulhayoglu, CEO and chief security architect at Comodo.

Dome Shield is the base-level tier of the Comodo Dome Security as a Service product family. The company provides paid offerings with additional security for customers that want to expand their protection beyond this base level. Customers can opt for full secure web gateway functionality with portable file containment, an antispam gateway, firewall, VPN, intrusion prevention, data loss prevention and other features.

Citizens Bank of Kansas uses Comodo Dome in conjunction with Comodo Advanced Endpoint Protection.

"Just knowing that we're controlling security firstinstead of looking at it secondarilyis important to us," said Brian Gentry, the bank's chief technology officer. "We're definitely in a better position to avoid a malware-induced breach. There's a huge comfort level knowing that Comodo is doing its job, as well as understanding the depths at which it looks at files."

Comodo Dome Shield is available immediately at https://www.comodo.com/cdomeshield/freelicense/.

Interested IT security professionals can also learn more about the offering at the same link.

About Comodo

The Comodo organization is a global innovator of cybersecurity solutions, protecting critical information across the digital landscape. Building on its unique position as the world's largest certificate authority, Comodo authenticates, validates and secures networks and infrastructures from individuals to mid-sized companies to the world's largest enterprises. Comodo provides complete end-to-end security solutions across the boundary, internal network and endpoint with innovative technologies solving the most advanced malware threats, both known and unknown. With global headquarters in Clifton, New Jersey and branch offices in Silicon Valley, Comodo has international offices in China, India, the Philippines, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit comodo.com.

Comodo and the Comodo brand are trademarks of the Comodo Group Inc. or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. The current list of Comodo trademarks and patents is available at comodo.com/repository.

Keep up to date with the latest Comodo News from the Comodo blog at https://blog.comodo.com/ and on Twitter @ComodoNews.

Connect with Comodo on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/comodo.

For more information, media and analysts may contact:

Deb Montner

Montner Tech PR

[email protected]

203-226-9290

SOURCE Comodo

Related Links

https://www.comodo.com


BRISBANE, Australia, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Orocobre Limited (the Company or Orocobre) (ASX: ORE; TSX: ORL) is pleased to announce that further to its releases of November 23, 2016 the Company has completed the sale of a suite of exploration assets to Advantage Lithium Corp (TSV: AAL).

The completion of the sale follows the successful closing of a CAD20 million capital raising via subscription receipts undertaken by Advantage Lithium and the satisfaction of all other conditions in the transaction documentation. These funds have now been released, leaving Advantage Lithium well funded with approximately CAD23 million.

Following the completion of the transaction Orocobre Limited will hold 46,325,000 (35%) of the issued shares of Advantage Lithium and will also hold 2,550,000 warrants exercisable at CAD1. Orocobre Limited did not participate in the capital raising. Pursuant to the terms of the transaction agreements, Orocobre has retained a 42.5% interest and a 1% gross royalty in the Cauchari Project. Advantage Lithium has the right to increase its interest to a total of 75% by the expenditure of USD5 million and will commence a drilling programme at Cauchari in late April. Upon the closing of the sale, Richard Seville and Rick Anthon from Orocobre Limited were appointed to the board of Advantage Lithium.

Drilling on the Cauchari Project is due to start in the coming quarter following recent approval of the project's exploration Environmental Impact Study (EIS).

Managing Director Richard Seville stated, "We are very pleased to have completed this transaction and look forward to a successful partnership with a well funded partner in Advantage Lithium. It is a real positive that the Cauchari Joint Venture and other projects we have sold to Advantage Lithium will be rapidly advanced whilst we maintain our focus on achieving our Stage 1 production goals at the Olaroz Lithium Facility and subsequent growth opportunities."

For more information, please contact:





Richard Seville Andrew Barber Managing Director Investor Relations Manager T: +61 7 3871 3985 T: +61 7 3871 3985 M: +61 419 916 338 M: +61 418 783 701 E: [email protected] E: [email protected]

About Orocobre Limited

Orocobre Limited is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange (ASX:ORE) (TSX:ORL), and is building a substantial Argentinian-based industrial chemicals and minerals company through the construction and operation of its portfolio of lithium, potash and boron projects and facilities in the Puna region of northern Argentina. The Company has built, in partnership with Toyota Tsusho Corporation and JEMSE, the first large-scale, greenfield brine based lithium project in approximately 20 years at the Salar de Olaroz with planned production of 17,500 tonnes per annum of low-cost lithium carbonate.

The Olaroz Lithium Facility has a low environmental footprint because of the following aspects of the process:

The process is designed to have a high processing recovery of lithium. With its low unit costs, the process will result in low cut-off grades, which will maximise resource recovery.

The process route is designed with a zero liquid discharge design. All waste products are stored in permanent impoundments (the lined evaporation ponds). At the end of the project life the ponds will be capped and returned to a similar profile following soil placement and planting of original vegetation types.

Brine is extracted from wells with minimum impact on freshwater resources outside the salar. Because the lithium is in sedimentary aquifers with relatively low permeability, drawdowns are limited to the salar itself. This is different from halite hosted deposits such as Salar de Atacama , Salar de Hombre Muerto and Salar de Rincon where the halite bodies have very high near surface permeability and the drawdown cones can impact on water resources around the Salar affecting the local environment.

, Salar de Hombre Muerto and where the halite bodies have very high near surface permeability and the drawdown cones can impact on water resources around the Salar affecting the local environment. Energy used to concentrate the lithium in the brine is solar energy. The carbon footprint is lower than other processes.

The technology developed has a very low maximum fresh water consumption of <20 l/s, which is low by industry standards.

Sales de Jujuy S.A. is also committed to the ten principles of the sustainable development framework as developed by The International Council on Mining and Metals. The company has an active and well-funded "Shared Value" program aimed at the long term development of the local people.

The Company continues to follow the community and shared value policy to successfully work with suppliers and the employment bureau to focus on the hiring of local people from the communities of Olaroz, Huancar, Puesto Sey, Pastos Chicos, Catua, Susques, Jama, El Toro, Coranzuli, San Juan and Abrapampa. The project implementation is through EPCM (Engineering, Procurement and Construction Management) with a high proportion of local involvement through construction and supply contracts and local employment. The community and shared value policy continues to be a key success factor, training local people under the supervision of high quality experienced professionals.

The Company also wholly-owns Borax Argentina, an important regional borate producer.

For further information, please visit www.orocobre.com

Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking information contained in this release may include, but is not limited to, the completion of commissioning, the commencement of commercial production and ramp up of the Olaroz Lithium Facility and the timing thereof, the cost of construction relative to the estimated capital cost of the Olaroz Lithium Facility, the meeting of banking covenants contained in project finance documentation, the design production rate for lithium carbonate at the Olaroz Lithium Facility, the expected brine cost and grade at the Olaroz Lithium Facility, the expected operating costs at the Olaroz Lithium Facility and the comparison of such expected costs to expected global operating costs, the estimation and conversion of exploration targets to resources at the Olaroz Lithium Facility, the viability, recoverability and processing of such resources, the potential for an expansion at the Olaroz Lithium Facility, the capital cost of an expansion at the Olaroz Lithium Facility; the future performance of the relocated borax plant and boric acid plant, including without limitation the plants estimated production rates, financial data, the estimates of mineral resources or mineralisation grade at Borax Argentina mines, the economic viability of such mineral resources or mineralisation, mine life and operating costs at Borax Argentina mines, the projected production rates associated with the borax plant and boric acid plant, the market price of borate products whether stated or implied, demand for borate products and other information and trends relating to the borate market, taxes including recoveries of IVA, royalty and duty rate and the ongoing working relationship between Orocobre and the Province of Jujuy, TTC and Mizuho Bank.

Such forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to the risk of further changes in government regulations, policies or legislation; the possibility that required concessions may not be obtained, or may be obtained only on terms and conditions that are materially worse than anticipated; that further funding may be required, but unavailable, for the ongoing development of the Company's projects; fluctuations or decreases in commodity prices and market demand for product; uncertainty in the estimation, economic viability, recoverability and processing of mineral resources; risks associated with weather patterns and impact on production rate; risks associated with commissioning and ramp up of the Olaroz Lithium Facility to full capacity; unexpected capital or operating cost increases; uncertainty of meeting anticipated program milestones at the Olaroz Lithium Facility; general risks associated with the further development of the Olaroz Lithium Facility; general risks associated with the operation of the borax plant or boric acid plant; a decrease in the price for borates resulting from, among other things, decreased demand or an increased supply of borates or substitutes, as well as those factors disclosed in the Company's Annual Report for the year ended June 30, 2016 filed at www.sedar.com.

The Company believes that the assumptions and expectations reflected in such forward-looking information are reasonable. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things: the timely receipt of required approvals and completion of agreements on reasonable terms and conditions; the ability of the Company to obtain financing as and when required and on reasonable terms and conditions; the prices of lithium, potash and borates; market demand for products and the ability of the Company to operate in a safe, efficient and effective manner. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list is not exhaustive of all factors and assumptions which may have been used. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

SOURCE Orocobre Limited

Related Links

http://www.orocobre.com


SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ControlUp, the leading provider of an ITOps analytics and management platform, today announced that it raised $10 million in a Series B funding round. The round was led by K1 Investment Management and Jerusalem Venture Partners, and brings the company's total funding to $13.3 million.

With thousands of customers worldwide, ControlUp spearheads the Collective IT Analytics revolution. By harnessing the power of big data to analyze operational IT data from a global customer base to find patterns, detect problems, establish dynamic baselines and generate actionable targeted insights, ControlUp reshapes ITOps to open the door for smarter IT.

"We're happy to announce our Series B and to further cement our place in the IT community," said Asaf Ganot, Founder and CEO of ControlUp. "After a year of significant accomplishments in 2016, we're expanding our global footprint and are excited to use these funds to continue innovating, growing our company, and enlarging our client base worldwide."

"ControlUp has reached a tipping point by harnessing big data to deliver insightful and unparalleled analytics and remediation to their customers. K1 has been impressed by what Asaf and his team have built, and is excited to partner with ControlUp to continue to drive innovation and disruption in ITOps," said Hasan Askari, Managing Partner of K1.

The announcement comes on the heels of a hot year for ControlUp. In September 2016, the company announced the launch of ControlUp 6, which provides unsurpassed troubleshooting and issues remediation capabilities in enterprise grade hybrid-cloud datacenters. In August, ControlUp joined the Microsoft Enterprise Cloud Alliance, extending its tools to support Microsoft Hyper-V and Microsoft Azure-based workloads that reside in the datacenter or in hybrid clouds. The company also launched ControlUp Insights in April, a new platform that empowers IT administrators to deliver interactive reports with unprecedented visibility and control of hybrid cloud workloads.

About ControlUp

ControlUp is the leading provider of a powerful, yet easy-to-use ITOps analytics and management platform. Used by thousands of companies worldwide, ControlUp helps ITOps teams to monitor, analyze and directly remediate problems in their on-premise, hybrid cloud and cloud infrastructures. ControlUp is headquartered in Silicon Valley with R&D in Israel, and is backed by Jerusalem Venture Partners and K1 Investment Management. For more information, visit us at www.controlup.com.

About K1 Investment Management

K1 is an investment firm focusing on high-growth enterprise software companies across North America. K1 seeks to help dynamic businesses achieve successful outcomes by identifying and executing organic and acquisition-based growth opportunities that position its companies as industry leaders. K1 typically invests alongside strong management teams that continue to guide their organizations on a day-to-day basis. K1's investments vary in the level of ownership in order to meet the needs of entrepreneurs and managers. For more information, please visit www.k1capital.com.

CONTACT:

Abigail Jaffe

240-723-2094

[email protected]

SOURCE ControlUp

Related Links

https://www.controlup.com


Leading Transportation Solutions Provider to Showcase Its Advanced Software Platform and Mobile App Designed to Enable Real-Time Freight Tracking and Communication Among Brokers, 3PLs and Carriers

TECUMSEH, Ontario, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- CX North America Information Services Inc. (CX North America), a leader in freight collaboration solutions for the transportation industry, announces it will officially launch its freight collaboration platform at the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA) 2017 Capital Ideas Conference & Exhibition, April 58, at the Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa in Las Vegas, Nevada. At booth #407, CX North America will showcase its software platform and corresponding mobile app that enable real-time freight tracking and communication between brokers, third-party logistics (3PL) companies and carriers, from first customer contact to proof of delivery (POD).

By pulling data from over a dozen telematics providers, transportation management systems (TMS) and drivers on its mobile app, CX North America provides brokers and 3PLs a single view of their freight and partner networks on any desktop or mobile device. Through its integration with industry-leading telematics providers, CX North America allows these firms to easily incorporate carriers, partners and subcontractor fleets as part of their "virtual fleet" within minutes. Jobs can be assigned directly to drivers, matching real-time vehicle location, load capacity and availability with business needs. Since everything is managed in real time, potential issues can be anticipated and addressed in a timely manner. Resources can be aligned with new or changing requirements to not only optimize allocation, efficiency and business outcomes but also minimize mileage, fuel usage and carbon emissions.

Firms can maintain communication with carriers and drivers via the CX North America app, available now on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Drivers can send alerts showing both current load status and future availability as well as automated Smart Alerts that keep customers and partners updated on their current location. At the tap of a screen, they can send date- and time-stamped updates of all major order milestones, including arrived shipper, loaded, arrived consignee and digitized POD with customer signature. Further, the mobile app features an instant messenger for secure correspondence between drivers, controllers and partners, so additional load information or questions can be communicated quickly.

Lyall Cresswell, president and CEO of CX North America, said, "As the world's largest gathering of brokerage-based 3PL providers and other transportation businesses, the TIA Capital Ideas Conference is the perfect venue for us to premiere our solutions. We developed our platform and mobile app with the goal of improving communication and collaboration among carriers, brokers and 3PLs so that they can work better, faster and more seamlessly together. Our technology enables brokers, 3PLs and shippers to gain greater control and visibility over their freight and partner carriers, and thus grow their business. Likewise, with improved communication and performance, carriers can become preferred partners and gain a competitive advantage."

A scalable solution, CX North America is available for carriers, brokers and 3PL companies of all sizes. CX North America offers tiered pricing based on booking volume for brokers and fleet size for carriers. For more information on pricing plans, please click here: www.cxnamerica.com/plans.

About CX North America

CX North America Information Services Inc. (CX North America), headquartered in Tecumseh, Ontario, Canada, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Transport Exchange Group, a leading provider of technology for the transportation industry and operator of two of the United Kingdom's largest and fastest-growing independent freight exchanges. CX North America brings Transport Exchange Group's proven technology and business model to the North American marketplace to enhance visibility, increase agility, optimize efficiency and improve communication and collaboration for carriers, brokers and 3PLs. We offer users a number of ways to engage with our products and services, depending on the technology they already have in place. For more information, please visit our website at www.cxnamerica.com, call 1-888-270-0482 or email us at [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.

SOURCE CX North America Information Services Inc.

Related Links

http://www.cxnamerica.com


MONTREAL, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Boralex Inc. ("Boralex" or the "Corporation") (TSX: BLX) is proud to announce that Dany St-Pierre, who has been on the Board of Boralex since 2016, ranks 66th among the Top 100 most influential women in the wind energy sector, published by the British magazine A Word About Wind, in honour of International Women's Day.

This special report, developed in partnership with renewable energy finance specialist Green Giraffe, celebrates business women who have made an outstanding contribution to the wind industry.

"On behalf of the employees of Boralex, I would like to congratulate Ms. St-Pierre for this well-deserved tribute," said Patrick Lemaire, Boralex President and Chief Executive Officer. "By continuing to highlight the merit and talent of women working in renewable energy, their achievements will be recognized and will pave the way for new generations of influential women in this sector in Canada and elsewhere."

"I'm delighted about the nomination of Ms. St-Pierre and extend my most sincere congratulations to her," said Alain Rheaume, Chairman of the Board of Boralex. "Ms. St-Pierre's career is a real source of inspiration for all women working in the renewable energy sector. Her determination has enabled her to hold important positions in large companies and we're very pleased to have Ms. St-Pierre among our administrators."

President of Cleantech Development LLC, a renewable energy consulting company, Ms. St-Pierre has 25 years of professional experience, including 15 years in the energy sector in Canada, the United States and Latin America. Having worked for companies such as Nordex USA, Alstom Power, Bombardier and Siemens Power Generation, she has developed extensive expertise in marketing, sales, business development, mergers and acquisitions. Ms. St-Pierre received a Bachelor of Business Administration (Marketing) from the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivieres as well as a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) from Laval University.

About Boralex

Boralex develops, builds and operates renewable energy power facilities in Canada, France and the United States. A leader in the Canadian market and France's largest independent producer of onshore wind power, the Corporation is recognized for its solid experience in optimizing its asset base in four power generation types  wind, hydroelectric, thermal and solar. Boralex ensures sustained growth by leveraging the expertise and diversification developed over the past 25 years. Boralex's shares and convertible debentures are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbols BLX and BLX.DB.A, respectively. More information is available at www.boralex.com, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

SOURCE Boralex Inc.
PALO ALTO, Calif., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) awarded a contract to Halfaker and Associates, LLC. As part of the Halfaker team, Medallia, Inc. ( www.medallia.com ), the global Customer Experience Management leader, will provide its customer relations management and survey software to help VA build trusted, life-long relationships with veterans. VA is committed to making veteran experiences predictable, consistent, and easy, and plans to put Medallia in the hands of its 300,000 employees with the goal of delivering better care at a more rapid pace.

VA's investment in Medallia comes at a time when the number of veterans is growing and their needs are becoming more complex. In 1975, the U.S. had two million veterans over the age of 65; VA expects this number to reach nearly 10 million in 2017.

The Medallia software platform will enable veterans to provide feedback to VA no matter where they are, whether it be a VA medical facility, the Vets.gov website, or the VA contact center, for example. The technology, which will give VA employees real-time access to veterans' feedback, will enable VA to not only identify and correct both one-off and systemic problems, but also identify new sources of value for veterans.

As part of Halfaker and Associates' proposed solution, Medallia will be available to all VA employees across its many services and locations, including 150 VA hospitals, 819 community based outpatient clinics, and 300 VA Vet Centers. For the first time, VA employees will have the critical insight they need to adjust and improve service delivery and recovery at a more rapid pace.

"We are proud to be partnering with the VA to better serve our veterans," said Amy Pressman, president of Medallia. "There is no one more deserving of high quality care than those who have so bravely and selflessly served our country."

The Medallia program will be nationwide, with one of the first programs rolling out in Baltimore, Maryland. Together, Medallia and Deloitte Digital, as part of the Halfaker awarded team, will work hand-in-hand with VA leadership to weave the veteran voice into the agency's regular operations and transform its culture around the veteran experience.

"The VA is working hard to transform its customer experience for veterans and we are proud to be a part of their effort," said RJ Krawiec, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP, and innovation and strategy leader, Deloitte Digital. "Our relationship with Medallia and the VA reflects our commitment to helping government agencies transform their approach to customer experience from transactional and processed-focused to customer-focused and intuitive. We believe that this will help our veterans more easily get the care they need."

In addition to teaming up with Deloitte Digital, Medallia is a subcontractor to Halfaker and Associates, LLC, a Federal Government technology solutions provider that brings deep industry expertise. This initiative is part of a task order, primed by Halfaker and Associates, on the Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology Next Generation contract issued by VA.

About Medallia

Medallia is the Customer Experience Management company that is trusted by hundreds of the world's leading brands. Medallia's Software-as-a-Service application enables companies to capture customer feedback everywhere the customer is (including web, social, mobile, and contact center channels), understand it in real time, and deliver insights and action everywherefrom the C-suite to the frontlineto improve their performance. Founded in 2001, Medallia has offices in Silicon Valley, New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong, Sydney, Buenos Aires, and Tel Aviv. Learn more at www.medallia.com .

 2017 Medallia, Inc. All rights reserved. Medallia, the Medallia logo, and the names and marks associated with Medallia's products are trademarks of Medallia. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

About Deloitte Digital

Deloitte Digital has created a new model for a new age  a creative digital consultancy. That means bringing together all the creative and technology capabilities, business acumen and industry insight needed to help transform our clients' businesses with digital. Deloitte's federal government services practice works with all 15 federal cabinet departments in the U.S. government, and with our end-to-end capabilities, clients bring us their greatest ambitions, knowing we've got what it takes to bring new business visions to life. Let us show you how we do it. To learn more, visit www.deloitte.com/federal , www.deloittedigital.com or follow us on Twitter @DeloitteDigi_US or @DeloitteDigital.

As used in this document, "Deloitte" means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of our legal structure. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting.

About Halfaker

Halfaker creates innovative and customer-centric technology solutions in the areas of Cyber Security, Data Analytics, Software Engineering and IT Infrastructure to improve the health, security and well-being of all Americans. We are proud to be a service-disabled veteran-owned, woman-owned, 8(a), small business. To learn more about Halfaker, please visit www.halfaker.com .

SOURCE Medallia

Related Links

http://www.medallia.com


"We take great pride in not only providing financial services to our members, but ingraining ourselves in the community through volunteering, being active with local charities following the credit union philosophy of 'people helping people,'" DMCU CEO Kathie Trembath said.

The Novi Chamber of Commerce also presented DMCU with their 2017 Customer Service Excellence Award, which recognized DMCU's commitment to excel in all areas of customer service and to ensure customer satisfaction.

"The credit union difference is all about providing service. And here at DMCU, we strive to treat each and every member as family," Horn added.

About Diversified Members Credit Union

Diversified Members Credit Union is a full service financial institution offering loans, savings and checking accounts. Anyone who lives or works in the state of Michigan is eligible for membership. Formed in 1929, DMCU has grown to over 20,000 members and $400M in assets. For more information, visit www.dmcu.com, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Media Contact:

Russ Kotila

Marketing Manager

Phone: 313.568.5000 ext. 209

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Diversified Members Credit Union

Related Links

http://www.dmcu.com


In one case, participants were asked to program Dobot Magician in order to re-organize a certain number of objects. With the use of Dobot Blockly, a visualized programming interface, participants were able to program Dobot Magician in a simpler way, where logic and the elegance of solutions take more value.

Dobot has also revealed its newly developed mobility platform in another combat program, drawing some eyes with its bright, modern design. This vehicle that carries Dobot Magician around supports remote control, obstacle detection and dodging, and multiple extension ports for sensors.

According to Dobot's CEO Jerry Liu, with the market of robots in expansion, the growth of educational robotics is an inevitable trend, which is also one of Dobot's focuses, with its increasing advantage in the educational robotics market. The cooperation with an international robot competition is our bet on the future.

Dobot (Shenzhen Yuejiang Technology Co., Ltd) is a leading robotic arm solution provider based in Shenzhen, China. Dobot Magician is a major product, a multi-functional smart robotic arm platform designed for high end STEAM education, featuring many capabilities including 3D printing and laser engraving, high extendibility and a GUI programming environment.

Visit the Dobot official website: www.dobot.cc

SOURCE Shenzhen Yuejiang Technology Co. Ltd
TORONTO, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Ehave, Inc. (OTCQB: EHVVF), a healthcare company dedicated to empowering the mental health community with next-generation digital solutions, today announced the appointment of Dave Goyette as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Mr. Goyette brings more than 30 years of healthcare technology, software development, medical imaging, and gaming experience to Ehave.

As CTO, Mr. Goyette will lead the technological development of Ehave Connect, Ehave's flagship informatics platform for the mental health industry. Ehave Connect empowers practitioners with a next generation of data-rich patient management, assessment, and remediation tools. Initially, Mr. Goyette will oversee the integration of third-party tools and content into Ehave Connect, including the Conners suite of ADHD assessments developed by Ehave partner Multi-Health Systems. Mr. Goyette will also work with Ehave partner MedReleaf on the development of an Ehave Connect application to advance the study and therapeutic use of medical cannabis.

Prior to joining Ehave, Mr. Goyette, together with Ehave CEO Prateek Dwivedi, developed a Cancer Informatics Program at Princess Margaret Hospital at the University Health Network in Toronto. The Cancer Informatics Program unites information from various clinical systems to give users a holistic and objective view of patient health, treatment, and outcomes data.

"I'm excited to work with Dave again, this time to modernize the mental healthcare space," said Mr. Dwivedi. "Dave and I previously worked together at Princess Margaret Hospital where we designed their Cancer Informatics Platform. Dave understands the challenges and complexity of designing systems that capture and facilitate the flow of patient information. As we develop Ehave Connect and integrate with third-party partners, I'm confident that Dave will provide the leadership to help ensure our success."

Prior to Princess Margaret Hospital, Mr. Goyette designed and implemented console and analytic tools for Novadaq SPY fluorescence imaging platform. During his tenure at Novadaq, Mr. Goyette co-authored several patents for the SPY product. Before Novadaq, Mr. Goyette proposed a concept for a new MMOG game to the Montecito Picture Company, and partnered with them on developing the concept and building a prototype in cooperation with a team of artists and game developers.

Mr. Goyette's additional healthcare experience includes working with both Philips and Hitachi Medical Systems on the architecture and design of MRI devices. Dave received his undergraduate degree in Mathematics (double honours in Computer Science and C&O) from the University of Waterloo.

About Ehave, Inc.

Ehave is empowering the mental healthcare community with a next-generation of data-rich tools designed to improve patient management, diagnosis and treatment. With Ehave Connect, Ehave's mental health informatics platform, clinicians can make objective, data-driven decisions while keeping patients informed and engaged throughout their mental healthcare journey. Ehave Connect offers a powerful set of core features that integrate with a growing selection of tools and applications developed by Ehave and its leading partners, including Multi-Health Systems ("MHS"), a leading publisher of psychological assessments. Ehave is initially focused on improving the standard of care in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ("ADHD"), through its collaboration with the Hospital for Sick Children ("SickKids"). Ehave Connect is also being utilized to advance the validation and optimization of medical marijuana, through its collaboration with MedReleaf. Ehave is headquartered in Toronto's Discovery District, a hub of healthcare, innovation, and technology in Toronto, Canada. For more information, visit https://www.ehave.com/.

Ehave Contacts

Tiberend Strategic Advisors, Inc.

Joshua Drumm, Ph.D. (Investors)

(212) 375-2664

[email protected]

Janine McCargo (Media)

(646) 604-5150

[email protected]

SOURCE Ehave, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.ehave.com


WOODCLIFF LAKE, N.J., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Eisai Inc. announced today 13 presentations of clinical and preclinical research at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) 2017 Annual Meeting, April 1  5, 2017 in Washington, D.C.

"At Eisai, we are proud of our science, which is grounded in extensive research to gain a full understanding of the potential of our therapies in the treatment of a variety of difficult-to-treat cancers," said Alton Kremer, MD, PhD, Chief Clinical Officer and Chief Medical Officer, Oncology Business Group at Eisai. "The data to be presented at this year's AACR demonstrate the variety of innovative pathways Eisai is evaluating to understand the complex mechanisms of the tumor microenvironment, and new ways we can help advance patient care."

Presentations of note include results demonstrating anti-tumor activity through the combination of multiple pathways, including PD-1, receptor kinase and microtubule dynamics inhibition. The following data will be presented by Eisai at this year's AACR meeting:

Abstract Name Session (All times are Eastern) Halaven (eribulin mesylate/E7386) Abstracts Eribulin induces cortical localization of E-cadherin, p120-catenin and beta-catenin in breast cancer cells Abstract #349 / Poster Board #5 Session PO.MCB01.02  Cell Growth

Signaling Pathways 2 Sunday, April 2, 1:00  5:00 p.m. Alison D. Clark Eribulin rapidly impairs TGF- signaling Abstract #4910 / Poster Board #19 Session PO.TB04.07  Therapeutic

Intervention of Cancer and Metastasis Tuesday, April 4, 1:00  5:00 p.m. Roma Kaul Mechanistic pharmacodynamic analysis on safety profiles of eribulin in patients with breast cancer using data obtained by post-marketing observational study Abstract #5052 / Poster Board #27 Session PO.ET05.02  Anticancer Precision

Clinical Pharmacology Wednesday, April 5, 8:00 a.m.  12:00 p.m. Takahisa Kawamura Establishing an experimental paradigm to study the interphase effects of microtubule targeting agents Abstract #5115 / Poster Board #17 Session PO.ET06.03  Novel Chemotherapies Wednesday, April 5, 8:00 a.m.  12:00 p.m. April L. Risinger E7386, an orally active CBP/beta-catenin modulator, induces T cells infiltration into tumor and enhances antitumor activity of anti-PD-1 mAb in Wnt1 tumor syngeneic mice model Abstract #5172 / Poster Board #15 Session PO.ET06.01  Oncogenes and Tumor Suppressors as Therapeutic Targets Wednesday, April 5, 8:00 a.m.  12:00 p.m. Yusaku Hori E7386, an orally active CBP/beta-catenin modulator, effects tumor microenvironment, resulting to the enhancement of antitumor activity of lenvatinib Abstract #5176 / Poster Board #19 Session PO.ET06.01  Oncogenes and Tumor Suppressors as Therapeutic Targets Wednesday, April 5, 8:00 a.m.  12:00 p.m. Yoichi Ozawa E7386: First-in-class orally active CBP/beta-catenin modulator as an anticancer agent Abstract #5177 / Poster Board #20 Session PO.ET06.01  Oncogenes and Tumor Suppressors as Therapeutic Targets Wednesday, April 5, 8:00 a.m.  12:00 p.m Kazuhiko Yamada Eribulin modulates tumor microenvironment through vascular remodeling for antitumor effect in multiple mouse xenograft models Abstract #5927 / Poster Board #9 Session PO.TB06.09  Tumor

Microenvironment 9 Wednesday, April 5, 8:00 a.m.  12:00 p.m. Ken Ito Lenvima (lenvatinib) Abstracts Stage 1 in vivo evaluation of multi-receptor tyrosine-kinase inhibitor lenvatinib in osteosarcoma patient derived mouse xenograft models Abstract #697 / Poster Board #14 Session PO.CL02.01  Childhood Cancer

Clinical Translational Research Sunday, April 2, 1:00  5:00 p.m. Wendong Zhang Antitumor activity of lenvatinib mesilate in human hepatocellular carcinoma preclinical models Abstract #1805 / Poster Board #5 Session PO.TB05.02  Angiogenesis and

Vascular Biology 2 Monday, April 3, 8:00 a.m.  12:00 p.m. Masahiro Matsuki Upregulation of memory T cell population and enhancement of Th1 response by lenvatinib potentiate antitumor activity of PD-1 signaling blockade Abstract #4614 / Poster Board #29 Session PO.IM02.04  Immunoconjugates and Antibodies Tuesday, April 4, 1:00  5:00 p.m. Yu Kato Pipeline Abstracts E7090, a novel and selective FGFR inhibitor, for the treatment of cholangiocarcinoma cells harboring FGFR2-fusion genes Abstract #2095 / Poster Board #22 Session PO.ET06.07  Growth Factor and

Hormone Receptors as Therapeutic Targets Monday, April 3, 1:00  5:00 p.m. Saori W. Miyano Pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic relationship of single agent E7449 in patients with advanced solid tumors or B-cell malignancies Abstract #5050 / Poster Board #25 Session PO.ET05.02 Anticancer Precision

Clinical Pharmacology Wednesday, April 5, 8:00 a.m.  12:00 p.m. Pallavi Sachdev

This release discusses investigational compounds that are not Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved and investigational uses for FDA-approved products. It is not intended to convey conclusions about efficacy and safety. There is no guarantee that any of these investigational compounds or investigational uses of FDA-approved products will successfully complete clinical development or gain FDA approval.

About Halaven (eribulin mesylate) Injection

Halaven (eribulin mesylate) is a microtubule dynamics inhibitor indicated for the treatment of patients with:

Metastatic breast cancer who have previously received at least two chemotherapeutic regimens for the treatment of metastatic disease. Prior therapy should have included an anthracycline and a taxane in either the adjuvant or metastatic setting.

Unresectable or metastatic liposarcoma who have received a prior anthracycline- containing regimen.

First in the halichondrin class, Halaven is a microtubule dynamics inhibitor with a distinct binding profile. Discovered and developed by Eisai, eribulin is a synthetic analog of halichondrin B, a natural product that was isolated from the marine sponge Halichondria okadai. Based on in vitro studies, eribulin exerts its effect via a tubulin-based antimitotic mechanism ultimately leading to apoptotic cell death after prolonged and irreversible mitotic blockage. In addition, treatment of human breast cancer cells with eribulin caused changes in cell structure and gene expression as well as decreased migration and invasiveness in vitro. Eribulin treatment in preclinical models of human breast cancer was also associated with increased vascular perfusion and permeability in the tumor cores, resulting in reduced tumor hypoxia, and changes in the expression of genes in tumor specimens associated with a change in phenotype.

Important Safety Information

Warnings and Precautions

Neutropenia: Severe neutropenia (ANC <500/mm3) lasting >1 week occurred in 12% of patients with mBC and liposarcoma or leiomyosarcoma. Febrile neutropenia occurred in 5% of patients with mBC and 2 patients (0.4%) died from complications. Febrile neutropenia occurred in 0.9% of patients with liposarcoma or leiomyosarcoma, and fatal neutropenic sepsis occurred in 0.9% of patients. Patients with mBC with elevated liver enzymes >3  ULN and bilirubin >1.5  ULN experienced a higher incidence of Grade 4 neutropenia and febrile neutropenia than patients with normal levels. Monitor complete blood cell counts prior to each dose, and increase the frequency of monitoring in patients who develop Grade 3 or 4 cytopenias. Delay administration and reduce subsequent doses in patients who experience febrile neutropenia or Grade 4 neutropenia lasting >7 days.

Peripheral Neuropathy: Grade 3 peripheral neuropathy occurred in 8% of patients with mBC (Grade 4=0.4%) and 22% developed a new or worsening neuropathy that had not recovered within a median follow-up duration of 269 days (range 25-662 days). Neuropathy lasting >1 year occurred in 5% of patients with mBC. Grade 3 peripheral neuropathy occurred in 3.1% of patients with liposarcoma and leiomyosarcoma receiving Halaven and neuropathy lasting more than 60 days occurred in 58% (38/65) of patients who had neuropathy at the last treatment visit. Patients should be monitored for signs of peripheral motor and sensory neuropathy. Withhold Halaven in patients who experience Grade 3 or 4 peripheral neuropathy until resolution to Grade 2 or less.

Embryo-Fetal Toxicity: Halaven can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman. Advise females of reproductive potential to use effective contraception during treatment with Halaven and for at least 2 weeks following the final dose. Advise males with female partners of reproductive potential to use effective contraception during treatment with Halaven and for 3.5 months following the final dose.

QT Prolongation: Monitor for prolonged QT intervals in patients with congestive heart failure, bradyarrhythmias, drugs known to prolong the QT interval, and electrolyte abnormalities. Correct hypokalemia or hypomagnesemia prior to initiating Halaven and monitor these electrolytes periodically during therapy. Avoid in patients with congenital long QT syndrome.

Adverse Reactions

In patients with mBC receiving Halaven, the most common adverse reactions (25%) were neutropenia (82%), anemia (58%), asthenia/fatigue (54%), alopecia (45%), peripheral neuropathy (35%), nausea (35%), and constipation (25%). Febrile neutropenia (4%) and neutropenia (2%) were the most common serious adverse reactions. The most common adverse reaction resulting in discontinuation was peripheral neuropathy (5%).

In patients with liposarcoma and leiomyosarcoma receiving Halaven, the most common adverse reactions (25%) reported in patients receiving Halaven were fatigue (62%), nausea (41%), alopecia (35%), constipation (32%), peripheral neuropathy (29%), abdominal pain (29%), and pyrexia (28%). The most common (5%) Grade 3-4 laboratory abnormalities reported in patients receiving Halaven were neutropenia (32%), hypokalemia (5.4%), and hypocalcemia (5%). Neutropenia (4.9%) and pyrexia (4.5%) were the most common serious adverse reactions. The most common adverse reactions resulting in discontinuation were fatigue and thrombocytopenia (0.9% each).

Use in Specific Populations

Lactation: Because of the potential for serious adverse reactions in breastfed infants from eribulin mesylate, advise women not to breastfeed during treatment with Halaven and for 2 weeks after the final dose.

Hepatic and Renal Impairment: A reduction in starting dose is recommended for patients with mild or moderate hepatic impairment and/or moderate or severe renal impairment.

For more information about Halaven, click here for the full Prescribing Information.

About Lenvima (lenvatinib)

Lenvima (lenvatinib) is a kinase inhibitor that is indicated for:

Differentiated Thyroid Cancer (DTC): single agent for patients with locally recurrent or metastatic, progressive, radioactive iodine-refractory DTC.

Renal Cell Cancer (RCC): in combination with everolimus for patients with advanced RCC following one prior anti-angiogenic therapy.

Lenvatinib, discovered and developed by Eisai, is a receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) inhibitor that inhibits the kinase activities of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) receptors VEGFR1-3. Lenvatinib also inhibits other RTKs that have been implicated in pathogenic angiogenesis, tumor growth, and cancer progression in addition to their normal cellular functions, including fibroblast growth factor (FGF) receptors FGFR1-4; the platelet derived growth factor receptor alpha (PDGFR), KIT, and RET. The combination of lenvatinib and everolimus showed increased anti-angiogenic and anti-tumor activity as demonstrated by decreased human endothelial cell proliferation, tube formation, and VEGF signaling in vitro and tumor volume in mouse xenograft models of human renal cell cancer greater than each drug alone.

Important Safety Information

Warnings and Precautions

In DTC, hypertension was reported in 73% of patients on Lenvima vs 16% with placebo (44% vs 4% grade 3). In RCC, hypertension was reported in 42% of patients on Lenvima + everolimus vs 10% with everolimus alone (13% vs 2% grade 3). Systolic blood pressure 160 mmHg occurred in 29% of patients, and 21% of patients had a diastolic blood pressure 100 mmHg in the Lenvima + everolimustreated group. Blood pressure should be controlled prior to treatment and monitored throughout. Withhold dose for grade 3 hypertension despite optimal antihypertensive therapy; resume at reduced dose when controlled at grade 2. Discontinue for life-threatening hypertension

In DTC, cardiac dysfunction was reported in 7% of patients on Lenvima vs 2% with placebo (2% vs 0% grade 3). In RCC, decreased ejection fraction and cardiac failure were reported in 10% of patients on Lenvima + everolimus vs 6% with everolimus alone (3% vs 2% grade 3). Monitor for signs/symptoms of cardiac decompensation. Withhold Lenvima for development of grade 3 cardiac dysfunction until improvement to grade 0, 1, or baseline. Resume at reduced dose or discontinue based on severity and persistence of cardiac dysfunction. Discontinue for grade 4 cardiac dysfunction

In DTC, arterial thromboembolic events were reported in 5% of patients on Lenvima vs 2% with placebo (3% vs 1% grade 3). In RCC, arterial thromboembolic events were reported in 2% of patients on Lenvima + everolimus vs 6% with everolimus alone (2% vs 4% grade 3). Discontinue following an arterial thrombotic event. The safety of resuming Lenvima after an arterial thromboembolic event has not been established, and Lenvima has not been studied in patients who have had an arterial thromboembolic event within the previous 6 months

Across clinical studies in which 1,160 patients received Lenvima monotherapy, hepatic failure (including fatal events) was reported in 3 patients and acute hepatitis in 1 patient. In DTC, ALT and AST increases (grade 3) occurred in 4% and 5% of patients on Lenvima, respectively, vs 0% with placebo. In RCC, ALT and AST increases (grade 3) occurred in 3% of patients on Lenvima + everolimus vs 2% and 0% with everolimus alone, respectively. Monitor liver function before initiation, then every 2 weeks for the first 2 months, and at least monthly thereafter during treatment. Withhold dose for liver impairment grade 3 until resolved to grade 0, 1, or baseline. Resume at reduced dose or discontinue based on severity/persistence of hepatotoxicity. Discontinue for hepatic failure

In DTC, proteinuria was reported in 34% of patients on Lenvima vs 3% with placebo (11% vs 0% grade 3). In RCC, proteinuria was reported in 31% of patients on Lenvima + everolimus vs 14% with everolimus alone (8% vs 2% grade 3). Monitor for proteinuria before and during treatment. Withhold dose for proteinuria 2 g/24 h. Resume at reduced dose when proteinuria is <2 g/24 h. Discontinue for nephrotic syndrome

In RCC, diarrhea was reported in 81% of patients on Lenvima + everolimus vs 34% with everolimus alone (19% vs 2% grade 3). Initiate prompt medical management for the development of diarrhea. Monitor for dehydration. Withhold dose for diarrhea grade 3. Resume at a reduced dose when diarrhea resolves to grade 1 or baseline. Permanently discontinue Lenvima for grade 4 diarrhea despite medical management

In DTC, events of renal impairment were reported in 14% of patients on Lenvima vs 2% with placebo (3% vs 1% grade 3). In RCC, events of renal impairment were reported in 18% of patients on Lenvima + everolimus vs 12% with everolimus alone (10% vs 2% grade 3). Withhold Lenvima for grade 3 or 4 renal failure/impairment. Resume at reduced dose or discontinue, depending on severity/persistence of renal impairment. Active management of diarrhea and any other gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms should be initiated for grade 1 events

In DTC, events of GI perforation or fistula were reported in 2% of patients on Lenvima vs 0.8% with placebo. In RCC, events of GI perforation, abscess, or fistula (grade 3) were reported in 2% of patients on Lenvima + everolimus vs 0% with everolimus alone. Discontinue in patients who develop GI perforation or life-threatening fistula

In DTC, QT/QTc interval prolongation was reported in 9% of patients on Lenvima vs 2% with placebo (2% vs 0% >500 ms). In RCC, QTc interval increases >60 ms were reported in 11% of patients on Lenvima + everolimus (6% >500 ms) vs 0% with everolimus alone. Monitor electrocardiograms in patients with congenital long QT syndrome, congestive heart failure, bradyarrhythmias, or patients taking drugs known to prolong the QT interval. Monitor and correct electrolyte abnormalities in all patients. Withhold dose for QTc interval prolongation >500 ms. Resume at reduced dose when QTc prolongation resolves to baseline

In DTC, hypocalcemia (grade 3) was reported in 9% of patients on Lenvima vs 2% with placebo. In RCC, hypocalcemia (grade 3) was reported in 6% of patients on Lenvima + everolimus vs 2% with everolimus alone. Monitor blood calcium levels at least monthly and replace calcium as necessary. Interrupt and adjust Lenvima as necessary

Across clinical studies in which 1,160 patients received Lenvima monotherapy, reversible posterior leukoencephalopathy syndrome (RPLS) was reported in 4 patients. Withhold Lenvima for RPLS until fully resolved. Resume at reduced dose or discontinue based on the severity and persistence of neurologic symptoms

Across clinical studies in which 1,160 patients received Lenvima monotherapy, hemorrhage (grade 3) was reported in 2% of patients. In DTC, hemorrhagic events occurred in 35% of patients on LENVIMA vs 18% with placebo (2% vs 3% grade 3). There was 1 fatal intracranial hemorrhage case among 16 patients who received Lenvima and had central nervous system metastases at baseline. The most frequently reported hemorrhagic event was epistaxis (11% grade 1, 1% grade 2). Discontinuation due to hemorrhagic events occurred in 1% of patients on Lenvima. In RCC, hemorrhagic events occurred in 34% of patients on Lenvima + everolimus vs 26% with everolimus alone (8% vs 2% grade 3). The most frequently reported hemorrhagic event was epistaxis (23% for Lenvima + everolimus vs 24% with everolimus alone). There was 1 fatal cerebral hemorrhage case. Discontinuation due to hemorrhagic events occurred in 3% of patients on Lenvima + everolimus. Consider the risk of severe or fatal hemorrhage associated with tumor invasion/infiltration of major blood vessels (eg, carotid artery). Withhold Lenvima for the development of grade 3 hemorrhage until resolved to grade 0 or 1. Resume at reduced dose or discontinue based on severity/persistence of hemorrhage. Discontinue for grade 4 hemorrhage

In DTC patients with normal baseline thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), elevation of TSH level above 0.5 mU/L was observed postbaseline in 57% of patients on Lenvima vs 14% with placebo. In RCC, grade 1 or 2 hypothyroidism occurred in 24% of patients on Lenvima + everolimus vs 2% with everolimus alone. In RCC patients with normal or low TSH at baseline, elevation of TSH was observed postbaseline in 60% of patients on Lenvima + everolimus vs 3% with everolimus alone. Monitor thyroid function before initiation of and at least monthly throughout treatment. Treat hypothyroidism according to standard medical practice to maintain a euthyroid state

Lenvima can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman. Advise females of reproductive potential to use effective contraception during treatment with Lenvima and for at least 2 weeks following completion of therapy

Adverse Reactions

In DTC, the most common adverse reactions (30%) observed in Lenvima-treated patients vs placebo-treated patients were hypertension (73% vs 16%), fatigue (67% vs 35%), diarrhea (67% vs 17%), arthralgia/myalgia (62% vs 28%), decreased appetite (54% vs 18%), weight decrease (51% vs 15%), nausea (47% vs 25%), stomatitis (41% vs 8%), headache (38% vs 11%), vomiting (36% vs 15%), proteinuria (34% vs 3%), palmar-plantar erythrodysesthesia syndrome (32% vs 1%), abdominal pain (31% vs 11%), and dysphonia (31% vs 5%)

In DTC, adverse reactions led to dose reductions in 68% of patients receiving Lenvima and in 5% of patients receiving placebo; 18% of patients discontinued Lenvima and 5% discontinued placebo for adverse reactions. The most common adverse reactions (10%) resulting in dose reductions of Lenvima were hypertension (13%), proteinuria (11%), decreased appetite (10%), and diarrhea (10%); the most common adverse reactions (1%) resulting in discontinuation of Lenvima were hypertension (1%) and asthenia (1%)

In RCC, the most common adverse reactions (>30%) observed in patients treated with Lenvima + everolimus vs everolimus alone were diarrhea (81% vs 34%), fatigue (73% vs 40%), arthralgia/myalgia (55% vs 32%), decreased appetite (53% vs 18%), vomiting (48% vs 12%), nausea (45% vs 16%), stomatitis/oral inflammation (44% vs 50%), hypertension/increased blood pressure (42% vs 10%), peripheral edema (42% vs 20%), cough (37% vs 30%), abdominal pain (37% vs 8%), dyspnea/exertional dyspnea (35% vs 28%), rash (35% vs 40%), weight decreased (34% vs 8%), hemorrhagic events (32% vs 26%), and proteinuria/urine protein present (31% vs 14%). The most common serious adverse reactions (5%) were renal failure (11%), dehydration (10%), anemia (6%), thrombocytopenia (5%), diarrhea (5%), vomiting (5%), and dyspnea (5%)

In RCC, adverse reactions led to dose reductions or interruption in 89% of patients receiving Lenvima + everolimus and in 54% of patients receiving everolimus alone. The most common adverse reactions (5%) resulting in dose reductions in the Lenvima + everolimustreated group were diarrhea (21%), fatigue (8%), thrombocytopenia (6%), vomiting (6%), nausea (5%), and proteinuria (5%). Treatment discontinuation due to an adverse reaction occurred in 29% of patients in the Lenvima + everolimustreated group and in 12% of patients in the everolimus-treated group

Use in Specific Populations

Because of the potential for serious adverse reactions in nursing infants, advise women to discontinue breastfeeding during treatment

Lenvima may result in reduced fertility in females of reproductive potential and may result in damage to male reproductive tissues, leading to reduced fertility of unknown duration

For more information about Lenvima, click here for the full Prescribing Information.

About Eisai Inc.

At Eisai Inc., human health care is our goal. We give our first thoughts to patients and their families, and helping to increase the benefits health care provides. As the U.S. pharmaceutical subsidiary of Tokyo-based Eisai Co., Ltd., we have a passionate commitment to patient care that is the driving force behind our efforts to discover and develop innovative therapies to help address unmet medical needs.

Eisai is a fully integrated pharmaceutical business that operates in two global business groups: oncology and neurology (dementia-related diseases and neurodegenerative diseases). Each group functions as an end-to-end global business with discovery, development, manufacturing and marketing capabilities. Our U.S. headquarters, commercial and clinical development organizations are located in New Jersey; our discovery labs are in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania; and our global demand chain organization resides in Maryland and North Carolina. To learn more about Eisai Inc., please visit us at www.eisai.com/US.

Contacts: Media Inquiries Investor Inquiries

Laurie Landau Alex Scott

Eisai Inc. Eisai Inc.

(201) 746-2510 (201) 746-2177

SOURCE Eisai Inc.

Related Links

http://www.eisai.com


LONDON, March 27, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --



Summary

This report provides all the information you require to better understand Eli Lilly and its partnering interests and activities since 2010.



Description

The Partnering Deals and Alliance since 2010 report provides an in-depth insight into the partnering activity of one of the world's leading life sciences companies.



On demand company reports are prepared upon purchase to ensure inclusion of the most up to date deal and company data.



The report will be delivered in PDF format within 1 working day of receipt of order. If the CD-Rom version purchased, the report will be sent by courier using express service.



One of the key aspects of partnering is finding those companies that are potential candidates for the development and commercialization of the next generation of therapies. A lot of resources are spent on finding partners, identifying their interests and making contact to initiate discussions.



Using this report, dealmakers will effectively and efficiently target their partnering activities to deliver the company's business development objectives.



The initial chapters of this report provide an orientation of deal making and business activities. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the report, whilst chapter 2 lists the top companies partnering with the company since 2010. Chapter 3 provides an overview of the leading partnering and M&A deals since 2010 to present date based on headline value.



Chapter 4 provides details on how to approach biopharma companies with partnering opportunities whilst chapter 5 lists forthcoming partnering events and conferences where biopharma companies will be present to discuss opportunities face to face.



The main body of the report is provided in chapter 6 providing a infographic visual summary of the company's partnering activity since 2010 according to deal type, industry sector, phase of development, and therapy area.



The deals are listed by deal type, stage of development and therapy focus, allowing easy access to deals and alliances of interest. Every deal record links to an online, live version of the deal record at the Current Agreements deals and alliances database. Where available, deal records also include the contract document as disclosed at the SEC.



One of the key aspects of partnering is conducting due diligence on a partner to determine under what terms a prospective partner agrees to a partnering relationship.



Understanding the flexibility of prospective partners' negotiated deals terms provides critical insight into the negotiation process in terms of what you can expect to achieve during the negotiation of terms. Whilst many smaller companies will be seeking details of the payments clauses, the devil is in the detail in terms of how payments are triggered  contract documents provide this insight where press releases and databases do not.



In addition, contract documents provide the answers to numerous questions about a prospective partner's flexibility on a wide range of important issues, many of which will have a significant impact on each party's ability to derive value from the deal.



Each contract document is accessible through a link to an online version of the actual contract document as filed with the Securities Exchange Commission.



Analyzing actual company agreements allows assessment of the following:



- What is actually granted by the agreement to the partner company?



- What exclusivity is granted?



- What is the payment structure for the deal?



- How are sales and payments audited?



- What is the deal term?



- How are the key terms of the agreement defined?



- How are IPRs handled and owned?



- Who is responsible for commercialization?



- Who is responsible for development, supply, and manufacture?



- How is confidentiality and publication managed?



- How are disputes to be resolved?



- Under what conditions can the deal be terminated?



- What happens when there is a change of ownership?



- What sublicensing and sub-contracting provisions have been agreed?



- Which boilerplate clauses does the company insist upon?



- Which boilerplate clauses appear to differ from partner to partner or deal type to deal type?



- Which jurisdiction does the company insist upon for agreement law?



Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/3605571/



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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LONDON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Europe stands at the forefront of the legal scenario of the global e-cigarette market with a series of laws and regulations for e-cigarette and e-liquid manufacturing, sales, distribution, advertising, and marketing. The e-cigarette industry has been growing exponentially in Europe which is home to some of the largest markets in terms of revenue generation such as the U.K., Germany and France among others.



However, a significant share of the European population is still unaware of the pros and cons of e-cigarettes and its components. Consortiums and associations are present to provide awareness among the consumers and the suppliers in order to get familiar with the ongoing changes within the rapidly growing industry. The prominent consortiums discussed in this segment are The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), Tobacco Vapor E-cigarette Association (TVECA) and British Medical Association among others.



Since 2012, the market has undergone a transformation, due to a series of major acquisitions, product launches, and partnerships taking place among other market activities. European countries have established a reputation of following rigid policies and consequentially certain restrictions have already been implemented by the European Union- Tobacco Products Directive (EU-TPD), in regards to updating the laws, rules and regulations governing the e-cigarette industry.



The report on the 'Europe E-liquid Market' is a meticulous compilation of the various facets of the e-liquid industry. After a thorough analysis of the current trends, the market dynamic chapter includes the key push and pull forces prevailing in the Europe e-liquid market. The chapter also includes the consumer's perspective and buying decision covering aspects that influence consumer behavior. Owing to the dependency of the market growth on the legal and regulatory framework, the report at each step has considered the effect of laws (both implemented and anticipated) in terms of regulations and taxation in estimation and forecast of the market size. Moreover, the key consortiums and compliance influencing the e-cigarette and e-liquid market across the continent have also been included in the report.



The report involves a mix of 50+ companies chosen on the basis of their market developments, revenue generation and market share in the industry. The companies profiled in the report include Altria, Imperial Tobacco, Japan Tobacco, Reynolds American Inc, British American Tobacco and ECIG International among others.



Key Questions answered in the report:

- How will the key market players leverage on key developments such as acquisitions, partnerships, and product launch among others?

- How will the intensity of competitive rivalry evolve through the forecast period?

- Which factors will be driving the market through the forecast period?

- What factors are currently challenging the Europe e-cigarette and e-liquid market and how can they be addressed through the forecast period?

- Which consortiums are active in the Europe e-liquid market?

- How are the regulatory bodies such as the MHRA, EU-TPD and WHO among others participating in the industry?

- Which compliances and certifications are necessary to make a product acceptable among the users (especially the first time vapers)?

- What are the prevalent e-liquid types and what is the market size for each of them?

- Who are the key players in the E-liquid e-cigarette market?





Executive Summary

With the implementation of smoking bans in public spaces and rise in cigarette taxes, e-cigarette sales have been surging in Europe. As smokers seek to kick the habit, they have been increasingly turn to vaporizers and mods. Thereby, creating a large demand for e-liquids used in these refillable devices. Although, the implementation of EU-TPD has forced a number of smaller players to quit the e-liquid market, the market as a whole will continue to flourish.



While North America previously dominated the e-liquid market in terms of revenue generation, Europe now holds the largest market share of the global market with a value of $XX billion. UK is the largest market in Europe, with a revenue generation of $xx million, and will continue to be so throughout the forecast period. It is followed by Germany, which with its over 2 million vapers, contributes $XX million to the e-liquid market. While Russia, despite having a high prevalence of smokers, has not caught the e-cigarette hype. Less than 1% of Russian currently use e-cigarettes, the country thus presents a large potential e-liquid market for companies to tap into.



The market is expected to be driven by their lack of restriction in public use in contrast to cigarettes, their easy availability, and their cheap cost among others, while it is impeded by increasing regulation and taxation policies. The e-liquid market in Europe is being driven by an increasing number of vape shops that are opening up in different countries. However, owing to the anticipated taxes that might be imposed on the sales of e-cigarettes and e-liquids, many of these shops might actually exit from the market.



Moreover, newer players are resorting to online distribution channels since brick-and-mortar shops require capital investments such as rent and other infrastructure set-up. Several concerns have been raised and statements released regarding the sale of flavors of e-liquids that bear close resemblance to products from the food and beverage industry. As these e-liquids are usually marketed with captivating names resembling eatables, they appeal to youngsters and may lead to the development of a long term habit of e-cigarette use among adolescents. Moreover, they are often mistaken to be edible products by children, among whom several adverse incidents of intake of fatal amount of e-liquids have been reported in the past years. The increasing prevalence of e-cigarette use among youngsters has instigated to ban the sale and use of e-cigarettes and related products to minors.

Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4717458/



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

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ORLANDO, Fla., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Ready to rent a perfect apartment downtown or maybe buy that dream house? Finding the right place to call home takes time and can cause a range of emotions from excitement to anxiety  especially since Realtors across Florida report seeing an increase in online listing scams.

"Unfortunately, criminals keep coming up with sophisticated schemes that target online rentals and property listing sites," says Florida Realtors 2017 President Maria Wells, broker-owner with Lifestyle Realty Group in Stuart. "Realtors must be aware that criminals are using their legitimate listings data to lure consumers to phony listings on internet portals. As the voice for real estate in Florida, Florida Realtors is committed to protecting consumers  we urge our members to use diligent efforts to help safeguard against these schemes and to encourage their clients to call their Realtor to verify any information."

According to Florida Realtors General Counsel Margy Grant, federal and state authorities have tried to rid online marketplaces from scams involving bogus sales or rental listings, but they continue.

Here's what happens in a common fraudulent scheme: Scammers visit rental property or homes for sale listing websites, "scrape" or steal the data, then reuse it in various ways that make them money. They may repost entire listings on sites like Craigslist with their own contact information, so when an unsuspecting consumer sends an email or calls about the property, they're dealing with the scammer instead of the Realtor who legitimately represents the property.

"We urge consumers to double check all information about any property listing before sending any funds to anyone," says Grant. "Criminals are creating extremely realistic listings, or stealing others' listings, in an attempt to convince consumers to send deposits before they confirm the actual true listing agent. If a deal sounds too good to be true, if someone can't show you the property in person because they're out of state or out of the country, if they want you to send a deposit or first month's rent via a wire service before you've seen the property or signed a lease, if they want all your personal financial information  these can be possible signs of listing scams."

It's a good idea to research the email address and phone number of the landlord, property owner or listing representative. Do a quick internet search and you may find alerts have already been posted about the individual  you may also find the property you're interested in has duplicate listings with varying prices, different representatives and contact emails.

Report any rental scam to your local law enforcement agency and to the Federal Trade Commission, https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0079-rental-listing-scams. You can also file a complaint with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at https://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx. Also contact the website where the ad or listing was posted.

Florida Realtors serves as the voice for real estate in Florida. It provides programs, services, continuing education, research and legislative representation to its 165,000 members in 55 boards/associations. Florida Realtors Media Center website is available at http://media.floridarealtors.org.

SOURCE Florida Realtors

Related Links

http://www.media.floridarealtors.org


HOUSTON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Flotek Industries, Inc. (NYSE: FTK) Chief Executive Officer, President & Chairman of the Board John W. Chisholm will be a featured speaker at the Young Jewish Presidents' CEO Forum in New York on Thursday, March 30, 2017.

He will be joined by an esteemed group of senior executives, including Andreas Fibig of International Flavors & Fragrances; Ivan Seidenberg of Verizon; Frank Blake of Home Depot; Brian Kelley of Green Mountain Coffee; Mark Weinberger of Earnst & Young and Ken Goldman of Yahoo, among others.

About Flotek Industries, Inc.

Flotek is a developer and distributor of prescriptive chemistry-based technology, including specialty chemicals, to clients in the energy, consumer industrials and food & beverage industries. Flotek's inspired chemists draw from the power of solvents and oils of oranges to deliver solutions that enhance energy production, cleaning products, foods & beverages and fragrances. In the oil and gas sector, Flotek serves large and independent energy producers and oilfield service companies, both domestic and international. Flotek Industries, Inc. is a publicly traded company headquartered in Houston, Texas, and its common shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "FTK." For additional information, please visit Flotek's web site at www.flotekind.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements set forth in this Press Release constitute forward-looking statements (within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934) regarding Flotek Industries, Inc.'s business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Words such as expects, anticipates, intends, plans, believes, seeks, estimates and similar expressions or variations of such words are intended to identify forward-looking statements, but are not the exclusive means of identifying forward-looking statements in this Press Release.

Although forward-looking statements in this Press Release reflect the good faith judgment of management, such statements can only be based on facts and factors currently known to management. Consequently, forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results and outcomes may differ materially from the results and outcomes discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences in results and outcomes include, but are not limited to, demand for oil and natural gas drilling services in the areas and markets in which the Company operates, competition, obsolescence of products and services, the Company's ability to obtain financing to support its operations, environmental and other casualty risks, and the impact of government regulation.

Further information about the risks and uncertainties that may impact the Company are set forth in the Company's most recent filings on Form 10-K (including without limitation in the "Risk Factors" Section), and in the Company's other SEC filings and publicly available documents. Readers are urged not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this Press Release. The Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect any event or circumstance that may arise after the date of this Press Release.

SOURCE Flotek Industries, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.flotekind.com


NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tekuma Recovery Group (http://www.tekumarecovery.com), a renowned leader in treating alcohol and drug addiction, gambling addiction, and eating disorders, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year  a decade of helping individuals of all walks of life become addiction free.

Why Israel?

Joining a Therapeutic Community located in Israel is an unusual if not miraculous moment for people living in the English speaking world. In Israel, they achieve lasting recovery from alcoholism and addictions that have been otherwise enabled by the triggers of Western culture. Achieving emotional balance and freedom from unhealthy dependencies comes from the contrasting social therapeutic processes that are unique to Israeli culture.

Living far from familiar people, places and things, emotional rebirth will occur in a place that has been for other reasons nicknamed "Start-Up Nation."

After all, ancient Israel was the place where two of the most significant Western religious/cultural movements found their inspiration, both born against difficult odds. More recently and for the past 200 years, the residents of Palestine and the State of Israel have flourished against very difficult odds with the help of a unique social invention, the Kibbutz.

The Kibbutz was founded on the principles of hard work, honest cooperation, and mutual support. It is no wonder that the International Therapeutic Community movement which was founded on the same principles about 50 years ago, found fertile ground in Israeli life. Israel embraced that movement from its very beginning for its uniquely therapeutic approach to the treatment of addiction and also added the twelve steps as a 24/7 foundational way of life. Becoming part of this Kibbutz-like culture supports the residents' dropping unhealthy dependencies and reinventing themselves with the encouragement of other resident-mentors and with the guidance of experienced Israeli counselors who are models and products of a society where miracles are a daily reality and absolutely necessary for survival.

Combating addiction, alcoholism and other dependencies is a life-long struggle likewise necessary for survival. An individual's strength to enter a dynamic state of conflict with both inner and outer triggers and temptations must be founded on a solid core of healthy group identity and spiritual motivation, all of which has proven achievable in Israel.

After evaluating your alcohol, drug, gambling or other compulsions as well as your past attempts to achieve and maintain your recovery from these, Tekuma will recommend you to a therapeutic community in Israel. Once there, Tekuma will continue to monitor your recovery progress and maintain confidential contact with family and significant others until you return home. Contact us for an immediate & free evaluation: 1-914-813-2344.

About Tekuma Recovery Group

Tekuma Recovery Group (http://www.tekumarecovery.com) is a renowned leader in treating alcohol and drug addiction, gambling addiction, and eating disorders.

Contact: Evan H. Bellin, M.D.

1-914-813-2344

[email protected]

www.tekumarecovery.com

SOURCE Tekuma Recovery Group

Related Links

http://www.tekumarecovery.com


EVERETT, Wash., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Fortive Corporation ("Fortive") (NYSE: FTV) announced today that it will webcast its earnings conference call for the first quarter 2017 on Thursday, April 27, 2017 beginning at 5:30 p.m. ET and lasting approximately 1 hour.

The call and an accompanying slide presentation will be webcast on the "Investors" section of Fortive's website, www.fortive.com, under "Events & Presentations." A replay of the webcast will be available at the same location shortly after the conclusion of the presentation and will remain available until the next quarterly earnings call.

You can access the conference call by dialing 888-428-9470 within the U.S. or 719-325-2462 outside the U.S. a few minutes before 5:30 p.m. ET and notifying the operator that you are dialing in for Fortive's earnings conference call (access code 6014266). A replay of the conference call will be available shortly after the conclusion of the call until Thursday, May 4, 2017. Once available, click here to access the conference call replay or visit the "Investors" section of Fortive's website under "Events & Presentations".

Fortive's earnings press release, the webcast slides and other related presentation materials will be posted to the "Investors" section of Fortive's website under "Quarterly Results".

ABOUT FORTIVE

Fortive is a diversified industrial growth company comprised of Professional Instrumentation and Industrial Technologies businesses that are recognized leaders in attractive markets. With 2016 revenues of $6.2 billion, our well-known brands hold leading positions in field instrumentation, transportation, sensing, product realization, automation and specialty, and franchise distribution. We are headquartered in Everett, Washington and employ a team of more than 24,000 research and development, manufacturing, sales, distribution, service and administrative employees in more than 40 countries around the world. With a culture rooted in continuous improvement, the core of our operating model is the Fortive Business System. For more information please visit: www.fortive.com .

SOURCE Fortive Corporation

Related Links

http://www.fortive.com


Before becoming a MP he was the CEO of Askar Capital Ltd, an Icelandic investment bank. He served as the Special Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister of Iceland during the collapse of the Icelandic banking system in 2008. He was the Director of the Institute of Economic Studies and a Professor of Economics at the University of Iceland before joining Askar Capital Ltd. He has published over 50 scholarly papers and is the editor, author, and co-author of 13 books and monographs on various topics in economics.

Dr. Herbertsson has been on the Board of Directors and a consultant to many private companies, banks, and pension funds in Iceland and internationally. He has been a consultant to institutions and international organizations, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission, the Nordic Council of Ministers, the OECD, and the World Economic Forum. He has been a consultant to the governments of Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Uganda. He has also been a consultant to Fortune 500 companies.

"We're excited to have a person of such caliber on our advisory board," said Fineqia's CEO Bundeep Singh Rangar. "Tryggvi's extensive experience in the financial sector will ensure we stay ahead of the curve in our strategy of making Fineqia a go-to investment platform."

Fineqia's board of advisors and its members are not officers or directors of the company.

About Fineqia International Inc.

Fineqia's business model is to provide an online platform and associated services for the placement of debt and equity securities, initially in the UK. The platform will transparently highlight the risks and objectively outline opportunities involved. For more information, visit www.fineqia.com.

NEITHER THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATORY SERVICE PROVIDER HAS REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THE CONTENT OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.

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 to complete the Change of Business, failure to obtain sufficient financing, and other risks disclosed in the Company's public disclosure record on file with the relevant securities regulatory authorities. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and except as may be required by applicable securities laws. The Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement.

SOURCE Fineqia International Inc.

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NEW YORK, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- "The telecommunications application is the largest contributor to the frequency synthesizer market"

The overall frequency synthesizer market is expected to be worth at USD 1,446.3 million by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 6.56% between 2017 and 2022. The market is expected to register a shipment of 1,457.0 thousand units by 2022. The frequency synthesizers are key components in the telecommunications application. The applications in military and aerospace, and research and measurement sectors are the other major applications of the frequency synthesizers.



The rising use of mobile phones is a major driver for the market. The telecommunications is a constantly expanding and upgrading sector, thereby, constituting a perennial market for frequency synthesizers. The upcoming technologies such as 5G are expected to give a major push to the growth of the market for telecommunications applications.



"Analog type frequency synthesizers are preferred for their low phase noise performance"

The analog frequency synthesizers are expected to dominate the market during the forecast period. The analog type synthesizers provide better phase noise performance while providing good signal clarity and stability. These features are highly sought in telecommunications, and military and aerospace sectors.



"The frequency synthesizer market in RoW is expected to grow at the highest rate during the forecast period"

The market in RoW, consisting of the Middle East and Africa, and South America, is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The telecommunications sector is expanding in these regions as increasing number of people and industries are relying on a telecommunications network. The preferred updating of military equipment by the governments in this regions also contribute toward the market growth.



In the process of determining and verifying the market size for several segments and subsegments gathered through secondary research, extensive primary interviews have been conducted with key industry experts. The break-up of the profile of primary participants is given below:



- By Company Type: Tier 1 = 34 %, Tier 2 = 33%, and Tier 3 = 33%

- By Designation: C-Level Executives = 34% , Directors = 33%, and Others = 33%

- By Region: North America = 25%, Europe = 25%, APAC = 25%, and RoW = 25%



Most companies have adopted the strategy of marketing new products to grow their market share. The companies have sought to improve the features of their products through extensive research. A number of companies have tried to strengthen their market position through mergers and acquisitions. Apart from these dominant strategies, some players have tried to forge alliances in the value chain to expand their business in the frequency synthesizer market.



The key players in the frequency synthesizer market profiled in the report are as follows:

1. Ultra Electronics (U.S.)

2. Texas Instruments Inc. (U.S.)

3. Analog Devices Inc. (U.S.)

4. National Instruments (U.S.)

5. Qorvo Inc. (U.S.)

6. FEI-Elcom Tech Inc. (U.S.)

7. EM Research Inc. (U.S.)

8. Programmed Test Sources Inc. (U.S.)

9. Sivers IMA AB (Sweden)

10. MIcroLambda Wireless Inc. (U.S.)

11. Synergy Microwave Corp. (U.S.)

12. Mercury United Electronics Inc. (U.S.)



Research Coverage



The report covers the frequency synthesizer market segmented on the basis of geography into North America, Europe, APAC, and RoW. The application segment covers the sizes of the frequency synthesizer markets based on research and measurement, military and aerospace, and telecommunications applications. The market is segmented on the basis of type into analog and digital type frequency synthesizers. The frequency synthesizer market, based on components, is segmented into detectors, loop filters, oscillators, mixers, and dividers.



Key Benefits of Buying the Report



The report will help the market leaders/new entrants in this market in the following ways:

1. This report segments the frequency synthesizer market comprehensively and provides the closest approximations of the overall market size and that of the subsegments across the different verticals and regions.

2. The report helps stakeholders to understand the pulse of the market and provides them information on key market drivers, restraints, challenges, and opportunities.

3. This report would help stakeholders to understand their competitors better and gain more insights to enhance their position in the business. The competitive landscape section includes competitor ecosystem, new product launches and developments, partnerships, and mergers and acquisitions in the frequency synthesizer market.



Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04799016-summary/view-report.html



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SOURCE Reportlinker

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ORLANDO, Fla., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Funds2Orgs, one of the leading fundraising companies in North America, and the dominant shoe drive fundraising company in the United States announces the launch of OurShoeDrive.com.

Many partners expressed the desire to have a custom page, targeted to their individual fundraising appeals, where they can direct their followers, donors, and supporters. To create a landing page independently is an expense that many small or even medium-sized nonprofits, schools, churches, civic groups and others do not have the extra funds to do.

Each partner will be given a custom URL for their event that will link their communities to their dedicated page, which will have the exact details of their shoe drive fundraiser. The customized website complements the other tools Funds2Orgs provides its partners, including resources for Facebook, Instagram, and other digital marketing platforms. Funds2Orgs has seen double-digit increases in the results per shoe drive by adding these complementary tools.

Wayne Elsey, Founder & CEO, Funds2Orgs said, "We discovered that many organizations needed a 'plug and play' custom web page. The only challenge for them was that most didn't have the extra money and expertise to create this essential digital marketing tool. To further exemplify our commitment to the thousands of partners we have and as the market leader, we're always looking for ways to innovate and give our partners what they need to help in their success for their shoe drive fundraisers. OurShoeDrive.com will be the portal for our partners to have a personalized website for their fundraisers, and we're very proud to have the opportunity to provide this additional tool."

When organizations or others partner with Funds2Orgs for a creative shoe drive fundraiser, they can raise money by collecting gently worn, used and new shoes. Funds2Orgs issues a check to partners for the footwear and provides all its resources, including OurShoeDrive.com, with no out-of-pocket costs.

About Funds2Orgs and Elsey Enterprises

Funds2Orgs is the leading shoe drive fundraising social enterprise in North America. Funds2Orgs works with churches, schools, nonprofits, civic groups and others helping them fundraise in an easy, new and innovate way. Further, Funds2Orgs works globally in partnership with micro-entrepreneurs in developing nations around the globe. It also offers organizations and their local communities a socially responsible way to re-purpose shoes in support of a good cause.

Contact

Yvonne Keller, Vice President, Operations

Elsey Enterprises

Office: (407) 440-8264

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Funds2Orgs

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http://funds2orgs.com


DALLAS, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Generational Equity, a leading mergers and acquisitions advisor for privately held businesses, is pleased to announce the sale of its client, The Dawson Academy of St. Petersburg, Florida, to Valencia Capital, LLC, of Coral Gables, Florida. The acquisition closed December 30, 2016. Details were not disclosed.

Dr. Peter E. Dawson, DDS, founded Dawson Center, LLC, dba The Dawson Academy, in 1979 to provide his fellow dentists with post-graduate education that improved their practice both clinically and financially. Today, a faculty of more than 20 practicing dentists from around the world teach clients in all 50 states and across 40 countries. The academy offers in-person lectures and workshops, online courses, treatment planning software, discussion boards and local study groups.

Valencia Capital is a private equity firm that typically targets investments of $500,000 to $5 million. Currently, their portfolio includes positions in companies providing health and beauty products, specialized packaging, thermal and pressure related controls, online limousine booking and niche food product manufacturing.

Generational Equity Managing Director Julie Sandoval and her team, headed by trusted affiliate Mario Dieckmann, and Vice President Mark Breheny, led the deal to a successful close.

"It was a pleasure working with the dedication and focus of Dawson's President, Joan Forrest, and Valencia Capital's Will Rose," said Dieckmann.

About Generational Equity

Generational Equity, part of the Generational Group headquartered in Dallas with over 200 professionals located throughout North America, helps business owners release the wealth of their business by providing merger, acquisition and strategic growth advisory services. Their four-step approach features exit planning education, business valuation, value enhancement strategies, and M&A transactional services. The M&A Advisor recently named the company its 2016 Investment Banking Firm of the Year. For more, visit http://www.genequityco.com and http://www.gecpress.com.

For more information:

Carl Doerksen

972-232-1125

[email protected]

SOURCE Generational Equity

Related Links

http://www.genequityco.com


BETHESDA, Md., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- GetWellNetwork, Inc., the leader in Interactive Patient Care (IPC) solutions, hit a new milestone with the number of patients using its technology to engage in their health care: 3.75 million inpatients and 900,000 outpatients for a total of 4.6 million patients in 2016. This milestone was made possible through a seventh consecutive year of significant growth for the company  GetWellNetwork added more than 100 new client facilities and expansions last year and extended its cross-continuum patient engagement platform to more than 150 clinics nationwide with the acquisition of Seamless Medical Systems earlier this year.

"We are very proud of this milestone at GetWellNetwork. Our reach and growing asset of patient data is unique in the noisy 'patient engagement' world, and our scale enables us to push innovation and provide these increasingly important solutions cost-effectively to our provider community as their needs evolve," said Michael O'Neil, founder and CEO, GetWellNetwork. "We are delighted to be the partner of choice for a growing community of health care systems, hospitals and clinics that are leading care delivery innovation, and we are excited to continue shaping the future of the patient experience together with them."

GetWellNetwork has expanded its presence in the pediatric space, seen significant adoption of its mobile data collection tool, Marbella, and continued to move into the international market. The company added to its pediatric client community of more than 50 organizations, which now includes eight hospitals of the top ten on U.S. News & World Report's Honor Roll of Best Children's Hospitals. The company has also partnered with King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre to integrate IPC as a strategy to transform care for patients and families in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Among the new organizations GetWellNetwork welcomed to its client community are:

Connecticut Children's Medical Center, Hartford, Conn.

Dayton Children's Hospital, Dayton, Ohio

Excela Hospital, three facilities in Pennsylvania

Holy Name Medical Center, Teaneck, N.J.

Main Line Health, Berwyn, Pa.

Mountain Vista Medical Center, Mesa, Ariz.

Salah Foundation Children's Hospital at Broward Health, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Stamford Hospital, Stamford, Conn.

St. Luke's Medical Center, two facilities in Phoenix / Tempe area

/ area Virginia Hospital Center, Arlington, Va.

Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, N.C.

GetWellNetwork's patient-centered platform is designed to expand patient engagement opportunities to a wider spectrum of care episodes and patient profiles. Its solutions can be used in any care setting, and among patients of all ages and cognitive and physical abilities. To see how patients use GetWellNetwork in the inpatient setting to be more actively involved in their health care experience, view a short video by Reading Health System.

About GetWellNetwork

GetWellNetwork, Inc. powers patient experience. Our solution, The Patient's Platform, helps leading health care systems create connections with patients in any setting, deliver insights to clinicians in real time, and transform care through an evidence-based model for patient engagement. Our open technology integrates with electronic health record and IT applications to extend the value of existing investments and expand the possibilities of care. With more than 50 million patient interactions per year, we drive performance improvement, positive outcomes and patient loyalty. Learn more at www.getwellnetwork.com.

Media Contact:

Marcia Rhodes

Amendola Communications

[email protected] / 480.664.8412 ext. 15

GetWellNetwork, Inc.

7700 Old Georgetown Road, 4th Floor

Bethesda, MD 20814-2500

877.633.8496

[email protected]

SOURCE GetWellNetwork

Related Links

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LONDON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Executive Summary



A comprehensive research report created through extensive primary research (inputs from industry experts, companies, stakeholders) and secondary research, the report aims to present the analysis of global Vitreoretinal Surgery Device market on the basis of By Product  Vitrectomy Machines & Packs, Photocoagulation Surgery Devices, Illumination Devices and Others; By End User  Hospitals and Free Standing Ambulatory Surgery Center; By Region (North America, Europe, APAC and ROW), and By Country (US, Canada, Mexico, UK, Germany, France, Japan, China, India, Brazil and South Africa).



Global Vitreoretinal Surgery Device Market is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 5.20% during 2016  2021. The strong growth in Vitreoretinal Surgery Device market is driven by increase in aging population, increased penetration in emerging economies and technological development in vitreoretinal surgery.



Vitrectomy Machines & Packs hold the major percentage share in the total market and is also the fastest growing segment. Among the regions, North America holds the largest market share mainly due to well established healthcare system and introduction of advanced next generation vitrectomy machines and minimally invasive surgery. However, APAC is expected to grow at a faster pace during forecasted period.



According to Azoth Analytics research report, Global Vitreoretinal Surgery Device Market  By Product, By End User, By Region, By Country (2016-2021), Global Vitreoretinal Surgery DeviceMarket is projected to exhibit a CAGR of over ~5.20% during 2016 - 2021. Global Vitreoretinal Surgery Device market has been segmented on the basis of Product  Vitrectomy Machines & Packs, Photocoagulation Surgery Devices, Illumination Devices and Others; By End User  Hospitals and Free Standing Ambulatory Surgery Center; Region (North America, Europe, APAC and ROW), Country(US, Canada, Mexico, UK, Germany, France, Japan, China, India, Brazil and South Africa).



Scope of the Report



The report provides coverage by Type, Mode of Application and End User:



By Product

- Vitrectomy Machines & Packs

- Photocoagulation Surgery Devices

- Illumination Devices

- Others



By End User

- Hospitals

- Free Standing Ambulatory Surgery Center



By Region

- Europe

- North America

- APAC

- ROW



By Country

- US

- Canada

- Mexico

- UK

- Germany

- France

- Japan

- China

- India

- Brazil

- South Africa



Customization of the Report



The report could be customized according to the client's specific research requirements. No additional cost will be required to pay for limited additional research.



Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4751687/



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

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ATLANTA, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- GreenSky Patient Solutions, LLC today announced a long-term agreement with Essilor of America to provide a consumer credit program to their network of Eye Care Professionals ("ECPs") throughout the United States.

"This new long-term partnership with Essilor of America, serves to offer more patients a convenient integrated financing payment option to enhance their vision and their lives by giving them access to Essilor's industry leading lens & optical technology," said Dennis Kelly, President of GreenSky Patient Solutions. "This agreement allows GreenSky to utilize our deep expertise in consumer credit, helping solidify a leadership position in the healthcare consumer financing market."

Essilor of America is the leading manufacturer of optical lenses in the United States and is the market leader in progressive, high-index, photochromic and anti-reflective coated lenses. GreenSky Patient Solutions, LLC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of GreenSky, LLC, which is one of the leading financial technology companies in the country. It provides innovative technology-enabled payment solutions that power its partners to generate more sales and enhance loyalty amongst their patients.

In 2017, the popular Power of Vision program will offer for the first time, "no interest" promotional financing for up to six months1 for qualifying patients who purchase any of Essilor's premium lenses -- Varilux, Crizal, Transitions, Xperio UV and Eyezen. Along with financing, patients will be eligible to receive $10 per qualifying product with a maximum of $30 per pair of glasses. The Power of Vision program is only available through independent ECPs and will be supported by Essilor's national advertising campaigns including television and online media, which will encourage consumers to find an independent ECP through an exclusive online locator tool.

Enrollment for ECPs began on February 13, 2017, and the Power Of Vision promotion offering financing coupled with rebates will be made available to consumers beginning April 1. For more information or to enroll, please visit PowerofVision.com.

About GreenSky Patient Solutions, LLC

GreenSky Patient Solutions, LLC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of GreenSky, LLC, which is one of the leading financial technology companies in the country. It provides technology-enabled payment solutions that power our partners to generate more sales and create loyal customers. The GreenSky Program has helped more than 14,000 merchants and healthcare providers nationwide provide fast, frictionless and easy financing options. The GreenSky Patient Solutions Program is operated on behalf of, and financing is provided by, federally-insured, federal and state chartered financial institutions. GreenSky is based in Atlanta, Georgia. More information can be found at www.GreenSky.com. GreenSky is a registered trademark of GreenSky, LLC.

1 Subject to qualifying credit approval. Payments are required during the 6 month promotional period. Making minimum monthly payments during the promotional period will not pay off the entire purchase balance. Interest accrues at 29.99% during the promotional period, but all interest is waived if the purchase balance is paid in full before the expiration of the 6 month promotional period. Financing for the GreenSky Patient Solutions Program is provided by federally insured, federal and state chartered banks providing credit without regard to age, race, color, religion, national origin, sex or familial status.

SOURCE GreenSky Patient Solutions, LLC

Related Links

http://www.GreenSky.com


Vice Mayor of Guangzhou Cai Chaolin said, Guangzhou has intensified efforts in developing three strategic emerging industries, namely Information Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Biological Medicine. Guangzhou has been promoting the transformation and upgrading from "Made in Guangzhou" to "Intelligent Manufacturing in Guangzhou" and "Created in Guangzhou". Relying on Guangzhou's High-tech Zone, Sino-Singapore Knowledge City, Tianhe Intelligent Business District and other innovation platforms, Guangzhou has accumulated elements of global high-end innovation, in order to build an international industrial innovation center for entrepreneurship and a base for emerging industries.

At present, the effect of Guangzhou becoming a core node of global innovation network has been preliminarily revealed. Foxconn's Generation 10.5 Display Ecological Industrial Park was inaugurated on March 1, 2017, with a total investment value of RMB 61 billion, which is the largest single investment of advanced manufacturing project since the reform and opening up of Guangzhou. With industrial park project settling down, the upstream and downstream industrial chain and affiliated parties are expected to invest in Guangzhou, in order to build new display industrial clusters worth trillions. International Biological Park invested by America's General Electric (GE) has settled in Guangzhou Development District. With a total investment value of RMB 2.2 billion, BeiGene Biological Medicine Project with the first KUBioTM modular biological pharmaceutical factory was launched on March 21, 2017. In the future, biopharmaceutical companies with strong investment strength, huge development pot ential and high level of innovation are expected to increasingly gather in Guangzhou.

In the symposium, enterprises' principles from varies industries said, Guangzhou has a superb business and ecological environment, with reasonable operating costs and industrial supporting systems. Guangzhou enjoys a huge market, remarkable development vitality, combined with a clear development vision and promising prospects. Fortune Global Forum is held in Guangzhou, which reflects the city's attractiveness and influence, enterprises' principles further expressed the willingness to continue to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with Guangzhou.

"I have been to Guangzhou twice, and I am thrilled by the innovative ecosystem that Guangzhou is striving to build," said Yossi Vardi, co-chairman of Israeli Digital Life Design. Guangzhou currently has made great achievements, gathering a number of small companies in the innovation ecosystem. Those companies support and help each other, share contents including information and market changes while maintaining their own characteristics, together creating an innovative ecosystem full of vibrant opportunities.

Du Lan, Vice President of IFLYTEK said, with a healthy commercial history, Guangzhou enjoys solid foundations and many respectable partners. For example, Pazhou Internet Cluster District is a strong strategy presented by Guangzhou municipal government. The whole industrial sector will gather here, with upstream and downstream industrial chains, where enterprises will utilize shared mutually beneficial technologies from pooled resources, and will attract high quality talent. Du hoped that artificial intelligence will gather and further develop here in the future.

SOURCE Guangzhou Municipal Government
BERKELEY, Calif., March 27, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Over the past ten years, homeownership rates in the U.S. collapsed, wiping out more than three decades of progress toward the American Dream for millions of households. Overall, the national homeownership rate dropped from a peak of 69% in 2004 to an average of 63.4% in 2016.

If the homebuilding industry alone returned to a more normalized level in 2016, Rosen Consulting Group (RCG) estimates that more than $300 billion would have been added to the national economy, representing a 1.8% boost to GDP, according to a new report "Homeownership in Crisis: Where are We Now?" released today by Rosen Consulting Group and the Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.

"Bolstering homeownership in a safe and sound way is not just about helping households secure financial stability, but may be the single most important factor in returning the United States to a path of robust economic growth," said Ken Rosen, Chairman of Rosen Consulting Group and UC Berkeley's Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics. "This report highlights the current state of homeownership and the many factors that contributed to the plunge in homeownership rates during the past decade."

Despite recent improvements in market fundamentals, low homeownership rates persist. Compared with pre-recession peaks, homeownership declines were largest among minority households, young adults, one-person households and single-parent households, leaving the social and economic benefits of owning a home out of reach for millions of households.

Key Findings on National Homeownership Trends

As of 2016, the African American homeownership rate dropped to 41.5%, falling by 7.6 percentage points from the previous peak (see Figure 1). This was the largest decline of any major racial group and was 30 percentage points lower than white household homeownership. African American homeownership declined even as the total number of African American households increased by 2.7 million or 19.8% since 2005.

By age cohort, young adults were hit hardest by declines in homeownership. The homeownership rate for households aged 25 to 29 years old dropped by 10.9 percentage points to 30.9% in 2016. Similarly, the homeownership rate for households aged 30 to 34 years fell by 12.0 percentage points to 45.4%, compared with the pre-recession peak.

In 2015, the homeownership rate for single-parent families was 48.2%, 31 percentage points below married family homeownership rates. One person households performed only slightly better, with a homeownership rate of 52.2%, which was 27 percentage points lower than married families.

Key Findings on Understanding the Plunge in U.S. Homeownership

More than 9.4 million homes were lost in the foreclosure crisis, through short sales and deed-in-lieu transactions from 2007 through 2015. Access to easy, yet unsafe, credit in the form of non-traditional mortgage products was a major factor contributing to foreclosures.

After the foreclosure crisis, lenders moved in the other direction, severely tightening access to safe and affordable mortgages, and restricting households with moderate credit scores from buying homes. Since 2010, lending to applicants with credit scores ranging from 620 to 660 retreated sharply and loans to homebuyers with credit scores below 700 declined to 27% of first-lien mortgages in 2014, down from 33% in 2010. As of third quarter 2016, the median credit score for conventional mortgages was 760, up from 707 in the fourth quarter of 2006.

The rise in student debt is another important factor influencing the affordability of homeownership for young households. Total student debt nationwide quadrupled since mid-2004 to approximately $1.3 trillion , with both the number of borrowers and the average debt load rising, making it harder for many young households to afford homeownership.

, with both the number of borrowers and the average debt load rising, making it harder for many young households to afford homeownership. Following multiple years of rising rents and limited income growth, cost-burdened renter households, defined as those paying more than 30% of income toward rent, increased by 3.6 million, diminishing the ability to save for a down payment for millions of Americans.

The overall pace of household formation decreased sharply following the recession, reducing demand for all types of housing. We estimate that 3.4 million additional households would have formed between 2008 and 2015 if household formation had remained on pace with the long-term average, many of whom would have been homeowners.

Key Findings on the Economic Impact of Declining Homeownership

In 2016, RCG estimates that more than $300 billion would have been added to the national economy if the homebuilding industry returned to a normalized level, representing a 1.8% boost to GDP.

would have been added to the national economy if the homebuilding industry returned to a normalized level, representing a 1.8% boost to GDP. Since 1959, total housing-related spending, including both owners and renters, accounted for an annual average of 18.9% of GDP, but decreased significantly to 15.6% of GDP as of 2016, a significant decline.

As of 2016, the residential fixed investment (RFI), or the spending on newly constructed homes in the United States , as a percentage share of GDP remained below the long-term average, representing only 3.6% of total GDP, compared with an average of 5.3% since 1959, or 6.2% from the pre-recession peak, further indicating the impact of homeownership's decline on the economy.

Outlook for Homeownership

Many of the most significant trends that contributed to the decline in homeownership during the past decade are expected to stabilize or reverse in the coming years. Increased job opportunities, and moderate, but accelerating, income growth should bolster the number of households seeking to enter the for-sale market. Despite these improvements, considering the demographics of a large millennial population, increasing minority households, and a growing number of single-parent and one person households, low homeownership rates will persist nationally without policies to improve access and affordability among these key groups.

Figure 1: Homeownership Rates by Household Type







Household Type Peak Current Percentage Point

Change Under 25 Years Old 25.7% 21.9% -3.8% 25 to 29 Years Old 41.8% 30.9% -10.9% 30 to 34 Years Old 57.4% 45.4% -12.0% 35 to 44 Years Old 69.2% 58.6% -10.6% 45 to 54 Years Old 77.2% 69.3% -7.9% 55 to 64 Years Old 81.7% 75.0% -6.7% 65 Years and Over 81.0% 78.8% -2.2% White Households 76.0% 71.9% -4.5% African American 49.1% 41.5% -7.6% Hispanic American 49.7% 45.9% -3.8% Other Races 59.9% 52.8% -7.1% Married Families 84.1% 79.6% -4.5% Single-Parent 53.4% 48.2% -5.2% One Person 55.8% 52.2% -3.6% Other Households 42.9% 38.3% -4.6% Note: Peak from 2004 to 2007; Current data as of 2016 or 2015 Source: Census







To read the full report, please click here.

About the Study

Homeownership in Crisis: Where are we now? was prepared by Rosen Consulting Group for the National Association of REALTORS and jointly released by Rosen Consulting Group and the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business. This report, the first of three papers to be prepared by Rosen Consulting Group in 2017, highlights important demographics and economics trends behind the recent decline in homeownership and provides an assessment of the national housing outlook.

About Rosen Consulting Group

Rosen Consulting Group (RCG) is a leading independent real estate economics consulting firm. Founded in 1990 and with offices in Berkeley and New York, RCG provides strategic consulting and unbiased investment guidance through all market cycles. RCG is a trusted advisor to leading banks, insurance companies, institutional investors, and public and private real estate operators. For more information go to www.rosenconsulting.com.

About the Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics

The Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics (FCREUE) mission is to educate students and real estate professionals, and to support and conduct research on real estate, urban economics, and the California State economy. FCREUE strives to be the leading center for research on the California economy and excels nationally as a center for urban economic and public policy research. It also regularly provides a practical forum for academics, government officials, and business leaders. For more information, go to http://groups.haas.berkeley.edu/realestate/.

SOURCE Rosen Consulting Group

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VANCOUVER, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - INVICTUS MD STRATEGIES CORP. ("Invictus MD" or the "Company") (CSE: IMH; OTC: IVITF; FRA: 8IS) Invictus MD is pleased to provide an update of its production capability in preparation for the recreational cannabis market.

Marijuana could be legal in Canada by July 1, 2018; according to CBC News, they have learned that the legislation will be announced during the week of April 10 and will broadly follow the recommendation of a federally appointed task force that was chaired by former liberal Justice Minister Anne McLellan. CBC News further reported that the federal government will be in charge of making sure the country's marijuana supply is safe and secure, and Ottawa will license producers.

Canada's cannabis industry could reach $22.6 billion over the coming years, according to Deloitte, with a retail market worth up to $8.7 billion. With only around 40 producers licensed by Health Canada thus far, there's a significant market opportunity for Invictus MD to capitalize on this growth over time. The Company has focused on building its production profile. Some of those highlights are as follows:

AB Laboratories Inc. ("AB Labs"), a Licensed Producer under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations ("ACMPR"), has successfully conducted test crops and is currently operating at half capacity, with full production capacity scheduled by the end of May 2017. They have also acquired a number of different strains and are negotiating numerous others for R & D purposes.





AB Ventures Inc. ("AB Ventures") 100-acre acquisition is scheduled to close on May 1, 2017 , and once licensed under the ACMPR, will be used for future cannabis cultivation with plans to construct five production facilities on the new land totalling 100,000 square feet. Invictus MD has made a commitment to invest $5.5 million , which will be used to fund the costs of licensing approval under the ACMPR, and constructing the initial 42,000 square foot cultivation facilities. Considering the magnitude of AB Ventures' land acquisition and future production facilities, and assuming AB Ventures obtains a license to produce the quantity forecasted for the proposed facility, the combined production capacity of both AB Labs and AB Ventures is expected to exceed 25,000 kilograms in 2020.





, and once licensed under the ACMPR, will be used for future cannabis cultivation with plans to construct five production facilities on the new land totalling 100,000 square feet. Invictus MD has made a commitment to invest , which will be used to fund the costs of licensing approval under the ACMPR, and constructing the initial 42,000 square foot cultivation facilities. Considering the magnitude of AB Ventures' land acquisition and future production facilities, and assuming AB Ventures obtains a license to produce the quantity forecasted for the proposed facility, the combined production capacity of both AB Labs and AB Ventures is expected to exceed 25,000 kilograms in 2020. Closed the definitive option agreement to acquire 100% interest in OptionCo., who has constructed a 6,800 square foot production facility with an expansion plan floor plate of 30,000 square feet, the option to add a mezzanine that sits on 150 acres of land. This large land package of up to 3 million square feet of buildable property, has a footprint larger than 60 football fields, and provides the capability to construct facilities to meet the demand that the coming adult recreational marijuana use demand will create. OptionCo. also has plans to produce extracted or oil based products oils are rapidly gaining market share in the marijuana sector. With its pre-license inspection conducted in January of this year, OptionCo expects to receive a licence to cultivate under the ACMPR in short order and by 2020 anticipates production to exceed 25,000 kilograms of high quality, low cost cannabis.

"From day one, we have been very clear: to acquire and grow production capacity under the ACMPR that would allow us to seize the recreational market, when available, was the key driver to increasing shareholder value", said Dan Kriznic, Chairman and CEO of Invictus MD. "Given our ability to aggressively expand the commercial scale of the OptionCo property, we will make key capital investments that enable us to rapidly ramp up production capability."

About Invictus MD Strategies Corp.

Invictus MD Strategies Corp., Canada's Cannabis Company, is focused on three main verticals within the burgeoning Canadian cannabis sector: Licensed Producers under the ACMPR; Fertilizer and Nutrients through Future Harvest Development Ltd.; and Cannabis Data and Delivery, with its wholly owned subsidiary Poda Technologies Ltd.

For more information, please visit www.invictus-md.com.

On Behalf of the Board,

Dan Kriznic

Chairman & CEO

604-368-6437

Larry Heinzlmeir

Vice President, Marketing & Communications

604-537-8676

CAUTIONARY NOTE 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. There is no assurance that the Proposal will be completed on the terms or within the timeframe contemplated in this news release or at all. The Company 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.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE Invictus MD Strategies
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140226/671778 )



The announcement was made to coincide with the opening of TV Connect 2017, which is being held in London (ExCeL) from Tuesday, March 28th through to Thursday, March 30th. Both HiSilicon (stand B23) and iWedia (stand B54) exhibit at the show where they will demonstrate the integrated solution.

Teatro-3.5 is a complete software solution for STB operated under Android TV. It is based on iWedia ANDROID4TV framework which extends Android TV with broadcast and multicast Pay TV functionalities implemented as input modules of the Android TV Input Framework (TIF). The product is available for Android TV 6.0 (Marshmallow) and 7.0 (Nougat) 7.0, integrated with various Conditional Access Systems (CAS), and connected to various service delivery platforms and content delivery networks.

Part of Teatro-3.5, C-More Live is a custom launcher and TV app meant to be tailored for the operator. The app is fully compliant with both Android TV Operator Tier program requirements and Google design principles. It allows navigating and accessing the whole features provided by the operator such as Live TV, VoD, catchup TV, DVR, and Time Shift.

The HiSilicon Hi3798MV200 chipset provides a cost effective solution for HEVC STB running Android or giving support to HTML5 under Linux. Hi3798MV200 is a full-4K high-performance SoC that supports H.265 video decoding up to [email protected] It integrates the quad-core 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 processor and a multi-core 2D/3D acceleration engine. Besides, it supports H.265 HD video encoding, HDR video decoding and display, HDR-to-SDR conversion, and Dolby and DTS audio processing. It also features an advanced security engine integrating a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), a Secure Video-Path (SVP), and forensic watermarking technologies.

"HiSilicon has been concentrating on Android-based solutions for several years. In working closely with a middleware company like iWedia we can jointly support the wishes of TV operators to grow their business in using Android TV to provide more value-added services," says John Liu, General Manager of STB Product Line at HiSilicon.

"With Teatro-3.5 Pay TV service providers can use Android as a vehicle for their own premium services and provide their subs with the best out of both worlds," says Nikola Teslic, CTO at iWedia. "The latest STB chipset from HiSilicon provides an ideal feature-cost combination for hosting this solution and we are delighted to have achieved this porting".

About HiSilicon Technologies

For more than 25 years, HiSilicon has grown into a world leading fabless IC semiconductor company, who is devoted to build a better connected world and drives the way to a premium video era. As the pioneer and accelerator in the fast moving industry, we are capable of providing innovative Full HD and UHD end to end video technologies. Solutions and products have successfully empowered over 100 countries covering multiple industries particularly in communication, video and IoT.

The development of worldwide video industry has been accelerated through HiSilicon's end to end premium 4K chipset solutions, including IP Camera, Set Top Box and Display. As a significant player in IoT industry, we have the advantage of providing multiple solutions utilizing the most advanced technologies of PLC/G.hn/802.11ac. HiSilicon secured the industry leading position through its precious end to end video technologies from capture, link, decoding to display. We will work closely with all partners and clients to build a better connected world and premium video era together.

Please visit www.hisilicon.com for more information.

About iWedia

iWedia provides software components and solutions for TV devices to service operators and consumer electronics manufacturers. Its mission is to deliver the software products and services needed by its customers to adapt constantly to the ever-changing requirements of the digital TV markets. In addition to stand-alone components giving support to DVB, ATSC, ARIB, ISDB-T, HLS, DASH, VidiPath, DVB>IP, MHEG-5, HbbTV, CI Plus, DTCP-IP, TR-069, etc., iWedia offers a range of complete solutions for zappers, connected receivers, Smart TVs, as well as for OTT and IPTV boxes. Dubbed Teatro, these solutions are available for RTOS, Linux/HTML, and Android/Java and are pre-integrated with leading service and delivery platforms, CA/DRM systems, and chipsets. Alongside its products, iWedia delivers efficient and scalable software integration services performed by an experienced team used to enable rapid deployments of high volume consumer electronics devices. iWedia is headquartered in Switzerland with development labs in Belgrade and Novi Sad, Serbia, and sales and support offices in Brazil, France, Germany, and Thailand.

Please visit www.iwedia.com for more information.

Media Contact:

Cheng Cheng

HiSilicon Technologies

[email protected]

Media Contact:

Herve Creff

VP Marketing, iWedia

[email protected]



SOURCE iWedia
TOKYO, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tokyo's landmark, 126-year-old Imperial Hotel has been ranked the highest luxury-class hotel in Japan for customer satisfaction in J.D. Power's "Japan Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study in 2016." The Imperial was ranked top in the segment of guestroom rates of over 35,000 Japanese yen per night, the first time since the studies began in 2006. Guests identified The Imperial's Front Desk Services and the attention of its staff as favorable points. The quality of staff attention extended to patrons is extremely influential in forming guest evaluations regardless of room rates.

(Photo:

http://prw.kyodonews.jp/prwfile/release/M100617/201703270285/_prw_PI1fl_bOYghFvn.jpg)

The Imperial was acclaimed by respondents for the quality of care provided by the staff, the accommodations themselves, and the hotel hardware in general. The Imperial was recognized as providing a very high caliber of staff attention. Comments were evaluated highest in the areas of Hotel Services, Hotel Facilities, Reservation, Check-In/Check-Out and Cost & Fees. This year marked the first year The Imperial took this position as the highest-ranking Japanese hotel, as well as ranking first in a separate Japanese Customer Satisfaction Index (JCSI) for eight consecutive years. The Imperial brand was ranked far above other first-class city properties in the JCSI, to which some 120,000 respondents replied. Rankings related to tourism include budget hotels, airlines and travel agents, in addition to major city hotels. Only The Imperial Hotel and a delivery service company have ranked in the top place for eight consecutive years.

The hotel's "Imperial Club" was also highly evaluated in the J.D. Power study for 2016 for the high degree of customer service, maintaining its top position for the second straight year.

Tokyo's Imperial was founded by Japanese aristocracy in 1890 as a venue to receive an increasing number of foreign dignitaries visiting Japan in the Meiji Period. It initiated many new services and facilities which have since become standard services for major Japanese hotels, such as all-inclusive Shinto and Christian wedding services, shopping arcades, and in-house laundry service, and introduced diverse Western cuisine to the Japanese public. It is the traditional favorite of dignitaries and celebrities from abroad visiting the Japanese capital.

Website: http://www.imperialhotel.co.jp/e/

SOURCE Imperial Hotel, Ltd.

Related Links

http://www.imperialhotel.co.jp/e/


BOSTON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- John Hancock has been recognized as a Platinum-Level Fit-Friendly Worksite by the American Heart Association for helping employees with their total wellbeing.

"Physical activity and employee wellness are important priorities at John Hancock. We are honored and excited to be recognized by the American Heart Association as either a Gold- or Platinum-Level Fit-Friendly Worksite for the past eight years," said Maria Fraga, head of Global Benefits and Wellness for Manulife/John Hancock. "This speaks to our commitment to the health and wellbeing of our employees and to our customers because when we are at our best, we are in the best position to deliver on our promises to our customers."

Platinum-level employers:

Offer employees physical activity options in the workplace.

Increase healthy eating options at the worksite.

Promote a wellness culture in the workplace.

Implement at least nine criteria outlined by the American Heart Association in the areas of physical activity, nutrition and culture.

Demonstrate measurable outcomes related to workplace wellness.

John Hancock embraces a culture of wellbeing where employees are encouraged to make time for exercise, eating right and stress relief. The company has a wellness team to support employee health and wellbeing with the goal of offering a consistent health management program for its employees and providing the support, environment, education, tools, resources and programs to help each person optimize his or her state of health with measurable results.

The company offers a comprehensive, integrated employee wellness program that provides a significant number of physical activity, nutritional and stress management resources, including webinars, online content, nutritional courses, and decision support tools. This includes on-site subsidized fitness centers offering a wide variety of fitness classes (e.g. aerobics, yoga, pilates, spinning, sculpt & tone, zumba, etc.), exercise equipment and personal trainers. The company provides a fitness reimbursement program which covers the cost of membership, up to $400 annually, for gym memberships, exercise/fitness classes led by a certified instructor, Weight Watchers, and tobacco cessation programs, and is available to all benefits-eligible employees regardless of location.

John Hancock also offers a variety of seminars on physical activity, nutrition, stress management, financial wellness and promotes the information contained within the AHA website. Cafeterias offer healthy food options labeled as such and has converted all vending machines to offer 90 percent healthy choices. The Fit-Friendly Worksites program is a catalyst for positive change in the American workforce by helping worksites make their employees' health and well-being a priority.

American employers are losing an estimated $225.8 billion a year because of healthcare expenses and health-related losses in productivity, and those numbers are rising. Many American adults spend most of their waking hours at sedentary jobs. Their lack of regular physical activity raises their risk for a host of medical problems, such as obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes. Employers face $12.7 billion in annual medical expenses due to obesity alone. The American Heart Association is working to change corporate cultures by motivating employees to start walking, which has the lowest dropout rate of any physical activity.

"Research shows that the benefits of a healthier lifestyle include improved productivity and performance in all aspects of our lives," said Fraga. "We want to help our employees make their health a priority and we take a holistic approach by supporting their physical, emotional and financial wellness."

For more information about the Fit-Friendly Worksites program and how it's helping to improve the health of Americans by focusing on the workplace, call Stefanie Smith at 781-373-4501 or visit heart.org/worksitewellness.

About the American Heart Association

The American Heart Association is devoted to building healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases and stroke. Our mission drives everything we do. To improve the lives of all Americans, we provide public health education in a variety of ways. We team with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies, and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat these diseases. The Dallas-based association is the nation's oldest and largest voluntary organization dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke. To learn more or join us, call 1-800-AHA-USA1 or any of our offices around the country, or visit heart.org.

About John Hancock Financial and Manulife

John Hancock Financial is a division of Manulife, a leading Canada-based financial services group with principal operations in Asia, Canada and the United States. Operating as Manulife in Canada and Asia, and primarily as John Hancock in the United States, our group of companies offers clients a diverse range of financial protection products and wealth management services through its extensive network of employees, agents and distribution partners. Assets under management and administration by Manulife and its subsidiaries were $977 billion (US $728 billion) as at December 31, 2016. Manulife Financial Corporation trades as 'MFC' on the TSX, NYSE and PSE, and under '945' on the SEHK. Manulife can be found on the Internet at manulife.com.

The John Hancock unit, through its insurance companies, comprises one of the largest life insurers in the United States. John Hancock offers and administers a broad range of financial products, including life insurance, annuities, investments, 401(k) plans, long-term care insurance, college savings, and other forms of business insurance. Additional information about John Hancock may be found at johnhancock.com.

SOURCE John Hancock Financial

Related Links

http://www.jhancock.com


CINCINNATI, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) today launched a new website, www.krogerstories.com.

"We believe customers, associates and other stakeholders are increasingly making decisions about where to shop, where to work, and who shares their values based on how well they understand the ways a company makes a difference for their people, communities and the planet," said Jessica Adelman, Kroger's group vice president of corporate affairs. "And in this equation, we believe that stories  credible, authentic, human stories  matter more than perhaps anything else."

The new website features a variety of voices  produced by both freelancers and Kroger associates  sharing stories about Kroger's great people, innovative projects, and the ideas that are changing the way we eat, drink, and think about food. The multi-media site will feature long and short-form written content as well as video and photographic storytelling.

"On any given day, nearly half a million Kroger associates are doing incredible work. We get a fresh chance to make personal connections, to lift people up and lighten their load," said Ann Reed, vice president of Customer 1st Promise. "Krogerstories.com is designed to elevate these unique stories and share the difference our wonderful associates make for our customers, communities and each other."

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


LONDON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The LAMEA Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) Systems Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 13.3% during 2016 -2022.



The Dental Applications market dominated the LAMEA Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) Systems Market in 2015, and would grow at a CAGR of 12.4% during the forecast period.



The Brazil market contributed the larger revenue share to the LAMEA Dental Applications CBCT Systems Market in 2015, and growing at a CAGR of 11.9% during the forecast period. However, Argentina market is expected to grow at CAGR of 13.3% during 2016-2022.



The Implantology market registered the highest share in the LAMEA Dental CBCT Systems Market in 2015, and is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 10.8% during the forecast period. However, Orthodontics market is expected to grow at CAGR of 13.3% during 2016-2022.



The report highlights the adoption of Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) Systems in LAMEA (Latin America, Middle East and Africa).

- Based on Application, the market is segmented into Dental Applications and Other Applications. Dental Applications is further divided into Implantology, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Orthodontics, Endodontics, General Dentistry, Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ) Disorders, Periodontics, and Forensic Dentistry.

- Based on End-user, the market is segmented into Hospitals, Private Practices, and Academic & Research Institutes.The report also covers geographical segmentation of Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) Systems market.



The countries included in the report are Brazil, Argentina, UAE, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Nigeria and Rest of LAMEA.



The key players profiled in the report includes Danaher Corporation, Carestream Health, Inc., Planmeca Group, Cefla S.C., Dentsply Sirona, Asahi RoEntgen Ind. Co., Ltd., Vatech Co., Ltd., Prexion Corporation, J. Morita Mfg. Corp. and Curve Beam LLC.



Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4778714/



About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers

http://www.reportbuyer.com



For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 208 816 85 48

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

Related Links

http://www.reportbuyer.com


DETROIT, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Lick the Plate on 93.9 The River the show where the Detroit and Windsor culinary communities tell their stories, is celebrating 2 years on-air and it's 100th guest during the month of March. During the past 24 months, Lick the Plate host David Boylan has interviewed over 100 culinary personalities from metro Detroit, Windsor, and Northern Michigan. That is in addition to the 600+ interviews conducted in the San Diego market where the show and column originated. Royal Oak native and show host David Boylan tells the stories of the talented people behind the culinary resurgence, along with those who work at the establishments that have stood the test of time and have become iconic institutions in the area.

Executive Chef Anthony Lombardo from Bacco Ristorante joined host David Boylan on Lick the Plate as part of the 2-year anniversary month. Jeff Davis and John Muster from Quality Meats and Culinary Specialties were also part of the Lick the Plate anniversary month.

Guests during the month of March have reflected the wide range of culinary personalities the show strives to feature including Detroit Free Press Restaurant Critic Mark Kurlyandchik, Bacco Executive Chef Anthony Lombardo, Jeff Davis and John Muster from Quality Meats and Culinary Specialties who supply many of Detroit's best restaurants, Sandy Wallace an instructor at Schoolcraft College at their award winning culinary arts program, and Executive Pastry Chef Kenneth Daniel Ilich from 2017 Hour Detroit Restaurant of the Year Bistro 82 and The Morrie.

Bacco Executive Chef Anthony Lombardo made his first appearance on Lick the Plate recently. He had this to say about Lick the Plate and his experience on the show. "David has created a unique culinary niche with Lick the Plate in Detroit that has resonated with both the culinary community and the foodies that frequent our restaurants. He has a knack for attracting and telling the stories of a wide range of guests and that benefits the restaurant community and our patrons. It was fun to be able to tell my story in a loose, comfortable format that included my early influences, my road to Bacco, music  which was one of my favorite episodes, favorite places to eat outside of work, and walking the audience through our menu. It was like telling my story in a nutshell and Lick the Plate has perfected that format."

Kevin Miller, General Sales Manager for 93.9 The River and 89X was instrumental in bringing Lick the Plate to Detroit added, "Lick the Plate has definitely become a recognized brand in both Windsor and Southeastern Michigan over the past two years. It provides unique, relevant, entertaining content that covers the exploding culinary scene in both markets and has been an asset to the station."

Lick the Plate airs Monday  Friday during the first commercial break at 7pm and 10pm and can also be found on The River website in podcast format at http://www.iheartradio.ca/93-9-the-river/lick-the-plate-podcast-1.1930772

Media contact and sponsorship inquiries:

Brooks Venters  [email protected]

858.395.6905

About Lick the Plate

Lick the Plate on 93.9 The River in Windsor and Detroit and FM 94/9, KSON & Easy 98.1 in San Diego has interviewed over 500 chefs, restaurateurs, growers, brewers and culinary personalities over the past 6 years. Its unique format allows the radio audience to really get to know the culinary talent behind their favorite restaurants. Besides their culinary background and experience, guests share the road to their current position, music memories and dream concert lineup, where they eat and drink around town, and an in-depth look at their current menu. The original format has proven to be very popular with both the culinary community and their foodie audience. Lick the Plate is also a weekly column in the Coast News, a North County San Diego weekly newspaper.

More at www.lick-the-plate.com

About The River

93.9 The RiverCIDR-FM is an adult alternative radio station located in Windsor, Ontario. With 100,000 watts of power, the signal is able to reach southeast Michigan and northern Ohio. In 2016, The River joined the iHeartRadio family of stations. The River plays a unique blend of new, classic and retro alternative hits alongside special programming such as "Lick The Plate." www.939theriverradio.com

SOURCE Lick the Plate on 93.9 The River

Related Links

http://www.lick-the-plate.com


(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140911/647229 )



Summary of the Liquid Packaging Carton Market Report can be accessed on the website at:: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/liquid-packaging-cartons-market

Liquid foods and alcoholic drinks end use segments are expected to grow at a faster rate, in terms of revenue, with a CAGR of 6.2% and 5.7%, respectively.

Growth in consumer demands for ready-to-carry & convenient products and the environment friendly nature of paperboard cartons are the factors that fuel the growth of liquid packaging carton market. In addition, the advantages of liquid packaging cartons over conventional packaging systems such as glass, plastic, and metal cans supplements the market growth.

Get Customized Market Report: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-for-customization/558

Brick top liquid cartons accounted for nearly half of the liquid packaging carton market revenue in 2015. Paperboard long shelf life carton materials dominated the market, generating around two-thirds of the revenue in the same year. Asia-Pacific is expected to witness the fastest growth, owing to the rise in demand for packaged food products and spending power of consumers in the emerging economies.

Check offers and discount on Liquid Packaging Carton Market report: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/get-discount/558

Key Findings of the Liquid Packaging Carton Market:

Though Europe is projected to continue to dominate the liquid packaging carton market, Asia-Pacific will grow at a high CAGR of 6.1%.

is projected to continue to dominate the liquid packaging carton market, will grow at a high CAGR of 6.1%. North America accounted for more than one-fourth share of the liquid packaging carton market, in volume terms, with a CAGR of 3.9%.

accounted for more than one-fourth share of the liquid packaging carton market, in volume terms, with a CAGR of 3.9%. Germany dominated in the European liquid packaging carton market, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 3.9%.

dominated in the European liquid packaging carton market, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 3.9%. Liquid dairy products and non-carbonated soft drinks end use segments dominate the liquid packaging carton market together with over two-thirds revenue share in 2015.

Brazil dominated the liquid packaging carton market in LAMEA region, and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 5.7%.

Europe contributed to around one-third of the market revenue in 2015 followed by North America and Asia-Pacific. U.S. alone accounted for nearly one-fourth share of the overall revenue in 2015, owing to dominance in demand for packaged food products. Technological developments in production processes are expected to lead to a lower cost of production and superior sustainability, leading to improvement in performance efficiency.

The prominent players profiled in this report include Elopak As, Evergreen Packaging Inc., Greatview Aseptic Packaging Co., Ltd., Klabin SA, Liqui-Box Corporation, Refresco Gerber N.V., SIG Global, Tetra Pak Inc., TidePak Aseptic Packaging Material Co., Ltd., Nippon Paper Industries Co. Ltd., and others.

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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.

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SOURCE Allied Market Research
NEW YORK, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Lithium remains a key commodity for the future due primarily to a rising worldwide demand for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Used to power many consumer electronics and electric vehicles, the market for lithium-ion batteries is rapidly growing, on pace to reach $46.21 billion in the next five years. To meet this rising demand, leading lithium mining companies such as MGX Minerals, Inc. (OTC: MGXMF) (CSE: XMG.CN) (MGX Minerals Profile), Albemarle Corp. (NYSE: ALB), Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile S.A. (NYSE: SQM), FMC Corp. (NYSE: FMC) and Galaxy Resources Limited (OTC: GALXF) are tirelessly working to find new, cost-effective ways to successfully extract this valuable mineral.

A key player on the lithium mining market, with a proprietary and lucrative extraction method, is MGX Minerals, Inc. (MGX Minerals Profile). MGX Minerals uses an innovative extraction method called petrolithium, under which lithium and other valuable minerals are sourced from petroleum brine water in a faster and more environmentally friendly way than typical extraction methods such as hard-rock mining or solar evaporation. The company was the first to recognize the potential of petrolithium and to implement a business strategy based on this method. With its engineering partner, PurLucid Water Treatment Systems, MGX has patented and patent-pending technology. The company is positioned as a front runner in the industry - an enviable spot further supplemented by key industry relationships. MGX Minerals has established partnerships with major oil and gas companies and has acquired more than 1.5 million acres of land in regions neighboring oil fields across Canada and the United States.

MGX Minerals' petrolithium extraction process is based on proprietary technology developed by its engineering partner PurLucid Treatment Solutions, which separates oil from the petroleum brine that contains lithium while also treating the resulting wastewater for reuse as clean water. The company recently reported a major advancement in the development of its filtration and extraction technology after PurLucid successfully upgraded petrolithium brine from one of the company's largest assets - the Sturgeon Lake Petro Lithium Project in Alberta, Canada. By using a new process that concentrates lithium while removing contaminants, PurLucid was able to upgrade brine from a concentration of 67mg/L Li to 1600mg/L Li during the filtration and pre-treatment stage of the extraction process. MGX and PurLucid are preparing for deployment of this technology, which has the potential to significantly lower the cost of the entire petrolithium process.

With high energy density that makes them ideal for use in portable equipment, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are used mostly in electronics such as laptops, mobile phones, gaming equipment, etc. The largest industrial consumer of lithium in this sector is Panasonic Corporation (OTC: PCRFY), which manufactures a wide range of electronics powered by rechargeable batteries. The growing popularity of electric vehicles has made the automotive industry another large consumer of lithium, with Tesla (TSLA) the main driving force in this particular segment. Tesla is producing a wide range of electric vehicles and also has plans to start manufacturing its own lithium-ion batteries, in collaboration with Panasonic. According to an Allied Market Research report (http://nnw.fm/b5eTY), the global lithium-ion battery market is expected to continue expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 10.8 percent and reach $46.21 billion by 2022. This is obviously positive news for the lithium mining market, as both lithium prices and well-positioned associated mining companies are likely to continue growing.

Arguably the largest lithium producer in the world at the moment is Albermarle (NYSE: ALB), a specialty chemical company whose portfolio also includes bromine specialties, refining catalysts, fine chemistry services and more. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Albermarle became a lithium superpower after acquiring Rockwood Holdings in January 2015, which gave it control over about 35 percent of the world's lithium market. It is estimated that the company's lithium sales were about $508.8 million in 2015, considerably higher than what other industry players reported. Albermarle extracts its lithium from three primary sources: Silver Peak, Nevada; Salar de Atacama, Chile, and a 49 percent stake in Talison Lithium's hard-rock Greenbushes mine in Australia. The company recently announced plans to expand operations at Greenbushes and more than double the production of lithium carbonate there from 80,000 metric tons to over 160,000 metric tons per year.

With a strong global presence in various industries and applications, Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile S.A. (NYSE: SQM) is currently the second largest lithium producer in the world, holding about 22 percent of the market. Although the Chile-based company faced some challenges in 2015, including being part of a broader corruption scandal in the country, its lithium revenue business continued to grow, generating revenues of more than $223 million. The same trend continued in the first half of 2016, when SQM reported a 92.1 percent increase in its lithium and derivatives business revenue. The company extracts its lithium from underground brine at Chile's Atacama Salt Desert. Last year, SQM partnered with Lithium Americas Corp. (OTC: LACDF) to develop a lithium project in Jujuy, Argentina - the company's first lithium production investment outside Chile.

Often listed as the third largest player in the industry alongside Albemarle and SQM, FMC Corporation (NYSE: FMC) had lithium segment revenues of $238 million in 2015, and reported an 11.5 percent increase in the first six months of 2016. The company extracts its lithium from its own source, the Salar del Hombre Muerto in Argentina, and also runs its own processing and production facilities where it refined lithium carbonate obtained from lithium chloride into other products such as lithium hydroxide, lithium metals, hypochloride and bromide. FMC Corporation has a proprietary brine extraction technique that reportedly generates the highest-purity lithium available in the entire industry. Met with growing demand, the company is looking to diversify its supply sources and has recently signed a long-term supply agreement with Nemaska Lithium, Inc., under which the Canadian company will provide FMC with 8,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate a year.

Another important, although smaller lithium producer is Australia's Galaxy Resources Limited (NYSE: GALXF), with extraction projects in Argentina, Canada and Western Australia. Anticipating a growing demand for the mineral, the company is positioning itself to become a key supplier of high-quality lithium by continuing to develop and expand its current assets. Galaxy Resources Limited owns and recently commenced operations at Western Australia's Mt Cattlin Spodumene Mine and Quebec, Canada's James Bay Lithium Pegmatite Project. In addition, the company is expanding operations at Argentina's Sal de Vida project located in the so-called Lithium Triangle, which accounts for approximately 60 percent of the world's lithium production.

The above companies, among others, are focused on addressing growing demand for lithium; however, there is another component to consider when exploring plays in this sector. Consider this: according to data from the U.S. Geological Survey, each year 20-30 billion barrels of brine are generated by oil and gas production operations, which is 70 times the volume of all liquid hazardous wastes generated in the United States. As such, the global oil industry is hungry for technology to cost-effectively treat oil wastewater in an environmentally friendly manner.

With its successful extraction of lithium from oil field brine, MGX Minerals has a first-mover advantage to answer the call for efficient wastewater treatment as well as meet the demand for lithium and its growing applications - an achievement that would benefit the environment, oil and gas producers around the world, and company shareholders. For solution providers like MGX Minerals, the potential here is incredible.

For more information on MGX please visit MGX Minerals or https://www.MGXminerals.com

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HOUSTON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Lone Survivor Foundation (LSF) is proud to welcome four new members to their Board of Directors! Newly elected members to the LSF Board of Directors are:

Tim Byrom (President of the Board) - owner of BRINT Construction;

John Ertz (Treasurer) - Managing Partner at Northwestern Mutual - Northern Ohio;

Reed Smith (Director) - Vice President at GEO Group; and

Earl Campbell (Director) - President of Earl Campbell Meat Products, Heisman Trophy Winner and former Houston Oiler.

Other current members of the LSF Board of Directors include:

Michael D. Lappi (Secretary)  Captain, United States Navy and Global Medical Director for General Electric Aviation;

Patrick Lewis (Director) - Vice President, Fertitta Enterprises/Red Rock Resorts; and

Harry Coghlan (Director) - President and General Manager at Clear Channel Outdoor, New York.

In honor of their tireless commitment to the Foundation and its mission, the founding Board Members are receiving permanent Honorary Board Member Status. LSF's Honorary Board Members are:

Marcus Luttrell (Honorary Chairman) - retired Navy SEAL, Founder of Lone Survivor Foundation, Author and Speaker;

Peter Naschak (Honorary Director) - retired Navy SEAL and CEO of Performance Activation Inc.;

John Folkert (Honorary Director) - Business & Estate Planning Specialist for Northwestern Mutual;

Thomas Fordyce (Honorary Director) - retired Marine and Vietnam veteran, Owner of Ford Farms and Member of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice; and

Kala Sorenson (Honorary Director) - Owner of bySORENSON, LLC.

ABOUT LONE SURVIVOR FOUNDATION:

Founded in 2010 by retired Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, Lone Survivor Foundation's mission is to restore, empower and renew hope for wounded service members and their families through health, wellness and therapeutic support. LSF hosts therapeutic retreats for service members with Post Traumatic Stress, mild Traumatic Brain Injury, Chronic Pain, and Military Sexual Trauma. LSF host retreats for individual service members (from all conflicts), couples, and families, as well as separate retreats for care partners. Retreat attendees partake in psychoeducational group sessions and individual counseling, as well as Equine Assisted Learning (EAL) using the EAGALA model, neuro-feedback, combat-trauma specific yoga and other cutting-edge modalities. All of these services are provided at no cost to the service members or families through the generous support of donors and sponsors, and through fundraising events around the country.

LSF is steadily growing their program to meet the needs of their increasing waiting list. LSF has increased the number of retreats held from 16 in 2015 to 31 in 2016; this year, 43 retreats are scheduled and filling up quickly. LSF owns one retreat facility in Crystal Beach, Texas, and is currently renting additional facilities in order to carry out its important work. The Foundation recently announced plans to build a second facility in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

To learn more about LSF or to get involved go to www.lonesurvivorfoundation.org.

Media Contact: Vanessa Forse, Director of Marketing and Events

(832) 581-3592 ext. 111

[email protected]

www.lonesurvivorfoundation.org

SOURCE Lone Survivor Foundation

Related Links

http://www.lonesurvivorfoundation.org


LORAIN, Ohio, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Lorain County based metal fabrication and laser cutting shop Kuhn Fabricating has hired one of Northeastern Ohio's top marketing firms The Eisen Agency to lead their rebranding and lead generation efforts. The agency will work with the leading metal fabrication shop to develop a new look for the business, along with a new marketing strategy that will better communicate the offerings of Kuhn Fabricating to potential and current clients.

According to Kuhn Fabricating president Lewie Kuhn, the choice of The Eisen Agency came about because of their deep understanding in creating successful marketing programs not just for smaller enterprises, but also those in the manufacturing industry. "We're in the business of fabricating amazing things and functional things out of metal  not marketing. We're too busy creating and we needed someone to take a look at our operation and lift that non core competency burden."

The Eisen Agency president Rodger Roeser says that Kuhn Fabricating has an exceptional story to tell, it just simply needed to be told. "It's an exceptional group of skilled, hard working craftsmen that work with some of the finest businesses and contractors in Northeast Ohio. They even do residential work, and they have a great reputation for quality. It was simply a matter of applying our expertise to their expertise and spark something amazing."

Along with the development of the new brand and branding items, The Eisen Agency will develop a new online web and social media strategy, an aggressive direct response and lead generation program, and local community relations and publicity initiatives.

About Kuhn Fabricating

Kuhn provides welding, forming, structural and laser cutting services to Northeast Ohio customers. With it 10,000 foot facility in Lorain, Kuhn Fabricating works with businesses, contractors and residential customers to create functional and creative pieces through the fabrication of metal  stainless, plate, aluminum and bronze. More information can be accessed at www.KuhnFab.com.

About The Eisen Agency

Serving industry specific clients across the country from their offices in Greater Cleveland and Greater Cincinnati, The Eisen Agency is a leading brand marketing, communications and lead generation firm. More information can be accessed at www.TheEisenAgency.com.

SOURCE The Eisen Agency

Related Links

http://www.TheEisenAgency.com


Arvielo manages operations and sales for New American Funding's headquarters, 130+ branches, and 2400 employees, while closing millions of dollars in home loans on an annual basis. "I'm elated that out of all of the successful lenders that the LA Business Journal has identified me as one of the most influential. It's an honor to make this list two years in a row," said Arvielo. "I'm passionate about my work, and look forward to continuing to increase homeownership in America."

Arvielo specializes in multicultural lending and has had a significant impact with assisting underserved borrowers achieve the American Dream. Since 2013, she has used Latino Focus Committee as an avenue to educate Hispanic consumers who are pursuing homeownership opportunities. Over the past 18 months, some of her other achievements include:

Recent Accomplishments

Expanding New American Funding's portfolio to more than $1 billion in loans monthly.

monthly. Launching New American Dream , a program designed to increase homeownership in African-American communities.

, a program designed to increase homeownership in African-American communities. Collaborating with Freddie Mac to launch, Your Path, a loan program that makes affordable homeownership opportunities available to a changing demographic of borrowers.

Patty serves on the Corporate Board of Governors for the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals and the Mortgage Bankers Association's Diversity and Inclusion Committee. In 2016, she received the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award, a silver Stevie for Woman of the Year, and the LA Times Latino de Hoy Business Award.

About New American Funding

New American Funding is a national mortgage banker licensed in 48 states with 130+ branch locations that offer a variety of home loan options including: Conventional, FHA, Cash Out, Fixed Rate and Adjustable Rate Mortgages, VA, HARP 2.0, Jumbo, and Reverse Mortgages. The company is a Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae Direct Seller/Servicer, FHA Direct Endorsement, and VA Automatic mortgage lender.

SOURCE New American Funding

Related Links

http://www.newamericanfunding.com


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Summary of the Machine Learning Chip Market Report can be accessed on the website at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/machine-learning-chip-market

Machine learning chip is widely used across the applications such as robotics, healthcare, automotive, and consumer electronics. At present, rising demand for automated electronic devices and trending Artificial Intelligence (AI) are some factors that majorly drive the market. Moreover, popularity of Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to provide lucrative opportunities to market players.

Get Customized Market Report: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-for-customization/2055

According to Komal Sharma, Research Analyst, Semiconductor & Electronics Research at Allied Market Research, "Machine learning chip is a multiprocessor that enables the machine to gain human-like intelligence without being explicitly programed. Moreover, they offer numerous benefits, such as learning, reasoning, and self-correction. Neuromorphic chip represents almost 30% of the total machine learning chip market, owing to its resilience and high efficiency. In addition, substantial demand for electronics applications and trend of customer shift towards advanced chips to achieve better efficiency are expected to fuel its adoption in the consumer electronics, automotive, and other industry sectors."

Check offers and discount on Machine Learning Chip Market Report: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/get-discount/2055

The Neuromorphic Chip segment is projected to maintain its lead in the global machine learning chip market, as this type is used in various electronics applications such as gaming, driverless vehicles, drones & air transport, security & cyber security, speech, and image recognition. Moreover, Flash based Memory Chip is expected to grow owing to its stability and enhanced performance.

Among applications, robotics industry segment dominated the global market in 2015, accounting for about 52% share. Trending artificial intelligence (AI), diversified application areas, and improved productivity fuel the market growth. However, consumer electronics segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR of 13.1% during the forecast period due to increase in demand for automated electronic devices.

North America was the major revenue contributor in 2014, and is expected to maintain its dominance throughout the forecast period. This is attributed to the increase in number of automated medical devices and automated robots. Moreover, developments in consumer electronics and aerospace & defense is projected to boost the growth of the machine learning chip market, especially in the Asian countries, such as China, Japan, South Korea, and India.

LAMEA is projected to be the fastest growing region during the analysis period, owing to increase in demand for automated machinery, and rise in the adoption of machine learning chip in automotive and healthcare sectors. Moreover, technological advancements to overcome complexity of the circuit is expected to offer lucrative opportunities for market players in the near future.

Key Findings of the Machine Learning Chip Market:

In 2015, Neuromorphic Chip segment dominated the global machine learning chip market in terms of revenue, and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 7.7% during the forecast period.

Flash based Memory Chip segment is expected to exhibit the fastest growth during the forecast period, owing to increase in applications such as medical devices and super computer.

Robotics industry segment dominates the global machine learning chip market, accounting for about 52% share in 2015.

China is the major shareholder in the Asia-Pacific machine learning chip market, accounting for about 42% share.

The key players operating in the machine learning chip market adopt new product launch as their preferred strategy to expand their market foothold. The major players profiled in this report include Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Google Inc., Graphcore, Intel Corporation, International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation, Nvidia Corporation, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd., Wave Computing, and XILINX Inc.

Read similar market research reports on Emerging and Next Generation Technologies at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/semiconductor-and-electronics/emerging-and-next-generation-technologies-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.

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Website: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com

Blog: https://blog.alliedmarketresearch.com

SOURCE Allied Market Research
MORRISTOWN, N.J., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, LLP ("MDM&C" or "the Firm") today announced the formalization of an Antitrust Practice Group, which will combine the existing capabilities of more than a dozen of the firm's attorneys, who possess deep experience in antitrust litigation and investigations, as well as related merger and acquisition representation across a broad range of industries.

Lewis Goldfarb

MDM&C's Antitrust Practice Group will represent both plaintiffs and defendants, to advocate for, or challenge transactions and business practices, in courts and before federal and state antitrust enforcement agencies. The firm will counsel companies on all aspects of antitrust, including antitrust compliance programs, distribution arrangements, licensing agreements, agency business reviews, merger analysis, litigation risk assessment, as well as issues related to standard setting groups and the interface between intellectual property and antitrust law.

As Federal and State antitrust authorities have quickened the pace of both civil and criminal prosecutions of major participants in large industries  including pharmaceuticals, financial services, and food & beverages  enforcements seeking significant damages for consumers have also accelerated, often in the form of nationwide class actions under state and federal antitrust laws that piggyback on the rulings and settlements obtained by regulatory agencies.

MDM&C Managing Partner, Edward B. Deutsch, said, "Our Firm has long possessed all of the relevant talent and experience to claim expertise in antitrust law. Creation of this new practice group will better enable us to integrate those capabilities in a more focused manner, and is intended to raise external awareness of our expertise in this complex, high stakes area of the law."

The Firm's Antitrust Practice Group will be headed by Lewis Goldfarb, Of Counsel, who has been practicing Antitrust and Consumer Law for more than 40 years, including stints at the Federal Trade Commission, Chrysler Corporation and two major national law firms. Mr. Goldfarb is also the named plaintiff in Goldfarb vs. Virginia State Bar , the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that applied the federal antitrust laws to the professions and occupations.

The Goldfarb vs. Virginia State Bar case, and the subsequent rulings that relied on it, are the subject of a documentary video and panel discussion that will be presented at the Annual Spring Meeting Luncheon of the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association ("ABA") in Washington, D.C. on March 29, 2017.

About McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, LLP

McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, LLP is a diverse practice with lawyers who place the client first. MDM&C has over 275 lawyers in twelve offices in seven states and offers a full range of legal services. Please visit www.mdmc-law.com for more information.

Contact:

Nicole Alexander, Esq.

Director of Professional and Business Development

McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, LLP

[email protected]

(973) 425-8141

SOURCE McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, LLP

Related Links

http://www.mdmc-law.com


CAMBRIDGE, England, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Elysium Health joins major pharmaceutical companies to invest in collaborative research with Cambridge academic scientists through the Milner Therapeutics Consortium

The Milner Therapeutics Institute today announces Elysium Health as a partner to the Milner Therapeutics Consortium. Elysium Health has committed significant investment for collaborative projects with academic researchers in Cambridge over the next four years. This is the first major research investment outside the U.S. for the New York-based company. Together Elysium Health will work with University of Cambridge academic scientists and the Milner Therapeutics Institute to discover and develop preventative medicines from natural products.

Elysium Health will also join the Milner Therapeutics Institute Innovation Board to help define and solve some of the grand challenges in health today such as early intervention to prevent avoidable chronic diseases and maintaining health over extended lifespans. The funds will be used by Elysium Health to better understand ageing, cognitive health, metabolic health and general wellbeing to develop clinically validated products.

The Milner Therapeutics Institute has constructed a therapeutics ecosystem in Cambridge which match-makes between pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and researchers. The Consortium brings together the drug development capability of pharmaceutical companies with the know-how of entire academic institutions in Cambridge and has been specifically modelled to help facilitate the speedy exchange of resources and information between partners through a pre-signed agreement. Company partners are able to work individually with academics or through joint activities in order to help accelerate drug development. The Consortium's Innovation Board includes companies and academic partners and is responsible for overseeing the strategic direction, collective research funding and collaborative activities.

Commenting on the announcement, Prof Tony Kouzarides, founder and director of the Milner Therapeutics Institute said: "Elysium Health is a great addition to the Milner Therapeutics Consortium, broadening and complementing the knowledge of the companies we already work with. We will work closely with Elysium to help them discover more about the cellular processes that maintain our health and develop this knowledge into preventative healthcare strategies."

Professor Leonard Guarente, founder and chief scientist at Elysium Health who also serves as the director of the Glenn Laboratory for the Science of Aging at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, added: "We are delighted to partner with Milner Therapeutics to further expand our understanding of the ageing process. At Elysium, we are committed to robust research in order to advance scientific breakthroughs and make them accessible to consumers."

The Consortium is seeking academic and industrial partners to work in all therapeutics areas. For further information on how to join the consortium, please contact [email protected] .

Notes to Editors:

About Milner Therapeutics Institute

The Milner Therapeutics Institute is a fully integrated Institute of the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Clinical Medicine at the University of Cambridge, UK. The Milner Therapeutics Consortium is the outreach programme of the Milner Therapeutics Institute and consists of major pharmaceutical companies, (Astex, AstraZeneca, Elysium Health, GlaxoSmithKline, Shionogi, Pfizer, MedImmune and Otsuka) and three academic centres (University of Cambridge, Babraham Institute and Sanger Institute). A Consortium agreement is in place to facilitate rapid exchange of reagents and information between partners in all therapeutic areas. Pharmaceutical partners use pre-allocated funds and the Consortium agreement to collaborate with scientists in the academic centres. The Consortium is the outreach program of the Milner Therapeutics Institute which is under construction on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus and will open early in 2018.

New research collaborations as a result of the Consortium include AstraZeneca and Prof Carlos Caldas at the University of Cambridge to investigate how different sub-types of breast cancer respond to different treatments; and Astex and Dr Simon Cook at the Babraham Institute to investigate the significance of modulation of the ERK pathway in cell lines and consequences for cancer cell growth inhibition and adaptive resistance.

The Milner Institute also has an affiliated company partnership scheme to engage with small and medium size companies that are technology or service providers or have drug development pipelines themselves. There are 40 Affiliated companies including Charles River Laboratories, Amgen and Promega. For more information please see the website http://www.milner.cam.ac.uk.

About Elysium Health

Elysium Health's mission is to solve the biggest challenges in health with science, to help people live healthier, longer lives. Working directly with the world's leading scientists and clinicians, Elysium Health translates advances in science and technology into effective, scientifically-sound products that help people manage their health in an actionable way (http://www.elysiumhealth.com ).

Contact



Kathryn Chapman, PhD

Executive Manager, Milner Therapeutics Institute

Email: [email protected].



Victoria Davis

Elysium Health

Email: [email protected]

+44(0)1223-767111



SOURCE The Milner Therapeutics Institute
EXTON, Pa., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Morphotek, Inc., a subsidiary of Eisai Inc., announced today that it will present three posters at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in Washington, D.C. being held April 1-5, 2017. Highlighted among the posters will be new preclinical data on Morphotek's proprietary antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) technology, REsidue-SPEcific Conjugation TechnologyTM (RESPECTTM), along with the immunosuppressive effects of CA125 on immune-mediated therapeutic antibodies.

Title Abstract/Poster No. Poster Presentation (All times are U.S. ET) RESPECT (REsidue-SPEcific Conjugation Technology): A Platform Technology Utilizing Native Cysteine and Lysine Residues for the Generation of Homogeneous Antibody-Drug Conjugates Abstract: 65 Poster Board: 16 Session Category: Experimental and Molecular Therapeutics Session Title: Antibody Technology Date: Sunday, April 2, 2017 Time: 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Location: Halls A-C; Poster Section 3 CA125/MUC16 suppresses antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity of IgG1-based therapies via perturbation of antibody Fc-Receptor engagement on immune effector cells Abstract: 644 Poster Board: 18 Session Category: Immunology Session Title: Tumor Antigens and Adaptive Immunity Date: Sunday, April 2, 2017 Time: 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Location: Halls A-C; Poster Section 27 Comprehensive genomic characterization of a large cohort of platinum sensitive high grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) FFPE specimens Abstract: 1743 Poster Board: 3 Session Category: Clinical Research Session Title: Molecular Classification of Tumors Date: Monday, April 3, 2017 Time: 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Location: Halls A-C; Poster Section 31

To learn more about Morphotek and its proprietary ADC technology and services, please visit us at booth 2066 at the AACR Annual Meeting.

About Morphotek

Morphotek, Inc., a subsidiary of Eisai Inc., is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing novel classes of biological-based products to treat cancer, inflammatory and infectious diseases. Our mission is to develop novel, targeted therapies that attack underlying disease pathways and overcome the immunosuppressive effects by tumors on immune-mediated experimental therapies. Our diverse pipeline includes clinical-stage monoclonal antibodies to lead targets folate receptor alpha, mesothelin and endosialin, as well as antibody drug conjugates and bispecific antibodies to undisclosed targets in preclinical development. Our mission is supported by the proprietary cutting-edge technologies in antibody engineering, manufacturing and screening optimization platforms, along with our expertise in developing diagnostics to support patient selection and therapeutic strategy. For more information, please visit www.morphotek.com.

About Eisai Inc.

At Eisai Inc., human health care (hhc) is our goal. We give our first thought to patients and their families, and helping to increase the benefits health care provides. As the U.S. pharmaceutical subsidiary of Tokyo-based Eisai Co., Ltd., we have a passionate commitment to patient care that is the driving force behind our efforts to discover and develop innovative therapies to help address unmet medical needs.

Eisai is a fully integrated pharmaceutical business that operates in two global business groups: oncology and neurology (dementia-related diseases and neurodegenerative diseases). Each group functions as an end-to-end global business with discovery, development, and marketing capabilities. Our U.S. headquarters, commercial and clinical development organizations are located in New Jersey; our discovery labs are in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania; and our global demand chain organization resides in Maryland and North Carolina. To learn more about Eisai Inc., please visit us at www.eisai.com/US and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Morphotek Contacts:





Investor Inquiries: Media Inquiries:

Rod Dausch Diana Martens

610-423-6111 610-423-6085

[email protected] [email protected]

SOURCE Morphotek, Inc.

Related Links

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DALLAS, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- MUSA Auto Finance, an auto finance company specializing in new and pre-owned vehicle leasing, announced today it has entered into a $125 million warehouse facility with Goldman Sachs and additionally, secured a capital investment of up to $50 million from Crestline Investors, Inc. The capital investment along with the warehouse facility will provide MUSA Auto Finance with the funding needed to launch its auto leasing program nationwide in 2017. MUSA's business plan is to begin originating new and pre-owned leases strategically in key U.S. major markets, with continued geographic expansion and market penetration in 2017 and 2018.

MUSA Auto Finance was founded by Jeff Morgan, who also owns Mortgages USA and Internet Auto Group. Richard Frunzi, President, former co-founder and COO of Exeter Finance Corp., joined Mr. Morgan in 2016 to create MUSA Auto Finance. The company has recently consummated the asset purchase of an originations, servicing and collections platform based in Jacksonville, Fla.

"It has always been a career goal of mine to create an auto finance company that would modernize vehicle leasing and make it accessible to more consumers. To be entering into this venture with Goldman Sachs and Crestline Investors sets MUSA on the path to become one of the premier consumer vehicle leasing companies in the U.S.," said Jeff Morgan, Owner and CEO of MUSA Auto Finance.

Richard Frunzi, President, added, "Our new funding capacity gives MUSA the ability to build out our infrastructure, and launch our innovative lease program nationally. Our effortless lease program greatly simplifies the leasing process, opening doors to dealer personnel that have never offered a lease product before. In addition, our unique product gives customers an option to lease both new and pre-owned vehicles."

About MUSA Auto Finance

MUSA Auto Finance maintains its corporate offices in Dallas, Texas, with a Servicing/Collections center in Jacksonville, Fla. MUSA originates its leases from franchise and select independent dealers and will be expanding its sales force nationwide. The company expects to be in 25 major markets over the next 12 months and all 48 contiguous states within the next two years.

MUSA's leadership team consists of Jeff Morgan, Owner and CEO; Richard Frunzi, President; Cinde Perales, Chief Compliance Officer; Eric Estes, Chief Operations Officer; and Scott Schondau, Chief Financial Officer. For more information, visit www.musaautofinance.com.

About Crestline Investors, Inc.

Crestline Investors, Inc., founded in 1997 and based in Fort Worth, Texas, is a credit focused institutional alternative investment management firm with approximately $9.2 billion of assets under management. Crestline specializes in credit and opportunistic investments, including bespoke financing and restructuring solutions for mature or troubled private equity funds. In addition, the firm manages a multi-PM equity market-neutral hedge fund, and provides Beta and Hedging Solutions for Institutional clients. Headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, the company maintains affiliate offices in New York City, Chicago, London, Toronto and Tokyo. For more information, please visit www.crestlineinvestors.com.

SOURCE MUSA Auto Finance

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SYDNEY, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Kinetic Consulting Services, the leading consulting company for branded customer experience, announces the worldwide release of a new business book Experience My Brand.

Experience My Brand author and CEO Joe Tawfik shows the reader how to analyze, design, and implement a branded customer experience program. The book overcomes the largest challenge facing organizations by providing a detailed guide that will achieve an increase in bottom-line profits and the number of loyal customers.

Experience My Brand Cover Author Joe Tawfik

Heralded as the last battleground for competition, customer experience management has become a core strategic imperative for many organizations. Building unique emotional ties with customers that are stronger and difficult for competitors to imitate is considered the cornerstone for organizations to achieve an unbeatable competitive edge in today's market.

Known as "branded customer experience" the association of experiences specific to a brand has created mega organisations such as Apple, Zappos and Amazon. To deliver a great branded experience to customers, an organization must embrace customer experience management as their highest priority if they are to prosper in the future.

Tawfik wrote the book because the large majority of companies are failing to achieve any sustainable value from their customer experience programs, and were wasting their investments on changes that delivered mediocre results. Research undertaken by Accenture in 2015 identified that 77% of firms were not achieving any increases in bottom-line profits from their customer experience programs.

With clear data to complement the text, Experience My Brand puts theory into practice in a way that is practical and easily understood. Readers are provided the tools to effectively implement transformational change and create a unique and sustainable experience for their customers.

Experience My Brand is a must-have guide for those who want to learn about this increasingly important field and seek to strengthen this critical aspect of their businesses.

The book can be purchased from Amazon or from leading book retailers.

About Experience My Brand:

Author Joe Tawfik presents an assured collection of valuable insights in Experience My Brand that are based on his 25-plus years in senior management. His expertise as CEO of business services companies in particular underlies his assertion that to differentiate itself in the age of digital disruption, a company must make branded customer experience part of its corporate strategy. Rather than relegate customer experience management to any one department, such as marketing, it must become "embedded within a company's DNA."

Book Publisher: River Grove Books, Austin Texas, USA

ISBN: 978-1-63299-127-0

Website: www.experiencemybrand.com

About Kinetic Consulting Services:

Kinetic Consulting Services is a management consulting company providing services in a broad range of disciplines to commercial and government organisations. The key area of expertise is customer experience. Our focus is to help our clients accelerate, optimise and transform their organisations better and faster.

Website: www.kineticcs.com

For more information, please contact:

Media Officer

E: [email protected]

Contact:

U.S.A: +877-318-6826

Australia: 1300 780 556

U.A.E.: +971 4455 8410

SOURCE Kinetic Consulting Services

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"This documentary captures the spirit of World Youth Day, and allows those who could not attend to have a window into this moving event," said Knights of Columbus CEO Carl Anderson. "It brings to life the spirit of Divine Mercy, preached by Pope Francis in the town that is the epicenter of this devotion, and was home to St. John Paul II, his predecessor who also did much to spread that message."

The WYD Krakow theme, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy," united millions of Catholics from around the world as they traveled in the footsteps of Pope St. John Paul II and other great saints of Krakow, discovering new aspects of the rich heritage of their Catholic faith.

World Youth Day is celebrated with an international gathering every two or three years. The event in Poland was the 14th such gathering since WYD was first instituted by St. John Paul II in Rome in 1985. Annually, WYD is celebrated in dioceses around the world on Palm Sunday.

On this Palm Sunday, April 9, Pope Francis will meet WYD delegations from Poland and from Panama, where the next international celebration will be held in 2019. As part of the ceremony, the Polish young people will transfer stewardship of the official WYD cross to their Panamanian counterparts.

The documentary, produced by the Knights of Columbus, includes exclusive footage of the Night of Mercy Youth Festival, featuring music from Matt Maher and Audrey Assad, as well as a spiritual reflection by Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron and a panel discussion on religious liberty with Archbishop Bashar Warda from Erbil, Iraq, and Archbishop William Lori, the chair of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty at the USCCB.

The K of C also sponsored the Mercy Centre at Tauron Arena Krakow, which served as the hub of many WYD activities and hosted the official WYD cross during Pope Francis's final meeting with the pilgrims who served as volunteers.

EWTN will air the film on April 8 at 2 p.m. EST, April 10 at 7 a.m. EST, and April 10 at 4 p.m. EST. The film will also air on Salt + Light television in Canada on April 9 at 8 p.m. EST.

For more information, visit wydenglishsite.org/film.

SOURCE Knights of Columbus
SAN DIEGO, March 27, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- NewSchool of Architecture & Design (NewSchool) is pleased to announce that faculty member Tatiana A. Berger will travel to Moscow as a guest lecturer at Moscow Architecture School (MARCH) on March 28, 2017.

Berger's lecture, "The Poetics of Time: Emotion and Empathy in Architecture," will address the cross section of neuroscience and architecture, discussing the roles of emotion and empathy in the experiences of architecture and in the design process, a subject Berger teaches at NewSchool. In addition to the lecture, Berger will lead a design workshop for students in Moscow.

"Considerations of emotional, multi-sensory experience and phenomenology have gained importance across a range of disciplinary areas over the past decades in architecture and design fields and I am honored to have this opportunity to speak at MARCH, a progressive and innovative school in the heart of Moscow," said Berger, associate professor of graduate architecture at NewSchool. The lecture will address questions such as, 'What can architects learn from neuroscience?' and 'How can the dimension of time be explored more fully in contemporary design?'"

Berger's global career in architecture and design education spans across countries including Portugal, China, Russia and the Netherlands. She has worked with two Pritzker Prize-winning architects, Richard Meier (New York) and Alvaro Siza (Portugal).

As an associate professor of NewSchool's Graduate Architecture program in San Diego, she also leads the highly successful NewSchool Lecture Series, which brings renowned architects and designers from around the world to San Diego each month for free public lectures, hosted on the NewSchool campus. In addition to teaching graduate design studio, architectural and urban theory, thesis research, and a summer program in Spain, she leads instruction in neuroscience and architecture, as part of the new Certificate Program in Neuroscience and Architecture at NewSchool.

Berger has lectured internationally on architectural education and topics in regional architecture and cultural sustainability and is now embarking on a new project called Nexus, a bi-monthly colloquium aimed at bringing together international experts for research and debate in neuroscience and architecture. She is a native of St.Petersburg, Russia and moved to the United States with her family at an early age.

For more information on NewSchool of Architecture and Design, visit newschoolarch.edu. For more information on Tatiana Berger or to arrange an interview, contact Rachael Lighty at [email protected].

About NewSchool of Architecture & Design:

Located in San Diego's design district, NewSchool of Architecture & Design prepares students for career success in design fields through an emphasis on interdisciplinary and global design skills, industry collaborations and real-world projects. Programs include architecture, construction management, product design, media design, design studies, and interior architecture and design. NewSchool is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and University Commission. NewSchool's Bachelor and Master of Architecture programs are accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB). NewSchool is one of more than 70 institutions in 25 countries that comprise the Laureate International Universities network. Through collaborations with sister institutions in the Laureate network, including Domus Academy in Milan, Italy, NewSchool students are prepared to work in global and diverse organizations. For more information, visit www.newschoolarch.edu.

SOURCE NewSchool of Architecture & Design

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DENVER, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The collective North American IPv6 Task Forces will be honoring 12 organizations for the highest IPv6 adoption rates at the 2017 North American IPv6 Summit (REGISTER) to be held at LinkedIn headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA, April 25-26. Each global service provider organization has achieved connecting 20% or more of their subscribers using the IPv6 protocol.

"These organizations that we will honor at the 2017 IPv6 North American Summit are leaders in adopting IPv6 technology and enabling their subscribers to take advantage of IPv6's benefits," said Scott Hogg, Chairman, Emeritus, RMv6TF. "They recognize the importance of providing native IPv6 Internet connectivity for their customers and have taken crucial steps to implement IPv6 across their networks."

By implementing IPv6, providers can retain universal connectivity for their clients, users, subscribers, business partners, and suppliers. The implementation of IPv6 enables trillions of new Internet addresses needed to support connectivity for a huge range of smart devices such as phones, household appliances, and vehicles. IPv6 also brings enhanced quality of service that is required for several new applications such as IP telephony, video/audio, interactive games or ecommerce.

The following companies will be honored at the 2017 North American IPv6 Summit at LinkedIn headquarters, Sunnyvale, CA, on April 25:

AT&T

Charter

Comcast

Cox Communications

Google Fiber

Hughes Net

Midco

Rogers ( Canada )

) Sprint

TELUS ( Canada )

) T-Mobile

Verizon

The IPv6 2017 Summit is being held at LinkedIn headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA, April 25-26. The two-day event, designed to educate network professionals on the current state of IPv6 adoption, will feature a variety of speakers from leading organizations, including LinkedIn, ARIN, Microsoft, Cisco, Comcast, and others.

About The IPv6 Task Forces

Dedicated to the advancement and adoption of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), the Rocky Mountain, California, Texas and Mexico IPv6 Task Forces work to educate the community on IPv6 and its benefits. As sub-chapters of the North American IPv6 Task Force, these organizations primarily host local IPv6-focused events to promote the use of IPv6 within the North American region. These groups are non-profit/tax-exempt organizations that industry and government can look to for guidance on IPv6 transition information and advice about best practices and solutions involving IPv6. For more information, visit www.RMv6TF.org, www.CAv6TF.org, www.TXv6TF.org, and www.IPv6forum.com.mx .

To attend the conference, register here: REGISTER

Contact: Scott Hogg, Chairman, Emeritus, Rocky Mountain IPv6 Task Force

Phone: 303-949-4865

Email: [email protected]

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com

SOURCE Collective North American IPv6 Task Forces
This was part of the harassment and intimidation experienced by scores of private citizens of the small New Jersey town, Bernards Township (also known as Basking Ridge), who spoke out at public hearings against a plan to build a disproportionately-sized mosque on a small piece of residential property. The mosque project, sponsored by the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge ("ISBR") and its president, Mohammad Ali Chaudry, was denied by Township officials for not complying with local building ordinances.

On March 10, 2016, ISBR and Mohammad Ali Chaudry sued Bernards Township in federal court, claiming various violations of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. Shortly after, ISBR had coercive subpoenas served on private citizens whose only involvement was voicing concerns at public planning board meetings about whether the proposed mosque complied with local building ordinances.

The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey recently granted the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, permission to represent, without charge, several of these citizens who desired to quash the coercive and abusive subpoenas. Westfield, New Jersey attorney Michael P. Hrycak is assisting the Law Center.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, commented: "ISBR is setting a dangerous unconstitutional precedent by abusing a court process to chill and trample on the First Amendment Rights of private citizens whose only involvement was to speak out against the mosque at public hearings. Because the U.S. Supreme Court has held that speech at a public place on a matter of public concern is entitled to special protection, we will ask the Federal District Court to quash the subpoenas served on our clients as a misuse and abuse of the Court's process."

Lori Caratzola, described in the ISBR Complaint as a fervent and frequent objector to the mosque, was a prime target for ISBR's personal attacks. She was personally mentioned over a dozen times in their Complaint. Yet she has remained steadfast in her opposition. Ms. Caratzola commented:

"Being served with a Federal Court Subpoena to turn over all my personal communications including voicemails, social media, emails, notes wherein I make any mention of anything having to do with Islam is an absolute violation of my First Amendment rights. I was a citizen exercising my right to attend public planning board meetings about a land use application that affected my community."

She continued:

"Dr. Chaudry's clear intent was to embarrass, strike fear, silence and cause financial harm to any citizen who dared oppose his nonconforming project. And if these subpoenas are allowed to stand, it will set a chilling precedent for all citizens who wish to exercise their Constitutionally protected right to free speech and to petition their government.

"I was named numerous times in the Complaint, yet as a non-party, I had no standing to challenge the lies and half-truths told about me. After the Complaint was filed, mainstream media picked up and repeated these lies and half-truths."

Caratzola concluded:

"I have lost days, probably weeks, devoting time to trying to find counsel - only to find most attorneys are afraid of challenging an Islamic group in today's political climate."

Attorney Karen Lugo, a specialist on constitutional law and zoning issues, echoed Lori Caratzola's concerns:

"ISBR's subpoena of private citizens' communications with local government, as well as all personal email and social media statements related to 'anything associated with or related to Muslims or Islam' is in direct violation of speech protections enshrined in the Constitution and in Supreme Court rulings. ISBR's blatant efforts to chill the free exercise of speech while intimidating local citizens with these subpoenas must not only be denied, but must be rebuked, by the courts."

Cody Smith, another subpoenaed resident who opposed the Mosque, stated:

"The planning board did exactly what it should have doneset emotions aside and judge ISBR's application solely on its merits and whether it complied with our local regulations. It's unfortunate that Dr. Chaudry, the Township's former mayor, has resorted to an all-out smear campaign and retaliation against residents who exercised their fundamental Constitutional rights of Free Speech in a public forum."

Soon after ISBR's lawsuit, DOJ investigators opened another coercive front by attempting to interview the private citizens who opposed the mosque. Eight months later, the DOJ filed its own lawsuit against the Township.

Astonishingly, the DOJ was dismissive of an apparent conflict of interest between Mohammad Ali Chaudry and the DOJ's chief investigator, Caroline Sadlowski, both of whom were serving together on the Center for Religious and Cultural Conflicts board at Drew University.

See Bernards Township Press Release here

The Thomas More Law Center defends and promotes America's Judeo-Christian heritage and moral values, including the religious freedom of Christians, time-honored family values, and the sanctity of human life. It supports a strong national defense and an independent and sovereign United States of America. The Law Center accomplishes its mission through litigation, education, and related activities. It does not charge for its services. The Law Center is supported by contributions from individuals, corporations and foundations, and is recognized by the IRS as a section 501(c)(3) organization. You may reach the Thomas More Law Center at (734) 827-2001 or visit our website at www.thomasmore.org.

SOURCE Thomas More Law Center

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FORT WASHINGTON, Pa., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Eliminating cancer disparities and reducing differences in incidence and mortality rates among minority populations must be addressed through research in prevention, screening, clinical trials, equal access to quality care, palliative and hospice care, and survivorship programs, according to panelists who spoke March 23, 2017 at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) 22nd Annual Conference: Improving the Quality, Effectiveness, and Efficiency of Cancer Care at the Rosen Shingle Creek Conference Center in Orlando. Moreover, the panelists agreed that recognizing the needs of minorities and underserved communities in delivering cancer care are most important aspects that must be addressed as related to race and ethnicity, cultural, linguistic, socioeconomic, age, gender, and other individual factors to impact disparities.

Participants in the opening NCCN Roundtable: Addressing Health Disparities in Cancer Care from Diagnosis to Survivorship, spoke before an audience of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other oncology stakeholders and industry leaders from among 1,600 conference attendees who convened to hear the effects of health policy on underserved populations, and psychosocial issues that impact patient quality of life.

Moderator Clifford Goodman, PhD, Senior Vice President of The Lewin Group, opened the session by introducing the panelists and expressing his own concerns about health care disparities on the day when Congress was expected to vote on the American Health Care Act (AHCA). "The vote taken today could put already disadvantaged populations at greater risk," Dr. Goodman said. The vote, however, has been postponed indefinitely.

The panelists included Shauntice Allen, PhD, Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Comprehensive Cancer Center, who lives with metastatic breast cancer; Moon S. Chen Jr., PhD, MPH, of the University of California Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center; Anne Filipic of Enroll America, a non-profit organization dedicated to maximizing the number of Americans enrolled in health coverage made available through the Affordable Care Act; Edith Mitchell, MD, a retired Air Force General, Clinical Professor of Medicine and Medical Oncology Director of the Center to Eliminate Cancer Disparities, and the Associate Director, Diversity Affairs of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University; and Phyllis Pettit Nassi, MSW, Associate Director of Research & Science, Special Populations, at the Huntsman Cancer Institute at The University of Utah, enrolled in the Otoe-Missouri Tribe and a member of the Cherokee Nation.

Dr. Goodman began by asking the panelists to describe what health care disparities look like in America.

The absence of honest conversations about differences in class, culture, and social experiences lead to differences in how people are treated for cancer and informed about their choices, Dr. Allen said.

Dr. Chen added that cancer is the leading cause of death among Asian, Latino, and American Indian communities and there is an opportunity to make real gains by applying current medical knowledge to these populations.

Dr. Mitchell noted that some cancers impact minority communities experience disproportionate share of the cancer burden, and these differences must be addressed through the application of genomic research to relevant populations. Triple negative breast cancer, for example, occurs more frequently in younger women, and African Americans have twice the rate of triple negative breast cancer than the general population, with a 15% higher death rate. African Americans also have a 20% higher incidence of colon cancer and a 40% higher death rate, and develop cancers at a younger age. Therefore, screening for this population should begin earlier, at age 45, she explained.

Dr. Goodman then asked about how disparities arise and the prospects for improving care.

Dr. Mitchell spoke of overcoming biases in order to deliver what the individual needs. "With older patients, we have conscious and unconscious biases," she said. "For patients of a certain age it may be assumed they won't want treatment, but it's not the chronological age that matters. Assessment must include the physiological age and comorbidities. Similarly, biases occur with religious and racial/ethnic populations. It's frequently assumed that African Americans won't participate in clinical trials but patients actually want to participate. Therefore, as providers, we must focus on our own biases."

Ms. Pettit Nassi said that biases greatly impact the American Indian and Alaskan native health service systems, which have financial and geographic barriers. "On the Navajo reservation, when they see a Native American they think diabetes...it's conditioned; it's socialized within the system."

Language barriers also create biases that impact health care delivery, Dr. Chen added.

"[Part] of the evidence is who gets recruited for clinical trials," he said. If the provider cannot speak the patient's language there is a hesitation. There's a predisposition that this person would not accept a clinical trial."

The term "clinical trial" itself can be confusing or intimidating to patients because "clinical" is an ambiguous term, and the word, "trial" in English could also mean "experiment" or "court case", something that could have negative connotations. Panelists agreed.

"There's a lack of understanding of what clinical trials are and what they can do," said Dr. Allen, who participated in a clinical trial. "I was surprised by the time commitment I had to make to the study, and the strict eligibility requirements." She continued that she understands the importance of rigor, noted that there are patients out there waiting for tumors to grow larger or hoping to move on from a line of treatment so they can be eligible for particular trials.

The panelists explained that it is financial toxicity  the burden of the health care expense  that is arguably the most significant impediment to care, and it hits medically underserved and minority communities especially hard.

"The provider without resources is not looking for preventive screening, Indian Health Service is forced to operate on 'life and limb services because of lack of funding," Ms. Pettit Nassi said, describing the American Indian population. "Their hands are tied in that the care they're looking to provide is imminent. They can't look at the future. Patients have asked for mammogram or colonoscopy and they don't do it in small tribes." The entire health budget for the year can be used up with one cancer diagnosis, she explained. "Part of the saying in Indian country is 'don't get sick after June, because you won't get treatment.'"

"What we're forgetting," Ms. Pettit Nassi added, is that "the providers out in the community they're on the frontier. Often, they don't have the same resources. I'm told, 'we don't look for cancer because if we don't treat it, we don't look for it.'"

Ms. Filipic told of similar sentiments uncovered in her research. "We conducted focus groups during the first open enrollment period," she said. "There was one woman who hadn't done research [into health insurance.] She said, 'You don't go shoe shopping if you can't afford to buy shoes.' The lower income communities of color assume they can't afford it so they don't even check out their options. We need to understand what is driving their decisions, but if you don't address cost up front, you won't be able to [address the other concerns]."

Dr. Allen noted that for people who have to decide between a medical bill, child care, or a car payment, access to clinical trials is an opportunity to receive high-quality care at little or no cost.

But financial toxicity and out of pocket expenses for travel, parking, lost wages for the patient and caregiver in health care are also factors for individuals who make a salary and have insurance and access to care, Dr. Mitchell said.

"I've been a big promoter of health care networks knowing their populations and the issues and needs that exist in the community and getting the community involved," she said. "There may be other resources in the community to provide free mammograms."

For example, Dr. Mitchell said, Jefferson has expanded chemotherapy administration to evenings on weekdays and weekends. This accommodate teachers, hourly workers, working parents and others who can't afford to miss work.

Prevention also has a role to play in reducing health care disparities in cancer, Dr. Chen said, noting that smoking cessation programs and greater use of the HPV vaccine could make a significant impact.

Dr. Goodman then asked whether the burden for addressing disparities should rest on cancer care providers.

It's a tough question, Ms. Filipic acknowledged, but one that providers might be best positioned to coordinate with the network of resources. "We've talked about the importance of cultural competence when it comes to care, but it applies to financial issues as well," she said. "Just because someone can enroll in coverage doesn't mean they are aware. Many people want to sit down with someone and talk about their options. Who are the trusted sources in the community who can get the word out?"

The panelists spoke about the importance of breaking down silos to get all participants in the health care arena involved in addressing health disparities.

There are resources that help health care institutions build the community network, Dr. Mitchell said, including volunteer groups, churches, and primary care physicians who can help define the needs.

"As cancer centers, we have to accept the challenges," Ms. Pettit Nassi said. "Huntsman is the catchment for five states. Once you make the commitment and...go beyond just collecting the data and getting the grants.it can be done. The doctors get out of the silo. You have to go and see. See with your eyes, you will see how you can make a difference. If we don't start bringing clinical trials out into the rural and frontier areas we're going to miss whole populations."

In wrapping up, many of the panelists urged those in attendance to make their voices heard in Congress and at the state level as lawmakers shape health policy.

"Apply what you learn about the community to what we know about prevention, screening and treatment and work with the community to address the individual needs of the community," Dr. Mitchell said. "If you have an opinion regarding what is happening in Washington today, call your congressional representative todayso your voice can be heard."

About the National Comprehensive Cancer Network

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), a not-for-profit alliance of 27 of the world's leading cancer centers devoted to patient care, research, and education, is dedicated to improving the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of cancer care so that patients can live better lives. Through the leadership and expertise of clinical professionals at NCCN Member Institutions, NCCN develops resources that present valuable information to the numerous stakeholders in the health care delivery system. As the arbiter of high-quality cancer care, NCCN promotes the importance of continuous quality improvement and recognizes the significance of creating clinical practice guidelines appropriate for use by patients, clinicians, and other health care decision-makers.

The NCCN Member Institutions are: Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center, Omaha, NE; Case Comprehensive Cancer Center/University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center and Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute, Cleveland, OH; City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, Los Angeles, CA; Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center | Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Boston, MA; Duke Cancer Institute, Durham, NC; Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA; Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT; Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center/Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Seattle, WA; The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, MD; Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, Chicago, IL; Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, Phoenix/Scottsdale, AZ, Jacksonville, FL, and Rochester, MN; Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY; Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, FL; The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute, Columbus, OH; Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, NY; Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO; St. Jude Children's Research Hospital/The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN; Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford, CA; University of Alabama at Birmingham Comprehensive Cancer Center, Birmingham, AL; UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, La Jolla, CA; UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, San Francisco, CA; University of Colorado Cancer Center, Aurora, CO; University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ann Arbor, MI; The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX; University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, Madison, WI; Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Nashville, TN; and Yale Cancer Center/Smilow Cancer Hospital, New Haven, CT.

Clinicians, visit NCCN.org. Patients and caregivers, visit NCCN.org/patients. Media, visit NCCN.org/news.

Media Contact:

Katie Kiley Brown, NCCN

215-690-0238

[email protected]

SOURCE National Comprehensive Cancer Network

Related Links

http://www.nccn.org


ALLEN, Texas, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- PHAZR was recognized as one of the most innovative startups at the IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference,19-22 March 2017 in San Francisco, CA.

The WCNC'17 Startup City featured 15 wireless startups with potentially game-changing technologies. Technologies and products were exhibited in the startup booths, as well as in a "pitch" presentation to conference delegates and a panel of distinguished judges from industry, academia and venture capital.

PHAZR's presentation won the "Most Innovative Startup" award in its category.

At the conference, PHAZR demonstrated reliable gigabit per second performance of its 5G wireless system. PHAZR's 5G technology utilizes 24  40 GHz licensed millimeter wave spectrum for downlink and sub-6 GHz spectrum for uplink.

"We are very pleased with this award which further validates our unique approach to 5G millimeter wave," said Farooq Khan, founder and CEO of PHAZR. "In less than a year, PHAZR's team has developed an industry-leading 5G network solution and we look forward to product commercialization in the next 12 months."

About PHAZR

Founded in 2016 by Dr. Farooq Khan, PHAZR brought together the pioneers of 5G millimeter wave to develop industry-leading 5G millimeter wave fixed and mobile wireless network solutions. PHAZR's patent-pending Quadplex and Hyperdense beamforming technologies uniquely enable high-performance, cost-effective, and power-efficient 5G systems. Before founding PHAZR, Dr. Khan was President of Samsung Research America in Dallas, Texas, where he led high impact collaborative research projects in mobile technology, including 4G LTE and 5G millimeter wave programs. Prior to Samsung, Dr. Khan played a key role in developing 3G technologies at Bell Labs and 2G technologies at Ericsson.

Contact: Farooq Khan PHAZR (972) 816-3302 [email protected]

SOURCE PHAZR

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PALM BEACH, Fla., March 27, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- REGO Payment Architectures, Inc. (REGO) (OTCQB: RPMT) signed a definitive agreement with Be Informed BV effective July 2017 for the company's commercial launch of its unique digital mobile payment system. This agreement follows the development MOU signed in November of 2016. The terms and conditions allow REGO's COPPA compliant OINK payment platform unlimited use of its developed technology to be available to children and their families for direct mobile payments.

OINK is an all digital mobile payment system with Peer to Peer transfers, fully automated parental controls and multiple layers of security. The parental controls provide flexibility for managing a child's funds while ensuring privacy and protecting the transactions. Children will have the freedom to shop while learning financial discipline all within the constraints set by their parents.

John Coyne CEO of REGO said, "I knew that the Be Informed development platform would accelerate our development of our unique payment platform for the under 18 market. It has proven to be a very successful environment and allowed us to integrate our mobile application simply and seamlessly."

The terms of the agreement are confidential but based upon familial usage rather than individuals. Geert Rensen a director of Be Informed stated, "the familial model allowed REGO and Be Informed to enter into a license that facilitated both our financial goals while satisfying needs of REGO's targeted OINK audience." Coyne followed up with, "this simplified approach means that we do not have to account for multiple children in the family as users. It is also appropriate because it is the parents that sign up for the service."

Based in Palm Beach, Florida, REGO Payment Architectures, Inc. holds three technology patents, US Patent No. 8,762,230, 8,650,621 and 8,812,395.

SOURCE REGO Payment Architectures, Inc.
"We live in a world where consumers are led to believe that having a 'Hollywood' or 'red carpet' smile is the only acceptable option," said Don Cumming, Global Business Director for REMBRANDT. "But REMBRANDT believes that everyone has a unique smile that makes them who they are  and that's beautiful. Using REMBRANDT is about celebrating and caring for your one-of-a-kind smile."

Originally introduced in 1989, REMBRANDT was the first teeth-whitening toothpaste on the market. It continues to be one of the most effective tools to maintain a bright smile from the comfort of home. REMBRANDT products contain the same scientifically proven and enamel-safe whitening ingredients dentists use to remove deep stains.

"Some of our favorite foods and beverages, like coffee, tea, pasta sauce and blueberries can take a toll on the whiteness of our teeth," said Cumming. "REMBRANDT encourages consumers to enjoy the foods and drinks they love, but then helps them to care for their unique smiles with truly effective whitening products."

The brand's refresh comes on the heels of its acquisition by global dental product manufacturer, Ranir, in 2016. The reimagined REMBRANDT brand falls in line with Ranir's core purpose to deliver millions of affordable, healthy smiles every day. Over the course of the coming year, REMBRANDT will launch a suite of new whitening products to complement the brand's highly effective toothpastes, as well as announce new distribution deals. To view the brand's newly designed website, visit www.rembrandt.com.

About REMBRANDT

Developed by cosmetic dentist and whitening pioneer, Dr. Robert Ibsen, REMBRANDT was the first-ever whitening toothpaste on the market. While the whitening category has grown over the years, REMBRANDT unlike other oral care brandsremains solely centered on the science of whitening teeth. REMBRANDT continues to focus on the development of products that are scientifically proven to whiten, maintain, and protect your smile.

About Ranir

Ranir is a leading global manufacturer of private label consumer oral care products, including power and manual toothbrushes, teeth whiteners, dental floss and flossers. Founded in 1979, Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Ranir serves retail customers globally and is committed to delivering affordable, healthy smiles in millions of households every day. Its products, which include some of the world's largest oral care store brands, can be found at major retailers in more than 40 countries. The consumer and customer insight driven company also owns, manufactures and markets the Plackers and REMBRANDT brands and proudly employs more than 750 associates worldwide. For more information, visit www.ranir.com.

SOURCE REMBRANDT
LAS VEGAS, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Pennsylvania will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in new tax revenue should the state pass legislation to legalize and regulate online casino games and poker, according to the recently released white paper by PlayPennsylvania: "Pennsylvania Online Gaming Revenue: A Billion-Dollar Opportunity."

For the five-year period from 2018 through 2022, Pennsylvania is projected to add around $426 million to state coffers from legal, regulated online casino games and poker through upfront license fees, revenue taxes, and renewal fees, according to the report, which was authored by Robert DellaFave, Senior Analyst for PlayPennsylvania.

In all, Pennsylvania will generate some $230 million in total revenue in the first full year after legalization and regulation. Annual revenue is projected to grow to $364 million by 2022, with the majority of the revenue will be generated by new customers rather than siphoning off revenues from existing casinos. The findings are consistent with the performance of New Jersey's legal online casino market.

"Pennsylvania's casino industry is beginning to show a few chinks in the armor. Revenues are slipping," DellaFave said. "Online gambling in New Jersey helped Atlantic City reverse course, and will prove even more effective at facilitating the growth of the Pennsylvania market.

"Going forward, online gambling will provide the state with a reliable source of recurrent tax revenue, that will scale consistently over the next five years," DellaFave added.

The Pennsylvania legislature has been inching closer to legalizing and regulating online casino games and poker. Last week, four Pennsylvania state senators introduced an online gambling and gaming reform bill, Senate Bill 524, which would legalize and regulate online gambling and daily fantasy sports.

For a summary of the Play Pennsylvania report, visit www.playpennsylvania.com/casino. To download a free copy of the full 14-page report, click on the link at the bottom of the page.

About The PlayUSA Network:

The PlayUSA Network is a leading source for news, analysis, and research related to the market for regulated online gaming in the United States. With a presence in over a dozen states, PlayUSA.com and its state-focused branches (including PlayNJ.com, PlayNY.com, PlayPennsylvania.com, and PlayCA.com) produce daily original reporting, publish in-depth research, and offer player advocacy tools related to the advancement of safe, licensed, and legal online poker and gaming options for consumers. Based in Las Vegas, The PlayUSA Network is independently owned and operated, with no affiliations to any casino  commercial, tribal, online, or otherwise.

Contacts:

Zack Hall, DVA Advertising & PR, 541-389-2411, [email protected]

Justin Yax, DVA Advertising & PR, 541-389-2411, [email protected]

SOURCE PlayPennsylvania

Related Links

http://www.playpennsylvania.com


DUBLIN, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The new research portal will provide visitors with unparalleled access to company research on Exxon Mobil, alongside comprehensive market research on their position within the global oil and gas industry.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160330/349511LOGO )



According to the Transmission Fluids Market - Global Forecast to 2021, the market is projected to reach USD 8.43 billion by 2021. There is an increase in the demand for automobiles and heavy machinery for construction in the emerging Asia-Pacific region and Middle Eastern & African markets which is leading to the growth of the overall transmission fluid market. The market is expected to grow at a nominal rate as the automotive market in North America is mature, which is also a major factor restraining the growth of the transmission fluids market.

"Exxon Mobil is a leading player within the transmission fluids market and the new portal provides easy access to information on their performance as a company and their impact on the overall oil and gas industry," says Ross Glover, CEO of Research and Markets.

For more information visit: http://www.researchandmarkets.com/companies/exxon-mobil-corp?cid=342jpr

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.

Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]

For E.S.T. Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716



SOURCE Research and Markets
Father steams after receiving 'obscene' $3,000 bill following daughter's tragic car crash deathTHE WASHINGTON POSTFirst posted: Monday, March 27, 2017 08:54 AM EDT | Updated: Monday, March 27, 2017 09:41 AM EDTSteve Eimers knew something was wrong before he opened the envelope with his daughter's name on it.It was from the Tennessee Department of Transportation, and it was about Hannah Eimers' crash a few months earlier.Because she was at fault in the November crash in her father's Volvo, the letter said, the state wanted her to pay up: $2,600 to install a new guardrail end terminal and $231 to get the highway safety device inspected - nearly $3,000 in total.The invoice shocked Steve so much that he dropped a page of the letter onto the floor, he told The Washington Post.Hannah had been dead nearly four months."It's obscene," he told The Post. "They will kill you and then they will bill you. The bill was absolutely tasteless . . . It's almost comical. It's like the most obscene comedy skit you can come up with."Hannah was the oldest child in the Eimers family, a patchwork of biological and adopted children.Steve said she had taught herself to play guitar and piano, and spoke several languages. Her heart was in acting and in cosplay. Costume parties around Halloween were always a big deal.The 17-year-old had been to a costume party the night before the crash and stayed over at a friend's house. The next morning, the pair were on Interstate 75, headed to school.Steve said he isn't sure exactly what happened, but the Highway Patrol told him that she drove off the road, then tried to correct before the driver's side door slammed into the guardrail end terminal.Hannah died instantly.For a month, Steve said, he was in a fog. He thought of his daughter all the time, especially when he drove on the highway.But over time, something about the circumstances of Hannah's crash irked him. He's an emergency medical technician and has seen his share of highway wrecks. A sudden impact on a highway can kill, but the end terminal is supposed to crumple, dissipating the force from a crash and making the collision survivable.But Hannah was dead."It should have been, at worst, a minor-injury accident with property damage - probably little to no injury," Eimers said. "The girl that was with her in the other seat had a little, tiny cut."So the Tennessee dad became an amateur sleuth, researching other crashes like his daughter's. He's convinced that the guardrail system, the Lindsay X-Lite terminal, was at fault. He accuses the Tennessee Department of Transportation of not doing more."They knew it was dangerous," he said. "They left it in place. They played Russian roulette with her life."Mark Nagi, a spokesman for TDOT, said the Lindsay X-Lite terminal was removed from the state's qualified-products list on Oct. 25, just days before Hannah died.The department had concerns about how the terminals held up over time, particularly the parts that are supposed to crumple on impact. A spokesperson for Lindsay Barrier Systems didn't respond to messages seeking comment on Sunday.Removing the company's barrier from the qualified-products list meant TDOT wouldn't install new ones, but existing ones were still peppered across highways statewide.Later in 2016, TDOT decided to remove the terminals entirely from places where the speed limit is greater than 45. The process has started, but it could be early summer before the replacement is complete, Nagi said.Eimers said he is skeptical that the state will do the right thing. He sees TDOT's letter to his dead daughter as a sign of incompetence at the agency.Nagi, the TDOT spokesman, said the letter was sent "due to an error in processing. A new letter has been sent to the family to apologize, to explain the error, and instruct that there is no billing."TDOT greatly apologizes for this mistake. There is no excuse for the letter/bill that was sent, and we will take measures to make sure that this never happens again."Eimers said he also plans to be in the state Capitol this week, speaking to legislators about the dangers of the kind of guardrail in Hannah's crash and advocating for safer ones."I was invited to a state House hearing," he said. "I'm anticipating a meeting with the governor, but I'd like federal oversight on this. This could be an extraordinarily deadly device."If my daughter lived in Virginia and this happened, she'd still be alive."Hannah Eimers
TUCSON, Ariz., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- RightSure Insurance Group announced the acquisition of Prescott Valley-based Chaparral Insurance Agency effective March 7, 2017.

Based in Arizona, RightSure is licensed to sell personal, commercial and life insurance products in 42 states. The growing insurance agency uses modern technology and a customer-focused model to provide clients with the best insurance options available. This represents RightSure's twelfth book of business acquisition.

The two companies already share similar business cultures, featuring strong customer focus, highly committed employees and progressive mindsets. With this acquisition, Chaparral customers will enjoy convenient access to RightSure's call center and its licensed and highly-experienced team for a premier service experience.

"We're very excited to work with the Chaparral team and their customers in Prescott Valley," says President, R. Jeffrey Arnold. "Our goal is to enhance the insurance experience with a wide range of product options, clear, friendly guidance and efficient, user-friendly processes."

With access to an impressive number of insurance markets, RightSure is well-positioned to provide both personal and commercial insurance clients with tailored insurance coverage packages at the most competitive rates available. RightSure agents help customers bypass the hassle of comparison shopping by doing all the analysis for them.

About RightSure Insurance Group

Headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, RightSure Insurance Group is a full-service independent insurance agency providing insurance products to families and businesses in 42 states. By using a unique, client-centered approach combined with superior technology, RightSure presents clients with a wide range of insurance options and a seamless purchasing process. To learn more, visit https://www.rightsure.com or call 520-917-5295.

Media Contact:

Evie Quintana

[email protected]

520-777-1125

SOURCE RightSure Insurance Group

Related Links

https://www.rightsure.com


Together with the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Sae-A built the new S&H Secondary School adjacent to its primary school. In addition to continuing their best-in-class free education, students at the secondary school will continue to study in Creole, French and English. They will also continue to receive a balanced hot meal each day.

With President Jovenel Moise in attendance, Chairman Woong-Ki Kim of Sae-A announced the company would build a high school ready to accept to graduates of the secondary school in 2019. When complete S&H schools will provide a superior educational experience for 700 students from Kindergarten through Grade 12.

"We are especially honored to welcome the President of Haiti to S&H Secondary School and are grateful to the partnership we have built with the country," said Chairman Woong-Ki Kim. "One of Sae-A's guiding values is to be the best possible partner to the communities in which we work. The S&H schools exemplify commitment to the people of northern Haiti, especially Caracol. Our company believes that education and health are the bedrock for future professional and personal growth and development. Today I affirm our continued commitment to the community and look forward to many more celebrations."

"We are continually impressed with how S&H advances the most cutting edge curriculum that challenge and inspire its students," said Mr. Franzdy Alexis, the Elementary Administrator for Haiti's elementary education. "Under Principal Jean Mirvil's leadership, the team of 40 educators employ an innovative curriculum to foster a culture of creativity. I am confident that S&H schools will continue to serve as models of excellence in education."

Sae-A has been active in northern Haiti since 2011 when, in the wake of the destruction from the 2010 earthquake it committed to building a state-of-the-art garment manufacturing facility in Caracol. The first operations commenced in 2012 and today Sae-A's facilities employ over 10,000 Haitians and expects to export more than 65 million garments this year.

"We are especially proud that our presence has drawn other investors to Northern Haiti," continued Chairman Kim. "Providing reliable work for thousands who had never been part of the formal economy and allowing them to approach the future with a steady means of support. We will continue to invest in northern Haiti and support our workers, their families and our neighbors, be it through transportation programs, medical clinics, recreation activities, environmental sustainability programs, or adult education."

For more information on Sae-A's work in Haiti please visit www.sae-a.com

SAE-A's CSR

For Sae-A, business means being a member of the community. S&H Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Sae-A, established its new S&H School in Haiti to provide local children with opportunities to receive free education of the highest quality.

The company engages in community activities and corporate social responsibility both locally and across all of its operations. Education is as important as a job in Haiti, and a proper education system ensures the future of one's country. So, S&H Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Sae-A, is focused on its efforts to support education and healthcare in the region.

From funding a Guatemalan orphanage to supporting the Tree Planting Campaign in Nicaragua to providing scholarships to children of employees in Vietnam, Sae-A is committed to making a positive impact all around the world.

For more information on Sae-A's social responsibility programs and initiatives in worldwide, please visit: www.sae-a.com

About Sae-A Trading Co., Ltd

Established in 1986, Sae-A Trading Co., Ltd is one of the world's largest apparel manufacturing companies employing over 60,000 associates throughout Southeast Asia, Central America and the Caribbean with exports of apparel and textiles exceeding $1.6 billion dollars.

SOURCE Global Sae-A Co., Ltd.
LINCOLN, Neb., March 27, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Sandhills Publishing is gearing up to open an additional office location in Sidney, Nebraska, expanding westward from its global headquarters in Lincoln. The company is working closely with Cabela's, which recently announced consolidation plans that will move contact-center jobs from Sidney to the company's contact center in North Platte, Nebraska.

Sandhills Publishing's new offices in Sidney, will offer similar positions to the ones being moved, creating new employment opportunities within the local community. Sandhills looks to fill dozens of openings for positions that include customer support specialists, listings specialists, collections specialists, technical data editors, and inside sales representatives, as well as interactive designers and software developers. "Cabela's is a great company with a reputation for its high-caliber employees and the service they provide customers," notes Sandhills' Chief Operations Officer Shawn Peed. "Work ethic, service, and community are values that fit in well with our culture at Sandhills, and we are eager to recruit top local talent."

"We are excited to see another Nebraska-based company that serves customers worldwide expand to the Sidney community," says Cabela's Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing and E-Commerce Officer Corey Bergstrom. "Sandhills Publishing is a dynamic company, offering a wide variety of exciting employment opportunities, not only here in Sidney, but around the world. We welcome them to the community and look forward to the positive impact they will have here in Sidney."

The announcement of a new office location in Sidney comes as Sandhills continues to grow its ever-expanding product and service offerings both domestically and internationally. Following the completion of a new IT facility at its Lincoln headquarters at the close of 2015, the company started construction of an additional 42,000-square-foot building that will house at least 240 employee workstations upon completion this fall.

Sandhills has also seen record growth in the success of its brands internationally over the last several years through its Manchester-based subsidiary, Sandhills East. The company recently established office locations in France and Essex, United Kingdom, in addition to existing locations in Peterborough, United Kingdom, Spain, Luxembourg, and Australia.

"It's an exciting time to work at Sandhills," says Chief Administration Officer Nancy Paasch, noting that Sandhills is also recruiting for a number of other positions elsewhere in the company. For more information about open positions, or to apply online, visit www.sandhills.jobs

About Sandhills Publishing

Sandhills Publishing is an information processing company headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska. Our broad range of products and services gather, process, and distribute information in the form of trade publications and corresponding websites that connect buyers and sellers across the trucking, agriculture, construction, heavy equipment, aviation, and technology industries. Our integrated, industry-specific approach to hosted technologies and services offers solutions that help businesses large and small operate efficiently and grow securely, cost-effectively, and successfully. Sandhills Publishingwe are the cloud.

Contacts:

Sandhills Publishing

[email protected]

[email protected]

(402) 479-2181

(800) 334-7443

Cabela's

Nathan Borowski

[email protected]

(308) 255-2861

SOURCE Sandhills Publishing
CARY, N.C., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Finding opportunities to analyze data that can deliver positive results for humanitarian issues has always been important to SAS. This is why it has partnered with DataKind to host North Carolina's first DataDive. A nonprofit that harnesses the power of data science in the service of humanity, DataKind offers programs like DataDives to bring together social change organizations and data scientists from local communities to tackle important social issues using data-driven approaches. Being held at SAS world headquarters, the DataDive will help several nonprofit organizations address real-world problems in a collaborative and engaging environment.

"Contributing to the improvement of local and global communities has always been important to SAS," said Randy Guard, Chief Marketing Officer at SAS. "Partnering with DataKind to host this DataDive in our own backyard makes perfect sense  it not only gives us the opportunity to interact with local 'do-gooders,' but to do so with the purpose of trying to find solutions that can lead to real-world change. The whole Data for Good movement is a natural extension of what we've been doing since 1976, which is using SAS Analytics to gain valuable insights from data. In this way we can help address critical social and humanitarian issues worldwide. It's at the heart of why we do what we do, and why we are always finding innovative ways to put our software to good use."

SAS Partners With DataKind

SAS and DataKind are no strangers to each other, having worked together most recently on a Boston Public Schools project to optimize the scheduling of bus routes for students.

"It's incredible to see more and more organizations applying data for good, and to partner with one like SAS that has this built into their DNA," said Jake Porway, Founder and Executive Director of DataKind. "We were blown away by the number of applications we received from nonprofits for this DataDive and the enthusiasm we are seeing from the North Carolina data science community. We're looking forward to diving into the data with SAS, our nonprofit partners and the local community and hope this will set the stage for further work in the region."

The weekend-long DataDive in April will connect data scientists, statisticians, analysts and designers with data from nonprofit organizations to tackle some serious challenges. These organizations include the Anti-Defamation League and Habitat for Humanity, as well as two local organizations  StepUp Durham and CounterTools. Spots for the DataDive are limited, so those interested should register as soon as possible.

SAS Analytics Helping Humanity

It's no secret that SAS Analytics can help businesses improve their operations  from identifying credit card fraud to delivering more insightful customer marketing methods. But since the company was formed over 40 years ago, it has continued to look for opportunities to improve how people live. Here are a few examples of how SAS uses data for good:

Saving endangered species.

Changing women's lives in Ghana .

. Transforming social welfare in New Zealand .

. Helping stop the spread of the Zika virus.

Helping the European Union battle gun crime.

Supporting New York City in its focus on at-risk pre-K children.

More information about these stories and SAS' Data for Good efforts can be found here.

About SAS

SAS is the leader in analytics. Through innovative analytics, business intelligence and data management software and services, SAS helps customers at more than 83,000 sites make better decisions faster. Since 1976, SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW.

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries.  indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright  2017 SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved.

SOURCE SAS Institute

Related Links

http://www.sas.com


BEAVERTON, Ore., March 27, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Vernier Software & Technology and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) announce the winners of the 2017 Vernier/NSTA Technology Awards. The seven educatorsone elementary teacher, two middle school teachers, three high school teachers, and one college-level educatorwere selected by a panel of NSTA-appointed experts as recipients of this annual award for their innovative use of data-collection technology in the science classroom.

Each winner will be formally recognized at the NSTA National Conference in Los Angeles, CA on March 31, 2017 and will receive $1,000 in cash, $3,000 in Vernier products, and up to $1,500 toward expenses to attend the conference.

"Each of this year's winners exemplify how data-collection technology can transform the teaching and learning process in science and STEM classrooms," said John Wheeler, CEO of Vernier Software & Technology. "From hands-on investigations about renewable energy to the study of electric and magnetic field lines, the winning projects incorporate data-collection technology in innovative ways to engage students in meaningful, hands-on scientific discovery."

This year's Vernier/NSTA Technology Award winners include:

Category: Elementary School

Kathryn Eyolfson, Coyote Hills Elementary, Aurora, CO

STEM teacher Kathryn Eyolfson teaches her students about renewable and nonrenewable energy resources through inquiry and project-based learning. During one unit, fifth grade students utilize Vernier technology as they apply science and engineering practices to construct wind turbines with the KidWind Advanced Wind Turbine Kit.

Category: Middle School

Carrie Herndon, Metro East Montessori School, Granite City, IL

Each week, Carrie Herndon's students engage in various hands-on data-collection investigations at a nearby 260-acre farm. In one investigation, students carefully observed a beehive on the farm, took pictures, and used a Vernier Motion Detector and Temperature Probe to collect and analyze data after they noticed the bees were behaving in an unusual manner.

Terra McMillan, Thomson Middle School, Centerville, GA

Using her school's solar array and the associated monitoring database, along with Vernier probeware, Terra McMillan plans to implement even more inquiry-based, data-collection labs across all three of her school's grade levels. For example, in seventh grade Life Science, students will use CO 2 probes to analyze how plants act like solar panels during photosynthesis.

Category: High School

Amy Melby, Yuma High School, Yuma, CO

Physics students in Amy Melby's class will participate in a study of the Greater Prairie-Chicken to better understand whether the addition of wind turbines in nearby sandhills pose an impact on the species. Students will record and analyze the various vocalizations produced by the birds, as well as the sounds generated by the turbines, using Vernier interfaces and sensors.

Hannah Erickson, Boston Day and Evening Academy, Roxbury, MA

Hannah Erickson's school is located in a neighborhood of Boston with an asthma rate six times higher than the state average. Using Vernier interfaces and sensors, Erickson plans to have her students gather data about atmospheric CO 2 levels, both in the school's neighborhood and in a variety of other neighborhoods throughout the city to study the potential cause of this problem.

Dr. Rene Corrales, STAR Academic Center, Tucson, AZ

In Dr. Rene Corrales' physics class, students use Vernier Voltage Probes and an LED as part of a hands-on investigation to study electric and magnetic field lines to see how those fields interact.

Category: College

Donald Carpenetti, Craven Community College, New Bern, NC

In Donald Carpenetti's Organic Chemistry II class, students are put in small groups to take part in original research projects involving data collection, such as developing a guided inquiry-based gas laws experiment incorporating pressure-sensing technology and evaluating a solid mixture.

To learn more about the Vernier/NSTA Technology Awards and to find details for the 2018 application, visit http://www.vernier.com/grants/nsta/.

About Vernier Software & Technology

Vernier Software & Technology has led the innovation of scientific data-collection technology for 36 years. Vernier was founded by a former physics teacher and employs educators at all levels of the organization. The company is committed to teachers and to developing creative ways to teach and learn science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) using hands-on science. Vernier creates easy-to-use and affordable science interfaces, sensors, and graphing/analysis software. With worldwide distribution to over 140 countries, Vernier data loggers are used by educators and students from elementary school to university. Vernier technology-based solutions enhance STEM education, increase learning, build students' critical thinking skills, and support the science and engineering practices detailed in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The Vernier business culture is grounded in Earth-friendly policies and practices, and the company provides a family-friendly workplace. For more information, visit http://www.vernier.com.

SOURCE Vernier Software & Technology

Related Links

http://www.vernier.com


CAMPBELL, Calif., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Society for Information Display (SID) today unveiled this year's industry innovators chosen to join the ranks of SID's Honors and Awards recipients. These noteworthy technologists, scientists, engineers, professors and business leaders are selected annually from a field of highly talented professionals for their distinguished contributions to the field of information display technology. The 2017 honorees will be recognized during SID's annual Honors and Awards Banquet on May 22 during Display Week in Los Angeles, Calif.

Each of the 15 winners this year are celebrated for their unique contributions to the industry and unwavering efforts to improve display technology. More details surrounding each of this year's exceptional winners can be found in the article "SID Recognizes Outstanding Members of the Display Community" in the March/April issue of Information Display Magazine.

2017 SID Honors and Awards Recipients

The Karl Ferdinand Braun Prize: Presented for outstanding technical achievement in, or contribution to, display technology. Hiroyuki Ohshima, SID Fellow and CTO of Huawei's Japan Research Center, receives the Karl Ferdinand Braun Prize for his contributions in developing low-temperature polycrystalline-silicon (LTPS) technology and his leadership in the mobile-display industry.

The Jan Rajchman Prize: Presented for outstanding scientific or technical achievement in, or contribution to, research on flat-panel displays. SID Fellow and CTO of China Star Optoelectronics Technology Shui-Chih Alan Lien, Ph.D. is awarded this prize for his contributions to LCD science and technology  specifically, the development of multi-domain vertical alignment LCDs, extended Jones matrix and 110-in. curved televisions.

The Otto Schade Prize: Awarded to an outstanding scientific or technical achievement in, or contribution to, the advancement of functional performance and/or image quality of information displays. Martin S. Banks, Ph.D., professor of optometry and vision science at U.C. Berkeley, receives this award for his research into the causes of viewer discomfort and misperceptions in depth and motion and the creation of technology to mitigate these effects.

The Slottow-Owaki Prize: Awarded for outstanding contributions to the education and training of students and professionals in the field of information displays. Deng-Ke Yang, Ph.D., SID Fellow and professor at Kent State University, will receive this year's prize for his contributions to the education and training of students and professionals in the field of LCDs.

The Lewis and Beatrice Winner Award: Awarded for exceptional and sustained service to SID by a Society member. Kenneth I. Werner, journalist, analyst, consultant and principal of Nutmeg Consultants, is granted this award for his long-term dedication as an editor, teacher, technologist, and SID proponent.

The inaugural Peter Brody Award: Awarded to honor outstanding contributions of young researchers. Yi-Pai Huang, Ph.D., professor and associate of R&D at National Chiao-Tung University, earns this award for his innovative contributions to the development of wide-view MVA pixel technology and field-sequential-color driving methodology.

2017 SID Fellow Awards honor individuals who have made significant contributions to the information-display field. This year's winners are:

Toshiaki Arai , Ph.D., Chief Technologist, JOLED Inc., Tokyo

Chief Technologist, JOLED Inc., Sin-Doo Lee, Ph.D., Professor, School of Electrical Engineering, Seoul National University , Korea

Professor, School of Electrical Engineering, Seoul , Korea Hyun Jae Kim , Ph.D., Professor, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University , Seoul

Professor, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, , Sang-Hee Ko Park , Ph.D., Professor at Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon

Professor at Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon Qun (Frank) Yan , Ph.D., Professor at Fuzhou University, and Chief Technology Advisor, Sichuan Changhong Electronic Group Co., Ltd., China

2017 SID Special Recognition Awards are presented to members of the technical, scientific and business community for distinguished and valued contributions to the information-display field. The 2017 recipients are:

Masaki Hasegawa , Ph.D., Manager, Merck Performance Materials Ltd., Tokyo

Manager, Merck Performance Materials Ltd., Jang Hyuk (Jeremy) Kwon , Ph.D., Professor at Kyung Hee University, Seoul

Professor at Kyung Hee University, Raymond Kwong , Ph.D., Director, Universal Display Corporation HK Ltd., Hong Kong

Director, Universal Display Corporation HK Ltd., Kenichiro Masaoka , Ph.D., Principal Research Engineer, Advanced Television Systems Research Division, NHK Science and Technology Research Laboratories, Japan

A video tribute to this year's winners can be found here.

SID will be honoring this year's Honors & Awards winners on Monday evening, May 22 at 8pm, during Display Week. The banquet will be held at Hotel Indigo in Los Angeles; tickets cost $100 and must be purchased in advance. More information can be found at www.displayweek.org

About Display Week 2017

The 54th SID International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition, or Display Week 2017, will take place May 21-26 at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, Calif. Display Week is the premier gathering of system integrators, designers, consumers, scientists, engineers and manufacturers in the field of electronic information displays. For more information on Display Week 2017, visit www.displayweek.org or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @DisplayWeek and Instagram @siddisplayweek. Display Week tweets can be created, viewed and shared using the hashtag #DisplayWeek17.

About SID

The Society for Information Display (SID) is the only professional organization focused on the display industry. In fact, by exclusively focusing on the advancement of electronic display technology, SID provides a unique platform for industry collaboration, communication and training in all related technologies while showcasing the industry's best new products. The organization's members are professionals in the technical and business disciplines that relate to display research, design, manufacturing, applications, marketing and sales. To promote industry and academic technology development, while also educating consumers on the importance of displays, SID hosts more than 10 conferences a year, including Display Week, which brings industry and academia all under one roof to showcase technology that will shape the future. SID's global headquarters are located at 1475 S. Bascom Ave., Ste. 114, Campbell, CA 95008. For more information, visit www.sid.org.

SOURCE Society for Information Display

Related Links

http://www.sid.org


PLEASANTON, Calif., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Simpson Manufacturing Co. Inc. (NYSE: SSD) announced that shareholders overwhelmingly approved two proposals to amend the company's certificate of incorporation and bylaws at a special meeting today, with both proposals receiving in excess of 98 percent of the votes cast.

Specifically, shareholders approved amendments to (1) declassify the company's board of directors over a three-year period and provide that directors be elected for one-year terms beginning at Simpson Manufacturing's 2017 annual meeting of shareholders, and (2) eliminate cumulative voting in the election of directors.

Simpson also announced that its board of directors has amended the company's bylaws to implement proxy access effective immediately. The amended bylaws provide that a shareholder or group of not more than 20 shareholders owning at least three percent of the outstanding shares for at least three years will have the right to nominate two directors or 20 percent of the board, whichever is greater. The company had previously announced on February 23, 2017, that proxy access would be implemented regardless of the outcome of the two votes at the special meeting.

Peter N. Louras, Chairman of the Board, said in a statement: "These changes reflect the board's ongoing commitment to best practices in corporate governance and responsiveness to shareholders. The board and leadership team believe in sound corporate governance practices and are committed to maintaining an open dialogue with shareholders."

Details on the results of the special meeting and the amendments to the company's certificate of incorporation and bylaws can be found in a Form 8-K filed with the SEC.

About Simpson Manufacturing Co. Inc.

Simpson Manufacturing Co., Inc., headquartered in Pleasanton, California, through its subsidiary, Simpson Strong-Tie Company Inc., designs, engineers and is a leading manufacturer of wood construction products, including connectors, truss plates, fastening systems, fasteners and shearwalls, and concrete construction products, including adhesives, specialty chemicals, mechanical anchors, powder actuated tools and fiber reinforcing materials. The Company's common stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "SSD."

Important Additional Information

Simpson Manufacturing Co., Inc. (the "Company"), its directors and certain of its executive officers and other employees will be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies from Company shareholders in connection with the matters to be considered at the Company's Annual Meeting to be held on May 16, 2017 (the "Annual Meeting"). The Company has filed a preliminary proxy statement and proxy card with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), and intends to file a definitive proxy statement and proxy card with the SEC, in connection with any such solicitation of proxies from Company shareholders with respect to the Annual Meeting. COMPANY SHAREHOLDERS ARE STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO READ ANY SUCH DEFINITIVE PROXY STATEMENT AND ACCOMPANYING PROXY CARD WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE AS THEY CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION. Information regarding the ownership of the Company's directors and executive officers in Company stock, restricted stock units and options is included in the Company's SEC filings on Forms 3, 4, and 5, which can be found through the Company's website www.simpsonmfg.com in the section "Investor Relations" or through the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Information can also be found in the Company's other SEC filings, including the Company's preliminary proxy statement for the Annual Meeting and its 2016 Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016. Information regarding the identity of participants, and their direct or indirect interests in the matters to be considered at the Annual Meeting, by security holdings or otherwise, will be set forth in the definitive proxy statement and other materials filed by the Company with the SEC. Shareholders will be able to obtain the proxy statement with respect to the Annual Meeting, any amendments or supplements to such proxy statement, any amendments or supplements to the proxy statement and other documents filed by the Company with the SEC for no charge at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Copies are also available at no charge at the Company's website at http://www.simpsonmfg.com, by writing to the Company at 5956 W. Las Positas Blvd., Pleasanton, CA 94588, or by calling the Company's proxy solicitor D.F. King at (212) 269-5550.

Contacts

Eric Savitz

[email protected]

(415) 671-7676

Brian Baker

[email protected]

(415) 671-7676

SOURCE Simpson Manufacturing Co. Inc.

Related Links

http://www.simpsonmfg.com


VICTORIA and TORONTO, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - StarFish Medical, Canada's leading full service medical device development firm, announced today that it has merged with Kangaroo Group, the visionary Toronto-based medical device industrial design and productization organization. The resulting national entity will better serve medtech companies throughout North America with easier east coast access, increased resources and experienced medical device talent spanning the design, engineering, regulatory, and manufacturing process.

One organization with Immediate benefits to existing clients

The merger results in a single organization under the StarFish Medical name with Scott Phillips as CEO, John Walmsley as COO, and Lahav Gil as Vice President Innovation. The company will operate design and manufacturing facilities in Victoria and Toronto, with a regional sales office in Twin Cities, Minnesota.

"With Kangaroo becoming our Toronto office in the east and StarFish in the west, we become a national entity that handily serves all of North America. Existing StarFish clients in the east will find it easy to visit us in Toronto," explains Scott Phillips, StarFish Medical CEO and Founder. "Kangaroo has a core strength in industrial design and StarFish has core strengths in physics, software, electronic design, optics, ultrasound and other core technologies. I'm excited to see what we can do together."

Lahav Gil, Kangaroo Group CEO and Founder notes, "Existing Kangaroo clients will experience much more robust service and offerings. On the product development side, they will be able to tap into a plethora of additional expertise and technical depth. In manufacturing they'll find an expanded supply chain, regulatory personnel and expertise."

Combining entrepreneurial experience and medical device expertise

Phillips cites a less obvious benefit to entrepreneurial companies, "The merger of our two companies that are 14 and 17 years old respectively to create a new, national Canadian entity delivers significant value to emerging-technologies, start-ups, and small medical device companies. A big benefit of our combined experiences is the 'movie in our mind' of what is about to unfold in the commercialization process. Clients think they are buying product design services, but what they're really buying is people who've been part of this whole story before and can help guide them as to what it is supposed to feel like at different spots and whether it's feeling right at that part of the journey."

John Walmsley, StarFish Medical COO is leading the joint integration team which includes manufacturing, finance, operations, product development and human resources leaders from both organizations. "Our goal is to make sure that the combined investment in Information Systems, Quality and Regulatory, Supply Chain and People deliver great results for all customers as quickly and seamlessly as possible."

About StarFish Medical

StarFish Medical is a full service Medical Device Design company with product design, development, and manufacturing services. We use our Pathfinder process to reduce wasted effort and increase success for medical device product definition, technical engineering, and product development. Prototype and volume production are delivered within an ISO 13485 certified Quality Management System and an FDA registered manufacturing and clean room facility.

About Kangaroo Group

At Kangaroo Group (ISO 13485) we conceptualize, design, and build medical devices for OEMs and start-ups. Kangaroo focuses on meaningful technologies with a high potential founder/management team and partners to design technology/business alignment as well as plan and execute the roadmap resulting in clinical and commercial grade products.

SOURCE StarFish Medical
STOCKTON, Calif., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- American Honda Motor Co., Inc. is proud to announce that Stockton Honda received the prestigious Honda President's Award for 2016. Only the top-performing Honda dealerships, from among more than 1,000 nationwide, receive this award for excellence in sales performance, sales experience, service performance, and business operations.

"It is a privilege to recognize Honda's outstanding President's Award recipients," said John Mendel, executive vice president of the Auto Division for Honda. "These dealerships demonstrated the highest levels of excellence across the full spectrum of their operations.

"By consistently delivering outstanding customer experiences, Stockton Honda and its entire team, proved they are worthy of being a President's Award recipient," Mendel said.

"It's an award we take serious and very personal. It represents who we are as a Dealership," said Mike Braner, General Manager.

In addition to receiving recognition materials for the dealership showroom, each winning dealership is presented with an exquisite President's Award trophy. This trophy symbolizes a commitment to the highest levels of excellence.

About Honda

Honda offers a full line of reliable, fuel-efficient, and fun-to-drive vehicles with advanced safety technologies, sold through approximately 1,000 independent U.S. Honda dealers. The Honda lineup includes the Fit, Civic, and Accord passenger cars, along with the HR-V, CR-V, and Pilot sport-utility vehicles, the Ridgeline pickup, and the Odyssey minivan.

Honda has been producing automobiles in America for 33 years and currently operates 19 major manufacturing facilities in North America. In 2015, more than 99 percent of all Honda vehicles sold in the U.S. were made in North America, using domestic and globally sourced parts.

For More Information

Mike Braner-General Manager

2002 E Hammer Ln Stockton, CA 95210

209-320-6700

[email protected]

SOURCE Stockton Honda
"The FormaTK product line expands our aesthetic laser and energy based device portfolio providing an excellent option for practitioners, med-spas, and dermatologist who are looking for advanced laser technology and an achievable return on investment in aesthetic medicine," said Austin Podowski, Synergy MedSales Chief Executive Officer. "With increasing demand for cosmetic procedures and a surge in aesthetic treatment offerings, we are thrilled to provide our clients with a fast, effective, and superior technology."

You can visit Synergy MedSales website here: www.synergymedsales.com

You can also visit Synergy's official distributor website here: www.formatklasers.com

About Synergy MedSales, Inc.

Synergy MedSales is a focused industry leader and a key resource for medical equipment sales. Our core competency is in special use aesthetic lasers and other capital equipment. We service domestic and international markets with discounted price points on new and nearly new equipment. Ethical policies and great savings reflect the dedication we have for the success of our end-user clients. We believe that the offerings in our private-label line up are key to practice success. Let #TeamSynergy show you the fastest ROI within the aesthetic device market. Contact us today for a free consultation from a trusted industry advisor to discuss your next practice addition.

SOURCE Synergy MedSales, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.synergymedsales.com


MONTREAL, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tactio's app-enabled telehealth solution, TactioRPM, is referenced as one of the top mHealth care delivery platforms by leading M2M/IoT market research firm Berg Insight in the 8th edition of its mHealth and Home Monitoring report.

Care delivery platforms are software solutions that enable the remote delivery of healthcare services and care efforts to be coordinated between patients, various professional caregivers and other stakeholders such as the patient's family. Furthermore, care delivery platforms will be instrumental for engaging patients in their own care and delivering remote monitoring services to a large number of people in a cost-efficient manner.

According to the report, the number of remotely monitored patients grew by 44 percent to 7.1 million in 2016 as the market entered a growth phase fuelled by rising market acceptance in several key verticals. This number includes all patients enrolled in mHealth care programs in which connected medical devices are used as a part of the care regimen.

Using patients' own mobile devices as health hubs is now becoming a viable alternative for remote patient monitoring. BYOD connectivity will be preferred by select patient groups and will be used for the remote monitoring of 22.9 million patients in 2021.

Berg Insight estimates that revenues for remote patient monitoring (RPM) solutions reached 7.5 billion in 2016, including revenues from medical monitoring devices, mHealth connectivity solutions, care delivery platforms and mHealth care programs. Revenues for mHealth connectivity solutions, care delivery platforms and mHealth care programs are growing at a faster rate than connected medical devices.

There is a strong trend towards incorporating more connectivity in medical devices and pharmaceuticals in order to enable new services and value propositions. Care delivery platforms and mHealth connectivity solutions are two of the most rapidly developing parts of the mHealth technology value chain. "These are very exciting times for everyone involved in the industry. Several market forces are now coming together which will make mHealth care programs available for tens of millions of people in the next few years," said Johan Fagerberg, CEO of Berg Insight.

"Tactio's vision started years ago at the birth of this exciting emerging market. Since then we've relentlessly focused on the patients to empower them with connected care, to ease their way with selfcare, and to open them new care pathways, that are digital, mobile and connected. We're proud today to be listed by Berg Insight among the top care delivery platforms and our growth with some of the world's most innovative care providers is certainly there as a witness of this global status," said Michel Nadeau, P.Eng., CEO of Tactio Health Group.

Tactio will demonstrate its TactioRPM platform at ATA 2017 in Orlando from April 23rd to 25th and Hospitalar in Sao Paulo, Brazil, from May 16th to 19th.

BERG Insight's mHealth and Home Monitoring report is available at http://www.berginsight.com/ShowReport.aspx?m_m=3&id=246

About Tactio

Tactio Health Group helps innovative healthcare organizations make the patient experience mobile, digital and connected with a telehealth platform that combines the power of apps, health IoT and cloud services. Founded in 2009, Tactio is headquartered in Montreal servicing services payers, providers and pharma through a global network of channel partners in North America, Europe and South America. Tactio health apps have been downloaded by more than 4.5 million users in 135 countries and 17 languages. For more information, visit www.tactiohealth.com or follow @TactioHealth on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

About BERG Insight

Berg Insight is a dedicated M2M/IoT market research firm based in Sweden. We have been specialising in all major M2M/IoT verticals such as fleet management, car telematics, smart metering, smart homes, mHealth and industrial M2M since 2004. For more information, visit www.berginsight.com

Media Contact :

Charles Coutu-Nadeau, Product Manager, Tactio, 514-657-7628 x787; [email protected]

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com

SOURCE Tactio Health Group

Related Links

http://www.tactiohealth.com


LOUISVILLE, Ky., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Last weekend, Cummins engine mechanics and service workers from West Virginia attended the Mid-America Trucking Show to protest Cummins' (NYSE:CMI) unaffordable health insurance.

Over the course of two days, Cummins employees and supporters handed out thousands of air fresheners that said "Every American Deserves Health Care" and handbills that asked, "What's Gone Wrong With Cummins?"

In a week dominated by news of attacks on Americans' health care protections, the struggle by Cummins' West Virginia employees, members of Teamsters Local 175, to hold on to affordable, quality health care became big news at the trucking show.

At the trucking show, Cummins employees spoke with attendees about the phony health insurance Cummins is trying to steamroll them into. Even though the multibillion dollar company announced another huge yearly profit, these Cummins workers and their families are now facing the prospect of having to pay $6,000 in upfront medical deductibles each year, before any insurance kicks in.

"I am here with my wife and child to say to Cummins' CEO that I'm very concerned about this plan and how it would affect our family. Health insurance is meant to provide real coverage in a time of greatest need, but under Cummins' plan, I would have to spend $6,000 out of my paycheck before the insurance would cover any of my family's medical bills," said Bryan Kallas, a Cummins mechanic attending the fair.

"Cummins employees in other places give its health insurance very negative reviews. I want to keep my union health care plan  it has much lower deductibles and a free primary health center in West Virginia," Kallas said.

"High deductible plans like Cummins' have been proven to lead to people becoming sicker and poorer, because they delay care to avoid paying huge bills before their coverage will kick in," said Luke Farley, Business Agent with Local 175. "Trumpcare didn't pass, Obamacare is the law, but Cumminscare is still unaffordable, unhealthy and unfair."

Farley said the local is hoping to get back to the bargaining table with Cummins, find some common ground and achieve a resolution.

"A lot of people here were pretty disappointed to hear that Cummins has turned its back on its employees," Kallas said. "This company used to be known as being socially responsible, but it's destroying its own reputation."

"A truck show official told the mechanics 'You're the life blood of the industry.' It's time for Cummins CEO Tom Linebarger to show he understands that," said Brian Quirk, mechanic and chief steward at Cummins' Fairmont, W.Va. shop.

The growing strife at Cummins could be a problem for West Virginia-area infrastructure reliability needs, since Cummins mechanics are highly skilled technicians and the company might have problems with retention or a possible breakdown in labor relations.

"We don't know if we can continue to provide maintenance service under these conditions," Quirk said.

Last year, in Charleston, Cummins backed down from a similar effort to cut its mechanics off of good Teamsters health insurance, after its employees threatened to strike.

Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.4 million hardworking men and women throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Visit www.teamster.org for more information. Follow us on Twitter @Teamsters and "like" us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/teamsters.

Contact:

Luke Farley, (304) 549-7609

SOURCE Teamsters Local 175
TULSA, Okla., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Bob Dylan Archive has officially opened its doors to qualified entities and individuals who wish to access the archive's wealth of elements spanning nearly 60 years of Bob Dylan's extraordinary life and career. It was announced today by Ken Levit, executive director of the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF), and Dr. Gerard Clancy, president of The University of Tulsa (TU). Concurrently, GKFF has issued a request for qualifications from agencies interested in submitting proposals for The Bob Dylan Center, which will be dedicated to the study and appreciation of Dylan and located in Tulsa's vibrant downtown Brady Arts District.

Noted author and historian Douglas Brinkley has begun accessing archive elements for his forthcoming book, Dusty Sweatbox Blues: Bob Dylan and the Open Road 1974-1978. The book will focus on Dylan's mid-1970s albums  Planet Waves, Blood on the Tracks, Desire and Street Legal  and be published by Harper Collins/Infinitum Nihill in 2018. Guggenheim Fellow and TU Chapman Professor of English Randall Fuller is currently examining the archive's rich trove of manuscripts and rare audio and video for a book-length study that examines the relationship between Dylan and African-American music. "The Bob Dylan Archive is an invaluable resource for this project," he said. "I'm discovering so many revelations in the songwriter's exploration of blues, gospel and soul forms. Without access to the Archive, my book would be all but impossible." Fuller has published several works, including Emerson's Ghosts: Literature, Politics, and the Making of Americanists and The Book That Changed America: How Darwin's Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation.

For further information regarding access to The Bob Dylan Archive, visit www.bobdylanarchive.com/archive-access.

The Bob Dylan Center will be the primary public venue for The Bob Dylan Archive, curating and exhibiting a priceless collection of more than 6,000 items spanning nearly 60 years of Dylan's singular career. The archive's priceless contents include handwritten manuscripts, notebooks and correspondence; films, videos, photographs and artwork; memorabilia and ephemera; personal documents and effects; unreleased studio and concert recordings; musical instruments and many other elements. Agencies interested in submitting proposals for the center should visit www.gkff.org/bobdylancenter to read and download a copy of the RFQ document.

Since elements of The Bob Dylan Archive began arriving in Tulsa a year ago, a significant portion of the collection has been processed through proprietary methods of storage, cataloguing and digitization. While the processing work continues and early access to the archive has been granted to some researchers, staff will officially begin making substantial parts of the collection available to qualified researchers, writers and scholars this fall. These elements will include hundreds of pages of Dylan's writing, including song manuscripts, early iterations of his first novel Tarantula and Dylan's annotated "copyright edits." In addition, archive staff is making available hundreds of hours of audio, film and video, including session tapes from several of Dylan's albums as well as nearly 50 hours of rushes and outtakes from Dylan's two major film projects of the 1960s: D.A. Pennebaker's landmark documentary Dont Look Back (1967) and Dylan's first directorial effort Eat the Document (1966/71).

About The Bob Dylan Archive:

Comprised of more than 6,000 items spanning nearly 60 years of Bob Dylan's unique artistry, singular career and worldwide cultural significance, The Bob Dylan Archive includes decades of never-before-seen handwritten manuscripts, notebooks and correspondence; films, videos, photographs and artwork; memorabilia and ephemera; personal documents and effects; unreleased studio and concert recordings; musical instruments and many other items. The archive was acquired in 2016 by the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF) and The University of Tulsa (TU) and is housed in Tulsa under the stewardship of TU's Helmerich Center for American Research. The Bob Dylan Archive will eventually be housed in the city's flourishing Brady Arts District and exhibited to the public. For more information, visit bobdylanarchive.com.

About George Kaiser Family Foundation:

George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF) is a charitable organization based in Tulsa, Oklahoma supporting organization of the Tulsa Community Foundation, dedicated to providing equal opportunity for young children in the Tulsa community through investments in early childhood education, community health, social services and civic enhancement. The foundation sponsors more than 2,000 children from birth to three years of age at high quality early childhood education centers, is leading the effort to build a nearly 100-acre community park along Tulsa's riverfront as well as efforts to reverse Oklahoma's high rates of female incarceration and teen pregnancy. GKFF has also played a significant role in the revitalization of Tulsa's downtown and Brady Arts District, home of the Woody Guthrie Center. For more information, visit gkff.org.

About The University of Tulsa:

The University of Tulsa is a nationally ranked private research university where excellence in scholarship, dedication to free inquiry, integrity of character and commitment to humanity are central to our mission. In its thriving urban environment, TU offers more than 4,500 students a diversity of learning experiences, a balance between liberal education and career preparation, teaching and research. The university is home to four undergraduate colleges  the College of Engineering & Natural Sciences, Kendall College of Arts & Sciences, Collins College of Business and Oxley College of Health Sciences  as well as a comprehensive Graduate School and College of Law. For more information, visit utulsa.edu.

SOURCE The Bob Dylan Archive

Related Links

http://www.bobdylanarchive.com


DALLAS, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Gents Place, a lifestyle club bringing men's grooming to the next level, announced today it signed a franchise development agreement to expand the concept to Chicago. New franchisee Peter Terracina will open the brand's first location in the market in Fall 2017 with plans to open a second in Summer 2018. The brand is targeting communities in and around Chicago, including the financial district, Gold Coast, and Lincoln Park neighborhoods.

"For nearly a decade, The Gents Place has experienced tremendous success serving men in Dallas and Kansas City, and we are thrilled to expand our footprint to Chicago. Peter is part of a growing trend of millennial entrepreneurs and we're confident his knowledge and business acumen will help us succeed in Chicago," said Ben Davis, founder and president of The Gents Place. "The interest in men's grooming is irrefutably at an all-time high and The Gents Place is positioned to grow rapidly as we capitalize on this trend. Over the next several months, we're expecting to sign several additional franchise agreements to develop clubs across the country."

Prior to becoming a franchisee with The Gents Place, shortly after graduating from college, Terracina worked in marketing, and at just 23-years-old moved to Rwanda where he worked for the Bridge2Rwanda Scholars Program, helping students in the region find academic placement in study abroad programs. Among his many accomplishments abroad, Terracina pursued various business ventures in Rwanda, including a consulting company specializing in the coffee trade and other commodities in the East Africa region, a pig farming business, supplying meat to local communities Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, and a multi-media company focused on tourism in the region, including a record label, print, and television segment. Now at 28, Terracina is taking his business savvy stateside, inking two franchise agreements with The Gents Place in Chicago.

"The Gents Place has a proven business model and its leadership team is incredibly passionate about helping franchisees succeed. I'm thrilled to join The Gents Place and open the brand's first location in Chicago," said Terracina. "I'm confident gentlemen who live and work in Chicago are going to love this concept. There is nothing that compares to the level of service that The Gents Place provides and I look forward to playing a part in members' and guests' daily routine as they strive to be the best version of themselves."

The Gents Place prides itself on having one of the most unique service menus in the industry, epitomizing the exclusivity of an old-world speakeasy paired with an upscale, welcoming country club atmosphere. Not only can guests enjoy an incredible hair service and shave in the best men's grooming and lifestyle clubs in town, but also they can take advantage of all of the luxuries of a modern spa. In addition to offering men's grooming services, The Gents Place is a purveyor of hard-to-find retail goods from all over the world including its proprietary Rascal line of products, Truefitt & Hill, and Lakme, among others.

The company currently has three lifestyle clubs in North Texas (Dallas, Southlake and Frisco), as well as one in Leawood, Kansas. The Gents Place plans to open 150 franchised locations over the next five years. The company is seeking qualified franchisees to join the brand and currently has opportunities nationwide in markets such as Texas, Georgia, Florida, California, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, and Virginia. The brand is aggressively targeting Houston, Atlanta, and South Florida for franchise expansion.

Prospective single- and multi-unit franchisees should possess a minimum net worth of $400,000 and liquid assets of at least $175,000. Candidates should have strong business, management and/or marketing experience. Franchisees can expect their initial investment to be between $440,955  $705,980, including a $40,000 franchise fee. The Gents Place franchisees are provided with an array of tools to position them for success, including franchisee and management training; a proprietary web-based management system; ongoing, hands-on training for club employees to learn our unique grooming methods, management and administration of a club; and advertising, marketing and public relations support. Additionally, The Gents Place provides assistance with site selection and construction.

To learn more about ownership opportunities with The Gents Place, contact Bret Franson, director of franchise development at [email protected] or visit http://www.tgpfranchising.com. Financing is available through the Small Business Administration for qualified franchisees. For more information visit https://www.franchiseregistry.com. Follow The Gents Place on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for the latest news and trends.

The Gents Place's robust franchise growth is backed by Elevated Brands, a brand management and development company established by the principals of Massage Heights, a membership-based, therapeutic services franchise. In 2016, Elevated Brands invested in The Gents Place to help grow the brand nationally through the franchising model.

About The Gents Place

The Gents Place is the next level in men's grooming and lifestyle club that helps gentlemen look and feel their most confident best. Founded in 2008, the company has grown to include lifestyle clubs in Dallas, Southlake and Frisco, Texas, as well as Leawood, Kansas. The Gents Place provides luxury men's grooming services in addition to straight razor shaves, shoe shines and hand and foot repairs in a refined and timeless environment. For more information on The Gents Place, visit thegentsplace.com.

About Elevated Brands

Elevated Brands is the brand management and development company established by the principals of Massage Heights, the membership-based, therapeutic services franchise company. The company provides emerging lifestyle concepts with the tools and strategic planning needed to grow their brands through the franchising model. Through its leadership team's deep franchise experience in the health and wellness space, Elevated Brands is on track to build a family of lifestyle brands that are dedicated to the well-being of those they serve. Its current portfolio includes Massage Heights Franchising, Summit Franchise Supply and The Gents Place.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Fish Consulting

Michelle Estevam

[email protected]

954-893-9150

SOURCE The Gents Place

Related Links

http://thegentsplace.com


(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 )



Browse 72 market data Tables and 47 Figures spread through 153 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Thermal Spray Coatings Market"

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The growing use of thermal spray coatings to protect surfaces of various products and engineered components is fueling the growth of thermal spray coatings market. Moreover, the increasing demand for thermal spray coatings from various end-use industries, such as healthcare, aerospace, and energy & power, among others is also leading towards the growth of the thermal spray coatings market.

Request for Sample PDF of the Report @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownload.asp?id=181347083

The aerospace end-use industry segment is projected to lead the thermal spray coatings market from 2016 to 2021.

The aerospace end-use industry segment accounted for the largest share of the thermal spray coatings in 2016. It was followed by the automotive, healthcare, and energy & power end-use industry segments. The demand for thermal spray coatings from the aerospace industry is continuously increasing to ensure the long durability of critical components of aircraft. Moreover, the increase in the number of aircraft due to rise in air passenger traffic across the globe is expected to contribute towards the growth of the aerospace end-use industry segment of the thermal spray coatings market during the forecast period.

The healthcare end-use industry segment of the thermal spray coatings market is projected to grow at the highest CAGR from 2016 to 2021.

Thermal spray coatings are increasingly used in the healthcare industry for coating orthopedic implants. One of the critical applications of thermal spray coatings is in biomedical implants. Thermal spray coatings ensure proper hydroxyapatite (HA) coating of implants. These coatings are also used in several critical biomedical applications. The healthcare end-use industry segment of thermal spray coatings market is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. This growth is attributed mainly to the significant use of thermal spray coatings for orthopedic implants, medical instruments, and apparatuses, among others.

The Asia-Pacific thermal spray coatings market is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.

The Asia-Pacific thermal spray coatings market is projected to grow at the highest CAGR between 2016 and 2021. The growth of the Asia-Pacific thermal spray coatings market can be attributed to increasing demand for thermal spray coatings from various end-use industries, such as aerospace, automotive, electronics, and healthcare, among others. The thermal spray coatings markets in China and Japan are expected to grow significantly during the forecast period.

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The growth of the Thermal Spray Coatings Markets in these two countries is due to increased consumption of electronic components in China and Japan. Growing demand for thermal spray coatings from the automotive industry is another major reason for the growth of thermal spray coatings markets in these countries.

A & A Coatings (U.S.), Flame Spray Coating Company (U.S.), General Magnaplate Corporation (U.S.), Praxair Surface Technologies, Inc. (U.S.), Oerlikon Metco (Switzerland), Plasma-Tec, Inc. (U.S.), Surface Technology (U.K.), H.C. Starck GmbH (Germany), and ASB Industries, Inc. (U.S.), among others are the key players operating in the thermal spray coatings market.

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Powder Coatings Market by Resin Type (Thermoset, Thermoplastic), Coating Method (Electrostatic Spray, Fluidized Bed), End-Use Industry (Appliances, Automotive, General Industrial, Architectural, Furniture), and Region - Global Forecast to 2022

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/powder-coatings-market-151375565.html

Release Coatings Market by Material (Silicone, Non-Silicone), Formulation (Solvent-Based, Water-Based, Oil Emulsions), Application (Labels, Tapes, Hygiene, Industrial, Medical, Food & Bakery), and Region - Global Forecast to 2021

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/release-coating-market-200854410.html

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Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve.

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MarketsandMarkets

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SOURCE MarketsandMarkets
CHICAGO, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Trunk Club, a personalized styling service for men and women, announced plans today to add personnel to the company's growing customer relations team in Dallas this Spring. Trunk Club will create more than 50 new positions adding to the region's 75 existing employees. The new positions will provide expert styling and customer service to Trunk Club members.

"Given Trunk Club's great success in the Dallas market, we feel it is the right time and place for growth," said Zuzana Kajuch, vice president of sales support at Trunk Club. "We're looking for people who have a passion for customer service and are interested in helping people look and feel great in the clothes they wear everyday."

Customer relations-styling associates interact with Trunk Club members on a daily-basis providing styling support and services through web-based chat, email and phone. Styling associates will also manage relationships with individual customers and work with them to find quality clothes that fit their needs, fit and lifestyle. The styling associate role is an entry-level hourly position.

Trunk Club will host a recruitment event on Saturday, April 1, 2017 at their Dallas Clubhouse located at 333, 1st Ave., Dallas, TX 75226 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CDT. Candidates must apply directly for the customer relations  styling associate position at www.trunkclub.com/careers or directly at: http://grnh.se/ypkrb11 in order to be considered. A recruiter will contact qualified applicants with interview information.

To learn more about positions available at Trunk Club, please visit trunkclub.com/careers.

About Trunk Club

Trunk Club, a Nordstrom Company, is a Chicago-based personalized styling service for men and women, offering both virtual and in-person shopping options. Shoppers can visit Trunk Club's retail Clubhouses in Boston, Charleston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, Washington D.C., for an in-person styling session or custom fitting for any occasion. For those who prefer an at-home experience, Trunk Club offers a virtual styling option, where a personal stylist sends a curated trunk of clothing to their home based on the customer's style, fit, and lifestyle preferences. Trunk Club offers everything from weekend casual clothing to formal wear. For more information on Trunk Club, visit trunkclub.com or follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

SOURCE Trunk Club

Related Links

http://trunkclub.com


WASHINGTON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- On Saturday, April 1, responsible San Francisco food trade show Good Food Mercantile will host entrepreneurs, good food crafters and more culinary insiders for the first time in Washington during a free small business breakfast panel at 9am at northeast D.C.'s vibrant district Union Market (1309 5th Street NE) that continues to cement the D.C. region as a driver in the thriving food scene.

Good Food Foundation Executive Director Sara Weiner will introduce the panel, which will be moderated by healthcare expert and chef Zeke Emanuel.

"There are so many good dishes and drinks being made in and around D.C., much of it 'undiscovered' by the rest of the country, so we couldn't think of a better city for the Good Food Mercantile to visit, or a better partner than Union Market," says Weiner.

Topics will include starting and scaling businesses in the food space and the unique experiences of food vendors. Panelists include:

The panelists will discuss their individual experiences, takeaways, challenges and opportunities, providing commentary on the importance of small business in the food industry and the significance of Good Food Mercantile in the District.

"Whenever Americans put their mind to things, they inevitably make the best. We did it in wine and now we are doing it in all manner of artisanal foods, from olive oils and chocolates to cheeses, soups, and juices. We are just entering the era of great American foods that will be the envy of the world. At Union Market we will taste the future of food," says Emanuel.

With more than 82 crafters participating, Union Market is thrilled to host DC's first-ever Good Food Mercantile on April 2. The "un-trade show" for tasty, authentic, responsible food, the Mercantile brings together the country's top food and drink crafters, many of them Good Food Award Winners, with a growing community of retailers that value quality, care and craftsmanship for an industry only, intimate gathering at Dock 5.

Additionally, over this weekend, March 31 to April 2, Union Market will host good food crafter pop-ups including Olympia Provisions, Greenplicity, ENZO Olive Oil, Choquette and cookbook author Joan Nathan. For more information on pop-up schedule, please visit www.unionmarketdc.com.

To RSVP for the free breakfast panel, please click here. Chefs, retailers and hospitality professionals looking to purchase tickets to Good Food Mercantile, please click here.

ABOUT GOOD FOOD FOUNDATION The Good Food Foundation is a 510(c)3 Nonprofit organization led by Sarah Weiner and Dominic Phillips, who have united their diverse skills to support the sustainable food movement. Through focused events and strategic models we engage the public in finding better ways to feed our communities. Our collaborative approach draws upon the wealth of talent and creativity of our colleagues and community organizations.

ABOUT UNION MARKET The Union Market District is a 45-acre district in NE that is one of DC's most vibrant, diverse and thriving neighborhoodsa living laboratory for a sustainable urban community and place for creative minds and businesses to connect, thrive, launch and make DC their own. Since opening in September 2012, The Market at Union Market, the acclaimed food market with over 40 local scalable businesses, averages 15,000 visitors per weekend and has hosted over 400 community and private events. On May 4, 2016 D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser hosted a private reception at Union Market's Lab 1270 in honor of Small Business Week and signed the Made in DC Program Establishment Act of 2016 legislation on-site. For more information about Union Market, please visit www.unionmarketdc.com.

SOURCE Union Market

Related Links

http://unionmarketdc.com


CLEVELAND, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- US demand for fabricated metal products is forecast to reach $439 billion in 2021, according to Fabricated Metal Products: United States, a report recently released by Freedonia Focus Reports. Structural metals, the largest demand segment, are expected to outpace most major segments amid increases in nonresidential and nonbuilding construction.

Competition from metal castings and alternative materials will restrain growth in demand for fabricated metal products. Plastics and composite materials offer superior corrosion resistance, especially compared to ferrous metals. Reinforced plastics offer greater strength and stiffness than conventional plastics, and consequently they have taken some market share away from steel and other metals in applications such as motor vehicle parts.

These and other key insights are featured in Fabricated Metal Products: United States. This report forecasts US fabricated metal product demand and shipments in US dollars at the manufacturers' level to 2021. Total demand and shipments are segmented by product in terms of:

structural metals

forging and stamping

machine shops

metal containers

coating and treating

fasteners and hardware

cutlery and handtools

springs and wires

other products such as ammunition, bearings, and industrial valves.

To illustrate historical trends, total demand, total shipments, the various demand segments, and trade are provided in annual series from 2006 to 2016.

More information about the report is available at https://www.freedoniafocusreports.com/Fabricated-Metal-Products-United-States-10693835/

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 Industrial 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

https://www.freedoniafocusreports.com/


VALLEY FORGE, Pa., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In the fourth of six planned announcements, Vanguard reported lower expense ratios today for 15 mutual fund shares, including the industry's largest balanced fund. As a result, investors in these funds saved an estimated $23 million.1 To date, Vanguard has reported an estimated $165 million in cumulative savings across 139 index and actively managed fund and ETF shares.2

"We're pleased to continue lowering the cost of investing for our clients, as low costs are absolutely critical to long-term investment success," said Vanguard CEO Bill McNabb. "Low fees are the starting point  the first filter in selecting investments. However, we remind investors there are other considerations in selecting a fund and an investment provider as well as other factors that strongly influence outcomes."

Investor outcomes are particularly sensitive to savings rates, especially over the long term. For example, increasing one's savings rate by 1% has a far more profound impact than paying 1 basis point less in fees. Over 30 years, a 1% higher savings rate results in $65,000 in additional assets, compared to the $700 savings stemming from a 1 basis point difference in expense ratios (assuming an investor has a starting salary of $100,000, an investment growth rate of 5%, and a salary increase of 1% annually).3

Active Tax-Exempt Funds Lead Reductions

Unlike competitors, Vanguard announces expense ratios changes on a scheduled basis across asset classes (stock, bond, balanced, and money market funds), across product types (traditional funds and ETFs), and across investment strategies (active and index).

Seven actively managed state municipal bond funds are reporting lower expenses for an estimated cumulative savings of more than $7 million1:

Vanguard California Intermediate-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Investor (VCAIX) and Admiral (VCADX) shares declined one and three basis points to 0.19% and 0.09%, respectively.

Vanguard California Long-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Investor (VCITX) and Admiral (VCLAX) shares declined one and three basis points to 0.19% and 0.09%, respectively.

Vanguard Massachusetts Tax-Exempt Fund (VMATX) declined one basis point to 0.15%.

Vanguard New Jersey Long-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Investor (VNJTX) and Admiral (VNJUX) shares declined one and three basis points to 0.19% and 0.09%, respectively.

Vanguard New York Long-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Investor (VNYTX) and Admiral (VNYUX) shares declined one and three basis points to 0.19% and 0.09%, respectively.

Vanguard Ohio Long-Term Tax-Exempt Fund (VOHIX) declined one basis point to 0.15%.

Vanguard Pennsylvania Long-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Investor (VPAIX) and Admiral (VPALX) shares declined one and three basis points to 0.19% and 0.09%, respectively.

Active Balanced Funds Announce Reductions

Three actively-managed fund shares also reported expense ratio decreases this month. The $98 billion Vanguard Wellington Fund Investor (VWELX) and Admiral (VWENX) shares declined one and two basis points to 0.25% and 0.16%, respectively. The expense ratio of the $1.5 billion Vanguard Convertible Securities Fund (VCVSX) declined four basis points to 0.34%.

Founded in 1929, Vanguard Wellington Fund is the nation's oldest and largest balanced fund. The fund's expense reductions can be attributed to economies of scale from asset growth and incentive/penalty arrangements.

Vanguard aligns the interests of its external investment advisory firms with those of shareholders by using incentive/penalty arrangements. Under the majority of Vanguard fund advisory agreements, an external advisor's base advisory fee can be adjusted up or down to reflect the fund's investment performance relative to the total return of an appropriate market benchmark over a 36- or 60-month period. In effect, the advisor is rewarded for outperforming a market benchmark and penalized for underperforming it. Vanguard is one of the few firms in the industry to employ performance incentive/penalty arrangements.

Two Additional Reporting Periods to Come

In accordance with Securities and Exchange Commission requirements, expense ratios are reported in fund prospectuses and are filed within 120 days of the fund's fiscal year end. Expense ratios represent the actual operating expenses (including investment advisory fees, administrative costs, and shareholder-service expenses) for the prior fiscal year, meaning investors have already realized these savings by the time they are reported.

To date, Vanguard has reported expense ratio changes for fund with fiscal years ending in August, September, October, and November. Vanguard will announce changes for funds with fiscal years ending in December and January in the coming months.

About Vanguard

Vanguard is one of the world's largest investment management companies. As of February 28, 2017, Vanguard managed more than $4.2 trillion in global assets. The firm, headquartered in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, offers more than 350 funds to its more than 20 million investors worldwide. For more information, visit vanguard.com.

1Estimated figure. Calculation based on average daily fund assets, which are then averaged monthly over a 12-month period and the change in expense ratios through the fiscal year ended November 2016.

2Estimated figure. Calculation based on average daily fund assets, which are then averaged monthly over a 12-month period and changes in expense ratios for all share classes from December 2016 through March 2017.

3This hypothetical example does not represent any particular investment and the rate is not guaranteed. The final account balance does not reflect any taxes or penalties that may be due upon distribution. Withdrawals from a tax-deferred plan before age 59 are subject to a 10% federal penalty tax unless an exception applies.

Assets figures as of February 28, 2017 unless otherwise noted.

Vanguard provides its services to the Vanguard funds at cost. More information about Vanguard funds, including at-cost services, is available in a fund's prospectus.

For more information about Vanguard funds and ETFs, visit vanguard.com or call 800-662-7447 to obtain a prospectus or, if available, a summary prospectus. Investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses, and other important information about a fund are contained in the prospectus; read and consider it carefully before investing.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

All investments are subject to risk, including the possible loss of the money you invest.

Vanguard Marketing Corporation, Distributor.

Actively Managed Balanced Fund 2015 Expense

Ratio 2016 Expense

Ratio Basis Point

Change Convertible Securities Fund 0.38% 0.34% -4 Wellington Fund Admiral 0.18% 0.16% -2 Wellington Fund Investor 0.26% 0.25% -1







Active Tax-Exempt Bonds Fund 2015 Expense

Ratio 2016 Expense

Ratio Basis Point

Change California Intermediate-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Admiral 0.12% 0.09% -3 California Intermediate-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Investor 0.20% 0.19% -1 California Long-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Admiral 0.12% 0.09% -3 California Long-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Investor 0.20% 0.19% -1 Massachusetts Tax-Exempt Fund 0.16% 0.15% -1 New Jersey Long-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Admiral 0.12% 0.09% -3 New Jersey Long-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Investor 0.20% 0.19% -1 New York Long-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Admiral 0.12% 0.09% -3 New York Long-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Investor 0.20% 0.19% -1 Ohio Long-Term Tax-Exempt Fund 0.16% 0.15% -1 Pennsylvania Long-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Admiral 0.12% 0.09% -3 Pennsylvania Long-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Investor 0.20% 0.19% -1

All investments are subject to risk, including the possible loss of the money you invest.

Vanguard Marketing Corporation, Distributor.

SOURCE Vanguard

Related Links

http://www.vanguard.com


CINCINNATI, March, 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Vantiv, Inc. (NYSE: VNTV), a leading provider of payment processing services and technology for merchants and financial institutions of all sizes, and Gold level member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), today announced it has achieved Oracle Validated Integration of the company's eCommerce services with Oracle E-Business Suite 12.2.

To achieve Oracle Validated Integration, Oracle partners like Vantiv are required to meet a stringent set of requirements that are based on the needs and priorities of the customers.

According to Greg Worch, head of eCommerce at Vantiv, "Our integration with Oracle E-Business Suite makes it easy for Oracle E-Business Suite customers to securely accept credit and debit card payments. Benefits to customers include lower processing costs with a direct processor connection and no gateway fee, reduced PCI DSS scope, and support for business-to-business Level II and Level III card processing, which allows organizations to qualify for lower interchange rates."

"Achieving Oracle Validated Integration provides our customers with assurance that the integration between Vantiv's eCommerce services and Oracle E-Business Suite is functionally sound and performs as tested," said David Hicks, vice president, Worldwide ISV, OEM, and Java Business Development at Oracle. "For solutions deployed on-premises, in the cloud, or both, Oracle Validated Integration applies a strict technical review and test process that helps to reduce deployment risk and improves the user experience of the partner's integrated offering."

ABOUT VANTIV

Vantiv, Inc. (NYSE: VNTV) is a leading payment processor differentiated by an integrated technology platform. Vantiv offers a comprehensive suite of traditional and innovative payment processing and technology solutions to merchants and financial institutions of all sizes, enabling them to address their payment processing needs through a single provider. We build strong relationships with our customers, helping them become more efficient, more secure, and more successful. Vantiv is now the largest merchant acquirer and the largest PIN debit acquirer based on number of transactions in the U.S. The company's growth strategy includes expanding further into high-growth channels and verticals, including integrated payments, eCommerce, and merchant bank. Visit us at vantiv.com, or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube.

About Oracle Validated Integration

Oracle Validated Integration, available through the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), gives customers confidence that the integration of a complementary partner software product with an Oracle "on-premises" Application has been validated and the products work together as designed. This can help customers reduce risk, improve system implementation cycles, and provide for smoother upgrades and simpler maintenance. Oracle Validated Integration applies a rigorous technical process to review partner integrations and partners who successfully complete the program are authorized to use the "Oracle Validated Integration" logo. For more information, visit Oracle.com.

About Oracle PartnerNetwork

Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) is Oracle's partner program that provides partners with a differentiated advantage to develop, sell and implement Oracle solutions. OPN offers resources to train and support specialized knowledge of Oracle's products and solutions and has evolved to recognize Oracle's growing product portfolio, partner base and business opportunity. Key to the latest enhancements to OPN is the ability for partners to be recognized and rewarded for their investment in Oracle Cloud. Partners engaging with Oracle will be able to differentiate their Oracle Cloud expertise and success with customers through the OPN Cloud program  an innovative program that complements existing OPN program levels with tiers of recognition and progressive benefits for partners working with Oracle Cloud. To find out more visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners.

Trademarks

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

 2017 Vantiv, LLC. All Rights Reserved. All trademarks, service marks, and trade names referenced herein are the property of their respective owners. Vantiv and other Vantiv products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of Vantiv, LLC in the U.S. and other countries.

CONTACTS

Lori Stafford-Thomas

Director, Public Relations

970-335-4904

[email protected]

Lydia Chou

Social Media Specialist

970-335-6717

[email protected]

SOURCE Vantiv, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.vantiv.com


CHANTILLY, Va., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Vencore, Inc. announced today that its innovative research arm, Vencore Labs, Inc., was awarded a contract on the Cellular Range Telemetry Network (CeRTN) program supporting the Department of Defense (DoD). The three-year contract has a total value of $6 million.

Under CeRTN, Vencore Labs, formerly known as Applied Communication Sciences, will develop a prototype system that leverages commercial cellular technology for Aeronautical Mobile Telemetry (AMT) applications at DoD Major Range and Test Facility Bases.

As wireless services and devices proliferate, spectrum availability for these applications dwindles. The DoD is seeking to reduce the amount of spectrum required for test and evaluation activities.

The Vencore Labs CeRTN system will provide robust cellular coverage for AMT using commercial-off-the-shelf cellular technology devices. Specifically, the system will adapt commercial cellular equipment for use in delivering telemetry data from high-speed test vehicles during flight test exercises, ultimately providing frequency reuse and improved spectral efficiency.

"At Vencore Labs, we strive to discover exceptional solutions to new problems associated with sophisticated communications and wireless networks," said Petros Mouchtaris, Ph.D., president of Vencore Labs. "We are excited to partner with the DoD to utilize the spectrum more efficiently and address this growing problem."

Vencore Labs has been supporting the United States Army to address key challenges of mobility and security for tactical commercial wireless networks, an extension of the movement towards commercial solutions for airborne telemetry applications. For more on Vencore Labs' work in the commercial wireless space, vencorelabs.com/csfc.

About Vencore, Inc.

Vencore is a proven provider of information solutions, engineering and analytics for the U.S. Government. With more than 40 years of experience working in the defense, civilian and intelligence communities, Vencore and its transformational applied research organization, Vencore Labs, design, develop and deliver high impact, mission-critical services and solutions to overcome its customers most complex problems.

Vencore has 3,800 employees and is based in Chantilly, Va. For more information about Vencore and Vencore Labs, visit www.vencore.com and www.vencorelabs.com.

SOURCE Vencore

Related Links

http://www.vencore.com


BOSTON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Veritas Genetics, the global leader in accessible genetic sequencing and interpretation, will provide BRCA testing for Canadian women and men who enroll in The Screen Project, a new Women's College Hospital (WCH) initiative led by researchers in the Familial Breast Cancer Research Unit. By overcoming the current existing gaps in eligibility, WCH and Veritas will give Canadians unprecedented access to hereditary cancer screening. The goal is to enroll 10,000 participants within one year.

The Screen Project was developed at WCH by Dr. Mohammad Akbari, a discoverer of RECQL as the breast cancer susceptibility gene and Dr. Steven Narod, a co-discoverer of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes as well as the recipient of the 2016 Basser Global Prize for his work on breast and ovarian cancer genetics.

Approximately 1 in 200 Canadians have a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation, which are strongly associated with the development of breast, ovarian and prostate cancers. However, genetic testing for these gene mutations in Canada is only offered to, and covered for, people who meet strict eligibility criteria based on several factors including having a strong family history of cancer. "Population-based genetic testing is a new approach for widespread screening in Canada that we hope will change the current genetic testing paradigm," said Dr. Steven Narod, co-principal investigator and the director of the Familial Breast Cancer Research Unit at WCH.

With The Screen Project, all Canadians, age 18 years and older, will have access to BRCA1 and BRCA2 screening for a fee of $165 USD. Once they enroll online, participants will receive a saliva testing kit at home. Veritas will process their returned samples at the company's laboratory, and the results will be reported to the patient within 2 to 4 weeks. Those who test positive for a BRCA mutation will be contacted by the Familial Breast Cancer Research Unit at WCH and will be offered additional clinical guidance. Those who receive a negative or inconclusive result will be notified through a report from Veritas.

"For years, our research team have been advocating for population-based genetic testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2, the two most clinically actionable susceptibility genes for breast and ovarian cancers. However, this has not been possible until now mostly because of the high cost of the test and the difficulties in participant enrollment," explained Dr. Mohammad Akbari, co-principal investigator of the study and director of the Research Molecular Genetics Laboratory at WCH. "We found Veritas to be the best match for The Screen Project given their ability to enroll patients quickly and at the best price possible."

"We now know using family history as the only selection criteria for genetic testing can make us miss up to half of all individuals who would greatly benefit from early access to this information," said Mirza Cifric, co-founder and CEO of Veritas. "This is the first of several population-based initiatives we at Veritas will be rolling out in various countries over the coming months. It's equally important to mention that these screening efforts will be coupled with the appropriate follow-up clinical care. This is why we are so excited to work with Dr. Narod and Dr. Akbari at WCH. We believe this is the model for future cancer screening."

Currently, Veritas' myBRCA products are available through distributors in more than 30 countries. Individuals in the U.S. who are interested in BRCA testing can learn more at veritasgenetics.com/mybrca.

About Veritas Genetics

Veritas Genetics is a global leader in providing accessible genetic screening and interpretation to individuals, physicians, and medical researchers. By removing barriers to genetic screening and whole genome sequencing, Veritas Genetics empowers individuals and doctors to make informed lifestyle decisions that help people live longer, healthier lives. The company was recognized by MIT Technology Review as one of the "50 Smartest Companies" in 2016. Veritas was founded by leaders in genomics from Harvard Medical School and operates globally from its offices in the U.S., Europe and China. Learn more at veritasgenetics.com.

About Women's College Hospital

For more than 100 years Women's College Hospital (WCH) has been developing revolutionary advances in healthcare. Today, WCH is a world leader in the health of women and Canada's leading, academic ambulatory hospital. A champion of equitable access, WCH advocates for the health of all women from diverse cultures and backgrounds and ensures their needs are reflected in the care they receive. It focuses on delivering innovative solutions that address Canada's most pressing issues related to population health, patient experience and system costs. The WCH Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care (WIHV) is developing new, scalable models of care that deliver improved outcomes for patients and sustainable solutions for the health system as a whole.

Women's College Research Institute (WCRI) is tackling some of the greatest health challenges of our time. Its scientists are conducting global research that advances the health of women and improves healthcare options for all, and are then translating those discoveries to provide much-needed improvements in healthcare worldwide.

For more information about how WCH and WCRI are transforming patient care, visit

www.womenscollegehospital.ca and www.womensresearch.ca.

SOURCE Veritas Genetics

Related Links

http://www.veritasgenetics.com


CLEARWATER, Fla., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- VIPRE has received OPSWAT Gold Certification for anti-malware for its VIPRE Advanced Security for Business solution, an achievement completed by passing several stringent tests for compatibility, false positives and product quality by the software development tools and services company.

OPSWAT Gold Certification ensures that VIPRE Advanced Security's endpoint protection successfully integrates with a long list of networking solutions, including Cisco Systems, RSA Security, F5 Networks and many more. This high interoperability allows solution providers and customers to develop more comprehensive security strategy incorporating VIPRE Advanced Security to better defend against today's most advanced threats, including ransomware, zero-days and other malware that easily evades traditional antivirus.

For as low as $12 per seat/year, VIPRE offers customers next-generation advanced machine learning, one of the world's largest threat intelligence clouds and real-time behavior monitoring to better defend against ransomware, zero-day attacks and other threats that easily evade traditional antivirus. It consistently scores 100 percent block rates and zero false positives in AV-Comparatives Real-World Protection Tests, and was recently honored as an AV-Comparatives Top-Rated Product.

Earning OPSWAT Gold Certification, VIPRE surpassed strict standards in the following areas:

Compatibility Test  VIPRE proved interoperability with a number of network access solutions leveraging OPSWAT's OESIS Framework.

VIPRE proved interoperability with a number of network access solutions leveraging OPSWAT's OESIS Framework. False Positives Test  VIPRE successfully collected suspicious data and reacted appropriately to false positive submissions to prevent wasted time and resources.

VIPRE successfully collected suspicious data and reacted appropriately to false positive submissions to prevent wasted time and resources. Anti-Malware Quality Test  VIPRE was evaluated on the performance, protection and usability of anti-malware in partnership with AV-TEST and AV-Comparatives.

"The OPSWAT Gold Certification highlights VIPRE's commitment to not only be the highest-rated antivirus and ransomware prevention solution on the market, but also the easiest for partners and customers to integrate into a number of network security platforms," said Usman Choudhary, chief product officer at VIPRE.

About OPSWAT

OPSWAT is a San Francisco-based cyber security software company that provides solutions to secure and manage IT infrastructure. Founded in 2002, OPSWAT has delivered solutions and technologies that protect organizations from threats and secure digital data for over a decade. OPSWAT combines next-generation Content Disarm and Reconstruction technology, its cutting-edge Vulnerability Engine, and multi-scanning with over 30 anti-malware engines in its Metadefender suite of products, and its OESIS Framework endpoint security SDK has helped secure over 200 million endpoints. To learn more about OPSWAT, visit OPSWAT.com.

About VIPRE

VIPRE is the highest-rated, award-winning internet security product for home users and businesses. It is powered by the world's most sophisticated security technologies that protect millions of users from today's top online threats, including ransomware, zero-days and other malware that easily evades traditional antivirus. Backed by cutting-edge artificial intelligence, one of the world's largest threat intelligence clouds and real-time behavior monitoring, VIPRE deploys in minutes to deliver unmatched protection without slowing down PCs. All VIPRE customers receive free U.S.-based technical support. To learn more, visit www.VIPREAntivirus.com and try it free for 30 days.

VIPRE is a product of ThreatTrack Security, Inc., a cybersecurity solutions developer backed by Insight Venture Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners. Learn more at www.ThreatTrack.com.

Disclaimer

Copyright  2016 ThreatTrack Security, Inc. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. To the best of our knowledge, all details were correct at the time of publishing; this information is subject to change without notice.

SOURCE VIPRE

Related Links

https://www.vipreantivirus.com


WARSAW, Poland, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AJC Central Europe officially launched its new office with a gala in the capital of Poland. More than 500 government officials, diplomats, members of the media, and Jewish leaders from across Europe attended the celebratory event, which was held at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw on Monday evening.



For AJC (American Jewish Committee), its newest office marks the global Jewish organization's expansion of its advocacy and diplomatic outreach in Europe. AJC has been one of the most active non-governmental organizations promoting democratic transformation in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989.



AJC Central Europe is dedicated to seven Central European countries: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Slovakia.



The office was made possible by the generosity of John Shapiro, AJC's President, and his wife, Dr. Shonni Silverberg, as well as Harriet Schleifer, chair of AJC's Board of Governors; Steven Zelkowitz, a member of AJC's Executive Council; and Gail Binderman, a member of AJC's Board of Governors.



"I am glad that you have chosen the capital of Poland as the place from which the activities of AJC will extend all over our region," said Polish President Andrzej Duda, in a letter read by his Undersecretary of State, Minister Wojciech Kolarski. He praised AJC for its role over the years in advancing the transatlantic partnership.



"We still remember with gratitude your support for our aspirations," said Duda, referring to AJC's Senate testimony for Poland (and the Czech Republic and Hungary) joining NATO after the collapse of the communist regime. "The American Jewish Committee proved to be our valuable ally."



The president also spoke about the unique relationship between Poles and Jews. "I consider it meaningful that this gala takes place in the amazing Museum of the History of Polish Jews. This institution is critically important for preserving the truth about the common history of both our nations," said Duda. "Today we are building our prosperous future and jointly commemorating the memory of our common Polish and Jewish heroes. The knowledge of what happened on our soil during World War II and in times of German occupation is disseminated across the world thanks to the efforts of AJC. I trust that we will continue to work effectively together in this crucially important issue of defending Poland's good name and the historical truth."



The opening of AJC Central Europe was saluted by Dr. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, President of Latvia (1999-2007), and the current President of the Club of Madrid, who delivered the keynote address.



"It is truly moving for me as a former president of one of the seven countries to be here for the opening of the AJC Central Europe office," said Vike-Freiberga. "I am an old friend of AJC. Thank you, AJC, for what you have done not only for my country's aspirations, but for all three Baltic states and four Visegrad nations."



Vike-Freiberga spoke about the history of Jews in Central Europe. "Do not forget that your ancestors who lived in our countries made important contributions that are worth remembering, countries they loved became part of their heritage," she said. "The roots from this part of the world are part of your Jewish heritage. Add to the richness of your heart, notwithstanding the bitterness you might feel towards some because of earlier atrocities committed against your people."



U.S. Ambassador to Poland Paul Jones and Israeli Ambassador to Poland Anna Azari also addressed the gala. Earlier in the day, the large AJC delegation met separately with the two ambassadors, who welcomed AJC's new office in Warsaw.



Rabbi Michael Shudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland, delivered the opening invocation, and Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, President of the Polish Episcopal Conference, delivered the closing benediction.



During the gala, AJC CEO David Harris presented the organization's prestigious Jan Karski Award to Andrzej Folwarczny, Founder and President of the Forum for Dialogue, an AJC partner organization. Nineteen years ago, the Forum and AJC established a pioneering annual exchange program to deepen understanding between Poles and American Jews.



"Andrezj captures the spirit of Jan Karski, a true hero of humanity," said Harris. "Thanks to Andrzej's vision to bridge the abyss between Poland and Israel, between Poland and Jews, many have come to understand each other better. Together, they are determined to become authors of history, not its prisoners. Andrzej is an author."



"It is a great honor to receive this award. Jan Karski is a role model for us at the Forum for Dialogue.

This award is a tribute to our longstanding partnership with AJC," said Folwarczny. "More than 300 people have participated directly in our Polish-Jewish exchange program. They have created a unique network of people who care about Polish-Jewish relations. These people are the best advocates of our mission and examples of our success."

An AJC leadership delegation met today with President Duda for a 90-minute discussion. AJC CEO David Harris noted: "The President was exceptionally warm and gracious. He spoke of his joy at the opening of the AJC Central Europe office in Warsaw, calling it a 'very welcome development.' He also strongly condemned anti-Semitism, while assuring our group that the problem today in Poland is far less acute than in some other European countries. Moreover, he reaffirmed his friendship for Israel, which he recently visited, and the strong Polish-Israeli relationship."



The March 27 gala was the centerpiece of a larger mission to Warsaw to mark the opening of AJC Central Europe. More than 130 AJC leaders from across the U.S. traveled to Poland to attend the celebratory event. The three-day visit to Poland began on Friday evening celebrating Shabbat with members of the Polish Jewish community at services at Etz Chaim synagogue, followed by a Shabbat dinner.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee

Related Links

http://www.ajc.org


"Surface is proud to have a thriving partner ecosystem that helps us better offer Surface Hub to customers worldwide," said Ryan Gavin, general manager, Surface Marketing. "Whitlock was an early launch partner for Surface Hub and has successfully landed impressive sales figures for 2016. We're excited to see their success and continued momentum."

"Our strength in understanding video collaboration environments and new workspace trends enabled us to drive more customer conversations around Surface Hub, and Surface Studio as well," adds John "Jack" Steinhauer, Whitlock's EVP of global sales. "We are big fans of one platform and enterprise standards; the Microsoft Surface story resonates for us and our enterprise customers."

As a Microsoft Gold Communications Partner, Whitlock demonstrates the highest level of expertise in implementing Microsoft UC solutions, including Microsoft Surface Devices, Skype for Business and Office 365. Company experts can also advise on technology roadmaps, cloud solutions and network readiness for new video or UC implementations.

"Customers are demanding not only one-touch collaboration, but one platform to bring their teaming and communication experiences to an entire new level," adds John Bailey. "Windows 10 on Surface Hub, with built-in Skype for Business, new collaboration apps and powerful analytics from Power BI, is an unbeatable solution. It removes silos and gets people from anywhere in the world collaborating together seamlessly."

Whitlock is also a founding member of the Global Presence Alliance (GPA), a team of companies delivering solutions jointly around the world for video and unified collaboration. Together, Whitlock and GPA members have sold hundreds of Surface Hubs since its launch last year.

About Whitlock

Whitlock is a video collaboration company that provides strategy, management, technologies and support to the world's largest and most innovative businesses. We believe face-to-face collaboration creates stronger relationships and makes way for both business and personal success. What we give to a customer is the ability to connect, work together and share ideas with each other and the world, with a reliable video experience every time. Whitlock serves customers across the U.S. and provides multi-national solutions through the Global Presence Alliance.

SOURCE Whitlock
ALBANY, Ore., March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Willamette Community Bank (OTCQB: WMCB) announces the opening of their third branch location in Salem, Oregon. President and CEO Dan McDowell states, "Ever since we opened our loan production office in Salem in 2014, we have been working hard to get the right team assembled and then find the perfect location for a branch in Salem. Our efforts have been rewarded on both fronts as we have some of the best community bankers in the business working for us and we have a great location downtown. Salem is a natural extension of our current footprint based on our employees' previous experience in the community and, as the second largest banking market in Oregon by deposits, it provides the opportunity for significant growth in the coming years. We are thrilled to make a significant investment in Salem and look forward to increasing our presence in the Salem business community."

The Salem Branch is located at 315 Commercial Street SE, Suite 110.

2016 Results

The results for 2016 continue our long history of improved earnings and are the result of ongoing focus on our core business. The Bank experienced record core earnings (earnings before taxes and provision for loan losses) in 2016 ($819,519 compared to $793,270 in 2015). Net income for the year was $558K or $0.55 per share for 2016 compared to $590K or $0.58 per share for 2015.

From a balance sheet perspective, 2016 ended pretty much as it started. 2016 saw Total Assets contract to $98.3M from $98.9M in 2015, ($0.6M) or (0.6%). Total Loans grew to $73.5M in 2016 from $72.9M ($0.6M or 0.8%) a year earlier. Loan commitments increased more than $6M, although most of the new balances remained undrawn due primarily to timing. The loan mix remains favorable with owner occupied real estate making up the majority of our real estate loans and solid positions in commercial and agricultural loans. Credit quality remains strong with the nonperforming assets to total assets ratio at 0.38% and well below the national average of 0.63%.

Total Deposits decreased in 2016 to $87.1M from $88.3M in 2015, ($1.2M) or (1.4%). This was the result of an intentional reduction in maturing high-cost CDs being only partially replaced with a combination of money market and demand deposit balances. Funding and liquidity remain well matched to our balance sheet activity on the asset side. Our average cost of funds remains low at 0.21%, which is below national average of 0.44% and well positioned to withstand anticipated rate increases.

While the balance sheet started and ended the year relatively flat, average outstanding loans were up nearly $5M, which resulted in a 4.29% increase in interest income. Continued investment in personnel, training and infrastructure resulted in slightly higher noninterest expense, up 3% from 2015. The net interest margin remains strong at 4.61% and significantly better than national peers at 4.41%.

CEO McDowell states, "The opening of our Salem Branch and associated new costs are expected to have an impact on short term operating results. Management and the Board understand that 2017 is an investment year and recognize the importance that the new location has for the long term creation of shareholder value."

Full financials are available on our website at www.willamettecommunitybank.com.

SOURCE Willamette Community Bank

Related Links

http://www.willamettecommunitybank.com


WOD's tour, which spans the globe, runs parallel with the broadcast tournament picked up by NBC for the 2017 season. Jennifer Lopez, Derek Hough, and Ne-Yo serve as judges for the network series. The live tour will bring together dance teams to compete head-to-head at fourteen events in a season that runs from April through December in cities across the country.

"Our events have allowed us to accomplish something more than showcasing amazing talent," says Matthew Everitt, WOD's CEO. "We are crossing boundaries rarely seen these days, uniting a diverse community of athletes and artists around their shared passion for dance and creative expression. We welcome Ccilu to the WOD family, and envision a long partnership with the brand."

The WOD tour coincides with the launch of Ccilu's Horizon collection. Its design was inspired by the legendary "ichimatsu moyou" pattern of Japan's golden age. It symbolized courage and elegance, decorating the clothing of respected people with inspiring stories. Shortly after Ccilu's release of the Horizon collection, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics Committee announced the adoption of "ichimatsu moyou" as the official logo for the 2020 Tokyo games.

About Ccilu USA

Ccilu USA is a merging of cultures based on the notion that quality and technology are universal values. CEO Wilson Hsu, known for his leap from banker to award-winning shoe designer, puts an emphasis on proper podiatric design, including Ccilu's revolutionary SKIVE-ON and eco-friendly CCILUCELL technologies. Founded in Japan in 2011, Ccilu's first product, "Amazon Summer," won the Silver Award of the Best Designed Products in the 72nd Tokyo International Gift Show. By 2017, Ccilu was being sold in more than 60 countries. This commitment to style and structure spans the Ccilu Footwear brand and its licenses of top brands in Japan, Europe and Asia Pacific region. www.Ccilu.com

About World of Dance

World of Dance is the preeminent global dance brand, combining the world's largest international urban dance competition with the largest digital platform for dance driving more than 30 million monthly views, and now the inspiration for the new television dance competition of the same name airing on NBC with Jennifer Lopez. What began in 2008 as a single event has become a continent-spanning, tour de force of human spirit and sick dance moves. The World of Dance Tour attracts YouTube stars, industry icons, and tens of thousands of fans to events in more than 25 countries, spanning the U.S., Europe, South America, and Asia.

SOURCE Ccilu USA
St. John the Baptist School students demonstrated their public speaking skills on March 23 by taking part in a contest sponsored by Modern Woodmen of America, a fraternal financial services organization.

For the contest, students shared presentations on this year's topic, "What does it mean to be a hero?"

Winners were Reed Greger and Emily Zitek, first place; Sophia Vercellino and Ben Laney, second place; and Drew Walton and Kevin Sohl, third place. Each of them received a trophy and a gold award pin, and their names will be engraved on the school's speech contest plaque. All participants received certificates of participation for their hard work.

Modern Woodmen's School Speech Contest is one of many free Youth Educational Programs Modern Woodmen offers to schools nationwide. More than 100,000 students compete in the contest each year.

As a tax-exempt fraternal benefit society, Modern Woodmen sells life insurance, annuity and investment products not to benefit stockholders, but to improve the quality of life of its stakeholders - members, their families, and their communities. This is accomplished through social, charitable and volunteer activities.
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
New York, March 23 : As the controversy over the ads appearing alongside hate or terrorism videos widens, American telecommunication giant AT&T has decided to pull out its ads from most Google-owned sites.

According to a report in Fortune on Wednesday, the British government and major advertisers in Britain have also temporarily ended their campaigns with Google because the search engine cannot prevent ads being put alongside the offensive content.

"We are deeply concerned that our ads may have appeared alongside YouTube content promoting terrorism and hate," the report quoted AT&T as saying.

"Until Google can ensure this won't happen again, we are removing our ads from Google's non-search platforms," AT&T added.

Earlier this week, Google announced new controls and assured the customers it would end the controversy, but the steps taken so far by the search engine have not convinced the advertisers.

"In the end, there's nothing more important to Google than the trust we've built amongst our users, advertisers, creators and publishers," Philipp Schindler, Google's Chief Business Officer, wrote in a blog post.

"Brand safety is an ongoing commitment for us, and we'll continue to listen to your feedback," Schindler added.

According to a Google spokeswoman, the search engine has started extensive review of advertising policies.

"We have made a public commitment to put in place changes that give brands more control over where their ads appear. We're also raising the bar for our ads policies to further safeguard our advertisers' brands," the spokeswoman was quoted as saying.

The controversy started in Britain after ads from the government, schools, businesses, and others started to appear on YouTube videos and Google ad-supported web sites of offensive groups.

-- With inputs from IANS
Seoul, March 25 : A South Korean passenger ferry which capsized in 2014 killing over 300 people, was lifted out of the water on Saturday, rescue officials said.

The ferry, Sewol, was successfully loaded onto a ship at 4.10 a.m., a spokesperson for the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries told Yonhap news agency.

Over the next two or three days, rescue officials will secure the ferry to the vessel, which has the capacity to transport a load of up to 70,000 tonnes on its deck, before heading to the Mokpo port around 87 km away.

It is estimated that it will take one day to reach Mokpo.

The placement of Sewol on the semi-submersible vessel was one of the most complicated procedures given the fact it was greatly affected by weather and tides.

South Korean officials had planned to complete this step before midnight Friday, but the process lasted more than seven hours because of the difficulty in turning the direction of the ferry - 6,825 tonnes and a length of 145 metres - and the two tugboats during the 3-km journey.

The South Korean government had promised to carefully remove the ferry in order to find and deliver to the relatives the remains of nine passengers of the Sewol who were never found and were believed to be inside the sunken vessel.

The salvage operation of the Sewol, which lay on the sea bed some 40 metres deep, started on Wednesday, almost three years after it capsized on the southwest coast of South Korea near the island of Jindo, killing over 300 people.

Sewol capsized on April 16, 2014, and is the worst maritime accident in the history of the country.

In total, 304 people were killed, including crew and passengers, most of whom were high school students on a trip.
London, March 26 : Terrorist Khalid Masood who killed four persons in an attack at the Westminster Bridge here, acted alone and there is no information suggesting further attacks are planned, police said.

"We must all accept that there is a possibility we will never understand why he did this," BBC quoted Deputy assistant commissioner Neil Basu as saying.

About 50 persons were injured when Masood drove his car into a crowd and then stabbed police officer Keith Palmer at the grounds of Parliament.

The family of Palmer said his bravery will be remembered.

MP Tobias Ellwood, one among those who tried to save Palmer's life, said he was "heartbroken" that his efforts were not successful.

Detectives confirmed the attack was over within 82 seconds.

Basu said: "We still believe that Masood acted alone on the day and there is no information or intelligence to suggest there are further attacks planned.

"Even if he acted alone in the preparation, we need to establish with absolute clarity why he did these unspeakable acts to bring reassurance to Londoners, and to provide answers and closure for the families of those killed and the victims and survivors of this atrocity.

"Nevertheless, we are determined to understand if Masood was a lone actor inspired by terrorist propaganda or if others have encouraged, supported or directed him.

"If the latter proves to be the case, they will face justice," Basu said.

He urged those who knew Masood to speak to police.

In a statement released on Saturday, Palmer's family addressed those who tried to save his life.

"There was nothing more you could have done," it said.

"You did your best and we are just grateful he was not alone.

According to the BBC, the family said they had been "overwhelmed by the love and support" shown for Palmer and praised the support from police.

Ellwood in a statement said: "I am heartbroken that I could not do more for Palmer who gave his life in holding the line against terrorism and defending democracy."

The other victims were Aysha Frade, who was in her 40s and worked at a London sixth-form college, US tourist Kurt Cochran, 54, and retired window cleaner Leslie Rhodes, 75, from south London.

A 58-year-old man, who was arrested in Birmingham the morning after the attack, remains in custody.

A 32-year-old woman who was arrested in Manchester, remains on bail, police said.

Eleven people were initially arrested over the incident. Nine have been released without charge.

Police said Masood, 52, who had previous criminal convictions but none for terrorism, had used a number of aliases.

At birth, he was registered in Kent as Adrian Elms, but later took his stepfather's name becoming Adrian Ajao in childhood.

In the early 2000s, he was convicted of causing grievous bodily harm after slashing a man across the face with a knife.
Washington, March 28 : Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that he is committed to working with US President Donald Trump to achieve peace with the Palestinians and all of the Jewish state's neighbours.

"Israel's hand and my hand is extended to all of our neighbours in peace," EFE news quoted Netanyahu as saying in a videoconference address to the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the main pro-Israeli pressure group in the US, in Washington.

"I believe that the common dangers faced by Israel and many of our Arab neighbours now offer a rare opportunity to build bridges towards a better future -- a future more prosperous, more secure, more peaceful," he said.

Netanyahu urged the Palestinian National Authority to "stop teaching hatred to its children. It must stop paying terrorists. It must stop denying our legitimacy and our history. It must above all, once and for all, recognise the Jewish state."

The Israeli leader said that "Israel has no greater friend than America and America has no greater friend than Israel", and he added that he was certain that the alliance between the two nations will grow even closer in the coming years.

He also referred to Iran as the greatest threat to Israel and appealed to the Trump administration to prevent "Iran from ever ... developing nuclear weapons. That ... will always be our policy."

The premier said that "our partnership (with the US) means also confronting Iran's aggression in the region and its terrorism around the world" and he added that "it means utterly vanquishing ISIS" and "building alliances with ... those moderates who seek to build a better future and embrace modernity and peace."

"In this battle between modernity and medievalism, more and more countries in the region and outside the region, around the world, realise that Israel is on their side," the premier said.

Netanyahu delivered his speech after US Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday spoke on the first day of the conference, reaffirming Trump's commitment to achieving "lasting" peace in the Middle East.

Trump welcomed the Israeli premier to the White House in February.
Shimla, March 28 : Water is generating heat in the Queen of Hills, as Shimla was fondly called by the British colonial rulers, even before the onset of summer.

Woes, instead of water, are flowing out of this city's taps as scarcity is leaving the residents high and dry, literally.

Locals say Shimla, which is getting adequate funding under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), is facing its worst water crisis. They fear the problem will aggravate as the mercury and tourist footfalls spike.

Planned by the British for a maximum population of 16,000, Shimla now houses more than 10 times that at close to 170,000 and requires 42 million litres per day (MLD) of water.

In a written reply in the assembly earlier this month, Irrigation and Public Health Minister Vidya Stokes said Shimla is getting 34 MLD on an average.

"The supply from Ashwani Khad is closed and the Shimla Municipal Corporation is in the process of replacing 2,000-m-long pipes from the Giri drinking water scheme. The pumps for lifting water at the Gumma scheme are also being repaired," she added.

The water shortage has tourism industry stakeholders worried as Shimla gets 20,000-30,000 tourists on an average every weekend during the peak summer season from May to June.

"We are suffering miserably. It has become a round-the-year phenomenon that we have to depend on private water suppliers to meet our daily requirements," D.P. Bhatia, liaison officer with the Oberoi Group of hotels in Shimla, told IANS.

"It's really sad that Shimla is aiming to become one of India's 'smart cities' but the water supply is deteriorating year after year," he added.

Private suppliers bring water from natural sources located on the outskirts of Shimla to sell to the hotels.

"We are procuring water from the private suppliers at least seven months in a year, even when there is a lean tourist season," Bhatia added.

The civic authorities say water shortage has become more acute when supply from Ashwani Khad was stopped in January last year following a jaundice outbreak.

Ashwani Khad was the source of water for one-third of Shimla's population before that at 9 to 10 MLD.

The jaundice outbreak claimed over 20 lives. The reason for the water-borne disease was mixing of sewage flowing from a nearby sewerage treatment plant to the natural water supply scheme.

At a high-level meeting here on Saturday, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh directed officials to speed up the repair of the Giri water supply scheme to enable providing around five MLD of additional water.

He said action would be initiated against those employees who failed to plug the leakages and overflow of the water tanks.

Principal Secretary Anuradha Thakur said since the Ashwani Khud shutdown, there has been a shortage of around nine MLD of water.

She said the entire rising main of the Giri scheme is being replaced and the work has been almost completed.

Locals rue that Shimla is now synonymous with water scarcity -- both in summer and winter.

"In winter, we were getting water once after two-three days, that too in the morning just for two hours. These days we are getting water after four days," Gian Chand, a resident of Khalini locality, told IANS.

Civic authorities blame leakages in the distribution network, a significant portion of which goes back to the British days, and diminishing water resources that have been over-exploited to meet the increasing demand for the tourism industry.

Local BJP legislator Suresh Bhardwaj blamed the state government for mismanaging the supply of water.

"In every Vidhan Sabha session I have been raising this issue. Despite that the government is doing nothing to ensure daily supply of water in Shimla," Bhardwaj told IANS.

A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, which highlights inadequacies of the Shimla Municipal Corporation, says the quantity of water supplied is less than the prescribed limit of 135 litres per capita per day.

From 2009 to 2014, the corporation supplied 110 litres of water per capita per day.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)
Dhaka, March 28 : A Dhaka court on Tuesday sentenced five persons to death for killing award-winning photojournalist Aftab Ahmed in 2013, a media report said.

The verdict was announced by Judge Abdur Rahman Sarder of Dhaka Speedy Trial Tribunal 4.

The convicts are Humayun Kabir, Habib Hawlader, Belal Hossain, Raju Munshi and Md Rasel, the Dhaka Tribune reported.

Of them, Rasel and Raju have been absconding since the case was filed.

The court also sentenced Sabuj Khan to seven years imprisonment and fined him. If he doesn't pay, he will serve an extra year in jail.

According to the case details, on December 25, 2013, the 80-year-old photojournalist was killed at his house in Rampura here.

Aftab was awarded 'Ekushey Padak', the second highest civilian award in Bangladesh, in 2006. He had an illustrious career during which he served as chief photographer for the Bangla newspaper The Daily Ittefaq.
Berlin, March 28 : The Make in India Mittelstand (MIIM) investment facilitation programme launched by the Indian embassy here has so far mobilized investment of about euro 650 million and helping create 4,000 employment opportunities in India, an official statement said.

The programme is currently facilitating 72 German SMEs (Mittelstand) in their market entry into India. A total of 41 German companies out of the 72 are currently at advanced stage of their investment into India. The results of the MIIM programme were presented during the Third Exchange Platform organized at the Embassy of India, Berlin, an Indian embassy statement said.

During the event, the German government lauded the Make in India Mittelstand (MIIM) programme as an extraordinary initiative towards Indo-German business relations and termed it a perfect addition to efforts of their governments towards facilitation of German companies investing in India.

Speaking at the Third Make in India Mittelstand (MIIM) Exchange Platform, Uwe Beckmeyer, Parliamentary State secretary, Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Energy, applauded the success of the MIIM initiative in facilitating investment by German SMEs into India and expressed full support of the German government to the Make in India Mittelstand Programme, the statement said.

The MIIM program is an investment facilitation programme launched in September 2015 by the Embassy of India to facilitate investments by German Mittelstand (SME) companies. It is being run with support of Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) and other central and state agencies, the statement said.

Beckmeyer said that the initiatives like these have been strong reflection of the Indian government's continued efforts towards creating a business friendly environment for German companies in India. Referring to the upcoming Indo-German Inter-Governmental Consultations in May 2017, Beckmeyer highlighted the need to send strong message jointly for strong democracy, rule of law and free trade.

India Ambassador Gurjit Singh called upon the German Industry to take up consortium based approach to fully participate and take advantage of the huge opportunities in several key sector of Indian economy like Railways, Infrastructure, Smart Cities, Civil Aviation, Port development, etc.
Bangkok, March 28 : Thai authorities on Tuesday ordered former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, considered a fugitive, to pay 17.6 billion baht ($512 million) in unpaid taxes and accrued interest.

In the absence of the addressee, who has lived in exile since 2008, a Treasury inspector accompanied by a policeman placed the Revenue Department of Thailand's notice at the entrance of Shinawatra's home in Bangkok's Charansanitwong street, according to the Bangkok Post.

Shinawatra, who ruled Thailand from 2001 until the military coup in 2006, has 30 days from Tuesday to appeal against the payment.

The lawsuit has been filed over the sale of 49.6 per cent of Shin Corp's shares by Shinawatra and his family to Singapore's Temasek Holdings for around $1.9 billion.

The transaction took place on January 23, 2006 after being declared tax free in Thailand.

Eight months later on September 19, Shinawatra was ousted in a coup d'etat carried out by the military while he was at the UN General Assembly in New York, Efe news reported.

Thailand, after a brief return to democracy, is currently governed by another military junta headed by General Prayut Chan-ocha, who in 2014 overthrew the government led by Thaksin's younger sister Yingluck Shinawatra.
Dhaka, March 28 : At least three women were killed and dozens went missing when a ferry capsized in Panguchi river in Bangladesh on Tuesday.

The overloaded ferry, with around 40-50 passengers, sank in Bagerhat district, 178 km from here, Xinhua news agency quoted Fire Service and Civil Defence officer Masud Sarder as saying.

Sarder said a search for the missing persons was under way. Many of the passengers managed to swim ashore after the capsize.

Ferry and boat disasters are common in Bangladesh, which is crisscrossed by about 250 rivers.
London, March 28 : UK tabloid Daily Mail's frontpage showing a photograph of Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and British premier Theresa May has been slammed as "sexist and offensive", the media reported on Tuesday.

The frontpage captioned "Never mind Brexit, who won Legs-it!", appeared on Twitter on Monday night, the Guardian reported.

Inside the paper there was was more ogling at the female leaders, with a headline reading: "Finest weapons at their command? Those pins!"

A column by Sarah Vine referred to Sturgeon's legs as "altogether more flirty, tantalisingly crossed... a direct attempt at seduction".

Among the first to criticise were Labour MPs Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper.

Journalist Alastair Campbell, labelled the paper "utter scum" and urged anyone who spotted a copy of the Mail to rip it up, the Guardian reported.

The former Labour leader Ed Miliband tweeted: "The 1950s called and asked for their headline back".

The front page, which referenced difficult talks between the leaders in Glasgow over Brexit, looked slightly different in Scotland, where it used the same photograph but with a headline that read: "Oh so frosty! Secrets of Nicola and PM's talk-in".
New Delhi, March 28 : The pre-monsoon rains will be negligible this season leading to excessive heat in April and May, but this is a good sign for farmers, weather analysts said on Tuesday.

The India Meteorological Department has already declared heatwave condition in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. On Monday, Barmer in Rajasthan sizzled at 44 degrees Celsius.

The excessive heat is being attributed to low weather activity. However, this is good for farmers.

According to private weather forecaster Skymet, unlike the 2013 and 2014 crises, this year's Rabi crop is safe as the current weather pattern shows deficient pre-monsoon rain which would lead to excessive heat.

"The current pattern shows the summer would be harsh and the pre-monsoon rain would be low... the western disturbance could lead to drizzle in the beginning of April, but overall effect would be low over the major agricultural belt," Skymet Director Mahesh Palawat told IANS.

Heavy pre-monsoon rains in April and May result in loss to Rabi crop such as wheat, chana and arhar dal. The huge loss to arhar dal production in 2014 was said to be a major reason behind the surge in price of tur dal in 2015.

The pre-monsoon rain with winds and occasional hail in April and May in 2014 caused loss to the wheat and arhar crop production that year.

The mango production was also hit in Uttar Pradesh due to the loss of early fruiting due to heavy winds in May.

"In 2014, entire arhar and wheat crop was damaged due to heavy rains and hail... Most of it occurred at the time of harvest. If rains are light, then its not a problem, but heavy rains cause a lot of issues," Umesh Chandra Pandey, a progressive farmer based in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh, told IANS.

The harvest period of the Rabi crop is April last week to May first week.
Agartala, March 28 : Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar has claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government is trying to close the rural job scheme MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act).

"The present central government is gradually curtailing the allocation of funds under the MGNREGA to close the rural job scheme," Sarkar said while addressing a meeting of the Tripura State Employment Guarantee Council here on Monday evening.

The issue was also discussed on Tuesday during a state cabinet meeting chaired by Sarkar.

"The Council of Ministers have decided that Tripura's Rural Development Minister, along with three Members of Parliament belonging to the state, would meet Union Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar soon in New Delhi.

"They will urge the government to maintain the scheme and due allocation to the state under the scheme," Tripura Information and Food Minister Bhanulal Saha told reporters on Tuesday after the cabinet meeting.

He said: "In the outgoing financial year, Tripura has provided around 79 man-days of rural jobs per household under the MGNREGA, but in the forthcoming financial year (2017-18), as per the indication of central allocation, the state would be able to provide only 38 to 42 man-days of jobs per household under the scheme."

The Chief Minister also told the Council meeting on Monday evening that to deprive the rural unemployed people of jobs and to serve the interests of the wealthy, the BJP-led NDA (National Democratic Alliance) government would likely discontinue MGNREGA.

"Tripura has provided around 79 man-days' rural jobs per household under the MGNREGA so far in the outgoing financial year (2016-17), but it is likely to be 83 days by the end of the year. The national average in this regard is 43 days only," an official quoted the Chief Minister as saying in the meeting.

While the rest of the country lags, Left-ruled Tripura retained its top position for the seventh consecutive year until the 2015-16 financial year in providing jobs under the MGNREGA -- a staggering 94.46 man-days per household -- against the national average of 48.85 days in that year.

The MGNREGA was introduced in February 2006 by the then Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.

It mandates 100 days of work in a financial year to at least one member of each rural household, but this has never been achieved in any state. The scheme aims to generate rural assets and create rural infrastructure like roads.
New Delhi, March 28 : Indian Army Chief Bipin Rawat on Tuesday began a visit to Nepal and Bangladesh, the Indian Army said.

This is his first foreign visit after assuming office.

In Nepal, Rawat will be visiting important military installations and meeting high ranking dignitaries including Prime Minister Pushpa Kumar Dahal 'Prachanda', Defence Minister Balkrishna Khand and his counterpart, Gen. Rajendra Chettri.

The delegation will also visit Nepalese Army Mountain Warfare School at Jomsom and the Pension Paying office at Pokhra where the Indian Army chief, who is a Gorkha Rifles officer, will address the Indian Army ex-servicemen of Nepalese origin.

During his Nepal visit, President Bidya Devi Bhandari will confer the title of "Honorary General of the Nepalese Army" to Rawat at a special investiture ceremony on March 29.

This is as per a historic tradition as per which Indian Army Chief is the Honorary Chief of the Nepalese Army, and vice versa.

The reciprocal arrangement is continuing uninterrupted since its inception in 1969 and has been a hallmark of the special relationship between the Indian and the Nepalese Army.

Chettri was conferred the title of "Honorary General of the Indian Army" on February 3, 2016, during his first visit to India after assuming office.

The Nepal visit will be followed by a visit to Bangladesh, where the Army Chief will be meeting President Abdul Hamid, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and his counterpart, Gen. Abu Belal Muhammad Shafiul Huq. The delegation will also visit headquarters of an Infantry Division and the Armoured Corps Centre at Bogra.

"This visit will help strengthen mutual trust with immediate neighbourhood particularly in the field of defence cooperation," an army statement said.

Rawat will return on April 2.
Moscow/Tehran, March 28 : Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani in the Kremlin on Tuesday and described Iran as a "good neighbour and a reliable partner."

"Russia and Iran share many years, if not centuries, of bilateral cooperation," Putin said as he welcomed the Iranian leader.

"We have maintained diplomatic relations for more than 500 years," he added.

Putin said that Moscow and Tehran have closely worked together in all fields and resolved difficult economic problems of the world, reported Efe news.

Rouhani said that he hoped that the new round of talks will lead to new strides in broadening relations between the two countries and and Iran's close cooperation with Moscow was not intended to be an aggressive stance directed against other countries.

"Our ultimate goal is to strengthen peace and stability in the region," said the head of Iran's government. "The development of our relations is not directed against third countries."

The two sides also signed at least 15 documents on various fields such as consulate, tourism, economic, telecommunications, legal and judiciary at the Kremlin Palace, IRNA news agency reported.

"We have good experience in the fight against terrorism, international terrorism, the fight against the drug threat," said Rouhani.

Rouhani had earlier laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier by the Kremlin wall.

"Russia and Iran were allied in the ongoing war in Syria -- both backing the embattled President Bashar al-Assad -- and commercial exchanges between the nations had increased by 70 per cent in 2016 compared to the previous year," Putin said.

This high-profile meeting between two regional powers came at a time when Tehran's relations with the United States had soured since the election of President Donald Trump, according to reports.

Moscow came out in defence of Iran's recent testing of ballistic missiles, but those actions were slammed by Washington, which responded with economic sanctions.

Iran and Russia insisted that the tests did not breach the internationally agreed Iranian nuclear deal that, under Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, had eased sanctions on Tehran in return for a gradual dismantling of its nuclear programme.
Hyderabad, March 28 : Two Nigerians, including a woman, have been arrested for duping a movie artist of Hyderabad, police said on Tuesday.

The police arrested the accused in New Delhi, where they were staying, and brought them to Hyderabad. They have been identified as Noberth Chukwuedo, 36, and AnemMuan Kim, 31.

The movie artist, whose identity has not been revealed by the police, had lodged a complaint in January that he was cheated by a woman who came into touch with him on Facebook.

He started chatting with the woman, who identified herself as Felicia Issac, regarding movies through WhatsApp.

She offered to give him money and asked him to come to London. When he replied that it was not possible and requested her to come to India, she agreed.

The woman sent him copies of her passport and ticket.

On January 20, she contacted him to inform that she had reached Delhi airport but the customs officials had fined her Rs 25,500 for excess luggage. On her request, he transferred the amount to a bank account.

After a couple of hours, she contacted him again to say that officials were demanding Customs Tax of Rs 50,000.

He again transferred the amount to the bank account of NemMuan Kim. She later informed him that as all flights were full, she would be coming to Hyderabad the next day.

The next day, the movie artist received a phone call from one Likhitha, who introduced herself as a Customs official, stating Felicia had British currency and he has to pay Rs 1.20 lakh for her release.

He then realized that he was being cheated and approached the police.
Mumbai, March 28 : Left with no options after Air India again cancelled his flight ticket, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad on Tuesday evening boarded the Rajdhani Express for Delhi, officials said.

He was booked this afternoon on a IInd AC sleeper compartment. The train left Mumbai Central at 5 p.m. and will reach Delhi around 8.30 a.m. on Wednesday.

The officials could not say if he was travelling alone or with some aides and security personnel.

Gaikwad's fresh travel plans for New Delhi came into effect on Tuesday afternoon after Air India cancelled his ticket for a Wednesday 8 a.m. flight from Mumbai.

This is the second time he has travelled by train in the past four days. Earlier, he reached here sometime on Saturday but remained incommunicado following a party diktat.

On March 23, Gaikwad abused and repeatedly assaulted with a slipper and even attempted to throw out a 60-year-old Air India staffer in Delhi after being forced to travel economy class on a Pune-Delhi flight though he held an open business class ticket.

Air India lodged two FIRs against him with Delhi Police. Subsequently, all Indian airlines blacklisted him from air travel following his unruly behaviour.

While the Shiv Sena has said it does not condone his conduct, it has accused Air India of poor services.

On Monday, the Sena sponsored a shutdown in Osmanabad, the Lok Sabha constituency in Maharashtra which Gaikwad represents.

The Sena has also served a privilege motion in the Lok Sabha over the ban imposed by airlines on an MP.
Washington, March 28 : US President Donald Trump telephoned Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday to congratulate him on the Bharatiya Janata Party's victory in Uttar Pradesh and other states, according to the White House.

During the call to "congratulate him on the outcome of India's recent state-level elections", Trump also "expressed support for the Prime Minister's economic reform agenda and emphasised his great respect for the people of India", said a statement from Press Secretary Sean Spicer's office on Tuesday.

Trump, who had earlier invited Modi to visit the US, said "he looks forward to hosting Prime Minister Modi in Washington later this year," the statement added.

The BJP formed governments in four of the five states which held assembly elections recently, winning a stunning victory in UP, where it won 312 of the 403 seats.
Vercelli (Italy), March 28 : A woman was hospitalised in a critical condition on Tuesday in northern Italy after her estranged husband ambushed her, rammed her car and stabbed her when she tried to escape.

The man allegedly laid wait for the woman after work in the northwest town of Vercelli and followed her car as she drove home, ramming it with his own and forcing her to stop, according to police.

When the woman got out and began to run away, he followed her on foot and stabbed her several times. Police intervened and arrested the man.

The couple, who have two children, had separated several months ago, investigators said.

Turin-based daily La Stampa named the man as Maurizio Zangari, 49, and his wife as Fiorilena Ronco, 41.

Zangari had not accepted the separation from Ronco, La Stampa reported.

He had previously been reported to police for violence towards Ronco, the paper said.
It is quite fitting for Boston Childrens Museum to host this art and friendship exhibition in the space next to the Japanese House which is another symbol of international friendship.

BOSTON, MA  March 28, 2017  Boston Childrens Museum recently announced the opening of Train Train, an exhibition created by the student members of the Art Thinking project team at Tohoku University of Art & Design in Japan.

Art Thinking is a research based project of Minatsu Ariga and her team at Tohoku University of Art & Design in Japan. The project asks How do we use art in our life? and explores art as a way for children and adults to develop their imaginations, problem solving skills, creativity, and resiliency. Art Thinking chose to use the special power of art to connect with many friends after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in their hometown in March 2011.This is their fifth annual international friendship project bringing their art exhibition and hands-on activity programs to Boston.

This is an exhibition of storytelling, imagination and friendship making a connection through art, said Akemi Chayama, Japan Program Manager. It is quite fitting for Boston Childrens Museum to host this art and friendship exhibition in the space next to the Japanese House which is another symbol of international friendship. We hope that this exhibition will create a space which encourages us to be curious to learn about the world and to build knowledge and skills to become impactful global citizens.

The exhibit uses trains as storytellers and welcomes Museum visitors to reflect on their lives through exploring the stories. Where is your train going? What is your train story like? Is it romantic, dynamic, fun, gentle? Trains connect us and lead us to our tomorrow. Museum visitors are invited to share their own train stories.

Museum visitors can explore trains as a symbol of determination and kindness. Trains are not quitters, and they keep moving forward every day whether in the rain, in the wind, against the summer heat, or against the winter snow. Trains often remind us of the importance of hard work, patience, and determination. Trains carry many things including people, and trains help them reach their destinations. Trains remind us of the importance of generosity and compassion for all humanity and the earth in which we live.

The installation is scheduled to run through September 10.

For additional information visit BostonChildrensMuseum.org

About Boston Children's Museum

Boston Childrens Museum engages children and families in joyful discovery experiences that instill an appreciation of our world, develop foundational skills, and spark a lifelong love of learning. More information about Boston Childrens Museum can be found at http://www.BostonChildrensMuseum.org. Become a fan of the Museum on Facebook and follow us on Twitter

Hours and Admission

The Museum is open daily from 10:00 a.m.  5:00 p.m. Fridays until 9:00 p.m. Adults, $16, children (1-15) and senior citizens, $16; children under 12 months and Museum members are always free. Fridays 5:00 p.m.  9:00

p.m., all visitors $1.

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"As we integrate my proven tools for increasing revenue with Harbortouch's best-in-class point-of-sale solution, we will truly deliver the first smart POS system on the market." - Jon Taffer

Jon Taffer, executive producer and host of Spike TV's hit show Bar Rescue and foremost expert in the hospitality industry, today announced a comprehensive partnership with Harbortouch, a leading national provider of point-of-sale (POS) systems and merchant services. Taffer has officially endorsed the company's touchscreen POS systems and will collaborate with Harbortouch to develop the industrys first smart POS (sPOS) system. The collaboration will enable Harbortouch to integrate powerful revenue generating tools, based on Taffers extensive industry experience, into the companys Elite POS systems.

Harbortouchs sPOS systems will bring together technology and industry expertise in a way that has never been done before. Harbortouch POS systems deliver countless benefits in terms of improved efficiency and streamlined operations, and now these benefits will be combined with integrated tools, including powerful analytics and customer promotions, that will have a direct impact on top-line sales by increasing both customer frequency and spend per visit.

Harbortouch CEO Jared Isaacman explains how the partnership came about: We really challenged ourselves to develop something truly game changing. We have already built the best POS system with the best technology and at the best price point, but we wanted to see if we could go a step further and do something entirely unique by helping our customers generate more revenue. We wanted to leverage the power of our industry-leading POS technology to help our merchants make more money. As the leading authority in the bar and restaurant industries, we knew that Jon Taffer would be the perfect partner to help pioneer this smart POS technology.

"POS systems are the backbone of any business, but their major benefits have always been about efficiency, says Taffer. In my experience, I have found Harbortouchs POS solution to be the best in the industry. Their POS system is unparalleled in terms of both price and capabilities, the two elements most critical to any small or mid-sized businesses success. I am proud to integrate my proven tools for increasing revenue with their best-in-class system and bring the first truly smart POS system to market."

With over three decades of hands-on experience, Taffer is a two-time winner of the Bar Operator of the Year award, among a myriad of other honors, and his management methodology, Reaction Management, has become the gold standard of the industry. In 2010, Jon was appointed President of Nightclub & Bar Media Group where he oversaw the Nightclub & Bar Convention Trade Show. He also sat on its board of directors and serves as a consultant and development advisor to major restaurants, nightclubs and hotels worldwide.

Harbortouch is a pioneer of the POS-as-a-Service business model, offering a revolutionary free equipment program that delivers best-in-class POS systems with no up-front costs, including state-of-the-art hardware, premium software, custom programming, professional installation, onsite training and 24/7 support. Founded in 1999, the company has served more than 325,000 merchants and currently processes in excess of $12 billion annually. A six-time Inc. 500/5000 honoree, Harbortouch has been widely recognized for its innovative and disruptive POS and payment solutions.

About Harbortouch Payments

Harbortouch Payments, LLC is a leading business technology company and pioneer of the POS-as-a-Service business model, having served over 325,000 merchants in 17 years in business and currently processing more than $12 billion annually. The company offers a revolutionary free equipment program that delivers best-in-class POS systems with no up-front costs, including state-of-the-art hardware, premium software, custom programming, professional installation, onsite training and 24/7 support. A six-time Inc. 500/5000 honoree and recipient of numerous industry awards, Harbortouch has been widely recognized for its innovative and disruptive POS and payment solutions. For additional information, visit http://www.harbortouch.com.

About Jon Taffer

Within the nightlife, bar and restaurant industry, there is no greater authority than Jon Taffer. As a celebrity, hospitality expert and entrepreneur, Jon entertains and educates audiences from all walks of life, from Average Joes to CEOs. By delivering life-changing business lessons and inspirational stories, Jon has helped transform millions of people and companies by changing how they think and what they do. He is best known for his in your face, no holds barred style of turning failing bars into profitable businesses as the Host and Executive Producer on Spike TVs number one hit show Bar Rescue, which is currently going into its sixth season. Jon is recognized internationally as an award-winning hospitality consultant and concept developer. With over three decades of hands on experience, he has owned and operated 17 hospitality businesses, consulted with over 800 venues in 30 countries and has worked with powerhouse brands like Hyatt Hotels, Hilton Hotels, TGI Fridays, Subway, Wolfgang Puck Express, Anheuser-Busch, AMF Bowling Centers and many more. Jons knack for starting, growing and improving hospitality concepts has led to many awards (such as Operator of the Year, Property of the Year, Visionary Leadership and the United Kingdoms Pub Master), as well as executive positions with the Nightclub and Bar Convention and the National Restaurant Association, where hes currently a Strategic Advisor. Learn more at http://www.jontaffer.com.
AAMA chairman award Over the years, Milgard has partnered with AAMA to create training and certification programs for window installers, said Kim Flanary, director of quality & manufacturing engineering at Milgard.

The American Architectural Manufacturers Association (AAMA) recently recognized Milgard Windows & Doors with the Chairmans Award, their highest company honor, at their 80th Annual Conference.

The Chairmans Award is awarded to an AAMA member company by the outgoing Chairman of the Board for their outstanding commitment and dedication supporting the association and the fenestration industry.

Milgard joined AAMA in 1965 with a focus on education, product certification requirements and helping shape industry standards for window installation field testing.

Over the years, Milgard has partnered with AAMA to create training and certification programs for window installers, said Kim Flanary, director of quality & manufacturing engineering at Milgard (pictured at left with Chris Roderick). We also helped develop a structured, problem solving approach to forensic field evaluation and testing.

The window industry has truly benefited from the work Milgard has done with AAMA over their many years of membership and service, said Mike DeSoto, Chairman of the AAMA Board.

AAMA is known for their long history of industry leadership with their development of window and door quality standards. An AAMA Gold Label denotes a product has met their strict performance requirements, as tested by a third party. Milgard window and patio doors meet these high standards, demonstrating successful product performance.

To learn more about AAMA Gold Label criteria for high quality windows visit milgard.com/Quality.

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.

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These recognitions reflect the success our trade event has had in the creative arts industry, and we are looking forward to another great show in 2018." - Mark Hill, President & Chief Executive Officer, AFCI.

The Association For Creative Industries (AFCI) is pleased to share recognitions it has received for Creativation, its annual trade event, by Craft Business Magazine and Trade Show Network News (TSNN). Creativation, formerly known as the CHA MEGA Conference & Trade Show, won the Craft Business Award for Best Marketing Campaign and made TSNNs Top 250 Trade Shows List. Both honors were announced in the past month.

We are appreciative and thrilled about the acknowledgements Creativation has received by these two leading and respected publications, said Mark Hill, President & Chief Executive Officer, AFCI. These recognitions reflect the success our trade event has had in the creative arts industry, and we are looking forward to another great show in 2018.

Craft Business is a trade magazine for craft and hobby retailers that is published eight times annually and has a circulation of more than 7,000 U.K. copies per issue. The Craft Business Awards have been supporting the craft industry for 11 years awarding many brands for the excellent service and innovation they bring to the industry.

TSNN, a leading news and online resource for the trade show, exhibition and event industry, gathers information from show management and available data to annually rank the shows by net square footage. Creativation was ranked number 167 on the list, and is the largest trade show in North America dedicated to the international creative arts industry.

Creativation 2018 will take place January 18-22 at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, AZ. Education will begin on January 18 and the trade show will open January 20-22. Companies interested in exhibiting should contact Nadine Schwartz, Director of Sales & Sponsorships, at (201) 835-1203 or nschwartz(at)afci(dot)global or Julie Wagner, Sales Representative, at (201) 835-1232 or jwagner(at)afci(dot)global.

For more information about attending or exhibiting, visit http://www.CreativationShow.org.

ABOUT THE ASSOCIATION FOR CREATIVE INDUSTRIES

The Association For Creative Industries (AFCI) is the premier trade association for the global creative arts products industries. AFCI strives to deliver innovative high value services as we support our Members who provide products and services to educate, entertain, and inspire creative consumers. Our Members include the manufacturers, retailers, distributors, designers, educators, digital content providers, professional makers and DIYers, and other creative professionals that comprise the creative arts industries around the globe, which is $40 billion+ in the United States alone. For more information about AFCI, membership, or its annual Creativation trade event, visit http://www.afci.global.
ProsperWorks (http://www.prosperworks.com), the #1 recommended CRM solution for Google, today announced that it has won the Cloud Computing Excellence Award from integrated media company TMC (http://www.tmcnet.com). The Cloud Awards program, presented by TMCs Cloud Computing Magazine, celebrates the brightest and best in cloud computing and recognizes companies that have most effectively leveraged cloud computing in their efforts to bring new, differentiated offerings to market.

By automating menial tasks like data entry and integrating across G Suite apps like Gmail, Sheets and Calendar, ProsperWorks helps sales teams close more deals in less time. Built using Google Material Design, ProsperWorks is intuitive and easy to learn  as opposed to traditional CRMs that require lengthy implementation and intensive training.

A great product doesnt have to be complex to be effective, said Jon Lee, co-founder and CEO of ProsperWorks. Users just want a cloud-based solution that saves them time, is easy to use and delivers immediate value. Many CRMs fail to deliver on what sales teams actually want and need from their sales software, so we saw a clear opportunity to differentiate ourselves with a solution that puts usability first.

For more than 20 years, TMC has been honoring technology companies with awards in various categories. Winners represent prominent players in the market who consistently demonstrate the advancement of technologies.

Recognizing leaders in the advancement of cloud computing, TMC is proud to announce ProsperWorks CRM as a recipient of the sixth annual Cloud Computing Excellence Award, said Rich Tehrani, CEO of TMC. ProsperWorks is being honored for their achievement in bringing innovation and excellence to the market, while leveraging the latest technology trends.

About ProsperWorks

ProsperWorks is the #1 CRM for G Suite (formerly Google Apps for Work). ProsperWorks helps companies sell more with a CRM thats simple to use, deeply integrated with G Suite and automated to eliminate tedious data entry. Founded by entrepreneurs Jon Lee and Kelly Cheng, ProsperWorks is based in San Francisco, has more than 75,000 customers and 120 employees, and raised $34M in venture capital financing.

For more information, visit http://www.prosperworks.com.

About Cloud Computing magazine:

Cloud Computing magazine is the industry's definitive source for all things cloud - from public, community, hybrid and private cloud to security and business continuity, and everything in between. This quarterly magazine published by TMC assesses the most important developments in cloud computing not only as they relate to IT, but to the business landscape as a whole.

For more information, please visit: http://cloud-computing.tmcnet.com.

About TMC

Global buyers rely on TMCs content-driven marketplaces to make purchase decisions and navigate markets. This presents branding, thought leadership and lead generation opportunities for vendors/sellers.

Please visit http://www.tmcnet.com for more information.
911Shield Icon We are honored to equip the campus community with this advanced safety technology. With the launch of 911Shield, the campus community now has access to vital safety tools right in the palm of their hands.

St. Marys College of Maryland is launching a new safety app for the College community, entitled 911Shield, with a technology that can accurately locate individuals who are in distress.

Although the College is a safe place, we are always looking for ways to further enhance our suite of safety services. Were excited about launching the 911Shield app because it provides our campus community with greater access to safety resources, said Tressa Setlak, director of public safety.

The primary function of 911Shield is to serve as an emergency communication tool between the College community and campus police. The 911Shield app offers four major features: emergency calling, iReport, Friend Watch, and campus information.

The emergency call feature allows users to access emergency services at the push of a button. Instead of relying solely on emergency poles, which are fixed into place, the campus community now has the ability to signal for emergency assistance 24/7, from anywhere on and off campus, with just a push of their cell phone. The user will be immediately connected with campus police if on campus. Campus police are also automatically provided the users location and any profile information, such as a photo and any medical history that the app user chooses to share. If the user is not on campus, the app can still be used, and the caller is routed to the closest 911 call center.

The iReport feature, which may be used anonymously, allows users to send text messages along with photos and videos directly to the St. Marys College Office of Public Safety for non-emergency situations.

The Friend Watch feature is a peer-to-peer safety service which allows app users who want additional safety to assign a group of friends to look after them during certain activities, such as while jogging alone or walking to and from class.

The 911Shield app will go live on Wednesday, March 29 to coincide with the Colleges Safety Day presented by the Office of Public Safety.

The application is available for free on both Android and iPhone devices.

St. Mary's College of Maryland, designated the Maryland state honors college in 1992, is ranked one of the best public liberal arts schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Approximately 1,800 students attend the college, nestled on the St. Mary's River in Southern Maryland.

About 911Cellular

911Cellular is the technological leader of smartphone-enabled public safety communications tools serving universities, schools, hospitals, municipalities and other large institutions. Founded and led by active law enforcement professionals, the company leverages advanced technologies and law-enforcement and safety data to develop solutions that save lives and reduce enterprise costs.
Visiun is pleased to announce the formation of a new Advisory Board, bringing together experts in the laboratory industry to provide input and perspective to the fast-changing environment of the hospital laboratory and Visiuns leading laboratory analytics tool, Performance Insight.

The first member of the newly formed panel is Denise Uettwiller-Geiger, Ph.D., DLM(ASCP), award-winning Clinical Chemist, Director of Clinical Trials at John T Mather Hospital, and author of more than 80 clinical journal articles. Dr. Uettwiller-Geiger works in a laboratory that processes more than 2.4 million tests per year, assists with new technology and menu expansion, and serves as principal investigator for clinical trials in the areas of infectious disease, cardiac, point of care, and other new technologies. She also provides expert education, guidance and consultation to clinicians.

As the first member of Visiuns Advisory Board, Dr. Uettwiller-Geiger will use her expertise to provide strategic advice and recommendations to the expansion of Performance Insight and how it can best support laboratory management in improving operational performance most effectively. Visiun is pleased to welcome Dr. Uettwiller-Geiger as the first member of our new Advisory Panel, says Tom Joseph, Visiun President and CEO. We look forward to working with Dr. Uettwiller-Geiger and receiving thoughtful guidance and recommendations from an industry leader like herself so we can best serve the laboratory community.

Dr. Uettwiller-Geiger received her Master of Health Sciences and an Advanced Certificate in Health Care Management, from the W. Averall Harriman School for Policy and Management, from Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, and a PhD in Biomedical Science from Pacific Western University, Brentwood, California. In 2010, she received the American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC) Management Sciences Abstract Award for Outstanding Project; the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry (NACB) Distinguished Abstract Award; and the Brookhavens Womens Recognition Award for Science. In 2011, she received the Best Lab Practice Award from American Society of Clinical Pathology (ASCP) and the Siemens 2011 Inspired Healthcare Outcomes Award for her work in reducing MRSA infection rates. In 2015, she received the ICE Award (Increasing Clinical Effectiveness) from the Clinical Laboratory Management Association for her work in reducing hospital acquired infections.

Dr. Uettwiller-Geigers Recent Publications:

Spencer, M., Uettwiller-Geiger, D., Sanguinet, J., Johnson, H. B., & Graham, D. (2016). Infection preventionists and laboratorians: Case studies on successful collaboration. American Journal of Infection Control, 44(9), 964-968.

Christenson, R. H., Jacobs, E., Uettwiller-Geiger, D., Estey, M. P., Lewandrowski, K., Koshy, T., Kupfer, K., Li, Y., & Wesenber, J. (2017). Comparison of 13 Commercially Available Cardiac Troponin Assays in a Multicenter North American Study. The Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine, 1(5), 544-561.

Uettwiller-Geiger, D., Vijayendran, R., Kellum, J, A., & Fitzgerald, R. L. (2016). Analytical characteristics of a biomarker-based risk assessment test for acute kidney injury (AKI). Clinical Chimica Acta, (455), 93-98.

About Visiun, Inc.

Visiun, Inc. is the leading provider of performance analytics to the laboratory industry. Headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Visiun has been providing services to the laboratory industry for over six years, with hundreds of laboratories installed across the United States. Performance Insight, Visiun's core product, provides laboratory managers with a comprehensive suite of analytics that deliver immediate improvements in performance, efficiency, and quality. For more information, please visit http://www.visiun.com.
When the Communist-aligned Khmer Rouge asserted their regime over Cambodia in 1975, they enacted a country-wide genocide that ended in the deaths of nearly three million people. Their infamous Killing Fields left 20-year-old Vannead Horn the lone survivor of his family.

On the back of his familys sacrifice, Horn escaped one of the worlds worst massacre to foster a life filled with love and hope. He shares his story in The Spirit of a Fighter: From Cambodia, Victim of the Khmer Rouge Genocide, to France then USA.

Horn pens The Spirit of a Fighter with heartbreaking descriptions of the genocide that consumed his country in the shadows of the Cold War. He narrates his desperate flee to escape prosecution with nothing but his wife, child, and resolve to honor his family.

My family literally gave their lives to ensure I would have a future, Horn said. Everything I have done since then, including obtaining my engineering degree, starting my own business, and writing this book, have been done in their name.

With the Spirit of a Fighter, the author highlights the power of love and how family bonds persist even after death.

The Spirit of a Fighter: From Cambodia, Victim of the Khmer Rouge Genocide, to France then USA

By Vannead Horn

ISBN: 9781524645939 (hardcover) 9781524645922 (softcover) 9781524645915 (e-book)

Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and AuthorHouse

About the author

Vannead Horn escaped the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields in Cambodia at age 20. He fled to France where he obtained his masters in engineering and later moved to the United States, working as a engineer. Together with his wife, the two raised three children and opened their own doughnut shop in San Diego where they remain today.

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Review Copies & Interview Requests:

LAVIDGE  Phoenix

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jbrazzale(at)lavidge.com

General Inquiries:

LAVIDGE  Phoenix

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480-998-2600 x 586

swilliams(at)lavdige.com
Today, Coronado Brewing Company is excited to announce a new partnership with the Surfrider Foundation, the leading nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of the coasts, with the launch of a new collaboration beer, CoastWise Session IPA. In line with Coronado Brewing Companys brand mantra to Stay Coastal, a portion of the proceeds will support Surfrider Foundations mission of protecting the ocean, waves and beaches. CoastWise is the latest addition to the companys core lineup, and will be available in retail locations throughout Coronados distribution network starting April 1, 2017. In addition to the proceeds from beer sales, the company is also hosting a series of beach cleanups leading up to Earth Day on April 22.

As a local brewery with coastal roots, were thrilled to partner with the Surfrider Foundation to help support the protection of our ocean and shorelines, said Brandon Richards, COO, Coronado Brewing Company. Since founding Coronado Brewing Company 21 years ago on Coronado Island, weve been continually inspired by the ocean lifestyle, and we felt this was a natural partnership that gives consumers an opportunity to directly support the protection of the coasts through the CoastWise collaboration.

CoastWise Session IPA is brewed with a blend of Mosaic and Sorachi Ace, giving the beer bright tropical and citrus notes, with a lingering, dry bitterness. At 5% ABV, CoastWise is the perfect session beer, and the recyclable can makes it the ultimate beverage to enjoy outdoors this summer. We had a lot of fun bringing this brand to life and we think the art and the message will resonate with our customers, said Richards. The hand-sketched artwork on the can embodies a playful and edgy version of Poseidon, protector of the sea and nod to Coronados mermaid roots.

Were excited about this amazing partnership with Coronado Brewing Company that will support our work to keep our coasts clean and accessible, said Dr. Chad Nelsen, CEO of the Surfrider Foundation. Like Surfrider, Coronado Brewing Company is committed to the protection of our coasts and every purchase directly supports Surfriders mission.

In time for spring, CoastWise will be available on draft and in can six-packs starting April 1 in the primary regions of California, Illinois and North Carolina, and will expand to additional states throughout the companys distribution network. Additionally, Coronado partnered with Thinfilm to create smart coasters designed to tell the story of the Surfrider collaboration through a novel digital experience launched via a simple tap of a smartphone.

For more information and a video about the CoastWise partnership, visit http://www.coronadobrewing.com/coastwise and for more ways to protect the ocean, waves and beaches, visit Surfrider.org. Stay Coastal. Cheers.

Video:

http://ow.ly/o5RN30aiIOf

Hi-Res Images:

http://ow.ly/dbRW30aiJpq

Media contacts:

Contact: Melody Crisp // Melissa Mefford

Coronado Brewing Company // Surfrider Foundation

melodyc(at)coronadobrewing(dot)com // mmefford(at)surfrider(dot)org

About Coronado Brewing Company

In 1996, when craft beer was still a foreign term and San Diego County was home to only a handful of breweries, the Chapman brothers, Ron and Rick, opened a brewpub in their hometown of Coronado. Today Coronado Brewing stays true to its San Diego roots, brewing a diverse portfolio specializing in abundantly hoppy West Coast-style ales, available in 19 US states and 12 countries. In addition to the long-established pub in Coronado, the company operates a tasting room inside its San Diego production facility, and a tasting room and restaurant in Imperial Beach, California. Coronado Brewing Company is the proud recipient of one of the brewing industry's most prestigious awardsWorld Beer Cup Champion Brewery and Brewmaster for a Mid-Size Brewing Company, 2014.

Website: http://coronadobrewing.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coronadobrewingcompany/

Instagram: @CoronadoBrewing

Twitter: @CoronadoBrewing

#MermaidSighting

#StayCoastal

About Surfrider Foundation

The Surfrider Foundation is a non-profit grassroots organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of our worlds oceans, waves and beaches through a powerful activist network. Founded in 1984 by a handful of visionary surfers in Malibu, California, the Surfrider Foundation now maintains over 500,000 supporters, activists and members, with more than 80 volunteer-led chapters and 60 clubs in the U.S., and more than 400 victories protecting our coasts. Learn more at surfrider.org.

Website: http://surfrider.org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/surfrider

Instagram: @surfrider

Twitter: @surfrider

#LongLiveTheBeach

#protectandenjoy
Our success and longevity is due not only to the ongoing advancements and continuous innovation of our products, but also to the forward-thinking people who have made it possible.

KUBRA, a leading customer experience management solution provider, today announced the celebration of the company's 25th anniversary with a new "Future Forward" campaign. The campaign will include employee and client initiatives to underscore both the companys industry-leading position and the future vision of KUBRA.

Its with great pride that I join our employees, clients and partners in celebrating KUBRA's 25th anniversary, said Rick Watkin, CEO and President. Our success and longevity is due not only to the ongoing advancements and continuous innovation of our products, but also to the forward-thinking people who have made it possible.

KUBRA will kick off its Future Forward campaign and anniversary celebrations March 28 in San Diego at the companys iConnect Client Conference. Throughout the year, the company will show its commitment to future generations by working with charitable organizations focused on STEM education designed to help bridge the skills gap between todays workforce and those required in the future.

Founded in 1992 in Mississauga, Ontario, KUBRA was created to receive data for the production and mailing of bills, invoices and statements as an outsourced service for B2B businesses. Throughout the following years, KUBRA rapidly expanded its solutions and created new products to support its growing client base and to cement the companys status as a leader in billing and payment technology. In 1999, KUBRA expanded into the U.S. market and subsequently moved away from its legacy B2B and newspaper clients to focus on serving the U.S. utility space including water, gas, electric and waste management providers.

KUBRA went on to launch a number of industry-leading customer experience products, including its:



KUBRA iDoxs e-billing solution providing bill presentment and credit card payments in 1999

KUBRA EZ-PAY on-demand payment solution in 2004

Secure email bill delivery and payment offering in 2005

Mobile e-billing solutions including SMS, mobile apps and mobile web in 2009

B2B e-billing solution for commercial and industrial clients in 2012

In-person payment solutions including self-serve kiosks and retail cash payments in 2015

Automated alerts and preference management, comprehensive mobile apps and customer-facing utility maps in 2016

Over the years, KUBRA has pivoted its business from an Interactions company to a Customer Experience Management organization, and today provides more than one billion customer experience interactions annually through deployments at more than 550 utility, insurance and government clients.

For more information and to view a timeline of the evolution of KUBRA, visit http://www.kubra.com/25years.

About KUBRA

KUBRA provides customer experience management solutions to some of the largest utility, insurance and government entities across North America. Our portfolio of meter-to-cash and outage communication solutions includes billing and payment, mapping, mobile apps and proactive communications solutions for customers. With more than one billion customer experiences annually, KUBRA provides performance-driven value to more than 550 clients every day. KUBRA is an operating subsidiary of the Hearst Corporation. Visit http://www.kubra.com for more information.
Astrapi Corporation presented Spiral Modulation and derivatives Instantaneous Spectrum Analysis (ISA) and Spiral Polynomial Division Multiplexing (SPDM) to a team of United States Patent Examiners at the University of Texas at Dallas Venture Development Center. The Site Experience Education (SEE) program was first instituted in 2014 and introduces Patent Examiners from around the country to emerging companies with state-of-the-art technology developments.

The SEE program provides USPTO Patent Examiners with the opportunity to learn about new and highly innovative technologies like spiral modulation directly from the inventors. This communication provides the Patent Examiners with a better understanding of groundbreaking technologies that are likely to produce many patents covering fundamentally new capabilities. Astrapis spiral modulation is securing ongoing industry interest due to concerns with increasing costs associated with meeting customer demands for greaterspectralgreater spectral capacity, improved signal synchronization, extended battery life and power-related issues as well as interference mitigation.

Astrapi currently has over forty patents, issued, pending, filed provisionally and covered under the international Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) among ten distinct patent families. Astrapis Spiral Modulation provides a firm theoretical basis for transmitting communication signals using non-stationary spectrum. Classical channel capacity theory implicitly assumes that signals have a spectrum which is stationary over a particular evaluation period. By challenging this assumption, Astrapi opens the door to much higher spectral efficiencies than were previously thought possible. It also has potential applications in other areas including coherent interference rejection and secure communications.

We are delighted to host the USPTO," said Dr. Jerrold Prothero, Astrapi Founder and CEO. Tim Maier, our intellectual property counsel informed us of the invitation. Tim is with the firm of Maier & Maier, PLLC in Alexandria, Virginia, located down the street from the patent office. Our Intellectual property allows Astrapi to control and entirely new field  spiral modulation. Spiral modulation addresses an acute global pain  the spectrum crisis. The spectrum crisis addresses four massive markets  satellite, defense, wireless and IoT.

ABOUT Astrapi Corporation

Astrapi is the pioneer of spiral-based signal modulation, which opens an unexplored area for innovation at the core of telecommunications. Based on a generalization of Eulers formula, the foundational mathematics for telecom, Astrapi provides fundamentally new ways to design the symbol waveforms used to encode digital transmissions. By applying new mathematics to signal modulation, Astrapi is able to improve the trade-off between the four fundamental parameters in telecommunications: bandwidth, signal power, data throughput, and error rate. The resulting efficiency translates into higher spectral performance with more bits available at a lower cost. Astrapis R&D is partially funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

http://www.astrapi-corp.com

ABOUT USPTO Site Experience Education (SEE) program

The SEE Program presents an opportunity for organizations to provide patent examiners with technical training first-hand from innovators, scientists, engineers, and experts working directly in the various technologies examined throughout the USPTO. The USPTO funds travel costs for patent examiner Site Experience Education to commercial, industrial, and academic institutions within the continental U.S. The organizations who volunteer to host these visits contribute to improving the quality of patent examination by keeping patent examiners updated on the latest technologies and innovations in their field of examination. Participating organizations have to chance to communicate directly with patent examiners and gain a greater understanding of the importance of the patent system and how it works.

https://www.uspto.gov/patent/initiatives/site-experience-education-see-program.html#step1

ABOUT Maier & Maier, PLLC

Maier & Maier PLLC is an intellectual property law firm headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia next to the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Maier and Maier PLLC was founded in 2006 by brothers Timothy and Christopher Maier. Timothy and Christopher each spent several years working in various areas of intellectual property law, including private practice and for the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The brothers modeled the firm after the Oblon, Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt firm, of which their father was a founding partner. The Maier name is an internationally known and trusted name in Intellectual Property Law.

Maier & Maier is dedicated to providing outstanding legal counsel and representation in matters pertaining to patents, trademarks, copyrights, and Intellectual Property Law. The firms professional staff holds degrees in diversified technological backgrounds and experience in both the private sector and at the USPTO. Over the years, the firm has made a name for itself by demonstrating high-quality and effective service with personal attention and communication.

https://maierandmaier.com/about/
We are extremely proud and grateful to receive this award from Governor Holcomb.

Indiana Limestone Company was honored March 27 by the Indiana Economic Development Corporation with its Governors Half Century Business award, recognizing more than 50 years of business operation. Governor Eric J. Holcomb presented the award to Indiana Limestone CEO Tom Quigley in a ceremony at the state house in Indianapolis.

"Today, we honor Indiana businesses that have withstood the test of time, helping to drive Indiana's economy forward, Governor Holcomb said. "I am thrilled to celebrate this year's honorees and their integral role in building one of the nation's best business climates. Together, I'm confident we will continue to take Indiana to the next level, ensuring Indiana is the best place to start a business, grow a business and get a job."

The Governors Half Century and Century Business Awards honor Hoosier businesses that have remained in operation for a minimum of 50 or 100 consecutive years and have also demonstrated a commitment to community service. More than 1,400 companies from across the state have been recognized during the 26-year history of the award.

At yesterdays event, the IEDC singled out 34 distinguished companies who display an impressive combination of longevity and outstanding municipal citizenship.

Indiana Limestone Company was founded 91 years ago in Lawrence County. Predecessor firms actually operated quarries in the region since the 1800s. The company has provided the material in iconic structures such as the Empire State Building, the National Cathedral, the Pentagon, more than half the state capitols in the U.S., Yankee Stadium, and 15 Central Park West in New York City.

Our limestone products are quarried from one of the worlds premier deposits of this beautiful, durable natural resource, said Quigley. For many decades, architects and builders have understood the lasting value of Indiana Limestone and incorporated it into many famous structures.

But the real foundation of a company that survives for so long is the people of our state. Its only by their dedication, ingenuity, and sheer hard work that a company with its roots in the 19th Century can still be going strong in the 21st. We are extremely proud and grateful to receive this award from Governor Holcomb.

For more on Indiana Limestone Company and its products, visit indianalimestonecompany.com.

About IEDC

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) leads the state of Indianas economic development efforts, helping businesses launch, grow, and locate in the state. Governed by a 12-member board chaired by Governor Eric J. Holcomb, the IEDC manages many initiatives, including performance-based tax credits, workforce training grants, innovation and entrepreneurship resources, public infrastructure assistance, and talent attraction and retention efforts. For more information about the IEDC, visit http://www.iedc.in.gov.

About Indiana Limestone Company

Indiana Limestone Company is unmatched as the premier supplier of Indiana Limestone in a range of beautiful and lasting building products. Founded in 1926 (with predecessor firms that had been quarrying limestone since the mid-1800s), ILCO today remains the provider of choice for this internationally renowned natural stone. Throughout an illustrious history in which its stone has made such iconic structures as the Empire State Building, National Cathedral, and the Pentagon, ILCO has reliably provided the highest quality products and services carefully tailored to the needs of the market with an environmental, natural focus.
Chicago-based Signature Bank has a firmly established foothold in middle-market banking in Chicago and is now expanding to Milwaukee. The privately-held business bank founded in 2006 by three career commercial bankers recently hired Milwaukee native Michael G. Weber as Vice President of Commercial Lending. Mr. Weber will manage Signature Banks new loan production office located in downtown Milwaukee.

Weber has more than ten years of commercial banking experience and comes to Signature Bank from Associated Bank where he served in a variety of roles, most recently as Vice President in Corporate Banking. He was responsible for a large loan portfolio working primarily with commercial and industrial companies with annual revenues in excess of $20 million.

Weber was drawn to Signature Bank because of the unique opportunity to expand the business in his home city. I think the Milwaukee market will respond well to the way Signature Bank does business, said Weber. I wanted to work for an organization that promises quick turnaround time and really means it. Its rare for a bank to be as nimble as Signature, where the Co-Founders of the institution are readily available and actively involved in making decisions on deals.

Weber has a B.S. in Business from Indiana University Kelley School of Business and will focus primarily on middle-market businesses in the Milwaukee area and beyond.

Expanding to Milwaukee makes sense for Signature Bank, said Signature Bank CEO and Co-Founder Mick ORourke. As a proud alum of Marquette University, I started my banking career in Milwaukee and have maintained strong relationships with friends, customers, and shareholders in the area. We look forward to expanding the reach of Signature Bank there.

Signature Bank is a full-service commercial bank focused exclusively on serving the needs of privately owned businesses and their owners.

--

About Signature Bank

Signature Bank is wholly owned by Signature Bancorporation, Inc. Signature Bancorporation is the largest privately funded de novo bank holding company in Illinois. Based in Chicago, Signature Bank specializes in middle-market commercial banking and is a full-service retail bank offering a full breadth of financial product lines to consumers. Signature Bank offers a unique balance of relationship-driven service with leading-edge technology to provide customers with the personalization they expect from a community bank and the technology capabilities they demand from a national bank.

Visit Signature Bank online at http://www.signature-bank.com.
TN HIMSS Summit of the Southeast at Health:Further Festival 2017 Together, we take a step forward towards creating the most important annual gathering in the country focused on the future of health. - Marcus Whitney, Founder and CEO of Health:Further.

Today the Tennessee HIMSS Chapter and Health:Further announce a collaborative partnership to conduct the annual TN HIMSS Summit of the Southeast at the newly expanded Health:Further Festival at the Music City Center in Nashville on August 22-25, 2017. To offer more education and professional development content, Health:Further will be expanding this year to a unique, four-day festival-style event and TN HIMSS will be the exclusive health IT programming partner this year.

This will be the ninth year of the TN HIMSS Summit of the Southeast and represents an opportunity for both TN HIMSS and Health:Further to collaborate in delivering thought-provoking content from healthcare industry leaders and visionaries. This years Summit will provide access to industry-leading innovators, health IT professionals, clinicians, and entrepreneurs with two days of education and professional networking, within the four-day Health:Further festival. Combining these two brands and events ensures an outstanding experience for the collective participants and sponsors, with networking and education developed exclusively for healthcare professionals and business leaders.

Health:Further and the TN HIMSS Summit of the Southeast are the foremost healthcare conferences in the region. Delivering the Summit of the Southeast as part of the new format of the Health:Further Festival will provide a significant benefit for our participants, members and sponsors, said Tommy Lewis, President of TN HIMSS. By bringing these two great events together, we can focus on excellent content and a Music City type of experience for attendees and sponsors alike.

TN HIMSS brings credibility in health IT both locally and nationally, while Health:Further is committed to delivering a one-of-a-kind future of health festival experience for participants. By joining forces, economies of scale can be achieved with a focus on delivering an enhanced event experience with top-tier content and speakers, maximizing time and resources for attendees and sponsors.

We couldnt be happier about our partnership with TN HIMSS. Summit of the Southeast is a strong brand, and for nearly a decade has led the way in healthcare technology conferences in Tennessee. Uniting the TN HIMSS expertise with Health:Further is a great value add for our combined audience and will be a unifying force for continued strength of the healthcare industry in our region, said Marcus Whitney, Founder and CEO of Health:Further. Together, we take a step forward towards creating the most important annual gathering in the country focused on the future of health.

For more information and updates, or to register for the event, please visit http://www.healthfurther.com or the Summit of the Southeast, http://www.summitofthesoutheast.org.
Donald J. Tata, P.E. Don was an incredible person, a brilliant engineer, and a lifelong friend. He dedicated his talents and drive to Tata & Howard for the past 25 years, and his presence is already greatly missed.

The Tata & Howard family is mourning the loss of the company's co-founder and CEO, Donald J. Tata, P.E., 63. Mr. Tata died at home on March 25, 2017 after a valiant battle with cancer.

Tata & Howard Senior Vice President and co-founder Paul B. Howard, P.E. said, "Don was an incredible person, a brilliant engineer, and a lifelong friend. He dedicated his talents and drive to Tata & Howard for the past 25 years, and his presence is already greatly missed. His determination, integrity, passion for excellence, and commitment to the firm will continue to inspire all of us at Tata & Howard. On behalf of the entire Tata & Howard team, we send our deepest sympathies to his wife, their two children, and three grandchildren."

Don Tata founded Tata & Howard in 1992, and he served as President until last November when the companys Board of Directors named Karen L. Gracey, P.E. and Jenna W. Rzasa, P.E. as Co-Presidents, and Tata as CEO. Under his leadership, Tata & Howard has grown to a nearly 70-person firm with nine offices in seven states, with recent expansion into Ontario, Canada. In 2014, the firm converted to a 100% employee-owned company and has embraced the positivity of ESOP culture. Don was instrumental in determining the firms core values of integrity, efficiency, client satisfaction, positive attitude, and teamwork, which the company has upheld throughout its 25 years in business. Don was also a true philanthropist and generously supported the many causes to which Tata & Howard donated, including Water For People, the Navajo Water Project, and the Jimmy Fund. While he dedicated much of his life to the firm he founded, Don always made time for his family and the various activities they enjoyed together.

He earned his Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts, and his Master of Science in Environmental Engineering from Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts. He held professional engineer licenses in Arizona, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Texas, and Vermont. Don received the William H. McGuiness award from Massachusetts Water Works Association for his knowledge, contributions, and accomplishments in the water works industry as well as outstanding service to the Association.

Gracey and Rzasa will jointly oversee daily operations and corporate strategy, and will continue to lead the organization with the same core values and excellence established by Mr. Tata. The firm has also appointed Kenneth M. Fischer, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, to the Board of Directors.

About Tata & Howard, Inc.

Founded in 1992, Tata & Howard, Inc. is a 100% employee-owned water, wastewater, stormwater, and environmental services consulting engineering firm dedicated to consistently delivering cost-effective, innovative project solutions. Working with clients as a trusted partner, Tata & Howard provides a full range of environmental engineering services, from concept to completion, as well as sustainable solutions including low impact development and LEED certified building. Tata & Howard has gained a solid reputation as an industry leader in the Northeast by bringing knowledge, integrity, and dedicated service to all sized markets, both public and private. With offices in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Arizona, and Texas, Tata & Howards national expansion has included projects in Louisiana, New Mexico, New York, and Pennsylvania. For more information, please visit http://www.tataandhoward.com.
Theo Rossi's 'Ounce Water' Named Official Bottled Water Partner of Empire Outlets. Courtesy Ounce Water/ Rodney Fray We are proud to have Ounce Water as a feature of Empire Outlets as the venue attracts millions of people to enjoy Staten Islands vibrant North Shore, said Theo Rossi.

New York-based premium bottled water company OUNCE WATER has been named the official bottled water partner of Empire Outlets in Staten Island, NY. Announced today by OUNCE WATER Founder/ CEO, Theo Rossi, well known for his roles on Netflixs Marvels Luke Cage and FXs Sons of Anarchy along with BFC Partners, the partnership brings together one of the fastest growing premium bottled water companies and New Yorks newest premier shopping and dining destination. Expected to open in late 2017, Empire Outlets is New York Citys first and only retail outlet center.

Rossis new line of premium bottled water will become Empire Outlets official bottled water supplier and will be sold throughout the retail center. With its innovative labeling system, OUNCE WATER makes healthy habits easier

We are proud to have Ounce Water as a feature of Empire Outlets as the venue attracts millions of people to enjoy Staten Islands vibrant North Shore, said Theo Rossi.

OUNCE WATER is making healthy habits easier. With a goal of consuming 80 ounces of water per day, OUNCE WATER does the math for you. Simply drink two OUNCE WATER 40oz bottles or four OUNCE WATER 20oz bottles of premium Natural Spring Water and youll reach your daily goal. OUNCE WATER flows from a pristine underground water source protected by Mother Nature for more than 600 million years. OUNCE WATER has a rich mineral composition, a neutral pH, is free from additives and never chemically processed, giving it an unparalleled fresh taste. OUNCE WATER is hydration made easy.

Empire Outlets will include around 100 designer outlet retailers, a 190-room hotel with a rooftop venue and a 1,250-space parking garage. Eateries are flocking to Empire Outlets 40,000-square-foot food and beverage deck, which offers extraordinary views of the Manhattan skyline.

Rossi and BFC Partners also announced Rossis role as brand ambassador for Empire Outlets. Rossi, a Staten Island native, will champion the economic revitalization of the North Shore and spread the word about Empire Outlets unparalleled mix of world-class retail and food and beverage options.

Theo and his family represent the heart of Staten Island and its our honor to have a hometown hero on the Empire Outlets team, said Joseph Ferrara, principal at BFC Partners, the developer of Empire Outlets. We cant wait to show everyone what Staten Island can achieve when we combine the best of retail and dining with the perfect location.

Located next to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal and the forthcoming New York Wheel, the tallest observation wheel in the Western hemisphere, Empire Outlets is the future of shopping and dining for New Yorkers and visitors from around the world. Major stores expected to open at Empire Outlets include H&M, Nordstrom Rack, Banana Republic, NIKE Factory, Gap Factory and Columbia Sporting Goods.

Food and beverage shops expected to open at Empire Outlets include Two Boots Pizza, Mighty Quinns Barbeque, Nathans Famous, Starbucks, Haagen-Dazs and MRKTPL, Staten Islands first-ever artisanal food hall.

About Ounce Water

OUNCE WATER is one of the fastest growing premium bottled water companies. Founded by actor, producer, and philanthropist Theo Rossi with headquarters in New York City, OUNCE WATER is making healthy habits easier. With a goal of consuming 80 ounces of water per day, OUNCE WATER does the math for you. Simply drink two OUNCE WATER 40oz bottles or four OUNCE WATER 20oz bottles of premium Natural Spring Water and youll reach your daily goal. OUNCE WATER is naturally balanced and free from additives and chemical processing. OUNCE WATER owes its freshness to its pristine underground water source protected by Mother Nature for more than 600 million years. Ounce Water is available for in-store purchase in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, and for home or office delivery across the United States via Amazon.com with Amazon Prime. http://GetOUNCED.com @getounced



About Empire Outlets

BFC Partners Empire Outlets will be an approximately 340,000 square foot retail complex, comprised of 100 designer outlet retailers and a variety of restaurants and cafes. Plans also include a 190-room hotel that will provide extraordinary views of the Manhattan skyline. BFC Partners will also build a 1,250-space structured parking garage below the retail and hotel components to accommodate commuters and tourists alike. Designed by SHoP Architects, Empire Outlets will feature expansive open corridors to the water, contemporary materials reflective of the industrial waterfront, and a sweeping sustainable green roof visible from the harbor. Celebratory vertical circulation elements such as grand staircases, elevators, and streamlined escalators will guide shoppers as they move from the waterfront up to Richmond Terrace, creating a dynamic and easily navigated pedestrian experience.

For more information about Empire Outlets New York City, please visit http://www.empireoutletsnyc.com. Find us on Twitter @EmpireOutlets.

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Kaptivo Inc, the company that develops advanced collaboration products in the corporate and education industries, today announced it will be integrating its flagship product with video communications pioneer, Blue Jeans Network. Kaptivo is a new enterprise IoT device that transforms any standard dry-erase whiteboard into an online collaboration system. BlueJeans has become one of Kaptivos initial partners to further enhance meeting experiences.

BlueJeans is dedicated to creating superior video meeting experiences so that employees, customers, and partners can easily collaborate from anywhere, said Mark Strassman, Chief Product Officer at Blue Jeans Network. Whiteboarding is an essential collaboration tool for meetings, but virtual whiteboards have failed to deliver for remote meeting attendees. Kaptivo makes it easy for BlueJeans meeting participants to collaborate using the physical whiteboard thats already in all conference rooms, making any standard whiteboard a part of their digital meeting workflow.

We have built a world class IoT Device to meet the demanding nature of any enterprise. Integrating Kaptivo to provide a seamless user experience within the BlueJeans video communications environment will offer all the advantages of the standard product but in a much more streamlined and instant on fashion. said Nic Lawrence, CEO and Co-Founder of Kaptivo. BlueJeans users work in an accelerated digital and connected world. They understand the importance of the whiteboard as a key productivity tool and do not wish to change successful meeting habits. Kaptivo is a cost-effective solution that meets their needs and will enhance the BlueJeans experience.

Key features of Kaptivos integration with the BlueJeans platform will include:

Easy Share:



Share the live whiteboard image through any BlueJeans video meeting, allowing all participants anywhere to review all whiteboard activity in real-time

Capture & Save:



Automatically capture an image archive of all whiteboard changes

Download and share the timeline of the whiteboard contents as a multi-page presentation. (Determines changes to the board multiple times per second to grab individual snapshots)

Secure:



Meeting access approvals all through the Kaptivo interface

No media storage

Simple Installation and connectivity:



No software to install; intuitive interface

Works with the whiteboards and pens enterprises already own

Kaptivo works with any size of whiteboard or glass board up to 6' x 4' (1.8m x 1.2m). Installing Kaptivo above your whiteboard is as easy as hanging a picture frame and takes less than three minutes.

Kaptivos integration with the BlueJeans platform will be highlighted in booth 1201C at Enterprise Connect March 27-30 in Orlando, Florida. For more details, please visit http://www.kaptivo.com.

About Kaptivo:

Kaptivo is a connected micro-optical camera, housed in a stylish design that sits above any whiteboard. Kaptivo eliminates the need to take notes or pictures of the board. Kaptivo even provides the ability to rewind the whiteboard to a particular point in the meeting to see how an idea developed and share this timeline of content that is generated intelligently as a PDF document.

Kaptivo uses proprietary software and patented computer vision technology to automatically identify and extract only important content while capturing a crisp image archive of all board changes. This means that Kaptivo can eliminate people in front of the whiteboard and other defects, removing board background, reflections and shadows.

For Media Inquiries:

SteveSemenzato(at)kaptivo(dot)com
Building on hundreds of recent collaborations with architects and interior designers, Bendheim is announcing its first color collection for 2017: back-painted glass in soft pastel hues. The trend-sensitive palette is designed for todays health and comfort-focused design models. The collection is composed of 12 nature-inspired hues, from Robins Egg Blue and Pale Green Tea, to Lavender Off-White and Palest Pink.

Bendheims consultative design approach to architectural glass results in close relationships with design creatives throughout the country and hundreds of tailored glass solutions produced each week. This allowed the companys color experts to identify a surge in the demand for pastels in a variety of projects, from restaurants to tech startups.

Pastels are filling design boards across building types and locations, often undetected because of their ability to gently blend in, said Steven Jayson, Vice President of Bendheim. This collection is a direct response to what designers need today.

The company credits pastels popularity to the rise of health and wellness-centered design. The effort to create warmer and more social spaces calls for the use of softer colors and materials. This philosophy guided Bendheim to pair its new pastel palette with its Soft-Etched SatinTech glass. The resulting back-painted glass feels silky-smooth to the touch, with noticeably muted reflections and subtle dimensionality. The durable, maintenance-friendly glass is also anti-glare and kinder to the eye.

As with all Bendheim back-painted glass, the new collection features the companys industry-leading, independently-tested paint formulations. They are designed specifically for architectural glass, and are applied to ultra-clear low-iron glass for precise color matching. The colors are ultra-durable: baked-in and UV-stable. The resulting hard-working glass surfaces are 100% VOC-free and naturally hygienic, enhancing occupant health, comfort, and safety.

We believe we are responsible for developing new, environmentally safe colors and techniques in glass, and were thrilled to deliver this on-trend collection, added Jayson. From the pastel shades to the soft, satin-smooth surfaces, it is an exciting twist on the back-painted glass architects and designers are accustomed to.

Bendheim produces the new Vivid Pastels back-painted glass in its vertically-integrated plant in New Jersey. Typical lead times are 3-4 weeks. The glass can be specified in sizes up to 60 by 120 inches (1.5 by 3 meters), in standard thicknesses of 1/4 (6 mm) or 3/8" (10 mm). An ultra-thin 1/8 (3 mm) thickness is also available; it is ideal for laminated glass applications required to meet strict safety codes and weight limitations, such as elevator interiors.

As a valuable partner, Bendheims team brings decades of specialty architectural glass experience to building and design professionals. To learn more, please visit http://www.bendheim.com.
Litterbox.com Its really about the customer getting a great product on their terms.

AutoPets, manufacturer of the famous Litter-Robot, is excited to announce the launch of Litterbox.com, a new subscription litter service that delivers premium, all natural clay clumping litter to homes, shelters, veterinarians, and catfes across the United States.

Litterbox.com litter is just one ingredient, sodium bentonite, from the plains of Wyoming. This special type of clay exists almost exclusively in the area surrounding the companys 29,000-acre, third generation ranch, giving Litterbox.com access to the best raw material for high-quality clay clumping litter. It naturally exhibits the scent-trapping properties of baking soda, so theres no need to add chemicals or perfumes, and its superior ability to absorb liquids and sequester odor allows it to clump quickly and tightly, making it ideal for cat litter.

Careful production methods, including slowly sun-drying the clay and sifting it for uniform granule size, preserve and optimize the clays natural characteristics. The result is a virtually dust-free, silky-soft, low-tracking, hypoallergenic litter that cats (and cat parents) love. It works ideally in traditional and automatic litter boxes, and wont create a plume of dust when agitated.

Litterbox.com litter is produced according to the principles of conservation and environmental stewardship. From a unique sun-drying process, to heating the facility with renewable energy, to back-filling the land with nutrient-rich soil to encourage native plant growth, Litterbox.com champions environmental sustainability throughout production.

Its really about the customer getting a great product on their terms, states Brad Baxter, President of AutoPets. At Litterbox.com, customers can purchase single bags or customize a subscription plan based on their needs by selecting the amount (in 20, 40, or 60 lb boxes of 20 lb bags) and frequency (every 2, 4, or 8 weeks). Baxter goes on to say, Shipping is free and there are no membership fees or penalties for changing subscription settings. Litterbox.com litter is also available at Litter-Robot.com in 20, 40, or 60 lb quantities (with autoship coming soon).

Litterbox.com supports the work of rescues, shelters, catfes, and other feline-friendly institutions by offering special pricing for large-quantity orders. Interested groups should contact jzuppke@autopets.com for more information.

Litterbox.com is all natural clay clumping litter, delivered. That means no more hauling oversized bags and boxes litter through a store, having it spill in the car, and heaving it to the doorstep; that means no additives, no mess, and no last-minute trips to the store. Customers get just what they need, when they need it, right to their doorsteps. Each delivery arrives in a convenient, re-sealable bag packed inside a branded box with handle for easy transport. Its the high quality, convenient, affordable choice that cats and pet parents will love.
Burwood Group announces the Grand Opening of its newest Operations Center, located at 10680 Treena St. in San Diego, CA. (Photo credit: Cypress Office Properties)

Burwood Group, a leading consulting firm that bridges business strategy and technology solutions, announces the Grand Opening of its newest Operations Center, located at 10680 Treena St. in San Diego, Calif.

The new Operations Center, slated for a Grand Opening on April 13, 2017, is a state-of-the-art facility featuring high-speed and redundant communications infrastructure and the highest security capability, supporting 24/7 operations 365 days a year. It provides Burwood Groups clients industry-leading capabilities ensuring a stable infrastructure, secure environment for data, and the ability to manage disasters and recover from them quickly.

The opening of this Operations Center marks both Burwood Groups 20th year and a major milestone in the companys growth, reaching $100 million in revenue. The companys West Coast team has more than doubled over the past year, spurring the opening of the newest Operation Center here.

Burwood Group has substantially grown our client base, especially in Southern California in the past two years, said Joanna Robinson, Regional Vice President for West Coast Operations. By opening our newest Operations Center in San Diego, were better able to serve our clients and continue to grow. We will also be adding a significant number of jobs to the San Diego market, and providing professional development opportunities and careers for aspiring IT professionals.

I am excited Burwood Group has chosen to base their San Diego operations in Scripps Ranch, said San Diego City Councilman Mark Kersey. Their presence will boost our IT sector and bring new jobs to Scripps Ranch and the entire San Diego region.

With its new Operations Center, Burwood Group remains committed to giving back to the community. Our record of civic engagement in Southern California has included supporting Second Harvest Food Bank and Boys & Girls Club, among others, Joanna Robinson said. We plan to expand these efforts into the San Diego community; for example, at the Grand Opening of the new Operations Center on April 13, well be holding a raffle with all proceeds to benefit the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network..

About Burwood Group

Burwood Group is a systems integrator, helping forward-thinking IT leaders deliver knowledge to the end-user within the organizations unique business context to increase profitability, reduce risk, and enhance customer loyalty. We partner with leading technology and service organizations to provide tailored product and industry solutions. We work to ensure an optimal fit for each individual client. Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Burwood Group serves local, national, and international clients. We pride ourselves in being trusted business advisors to clients by providing smarter solutions that deliver better outcomes. Visit http://www.burwood.com.

For additional information, please contact:

Southern California:

Stephanie Thompson Communications

619-840-7353

stephanie(at)stephaniethompson(dot)com

Chicago:

Priscilla Dave

Content Marketing Manager

312-327-4763

pdave(at)burwood(dot)com
Nomination for the 2017 New England Small Business Innovation Award 'We are proud to be recognized by SBANE as a leader in Innovation through our work supporting Americans with Disabilities." Michael Sanders, Director of Marketing, NTI

National Telecommuting Institute (NTI) has been selected by The Smaller Business Association of New England (SBANE) as a nominee for the 2017 New England Innovation Award. The nomination comes as result of NTIs tireless advocacy work and unique methodology in raising awareness for individuals with disabilities and disabled Veterans.

SBANE has been honoring innovative companies since 1986. Prestigious companies such as Staples, Nantucket Nectars, Ben & Jerrys, Brooks Automation, Genzyme Corporation, KRONOS, and iRobot have all won the New England Innovation Award in the past.

Prior to selecting NTI as a nominee, judges reviewed more than 200 companies. Criteria included:



A compelling idea/technology

The ability to demonstrate significant benefit to users while addressing a market need or creating a new market

Marketplace success measured by profit, volume, growth rate, customer commitments, user reviews, ROI, and/or market impact

The initial step in the judging process of the New England Innovation Awards will be held on Tuesday, March 28th from 5:30 to 8:30 PM at The Conference Center at Bentley University. NTIs Chief Operating Officer, Alan W. Hubbard, and Director of Marketing, Michael T. Sanders, will present to a series of judges the innovations in social media and direct marketing that have led NTI to become such a successful advocate for persons with disabilities. Hubbard and Sanders will discuss NTIs social media efforts, partnerships with like-minded organizations, and public events to advocate equality for Americans with disabilities. Leadership in those areas led to the honoring of NTI by the City of Boston as well as a Proclamation from former President Barack Obama at the end of 2016.

If selected from among the 200 nominated organizations, NTI will proceed to the finalist presentation on Thursday, May 11, 2017, 5:00 to 9:00 PM.

About NTI: National Telecommuting Institute (NTI) is a 501 (c)(3) not-for-profit organization with headquarters in Boston, MA. It has been supporting Americans with disabilities since 1995. NTI provides training and job placements in work-at-home positions across the United States. NTI pioneered staffing virtual call centers with Americans with Disabilities, including Disabled Veterans, who work from home.

About SBANE: The Smaller Business Association of New England, Inc. (SBANE), founded in 1938, is a private not-for-profit association of approximately 600 member companies located throughout a six-state region. SBANE was established to provide a legislative voice for small business at the state and federal levels and to make practical information available to help business owners grow their companies. SBANE runs diverse educational programs each year and has active chapters in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Membership is characterized by a high degree of participation, reflected in a large and dynamic committee structure, addressing a range of topics from international trade to human resources.

Contact:

Michael Sanders

Associate Director of Marketing

617-787-4426 x331

NTI, Inc.,

225 Friend Street

Boston, MA 02114

msanders(at)nticentral(dot)org

http://www.linkedin.com/in/onlinelearning

###
For stroke survivors, returning to a normal routine after leaving the hospital can be the hardest part of recovery. At the Novant Health Stroke Bridge Clinic, a dedicated team of physicians help facilitate the coordination of care for stroke survivors transitioning from the hospital to home.

The hospital can be a very confusing place  and youre receiving a lot of information during your stay, said Dr. Carlene Kingston, neuro-hospitalist and lead physician at the Stroke Bridge Clinic. Sometimes stroke patients need additional assistance post-discharge, whether it is for newly noted needs for outpatient therapies, managing new medications or psychosocial support.

Stroke navigators guide patients and their caregivers through the recovery process, answering questions and helping connect patients with services in the community that can make life easier as they recover. A sympathetic ear and words of encouragement during a challenging recovery can make all the difference for patients. Kingston notes that it can take weeks before some patients are able to have necessary follow-up appointments with their primary care physicians and other specialists, and the Stroke Bridge Clinic helps close that gap.

We ensure that follow-up appointments are made in a timely fashion. We spend time addressing questions that may have been missed when the patient was hospitalized, she said. The Stroke Bridge Clinic allows our patients to have access to a specialized nurse practitioner, neuro-pharmacist and our stroke navigator to help with all of your care moving forward so that we can reduce your risk of stroke in the future.

If you are well enough to leave the hospital but still face serious cognitive or physical challenges, extra attention from talented clinicians who specialize in caring for stroke survivors can make a big difference. The clinic, sharing space with Novant Health Neurology, is located at 1918 Randolph Road, Suite 400, and is open on Tuesday afternoons. Physicians will care for patients in the hospital setting and will see patients in the clinic after discharge.

For more information, please call 704-384-9437.

About Novant Health

Novant Health is an integrated network of physician clinics, outpatient facilities and hospitals that delivers a seamless and convenient healthcare experience to communities in Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. Named in 2016 by Beckers Hospital Review as one of the nations 150 best places to work in healthcare, Novant Health network consists of more than 1,500 physicians and over 25,000 employees that provide care at over 470 locations, including 14 medical centers and hundreds of outpatient facilities and physician clinics. Headquartered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the health system serves more than 4 million patients annually and in 2015 provided more than $706 million in community benefit, including charity care and services. Diversity MBA has recognized the organization as one of the 50 best places for women and managers of diverse background to work and SK&A ranks Novant Health among the top 25 integrated health systems in the nation. Novant Health provides care in Virginia under the joint operating company, Novant Health UVA Health System.

For more information, please visit our website at NovantHealth.org. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
The Duquesne University School of Nursing has forged a partnership with Pearson, the worlds learning company, to increase access to Duquesnes rigorous online nursing degree programs. This partnership will help meet the growing national demand for highly qualified nurses, advanced practice nurses, nurse executives, and nursing faculty. The partnership will focus specifically on the Bachelor of Science in Nursing RN-BSN completion, Master of Science in Nursing (MSN), and Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) programs. Pearson is providing comprehensive online program management services, including marketing, recruitment, student support, helpdesk support, and student retention services.

Partnering with Pearson will enable Duquesne University to rapidly bolster our existing, nationally ranked nursing program and significantly expand the reach of our School of Nursing, said Dr. Mary Ellen Glasgow, dean and professor of the Duquesne University School of Nursing. In doing so, well be well positioned to prepare a greater number of nurses to become expert clinicians and health care leaders dedicated to improving the overall quality of patient care in the rapidly changing profession of nursing.

By 2020, the United States will have an estimated 1.6 million job openings for nurses. Despite this surge in demand, the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a shortfall of 193,000 nursing professionals. The Institute of Medicine also issued a report in 2010 recommending that nurses should achieve higher levels of education to address an increasingly complex health care system.

This initiative extends the remarkable record of breakthroughs in nursing education

achieved by Duquesne University, said Dr. Timothy Austin, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Duquesne. Most significantly, it was our School of Nursing that created the first online Ph.D. in Nursing program in the nation. We anticipate that this new venture will lay the groundwork for rapid growth in online graduate programs in our other schools.

Duquesnes BSN program offers a path for registered nurses with an Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) or a Diploma in Nursing to take the next step in their career by earning a BSN degree. The MSN program is designed to meet the current and future needs of nurses by preparing them to plan, initiate, affect and evaluate change in the health care delivery system; ensure quality patient care; and improve health care outcomes. There are three areas of specialization available at the masters and post-masters certifications: family (individual across the lifespan) nurse practitioner, forensic nursing, and nursing education and faculty role.

The DNP degree enables graduates to transform the health care delivery system and design new systems to improve the context in which health care is offered. This doctorate is designed for nurses seeking a terminal degree in nursing practice and offers an alternative to research-focused doctoral programs, such as the Ph.D. which Duquesne also offers.

Duquesnes School of Nursing is consistently ranked as one of the top schools in online nursing education by U.S. News and World Report. For more information regarding these online nursing programs, please visit the institutions website: http://www.onlinenursing.duq.edu.

We are honored to collaborate with Duquesne University to build on the institutions proven success by providing expanded access to nursing degree programs that are designed to produce more qualified professionals in the critically important health care field, said Todd Hitchcock, senior vice president of online learning services at Pearson.

Pearson provides comprehensive online program management (OPM) services, and partners with more than 40 higher education institutions across the country and around the globe to implement and sustain over 250 undergraduate and graduate programs, which have produced more than 30,000 graduates. In 2016, a total of 6,893 students graduated from programs powered by Pearsons student support and retention services, a component of many OPM partner solutions.

About Duquesne University

Founded in 1878, Duquesne is consistently ranked among the nations top Catholic universities for its award-winning faculty and tradition of academic excellence. Duquesne, a campus of nearly 10,000 graduate and undergraduate students, has been nationally recognized for its academic programs, community service and commitment to sustainability. Follow Duquesne University on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

http://www.duq.edu

About Pearson

Pearson is the worlds learning company, with expertise in educational courseware and assessment, and a range of teaching and learning services powered by technology. Our mission is to help people make progress through access to better learning. We believe that learning opens up opportunities, creating fulfilling careers and better lives. For more, visit http://www.pearson.com.
Heritage at Pennington, an enclave of new two-story townhomes and villas, is coming this Spring to Mercer County. Were excited to offer homebuyers a community of luxury townhomes and villas (master down homes) designed to suit their lifestyles, said Paul Csik, Senior Vice President of American Properties Realty, Inc.

American Properties Realty, Inc. is pleased to announce that Heritage at Pennington will be coming to Pennington this Spring. Heritage at Pennington will feature two-story townhomes and villas located in picturesque Mercer County.

Were excited to offer homebuyers a community of luxury townhomes and villas (master down homes) designed to suit their lifestyles, said Paul Csik, Senior Vice President of American Properties Realty, Inc. These homes are part of a small town, intimate community that you will really enjoy living in.

The homes at Heritage at Pennington offer four, two-story home designs with up to 2,500 sq. ft. of living space including three bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths and one- to two-car garages. Homebuyers can choose between villas with two-car garages and traditional townhomes with a one-car garage. Pricing begins in the low $400s. Homes will also feature master down suites (per plan), open floor plans and designer finishes, said Csik.

Heritage at Pennington is just a short walk from the shops and restaurants of downtown Pennington and offers easy access to I-95, the NJ Turnpike, I-295, I-78, I-287 and Route 1. The community is also part of the highly-rated Hopewell Valley Regional School District. Heritage at Pennington is centrally located near everything Mercer County has to offer, said Csik. Were eager to offer homebuyers a luxury option so close to trendy shops, exciting recreation, great schools and so much more.

To learn more about this new community or to become a Heritage at Pennington VIP, visit http://www.heritageatpennington.com.

About American Properties Realty, Inc.

American Properties Realty, Inc., A Licensed Real Estate Broker, continues its proud 40-year tradition of introducing award winning communities that provide excellent quality, convenient locations and affordable pricing for New Jersey homebuyers. The Principals of American Properties Realty, Inc., have been involved in the creation of residences ranging from luxurious estate homes to master planned communities of apartments, condominiums, townhomes and single-family homes.
Collaborate17 Our Oracle solutions and services go beyond end users' expectations at an affordable cost and were excited to be showcasing our new and updated solutions and services at Collaborate 2017Doris Wong, CEO, Smart ERP Solutions

Smart ERP Solutions, Inc. (SmartERP), announced that it will be showcasing their solutions and services at the Collaborate17 User Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada from April 3 to April 5, to brief Oracle power users and IT decision makers on how they can utilize SmartERPs suite of solutions and services to achieve best-in-class performance. SmartERP will be presenting new and updated solutions and services from their suite of Oracle product offerings including Smart Onboarding, used for U.S. State Department new hires, and efficient consulting services such as migrating on-premise PeopleSoft HCM and Financials applications to a cloud infrastructure. SmartERP will also be presenting specialized sessions for attendees during the conference.

As a Platinum level member of the Oracle PartnerNetwork and developer of solutions and services that enhance and support Oracle applications, the company is dedicated to delivering innovative and leading-edge solutions based on Oracle technology, including Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft and JD Edwards applications as well as Oracle Cloud platform offerings. With proven experience in Oracle, the company aims to help organizations gain insights on ways to enhance business processes through the utilization of SmartERP technology and services combined with Oracle offerings at the upcoming Collaborate 2017 event. Plan now to meet SmartERPs Oracle expert team  book an appointment.

SmartERP has Oracle practices across multiple industries including Public Sector, Financials, Recruiting, Technology, Manufacturing, Construction and many more. These industries are leveraging SmartERPs expertise in Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards (Employee Preboarding, Onboarding and Offboarding, Electronic Personnel Actions Forms, Business Intelligence and Analytics, Application Development, Enterprise Mobility, Security, Compliance and Segregation of Duties, E-Verify/I-9, Financials, CRM, Manufacturing, Order Management, Oracle PeopleSoft Human Capital Management, Oracle PeopleSoft (HCM, Financials, SCM, Campus Solutions, Asset Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Performance Management, Enterprise Portal, PeopleSoft Enterprise Tools & Technology), and Oracle Cloud.

"As a unique organization in the Enterprise Business Applications space, providing software solutions and services, SmartERP enables organizations to develop optimized business processes and a superior user experience enabling increased productivity, cost reductions and a maximized return on their investment, said Doris Wong, CEO, Smart ERP Solutions. Our Oracle solutions and services go beyond end users' expectations at an affordable cost and were excited to be showcasing our new and updated solutions and services at Collaborate 2017.

SmartERP invites organizations to join them at their Collaborate17 education sessions. SmartERPs first session, given by Doris Wong, CEO, SmartERP Solutions, will deliver the PeopleSoft keynote session titled Cloudy Skies Today and Tomorrow, presented on Tuesday April 4, from 2:45PM - 3:45PM. This session will cover a number of cloud and internet technologies and solutions customers can and should leverage today with their current PeopleSoft environments.

SmartERPs second session will feature Elroy Taulton, Manager, Enterprise Applications, Health Management Systems, Inc (HMS) titled Azure Skies for PeopleSoft on the Cloud, presented on Wednesday, April 5, from 4:15 PM - 5:15 PM. This joint session with SmartERP presenters will cover a case study of the migration of PeopleSoft HCM and Financials applications to a cloud infrastructure, hosted on Microsoft Azure. HMS, a leading healthcare provider, sought to achieve efficiency benefits of having their PeopleSoft applications hosted on the cloud. Presenters will cover considerations for moving to the cloud, selecting a cloud provider, and lessons learned in their journey from which others looking to do similarly can benefit. Elements of this session will be included in a webinar on Thursday, March 30 at 10AM PST. Interested parties can register here.

SmartERP will be giving away a GoPro HD cameramake sure to visit them at booth number 815 to enter. The Quest International User Group will announce the winners on the last day of the Collaborate 2017 Conference.

Attendees can reserve a meeting time with SmartERP during Collaborate17 to discuss their ERP organizational needs and goals. Click here to schedule.

About Smart ERP Solutions

Founded by Oracle/PeopleSoft veterans, Smart ERP Solutions is a unique organization in the Enterprise Business Applications space providing innovative, cost-effective, and configurable solutions that efficiently extend the capabilities of ERP systems to meet specific business process needs. SmartERP enables clients to seamlessly integrate their people, processes, applications, and data, across an enterprise, enabling the organization to streamline its operations and support business growth.

About Collaborate17

Technology and Applications Forum for the Oracle Community is where Oracle power users and IT decision makers find practical solutions for today and strategies for tomorrow. This conference empowers users of Oracle business applications and database software to gain greater value from their Oracle investments through real-world education and networking. Created by and for users, COLLABORATE provides a personalized experience alongside functional and technical insight from other experienced professionals. Participants can expand their community and gain direct access to Oracle. COLLABORATE is jointly presented by the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) and Quest International Users Group (Quest).

April 2-6, 2017

Mandalay Bay Convention Center

Las Vegas, Nevada USA

MEDIA CONTACT

Dave Reik

Smart ERP Solutions, Inc.

+1 925 271 0200 Ext:125
A lot of people make a lot of claims, but Grant Cardone practices what he preaches.  Brad Lea

10XGrowthCon, an entrepreneurial business conference held by New York Times best-selling author Grant Cardone, concluded March 19th after 3 full days with over 2,200 entrepreneurs in South Florida plus over 1,000 watching live from around the world. The sold-out event was standing room only and featured 24 top notch expert speakers during 40 sessions held throughout the weekend. Attendees experienced content-rich keynotes, an elegant yacht celebration, exclusive dinners, and countless networking opportunities.

Leading up to 10XGrowthCon we knew it was the most anticipated event in our companys history, said Sheri Hamilton, COO of Cardone Training Technologies. We are extremely proud of the rave reviews we are getting both from attendees as well as the speakers, themselves, and we are already selling tickets to the 10XGrowthCon, which will take place in March 2018 in Miami.

Topics of the conference included wealth creation, motivation, sales training, marketing, branding, growing a business and having success in life. VIP Attendees had unprecedented access to speakers, which included Shark Tanks Daymond John and Kevin Harrington, business strategist Jay Abraham, motivational speaker Les Brown, best-selling author Lewis Howes, and Kobe Bryants trainer Tim Grover among others.

One of the highlights of the conference included an impromptu fundraiser to cover medical expenses for 9-year-old surprise guest and speaker Maddison Bazzo, who has Multi Minicore Congenital Myopathy. Grant Cardone matched every donation and her page exploded from $3,000 to $134,000 in a matter of moments as she and Grant were on stage.

10XGrowthCon is the best entrepreneurial conference Ive ever been to.  Jamie Shanks, Social Selling Expert, Author, and CEO of Sales for Life

10XGrowthCon is the first time Ive got to work with Grant Cardone on anything and its been super fun and top-class the whole way, and I look forward to working more with him.  Russell Brunson, Founder of ClickFunnels

Ive performed all over the world, and 10XGrowthCon was one of the best audiences Ive ever performed for. If you didnt make it this year, you have to make it next year  James Barbour, Award Winning Broadway Star and International Concert Artist

Working with Grant Cardone is amazing.  Original Shark on SharkTank, Inventor of the Infomercial, As Seen On TV Pioneer, Co- Founder of the Electronic Retailers Association (ERA) and Co- Founder of the Entrepreneurs Organization (EO).

About 10X Growth Con

Forbes #1 marketer to watch in 2017 Grant Cardone wanted to put together the most massive Entrepreneurial conference of all-time. The purpose is to help people learn strategies and tactics from successful people in business to ensure future success. The 1st GrowthCon quickly sold out, and GrowthCon 2018 is expected to do the same, despite the intention of the Cardone team to double the venue size. Tickets are available now at https://grantcardone.com/2018
Leeyo Software, the market-leading provider of revenue automation solutions, announced today that Vice President of Sales Jeff Jackson will speak on a panel about revenue recognition at the OAUG COLLABORATE 2017 Conference on Tuesday, April 4, 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, Las Vegas.

Jackson will contribute to a panel discussing the new ASC 606 Revenue from Contracts with Customers converged revenue guidance. Topics covered will include lessons learned so far and the challenges companies are facing in meeting the standard. Other panel members include speakers from Project Partners LLC, Oracle, Grant Thornton LLP and PwC.

About Jeff Jackson, Vice President of Sales, Leeyo Software

Jeff joined Leeyo in February 2011 and serves as its Vice President of Sales. In that capacity, he is responsible for expanding Leeyo's sales globally and ensuring Leeyo's customer satisfaction. He brings more than 20 years of high-tech sector sales experience to Leeyo including sales management, direct and indirect sales, account management and consulting. Prior to joining Leeyo, Jeff held sales positions at Oracle, BEA, and Sybase. Jeff holds a B.S. in Computer Information Systems from Weber State University.

About COLLABORATE 2017

COLLABORATE 2017: Technology and Applications Forum for the Oracle Community is where Oracle power users and IT decision makers find practical solutions for today and strategies for tomorrow. The conference empowers users of Oracle business applications and database software to gain greater value from their Oracle investments through real-world education and networking. Created by and for users, COLLABORATE provides a personalized experience alongside functional and technical insight from other experienced professionals. Participants can expand their community and gain direct access to Oracle. COLLABORATE is jointly presented by the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) and Quest International Users Group (Quest).

About Leeyo Software

Leeyos next-generation revenue recognition software rescues companies and revenue teams of all sizes from the chaos of todays manual data entry or customized processes. Leeyos RevPro  the most complete revenue recognition software suite on the market  automates and manages every process facing a revenue team  seamlessly integrating with the quote-to-cash processes of any ERP system to deliver unparalleled visibility, functionality and configurability to the revenue recognition and reporting process.

Learn more about Leeyo and RevPro at Leeyo.com.
RighTime Home Services San Diego and ARS/Rescue Rooter San Diego have donated and performed free home comfort work to a veteran in need. Both a new HVAC unit and water heater was provided to Adam Martel, a Navy veteran. Martel was identified through collaboration with ARS/Rescue Rooter and Vets Community Connections in San Diego as part of the national ARS Cares Program.

Martel followed the tradition of his grandfather and father and joined the military, serving eight years in the Navy. On May 19, 2009, he was involved in a helicopter accident, and he stills emotionally suffers from the loss of fellow servicemen. I have completed three tours of service, and I have been a part of OEF (Afghanistan) and OIF (Iraq) with numerous medals, awards and citations on board the USS Nimitz. In 2007 did my re-enlistment on board the USS Arizona in Hawaii, notes Martel. I attempted to join the guard but was disqualified due to my PTSD. The loss was that great.

After an honorable discharge in 2011, Martel has struggled with PTSD and, subsequently, had trouble keeping up with several home repairs. Vets Community Connections in San Diego identified Martel through the Wounded Warrior Project as a good candidate for the ARS Cares program.

Both RighTime Home Services of San Diego and ARS/Rescue Rooter San Diego are part of the American Residential Services (ARS) network, which is a Memphis, Tenn. based, privately-held national provider of air conditioning, heating and plumbing services. The ARS Cares program donates a HVAC system or water heater to a veteran in need by enlisting the help of local veterans agencies. Once a veteran in need is identified, ARS works with their local service center and ensures the installation process goes smoothly. Martel is the recipient of collaboration between the two ARS service centers.

RighTime Home Services San Diego went to Martels home to originally evaluate the HVAC system. However, the service team also noticed a leak in Martels water heater.

The team at RighTime quickly reached out to their sister service center and plumbing specialists, ARS/Rescue Rooter San Diego, to ensure that Martel had installation water heater installed as well, and at no cost. Neil Chapman, RighTime Home Services General Manager, says, We are very happy to have supported Mr. Martel, and we love every opportunity to give back to our community. In fact, RighTime Home Services had two military veterans, Rich Valle and Jeffrey Berg, working on the project for Martel, and both RighTime and ARS/Rescue Rooter San Diego were happy to donate their time and resources.

Adam Martel will now have a newly-installed HVAC unit, a new hot water heater, and several additional members to add to his veterans fellowship network from this ARS Cares installation. It is a privilege to be able to serve those who have selflessly served our country, says Chris Mellon, CMO. Were proud of our employees who volunteered to help with this installation, particularly the veterans that are giving back to a fellow vet. Not only are they generous but they already know the value of teamwork, communication and organization which makes them a valuable part of our team.

ARS will be working in targeted markets alongside specific veterans services agencies in order to complete this project. In addition to donating HVAC and water heater equipment and installation, ARS employees across the country will be engaging in volunteer and civic opportunities geared towards veterans services.

-Raw reel video available for broadcast upon request-

ABOUT AMERICAN RESIDENTIAL SERVICES: Based in Memphis, Tenn., privately-owned ARS operates a network of more than 70 locally-managed service centers in 23 states, with approximately 6,500 employees. The ARS network features industry-leading brands including, A.J. Perri, Aksarben ARS, Allgood, Andys Statewide, ARS, Aspen Air Conditioning, Atlas Trillo, Beutler, Blue Dot, Brothers, Columbus Worthington Air, Comfort Heating & Air, Conway Services, Efficient Attic Systems (EAS), Florida Home Air Conditioning, Green Star Home Services, McCarthy Services, Rescue Rooter/ Proserv, Rescue Rooter, RighTime Home Services, RS Andrews, The Irish Plumber, Unique Services, "Will" Fix It, and Yes! Air Conditioning and Plumbing. United by Exceptional Service, the ARS / Rescue Rooter Network serves both residential and light commercial customers by providing heating, cooling, indoor air quality, plumbing, drain cleaning, sewer line, radiant barrier, insulation and ventilation services. Each location has a knowledgeable team of trained specialists, who have undergone rigorous drug testing and criminal background checks. Providing exceptional service and ensuring the highest standards of quality, ARS has the experience to do any job right  the first time, with all work fully guaranteed. See http://www.ars.com/ to learn more.

ABOUT VETS COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS: Vets' Community Connections (VCC) is a community-based initiative designed to involve a greater number of individuals in veteran reintegration efforts. It provides individuals who want to do more than say "thanks for your service" the channel to use their own professional experience and expertise to respond to veteran and military family relocation and reintegration questions in a wide variety of fields: education, health, business, recreation, arts, community service and a host of other areas which collectively make up the communities in which we live.
2017 US RepTrak The key to earning an excellent reputation for any company requires a strong focus on delivering high quality products and services, and assurances of good governance coupled with a commitment to good corporate citizenship.

Reputation Institute (RI), the worlds leading provider of stakeholder measurement, membership and management services, today announced the companys annual US RepTrak 100 rankings. Based on more than 42,000 respondents who completed the survey in the first quarter of 2017, the survey quantifies the emotional bond stakeholders have with 800 leading companies, and how these connections drive supportive behavior like the willingness to purchase a companys products, recommend the brand, invest or even work for the company.

The top 10 companies in RIs 2017 US RepTrak 100 are:

1. Rolex

2. Amazon.com

3. Sony

4. LEGO Group

5. Hallmark

6. Netflix

7. Kimberly-Clark

8. Hershey

9. Fruit of the Loom

10. Barnes & Noble

RIs RepTrak System measures the general publics perception of the worlds top companies on seven key rational dimensions of reputation: products and services, innovation, workplace, governance, citizenship, leadership and performance. An Excellent reputation is represented by an overall RepTrak Pulse score of 80 or higher. This year, 28 companies have a Pulse rating that falls into the Excellent range. A RepTrak Pulse score of 70-79 is considered Strong, while 60-69 is Average. Outside of the top 28, the remaining 72 companies in the 2017 US RepTrak Top 100 all have a Strong rating.

For 2017, Rolex emerges to displace Amazon as #1, while LEGO and Hershey bounce back into the top 10, and Kimberly-Clark appears in the top 10 for the first time. In addition, seven of the top 10 are US based, while 6 can be viewed as nostalgic, classic brands.

Overall, RI sees 6 key factors that define the top 10: strength of familiarity, they identify with millennials, their focus on CSR, active social media activity, a strong corporate brand purpose, and an inspiring, multi-channel brand persona.

The bar for reputation is getting higher than ever before. The key to earning an excellent reputation for any company requires a strong focus on delivering high quality products and services, and assurances of good governance coupled with a commitment to good corporate citizenship, said Stephen Hahn-Griffiths, RI vice president and managing director for the US and Canada.

Big Movers:

Several brands stand out in the 2017 US RepTrak 100:

Kimberly-Clark appears in the top 10 for the first time (#7), increasing this year by 6.9 points to a score of 82.1. Gains across all dimensions of reputation, notably citizenship and products, helped to drive this move. The companys strong focus on CSR with key initiatives around sourcing sustainability and product donations, plus product innovation, also helped to drive Kimberly-Clarks Excellent rating.

In the tech sector, Google was a big mover (to #17), increasing 4.6 points to a score of 80.6. The company saw a notable increase in the CSR dimensions (governance, citizenship and workplace) as Google focused on sustainability and donations to charity in lieu of employee bonus driving positive perceptions. Meanwhile the company continues to show strong gains in performance (+6.3) and leadership (+7.1) under CEO Sundar Pichai.

As part of an overall upward trend among nostalgic, classic brands, Levi Strauss & Co. moved to #25 with an increase of 2.9 points to a score of 80.2. Several quality of work initiatives, including increased paid parental leave and the CEOs accessibility, contributed to an impressive double digit (+10.0) increase in the workplace dimension score.

On the downside, Samsung dropped from #3 to #63, after the company was challenged by its Galaxy Note 7 recall. Yet, the companys overall Pulse score remained in Strong range (77.8), highlighting that brand strength can provide a buffer during a crisis.

Other companies taking a step back in reputation this year include American Express, which saw its score drop by 4.4 points to 72.7, and Yahoo!, which saw one of the largest drops of 10.6 points to 60.8, as delays in the closing of Verizons acquisition plus a series of data breaches served to undermine confidence in the brand.

The most successful firms have a proactive, 360-degree focus on reputation, engaging its leadership to drive and actively communicate both product and corporate reputation initiatives, said Brad Hecht, RI vice president and chief research officer. Whether it is successfully building reputation capital, as shown by Kimberly-Clarks positive reputational gains in 2017, or creating a reputation buffer, which served Samsung well during its 2017 crisis, having a strong reputation is critical to both ensure customer loyalty and maintain stakeholder trust.

Ranking by Industry  Consumer Goods Remain on Top:

When looking at industry reputations, consumer companies remain the most highly regarded (due to relatability), while the energy sector is the weakest.

The top ranked industries in RIs 2017 US RepTrak 100 are:

1. Consumer

2. Food & Beverage

3. Transport

4. Automotive

5. Airlines

6. Industrial

7. Retail

8. Technology

9. Information

10. Pharmaceuticals

11. Hospitality

12. Services

13. Financial

14. Healthcare

15. Telecommunication

16. Energy

Across industries, the products, services and governance dimensions remain key drivers of overall reputation, while in Technology, leadership is uniquely important vs. other sectors. Also Retail, Financial, and Hospitality are impacted by lower scores on innovation and citizenship, while Hospitality gets Average scores on workplace.

In terms of supportive behavior, the general public is more likely to support Consumer companies, while the Financial industrys lower scores for citizenship and governance detract from the support they receive.

Overall, industries that are viewed as open and transparent generate more support. Higher levels of transparency increase likelihood of saying something positive, but transparency does not as readily yield higher reputation in the Financial industry.

Learn More and Get Your Companys Pulse Score:

On an annual basis, RI measures the reputation of thousands of companies using our RepTrak framework, and for its Global RepTrak 100 study measures the most highly regarded and familiar multinational companies in 15 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.

To access the full list of the most reputable companies in the US please visit:

https://www.reputationinstitute.com/research/RepTrak-in-Country/US-RepTrak-100.aspx

To get your companys 2017 score and learn how you can improve your ranking and grow your stakeholder support, just ask us at: https://www.reputationinstitute.com/about/Contact-Us

About Reputation Institute:

Founded in 1997, Reputation Institute (RI) is the worlds leading provider of stakeholder measurement, membership and management services, working with more than 400 of the top Global 1000 companies. Serving corporate communications and marketing executives and their teams, RI delivers our data, insights and best practices through subscription services, hands-on consulting, and our RLN events and executive training. RIs proprietary RepTrak System is the gold standard for analyzing reputations across industries, geographies and stakeholders, and powers our Global, National, Country and CSR studies.

Learn more at: http://www.reputationinstitute.com
Attorney Thomas Wallin joins Scorpion as Senior Vice President of Legal Marketing.

Scorpion, a leader in digital marketing, has recently welcomed Thomas Tom Wallin as its new Senior Vice President of Legal Marketing. Having handled thousands of cases throughout his career as an attorney, Wallin has invaluable insider knowledge of the legal industry. Using this professional background and his own personal experience with digital marketing, Wallin will be able to help further align Scorpions strategy, tailoring the companys solutions for both large and small law firms nationwide.

Tom has been a client for a long time and, like many Scorpion clients, hes become a great friend, said Scorpion CEO Rustin Kretz. Hes smart, hes driven, hes incredibly hardworking, and he loves Internet marketing. Hes always been ahead of the curve, and weve worked countless late nights together. Tom will ensure that our attorneys are always taking advantage of the latest in online case generation.

Wallin has long been recognized as one of the most respected litigators in Southern California. Not only has he been named a Top 100 Trial Lawyer by the National Trial Lawyers Association, but he was also named one of the Best Attorneys in the County by Orange County Magazine and was presented with the Best OC DUI Lawyer Award by OC Metro Magazine. From 2006 to 2015, Wallin even served as Judge Pro Tem in Riverside Countys busiest misdemeanor courtroom. In addition to working with Scorpion, Wallin is an active speaker on legal marketing and advertising ethics, and he is the head of The Wallin Law Firm, which has more than 600 clients across the country.

Wallin received his law degree from Southwestern University School of Law and his bachelors degree in Criminology and Environmental Analysis & Design from the University of California, Irvine. He is a CLE-accredited speaker, and he helps facilitate of mastermind groups that focus on business growth

About Scorpion

Scorpion is a full-service digital marketing company that helps law firms nationwide get found on the Internet and attract new clients through a wide variety of services, including website design and development, paid search advertising, search engine optimization, and more. The company has been recognized as a Google Premier Partner and the 2016 Google Customer Satisfaction Champion for North America. Scorpion was also named among Deloittes Fast Technology 500 for 2016 as one of North Americas fastest-growing tech companies. To learn more, visit ScorpionLegal.com or call (866) 344-8852.
Dr. Manju Kejriwal Invites New Patients for Reliable Dental Implants in Cincinnati, OH

New patients who want to experience the benefits of dental implants in Cincinnati, OH to replace their missing teeth can now have them placed by Dr. Manju Kejriwal, with or without a referral. Dr. Kejriwal is a respected dentist who uses the latest i-CAT Cone Beam technology to increase the accuracy of each dental implant placement. The i-CAT CBCT system captures the shapes of oral structures in the mouth with impressive detail to improve the success of each procedure.

Patients who plan to receive dental implants in Cincinnati, OH to solve their tooth loss issues are now welcome to meet with Dr. Kejriwal and find out if they are good candidates for the procedure. Applying the i-CAT CBCT to each treatment planning process allows the doctor to accurately place each implant while avoiding certain oral structures that might complicate recovery or cause discomfort.

The i-CAT CBCT system provides an invaluable tool to implement through the entire implant placement process, from analysis and planning to implant placement and complete restoration. The systems high-resolution, full 3D images provide the doctor with panoramic views of each patients tooth orientation and bone structure. Dr. Kejriwal uses the system to collect precise measurements of various oral structures and tooth orientation. With this information, she creates a detailed treatment plan and determines if the patient has sufficient bone density to undergo dental implant tooth replacement procedures.

Dr. Kejriwal has completed more than 1,000 hours of training at the California Implant Institute, where she has completed her fellowship in Implantology. Patients who are missing one or more teeth and are interested in receiving dental implants in Cincinnati, OH from a dentist with over 28 years of experience, are encouraged to meet with Dr. Kejriwal for a consultation. New patients are welcome to schedule an appointment by calling 513-914-4673.

About the Doctor

Dr. Manju R. Kejriwal offers leading dental care at her cutting-edge practice in Cincinnati, Ohio. Dr. Kejriwal, named one of Americas Top Dentists by the American Research Council, makes her patients' satisfaction and comfort her first priority. Dedicated to applying the latest advancements in dentistry, she frequently completes continuing education courses including those in aesthetics, comprehensive dental restorations and occlusion at the prestigious Hornbrook Institute. Offering dental implants, orthodontics, laser dentistry and cosmetic treatments, among other treatments, Dr. Kejriwal always strives to provide first-rate dentistry. To learn more about Dr. Kejriwal, the services she offers, or how quality dental care can be life-changing, visit http://www.mycincinnatismiles.com or call 513-914-4673 to schedule a personalized consultation.
Applied Systems today announced that Wayne Jefferson has joined Applied to manage the companys eTrading initiatives. Jefferson will lead Applieds broker advocacy efforts to optimise use of Applieds Commercial Lines application and further drive connectivity between brokers, insurers and the end customer through eTrading.

Jefferson brings more than 15 years of eTrading and Commercial Insurance experience to Applied. Prior, he worked with AXA Insurance UK to promote eTrading developments and identify key broker distribution channel opportunities. He also previously held management and underwriting positions at General Accident and CGU Insurance PLC.

In support of our rapid growth and introduction of new software in the UK market, we are further investing in our team to drive greater value and connectivity between our customers and partners, said Jeff Purdy, senior vice president, International Operations. Waynes industry experience and technology expertise will further strengthen our Commercial Lines initiatives to provide a seamless eTrading experience for our broker and insurer partners.

About Applied Systems

Applied Systems is the leading global provider of cloud-based software that powers the business of insurance. Recognised as a pioneer in insurance automation and the innovation leader, Applied is the worlds largest provider of agency and broker management systems, serving customers throughout the United States, Canada, the Republic of Ireland, and the United Kingdom. By automating the insurance lifecycle, Applieds people and products enable millions of people around the world to safeguard and protect what matters most.
New patients who have sleep apnea in Aurora, CO, can now see Dr. Mark Braasch for leading sleep apnea treatment, with or without a referral. Sleep apnea is often left untreated because patients are not familiar with common symptoms of the condition, which can include daytime sleepiness, morning headaches and chronic snoring.

Dr. Braasch seeks to raise awareness of sleep apnea in Aurora, CO, and provides leading care for those who have the condition. Unfortunately, sleep apnea is commonly left undiagnosed, simply because those who have it rarely realize they do. The condition is characterized by symptoms that mainly occur during sleep, including snoring and shallow breathing that can prevent those affected from entering into a deep, restful sleep.

In addition to nighttime symptoms, sleep apnea is also characterized by chronic daytime sleepiness, an inability to focus and morning headaches. If left untreated, the condition can not only reduce the patients daily quality of life, but can also increase the risk of heart attack, diabetes, high blood pressure and other physical problems. Depending on the type of sleep apnea an individual is experiencing, Dr. Braasch may recommend a variety of treatment options. In some cases, the patient may simply need to make some healthy lifestyle changes to greatly improve their quality of sleep. In other cases, oral devices may be recommended to change the position of the mouth during sleep and prevent apnea symptoms. In the most severe cases, surgery may also be recommended.

Patients who have issues with snoring, daily fatigue and other common symptoms of sleep apnea in Aurora, CO, are invited to schedule an appointment with Dr. Braasch. Consultations can be reserved by calling 720-325-2460.

About the Practice

Meadow Hills Dental is a family and cosmetic dental practice offering personalized dental care for patients in Aurora, Colorado. Dr. Mark Braasch graduated from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 2004 and earned his post doctorate fellowship from Las Vegas Institute. Dr. Braasch is a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and was voted Best Dentist in Omaha, Nebraska. Meadow Hills Dental offers a variety of dental services such as general dentistry, orthodontics, TMD treatments, cosmetics, and medical devices for sleep apnea. To learn more about Meadow Hills Dental and their services, visit their website at http://www.meadowhillsdental.com or call 720-325-2460 to schedule an appointment.
During 2017 Sunset World Resorts & Vacation Experiences celebrates 25 years of success in Cancun and the Riviera Maya. To commemorate the event, all of the companies resorts are planning monthly celebrations highlighting the unique food, culture, activities and sustainability programs that have made Sunset World one of the premier hospitality brands in the region.

The Sunset World resorts are also celebrating the world-class distinction of being the only resorts in Cancun and the Riviera Maya to be awarded Gold Crown status by RCI for more than 20 consecutive years. RCI bestows this honor on affiliated developments of the highest quality that receive consistent positive reviews from guests and members The Sunset Royal Beach Resort has held the Gold Crown every year since its doors opened 25 years ago while the Sunset Marina Resort & Yacht Club has won for 21 years, Sunset Fisherman Beach Resort for 18 years and the newest resort Hacienda Tres Rios Resort, Spa and Nature Park has held the title for 10 years.

Celebrating 25 years of excellence and service marks a key milestone for our company and for the tourism-driven Cancun economy, said Orlando Arroyo Marroquin, Chief Executive Officer of Sunset World Resorts and Vacation Experiences. Our family was one of the first to move to this tiny fishing village 45 years ago and weve been a part of every phase of development as Cancun grew into a leading global destination. This year we celebrate all the great guest experiences in our history and

plan a prosperous and sustainable future our employees, our economy and our

precious natural resources.

Sunset World has set new standards for excellence in guest service and innovation in environmental sustainability. One of the companies flagship resorts, Hacienda Tres Rios Resort, Spa and Nature Park was hailed by the Mexican government as the new regional and national model for sustainable tourism development. Since its opening, the resort has won numerous sustainability awards, and has continued to develop the sophistication and reach of its environmental management systems. As the impact of these environmental standards became clear at Tres Rios, the Sunset World team began looking for ways to retrofit its existing resorts to meet similar standards. While much more difficult than building to suit best practices, Sunset World invested heavily in upgrading each of its resorts with state-of-the-art solar power and high-efficiency lighting, heating and cooling systems. The resulting programs have had a significant positive impact on the resorts cost of operations  a benefit passed on to the resorts members and guests.

As part of our year-long celebration, we will also be investing heavily in renovations and enhancements across our portfolio, said Arroyo. We look forward to delighting our members and guests with an exciting new array of activities and dining options as well as enhancements to guest rooms and recreational areas.

Sunset World Resorts and Vacation Experiences

Sunset World Resorts and Vacation Experiences is a Mexican-owned hospitality leader delivering authentic and unforgettable vacation experiences in Cancun and the Riviera Maya.

Founded more than 30 years ago, Sunset World has grown to encompass six resorts, world-class travel services and amenities and a diverse network of innovative operational and marketing solutions all focused on delivering the absolute best vacation experiences for our member-owners and guests. From cultural tours to water sports, Sunset World members and guests are never far from their next big adventure. For more information, please visit http://www.sunsetworld.net.
A recent Bellwether Education Partners report begins with the reasonable assumption that in order to improve teacher quality, the field must first improve teacher preparation program design. It then asserts that teacher-education programs are blindly swinging from one popular reform to the next and that decades of input- and outcome-based research has failed to improve teacher education.

This report, A New Agenda: Research to Build a Better Teacher Preparation Program, was reviewed by a group of scholars and practitioners who are members of Project TEER (Teacher Education and Education Reform). The team was led by Marilyn Cochran-Smith, the Hawthorne Professor of Teacher Education for Urban Schools at Boston College, along with Stephani Burton, Molly Cummings Carney, Juan Gabriel Sanchez, and Andrew F. Miller. The review is published by the Think Twice Think Tank Review Project at the National Education Policy Center, housed at University of Colorado Boulders School of Education.

The report calls for a rational and rigorous research agenda for teacher education. Regrettably, the reviewers note, the reports depiction of past research includes mischaracterizations and also omits a wide swath of relevant literature about teacher education.

The report also recommends rapid cycle evaluations, but it does not adequately explain what these evaluations would entail or how they would work to improve teacher preparation program design. Nor does it offer a research foundation for this approach.

The New Agenda report also fails to recognize the socio-political context of teacher education, wherein programs are often left scrambling to meet competing accountability expectations. It leaves practical questions unanswered, muddies the waters about promising research avenues, and ignores important bodies of literature in teacher education.

Ultimately, the reviewers conclude, the recommendations A New Agenda offers, though not necessarily bad, are overly general and offer little useful evidence-based guidance to either policymakers or institutions.

Find the review by Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Stephani Burton, Molly Cummings Carney, Juan Gabriel Sanchez, & Andrew F. Miller at:

http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-teacher-prep

Find A New Agenda: Research to Build a Better Teacher Preparation Program, by Ashley LiBetti Mitchel and Melissa Steel King, published by Bellwether Education Partners, at:

http://bellwethereducation.org/sites/default/files/Bellwether_NewAgenda-GPLP_Final-101316.pdf

Find Documents:

Press Release: nepc.info/node/8558

NEPC Review: nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-teacher-prep

Report Reviewed: bellwethereducation.org/sites/default/files/Bellwether_NewAgenda-GPLP_Final-101316.pdf

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) Think Twice Think Tank Review Project (http://thinktankreview.org) provides the public, policymakers, and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected publications. The project is made possible in part by support provided by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice: http://www.greatlakescenter.org

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: http://nepc.colorado.edu
Early in the morning of Monday March 27th, a woman called the police and reported a sexual assault and kidnaping. Its alleged that the perpetrator broke into her Belmont University area apartment and threatened to cut the victim with a knife. After an alleged sexual assault, its reported that she was kidnaped and forcibly taken to an ATM, where the perpetrator had her withdraw money. He then had her drive to a location off of Nolensville Road where he left the victim and she reported the crime to the Nashville Metro Police.

This crime is particularly shocking since the area around Belmont University Campus, where the woman lives, is a gentrified neighborhood where residents are generally not concerned about crime. According to the FBI, approximately 3.7 million household robberies occur each year in the United States, and nearly one-third take place while the resident is home. Nearly 72,000 of these home invasions resulted in some form of assault, rape, or violent victimization. Cases like this are a frightening reminder that crime can occur in any neighborhood, regardless of how good it may appear.

Security expert and Armor Concepts CEO Alan Young says that lack of precautions taken by people in areas perceived to be safe can make them easy prey for intruders. For some reason, people in nicer areas dont believe that they can be victims of crimes like this. The sad fact is that crime happens everywhere and its happening with greater frequency in newly gentrified areas.

For added security, Young recommends that all homeowners make sure that their exterior doors have deadbolts. He also recommends cutting shrubs and trees around windows and keeping the exterior of your home well lit. Finally, he suggests reinforcing the doors on your home as an effective way to help keep intruders out. He recommends Door Armor as an inexpensive security solution for homeowners to consider.

While home alarm systems are often the first place that frightened homeowners look to protect themselves, Mr. Young stresses that homeowners should understand that alarms can never prevent forced entry. Alarms tell you that someone is in your home, but they cant stop intruders from coming inside. There really needs to be a shift in the way that people think about security, said Young. Studies have shown that the average police response to an alarm is often more than 20 minutes and that the majority of homeowners do not arm their alarms until they leave their homes.

While the intruder, in this case, used a window, according to the FBI, more than 85% of break-ins are through a door. Real security is not about spending a lot of money or making your home look like a fortress, said Young. By simply locking your windows and making sure that your doors are locked and cannot be kicked-in, homeowners will turn away most intruders. Most thieves are looking for easy targets. Make them work and they are likely to go elsewhere.
Qualidigm's new open concept corporate headquarters features multiple collaboration areas. The design of our new space encourages staff to get up, interact, engage and challenge each other with new ideas.

Qualidigm, the mission-driven national healthcare consulting company based in Wethersfield, Conn., has relocated its corporate headquarters to a new, more expansive office space in order to accommodate its growing number of employees and clients.

In October 2016, Qualidigm purchased a distressed office building in Wethersfield, Conn. located at 936 Silas Deane Highway and immediately began extensive renovations. The 44,000 square foot facility, of which Qualidigm occupies approximately 20,000 square feet, offers an open space concept lending itself to more collaboration and innovation among the Qualidigm staff. The expansive space also supports the 50% revenue and employee growth the company has experienced over the last five years.

Company culture is foundational to Qualidigm success, and it is closely measured. Based on employee survey feedback four years ago, the company maintained a clan culture characterized by its collaborative, family-style roots. While often considered inward-focused, the company leveraged the existing clan culture to build an adhocracy-based culture to be more outward-facing; a culture that is creative, innovative, and prides itself on breakthrough thinking. Qualidigm uses its mission-driven engine to align interests in the creation of a stewardship-based model, focused on growth to expand and extend the companys mission.

Every employee at Qualidigm is tied to our growth and owns a piece of that success, said Tim Elwell, Ph.D., Qualidigm President and Chief Executive Officer. We needed to expand our office space to support not only our growth but also our culture and collaborative thinking. While conceptualizing the new space, it was important for us to create an environment that supports our company values of stewardship, trust, authenticity, integrity, and respect to encourage open communications and transparency. The design of our new space encourages staff to get up, interact, engage and challenge each other with new ideas. Our aim was to create a Google-esque feel and I believe weve achieved our goal, said Elwell.

Qualidigms new corporate headquarters features a traditional, open space executive suite on the first floor with an open-air, center staircase, which connects the administrative and executive services to the consulting space on the second floor. The consulting suite includes a large, open, collaborative space with a non-traditional 40 foot serpentine couch surrounded by 300 square feet of writable and projectable walls to capture and share new concepts and ideas. Multiple smaller collaboration spaces are located throughout the second floor, including a series of standing desks outside glass-encased workstations for consultants who do not want to be confined to a cubicle.

In addition to the corporate headquarters, Qualidigm has also leased long-term community space across the street from the main office. This 3,300 square foot facility houses the companys formal board room and serves as a large meeting space for Qualidigm hosted programs. The community space, which accommodates over 120 people, will also be available to other organizations from the local healthcare community to host larger meetings and programs.

Qualidigms new corporate headquarters is located at 936 Silas Deane Highway in Wethersfield, Conn. and the community space is located at 912 Silas Deane Highway. Atop the building is the companys new logo and company name. See an online gallery of Qualidigms new office space.

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IsoComforter, Inc., one of the Nations premier providers of cold therapy products, announced today the introduction of an innovative new design of the shoulder wrap. The shoulder wrap provides optimal support and full contact of the multipurpose pad so you get maximum comfort while controlling your pain while using cold therapy. By utilizing ice and water that is circulated from an insulated fluid reservoir to a pad that is applied to your injury or post op site, the system provides continuous cold therapy for an extended period of time between ice changes.

The IsoComforter shoulder wrap ( http://isocomforter.com/iso-tube-shoulder-pad/ ) is engineered to hold the multi-purpose pad in place while sustaining a constant temperature range without manual mechanical controls. The result is an easy to use cold therapy system that provides safe, effective heat transfer at the optimal therapeutic temperature range. The IsoComforter cold therapy machine produces a very comfortable "cold" that is more easily tolerated by patients and the low profile shoulder wrap provides a comfortable way to wear the cold therapy pad, even if you are wearing a sling. It has been proven to notably reduce swelling and pain... often with less dependency on pain relievers.

The IsoComforter IsoTube pad system is specifically designed for different body parts and applications. It delivers comfortable cold therapy with accurate therapeutic temperature ranges that allow for longer-term application. The constant flow of cold water provides a more stable heat transfer to the area. Cold water moving rapidly over an area is less likely to injure you than ice sitting directly on the skin, causing burns.

IsoComforters patented cold therapy pads are Silicone free and resists flow restrictions and stiffening and conform better to body contours. The flow pattern assures a consistent temperature across the pads for uniform therapy, while the foam insulation on the pad and hose helps prevent condensation.

IsoComforters patented Iso-Tube pads are designed to completely disperse cold therapy across the cooling surface of the pad due to the single flow design. The water flows in one direction allowing for high flow heat transfer.

For years IsoComforter has proven itself in real-world conditions on patients that have reported exceptional outcomes when using our product. Professional and amateur athletes use cold therapy routinely to keep the performing at their best.

For the ultimate in cold therapy treatment, trust IsoComforter. Its easy to use and proven effective.

Contact:

IsoComforter, Inc.

4215 SW High Meadows Avenue

Palm City, Florida 34990

Phone: 1-877-277-0367

Fax: 1-772-220-6645

Source: IsoComforter, Inc.
"IWIRC is so grateful for the contributions of our 2017 awards recipients," said Nancy Valentine, Esq., the IWIRC Chair and a partner with Ice Miller in Cleveland, Ohio.

The International Women's Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation ("IWIRC") is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2017 Founders Awards. Beth E. Hansen, Senior Corporate Counsel at Red Ventures, will be awarded the Melnik Award for exceptional contributions by an IWIRC member. Karen Fellowes, an associate with DLA Piper (Canada) LLP in Calgary will receive the Fetner Award for exceptional contributions by an international IWIRC member. The New York Network is the winner of the Ryan Award for outstanding IWIRC Network.

"IWIRC is so grateful for the contributions of our 2017 awards recipients," said Nancy Valentine, Esq., the IWIRC Chair and a partner with Ice Miller in Cleveland, Ohio. "Beth and Karen are dedicated members who have not only worked to grow the organization, but have also mentored members, taken leadership positions, planned significant events and fostered the mission of IWIRC. We laud the New York Network for its accomplishments in revamping a network over the last three years through growth initiatives and expansive educational and social programs for IWIRC members."

Beth Hansen currently serves as IWIRC's Past Chair and has dedicated countless hours and resources to IWIRC's growth and presence around the world. Beth "has devoted herself to improving [IWIRC], increasing membership and helping us to develop internationally. We all know there is no greater ally in the workforce for women promoting women than Beth Hansen," stated her nominator. In addition, Hansen's efforts earlier in her career helped build NEON (Northeast Ohio Network) and more recently her efforts have led to the formation of a Malaysia Network. Beth has been a tenacious supporter of IWIRC, frequently traveling internationally at personal expense to make sure IWIRC was represented at foreign conferences. She also serves as a delegate to the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), Working Group V. Beth Hansen's nominator said it best - she is "an incredibly impressive hard working woman, supporter of women, developer of international networks, who has moved this organization in directions we could not have gone without her." In addition to her many professional accomplishments and contributions to IWIRC, Hansen is a devoted mom to four children: Trevor (14), Jonathan (12), Savannah (10) and Evangeline (2).

Karen Fellowes currently serves as the Canada Networks Director on the IWIRC Board and is the Past Chair of the Western Canada Network. "She has been at the heart of [the Western Canada Network] since its inception in 2011, serving as a unifying force for a network spread across 1.1 million square miles. Throughout her tenure on the Western Canada Network Board, and particularly during her terms as Chair and Past Chair, Karen has exemplified IWIRC's commitment to the connection, promotion and success of women in the insolvency and restructuring professions," stated her nominator. In addition, Karen has fostered strong ties with other networks, particularly the Ontario Network, capitalizing on IWIRC's broad reach to connect women in the insolvency field across the country and around the world. Karen's efforts to connect women worldwide go far beyond her involvement in IWIRC though; this month she is traveling to Nepal to teach women law students as part of DLA's New Perimeter pro bono program. In addition to her many contributions to IWIRC, Karen is a very involved mom to two boys.

The New York Network is over 125 members strong and continues to grow because of its creative and broad programming and networking opportunities, its involved Board and active subcommittees and the support of the New York restructuring community. The New York Network reconstituted its board in 2013, and since that time has become a model network for programming and sponsorship. The network hosts approximately eight to ten events each year and has done so consistently over a multi-year period. In 2016, the New York Network hosted a variety of events - ranging from substantive programming on the oil and gas industry to fun networking events for its members such a Ladies' Poker Night and a Hudson River cruise. While the network typically sees fifty to sixty members at any given event, the network continues to garner support and grow its membership. In addition, the New York Network successfully hosted the 2015 Leadership Summit and has co-sponsored the regional IWIRC at the Shore conference since its inception. "The IWIRC New York Network's growth and efforts over a multi-year period are clearly worthy of recognition," stated the Network's nominator.

To register for the 14th Annual Spring Meeting and join IWIRC in congratulating the winners of its 2017 Founders Awards, please click here.

For More Information Contact:

Jennifer B. Kimble, IWIRC Communications Director

Prime Clerk

jkimble(at)primeclerk(dot)com

+1-212-257-5487

About International Women's Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation (IWIRC):

IWIRC is committed to the connection, promotion, and growth of women in insolvency and restructuring professions worldwide. Since 1994, IWIRC has been connecting women worldwide through a global membership of more than 1,400 attorneys, bankers, corporate-turnaround professionals, financial advisors, and other restructuring practitioners. The organization provides its members with relationship-building, educational, career enhancement, and promotional opportunities. For more information, visit us at http://www.iwirc.com.
San Francisco Hair Transplant We are used to seeing men come to our clinic because male pattern baldness is just a fact of life.

Silicon Valley Hair Institute, the San Francisco Bay Area leader in women's hair restoration treatment, is proud to announce a new blog post about womens hair loss. Although hair transplant procedures can be seen as more of a mans issue, many women suffer from hair loss as they age. Menopause or genetics can be two reasons a woman may see her hair thinning.

We are used to seeing men come to our clinic because male pattern baldness is just a fact of life, explained Miguel Canales, surgeon and founder of Silicon Valley Hair Institute. However, we want to remind the community that thinning hair can be a womans issue too. There are protocols and procedures that can help them as well. Our new post in addition to other new content on our website showcases our efforts in the San Francisco Bay Area for women's hair restoration.

To review the new post on hair transplant options for women, please go to http://siliconvalleyhairinstitute.com/bay-area-women-and-hair-transplant-options/. For more details about Bay Area hair transplats for women as well as female hair restoration procedures and protocols please go to http://siliconvalleyhairinstitute.com/womens-hair-loss-protocol/. Information regarding womens hair loss and Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) procedures can be found on the site as well.

Bay Area Gives Equal Time to Hair Transplants for Women

Although San Francisco locals may think the Bay Area is a progressive place where women enjoy the same treatment as men, it may be surprising to many residents that when it comes to a hair loss and hair restoration issues, women can be treated differently. Male pattern baldness can be looked at as a common occurrence. Hair transplant surgery for men can also be seen as normal, and nothing to be ashamed of. Female pattern baldness may not be as widely understood or discussed. If a woman sees signs of thinning hair or hair loss, it may be important to know equal treatment is available. Hair transplant procedures and treatments can be found for women in the Bay Area.

For these reasons, Silicon Valley Hair Institute has recently posted a new blog post about female hair loss and female hair restoration options for San Francisco Bay Area patients. Dr. Miguel Canals is a top hair restoration specialist for women as well as men. The reasons for a woman losing hair can vary. Menopause, alopecia or genetics can play a part. Female pattern baldness can also appear different from the common male pattern. It may be important to know women and men have the same access to successful hair restoration treatments. FUT and FUE hair transplant surgery, PRP growth therapy and low-level light therapy can help thicken a womans scalp. Women may not hear much about female pattern baldness but treatment for thicker hair can be found in the Bay Area. Females who have this interest are urged first to visit the new blog post, and second to reach out to Dr. Canales for an in-office consultation as no two women are alike.

About Silicon Valley Hair Institute

Silicon Valley Hair Institute (http://siliconvalleyhairinstitute.com/), under the leadership of top-rated California hair transplant surgeon Miguel Canales MD, is one of the best facilities offering San Francisco Bay Area hair transplants. Dr. Canales provides the full range of advanced hair transplant and hair restoration procedures for Bay Area residents, from San Francisco to San Mateo to Palo Alto. If one needs a hair transplant specialist, look no further than this Bay Area hair transplant center. Dr. Canales also performs female hair transplants for women and eyebrow restoration, thus offering the best hair transplant and robotic hair replacement options. Call today to 650-551-1100 for a no-cost consultation, or for more information visit the website.
Attorney John L. Pinnix Knowing what is at stake for our clients, we live our cases, attend to details, and we take every case personally. Past News Releases RSS North Carolina Attorney John L....

Allen & Pinnix, P.A was founded in 1977. As the firm celebrates its 40th anniversary, John L. Pinnix, a founding member, reflects on the fact that the firm is the oldest immigration practice in North Carolina. As Pinnix recalls, within two years of the firms founding, Noel Allen, who Pinnix calls a visionary, spearheaded the launch of an immigration practice and convinced Pinnix to be the point person.

The partners committed resources from the outset. In the days before electronic libraries they were believed to have the largest immigration library between Washington, DC and Atlanta. We knew we were in it for the long haul. To us it soon became a calling, said Pinnix. Even though this is a nation of immigrants, when we started, immigration wasnt on anyones radar. Now its in front of everyone, 24/7.

The rest is history. Over almost four decades Allen & Pinnix immigration attorneys have represented thousands of individuals throughout the United States and from over 200 countries.

Allen & Pinnix, P.A. has handled every conceivable immigration matter, within broad realms that include family and employment cases, naturalization, and litigation. Pinnix, thus far, the only lawyer in North Carolina to become a national president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), was a founding member of the Carolinas Chapter of the AILA. The Carolinas chapter has grown from eight attorneys to four hundred.

In 1980 Pinnix, who had experience in many areas of the law, decided to limit his practice to immigration and nationality issues. He was among the first North Carolina State Bar Board Certified Immigration Specialists. Over the years he has become a nationally recognized authority on immigration law and policy. He has taught at Elon, North Carolina Central and Duke University law schools. Pinnix is listed in Best Lawyers in America, North Carolina Super Lawyers and has attained Martindale-Hubbles highest rating, AV.

The immigration attorneys at Allen & Pinnix, P.A., including Pinnix and Lynn Calder, are uniquely qualified to evaluate a clients immigration status and advise them of options for themselves and their families. They also represent potential investors, U.S. employers needing foreign national workers, and companies who seek to transfer workers to the U.S. from abroad.

Knowing what is at stake for our clients, we live our cases, attend to details, and we take every case personally, concluded Pinnix. When results matter, experience counts.

About Allen & Pinnix, P.A.

The Raleigh, NC-based immigration attorneys of Allen & Pinnix, P.A. have practiced immigration law for over 40 years and have represented thousands of individuals in immigration matters, including employment-based immigration, U.S.citizenship/naturalization and deportation and removal proceedings.

The NC Board-Certified Specialists in immigration law, Jack Pinnix and Lynn Calder, have extensive experience in all non-immigrant visas and routinely assists clients in H-1B Nonimmigrant Visas, DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), E-2 Treaty Investor, L-1A Intracompany Transferee for Executive or Managers and L-1B Specialized Knowledge, Employment Authorization, U Status for Victims of Crime.

Additionally, Pinnix and Calder handle all family and business immigration before USCIS and U.S. Consulates abroad.

For more information about Allen & Pinnix, please call (919) 755-0505, or visit http://www.immigration-naturalization-law.com. The law office is located at 1101 Oberlin Road, Suite 102, Raleigh, NC 27605.

About the NALA

The NALA offers small and medium-sized businesses effective ways to reach customers through new media. As a single-agency source, the NALA helps businesses flourish in their local community. The NALAs mission is to promote a business relevant and newsworthy events and achievements, both online and through traditional media. For media inquiries, please call 805.650.6121, ext. 361
Allied Anesthesia physician Paul Yost will begin serving as new board chair for Orange County health care system CalOptima on March 31. CalOptima is an important organization for our community, and it will be in capable, compassionate hands.

Award-winning medical group Allied Anesthesia today announced one of its leading physicians, Paul Yost, will begin serving as new board chair for Orange County health care system CalOptima Friday. CalOptima announced its election results earlier this month. Yost will serve the remainder of soon-to-be former chair Mark Refowitzs term, which runs through June 30 of this year, until another election is held. No date has been released for that election.

Allied Anesthesia CEO Kaveh Matin said, Were, of course, delighted that Dr. Yost was chosen to lead this great organization. Not only because its an honor to us as a medical group, but mainly because we know the kind of outstanding physician and leader he is. CalOptima is an important organization for our community, and it will be in capable, compassionate hands.

Yost, who practices adult and pediatric anesthesiology, served on CalOptimas Board from 2001 to 2009 and was reappointed Aug. 2016. He is secretary treasurer for the Orange County Medical Association and serves as director of cardiothoracic anesthesia at St. Joseph Hospital. Yost is former chief of staff and chair of anesthesiology at Childrens Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) and former president of the California Society of Anesthesiologists. He is also a founding member of the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy and former mayor of the city of Seal Beach.

Yost said, Its an incredible honor for me to be allowed this opportunity to serve our community in such a profound way. I look forward to what the future holds for the organization, and I feel fortunate to have the chance to contribute to its wonderful mission.

Yost earned a bachelors degree in psychology from Stanford University and attended Baylor College of Medicine. He practices regularly at St. Joseph Hospital and CHOC.

About CalOptima: A county organized health system, CalOptima provides publicly funded health care coverage for low-income children, adults, seniors and people with disabilities in Orange County, Calif. CalOptimas mission is to provide high quality cost effective healthcare to its members. In total, CalOptima serves nearly 800,000 members with a network of more than 7,200 primary care doctors and specialists, as well as 30 hospitals.

About Allied Anesthesia: With more than 100 highly qualified physician anesthesiologists on staff, Allied Anesthesia provides adult and pediatric anesthesia services to Childrens Hospital of Orange County, Hoag Orthopedic Institute, Pacific Eye Institute, San Antonio Regional Hospital, St. Jude, St. Joseph and St. Mary Medical Centers within the St. Joseph of Orange Health System, and several surgical institutes and centers throughout Southern California. In 2014, Allied Anesthesia joined with Fullerton Anesthesia Associates and Upland Anesthesia Medical Group to consolidate best practices in more than six hospitals and in more than a dozen ambulatory surgery centers. The expanded medical practice is dedicated to offering the highest comprehensive quality of care and the most cost-effective procedures in the facilities it serves. All Allied physician anesthesiologists are board certified in anesthesiology. The doctors also staff and manage the most efficient operating rooms in Southern California. Allied is a member of the California Society of Anesthesiologists, the American Society of Anesthesiologists and the Anesthesia Quality Institute.

For more information, visit: http://www.alliedanesthesia.com.
Some organizations rely entirely on their partners and those that are not fully leveraging such relationships could be missing out on an important revenue stream and the opportunity to scale growth.

eBridge Marketing Solutions, a digital marketing agency specializing in B2B technology companies, will be attending HostingCon Global 2017 in Los Angeles from April 3-6, both as an exhibitor and participant in the events educational sessions. As an event that brings together hosting and cloud providers, MSPs, VARs and other IT service providers, eBridge president Hartland Ross drew on his nearly two decades of experience working with technology companies to spearhead a panel on channel marketing, a key driver of success in this highly competitive industry. eBridge has been participating and leading sessions at HostingCon for the past 13 years.

The panel session with Ross, titled Discover the Secrets to Success in the Channel for Service Providers, runs on Tuesday, April 4th from 9:00 AM - 9:50 AM. Many IT service providers rely on channel partners and resellers, in some cases entirely, for their revenue, making the understanding of how to best leverage these relationships critical in this extremely competitive space. The panelists will discuss the topic both from the perspective of vendors and partners, sharing their expertise on the crucial components for channel marketing success. Ross will also be participating in a Building Business Speed Roundtable on Tuesday, April 4th from 1:30 PM - 3:45 PM, giving attendees the chance to ask-the-expert about marketing and business growth related topics.

With the increasing competition in the hosting and technology industry, maintaining great relationships with partners while fostering loyalty and brand advocacy is not just an important part of a solid marketing plan, it may be absolutely paramount, shares Ross. Some organizations rely entirely on their partners and those that are not fully leveraging such relationships could be missing out on an important revenue stream and the opportunity to scale growth. It is for this reason I proposed the topic, as I felt that this discussion would offer attendees great value in learning about how to take their businesses to the next level.

In addition to their role in the educational portion of the event, the eBridge team will also be exhibiting. Ross will be joined by Senior Media Strategist Devin Rose at Booth 530 in the Exhibition Hall. Visit them to learn how to tune up your marketing and be sure to enter the draw at their booth.

To learn more about eBridge Marketing Solutions, please visit https://www.ebridgemarketingsolutions.com or call 1-604-731-5530.

About HostingCon

HostingCon is the global event for the cloud and service provider ecosystem. The conference connects the industry including hosting and cloud providers, MSPs, ISVs and other Internet infrastructure providers who make the Internet work to network, learn and grow. HostingCon is a Penton event. For details about HostingCon, visit http://www.HostingCon.com.

About eBridge Marketing Solutions

eBridge Marketing Solutions, a digital marketing services agency based in Vancouver, Canada, has been helping B2B technology companies achieve their online marketing goals since 2001. Their award-winning team has built a strong reputation among the hundreds of service providers they have served.
ISC West is the largest event in the U.S. for the physical security industry, covering access control, alarms and monitoring, biometrics, IP security, video surveillance / CCTV, networked security products, and more.

Ben Scaglione, Director of Healthcare Security and Safety for the risk management consulting firm Lowers & Associates, will present a workshop and session April 4th, 2017, in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the International Security Conference & Exposition  also known as ISC West. ISC West is the largest event in the U.S. for the physical security industry, covering access control, alarms and monitoring, biometrics, IP security, video surveillance / CCTV, networked security products, and more.

A veteran security leader, Scaglione previously served as the Director of Hospital Police for Bellevue Hospital in New York City, as well as Director of Security for New York Presbyterian Hospital. He also held the position of Director of Healthcare for G4S Secure Solutions. In his current role at Lowers & Associates, Scaglione leads the delivery of security and safety consulting services designed to meet the needs of todays leading hospitals and healthcare organizations.

ISC West is the largest event in the U.S. for the physical security industry. During the week-long event, there are 13 targeted conference tracks with more than 65 sessions. All sessions earn continuing education units (CEUs) and are taught by the industrys top experts. SIA education ensures attendees stay up-to-date with training requirements and are ready to address key issues in physical security.

Scaglione will present the following sessions:

Securing Healthcare in the 21st Century: What the Future Holds for the Healthcare Security Practitioner

The beginning of the 21st century brings many new challenges to healthcare security. With so many emerging threats including the potential for a terrorist attack, pandemic flu, workplace violence including active assailant, strict legislative requirements, severe weather, and continued financial constraints, the healthcare environment will need to change how security services will be managed.

Learning outcomes for this session include:

1. Review security challenges faced in healthcare security.

2. Determine methods to prepare for severe weather, violence, pandemic illnesses, and terrorist attacks.

3. Discern how the healthcare financial environment is changing and its impact of healthcare security.

This session will be held April 04, 2017, from 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM at the Sands Expo & Convention Center. Presenting with Scaglione will be David LaRose, Director Safety/Security and Emergency Management for Lakeland Regional Medical Center. Learn more here.

Workshop: Dealing with Today's Active Assailants

Under todays threat environment active assailant incidents have unfortunately maintained a very deadly and real threat for businesses and communities. Regardless of the business model or size, employees and guests have fallen victim to these vicious attacks that occur without warning or impunity. This hands-on workshop will focus on how a business and its employees are not silent observers in deadly emergencies, but a valuable partner who can provide clarity, assistance, and guidance to the first responder community.

Learning outcomes for this session include:

1. Gain clarity on the business and employee response based on specific business offerings, while also considering the duty of care responsibility which may hold the company liable for inaction, indecisiveness, or inadequate training.

2. Determine how the run, hide, and fight approach works under various business models and which liability exposures need to be addressed immediately in most organizations.

This workshop will be held April 04, 2017, from 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM at the Sands Expo & Convention Center. Presenting with Scaglione will be David La Rose, Director Safety/Security and Emergency Management for Lakeland Regional Hospital and C. David Shepherd, CEO of Readiness Resource Group. Learn more here.

About Lowers & Associates

Headquartered outside of the nations capital in Purcellville, Virginia, Lowers and Associates is an international leader in enterprise-wide risk mitigation and loss prevention. Offering a comprehensive set of risk assessment, audit, investigation, and compliance solutions, Lowers & Associates sets the standard for creating programs that protect your organization and its interests. As a unit of the Lowers Risk Group, Lowers and Associates has access to a full range of risk mitigation practices to offer clients a single point for total enterprise risk management. For more information and to get started, visit http://www.lowersrisk.com or call (540) 338-7151.
Best Public Relations Companies

Recently, awards organization 10 Best PR gave Veritas, Exponent PR and Big Picture PR awards for being the best public relations companies for March 2017.

The award is extremely important given the impact of public relations in the business world. It is hard to deny how effective public relations can be at helping a brand reach new heights of success. There is very little real limit to the power of PR services, and it has evolved into a service that is far beyond merely releasing press statements. Modern PR campaigns are meant to reach through many different aspects of the process, including social media, print, digital, and more. Brands that want to get the most out of their public relations should look to agencies that have the most experience and recognition in their own market. However, with so many agencies out there on the market, how can brands be expected to find the one that will work for them? 10 Best PR strives to provide an answer.

10 Best PR is an informational service that wants to become the last stop for brands trying to determine the adequacy of a PR service provider. They release their lists at the start of every month to ensure information is kept up to date for consumers. They reach their rankings using complex mathematical formulas that weigh a number of details about each firm against one another. The results for March of 2017 were recently calculated and posted, and the top three winners are described in detail below.

Veritas is the top PR agency for the month of March 2017. Veritas is a firm that has provided marketing strategies to clients from a huge range of industries throughout the United States and Canada. They have offices in New York, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, and they have proven they can offer real results that will increase the visibility and reputation of any brand.

Leading public relations company Exponent PR is considered to be second-best in this category for March 2017. Exponent PR is headquartered in Minneapolis, and they have won multiple awards for the PR services. Exponent PR essentially meets every standard need of those looking for PR services, and they provide their services to businesses of all sizes.

Big Picture PR also landed on the list of best public relations companies. They can easily take care of any and all PR needs that any brand might have. Big Picture PR has offices spanning the United States from New York all the way to Los Angeles.

For more information about this months award winning firms, visit http://www.10bestpr.com.
We are really excited to have had such a terrific start to the new year with a strong showing at the 2017 ABBA International Show.

Moreno Ranches, a leading producer of Brahman cattle (both red Brahman cattle and gray Brahman cattle at http://www.morenoranches.com/) in Florida and throughout the United States, is proud to announce its champion Brahman wins at the prestigious 2017 ABBA International Show in Houston, Texas. The Ranch continues to fulfill its goal of increasing its performance at Brahman cattle industry trade shows, and solidifying its position as one of the top Brahman cattle producers in the United States.

We are really excited to have had such a terrific start to the new year with a strong showing at the 2017 ABBA International Show, said Kelvin Moreno, owner of Moreno Ranches.

Here are the 2017 ABBA International Show results: Brahman Cattle for Sale in Texas



2017 Reserve Grand Champion Red Female and Intermediate Champion Red Female  Moreno Ms. Lady Reina Bonita 892.

2017 Intermediate Champ Red Bull, Reserve Grand Champion Red Bull  Moreno Mr. Roman 485.

2017 Reserve Intermediate Champion Red Bull  Moreno Mr. Reality 537.

2017 Reserve Intermediate Champion Red Female  Moreno Ms. Lady Reliett 68/1.

2017 Reserve Senior Champion Red Female  Moreno Ms. Lady Rumbera 710.

2017 Reserve Calf Champion Red Bull  Moreno Mr. Rock Star 625.

2017 Reserve Junior Champion Red Female  Moreno Ms. Lady Redi 902.

National and International Brahman Show Participation and Cattle Sales: A strong link

Moreno Ranches is proud that it has captured top honors in industry Brahman cattle shows not only in Florida, but throughout the Southern United States and as far away as Texas. Moreno Ranches also attends international Brahman cattle shows, showcasing the Brahman cattle breed in countries such as Mexico and Honduras. The Ranch has a rapidly expanding export business in these as well as other countries. Learn more about Brahman Cattle for export at http://www.morenoranches.com/brahman-cattle-for-export/.

About Moreno Ranches

Moreno Ranches is a top producer of Brahman cattle for sale. Customers come to the company for genetically superior Brahman bulls for sale and Brahman semen (seed stock) as well as Brahman embryos. The company produces both Brahman heifers and calves for sale, including for use as show cattle or to produce Brahman F1 hybrids. Visit the company's website to browse stock. The company is a trusted source of Brahman cattle whether a buyer is in Florida, Texas, or Louisiana - Latin America, or anywhere in the world.

Web. http://www.morenoranches.com/

Tel. 863-444-8745
Drug Rehabilitation and Alcohol Treatment Center In an area as fiercely competitive as 'best employer', to win 'runner up' is indeed a great honor for Sunshine Coast Health Centre

Sunshine Coast Health Centre, one of the top drug rehabilitation and alcohol treatment programs in British Columbia, Canada, is proud to announce that the Centre was awarded 'runner up' in the employer category by the Powell River Chamber of Commerce. Each year, the Chamber honors local employers in various categories, such as customer service, professional services, and entrepreneur of the year. Sunshine Coast was honored as second place in the overall category of best employer, with the announcement being made in the March 2017 issue of 'Powell River Living' magazine.

In an area as fiercely competitive as 'best employer', to win 'runner up' is indeed a great honor for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, explained Casey Jordan, Chief Marketing Officer. This is a win-win competition for all local businesses and we are proud to share the podium with Powell River Peak, as well as Villani & Company, as local businesses that go the extra mile for their employees here in Powell River, British Columbia. We are truly honored.

To learn more about the award visit, https://issuu.com/powellriverliving/docs/1703_march_2017/20. To learn more about the Centre's alcohol treatment program, visit https://www.sunshinecoasthealthcentre.ca/alcohol-treatment/, and to learn more about the Centre's drug rehab program, visit https://www.sunshinecoasthealthcentre.ca/drug-rehab/.

Striving to be the Best Drug and Alcohol Treatment Centre in British Columbia

While there are many programs to assist individuals fighting drug and alcohol abuse problems, Sunshine Coast Health Centre strives to position itself as one of the best not only in British Columbia, but throughout Canada. Focusing on men only and using a non-12 step methodology, the program offers in-patient, "residential" drug rehabilitation and alcohol treatment programs. Although it is true that the Centre benefits from a unique methodology based on the work of Viktor Frankl, the most important component of its highly successful program is the front-line employees, psychotherapists, and other staff members who work with clients on a day-to-day basis. Support staff play a key role as well. By being selected as one of the best employers in Powell River, British Columbia, Sunshine Coast Health Centre is honoured and humbled. Honoured at obtaining this prestigious validation and humbled because the true heroes in its work against drug and alcohol abuse are its employees.

About Sunshine Coast Health Centre

Sunshine Coast Health Centre is a 36 bed drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility exclusively designed for men, officially opened on the 15th of March, 2014. The Centre has a philosophy of care that goes beyond just addiction to include personal transformation based on three key therapeutic principles: interpersonal relatedness, self definition (autonomy & competence), and intrinsic motivation. The Centre offers both drug rehabilitation and alcohol treatment near Vancouver, BC, but serving patients across Canada, particularly British Columbia and Alberta and cities such as Calgary, Edmonton and Red Deer. Sunshine Coast Health Centre uses a form of drug rehabilitation based on the methodology of Viktor Frankl, namely 'Meaning Centered Therapy'.

Website. http://www.sunshinecoasthealthcentre.ca
Of course we're biased and think of ourselves as the best choice in uniform suppliers.

Uniform Solutions for You, one of the top uniform suppliers online at http://www.uniformsolutionsforyou.com/, is proud to announce a new post on five tips to selecting the best uniform supply company. With the advent of online employee uniform purchases, many companies struggle with how to identify the most suitable partner for their uniform purchases.

"Of course we're biased and think of ourselves as the best choice in uniform suppliers, commented Bruce Bagley, founder of Uniform Solutions. "However, we use our blog as outreach to the industry community, and that it was timely to produce a post on five tips to selecting a great choice in a uniform supply company.

To read the blog post for staff uniform ideas with an individual spirit in mind, please go to: http://www.uniformsolutionsforyou.com/tips-on-selecting-an-employee-uniform-supplier/. The post identifies five tips that the average employer may not have considered when selecting a uniform supplier. Those interested in a specific industry, such as restaurant uniform - for instance - are urged to visit industry-specific pages such as http://www.uniformsolutionsforyou.com/restaurant-uniform/ for a 'deep dive' into that topic.

Ideas are the Linchpin of a Great Employee Uniform Supplier

While we live in a "material world," as the song from the 1980s explains, uniforms are more than mere material. The blog post ends with an advocacy that a smart company will look for a uniform supplier that understands the importance of intangibles. Employee uniforms, after all, are a projection of one's brand image. The look-and-feel of an employee uniform in a restaurant setting, for example, should work with the total brand experience. For this reason, the idea of an "idea consultant" for employee uniforms separates those employee uniform suppliers that are just in it for a quick profit from those who truly want to work with a vendor, long term, to help with brand identity. The post's five tips are food for thought for a busy industry in which every competitor is seeking to differentiate him or herself from others in a crowded marketplace.

About Uniform Solutions For You

Uniform Solutions for You is a division of Santa Rosa Uniform & Career Apparel, Inc. The division focuses on, but is not limited to, the online sales of employee uniforms in key industries: casino, hotel, and restaurant. The website has a unique consultation request feature, wherein interested parties can talk with a human uniform idea consultant to brainstorm uniform options for employees.

Web. http://www.uniformsolutionsforyou.com/
The Official Seal of a Genworth Elite Distributor Rest assured you've found one of the best long term care insurance agencies anywhere in the United States.

The largest long term care (LTC) insurer in the United States, Genworth, (by inforce lives and inforce premiums, LIMRA 2016 Individual Long Term Care Insurance) has selected Long Term Care Associates, Inc. (LTCA) to its circle of Elite Distribution Partners for 2017. The criteria cited for the honor include LTCA's highly-regarded producers, outlook for growth, and unwavering partnership.

Senior Vice President of LTCA, Stephen D. Forman, commented on the distinction, "Approximately 1 of every 4 LTC insurance policyholders in the United States owns their policy through Genworth. As one of the country's pioneering long term care insurance specialists, we are proud to be named an Elite Distributor."

The Elite Distributor title is more than just a name. While producers who align themselves with LTCA can take advantage of exclusive education and speakers, LTCA also accrues the benefits of dedicated case management and white glove back-channel support.

Forman added, "Consumers today who shop online frequently find themselves unsure what to believe or whom to trust. But shoppers who work with LTCA can rest assured they've found one of the best long term care insurance agencies in the nation."

For more information, please call LTCA at 1-800-742-9444 or visit us at http://www.ltc-associates.com.

About LTCA:

With roots dating back to 1972, Long Term Care Associates, Inc. (LTCA) has entered its 5th decade focused exclusively in the LTC solutions marketplace. Headquartered in Bellevue, WA, the company is proud to serve over five million members of sponsoring organizations, and count the claim payments to its clientele in the tens of millions of dollars.

About Genworth Financial:

Genworth Financial, Inc. is a leading insurance company committed to helping families achieve the dream of homeownership and address the financial challenges of aging through its leadership positions in mortgage insurance and long term care insurance. Headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, Genworth traces its roots back to 1871 and became a public company in 2004. For more information, visit genworth.com.
WHO:

Dr. Paul Thomas; Dr. Brian Hooker; Dr. Judy Mikovits; Dr. Jennifer Margulis; and Dr. Toni Bark

WHAT:

Medical doctors and PhD scientists will speak to the press on behalf of over 200 doctors, scientists, and scientific organizations who have written to President Trump in support of an independent vaccine safety commission.

WHERE:

Zenger Room, National Press Club, 529 14th Street NW, 13th Floor, Washington, DC 20045

WHEN:

Friday, March 31, from 9:00am to 10:30am Eastern Standard Time.

WHY:

Since 1986, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, established through legislation signed by President Reagan, has paid out more than $3.5 billion in claims for injuries caused by vaccines. It is estimated that only a small fraction of people injured by vaccines pursue remediation through the Programs Vaccine Court and that two out of three claims are denied. Despite these figures, the nations prominent news agencies consistently fail to acknowledge the inherent and extensive risks of vaccines. Medical professionals and members of the scientific communities are coming forward to demand more accurate and unbiased reporting to better serve the publics interest.

RSVP:

Credentialed members of the media who plan to attend please RSVP to info@honestyinmedia.org.

Media interviews are available. Please contact Caroline Kennedy at (703) 801-9319 or info@honestyinmedia.org to make arrangements.

More information is available at http://www.HonestyinMedia.org.

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Inspired by the earths four elements, The Elements collection includes handbags, gender-neutral wallets, and gender-neutral travel duffle bags. Ife Medow is about love and taking social responsibility. I always knew the brand would have a commitment to incorporating sustainability. I was inspired to pay homage to Mother Earth in some way, which is where The Elements Collection came from."

Today sustainable fashion brand Ife Medow announced it will introduce its first line of sustainable bags and accessories on Kickstarter on April 11, 2017. Inspired by the earths four elements, The Elements collection includes handbags, gender-neutral wallets, and gender-neutral travel duffle bags.

Ife Medow is about love and taking social responsibility. I always knew the brand would have a commitment to incorporating sustainability, explained Ife Medow founder and creative director Toyin Ajayi. I was inspired to pay homage to Mother Earth in some way, which is where The Elements Collection came from. The color and compositions of each bag speaks to the element and design.

Each piece is thoughtfully crafted with the best of sustainable materials paired with quality vegan leathers. The Elements Collection uses rPET felt, jute, salmon leather, and corkinspired by the four elements of air, water, fire, and earth. The bags also incorporate traditional African prints in the interior lining as an ode to creator Ajayis personal heritage. Ife Medows The Elements wallets, clutches, totes, and duffels also feature roomy interiors with numerous pockets for organization, interior RFID protection pockets and magnetic snap closures. The tote and duffle bag include bag feet and vegan leather interior bottom for easy cleaning.

Ife Medow furthers its commitment to sustainability with earth-friendly packaging that is recyclable, reusable, and biodegradable, as well as paper products that use recycled or plantable paper with vegetable-based inksincluding hangtags that will compost and sprout into a variety of flowers, herbs, and vegetables when planted.

Visit Ife Medows Kickstarter page to pre-order with accessories starting at $33 and bags starting at $209. Ife Medow is scheduled to begin shipping in November 2017.

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About Ife Medow

Founded in 2017 by designer and entrepreneur Toyin Ajayi, Ife Medow stitches together sustainability, luxury, and quality. The Atlanta-based company is a made-in-America brand with an African touch, designing truly unique gender-neutral bags and accessories using luxe, sustainable materials. The brands first collection, The Elements, paid homage to the four elements with pieces inspired by air, fire, earth, and water. To learn more about Ife Medow and access high-resolution product images, click here.
Many families do not confront the problem of home care until at or close to hospital discharge.

NuevaCare, considered one of the top home care providers to Bay Area clients, is proud to announce new information pages on Burlingame and Millbrae home care options. With a large hospital presence, Burlingame and Millbrae are often the starting points for patients upon hospital discharge as they search for viable home care options for themselves or their loved ones near Burlingame, Millbrae and other San Francisco Bay Area communities such as San Mateo or Palo Alto.

"Many families do not confront the problem of home care until at or close to hospital discharge," explained Kamran Nasser, CEO of NuevaCare. "The Burlingame and Millbrae area is one of the most popular localities to search for home care because of its large hospital footprint. Accordingly, we are announcing a new information pages specific to Millbrae and Burlingame, but helping clients realize that we can service their home care needs in nearby cities such as San Mateo, Palo Alto, and other cities on the Peninsula."

Interested persons, including journalists or bloggers, can visit the new pages at http://nuevacare.com/home-care-millbrae/ (Millbrae home care) and http://nuevacare.com/home-care-burlingame/ (Burlingame home care). Those pages lists Millbrae- and Burlingame-specific service offerings, but persons can click up to the "Services" tab on the website navigation and browse home care services provided by NuevaCare.

Those interested in Senior Care, in general, can visit http://nuevacare.com/senior-care/, for example. The website has many service-specific informational pages as well, and the Millbrae page should be considered just a first step towards self-education on home care options.

Home Care Services in Millbrae, Burlingame, and Surrounding Communities

When a patient is at or near discharge from a hospital, it can be very stressful. In a certain sense, the hospital system considers its work "done," and now turns the job of patient care over to the family. In today's busy society, however, not every family has the time or resources to manage home care for someone discharged from the hospital. If this is a short term need, sometimes they can manage. If it is a longer term need, however, they may search for home care services in their community. Since the patient is often being discharged in Burlingame, many patients and their families start their research by looking for Millbrae and Burlingame based service providers. The new pages on Millbrae and Burlingame service offerings clarifies that the real variable to consider is the quality of home care itself. While technically based in San Mateo, NuevaCare has caregivers who service many communities in the affluent San Francisco Bay Area. The caregivers come directly to the patient's home. For this reason, even though the information search may begin as a search for home care services in Millbrae or Burlingame, California, the reality is that it is the quality of local care that matters, not the technical location of the service provider. Anyone who is facing an immediate need for home care services is urged to reach out to NuevaCare for a consultation so that services can be tailored to the individual and his/her family's needs.

About NuevaCare

A premier technology based home care company based in San Mateo and servicing the San Francisco Bay Area, NuevaCare delivers responsive, quality, and affordable in-home care to those who need care due to old age or recovering from surgery or illness. NuevaCare services clients in diverse Bay Area cities from Burlingame to Santa Clara, San Mateo to Palo Alto, Foster City to Hillsborough and everywhere in between. NuevaCare provides hourly, live-in, overnight, and 24/7 care. Recognized as one of the best home care agencies in the Bay Area, NuevaCare can be found at http://nuevacare.com/. NuevaCare is licensed by California Department of Social Services, Home Care Services Bureau, license #: 414700022.
The TAP is vital because it provides the IRS with the taxpayers perspective as well as recommendations for improvement.

The Internal Revenue Service is seeking civic-minded volunteers to serve on the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel (TAP), a federal advisory committee that listens to taxpayers, identifies major taxpayer concerns and makes recommendations for improving IRS service and customer satisfaction.

The TAP reports annually to the Secretary of the Treasury, the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service and the National Taxpayer Advocate. The Office of the Taxpayer Advocate is an independent organization within the IRS that provides support for and oversight over the TAP.

In trying to comply with an increasingly complex tax system, taxpayers may find they need different services than the IRS is currently providing, said Nina E. Olson, National Taxpayer Advocate. The TAP is vital because it provides the IRS with the taxpayers perspective and suggestions for improvement. This helps the IRS deliver better service to assist taxpayers in meeting their tax obligations.

The TAP includes members from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, plus one member abroad. This member represents U.S. taxpayers living overseas. Each member is appointed to represent the interests of taxpayers in his or her geographic location as well as taxpayers as a whole.

To be a member of the TAP, a person must be a U.S. citizen, not be a current employee of any bureau of the Treasury Department or have worked for any bureau of the Treasury Department within three years preceding Dec. 1 of the current year, be current with his/her federal tax filing and payment obligations, be able to commit 200 to 300 volunteer hours during the year and pass a Federal Bureau of Investigation criminal background check. Individuals who practice before the IRS must be in good standing with the IRS. New TAP members will serve a three-year term starting in December 2017. Applicants chosen as alternate members will be considered to fill any vacancies that open in their areas during the next three years.

The TAP is seeking members in the following locations:



Alaska

Arizona

California

Delaware

District of Columbia

Georgia

Idaho

Indiana

Kansas

Louisiana

Massachusetts

Maryland

New Jersey

Nevada

North Dakota

Ohio

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Utah

Virginia

Vermont

Washington

The TAP is also seeking to include at least one additional member to represent international taxpayers. For these purposes, international taxpayers are defined broadly to include U.S. citizens working, living or doing business abroad or in a U.S. territory. The TAP is also seeking alternate members for all states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Alternate members are particularly needed in:



Colorado

Iowa

Indiana

Michigan

Missouri

Mississippi

Nebraska

Federal advisory committees are required to select members who represent a balance of perspectives. As such, individuals from under-represented groups, such as Native Americans and non-tax professionals, are encouraged to apply. However, all timely applications will be considered.

Applications for the TAP will be accepted through April 24, 2017. Interested individuals must apply online at http://www.usajobs.gov.

For additional information about the TAP or the application process, visit http://www.improveirs.org and select the Join TAP tab or call 888-912-1227 and select option five. Those interested can also contact the TAP staff at taxpayeradvocatepanel(at)irs(dot)gov. Callers outside the U.S. and U.S. territories should call 214-413-6523 (not a toll-free call).
News

World news

California Mulls Increasing Renewable Energy Supply in Peak Demand Hours

A new law aims at straightening an issue with market restraints regarding renewables

AUTHOR: publics.bg



 ammusk, flickr.com



In an effort to keep California at the forefront of renewable energy and climate change policies, legislation has been proposed to require more clean electricity be offered during times when consumers are most likely to flip on the lights, the Daily Journal reported.

While the state has aggressive greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and requires utilities to increase how much renewable energy they distribute to customers, market restraints have resulted in some unintended consequences.

Even with more renewables created to meet state targets, utilities are still heavily reliant on fossil fuel plants that provide greater flexibility with being able to ramp up quicker during peak demand. And as electrical storage isnt yet possible, California has become one of the few states to occasionally produce too much energy.

Assemblyman Kevin Mullin, D-South San Francisco, is now hoping that requiring utilities to provide a certain percentage of renewables during peak demand hours will encourage new technologies and help ensure California meets intended clean energy targets.

Mullins Assembly Bill 1405 defines a four-hour peak-load period during the day, then requires the Public Utilities Commission to determine how much clean energy each utility is delivering during that time.

Starting in 2020, the utilities would then be required to increase how much renewable energy consumers receive during peak demand hours for at least 15 days a month. The increases would continue every three years until 2029 or when at least 40 percent of demand during the peak is served by clean resources.
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Known as the queen of Mexican beach resorts, Acapulco becomes one of the centers of Mexico's bloody drug war. And as a result, Holland America has dropped calls in Acapulco through 2018, citing security concerns.

The decision affects seven Panama Canal voyages and one South America sailing scheduled to take place starting in October.

Holland America said it would replace Acapulco with other ports in Mexico.

"The safety of our guests is our top priority," the line said in a statement about the schedule change. It said passengers on the affected sailings have been notified.
A California man on Thursday entered a guilty plea in Henry County Circuit Court to a 2015 possession of cannabis charge and was sentenced to 180 days in jail and probation.

On Oct. 25, 2015, Edmund B. Abay, 47, was driving east on Interstate 80 when he was stopped by Illinois State Trooper Andrew Fratzke. Henry County Sheriff's Deputy Glenn Hampton arrived and deployed his K-9, which alerted on the vehicle. A search yielded several plastic bags of a green leafy substance that tested positive as cannabis. The total weight was 5,357 grams or almost 12 pounds.

As part of a plea agreement accepted by Judge Carol Pentuic, a Class X trafficking charge, a Class X possession with intent to deliver, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of methamphetamine charges were dismissed. Mr. Abay's attorney, Larry Vandersnick, also withdrew a motion to suppress evidence.

In addition to jail time and 48 months probation, Mr. Abay must pay a $5,000 fine and court costs and a $150,000 street value fine.
A Toulon man was sentenced Monday in Henry County Circuit Court to five years in prison for his role in methamphetamine production in Kewanee.

Dennis D. Roach, 39, will also have two years mandatory supervised release and court costs. In exchange for his plea, Class X methamphetamine manufacturing, Class 1 conspiracy to commit methamphetamine manufacturing and Class 1 possession of a methamphetamine precursor were dismissed. Judge Terry Patton accepted the negotiated plea.

Assistant Henry County State's Attorney Catherine Runty said the Kewanee Street Crimes unit found a methamphetamine production operating at the residence of Lynn Johnson in the 600 block of East 11th Street, and Mr. Johnson told them Mr. Roach would bring prescription medicine to the residence and make meth in the garage, and everyone would share in the product.

in a February bench trial, Mr. Johnson, 68, was found guilty of Class X aggravated methamphetamine manufacturing and five other counts. His sentencing is April 7.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP)  The Democratic speaker of the Illinois House is upbraiding Gov. Bruce Rauner for comments the governor made about him.

Speaker Michael Madigan wrote the Republican a letter Tuesday. It said Rauner made "false statements" a day earlier that Madigan was blocking sale of the state-owned Thompson Center in Chicago.

Madigan says his staff and Rauner's continue to cooperate on the details. He says Rauner's comments were "disingenuous" and "beneath your office."

The James R. Thompson Center in Chicago's Loop is a government office behemoth that is underutilized as the state payroll has shrunk. Rauner has budgeted $300 million from its sale.

Rauner spokeswoman Eleni Demertzis (dee-MURT'-ziss) says Madigan is making more excuses for the inaction that has kept the state from having an annual budget for the past two years.
COLONA  The city will renegotiate its contract with Colona Mobile Home Park, formerly known as Willowhaven.

Office manager Kathleen Palmer said the city has had advice it should not be billing mobile home park residents there for water and sewer individually but rather sending out one bill to the owner as they do to the other two parks in town.

The attorney feels were in violation of our own ordinance by billing them singularly, said Mayor Rick Lack.

He said meter clusters are in pits, and its the trailer park owners responsibility to maintain them, but the well pits havent been maintained properly, hindering Colona city staff from getting in there. He said office staff have been dealing with complaints from both public works staff and trailer court residents.

Its been an ongoing problem for some time, added the mayor.

A motion for the contract negotiation was approved 7-1, with Ald. Dale Hillman, 1st Ward, voting no.

The finance committee is proposing a fiscal 2018 budget with a $39,000 shortfall. Finance chairman Lories Graham said its hoped the shortfall will be plugged, in part, with a motor fuel tax transfer of up to $33,000.

Ms. Graham said purchases should be necessities and should be scrutinized to see if they might be band-aided and fixed up.

I see layoffs in the future. Maybe not this year, but in the next couple of years unless something changes, she said.

A budget hearing will be held at 6 p.m. April 10 prior to the start of the regular board meeting.

Mayor Lack also reported he had a written bid submitted for one of three residential lots owned by the city. He said it would be held to be opened April 10.

A trivia night will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday at Colonas Scott Family Park to raise money for the Colona fireworks show.
ROCK ISLAND  Melissa Mohr and Claire Kovacs are close friends, passionate about art and social justice, and both work in leadership roles at their respective museums.

So it makes sense they host The Gallery Gap, a new half-hour WVIK podcast focusing on underrepresented populations in art galleries around the world. Dr. Kovacs  who has her doctorate in art history from the University of Iowa, where she met Ms. Mohr  is director of the Augustana Teaching Museum of Art, Rock Island, and Ms. Mohr is education director at the Figge Art Museum, Davenport.

The idea began when Ms. Mohr thought of featuring a woman artist from their collection each day for March, Women's History Month.

"You're thinking, could we, even if we wanted to, feature a woman artist each day for the month of March," she said, noting they could, but that moment of panic started a conversation with her longtime friend and colleague.

"We started thinking about the work that is missing in our gallery spaces," Dr. Kovacs said. "Our goal with the Gallery Gap is to amplify those voices and think about these gaps in the traditional canon."

For Women's History Month, they have focused on women specifically (in three episodes so far) but will expand the scope as the weekly podcast continues.

"We've been having these conversations, just not on the radio," Dr. Kovacs said. "It's also important we're connecting the local to the international and then to the local again. ... The things we're grappling with here aren't different than things the major museums around the world are grappling with.

"This whole conversation started around the people that are missing in our galleries  the work that is missing, that's not part of the traditional canon."

The women also were inspired to broadcast their talks by The Guerrilla Girls, who Dr. Kovacs brought to Augustana in January, with a 30-year retrospective display of their work.

"The Guerrilla Girls have been a catalyst more broadly, both on a national and international scale, of museums thinking more cogently about women and the visibility of women in their collections," she said, noting they've also expanded their focus on how the art world responds to race, socio-economic and LGBTQ issues.

"We are not doing the same thing the Guerrilla Girls are doing, but we are building off of them," Dr. Kovacs said.

Boosting work by female artists

While 51 percent of U.S. visual artists are women, work by female artists make up less than 5 percent of major permanent collections in the U.S. and Europe, according to the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Locally, Augustana has about 24 percent female artists in its collection, and the Figge is just 5 percent, Ms. Mohr said.

Of 590 major exhibitions by 70 institutions in the U.S. from 2007-13, only 27 percent were from women artists. On the positive side, the percentage of American museums run by women has risen from 32 percent in 2005, to 42.6 percent today, according to nmwa.org/advocate/get-facts.

This summer, 83 percent of the Figge's temporary exhibit space will be comprised of works by female artists, and in September an exhibit of paintings by Rock Island native Irma Rene Koen (1884-1975) will open. These were not spurred by the Gallery Gap podcast, Ms. Mohr said.

"I do think the Figge has been intentional in trying to get more toward equality, and not just with gender," she said, noting since she came to the Figge in 2009, "every step has been toward having these thoughtful conversations."

"It's really becoming the norm for us with exhibitions, acquisitions, to not do what we've always done before," Ms. Mohr said. The Figge owns one painting of Ms. Koen's.

Dr. Kovacs has been Augustana museum director for two years.

"My intention toward the exhibitions we're holding at Augustana, the works we're purchasing, always needs to come back to contemporary issues," she said. "In doing that, I am intentionally bringing in different voices, not just women, but thinking about equity in our purchases, our exhibitions and programming."

The second podcast episode focuses on the anonymous Guerrilla Girls, and the third interviews Alison Saar, a Los Angeles-based artist whose work is in the collections of many museums beyond the Figge.

Inspired by the March 31 International Day of Transgender Visibility, another episode will discuss artists who are either transgender or identify somewhere else on the gender spectrum, Dr. Kovacs said.

Iowa portrait makes big impact

Ms. Mohr said she was thrilled when the Figge acquired Rose Frantzen's "Portrait of Maquoketa," which was first exhibited there in 2012. It includes 180 foot-long vertical oil portraits of Maquoketa residents, and on the back of the 34 panels  ranging in length from four to 10 feet and suspended from the ceiling  creates a 315-square-foot landscape view Maquoketa.

"She was really mastering her style, realistic painting, but also as somebody who was thinking about what she was contributing to her immediate community," Ms. Mohr said on the podcast. Owning artworks is a commitment to these artists, she said, noting "Portrait" is "amazing for us to have  an outstanding, momentous installation by Rose Frantzen."

The Gallery Gap is being produced by WVIK's Lacy Scarmana and Alfredo Manteca, the same team producing the podcast "Suspect Convictions," which has reached 2 million downloads. Led by journalist Scott Reeder, it explores the ongoing prosecution of Stanley Liggins (who's been twice convicted for the 1990 murder of 9-year-old Jennifer Lewis and faces a third trial).

"WVIK is very committed to supporting the arts in the community. We do a lot of work with the symphony," Ms. Scarmana said of Gallery Gap. "There's that appetite for good local arts content. I think it's helping to fill that void, of having intelligent conversations about the arts, and worthwhile ones working toward a goal."

Of the hosts, Mr. Manteca said: "They have a special chemistry; you can't believe it. They bring the magic into the studio."

"Equity is successful when we don't have to advocate for it anymore," Ms. Mohr said. "We do our jobs, it just is, and becomes part of a daily vocabulary."

The Gallery Gap is available at WVIK.org, Google Play, and iTunes.
Go To The Polls And Pull The Lever

We hope everyone turns out to pull the lever next Tuesday (Nov. 8). Actually, new voters wont know what we are talking about, as the...

Letters To The Editor

Street Closure Dangers Neighbors, Friends, Citizens of NYC/QUEENS: Many may not know that NYC has decided to close off miles of streets to cars in...
G'day! It's Murray here. I've put together a little quiz to test your musical knowledge. Think you can score top marks in Murray's Magic Music Quiz? Give it a go now!
Just weeks after acquiring Florida East Coast Industries (FECI), parent of Florida East Coast Railway (FECR), a Japanese hedge fund is close to a deal to sell the regional carrier to Ferromex, Mexicos largest railroad by mileage, for a reported $2 billion.

Grupo Mexico, the mining conglomerate that owns 74% of Ferromex (Union Pacific owns the remaining 26%), is finalizing the details of a deal for FECR with FECI owner Fortress Investment Group, which was acquired by Japans Softbank in February.

Ferromex won out in an auction for FECR, according to Reuters, and a deal could be announced as early as this week.

Jacksonville-based Florida East Coast Railway operates 351 miles of track along the eastern coast of Florida. It was taken private by Fortress in 2007 for $3.5 billion. It also operates All Aboard Florida, parent of Brightline, an intercity/higher-speed passenger rail operation running on FEC tracks set to begin service this summer. Brightline will remain under Fortress ownership.

The multinational sale comes at a precarious time for relations between Mexico and the United States. President Donald Trump campaigned on promises to build a wall between the U.S. and its southern neighbor, and the Administration has already begun actions to tighten enforcement of laws aimed at restricting the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico. Trump has also proposed dismantling NAFTA (North American FreeTrade Agreement) and imposing tarriffs on goods Mexico exports to the U.S.
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On March 25, 1957, the Treaty of Rome was officially signed by the six original members of the European Economic CommunityBelgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany. The treaty led to the eventual creation of the modern-day European Union and symbolized closer ties across Europe on goods, labor, services and capital.

Sixty years on from the Treaty of Rome, it can be argued that the EU is facing one of its most challenging periods. The geopolitical situation is changing rapidly, with the U.K. set to leave the EU and anti-EU sentiments on the rise in a number of member states. Since 2015, 1.4 million migrants have arrived in Europe, fleeing conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, and the EU's internal and external borders are coming under strain. EU security is also under threat, with a number of terrorist attacks taking place in Belgium, France and Germany in the past several years.

At this moment in time, the prospect of greater European integration remains in the balance. However, research and evidence suggests that there are many different social and economic benefits to closer ties across Europe. RAND Europe's own research on the EU single market; the Schengen Area; defense and foreign policies; and corruption supports this view.

The EU single market remains an area of untapped potential, with between $197 and $290 billion per year estimated to be realized. However, perhaps more striking is the economic potential of the EU's digital economy. According to the European Commission, completing the EU digital single market could contribute $480 billion per year to Europe's economy, create jobs and transform public services. These significant gains would partly be a result of increasing the use of online services, such as electronic procurement, and improving the EU's digital infrastructure.

Despite the public debate about the risks of open borders, a RAND Europe report found that the Schengen Area has brought about a number of social benefits to countries that are part of the area. The levels of crime in Schengen states that entered the area following the Schengen enlargement in 2007 (the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) actually decreased. In addition, there was an upward trend in trust between citizens and their governments and with other countries following this enlargement.

The same report found that ending the Schengen Agreement would come at a price for the 26 European countries that are part of the area. Establishing internal border controls in the Schengen Area would mean estimated yearly operating costs of between $2.16 billion and $3.23 billion. In addition, fixed one-off costs could reach $20.5 billion, depending on the time frame for establishing border controls and whether permanent construction would be needed.

Harmonizing foreign and defense policies across the EU member states has economic benefits, too. Reducing the number of diplomatic missions and pooling resources, for example, could save between $453 million and $1.4 billion a year (between six and 19 percent of the total annual spending). On defense, coordinating armed forces across the member states could save between $3.23 billion and 9.7 billion a year on wages alone.

Despite stark figures showing that corruption costs EU member states over $1 trillion in gross domestic product each year, new countries joining the EU have made positive strides towards addressing their own corruption levels. In preparing themselves for EU membership, Romania and Bulgaria have both made significant steps to reduce their levels of corruption. This was achieved through the Mechanism for Cooperation and Verification, which benchmarks new EU entrants across a number of policy areas, including corruption. Failing to act in these policy areas can lead to a loss of privileges associated with EU membership.

And these are just some examples. Closer ties and shared values across EU member states have provided benefits from a social and economic perspective. A less integrated Europe could represent a reversal of many positive social and economic changes that have been achieved in Europe in the past 60 years.

However, closer ties to the EU are currently seen as being politically unpopular and therefore unlikely. General elections in countries such as France and Germany will shed more light on the direction of European integration. Despite the noted benefits, any moves towards closer integration in Europe will fail to materialize in the absence of political will. The grand vision of European integration offered by the Treaty of Rome is being tested at the ripe age of 60 years.

Stijn Hoorens is an associate research director of RAND Europe and head of RANDs Brussels office.

This commentary originally appeared on U.S. News & World Report on March 24, 2017. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
Officials, lawmakers, and community leaders in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar have accused neighboring Pakistan of incursions and cross-border attacks.

Haji Muhammad Safi, the head of Kunars provincial council, says persistent rocket attacks from Pakistan have forced remote border communities in the region to abandon their villages. Some of these, he says, were later turned into trenches and defensive positions by Pakistani forces.

Safi says Pakistan will eventually use these regions to help Afghan rebels use them as hideouts and safe havens.

In the [bordering] district of Kunar Khas, Pakistani forces have moved into the Afghan territory for more than 500 meters and have established posts there, he told Radio Free Afghanistan. They are making similar incursions [in the neighboring] Sirkanay district. In some of these regions, they have moved heavy machinery to build new buildings.

Safi accused Pakistani forces of rapidly clearing forests in the mountainous regions. He says that cross-border shelling and incursions have so far displaced nearly 200 families. They told some of the villagers they could move to Pakistan and even offered them accommodation there, he said.

Wilayat Khan, a tribal leader in Khas Kunar, says the constant Pakistani shelling aimed at their houses has forced them to flee.

Luckily, no one was killed in the attacks, but our properties and livestock suffered, he told Radio Free Afghanistan. Pakistan did this to force us out so their forces can move in.

Kunar Police Chief Juma Gul Himat says Pakistan wants Afghan rebels to carve out sanctuaries in Khas Kunar, Sirkanay, and Dangam districts, which border Pakistans northwestern Mohmand and Bajaur tribal districts.

Our neighbor Pakistan has always blatantly interfered in Afghan affairs, he said. The recent incursions and cross-border attacks are part of their strategy to facilitate some terrorist groups to carve out sanctuaries. If they succeed, this will imperil the security of the entire eastern region [in Afghanistan].

Islamabad, however, rejects Kabuls accusations and blames Afghanistan for sheltering remnants of the Pakistani Taliban in Kunar and Nangarhar. Pakistan closed its western border with Afghanistan after a wave of terrorist attacks killed scores of civilians and soldiers across Pakistan.

On March 25, Pakistani army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa visited border areas in the Mohmand district agency to announce that a border fence will be constructed in Mohmand and Bajaur. Islamabad considers the two high-threat zones because of cross-border attacks from Kunar and neighboring Nangarhar province.

According to a Pakistani military statement, the countrys forces will deploy additional technical and air surveillance means to monitor the countrys border with Afghanistan.

Efforts are at hand to evolve a bilateral border security mechanism with Afghan authorities. A better managed, secure, and peaceful border is in the mutual interest of both brotherly countries, who have given phenomenal sacrifices in [the] war against terrorism, a March 25 statement by the Inter Services Public Relations quoted Bajwa as saying.

The two neighbors have longstanding acrimonious relations. During the past 15 years, they have accused each other of hosting Taliban and other insurgent groups responsible for violent insurgencies and frequent terrorist attacks.

Islamabad and Kabul, however, have so far failed to break this cycle of mutual blame and embark on meaningful antiterrorism cooperation.

On March 15, senior official from the two countries agreed to a commitment to realistic and nondiscriminatory cooperation in the fight against terrorism, according to the Afghan Foreign Ministry.

But disagreements over Pakistani plans to selectively fence their more than 2,500-kilometer-long porous border, called the Durand Line after a 19th-century British colonial diplomat, is already testing their resolve.

On March 27, Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah said the fencing is unlikely to help in fighting terrorism.

The latest development on the other side of the [Durand] Line will not help the struggle against terrorism, he told the Afghan cabinet on March 27. Such a struggle requires sincere cooperation from the two countries.

Rohullah Anwari is Radio Free Afghanistans correspondent in Kunar.

fg/
Former construction firms CEO convicted of tax evasion released from prison on parole

MOSCOW, March 28 (RAPSI)  Ex-head of the Mostovik construction firm Oleg Shishov sentenced to four years in prison for evading 500 million rubles of taxes ($7.8 million) was released from a penal colony on parole, RIA Novosti reported on Tuesday.

On March 16, the Sovetsky District Court in the city of Omsk granted parole for Shishov.

Shishov was convicted and sentenced in September 2016. Prosecutors demanded a 5.5-year prison term for the defendant.

As it has been reported earlier, Shishov pleaded guilty and requested his case to be reviewed under a special procedure envisaging no examination of the evidence.

According to investigators, between 2009 and 2011 Shishov forged financial documents and tax declarations of Mostovik, falsely reporting completion of construction works in Vladivostok and other cities by outside contractors.

Investigators claimed that these contractors had not done any works and the projects were completed by employees of Mostovik itself. As a result, investigators said that Shishov evaded paying over 478 million rubles ($7.4 mln) in taxes.

Additionally, investigators alleged that Shishov embezzled 526 million rubles ($8.2 mln) received as advance payment for construction of the Omsk ring road.
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Separate military maneuvers -- one involving Tajik and U.S. forces and the other Tajik and Russian troops -- are due to begin in Tajikistan on March 27.

The Tajik-U.S. exercises will be conducted by the U.S. Defense Department and Tajikistan's security forces until April 7. They were announced by the U.S. Embassy on March 20.

Embassy officials told RFE/RL on March 27 that some 150 Americans and 100 Tajik personnel are taking part in the maneuvers, which will focus on fighting transnational terrorism.

Three days after the U.S. Embassy's announcement, media reports quoted Tajik defense officials as saying that 50,000 Tajik troops and some 2,000 Russian military personnel will hold military exercises in Tajikistan from March 27-31.

On March 25, Russia's Central Military Region said several military planes were brought to Tajikistan from Russia's Kant military base in neighboring Kyrgyzstan to take part in the maneuvers.

A representative of the Russian military in Tajikistan told RFE/RL on March 27 that the Tajik-Russian maneuvers had been planned for months.

He said the exercises will be held in Tajikistan's southern Khatlon region.

Russia has some 7,000 troops in Tajikistan, making it Moscow's largest military contingent abroad.
The constant stream of revelations that members of President Donald Trumps administration and his surrogates had direct contact with Russia during and after the 2016 presidential election provokes a series of questions: Does it matter? And is Russia really our enemy? The answer might surprise you.

To call Russia our enemy right now is not exactly accurate. It would be rather more fitting to call Russia our rival. This might seem like a minute distinction, and yet it is a telling one. A rival is a strategic competitor -- an equal who competes for superiority and who strives for the same goal. An enemy, on the other hand, is the hostile opposition -- an antagonist that seeks the destruction of its opponent.

It is basically incontestable that Moscows interests and strategic goals directly counter Western and democratic values, and more importantly, the liberal world order. Much of what Russia does or hopes to achieve directly clashes with the international system America helped set up to manage conflict and promote cooperation.

So why then is Russia merely a rival to the United States, rather than an unequivocal enemy to the order that America traditionally upholds? As it happens, this distinction stems from a change in the value America places on its own traditional ideals.

But before we get into Americas shifting values, lets examine how Russia perceives its relationship with the United States.

From our disputes over the Kosovo War, to disagreements over American conduct in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the more recent blame that Moscow has placed on the West for the collapse of a pro-Russian government in Ukraine, Russia clearly sees American actions as a threat to its interests. An intellectual project that reframes Russia as Americas friend betrays any basic facts we know about international relations and recent behavior.

Russias abhorrent behavior in the Middle East includes supporting a Syrian regime that uses mass executions and chemical weapons on its own population. The roster of Russian journalists who have sought to expose the truth and have been killed for their efforts is horrifying. Of course, the United States is not beyond reproach when it comes to lives lost as a result of its foreign policy. But the abuses of the Russian state go far beyond the scope of recent American contraventions.

Crucially for Russia, confusion and disunity in U.S. politics provide an opportunity to push Moscows agenda onto the Western world. Sowing lack of faith in Western institutions allows Moscow to promote ideologies and processes that support its interests. These include support for authoritarian governments, ethno-nationalists, and for kleptocracies extracting resources for personal gain.

All of these run directly counter to U.S. values. They go against our traditional conception of the Four Freedoms (freedom from want, freedom of worship, freedom from fear, and freedom of speech) articulated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Youd be hard-pressed to find another example of a country whose principle ethos runs so directly counter to the American project.

Why, then, can we no longer blatantly classify Russia as our enemy, given the litany of egregious examples of anti-democratic and anti-liberal behavior the country has imposed upon its own citizens and the rest of the world?

How the United States views Russia directly correlates to how much value we as Americans place on things like freedom, democracy, economic liberalism, and the protection of traditional NATO allies. Do Americans really care what happens in Syria? Are we ready to go to war to counter Russian aggression in Ukraine -- or Latvia, for that matter? Do we care about an open international system based on free trade and liberal politics? Honest answers to these questions might render us less different from Russia than we are comfortable to admit.

That the United States failed to stand up to brazen Russian aggression in Syria and Ukraine is abundantly obvious. Yet the failure to uphold American ideals is also painfully evident in the reality of the United States today, as undocumented migrants hide during raids in fear of being torn from their families and uprooted from their lives. Americas inability to articulate a liberal project that trumpets progress is its real failure both at home and abroad -- and it is one that renders us much more similar to Russia than we might be comfortable to admit.

Americas failure to support the liberal world order it created says more about changes to our state and the disintegration of traditional American foreign policy than it does the actions of rival regimes and societies. The populism that has taken hold of American politics is only able to do so when there is little to stand in its way, and when there is no alternative ideology that offers a progressive, fact-based path forward.

The shift toward an isolationist and selfish view of Americas role in this global system is the real tragedy of our time. Rather than seeking progress and stable, positive change internationally, the United States became fearful of any intervention that might make it appear responsible for the future of another state. Russia will continue to pose a threat to the liberal international order, but so too will an America that is unmoored from its ideals and interests abroad.

Rivalry and strategic competition will continue to shape future relations between the United States and Russia, but we wont be real enemies again until America first rediscovers its own values.
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Porterville High School freshman Rebecca Keele recently competed in the California Poetry Out Loud state competition in Sacramento.

Keele, who earned the right to compete for the state title after winning the Tulare County title last month, advanced to second round that was held in the Senate Chamber of the Capitol building. The first round was held in the historic Crest Theater.

Keele had the opportunity to meet several members of the California Assembly as part of the festivities.

Poetry Out Loud is a free program that helps students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence, learn about their literary heritage and compete for college scholarship funding. The structure of Poetry Out Loud is similar to a spelling bee.

The annual program starts in the fall with high school teachers using the free Poetry Out Loud teacher toolkit and related materials to teach poetry recitation and run classroom competitions. Poetry Out Loud does not require full class periods and can be completed in two-three weeks. The county champions are honored with a dinner reception and each receives a certificate of recognition from their legislative representative.
Vandalia Elementary students get a close-up look at Milky Way, a 2-year-old dairy cow which visited the campus on Monday. Mishael McDougal with the Dairy Council of California, in the background, told students about the cow.
It comes down to Gov. Nathan Deal as to whether guns will be allowed on Georgia college campuses, as House Bill 280 passed through the Georgia
No mention of cab aggregators in GST bills

Four Bills for the proposed goods and services tax (GST) regime, which were introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, did not mention cab aggregators such as Ola and Uber, but experts say these may draw up to one per cent tax collected at source (TCS) under the definition of e-commerce marketplaces.

The exact nature of taxing these cab aggregators is likely to be detailed in the rules.

Also, buses, including minibuses and pick-up vans, carrying more than 10 individuals, will not be subject to an extra cess under the proposed regime.

The legislation has been introduced as money Bills, which will not require a nod from the Rajya Sabha, where the ruling coalition is in a minority.

Formally, then, the new indirect taxation system is set for a roll-out from July. However, industry and tax experts want a September 1 roll-out.

The Bills changed an earlier draft version to tax shopping vouchers given by companies at the time of receiving these. Now, the tax will be imposed at the time of redemption.

Also changed was a provision about a balance left in the compensation fund after five years. Now, the balance will be shared between the Centre and states; the draft had proposed to give it to the states.

There are provisions for arrests and fines in cases of tax evasion.

Opposition party members protested at the way the Bills - Central GST (CGST), Union Territory GST (UTGST), Integrated GST (IGST) and Compensation - were brought in. They said theyd not been given enough time to study the proposed legislation.

A debate on the Bills is set for Wednesday. A fifth Bill - state GST (SGST) - is required to be approved by the respective assemblies.

Alongside, the GST Council will take up for debate the proposed rules at a meeting on Friday. After this, a committee of officers will look at fitment of rates.

The Compensation Bill deals with a cap on the cess to be imposed over the peak rate of 28 per cent, to offset states for the revenue loss due to GST for the first five years of the roll-out.

It caps the cess at 15 per cent for luxury cars, station wagons and racing cars. As mentioned earlier, vehicles, which can carry more than 10 individuals, including the driver, will not attract the cess. M S Mani of consultancy Deloitte says these are basically buses, minibuses and pick-up vans.

Sugato Sen of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers says while buses carry an excise duty of 12.5 per cent and value added tax (VAT) of 12.5 per cent in most states, vans carry an excise duty of around 24 per cent and VAT of 12.5 per cent.

And, the concept of cab aggregators has been removed from the final Bill.

The need was not felt, considering there are only two companies in the cab space - Uber and Ola. We will deal with them in the rules, said a finance ministry official. Saloni Roy of Deloitte, however, says aggregators should fall within e-commerce operator definition itself.

The Bill proposes up to one per cent TCS for these e-commerce marketplaces.

In the case of shopping vouchers, the GST will not be imposed at the time of receiving these but at the time of purchasing items against these vouchers. Shopping vouchers were classified as a service in the earlier draft but has been taken off that category. The tax will need to be paid at the time of the purchase against the voucher.

Actionable claims will not be treated as goods or services, which would mean that sale of multipurpose vouchers would be taxed at the time of redemption and not upon issuance, says Pratik Jain of PwC. Jain said the government should consider September 1 as the roll-out date.

The Centre will have a greater share of the residual amount in the compensation fund at the end of the five-year period agreed after GST takes effect.

The Compensation Bill now provides for equal sharing of the amount, against the earlier formula which favoured states. States will receive provisional compensation bi-monthly from the Centre for loss of revenue from implementation. The draft law had provided for payment every quarter.

The law also provides for arrest, ordered by no less than a tax commissioner, in suppression of any transaction or evading taxes. A person convicted is punishable by up to five years of imprisonment and/or fine.

On the manner the Bills were brought in, Congress member K C Venugopal said their introduction was not listed in the days agenda. Parliamentary procedure had to be followed in important issues.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister S S Ahluwalia said the Bills were uploaded on the government website at midnight of Friday. To which, Opposition MPs took strong objection, demanding to know how the government expected members to check the website at midnight.

Why they demanded was the issue not discussed at last weeks meet of the Business Advisory Committee.

Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen leader Asaduddin Owaisi and the Trinamool Congress Saugata Roy were among those who objected to the Bills introduction.
Rs 6,000-cr disclosure just four days before scheme ends

With the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY), also known as the Income Declaration Scheme (IDS)-II, coming to an end on March 31, disclosures under the scheme had not even crossed Rs 6,000 crore, said sources in the income tax (I-T) department.

While an official target has not been announced, the government is believed to have asked the tax department to collect at least double of the previous scheme, the Income Declaration Scheme, 2016, or IDS-I, which had mopped up Rs 55,000 crore (Rs 550 billion).

With just four days to go, the I-T department has gone into overdrive to snag more tax evaders escaping the dragnet.

Tax officials are conducting 20-plus surveys every day to have tax evaders fall in line. In the past week alone, over 2,000 surveys and searches were conducted and around 10,000 notices were served to depositors, sources added.

Sources said tax officials were asked to call all those persons who had deposited Rs 10 lakh and above during the demonetisation of old currency of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations.

On March 16, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), upset with the poor response, had called an emergency meeting and asked I-T officials to intensify the search and survey operations.

Sources in the tax department said that responses from southern states and small circles had been better than in the metros.

Mumbai, which contributes 33 per cent of the direct collection, saw a disclosure of only Rs 200 crore under the PMGKY. The Maharashtra region has, so far, collected Rs 500 crore under the scheme.

At present, the PMGKY allows taxpayers to disclose their unaccounted cash deposits till the end of the month, by paying 50 per cent of the total amount - including 30 per cent as tax, 10 per cent as penalty and 33 per cent of the taxed amount (that is, 10 per cent as Garib Kalyan Cess.

Additionally, under this scheme, 25 per cent of the amount would be locked up for four years in the interest-free Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Deposit Scheme.

However, if the assessee does not comply under the scheme, the penalty would be raised to 60 per cent, in addition to the tax required to be paid, indicated a senior CBDT official.

He further explained that if a declarant admits to the undisclosed amount under the PMGKY scheme after the March 31 deadline, he would be levied an additional penalty of 60 per cent, plus the 50 per cent tax and penalty under the PMGKY scheme, taking the total tax liability to 110 per cent.

After the deadline, if the I-T department can establish that the amount deposited was unaccounted for, then the person would be liable to pay 137 per cent tax, being 77 per cent tax and 60 per cent penalty.

For the I-T department, the challenge is that despite reminders and efforts, people are reluctant to come voluntarily, said an official cited above.

I-T sources say that declarants have been asking for more time to explain sources of undisclosed income, and those who are explaining their source of income need to be investigated further. Both of these cases are becoming challenges for I-T officials.

A source further said that a similar trend was observed in the foreign black money scheme in 2015, which had seen disclosures of over Rs 4,000 crore (Rs 40 billion).

Sources said that the government could extend the scheme deadline, if it gets valid reasons to do so.

Sources said the I-T department remains focused on the 1.8 million persons who had deposited a combined Rs 4.5 lakh crore. These were identified under Operation Clean Money and had come under the lens, as their cash deposits did not match their tax profiles.

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com
Now that the National Pension Scheme offers more choices than the Employees Provident Fund, is more transparent and also allows to choose the level of allocation to equities as investors like, should one switch to the NPS?

Sanjay Kumar Singh finds out.

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com

The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority, PFRDA, has through a circular dated March 6, laid down the procedure through which subscribers may shift their corpus from a recognised provident/superannuation fund to the National Pension Scheme, NPS.

Experts say investors should weigh the pros and cons carefully before deciding whether to shift their corpus from the Employees Provident Fund, EPF, to NPS.

The road map, as laid down by PFRDA, is as follows: An employee needs to have an active NPS Tier-I account, which can be opened through the employer, an eligible point of presence, or online through eNPS.

"The employee then needs to make a request to the recognised provident fund/superannuation fund to issue a letter to his present employer mentioning that the amount is being transferred," says Nishit Dhruva, managing partner, MDP & Partners.

Experts say one hitch remains.

"The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) hasn't said anything about allowing you to shift. Only the receiver of money has laid down the procedure. The giver has to do the same," says an expert who did not wish to be identified.

Experts are divided on whether you should shift your corpus.

First, let us look at the points in favour of shifting.

"NPS gives you more choices. You can choose the investment option (auto or active), asset allocation, and fund manager. With EPF you don't have any say in where and how your money is invested," says Arnav Pandya, a Mumbai-based financial planner.

Another point in favour of NPS is that tracking your investments is easier.

"Returns of NPS funds are published regularly. EPF's rate of return for the current financial year is published in November-December. Till then you are in the dark about how much your corpus will do," adds Pandya.

Some financial planners favour staying put in EPF.

"EPF's return is good for a debt product (8.65 per cent last year). While it is true that you should invest in equities for the long term, your retirement portfolio is not 100 per cent in equities. Stick to EPF for your debt exposure," says Deepesh Raghaw, founder, PersonalFinancePlan.in, a Sebi-registered investment advisor (RIA).

EPF is also more flexible in the matter of early withdrawal.

"If you have been contributing for five years, have quit your job and been unemployed for two months, you can withdraw the entire corpus. In case of NPS you have to annuitise 80 per cent of the corpus if you withdraw before 60," he says.

The biggest issues experts have with NPS are taxation and annuitisation at withdrawal.

Sixty per cent of the NPS corpus is taxed on withdrawal while the entire EPF corpus is exempt.

Forty per cent of the NPS corpus has to be annuitised. Rates of return are low on annuities.

Parity in tax treatment for EPF and NPS has been under discussion.

An alternative non-guaranteed withdrawal structure, akin to a systematic withdrawal plan, SWP, is also under discussion. But nobody knows if and when these changes will happen.

For most people, it makes sense to stay put in EPF and invest in NPS additionally.

Shifting the corpus may make sense only for young investors with a high risk appetite.

"Those below 35, and having the appetite for high exposure to equities, may shift their corpus to NPS as their longer investment horizon may allow them to accumulate a bigger amount despite the less favourable tax treatment," says Vishal Dhawan, chief financial planner, Plan Ahead Wealth Advisors.

Pros and cons
Vastu Housing Finance is trying to leverage technology to distinguish itself in a crowded space.

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com.

After many years of a comfortable banking career with leading banks like GE Capital, Standard Chartered and Barclays, Sandeep Menon and Sujay Patil decided to rock the boat.

At roughly 40, they found themselves at the crossroads with two options before them: One, continue on the staid, oft-treaded path and stay within the comfort zone; and two, stir things up a bit and take the plunge to go entrepreneurial.

A long chat with his mentor and senior career banker P H Ravikumar (chairman of SKS Microfinance who also chairs Vastu Housing Finance) helped Menon make up his mind.

Starting a new socially relevant business focused at the lower end of the pyramid seemed the more attractive choice to Menon.

The goal was to build a large credible, respected franchise in a for-profit model with social impact as a key objective.

He was joined by Sujay Patil, a graduate of Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies and his former colleague at Standard Chartered and Barclays and now his co-founder at Vastu.

Vastu Housing Finance was conceived in 2015 and has expanded at breakneck pace.

By the end of March 2017, the company will have disbursed loans of around Rs 200 crore and will have around 250 employees on its rolls.

The company has a presence in 18 (and will be taking this to 25 in the next two-three months) urban and semi urban cities.

The venture is well-funded, having raised $22 million of capital in the first year itself, but has another $70 million committed from a star-studded line-up of investors including Renuka Ramnath, Pramod Bhasin and Vikram Gandhi among others.

The business model

What Vastu is attempting is neither new nor unique. At last count, there were 16 new entrants in the space. At least 14 existing large players are already in the fray and several of them are expanding significantly.

So, how does one stand out in an already crowded space?

Menon says his company is using a fin-tech platform called Pulse -- a digital interface that allows them to give an in-principle approval (locking in the customer) and then does a physical validation as required by the regulatory process.

Five years ago, without this kind of tech support, we would have had to have 5,000 people to build a business of the size we are aiming for. Technology will allow us to do the same with 2,000 people, says he.

The experience for him has been a learning one because the new business has required him to shed all the legacies of a traditional bank or financial institution.

So Vastu is able to give a virtually paperless approval and this is possible because of how they have leveraged technology to their advantage.

The companys customers range from vegetable vendors in Nasik to diamond workers in Surat and many have income as low as Rs 12,000 a month.

On an average though, their customers have an income of Rs 50,000 in larger cities, Rs 35,000 in smaller cities and around Rs 25,000 in rural areas. The company already has 20-plus branches.

A second distinguishing factor will be the talent pool they are trying to build.

In an industry where churn is high and employee retention is quite a challenge, Vastu has decided to invest deeply in experience. The company has hired 16 state leaders with experience of 12-15 years each.

Menon says the company interviewed over 250 candidates before choosing the ones they invited on board.

Most of the leaders have considerable experience in the housing finance space with a reasonable understanding of underserved customers, the segment it is catering to.

To ensure that they dont lose talent, the company does regular salary corrections based on performance.

Learnings so far and the future

Over the next seven-10 years, the company hopes to expand its total assets under management to $2 billion (75 per cent in housing and 25 per cent in non-housing), have a total of 200 branches and 2,500 employees.

It is with this kind of ambition in mind that the founders are proceeding.

Menon says a start-up of this kind is a humbling experience.

You have to be ready to keep all past glory aside, roll up your sleeves and go back 15 years in time and execute on ground.

Moreover, you have to be ready to accept your mistakes, course correct and adapt fast. And above all, you need patience, patience and then some more patience.

Do Menon and Patil have the kind of patience required? The next decade will provide the answer.
Why 'anti-Romeo'? Why not 'anti-loafer' squad? Or 'anti-Majnu' squad?' wonders Syed Firdaus Ashraf.

Ever since Yogi Adityanath was elected Uttar Pradesh chief minister, sections of the media have been busy projecting his 'clean', 'secular' image.

When I read about what Yogi likes to eat at breakfast, I wonder if all those years ago I made the right decision to become a journalist.

Of course, what took the laddoo -- sorry, no cake, folks -- was one veteran journalist's tweet over the weekend: 'More than 350 cows at the Gorakhnath temple Gaushala. Several calves ran to Yogi Adityanath as he reached & gave them Gur & their feed.'

For me, Yogi visiting his Lok Sabha constituency and karmabhoomi Gorakhpur and feeding the cows there was not the big news coming out of UP this past week.

Or for that matter the ban on 'illegal' slaughterhouses. I have tired of this subject. I know the Bharatiya Janata Party, under Narendra Modi's leadership, is obsessed with all creatures bovian.

For me, the big news out of the Republic's most populous province was the setting up of 'anti-Romeo' squads to nab young men loitering around UP's women's colleges.

Television footage showed young men forced to do sit-ups by these squads without apparently first finding out why they were in the area.

Like Mohammad Akhlaq's killers in Dadri believed he must have slaughtered a cow since he was a Muslim, never mind the truth, these young men were assumed to be 'Romeos' because they were found around women's colleges.

It did not matter to anyone -- including the media -- to ask a few questions: Were these young men waiting to pick up their girlfriends or sisters? Could they have stopped to buy, say, cigarettes? Or maybe they were on an innocent errand?

But no, since the enemy had already been identified, there were no scope for questions.

What intrigued me was why these squads are called anti-Romeo squads?

Why 'anti-Romeo'? Why not 'anti-loafer' squad? Or 'anti-Majnu' squad?

We know that the romantic Romeo in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was in a consensual relationship with Juliet.

Romeo and Juliet, the Bard tells us, both died for love. Maybe Yogi and the BJP's bachelors are not familiar with such love stories.

Was Romeo's name used because he hailed from Verona in Italy, a country the BJP dislikes for reasons well known?

By the way, the love-hate relationship between the saffron fold and the Italians goes back a long way, to around the Second World War when B S Moonje, the Hindu Mahasabha leader, visited Italy to meet its fascist leader Benito Mussolini.

About five decades later, the BJP's focus was another Italian, Ottavio Quattrocchi, accused in the infamous Bofors case. The businessman vamoosed before action could be initiated against him.

Quattrocchi died in Milan, Italy, in 2013, a year before Modi became prime minister.

Had Quattrocchi been alive, do you think the Modi government would have extradited him to India?

Think again.

After all, it has done nothing to punish Salvatore Girone and Massimiliano Latorre, the Italian marines accused of shooting two Indian fishermen in 2012 off the Kerala coast after mistaking them for pirates.

The marines, who were detained in India to face trial, was granted permission to go home for Christmas in 2012, a decision the BJP was not happy with.

During his 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign, Modi asked several times in that typical Modi style: 'Who was it in Delhi who allowed them (the Italian marines) to flee? On whose direction was the government acting?' Hinting in that Modiesque manner, to Congress President Sonia Gandhi's Italian origins.

After two years, 10 months and one day in power, his government has done nothing to bring the Italian marines back to India.

The deaths of two Indians goes unpunished as the police in a state ruled by the BJP chases Romeos, real and imagined.

IMAGE: The Uttar Pradesh's anti-Romeo squad hauls up a young man in Lucknow. Photograph: PTI Photo
'Did Islam kill those five people in London?'

'Or did one wacko individual do them in?' asks Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.

IMAGE: Tributes are paid in Westminster following the London terror attack on March 22, 2017. Photograph: Paul Hackett/Reuters

Khalid Masood attacked the heart of Britain on March 22, killing five people and injuring 50.

Masood was initially described as Asian, and Europeans likely grew more frightened of Islam than they already were.

But Masood is not an offspring of traditional Islam.

He was once Adrian Elms. His deranged mind came from a Western life gone wrong.

Every time I read up on a radicalised Westerner who became an 'Islamic' terrorist, the ingredients of their story are the same.

Brought up in a broken home.

Wandered into trouble with the law.

Sentenced to prison.

After release from prison, drifted from job to job, town to town, home to home.

No one ever remembers much about the individual.

His neighbours never knew him. Or remember when they saw him last.

Or how many children he had.

Did he have a wife?

Did his family wander off too?

Did he have any friends?

Did he hold down a regular job?

The sketch that vaguely emerges is of a solitary drifter.

Then he 'finds' radical Islam, and the next thing you know he is driving down Westminster bridge, mowing down people in his murderous wake, before he is taken out.

Post-attack there is a frantic search to find out who the dead attacker really was.

Once they trace his neighbours, his antecedents -- bingo! -- they discover trips to a Muslim country and a reasonably newfound devotion to radical Islam.

QED, Islam did it. Again.

Think again.

Did Islam kill those five people on Westminster Bridge and in the Palace of Westminster?

Or did the frustrated, confused, troubled life story of one wacko individual do them in?

As I read up on this latest Islamic terrorist attack it brings to mind other terrorists.

Elms/Masood's life reminded me of David Headley, the Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorist who conducted reconnissance for Mumbai's 26/11 attackers, of terrorists like Richard Reid (the 'shoe bomber'), Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma City), Anders Breivik (Utoya-Oslo, Norway), Dylann Roof (Charleston).

As I analyse the background of these radicalised terrorists, a perhaps extreme view crosses my mind: Maybe it is the absence of Christianity, not the presence of Islam, in their lives that led them to terrorism.

Had they -- since they seemed to have had a desperate need for religion and a religious pathway -- been properly indoctrinated in their own faith, why the need to go a-seeking and then stray into a perverted version of Islam that they hardly understood?

Then there are the failures of modern life that take their toll on the most 'advanced' of societies.

Selfishness. Loneliness. Awareness of failure. Isolation.

"Radicalisation has many different reasons and causes. There is no single profile of (the) list of risk factors that would explain every case of radicalisation," Daniel Koehler, director, German Institute of Radicalisation and De-radicalisation Studies, Berlin, had told me in an interview.

"It is important to know that it always takes two types of factors for every individual: Positive and negative aspects," Koehler had added.

"Negative are any kind of frustration, like bullying in school, fights in the family, racism, no job etc," he explained. "Positives are, for example, quest for justice, honour, freedom, significance, to live up to your ideals."

Why are so many of these misfits, who scar a city with acts of terrorism, from broken homes?

Further, why is there divorce in nearly every second Western home? The UK has a divorce rate of 47 per cent, Belgium 71, France 55, US 53, Germany 49; figures per latest national census.

Why do so many marriages break up and why has this pattern over the years accelerated and why are so many children raised in broken homes?

Most importantly, why does that child become the casualty?

Once divorced, why does the youngster of that home go adrift?

Is s/he not loved enough? Why does s/he become psychopathic? Violent?

What is s/he acting out?

Why does it always seem to follow that same script?

Does this indicate partial breakdowns in modern society?

Do families mean enough in these cultures? Are they invested enough in their families?

Is the onslaught of modernity and materialism seeing its structure fade away, like it is globally, and in our part of the world too?

Families require investment. If time is only for one's self, would one have a family or friends?

To say that family life is missing in the West is too broad and inaccurate a generalisation. But in the drive to be successful, earn money, live a materialistic life, it looks like it is getting watered down.

Family life is not chicken lunch on the second Sunday of every month with your elderly parents.

It means helping and depending on each other all the time, in illness, in death, during misfortunes and divorce, falling back on a support system of families and friends.

Maybe self-sufficiency, though immensely admirable, is a stronger value there and its casualty is family bonds.

In the advent of divorce, in advanced societies, do divorced couples and their children have enough support? Or do their children grow up less loved?

Do they become the victims? Are they, unconsciously, or by default, cast out?

IMAGE: A women's march on Westminster Bridge hold hands in silence, March 26, 2017, to remember the victims of the London terror attack. Photograph: Neil Hall/Reuters

Deficiency of strong family ties is probably not the only thing that grows the anger of these 'lone wolf

terrorists.

Lack of success does, too, it would seem, and the aloneness that stems from not accomplishing a monetarily successful, goal-oriented life. Their life tales have this theme too.

And then there is religion. Non-supporters of religion and atheists mull about the harm religion causes and may feel acts of terrorism can only denote a godless world.

But it is easy to see that religion and spiritualism can have a purpose. Many in the developed world seem to grow up in a vacuum where they have no religion.

They ultimately seem to have a need to go seeking some sort of religion and then often mistakenly find a brand of religion that is counterproductive.

If these same people had found religion or moral bearings early on, there would be no vacuum to be filled up with unreligion.

So was the Westminster attack something Islam inflicted on London?

Masood's misguided version of Islam was just a medium. Masood does not prove the co-relation between terrorism and Islam.

The March 22 attack is a sample of how a successful but imperfect society can start to cannibalise its own.

The West, or First World societies -- whatever you choose to call it -- has to take responsibility for producing these angry, isolated, individuals who run amok and feel they must hit back in such a murderously public way.

Many recent 'lone wolf' attacks were committed by individuals who did not feel part of the prosperous First World society they were living in, but instead led segregated lives on the margins.

It is time to examine why Western societies produced these outcasts.

And not to examine this brand of Islam, which is not Islam.

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'The Congress in 2017 stands for nothing positive, not even secularism,' says Aakar Patel.

What exactly is the problem in the Congress?

India's oldest party is in its worst position in history and seems unable to revive itself.

Is it in terminal decline or is it awaiting renewal through a new leader? Let us examine the issue.

The first thing that seems visible is denial, meaning the belief that it is not in any permanent trouble.

This is understandable for two reasons. One, that only 34 months ago, the Congress was ruling India with a plurality of seats.

A Congress PM had ruled for 10 straight years, the first time this had happened since Indira Gandhi in the 1970s.

When such a period ends it is only natural to assume that this is temporary and that in time the electorate will turn again to the party.

The second reason is that in any family-controlled party, the courtiers or durbaris are not themselves popular figures.

They have no incentive to tell the truth to their leadership, nor are they themselves aware of ground reality since they have no pressure to do any mobilisation.

The second problem is not really a missing leader but a lack of narrative.

It is true that Narendra Modi is highly charismatic, a word which means leadership that inspires devotion in others.

He is a very good communicator as we all know.

However, his chief talent lies in reduction, meaning he takes India's complex problems and reduces them in an overly simple framework.

For example, he can say that terrorism happens because of weak and cowardly leadership and he will end it.

The fact is he cannot as we have found out, but there is no counter narrative.

Modi can define the terms of the political debate so well that even a policy that affects every single Indian negatively, like notebandi, can be effectively marketed as a great triumph against black money, terrorism and counterfeiters.

Rahul Gandhi's inability to produce a strong and compelling narrative is his biggest failure.

His dullness at public speaking and his lack of energy are secondary. He does not have the ability to own Congress success and Modi reversals on NREGA and Aadhar.

The third problem is the absence of a cadre on the ground.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's foot soldiers available to do groundwork.

There are lakhs of them, many of them, though not all, being dedicated and highly motivated.

Till only a few years ago, we would often hear the term 'freedom fighter' used to describe individuals. These individuals were not physical fighters, they opposed the British through civil action coordinated by the Congress.

Someone born in the mid 1930s would have served Nehru and later Indira because of their continued association with the party of freedom, the Congress.

By the 1980s this person, the 'Congress worker', had begun to disappear and now the category does not exist.

The party has no ideology, like Hindutva or Communism, and no particular dedicated social base, like Mayawati or Asaduddin Owaisi have with Dalits and Muslims.

Few Indians have an incentive to mobilise for the Congress.

Because of this reality the local Congress leader must build their own supporter base, with their own money.

This brings us to the fourth problem, which is resource.

Elections require cash, and lots of it.

This cash comes to electoral politics in two ways.

The party collects funding, whether through official donations, membership fees or corruption.

Part of this is distributed to candidates and some sent to a general pool for national advertising, travel and rally costs and so on.

The second is the personal investment made by candidates.

I am revealing no secret when I say that it needs more than Rs 10 crore (Rs 100 billion) to fight an election in local assemblies and for Parliament the figure is much more.

The Congress today rules only two large states, Karnataka (which it has a strong chance of losing next year) and Punjab.

These two states cannot generate enough money to sustain the party nationally.

And candidates given Congress tickets no longer spend large sums of their own because what fool would invest heavily in a losing cause?

This has led to terminal decline. The Congress is losing nationally because it has lost states. Even in two party states like Gujarat, where the Congress is in Opposition, it cannot win elections.

The last time the Congress won an election in Gujarat -- whether Lok Sabha or Vidhan Sabha -- was three decades ago.

When the current governments of Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Raman Singh finish their term, the Congress will have been out of power in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh for 15 years. It seems to be permanently in Opposition.

In other states, like Odisha and West Bengal now and UP, Bihar and Tamil Nadu from before, it has even lost the status of a meaningful Opposition party.

Such parties cannot be revived by new leadership. They need a new message and a reason for existence.

The Congress in 2017 stands for nothing positive, not even secularism. Let us accept this.

It applauds the father of a dead Muslim boy who disowns his son's body because he is afraid of our current angry nationalism.

Even in death, the enmity and the hatred remains.

Such parties, with no values and no credibility, have no chance of survival and die, as the Congress is finding out.

Aakar Patel is Executive Director, Amnesty International India. The views expressed here are his own.

You can read Aakar's earlier columns here.

IMAGE: 'Rahul Gandhi's inability to produce a strong and compelling narrative is his biggest failure,' says Aakar Patel. Photograph: Utpal Baruah/Reuters

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'Live a healthy lifestyle. Like what our parents taught us. Like our parents' parents taught them.'

'We become obese. In obesity the chance of cancer increases.'

'Any new symptom? Please talk to your doctor. Some screening test might need to be done.'

IMAGE: Cancer patients Aryan Khan, front, and Areena Bibi, rear, in a taxi window, outside the Tata Memorial Centre in Mumbai. Photograph: Vivek Prakash/Reuters

Dr Kumar Prabhash was 70 minutes late for his appointment with Rediff.com at his office at the Tata Memorial Centre, Parel, central Mumbai.

But when you had a look at the overwhelming number of patients that swarmed the main lobby, each floor's lobby, the areas in front of the bank of lifts and spilled into the corridors on every storey of the Tata Memorial Hospital, many of them queued outside Dr Prabhash's door, you instantly overlooked the delay.

They need the doctor's time much, much more than you do.

Tata Memorial, the largest cancer hospital in India -- neat, tidy, odourless, in spite of the thousands of patients it caters to daily -- is a microcosm of the nation.

People from every faraway corner of our country -- rich or poor, farmer or businessman, villager or urbanite, toddler or the elderly, as many women as there were men, Northeasterners or Eastern Maharashtrians, of every religion and ethnicity -- were there for treatment, their luggage also in tow.

Everyone patiently waited to see a doctor. Given the queues it was a long, long wait. Often without a chair.

The scene was heartbreaking. So many patients were hairless. So many wretchedly emaciated.

Wasted. Bandaged. Masked. Attached to drips or nasal tubes or ports. In wheelchairs.

Stretched out on thin bedsheets on the floor exhaustedly sleeping.

Some of them missing an extremity or hobbling along.

All surrounded by family; hardly a patient was there alone.

Quite a few appeared at death's door.

All clutched plastic bags of medical reports. All nursed hope.

If you haven't been to an Indian cancer hospital lately, the sheer numbers at Tata Memorial strike you sharply. They are much more than any other hospital. Just how many people in India suffer from cancer?

Doctors and nurses wade their way through this impossible crowd, unwearyingly coping with it.

Run autonomously, with government funding, Tata Memorial is about double the size of any other cancer facility in India, although the government has set up regional centres in each state. Hence the multitude of patients beating a path to Parel where the hospital is located.

Dr Prabhash, associate professor at Tata and a medical oncologist, who treats lung, head and neck cancers through chemotherapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy, sees a lot of lung cancer (about 1,100 cases a year), among others.

Today, one was seeing him against the background of his workplace. The first meeting was a few weeks earlier on the sidelines of a press conference, where he was one of the medical specialists who explained the concept of liquid biopsy, a non-invasive screening test, that has been introduced in India by Bengaluru laboratory Medgenome under the name of Oncotrack.

When cancer has wrested control of a human body, its DNA molecules can be found wandering in the bloodstream too.

After the initial diagnosis, each standard additional invasive biopsy poses a risk, since it is actually a surgical procedure delving physically into delicate tissue.

Now subsequent biopsies to judge the disease's spread and the efficacy of treatment can be quite handily done through a liquid biopsy for deep-seated species of cancer. (Please see box below for a detailed explanation.)

In India it is a particularly convenient tool for patients located in rural areas who have returned to their homes after a round of treatment. Sending blood samples is certainly easier and less costly than having the patient return.

Tata Memorial, says Dr Prabhash, had done its own tests on liquid biopsies, in-house, with scientists Dr Amit Dutt and Dr Anuradha Chougule, and are still looking to improve the liquid biopsy technique.

The liquid biopsy is priced between Rs 12,000 and Rs 24,000, but Medgenome and others are working to bring this price down as soon as possible to a few thousand rupees.

At the moment liquid biopsies are only being used in India for lung cancer, though research is on at Tata and elsewhere, for it to be used in other tumours/mailgnancies.

In a rapidfire Q&A at Tata Memorial with Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel, during time, one is guiltily aware, that had been stolen away from his hordes of patients, Dr Prabhash explained some more on liquid biopsies and a few important aspects of cancer we all need to know about, now that India will see 1.73 million new cases of cancer and 880,000 cancer deaths by 2020 (according to Medgenome).

IMAGE: Dr Kumar Prabhash, associate professor, Tata Memorial Centre.

I have been standing outside your office for a while. Looking at the numbers it is pretty evident that cancer is definitely on the increase.

What are the new types of cancers you are seeing? What are the new factors, stemming from modern life today, that cause cancer?

I wouldn't say we are seeing new cancers. As we have understood cancer better, we are classifying it better. Because of that classification, we are able to treat them better.

These cancers have always been there. It is not as if there are new cancers.

Has modern life increased or changed the number of cancers we are seeing? It appears that the modern lifestyle does have some bearing on the number of cancers we are seeing.

One of the (factors) is ageing.

The more you age, the chance of cancer anyway increases. You can't do much about it.

Because humans have greater longevity?

So more cancer will happen.

Second, yes, is smoking, which is a part of our relatively modern lifestyle, is a problem and definitely linked to cancer, apart from the pollution.

Many of the carcinogens which are there in are environment (increases the chances of cancer).

So there are lifestyle changes... and it does have bearing on our having cancer.

Anything else about our modern life that contributes to a higher occurrence of cancer?

Apart from smoking, the way we live.

We don't exercise. We have a sedentary lifestyle.

We become obese. In obesity, the chance of cancer increases.

The kind of food we take. We take lesser and lesser fibre. That again also contributes to cancer.

Colon cancer?

Absolutely.

Indian food has always been traditionally very healthy. But we are changing what we eat?

Because we are adopting a lot of (aspects) of Western lifestyle, many things, including food habits. That gets reflected in the kind of food we eat.

Usually our traditional food has had more fibre; it is more healthy food.

But having said that, many of the things we eat are not always healthy. Like sweets. We take a lot. Not always healthy.

But I do agree we should adopt more of the healthier side of (Western) food habits rather than the unhealthy side of food habits from the Western world.

IMAGE: A cancer patient waits on the pavement outside the Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai. Photograph: Vivek Prakash/Reuters

What about the actual quality of our food. Now eggs don't reach us from the healthiest sources. Nor is chicken coming from the best environment? And we are eating more processed food?

No one knows. That is stretching it a bit too much.

As of date there is no certain or clear scientific proof that it is a cause. Otherwise, it would have been banned. Processed food is not considered carcinogenic.

What is liquid biopsy? According to the US National Cancer Institute, a liquid biopsy is a test done on a sample of blood to look for cancer cells from a tumour circulating in the blood or for pieces of DNA from tumour cells that are in the blood. It is a non-invasive screening test -- quite unlike a surgical biopsy -- and is about merely examining the blood of a cancer patient. Liquid biopsies have slowly become a standard feature for the treatment of lung cancer, in particular, all over the world. Lungs being way too delicate to withstand multiple surgical biopsies are best served by a liquid biopsy, Heavily funded research is on globally to expand and utilise the huge diagnostic and treatment potential liquid biopsies could have for oncology. The concept of liquid biopsies was introduced into India by the Bengaluru laboratory Medgenome under the name of Oncotrack. Research on liquid biopsies continues at Medgenome and at the Tata Memorial Centre simultaneously. The aim is to further reduce the cost of the test, improve its accuracy (it is 97 percent at the moment) and to expand its application to other types of cancer tumours like colon cancer, melanomas, ovarian cancer. Thus far in India liquid biopsies are only being used for treatment of lung cancer. Not for the diagnosis of lung cancer or any other cancer. Nor is it a predictive test to judge for an individual's genetic predilection for cancer. It 1. Assists in planning the course of treatment for lung cancer

2. Helps ascertain how well a certain line of treatment is working for a lung cancer and

3. Is useful for detecting for lung cancer relapses. Liquid biopsies for treatment of lung cancer have been instituted in just a few laboratories and cancer centres in India, but it is set to expand very soon. The scientific basis for liquid biopsies, according to Medgenome is: 'Dying cancer cells release their mutated DNA into the bloodstream, enabling determination of mutation type and relative tumour volume. By capturing and sequencing these tumour derived cell free DNA, tumour genomics can be reconstructed without needing to perform the biopsy of the tumour, and hence this is also called liquid biopsy.'

When you leave the environment of your hospital and meet average educated Indians, what are some very simple things that you feel the Indian public doesn't know about cancer?

We get all kinds of patients here, from the richest to the poorest. That's the advantage of this hospital. But the reasons remain similar. Habits decide (your risk of cancer).

For the poor, if their (environment) is unhygienic, the chances of certain cancers increases. Like cervical cancer.

What you eat (has a bearing) if you are staying in a very polluted area. The chances of getting cancer increase...

When you meet educated people in social circumstances what are some of the things they just don't know about cancer?

The most important thing, that they don't know, is that many of the cancers can be picked up. There is ignorance on (how) cancer happens. And how common cancer is.

Second, (there is ignorance) about the symptoms. (If they recognised the symptoms) they can meet the doctor early.

They don't know, so they come late. The chance of cure decreases.

You feel they should know some of these things since they are educated?

We hope that.

But at certain times we make presumptions. If there is no teaching (of awareness) there is no awareness, then how will they know. We can't simply presume.

But yes, cancer is an area where we don't know many basic things. It is important that we use all kinds of forums so they learn about it.

You said there is a lot of cancer in India these days? How much is a lot?

Yes, in India cancer is increasing. There is Indian government data about it, year by year, what is happening.

Year by year, it looks like cancer is increasing.

If there is a lot of it, how does its prevalence compare to say heart disease or diabetes in India?

I wouldn't say a lot of it, because we are 1.3 billion people. Whatever number you take, it is a lot.

But compared to the Western world, the incidence of cancer is less in India. The number is (only) high because we are a huge number.

Why do you say the incidence is less in India compared to the West?

Because we have compared that for every 100,000 patients what is the number of cancer patients in India, as compared to the Western world. It is one-third or one-fourth.

Why?

There are various reasons.

One of the most important reasons is that our average age is less. We have 67 per cent people who are less than 35 years of age

We have a young population?

Yes, we are a younger population and the Western world is an ageing population.

Apart from that many others things. Smoking is high there.

But we also have scores chewing tobacco?

But they smoke tobacco.

We chew gutka...

Absolutely. These are the differences. But they still have a higher incidence.

Theirs is a more sedentary lifestyle (for instance). So there are other issues, most important is ageing.

What should an average young Indian know about protecting himself or herself from cancer?

Live a healthy lifestyle. Like what our parents taught us. Like our parents' parents taught them.

If there is any new symptom: Talk to your doctor.

Many times we miss those symptoms.

If I have an ulcer in my mouth, which is not going away, show it to a doctor.

Any new symptom? Please talk to your doctor. Some screening test might need to be done.

Most important is: One, a healthy lifestyle -- exercising and eating healthy -- and two, meeting the doctor if there is any new symptom.

I can see that at Tata Memorial you are swamped by the number of patients that have to be seen on a regular basis. It must be very difficult for your rural patients to make it here.

Very tough for them.

The good thing is, at least, at this hospital 70 per cent of the patients we cater to are poor patients.

We have many common programmes which ensure that we are able to deliver care to them.

What are the ways in which you cater to your rural patients?

Ageing people from rural areas, who would have a higher incidence of cancer, would have difficulty getting to urban cancer centres.

I cannot deal with anything unless it comes here.

We offer all kinds of back-up (support) and all kinds of resources, so that their stay can happen, their funding can happen, their treatment can happen. We do provide many things from the (side of the) hospital.

As a cancer specialist what do you think is crucial for cancer care to improve for rural populations?

There should be a hospital nearby to the rural areas, so that more patients can take their treatment there. There are not enough rural cancer centres.

How have liquid biopsies made your life as a cancer doctor easier?

Liquid biopsy is a test which is done in the blood and which is also done in the tissues.

It is easy to take blood. It is less traumatic to the patient. It makes life easy for the patient.

Indirectly it makes it easier for me, because I am always concerned that if we want to do the test in the tissue, if we do the biopsy, there is a chance of more complications in the patients. So in that way it makes our life more easy.

Because of liquid biopsy, we hope we will have better monitoring, once the treatment has begun.

IMAGE: Ramesh Chandra Rathod, 40, who suffers from cancer, is helped by his wife as he rinses his mouth with a syringe, after being treated at the Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai. Photograph: Vivek Prakash/Reuters

Why is it important for more and more people to know about the availability of a liquid biopsy given that it is not a test of choice for the first diagnosis?

If in any way, for any modality, if awareness increases, it is always good.

Your readers need to know that there is now a liquid biopsy, which is an important test in certain situations, that is available in India.

If someone wants to use it, they now can.

But can a liquid biopsy be used for an elderly patient in a rural area who is not able to get to a cancer treatment centre?

Wouldn't a liquid biopsy be better than no test at all?

You need to have a diagnosis. (S/he) needs to go to a local doctor, get the diagnosis and in certain situations, it is helpful. It is a good incremental benefit.

Science is always incremental. We think one test can change everything in life. No, it does not happen that way.

It is a good incremental benefit for patients. It hasn't solved all the problems for every patient. No. It is an incremental benefit, but an important one.

How can the costs of cancer treatment be reduced?

At Tata Hospital we keep trying to develop chemotherapy regimens which are less costly, tests which are less costly.

This test is also now less costly since when it was developed; So more and more patients have access.

But should the government have more control on medical and hospital costs, especially in the case of cancer?

The government is working on controlling the drug costs.

But this needs to be in our culture. You can have a corporate hospital. But we need to make alternate hospitals, where the costs are going to be as minimal as possible. And with good optimal care.

And Tata is a good example of that kind of hospital?

Yes, if you ask me, I feel so. I am a biased person, because I work at Tata.
Victory in the Uttar Pradesh polls has emboldened the party leadership to pursue a pro-woman agenda, say Sanjeeb Mukherjee and Archis Mohan.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Narendra Modi led the Bharatiya Janata Party to a famous victory on the back of a narrative that articulated the hopes and aspirations of the youth.

For the 2019 polls, the Modi government believes that as part of its pro-poor focus, it should roll out schemes that help empower women, which the party hopes to cultivate as its dedicated support base.

The BJPs win in the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls has emboldened the top leadership to pursue a pro-woman agenda.

Prime Minister Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah have acknowledged the role of the Centres pro-poor schemes, particularly the Ujjwala scheme, which helped the BJP win the support of women in UP.

Women, as the BJP discovered in its debacles in Bihar and Delhi, and the success in UP, not only comprise half the electorate but tend to vote on women-specific issues.

As part of the Ujjwala scheme, the Modi government plans to distribute gas cylinders to 100 million poor households across the country. Of the 19 million distributed until now, a fourth has been give out in UP.

During their election campaign in UP, both Modi and Shah used to frequently talk about how the Ujjwala scheme has spared women from the torture of cooking on a chulha.

Women, therefore, will be the cornerstone of the schemes to be initiated by the Modi government. It would also help the BJP negate the campaign led by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and several activist groups to put pressure on the PM and the BJP to replicate Bihars prohibition across BJP-ruled states.

The Bihar CM claims his governments banning of liquor has found widespread support with women of the state and it has brought down crime and improved health and education of children.

There would be schemes that directly benefit women, like the maternity benefit of Rs 6,000 and Ujjwala. There would be others, such as cheaper foodgrains that should help reduce malnourishment among women and children, and also leave poor households with money to spend on things other than food.

The Ujjwala scheme is set to be rolled out more assiduously in the rest of India, particularly the poll-bound states of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

While there is no consensus in the BJP to use its Lok Sabha majority to push through the over two-decade-old bill to provide for 33 per cent reservation to women in Parliament and state legislatures, there are several other welfare measures the Modi government is set to take to consolidate its popularity among women.

The Centre is unlikely to tinker with the price at which it sells foodgrains through the public distribution system under the National Food Security Act. This would be the second year in succession when the price fixed during the United Progressive Alliance regime for grains sold under the Act would be kept unchanged by the Modi government.

The Act, which was passed in 2013, had fixed the price of wheat to be sold through ration shops at Rs 2 per kg, rice at Rs 3 per kg and coarse cereals at Rs 1 per kg for three years after which the Centre was free to revise the prices.

In 2016, the Centre had extended the order for a year and this is likely to be extended for another year.

A senior government official said there are plans to encourage state governments to bear a portion of the burden of selling foodgrains at cheap rates, so that wheat, rice and coarse cereals, under the Act, are available gratis to beneficiaries.

Already, the Centre bears over 90 per cent of the total expenditure of selling grains to consumers through the ration shops. If states agree to bear the remaining share, the grain can be provided free to beneficiaries.

The ministry of women and child development is working on a programme through which it plans to provide maternity benefit of Rs 6,000 to identified pregnant women and lactating mothers, as announced by the prime minister sometime ago.

The maternity benefit is also part of the NFSA and till now was being implemented on a pilot basis in more than 50 districts, but after Modis New Year Eve announcement, the programme has been extended to all the 640 districts in the country.

The scheme, officials said, would be comprehensive, well-targeted and would ensure maximum women drive benefit from it.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi handing out free LPG connections under the 'Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana'. Photograph: PIB Photos.
Ahmed Kathrada, South Africa's revered Indian-origin anti-apartheid activist who was one of Nelson Mandela's closest aides in his struggle to end the white minority rule, died in Johannesburg on Tuesday.

Kathrada, 87, died at the Donald Gordon Hospital after complications following a brain surgery, his foundation said.

Kathrada, who spent 26 years and 3 months in prison, including 18 years on the infamous Robben Island, was admitted to the hospital on March 4 initially for dehydration but doctors later picked up a clot on his brain which was subsequently removed.

After the operation, he had "experienced several health-related setbacks", the Ahmad Kathrada Foundation said.

Kathrada will be buried according to Muslim religious rights tomorrow, the foundation said.

"This is great loss to the ANC (African National Congress), the broader liberation movement and South Africa as a whole. Internationally, he was staunch in his support for the Palestinian struggle," Neeshan Balton, Executive Director of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, said.

"'Kathy' was an inspiration to millions in different parts of the world," said Balton.

South African President Jacob Zuma condoled the death of Kathrada, praising him for serving "selflessly throughout his adult life".

He declared a special official funeral for him.

The President instructed that the national flag fly at half-mast throughout the country from today until the evening of the official memorial service.

The family has requested a private funeral ceremony, the President said.

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa will lead the send-off of the much-loved stalwart within government, Zuma said.

Retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu described Kathrada as "a man of remarkable gentleness, modesty and steadfastness," hailing him a moral leader of the anti-apartheid movement.

"These were people of the highest integrity and moral fibre who, through their humility and humanity, inspired our collective self-worth -- and the world's confidence in us," the Nobel laureate said in a statement.

Kathrada, who frequently referred to Mandela as his 'elder brother', was among three political prisoners who were sentenced to life imprisonment together with the South African anti-apartheid icon after the infamous Rivonia Trial of 1964.

The two others were Andrew Mlangeni and Denis Goldberg.

They played major roles in shaping the country's policies after Mandela's election as the first democratic President of South Africa in 1994.

"We are deeply saddened to learn this morning of the passing on of our dear friend and founding trustee, Ahmed Kathrada," said the Nelson Mandela foundation on Twitter.

Kathrada was born on August 21, 1929 in Schweizer-Reneke, a town in the North West Province of South Africa, and introduced to politics as a young boy when he joined a non-racial youth club run by the Young Communist League.

At the tender age of 17, Kathrada participated in the 1946 Passive Resistance Campaign led by the South African Indian Congress.

He was among 2,000 people who were arrested and jailed for defying a law that discriminated against South African-Indians.

In July 1963, the police swooped on Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, a Johannesburg suburb where Kathrada and other banned persons had been meeting secretly. This led to the famous Rivonia Trial in which eight accused were sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour on Robben Island.

While in prison, he obtained four university degrees.

Kathrada also received the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award, India's highest honour for foreign nationals of Indian-origin, in 2005 from the Indian President.

The African National Congress had bestowed its highest honour, Isithwalandwe/Seaparankoe on Kathrada in 1992 for his selfless dedication to the struggle for a free democratic non-racial and non-sexist South Africa.

Despite having left the political arena, Kathrada has maintained a hectic schedule of local and international travel for the past few years in pursuit of the objectives of a non-racial society espoused by the Foundation that bears his name.

A prolific writer, Kathrada penned six books himself or with co-authors. He is survived by his wife Barbara Hogan, also an ANC stalwart and veteran.

Photograph: ANI
The chief of the terror group blamed for Bangladesh's worst terror attack at a Dhaka cafe was among the four Islamist militants killed in one of the country's longest anti-terror operations in Sylhet, police said on Tuesday.

"Our intelligence suggest one of the four is top neo-JMB (neo-Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh) leader Musa," Police's Assistant Inspector General M Moniruzzaman said.

He, however, said forensic investigation was ordered to further confirm his identity as his face was mutilated in the fierce encounter.

Officials earlier identified the man only as Musa, saying he took the charge of the outfit as a massive anti-militancy operations killed several top neo-JMB leaders after the July 1 attack on Holey Artisan cafe.

The July 1 attack on Gulshan's Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's posh diplomatic area killed 23 people, including an Indian girl.

Musa was among four Islamist terrorists killed during 'Operation Twilight', one of the country's longest anti-terror operations launched after a suicide bomber on Friday night blew himself up at the international airport in Dhaka in an attack claimed by the Islamic State. It came a week after an identical attack on a Rapid Action Battalion camp in Dhaka.

The four militants, including a woman, were holed up in a building that saw powerful blasts claimed by the Islamic State that killed six people in northeastern Sylhet city.

Bangladesh's army on Tuesday cleared the booby-trapped militant den in Sylhet and carried out controlled explosions of bombs in the building.

Several powerful blasts rocked the area as army's bomb disposal experts engaged in defusing the explosives planted at different corners of the building by the militants before their deaths.

"The army's explosive experts are working inside to defuse the devices apparently through controlled explosions," a source said.

An army spokesman said their assaults inside the militant hideout killed all Islamists but the 'Operation Twilight' is still underway secure the site.

"They (troops) are using drones to get a clearer picture before stepping inside different corners of the building to evade booby traps," an official said.

Sylhet-based 17 Infantry Division's Major General Anwarul Momen is leading the operation, assisted by police's SWAT and counter-terrorism units.

Army's Brigadier General Fakhrul Ahsan told the media briefing powerful "improvised explosive devices" laid by "much trained militants" at its different corners exposed the building to vulnerability requiring the military to exhaust a process ahead of wrapping up the operation.

"The militants had kept a bucket filled with explosives at the collapsible gate at entrance of the building. When we detonated them from distance, the collapsible gate was blown out so vigorously, walls of another building several yards away were severely damaged," Ahsan said.

He earlier also described the militants as "well trained" referring to an example when they hurled back a live grenade thrown by the commandos as the assault was underway.

Authorities called out commandos on Saturday morning, two days after a security siege to the building.

On Saturday evening, two powerful bombs ripped through a crowd near the building, killing six people, two being police officers and injuring about 50, including two army officers.

RAB Intelligence Wing chief Lt Col Abul Kalam was seriously wounded in blasts and flown to Dhaka for treatment. He was later flown to Singapore.

The attacks were carried out by the extremists from outside who were mixed up with onlookers, police said.

Hours later the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack through its propaganda news agency 'Amaq'.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, however, rejected the IS claim, saying that there was no presence of any foreign terrorist group in the country.

The encounter continued into Sunday, when army commandos shot dead two militants at the building.

The commandos located the militants wearing suicide vests on the ground floor of the building and shot them dead.

The militants were equipped with small arms, explosives and grenades and laid out booby traps at different corners of the building, slowing down the military operation.

The commandos earlier evacuated 78 residents, including children from the building.

A militant couple lived for the past three months as tenants.

Residents who lived in the house as tenants said they were virtually taken to hostage with militants warning them of bombs implanted on their way out while the commandos brought them out from the top of the building making their way there from the rooftop of an adjacent structure.

Bangladesh has been witnessing a spate of attacks on secular activists, foreigners and religious minorities since 2013. The country launched a massive crackdown on militants specially after the Dhaka cafe attack.
The four leg canine 'soldiers' play a crucial role in saving lives of troops and civilians, reports Mayank Singh.

IMAGE: Pluto, a sniffer dog of the CRPF lost his life in an IED blast . Photographs: CRPF/Twitter

The pain in the voice of constable Esakki Muthu was palpable.

Muthu has lost his "son" Pluto in an improvised explosive device blast.

Muthu and the Central Reserve Police Force have not forgotten this braveheart, who gave his life and saved the lives of four others.

Pluto, a sniffer dog of the CRPF led the life of a dedicated combatant of the 229 Battalion of the force and sacrificed his life for the nation.

Commandant Viswanath terms the services of these combatants as 'important' and says, "These dogs add strength to the kind of operations we handle in the jungles."

Pluto was an Infantry patrolling dog of the 229 battalion.

Viswanath is the commanding officer of this battalion and has more than 1200 personnel under him handling the crucial task of countering insurgency in the area.

Pluto had succeeded in sniffing out the IED but it abruptly exploded when it pressed the planted explosive.

There was no physical impact on handler, Esakki Muthu, but it has left an emotional scar on him.

Muthu, while speaking to ANI, said, "He was like my son. He was not even fully grown up as an adult. He saved my life. I did not cry this much when I lost my father in 2006."

According to the CRPF officials, it is rare for a sniffer dog to get killed this way.

The dog was killed after he unexpectedly hit the pressure IED planted by the outlawed CPI-Maoist in restive Bijapur district, south Chhattisgarh.

IMAGE: Pluto was an infantry patrolling dog of CRPF's 229 battalion.

The IED blast occurred at Murdanda village in Basaguda about 350 km south of Raipur when a patrolling team was out on a search operation in Bijapur.

The braveheart was accorded the status of 'martyr' by the force and he was laid to rest with full honour and gun salute.

Pluto is the second canine after 'Aminka', who has lost her life on January 18 this year in Jharkhand's Latehar.

First of its kind memorial is being made in the name of Aminka.

Both dogs were two of the top class battle-hardened 'Belgian Malinois' infantry patrol canines of the country's largest paramilitary force. Both of them were course toppers at their training academy at Taralu near Bengaluru.

The incident of Pluto's death occurred on January 21 this year when 35 personnel of 229 Battalion, along with Pluto and its handler, went out for road opening duty at the site of road construction from Murdanda camp towards Timapur.

While the Road Opening Party of the 229 Battallion was sanitising the area, an IED with pressure mechanism exploded at about 0850 hrs.

It was placed under soil in bushes with pressure mechanism and Pluto was identifying the suspected place of IED.

IMAGE: Aminka, a female Belgian Shepherd martyred on January 17 this year in an IED blast.

During tracing of the IED, Pluto accidentally stepped on the pressure mechanism of the explosive which was placed under soil resulting in blast and the canine lost its life.

The CRPF understands the importance of these four legged soldiers and had established Dog Breeding and Training School at Taralu in August 2011.

The importance of the canine soldiers is emphasized well by Commandant Viswanath.

"While we are working in the life and death situation, these dogs add strength. We are trained to handle face to face encounters, but what takes a toll is the battle of unknown. It is here that our canine wing acts as a force multiplier," he said.

He added that for men on ground, the presence of dogs also acts a psychological hedge and adds to the layer of security.

But, he rues that this huge contribution of dogs like Pluto is not visible to the outside world.

However, for the dog handlers, it leaves an emotional scar.

Muthu was handling Pluto when he sacrificed his life. The loss of Pluto in front of his eyes left him shattered.

"I was mentally disturbed. Pluto was just 1 year 4 months old. He was my son. This incident left such a void that I was not feeling like working and I took leave fro some days."

IMAGE: Passing out parade of trained dogs and their handlers at the CRPF Dog Breeding and Training School in Bengaluru.

On asking to take up the dog handling assignment, he said that he will never do it again.

"Dogs in these difficult operational areas are necessity. But, I will not be able to do this duty again. In that incident, if Pluto was not there then our unit would have lost at least three to four jawans. Pluto has given me the second life."

Aminka, a female Belgian Shepherd (Malinois) bitch was born at DB & TS Taralu on March 1, 2014 from own breeding stock. Aminka had undergone training in Batch No. 10 with her two handlers, constable Prasanna Kr Sahoo and constable Prakash Kumar Samal.

After completion of her training, the dog was deployed in 207 CoBRA on May 12, 2015.

While on duty on January 17 this year, at Jharkhand's Burha Pahar in Latehar, Aminka martyred in an IED blast while performing search operation duty.

Samal also sustained minor injury in the incident.

There are nine canine soldiers which have served the force and the country. They have been decorated with highest recognition of the force, Director general Commendation Disc.

The Dog Breeding and Training School at Taralu has trained 15 batches of dogs till now.

The passing out parade of the dogs and handlers of the 16th batch took on March 17 in the presence of the senior officials of CRPF, civil police and central and state government officials.

These dogs are set to be taking up the challenging task of counter-insurgency operations primarily in the LWE (Left Wing Extremism) areas thus playing a crucial role in saving lives of troops and civilians.

IMAGE: During the training, dogs are trained for IED detection, agility, obedience and assault.

A dog generally retires at the age of eight which can be extended if it found suitable by a board of officers. They can be prematurely retired if they don't perform well or fall ill.

Post-retirement, the dogs are looked after by the concerned unit till they die.

The unit spends an amount of Rs 10, 000 per month for their feed, treatment and kit.

In a short span of time, the institute has trained and deployed 245 dogs in fields. Pluto and Aminika have added to the glorious list of dogs which brought laurels to DBTS and the CRPF.

Principal DBTS Deputy Commandant Sunil tells ANI, "I don't get emotional to hear of the loss of our four legged soldiers because it also means that while performing their duty they contributed towards not just saving lives of the others in the unit but have also done a service to the nation."

"In fact, with the gradual training module I have become more confident of these silent soldiers that they will earn laurels for their respective units," he added.

These dogs accompany the jawans of various units involved in handling the insurgency, Left Wing Extremism and in the counter terrorism operations.

In the recent years, the CRPF have lost its 28 jawans in the 50 kilometers stretch between Bijapur and Sarkeguda. But with the contribution of canines this has come down in the recent years.

Master Trainer Sandeep Pandey said, "The formal training of these dogs starts once they complete three months but the separation from mother is done after they are 28 days. This period is spent on socialization. At the age of 3, two handlers are assigned with each dog and the crucial training from here lasts for 40 weeks. The dogs are trained in two trades -- tracking and infantry patrol."

IMAGE: A dog performs during the passing out ceremony.

During the training, dogs are trained for IED detection, agility, obedience and assault (to attack enemy, criminal, anti-social elements).

Infantry patrol leads to training in indicating ambush from distance with the smell of human body, gun oils.

In the recent past, dog Hugo of the 94 battalion caught two Naxals along with their weapons.

During this training, the handlers get emotionally attached as these innocent animals get totally dependent upon them for their every need and repose their unflinching trust in their handlers.

The CRPF, with its approximate 240 operational battalions, is today the world's largest para military force.

Being the leading designated counter insurgency force of the country, it is deployed in all the hypersensitive theatres of the country with almost 86 battalions in Naxal affected areas, 35 battalions in Northeast and 60 battalions in Jammu and Kashmir.

Each battalion fighting the Maoists in Jharkhand has at least six to eight sniffer dogs, mostly Belgian Shepherds.

These sniffer dogs move in the jungles with the forces and sniff for explosives and hunt the ultras holed up in the woods. The CRPF is having total 693 dogs out of which 337 Labrador, 271 Belgium Shepherd Malinois, 59 German shepherd.

Another 26 Belgium Shepherd (pups) are undergoing training.
Delay in filling up of vacancies in statutory commissions for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, backward classes and minorities rocked proceedings of Rajya Sabha for the second day on Tuesday, with the proceedings being adjourned thrice before lunch.

The Congress, the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Janata Dal-United members repeatedly trooped into the Well of the House shouting slogans against the government for misleading by telling lies on the issue.

Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu tried to counter them, saying all the commissions were functioning and the process of filling up the vacancies was on.

Deputy Chairman P J Kurien tried to restore order in the House saying the minister has promised that vacancies will be filled up immediately, but Naidu countered him saying the vacancies will be filled up in due course of time.

Kurien first adjourned the proceedings for 10 minutes and then till noon and opposition members were unrelenting. When the House assembled for Question Hour at noon, Chairman Hamid Ansari adjourned the proceedings for 30 minutes as the noisy scenes continued.

When the House assembled for the day, opposition members were up on their feet stating that multiple notices have been given under rule 267 seeking suspension of business to take up the issue.

Ramgopal Yadav (SP) said the posts of chairmen, vice chairmen and members were lying vacant in National Commission for Scheduled Castes, National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, National Commission for Backward Classes and National Commission for Minorities.

This has left people seeking relief for their difficulties from these commissions high-and-dry, he said, adding that the commission for backward classes was being renamed to take a fresh look at castes which should be categorised as OBCs.

He alleged that there was a conspiracy to remove certain castes from OBC category. He went on to question the vacancies against the reserved categories in government departments.

Mayawati (BSP) asked why the BJP government had left several posts at these constitutional commissions vacant for a long time and when these posts will be filled up.

Naidu rose to respond but the opposition wanted leaders from other parties to speak first before the minister had his say.

But Kurien said the minister has a right to respond and allowed Naidu to speak.

Anguished over this, opposition members trooped into the Well of the House shouting anti-government slogans.

Amid the din, Naidu said the backward class commission chairman has welcomed the changes made and it was a political strategy of the opposition to convey a wrong impression to the people.

"All commissions are functioning. Process of filling up vacancies is on. They will be filled up," he said.

With the opposition members continuing to shout slogans from the Well, Kurien adjourned the proceedings of the House for 10 minutes.

When it reassembled, opposition members were up on their feet again but Kurien said an important matter was raised and he knew that other members too wanted to speak but had allowed the minister to clarify after two members had spoken.

"I know the rules. I did not prevent (anyone from speaking). After the minister's explanation some of your apprehensions will get over," he said.

"Honble minister has said all vacancies will be immediately filled up."

At this Naidu said, "Vacancies will be filled up in due course of time."

He said the allegations against the government questioning its intention will not be allowed.

Kurien then allowed Sharad Yadav (JD-U), who too had given a rule 267 notice, to speak but this time, the BJP members from the treasury benches started raising slogans.

This prompted the opposition members to troop into the Well again.

Just as they entered the Well, a visiting Namibian parliamentary delegation took seat in the special gallery.

Kurien stopped the slogan-shouting members and then read out a statement welcoming the delegation, even as the opposition members remained in the Well.

As he finished the statement, slogan-shouting began again, forcing him to adjourn the House till noon.

The House witnessed similar scenes during Question Hour again, as protesting opposition MPs did not pay heed to the appeals by Chairman Hamid Ansari to restore order, forcing him to adjourn the proceedings till 12.30 pm.

When the House reassembled, noisy scenes were again witnessed. JD-U leader Sharad Yadav was heard saying it was very important that a discussion should be held.

Ansari again requested the agitated members that they should allow the Question Hour to proceed. "Don't make fun of the procedures," an anguished chairman said.

However, opposition members insisted that the House wanted a discussion on the matter.

Members of the opposition parties then rushed to the Well of the House, shouting slogans like Jumlebaazi nahi chalegi (hollow statements will not do).

Amidst the din, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said there were elections to five states and appointments could not have been made then. He said the government was willing to provide details.

As the din continued and no solution appeared in sight, Ansari adjourned the House till 2 pm hours.

Sharad Yadav, who sought to raise the issue of vacancies in teaching for reserved classes, said, It is a very serious issue. In 70 years, I want to tell you what is the state of affairs in the country.

He said the posts for reserved classes in various educational institutions were far less than the quota.

He raised the issues of DelhiUniversity, JawaharlalNehruUniversity and other institutions where the teachers were far less than required.

While Yadav was citing figures to buttress his point, Congress members trooped into the Well raising slogans.

Chairman Hamid Ansaris pleas for allowing the Question Hour to function fell on deaf ears.

Congress members raised slogans like jumlebaazi nahin chalegi, while the treasury benches also raised slogans to counter the opposition uproar.
The Scottish parliament has voted in favour of holding a second referendum on independence.

IMAGE: Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon attends a debate on a second referendum on independence at Scotland's Parliament in Holyrood, Edinburgh. Photograph: Russell Cheyne - WPA Pool /Getty Images

Scottish lawmakers voted 69 to 59 to give the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, the authority to negotiate with the Westminster government on holding another vote between autumn 2018 and spring 2019.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has indicated she will reject Sturgeons timetable. Britain is expected to leave the European Union in 2019, and May has said that now is not the time for a vote that could break up the United Kingdom.

Todays vote must now be respected, Sturgeon said afterward, according to Britains Press Association.

Opening the debate, Sturgeon demanded Westminster should respect the wishes of the Scottish Parliament.

IMAGE: The vote was greeted with jubilation by fist-pumping independence supporters outside the Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

She said: If it does so, I will enter discussion in good faith and with a willingness to compromise.

However if it chooses not to do so, I will return to the Parliament following the Easter recess to set out the steps the Scottish Government will take to progress the will of Parliament.

Sturgeon said the referendum should occur no earlier than 18 months from now, when the terms of Brexit are clear.

IMAGE: The pro-independence campaign lost by 10-points at the 2014 referendum and polls do not suggest the level of support has significantly changed. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images



This is, first and foremost, about giving the people of Scotland a choice on this countrys future, she said, according to the Press Association.

In a failed 2014 referendum on independence, Scotland voted 55 per cent to 45 per cent to remain in the UK. But the Scottish National Party, led by Sturgeon, said the landscape has changed since Britain decided to leave the European Union.

Sturgeon said the Brexit vote is forcing Scotland out of the EU against its will as 62 per cent of Scots voted in June to remain in the bloc.
Backing party MP Ravindra Gaikwad following his altercation with an Air India flight employee, the Shiv Sena on Tuesday criticised all other major airlines for putting him in the no fly list and wondered why it never showed any concerns when Hurriyat leaders and underworld don Dawood Ibrahim travel by flights.

The incident only happened with Air India. But every other airline banned him. This is not good. If they are so concerned then why the Hurriyat leaders travel in their plane? Even Dawood went to Pakistan by plane, Shiv Sena leader Arvind Sawant said.

Sawant further said that the party never supported Gaikwads actions but always demanded a proper investigation into the matter.

It is unfortunate that only one side of the story is being focused on. Our Constitution empowers citizens to travel freely. If one has a problem, legal course should have been adopted. We never shied away from legal proceedings, he added.

Gaikwad had on Monday issued a fresh statement stating that the Air India is trying to misguide everyone as to what transpired which triggered the altercation on board the aircraft.

IMAGE: Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad refuses to speak to media while traveling from New Delhi to Mumbai in a train. Photograph: ANI
Behind the BJP's astounding electoral success is a small army of dedicated lieutenants marshalled by Amit Shah, reports Archis Mohan.

IMAGE: Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah, right, with Home Minister Rajnath Singh, the BJP's tallest leader in UP who reportedly was forced to play a cameo role in the 2017 election campaign, as BJP veteran L K Advani, left, seems thoughtful at the UP chief minister's swearing in ceremony in Lucknow, March 19, 2017. Photograph: Sandeep Pal

After Amit Shah took over as the Bharatiya Janata Party president in July 2014, an innocuous change instilled fear among second- and third-rung BJP leaders.

Until then, the BJP office at 11, Ashoka Road in New Delhi was disorganised and leaders were unpunctual.

Meetings could last beyond midnight and the next day the office would regain its buzz around late afternoon.

A month into Shah's presidency, a BJP worker and occupant of one of the rooms noticed a nondescript young man, register in hand, visiting each of the 50-odd rooms on the premises and make small notes.

It turned out that the man was noting down the time that each occupant spent in his room: When he arrived and when he left.

Word spread fast.

There were those who adapted to the new regime quickly, while the more obstinate were either gently prodded to vacate their rooms or lost their relevance in Shah's scheme of things.

Shah brought in a rigour and discipline to the BJPs office that was thought to be the hallmark of the Communist Party of India-Marxist in its heyday.

Some of the other changes, like pushing the party workers to make the BJP the world's largest political party, keeping the workers galvanised round the year by reaching up to the booth level and pushing the social media team to continuously engage the youth, have become case studies for other political parties to replicate.

Each week a minister is asked to be present at the party office to meet workers, and even the public, to listen to their grievances.

Not all were happy with this new regime.

Many, including senior leaders like Murli Manohar Joshi, Shanta Kumar and Yashwant Sinha, after the partys defeat in Delhi and Bihar assembly polls in 2015, criticised Shah for his undemocratic ways.

Knives would have been out again if Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah were to lose Uttar Pradesh.

However, the two men from Gujarat stunned all who thought themselves to be experts of the political landscape of India's most populous state -- and not just those in the Opposition ranks but also within their own party.

The victory in Uttar Pradesh makes Modi the unassailable leader of India.

But, as Modi acknowledged in his speech at the BJP's Ashoka Road headquarters on March 12, the wins in UP and Uttarakhand couldn't have come about without Shah.

After this triumph, as the BJP parliamentary party resolution on March 16 suggests, Shah is now Modi's rightful heir, if and when the prime minister decides to retire from electoral politics conforming to the age bar of 75 years that has been set for party leaders.

Shah is 52 and Modi 66.

Just as Modi handpicked Shah in Gujarat three decades ago, Shah has built around himself a committed team of party workers and second-rung leaders.

The secret of surviving in Shah's regime is "parakram, and not parikrama," says a party strategist in his mid-40s.

He says that workers were earlier rewarded for their parikrama, literally circumambulation or sycophancy of the leader, while Shah rewards those who show parakram, or performance.

This has meant several unsung and unnoticed party leaders being given key positions.

"Modi and Shah are men of minutest detail and superficial reporting means they soon lose faith in you," an occupant of one of the rooms on Ashoka Road, somebody from outside the BJP network, says.

They also do not easily trust those they perceive as upstarts, or those educated in public schools or dynasts.

Many second generation leaders, therefore, have found themselves ignored.

IMAGE: Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sunil Bansal, Amit Shah's trusted lieutenant, widely credited for scripting the BJP's victory in UP in 2017 as he did in 2014.

Away from television cameras and flashbulbs, there are key people who go about their work in Delhi and outside, and operate not so much out of 11, Ashoka Road but the adjacent bungalow at number 9.

These men include joint general secretaries handling organisational work like V Satish, Saudan Singh, Shiv Prakash and B L Santosh.

Similarly, in UP, while Rajasthan leader Om Mathur was the party in charge for the state, the unsung Sunil Bansal, a 48-year-old former Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad worker, also from Rajasthan, was the chief strategist.

Among the well-known faces, some of the success of the UP win has been credited to Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Shah publicly acknowledged the success of the Ujjwala scheme, initiated by Pradhan's ministry, which aims to give LPG cylinders to poor families.

It contributed significantly to the BJP building a narrative of it being a party for the welfare of the poor.

Modi had launched the scheme in Ballia, in eastern UP, on May 1. Until now, the scheme has covered 693 districts and 19 million LPG connections have been released.

Over a fourth of the connections have been handed out in UP and 40 per cent of the recipients are Dalits.

Party insiders point out how Shah has also ensured a division of labour among party general secretaries.

The area of work and territories are clearly defined for each of the general secretaries. There is also increased accountability.

The party has started to devote more effort and resources on training its leaders, media relations and policy making, including foreign policy.

If party vice-president Vinay Sahasrabuddhe has been entrusted with the training of leaders and giving inputs on policymaking, Overseas Friends of BJP chief Vijay Chauthaiwale has Shah's confidence for the party's foreign outreach.

With the Delhi civic elections coming up, the role of vice-president Shyam Jaju is set to become important.

The recent UP election has also helped upcoming leaders like Sidharth Nath Singh and Shrikant Sharma, both national secretaries and key to the BJP's media outreach, to consolidate their positions.

Sharma won the Mathura assembly seat by over 100,000, while Singh won Allahabad West. Initially, neither had seemed confident of contesting what were extremely difficult seats but now constitute the core of the next generation of BJP leadership that Shah is grooming.

Bhupender Yadav, a Rajya Sabha member, is another who belongs to the BJP's gen-next.

However, Shah's success, say party insiders, isn't merely about efficiency.

"It is to do with Shah's conceptual clarity of sanskritik rashtrawad, or cultural nationalism, which is the core of our party's ideology, and also his conviction that a BJP government should be pro-poor," a party leader says.

IMAGE: The tone for the BJP's election campaign in UP was struck when Narendra Modi attended the Ramleela celebrations in Lucknow on October 11, 2016.

Though Yogi Adityanath was not present at the event, where Modi delivered a 20-minute speech on terrorism, Keshav Prasad Maurya, right, and then Lucknow mayor Dinesh Sharma, second from left, the state's new deputy chief ministers, were present on stage.

While the Congress continues to believe that a unified Opposition can defeat Modi and Shah in 2019, others in the Opposition ranks say that arithmetic and strategy are insufficient to mount a challenge unless a unified Opposition is able to build an alternative narrative on the ground through peoples' movements, a narrative that could question the BJP's cultural nationalism and pro-poor politics.

But with Modi as the party's leader, and a hardworking and canny general as Shah, that looks like a mountain too high to climb.

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'I can tell you, Mr Chairman, from personal experience that there is nothing sadder than witnessing a close one, a loved one with mental illness at close quarters.'

'I have lived with a victim of mental illness. Like many in that condition, very often such people are in a state of denial.'

'The National Crime Records Bureau has calculated in 2014 that at least 15 suicides take place in India every hour.'

'That is too many.'

'These 15 instances in every 60 minutes is our collective failure to recognise and solve the problem.'

'The police should be trained to understand that an attempted suicide is a cry for help.'

'It is not a crime. Who is going to tell this to the police, Mr Minister?'

Dr Shashi Tharoor, in a memorable speech in the Lok Sabha on March 24, touchingly spoke up for the nation's mentally ill.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

When Parliament passed the new Mental Healthcare Bill on Monday, PTI reported that Health Minister J P Nadda thanked Congress MP Shashi Tharoor for his "valuable" suggestions made during a discussion on the legislation in the Lok Sabha.

'Thank you for valuable suggestions @ShashiTharoor Ji. As I said in Parliament, budget will never be a issue.#MentalHealthcareBill,' Nadda tweeted.

The bill, which seeks to decriminalise suicide attempts by the mentally ill, and provide for the right to better healthcare for people suffering from mental illness, was passed in the Lok Sabha on Monday.

Here is Dr Tharoor's entire speech -- please note it is an uncorrected version, which we publish in the public interest -- that every Indian must read.

A video of the speech

Honourable Deputy Speaker Sir,

I thank you for allowing me to speak on the topic which, frankly, has not been easy for us as a society to deal with.

I must say that mental illness has been an issue which, by and large, we in India have preferred to brush under the carpet in the hope that it will go away. Or it is really not something we have to deal with.

But the fact is that we do need to acknowledge, to understand and to take measures to do something about it. The big elephant in the room is the fact that every one of us actually knows somebody who has a mental health problem.

We do not realise it; we may not like it; we may not be aware of it; they may not be aware of it; or they may not be conscious of it, but I can assure you that not one of us in this room has failed to come across it...

Sir, you are right that the problems are there. But we have not been giving this issue the importance that it deserves.

That is why I think this debate is an important one. As our honourable minister said, we owe it to ourselves, to our loved ones, and to the future of our society, to find solutions in grappling with it.

We must stop looking the other way.

As I said, we have really ignored the problem. Very often, when we have considered mental health, we have done so with ignorance and prejudice.

Let us just look, for example, at the past legislations on this subject. We have, for instance, the Lunatics Removal Act of 1851, the first legal provision on this subject; the Indian Lunatic Asylum Act of 1858; the Military Lunatics Act of 1877 -- perhaps we may think that they have all gone to the other side of the border, but still military lunatics had an Act here -- and the Indian Lunacy Act of 1912.

These were all bequeathed to us by the colonial authorities. I think many of you know what I think of many of the legal and penal provisions left behind by the colonial authorities.

But the fact is that their only answer to mental health problems was to brand individuals as lunatics, confine them in so-called mad houses, physically in certain spaces and pretend that that took care of the problem.

Even just before Independence in 1946 there was a Bhure Committee, a government committee of inquiry which concluded, and I quote: 'The majority of mental hospitals in India are designed for detention and safe custody without regard for curative treatment.'

But I am sorry to say that this has continued largely to be the pattern even after Independence.

It was easy for a foreign power dominating a (people) to incarcerate individuals and continue with the business of ruling as they saw fit. But in independent India our government is there to serve Indians.

We must look after the health and well being of our own people.

We owe it to our people to find answers, not to just brand them as lunatics and look the other way, instead of giving assistance.

It has to be admitted that we are already late in rising to the occasion.

The 1987 Act, which we are now here to amend, was first drafted actually in 1950. It took decades of protracted debate even to get adopted 37 years later.

By the time that Act was realised, it was already out of date.

It is no wonder that Human Rights Watch, for example, has reported that inmates particularly women and children in our mental health facilities are treated worse than animals.

Not only have our laws been stuck in this colonial era mindset, but our own mindsets with regard to mental health have also been frozen in time and frozen in history.

As India looks to a new future in the 21st century, it must acknowledge the errors that we have made in the past.

We must right long-standing wrongs, even if we have to accept hard truths and reorient our thinking.

It was only in 2007 that India ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, following which the UPA government commenced the process of overhauling the antiquated Mental Health Act of 1987.

Even the basics have had to be re-visited for the better.

I note from Shri Nadda's Bill that the term 'mentally ill' has been replaced with 'person with mental illness,' which preserves the dignity of the individual seeking treatment.

I am really grateful that Shri Nadda has continued this kind of line of logic and approach and continued the good work.

On this, I want to assure you and the government that my party and I are with him.

We agree that there is no justification for India to continue to rely on outdated, and patently unjust notions, of so-called treatment, which really is locking people up.

The world has moved ahead. Other countries have discovered better answers.

The truth is, that if we can focus on helping those affected directly, helping their families, helping them within their communities, then people afflicted with mental illness can re-build their lives and move forward.

It is for us as a society -- if we want to be a modern, progressive society -- we must do this, Mr Chairman.

Mental health remains an issue that is not only difficult for many to comprehend, but it comes as a colossal baggage of stigma.

This whole attitude that comes in -- the way in which people are disregarded, despised, one is shunned as a mad person, a lunatic and worse if it is known that one has even been to a psychiatrist -- one is looked upon by many people with fear or with confusion.

'What is the matter with this person? He goes and sees a psychiatrist.' That is the attitude in our culture.

The patient is painted with a brush of ignorance and treated very often by distance.

'This person is not well mentally, let us keep distance from him.'

The real truth is this person needs medical assistance, needs help and understanding.

It is an illness. It is not just a behaviour pattern.

The truth is, of course, that mental illness is a very complicated disability to (gauge).

When you have another kind of disability, somebody is sitting with a broken leg you can see he has a broken leg.

(If) somebody has a broken mind, it is extremely difficult to diagnose it.

Sometimes, people, as far as their appearances go, seem perfectly healthy.

They are happy. They come across as social beings while confronting painful inner battles.

I can tell you, Mr Chairman, from personal experience that there is nothing sadder than witnessing a close one, a loved one with mental illness at close quarters.

I have lived with a victim of mental illness. Like many in that condition, very often such people are in a state of denial.

They do not accept that they have a mental problem. They do not even go to see a doctor.

Nadda Sahib is talking about how they can easily authorise somebody to help them, but they do not accept that they are mentally ill.

One of the first symptoms of mental illness is an inability to recognise it and to be in denial about it.

They are, therefore, unwilling to seek help even after their behaviour may raise questions about their mental condition.

Very often you can see in public behaviour that somebody is really not normal, or right, and when you say 'Will you go and see a doctor as this is not a right behaviour?' they will say, 'Nothing wrong with me.'

The truth is, it gets ten times worse with its private behaviour. Even diagnose is a challenge.

There are many, many people, perhaps even in our own profession, suffering from undiagnosed mental illness.

I must say that we need more people to set (the) example of a prominent film actress. I cannot take her name in the House, but she has courageously spoken out about her battle with depression and how difficult it was for her to receive understanding, let alone help for her condition.

And by doing so she has brought some people out to seek help. But this is again a part of the challenge.

I would urge the minister to think in terms of how to use role models to go and say, 'I have had this problem, it can be treated. There is nothing wrong.'

She is a big star in Bollywood. Therefore, her message gets across to the general public.

There are patterns, of course, that experts can notice, but where even seeking an expert assistance is sometimes treated with stigma, many are reluctant to seek help.

The stigma and the lack of a support system mean that most of them must fight these battles on their own.

A frustrating and isolating experience sometimes lead to such eventualities, that is, suicide, which the honourable minister has mentioned.

Sir, the National Crime Records Bureau has calculated in 2014 that at least 15 suicides take place in India every hour.

That is too many.

And the fact is: These 15 instances in every 60 minutes is our collective failure to recognise and solve the problem. This is what confronts us.

This bill brings to the table an opportunity for us as a society to do better about it.

The police should be trained to understand that an attempted suicide is a cry for help. It is not a crime.

Who is going to tell this to the police, Mr Minister?

I hope you will raise this in the Cabinet.

It is not only just here today in this law, it is other ministries also that have to be conscious.

In fact, if we treat attempted suicides as a crime to be punished, the police way is going to prevail over the human way, that your Bill is actually talking about.

What we need to ensure is that people get help.

They get guidance and assurance that they would get the helping hand that they are seeking from all of us.

Then, they would find their way back to happy and productive life.

We owe it to them to extend that hand to bring them back to a meaningful life and a life full of meaning quite literally.

I am sorry to say that our educational system is so much at fault in this particular problem.

I am afraid the very institutions that we have created, to give our children a future, are also putting them under so much of pressure that their future is disappearing.

Sir, there was a recent study, which I have here, to ascertain the presence of psychological mobility amongst medical undergraduates in India.

Just people who are going to be doctors and who are studying medicine, half of (our) medical students suffer from depression, anxiety and stress as per a global study.

This is 50 per cent. This is not a small matter.

We have both Dr Harsh Vardhan (the minister of science and technology and earth sciences) and Dr Mahesh Sharma (the minister of tourism)sitting there. They are eminent doctors.

This is the process which is producing our doctors. They need trained professionals and I hope that the bill will deliver trained professionals.

I am concerned, very seriously, by the gap in our professional capacities at the moment.

The psychiatrists are telling us that in a society where psychiatrists amount to 0.2 for every one lakh people, there is one psychiatrist in our country for (every) five lakh people.

Not to speak of shortage of nurses, psychologists, psychotherapists and even NGOs working in the mental health space are few and far between.

How can we rise to this challenge?

We have to put this issue higher on the agenda. We are discussing it on a Friday afternoon (March 24) in a half empty House.

The truth is that this is an issue that is a national challenge.

I certainly hope that you will also contribute, Mr Minister, to building networks to seriously rehabilitate mentally ill patients and persons who require constant assistance even after their treatment.

Now there are a number of good things in this bill. But they leave also a number of significant issues out.

Even when you talk about mental health professionals, clinical psychologists and even those trained in homoeopathy, naturopathy, ayurveda and Unani have been recognised in your Bill, but psychoanalysts, psychotherapists counselling psychologists and others have not been included in the bill, amongst the professionals who can help us and our people on mental health issues.

I would request the minister -- when the bill is adopted -- to bring in a small amendment and just add these categories.

When you have mentioned so many, you have failed to mention psychoanalyst, psychotherapist and counselling psychologist, it is a genuine omission and rather a serious omission.

As you know, Mr Minister, there would be no technical difficulty in just amending the bill at the moment of adoption with one small change, especially since we are going to continue this process on Monday (March 27), I understand.

All around the world, these are the people who are assisting mental health victims and in various contexts, in the family, in the schools and hospitals and so on.

The whole principle is that we should not only address mental health problems after they have emerged, and have been diagnosed, but we should prevent individuals from going into depression in the first place.

If you have counsellors in the school system and if you have them in the medical colleges, you may be saving suicides, you may be benefiting India with future geniuses, future good doctors and so on because you have prevented them from committing suicides.

We have to help our children.

We have to help our adolescents and we have to help all our citizens who are at risk.

Therefore, we need a wide range of professionals with a wide range of skills.

Mr Minister, I think we need to ensure that we create an infrastructure where mental health issues, even as they arise at the earliest of stages, can be addressed and resolved without having to wait for treatment at a later more complicated stage.

I will give you one example, from my home state of Kerala.

I have been informed there, by the Indian Association of Clinical Psychologists, that every individual, who seeks mental health services, whether it is a child, who (has) learning (disabilities), or somebody with serious psychiatric complications, is expected to meet with a psychiatrist.

As I said, there are very (few) psychiatrists available. But you have to meet a psychiatrist, that too, only medical science professionals, those qualified with a medical degree, are deemed suitable.

Those who studied behavioural sciences are treated as subordinate or inferior, whereas what we clearly need is a multi-disciplinary, multi-pronged approach, that takes advantage of all that is offered, in different streams, levels, layers and branches of mental health discourse and practice, so that more holistic answers and solutions can be found.

We want to address the issue. And not to create another hierarchy of professionals, when we are dealing with this issue. We are already having a very hierarchical society.

Let us not reduce mental health again (to) being stuck in hierarchy of professional treatment.

Sir, the bill is very broad in its defining terms and definitions. Even individuals with, what could be deemed to be relatively minor ailmentsb such as memory orientation, or mood disorders are brought within its purview. Now, I think, that is good.

But if we are doing that, then we must also be able to provide a wide range of assistance at all levels; bring onboard professionals with different kinds skills and focus areas.

In our society it is not just a question of people in the drawing rooms, or offices, that we all frequent.

There are displaced persons, whose lives have been devastated by natural calamities, by riots, the people who have lost their homes, the Kashmiri Pandits...

Now, Mr Minister, you have struck a good balance in the bill, between involuntary treatment and the rights of the patient.

But the fact is, that when you are talking, just as you did in your introductory remarks, about them nominating a person to decide on their behalf, that is a bit worrying.

Because, the fact is, who decides whether one is at risk of harming oneself or the other?

Who decides that you are well enough to nominate somebody else, or, when you are not well enough, that you need to nominate someone else?

In practice, we are talking about the condition that many people are in denial about.

If the people who are in denial, and are then expected to nominate somebody else, they would not do it, because they (feel they) are not ill in the first place.

Then if the nomination is coaxed, under duress, or if a signature is false, or anything else, you are suddenly subjecting a person to involuntary treatment.

I think, this is not going to be easy.

I hope that you will be careful in drafting the regulations of the bill, to ensure that it is not misused, because if we decide to disallow involuntary treatment, then we will be leaving out mental patients who have lost their capacity to judge their own mental state.

But if we give people unsolicited powers, to impose involuntary treatment, to lock up people, incarcerate people, without adequate medical evidence, then we are actually opening the door to abuse and misuse.

So, by instituting review procedures for hospitalisation, and leaving room for medical institutions and family members to take action, on behalf of a patient, I think, we should really strike a balance, Mr Minister.

Not just in the bill, but in the regulations, under which you will implement the bill. You should strike the right balance, the balance that we have lacked so far.

And I do want to applaud you for the steps you have taken in this bill, in that direction.

I am glad that the drafting of this bill was inclusive as (the) minister has mentioned. A wide range of people have offered comments, suggestions, and expertise, which include civil society and medical professionals.

Indeed, we should, today, appreciate the efforts of the previous government and Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad, who offered a well-rounded bill and, of course, Shri J P Nadda for keeping up the momentum and bringing it to us today.

The bill will inevitably require refinement, from time to time, because the world is moving on. The treatment of mental health illnesses is getting more sophisticated each year. We have to be prepared to keep amending our provisions.

But I do want to say that the issue of mental health, in our legislative process, needs to find an important place and, needs to accept the progress being made in today's bill, but also newer methods and solutions may be found.

Some may raise questions, like whether we are over-reaching, and whether our society is really prepared for a bill of this nature. It might well add to the stigma with which victims are seen.

Legislation laws sometimes have to take a leap and we have to move not only with the times but we have to move ahead of the times also.

Just earlier today, somebody was pointing out that the judiciary keeps moving ahead of us.

Let us, for once, not give our friendly judges the opportunity to say that we are behind times or something like this and some PIL may come up with new, farther reaching things.

Let us pass this bill soon and let us make sure that this landmark legislation you have offered us today, Mr Minister, is implemented quickly, with good regulations and is kept open for amendment as we need in the future.

I believe, future generations will be grateful to us for having laid down a much improved marker for treating mental health.

I have a couple of final points. I do want to make one more request to the honourable minister, not to amend the bill, but just requiring your action.

You need to review the existing case load of mental patients, admitted in our institutions, because all those who are admitted now are being admitted under the old law.

And that includes people who are involuntarily locked up and so on.

You should give us a date by when you can review these cases.

As an MP, a case has been brought to my attention of a 46-year-old woman who was forcibly institutionalised.

She was drugged unconscious by health workers, brought by her doctor, who said that they were giving her a vaccination.

Then she was taken; she was given forced medication and electric shock therapy.

Somehow her friends and relatives went to the courts and the courts ruled that she was not mentally ill and should be released.

Thank god, your bill does allow for the consent of the patient, as well as the approval from the concerned board before administering any electric shock therapy.

But this is what had happened to this lady.

So, if our existing laws and our existing societal biases, against certain segments of people, make it extremely easy to falsely institutionalise a person, then those who suffer under the previous law must not be left behind and forgotten when we pass today's law.

That is why, I request you to order an inspection and review of the existing caseload of those locked-up.

I do want to say something else, that is of concern to my party, which is, that in our country, sadly, whenever we do anything that is good for society, we are forced to bear in mind that the problems are particularly for the poor, for the lower caste, for the marginalised sections of the society, women, and homeless, and such people are the first victims of abuse.

I want to request you we must take monumental steps to reduce our social biases, restore the right of life with dignity that is fundamental to each person.

Just today we are talking about an MP misbehaving in an airline and certainly action must be taken. But I can tell you about an airline misbehaving with the mentally handicapped person.

A person suffering from cerebral palsy was forced to leave a flight. People with physical deformities are facing humiliations... (Interruptions)

We must change our attitudes.

We must change the attitudes of society.

All public servants must also have a constructive opportunity.

Let me conclude by welcoming this legislation.

I congratulate the minister for rising to the occasion.

Let us all, as a society, rise to ensure that our citizens do not fight these battles of the mind alone.

Let us tell them that we as a people are here to support, to help, to hold their hand, until once again they are able to stand strong, and lead a healthy, happy and self-determined life.

Thank you.
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South Sudan: Release all people arbitrarily detained amid the conflict

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 28 March 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, South Sudan: Release all people arbitrarily detained amid the conflict, 28 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da57a84.html [accessed 8 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.

South Sudanese authorities must release all people detained without charge by the security agencies, including 28 men currently held at the headquarters of the national intelligence agency in the capital Juba, said Amnesty International's Secretary General today in an open letter to President Salva Kiir.

The call comesafter the president publicly pledged to release all political detainees.

"Hundreds of people, mostly men, have been arrested without charge by security agents and held in torturous conditions for long periods of time, since the conflict began more than three years ago. Others have disappeared without a trace at the hands of National Security Service and Military Intelligence agents," said Salil Shetty.

"While President Kiir's pledge was welcome, we call on him to go a step further and order a full investigation into arbitrary detention practices of government security agencies, enforced disappearances, deaths in custody, torture and other ill-treatment."

At least 20 men have died in detention at three separate detention centres in Juba between February 2014 and December 2016.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Renewal of MONUSCO's mandate, an opportunity to recommit to civilian protection in the DRC

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 28 March 2017 Reference AFR 62/5971/2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Renewal of MONUSCO's mandate, an opportunity to recommit to civilian protection in the DRC , 28 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da589c4.html [accessed 8 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 mandate renewal of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) is an opportunity for the UN to reaffirm its commitments and step up its efforts to prevent further deterioration of the human rights situation and protect civilians in the DRC and the entire Great Lakes region, Amnesty International said today.

The UN Security Council is set to vote on a resolution for the renewal of MONUSCO's mandate on 29 March.

Amnesty International is calling on the Security Council to ensure that MONUSCO is able to implement its mandate to protect civilians and prevent further deterioration of the human rights situation in the country. Given escalating tensions and human rights violations and abuses following the delay of elections scheduled for last year, the mission urgently needs resources to protect civilians during the electoral process, including during public demonstrations and election rallies. To this end the UN Secretary General has proposed an increase in, and rapid deployment of UN Police Units. Currently, MONUSCO has 1,090 police.

In light of rising attacks against civilians, increased inter-ethnic violence, the apparent inability of the state to protect civilians in some areas and the< volatility surrounding the electoral process, MONUSCO's role is essential. Violations and abuses, including unlawful killings and inter-ethnic violence in Beni, Rutshuru, Kongo Central, Tanganyika and, most recently, in Kasai where two UN experts and four of their Congolese colleagues went missing on 17 March, raise questions about the state's ability or willingness to

protect civilians in these areas.

Despite being defeated by the UN and DRC forces in 2013, the Movement of the 23 March (M23), an armed group responsible for serious human rights abuses in 2012-13 in eastern DRC, has recently re-emerged in Rutshuru.

The risk to human rights is further exacerbated by the effects of conflicts and crises in neighboring countries, including Burundi, South Sudan and< the Central African Republic.

Recommendations to the United Nations Security Council:

- Renew MONUSCO's mandate and ensure that the mission has the resources to fulfil its mandate to protect civilians;

- Call for full cooperation between neighboring countries to implement the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework on the DRC and the Great Lakes region to support the DRC and the UN in their efforts to protect civilians;

- Continue to support the UN Joint Human Rights Office's independent investigations on human rights violations and crimes under international law;

- Call on DRC authorities to conduct credible and independent investigations on human rights violations and crimes under international law allegedly committed by the security forces, including unlawful killings, during protests and military operations and, if there is sufficient admissible evidence, prosecute all those

suspected of criminal responsibility in fair trials before ordinary civilian courts and without recourse to death penalty;

- Call upon the DRC authorities to respect the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, release those detained for peacefully exercising their rights, re-open arbitrarily closed media outlets and lift the ban on protests organized by the opposition and civil society organizations.

Background

The DRC failed to meet its constitutional deadline to organize presidential elections in November 2016. To avoid a constitutional crisis, the government sought an interpretation from the Constitutional Court in May 2016 which ruled that President Kabila could stay in power until his successor is elected.

Delays in organizing elections have led to a shrinking of civic space as protests against the postponement were met with arbitrary and abusive force by the security forces.

Amnesty International, the UN Joint Human Rights Office and other organizations have documented the use of unnecessary and excessive force by the security forces, including unlawful killings.

To date, no effective investigations have been conducted and no security officer has been suspended or brought to justice in relation their action.

Protests by the opposition and civil society groups have been banned in several cities, including Kinshasa, Lubumbashi and Goma, by local authorities. At the same time, public meetings and demonstrations organized by the Presidential Majority (MP) have been facilitated by the same officials. Dozens of pro-democracy youth activists continue to be arrested and arbitrarily detained for their opposition to the delays in the

organization of the elections.

The government is also using the justice system to target key political

opponents - especially targeting those who had been members of the MP

and left the party over the dispute on the revision of the constitution to

allow President Joseph Kabila to seek another term.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Disclaimer

This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
RSF calls for release of blogger who criticized Russian policy in Syria

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 28 March 2017 Other Languages / Attachments Russian Cite as Reporters Without Borders, RSF calls for release of blogger who criticized Russian policy in Syria, 28 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da5c7b4.html [accessed 8 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) urges Russia's supreme court to release Siberian blogger Alexei Kungurov tomorrow when it begins hearing his appeal against the 30-month jail sentence he received last December for criticizing Russia's military intervention in Syria.

A military court in Tyumen, Western Siberia, imposed the sentence on Kungurov in a trial held behind close doors on 20 December, after finding him guilty of "justifying terrorism" in a blog post entitled, "Who are Putin's hawks really bombing?"

Posted on the LiveJournal blog platform in October 2015, the article doubted that the Russian air force would solely bomb Islamic State military targets or that Russia would immediately be invaded by hordes of Jihadis in the event of an IS victory.

The authorities nonetheless did not open an investigation into Kungurov until March 2016, shortly after another blog post in which he criticized Russia's action in Ukraine, in a shift from his previous position of support for Ukraine's pro-Russian separatists.

Only one phrase in the October 2015 post was cited in support of the "justifying terrorism" charge, namely that Islamic State was "neither the most bloodthirsty nor most insane." This was tantamount to saying that IS "poses no threat," according to the philologist used as an expert witness by the prosecution.

The expert witness subsequently acknowledged that he had "mistakenly" ignored the use of the superlative "most," but insisted that this error did not affect her conclusions.

"It is deeply shocking that such a heavy sentence was issued for a political post that simply expressed criticism of Russian foreign policy," said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. "We urge the supreme court to free Alexei Kungurov and to ask an independent and neutral professional to provide a new expert analysis of the post."

The blogger's lawyer, Alexander Zyrianov, points out that the prosecution also failed to demonstrate that it was Kungurov who posted the article online, and that it was posted from his hometown, Tyumen, while he was out of town.

Kungurov is regarded as a political prisoner by the Russian human rights group Memorial, which says: "Kungurov is not an ideological ally of (...) Islamic State or any other terrorist organization operating in Syria and (...) his persecution is solely prompted by the criticisms he has expressed of Russian foreign policy."

The authorities nonetheless did not open an investigation into Kungurov until March 2016, shortly after another blog post in which he criticized Russia's action in Ukraine, in a shift from his previous position of support for Ukraine's pro-Russian separatists.

Only one phrase in the October 2015 post was cited in support of the "justifying terrorism" charge, namely that Islamic State was "neither the most bloodthirsty nor most insane." This was tantamount to saying that IS "poses no threat," according to the philologist used as an expert witness by the prosecution.

The expert witness subsequently acknowledged that he had "mistakenly" ignored the use of the superlative "most," but insisted that this error did not affect her conclusions.

"It is deeply shocking that such a heavy sentence was issued for a political post that simply expressed criticism of Russian foreign policy," said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. "We urge the supreme court to free Alexei Kungurov and to ask an independent and neutral professional to provide a new expert analysis of the post."

The blogger's lawyer, Alexander Zyrianov, points out that the prosecution also failed to demonstrate that it was Kungurov who posted the article online, and that it was posted from his hometown, Tyumen, while he was out of town.

Kungurov is regarded as a political prisoner by the Russian human rights group Memorial, which says: "Kungurov is not an ideological ally of (...) Islamic State or any other terrorist organization operating in Syria and (...) his persecution is solely prompted by the criticisms he has expressed of Russian foreign policy."

Persecution of Internet users has increased significantly in the past two years in Russia. Jail sentences are often imposed for comments, photos or videos posted on social networks, or even just reposts. According to the human rights group Agora, at least 29 people were sentenced to imprisonment in 2016 in connection with their online activity.

Russia is ranked 148th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2016 World Press Freedom Index
Pakistan: Attacks on Schools Devastate Education

Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 27 March 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Pakistan: Attacks on Schools Devastate Education, 27 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da660e4.html [accessed 8 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.

Attacks by the Taliban and other militant groups are having a devastating impact on education in Pakistan, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released a day before the Second International Conference on Safe Schools in Buenos Aires, Argentina.Pakistan faces significant education challenges, with an estimated 25 million children out of school. The report includes testimonies on how militant violence has disrupted the education of hundreds of thousands of children, particularly girls. The report also documents instances of military use of educational institutions.

"The Taliban and other militants have repeatedly committed horrific attacks on Pakistani schools, depriving students of their lives as well as their educations," said Bede Sheppard, child rights deputy director at Human Rights Watch. "These audacious attacks often occur because, too often, authorities have protected militants or failed to properly prosecute them, and this needs to change."

The Pakistani government should take urgent steps to make schools safer, and fairly prosecute those responsible for attacks against schools, students, and teachers, Human Rights Watch said.

The 71-page report, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares: Attacks on Students, Teachers, and Schools in Pakistan," is based on 48 interviews with teachers, students, parents, and school administrators in the Pakistani provinces of Punjab, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). It documents attacks by militants from January 2007 to October 2016 that have destroyed school buildings, targeted teachers and students, and terrorized parents into keeping their children out of school. These attacks have often been directed at female students and their teachers and schools, blocking girls' access to education. The report also examines occupation of educational institutions by security forces, political groups, and criminal gangs.

Pakistan's militant Islamist groups, including the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and their affiliates, use attacks on schools and universities to foster intolerance and exclusion, to target symbols of the government, and particularly to drive girls out of school. A Taliban commander claiming the attack on Bacha Khan University in KP in January 2016 said, "We will continue to attack schools, colleges, and universities across Pakistan as these are the foundations that produce apostates."

After the Taliban took over large parts of the Swat Valley in KP in 2007, they began a violent campaign against education for girls. Over 900 girls schools were forced to close and over 120,000 girls stopped attending school. About 8,000 female teachers were driven out of work. For many girls, the loss was permanent and they did not return to school even after the Pakistan army had displaced the Taliban.

The Pakistani government does not collect specific data on the number of attacks on schools and universities, or the number of deaths and injuries from such attacks. However, according to the Global Terrorism Database, there were 867 attacks on educational institutions in Pakistan from 2007 to 2015, resulting in 392 fatalities and 724 injuries. The Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack recorded at least 838 attacks on schools in Pakistan between 2009 and 2012, leaving hundreds of schools damaged. In December 2015, the Ministry for States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) reported that in 2015, 360 schools were destroyed in three of the seven regions of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

The government's failure to keep consistent and transparent national data on such attacks raises serious concerns about its ability to track repairs of damaged schools, identify trends that could inform protective measures, or investigate and prosecute the responsible individuals, Human Rights Watch said.

Threats to education in Pakistan were spotlighted by the attacks on future Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai on October 9, 2012, and the Army Public School in Peshawar on December 16, 2014. After the Peshawar attack, which killed 135 children, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced a 20-point National Action Plan to comprehensively deal with terrorism - but none of the 20 points pertained to students or education.

In some areas, government forces have used educational institutions, including both schools and college hostels, as temporary or permanent barracks or military bases. When educational facilities are used for military purposes, it places them at increased risk of attack. The government should issue clear and public orders to Pakistan security forces to curtail the military use of schools.

Pakistan should develop a comprehensive policy for protecting students - especially girls - and teachers, schools, and universities from attack and military use, and engage all concerned ministry staff at the central and local level in implementing this strategy, Human Rights Watch said.

Securing schools has been largely left to the provincial governments, and these efforts have been sporadic and vary across provinces, with little attention to the specific need to protect girls' education. In most cases, responsibility for enhancing and maintaining security has been passed to school authorities. This has led to increased hardship and chaos. Criminal cases have sometimes been filed against teachers and principals for not taking security measures.

Despite hundreds of attacks on teachers, students, and educational institutions, the Pakistani government has not successfully prosecuted the perpetrators in most instances. This failure was highlighted in June 2015, when it was reported that eight out of the 10 individuals arrested and charged for the attack on Malala Yousafzai were acquitted, even after they all confessed to their role in court.

Pakistan's national government should cooperate with provincial authorities to create an advance rapid response system whenever there are attacks on schools, so that these facilities are quickly repaired or rebuilt and destroyed educational material is replaced so that children can return to school as soon as possible. During reconstruction, students should be provided education through alternative means and, where appropriate, given psychosocial support.

Pakistan should endorse the Safe Schools Declaration, a non-binding political agreement opened for state support at an international conference in Oslo, Norway, in May 2015. Countries that endorse the Safe Schools Declaration pledge to restore access to education when schools are attacked, and undertake to make it less likely that students, teachers, and schools will be attacked in the first place. They agree to deter such attacks by promising to investigate and prosecute crimes involving schools, and to minimize the use of schools for military purposes so they do not become targets for attack.

"The Pakistani government should do all it can to deter future attacks on education, beginning with improving school security and providing the public reliable information on threats," Sheppard said. "Attacks on education not only harm the students and families directly affected, but also have an incalculable long-term negative effect on Pakistani society."

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EU: Ensure Aid Reaches Refugees with Disabilities

Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 27 March 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, EU: Ensure Aid Reaches Refugees with Disabilities, 27 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da66be4.html [accessed 8 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 European Parliament should ensure that European Union funds for refugees also reach those with disabilities, Human Rights Watch and the European Disability Forum said in advance of an event at the European Parliament in Brussels tomorrow, March 28. Thousands of asylum seekers have been trapped for over a year in horrifying conditions in Greece, since the adoption of the EU-Turkey deal, and the organizations are deeply concerned that refugees with disabilities are being overlooked in the humanitarian response.

The event, "Refugees with Disabilities: Overlooked, Underserved," is organized by the European Disability Forum, Human Rights Watch, and Brando Benifei, member of the European Parliament and vice-chair of the Disability Intergroup of the European Parliament, a cross-party grouping of Members of the European Parliament actively promoting the rights of people with disabilities. The event will bring together Parliament members, European Commission representatives, organizations of people with disabilities, refugees, United Nations agencies, and aid organizations.

"Refugees with disabilities are at heightened risk of violence, including sexual and domestic abuse, discrimination and exclusion from access to humanitarian assistance, education, livelihoods and health care," said Gunta Anca, vice-president of the European Disability Forum and panelist at the European Parliament event. "The European Union has the legal obligation to ensure that persons with disabilities are included in its humanitarian response."

Other panel members are Christos Stylianides, the commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management; Nujeen Mustafa, a young Syrian refugee with a disability; Edouard Rodier, Europe director of the Norwegian Refugee Council; and Emina Cerimovic, Disability Rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Participants will discuss the specific problems that refugees, asylum seekers, and other migrants with disabilities face in Europe and steps the EU should take to address the problems. Nujeen Mustafa, who uses a wheelchair and who sought refuge from the war in Syria in Germany in 2015, will highlight that behind the statistics on migration are human beings fleeing deadly violence, some in the most challenging circumstances. They deserve dignified reception conditions, whether or not they have a disability.

In January, Human Rights Watch published its findings that people with disabilities were not being properly identified in the refugee reception system in Greece. The European Disability Forum's mission to Greece in October 2016 had similar findings. Both documented that people with disabilities had difficulties getting access to basic services such as shelter, sanitation, and medical care, and like others, had limited access to mental health care.

In October, in the Elliniko camp in Athens, Human Rights Watch met 8-year-old Ali, from Afghanistan, who uses a wheelchair and could not use the camp's toilets, which had narrow stalls and no ramps. As result, he had to start wearing diapers. After his conditions deteriorated for lack of adequate health care and physical rehabilitation, the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, finally moved his family from the squalid conditions in the camp to an apartment in Athens, UNHCR told Human Rights Watch in January 2017. But the needs of many other people with disabilities in Greece have not been met.

One problem is poor management of humanitarian funds by the Greek government, UNHCR, and other humanitarian aid agencies. Another problem is the lack of control and monitoring by the EU, and particularly the European Commission, to ensure that these funds benefit people with disabilities and other at-risk groups.

"Addressing the rights and needs of people with disabilities and other at-risk people, such as unaccompanied minors, older people and pregnant women, should be at the core of the EU's response to refugees," Cerimovic said. "There needs to be sufficient accountability of the European Union's abundant funds for refugees and asylum seekers so that we know where this money is going."

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by the European Union in 2010, requires European authorities to ensure the protection and safety of people with disabilities in situations of armed conflict, humanitarian emergencies, and natural disasters.

The humanitarian response in Greece is the most expensive in history when measured by the cost per beneficiary, according to humanitarian aid specialists. The Greek government, with the support of the EU and its member states, should remove all obstacles in its asylum system preventing refugees from receiving the assistance they need.

The European Commission should also ensure that the allocated aid benefits all refugees without discrimination, including people with disabilities. As a first important step, the European Commission should clearly instruct the Greek government and its partner agencies operating aid programs for refugees to ensure the inclusion of people with disabilities, and request information about how the programs it funds benefit people with disabilities and other at-risk groups.

The European Parliament should use its oversight role to ensure that the EU's response is not discriminatory and that there is improved accountability for the use of EU funds for refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in Europe.

The member states of the EU should also accelerate relocation of asylum seekers, including those with disabilities, from Greece to other EU countries.

"As the umbrella organization representing over 80 million people with disabilities in Europe, we will keep on reminding the European Union of its obligations to protect and promote the rights of persons with disabilities, until every refugee and migrant with a disability in Europe is received in dignified conditions," Anca said.

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Colombia: Civilians Killed in Riverside Community

Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 27 March 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Colombia: Civilians Killed in Riverside Community, 27 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da67664.html [accessed 8 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.

Five community members were shot and killed in unclear circumstances in the western Colombian province of Choco on the night of March 25, 2017, Human Rights Watch said today. The Colombian government should take immediate measures to investigate the deaths and aid families who have been displaced.

The killings took place in the Afro-Colombian community of Carra in the municipality of Litoral de San Juan. Initial reports from community members said that victims were caught in the crossfire between the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas and the Gaitanist Self-Defenses of Colombia (AGC). A human rights official later told Human Rights Watch that, according to local residents, there was no such clash and men with the ELN emblem had appeared in town and begun firing indiscriminately into the community. Similarly, the mayor told the media that there was no clash and an armed group had shot "indiscriminately" at civilians. The Attorney General's Office reported that seven ELN members apparently killed the civilians under unspecified circumstances and left an ELN flag in the community. The ELN later denied the claims by the Attorney General's Office and suggested that the AGC was responsible for the killings.

"Colombian authorities should carry out a prompt and exhaustive investigation and ensure that those responsible for the killings in Carra are prosecuted and held accountable," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "The government should also take immediate steps to assess the needs of displaced families and provide them with necessary assistance."

The ELN guerrillas, a leftist armed group, started peace talks with the Colombian government in February after two years of exploratory talks. The AGC, which is not part of the peace talks, emerged after a flawed paramilitary demobilization over a decade ago. The groups are fighting at least in part for control over the San Juan river.

The five civilians who died were: Yiminson Granados, Dider Arboleda, Julio Posso, Wilinton Posso, and Elcias Arboleda, a justice official told Human Rights Watch. The navy reported that some of them were authorities of the community council, a local body that governs in many of the country's Afro-Colombian communities. A 14-year-old boy had a bullet wound in his arm, and 52 people fled to Docordo, the municipality's capital, the night of the killings, a local human rights official told Human Rights Watch. Local authorities and aid organizations in the area told Human Rights Watch that the displaced families were housed in two residences in Docordo.

Human Rights Watch visited communities by the San Juan river, including Carra, in early March as part of broader research on abuses committed by the ELN and the AGC in the area.

During the Human Rights Watch visit, Carra residents said that on February 19, the Colombian navy had engaged in a shootout with the AGC for 45 minutes behind the school that serves Carra. No one from the community was harmed during that confrontation, but residents told Human Rights Watch that they feared new fighting or abuses. "No one is going to stay here, we are all going to leave due to fear," a resident said. After the confrontations, two members of the AGC were captured, the Attorney General's Office reported.

Colombia's ombudsman's office reported that in July 2015, ELN guerrillas came to Carra, demanding to see members of the community whom they said had cooperated with the AGC. Later that day, the ELN and the navy engaged in fighting close to the community. Community members told Human Rights Watch that 18 families then fled to Docordo for three days.

"Unless authorities show up to protect victims, the promise of peace in Colombia will continue to be an empty promise for the riverside communities of Choco," Vivanco said.

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Kyrgyzstan: Growing Pressure on Media Groups

Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 27 March 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Kyrgyzstan: Growing Pressure on Media Groups, 27 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da68654.html [accessed 8 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.

Kyrgyzstan's General Prosecutor has brought a series of cases against two prominent local media outlets that have been critical of the government, Human Rights Watch said today.

The outlets are accused of discrediting the honor and dignity of the president and spreading false information. The actions violate standards on freedom of expression, and the authorities should promptly drop the lawsuits.

"Kyrgyzstan's authorities should understand the role of independent media and what it means to respect freedom of expression and drop these lawsuits," said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Kyrgyzstan has a dynamic media landscape, which should be allowed to flourish, and laws that allow these kinds of prosecutions should be repealed."

The General Prosecutor's Office filed three lawsuits  two on March 6, 2017, and one on March 13  against Zanoza, a local online media outlet and its founder, Idinov Narynbek. The office filed two suits on March 6 against Radio Azattyk, the Kyrgyz branch of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In both cases the suits alleged "biased coverage of unchecked, false information that deliberately affected the honor and dignity of the head of state" and requested both media outlets to pay compensation totaling 32 million soms (US$462,855). Local courts ordered the bank accounts of both outlets frozen.

The coverage on which the General Prosecutor's office based its cases was articles reporting comments by Omurbek Tekebaev, a leader of the opposition party Ata Meken, who was detained on February 26 on fraud and corruption charges, and on coverage of a press conference held by his lawyers. Tekebaev and his lawyers have accused President Almazbek Atambaev of involvement in smuggling illegal goods in a plane that crashed on January 16 near Bishkek. At least 37 people were killed in the crash and 23 homes destroyed. Other media outlets also reported on Tekebaev's lawyers' press conference and have not faced prosecution.

Article 4 of the law on "Guarantees of the activities of the President of the Kyrgyz Republic" obliges the prosecutor general to take legal action on behalf of the president if disseminated information has defamed the president's honor and dignity. Laws that provide for offenses and penalties for those who criticize public figures, including figures such as the president, on the basis that it is considered insulting, are not compatible with freedom of expression standards under international law, and in particular with article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to which Kyrgyzstan is a party.

On March 7, local courts in Bishkek ruled in the General Prosecutor's office's favor, ordering the articles that allegedly defamed the dignity and honor of the president immediately be removed from the media outlets' websites. The outlets complied.

On March 22, Azattyk and Zanoza were informed that on March 14, the court had also ordered that their bank accounts were to be frozen. Representatives of the outlets told Human Rights Watch that this court order can lead to the closure of their offices as they would not be able to pay rent and staff salaries.

A lawyer from the Media Policy Institute, a local nongovernmental organization working on media policy and legislation who represents both media outlets, filed an appeal, contending that the courts' decisions are unfounded. He told Human Rights Watch that the pressure on these media outlets is selective and that the amount of compensation is disproportionate.

Dina Maslova, the chief editor of Zanoza, told Human Rights Watch that "authorities have chosen these two media outlets because of their critical stance about the government and their actions are connected to the upcoming presidential elections," scheduled for November. She said that the "authorities are using the political situation to remove political opponents and critics."

Venera Djumataeva, director of Azattyk, told Human Rights Watch that the media outlet did not breach any law as the journalists were simply doing their work. She believes the reason Azattyk was targeted is because it is popular among the local population and conducts serious, journalistic investigations into corruption.

The UN Human Rights Committee, which oversees Kyrgyzstan's compliance with the ICCPR, has previously warned Kyrgyzstan about bringing libel suits against journalists critical of the government and expressed its concerns about the kinds of laws protecting the president against insult in Kyrgyz law that are being invoked for these lawsuits.

"Kyrgyzstan should uphold media freedom at all times, and particularly during election seasons," Williamson said. "Invoking inappropriate 'insult' laws and targeting critical media sends the wrong message to the country's international partners at a time when respect for international human rights standards is paramount".

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New Mass Protests Materialize Against Putin

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Richard Arnold Publication Date 27 March 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 41 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, New Mass Protests Materialize Against Putin, 27 March 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 41, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da6be74.html [accessed 8 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.

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In the largest revival since the wave of "white ribbon" street demonstrations of 20112012, protests against the Russian government erupted again on Sunday, March 26, 2017. Actions took place in a reputed 99 cities across the country, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Samara, Irkutsk, Omsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Khabarovsk, Chelyabinsk, Ufa, Simferopol (in occupied Crimea), Sevastopol (in occupied Crimea), Makhachkala and many others (Navalny.com, March 26). The rallies in Russia were also reportedly accompanied by sympathy protests in Bonn and Basel. Not only were the protests nationwide in scope, they also attracted substantial numbers of people. In Moscow, for example, the authorities estimated there were between 7,000 and 8,000 protestors marching along Tverskaya Street, from the Triumphal Arch to Pushkin Square (Kommersant, March 26). In Russia's second-largest city of St. Petersburg, the demonstrations initially drew 5,000 people, who met on the Field of Mars; the spontaneous march along Nevsky Prospekt, which developed out of it, attracted 3,000 (Kommersant, March 26). Estimates of the numbers of protestors in other cities are more difficult to find, but an interactive map of where protests (and protest-related incidents, such as arrests) occurredcomplete with links to YouTube videos of the individual protestsprovides support for the claims that the March 26 protests were truly national in scope (Russia.liveuamap.com, accessed March 26, 27).

The protesters were brought out onto the streets to march against the endemic corruption in Russia's governing system. The immediate cause of the recent protests appeared to be Russian anti-corruption blogger and aspiring presidential candidate Alexei Navalny's investigative expose of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's wealth gleaned from corruption. The protests were organized under the Twitter hashtag #Dimonotvetit or "Dima [Diminutive form of Dmitri] responds." The hashtag calls on Medvedev to react to the investigations into his personal corruption in a Navalny-produced documentary broadcast on the web (Navalny.com, March 25). Photographs of the marches demonstrate that the main target of demonstrators was Prime Minister Medvedev, but some participants resurrected slogans and paraphernalia against President Vladimir Putin as well. Other placards contained more general protests of corruption and pictures of Putin and Medvedev surrounded by the word "shame." What was notable by its absence (at least to the knowledge of this author), however, was the presence of any white nationalist or racist slogans, which were a feature of the 20112012 protests against the return of Putin to the presidency. This implies that the 2017 protests are more ideologically cohesive than their forerunners.

The regime's initial response has been to repress the protests by arresting their participants. Navalny reported on his website that demonstrations were unsanctioned by municipal authorities in 72 cities and that Red Square was closed in advance of the protest columns. In four citiesKazan, Novosibirsk, Perm and Nizhny Tagilthe authorities only granted permission after a legal challenge was lodged (Navalny.com, March 25). In most cases, officials responded to the protests with mass arrests. The latest figures from the most liberal newspaper in Russia, Novaya Gazetaits website was constantly being updated at the time of writingare that Moscow saw more than 500 arrests, St. Petersburg saw 30, and Krasnodar 200 (Novaya Gazeta, March 26). At the protest in Vladivostok, media sources reported that 30 people were arrested, whereas another 8 were detained at Uizhno-Sakhalinsk (Lenta.ru, March 26). The most notable arrest came in Moscow, where Alexei Navalny himself was arrested in the area around Pushkin Square. News of Navalny's detention was communicated via Twitter by the director of the Fund for the Fight Against Corruption, Novel Rubanov. On his microblog, Navalny himself urged followers not to worry about him but to continue the protests by taking them to Tver, noting that the police had not beaten him (Lenta.ru, March 26). In Volgograd, on the other hand, Cossack supporters of the regime clashed violently with pro-Navalny forces, confirming fears that in the event of civil unrest, conservative pro-regime forces would occupy streets and plazas to quell demonstrations of opposition (Russia.liveuamap.com, March 26).

It is too early to tell whether this is that start of another protest wave similar to that seen in 20112012 or a one-off event that will have no further repercussions. Perhaps the most significant immediate impact of the Sunday protests is that they have shattered the aura of invincibility surrounding the Russian president. Ever since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 (and perhaps that event was undertaken with this in mind), the Russian regime has successfully quieted protests while Putin's personal popularity has supposedly remained stratospheric. But the scale of the latest events and their successful coordination across the country has broken the illusion of a population fundamentally content to live with declining living standards and pretensions to geopolitical dominance.

At the same time, the anti-regime sentiment generated during the 20112012 "white ribbon" protest wave has clearly not been exhausted, despite assertions to the contrary. Part of the promise of those initial protests was that they put like-minded people in touch with each other, revealing that they were not alone in their opinions (Mischa Gabowitsch, Protest in Putin's Russia, Polity Books, 2017). And the youth demographic that turned out to protest last weekend suggests that similar processes of social consciousness formation may be underway, which could have a lasting effect on Russian politics. Consequently, while many observers have argued that the protest potential of the population had been sacrificed upon the altar of Crimea-inspired jingoism, this has clearly not proven to be a lasting solution for the Putin regime. Whether these protests continue or not, they are sure to add momentum to Navalny's promise to run for the presidency (despite a criminal conviction on seemingly trumped-up charges) in 2018.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Illusions and Lack of Reason Revealed by New Protests in Belarus

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Yauheni Preiherman Publication Date 27 March 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 41 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Illusions and Lack of Reason Revealed by New Protests in Belarus, 27 March 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 41, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da6cf54.html [accessed 8 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.

Link to original story on Jamestown website

A series of protests took place in Minsk and several regional cities in Belarus on March 25, which marked the 99th anniversary of the founding of the Belarusian People's Republic. Some in society (especially among its most active circles) see the date as a historical landmark that laid the foundations of the country's sovereignty and celebrate it annually as "Freedom Day." This time, the traditional anniversary bore additional meaning. Some in the opposition had branded the date as a potentially decisive day for the already month-long protests against the so-called "parasite tax" and the overall worsening of the socio-economic situation in the country (see EDM, February 28, March 20).

It was difficult to tell how exactly the opposition was going to mark March 25, but their statements definitely worried some in the government (see EDM, March 20). The preparations on the side of the security services looked like a huge special operation: the number of police officers and special forces on Minsk's streets was unprecedented, and the variety of riot-control vehicles resembled a small military parade (Svaboda.org, March 26). On the event's eve, the police detained several hundred active participants of previous public protests (Naviny.by, March 23). One of the most radical opposition leaders, Mikalai Statkevich, who claimed responsibility for the demonstration, also disappeared and his Facebook account was restricted (Kp.by, March 24).

The Minsk authorities kept delaying their answer as to whether they would allow the demonstration until the very last day. And when they did finally authorize it, the organizers withdrew their application on the grounds that they had no time left to properly inform the participants about the exact venue (Bdg.by, March 24). Technically, this made any mass gathering in Minsk on Freedom Day illegal (Mfa.gov.by, March 26). At the same time, the local authorities in Grodno and Brest allowed demonstrations in their cities (Nn.by, March 25).

However, the authorities were not alone in contributing to an atmosphere of fear and confusion. The opposition could not agree on a single plan for the demonstration; and its most radical voice, Statkevich, before his disappearance, simply suggested that the crowd gather in the city center and then decide what to do next on the spot (see EDM, March 20). Together, these factors discouraged some potential participants.

On the day of the protest, the police effectively split up different groups of the participants, so it is difficult to say how many people turned up. Some opposition sources reported 2,0003,000 people, but the figure of 1,0001,500 seems more realistic. The police adhered to the strategy of detaining without much discussion those who looked like protesters. As a result, several hundred were arrested (Tut.by, March 25). Pictures of violence quickly circulated in the media. However, it should be noted that, on balance, the police were much more reserved in the use of actual force than they had been on December 19, 2010, when the notorious post-election crackdown took place.

Most of the detained were freed later in the evening, after spending several hours at various police stations. At the moment of writing it is difficult to say how many received short-term prison sentences or fines, as court hearings are continuing. Importantly, Mikalai Statkevich returned home on the morning of March 27. He claims that the police found him at a secret apartment and simply detained him for three days and then released him without initiating a criminal or even administrative case against him (Nn.by, 27 March). If so, this is an obvious signal to the West that Minsk wants to continue dialogue.

The biggest concern, however, is related to the authorities' allegations about some paramilitary groups preparing to carry out bloody provocations during Freedom Day. About two dozen people have been arrested based on those accusations, including members of the formerly active right-wing organization Bely Legion ("White Legion") and a registered military-patriotic club in Babruisk (Tut.by, March 24). Reactions to their arrests vary from open accusations in the state media to complete dismissals in the opposition circles. At the moment, it cannot be totally excluded that some paramilitary preparations might have taken place (Author's interviews with officials and experts, March 2327). This is not to say that the Bely Legion case was necessarily at the center of the story. Interestingly, the authorities also reported the detention of two Russian nationals who carried weapons, military uniforms and a Ukrainian flag (Tut.by, March 25). However, it is difficult to confirm or fully disprove anything at the moment.

Several important questions about what is going on in Belarus remain unanswered. Nevertheless, the events of March 25 demonstrated that the long-term stability and sovereignty of Belarus remains hostage to numerous vulnerabilities and weaknesses among both the authorities and the opposition.

Opposition groups have been actively propagating the idea that a revolution is in the making as the regime has started losing its traditional support base. However, even if the latter were true, nothing points to the spillover of this support toward the opposition itself. The latter remains as weak and split by infightings as before (see EDM, March 20). Thus, it is at best illusionary on the side of opposition leaders to believe that their uncoordinated calls to protest will somehow lead to a mass uprising. And at worst, it is an irresponsible way to expose hundreds of unprepared protesters to police brutality without even trying to streamline public discontent into a more sensible and forward-looking political process.

At the same time, the authorities' actions also reveal multiple weaknesses. The state machine looks incapable of acting in a flexible manner when pressures on the system in general and President Alyaksandr Lukashenka personally increase to a certain point. As a result, all cases of excessive police brutality make headlines in Belarusian and international media and paint a dramatic picture that effectively annihilates all attempts at normalizing relations with the West and facilitating civil dialogue inside the country.

Against these vulnerabilities, Belarus becomes an easy target for external manipulation. As Yury Drakakhrust of Radio Liberty put it, "In the Kremlin, they have probably had some cognac to celebrate what happened on March 25" (Tut.by, March 25). If both the authorities and the opposition fail to learn important lessons of the past, the outcome of the current escalation could be similar to that of December 2010, when Belarus found itself internationally isolated and internally deeply frozen. Perhaps, one important difference exists: the ability of Belarus to provide for its economic stability and security is significantly lower today than seven years ago.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Crackdown in Minsk: End of Latest Belarusian Political Thaw?

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Grigory Ioffe Publication Date 27 March 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 41 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Crackdown in Minsk: End of Latest Belarusian Political Thaw?, 27 March 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 41, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da6d594.html [accessed 8 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.

Link to original story on Jamestown website

On March 25, riot police in Minsk apprehended over 700 people taking part in downtown rallies devoted to "Freedom Day" (Tut.by, March 26), which this year marked the 99th anniversary of the foundation of the historical Belarusian People's Republic. The presence of large numbers of police, including those dressed in riot gear, as well as the fact that many demonstrators suffered violence at the hands of the authorities, contrasted sharply with the seemingly peaceful character of the rally. Nonetheless, most of those apprehended were released from detention on the same day or a day later.

It seems that much like on December 19, 2010, one of the guiding principles of the crackdown was a political decision to disregard the opinion of the West. This is despite the fact that Minsk is treating rapprochement with the West with utmost seriousness at the moment, much like it did during the comparable process preceding December 2010. Indeed, last week, on March 20, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka declared his intention to invite observers from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to the massive "Zapad 2017" Russian-Belarusian military exercise, to occur in September. Though pilloried by Russian "patriots" (SvPressa, March 24), this announcement was welcomed by the North Atlantic Alliance (Belta, March 21). Moreover, on March 24, Lukashenka received an invitation to Kansas City to celebrate, on April 6, the anniversary of the US entering World War I (Tut.by, March 24). Apparently, however, on March 25, in the eyes of the Belarusian leader, some powerful factors outweighed the desire to curry favor with the West.

To tease out those factors, one may recall that weekly rallies protesting Lukashenka's decree on social parasites began on February 17. Although the authorities did not consent to these demonstrations until March 11, they nevertheless proceeded unobstructed. That emboldened the opposition. On March 21, in a speech in the city of Mogilev, Lukashenka revealed that a couple dozen militants with ammunition had been apprehended (Belta, March 21). Subsequently, the Belarusian KGB disclosed that those arrested are members of the formally defunct White Legion, a paramilitary club; other detained individuals were allegedly connected with a similar club affiliated with Malady Front, registered in the Czech Republic, under the guidance of Dmitry Dashkevich, a diehard anti-Lukashenka warrior (Belta, March 23).

In response to the European Union's and the United States' harsh criticism of the crackdown, Press Secretary Dmitry Mironchik conveyed a statement from the Belarusian Foreign Ministry that stated the constitutional right of Belarusians for peaceful meetings is not in doubt. The keyword, however, is "peaceful." If, however, Molotov cocktails and weapons are delivered to the gathering point, the peaceful character of that rally is, in fact, in doubt. "As terrorist threats have been on the rise and their geography has broadened, it is important to [] preempt the attacks rather than face consequences. It is the lesson that we extracted from recent acts of terrorism in London, Berlin, Brussels and Nice." Mironchik described the police actions as matching the scale of the threat and of being gentler than those of Western police under similar circumstances. He underscored that the events of March 25 are no reason to stop dialogue with the West (Tut.by, March 26). Mironchik also noted that the authorities did not allow the rally. In fact, one "initiative group" solicited permission but did not receive a response from city authorities requisite five days in advance of the event. In fact, the permission was issued only on March 24 and the peripheral Bangalore Square was assigned to the solicited rally. However, by March 24, the group had already withdrawn its request, either under the assumption that the authorities would not intervene or, potentially, in pursuit of confrontation.

Belarusian reactions to the March 25 crackdown and to the detentions that occurred days earlier, have taken three different forms. The dominant opinion of the Westernizing opposition is that Lukashenka has become viscerally afraid of public protests against his decree on social parasites, so on March 25 he acted in an irrational and even "suicidal" way, simply out of a desire to scare the protesters. Yury Drakakhrust of Radio Liberty (Tut.by, March 25), Alexander Feduta, a political consultant (Naviny.by, March 22), and Svetlana Alexievich, the 2015 Nobel Prize winner (Svaboda.org, March 24), laid out this version most articulately.

The second kind of reaction, expressed by government-friendly pundits, points to radical forces. Thus, according to Piotr Petrovsky, undercover activity by radical nationalists, possibly under the guidance of Western intelligence agencies, triggered the arrests. Peter Liesegang, who visited Belarus in the autumn of 2016, is seen as a possible emissary of the purported puppet masters. Interestingly, Petrovsky underscores that in Belarus, civic institutions are weak and independent non-governmental organizations (NGO) are lacking. Consequently, radicals, not state-friendly mentors deal with people prone to protest. Belarusians lack the skills for political dialogue, so protests are more for letting off steam (Eurasia.Expert, March 24). "The nationalist underground is routed," writes Alexei Dziermant, editor-in-chief of ImhoClub, an online political journal (Facebook.com, March 22).

The third kind of reactionexpressed by the Center for Strategic and Foreign Policy Studies, otherwise known as the Tsarik-Sivitsky duois akin to the first but emphasizes the critical role Russian agents play in spreading disinformation to the Belarusian leadership. The aim of such operations is to allegedly sever the evolving bonds between Belarus and the West (Csfps.by, March 23).

One of the precautions the authorities exercised was to apprehend opposition leaders in advance of the rally. Thus, Vladimir Neklyaev, a 2010 presidential hopeful, was detained in Brest, on board a WarsawMinsk train. Mikalai Statkevich, the most active opposition fighter, was not responding to calls and e-mails for days. Statkevich was just released from a KGB detention center on March 27 (Nn.by, 27 March). Three other opposition leaders received 15-day sentences that ended on March 26. And the heads of the Tell the Truth civic campaign, Andrei Dmitriev and Tatyana Korotkevich, participated in rallies outside Minsk (Tut.by, March 26). Having isolated each opposition leader for the day of the rally, the government precluded the emergence of a new political prisoners problem for itself.

Thus, unlike the fateful march on December 19, 2010, the Freedom Day rally in Minsk was entirely devoid of opposition leaders and yet it still received harsh treatment from the authorities. One more crucial difference is that by December 2010, Minsk had wrested important concessions from Russia, whereas today the bilateral stalemate over gas prices and oil deliveries lingers on.

In any case, March 25 may mark the end of another political thaw in Belarus. The future is as obscure as ever.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Jordan looks to turn refugee crisis into economic boon

Publisher IRIN Author Sara Elizabeth Williams Publication Date 21 March 2017 Cite as IRIN, Jordan looks to turn refugee crisis into economic boon, 21 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da6e164.html [accessed 8 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.

Last February, Jordan and the international community agreed on a radically new approach to the Syrian refugee crisis. Instead of viewing refugees as a burden that could only be alleviated by humanitarian aid, the new agreement described them as "a development opportunity" that, with sufficient levels of investment and structural reforms, could benefit Jordan's entire economy.

The Jordan Compact was welcomed as a potential blueprint for other host countries looking for ways to reduce their dependence on dwindling sources of aid and shift towards a development response that helps refugees become more self-reliant.

According to the World Bank, which is helping to fund the compact's implementation, it's "a win-win proposition for Jordan", but more than a year later, Jordan is struggling to translate its new approach into more economic opportunities for Syrians or Jordanians.

The small, resource-poor country of 9.5 million people  three million of them foreigners according to the 2016 census  has a long history of absorbing the region's displaced. Beginning in 1948, Jordan welcomed waves of Palestinians, and then in the 1990s and 2000s, it was Iraqis. Each influx has added jobs, cash, and diversity to the economy.

But the arrival of close to one million Syrian refugees over the past five years (only 657,000 of whom are currently registered with UNHCR) has been tougher to absorb. The issue is partly demographic: Many of Jordan's Syrians are from poor, rural areas of southern Syria, in contrast to the well-heeled Iraqis who flocked here decades earlier. Meanwhile, the war in Syria and border closures with both Syria and Iraq have hit trade, crippling Jordan's export economy and compounding the strain of coping with so many needy newcomers.

Jordan's economic slowdown has not been helped by the fact that Syrians are largely prevented from working legally. This is designed to protect Jordanian jobs in a stagnating market with an unemployment rate of 15.8 percent (around double that for youth), but has kept hundreds of thousands of Syrians dependent on aid and low-paid, informal work. This has driven wages down, edging out many Jordanians, and resulted in lower government revenues from taxes and employer social insurance payments.

The Jordan Compact, agreed at a major donor conference in London in February 2016, secured $1.7 billion in grants, low-interest loans, and pledges from the international community, in return for Jordan opening up its labour market to Syrian refugees. Besides funding, Jordan was promised access to tariff-free trade with the EU, providing it issued at least 200,000 work permits to Syrians. Until that target is hit, businesses located in 18 special economic zones (SEZs) throughout Jordan can unlock preferential access to the EU market by employing Syrians as 15 percent of their workforce in the first two years, and 25 percent thereafter.

One year on, Jordan has secured $923.6 million in funding, including $147 million in World Bank loans and a December 2016 cash transfer from the United States of close to half a billion dollars. But the hoped-for results haven't yet materialised. Work permits were made widely available to Syrians from April 2016, but by February 2017, just 38,516 permits had been issued, according to Jordan's Ministry of Labour.

Trust deficit

Thirty-year-old Daraa native Ahmad Alhmood recently acquired a work permit after years of working in a food shop without one.

"Before getting my permit I used to watch my back all the time. I worried all the time that the authorities could come to my work," Alhmood told IRIN.

Syrians caught working illegally can be arrested, detained, sent to Azraq refugee camp, and, in some cases, deported back to Syria. Alhmood referred to his permit as his "legal weapon" against such outcomes.

"Now, I am like any foreign worker in Jordan. I have my rights and I know that I am legally entitled to them," he said. Those rights include being paid the minimum wage, recently raised from 190 to 220 Jordanian dinars ($268 to $311) per month, and social security.

But, for many Syrians, the gains of formalised employment aren't worth the potential losses. Humanitarian agencies say some refugees fear losing access to aid or the chance of resettlement to a third country. Others prefer to remain under the radar rather than risk registering with a government they don't fully trust.

"I believe no permit will protect me in Jordan," said a Syrian father of one who works in an office in Amman and asked not to be named. "It's always a matter of how you react with the authorities when they ask to see your papers, and if this guy wants to make things hard for you, then your permissions won't help."

Bureaucratic hurdles

This trust deficit doesn't help, but neither does the fact that not every Syrian who wants a permit can get one. Some professions  engineering, medicine, and teaching, for example  are off-limits completely to refugees, and other occupations for which permits are supposed to be available, are very difficult to get in practice.

Basel, a 24-year-old refugee living in Irbid in northern Jordan, is the sole breadwinner for seven members of his family. He is desperate to make his job at a restaurant more secure by regularising his employment status but described the procedure for getting a permit as "a little bit complicated".

That's putting it mildly. The Jordan INGO Forum, a network of 51 international NGOs responding to the Syrian crisis in Jordan, released a document in December called the Work Permit Maze, which maps the labyrinthine steps refugees must take to regularise their employment.

Several business owners contacted for this article said the process of getting a work permit for their Syrian employees was simply too complex and time-consuming. Most continued to employ Syrians without permits.

Special zones, special challenges

SEZs have the potential scale needed to quickly reach the 200,000-permit goal, but progress towards hiring more Syrians has been slow. Jordan's Chamber of Industry has argued that Syrians could be a natural fit for industries that struggle to lure Jordanian labour. Currently, the garment manufacturing industry, which accounts for around 20 percent of Jordan's GDP, hires large numbers of mainly Asian foreign workers to work on SEZs around the country.

Sanal Kumar, chairman and managing director of Classic Fashion, a global manufacturing company that is Jordan's biggest garment maker, scoffed at the idea that tariff-free access to the EU was of interest to Jordan-based garment manufacturers. Classic Fashion and others like it can make clothes far more cheaply in Bangladesh, which has duty-fee access to the EU. The reason they manufacture in Jordan, he explained, is for tariff-free access to the US market, thanks to a Jordan-US free trade deal.

For Classic Fashion, employing locals and refugees is still a goal, but one motivated more by corporate social responsibility than any incentives on offer through the Jordan Compact.

Classic Fashion set out to hire 500 Syrians last year, but "unfortunately, the response was very, very negative", said Kumar. Numerous job fairs resulted in just 30 Syrians coming to work for the company. Many stayed only a few days and, months later, just four Syrians remain on its payroll. Even they aren't working in the SEZs, where workers live on site, but at satellite factories closer to urban areas.

More needs to be done by NGOs to help recruit refugees and convince them they won't lose benefits or refugee claimant status by working legally, said Kumar. He also cited other intractable issues, like the location of most SEZs far from the cities, camps, and villages where most refugees live, a problem compounded by Jordan's crippling lack of public transportation.

"As long as the NGOs can find Syrians who are ready to work, Classic is more than ready to take them," he told IRIN.

Win-win?

John Speakman, who is leading the World Bank's efforts to develop economic opportunities for Jordanians and Syrian refugees, said his team was "pretty pleased" with the implementation of the Jordan Compact.

"Generally, Jordan's investment climate is not good. It has even gone backwards over the past four or five years. But we're seeing progress," he told IRIN. "We're trying really hard to make this a win-win proposition for Jordan. There's a chance this may be transformational."

But drastic reforms are needed for Jordan to be a better place to do business, and to ensure the Jordan Compact delivers benefits for refugees. Whether Jordan will be able to make these reforms is the pressing question.

"The bad business environment in Jordan is a pre-existing problem. To think we can make this work for Syrians  a disempowered, disenfranchised, fragmented population  when it hasn't worked for Jordanians; that's just nuts," said Sean Yom, an associate professor of political science at Temple University who has tracked Jordan's economic development for more than a decade.

In the case of the struggle to employ refugees on SEZs, Yom sees a disconnect between the project's aims and the needs of the people it's supposed to help.

"Public transport is the lifeblood of the Jordanian economy, and Jordanians say it's inadequate. The idea that Syrians are going to transport themselves to SEZs an hour away? If Jordanians can't do it for Syrians to do it is pure fantasy," he said.

Yom worries that the compact doesn't provide sufficient incentives for Jordan to implement the reforms needed to get more people, Jordanian and Syrian alike, participating in a better-functioning economy. But with or without those reforms, he noted, the compact will deliver enough funding to help stabilise Jordan's economy.

"If or when the Jordan Compact fails, Jordan doesn't lose that much, because the refugee population is transient," he said. "For Jordan, this is win-win."
Trapped: How northwestern Syria became a cage for hundreds of thousands of civilians

Publisher IRIN Author Aron Lund Publication Date 28 March 2017 Cite as IRIN, Trapped: How northwestern Syria became a cage for hundreds of thousands of civilians, 28 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da6e8e4.html [accessed 8 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 Syrian war seems to be moving toward a new phase in which President Bashar al-Assad's rule is no longer seriously threatened, but violence continues unabated. In northwestern Syria, renewed fighting on the edges of Idlib Province and its surroundings, the country's most important rebel-controlled area, gives a glimpse of the tragedies that may yet lie in store, as irreconcilable forces wrestle for control over a region where hundreds of thousands of desperate civilians have sought shelter.

On 21 March, Sunni rebels led by the jihadi group Tahrir al-Sham stormed Syrian army positions north of Hama, resuming a long-running opposition effort to burrow into the northern flank of Syria's fourth-largest city. The rebels hope to seize Qamhaneh, a Sunni town in the Hama countryside known for its pro-Assad militias. This would greatly improve their prospects of taking the provincial capital. Taking Hama, some 85 kilometers south of Idlib, would be the insurgency's greatest victory to date, handing them control over a million-strong city, opening a gateway to central Syria, and fracturing al-Assad's strategic defences.

The rebels are unlikely to get that far. The Syrian government is already redistributing troops to Hama, and pro-government militias recruited in Qamhaneh are rushing home from battles against the so-called Islamic State east of Aleppo. Al-Assad's Russian and Iranian allies are also likely to pitch in.

Nevertheless, the regime setbacks illustrate the limitations of al-Assad's exhausted army in northern Syria, where it faces some 6,000 square kilometres of opposition-controlled territory in and around Idlib Province, including parts of the Hama, Latakia, and Aleppo provinces. Unlike other rebel-held areas, this wider Idlib region is impossible for the Syrian army to conquer through a war of siege and attrition, since the insurgency receives constant support from across the Turkish border.

Al-Assad recognised as much in an interview with the Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda in October of last year, saying: "You cannot cut [off Turkish supplies], because Idlib is adjacent to Turkey; it's right on the Syrian-Turkish borders. So you cannot cut; you have to clean. You have to keep cleaning this area and to push the terrorists to Turkey to go back to where they come from, or to kill them. There's no other option."

That seems to be the gist of the Syrian government's strategy: Clean, push, and kill to keep the insurgency at bay, taking what it can and leaving the rest for later, in the hopes that Turkey will one day decide to cut off support for the rebels.

Yet if the renewed rebel offensive in Hama is any clue, Ankara and its allies remain determined to push back, doggedly feeding arms into northern Syria in order to pin down al-Assad's army, prevent him from winning the war, and increase their own leverage in talks with his Russian allies. Worst of all, as many as two million Syrian civilians may be trapped in the area where these relentless forces collide.

Civilians bear the brunt

The past week of fighting in Hama is an instructive example of what is at stake in the battle over northwestern Syria. Both sides accuse the other of massacring innocent locals, and Save the Children reports that more than 10,000 people were forced to flee their homes in the first 24 hours of fighting  40,000 are now believed to be displaced by the violence. As the front line rumbles back and forth across the countryside of northern Hama, it leaves a trail of ruined villages and uprooted civilians in its wake, many of whom live in fear of both sides.

Minority communities like the Christians of Mhardeh, northwest of Hama, may be most afraid of the sectarian Islamists that dominate the opposition. Syria's rebels often vow not to harm minorities, but few in the non-Sunni communities seem to trust them, and previous opposition advances into Christian areas have resulted in kidnappings, looted property, and desecrated churches. The Salafi clerics who hold sway over rebels in Idlib and Hama take an even harsher line toward heterodox Islamic sects: The small Druze community in Jabal al-Summaq has been forced to renounce its faith at gunpoint and leading rebel clerics reserve particular venom for Alawis, whom they describe as an apostate sect that should be destroyed.

At the same time, many locals in this mostly Sunni region seem just as terrified of the Syrian army, which relies in part on violent and undisciplined Shia and Alawi militias, and which conducts its war using brutal tactics. Villages that slip out of state control are routinely targeted by Syrian and Russian jets, which have hit hospitals, schools, and civilian neighbourhoods in what seems like a deliberate strategy of collective punishment, sometimes using cluster munitions and incendiary bombs. The aerial bombardment is thought to be a leading cause of death and destruction in northwestern Syria, as well as a major reason for population displacement. Last year, an investigative panel commissioned by the UN Security Council also blamed the Syrian government for repeated attacks with chlorine gas in Hama and Idlib.

Government air raids and the arbitrary mortar and rocket fire from both sides mean there are no secure areas for civilians, neither close to the front nor deeper into opposition-held territory. In the rebel-held town of al-Latamneh, opposition sources recently reported the bombing of a hospital, and though rebel authorities have shut down schools to save pupils from bombing raids as far away as Idlib city, children are still killed when bombs drop on residential areas. The more the fighting intensifies and the deeper either party pushes into the territory of the other, the worse the carnage is likely to get.

A gathering point

According to a recent update from the UN's emergency aid coordination body, OCHA, Idlib Province alone has 1.78 million inhabitants, or about 10 percent of Syria's current population (not counting the more than 4.9 million refugees abroad). The adjacent rebel-held parts of Latakia, Hama, and, particularly, Aleppo may hold hundreds of thousands more.

More than half of the people estimated by the UN to live in Idlib have been displaced from other parts of the country, and the region has emerged as Syria's main refuge for anti-Assad activists and people wanted by the security services. In fact, the government is deliberately encouraging this trend. As is clear from al-Assad's comments to Komsomolskaya Pravda, the government has resigned itself to the fact that northwestern Syria will remain outside of its control for a long time to come, and it is now using Idlib as a dumping ground for irreconcilable enemies.

When a town elsewhere in Syria is brought to heel, the army typically offers local rebels and opposition activists the choice of either staying and surrendering, which many are understandably afraid of doing, or leaving with their families to Idlib. Many thousands have opted for the latter, and northwestern Syria now hosts some 36,000 people from eastern Aleppo, more than 2,000 fighters and civilians from Wadi Barada, and thousands of others. While the armed rebels among these internal exiles tend to join local factions in order to continue fighting, presumably adding another drop of intransigence to the northwestern opposition, civilians struggle to adapt to life in crisis-ridden Idlib. While many had hoped to continue on to Turkey, the border is closed and likely to stay that way. This is ultimately Ankara's decision, but clearly has quiet encouragement from European leaders who want Turkey to stop refugees from reaching the EU.

With no way out and no way back, they're trappedbut it's not clear they can stay, either. Nearly three in four inhabitants of Idlib Province, or 1.3 million people, already depend on humanitarian assistance from the UN or foreign charities. But the area is under the sway of rebel groups that most of the international community considers terrorists and extremists, particularly since the creation of Tahrir al-Sham earlier this year. The group is already clashing with foreign aid organs over control over food distribution, and if aid deliveries end up being reduced or blocked as a consequence, people in the wider Idlib region will be left without any way of fending for themselves and their families.

Running out of options

For the moment, the Syrian government is on the defensive in the northwest, but that will likely changeand regardless of who moves forward, the way the war is fought means that innocent civilians will be targeted.

After six years of non-stop bloodshed, and with hardliners firmly in charge on both sides, there is little chance of a compromise or meaningful de-escalation in the wider Idlib region.

Many opposition members are likely to keep fighting even in the absence of any hope for victory and with little regard for the costs for local communities to which they do not belong. The Syrian regime pursues the root-and-branch destruction of resistance to al-Assad with the same single-minded frenzy, rarely even feigning concern for civilians on the enemy side.

As these rivals tear up communities on the ground, killer drones and attack jets from at least three air forces  Russia, Syria, and the United States (targeting Tahrir al-Sham)  now roam the skies of northwestern Syria, firing tonnes of high explosives into civilian towns every day. New tragedies are reported with mind-numbing regularity, and there is no end in sight.

The war in the northwestern corner of Syria originally emerged in 2011-2012 as a front in the conflict over al-Assad's presidency, but violence rumbles on undiminished even after that question has begun to fade from the political agenda. Now infested with regional proxy rivalries and counterterrorism kill missions unfettered from any semblance of long-term policy, Idlib and its neighbouring territories have transformed into a free-fire zone attacked by nearly every actor in the war.

Simultaneously, it serves as a holding pen for hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians, including many activists and former prisoners who seem prepared to do almost anything to avoid being caught again. Even if they were to give up the war, they have no way out, and no one is working to create one. They are trapped between a group of extreme jihadis, a dictatorship ready to use any amount of violence to claw back control, and an international community that seems content to let northwestern Syria burn to cinders.
Russia's Aims in Central Asia

Publisher Institute for War and Peace Reporting Publication Date 28 March 2017 Reference RCA 810 Cite as Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Russia's Aims in Central Asia, 28 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da6f924.html [accessed 8 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.

Russia continues to lack a common policy on Central Asia, preferring instead to pursue bilateral relations with individual states, according to regional expert Chinara Esengul.

The Kyrgyz analyst on Central Asia geopolitics and security told IWPR that she saw no future imminent accessions to the customs union of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakstan and Kyrgyzstan.

But Russia would still play a key role as a guarantor of the national and regional security of Central Asia, balanced by some economic competition with China.

The only serious threat to Moscow's dominance in the region, she continued, was the threat of radical Islam.

IWPR: How would you evaluate the relationship between Russia and the Central Asian states?

Esengul: First, the relationship between Russia and Central Asia is more bilateral than regional. We need to pay more attention to the substance of bilateral relations as the degree of their maturity and intensity varies. For example, Russia's relationship with Uzbekistan is not as strong as the relationship it has with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. This is due to the fact that both states are members of the EEU.

Tajikistan's accession to the EEU is not imminent, but in terms of strategy, the accession will improve the dynamics between Russia and Tajikistan. When we speak about the EEU, we should speak not about Russia and any potential candidate country, but about all EEU countries and a potential candidate country [but] this situation remains challenging because Russia is still the dominant country and prefers a bilateral negotiation format.

In the context of the EEU, what can you say about the relationship between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan?

The relationship between the neighboring countries of the EEU is not ideal, for example, between Russia-Belarus or Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan. These are natural processes because every country wants to protect its own market in every possible way; even despite the absence of tariff restrictions, a country imposes informal restrictions like phytosanitary and veterinary control. So I think these processes are intrinsic and every integration union has to overcome them. Europe also went through these processes when they created the European Union and the customs union, in particular. I see these processes as a normal course that should be managed. In this regard, Kazakhstan behaves very selfishly, Kyrgyzstan carries out its obligations lazily and rather carelessly, so as a result we have the situation of mutual accusations and de facto protectionist practices of neighboring states.

Many experts say that the EEU is dominated by politics rather than economics, leading to many economic problems. What do you think about that?

Yes, initially it was a strategic geopolitical project. [Kazak president Nursultan] Nazarbaev was the first to raise this idea back in 1994. Back then, it was intended as a comprehensive integration project with no political focus. In the 90s, Nazarbaev thought that all the ties between the Soviet states could be restored - until the full collapse.

The idea reappeared when Vladimir Putin came to power and he saw it as the restoration of the former role and influence of the Russian Federation. But the first step to such a political union was still economic, so everything started with a customs union of three states: Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus. If we evaluate that stage, it was a political and economic structure with the emphasis on some technical regulations, standards, generally issues of an economic nature.

To what extent does China obstruct Russian plans regarding Central Asia?

I think they have a strategic understanding and a certain division of zones, an understanding of the role of Russia and China in Central Asia. So China implements its infrastructure and transit projects, and Russia cannot resist in any obvious way. As for the security sphere, China has no doubt about the key role of Russia as a guarantor in terms of the national and regional security of Central Asia. Speaking about national security, there are CSTO [the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation] forces in Kant [in Kyrgyzstan], so they protect the airspace security of member states. Our national security is to some extent ensured by an external organisation. Therefore, Russian troops play a major role [and China] is not represented in the security sphere at all. So far, the two states are satisfied with the status quo and the allocation of roles. We'll see if this situation changes in the future; everything depends on how relations between Russia and China develop, which, in turn, depends on Russia's relations with Europe and the US and on relations between China and the US.

Apart from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, do other Central Asian states want to cooperate closely with Russia?

I would say they do want it, but not as much as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Turkmenistan is a country that announced neutrality back in 1995, they have a law on positive neutrality, a model recognized by the UN, so I think they will keep to this concept for a long time, which excludes the accession of Turkmenistan to any union. Uzbekistan, from the first years of independence, has assumed a rather independent position on foreign policy.

We have learnt that Uzbekistan can change its foreign policy very fast. Cooperation means having no serious obligations, but just partnership agreements, i.e. after fulfilling agreed tasks, each side may pursue its own path. Integration project is a serious process and implies the presence of supranational organizations, and Uzbekistan will never be a part of it because, in my opinion, its foreign policy is based on a totally different principle. It is based on national interests, and they will not trade their sovereignty in return the likely maximum that can be reached is a free trade zone.

What about Tajikistan?

It's very difficult to discuss Tajikistan. In terms of real indicators, such as dependence on migration issues [about two million Tajik migrants work in Russia] and the long-standing presence of the Russian military on the border with Afghanistan, Tajikistan will gradually move towards accession to the EEU. Yet there are serious elements that distinguish Tajik from Kyrgyz-Kazakh relationships with Russia. Tajikistan since the years of independence has spent five years embroiled in civil war and has strongly integrated cultural and linguistic ties with Iran and northern Afghanistan. These realities will force Tajikistan to choose. They have an alternative, they may have access to the sea through Iran, with which they share a similar cultural and linguistic civilisation.

How satisfied is Russia with the current state of affairs in Central Asia? Some Russian populists think that all countries in the region should be guided by Moscow alone.

First, historically, Russia cannot decide which side it belongs to, Europe or Asia. Now its relations with Europe and the West have deteriorated badly, a situation that seems to be lasting for a long time. Russia has had to turn to Asia, particularly China for geo-strategic and geo-economic reasons. As for Central Asia, it was totally forgotten during the [Boris] Yeltsin presidency and for many years. At that time we forged ahead and developed relations with other partners, so now we cannot say that Russia can be the key state that can not only promise, but also keep its promises. In the case of Kambarata HPP [a hydroelectric power station on the Naryn River in Kyrgyzstan] we can see that Russia's desires are not properly backed up with their capacity to perform. I would take the statements of those people who think that Russia must be the sole player and strategic partner of Central Asia as their personal desire and nothing more. Putin pursues realpolitik; he knows the potential of every country and therefore he makes the politics bilateral, not regional. He takes every state individually, uses every vulnerable area, or vice versa donates anything, or forgives a debt. Russia is using various methods in the bilateral format, but it has no regional strategy.

If Russia has strong means of pressure, why doesn't it use them to bring Uzbekistan and Tajikistan closer to Moscow, with more cooperation including joining the EEU?

I think it is too early. Russia works within its capacities. They cannot put pressure on everyone, so they first work with Kazakhstan, then with other states. Russia works toward its goal slowly but surely. They expand the Eurasian zone gradually and as far as possible. They cannot start active actions on all fronts, and then fail to provide all of them with resources.

But Uzbekistan or Tajikistan are next in line to join the EEU?

Yes, in any case they are. We cannot be sure about how long the process of joining [the EEU]would last. This is a normal occurrence for such a superpower as Russia, which has set the goal. On the other hand, the question is how other major players like Russia, e.g. China, US, Europe can and want to manifest to our countries that they would be an adequate balance and alternative.

China has a very attractive approach in its cooperation with the countries in the region, 'we stay out of your politics, all we care about is economy and trade.' But what's the likelihood that in future China's interest will go beyond economic projects in Central Asia?

In my opinion, China will not be involved in the politics of Central Asia because it has many issues in the Asia-Pacific region (APR). They have very serious matters on the agenda. So the matters in our region will concern only the economy that is required for the implementation of the Silk Road Economic Belt [the Chinese government's ambitious project that would deliver its goods to Western Europe across the Eurasian continent and bypassing Russia]. They need the opportunity to transport goods through the continent, so they need to build their transportation capacity from our region to Europe so that Europe is overwhelmed with Made in China goods. If they achieve this goal, the Chinese will deserve applause. In terms of military and politics, China directs great effort to ensure its positions in the Asia-Pacific region, so it cannot work to the utmost in all aspects of cooperation all along its border. Even China, which is very strong now, cannot pursue politics all around the world.

Who could challenge Russia's role in Central Asia in terms of ideology?

Only religion can. Islam. radicalisation occurs in all the Central Asia states. Russia - just as when the Russian Empire came to the region in the middle of the 19th century, and later in the Soviet Union - has tried to totally eliminate the factor of religion, and this attempt has failed. So now their main enemy is the Islamic factor, but, in my opinion, not everyone in Moscow understands this.

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Afghan Gypsies Wait for Recognition

Publisher Institute for War and Peace Reporting Publication Date 27 March 2017 Citation / Document Symbol ARR 569 Cite as Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Afghan Gypsies Wait for Recognition , 27 March 2017, ARR 569, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da70904.html [accessed 8 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.

Activists are warning of threats to the country's media freedom after President Almazbek Atambaev filed a series of lawsuits against outlets for allegedly defaming him.

Media professionals fear that the huge sums of money involved might lead to self-censorship, and say they are not convinced the courts will give them a fair hearing.

The prosecutor general has demanded 20 million soms (285.000 US dollars) from Taalaigul Toktakunova, a lawyer for the opposition Ata Meken party and Radio Azattyk, and three million soms (43,000 dollars) from other defendants including the Zanoza.kg, and 24.kg websites.

These are substantial sums in Kyrgyzstan, where the average monthly salary is about 200 dollars.

Ata Meken leader Omurbek Tekebaev, an outspoken critic of Atambaev, is currently in jail on corruption charges which supporters say are politically motivated.

(See also Questions Over Arrest of Kyrgyz Opposition Figure).

Zanoza.kg, Radio Azattyk and Toktakunova are accused of publishing Tekebayev's claims that Atambaev may have owned the cargo of an aircraft that crashed near Bishkek in January, killing 39 people.

Another lawsuit relates to a 2015 opinion piece published by the 24.kg news agency in which human rights defender Rita Karasartova alleged that the president's Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan (SDPK) had auctioned off public posts in the regions.

A separate lawsuit was filed against the founder of Zanoza.kg, well-known journalist Naryn Idinov, over an article about the alleged embezzlement of funds from the presidential foundation.

The prosecutor general claimed that all the media outlets failed to check their facts before publishing the stories.

Atambaev has made repeated public statements emphasising that journalists must be held liable for disseminating unreliable information.

"I can't take this lying down I am against any criminal liability for defamation, but defamers must also be held liable. At least, in terms of money, otherwise it's useless to hope for moral responsibility. Defamers are moral morons," Atambaev told a group of ambassadors after a presentation of credentials ceremony.

He added that the financing Zanoza.kg and Radio Azattyk receive from the West meant that it would be easy for them to pay out these amounts.

Both outlets have had their bank accounts frozen for the duration of the investigation.

Atambaev has also claimed that "regular and purposeful sweeping accusations of the head of state" were in facts attempts to destabilise the country ahead of presidential elections on November 19.

Although Atambaev is constitutionally limited to a single six-year term, at a recent press conference with Russian president Vladimir Putin he said that he now intended to remain in politics.

Others, however, see his actions as a concerted attempt to intimidate independent media.

Around 100 opposition politicians, human rights defenders and journalists rallied in Bishkek on March 18 to protest the spate of litigation.

Police made half-a-dozen arrests following the event, including a lawmaker belonging to the opposition Ata Meken party and a BBC local service reporter.

Ata Meken also hit back by filing a lawsuit against Atambaev over comments he made at a March 6 event where he described the party as "stinking".

Suing him for an insult to their honour and dignity, they said they wanted a retraction and apology rather than any financial compensation.

Rights organisation the Media Policy Institute (MPI), has taken on the legal representation for Zanoza, Radio Azattyk and Naryn Idinov.

An MPI statement noted that, according to a supreme court decision some years ago law, the media outlet was not responsible for an interviewee's statements, when cited directly.

The same argument was made by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which stressed it had only quoted Tekebaev's opinion.

PRESSURE INCREASING

Kyrgyzstan is considered the most liberal country for freedom of speech in Central Asia, but in recent years the authorities have stepped up pressure on journalists and human rights defenders.

(See also Kyrgyzstan: Alarm Over Facebook Crackdown).

Kyrgyz commentators also note that a veteran Russian journalist based in Bishkek was recently forced to leave the country.

In early March, Grigory Mikhailov, who has reported for various Russian outlets from Kyrgyzstan for over ten years, was told by police that his registration had expired and he had to leave the country.

When he tried to return, he was told his name appeared on the so-called black list of foreign citizens banned from entering Kyrgyzstan.

The ministry of foreign affairs said only that his registration had expired and that he had no official accreditation.

Mikhailov himself said that the action was taken due to the critical stories he had frequently published about Atambaev in the Russian media.

"I think this incident was related to my profession," he told IWPR, adding that he would continue writing article on Kyrgyzstan from outside the country. "I don't know who organised it, maybe it was an individual's own foolish initiative or someone went overboard. I wasn't warned, I wasn't threatened, I wasn't told what to write. I'm really surprised about what has happened to me."

Media experts agree that publications need to verify facts and control the quality of information they publish, rather than serve as the vehicle of statements made by politicians.

They argue, however, that the solution is industry self-regulation rather than multimillion lawsuits.

"Freedom of expression is seriously threatened," Tamara Valieva, the head of the Independent Union of Journalists (IUJ), told a public meeting. "There is a serious impact on the freedom of speech. This contradicts democratic values."

She agreed that journalists had the responsibility to verify information, but argued that they could not be held liable for other people's statements.

"There must be responsibility of the media, but not in the form of multimillion lawsuits that could lead to the closure of the media," Valieva said.

The head of the Journalists Public Union NGO Azamat Tynaev said that he was convinced that the authorities chose popular and independent outlets to send a message to the wider media community.

"I suggest we consider the lawsuits against these media outlets as lawsuits against all domestic media," he said. "These lawsuits serve to demoralise the media."

Cholpon Djakupova, a former lawmaker who now heads the Adilet legal clinic, also said that she believed the move was a planned attack.

It would be difficult for the media community to unite against the legal action because "there can be no talk of the independence of courts," she told a public meeting, adding, "I'm already feeling self-censorship here."

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Afghan Women Denied Identity Cards

Publisher Institute for War and Peace Reporting Publication Date 27 March 2017 Citation / Document Symbol ARR 569 Cite as Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Afghan Women Denied Identity Cards, 27 March 2017, ARR 569, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da70e44.html [accessed 8 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.

A full 70 per cent of women in the eastern province of Nangarhar do not hold Afghan identity cards and thus are denied access to a wide range of services, IWPR has discovered.

The documents, known as tazkira, are vital to access basic facilities from medical care, education and banking to employment and voting.

But many women told IWPR that their family had refused them permission to apply for ID cards.

Aisha, 28, said that ID cards were only obtained for women in a narrow set of circumstances.

"IDs are taken out for women in order to get passports when they go on the hajj pilgrimage or toother countries. Otherwise women do not get IDs. I myself don't have an ID so far."

Women being denied permission to obtain ID cards are a problem nationwide. Across Afghanistan, 56 per cent of women do not have tazkira. But the figure in Nangarhar is much lower.

The director of the provincial population registration office, Haifzullah Pahlawan, told IWPR, "Seventy percent of women in Nangarhar do not have IDs."

Pahlawan said that only women who had jobs, travelled abroad or had graduated took out ID cards, and this only applied to women living in urban areas. In more remote parts of the province, men deemed it shameful for female family members to obtain such documents.

He explained that they distributed 300,000 IDs in 2015 and 400,000 IDs in 2016 with nearly 20 per cent of them for women, adding, "In the past we held public awareness programmes with the help of UNICEF over this issue, but the process has stopped in the past six months."

Gulalay, a resident of the Majburabad area who said that she was around 30 years old, said that male family members had a responsibility to obtain IDs for their sisters, mothers and wives but this simply did not happen.

"There are 14 women in our family, including my mothers, five sisters, three sisters-in-law, and four nieces, but none of them has an ID," she said.

Marhaba, who said she did not know how old she was but appeared to be in her mid-30s, explained that she only realized she needed an ID after she became ill and her family decided to take her to India. When they applied for a passport, they were told they needed to obtain an ID card first.

Marhaba said that the other six women in her family have no IDs.

Nangarhar's director of women's affairs, Anisa Emrani, told IWPR that they were had received no complaints of women lacking access to tazkira.

"This is new for us," she said. "We will try to provide public awareness about this to encourage women to get IDs."

But Hashima Sharif, the head of women's affairs at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) in the east, said that she was well aware of the problem.

In a male-dominated society such as Afghanistan, women were routinely denied such basic rights, she told IWPR.

Hashimi explained that when women approached them or other agencies for help they were asked to produce their ID cards. This meant that those without the documents faced a long period of limbo waiting for their cases to be dealt with by the relevant offices.

"If women have no national IDs, we cannot call them Afghans. But families do not take IDs out for them," she continued, adding that AIHRC workshops and seminars in both the provincial capital and the regions had failed to change attitudes.

Some community leaders say that they are trying to spread the word that tazkira were important for both men and women. Tribal elder Mohammad Wayez Zahirzai said that he and his fellow leaders were informing people about the benefits of tazkira and encouraging everyone to obtain one.

"If one is talking about honour and shame, there is nothing involved in this to harm their honour. This actually determines that they are Afghans. If one does not have an ID, he should not call himself an Afghan, because he is not."

A religious scholar, Mawlawi Imaduddin, also said that obtaining an ID card was necessary.

"Every person's identity must be known," he said. " Taking out an ID means registering one's background as well."

But attitudes are taking a long time to change. Jalalabad city resident Asad Khan, 42, agreed that men had should help their female relatives obtain ID cards and said that he believed more and more were doing so.

However, when asked how many women in his family had tazkira, he smiled shamefacedly and said, "Why should I lie to you? There are nine women in the family and none has an ID."

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

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Afghanistan: Female Detainees Face Sexual Abuse

Publisher Institute for War and Peace Reporting Author Zabiullah Mobariz Publication Date 28 March 2017 Citation / Document Symbol ARR 569 Cite as Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Afghanistan: Female Detainees Face Sexual Abuse , 28 March 2017, ARR 569, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da711e4.html [accessed 8 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.

Zahra (not her real name) is in Kabul Badam-Bagh women's prison, six years into a 15-year prison sentence - the maximum punishment for adultery under Afghan law.

The mother-of four said that she had run away with another man after her husband beat and mistreated her. One night in her new home as she slept alongside her partner, police raided the house and took her to the police station wearing only her nightwear.

"On the way to the police station, the policeman in the car was touching parts of my body, they were trying to come closer, when we reached the station one of their officers asked me to go to his room, but I refused to go and warned them if they tried to touch me I will scream and cry," Zahra told IWPR. "They looked like hungry wolves. I spent the whole night awake until morning when they took me to Kabul police headquarters."

When she was later questioned, Zahra said that she received little sympathy.

"During the investigation, the prosecutor humiliated me. He looked at me angrily and without really understanding my problems he told me that God had given me everything, so why had I run away from home?"

Zahra added that she had told a delegation from the Attorney General's Office that was visiting Kabul police headquarters about the harassment she encountered and was told they would investigate. However, she heard nothing more.

Female detainees have told IWPR that they face sexual harassment and abuse both from police officers during pre-trial detention and from justice officials during investigation.

Fawzia Kofi, the head of parliament's women's affairs commission, said that her office received dozens of complaints of sexual harassment every week. Each of these cases was logged and referred for further investigation to the relevant judicial bodies.

"Such complaints are registered all the time with our body and people come to seek justice from the National Assembly," she continued. "This is a serious problem in the judicial sector."

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) also said that they had received numerous reports from women who were harassed or assaulted by justice or security officials.

Latifa Sultani, the head of women's rights at the AIHRC said, "According to the country's law, the security forces are obliged to respect the human rights of the accused during detention, and if any woman accused of a crime is arrested, her modesty and rights should be considered."

She said that female police officers should be the ones dealing with women prisoners and suspects, but this rarely happened as there are so few women working within the system.

Women were deterred from making a formal complaint due to the shame associated with such matters and also because of the assumption that they would not be believed.

Sultani added, "Prisoners do not have the means to document these kinds of abuses and violations or back up their complaints with evidence."

She recalled a 2013 case in which a prisoner from the Badam Bagh's women's prison had complained to the AIHRC that a judge had sexually harassed her. Sultani said that although the AIHRC has passed the complaint on to the relevant authorities, they had heard nothing more.

Even women not suspected of any crimes who are brought into police stations for their own protection say that they are harassed. Sahar, now 15, was kidnapped three years ago in Kunduz province and held captive by armed militia in Takhar province. During her ordeal she was raped several times and is now pregnant.

She said when, in late December 2016, she was rescued from the armed gang she was taken to Takhar police headquarters before being transferred to a safe house.

However, in the several days she spent at police headquarters, she said that she was sexually harassed by police officers.

"One of the policemen asked me several times to sleep with him," Sahar continued.

She said that she had complained to Takhar police headquarters and was only promised by the police chief that he would respond to her complaint.

Takhar provincial police chief Noor Mohammad Hakim said that although he was not in his position at the time of the alleged incident, he would now launch an investigation.

Asked about the alleged abuse, Takhar governor Mohammad Yasin Zia also said, "I will investigate the incident."

ASSUMPTION OF IMPUNITY

Mohammed Qais Fasihi is an administrative deputy at the department of prisons and detention centres, part of the ministry of interior.

He said that there were currently 420 women serving prison sentences in Afghanistan, either for murder or for "moral crimes," a loosely-defined category which encompasses actions such as running away from home A further 410 women had been charged and were under investigation.

Access to detainees in Afghan prisons, particularly women's facilities, is hard to obtain. IWPR spent a month requesting official permission from the minister of interior himself, and was only allowed to interview three inmates. Officials insisted that they had to be present for any other prisoner interviews.

Officials seem to be unaware of the phenomenon of sexual harassment, or say that such abuse no longer takes place.

Najib Danish, the deputy spokesman of the interior ministry, said, "Right now we don't know of any such cases, although there have been some in the past. For the time being, whenever there is an alleged incident, the ministry of interior is committed to investigate it."

Jamshid Rasouli, a spokesman for the attorney-general's office said, "We haven't seen a case of prosecutors making unlawful demands from women prisoners recently, but if such a thing has occurred the attorney-general is committed to investigate and bring the perpetrators to justice."

There are isolated cases in which officials are prosecuted. Logar provincial council member Haseeb Stanekzai recalled an incident involving Syed Nasir Ahmad Qureshi, the former director of Logar's justice department.

"A woman went to the department of justice to make a complaint but [he] raped her". Stanekzai said, adding that Qureshi was convicted by a Logar court and sentenced to 20 years' for the rape. He is currently in detention in Kabul's Puli-Charkhi prison and is appealing the decision.

The prison authorities refused IWPR's request to interview Qureshi in Puli-Charkhi.

Some activists say that the system simply does not function well enough to exclude such abuses. Widespread corruption meant that perpetrators felt they could act with impunity.

Abdul Qader Adalatkhwa, a member of the Supreme Court, declined to comment over claims that judges themselves had sexually abused women during the investigation of their cases.

However, he confirmed the existence of graft within the country's judicial institutions, adding, "Corruption is the most serious challenge to the government and people of Afghanistan."

Shahla Farid, a professor at Kabul university, said, "A good option to put an end to such these human rights violations is to create real transparency in judicial intuitions as well as accountability before the law."

Jamila (not her real name) is serving a sentence for murder in the Kabul prison. She said that when her case was sent to attorney general, prosecutors had asked her family for 900,000 Afghani, but they could not raise the money.

As a result, she said, she was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

"Corruption is very high," she said. "Whoever has money ensures their release by paying the prosecutor. But if the girl is beautiful, they will put her under pressure to fulfill their sexual desires."

Jamila said that although such abuse was common, few female detainees would admit to it. For many women, it was just part and parcel of their progress through the justice system.

"There are many girls here in Kabul's women's prison who have improper demands made of them by the prosecutors," she continued. "They won't want to give interviews or talk to you about this, because they know that the prosecutors won't be questioned and in fact it will just lead to more harassment and abuse for themselves."

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

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Afghanistan: Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child

Publisher Institute for War and Peace Reporting Author Akmal Zaher Publication Date 27 March 2017 Reference ARR 569 Cite as Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Afghanistan: Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child, 27 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da71544.html [accessed 8 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.

Seven-year-old Ibrar stood scared and hesitating by the wall of the mosque, unwilling to enter.

"The preacher in the mosque is so unfair and he beats children badly," the boy explained. "He hit me on my back and my father had to take me to the hospital for treatment and it still hurts. Now I'm scared that he may beat me again."

Ibrar said that he had asked his father not to send him to the mosque anymore, but with no success.

"I keep on having nightmares in which the mullah comes and he beats me with his stick, and I wake with a jolt," he continued.

Ibrar's father, Asadullah, said that he was in favour of corporal punishment.

"Sometimes it's better to beat children to improve their discipline and manners," the 40-year-old said. "Children will not listen to their elders unless they are scared of being punished.

"We've learned from our elders that kids will not grow up to be disciplined and well-mannered if you do not beat them."

Such views are widespread in Afghan society, where physical punishment is a routine method of discipline.

Children are expected to be quiet in the presence of adults and are beaten both at home and at school, even though corporal punishment is supposed to be illegal.

Farhad, 14, told IWPR that he had switched from a state to a private school in Nangarhar province because of frequent corporal punishment.

He said that the fear of punishment had been so great that he had simply begun to play truant every day.

"When I was at the government school, I used to leave home but not attend lessons and just go hang out somewhere," he said. "One day my father found out about this and I told him about all the physical punishment in the state school and he moved me to a private one."

School was much better now, Farhad continued.

"Beating and mistreating children makes them lose interest in their studies, but here at the private school I'm happy and I have started to enjoy my lessons."

Mohammad Asif Shinwari, the spokesman of Nangarhar education department, said that they were ready to prosecute teachers who beat their students.

Soon, a revised educational curriculum would be introduced that included more professional and effective methods of discipline, he continued.

"If any teacher beats or mistreats the students, legal action will be taken against him," Shinwari said.

Experts warn that corporal punishment is counterproductive. Not only does it make it harder for children to learn, but rather than improving discipline violence it fuels antisocial behaviour and may lead to more violence later in life.

Karimullah, a child psychologist, said, "Children's brains are much more sensitive and thus must be treated gently. they should be treated with love and care as they will run into many troubles in life if they are beaten or mistreated."

Their treatment at this impressionable age in could have a long-lasting effect on the rest of their lives, he continued.

"Kids should be raised with love and care from early childhood. They should be given a chance to speak and we must listen and regard their views and thoughts, we have to respect, care and value them.

"They will be violent and a burden on society if they are beaten, discouraged and ignored or demotivated in childhood."

Some religious scholars say that beating children, whether at home or in school, goes against Islamic practice.

Local scholar Mawlawi Naweed Ahmad told IWPR that the companions of the prophet Mohammad were known to have always treated their students with love and gentleness.

Modern day imams, scholars and religious teachers should follow their example, he added.

But Samiullah, a teacher at the Rahmatia Madrasa Islamic school, said that corporal punishment was routine.

This meant that many pupils played truant to avoid being beaten.

"I used to hit students because I believed that beating them made them study," he said. "But a while ago I stopped and changed my methods of discipline. Now I treat them gently and they show real interest in studying and learn well."

Other teachers also say that they have achieved better results when they treat their students with kindness.

That was the experience of Hijrat, a teacher in a private school.

"One day at school, I got angry and I hit one of my students, Fahim, with a stick," he said "The next day when he saw me coming towards him in the village, he ran away in terror. I felt guilty, and since then I have never beaten anyone."

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

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Kazakhstan: Fined for praying "Amen" in mosque

Publisher Forum 18 Author Felix Corley Publication Date 28 March 2017 Cite as Forum 18, Kazakhstan: Fined for praying "Amen" in mosque, 28 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da72584.html [accessed 8 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 state is prosecuting and fining Muslims for saying the word "Amen" aloud in mosques, after November 2016 Muslim Board behaviour regulations were imposed. Also, moves have begun in one region for the state-backed Muslim Board to seize mosque building ownership.
Children paying the heaviest price as conflict in Yemen enters third year  UN

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 27 March 2017 Related Document(s) Falling Through the Cracks - The Children of Yemen Cite as UN News Service, Children paying the heaviest price as conflict in Yemen enters third year  UN, 27 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da79764.html [accessed 8 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.

As the escalation of the conflict in Yemen enters its third year this week, the top United Nations humanitarian official has called on the parties to the conflict to commit to political dialogue and resolve the situation or risk an unending manmade crisis.

In a statement, Stephen O'Brien, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs underscored that in addition to wrecking the country's economy, killing thousands and displacing millions, the fighting has brought Yemen to the brink of a famine.

During my third visit to Yemen only weeks ago, I saw the terrible and terrifying evidence of looming famine, said Mr. O'Brien.

In the hospital ward, the complete stillness of the tiny malnourished child whose eyes focus on nothing. The grim realization that these patients were the fortunate ones who could access a hospital and might survive.

Underscoring that UN and its partners are already providing life-saving assistance in all of Yemen's 22 governorates, reaching almost 6 million people every month, Mr. O'Brien urged parties to the conflict to expedite immediate, timely, and unimpeded humanitarian access as well as facilitate commercial activities  critical to reversing prevailing massive food insecurity and ensuring that people's basic needs can be met.

Nearly 19 million Yemenis  over two-thirds of the population  need humanitarian assistance and, according to UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), seven million are facing starvation.

Most of all, the Yemeni people need the parties to commit to political dialogue, or this man-made crisis will never end, noted Mr. O'Brien.

In the meantime, together we can  we must  avert this famine, this human catastrophe.

A boy sits amid rubble, all that remains of his home - which was destroyed in an air strike - in Okash Village, near Sana'a, the capital of Yemen. Photo: UNICEF/Hamoud

Children hold shrapnel from exploded artillery shells while standing on a street damaged by blasts in Sana'a. Photo: UNICEF/Hamoud

A boy stands atop a large piece of exploded artillery shell, which landed near his home in the village of Al Mahjar, a suburb of Sana'a. Photo: UNICEF/Hamoud

 

Number of children injured, recruited in conflict nearly doubled in one year  UNICEF

As with most crises, it is the children who are bearing the brunt of the suffering.

Families are having to resort to extreme measures to support their children as coping measures have been severely eroded, turning Yemen  the poorest country in the region  into one of the largest food security and malnutrition emergencies in the world, noted United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in a new report, Falling through the Cracks today.

According to UN verified data, in the past year alone, the number of children killed increased from 900 to more than 1,500; those injured nearly doubled from 1,300 to 2,450; children recruited in fighting neared 1,580 (compared to 850 last year); and 212 schools were attacked (up from 50 last year).

Also, Yemen's health system is on the verge of collapse, leaving close to 15 million men, women and children with no access to health care. This is all the more concerning given an outbreak of cholera and acute watery diarrhoea in October 2016 that continues to spread, with over 22,500 suspected cases and 106 deaths.

The war in Yemen continues to claim children's lives and their future, said Meritxell Relano, UNICEF Representative in the war-torn country.

We need to act now to pull families back from the brink. The risks for generations to come are extremely high.
Children suffer grave violations in Sudan's conflict  UN reports

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 27 March 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Children suffer grave violations in Sudan's conflict  UN reports, 27 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da7aa94.html [accessed 8 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.

Fewer children have been recruited to fight in parts of Sudan, but they are still killed and injured, and victims of sexual violence in the country, according to a new report by the United Nations Secretary-General.

"Boys and girls continued to be victims of grave violations committed by all parties to the conflict, including killing and maiming, sexual violence and attacks on schools and hospitals," said Leila Zerrougui, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict.

The report, released on Friday, details the impact of the armed conflict on children in Darfur, South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Abyei between March 2011 and December 2016.

During that time period, nearly 1,300 children were either killed or maimed in conflict as a result of hostilities between the Government and the armed groups. The majority of the casualties took place in Darfur, according to the report.

Rape and sexual violence were also a major concern in Darfur, where the UN confirmed at least 372 children were victimized.

"In most cases, children were raped during attacks on their villages or while getting wood or water in the vicinity of camps for displaced people," the report authors wrote.

Despite these ongoing atrocities, the report notes a positive trend in recruitment and use of children - with fewer being conscripted.

However, there are concerns about cross-border recruitment and use of children by Sudanese and South Sudanese groups, notably the SPLM/N, Sudan People's Liberation Army-in Opposition and Justice (SPLA-iO) and Equality Movement (JEM).

Since 2011, the Government of Sudan has strengthened its national framework to protect children and raised the minimum recruitment age for national forces to 18.

In addition, the UN has signed three Action Plans with national authorities to protect children, as well as separately with SPLM/N and JEM.

The Special Representative has called on the Government and all other parties to conflict to take concrete measures to protect children.
Supporting Syrian refugees not only an act 'of generosity' but also of 'enlightened self-interest'  UN chief

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 28 March 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Supporting Syrian refugees not only an act 'of generosity' but also of 'enlightened self-interest'  UN chief, 28 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da7b2d4.html [accessed 8 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.

Visiting the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan that is hosting about 80,000 Syrian refugees, the United Nations chief urged the parties to the conflict in Syria and the countries that have influence over them to realize that the crisis is not only a tragedy for Syrian people but also a threat to regional stability and global security.

"This is the moment for all countries that are involved, directly or indirectly in the conflict, to put aside their differences and understand [] the common interest from the fact that they are all threatened by the new risk of global terrorism," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters at a press conference at the camp.

"Solidarity with Syrian refugees is also a way to be able to express our capacity to guarantee global security. It's not only an act of generosity. It's also an act of enlightened self-interest," he added, noting that by failing to support refugees, groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da'esh) and al Qaida could use such inactions as arguments to further their own vested interests and put global security at risk.

In his remarks, Mr. Guterres also hailed the generosity of the Government and the people of Jordan for supporting refugees despite having a vulnerable economy, and appealed for international solidarity with countries such as Jordan that have been hosting Syrian refugees.

"I hope that that if all countries that have an influence on the Syrian situation are able to come together, these refugees, [who have been living here for more than four years,] will be able to restart their lives again, to find jobs, to work, to have a normal life," he said.

He also underscored the importance of Arab unity and said that when Arab countries are divided, it has allowed others to intervene and to manipulate situations, creating instability, breeding conflict and facilitating activities of terrorist organizations.

The UN Secretary-General further called on to the wider international community to increase their humanitarian support as well as to make sure that more opportunities are given to the refugees and to make sure that the countries that have an influence on the parties to the conflict "come together to put an end to this tragedy".
Belarus: Mass detentions and police violence against peaceful demonstrators warrant strong reaction by international community

Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 28 March 2017 Cite as Article 19, Belarus: Mass detentions and police violence against peaceful demonstrators warrant strong reaction by international community, 28 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da84624.html [accessed 8 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 has joined 48 other civil society organisations to condemn mass detentions and police violence against peaceful demonstrators in Belarus.

We, the undersigned members of the Civic Solidarity Platform (CSP), a coalition of human rights NGOs from Europe, the former Soviet Union region and North America, and other non-governmental organisations decry the mass detentions of peaceful demonstrators, journalists and human rights defenders, as well as the use of violence and abusive treatment targeting them in Belarus on 25-26 March 2017. These events were the culmination of a series of repressive measures taken by the authorities of the country since the beginning of March to stifle the public expression of grievances. Given the severity of this human rights crisis of unprecedented scale since December 2010, it is crucial that the international community takes resolute action to push for an end to the crackdown in Belarus and justice for those targeted by it.

We condemn the gross violations of the right to peaceful assembly, freedom of expression, freedom from arbitrary detention, and the right to fair trial in Belarus in connection with the recent peaceful protests, and call on the international community to use all available means to put pressure on the Belarusian authorities to immediately end these violations.

Such measures by the authorities should include:

immediately releasing those currently behind bars because of their involvement in the peaceful protests or their efforts to monitor them;

dropping charges against all those prosecuted on these grounds;

carrying out prompt, thorough and impartial investigations into all allegations of arbitrary detention, ill-treatment and other violations of the rights of protesters, passers-by, journalists, human rights defenders and political activists in connection with the protests; and

bringing those responsible for violations to justice.

We call in particular for the following concrete actions by international community in response to the current crackdown in Belarus:

To the OSCE:

The OSCE participating States should initiate and support the renewal of the Moscow Mechanism in relation to Belarus and the appointment of a new rapporteur for this process, in view of the fact that the current developments mirror those on the grounds of which this mechanism was invoked in 2011;

The OSCE Chairmanship should appoint a Special Representative on Belarus, whose mandate should include investigating the recent violations;

The Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights should monitor the trials of those facing charges because of their participation in the recent peaceful protests, or their efforts to monitor and report on them;

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly should reconsider holding its annual session in Minsk in July 2017 and identify another host country and city for this event.

To the Council of Europe:

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe should replace its current rapporteur on the situation in Belarus, ensuring that the individual holding this position forcefully speaks out against human rights violations in the country.

To the UN:

Members of the Human Rights Council should extend the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Belarus, continue urging the Belarusian authorities to allow the Special Rapporteur to visit the country, and adopt a strong resolution on the human rights situation in Belarus at the next session of the Council;

High Commissioner on Human Rights should publicly condemn the crackdown in Belarus and engage in direct contact with the Belarusian authorities on this matter.

To international financial institutions:

International financial institutions should apply strong human rights conditionality in the implementation of their programs in Belarus and refrain from allocating funding to government projects until the human rights situation in the country has substantially improved. Specifically, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development should reinstate its calibrated strategy on Belarus.

To the EU:

The EU member states and institutions should apply stronger and more consistent human rights conditionality to the development of its relations with Belarus and consider the prospects of reinstating sanctions similar to those applied in 2011-12 for widespread human rights violations.

To the USA:

The US government should consider reinstating the sanctions against Belarus that it suspended in 2015-16.

Background information, based on reports from the ground:

In the afternoon of 25 March 2017, people took to the streets in the Belarusian capital of Minsk for planned peaceful protests on the occasion of the Day of Freedom, which commemorates the Belarusian declaration of independence in 1918. There was as a heavy police and security presence in the city, the downtown area where protests were due to be held was cordoned off, and traffic was blocked on the main Independence Avenue. Local and international human rights monitors representing the CSP member organisations documented the use of heavy-handed tactics by the law enforcement and security authorities to prevent the peaceful protests, for which authorities had not given advance permission as required by Belarusian law and in violation of international standards. At least 700 people were detained on 25 March, including elderly and passers-by. As can be seen on available photos and footage, police forcefully rounded up and beat protesters with batons, although these made no resistance. More than 30 journalists and photographers from both Belarusian and international media outlets were detained; cameras and other equipment of some of them were damaged by police. Toward the evening, police started releasing detainees from the detention facilities, in many cases without charge. However, others remain in detention, and dozens of individuals are expected to stand trial starting Monday 27 March on charges relating to their participation in the peaceful protests.

The following episode requires particular attention: At 12.45 pm local time on 25 March, about an hour before the start of the planned peaceful protest, anti-riot police raided the offices of the Human Rights Center Viasna and detained a total of 57 Belarusian and foreign human rights defenders and volunteers as well as journalists. Human rights defenders and volunteers had gathered there for a training on monitoring the protests and were planning to go to the streets of Minsk for observation of the assemblies. Among them were representatives of Viasna, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, the Belarusian Documentation Center, Frontline Defenders, International Partnership for Human Rights and other organisations. The police shouted at all present, intimidated them, and ordered to lie down on the floor face down. 57 people were detained without any charges, packed in the buses and brought to the Pervomaisky district police station, where their belongings were searched and their personal information recorded. The detainees were held there for two and a half hours and were released afterwards without charges. One of the detained needed medical treatment because of injuries sustained when being beaten by police. The raid of the offices of Viasna and the detention of the monitors were clearly aimed at intimidating and preventing them from observing the peaceful assembly and documenting possible violations.

The crackdown continued on 26 March, with dozens of people being detained by police as they gathered at October Square in Minsk at noon to express solidarity with those detained the day before. Among the detained on 26 March were at least one human rights defender, one civil society activist and one journalist. Representatives of national and international human rights NGOs, including members of the CSP, continue to document violations perpetrated in connection with the events of the last few days.

The detentions on 25-26 March followed the earlier detention of about 300 people, including opposition members, journalists and human rights defenders in the last few weeks. These detentions have taken place against the background of a wave of peaceful demonstrations that were carried out across Belarus since mid-February 2017 to protest against so-called "social parasites" law which imposes a special tax on those who have worked for less than six months during the year without registering as unemployed. The legislation, which has affected hundreds of thousands of people in the economically struggling country, has caused widespread dismay. On 9 March, President Lukashenko suspended the implementation of the law but refused to withdraw it, resulting in further protests. Many of those detained have been fined or arrested for up to 15 days on administrative charges related to their participation in the peaceful protests. Over two dozen people are facing criminal charges on trumped-up charges of preparation to mass riots.

Signed by the following CSP members:

Analytical Center for Inter-Ethnic Cooperation and Consultations (Georgia) Article 19 (United Kingdom) Association UMDPL (Ukraine) Bir Duino (Kyrgyzstan) Bulgarian Helsinki Committee Center for Civil Liberties (Ukraine) Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights (Russia) Committee against Torture (Russia) Crude Accountability (USA) Freedom Files (Russia/Poland) German-Russian Exchange - DRA (Germany) Helsinki Association of Armenia Helsinki Citizens' Assembly - Vanadzor (Armenia) Helsinki Committee of Armenia Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (Poland) Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan Human Rights First (USA) Human Rights House Foundation (Norway) Human Rights Information Center (Ukraine) Human Rights Monitoring Institute (Lithuania) The institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (Azerbaijan/Georgia/Switzerland) Index on Censorship (United Kingdom) Institute Respublica (Ukraine) International Partnership for Human Rights (Belgium) Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law The Kosova Rehabilitation Center for Torture Victims Macedonian Helsinki Committee Moscow Helsinki Group (Russia) The Netherlands Helsinki Committee Norwegian Helsinki Committee Office of Civil Freedoms (Tajikistan) Promo-LEX (Moldova) Protection of Rights without Borders (Armenia) Public Association "Dignity" (Kazakhstan) Public Alternative Foundation (Ukraine) Public Foundation Golos Svobody (Kyrgyzstan) Public Verdict Foundation (Russia) Regional Center for Strategic Studies (Azerbaijan/ Georgia) Serbian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights SOLIDARUS e.V. (Germany) The Swiss Helsinki Committee Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union Women's International League for Peace and Freedom World Organisation against Torture (OMCT) SOVA Center for Information and Analysis

Other organisations who have joined the statement:

Belarus Free Theatre Libereco - Partnership for Human Rights (Switzerland) PEN International

Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19
Tajikistan and Islamic State: Threat or Bogeyman?

Publisher EurasiaNet Publication Date 14 March 2017 Other Languages / Attachments Russian Cite as EurasiaNet, Tajikistan and Islamic State: Threat or Bogeyman?, 14 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58da8cb84.html [accessed 8 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.

Perhaps the greatest existential threat facing Tajikistan is posed by the Islamic State militant group, according to the government narrative. Or maybe not, some officials suggest.



For the past few years, authorities in Tajikistan have presented a murky, muddled and contradictory public message  on the one hand warning of a clear and present danger of religious extremism, while also claiming that they are containing the challenge.



In January, a top security official told reporters that the number of Tajik citizens joining the ranks of Islamic State in 2016 had dwindled to only a few dozen. But at least one recent report has dampened the optimism behind Tajik officials' statements. According to research by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, based in The Hague, an alarming number of Tajiks over the past year have carried out suicide missions in Syria and Iraq.



Based on data covering December 2015 through November 2016, the think tank said that of the 186 foreign citizens known to have embarked on suicide missions, easily the largest subgroup  28  comprised citizens of Tajikistan.



"Over the twelve months in question, significantly more Tajiks died in [Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device] and inghimas [suicide fighter] operations in Syria and Iraq than any other foreign national [group]. This figure is even more striking when considered on a per capita basis, and suggests that Tajiks were being singled out for use in suicide attacks at least in part because of their nationality," the report said.



"While a similar phenomenon appears to be the case with the other top-scoring states, the disproportionality of Tajikistan is strange indeed," the report added.



Sporadic reports also hint at a possible new trend for those joining militant groups. Given the significant setbacks endured recently by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, new Tajik recruits appear to be turning their attention to nearby Afghanistan.



Earlier this month, a group of five people from Tajikistan's Khatlon region  a couple with three children  were reportedly detained in Iran, in a location along the Afghan border, as they tried to make their way to an Islamic State outpost. RFE/RL's Tajik service, Radio Ozodi, reported that the family had traveled to Russia around six months ago and then moved onward to Turkey, from where they traveled to Iran's Zahidan region.



Ozodi noted that the family had fallen under the sway of a militant originally from the town of Nurek in southern Tajikistan. During a visit to Nurek in April 2016, President Emomali Rahmon lamented that the shortcomings of area officials had contributed to an increase in recruitment of locals by radical groups. Security officials contend that Anushervon Azimov, a native of Nurek, recruited "hundreds" of Tajiks to Islamic State before he was killed in Syria last year.



Another recent example of the apparent shift toward Afghanistan involves the case of 29-year-old Muhammad Hodjayev, who was recently made the subject of a criminal investigation by the General Prosecutor's Office in Dushanbe. Radio Ozodi has reported that investigators believe Hodjayev, a Tajik citizen, almost successfully made his way to Afghanistan through Iran's Zahidan region.



Whether such isolated instances represent a systematic shift, however, cannot be determined definitively at this time.



"With the difficulties and setbacks in Syria, it does seem that we will see more Tajik citizens going to Afghanistan [via Russia]. But I don't think they will be a game changer. More likely they will be cannon fodder," Edward Lemon, a Tajikistan specialist who has closely studied the phenomenon of recruitment by radical militant groups, told EurasiaNet.org.



Sporadic and muddled information provided by the Tajik government complicates the ability of independent analysts to assess the situation.



On January 20, Interior Minister Ramazon Rahimzoda stated during a news conference that around 41 Tajiks had joined Islamic State in 2016. He also endorsed the notion that radicalized Tajiks are increasingly turning to Afghanistan as a destination where to join militant groups, but he declined to provide an estimate on the scale of the phenomenon. "I didn't go to Afghanistan and count them," he told reporters.



While the number of Tajiks joining militant groups in Afghanistan might be in the dozens, Rahimzoda warned that upwards of 15,000 militants had massed near the Afghan-Tajik border. https://news.tj/en/news/tajikistan/security/20170120/235773



General Prosecutor Yusuf Rahmon said at a news conference in February that Tajik authorities had over the past year blocked more than 2,000 websites with allegedly radical content. Rahmon said another 4,200 videos "of a terrorist nature" had been deleted from the Internet at the behest of Tajik authorities.



For the first time at such an event, Rahmon did not address the issue of how many Tajiks are now believed by the government to be fighting in Syria or elsewhere. That omission prompted local media outlets to speculate that this information had been classified.



Media reports have previously cited officials as estimating the number of Tajiks in the ranks of Islamic State at 1,000-2,000.



Rahimzoda reportedly told a law enforcement conference in September 2016 that more than 150 Tajiks active in foreign-based militant groups  including 133 with Islamic State  had been returned to their homeland in the preceding 18-month period. If accurate, the comment raises the possibility that the contingent of Tajik fighters abroad is not just growing more slowly, but may actually be shrinking.



While Tajiks may not constitute a statistically important percentage of the overall number of Islamic State militants, they appear to play an outsized role in terms of prestige. One well-known Islamic State commander is Gulmurod Khalimov, who served as a high-ranking officer in Tajikistan's OMON riot police before defecting in early 2015. According to some reports, Khalimov recently assumed a top job in Islamic State's hierarchy.



"Khalimov's promotion as a key militant commander appears to be a well-crafted strategy by [Islamic State]. He is not only qualified being a former special operations colonel, but it is also meant to increase recruitment among Russian-speaking individuals, including Tajiks, for its ranks," the Singapore-based International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research observed in a paper published earlier this year.

Copyright notice: All EurasiaNet material  Open Society Institute
Grand Island, NE -- (ReleaseWire) -- 03/28/2017 --Sense Technologies, Inc. (OTCMKTS:SNSGF) Sense Natural Products, Inc., which operates a unique all-natural soybean processing plant in Scribner, Nebraska has accepted the assignment of up to $17,000,000 in industrial revenue bonds to be issued by Dodge County Nebraska for further acquisitions, plant expansion and production enhancements. Plant renovations, upgrades and expansion are already underway, and the plant is producing what many consider to be the highest grade of all-natural soybean meal in the market today. This product is still undergoing real world trials and empirical studies, but so far it has achieved significant results for its growers. They have reduced the need for anti-biotics, reduced death loss, improved feed efficiency, improved average daily gain, provided higher energy content per delivered pound, and are delivering a concentrated product that has around half of the moisture content (waste) of similar products. Sales supporting these ongoing trials should result in a projected increase in the gross revenue of SNSGF by at least three million dollars per year.



About Sense Technologies, Inc.

Sense Technologies, Inc. http://SenseTech.com develops and markets Doppler radar and optics backing awareness products for vehicle safety and it acquired Scribner Natural Products whose website is now: http://www.SenseNaturalProducts.com in September of 2016.



About Sense Natural Products

Sense Natural Products is an industrial food and feed products company in Scribner Nebraska, where it operates an all-natural extruded-and-expeller-pressed soybean processing plant.



Learn more about the history of Scribner Natural Products and the current management team of Richard Bell and David Dennis from an interview with Michael Yorba segment 1 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3d6GH7RIAU and segment 2 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgRE_ykvGo4.



See the Public Wire report here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIN34iBG8Vg



"We are on a fast track because it is in our shareholders' best interest to commence the profit potential just as soon as practicable" said Bruce Schreiner, Sense Technologies, Inc.'s President.



Forward Looking-Statement

This press release consists of 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. Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the Company and its management. In particular, there is no assurance that the parties will reach a definitive agreement for the proposed transaction or that the transaction will be completed. Additionally, no assurance can be provided that the terms of any transaction will be similar to those contemplated by the Letter of Intent. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve a number of risks and uncertainties, and actual results could differ materially from those indicated by such forward looking statements. The Company assumes no obligation to update the information contained in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.



Contact Sense Technologies, Inc.

Website: http://www.sensetech.com/

Phone: 903-663-2979

Email: info@sensetech.com



Source: Uptick Newswire
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Minority Hui Muslims in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin have relaunched a protest campaign over alleged corruption surrounding years of property deals by ruling Chinese Communist Party officials in their neighborhood.



The community of around 20,000 Hui Muslims took their protest in recent days to the Tianmu village committee in Tianjin's Beichen district in a bid to remove a village-level official they accuse of decades of corrupt dealings at their expense.



The protests come after a campaign for the recall of Communist Party village secretary Mu Xiangyou amid allegations of graft linked to land disputes that have dragged on for more than 30 years.



"We all went there to try to meet with village officials to ask them what happened to all of the land in Tianmu village," a resident who asked to remain anonymous told RFA.



"We started out by filing an official complaint with the township complaints office, and then we took their response to the Tianmu village committee, but we didn't manage to find anyone there," the resident said.



"Finally, they sent three people to talk to us, but they weren't the ones in charge."



He said Tianmu deputy village secretary Qiao Fei had become violent during the meeting, and threw a thermos flask to the ground.



"These people are all in cahoots with the Tianmu village committee and have huge vested interests," the resident said. "They were just minions, sent to stall us."



Local residents have detailed a litany of violent, forced evictions and demolitions of their homes, opaque accounting practices and the loss of huge tracts of collectively owned village land.



But while Mu Xiangyou has taken a back seat in village politics, he remains a delegate to China's parliament, the National People's Congress, residents said.



"The forced evictions have halted for the time being, but the Tianmu committee hasn't paid out a penny [in compensation] since we began fighting for our rights in 2015," the anonymous resident said.



"He's not acting as a village official for the time being, but he has just appointed his cronies instead," he said.



He said that while the government had made payments of a few thousand yuan (1,000 yuan = U.S. $145) each to people over retirement age, they had said it was a salary subsidy, and unrelated to the loss of their homes and land.



Tianmu has also had no village elections to give local people a chance to vote out the current set of officials.



Lack of oversight



Tianjin rights activist Wang Zhongxiang said he has been following the attempts by Tianmu residents to win redress, and he blames the ruling Chinese Communist Party leadership in Beijing for not doing enough to curb local officials.



"This sort of thing may be happening at the village level, but it has its roots in the central leadership," Wang said.



"I have witnessed meetings of village-level and township party committees that agree to find no irregularities," he said. "They are covering up their own abuses of power."



"The party secretary of Tianmu village is still a member of the NPC," he said. "So many complaints have been lodged against him by so many people."



"He has had complaints lodged against him at the party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, at the NPC and at the prosecutor's office," Wang said. "And yet nobody is willing to make any kind of real response."



Tianmu is one of China's most prominent Muslim communities, and its residents say they have suffered enough amid a massive urban real estate boom in recent decades.



Residents had hoped to bring Mu Xiangyou to justice on the back of a nationwide anti-corruption campaign launched by President Xi Jinping after taking power in November 2012, but to no avail.



Tianmu residents have filed petitions to central government in Beijing over the loss of some 3,000 mu (494 acres) of farmland to Mu Xiangyou's property deals, leaving them with just 100 mu (16 acres).



Some 7,000-8,000 mu (1153-1318 acres) of land zoned for residential use has also passed out of local residents' hands, they said.



Tianmu campaigners estimate that Mu has made four billion yuan (U.S. $581.2 million) personally out of land and property sales to developers over the past three decades.



President Xi Jinping has vowed to go after both high-ranking "tigers" and low-ranking "flies" in a nationwide anti-graft campaign. But the party regards any popular involvement in the anti-corruption campaign as highly sensitive and potentially threatening, and has sent large numbers of anti-graft and other rights activists to jail in recent years.



The requisitioning of land and forced evictions linked to lucrative property deals by cash-strapped local governments trigger thousands of mass protests and petitions across China every year. Many result in violent suppression and the detention of the main organizers.



Reported by Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) worker and human rights activist Lee Ming-cheh is being held by Chinese police at an undisclosed location, his wife said on Tuesday.



"I received indirect evidence from a government department late last night that Lee Ming-cheh has been detained by a branch of the state security police," Lee's wife Lee Ching-yu told reporters in Taipei.



"I am extremely concerned about whether or not Lee Ming-cheh has food and money while in detention," she told a news conference.



"I hope that the Chinese government will apply the standards of a civilized country and tell us on what charges Lee Ming-cheh is being detained or arrested, and also to allow his family members to visit him," Lee Ching-yu said.



Lee, a Taiwan community college manager and lifelong member of the island's ruling DPP, had been incommunicado since arriving in mainland China from Macau to seek medical advice for a sick relative on March 19.



Lee, 42, was reportedly on his way to visit a doctor with his mother-in-laws medical records when he "disappeared" after he crossed the internal immigration border into Zhuhai city, in the southern province of Guangdong.



A friend who had planned to meet him said he never showed up, according to media reports at the time.



Interest in human rights



Lee is employed by Taipei Wenshan District Community College but used to work for the DPP and had a long-running interest in human rights issues in China.



His wife says she is worried that he will have run out of necessary medications.



"He just had a regular amount of medication for high blood-pressure with him, which won't be enough," she said.



"I am planning to hand over his blood-pressure medication and some money to the Straits Exchange Foundation today," she said.



Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), a semi-official body charged with managing ties with mainland China in the absence of formal diplomatic links, said it has "indirect evidence" that Lee has been detained by a law enforcement agency of the Chinese government.



The SEF had made inquiries about Lee's status after a request from his wife, who didn't specify which "government department" had told her about the information.



A clear signal



Yang Sen-hong, who heads the Taiwan Association for China Human Rights, said Lee's detention sends a clear signal that there is a huge gulf between democratic Taiwan and the ruling Chinese Communist Party regime when it comes to human rights and the rule of law.



He said a worsening climate for human rights under the administration of President Xi Jinping means that many people have no idea when their activities will be treated as crimes.



"This is different, and everyone feels insecure," Yang said. "Nobody knows when the day might come when they get detained, and if so, on what charges."



"That's how it goes in China: they detain you, and then they ponder at their leisure [what to do with you]," he said. "Of course they are saying it's to do with national security, but that won't be accepted in Taiwan."



He said the case could put a further strain on cross-straits ties, which have cooled since the DPP's landslide election victory in January 2016.



Taiwan's Presidential Office said the government is doing all it can via its official Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) to help secure Lee's release.



Held under new law?



Some activists have expressed concern that Lee may be being held under China's recently enacted Overseas NGOs Domestic Activities Management Law, which enables police to engage in daily supervision and monitoring of foreign civil society and rights groups operating in China.



The legislation hands full authority for the registration and supervision of foreign NGOs in China to the country's ministry of public security, and police across the country.



They have the power to cancel any activities, revoke an organization's registration, and impose administrative detention on its workers, as well as take part in the annual assessment of foreign NGOs required for the renewal their operating permit.



Police can also blacklist NGOs deemed guilty of national security-related crimes like subversion or separatism, although definitions of such crimes remain vague.



The DPP once campaigned on a pro-independence platform, and while the party's rhetoric has softened in recent years, President Tsai Ing-wen has stopped short of endorsing a 1992 agreement with the Chinese Communist Party signed by her predecessors in the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT), angering Beijing.



Taiwan began a transition to democracy following the death of President Chiang Ching-kuo, in January 1988, starting with direct elections to the legislature in the early 1990s and culminating in the first direct election of the island's president, Lee Teng-hui, in 1996.



Recent opinion polls indicate that there is broad political support for de facto self-rule in Taiwan, where the majority of voters identify as Taiwanese rather than Chinese.



But while the Chinese Communist Party has never ruled the island, Beijing regards it as part of Chinese territory and has threatened to invade if Taiwan seeks formal independence.



Reported by Ng Yik-tung and Sing Man for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.




The body of the assassinated half-brother of North Koreas leader remains at a Kuala Lumpur hospital and authorities are still waiting for relatives to claim it despite reports of its removal from the facilitys morgue, Malaysias health minister said Tuesday.

Minister S. Subramaniam dismissed Malaysian news reports that Kim Jong Nams corpse had been removed from the morgue at Kuala Lumpur Hospital (HKL) over the weekend. Kims remains have not been cremated or claimed by his next-of-kin, Subramaniam told reporters.

According to a report by the New Straits Times newspaper, his body had been taken to a local funeral parlor from the National Forensic Institute at Kuala Lumpur Hospital for a religious rite.

There has been so much speculation on the whereabouts of the body ... as far as I know, the body has always been in HKL, the health minister said.



Whether it was given to another group, the answer is no, he added.



Questions about what will happen with Kims body are at the center of a bilateral row between North Korea and Malaysia that has flared since he died in a poison-attack at a Kuala Lumpur area airport six weeks ago, according to Malaysian police.



The dispute began when Malaysia refused to hand over his remains to North Korean officials without a post-mortem. Both countries have expelled their respective ambassadors and imposed exit bans on each others citizens.



Officials from both countries were now trying to negotiate a solution to the impasse, Subramaniam indicated. A source close to the talks, but who declined to be identified, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, that negotiations were under way in Kuala Lumpur.



Malaysia is trying to secure the release of nine Malaysian citizens, including three staffers at Kuala Lumpurs embassy in Pyongyang, who have been stuck in North Korea as a result of the exit ban.



Back on March 15, Malaysias deputy prime minister said Malaysia was looking at all possibilities, including handing over Kims body to North Korea in exchange for the release of the nine citizens in Pyongyang.



Subramaniam said Tuesday that his ministry was awaiting instructions from Malaysias Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Ministers Office.



We need to wait for the results from the discussions before we can make any decision on what to do with the body, he told reporters.



When they conclude the discussions and come to a decision, we will make an announcement, he said.



Subramaniam denied that Kims body had been cremated on Sunday, saying this could only have been done with the agreement of involved parties after the ministry had waited for Kims next-of-kin to claim the remains.



But, unfortunately, they have not come forward to provide any assistance on how the body should be treated, and now the Foreign Ministry is trying to find a solution how to move forward, Subramaniam said, referring to Kims next-of-kin.



Cops visit embassy



Kim Jong Nam, the older half-sibling of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, was fatally poisoned with a banned nerve agent while preparing to board a flight at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 on Feb. 13, according to police.



Two Southeast Asian women have been arrested and charged with his murder as co-assassins, and at least seven North Korean nationals have been identified by Malaysian police as wanted for questioning in the case. Malaysias prime minister has accused North Korean government agents of being behind the assassination.



Four of the North Korean suspects, who were spotted by a CCTV camera at the airport on the day of the assassination, fled Malaysia later on Feb. 13, police said. Three other suspects, including a second secretary at the North Korean embassy, are still believed to be hiding out there.



On Sunday, four plainclothes officers from the Malaysian polices Special Branch entered the embassys compound for the first time since the dispute began last month, according to a report by the state-run Bernama news service.



However, the report did not specify what the officers did during their three hours inside the compound. Efforts by BenarNews on Tuesday to contact officials for an explanation of the weekend visit by the Special Branch officers were unsuccessful.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
Internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Myanmars Kachin state will only be able to return to their homes when all stakeholders work together in pursuit of ethnic peace, the countrys de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Tuesday during a fact-finding visit to an area refugee camp.



During her first trip to Kachin state since assuming the role of Myanmars state counselor, Aung San Suu Kyi traveled to Khatcho village in Waingmaw township and spoke at an IDP camp housing some of the 200 people displaced by hostilities in the area between ethnic rebels and the government army since 2012.



We can close these IDP (internally displaced person) camps and people can live at their homes only if we attain peace [between ethnic Kachins and majority Burmese], she told residents of the camp.



To achieve peace for all ethnic groups, everyone must work to understand and respect one another. The important thing is not to consider others as enemies simply because they dont share the same ideas with you.



Aung San Suu Kyi said she visited the camp to help improve things after observing the situation, and also oversaw donations of food and clothing to the facility.



The Nobel laureate is leading the countrys efforts to end decades of hostilities between the government armed forces and numerous ethnic armed groups via the 21st-century Panglong Conference held roughly every six months.



Khin Yu Zin, an official at the Khatcho camp, told Aung San Suu Kyi that ethnic Kachin IDPs also want peace in the region and asked the government to help with the resettlement process when hostilities cease and people can return to their homes.



We want peace, just as much as [ethnic] Burmese want it, she said.



Khin Yu Zu also praised investments from local nongovernmental organizations and the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement that had allowed some residents of the camp to find work raising livestock and producing amber goods for sale.



Myanmars Minister of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Win Myat Aye, who accompanied Aung San Suu Kyi on the trip to Kachin, told RFAs Myanmar Service that meeting with the Khatcho camp officials had been informative.



We have been helping this camp and [this time] we discussed how to provide additional support, as well as how to resettle [IDPs], he said.



We also discussed on how draw lessons from this experience to support camps we were unable to support before.



Ahead of her trip to Khatcho village, Aung San Suu Kyi met with representatives of civil society organizations, religious groups and advisors at the Palm Spring Hotel in the state capital Myitkyina and also visited an IDP camp run by the Kachin Baptist Church.



In addition to Myanmars Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Minister, she was also accompanied by an entourage that included the countrys Border Affairs and Security Minister, Home Affairs Minister, and the chairman of the National Reconciliation and Peace Center in Yangon.



Earlier this month, sources told RFA that a local militia in Waingmaw had forced more than half of 70 refugee households staying on its land since 2012 to move elsewhere because it needed the acreage for planting crops, deploying bulldozers to destroy their homes and other buildings.



The Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which controls large swathes of northeastern Kachin state, has regularly engaged in hostilities with the Myanmar army since a cease-fire deal collapsed in 2011.



Last November, the KIA teamed up with three other ethnic armed groupsthe Arakan Army (AA), the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and the Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA)to form the Northern Alliance.



The alliance then launched coordinated attacks on 10 government and military targets in three townships in neighboring Shan state and along the105-mile border trade zone between Myanmar and China in retaliation for government army offensives against its soldiers.



Border clash



Also on Tuesday, AA spokesperson Khine Thukha told RFA that his insurgent groups 301st Battalion clashed with the governments 34th Infantry over the weekend in the Chin state town of Paletwa, leaving at least two Myanmar soldiers dead.



The fight began at around noon on March 26 and lasted for 40 minutes, he said.



During the fighting, two government soldiers were killed and some were injured. We confiscated some weapons as well.



Khine Thukha said the clash, which took place near Chins border with the AAs ome state of Rakhine and around 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Myanmars border with Bangladesh, could be a prelude to additional fighting if the government does not pursue political dialogue with his group.



The AA is still in support of an all-inclusive peace deal [between the government and other ethnic armies in Myanmar], and we feel that political dialogue is extremely important, as the problems we have are based on politics, the spokesperson said.



Only when we come to an agreement on politics will the fighting stop, he said, adding that the signing of a nationwide cease-fire agreement between the government and eight ethnic armies in October 2015 was not enough to secure peace in the country.



Fighting between the AA and Myanmars army last year displaced more than 300 people from their homes.



Peace process



Myanmars government under Aung San Suu Kyi is trying to end decades of civil war between various ethnic armed groups and the military and forge peace in the fragmented country.



The government had planned to hold a second round of peace negotiations, known as the 21st-century Panglong Conference, this month. The timetable for the talks has been postponed several times since the meetings began last year.



During a speech in Myanmars capital Naypyidaw on Monday, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the countrys defense forces, said the armed forces will continue to follow the governments lead in its efforts to forge nationwide peace, while maintaining its six-point principles for peace. The policy requires all ethnic militias that have signed a NCA with the government to abide by Myanmars military-drafted 2008 constitution.



The constitution, which was enacted when a military junta ruled the country, guarantees that military officers receive a quarter of the seats in parliament and gives the commander-in-chief control over appointees in the defense, home affairs, and border affairs ministries.



Reported by Kyaw Myo Min, Min Thein Aung and Kyaw Thu for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
In a campaign aimed at fostering Tibetan loyalty to Beijing, Chinese authorities this month handed out awards to Tibetan monks and Muslim leaders deemed to have cooperated with Communist Party rule in Sichuan, a source in the region says.



The event, held in early March in Zungchu (in Chinese, Songpan) county in the Ngaba (Aba) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, brought together representatives of several Buddhist monasteries and Muslim communities in Ngabas Zungchu and Ngaba counties, a local source told RFAs Tibetan Service.



It was held to recognize religious figures and Buddhist monasteries, as well as Islamic teachers, for their efforts to foster friendship and harmony in the community, and to condemn those who did not cooperate, RFAs source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.



The award ceremony was presided over by officials from the United Front Works Department and Religious Affairs Bureaus of both counties and followed similar events in neighboring Qinghai province and other Tibetan-populated areas in the region, the source said.



The event in Sichuan was held to applaud those working for political harmony and unity among the different [ethnic] nationalities, the source said, adding that outstanding performers were presented with certificates and monetary awards.



Tibetan monasteries recognized in the ceremony for their cooperation with Chinese authorities included Muge, Nyenyul Kharlak, Tsotsang, Nateng Chakdu, Gamel, and Drakkar Yungdrung Ritro, the source said.



Islamic centers and their personnel also attended the event, and some Muslim leaders were recognized at the meeting.



Monasteries and individuals previously involved in political protests against Chinese policies and rule were meanwhile warned of unspecified punitive actions, the source said.



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




WASHINGTON -- The top U.S. military commander in Europe again backed sending more advanced weaponry to Ukraine to help it in its fight against Russia-backed separatists.

U.S. Army General Curtis Scaparrotti's comments on March 28 reflected on the continuing debate that erupted following Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014, and the separatist insurgency that later broke out.

"I personally believe we need to consider lethal defensive weapons for Ukraine," Scaparrotti told a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee.

The administration of then-President Barack Obama sent Ukraine flak jackets, night-vision goggles, and other equipment. But officials resisted calls, in Congress and elsewhere, to send "lethal defensive weaponry" such as Javelin antitank missiles, fearing that would invite escalation from Russia.

Obama's successor, Donald Trump, has spoken of a more conciliatory approach toward Russia since his election, but has made no indication one way or another if more serious weaponry was under consideration.

Some of his cabinet members, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, have made pointed comments indicating a tougher approach to Moscow than Trump himself has espoused.
Afghanistan's Defense Ministry has dismissed nearly 1,400 of its officials over alleged corruption over the past year, a high-ranking ministry official says.

Deputy Defense Minister Hilaluddin Hilal told reporters in Kabul on March 28 that the ministry has taken significant steps to tackle widespread corruption, dismissing 1,394 officials in graft-related cases.More than 300 officials accused of corruption have been brought to justice, Hilal said.

The ministry is currently reviewing more than 1,800 allegations of corruption in the countrys defense structures, Hilal said, adding that nearly 170 cases have been referred to law-enforcement agencies.

The deputy minister said the cases include suspected abuse of office and illegal weapons sales.

Hilal's statement comes just a day after the ministry announced that a senior Afghan general was arrested on charges of corruption and misuse of power.

Major General Mohammad Moeen Faqir had been deployed to southern Helmand Province to crack down on corruption.

Afghanistan was ranked 169th of 176 countries in watchdog Transparency International's 2016 Corruption Perceptions Index, meaning that only seven countries were perceived as more corrupt.

President Ashraf Ghani has vowed to stamp out corruption in the government and the security services.


A senior Afghan general has been arrested on charges of corruption and misuse of power, a government spokesman said.

Major General Mohammad Moeen Faqir was arrested by the Attorney Generals' Anticorruption Justice Center, defense ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri said in a statement on March 27. He did not provide further details.

The government deployed Faqir to crack down on corruption in the restive province of Helmand, in southern Afghanistan, in 2016.

Faqir took command of the Afghan Army's 215th Corps after the former commander there was accused of making payments to non-existent "ghost soldiers."

At the time, a U.S. military spokesman said the Pentagon was "very, very impressed" with Faqir, saying "he is personally invested in turning around the 215th Corps."

In October, Faqir himself was replaced with no official explanation.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has promised to stamp out corruption in the government and the security services.

The Anticorruption Justice Center is among several new government taskforces to be established to target high-level officials accused of corruption.

Faqir's arrest came on the same day the Afghan defence and interior ministers and the head of the country's intelligence service survived a vote of confidence over the failure to tackle mounting insecurity and the Taliban insurgency.

Based on reporting by Reuters and Tolo News
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
Police in Kyrgyzstan clashed with protesters during the weekend outside security services headquarters in the capital, Bishkek. The protesters demanded the release of former parliamentary deputy Sadyr Japarov. He was detained after returning the country from three years in self-imposed exile.(RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, YouTube, Reuters)
Croatian director Antun Vrdoljak finds himself in a bind.

His current project, called The General, deals with Croatia's recent past; it is meant to be a blockbuster about the exploits of Croatian wartime commander Ante Gotovina. Vrdoljak and his crew are currently shooting the film in the vicinity of the Croatian coastal city Split, recreating the final battle of the Croatian war of independence in 1995.

But he is having trouble finding actors willing to play "the enemy."

Vrdoljak's dilemma is that even in the filmmaker's world of make-believe, Croatian actors refuse to put on the uniform of "Chetniks" -- as rebel Serb fighters were dubbed to evoke the nationalist Serbian units that collaborated with the Nazis during World War II -- while Serbs refuse to take part in a Croatian movie about General Gotovina.

There are efforts afoot in Serbia to rehabilitate the Chetniks as part of a nationalist-inspired movement for historical revisionism, but their specter is still enough to inspire revulsion and fear in neighboring Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. (Chetniks' Croatian counterparts are "Ustashe," by the way, similarly a reference to World War II-era fascists.)

In a grim reminder of the fragility of peace in the Balkans and the freshness of wartime wounds for many, a commentator on the Banja Luka-based web portal Buka deadpanned that if live ammunition were provided for the filming of The General, the feature could easily become a documentary.

Vrdoljak contacted a private agency in Belgrade to help him cast his movie and, to sweeten the deal, he is offering 1,000 euros ($1,050) per day of shooting, according to B92.

Even though that's around 10 times what actors usually get when they're hired locally, it is unclear whether any Serbian actors are prepared to take Vrdoljak up on his offer. In the Croatian narrative of the 1991-95 war, Gotovina is a hero; but among Serbs, he is a war criminal.

Mihailo Laptosevic, a Serbian actor who was cast for a minor role in the movie, was quoted as saying in a reference to the pay for five days of filming: "Five thousand euros is not a lot of money if tomorrow you cannot look at yourself in the mirror."

For Vrdoljak, this is a minor setback, as there is otherwise considerable support for his project in Croatia.

Vrdoljak's son-in-law, Goran Visnjic, plays the title role in The General. Visnjic is a talented actor who is currently among Croatia's most prominent actors, and has made a name for himself in Hollywood.

But he also has some direct experience with the events being portrayed. He was performing his military service in the Yugoslav Peple's Army on the eve of the war in Croatia (1991), and on his return home joined the Croatian Army.

Apart from the movie, Vrdoljak is also producing an eight-part miniseries about Gotovina that should be completed in 2018.

Gotovina's life has certainly taken many twists and turns.

He served in the French Foreign Legion before war broke out in Croatia. He was charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague for his role in the final Croatian offensive that ended the war, code-named Operation Storm (Oluja). During that operation, in addition to many hundreds of civilian deaths, some 200,000 Serbs were forced to flee their homes in what was described as the war's largest exodus of Serbs.

After spending five years in hiding, Gotovina was eventually apprehended in the Canary Islands and handed over to the ICTY. At the time, his arrest and trial opened the way for Croatia to become a full member of the European Union. Gotovina was sentenced to 24 years in prison "for participating in a joint criminal enterprise to expel Croatian Serbs from the Krajina during the 1995 Operation Storm."

Yet on appeal, Gotovina was acquitted of all charges. When he came home a free man, supporters in Croatia organized a spectacular welcome reception at Zagreb's main square, expecting the general to take up the Croatian nationalist banner.

They were to be disappointed. Instead of the warmongering rhetoric that his audience expected, Gotovina addressed the crowd with a short message: "The war is behind us; let us turn to the future."

In an interview with the Serbian tabloid Kurir in November 2012, Gotovina struck a conciliatory tone and invited Croatian Serbs to return to Croatia. "Croatia is no more my home than it is theirs," he said.

Such a statement coming from a man celebrated as a war hero by one side and reviled as a criminal by the other was widely thought to have been made up -- until the audio recording of the interview surfaced.

Nationalists on both sides cling to misimpressions of Gotovina, and the same can arguably be said of narratives of the war on both sides.

And while it might be hard-pressed for actors, there's no shortage of materiel; the Croatian and Bosnian armed forces have each agreed to provide tanks and other weapons for the filming.

* This blog has been edited to remove a description of Gotovina's reception in Zagreb being organized by "anti-European and pro-Ustashe circles."

The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL
BRUSSELS -- The Rome Declaration, signed by the leaders of 27 EU member states on March 25, marked the 60th anniversary of the bloc's founding Rome Treaty with a vow for continued unity after Britain leaves the European Union.

But the Rome Declaration also contains language that, according to some critics, could threaten European unity by creating what politicians have described as a "two-speed" European policy.

Others say a better description would be a "multispeed" Europe.

With the exception of Britain, all EU member states signed the Rome Declaration -- stating that they "will act together, at different paces and intensity where necessary, while moving in the same direction."

Supporters: Two-Speed Europe Would Allow Progress

Supporters of a two-speed (or multispeed) Europe say it will give member states more freedom to form partial alliances and set policies when it is impossible reach a unanimous consensus in the EU.

That, they argue, is particularly important if the EU continues expanding into the Balkans and becomes a bloc of more than 30 countries. They say reaching unanimous decisions with so many member states would be much more difficult.

Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel said at the Rome summit over the weekend that he would "rather have a two-speed Europe than a dead-end and no speed" Europe.

"When a country says 'I don't want to,' I can say: 'Well, too bad. Don't block me. Let me get on with it with others,'" Bettel said.

Critics: Two-Speed Policy Would Create Separation, Not Unity

Detractors argue that by allowing differentiation, the bloc is abandoning one of its core principles -- the principle of attaining equality through deeper integration.

The detractors say that rather than creating a two-speed Europe, there is a risk of creating two separate Europes within the EU.

European Council President Donald Tusk, the former prime minister of Poland, told leaders at the Rome summit that he had lived half his life behind the Iron Curtain when Europe was divided into the Cold War alliances of East and West.

"Back then, that really was a two-speed Europe," Tusk warned the Rome gathering.

Who Would Lead A Two-Speed Europe?

Judy Dempsey, an expert on European affairs at Carnegie Europe, says the main issues are the idea of what a "two-speed" or "multispeed" Europe really means and which countries might be included in the first-tier and second-tier groups.

Experts agree that the idea of a "core" group led by the six founding European Community members -- the so-called "inner six" -- is not tenable.

"It's clear that the two speeds will have to be led by the eurozone countries," Dempsey tells RFE/RL, noting that the 19 EU countries now using the euro currency constitute a "qualified majority" needed for the approval of legislation by the European Council of Ministers.

For those countries, Dempsey says the key issue would be a fundamental rethink of fiscal structures -- how far to move toward greater fiscal union and tighter monetary union.

On the other hand, she says, the nine EU states that currently are not in the eurozone may resent being categorized as second-tier EU members.

Poland's current government has already warned that the idea of a two-speed Europe would result in the "breakdown" and "liquidation of the European Union in its current sense."

Dempsey says that if a two-speed Europe materializes, the reactions of Poland and other non-eurozone countries will create a conundrum for Germany -- which supports a multispeed Europe but "has been very careful about making the idea an official mantra."

"Berlin has to be very careful about the kind of language it uses because it wants to bring everyone on board," she says. "And that means trying to get an agreement that won't give the impression that Germany is actually shaping Europe."

Multispeed Europe? Or Two-Speed Europe?

Roland Freudenstein, deputy director of the Wilfried Martens Center for European Studies, says he doesn't think Europe is moving toward a two-speed policy at all -- despite the rhetoric of politicians who support the idea.

"I think what we're talking about is multispeed or varied integration," Freudenstein tells RFE/RL. "I don't believe we are talking about a core group and a marginal group. That is not what is going to happen and that's not what should happen."

Freudenstein notes that German Chancellor Angela Merkel, after years of stressing "maximum unity" within the EU, is now publicly backing the idea of a "multiple-speed" Europe.

"She doesn't mean that there should be one core that moves forward in all directions and a periphery," he says.

"Most member states like this concept of a multispeed Europe -- certainly France, the Netherlands, and some of the Scandinavian countries," Freudenstein says, adding that Southern European member states "have no problem with it."

Freudenstein says he thinks Poland's objections are based on a misunderstanding of the issues. "There are not going to be two classes" of EU members," he insists.

What Groupings Could Emerge On Different Issues?

To a large degree, the experts agree that the concept of a multispeed Europe is likely to lead to internal groupings based around the EU's different challenges.

In fact, they argue, multispeed Europe already exists on issues like the eurozone and Schengen-area countries that have abolished passport controls across mutual borders.

The experts say some new blocs could form on defense projects -- with Sweden, Poland, Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands working together in that area.

On the issue of security, they say multispeed policy would allow France, Germany, and the Netherlands to improve cooperation on intelligence sharing.

Other countries would likely create alliances over the issues of asylum laws and deepening their cooperation on justice and home affairs.

"These groups are not going to be identical," Freudenstein says. "There is not going to be one core group."

For countries that are trying to join the EU, experts say a multispeed policy could lead to the creation of new structures for accession.

Is Multispeed Europe The Solution To EU Problems?

Rosa Balfour, acting director of the Europe Program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, says she is skeptical about the debate on a two-speed or multispeed Europe.

Balfour remains unconvinced that the idea of a multispeed Europe will solve key problems now faced by the EU, such as the migrant crisis or the European debt crisis.

"I think the solution is finding policy answers to the current challenges and then devising what format is best to push through those policies," Balfour explains.

"It's all very well to say that we can move at different speeds," she adds. "But to do what? It's the policies that really need to be thought through."
Georgians are celebrating their newly won freedom to travel visa-free to most EU countries, with officials cheering it as a "historic" achievement for the country's nearly 4 million people.

There have been public celebrations across the country, and Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili joined students, journalists, and other state officials for an early morning flight from Tbilisi to Athens on March 28 to kick off the liberalized regime.

Kvirikashvili then continued on to Brussels, where he met with European Council President Donald Tusk.

At a joint press event, Tusk said, "it is a very special day for both the European Union and Georgia."

"It has been a long journey, but one that has brought us closer together," Tusk added.

The EU originally recommended lifting visa restrictions for Georgians in December 2015.

The process was bogged down by difficult negotiations among EU member states, many of whose populations have been gripped by security fears and a wariness of outsiders.

Georgian nationals with biometric passports can now travel visa-free to all EU member states except Britain and Ireland. It also applies to non-EU Schengen-area countries Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland.

"This is an enormous achievement and a great opportunity for Georgian citizens to better acquaint [themselves] with the European Union, to better learn the values that the European Union stands on," Kvirikashvili told reporters at Tbilisi airport.

Georgia has long sought closer ties to the EU despite persistent efforts by Moscow to increase its influence among post-Soviet states including Georgia, which fought a brief war with Russia in 2008.

"I'm very glad that the process of visa liberalization was completed successfully," a fellow traveler on the Tbilisi-to-Athens flight, Tinatin Tsereteli, told RFE/RL's Georgian Service.

"I think it's a huge achievement for our country...to move further close to the EU. This is symbolic but also has a practical meaning, because our citizens will get a chance to get acquainted with EU countries."

Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze has said that residents of Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia will also be eligible to travel to the EU without visas if they have biometric Georgian passports.

Following the 2008 war, Moscow recognized the two regions as independent countries and maintains a strong military presence in both of them. Almost the entire international community considers them part of Georgia.

On the eve of the visa-free regime, Janelidze called Georgia's "European path...irreversible" and said it will bring "positive results" in all walks of life.

"I will be probably one of the first Georgians entering Germany without a visa, it is really an exciting and pleasant feeling. It's like being part of something historic," Mikheil Chabukashvili told RFE/RL at the airport.

"Previous trips to Europe implied a lot of effort, and now I hope all Georgians take the opportunity to use all the benefits of visa-free travel."

Public celebrations were organized across the country to mark the milestone.

Georgian and EU flags were installed on the streets of the capital and projected onto the government administration building, and a gala concert was held on Europe Square in downtown Tbilisi.

"I think it is a huge step forward for the country, especially young people will benefit from it," a Tbilisi resident said. "Many of them will be able to fulfill their dreams. Some of them may even start a business. Anyway, it's very exciting and very good."

But not everyone was so enthusiastic.

"For whoever is in the mood for sightseeing, it's probably good," an elderly Tbilisi resident said, "But for people like me, what can they do?"

Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili suggested via Twitter that the visa liberalization was another step toward closer ties to Western institutions. "Thanks to our friends! Go #Georgia towards European Integration!"

The Georgians' embrace is a welcome change for EU officials otherwise occupied with the bloc's looming Brexit talks, uncertainty over a new U.S. administration, and surging nationalism and xenophobia following Europe's biggest refugee crisis since World War II.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn sent his "sincere congratulations" via Twitter and told Georgians to "enjoy Europe."

President Dalia Grybauskaite of EU member Lithuania released a video address on YouTube to congratulate Georgians on what she called a "special day."

"From now on, our nations will be even closer all because of the efforts of the Georgian people," Grybauskaite said. "Your commitment to freedom and democracy is an example for the region."

The visa negotiations between Tbilisi and Brussels were slowed by concurrent talks between the European Parliament and the European Council on a visa-suspension mechanism. That mechanism, which also entered into force on March 28, allows for visa-free travel to be suspended on security grounds.

Prime Minister Kvirikashvili said on March 24 that Georgian authorities would "notify the EU member states and launch a proactive search of nonreturnees to ensure the activation of readmission procedures."

With reporting by Rikard Jozwiak, RFE/RL's Georgian Service, Georgia Today, Civil.ge, and Agenda.ge
The UN says that more than 300 civilians have been killed in the Iraqi city of Mosul since the start of a fresh offensive against Islamic State (IS) militants last month.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said in a statement on March 28 that "it is vital that the Iraqi security forces and their coalition partners" avoid the "trap" of attacking IS forces that are operating in populated areas and using civilians to shield them from attacks.

"This is an enemy that ruthlessly exploits civilians to serve its own ends, and clearly has not even the faintest qualm about deliberately placing them in danger," Zeid said.

Iraqi officials and the U.S. Defense Department are probing reports that air strikes by the coalition targeting IS fighters may have killed dozens or even hundreds of people in recent days.

Zeid called for Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition forces to ensure those investigations are transparent.

Iraqi forces, supported by air strikes from coalition war planes, have been battling IS fighters in Iraq's second-largest city for several months.

More than 200,000 civilians have fled west Mosul in the past month but some 600,000 still remain in IS-held parts of the city, according to the UN.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters
Macedonia's government has declared a state of emergency in the capital after violent storms caused flash flooding that killed at least 20 and injured hundreds.

Skopje Mayor Koce Trajanovski described the damage as the worst the city has ever seen and Health Minister Nikola Todorov announced the updated death count on August 7.

Local media reported that the capital and surrounding suburbs were struck by winds of more than 70 kilometers per hour, and water reached levels of up to 1 1/2 meters in some areas.

The ring road surrounding the capital was reportedly heavily damaged.

WATCH: Clean-Up Begins After Macedonia Floods (RFE/RL's Balkan Service, natural sound)

Many witnesses described victims drowning after being trapped in their houses when torrents suddenly swept through the area.

Hundreds of homes and vehicles were destroyed by the floods, roads were impassable, and several areas were without electricity. Authorities said more than 1,000 people had been evacuated so far.

Disruptions created by the bad weather have created traffic backups, with many tourists trying to reach Croatia's coastal resorts along the Adriatic Sea.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters
The top European Union court has ruled that EU sanctions imposed on Russian energy giant Rosneft over Moscow's seizure of Crimea and involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine are lawful.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) said in a statement on March 28 that "restrictive measures...in response to the crisis in Ukraine against certain Russian undertakings, including Rosneft, are valid."

The EU imposed sanctions on Russia in July 2014, after it illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine, and later expanded them in response to Moscow's support for separatists fighting Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine.

The court said in its ruling that the EU's hindering of state-controlled Rosneft's ability to conduct business was in proportion to the level of economic sanctions placed on Russia.

Rosneft said in a statement that it was disappointed with the decision, saying "the decision proves that the rule of law in Europe is being replaced by the primacy of political situation."

Rosneft lawyer Lode van den Hende called the ruling "a setback for judicial protection in the EU."

Rosneft is headed by Igor Sechin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It became Russia's largest oil producer after acquiring the main production assets of Yukos, which was dismantled and sold off following the arrest of its chief, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in 2003.

Khodorkovsky spent 10 years in prison on two convictions on financial-crimes charges he and supporters say were orchestrated by the Kremlin to punish him for challenging Putin and seize control of Yukos.

The oil and gas company had challenged the EU's restrictions against it, which include its ability to conduct oil deals within the European Union.

The court ruling is seen as establishing its jurisdiction over the EU's common foreign policy, an issue that is being contested by some EU member countries.

With reporting by Reuters, Interfax, and AFP


A municipal court in the Russian city of Novocheboksarsk has fined a man 1,000 rubles ($18) for posting on social media information that a previous accusation against him of posting "extremist" information had been annulled.

Aleksei Glukhov, a lawyer for defendant Dmitry Pankov, posted on Facebook on March 28 that his client had been found guilty of distributing extremist material for posting an article about the dismissal of the first case against him.

The first case began in 2013 when Pankov posted on VKontakte a photograph of then-St. Petersburg lawmaker Vitaly Milonov wearing a shirt with an Orthodox slogan that has been ruled extremist.

Milonov has since been elected a deputy in the State Duma from the ruling United Russia party.

That case was dismissed after the court ruled there was no evidence a crime had been committed.

Earlier this month, a court in Cheboksary convicted opposition politician Dmitry Semyonov of distributing extremist materials for posting an article about his conviction for posting a photograph of Milonov with the same Orthodox slogan. Semyonov was fined 3,000 rubles ($54).

Based on reporting by RBK and Novaya Gazeta
MOSCOW -- Following large protests led by opposition leader Aleksei Navalny over the weekend, Russian authorities quickly moved to shut down his anticorruption foundation, sealing off its offices, seizing equipment, and jailing the Kremlin opponent and eight key staff members.

But despite the arrests, analysts note the activists were brought up on misdemeanor charges and handed jail sentences ranging from one week to 25 days, suggesting the Kremlin is carefully weighing whether to crack down further with just under a year until a presidential election.

"The situation is up in the air," says Andrei Kolesnikov, head of the Moscow Carnegie Center. "There is no political decision yet. This political decision is not going to be taken by law enforcement, but somewhere in the Kremlin."

The March 26 rallies caught many by surprise with their scale, reach, and youthful demographic. A rally was even held in Daghestan, a tightly controlled southern region that during the 2012 presidential election handed President Vladimir Putin more than 92 percent of the vote, according to official results.

The protests in Moscow saw a record number of arrests -- more than 1,000, according to a respected independent monitor -- and indicated strong currents of discontent. This has called into question the narrative that Putin will coast easily to a new term in the Kremlin, becoming Russia's longest-serving ruler since Josef Stalin.

Although modest in a country of 142 million, the numbers Navalny drew across dozens of regions -- around 60,000, according to liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy -- were significant, as many took to the streets in defiance of police bans.

WATCH: RFE/RL's Russian Service asked people in Moscow what they knew about the Sunday protests:



Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said this week that organizers had "provoked" participants into joining "illegal" protests.

The last time opposition protests resulted in comparable mass arrests was in May 2012 on Moscow's Bolotnaya Square, where liberal activists had been protesting for months -- first against federal elections marred by fraud allegations, and then against Putin's return to the Kremlin after a four-year stint as prime minister.

The police investigation and the jailing of activists became known as the Bolotnaya Affair and dealt a final blow to a protest movement that was already fizzling out.

After Putin's reelection, he tightened regulations on street protests and also pivoted politically to the conservative working class. Two years later, in March 2014, Putin decisively struck the opposition from the political agenda as he annexed Ukraine's Crimea, triggering a powerful wave of patriotic euphoria.

'Bolotnaya 2.0'

With Navalny appearing to have galvanized protest energy as the country struggles to emerge from its longest recession in two decades, it remains unclear how the government will respond.

"If they open criminal cases, as they did with Bolotnaya, and launch Bolotnaya 2.0, it will mean that authorities are preparing for repressive scenarios," Kolesnikov says. "I think for the time being they are inclined to use misdemeanor charges rather than criminal. It's another matter that if this happens again, there could be harsh repressions."

In a sign that the authorities are already taking precautions, Moscow's Pushkin Square -- the epicenter of the weekend protests -- was sealed off on March 28 for apparent renovations until the end of the summer. Such closures are widely seen as a common tactic to prevent demonstrators from gathering at protest hotspots.

Meanwhile, Roman Rubanov, the director of Navalny's anticorruption foundation, told RFE/RL that he believed the authorities are trying to paralyze the organization's work.

"We're working in emergency mode," he said. "We're working in a situation when our organization is under threat. Of course we have a plan for such events, but the normal work of our organization has been interrupted, and for the time being it is hard to imagine how it is going to continue. We don't know when we are going to get our building back and what they've taken. In material terms, they may have taken away a lot."

In a slickly produced video published the day after the rally, activists said police had arrived with sniffer dogs at the organization's office on March 26 and ordered them out of the building over a supposed bomb threat.

Activists said electricity was then cut to the offices where they had been broadcasting coverage of nationwide rallies to what they said was an audience of 3.7 million. All staff in the office were detained, and the following day courts confirmed the arrest of eight staff members and five technical staff involved in the broadcast, jailing them for between seven and 25 days.

Rubanov said on March 28 that the office remained under the control of security services and that equipment had been removed from the premises.

"For the third day now some kind of activity is taking place in our office, and we're not allowed in. It's being guarded by police. In general, this looks very much more like robbery or theft than legal action," he said.
Two RFE/RL correspondents have been beaten and robbed by masked assailants in southern Russia.

Several assailants attacked RFE/RL Russian Service reporter Sergei Khazov-Cassia and cameraman Andrei Kostyanov on the morning of March 28 as they were leaving their hotel in Kropotkin, a town in Krasnodar Krai. They were there to cover a planned protest by farmers.

RFE/RL President Thomas Kent called the attack "unacceptable" and demanded a thorough investigation, with a focus on the actions of local police, saying that crimes against journalists must not be "met with impunity.

Khazov-Cassia said that at least 10 attackers, who wielded cans of pepper spray, knocked the journalists down and repeatedly kicked them. The assailants seized personal belongings and equipment -- some of which was later returned -- and fled the site in a white minibus.

WATCH: Sergei Khazov-Cassia Recalls Attack

Kostyanov was hospitalized with a broken rib.

Khazov-Cassia said that the police had visited the two journalists twice before the attack, which occurred in the morning.

"First they came yesterday [March 27] to ascertain who was staying in the hotel room, and then they visited us this morning, about one hour before we left the hotel and were attacked," he said. He also said that police later told him that no records were available from the closed-circuit TV cameras around the hotel.

This thuggish attack on our reporters, who were acting in their professional capacity and covering an event, is unacceptable," said Kent, the RFE/RL president. "We demand a full investigation, with a focus on the role of local police in the incident, to ensure that this is not another crime against journalists in Russia that is met with impunity."

Khazov-Cassia said he provided police, who came hours after being called following the attack, with the license-plate number of the minibus used by the attackers. However, he said the vehicle had not yet been located.

On Facebook, Khazov-Cassia said that when a police officer learned that he worked for RFE/RL, the officer said, "'Well, I have lost the desire to help you.' After I urged him to perform his professional duties and assist me, he said. 'Okay, okay.'"

The Krasnodar Krai police department told RFE/RL that the attack was being investigated. They said that police in Kropotkin were "performing all necessary measures to identify and locate the individuals involved in inflicting bodily harm on the radio station's representatives and in stealing their equipment," the police said.

When the journalists returned to the hotel with police, they found that some of the stolen items had been returned to their room, including the laptop and a camera, Khazov-Cassia said. But a backpack with personal belongings was still missing.

Khazov-Cassia and Kostyanov had planned to report on a "Tractors' March" protest by farmers on March 28, but it did not take place.

Several farmers driving tractors were stopped and detained in the Krasnodar Krai town of Tikhoretsk on their way to Kropotkin, according to OVD-Info, a website that monitors arrests and other police activity in Russia.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Russian Service and OVD-Info




An instructor at the Moscow Conservatory has resigned after a video came to light showing her leading a class session in which various opposition political parties, activists, and others were labeled "fifth columnists" and "traitors."

Instructor Farida Kulmukhametova resigned on March 28 following a discussion with Conservatory deputy rector Laris Slutskaya.

The video shows Kulmukhametova compelling music student Danil Pilchen to read a lengthy text on the topic of the "fifth column," which included a list of figures for whom students were instructed never to vote.

That list included anticorruption activist Aleksei Navalny, former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, and others.

At one point, Kulmukhametova threatens to expel Pilchen for reading the text sarcastically.

Slutskaya told journalists that the text and the list of "traitors" were compiled on Kulmukhametova's personal initiative.

Also on March 26, a video appeared on social media in which Tomsk State University lecturer Nikolai Pichkurov criticizes students who attended an opposition anticorruption protest on March 26, calling them "freaks" and implying that they only protested because they were paid.

Pichkurov also argues that official corruption is normal and inevitable and that officials stealing from the state is a sign of a healthy economy.

"If a state has no corruption," he said, "it means it is a state that nobody needs."

The two videos are examples of several that have come out in recent days in which teachers are seen attempting to persuade students to shun political activities that are not approved by the Kremlin.

In one video, a Bryansk high-school teacher tells students Russia is in the midst of a "civil war."

On March 26, Navalny called for a national wave of protests against corruption that brought tens of thousands of people in dozens of cities out into the streets. More than 1,000 people were reportedly detained.

Many of the protesters were in their teens and 20s, prompting Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov to accuse them of having been paid to participate.

With reporting by Meduza, The Moscow Times, and Global Voices
The head of the Russian Interior Ministry's construction department has reportedly been shot dead in Moscow.

The Interfax news agency cited an unidentified law-enforcement official as saying that Nikolai Volkov was killed on March 27.

Volkov was the head of the Interior Ministry's Renovation and Construction Department.

The Interfax report said police believe the motive was robbery, suggesting that the killing was not directly related to Volkov's job.

Based on reporting by Interfax, Meduza, and Moskovsky Komsomolets
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate has voted overwhelmingly to advance the approval of Montenegro's bid to join NATO, paving the way for the Balkan nation to join the military alliance.

Senators on March 27 voted 97-2 in favor of ending debate and allowing a vote later this week on the ratification of its NATO membership, far more than the two-thirds majority needed.

The only two "no" votes came from Senators Rand Paul (Republican-Kentucky) and Mike Lee (Republican-Utah).

A final vote in the Senate is expected later this week.

Once that happens, Spain will be the only remaining nation in the 28-member alliance that must approve Montenegros request, before formal membership occurs.



Montenegros membership will pull the nation closer toward Europe's political and economic structures, but will also sharply deepen Moscow's distrust of the alliance, whose eastward expansion has long angered Russia.



As with neighboring Serbia, Montenegro shares linguistic and cultural roots with Russia, and Russians, including the Kremlin-connected billionaire Oleg Deripaska, have made substantial investments in the country in recent years.



Even before the Senate vote, Moscow signaled deep opposition to Montenegros efforts. A coup attempt last year, which some Montenegrin lawmakers blamed on Moscow, was seen as a possible effort by Moscow to undermine the NATO push.

Strong Support



U.S. support for Montenegros bid has been mostly strong, though some observers have speculated that President Donald Trumps conciliatory rhetoric toward Russia might result in weaker support for NATO expansion.



However, ahead of the vote, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson wrote to Senate leaders, saying approval should come ahead of a key NATO summit scheduled for May.

"Montenegro is trying to do everything that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin hates, where you actually can vote for your own leaders," said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the party's leading foreign-policy voices.

Last week, the top U.S. military commander in Europe, General Curtis Scaparrotti, told a Senate committee that turning away Montenegro's bid would send the wrong signal to other countries interested in joining the alliance.



That would include ex-Soviet republics who have faced Russia's military aggression: either outright invasion, in the case of Georgia, or a separatist insurgency backed by Moscow, in the case of Ukraine.



"If we were to lose this, it would set back many of the other countries and peoples, particularly in Eastern Europe, who are looking forward to, and have their eyes set on the West," Scaparrotti said.

Senator Paul had blocked an earlier attempt to advance approval of Montenegro's ratification despite strong support for the move from Democrats and Republicans. Paul suggested that adding Montenegro could further strain ties with Russia, and possibly even lead to war.



Russia's strongest ally in the Balkans, Serbia, has also moved gradually toward closer integration with the European Union, though not with NATO.



Moscow appeared to send a signal to both Serbia and others that it remained fully engaged in influencing Balkans politics by hosting Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic in Moscow on March 27, a week before Belgrade holds presidential elections.



Vucic is the favorite in the April 2 vote to succeed President Tomislav Nikolic, who has decided not to seek a second term. A populist, Vucic has said he wants to accomplish bringing Serbia closer into the EU but also improve ties with Moscow.



Vucic also confirmed that Russia would provide "as a gift" six MiG-29 fighter jets to Serbia in the coming weeks.
WASHINGTON -- A Kremlin-connected billionaire has accused the Associated Press of generating a "massive and misleading campaign" against him with its recent report on his ties to U.S. President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman.

In paid advertisements published in The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post on March 28, Oleg Deripaska denounced last week's AP report about his work with Paul Manafort, who resigned as Trump's campaign chairman in August 2016 following allegations that he received illicit funds from a Ukrainian political party.

The March 22 AP report said that while working for Deripaska several years ago, Manafort proposed a plan aimed at influencing politics, business dealings, and news coverage across the United States, Europe, and the former Soviet Union in ways that would favor Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"The AP Exclusive asserts also that I signed a $10 million annual contract 'to greatly benefit the Putin government' with Paul Manafort who was supposed to execute it," Deripaska said in the ad.

"I want to resolutely deny this malicious assertion and lie. I have never made any commitments or contracts with the obligation or purpose to covertly promote or advance 'Putin's government' interests anywhere in the world."

The AP report, in fact, does not assert that Deripaska signed a contract aimed at benefiting Putin. Citing "several people familiar with payments to Manafort and business records," the report says that Manafort "pitched" such a "confidential strategy plan" as early as June 2005 and eventually signed the $10 million contract beginning in 2006.

Deripaska suggested he was prepared to take legal action against "any person or media" involved in disseminating what he called "false allegations about my alleged activities."

Asked to respond to Deripaska's ad, AP spokeswoman Lauren Easton told RFE/RL in an e-mail, "We stand by our reporting."

The furor over the AP report comes as the Trump administration continues to be dogged by allegations that aides were in communication with Russian officials and representatives during the election campaign.

U.S. intelligence agencies released a report in January assessing that Russia conducted a hacking-and-influence campaign aimed at denigrating Trump's Democratic rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Kremlin denies the allegation.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer last week insisted the work Manafort did for Deripaska had taken place a decade ago and was irrelevant to Manafort's job with Trump's election campaign last year.

Manafort proposed the plan to Deripaska as early as June 2005, the AP report said, and eventually signed a contract worth $10 million with the tycoon. The two men had a business relationship until at least 2009.

Manafort last week volunteered to speak to a U.S. congressional committee that is investigating Russia's alleged role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Republican Congressman Devin Nunes, who chairs the House intelligence committee, said on March 24 that Manafort's lawyer contacted his committee the previous day and offered to make his client available to lawmakers.

FBI Director James Comey on March 20 confirmed publicly that his agency was conducting investigations into communications between Russian officials and Trump associates.

After initially expressing skepticism about that assessment, Trump has said he now thinks Russia was behind the hacking campaign. But Trump continues to insist it had no impact on the outcome of the election.

The House committee is one of at least four congressional committees investigating Russian actions during the 2016 election campaign.

Deripaska said in the March 28 ad that he was "willing to take part" in congressional hearings "in order to defend my reputation and name."

With reporting by AP
WASHINGTON -- A Russian man extradited from Finland two years ago on computer-fraud charges has pleaded guilty to spreading malicious software and netting millions of dollars for himself.

The U.S. Justice Department said on March 28 that Maksim Senakh would be sentenced in the case in August.

Senakh was arrested in Finland in 2015 at U.S. authorities' request and extradited to face U.S criminal charges.

His arrest prompted an angry protest by Russia's Foreign Ministry, which called the move illegal.

The ministry has repeatedly objected to arrests of Russian citizens in other countries at the behest of U.S. authorities, warning of what it said were "kidnappings" by U.S. officials.

Several of those Russians targeted for arrest in recent years have been computer hackers like Senakh.

Yevgeny Nikulin, who was arrested in January, is being held in Prague as U.S. and Russian authorities fight for his extradition.

Roman Seleznyov, the son of a Russian lawmaker, is scheduled to be sentenced in a federal court in Washington state next month on cyberfraud and other charges. He was arrested in July 2014 in the Maldives and sent to the United States.
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate has given final approval of Montenegro's bid to join NATO, an enlargement of the alliance that is likely to further anger Russia.

Senators voted 97-2 on March 28 to back the Balkan country's accession to the 28-member alliance.

Two more alliance members -- Spain and the Netherlands -- must still vote on the membership bid, but the U.S. vote is by far the most significant.

Long averse to any eastward expansion by NATO, Moscow has signaled deep opposition to Montenegros efforts to join the alliance.

As with neighboring Serbia, Montenegro shares linguistic and cultural roots with Russia, and Russians, including Kremlin-connected billionaire Oleg Deripaska, have made substantial investments in the country in recent years.



Even before the Senate vote, Moscow signaled strong opposition to Montenegros efforts. An alleged coup attempt last year that some Montenegrin lawmakers blamed on Moscow was seen as a possible effort by Moscow to undermine the NATO push.



U.S. support for the Montenegro's bid has been mostly strong, though some observers have speculated that President Donald Trump's conciliatory rhetoric toward Russia might result in weaker support for NATO expansion.

Even though the Senate has voted to approve the accession, Trump must still sign the final document and do what is called "depositing the instrument of ratification."



However, ahead of the vote, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson wrote Senate leaders, saying approval should come ahead of a key NATO summit scheduled for May.

"Montenegro is trying to do everything that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin hates, where you actually can vote for your own leaders," said Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican-South Carolina), one of the party's leading foreign policy voices.

"With a nearly unanimous vote, the Senate has sent a clear message that it stands firmly with Montenegro and against the Kremlin's bullying," said Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democratic member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Republican Senator Susan Collins said she was "very happy that the Russian campaign to try to dissuade the people of Montenegro from joining NATO, and the disinformation that Russia disseminated, was not successful."

Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Montenegro's membership sent "a strong message of resolve to Russia as it invades its neighbors and seeks to upend the international order."

The only two "no" votes on March 28 came from Republican Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee.

Last week, the top U.S. military commander in Europe, General Curtis Scaparrotti, told a Senate committee that turning away Montenegros bid would send the wrong signal to other countries interested in joining the alliance.



That would include ex-Soviet republics who have faced Russias military aggression: either outright invasion, in the case of Georgia, or a separatist insurgency backed by Moscow, in the case of Ukraine.



"If we were to lose this, it would set back many of the other countries and peoples, particularly in Eastern Europe, who are looking forward to and have their eyes set on the West, Scaparrotti said.

Russias strongest ally in the Balkans, Serbia, has also moved gradually toward closer integration with the European Union, though not with NATO.



Moscow appeared to send a signal to both Serbia and others that it remained fully engaged in influencing Balkans politics by hosting Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, to Moscow -- a day before the vote and a week before Belgrade holds a presidential election.



Vucic, who is the favorite in the April 2 vote, has said he wants to bring Serbia closer to the EU but also improve ties with Moscow.
The Redskins recently terminated General Manager Scot McCloughan for what was widely reported as alcohol abuse. This prompted discussion among fans as to whether or not the team had a right to fire him for that reason, since alcoholism is a medical condition.

Whether or not McCloughan was a diagnosed alcoholic is not for the public to conclude, as that is between him and his doctor. But the laws around alcoholism and the workplace are relatively clear.

The Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, considers alcoholism a disability. The ADA also protects recovering alcoholics and drug addicts who may no longer be abusing alcohol or using illegal drugs.

The law does not protect current illegal drug users. Thus, an individual who fails a drug test would not have any right to accommodations under the ADA.

Classifying alcoholism as a disability simply means that such individuals may be entitled to reasonable accommodations, and cannot be discriminated against or harassed because of their medical condition. However, such employees are still required to meet the same performance and behavior standards as other employees.

Therefore, poor job performance and unsatisfactory behavior such as tardiness, insubordination or on-the-job accidents that would be unacceptable in the workplace are not excused merely because the person has a disability.

If an employee engages in misconduct or poor performance and is then disciplined or terminated for the conduct, the employee cannot be relieved of the discipline or termination merely because he provides his employer notice of his alcoholism, even if the conduct or performance was because of the disease. Its too late at that point.

In addition, employers are not required to accommodate an alcoholic by permitting use of alcohol in the workplace or during working time.

If an employee advises his employer of his medical condition after engaging in misconduct, the employer can choose to permit the employee to go into treatment or attend employer sponsored Employee Assistance Programs, but this is not required by the law.

Employers, however, need to be consistent with how they handle different situations and follow policy in all instances.

For example, one particular employer engaged in the practice of driving one of its employees home without discipline when she would show up at work under the influence of alcohol. The employee had a long history with the company and was much-loved and her manager was trying to show compassion.

A few months later, she came to work again under the influence, and this time the company made the decision to fire her. Before they did, however, she revealed that she had an alcohol problem and was leaving to get treatment.

Such treatment is covered by the ADA and the Family Medical Leave Act. But her employer said it would not permit her to take such leave because it had made the decision to terminate her.

She alleged that the employers practice was to drive her home when she came to work under the influence, and asserted that it only decided to fire her after she made claims under the ADA and FMLA. The employers lack of consistency set itself up for legal liability.

If an employee reveals that she is an alcoholic but has not engaged in any misconduct or poor performance, the employer may ask if the employee believes an accommodation would assist with meeting performance or conduct standards.

If the employee requests an accommodation, the employer must engage in the interactive process to determine if an accommodation can be effective to support the employee.

For example, a reasonable accommodation could be a modified work schedule to permit the employee to attend an ongoing self-help program or inpatient treatment.

However, a reasonable accommodation would not include one that supported the employees drinking, such as allowing an employee to be tardy because of drinking the previous night.
Nearly two-thirds of business leaders representing small- and mid-size companies are bullish about global and U.S. economic growth through this year, according to an annual Business Pulse Survey by SunTrust Banks Inc.

Business leaders were asked what actions, if any, they thought the government could take that would help their companies the most.

In all, 46 percent said health care reform would help the most; 44 percent responded with tax reform.

Middle-market leaders head businesses with annual revenue of $10 million to $150 million, while small-business leaders run companies with revenue of $2 million to $10 million.

Mid-market leaders cited reducing regulations (39 percent) and investments in infrastructure (37 percent) as other ways to spur business momentum.

Business leaders were even more optimistic about their own companies, with 75 percent saying that their outlooks are strong.

Business owners, chief executive officers and chief financial officers in central Virginia are more optimistic not just about the economy but their own companies, said John Stallings, president and CEO of the Virginia division for SunTrust. The Atlanta-based bank is one of the largest employers in the Richmond area.

Their optimism has improved over the past couple of years, matching the results of the survey with about 75 percent of CEOs and CFOs here feeling strong about the business outlook, Stallings said.

Health care reform, tax reform, reduced regulations and infrastructure investment are the four categories summing up their optimism, he said.

In terms of their five-year outlook, one thing I have noticed is the opportunity to help clients in their succession planning. A lot of business owners bravely led their organizations through the Great Recession and now that they are into the recovery, they are ready to hand the reins to the next leaders.

Their top business concern centers around cybersecurity and dealing with new fraud tactics, Stallings said. Most of our clients have had some attempted breach or fraud activity. We have been able to mitigate losses with fraud protection services that we offer.

***

Decision-makers representing more than 500 small- and mid-size businesses participated in the global market research survey, which was conducted in January.

This year, business leaders are feeling very prepared to take advantage of growth opportunities; 75 percent believe they have access to the critical capital needed, said Allison Dukes, commercial and business banking executive at SunTrust.

Three out of four have a goal-setting process linked to long-term growth strategies and are comfortable that they will achieve their goals, Dukes said.

In 2017, the short-term priority for 31 percent of mid-market companies is profitability, a 29 percent increase since 2016, while 34 percent of small businesses are focused on revenue, a 54 percent increase from last year.

Introducing a new product or service over the next five years is a top strategy to stimulate growth for mid-market (40 percent) and small-business leaders (31 percent). Making a major capital investment (31 percent) and acquiring another company (17 percent) are greater priorities for mid-market companies.

To undertake these initiatives, common strategies include using cash on hand, reducing costs, obtaining a bank loan, and reinvesting corporate earnings.

Over the past four years, businesses in the small- and mid-markets have taken incremental steps toward growing their companies, including mergers and acquisitions, hiring and improving cash flow, Dukes said. Now, they see an opportunity for significant structural changes in taxes and regulations to unleash additional business growth.

Survey results have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points at a 90 percent confidence level.
A former faculty member and dean of Germanna Community College who is one of three finalists to be president of the school says his experiences as a student and instructor changed his view of community colleges  and his career.

John R. Donnelly presented his vision for the college at an open forum Monday morning at the Sealy Auditorium on the colleges Fredericksburg Area Campus in Spotsylvania County.

The forum gave faculty, staff, students and members of the community the opportunity to ask questions and learn more about the candidate. It was broadcast live on Facebook and on the colleges website.

Donnelly is currently vice president for instruction and student services at Piedmont Virginia Community College, a position he has held since 2010. Prior to that, he served for two years as vice president of academic and student affairs/provost for Massachusetts Bay Community College in Wellesley Hills, Mass.

Donnelly said the path to his community college career began largely by accident. He had attended James Madison University, where he majored in French, and joined the airline industry shortly after graduation. While he enjoyed traveling around the world, he began to feel the need for more mental stimulation, so he enrolled in a history class at a local community college.

He said his experience there helped reverse some of the misguided ideas he had about community colleges  including that they are institutions for people who cannot get into a four-year college or university.

The magic of community colleges opened up, and I saw the richness and uniqueness of community college students, he said.

Eventually, he received his second bachelors degree and a masters degree and then decided to pursue his passion for teaching.

He became an adjunct instructor of history at Germanna in 1999 and rose through the ranks, serving as a full-time faculty member and eventually as an assistant dean and dean at the college.

During the forum, attendees asked questions ranging from his position on emergency response and safety, his process for prioritizing and allocating resources, and what he would do to foster a more diverse and inclusive culture at the college.

Donnelly said PVCC grappled with this issue in the wake of the recent travel ban on some Muslim countries. To alleviate consternation and fear among the student body, staff invited students to give presentations on their countries. For example, they could talk about what it was like to grow up in Iraq and come to the U.S.

As president, Donnelly said a major priority would be expansion of locations, which he believes is key to the colleges success. His goal is to steer the college toward the creation of a vibrant, thriving campus, which he thinks could be a possibility in a decade.

I really see a Germanna campus, he said. If you build it they will come is a gamble, but it is a gamble that might work here.

The national search for a new president began after Germannas current president, David Sam, announced in August his decision to retire at the end of this academic year. He served as president for nearly a decade.

The application process for a new president began with initial screenings in January followed by state-level interviews in Richmond in February. The three finalists were selected from among more than 100 applicants from across the nation.

The final stage is the campus visits and open forums. The first open forum was held last week. Candidate Linda Thomas-Glover, the current president of Eastern Shore Community College, presented her views on the future of college.

The final candidate to present and answer questions will be Janet Gullickson, who has presided over two community colleges, including her current position as president of Spokane Falls Community College. She will appear in a forum at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at Sealy Auditorium on the Fredericksburg Area Campus.
Iowa, which produces 36 percent of its electricity from wind energy, could see an increase of thousands of jobs and $9 billion in investment in wind energy by 2020, according to a report highlighted by Gov. Terry Branstad Monday.

Perhaps the most important impact wind has had on our state are the high-quality, good-paying jobs that are helping grow family incomes in Iowa, Branstad said. But wind has also helped us reduce our dependence on foreign oil  something that Iowa was almost exclusively reliant upon in the 1980s when I was first governor.

The industry today supports about 8,000 direct and indirect jobs and is at $11.8 billion in project investment. Its projected the number of jobs could grow to 17,300 by 2020.when jobs in the communities surrounding wind farms and factories are included, according to Navigant Consulting.

Iowa is projected to contain the third most wind-related jobs in 2020, trailing only Texas and Colorado by 2020.

Only Texas is expected to experience more economic activity from wind than the $9 billion investment projected in Iowa, Navigant said. That includes investments in new wind projects, turbine operations and maintenance, land lease payments, and sales, income, and property tax payments.

The Navigant analysis can be found at http://www.awea.org/windbenefits.

ALL TALK, NO TEXT

The Iowa House Transportation Committee is likely to take up Senate File 234, a bill to limit drivers use of hand-held communications devices to make phone calls and use global positioning system software to get travel directions. Texting, emailing and reading would be prohibited under the bill that was approved by a Transportation subcommittee Monday.

The Senate approved the bill, 43-6, last week despite some senators wanting to go further and ban the use of all hand-held communications devices.

The same sentiment is present in the House, said Rep. Gary Worthan, R-Storm Lake, a member of the subcommittee. He doubts there will be an attempt to amend the bill because of the opposition to an outright ban on cellphone use by drivers.

The bill also makes texting while driving a primary offense, meaning law enforcement is prohibited from stopping or detaining a person solely for a violation which relates to texting while driving. The new primary offense would carry a $30 fine.

The bill could see committee action March 28.

MINIMUM WAGE

Gov. Terry Branstad is continuing to call for a modest increase in Iowas state minimum wage, despite disinterest by the Legislatures majority Republicans.

Although he agrees with legislative action to pre-empt local governments authority to set minimum wages higher than the states $7.25 minimum, Branstad called for a modest increase over time in the minimum wage as some of our neighboring states have done.

Asked last Thursday about the governors interest in an increase, House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, said she and the governor have not discussed the topic.

Oh, yeah, weve had discussions about this, Branstad said Monday, and Ive expressed my support for a modest increase over time. Weve had those discussions with the legislative leaders.

Upmeyers office on Monday clarified that Branstad has expressed that sentiment to leaders but said there has been no discussion. Upmeyer said the House GOP caucus hasnt expressed an interest in a minimum-wage increase this year.

The sentiment is the same in the Senate, where Majority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, said he would anticipate no separate minimum wage bill.

The last time Iowas minimum wage was increased was with bipartisan support in 2007.

IPERS CHANGES

Gov. Terry Branstad applauded a decision by the IPERS investment board to lower a key investment target as thoughtful and prudent, even though it will increase the systems unfunded liabilities by about $1.3 billion and could require larger contributions by state and local governments and workers.

The governor told his weekly news conference Monday that too many states have overestimated the revenue in their pension funds, and the result is theyre in big trouble.

The Iowa Public Employees Retirement System, which has more than 350,000 members, cut its assumed annual rate of return on investments from 7.5 percent to 7 percent on Friday, reflecting concerns that returns will cover less of the cost of retirees pensions than in the past.

Using the new assumptions with the 2016 data, IPERS funded ratio has dropped from 84 percent to 80 percent, according to the plans administrators. IPERS has about $28 billion in assets and has unfunded liabilities of nearly $5.6 billion.

Branstad noted that the return on investment for the IPERS fund has slowed, so its important that Iowa officials track long-term benefits and review the system to protect more than 114,000 retirees who rely on IPERS and ensure changes arent going to impact them or the commitment that have been made to them.

He said the Legislature should follow reforms enacted in 2010 relating to benefits and contributions or consider changes that may be the subject of a state task force review.

HOLIDAY FIREWORKS

A bill allowing the sale and use of fireworks at the Fourth of July and over the Christmas-New Years Day holidays was sent to the full House Ways and Means Committee on Monday.

Senate File 489 would allow licensed retailers or community groups in permanent structures to sell consumer-grade fireworks to adults between June 1 and July 8 and between Dec. 10 and Jan. 3.

A similar provision would apply to conforming temporary structures, such as tents, from June 13 through July 8 each year. It also places time restrictions for the display of fireworks.

In a meeting that lasted less than five minutes, a three-member subcommittee heard from a veterans group that wants to shorten the time frame for fireworks sales and use, so as to protect the thousands of PTSD-affected Iowa veterans.

Were resigned to the fact it will pass, said Robert Beeston of the Veterans National Recovery Center, but the group would like the time fireworks are permitted to be limited to only the Fourth of July holiday. We oppose New Years (fireworks) but recognize tradition around Fourth of July.

Jim Henter of the Iowa Retail Federation called for a longer time frame to make it more appealing for retailers to invest in selling fireworks in their stores rather than selling from tents and other temporary structures.

Subcommittee member Rep. Jane Bloomingdale, R-Northwood, thought Iowans should have to be older than 18  out of high school, she said  to buy fireworks.

OBAMACARE AFTERMATH

Gov. Terry Branstad expressed disappointment Monday that Congress and President Donald Trump were unable to move forward last week with plans to repeal and replace the federal Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

Ive said from the beginning that Obamacare is unaffordable and unsustainable. I think thats becoming more and more obvious in state after state, the governor told his weekly news conference.

He said he hopes Iowa will continue to receive federal waivers and flexibility in dealing with health insurance-related matters and that the president and congressional leaders will revisit the topic in the future with better results.

TOUGH STATE BUDGETING

Gov. Terry Branstad said Monday he and the GOP-led Legislature face some tough choices in formulating a new fiscal 2018 spending plan.

The governor declined to share what revisions he will offer by Wednesday to the two-year budget plan he sent to legislators in January. But he told reporters at his weekly news conference the outlook for the budget taking effect on July 1 is not an easy situation, given the state will have to use $131 million from the cash reserve and repay the full amount over the next two fiscal years.

That means that the 2018 fiscal year budget is going to be a very difficult and tight budget, he said.

Branstad said the fiscal 2019 spending plan should have more flexibility since he anticipated a significant ending balance in the two-year budget he proposed in January.

SCHOOL HOME RULE

Republicans on a Senate Education subcommittee on Monday approved House-passed legislation that would give school boards limited home rule authority allowing them to liberally construe Iowa Code and administrative rules in overseeing school operations.

Sen. Mark Lofgren, R-Muscatine, said several other states have adopted similar flexibility that was supported by representatives of Iowa school boards and administrators during Mondays subcommittee meeting.

However, Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, said House File 533 would open the state to legal challenges unless the Legislature agreed to seek voter approval to grant constitutional home rule similar to what cities and counties in Iowa currently have.

Local governments have the authority to raise revenue to fund their initiatives, while K-12 schools rely on a massive involvement of state funds, he said.

For 149 years, Iowa school boards have operated under Dillons Rule. Under the rule, school boards are allowed to use only those powers and abilities that are specifically allowed by law. Uses of funds and applications of programs are subject to strict interpretations based on Iowa Code and administrative rules, and school districts are bound by the narrowest interpretation of the law, according to the Legislative Services Agency.

Brad Hudson of the Iowa State Education Association, which opposed the bill, called it Dillons Rule on steroids. The bill now goes to the full Senate Education Committee for consideration.
Tax rates, a financially troubled school retirement program, outsourced school custodial services and revitalization of older communities were all on the table in western Chesterfield County on Monday.

The questions came Monday during a community meeting on the county budget, a gathering that punctuated eight community meetings held this past week throughout the county. Mondays meeting invited residents and included representatives from both the Matoaca District in southwestern Chesterfield and the Clover Hill District in the more northwestern area of the county.

We have some of richest people in the state living here. We have some of the poorest people. We have to represent them all, said Supervisor Steve Elswick, who represents the Matoaca District. Some of them say raise taxes. Some of them say lower taxes.

The first batch of questions from the nearly 20 residents who attended the meeting focused on the schools.

One resident complained of the increased local dollars needed to keep the retirement program originally envisioned to retain long-term employees afloat.

Supervisor Chris Winslow drew applause when he said that his fellow board members are going to protect the commitment that the school system made to teachers. He emphasized that he said teachers. The retirement program has been criticized for some administrators participation in the program.

Other residents suggested that outsourced custodial services could be leaving the schools less clean. Superintendent James Lane responded by saying the school system is committed to keeping the buildings clean.

Two other residents praised the county for the low tax rates and amenities such as fast response rates for emergency service. Another resident asked the county to leave the tax rate unchanged.

Another resident felt the opposite, saying that residents were being overtaxed.

Supervisor Steve Elswick responded: When you go back to 2009-10, the county ... made a lot of cuts. ... We have worked very hard to get it back to that level where it was.

In response to a residents question about whether another meals tax proposal may be on the horizon, Elswick said the county did a poor job of selling a meals tax to the public that failed several years ago. He added that there was no appetite among county leaders now to propose a meals tax again.

Eileen Slade, a Woodlake resident for 16 years, asked: Whats in the budget for seniors?

Elswick said the county has made an effort on age-restricted housing, which are homes geared for people age 55 and older. He added that some senior recreation programs and day centers are also offered to seniors, with another possibly in the works at what will eventually be the former site of Beulah Elemenetary School.

A lot of seniors would say were not doing enough, Elswick said.
A graduate of Mills E. Godwin High School in Henrico County and the University of Richmond has been identified as one of two Massachusetts doctors killed in an avalanche in Canada earlier this month.

Victor Fedorov and Lauren Zeitels, both 32, died when they were buried while snowshoeing near the hamlet of Lake Louise in Banff National Park in southern Alberta, according to the Boston Globe.

The pair were last seen March 11 and were reported missing three days later after they failed to check out of their hotel in nearby Field, British Columbia. Their bodies were recovered March 17 on the slopes of Mount Hector in an area that had recently been hit by an avalanche.

Fedorov and Zeitels were second-year residents in the internal medicine program at Massachusetts General Hospital, where colleagues at the prestigious Boston medical center remembered them as young rising stars.

Fedorov was born in Moscow and grew up in the Richmond area. He graduated from Godwin, where he ran cross country and track, in 2003.

After leaving Godwin, Fedorov entered UR, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry/molecular biology and chemistry and a bachelor of arts degree in mathematics and computer science, according to the university.

Those who knew him at UR said Fedorov, who graduated in 2007, was a talented and memorable student.

Victor was an outstanding student and a lively presence in every class he took, mathematics professor Jim Davis said in an email. He will be remembered for his insatiable curiosity and his fierce independence. We are deeply saddened by this horrible news.

In addition to his studies, Fedorov also will be remembered as a tenacious leader who took the UR mens water polo program to a very successful and competitive level, said Tom Roberts, assistant vice president of recreation and wellness at the university.

He was a very bright young man with a great sense of humor, Roberts said. He was captain of the mens water polo club and would return back to campus annually for reunion games with alumni playing against the students.

Fedorov went on to earn his medical degree at Cornell University and joined the staff at Massachusetts General in June 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Fedorov and Zeitels were experienced outdoor enthusiasts who had extensively planned their trip and had taken every possible safety precaution, colleagues told NBC Boston.

The last two weeks have been extremely difficult and emotional for our community as together we waited, hoped and prayed for a different outcome, Massachusetts General Physician-in-Chief Katrina Armstrong and Residency Program Director Jatin Vyas said in a joint statement to the TV station.

We mourn these dedicated and promising physicians who were full of life and embodied the kind of devotion, compassion and brilliance that represent the best of medicine and humanity.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe has proposed a legislative amendment that would restore Virginias one-handgun-a-month limit.

Its not likely to pass in the General Assembly, though.

The amendment would make it a Class 1 misdemeanor  punishable by up to a year in jail and $2,500 fine  for anyone other than a licensed firearms dealer to buy more than one handgun within a 30-day period.

A similar law was repealed in 2012 by a Republican-dominated General Assembly and then-Gov. Bob McDonnell, also a Republican. That year, the House and Senate voted 66-32 and 21-19, respectively, to overturn the law  virtually the same margins by which Republicans currently control each chamber.

In a statement announcing the proposal, McAuliffe, a Democrat, cited a 627-count indictment that charged 22 Virginians with running more than 200 guns bought in Virginia north to New York and selling them to an undercover officer. One of the suspects was overheard on wiretaps mocking Virginias gun laws, saying he could buy as many guns as he wanted.

McAuliffe said in a statement: One-handgun-a-month was enacted almost a quarter century ago to counter Virginias shameful reputation as the gun-running capital of the East Coast. Five years ago, the General Assembly took the ill-advised step of repealing this commonsense limitation. As a result, Virginia is once again becoming the go-to state for criminals to purchase weapons in bulk.

The governors proposal elevates the repealed law as a political issue in an election year, but it will likely face a hostile reception when the General Assembly reconvenes for the April 5 veto session.

McAuliffe is seeking to tack his amendment onto Senate Bill 1023, sponsored by Sen. Richard H. Stuart, R-Stafford. Stuarts measure would bar sharing information regarding Virginia concealed-handgun permits with law enforcement in states that do not recognize a Virginia concealed-handgun permit as valid. The bill already passed both chambers of the General Assembly.

Stuart called it unfortunate Monday evening that he hadnt seen the amendment. The governors office announced it late Monday afternoon.

I also find it unfortunate that the governor chooses to place his priorities with New York City instead of the citizens of Virginia, Stuart said in an email. This bill was to protect Virginians that are in lawful possession of a firearm from being arrested by out-of-state jurisdictions that dont give reciprocity to our concealed-carry permit. The bill very simply is designed to protect the people that are playing by the rules.

Del. C. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, said the governors move looks like a stunt.

Im not sure he understands precisely how bills become law, Gilbert said. He just sort of made up his own law and slapped it on a bill that has nothing to do with that.

When the one-handgun-a-month law was in place, Gilbert said, criminals could bypass the restriction by getting friends to make straw purchases on their behalf, making the rule an impediment mainly to law-abiding gun buyers. Those arrested in the Brooklyn case allegedly used straw purchases, which are already illegal in Virginia.

We say this all the time, those of us who are proponents of gun rights, that no matter what impediments you put in place, criminals by their nature find a way to get around the law, Gilbert said.

He pointed to a recent break-in at a Chantilly gun store in which thieves stole 35 guns.

Attorney General Mark R. Herring called the one-gun law a commonsense measure that never should have been repealed in the first place.

Virginias weak gun laws make it too easy for guns to get into the hands of criminals, making our families, communities, and especially our law enforcement officers less safe, not to mention the heartbreak and damage these guns cause in neighboring states, Herring said in a statement. When youve got gun runners on tape bragging about how weak our gun laws are it should be a pretty clear signal that something needs to change.

Virginia is the No. 1 supplier of guns in New York, outside of the state itself. Its also the largest supplier of guns to Washington, D.C., and other major cities and Northeastern states along Interstate 95.

The state is the eighth on a list of source states for all firearms trafficking, according to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
City leaders are slated this week to begin their first public push of a plan to replace past discord between city and public school officials with a coordinated approach to boosting student health and achievement.

The first of five sessions announced to date is set for 7 p.m. Thursday at Thomas Jefferson High School, as part of a 1st District meeting hosted by City Council member Andreas D. Addison and School Board member Liz Doerr.

The goal of the push is to solicit feedback across the city from people invested in moving Richmond forward, said Thad Williamson, a senior policy advisor to Mayor Levar M. Stoney.

We havent had a chance to take this directly to the people, Williamson said, of a proposal issued by the mayors office last month.

The documents, referred to as a compact by plan architects, formalize a desire on the part of the mayor, the City Council and the School Board to establish shared goals and ultimately a shared funding strategy to meet those goals.

Williamson said this should reduce public clashes over the budget and increase accountability for a school system held up repeatedly during election season as an impediment to the citys progress.

But first, feedback.

This is a gut check to be sure that the high-level goals ... didnt miss anything, he said of the public meetings. Really, we want these goals to be communitywide goals everyone knows were trying to meet.

Kenita Bowers, spokeswoman for Richmond Public Schools, said the division welcomed the opportunity to hear from Richmond residents about the actions contemplated in the plan.

We look forward to working collaboratively toward a shared strategic framework for investing in and achieving improvements in the quality of life and academic progress for all RPS students, Bowers said in an email.

Many of the performance goals are tied to the creation of a strategic plan by the citys School Board, which has seen 100 percent turnover in the past year.

The success of these efforts also hinges on officials ability to reduce and deconcentrate childhood poverty, which at nearly 40 percent is the second highest percentage in the state, according to a report produced by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Williamson said the city hopes to halve that number in the next 10 to 15 years.

We have a lot of engaged, creative, talented people in the city, he said. Maybe people will start thinking about how they plug in (to achieve that goal).

About 10,500 Richmond youth aged 5 to 17 were living in poverty in 2014, according to state Department of Education data.
Officers found the victim about 6:40 a.m. in the 5700 block of Berrywood Road, which is in South Richmond near Hull Street Road. He was taken to a local hospital with injuries that are considered life-threatening, police said.
Work is underway on a multimillion-dollar road project in Hanover County.

Atlee Road (state Route 638) is being extended about a half-mile to connect it to Atlee Station Road (state Route 637) near Warren Avenue.

Work on the $20 million project began this month, with workers for Abernathy Construction clearing trees, said Hanover Director of Public Works J. Michael Flagg.

Theyre preparing the corridor for the road construction, he said.

Flagg said the Atlee Road extension is expected to be completed in fall 2018. The project will include a bridge over a set of railroad tracks, a traffic signal, bike lanes and sidewalks. Five homes will be demolished during the course of the work.

A community meeting on the project is being planned for June. Flagg said major detours to allow for work on the Atlee Road extension would begin in October.

There will be some pretty significant detours during construction that well be notifying the public on, Flagg said.

Road capacity in the Atlee area has been a source of concern for residents who say Hanover does not have enough infrastructure to support its pace of residential development.

Web Stokes, a former candidate for the Hanover Board of Supervisors, has been collecting signatures for a petition calling for a halt on construction on residential developments in the county. Stokes said he was happy about the Atlee Road extension but predicted congestion lay ahead for the area.

Once construction starts, its only going to add to the fray, he said.
DES MOINES  The Iowa House voted to abolish compensation boards and place responsibility for setting county elected officials salaries with boards of supervisors.

If supervisors want to give themselves a raise, then own it, bill manager Rep. Megan Jones, R-Spencer, said about a bill that she said was about smaller, smarter government  truth in government  transparency in government.

The House also approved changes in domestic abuse sentencing laws and modified Department of Transportation enforcement officers authority.

House File 528 would replace compensation boards that are appointed by county officials to recommend wage adjustments for supervisors, auditors, recorders, treasurers, sheriffs and county attorneys. Under current law, the supervisors then approve, reduce or reject the compensation boards recommendation.

Jones and others on the prevailing side of the 53-45 vote to send the bill to the Senate said salaries should be set by the supervisors who ultimately determine the county budget. All the Democrats present and five Republicans voted against the bill.

The bill came to the floor calling for the compensation board to be replaced with a five-member panel appointed by city councils and township trustees.

However, Rep. Guy Vander Linden, R-Oskaloosa, proposed striking the bill and having the supervisors set salaries for themselves and other elected county officials.

Rep. Mary Gaskill, D-Ottumwa, the former Wapello County auditor, called the amendment and bill wrong, wrong, wrong. The compensation board allows citizens input into the salary process, she said.

Compensation boards, she said, are intended to figure in other county salaries, public and private sector wages and other outside factors to determine wage recommendations.

Currently, each Iowa county has a seven-member county compensation board, which has two members appointed by the Board of Supervisors and one each named by the county attorney, auditor, recorder, sheriff and treasurer.

DOMESTIC ABUSE

Every nine seconds a woman is battered or abused, usually by a domestic partner, Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Bondurant, said in introducing House File 263 that would establish a one-year mandatory minimum sentence for domestic abuse, third offense.

They need and require time in prison, Nunn said.

House File 263 establishing a mandatory minimum for domestic abusers would not end domestic violence, but we can make a first step in providing the clarity, the ability of the survivor to have some space and opportunity to recover after habitual offenders consistently attacked and violated the law, Nunn said.

However, Rep. Mary Wolfe, D-Clinton, called the bill misleading because people convicted of domestic abuse, third offense, now serve an average of 17 months in prison.

In addition to identifying the crimes of stalking and harassment as they relate to domestic partner relationships, the bill would prevent unauthorized GPS devices being placed on a victims car so they can be monitored and stalked. It also would allow the state Board of Parole to electronically monitor offenders at their expense.

The bill was approved 89-8.

DOT OFFICERS

Iowa DOT enforcement officers, often called blue jackets, would be able to enforce traffic laws but would continue to be primarily involved in commercial motor vehicle enforcement under House File 463, which was approved 90-8.

Under an amendment to the bill, DOT enforcement officers could ticket egregious offenders: such as those traveling at speed 20 mph or more over the limit, operating while intoxicated and reckless driving, Rep. Gary Worthan, R-Storm Lake, said.

Former Iowa State Patrol trooper Rep. Clel Baudler, R-Greenfield, warned that the bill was the nose of the camel under the tent and would lead to two separate state police agencies with two separate contracts, budgets and sets of supervisors.

Thats not good, Baudler said. The only way to alleviate problems will be for one agency to take over the other and replace all of its supervisors.

STEP THERAPY

The House also voted 98-0 to approve HF 233 creating a step therapy override. Step therapy is a process in which patients must start with the most cost-effective or safest drug, moving to more costly or risky therapy only after those treatments fail. Its a way for insurers to control costs and minimize risks.

Advocates say it makes sense the vast majority of the time, but there are instances when exemptions are needed.

The bill would allow patients and their doctors to request an override or exemption if the prescription drug required under the step therapy protocol might cause an adverse reactions such as decreased ability to achieve or maintain reasonable functional ability, cause physical or mental harm, or the prescription drug is expected to be ineffective based on the known clinical characteristics of the covered person.

Some lawmakers were concerned that House File 233 exempted Medicaid recipients.

Rep. Tom Moore, R-Griswold, said it was his understanding that was to avoid rewriting contracts with the managed care organizations providing Medicaid services.
Near the end of a recent campaign event at a seafood restaurant in Roanoke, Republican gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart called for somebody to bring out a prop that he joked could get the group kicked out.

Whoaaaaa! a woman in the crowd blurted out as a Confederate battle flag was pulled from a pouch and unfurled in full view of the camera being used to stream video of the rally on Facebook Live.

Folks, this is a symbol of heritage. It is not a symbol of racism. It is not a symbol of slavery, Stewart, the chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors who is running a fiery, anti-establishment campaign for governor, said at the March 18 event. Im proud to be here with this flag.

Though recent Republican governors have approached Virginias Confederate history with caution and have at times been ensnared in controversy for stances seen as racially insensitive, Stewart is running Virginias most openly Confederate-friendly political campaign in recent memory, a strategy he attributes partly to the election last year of President Donald Trump.

He has vowed to defend Confederate monuments from liberals who want them gone, promised to bring back Confederate emblems on state-issued specialty license plates, and said he would absolutely not mention slavery in symbolic proclamations about Confederate history.

In a video posted to Twitter early this month, Stewart, who served as the Trump campaigns Virginia chairman last year before being fired for defiantly protesting outside the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington and who was tapped by the state party to co-chair its 2016 turnout and communications efforts, sipped coffee from a Confederate-flag mug after declaring: The only way that we can kill political correctness is to be politically incorrect.

I think things have changed, Stewart, who also has shaped his campaign around hard-line stances against illegal immigrants but hasnt drawn strong support in early polls, said in an interview this week. I think the 2016 presidential race was a watershed moment where you saw voters  including white voters and black voters and Asian voters and Hispanic voters  just fed up with political correctness and these gotcha techniques that the left has used to shut down speech.

Saying she did not want her head to explode outright, Linda Thomas, president of the Virginia chapter of the NAACP, took a moment to gather her thoughts in a phone interview before commenting on Stewarts embrace of the battle flag as a campaign strategy. It may represent heritage to some, she said, but the flag isnt a representative symbol for all Virginians.

Mr. Stewart cannot pretend to be unaware of how it is viewed by African-Americans who see it as a reminder of the grimmest of times, Thomas said. It is a reminder of our enslavement. It is a reminder of those who wanted to maintain that dehumanizing and demoralizing system.

Stewarts professed devotion to preserving history has come under scrutiny due to supportive remarks he made last year when a Prince William school was renamed to shed its association with former segregationist Gov. Mills E. Godwin Jr.

Stewart has made it clear that he intends to use his unapologetic defense of Confederate history as a major line of attack against GOP gubernatorial front-runner Ed Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee chairman and 2014 U.S. Senate candidate trying to run a more inclusive, minority-friendly campaign to give Republicans a critical statewide win and halt Virginias Democratic shift.

Barry Isenhour of Virginia Flaggers, a group that works to promote Confederate displays, applauded Stewarts position, saying theres widespread support for preserving Virginias Confederate monuments and arguing Republican attempts at appeasement have hurt the party in recent elections.

Virginians are inspired by a candidate with the backbone to stand up to the bullying tactics of the left, Isenhour said.

Though Stewart is betting that his embrace of Confederate symbols will help his standing ahead of the June 13 Republican primary, a pro-Confederate message would be difficult to translate to a general election campaign in the only Southern state Trump did not win.

Both Democratic candidates for governor  Lt. Gov. Ralph S. Northam and former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello  denounced Stewarts use of the Confederate flag when asked about it Tuesday.

In a statement, Northam said the flag represents history to some, but hate, racism and bigotry to others, adding that it belongs in Virginias history museums, not on the 2017 campaign trail. Perriello said Stewarts campaign is obviously flailing and said its failure to break through shows that old play towards racial hatred and division really does have a ceiling here in Virginia.

The problem is elections are won in urban, suburban and exurban areas, said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. Those are the people who would be most turned off by this approach to campaigning.

Gillespie, Sabato said, is far enough ahead in the primary race that he can afford to dance around this issue.

In a statement, Gillespies campaign said he would not look to reverse the states longstanding policies regarding the Confederate flag.

Corey is a desperate candidate trying to salvage his flailing campaign and is clearly hoping to use the Confederate flag, which has become a divisive symbol, to somehow get him more support, Gillespie campaign spokeswoman Abbi Sigler said in a written statement. Ed is focused on creating jobs, strengthening our economy  policies that benefit all Virginians.

State Sen. Frank W. Wagner, a Virginia Beach Republican running third behind Gillespie and Stewart in recent polls, said he has no qualms about the rebel flag.

But I do understand its offensive to some members of the community, and I think we need to respect their feelings, Wagner said.

Painting Gillespie as an establishment squish unwilling to stand up on controversial issues, Stewart has promised to pursue stronger laws to prevent statues from being altered or taken down, highlighting a debate in Charlottesville over a council vote to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a prominent park.

Gillespie has said he opposes the councils decision but does not believe its the state governments role to supersede local officials.

A citizens group has filed a lawsuit to stop Charlottesvilles action on the statue, a case that could help settle the question of whether a state law passed in 1998 to preserve all war monuments applies only to monuments that have been built since or whether it also covers all memorials erected before 1998.

Stewart also has vowed to bring back specialty Sons of Confederate Veterans license plates with the groups flag-based emblem, which Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe stopped in 2015 after the racially motivated killings of nine churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., by a shooter who had posed for photos with the flag.

Like two other recent Democratic governors, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, McAuliffe has not issued Confederate history month proclamations each April.

Because its 2017, McAuliffe spokesman Brian Coy said.

The proclamation was one of the first issues to trip up the states last Republican governor, Bob McDonnell. A few months after taking office in 2010, McDonnell issued a Confederate History Month decree that made no mention of slavery, an omission McDonnell called an error of haste and not of heart.

The onslaught of criticism that followed, including a public rebuke by then-President Barack Obama, ultimately forced McDonnell to atone via a do-over proclamation the next year that included recognition for enslaved African-Americans.

In 2013, McDonnell proposed $11 million in state funding for a slave history site in Richmonds Shockoe Bottom area, a project still evolving as city leaders weigh how to move forward.

Stewart said he would not reference slavery in Confederate history month proclamations, the symbolic gestures that have proven politically tricky for past Republican governors.

That just emphasizes the argument of the left, which highlights the history of slavery in our state, Stewart said. Sure, slavery was legal in Virginia, and part of the Civil War was fought over that issue. But its not the entirety of Virginias heritage.

Unlike other Southern states, Virginia has not continued to fly the battle flag on the Capitol grounds  which once served as the seat of government for the Confederate States of America  but Stewart said he would support displays of the flag on Capitol Square from time to time.

Though Virginia had a long string of Confederate veterans as governors after the Civil War and Reconstruction and the flag was once widely accepted by Southern politicians of all stripes, the flag has more recently put GOP politicians on the defensive.

Having to explain his past affinity for the Confederate flag during his unsuccessful 2006 U.S. Senate run, former Gov. George Allen said he had been slow to appreciate the flags emotional impact for African-Americans.

When Republican Oliver L. North was under fire in the 1994 U.S. Senate race over his refusal to denounce the Confederate flag, he countered by accusing his Democratic opponent, then-U.S. Sen. Charles S. Robb, of wearing a suspiciously Confederate-esque necktie. Robb denied the accusation, saying he owned no such tie.

North later produced a photo and a mail-order catalog page suggesting the insignia on Robbs tie was that of the Anglo-Confederate Society, a group of British Parliament members sympathetic to the cause.

A Minnesota native, Stewart acknowledged he has no deep-seated personal connection to the Confederacy, but said he has grown to love the history of his adopted state. Taking down a statue or prohibiting the flying of the flag, he said, is like spitting on your grandfathers grave.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe is looking for additional money to cushion Virginias budget from the potential effects of actions taken or proposed by President Donald Trump in the first 68 days of his administration.

McAuliffe has proposed 27 amendments to the two-year budget adopted by the General Assembly last month, including restored spending on economic incentives to develop solar power and prepare students for jobs in security, but his focus at a news conference Tuesday was potential damage to the states economy by the new presidents actions.

The man has been a one-man wrecking crew for Virginias economy, the governor said.

McAuliffe cited as evidence Trumps freeze on federal government hiring, likely cuts in military spending for operations and maintenance, and a budget proposal that, among other things, cuts federal support for environmental programs to restore the Chesapeake Bay.

It was the craziest budget Ive ever seen introduced, he said.

But the governors biggest concern is what he called the growing likelihood that the federal government would operate on a continuing resolution after the federal fiscal year ends Sept. 30, leading to automatic cuts in federal spending under budget sequestration that would hit defense-heavy Virginia hard.

That means sequestration is here to stay, he said. That is very bad news for Virginia.

In response, McAuliffe proposed to increase the unappropriated balance in the pending state budget from $3.6 million to $10.4 million, primarily using $5 million that he is seeking to cut from state funding for the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundations plans for commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Red Letter Year in the Jamestown Colony in 2019.

The governor has tried repeatedly to cut state funding for the celebration from $10 million to $5 million, but Republican legislative leaders, many of whom sit on the foundations board of directors, have restored the full funding every time. Theyre likely to block his attempted cut again next week when the General Assembly convenes for the so-called veto session.

McAuliffe also challenged the legislatures budget direction to the state comptroller to withhold $1.5 million from the Virginia Economic Development Partnership until the chairmen of the budget committees direct him to disburse the funds to the agency, which came under heavy criticism last year after a scathing report by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission.

In his letter Tuesday to the House of Delegates, the governor noted, The Virginia Constitution prohibits the General Assembly from delegating final legislative authority regarding budget or other enactments to a committee composed of a subset of the members of the General Assembly.

It is not the first time McAuliffe has clashed with Republican legislative leaders over executive prerogative.

Legislative control of an executive branch function is a violation of the separation of powers, spokesman Brian Coy said.

The Republican-controlled legislature also has rebuffed a number of the Democratic governors proposals to increase spending on cybersecurity education and solar development, which remain top economic development priorities for him.

McAuliffe proposes to pay for more than $4 million in new spending with savings from the planned closing of Peumansend Creek Regional Jail in Caroline County; additional sales tax revenues from companies that stock goods in Virginia for internet sales; and reduced costs for state employee health insurance.

He also wants to accelerate screening of inmates at local and regional jails for mental illness within 72 hours of their admission, although he is not seeking to restore $4.2 million he had proposed for the initiative in response to unexplained deaths of mentally ill inmates in regional and local jails.

The governor proposes $442,500 for the State Compensation Board to develop staffing standards for carrying out the initiative. The budget adopted by the assembly also directs the board to review jail staffing standards, determine the cost of requiring the inmate assessments, and report its findings by Oct. 1.

Despite the lingering disagreements, McAuliffe praised the assembly for adopting a very strong budget that includes raises for state employees, college faculty and teachers, sheriffs deputies, and other state-supported local employees, as well as major boosts in funding for Virginia State Police and Capitol Police.

The governor said he didnt propose pay increases  instead he sought a one-time bonus that legislators rejected immediately  because he didnt have the additional three months of revenue data that legislators were able to review. State revenues were up 4.5 percent through February, compared with an annual forecast of 2.9 percent.

McAuliffe was especially heartened by income tax withheld from payroll  accounting for almost two-thirds of state revenue  which had been the primary reason for a revenue shortfall once projected last year at $1.5 billion. Payroll withholding rose 5 percent in the first eight months of the fiscal year.

That is a very big deal for us, he said.

The governor deflected questions about a new poll in the governors race that shows former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello even with Lt. Gov. Ralph S. Northam, whom the governor supports, for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

What matters to me is that a Democrat stays in this chair, he said.
Lt. Gov. Ralph S. Northam and former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello are neck-and-neck for the Democratic nomination in the Virginia governors race, according to a poll by Christopher Newport Universitys Wason Center for Public Policy.

The poll also found that Republican Ed Gillespie, a former national party chairman and 2014 U.S. Senate nominee, is maintaining his wide lead in the GOP primary field.

The poll released Tuesday showed Northam and Perriello each with 26 percent support among Democratic-leaning respondents, with 45 percent undecided.

Perriellos showing was up 11 percentage points from a CNU poll released Feb. 2 that found Northam with 26 percent to Perriellos 15 percent.

A lot more people are paying attention to the race since we got in, and the people that are tuning in seem to be breaking our way, Perriello said in an interview Tuesday before a roundtable discussion on political redistricting in Richmond.

Perriello launched his upstart, progressive campaign in early January, surprising many in the Democratic establishment who long had backed Northam and expected him to have a smooth path to the nomination to succeed Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

The Northam campaign cast doubt on the accuracy of the CNU poll by releasing internal poll numbers of likely Democratic voters that showed Northam with a 38-19 advantage, with 43 percent undecided.

Northams team said its poll surveyed likely Democratic voters rather than a general election sample of registered voters as used in the CNU poll.

Perriello called the Northam campaigns revelation of internal numbers a little desperate. He declined to characterize his own internal numbers other than saying we feel very good right now.

Just a few months ago, nobody expected to be saying that the real action in this primary would be on the Democratic side, but thats where it is, said Quentin Kidd, director of the Wason Center.

The Democratic primary for governor looks to be a replay in some respects of last years presidential primary.

The poll showed supporters of insurgent Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders favored Perriello, while backers of eventual nominee Hillary Clinton were more likely to support Northam.

Among Clinton voters, 34 percent support Northam and 25 percent support Perriello. Among Sanders supporters, 32 percent back Perriello and 21 percent favor Northam.

On the Republican side, Gillespie showed signs of pulling away from Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, and state Sen. Frank W. Wagner, R-Virginia Beach.

Gillespie drew 38 percent support among Republican-leaning respondents in the CNU poll, compared with 11 percent for Stewart and 10 percent for Wagner.

Despite Gillespies strong position in the GOP primary, the poll found him with weaker support, 32 percent, among voters who supported President Donald Trump last year.

A Trump effect adds some uncertainty to the Republican contest, said Rachel Bitecofer, assistant director at the Wason Center.

Gillespie, the establishment favorite, is underperforming among voters who preferred Trump to all those insider Republicans last year. But Stewart and Wagner dont seem to be picking them up, either.

The poll, based on a landline and cellphone survey of 831 registered voters, was conducted March 16-26 and has a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points.

In the first independent polling in the race for lieutenant governor, state Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel, R-Fauquier, led the GOP primary field with 17 percent support, compared with 13 percent for Del. Glenn R. Davis Jr., R-Virginia Beach, and 10 percent for state Sen. Bryce E. Reeves, R-Spotsylvania.

Activist and consultant Susan Platt led the Democratic field for lieutenant governor with 20 percent. Former federal prosecutors Justin Fairfax and Gene Rossi drew 11 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

The primaries are scheduled for June 13.

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said the Republican side of the poll seems representative of where the race stands, but he cautioned against drawing broad conclusions from the Democratic result.

Low-turnout primaries, he said, are won in the last four to six weeks, and its simply too early for many voters to be focused on the race.
Sealston Elementary School in King George County will be closed today because tests showed bacterial problems have made the water unsafe to drink without boiling.

Residents of the nearby Oakland Park subdivision have faced the same water restrictions since Friday night, when notices were attached to their front doors and porches. The notices stated the bacteriological water quality at Oakland Park is unknown at this time, and that tap water should not be used for drinking or cooking without being boiled or treated with water purification tablets.

The school, subdivision and King George Industrial Park are served by Oakland Park Waterworks, a county system operated by the King George Service Authority. About 330 customers are on the system, which had its most recent bacterial tests on March 8and all those came back clean, said Director Chris Thomas.

The Virginia Department of Health required the King George utility to post the notices. The department provided the exact wordage and instructed the utility to hand-deliver them to customers, Thomas said, adding his office didnt get the finalized notices until 5:21 p.m. Friday.

The school system didnt know about the water problem until Monday morning. Officials decided to keep the school open then because School Superintendent Rob Benson said turning buses around and going back to empty houses would not be a good idea.

The school supplied bottled water for cooking and drinking, and workers provided sanitizer for hand-washing. But because so much water is needed to clean cafeteria tables and other school equipment, Benson said it wasnt practical to operate a second day on bottled water.

Sealston Elementary School sent home letters Monday afternoon about todays closing.

The no-drink notices went out after water samples taken last week showed a problem. Thomas said a resident was complaining about irritation, presumably from too much chlorine in the water, so his department sampled water from the house.

Tests on March 20 and 22 both showed too much bacteria, so the utility followed up with eight additional tests throughout the system.

Two showed bacteria. Both were from homes on cul-de-sacs in Oakland Park, Thomas said, but we honestly do not know what caused the levels of bacteria.

New samples were taken Monday, but results wouldnt be available until mid-afternoon today, Thomas said.

The Oakland Park community is off State Route 3 in the eastern part of the county. In recent years, residents have been plagued more by smells than liquids, as subdivision homeowners have complained repeatedly about unpleasant odors coming from the nearby King George Regional Landfill.

Resident Micah Murphy was irritated that county officials didnt use the usual electronic notification, King George Alert, to let people know about the problems Friday night. An alert finally was posted Monday afternoon, five minutes before the announcement of Sealston school being closed.

The electronic alert would have more appropriately reached the entire community in a timely matter, Murphy wrote in an email. Thomas said that might have been the case, but when alerts of water problems go out to people who arent affected, you start getting a lot of phone calls from people from other water systems who get alarmed.

Because the notices were placed on doors or elsewhere on houses after dark on a Friday night, some residents may not have seen them, Murphy said.

Mary and Angelo Galatis didnt know of the water warning until he went to the mailbox Saturday morning and saw utility workers flushing hydrants. He was told about the problem, checked the front porch and saw the notice.

Both Galatises are in their 80s with light health problems, she said. They were concerned about what impact water in the bacteria might have on their well-being, as well as others who may not have gotten the notification.

She boiled water for cooking, and the couple purchased bottles and jugs for drinking. It was more a physical hardship than a financial one, she said.

Just the fact that youre lugging gallon jugs and were not spring chickens anymore, she said. Everybodys perturbed.

Murphy said several neighbors had guests, and the situation left them very embarrassed because they had to explain they could not use the water at their house. The notices said the water did not have to be boiled for bathing or washing clothes or dishes, but for every other use.

The Oakland Park Homeowners Association posted the water notice on its Facebook page Friday night. As Oakland Park residents got up and started their errands Saturday morning, they discovered they had no water as lines were being flushed.

The Service Authority notice said it had increased chlorine level in the Oakland Park area and flushed the water system as a precautionary measure.

When Corrine Graves said we cant speak to anyone at the Service Authority because its after-hours, Chris Werle, a member of the utilitys Board of Directors, responded. He posted the cellphone number for Scott Sweeney, the authoritys superintendent of operations, and said Sweeney would answer residents questions after hours.

When another resident asked on Sunday if restrictions were still in place, Werle again responded.
Storms brought hit-or-miss downpours and small hail to parts of the Richmond metro on Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday and Thursday will bring dry weather and slightly cooler temperatures.

Some showers and storm activity could linger into the early evening, but that should end by 9 p.m. The rest of the night is likely to be dry as the system moves away to the east.

There were no reports of severe hail or wind in the Piedmont or Richmond region. The environmental ingredients were modestly favorable for hail, but not flash flooding, damaging gusts or tornadoes.

Tuesday morning rainfall amounted to 0.11-inches at Richmond International Airport, and afternoon amounts were very uneven across the region due to the hit-or-miss nature of the storms.

Thursday will bring the coolest temperatures of the week with a low in the lower 40s, possibly upper 30s outside of the metro.

Rain will return for much of the day on Friday, perhaps with some thunder, too.
DES MOINES  Majority Senate Republicans approved and sent Gov. Terry Branstad significant changes to the states workers compensation law Monday, arguing the system in place since 1913 to protect injured employees should be rebalanced to improve Iowas competitive position with other states.

Backers said House File 518  which passed the Senate 29-21 with Ocheyedan independent Sen. David Johnson joining 20 Democrats in voting no -- would improve the process for addressing workplace injuries with common-sense revisions that will avoid the costs and complications associated with litigation for workers while limiting overall expenses for employers.

Critics said the revamped version was better than the original GOP proposal but still would dramatically scale back compensation benefits for injured workers and shift costs from businesses to taxpayers.

Proponents countered the legislation would bring needed changes to curb abuse and offset rulings by courts and administrative law judges when it takes effect July 1.

"I believe this bill returns the law to its intended balance, protecting employees and employers," said Sen. Michael Breitbach, R-Strawberry Point, the bills floor manager, "and ensuring everyone is paid in a timely manner while providing the intended predictability."

While improved by legislative modifications, Sen. Nate Boulton, D-Des Moines, said the finished product still represented a wish list for corporations and insurance companies focused on profits and bottom lines at the expense of Iowas most-vulnerable citizens.

"It makes a very dangerous bill better," Boulton said during Mondays Senate floor debate. "It does not solve all the problems."

Democrats offered amendments that showed flaw after flaw during a debate that was insulting to hard-working Iowans, Boulton said, but backers were intent on taking away benefits from workers after suffering devastating injuries based on the false premise of a one-sided, rigged system. Its going to cost us in the long run, he added.

GOP senators turned back a Boulton amendment seeking to replace the bill with language setting up an advisory committee to study the system and report its findings and recommendations for lawmakers by Jan. 15, 2018.

The bill heading to Branstads desk would no longer cuts off workers compensation benefits at age 67 or change the burden of proof in injury claim, and Republicans modified language to reduce benefits for shoulder injuries although a majority turned back a Breitbach amendment 24-26 seeking to further expand training and help for injured workers.

Other provisions would reduce benefits for injuries tied to pre-existing conditions, limit legal fees for attorneys and minimize late fees for employers who fail to pay benefits on time. Employers also would be allowed to deny benefits if an injured worker tests positive for alcohol or drugs.

Were taking away benefits from severely disabled Iowa workers and we are reaching a new low as we do that, Boulton said. This is mean. This is doing something completely unnecessary that will disadvantage working Iowans. The people we count on to make our state economy run. We dont need to do this.

Democrats argued Iowa already has a good workers comp system with premiums 11 percent below the national average, according to the Iowa Economic Development Authority, and have decreased in three of the last four years. Iowas system also received an A rating from the Insurance Journal, which found no weaknesses and said its strengths were low politicization, efficiency and market competitiveness.

However, Sen. Jake Chapman, R-Adel, countered that premiums increased each year from 2010 to 2013 in the period before the years that Boulton cited, and Iowa went from the seventh lowest workers compensation costs in 2006 to 28th in 2016.

At another point in the debate, Boulton noted that the states workers compensation commissioners office had been hit with an overwhelming litigation explosion since the GOP bill surfaced, but Breitbach said the uptick in the number of claims filed the past month should scare us because it indicates injured workers and their attorneys are afraid we might change the law."

Earlier this month, Branstad said he was "pleased" Republican legislators were preparing a workers comp system adjustment and he's expected to sign the bill into law. Branstad has accused lawyers of "tilting" workers comp and making it more of a "long term disability" system rather than temporary financial help while a worker recovers from an injury.

This is not a workers state anymore if this bill goes through, Johnson said.
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
CHRISTIANSBURG  Several leading business figures in the Roanoke and New River valleys came out Monday night in support of a request to remove the protection of some Ellett Valley land to pave the way for an expansion of the Smart Road.

Their supportive comments were heard during a public hearing hosted by the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors, which will eventually decide whether or not to approve the request from the Virginia Tech Foundation.

The hearing was one of several put on by the county within the past two months to hear local views on the foundations request to remove 129 acres of land along Ellett Road from an agricultural and forestal district.

Better known as an AFD, the designation protects land from intense commercial, residential and industrial development. The county reassesses the designation every eight years, but the foundation is asking to fast-track the review of the Ellett Valley land four years ahead of time.

If lifted, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, or VTTI, would get the green light to use the land to build an approximately 2-mile road test bed that more closely would simulate rural and mountainous topography. The Blacksburg-based research institute is known for its use of the Smart Road as a test site for autonomous vehicles.

VTTI and foundation officials attended Mondays hearing and reiterated several points they already had presented to the countys planning commission, a panel that acts as an advisory arm to the board of supervisors.

Among the benefits VTTI and the foundation touted were the creation of 156 new jobs by 2026, $285 million in economic development and the opportunity to snap up contracts and investments ahead of other research institutes across the U.S. When asked about some of the prominent work VTTI has done, its director, Tom Dingus, pointed to the institutes autonomous car work with Google and the development of cameras that assist drivers backing up their cars.

The people who spoke in support of the AFD removal echoed and expanded on the points VTTI raised. Among more than a dozen speakers were Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Joyce Waugh and her organizations board chairwoman-elect Terry Jamerson, whos also the publisher of The Roanoke Times.

Jamerson described the expansion as critical for long-term transportation needs and boosting the regional economy and the high-tech sector.

It will enable Virginia Tech to have the finest complex of technologies to simulate city, highway and rural road conditions, said Jamerson, who was speaking in her capacity as a chamber representative.

Another speaker, John Tutle, said the expansion makes sense in numerous ways.

Were rapidly growing in the county to become an even better research area, he said. Its a reason for young citizens to stay here, a reason for them to want to stay here.

While most of the speakers supported the project, some  Ellett Valley residents  spoke out against it. Reiterating comments they made to the planning commission, opponents expressed concerns about VTTI clogging up Ellett Road for construction, noise from testing and the test bed itself ruining the valleys aesthetics.

Lisa Hammett, an Ellett Road resident, said she doesnt believe that the foundation cant find other land in the years before the AFD is up for natural re-assessment. She said she wonders what would happen if the AFD removal isnt granted.

Im not entirely convinced that its forward thinking for the entirety of the county, she said.

Supervisors invited foundation representatives to return for an April 10 meeting to answer more questions.
RICHMOND  Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe has signed legislation that gives local governments more power to regulate short-term rentals, such as rooms offered for rent by homeowners on the popular online platform Airbnb.

McAuliffe on Friday approved Senate Bill 1578, which was sponsored in the recent General Assembly session by Senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment , R-James City.

The legislation enables local governments to adopt ordinances requiring people to register if they want to offer their property for short-term rentals. Registries would give local governments information needed to regulate and tax the rentals.

Norments bill was backed by the states established hospitality industry, including hotel chains and many owners of bed and breakfast businesses. The legislation passed both the House of Delegates and the Senate by wide margins.

However, some property owners who use online platforms such as Airbnb have expressed concerns about the legislation, fearing that local governments might impose costly fees or regulations. Thousands of Virginians use sites such as Airbnb for temporary property rentals.

Localities could impose fees and penalties of up to $500 on people who fail to register, or whose rentals dont comply with state, federal or local laws. The legislation also clarifies that people who offer property for short-term rental must obtain a bed-and-breakfast ABC license if they want to serve alcoholic beverages to guests.

We want to thank Gov. McAuliffe for supporting this legislation and recognizing the importance of establishing a framework for local governments to welcome short-term rentals, such as those rented through Airbnb, into their communities, Eric Terry, president of the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging & Travel Association, said in a statement Mon- day.

Terry said the legislation protects neighborhoods by allowing localities to create a fair and reasonable system for registration and accountability where the industry feels welcome and residents feel safe.

An alternative proposal offered by Airbnb did not advance during the General Assembly session.

It would have included a mechanism for Airbnb to collect local and state taxes on behalf of hosts in Virginia and remit those payments to the state.

During 2016, nearly 7,000 residents of Virginia used Airbnb to share their homes with travelers from across the globe  making supplemental income to support their families and bringing millions in economic activity to the commonwealth, Airbnb said in a statement Monday. We look forward to continuing to work with the commonwealth and localities to develop policies that embrace innovation and economic opportunity.
The students, from KUs Lawrence and Edwards campuses and the schools of Health Professions and Nursing in Kansas City, Kansas, represent 91 of 105 Kansas counties, 48 other states and territories, and 39 other countries.

The honor roll comprises undergraduates who meet requirements in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and in the schools of Architecture, Design & Planning; Business; Education; Engineering; Health Professions; Journalism; Music; Nursing; Pharmacy; and Social Welfare. Honor roll criteria vary among the universitys academic units. Some schools honor the top 10 percent of students enrolled, some establish a minimum grade-point average, and others raise the minimum GPA for each year students are in school. Students must complete a minimum number of credit hours to be considered for the honor roll.
Virginia Tech students reported two sexual assaults and a sexual battery over the past several days, according to the university.

On Monday, someone reported that a student had been sexually assaulted by another student sometime between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. Saturday. Both students were part of a group that visited Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

The trip was not a university-sponsored event, according to a university news release, which said the assault took place in North Myrtle Beach. Police Chief Kevin Foust said that investigation has been turned over to law enforcement in South Carolina.

The student who was reported as being assaulted described possibly being drugged during the encounter, according to the release. The two students were not previously acquainted.

Officers are also investigating after someone reported that a student was sexually battered by another student Saturday at Ambler Johnston Hall, a residence hall in the 700 block of Washington Street, according to another news release from the school. Police said the students were previously acquainted.

Someone also reported Monday that a student was sexually assaulted by another student March 18 in Johnson Hall, a dormitory in the 500 block of Washington Street, according to a third news release.

Foust said the students who reported being assaulted on campus do not wish to pursue criminal charges. Its unclear whether charges have been filed in connection with the alleged assault in Myrtle Beach.
CLEAR LAKE | Clear Lake Classical, a Christian school for pre-kindergarten through third grade, will be expanding this fall to include fourth grade.

Headmaster Cory Gerdts said just a few more families expressing interest or filling out applications could mean the school will be able to expand not just through fourth grade, but all the way through seventh grade.

"It's looking very promising," Gerdts said.

Clear Lake Classical has already grown since it was established in 2014 as a preschool with just four students.

Clear Lake Classical School seeks to expand CLEAR LAKE  A private Christian preschool in Clear Lake is looking to expand for the 2015 s

In 2015 the school expanded to include kindergarten, first grade and second grade, with 20 total students.

Third grade was added in fall 2016. The school, located in the educational wing of the Clear Lake Evangelical Free Church, now has nearly 30 students.

He said the reason for the school's rapid growth is families in the area like what it has to offer: a classical education with a Christian worldview integrated into all subjects.

Classical education is "a resurgent movement in the United States," Gerdts said.

The idea is to use "age-old methods" such as teaching classical literature, Latin and logic, as well as training students in debate and rhetoric, he said.

The focus is on the history of Western civilization, from ancient times to modern, according to Gerdts.

He said there is more emphasis on ancient and medieval times than most schools provide, and less on the past 50 years or so.

Gerdts said the goal all along was to try to add at least one grade per year, all the way through high school.

He said he should know by sometime next week if the school will be able to expand to seventh grade this fall. This will give school officials six months to plan.

Adding junior high grades is "a little daunting" because younger children and older ones are so different, according to Gerdts.

However, "We think this is worth doing so we are going to do it even it it is not perfect," he said.
Sticking to his plan from four years ago, John Williamson is not running for a second term on the Botetourt County Board of Supervisors.

Williamson, the former president and CEO of Roanoke Gas Co. who years ago served as Botetourts county administrator, said he never intended to seek re-election when he ran as a Republican in 2013 for a seat on the board representing the Buchanan District.

Many of the goals he set then have been accomplished, Williamson said.

I would say its been an interesting experience, Williamson said of his tenure on the board, which saw major economic development announcements, the hiring of a new county administrator, a tax increase and Botetourts inclusion in regional commissions that oversee water service and greenways.

Williamson said he was also pleased with how the five-member board of supervisors has worked together.

Sometimes you see acrimony on boards, but this has been a good one to work with, he said.

Ray Sloan, a local funeral home owner and chaplain of the Botetourt County Fire and EMS Department, said Tuesday that he plans to run for the seat to be vacated by Williamson.

Its been something Ive always thought about, said Sloan, who in addition to many years as a volunteer firefighter has served on the countys safety commission and a steering committee looking at growth along the Interstate 81 Exit 150 interchange.

Sloan said he was approached last year by Williamson, who asked him to consider running for the seat.

With his Botetourt Funeral Home in Buchanan well established after more than 20 years, Sloan said the time seemed right to seek elected office.

I think the direction were going in is good, he said of the current boards pro-growth philosophy, which last year paid off with the announcements that an automotive parts factory, a major brewery and other businesses are planning new operations or expansions in Botetourt.

Sloan is planning to run as a Republican. Thursday is the deadline for candidates seeking the Republican or Democratic nominations to file paperwork to run for two seats on the board of supervisors that expire at the end of the year.

Todd Dodson, who holds the other seat in Amsterdam, said he plans to run for re-election.

There is so much good stuff going on in Botetourt, I love the direction that were headed in, said Dodson, who was first elected to the board in 2013 and is currently its vice chairman.

Dodson, who is also head of the countys Republican Committee, said he has not heard of anyone else  apart from Sloan  interested in running as the GOP candidate for the two board seats up for election this year.

No Democratic candidates have come forward with just two days left to file paperwork. Independent candidates have until June to declare their plans to run in the November election.
RICHMOND  Gov. Terry McAuliffe has proposed a legislative amendment that would restore Virginias one-handgun-a-month limit.

Its unlikely to pass in the General Assembly, though.

The amendment would make it a Class 1 misdemeanor  punishable by up to a year in jail and $2,500 fine  for anyone other than a licensed firearms dealer to buy more than one handgun within a 30-day period.

A similar law was repealed in 2012 by a Republican-dominated General Assembly and then-Gov. Bob McDonnell, also a Republican. That year, the House and Senate voted 66-32 and 21-19, respectively, to overturn the law  virtually the same margins by which Republicans currently control each chamber.

In a statement announcing the proposal, McAuliffe, a Democrat, cited a 627-count indictment that charged 22 Virginians with running more than 200 guns bought in Virginia north to New York and selling them to an undercover officer. One of the suspects was overheard on wiretaps mocking Virginias gun laws, saying he could buy as many guns as he wanted.

McAuliffe said in a statement: One-handgun-a-month was enacted almost a quarter century ago to counter Virginias shameful reputation as the gun-running capital of the East Coast. Five years ago, the General Assembly took the ill-advised step of repealing this commonsense limitation. As a result, Virginia is once again becoming the go-to state for criminals to purchase weapons in bulk.

The governors proposal elevates the repealed law as a political issue in an election year, but it will likely face a hostile reception when the General Assembly reconvenes for the April 5 veto session.

McAuliffe is seeking to tack his amendment onto Senate Bill 1023, sponsored by Sen. Richard Stuart, R-Westmoreland. Stuarts measure would bar sharing information regarding Virginia concealed-handgun permits with law enforcement in states that do not recognize a Virginia concealed-handgun permit as valid. The bill already passed both chambers of the General Assembly.

Stuart called it unfortunate Monday evening that he hadnt seen the amendment. The governors office announced it late Monday afternoon.

I also find it unfortunate that the governor chooses to place his priorities with New York City instead of the citizens of Virginia, Stuart said in an email. This bill was to protect Virginians that are in lawful possession of a firearm from being arrested by out-of-state jurisdictions that dont give reciprocity to our concealed-carry permit. The bill very simply is designed to protect the people that are playing by the rules.

Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, said the governors move looks like a stunt.

Im not sure he understands precisely how bills become law, Gilbert said. He just sort of made up his own law and slapped it on a bill that has nothing to do with that.

When the one-handgun-a-month law was in place, Gilbert said, criminals could bypass the restriction by getting friends to make straw purchases on their behalf, making the rule an impediment mainly to law-abiding gun buyers. Those arrested in the Brooklyn case allegedly used straw purchases, which are already illegal in Virginia.

We say this all the time, those of us who are proponents of gun rights, that no matter what impediments you put in place, criminals by their nature find a way to get around the law, Gilbert said.

He pointed to a recent break-in at a Chantilly gun store in which thieves stole 35 guns.

Attorney General Mark Herring called the one-gun law a commonsense measure that never should have been repealed in the first place.

Virginias weak gun laws make it too easy for guns to get into the hands of criminals, making our families, communities, and especially our law enforcement officers less safe, not to mention the heartbreak and damage these guns cause in neighboring states, Herring said in a statement.

Virginia is the No. 1 supplier of guns in New York, outside of the state itself. Its also the largest supplier of guns to Washington, D.C., and other major cities and Northeastern states along Interstate 95.

The state is the eighth on a list of source states for all firearms trafficking, according to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe is looking for additional money to cushion Virginia's budget from the potential effects of actions taken or proposed by President Donald Trump in the first 68 days of his administration.

McAuliffe has proposed 27 amendments to the two-year budget adopted by the General Assembly last month, including restored spending on economic incentives to develop solar power and prepare students for jobs in security, but his top concern at a press conference today is potential damage to the state's economy by the new president's actions.

"The man has been a one-man wrecking crew for Virginia's economy," the governor said.

McAuliffe cited as evidence Trump's freeze on federal government hiring, likely cuts in military spending for operations and maintenance, and a budget proposal that, among other things, cuts federal support for environmental programs to restore the Chesapeake Bay.

"It was the craziest budget I've ever seen introduced," he said.

But the governor's biggest concern is what he called the growing likelihood that the federal government would operate on a continuing resolution after the federal fiscal year ends Sept. 30, leading to automatic cuts in federal spending under budget sequestration that would hit defense-heavy Virginia hard.

"That means sequestration is here to stay," he said. "That is very bad news for Virginia."

McAuliffe proposed in response to increase the unappropriated balance in the pending state budget from $3.6 million to $10.4 million, primarily using $5 million that he is seeking to cut from state funding for the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation's plans for commemorating the 400th anniversary of the so-called "Red Letter Year" in the Jamestown Colony in 2019.

The governor has tried repeatedly to cut state funding for the celebration from $10 million to $5 million, but Republican legislative leaders, many of whom sit on the foundation's board of directors, have restored the full funding every time. They're likely to block his attempted cut again next week when the General Assembly convenes for the so-called "veto session."

McAuliffe also challenged the legislature's budget direction to the state comptroller to withhold $1.5 million from the Virginia Economic Development Partnership until the chairmen of the budget committees direct him to disburse the funds to the agency, which came under heavy criticism last year after a scathing report by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission.

In his letter to the House of Delegates today, the governor noted, "the Virginia Constitution prohibits the General Assembly from delegating final legislative authority regarding budget or other enactments to a committee composed of a subset of the members of the General Assembly."

It is not the first time McAuliffe has clashed with Republican legislative leaders over executive prerogative. "Legislative control of an executive branch function is a violation of the separation of powers," spokesman Brian Coy said.

The Republican-controlled legislature also has rebuffed a number of the Democratic governor's proposals to increase spending on cyber security education and solar development, which remain top economic development priorities for him.

McAuliffe proposes to pay for more than $4 million new spending with savings from the planned closing of Peumansend Regional Jail in Caroline County, additional sales tax revenues from companies that stock goods in Virginia for internet sales, and reduced costs for state employee health insurance.

He also wants to accelerate screening of inmates at local and regional jails for mental illness within 72 hours of their admission, although he is not seeking to restore $4.2 million he had proposed for the initiative in response to unexplained deaths of mentally ill inmates in regional and local jails.

The governor proposes $442,500 for the State Compensation Board to develop staffing standards for carrying out the initiative. The budget adopted by the assembly also directs the board to review jail staffing standards, determine the cost of requiring the inmate assessments, and report its findings by Oct. 1.

Despite the lingering disagreements, McAuliffe praised the assembly for adopting what he called "a very strong budget" that includes raises for state employees, college faculty and teachers, sheriff's deputies and other state-supported local employees, as well as major boosts in funding for Virginia State Police and Capitol Police.

The governor said he didn't propose pay increases - instead he sought a one-time bonus that legislators rejected immediately - because he didn't have the additional three months of revenue data that legislators were able to review. State revenues were up 4.5 percent through February, compared to an annual forecast of 2.9 percent.

McAuliffe was especially heartened by income tax withheld from payroll - accounting for almost two-thirds of state revenue - which had been the primary reason for a revenue shortfall once projected last year at $1.5 billion. Payroll withholding rose 5 percent in the first eight months of the fiscal year. "That is a very big deal for us," he said.

McAuliffe deflected questions about a new poll in the governor's race that shows former Rep. Tom Perriello even with Lt. Gov. Ralph S. Northam, whom the governor supports, for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

"What matters to me is that a Democrat stays in this chair," he said.
CLEAR LAKE | A Clear Lake man armed himself with a "hatchet style hand-axe" after assaulting his girlfriend late Sunday, documents say.

Rusty Thorngren, 28, of Clear Lake, was arrested Sunday on a felony count of going armed with intent, two misdemeanor counts of criminal mischief and misdemeanor domestic violence.

He was initially arrested for suspicion of domestic violence.

Thorngren assaulted his girlfriend, used an expandable metal baton to damage her car and then walked toward her carrying an axe as well as the baton, according to court documents.

The woman fled to a nearby apartment building.

Police say this happened about 7:20 p.m. in the 600 block of 12th Avenue North in Clear Lake.

After his arrest, Thorngren allegedly kicked out the driver's side window of a squad car and damaged another police vehicle.

There was about $500 damage to the police vehicle.
MASON CITY | A man accused of threatening someone with a BB gun on a Mason City street in November received a deferred judgment Monday.

Jack Hovenga, 18, Mason City, was put on probation for five years. He also was ordered to spend 180 days at a residential correctional facility or until maximum benefits are achieved.

He is to pay a $125 surcharge and court costs.

2 accused of gun threat, harassment in Mason City MASON CITY  Two men accused of threatening someone with a gun Monday on a Mason City street

Hovenga displayed a BB gun to someone at about 8:30 a.m. on Nov. 28, according to police.

The incident took place at 112 N. Pennsylvania Ave., the address for KIMT-TV, the criminal complaint states.

Hovenga was found with suspected methamphetamine when being booked into the Cerro Gordo County Jail, according to police.

Hovenga entered a written plea of guilty in December to felony possession of contraband in a jail and misdemeanor charges of assault with a dangerous weapon and first-degree harassment with threat of a forcible felony.

If he successfully completes probation, all three convictions will be stricken from his record.

Brady Hunt, 36, Hampton, the driver of the vehicle Hovenga was in when he made the threat, received a suspended two-year prison sentence and was put on probation for two years in January after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of being an accessory to a felony.

Hunt also received a 30-day jail sentence for third-degree harassment.
OSAGE | An Osage woman accused of stealing money from her dependent mother has been sentenced to probation.

Marilyn Jo Spartz, 58, also received a suspended jail sentence and fine when she was sentenced last week for one count of third-degree theft.

Prosecutors reduced the charge from a felony to a misdemeanor in exchange for her guilty plea.

She was accused of using $2,315.50 of her mother's money on personal expenses, including gambling and paying for her boyfriend to come to Iowa, instead of for her mother's care.

The theft was discovered when her mother's health insurance company declined to pay medical bills, citing cancellation of her policy due to nonpayment.

The suspended jail sentence was for 30 days. Spartz also was sentenced to a suspended fine of $625.

 Molly Montag
De Beers develops new diamond verification tool De Beers Ignite division has developed a new diamond verification instrument, which is set to be launched early next year. The new instrument, part of the automated melee screening range, will enable automated and rapid verification of up to 3,600 diamonds...

Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo achieved CHF 4,083,500 / USD 4,092,075 for the George Daniels Spring Case Tourbillon The unique Spring Case Tourbillon in yellow gold, by the founding father of independent watchmaking, appeared at auction for the first time. After a three-minute bidding war, the watch soared above its pre-sale estimate of CHF 1 million, eventually selling...

UAE to Chair Kimberley Process in 2024 DMCC has announced that the UAE will be appointed Chair of the Kimberley Process in 2024, assuming the role as Vice-Chair in 2023. The decision follows the deliberations at the Kimberley Process Plenary meeting in Gaborone, Botswana that concluded on...

Mountain Province Diamonds provided further information regarding planned notes refinancing Mountain Province Diamonds Inc announced that it has executed a non-binding term sheet with certain holders of its 8.000% Senior Secured Second Lien Notes due 2022, including entities ultimately beneficially owned by the Company's largest beneficial...
CLARION | Alphine (Peterson) Bennett, 87, of Clarion, died Saturday, March 25, 2017, at the Iowa Specialty Hospital in Clarion.

Memorial services will be held at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, March 29, at First Lutheran Church, Clarion, with Pastor Bill Kem officiating.

There will be no burial at this time.

Visitation will be held from 5-7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 28, at First Lutheran Church, Clarion, and will continue one hour prior to services at the church on Wednesday.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Gateway Hospice of Clarion.

Ewing Funeral Home, Clarion.
Botswana Diamonds said its ongoing joint venture with Alrosa will begin its seventh fieldwork programme in April.

Company chairperson John Teeling said the focus remained on the Orapa and Gope regions of Botswana.

The intensive and extensive exploration programme on PL 260 in Orapa did not produce the desired results, he said.

A proposal exists to drill the remaining known kimberlite on the block, AK 23. There are ongoing discussions between Alrosa and the Companys specialists regarding the optimal way to proceed.

Beginning in April, a team of Alrosa geologists, geophysicists and mineralogists will undertake sampling and geophysical studies on four licences, PL 260 in Orapa, PL 135, 235 and 234 in the Gope area.

Meanwhile, Teeling said Botswana Diamonds had completed a drilling programme on PL 186 in the Kalahari Desert on the Maibwe ground.

He said the company had identified the locations of the previously drilled holes where significant quantities of diamonds were discovered.

We drilled three reverse circulation percussion holes in the immediate area to assess the accuracy of the earlier results. Samples are going for analysis, said Teeling.

He, however, said that work on the Maibwe joint venture had been severely delayed due to the liquidation of BCL, the main shareholder and operator.

After extensive discussions with the two remaining shareholders, FutureMinerals and Siseko (51% BOD) it was agreed that Botswana Diamonds would fund a verification drilling programme, he said.

Drilling deep inside the inaccessible Kalahari Desert is challenging but it was successfully accomplished by a Botswana Diamonds team. Analysis will take up to 2 months.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished




Rio Tinto has appointed Patrick Boitumelo as President and Chief operating officer, Diavik Diamond Mines as per a press note from the company.

Patrick has extensive operational, stakeholder management and corporate strategy experience at a senior level across a number of businesses in the mining industry, including diamonds, soda ash and salts, nickel, iron ore, copper and copper by-products. Most recently he was general manager of engineering and projects at Kennecott Utah Copper in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

Rio Tinto Copper & Diamonds managing director operations Nigel Steward said Patrick brings a wealth of experience to Diavik at an important time in its development, as we work towards safely bringing the A21 production on stream, alongside our existing underground mining operations.

Patrick said I am delighted to lead Diavik Diamond Mines and I look forward to working with the team and our business partners to deliver superior value to all our stakeholders. Patrick will relocate to Yellowknife and commence his appointment at the end of July 2017.



Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished




Dominion Diamond Corporation and Stornoway Diamond Corporation have held discussions over a merger, Reuters reported last week.

Meanwhile, earlier Dominion dismissed a separate takeover offer from the Washington Companies.

The merger talks cover the possibility of Stornoway chief executive officer Matt Manson filling the soon-to-be vacant CEO role at Dominion, the report said. Discussions started in January, Reuters cited one source as saying, adding that another said talks were still ongoing.

A union between the two would combine three significant mining assets in Canada under one roof, with Stornoway having opened the Renard mine in Quebec last October. Dominion owns the Ekati deposit in the Northwest Territories and has a 40-percent stake in the regions Diavik deposit.

Dominion confirmed it has entered ongoing discussions with Washington Companies that had approached the miner with a proposal for a $1,1 billion takeover. Dominion declined the offer as opportunistic and undervaluing the company.



Theodor Lisovoy, Rough&Polished, Moscow




The Surat diamond polishers association has threatened to protest against the municipal corporation if it did not keep the units out of the purview of professional tax, says a report in Indian Express.

The Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) has been collecting professional tax from diamond units for the last couple of years. In the last few days, it has served notices over outstanding tax payment to a number of factory owners.

SDA president Dinesh Navadia said they had written to Chief Minister Vijay Rupani a month ago. We urged him to direct the SMC to charge professional tax only on the employees who were on fixed salaries like managers and office staffers. The diamond polishers regularly switch their jobs. Hence, we want the SMC to keep them out of the purview of professional tax. We will again hold a meeting with the state government in the coming days.



Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished




Lucapa Diamond, which acquired a 70 percent stake in the Mothae mining project in Lesotho last January, said an independent estimate shows that the mine holds 1.04 million carats of diamond resources, with a grade of 2.7 carats per 100 tonnes of ore.

The estimate carried out by the MSA Group also revealed that Mothae contained mineral resources worth an estimated $1,063 per carat.

It said the consultant noted that there was an upside potential for the average diamond value based on the model value of large stones.

The kimberlite project was previously said to have an indicated and inferred resource of 1 million carats and an inferred resource valuation of $1 billion.

Trial mining had identified that Mothae hosts large Type IIa diamonds, including individual stones up to 254 carats, as well as gem quality diamonds that have sold for up to $41,500 a carat.

Lucapa was last week registered as a 70 percent shareholder in Mothae Diamonds Limited (MDL), which holds the mining licence and other assets related to the advanced Mothae Kimberlite diamond project.

This followed the issuance of a new 10-year mining licence to MDL for Mothae.

Lucapa had also made the first $400,000 payment to the government of Lesotho for its stake in MDL.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished




FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. | Mason City Interim Superintendent Mike Penca has been selected as superintendent of Flagstaff Unified School District.

The districts governing board announced Saturday it had entered into negotiations with Penca, 43, who was one of two finalists interviewed by the board, staff and students in Flagstaff Wednesday.

Pencas one-year, $163,000 contract in Mason City expires June 30. He expects to start July 3 in Flagstaff.

Im honored for this new opportunity, look forward to some new adventures for my wife, my family and I, both professionally and personally, Penca said Monday. Its a big change  Im excited for new learning and new challenges.

Penca said he and his family visited Flagstaff during a trip to the Grand Canyon 10 years ago, and were attracted to the beauty of the community and what it offered.

I said, 'When I retire, I want to live here, he said.

Penca  who has worked in Mason City for 22 years as a teacher, principal and administrator -- said he is grateful the School Board chose him to be Mason Citys leader the past year.

He was promoted last June following the departure of former superintendent Anita Micich and was a finalist this winter for the permanent job, which was offered to Dave Versteeg, who has been superintendent of Montezuma Schools in southeastern Iowa for a decade.

Without that experience, I wouldnt be in the position Im in now, Penca said. Im well-prepared for the next new challenge.

Located among mountains and Ponderosa pine forests, Flagstaff has about 70,000 residents.

FUSD has about 10,000 students, 1,200 employees and 15 schools, one of which is a trilingual magnet school offering a Navajo Immersion Language Program as well as Spanish-English bilingual program. In comparison, Mason City has more than 3,700 students and 600 staff members.

While were different in landscape  they have mountains and we have flat and cornfields  a lot of things are the same, Penca said. They have quality teachers working with kids and are very big into STEM education and technology, like we have been.

Penca said there is more competition for education in Arizona through charter schools and vouchers. At FUSD, that means magnet programs, an AP academy, outdoor learning and bilingual education.

While he expected to stay in Mason City much longer, Penca said North Iowa will remain a special place for his family.

Mason City has been our home for over 20 years, he said. It will always be a special place, and well return to visit family and friends.

His wife, Kristine, a longtime Mason City educator currently teaching fifth grade at Lincoln Intermediate, plans to continue her career in Arizona.

She was impressed by how much they love their schools, programs, teachers and kids, Penca said. It will be a great place for her to work, as well.

Penca beat out the other finalist, Frank Chiapetti, who was the superintendent of Gallup McKinley County Schools in New Mexico.

Current FUSD Interim Superintendent Dave Dirksen was not included in the list of finalists by a 3-2 vote of the governing board.
Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, has launched a company called Neuralink Corp, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Neuralink is pursuing what Musk calls the "neural lace" , implanting tiny brain electrodes that may one day upload and download thoughts, the Journal reported citing people familiar with the matter.

Although, Musk has not made an official announcement, Neuralink has been registered in California as a "medical research" company last July. Musk intends to funding the company mostly by himself.

Musk has hinted at the existence of Neuralink a few times over the last six months or so. In a reply to a tweet asking about the progress of "the neural lace and augmented/enhanced intelligence thing," in August 2016, he tweeted "@BelovedRevol Making progress. Maybe something to announce in a few months. Have played all prior Deus Ex. Not this one yet."

More recently, Musk told a crowd in Dubai, "Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence." He added that "it's mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output."

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
U.K.-based insurer Aviva PLC is looking to sell Friends Provident International Ltd. in a deal that could fetch up to $750 million, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the situation.

Aviva reportedly has received a number of pre-emptive offers for the unit. However, a formal bidding process is yet to start.

Chinese conglomerates Fosun Group and HNA Group are among those evaluating the unit, the report noted.

Aviva's Friends Provident unit serves high-net-worth clients in Asia and the Middle East. The company bought the in April 2015, as part of a 5.6 billion pounds or $8.8 billion deal to acquire Friends Life Group Ltd.

Based in the Isle of Man, Friends Provident provides life assurance and investment products to global expatriate and domestic affluent customers in Hong Kong, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and other selected .

In its full-year 2016 financial report, the company noted that Friends Provident is under strategic review. Aviva's gross operating profit in Asia dropped 4% year over year in 2016, compared with a 12% increase in gross operating profit globally.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
E-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN) announced Tuesday that it has reached an agreement to acquire SOUQ.com, a Middle East -based e-commerce company. Subject to closing conditions, the acquisition is expected to close in 2017.

The acquisition is expected to enable SOUQ.com to continue growing while working with Amazon to bring even more products and offerings to customers worldwide.

"Amazon and SOUQ.com share the same DNA - we're both driven by customers, invention, and long-term thinking," said

Russ Grandinetti, Amazon Senior Vice President, International Consumer, noted that SOUQ.com pioneered e-commerce in the Middle East

SOUQ.com CEO and Co-Founder Ronaldo Mouchawar, said, "We are guided by many of the same principles as Amazon, and this acquisition is a critical next step in growing our e-commerce presence on behalf of customers across the region. By becoming part of the Amazon family, we'll be able to vastly expand our delivery capabilities and customer selection much faster, as well as continue Amazon's great track record of empowering sellers."

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Breitbart News' request for permanent congressional press passes was denied on Monday, citing concerns about the website's links to the White House and the Republican mega-donor family the Mercers.

The U.S. Senate Daily Press Gallery, comprised of a group of five reporters, denied the Capitol Hill press credentials saying members were not satisfied with the given information about its connections.

The Standing Committee of the Senate Press Gallery put the request on hold. As per reports, they need more answers on whether top White House adviser Steve Bannon has severed ties with the conservative website. President Donald Trump's chief strategist Bannon had once run Breitbart News.

In a letter seeking permanent press credentials, Breitbart president and CEO Larry Solov confirmed that Bannon resigned from the news site in November 2016. Solov added that Bannon "has no editorial, executive, financial or other role or interest" in Breitbart.

Meanwhile, the committee reportedly noted that there was no proof that Bannon had cut all ties. The committee requested more information on Breitbart's leadership, as well as on when and how Bannon left the site.

The Board members also wanted to clarify conservative donor and President Trump supporter Rebekah Mercer's role in the news outlet.

The committee asked Breitbart officials to provide the requested information by April 18. The committee reportedly will meet again to consider credentials on April 25.

Breitbart News, meanwhile, was granted temporary passes as the committee waits for additional information.

The congressional passes are generally the first step for getting other important press passes, including for the White House and political events.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
An ambassadorial level meeting between NATO and the Russian government will take place on March 30 at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

This was announced by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Tuesday.

He said he invited the ambassadors to the meeting after consultations with the members of the NATO-Russia Council.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
Nearly four months after his teenage daughter was killed in a car crash, a Loudoun County man was shocked to get a letter from the Tennessee Department of Transportation that billed his dead daughter nearly $3,000 to replace the guardrail that killed her.

Steven Eimers, whose daughter Hannah died in a car crash on November 1, 2016, received a $2,970 bill from TDOT, dated February 24 and addressed to Hannah. The bill asked to cover the costs for replacing 25 feet of guardrail at the scene of the car crash.

Steven has refused to pay the bill and alleges that the model of guardrail end involved in the death of Hannah is "horribly designed and dangerous."

TDOT spokesman Mark Nagi told the Knoxville News Sentinel that bill was the result of "a mistake somewhere in processing," and that the department "greatly apologizes for it."

Nagi added that TDOT will send another letter to the Eimers family to explain the error and assured that the family does not have to pay the fee.

According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, Hannah Eimers, 17, was driving her father's 2000 Volvo S80 on Interstate 75 North near Niota when the car left the road, traveled into the median and hit the end of the guardrail on the driver's side door.

But instead of deflecting the car or collapsing like a telescope upon impact, the guardrail end impaled the car and struck Hannah in the head and chest. She was pushed into the back seat and died instantly.

The Knoxville News Sentinel reported that the specific type of guardrail end, a Lindsay X-Lite, was removed from the state's list of approved products just a week before Hannah's car crash.

This meant that TDOT would stop installing new guardrails of this type, rather than removing the allegedly faulty, roughly 1,000 guardrail ends on Tennessee roads.

X-Lite was removed from the state's list due to concerns about how the guardrail would perform if impacted at speeds higher than 100 kph or 62.2 mph.

Meanwhile, Steven said he has been invited to a state House hearing and is anticipating a meeting with the governor. He added that he would like federal oversight on this "extraordinarily deadly device."

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Beverage giant Coca-Cola had to shut down its plant at Lisburn, Ireland after night shift workers discovered human waste in a shipment of drinks cans.

PSNI have launched an investigation in to how the human waste ended up in the cans at the Helllenic Bottling Company factory in Lisburn, Co Antrim. Coca-Cola said it was also probing the matter with the officials. The company said that the products currently on sale were not affected.

In a statement, the company spokesman said, "Coca-Cola takes the safety and quality of our products extremely seriously."

A PSNI spokesman said: "Detectives are investigating an incident at commercial premises in the Lisburn area following reports that a consignment of containers delivered to the premises had been contaminated. The investigation is at an early stage and there are no further details available at this time."

The cans arrived at the factory without tops, to be filled with the soda drink before they are sealed and sold across Northern Ireland.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
By SA Commercial Prop News - SAPA

Passenger Railway Agency of SA (Prasa) signs the first phase of a projected R123 billion contract towards the upgrading of the South Africa's railways and trains.



The Passenger Railway Agency of SA (Prasa) has signed the first phase of a projected R123 billion contract towards the upgrading of the country's railways and trains, it said on Monday.

"Through the rolling stock programme, [Prasa] is in the process to procure approximately 7224 new rolling stock with a projected investment of R123 billion over 20 years," spokesman Moffet Mofokeng said in a statement.

The first phase, worth R51bn, was signed with Gibela (led by French multinational Alstom) for the supply of 600 passenger trains to be delivered between years 2015 and 2025, Mofokeng said.

"The contract... includes the construction of a local manufacturing facility. In addition to this contract, Gibela will provide technical support and supply of spare parts over an 18-year period."

The manufacturing site would be built in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg, to produce the trains. Construction was to start early next year.

Ageing trains currently in service in the country's major cities would be replaced with 1200 electric trains over a period of 20 years.

The contract was signed in Sandton, Johannesburg at an event attended by President Jacob Zuma and French President Francois Hollande.

Alstom was said to be proud to be selected for the project and expressed unwavering commitment.

"We believe our trains will set a high standard in serving the interests of commuters, company head Henri Poupart-Lafarge was quoted as saying.

One of the trains to be built was the 'X'Trapolis Mega' developed to fit the country's tracks.

"The train can travel at speeds of up to 120km/h with the ability to be upgraded to 160 km/h. Each single-deck train is composed of six cars and is able to carry more than 1300 passengers," Mofokeng said.

"The project will create over 1500 direct jobs in the local factory and 33,000 indirect jobs over the first 10 years."
By SA Commercial Prop News - I-Net Bridge

Tsogo Sun Chairman, Johnny Copelyn slammed NUM, saying the union had done a similar deal at gaming company Peermont Global, which owns the Emperors Palace casino near OR Tambo airport, and other assets.



The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said it was unhappy after the gambling and hotel company, Tsogo Sun, which decided to give R200 million unsecured loan to five of its executives on an interest-free basis.

The Union called on its peer unions the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union and the Food and Allied Workers Union to fight Tsogo Sun and ensure that not only a "few rich individuals" were empowered.

These executives will use the cash to buy about 7.6-million Tsogo Sun shares.

The National Union of Mineworkers said it was disgusted.



It cant be an empowerment just for a few people, NUM spokesman Livhuwani Mammburu said this week.



What makes this skirmish particularly interesting is that Tsogo Sun director Marcel Golding, former deputy general secretary of the NUM, supports the R200-million loan.



Speaking this week, Tsogo chairman Johnny Copelyn slammed NUM, saying the union had done a similar deal at gaming company Peermont Global, which owns the Emperors Palace casino near OR Tambo airport, and other assets.



It is absolutely no different to a transaction they themselves did at Peermont where they cut the management into a deal to take Peermont private some years ago without involving any of that companys employees, he said.



Copelyn said that unlike in Tsogos case, the Peermont managers who benefitted in that case did not take the debt personally, so they had no downside on the under performance of the share.



Sasha Naryshkine, a director at Vestact Asset Management, said there was nothing wrong with Tsogo Suns loan: Were not all equal. Life isnt fair.



Marcel von Aulock [Tsogo Sun CEO] didnt get where he is by doing nothing.



The loan was split unevenly between Von Aulock (R86-million), CFO Rob Huddy (R27-million), HR director Vusi Dlamini (R20-million), Tsogo Sun Gaming MD Jacques Booysen (R47million) and legal director Graham Tyrrell (R20-million).



At the vote on Tuesday, which lasted all of 30 minutes, the lone dissenting voice was that of perennial corporate-governance activist Theo Botha.



He asked Copelyn why the loan had not been extended to more executives as there was a chance that perceived favouritism could create dissent in the top echelon of the companys leadership .



Copelyns view was that this would have been unaffordable as the next grade of executive management consisted of 40 people. Copelyn said that since the five executives who received the loan had to give up their involvement in the previous phantom  share scheme, animosity from the next tier of executives was unlikely.



The phantom-share scheme involves the directors being given pretend shares, where they benefit from any increase in the share price. A phantom scheme is a win-win as situation as they stand to make only the positive difference between what the share price was initially, and the price when the stock is sold.



If the share price drops, nothing needs to be paid in.



But in Tsogo Suns new loan scheme, if the shares lose value when the five directors cash out, they will still be forced to pay the difference as the full loan must be repaid.



This executive incentive scheme is one of the sideshows in a much wider deal, in which South African Breweries will sell its 435 million shares in Tsogo Sun  equating to about 40% of the company.



One of the consequences of this deal is that Tsogos largest shareholder, black-empowerment conglomerate Hosken Consolidated Investments, will see its shareholding increase from 41% to almost 48% in the gaming company.



The deal was done in two tranches. In the first, R294-million placing shares were sold to enthusiastic institutional investors at R25.75, giving SAB R7.6-billion.



In the second part of the deal, Tsogo Sun bought back, and then cancelled 134million shares at R21, amounting to R2.8-billion. This deal will be finalised early next month.



Tsogo Sun, which has a market cap of R32-billion, was trading at R27.15 on Friday  just below the R28.11 which KPMG said was fair and reasonable.
By SA Commercial Prop News

The Gauteng provincial government is considering turning its unoccupied, unused commercial properties into sites for small businesses in township areas, according to economic development MEC Lebogang Maile.



The Gauteng provincial government is considering turning its unoccupied, unused commercial properties into sites for small businesses in township areas, according to economic development MEC Lebogang Maile.

Even before its assets registration process has been completed, the Gauteng provincial government has already identified more than 37,000 properties, many of which it is looking to offer to township businesses.

Economic development MEC Lebogang Maile told residents of Reiger Park in Ekurhuleni at an economic development road show, which was also attended by Premier David Makhura.



Reiger Park has been in the news over the recent murder of two young boys. On Sunday police were trying to identify the partially burnt body of a child found on a mine dump. Last month four-year-old Taegrin Morris died after being dragged behind his familys car after it was hijacked.



Mr Makhura yesterday said a team of social cluster MECs would be in Reiger Park today to assess the state of social infrastructure and standard of services from police, hospitals and schools.



It also emerged that the Gauteng provincial government is considering turning its unoccupied, unused properties into sites for small businesses in township areas.



We have 65 townships and some of these have been identified as big impact townships and exist on the margins of big economies. These areas have lots of activity which if supported can address unemployment and poverty, he said.



Mr Makhura cited research from the University of Johannesburg, saying the economy of Reiger Park was potentially worth R2bn, and that of Diepsloot close to R1.8bn.



Last month Gauteng infrastructure development MEC Nandi Mayathula-Khoza said while a number of buildings owned by the provincial government were already being leased to nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and small businesses, the department was looking for ways to utilise some of its vacant properties.



Mr Maile said the idea of leasing unoccupied buildings to small businesses was in line with the African National Congresss election promise to build the economy and create jobs. Many of our (small businesses) are operating from yards and garages. People dont have space to operate their business. It is important to look at infrastructure.



Mr Maile said the provincial government needed to investigate how to convert government buildings not being utilised into facilities for business such as office parks. We also have industrial areas which are abandoned. We want to revitalise those so that communities have the opportunity to build their businesses there and do a range of things.



Mr Makhura said although the provincial government could intervene in township economies, it was up to Reiger Park residents to revitalise their own local economy by participating in it and supporting local businesses.



Ms Mayathula-Khoza said the provinces asset register could help the provincial government to generate revenue through advertising as well as rental accommodation of small businesses and NGOs.
Reliance Group Chairman Anil Ambani has been inducted on the international advisory board of global think-tank Atlantic Council that has among its members former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew K. Brzezinski and former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the company said on Tuesday.

"The Atlantic Council today (March 28) announced the induction of Anil Ambani to its International Advisory Board -- a prominent group of global corporate and political leaders," the Reliance Group said in a statement.



"I am delighted to welcome my good friend and colleague Anil formally to join our team. The Atlantic Council's presence in South Asia and in particular India is growing at a rapid pace and Anil's presence on our board could not be more timely," former Utah Governor and Chairman of the Atlantic Council Jon M. Huntsman said.



"I am delighted to accept Jon's invitation to join the Advisory Board of Atlantic Council, which is undoubtedly America's leading and most influential think tank on global strategic affairs. This is a clear recognition by the Council of India's growing geopolitical influence under Prime Minister Modi's visionary and transformational leadership," Ambani said.





The Atlantic Council is a foreign policy think-tank headquartered in Washington, DC.



Among the 10 regional and thematic centres, the Atlantic Council's South Asia Centre manages sustainable and innovative programmes that are focused on fostering development and cooperation.



Other members of the Board include former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt and former NATO Secretary General Geoge Robertson.



Among business leaders, the Board includes Airbus Group CEO Thomas Enders, 21st Century Fox Ceo Rupert Murdoch, Blackstone Group CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman and Lockheed Martin Corporation Chairman Marillyn A. Hewson.
Four men were arrested here with demonetised notes of the face value of Rs 3.98 crore, the Bengaluru police said on Tuesday.

"The accused, Nanjunda, 46, Ambrose, 46, and Arif Pasha, 34, from Bengaluru and Felix, 35, from Kerala, were arrested and the old currency notes have been seized from them," Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) S. Ravi told reporters here.

The four persons were arrested under Section 7 of the Specified Bank Notes (Cessation of Liabilities) Act, 2017, which entails six-month imprisonment.

"On tip-off, the City Crime Branch (CCB) police arrested the four men and seized a car parked in front of a lodge in southern suburb. The accused had kept the banned notes in the car to exchange for new notes," Ravi said.

On March 23, two men were arrested here with demonetised notes of the face value of Rs 1.28 crore which they were attempting to exchange for new notes.
Chaitra Navratri, which began on Tuesday, March 28, is celebrated to worship nine different forms of Goddess Durga - Shailputri, Brahmacharini, Chandraghanta, Kushmanda, Skanda Mata, Katyayani, Kalratri, Maha Gauri and Siddhidatri. And Goddess Shailputri is worshiped on the first day. During this festival, devotees observe fast in the name of the deity and sing bhajans while offering prayers to the nine avatars of the goddess of power. On the first day of the Chaitra Navratri festival, devotees offer prayers to Maa Shailputri also referred to as Goddess Partvati.
Producers Vashu Bhagnani and Deepshika Deshmukh have roped in international filmographer Corey Geryak for their upcoming untitled venture stars veteran actor-choreographer Prabhudheva and actress Tamannaah Bhatia.

Geryak is known for his work on projects like "Ted 2", "Dark Knight" and "Inception" among many others. He says it's a pleasure for him to collaborate with Bhagnani for the film.



"It was a pleasure to collaborate with (film's director) Chakri Toleti and Vashu Bhagnani on the film. Chakri is a talented director possessing an exceptional visual sense of storytelling. Prabhudheva and Tamannaah are wonderful actors and a joy to work with," Geryak said in a statement.

Deshmukh praised Geryak and the Indo-American director Toleti, who is helming the film.



"It's great to have a sound technical team in place - the director Chakri Toleti himself is technically so brilliant to top it we have Corey Geryak, who is a sound filmographer, I have seen some shots of the film and it looks stellar nothing short of an international film," she said.



The film is a remake of Tamil film "Kolaiyuthir Kaalam".
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Monday called for an amicable solution to the Shiv Sena's demand for removal of the blanket ban imposed by airlines on its MP Ravindra Gaikwad after he allegedly assaulted an Air India Duty Manager last week.

Mahajan told reporters after a meeting with Shiv Sena MPs that the issue should be resolved through talks.

"MPs need to attend Parliament and they can't travel always by train. At times, they need to travel by plane also. I feel this issue should be resolved amicably through talks," she said.

Mahajan said she would not pass a judgment and was just trying to help resolve the issue.

"As of now, everybody is angry. It is time to calm down. How the ban could be lifted needs to be discussed and resolved amicably," she said.

She also noted that no one should misbehave with another person.

Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju also joined the meeting later.

Gaikwad, who represents Osmanabad in Maharashtra, on Thursday repeatedly beat up the Air India official with a slipper after he was made to travel in Economy Class from Pune to Delhi despite holding a Business Class ticket.

There was no Business Class in the flight. The incident happened when flight AI852 from Pune reached Delhi around 10.30 a.m.

Air India later refused to fly him and other airlines followed suit. An FIR was also registered against the Sena MP.
The Gujarat state assembly elections will have one more star campaigner in newly-anointed Uttar Pradesh Aditya Nath Yogi ' title='Chief Minister Aditya Nath Yogi '>Chief Minister Aditya Nath Yogi to canvass for the ruling BJP, which is seeking a sixth re-election to power in a row since 1995.

Confirming that the firebrand Yogi will campaign in Gujarat, state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Jitu Vaghani said: "All chief ministers of our party across the country have been invited to campaign and Yogi ji will also be there."



State party spokesperson Bharat Pandya added that the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister campaigning in Gujarat would help the party immensely.



He said: "Yogi ji's work as Chief Minister is being discussed and appreciated not just at the national level but even at the international level. So, his coming to Gujarat for campaigning will definitely help the BJP."



Pandya said Uttar Pradesh is the largest state in the country in terms of population and developments there have massive impact in all other states.



The BJP spokesperson, however, was quick to add that there was no replacement of Modi. "Ever since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister, it has been a matter of pride for people in Gujarat and for us...Modi wave itself is enough," Pandya said.

The opposition Congress asserted that the BJP was trying to play its old game of communal polarisation by calling Yogi to canvass. Party spokesperson Himanshu Patel said it would not help the BJP this time around.



"People are fed up of the BJP rule and all issues like atrocities against Dalits, women, Patels, farmers and contract employees of the government will go against it," he said.
A youth was killed when he was hit by a bullet in Budgam district of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday where a gunfight is continuing between the security forces and militants.

"The youth identified as Zahid Rashid Ganai died when he was hit by a bullet near the Durbugh village gunfight site," a police official said.



"He was shifted to hospital for treatment following the bullet injury, but died later," he added.



Security forces on a specific information about presence of militants surrounded Durbugh village in Chadoora area of Budgam district early Tuesday.



As the security forces closed in on the house where the militants were hiding, they were fired upon, which triggered a gunfight, the official said.

Protests erupted in the area during the gunfight.



Protesting youths also pelted stones at a paramilitary CRPF vehicles at Nagam village, three km away from Durbugh village.



The CRPF vehicles were on their way to augment the strength of the security forces engaged in the gunfight.
Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat arrived in Kathmandu on Tuesday on a four-day official visit.

Rawat will be conferred the honorary rank of General of the Nepal Army by Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari on Wednesday, defence officials said here.



It is a custom and tradition between the Indian and Nepali armies to confer this honour on each other's chiefs to signify close and special military-to-military ties.



General Rawat will also discuss bilateral military ties and other aspects of cooperation during his meeting with Nepali Army chief General Rajendra Chhetri.





Rawat is also scheduled to meet Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Defence Minister Bal Krishna Khand and will visit Pokhara, where India's biggest pension camp is located, and travel to Muktinath where Nepal Army runs a high-altitude military warfare training centre.



Other highlights of his visit will be issues related to purchasing military hardware and software for the Nepal Army.



Nepal makes almost all military and defence purchases from India, including helicopters.
The Rajya Sabha was on Tuesday adjourned four times amid protests from the opposition over delay in filling up of vacancies in the statutory commission for minorities, SCs, STs and OBCs.

Soon after the House assembled for the day, the proceedings were adjourned first for 10 minutes till 11.25 a.m.



When the House reconvened, Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said the process for filling vacancies was on. However, opposition members continued their protest so the House was adjourned for the second time till 12 noon.

Later, the Rajya Sabha was adjourned for the third time till 12.30 p.m, and again for the fourth time till 2 p.m.
Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav on Tuesday alleged a "deep conspiracy" behind changing the name of the National Commission for Backward Classes and said the government was running away from discussion on the subject.

"There is a deep conspiracy behind changing the name of the Backward Classes Commission. Now the government will decide which castes would remain in the backward category, and that too without any survey," Yadav told reporters outside Parliament.



The government has said that the National Commission for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes would replace the National Commission for Backward Classes.



The Rajya Sabha has been seeing repeated adjournments over the issue since Monday. On Tuesday, too, the upper House was adjourned over the issue.



"There is a conspiracy in this against a large section of population, against the backwards," he added.





Yadav said the backward castes were decided on the basis of an extensive survey by the Mandal Commission, but the present government wants to deprive certain castes of the benefits of reservation.



He said the Narendra Modi government has not been making new appointments to the vacant posts in various Commissions for the marginalised, such as the Backward Classes Commission and National Minorities Commission.



"There are no chairpersons, no members in many of these Commissions for a long time now. We are asking the government when these positions will be filled and why the name of the Commission has been changed. We want a discussion on these issues but the government is not ready for discussion. Hence there is disruption in the House," Yadav said.
The Rajya Sabha was on Tuesday adjourned repeatedly as opposition members protested delay in filling up of vacancies in the statutory commissions for minorities, SCs, STs and OBCs. The upper house was finally adjourned for the day.

Soon after the house assembled for the day, the proceedings were adjourned first for 10 minutes till 11.25 a.m. as opposition members raised the issue of delay in filling up of vacancies.



When the house reconvened, Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said the process for filling vacancies was on. However, opposition members continued their protest and the house was adjourned for the second time till noon.



Later, it was adjourned for the third time till 12.30 p.m, and again for the fourth time till 2 p.m.



When the house met after lunch, the opposition members demanded a discussion under Rule 267 on the topic and sought an assurance from the government to fill up the vacancies within a week.





However, the Chair did not accept any of the four notices given under Rule 267.



But the opposition members insisted on a discussion and trooped to the Chairman's podium.



Deputy Chairman P.J. Kurien proposed to take up the discussion on Wednesday post-lunch but the members did not agree.



Kurien then adjourned the house for the day.



Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was scheduled to reply to the discussion on the Finance Bill 2017 at 3.30 p.m.




Union HRD Minister Javadekar ' title=' Prakash Javadekar '>Prakash Javadekar said on Tuesday that Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) got the best university award for its good work and not for the controversy last year during which the Vice Chancellor was taken hostage.

"Recently JNU was given best university award. This was not given for making the Vice Chancellor hostage but for the good works done by the university. These good works don't come into the limelight," Javadekar said in the Lok Sabha while concluding the debate on the National Institutes of Technology, Science Education and Research (Second Amendment) Bill, 2016.

Javadekar's remarks came after Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge objected to the Minister's reference of vacancies in JNU.

Pointing out to the vacancies of professors in JNU, Javadekar said: "There are over 100 vacancies for SCs/STs in JNU while around 25 posts of disabled professors are vacant since long ago."

Kharge objected to it saying, not only in JNU but several posts are lying vacant in Central Universities, and the minister should respond to such vacancies.

"I know why you are raking up JNU only," Kharge said.

JNU, which has been at the centre of controversies for over a year, has bagged the annual 'Visitor's Award' for the best varsity in the country.

Students of JNU had in October last year staged protests outside the administrative Block, forcing the Vice-Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar and Rectors to remain confined inside the building, over the disappearance of student Najeeb Ahmed.

Earlier, three of its students were arrested on sedition charges in connection with an event on the campus during which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised.

Responding to members' queries, Javadekar said that vacancies in universities are a serious issue and there are many reasons for it.

"There are vacancies in central universities, state universities and also in private universities. We are trying to constitute a dynamic platform where all vacancies will be exhibited on our website," he said.

The Minister said that for filling up the vacancies the government needs to create an atmosphere where students prefer to be teachers and professors.

''We need to create interest among students so they could prefer this profession," he said.

Javadekar said that whenever he visited any university, he always asked students: "Who wants to be a teacher? Who wants to be a professor?"

"Recently I visited an IIT where I asked the same question to students. I was very happy when majority of students said they want to join the teaching line," he said.

He also expressed concern over the cases of suicides on campuses.

"Even a single case of suicide in campuses is unfortunate," the minister said.

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A militant was killed in a gunfight in Jammu and Kashmir's Budgam district on Tuesday while three local youth protesting the operation were also killed, officials said.

Defence ministry spokesman, Col. Rajesh Kalia told reporters here that the gunfight in Durbugh village of Budgam's Chadoora area ended in the afternoon when the lone militant holed up inside a house was killed.

"The body of the slain militant and his weapon have been recovered from the site of the gunfight which has ended," he said.

A soldier was also injured in the gunfight that lasted for nearly 10 hours.

Three youth identified as Zahid Rashid Ganai, Saqib Ahmed and Ishfaq Ahmed Wani were killed when security forces opened fire on local residents protesting the operation.

The three youth were seriously injured and shifted to hospital where they succumbed to their injuries.

Acting on specific information about presence of militants, security forces surrounded Durbugh village but as they closed in on the house where the militants were hiding, they were fired upon, sparking of the gunfight, the official said.

Protests erupted in the area during the gunfight.

Protesting youths also pelted stones at vehicles of the Central Reserve Police Force at Nagam village, three km away from Durbugh, as they were bringing troopers to augment the security forces engaged in the gunfight.

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The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday witnessed repeated disruptions as opposition members protested the delay in filling the vacancies in statutory commissions for different castes, tribes and minorities. The upper house was finally adjourned for the day around 3 p.m.

Soon after the house assembled in the morning, proceedings were adjourned first for 10 minutes till 11.25 a.m., and later till 12 noon as opposition members repeatedly raised the issue.

Samajwadi Party's Ram Gopal Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati raised the issue during the Zero Hour.

Yadav said the government idea behind renaming of the National Commission for Backward Classes was to "target certain castes by excluding them from the list of backward castes".

Mayawati asked the government whether it planned to wind up all the statutory commissions.

Ministers M. Venkaiah Naidu and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi stood up to defend the government.

"All commissions are functioning. All of them (vacanicies) are going to be filled up... it is wrong to question the government's intentions," Naidu said amid the din.

But opposition members continued their protest and the house was adjourned for 10 minutes.

When the house reconvened, the opposition members again created a ruckus and streamed near the Chairman's podium. The house was adjourned for the second time till noon.

Later, it was adjourned for the third time till 12.30 p.m, and again till 2 p.m.

During the Question Hour, Naqvi pointed out amid the din that the process of making appointments to the commissions was on and the delay occurred due to the Model Code of Conduct in force due to elections to five state assemblies.

"This is not the first time that appointments to these commissions have been delayed. There are too many earlier instances when appointments have been delayed by six months to a year," Naqvi said.

When the house met after lunch, the opposition members demanded a discussion under Rule 267 on the topic and sought an assurance from the government on filling the vacancies within a week.

However, the Chair did not accept any of the four notices given under Rule 267.

The opposition insisted on a discussion and again trooped near the Chairman's podium.

Deputy Chairman P.J. Kurien proposed to take up the discussion on Wednesday post-lunch but the members did not agree.

Kurien then adjourned the house for the day.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was scheduled to reply to the discussion on the Finance Bill, 2017, at 3.30 p.m.
A six-day-old baby was hospitalised in a critical condition on Monday after she, wrapped in a thin cloth, was found abandoned on a road in New Delhi to die, with police clueless about her parents.

The baby was admitted in the ICU of Babu Jagjivan Hospital in Model Town area of north Delhi where doctors said her condition was still serious.



Police said they were informed about the baby by locals and staff of G.D. Goenka School in the neighbourhood.



"It appears that someone had left the baby during the night near the school. She had suffered from cold and was hoarsely crying when spotted by the locals and the school staff," a police officer told media.



"Fortunately, the baby was not attacked by street dogs but she was critical. But she had been left to die," the officer said.



Police said they were examining the CCTV footage recorded by the roadside cameras and were also checking nearby hospitals, nursing homes for baby delivery reports and residential apartments for a clue about her parents.



A case has been registered against an unknown couple.

Abandoned infants, mostly girls, are not uncommon in Delhi and across the country.



According to the 2013 Justice Verma Committee report, some 60,000 infants are abandoned in the country for various reasons, including poverty.



Meanwhile in a separate incident, police found a four-month foetus near a slum area in R.K. Puram of south Delhi on Monday.



The foetus had been buried near a drain and was discovered by some boys who were playing in the area.
A day after an attack on African students in Greater Noida, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday said Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi had promised a "fair and impartial" probe.

"I have spoken to Adityanathji about (the) attack on African students in Greater Noida. He has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident," Sushma Swaraj tweeted.



Sushma Swaraj spoke to Adityanath on Tuesday morning after an African student, Sadiq Bello, tweeted her to "act fast" as living in Noida, he said, was becoming a "life threatening issue" for Africans.



According to police, four African students were attacked by a group of residents in Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh on Monday.



"One African national was attacked in Ansal Plaza Mall while three more were attacked at different places near Pari Chowk in Greater Noida. The African students were attacked after protests over the death of Manish Khari, a Class 12 student in Greater Noida's NSG Society," Superintendent of Police Sujata Singh told IANS.



Khari reportedly died of cardiac arrest due to suspected drug overdose on Saturday.





Singh said three FIRs had been registered against seven people for rioting. "A few of them have been detained while a hunt is on for the others."



She added the deceased may have been depressed.



According to the police, Khari had gone missing on Friday evening and was found in an intoxicated state near his residence on Saturday.



"He was rushed to a hospital where he died during treatment. His family later lodged a complaint against five Nigerian nationals, accusing them of drugging Khari," Singh told IANS.



On Monday, the kin and neighbours of the deceased conducted a candlelight march from NSG Society to Pari Chowk, demanding the arrest of the accused.



"The march turned violet when the protesters spotted three Nigerians and beat them up. They also vandalised cars and other vehicles," Singh said.


Meat traders in Ghaziabad went on an indefinite strike on Tuesday against the district administration's order to shut down meat shops.

The administration had ordered the closure of the meat shops three days ago after a new BJP government took office in Uttar Pradesh.



"As our families started starving for food and other necessary items, we decided to go on strike outside the Collector's office," said Yaad Ilahi Quereshi, President of the Meat Traders Association here.



Quereshi, who owns a shop outside New Ghaziabad railway station, said he has a license from the municipal corporation.



But two days ago, the Kavi Nagar police station in-charge ordered him to shut his shop.



He said while he complied with the order, no officer had come to verify his documents. And police had not allowed him to reopen the shop.

"Our demands are that those who posses valid license should be allowed to sell meat," he said.



Ghaziabad District Magistrate Nidhi Kesarwani said no shop would be allowed to sell meat in the open.



She said a mechanism was being put in place for a single window clearance for license seekers.



The official said the National Green Tribunal (NGT) ordered, three years ago, the closure of meat shops which violate rules. But these could not be enforced.



"The five mechanised slaughter houses in Ghaziabad are not being being closed but 21 illegal butcher houses have been closed," she said.
The boycott of video-hosting platform YouTube by advertisers could cost its parent company Google $750 million in revenue, a media report said.

Over the past few weeks, major consumer brands, including Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo and McDonald's have pulled out their ads from the platform as they are protesting the placement of their ads which were appearing next to offensive content, including videos posted by terrorism-affiliated groups.



Although Google promised that it was taking steps to deal with the problem, the controversy still continues, and has led at least one firm to downgrade the search giant's share price, Fortune reported on Monday.



According to analysts at brokerage firm Nomura Instinet, even if Google addresses the issue quickly, the boycott could cost its video service dearly.





The firm said that YouTube could see its annual revenues -- which are estimated to be $10.2 billion for this year -- a cut by as much as 7.5 per cent due to the controversy. This is combined with the costs of fixing the problem.



"Ad buyers are likely to demand greater direct control over ad placement, which could take time and resources to implement," Nomura was quoted as saying.



The controversy first arose in Britain, where a number of brands and the government itself withdrew their advertising after it was discovered that many ads appeared along with the videos from terrorist organisations and other offensive content.



Google was even summoned to address the parliament about what it planned to do about the problem.
A Chief Metropolitan Magistrate court on Tuesday remanded the 2005 Indian Institute of Science (IISc) terror attack suspect Habib Mia in judicial custody for 14 days.

On March 18, the Karnataka Anti Terror Squad (ATS) was given the 37-year-old's four-day transit remand by West Tripura District Magistrate and Collector Milind Ramteke, a day after his arrest in Agartala.



"Habib Mia was in police custody for 10 days. We handed him over for judicial custody after interrogating him. He confessed to helping Sabahuddin, the main accused in the IISc attack here," Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) S. Ravi told reporters.

The IISc was attacked on December 28, 2005, while a convention was underway. A scientist was killed and five persons injured as attackers lobbed hand grenades and opened fire at the gathering.



"Mia told police of his meeting with Sabahuddin at a mosque in Agartala for three days. Mia said he received Rs 800 from Sabahuddin for helping him cross into Bangladesh," said Ravi.


The wife of the Westminster attacker, Khalid Masood, has said she is "saddened and shocked" by the atrocity, and condemns his actions, a media report said on Tuesday.

Rohey Hydara spoke out after Masood's mother, Janet Ajao, said she had "shed many tears" for her son's victims, The Guardian said in the report.



In a statement released through the Metropolitan police, Hydara said: "I am saddened and shocked by what Khalid has done. I totally condemn his actions. I express my condolences to the families of the victims that have died, and wish a speedy recovery to all the injured.



"I would like to request privacy for our family, especially the children, at this difficult time."



On Monday, the Met said Masood had had a clear interest in jihad and his methods echoed the rhetoric of Islamic State (IS) leaders.





Hydara was thought to have lived with Masood from about 2010.



Her comments follow those of Ajao, who broke her silence on Monday, saying she was "shocked, saddened and numbed by the actions my son has taken that have killed and injured innocent people in Westminster", the Guardian report said.



Masood was shot dead by a protection officer in the courtyard of the Palace of Westminster.



His attack claimed the lives of PC Keith Palmer, American tourist Kurt Cochran, London sixth-form college administrator Aysha Frade and Leslie Rhodes, a 75-year-old window cleaner.



Since the attack, Ajao, 69, has been under armed police guard in west Wales, where she runs a craft business.
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order rolling back Obama-era rules aimed at tackling global warming.

The order seeks to suspend, rescind or flag for review more than a half-dozen measures in an effort to boost domestic energy production in the form of fossil fuels.

As part of the roll-back, Trump will initiate a review of the Clean Power Plan, which restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants. The regulation, which was the former president's signature effort to curb carbon emissions, has been the subject of long-running legal challenges by Republican-led states and those who profit from burning oil, coal and gas.

The President signed the order at the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency, saying that this is "the start of a new era" in energy production. He also said that his administration was going to "end the war on coal".

Trump has previously called global warming a "hoax", and has repeatedly criticised ex-President Barack Obama's efforts as an attack on American workers and the struggling US coal industry.

Environmental advocates were not surprised by the order - given such remarks - but said Trump has not considered the public health and economic implications of not fighting climate change or how the order negatively affects US standing in the world.

Laurence Tubbiana, formerly the top French diplomat on climate change and now the CEO of the European Climate Foundation, said in a statement that the order "will propel the economy backwards".

Anne Kelly a Senior Director at Ceres, a coalition of investors and business that promote sustainability, told the Independent that the Clean Power Plan was the "crown jewel of the Obama administration's climate plan".

Trump gave his statement after an off-camera signing ceremony, flanked by coal miners from West Virginia.

He said the order would "start a new era[in] making America wealthy again".

Given that private sector investment in the renewable energy industry hit $350 billion in 2016 globally, outpacing new investment in the oil and gas sector for the first time, Kelly said she expects the "marketplace is going to go forward regardless of what the White House does".

Several of the country's largest pension funds, accounting for tens of billions in investment, have already begun divesting money from oil and gas companies in order to ensure a more profitable future for their investors.

However, they do require the EPA to do its part in the regulatory realm.

In 2007, under Republican George W. Bush's administration, the Supreme Court ruled that carbon emissions were essentially a pollutant, Ms Kelly explained.

The ruling made it the EPA's responsibility to regulate carbon pollution as a matter of public health after a series of "endangerment hearings." Kelly said states were given quite a bit of flexibility in how to reach the goal of reducing carbon emissions as well.

Trump also said during his speech that safety, clean water, and clean air are still priorities, but that his latest order will eliminate the "crushing attack" on economic freedoms, jobs in coal mining, and American manufacturing by the "bad" regulations.
Independent retailers say they are at a disadvantage when it comes to collecting state sales tax, and government and other officials decry the loss of tax revenue from online sales.

Gov. Pete Ricketts opposes the advancement of LB44, State Sen. Dan Watermeier's priority bill, which would enforce the collection of online sales tax, saying it would put Nebraska's budget on "shaky grounds."

Both sides miss a broader point about Nebraska taxes made by the WalletHub organization  they are too high.

According to WalletHub's newest tax survey, Nebraska ranks 50th in overall effective state and local tax rates  only Illinois has higher taxes, and the District of Columbia is included in the count.

Based on the median U.S. household income, Nebraskans pay taxes at a rate of 13.8 percent, or $7,493 in state and local taxes on the median U.S. household income.

That's 28.75 percent more than the U.S. average rate. We pay $6,589 in annual state and local taxes based on the median state household income, and get a bit of a break based on the overall cost of living in Nebraska, but we're still 38 places above the lowest state.

Nebraskans are already required to pay sales tax on online purchases, but a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling prohibited sales taxes on Internet purchases.

"Enforcement of online state sales tax is an issue that must be addressed, but it can only be handled properly by Congress at the federal level or a change in direction from the Supreme Court," Gov. Ricketts said. He said the state would continue to work to bring online businesses into voluntary compliance  and the biggest player, Amazon, already began collecting sales tax this January.

LB 44 attempts to put some teeth into collection of online sales taxes, assessing a $5 fine for each failure to notify buyers that sales tax is due, and a $10 penalty for sellers who fail to notify Nebraska purchases the total amount of purchases made the previous year.

Watermeier estimates LB 44 would increase revenue to the state by $30-$40 million conservatively, or as much as $100 million.

Ricketts noted that state-level measures like LB 44 have been found to be unconstitutional as recently as last week, with other cases pending.

Instead of scrambling to find new revenue like online sales tax, however, it would be more appropriate for Nebraska governments at all levels to find savings such as employing the same technologies online retailers use to increase efficiency and effectiveness.

This editorial appeared in the March 14 edition of the McCook (Nebraska) Daily Gazette.
How to watch KU basketball's season-opener against Omaha

The defending national champions open their season Monday. Here's how you can watch Kansas' game against Omaha.
Man, it been a while since I did a recipe post. I have been doing a great deal of cooking, though most of it has been free-form, without recipes. This one ...

5 hours ago
Chris and Pat Weil are what she likes to call under the radar philanthropists. The Del Mar couples names dont adorn any high-profile buildings around town, but their targeted, low-profile work with at-risk youth has changed hundreds of lives.

Over the past 20 years, the Weils have given more than $2 million to local organizations, the bulk it for scholarships to low-income high school seniors who are the first in their families to attend college.

But its more than money the Weils give. They also donate hundreds of hours each year as mentors, board members and advisers, and they support other local organizations that promote community reinvestment, humanities and the arts.

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Chris Weil, 79, said he and his wife could easily give their money away to huge national charities, but they prefer donating to smaller, local organizations where they can offer more than a check.

We like to give in ways where we can be part of the full cycle, at the beginning, the middle and the end of things, he said. Theres something about being hands-on thats really gratifying.

Education has played an important role in the Weils lives together. They first met when they were classmates at North Hollywood Junior High.

But Chris had a love-hate relationship with education a teenager. In an act of rebellion against his parents during his junior year, he failed all but one of his classes (he got an A in choir). Rather than repeat the grade, he and his mom negotiated a deal where he could instead enlist in the Navy at 17.

He did well, finishing his service four years later as a first class petty officer. Then in June 1958 he enrolled at UCLA, where one of the first people he encountered was Pat, who was putting herself through school by working in the bookstore. They married two years later, and eventually had three children.

After college, Pat became a 5th- and 6th-grade teacher and later was a reading program consultant for teachers at inner-city schools in South Central L.A. She said she saw up-close how education could change lives.

Education introduced me to Shakespeare, anthropology and geology, said Pat, 80. We wanted to raise (these children) up and open their lives to possibilities.

Chris started his career in 1963 as a securities trader. Since 1970 has owned his own investment firms, including the current Christopher Weil & Co. since 1996. Thats the same year the Weils decided to escape the pressures of L.A. and move to Del Mar.

Most of their employees and all three of their children happily followed. Today Matthew Weil, 56, Kit-Victoria Wells, 52, and Caitlin Weil, 47 all work for the company and are actively involved in their parents charitable work.

One of the first thing Pat did after moving to Del Mar was sign up as a literacy volunteer at Del Mar Heights Elementary. But the Weils wanted to do more in the philanthropic arena as a way to meet people in their new hometown. They soon met philanthropic consultant Valerie Jacobs.

Theyre two of my favorite people in the world, said Jacobs, secretary for the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation in Southeast San Diego. They take everything they do philanthropically very seriously. One of the main things that impresses me about them is they live very modestly but give lots of money away. Their attitude is this is all we need, which is wonderful and very rare.

The Weils first local charitable effort was joining the UC San Diegos Chancellors Associates council. Today theyre underwriters for the universitys Division of Arts & Humanities.

As true philanthropists, Chris and Pat see their financial generosity as only one facet of a larger sense of commitment to the common good, said Cristina Della Coletta, dean of Arts & Humanities. We have been fortunate to be the beneficiaries of their wisdom, time, creativity and wit.

One of the humanities programs the Weils have supported is the Women in Philosophy Program, which encourages undergraduate women at UCSD to pursue studies in the male-dominated field.

Humanities have become extras in education and are being downgraded in schools, said Chris, whose UCLA degree is in philosophy. We do what little we can to enhance them. In our philanthropy we like to finance the education component of the humanities.

In 2000, UCSD opened The Preuss School, a college preparatory high school for low-income students from underrepresented communities. Pat signed up immediately to mentor a freshman, and when the girl prepared to graduate in 2004, the Weils decided to give her a scholarship.

Theyd first established a scholarship fund at the San Diego Foundation, where advisers encouraged the Weils to accept multiple applications and sit in on student interviews. They were so touched by the students stories, they gave all 18 applicants a scholarships that year.

They are thoughtful and caring philanthropists who dig deep into the mission to provide not just financial support but sage guidance and leadership as well, said Scott Barton, principal of The Preuss School.

Since 2004, the Weils have given more than 250 MKC scholarships (an acronym for their childrens first initials) to Preuss students totaling $1.5 million. Many recipients have come back from college to work for the Weils as interns and employees.

Macy Olivas, a 2009 scholarship recipient, manages clients philanthropic giving for Christopher Weil & Co. She also directs the Patricia & Christopher Weil Family Foundation, which has become an independent nonprofit.

Besides giving to Preuss, the foundation now gives scholarships as well to graduating students at Gompers Preparatory Academy and Borrego High School. Other foundation beneficiaries are San Diego Grantmakers, the Center for Community Solutions, Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation, the National Conflict Resolution Center, San Diego Repertory Theatre, The Old Globe, Words Alive and Mainly Mozart.

Nancy Laturno Bojanic, executive director and co-founder of the Mainly Mozart concert organization, said the Weils have been a driving force for many years and theyve long served as board and advisory council members.

I adore them, Bojanic said. Theyre passionate people that truly care and theyre great fun. They have amazing values and heart and are an incredible inspiration in terms of family.

As president of the Weil Family Fund, Patricia spends about 30 percent of her time on philanthropic and advisory work. Chris gives about 10 percent of his time, because he still spends three days a week working in the office and from their hilltop home overlooking Torrey Pines State Beach.

I would say philanthropy has become my main hobby, he said. The reason I dont have other hobbies is every time I try to slow down, some interesting new cause comes around the bend.

pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com
Vera Cunningham remembers clearly watching a news report in 2015 that fire had destroyed an Oceanside mobile home and that a woman had died inside. As the news footage rolled, Cunningham recognized the trellis in the charred ruins.

Thats how she learned her mother, 74-year-old Gertrudes Diana Hollis, was dead. She didnt know yet it was murder.

On Tuesday, a tearful Cunningham watched in a Vista courtroom as Andrew Hollis, her mothers husband of about 20 years, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the slaying.

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Last month, a North County jury found the 65-year-old Vietnam veteran and career Marine guilty of murder and of intentionally setting the Feb. 22, 2015, fire in the couples living room, on the other side of the wall from his wifes bed.

Diana Hollis  who had limited mobility after a October 2014 car crash  was found in a running shower, trying to escape the flames. She died from smoke inhalation.

To this day, I still have bad dreams, Cunningham, 45, said in court Tuesday. I couldnt get into the shower for the first two weeks, because I could see my mother, trying to save herself.

She and other family members, including Hollis youngest son Marshal Giles, spoke in Vista Superior Court Tuesday before Hollis was sentenced by Judge Blaine K. Bowman. They talked about the void left in their hearts after Diana Hollis death and said she was the glue that held them together  the matriarch with an infectious laugh, quick wit, and deep love for her family.

I know its wrong, but I am jealous of God that she is with Him now and I want her here with me, Giles, 43 said during the hearing. Andy, you took all of that away. And why?

All I can think about is how scared she must have been in the last moments of her life, hoping and praying that someone would save her, GIles continued. Just because you didnt love her didnt give you the right to take her away from ones who do.

Before handing down the sentence, Bowman called the defendants actions incredibly cruel and inhumane.

I cant imagine the fear and despair she felt while she is in that bathtub, waiting for rescue, knowing that she was going to die, Bowman said.

On the evening of the fire, neighbors came rushing and found Andrew Hollis outside. He told them his wife was not in the home. Authorities say he knew she was inside.

As paramedics were treating him, Hollis blamed his wifes adult son Conrad Giles, whod had an ugly argument with his mother a day earlier.

Police investigators later cleared Conrad Giles; he had an alibi backed up by cell phone tower data. (In another blow to the family, Conrad Giles was stabbed to death in Oceanside the following year. His former brother-in-law is awaiting trial for murder.)

The house fire left Andrew Hollis with burns to his hands and face so severe, he spent several weeks in a burn ward. Prosecutor Natalie Villaflor said his injuries were flash burns caused when the fire whooshed to life.

Investigators found four empty bottles of lighter fluid at the site, and a full bottle in the SUV outside. They also found lighter fluid on the jacket Andrew Hollis wore on the night of the fire.

Hollis declined to make a statement during his sentencing hearing. The prosecutor said Hollis denies setting the fire.

Bowman said the crime was motivated by financial gain, noting that the couple was getting ready to divorce. He said Hollis had previously threatened to burn the home down so she could not have it.

In sentencing Hollis, the judge noted the defendants long military career.

But your legacy will not be that where you served honorably 30 years serving your country, Bowman said. Your legacy will be that you killed your wife in just the most heinous way possible.

As the judge spoke, Hollis shook his head as if in disagreement.

You shake your head at me right now, the judge continued, but I sat through that evidence. I am convinced that the jury did the right thing in this case.  You are going to have a long time to sit in prison and think about it.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT
Trust your instincts. Make the world better. You are essential. Learn from mistakes.

These are some of phrases etched into cement along sidewalk surrounding Imperial Beach schools. It is all a part of improved public safety efforts to create safer routes for local students walking, biking and skateboarding to school.

Members of the Imperial Beach City Council, along with local elected officials and members of the community, celebrated the completion of improvements last week in front of Mar Vista High School in Imperial Beach.

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Our commitment with our City Council and our city is to do everything we can to make it safer for kids to walk and ride their bikes to schools, said Imperial Beach Mayor Serge Dedina. To see the improvements that were making, it feels great.

A cluster of schools near Elm Avenue, including Imperial Beach Charter School, Friendship School and Sweetwater Community Day, were all in support of the project. It spanned Elm Avenue between Seacoast Drive and Seventh Street.

Improvements included widening sidewalks to accommodate bike and pedestrian traffic, slowed traffic and improved visibility, new and improved crosswalks and ADA ramps and new vehicle and bus loading/drop off areas.

Additional upgrades were made to reduce flooding.

Changes improved the travel paths for about 2,000 students.

The project also created a more welcoming Elm Avenue school entryway, which included sandblasting inspirational words and phrases into the sidewalks. Also added was a maritime design theme and medallion in front of Mar Vista High School, tying into the schools Mariners identity.

The cost of improvements totaled about $1.9 million and included funding from three sources:

grant from the San Diego Association of Governments  $709,000

public works general fund  $350,000

TransNet funds city match  $750,000

Project construction began in June 2016 and was completed earlier this month. The effort to find solutions for the communitys safety concerns began in 2011.

It was through a series of workshops and open house meetings that a number of stakeholders worked to resolve the problems. They included school students and parents, members of Circulate San Diego, and representatives from Imperial Beach, the San Diego County Sheriff and County of San Diegos Health and Human Services Agency.
Arthur Blythe, one of the most daring and acclaimed jazz saxophonists of the 1970s and 1980s, died Monday at the age of 76.

No cause of death has been given, but the Los Angeles native  who grew up in San Diego  had been fighting Parkinsons disease since 2005 and several benefit concerts had been held on his behalf.

Blythes passing was announced on his Facebook page. The Monday post reads: Early this morning the great Arthur Blythe passed. As many of you know he was a gentle soul and a musical genius. He had been fighting Parkinsons disease for several years. His spirit will live on in his unique music, which he humbly gave to our universe.

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Blythes location at the time of his death was not disclosed, but he had been living in Lancaster, 70 miles northeast of Los Angeles, in recent years. In 2013, he was in an induced coma for one week at USC Keck Center, after having a large benign tumor removed from his right kidney.

He developed pneumonia recently and thats really what did him in, said Los Angeles vibraphonist and marimba player Gust Tsilis, who recorded and performed with Blythe and hailed him as a one-of-a-kind musical force. His sound was special, unique and very powerful. If we could all have a sound like that. ...

Blythes passing elicited an outpouring of online condolences and tributes.

Terrible news  another giant passes: Arthur Blythe, master saxophonist, wrote guitarist Elliott Sharp, a former Blythe band mate, in a Facebook post Tuesday. Arthur had a tone that was salty and sweet, reminiscent in the best ways of Cannonball Adderley, and played torrid lines of unending melodic invention.

Bass innovator and UC San Diego music professor Mark Dresser began playing with Blythe in 1972 in Pomona, where they were both members of the Stanley Crouch-led band Black Music Affinity.

At that time, he was going by the name Black Arthur, Dresser recalled. With one note, you knew who it was. His timbre and vibrato were instantly identifiable and he had a way of phasing that was like a blow torch! He had a good sense of humor and could be gentle, too. And he really defined a new and beautiful area of music.

Blythes ebullient alto-sax playing helped him stand out. So did his fearless approach to music and his ability to constantly explore new artistic terrain while paying homage to the jazz traditions that shaped him. He stood out whether leading his own bands. playing with the World Saxophone Quartet or with such jazz luminaries as Gil Evans, McCoy Tyner and Horace Tapscott.

I am not just avant-garde, Blythe told All About Jazz in 2003, two years before he was diagnosed with Parkinsons. I like to play all types of music. ... I like music with form, not atonal or aform. ... Sometimes they put me into a weird bag and want me to be weird, inaccessible. I think I am accessible.

Indeed, his best compositions, such as Down San Diego Way, were both inviting and adventurous, much like the man himself. His penchant for innovation was illustrated by the instrumentation of his most distinctive band, which featured tuba, cello, electric guitar and drums.

I would love for everyone to accept my music, and I would love to make money, but only by keeping my music on the cutting edge, Blythe said in a 2000 Union-Tribune interview.

I dont reject any music; good music is always a positive. I feel the way I feel, and this music is based on expression, and interpreting that expression. If my music comes off as esoteric, or far-out, or rebellious, it comes off that way. But I dont approach it like that.

Arthur Murray Blythe was born July 5, 1940, in Los Angeles. He moved to San Diego at the age of 4 with his family and, after diving into music, was mentored by San Diego jazz patriarch Daniel Jackson.

Blythe grew up in Logan Heights and Linda Vista. He played in a variety of bands here until he was 19 and returned to Los Angeles. He subsequently move to New York, where he became one of the most critically revered jazz saxophonists of the 1970s and beyond.

When Blythe performed in 1980 with Jack DeJohnettes Special Edition at The Old Globe Theatres Festival Stage, under the auspices of the San Diego Jazz Festival, then-San Diego County Supervisor Roger Hedgecock presented him with a proclamation declaring it Arthur Blythe Day.

Blythe returned back to San Diego in 1998 with his three children, Odessa, Chalee and Arthur Jr. He lived with them and his mother, Nancy, in Valencia Park for several years, then moved back to the Los Angeles area.

The saxophonist and composers final San Diego headlining performance was Dec 1, 2001, at the Athenaeum Art Studio in University Heights. In 2015, he was honored with a tribute concert as part of the annual Angel City Jazz Festival in Los Angeles, which he attended in a wheelchair.

He had a natural gift and he was a really good person, said former musical partner Tsilis, Blythes friend the past 31 years. And he wasnt an angry guy, despite growing up at a time when being a black man in America could be very challenging. 

Throughout his career, Blythe tirelessly sought to chart new creative territory. It was a quest he continued until about a decade ago, when his Parkinsons disease worsened and he was no longer able to perform.

You cant ever control the music; it controls you, Blythe told the Union-Tribune.

Youre aggressive to an extent, but the pool of musical knowledge is so vast, and that keeps you humble. It keeps you cool to know youre good, but youre not that good!

Below, Blythe discusses his music at length in his 2000 Union-Tribune interview.

Arthur Blythe stays true to eclectic path

March 12, 2000

By George Varga, The San Diego Union-Tribune

Arthur Blythe may not stop traffic when he plays his alto saxophone, but pedestrians are another matter.

The internationally celebrated musician demonstrated as much on a recent weekday morning as he performed near a large sculpture in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diegos downtown branch.

Transfixed by Blythes voluptuous tone, crystal-clear articulation and stunning vibrato, passer-by Bill Strausburg stood a few feet away as a rippling series of melodies cascaded through the air.

He really makes that horn talk, said Strausburg, a businessman visiting from San Antonio. Is he from a San Diego jazz band?

Strausburg nodded appreciatively when informed that Blythe, a force in jazz for several decades, grew up in San Diego and moved back here a couple of years ago from New York.

When I get to a music store, Im going to get one of his albums, vowed the silver-haired Strausburg as other people stopped to listen to Blythes mini-performance. Hes great. His playing makes my skin tingle.

Sitting for an interview awhile later in a nearby park, Blythe smiled broadly when told of his new fan from Texas.

Every little bit helps. Were all looking for gold nuggets, but well take gold dust, the 59-year-old saxophonist said with a chuckle.

Born in Los Angeles and raised mostly in San Diego, Arthur Murray Blythe has been creating musical gold for nearly a quarter-century. One of this citys greatest homegrown musical treasures, he has made only three local concert appearances since moving here with his three children in 1998.

Blythe, who tours primarily in Europe, will perform Thursday night at the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diegos Sherwood Auditorium in La Jolla. He will be accompanied by Los Angeles-based bassist Robert Miranda, a frequent partner.

Blythes performance is part of the opening night of the seven-week Artists on the Cutting Edge VIII: Cross Fertilizations series. He will be featured Thursday along with esteemed poet Adrienne Rich and Emmy-nominated screenwriter-novelist Trey Ellis. The 8-year-old series, presented under the auspices of the Museum of Contemporary Art, is the brainchild of author and UCSD professor Quincy Troupe.

One of the most distinctive and resourceful jazz artists to emerge in the past three decades, Blythe first established himself in the mid-1970s working in the New York bands of drummer Chico Hamilton and longtime Miles Davis collaborator Gil Evans.

He was also a vital member of drummer Jack DeJohnettes Special Edition. (When that group performed a San Diego Jazz Festival-sponsored concert at the Old Globe Theatres Festival Stage in 1980, then-San Diego County Supervisor Roger Hedgecock presented the saxophonist with an official Arthur Blythe Day proclamation.)

A former member of the pioneering World Saxophone Quartet, Blythe recorded his first solo album, The Grip, in 1976. It showcased his rich, keening sax work, provocative compositions and penchant for utilizing such arresting instrumental combinations as cello, tuba and percussion.

The favorable response to The Grip and several other small-label releases earned Blythe a contract with Columbia Records, for which he made a series of vibrant albums, beginning in 1979. Standouts include that years Lenox Avenue Breakdown, In the Tradition (1980), Illusions (1981) and Light Blue (1983), which still stands as one of the most memorable and distinctive Thelonious Monk tribute albums.

Then, as now, Blythes goal was to explore challenging, new artistic terrain while building on jazzs fertile past. He embraced adventure and daring, but without rejecting musical traditions.

I think creativity is the main thing about being on the cutting edge, he said. Its about trying to be a creative artist, and trying to do it as well as you can do it. And its about the liberties one can take in being creative.

Commercial music isnt about that. Its not on the cutting edge; its on the subdued edge, the dull edge. The word `commercial means something thats acceptable (to the masses), and makes money. But I love all music, including that which is called `commercial music. As the youngsters say, `Its all good -- or can be.

Blythe let out a deep sigh.

I would love for everyone to accept my music, and I would love to make money, but only by keeping my music on the cutting edge, he said. I dont reject any music; good music is always a positive. I feel the way I feel, and this music is based on expression, and interpreting that expression. If my music comes off as esoteric, or far-out, or rebellious, it comes off that way. But I dont approach it like that.

Down San Diego way

Born in 1940, Blythe moved to San Diego with his family when he was 4, and started playing alto saxophone while attending third grade in Logan Heights. He soon found himself emulating the creamy tone of saxophone stars Johnny Hodges and Earl Bostic, whose albums his mother often played at home.

When he was 13, Blythe started playing in a blues-rock band in Linda Vista, where his family  including his sister and four brothers  had moved.

I thought it was a great place to grow up, said Blythe, who now lives in Valencia Park with his mother, Nancy, 11-year-old daughter Odessa and sons Chalee, 15, and Arthur Jr., 14.

I used to play in the canyons a lot. There was a lot of space in Linda Vista for a kid to jump around and play and swim. It was a really nice place for a kid.

Eager and eclectic, Blythe also played in a rockabilly band, an R&B band and various Mexican-American music groups. But his first love was jazz, and he thrived under the guidance of such mentors as San Diego saxophonists Daniel Jackson and Kirkland Bradford, the latter a former member of the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra.

I was into the musical culture of Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Philly Joe Jones and Ornette Coleman, Blythe recalled. I was listening to those kinds of things, and I was looking for the cutting edge. Thats what I liked and gravitated toward. There was a burning desire in me to pursue that, and I didnt even know what it was called.

Armed with his trusty 1928 Beuscher saxophone (the same one he plays today), Blythe moved to Los Angeles when he was 19. There, he began a decade-long affiliation with free-thinking pianist, bandleader and composer Horace Tapscott, who also served as a mentor to other gifted young musicians. In 1961, he and Tapscott were among the co-founders of the Union of Gods Musicians and Artists Ascension, a loose-knit group of performers who used music as a vehicle for community outreach.

We played and practiced a lot, Blythe recalled. Horace taught arranging and composing, and helped me understand the clarity of how the music went. Whenever we played together, there would be a musical exchange.

When he moved to New York, Blythe was ready for action, musically speaking. By the end of the 1970s, he was being hailed as one of the most gifted improvisers and composers of his generation, a fearless maverick who had a sound and style all his own.

In the 1980s, Blythe began working with the all-star band the Leaders, as well as continuing to lead groups of various sizes. More recently, he has been featured in Roots, a group that includes fellow saxophonists Chico Freeman, Benny Golson and Nathan Davis.

Blythes most recent album, the enchanting Night Song (Cancion de la Noche), was released in 1997 by Clarity Records and seamlessly fuses elements of jazz, South American, African, Caribbean and Middle Eastern music into an ebullient, melody-rich whole. Featuring longtime cohorts Freeman on bass clarinet and Bob Stewart on tuba, the album also showcases marimba player Gust Tsillis and three percussionists.

I was just trying to be creative and put together some different elements to make another statement, of sorts, said Blythe, who expects his next album  a live-in-Europe trio date  to be released next month.

The different instruments I use are usually about me hearing certain combinations in my head, more than putting it together for its shock effect. And sometimes its not the instrument as much as the player  the player who can make the music a certain way  that attracts me. They can be playing hubcaps, and its cool, if they play it the right way.

With the exception of the 1985 album Put Sunshine in It, which found Columbia Records forcing Blythe into a stifling pop-jazz format, none of his work has even hinted at compromising. And he has no intention of doing so now, especially since his career is largely reliant on the discriminating tastes of European audiences.

Im not sure why, but it is a fact that Europeans and people outside the U.S. acknowledge and revere this musics value much more than people in America, said Blythe, who next month embarks on a concert tour of Turkey, France, Finland and Holland.

Right now they have confusion here about what jazz music is. The kind of music I play has traditionally been jazz, but jazz now is some lighter form here, and the more creative forms of the music are not acknowledged, or recognized as being valid.

And its not played on the radio here. But in Europe, you can hear the real thing. They revere it, they look for it. If you play too shallow in Europe, theyll let you know about it. And you wont be able to come over any more, because they wont pay for it.

Happily, it is his quest for making creative music  not money  that drives this Blythe spirit, a quiet master who regards himself as an eternal student.

Sometimes it seems like Im forever learning, and becoming better in the craft and getting better at understanding whats going on, he said. I dont know exactly where Im going, so it will be a surprise to some extent. But Ill pursue things I like.

Different facets of music become more clear with time  interpretation, understanding the form, expression, nuance and how to put the music together in a more musical way. Thats part of the learning experience. Some things I know, and then theres a lot of things I dont know. And some things that I think I know, I dont.

Because you cant ever control the music; it controls you. Youre aggressive to an extent, but the pool of musical knowledge is so vast, and that keeps you humble. It keeps you cool to know youre good, but youre not that good!

Twitter @georgevarga

george.varga@sduniontribune.com
Nearly 45 years ago, a midshipman boarded the Navy cruiser Jouett for his youngster cruise, a summer spent at sea before becoming a sophomore at the U.S. Naval Academy.

He didnt want to become a sailor. He wanted to go Marine, like his dad, a highly decorated career infantry officer.

From the fantail, he gazed as the warship slipped its lines from the San Diego Naval Base and slid like a barracuda under the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge toward Ballast Point and then arced westward into the calm shimmer of the Pacific Ocean. He smelled the salt in the air and felt the sun on his arms. Then the sea seemed to scream to him, You are home.

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Thats how James Jim Stavridis remembers the 1972 career epiphany in his new book, Sea Power: The History of Geopolitics of the Worlds Oceans.

The book is slated to hit stores two months from now, but Penguin Press provided The San Diego Union-Tribune an early peek because the former four-star admirals arguments for a smarter American foreign policy are both timely and provocative.

In a telephone interview, Stavridis echoed his books lament about becoming a desk-bound admiral after retiring from the Navy in 2013 to helm the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts.

He counts 11 years at sea during his 37 years in uniform, including time spent commanding a carrier task force in combat operations.

I miss the way it changes all the time, Stavridis said of his beloved sea. I miss the smell and the beauty of it. I miss the sunrises and the sunsets upon it. I always say that being an officer in the Navy is having the best office in the world. I miss the challenges of it, knowing that youre in an element thats hostile. Even though its beautiful, it will kill you. Youve got to be on your game all the time.

And lastly, I miss the peace of it and the chance to read. I spent a lot of time at sea and when I wasnt standing watch or conducting operations, I was reading.

Rumored to have been a finalist for both Hillary Clintons vice president pick and Donald Trumps secretary of state choice, Stavridis said he had no idea who would win the presidency when he wrote the book. That didnt stop him from firing several broadsides in his pages at Trumps ideas about the military and diplomacy that emerged throughout the long campaign season.

Stavridis, 62, praises the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that Trump killed when he entered the Oval Office. The pact was supposed to economically unite nations from Asia to South America while the United States built a military alliance capable of bottling the rising authoritarian powers China and Russia.

The first admiral to serve as Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Stavridis urges smarter and sustained American leadership of NATO. Trump has squabbled with NATOs member states over their defense-spending plans, and critics fear he has nuzzled up to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin  an accusation both nations presidents deny.

When leading the U.S. Southern Command, Stavridis prodded staffers to learn Spanish and committed himself to visiting every nation in Central and South America. In that post, Stavridis soured on Americas so-called War on Drugs, and his new book urges a more nuanced way of understanding addiction and the failing nations where narcotics production flourishes  with the accompanying violence  and spurs migrants to escape north to the United States.

Much of his advice seems to clash with the Trump administrations call to hike border security, limit visas and deport unauthorized immigrants. The White House did not respond to written questions from the Union-Tribune.

About two months into Trumps presidency, Stavridis said the administrations efforts to promote transparency, diplomacy and cooperation at home and abroad remain discouraging, but he hopes former Marine generals James Mattis and John Kelly will help the White House change course alongside the new national security adviser, Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

I think because of all of that, theres reason for hope over time, Stavridis said.  Thus far we havent seen an administration thats either transparent or seemingly capable of putting together a geopolitical strategy, which is what we desperately need for the oceans.

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Read more of James Stavridis comments in this full-length Q&A between him and The San Diego Union-Tribune.

In his book, Stravidis takes readers on a tour of each ocean, capping off his chapters with detailed blueprints for smarter American strategies to deter war while battling pollution and piracy.

His sweeping work consciously grapples with Alfred Thayer Mahans classic The Influence of Sea Power on History, updating it for an American military encountering an increasingly uncertain 21st Century.

Stavridis mixes personal memoir with the biographies of maritime commanders and explorers throughout naval history. His book touches on geography, sociology, politics, military operations, economics, grand strategy and current events  such as the threat Islamic State terrorists pose on a largely undefended Mediterranean Sea.

Its a hard book to categorize, Stavridis conceded. But I feel ... that those things fit together. That you get not only a mariners perspective of what its like to be in these different oceans and seas, but that you also get the overview that led up to that.

But what makes both those things important is how they come together to prescribe for us what we should do for our nation, especially our nations security and our place in those oceans.

Stavridis doesnt use his book to extol his virtues or to settle scores with the Pentagon or the anonymous whistleblowers who claimed he misspent federal travel dollars while at NATO  charges he fought but which the Department of Defenses inspector general in 2012 found credible.

Theres no mention of his John Paul Jones Award for Inspirational Leadership, no reminders that he commanded a ship that won the Battenberg Cup for the finest vessel in the Atlantic Fleet, no reminder that he retains the reputation of being one of the most distinguished military leaders of the Baby Boomer generation.

Instead, many of his anecdotes recount times he bungled tests of seamanship or was humbled. In one story, he recalled how a junior officer stepped in to challenge an Egyptian harbor pilots advice while navigating the Suez Canal. By trusting his sailor, Stavridis averted the grounding of his warship.

Stavridis said those sorts of painful recollections were sewn into the book because they show how officers careers often rise or fall by luck and by chance, much like the seas they sail.

And for people to convey that they somehow were on this rocket ride of destiny to achieve great things, I think its just not true. So much of our lives are accidents of time and fortune. Were all hostages to fortune at the end of the day, Stavridis said.

Secondly, I hope people can say, Gosh, you know what? You can make mistakes. You can make bad calls. You can get tired. You can choose the wrong course of action and still recover from it.

I like that message  that you can fail and get up and come back and contribute in big ways. And I hope the book tells that story as well.

Sea Power is slated to go on sale June 6 and will retail for $28, according to Penguin Press.

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cprine@sduniontribune.com
How do you build a monument honoring those who fought in a war thats still going on?

Thats the problem facing veterans behind the Global War on Terror Memorial Foundation, which on Tuesday announced legislation that could speed the process along.

A group of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans hopes to raise up to $35 million with the goal of putting a monument on the National Mall in Washington by 2024.

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On Tuesday, two congressmen unveiled legislation that would help jump a major roadblock: Under current law, the process cant be authorized until 10 years after wars end.

The war is not over. Every think tank in Washington will tell you its going to be a multi-generational effort, said Andrew Brennan, a 32-year-old Army veteran who founded the nonprofit foundation in 2015.

Welcome to The Intel, a blog examining the hot military news of the day

Brennan, who flew combat missions in Afghanistan, said the important question is the intent of the law, which is the 1986 Commemorative Works Act.

The intent was not 10 years or 25 years, it was: Is this historically significant enough in the course of U.S. history to warrant permanent memorialization? Brennan said in an interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune.

We are approaching 7,000 being killed, 52,000-plus wounded, over 250,000 veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress issues, and the fact that this war is our longest ... I think we have met the historic burden context, he said.

In Washington, Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisconsin, and Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Massachusetts, announced a bill that would appoint Brennans foundation as the designed group for the monument effort.

It would also amend the existing 10-year rule to specify that a commemorative work can be considered immediately if a major conflict stretches on beyond a decade.

Advocates said past generations of war veterans had to wait too long to see their memorials erected in the nations capital.

The World War II memorial opened in 2004 on the National Mall  nearly 60 years after the end of the conflict. The Korean War memorial was dedicated in 1995, on the 42nd anniversary of the armistice that ended that campaign.

Moulton, who served in Iraq as a Marine, said his World War II veteran grandfather never got to visit that wars national monument.

I want to make sure that thats not the case for so many war on terrorism veterans, he said. So weve got to get this process started.

Gallagher, another Marine who served in Iraq, said he sees the monument as a way to honor service members who died in combat.

But, he added, My hope is this memorial will not only remind us of that sacrifice, and the sacrifice of so many families, but also serve as a call to action for us who are alive, and remind us that those who have given their lives for this country dont want us to sit back  but want us to get engaged in this process of self government.

Brennan also sees the memorial as a means for post-9/11 veterans  who may be missing camaraderie in civilian life  to get engaged with each other.

Ten or 15 percent of this labor to build this memorial, maybe that comes from veteran volunteers the summer that that happens, said the former Army officer.

It could be quite literally the veterans from that era pitching in to build their own memorial. I see a lot of potential for a lot of traditions to recur around this memorial that will help bring the cohort of global war on terror veterans together, he added.

This is the second attempt at legislation. A bill introduced last fall by former Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke, a retired Navy SEAL, died due to lack of action in the House.

Zinke could, in theory, still be a powerful advocate in his new job as secretary of the interior.

Brennan said his group  which includes political heavy-hitters such as retired four-star Army generals David Petraeus and George Casey  is eyeing a spot on the banks of the Potomac River, not far from the Lincoln Memorial.

Thats outside of the National Malls no-build reserve district. But no location is yet certain.

Similarly, Brennan said theres no way to guess what look the monument which have. He foresees a national competition to design it  as is customary with war monuments.

More than 2 million U.S. service members are estimated to have served in combat theaters since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that led to the invasion of Afghanistan. The United States invaded Iraq in 2003 to depose President Saddam Hussein and neutralize weapons caches that never materialized.

While major ground combat has concluded, U.S. troops remain behind in both places in an effort to quell extremism including the jihadist Islamic State group.

Roughly 30,000 post-9/11 veterans call the San Diego region home.

The Global War on Terror Memorial Foundation has a take action campaign that urges supporters of the national monument project to contact their legislators.

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jen.steele@sduniontribune.com

Facebook: U-T Military

Twitter: @jensteeley
Tijuana and San Diego leaders gathered in Mexicos capital Monday, working to showcase their cross-border collaboration while expressing concern that a proposed 20 percent U.S. border tax could harm their shared region.

We want to make it easier for trade, San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer told a crowd of Mexico City journalists. We want to continue our shared growth We do not want to have policies that would put that in jeopardy.

Faulconer was accompanied by his Tijuana counterpart, Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum, and Jerry Sanders, president and CEO of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, during a news conference aimed at highlighting the Tijuana-San Diego relationship and the benefits they said that it brings to both sides.

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The mayors are part of a binational delegation of some 90 members led by the chamber in Mexico City for three days of meetings with Mexican officials. It is the 12th such annual trip aimed at bringing cross-border issues to the attention of Mexican federal authorities.

The visit, which began Monday and ends Wednesday, has come during a period of heightened tensions between the United States and Mexico under President Donald Trump. Sanders, a former San Diego mayor, said the meetings are more important than ever, with pressure put on the U.S.-Mexico relationship, given the presidential campaign rhetoric and recent federal actions.

Mondays meetings focused on subjects such as progress on the Otay Mesa East Port of Entry, a proposed toll crossing being planned jointly by the U.S. and Mexican federal governments. Participants also asked about Mexicos plans for opening the southbound lanes of the PedWest pedestrian facility at San Ysidro Port of Entry. Mexico will soon complete its side of the structure, but has not announced when it will be open to foot traffic between Tijuana and San Diego.

One of the speakers was Juan Pardinas Carpizo, director of the Mexican Institute of Competitiveness, who offered praise for the efforts of Tijuana and San Diego to speak out on issues of common interest. Our relationship demographically, economically, culturally is too important, too intertwined to just leave it to the executive offices of the two countries, Pardinas said.

Among the chambers chief aims of the trip is to advocate for the preservation of NAFTA, the 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement that Trump has criticized and said he wants to re-negotiate.

NAFTA was expected to be part of the discussion on Monday evening, when both Faulconer and Gastelum were scheduled to meet with Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray. They were to be joined by Ron Roberts, San Diego County supervisor and chairman of the San Diego Association of Governments, as well as by Paola Avila, the chambers vice president of international business affairs.

The subject of a proposed U.S. border adjustment tax was raised during the noon news conference. Championed by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., the tax is part of a package of proposed tax reforms that proponents say would encourage domestic production by increasing the price of imports.

The tax wont be easy to pass, Sanders said, given the the presence of border states, who have both Republicans and Democrats who understand the importance of trade.

sandra.dibble@sduniontribune.com

@sandradibble
Health officials are investigating what caused 47 people to fall ill at a Christian campground in San Bernardino County.

On Saturday night, campers at the Oak Glen Christian Conference Center in Yucaipa began suffering from nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, said Lana Cao, spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health.

When first responders arrived, they provided medical aid to 20 people for an unknown illness; 13 were taken to hospitals, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protections San Bernardino County Unit.

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The number of patients has since grown to 47.

The camp has remained closed since Saturday night as investigators try to determine the cause of the outbreak, Cao said.

Inspectors with the countys Division of Environmental Health Services are working with the health departments communicable disease section.

Members from the Connecting Point Community Church, Grace and Love Church and the Church in Irvine were visiting the campground during the weekend, according to the Oak Glen Christian Conference Centers Facebook page.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

Twitter: @VeronicaRochaLA
A day after a suspect was arrested in the fatal drive-by shooting of an 8-year-old Pomona boy, authorities said that the home where Jonah Hwang was killed had been the target of three other shootings this year.

We believe theyre connected just by evidence that we have collected, Pomona Police Chief Paul Capraro told reporters Monday. He declined to specify the type of evidence that had been gathered and said that it was still early in the investigation.

I want the community to know that the members of this Pomona Police Department poured their hearts and souls into solving this crime, Capraro said. Were a long way from getting to the end of things. Were going to see this through.

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On Feb. 20, Jonah and his family were invited to dinner by friends who live in the 1100 block of West 11th Street. The adults and children were sitting in the living room when, just after 6:30 p.m., a car pulled up outside. Several gunshots were fired. Jonah was struck in the head.

In January, the homeowners found bullet holes at their residence. Drive-by shootings also took place March 7 just before 7 p.m. and March 25 about 7:15 a.m. The house was empty all three times.

After Jonah was killed, Capraro said his department put resources in place designed to identify and capture the people or the person responsible. He would not comment on whether surveillance cameras were used but thanked multiple agencies for their help, including the FBI.

The investigation led officers to the vehicle believed to have been used in all four shootings.

Pomona police stopped the driver of that vehicle Sunday as he was leaving his home in an unincorporated area of Pomona.

Sengchan Houl, 35, was arrested without incident on suspicion of killing Jonah. He had a firearm in his possession that authorities believe was used in the shootings, Capraro said. Houl is being held on $2-million bail and is scheduled to appear Tuesday in L.A. County Superior Court in Pomona.

Capraro said Houl does not appear to have an extensive criminal history, and that the agency will release his photograph after talking to witnesses. Authorities are also trying to determine whether others were involved in the shootings.

Pomona Mayor Tim Sandoval cautioned that every individual has the right to due process, but said the city could rejoice knowing that someone had been arrested.

Pomona lost a son, Sandoval said. We lost a child, Jonah Wang, to a senseless shooting that left our city deeply saddened and pained. We never lost hope in ultimately finding who committed this heinous crime.

Jonah was adopted about three years ago from an orphanage in Taiwan, according to a statement from his parents, Johnny and Karen Hwang.

They described their son as playful and loving, with an infectious smile.

The devastation that we feel from this loss is unfathomable, they said. Jonah was a light and joy in our household, and we cannot imagine our family without him.

The Hwangs said a fundraising page initially started by a family member to help with funeral costs will also be devoted to a scholarship fund in memory of their son.

corina.knoll@latimes.com

@corinaknoll

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Sanctuary city leaders vow to remain firm, despite threats from U.S. attorney general
Leaders from so-called sanctuary cities across Southern California struck a defiant tone Monday, stating that they would continue to protect people who are in the country illegally despite threats by U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to cut off and even claw back grant funding from the Justice Department.

We will fight this vigorously and still continue to maintain services to provide for our high quality of life in Santa Ana, Sal Tinajero, a city councilman in Santa Ana, which voted unanimously to become a sanctuary city shortly after Donald Trump was elected president.

During a brief appearance at the White House briefing room, Sessions repeated previous statements that the Trump administration would seek to deny sanctuary cities some Department of Justice grant funds, but offered no new policies.

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Still, officials in sanctuary cities scrambled to touch base with attorneys and explore their legal options.

We are going to look into every single legal action that we can take to protect ourselves from the Department of Justices plan, Tinajero said.

He said city leaders had already prepared for possible funding cuts, adding that Santa Ana has more than $50 million in reserve, just in case.

Maywood Councilman Eduardo De La Riva said the issue will likely be settled by the courts.

I am confident that when this latest move is challenged in the courts, this too will prove to be yet another loss for this administration, De La Riva said.

Maywood declared itself a sanctuary 11 years ago, enacting a law that said local police could not enforce federal immigration law.

Anti-illegal immigration groups Save our State and The Minuteman Project demonstrate in Maywood in 2006. (Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times)

Monday evening, Pasadena city officials are expected to take up a resolution on whether to declare itself a sanctuary for people who are in the country without legal status.

For most cities, the move is largely a message of political support for immigrants in the country illegally. But some cities have specific policies tied to them, notably San Francisco, which has come under criticism from Trump and during Sessions briefing on Monday.

Sessions cited a high-profile case in San Francisco where a 32-year-old woman was killed by man who had been previously deported multiple times despite a request by immigration authorities to continue his detention.

Countless Americans would be alive today and countless loved ones would not be grieving today if these policies of sanctuary cities were ended, Sessions said.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee could not be reached for comment, but he sent a tweet soon after Sessions announcement.

#SF knows that #SanctuaryCities are safer, more productive, healthier places to live. We work for all our residents. #SFStandsAsOne, he stated.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Lee said:

San Franciscos sanctuary city laws are in compliance with this federal law. If the federal government believes there is a need to detain a serious criminal they can obtain a criminal warrant, which we will honor, as we always have As we have always asserted, sanctuary cities are safer cities. When immigrants can enroll their children in school, access healthcare for vaccinations, and report crimes, our City and County is safer.

The statement added: It is shocking that the U.S. Attorney General, the nations top law enforcement official, does not agree with this basic principle of public safety.

Some state leaders denounced Sessions move.

Instead of making us safer, the Trump administration is spreading fear and promoting race-based scapegoating, California Senate leader Kevin de Leon said in a statement. 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.

There is no neat definition of sanctuary city, but in general, cities that adopt the designation seek to offer political support or practical protections to people who are in the country illegally. For some cities, the sanctuary movement consists simply of encouraging people without legal status to get more involved in government. Other places, such as San Francisco, adopt far-reaching policies, such as taking steps to cut ties with federal immigration officials and refusing to fully cooperate with them.

Cudahy Councilman Cristian Markovich also said he will stick to his guns and support the citys sanctuary policy. He called it a safety issue.

We pay our taxes and I feel that the federal funding is rightfully ours regardless of the fact that we are a sanctuary city or not, he said.

ruben.vives@latimes.com

Twitter: @latvives

cindy.carcamo@latimes.com

Follow Cindy Carcamo on Twitter @thecindycarcamo

Times staff writer Michael A. Memoli contributed to this report.

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Mexican mans widow sues, says immigration detention facility staff ignored pleas for help

More immigration judges are sent to California and other states amid Trump deportation crackdown

UPDATES:

6 p.m.: This article was updated with a statement from the San Francisco mayors office.

This article was originally published at 3:50 p.m.
A former executive of a San Diego military contracting firm was sentenced in federal court Monday to a year of home confinement for embezzling more than $825,000 from the company and spending the funds on lavish treats.

Stuart Teshima, the former chief financial officer of Epsilon Systems Solutions, was also ordered to continue paying off restitution to the firms insurance company, which covered the losses. He still has about half, or $470,500, to go.

U.S. District Judge Anthony Battaglia sentenced Teshima to time already served in custody  one day  and to three years of probation, which will include the year of home detention.

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Teshima was in charge of the companys credit card program and abused his authority to rack up personal charges that included travel, jewelry, fine dining, furniture, gifts for family members and $10,000 for his personal tax bill, according to prosecutors. One expense was a bill from the private University Club in downtown San Diego for more than $5,000.

Teshima would replace the personal charges with fake business expenses, according to his plea agreement. The scheme started in 2008  before he was in charge of the credit card program  and lasted until August 2015 when he left the company. He also served as a company vice president and a senior vice president in the company, which contracts with the military in numerous areas, including ship building, engineering, information technology and nuclear operations support.

It is clear that he began stealing money from the company not out of necessity, but greed, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Allen said in her sentencing memorandum.

The company became suspicious of the charges and conducted an investigation. Teshima pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in October 2016.

Almost immediately after he learned that his conduct had been discovered, Defendant accepted responsibility and demonstrated sincere remorse, Allen said in the memo. He has been uncommonly candid and self-reflective in taking responsibility for his actions, which have caused him shame and regret.

Bryan Min, founder and CEO of Epsilon, wrote a letter to the judge, saying the theft had a significant impact on the company and its employees, and that the company has had to work to rebuild trust with its clients.

It is not the money, we were able to recover most of that, although our insurance company cant say the same. It is the fact that he so callously cast aside the interests of our many employees as well as the U.S. government for his personal pleasure and selfish gain, the letter said.

kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @kristinadavis
The W.M. Keck Foundation has awarded the University of San Diegos Humanities Center a $250,000 grant to support a new humanities research fellowship for undergraduates, the development of new collaborations between the humanities and other academic areas of inquiry at USD.

We are committed to offering a multitude of ways for guests and students to engage with the humanities because we believe that the humanities are truly foundational, said Noelle Norton, dean of USDs College of Arts and Sciences.

Thanks to funding from both our initial donor, who funded the remodeling of the space, and from the Keck Foundation, who funded development of programs within that space, we are able to work towards our vision of reinvigorating the humanities on our campus.

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The Humanities Center opened in 2016 and is focused on collaborative research, digital humanities, interdisciplinary curriculum and public humanities.

The Keck Foundations support of our Humanities Center is an affirmation of how important the humanities are on college campuses, ours in particular, said Brian Clack, director of USDs Humanities Center. We believe that the purposeful study of and appreciation for the humanities will lead to more fulfilled, engaged and fruitful lives for our students, campus community and neighbors.

This months Illume Speaker Series at the center featured Deepak Chopra and Pankaj Mishra. The center also is hosting seminars that encourage students to explore facets of the new political landscape in the United States, as well as digital humanities symposia. An immersive art exhibition was also mounted by local military veterans that recreated an Iraqi patrol base bunker, among several of the more recent activities in the center.

Based in Los Angeles, the W. M. Keck Foundation was established in 1954 by the late W. M. Keck, founder of the Superior Oil Company. The foundations grant program is focused primarily on pioneering efforts in the areas of medical research, science and engineering and undergraduate education. For more information, please visit www. wmkeck.org.

gary.warth@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @GaryWarthUT

760-529-4939
A baby born recently in San Diego County is the first in the region to suffer devastating birth defects after the infants mother contracted Zika virus while traveling abroad.

Public-health officials said the case, announced Tuesday by the county government, is a tragic reminder that the risk of Zika infection continues in warmer climates even though mosquitoes are currently dormant here in San Diego.

(While) there is currently no local spread of Zika, we still want to remember that we all have to be vigilant in protecting ourselves and our community from diseases like this, said Dr. Sayone Thihalolipavan, a deputy public health officer with the county Health and Human Services Agency.

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Pregnant women are urged to avoid going to countries where mosquitoes are actively transmitting the virus. Those who absolutely must travel to such locations are recommended to strictly follow guidelines designed to prevent mosquito bites, from using an effective repellent to wearing long-sleeved shirts and pants.

Little information was released Tuesday about the local family that has been directly affected by a medical crisis that now stretches from Mexico and South America to Asia. Citing privacy concerns, the county health department declined to disclose the childs birth date or gender, or the country that the mother had visited.

A total of 87 people living in San Diego County have tested positive for Zika virus, and all of those infections occurred while the patients were in other nations. Seven of those individuals, including the mother who recently gave birth to the child with birth defects, are or were pregnant during their infection period, Thihalolipavan said.

Travel-related Zika concerns have created such a steady stream of requests for information from the county health department that an extra expert was hired to help handle the volume, he said.

Some days well have just one or two calls, but often well have 10 to 20 per day where were working with (medical) providers who need more information, Thihalolipavan said.

To date, he said, two of the regions 87 infections were spread through sexual contact. One was transmitted from mother to baby before birth but did not cause microcephaly, the most common birth defect associated with the virus.

Microcephaly is the medical condition in which a baby is born with a head that is smaller than normal. The birth defect may cause no significant symptoms at birth, but many children with the condition later develop epilepsy, cerebral palsy, learning disabilities, hearing loss and vision problems, according to the World Health Organization.

Some children with microcephaly go on to experience normal development, and science has not figured out what spares certain kids but afflicts others.

In fact, scientists are trying to determine why most children born to Zika-infected women do not have birth defects. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1,228 pregnant women in the United States have been infected with Zika as of March 14. Fifty-four babies have been born with birth defects, and seven pregnancies have been lost before delivery due to birth defects.

Nationwide, there have been 4,861 travel-related cases of Zika infection, with an additional 222 presumed to be locally transmitted by mosquitoes in the United States. According to the CDC, 216 of the locally transmitted cases occurred in Florida, while the remaining six took place in Texas.

California has recorded 434 cases of Zika.

The aedes aegypti mosquito transmits Zika and has become active in San Diego County relatively recently. Chris Conlan, the countys supervising vector ecologist, said while the region usually starts seeing some mosquito activity as early as May, the aegypti variant gets a later start.

The mosquitoes that can transmit Zika tend to get more common later in summer, from August to October, Conlan said.

To prevent mosquito bites, San Diego County health and insect-control officials recommends using insect repellents that contain active ingredients such as DEET, picaridin, IR3535, oil of lemon, oil eucalyptus or para-menthane-diol. Sunscreen should be applied before any repellent, and pregnant or breast-feeding women should make sure to use an EPA-registered product and carefully follow instructions on the products labeling. Repellent should not be used on infants who are 2 months or younger.

Before booking a trip, people are advised to check the CDCs travel warning page at cdc.gov/travel/notices for nation-specific information.

According to the World Health Organizations latest Zika virus situation report, countries with active transmission include:

American Samoa

Angola

Argentina

Barbados

Bolivia

Brazil

British Virgin Islands

Cambodia

Cayman Islands

Cuba

Ecuador

Fiji

Guinea-Bissau

Mexico

Nicaragua

Nigeria

Panama

Peru

Puerto Rico

Samoa

Singapore

The Bahamas

The Maldives

Tonga

Trinidad and Tobago

Venezuela

Viet Nam

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paul.sisson@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1850

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Fewer refugees came to San Diego County in February than in previous months, following an executive order from President Donald Trump that restricted the nations refugee program.

Arrivals in San Diego County were down about 50 percent from January, dropping to 127 from 269, according to data from the U.S. State Department. That trend mirrors a decline in arriving refugees at the state and national level.

Trumps executive order temporarily halted the refugee program and lowered the number of annual refugees that the U.S. would accept to 50,000 from 110,000. Many parts of his order were blocked in courts, but the cap remained in place throughout the month of February.

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When Trump issued a second version of the order at the beginning of March, that order was also blocked by legal challenges. This time, the courts halt on the order covered the 50,000 cap in addition to other provisions.

A State Department spokeswoman said that following that court action, weekly arrivals in March have increased to rates of about 900 refugees coming into the U.S. each week, about the same as the rate before the executive orders.

David Murphy, executive director of the International Rescue Committee in San Diego, said that the county hasnt yet seen arrivals go back up because of the time it takes to book flights and get the process moving again.

Were expecting a trickle of refugees to continue to arrive for the next month, and then who knows? Murphy said. Were all in limbo right now.

He said any plans that his resettlement agency makes could end up changing as the court cases progress.

Before leaving office, former President Barack Obama increased the number of refugees that the U.S. would accept to 110,000 from 85,000. Following that decision, arrival numbers in San Diego County have been up from last year.

Just over 1,200 refugees have resettled in San Diego since the beginning of the fiscal year in October. February was the first month in the fiscal year so far that the number of refugees resettling to the county has dipped below 200.

San Diego County has historically taken in the largest number of refugees of any county in California. Since October, the county has resettled about a third of the refugees coming to California, including 86 of the 88 Somalis who have resettled in the state. Somalia was one of the countries whose citizens were barred from travel to the U.S. in both of Trumps executive orders.

Keeping with trends from previous months, the largest number of new arrivals came from Iraq. Syria was second highest, and Afghanistan was third.

This fiscal year, San Diego County has also resettled a significant number of Congolese and Somali refugees. They did not have as many arrivals in February.

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kate.morrissey@sduniontribune.com, @bgirledukate
Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday the U.S. Justice Department wont give grant money to sanctuary jurisdictions that dont follow federal immigration law, but he didnt say which states or cities would fall under that category.

Going forward, all jurisdictions seeking grants will have to certify they are in compliance, Sessions said.

Officials for the city and county of San Diego maintain they cooperate with federal immigration authorities, but they have shown up on some lists as sanctuary jurisdictions because of a California law that limits how local law enforcement can cooperate with immigration officers.

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Jurisdictions and organizations in San Diego County received at least $10.6 million in grants from the Department of Justice last fiscal year. They might get more because some grants are awarded at the state level and then given out to cities and counties.

About $396 million went to entities within California in fiscal 2016.

Police departments from Carlsbad to Chula Vista received the federal grants for programs including community relations and technology improvements. Lemon Grove got funding for a bicycle patrol program.

San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore has insisted the county is not a sanctuary for unauthorized immigrants, with federal immigration officers working out of the county jails to identify non-citizens who have committed crimes and might be eligible for deportation.

The Sheriffs Department has a long history of working with our local, state and federal law enforcement partners including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, sheriffs spokesman Ryan Keim said Monday in an emailed statement. The successful communication between local, state, and federal agencies allows law enforcement to use every available tool to remove dangerous criminals from our community and the Sheriffs Department will continue this successful policy as long as it complies with state and federal law.

An ICE official acknowledged that relationship.

ICE works closely with our partners in the San Diego law enforcement community, said Lauren Mack, the ICE spokeswoman in San Diego. Our long-standing relationships have fostered a strong sense of cooperation and respect at all levels of the government.

Last week, ICE published its first weekly report on jurisdictions that are not fully cooperating with its enforcement officers. None from San Diego County was listed, and neither was California.

Some jurisdictions were listed because they will not honor ICEs request to hold someone in jail, called a detainer, without a court order. A 2013 California law places similar limits on law enforcement in the state.

An ICE official said the report is not meant to be a list of sanctuary jurisdictions.

The Department of Justice declined on Monday to clarify the definition of a sanctuary jurisdiction.

A few nonprofits in San Diego County, including Alliance for HOPE International, received funds from the department last fiscal year. Clint Carney, operations director with the group, said he did not think nonprofits would be affected by the certification requirement.

The Justice Department under the Obama administration told grant applicants that they had to comply with federal immigration laws to receive funding, but it did not follow up with those it believed were out of compliance.

Sessions criticized cities and states that pass policies to make it difficult for immigration officers to carry out federal law.

Such policies cannot continue, Sessions said at a news conference Monday. They make our nation less safe by putting dangerous criminals back on our streets.

The National League of Cities spoke out strongly against Sessions plans.

If the federal government is unable to enforce the nations broken immigration laws, it should not attempt to shift that burden onto cities, said Matt Zone, president of the organization. This plan attacks cities by imposing a needless burden on local police forces, and could unjustly penalize innocent residents receiving federal grants  including the victims of the Pulse nightclub tragedy in Orlando.

kate.morrissey@sduniontribune.com, @bgirledukate
A political organization recently praised Rep. Darrell Issa in a commercial ad for repealing Obamacare. Thats not exactly what happened.

The American Action Network television ad that aired on Friday afternoon asked viewers to Thank Congressman Darrell Issa for replacing the Affordable Care Act with better health care.

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The problem is that Issa and other House members did no such thing. On Friday afternoon, a scheduled vote on a bill that would have replaced the existing system with the Trump administration-backed American Health Care Act was canceled after it became clear that there wasnt enough support for it to pass.

Whats not clear is how the political action committee apparently jumped the gun or misrepresented Issas position on the bill, because it wouldnt discuss the specifics of why the ad ran with the Union-Tribune.

As a part of an ongoing effort to change healthcare policy, the American Action Network made commercials praising at least 11 Republicans in Congress for replacing the Affordable Care Act. Its uncertain if each of the advertisements made it to the airwaves, or only appeared on the political action committees YouTube channel.

The ads thanking members for the repeal appeared on the groups website weeks before the vote that didnt happen. At the time the most recent ad, a commercial that that asked viewers to thank Issa for repealing the ACA, debuted, Issa did not support the AHCA but rather said he planned to fix the ACA current policy.

The current bill is not in a form that I approve of, Issa, a Vista Republican, said at a town hall meeting on March 11, the day after the political organization told voters to thank Issa for replacing the ACA. I am trying to change it. But ultimately the Affordable Care Act has problems that need to be fixed. My intention is to keep working on the fixes.

Two days later, Issa reiterated his concern about the Republican bill.

You know I am not prepared to vote for (how) it is right now and I think thats not because of a specific, this is unacceptable, but because I think we can do better, Issa said in an appearance on Fox and Friends.

Early last week after changes were emerging in the bill, Issa told reporters that he was leaning toward voting in support of it. Issa has not said which amendments to the bill caused his opinion to change, nor has he publicly identified any specific problems he saw in the legislation.

After the vote was canceled on Friday, Issa called the legislation an imperfect approach and I believe that we can do better. We will go back to the drawing board and get this right for each and every American concerned with high costs in their health care and ever-dwindling choices and access to care.

Issa said he will continue to try and make changes to the healthcare system, but Trump said he plans to focus on other priorities on his agenda.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., did not express optimism that there would be another repeal-and-replace effort soon.

I dont know what else to say other than Obamacares the law of the land, he said after the vote was canceled.

Even if Issa and other members passed the bill through the House, the American Health Care Act would not, at least immediately, replace the Obamacare because the legislation would still need Senate approval and a signature from President Donald Trump to become law. The Senate was viewed as an even tougher hurdle for the bill than the House.

Twitter: @jptstewart

joshua.stewart@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1841
Democrat Doug Applegates unsuccessful congressional campaign has filed paperwork accounting for a previously unexplained $400,000 drop in cash on hand in his challenge of Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista.

Seven amended reports to the Federal Election Commission list two previously-undisclosed media buys  $211,868 on Oct. 27 and $93,629 on Oct. 3. Both were paid to The New Media Firm in Washington, D.C.

Also included in amended reports were 11 previously-unreported payments totaling $28,147 to reimburse Applegate for expenses he paid on the campaigns behalf, including office rent and media consulting.

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Together, the newly reported expenses and numerous, smaller adjustments in both spending and receipts, account for a $376,408 overnight reduction in the campaigns coffers between Nov. 28 and Nov. 29, 2018, according to a review by The San Diego Union-Tribune of the original and amended FEC reports.

There were several omitted expenditures at the end of the campaign that somehow were not reported, Applegates campaign manager, Robert Dempsey, said Monday. Our internal books, our bank accounts and the FEC filings are reconciled to the penny, and were very confident that weve done a complete and accurate reconciliation.

Dempsey said the campaign took the time necessary to do a thorough, line-by-line accounting of its receipts and expenses since Jan. 1, 2016. As of Monday, the campaigns books were clean, correct, and ready to move ahead with fundraising for Applegates second run at the seat in 2018, Dempsey said.

The internal review found no money missing or incorrectly spent, he said.

The San Diego Union-Tribune last month reported on a series of unanswered inquiries by the FEC into inconsistencies and other issues for the Applegate campaign, which was closely watched and proved closer than anticipated for a longtime incumbent. Applegate almost immediately decided to run again in 2018.

The FEC inquiries addressed concerns including mathematical errors, misidentification of contributors, failure to adequately describe expenditures and discrepancies in accounting for loans Applegate made to the campaign. The campaign missed deadlines for response to five of the FECs letters requesting additional information. The amended reports address issues raised in the letters.

The U-T separately reported on the sudden drop-off in cash, and the FEC followed up with a written inquiry to the campaign about the fund balance.

A statement released Monday by Applegates campaign said the two media buys paid by wire transfer had not been recorded on the books. The statement did not say who was responsible or how the transfers slipped through the cracks.

It was a mistake that never should have happened, Applegates statement said. But I was confident throughout this entire process there was nothing more than mistakes made.

Applegates campaign hired a new treasurer late last year, Jennifer May, according to a report filed with the FEC on Dec. 28.

Experts in election law said the campaigns reporting problems were extensive, but not necessarily alarming, given Applegates novice status as a candidate for federal office and the closeness of the race. They said the FEC tends to be more patient and lenient with first-time candidates  especially when they lose.

Both Applegate and Issa raised and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in the final weeks leading up to Election Day in November, FEC reports show.

Applegate, a Democrat and retired Marine colonel from San Clemente, is no longer the only prominent Democrat proposing to run in 2018 for the nine-term incumbents seat.

Another Democrat, Mike Levin, an environmental attorney from San Juan Capistrano, announced earlier this month that he would run against Issa in 2018. Republicans in Congress have made a priority of protecting Issas seat, enrolling him in their Patriot Program, a special fundraising and campaign operation that helps incumbents get re-elected.

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morgan.cook@sduniontribune.com
View the Video TSA: 'We don't live in a make-sense world'

A Capri Sun juice pouch mistakenly left in a 10-year-old San Diego girls carry-on handbag led a TSA agent to subject the girl to almost two minutes of frisking and extra screening that lasted about an hour, her father said.

Liquids exceeding 3 ounces are not allowed in carry-on bags, for fear they might contain explosives, but the girls father said the resulting search was an over-reaction and an inappropriate intrusion.

Kevin Payne of Pacific Beach and his daughter, Vendela, were passing through the Raleigh-Durham International Airport on Dec. 30, 2015, headed home to San Diego, when U.S. Transportation Security Administration agents discovered the liquid.

Authorities followed up with a swab of the bag and a false-positive test for explosives, then a nearly 2-minute-long full-body pat-down in which a female TSA agent touched the girls buttocks and groin repeatedly.

Did the TSA go too far in its frisking of Vendela? Yes 69% (483) No 31% (216) 699 total votes.

Payne said he has not made a formal complaint to TSA, but is considering doing so, possibly with the help of an attorney. He said he wanted to see how people responded to the video on social media first, to make sure he wasnt overreacting.

Payne said TSA agents told him he wasnt allowed to film, but he asserted his rights and was able to capture the incident on video, which he has since posted on YouTube and Nextdoor.

In the video, the girl stands with a blank expression on her face as the female agent runs her hands down the inside and outside of the girls legs, over her buttocks and chest, and around the waistband of her skirt.

The TSA investigation delayed the familys travel for about hour, Payne said.

Im a very big proponent of security, and if they were patting me down no problem, but this was a 10-year-old girl, Payne said. The whole system seems to not work the way it should be working.

Nico Melendez, a spokesman for TSA, provided a statement Monday in response to The San Diego Union-Tribunes questions about whether the girls pat-down was warranted and conducted in accordance with TSAs policies for searching children. The statement said pat-downs are used to resolve alarms and anomalies found in the screening process.

Since pat-down screening is conducted to determine whether prohibited items are concealed under clothing, sufficient pressure must be applied in order to ensure detection, the statement said.

The agency adjusted its policies in 2011 to reduce the likelihood that children under 13 would be patted down during airport screening.

According to the TSA website, TSA officers will work with parents to resolve any alarms at the checkpoint. TSA has modified screening procedures for children 12 and under that reduce the likelihood of pat-down screening.

The agency has not described the modified screening procedures in detail because of security concerns.

Vendelas pat-down didnt look modified to Payne.

They gave her a very standard pat-down for an adult female, Payne said. I dont think it was modified one bit.

The only difference between a standard adult pat-down and the search of his child was that the search of Vendela took almost twice as long as it probably should have, Payne said.

If you look at videos, most pat-downs on adults (take) about a minute, Payne said. Start to finish, in real time, (Vendalas pat-down) was 1 minute and 47 seconds. It just didnt seem like it was an efficient pat-down.

Payne said TSA agents made it clear to him that he would be arrested if he tried to interfere with their search of his daughter. So he kept calm, waved to his daughter, and made funny faces at her to keep things light.

I just kept it as calm cool compliant as possible, and she followed suit, Payne said. Deep down I was absolutely fuming, but I knew letting emotions out was only going to worsen the situation for everybody.

Other incidents of pat-downs of children by TSA agents have prompted public concern in recent years.

In 2011, a video of a female TSA agent patting down a 6-year-old girl at Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans prompted Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah to demand reformed search procedures that make patting down less intrusive for children under 13. The agency testified about its policies in a Congressional hearing the same year.

In 2010, Rep. Darrell Issa took issue with the screening of a disabled 4-year-old boy in 2009. TSA forced the child to pass through the metal detector without his leg braces or help from his father.

Payne said TSA agents did not exhaust other screening options before frisking his daughter. For example, they could have re-swabbed her bag using a different machine before they decided to pat her down, he said. They could have sent her back through the metal detectors.

As of Monday afternoon, reaction on social media was mixed.

OK, I was skeptical at first just assuming an overprotective father, which is by no means wrong at all, wrote a commenter identified as David Jackson of San Diego on social networking website Nextdoor. But after watching the video, my mind is changed and, yes, that TSA agent went well past the line in this search.

Jackson goes on to say that he did pat-downs on people much larger than Vendela while deployed with the Army in Afghanistan, and it took less than a minute. He said frisking children at airport security may be justified, given the likelihood that terrorists would use children to carry out attacks, but if the agent was going for thorough, she went five steps too far past that.

Commenter Janelle Sherako wrote that shes familiar with secondary screening at airport checkpoints, having gone through it some 40 times last year while traveling for work in a knee brace.

There is nothing out of line here, Sherako wrote. Being a parent myself and a frequent flyer I don't see anything other than the TSA agent doing her job.

Im sorry your child go searched, Sherako wrote, but Id rather have my child searched every flight along with any other potential threat than to be on a plane and get hijacked, blown up, or (another) negative outcome.
The fog of war has made it difficult to say with certainty what happened March 17 in Mosul, Iraq.

Did U.S. airstrikes accidentally kill more than 200 civilians, as the top U.S. commander in Iraq says is possible? Did the Islamic State force civilians into homes and place snipers on their roofs to provoke attacks and help power a social media campaign that depicts the U.S. military as bloodthirsty and anti-Muslim, as some residents said? Or did booby-trapped houses and suicide bombers cause the tragedy, as asserted by the Iraqi military, which is working with the Pentagon to drive the Islamic State from Mosul, one of Iraqs largest cities?

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A Pentagon spokesman says determining the truth is our highest priority. But what also needs to be determined is whether the Trump administration has changed long-established counterterrorism rules and is becoming less concerned about civilian deaths, a shift that The New York Times reported March 12 was under consideration.

This we know: There are few greater military challenges than dislodging terrorists house-by-house in a densely populated city, and civilian casualties are impossible to avoid. Also, that its understandable some aggressive military commanders may have chafed at restrictions imposed by the Obama administration. But as more than 30 former national security officials wrote in a recent letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis, the U.S. militarys doctrine of trying to minimize civilian casualties is both the right thing to do and strategically beneficial. That doctrine should remain in place.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: UTOpinion
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mexico has a message for anyone considering helping President Donald Trump build that wall: Its treasonous.

The message was relayed in an editorial on Sunday headlined Treason against the homeland that made the point that the Mexican companies who have expressed a willingness to supply materials or actually work on the wall would be betraying their country. Here it is in its entirety.

The editorial calls the wall a violation of the social relationship and peace between Mexico and the U.S. and says getting involved with such an affront to dignity would be equivalent to shooting oneself in the foot.

What is most surprising is the lukewarmness of the Mexican government's economic authorities, which have not shown any firmness against these entrepreneurs, the editorial says, according to a translation by the Associated Press.

The Associated Press reported that Mexicos Economy Secretary says the government doesnt plan to restrict companies from getting involved with the wall but warns them that Mexicans will likely judge them for whether they are loyal to the national identity.

Bids from companies interested in working on it are already being collected for the $2 billion plus wall project. These companies are already being required to construct prototypes in San Diego.

Mexican cement maker Cemex and Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua have both already expressed interest in working on the wall, according to Reuters.

Some of those who read the Catholic Churchs editorial supported it.

Finally the Catholic Church does something right, one said.

Other readers agreed that working on the wall would be wrong and even worthy of treason.

Can a job just be a job?

Others rebuked the Catholic Church.

What do you think? Comment below and we may add your thoughts to this page.

Heres the full translation of the editorial via Google Chrome translation.

As the months go by, Donald Trump's immigration policies face reality. Demagoguery was easy in the campaign, but actions, in practice, become difficult in the face of the remarkable opposition of civil society, churches and activists, who are faced with an erratic government whose promises are not easy to consolidate.

Trump allocated a budget of two billion dollars for the construction of the wall, which should have solid infrastructure and soft aesthetic characteristics to hide, under paint and lights, hatred, mutilation and division. What is regrettable is that, on this side of the border, Mexicans are ready to collaborate with a fanatical project that annihilates the good relationship in the concert of two nations that share a common border.

In recent days, some companies with Mexican capital raised their hands to participate in the tenders, and offer technical and expertise to deal with specific aspects in the construction of the wall of ignominy, providing cement, materials, luminaires and painting; Under the good argument of being companies that generate jobs, these companies seek to make a profit, regardless of the consequences, and consolidate their presence in the industry they exploit. It is not two or three, but more than 500 companies that seek to obtain good economic slices.

For them, the end justifies the means. However, what is most surprising is the lukewarmness of the Mexican government's economic authorities, which have not shown any firmness against these entrepreneurs. Some have pointed out that the United States has the inalienable right to build the wall and do whatever it wishes to do, even if it violates the dignity of the people.

It is those same myopes who fail to see that the wall is a frank threat that violates social relations and peace. Recall that, in the name of ideology, entire nations and continents were divided, plunging thousands into uncertainty.

The only prevailing voice was that of arms, bullets, repression and legal murder for anyone who dared to cross a border in search of freedom. The investment of Mexican companies in the wall will end up nurturing all those forms of discrimination that throughout history have subjected millions of human beings.

Practically, Joining a project that is a grave affront to dignity, is to shoot yourself in the foot. Any deportation, when there is no proven crime and administrative failure justified according to law, is a sign of terror, and the wall is a monument of intimidation and silence, xenophobic hate to silence the voices of poorly paid and ill-treated workers, unprotected families and Of abused persons; It is a retreat from the noblest longings of mankind, by which much blood has been shed; Is a prelude to the destruction of the values of democracy and social rights.

The wall represents the predominance of a country that is considered good with the manifest destiny to overwhelm a nationality that has considered perverted and corrupt: the Mexican. Pope Francis appeals to forge peace between nations. In February 2017, during a weekly catechesis, he said: "In the social and civil context, I appeal not to create walls, but to build bridges. Do not respond to evil with evil. They defeat evil with good, to offense with forgiveness. "

Any company intent on investing in the wall of the Trump fanatic would be immoral, but above all, its shareholders and owners should be considered as traitors to the motherland.

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin
COMMON SIGNS Typical symptoms of hypochondria include:  Extreme anxiety or fear about having a particular disease.  Worries that minor symptoms may mean you have a serious disease.  Repeated doctors visits and exams.  Frequently switching doctors.  Cyberchondria, the obsessive health research on the Internet for information about illnesses and their symptoms.  Frequently checking the body for problems such as lumps, sores or aches.  Frequently checking vital signs, such as blood pressure, pulse or temperature.  Inability to be reassured by medical exams that show nothing is wrong.  Thinking you have a disease after reading or hearing about it.  Refusing to see a doctor for fear of getting the bad news that you have a serious illness.  R.J. Ignelzi

HANDLING HEALTH ANXIETY If someone you care about exhibits symptoms of hypochondria or if you think you may suffer from it, there are some simple things that can be done to temper this health anxiety. Stop doctor shopping. Find one doctor you really trust, and admit to him or her that you have health anxiety. Work together with that doctor, says Jill Stoddard, a clinical psychologist at the Center for Stress and Anxiety Management in Mission Valley. Stop trying to diagnose yourself on the Internet. It will only fuel anxiety. Skip disease-of-the-week TV shows and movies. Resist frequent body monitoring. Talk you to your doctor about what self-checks you should perform and how often. Stick to that plan. Keep an open mind if your physician advises you to see a mental-health specialist to be evaluated. Be willing to consider the possibility that you have hypochondria. Ask a trusted friend or relative who knows you well whether he or she believes you would benefit from a mental evaluation. Ask for support. Tell your family and friends that you have hypochondria and ask for their patience and understanding. Join a group. Anxiety support groups can help you bond with people who share common concerns, and you may learn additional coping strategies. Groups also allow you to talk about your health anxiety, which can help reduce it. Limit alcohol consumption. Alcohol can increase paranoia and interacts badly with anti-anxiety drugs.  R.J. Ignelzi

Even the healthiest people experience annoying little aches and pains occasionally. Most of us tend to ignore them or just learn to live with them. However, for 5 percent to 10 percent of the population who suffer from hypochondria, these minor maladies are exaggerated into major illnesses.

In their minds, a headache becomes a brain tumor. A cough must be lung cancer. A little indigestion means heart disease. Often dismissed as neurotic time-wasters, hypochondriacs constant fixation and anxiety about their health can be as disabling as a real physical illness.

Hypochondriacs become their symptoms. They have such an inappropriate preoccupation with the smallest physical problem that it gets in the way of normal living, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, says George Pratt, clinical psychologist and vice chairman of psychology at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla. Many of the symptoms that hypochondriacs feel are often physical sensations caused by anxiety or depression that can go along with hypochondria. The constant worrying can release harmful stress hormones and do real physical damage.

Simply telling a hypochondriac that theyre not physically sick is never enough reassurance. Theyre likely to doctor-hop, going from one medical practitioner to another looking for affirmation of their feared illness, only creating more anxiety and frustration.

They may have had every test under the sun and feel briefly reassured, but then that strong belief that something is wrong comes right back, says Jill Stoddard, a clinical psychologist at the Center for Stress and Anxiety Management in Mission Valley.

Then, theres the other side of hypochondria  people who are so afraid they are seriously ill that they wont go near a doctor or medical

test because they cant bear what they believe will be bad news.

Considered a somatoform disorder, or a psychological disorder with physical symptoms, hypochondria occurs equally in men and women and can develop at any age, but most often begins in early adulthood. Although it doesnt seem to have a genetic link, the mental disorder may be triggered by life events. When a close family member or loved one dies or is very ill, a person can start experiencing symptoms of hypochondria. The death of a loved one very early in life has also been shown to increase the risk. Its estimated that up to 10 percent of all visits to primary-care physicians may be because of hypochondriacal fears.

The Internet is nirvana for a hypochondriac, with medical research, disease blogs and self-diagnosis only a few mouse clicks away. The phenomenon is so common it has a name: cyberchondria. Add to that the television commercials for pharmaceuticals that must now spell out every possible side effect, and hypochondriacs have hundreds of illnesses to obsess over.

Some people search and scan for these for hours and hours. It can be overwhelming. Its important to be aware (of health risks), but not preoccupied, Pratt says.

In addition to being fixated on disease information and symptoms, hypochondriacs often have an obsessive need for self-monitoring, called body vigilance. Many sufferers check their blood pressure, pulse and temperature several times a day and constantly scan their bodies looking for lumps, bumps or bruises.

If you look closely enough and often enough, youre probably going to find something, no matter how insignificant, Stoddard says, explaining that the over-monitoring feeds into a vicious circle. They take and retake their blood pressure, and the more anxious they get the higher their blood pressure. Its not because anything is wrong; its just because theyre anxious.

Besides the worry and stress hypochondria causes, it can also result in major life problems. It can ruin relationships as friends and family grow weary of hearing about imagined health complaints. It can be a huge financial burden to continue to see doctors and have needless and expensive medical tests. A hypochondriacs job may suffer with frequent absences or sick days.

And if a hypochondriac really does develop a serious medical problem, it could be like the boy who cried wolf. Medical practitioners wont take it seriously.

When a person has seen a doctor multiple times for exaggerated minor symptoms, the doctor may end up minimizing them and not give them the full tests necessary to rule out (an illness). Theyll just placate them, Pratt says.

There are two main treatments for hypochondria: psychotherapy and medication. Cognitive behavioral therapy is considered quite effective for the condition as it helps patients recognize and understand the false beliefs that trigger health anxiety. It also helps them learn to stop behaviors associated with the anxiety, such as constantly monitoring their body for problems.

Some antidepressant medications, including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), may also help relieve some of the anxiety symptoms.

However, because hypochondriacs are convinced they are physically ill, not mentally ill, its often difficult for them to seek professional counseling or medication on their own. Thats why it is so important for friends and loved ones of people exhibiting symptoms of hypochondria to lend support and intervene early.

Its often tough to convince a hypochondriac patient that theyre not really sick. They rarely stay in (therapy) treatment, and its difficult to get them to take their medications, says Dr. Krauz Ganadjian, a psychiatrist at Sharp Grossmont Hospital. For most hypochondriac patients, the condition is chronic.

So how can you help hypochondriacs get the treatment they need?

Try not to tell them theyre a hypochondriac. That doesnt help, Ganadjian says. Instead, focus on their distress.

Stoddard suggests trying to roll with their resistance,

Take the position that youre sorry they have all of these medical problems, but (you want them to) live their best life possible even with these health conditions. Suggest that it may help to talk to (a therapist) to help them cope, Stoddard says. Demonstrate to them that youre on their side, and you empathize with the bad hand theyve been dealt.
Icelandic English

A shareholders meeting has been called on April 3rd at the request of shareholders that own more than 10% of the share capital in accordance with article 4.14 of the companys Articles of Association. The respective shareholders have now recalled their request and the meeting is therefore hereby cancelled.

For further information, please contact:

Petur . Oskarsson, SVP Corporate Communication

petur@icelandairgroup.is

+ 354 863 6075
NEW YORK, March 28, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Scott+Scott, Attorneys at Law, LLP (Scott+Scott), a national shareholder and consumer rights litigation firm, announces an investigation into Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc. (Sarepta or the Company), a corporation headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts and incorporated in Delaware, and certain of its senior officers and executives. If you purchased Sarepta stock between October 1, 2015 and January 15, 2016, you are encouraged to contact a Scott+Scott attorney toll free at (844) 818-6980 for more information.



Sarepta is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of therapeutics for the treatment of rare, infectious and other diseases. The Company developed the drug eteplirsen for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a genetic degenerative muscle disease. Eteplirsen is designed to increase the underlying cause of DMD by enabling production of the protein dystrophin.

In October 2015, Sarepta told the public, including investors, that clinical trials of eteplirsen had demonstrated dystrophin production in nearly all patients, dystrophin intensity that was statistically significant, and dystrophin production [that] was in fact robust.

On January 15, 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released an analysis of Sareptas eteplirsen trials. Among other things, the FDA pointed out that DMD experts had stated that induction of approximately 10% of normal dystrophin levels sets a minimum level to confer measurable clinic benefit. Dystrophin levels after Sareptas eteplirsen treatment were only reported to be about 0.9% of normal. Thus, the FDA report disclosed that eteplirsen had not shown the significant increase in dystrophin that Sarepta had touted.

On this news, the price of Sarepta common stock plummeted more than 54%, from $31.63 on January 14, 2016 to close at $14.28 on January 15, 2016.

What You Can Do

If you purchased Sarepta stock between October 1, 2015 and January 15, 2016 and you wish to discuss this investigation, or have questions about this notice or your legal rights, please contact attorney Rhiana Swartz at (844) 818-6980, or at rswartz@scott-scott.com.

About Scott+Scott, Attorneys at Law, LLP

Scott+Scott has significant experience in prosecuting major securities, antitrust, and employee retirement plan actions throughout the United States. The firm represents pension funds, foundations, individuals, and other entities worldwide with offices in New York, London, Connecticut, California, and Ohio.
Delta, UT -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/28/2017 -- 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



Delta, UTAH General Society of Mayflower Descendant, Adam Paul Green (Ancestor Stephen Hopkins / Gen.No. 86,723) Introduces New Geneology Support Website for Local Enthusiasts http://www.xocohealth.goodchocolateblog.com/



Adam Paul Green was born to a multi-talented beauty queen Mother and a Father who, in addition to being a US Army Spy and a Counter-Intelligence Special Agent, was also a highly accomplished entrepreneur. Adam was taught at a young age that, in both life and business, loyalty is a requirement for success. He's had the honor of working directly with his father in several of the family businesses. In fact, this is where he learned crucial entrepreneurial skills and honed his talents with international business strategies and venture capitalism. http://www.AdamPaulGreen.com, http://www.ImAdamGreen.com



Adam earned his Bachelors of Science Degree in International Business and Marketing from the University of Utah. He was hand-picked by the President of the University's renowned School of Business to compete with dozens of other ambitious nationwide-graduates for the opportunity to secure a lucrative job within a prestigious Fortune 100 company. http://www.Twitter.com/AdamPaulGreen



http://www.ImAdamGreen.com



Adam's hard work and creativity helped him land this job of a lifetime. He obtained incredible business experience there and spent years innovating, improving processes and setting sales records. Although this dream job in Traditional Corporate America was a fun challenge for him, and something he truly enjoyed mastering, Adam's natural entrepreneurial spirit kept nudging him to do something more significant with his time and talents. http://www.MyChocolatePod.com, http://www.Facebook.com/AdamPaulGreen



Since 2001, Adam has been involved in the Health and Wellness Industry as a successful Entrepreneur, Broker, Product Developer and Manufacturer of Cosmeceutical products. During his career, he has worked with some of the most recognizable Fortune 500 businesses along with many top international Network Marketing companies. Adam has consistently proven his unique ability to help his clients achieve their goals through creative Distribution-Channel Placement, innovative Product Development and custom Manufacturing. Adam currently owns three profitable businesses.



http://www.ImAdamGreen.com



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



Women of Early Plymouth: Governor William Bradford reported that the Pilgrims were worried that the "weak bodies of women" would not be able to withstand the rigors of a trans-Atlantic voyage and the construction of a colony. Prior to the Mayflower, very few English women had made the voyage across the ocean.



Sir Walter Raleigh's Roanoke colony arrived in Virginia in 1587, and amongst those 120 colonists there were 17 women: a baby girl, Virginia Dare, was born after arrival. When re-supply ships came from England, they could not relocate the people. The colony had mysteriously disappeared, and was never seen again. The Jamestown Colony was founded in 1607, but relatively few women had yet made the voyage and taken up residence there.



The Pilgrim husband, as head of the household, had an important and difficult decision to make. Building a colony would be hard on a woman's "weaker body." It might be safer and healthier to leave her behind, and have her come later once the houses were built, and the general safety and successfulness of the colony were better established. But that could be several years. Could he live several years without his wife? How strong was his wife anyway, could she really handle it? Was it right to put your wife's life in danger in this manner?



As the Mayflower left England for America, there were 18 adult women on-board. Three of them, Elizabeth Hopkins, Susanna White, and Mary Allerton, were actually in their last trimester of a pregnancy. All the adult women on the Mayflower were married; there were no single women--although there were a few teenage girls nearing marriageable age.



While no women would die during the Mayflower's voyage, life after arrival proved extremely difficult. In fact, 78% of the women would die the first winter, a far higher percentage than for men or children. Dorothy Bradford was the first woman to die, and the only woman who died in the month of December. While many of the men, including her husband, were out exploring on Cape Cod, she accidentally fell off the Mayflower into the bitter cold waters of Provincetown Harbor. Most of the women's death dates were not recorded, but we do know that Rose Standish died on January 29, Mary Allerton died on February 25, and Elizabeth Winslow died on March 24. Most of the women died in February and March.



The extremely high mortality rate among women is probably explainable by the fact the men were out in the fresh air, felling trees, building structures and drinking fresh New England water; while the women were confined to the damp, filthy and crowded quarters offered by the Mayflower, where disease would have spread much more quickly. The two-month voyage was long enough; the women, however, remained living on the ship for an additional four months while the men built storehouses and living quarters on shore. Many of the sick were no doubt cared for on-board the ship by the women, increasing their exposure to colds and pneumonias. William Mullins died on February 21, apparently on-board the Mayflower since his will was witnessed by the ship's captain and ship's surgeon. His wife Alice and son Joseph had not yet died, but it wasn't too long before they did, orphaning their teenage daughter Priscilla in the New World.



Only five women survived the first winter. One of the five survivors, Mrs. Katherine Carver, died in May of a "broken heart," her husband John having died of sunstroke a month earlier. Weak bodies or not, by the time of the famous "Thanksgiving," there were only four women left to care for the Colony's fifty surviving men and children. The four women were Eleanor Billington, Elizabeth Hopkins, Mary Brewster, and Susanna (White) Winslow.



http://mayflowerhistory.com/women



The End of the Mayflower: "Mayflower's End," by Mike Haywood. The Mayflower returned to England from Plymouth Colony, arriving back on 9 May 1621. Christopher Jones took the ship out on a trading voyage to Rochelle, France, in October 1621, returning with a cargo of Bay salt. Christopher Jones, master and quarter-owner of the Mayflower, died and was buried at Rotherhithe, co. Surrey, England, on 5 March 1621/2. No further record of the Mayflower is found until May 1624, when it was appraised for the purposes of probate and was described as being in ruins. The ship was almost certainly sold off as scrap.



The claim, first originating from J. Rendel Harris' book The Finding of the Mayflower (1920), that the Mayflower ended up as a barn in Jordans, England, is now widely discredited as being a figment of an overzealous imagination on the tercentenary anniversary of the Mayflower's voyage, combined with a tainted oral history. None of the evidence has withstood subsequent investigation. Regardless of the lack of evidence for its authenticity, it has been featured in National Geographic on several occasions and is a tourist destination. It is important to realize that in 1624, when the ship was scrapped, it was not at all famous, and nobody would have thought twice about letting it rot away.



About MayflowerHistory.com

MayflowerHistory.com, the Internet's most complete and accurate website dealing with the Mayflower passengers and the history of the Pilgrims and early Plymouth Colony. The website was first created back in 1994 (when the web was still mostly text!) as a simple, but complete, passenger list of the Mayflower. It has grown over the past twenty years as the author, historian Caleb Johnson, has researched and compiled material.



http://mayflowerhistory.com
TORONTO, March 28, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Economic Club of Canada is hosting The Hon. Michael Coteau to discuss a nuanced perspective on the far-reaching impacts of racism in Ontario.





WHO: The Hon. Michael Coteau - Minister of Children and Youth Services, Minister responsible for Ontarios Anti-Racism Directorate WHAT:



The Government of Ontario is leading the charge to build a more just, inclusive society through its Anti-Racism Directorate. Minister Coteau will look how dismantling the barriers of racism is key to Canadas success.





WHEN: Wednesday, March 29th, 2017 11:30am Registration begins 11:55am Opening remarks begin 12:00pm Discussion begins 1:30pm Event concludes WHERE: InterContinental Hotel - Ballroom 225 Front Street West, Toronto





To confirm attendance or for more information about the event, please contact:

Sophie LaPointe - The Economic Club of Canada: lapointe@economicclub.ca or 416.306.0899

The Economic Club of Canada:

Each year, more than 100 key policy makers and business leaders seek out the Economic Club of Canadas platform to deliver major keynote addresses. Audience members are drawn from the most senior levels of Canadian business, health care and government. Membership is open to all who share a passion for discourse around the most important issues of today.
Denton, TX -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/28/2017 -- 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



The Mayflower was hired in London, and sailed from London to Southampton in July 1620 to begin loading food and supplies for the voyage--much of which was purchased at Southampton. The Pilgrims were mostly still living in the city of Leiden, in the Netherlands. They hired a ship called the Speedwell to take them from Delfshaven, the Netherlands, to Southampton, England, to meet up with the Mayflower. The two ships planned to sail together to Northern Virginia. The Speedwell departed Delfthaven on July 22, and arrived at Southampton, where they found the Mayflower waiting for them. The Speedwell had been leaking on her voyage from the Netherlands to England, though, so they spent the next week patching her up.



On August 5, the two ships finally set sail for America. But the Speedwell began leaking again, so they pulled into the town of Dartmouth for repairs, arriving there about August 12. The Speedwell was patched up again, and the two ships again set sail for America about August 21. After the two ships had sailed about 300 miles out to sea, the Speedwell again began to leak. Frustrated with the enormous amount of time lost, and their inability to fix the Speedwell so that it could be sea-worthy, they returned to Plymouth, England, and made the decision to leave the Speedwell behind. The Mayflower would go to America alone. The cargo on the Speedwell was transferred over to the Mayflower; some of the passengers were so tired and disappointed with all the problems that they quit and went home. Others crammed themselves onto the already very crowded Mayflower.



Finally, on September 6, the Mayflower departed from Plymouth, England, and headed for America. By the time the Pilgrims had left England, they had already been living onboard the ships for nearly a month and a half. The voyage itself across the Atlantic Ocean took 66 days, from their departure on September 6, until Cape Cod was sighted on 9 November 1620. The first half of the voyage went fairly smoothly, the only major problem was sea-sickness. But by October, they began encountering a number of Atlantic storms that made the voyage treacherous. Several times, the wind was so strong they had to just drift where the weather took them; it was not safe to use the ship's sails. The Pilgrims intended to land in Northern Virginia, which at the time included the region as far north as the Hudson River in the modern State of New York. The Hudson River, in fact, was their originally intended destination. They had received good reports on this region while in the Netherlands. All things considered, the Mayflower was almost right on target, missing the Hudson River by just a few degrees.



As the Mayflower approached land, the crew spotted Cape Cod just as the sun rose on November 9. The Pilgrims decided to head south, to the mouth of the Hudson River in New York, where they intended to make their plantation. However, as the Mayflower headed south, it encountered some very rough seas, and nearly shipwrecked. The Pilgrims then decided, rather than risk another attempt to go south they would just stay and explore Cape Cod. They turned back north, rounded the tip, and anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor. The Pilgrims would spend the next month and a half exploring Cape Cod, trying to decide where they would build their plantation. On December 25, 1620, they had finally decided upon Plymouth, and began construction of their first buildings.



The End of the Mayflower: "Mayflower's End," by Mike Haywood. The Mayflower returned to England from Plymouth Colony, arriving back on 9 May 1621. Christopher Jones took the ship out on a trading voyage to Rochelle, France, in October 1621, returning with a cargo of Bay salt. Christopher Jones, master and quarter-owner of the Mayflower, died and was buried at Rotherhithe, co. Surrey, England, on 5 March 1621/2. No further record of the Mayflower is found until May 1624, when it was appraised for the purposes of probate and was described as being in ruins. The ship was almost certainly sold off as scrap.



The claim, first originating from J. Rendel Harris' book The Finding of the Mayflower (1920), that the Mayflower ended up as a barn in Jordans, England, is now widely discredited as being a figment of an overzealous imagination on the tercentenary anniversary of the Mayflower's voyage, combined with a tainted oral history. None of the evidence has withstood subsequent investigation. Regardless of the lack of evidence for its authenticity, it has been featured in National Geographic on several occasions and is a tourist destination. It is important to realize that in 1624, when the ship was scrapped, it was not at all famous, and nobody would have thought twice about letting it rot away.



Denton, TX General Society of Mayflower Descendant, Adam Paul Green (Ancestor Stephen Hopkins / Gen.No. 86,723) Reveals New Geneology Support Website for Local Enthusiasts http://www.xocohealth.goodchocolateblog.com/



Adam Paul Green was born to a multi-talented beauty queen Mother and a Father who, in addition to being a US Army Spy and a Counter-Intelligence Special Agent, was also a highly accomplished entrepreneur. Adam was taught at a young age that, in both life and business, loyalty is a requirement for success. He's had the honor of working directly with his father in several of the family businesses. In fact, this is where he learned crucial entrepreneurial skills and honed his talents with international business strategies and venture capitalism. http://www.AdamPaulGreen.com, http://www.ImAdamGreen.com



Adam earned his Bachelors of Science Degree in International Business and Marketing from the University of Utah. He was hand-picked by the President of the University's renowned School of Business to compete with dozens of other ambitious nationwide-graduates for the opportunity to secure a lucrative job within a prestigious Fortune 100 company. http://www.Twitter.com/AdamPaulGreen



http://www.ImAdamGreen.com



Adam's hard work and creativity helped him land this job of a lifetime. He obtained incredible business experience there and spent years innovating, improving processes and setting sales records. Although this dream job in Traditional Corporate America was a fun challenge for him, and something he truly enjoyed mastering, Adam's natural entrepreneurial spirit kept nudging him to do something more significant with his time and talents. http://www.MyChocolatePod.com, http://www.Facebook.com/AdamPaulGreen



Since 2001, Adam has been involved in the Health and Wellness Industry as a successful Entrepreneur, Broker, Product Developer and Manufacturer of Cosmeceutical products. During his career, he has worked with some of the most recognizable Fortune 500 businesses along with many top international Network Marketing companies. Adam has consistently proven his unique ability to help his clients achieve their goals through creative Distribution-Channel Placement, innovative Product Development and custom Manufacturing. Adam currently owns three profitable businesses.



http://www.ImAdamGreen.com



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
Des Moines, IA -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/28/2017 -- 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



The Mayflower was hired in London, and sailed from London to Southampton in July 1620 to begin loading food and supplies for the voyage--much of which was purchased at Southampton. The Pilgrims were mostly still living in the city of Leiden, in the Netherlands. They hired a ship called the Speedwell to take them from Delfshaven, the Netherlands, to Southampton, England, to meet up with the Mayflower. The two ships planned to sail together to Northern Virginia. The Speedwell departed Delfthaven on July 22, and arrived at Southampton, where they found the Mayflower waiting for them. The Speedwell had been leaking on her voyage from the Netherlands to England, though, so they spent the next week patching her up.



On August 5, the two ships finally set sail for America. But the Speedwell began leaking again, so they pulled into the town of Dartmouth for repairs, arriving there about August 12. The Speedwell was patched up again, and the two ships again set sail for America about August 21. After the two ships had sailed about 300 miles out to sea, the Speedwell again began to leak. Frustrated with the enormous amount of time lost, and their inability to fix the Speedwell so that it could be sea-worthy, they returned to Plymouth, England, and made the decision to leave the Speedwell behind. The Mayflower would go to America alone. The cargo on the Speedwell was transferred over to the Mayflower; some of the passengers were so tired and disappointed with all the problems that they quit and went home. Others crammed themselves onto the already very crowded Mayflower.



Finally, on September 6, the Mayflower departed from Plymouth, England, and headed for America. By the time the Pilgrims had left England, they had already been living onboard the ships for nearly a month and a half. The voyage itself across the Atlantic Ocean took 66 days, from their departure on September 6, until Cape Cod was sighted on 9 November 1620. The first half of the voyage went fairly smoothly, the only major problem was sea-sickness. But by October, they began encountering a number of Atlantic storms that made the voyage treacherous. Several times, the wind was so strong they had to just drift where the weather took them; it was not safe to use the ship's sails. The Pilgrims intended to land in Northern Virginia, which at the time included the region as far north as the Hudson River in the modern State of New York. The Hudson River, in fact, was their originally intended destination. They had received good reports on this region while in the Netherlands. All things considered, the Mayflower was almost right on target, missing the Hudson River by just a few degrees.



As the Mayflower approached land, the crew spotted Cape Cod just as the sun rose on November 9. The Pilgrims decided to head south, to the mouth of the Hudson River in New York, where they intended to make their plantation. However, as the Mayflower headed south, it encountered some very rough seas, and nearly shipwrecked. The Pilgrims then decided, rather than risk another attempt to go south they would just stay and explore Cape Cod. They turned back north, rounded the tip, and anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor. The Pilgrims would spend the next month and a half exploring Cape Cod, trying to decide where they would build their plantation. On December 25, 1620, they had finally decided upon Plymouth, and began construction of their first buildings.



The End of the Mayflower: "Mayflower's End," by Mike Haywood. The Mayflower returned to England from Plymouth Colony, arriving back on 9 May 1621. Christopher Jones took the ship out on a trading voyage to Rochelle, France, in October 1621, returning with a cargo of Bay salt. Christopher Jones, master and quarter-owner of the Mayflower, died and was buried at Rotherhithe, co. Surrey, England, on 5 March 1621/2. No further record of the Mayflower is found until May 1624, when it was appraised for the purposes of probate and was described as being in ruins. The ship was almost certainly sold off as scrap.



The claim, first originating from J. Rendel Harris' book The Finding of the Mayflower (1920), that the Mayflower ended up as a barn in Jordans, England, is now widely discredited as being a figment of an overzealous imagination on the tercentenary anniversary of the Mayflower's voyage, combined with a tainted oral history. None of the evidence has withstood subsequent investigation. Regardless of the lack of evidence for its authenticity, it has been featured in National Geographic on several occasions and is a tourist destination. It is important to realize that in 1624, when the ship was scrapped, it was not at all famous, and nobody would have thought twice about letting it rot away.



Des Moines Iowa General Society of Mayflower Descendant, Adam Paul Green (Ancestor Stephen Hopkins / Gen.No. 86,723) Announces New Geneology Resource Website for Local Enthusiasts http://www.xocohealth.goodchocolateblog.com/



Adam's hard work and creativity helped him land this job of a lifetime. He obtained incredible business experience there and spent years innovating, improving processes and setting sales records. Although this dream job in Traditional Corporate America was a fun challenge for him, and something he truly enjoyed mastering, Adam's natural entrepreneurial spirit kept nudging him to do something more significant with his time and talents. http://www.MyChocolatePod.com, http://www.Facebook.com/AdamPaulGreen



Since 2001, Adam has been involved in the Health and Wellness Industry as a successful Entrepreneur, Broker, Product Developer and Manufacturer of Cosmeceutical products. During his career, he has worked with some of the most recognizable Fortune 500 businesses along with many top international Network Marketing companies. Adam has consistently proven his unique ability to help his clients achieve their goals through creative Distribution-Channel Placement, innovative Product Development and custom Manufacturing. Adam currently owns three profitable businesses.



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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
Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/27/2017 -- In 2017 the global mobile market has its sights firmly set on the opportunities offered through mobile data as well as looking for potential new revenues streams presented by the enterprise sector, data mining, 5G and international expansion.



Mobile saturation has occurred in many of the developed markets and this has forced some of the operators to look for new opportunities  particularly those offered by expanding regionally or internationally. This has occurred in most regions of the world  and as a result some operators have become powerful and dominant regional leaders.



In Latin America, for example, the mobile market continues to be dominated by a small number of operators which each have businesses in multiple countries. These include Telefonica Group; Mexico's America Movil, trading as Telcel in its domestic market and as Claro in the remaining 16 markets in the region; Telecom Italia, AT&T Mexico and Millicom International. The dominance of these operators is being gradually eroded however as a result of efforts by a number of national regulators to facilitate the entry of MVNOs and to encourage the participation of smaller players in spectrum auctions.



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In the more developed markets of Asia, growth is shifting away from a focus on subscriber numbers and towards the expansion of new generation platforms and increased data usage driven by value-added services and increased ARPUs. There are those companies such as SingTel, Vodafone, and Axiata (formerly Telekom Malaysia International) that have built a substantial presence around the Asian region beyond their own domestic market through their shareholdings in operators in multiple other markets.



In the Pacific region; the Australian mobile market is dominated by the three major mobile network operators Telstra, Optus, and Vodafone (VHA), though there are numerous MVNOs which have a significant market share. These have been able to offer LTE services on a wholesale basis since early 2016, thus encouraging growth in the LTE sector and cementing the role which MVNOs play in the overall market.



Fiji is one of the telecoms leaders in the South Pacific region, along with Papua New Guinea. Similar to many developing nations, it is heavily reliant on mobile technologies rather than fixed lines. The percentage of unique mobile subscribers in Fiji sits at around 69%. Vodafone Fiji Limited (VFL) and Digicel Fiji are the major mobile operators and the only MVNO is Australian company, Inkk Mobile which operates on VFL's network.



Three mobile service operators provide services in Papua New Guinea including Digicel, Bmobile (Vodafone), and Citifon (Telikom PNG). However, in February 2017 it was announced that Dataco, Bmobile and Telikom PNG would be merged together to form Kumul Telikom. The three entities would be able to share resources and infrastructure, making it potentially more cost effective and competitive.



Although there are a large number of network operators across the African continent, and also smaller niche MVNO players, there are also a small number of pan-regional network operators. These include Millicom, Orange Group, Vodacom and Bharti Airtel. Some rationalisation of their operations continues as these players adjust their strategies to fit in with market positions and expectations.



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As with Latin America and Africa, the European region is notable for having half a dozen pan-European operators with interests in several key markets. These main players include Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, Vodafone Group, Hutchison and TeliaSonera. There has been much jostling among these operators as they seek to strengthen their presence in particular markets. This has in turn caused some disquiet among national regulators and European competition authorities, which are keen to preserve a quorum of key players (generally four) within a given market.



This BuddeComm publication provides a global overview of the mobile market, supported by statistics as well as an overview of the mobile markets for each major region of the world. Country case studies for each region are also included, along with identification of the major MNOs and MVNOs operating in each region/country.



About ResearchMoz

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Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/28/2017 -- Automation is the latest advancement set to revolutionise the global retail market. The retail automation market is expected to witness steady growth, owing to such avant-garde collaboration between global retail and consumer goods sector, and the global electronics and IT industry. Considering the fact that retail industry drives the growth of several business and trade ventures around the world, the influence of automation will bring more efficiency to billions of retail transactions.



Visual merchandising, planogram, and big data in retail are the key trends fuelling the demand of automated services in retail markets. Effective automated products and programs that speed up the sales mechanism, create efficiency in product supplies, and develop easily-accessible business platforms that can produce a lucrative environment for the growth of the retail automation market globally.



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The global market for retail automation is gaining traction in Asia Pacific, Western Europe, and Middle East & Africa (MEA). The two most lucrative regions for the growth of the global retail automation market are North America and Europe.



Retail Automation in North America



Of these two regions, North America is the current market leader, holding the greater pie of retail automation market share. The North American retail automation market is likely to register high growth rate during 2014-2020 period.



North America remains a lucrative market for retail automation globally, with the US and Canada witnessing steady demand. North American consumers have adopted the prominent trend of relying on retail automated products and services for business transactions, which has made an affirming impetus on the retail automation market. Economic progress and rising purchasing power of consumers are some of the trends, specific to North America, that make the outlook of retail automation market considerably positive.



The European Retail Automation Market



Europe, on the other hand, is closing in on North America in order to become the leading key region in the global retail automation market. Several retail chains and multiple product lines established in Europe are helping the setting up of retail automation in European nations. The European regional market is primarily segmented into UK, Germany, Spain, France and others. Britain's exodus from EU is likely to impact the implementation of automation in UK's retail market. But, the economic stability in other European countries is expected to create a supportive dais for building up the retail automation market.



Factors Benefiting the Growth of Retail Automation Market



North America and Europe, collectively, will continue their prominence in the global market, with respect to the market size, revenue share, and overall demand. The factors that will incite this growth are,



Growth of Local Retail & Customer Reception



Local retail markets are growing in several parts of North America & Europe. Combined with a positive consumer response, automated retail will continue flourishing in niche retail markets.



Overflowing Investments on Automation Products & Services



Retail giants dominating the existing retail market are investing in automated programs and devices for creating efficient output. The cost advantage is increasing the demand for automated retail services.



Proliferation of Shopping Centres and Supermarkets



Consumers in the US and European countries prefer buying from hypermarket and malls, which is great platform for automated retail kiosks.



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Challenges in the Global Retail Automation Market



The retail automation market in North America and Europe is growing steadily, but there are a handful of factors that may restrain or slow down its growth. In the US and Canada, a key challenge for retail automation is its greatest disadvantage -- the loss of job. Labours and working professionals at retail outlets are a major contributor of the region's economy. Rising unemployment levels could plunge the local economy, having a rippling effect on the national economies of North America.



In Europe, the instability of economies across its constituent nations is restraining the growth of its retail automation market. Improving financial conditions in Turkey, Russia and Poland could influence the expansion of automated retail products; however, theundulating economies of Spain, Italy as well as Britain, can impede the adoption of automation in European retail sector.



Besides, maintaining the continuous supervision of retail kiosks, high dependency on electricity and the implications arriving from variable internet regulations are some other restraints recoiling the progress of retail automation in Europe and North America.
Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/27/2017 -- Timetrics 'The Cards and Payments Industry in Switzerland: Emerging Trends and Opportunities to 2020' report provides detailed analysis of market trends in the Swiss cards and payments industry. It provides values and volumes for a number of key performance indicators in the industry, including direct debits, check payments, payment cards and credit transfers during the review period (20112015).



The report also analyzes various payment card markets operating in the industry, and provides detailed information on the number of cards in circulation, and transaction values and volumes during the review period and over the forecast period (20162020). It also offers information on the country's competitive landscape, including the market shares of issuers and schemes.



The report brings together Timetrics research, modeling, and analysis expertise to allow banks and card issuers to identify segment dynamics and competitive advantages. The report also covers details of regulatory policy and recent changes in the regulatory structure.



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Summary



Timetrics 'The Cards and Payments Industry in Switzerland: Emerging Trends and Opportunities to 2020' report provides top-level market analysis, information and insights into the Swiss cards and payments industry, including:



- Current and forecast values for each market in the Swiss cards and payments industry, including debit card, credit and charge cards.



- Detailed insights into payment instruments including direct debit, credit transfers, checks and payment cards. It also, includes an overview of the country's key alternative payment instruments.



- E-commerce market analysis.



- Analysis of various market drivers and regulations governing the Swiss cards and payments industry.



- Detailed analysis of strategies adopted by banks and other institutions to market debit, credit and charge cards.



- Comprehensive analysis of consumer attitudes and buying preferences for cards.



- The competitive landscape in the Swiss cards and payments industry.



Scope



- This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Swiss cards and payments industry.



- It provides current values for the Swiss cards and payments industry for 2015, and forecast figures to 2020.



- It details the different demographic, economic, infrastructural and business drivers affecting the Swiss cards and payments industry.



- It outlines the current regulatory framework in the industry.



- It details marketing strategies used by various banks and other institutions.



Enquiry at: http://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=E&repid=811928



Reasons To Buy



- Make strategic business decisions, using top-level historic and forecast market data, related to the Swiss cards and payments industry and each market within it.



- Understand the key market trends and growth opportunities in the Swiss cards and payments industry.



- Assess the competitive dynamics in the Swiss cards and payments industry.



- Gain insights into marketing strategies used for various card types in Switzerland.



- Gain insights into key regulations governing the Swiss cards and payments industry.



About ResearchMoz

ResearchMoz 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.



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Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/28/2017 -- Nowadays, improving cash flow is one of the most important goals of all companies. One of the newest trends is that of online accounting software where the actual program is remotely hosted on a server that might be located the world away, is gaining a huge momentum across the world due to its quick access and services. A new report, discussing the market status and demand of online accounting software, has been recently published to the wide repository of Market Research Hub (MRH) offerings, titled as "United States Online Accounting Software Market Report 2017". Geographically, with a prime focus on United States market, the report provides a detailed analysis by covering several major regions within the nation.



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Today, choosing the right accounting software can have a huge impact on efficiency in business. With the emergence of online accounting software, several accounts handling tasks have become easier. The new era of online accounting software packages has gained popularity and made its presence globally over the last few years and it also has the benefit of being particularly easy to access, whether you're in the home, the office, or even abroad. This is one of the prime reasons, bolstering the growth of the market.



In the initial section, the report introduces online accounting software overview along with its classification and applications. This is a major part of the report which highlights the United States Market Size Sales (Volume) and Revenue (Value) of Online Accounting Software until 2022. Moreover, in terms of geographical outlook, the market has been segmented by states: California, New York, Florida, Texas and Illinois. This study also encapsulates the prime technological and market trends that are driving the growth of the market.



In the next section, the market has been segmented on the basis of product type and applications. Applications of online accounting software market have been segmented into:



Manufacturing

Services

Retail sectors



The analysts have studied at length offering information about sales, market share and growth rate of online accounting software in each of these applications. The report also adds that online accounting system can support a user interface for business employees and customers for communication and sales.



On the basis of product type, it covers:



Client/Server

Browser/Server



Additionally, United States online accounting software market forecast (2017-2022) along with its Sales, Revenue, forecast by each type and application is covered in the study. Furthermore, Upstream raw materials, equipment and downstream consumers' analysis are also carried out.



Browse Full Report with TOC @ http://www.marketresearchhub.com/report/united-states-online-accounting-software-market-report-2017-report.html



Next section of the report analyzes the competitive landscape including the market share among the key industry players available in the United States market. Here's a list of some key market players:



Intuit

SAP

Oracle(NetSuite)

Microsoft

Epicor

Sage

Workday

Xero

Kingdee

Acclivity

FreshBooks

Assit cornerstone

Red wing



RELATED REPORTS:



1: United States Software-defined anything Market Report 2017:- http://www.marketresearchhub.com/report/united-states-software-defined-anything-market-report-2017-report.html



2: United States Fog Computing Market Report 2017:- http://www.marketresearchhub.com/report/united-states-fog-computing-market-report-2017-report.html



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There is a big chance that Africa will run huge solar power and wind power to supply their energy needs in 2030. A study found out that Africa is a continent where renewable energy is the most viable.

In Southern and Eastern Africa, there are 21 countries that are power pools. They have the potential to house some of the largest solar and wind farms, a UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory team stated. After assessing the most part of Libya and Egypt in the north and along the eastern coast to South Africa, they concluded that it is perfect for solar power and wind power. Most African countries will decrease the use of fossil fuel and hydroelectric if ever they map out a really good strategy in building the renewable power plants, Berkeley News reported.

Not only they will use less fossil fuel and other conventional energy sources, the cost of their electricity will also decrease. Moreover, building these non-conventional energy sources in Africa will help them lower the cost for building other energy plants. "The surprising find is that the wind and solar resources in Africa are absolutely gigantic, and something you could tap into for relatively low cost," said senior author Duncan Callaway, a UC Berkeley associate professor of energy and resources and a faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab.

The low cost of wind power and solar power in Africa can also be used by other countries, Phys.org stated. Strategies need to be laid out for it to be perfectly accessible and it needs to be done soon. Everything will be maximized, from the renewable energy sources to international collaboration. Its negative impact will also lower.

This solution for Africa is the best way to handle the lack of energy and the drought that is brought by climate change. Since hydroelectric is used by one-third of the continent, changing it to more renewable energy in time before other worst effects of climate change will happen is the best way to deal with it. The researchers have also chosen the best and perfect places to build these renewable energy plants in Africa.
The world's first human head transplant is about to continue shocking people. Luckily, the 30-year old man from Russia volunteered in the operation.

Science is really incredible for recently, only heart, brain, internal organs and other parts of the body can be transplanted. But now, the latest study would like to try transplanting the human head for the first time.

The Chive reported that the world's first human head transplant will be conducted in December. Though the operation is a bit insane, Dr. Sergio Canavero will lead the operation of all hands for its success.

According to East Texas Matters, Dr. Sergio Canavero announced the world's first human head operation in 2013 and recruited a Chinese surgeon to be his assistant for the operation. More so, the Italian surgeon had been studied and planned the operation for 30 years and believes it is possible.

A Russian terminally ill patient, the 30-year-old Valery Spiridonov volunteered in the operation. Valery Spiridonov suffers from muscular atrophy and hopes that the head transplant operation will be his last key to living a normal life.

The process will involve removing the head of Valery Spiridonov, cooled in in about less than 15 degree Celsius and reattached it to a dead body from a donor. If all things will go well, Spiridonov can regain his muscle control on the new body.

The head of the volunteer, Valery Spiridonov will be cut from its spinal cord using a special operation knife. The knife is special for it can control cuts up to one millionth of a meter. Afterward, his head will be frozen to heal from bleeding out, then, Dr. Sergio Canavero will repair the spinal cord and attached the head to its new body.

Meanwhile, because of the possibility of undiscovered levels of insanity that might occur after the operation of transferring a foreign head, scientists finds a way. With a team of programmers who developed a virtual reality system the expected problem that will arise will be given solution abruptly.

The world's first human head transplant will cost $20 million with a team of more than 150 doctors, technicians, nurses, and head of the team. Though this may sound insane, Valery Spiridonov is willing to take the risk and volunteer for his life that is already threatened due to his disease.
The idea of an orbiting human outpost in space was pragmatized when the first component of the International Space Station (ISS) was launched in 1998. It took several more years to launch the multiple numbers of modules to make ISS what it is now.

NASA shares the ownership of this modern day marvel with four other international space agencies viz. European Space Agency (ESA), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Roscosmos and Canadian Space Agency (CSA). However, in 2014, the U.S. Congress has set the deadline for the funding of ISS to 2024. This means that in 2024, the U.S. is going to withdraw its contributions and most probably its claim of ownership over the ISS. The question that persists is what will happen to the ISS after that, Popular Science reported.

It has been revealed that the annual funding of the ISS exceeds $3 billion, which is nearly half of the annual funding received by NASA. While some scientists and politicians believe that investing such a huge amount of money in one project is not wise, others are of the opinion that the role of the ISS in the furtherance of scientific research is too valuable to ignore. Therefore, whether to stop or continue with the ISS is a very sensitive topic.

The Congress House Committee on Science, Space and Technology conducted a special seating to discuss this subject. The members of the committee heard the testimonies of expert scientists who highlighted the achievements of the project and the level of public involvement and aspirations attached with the project. On the other hand, the budgetary constraints of the project and how it will be hampering the Mars mission were also discussed. Though a consensus could not be attained in the hearing, it is highly likely that these discussions will go on for a few more years.

However, the speculations of shutting down the funding of the ISS have led to some interesting theories. While some believe that without any funding and maintenance the space station may stop functioning altogether, some others are optimistic that it will be bought by Elon Musk or other billionaire-owned private space agency like Virgin Galactic. Then the company may decide to use it for promoting space tourism, turn it into a private holiday destination or start pay per experiment services, according to Wired.

It will be highly interesting to watch how things turn out for the International Space Station and how these expected changes will impact mankind's quest of reaching the planets, stars and beyond.
A new study indicates that children with vitamin B12 deficiency could weaken their brain development. These include difficulties solving the cognitive tests like identifying letters, answering and resolving puzzles and comprehending the emotions of other children.

The findings of the study were printed in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The study was led by Ingrid Kvestad at Uni Research in Bergen, Norway, and other colleagues, according to Medical News Today.

Kvestad has linked the low level of vitamin B12 in children with a decrease in test scores at the age of 5. She further said that the results of their study show the associations of early vitamin B12 status and the brain development that involves cognitive functioning.

Kvestad added that providing the solution for children with vitamin B12 deficiency at an early age could enhance their healthy development. They see children in low-income countries, particularly the South Asia, that could be much affected by vitamin B12 deficiency.

In the study, the scientists gathered blood from 500 infants in Bhaktapur, Nepal. Then, they gauged their vitamin B12 status. After nearly five years, the researchers examined again 320 of these children. They required them to answer various developmental and cognitive tests.

Kvestad and her team found that most of the children had suboptimal vitamin B12 status. This was below the recommendations for best possible growth and development. The study could also aid the researchers in understanding the effects of vitamin B12 deficiency on small children's cognitive development.

Vitamin B12 known as cobalamin has a significant role in the normal functioning of the brain and nervous system. It is considered the largest and most complex vitamin.

This water-soluble vitamin also develops the red blood cells. Vitamin B12 could be produced through bacterial fermentation-synthesis. The sources of vitamin B12 includes fish, shellfish, fortified soy products such as tofu and soy milk, crab, red meat, cheese, fortified cereals, eggs, low-fat dairy and supplements. Vitamin B12 deficiency could increase the risk of developing depression, anemia, fatigue and mania. Meanwhile, having a long-term deficiency could harm the brain and central nervous system.
IRVINE, Calif., March 28, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Khang & Khang LLP (the Firm) announces a class action lawsuit against Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V. (Chicago Bridge or the Company) (NYSE:CBI). Investors who purchased or otherwise acquired shares between October 29, 2013 and December 10, 2014, inclusive (the Class Period), are encouraged to contact the Firm in advance of the May 1, 2017 lead plaintiff motion deadline.



If you purchased shares of Chicago Bridge during the Class Period, please contact Joon M. Khang, Esquire, of Khang & Khang, 18101 Von Karman Avenue, 3rd Floor, Irvine, CA 92612, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or via e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

There has been no class certification in this case. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may choose to take no action and remain a passive class member.

The complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, the Company made material false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose: that Chicago Bridge was responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in liability and improperly accounted for its goodwill during 2013, to cover losses associated with construction delays and cost overruns on contracts to complete construction on two new nuclear power plants; that the Company failed to establish and disclose an appropriate reserve for this liability in its financial statements; and that Chicago Bridge lacked effective internal controls over financial reporting. When this news was revealed to the public, shares of Chicago Bridge fell in value, causing investors harm.

If you wish to learn more about this lawsuit, or if you have questions concerning this notice or your rights, please contact Joon M. Khang, a prominent litigator for almost two decades, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or via e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

This press release may constitute Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions.
2016 was pretty bad for Samsung, but the South Korean tech giant is not looking forward to doing the same mistake again, or is it? Apparently, Samsung has noted that it will bring back the defamed Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones in either refurbished or rental form in the market.

Reuters cited that when analyses and surveys were done on the new phone, there were no other defects found on the device except the batteries. This raises a speculation that the South Korean electronics company looks forward to repairing the Samsung Galaxy Note 7s and brings back the devices in the market.

Samsung is also looking to reuse and resell components of the Galaxy Note 7 including chips and camera modules. https://t.co/Nr3Cqm6oJp  Thus Spake (@thus_spake) 28 March 2017

Reuters further stated that Samsung was successful in selling over 3.06 million units before all the reporting of explosions started. So, it seems that the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has been a very popular device among fans. This is why the company may bring the remodeled phone back or at least sell some of its components.

In its statement, Samsung noted that the Galaxy Note 7 devices are either going to be refurbished or be available on rental, only if the regulatory authorities and the carriers of the area allow it. Moreover, the firm added that if the locals of the area demand the phone, then it is willing to pick the release dates and targeted markets for the remodeled units, The Guardian reported. However, no actual release dates were reported regarding the sale of the phones.

As per the U.S., Samsung Electronics is unlikely to bring the Galaxy Note 7 back in the country. According to the tech firm, it wants to focus on complete sales of the newly arriving Samsung Galaxy Note 8.

Samsung could focus more on selling the refurbished Galaxy Note 7 in emerging markets such as Africa. Hence, Samsung Galaxy Note 7 fans in the U.S. and other top markets may not get the phone.
TIMMONSVILLE, S.C.  Florence School District Four board members will hold a community forum for the public to meet the three finalists for school superintendent today in Timmonsville.

This is the last opportunity for the community and staff to meet the candidates before the board makes its decision on whom to hire.

After the initial meet and greet from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the Timmonsville school facilities on Kemper Street, Rachel Anderson, Rosa Dingle and Fannie Mason will entertain a few questions from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. so the public can to get to know the candidates, listen to their platform and hear their plans for the future of Timmonsville schools.

Anderson, most recently the director of curriculum and instruction in Marion County, has 16 years of experience in the education field, beginning after her graduation from Coker College in 2000. She was awarded Principal of the Year for the Jasper County School District for the 2010-2011 school year.

Dingle, a South Carolina State University graduate, served in several positions in the education field over her 20-year career, including a middle school educator, assistant principal and principal. She also was nominated and awarded Teacher of the Year for St. Paul Elementary School.

Mason, also a former Teacher of the Year, has more than 37 years of experience in the education field as both a teacher and an administrator. She most recently served as the director of exceptional children and the interim director of elementary education for Scotland County Schools in Laurinburg, North Carolina.

For more information, visit florence4.k12.sc.us/.
The company said in a stock market announcement that the contract was awarded to its Perdana Nautika unit effective from 15 March 2017 until 14 March 2020 with a two-year extension option. No contract value was disclosed as it would depend on the actual number of days the vessels are on-hire, Perdana said.

The umbrella contract comprised four packages to provide variously, Anchor Handling Tug and Supply (AHTS) vessels of above and below 100-tonne bollard pull, workboat and workbarge.
Dingle is part of a Maritime UK and UK Government will three-day trade mission to Shanghai taking place between 28-30 March, aimed at boosting maritime ties between the UK and China.

Attended by senior industry and government leaders from both countries, including shipping and ports minister, John Hayes MP, and trade minister, Mark Garnier MP, the mission has been timed to coincide with Cunards Queen Mary 2 calling in Shanghai.

The vessel will be used to promote the UKs world-leading maritime position, and boost trade and investment between the two countries.

The UK and China are two of the worlds leading maritime and trading powers, and our mission is designed to further strengthen relations between our two countries, said Dingle.

On Wednesday the Prime Minister will trigger Article 50. More than any industry, maritime has a unique role to play in making Brexit a success. As Britain goes out into the world, determined to increase exports and sign ambitious trade deals, we have a unique responsibility to make Global Britain a reality, and are ready to do so, added Dingle.

The trade and investment relationship between the UK and China has deepened over recent years, and during the visit Maritime UK and the Department for International Trade will be collaborating with the Chinese government to identify new maritime trade and investment opportunities for both the UK and China.

A significant number of world-leading British maritime companies are already working with China and we are looking forward to opening new chapters in these relationships, and beginning others, said Dingle.

Last month Carnival Corp. & plc, Fincantieri and China State Shipbuilding Corp (CSSC) advanced their plans to build cruise ships in Shanghai for the Chinese market by signing a binding memorandum of agreement for two newbuilds with an option for four more.

The deal, subject to several conditions, is valued at approximately $1.5bn for the first two ships. The ships will be built at Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding (SWS), a CSSC Group facility with the first delivery expected in 2023.

Following the Shanghai visit, the Maritime UK chairman and Minister Hayes will visit Hong Kong to meet with the Hong Kong Shipowners Association.

Directly supporting 500,000 jobs, the maritime industry contributes GBP22.2bn ($27.9bn) to UK GDP and drives exports and inward investment throughout the UK.
After the conservationist John Muir devotedly hiked the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the late 19th century, he penned some of the greatest American nature writing ever put to paper and launched the Sierra Club, which remains one of the most influential members of the nation's conservation movement.

Thanks to his efforts and those of generations that followed, the wild beauty of Muir's beloved Sierra Nevada and its giant sequoias continues to thrive, albeit with a much greater amount of stress due to human-caused climate change. But new research suggests an unlikely ally in the preservation of Muir's iconic muse.

Credit, it seems, must be given to dust.

In a paper published today in the journal Nature Communications, a team of researchers found that dust provides a much greater amount of nutrients to vegetation in the Sierra Nevada than previously thought. The dust comes from as far away as the Gobi Desert in Central Asia and as nearby as California's Central Valley.

Phosphorus, along with nitrogen and carbon, is crucial to the survival of life on Earth. It is generally supplied to plants as bedrock is broken down into soil over the slow machinations of geologic time. Researchers have long considered the granite formations of the Sierra Nevada to be limited in phosphorus.

"In recent years it has been a bit of mystery how all these big trees have been sustained in this ecosystem without a lot of phosphorus in the bedrock," Emma Aronson, an assistant professor of plant pathology and microbiology at UC Riverside, said in a statement. "This work begins to unravel that mystery and show that dust may be shaping this iconic California ecosystem."

RELATED: Extreme Climate Change Millions of Years Ago Caused Mammals to Shrink

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of drought around the world, which will likely mean more dust moving around in the atmosphere. Understanding the role of dust migration in providing nutrients to plants will help researchers anticipate the effects of global warming.

The team, which included researchers from University of California campuses in Riverside and Merced, collected dust samples from four locations in the Sierra Nevada mountains, ranging in elevation from 1,300 to 8,800 feet.

Nicholas Dove, a UC Merced graduate student, was responsible for collecting the dust.

"Harvesting dust for scientific purposes is surprisingly rudimentary," he said in a statement. "We use many household supplies: Wooden posts hold up bundt pans filled with marbles, and the dust settles in the marble matrix. We collect this dust by 'washing' the marbles with sterile water. The water is filtered and, voila, you have your dust."

The pans were fixed atop 6-foot-high poles in order to avoid dust contamination from the researchers' boots.
President Donald Trump declared the end of a "war on coal" Tuesday, as he moved to curb rules that underpin American emissions targets and a major global climate accord.

Following through on an election promise, Trump signed an order to review some of his predecessor Barack Obama's climate legacy, declaring an end to "job-killing regulations."

In a maiden trip to the Environmental Protection Agency, he ordered a review of emission limits for coal-fired power plants and eased up restrictions on federal leasing for coal production.

Trump said the measures herald "a new era in American energy and production and job creation."

Critics say that rolling back Obama's Clean Power Plan is unlikely to result in a boost to production or to create substantial numbers of jobs.

America's coal industry has long been in decline, with natural gas, cheap renewable energy, automation, and tricky geology making the sooty fuel a less lucrative prospect.

In 2008 there were 88,000 coal miners in the United States, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Today, the number of coal miners has fallen around 25 percent. More people work in Whole Foods, an upscale supermarket chain.

RELATED: The Twilight of American Coal and the Rise of Renewables

But some experts and environmental groups warned Trump's order could be the opening salvo of an effort to undermine internationally agreed targets under the Paris Climate Accord.

Curbing emissions from coal-fired power plants was a pillar of America's commitment to cut carbon emissions by 26-28 percent by 2025.

"It will make it virtually impossible" for the US to meet its target said Bob Ward, a climate specialist at the London School of Economics.

The Trump administration has not said whether it will pull out of the Paris deal. "Whether we stay in or not is still under discussion," a senior administration official told AFP.

Veterans of the Obama administration played down the impact of Trump's actions.

Obama's former chief environmental advisor described the executive order as "terrible" but said "it isn't the ball game."

He added that any damage can be mitigated in the courts and in states, which are tasked with coming up with emissions reduction plans.
Koko says being a Partner for Change best bday gift for PRRD

Senate President Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III on Tuesday greeted President Rodrigo Duterte a happy 72nd birthday and asked Filipinos to become Partners for Change as a gift to the President.

Pimentel, President of the ruling PDP Laban party of which President Duterte is the Chairman, also pledged that their party remains solidly behind the latter in his plans and programs for the country.

"The President is not a materialistic man. He is a dreamer, and the best gift we can give him on his birthday is the fulfillment of his dreams", said Pimentel.

According to Pimentel, President Duterte is determined to see all Filipinos live happy and prosperous lives free from fear.

"It's a dream all members of PDP Laban share, and it is my wish that we can help him realize his goal before his term as President ends. Let's all be Partners for Change, not just for this special day, but for all time. It is our gift for the President, and our gift to ourselves", Pimentel said.
The death toll from a fire Monday that tore through a West Oakland residential building with a trouble history rose to four on Tuesday, the Alameda County Sheriffs Office announced.

The fourth body was discovered inside the building and was being transported to the coroners bureau Tuesday morning, the sheriffs office announced at 10:19 a.m.

Firefighters rescued at least 15 people from the building at 2551 San Pablo Ave. Monday, some of whom lowered themselves to safety from the buildings third floor on makeshift ropes of knotted-together bedsheets.

It was home to 60 to 80 residents and dozens of squatters, according to Red Cross officials. Displaced people were offered shelter at the West Oakland Youth Center.

The property had also been the subject of numerous complaints alleging squalid living conditions, including rodent infestations, urine and feces on the floor, and rampant mold.

Eleven fire code violations were discovered there on Friday. Under the Oakland fire code, property owners have 30 days to correct violations.

The Oakland Fire Prevention Bureau tried and failed to enter the building following a Feb. 25 referral for an inspection, and it was only after a second request on March 18 that Fridays inspection took place.

First to be identified was 64-year-old Edwarn Anderson, a resident of the building since at least April 2015, county voting records show. Cassandra Robertson, 50, was also killed in the fire, the Alameda County Sheriffs Office said Tuesday afternoon.

Two other bodies recovered from the burned building have yet to be identified.

The cause of the blaze that broke out in the three-story building around 5:40 a.m. Monday remains under investigation. Some residents said the fire was started by a candle a tenant was burning that was knocked off.

Residents of the building and their attorney, James Cook, said the landlord, Keith Kim, had issued dozens of eviction notices to occupants of the buildings first and second floors in December, citing the Ghost Ship fire, which killed 36 people that month.

Residents were reportedly battling the evictions with the help of a mediator and Oakland City Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney, who did not return calls from the Chronicle seeking comment on Monday.

Filipa A. Ioannou is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: fioannou@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @obioannoukenobi
Rallies and protest events are a part of political life in the Bay Area. Heres a roundup of whats happening.

Wednesday

Sanctuary panel: Panel talk on sanctuary cities, as well as stories of immigration challenges. The event featuring immigration attorneys and former members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors begins at 6:30 p.m., 3271 18th St., San Francisco.

Privacy meeting: Hosted by the Oakland Privacy Working Group to organize against the surveillance state, against Urban Shield and to advocate for privacy and surveillance regulation ordinances to be passed around the Bay Area. The event is 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Omni Commons, 4799 Shattuck Ave. in Oakland.

Resistance event: The San Francisco Young Democrats are hosting an event to celebrate the resistance against President Trump, featuring Supervisor Jane Kim and members of the Indivisible group. The event is from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at El Rio, 3158 Mission St. in San Francisco. Tickets are $35 at the door.

Thursday

Womens event: A happy hour and panel discussion featuring female entrepreneurs, Nevertheless, She Persisted: An Evening With Fearless Women. The event is from 5:30-8:30 p.m. at DoubleDutch, 350 Rhode Island St., Suite 375 in San Francisco. For information: http://bit.ly/2nxMB6e

Friday

Transgender Day: The Asian Pacific Islander Wellness Center will host a free event to commemorate Transgender Day of Visibility. The event will begins at 5:30 p.m. at SOMArts, 934 Brannan St. in San Francisco.

Sunday

Connecting with activists: Take Back America with Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, who will discuss the California congressional picture and host a fair where attendees can connect with activist and advocacy groups. The event is from noon-3 p.m. in Fiesta Hall at the San Mateo County Event Center, 1346 Saratoga Drive, San Mateo. To register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/take-back-america-tickets-32982865639

Author series: Arlie Russell Hochschild will discuss her new book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. The event starts at 9:30 a.m. at Grace Cathedral, Gresham Hall, 1100 California St. in San Francisco. For information: https://www.gracecathedral.org/events/arlie-russell-hochschild.

Monday

Panel on nuclear weapons: Morality of the Nuclear Age discussion, featuring Richard Rhodes, Ira Helfand and Martin Hellman. The event is from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Sacred Heart Schools, Harman Auditorium, 150 Valparaiso Ave. in Atherton. For more information: www.tech4gs.org/morality_and_geopolitics_of_the_nuclear_age.

April 5

Political discussion: A conversation, Fixing the Bay Areas Growth Politics, on issues affecting the Bay Area, including environmental quality and social justice. The event is at 6 p.m. at SPUR Oakland, 1544 Broadway. The event is free. For information: www.spur.org/events/2017-04-05/fixing-bay-area-s-growth-politics.

Discussion on Medicare: Medicare for All in California presented by Dr. Paul Song, co-chair of Campaign for a Healthy California. The event begins at 7 p.m. at Woodside Road United Methodist Church, 2000 Woodside Road in Redwood City. Admission is free.
Legislation by state Sen. Bill Monning aims to alleviate a long-standing problem in Northern California: consumers paying higher prices for health care because of a lack of competition among regional hospital systems.

The Carmel Democrats SB538 targets a relatively narrow slice of the health care sector. It would ban certain contracting practices between large health systems and insurers that some patient advocates say lead to higher costs for consumers. Under the proposed legislation, amended this month, hospital systems could no longer require health plans to contract with all of their affiliates. Nor could a hospital system force employers  which contract with health plans  to arbitrate claims against the hospital system instead of suing in court, or face higher out-of-network rates.

The bill does not single out any providers by name. But Sutter Health, one of the biggest health systems in the Bay Area, recently asked companies, through their insurance administrators, to waive their right to sue Sutter in court or risk having to pay higher out-of-network prices for Sutter services. Sutter has maintained that arbitration  a standard part of its contracts  is the most cost-effective way to resolve disputes between providers and employers.

The motive behind this legislation is to continue to protect the rights of patients in terms of affordability and access in an ever-changing marketplace, Monning said.

Sutter referred calls to the California Hospital Association, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Market consolidation in health care has long concerned antitrust regulators, lawmakers, consumer advocates and patients in California. The state has seen a wave of consolidation of major hospitals that have acquired physician practices and outpatient facilities in recent years.

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Health care premiums are about 30 percent higher in Northern California than in Southern California, according to an analysis released last month by the Center for Health Policy at the Brookings Institution. Much of this is because Northern California is dominated by a few large health systems, like Sutter and Dignity Health, according to the analysis.

Insurers have less leverage for negotiating in regions with fewer hospitals and/or places dominated by large medical groups, the analysis found. As a result, rates are often higher in those areas.

In California, from 2004 to 2013, prices grew 113 percent at hospitals that are part of the largest systems, according to a 2016 study coauthored by economist Glenn Melnick. By comparison, prices across all hospitals in the state grew 70 percent.
The worst part of traveling for Santa Rosa resident Adam Lee is having to drive to San Francisco International Airport. The 69-mile trip can take up to three hours when the traffic is bad  and the traffic, he said, is always bad.

This week I had a flight that left out of SFO at 8:50 a.m., but I felt like I needed to leave at 4:30 to get there in time, said Lee, the owner of Siduri Wines.

But fortunately for Lee, his local airfield, Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport, is all of a sudden experiencing tailwinds. An airport with a dinky 15,000-square-foot terminal named after the Peanuts cartoonist might seem like a punch line. But to big airlines like American and United, which are scrapping for market share and trying to find ways to grow, small airports like Santa Rosas are no joke.

In 2012, we projected that in 2025 we would have 540,000 passengers coming through the airport, said Jon Stout, the airport manager. But last summer, we changed that projection to ... 500,000 in 2018.

Two years ago, Alaska Airlines was the airports only carrier, flying to Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles and San Diego. Today the airport has four more  American Airlines, Sun Country Airlines, Allegiant Air and United Airlines  and nine destinations, including Phoenix and Minneapolis.

Officials have attributed this spike in demand to a perfect storm of a good economy and a boom in tourism. Sonoma County, an attractive Wine Country destination, has become even more popular in recent years. From 2014 to 2015 alone, the county saw an 11 percent increase of destination spending, the amount of money visitors spend during their stay.

Right now, the Bay Area is really hot, said Joe DAlessandro, president of the San Francisco Travel Association. Were in good shape as long as the economy stays strong.

The Santa Rosa airport is not the only North Bay airport doing well. Napa County Airport, which serves only private airplanes, has also experienced a slight uptick in passenger traffic in the past year, said Mark Willey, chief executive officer of Napa Jet Center, an operator handling flights at the airport. He attributes this increase to more interest in the wine business.

San Francisco International Airport, Oakland International Airport and Mineta San Jose International Airport have all added flight routes to new markets over the past year, leading to an increase in passenger traffic across the board.

When an airport as big as SFO signs up a new carrier, existing facilities are typically big enough to accommodate it: SFOs international terminal alone, at 2.5 million square feet, is 167 times the size of Sonoma Countys passenger building. Serving four new carriers has the smaller airport maxed out, Stout said.

In fact, the airport plans to land so many new flights this year that a multimillion-dollar expansion plan already in the works for 2019 suddenly seems outmoded. The airport will ask the county Board of Supervisors to let it add up to 28,000 square feet, nearly tripling the terminal space.

Even then, Sonoma County residents such as Lee may still find themselves making the trek to SFO.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

The short 48-mile United flight from Santa Rosa to San Francisco isnt meant for people trying to shorten their commute  a round-trip ticket on its own can be more than $400. Instead, it intends to connect passengers to the airlines 291 daily flights out of SFO. Skipping the drive is pricey. A trip from Santa Rosa to Denver via San Francisco, for example, will cost $200 to $300 more than the nonstop from SFO.

That cost and the frequent delays at San Francisco mean the few hours saved in the car might not be worth it, Lee said. And while there are several new flights from Sonoma County, the options are still limited. Currently, Alaska has three flights a day to Los Angeles; other routes have just one flight a day.

Still, the airport  along with Sonoma Countys $1.82 billion tourism industry  is reaping the benefits of this increased traffic, no matter how small in the grand scheme of things.

It is very exciting, Stout said. If you asked me a year ago if I would have four more airlines to serve Sonoma County, I would have said no.

Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani
A San Francisco federal judge dismissed an American Civil Liberties Union challenge Monday to a federally assembled police database of suspicious activities allegedly linked to terrorism, saying the government has broad authority to keep track of potential threats.

The lawsuit was filed in 2014 on behalf of five Californians who said they landed on the list for innocent conduct. The lead plaintiff, a Muslim student at Cal State Chico, said police came to his home in 2012 looking for someone else, saw a flight-simulation video game on his computer screen, and reported him for having a pious demeanor and potential access to a flight simulator. Another plaintiff said he was flagged for taking a photo of artwork on a gas storage tank.

The ACLU said the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported in 2012 that none of the tens of thousands of suspicious-activity reports had led to an arrest or conviction, or had thwarted a terrorist plot.

In the lawsuit, the ACLU argued that the FBI, which compiles the list from police reports, was violating the legal requirement of at least a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to justify government data collection.

But U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg said the FBI had justified using a less-demanding standard, established in 2008: sharing reports of behavior that was reasonably indicative of planning associated with terrorism or other criminal activity.

Seeborg quoted a government report that said the reasonably indicative standard would enable police to identify and address, in a more efficient manner, potential criminal and terrorism threats while protecting privacy and civil rights.

While the ACLU challenged that conclusion, Seeborg said, the civil liberties group had not shown a clear error of judgment or an arbitrary action, as required to overturn the governments decision. He also said the FBI could adopt the standard without advance public notice and comment because it was only a policy guidance statement and not a law or regulation.

ACLU attorney Linda Lye said her clients were considering an appeal.

The Suspicious Activity Reporting program brands innocent Americans as potential terrorists, she said. If the federal government wants to amass huge volumes of data about innocent Americans, at the very least it must give a reasoned basis for doing so and provide the public with an opportunity to comment on the proposal.

The program, established by President George W. Bushs administration, is based on reports by state and local law enforcement officers and private citizens to 78 regional fusion centers, information-sharing offices jointly managed by the Justice and Homeland Security departments.

The FBI screens the reports and identifies those it classifies as suspicious activities, which it forwards to a database available to law enforcement agencies nationwide.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko
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Inside the large residential building on San Pablo Avenue in West Oakland, Edwarn Anderson was known as the deacon.

He was, to the dozens of residents, the cordial deacon who unplugged backed-up toilets, painted the walls and worked to keep out those who didnt belong in the building.

He went out of his way to help others, residents said, and always did it with a pleasant, sincere demeanor.

Anderson, 64, was one of the four people who died Monday morning when a fire raged through the three-story transitional-housing building at 2551 San Pablo Ave. His body was found inside in the charred rubble on Monday afternoon. Two of the victims are still unidentified.

He was the nice guy around the building, said Karen Redus, 51, who lived on the second floor of the building, where Anderson also lived. If I needed somebody to talk to, Id talk to him.

Residents who sought emergency shelter Tuesday at the West Oakland Youth Center said Anderson worked for Urojas Community Services, a nonprofit that leased the building to provide housing for families and individuals, many of whom were recently homeless.

The living conditions were deplorable, with rats and mice, Redus said, but Anderson did what he could.

He used to try to do maintenance around the building, she said. Im just really sorry hes gone.

Another resident, who identified herself only as LaToya, 41, said Anderson often kept to himself, but always greeted those he knew and was cordial to everyone.

He would joke around if he knew you, she said. I never knew him to have any issues with anybody.

She never saw him after the fire broke out just after 5:30 a.m., sending the dozens of panicked residents and squatters fleeing into the street.

He was a sweet guy, she said. He did what he could to help. One person can only do so much.

A second victim, 50-year-old Cassandra Robertson, was identified by the Alameda County Sheriffs Office on Tuesday afternoon.

Asia Wade, 32, lived across the hall from Robertson on the third floor and used to see her walking her Yorkshire terrier in the mornings. The dog was named Brees because Robertson loved Drew Brees, quarterback for the New Orleans Saints, according to her cousin Michele Firven.

They were nice people. They didnt look like they belonged in that building, Wade said of Robertson and her husband.

Robertson moved to the Bay Area from New Orleans at age 19, Firven said. She moved back to Louisiana four years ago, but returned to the Bay Area recently.

Nicknamed Coo by friends and family, Robertson was the mother of two daughters, ages 22 and 17, and was staying in the Bay Area until her younger daughter, McKenzie, graduated from high school.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Coo you were the life of all of us, her friend Sherry Johnson posted on Facebook on Tuesday.

She was proud of her daughters, posting a photo of her daughters honor roll certificate in February with the caption, Yes, my baby continues to amaze me!

For Mardi Gras this year, she and her husband, Leandre Johnson, took a trip back to New Orleans  my town, she called it on Facebook.

Robertson stayed close with her family in Louisiana even while she lived in California.

We talked every day, said Firven, who lives in Louisiana. Every time we talked shed tell me she loved me.

And the very last thing she told me was, Cousin, Im going to see you for Mothers Day, because we were going on a Mothers Day cruise, Firven said, breaking into sobs.

I just cant believe it. I cant. Me and her, we were like sisters  no, we werent like sisters. We were sisters.

Sarah Ravani, Jill Tucker and Filipa Ioannou are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com, jtucker@sfchronicle.com and fioannou@sfchronicle.com
Associated Press

President Trumps vow to heavily bomb Islamic State extremists portended costs that could be growing clearer in Mosul, where a U.S. air strike this month is suspected of causing one of the worst civilian slaughters of Americas long Iraq entanglement. With 275 more U.S. troops reportedly headed to the region, escalation is nevertheless afoot.

U.S. Central Command has acknowledged and opened an investigation into a March 17 air strike in the vicinity of a ruined home where more than 100 Iraqis died. Meanwhile, the fight to remove the Islamic State from Mosul paused last weekend amid condemnation of the toll of a week of U.S.-led bombardment supporting Iraqi ground forces. More of the hundreds of thousands of civilians still trapped in the city took advantage of the break in hostilities to flee for refugee camps.
To regain political power, Democrats need to better direct their message at people of color who arent voting instead of conservative whites who have stopped listening to them.

Thats the conclusion of San Franciscos Democracy in Color, which on Monday outlined a road map to victory that involves spending $1 billion on field operations  instead of TV commercials  designed to turn out 10 million new progressive voters of color in 17 key states for the next presidential race.

Among the target states: longtime GOP strongholds of Georgia, Texas and Arizona, whose demographics are becoming less white and probably more welcoming to Democrats.

Theres a reflexive default among the party to try to appeal to conservative white swing voters, Steve Phillips, the San Francisco civil rights attorney, best-selling author of Brown Is the New White and founder of Democracy in Color, said Monday. Absent any evidence that we can make headway with those voters, we should try to focus on those who we can.

The 17-page report, Return of the Majority: A Roadmap for Taking Back Our Country, is also a guide for what those in the anti-President Trump resistance can do in the near term to help the Democratic Party turn around its priorities.

A key first step: winning the special congressional election in a suburban Atlanta district next month to replace former GOP Rep. Tom Price, who is now secretary of health and human services. While Price won the district by nearly 25 percentage points in 2014, Trump barely beat Hillary Clinton there.

A new poll out this month shows that Democrat Jon Ossoff is polling 40 percent, twice as much as his closest Republican opponent, giving him a solid chance to make the runoff. Supporters from across the nation have poured $3 million into the political neophytes campaign.

That race is probably the most important political opportunity in the country in the next few months, Phillips said. If Ossoff were to pull off an upset, it will reverberate throughout the entire Congress for every Republican. If they see that seat is flipping, that will really shake things up.

The good news, Phillips said, is that the Democratic Party has already put 20 people in field operations in battleground states  the earliest he remembers that happening. Nine are in the Georgia district where Ossoff is running, he said.

The plan, which is likely to be among the first of many autopsies of the 2016 election and prescriptive plans for how to fix the Democratic Party, comes from an organization led by people of color whose political operation has supported candidates of color, including Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.

Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press

The value in Mondays report is more long term, as it encourages Democrats to make fundamental changes in how they fund and run campaigns. Instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on TV commercials that Phillips said, dont make much difference, it urges Democrats to invest in field operations in the 17 key states.

It describes how to partner with community, family and neighborhood social networks to reach eligible nonvoters who wouldnt be wooed by TV ads.

Democrats and progressives still tend to waste hundreds of millions of dollars each election cycle on television ads trying to change the minds of people who are not, and most likely will never, be with us,  the report says.

The report also calls on progressive voters to help be a watchdog of Democratic Party and progressive spending to make sure theyre spending the half-billion dollars in expenditures in the right places with the right strategy. It encouraged activists to ask the top left-of-center labor, environmental and party groups that spent a collective $1.3 billion in 2016 to give a better accounting of where  and how  they spend their money.

Dave McCuan, a professor of political science at Sonoma State University said, Thats a very provocative strategy. It is a re-engineering of the Democratic Party that was Joe Bidens Democratic Party.

But McCuan predicted changing the partys mind-set would be a heavy lift. And while he agreed with Phillips assessment that the operations of the party needed to be retrofitted. The party has other needs, too, like finding a strong figure as its face and to hone its message.

Its a 2024 strategy  2020 might be too early, McCuan said. First, the party needs to hone its message. Right now, the Democrats are speaking with 1,000 voices.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @joegarofoli
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David Julius was shopping with his wife in a San Francisco supermarket about 10 years ago when a shelf full of spices and chili peppers led to his aha! moment.

The UCSF scientist had been puzzling over just how the human nervous system perceives pain from extreme heat or cold or inflammation, and looking at all those hot spices made him think.

My wife, is a scientist, too, Julius recalled, and I was thinking, Wow, those chiles and Tabasco are so interesting, and my wife said, Well, why dont you get off your ass and find out more?

Well, she really made me drill down on the problem, so I went back to the lab and we worked on the pain problem for years until we finally learned just how pain is perceived by specific receptors in our own human nerve endings.

The discovery has earned Julius the prestigious Canada Gairdner Award, a $100,000 prize that since 1959 has gone to more than 360 scientists  of whom 84 have later won Nobels. The award was to be announced Tuesday in Toronto.

In his laboratory, Julius has used the far simpler nervous systems of animals  like pit vipers, rattlesnakes and tarantulas  to serve as models for discovering how pain sensations reach specific molecules at human nerve endings. Those molecules are proteins known as TRP (pronounced trip) receptors.

The structures that Julius and his colleagues discovered in human nerves that perceive heat are known as capsaicin receptors because the painful heat that scorches the tongue when biting into a habanero or a scorpion chili is due to the chemical called capsicum. The pain from extreme cold reaches molecules in nerve endings called menthol receptors, while the human nerve endings that respond to inflammation are now called the wasabi receptors.

Julius, 61, calls his research curiosity-driven science.

His pain studies are entirely funded by Americas National Institutes of Health, and Julius noted that the Trump administrations budget proposal now calls for cutting $5.8 billion from the NIHs current budget of $30 billion.

Eighty percent of that money goes for highly competitive research grants to more than 300,000 biomedical scientists at more than 2,500 research institutions.

Im worried because its the NIH that supports all our work, he said during a phone interview from Germany, where he has been attending a conference.

The kind of research we do is very basic, but its of interest to many pharmaceutical companies.

Those companies are are looking for new classes of painkilling drugs that could replace opioids, like morphine, hydrocodone, oxycodone and others responsible for todays drug abuse epidemic.

Most recently, Julius and two postdoctoral fellows in his lab, Nicholas Bellono and Duncan Leitch, have explored the ability of sea creatures like sharks, skates and rays to hunt for prey by tuning in to faint signs of electric currents from the heartbeats of animals hidden beneath the sand of the sea floor.

The researchers focused on one species called the little skate and traced the detailed mechanisms of the phenomenon, called electrosensation.

Skates and sharks have some of the most sensitive electroreceptors in the animal world, Julius said. So understanding how this works is like understanding how proteins in the eye sense light  it gives us insight into a whole new sensory world.

Bellono noted that there are striking similarities between the skates electrosensory organs and the hair cells of the inner ear in humans.

Understanding the differences, he said, could be important for better understanding the (human) auditory system.

That study, like Julius discovery of the TRP receptors, is also entirely supported by research grants from the NIH.

Julius wife, Dr. Holly A. Ingraham, is a UCSF professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology, and her research is relevant to age-related diseases in women with varied stages of hormone deficiency. The research in Ingrahams lab is also supported by the NIH.

David Perlman is The San Francisco Chronicles science editor. Email: dperlman@sfchronicle.com
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BETs new high-powered drama Rebel isnt always sure what it wants to be, but several performances, especially that of Danielle Mone Truitt in the title role, serve as the glue that holds all the mismatched concept pieces together. Truitt plays a rule-breaking Oakland police detective whose career gets T-boned when she shoots her partner in the leg to keep him from shooting her unarmed younger brother. Instead of making nice, Rebel Truitt makes war over internal affairs refusal to accept the shooting as justifiable. The first third of the series, created by Amani Walker, is a gritty, multilayered exploration of attitudes about race within a contemporary urban police department. Its far more complicated than just a wariness between white and black cops: There is wariness and outright divisiveness within each group as well. The pressures of being a city cop only seem to exacerbate tension between and within racial and ethnic groups.

The two-hour premiere on Tuesday, March 28, then takes a sharp turn and becomes a private eye procedural as Rebel, mulling becoming a private investigator, offers to help an old friend (Bree Williamson) who fears her husband is going to kill her. The case is more complex than that, but complex doesnt always mean credible. Oh, and Rebel is also a poet, which offers the writers a chance to craft didactic oration for the character.
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A 100-year-old San Francisco woman who spent her last years in a bitter eviction battle with her landlords in the Western Addition, has died from health complications.

Iris Canada suffered a stroke over the weekend and died at an undisclosed hospital, the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco said Tuesday.

At 100 years old, she could no longer endure the loss of her home, the site of over five decades of memories, the committee wrote in a Facebook post. In her last hours, she asked family members if they at least were able to recover some of her things.

Canada, who had been a fixture of her apartment building at 670 Page St. for more than half her life, was evicted from her home in February after a judge ruled that she had not been permanently residing in the building  a violation of a life-estate agreement she had worked out with her landlord.

I love my home. I enjoy my home, Canada told The Chronicle in September, as she sat in her living room thumbing through family photo albums. Ive had a lot of good times.

The keepsakes she had collected over a lifetime had been part of a tug of war between Canada and her landlords, who described her home as dirty and stuffed with trash in arguments to evict her.

While her home was cluttered, Canada said her cherished possessions included photos of nieces and their children that adorned her walls. Every nook and cranny was crammed with mementos and paintings done by family members.

Canada had been fighting her landlords, Peter Owens, Stephen Owens and Carolyn Radisch, for years.

Under their agreement, Canada was allowed to live in the apartment for the rest of her life at a fixed rent of $700 a month as long as she was the sole occupant and was actively living there.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge A. James Robertson ruled in favor of the landlords, who presented evidence that Canada had not been living in the home, an assertion her niece, Iris Merriouns, said was false.

I am outraged, and I have the right to be outraged, she said in September.

On Feb. 10, San Francisco Sheriff Vicki Hennessy delivered what was the final eviction notice to Canadas home.

Canada was not home when the notice was posted, and her family was concerned what impact the eviction news might have on her health, said Dennis Zaragoza, her lawyer.

A vigil honoring Canadas life is scheduled to be held outside the Page Street home on Wednesday from 5 to 7 p.m.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
The living conditions inside the building were deplorable, with rats and mice roaming around and squatters taking space on the third floor.

But it was a home to families and the formerly homeless. The working poor, the mentally ill and the physically disabled.

Residents of the three-story building where a fire killed four people early Monday said they had few options before they moved into the shabby residence at 2551 San Pablo Ave. in West Oakland. Now they have lost everything.

Many of the more than 80 people displaced by the blaze spent Monday night in an emergency shelter at the West Oakland Youth Center on Market Street, the men in one room, the women in another, wondering where they would go next.

Im feeling like I have no hope, said Eliza Anderson, 29, who was in the shelter with her three daughters. I don't know what to do.

The deadly blaze broke out just after 5:30 a.m., forcing residents to scramble out their windows, leaving everything behind. They had no money, identification or clothes other than what they had on in the early morning hours.

Some were relying on the Red Cross, which was pulling in donations and taking surveys to identify immediate needs. Tables of clothing and shoes had been set up outside the youth center, and many of the residents frantically searched through them to grab what they could.

Many residents were draped in the thin blankets distributed by volunteers as they waited to hear what would happen next.

Asia Wade, 32, sat in the early afternoon sun on a fire hydrant just outside the youth center, wearing a bright yellow shirt and a black jacket. She was sweating  not because she was hot, she said, but because she was having withdrawals.

She lost everything in the fire and said she had been waiting since Monday night for health officials to bring her the medication she needs for anxiety and insomnia.

I cant sleep, Wade said. I cant really sleep without my medicine.

Wade had lived on the third floor of the building with her two children  her son, 9, and daughter, 11  who were now staying at her mothers house in East Oakland while she waited at the center for answers and money.

It appeared the site would be open one more night for the displaced, although that provided little solace for the residents.

The shelter provided hard cots, with no pillows and one flimsy blanket, said Irene Randel, 28.

Randel and her family were homeless before moving into the building, where she paid $800 per month for a three-bedroom unit. Her salary from the San Francisco Housing Authority wont get her much if anything in Oakland, she said.

We dont know where we are going to go, she said. They havent told us where they are going to place us.

Wayne Caluya, 53, had opted to stay in his car near the shelter for now, rather than sleep on the hard cots. He said he moved into the building two years ago with his brother because the home theyd been staying at on Ninth Avenue in East Oakland was destroyed by fire, too.

He lost all his clothes, his television, everything in Mondays blaze, he said.

I have nothing, he said. I dont know if the devils testing or if God is testing us, but we just gotta hold on.

Caluya works as a cook at Oracle Arena  employed, but earning a paycheck that doesnt go far in the Bay Area.

Im worried about everything, he said. The streets dont care about nothing. They will eat you up and spit you out alive if youre vulnerable. You gotta stay strong.

Sarah Ravani, Otis R. Taylor Jr. and Jill Tucker are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com, otaylor@sfchronicle.com, jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sarravani, @jilltucker @otisrtaylorjr

How to help

Anyone wishing to help fire victims should visit the Red Cross website at www.redcross.org. Check the option Home Fire Relief and note in the comments that the gift is earmarked for services to support families impacted by the 2551 San Pablo Ave./Mead Avenue fire in Oakland.
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The statewide Traffic Ticket Amnesty Program ends on Monday, and those with outstanding court debts must file a claim to qualify for traffic ticket fee forgiveness.

Signed into law in 2015 by Governor Jerry Brown, the program enables Californians with unpaid traffic or non-traffic infractions, such as the failure to appear in court for a traffic violation, to have their fines potentially reduced by 50 to 80 percent depending on income.

Legislators devised the 18-month one-time program to encourage the payment of old debt, said DMV spokesperson Artemio Armenta. "This allows court and collection agencies to focus their limited resources on more recent cases," he said.

Although the program is run by the California courts and not the DMV, it is intended to provide relief for those with outstanding debts related to traffic violations and those who have had their driving privileges revoked.

According to the California Courts website, amnesty only applies to those with unpaid ticket fines that were originally due to be paid on or before Jan. 1, 2013, and who have not made a payment on the ticket after Sept. 30, 2015.

The amnesty program does not apply to parking tickets, reckless driving, or DUI offenses.

All civil assessment fees will be waived for eligible participants, including undocumented immigrants under AB 60. Remaining costs will be reduced by 80 percent, for those that make 125 percent or less than the federal poverty level, or 50 percent for all other eligible participants.

Some courts, counties, and third-party collection agencies will collect an amnesty program fee of $50. The DMV will also charge a standard $55 processing fee for driver's license reinstatement.

To determine your eligibility for the amnesty program, contact the superior court in the jurisdiction where the ticket was received. This list details the participating courts and counties. Applications will be processed without seeing a judge.

Read Michelle Robertsons latest stories and send her news tips at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com.
The worlds largest manufacturer of civilian drones is proposing that the craft continually transmit identification information to help security agencies and law enforcement figure out which might belong to rogue operators.

DJI, a Chinese company, said in a paper released Monday that radio transmissions of an identification code, possibly the operators Federal Aviation Administrations registration number, could help allay security concerns while protecting privacy. The paper suggests steps that can be taken to use existing technologies to develop an identification system, and that operators could include more identification information in addition to a number if they wish.

Anyone with the proper radio receiver could obtain those transmissions from the drone, but only law enforcement officials or aviation regulators would be able to use that registration number to identify the registered owner.

Law enforcement agencies and the U.S. military raised security concerns last year after FAA officials proposed permitting more civilian drone flights over densely populated areas.

In response, the FAA announced in January that it was delaying a public notice of the proposal while the agency works to address the concerns. On Monday, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta kicked off a three-day drone symposium in suburban Washington by announcing that the agency is forming an advisory committee to make recommendations on how to remotely track drones, as well as trying to facilitate a dialogue between government agencies and the drone industry on how best to address security concerns.

Courts

Comey pressed

on iPhone tool

FBI Director James Comey has made public enough details about the bureau buying a tool to unlock an iPhone as part of a terrorism investigation that the agency should also release how much it cost, the Associated Press, Vice Media LLC and Gannett said in court papers Monday.

The media companies said Comey has spoken at length and in detail about the FBIs purchase last year of a tool that enabled it to break into the work phone of Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the two shooters in the December 2015 San Bernardino attack.

They told a judge that now that Comey has publicly offered a ballpark price that the FBI paid, and has spoken generally about the limitations of the tool, the bureau should be forced to provide the news organizations with the information they sought.

Virtual reality

Oculus leader

is from Apple

Facebook has hired Michael Hillman, a 15-year veteran of Apple, as head of hardware for its Oculus VR division.

Hillman held senior engineering and design roles at Apple, and he helped develop consumer products such as the popular iMac desktop computer, according to his LinkedIn profile. His experience launching consumer products will be key to Oculus delivering on its ambitious goal of taking virtual reality hardware mainstream.

At Oculus, Hillman will work closely with Hans Hartmann, Oculus chief operating officer, according to Oculus spokeswoman Andrea Schubert.

Hartmann joined Oculus last year after serving in that same role at Fitbit. The hire comes after Facebook recruited another big name, Xiaomi Corp.s Hugo Barra, to oversee all of virtual reality.

Barra hasnt started yet, the company said. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions virtual reality as the next major computing platform after mobile phones.

The company faces major competition from others who have more experience building out a hardware business, such as HTC Corp. and Microsoft Corp. Oculus currently sells a few products, ranging from its flagship Rift headset and controller to the Gear VR attachment for the latest Samsung phones.

Chronicle News Services
Uber has resumed its self-driving car program in Arizona and Pittsburgh after it was suspended following a crash on Friday.

The company had also grounded self-driving cars in San Francisco over the weekend, but they resumed operating earlier Monday. The difference between the California program and the ones in Arizona and Pennsylvania is that California does not allow passengers to ride in the vehicles.

The company said Monday that it paused the operations over the weekend to better understand what happened in Arizona, but feels confident in returning the cars to the road.

There were no serious injuries reported in the incident in Tempe on Friday night. Police said the self-driving Uber SUV was obeying the law while the human driver of the other car was cited for a moving violation.

Uber says it is investigating the incident and that there were no passengers in the back seat of the SUV.

Multiple automakers and technology companies are testing fleets of self-driving vehicles. In nearly all cases, the cars have backup drivers who can take the wheel in an emergency.

Testing hasnt been accident-free. Waymo  a division of Google  has been testing self-driving cars since 2009 and has driven them more than 2 million miles. Last year, Waymo reported 13 accidents involving its fleet in California, which requires companies testing autonomous vehicles to report any accidents. Most of the accidents were minor and werent caused by Waymos vehicles. But in February 2016, a Waymo test car struck a public bus near the companys headquarters in Mountain View. No one was injured.

Cruise Automation  a self-driving startup owned by General Motors Co.  and Nissan Motor Co. also reported fender benders involving self-driving cars in California within the last year.

Last year, a driver of a semi-autonomous Tesla  which is different from a self-driving car  was killed with the cars Autopilot system engaged. Tesla has urged its owners to pay attention to the road even when they are using Autopilot.
When Samsung chose to name its voice assistant Bixby, it may have run into a problem  not with techies, but with linguists. The x in Bixby sounds essentially like a k and an s combined, which is difficult for many people around the world to say, according to linguists, including for those in Samsungs native South Korea. Lots of languages do not allow for certain kinds of consonant clusters, William Idsardi, head of the linguistics department at the University of Maryland, emailed the Washington Post.

Number of the day

$1,868

Thats how much a London mansion overlooking Hyde Park rents for on Airbnb. The luxury property, listed for $10.9 million after a price cut, has languished on the market. Cuts in tax breaks on mortgage interest have dented sales of high-end homes, and some owners have turned to Airbnb and property brokers to rent properties out, Bloomberg reports. The number of Airbnb listings in London doubled in 2016 to 50,000.

This may cost United

an arm and a legging

When United Airlines barred two teenage girls from a flight Sunday because they were wearing leggings, social media went wild, leading lots of media stories and critical tweets from celebrities like Patricia Arquette, left, Chrissy Teigen and LeVar Burton  along with some Twitter shade from rival Delta. United tried to explain that the dress code applies only to employees and dependents who are allowed to fly free or for a discounted price, but many on social media ripped what they saw as an intrusive, sexist policy. And Delta couldnt resist tweeting something on its own, accompanied by a winking emoji: Flying Delta means comfort. (That means you can wear your leggings.)

Daily Briefing is compiled from San Francisco Chronicle staff and news services. See more items and links at www.sfgate.com. Twitter: @techchronicle
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Prolific San Francisco restaurateur Adriano Paganini has revealed more details on his forthcoming Hayes Valley project. It will be called A Mano: an Italian restaurant focusing on handmade pasta.

The opening date is set for May 2017.
John Storey/Special to the Chronicle

Justin Lew and Ian Scalzo, the folks behind Horsefeather on Divisadero, are headed to the Castro with a new project at 718 14th St., according to a liquor license filed last week.

Right now, the address belongs to The Residence, which according to reports, will close within the next month or so.
HARTFORD, Conn.  Gun control advocates are asking the Connecticut Supreme Court for permission to argue against a judges decision last year to dismiss a wrongful-death lawsuit against the maker of the rifle used in the 2012 Newtown school shooting, saying the ruling would set a bad precedent.

State Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis ruled in October that the lawsuit filed by some of the Newtown victims families against Remington Arms wasnt allowed because of a federal law that shields gun makers from liability, in most cases, when their products are used in crimes. Remington, based in Madison, N.C., made the Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle used to kill 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

A survivor of the attack and the families of nine killed are appealing that ruling to the state Supreme Court in a case that centers on the few exceptions to the federal law. The suit seeks to hold Remington accountable for selling what their lawyers call a semiautomatic rifle that is too dangerous for the public because it was designed as a military killing machine.

Gun control advocates recently asked the high court for permission to file briefs in the case, hoping to persuade the justices to reverse a potentially precedent-setting decision that could be used by gun makers to fend off lawsuits filed under the exceptions to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.

The trial court broadly and improperly interpreted the law to provide far greater protection for irresponsible gun companies than Congress ever intended, said Jonathan Lowy, director of the Legal Action Project at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The Brady Center is among a variety of groups seeking to file friend-of-the-court briefs. Others include The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and CT Against Gun Violence, along with doctors, law school professors and school superintendents. The number of organizations seeking to file briefs is unusually high for a state Supreme Court case.

At issue are two of the six exceptions to the federal law. One allows lawsuits alleging negligent entrustment, when companies know, or should know, when supplying their firearms to others that their weapons are likely to be used in a way that risks injury to others. The other allows lawsuits alleging manufacturers knowingly violated a state or federal law that applies to the sale or marketing of firearms.

The lawsuit against Remington cites those two exceptions. It says Remington should have known its Bushmaster rifle was dangerous when it marketed and sold it, and that the company violated the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act by marketing and selling a rifle that was used to harm people.

Judge Bellis sided with Remington. She ruled that negligent entrustment didnt apply, in part, because none of the defendants had any direct dealings with Newtown school shooter Adam Lanza, whose mother legally bought the rifle. Lanza killed his mother, Nancy, before going to the school, where he also killed himself.

Lowy said the judges ruling was out of line with other court decisions that say there does not need to be a direct connection with a gun user.

Lawyers for Remington disagree and say the company is shielded from liability under the federal law.

Dave Collins is an Associated Press writer.
WASHINGTON  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes went to the White House grounds to review intelligence reports and meet the secret source behind his claim that communications involving associates of President Trump were caught up in incidental surveillance, the Republican congressman said Monday.

Nunes revelation prompted the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, as well as the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, to call on Nunes to recuse himself from the committees Russia probe.

Schiff said Nunes connections to the White House have raised insurmountable public doubts about whether the committee could credibly investigate the presidents campaign associates.

I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the presidents campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman, Schiff, D-Burbank, said in a statement Monday.

Nunes, R-Tulare, confirmed Monday that he met with the source at the White House complex, but he denied coordinating with the presidents aides.

After reviewing the information last week, Nunes called a news conference to announce that U.S. spy agencies may have inadvertently captured Trump and his associates in routine targeting of foreigners communications. Trump quickly seized on the statements as at least partial vindication for his assertion that former President Barack Obama tapped his phones at Trump Tower  though Nunes, Schiff and FBI Director James Comey have said there is no such evidence.

The Senate intelligence committee is also conducting an investigation into Russias interference in the election and possible ties with the Trump campaign. On Monday, it announced that Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has agreed to be interviewed. The White House confirmed that Kushner, a senior Trump adviser, had volunteered to be interviewed about arranging meetings with the Russian ambassador and other officials.

Kushner is the fourth Trump associate to offer to be interviewed by the congressional committees looking into the murky Russia ties. Trumps former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, Trump adviser Carter Page and Trump associate Roger Stone last week volunteered to speak as well.

Mr. Kushner will certainly not be the last person the committee calls to give testimony, but we expect him to be able to provide answers to key questions that have arisen in our inquiry, the chairman, Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, and the top Democrat, Mark Warner of Virginia, said in a joint statement Monday in a sign of bipartisanship.

Trump himself suggested late Monday that the House panel should investigate Bill and Hillary Clintons dealings with Russia. Trump Russia story is a hoax, he tweeted.

Besides the two congressional committees, the FBI is also investigating connections between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The House investigation, meanwhile, has been plagued with partisan divisions under Nunes leadership.

The chairman did not tell Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee, about the meeting at the White House complex. It is highly unusual for a committee chairman and ranking member not to coordinate meetings related to an investigation.

I think the chairman has to make a decision whether to act as a surrogate of the White House  as he did during the campaign and the transition  or to lead an independent and credible investigation, Schiff said Sunday on CBS.

Nunes argued he had to review classified, executive branch documents from a secure facility at the White House because the reports had not been provided to Congress and could not be transported to the secure facilities used by the House intelligence committee.

Nunes would not name the source of the information, nor would he disclose who invited him on the White House grounds for the meeting.

Nunes described the source as intelligence official, not a White House official. In an interview on CNN, he suggested the presidents aides were unaware of the meeting.

The disclosure renewed calls for an independent committee to investigate the Russia ties. Indeed, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on House Speaker Paul Ryan to replace Nunes as chairman of the intelligence committee.

Eileen Sullivan is an Associated Press writer.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trumps son-in-law has volunteered to answer questions before the Senate Intelligence Committee about arranging meetings with the Russian ambassador and other officials, the White House confirmed Monday.

Jared Kushner has agreed to speak to the committee, which is conducting an investigation into Russias interference in the 2016 election, including whether there are any ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin, the White House said.

Kushner is the fourth Trump associate to offer to be interviewed by the congressional committees looking into the murky Russia ties. Trumps former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, Trump adviser Carter Page and Trump associate Roger Stone last week volunteered to speak to the committee as well.

The White House noted that throughout the 2016 presidential campaign and transition, Kushner served as the main contact with foreign governments and officials. Trump associates meetings with the Russian ambassador during the transition period have come under question, in part because those who met with him were not immediately forthcoming about the meetings.

It was not immediately clear when or how the Senate questioning would take place or whether Kushner would be under oath. An official familiar with the Senate investigation said that the details of the interview have not yet been set and that the Trump associates will speak to the committee on the committees terms. That these Trump associates volunteered to be interviewed does not prevent the committee from issuing a subpoena for testimony. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss details of the Senate investigation.

In a House intelligence hearing March 20, FBI Director James Comey confirmed that the bureau has been conducting a counterintelligence investigation into these matters since late July.

Vivian Salama and Eileen Sullivan are Associated Press writers.
1 Supreme Court nominee: Senate Democrats on Monday forced a one-week delay in a committee vote on President Trumps Supreme Court nominee, who remains on track for confirmation with solid Republican backing. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said that, as expected, Democrats have requested a postponement. The committee vote on Judge Neil Gorsuch now will be held April 3.

2 Officer killed: A 22-year-old officer and new recruit died Monday after a shootout with a man who fled a traffic stop in central Oklahoma, police said. Officer Justin Terney was shot several times late Sunday and died after undergoing surgery overnight, Tecumseh Assistant Police Chief J.R. Kidney said. The man who fired on Terney was also shot multiple times and in intensive care, Kidney said. He was not immediately identified.

3 Executions: The eight inmates facing lethal injection in Arkansas next month asked a federal judge on Monday to block the states unprecedented plan to conduct four days of double executions. Attorneys for the inmates sought a preliminary injunction to halt the executions, which are scheduled to begin April 17, arguing that the use of the controversial sedative midazolam and the rushed schedule violates their clients constitutional rights. Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson last month scheduled the executions to occur before the states supply of midazolam expires at the end of April.

4 Suspect escapes: San Bernardino County sheriffs deputies searched Monday for a suspect who slipped out of handcuffs and escaped from the back seat of a patrol car. Charles Brown, 31, was arrested Sunday on suspicion of transporting narcotics. He was taken to the Victorville Police Department to be interviewed, but before he could be brought inside he managed to wriggle out of the cuffs and get out of the car, according to a sheriffs department statement.

5 Zoo deaths: Officials say an environmental cause and not disease appears to be behind the recent deaths of 33 reptiles, nearly all of them snakes, at Zoo Knoxville in Tennessee. The animals found dead last week were all housed in the same building. Surviving animals were removed and given oxygen. An exact cause is still under investigation.

6 Parents charged: Authorities say a couple left their three young children, including an infant, alone in a suburban Rochester, N.Y., mall for hours while the parents went to work inside the shopping center. A 39-year-old man and a 36-year-old woman brought the children ages 8, 6 and 1 month to the Eastview Mall on Saturday, the sheriffs office said. The parents left the children unsupervised on a bench for more than six hours while they went to their maintenance jobs, deputies said. Mall security was notified and called the sheriffs office. Both parents were issued court-appearance tickets for endangering the welfare of a child.

Chronicle News Services
1 Gorsuch opponents: Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan is joining the growing list of Senate Democrats opposing President Trumps nominee to the Supreme Court. In a statement Tuesday, Stabenow said she cant support Judge Neil Gorsuch, complaining about his long record of siding with special interests and institutions instead of hard-working Americans. So far, 19 Democrats have announced their opposition, raising the prospects of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell changing Senate rules to get Gorsuch confirmed. Republicans hold a 52-48 majority. It takes 60 votes to clear parliamentary hurdles and set up an up-or-down vote on a Supreme Court nominee. McConnell could push for a rule change to win approval of the nominee with a simple majority.

2 Heros reward: Since Ian Grillot intervened in a shooting in February that left one Indian immigrant dead and another one wounded, Indian immigrants have rallied to help him in return. Grillot, a 24-year-old from Olathe, Kan., ran at a gunman at Austins Bar and Grill on Feb. 22, thinking the attacker had run out of bullets and hoping to stop him from fleeing. But he had miscalculated and was shot through the hand and chest. His confrontation has been widely praised in India, where officials have extended an invitation to visit the country. It has also been appreciated by Indian immigrants in the United States. On Saturday, India House Houston, a nonprofit organization, presented Grillot with $100,000, which it had raised to help him buy a home.
DETROIT  Michigan and the city of Flint agreed Monday to replace thousands of home water lines under a sweeping deal to settle a lawsuit by residents over lead-contaminated water in the struggling city.

Flint will replace at least 18,000 lead or galvanized-steel water lines by 2020, and the state will pick up the bill with state and federal money, according to the settlement filed in federal court. It was to be presented to a judge Tuesday for his approval.
Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post

WASHINGTON  The Trump administration sought to block former acting Attorney General Sally Yates from testifying to Congress in the House investigation of links between Russian officials and Donald Trumps presidential campaign, the Washington Post has learned, a position that is likely to further anger Democrats who have accused Republicans of trying to damage the inquiry.

According to letters the Post reviewed, the Justice Department notified Yates earlier this month that the administration considers a great deal of her possible testimony to be barred from discussion in a congressional hearing because the topics are covered by the presidential communication privilege.
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.
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Former vice president Richard Cheney became the latest Republican to condemn Russia's reported meddling in the presidential election, likening the "cyber attack on the United States" to an "act of war."

Cheney on Monday delivered criticisms of Russian President Vladimir Putin's policies and his government's alleged orchestration of hackings to interfere with the election. Cheney, who supported Donald Trump's presidential election, was speaking at a global business summit in New Delhi.

"There's not any argument at this stage that somehow the election of President Trump was not legitimate, but there's no question that there was a very serious effort made by Mr. Putin and his government, his organization to interfere in major ways with our basic, fundamental democratic process," he said. "In some quarters, that would be considered an act of war."

Cheney, who once accused Russia of stifling religious and political rights, isn't the first politician to use the phrase "act of war" to describe the reported hackings.

"When you attack a country, it's an act of war," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said in December during an interview on Ukrainian TV, according to CNN. "And so we have to make sure that there is a price to pay so that we can perhaps persuade Russians to stop this kind of attacks on our very fundamentals of democracy."

However, a leading scholar of international law on cyber operations said that although interfering with another country's democratic process is alarming, it does not amount to an "act of war."

"I'm not friend of Russians," Michael Schmitt, chairman of the U.S. Naval War College's International Law Department, told The Washington Post. But Moscow's hacking and dumping of Democratic emails to WikiLeaks "is not an initiation of armed conflict. It's not a violation of the U.N. charter's prohibition on the use of force. It's not a situation that would allow the U.S. to respond in a self-defense militarily."

Schmitt, though, said that Russia's violation of the international law barring intervention in a state's internal affairs would give the United States grounds to undertake "countermeasures" that would otherwise be unlawful, Nakashima wrote.

In December, The Post reported that intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with a trove of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others with the intention of hurting Hillary Clinton's chances of becoming president.

Both chambers of Congress have launched probes into alleged Russian hacking that intelligence agencies believe was designed to help Trump win the White House. Leaders of the Senate and House intelligence committees, which are in charge of investigations, have both pledged to look into links between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

FBI Director James Comey also confirmed during a public hearing before the House Intelligence Committee last week that his agency is investigating just that.

In his speech at the YES Bank and the Economic Times Presents Global Business Summit, Cheney said the Russian interference in the election is "the kind of conduct and activity we'll see going forward," citing Putin's desire to reestablish control over nations that were part of the old Soviet Union.

"I would not underestimate the weight that we, as Americans, assign to the Russian attempts to interfere with our internal political processes," he said.

Cheney's remarks come as the president, who's long praised Putin, continues to dismiss possible links between his campaign and the Kremlin as nonsense.

Trump said in a couple of tweets Monday night that the House Intelligence Committee should, instead, look into Bill and Hillary Clinton's alleged Russian ties.

"...money to Bill, the Hillary Russian "reset," praise of Russia by Hillary, or Podesta Russian Company. Trump Russia story is a hoax. #MAGA!" he tweeted.

The congressional probes also have been anything but smooth sailing.

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chair of the House Intelligence Committee and a Trump ally, for instance, admitted Monday that he secretly went to the White House last week to view intelligence files he later cited as proof of illegal surveillance on the president, The Post reported. The revelation has raised doubts about the impartiality of the investigation into Russia and set off calls for Nunes' removal as chairman.

The Post also revealed Tuesday that administration officials tried to block Sally Yates from testifying in the House investigation, telling the former acting attorney general in a recent letter that officials believe her possible testimony are covered by presidential communication privilege.
Four friends living in the Bay Area have successfully crowdfunded a number of ads on various BART cars advising passengers what to do in the event that they witness a racially or religiously motivated attack happening on a BART train.

As the friends  Hanako Asakura, Lea Grundy, Alene Pearson, and Kathleen Wilson  write on the GoFundMe page they launched two months ago, they were concerned about "incidents of hate speech and harassment happening in public spaces" following November's election. Citing racist graffiti, vandalism, and friends' confrontations close to home in the East Bay, they sought to educate the public about ways in which observers could stand up to intolerance in a nonviolent way.
Whats a President to Do?

.





SEOUL  Donald Trump took office promising a raft of sweeping economic-policy changes for the United States. He has quickly discovered, like previous US presidents, that Americas political system is designed to prevent rapid, large-scale change, by interposing formidable institutional obstacles, from the Congress and career civil servants to state governments and the courts.

Start with reform of personal income tax. This should be a slam-dunk, because the president and congressional Republican leaders are on the same page. Trumps goal of removing the governments groping hand from Americans pockets, by cutting the top marginal tax rate on ordinary income from 39.5% to 33%, is entirely consistent with mainstream Republican ideology, according to which high tax rates penalize success and stifle innovation.

But, to be politically viable, significant tax cuts for the wealthy would have to be accompanied by at least token tax cuts for the middle class. And broad-based tax cuts would blow a hole in the budget and excite congressional deficit hawks, of whom there are still a few.

One can imagine closing loopholes to render rate cuts revenue neutral. But one persons loophole is anothers entitlement. Even if there are economic arguments for eliminating, say, the deductibility of mortgage interest payments, imagine the howls of protest from homeowners, including many Trump voters, who borrowed to purchase their houses. Imagine the reaction of Trumps friends in real estate.

Cuts on the spending side would assuage the deficit hawks. And big cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency, the US Agency for International Development, and National Public Radio are high on the Republican hit list. But the vast majority of federal spending is on entitlements, the military, and other proverbial third rail items that elected officials touch at their peril. Simply put, broad-based spending cuts to match broad-based income-tax reductions are not politically feasible.

Eliminating federal subsidies for health-insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) would save the government a little over $100 billion a year, about 3% of federal spending. But those subsidies are largely paid for by their own dedicated taxes. Moreover, Trump and congressional Republicans are learning that replacing Obamacare is easier said than done. Health-care reform, as Hillary Clinton could have told them, is fearsomely complex.



It is increasingly clear that the name will change (Trumpcare, anyone?), and it can be expected that the Republican plan will cover fewer people; but much of the substance will remain the same.

Because corporate taxes are less significant in terms of overall federal revenue, rate cutting doesnt pose a comparable threat to the budget balance. But here there is no agreement between Congress and the Trump administration on the form such cuts should take.

House Speaker Paul Ryan and others favor moving to a border adjustment tax that would tax corporate cash flows regardless of where the goods sold by US companies are produced, while exempting exports. Others, such as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, are evidently skeptical. And an important part of Trumps business constituency  import-dependent retailers like Target and Walmart  are actively hostile. Agreement on a plan wont come easily.

Trumps other flagship proposal is a $1 trillion infrastructure program. But this initiative will run headlong into deficit concerns, and it is fundamentally at odds with Republican skepticism about big government, and specifically about the public sectors capacity to carry out investment plans efficiently. Trump will want to be able to point to a few signature projects. He will want his border wall with Mexico. But any new federal infrastructure spending is likely to be more symbolic than real.

So what will an impatient president, frustrated and hemmed in on all sides, do? First, Trump will focus on the one set of economic policies a president can pursue without close congressional cooperation, namely those affecting trade. He can invoke the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, restricting imports on the grounds that they threaten US material interests. He can invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 on the grounds that the loss of jobs to Mexico and China constitutes an economic emergency. He can even invoke the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 on the grounds that the US has Special Forces active in the Middle East.

Second, Trump will respond, as populists do, by attempting to distract attention from his failure to deliver the economic goods. This means directing his ire and that of his supporters toward others  whether internal enemies like the press, the intelligence community, and Barack Obama, or external adversaries like the Islamic State and China. It wouldnt be the first time a politician used a domestic political crusade or a foreign policy adventure to divert attention from his economic failures.

We have already seen Trumps tendency to lash out at perceived enemies, foreign and domestic. And we know that this confrontational style is the modus operandi of senior White House advisers like Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller. We can hope that cooler heads prevail. But, given the constraints on implementing Trumps economic agenda, its hard to be optimistic.
Political events

in the Bay Area

Rallies and protest events are a part of political life in the Bay Area. Heres a roundup of whats happening.

Tuesday

Rally aimed at Feinstein: A call for Sen. Dianne Feinstein not to strike compromises with the Trump administration. The event, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m, begins outside the Montgomery Street BART Station, 598 Market St., San Francisco, and end outside Feinsteins office, 1 Post St. For information: http://bit.ly/2njpqvN

Wednesday

Sanctuary panel: Panel talk on sanctuary cities, as well as stories of immigration challenges. The event featuring immigration attorneys and former members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors begins at 6:30 p.m., 3271 18th St., San Francisco.

Privacy meeting: Hosted by the Oakland Privacy Working Group to organize against the surveillance state, against Urban Shield and to advocate for privacy and surveillance regulation ordinances to be passed around the Bay Area. The event is from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Omni Commons, 4799 Shattuck Ave. in Oakland.

Thursday

Womens event: A happy hour and panel discussion featuring female entrepreneurs, Nevertheless, She Persisted: An Evening with Fearless Women. The event is from 5:30-8:30 p.m. at DoubleDutch, 350 Rhode Island St., Suite 375 in San Francisco. For information: http://bit.ly/2nxMB6e

Friday

Transgender Day event: The Asian Pacific Islander Wellness Center will host a free event to commemorate Transgender Day of Visibility. The event will begins at 5:30 p.m. at SOMArts, 934 Brannan St. in San Francisco.

Sunday

Political event: Take Back America with U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, who will discuss the California Congressional picture and host a fair where attendees can connect with activist and advocacy groups. The event is from noon-3 p.m. in Fiesta Hall at the San Mateo County Event Center, 1346 Saratoga Drive, San Mateo. To pre-register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/take-back-america-tickets-32982865639

To list an event, email Sarah Ravani at sravani@sfchronicle.com.
Californias chief justice renewed her criticism of federal immigration officials Monday for conducting raids at courthouses and, in her annual State of the Judiciary address, appeared to escalate her critique of the Trump administration.

Our values, practices and laws are being called into question, and all three branches of government and the free press are in the crosshairs, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said in remarks prepared for a joint session of the Legislature.

She did not specify the dangers to the three branches of government, but free press ... in the crosshairs was an evident reference to President Trumps repeated attacks on the news media, which he has called the enemy of the American people.

More generally, Cantil-Sakauye told lawmakers that the rule of law is being threatened. We are living in a time of civil rights unrest, eroding trust in our institutions, economic anxiety, and unprecedented polarization.

Cantil-Sakauye, a former prosecutor, was named chief justice in 2010 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

After reports from California and four other states that U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents had gone to courthouses to arrest immigrants for deportation, Cantil-Sakauye sent a letter to the agency March 16 saying agents should stop stalking courthouses.

An ICE spokeswoman replied that the agency makes arrests at courthouses as a last resort, after other options have failed.

The chief justice, a Filipino American, returned to the theme in Mondays speech after recalling her husbands parents who were held at U.S. internment camps for Japanese Americans for four years during World War II.

What happens when the rule of law fails in California? Lets ask my in-laws, Cantil-Sakauye said.

She said immigration arrests at courthouses, and the fear of such arrests, will trickle down into communities, churches, schools and families, and I worry that people will no longer cooperate, or come to court to press their rights, or to seek protection because they will see the court as a bad place. And I worry that crimes will go unreported and communities will live in fear.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko
The Metropolitan Museum of Art routinely creates a feast for the eyes, but in recent years has also begun stimulating more senses, specifically taste and smell. In conjunction with the upcoming Age of Empires exhibition, which showcases Chinese art during the Qin and Han dynasties, the museum reimagined their second-floor balcony bar as Tea Drunk at The Met in partnership with the tea house of the same name in the East Village.

Instead of the usual martinisthose are sticking around on Friday and Saturday evenings when the pop-up is replaced by the Great Hall Balcony Barthe space will serve Chinese tea house fare anchored by five different types of tea. The artisanal teas, supplied by Tea Drunk, include green (Gua Pian), black, white, Pu Er (fermented), and Wu Long, which were all hand-selected by the team during annual trips to China.

Diners seated at the cafe are treated to a Gongfu-style tea service by staff from the downtown cafe. Prices range depending on the variety of tea, but expect to spend between $20 (for two) for green tea and up to $50 (for two) for the rare Wu Long Tea. Each service also includes little snacks like cakes and cookies and there's a walk-up counter serving cups of tea ($9), coffee and pastries to go.

In conjunction with the new tea program and exhibition, the Museum will also host composer Tan Dun (of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame) for two performances March 31st and April 1st of Symphony of Colors: Terracotta, an ensemble piece that employs terracotta drums as a nod to terracotta warriors featured in the exhibit.

Tea Drunk at The Met operates Sunday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Age of Empires: Chinese Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B.C.-A.D. 220) opens April 3rd and the pop-up cafe will operate daily for the next three months.
A hedge fund manager who was once sued for investing with Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff died in an apparent suicide Monday afternoon. The body of Charles Murphy, 56, was found on a fourth-floor rooftop of the Sofitel at 45 West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan.

Witnesses said they saw "a man wearing what appeared to be a dark business suit" jump from the 24th floor, landing on a hotel terrace. "The impact of the landing shattered concrete tiles," the Post reports.

Murphy had worked at Fairfield Greenwich Hedge Fund, which had invested $7.5 billion with Madoff, whose pyramid scheme unraveled in 2008. He was among the defendants in a lawsuit against the firm, which eventually settled for $80 million.

Before the Madoff-related troubles, Murphy was apparently on the upswing: He paid $33 million for 7 East 67th Street, which the Observer called, "a record sale for a New York mansion smaller than 26 feet wide." Then, in 2009, while he was unemployed, Murphy heard that a neighbor was selling their townhouse for $25 million, the NY Times reports:

Rather than quietly savoring the good fortune of his neighbor, Janna Bullock, a developer who specializes in restoring town houses, Mr. Murphy sprang into action, according to several people familiar with the transaction. He called the successful selling broker, Richard Steinberg of Warburg Realty, and suggested that it might be worth his time to try to interest the buyer, a Russian industrialist, in his house. Maybe he would find it more appealing, with its distinctive Ionic columns and four-story glass atrium in the rear, and buy it instead. Mr. Murphy did not succeed in snagging the sale.

He then reportedly tried to sell the townhouse for $37 million in 2009 and then put back on the market last year for $49.5 million. After a few price cuts, 11,500 square-foot home is currently for sale at $36.5 million.

Murphy was currently working as a hedge fund manager at Paulson & Co; John Paulson said, "We are extremely saddened by this news. Charles was an extremely gifted and brilliant man, a great partner and a true friend. Our deepest prayers are with his family."

A Daily News reporter who went to the townhouse was told, "Go away, leave the family to grieve."

According to the Post, "A parking attendant at a nearby garage said Murphys wife, Annabella Murphy, crashed their Honda Odyssey last summer but could not afford to fix it. 'She didnt even have enough money to pay for the damage,' the attendant said."

Murphy reportedly had two children with Annabella Murphy and two children with ex-wife Heather Kerzner.
Roman Catholic activists are calling on the Archdiocese of New York to take a stronger stance against deportation. While dozens of churches, mosques and synagogues across the city are opening their doors to immigrants, providing everything from know-your-rights training to physical sanctuary from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, they say Cardinal Timothy Dolan isn't doing his share.

Some are calling on Dolan to explicitly denounce deportation, while others see an opportunity in the dozens of empty churches across Manhattan, Staten Island, and the Bronx: buildings that have stood empty since August 2015, when the Archdiocese consolidated parishes as part of a sweeping plan to save on maintenance costs, particularly in parishes with dwindling attendance.

Roughly 40 NYC churches have been merged into a neighboring parish since the consolidations, according to the archdiocese; 24 of them are closed for worship. The archdiocese, which also includes counties north of the city, shrank by 20 percent in one year.

Felix Cepeda, an advocate for immigration rights and church reform, told Gothamist that the recent uptick in immigration enforcement across the country has inspired him. While ICE agents can legally cross a church threshold with a judicial warrant in hand, houses of worship technically qualify as "sensitive locations," which ICE is directed to "generally" avoid.

"A couple of these buildings need to be opened immediately," Cepeda said. "At least one place that can be open 24 hours. We could really have an emergency immigrant center there."

"Most of these churches have houses next to them where the priest used to live," he added, imagining housing the homeless and hosting community meetings, as well. "Thirty or forty people could easily live there."

"Catholic Churches in the Archdiocese of New York that are not currently being used for regular Mass and Sacraments are not appropriate places for sanctuaries," said archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling in a statement. "They do not have the facilities necessary for people to reside there."

Cepeda sees a fundamental disconnect between the younger generation of Catholics in New York City and their leadership. A shift towards a non-white Catholic majority has been recognized nationallya 2016 US bishops study found that 54 percent of so-called "millennial generation" Catholics, born after 1982, are Hispanic or Latino.

"The future of the church here in NYC is black and brown people from Latin America," Cepeda predicted, adding, "If women who looked like [Dolan's] mom and sister were being deported, would he be taking so long?"



Cardinal Dolan (via Facebook).

Another group of pro-immigration activists, organizing as Matthew 25 after the passage from the Gospel that calls for welcoming strangers, holds a prayer vigil outside of St. Patrick's Cathedral every Friday. They don't believe that church occupation is the best way to offer sanctuary as many of the buildings are in rough shape, but are nonetheless demanding more of Dolan.

"We are asking church leadership to put themselves between ICE and parishioners," said one Matthew 25 member, who asked that her name be withheld because of her position in the church. "Sanctuary is the concept that people at the door will put themselves in between ICE and parishioners. It's housing, forming a blockade, helping more people."

Late last month, San Diego's Bishop Robert McElroy called on Catholics to "disrupt those who would send troops into our streets to deport the undocumented." This month, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark attended an ICE check-in with a Catholic facing deportation.

The Catholic Church is supporting immigrants in New York, as well. Catholic Charities of New York, which is affiliated with the archdiocese, sent lawyers to JFK and Newark airports when the first travel ban went into effect. In a December letter to his parishes, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, whose diocese represents Brooklyn and Queens, wrote that "we will always welcome the stranger amongst us, no matter what your legal status."

Cardinal Dolan criticized the travel ban in a January Daily News op-ed, describing it as "impetuous and terribly unfair," but also attended the presidential inauguration at Trump's invitation. Speaking to reporters after a fundraiser in January, one day after the mass JFK protest, Cardinal Dolan said that the orders were cause for "some apprehension," but that it was important for him to speak "with civility" on the matter.

"Cardinal Dolan has spoken out repeatedly and forcefully on immigration," Zwilling, the archdiocese spokesman, said.

"He prayed over Trump," Cepeda said. "He wants to play both sides."

Onleilove Alston, director of Faith in New York, trains churches in how to offer sanctuary. She she is still waiting to see a concerted sanctuary effort from the archdiocese.

"Most of our undocumented members come from Catholic parishes," she explained. "It has been difficult for the parishes to declare sanctuary, and I think more needs to be done with the leadership and the cardinal."

Juan Carlos Ruiz is co-founder of the New Sanctuary Coalition of NYC, a network of more than 100 places of worship organizing in defense of immigrants. Formerly a Catholic minister, Ruiz switched over to the Lutheran church in 2007, because of what he describes as that church's "inclusive stance."

Ruiz told Gothamist that the Catholic footprint in his organization is "minimal, but growing." St. John of the Cross on 42nd Street, St. Francis of Assisi on 31st near Penn Station, and Church of St. Francis Xavier Union Square are all at "different stages" of getting involved, he added.



Matthew 25 protesters calling on Cardinal Dolan to denounce ICE outside St. Patrick's Cathedral (Felton Davis / Matthew 25).

According to Zwilling, decisions about the shuttered churches "will have to be made by the parishes themselves."

But one effort to repurpose a merged church, the Church of the Nativity on Second Avenue, has been met with resistance from the top. Dorothy Day, a Catholic journalist and activist, founded the Catholic Worker newspaper in the 1930s; she attended Nativity before her death, and the Catholic Worker is still headquartered downtown. Its members would like to see the church reopened, with a chapel and education center in Day's name, and mailboxes and showers for the homeless.

"The archdiocese has not exactly responded," said Martha Hennessy, a Catholic Worker volunteer and granddaughter of Dorothy Day. "When you are dealing with a hierarchical, nearly-corporate entity like the New York Archdiocese, it's very difficult."

The archdiocese has a reputation for excess, even as it continues to close and consolidate its schools and churches (six more school closings were announced last month). Dolan recently moved to appease an anonymous wealthy donor who was troubled by Pope Francis's anti-capitalist message. He told NBC that he assured the donor, "The pope loves poor people. He also loves rich people."

Some advocates are concerned that Dolan plans to sell the shuttered churches to real estate developers, as it has in the past. Last fall, the archdiocese sold a Chelsea church and two other parcels to a hotel owner for $50 million.

In a 2014 interview with the New York Times, Dolan said some of the churches might ultimately be sold, but likely not for several years. Eventual proceeds would go to the merged parish in question, according to the archdiocese. To date, only Our Lady of Peace on East 62nd Street is up for consideration; it's currently leased to the Egyptian Orthodox Church.

"I know our money goes towards our schools, poor kids, charities, social services," Cepeda said. "But at the same time we don't do enough challenging capitalism."

Cepeda acknowledged the cost of utilities and repairsno small sum in large, old buildings. St. Stephen's, in Kips Bay, for example is over 150 years old and has recently undergone repairs for a crumbling roof. He'd like to see the archdiocese partner with local nonprofit groups; he'd also fundraise for utility costs, he said.

Ruiz supports Cepeda's idea, though he believes that it will require a lot of careful organizing and appeals to church leadership. Ruiz's neighborhood, Sunset Park, has many Spanish-speaking residents who would benefit from the space, he saidfor sanctuary, but also simply to gather in community.

"They don't have spaces to recreate themselves, to breathe," Ruiz said. "Which I think, really, is like a crime, like an insult. We have this [large] amount of resources, you know?"

"What is the message we are saying loud and clear?" he added. "That our buildings are more important than the welfare of our people?"
Mahsa Mehrdad and Masih Rahmati, an Iranian couple residing in NYC, were riding the subway through Manhattan on Saturday night when a man threatened to kill them and told them to "go back to your own country." In a video of the incident, the man can be heard declaring that "Donald Trump is in the house," before telling the couple, "I'll kill all three of you at one time." (Rahmati speculates that a third man sitting nearby was lumped into the threat.)



According to Rahmati, 32, the man started glaring at them as they boarded the C train at 34th street, and his anger became increasingly visible as the train emptied out north of 59th Street. "At one point he looked at my girlfriend and said, 'I will kill you first,'" Rahmati, a third-year PhD student in cognitive neuroscience at NYU told Gothamist. "I was very nervous that he would do something, so I was ready if he attacked for us to run away or to block him from my girlfriend." The man exited the train with the couple at 145th Street, but he did not appear to follow them, Rahmati said.

On the Sunday following the incident, Mehrdad and Rahmati showed the video to a police officer at the 145th Street station. "[The officer] tried to calm us down and explained to us that he can file a report but that the guy looks mentally ill and that there are a lot of them around, but we shouldn't expect the police to go after him and arrest him," Rahmati said. The couple ultimately decided not to file a police report.

Mehrdad did elect to share the video on Facebook, accompanied by a series of questions, including "What should we do in a situation like this?" and "What is a proper action to shut down racist comments while not escalating the situation?"

The responses, more than 50 so far, offer a window into a community of people, many of them Middle Eastern, who are also wrestling with these non-hypothetical questions. Citing similar experiences in San Francisco, Minnesota, the United Kingdom and elsewhere in New York, some commenters suggested that it's best to immediately seek out a police officer, while others warned against taping these incidents for fear of further enraging the attackers. "I don't know the right answer here," said one commenter, "I always just try and distance myself from the threat."

The racist threat fits within a citywide trend of rising hate incidents, particularly on the subway, since President Trump's election. Data from the first two months of 2017 show a 55 percent jump in hate crimes across the five boroughs, as well as a 340 percent increase in reported hate crimes on the subway, with 22 reported incidents compared to just five over the same period last year.

In November, after a Muslim teenager was verbally attacked for wearing a hijab on a Queens Bus, we spoke with Dr. Debbie Almontaser, board president of the Muslim Community Network, who urged Muslims Americans to be vigilant in the face of mounting hatred. Consider what time of day they go out, what neighborhoods they are in, and really try to travel with other people, she said. Try to not be out late... really try not to be on [your] phones, which could be a distraction."

"There's no question this sudden increase in bias incidents is directly related to the hateful rhetoric we heard during the election season," Mayor de Blasio told reporters last week. "We're trying to do everything we can to show that those who commit acts of hate will suffer the consequences."

In response to questions about whether the video justified an investigation, and how people should respond to verbal threats made on their race, a spokesperson for the NYPD said, "All crime victims are encouraged to file a complaint report with police." The MTA did not respond to a request for comment.


Following a very successful pop-up preview, chef Simone Tong is finally ready to debut her Little Tong Noodle Shop on Wednesday evening in the East Village. Tongwho spent four years cooking at Wyle Dufresne's pioneering WD-50 restaurantspecializes in mixian, rice noodle dishes from the Yunnan Province of China.

The chewy noodles form the base for flavorful broths and toppings that in turn season the noodles themselves. Chicken broth and confit are spiced with fermented chili and black sesame garlic oil in the Grandma Chicken Mixian ($16), with Chinese broccoli, pickled daikon radish and a tea egg adding extra oomph. Two vegetarian options employ a vegetable broth with 5-spice tofu (Little Pot Vegetable Mixian, $14) and an assortment of mushrooms (Mushroom Wood-Ear Mixian, $15) but could be made carnivorous with an addition of chicken confit or dan dan pork, if desired.

Besides the noodle soups, Tong's whipping up small plates of Beef Tartare ($13) with sichuan butter and a crispy bun, Ghost Chicken ($7) with pickled red onions and herbs, and Pork Chao Shou ($6), her homemade wontons.

Little Tong has adopted the no-tipping model and all prices are inclusive of service.

177 1st Avenue, 929-367-8664; littletong.com. Open Tuesday - Sunday, 5:30 p.m. - 11 p.m. Closed Mondays.

Little Tong Noodle Shop Menu by Nell Casey on Scribd
Port Authority cops are still falsely arresting men in public bathrooms almost 15 years after a jury found that they had a habit of doing so merely on the basis of a guy shaking out the last drops of pee at a urinal, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in federal court.

Legal Aid lawyers are joining forces with a private firm to bring a class-action lawsuit on behalf of men arrested on public lewdness charges at the Port Authority Bus terminal. The lawsuit claims that two named plaintiffs and an untold number of others were "deliberately targeted" based on officers' perception that they are gay or gender-nonconforming, and calls it "a shocking and appalling exercise in unconstitutional bias."

"Millions of commuters in the city have to use public restrooms in the course of their day, and for men to be targeted by unconstitutional arrest practices anytime they're using bathroom at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, that shouldn't happen," said Legal Aid attorney Kimberly Forte. "Men should feel that, going about the normal course of their day, they are safe."

The officers' modus operandi, according to the two falsely arrested men and several others arrested under similar circumstances, is to send a plainclothes officer into the men's bathroom to pretend to urinate next to someone, peer over the privacy wall that would block the view "under any definition of normal circumstances," and in some cases step back to view the target from behind. Then, when the man leaves the bathroom, officers close in and arrest him.

One of the plaintiffs described his experience to the Times in 2014:

"You know how when you have a feeling someone is looking at you?" the man, who asked to go by his first name, Miguel, told the paper. "So I look over and see someone is smiling at me. It was like a smirk."

Port Authority police told the Grey Lady at the time that there had been 60 public lewdness arrests in the bus terminal over the first 9 months of that year.

The two named plaintiffs had no criminal records at the time of their arrests and both repeatedly rejected offers for plea deals, according to the suit. Miguel was found not guilty by a judge following a trial. The other man, a baker named Cornell Holden, had his charges dismissed. Both appeared for several hearings over the course of months before clearing their names. Forte said that in the course of Holden's arrest, other officers referred to Officer Michael Opromalla, the peeper, as "the gay whisperer." He has been listed as the arresting officer in "numerous" similar busts, according to the suit.



Port Authority police Officer John Tone, one of three cops named in the federal civil rights lawsuit alleging a pattern of false arrests of men using the bathroom. (Facebook)

In response to the Times article, City Councilman Daniel Dromm wrote a letter to the Port Authority calling for the "false and apparently discriminatory arrests to end immediately." He wrote in part that he was "deeply disturbed" by the apparent profiling, and, apart from that, "I would like to say how utterly creepy and intrusive such a violation of someone's personal space is. Why you would be putting any resources into patrolling bathrooms to monitor how people urinate is beyond comprehension."

Still, the practice has continued, according to the lawsuit, which seeks an injunction against false arrests and damages for what Forte said could be dozens of men caught in the dragnet. The suit cites another man's arrest under similar circumstances in 2016. His charges were thrown out after he spent seven months fighting them, according to the filing.

A man named Alejandro Martinez sued the Port Authority back in 2003 over his arrest for shaking out his urine in a bathroom at the World Trade Center PATH station. In the course of his civil and criminal trials, Martinez testified that he was one of seven men arrested for public lewdness at the bathroom that morning. One arresting officer, Paul Nunziato, called Martinez a "faggot" and a "queer," threatened to break his teeth when he objected to being arrested, and said the officers needed to meet their quota, Martinez testified. A jury awarded Martinez $1.1 million and found that the Port Authority had a policy of making baseless public lewdness arrests. A judge upheld the decision on appeal, but dropped the award to $464,000, plus $264,000 in legal fees.

The continued bogus arrests stem from the city's continued emphasis on so-called Broken Windows policing, plus helpings of various types of bias, Forte argued.

"We feel that the driving force of this is so-called quality of life policing in the city of New York...This is a way for the Port Authority Police Department to drive up its numbers," Forte said. "It's a way for them to look like they're cleaning up the Port Authority, when in reality they are targeting men who for whatever reason they perceive them to be gay or gender non-conforming, and in the case of the named plaintiffs, they happen to be black and Latino. Those are the people they picked, for whatever reason."

One of the officers, Shaun Kehoe, was sued in 2013 for allegedly falsely arresting a man who was working at the bus terminal and happened to walk past officers arresting someone in a wheelchair. The charge, obstructing governmental administration, was dismissed after nine months. The lawsuit settled out of court.

A Port Authority police spokesman declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation. He did not immediately provide updated public lewdness arrest numbers.
Our latest installment of Quick Bites brings us to Greenpoint, where one of NYC's best beer bars seems to have become one of NYC's best restaurants.

THE VIBE

Dedicated readers of this website already know that Greenpoint's Trst is one of the best beer bars in NYC, with twenty-one different draft lines running nightly! Not to mention their more than 200 rare and exotic bottles. Judging by the happy hordes I saw there last weekend, gleefully drinking away their Saturday afternoon, this four-year-old spot remains a popular destination, even when a 5-oz pull costs 8 bucks.

The food situation at Trst has been a bit more in flux. First there were just a few bar snacks, including some excellent rugbrd, Then the back room was transformed into the well-regarded Luksus, which earned back-to-back Michelin stars for its Nordic tasting menu. Luksus closed at the end of 2016, but last month the kitchen debuted an almost-all-new lunch and dinner menu under the Trst name, from which you can order no matter where you're sitting. Or standing.



(Scott Lynch/Gothamist)

All orders are placed at the bar, so after you've secured a seat at one of the two-tops along the wall (convertible to four- or six-tops; you can rearrange at will), or at one of the larger communal table in the center, head on up and talk with one of the many bartenders behind the white marble. They are all extremely knowledgeable, helpful, unflustered, and friendly.

Design-wise, Trst is, as everyone says, "sleek Scandavian": minimalist, lots of blond wood, warmly (and not too dimly) lit. When it's not overwhelmed with day-drinkers, it is an exceedingly pleasant place to be.

THE BITES

I never ate here when it was Luksus, but the new head chef, Jesus Cervantes, spent two years in this kitchen during Daniel Burns' Michelin-starred run. And clearly Cervantes was ready to move up: everything I had at Trst was superb.

The menu is divided into snacks, sandwiches, and small plates, but no matter what else you're getting, you should also get some bread. On Saturday my order of the Housemade Bread included two thick slabs of sensational sourdough, a lovely round mini-loaf of Oat Porridgebaked with beer, of course, in this case Evil Twin's Yin Imperial Stoutand a crock of whipped, slightly tangy butter. It was a knee-buckling reminder of just how good a bite of bread and butter can be.



Beautiful. (Scott Lynch/Gothamist)

The Crispy Chicken Skin is a fun and satisfying riff on the classic plate of wings, with its crackling pieces of skin flattened and forged together, it's served with a generous bowl of thick Point Reyes bleu sauce for dipping (this goes nicely on your bread, too), pickled slivers of celery, and a squirt bottle of Crystal hot sauce. For something more complicated and Nordic, order the chunky Beef Tartare, which may have been the single best dish I had across two meals here. The menu says it contains salted plum and pickled green walnut, but there was also jerky-type pieces of meat in there, and shiso leaf, and I guess some sorcery because my god this was delicious.

Another big winner in the "share" section was the Asparagus dish, which owed much of its explosive flavor to the plentiful pieces of smoked trout nestled within the spears, the pile topped with shavings of cured egg yolk and smoothed out by a puff of potato creme. For heartier fare, tuck into the French Montana, a decent-sized sandwich rich with sliced beef shank, sharp horseradish and gooey gruyere that arrives face down and drowning in its own juice. The lighter Black Bean Torta was also a solid choice, with chewy Oaxaca cheese, buttery greens, and a not-insignificant spicy kick.

THE VERDICT

There's lots of fantastic food coming out of the new Trst kitchen, and I can't wait to go back and try more of it. It's not cheap, especially if you're drinkingsix dishes plus a generous tip each night cost me about $100 total, no beer involvedbut if you have the funds or need a new special occasion spot in the neighborhood, put Trst at the top of your list.

Trst is located in Greenpoint at 615 Manhattan Avenue between Nassau and Driggs and is open daily at noon for lunch, with the dinner menu starting at 5 p.m. (718-389-6034; torstnyc.com)
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How many performers can say theyve opened for Third Eye Blind at the Fillmore, lectured at Google and also done their shtick before audiences in the basement of a Mission District clothing store?

Kevin Blake doesnt like the title magician, he said at a recent talk for Google engineers, for two reasons: One, I dont consider myself to be very creepy. Two, I dont do the types of magic that you probably think of when you think of a magician.
A Change.org petition with nearly 110,000 signatures is calling for first lady Melania Trump to either move to the White House or pay the security costs for staying in Trump Tower out of her own pocket.

The petition states: "The US taxpayer is paying an exorbitant amount of money to protect the First Lady in Trump Tower, located in New York City. As to help relieve the national debt, this expense yields no positive results for the nation and should be cut from being funded." The drive has collected 109,700 signatures toward its goal of 150,000.
Ahmed Kathrada, who spent 26 years in prison, many of them alongside his close friend Nelson Mandela, for resisting the apartheid system of white minority rule in South Africa, died in Johannesburg on Tuesday. He was 87.

The death was announced by Mr. Kathradas foundation. He had been hospitalized with a blood clot in his brain this month.

South African President Jacob Zuma ordered flags around the country to be displayed at half-staff and said that Mr. Kathrada would receive a special official funeral. Zumas office called Mr. Kathrada a stalwart of the liberation struggle for a free and democratic South Africa.

Mr. Kathrada, born to an Indian Muslim family, was the most prominent Asian South African in the movement to end apartheid, the system of racial segregation and white domination.

Active in leftist politics since his teenage years, he came to prominence in July 1963, when he was arrested with other antiapartheid activists in Rivonia, a northern suburb of Johannesburg where the South African Communist Party and the armed wing of the outlawed African National Congress had purchased an isolated farm to use as a meeting place. Among those arrested with Mr. Kathrada was Walter Sisulu, secretary-general of the ANC.

That October, Mr. Kathrada was indicted on charges of trying to overthrow the government, start a guerrilla war and open the door to invasion by foreign powers. Sisulu was also indicted, as was Mandela, who had been in prison since 1962, but who faced new charges after authorities found documents at the Rivonia farm linking him to the ANCs armed wing.

The Rivonia trial, which began in April 1964, became a signature moment, partly for a three-hour speech in which Mandela told the judge that he was prepared to die for the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.

Eight defendants  including Mandela, Sisulu and Mr. Kathrada  were convicted on June 11, 1964, of plotting a violent revolution and were later sentenced to life in prison.

Mr. Kathrada spent 26 years and 3 months behind bars, 18 of them on Robben Island.

The inmates time in prison was something of a political education: Sisulu later recounted that they learned that only pressure, from at home or abroad, would help bring about an end to apartheid.

It really confirmed our belief that the South African authorities do not suddenly undergo a change of heart, Mr. Kathrada said in 1989.

Mr. Kathrada said that the men had suspected they would be arrested and had prepared psychologically, but that the isolation of Robben Island, in cold, shark-infested Atlantic waters off Cape Town, was intended to break them. From the security police to the prison authorities, they tried to instill into our minds that we would be forgotten in a few years time, Mr. Kathrada said. They did everything to crush our morale.

For the first six months, he said, the prisoners were put to work breaking stones with hammers. Then they were sent to work in the prisons lime quarry, performing hard labor for more than a decade. At one point, Mr. Kathrada said, Mandela and Sisulu were put on a meager ration of rice gruel as punishment for supposedly not working hard enough.

Mr. Kathrada said that initially he and the mixed-race convicts were issued long trousers, while black convicts like Mandela and Sisulu had to wear shorts without socks.

Mr. Kathrada recalled one night when the guards, many of them very drunk, awakened the convicts, stripped them, and forced them against the wall for a rough search, during which he said Govan Mbeki, released in 1987, nearly suffered a heart attack. But Mr. Kathrada said they were spared the brutality that was inflicted on less prominent prisoners.

The men insisted that the intended humiliation only stiffened their defiance. Because we were so close to the oppressor, it helped to keep us united, Mr. Kathrada said. They went on hunger strikes to force concessions.

They tried to keep up with events outside by talking to new prisoners, reading smuggled letters and begging, stealing and bribing to procure information. Political prisoners give top priority to keeping themselves informed, Mr. Kathrada said, but they sometimes went without news for several months. They communicated sporadically with the ANC through messages passed among other inmates.

In prison, the best comes out and the worst comes out as well, because of the deprivation and suffering, Mr. Kathrada said. He joked about having to live with Sisulus taste for pop music in their last 31/2 years as cellmates. While in prison, Mr. Kathrada obtained four university degrees, two in history and two in African politics.

In 1982, Mr. Kathrada, Mandela, Sisulu and two fellow activists were transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town.

Mr. Kathrada was 60 when he was freed, in October 1989. He left no doubt that his loyalties to the African National Congress had not waned. We will carry out whatever the ANC wants us to do, he said.

Mr. Kathrada later became a member of Parliament. He is survived by his partner, antiapartheid activist Barbara Hogan, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1982 for treason against the apartheid government. He worked on several books, and he led President Barack Obama on a tour of Robben Island in 2013.

Though Mr. Kathrada remained loyal to the ANC  he served on the partys National Executive Committee and ran its public relations department  in recent years, he criticized the scandal-plagued Zuma, who has been in office since 2009.

Last April, Mr. Kathrada called on Zuma to resign, after the countrys highest court found that the South African president had violated his oath of office by refusing to pay back public money spent on renovations to his rural home.

Ahmed Mohamed Kathrada was born on Aug. 21, 1929, in Schweizer-Reneke, a small town in northern South Africa, the son of Muslim Indian parents who had emigrated from what is now the state of Gujarat in India. As a child, he joined a club run by the Youth Communist League, his introduction to politics. At age 17, he took part in a passive resistance campaign organized by the South African Indian Congress and was one of 2,000 people arrested on the charge of defying a law that discriminated against Indians.

Chosen to visit East Berlin in 1951 for a youth festival, he toured Auschwitz, the former Nazi concentration camp in Poland, before returning to South Africa. In the 1950s, he was arrested several times and placed under the scrutiny of authorities for his political activities.

Sewell Chan is a New York Times writer.
BAGHDAD  A recent spike in civilian casualties in Mosul suggests the U.S.-led coalition is not taking adequate precautions as it helps Iraqi forces battle the Islamic State group, Amnesty International said Tuesday.

The rights groups allegations came after the U.S. military acknowledged carrying out a March 17 air strike in an area of western Mosul, where residents say an explosion killed more than 100 civilians. U.S. officials did not confirm there were civilian casualties, but said a probe is under way.

Amnestys report also cites a second strike on Saturday that it said killed up to 150 people. The U.S.-led coalition said in a statement that it was investigating multiple strikes in western Mosul that allegedly resulted in civilian deaths.

Evidence gathered on the ground in Mosul points to an alarming pattern of U.S.-led coalition air strikes which have destroyed whole houses with entire families inside, the Amnesty report said.

It said any failure to take precautions to prevent civilian casualties would be in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.

In Baghdad, visiting U.S. army chief of staff, Gen. Mark Milley, said Monday that the exact cause of the March 17 explosion was still unknown, adding that some degree of certainty will be known in the coming days following the investigation.

It is very possible that Daesh blew up that building to blame it on the coalition in order to cause a delay in the offensive into Mosul and cause a delay in the use of coalition air strikes, Milley told reporters. And it is possible the coalition air strike did it.

Daesh is an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.

Initial results from an investigation conducted by the Iraqi Defense Ministry showed that the air strike hit an explosive-laden tanker truck that was heading toward the advancing troops, according to Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, an Iraqi military spokesman. The explosion damaged several buildings, including the one where Islamic State militants were holding 130 civilians as human shields and where snipers were deployed on its roof, Rasool said.

It is a new tactic being used by the members of this terrorist group, using big car bombs against the troops that impact the civilians to inflame the public, he said. He added that the rules of engagement adopted by Iraqi troops and the coalition had not changed.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, the spokesman of the U.N. human rights office called on the coalition to work to minimize the impact on civilians. Rupert Colville said Islamic State militants are brazenly employing human shields, urging the coalition to avoid this trap.

Colville added that the rights office has tallied the deaths of at least 307 people between Feb. 17 and March 22, including 140 from the March 17 air strike.

Susannah George is an Associated Press writer.
1 Ferry salvage: Bones found near the wreckage of a South Korean ferry belonged to animals, not missing passengers from the ships 2014 sinking in which 304 people died, the government said Tuesday. The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries had earlier said salvage crews found bones measuring 1 to 7 inches that were likely to be the remains of one or more of the nine missing passengers. Workers have just completed a massive operation to lift the corroding 6,800-ton Sewol from the sea, and recovering the remains of the missing victims would put the country a step closer to finding closure to one its deadliest maritime disasters.

2 Australia cyclone: Cyclone Debbie struck the northeastern Australian coastline with devastating force Tuesday, slowly churning its path of destruction inland with wind gusts as high as 160 mph, forcing tens of thousands to flee and leaving at least 48,000 homes without power. After lashing low-lying tourist islands off the coast, the storm bore down on the mainland, tearing roofs from homes and drenching coastal towns.
Fulton Hogan, the privately-held civil construction firm, lifted first-half pre-tax earnings 13 percent as its New Zealand and Fiji operations tracked ahead of expectations, and beefed up its forward order book with some big wins in the period.

Profit before tax rose to $112 million in the six months ended Dec. 31 on revenue of $1.6 billion, the Christchurch-based company said in a statement. Managing director Nick Miller, who leaves at the end of March, said earnings were on track to deliver against the firm's annual budget with strong performances in New Zealand and Fiji.

"We are seeing our Fijian and New Zealand operations track ahead of budget, which is pleasing, with some promising developments in Australia as market activity lifts," Miller said. "Our land development business also continues to perform in line with expectation driven by strong demand in the Auckland market."

Last September, Fulton Hogan reported an 11 percent increase in net profit to $168.7 million for the year ended June 30, 2016 on a 5.9 percent increase in revenue to $3.1 billion. At the time, Miller described it as a "challenging environment" where multinational firms were competing more aggressively for large projects in New Zealand and Australia, and its forward order book was $1.9 billion at the balance date.

Since then, Fulton Hogan has had a number of "significant business wins during the six month period" with the order book at $4.6 billion, 31 percent higher than the same time a year earlier.

That includes the Central Otago Outcome Contract and Sheffield Irrigation projects, and participating in a five-year alliance to remove rail-road intersections in Melbourne and winning more national broadband network installation across the Tasman.

More recently, Fulton Hogan and engineer Aurecon have won $40.7 million of work to replace three one-way bridges in Northland, and the civil construction firm has also won a share of Wellington City Council's $30 million road maintenance contract, spanning the south and east of the capital city until June 2020.

Last month, Fulton Hogan posted a notice on its website that it misinterpreted the Holidays Act over leave calculations and payments, where it both under- and overpaid staff. The company won't be chasing overpayments, but wants former staffers with the company after 2010 and who think they may have been underpaid to get in touch.

As at June 30, 2016, Fulton Hogan's total staff entitlements to annual leave and long-service leave was $79.9 million

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The New Zealand dollar stuck to a tight range today but may see more upside as markets continue to flounder after US President Donald Trump's failure to enact healthcare reform.





The kiwi traded at 70.40 US cents as at 5 pm in Wellington versus 70.43 US cents as at 8am and 70.45 cents late yesterday. The trade-weighted index was little changed at 76.21 from 76.26.





The greenback had gained significantly over recent months on the US President's planned stimulus policies. However, when Trump failed to garner enough support to repeal the Affordable Care Act, it brought into question whether he will be able to bring in tax cuts and infrastructure spending.





"Markets are waiting for the next big thing, and can't seem to find it at the moment. We are all waiting to see if he can get his tax package through and go from there," said Ross Weston, FX trader at Kiwibank. Given the lack of clarity, it feels like the kiwi dollar "still has some upside to it as opposed to downside, as the whole thing gets unwound, or at least partially unwound," he said.





Weston said the kiwi dollar is also being supported by the better-than-expected dairy auction last week.





The local currency continued to benefit from positive China sentiment after a series of agreements were inked by Prime Minister Bill English and Premier Li Keqiang and traded at 4.8451 yuan from 4.8407 yuan late yesterday





The kiwi dollar traded at 56.02 British pence from 56.23 pence and was little changed at 92.39 Australian cents from 92.34 cents. It rose to 77.86 yen from 77.73 yen and traded at 64.80 euro cents from 64.94 cents.



The two-year swap rate rose 2 basis points to 2.3 percent while 10-year swaps rose 3 basis points to 3.4 percent.

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The Environmental Protection Authority rejected claims by Chatham Rock Phosphate that costs incurred during a marine consent hearing in 2015 were unreasonable and should have been partly met by funds available to the Crown entity.





In 2015, an EPA-appointed decision-making committee turned down CRPs application to mine phosphate nodules - a source of an essential ingredient of manufactured fertiliser - on a remote section of the Chatham Rise in New Zealands Exclusive Economic Zone, the vast offshore area that has been subject to an environmental consenting regime only since 2012. Over the course of the process it invoiced Chatham Rock Phosphate for $2.7 million for costs incurred.





The EPA issued monthly invoices, which were paid until December 2014. On Monday, John Shackleton, representing CRP, told the High Court in Wellington any charges must be lawful and the costs must be "actual and reasonable." He said CRP stopped paying after it questioned the size of some of the invoices and alleged there was a lack of detail. Of the total amount, about $800,000 has not yet been paid.





Andrew Beck, representing the EPA, today told the court that the EPA had already reviewed the costs at the request of CRP and had issued a credit note for several items that had not been appropriately charged. Among other things, he made reference to an erroneous $10,000 goods and services tax charge.





Regarding other specific charges that CRP has objected to such as around $92,000 spent on a half-day hearing in the Chatham Islands, Beck said it is important to bear in mind that the judicial review is concerned with the lawfulness of the charges rather than the merits of the decision that led to those charges being incurred.





"The onus rests on CRP to establish they were unlawful," he said and disputed the claim that the costs incurred in that hearing or in other areas such as rental vehicles, furniture rental or staff billing were unlawful.





In terms of CRP's view that some of the costs should have been met by a parliamentary appropriation, specifically earmarked for marine consent processes in the 2014/15 year, Beck said the argument is "fundamentally flawed" as any appropriation is for activities that are of "public benefit" and "there is never any intention to seek an appropriation for a private benefit." He also noted that while there may have been $10 million in funds available, the funds are for a range of EPA functions, not just for marine consents.





The judge-alone hearing before Justice Karen Clark is expected to be wrapped up late Tuesday.

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Turners expects annual earnings to rise 12 percent as it reaps the benefit of buying motor insurer Autosure and setting up a securitisation funding model to cut costs.





The Auckland-based company expects pre-tax earnings of between $24 million and $24.5 million in the year ending March 31, up from $21.6 million a year earlier, it said in a statement. The guidance includes Turners' recent acquisitions including Autosure and car importer and dealer network Buy Right Cars, and the lower cost of funds provided through its $150 million securitisation programme.





"We have successfully integrated the value accretive acquisitions of Buy Right Cars and Autosure into our business in the past six months, and we have made good progress on a number of important initiatives, which all contribute and support the future growth of Turners," chief executive Todd Hunter said. "There are numerous growth opportunities available to us in the fragmented automotive market and we have a disciplined approach to identifying and assessing those that best fit our business and will add value to our shareholders."





Turners, formerly known as Dorchester Pacific, has built itself into an integrated automotive financial services group, with businesses spanning automotive retail, finance and insurance.





The company will also look to list on the ASX in the 2018 financial year, which starts in April, to "access a larger capital market to support its growth strategy".





Turners announced the guidance after the NZX closed. Its shares slipped 0.3 percent to $3.56 today.

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UPDATE: Felony assault with a weapon, dismissed by court. Felony criminal endangerment, Guilty. Sentence: Five years suspended. Felony criminal mischief, dismissed by court. Revocation of suspended or deferred sentence.

A 33-year-old Clancy woman is accused of attempting to hurt a man with her vehicle while her children were passengers.

Police say Brandi Nicole Salemme purposely rammed a car rented by her husband in the parking lot of the Dairy Queen on Prospect Avenue on Saturday. The two are divorcing and met at the eatery to talk over lunch, court documents state.

An argument ensued. Salemme got into her sport-utility vehicle with two children, 11 and 12, as passengers. Just after the man entered his car, Salemme struck his vehicle with hers, court documents allege.

"Believing it was an accident, (he) said he got out of his car at which time he saw the defendant back up and then speed into the passenger side of his car, pushing his car across a couple of parking stalls and against a curb in the middle of the parking lot," court documents state.

He added that he had to run to avoid being "crushed," the documents note. No injuries were reported.

During an interview at the scene, Salemme admitted to being mad at the man and ramming her vehicle into his car twice.

Police arrested Salemme on felony charges of assault with a weapon, criminal endangerment and criminal mischief.
I spent most of the 1970s working to preserve the Yellowstone River and prevent it from being dammed. It was the fight of a generation and while it seems absurd today, the outcome was very much in question at the time. In the process, one of our most tireless advocates was a fishing guide and his wife Boo. Her real name was Elizabeth and she was both hostess for innumerable stream side gatherings and an advocate in support of keeping the river free.

In August of 2000 she was terminally ill and confined to bed. Her son organized a small gathering of friends to help observe her birthday and share the love we had for her. To our surprise Rob Quist showed up and spent a good part of that evening singing to "Boo." The grand finale that night was opening her bedroom doors to the free flowing river where a bag piper stood on the bank of the Yellowstone and offered a final salute to Boo.

Elizabeth clung to life for about a year and her funeral was in August of 2001. Once again, with considerable personal effort and no thought of compensation, Rob showed up to offer one final song. There is only one explanation, the guy has heart.

Now, Rob is running for congress against a transient billionaire and his associated, dark money crowd intent on buying whatever office is for sale. But then, that is what you do when you have nothing much to offer.

When the time comes to pick Montanas next congressman lets pick Rob Quist, the guy with a guitar and a heart that fits Montana. If there is anything the current U.S. Congress desperately needs it would be heart.

Jim Posewitz of Helena spent 32 years with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, leading the agencys ecological program for 15 years. He then founded Orion the Hunters Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of ethical hunting and wild resources essential to that purpose.
Transgender kids in Montana, and throughout the country, need our support. Like all children, they are just striving to grow and develop to the best of their ability. The simple difference is that transgender kids just happen to have a gender identity (the gender they know themselves to be in their brain and their heart) that is different from the sex of their physical body.

Transgender children are at much greater risk for a number of hardships in life including depression, anxiety, substance use, dropping out of school and suicide. Multiple studies have shown that 40 percent of transgender people attempt suicide. It is commonly believed that their increased mental health risks are due to rejection by family and community support systems, as well as from stigma from society for not conforming to widely accepted gender expectations.

However, new research shows that transgender children who are supported in their gender identity (allowed to live life as their true gender) actually do not have increased risks for depression and anxiety. This shows us that we, as family members, community members, health care providers, etc., can make an incredible difference in the outcome of these childrens lives by supporting them in living their life as their authentic self.

In May of 2016, the Obama administration released guidelines advising schools on how to ensure dignity and equal treatment for transgender students in federally-funded schools throughout the country. In late February of this year, the Trump administration rescinded these federal guidelines. But the federal law that ultimately supports transgender children has not changed. Title IX still protects all children, including transgender children, from discrimination based on sex. Schools have a legal and moral responsibility to ensure a safe environment where all children are able to learn free from bullying and discrimination.

A local mother of a transgender 7-year-old son, meaning her son was born a girl but knows his true self to be a boy, recently shared these thoughts with me as to what it is like to be the parent of a transgender child. I treasure each of my children for all of their quirks, and I consider being transgender just another one of those quirks. Its a part of him, but not all of him. Having a transgender child makes the normal parenting job much harder though  not in the sense that my transgender son is more difficult than my other children, but the pressure of making sure he is safe is much greater. The everyday dangers of sending a child to a public restroom, for example, is heightened tenfold with a transgender child. I love and worry about each of my children as they navigate this world carrying each of their quirks, but I have one child who keeps me up at night more than the others, and that is my transgender son.

As pediatricians, our job is not only to provide the highest quality medical care to every individual patient, but it is also to advocate for our youth. Children are a vulnerable population and depend on the help of trusted adults in order to be able to develop and grow to their greatest potential. Transgender youth are particularly vulnerable. As pediatricians, we want transgender youth to know we support you, we will speak up for you, and we will continue to create communities that value each child for who they truly are.

Kathryn Lowe, MD

Pepper Henyon, MD

Angie Ostrowski, MD

Kathryn Lysinger, MD

Julpohng,Vilai, MD

John Cole, MD

Leslie Poling, MD

Jeremy Archer, MD

John Harris, MD
NEW DELHI: Canadian minister Bardish Chagger is visiting India with a view to increasing cooperation in the small and medium enterprises sector and promoting tourism.



Canada's Minister of Small Business and Tourism Bardish Chagger during her four-day official visit beginning tomorrow will meet Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and MSME Minister Kalraj Mishra, the High Commission of Canada said in statement.

She will also meet Minister of State for Culture and Tourism Mahesh Sharma here.



"Throughout her visit, Minister Chagger will meet with representatives of the tourism industry, as well as representatives of Indian and Canadian startups and small businesses, women entrepreneurs, and Indian business leaders," the High Commission of Canada said.



During her visit, she will also promote Canada as a destination of choice to women entrepreneurs.



High Commissioner for Canada to India Nadir Patel said: "Minister Chagger's visit builds on the momentum underway in the rapidly growing Canada-India relationship by promoting tourism, supporting Canadian SMEs as they expand their presence in the Indian market, and highlight Canada as a leading investment and tourism destination."



Minister Chagger said SMEs are the backbone of the two economies and "I am looking forward to encourage greater interaction between them".

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NEW DELHI: Food regulator FSSAI today tied up with Coca-Cola India to train 50,000 street food vendors over the next three years and plans to rope in other players like ITC and Mondelez under its Clean Street Food campaign.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is also looking to bring other companies such as Yum Restaurants, Tetra Pak under the project. The regulator had collaborated with FMCG major Nestle to train street vendors in Goa last year.

FSSAI CEO Pawan Agarwal said many companies are coming forward to participate under the initiative.

"With ITC, we are launching a programme to reach out to 10,000 schools on safe and nutritious food at schools," he said.

Agarwal said FSSAI will focus on spreading awareness about nutrition and safe food through its partnership with Mondelez and is also working with Dominos to train food vendors across country.

The regulators association with Coca-Cola India would work around its 15 bottling stations under its CSR project Parivartan.

Commenting on the development, Coca-Cola India and South West Asia

President Venkatesh Kini said: "This collaboration with FSSAI provides an opportunity and broadens the horizons of Coca-Colas Parivartan initiative."

Under the partnership, the programme will be rolled out in phased manner with the first leg to be initiated by mid-April in Ludhiana, Punjab.

Over the next three years, it plans to expand to 14 other locations through bottling plant network of Coca-Cola India covering 9 states.

When asked about new ruled for labeling, Agarwal said it has been finalised and is awaiting for approval from the government.

He said the industry would give adequate time to gear up of changes at their inventory and production line.

On being asked whether it would be notified in two months, Agarwal said: "It would be done much before that."

Over the pictorial warning as food labels, he said: "Its going to be very modern and contemporary."

"They would take some time as their inventory and packaging materials need to be updated," said Agarwal, adding that: "We are developing an index for compliance of that."

Over fortification of edible oil, he said: "They are doing it but other staples are far more challenging. Rice and wheat flour would me more challenging. But in wheat flour, ITC is coming out, HUL is doing it. With big four five companies are doing it, rest would follow. Patanjali is also going for that".

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MUMBAI: Media and communications agency Maxus, part of Group M, today said it has bagged the media mandate of diversified group ITC, following a multi-agency pitch.

Headquartered in Kolkata, ITC's diversified business includes fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), hotels, paperboards and packaging, agri business and information technology. The pitch was for the entire media mandate of the company across categories, for both urban and rural markets, the agency said in a statement.

The mandate is effective April 1 and Maxus is putting together a highly specialised team called 'Team ITC', with the servicing team based out of Bengaluru and Mumbai.



Madison was the incumbent agency on the business.



"We are delighted to be chosen by ITC as their media agency partner. This win comes as a huge recognition that we are on the right path as far as future proofing our business is concerned in an otherwise highly commoditised media industry", GroupM South Asia Chief Executive Officer CVL Srinivas said.

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MUMBAI: Majestic Research Services and Solution Ltd (MRSS India) today said it has inked pacts with three global development agencies in social research practice.



Within four months of its foray into social research practice, MRSS India has created a mark in this arena by collaborating for project works with America India Foundation, Aga Khan Foundation and Population Council, the BSE-SME listed firm said in a statement here.



Social research practice is an emerging segment in India that measures parameters like education, gender, health and nutrition, poverty, water and sanitation, rural development, livelihood, climate change, natural resource management, citizen survey and report cards with sustainable development.



"We have taken baby steps into this segment and have already made a positive impact with a slew of new clientele. We hope to maintain this momentum going forward," MRSS India chairman Raj Sharma said.



The Aga Khan Foundation project pertains to improving the quality of education in three Bihar districts - Patna, Muzaffarpur and Samastipur. Under this project, MRSS India will provide technical support in analysing the data and prepare the report, the release added.

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The Montana House narrowly endorsed a measure Monday that would create a grant program for schools to implement suicide prevention plans -- but only after the bill's funding was stripped out in committee.

The bill, which passed 52-47 on second reading, also requires the Office of Public Instruction to develop a model suicide prevention plan that schools can use if they wish.

The bill by Democratic Rep. Mary Ann Dunwell of Helena faces a third-reading vote before it can move to the Senate.

Following the meeting Dunwell said, "Although it has no immediate funding, the bill creates a special revenue account. When there is money as state revenues increase, it will fill that account."

How many times have we said--seven times in five years at Helena High School -- Who knew?, she added.

We still have the framework and the curriculum and the plan to implement the policy. We just need the money to do so. We have all the pieces of a good program. We have the program outline, we just need funding to do it.

This is a ... bill that a lot of people who are really devoted and dedicated with a lot of expertise put a lot of work into. -- from school officials to OPI to DPHHS to the suicide prevention coordinator to ...parents, to NAMI. You name it," she added. To say its a feel-good bill is just unfortunate. Theres nothing 'feel-good' about the crisis of suicide.

On the floor, Dunwell read excerpts from the obituaries of several of the local teens who died by suicide. Some of the House pages who are Helena High School students sent her notes thanking her for fighting for us.

The Legislature has heard several bills addressing Montana's suicide rate, which has been at or near the top in the nation for nearly four decades.

Also on Monday, the Montana Senate passed a bill that requires school boards to establish policies and procedures for youth suicide prevention and response.

The bill, by Republican Rep. Dennis Lenz of Billings, passed 48-2 and now returns to the House for approval of an amendment that clarifies the bill does not impose a "specific duty of care," that could be the subject of a lawsuit.

The bill passed the House 87-12 in February. It requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature because it limits liability.

The Montana Suicide Mortality Review Team, which reviewed 555 suicides that occurred from January 2014 through February 2016, recommended school prevention programs including resiliency and coping skills training at the elementary school level while older students would receive training to identify the signs of suicide and be screened for depression.

Republican Rep. Nancy Ballance of Hamilton argued there were other bills still in committee that could be combined to address the issue of youth suicide.

That prompted Democratic Rep. Jonathan Windy Boy to ask about the status and deadlines for addressing his suicide prevention bills, which call for $1 million in funding for agency grants and a statewide suicide prevention campaign.

"When are we going to start moving on this?" he asked.

Ballance acknowledged Friday would be the deadline to act on the bills by Windy Boy.

Lenz was among several Republicans who said they were going to vote against Dunwell's bill, which they felt did nothing after the funding was removed.

"This bill is a skeleton of what it originally was and we need to vote this down," Lenz said.

The House Education Committee heard testimony on Dunwell's bill in January. Two 19-year-olds testified that they had each attempted suicide three times and that they felt no support in their schools in Helena.

"We need to do better in helping our kids prepare for what's inevitably going to be some dark days in their lives," Democratic Rep. Jenny Eck of Helena said Monday.
nws motorcycle

Police confiscated this 2009 Yamaha motorcycle after arresting a man in Prince's Bay Thursday afternoon. (Courtesy: NYPD)

(NYPD)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police say they arrested a 21-year-old man Thursday in Pleasant Plains and confiscated the motorcycle he was riding after finding him with three illegal knives.

Devin Hopkins, of Brooklyn, was riding a 2009 Yamaha in the neighborhood when he was observed by police committing multiple traffic infractions, according to a spokesperson with the NYPD.

He was pulled over at the intersection of Sharrott Avenue and Hylan Boulevard, and was found to be in possession of three knives and an unspecified amount of marijuana, police said.

One of the knives was homemade, the spokesperson said.

Hopkins was also operating the motorcycle without a license, police said.

He has a prior arrest in the Bronx, from November of 2016, for criminal possession of a weapon, police said.

The bike, with Virginia plates, was seized; Hopkins was arrested, and charged with three counts of criminal possession of a weapon and aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.
Sanctuary City-Criminals

In this March 3, 2015 photo, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers escort an arrestee in an apartment building, in the Bronx borough of New York, during a series of early-morning raids.

(AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

CITY HALL -- New York City risks losing millions in federal funding for being a so-called "sanctuary city" for immigrants under President Donald Trump.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday the Justice Department will stop giving grants to cities like New York that don't comply with federal immigration enforcement.

City Hall said federal justice money is used to buy ballistic helmets and vests for cops, get new equipment for the police crime lab, help reduce DNA testing backlogs and support drug and gang takedowns.

Republican Rep. Daniel Donovan (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) called the city's "sanctuary" policy reckless but doesn't support the funding cuts.

"The men and women in blue who risk their lives every day for our safety shouldn't be penalized because of a City policy," Donovan said in a statement. "They need the resources of the federal government to protect the top terror target in the world."

CITY VOWS TO FIGHT

Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city will fight any attempt to decrease NYPD funding in court.

"President Trump's latest threat changes nothing. We will remain a city welcoming of immigrants who have helped make our city the safest big city in the nation," de Blasio said in a statement. "Any attempt to cut NYPD funding for the nation's top terror target will be aggressively fought in court. We won't back down from protecting New Yorkers from terror -- or from an overzealous administration fixated on xenophobia and needless division."

The city received an average of $43 million in funding from the federal Justice Department between fiscal years 2012 and 2016, according to the mayor's office.

About $52.7 million was allocated to various agencies in the current fiscal year, City Hall said. The NYPD received the most -- $17.5 million -- followed by nearly $11.2 million for the Department of Correction.

The money is used to purchase new equipment, task forces and various crime prevention efforts, according to city officials. The funds also finance overtime related to drug enforcement operations.

The attorney general said that jurisdictions must prove they cooperate with immigration enforcement to get the money going forward.

"I urge our nation's states and cities to consider carefully the harm they are doing to their citizens by refusing to enforce our immigration laws, and to rethink these policies," Sessions said the White House on Monday. "Such policies make their cities and states less safe, and put them at risk of losing valuable federal dollars."

2014 'SANCTUARY' LAW

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency issues requests for police and other local law enforcement authorities to keep undocumented immigrants detained longer so they can be deported.

The city doesn't honor those "detainer" requests from ICE anymore without a warrant from a federal judge.

The legislation passed in 2014 stipulates that even with a judicial warrant, the NYPD and the Department of Correction will only comply with detention requests if an immigrant is a possible match on the terrorist watch list or was convicted of a "violent or serious crime" within the last five years.

ICE officers were also kicked out of Rikers Island and correction officers aren't able to assist federal authorities with enforcement.

"The law doesn't permit people or governments to pick and choose which parts to follow or ignore. We can be a compassionate nation while still enforcing our immigration laws to ensure that threats to public safety are removed from our communities," Donovan said. "The sanctuary city policy has allowed dangerous criminals, including known gang members -- who should be deported -- to be released back onto the streets of New York City. I think we can all agree that this is reckless."

De Blasio has previously said the city could lose as much as $190 million in funding for homeland security initiatives under Trump's federal budget proposal, including $110 million for the NYPD.

"Under the president's proposal, nearly all federal funding to the NYPD would be eradicated," Police Commissioner Jimmy O'Neill warned earlier this month. "This funding is absolutely critical. It is the backbone of our entire counterterrorism apparatus."
feds.jpeg

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A Staten Island man accused of running a prescription ring with a South Beach woman pleaded guilty earlier this month, authorities said.

Doraymus Robinson pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute oxycodone, and will be sentenced June 28 in Brooklyn federal court, said his lawyer, Paul Petrus.

Robinson and his co-defendant, Carolyn Richardson, of Lamport Boulevard, were busted last year for running a prescription drug ring that included filling fake prescriptions to obtain pills, like Xanax and Oxycodone, to sell to their clientele, authorities allege.

Richardson's case is ongoing and her next appearance in federal court is on April 28. If the case can't be resolved by that time, a trial date will be set, according to court records.

Richardson, who remains in custody, is charged with conspiracy to distribute Oxycodone, acquiring Oxycodone by fraud, conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and healthcare fraud, said the criminal complaint.

Her attorney did not return a request for comment about the case.

Starting in January 2015, Richardson, and Robinson, allegedly used phony prescription pads to obtain methadone, Xanax and Oxycodone from numerous pharmacies in New Jersey. They paid for them with cash or Medicaid cards and recruited others to write prescriptions, according to the federal criminal complaint filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.

After the duo's accomplice was arrested, the person became an informant for drug agents and told the authorities Richardson would provide them and Robinson with fake prescriptions to fill in New Jersey, originally thinking they were for home-care clients until realizing the illegal operation was going on for years, the complaint said.

The accomplice then went undercover in December and engaged in a buy operation with the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the drug ring unraveled.

During the operation, the complaint alleges, Richardson was caught selling the informant 200 Xanax pills for $1,000 in her apartment, and the transaction was caught on video.

On Dec. 21, 2015, Richardson was also recorded selling fake prescription pads in the name of Dr. Carl Anderson to the accomplice for $3,000, according to court documents.

STORAGE RAID

Both defendants, the complaint alleges, kept blank prescriptions and a gun in a storage unit at the Stop & Stor facility on Quintard Street in South Beach. The unit, leased under a fake name with the Lamport address, was raided by the cops. Authorities recovered thousands of prescription pill bottles, a Ruger firearm, a currency counter, a pill counter, laptops and notebooks with lodging prescription transactions and dozens of driver's licenses, state ID's, social security cards and New York State Benefit ID cards, the complaint said.

The unit also had 150 fake prescription pads with Dr. Carl Anderson's name with the contact number belonging to Richardson, authorities allege.

Richardson originally thought Robinson had gutted the facility and complained to the informant that her "stash and everything was gone," the complaint said.

Richardson, authorities said, continued filling fraudulent prescription pills with Dr. Anderson's name from April to July 2016.

On July 24, police stopped her coming out of a New Jersey pharmacy and recovered 180 Oxycodone pills and 120 methadone tablets that were filled with the fake doctor's prescription, the complaint said.

ALLEGED HARASSMENT

Richardson was originally released on bail last summer, but on Aug. 4, according to court records, she violated her bail conditions when she allegedly left a threatening voicemail for the former accomplice who turned informant.

The message, according to a letter filed by federal prosecutors, said:

"I cannot believe you, I thought you were my friend."

"You know, you put everything on me, as if you were an innocent bystander."

"You know damn well you were not."

"You kicked me underneath the rug. And Karma is a b----."

"But it's OK, I forgive you."

"But just know I don't take betrayal very well."

"I hope you feel like s---, I really do."

On Aug. 16, Richardson was detained on grounds that she's a threat to the community, according to court records.
Turkey.jpg

A family from New Jersey had just left the University of Notre Dame, where their daughter Riana was just accepted. As they traveled west on US 20 in La Porte County, a wild turkey flew into the path of their rental vehicle. The turkey was impaled in the center of the windshield, said police. (Photo courtesy of La Porte County Sheriff's Office)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Watch out for those flying turkeys. (Seriously.)

A family in Indiana found out the hard way after a 30-pound wild turkey crashed through their SUV windshield during a trip to the University of Notre Dame.

Fortunately, the family only suffered minor cuts. The turkey died.

The La Porte County Sheriff's Office shared two photographs of the aftermath, including an important message for folks who reside near wild turkeys this time of year: "Mating season for wild turkeys means that they are often on the move and can be as hazardous as deer."

The full message, and both images, are visible below.

The Taraboczhia family from Emerson, New Jersey had just left Notre Dame where their daughter Riana was just accepted...... Posted by La Porte County Sheriff's Office on Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Staten Islanders, especially those in Ocean Breeze, Dongan Hills, and South Beach, often encounter wild turkeys. Residents here are also very familiar with deer.

Tell us about any run-ins you've had with either animal below.

As for the family whose windshield was wrecked, they reportedly said they'll be eating ham this Thanksgiving.
marsh.jpg

A federal worker whose leg was impaled by steel rebar when she fell while conducting a survey last year at Mariners Marsh Park at the Global Container Terminal in Mariners Harbor has sued the city and the terminal.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A federal worker conducting a wildlife survey last summer in a wooded area at the Global Container Terminal in Mariners Harbor was badly hurt when she fell and her leg was impaled by a "dangerous" piece of steel rebar, which the property owners and lessors had failed to remove, alleges a lawsuit.

Kelly Niland, a wildlife specialist with the U.S. Agriculture Department, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, was injured on June 29, 2016, while walking near an old boat launch in Mariners Marsh Park off Richmond Terrace on terminal property, the suit said.

Niland, then 23, of Stamford, Conn., was counting wildlife when the incident occurred between 6 and 6:30 a.m., the Advance previously reported, citing sources.

She was walking "into the brush of heavily wooded, muddy areas with tall weeds and trees" and fell, said her civil complaint, recently filed in state Supreme Court, St. George.

"Plaintiff was caused to trip and have a piece of metal rebar pierced and impaled into her right upper thigh, and violently fall to the ground, suffering serious and severe injuries," the complaint alleges.

Rebar is steel rod used to reinforce concrete.

Niland sued the city, its Parks Department, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Global Container Terminals, citing them all as owners and lessors, who controlled, maintained and supervised the property.

She alleges the defendants created a "dangerous" condition by failing to remove the rebar and failing to provide her with a safe place to work.

"It was the duty of the defendant(s) to provide the plaintiff a reasonably safe passageway and a reasonably safe place to walk upon at the premises and its marsh free of rebar," alleges her complaint.

The dangerous conditions "existed for such a long period of time" before the incident the defendants knew or should have known of them, the complaint contends.

Niland seeks unspecified monetary damages.

A Port Authority spokesman previously told the Advance, Niland slipped and fell into a ditch.

A roughly three-foot metal rebar protruding from the bottom of the ditch pierced and impaled her right upper thigh, the spokesman said.

The victim apparently didn't see the ditch, which was several feet wide and about four feet deep, because it was hidden under heavy vegetation, said the spokesman.

In a dramatic rescue, Port Authority Police, assisted by members of the city Fire Department, Police Department and Emergency Medical Services, removed Niland through heavy woods over muddy, uneven grounds, the Advance reported.

Port Authority Police Lieutenant Jeff Fossello, assigned to the Staten Island Bridges Command, coordinated the rescue effort after receiving a call at about 6:30 a.m.

Officer Vincent Amarino of PAPD Emergency Service went down into the ditch, cut the metal bar from the ground and strapped the victim to a backboard that had been passed down into the hole. The victim then was lifted out and stabilized.

The backboard was necessary to prevent the possibility of further injury in transit to the hospital.

Officers carried the backboard by hand about a third of a mile to the waiting ambulance.

The victim was rushed from the site to the hospital at about 7:05 a.m.

Niland's lawyer did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment on the suit.

A Port Authority spokesman declined comment on the case.

A city Law Department spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment; however, the city typically does not comment on pending lawsuits.

A message left at Global Container Terminals was not immediately returned.
Montana legislators and folks grabbing a meal at restaurants that serve alcohol are one step closer to being able to carry concealed handguns.

The Senate on Tuesday gave a preliminary OK by comfortable margins to two bills: one that would allow legislators who have a concealed carry permit to arm themselves while on state property and another that would let restaurant patrons carry concealed weapons if they have a permit.

The bill to let lawmakers arm themselves is House Bill 280, carried by Rep. Randy Brodehl, R-Kalispell. It passed second reading in the Senate on a 33-17 vote. Both will move on to the governor after a final vote in the Senate on Wednesday.

Senate President Scott Sales, R-Bozeman, carried the bill in the Senate. He told fellow state senators on Tuesday that legislators are often threatened and being able to carry handguns would make them safer.

"I've had the privilege of that happening on occasion," Sales said, referencing threats he received after comments he made about bicyclists hogging roadways. "It would be very nice to have the protection that a firearm affords us if in fact someone was to execute or decide they wanted to go forward with that threat."

Sales said that while there are police officers in the Capitol building, they can't be everywhere all the time. He also said legislators have been vetted by the press and voters, which means they are known entities who can be trusted with guns.

Sen. Carlie Boland, D-Great Falls, said a safer approach would be to install metal detectors in the Capitol. "It's the only way to make sure nobody is coming in with a concealed weapon that shouldn't have them."

The Senate also passed an amendment that would let the Sergeant at Arms of the Senate carry a weapon if he or she has a conceal carry permit.

Sen. Keith Regier, R-Kalispell, carried House Bill 494 in the Senate for Rep. Seth Berglee, R-Joliet. The bill would let people with a permit carry a concealed weapon in a restaurant that serves alcohol. The bill does not include bars.

Regier said under current law people can openly carry guns in eating establishments, which can make others uncomfortable. Not having a gun out on the table would ease concerns, he said. "For me this bill is about discretion. The discreet thing to do would be to cover it."

Sen. Margie MacDonald, D-Billings, raised concerns that restaurant employees and owners wouldn't know who was carrying a gun and that raises concerns when serving alcohol.

"Servers can't tell if they are serving people who have gun, not all of whom have good judgment and not all of whom are sober."

Sales rebutted MacDonald's point by saying that this could already be happening under existing law and that people are just breaking the law.

"If a person has posted their property (as) no firearms allowed, then I'm violating that person's property'srights right there and then. There's nothing a property owner can do about it now or in the future. If they come in with a concealed weapon and they have a couple drinks ... the proprietor's still not going to know unless they have a metal detector at the door or some means of being able to detect the firearm. This is just another very common-sense effort to try and mitigate problems and not intimidate people with a gun. ... I think we get lulled into thinking that we have this false sense of safety, that there aren't people already doing this both legally and illegally."

Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, has already vetoed two Repubilcan-sponsored bills this sesson, one to allow people to carry concealed weapons without a permit and another to allow weapons on federal property. He has vetoed similar bills in the past.
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Drinking from a reusable coffee cup, a Montana state lawmaker on Tuesday told a legislative committee why it's in the best interest for the health of residents and the environment to phase out the use of Styrofoam containers by restaurants and grocery stores.

By 2020 restaurants could not serve food or drinks in polystyrene foam containers for consumption on-site under House Bill 657, carried by Rep. Shane Morigeau, D-Missoula. The following year, restaurants could not sell pre-packaged or to-go food in polystyrene foam containers. By 2022 a food packager could not package meat, eggs, bakery products or other food in polystyrene foam containers.

The House Business and Labor Committee did not take action on the bill Tuesday.

Those who spoke in support of the bill spoke to health and environmental concerns surrounding Styrofoam.

"Montana should move away from the use of Styrofoam and look for ways to protect human health," said Tucker Finley, with Montana Public Interest Research Group.

The federal Department of Health and Human Services lists styrene as "reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen."

In opposition to the bill, Brad Griffin, representing the Montana Retail Association and Montana Restaurant Association, said Styrofoam has some benefits.

Styrofoam is impenetrable to moisture, delays spoilage, has superior cushioning, is lightweight and inexpensive to ship and use, Griffin said.

Griffin said some restaurants around the stay are shifting to other packing, but grocery stores have concerns about what else they would use to package cut meat.

"We're not opposed to having this conversation," he said. "It goes need some tweaks to differentiate between the restaurant and the retail grocery industry."

Morigeau said he brought the bill because of the effects Styrofoam can have on Montana's people and environment.

"Montana deserves to have a healthy and clean environment and I think this is a simple step."
This past weekend athletes from the Southern Hemisphere experienced the inaugural Breca Wanaka Swimrun in New Zealand and here are first impressions from the events. There was a long course race with 18 transitions for 42km running and 8km swimming, plus a shorter race with 8 transitions for 15km running and 3.5km swimming.



Long course



Mike Phillips and Nick Berry (Team Philliberry) won the men's division in the impressive dominating time of 5:55. Sam Clark and Bonnie Van Wilgenburg (TEAM TBC) were first in the mixed category and finished 2nd overall in 6:24. Fiona Crombie and Julia Grant (Team Tri Survive) grabbed the women's title in 6:50 and that meant 4th overall place.



Short Course



Braden Currie and Courtney Atkinson (Team Red Bull) dominated the men's race in 2:03 and that was 30 minutes up on the next team. Nick Croft and Jessica Fleming (Multi Sport Consultants) won the mixed division in 2:33 and finished 2nd overall. Kate Sheddon and Greta Truscott (Rejoov-a-Shed) took the women's category in 2:49.

With the sun out the guns came out.

There was plenty of challenging and beautiful terrain and here Nick Kensington and Mike Johnston (Team Phancybox) push hard on the way to 10th place in the men's division.

Earlier in the day the field was still relatively tight together and team number 4 (Paul Preston and Adam Wilson of Team Remarkables) paced well to eventually finished as the 2nd male team in 6:12. Ahead of them are Andrew Abakhan and John Ellis (SHAG Racing) and Brett Tingay and Matt Ingram (Jekel and Hide) who ended up 4th and 3rd in the men's division in 7:01 and 6:58 respectively.

Out of the water with only the volunteers in sight.

Like ants on the beach and working equally hard.

What goes up must come down.

Craig Nieper and Jason Low (Team Saltwater Crocs) on the way to 5th place in the men's division in 7:12 and the "elastic cord" stretched tight.

In the end it would be 2nd place in the women's category for Aroha Hyland and Alex Nichol (Team A+) in 8:27

IRONMAN legend Scott Molina partnered up with Shannon Proffit and they ended up third in the mixed division in 7:40.

Completely alone with the elements of nature but focused on the task.

Matt Sumner and Alice Coombs (Team Malice) finished 5th in the mixed division and made sure here they were getting out of the water without slipping and falling.

Fiona Crombie and Julia Grant (Team Tri Survive) put on quite a show in Wanaka and completely crushed the women's field. Their time of 6:50 meant 4th overall and a 1 hour 37 minute advantage over the next team.

The terrain was not always easy to navigate as Craig Nieper and Jason Low can likely attest.

Back in the water and thankfully the sun has come out again.

Spread out all over the mountain.

Scott Molina and Shannon Proffit (Shan's Team!) in hot pursuit of the mixed team of Andrew Reid and Moya Johansson (Team Foi Foi Roo Roo). In the end however Molina Proffit finished one place up (3rd) on Reid and Johansson (4th)

Pushing forward and forward with stunning views.

Fun with the swim exit for Andrew Reid and Moya Johansson (Team Foi Foi Roo Roo)

Braden Currie and Courtney Atkinson (Team Red Bull) in action during the short course race. Full throttle.

All images  Camilla Rutherford
Could these tools have an effect on our politics? Previous research suggests they might. Field studies on voter participation have shown increases in turnout when people promise to tell their friends and family about their intention to vote. Sharing that type of information on Facebook can also shape other Facebook users' real-world voting behavior, according to research conducted during the 2010 election and published in the journal Nature. Facebook also said Monday that one of the tools it's releasing this week are reminders to vote in local races on election day; previous reminders supported federal elections, but not, for example, races for mayor or city council.
Not all history-writing needs causes and effects. Evocation is a legitimate, maybe even the most honest, way of making sense of the past. Helen Rappaport's "Caught in the Revolution" is an enlightening cavalcade of people on the move  running across the frosty paving stones in Petrograd, arriving on a steam train, waving goodbye from a military transport, all caught up in the uncertain transformation of the world's largest country. It is a reminder of the fact that outsiders of all sorts rushed to cover the events in the faltering empire, from the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst to the unsung American journalist Bessie Beatty. It is a catalogue of witnesses pulled from an exhaustive reading of European and American memoirs and on-the-spot reporting, and a testament to the supremely bad forecasting of foreigners eager to make sense of the moments they were experiencing.
It's the final weekend of the French Film Festival at Palace Electric, with the event wrapping up on Tuesday. There's still plenty of screenings, including encores of some of the favourites from the festival. For the full program and tickets, visit affrenchfilmfestival.org.

5. ANTIQUES FAIR

The 30th anniversary of the Antiques and Collectables Fair is on at Albert Hall with antique dealers from around Australia selling everything from china to crystal and chairs. This year's fair will support CanTeen, the charity that supports young people living with cancer. Friday 6-9pm, Saturday 10am-5pm, and Sunday 10am-4pm. Gold coin entry.

6. WHO AM I?

On at The Street Theatre, Who Am I . . .? is a true story of dedication, perseverance and grit written and performed by Russell Cheek, who takes to the stage to share the story of his efforts to climb out of unemployed-actor poverty by attempting to win the jackpot on Sale of the Century in 1993. Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7.30pm, Sunday at 4pm. Tickets $30-$35 from thestreet.org.au.
Good morning - you've made it to midweek!

And as thanks, your Wednesday will be sunny and dry with light winds. A top of 31 degrees is expected today (once this fog clears).

Enjoy the warm one while you can and maybe hang your washing out today - it's expected to rain again tomorrow and be fairly cool for the next week.

Now for some news...

'He would beat her and us if we tried to stop him'
Complaints about a putrid stench hanging over Tuggeranong have become less frequent although residents maintain the smell is still there.

Access Canberra said only 14 complaints have been lodged about a foul smell in Tuggeranong from last July until March 7 this year. A total of 100 complaints have been made since November 2015.

Mugga Lane Resource Management Centre. The tip has been blamed by locals as the source of a terrible smell which sometimes hangs around Tuggeranong. Credit:Sitthixay Ditthavong

However residents contacted by Fairfax Media say the falling complaints speaks less to efforts to address the smell than the futility of speaking out about it.

Longtime Fadden resident Richard Larkey, whose plight was featured in the Canberra Times in 2015 and 2016, said the stench returned this week.
The owner of three dogs that "ripped apart" a Pomeranian in a fatal mauling says he is still shocked by the attack.

Buzz, a 13-year-old Pomeranian, was killed in late January when three dogs set upon him as his owner Peter Toscan walked him around Yerrabi Pond.

Peter and Maree Toscan's 13-year-old Pomeranian was killed after being savaged by three large dogs on a public footpath.

The three dogs, believed to be two bull Arabs and an American pit bull, were handed back to their owners after a "thorough" investigation by Domestic Animal Services.

"I'm a bit shaken up still thinking about it," the owner told ABC Canberra on Tuesday morning.
The ACT opposition has branded the Barr government as "hypocritical" for expanding the powers of the court to bar convicted criminals from visiting a person or a place while continuing to rule out anti-consorting laws.

A bill passed in the ACT parliament on Tuesday will allow courts to impose non-association and place restriction orders or NAPROs on those convicted of serious firearm or money laundering offences.

The ACT government has ruled out anti-consorting laws to stop bikie-related crime. Credit:Paul Rovere

NAPROs have been touted as a more palatable alternative to anti-consorting laws, which have been scrapped due to their impact on human rights.

The orders can be imposed on criminals convicted of serious drug, domestic violence and property offences as part of a good behaviour bond or intensive corrections order.
ACT police hold "grave concerns" for the welfare of missing Canberra woman Lin Dennien who was last seen in Bruce around 10.30am on Sunday March 26.

ACT Policing initially issued an appeal for public assistance on Tuesday, and they renewed their appeal on Wednesday evening, saying she had still not been found.

Lin Dennien was last seen in Bruce on Sunday morning, March 26.

"Due to medical conditions we hold grave concerns for her welfare," they said.

Ms Dennien is said to regularly visit the Belconnen Mall and Jamieson Centre in Macquarie.
BOZEMAN  A former student has sued Montana State University, saying the school violated his rights by kicking him off campus after he spoke against transgender people during a private meeting with a teacher.

The lawsuit claims MSU discriminated against the unidentified male student on the basis of sex and violated his right to free speech, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported Tuesday (http://bit.ly/2ocLNkt ). It seeks $225,000 in damages.

MSU officials declined to comment on the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Butte.

The student was required to take a class on diversity and signed up for Contemporary Issues in Human Sexuality, taught by psychology instructor Katharine Kujawa, according to the lawsuit. Students signed a confidentiality agreement promising not to discuss information about other students outside class.

The student said he opted against speaking in class or writing a paper about his objection to transgender people because he knew his beliefs were unpopular and he didn't want to upset a female student who had identified herself as transgender. Instead, he spoke with the instructor privately for half-credit on the assignment.

The instructor asked the student how he would react if the transgender student approached him outside class. Kujawa said the student stated he would ask her to leave him alone and if she kept trying to speak to him, he would "break her face."

The plaintiff argues that was a misinterpretation of his comments and that he told the instructor about an incident years earlier when a man groped his girlfriend and he hit the man, learning later that the man was gay.

He said he was trying to explain that the last time he had an altercation with someone from the LGBTQ community, it was not related to their sexual orientation.

The lawsuit alleges the instructor told the transgender student that the male student had threatened her and asked if she wanted to file a complaint.

The deputy Title IX coordinator investigated and found the male student had violated MSU policy by creating a hostile environment. The university suspended him for the fall 2016 semester, required that he have no contact with the female student and required him to undergo anger management and civil rights training before he could return to campus.

He appealed, and the Commissioner of Higher Education upheld MSU's decision.

The male student argued he had the right to express his views without being punished and that the professor violated his privacy by sharing his confidential comments.

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Information from: Bozeman Daily Chronicle, http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com
It has been advertised as the "best job on the planet".

A company is seeking job applicants willing to travel the world for three months, stay in luxury accommodation and be paid a total of 24,000 ($39,000).

The successful applicant will stay in a number of multimillion-dollar homes. Credit:Thirdhome

Thirdhome, a Tennessee-based firm that describes itself as "an exclusive private club for luxury second home owners", wants the successful applicant to stay in up to 12 "multi-million dollar" properties and share their experiences on social media.
NBN Co has stepped up with an emergency solution for a new housing estate where residents were left stranded without fixed or mobile communications but the experience has sparked a warning for others buying into new developments.

The experience highlights a major flaw in telecommunications policy, as residents are not entitled to claim compensation or alternative service from NBN Co like they would be entitled to if Telstra was still responsible for laying copper wires.

The residents of Belmond Estate in Melbourne's south east are stuck in an unusual position where they have no fixed telecommunications, scant mobile coverage, and even satellite phones are unreliable.

NBN Co was supposed to install fibre optic connections - which also provides voice calls - in late 2016, but has been delayed by roadworks. The residents also discovered they live in a mobile black spot, which means reception is unreliable and intermittent.
New leasing deals signed by the state and federal governments have underpinned a surge in office deals in Melbourne's CBD in the past year.

Preliminary figures, released by Savills Australia, show more than double the amount of office space was leased in the 12 months to March, totalling 569,810 square metres.

Savills Australia says 569,810 square metres of office space was leased in Melbourne's CBD in the 12 months to March. Credit:Leigh Henningham

Savills associate director of research Monica Mondkar said: "This is up 128 per cent on the 250,000 leased in the year prior and also up on the five-year average of 269,943 square metres, which are quite remarkable figures in anybody's language."

The government and community sector accounting for 38 per cent of the total, she said, with the state government leasing more than its federal counterpart.
A modern 692sq m office/warehouse on Keys Road in Moorabbin was sold for $1.462 million by Rodney King of Crabtrees Real Estate. Credit:David Waring, studio@20m.com.au Allard Shelton's James Gregson and Michael Ryan have sold several inner west properties. Among them, 17 Douglas Parade in Williamstown transacted for $1.99 million on a yield of 3.3 per cent, 4 Cross Street in West Footscray went for $2.43 million and 819-821 Ballarat Road sold for $3.85 million on a yield of 3.85 per cent. Rosebud An offshore buyer from Guangdong Province in Southern China has snapped up a Rosebud shop for $2.045 million under the hammer, on a tight 4 per cent yield. Fitzroys' Mark Talbot and Geoff Emmett said nine bidders vied for 1045 Point Nepean Road, which was on the market for the first time in 55 years. The 290sq m property in the Rosebud shopping strip was leased to Bants Amcal pharmacy, returning $81,817.68 per annum. West Melbourne

A single-storey warehouse sandwiched between two apartments at 45-47 Batman Street was snapped up prior to auction for $3.7 million. Gross Waddell's Andrew Thorburn and Andrew Waddell said the 506sq m block sold at a land rate of $7,312 per sq m. Flemington A building with four vacant shop leases in Racecourse Road precinct was sold by CBRE's Guy Naselli, Sandro Peluso and David Minty for $4.01 million. A local developer fought off overseas interest to buy the site at 320-322 Racecourse Road, which has development potential. South Melbourne A vacant shop opposite the South Melbourne Market at 305 Coventry Street has sold for $1.495 million. The shop sold four years ago for $876,000, recording a surge of 70 per cent in capital growth. "Our vendor took advantage of one of the strongest selling markets in history," said CBRE's Rorey James, who sold the property with Nic Hage and Josh Rutman.

Malvern East Small scale developers have snapped up 293 Waverley Road. The local family, who plan to develop and occupy a mixed use retail and apartment development on the site, purchased it for $1.05 million. "We received a higher than average interest from local owner-occupiers and small scale developers seeking unoccupied land to build to their specification," GormanKelly's Ziggy Dequito said. Dandenong South Starr Industries has purchased an office warehouse at 63 Waterview Close for $1,262,500. The 966sq m building includes a 287sq m office component, said Knight Frank's Luke Crozier and George Linn who negotiated the deal. Moorabbin

A modern 692sq m office/warehouse on Keys Road was sold for $1.462 million by Rodney King of Crabtrees Real Estate. World's Best Technology, a major Samsung distributor based out of Sydney, will relocate there from its Port Melbourne warehouse. Crabtrees recently sold a number of new developments in the area including 143 Keys Road, stage 1 at M-Inc on Chesterville Road and the Pellicano development at 1 Kingston Road.

LEASES Preston Vintage Garage will expand and relocate after committing to a new lease on a 1300sq m warehouse at 1 Newman Street. Knight Frank's Daniel De Sanctis brokered the deal. Vintage Garage signed a five-year lease term paying a net annual rental of $95,000. It currently occupies a site in Smith Street, Collingwood, which is home to more than 40 vintage designers and traders.

Port Melbourne CF Direct will move into a 600sq m clearspan warehouse at 5/11 Salmon Street on a five-year lease plus two further terms of five years for $110,000 per annum net. The building forms part of a newly constructed development, CBRE's Guy Naselli and Jake George said.

Richmond Kojo Productions, a brand development and promotion firm, has taken a lease on an office and warehouse in Richmond. Teska Carson's Fergus Evans, Matt Feld and Luke Bisset brokered the deal at 7-9 Albert Street. The two-level, 768sq m premises was let at $200,000 per annum net on a seven-year term with a three-year option.

Hawksburn Let's Cook Homewares will take over the former Hawksburn Newsagency at 529 Malvern Road in an off market lease negotiated by Tamara Gross from Gross Waddell. Let's Cook took a 7 + 7 year lease at $800 per sq m. The shop is undergoing a full refurbishment, Ms Gross said. MOVERS James Lockwood has returned to Fitzroys as an agency associate with metropolitan investments after a stint at Savills specialising in development sites. Pearse Coleman has joined Fitzroys as general manager  shopping centres division from global retail asset giant Vicinity Centres. Savills Australia has bolstered its residential projects team appointing sales executive Charles Callis. Mr Callis was previously with Castran Gilbert and Synergy BSM/SPEC Property.
OrotonGroup hopes a growing online presence can help boost the flagging sales that contributed to the handbags and accessories retailer's 52 per cent plunge in half-year profit.

Oroton's net profit in the six months to January 28 fell to $1.8 million, as revenue dropped 10 per cent from a year earlier.

An 11 per cent fall in like-for-like sales was prompted by Oroton's exit from women's apparel, shoes and lingerie, lower sales at its factory outlets and a decline in sales at its seven GAP stores.

Its 14 factory outlets experienced a drop in foot traffic as customers shifted to online, and sales were also down due to a lack of variety in product.
The Turnbull government's "Google tax" has been passed into law, arming the Australian Taxation Office with some of the world's strongest powers to fight multinationals as it moves to recoup $2 billion in revenue from some of the nation's biggest companies including Apple, BHP Billiton, Chevron and Crown.

But as more countries hunt for a greater share of revenue from multinationals, concerns remain that disagreements between global agencies about which nation is entitled to tax profits could spark revenue wars.

Nevertheless, in a local context the Diverted Profits Tax (DPT), informally dubbed Australia's "Google tax", has already had a big impact on the behaviour of multinationals.

A number of companies including tech giant Google restructured their tax affairs in anticipation of the laws passing and others have been negotiating with Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan.
Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic was in Moscow when protesters carrying images of a yellow rubber duck marched against top-level corruption. What he saw was a global ducky conspiracy.

"I don't believe in coincidences," Vucic said, according to the Serbian newspaper Novosti. "If someone tells me that different people have thought of the same symbol in Belgrade, Brazil and Moscow, don't expect me to believe it."

A woman holds up a yellow duck toy during protests in downtown Moscow on the weekend. Credit:Andrew Lubimov

Vucic's skepticism is misplaced. The rubber duck has become an unlikely protest symbol in diverse countries, for diverse reasons.

In September, Russian corruption fighter and would-be presidential candidate Alexei Navalny published the first episode of his investigation into the palaces and estates used by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. A video filmed from a drone showed an expensively renovated 18th century manor, featuring a pond complete with a duck house. Navalny recalled the scandal of Sir Peter Wiggers, the UK legislator who had tried to claim the cost of installing a waterfowl lodge as part of his parliamentary expenses. The Medvedev case, Navalny clamed, was far more outrageous.
The NSW coalition government is failing on most of its environmental policies, including robbing a key climate fund to bankroll land-clearing and leaving 10 marine regions unprotected, according to eight green groups.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian and her new environment minister, Gabrielle Upton, have inherited a mix of policies that are "taking us backwards", with the container deposit scheme and efforts to improve energy efficiency among the few positives, according to a mid-term review led by the NSW Nature Conservation Council.

"It speaks volumes that there's been four ministers of the environment in six years," said Kate Smolski, the council's chief executive. "We do not think the coalition government takes the environment seriously."

The issues raised include contentious land-clearing codes that will see farmers paid $240 million for conservation efforts on their land to counter destruction of vegetation elsewhere. Ms Smolski said it was "laughable" that the funds will be largely drawn from the Climate Change Fund levied from consumers and earmarked for emissions cuts and climate adaptation.